#AmWriting

As a former member of the “write drunk, edit sober” club, I thought it might be interesting to look at the research on alcohol, weed, stimulants and their effect on creativity so we can figure out what’s working for us, what’s not, and weigh the pros and cons of intoxication for inspiration.I cite a few studies in this episode and, for the #AmReading segment, share a few of my favorite books on the topic of writing and intoxication. A fun article about the Delphic Oracle in the New York TimesResearch Cited:“Alcohol Benefits the Creative Process: being moderately intoxicated gets people to think ‘outside the box.’”“Cannabis Use Does Not Increase Actual Creativity but Biases Evaluations of Creativity” Heng, Y. T., Barnes, C. M., & Yam, K. C. (2023). Journal of Applied Psychology, 108(4), 635–646. "Neurocognitive, Autonomic, and Mood Effects of Adderall: A Pilot Study of Healthy College Students" Weyandt, Lisa L., Tara L. White, Bergljot Gyda Gudmundsdottir, Adam Z. Nitenson, Emma S. Rathkey, Kelvin A. De Leon, and Stephanie A. Bjorn. 2018. Pharmacy 6, no. 3: 58. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy6030058#AmReading: Books on intoxication, writing, and recovery mentioned in the episodeThe Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking by Olivia LaingHome Before Dark: A Biographical Memoir of John Cheever. by His Daughter by Susan CheeverNote Found in a Bottle: My Life As a Drinker by Susan CheeverDrinking in America: Our Secret History by Susan CheeverThe Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie JamisonOn Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen KingOut of the Wreck I Rise: A Literary Companion to Recovery by Neil Steinberg and Sara BaderIf you love a good writing retreat—especially one that comes with good solid coaching and the chance to meet others who are working on similar projects—here’s one to check out. This fall, three Author Accelerator certified book coaches are offering Mainely Memoir, a retreat for women writers in historic Biddeford, Maine, held over three days in the gorgeous Maine woods in September, with one-on-one coaching both before and after the retreat. It’s the perfect opportunity to give yourself the gift of time and focus so that you can make real progress on your memoir this year. Find out more at www.mainelymemoir.comAre you looking for some fun reads to pass the time between episodes? Then you should check out KJ’s Bookstagram!Show me the Books!

Actually, there is no action without anxiety. We all feel it, and we’re all driven by it—and almost no one is completely at peace with it. Morra Aarons-Mele, author of The Anxious Achiever and Hiding in the Bathroom: How to Get Out There (When You’d Rather Stay Home), has been working for years to normalize those feelings and the spectrum on which they appear to bring mental health struggles out into the open and encourage people to rethink the relationship between their mental health and their success. We talk about harnessing every degree of anxiety and finding ways to keep going—and even go better—when things get hard.LINKS FROM THE PODThe Anxious AchieverHiding in the Bathroom: How to Get Out There (When You’d Rather Stay Home)The Anxious Achiever PodcastMorra Aarons-MeleUsing tropes and genres like a pro: Ep 334 with Alexis Hall#AmReadingMorra: Robertson Davies The Deptford Trilogy, The Cornish TrilogyWhich sent us onto a tangent that included: Peter Orner, author of Still No Word From You, Katie Crouch, author of Embassy Wife, Andy Borowitz of The Borowitz Report, Sarah Stewart Taylor, author of A Stolen Child and The Drowning Sea who appeared on the podcast in episode 298 and Lisa Christie’s The Book Jam, which hosted the event KJ refers to along with her podcast, Shelf Help, and then another podcast, This Jungian Life.KJ: The Murderbot Diaries, Martha WellsIf you love a good writing retreat—especially one that comes with good solid coaching and the chance to meet others who are working on similar projects—here’s one to check out. This fall, three Author Accelerator certified book coaches are offering Mainely Memoir, a retreat for women writers in historic Biddeford, Maine, held over three days in the gorgeous Maine woods in September, with one-on-one coaching both before and after the retreat. It’s the perfect opportunity to give yourself the gift of time and focus so that you can make real progress on your memoir this year. Find out more at www.mainelymemoir.comHey listener - have you followed Jess on TikTok yet? Find her here!

We’ll admit it. We like our writerly gear. We get a little rush from visiting our favorite Vermont stationery store together. (In fact, we just did this last week.) But in all seriousness, we spend a lot of time on this job, so it’s good to figure out what works for us.Today Sarina takes us through her novel-writing tech stack. She covers hardware, software and the “why” behind the tools she chooses. Links for some of Sarina’s tech: ScrivenerKeychron K series KeyboardInexpensive ergonomic mouseCampus binders with removable pages and extra paperRemarkable 2Otter.ai appWhat’s in your tech stack? Let us know in the Facebook group!If you love a good writing retreat—especially one that comes with good solid coaching and the chance to meet others who are working on similar projects—here’s one to check out. This fall, three Author Accelerator certified book coaches are offering Mainely Memoir, a retreat for women writers in historic Biddeford, Maine, held over three days in the gorgeous Maine woods in September, with one-on-one coaching both before and after the retreat. It’s the perfect opportunity to give yourself the gift of time and focus so that you can make real progress on your memoir this year. Find out more at www.mainelymemoir.comOut of #AmWriting episodes and in need of another podcast? Check out A Bookish Home. I’ve been a guest, and it’s a delight. Librarian and writer Laura Szaro Kopinski interviews a different author each week, so you can Add to your TBR list while getting the inside scoop on the winding road to publication. Coming up this spring will be Amy Poeppel, Sarah Penner, Maggie Smith and many more. Find it here on Apple podcasts or search it on your pod player of choice.Show me A Bookish Home

Becoming an expert takes years of work and many of you have asked how you can take that expertise out for a spin in the media. I don’t blame you. From the moment the my first Atlantic article, “Why Parents Need to Let Their Children Fail” went viral in 2013, I was eager to get on television and radio so I could talk about my work, stir up interest in my topics, and hopefully maximize my chances of selling a book on the topic. One decade and two books later, I still pitch producers all the time about a range of topics, and I’ve learned some things. Sit back, relax, and let’s talk pitching, prepping your topic, and securing media spots on television and radio so you can become one of those go-to experts producers seek out over and over again. If you love a good writing retreat—especially one that comes with good solid coaching and the chance to meet others who are working on similar projects—here’s one to check out. This fall, three Author Accelerator certified book coaches are offering Mainely Memoir, a retreat for women writers in historic Biddeford, Maine, held over three days in the gorgeous Maine woods in September, with one-on-one coaching both before and after the retreat. It’s the perfect opportunity to give yourself the gift of time and focus so that you can make real progress on your memoir this year. Find out more at www.mainelymemoir.comOut of #AmWriting episodes and in need of another podcast? Check out A Bookish Home. I’ve been a guest, and it’s a delight. Librarian and writer Laura Szaro Kopinski interviews a different author each week, so you can Add to your TBR list while getting the inside scoop on the winding road to publication. Coming up this spring will be Amy Poeppel, Sarah Penner, Maggie Smith and many more. Find it here on Apple podcasts or search it on your pod player of choice.Show me A Bookish Home

Jess here, because I hate outlining. Hate it. It sounds boring and feels like an assignment, writing stripped of all flow and joy. I asked KJ and Sarina to help me with this problematic mindset, because my novel in progress clearly needs a solid outline and yet every time I go back to work on it, I feel irritated, frustrated and blocked. Thank goodness for my accountability buddies, because they came through for me in this episode. In fact, the moment we logged off the Zoom call, I got back to work, refreshed, refocused, and engaged in the process of storytelling. Resources Jennie Nash and Author Accelerator Save the Cat Writes a Novel #AmReading Jess: I’ve been watching Daisy Jones and the Six on Amazon Prime and re-listening to the audiobook, which features Jennifer Beals as Daisy. I needed more Taylor Jenkins Reid, so I finally downloaded the audio of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which I’m really enjoying. (Also mentioned: Carrie Soto Is Back, Malibu Rising) KJ: Amy Poppel’s The Sweet Spot If you love a good writing retreat—especially one that comes with good solid coaching and the chance to meet others who are working on similar projects—here’s one to check out. This fall, three Author Accelerator certified book coaches are offering Mainely Memoir, a retreat for women writers in historic Biddeford, Maine, held over three days in the gorgeous Maine woods in September, with one-on-one coaching both before and after the retreat. It’s the perfect opportunity to give yourself the gift of time and focus so that you can make real progress on your memoir this year. Find out more at www.mainelymemoir.com Hey you - yea, you! Are you following Sarina on Tiktok? Find her here! Out of #AmWriting episodes and in need of another podcast? Check out A Bookish Home. I’ve been a guest, and it’s a delight. Librarian and writer Laura Szaro Kopinski interviews a different author each week, so you can Add to your TBR list while getting the inside scoop on the winding road to publication. Coming up this spring will be Amy Poeppel, Sarah Penner, Maggie Smith and many more. Find it here on Apple podcasts or search it on your pod player of choice.

Recently, someone on Twitter asked if sensitivity readers are still a resource writers utilize and where to find them. Yes indeed, sensitivity readers are still a great resource, and since we interviewed Jordan Shapiro and a sensitivity reader he worked with on his book, Father Figure: How to Be a Feminist Dad. I hope you enjoy this re-airing of episode 266 the #AmWriting podcast. Hey all, Jess here. When I agreed to read and blurb Jordan Shapiro’s new book, Father Figure: How to Be a Feminist Dad, I was struck by the attention he paid to inclusivity and the language he used to describe it. When I mentioned it to him, he told me he’d used a sensitivity reader named Jazz to ensure he got the language right. Sensitivity readers are becoming more of a norm in publishing. Jodi Picoult has tweeted about how much she depends on hers to get her descriptions, language, and representation right in her books articles like this one in the Guardian and this one in Vulture are great primers on the topic. We asked Jordan and Jazz to join us to talk about the experience of working together to create Father Figure. #AmReading Jazz: What's Your Pronoun?: Beyond He and She by Dennis Baron Jordan: Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro KJ: Conjure Women by Afia Atakora Jess: Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert If you love a good writing retreat—especially one that comes with good solid coaching and the chance to meet others who are working on similar projects—here’s one to check out. This fall, three Author Accelerator certified book coaches are offering Mainely Memoir, a retreat for women writers in historic Biddeford, Maine, held over three days in the gorgeous Maine woods in September, with one-on-one coaching both before and after the retreat. It’s the perfect opportunity to give yourself the gift of time and focus so that you can make real progress on your memoir this year. Find out more at www.mainelymemoir.com Out of #AmWriting episodes and in need of another podcast? Check out A Bookish Home. I’ve been a guest, and it’s a delight. Librarian and writer Laura Szaro Kopinski interviews a different author each week, so you can Add to your TBR list while getting the inside scoop on the winding road to publication. Coming up this spring will be Amy Poeppel, Sarah Penner, Maggie Smith and many more. Find it here on Apple podcasts or search it on your pod player of choice. Show me A Bookish Home

This week, Jess and KJ talk to journalist, author, and lifelong knitter Peggy Orenstein about research, nonfiction writing, expertise, and examining the unexamined in ordinary life. Peggy’s newest book is , Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater.Peggy’s TED Talk: What Young Women Believe About Their Own Sexual PleasureWhy Fish Don’t Exist, by Lulu MillerEtymology of the term “woolgathering”Etymology of the term “spinster” The Revolutionary Power of a Skein of Yarn, Unraveling excerpt in the New York Times. Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind and Omnivore’s Dilemma#AmReadingPeggy: KJ’s Playing the Witch Card, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and Demon Copperhead by Barbara KingsolverJess: Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz and The Lucifer Effect by Philip ZimbardoKJ: Geneology of a Murder: Four Generations, Three Families, One Fateful Night by Lisa BelkinAlso mentioned: The Puzzler by A.J. JacobsIf you love a good writing retreat—especially one that comes with good solid coaching and the chance to meet others who are working on similar projects—here’s one to check out. This fall, three Author Accelerator certified book coaches are offering Mainely Memoir, a retreat for women writers in historic Biddeford, Maine, held over three days in the gorgeous Maine woods in September, with one-on-one coaching both before and after the retreat. It’s the perfect opportunity to give yourself the gift of time and focus so that you can make real progress on your memoir this year. Find out more at www.mainelymemoir.comHave you followed Jess on IG yet? You really should!Find her here!Out of #AmWriting episodes and in need of another podcast? Check out A Bookish Home. I’ve been a guest, and it’s a delight. Librarian and writer Laura Szaro Kopinski interviews a different author each week, so you can Add to your TBR list while getting the inside scoop on the winding road to publication. Coming up this spring will be Amy Poeppel, Sarah Penner, Maggie Smith and many more. Find it here on Apple podcasts or search it on your pod player of choice.Show me A Bookish Home

Hey all! Today Sarina brings you a fun but tricky topic: how to write a novel in three months. Should you do it? Maybe. It depends on the book. Not every book can or should be written in 90 days. But if you’re game to try, Sarina gives you: 4 things you need to know about the book before you start 5 tips for writing scenes more quickly 3 things to try when you’re stuck Links from the Pod The Astronaut and The Star, Jen Comfort 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love, Rachel Aaron Otter.ai Becca Syme’s Quitcast and her book Dear Writer, You Need to Quit. If you love a good writing retreat—especially one that comes with good solid coaching and the chance to meet others who are working on similar projects—here’s one to check out. This fall, three Author Accelerator certified book coaches are offering Mainely Memoir, a retreat for women writers in historic Biddeford, Maine, held over three days in the gorgeous Maine woods in September, with one-on-one coaching both before and after the retreat. It’s the perfect opportunity to give yourself the gift of time and focus so that you can make real progress on your memoir this year. Find out more at Find out more here If you love #AmWriting, make sure you subscribe to get bonuses and appreciation. Subscribe now Calling all freelancers! On March 9 and 10, the Institute for Independent Journalists is offering an online freelance journalism conference with 12 information-packed interactive sessions on everything from pitching, negotiations, and contracts to podcasting and developing new revenue streams. Speakers include editors for The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New York Times, Wired, The Verge, The Emancipator, and more. Registration costs $69 for 12 live, interactive sessions, delivering 15 hours of learning. For more information and to register, see: theiij.com All sessions will be recorded and available to view for one month after the conference. The IIJ is a new organization whose mission is the financial and emotional sustainability of journalists of color. Everyone is welcome at the IIJ’s public programs, like the conference, although some future opportunities will be limited to BIPOC freelancers.

