Writers in the Storm

October 19, 2026

Guest Blogger

by Becca Puglisi

Okay, nobody slap me. I know that perseverance is key for good writers to become great writers who can succeed in this business. We have to do the hard work. We have to keep plugging.

To clarify, I’m not talking about quitting writing altogether—just retiring certain projects and making a home for them on the hard drive. And that, I truly believe, isn’t a bad thing, because in every area of life, cutting our losses and moving on to the next project is sometimes the more productive choice.

Writing is no exception. Every author I personally know is overworked, under-resourced, and is juggling a million high-priority things. This means we need to be smart about where we spend our energy. If a project has become a time-suck with a high risk of going nowhere…well, it might be smarter to put it to rest and pick up a story that has a better chance of success.

So let’s look at a few situations where that could be the case.

The Story Is Unsalvageable

You’ve been here. The story’s written. You’ve poured your heart and soul into it, and then somewhere in the revision stage, you realize it’s got serious problems. The protagonist requires a full overhaul, the character arc needs changes that will touch every major turning point, or the worldbuilding is fundamentally flawed and has to be reworked.

Changes like these are foundational and come with a massive revision cost. They may even change the story or characters themselves, turning the project into something you didn’t envision and don’t really love. In this case, you could put in the work, but moving on to a different project may be a better choice. Why? Because you’ll be working on something you can get excited about again while applying the lessons you learned on the first story so you don’t repeat history.

You’re Stuck in an Editing Loop

Closely related, this happens when you know the story’s not quite right, and you keep making fixes, but the not-rightness persists. You’ve consulted critique partners and have implemented a ton of changes, but nothing resolves the issues. So you’re constantly, desperately editing to try and save the story.

In this situation, I suggest setting it aside and working on something else. Maybe after time, with distance, you’ll see the solution, and you can return to it. Or maybe you’ll get into a different project without hitting the same roadblocks, and you’ll want to keep charging ahead. But even if your grandkids never get to read it, that retired story has meaning and purpose because it taught you how to know when something isn’t working. That’s a lesson that’s typically only learned through experience. Next time, you’ll recognize when it’s happening earlier in the process—when the problem isn’t as convoluted and is easier to see and resolve.

You Took a Break and Lost Your Mojo

No matter how intensely we guard our writing time, life just naturally intervenes, leading to periodic sabbaticals from writing. With intentionality, those breaks are temporary. Things settle down, we come back to our story—and realize we’re no longer excited about it. The project that once got us out of the bed in the morning is just…meh.

I’d encourage anyone in this situation to stick it out for at least a little while to see if things change. Write a scene you were looking forward to or revise a favorite chapter to see if you get your groove back. Remember why you fell in love with the story to begin with.

Unfortunately, with some projects, you just miss your window. Maybe the life circumstances that interrupted your writing have changed you, and you can’t see the story like you used to. If you’ve really tried to make it work and there’s still no spark, then it’s time to transition to something else.

The Story Has Become a Crutch

Ok, this one’s hard because it’s real. Sometimes, we’re just afraid to take the next step. Maybe we’re freaked out about trying to publish the book (What if I can’t get an agent? I suck at marketing, etc.). Maybe the idea of starting over with a new idea is a little too daunting.

In short, we’re clinging to a story and continually working on it because it’s safe and keeps us from having to take risks.

To this, I say that when you started, you didn’t know how to plan, write, or revise a book. But you learned as you went. You figured it out. The same will be true for finding an agent, learning to self-publish, or teaching yourself about marketing (or hiring someone who already knows).

And if you’re worried about writing a new book…

…don’t be.

You’ve already done that, and it will only get easier with time. If it helps, look at the next book as an opportunity to learn new skills that will make you better, because that’s what happens with every book you write.

The bigger risk is playing it safe and stifling your own growth by never moving forward.

Final Thought

I hope you can see that not finishing a story isn’t always a bad thing. It depends on the circumstances, of course—and a healthy dose of self-awareness is vital. If you never finish anything, if abandoning projects when they get hard in favor of a shiny new idea becomes a habit…well, there’s a common denominator, and it isn’t the story.

But there are times when moving on is the right choice.

What matters is that you keep writing and keep learning. If you do that, unfinished projects will become a rarity—maybe a thing of the past. You might even look back one day and realize that quitting that project was one of the best decisions you ever made.

Have you ever had to quit a project? Why did you make that choice? Please share your story down in the comments!

About Becca

Becca Puglisi of Writers Helping Writers - Story

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and best-selling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and other resources for writers. Her books have sold over 1.4 million copies and are available in multiple languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online resource for authors that's home to the Character Builder and Storyteller's Roadmap tools.

