"Let go in early drafts. Give yourself permission to get your ideas down without them sounding perfect. Don't put the expectation on yourself to produce pristine sentences, or it will be hard to put any words down, and any half-formed ideas that may eventually turn into brilliant ideas will be lost. Writing often involves many drafts. The early drafts are about planting the seeds. There will be space to weed, groom and prune in later drafts. For first drafts, let go and just write!"

Kate Gies teaches personal narrative, expressive arts and public speaking at George Brown College. Her writing has appeared in Word Riot, the Town Crier, the Conium Review and the Canadian flash prose anthology Release Any Words Stuck Inside of You. Her story Kids of 7C made the longlist for the 2018 CBC Nonfiction Prize.