True confession time: Sarina and I have always wanted to make something like this. I’m talking about The Storyteller’s Workbook, which is a gorgeous combination of structural writing guide and writing bullet journal created by Isabel Ibañez, the author of Woven in Moonlight and Written in Starlight, a fantasy YA series that’s a hit with TikTok and Time Magazine both as well as a designer whose work you’ve seen while drooling in the paper sections of stores like Anthropologie and Adrienne Young, the New York Times and international bestselling author of the Sky and Sea duology and the Fable series whose first “adult book”, Spells for Forgetting, came out last fall. (That’s in quotes because who are we kidding, adults read the heck out of her earlier work.) The episode is fun, all about making something like this—and Adrienne and Isabel’s writing processes, the examples they share and the ways the book reflects how they really work. But what you’re really here for is to see what it looks like—which is, in a word, gorgeous. If you’d use something like this, you can’t do better—the paper is nice, too, suited for any kind of pen, there’s not going be bleed-through, it lays flat… all the things. So here it is! #AmReading Isabel: Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Heather Fawcett (she also mentioned The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden and Uprooted by Naomi Novik) Adrienne: Hell Bent (sequel to Ninth House), Leigh Bardugo KJ: A Dangerous Business, Jane Smiley Find Isabel & Adrienne on Instagram at: @IsabelWriter09 & @Adrienneyoungbooks Is 2023 going to be the year you finally click through and start exploring the idea of becoming a book coach? Author Accelerator’s coach certification program is good stuff, kids, I’ve done it. We’re talking editorial, project management, client intaking, and emotional skills along with the support you need to make a goof it. Wondering if you have what it takes? Here, they made you a quiz. Go see! Take the Book Coach Quiz Do you get KJ’s Box of Chocolates email—for erratic doses of books and enthusiasms? Sign up here! Calling all freelancers! On March 9 and 10, the Institute for Independent Journalists is offering an online freelance journalism conference with 12 information-packed interactive sessions on everything from pitching, negotiations, and contracts to podcasting and developing new revenue streams. Speakers include editors for The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New York Times, Wired, The Verge, The Emancipator, and more. Registration costs $69 for 12 live, interactive sessions, delivering 15 hours of learning. For more information and to register, see: theiij.com All sessions will be recorded and available to view for one month after the conference. The IIJ is a new organization whose mission is the financial and emotional sustainability of journalists of color. Everyone is welcome at the IIJ’s public programs, like the conference, although some future opportunities will be limited to BIPOC freelancers.

As Leslie Hooton told me, “Some writers have a stroke of luck, I had a stroke at birth,” which left her paralyzed on one side of her body. Thanks to Dragon dictation (not sponsored, we’re just fans!), she’s learned to train her Dragon and “penned” three novels including her most recent release, After Everyone Else. As Jess hosts this episode, we delve into plenty of tangents on dictation, deleted text fragments, inspiration, and the wisdom of Wendell Berry. It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. - Excerpt from “The Real Work” by Wendell Berry #AmReading Leslie: Olympus, Texas by Stacey Swan and Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt Jess: Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wood, and Making the Ugliest Sweater in the World by Peggy Orenstein Leslie’s links: Her website Her Facebook Her Instagram If you’ve been intrigued by all the talk you’ve heard about book coaching over the years here at #Amwriting, maybe this is your year to explore becoming a coach yourself. Author Accelerator is GOOD AT TEACHING YOU TO DO THIS. And supporting you in making a business or side-gig out of it, we swear. Here, they even made you a quiz to see if you have what it takes. Quizzes are fun, people! Go check it out! Take the Book Coach Quiz Pssst: Do you follow Sarina on Instagram? Find her here! Calling all freelancers! On March 9 and 10, the Institute for Independent Journalists is offering an online freelance journalism conference with 12 information-packed interactive sessions on everything from pitching, negotiations, and contracts to podcasting and developing new revenue streams. Speakers include editors for The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New York Times, Wired, The Verge, The Emancipator, and more. Registration costs $69 for 12 live, interactive sessions, delivering 15 hours of learning. For more information and to register, see: theiij.com All sessions will be recorded and available to view for one month after the conference. The IIJ is a new organization whose mission is the financial and emotional sustainability of journalists of color. Everyone is welcome at the IIJ’s public programs, like the conference, although some future opportunities will be limited to BIPOC freelancers.

STOP. Do not think to yourself, well, I don’t want to write Erotica—why is this podcast/book for me? This conversation, and the book, How to Write Erotica, that inspires it, goes far beyond any pre-imagined specifics you have about writing scenes, stories and books focused on which bit of bodily anatomy goes where—because to write good erotica, you have to come back to the heart of writing any story (fiction, memoir, what-have-you: why this story, why this character, why now? Guest Rachel Kramer Bussel knows what makes good story, and this conversation is applicable to any writing that appeals to our senses (as all writing should) and challenges our ability to tell our truths (ditto). Links from the Pod Starr**cker Magazine on Twitter Take Me There anthology Fetlife.com Addition, Toni Jordan A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo Cheesy Boots in Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women #AmReading City of Likes, Jenny Mollen Spoiler Alert & Ship Wrecked, Olivia Dade Rachelkramerbussel.com eroticawriting101.com @raquelita on Twitter Is 2023 going to be the year you finally click through and start exploring the idea of becoming a book coach? If you’ve been intrigued by all the conversations we’ve had about book coaching over the years here at #Amwriting, maybe this is your year to make it happen. Author Accelerator’s Book Coach certification program teaches you the key editorial, project management, client intaking, and emotional skills necessary to launch your own book coaching business. I’ve done it, and even after years as an editor for the New York Times, I expanded my skills dramatically, and my approach to helping others with their books, and writing my own, is so much better. The best part: no publishing experience is necessary to be good at this work. Are you curious to see if you have what it takes? Head to bookcoaches.com/podcasts now to take Author Accelerator’s free quiz to find out if you have the skills and characteristics needed to launch your own book coaching business and get paid to read books all day! Take the Book Coach Quiz If you love #AmWriting, kick in some $$ to support us and get bonuses and appreciation. Subscribe now Calling all freelancers! On March 9 and 10, the Institute for Independent Journalists is offering an online freelance journalism conference with 12 information-packed interactive sessions on everything from pitching, negotiations, and contracts to podcasting and developing new revenue streams. Speakers include editors for The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New York Times, Wired, The Verge, The Emancipator, and more. Registration costs $69 for 12 live, interactive sessions, delivering 15 hours of learning. For more information and to register, see: theiij.com All sessions will be recorded and available to view for one month after the conference. The IIJ is a new organization whose mission is the financial and emotional sustainability of journalists of color. Everyone is welcome at the IIJ’s public programs, like the conference, although some future opportunities will be limited to BIPOC freelancers.

Your query letter—or your jacket copy—KNOWS. It knows if you’ve got a whole story in there, if there’s an arc of change, if there are stakes, if there’s a why now and a why this and a why her/him.You just have to be willing to listen. Julie Artz, query coach extraordinaire, and KJ talk about mistakes writers make in our queries—and more importantly, the problems queries can reveal about our stories.DOWNLOAD JULIE’s 5 STEP QUERY LETTER AUDIT!Julie's 5 Step Query AuditLinks from the PodPodcast: The Shit No One Tells You About WritingBlog: Jet Reid’s The Query SharkPodcast: Queries Qualms and QuirksPrevious episodes:Ep 343: Friends Don’t Let Friends Write Books Without HooksSummer Blueprint Step 4: Your Jacket Copy is Your Promise to the Reader#AmReadingJulie: The Book of Delights, Ross GayDemon Copperhead, Barbara KingsolverKJ: Inciting Joy, Ross Gay“You Just Need to Lose Weight” and 19 Other Myths about Fat People, Aubrey Gordon(also mentioned— Maintenance Phase Podcast)Julie Artz @julieartz on twitter and InstagramIs 2023 going to be the year you finally click through and start exploring the idea of becoming a book coach? If you’ve been intrigued by all the conversations we’ve had about book coaching over the years here at #Amwriting, maybe this is your year to make it happen. Author Accelerator’s Book Coach certification program teaches you the key editorial, project management, client intaking, and emotional skills necessary to launch your own book coaching business. I’ve done it, and even after years as an editor for the New York Times, I expanded my skills dramatically, and my approach to helping others with their books, and writing my own, is so much better.The best part: no publishing experience is necessary to be good at this work. Are you curious to see if you have what it takes? Head to bookcoaches.com/podcasts now to take Author Accelerator’s free quiz to find out if you have the skills and characteristics needed to launch your own book coaching business and get paid to read books all day!Take the Book Coach QuizDo you follow KJ’s Bookstagram?

Okay, some us (hand up here) start ALL THE THINGS. But some of us don’t like to start what we don’t think we will finish (and even those of us who start a lot sometimes beat ourselves up for that). But if you don’t start stuff you cannot finish stuff. So: here’s Becky Blades, author of Start More than You Can Finish (which—and this is a big deal—was recommended by the Next Big Idea Book Club — and you can listen to five ideas from the book by clicking that link) on why we should… start. More than we can finish. And HOW. And also, how to learn to love not finishing what we start. Links from the pod: Becky and her daughter in McSweeney’s: A GUIDE TO MIDWESTERN CONVERSATION: ELECTION EDITION Becky’s daughter’s book (A Guide to Midwestern Conversation, Taylor Kay Phillips) #AmReading Becky: You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey and The World Record Book of Racist Stories, Amber Ruffin, Lacey Lamar Think Again, Adam Grant The Science of Stuck, Britt Frank KJ: The Real Work, Adam Gopnik StARTistry, the newsletter If you’ve been intrigued by all the talk you’ve heard about book coaching over the years here at #Amwriting, maybe this is your year to explore becoming a coach yourself. Author Accelerator’s Book Coach certification program teaches you the key editorial, project management, client intaking, and emotional skills necessary to launch your own book coaching business—and it’s so much more than an online course, as it comes with amazing opportunities for community and connection. With more than 135 certified book coaches and counting, Author Accelerator is helping people around the world launch thriving book coaching businesses to guide writers through each step of the writing and publishing process. If you’re curious to see if you have what it takes? Head to bookcoaches.com/podcasts now to take Author Accelerator’s free quiz to find out if you have the skills and characteristics needed to launch your own book coaching business and—as Jennie likes to say-- get paid to read books all day! Take the Book Coach Quiz Have you followed Jess on TikTok yet?

On this week’s episode, Jess and KJ talk to Kristen Mei Chase, an OG mommy blogger, journalist, former professor, podcaster, CEO of the Cool Mom Picks Network, and now, novelist. Her book, Thousand Miles to Graceland comes out on January 24, 2002, and we discuss the long road to publication for her (very personal) story. #AmReadingKristen: Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told YouKJ: Charmaine Wilkerson’s Black CakeJess: Reading has been all disappointment recently so she names no names, but she remains optimistic and just started The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes. Order signed copies of Kristen’s book here!If you’ve been intrigued by all the talk you’ve heard about book coaching over the years here at #Amwriting, maybe this is your year to explore becoming a coach yourself. Author Accelerator’s Book Coach certification program teaches you the key editorial, project management, client intaking, and emotional skills necessary to launch your own book coaching business—and it’s so much more than an online course, as it comes with amazing opportunities for community and connection. With more than 135 certified book coaches and counting, Author Accelerator is helping people around the world launch thriving book coaching businesses to guide writers through each step of the writing and publishing process. If you’re curious to see if you have what it takes? Head to bookcoaches.com/podcasts now to take Author Accelerator’s free quiz to find out if you have the skills and characteristics needed to launch your own book coaching business and—as Jennie likes to say-- get paid to read books all day!Take the book coach quiz!

Hello #AmWriters! Someone in the #AmWriting Facebook group asked about the best ways to connect and build relationships with bookstores, so we decided to revisit this older episode with bestselling author and Emmy-winning television host Mary Laura Philpott. Drawing on her many years working at Parnassus Books and launching her own books into the world, we talk about the benefits of working with your local bookseller in time for publication day. Got a writer-dilemma we could help with? Wanna come on the pod and talk it through? Hey, there’s a goal! Whatever you’re trying to do, maybe we can help you find the action items to get you there. Email us—[email protected]—and let’s talk.HEY NOVELISTS—Did you finish NaNoWriMo? Would you like to know what to do next with that pile of words you worked so hard to create? Here’s a group of Author Accelerator certified book coaches dedicated to walking you through the process of finishing your draft or tackling revision—and they have put together a host of free resources to get you started.Check out www.nanonowwhat.com to learn more about these fantastic book coaches and how they can get you from NaNo success to a draft that’s ready to pitch or publish.Writers, I’ve got exciting news from Author Accelerator. Applications for Author Accelerator's new 2-year scholarship program for Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color opens this month! The Author Accelerator team developed this scholarship as a way to amplify diverse voices and perspectives that are under-recognized in the publishing world.The newly launched Author Accelerator Book Coach Certification Scholarship provides one year of professional mentorship and feedback for up to three students of color as they complete the Book Coach Certification program and one subsequent year of career coaching and mentorship as they launch their business. If you’re Interested in Applying, the scholarship window opens November 15th and will close January 15, 2023. The program will kick off in March 2023. To learn more, visit bookcoaches.com/equity.

A few assorted 2023 goals that I have no doubt I can achieve: Finish this box of Wheat Thins Take down holiday decorations before July. Read … some books. Let the dogs in. Hey, look at that. Already I can check off #1. Jess, Sarina and I just aren’t feeling the goals this year. Oh, we have them. But they’re mostly “do that again” or “yeah, stick with that” kinda things. . I’m gonna write another book. Jess is going to promote her speaking and work on her fiction. Sarina is going to write… four books. I think. Don’t hold her to that, it’s just what I remember. More than me, anyway, but happily it’s not a competition. And then we have dreams for the ways all of that will be received, which we know aren’t goals because they’re out of our control. We’ve figured out that part—good goals have action items, are achievable and can be checked off. You either wrote a book or you didn’t. You either pitched 60 agents or you didn’t, completed the online French course or not, went to the art class or stayed home. Did you “draw more” or “become a writer” or ““watch less Netflix”? Who the heck knows?But did you write 500 words, or spend 30 minutes researching agents, or read a chapter or sign up for a class? That you can check off. Want to hear more about that? Here are a couple of tools we’ve come up with over the years.Goal Setting Pdf101KB ∙ PDF File Download#amwriting Writer Goals Worksheet132KB ∙ PDF File DownloadSo, we’ve got that. And we set those. But as it turned out, none of us is aiming for the moon this year, or even forming a team for future moon launches. We’re kind of just all trying to hold tight and enjoy the ride.So my question is—is that just us? Because we’re a bit settled, and have family things to cope with, and need to recover from the recent whirlwinds? Or is no one feeling big goal energy this year? Spill, kids, and if you ARE swinging for the stars, we will cheer you on. 5. Buy more Wheat Thins.Got a writer-dilemma we could help with? Wanna come on the pod and talk it through? Hey, there’s a goal! Whatever you’re trying to do, maybe we can help you find the action items to get you there. Email us—[email protected]—and let’s talk.HEY NOVELISTS—Did you finish NaNoWriMo? Would you like to know what to do next with that pile of words you worked so hard to create? Here’s a group of Author Accelerator certified book coaches dedicated to walking you through the process of finishing your draft or tackling revision—and they have put together a host of free resources to get you started.Check out www.nanonowwhat.com to learn more about these fantastic book coaches and how they can get you from NaNo success to a draft that’s ready to pitch or publish.Writers, I’ve got exciting news from Author Accelerator. Applications for Author Accelerator's new 2-year scholarship program for Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color opens this month! The Author Accelerator team developed this scholarship as a way to amplify diverse voices and perspectives that are under-recognized in the publishing world.The newly launched Author Accelerator Book Coach Certification Scholarship provides one year of professional mentorship and feedback for up to three students of color as they complete the Book Coach Certification program and one subsequent year of career coaching and mentorship as they launch their business. If you’re Interested in Applying, the scholarship window opens November 15th and will close January 15, 2023. The program will kick off in March 2023. To learn more, visit bookcoaches.com/equity.

