The Editor's Brew Freshly brewed notes on writing, creativity, and the editor's desk.

April 17, 2026

Reader,

I never had Bieber Fever.

Sure, his songs were catchy, and I could definitely be found in a minivan circa 2010 on my way to a house party dancing my skinny little butt off and singing along to every word of "Baby."

But was I a Belieber? No.

Did I have posters of him up on my walls? No.

Did I stalk his relationship status and lose my shit when he and Selena Gomez broke up and Taylor Swift dumped him as a friend and he started dating Hailey Baldwin and then went ahead with their arranged marriage?

No.

(And yes, I do hate that I know all this Bieber fan lore.)

Let me tell you something, though. Seeing all those Coachella videos this past week of him living his best life, reconnecting with his music, and LITERALLY healing right in front of our very eyes?

That was fucking beautiful.

And it healed a small part of me that's been broken these past few years.

No one knows exactly what he's gone through. No one knows exactly what it took to get to where he is today. But we clearly saw that healing happening on stage, in a beautifully simple set with some funny memes thrown in.

And now I'm going to take a page out of my friend Kaitlin's book and tie this Bieber Rant back to writing and editing:

Art is therapy. Music, painting, writing, sculpting, crocheting, creating—it's all therapy.

Every time we pour ourselves into our creative work, we're healing a part of ourselves. Making peace with ourselves. Figuring out something we didn't even realize was sitting under the surface.

And I think that's something we forget a lot as writers.

We get so caught up in Is this good enough? Does this make sense? Will anyone even want to read this?

. . . and we lose sight of what the writing is actually doing for us.

It's not about getting it "right" or finding "success."

It's about getting it out on the page and out into the world. About reconnecting with your voice after it's been buried under self-doubt, feedback, and a million "rules" about what your writing should be.

And sometimes—like what we saw on stage at Coachella—it's about coming back to something you once loved and letting it feel like yours again.

That's the kind of writing that sticks.

The mom in me is so fucking proud of Justin Bieber, and so fucking proud of every single one of you writers.

(And yes, "Beauty and a Beat" will now be stuck in my head for the foreseeable future.)

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Brew of the Month

I have a new coffee obsession, and her name is Lacey.

What do you mean I can make a french toast iced latte and a Ben & Jerry's honey graham latte affogato at home relatively easily???

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Around the Mug

A few changes in the social media world lately:

☕ You can now schedule your trial reels! Not everyone has this update yet, so check if you do. A lot of authors on Threads have been sharing their experiments with trial reels, and they seem to be doing pretty well. See Melinya's compilation on trial reels for more info!

☕ Adam Mosseri (head of Instagram) has always talked about the decreasing relevance of hashtags, to the point where he hasn't recommended using any hashtags in some time. I've taken this with a grain of salt—he has Instagram's best interests at heart, after all, not ours—but more and more creators and marketing strategists I trust are releasing their results with hashtag experimentation, and everyone is agreeing that using hashtags will not increase your reach or engagement. I'll be conducting my own little experiment and keeping my eye out on what's working for everyone in the book world, but it does seem like organic use of keywords is the current key to success. Include them everywhere—on-screen text, voice-overs, talking heads, captions, and alt text. Don't overstuff your keywords though; make sure to really use them organically.

☕ WE SHOULD ALL BE ABLE TO EDIT OUR COMMENTS ON INSTAGRAM SOON! They're finally rolling out the feature to accounts, with the 15-minute window that Threads has. Thank fuck; I'm so sick of deleting my comments and retyping them because I'm a perfectionist when I text and comment 🙃

☕ Instagram is also rolling out a feature that would allow us to add affiliate links to products in our reels. Should be available to everyone by end of this month.

Other news:

🍫 For my data lovers: Vera Valentine has shared a master spreadsheet for tracking book info.

🤔 If you haven't heard already, Draft2Digital added an account maintenance fee for authors making under $100 per month in book sales. (Read about it from them here, and an author's take on how it could have been handled better here.) Feedback has been mixed, with most authors upset about the lack of notice and that smaller / newer authors are being targeted.

🤔 KDP is still fucking shit up. Keep checking your stats and screenshotting everything.

🤔 B&N decided now was a great time to mandate minimum pricing for all print books.

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The Craft Corner

Since art is therapy, not everything you write needs to be "for" someone.

Do me a favor and set a timer for 10 minutes, then pick one of these prompts:

• What did you love writing when you first started?
• What kind of story would you write if you knew it was just for fun, and there was no pressure to be perfect or publish?
• What would you tell young writer you?

Feel free to share what you write, or keep it just for yourself.

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Links & Refills

I'm still working on my blog because life is life and it's taking me longer to sit down and write foundational posts this year than I thought it would.

In the meantime, check out these posts!

What Is a Sample Edit?

The Different Levels of Editing

What Type of Editing Does Your Fiction Manuscript Actually Need?

If there's a specific topic you'd like me to cover, hit reply and let me know.

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Thanks for letting me pop into your inbox with some Bieber-fueled caffeine today! This will be my editing vibe for the next two weeks: