Whenever you learn something new or try something difficult, you are putting yourself in a position where you are likely to feel uncomfortable. But if you are willing to take that risk and to embrace the comes-fast-goes-fast nature of uncomfortable, that might just be your superpower.

Today you're going to learn how to write two main POVs by looking at examples from two of my favorite books:

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

and

Star Wars: Lost Stars by Claudia Gray

Because who doesn't love a dual POV story?

Today we're going to talk about the battle for supremacy within and how to embrace all of our creative selves without feeling guilty or like a failure.

Learn how to write a compelling breaking point for your character that won't catch your reader off guard.

Trope Trials is the series from the Writing Expensive Words podcast that puts two books from the same trope up against each other. Today's trope is time loop. Today's battlebooks are Recursion by Blake Crouch and The Map of Tiny Perfect Things by Lev Grossman. Mandatory shout-outs to Groundhog Day, The Edge of Tomorrow, About Time, and, regrettably, Palm Springs (which doesn't have enough character growth to make you care about the story).

Today we're going to talk about how to balance who you are and your art with the rules that are meant to make your art better, not limit you individually.

Learn how to be who you are without sacrificing reader experience.

The way I write (create) does NOT equal who I am.

Today we're going to talk about how to shelter-in-place as a writer to maintain emotional health and gain a broader perspective.

Learn how to live with the review you get, how to mine reviews for useful information, and how to ignore the haters.

-Separate facts from opinion.

-Learn how to deal with trolls.

-Use empathy to think about the readers who leave negative reviews and whether their unrealistic expectations are to blame for their bad reading experience.

Learn how to snuff out doubt using your knowledge of why you did what you did with your story and a great support system made up of people who know more than you do.

What should authors do in this era of cancel culture? Should we let fear stop us? What about representation? Get the answers in this episode as I respond to the hottest topic in publishing right now: writer fear and the cancel culture.