Matthew Quick is the New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook—which was made into an Oscar-winning film—and eight other novels. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, received a PEN/Hemingway Award Honorable Mention, was an LA Times Book Prize finalist, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and many more awards & accolades. 

Matthew lives with his wife, the novelist Alicia Bessette, on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Matthew's upcoming novel, "We are the Light," will be released in the US on November 1, 2022. 

Support the show

Deanna Raybourn is a 6th-generation native Texan. 

Her novels have been nominated for numerous awards including two RT Reviewers’ Choice awards, the Agatha, and most recently the 2019 Edgar Award for Best Novel. She launched a new Victorian mystery series with the 2015 release of A CURIOUS BEGINNING, featuring intrepid butterfly-hunter and amateur sleuth, Veronica Speedwell. Veronica has returned in several more adventures, most recently AN IMPOSSIBLE IMPOSTOR, book seven, which released in early 2022. 

Deanna's first contemporary novel, KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE, about four female assassins on the cusp of retirement was published on September 22nd, 2022.

Support the show

In 2018 Mur was a Hugo, Nebula, Philip K. Dick, Manly Wade Wellman Best Novel nominee for Six Wakes.

Her latest novel, Station Eternity (The Midsolar Murders Book 1), was published on October 4, 2022.

Here is the episode Mur Lafferty 

Support the show

Alexandra holds a degree in world literature, mythology, and folklore from Truman State University. 

Here is the episode with Alexandra Rowland

Support the show

Support the show

In this episode, Jamie and I dive into my current favorite topic - writing and reading dystopia. Jamie and I ponder what pulls us into dystopia, and whether or not our generations are more drawn to the genre. We also chop up themes, and how a writer can get to know themselves. We cover a ton of ground in this one.

I want to take a quick minute to say thank you to Jamie for the interview. I had a blast.

And now, here is episode 119 with Jamie Ford.

Support the show

Belinda is a 2021 graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was a Truman Capote Fellow and recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. She holds a BA from Stanford University and was a 2019 work-study fellow at the Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.

Her debut novel, "A Map for the Missing" was just published on August 9th, 2022. 

Support the show

Welcome my friends to a fun, power-packed episode with Zoe Sivak. 

Zoe Sivak aims to restore diversity to historical narratives. In her writing, she explores famous male figures through the lens of the women beside them–women who could have existed, even if history left them behind. 

Zoe's debut novel, MADEMOISELLE REVOLUTION, was just published on August 2, 2022.

When not engrossed in historical research, Zoe is pursuing both her Juris Doctorate and Master of Public Health in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. with a focus on women's health.

Support the show

Mark is an author, former Marine, and father. Mark is the author of multiple series, including the wildly popular Zombie Fallout novels. Mark's books are generally written in a first-person narrative style and crossover into several genres including horror, science fiction, and comedy. 

Mark's upcoming release, "Zombie Fallout 18" will be released on August 16, 2022, in the United States.

Support the show

Jennifer is the NYT, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of sexy and erotic contemporary romance. Her book, The Marriage Bargain, spent 26 weeks on the NY Times best sellers list. Her work has been translated in over a dozen countries, sold over a million copies, and was dubbed a "romance phenom" by Kirkus Reviews. 

Jenn's newest novel, Meant to Be, which is the first novel in the "Twist of Fate" series, is out now, with a second coming later this year.

On top of that, Jenn is someone I look up to, someone who has taught classes in HappyWriter, and someone who I always love chatting with and learning from. She has a contagiously joyful spirit, and I am so happy to Jenn a friend.

Support the show

She is also the author of "Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft (tenth edition)," which is the one of the most widely used creative writing text in America, as well as her multi-genre Imaginative Writing is out in a fourth edition. 

Support the show

After 110 episodes, I finally got to interview an author of one of the "For Dummies books." Mission. Accomplish.

Among many other craft books and novels, Deborah wrote the "Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies" guide, and in this episode, you can guess the topic we dove into. This is a fun interview with an absolute expert of writing and teaching fiction. 

Thank you again to Deborah for her time. I'm always floored at how many authors share so freely much of their insight and knowledge. It speaks to how much we all love this writing thing. One big happy family.

And now, my friends here is the interview with Deborah Halverson. 

Support the show

Welcome, my friends, to a wonderful episode with Jordan Rosenfeld. Jordan is a writer, teacher, and coach, as well as the author of many craft writing books. I'm on a deep dive with authors who have also written craft books, and this episode will not disappoint. I'm just so interested in the people who are writing craft, practicing craft... just putting it all together. 

I want to say thank you to Jordan for her time. 

And now, my friends here is episode 110 with Jordan Rosenfeld. 

Support the show

I am so incredibly excited to be back! I took a few months off to rest, get moved, and let my life calm down a bit. And, for the most part, we've settled down into our new town of Charleston. I've laughed to myself that over the course of this podcast, I've lived in Brooklyn, Denver, an RV, and now Charleston. Here's to hoping for a long season in our new home. 

I also want to take a quick second to thank all ya'll for the insane number of kind notes I received. To my HappyWriter fam, thank you. To my podcast listeners, thank you. This has been a really challenging season for myself and my family, and it was eased by your support. 

