#AmWriting

Turns out you should judge a book by its cover, and readers do. Which means authors need to consider that (and not our own taste) when we think about our own covers. This week, we talk about the two things to consider whether you’re an indie working with cover artists or a trad with a publisher and an art department: reader expectations and those now-you-can’t-stop-seeing-the-flowers trends, and it turns into a bit of lesson in heading to the bookstore and making some cover judgments of your own.

Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, have you heard that we recorded our first #SupporterMinis this month? #SupporterMinis are short bursts of advice or inspiration (or maybe commiseration) to punctuate your writing week, which appear in the podcast feeds of our supporters. Supporters also get weekly #WritersTopFives like Top Five Goodreads Secrets for Authors and Top Five Things You Don’t Need to Be a Real Writer. Support us and we’ll do everything we can to support you!

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.

LINKS FROM THE PODCAST

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Jess: Running with Sherman: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero, Christopher McDougall

KJ: Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts, Kate Racculia

More Reading on Book Covers

The 78 Best Book Covers of 2019 from LitHub

9 beautiful book cover design trends for 2019, 99designs

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work done. Check out their FREE (and epic) upcoming summit on the Business of Book Coaching if you’re intrigued, or 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.

The image in our podcast illustration was compiled by the people at the magnificent LitHub, which you should bookmark and read constantly, and used in the article that’s linked in our shownotes: The 78 Best Book Covers of 2019. I note that I have not read one single one of these books.

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:                                        00:01                    Hello fellow writers. The end of the year is a great time to look back at what filled you up in the past months and for many of us that's not just our writing, but the time we've spent helping others with their work. For some of us that's come out in small ways, but for others it's a calling and an opportunity to build a career doing work you love. Our sponsor, Author Accelerator provides book coaching to authors (like me) but also needs and trains book coaches. And they'll be hosting a free book coaching summit in January for anyone who wants to learn more. If that's got your ears perked up, head to authoraccelerator.com/summit. Is it recording?

Jess:                                     00:43                    Now it's recording, go ahead.

KJ:                                        00:44                    This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing.

Jess:                                     00:48                    Alright, let's start over.

KJ:                                        00:49                    Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers.

Jess:                                     00:52                    Okay.

KJ:                                        00:52                    Now one, two, three. Hey, this is KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting, the weekly podcast about writing all the things, be they fiction, nonfiction, proposals, final drafts, pitches, essays, whatever it is that you are working on. We are the podcast about sitting down and getting the work done.

Jess:                                     01:20                    I'm Jess Lahey, I'm the author of the Gift of Failure and a forthcoming book about preventing substance abuse in kids and I am deep in the land of editing right now and you can also find my work at the Atlantic and the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Sarina:                                 01:33                    And I'm Sarina Bowen, the author of 30-odd romance novels and I am revising a book called Heartland, which will come out in the late winter and my revision is due on Monday.

Jess:                                     01:49                    Ouch, but you're going to make it.

KJ:                                        01:53                    I am KJ Dell'Antonia, the author of a novel coming out next summer, as well as How To Be a Happier Parent coming out in paperback next summer and former editor of the Motherlode blog at the New York Times, where I occasionally still contribute, and right now, not in fact in the land of editing, or revising, or anything along those lines. But I will own that my bold declarations regarding NaNoWriMo and trying to finish my current project, I did not. It is not quite the end of NaNoWriMo as we record, but I can guarantee to you that I did not write 50,000 words of a novel during November, but that's okay. I needed to do a lot of thinking, so I could not write. If I had written 50,000 words, it would not have been a good use of my time. Sometimes, it turns out that way.

Jess:                                     02:45                    Well, I said I pulled the rug out from under my NaNoWriMo, anyway. So I've been doing something that was completely unplanned and has been going pretty well, actually. Oh, this is also fun news. I had a meeting with my editor - the same meeting that I had post sort of her taking a look at the first draft of Gift of Failure. And whereas the Gift of Failure meeting was vomit inducing, it was horrible. Some of you have heard this story, but basically suffice it to say it was a nightmare of a meeting with your editor, the very kind of meeting you hope you don't have. Although she's quite a lovely person. This meeting was its exact opposite. It was lovely, it was a love fest, everybody's happy. It was just really, really nice to have a positive meeting to offset the negative meeting that I had after Gift of Failure was turned in. One and one - is that what you say?

KJ:                                        03:50                    I was going to look at a little more positively and say not many writers can have such a ringing guarantee that they have learned.

Jess:                                     03:58                    Well, that's actually something that has been really interesting. I had a huge checklist of basically the what not to do stuff. And it was really nice cause during the meeting she said, 'I could tell that you were trying really hard to not do the things that you did last time.' And I'm like, 'Oh you have no idea. You have no idea how organized I was in my efforts to not make the same mistakes twice.' So that was a ringing endorsement of at least my anal retentive sort of attempts to to do better this time. To learn from my mistakes.

KJ:                                        04:30                    Massive gold star. For learning all the things and we're going to talk about other things that we've learned today. We do have a topic and I'm really excited about it. Today's topic is cover art.

Jess:                                     04:49                    I can fall so deep into this whole...like this topi…

The infamous how-to meets self-help meets memoir-with-a-dash-of-stunt genre. It may be awkwardly named, but we love it.

This week’s guest didn’t realize she was laying the groundwork for her first book when she decided to write 50 thank you notes to the people, things and places that shaped her in honor of her 50th birthday—but of course she was When you can define a thing and the time frame and the reasons for doing it so clearly, what else can you do but inspire other people to do the same? But the road from I’m doing this thing to I’m publishing this book isn’t clear (although in this case it was lightning fast). This week, Nancy Davis Kho talks to us about what it took to make her book saleable, then write the damn thing and make it really really good.

Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, did you catch the #WritersTopFive that popped into your inbox Monday? (And if it didn’t, HELLO, you need to subscribe to our free weekly #AmWriting emails!)

That was just a little taste. We do those every week. I just scheduled Top Five Reference Books for All Novelists, and Three More for Special Occasions, and you don’t want to miss it. (You won’t believe the kinds of things that can be turned into an encyclopedias or dictionary.) We also recorded the first of many #MiniSupporter episodes that will slip right into the podcast feeds of #AmWriting supporters everywhere. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #WriterTopFives 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.

LINKS FROM THE PODCAST

Aya deLeon, author of the Justice Hustlers series.

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Nancy: The Good Lord Bird, James McBride

Jess: Sense and Sensibility, narrated by Kate Winslet

KJ: What Should I Read Next—the podcast from Anne Bogel, aka the Modern Mrs Darcy. (I’m obsessed with it. I’ve found so many great new reads!)

