Write where it's warm

When you don't know where to start

The other day, during a serious bout of second-book-paralysis, my friend and freelance publicist, Emily, said something really startling and lovely. Emily says a lot of startling, lovely things, but this one, in particular, stuck.

Write where it’s warm. All you have to do is follow the heat. 

I can’t tell you how comforting that was. Lately, I’ve been overthinking my second project. I want it to be smart and complex and different—meaning I don’t want to write poems for a while. Over-analysis has led to paralysis.

Emily reminded me that we don’t manufacture books and we can’t reverse engineer best-sellers or viral poems. And she’s right—my most “successful” poems have all been happy surprises.

When Emily says “Write where it’s warm,” she means follow language for pleasure alone. The way Gertrude Stein stacks a gorgeous word next to another gorgeous word just for the heck of it. Like a charcuterie board of lyricism. In Tender Buttons, Gertrude writes baffling lines like: Little sales of leather and such beautiful beautiful, beautiful beautiful. I don’t know what that means exactly, but god, I love reading it. Gertrude writes where it’s warm.

Similarly, J.R.R. Tolkien proposed that the pairing cellar door is the most pleasing phrase in the English language. That sounds absolutely bonkers until you hear cellar door in a British accent.

These days, I’m trying to write warm sentences—prioritizing texture, taste, and emotional temperature. I tell myself not to write from the brain, but from the belly. I give myself a prompt like: write a line that tastes like dark chocolate cake. And then I write something weird like honeycomb cadence. Or I challenge myself to write a silky sentence and out pops: Ocean, lily bright with waves. I’ll worry about meaning-making later. For now, I’m following the heat.

I can’t tell you how many essays I’ve written cheating on the poems I actually meant to write. Or how many poems I eked out in between copywriting deadlines when I worked in corporate America. I think the best way to get unstuck is to just let yourself write the warmest thing. Write what’s in your Notes App or in your text threads or in your reoccurring dreams. Write the thing that wants to get written.

Yesterday, I watched my cat rotate across the floor following the first rays of Portland sunshine in weeks. He kept scooting his little body as if snuggling that sun patch. And I thought, okay, I’m just gonna scoot toward this second book.

As writers, all we’re ever promised is flashes, hunches and vague ideas and we must make a meal of them. This is for you, if you need it: write where it’s warm. 

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And now, some recommendations:

I’m frequently asked who I recommend in the literary world, from agents to mentors to publicists to editors. Here’s a couple folks I highly recommend who have direct availability for you to work with them:

If you need inspiration: 

This month,

Danusha Laméris

is coming to Sustenance to teach a workshop on poetic size and scale and we have a few outside tickets available.

If you’re in need of a publicist: 

Emily Lavelle was instrumental in helping make Instructions for Traveling West thrive. I’m wildly indebted to her (as well as my team at Dial Press) for helping put IFTW on the USA bestseller list and getting me placed in publications like Goop and Oprah Daily. If you want a extraordinary freelance publicist for your next literary journey, I can't recommend her highly enough. Get in touch with her here.

Pictured below: Emily and I after my book launch at Powells. 🥹

If you’re in need of an editor: 

My copyeditor, Jenny Downey (who happens to my sister as well as the best copyeditor I know), is taking on some summer copy-editing clients. Her forte includes proofreading, checking for readability, style, and consistency, as well as suggestions for improving clarity and tone for target audiences. Her ideal projects are poetry or essay collections. She has a limited number of spots, but if you’d like to secure one of her summer openings, you can email her here: jennysullivandowney@gmail.com.