Top Image purchased from Depositphotos.

Living at the Corner of FEAR and FINE

October 16, 2026

Jenny Hansen

11 Comments

by Jenny Hansen

We writers are a fascinating bunch, and we routinely have to navigate through emotions like fear.

We voluntarily spend hundreds of hours making up people, putting them through terrible situations, and then agonizing over whether we've described their worlds and their emotional trauma with enough accuracy and wit.

Think about the badassery of that for a moment.

We invent entire worlds. Entire worlds, y’all. With rules and hierarchies, politics and magic.

We learn all the important sentence-y / grammar-y rules, and then ruthlessly kill our darlings.

We willingly subject ourselves to critique partners, editors, agents, and Amazon reviewers. We take good and bad reviews (mostly) on the chin, like the warriors that we are.

Yet sometimes we are terrified of opening the document we worked on yesterday, because we’re afraid that it sucks.

Welcome to the corner of FEAR and FINE.

This is one of the most popular intersections in Writer Land.

It’s got tons of traffic, horrifically deep potholes, and terrible parking. And many of the writers loitering here are remarkably reluctant to move.

FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real

FEAR is that helpful little voice in your head that takes a perfectly ordinary writing moment and turns it into a drawn-out situation.

You haven't heard back from an agent? Clearly, they hated your manuscript.

Your critique partner suggested changing a scene. Couldn’t they see why your protagonist had to behave that way? Or you might start to worry that you are actually a hack with no talent.

Your latest chapter isn't working? Well, that's it. It’s been edited eight times. Maybe it’s time to delete the whole manuscript and take up painting.

That kind of FEAR can color every choice you make. Worst of all, it can keep you from sharing your work with others. Sometimes, this imposter-style FEAR can make us consider a "more realistic career path."

The FEAR Trap

FEAR is wonderfully creative. And it uses our boundless imagination against us. It takes a possibility—usually a super remote one—and dresses it up as a certainty with plenty of evidence.

Because we’re writers, with a highly developed ability to imagine catastrophic outcomes, we’re especially susceptible to FEAR.

We're professional what-if people.

What if the book doesn't sell?
What if people hate it?
What if I never finish?
What if I finish and nobody cares?

My personal favorite: What if I actually succeed and then have to do this all over again? (That’s usually my over-tired ADHD brain talking.)

FEAR doesn't even require an actual disaster. We can manufacture it out of thin air on a bad writing day.

The problem isn't that we're afraid.

Let’s face it, fear is actually normal. Nerves are a sign that we want to do well.

But I think the problem is two-fold...

#1 – We have to be vulnerable.

With every story we write, we’re shouting, “this is who I am.” Writing asks us to put pieces of ourselves on a page and invite strangers to have opinions about them. Of COURSE that's sometimes super uncomfortable.

#2 – Sometimes we worry that we suck.

Even the best writers do this. The feeling is strongest when we’re new, but every writer has a day, a scene, a character, or a chapter that just won’t behave.

Take a moment to watch my FAVORITE writing video if this is a FEAR you struggle with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyhv80HDSj4

The real problem begins when we treat FEAR's predictions as facts. I promise you that whatever fraught-filled problem you’ve talked yourself into, it’s solvable. Go call your writing friends, or come commiserate with us in the comments section.

FINE: Feeling Inadequate, Needing Encouragement

Now, FINE is a different creature altogether.

FEAR throws a tantrum. But FINE is often worse. FINE smiles politely and says, "Everything's fine."

Someone asks how the writing is going. "Fine!"

How's the new book? "Fine!"

How are you handling the revisions, the rejection, the deadline, the marketing, the social media, and the crushing realization that writing a book is apparently only the beginning of selling one? "Fine, thanks!"

Meanwhile, inside your head, a scurry of writing squirrels is fighting over acorns.

FINE is also a Trap

FINE is what happens when we feel inadequate but don't want anyone to know.

Maybe we think everyone else has figured out some magical writing secret we missed. Maybe we're convinced real writers don't struggle with the kinds of problems we’re struggling with. Maybe we're afraid that asking for encouragement will make us look needy or weak or something else that makes us feel like we’re impostors.

So we smile, nod, and insist we're fine. Which is a shame, because encouragement is one of the things writers need most.

We don’t need someone telling us every sentence is a masterpiece. We need the kind of encouragement that says:

"Yep. I've been there."
"That Act II is always a beast."
"Your first draft doesn't have to be pretty."
"Have some chocolate. Then go write the next paragraph."

Usually, we don't need another craft book, or a stern lecture about discipline. We need another writer to look us in the eye and say, "Oh, honey. ME TOO."