But now, my friends, it's time for a brand-spanking-new interview with Carole Lawrence. 

I've recorded the next month or so of episodes, and I'm recognizing I'm really digging into the metaphysical side of creation. I can say that Carole and I go into it. I'm finding myself so much more contemplative not just about the process of creation, but why I need to do this writing thing at all. It feels more elemental, more raw. 

I want to say thank you to Carole for her time and just diving in with me. Carole shares so much about her journey, process, and soul. 

And now, my friends here is episode 109 with Carole Lawrence

Support the show

I want to take a moment to thank Judith for her time and for sharing so much with me. 

And now, my friends here is episode 108 with J. A. Jance. 

Support the show

Maurice is the author of The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You, which was published in August 2021. His first book, We Cast a Shadow, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the PEN America Open Book Prize. 

Ruffin is the winner of several literary prizes, including the Iowa Review Award in fiction. A New Orleans native, Ruffin is a professor of Creative Writing at Louisiana State University, and the 2020-2021 John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi.

I want to take a moment to thank Maurice for his time and for sharing so much with me. 

And now, my friends here is episode 107 with Maurice Ruffin. 

Support the show

Welcome welcome to a special episode with fantasy author Rebecca Ross. Rebecca and I dive into the difference between writing for teens and adults and her journey to becoming a storyteller. I'm also so excited to release this episode right as her novel, A River Enchanted, published this week. Congrats to Rebecca for a big week.

And now, my friends here is the interview with Rebecca Ross.

Support the show

Matt Bell penned one of my favorite novels of the past year, Appleseed, and so it is kinda like a pinch-me moment to interview Matt for the show. In this podcast, we dive into how to write poetic prose, how so much of the writing life is rewriting, and the list goes on and on. Matt is a master storyteller and educator. Someone who I could have interviewed for 3 hours and just barely scratched the surface. 

On that note, I know there are tons of podcast listeners who I can't really communicate with. I'm starting to share a ton more thoughts on Twitter, so if you are on Twitter find me at The_Murfinator, but you can also signup for podcast updates on HappyWriter.co but just joining our newsletter. 

Okay, just want to say a huge thank you to Matt for his time. Check off another bucket list interview for me.

And now, here is episode 105 with Matt Bell. 

Support the show

This is the first website intro that I am recording from the comfort of our new home in Charleston, SC. I'm so excited to settle in here and explore this amazing part of the country. 

I'm also so excited to share this interview with Patti Callahan. Patti is a best-selling author and overall storytelling master. You can hear the excitement in her voice as we dive deep into the existential roots of the story. This is an interview I'll cherish. It's an interview that has rolled around in my mind in the weeks since we recorded it. I'm sure it'll impact you the same.

I want to take a moment to thank Patti for her time and for sharing so much with me. 

And now, my friends here is episode 104 with Patti Callahan.

Support the show

Welcome my friends to a wonderful episode with best-selling historical author Fiona Davis. Join Fiona and I as we jump into what makes New York City just so amazing for writers, how she researches her novels, and how she designs her work. This is such a fun episode. Another one of those interviews that felt as if it ended right as it was getting started because I was having such a good time. 

I want to take a moment to thank Fiona for her time. This episode should also drop right when Fiona's new novel, The Magnolia Palace, so be sure to check it out at your local book store.

And now, my friends here is the episode with Fiona Davis.

Support the show

Support the show

Support the show

Support the show

I'm so excited to bring you episode 99 with Jeffery Deaver. We got going talking about writing and I honestly blinked and I was out of time. Jeffery is both a wonderful, beautiful writer, but also a world-class educator. Jeffery really loves to share his wisdom about the writing process, and boy oh boy does that come through in this interview. 

I want to take a moment to thank Jeffery for his time and for sharing so much wisdom about the writing life. It was a real blast.

And now, here is episode 99 with Jeffery Deaver. 

Support the show

James Wade is an award-winning fiction author with twenty short stories published in various literary journals and magazines. His debut novel, ALL THINGS LEFT WILD, was released June 16, 2020, from Blackstone Publishing. His second novel, RIVER, SING OUT, also from Blackstone Publishing, was released June 8, 2021. He has 6 additional novels forthcoming from Blackstone Publishing.

James spent five years as a journalist, before serving as a legislative director at the Texas State Capitol during the 83rd Legislative Session. He also worked as a lobbyist on behalf of water conservation in Texas. 

James lives in Texas Hill Country, with his wife and daughter. He is an active member of the Writers' League of Texas.

Support the show

Welcome to a fun interview with science fiction writer, Cat Rambo. 

In this interview, we get into the ins and outs and self-publishing, a topic I am super interested in. I know so many of you out there also self-publish. Cat also shares her method for writing fiction, and of course, we chat about what makes for good science fiction. 

This interview is a blast, and I want to take a quick moment to say thank you to Cat for her time. 

And now, here is the interview with Cat Rambo.

Support the show

Jenn is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher's Weekly bestselling author of several mystery and romance novels. In 2020 she published a stand-alone romantic comedy, titled PARIS IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA. In this interview, Jenn and I dive into her creative process and unpack how she writes novels.

I love this interview because it shows the pig-headed determinism it takes to write books. Jenn is a perfect example of the what comes of focus and hard work. 