We make a point of setting goals every year—and, even more importantly, actually looking back to see whether we achieved them, and why. We’ve talked a lot in past years about the importance of setting the right kind of goals (you can get a short PDF on goal-setting and a worksheet below)—by which we mean goals you can control. You can’t sell your book to a publisher—that’s not a goal within your control. Get an agent, make a best-seller list, same. But you can finish the book, get help with the query, revise, edit, spend X time, write X words, write the proposal—without anyone else having to make a choice that fulfills your dreams.Goal Setting Pdf101KB ∙ PDF FileDownloadDownload#amwriting Writer Goals Worksheet132KB ∙ PDF FileDownloadDownloadWe try to make our goals mostly dreams we can fulfill ourselves, and then add in the big, out-of-control payoffs in sort of a different section. But even given that, we make mistakes. My goals last year were weirdly TOO specific (a more usual problem is that they be too vague) and as it turned out, in several cases although I still wanted to achieve the overarching goal, the specific goal I set didn’t interest me any more. This year I plan to give myself a little more leeway.Jess’s WOTY (word of the year) last year was Evaluate. Mine was Play. Sarina’s was WIP. Jess and Sarina nailed theirs. I… kind of forgot mine. But looking back, I lived up to it. I traveled more for fun than I have in many many years—partly because post-Covid and older kids, but still, it would have been easy to just go no, that’s TOO MUCH WORK. But I didn’t, I got out there, and I have the memories of the camel ride, the vintage shopping trip, the hike outside San Fransisco, the baths in Asturias, the road trip down the East Coast, the heat in Austin and the crowds watching the World Cup in the plaza in Marrakech to prove it. Thinking of it all makes me think of the new rule form fave guest Laura Vanderkam’s Tranquility By Tuesday: Effortful before Effortless. Sometimes “Play” is also kind of hard work. But it’s worth it.I’m sending out a discussion thread for next year’s WOTYs. You’ll get a preview of mine there (I’m already living by it) and hear from Jess and Sarina on the next episode! Or come chat—details below.Links from the PodGifts for WritersEpic (short story by Sarina and Elle Kennedy)Jezebel’s Creepy Stories for HalloweenRachael Herron’s 90 Days to Done Masterclass@katherineroystudio’s reel on how picture books are made#AmReadingSarina: Every Last Fear, Alex FinlayJess: Desert Star, Michael ConnellyKJ: A Letter to Three Witches, Elizabeth BassJoin KJ’s subscriber chatAvailable exclusively in the Substack appJoin chatHEY NOVELISTS—Did you finish NaNoWriMo? Would you like to know what to do next with that pile of words you worked so hard to create? Here’s a group of Author Accelerator certified book coaches dedicated to walking you through the process of finishing your draft or tackling revision—and they have put together a host of free resources to get you started.Check out www.nanonowwhat.com to learn more about these fantastic book coaches and how they can get you from NaNo success to a draft that’s ready to pitch or publish.Want to BE one of those book coaches? Our partners at Author Accelerator have super-fun BONUSES for anyone who signs up book coach training before the end of 2022. Learn more at bookcoaches.com to find out if 2023 will be the year you launch a book coaching business or level up the one you already have.

My motto for 2023 is “good writing comes last” but it might as well be “story first”, which is why we’re re-sharing this interview with Anna North, author of three novels, most recently Outlawed—the January 2021 Reese’s Book Club pick. Outlawed has a powerful theme and message and what we call, in the interview, a “poke-in-the-gut point”—but it also has, first and foremost, a can’t-put-it-down story. We recorded this in January 2021, and it deserves a listen any time. Bummed that there’s not a fresh episode this week? We’ve got you! Hang tight until Tuesday for a bonus episode: NaNoNowWhat. If you finished NaNoWriMo—of have a draft desperately in need of completion or revision—this is the episode for you. KJ talks to a group of Author Accelerator certified book coaches about the process of finishing your draft or tackling revision. Can’t wait? They’ve also put together a host of free resources to get you started. Check out www.nanonowwhat.com to learn more about these fantastic book coaches and how they can get you from NaNo success to a draft that’s ready to pitch or publish. Writers, I’ve got exciting news from Author Accelerator. Applications for Author Accelerator's new 2-year scholarship program for Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color opens this month! The Author Accelerator team developed this scholarship as a way to amplify diverse voices and perspectives that are under-recognized in the publishing world. The newly launched Author Accelerator Book Coach Certification Scholarship provides one year of professional mentorship and feedback for up to three students of color as they complete the Book Coach Certification program and one subsequent year of career coaching and mentorship as they launch their business. If you’re Interested in Applying, the scholarship window opens November 15th and will close January 15, 2023. The program will kick off in March 2023. To learn more, visit bookcoaches.com/equity.

Hooks, tropes, high concept. Comps. The publishing world tosses those phrases around like juggling balls, and I for one (as usual it’s KJ here) had a hard time understanding them for ages, especially the idea of a hook. But now I get it. A hook, in short, is the thing that gets someone—agent, editor, reader, movie-goer, etc—to say, following a one or two sentence description of the book: SOLD. Fiction, non-fiction: same deal. So a hook COULD be high-concept. (What if a kid wished to be Big? What if you woke up and discovered your whole life was a TV show with you as the unwitting star?). It could also be a mix-and-match situation with a pair of comps or a single comp (Cujo, but a cat). Or it can steal from something high concept: The Princess Diaries, but with the Japanese royal family (Tokyo Ever After). Groundhog Day, but in Brooklyn with a girl in the ‘80’s whose dad is now sick (This Time Tomorrow). Sometimes the hook is right there in the title. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Dial A for Aunties. The Gift of Failure.The thing about a hook is that it’s rarely the full story. It’s a “come for the X, stay for the Y situation”: you pick up the book because you love a good restaurant reality show family battle, but then it’s the small town story that keeps you reading. Or it’s just that there’s a lot more to the story—as Sarina says, the whole “but then what happens?” A hook does not make a book—and a lack of hook does not mean a bad book. It’s just a whole lot harder to tell you what a book without a hook is about, and therefore to sell it. It can be done. But I, for one, am not doing it again. Have you written a book with a hook—or without one? Wondering if you’ve got hold of a hook or a trope? Is there a particular hook (hello, “but in publishing”) that always gets you? We’re chatting in the comments—or head for the chat itself to see what else we’re talking about. You can also find us on Facebook.Join KJ’s subscriber chatAvailable exclusively in the Substack appJoin chatBooks and Links from the Pod:The Shit No One Tells You About Writing PodcastA Very Merry Meet Cute, Julie Murphy & Sierra SimoneThe Bromance Book Club, Lyssa Kay AdamsIn a Holidaze, Christina LaurenBeach Read, Emily HenryPests: How Humans Create Animal Villains, Bethany BrookshireBeaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America, Leila PhilipListen, World: How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-Read Woman, Julia Scheeres & Allison GilbertThe Chain, Adrian McKintyThe Plot, Jean Hanff KorelitzKarin Slaughter’s Pieces of Her, Girl, ForgottenEpisode 71 Building a Relationship with Your Bookstore#AmReadingJess: Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America, Leila PhilipPests: How Humans Create Animal Villains, Bethany BrookshireGhosts of the Orphanage (March 2023), Christine KenneallyKJ: A Very Merry Bromance, Lyssa Kay AdamsAll I Want for Christmas, Maggie KnoxWitchmark, C.L. PolkSarina: Pieces of Her, Karin SlaughterThe Night Shift, Alex FinlayHEY NOVELISTS—Did you finish NaNoWriMo? Would you like to know what to do next with that pile of words you worked so hard to create? Here’s a group of Author Accelerator certified book coaches dedicated to walking you through the process of finishing your draft or tackling revision—and they have put together a host of free resources to get you started. Check out www.nanonowwhat.com to learn more about these fantastic book coaches and how they can get you from NaNo success to a draft that’s ready to pitch or publish.Want to BE one of those book coaches? Our partners at Author Accelerator have super-fun BONUSES for anyone who signs up book coach training before the end of 2022. Learn more at bookcoaches.com

Sometimes you have to start with a memoir (that you never publish) to figure out who you are and where you’re going. Today’s guest has a nice impressive bio—but 8 years ago, she was just a writer staring at a screen and working on, as many of us do when we first start, a memoir. Emily Grosvenor is the editor of Oregon Home magazine, Willamette Week’s design publication Nester. She’s also written for The Atlantic, Salon, Good Housekeeping, and others. But ALSO like so many of us, she started as a generalist, freelancing from the familiar “write what you know” place. New place, children, parenthood, cooking, trying to navigate finding adult life or living with a partner? Write about it.But a funny thing happened on the way to that memoir: She realized she didn’t want to keep living in that space. And when the memoir didn’t sell, Emily found the opportunity to write about something she really wanted to explore—and figured out how she fit into the market. Links from the podFoundry Media Literary Agency “exploded”Sarah Susanka’s Your Not-So-Big LifeSeth Godin’s Purple CowPia somebody, Badass Your BrandBonus: Rachael Herron’s Fast-Draft Your Memoir in 45 Hours (because that might be the way you plow your way through what you need to write to find out what you want to write)Sign up for Emily’s Design Shift Newsletter HERE.(Our episode on email lists 151: #StartHereforEmailLists)Emily on Instagram @EmilyGrosvenorBook: Find Yourself at Home: A Conscious Approach to Shaping Your Space and Your Life#AmReadingEmily: Marie Kondo's Kurashi at HomeKJ: Start More than You Can Finish, Becky BladesJoin KJ’s subscriber chatAvailable exclusively in the Substack appJoin chatHEY NOVELISTS—Did you finish NaNoWriMo? Would you like to know what to do next with that pile of words you worked so hard to create? Here’s a group of Author Accelerator certified book coaches dedicated to walking you through the process of finishing your draft or tackling revision—and they have put together a host of free resources to get you started.Check out www.nanonowwhat.com to learn more about these fantastic book coaches and how they can get you from NaNo success to a draft that’s ready to pitch or publish.Want to BE one of those book coaches? Our partners at Author Accelerator have super-fun BONUSES for anyone who signs up book coach training before the end of 2022. Learn more at bookcoaches.com to find out if 2023 will be the year you launch a book coaching business or level up the one you already have.

Hey #AmWriters! Jess here. I recorded a bunch of videos to answer all of your questions about creating video for book marketing but in the end, I figured an entire episode needed to happen in order to really get into the topic. I started creating daily videos based on the content in The Addiction Inoculation because I wanted to the information out there, and if it sold some books or rustled up some speaking invitations, great. At the time I’m writing these show notes, I’m 63 videos deep, and yes, it’s a massive time suck. It takes a lot of work, and a lot of patience through plenty of mistakes but the experience has been a net gain for me overall in terms of education and exposure. I hope this flattens the learning curve for you, and please report back in the #AmWriting Facebook group if you have anything to add or advice to offer! Links The #AmWriting Facebook GroupJess on InstagramJess on TikTokJess on TwitterListeners, the team at Author Accelerator knows that all kinds of people can make good book coaches. It’s not necessarily people who have had massive success as writers themselves. It’s not necessarily people who have secured agents, book deals, degrees, or awards.It’s people who really could spend all day talking about books, who get excited by the idea of lifting up other writers, and who are ready to back up their passion for writing with skills, training, and hard work.If that might be you, join the Author Accelerator team for two days of exploration on November 30 and December 1, 2022, to find out if 2023 will be the year you launch a book coaching business or level up the one you already have. Head to bookcoaches.com/dreamjob to learn more.

Pain by Elsie RobinsonImagine discovering that one of the highest paid, most well known journalists in the world, whose voice dominated the Hearst media empire for more than 30 years, who wrote something like 9,000 published articles…has basically disappeared from living memory.That’s the story of Julia Scheer and Allison Gilbert’s biography: Listen World: How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-Read Woman. The story of this podcast is how Allison came to enlist Julia and finish the project, which came from the discovery of one of Robinson’s poems (and please note this was not a woman who was best known for her poems) in her mother’s papers thirty years ago.We talk about Elsie—whose writing secrets and mantras sound like things you could hear any day on the podcast—as well as the process of defining the project, finding a co-writer and shifting your own work, and even your own bio, in order to become the writer of a new kind of book.Links First, our new mantra: It is the Parked Profile, not the Divine Spark, which is the secret of success. (i.e.: Keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game.)Elsie’s Writing Manifesto and Top 5 Quotes on Writing.A novelization of another famous women of the era: The Personal Librarian Fab reviews of Listen, World:Wall Street JournalNew York TimesWashington PostAllison’s colleague and co-author, Julia ScheeresAllison’s website#AmReadingAllison: Lab Girl, Hope JahrenThe Successful Woman, Dr. Joyce BrothersKJ: Out of the Clear Blue Sky, Kristan HigginsAlso mentioned—The Crappy Friends PodcastListeners, the team at Author Accelerator knows that all kinds of people can make good book coaches. It’s not necessarily people who have had massive success as writers themselves. It’s not necessarily people who have secured agents, book deals, degrees, or awards.It’s people who really could spend all day talking about books, who get excited by the idea of lifting up other writers, and who are ready to back up their passion for writing with skills, training, and hard work.If that might be you, join the Author Accelerator team for two days of exploration on November 30 and December 1, 2022, to find out if 2023 will be the year you launch a book coaching business or level up the one you already have. Head to bookcoaches.com/dreamjob to learn more.

Ever feel like some things are just outside your ken? I’m that way with literary magazines. And I’ve never found the right retreat or residency, or applied for a grant, and I know sometimes it’s just that I don’t think I belong in that world. But worlds don’t usually just reach out and drag you in. That’s a fave theme of ours around here—you can’t be published unless you write something, etc. If you want to be part of a literary world you have to find it and start looking around for a door. This podcast is ALL about finding doors. And knocking, and however you want to extend the metaphor—and it was great. As I’ve said before, you can tell a practical podcast by the number of links that end up in there, and there are a ton of useful links below. And let me add to all of it my favorite old school book on a similar topic, Making A Literary Life from Carolyn See. I hope this talk with Patrice inspires you to get OUT THERE. About our guest: Patrice Gopo is an award-winning essayist and the author of books for adults and children. Her essay collection, All the Colors We Will See, was Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Her debut picture book, All the Places We Call Home, was inspired by one of the essays in her collection. She’s the child of Jamaican immigrants, but she was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska—which gives her a pretty unique perspective on everything from racial identity formation and immigration to weather and life in the great outdoors. She’s had essays in a ton of publications, including Catapult, Charlotte Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and AFAR Magazine, and her essay “That Autumn” received a notable mention in the Best American Essays 2020—which is HUGE. She’s also the recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Artist Fellowship and a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award—and I’m telling you all these details because literary magazines, grants and residencies are exactly what we’re planning to talk about. Links from the Pod Literary Mama Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith Publisher’s Weekly Lit Mag Database Funds for Writers database Clifford Garstang Poets & Writers: Literary Magazines Lit Mag News! Creative NonFiction Classes (Patrice mentioned teacher Lisa Olen Harris) North Carolina Arts Council Patricia Gopo’s Grant Application Tips PatriceGopo.com Writing Resources St. Nell’s Humor Writing Residency National Endowment for the Arts Sustainable Arts Foundation #AmReading Patrice: Nothing Special, Desiree Cooper When Stars Are Scattered, Omar Mohamed and Victoria Jamieson The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop, Felicia Rose Chavez KJ: A Rather Haunted Life (Ruth Franklin's biography of Shirley Jackson) Writers, I’ve got exciting news from Author Accelerator. Applications for Author Accelerator's new 2-year scholarship program for Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color opens this month! The Author Accelerator team developed this scholarship as a way to amplify diverse voices and perspectives that are under-recognized in the publishing world. The newly launched Author Accelerator Book Coach Certification Scholarship provides one year of professional mentorship and feedback for up to three students of color as they complete the Book Coach Certification program and one subsequent year of career coaching and mentorship as they launch their business. If you’re Interested in Applying, the scholarship window opens November 15th and will close January 15, 2023. The program will kick off in March 2023. To learn more, visit bookcoaches.com/equity.

Many of you have heard me (this is obviously KJ) whine about my revision in process. Well, I’m here to report that it’s done, and successfully. Below is a full description of the process, and in the episode you’ll hear me talking about it with Jennie Nash. I detail everything except the Peeps that fueled me, and I decided it was wrong to leave them out. So, in addition to a lot of butt-in-chair time and a surprising number of hours spend really just staring the at screen, I should own that I also ate a lot of Halloween peeps and most of a bag of fun-sized $100,000 bars. And I would have eaten the whole bag but someone else beat me too it, and they owe me big.Here it is in writing, THE LONG VERSION: How to do a substantial novel revision in 30 daysThe OverviewI had a long, rambling, completed draft of a book with a solid plot and decent thematic/internal story. The magic system was unclear and the romance undeveloped, and I had too many side-characters and too many scenes that weren’t doing more than one job. Because it’s a seasonal book, I couldn’t take my time with a revision without getting pushed another full year out. So we were shooting for publication in less than a year—and we needed to leave some time, tbh, for me to get this wrong and have to fix it again. Thus: 30 days to a revision that involved nearly a full rewrite, even though the characters, story and in particular the plot excitement of the ending would stay the same.What the hell did I sell?At the time, I thought I sold a solid, almost-ready 102K draft. Looking back, I see I sold an idea (Grown-up Gilmore Girls meets Practical Magic with a stolen set of family Tarot cards with powers and a mission of their own) and a rambling, creaky proof-of-concept draft with a solid plot at its core and characters my editor liked and wanted to spend time with.What this was: Same basic plot, both inside and out. I’ve done revisions that required altering a major plot point or removing characters. This did not.Same characters.Same themes, but narrowed and clarified.A few thoughts on that—the draft I sold was, in my mind, intentionally “edit-able”. There comes a point in a draft when editing it is hard. When what you have is both very polished and tightly wound, the editor may be able to see what’s wrong, but pulling it out will be more painful for the writer, because you’ve locked down all the story elements to intertwine and all the language, etc. This wasn’t that—when I yanked out scenes, they were at least flabby or tangential. I didn’t have to feel too bad about it. And the story wasn’t quite locked in as well. So none of this was unexpected. I know this editor likes to edit and is really good at it.That said, it WAS a … third or fourth draft or fifth, I can’t remember. I’d done a lot of work on it. When I let go of it I thought it was pretty darn good. When I got it back I was like, OMG I can’t BELIEVE I gave this to anyone, it’s so long and there are scenes that don’t go anywhere and it takes forever to get to the point. And in many ways I had done too much writing work on a story that wasn’t ready to be written (although some of that is necessary for me to find the story).So a) I thought this was a lot better than it was and b) even after you sell a book, sometimes there is substantial work still to be done and that is fine, it doesn’t mean you’re terrible and the story is crap and the editor is staring at it and thinking, I cannot believe I bought this horrible piece of junk. (Or so I kept telling myself, over and over and over.) And c) apparently what you go out with can be (and will be) far, far from perfect. Even if you think it is.All that said, some editors don’t edit. I was talking with another writer at a party recently, a NYT best-seller who broke out on her seventh novel, and has written 2 more since, told me that she doesn’t get edited any more. That may be because of her skill and experience (and if so, I am so not there and can go back to feeling terrible about this draft) but I’ve heard the same from newer novelists. And debut novelists, although that situation is a little different, as our debuts are usually the product of a longer period of work and often working with paid editors or readers.I knew this editor and knew what to expect. If I was submitting to an unknown editor, I would submit something that—to me—was ready to go. Which, I should say, does not mean that it won’t get the same big editorial treatment, so it’s important to be ready for that and accept it. It also doesn’t mean it wouldn’t need it.The goal for this go-round.Major notes from my editor: it’s too long, and it drags. The magic system is unclear. The motivations of several major secondary characters who move the plot are unclear. The love story is an afterthought. There’s too much of one secondary character and not enough of 2 others. Too much internal monologue, too many conversations in parts that should be action. The deep backstory (i.e where the magic comes

Sometimes your first book is a gateway. For me—KJ—it was Reading with Babies, Toddlers and Twos, a book I wrote in 2006 with Susan Straub. Susan was the expert and I was a rising writer with a lesser expertise riding on her coattails. We pitched the book before I had many bylines at all—but adding the words “is the author of the forthcoming book…” to my pitches opened a lot of doors. The book itself was shorter and much differently formatted than standard non-fiction. Many writers get started this way, with gift books, guides and other non-fiction books that follow existing formats or fit into existing series. (The fiction version would be work-for-hire chapter books or books within a fandom—and we’d love to talk about that if you have guest ideas.) Maria Teresa Hart is a writer and editor who works most often in food and travel, with a series of impressive bylines that range from the New York Times and The Atlantic to VICE and Business Insider, but she came on the pod to talk about the experience of writing a book for a publishing house within an existing series. Her book, Doll, is part of Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series. We talk about how that happened, what it was like and how an experience like this can become an doorway into larger opportunities in publishing. LINKS Maria Teresa Hart’s book, DOLL, is a pop-culture feminist critique of doll history and culture, from Raggedy Ann to Barbie to android sex dolls. Find it HERE. Readers of Jane Friedman’s The Hot Sheet (if you’re not a subscriber, I recommend it, find it HERE) can read an interesting piece about work-for-hire in fiction fandoms in the 9/28/22 issue. High Heel, Summer Brennan Object Lessons Series objectsobjectsobjects.com Object lessons essay series in The Atlantic Maria Teresa’s essay on Bidets 33 1/3 series 33 1/3 WEBSITE Barbie movie AmReading Maria Teresa: The Witches of Willow Cove, Josh Roberts How to Be Eaten, Maria Adelmann KJ: The Final Girl Support Group, Grady Hendrix Small Town, Big Magic by Hazel Beck https://www.mariateresahart.com, Twitter: /maritehart, IG: @mariathart Don’t forget that Author Accelerator is your one-stop for getting a coach on board to help you with your work, no matter where you are in the drafting game. Need a pro? Click here. And if you’ve considered becoming a book coach, here’s your link: Click here. Also…. you know we here at #AmWriting tend to think working with a book coach or developmental editor is the gold standard for getting help with your project. But that’s not always in the cards—and even if it is, doing as much as you can before bringing in help is often a smart approach. (Although throwing small amounts of $$ at things for years until you’ve spent as much as you would have if you’d just gone all in is not…. so if that resonates with you go find a book coach already!) The women of Pages & Platforms have created a course they call Story Path after years of going through this process on their own, and helping many clients fix their stories and finish their books. They saw how many people struggled with getting from a zero draft to a professional, working draft and made Story Path to help other writers get to “the end” faster. Here’s what you’ll get in the course: You’ll have the tools you need to understand what type of story you’re telling and how to use it to satisfy readers You’ll finally be able to have an objective means to evaluate important aspects of your story You’ll map a plan to a complete professional draft that will have readers eager to turn the page You’ll have the confidence to keep on the path! The developmental editors of Pages & Platforms provide 20 multimedia lessons, worksheets, exercises and quizzes to help you apply your knowledge to your work-in-progress, monthly live group coaching calls and 12 months of access to the course materials. Here’s some feedback from a real student when she first started (she’s now querying her completed novel!): “Already ‘Story Path’ has proven invaluable, and we’re barely halfway through the course! It’s given me (an aspiring novelist stalled on bringing my rough draft in for a landing) the tools, frameworks, and inspiration needed to confidently tackle both my ending and effective revision of a complete ‘professional draft.’ Hawley, Ramirez, and Campbell probably saved me from tons of angst and flailing around. I highly recommend this course!” —Carolyn Cowen, novelist This one is NOT FREE. But putting your $$ where your mouth is can be very very motivating. So if it sounds like it’s for you, get all the details and register HERE. We’re an affiliate, so we do make a little something if you decide to sign up —but please know that we only team up with people and businesses we trust!

I (KJ here) adore Nanowrimo. Tell me it’s impossible to write a whole novel in a month, especially a month with Thanksgiving in it, and I will set out to prove you wrong. My first novel, The Chicken Sisters started as a NaNo project, as did Playing the Witch Card (which is probably coming out in Fall 2023).I… cannot NaNo this year (yes it’s a verb), because my next set of revisions, with an accompanying deadline, will be heading my way in the last week of October. But Jess can and will! So I offered Jess my favorite advice on a successful NaNoWritMo—the KJ version, at least. Here’s how I approached last year’s NaNoWriMo, and it worked pretty well in the end:My first novel clocks in at around 107K, my current WIP draft is at 99K. I favor long, convoluted sentences. I like to express things in sets of three—reasons the character is reacting as she is, emotions that are bombarding her, the ways her body responds— or even five: lists, smells, tastes, memories, expressions and as I have just demonstrated, I tend to use a lot of punctuation while I’m doing it.I do this from the very beginning. If I’m writing a scene, I write a whole scene. The people move, they eat, they smell and taste and feel, they think about their backstory: the whole shebang. Historically, that’s meant two things. First, when November 30 rolls around, I’ll have 50,000 words—but I’ll only have a draft of about half of my story.Second, I’ll have put in a lot of time writing those long sentences and and elaborate scenes. The terrible truth about my first drafts is that the writing tends to be pretty good. The dialogue flows, the action moves, there’s humor and pathos and feeling in the way the characters interact with one another.It’s the story that usually sucks.Getting to The End, not The MiddleI suspect that to some extent it will always be this way for me. I plot, then I write, then I discover that the plot doesn’t create room to bring the character to the place where she needs to be and I have to go back and do it all over again. But I also suspect I could do that initial finding my way to a character arc and plot that weave together in a way that satisfies the whole a lot more efficiently if I just wrote fewer words.Make a PlanTo do that, I need a plan that forces me out of my usual loquacious style, and here it is: I divide my 30 days and 50,000 words into a beginning (6 days, 10K) , a middle (18 days, 30K) and an end (6 days and 10K again). World-building and character riffing are fine as long as I stick to the schedule. Write Some, Pre-write Some or Just Say What HappensNext, I pay attention to time and word count. If I’m lingering and I need to move along, I throw down some plans and some prewriting. Conversation about the Halloween event here. Town history TK. Some prescient line that recurs at end.So that’s my weird NaNoWriMo plan: write fewer words, but get more of the whole picture on the page, with the goal of finding my way to “the end” instead of “the middle”. I know (and you know) that it won’t really be the end. There will be much, much work ahead—but I’ll have a draft. It will be a terrible draft, as it should be, but it will help me do the work I find hardest: not writing the scenes but finding the story. If I’m lucky I’ll be putting flesh on the bones; if I’m not, I’ll be rebuilding a scaffolding, not taking down a whole house.And here, from the archives, is a NaNoWriMo Prep list I created a few years back. Kj's Nanowrimo Prep Checklist219KB ∙ PDF FileDownloadDownloadHere’s a fun calendar Sarina found:Nanowrimo 2022 Calendar 50k Purple107KB ∙ PDF FileDownloadDownloadAnd a link to How to Do the Blueprint for a Book Challenge.A few useful past episodes:#NaWhateverWriMo, Episode 181#SupporterMini 1: #Prewriting#AmWritingJess: A Little Too Late, Sarina BowenMad Honey, Jodi Picoult & Jennifer Finney BoylanAll Good People Here, Ashley Flowers *for loving the audio versionKJ: We All Want Impossible Things, and What Can I Say?, Catherine Newman Reluctant Immortals, Gwendolyn KisteDon’t forget that Author Accelerator is your one-stop for getting a coach on board to help you with your work, no matter where you are in the drafting game. Need a pro? Click here. And if you’ve considered becoming a book coach, here’s your link: Click here.Also…. you know we here at #AmWriting tend to think working with a book coach or developmental editor is the gold standard for getting help with your project. But that’s not always in the cards—and even if it is, doing as much as you can on your own is always a smart approach. The developmental editors of Pages & Platforms, Anne Hawley and Rachelle Ramirez, want to share their top tips for editing your own work in a FREE webinar Monday 10/31/22.YOU WILL LEARN: Why marketing categories or “genres” don’t help you write a good working story, and what does. The three most common structural problems with novels and memoirs and how to start solving them. The importance of good working scenes, and ho

Listeners, we’re sharing this interview again because if you’re not already subscribed to Theodora’s substack, you should be. We sent you a taste of it this morning on top of this episode. We adored talking to TT, as we like to call her around here—but now that she’s revved up her Substack, every single time we’re texting back and forth about its brilliance. “Butter” has joined our official #AmWriting lexicon. So, enjoy a favorite that you might have missed when it originally rolled out over the holidays last year. Notes on the Pod: Who doesn’t want a craft book that’s fun to read and will help you plan your fiction (or memoir), write that fiction, revise that fiction and then sell that fiction? This week we talked to Theodora Taylor, author of more than 50 novels and one brilliant book about writing that made Sarina and I (KJ) go SQUEEEE and then text back and forth frantically for a couple of hours. It’s all about the “Universal Fantasies” that give our story-loving brains the things we need when we read—and how to spot those in your own writing to help you tell people what you’re all about, use them in drafting and revising and just generally make sure they’re everywhere in everything you write—literary, commercial, genre, short stories, novellas—everything. We read Harry Potter for Hogwarts fun and the hero’s journey—but we also are in it for the universal fantasies of “crushed underdog proves self to loathsome family” and “ordinary person turns out to be special” and “loyal friends can be better than family” and so on—and the thing about those elements is that they appear everywhere. You could find a book in any genre that scratches those itches, and those feelings are a big part of what we’re reading for. As Theodora says, they’re what makes your book taste good. They’re the butter. 7 Figure Fiction: How to Use Universal Fantasy to Sell Your Books to Anyone Facebook group: 7 Figure Fiction https://theodorataylor.com https://7figurefiction.com #AmReading Theodora: Beastars Manga by Paru Itagaki KJ: Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova Sarina: The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

Listeners, you KNOW we got granular with this one because there are just plain so many links! Terena Elizabeth Bell has been writing all her life. Her first short story was published in a literary magazine when she was in college—almost thirty years ago, and she’s published many since and won multiple awards. She’s also written for more than 100 publications, including The Atlantic, The Guardian, Boston Globe, Smithsonian, Playboy, MysteryTribune, and Santa Monica Review. Platform-o-rama, right? But she could NOT find a publisher for her debut novel or debut short story collection. As she puts it: It wasn't for want of trying. Her novel was turned down by 64 agents. That novel, RECURSION, and Terena’s short story collection, Tell Me What You See were both purchased within two weeks once Terena decided to turn to the small presses associated with the lit mags she’d been a part of for so long. We talk about the glories AND problems with small presses, how to be sure you’re talking to a small press and not the kind of hybrid publisher we often warn you about (there are legit hybrids, but be careful out there, many take advantage of writers who don’t understand what they offer), finding the right small presses and literary magazines and what it’s like to be a more literary and experimental writer. It’s a great episode with a lot of information we haven’t covered before. BONUS: Read Previous guest Joni B. Cole’s When Is It Smart to Submit Your Work to a University Press? (You’d Be Surprised!) Big Literary journals Duotrope, The Submission Grinder Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference SMOL Fair Readings NYT article on how Billie Eilish’s platform didn’t sell her book CamCat Books Justine Bateman’s book, Fame: The Hijacking of Reality, which her platform also didn’t sell. The 10 National Book Award Finalists for 2022 include 4 books of short stories. Beacon Press: an American left-wing non-profit book publisher. Soho Press: a New York City-based publisher founded by Juris Jurjevics and Laura Hruska in 1986 and currently headed by Bronwen Hruska. It specializes in literary fiction and international crime series. Best Short Stories of 2022 Malarkey Books Authors Guild Model Contract Brooklyn Book Festival FSG—Farrar Straus Giroux does/does not take unagented submissions Submittable The controversy surrounding Roxane Gay’s PANK ThrillerFest Find Terena at www.terenabell.com or on Twitter @TerenaBell #AmReading Terena: Edith Wharton’s A Glimpse of the Moon, A Son at the Front , and The Custom of the Country Night Rider, All the Kings Men, both by Robert Penn Warren KJ: The Letters of Shirley Jackson, as well as the four book omnibus that has Sundial in it (and Alexis Hall’s Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble and Glitterland)

If you’ve listened to any of us for any time at all you know we love Laura Vanderkam, author of I Know How She Does It and 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think. People often attribute to KJ a piece of advice she learned from Laura: People are a good use of time. We think of Laura every time we start to call ourselves “too busy” and then remember that much of what fills our time is a choice, and if we want to do it, we’ll find a way to get it done. One glorious result—we’re all much better at saying “yes” to the things that are important to us and “no” to the things that would get in their way. Because we always benefit from a re-read of Laura’s books, we’re bringing this earlier interview out and sharing it again. Laura also has a new book out: Tranquility by Tuesday: 9 ways to calm the chaos and make time for what matters. The idea is genius: upgrade your Tuesday, upgrade your life. The nine rules here really do offer big impact from small change. We can’t recommend it highly enough! Also on the horizon: If being a book coach –and you know we love book coaches here--sounds like a dream, but you have no idea how you will run your business or get clients, our friend and sponsor Jennie Nash is hosting an event this month for you. In Find Your Zone of Genius as a Book Coach, Jennie will share the top reasons people resist starting a new endeavor, and how to fight through those negative thoughts. She’ll also show you how to brainstorm your way to a zone of genius to your book coaching business. This is a live working session that will not be recorded - because Jennie wants to workshop with YOU on your idea. It’s happening October 27th, 2022 at 1PM Pacific, 4PM Eastern. Head here for more info!

Alexis Hall describes himself as a genrequeer writer of kissing books. You may know him as the author of Boyfriend Material and Rosalyn Palmer Takes the Cake, both of which we’ve talked about here. But like recent guest Emily Henry and so many others, those successes were far from his first rodeo. Head to his website, quicunquevult.com, to see the evidence. (Why is it called that? You’ll have to listen to find out.) Alexis has written, and still writes, everything from paranormal and fantasy to billionaire romance to rom-com, with the recent addition of genre mystery and historical fiction. We talk tropes, dialogue and leaning into the the thing you do best then revising for the rest. (And we did it all with a kitten climbing around on my desk, adding to both the joy and the challenge.) Sarina and I (this is, as usual, KJ) have long hoped to talk to Alexis because he is so prolific and also so willing to take chances. When we finally did, what we heard was someone who doesn’t see himself the way we see him—successful, talented, charming and able to convey all of that on the page. That shouldn’t be a surprise, because he often writes characters with that same block—they’re successful and delightful but see themselves as flawed in some way. That may be almost too generic to be considered advice (after all, we’re often told to write a “misbelief” into our characters)—but I found it striking, because along with the many other emotional journeys Alexis writes, he writes this one often and well: that of a self-perceived fuck-up accepting that they’ve transcended that earlier self and become someone capable and worthy of love. I’m calling that out here because as we talked to Alexis, we talked about his brand being clever banter and an uber-confident writer’s voice—but I think that emotional journey is part of his brand as well. So this episode left me thinking about how brand is more than the way a book or a writer looks and sounds. It’s also the way the book feels. And when you think about it that way—that the emotional arc and feel are part of the brand as well—I think it may help silence any voice in your head complaining that things are repetitive, or that you’ve “ done that before” or that something has been done by others. We tell our own stories and the stories that we hold most closely, in fiction, in non-fiction, in whatever we’re working on. Indirectly, directly. Again and again. I hope this episode helps you think about what your story is and how you’re telling it. LINKS! Alexis’s books in general are all here. But you can pre-order Paris Daillencourt Is about to Crumble on Amazon here and Bookshop.org here. Follow Alexis on Goodreads, Twitter and Instagram. #AmReading Alexis: ARC of Kate Clayborn’s Georgie, All Along Sarina: Dark Matter, Blake Crouch KJ: Carrie Soto Is Back, Taylor Jenkins Reid Don’t forget that Author Accelerator is your one-stop for getting a coach on board to help you with your work, no matter where you are in the drafting game. Need a pro? Click here. And if you’ve considered becoming a book coach, here’s your link: Click here. And— this is KJ with a question. Do you own In Her Boots yet? Have you read it yourself, or given it to a friend who’d love a fun story about figuring out who you are as opposed to who you think everyone wants you to be—that also delivers a literary hoax, farm life and an ex who can’t seem to find the exit? If you don’t have it on the shelf yet, now’s the time!

Kids, this interview with Gretchen Rubin is just too good not to share again. Find more about Gretchen, and sign up for her always interesting newsletter, here. Want to know which tendency you are? Take the quiz here. And which tendency would you attribute to your hosts? Answers coming soon… (or maybe in the episode…)Don’t forget that Author Accelerator is your one-stop for getting a coach on board to help you with your work, no matter where you are in the drafting game. Need a pro? Click here. And if you’ve considered becoming a book coach, here’s your link: Click here.Writers, do you read Sarina Bowen? If you don’t, you should—first off because her books are killer fun, and secondly because every one is a masterclass in pacing, characterization and plot—and if you think plotting romance is easy because “we know what’s going to happen” then call me again after you’ve tried it. Her latest is A Little Too Late. Find out more at SarinaBowen.com.

THIS EPISODE. “Overnight success” Emily Henry reminds us that she’s not—she published three sad-and-serious YA novels before she embraced her real calling and wrote the book she craved—Beach Read, which she says “I never expected to send to anyone.”This discussion was so true to our hearts (KJ writing, Sarina co-signing). It’s hard to for some of us to give ourselves permission to write fun books in a world where “things we like” and especially “things women like” are often dismissed as less worthy. Sarina reminded us of this George Michael quote—when asked when he was going to “write serious music” his response was “You don’t understand. I’m very serious about pop music.” And KJ immediately demanded that everyone read This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch which is, instead, a book about exactly what we just said. That you should read. Immediately. We’ll wait.So how do your get very serious about writing fun reads? Emily’s insight on how to turn the seemingly small internal battles that our kind of fiction often hinges on is perfection: “you have to make things realer than real life”. For more, hit play.Links in the Pod#AmWriting Episode 302 with Katherine Center#AmReadingEmily: Miss Aldridge Regrets, Louise HareThe Bodyguard, Katherine CenterThe Change, Kirsten Miller Sarina: The Bodyguard, Katherine CenterUpgrade, Blake Couch (Emily then shouted out Dark Matter and The Letty Dobesh Chronicles with its Good Behavior TV adaptation)KJ: This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch, Tabitha CarvanThank You for Listening, Julia Whelan Emily Henry on Insta: @emilyhenrywritesJoin Emily’s newsletter: Get My Grocery List

WHOA heading into fall like Photo by Gareth Harrison on Unsplash Hope you’re feeling the fall mojo more than we are. Struggling here, which is a bummer because usually fall is the season that gives when it comes to forward momentum. We, a subset of three, can’t tell if this is a mood that’s overtaken us all, or if it’s life stage specific when you have kids leaving the house, or if it’s just that that the weird weather is taking its toll. A suggestion, if you too are grasping at momentum straws? Change it up. Have a ridiculous adventure. Sarina and I (KJ here as always) teamed up with another friend and some assorted partners and went… to the Hilton Garden Inn to hear their “house band”. Because when you tell me the Hilton Garden Inn has a house band, I say, bring it on. It fully lived up to the promise of the phrase. The band was a couple of talented guys, an enormous amp and a repertoire of songs ranging from originals to Thin Lizzie to… I don’t know. It would probably have all been quite loud for my old ears, except that we were outside, overlooking the bus station, and the band was… in the parking lot. The waitress had bright red hair and a constantly changing wardrobe and strongly recommended the salmon. Everyone was trying very hard, no one seemed to know what we were trying hard for, and high levels of absurdity were reached. I know, not EVERYONE has a Hilton Garden Inn House Band. But perhaps there is something, somewhere to go where humanity transcends our urge to mock ourselves and just plays The Boys Are Back in Town in the parking lot for people eating chicken fingers and jalapeño poppers. Which were excellent. Links from the pod: Leuchtturm monthly B5 planner Sarah Stewart Taylor Nanowrimo #AmReading Jess: Carrie Soto Is Back, Taylor Jenkins Reid Thank You for Listening, Julia Whelan Sarina: Girl, Forgotten, Karin Slaughter Jess also mentioned Michael Connelly and Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon KJ: Also a Poet, Ada Calhoun Also mentioned, and Jess is now reading: The Last Chairlift, John Irving

It’s time to put this baby to work.What now? You’ll just have to listen.This is the last episode in the 10-part Blueprint for a Book Series. Start with Step 1, do the work (we’ll give you an assignment every week), and in 10 weeks, you’ll have a solid foundation for a first draft or revision of your project that will help you push through to “the end”. It’s not too late to go back to the beginning and blueprint your book! Find details on the challenge HERE.YOUR ASSIGNMENTFiction and Narrative Memoir:Revise everything! Go back through all the steps and make them as solid as you can. Try think about your reader, the logic of your plot, and the emotional arc of the story.If you are doing the Summer 2022 challenge, you have until September 8th to turn in your complete workbook. Use that time to revise everything!For Nonfiction and Memoir/Self-Help Revise everything! Go back through all the steps and make them as solid as you can. Try to think about your reader, the transformation they seek, and the outcome you are going to bring them to.If you are doing the Summer 2022 challenge, you have until September 8th to turn in your complete workbook. Use that time to revise everything!(Note: We suggest you download a Blueprint answer workbook to keep track of your 10 assignments. That will make it easier to revise, review and come back to your work. Click to grab yours for fiction or nonfiction. If you are writing narrative memoir (a story), use the fiction workbook and assignments. If you are writing self-help/memoir, use the nonfiction workbook and assignments. Prefer paper? Tape the assignment into your journal and make a nice big heading so you know: This is Step 10. Revise everything!LINKSBlueprint for a Book (Fiction and Memoir)Blueprint for a Nonfiction BookTODAY’S COACHESBarbara Boyd takes a tough love approach to coaching. She coaches nonfiction writers on topics that include leadership, finance, marketing, human resources, health and wellness, agriculture, real estate, technology, and memoir. Barbara has coached close to 100 writers through writing more than 200 books - including Jennie Nash’s Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book. She was certified by Author Accelerator in January 2021. You can learn more about Barbara at www.barbarajboyd.com.For more from KJ, subscribe to her newsletter: Read. Eat. Listen. Or grab one of her novels, In Her Boots and The Chicken Sisters, wherever books are sold. Wondering about KJ as a book coach? Her current offerings are HERE. For more from Jennie, subscribe to her weekly newsletter. Or grab one of her Blueprint books, wherever books are sold. You can learn about getting matched with an Author Accelerator book coach or becoming a book coach at authoraccelerator.comHave you been inspired by the Author Accelerator Book Coaches during this summer podcast takeover? Book coaching is a fantastic thing to do as a side gig to support your writing or as a whole new career. Author Accelerator trains and certifies book coaches and supports them as they help writers bring their books to life. You can learn all about book coaching at bookcoaches.com/abc. We’d love to have you join our community.

If you’re not excited to dive in, something’s wrong.You’ve got a why, a point, an audience. You’ve thought market, found a way to drive your book forward. Found the one or two sentences that describe every chapter or scene and made yourself consider why those chapters or scenes belong and now—you should feel ready to write.But are you?Sometimes we fool ourselves. We think we’ve got all the pieces, but we’ve glossed over the fact that two chapters in our TOC are really about the same thing or the reason the villain took the ship hostage is … because she was feeling grumpy? Today we talk about hunting for those weak spots (when really you just want to run right past them with your eyes averted, and oh yeah we get that).This is the ninth episode in the 10-part Blueprint for a Book Series. Start with Step 1, do the work (we’ll give you an assignment every week), and in 10 weeks, you’ll have a solid foundation for a first draft or revision of your project that will help you push through to “the end”. Find details on the challenge HERE.ASSIGMENTFiction and Narrative Memoir: Download the Ten Point Inside Outline Checklist HERE. Go through it to check your Inside Outline to make sure it is meeting all the requirements. If you find things that don’t hold together, that’s your clue about what you need to revise. Keep revising the Inside Outline until it’s as solid as possible. If you aren’t planning to use a book coach to review your whole Blueprint, this is the moment when it can make good sense to bring in a critique partner Give them your Inside Outline and the Ten Point Inside Outline Checklist and ask them to put your outline to the test. Nonfiction and Memoir/Self-Help: Download the Seven Point Outcome Outline Checklist HERE. Go through it to check your Outcome Outline to make sure it is meeting all the requirements. If you find things that don’t hold together, that’s your clue about what you need to revise. Keep revising the Outcome Outline until it’s as solid as possible. If you aren’t planning to use a book coach to review your whole Blueprint, this is the moment when it can make good sense to bring in a critique partner Give them your Outcome Outline and the Ten Point Inside Outline Checklist and ask them to put your outline to the test. (Note: We suggest you download a Blueprint answer workbook to keep track of your 10 assignments. That will make it easier to revise, review and come back to your work. Click to grab yours for fiction or nonfiction. If you are writing narrative memoir (a story), use the fiction workbook and assignments. If you are writing self-help/memoir, use the nonfiction workbook and assignments. Prefer paper? Tape the assignment into your journal and make a nice big heading so you know: This is Step 9. The Outline Checklist)LINKSYou are a Badass, Jen SinceroThink Like a Monk, Jay ShettyBomb Shelter, Mary Laura PhilpottBlueprint for a Book (Fiction and Memoir)Blueprint for a Nonfiction BookTODAY’S COACHESJen Braaksma is a writer, teacher and book coach in Ottawa, Canada. Her next YA fantasy, Evangeline’s Heaven, is coming August 2022. She has the word “passion” tattooed on her wrist—literally—and she’s passionate about helping writers put their best work on the page. Find out more HERE.For more from KJ, subscribe to her newsletter: Read. Eat. Listen. Or grab one of her novels, In Her Boots and The Chicken Sisters, wherever books are sold. Wondering about KJ as a book coach? Her current offerings are HERE. For more from Jennie, subscribe to her weekly newsletter. Or grab one of her Blueprint books, wherever books are sold. You can learn about getting matched with an Author Accelerator book coach or becoming a book coach at authoraccelerator.comHave you been inspired by the Author Accelerator Book Coaches during this summer podcast takeover? Book coaching is a fantastic thing to do as a side gig to support your writing or as a whole new career. Author Accelerator trains and certifies book coaches and supports them as they help writers bring their books to life. You can learn all about book coaching at bookcoaches.com/abc. We’d love to have you join our community.

