#AmWriting

Feeling a wee bit stuck? Struggling to get anything on the page? Well, we all are—and not only does this week’s guest know from writer’s block (her last book came out in 2004), but she gave a raging case of it to her protagonist in her new novel, which allowed her—and us—to really dig in deep into what happens when the words don’t come.

Join KJ and Sarina as we talk to Laura Zigman, author of Separation Anxiety (a perfect book for this moment, all about how we’re all, every single last one of us no matter how weird or obnoxious or even put-together-seeming, just doing the best we can with what we’ve got) about writing funny, the edge between humor and empathy, and how life can get in the way of publishing even when it seems like you’re on the right track.

#AmReading

Jess: 

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz, Eric Larson

Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs, Jennifer Finney Boylan

Podcast: The Long Form 


Laura:

Weather, Jenny Offill

Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill


KJ: 

Separation Anxiety: A Novel, Laura Zigman

Podcast: Beach Too Sandy, Water Too Wet

So, we know it’s rough out there. It’s rough in here, too, but I guess, in a way I’ve personally never experienced before, we really are all in this together. And we’ll come through it together whether we like it or not. As I say in the intro, we recorded this just as the Covid19 shutdown wave was about to crash over us all, and we’ve got a few other episodes we recorded in anticipation of cancelled travel that just take us right back to the olden days—those are coming in weeks ahead, along with more timely episodes.

Thanks for listening and for sticking with us. We feel supported by every one of you. If you feel like kicking a little into the production kitty, (and getting #Minisodes and #WriterTopFives) click the button.

Support #AmWriting

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator—training book coaches and matching coaches and writers.

Find out more: https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting.

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.

Transcripts can be found at amwritingpodcast.com. (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.)

Well, fellow writers, when we recorded this we were just at the beginning of it all. It’s safe to say things have already changed—all of us have families at home, we’re all shut down, with noisy houses full of people trying in various ways to work online.

We went from “trying to work anyway” through “I give up for a few days” and now we’re back to “trying to work anyway.” So this advice still applies—we’re setting small goals, giving ourselves schedules as best we can, and trying to strike that balance between cutting ourselves necessary slack and still trying to be who we want to be as writers. 

It’s true that this keeps happening: 

And when it does, we’re trying to find things we CAN do with absolutely zero attention span. Like share our friends’ books on Instagram. Or record a podcast about how crazy we feel. Which we will keep doing. So, same time, next week?

Hey listeners! It’s been a mad mad mad week here (all of you in the future, check the date), and I bet there too. Result: there are no shownotes for this episode. We’re talking about

 revamping my website to get it in gear for my forthcoming second book. Here’s the image we mention—the before—and for the after (which is still in progress), head over to my site and see what you think. Any questions, shoot me an email ([email protected] or reply to this.

And you thought our shelves full of self help books were just to manage our own issues! Nope, there’s another use for them. Our guest this week, Kathleen Smith, is a therapist and writer and the author of Everything Isn't Terrible, a helpful and humorous guide to shedding our anxious habits and building a more solid sense of self in our increasingly anxiety-inducing world. It’s very useful, and we’re valiantly attempting to tame our own anxieties—but that’s not (much of) what we talk about. Instead, we’re focused on what’s really important—and within our control: Creating believable, dysfunctional characters and then helping them to grow and change.

We talk about romance dynamics: the pursuer and the pursued, the over-functioner and the slacker—and how important it is that a couple be at a similar level of maturity (or, more likely, immaturity) to be believable. From there, it’s headlong into siblings, birth order and circumstance, family coping mechanisms and some of the ways to develop deeper conflict within our work. It’s such a great conversation. 

Episode links and a transcript follow. Thanks for being with us! If you love the podcast, tell a friend. Right now. Just drop everything and go sit someone down and make them listen. And if you love the podcast, you can support it! There are perks. #SupporterMini episodes. #WriterTopFives. 