I want to take a moment to say thank you to Jenn for her time. And now, my friends, without any further ado, here is the interview with Jenn McKinlay.

Support the show

I continue my deep dive with horror writers with this week's guest, JD Barker. JD is such a master of storytelling, and in this episode, we dive into the horror genre, how he has collaborated with James Patterson, and his path to becoming a storyteller. 

I have to say, I've found a new appreciation and interest in reading horror. In fact, I picked up Dracula as a response to this interview, I'm loving it, and I cannot wait to read JD Barker's "Dracul" which is the prequel to Dracula. 

Support the show

I think Jeffrey Archer takes the cake for the author I’ve interviewed with the most books in print. Jeffrey is a storyteller to his core, and a wildly entertaining person to interview. In this interview, Jeffrey and I dive into his amazing backstory, his journey to storytelling, and how he structures his day to write. 

I want to take a quick minute to thank Jeffrey for his time. 

And now, here is the interview with Jeffrey Archer. 

Support the show

Josh is a novelist and author of the breakout hit, "Bird Box." He is also one of two singer/songwriters for the rock band The High Strung. 

It was a blast to dive into horror writing with yet another amazing author. Josh and I do a deep dive on horror writing and again my perspective is growing on horror as a genre. We also discuss how learning music has informed his novel writing, how he writes on the road as a traveling musician, and much more. 

I want to thank Josh for his time and for sharing his story with me. I count it as such a blessing to spend even an hour with guests such as Josh.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Josh Malerman. 

Support the show

Welcome, my friends, to episode 92 with Paul Tremblay. For the first time in a long time, in this episode, I interview a horror writer. For whatever reason, I've just not had a ton of horror writers on the show, so I was pumped to dive into what makes for good horror. 

Paul and I dive into his process for creating horror and some of his inspirations. I learned a ton in this episode, and in fact, like, reevaluated my beliefs about horror. I've generally been a big scary pants, but after this interview, I realized the complexity of horror. 

I want to say thank you to Paul. This interview was fun. 

Support the show

In this episode, I get to interview a bonafide Youtube star and wonderful fiction writer. Lindsay is full of spunk and wisdom and this "get down into it and work your butt off" attitude that I just love.

In this episode, Lindsey and I discuss how fiction overlaps with film, her journey to becoming a storyteller, and that age-old question: why is making YouTube videos so hard.

This is a fun interview with one of my favorite quotes from a guest when Lindsay said, "Ability doesn't come from nature, it comes from practice." There is the entire podcast summed up in a sentence.

I want to take a moment to thank Lindsay one more time for this interview.

And now, my friends, without any further ado, here is the episode with Lindsay Ellis

Support the show

Welcome my friends to episode 90 with another author who has solid tens of millions of books. Scott Turow is an author and lawyer.

In this discussion, Scott and I dive into the guts of storytelling. More than just about any other interview, this one with Scott is special because we really tackle these big ideas in the storytelling life. It is philosophical and practical. Just the mix I love. Scott is so thoughtful in his responses and each time I've listened to this interview I've pulled out something new.

I want to take a quick second to thank Scott for his time and for sharing so much with me.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Scott Turow.

Support the show

I am so excited to welcome Omar back for a second time to the show. Omar was my first real interview for the podcast and he was last seen here on Episode 3. Unreal.

I love Omar's work, and when I saw he had a novel out in the world — What Strange Paradise—I knew I wanted him back on the show.

Omar is always so wise and insightful. I feel as if every time I speak with him, I go through a kind of storytelling masterclass. This interview is a deep dive into his writing process, some insights on the difference between writing book one and two, and how he uses real events to create story.

I want to take a moment to thank Omar for his time and generosity.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Omar el Akkad.

Support the show

I am so excited to air this interview with Yasmin Angoe. Yasmin’s debut novel, Her Name is Knight, will be released on November 1st, 2021, and chatting with her as she surfs with her debut coming out was such a pleasure. Yasmin and I dive into what is has been like to publish her first novel, her entire writing journey, and some of the lessons she has learned along the way.

More than anything, I loved just chatting with Yasmin. Her spirit and openness and wisdom made this hour together just fly by.

I want to say thank you to Yasmin for her time. And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Yasmin Angoe.

Support the show

Welcome my friends to episode 87. This episode with Margaret Mizushima is overdue, because we open up a brand-new topic that I know is important to many writers. How to write non-human characters. So, for those of you who write animal or alien or monster characters, this is a great episode to learn from a master storyteller how to bring these characters to life.

I want to take a moment to thank Margaret for her time.

And now, without any further ado, here is the episode with Margaret Mizushima.

Support the show

After a nice long summer break, we are back! I hope everyone has enjoyed their summer and some warm weather. I am recording this intro from Cape Cod. We've been across half the country, from Colorado all the way to the east coast. It's been fun and crazy and crazy and crazy. But boy oh boy does it feel good to be back-producing episodes.

So, we're kicking it off with a big one. Steve Berry is a #1 bestselling author with over 25 million books in print.

Steve and I dive into writing history, writing series, and just what makes for amazing storytelling. This is one of the best.

I want to take a minute to thank Steve for his time. And now, my friends here is the episode with Steve Berry.

