Frog painting rather than doomscrolling
and other things that have improved my (writing) life this March
Coming December 9, 2025 & available for PRE-ORDER now!
Mid-month, I send a roundup of the best writing and publishing-adjacent (emphasis on adjacent) resources I’ve found.
Here are my favorites from 🐸 March 🐸
I like to have an audiobook related to creativity/writing queued up. This month, I’ve been re-listening to this for the third time.
One of my (many) favorite creativity prompts from it is this: Punch a pillow for five minutes. Really put all your energy into it. All done? Now, go make some art.
This is what was for dinner last week, and my whole family approved (a small miracle).
I loved how
analyzed what Meghan Markle’s new show, With Love, Meghan, gets right (and wrong) as prescriptive memoir. This is such a great deep dive into genre expectations, and even though she’s analyzing television, all of this can be applied to written memoir, too.In preparation for my book launch, I hired Ilsa Brink to re-do my author website. I totally, completely recommend.
This free webinar really helped me learn more about how to use Pinterest: Free Training: My 3 EASY Steps to 20x Your Traffic Using Pinterest with Jenna Kutcher!
Pinterest is different than other forms of social media because it functions as a search engine. If you pin content you’ve already created for other sites (your Substack, Instagram, or author website, for instance), you can better route people who are looking for the type of content you create to you. I’m now on Pinterest. I’d love it if you followed me there.
I’m spending no more than 15 minutes/day making pins and interacting — but I’ve still noticed some increased engagement with my other various platforms.
I loved this episode of the Author’s Edge podcast. It was really helpful for me to learn about growing a list of subscribers through lead magnets. (In case you don’t know — because a year ago, I didn’t — a lead magnet is a free item you offer to individuals in exchange for contact information, usually an email address).
Speaking of leads, did you know you can get a free Perfect Pitch template in your Welcome email when you subscribe to my Substack? This is the template I’ve used to land pitches in outlets like NBCNews, HuffPost, Slate, Salon, Newsweek, and more. If you’re already a subscriber, let me know in the comments, and I’ll send it to you directly.
After I get the baby to bed, sometimes I watercolor pictures of animals rather than doomscroll.
My middle son helped me add the eyes and nose to this frog:
Thanks for reading this roundup!
Tell me in the comments — what’s the best writing/publishing-adjacent resource you’ve found this month?
I love the frog! I’ve found doomscrolling absolutely kills any creative spark in me, so watercolors sound like a great alternative. So many great links here!
The frog is very cute! Would you please send me the pitch template? I don't you had it when I subscribed--thanks!