#AmWriting

Who doesn’t want a craft book that’s fun to read and will help you plan your fiction (or memoir), write that fiction, revise that fiction and then sell that fiction? This week we talked to Theodora Taylor, author of more than 50 novels and one brilliant book about writing that made Sarina and I (KJ) go SQUEEEE and then text back and forth frantically for a couple of hours. It’s all about the “Universal Fantasies” that give our story-loving brains the things we need when we read—and how to spot those in your own writing to help you tell people what you’re all about, use them in drafting and revising and just generally make sure they’re everywhere in everything you write—literary, commercial, genre, short stories, novellas—everything. 

We read Harry Potter for Hogwarts fun and the hero’s journey—but we also are in it for the universal fantasies of “crushed underdog proves self to loathsome family” and “ordinary person turns out to be special” and “loyal friends can be better than family” and so on—and the thing about those elements is that they appear everywhere. You could find a book in any genre that scratches those itches, and those feelings are a big part of what we’re reading for. As Theodora says, they’re what makes your book taste good.

They’re the butter.

7 Figure Fiction: How to Use Universal Fantasy to Sell Your Books to Anyone

Facebook group: 7 Figure Fiction

https://theodorataylor.com

Theodora: Beastars Manga by Paru Itagaki

KJ: Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

Sarina: The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

Hey! Know what else a great craft book is good for? Helping you give better advice to fellow writers—or be a better book coach! I just finished Author Accelerator’s Fiction Book Coaching course, and I learned a lot about my own writing—and of course about helping others with theirs. I was an editor for many years but I still doubted my ability to help with a whole book until I finished the course, and learned not just about editing but about coaching—helping someone through the process of writing a book, which is challenging in so many ways that aren’t just about the words and the pages. If that sounds fun to you, find out more about the coaching course at bookcoaches.com. 

Ever want to know “how she did it”? This episode is our little version of How I Built This, in which we ask Zibby Owens—whose name you surely know by now—about how she turned a desire to be part of the world of books into a one-woman mini book empire.

Zibby Owens is the host of Moms Don’t Have Time to Read, a daily podcast featuring interviews with authors that has over 900 episodes. She’s also a Bookstagrammer with 16K followers, the host of a second podcast—Moms Don’t Have Time to Have Sex—the editor of two anthologies, Moms Don’t Have Time To and Moms Don’t Have Time to Have Kids—KJ contributed to that last one—and now the CEO of Zibby Books, a new publishing home for fiction and memoir. She’s a regular contributor to Good Morning America, she’s been called “America’s Top Bookfluencer” and she has two books coming soon: Princess Charming, a picture book, and Booked, a memoir. She’s also got four kids, and they’re kids—elementary and middle school age, not a bunch of independent high schoolers wandering around

But.

Five years ago Zibby was none of those things (except a mother of four). And that’s what I want to talk about. She’s built a massive literary life, a community, a reputation in just a few years, and—after totally owning the fact that she has help with her kids (heck, not just help, they’re completely gone every other weekend because, divorce sometimes works like that) and also that this isn’t how Zibby earns a living— we go back to the beginning and talk about what it took to get there.

Because no matter who you are, you can’t wake up and say, I think I’d like to be America’s Biggest Bookfluencer, and whip out your Amex card and make it happen. You can’t even take your Kardashian self and decide this is what you want and ask your assistant to set it up. This takes work and desire and passion, and we dig into how Zibby started, and how she made things take off.

Links from the pod:

Lee Carpenter: Red, White, Blue and Eleven

Andre Agassi: Open

Zibby Books

Zibby Books Ambassadors (at bottom of Zibby Books page)

Zibby: Going There by Katie Couric

Hungry Hill by Eileen Patricia Curran

The Husbands by Chandler Baker 

The Last Season by Jenny Judson & Danielle Mahfood

KJ: A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow

Jess: Speaking of Race by Celeste Headlee

Hey cupcakes, KJ here. Tonight I chatted with a writer who has a memoir that might—or might not—be ready to pitch. It’s hard to know the answer to that as a writer without getting some professional feedback (and you don’t want to pitch before you’re ready). So of course I pointed them toward Author Accelerator’s book coach matching services. The right coach can help get your project ready and then help you pitch it to the right agents. It’s an investment—but you’ve already invested HOW many years in this? I say go for it. And if you’d like to be the one to help writers make that leap, look into book coach certification. I loved the process—and I love knowing how to really help.