Support the show

Support the show

What I did not know is how Amy is a complete baller. I’m not going to give anything away in this interview, but Amy’s writing journey, her grit, and spirit are incredibly inspiring. In fact, when we ended recording for the interview, I asked if I could call her each week for a pep talk. 

In this interview we cover the muscle it takes to write, we talk about Amy’s self-publishing journey and highlight one of the most important traits for a writer to have to be successful. I know you will love this interview as much as I do.

Without delay, here is the interview with Amy Harmon.

Support the show

Support the show

Taylor is a former CIA intelligence officer, he received a Degree in Journalism, followed by a Master's in Public Policy. His debut novel Down Range will be published on August 3rd, 2021

Support the show

Jennifer Estep is a New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of more than 40 books. This episode is great for those writers who are into writing fantasy series and wants to hear how an absolute pro goes about her business.

I want to take a minute to thank Jennifer for her time.

Support the show

Gayle Forman is a #1 New York Times best-selling novelist. This episode is a "pinch me" episode because I get to dive into and hopefully unpack the way a storied novelist creates. The entire idea of this podcast is that we learn from those who are further down the road in their writing journey. But, if you would have told me that I'd have the opportunity to interview a novelist as kind, wise, and prolific as Gayle I'd have said you were crazy.

But, here we are. There is so much to learn from Gayle in this episode. From her reflections on the pandemic to her process for writing her fiction.

I want to say thank you to Gayle for her time and wisdom and awesomeness.

And now, without any further ado, here is the episode with Gayle Forman.

Support the show

I'm so excited to welcome Darin Strauss back to the show. The first time I've ever had a guest on the show for a second time.

Darin is an award-winning novelist, facility at New York University's creative writing program, and just a wonderful human. Darin is humble and open and honest about the writing life. This episode is a deep dive on nuance of storytelling.

I want to say a special thank you to Darin. I'm grateful to have him a second time.

And now, here is the episode with Darin Strauss.

Support the show

Welcome welcome my friends. This is another episode with a master storyteller, Tess Gerritsen. Tess has written 29 novels, including an adaptation of her series Rizzoli and Isles. Tess is just so knowledgeable about storytelling. I am so grateful to Tess for sharing her process for writing and how to become a writer from the inside out.

And now, my friends, without any further ado, here is the interview with Tess Gerritsen.

Support the show

Soooo… as I record this intro I am sitting on the banks of the Arkansas River in Salida, Colorado. Now, it is stunning and beautiful, but I also don’t have good access to the internet, so this intro is being recorded on my iPad. Just wanted to clear up any weird sound issue.

Okay, so, Episode 80 is with Gina LaManna. Gina has published over 30 novels and in this interview, we do a deep dive into her writing process. One thing I really love is that Gina has both traditionally and self-published, and so we get her combined wisdom here. For those of you looking to self-publish, there is so much goodness in here. Same for those who might want to pursue trad publishing.

I want to say a quick thank you to Gina for her time and for this interview. It was a real blast.

And now, here is the episode with Gina LaManna.

Support the show

Listen, I know this is a children's book, but it holds more wisdom than just about any book I've ever read.

Okay... The Places You'll Go

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself

any direction you choose.

You're on your own. And you know what you know.

And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.

You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.

About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."

With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,

you're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.

And you may not find any

you'll want to go down.

In that case, of course,

you'll head straight out of town.

It's opener there

in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen

and frequently do

to people as brainy

and footsy as you.

And then things start to happen,

don't worry. Don't stew.

Just go right along.

You'll start happening too.

OH!

THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!

You'll be on y our way up!

You'll be seeing great sights!

You'll join the high fliers

who soar to high heights.

You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.

You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.

Wherever you fly, you'll be best of the best.

Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don't.

Because, sometimes, you won't.

I'm sorry to say so

but, sadly, it's true

that Bang-ups

and Hang-ups

can happen to you.

You can get all hung up

in a prickle-ly perch.

And your gang will fly on.

You'll be left in a Lurch.

You'll come down from the Lurch

with an unpleasant bump.

And the chances are, then,

that you'll be in a Slump.

And when you're in a Slump,

you're not in for much fun.

Un-slumping yourself

is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.

Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked.

A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!

Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?

How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And IF you go in, should you turn left or right...

or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?

Or go around back and sneak in from behind?

Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,

for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused

that you'll start in to race

down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace

and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space,

headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place...

...for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go

or a bus to come, or a plane to go

or the mail to come, or the rain to go

or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow

or the waiting around for a Yes or No

or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite

or waiting for the wind to fly a kite

or waiting around for Friday night

or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake

or a pot to boil, or a Better Break

or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants

or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.

Support the show

This week's episode is with bestselling author, Kaira Rouda. Kaira is a powerhouse. She is a wonderful author of both fiction and nonfiction, entrepreneur, and motivational speaker. I love interviewing authors with such broad experience. In this episode, Kaira and I discuss the role of focus in the writing life, marketing, and her process for creating novels. I've been on a real kick discussing the business side of writing and publishing, and in this episode, Kaira and I really dive into it. I think you'll enjoy it.

I want to take a quick moment to thank Kaira for her time and this interview.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Kaira Rouda.

