The Writer’s Shepherd helps you build reliable writing skills that become writing habits (no matter what your current skill level is), by giving you tools and support for finding your own way to write, the way that works for you.
You’ve got a message to share. How do you reach the people you want to help? Reliable writing skills confidently turn your message and enthusiasm into blog posts, marketing material, books, and more … so your wisdom shines clearly and reaches more people.
Readers and clients consistently report increased confidence in their writing skills, excitement about sharing what they’ve writing, motivation to finish their writing projects, and feelings of self-love as they find their own path to writing what they need to write or want to write.
Taking a tour is a good way to get a sense of the site’s content by topic. Skill-building products are available on the shop page. Personalized support options can be found on the services page.
Though clients of The Writer’s Shepherd tend to be solo entrepreneurs, particularly life coaches, writers of all kinds can find helpful tools and motivating guidance here.
“I was just telling someone how much I feel like I’ve learned about writing in the past year, and so much of that is attributed to reading your articles and tips. Now if you could just teach me how to date, you’d be an absolute god!”
Mikey Scott, Assistant Guru, lifebyme.com
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about the philosophy
the role of curiosity in writing
The type of learning that makes a consistent difference in the finished product involves the whole person. By journeying into the interior to ask questions and search for meaning, we discover our own paths for writing and for life. A shelpherd provides gentle guidance and companionship in a wilderness of possibilities, stengthening curiosity with courage.
One meaning of the word curiosity is an unusual, rare thing. A curiosity. We create better – more clearly, more uniquely, more confidently – when we value ourselves as curiosities, when we see ourselves as both odd and delightful, and value ourselves enough to question and get to know ourselves.
powerful beliefs for writers
- The mastery trajectory for writing well is long-term and involves the whole person.
- I am and will always be an apprentice, no matter how much mastery I gain.
- I use the art of writing to grow and I grow to further master the art of writing.
- I believe in curiosity, digging deep, thinking, and practice.
- I have valuable, unique perspectives that are helpful to others.
- I support others to discover and express their valuable, unique perspectives.
- The dreams I latch onto are so deeply right they provide sustenance and energy for my journey.
- I love and respect the journey as much as the goal.
- I acknowledge my own progress in order to increase my confidence and because I’m the best person for that job.
- I freely entice progess with rewards that pull me forward.
- I invest in the jet-pack of friendships, starting with befriending myself.
a philosophical riff
“Limitations are the soil from which creativity grows.”
Jeffrey Zeldman
Writing is linear. Thinking, dreaming, and feeling are complex, circular, and multi-dimensional. When we write – whatever we write – we translate sensations, roundness, amorphous half-beings and ghosts, prisms, archetypes, half-known impulses, memories, proto-poetry, wishes, pain, joy, parallel universes, lunacy, sensations, and energy into line after line of art whose form is so restricted as to be laughable.
Writing exists in only three dimensions – height, width, and time: the shapes of the letters on a flat plane plus the time it takes to read. Our interior lives are multi-dimensional way beyond three. More like to the power of three. Or infinity. Engaging in the act of writing is the distillation of an infinity of dimensions down to only three.
Writing’s restrictive minimalism entices and toys with us, daring us to express ourselves in spite of the cage. And we do. And lives are changed. Again and again.
Every time any of us writes anything, we are metaphoric artists and spatial geniuses.
“Grace, you have an absolutely wonderful brain. That it attaches itself to your hand that types out perfect morsels of writing is such a gift for the rest of us. And I just love talking to you. Makes my brain all tingly.”
Samantha Reynolds, founder and CEO of Echo Memoirs and bentlily.com
