Talk It Out: Writing Advice I Give (and Still Need to Take)
When writing alone stops working
In my last post, I wrote about finally letting a draft be messy.
That helped. A lot.
I stopped trying to figure everything out ahead of time and just wrote it all down. And for the first time, I had something I could actually work with.
But I still wasn’t clear on what the piece was. I had pages of ideas. Some strong sections. A few threads I could see starting to form. But I still felt stuck.
The moment I needed something different
At that point, the issue wasn’t getting words on the page.
It was trying to make sense of them.
I kept going back into the draft, moving things around, rereading sections, trying to shape it into something clearer. But the more I stayed in it, the less clear it felt.
Which is usually my cue that I need to step out of the document.
This is something I suggest to writers often.
Talk it out.
And, like most advice I give, I don’t always take it right away.
What changed when I said it out loud
Eventually, I did.
I brought the piece—still messy, still very much in progress—to a conversation with my writer friends.
We didn’t edit it. We didn’t try to fix sentences.
We just talked about it.
What felt strong.
What seemed connected.
What might be pulling in a different direction.
And something shifted pretty quickly.
Not because someone handed me a solution, but because I could actually hear what I was trying to say.
As I explained parts of the piece out loud, it became clearer to me what belonged together and what didn’t.
Why talking it out works
By the end of the conversation, something that had been sitting as one long, slightly confusing piece started to separate.
There wasn’t one essay here.
There were at least two. Maybe three.
That’s not something I had been able to see on my own, just by continuing to revise.
Sometimes the problem isn’t the writing itself. It’s that you’re too close to it to think clearly.
Talking it out creates just enough distance to see what’s actually there.
A reminder for writers (including me)
I think I’m supposed to be able to figure things out on my own.
I’m not.
Some of my clearest moments in writing have come from saying things out loud to someone who’s willing to listen and ask a few good questions.
Not to solve it for me—but to help me hear it.
A small practice to try
If you’re feeling stuck on something, try this:
Explain your piece out loud to someone else. It doesn’t have to be formal. It could be a friend, a writing group, or even just talking it through on a voice note.
As you explain:
Notice where you get stuck
Notice what feels clear
Notice what you keep coming back to
That’s often where the direction is.
If you want support with this
If you’re stuck in your own head with a piece of writing, sometimes you don’t need more time with the page, you need a conversation.
I offer Puttering Calls—one-hour phone calls where we talk through whatever you’re working on and help you find a clear next step.
No prep. No reading in advance. Just space to think it through out loud.
Hi, I’m Erica.
I’m an author, writing coach, and founder of Open Sky Stories. I write children’s books that help kids explore feelings and relationships, including Pixie and the Bees and Pixie and the Fox, and I’m currently working on a creative nonfiction manuscript called Yelling at Dead People. I also lead workshops and offer mentorships to help writers find safety, clarity, and confidence on the page. I live with my muse—an 18-year-old cat, Lucy who insists on supervising every word I write.