Support the show

Welcome welcome to a wonderful episode with Namina Forna. Namina is the best-selling author of "The Gilded Ones," an absolutely fantastic debut novel. In this novel we tackle the story of writing The Gilded Ones, and Namina's story as a writer. This is a powerful interview, and I cannot wait to share it with you.

I want to say a quick thank you to Namina for her time.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Namina Forna.

Support the show

Hello, my friends and welcome to another episode of the How Writers Write podcast. This week's episode is with the bestselling author of over twenty novels, Linwood Barclay. In this episode, Linwood and I discuss how his decades in the newspaper business has informed his fiction, his thoughts on plot and character, and so much more. Linwood is generous and funny and was just such a pleasure to interview.

I want to take a quick moment to thank Linwood for his time.

And now, without any delay, here is the episode with Linwood Barclay.

Support the show

This episode with Peter James is fantastically fun. This is another opportunity to into the writing practice of an author who has sold over 20 million books. What is really run about this interview is Peter's secret to how he cracked the crime writing code. The back story is just so much fun to listen to.

I want to say thank you to Peter for his time and for this interview.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Peter James.

Support the show

I distinctly remember when I said, "Welcome to Episode 10." And then I episode 25, and then 50. Now, here we are at episode 75. It has been such a wonderful ride. Seventy-five episodes with so many special guests. Thank you so much for sharing this journey with me, and for giving me a reason to do this podcast and serve you. The good news is that I still feel as if we are just getting started.

And so here we get to celebrate episode 75 with an amazing interview with Lisa Scottoline. Lisa is the bestselling author of 33 novels. She is full of life and wisdom and trust me when I tell you I was smiling nonstop during this interview.

I want to say a quick thank you to Lisa for her time.

Now, here is episode 75 with Lisa Scottoline.

Support the show

Robert Jones Jr is an author and activist. I first read his debut novel, The Prophets, and just absolutely loved it. And so when the opportunity to interview Robert, I jumped at it.

This interview is such a good look into the perseverance and focuses it takes to write a novel. Robert is such a generous soul to share his journey and the lessons that he's learned along the way.

This interview is touching and heartfelt.

I want to say thank you to Robert for his time and for sharing his story with me.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Robert Jones Jr.

Support the show

Anjali Enjeti is an award-winning essayist and novelist. I was so excited to interview her because she has two books about to be published, both fiction and non-fiction books.

But the stories behind her writing, how long she had to keep going to get these books published is just so truly inspiring. This is a great interview in perseverance.

I want to say thank you again to Anjali for her time.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Anjali Enjeti.

Support the show

This is an interview for all you history buffs out there. Stephanie Dray is a historical novelist who just happens to explore all of the same time periods that I love as well. This episode is packed with practical tips on how to research a novel, how to organize a big project, and so so much more. Stephanie is also just a wonderful person to interview. This is a good one.

I want to take a moment to thank Stephanie for her time.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Stephanie Dray.

Support the show

Welcome my friends to a fantastic episode with Christi Daugherty. Christy is the best selling author of the Night School series, and shares her thoughts on how to kick off a series and so many tips for producing amazing novels. This is a fun episode, and I am so grateful to Christi for sharing so much of her writing process with me.

Let's dive into it. Here is the interview with Christi Daugherty.

Support the show

This episode is for anyone who loves to bake, write, and read. Ellie Alexander is the best-selling author of multiple mystery series, but what I really admire is how she has intertwined her love of baking and writing. She brings this passion to her novels, and as a result, expands her reader's experiences in a really fun and unique way. I love it all.

Add onto it that Ellie has so much amazing advice and wisdom on the writing life, and I can say this is awesome.

Thank you again to Ellie for her time and this interview.

And now, here is the interview with Ellie Alexander.

Support the show

Interview Catherine Coulter, author of 86 novels, most of them NYT Bestsellers feels a little bit like a "pinch me" moment. In this episode, Catherine and I discuss how she creates characters, some lessons she's learned after writing so many books, and how she works as a pantser. This is a fun interview.

Thank you again to Catherine for her time.

And now! The interview with Catherine Coulter.

Support the show

Lin Anderson is a crime and thriller writer based out of Scotland. This interview with Lin is super special. Lin's sharing and generous spirit really highlight what this entire podcast is all about.

I want to say a special thank you to Lin for her time.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Lin Anderson!

Support the show

Welcome welcome my friends. I hope everyone is having a great week of writing, and if you aren't, that is okay beause this episode is sure to fill up your inspirational buckets. Tracy Wolff is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over sixty novels. I loved interviewing Tracy for her unbelievable wisdom about the writing process and the writing life. I'm sure you will love it as well.

I want to take a second to say thank you to Tracy for her time.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Tracy Wolff.

Support the show

Welcome, my friends, to episode 66. I am so excited for this one. This interview with Krista Davis is so wonderful. Her spirit and wisdom is sure blow you away, especially for someone with so much experience as a working writer. I'll keep this intro short and sweet so you can get right to the good stuff.

I want to say a special thank you to Krista for her time and for this interview.

And now, here is the interview with Krista Davis!

