Joanne Harris (OBE, FRSL) joins Dr Rachel Knightley at the Writers’ Gym:

December 2025

Say The Thing – as regular InkCouragement readers know very, VERY well – came to me from the then-deputy-editor of a magazine I was incredibly excited to be writing for. My commission’s subject was very significant to both of us personally. As a result, I was desperately trying to “do justice” to it. 

At least, in my head that’s what I was doing.

What I was doing in the world was the opposite. 

I’d written many times my piece’s recommended word-count, and didn’t know which were the “right” words. I was frozen in the perfectionism-procrastination of trying to make my piece contain, and be, everything it possibly could. As a result of trying to be everything, it had lost all sense of who or what it was.

The best writing advice is never about writing

Say The Thing allowed me to find the heart of the piece. It let me recognise what there was – and wasn’t – space for in this article. 

It also made me recognise there were many articles’ worth of material in what I was trying to cram into one – which is not how to show love to our ideas. That doesn’t work for words, I realised, any more than showing love to animals by keeping them all together in cramped, impossible conditions. I could care for them better by separating them into their own Word docs where they had space to run around. 

Say The Thing let me prioritise, and let my words breathe.

The best writing advice is about the writer

Over the following weeks and months, Say The Thing became the gold standard in my head for cutting to the heart of what I really wanted, needed, thought and felt. 

I realised anything I was overthinking – not just overwriting, but choices in my work and social calendar, finding the difference between fun and FOMO, everything – became clearer if I asked myself what The Thing was so I could then Say it to myself. 

Once I’d heard it, clearly and truly, I could work out what I needed to do or who I needed to say it to. Instead of rushing, I was thinking and feeling clearly. Then, when it came to acting on those thoughts and feelings, I was acting truly.

I thought about all this again earlier this week, when a client messaged me this question:

“What about when Saying The Thing isn’t enough?”

I asked them to tell me more about what “not enough” meant.

“If the other person just won’t see it? Won’t listen? What can I do without going nuts?”

Before I replied, I reflected on the question and how proud I already am of the questioner. Way back when we first met, this client’s love for their writing was making the gap between the perfect thing in their head and the imperfect thing on the page so painful, they couldn’t look at it enough to proofread or, therefore, make it better before submitting.

Today, they’ve built so much creative confidence muscle-tone that not only proofreading but, more importantly, the writing and editing they wanted to do in the first place are established habits. 

Off the page too, this client has recognised the wins that come from looking what we want in the eye, and allowing ourselves to (first) recognise in our own minds then (second) communicate to others what we want to say, do, change or achieve, and ask for the help that will make it happen so we are not keeping our world overwhelmingly on our shoulders alone. 

From thinking the Writers’ Gym couldn’t be for them, this client has built creative confidence to transform their creative and personal life to suit who they truly are and what they truly want. They are enjoying their writing and life so much more deeply as a result. So, to have this problem at all – how to handle pushback when we’ve Said The Thing – shows a massive leap. 

The best writing advice is not advice

Once I had more information on what my client meant by “not enough”, I didn’t ask any more. I didn’t need to know who the person was. I didn’t ask what the client was saying that the other person wasn’t hearing. I didn’t advise on what to say or do. I said:

“You are not responsible for other people’s reactions. 

Your truth is not your truth because someone else accepts it, acknowledges it or hears it.

We can be sad and grieve for the relationship we’d like to have or the version of that person we think could be – and we can love them for who they are (not who we wish they were).”

This was a polite but – I hope – clear example of that all-important creative writing lesson, Show-Don’t-Tell:

If the other person not agreeing with or validating our point of view means we think we’re crazy – or we go crazy – because we are not being agreed with, we aren’t in charge of our own values. 

We’re giving that person a level of power over us they never asked for, potentially and – if they’re reasonable people – wouldn’t want to disempower us by having.

We can’t “solve” other people. 

Our truth is not our truth because of their agreement or understanding. 

Neither is their truth theirs because we agree with it or understand it.

We can only Say The Thing, and live by our truth.

In this reply, I didn’t tell my client what to do. I signalled what is, and isn’t, our power (and, frankly, our business!): what’s happening here is maybe not that Say The Thing is ever “not enough”. Maybe it’s perfectionism: “needing” things to be perfect in order to be content with them. 

And maybe we’re actually stronger than we think we are. Maybe, when the agreement or acknowledgement of the other person cannot be the goal, giving ourselves our own permission to go our own authentic way can.