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Genograms: Assessment and Intervention

Family Constellation, Walter Toman

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Kathleen: Bringing Down the Duke, Evie Dunmore

KJ: Ex Libris, Anne Fadiman

The Uncommon Reader: A Novella, Alan Bennett

Sarina: 19 Love Songs, David Levithan

Our guest for this episode is Kathleen Smith, author of Everything Isn't Terrible: Conquer Your Insecurities, Interrupt Your Anxiety, and Finally Calm Down. For more: 

Website - KathleenSmith.net 

Twitter - @fangirltherapy 

Instagram - @kathleensmithwrites

Free Anxiety Newsletter - https://theanxiousoverachiever.substack.com/

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator—training book coaches and matching coaches and writers. 

Find out more: https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting.

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.

Transcripts for all episodes are always available at amwritingpodcast.com.

It’s our 200th episode! In all that time, we’ve never missed a week and never regretted our choice to spend 40 minutes (ish) together—and with you. We love doing the podcast, so this week we thought we’d answer a few podcast-y questions we get a lot: should you start a podcast? Can a podcast help promote a book? Is there gold in them thare podcast hills? 

We talk about all that and more—but here’s one thing you won’t find in the episode, in part because it seems so obvious now that we never think about it. The smartest thing we did, when we decided we were going for this podcast thing, was this:

We made it about writing.

That was not, back in 2016, an obvious choice. Jess had just written a best-selling book on parenting. I was the editor of the New York Times’ parenting section. Sarina wasn’t on board yet, and it was just the two of us. The obvious thing to create would have been a podcast about family life. 

And we would be so, so sick of doing it by now. Or at least I would. (This is KJ writing.) 

If you are going to start a podcast, either make it about something you love, and have always loved, and can reasonably figure you will continue to love—or make it so broad that it can encompass your changing interests and experiences. Very very few people really want to spend a lifetime talking about, just to offer a parenting example, breastfeeding. Some absolutely do, and if you are one of them, you know it. But for the rest of us, that’s an interest with an expiration date. Don’t start a podcast with an expiration date.

(Note—that’s advice with an asterisk. Some podcasts are meant to end. They follow a single story, or offer a series of interviews around a single topic, and that’s it. We talk more about that in the episode.)

To bookmark the best choice we made, I offer some of the worst advice I was ever offered, from a PR advisor who, reviewing my “platform” before the launch of How to Be a Happier Parent, put her finger on the podcast and said, that. 

That doesn’t match. 

That has to go.

I didn’t listen. 

Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, if you like the podcast, and this not-even-IN the podcast email, please forward it to a friend and suggest that friend might want to take a listen. 

And if you’re that friend and would like the backstory for the podcast to drop into your inbox every week, click here.

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Finally—we could use your help for those next 200 episodes. If you love #AmWriting (and if you’ve read this far, you know you do), kick in if you can. Support us, and get a weekly #WriterTopFive full of actionable advice you can use, access to all the past #WriterTopFives and even the occasional mini podcast. 

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The Tanya Eby #AmWriting episode

Magic Lessons, the Big Magic podcast

Dani Shapiro

Chasing Cosby: The Downfall of America’s Dad, Nicole Weisensee Egan

StoryBites Sarina’s podcast

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Jess: Epic, Sarina Bowen, 

Audio from Pride and Prejudice

KJ: Bunny: A Novel, Mona Awad

Sarina: 

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.

Transcripts of episodes are available at amwritingpodcast.com

Our guest today, Dan Blank, sure seems like a man who loves his work. On his own podcast, the Creative Shift, he’s a warm and engaged interviewer. In his emails, he’s genuine and engaged. Is he selling his book and his services as an advisor to authors developing their platform and launching their work into the world? Sure, but it never feels like he’s selling. It feels like he’s sharing.

Wouldn’t we all like to feel like that, and have our readers see us that way? 

We were hoping Dan would share his magic sauce and we’d all go skipping off towards easy street down a rainbow path, but it turns out there’s some work involved here. So instead, we talked about process, from the way you manage your personal trolls to the way you manage your emails, and then we talked—buzzword alert—authenticity, and finding the things you genuinely want to share with the people who are a match for your work. (You can download Dan’s free guide, 5 Ways to Immediately Connect with Readers, here.)

Episode links and a transcript follow, and that’s it for shownotes, because man has it been a couple of weeks. It’s been February for at least a year, right? And I thought January felt long. A few things you can do to help us out or get more #AmWriting:

Upgrade to Supporter

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. 