Support the show

So, this is an exciting podcast for me. I launched this podcast a year and change ago with just this vague idea of what I wanted it to be, and what an amazing ride it has been. I've interview so many incredible authors. Like, legit heroes of mine. A bunch of them have now become friends. I've had people reach out to me with INSANELY kind words, people reach out to me saying I missed a point pretty hard. We've launched our amazing writing community, HappyWriter, with this podcast.

So, now, after a year or so, I'm making just a sliiiiight tweak in the programming, in that I'm going to take some time off from the Monday Motivations. I've published like 60 of them, and these have been so close to my heart, but I am needing a break to recharge my batteries, and focus more and more on HappyWriter and some new programs.

Never fear, the weekly author interviews will continue generally as planned. We're running into some scheduling issues, but I will continue to interview the authors you love and publishing their amazing insights.

So, thank you so much for the ride. Thank you for so much support and your ears. Stay tuned to a bunch bunch bunch of new programs like writing challenges and maaaaaybe a new YouTube channel.

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

Hello, my friends, I hope everyone is having such a good week of writing. Today's episode is with Aliette de Bodard. This is a fun episode with a hugely prolific writer who is also working a full-time job and is a parent. So, for those of you who are jugging your writing with a full-time life, this episode is absolutely for you.

I want to say thank you to Aliette one more time.

And now, my friends, without any further ado, here is the episode with Aliette de Bodard.

Support the show

Here we are with another interview with an insanely prolific author. Jayne Ann Krentz has over 35 million books in print, which is just an absolutely insane number. Jayne Ann shares so much wisdom and insights and with that many books in print, you can feel good knowing what you hear is the real deal.

I want to say thank you again to Jayne Ann for her time. This interview was a blast.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Jayne Ann Krentz.

Support the show

So we just ran one of our amazing and awesome challenges where Libbie Hawker, author of like 40-novels and the bestselling outlining book, "Take Off Your Pants."

Our challenges are designed to break down tough concepts like plotting and outlining into bite-sized chunks, but sometimes this leads to writers believing that there is a universal right or wrong way to create. With this idea, it is easy to get stuck on plotting and outlining, and designing a novel "the right way." And, sometimes, that means some writers wind up focusing more of getting the tool right than their story right.

And so I want to encourage you to two things in your writing life. The first thing is to study writing craft broadly. Learn about the snowflake method and the hero's journey. Study character. Pacing. Dialogue. Chop up your favorite novel to see how the author used different beats to move the story forward.

But, I also want to encourage you to look at these tactics as tools. They aren't the point of writing, but they are a tool you can use to tell your story. So bend them, or break them, or don't even use them. Do whatever you need to do to move your story forward.

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

This is another interview where I just pinch myself to make sure I'm actually doing this. To interview someone with other 60 published books with a love for storytelling is a dream come true. JA Jance has such a presence. In this interview, we discuss how she was influenced by the Wizard of Oz, how she overcame people telling her she couldn't write because she was a woman and her secrets for writing great long-running series.

I want to say a special thank you to JA Jance. This is a fun one.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with JA Jance.

Support the show

Interviewing Jason was so fun because not only is Jason a bestseller author, he is also a publisher as well. This perspective is so wonderful. In this interview, you get both sides of the writing and publishing process. Add on top that Jason was such a wonderful and warm guest. I'm just saying... this interview is great.

I want to take a quick moment and thank Jason for this interview.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Jason Pinter.

Support the show

And... I feel you. I started a new business in 2020... arguably the worst timing in history. Ha.

This show, and all of How Writers Write is not political. And that isn't because I don't have my own personal politics. I mean, I studied political science in undergrad. Of course I have my beliefs, and like many of you I am very passionate about what I believe and stand for.

I keep politics out of How Writers Write because I believe in something more important: our stories. I have this north-star belief that our stories are the most powerful thing we have to share. To authentically tell the stories that are begging to come out of us is one of the most fulfilling and healing activities we can do. And to learn how to listen—to really listen— to another person's story is just as powerful.

I believe the world would be about one billion times better if we authentically told our stories and learned to compassionately listen to others.

What is more healing, more understanding? In what way can you empathize with another? In what other way can you be better understood?

Oftentimes, I'm like many of you, I feel totally powerless in a world that seems to be disintegrating. I can so easily spiral into despondency. And when I hit the bottom of that despair, the one thing I come back to, the one thing I know i can do, is to tell my story, listen to others, and encourage around me to do the same.

Take care of yourself. Feed your soul. Tell your story.

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing

Support the show

Episode 61 is a good one, my friends. Alix Harrow has such a wonderful perspective on the writing life.

And good news! This episode will be available on YouTube in late January so if you want to see the video of Alix and I that will be available.

I want to say a special thank you to Alix for her time and graciousness.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Alix Harrow!

Support the show

You know that overwhelming reaction you have when you stumble on a piece of art and it just places you in a time-warp? Sometimes, good art activates a feeling you haven't felt in a long time. Or it reminds you of your humanity. Ah... I miss art museums!

Imagine, now, that there is an art museum that you could walk through with just halls and halls of frames. No pictures. No art. Just frames.

And each frame was a different perspective on your writing life. Think about all the different perspectives you could have about every little thing that happens. The obvious ones are the frames of "this is good" or "this is bad." But, there are so many other frames, like "I am good. I am bad."

