Free printable cards for writers: the perfect gift for writers!

by Maria

These free printable cards for writers are perfect for your literary loved ones–check out all the printable cards for writers below!

Do you ever have one of those days where you feel down and even your favorite things–the things that always work–don’t stir even a single spark of joy?

I had a very bad, grumpy day yesterday where nothing seemed to go right.

The only shining spot in the day was a few kind, thoughtful words I heard that helped align me back to my softer, less harsh side.

I bet you know someone who could use some re-centering words, too. Maybe someone in the throes of rejection? Someone in the trenches of self-doubt? Someone too paralyzed by fear to take the first step?

I never seem to know just what to say when I want to cheer someone up, which is why I often rely on our old stand-by of paper and ink–the two best materials on the planet–to say it a little less confusingly.

printable cards for writers

That’s why I created these pep talk cards. These free printable cards for writers make the perfect gift for the writer in your life who’s down in the dumps and could use a scrap of kindness.

And of course, they’d make the perfect sweet little gift for your Valentine, your Galentine, or your Pupentine. (See what I did there? Dad jokes are no match for dog mom jokes.)

 printable cards for writers

These greeting cards are perfect for any writer, blogger, or creative in your life who’s feeling down-and-out about their work. You can print them out on nicely textured paper (this Classic White Laid Card Stock #100 is my favorite, but any paper you have lying around will work well, too), cut them out, and fold them into little greeting cards.

You can use them two ways:

To use these printable cards for writers for yourself:

When you’re feeling inspired, motivated, high on life, just all around on top-of-the-world, write yourself a note about how it feels and why it’s worth it. Scribble down why you have so much to be proud of and how very good those triumphs feel.

Then tuck it away until that rainy day when rejection comes calling. (But tuck it away someplace you’ll remember, because I know I would lose it in a flat second.) When you have that day where you feel defeated, depressed, and very, very done with it all, pull out your card and sit with it awhile. Remind yourself that this feeling will pass, and you don’t have to be so hard on yourself until it does.

You can print 10 pep talk cards and sprinkle them around your house, or do just one at a time when the mood strikes you. As long as your little card makes you feel a bit less alone and sad, it’s doing its job in the world.

printable cards for writers

To give these printable cards for writers to a friend:

Know a friend going through a rough patch or creative drought? Sending her a cheer-up card will probably mean more to her than you can imagine.

Just last week I was curled up on the couch after work, moaning to Jarrett about how overwhelmed I am (the oldest and most boring story ever told). Then he handed me a package that had just come in the mail. It was a gift! For me! From an author! (My actual reaction had many, many more exclamation points than this.)

But that small little gift and the thoughtfulness that went into it cheered me right up. You have the power to do that for someone else, too.

So go right ahead, print these bad boys out, and go cheer up someone who’s having a rough day. They’ll love ya for it.

Click here to access The Library and download these free printable cards!

 

 

5 quick reads for the week:

  1. This exercise is an important way to focus on what makes you happy in your daily life, plus it makes a great writing prompt.
  2. My fellow blogger and friend Kristen Kieffer is creating her first book on writing, and I love her model of letting readers sponsor her work! Now we all get to feel like mini Medicis.
  3. If you haven’t seen this yet…get ready for the ultimate cheer-up.
  4. The phrase “warmest and bubbliest baked pasta dishes” will always get a click from me. No matter how over pasta I might be.
  5. Yikes.

What we’re eating this week

Remember last week when I quit cooking forever and forever aka the whole week?

I’ve been in a drought of inspiration, which I’ll admit, was caused by eating pasta eleven nights in a row due to an ill-conceived Pasta Diet. Noodles and I need some time apart.

Thank God that my authors are much more talented and level-headed than I am, and that I can bum off of their fabulous dinner ideas. So this week I’m letting my friend and client Chungah Rhee tell me what to cook through her new book, Damn Delicious Meal Prep: 115 Easy Recipes for Low-Calorie, High-Energy Living.

It is SO GOOD. It is giving me life again. I want to cook every last recipe, as you can see:

 

Sunday: I got to eat waffles for dinner, and it was the most fun I’ve had all year! That may be a slight exaggeration, but the Protein Power Waffles brought me back to my happiest Eggo childhood moments. I added chocolate chips to mine, because I have unilaterally decided that chocolate is a protein.

Monday: The Ham, Egg, and Cheese Quesadillas from the breakfast chapter, which are so wildly easy yet delicious that I might need to make them every night for the rest of my life. Quesadilla Diet, here I come.

Tuesday: Chef’s night off, so we’ll eat…??????

Wednesday: Asian Garlic-Chicken Lettuce Wraps, which are so good and just the right amount of healthy and contain zero noodles. Check, check, check.

printable cards for writers

Thursday: It’s Valentine’s Day! Prix fixe menus are the scourge of the earth, so we’re staying home and Jarrett is cooking me something fancy.

Friday: The Thai Basil Chicken Bowls Chungah demoed on the Today show, which let me tell you, were the perfect amount of heat. (Watch the clip to see what I mean…)

Happy Valentine’s Day, all!

