when persistence needs to be gentle 🍃

hey, ho—let's go

Art by Jon Jost

Hello friend,

I’ve been thinking about the word persistence.

It’s one of those words that gets thrown around in writing advice like it’s simple—like all you need is determination, discipline, and the willingness to keep showing up. And while there’s truth in that, it’s also incomplete. Because what happens when your body won’t cooperate with your determination? Or when your brain fog makes yesterday’s brilliant paragraph incomprehensible today? What about when the energy you need to “persist” simply isn’t available?

This is the question I’ve spent years trying to answer, both for myself and for the writers I work with. Not “how do I push through?” but “how do I build a practice that acknowledges what’s actually true about my capacity?”

Today’s offering is for writers who need persistence to look different.

For Day 2 of our 5 Day Sale, I’m opening up the Gentle Persistence Complete Collection with Extended Access at $247 (regularly $297).

This isn’t a bundle of inspirational platitudes. It’s a collection of actual frameworks—craft-focused, practical, tested—for building a writing practice that works with the reality of your brain and body.

Here’s what you’re getting:

Writing Through Brain Fog – Not tips for “overcoming” cognitive limitations, but adaptive methods for structuring your writing practice around fluctuating capacity. This addresses the real challenge: how do you maintain narrative coherence, develop complex ideas, and revise effectively when your ability to think clearly changes day to day?

The Cell Method – A system I developed for breaking writing work into sustainable units that create genuine momentum without requiring the four-to-six-hour sessions that traditional writing advice demands. This is about architecture: how to structure your practice so that fifteen minutes of focused work actually builds toward something meaningful.

Bonus Workshop: The Unfinished Project Audit – A deep exploration of which of your many projects to focus on and how during a live (and recorded) workshop that extends what you’ll learn in the core materials.

Six Months of Community Access – The private Academy forums, where you’ll find writers who understand that “I can only work from bed today” isn’t a complaint—it’s just information. Real feedback, genuine support, no explanations required.

What I want you to understand is this: these aren’t accommodations to help you write “despite” your limitations. They’re methods that recognize how making peace with your actual circumstances—rather than fighting them—often unlocks the writing you’ve been trying to force into being.

The deal is available until Day 3 begins tomorrow. And for those of you who aren’t familiar with what’s happening over here at The Unexpected Shape, we’re having a 5-day sale in which we’re selling a new thing every day that’s not available elsewhere and is also deeply discounted. Each item is only available from morning to night, and then it’s gone.

Grab the Gentle Persistence Collection →

With care,