There is a version of you who has been very, very good at being good. She says yes when she means no. She smiles through the commitments she never wanted, rearranges her schedule for people who would never return the favor, and makes herself smaller in rooms where she has every right to take up space. She is easy to be around. Agreeable. Low maintenance. And she is absolutely exhausted.

In this episode, I get into the cumulative weight of all the years you spent performing easiness, swallowing your nos, and prioritizing everyone else's agenda so automatically you stopped noticing you were doing it. I call it the good girl hangover. And we are talking about how to recover from it.

Key Takeaways:

✨ How to go back through your last seven days, name every yes that cost you something, and finally see the pattern for what it actually is not your personality, but a deeply ingrained habit you never consciously chose

✨ How to catch the good girl in real time by learning to read your own body's warning signals before she's already out the door with your yes

✨ How to practice your no in advance, sit inside the awkward silence without filling it, and take one small true step in the next 24 hours that belongs entirely to you

You don't have to overhaul your life or have a single hard conversation to start changing this. You just have to be willing to stop calling it fine when it isn't.

✨ Rewrite. Reclaim. Reinvent. ✨

Because the most dangerous thing a good girl can become is a woman who finally chooses herself over being chosen.

We kick off with Sienna’s full recap of the latex wedding and yes, it’s every bit as wild as it sounds. Black latex wedding dress, leather kilt groom, red full-body latex guests, and an officiant in an all-black latex suit. Her momma was cutting up the dance floor with the men in latex, even with an injured arm recovering from surgery. Then revisiting her momma's old homes, family history, and the places that shaped her life.On the writing side, GiGi is back in dark anthology mode trying to finally get this book finished, while Sienna is sorting through Queen of Smoke edits and getting ready to draw the winner of her TikTok giveaway live!Timestamps for March 20:00:00 Intro04:40 Latex and leather wedding details13:12 Memory-lane trip through Melbourne with her mom20:08 Writing Sprint #140:32 Break and live TikTok giveaway drawing41:47 Ang Loves to Read wins the signed Angels of Fury book box!!!!50:29 Writing Sprint #21:10:39 Closing thoughts + back to Instagram on MondayCome join us and make your writing goals happen too:📅 Monday – Instagram📅 Wednesday – Substack📅 Friday – TikTok⏰ 7AM CST (USA) 🇺🇸 / 8PM AWST (Australia) 🇦🇺

Most mornings it happens before the day even begins. Just you, the bathroom mirror, and a voice that has been running the same audit for longer than you can remember. Cataloguing. Comparing. Handing down verdicts on a case it was never qualified to try.

So I did something about it. I called in an expert. Booked a dermatologist consultation, eager for answers and a better skincare routine. And walked out with something I did not expect. A clinical vocabulary for everything that was wrong with my face and a list of structural defects.

And driving home I realized that is exactly what we do. We feel the dissatisfaction, go looking for the fix, and end up handing the inner critic a sharper set of tools. A longer list. A more specific inventory to run the next time we stand in front of the mirror.

In this episode I get into where that critic actually came from, why her case against you has always been built on compromised evidence, and what it looks like to finally give yourself a fair trial.

Key Takeaways:

✨ How to trace your inner critic back to her origin, see exactly who built her and why, and stop mistaking someone else's wounds for your own truth

✨ How to put that critic on the stand, cross-examine the evidence she has been presenting as fact for years, and understand what believing her has actually cost you

✨ How to write a new verdict in your own handwriting, say it out loud to your own face, and finally walk into that bathroom as the judge instead of the accused

You don't have to overhaul your skincare routine or book a single appointment to change your relationship with the woman in the mirror. You just have to be willing to look at the evidence and admit the trial was rigged from the start.

✨ Rewrite. Reclaim. Reinvent. ✨

Because you have been the harshest judge in your own courtroom for far too long, and it is time to show yourself the same mercy you have always been so willing to give everyone else. 

Sometimes you're just living your life. Managing the responsibilities, buried under the weight of everything adulthood demands. And somewhere underneath all of it, quietly and without fanfare, you lose touch with the girl you used to be. The one who existed before the barnacles started attaching.

The jobs. The marriages. The divorces. The failures. The endless accumulation of experiences that shape us in ways we don't always notice while they're happening.

So one afternoon, I got in the car and drove through forty years of my own history in four hours. And by the time I pulled into my driveway, dried tears on my cheeks, I understood something I hadn't before. Those earlier versions of ourselves don't disappear. They're still there, buried underneath everything that came after. Waiting.

In this episode, I walk through what that drive revealed, why most of us never go back on purpose, and what happens when you finally do.

Key Takeaways: ✨ Why scheduling a deliberate audit of your past is the first step to reconnecting with the version of yourself buried underneath the barnacles, and how to do it even if you no longer live where you grew up

✨ How to ask the questions nobody ever asked her, get the honest answers onto the page, and turn what feels like grief into useful, actionable information

✨ How to reacquaint yourself with her by giving back one small, specific thing that life quietly took, because she doesn't need you to become her again, she just needs you to remember her

You don't have to excavate every wound or relitigate every chapter. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is go back far enough to collect the parts of yourself worth bringing forward.

✨ Rewrite. Reclaim. Reinvent. ✨

Because the girl you were before the barnacles still has something to say. And it turns out, you need to hear it.