#FaveIndieBookstore

A Great Good Place for Books, Oakland

Our guest for this episode is Nancy Davis Kho, author of The Thank You Project and host of the Midlife Mixtape podcast. Find the book, the podcast and all things Nancy HERE.

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work done. Check out their FREE (and epic) upcoming summit on the Business of Book Coaching if you’re intrigued, or 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:                                        00:02                    Hey there listeners, it's KJ. What with Jess starting in on a new project lately, we've been talking a lot about nonfiction and research. If that's your kind of work, our sponsor, Author Accelerator can help and you don't have to go all in with full on book coaching if you're not ready. Check out their new four week long nonfiction framework program that will help you nail down your structure before you start to write, or after your writing and realizing, dang, this thing needs a backbone. Authors of self-help, how-to, and academic texts will find the shape of their books, create a working one page summary that helps reveal that shape at a glance, and develop a flexible table of contents to guide you through the drafting and revision process. You can find a lot more, including previews of much of the material, by going to authoraccelerator.com/nonfictionframework. Is it recording?

Jess:                                     00:02                    Now it's recording.

KJ:                                        00:02                    Yay.

Jess:                                     00:02                    Go ahead.

KJ:                                        01:00                    This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.

Jess:                                     01:01                    Alright. Let's start over.

KJ:                                        01:06                    Awkward pause, I'm going to rustle some papers. Now one, two, three. Hey, I am KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting the podcast about all things writing - nonfiction, fiction, book proposals, essays, not poetry. I made that joke a few weeks ago, but I just can't stop because I feel like it's not all the things. I am KJ Dell'Antonia, your rambling host, and this is the podcast about getting your work done.

Jess:                                     01:45                    And I'm Jess Lahey. I'm the author of the Gift of Failure and a forthcoming book. It won't be till spring of 2021, a book on preventing substance abuse in kids and you can find me at the New York Times, and at the Atlantic, and at the Washington Post. And we have such a guest today. We have such a guest.

KJ:                                        02:05                    I didn't really introduce myself.

Jess:                                     02:06                    Go ahead, please go.

KJ:                                        02:08                    I just introduced myself as your rambling host and I am so much more than that.

Jess:                                     02:13                    You go, and then we'll let that weird person who no one even knows, we'll let her talk after. But KJ, you go first.

KJ:                                        02:24                    I am KJ Dell'Antonia. I am the author of the novel The Chicken Sisters, which you can't buy yet, but you'll be able to next summer and believe me, you'll hear all about it. Also of How To Be a Happier Parent. I'm the former editor of the Motherlode blog at the New York Times, where I sometimes still contribute and I am working on novel number, whatever it is if you count the ones in the drawer and we don't know if it will be published, that's what I'm doing. So that's who I am and why you should (or should not) listen to me.

Jess:                                     02:57                    We have a guest today who you should definitely listen to. Because she's hysterical, and wonderful, and funny, and has a book coming out that is fantastic and very near and dear to my heart. We are talking today to Nancy Davis Kho. She is a writer. She's written for Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Adirondack Life, The Rumpus, all these various places. She's in an anthology called Listen To Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We're Saying Now. And Listen To Your Mother, by the way, is hysterical if you've never come across it before. Nancy has a fantastic book coming out this month that is, as I said, so near and dear to my heart because it's about thanking people. And so, thank you Nancy, for being on the podcast today.

Nancy:                                03:41                    I pretty much wrote a book in order to be on your podcast, just so you know.

Jess:                                     03:46                    Nancy has her own podcast, one of my very favorites. It's the Midlife Mixtape podcast and if you are not already listening, you should. Because it's wonderful, and fantastic, and it makes me very happy every single time I listen to it.

Nancy:                                04:03                    You guys are so nice. Can I call you every morning, Jess, and just have you say, 'You matter.'

Jess:                                     0…

We wanted to talk holiday writing—as in, writing ABOUT holidays, not writing during the holidays. So we went strolling through the holly-bedecked halls of the Internet—because, #dominantculture, holiday books as they appear without a more specific web search means Christmas books and specifically, the 250 page equivalent of a bonbon of a Lifetime Christmas movie. We found Natalie Cox, author of the debut romcom Mutts and Mistletoe. And then we found that Natalie Cox is also Betsy Tobin, author of five other novels, co-owner of a bookshop in North London and just generally appearing to live an authorial dream life.

So of course we invited her on to talk about not just holiday writing, but switching genres, the real meaning of “debut” and whether or not owning a bookstore in London is as much fun as it sounds like it would be. Links from the episode (which was itself as much fun as it sounds like it would be) follow.

As for writing DURING the holidays, if you’re a supporter, you can check out the Top 5 Hacks for Holiday Writing—and if you’re not, why not? Give yourself a little holiday giftie and us a little holiday boost clicking the button below to support the podcast you love, get weekly #WriterTopFives with actionable advice and occasional bonus #MiniSupporter podcasts 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.

LINKS FROM THE PODCAST

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Betsy:

Three Women, Lisa Taddeo

KJ:

Beside Herself, Elizabeth LaBan

Sarina:

Reindeer Falls, Book 1: The Boss Who Stole Christmas, Jana Aston

Reindeer Falls, Book 2: If You Give a Jerk a Gingerbread, Jana Aston

Reindeer Falls, Book 3: The One Night Stand Before Christmas, Jana Aston

#FaveIndieBookstore

INK@84

Our guest for this episode is Betsy Tobin, aka Natalie Cox. Find more about her at BetsyTobin.co.uk.

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwritingfor 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:                                        00:02                    Hey there listeners, it's KJ. What with Jess starting in on a new project lately, we've been talking a lot about nonfiction and research. If that's your kind of work, our sponsor, Author Accelerator can help and you don't have to go all in with full on book coaching if you're not ready. Check out their new four week long nonfiction framework program that will help you nail down your structure before you start to write, or after your writing and realizing, dang, this thing needs a backbone. Authors of self-help, how-to, and academic texts will find the shape of their books, create a working one page summary that helps reveal that shape at a glance, and develop a flexible table of contents to guide you through the drafting and revision process. You can find a lot more, including previews of much of the material, by going to authoraccelerator.com/nonfictionframework. Is it recording?

Jess:                                     01:00                    Now it's recording.

KJ:                                        01:01                    Yay.

Jess:                                     01:02                    Go ahead.

KJ:                                        01:03                    This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone and try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing.

Jess:                                     01:07                    Alright, let's start over.

KJ:                                        01:08                    Awkward pause and I'm going to rustle some papers.

Jess:                                     01:11                    Okay.

KJ:                                        01:11                    Now, one, two, three. Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is our weekly podcast about writing all the things - fiction, nonfiction, book proposals, essays, pitches, and as we say every week, this is the podcast about getting the work done.