Can a marriage survive nearly a quarter century of co-writing? I (Jess) present exhibit A on the side of yes, absolutely: illustrator Robbi Behr and writer Matthew Swanson. Robbi and Matthew met in college, have been partners in life and publishing ever since, and they (along with their four kids) are about to embark on their greatest adventure yet. 

Robbi and Matthew have written over seventy books, initially with their own publishing house, and now with Random House (Knopf). Matthew writes the text, and Robbi creates the illustrations for their delightful picture and middle grade books. One of their favorite parts of being author/illustrators, however, is the part where they get to meet kids and talk about their work and the creative process. 

Next year, the whole family will board a refurbished school bus and travel across the country to speak at Title I schools in all fifty states, giving away 25,000 copies of their books as they go. 

Here’s a video about the adventure. 

It’s an audacious, massive undertaking, and we are proud to be supporters of the Busload of Books Tour!

If you’d like to support them too, go to BusloadofBooks.com to donate, stay abreast of their adventures, and find out where they will be speaking in your state. 

The Most Dangerous Writing App

Robbi and Matthew’s books

The Daily Minute

Robbi and Matthew’s YouTube

Robbi’s and Matthew’s Instagram

Got a burning question about a writing life issue? Something on your mind you’d love for us to help you with? Email us at [email protected]. We can’t promise to answer everyone, but if we think we could be useful to you (or know someone who can) and if your issue is of interest to other listeners, we might invite you to come on the podcast for a little coaching.

Think you’d be pretty good on the other end of a coaching call? Then you should consider becoming a certified book coach through Author Accelerator’s book coach training program. It’s everything you need to know to begin working with clients on writing, planning, revising and querying (and then learning more and getting better with every new client and with Author Accelerator’s support and team behind you). Choose a fiction or nonfiction specialty, study with a cohort and design a new business or side-gig that works for you. Learn more at bookcoaches.com.

Our guest on this episode has a problem—a good problem, yes. An enviable problem even. One that she herself is delighted to have: she’s sold a non-fiction book on proposal.

And now she has to write it. 60,000 words, researched, organized and ready for the editor while also fitting in her day job, raising 3 kids with her partner and all of the other curveballs life likes to throw you.

In this “coaching call” episode, Jess and I (it’s KJ writing, as it often is) help long-time listener Emily Edlynn figure out how much time to spend in what areas: book structure, research, interviewing, drafting, editing—and then how to set yourself up to allow for getting a major project like this completed on time. (We all know how KJ loves a good burn chart - check out episode 175: #HowtoUseaBurnChart). We talk about motivating yourself, strategies for staying on track or picking back up after the unexpected happens. (You can read Emily’s email to us at the bottom of the shownotes.)

Most of us spend more time working on short term projects than longer ones, and when we do get involved with something that stretches out for months or years, it’s usually with other people and external deadlines, whether it’s a major work endeavor, a house remodel or a Ph.D. dissertation. Books—even books with agents and editors—require major solo mojo to get from start to The End—and then revise the result of that. It’s yet another of the many many things that aren’t easy about writing.

But it can be learned, and it can be done. 

Emily doesn’t have any trouble using the time she has to write—but if you do, here are some ideas based on Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies, which are all about knowing how you best meet inner and outer obligations (of which writing a book is weirdly both). Obligors need outer accountability. Set yourself up with a friend or your agent, give them your goals and arrange weekly check-ins. Questioners need reasons, so make that burn chart and put up a full calendar where you can see it and always have an answer for “but do I really need to do this now?” Upholders probably need nothing more than a plan—but make sure your inner upholder understands that this is a priority. Rebels benefit from regular reminders that this is hard, that most people can’t do it and that achieving this goal is a rebellion against everything that stands in its way—and many also like a plan that involves beating the clock. Anything that lets a rebel say “I’ll show you!” is rebel jet fuel.

Gretchen appeared on Episode 107 of the podcast, and you can take her “Four Tendencies” quiz here. 

