Does your pen miss you?

Is your manuscript lonely?

Does your keyboard wish you were pounding out a draft or simply removing a comma in the morning only to replace it in the afternoon?

If so, this journal is for you!

Author and publisher Brenda Knight and writing coach Nita Sweeney, award-winning author of Depression Hates a Moving Target, know a thing or two about the creative process. Whether you are pre-writing, post-writing, or I-don’t-have-a-clue-what-I’m-doing-writing, You Should Be Writing provides you with writing wisdom from a variety of accomplished authors.

From famous, all-time-great poets like T.S. Eliot to modern creatives like Roxane Gay, the selected writing quotes in must-have journal aim to instruct and inspire you to become a better writer. It should be the first thing you grab when you’re looking to outline, draft or ramble on about your short story, poem, novel, play, or memoir.

With quotes from a diverse group of historical and modern authors to use as creative prompts on every page, you’ll be able to bring your writing inspiration with you wherever you go. You’ll find plenty of great advice, such as Toni Morrison’s encouragement: “As a writer, a failure is just information. It’s something that I’ve done wrong in writing, or is inaccurate or unclear. I recognize failure ― which is important; some people don’t ― and fix it.”

You Should Be Writing provides creative writing practice for every genre, with prompts to practice a wide variety of writing skills. The excerpts and prompts include:

• General advice: “Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.” — Zadie Smith
• Helpful instructions: “If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your reader will surely feel that you care nothing about them.” — Kurt Vonnegut
• Genre-specific writing ideas and tips for particular areas of writing, such as poetry or storytelling: “For those whose bucket-list entails seeing their name on the spine of a book, it boils down to the power of persistence.” — Marlene Wagman-Geller