Sarina:                                 01:40                    And I'm Sarina Bowen, the author of 30 plus romance novels. And you can find more of me at sarinabowen.com. I am KJ Dell'Antonia, author of a novel coming out next summer. Also of How To Be a Happier Parent, former lead editor of the Motherlode blog at the New York Times and all of the other things that I say every week. And our usual cohost, Jess Lahey, is missing this week. Sarina and I are soloing, but we have a guest. In fact, you could argue that we have three guests. We are going to talk today with Betsy Tobin, who is the author of five books of literary fiction/mystery/I'm not even quite sure how to describe it. Natalie Cox, the author of a new romcom, which is called Mutts and Mistletoe, it's a holiday theme and it is incredibly fun. And the co-owner of the Ink@84 bookstore bar cafe in North London. Conveniently, however, all of these guests are wrapped up into the same person. It's just going to make it much easier to ask questions.

Sarina:                                 02:52                    Of course. So welcome, Betsy.

Betsy:                                  02:54                    Gosh, with an intro like that it's going to be hard not to disappoint. I'll do my best. I'll do my best to be three people in one. Thank you very much. And also 30 books, my goodness. Respect, Sarina. That's amazing, respect.

KJ:                                        03:08                    So I'm going to just own it all for our listeners (as we do every week) which is that originally we thought, you know what would be really fun? It'd be fun to talk to somebody who wrote a book with a holiday theme. Because have you ever written a book with a holiday theme?

Sarina:                                 03:27                    Undeveloped, but barely.

KJ:                                        03:29                    Right, but barely. I've written many an essay with the holiday theme, and many a gift guide with a holiday theme, many a freelance thing, but I've not done a book. So that was our original thought. So we, we sort of went looking around to see who would be interesting and came across Natalie Cox's debut romcom author of Mutts and Mistletoe. And reached out to her only to discover that she is scarcely a debut author at all. So while I hope to get to the use of the holiday and the trope and the fun that is all involved in that, we really want to start with, Betsy, get us to this point. Walk us through if you don't mind.

Betsy:                                  04:17                    How did I start writing?

KJ:                                        04:19                    Yeah, how did you start writing? Let's start there.

Betsy:                                  04:23                    My very first foray into writing was that I took an evening class in journalism and the teacher told me that my style was too literary. And he really sort of slightly took the wind out of my sails. I was in my mid-twenties and I thought this might be a great career. So I went and did an autobiographical essay writing course and the very first exercise that that teacher set was to write a brief story about your lif…

Here’s one way to learn how to write books that work in audio: narrate over 700 of them, like our guest this week, Tanya Eby. If that sounds a little daunting, listen in instead for the condensed version.

Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, we sent out our first supporter-only #MiniSupporter episode this week: #Prewriting. Those will be short and sporadic bursts of advice and inspiration from one of us, and thanks to the magic of Substack, supporters of #AmWriting will see those drop into a special feed in their podcast apps whenever we’ve got one ready. We’d love to add you to that list if you’re not already on it. Support the podcast you love, get bonus #MiniSupporter episodes AND get weekly #WriterTopFives 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.

LINKS FROM THE PODCAST

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Jess: Olive Kitteredge, Elizabeth Strout

KJ: Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo

Sarina: Never Have I Ever, Joshilyn Jackson

Tanya: The Chestnut Man, Soren Sveistrup

#FaveIndieBookstore

Schuler Books in Grand Rapids, Michigan

Our guest for this episode is Tanya Eby, the Audie Award Winning narrator of over 700 audio books. Her production company, Blunder Woman Productions, is currently nominated for two Society Arts Awards. Find more about Tanya here.

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwritingfor 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:                                        00:01                    Hey writers, it's KJ and if you're listening in real time, there's a pretty good chance you might be in the middle of NaNoWriMo right now, or giving up on it, or flailing around and wishing you'd never started it. If your National Novel Writing Month isn't exactly passing by in a haze of inspired typing, it's well worth taking a break from churning outwards to make sure your book has a strong enough spine to support the story you want to tell. Our sponsor, Author Accelerator has a tool that might help - the Inside Outline. And I have a NaNoWriMo secret. It's not all about the word count. 30,000 words are better than 50,000 if you're going to have to throw half of those 50,000 words away. So, if you're feeling the least bit stuck, try applying the Inside Outline to what you've already written and to the scenes to come. It might be exactly what you need to get over the finish line. #AmWriting listeners have exclusive access to a free download that describes what the outline is, why it works, and how to do it free. You can find it at authoraccelerator.com/amwriting. Is it recording?

Jess:                                     01:12                    Now it's recording.

KJ:                                        01:14                    Yay.

Jess:                                     01:14                    Go ahead.

KJ:                                        01:15                    This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.

Jess:                                     01:19                    Alright, let's start over.

KJ:                                        01:21                    Awkward pause, I'm going to rustle some papers.

Jess:                                     01:24                    Okay.

KJ:                                        01:24                    Now one, two, three.

KJ:                                        01:32                    Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting, the weekly podcast about writing all the things - fiction, nonfiction, every genre, every possible permutation of writing that we can possibly come up with, (especially if it begins with a P, which seems to be where I'm going today) pitches, proposals. See I told you, and as you know, this is, above all else, the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done.

Jess:                                     02:03                    I'm Jess Lahey. I'm the author of the Gift of Failure and you can find my work at the New York Times and The Atlantic. And I just finished the first draft of my forthcoming book in 2021 The Addiction Inoculation about preventing substance abuse in kids.

Sarina:                                 02:17                    And this is Sarina Bowen. I'm the author of more than 30 romance novels, with a new one coming out in just a few days, called Man Cuffed, and more about that in a minute.

KJ:                                        02:29                    And I am KJ Dell'Antonia, author of How To Be a Happier Parent as well as a novel coming out next year, The Chicken Sisters, former editor of the Motherlode blog at the New York Times, and feeling a bit like a slacker with this just same book, you know, coming out all the time. I'm working, I'm going to have another one soon, I hope.

Jess:                                     02:55                    Well, just wait. I mean, my book's not coming out until 2021 so just imagine how sick of it we're going to be by the time it finally comes out, it feels like it's forever away.

KJ:                                        03:03                    Yes, we have a guest today. Sarina, I'm going to tell you, 'Take it away.'