Emily’s email: I am a psychologist by training who started writing for an audience in 2017 when my career hit a crossroads with a move for my husband's job. My parenting blog led to writing freelance when possible, including a weekly parenting column for Parents since 2019. In April, I signed a contract with a small, independent publisher, Familius, to write a parenting book.
The full manuscript is due May 1. I have never felt so lost! I thought there would be more editor interaction over the year, but she basically said "See you in a year unless you need me!" (I have asked more from her, but have realized she is going to give me broad strokes and not much else.) I have scoured all the places for resources on "how to write a nonfiction book" but besides some of your episodes, what I find is either about self-publishing or marketing, not the process of writing a nonfiction book (that's not a memoir).
I'm trying to narrow this down to one question, which probably can't be "how do I write a nonfiction book in a year with no structure, in the time I have?" For context, I spend half my working week doing therapy in a private practice and supervising graduate students. I'm also writing a new blog post once a month to keep my newsletter subscribers engaged, and my weekly column. Oh, and did I mention attempting to raise 3 children in the process? I currently clock about 8 hours a week of writing time . . . and then I read relevant books when I can almost daily. I did find a virtual writing group with two other psychologist authors, which has been helpful. Since you probably aren't aiming to answer "how do I write a book in a year?" maybe narrowing it down to, "How do I manage my time with a professional job that pays the bills, little interaction with an editor (this seems different in the fiction world or even the nonfiction Big 5 world), to complete a 60,000-word nonfiction, researched manuscript in a year?"

How to Get an Agent Episode

https://www.emilyedlynnphd.com

Emily: The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel 

Wow No Thank You by Samantha Irby

KJ: Becoming Duchess Goldblatt, Anonymous

Jess: The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Podcast: Lili Anolik’s Once Upon a Time at Bennington College

Want a “coaching call” of your own? Email us at [email protected]. We can’t promise to respond to every email, but we might answer your question on an upcoming episode—or invite you into the hotseat like Emily.

Think you’d be pretty good on the other end of a coaching call? Then you should consider becoming a certified book coach through Author Accelerator’s book coach training program. It’s everything you need to know to begin working with clients on writing, planning, revising and querying (and then learning more and getting better with every new client and with Author Accelerator’s support and team behind you). Choose a fiction or nonfiction specialty, study with a cohort and design a new business or side-gig that works for you. Learn more at bookcoaches.com.

Hi all! Jess here. I met performer and voice educator Cate Frazier-Neely through a mutual friend earlier this year, at a Sungazer concert. I was at the concert because my son is a massive fan of Sungazer bassist and YouTuber Adam Neely and Cate was there because she’s Adam Neely’s mom. When the topic of conversation turned away from my son’s hero worship of her son and toward writing and publishing (doesn’t it always?) she revealed she’d made ALL THE MISTAKES when self-publishing her first book, and, of course, I sensed an opportunity for an episode.

As this is a podcast all about flattening the learning curve for writers, I asked her to come on and tell us all the ugly details about publishing her book so we could learn from her mistakes. 

Links from the Pod

Cate Frazier-Neely: https://www.catefnstudios.com

Episode 185: #AudioExplosion with Tanya Eby

Meditations to Feed Christmas by Cate Frazier-Neely

The Authors Guild

We had such a great time chatting we didn’t even get a chance to discuss what we’ve been reading!

Want a “coaching call” of your own? Email us at [email protected]. We can’t promise to respond to every email, but we might answer your question on an upcoming episode—or invite you into the hotseat!

Think you’d be pretty good on the other end of a coaching call? Then you should consider becoming a certified book coach through Author Accelerator’s book coach training program. It’s everything you need to know to begin working with clients on writing, planning, revising and querying (and then learning more and getting better with every new client and with Author Accelerator’s support and team behind you). Choose a fiction or nonfiction specialty, study with a cohort and design a new business or side-gig that works for you. Learn more at bookcoaches.com.

Why can’t I finish my novel?

KJ here, and when I saw that heartfelt cry in our Facebook Group, I knew we had to answer. Because finishing is hard, y’all. It’s harder than starting. It’s harder than showing up to the page. There comes a moment in so many projects when the wheels are spinning but the Matchbox car just isn’t going anywhere.

