This season, many of us are settling back into our routines and wondering: How can I connect with my creativity again? There is a lot of good advice out there: prompts, good attitude, workshops. But when you already have a personal writing coach, I’ve found that the most effective way to empower yourself is by dedicating a new space in your own home for writing (and writing only.)

A writing coach can talk with you about tools like Bork’s PROBLEM acronym, and how you can use them in your own work. Never hesitate to ask your writing coach about advice you hear in podcasts or find in online articles so they can help you figure out what’s most relevant to your projects.

A writing coach is someone who has likely encountered many of the issues you might be currently facing with your own writing practice, and has figured out ways to overcome them. This means writing coaches are often incredibly resourceful people, who at the same time that they guide you through your process can help you discover how to teach yourself and grow as a writer for a long time after your work together. A writing coach online can refer you to internet-based resources that can help you with the specific project or projects you have in mind. Whether you have grammar questions, or need to think through your story structure, the internet likely has free resources that can help.

Dialogue is the bread and butter of the play. As a writing coach with Gilliam Writers Group, I’m one of several writing coaches with a background in dramatic writing. So if you need some tips on dialogue for your own novel or short story, here are a few from the theater world, where no one stops talking.

Whether you’re writing an essay for school, revising a chapter in your novel, or composing a sensitive email to coworkers, translating the words in your head into writing can be a frustrating process. A literary translator knows this feeling well, and moreover, accepts it as a natural part of the work of writing. With advanced degrees in diverse topics, including translation, writing coaches at Gilliam Writers Group can offer unique and surprising insight into what makes great writing.

A writing coach can help new authors by advising them on how to pitch a story idea to a magazine. At Gilliam Writers Group, our writing coaches have written for top publications and can offer expert advice on any potential pitch. When approaching a magazine, a subtle shift in mindset can help.

The most basic work of a writing coach is helping their client find their novel’s shape. Although narrative, or plot, has taken many different shapes, one in particular recurs again and again. This is the triangle, the pyramid, the arc: the three-act structure.

The Gilliam Writers Group isn't going to become a standard tutoring or coaching company, nor will it become another vast "umbrella platform" that impersonally connects clients with instructors while taking an unduly large cut of their earnings. Employment-wise, our objective is, in fact, very personal: we want to fortify the skills, influence, and financial independence of young writers of unusual talent -- the kind of talent that has little to do with resumes.

Each sentence is like a little box into which a writer’s chosen words are piled. How the box looks from the outside, regardless of the words it contains, is very important. Some boxes are brightly colored. Some are small and plain. Some are meant to stack neatly on top of one another. Although opening the box — being able to read the words and absorb their meaning — is thrilling, we wouldn’t experience such a thrill without the careful construction of the box itself.

My first piece of advice: You, the writer, decide who is telling the story, and how much information they, as the storyteller, are supposed to know and expose.

At some point during our first consultation call, every prospective coaching client asks me the same question. It goes something like: “What is it like to work with a personal writing coach?” or “Can you explain more about your methods?” or “How does a writing coach help you write?” Understandably, most writers, or aspiring writers, who contact me want to know exactly what a coach can do for them.