And what if there were multiple frames for each and every moment of your writing life? Each morning or afternoon or evening when you sit down to do your work, what if each of those moments had a frame with a different perspective. And so the morning you didn't write as much as you wanted, there was a frame for "this is good or bad."

The question the frame begs is "this is this or this is that," it is "what makes this good or what makes this bad?" The frame becomes the "what." The perspective, the choice.

Imagine a morning where maybe you didn't write as much as you wanted. And you had the choice to stand in front of the "this is awful and I'm awful" frame or stand in front of the "I took a step and I'm proud of myself, and tomorrow I'll do better."

Imagine how the picture inside the frame would change between the two. What color would be the awful picture? What about the second picture, where you show yourself grace?

As we kick off a new year, one of the most powerful decisions you can make is to choose the frame in which you want to look at your writing life. In 2021, there will be endless moments where your expectations will be met or not met, moments when you'll need to decide on your frame. And the thing is, you will decide, whether it is with awareness or by default.

You control the frame.

And so, in that way, the frame you put around your writing life becomes the picture.

Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for joining me on this journey. And I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

This was a fun episode to close out in 2020. It isn't every day that I get to interview a #1 NYT best selling author, and Karen was such a wonderful guest. I'm thrilled to have this interview as number 60... 60! What a crazy fun ride this has been.

I want to say a special thank you to Karen for her time and graciousness.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Karen M. McManus!

Support the show

This episode with Darby Kane is more or less exactly what this podcast is all about. Darby's spirit, openness, and vulnerability touched me. I walked around on a cloud for like three days after this interview.

Darby is a fantastic author and I cannot recommend Pretty Little Wife enough. Having gotten an advance copy and burning through it in a weekend, I can attest that it is fantastic.

I want to thank Darby one more time for her interview. And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Darby Kane.

Support the show

This is a special episode with KJ Dell'Antonia. KJ is a faculty for HappyWriter, a podcaster herself, a friend of the show, and I think we share a bunch of personality traits. This was a fun episode for me. KJ and I discuss some of the lessons she's learned in 2020, how to manage guilt and writing, and so much more.

Make sure you check out KJs debut novel, The Chicken Sisters, which was a Reese's Bookclub Pick.

I want to take a second to thank KJ for her time. And now, without any furher ado, here is the interview with KJ Dell’Antonia.

Support the show

Support the show

Sabaa Tahir is a #1 NYT bestselling author and a wonderful person to interview. In this episode, Sabaa and I really dig down deep into the writing life, talking about the role of hope, some thoughts on world-building, and some lessons learned on writing a series. I loved this interview and I think I could have just keep talking and talking with Sabaa, but at last, time intervened.

I want to say a special thank you to Sabaa for her time and graciousness.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Sabaa Tahir!

Support the show

By far, the most common question I am asked when I am working one-on-one with writer, is "how do I know if I am even a writer?" And, it is so common because anyone who has ever tried to write has asked themselves this question.

So let me dive right in and answer you.

If you have a burning desire to tell stories, you are a writer. Full stop.

I believe stories don't just come from anywhere, they come from the true writer that lives inside of you. This writer is a version of you. A small slice of your entirety. In fact, you have many different versions of you. You might be a friend, a parent, a worker of some kind, a spouse, an athlete, a writer.

And think about it, you move between these versions of you when you need them. Especially now... you might be on a Zoom call as the "professional" version of you, and then gets stuck in the bathroom and all of a sudden you switch into parent version.

The point here is that you daren't one thing. You are a zillion different things.

The thing is, for many people, the writer is buried under a mound of limiting beliefs, uninspiring goals, poor time management, and misaligned values. The writer is inside of you. You are a writer, it's just that you might lack the strategies you need to bring your writer to the surface.

And so you can put the question to rest, and instead of spending your precious life energy on asking this question, and looking for some kind of external validation, instead invest that energy into building the strategies you need to live as your true, wild, resourceful and whole inner writer.

So much of the writing life is learning to become a writer from the inside-out, not just learning how to write.

This idea is the entire reason behind this podcast and HappyWriter. If you want to go deep on this and learn how to unleash your inner writer and rebuild those beliefs and goals and time management strategies, I'd invite you to check us out at HowWritersWrite.com.

Support the show

Today's interview is with best-selling author, entrepreneur, and all-around powerhouse A.R. (or Alessandra) Torre. In this interview we talk about Alessandra's new writing startup, Authors.AI which is a company that uses artificial intelligence to help authors with their development and editing process, the writing life, and so much more.

This interview is a standout because Alessandra knows story. She studies it and thinks about it. And the result is someone who has just so much amazing writing wisdom to share.

I want to say a special thank you to Alessandra for his time and graciousness.

And now, without any futher ado, here is the interview with A.R. Torre!

Support the show

After last week's episode titled "Say Yes," I had a bunch of people reach out on Instagram and email. And I gotta say, I absolutely love it when I hear from the listeners of this podcast. Sometimes I hear such kind words, sometimes people say that something I've said didn't sit well with them, and I appreciate the opportunity to broaden my perspectives.

But, regardless, I had a bunch of people reach out saying that the episode really landed with them. And so I want to take this concept of Say Yes a step further with you because I really only scratched the surface of the power in those two little words.