Sarina:                                 03:11                    We do have a guest today and it's a friend of mine. We're welcoming to the show, Tanya Eby, who is the Audie award-winning narrator of over 700 audio books. Wow. I mean, come on, 700. Her production company, which is adorably titled Blunder Woman Productions, is currently nominated for two society arts awards, as well. And Tanya is here today to talk mostly about the booming market for audio books. But I just have to slide in there and say that Tanya and I also have a USA today bestselling series of romance novels together. They are The Man Hands books. Which everything Tanya does is funny, so I'm going to tell you the titles are: Man Hands, Man Card, Boy Toy, and our new one, Man Cuffed. Welcome, Tanya.

Tanya:                                 04:06                    Hey, that was such a cool introduction. Thank you.

Sarina:                                 04:10                    You are welcome.

Jess:                                     04:12                    The series you two write together that Sarina was just talking about just makes me laugh out loud. I love that series. And it's also really fun to read Sarina with various authors. I love reading Sarina in all the different forms and I'm so excited to hear about audio books. Mainly because number one, I'm a huge, huge audio book fan since I had a head injury a couple of years ago. For me, I have limited on the page time, and so audio books are my preferred way to sort of get at the fun reading. But also, I was on one of my audio book apps, scrolling through trying to make sure I knew which books you've narrated that I've read, and it's like page one of 62 and I'm scrolling through. So I'm glad Sarina said how many because that was going to be a long morning for me scrolling through every single thing you've ever done.

Tanya:                                 05:08                    Yeah, I've been doing this for a while now.

Jess:                          …

Every nonfiction book starts out as a glimmer of an idea. A topic. An area of interest or expertise. But you can’t just pitch a book about beekeeping, kids. You need to know a whole lot more. Is it a beekeeping memoir? A beekeeping how-to? A meditation about the relationship between bees and humanity?

In this episode, we dish about how to answer those questions, because—spoiler—that’s exactly how Jess, who just finished the draft of her second nonfiction book, has been spending her time. Well, not thinking about beekeeping, or at least, I don’t think so. She’s pretty cagey about what, exactly, she’s researching—but that’s a good thing, because this episode is about the first steps that lead to an eventual proposal and, ultimately a book, no matter what the topic.

Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, November 11, 2019: Top 5 Steps to Setting Up Your Author Presence on Amazon (Plus a Couple More for Extra Credit). Not joined that club yet? You’ll want to get on that. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #WriterTopFives 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.

LINKS FROM THE PODCAST

The Art of the Book Proposal: From Focused Idea to Finished Product, Eric Maisel

The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers, Betsy Lerner

Modern Love Series on Amazon

Modern Love Column, New York Times

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Jess: Jess has been all in this week! Katherine Center’s Things You Save in a Fire, How to Walk Away and the bridge story between those two novels, The Girl in the Plane, plus Happiness for Beginners, The Lost Husband, and Get Lucky.

Also, Ali Wong’s Dear Girls, Ronan Farrow’s Catch and Kill, and Sarina Bowen’s Moonlighter!

Sarina: The Virgin Gift, Lauren Blakely

#FaveIndieBookstore

Octavia Books, New Orleans.

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. AND—they’ve got a new program for new nonfiction projects! Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwritingfor 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.

The image in our podcast illustration is by William Iven on Unsplash.

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.)

Hello listeners! If you’re in with us every week, you’re what I like to call “people of the book.’ And some of us book people discover somewhere along the way that not only we writers, we’re people with a gift for encouraging other writers. For some of us, that comes out in small ways, but for others it’s a calling and an opportunity to build a career doing work you love. Our sponsor, Author Accelerator, provides book coaching to authors (like me) but also needs and trains book coaches. If that’s got your ears perked up, head to https://www.authoraccelerator.com and click on “become a book coach.” Is it recording?

Jess

00:01

Now it's recording. Go ahead.

KJ

00:45

This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.

Jess

00:49

All right, let's start over.

KJ

00:51

Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers.

Jess

00:54

Okay.

KJ

00:54

Now one, two, three. Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting the podcast about all things writing - nonfiction, fiction, proposals, essays, pitches, and as we say each and every week. This is the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done.

Jess

01:22

I'm Jess Lahey. I'm the author of the Gift of Failure and a completed manuscript for book two, The Addiction Innoculation. And you can find my stuff in the New York Times and the Atlantic and various other places.

KJ

01:35

Carry on, Sarina.

Sarina

01:40

Hi, I'm Sarina Bowen. I'm the author of 30 plus romance novels and my last one was called Moonlighter and it just hit the USA Today.Best Sellers List.

KJ

01:51

I am KJ Dell'Antonia, the author of How To Be a Happier Parent, the former editor of the Motherlode blog at the New York Times and the author of a forthcoming novel that you'll hear all about as it comes out next summer. And yeah, wows all around. It's been it's been a good week. I think things are going pretty well for all of us.

Jess

02:18

All of us. I think so, too. I'm finally recovered from getting the last book done and it's amazing how much stuff a person can push off until after. And like after meant after November 1st and so now my inbox is full of things with like all different color flags stuck in it, like deal with this after November 1st, deal with this after November 1st. And it's amazing how much stuff I actually piled on to deal with after November 1st and it's November 1st and I'm dealing with it. Welcome to after, I'm in the after mode now. And it's crazy. It's really good though. It was really freeing to be able to say, 'Just later', but later is now here. So anyway, but Sarina the thing that I wanted to mention is a huge congratulations because this is a new book in a new series for you, right?

Sarina

03:13

Yeah. It's a spinoff because that's how I like to start series by spinning them off from existing characters. But it's definitely something new. I hadn't written a suspense plot really before. And yeah, it was hard and I really enjoyed it and I thought readers would follow me there, but of course I really wasn't sure.

KJ

03:35

And they did.

Jess

03:35

You can never be sure, but readers are fickles and they did. And it's really, really good. I was actually on my list of books I read, even though KJ pointed out that no one's going to trust me when I say anything about either The Chicken Sisters or any of your books. But I did love it and I love the fact that you're willing to push yourself to try lots of different things. And I think I even texted you earlier about a couple of the things that you've done that have made you nervous. When you first think, 'Should I write this?' And then you write it. And I'm always amazed how a) brave you are to write about stuff like a pregnant protagonist, which sounds crazy in romance. I mean, you would think that would never work, and it does, and it's fantastic. And I just, I love the fact that you're willing to push yourself because it would be so easy to say, 'I'm just going to write about single, heterosexual, white people because that's sort of the comfort zone. And yet you don't, you write about all kinds of things and I think that's really cool.

Sarina

04:36

Well, thank you. The truth is though if I only wrote about people like me, we'd have a lot of books about people who don't leave home very much.

Jess

05:03

My suspense for today is if the leftover Halloween candy is still gonna be here when everybody gets home later on today. Yeah. Can we point out today is (the day we're recording) November 1st since I already blew it and mentioned that. So that means it's the first day of NaNoWriMo. Are we gonna talk at all about that reality?

