Dear Kate began as notes for women trying to figure out what story they wanted to tell and how to shape it into a book. Those conversations continue in Reflections from a Recovering Perfectionist.
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The Mirror Was Never Objective. Neither Is Your Memory.
For most of my life, I dreaded having my picture taken. The woman I saw in the mirror and the woman in the photograph never seemed to be the same person. I would look at a snapshot from a day I had genuinely enjoyed and feel a familiar disappointment settle…
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Before the Sorting Starts, There’s a Harder Question Underneath It
I’m prepping my own ideas right now for a second book, answering the same questions I ask clients about how to decide what belongs in your memoir. My blueprint process is adapted from Jennie Nash’s methodology (she’s the founder of Author Accelerator and the author of the Blueprint for a Book), and it’s…
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I Wrote An Entire Memoir But Needed An Editor To See That It Was Really Eight Different Stories
The proximity problem is real. You can’t see the architecture from inside the material. A story and a book are not the same thing. A story is what happened to you — the events, the sequence, the actual details. A book is different. A memoir is organized around a specific…
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The Gap Between Dreaming of a Book and Actually Writing One
How a Candle Shop Illuminated Me Why I Do This Work You’re here because you have a lot of material and no table of contents. You know something is in there, but you just can’t see its shape from where you’re standing. So let me tell you about a birthday,…
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Having A Story Is Not The Same Thing As Having a Book
My husband is wearing a continuous glucose monitor right now, not because he’s diabetic or even pre-diabetic, but because he’s working on improving his health. This data will give him information to make decisions. I’ve been watching him navigate it with the fascination of someone who has been doing this…
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Why Does Your Hardship Get to Matter?
The Voice Underneath “Before you write a memoir, there is often a question underneath the writing: Does my story matter enough to tell?” Steven Pressfield calls it “resistance” (The War of Art). That force that whispers you’re not ready, not talented enough, and definitely not the kind of person who…
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Wait… Who’s Kate?
Hello! If you’re thinking, “Dear Kate? Wait… who’s Kate?” — fair question. Don’t worry, you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. There’s a fun little origin story behind the name, and I can’t wait to let you in on it. The Story Behind “Dear Kate” Kate was the wife…
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Is My Story Really Enough?
Don’t join the comparison Olympics team. There’s a belief most women carry when they think about writing their story. It has to be big. Dramatic. Resolved with a neat redemption arc that feels Hallmark complete. Then they think: Mine isn’t any of those things. So maybe I don’t have a…
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Permission to take your time
On the cost of moving fast before you’ve decided anything Isn’t it interesting how many appeals to potential writers rush you? It starts before you even open a document. “Just write a bad first draft.” “Don’t overthink it, just start.” “You’re thinking too much — you need to do.” Forward…
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What I wish someone had said to me before I began
I had been writing for years before I wrote the book. Personal journals. The Katie blog, which I’d been writing publicly for almost 25 years. But that was a carefully edited version of the story — the portion I could share without exposing too much. I was protecting everyone (the…