Hi, I’m Danielle

My writing mentor dismantled a writer filled with promise right in front of me.
That was my breaking point. 

From the outside I could see that he was demanding changes to the nature of the story itself to deliver the message that HE wanted it to send, ignoring the writer's vision.
But that was impossible for the writer to see. He just heard that he had done everything wrong.
And under the weight of sneering contempt, his confidence shattered.

I still work with that writer, and it's taken him months to find his voice again and to trust the nuance and subtlety in his work.

Immediately after that meeting I left. I felt angry, betrayed, and ultra protective of my clients. Honestly, writing this, I can't believe I stayed as long as I did.

But let me back up a second.  How did I end up at that table?

I knew from the time I could read that I wanted to be a writer.
But when writing got hard, I approached it with my logical data-brain.
It was a skill I could learn.

I thrived on rigid rules and frameworks because they felt safe.
Creativity was hard… but I could check boxes. Approaching writing like the perfect student, I learned the frameworks inside and out.
So much so that I ended up working with a writing guru teaching the methodology.

When I saw my client break in front of my eyes, I knew something had to change.

At first I felt like a fraud. Breaking free from gatekeepers gives you so much freedom that it can feel like you're going to go astray and get worse.

But after the shock wears off you feel the power of being the one to set your own constraints and define your own creative vision.

I went through months of "detoxing" from the experience, untangling what I truly felt and believed from what I had learned, and reverse engineering the process I had gone through with my client to help him write a story he was proud of — before it was crushed.

Along the way I tested my discoveries with my clients, and I watched them light up as they unleashed their creativity and unlocked progress they only dreamed of before.

Like Cary, who picked up a story she abandoned 12 years ago and wrote 10K words on it in a week.

Or Mary, who solved a problem that she’d been spinning on for YEARS in 15 minutes.

Or Sam, who recentered on why he was writing his book and finally finished a draft he loves.

How did they do it? They stopped trying to check the boxes and started writing from who they are, what matters to them about creating, and what they love about stories.

After seeing this work for client after client, I developed a step-by-step system to help any writer discover their creative core, build systems around it that fit their real lives and their creative goals, and finally finish the books they’ve been carrying around, waiting for “someday.”

It’s called the StoryPOWER System.
Other systems start with rules, but StoryPOWER starts with you. We’ll start with discovering your writing superpower (I promise you have one!) and use it as the foundation to build a writing practice that fits your real life and helps you finish a book you’ll love.

I know how hard writing can be. I have felt the overwhelm of thinking you need to learn everything there is to know about “story” to be worthy of starting. And I've felt the despair when learning one rigid set of rules after another gives you sterile knowledge but drains the individuality and power from your work. I've seen the color fade out of writing until it's nothing more than a series of boxes to tick.

As a writing coach, I am not here to judge you and I’m not ‘above’ you. 

I am here to help get you out of creative blocks and the natural overwhelm that comes with writing.

And most importantly, I’m here to partner WITH you to find your way back to feeling playful, creative, and confident.

Together, we can turn your half-written drafts into finished books.

You don't need anyone's permission to tell your story.

You need a way forward that starts with you.

That’s what we’re building here.

Welcome to Writers By Night.