KJ

05:32

Sure, I will. But before we do, we do have a topic for today. We have a plan - today we're going to be talking - Jess, name it.

Jess

05:43

We are going to be talking about new projects. Because during my recovery from finishing the last book, I had no intention to have a new idea, but I did. So we'll talk about that in just a minute.

KJ

05:58

This is …

Writers need a page, a profile and a whole lot of patience and persistence to even feel like we’re close to getting Facebook “right.”

The question first appeared, as these things do, in the #AmWriting Facebook group. A book is coming! I’m on Facebook (obviously), but do I need an author page in addition to my profile? Why—and what should I do with one once I’ve got one?

Our answer is yes, but of course it doesn’t stop there. In this episode, we talk the ins and outs of Facebook for writers of all kinds, with a primer on the basics and then a few ninja-level tips from Sarina.

Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, November 4, 2019: Top 5 Things You Don’t Need to Be a “Real” Writer. We’d love your support, and we hope you’ll love our Top 5s. Join in for 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.

LINKS FROM THE PODCAST

The #AmWriting Facebook Group

Grown and Flown on Facebook

Ron Lieber’s Author Facebook Page

Sarina’s Facebook Page

Sarendipity (Sarina’s Facebook Fan Group)

Jess’s Facebook Page

KJ’s Facebook Page, which she didn’t even remember existed but will now tend as directed by Sarina.

ManyChat

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Jess: Home, Run Away, Harlan Coben (also mentioned, Tell No One)

KJ: Kitchens of the Great Midwest, J. Ryan Stradal

Sarina: Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo

#FaveIndieBookstore

Gibson’s, Concord NH

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwritingfor 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.

The image in our podcast illustration is by NeONBRAND on Unsplash.

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:                                        00:01                    Hello listeners, KJ here. If you’re in with us every week, you’re what I like to call “people of the book.’ And some of us book people discover somewhere along the way that not only we writers, we’re people with a gift for encouraging other writers. For some of us, that comes out in small ways, but for others it’s a calling and an opportunity to build a career doing work you love. Our sponsor, Author Accelerator, provides book coaching to authors (like me) but also needs and trains book coaches. If that’s got your ears perked up, head to https://www.authoraccelerator.com and click on “become a book coach.” Is it recording?

Jess:                                     00:02                    Now it's recording, go ahead.

KJ:                                        00:45                    This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.

Jess:                                     00:45                    Alright, let's start over.

KJ:                                        00:45                    Awkward pause, I'm going to rustle some papers.

Jess:                                     00:45                    Okay.

KJ:                                        00:54                    Now one, two, three. Hey all, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is your podcast, your weekly podcast, our podcast, about writing all the things. Fiction, nonfiction, pitches, proposals, essays you know what? All the things, except poetry. None of us do that. But we did have a poet on once. I dunno, I just was thinking that the other day like, wait a minute, it's not quite all the things. Alright, back to the regularly scheduled introduction. #AmWriting is the podcast about sitting down and getting your work, whatever it is, done.

Jess:                                     01:40                    KJ, before I introduce myself, speaking of the intro changing up, we got an email this week from someone who said, 'Wait, you changed the pattern at the beginning of the episode and I don't know what to do with that.' It was very, very funny.

KJ:                                        01:54                    I love that people go back and listen to all the episodes. It brings me incredible joy.

Jess:                                     01:58                    Yes, it does. I am Jess Lahey, I'm the author of the Gift of Failure and a forthcoming book about preventing substance abuse in kids. And I write at various places including the New York Times, Washington Post and the Atlantic.

Sarina:                                 02:13                    And I'm Sarina Bowen, the author of 30 plus contemporary romance novels. And you can find more of me at sarinabowen.com.

KJ:                                        02:22                    And I am KJ Dell'Antonia, a novelist and also the author of the nonfiction book How to Be a Happier Parent, first novel will be out next summer, more to come I hope. You'll sometimes still find my work at the New York Times and in a variety of other places. So that's it, that's who we are. We know some things and today our plan is to talk about what we know about Facebook. But before we do, I just want to thank everyone who has gone in and subscribed to our weekly emails that come out every week about the podcast. That is a new thing that we're doing and I love that people are finding it useful. Every week we send you little something about what the episode is, all the links, and a way to see a transcript, which is pretty cool. And also huge shout out and thanks to those of you who have signed up to support the podcast and get our weekly top fives for writers. It's huge, we feel so grateful and excited that you guys want to support us, and want to be a part of it, and want to get our top fives, which we're having a great time doing. So you know, thanks to everyone for that. And if you're looking to do either of those things, head over to amwritingpodcast.com and you'll find all the links there.

Jess:                                     03:42                    Alright, let's do it. You said our topic is Facebook. What do you mean about this Facebook thing?

KJ:                                        03:54                    Well, it's a great place to put up pictures of your kids and offend all your relatives on your political views. But as a writer, people have questions like, 'Should you have an author page and a personal page? Should you do everything from your personal page? How has this evolved over the years? And I have wrestled with it. Sarina has come to some pretty good terms with it and I'll just also throw out there that back in 2013 when I started with the Times, they actually said to me, 'We do not want to create a Facebook page for the Motherlode blog, which doesn't exist anymore anyway. So just use your own. It was one of the best gifts that they gave me. I don't think it was actually the right choice for them, but well, and here and today I'm sitting here with no author page, but the AmWriting page and everything I do professionally ends up on my personal page and I'm not sure that's where I should be.

Jess:                                     05:01                    I'm a mess. Sarina, you go cause you've got a whole thing. You use it beautifully.

Sarina:                                 05:07                    Well…

Novelist Abbi Waxman makes us laugh talking process and inspiration almost as much as we do when reading her books, with emphasis on using settings you know and love.

Our transcription assistant reports that this was “her favorite episode ever.” It’s definitely a contender—Abbi Waxman is funny and candid about the challenges of creating characters and worlds that are engrossingly real yet also comical—and about her next novel, the first one not fully set in her California ‘hood.

Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, you don’t want to miss the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, October 28, 2019: Top 5 Goodreads Secrets for Authors. It’s a good one! If you haven’t yet plunked down a tiny chunk of cash to support the podcast, maybe now is the time. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #WriterTopFives 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.

LINKS FROM THE PODCAST

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Abbi: A Miss Silver Mystery: Lonesome Road (#3), Patricia Wentworth

Jess: Home, Run Away, Harlan Coben

KJ: Confessions of a Bookseller, Shaun Bythell

Three Things You Need to Know about Rockets: A Real-Life Scottish Romance, Jessica A. Fox

The Gyrth Chalice Mystery, Margery Allingham

#FaveIndieBookstore

Chevalier’s Books Los Angeles, CA — if you’ve read Nina Hill, this is the real life bookstore she works in, and we love that.

