The Fine Print

I'm all about clear communication around here. 

This page is intended to help make sure my behind-the-scenes policies and ways of doing things are easily accessible and fully transparent to my clients. 

There is a lot of information, so take your time and know that it's here to refer to at any time. 

If you don't see something you're looking for, there is more information on the public-facing FAQs page as well. This page will be reviewed and updated quarterly, so check back regularly to stay up-to-date.

If you have questions or a suggestion for something you'd like to see included here, please reach out to write@mulberryandrange.com.

Click the “+” symbol to see the full description.

Page Submissions

Deadlines | Submissions | Expectations

    • Pages submitted after 9am PT will be considered part of the following week's submission (weekly page limits still apply). 

    • Accommodations for late submissions will be considered at my discretion as time allows.  

    • You are welcome to submit at any time prior to Monday at 9am, i.e. the previous Friday or Sunday or whatever day/time makes sense for you. If you chronically struggle to make the Monday deadline, consider making a habit of submitting Sunday evening instead.

    • NOTE: not all clients are on an every week deadline schedule. But this still applies— your pages are still due by 9am on the Mondays of your scheduled deadlines.

    • Don't panic! This will happen. Writing a book is a long-term project that will occasionally get pushed further down your priority-list than you would like. Take a breath, recommit, and know that a missed deadline here or there is not going to sink your project. Stay out of the shame spiral— it just steals energy from your book! 

    • Send me a short email anyway. I don't need an apology or long-winded explanation— you're an adult and life happens. But I would like to hear: any work or thinking that DID happen, how you're planning to pick the work back up, and any way I can help support you or help you stay connected to your project in the interim. I expect to hear from you every week one way or another.

    • Unless you also have a scheduling conflict, do not cancel your coaching call even if you haven't turned any pages in. We'll use that time to connect to your project and brainstorm any course corrections or other adjustments that might help get you back on track.

Our Relationship

Communication | Expectations

    • When you sign your contract and make that first payment, you are paying for that "slot" on my calendar. That means that I'm invested, that I've earmarked time each week for you and your work, that I'm doing research and dedicating energy to thinking about your book, your process, and how to best help you bring your particular vision to life. Reading pages, sending notes, and coaching on our shared calls is only part of the work I do for you and your project. 

    • Many of my ongoing clients work with me for a year or sometimes even longer, which means the number of open slots available at a given time is quite limited. It doesn't serve me, my clients, my business, or writers who are waiting for a spot to open up, to have someone filling a slot who isn't able to commit to showing up for their project in some way most weeks.

    • I am here to support your project and help you get your book written and into the world. I want to help make that happen in any way I can. If you're struggling, let's discuss it— often there are things I can suggest or we can adjust to make the work more manageable. I'm on your side and I care about your work. Don't avoid me out of fear or shame or disappointment or whatever— this is a judgment-free zone!

    • If you chronically "ghost" me— I don't hear from you, you don't submit pages, you don't schedule your calls, you don't reply to my emails— I will assume that you're no longer interested in my services and will terminate your contract. I will give you plenty of notice, and I would much rather work with you to get some forward progress made on your book, so know that this is a last resort for me. Also know that there will be no refunds of any kind. Please don't waste my time or yours.

    • If you consistently submit work that is entirely different from what I asked for (ex: I ask for a revision of your proposal's overview and you send me, say, your marketing plan), I will assume that either you don't trust me or you don't feel that my guidance is serving you in a meaningful way and I may suggest that we terminate our time together. To be clear: there will be weeks when you go to do the assigned work and realize you need to think through another piece of information first and adjust accordingly and that is absolutely fine— great even! This is your project and part of my job is to foster your ability to trust your own instincts around what you need in order to move forward. But if you consistently disregard the assigned work, I will likely suggest we part ways.

    • Your coaching calls are a vital part of this work, and I encourage you to get in the habit of looking at your calendar and booking your calls consistently. I offer call availability every other week, and the scheduler allows you to book your calls up to three months in advance. If you need a time outside of my scheduler availability, I will do my very best to accommodate you. While I will try to reach out with a reminder if I notice your absence from my calendar, ultimately it is your responsibility to book your calls or to communicate with me if the timing doesn't work for you. Don't miss out on this vital part of the work— a lot of magic happens on these calls!

