Charlotte Readers Podcast Interview

Landis Wade and I talk about what it means to write horribly wrong in order to establish discernment and competence in our prose. Listen to the Charlotte Readers Podcast as I talk about the writing life and read an excerpt from my novel Still Come Home.

Taking a leap as a writer depends on your goals. Sometimes taking the leap means you read at an open mic and other times, taking the leap means putting an entire draft of a manuscript aside and rewriting it with the express goal to see through one’s own blind spots and to deepen one’s craft on the page. There’s really a whole spectrum, but especially if we’re writing, knowing that we want to reach a larger audience, of course, there’s the hope you’ve done your due diligence. You have shined a light in the dark corners, you know where you’re afraid to look, you know when you haven’t looked, and you have done everything in your power and skill and education to right those wrongs and to do the research, do the heart work. And yes leave, and that sometimes means writing horribly, writing horribly, horribly, horribly, writing wrong, writing offensively. You write it all, but it does not make a final cut. Those edits are leaps of faith, and the more we do it, I think the more we can strengthen that muscle of discernment and competence that we need as writers.

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