Coming up in December…

A Story as a Gift – Christmas Writing Workshop at Olympic Studios
10am-11.30am, Friday 5 December
Sharing our stories is the most human gesture of love. This winter, create a short story as a seasonal gift for a loved one or for yourself. Suitable for beginner and experienced writers alike, enjoy gentle exploration through the unique cocktail of memory and imagination that makes each of us, and our unique mix of story ingredients, utterly unique. A members’ event with a limited number of guest spots. Book here

Coffee & Creativity at The Century Club
10am-11.30am, Friday 12 December
Build creative confidence and unlock inspiration for life, work and art with fiction and non-fiction author, creative writing lecturer, qualified business and personal coach and founder of the Writers’ Gym membership and podcast, Dr Rachel Knightley. Dr Rachel’s gently powerful facilitation provides a space to turn curiosity into creativity, whether you’re building creative and professional writing skills, or writing a new chapter in your professional and personal life story. Book here

Realise Your Writing Resolutions Sessions 1 and 2 (Online)
6.30-7.30pm, Tuessdays 10 December and 7 January
Creative writing isn’t just for Christmas – so let’s ensure we’ll show it our love throughout 2026. Turn your writing dreams into specific, achievable goals with creative-confidence-building exercises, tools and techniques and the focus that means staying in flow. Book here

November 2025

Last weekend I celebrated the second birthday of my favourite literary child. 

Twisted Branches is a short story cycle following five generations of one family home. It’s about a lot of things I’m about – art, love, loyalty, food, family, friendships, Richmond – but mainly it’s about how as human beings we, knowingly and unknowingly, mess up and light up each others’ lives. 

If you haven’t read it and want to, you can find it in all the places you buy books – of which Waterstones, Amazon and the publisher’s website are just a few – and if you enjoy it and want to leave a review, please know that makes a huge difference.

Speaking of making a huge difference by doing a bit of writing…

Green Ink Sponsored Write 2025 nearly doubled its total for Macmillan Cancer Support

Enormous thanks to everyone who joined me on the writing team this year – Isabella Barbieri, Sarah Brooks, Stephanie Brown, Dan Coxon, Alex Davis, Kayleigh Dobbs, John-Paul Flintoff, Marianne Izen, Penny Jones, Nic Lamont, Ashley Lexine, Tim Major, Lisa Morton, Katharine Orton, Kenny Reid, Jennifer Steil, Vanessa Thompsett, Steve Toase, Ben Unsworth and Stacey Michelle Warner.

Further thanks to Rhianna Pratchett for our title, Elspeth Hannen for our cover image, Steve Shaw for typesetting and publishing, Andy Gould my excellent Macmillan officer and, absolutely most of all, you if you donated any part of our £1815 for Macmillan Cancer Support. 

We all hope you’re enjoying the anthology – not just in content but in the very fact of what can be achieved in 48 hours. 

Yep, 48 hours from creation to publication. Take that, our ‘but-I’m-not-in-the-mood-to-write-today’ brains. When we know we have to, we discover we can. The trick is to know we can when we discover don’t have to. 

If you’re coming to World Fantasy Con or The NAWE Inspiring Writing Conference, I’ll see you there. I’m running creative-confidence-building workshops suitable (and, more to the point, enjoyable) for everyone whether writing is a large, small or yet-untapped part of your life. 

The most important thing for me about any of my workshops is that they build creative confidence for life as well as art: that it’s not just about turning fear into curiosity on the blank page, and finding a new story by finding the fun: it’s doing that in our careers, our personal lives; discovering what we want ‘next’ to look like and that we have the power to create it. 

Scroll down to Coffee & Creativity at the Century Club on 12 December for a gentle way in to your next chapter in life or art – or join any session below.

Coming up in November and December…

Fiction and Memoir Writing: Tuesdays 11-25 November 2025
I’m back at Riverside Studios in November with Fiction and Memoir Writing with Riverscribes at Riverside Studios. Use your Writers’ Gym member discount code when booking here.