Get one free tip for reading more + living better each week!

A Zen Method to Cope With Rejection

by Maria

Literary agent rejections

The publishing stories worth reading this week: 

Publishing a Cookbook: Editors and Closing Day (Rachel and Polly of Thriving Home): This is a fun one for you! My authors, Polly and Rachel, give a great behind-the-scenes look at what really happens when we’re selling a book at auction. If you’ve ever wondered how a cookbook deal gets made and what happens when many publishers are interested, this is the perfect read for you.

The Effortless Effort of Creativity: Jane Hirshfield on Storytelling, the Art of Concentration, and Difficulty as a Consecrating Force of Creative Attention (Maria Popova of Brain Pickings): “In the wholeheartedness of concentration, world and self begin to cohere. With that state comes an enlarging: of what may be known, what may be felt, what may be done.”

Can Serialized Fiction Convert Binge Watchers Into Binge Readers? (Lynn Neary for NPR): I love this idea of tapping into the popularity of binge watching and bringing it to books, but I’m not sold on the idea that a book = an episode. Actually, I think a chapter = an episode. People are already binge-reading when they can’t put down a book and race through it quickly. If anything, serializing a book (chunking it into sections and releasing them one-by-one) is the opposite of binge-reading, which requires you to have back-to-back access to the whole book/series.

A Key to Writing Books that Sell and Sell and Sell (Chad R. Allen): I’m often asked what the correct balance should be between storytelling and practical information in a nonfiction book–here’s a great explainer on this from Chad Allen!

Collards And Canoodling: How Helen Gurley Brown Promoted Premarital Cooking (Nina Martyris for NPR): “The Single Girl’s Cookbook sold close to 150,000 copies. But how did an editor who couldn’t cook and who described herself as a ‘grown-up anorexic’ end up writing a cookbook? She didn’t. The recipes were ghost written by cookbook author Margot Reiman. Gurley Brown simply added the garnish.”

 

A Zen Method to Handle Rejection

Literary agent rejections

Do you know the one thing I hate about my job? I hate writing rejections. I hate it, hate it, hate it. Please have me do anything else, including contract review, as long as I don’t have to say “no” to someone’s hard work.

The very thought of writing rejections makes me miserable. Because I know how hard some people take them—I see it with my own authors. I see the self-doubt and blame that springs up around a “no, thank you,” and I hate the very thought of afflicting that on someone else.

But I do it. And I do it because I believe in one thing: the best yes. Every time I say no to something that’s near-perfect for me, I’m saving room on my list for that project that’s 100% perfect for me. And I’m protecting my time for my authors, who deserve to have me there for everything they need.

That’s also how editors see it. That’s how sales, publicity, marketing, and everyone else who weighs in on an acquisitions decision sees it. We can only make magic when the very thought of a book makes us come alive. Otherwise, we’re doing a disservice to the author and the reading public by putting something out into the world that we’re only somewhat excited about.

And here’s a secret: Everyone in this industry gets rejected. It’s not just writers, I promise! An editor can have a book she loves rejected by her team. A marketing manager can have her new ad campaign denied from on high. A publicist can get hundreds of rejections (usually in the form of silence) from a press mailing. Agents and authors can get rejected by editors, and editors can get rejected by agents and authors.

There are thousands of things that can go wrong or get blocked by anyone along the entire acquisitions chain. Rejection is in the undercurrent of any media industry, and it’s the cardinal rule for anyone who creates and shares their work: you will get rejected. You’ll get stomped on; you’ll get battered; you’ll get tough.

Yet too many people let these disappointments destroy them. So let me say it now: I’m not going to let that happen to you. I’ve coached dozens of authors through rejections, and I know that how they handle it is what separates the career writers from the hobbyists.

If you’re serious about your work, you know there’s no Plan B to fall back on, no other career that will be good enough. The only way onward is through the wilderness of rejection. Here’s how I would coach you through each step along the way:

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Printable Summer Bookmarks

by Maria

Free Printable Summer Bookmarks

The publishing stories worth reading this week:

The Ultimate Guide to Bestseller Lists: Unlocking the Truth Behind the New York Times List & Others (Chad Cannon): There are a lot of posts on the bestseller lists out there, but I think this one really is the ultimate guide. If “become a New York Times bestselling author” is on your bucket list, this is an important read.

Nora Ephron on Women, Politics, and the Myth of Objectivity in Journalism (Brain Pickings): “I’ve never believed in objective journalism … because all writing is about selecting what you want to use. And as soon as you choose what to select, you’re not being objective.”

8 Reasons You’re Exhausted, Overwhelmed, and Unproductive (Michael Hyatt): In case you haven’t read the now-classic New York York Times article “The Busy Trap,” start there. Then come back to Hyatt’s article for some actionable advice.

