In a world as overwhelming as ours is, what does self-care look like? What is “escape,” and how does it compare? How do you balance self-care with remaining connected and productive?

Episode recommendation: Visit Tara Brach’s website at www.tarabrach.com for some excellent guided meditations. Her meditations are also available on the Insight Timer app.

Attentive listeners may have noticed that we disappeared for three months. What happened? What do we do, as writers, when life gets in the way and we finally decide/have time to return? How do we reintegrate into our own lives? How do we catch up on everything?

Episode recommendation: 

Try John’s sticky note method, wherein you make a small list of which things you’d like to get done on a given day, and try to figure out how to align your chosen tasks/goals with 20-25 minute blocks of time, giving yourself time to rest.

The idea of “breaking in” has changed completely since the rise of digital publishing. In the “old world,” authors built a reputation with short fiction in monthly publications, after which point they’d have a better chance of getting agented representation and full-length book deals from publishers. The world’s different now. How are we planning to break in? Is there merit to the old ways? Have things really changed all that much? 

Each of us defines success differently, and our definitions aren’t set in stone. How do we maintain our momentum while adjusting our direction mid-flight? 

After a very long (unplanned) absence, Write Right is back! Keep an eye out for the next two episodes, which will be available on Friday, June 29. After that, we’ll be back to our regular weekly programming. Thanks for sticking with us.

There are as many ways to make it as a writer as there are writers in the world, but there are a few paths to a writing career that are more thoroughly trodden than others. In this episode, the gang talks about their experiences in the various stages of career building and, as usual, meander off topic for a little while.

New month, new theme! For March, we’ll be talking about processes, goals, the daily grind, and how we define success. We call it The Long March. Our guest for the month is Andrew Wood. You can find Andrew on twitter @andrewtheauthor, on Patreon, and on facebook. Pick up his debut novel, Storm of Fury, on Amazon.

The daily writing adventure (something we discuss so often on this podcast,) is a challenge. It is a process. Let’s discuss our writing habits, our rolling plains, our Khazad-Dums, our Balrogs, and our Rivendells.

What can we learn about how we approach middles (and our craft as a whole) that can enrich the time we spend writing?

Are romance and erotica the gold mine they are believed to be? Should writers try to build a career in romance or erotica under a pen name?

It might be harder than you think.

Content warning: this episode includes coarse language and discussions about sexual assault in literature.

Continuing the conversation from episode 3.6, we explore sex in non-romance fiction. Sex scenes should not be any different, fundamentally, from any other scene in a book. They can be staged like a fight, conversation, transaction-—any scene that involves character emotion and growth. The scene should have value as well as enticing action.

Do social taboos affect the way we write and read sex? Definitely.

Content warning: this episode includes coarse language, (terrible) descriptions of sexual acts, and discussions about sexual assault in literature.

Sex and physical intimacy in literature is a slippery slope. Inclusion of those elements for shock value alone is counterproductive and generally seen as gratuitous. What we discover through our conversation is that the inclusion of sex in stories must have value to the characters and plot. We also issue a warning: stop using sexual assault as a character-building trope in speculative fiction. It is a terrible thing to do.

We also went quite a bit over time in this episode’s recording, so the episode is split between 3.6 and 3.7, so tune in next week for the second half of the conversation.

This month, Write Right will dive into discussions about romance and erotica. That being the case, we are going to flag the episodes for February as explicit. If these topics aren’t your cup of tea, join back up with us in March when we change themes.

Are the romance genres a smooth spectrum, or are there clear lines between romance, erotic (or steamy) romance, and erotica? Are there well-established rules for the form? Mariëlle Smith joins us for our exploration of the steamier side of popular fiction.