Focus and Flow – a creative confidence masterclass
10am-11.30am, Friday 14 November
Explore writing and speaking coaching tools to narrow the gap between who we are on the inside and how we show up in our careers and personal lives; to identify where we want our next steps to take us, harnessing the power of curiosity to turn creative thinking into authentic choices. A members’ event for Olympic Studios with a limited number of guest spots. Book here

A Story as a Gift – Christmas Writing Workshop
10am-11.30am, Friday 5 December
Sharing our stories is the most human gesture of love. This winter, create a short story as a seasonal gift for a loved one or for yourself. Suitable for beginner and experienced writers alike, enjoy gentle exploration through the unique cocktail of memory and imagination that makes each of us, and our unique mix of story ingredients, utterly unique. A members’ event for Olympic Studios with a limited number of guest spots. Book here

Coffee & Creativity at The Century Club
10am-11.30am, Friday 12 December
Build creative confidence and unlock inspiration for life, work and art with fiction and non-fiction author, creative writing lecturer, qualified business and personal coach and founder of the Writers’ Gym membership and podcast, Dr Rachel Knightley. Dr Rachel’s gently powerful facilitation provides a space to turn curiosity into creativity, whether you’re building creative and professional writing skills, or writing a new chapter in your professional and personal life story. Book here

October 2025

The launch of Viktor Wynd’s Dark Fairy Tales took place on the opposite side of London to my home, during a tube strike and (precisely as I was walking across Blackfriars Bridge) a rainstorm. I was entirely soaked when I arrived at St Giles’, but had at least got the chance to photograph a beautiful rainbow over St Paul’s then arrive at an equally beautiful event where there were great friends and excellent cocktails. But what I really want to talk about is the sign above the toilet:

Stories, religious or otherwise, are never just about the people in them. They are always about the reader too: reflections of how we choose to show up in the world and our relationships with others – those we know and those we don’t. Reading creates reflections only we can see, which is why no two people read exactly the same book or even read the same book twice. We’re always different when we come back to that unchanged page.

So, yes, this is a church toilet. Yes, it uses a religious symbol – a story – that isn’t mine. But I was still able to share in the message the story underlines in how I show up through my small actions. And the way it did this is pure Show-Don’t-Tell. 

The sign above the toilet didn’t inform me about hygiene. It didn’t instruct me to wash my hands. It showed me what taking these small troubles are part of: something bigger, ideologically and practically. We can behave like the best version of who we are in the tiny things. We can believe in the bigger story we’re part of. We can trust the gestures add up, even when – especially when – their results are invisible to us.

As somebody writing a book, keeping faith in the small, gradual things is more significant to my motivation than ever. Trusting the process, one word at a time, will be the difference between reaching ‘the end’ I want or never finishing; never creating what I want to create. That would be a far sadder sacrifice than committing to the small, helpful things.

Writers’ Gym members’ news 

The magnificent Jennifer Steil – Writers’ Gym member, Green Ink Sponsored Writer, dear friend and brilliant author and academic – is published in the New York Times this week, with Dress Rehearsal for a Wedding I’ll Never Attend: Jennifer’s Stage Four ovarian cancer means she won’t get to see her fifteen-year-old daughter grow up, and this is about her daughter’s request to go wedding dress shopping with her while they can. 

You can read more about Jennifer at her newsletter, Liminal, and sponsor her by supporting Macmillan Cancer Support for this year’s Green Ink Sponsored Write. The title, chosen by Rhianna Pratchett, is Somewhere That’s Green: Paradises, Utopias and Happy Places. The page will close at the end of the writing day, Saturday 18 October. This is it: https://www.justgiving.com/page/somewhere-thats-green

Further congratulations to Writers’ Gym members Stephanie Bisby who has had a poem accepted for the Fig Tree Coal Mining anthology, and Nicola Todd-Morgan who is welcoming her new book, She Wrote Too, into the world alongside her co-author Caroline Rance. Find Nicola on Substack.

Join me this month:

Coffee & Creativity
Central London private club, Friday 17 October, 10am-11.30am 
Whether you want to build creative and professional writing skills, or confidence and clarity to develop the next professional and personal steps in your life, all you need is a notebook and an open mind. Email info@rachelknightley.com for more information

The Writers’ Gym Podcast
Every Monday on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts
Creative confidence workouts for art and life with authors including World Fantasy Award winner Priya Sharma, multiple-BAFTA-winning screenwriter Dan Berlinka and Carnegie winning novelist Anthony McGowan. Listen here

Riverscribes: Fiction and Memoir Writing Tuesdays 11-25 November, 6.30pm
All the inspiration, support and techniques you need to weave initial ideas into fully realised stories. Discount for Writers’ Gym members and everybody welcome, wherever you are in your writing. Book through Riverside Studios here.

Rachel Knightley in conversation with British Fantasy Award 2025 nominee, Steve Toase: