#AmWriting

Lauren Ho is the author of the debut novel Last Tang Standing, which is getting HUGE buzz. It’s been called Bridget Jones meets Crazy Rich Asians, and it does deliver on that promise. Lauren is our very first guest to join us from Singapore, and it’s very late at night there but she managed to hold her own. We talk lawyers-turned-writers, selling a book from outside the US and UK, Goodreads reviews and the challenges and advantages of writing characters (not necessarily POV characters, but still voices that have a place in your story) from perspectives that aren’t your own.

#AmReading

Lauren:

Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan

A Good Family by A.H. Kim

The White Coat Diaries by Madi Sinha

KJ:

Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

Jess:

Becoming Duchess Goldblatt (Anonymous)

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

Find Lauren at:

Her Website: www.hellolaurenho.com

On Twitter: www.twitter.com/hellolaurenho

On Facebook: www.facebook.com/hellolaurenho

Via Instagram: www.instagram.com/hellolaurenho

Behind-the-scenes and only in the email this week:

KJ was a guest on the wonderful How Do You Write podcast with Rachael Herron, and truly had a blast and loved every minute of it and thinks you should listen to all the episodes (she does!).

Jess shared this video of pandas being pandas and caused Sarina and KJ to loose many minutes of work.

Lacy Crawford, whose book Notes on a Silencing has come up many times on the pod, got an apology from St. Paul’s, the private high school which covered up her rape and protected her rapists.

We appreciate you! We’re glad you get the shownotes every week, and if you’re also one of our gorgeous and wonderful supporters, you can expect a #Minisode on why KJ loves books about plotting fiction, which ones she adores and how she’s using them to drop into your podplayer Monday—and we’ve uploaded and categorized all of our previous Top 5s and Minisodes on our website, which means that if you want to explore advice on agents, or nonfiction, or marketing and promotion, you’ll find what you’re looking for right HERE.

And if you’d like to support the show, and get access to everything from our recent Top 5s (like business upgrades, tax tips and ways to hold yourself accountable to our Minisodes, like KJ on how an editor considers an essay, Sarina’s letter to her younger self and Jess on what really sells books, then click the button below to chip in! We’ve got a bit of a deal on this fall—a full year of support for just $56. That’s just a tiny bit over $1 an episode! Aren’t we worth it?

Our guest this week is children’s fiction and YA author Julie Berry, and here’s why: she gave a talk at a conference about visualizing and imagery that Sarina has “been thinking about for 7 years.” That should tell you how much gold there is in this episode—all kinds of useful stuff about how we use images and senses to spark our own creativity and build a connection with our readers in every genre. We think you’ll love it.

#AmReading

Julie: The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Beauty by Robin McKinley

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope

The Secret Life of Trees by Robin Blackwell

Black and British by David Olusoga

Staying Power by Peter Fryer

Sarina: Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn

KJ: Tiny Imperfections by Alli Frank & Asha Youmans

Find Julie at: 

Her Website: www.julieberrybooks.com

On Twitter: www.twitter.com/julieberrybooks

On Facebook: www.facebook.com/julieberrybookspage

Via Instagram: www.instagram.com/julieberrybooks

Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below:

But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode.

Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

We’ve got a great interview for you today with a freelance journalist who does a different kind of work than any of us ever have—out in the field reporting on his favorite subject: reality adventure TV on trips rife with travel and danger and expense reports. I think you’ll love it.

We talk about finding your topic and making that topic, well, topical by looking for what’s happening within the world you’re covering that reflects what’s happening outside of it. We also discuss MFAs (he’s a fan), email (not so much) and how to keep from “opening your email and letting somebody else dictate what you do with your time.”

Links from the Podcast

fresh.ink

Longform on Twitter

#AmReading

Andy: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Jess: The Summer of ‘69 by Elin Hilderbrand

The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson

KJ: The Guest List Lucy Foley

#TBR: The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor

Find out more about our guest:

AndyDehnart.comReality BlurredAndy’s newsletterFind Andy on TwitterSee Andy’s book recs on Bookshop

And if you love the podcast, have you considered kicking in some cash? Our sponsors cover our production costs, but our time is basically sponsored by you, our loyal listeners. If we’ve added a little value to your day or week or year, please consider supporting us. How? Click the button.

As we say every week—we’re so proud to be sponsored by Author Accelerator and Dabble. If you’re wondering—why Dabble and not Scrivener? For us, it’s that plotting tool and the intuitive way it works, but others have weighed in—check that out here with a little Dabble v. Scrivener scoop.

And if listening to all of our conversations about book coaching has made you think, hey—that’s the career for me—then you’ll want to head to Author Accelerator’s BookCoaches.com to see how you can make that happen. Or if listening to the promo this week made you wonder about book coach Kemlo Aki, find more about her here.

Write every day. Don’t read fiction while you’re writing fiction. My way or the highway. In a burst of frustration, we’re reminding ourselves—and you—that there’s no one way to get this job done, and if your way is counter to what some of the greats might tell you (we’re looking at you, Stephen King, even though we love you), that doesn’t mean it won’t work.

A few links from the episode:

Minisode: #AmQuerying: How to write a fiction query letter that makes an agent ask for more

Becca Syme: https://betterfasteracademy.com/beccasyme/

#AmReading

Sarina: Notes of Silencing by Lacy Crawford

Jess: Unacceptable by Melissa Korn & Jennifer Levitz

Unspeakable Acts by Sarah Weinman

KJ: Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Our amazing sponsors: Dabble Writing Software, which I can’t wait to use to line up all my scenes and plot points AS SOON AS I START FIGURING OUT WHAT THEY ARE and which you should absolutely try.