Ophir Lehavy is a coach herself, working with students to help them find ways to get their work done and feel more successful about it—so she knew the benefits of having someone else try to help you tease out the things that are getting in your way. There are many reasons for feeling stuck or stymied, but they often boil down to two things: feeling unable to take time away from other things, or being able to take the time—but not knowing what to do next. 

We talk about both, and drill down hard on moving from one stage of a project to another, when the rhythm and goal have changed and you can’t simply keep doing what you’re doing—and come up with strategies to get Ophir, or anyone who’s stalled out, back on the road. 

If you’ve got a coachable problem, we’d love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]. We can’t promise to answer every email, but if your question is one that many listeners share and we can help with, we’ll try to answer it on the podcast, and we might even invite you on so we can really dig in.

Julie and Julia: The book and the movie.

Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done by Jon Acuff

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel & Edinburgh by Alexander Chee

Jennie Nash’s Blueprint for a Book

Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody

Ophir: The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri

A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende

KJ: The Donut Trap by Julie Tieu

And—got a burning question about a writing life issue? Something on your mind you’d love for us to help you with? Email us at [email protected]. We can’t promise to answer everyone, but if we think we could be useful to you (or know someone who can) and if your issue is of interest to other listeners, we might invite you to come on the podcast for a little coaching.

Finally, KJ here with a little news about Author Accelerator’s Book Coach Certification Program. I’m in the middle of it! You might remember this bonus episode, where Jennie Nash and I discussed “Shiny Thing Syndrome” and I was dubious about whether working with other writers as a book coach was a great side gig or a distraction for ME. Since then, I’ve been trying on the coach role in a number of small ways, and I’ve decided to go all in. This program is absolutely everything you need to get started from the editorial, coaching and business perspectives. It’s also entertaining and inspirational and makes me want to leap in right away. Learn more at Bookcoaches.com. (Want to see what I’m doing? Click here.)

How do I find a writing group and what if they’re mean? 

That’s a question we get asked a lot, and we always encourage writers to reach out in our Facebook group or boldly throw it out there anywhere else online that you hang out and see what happens. You don’t even have to trade pages to be a writing group. You look for the kind of support and camaraderie you need. 

But if you’ve ever thought of hying yourself off to your local version of Grub Street or our local spot for in-person writer-ness, The Writer’s Center to find your people—or possibly starting an in-person writer-connection-thing of your own, then you’ll want to listen to my conversation with Joni Cole, founder of said Writer’s Center and the author of Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive, Good Naked, and the This Day series, which collects diary entries from women all across the United States on a single day, and the host of the podcast Author, Can I Ask You. Joni and I talk starting writing groups, running them, keeping it positive and making sure you don’t lose your own work in the process of helping others.

Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway 

The Place Between Breaths by An Na

Joni: Embassy Wife by Katie Crouch

American Dialogue by Joseph J. Ellis

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses

(KJ and Jennie discussed Craft in the Real World in Episode 275: Writing While White (or otherwise part of the historically dominant paradigm))

KJ: Writing the Romantic Comedy by Billy Mernit

Find Joni: jonibcole.com

The Writer’s Center in White River Junction, VT

The hardest part about writing a book is … all of it. Or, arguably, whichever part you’re doing. For our guest on this episode, listener Emily Henderson, it’s something like “I know what I want to write about, but I don’t know how.

Structuring memoir or non-fiction (or, for that matter, fiction) is hard, y’all. And I think it gets talked about less in many ways that other elements of craft. We have this illusion that you come up with an idea and then you write it and it’s the writing that’s hard. But taking that idea and even getting it into a writeable shape is also hard. Are you writing a how-to book? A chronological story? A series of essays? An exploration of a big idea through a smaller lens?

You may not know until you try. We talk about exploring all the iterations and then—ironically, since what Emily hopes to do is explore her “Covid project” of running every street in Santa Barbara—we helped Emily build a NaNoWriMo-style “project” around finding her book’s structure and getting some words on the page. In the process, we talked structural failures, revisions and the importance of choosing a book and topic that you want to live with for a few years.

