Sara Freeman: “Follow Your Own Literary Intuitions”

The advice that works for your favorite writers might not work for you

Wake Up and Write is an advice column from Moms Don’t Have Time to Write. Today, we once again have Sara Freeman—author of the debut novel, Tides — who shared writing advice on the podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, hosted by Zibby Owens.

“Obviously, read a lot. Once you get in the rhythms of other people’s language, then you start to kind of figure out your own rhythms.”

“Also, stay away from other people’s advice to a certain extent. I’ve gone down the road of really listening so closely to my favorite writers’ advice, then realizing, ‘Hmm, maybe this wasn’t quite the advice for me. This was for them.’

Think of your own intuitions around language and narrative. What’s alive to you? What’s interesting to you? Following that without thinking too much about the external world, even though that’s very difficult.”

Listen to the episode:

https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/sara-freeman-tides?rq=sara%20freeman

Buy the book:

https://bookshop.org/books/tides-9780802159175/9780802159175