Writing is, sadly, not like reading.Plenty of writers, including all of us on this episode, write a few hundred thousand words before we figure that out. Because in some ways, writing words about characters you’ve invented is easy. They go for coffee! They banter! And writing words about your non-fiction topic of choice, or the hike you took in the Sierra Nevadas—same same.It’s writing the right words, in the right order, that’s the challenge.DAMN IT.In this episode, we introduce our favorite not-an-outline-if-you-hate-outlining but yeah ok let’s talk about that tool: the Inside Outline for fiction and the Outcome Outline for nonfiction. Long detailed outlines not for you? You’re golden—this demands the fewest possible words describing every scene or event that drives the reader through the book (Hello, Step 7, how we missed you). Love a long detailed outline? Get ready to boil that down to its essence before you build it back up. Here’s the thing: this is supposed to be hard. It should feel impossible. Because you can’t write everything. You have to choose.This is the eighth episode in the 10-part Blueprint for a Book Series. Start with Step 1, do the work (we’ll give you an assignment every week), and in 10 weeks, you’ll have a solid foundation for a first draft or revision of your project that will help you push through to “the end”. Find details on the challenge HERE.YOUR ASSIGNMENTFiction and Narrative Memoir:Download the Inside Outline worksheet HERE and create your Inside Outline. Don’t cheat! Following the rules is what makes this powerful.Nonfiction and Memoir/Self-HelpDownload the Outcome Outline worksheet HERE and create your Outcome Outline. There are fewer rules for the Outcome Outline, but you have to be crystal clear about your logic. (Note: We suggest you download a Blueprint answer workbook to keep track of your 10 assignments. That will make it easier to revise, review and come back to your work. Click to grab yours for fiction or nonfiction. If you are writing narrative memoir (a story), use the fiction workbook and assignments. If you are writing self-help/memoir, use the nonfiction workbook and assignments. Prefer paper? Tape the assignment into your journal and make a nice big heading so you know: This is Step 8. The Inside Outline or the Outcome Outline.)LINKSRachael Herron’s How Do You Write Ep 301 with Isabel CañasBittersweet, Susan CainWe Need to Talk: A Memoir About Wealth, Jennifer RisherThe Artist’s Way, Julia CameronThe Five Love Languages, Gary ChapmanBlueprint for a Book (Fiction and Memoir)Blueprint for a Nonfiction BookTODAY’S COACHESA fan of true crime (#ssdgm) and mysteries of all kinds, Samantha Skal’s book coaching motto is “it’s time to get out of hell and finish your book”. Her magic gift is decoding agent rejections and helping writers produce and present their very best work. Find out more HERE. For more from KJ, subscribe to her newsletter: Read. Eat. Listen. Or grab one of her novels, In Her Boots and The Chicken Sisters, wherever books are sold. Wondering about KJ as a book coach? Her current offerings are HERE. For more from Jennie, subscribe to her weekly newsletter. Or grab one of her Blueprint books, wherever books are sold. You can learn about getting matched with an Author Accelerator book coach or becoming a book coach at authoraccelerator.com.This summer is all about starting a project, but if you already have a novel or memoir manuscript and you’re ready to go ALL IN, you’re going to want to do Author Accelerator’s Manuscript Incubator. Registration is open for the intensive, 7-month coaching opportunity that offers one-on-one support and guidance for novelists and memoirists planning to have a submission-ready project by early 2023—and includes the opportunity to have that project reviewed by a group of agents and editors when it’s ready. For more information, head to authoraccelerator.com/manuscript-incubator.

People don’t behave logically, but they are illogical in logical ways. What makes you want to turn the page? You know how it is with some books—you just can’t put them down. Fiction, sure, thrillers, mysteries, but that’s not all. Non-fiction books can be page-turners too, even when they don’t seen to have a story. What makes The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up work even for people who never actually tidy up? The page-turning, reader-driving illusion that somehow they will. The Five Love Languages? The drive to figure out—which one am I, and which one are you? Narrative drive is a key element of success in everything from romance (sure, you know the ending, but how are they going to get together?) to memoir to, yes, successful how-to. Your reader should be constantly asking, and then what happened, which means you should be, too. And everything has to contribute to that drive, whether it’s a plot development or an emotional twist. That’s how you pull the reader through each and every chapter. This is the seventh episode in the 10-part Blueprint for a Book Series. Start with Step 1, do the work (we’ll give you an assignment every week), and in 10 weeks, you’ll have a solid foundation for a first draft or revision of your project that will help you push through to “the end”. Find details on the challenge HERE. YOUR ASSIGNMENT Fiction and Narrative Memoir: Create a “Because of That” story summary. The Pixar rubric is in your workbook. Nonfiction and Self-Help/Memoir: Draft a table of contents. If you already did that in the last step, refine it. Tables of contents can hold the code for your entire book, so don’t just toss it off! Write two or three sentences to describe each chapter. (Note: We suggest you download a Blueprint answer workbook to keep track of your 10 assignments. That will make it easier to revise, review and come back to your work. Click to grab yours for fiction or nonfiction. If you are writing narrative memoir (a story), use the fiction workbook and assignments. If you are writing self-help/memoir, use the nonfiction workbook and assignments. Prefer paper? Tape the assignment into your journal and make a nice big heading so you know: This is Step 7. This is the page (or pages) with my Because of That Story Summary.) LINKS The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise, Dan Gemeinhart The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman The Other Black Girl, Zakiya Dalila Harris Blueprint for a Book (Fiction and Memoir) Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book TODAY’S COACHES Sara Gentry is a Math Ph.D. turned writer, book lover, and book coach. As an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach, Sara has been trained to help writers craft the story they’ve been wanting to tell. Thanks to her mathematical background, her book coaching strengths include planning project management, analyzing a story’s cohesiveness, and evaluating where a book might fit in the current marketplace. She works with writers across genres and age groups. She has a soft spot for KidLit and humorous adult fiction. Find more at easierwithacoach.com. For more from KJ, subscribe to her newsletter: Read. Eat. Listen. Or grab one of her novels, In Her Boots and The Chicken Sisters, wherever books are sold. Wondering about KJ as a book coach? Her current offerings are HERE. For more from Jennie, subscribe to her weekly newsletter. Or grab one of her Blueprint books, wherever books are sold. You can learn about getting matched with an Author Accelerator book coach or becoming a book coach at authoraccelerator.com This summer is all about starting a project, but if you already have a novel or memoir manuscript and you’re ready to go ALL IN, you’re going to want to do Author Accelerator’s Manuscript Incubator. Registration is open for the intensive, 7-month coaching opportunity that offers one-on-one support and guidance for novelists and memoirists planning to have a submission-ready project by early 2023—and includes the opportunity to have that project reviewed by a group of agents and editors when it’s ready. For more information, head to authoraccelerator.com/manuscript-incubator.

The structure of a book is only inevitable in hindsight. Non-writers don’t usually notice structure unless it leaps out at them—reverse chronology, say, or an epistolary narrative. But structural choices loom huge for non-fiction writers and are no less important for memoir and fiction (although straight chronological is the white-shirt-and-blue-jeans of structure—relatable, easy to execute and nearly always appropriate). Will there be alternating timelines or POVs? A prologue? Who’s telling this story, and why, and how? When does it start and when does it end?If you’ve done the exercises up until now, you know why you’re writing and who you’re writing for. You’ve thought about the market–where your readers are and what they want. You’ve drafted some back of the book copy in the hopes of reaching those readers–and to remind yourself of the promise you’re making to them. And you’ve thought about the change that propels readers through a book, which is a sneaky way into thinking about theme. This is where we get ready to start the actual writing of your story.This is the sixth episode in the 10-part Blueprint for a Book Series. Start with Step 1, do the work (we’ll give you an assignment every week), and in 10 weeks, you’ll have a solid foundation for a first draft or revision of your project that will help you push through to “the end”. Find details on the challenge HERE.YOUR ASSIGNMENTAnswer the following questions:For fiction and narrative memoir: Where is the narrator standing in time? What period of time does the book cover? Where does the book start and end? Does the reader know things the protagonist does not, and if so, how? (This is a good chance to check to make sure that your POV serves your story.) For nonfiction and memoir/self-help: Choose a structural prototype from this worksheet. Download HERE Answer the questions for that prototype. (Note: We suggest you download a Blueprint answer workbook to keep track of your 10 assignments. That will make it easier to revise, review and come back to your work. Click to grab yours for fiction or nonfiction. If you are writing narrative memoir (a story), use the fiction workbook and assignments. If you are writing self-help/memoir, use the nonfiction workbook and assignments. Prefer paper? Tape the assignment into your journal and make a nice big heading so you know: This is Step 6. This is the page (or pages) on structure.)LINKSWild, Cheryl StrayedThe Great Believers, Rebecca MakkaiIn the Dream House, Carmen Maria MachadoThe Part that Burns, Jeannine OuelletteThe Art of the Book Proposal, Eric MaiselEat Pray Love, Elizabeth GilbertThe Artist’s Way, Julia CameronCooked, Michael PollanTribe of Mentors, Timothy FerrissMaybe You Should Talk to Someone, Lori GottliebMoms Don’t Have Time To , Zibby OwensA Three Dog Life, Abigail ThomasBird By Bird, Anne LamottQuiet, Susan CainThe People We Meet on Vacation, Emily HenryBlueprint for a Book (Fiction and Memoir)Blueprint for a Nonfiction BookTODAY’S COACHESSuzette Mullen is an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach who helps nonfiction writers write books that bring light and hope to the world. Suzette has a particular interest in building community for LGBTQ+ memoir writers. You can find out more about Suzette, her writing, and her book coaching services at yourstoryfinder.com.For more from KJ, subscribe to her newsletter: Read. Eat. Listen. Or grab one of her novels, In Her Boots and The Chicken Sisters, wherever books are sold. Wondering about KJ as a book coach? Her current offerings are HERE. For more from Jennie, subscribe to her weekly newsletter. Or grab one of her Blueprint books, wherever books are sold. You can learn about getting matched with an Author Accelerator book coach or becoming a book coach at authoraccelerator.comThis summer is all about starting a project, but if you already have a novel or memoir manuscript and you’re ready to go ALL IN, you’re going to want to do Author Accelerator’s Manuscript Incubator. Registration is open for the intensive, 7-month coaching opportunity that offers one-on-one support and guidance for novelists and memoirists planning to have a submission-ready project by early 2023—and includes the opportunity to have that project reviewed by a group of agents and editors when it’s ready. For more information, head to authoraccelerator.com/manuscript-incubator.

I want to believe I can change. Show me how. The “arc of change” is famous in fiction, and it’s much the same in memoir–but there’s a change and shift in non-fiction too. Change is what pulls the reader from the beginning to the end of every narrative book. Without the promise of change, your reader feels like they’re going nowhere, and they won’t come along for your ride. In fiction and memoir, the change comes to the protagonist (and offers the reader the promise that they, too, are capable of change. In non-fiction, change may come to the narrator, to a real-life figure, or be offered to the reader, but it has to be there. It isn’t enough that the advice is sound or that a story is true. We still need to feel that journey from one way of being to another. This is the fifth episode in the 10-part Blueprint for a Book Series. Start with Step 1, do the work (we’ll give you an assignment every week), and in 10 weeks, you’ll have a solid foundation for a first draft or revision of your project that will help you push through to “the end”. Find details on the challenge HERE. YOUR ASSIGNMENT Write out the answers to the following questions: Fiction and narrative memoir: Answer the following questions: Who is your protagonist? (If you’re writing memoir, it’s you.) What do they want at the start of the story? What is their arc of change – their transformation journey? What do they know or believe or understand at the end of the story that they didn’t at the start? How are they different? What stands in the way of the protagonist getting what they want, externally and internally? Are they telling the tale? Will there be other POV characters? Nonfiction and Self-Help/Memoir: Define the arc of change – the transformation journey – for your reader. What do they know or believe or understand when they pick up your book? Be specific. What do they know or believe or understand when they finish your book that they didn’t at the start? Be specific. (Note: We suggest you download a Blueprint answer workbook to keep track of your 10 assignments. That will make it easier to revise, review and come back to your work. Click to grab yours for fiction or nonfiction. If you are writing narrative memoir (a story), use the fiction workbook and assignments. If you are writing self-help/memoir, use the nonfiction workbook and assignments. Prefer paper? Tape the assignment into your journal and make a nice big heading so you know: This is Step 5: CHANGE.) LINKS The Story Grid Story Genius, Lisa Cron The terrible cat/rich dude movie: Nine Lives Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman How to Stop Time, Matt Haig Boyfriend, Sarina Bowen The Premonition, Michael Lewis Blueprint for a Book (Fiction and Memoir) Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book TODAY’S COACHES Savannah Gilbo is a certified developmental editor and book coach who helps fiction authors write, edit, and publish stories that work. She loves working on commercial fiction for all age ranges, but her favorite genres include fantasy, science fiction, and romance. Savannah became a certified Author Accelerator in 2019 and has been helping writers (full time) ever since! Find more at savannahgilbo.com. For more from KJ, subscribe to her newsletter: Read. Eat. Listen. Or grab one of her novels, In Her Boots and The Chicken Sisters, wherever books are sold. Wondering about KJ as a book coach? Her current offerings are HERE. For more from Jennie, subscribe to her weekly newsletter. Or grab one of her Blueprint books, wherever books are sold. You can learn about getting matched with an Author Accelerator book coach or becoming a book coach at authoraccelerator.com. This summer is all about starting a project, but if you already have a novel or memoir manuscript and you’re ready to go ALL IN, you’re going to want to do Author Accelerator’s Manuscript Incubator. Registration is open for the intensive, 7-month coaching opportunity that offers one-on-one support and guidance for novelists and memoirists planning to have a submission-ready project by early 2023—and includes the opportunity to have that project reviewed by a group of agents and editors when it’s ready. For more information, head to authoraccelerator.com/manuscript-incubator.