Moving Away From the Intersection

Here's the thing about FEAR and FINE: Neither one is evidence that you aren't a real writer.

They're evidence that you're a badass human doing something difficult, creative, and occasionally ridiculous.

The trick is recognizing when one of these has moved into your head and started rearranging the furniture. Early recognition is how you kick them to the curb before they jack up your writing room.

When FEAR shows up

Start asking questions like, “why am I really getting wound up?”

Several years ago, I watched a writer chat between Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Jayne Ann Krentz that was so illuminating. Because it happens to the NYT bestselling authors too.

When they get a bad review, one calls the other to vent…and to set a timer. They gave it twenty minutes, before they were required to move on to something tangible. And in the way-back (before digital everything), their final answer to a bad review was: "Throw it away! Get it out of the house."

There's a substantial difference between "My book was rejected" and "My book was rejected because I'm a talent-less hack who will never be published."

One is an event. The other is your imagination writing a disaster movie.

When FINE shows up

Don’t try to navigate it alone. Writers need writers, and FINE is one of the biggest reasons why.

When FINE shows up, call a trusted writer and tell them what's actually going on!

You don't have to unload your entire emotional junk drawer. Just open it a crack.

"I'm stuck."
"I'm discouraged."
"I could really use a pep talk."

You might be surprised how many writers immediately pull up a chair. This amazing community is full of people who have lived at that same intersection at some point in their own writing lives.

It takes courage and clarity, and a good writer support system, to make sure we don’t stay there. Your story is too important for that.

Your Turn... Who visits your writing desk most often: FEAR or FINE? What’s the best way you've found to evict these freeloaders? We want to hear your story down in the comments!

About Jenny

By day, Jenny Hansen provides brand storytelling for businesses via Storyselling for Success. By night, she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction, and short stories. After 20+ years as a corporate trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

Find Jenny here at Writers In the Storm, or online on Facebook or Instagram.

Top photo generated via paid ChatGPT.

Could Your Novel Become a Microdrama?

October 14, 2026

Guest Blogger

24 Comments

by Susan Watts

Not long ago, my husband showed me a fantasy movie he had been watching on social media.

I only watched a little of it, but what caught my attention was how realistic it looked. The characters appeared almost like real actors, although there was still something about them that made me suspect AI had been involved.

My husband asked me what I thought.

I replied, “I don’t think they’re real.”

He didn’t seem particularly bothered by that. He was enjoying the story.

I remember being impressed by what I saw, but I didn’t give it a great deal of thought. The movie seemed to run for more than an hour, much like a regular film, and I went back to whatever I had been doing.

A Pivotal Conversation

Then a conversation among other authors made me look at the whole thing differently.

Most weekday mornings, I listen to the Author’s Coffee Chat in the Author’s Conference Room on Clubhouse. Clubhouse is a social app that enables users to participate in real-time, audio only communication within virtual rooms. Authors at different stages of their careers gather to talk about what is happening in publishing, what they are trying, and what may be coming next. It’s like a mini mastermind.

One recent conversation turned to microdramas.

The discussion wasn’t simply about people watching short vertical stories on their phones. Authors were talking about the possibility that technology might eventually allow us to turn our own novels into them.

My first thought was: how good could they actually be?

Then I thought: could I make one?

The Movie Dream I Always Had

I have always imagined my Twelve Guardians series on screen.

I can see those stories in my head when I write them. I know what Sam looks like when she fights. I can picture the demons and supernatural creatures she encounters. I know how I would want the final battle to feel on a screen.

But imagining your novel as a movie and believing it will become one are two very different things.

For me, a movie adaptation always belonged to that wonderful category of things that could happen if lightning struck. Maybe someone in the film industry would discover the book. Maybe someone would buy the rights. Maybe all the other pieces would miraculously fall into place.

I never built a career plan around it.

But what about a microdrama?

Microdramas made me wonder whether that assumption might eventually change.

A microdrama, sometimes called a vertical drama, is a scripted story designed to be watched on a phone with the screen held upright rather than turned sideways. The individual chapters are short, but the entire story does not necessarily have to be.

In other words, we are not necessarily talking about shrinking an entire novel into a two-minute movie. A complete story can unfold over many short episodes.

And this is no longer an obscure experiment.

Reuters reported in August 2026 that market-research firm Omdia expects the U.S. microdrama market to generate about $1.5 billion in 2026, and $2 billion in 2027. The U.S. audience reached an estimated 66 million monthly active users in 2025, up from 26 million the year before. Major entertainment companies are also moving into the format.

More importantly for authors, book-to-microdrama adaptations are already happening.

