Hi! I'm in a bit of a bind right now. My publisher got a cover designer to make 5 book cover options for my novel, and they prefer one while I strongly feel for another. First they agreed to go with my choice. But now they are backing off, saying that the sales reps, who know best what sells, also prefer their choice, and would make my book a key title if only I agree to use their choice of cover. But I don't like their choice, both because I feel like it reveals the ending of my book and because I find it plain ugly/in bad taste. I'm not sure whether I should stand my ground, or defer to their decision *because they have more experience than me*. Anyone has experience with this kind of issues? Thanks a lot!

Hi my name is Iris and I live on the mid north coast of Australia in the small, sub tropical, coastal town of Nambucca Heads (halfway between Sydney and Brisbane). I joined to have a feeling of community amongst other people who love to write. I wrote Morning Pages for years and now I journal my personal life and dreams. I’ve started writing very short poems with a collaged image from a magazine attached. My most recent favourite book is Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. I listened to this as an audio book while commuting to work in my car and just loved it. I saw the movie afterwards but it was nowhere near as engaging as the book was.

Beauty and whimsy. Nature, animals, flowers, sunrises, sunsets, art… Please add more posts.

Any recommended lit magazines or fellowships that has a focus on mental disability? I find many that deals with diversity focuses on LGBTQ, BIPOC or the intersection of both, which is nice. But I have a hard time finding mental disability as a featured diversity topic in lit mags. Do you have any recommendations? Thank you 💙✨️👀 Also Interested in the lit mags that you read often, just generally💚

I was writing a character which brings a lot of traumatic memories and emotions. This often overwhelms me, causing me panic attacks, whenever I'm trying to enter this character in my memoir/ semi-autobiographical novel. Then I start to subconsciously avoid it, procrastinate and fix something else instead of entering this charcter. Its been going on for months. Do you have similar experiences and how do you deal with it? How do you breakthrough this block in memoir/novel/general writing? I dont know if writing with pain is the only option. I used to first vomit writing and resurrect as much as memories as possible while letting my forehead go on fire, almost fever-like. but i think there must be a way to navigate through hindsight and insight of the memory to gain perspective and foresight and then further craft the shitty first draft. Any concrete ways to tackle this rawness of memory "fever"? But is the only way to reach the shitty first draft is to let myself be overwhelmed and having the "fever" for certain amount of time and then rest for some time? Most who were traumatized, whether with mental disorders or not, went on with their life and tried to forget. We know forget is not the answer and dwelling is not either. And we urge to write. I'm almost also gaining clarity and perspectives on what happened. Urgency in writing is powerful and the urgent lies in my bipolar/feminism/Chineseeness experience. Just extending, then what about in the future, will my writing always be about that pain? I dont think pain is sustainable. How do I deal with memory and the panic of remembering when I write? Sorry I went on blabbing. I genuinely hope to hear from you 💙