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#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

KJ: 

Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid

How Could She: A Novel, Lauren Mechling

Red, White, & Royal Blue: A Novel, Casey McQuiston

Sarina: 

The Starless Sea: A Novel, Erin Morgenstern

Dan: 

Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts

Bonus: Clementine, The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill

Our guest for this episode is Dan Blank, and you can find more about him at We Grow Media.

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 TK

Transcripts can be found at amwritingpodcast.com.

We’re interviewing Julie Lythcott-Haims this week and you won’t want to miss it, because 1) she wrote an amazing, best-selling book called How to Raise an Adult and then followed THAT up with a memoir, Real American, that the New York Times Book Review pretty much thought was amazing and is now drafting the sequel to Adult very much on her own terms; and 2) she could very easily have become Jess’s arch-nemesis, and vice versa.

If they had been totally different people.

If they had been less open, less willing to see possibility in a scary-sounding situation.

If they’d let fear and jealousy win. But they didn’t. So two writers with authority, each releasing a book on raising children to be independent in nearly exactly the same moment turned out to be a recipe for collaboration, not catastrophe. The lesson? In books, it’s really almost never winner-takes-all.

We talk about how they pulled it off, how Julie transcended expectations with her memoir and why it’s so important to resist the call to write something that isn’t what you want to write.

Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, we’re giving away a set of three LitStarts, little books of writing prompts created by the Writer’s Grotto that Julie talks about during the podcast, to—a subscriber to this weekly shownotes email! Which means you’re very likely already entered to win. If you’re not, just click below, sign up to get our free weekly behind the scenes from the podcast and get your name in that hat. 

Subscribe now

(and if you know someone who would really LOVE to win those—please forward this email and help a fellow writer out.)

Lit Starts

Half a Life, Darin Strauss

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Julie: Wildhood: The Astounding Connections between Human and Animal Adolescents Dr. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, Kathryn Bowers

Jess: Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol, Holly Whitaker 

KJ: How Could She, Lauren Mechling

Andy J. Pizza’s Creative Pep Talk Podcast, especially episode 259 - 20 SURPRISING AND SUPER POWERFUL PROMPTS THAT WILL MAKE 2020 THE YEAR YOU DO YOUR BEST WORK EVER!

Our guest for this episode is Julie Lythcott-Haims.

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.

Transcripts can be found at www.amwritingpodcast.com. (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. Sometimes transcripts may appear a few days after an episode has aired.)

Marika Flatt is the founder of PR By the Book, an independent publicity firm dedicated to working with authors, publishers and books. Their tagline is “from author to influencer,” and we talk about that process—and how your goals as an author (sell books, get speaking gigs, sell earlier books, increase name recognition, even sell products or services) change how you might work with a publicist, and even whether you should work with a publicist at all. 

And if your book is still very much a WIP, we’ve got you covered with what writers can do before our books are ready to start establishing the kind of backstory (I refuse to call it platform, because there’s so much more to it) that makes that writer-publicist teaming really work later in the game. Marika even has a DIY program for authors to help us figure these things out without a major investment. 

We also got this great reminder: “If your book soars, all those people will be there to buy your next book.  If your first book crashes but people connect with you as a person, you still win.”

Episode links and a transcript follow. If you’re excited to listen, please consider supporting the podcast with a small monthly donation. Our sponsor pays for production—but you people pay for our time, and your support is what makes us want to keep coming back every week.

Upgrade to Supporter

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. 

Get New Episode Emails

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Marika: My Life in 37 Therapies: From Yoga to Hypnosis and why Voodoo is Never the Answer, Kay Hutchinson

You Are My Brother: Lessons Learned Embracing a Homeless Community, Judith Knotts

KJ: Life and Other Inconveniences, Kristan Higgins (reviewed on #BooksThatWon’tBumYouOut)

Sarina: The Cuckoo’s Egg, Cliff Stoll

Our guest for this episode is Marika Flatt. Find more about her at PRbythebook.com and find her Author-to-Influencer DIY program HERE.

