Award-winning author: WHAT STARS ARE MADE OF, MONSTER TREE, etc. Making silly sketches & poems & snuzzling cats. Better @ Substack (https://sarahallen.substack)
Orlando, FL
Joined August 2009
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My little newsletter is growing fast! We've got insider interviews, teacher resources, book recs, and more! Come join me? sarahallen.substack.com/
Ok who else is watching Ludwig? Because oh my gosh I love it and David Mitchell so much! It's so nice to see great television still being made in this the year of our Lord 2026.
So...in July, something happened that hasn't happened in ten years and I went sort of insane about it for a minute...
sarahallen.substack.com/p/so…
Something I've been working on is teaching myself illustration, which is a little intimidating and scary. But Rachel Michelle Wilson has given her top advice for illustrators who started as writers! Her thoughts about diving in to illustration are SO good! sarahallen.substack.com/p/th…
Only three of these note cards left to go. Three scenes/chapters. Then this book is written!! It will be *underwritten* and need tons of fleshing out and revising, but that's what next drafts are for! And in the meantime, we're so close to the end!
What song or singer brings you back to your most core younger self? Mine is clearly evidence of how edgy and hip I am. sarahallen.substack.com/p/re…
You guys, I am very proud of myself, I just did something* I am absolutely petrified of, that overwhelms and freaks me out so much every time I have to do it that I want to puke. But I did it! And I'm not even dead!
*see: buying plane tickets
"What advice would you give to writers who want to at least try social media to build their career but feel weird about posting?" sarahallen.substack.com/p/th…
Just a few #library displays I've done lately that I'm proud of 😊
This year, I decided that my main author platform social media goal was consistency. (I'm talking Insta and TT, not here. Here I'm a squatter.) Didn't matter if I posted meh stuff, if it got no views, but I WOULD do 1-2 posts a week no matter what.
I HATE that it's working.
Are you a plotter or a pantser? Honestly, the longer I do this writing thing, the less clear-cut the answer feels. Here's what I've actually noticed about my process after several novels — 🧵
So, back to the outline. Fill in the holes. Push it further.
Then enthusiasm kicks in again and I'm back to drafting.
Outline → draft → outline → draft.
It's my pendulum process! And now I know its a feature, not a bug. It's just...my process. 🤷♀️
I'm at almost 50k words on my current WIP and just swung back to outlining mode. But I'm almost to That Scene and I'm so freakin excited!
What about you — plotter, pantser, or somewhere on the pendulum? 👇
(I wrote more about all this here: sarahallen.substack.com/p/i-…
