Authors Off Script

This week on Authors Off Script, we're taking a little trip back in time. Being in your 30s has a funny way of making you rediscover the things you absolutely loved as a kid. And for us, that means fanfiction, anime, questionable teenage obsessions, and the cultural artifacts that apparently shaped us into the authors we are today.

We dig into the fanfiction we used to write about Finley, the Italian pop-rock band that had us apparently convinced we were destined to become professional writers through extremely serious fictional scenarios. 👀

Then we spiral into childhood and teenage favorites like Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, Twilight, and so many other things that still have a suspicious amount of power over our brains.

This week on Authors Off Script, we're talking about something we see far too often in the writing community: authors setting expectations so high that they end up crushing themselves, and sometimes their love for writing along with them.

Because maybe the problem isn't that you're not doing enough. Maybe you're simply expecting yourself to do too much, too quickly, all the time.

This week on Authors Off Script, we have a confession to make: This episode is kind of useless.

We started talking about positive thinking, toxic positivity, and how to find a brighter perspective when you're having a truly terrible week. Then, naturally, we jumped approximately seventeen tracks.

At some point, we had to discuss Emilio Sakraya as Koza in the One Piece live-action and ask the question nobody seems to be asking: Why is the bookish community NOT freaking out about this man?!

And because Elena used to be a yoga teacher, she decided to dust off her past life and give Letizia a little unsolicited perspective on how to survive a bad week without letting your brain convince you that everything is doomed.

This week on Authors Off Script, we're getting into bookish spaces, who gets to take up room in them, and who actually pays the price for being there.

We talk about the growing presence of men in spaces that have historically been created, shaped, and largely supported by women readers and authors—and the frustration that can come when people enter those spaces without considering whether their presence is actually needed, or whether they're simply taking up space that could be going to the people the community was built around.

And then we get into the money conversation.

Authors can spend hundreds of euros to attend book events, travel, book accommodation, pay for tables, and promote their work… while influencers and other guests can sometimes be invited and paid to attend.

So naturally, we have questions.

This week on Authors Off Script, we're talking about... absolutely nothing related to books.Well. Probably.We decided to share some of our worst dating stories, questionable decisions, unfortunate encounters, and the kind of romantic disasters that are hilarious in hindsight but definitely weren't funny while they were happening. Because we're authors, naturally there's also a tiny possibility that some of these experiences will eventually make their way into a book.

This week on Authors Off Script, we're talking about one of the weirdest expectations that has crept into modern romance reading culture: why do readers expect authors to publish books so damn fast?

We dive into the pressure authors can feel when readers are asking, "When is the next book coming out?" barely five minutes after finishing the last one, and how the rise of indie publishing may have helped create this expectation (it's our fault then, sorry).

Let us know what you think about it on IG at @authorsoffscript

This week on Authors Off Script, we have absolutely no idea what we're doing. There is no book talk. No writing advice. No publishing discourse. No carefully prepared topic to pretend we're organized adults. Just us. Chatting.

We bounce from coregasms to the sports we used to practice, childhood memories, random life stories, and approximately seventeen conversations that have absolutely no business being in the same episode.

It's one of those episodes where you basically get to hang out with us without the pressure of having to learn something productive, which, honestly, we all deserve sometimes.

This week on Authors Off Script, we're talking about pen names, and why they can be about so much more than creating an author persona.

For many writers, using a pen name is a creative or marketing choice. But it can also be a way to protect your privacy, your personal life, and sometimes even your physical safety.

We chat about why authors might choose not to publish under their legal names, the boundaries between an author's public and private life, and how much personal information we're really expected to share online just because we write books.

This week on Authors Off Script, we have officially lost the plot.

There was no real plan. There was a tangent. Then another tangent. Then somehow we started manifesting our future, imagining where our writing careers could take us, and getting increasingly unhinged about all the things we want to make happen.

And honestly? We may have manifested a little too hard.

Connect with us on IG!

This week on Authors Off Script, we're covering a truly logical combination of topics: hair colors, writing processes, and the eternal battle between plotters and pantsers.

We talk about how we actually write our books, what our creative processes look like behind the scenes, and whether we need a detailed outline or prefer to simply throw our characters into a situation and see what happens.

IG: @elenalocatelli_ and @letiziafirmani and @authorsoffscript