How do we make our ideal reader say Oh—THIS is the book for me?In our first two episodes, we dug down into why we write and how to share that why with the reader. In the last episode, we hung a quick right and got really practical about that reader and how to reach her–in other words, we talked about the market and why it’s important to understand where your book will sit on the shelf if you want the right readers to find it.In this episode, we’re going to talk about what happens when one of those potential readers picks your book up off that shelf–and turns it over. That means we’re talking jacket copy! You might have heard writing advice that basically says, quit daydreaming about what your cover will look like before you’ve written your book–but we’re not talking about the cover art. Jacket copy is important and drafting it now will help you find your story. It’s the promise you make to the reader–so the sooner you write it, the harder you can focus on keeping it–or changing it. Plus, it’s useful in a whole lot of ways.Like your point, your jacket copy is probably something you will come back to again and again as you write your book—but every time, it will help you hone your mission and clarify why you’re still sitting in that chair, typing away.This is the fourth episode in the 10-part Blueprint for a Book Series. Start with Step 1, do the work (we’ll give you an assignment every week), and in 10 weeks, you’ll have a solid foundation for a first draft or revision of your project that will help you push through to “the end”. For the details on the challenge, and to sign up for weekly encouragement, bonuses and the chance to win a blueprint critique, head to authoraccelerator.com/amwritingblueprintchallenge. YOUR ASSIGNMENTWrite jacket copy for the book you want to write. Study the jacket copy of the comp titles you found in Step 3 to get a feel for how it should sound. Make it no more than 250 words.(Note: We suggest you download a Blueprint answer workbook to keep track of your 10 assignments. That will make it easier to revise, review and come back to your work. Click to grab yours for fiction or nonfiction. If you are writing narrative memoir (a story), use the fiction workbook and assignments. If you are writing self-help/memoir, use the nonfiction workbook and assignments. Prefer paper? Tape the assignment into your journal and make a nice big heading so you know: This is Step 4. This is Jacket Copy.) LINKS The Bohemians, Jasmin Darznik Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert We Need to Talk: A Memoir About Wealth, Jennifer Risher Making Numbers Count, Karla Starr & Chip Heath Made to Stick, Chip Heath & Dan Heath Miss Independent, Nicole Lapin The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Podcast Blueprint for a Book (Fiction and Memoir) Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book TODAY’S COACHESMichelle Cox loves helping women in midlife and people in recovery tell their truths through fiction and nonfiction. She’s an Author Accelerator certified book coach, having undergone the rigorous training needed to become certified in fiction and nonfiction. She’s also the creator of Addicts to Authors “You Should Write a Book: Let’s Find Your Story©” program and the Fearless Midlife Writers Book-coaching© program. She has nearly three decades of experience as a professional writer, editor, journalist and writing coach. You can find her at bookcoachingworks.com.For more from KJ, subscribe to her newsletter: Read. Eat. Listen. Or grab one of her novels, In Her Boots and The Chicken Sisters, wherever books are sold. Wondering about KJ as a book coach? Her current offerings are HERE. For more from Jennie, subscribe to her weekly newsletter. Or grab one of her Blueprint books, wherever books are sold. You can learn about getting matched with an Author Accelerator book coach or becoming a book coach at authoraccelerator.com This summer is all about starting a project, but if you already have a novel or memoir manuscript and you’re ready to go ALL IN, you’re going to want to do Author Accelerator’s Manuscript Incubator. Registration is open for the intensive, 7-month coaching opportunity that offers one-on-one support and guidance for novelists and memoirists planning to have a submission-ready project by early 2023—and includes the opportunity to have that project reviewed by a group of agents and editors when it’s ready. For more information, head to authoraccelerator.com/manuscript-incubator.

In the first two Blueprint steps, we went high level, talking about your why and your point, and why those are key things to consider in writing the book you want to write–that will reach the readers you want to reach. In this episode, we get practical. Because while you need a why and a point to reach readers, you also need to know something about those readers–where they hang, what they’re looking for, and how you can become a part of it. In other words, it’s time to talk about the market. This is the third episode in the 10-part Blueprint for a Book Series. Start with Step 1, do the work (we’ll give you an assignment every week), and in 10 weeks, you’ll have a solid foundation for a first draft or revision of your project that will help you push through to “the end”. For the details on the challenge, and to sign up for weekly encouragement, bonuses and the chance to win a blueprint critique, head to authoraccelerator.com/amwritingblueprintchallenge. YOUR ASSIGNMENT There are several things to do this week, most of which involve some time hanging around a bookstore. You’re welcome! Find a working title for your book. Name your genre (fiction) or category (for memoir or nonfiction.) Find at least two comp titles that help put your book into context. Write one paragraph on your ideal reader – not just about the demographics that define them, but about what they feel/need. (Note: We suggest you download a Blueprint answer workbook to keep track of your 10 assignments. That will make it easier to revise, review and come back to your work. Click to grab yours for fiction or nonfiction. If you are writing narrative memoir (a story), use the fiction workbook and assignments. If you are writing self-help/memoir, use the nonfiction workbook and assignments. Prefer paper? Tape the assignment into your journal and make a nice big heading so you know: This is Step 3. This is the page (or pages) about my readers.) LINKS Seressia Glass Episode, How to Love Writing What You Can Sell Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Francis Weller Episode on books on nonfiction proposals The Art of the Book Proposal, Eric Maisel Florida Woman, Deb Rogers Think Like a Monk, Jay Shetty Blueprint for a Book (Fiction and Memoir) Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book TODAY’S COACHES Rona Gofstein is an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach. She specializes in helping writers of genre fiction who have never given up their dream of being an author develop, write, and revise their novels. She writes contemporary romance and will be launching a new series and pen name later this year. She desperately needs her morning coffee, thinks reservations are the best thing to make for dinner, and believes that one day she will find the magic planner that will keep her perfectly organized. Find out more about Rona HERE. For more from KJ, subscribe to her newsletter: Read. Eat. Listen. Or grab one of her novels, In Her Boots and The Chicken Sisters, wherever books are sold. Wondering about KJ as a book coach? Her current offerings are HERE. For more from Jennie, subscribe to her weekly newsletter. Or grab one of her Blueprint books, wherever books are sold. You can learn about getting matched with an Author Accelerator book coach or becoming a book coach at authoraccelerator.com This summer is all about starting a project, but if you already have a novel or memoir manuscript and you’re ready to go ALL IN, you’re going to want to do Author Accelerator’s Manuscript Incubator. Registration is open for the intensive, 7-month coaching opportunity that offers one-on-one support and guidance for novelists and memoirists planning to have a submission-ready project by early 2023—and includes the opportunity to have that project reviewed by a group of agents and editors when it’s ready. For more information, head to authoraccelerator.com/manuscript-incubator.

I’m writing this book because I want people to read it. Step 2 in the Blueprint for a book challenge only sounds easy. In Step 1, we talked about your why. For Step 2, we invite you to find your point – which is what you want your reader to feel or know or do when they are done. It’s not the same thing! If you want to get all AP English on this, we’re talking about the theme. Or from the non-fiction perspective, maybe you want to consider this your thesis—but they really come down to the same thing. Every book is, at heart, an argument for something – for a belief, a way of life, a vision of the future, a way to solve a problem, a way to make a friend, a way to lose your soul. Finding your argument (and this is something you will probably revisit, hone and clarify along the way) will help you find your book. This is the second episode in the 10-part Blueprint for a Book Series. Start with Step 1, do the work (we’ll give you an assignment every week), and in 10 weeks, you’ll have a solid foundation for a first draft or revision of your project that will help you push through to “the end”. For the details on the challenge, and to sign up for weekly encouragement, bonuses and the chance to win a blueprint critique, head to authoraccelerator.com/amwritingblueprintchallenge. YOUR ASSIGNMENT Name your point. It may sound like a billboard or a bumper sticker and that’s okay. That’s what you want for this step. This is an easy assignment so use the opportunity to revisit your why from Step 1, and to revise your point as many times as you need to until it feels just right. Next week you’ll have more to do. (Note: We suggest you download a Blueprint answer workbook to keep track of your 10 assignments. That will make it easier to revise, review and come back to your work. Click to grab yours for fiction or nonfiction. If you are writing narrative memoir (a story), use the fiction workbook and assignments. If you are writing self-help/memoir, use the nonfiction workbook and assignments. Prefer paper? Tape the assignment into your journal and make a nice big heading so you know: This is Step 2. This is the page (or pages) with my point. ) LINKS The Enneagram Jessica Lahey, The Addiction Inoculation Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet Jasmine Guillory’s new Beauty and the Beast, By The Book Kerry Savage book coach Blueprint for a Book (Fiction and Memoir) Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book TODAY’S COACHES Dani Abernathy is an author and Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach who helps novelists write the stories they need to tell. Specializing in fantasy, soft sci-fi, and YA, Dani merges how story works with how people work, creating books that give readers the opportunity to have more empathy for themselves and others. She is a Capricorn, INFJ, and Enneagram 4 who believes that honest stories can change the world. Find more about Dani HERE. For more from KJ, subscribe to her newsletter: Read. Eat. Listen. Or grab one of her novels, In Her Boots and The Chicken Sisters, wherever books are sold. Wondering about KJ as a book coach? Her current offerings are HERE. For more from Jennie, subscribe to her weekly newsletter. Or grab one of her Blueprint books, wherever books are sold. You can learn about getting matched with an Author Accelerator book coach or becoming a book coach at authoraccelerator.com. This summer is all about starting a project, but if you already have a novel or memoir manuscript and you’re ready to go ALL IN, you’re going to want to do Author Accelerator’s Manuscript Incubator. Registration is open for the intensive, 7-month coaching opportunity that offers one-on-one support and guidance for novelists and memoirists planning to have a submission-ready project by early 2023—and includes the opportunity to have that project reviewed by a group of agents and editors when it’s ready. For more information, head to authoraccelerator.com/manuscript-incubator.

We sit down to write because we have something to say. It’s beginning! This Episode marks the beginning of the 10-part Blueprint for a Book Series. Start here, do the work (we’ll give you an assignment every week)—and in 10 weeks, you’ll have a solid foundation for a first draft or revision of your project that will help you push through to “the end”. For the details on the challenge, and to sign up for weekly encouragement, bonuses, and the chance to win a blueprint critique, head to authoraccelerator.com/amwritingblueprintchallenge. Start with why. That’s the title of one of Jennie Nash’s favorite books and TED talks: Simon Sinek’s Start with Why, and it’s what a good book coach will always bring you back to if you get ahead of yourself. Why are you writing this? Fiction, memoir, non-fiction: we always have a reason. There is something we want to say, and someone we want to hear it. Knowing what that is gives your writing power. Readers feel it when something raw and real lies underneath your words, whether those words are about an intergalactic dinosaur battle or improving your chess game. LINKS Bookriot Leaf Your Troubles Behind: How to Destress and Grow Happiness Through Plants, Karen Hugg Know My Name, Chanel Miller Bomb Shelter, Mary Laura Philpott Nanette Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation, Hannah Gadsby Jenny Lawson Mae Respicio Glennon Doyle Brené Brown Blueprint for a Book (Fiction and Memoir) Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book YOUR ASSIGNMENT Write one page on why you want to write this book. Consider external motivators such as money and the admiration of colleagues, and internal motivators such as anger, jealousy, or wanting to prove to yourself (or someone else) that you can really do this. Be honest with yourself: knowing your why can fuel your fire to keep writing, especially when the going gets tough (and it will get tough!) (Note: We suggest you download a Blueprint answer workbook to keep track of your 10 assignments. That will make it easier to revise, review and come back to your work. Go HERE to select fiction or nonfiction. If you are writing narrative memoir (a story), use the fiction workbook and assignments. If you are writing self-help/memoir, use the nonfiction workbook and assignments. Prefer paper? Tape the assignment into your journal and make a nice big heading so you know: This is Step 1. This is the page (or pages) with my why. ) TODAY’S COACHES For more from KJ, subscribe to her newsletter: Read. Eat. Listen. Or grab one of her novels, In Her Boots and The Chicken Sisters, wherever books are sold. Wondering about KJ as a book coach? Her current offerings are HERE. For more from Jennie, subscribe to her weekly newsletter. Or grab one of her Blueprint books, wherever books are sold. You can learn about getting matched with an Author Accelerator book coach or becoming a book coach at authoraccelerator.com. Our summer project is all about starting a book, but if you have a memoir or novel draft that you’re in the process of revising, Author Accelerator has a free treat for you—Ready Set Revise, a three-hour workshop that will help you evaluate your manuscript, figure out where you are in the process, and hopefully make it all less painful. Friday, July 8, noon – 3 pm PT / 3 – 6 pm ET They’ll explain how best to think about revision, talk about the things writers most often get wrong, and put you into a small group with a coach who coaches the kind of books you write. It’s a great chance to get yourself in the right headspace to do this right. For details and to sign up, head to authoraccelerator.com/manuscript-incubator.

It’s the things-that-aren’t in the episode edition of your weekly #AmWriting email! First off, about 60 seconds in, I mention (this is KJ, it’s nearly always KJ) a podcast I like. But then I flake off to look up the name… and forget to ever mention it again. It’s the Crappy Friends Podcast with Kristan Higgins and Joss Dey. And it’s FICTION GOLD. Every week, a couple of people write in with stories of awful friends and angsty dilemmas and towns that are too-small-for-the-both-of-us and there is a novel in every question and a whole lot of shadenfreudy entertainment in the answers provided by best friends Kristan and Joss. It’s a fun, I’m just here for the hang situation. Want more? Sarina just texted me that she forgot to tell y’all her BIGGEST achievement so far this year: she writes first thing. I’m going to take credit for this one. I’m a big fan of eat-the-frog first (I exercise first thing, then write, for the same reasons) although I can’t remember what I said that finally got her to actually do it, but she just gave herself a big, justified pat-on-the-back for this one. “I have felt as though I had lots of free time this month because I didn’t spend half the day in avoidance.” That’s a gift you can give yourself too! Overall note from the episode? There are lots of reasons to check in on your goals. To cheer. To re-assess and decide—do I even want this? If I do, what do I need to go to get there? To wonder—really? Why? Maybe I don’t need to organize that drawer. Maybe I need to throw its contents away. To remind ourselves of what we’ve done, and what we still hope to do. It’s all even more meaningful that we all figured out the universal truth that landed in March 2020: we don’t even really control the goals we think we can control. But if life gives us a chance to make a choice to do a thing… better grab it! So… how go your goals so far this year? In honor of this episode, we’ve started our first thread discussion. If you’re on our email list, you’ll get an invite shortly after the episode airs. Otherwise, head to amwritingpodcast.com and look for the thread to tell us—is 2022 half-over, or half-to-go? What will you do with the rest of your year, and what have you done so far? Links from the Pod Gen the bookworm on Instagram #AmReading Sarina: The Mutual Friend by Carter Bays—Sarina shouts out the omniscient narrator, and KJ notes the head-hopping omniscience in The Arc. Jess: Mr. Nobody, Catherine Steadman KJ: The Murder of Mr. Wickham, Claudia Gray BETTER SIGN UP SOON!! It’s the #AmWriting Blueprint for a Book Challenge! 10 episodes, 10 guests, 10 weeks to you being ready to write your best novel, memoir or non-fiction book this fall. There will be homework. There will be deadlines. Complete all 10 weeks, and you could win a critique of that Blueprint from KJ or Jennie Nash—but you’ll already be a winner, because you’ll have a plan that will put you way ahead of the game. Play for free—or reserve an Author Accelerator critique for your finished product to hold your feet to the fire and make sure you do the work and get bonus episodes and write-alongs. Want details? Ready to sign up? CLICK HERE. And quickly. Sign-ups end July 8. PS: Along those lines, Author Accelerator has opened registration for the 2022 Manuscript Incubator, an intensive, 7 month coaching opportunity that offers one-one-one support and guidance for novelists and memoirists planning to have a submission-ready project by early 2023—and includes the opportunity to have that project reviewed by a group of agents and editors when it’s ready. For more information, head to authoraccelerator.com/manuscript-incubator.