If You Just Keep Writing, Will You Get Better? (Barbara Baig on JaneFriedman.com): “When most of us think about practice, we’re imagining what Ericsson calls naive practice, the kind of repetitive action we do to learn a skill and then put it on automatic pilot. We learn a lot of things this way—cooking dinner, for instance, or driving a car. The trouble with this kind of practice is that it will never help us improve our skills. For that, we need a different kind of practice, one Ericsson calls deliberate practice.”

Are you a bookmark user?

I’ve found this is a surprisingly divisive question! Jarrett swears by them, and I usually want nothing to do with them.

He’ll use anything: a scrap of notebook paper, the library receipt, a tattered old rag of a real bookmark. One time I caught him holding his spot in a book with an entire piece of mail, still in its envelope. This is by no means normal.

Me? I couldn’t keep track of a bookmark if my library card depended on it. I find it a hassle to place it down somewhere and make sure not to lose it/crumple it/splash a beverage on it. Instead, I get a sick thrill out of challenging myself to remember where I was in the book. I’m a fairly visual person, so I can usually remember whether I was on a verso or recto page and on what approximate paragraph. But no, this process is not time-efficient. And no, it’s by no means normal, either.

But then again, is there a true “normal” to any of our reading habits? We can’t all neatly tuck into bed, read for exactly 60 minutes, mark our spot with our perfect bookmark, and turn over for our perfect 8 hours of sleep.

(Although that 8 hours of sleep sounds pretty great and should really be a non-negotiable, says every scientific study ever!)

So today I designed a little treat for you, for your summer reading pleasure:

Free Printable Summer Bookmarks

If you’ve been using a scrap of paper as a bookmark (ahem, Jarrett…), try swapping it out for these.

If you’re not in the habit of using a bookmark but have always aspired to (ahem, me…), give these a go.

Click here to download the bookmarks.

You can print them on regular paper, but if you have thicker paper, they’ll have much more durability to them.

And I’d love to hear if you guys are naturally bookmark users! Do they drive you nuts or can you not live without them?

7 Things You Can Do Today to Get on The Bestseller Track

by Maria

7 Ways to Become a Bestselling Author (text)

But first, the publishing stories worth reading this week:

Amazon is Quietly Eliminating List Prices (David Streitfeld for The New York Times): A fascinating look at the deterioration of the list price/discount marketing tactic and how it’s influencing online commerce, including the massive online book business. I thought this was a must-read this week, and it’s definitely a trend worth watching for anyone involved in online commerce.

Training to Be a Good Writer (Leo Babuata of Zen Habits): “You get good by doing it a lot, and caring. You’ll never be perfect at it—goodness knows I’m far from perfect — but the only way to get better is to practice. And to care about what you’re doing. Do that every day, and every step of the struggle will be an amazing one.”

My Top 5 Favorite Marketing Books (Chad Cannon): “They say that reading is a key habit for success–that our society’s leading thinkers, investors, and decision-makers must be readers. I fully believe it’s true, and I love this quote from Warren Buffet. Once, when asked what his key to success is, he pointed to a stack of books and said: ‘Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.'”

Do You Lock Your Best Ideas in a Vault? (Benjamin Percy for JaneFriedman.com/Glimmer Train): “For every story or essay or poem you write, you withdraw one image, two characters, maybe three of the metaphors you have stockpiled—and then slam shut the vault and lock it with a key shaped like a skeleton’s finger. I used to be the same way, nervously rationing out my ideas.”

 

7 Things You Can Start Doing Today to Become a Bestselling Author Tomorrow

I hope everyone had a delicious and fun Fourth of July weekend! The fireworks in DC were a bust with all the rain, but Jarrett and I spent the first half of the long weekend exploring Louisville and Lexington. We ate:

  • Brisket and smoked sausage at the Blue Door Smokehouse (picked by Ashlea Halpern of Condé Nast Traveler as one of her two favorite BBQ joints in the country!)
  • The most glorious country ham on an Eggs Benedict at Proof on Main inside the 21C Museum
  • A 4-course tasting menu of delight at Edward Lee’s fantastic 610 Magnolia
  • Really very naughty sandwiches at Ouita Michel’s Wallace Station (that Hot Country Ham and Pimento Cheese sandwich…oh my.)
  • And because we couldn’t help ourselves: more of Ouita’s food at Smithtown Seafood. They’re participating in the James Beard Foundation’s Blended Burger Project that challenges chefs to create more sustainable burgers by adding mushrooms to their patties. This makes the burger better. In fact, it was the best burger of my life. Yes, I said it. Go try it and tell me if I’m not right.

I think we did some other stuff in between there, but mostly we ate, and a lot.

Which brings me to the question: what productive things can you do as a writer or blogger when you are, say, too gut-bombed on Southern food to concentrate on your manuscript? Not every moment needs to be write-or-die, and there are so many things that can contribute to your skill-set that have nothing to do with typing away.

Here are 7 of them, which I first covered for Bustle Books, and which I hope make for some easily digestible reading no matter how gluttonous your holiday was!

7 Things You Can Start Doing Today to Become a Bestselling Author Tomorrow

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