And Author Accelerator. Jennie Nash is doing a Facebook Live coaching of a memoir outline on August 14, 2020—that’s next week. I can’t wait, I love watching her do these. Sign up here, or just go learn more!

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:00

Writers, KJ here. Have you heard me talk about Dabble yet? I mean really listened. Dabble writing software is our new sponsor, and we love them. Sarina and I can't stop playing with the outline piece of it, which is every bit as flexible as a bunch of post it notes on your desk and a whole lot more portable. You can track everything that belongs within a scene, how that scene fits into multiple plot lines, and where that scene belongs in the book. And you can move it with the flick of a mouse. It's honestly a little too much fun. We don't want to encourage you to procrastinate, but getting your storyline right isn't procrastination. It's part of the work. So try out Dabble and let us know if it helps you get your work done by downloading a free trial at dabblewriter.com. Is it recording?

Jess Lahey 0:50

Now it's recording.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:52

This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone and try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing.

Jess Lahey 0:56

Alright, let's start over.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:58

Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay. Now one, two, three. Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. The podcast about writing all the things, fiction, nonfiction, short pieces, long pieces, entire books, be they small or long, pitches, proposals, and as I say every week, this is the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done or not, but trying. I am, as I've previously stated, KJ Dell'Antonia. I am the author of the novel The Chicken Sisters, which will be out in December of this year, which is 2020. I'm the former editor of the Motherlode blog at the New York Times where I still sometimes contribute and the author of How to Be a Happier Parent, which is out in paperback and available everywhere now.

And I'm Jess Lahey, the author of The Gift of Failure. And I have a new book coming out in April. I just finished the galley edits so it feels real, called The Addiction Inoculation. And you can find my work right about now when this thing comes out in the Washington Post, but I write for lots of different places.

Sarina Bowen 2:19

And I'm Sarina Bowen. I'm the author of 35 romance novels. And you can always find more of me at Amazon Apple books and everywhere romances are sold.

So today's topic is kind of about keeping your head in the game.

Jess Lahey 3:06

It absolutely is. I'm optimistic. I'm going to go with the it is about keeping your head in the game. What is our topic for today, Sarina?

Sarina Bowen 3:14

It's myths about writing. All the things that we have absorbed over the years that may or may not be true. And myths come from a place of cultural reference. So these myths aren't out of left field, but we still want to examine them just to make sure we're taking the right advice.

Jess Lahey 3:36

Well, I think it's important to do that because some of these myths come from people. I mean, heck, if we took our oft cited David Sedaris advice about never, ever asking for anything, and that became sort of the way that writers were supposed to do things, then not a lot of writers would get stuff done. It happens to have worked beautifully for him. There are a couple of other authors that I'm going to cite while we're talking about some of these, and it can become the word of the writers. And it's not necessarily so because writing is different for different people.

Well, I think in particular, there is one myth that we really want to blow up today for all of our sakes. And that myth is the 'you must write every day'. Am I right?

It can be a goal.

And you know, I think we often make it sound like we do write every day. And we often do write every day. But I think what we don't talk about is that it is seasonal and cyclical. And that writing can sometimes mean other things.

Sarina Bowen 4:45

So I came up with the idea of myths, I mean, it entered my brain this weekend when I was listening to a talk by a writing coach named Becca Syme. And she was speaking at an event called Inkers Con that I was enjoying listening to. And she does some myth busting in hers but what she got to was that you have to examine the premise of these myths, like what premise are we accepting if we go along with it and KJ just said writers write every day and I would say that there's an even deeper premise to that one which is writers right because they must, and this one always makes me roll my eyes. Because I am definitely a writer. You know, my whole career is set up around this, but I have never once looked in the mirror and said, I'm a writer because I must, it's a compulsion for me. It's not it's actually my job and some days I just don't feel like doing it.

Jess Lahey 5:55

I think that for me, it's how I best express myself. I mean, I always would rather express myself in the written word than trying to explain something to someone orally. And that's just my preference for how I tend to make the best contribution. Do I have to write? In fact, if someone said I couldn't write for the rest of my life, I think I could be okay. I think I'd be fine. I may not be as well understood, but I think I would be fine. I'd have to make more phone calls. Oh my gosh, that would be the worst.

Sarina Bowen 6:33

You know, Jess, you just reminded me of that thing that happens at the very end of Spinal Tap the rockumentary. At the very end, when the credits are rolling, they asked each band member in turn, like, 'If you couldn't have rock and roll, how would you go on?' And the first one says something like, 'Well, but I'd still have the sex and drugs.' And then the last one is like, "Well, I could work in a shop.'

Jess Lahey 7:19

But yeah, I think that the whole I have to write or I will perish is along the lines of I couldn't live without you because I just don't think those are healthy ways to think about the world, but that's just me.

KJ Dell'Antonia 7:33

And you know, it is true that there are easier ways to make a living. So, you know, you probably aren't doing this unless you want to do it, but I feel like have to is awfully strong. So the you have to write every day...Stephen King, every day including Christmas, right? Or whatever your holiday of choice is, just every day, sit down every day. When I am working on something, I do write every day, generally including weekends. Sometimes I can't. Sometimes you're spending 12 hours taking a hike with your family. I guess what I'm trying to say is just you don't have to. It is possible to stop for a week or a couple of weeks, or I have somebody that I was reading said in between every book they spend like a month just gardening. I don't remember who it was. But yeah, when you're in the midst of something, writing everyday is a good way to keep your hand in, and make sure that you know where to start, and that you're still going, and that it's …

Hey campers—I hate reading you all a canned intro to our authors every time, so I’m winging it with our guest, Sonali Dev. I’m a fan of hers, so I feel like I know all the things. She’s the author of four straight-up romances, but her last-book-but one is the start of a series written in homage to Jane Austen, as is her latest, both set among the members of a politically ambitious Indian family in California. Why Jane Austen? Because, as Sonali says, “those were the first books I read about women wanting things and getting them. Instead of ending up crazy or dead.”

We talk the pros and cons of writing from such revered material, whether readers are “looking for Lydia,” the need to make your heroine “likeable” (pro tip: the female Darcy is hard sledding) and supplying recipes for hungry readers.

Links from the pod:

Sonali Dev on IG

Newsletter with a recipe booklet, recommendations, and a really bad joke.

#AmReading

Sonali: Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

The Kingmaker by Kennedy Ryan

KJ: The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory

Perfect Happiness by Kristyn Kusek Lewis

Sarina: Pale Rider by Laura Spinney

The Great Influenza by John M. Barry

Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below:

But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode.

Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:00

Hello fellow writers, we have an interview for you with Sonali Dev whose Bollywood romances have always reflected her love of all things Jane Austen, and whose latest books are all in on that passion. If you're all in with books, reading, and writing, you might want to check out the latest book from Jennie Nash at our sponsor, Author Accelerator - Read Books All Day and Get Paid For It: The Business of Book Coaching. You can find that and more at authoraccelerator.com. Is it recording?

Jess Lahey 0:30

Now it's recording.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:33

This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone and try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing.

Jess Lahey 0:37

Alright, let's start over.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:38

Awkward pause. I'm gonna rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three. Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting the weekly podcast about writing all the things, fiction, nonfiction, short pieces, long pieces, proposals, pitches, you are allowed to start to write things that do not start with P, although I may not list them here. And in short, we are the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done.

Sarina Bowen 1:14

I'm Sarina Bowen, I am trying to get the work done this week on romance novel number 36. And you can find more about me at sarinabowen.com.

KJ Dell'Antonia 1:25

And I am KJ Dell'Antonia. I'm the author of the novel The Chicken Sisters, and you heard it here first, I don't know when it's coming out. We've just delayed that puppy from this summer into the future. Not the indefinite future, but I don't know what kind of future. So everybody's talking me off the ledge because I'm not super happy about it, but it is what it is and when it comes out, it's gonna be great. It really is. I'm also the author of How to Be a Happier Parent, which did come out in paperback this summer. I'm a former editor of The Motherlode blog at the New York Times and still sometimes a contributor there. And you'll find me bookstagramming on Instagram at kjda. And we have a guest today that I'm really excited about. So I hate reading everybody the canned intro to the authors all the time, where I sort of just suck pieces off of their websites. So I'm sorry, guest Sonali Dev, I'm revealing your identity. I'm just gonna riff, because I am a fan and I feel like I know all the things without having to write them down. So Sonali Dev is our guest today. She is the author of four straight up Bollywood style romances, but her last book (but before this one) was a take on Pride and Prejudice. And this one, the current book, which is called Recipe for Persuasion follows the arc of the Jane Austen book Persuasion. And we're gonna talk about that and all kinds of things. And Sonali, I'm so excited that you're here.

Somali Dev 3:14

Thank you so much for having me. And I think what I like to call it is an homage to not even an homage to the novel, but an homage to what I learned personally from the novel as a young girl growing up. So it's inspired by, and it's an homage to, her work.

KJ Dell'Antonia 3:33

That completely works and I have not yet finished Persuasion, although I am deep, deep, deep into it. And I absolutely gobbled Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors. And I think you're not someone that sticks tightly to what's been done before in any way and that's what makes them so good.

Somali Dev 3:51

Yeah, not even close. I mean, that's not even my intent ever. You know, these are completely my stories. There's no doubt and like I said, what they are to me is not even really so much about the story, but what I learned from that story, and what it made me, and what it makes me want to say. And so they're absolutely my stories, but it very much is paying homage to her original stories.

Sarina Bowen 4:22

And how did you decide to do that? Like it's a big, difficult task to nod at this work that you already love so much. So what was the deciding factor for you that this would be your next big series of projects?

Somali Dev 4:38

So, it's really strange because you know how we have those childhood dreams that are grand, like the Oscar speeches we give in front of mirrors and things like that. You know, where you dream you're going to do something and Jane Austen was one of my earliest favorites. She was, I think, a very strong influence on me as a young girl, because what I saw in her books was aligned very closely with who I was on the inside, but who I was not being reinforced by the stories in my world. I grew up in India, and the stories we were hearing rarely were about women wanting things and getting them. And so that in Jane Austen's work spoke to me, because you know, her heroines at a time when there was nothing in their world telling them they were worthy of anything considered themselves worthy of getting love, and they didn't end up either crazy or dead, like all the other classics. So from a very early age, and I also dreamed of being a "big fancy author" sitting in my big fancy cottage by the beach and writing, you know, that was my faraway dream as a little girl. And so very early - like I couldn't even tell you where the genesis of that idea was - but very early I knew I wanted to tell her stories my way and then as I started to take the publishing journey seriously and I became a published author, it was always very front and center in my mind. And as that idea had taken taken shape and become real I knew that I wanted to take these four novels, which are my favorite four novels, and tell them under one story umbrella. And I also wanted them to be entirely my stories, while still being very much nods to her. And so all of that was just always in my head. And I think in 2013, I sold my first book and had my first agent. And at the time we had sold the first two Bollywood books and you know how agents and authors who want a career, kind of want to stay a few steps ahead. And when we were having that conversation, I told her about this idea. And her reaction in a very casually dismissive way was that Austen doesn't sell, so we're not going to do that. And even for a second that didn't dissuade me, which kind of tells you how much a part of me this was. So, you know, it was always something I was going to do, no matter who else was on that train or not. So it was just somehow (and I think that has to do with how much of an influence she was for me as a woman and as a person growing up). So I alwa…

This week, Jess got a message from some family members who’d read the draft of her forthcoming book, The Addiction Innoculation. They had … thoughts.

Those thoughts turned out to be nothing drastic—but the emotional roller coaster Jess rode while waiting to hear more was a doozy, and got us all thinking about how much of ourselves is exposed when we write non-fiction with a memoir element, how real memoirists do it, and how often readers—especially those closest to you—read our fiction looking for hidden truths. It’s a fun conversation that also covers pool floats, parents, dream offices we probably wouldn’t use and more.

Links from the Podcast

Yard Pods

Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl by Sandra Beasley

Mrs. Everything by Jen Weiner

KJ and Sarina’s Pool Floats

#AmReading

KJ: Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

Jess: Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford

Sarina: Don’t You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane

Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below:

But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode.

Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:00

Hey there. Before we embark on a new episode, I get to tell you about our new sponsor, Dabble. I wrote my last book in a mad combination of Word and Scrivener and it worked fine. But putting the whole thing together in the end was hard. And I accidentally left a chapter out of a draft, confusing everyone. With Dabble the whole book is always just sitting there, already compiled and together as a unit, but still easy to navigate around in using chapters or scenes. It's magical, and I can't wait to make full use of it this time around. Give it a spin at dabblewriter.com and let us know what you think. Is it recording?

Jess Lahey 0:38

Now it's recording. Go ahead.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:41

This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone and try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing.

Jess Lahey 0:45

Alright, let's start over.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:46

Awkward pause. I'm gonna rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three.

I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting, the podcast about writing all the things - fiction, nonfiction, memoir, essays, proposals, pitches. In short, as I say most nearly every week, this is the podcast about sitting down and getting your writing work done.

I'm Jess Lahey. I'm the author of The Gift of Failure and the forthcoming Addiction Inoculation that'll be out in April 2021. And currently writing some stuff for The Washington Post and Air Mail. And yeah, I guess that's about it.

Sarina Bowen 1:31

And I'm Sarina Bowen, the author of 35 romance novels. And I'm currently writing nothing and it is glorious.

KJ Dell'Antonia 1:41

I'm KJ Dell'Antonia. I'm the author of How To Be a Happier Parent and the novel The Chicken Sisters, which is coming out this December look for it in bookstores near you if you can be in them and goodness knows I hope you can, but I'm not holding my breath. I am the former editor of The Motherlode Blog at the New York Times where I sometimes still contribute. And I write things for other places. But I am primarily now focused on fiction, kind of, mostly, more about that in a minute maybe.

Jess Lahey 2:12

Speaking of being able to go into bookstores, I was able to go into one for the first time recently, they're limiting their customers. I went to the Phoenix Bookstore in Burlington, and I was able to browse and I had just forgotten how much I miss browsing and I found a couple of books and I was so excited to just sort of be able to look at the things and not online. It was very exciting.

KJ Dell'Antonia 2:37

I have been really aching to do that and haven't done it since March, but I have a couple of possible abilities to do that in my immediate future I hope.

Jess Lahey 2:50

I stayed in like the gardening section and the cooking section and just looked at all these books. I miss it. I miss it so much. Hold on, can we go back to what Sarina said about not working on anything right now like this is monumental because you're always working, Sarina, you're constantly working. Are you taking a break right now between projects?

Sarina Bowen 3:15

I am. And it's partly because I'm just burnt out and need a break. And partly because I have a lot of promo and organizational stuff that could really eat an entire month. And I'm ahead for the first time in many months - ahead of publication schedule.

KJ Dell'Antonia 3:34

Wow, that sounds glorious.

Jess Lahey 3:36

That's really amazing. KJ, what are you doing?

KJ Dell'Antonia 3:38

Well, my agent has just given me back some edits on what I hope will be my next novel. So I'm finishing those up and then we'll figure out where we are going from there. But I suspect that I will finish those edits up and then that will be sort of temporarily finished and then it is time to start something new. So I am wandering through the world thinking what's the next novel? Who's it about? And I'm spending a lot of time thinking things like well but wait the last two were about people and their mothers. I apparently can't stop with people and their mothers. And then I was like, Well, lots of authors can't stop with people and their mothers.

Sarina Bowen 4:26

Well, we all had one or we missed having one, so that's a big theme.

KJ Dell'Antonia 4:34

It is universal, but it's almost feels like it should be its own genre. And then I've been noodling a possible nonfiction thing. Just a little something about writing.

Jess Lahey 4:57

That's really exciting.

KJ Dell'Antonia 4:58

I've been having fun thinking about it.

Jess Lahey 5:00

Yeah, I didn't expect to have many deadlines right now. But then stuff came up and I was asked to write some things. I'm working on two book reviews that will be due in the next couple months, two books that I never would have picked up on my own. So I'm learning a lot from both books and I can't say what they are. And then Tim and I are writing a piece together for a big national publication about going back to school in the age of COVID. And the problem with that it's going to be in print and so the word count has to be pretty on target. And the problem is this is such a big topic that even our outline at one point was longer than our final word count. Well and I just texted you guys about this before we started, but working in the same house together, Tim and I write together pretty well, but we normally do it in separate locations. And you know, no one's going to work, no one's going to school, and we just had the dumbest argument about absolutely nothing. And we just don't argue very much. And so I realized man, it is so time for someone to go work somewhere else because I can't take it anymore.

KJ Dell'Antonia 6:26

I was on Instagram and a lovely writer whose name I have now forgotten, was showing her writing shed and it was as cute as anything and she was a New Englander. So it was clearly not only useful for part of the year but I just looked at it I thought that is amazing. Plus, if I had it, somebody else would have taken it over.

Jess Lahey 6:46

You know who has a great one is Julie Lythcott-Haims. She does all of her interviews from there and she writes there and it's called like a yard pod. And it's absolutely beautiful. It's just stunning, it's filled with books, and it's bright and sunny, and it's behind her house, and no one goes in there really but her. It's pretty lovely.

Sarina Bowen 7:05

That is living the dream.

KJ Dell'Antonia 7:08

You'd think so, but I bet I wouldn't even use it. I tend to sit smack in the middle of everything. It's stupid, but I do. I don't use my office anymore because there's someone else in here. I mean I rec…

Kari Lizer is best known for her work in television, as writer and co-executive producer of Will & Grace and the creator of The New Adventures of Old Christine. When her essays about parenting took the shape of a book, she found that her real life provided more than enough material for a comedic memoir. Aren’t You Forgetting Someone? has it all - chickens, Kate Middleton’s bangs, psychics, and the promise of happy endings.

#AmReading

Jess: Beach Read by Emily Henry

Sarina: The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa

Kari: Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout

Subscription links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #MinisodeMonday that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, July 20th: How an Editor Considers an Essay. Not joined that club yet? You’ll want to get on that. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #BonusContent with actionable advice you can use for just $7 a month.

As always, this episode (and every episode) will appear for all subscribers in your usual podcast listening places, totally free as the #AmWriting Podcast has always been. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it with the shownotes and a transcript every time there’s a new episode.

To support the podcast and help it stay free, subscribe to our weekly #WritersTopFive email.

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting for details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.

Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.

Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:00

Writers it's KJ here. Before we get to the interview, which is Jess and Sarina talking to the very funny Kari Lizer I wanted to share a little about our new sponsor, Dabble. I wrote my last book in a mad combination of Word and Scrivener and it worked fine. But putting the whole thing together in the end was hard and I accidentally left out a chapter of a draft confusing everyone. With dabble, the whole book is always just sitting there already compiled and together as a unit and easy to navigate around in as chapters or scenes. It is magical and it can't wait to make full use of it this time around. Give it a spin at dabblewriter.com and let us know what you think. Is it recording?

Jess Lahey 0:43

Now it's recording.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:45

This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone trying to remember what I'm supposed to be doing.

Jess Lahey 0:49

Alright, let's start over.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:51

Awkward pause. I'm gonna rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three.

Jess Lahey 1:02

Hey, this is the #AmWriting podcast with Jess Lahey and Sarina Bowen, KJ is off this week. This is the podcast where we talk about all the things - all the writing things, the researching, the editing. I'm just about to start editing today, actually. So we'll probably slip in and mention of that - writing romance, writing fiction, writing nonfiction, writing all the things we love to talk about. And this is definitely the podcast though, first and foremost, about getting the writing done. I'm Jessica Lahey I'm the author of The Gift of Failure and the forthcoming The Addiction Inoculation that will be out next year, April 2021. And you can find my work at the Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other lovely places like Airmail recently, actually.

Sarina Bowen 1:47

And I'm Sarina Bowen I'm the author of 35 romance novels. My most recent USA Today bestseller is called Sure Shot and you can find more about me at sarinabowen.com.

Jess Lahey 1:59

So can I just say one thing? I was I was tooling around on Facebook looking for something and all of a sudden, I noticed that you dropped like an additional thing to Sure Shot. And I simply do not understand when you write all the things. I don't understand how you write all the things, you write everything and you write stuff that you don't even tell us about, and launch it out into the world and it makes my head spin.

Sarina Bowen 2:22

Well, thank you, I think. Yes, I did have a couple chapter prequel that I put into an anthology that someone was putting together and it really wasn't the world's greatest accomplishment there, Jess, but thanks anyway.

Jess Lahey 2:39

Alright, well, we have a guest this week, and I'm really, really excited about this guest because we have found out that number one, we have some things in common that we need to talk about, but also because this book almost made me late for this interview because I was having so much fun reading it, I couldn't put it down. It is so funny. Without further ado, I would like to introduce Kari Lizer. Her new book is called Aren't You Forgetting Someone?: Essays From My Midlife Revenge? And, okay, we've talked before about getting blurbs and this woman, this book, she's got some blurbs on this book. It's a very funny book. She is a former executive producer and writer for Will and Grace. And that's going to figure into a little tiny bit of the conversation today. But Kari, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Kari Lizer 3:35

Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Jess Lahey 3:37

Such a delightful book. And it's not just because a lot of the action happens in Vermont and Sarina has written an entire series that is a romance series based completely on a fictional small town in Vermont. There are chickens, there are lots of animals. And so we've got that angle going on, but we we also have the devotedly introverted sort of thing going on, obviously the writer thing going on as well. So we're just really excited to talk with you today.

Kari Lizer 4:17

It's nice to have that in common. It's a specific thing for sure. Vermont people are a certain kind of people, I know that.

Jess Lahey 4:27

We're reading this book at a really interesting time because most of the book is about just the thrill people get (people like us) tend to get when someone says something is canceled. And everything's canceled right now. So how are you doing? We're recording this at the beginning of June, on June 11. So we've all been on our own or at least in close proximity to very few other people. How are you doing?

Kari Lizer 5:00

Well, I spent the first few months of this lockdown shut-in period in Los Angeles, which was very different than it feels here in Vermont. It was stranger there for sure. I had one of my kids home with me. And it was a little bit harder to navigate there. It wasn't that different lifestyle wise for me than my normal life though, because I do spend a lot of time at home. I'm an introvert, I write at home. I don't venture out unless I absolutely have to. But it did get strange and I did start to feel the walls closing in on me for sure. I mean, just the lack of outdoor space. I mean, because the trails were closed and the parks were closed. I have four dogs. Going outside with them, it just felt like we were just on top of each other a little bit. So made the decision to hop in a car and drive across the country with the four dogs and come to Vermont. Because there's more wide open spaces, so it's feeling a little bit like I've been released from prison a little bit. But, you know, there are other challenges here in terms of of being quarantined and you know, there's the 14 days here in Vermont that I have to isolate myself from other people and so, you know, it's challenging. Listen, I don't have it as bad as a lot of people have it, I have a lot to keep me occupied. And I can do my job here. I'm starting up a new TV show and I can do my writers room on Zoom. And it's just it's not that bad.…

We have trouble believing you haven’t already heard of our guest this week, Susan Wiggs, but just in case—she’s the author of many many novels, a multiple #1 New York Times bestseller and an overall amazing storyteller. Her current novel, The Lost and Found Bookshop, is on sale now and her most recent bestseller, The Oysterville Sewing Circle, is just out in paperback.

We talk crafting a story, starting from the emotional journey versus the physical plot, building a character, choosing a setting and our collective addiction to writing books, and Susan reveals that she does indeed read fiction while she’s writing fiction—and it’s a good thing, too, because her reading list is long indeed.

Links from the Pod

Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman

This American Life, Promised Land (the “I Wish” song episode)

#AmReading (all Susan, and you’ll see why)

Aging in Place by Aaron D Murphy

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

On Ocean Boulevard by Mary Alice Monroe

House Lessons by Erica Bauermeister

Untamed by Glennon Doyle

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson

Sabrina and Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below:

But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode.

Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:00

Hey, fellow writers this week we've got an outright amazing conversation with Susan Wiggs. Many, many times bestselling author of many, many novels, who really knows how to construct a story. And when getting the work done doesn't just take talent and dedication, but an understanding of the craft of creating a story. If you'd like to work with someone who understands that craft, head over to Author Accelerator and look into finding the right book coach for your work, or if craft is your jam, learn more about becoming a book coach yourself at authoraccelerator.com. Is it recording?

Jess Lahey 0:36

Now it's recording.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:39

This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone and try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing.

Jess Lahey 0:43

Alright, let's start over.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:44

Awkward pause. I'm gonna rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three. Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia. And this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is the podcast, the weekly podcast, about writing all things, fiction, nonfiction, short things, long things, pitches, proposals, everything you have to write before anybody lets you write anything. And in short, this is the podcast about sitting down and getting that work done.

Sarina Bowen 1:16

And this is Sarina Bowen. I'm the author of 35 romance novels. You can always find more about me at sarinabowen.com.

KJ Dell'Antonia 1:26

And I am KJ Dell'Antonia, the author of the novel The Chicken Sisters, and also the book How to Be a Happier Parent, former editor of the New York Times' Motherlode blog, and still sometimes a contributor there. And we are so excited to welcome our guest this week. This is the first guest we've ever had that has rivaled Sarina in prolificness. We're so excited to welcome Susan Wiggs. She is the author of (I think I counted 37 but as soon as I let her talk, I'm gonna check) novels, multiple number one New York Times' bestseller and an overall amazing storyteller. When you pick up a Susan Wiggs book, you know that you're getting a fully built world and a story that's going to grab you and hold you tight and that you're going to be sorry when it lets you go. Her current novel is The Lost and Found Bookstore. And she's also got another novel just out in paperback - The Oysterville Sewing Circle. That one's just out right now. Am I right?

Susan Wiggs 2:29

That's correct. It's just out in a paperback, the book club edition just came out.

KJ Dell'Antonia 2:35

Ooh, cool. I love the whole book club edition and this edition.

Susan Wiggs 2:41

I just love book clubs in general. So yeah, thank you so much for having me. This is such a thrill to talk to somebody who's not a fictional character.

KJ Dell'Antonia 2:51

Yeah, we don't do much of that right now either. They're either fictional characters or they live in our house, that's all we got. So yeah, we are really excited - so, how many books is it before I even get started?

Susan Wiggs 3:02

Oh, I knew you're gonna ask me that. And you know what? To be honest, I don't have a count. But I can tell you my first book was published in 1987. Huntington Zebra books, and I've published a book or two every year since. And so I've stopped doing the math. I just write my next book.

KJ Dell'Antonia 3:27

But we will ask, you just because our listeners always want to know. How did you get started? Tell us how that first 1987 book happened, travel back in time with us.

Susan Wiggs 3:40

You know what, you always remember your first time and I'll just leave it at that. I'll leave that to your imagination. But honestly, I was a young teacher just out of graduate school. I got myself through graduate school by reading really big, thick, romance novels, you know, the real bodice rippers all through the 80's. And so yeah, I had such a taste for them, and such an affection for them and a love for the form that I just wrote one. And I had no idea what I was doing. I wrote it on a typewriter. I didn't know about any writer's associations. I knew Writer's Digest, I was a subscriber to Writer's Digest, I always knew that I wanted to write and so I wrote a book called Texas Wildflower and I wrote it on a typewriter. It was this huge, unwieldy pile of pages. I was very proud of it, but I didn't know what to do with it. And so somehow, I wormed my way onto an editor's desk at Kensington Books, which had and probably still prints Zebra, Pinnacle, various ones like that and they're still up and going, and the editor's name was Wendy McCurdy, and she's still in the business. I believe she may be back at Kensington now. Anyway, she was delightful. You know, very young, probably as young as I was at the time, editor who called me up in the middle of a very busy life. I had a toddler, and dogs, and a house, and a teaching job. And I was very overwhelmed. And she called me in the middle of all that and said, 'We like your book, and we want to publish it.' And I was just floored. Yes, I was stunned. I didn't have an agent. And so I just said, 'Yes, where do I sign?' And so it's interesting that we would be talking about this right now because one of the things that I did because I didn't have a literary agent, I didn't really know how to negotiate any sort of contract. And one of the biggest blunders that I made that is turning out to be kind of a very funny and happy accident was I gave them the copyright back then. And I think now copyrights revert to the author if the book is out of print and unavailable for, I believe, three to five years. And I think I signed my name to something to say it was out of print and unavailable, but they had 16 years to reprint it. And in those 16 years, my books became rather popular. And so they never wanted to revert the rights to me because I would always say the book's not out, it's very old, don't you want to revert the rights to me? Because that way, the author controls his rights and creative control over that property and you know, you can resell it and things like that, but no, they kept hanging on to it. And so I'm sitting here, it is 2020 and I'm looking at a royalty check dated May 26, 2020 for that book, for Texas Wildflower that was first published in April 1987. Because they keep reissuing it, they still have it in print, they reissued it numerous times in different packaging. And as my books have evolved, the very original cover (you can probably find it on my website…

This episode springs from a question asked in the #AmWriting Facebook group (if you’re not in it, you should be): Sarina has talked about her decision to be independently published, but we’ve never heard from Jess and KJ about why they go the traditional route.

We discuss the three things you should think about when making the Indie/Traditional call, why you need to think hard about airport bookstores and finding the print ratio—and the good and bad reasons for making this choice.

#AmReading

Sarina: Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

KJ: The Exit Strategy by Lainey Cameron

Jess: The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor

(listen to the #AmWriting episode with Sarah here)

As we say every week—we’re so proud to be sponsored by Author Accelerator and Dabble. If you’re wondering—why Dabble and not Scrivener? For us, it’s that plotting tool and the intuitive way it works, but others have weighed in—check that out here with a little Dabble v. Scrivener scoop.

And if listening to all of our conversations about book coaching has made you think, hey—that’s the career for me—then you’ll want to head to Author Accelerator’s BookCoaches.com to see how you can make that happen.

Here’s what we don’t always say: Man we love recording the podcast. But every hour spent on it is an hour not writing! Our production costs are now covered by our lovely (and carefully chosen) sponsors, but our time in pulling it all together is supported by you, our listeners. We’d love it if you joined that team (if you’re not already on it!)

Supporters get weekly #WriterTopFives like The Top Five (Free) Ways to Get Your Shiny New Book Cover in Front of People’s Eyeballs or #Minisodes like Don't Make the Same Mistakes Twice—and thanks to the magic of substack, those minisodes drop right into your pod-player once you’re set up. Want in? Click the button.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:00

Writers, it's KJ. The #AmWriting podcast is excited to tell you about our new sponsor, Dabble Writing software. We invited Dabble to join the #AmWriting team because we are in love with the plotting tools and intuitive interface. And I want to tell you something else I love about it, what they call the focus fade. I barely even noticed when it first started to happen, but any details that are open in the sidebars of your Dabble document fade away automatically as you write, leaving you with nothing but a beautiful clear space to work in until you need them and send your cursor in that direction, then they're back in a flash. It makes for a great distraction-free writing environment. Find out more and do a free trial at dabblewriter.com. Is it recording?

Jess Lahey 0:47

Now it's recording.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:50

This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone trying to remember what I'm supposed to be doing.

Jess Lahey 0:54

Alright, let's start over.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:55

Awkward pause. I'm gonna rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three.

Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia. And this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is the podcast about writing all the things, fiction, nonfiction, books, essays, pitches, proposals long form, short form. In short, this is the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done.

Jess Lahey 1:25

Hi, I'm Jess Lahey, and I am the author of The Gift of Failure and the upcoming The Addiction Inoculation, which will be out in April of 2021. And you can find my work in lots of places, including the Atlantic, The New York Times, and Washington Post.

Sarina Bowen 1:39

And I'm Sarina Bowen, the author of 35 romance novels. You can always find my work at sarinabowen.com or wherever e-books are sold.

KJ Dell'Antonia 1:52

I am KJ Dell'Antonia. I'm the author of the novel, The Chicken Sisters, which you heard it here first is now not coming out until December at the earliest. But that's okay. Really, totally fine, whatever. I'm also the author of How to Be a Happier Parent, the former editor of the New York Times' Motherlode blog, still sometimes a contributor there. And I'm just wrapping up a revision of a draft of my next (hopefully) novel. So that's what I'm doing. And I should say that I am not recording where I normally record because, you know, I lost the the officemate battle of of the the work at home universe.

Jess Lahey 2:45

I know we have a topic today, but before we get to the topic, I just wanted to say, KJ mentioned that she just finished a draft. And it has struck me that I knew from the beginning from a long time ago that your deadline for that first draft of the next book was June 1. And it has been a crazy, crazy time. This was a self-imposed deadline. No one made you do this by this by this June 1 thing, and yet you hit it and I just I don't know if I'd had a chance to tell you this before but I was just so impressed that given everything that's going on and the fact that it was a self-imposed deadline, that you made it

KJ Dell'Antonia 3:52

Well thank you. It probably should be said that it was not the first deadline. I was looking back at my bullet journal and noticing that in April, it had draft to Karen (that's my agent) as a goal. So it took at least an extra month beyond what I was hoping. But, I did get it done. I did get a draft to her. She's made some comments, which were extremely helpful. And I have done the hardest part of the revisions and I expect to have the revisions back to her this weekend. And then we shall see if it's time to try to sell it or time for me to just take another pass.

Jess Lahey 4:37

It's exciting. It is super exciting.

KJ Dell'Antonia 4:39

It is. I'm feeling really good about it. But you know, ask me tomorrow.

Jess Lahey 4:43

Who wants to announce our topic today?

KJ Dell'Antonia 5:02

We have an actual topic. This is how people know we're not a scripted podcast, we could be because we could have like this really smooth flow could be like, and Jess will say, and I can tell podcasts that are like that. And it isn't that I don't love them. It's that I'm too lazy, I think.

Jess Lahey 5:19

They're very time intensive and I have to say from the beginning we knew what we wanted out of a podcast. This is what we wanted. So welcome to our world.

KJ Dell'Antonia 5:29

Well, somebody asked on the Facebook group, I think and if you're not in our Facebook group, you totally should be. Someone said, 'We've heard Sarina discuss her decision to go indie, but we've never heard Jess and KJ, talk about their decision to go traditional.' And also, Sarina has been traditionally published in the past as well. So, we thought we'd just talked about that.

Jess Lahey 6:00

There are very specific reasons, but it also challenges sort of the status quo, which, you know, get five years ago even, when Sarina started this, you know why you would choose to go traditional isn't a question anyone asked just because there wasn't the landscape that there is now. And we wouldn't have had our amazing role model of Sarina Bowen to look at at the time. But I mean, you're so good at it. The nice thing about having you as a friend is I don't ever say she makes it look easy, you do make it look easy, but I know how much work you put into this. And it's a mind boggling amount of work to do self publishing well, and to do it the way you do it. So that's part of the equation for me, but I love the fact that we can even ask this question now of, you know, why do you go traditional versus self publishing because a couple of years ago it would have been a really clear cut decision.

Sarina Bowen 7:02

That's true. I mean, I knew people in 2014, 2013, who were turning down traditional contracts for self publishing. But that was a super rare thing to do. And those people, you know, had extraordinary circumstances and extraordinary insight that, you know, most of us didn't have. And if you go back 10 years, the traditional route was always the right choice. And now the landscape has changed so much that it is sometimes the right choice. But now there's a more interesting decision matrix assoc…

You listen to podcasts. You love podcasts. (Perhaps we’re assuming here, but after all, we ARE a podcast.) And you’re a writer, with books or articles or ideas or other projects you want to get out into the world. Which just might mean you’ve imagined yourself as a guest on a podcast, sharing your work. (It’s the writer version of the sportscaster doing an imaginary play-by-play while a kid shoots hoops—we imagine ourselves being interviewed by our favorite podcasters.)

This week’s guest, Lauren Passell, can help with that. She loves podcasts (she even created a weekly email that’s essentially a love letter to the big, the small, the great and the weird in the podcast world: Podcast, the Newsletter). And she loves writers. And she loves connecting writers with podcasts, so much so that she’s turned it into her business: TINK Media, a PR company specializing in podcasts. We talk about creating a podcast-worthy story, finding the right podcasts to pitch, perfecting those pitches and making your voice a part of the podcast world. It’s an amazing and useful episode. I think you’re gonna love it.

Links from the pod

Subscribe to Podcast the Newsletter and take the quiz

ListenNotes.com

Player.fm

Pocketcast

Stitcher

[Castro]

Friday Black, a short story collection by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

The United States of Anxiety: I Did Not Watch the Video

#AmReading/#AmListening

Jess: Longform

CBC Podcasts: Finding Cleo, Someone Knows Something

KJ: How Do You Write with Rachael Herron

Lauren: Threshholds, produced by LitHub

Articles of Interest, from 99% Invisible

Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below:

But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode.

Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

Don’t forget to check out our new sponsor, Dabble. We’re in love with its plotting and organizational tools and its write-anywhere availability, and we think you’ll like it too.

And if you want to hear more from Jennie Nash, founder of Author Accelerator, she’s been on three great podcasts of late (and KJ has listened to them all, because listening to Jennie makes her want to write): Marginally, How Do You Write and Reading and Writing.