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Jane Friedman: newsletters for writers & creative people

More than 40,000 people receive my newsletters. My most popular newsletter, Electric Speed, sends every two weeks. Subscribe to Electric Speed and get a free list of my favorite digital tools.

Illustration by Bob Eckstein of a boat sailing from Vietnam, across the South China Sea, to the Philippines where an old-fashioned, tripod-mounted movie camera stands on the island of Luzon.
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[Electric Speed] The power of short

Electric Speed is a free newsletter that shares resources for creative people (since 2009!), brought to you by Jane Friedman. | View in browser | Sign up here A note from Jane Recently I attended a showing of Sundance Shorts, seven short films chosen as standouts by the Sundance Film Festival. My favorite by far was We Were the Scenery, about a couple who fled Vietnam by boat in 1975 and ended up in the Philippines as refugees. In the first minutes of the film, I was expecting nothing but...

Cartoon by Bob Eckstein of a couple standing in front of an orange car in an auto sales showroom, while the salesman says to them, “Instead of new-car smell, it’s pumpkin-scented.”

Electric Speed is a free newsletter that shares resources for creative people (since 2009!), brought to you by Jane Friedman. | View in browser | Sign up here A note from Jane The last time I bought a new car was in 2003. The process was rushed and not well-considered. This year, my husband and I began thinking about a new car purchase with no urgency attached. For me, it felt like an opportunity to do things right and not repeat 2003. After some weeks of test driving (it was hard to make a...

Cartoon by Bob Eckstein of a Venn diagram of two circles labeled “Work” and “Life”. In the narrow region where they intersect is an analog clock face.

Electric Speed is a free newsletter that shares resources for creative people (since 2009!), brought to you by Jane Friedman. | View in browser | Sign up here A note from Jane “There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.” —Alain de Botton Some of my new business cards carry this quote on the reverse side. It addresses a frequent question I’m asked: how to balance writing, business, and the rest of life. Maybe I look like I have it all...

Cartoon by Bob Eckstein. Seated in front of a wall poster showing sample tattoos such as a knife, a heart, the word “Mom”, and the words “Number 1 Bestseller”, an elderly tattoo artist is inking the words “My new book” onto the back of a very large bald a

Electric Speed is a free newsletter that shares resources for creative people (since 2009!), brought to you by Jane Friedman. | View in browser | Sign up here A note from Jane What fills you with so much liveliness that you want to do the work yourself? James Clear posed this question recently in his newsletter, a question that particularly resonates with me as AI gets used as a shortcut, both good and bad, to getting work done. It’s a question I’m keeping in my back pocket when authors ask...

Electric Speed is a free newsletter that shares resources for creative people (since 2009!), brought to you by Jane Friedman. | View in browser | Sign up here A note from Jane Should you discuss politics on social media or in your newsletter? A year ago, I subscribed to a women’s health newsletter by a doctor who regularly offers comprehensive, educational posts about confusing and complicated health issues—plus analysis of new research, drugs, and supplements on the market. But when my...

Electric Speed is a free newsletter that shares resources for creative people (since 2009!), brought to you by Jane Friedman. | View in browser | Sign up here A note from Jane My mom has smoked all her life, and I’ve always hated the habit. As a kid I used to plead with her to stop and even hid her cigarettes on one occasion. (That did not end well.) Over time, I stopped begrudging her the habit. In fact, during those rare moments when she tried to stop, I felt anxious. She didn’t engage in...

Electric Speed is a free newsletter that shares resources for creative people (since 2009!), brought to you by Jane Friedman. | View in browser | Sign up here A note from Jane What changes in publishing have surprised me? And what hasn’t surprised me? That was one of several great questions asked at my book launch event at the Mercantile Library in Cincinnati last week. Like most people, I vividly remember what I get wrong. So it was easy to talk about that. In the early 2010s, I believed...

Electric Speed is a free newsletter that shares resources for creative people (since 2009!), brought to you by Jane Friedman. | View in browser | Sign up here A note from Jane For years I’ve hung onto the following quote from a Paul Graham essay: “If you do anything well enough, you’ll make it prestigious. Plenty of things we now consider prestigious were anything but at first. Jazz comes to mind—though almost any established art form would do. So just do what you like, and let prestige take...

Electric Speed is a free newsletter that shares resources for creative people (since 2009!), brought to you by Jane Friedman. | View in browser | Sign up here A note from Jane Recently I read an article about why friend breakups hurt so much. In a nutshell: They are a kind of unrecognized grief. That article has been on my mind after a sort-of-similar breakup: My husband and I left our personal trainer of three years to join another gym. It’s not a change we planned on. We weren’t looking for...

Cartoon by Bob Eckstein. Standing on a ladder on the sidewalk outside an urban storefront, Jane Friedman takes down a sign reading “The Hot Sheet”, having just replaced it by a book-shaped sign reading “The Bottom Line.”

Electric Speed is a free newsletter that shares resources for creative people (since 2009!), brought to you by Jane Friedman. | View in browser | Sign up here A note from Jane Every time I make a significant change to my business, there will be someone who reaches out to tell me that I am making a mistake. They aren’t lodging a complaint, but rather expressing concern. It’s tempting to think there is a gendered aspect to this, and maybe there is, but what I see underneath is more interesting...