Our guest for this episode is Abbi Waxman. Abbi is the author of:

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

Other People’s Houses

The Garden of Small Beginnings

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwritingfor 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—and, this time around, Jess is “New Speaker.” We don’t know why. AI is mysterious.)

KJ:                                        00:01                    Hey writers—you all know we love our sponsor, Author Accelerator, which offers intense book coaching to help writers keep their butts in the chair and their heads in the game and finish what we start. But what if you’re not ready for full on coaching? What if you’re still trying to figure out where your story or memoir is going, and you need help? In that case, Author Accelerator has something new: the four-week Inside Outline Coaching program, which will help you quickly and efficiently visualize your entire story, spot the holes and places where your characters have lost momentum and ensure that you’re working forward with a structure that will support the story you want to tell. I love this tool, and working with someone to stick to it and get it right is going to save you a lot of time and a lot of typing. Find out more at https://www.authoraccelerator.com/insideoutline.

New Speaker:                    00:01                    Go ahead.

KJ:                                        00:01                    This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.

New Speaker:                    00:01                    All right, let's start over.

KJ:                                        00:01                    Awkward pause, I'm going to rustle some papers.

New Speaker:                    00:01                    Okay.

KJ:                                        00:01                    Now one, two, three. Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. The podcast about writing, which is pretty much why we named it that. We are a podcast about writing all things - fictional, non-fictional, proposals, pitches, writing emails in the quest to get an agent, and I've run out of my list, but it's one I give you guys weekly and as I hope you know, we are the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done.

New Speaker:                    01:50                    And I'm Jess Lahey. I'm the author of the Gift of Failure and a book I just turned in on preventing substance abuse in kids. And you can find me at the New York Times, and the Atlantic, and the Washington Post .

KJ:                                        02:03                    You're killing it. This actually is your due date and I'm so delighted.

New Speaker:                    02:08                    I'm a little bit giddy today.

KJ:                                        02:11                    You should be. I am KJ Dell'Antonia, author of a novel coming out next year, The Chicken Sisters, and of How To Be a Happier Parent, former editor of the Motherlode blog at the New York Times, where I'm still a reasonably regular contributor, and at the moment working on novel number two. And I am delighted to say that we have a guest today. So before I introduce her, since she's sitting there silently, I will just say, 'Hi Abby.'

Abbi:                                    02:39                    I wasn't sure if I should be making little chicken noises in the background. It's probably a good idea for me to sit excitedly until prompted.

KJ:                                        02:55                    Abbi is the author of three novels, all of which I've totally enjoyed and I believe have recommended at one point or another on the podcast. They are - I'll go in backwards order - her most recent novel is The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, preceded by Other People's Houses. And then, gosh, there ought to be another word for this - preceded by The Garden of Small Beginnings. I would call them comic, commercial fiction, with plenty of snark and a little tiny touch of the darkness of life, and our huge fun. And we're so glad to have you.

Abbi:                                    03:36                    It is my pleasure to be here.

KJ:                                        03:38                    Thank you.

New Speaker:                    03:41                    I have to say, she's been so excited to talk to you. So the fact that she's just overflowing with questions...

KJ:                                        03:52                    I've really enjoyed The Bookish Life of Nina Hill. And I want to go back and talk about - I guess what we like to do when we have a guest is go just a little bit back into your career. A lot of our listeners are somewhere sort of mid-career, a lot of them are just getting started, and everybody wants to know things like - how did you get started? I know that you were in advertising, so I think my question is what's the first thing you wrote that wasn't advertising that you got paid for?

Abbi:                                    04:27                    So yeah, I worked in advertising for a long time. But I always knew that I wanted to write books, ultimately. But that's because that's what I saw growing up. My mother was a murder mystery writer. My biological dad was also in advertising. My stepfather was not a writer, so this is just what I saw grown ups doing a lot of the time and certainly that's what I thought mothers did. So, I had a career, I had my own agency for a while ,and then I decided I wanted to quit that, write books, and have children. Which those two things are inextricably linked in my head. The problem being, of course, having children is a hundred percent contra-indicated if what you're trying to do is actually…

Maybe you’re drafting a novel, maybe you’re not. Either way, we vote for seizing on the community energy generated by NaNo and getting some work done.

The magic of NaNoWriMo isn’t in the number of words or the length of time or even the month of November. It’s in the community seizing this time—when we could so easily heave a giant sigh and say oh, well, November, it’s practically December, might as well give up—and instead bestowing upon it this extra energy, turning it into a holiday of our very own. We’re all for writing a 50K word novel (and there’s much advice in this episode on prepping for just that) but we’re also in favor of creating your own National Whatever Write Month. Pick your poison, name your deadline and join us in taking back November.

Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, October 21, 2019: Top 5 Ways to Tame the Internet Distraction Beast. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #WriterTopFives 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.

LINKS FROM THE PODCAST

Junior NaNoWriMo

Jennie Nash method for finding your thru line and your roadmap for writing useful words (because we’ve all written our way to finding the story, and we don’t particularly recommend it): The Inside Outline Download (formerly known as the Two-Tier, but don’t worry, this is it.)

Character development resources:

Episode 180 #CharacterEnneagramRabbitHole

The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Psychological Trauma, Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi

Take Off Your Pants!: Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing, Libbie Hawker

FabulaDeck.com

Episode 75: #NovelPreparations

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

KJ: The Lager Queen of Minnesota, J. Ryan Stradal

Jess: Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity, Peggy Orenstein

Ready or Not: Preparing Our Kids to Thrive in an Uncertain and Rapidly Changing World, Madeline Levine

#FaveIndieBookstore

Print: A Bookstore, Portland, Maine, which does not look like this in October but soon will. Sigh.

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwritingfor 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.

The image in our podcast illustration is by chmyphotography on Unsplash.

KJ:                                        00:02                    Writing people, this episode of #AmWriting is about setting yourself up for NaNoWriMo success no matter what spin you’re putting on it. We love NaNoWriMo because it takes a month when it’s easy to slack off—hello, holiday season!—and turns it into a month when much of the writing community is settling in to push harder, whether it’s the classic draft your novel NaNo, or whether you’re creating a book proposal, editing an existing work, drafting a memoir or applying yourself fresh to anything else. If you’re going for classic write-a-draft-of-your-novel in a month NaNoWriMo, you’ll want to sign up for Author Accelerators’s free 7 day jump-start-your-book email series. Truly, the five exercises they send you, from a one-sentence logline to your back-of-the-book copy, and the advice on getting those done really helps to set you up for success. I go back to those exercises again and again to see what I’ve promised the reader, and what I’ve promised myself. Sign up at https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting. Is it recording?

