Hi y'all and welcome.

I'm Madeleine, the founder of Wordplay Wisdom, and I am so glad you're here.

a quick overview of how my style of coaching works.

You ask questions about the craft of writing, publishing, submitting work, and building a sustainable creative practice.

Um, brainstorming and problem solving are also more than welcome.

And I respond with feedback, guidance and coaching built around your specific writing experiences, goals, voice and style.

While this coaching program is aimed primarily towards young writers, supporters of young writers like parents are also more than welcome to ask questions.

There is no fixed schedule and no Zoom link to cram into your already busy schedules.

You write in whenever you get stuck or whenever an idea hits, and since this channel is open 24/7, I'll meet you right back here.

I'll get back to you thoughtfully within the timelines outlined in the coaching agreement, which is linked below.

All my coaching students can send up to 3 pages of their writing to give context about their feedback requests, but only my critique tier students receive in-depth editing on up to 5 pages a month.

Whenever you send me something, I am not merely skimming for grammar, and I'm certainly not grading you.

I'm reading closely for what's already working within your voice, where you could push your vision further and how your different creative choices are working with or against each other.

So my coaching structure uses two simple guidelines for all your messages.

Firstly, use an emoji in the subject line, so I know exactly what kind of help you need.

You can use a lightning emoji for quick, simple, fast questions, a compass emoji for big picture questions, which would be things like plot and theme, publication guidance, feeling stuck on a larger issue, uh, writer's block, and all feedback requests.

Those are the up to 3 pages of context questions.

Use a key for any coaching logistics, anything you have issues with around payment or login or how this space works, and finally, for critique tier only, use a pencil emoji for your critique submission, which again is up to 5 pages per month for in-depth editing.

Secondly, ask one clear question in your message.

You can give as much background as you want, but I want you to build the habit of finding a specific thing you're wrestling with.

Instead of asking any thoughts, you could instead point out the exact character whose dialogue still feels weird to you, even though you've been futzing with it, and that helps me focus in on helping you most effectively.

The more specific you are, the better my answer can be.

I also answer your questions in order because answer to the first one almost always impacts the answer to the next one.

You're still welcome to submit as many questions as you like.

I'll just get to them in order.

Now, a bit about this digital space that we're in right now.

If you haven't used Clarity Flow before, don't worry, it's very simple and accessible.

Every message we send back and forth in our private channel lives in a scrolling thread and gets indexed by subject line in the sidebar that'll populate to your left, so nothing gets buried.

You can use video, voice, text, or a screen recording, whatever fits your question best.

And if a message picks up a longer back and forth, it opens its own subthread, so the main conversation stays easy to follow.

A notification dot next to a message means you haven't played it yet, and you'll also receive an email whenever you get a message.

Every recording also gets an automatic written transcript, so you can always read back what either one of us said.

Every response I send is based around you specifically, your project, your questions, where you're stuck and what's on your mind, right.

Go ahead and post your first message below and let's get to work