Low-Residency Months

April | August | December

  • I have noticed a few patterns over the years: 

    • nonstop months of weekly deadlines can create a sense of "grind" for many writers, which saps energy from the work; 

    • when there is a scheduled break from those deadlines, the work in the months between breaks tend to be significantly more productive and energetic; 

    • regardless of the wide variety of lifestyles my clients lead, I consistently get fewer pages and more missed deadlines in April, August, and December every single year, and clients who feel deeply disheartened or frustrated with themselves about that, which again, saps energy from the work.

    So I've made those three months "low-residency" months.

    These "low residency" months mean that there are no weekly deadlines or regular coaching calls during those months and you turn in no new work to me during that time. I work with each writer individually to determine how best to use that time to continue moving forward. 

    The week prior to a low-residency month, we do a longer (generally 90-minutes) coaching call in preparation. Like all calls, these are recorded for reference unless otherwise requested. 

    In the past, clients have used this time to do such things as: 

    • do a "big read" of their entire draft up to that point; 

    • go back through my old notes and comments to make adjustments to their proposal sections; 

    • get "ahead" of their deadlines so that they have a chance to give the work a second pass before submitting;

    • read a recommended craft book and apply it to their writing

    • also, some simply take a needed break (this is allowed in a big, long-term project like a book!)

    At the end of the month, we hop on a "debrief" call to touch base and reconnect to the work and upcoming deadlines, then resume Monday deadlines for the next period.

  • I use these months for several aspects of the ongoing work I do with and for my clients, namely professional development.

    That can mean taking classes or workshops, attending writing residencies or conferences, or deep-diving topics such as publishing— things that I don't have time to do when I'm reading and responding to a hundred or more pages of client work each week. 

    As I mentioned in the “Relationship” sections, your payment for my services is not a direct exchange of money-for-time— I don't charge by the hour. You are paying for a slot on my calendar and the whole range of what I bring to your work.

    Most of the time that looks like my reading your pages, sending notes, and coaching you on our calls, but it also includes the time and energy I spend keeping up with trends in publishing, honing my understanding of craft, and developing the skills necessary to serve you and your book from a deep well of knowledge and experience.

  • I absolutely understand that concern, but that hasn't been the experience of my clients up to this point.

    Most have found these months to be refreshing— a chance to pause for a moment and look at their work from some new angles or with a bit of distance.

    Over and over, I find that the writers I work with come back from these "breaks" with renewed energy and focus, as well as fresh insights gained from stepping back from their work.

    Also—

    Part of my job is to hold the container for your work so that you can step away from it, either during one of these scheduled breaks or when life is such that your book is forced down the list of priorities (family emergencies, moving house, etc), with absolute confidence that you will be able to pick it back up and dive back in without missing a beat.

    That will look different at different stages of your process, but part of my job is to never lose sight of your big vision and to make sure that the work you are doing is moving you toward that vision, whether that's tracking your page-to-page work, or making sure you don't lose momentum when you step away for a moment.

FAQs about low-residency months:

A few more things…

  • In my experience, this has not always served the writers I work with very well, and I have a few thoughts on why...

    • Shiny object syndrome tends to happen— I ask you to think or do one thing for your project, but the instructor for the class you're taking starts talking about this other thing that might help your book, and then your writer friend says that you should be building your author website, and suddenly you've been chasing three different "shiny objects" and that split in your attention and focus means none of them got done. Shiny objects mean unfocused work, and your book is already competing for your time and attention against priorities like your job or your kids or the rainy-day movie marathon you're dying to have. Diluting that time and energy with six different bits-and-bobs means you're unlikely to have any meaningful progress to point to, which gets disheartening and frustrating for most writers. Pick one thing and give it your focus so that you can build real momentum that fuels you.

