Expert tips from a nurse-turned-writer

P.S. I’m not an expert-expert, but I do make a living by stringing words together and want to share everything I learn with you!

Happy New Year!

Hello writers,

Welcome to 2025! So long 2024, you old so-and-so. The last year brought a lot of big changes in my life. I grew my business by 60%, and moved my family of six to another country. I gained clients and lost clients (and sleep). I don’t know how your 2024 went, but I’m hoping for a steady, successful 2025.

Best of new year luck to anyone reading this!

WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK

When Can I Use Passive Verbs?

In my junior year of high school, my writing teacher drove me crazy. But, she drilled into my young brain some important basics. For one, she got super annoyed when I started a sentence with “There” and I’ve been allergic to that opener ever since. She also despised passive verbs.

Passive verbs always include some form of the verb “to be” like:

• Was

• Has been

• Is

They focus on the thing/person an action affects, rather than the thing/person doing the action.

Active verbs, on the other hand, need a “do-er.” Someone to complete the action. To do the thing. These verbs keep your writing interesting by focusing on the action and the “main character” of the sentence.

For example:

In my work writing health content, editors often instruct me to avoid passive verbs, saying they’re too boring and won’t captivate your reader. But I think it’s a bit trickier than that.

We speak using passive verbs all the time, so if you want a piece to sound conversational, I think you need to keep some passive voice in.

Passive voice works well if:

• You don’t know your do-er’s identity: “Sean was assaulted” — you don’t know by whom.

• Your do-er doesn’t matter: “ The building was built in 1905” — who cares who built it.

• You want to keep the do-er vague: “A security breach was identified” — you don’t want to reveal who was responsible.

• You want to focus on the receiver, not the do-er: “Sara was deeply hurt by the comments.” — you want to give Sara all the attention in this sentence, not the do-er that hurt her.

The takeaway? Try to stick to action verbs. But also know when passive voice will work even better. What do you think, writers? Agree or disagree? Reply and let me know!

TRIVIA-PALOOZA

Who would do that??

Your trivia question for the week is…

💡 Who declined the 1964 Nobel Prize for literature?

(The answer’s at the bottom!)

HIGHLIGHT REEL

Great news out of the blue

If you read my first newsletter a few weeks ago, you know I’ve had some tough client changes recently. Super-fast recap: my income took a nosedive when we moved “across the pond” and then a long-term client dropped all their freelancers for 2025.

My first mistake: Not having at least 3 months of income saved.

Second mistake: Allowing one client to make up 30% of my income.

I’m going to do my best not to let that happen again! But on the good news train, I have another new client! I reached out to them probably six months ago, after another client’s referral. I never heard back and assumed they weren’t interested.

Then, just last week, I got an email out of the blue from this publication, asking if I could take an assignment! Ahhhh!!! 2025 is starting to look up, and I want to encourage you, too. If you’re feeling down and forgotten, keep trying. One of my pitches was declined this week and I felt really crappy about it and myself. Then I got that email

Keep reaching out to pubs and editors. Keep showing up and connecting with other writers. I truly, honestly believe it will work. I hope you have all the work you can handle this year!

IT’S PERSONAL

First Scottish Christmas in the books

Well, our first Christmas in Scotland felt like a big success! We had a wonderful time with family, ended up armpit-deep in wrapping paper, and the kids played with their new toys all the day long.

Our appetizer-style Christmas snacking worked very well and I felt super pumped not to be cooking a massive feast all day. I started rebuilding (and re-reading) the library I left behind in the US (Harry Potter Hardback series and Michael Crichton’s classics, Jurassic Park and The Lost World).

All in all, our Christmas was fantastic. Hope your celebrations were, too!

‘Til next time

Thanks for reading and see you next week!

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You can view all my work on Authory and also feel free to check out my website!

💡 Find the trivia answer HERE 💡