Talked about on the pod (again): The Art of the Book Proposal by Eric Maisel

Emily: Sue Grafton’s alphabet series C is for Corpse

Shoulder Season by Christina Clancy

KJ: Carnival of Snackery by David Sedaris

Theft By Finding also by David Sedaris

Jess: The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Boyfriend by Sarina Bowen (and then we list all of our favorite Sarina Bowen books and discuss the importance of finding a book that’s your particular flavor of ice cream)

Find Emily: emilykathleenwrites.com IG: @Emilykathleenwrites

Hello listeners! Jess here. 

I had the chance to interview one of my former students, Will Morey, about his career as a writer. He has always been talented, and even way back when I knew him in high school English class (actually, since he was eight) he has dreamed of working in movies and television. We talk through his entire career, from a high school screenplay about vampires to working in professional theater, to helping create (and this was a new word for me) “Mockbusters,” or close-but-not-quite versions of big Hollywood blockbuster films, to working as a “Conform,” (another new word to me) to breaking through and writing animated features such as Spy Kids: Mission Critical and Dragons: Race to the Edge and Dragons: Rescue Riders. He’s currently querying literary agents for a novel he completed this year and in true #AmWriting fashion, we had to talk about how he selected the agents he has decided to reach out to and why. 

At its core, this is a discussion about an education in writing for television and how the “little jobs” are often incredibly valuable as learning experiences in an industry with its own process, language, and expectations. And a walk down memory lane for Jess and Will. 

Links from the Pod

Will Morey on Twitter: willofmars

Will Morey on Instagram: @will_of_mars

#AmReading

We did not do #AmReading because, to be honest, Jess was using her own personal version of Zoom and we’d bumped up against our time limit. 

And—got a burning question about a writing life issue? Something on your mind you’d love for us to help you with? Email us at [email protected]. We can’t promise to answer everyone, but if we think we could be useful to you (or know someone who can) and if your issue is of interest to other listeners, we might invite you to come on the podcast for a little coaching. 

Finally, KJ here with a little news about Author Accelerator’s Book Coach Certification Program. I’m in the middle of it! You might remember this bonus episode, where Jennie Nash and I discussed “Shiny Thing Syndrome” and I was dubious about whether working with other writers as a book coach was a great side gig or a distraction for ME. Since then, I’ve been trying on the coach role in a number of small ways, and I’ve decided to go all in. This program is absolutely everything you need to get started from the editorial, coaching and business perspectives. It’s also entertaining and inspirational and makes me want to leap in right away. Learn more at Bookcoaches.com. (Want to see what I’m doing? Click here.)

Querying and submitting is a jungle, campers—and yet if it’s done right, it can not only work out happily in the end, but seem as if it were meant to be. “Meant to be” after a year of additional work, anyway.

Mindy Carlson has just signed a 2 book deal with Crooked Lane Books. The first, Her Dying Day, comes out June 7, 2022. I asked her to come on to talk about her road to publication--because she revised and resubmitted her novel not just once but twice before signing with her now agent. Said agent was one of her top choices and among the first she submitted to, but it was a long road to that happy ending. Mindy tells the whole story in this episode, in which we also talk revisions, when editors know what’s wrong—but not necessarily how to fix it, writing conferences, thriller plotting and more.

The Big Thrill (the online magazine of the International Thriller Writers Association)

Mindy’s interview with Anthony Horowitz

Episode 229 #Interviewing with NPR's Celeste Headlee

Mindy: The Family Plot by Megan Collins

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto

KJ: No Bad Deed by Heather Chavez

A Special Place for Women by Laura Hankin

And—got a burning question about a writing life issue? Something on your mind you’d love for us to help you with? Email us at [email protected]. We can’t promise to answer everyone, but if we think we could be useful to you (or know someone who can) and if your issue is of interest to other listeners, we might invite you to come on the podcast for a little coaching. 

Finally, KJ here with a little news about Author Accelerator’s Book Coach Certification Program. I’m in the middle of it! You might remember this bonus episode, where Jennie Nash and I discussed “Shiny Thing Syndrome” and I was dubious about whether working with other writers as a book coach was a great side gig or a distraction for ME. Since then, I’ve been trying on the coach role in a number of small ways, and I’ve decided to go all in. This program is absolutely everything you need to get started from the editorial, coaching and business perspectives. It’s also entertaining and inspirational and makes me want to leap in right away. Learn more at Bookcoaches.com. (Want to see what I’m doing? Click here.)