Jess:                                     01:16                    Now it's recording.

KJ:                                        01:17                    Yay.

Jess:                                     01:18                    Go ahead.

KJ:                                        01:18                    This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.

Jess:                                     01:23                    Alright, let's start over.

KJ:                                        01:23                    Awkward pause, I'm going to rustle some papers.

Jess:                                     01:26                    Okay.

KJ:                                        01:27                    Now one, two, three. Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWritingHashtag is our podcast, it is your podcast about writing all the things - fiction, nonfiction, proposals, emails, pitches, and in short, this is the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done.

Jess:                                     01:57                    I'm Jess Lahey. I am one of your co-hosts. I'm the author of the Gift of Failure and a new book coming out in 2021 about preventing substance abuse in kids and just finishing up, packing up, and turning it into a package for my deadline. Yay.

Sarina:                                 02:18                    And I'm Sarina Bowen, the author of 30-odd romance novels and the latest one is called Moonlighter.

KJ:                                        02:25                    I am, as previously stated, KJ Dell'Antonia, author of How To Be a Happier Parent as well as a novel coming out in June of next year. Cannot wait to share a cover with everybody, but that is still a little bit away. And I want to remind everyone that if you want to hear a little bit more from us, you can sign up for our weekly emails in which we will basically shoot you out the podcast, along with all of the links, and a little bit of a transcript, and everything you could possibly need to know about every episode. So, you can sign up for that at amwritingpodcast.com.

Jess:                                     03:06                    And the place where you find all the good things,

KJ:                                        03:09                    All the good things.

Jess:                                     03:11                    What are we talking about today?

KJ:                                        03:12                    Oh, we are talking about like the super obvious, elephant in the room topic for all writers in October, which is are you doing NaNoWriMo? And if so, how?

Jess:                                     03:24                    And what?

KJ:                                        03:26                    Yeah, and what? Exactly. So you guys know I love NaNo, but I've only managed to do it, like straight up NaNo once, which was in 2017 and it's actually eventually the draft that turned into the novel that's coming out next year. So, every other year I've sort of taken November and that energy that is just afoot in the writing community and thrown my own style at it. Like, I did some variation of something or another for my How To Be a Happier Parent book. And this year, I'm figuring out, I'm drafting, so it's gonna be National Novel Writing Month for me. But it's not the whole novel, I mean I've already written part of it. It would be silly to abandon that. So, my topic for today for us is sort of Nah, whatever, WriMo. National whatever write month. Cause I think it's so cool. November is a month you could easily just toss, right? Cause it's November, holidays are on the way. There's no way you can do a lot of writing this month, right? And once you've tossed November, December just …

Shortcut to finding our characters’ worst flaws and deepest fears? Yes, thank you.

All Sarina had to do was say “protagonist character analysis” and we were off. Enneagrams, for those who have never heard of them [raises hand high] are descriptions of character types intended for “journeys of self-discovery.” But when it comes to knowing more about your protagonist (and love interest and antagonist and their mother and all the people) they’re pure solid gold, especially if you go romping down the rabbit hole of reading what people in various types (there are 9, with a “wing” in one direction or another) think of themselves and their relationships.

Suddenly, you can think about how your character would play fantasy football, or interview for a job. But the best part is diving deep into how your character behaves at her/his/their very worst, and very best, along with what they most fear and what they believe they want. It’s like real butter on movie popcorn, people.

Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, October 14, 2019: Top 5 Resources for Dictating Your Work. Not joined that club yet? You’ll want to get on that. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #WriterTopFives 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.

LINKS FROM THE PODCAST

The Enneagram Institute (length type descriptions and relationships between the types under the “LEARN” tab).

Free Enneagram test (there are many; this is the one KJ talked about, chosen largely at random for brevity and for being free) from eclecticenergies.com.

Enneagram and Coffee on Instagram.

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Jess:  The Butterfly Girl and an essay “The Green River Killer and Me” by Rene Denfeld and Demi Moore’s memoir, Inside Out

KJ: The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai

Sarina: The Play, Elle Kennedy

#FaveIndieBookstore

Prairie Path Books, Wheaton IL

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwritingfor 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.

The image in our podcast illustration this week is from enneagramandcoffee on Instagram, and I asked permission to use it, although I confess that I’m posting it pre-reply. But I feel good about our odds. Plus, fun follow for everyone!

Getting Ready to NaNoWriMo?

Every episode of #AmWriting is sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. One key to that is the INSIDE OUTLINE, a tried and tested tool developed by Jennie Nash that can help you start a book, to help you rescue one that isn’t working, and to guide a revision.

Author Accelerator is hosting a webinar about the Inside Outline just in time for NaNoWriMo prep on Monday, October 14 at Noon Pacific/2 PM Central/3 PM Eastern.

Register even if you can’t attend live, as a replay will be sent to everyone who has registered.

REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR NOW

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:                                        00:01                    Hey Book people, before today’s episode of #AmWriting, I want to tell you about something new from our sponsor, Author Accelerator. No matter where you are in your own work, you’ve probably found yourself working with other writers on theirs. If that time spent encouraging, editing and helping someone else turned out to be pure joy for you, you might want to consider becoming a book coach yourself. Author Accelerator provides book coaching to authors (like me) but also needs and trains book coaches. If that’s got your ears perked up, head to https://www.authoraccelerator.com and click on “become a book coach.” Is it recording?

Jess:                                     00:01                    Go ahead.

KJ:                                        00:01                    This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.

Jess:                                     00:01                    All right, let's start over.

KJ:                                        00:01                    Awkward pause, I'm going to rustle some papers.

Jess:                                     00:01                    Okay.

KJ:                                        00:01                    Now one, two, three. Hey I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. We are the podcast about all things, writing short things, long things, fictional things, non-fictional things, memoirs things. And as I say, every single week in a variety of different ways, this is the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done.

Jess:                                     01:23                    And I'm Jess Lahey. I'm the author of the Gift of Failure and a forthcoming book on preventing substance abuse in kids that is due in seven days. And you can find my writing at various places including the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Sarina:                                 01:41                    I'm Sarina Bowen, the author of more than 30 romance novels and you can find me at sarinabowen.com.

KJ:                                        01:49                    And I am KJ Dell'Antonia author of How To Be a Happier Parent and have a novel that will be coming out next summer. And the former editor of the New York Times' Motherlode blog. For the most part at the moment you can find me sitting in front of my laptop writing a new novel. And I'm going to just own that Sarina and I are snuggled up in our small town library, gazing out at there are a lot of really pretty trees, but these that we can see are not super spectacular and that, I forgot my microphone. So we might sound a little echoey.