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. So—if you’re struggling to find your way through your book, to get past the soggy middle or chapter three or find the throughline that carries your nonfiction home, check out our sponsor, Author Accelerator, at https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting, where you’ll find everything from exercises to help you hone in on your novel to ideas for creating a nonfiction framework to book coaches who could be your key to making this the year that draft is finally done. Bonus link from the intro: Pat Walsh’s 78 Reasons Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might.

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.

It started with a question in the #AmWriting Facebook group: How do you get it all done?

And the answer was, of course—we don’t, no one does, we push things off until tomorrow or we put out fires all day and then frantically write until late in the evening or we drive our children around for hours while chastising ourselves for not making better choices. 

But really, you all said. Really truly when do you write? And how d you put it first? And what do you do when you don’t or can’t? This is us, three full time writers and also parents (all of teenagers), talking about the push and pull of looking like you’re at home and available when you’re not, and how the awful truth is that sometimes you are, and how we control what we can and scream hopelessly into the void at what we can’t. (That’s just who we are.) 

We realized we’re each good at some parts of this and not others, which means we can take a little inspiration. We can protect our time, do the important stuff first and cut ourselves a little slack. And we can always, always recognize that it’s what you do the day after you feel like you really lost momentum that matters most. 

Episode links and a transcript follow, and that’s pretty much it for this week. Of course, a #WriterTopFive will go out to supporters Monday, and the topic will be a total surprise (heck, it’s a surprise for me too) but we promise it will be practical advice you can use that we probably need too. If you’re a fan of the podcast—if we’re offering, say, two grande mochas worth of advice a month, please consider supporting us for actually less than that. $7 a month, and we promise we’re not coming for your coffee.

Upgrade to Supporter

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. 

Get New Episode Emails

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Jess: 

The Wilderness Idiot: Lessons from an Accidental Adventurer, Ted Alvarez

A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father, Augusten Burroughs

Dry: A Memoir, Augusten Burroughs

KJ: 

Toil and Trouble: A Memoir, Augusten Burroughs

Sarina: 

Great and Precious Things, Rebecca Yarros

We love our sponsor, Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE, and if we were being coached right now we would probably somehow be managing to pull off better time management, because time is money in more ways than one, and when you invest in your writing career, it’s a lot harder to make excuses. 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.

Follow KJ on Instagram for her #BooksThatWon’tBumYouOut series: short reviews of books that won’t make you hate yourself and all humanity.

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 KJ, who totally wants credit.

Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission. FInd transcripts for this and every episode at amwritingpodcast.com.

How do you become a science writer? What if you didn’t even think you liked science as a kid? What if, instead of “serious journalism”, you spent the first half of your career covering celebrities and royals, even becoming the London Bureau Chief for People magazine?

Then you’re in perfect shape, at least if you’re our guest, Lydia Denworth. She tells us how she made that transition, going from People through Redbook to Scientific American using the dual powers of curiosity and ignorance (and more relevantly, the willingness to admit it). We also discuss getting grants for non-fiction research, pitching scientific topics and the literary aspect of science writing—and Friendship, which just happens to be both the topic and the title of Denworth’s latest book. 

Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, did you love last week’s #WritersTopFive: Top 5 Ways to Win at Newsletter Subject Lines? Because I did (and I’m winning.) This Monday: Top 5 Things to Do When Your WIP Feels Like It’s In Flames. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #WriterTopFives with actionable advice you can use for just $7 a month. 

Upgrade to Supporter

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. 

Get New Episode Emails

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Jess: Open Season (Joe Gunther Mysteries #1), Archer Mayor

KJ: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman (catch it on my #BooksThatWon’tBumYouOut series HERE)

Lydia: The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission that Changed Our Understanding of Madness, Susannah Cahalan

The Ruin, Dervla McTiernan

Bonus Book Rec for Lydia: The Mountains Wild, Sarah Stewart Taylor (because “those Irish really know how to do dark”).

Our guest for this episode is Lydia Denworth.

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.

Follow KJ on Instagram for her #BooksThatWon’tBumYouOut series: short reviews of books that won’t make you hate yourself and all humanity.

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

For a transcript of this and every episode, go to amwritingpodcast.com.