It’s Monday morning and somehow we kick things off with makeup, short sassy hair, and a Selena Gomez bag before we even mention writing. Miss Tia, Sienna's daughter, pops into the comments, Sienna shares how much she loved her surprise gift, and we spiral into a nostalgic beauty debate—Bobbi Brown, Mary Kay, Avon, and the eternal Sephora vs. Mecca brand wars.Eventually we get back to writing. Sienna is deep in Queen of Smoke, drafting extra chapters to stay ahead of editor notes, while GiGi is wrestling with the chaos that is Facebook Ads Manager and trying to figure out Meta ads through a maze of profiles, pages, and tutorials. Between two writing sprints we talk about forgetting our own characters, rebellious plotting habits, and the ongoing battle to keep a story straight while writing the next chapter.Timestamps for March 9:00:00 Intro00:26 Hair chat, makeup leftovers, and the short sassy cut update02:12 Miss Tia jumps in + thank-you chat about her gift08:34 Sienna’s working on Queen of Smoke + drafting ahead for Jess09:39 GiGi’s Meta ads spiral begins + Facebook profile/page/group confusion17:05 Writing Sprint #137:40 Trying to remember where we left off in our writing and spicy knife play41:46 Writing Sprint #21:05:23 Closing thoughtsCome join us and make your writing goals happen too:📅 Monday – Instagram📅 Wednesday – Substack📅 Friday – TikTok⏰ 7AM CST (USA) 🇺🇸 / 8PM AWST (Australia) 🇦🇺

Sienna’s in chapter-fixing mode, trying to stay ahead of edits because she knows Queen of Smoke is going to need more pages and writing her son's resume. GiGi’s planning to take Meta and BookBub ads classes later in the day and hyping a debut author's book trailer. Timestamps for March 6:00:00 Intro03:06 Sienna on Queen of Smoke edits + needing more chapters ready08:14 GiGi’s plan: write first while fuzzy, then take Meta and BookBub ads classes15:48 Interviewing D.A. Murray and hyping her amazing book trailer and interactive website18:25 Writing Sprint #138:37 Flirty comment section today45:11 Writing Sprint #21:05:36 Closing thoughts Come join us and make your writing goals happen too:📅 Monday – Instagram📅 Wednesday – Substack📅 Friday – TikTok⏰ 6AM CST (USA) 🇺🇸 / 8PM AWST (Australia) 🇦🇺

I had the pleasure of sitting down with sci-fi dystopian author D.A. for a fascinating conversation about her novel Dominion: Ascension and the powerful themes behind it.

D.A. shared how the story explores power dynamics in a modern dystopian world where technology, authority, and control intersect. At the heart of the book is a deeper question about human freedom. We talked about how every person should have the ability to choose their own path in life and how true humanity lies in having the freedom to decide what matters most to us, rather than being confined by systems that claim to know what is best for society.

We also discussed her incredible cinematic book trailer and how she has built a vibrant online community through her Writers in Tech series and by connecting with readers across Instagram and TikTok. One of her favorite things to do is ask strangers what they are reading because she is endlessly curious about people, their choices, and the stories that shape them. As an avid reader herself, she also loves sharing book recommendations with her growing audience.

It was an insightful discussion about storytelling, technology, human nature, and the choices that shape our lives.

On the March 5th episode, we discussed:0:00 Intro and welcome0:46 Dominion: Ascension overview and book trailer6:10 Writing Ascension during the pandemic and the premise18:40 Women in power, empathy, and the corrupting force of control29:03 The real themes: humanity, citizenship, sacrifice, and moral complexity31:49 Her unconventional life path: global career, zigzag growth, entrepreneurship, and freedom41:17 Navigating power, race, gender, and identity in corporate America46:34 Failure, success, and what writing this book taught her about herself53:10 Using AI in trailers, character content, and author experiences58:58 Where to find D.A. online and where to buy Dominion: Ascension59:47 If she could wave a wand, where would she be in a yearLet’s Go Live! is my Instagram weekly series featuring interviews with indie and traditionally published authors, editors, bookstagrammers, and book bloggers from around the globe.​

Sometimes nothing is wrong. Everything looks good on paper. The house. The job. The partner. The kids. The calendar full of social events. You worked hard for this life. You built it intentionally. You stabilized it.

And yet something feels undeniably off.

There’s no dramatic betrayal. No catastrophic failure. No obvious unraveling. Just a low, humming restlessness that creeps in during your morning commute or whispers while you’re chopping vegetables at the kitchen counter. You achieved what you once prayed for, and somehow you still feel unsettled.

And that realization feels both terrifying and frustrating.

In this episode, I unpack what it actually means to outgrow a life you carefully constructed. Why stability can quietly turn into stagnation, how developmental psychology explains the “plateau effect,” and how to expand without detonating everything you’ve built.

Key Takeaways:

✨ Why your first job isn’t to panic or push harder, but to conduct a structural audit of what you are actively maintaining and ask yourself whether you would consciously build it the same way again

✨ How to recognize expansion pressure as a natural developmental phase, conduct a controlled mental experiment with alternate possibilities, and gather nervous system data instead of suppressing or romanticizing your restlessness

✨ How to introduce calibrated vertical growth into your existing life by renegotiating autonomy, deepening intellectual challenge, or protecting creative space, so you evolve through integration rather than destruction

You don’t need chaos to feel alive. You don’t need a crisis to justify change. And you don’t need to abandon your life to expand it. Sometimes the plateau isn’t proof that you chose wrong, it’s proof you mastered this level.

✨ Rewrite. Reclaim. Reinvent. ✨Because the summit was never the end of your story, it was the foundation for your next ascent.