This episode is for you if: you’re starting, re-starting or sparking a freelance career with a focus on something you’re passionate about OR you’ve ever thought the heck with this, I’m striking out on my own. Sometimes the best way to find a publication that reaches the readers you want is to start one. That might mean starting a Substack or a podcast—hello out there, Burnt Toast, one of the best examples I can think of of doing exactly that.* Or it might mean doing something both a little bigger and a little more old school. When Valerie Kathawala decided to write about her passion, wine, she had to start from scratch—as in, she took a job at a local wine store. She stocked shelves, studied labels and wrote the in-house wine magazine, which led to bylines at other small publications and built up from there. For her it was wine, but I was so excited to talk about how to build up a freelance career now, as opposed to 20 years ago. (I think y’all know us well enough by now to know this is not an episode about wine.) But Valerie wanted more. So she and a partner started TRINK, “the first and only English-language digital publication dedicated to the "German-speaking wines" of Austria, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland.” They commission articles, pay writers and publish (digitally) in “volumes”. Are they making bank? Sadly, not yet, but they are self-supporting and growing fast. Volume 12 is coming soon. Whole story is in the podcast, and sorry-not-sorry if it inspires you to start something of your own. #AmReading Valerie: After Nature, W. G. Sebald KJ: Bittersweet, Susan Cain TrinkMag Follow Valerie on Instagram @Valkatnyc HEY LOOKY LOOKY: Starting July 1, it’s the #AmWriting Blueprint for a Book Challenge! I am so excited about this. 10 episodes, 10 guests, 10 weeks to you being ready to write your best novel, memoir or non-fiction book this fall. There will be homework. There will be deadlines. Complete all 10 weeks, and you could win a critique of that Blueprint from KJ or Jennie Nash—but you’ll already be a winner, because you’ll have a plan that will put you way ahead of the game. Play for free—or reserve an Author Accelerator critique for your finished product to hold your feet to the fire and make sure you do the work and get bonus episodes and write-alongs. Want details? Ready to sign up? CLICK HERE. PS: Along those lines, Author Accelerator has opened registration for the 2022 Manuscript Incubator, an intensive, 7 month coaching opportunity that offers one-one-one support and guidance for novelists and memoirists planning to have a submission-ready project by early 2023—and includes the opportunity to have that project reviewed by a group of agents and editors when it’s ready. For more information, head to authoraccelerator.com/manuscript-incubator. *Virginia Sole Smith on bodies, fatphobia and diet culture, a topic that’s very hard to cover in traditional journalism because the pubs that reach the people who are interested sell advertising to the culprits—take a look, bet you learn something.

It’s hard to start. It’s hard to finish. It’s hard to choose. Sometimes writers (especially those who have had to step back from a professional journalism job for family or other reasons) have all the ideas and in some sense, all the time to execute them, and the result isn’t wild productivity, but a frustrating spinning of wheels—because if everything is possible, how do you choose? What if you choose wrong? Everything looks like a shiny opportunity, but when you write the first few sentences, it turns out the shiny thing was just a gum wrapper.It blows, and it can go on for a long time (and even forever)—because when you’re used to externally imposed topic and deadlines, it’s hard to shift into creating your own—and putting in the time you need to finish them and turn them into something real. KJ talks to former CBC national reporter and occasional freelancer Alison Myers about harnessing your strengths and the way you work best to get things done instead of starting and stopping a million things. Here’s what Alison said in her email: Hello from Canada, the country that used to be known for being polite and apologetic but more recently seems to be inspiring people around the world to be horn-honking jerks. You have no idea how relieved I was to hear you both talk about writing for an audience on a recent show. I used to be a big deal radio reporter before I had kids so I’m used to writing and performing for the sake of other people (i.e., feedback). I always stacked it up to what must be the raging dissatisfaction of my massive ego, that evil thing I'm supposed to suppress. As cliché as this sounds, you guys made me feel like less of an asshole for wanting people to read my words. I have ideas coming out the wazoo and can write well when I commit to it. My problem is it has no purpose (read: audience). I have 52 untitled documents open with half-written essays that I haven't finished because I don’t know where this is all going. They’re like a million bowls of soggy cereal waiting for someone to pour them down the train. There’s no structure, no roadmap and, most importantly, no one on the other end waiting to receive. Alison agreed to come on and talk through her version of Shiny Thing Syndrome (which manifests differently than the one Jennie Nash and I talk about here). There’s a LOT of useful stuff here about getting your writing habit started or restarted and how to get to where we all want to be—you know, butt in chair, head in game. Links from the pod Becca Syme episode, her website, Clifton Strengths Gretchen Rubin episode Laura VanderkamJess and I on the “not today, muse” episodeHugo Lindgrin, Be Wrong as Fast as You Can KJ on being on time George Saunders’ Substack Writers and Lovers, Lily King The Menopause Manifesto, Dr Jen Gunter (read about her take on Goop here.) @allmyinklings on IG COMING JULY 1: It’s the #AmWriting Blueprint for a Book Challenge! 10 episodes, 10 guests, 10 weeks to you being ready to write your best novel, memoir or non-fiction book this fall. There will be homework. There will be deadlines. Complete all 10 weeks, and you could win a critique of that Blueprint from KJ or Jennie Nash—but you’ll already be a winner, because you’ll have a plan that will put you way ahead of the game. Play for free—or reserve an Author Accelerator critique for your finished product to hold your feet to the fire and make sure you do the work and get bonus episodes and write-alongs. Want details? Ready to sign up? CLICK HERE.PS: Along those lines, Author Accelerator has opened registration for the 2022 Manuscript Incubator, an intensive, 7 month coaching opportunity that offers one-one-one support and guidance for novelists and memoirists planning to have a submission-ready project by early 2023—and includes the opportunity to have that project reviewed by a group of agents and editors when it’s ready. For more information, head to authoraccelerator.com/manuscript-incubator.

Oh yeah we’ve been there. Heck, we are there. Pigeonholed. Safe in our little bunker. Maybe just a tiny bit typecast. Jumping genres can be exciting, scary, nerve-wracking. But it can be done.Everybody gravitates to one genre or another when we get started. Maybe nonfiction feels a little less threatening—or maybe it feels too hard and fiction is your starting place of choice. Maybe you’ve been writing rom-coms but are sure you have a thriller in you, or the other way around. Are you giving up everything you’ve learned, or everything you’ve gained if you’re published?That would be no and maybe kinda but not necessarily in a bad way, in that order. This week we’re tackling the question of genre-hopping, in part because Sarina’s going thriller, KJ’s tackling magical realism and Jess is drafting fiction, and in part because listener and thriller writer Aggie Thompson sent us this plaintive missive: I am a thriller writer, published by Forge/Macmillan, and my debut -- I DON’T FORGIVE YOU -- came out summer 2021. My second book is coming out this July – ALL THE DIRTY SECRETS – and I am currently waiting to hear back from my editor regarding my proposal for my the third book. Which means I refresh my email more than a couple of times a day. And I am at my wits end as to what to do with myself. I don’t want to work on book no. 3 in case the answer is no, or even a yes – but needs lots of work. So start something new, right? But what I am yearning to write is waaaaayy off genre. Something light and funny where no one gets killed. Maybe it’s coming out of the pandemic, or just some personal stuff I have dealt with over the past two years, but I long to write some comfort fiction. My question – when is it “safe” to veer out of your genre? And if it is never safe, when is it wise? I’m not getting any younger! I feel like I have so many other books in me. But it took so long to get to where I am, I don’t want to blow the momentum I have started building up as a D.C.-domestic thriller writer either. Anyway, any wisdom or insight would be greatly appreciated.We talked why, when and how to play the genre-hopping game. We referenced our Seressia Glass episode (because it’s always ok to consider the market). And then we admitted that sometimes, it’s better to have a little piece on the side but mostly stick with your main squeeze. (This outdated reference, with its totally terrible relationship advice, brought to you by the voices in KJ’s head, who are apparently speaking from a bad noir film from the forties.)In reading, Sarina also veered wildly off genre with Tell Me Everything (which makes total sense when you think about it). KJ caused herself to question all her writing skills with the brilliantly interior literary page-turner Kaleidoscope.And Jess soothed her soul with the new Christina Lauren: Something Wilder.Sarina’s butt is way out of the chair this week as she travels with her oldest kid. KJ’s is locked in place wrestling with revision—and Jess is gardening and thinking, gardening and thinking. There are lots of ways to keep your head in the game!COMING JULY 1: It’s the #AmWriting Blueprint for a Book Challenge! 10 episodes, 10 guests, 10 weeks to you being ready to write your best novel, memoir or non-fiction book this fall. There will be homework. There will be deadlines. Complete all 10 weeks, and you could win a critique of that Blueprint from KJ or Jennie Nash—but you’ll already be a winner, because you’ll have a plan that will put you way ahead of the game. Play for free—or reserve an Author Accelerator critique for your finished product to hold your feet to the fire and make sure you do the work and get bonus episodes and write-alongs. Want details? Ready to sign up? CLICK HERE.PS: Along those lines, Author Accelerator has opened registration for the 2022 Manuscript Incubator, an intensive, 7 month coaching opportunity that offers one-one-one support and guidance for novelists and memoirists planning to have a submission-ready project by early 2023—and includes the opportunity to have that project reviewed by a group of agents and editors when it’s ready. For more information, head to authoraccelerator.com/manuscript-incubator.

I don’t think we’ve ever talked about middle grade on #AmWriting, which was why I was so delighted to talk to Jamie Sumner, author of Roll With It, One Kid’s Trash, Tune It Out and the forthcoming, literally any day now The Summer of June, which you should order for your kid’s beach bag right now. (And if you happen to be in Nashville, scroll down for a link to an event next week.)Jamie and KJ talk about the mechanics of writing and pitching middle grade fiction, touch on the horrors of your first edit letter (and what you absolutely must not do when you get it) and then dive deep into what really makes this genre and its readers special—and it’s not what you think. Hard topics with hope, depth that’s distractible, and the limits of characters with temporarily limited agency who are all about finding ways to control their own destiny—but who, by the end of the book, are probably physically in much the same place as where they began. That means the endings are necessarily open-ended—which young readers apparently love. Links from the pod KJ’s thing in Tiffany’s blog Jason Reynolds The Bridge Home, Padma Venkatraman #AmReading Jamie: The Christie Affair, Nina De Gramont A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket KJ: Poison for Breakfast, Lemony Snicket jamnie-sumner.comTwitter: jamiesumner_IG: jamiesumner_authorIf you’re listening in real time and in Nashville, join Jamie on Saturday, June 4 at Parnassus Bookstore to launch The Summer of June with readings, free plants and lots of book love. Find out more here.Or pre-order a signed copies of The Summer of June through Parnassus Books HERE.COMING JULY 1: It’s the #AmWriting Blueprint for a Book Challenge! 10 episodes, 10 guests, 10 weeks to you being ready to write your best novel, memoir or non-fiction book this fall. There will be homework. There will be deadlines. Complete all 10 weeks, and you could win a critique of that Blueprint from KJ or Jennie Nash—but you’ll already be a winner, because you’ll have a plan that will put you way ahead of the game. Play for free—or reserve an Author Accelerator critique for your finished product to hold your feet to the fire and make sure you do the work and get bonus episodes and write-alongs. Want details? Ready to sign up? CLICK HERE.PS: Along those lines, Author Accelerator has opened registration for the 2022 Manuscript Incubator, an intensive, 7 month coaching opportunity that offers one-one-one support and guidance for novelists and memoirists planning to have a submission-ready project by early 2023—and includes the opportunity to have that project reviewed by a group of agents and editors when it’s ready. For more information, head to authoraccelerator.com/manuscript-incubator.

Some of us, which might be all of us, have spent a decent amount of time writhing in the throes of writer envy lately. Can’t IMAGINE what we’re talking about? Never opened Facebook to see news of yet another Netflix deal, or celebrated a friend’s fantastic New York Times review while just a little bit kind of secretly asking yourself where yours was? Well, bully for you. Go listen to another podcast this week.Meanwhile, we’re owning all the envy—and if you think being successful in any way dials that green monster button down, think again. There’s always a higher bar to reach. What does help? Age, wisdom, beauty (ok I just threw that one in) and a couple of other ideas we put out there at the end of the episode. Come hang. Links from the pod Colleen Hoover The Bookworm Box Sulphur Springs Ryan Holiday Bookstore Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie GarmusMary Laura Philpott Episode 312, Essays That Start Light, Then Hit HardEmily Henry’s Beach Read Michael Lewis Nora Goes Off Script, Annabel Monaghan #AmReading Jess: Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus KJ: The Bohemians, Jasmin Darznik Sarina: Part of Your World, Abby JimenezCOMING JULY 1: It’s the #AmWriting Blueprint for a Book Challenge! 10 episodes, 10 guests, 10 weeks to you being ready to write your best novel, memoir or non-fiction book this fall. There will be homework. There will be deadlines. Complete all 10 weeks, and you could win a critique of that Blueprint from KJ or Jennie Nash—but you’ll already be a winner, because you’ll have a plan that will put you way ahead of the game. Play for free—or reserve an Author Accelerator critique for your finished product to hold your feet to the fire and make sure you do the work and get bonus episodes and write-alongs. Want details? Ready to sign up? CLICK HERE.PS: Along those lines, Author Accelerator has opened registration for the 2022 Manuscript Incubator, an intensive, 7 month coaching opportunity that offers one-one-one support and guidance for novelists and memoirists planning to have a submission-ready project by early 2023—and includes the opportunity to have that project reviewed by a group of agents and editors when it’s ready. For more information, head to authoraccelerator.com/manuscript-incubator.

Jess here. On this week’s episode, I talk with New York Times bestselling author Kristen Green about her first book, Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle and her new book, The Devil’s Half-Acre: The Untold Story of How One Woman Liberated the South’s Most Notorious Slave Jail. We go into the process of writing a research-intensive historical nonfiction book, particularly when that book requires the author to investigate and implicate her own family in the darker parts of the story. We also discuss the birth of The Devil’s Half Acre, a tale that involves a lot of challenges including parting ways with one agent and finding another. More than anything else, we discuss the need for authors to believe in themselves and their story. COMING JULY 1: It’s the #AmWriting Blueprint for a Book Challenge! 10 episodes, 10 guests, 10 weeks to you being ready to write your best novel, memoir or non-fiction book this fall. There will be homework. There will be deadlines. Complete all 10 weeks, and you could win a critique of that Blueprint from KJ or Jennie Nash—but you’ll already be a winner, because you’ll have a plan that will put you way ahead of the game. Play for free—or reserve an Author Accelerator critique for your finished product to hold your feet to the fire and make sure you do the work and get bonus episodes and write-alongs. Want details? Ready to sign up? CLICK HERE. PS: Along those lines, Author Accelerator has opened registration for the 2022 Manuscript Incubator, an intensive, 7 month coaching opportunity that offers one-one-one support and guidance for novelists and memoirists planning to have a submission-ready project by early 2023—and includes the opportunity to have that project reviewed by a group of agents and editors when it’s ready. For more information, head to authoraccelerator.com/manuscript-incubator.