Jess:                                     02:24                    And from my perspective, I'm looking out on the woods behind my house and there are a couple of red leaves out there, but it's Vermont and it's just starting to get that orangy glow to it. It's really pretty. What was crazy is this week I went from Vermont - where I was wearing a sweatshirt - and I traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina where it was oppressively hot, it was like 95 degrees. And then I went New York where it was cold again and then back here. So it's just been a really interesting week of summer and getting into fall. So, I'm ready for fall. I'm happy about it.

KJ:                                        03:09                    And now this is the podcast about all things weather, and enough of that. I am so excited about our topic today because this is going to be super fun. We're going to talk Enneagrams, which is a rabbit hole that Sarina went down one day. And then quickly texted to me and I immediately dove right in after her. But let me just say before you all go, 'Wait a minute, wait a minute'. We're not talking about our own Enneagrams, although we might. We're going to talk about doing it for characters, because it's so cool. But before we do, what is an Enneagram for those of us who don't know, which was actually mostly all of us until we started this. You can do the defining.

Sarina:                                 04:07                 …

Not writing what your inner parent says you “should” be writing? How to get over it.

Fellow writers, KJ here. I have gathered you here today to discuss the moment last week when I sat down on my bed, surveying a pile of literary fiction, some of which I liked and some of which I most emphatically did not, and asked myself, as I have many times on other topics—should I be writing something other than what I am writing? Should I be good at something other than that which I am good at? This week, I lay it out there: sometimes I feel ashamed that I don’t write something more … serious. Then Sarina slaps me around a little, and Jess declares that even writers of serious stuff (I give her that title) sometimes feel like they’re not using their time wisely.

Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, October 7, 2019: Top Five Reasons to Embrace NaWhateverWriMo. It’s a good one! And I happen to know the next one’s on dictation tools and is even better. Not joined that club yet? You’ll want to get on that. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #WriterTopFives 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.

Keep scrolling—there’s some cool free stuff from Author Accelerator, below.

LINKS FROM THE PODCAST

The Snobs and Me(essay) Jennifer Weiner

From Uber Driving to Huge Book Deal(Adrian McKinty and The Chain)

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Jess: The Chain, Adrian McKinty, Pride and Prejudiceread by [Rosamund Pike] and Sense and Sensibilityread by [Emma Thompson]

KJ AND Sarina: Things You Save In a Fire, Katherine Center

#FaveIndieBookstore

The Flying Pig, Shelburne VT

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

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

COOL OPPORTUNITIES FROM OUR SPONSOR:

Every episode of #AmWriting is sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE—and they have two free webinars coming up. Details:

CHARACTER CLINIC

Author Accelerator is excited to team up with Writers Helping Writers to showcase the NEW Character Builder tool in the One Stop for Writers software.

Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi from One Stop for Writers and Author Accelerator coach Julie Artz will be co-hosting a free Character Clinic webinar on Tuesday, October 8 at 11 AM Pacific. During the event Julie, will be coaching a writer through the character work they have done using the Character Builder.

We encourage everyone to register for the event even if you cannot attend live, as a replay will be sent to everyone who has registered.

REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR NOW

THE INSIDE OUTLINE 

Jennie Nash developed the Inside Outline in her work as a book coach, and it has been tested in the trenches by hundreds of writers. It can be used to help you start a book, to help you rescue one that isn’t working, and to guide a revision.

We're hosting another webinar about this life-changing writing tool on Monday, October 14 at Noon Pacific/2 PM Central/3 PM Eastern.

We encourage everyone to register for the event even if you cannot attend live, as a replay will be sent to everyone who has registered.

REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR NOW

The image in our podcast illustration is by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.

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:                                        00:01                    Hey there listeners, KJ here. In this episode, you’ll hear both me and Sarina give a shout-out to Author Accelerator’s Inside-Outlining process. The Inside-Outline is a took that helps you make sure your book has a strong enough spine to support the story you want to tell. It forces you to spot the holes in your character’s arc and your story logic before you throw 50 thousand words on the page—without being the kind of outline that feels limiting to writers who prefer to see where the story takes you. #AmWriting listeners have exclusive access to a free download that describes what the outline is, why it works and how to do it—and if you’re writing fiction or memoir, I highly encourage you to grab it. Use it before you write, while you’re writing or even as you’re doing final revisions to give your story the momentum that keeps readers turning pages. Only at https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting. Is it recording?

Jess:                                     00:01                    Now it's recording. Go ahead.

KJ:                                        00:01                    This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.

Jess:                                     00:01                    All right, let's start over.

KJ:                                        00:01                    Awkward pause, I'm going to rustle some papers.

Jess:                                     00:01                    Okay.

KJ:                                        00:01                    Now one, two, three. I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is the weekly podcast about writing all the things, be they fiction, nonfiction, proposals, pitches, essays, freelance work. This is the podcast about sitting down and getting your writing done.

Jess:                                     01:40                    I'm Jess Lahey and I'm the author of the Gift of Failure and a book I'm just finishing, it's due so soon, on preventing childhood substance abuse and you can also find me at the Washington Post and The Atlantic and the New York Times and places like that.

Sarina:                                 01:55                    And I'm Sarina Bowen. I'm the author of 30 odd, contemporary romance novels and you can find me at sarinabowen.com.

KJ:                                        02:02                    They're not all odd. Sorry, I just had to, some of them, though. I am KJ Dell'Antonia, I always hit the softballs, and I am the author of How To Be a Happier Parent, the former editor of the New York Times' Motherlode blog, you can still find me as a contributor there. And I'm the author of a novel, The Chicken Sisters, which will be out next summer. That's who we are and we are downright giddy with joy today for Jess who is on the downhill slide, the good downhill slide.

Jess:                                     02:49                    I'm just so discombobulated. So here's where I am. The day that we're recording this, I'm 14 days out from my book deadline. I am going to make it. I'm in the stretch, I'm in that place where nothing else happens. I haven't left the house in days. I am barely getting dressed in the morning. Yesterday I wrote for 14 hours straight, literally all I stopped to do a couple of times was let the dogs out and grab something that I'd already prepared and stuck in the refrigerator and microwave that. So, I'm in a crazy space, but there's something a little fun about being in that full deep dive. Like this is all I think about and my family's being really lovely. They're cooking for me, they're doing the laundry. I've got a lot of support, so that's great.

KJ:                                        03:46                    Is this what the last deadline felt like, too? I do not remember.

Jess:                                     03:50                    Well, here's the thing, I was talking to someone about that just recently. Writing a book is like having children, you forget a lot of the worst parts because…