We need your words

a pep talk

Apr 16, 2026

Hi, readers of the intangibles! I’m writer and educator Allison Kirkland, and I’m so glad you’re here.

A reminder: The May Writing Circle that I’m hosting next month is filling up. Register here, and claim your space. Registration closes April 26th.

A yellow rose from the garden we planted in 2021. It always blooms in April.

Writer,

Remember when writing felt like flying?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when a sentence turned out just how you wanted it to on the very first try?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when you wrote something you’d never told anyone before and suddenly you stood a little bit taller and then maybe you were ready to tell someone else, a real person in your life?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when you wrote something you didn’t think you could express properly and then you sat and looked at it and yes it was real and yes it came from your own brain and yes it was exactly what you wanted to say, and yes you did that?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when you read a sentence that gave you words for something you’d never quite been able to describe and something in your life made sense for the very first time?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when you read something that felt like it was re-arranging your very molecules and you were not the same?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when you read something that helped you make a hard decision, accept a hard decision, make peace with a hard decision?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when a book found you exactly when you needed it?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when the only thing that got you through that hard night when you couldn’t sleep and your brain was replaying thoughts you didn’t want to think were the song lyrics you recited to yourself again and again?

Writer, keep going.

Remember the pleasant busy-ness of trying to find the exact right word for that sentence you’d been toying with for months?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when you read a sentence that made you catch your breath?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when you shared your writing out loud to others and your voice shook, but afterward someone came up to tell you that they felt the same way, too?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when writing felt like swimming lazily through the most beautiful words?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when you read that evergreen quote by Toni Morrison, that we should write the book we wish existed, and so you opened up a blank page and started writing that book?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when writing felt like building a version of yourself that you could be proud of?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when you woke up from a dream and suddenly knew how the story was supposed to end?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when you read a book to a child, and saw their eyes light up?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when you picked up your pencil or booted up your laptop and you knew exactly what you wanted to say? (That’ll happen again, even if it hasn’t happened in a long time.)

Writer, keep going.

Remember when you read something your grandmother wrote, and suddenly you were connected to her across time, across miles?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when you read someone else’s poem and the ending made you feel like you were floating, like the top of your head might just detach from your body?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when you read a book that showed you a new way of living, and you knew it was possible right then, and you started living it, too?

Writer, keep going.

Remember the first time you went to a library, and the books were not flat and inanimate, but something more like friends?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when writing felt like being connected to everyone who had written before you, and everyone who will write after you’re gone?

Writer, keep going.

Remember when writing felt like coming home to yourself?

Writer, keep going. We need your words.

the intangibles

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