ReelShort, for example, has adapted novels by established bestselling authors, including Abbi Glines’s Breathe and L.J. Shen’s Vicious. The company also adapting Sierra Simone’s bestselling Lyonesse Trilogy into a series of vertical dramas.

Could Authors Make Their Own Microdramas?

It turns out that the technology already exists.

Several companies are already developing tools and services specifically for microdrama production.

Runway allows creators to build recurring characters and locations and generate scenes shot by shot, while Picsart’s Saga can help plan a season, maintain characters and voices, storyboard scenes, and generate vertical episodes. Other companies, such as Ogun Studios, offer end-to-end production services and specifically work with publishers and IP owners to turn existing stories into vertical series.

So, can an author turn a novel into a microdrama today?

The technology can already help create characters, settings and individual shots, but the author still must adapt the story, decide how each scene should unfold visually and assemble those pieces into a coherent production.

That is quite different from feeding my manuscript into a computer and telling it, “Make me a movie.”

For me, that is a good thing.

If I ever adapt The Jade Amulet, I don’t want to hand the book to a machine and see what comes back. I would want advice from people who understand film-making because writing a novel does not magically make me a director or screenwriter.

But I would also want creative control.

That desire for control is one reason self-publishing has always appealed to me. I decide what happens to my stories.

If I were adapting The Jade Amulet, there are aspects I would not want to change simply because someone decided they would work better on screen. Sam’s character arc matters too much to me. As do the demons and other creatures that are part of this world.

Of course, if a major production company arrived with a substantial check for the rights, I would listen.

I’m not that committed to artistic suffering.

But having a book optioned never guarantees that a movie will be produced. What intrigues me about emerging technology is the possibility of another path.

We Have Seen This Happen Before

Digital self-publishing changed how easily authors could produce professional books and distribute them directly to readers. However, it did not make every independently published book good. And it certainly did not make publishing easy.

It gave writers access to tools and distribution they had not possessed before.

Something similar is happening with audiobooks.

I personally prefer audiobooks narrated by real people. A talented narrator brings an interpretation and humanity to a story that I enjoy. Sometimes I will listen to an audiobook from an author I am not familiar with because I really like the narrator.

At the same time, AI narration is creating an option for authors who could never afford traditional audiobook production.

Some listeners may reject an AI-narrated book. Others simply want to hear the story.

That reminded me of my husband watching that fantasy movie. I noticed that something seemed artificial about it. He noticed enough to ask me whether I thought it was real.

Then he kept watching because he was enjoying himself.

Maybe the Book Isn't the Only Destination

At first, I thought about microdramas the way authors often think about other media. Perhaps someone watches the series, discovers The Jade Amulet, and then buys the book.

That would certainly be nice.

But the more I considered it, the less convinced I became that selling books should be the only way to measure whether an adaptation succeeds. Some people love reading. Other people would rather listen to the story. Video potentially reaches someone else entirely.

Maybe the goal doesn’t always have to be to turn viewers into readers.

The larger opportunity may be allowing people to experience the same story through the medium they enjoy.

That possibility excites me far more than simply having another piece of book marketing.

Will independently produced microdramas become a realistic business opportunity for authors? I don’t know yet. Current tools can do impressive things, but producing a coherent series still requires adaptation, visual decision-making, editing and other skills many novelists have never needed.

And easier production will certainly not mean better production.

Giving more people the ability to create something has never guaranteed that everything they create will be worth watching. What changes is who is allowed the opportunity to try.

That may be the part I find most exciting.

For years, I could imagine the final battle in The Jade Amulet. I could see Sam fighting and the creatures around her. I could imagine what it would feel like to watch a world that had existed in my head suddenly moving across a screen.

The question was always whether someone else might someday decide to make it.

Now I find myself asking a different question:

What would I need to learn to make it myself?

I don’t know the answer yet. But if the technology were good enough and affordable enough today, I know exactly what I would do.

I would start.

If the technology became affordable and convincing enough, would you want to turn one of your books into a microdrama? Why or why not? I’d love to hear your thoughts down in the comments!

About Susan

Under the pen name Michelle Allums, Susan Watts has authored a young adult urban fantasy titled, The Jade Amulet and is currently writing the sequel. Her short stories are also included in the anthologies Christmas Roses and Forever and Always.

Susan has dedicated over four decades to training in multiple martial arts styles and holds the impressive title of a five-time US Karate Alliance world black belt fighting grand champion. Through her karate school, she is able to impart martial arts and life skills. Susan also incorporates her martial arts knowledge into her writing.

An avid triathlete, she keeps in shape by running, biking, and swimming. She lives in the country with her husband, where they raise animals and enjoy being outdoors. Susan also has three grown children and numerous grandchildren. In addition, she is a CPA and VP of finance for a company in her hometown.