    • Too many cooks in the kitchen. There is no single "right" way to proceed with a book project. Everything from craft and style to publishing is quite subjective. It's not unusual for two different writing instructors to have two entirely different approaches to get their students from point A to point B in the process. The more approaches you bring in the door, the more likely some of those approaches will have conflicting advice and the more confused you're likely to be about how to move forward on your project. There is a point late in the process where you'll WANT several carefully curated viewpoints on your work and that will help make sure your book is as clear and resonant as it can be. But especially in the idea- generation and drafting stages, this more often leads to confusion and paralysis and stalling out. Any of several approaches may work for you, but it's only by committing to one that you're likely to get things really moving forward.

    • To be clear: I don't pretend to be the end-all-be-all of the writing world and my approach is certainly not the only one that can get you where you want to go. But if you've paid me to have my eyes directly on your work, and I've invested the time and energy to understand your full vision, you're going to get a heck of a lot more out of your investment by giving the work we do together your undivided energy and attention than you will moving back and forth between several approaches. 

    • Over and over, putting a stake in the ground and committing to a decision will be how you move your book from idea to completion. This is as true when it comes to "advice" as it is about things like choosing your genre. 

    A final (but important!) note: I have found over time that this urge to look for writing classes, etc, is often a form of procrastination born of fear of some sort.

    Committing to one idea means letting go of others. Committing to one path forward means actually pulling the vision out of the ether and into reality. There is a fear of "doing it wrong" or not knowing "enough" or imposter syndrome because you don't have an MFA in creative writing to give you "permission" to call yourself a writer.

    Give yourself so much grace around this fear. I get it. I really do.

    But you wouldn't have a call to write this book if you weren't capable of bringing it to life. You don't need an MFA— you're allowed to call yourself a writer the minute you put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and begin an earnest effort to bring this work into the world.

    You can handle the setbacks and obstacles, I promise. You can handle the course corrections. You can handle the breakthroughs and the success as it comes.

    Commit to your process— whether that includes me or another approach you prefer— and bring this vision to life.

  • Short answer? Don’t.

    Longer answer…I can’t control what you do or how you choose to engage with it, but I believe that using AI to write your book shortchanges you on several meaningful levels. I believe there is much to be gained in the PROCESS of creative work and that skipping the difficult, uncomfortable, or frustrating parts of that process will stunt your growth as a writer and as a creative and will set you back in the long-term.

    While I’m happy to have a more in-depth conversation with you about this, know that if you plan to use AI in a significant portion of your process, we are likely not a good fit and you may be happier with a different coach.

  • The publishing world is a highly subjective, quickly evolving place and there are zero guarantees. I wish I could give you one, but I absolutely in good faith cannot. Evolving market trends have impact as do things like changing technologies, company mergers or personnel changes within publishing houses, social movements, and unforeseen circumstances like natural disasters (ask anyone whose book release date was in spring of 2020 or who was trying to get their book about a global pandemic picked up by a publisher). 

    Highly qualified experts— experienced book coaches, editors, agents, etc— can disagree about aspects of what makes a book publishable (aka sellable to a traditional publishing house). You need merely to look at articles like Lithub's The Most-Rejected Books of All Time to see that different agents and different publishers can disagree on what is publishable at a given moment. 

    I spend a lot of time, energy, and money making sure I'm keeping up with what is happening in publishing. This can look like subscriptions to industry publications and newsletters, checking in regularly with what's being bought and sold on Publisher's Marketplace, and attending industry events and conferences. But all the working knowledge of the industry still does not create a guarantee.

    That said—

    There are certainly steps that can be taken to better your chances, beginning with writing a book that is structurally sound, has narrative drive, and is written with a strong, clear voice. 

    THIS is what you have control over: writing the very best book you are capable of right now. It's very likely your third book will be better than your first book, but if this is your first book, you have to do the best you can on this book in order to get to number three. 

    Focus first and foremost on what you can control: crafting the book itself.

    Get the help you need, whether it's coaching with me or some other path, to understand the elements that will give you the best possible chance to get published (as well non-traditional paths to publication that might be the better fit for your publication).

    Then get writing...the only impossibility is trying to publish a book that only exists in your imagination.