It turns out "Say Yes" is also a great way to build that elusive "discipline." I can go on and on and on about how most people's concept of discipline is completely off, but I won't—maybe in some other podcast—but, if you define discipline roughly as "enforcing a desired behavior," it turns out "Say Yes" accomplishes the task, with only a slight tweak.

Let me set up the scenario. Your writing time is at 5 am and you just sucked into a new show on Netflix and the pilot episode is INSANELY good, as the first episode of Westworld or Lost or Homeland. Right as that second episode starts to load the little voice in your head says, "Dear Future author, you really should go to bed right now so you can wake up early and get your pages in."

And this is when we think about discipline. We try to call upon some kind of hidden force of will that will just propel us into taking the right action, getting to bed, and waking up refreshed and ready to write. We essentially try to "say no" to episode two of that new show.

I've yet to meet a single person who can keep up that kind of "say no" discipline and 1) move towards their goal and 2) be happy about it. We, humans, are hard-wired for pleasure, which is why we want to watch that Netflix episode. It feels fun and good. We are excited and want to see what happens.

Now, let's replay this scenario. You've just watched the first pilot episode of that amazing show and as the two-second episode is loading, you check the time and ask yourself, "what do I want to 'Say Yes' to? Do I want to say yes to watching this episode, which will be available for all time? Or, do I want to Say Yes to writing in the morning?

Can you feel the shift? Now you have a decision to make, but not a negative one. You aren't eliminating anything, you are deciding to "say yes" to the thing that holds a higher value in your life. If you can master this inner dialogue in the writing life, you'll never another ounce of discipline, because another truth of humanity is that choice trumps force.

Learn to Say Yes, and you can move in the direction you want because you'll be choosing to step into it. You'll have no need for discipline because you'll be actively deciding what you do with your life.

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

Here is another interview with a prolific author. Christine Feehan has published over 80 books. 80! This interview has so much for series writers, and people who find themselves able to just work and work and work.

As I was interviewing Christine, I was again reminded of how each and every writer has to find the way in which they produce books. Christine has her way, which is to work and work work, but I've interviewed other authors who write for just a few hours. Either way is fine, as long as you are getting good words on the page.

Thank you again to Christine for her time. And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Christine Feehan.

Support the show

Each year around this time I become extremely reflective. There is just something about the shortened days and the cold and the coming of the New Year that makes me go into this like cocoon of thoughts. I go over the past year in my mind and celebrate my wins and examine my losses. I try really, really hard not to judge myself. It is so easy to judge and then fall into the trap of believing I should have done something different.

Judgment is not the point. The point is to learn something and reset my sights on where I am directing my ship. I've found unless I really set clear goals each year and then keep them in front of me daily, I wander. I'll get distracted and wind up chasing a new project. It winds up that I don't really get anything done, just a ton of half-finished projects.

And so this season—really it is the entire month of December—has become a kind of ritual for me to clarify and focus on what I want to set my aim on in the coming year.

This year, though, is different. I suspect there is not a single person on the planet who could say "I saw 2020 coming." On top of a global pandemic, I launched a start-up and moved across the country, and so this year I am bringing a new lens that I learned from my wonderful coaching training.

In coaching, we use the term "say yes" a lot to reaffirm a positive decision a person is making to accomplish a big goal. For example, if you have a goal of finishing a novel in 2021, that is a HUGE goal. To accomplish that goal, what are the things you need to "say yes" to? Do you need to say yes to going to bed early so you can wake up? Do you need to say yes to developing a writing routine? Do you need to say yes to stick with and finishing a book? Do you need to say yes to getting started?

Do that now. Think of your writing goal. The thing you are really after in this game. As long as you aren't driving, it's okay to close your eyes and really sink into this visualization. I try to feel what it would be like to have the dream. How would you look at yourself? How would it feel to hold that book in your hand? Or to finally lose that weight or rebuild that relationship you know is strained?

Once you have that visualization, take out a piece of paper and just write down ALL Of the things you would need to say yes in order to accomplish that goal. Don't slow down. Don't think about it. Don't judge yourself, just write and write and write and write.

Now you have the choice. You can say yes to those things, or you can choose to say yes to another set of options that will lead to a different outcome.

As we come into 2021, if you want to make a big change in your life, focus on the yesses. Let your daily actions be in response to your yesses, and while I can't promise that you'll always accomplish your goals, you'll give them a damn good run, and you just might find you have so much more potential and capability than what you imaged. And it all starts with saying yes.

Support the show

So before we kick off this week's episode, I want to give a quick update on HappyWriter. This last week, if you attended my live workshop on how to 3x your writing output in 2021, you'll know I introduced the evolution of HappyWriter. Like any new project, we've been building and listening and seeing what works and what needs to be tweaked. So, I have a couple changes that I want to quickly announce.

First one is that HappyWriter is now entirely focused on helping fiction writers get their book finished. Everything we build and offer is in the service of that goal. To do that, we are launching our core curriculum, which is a nine-part class on how to build a monster writing process to guarantee you get your book done. The second big change is we now have writing workshops for every single member to exchange work with similar genre and experience level writers. You can get feedback on your work, make some writing friends, and build accountability. The last change is that we are only offering membership to HappyWriter on a yearly-basis. Why? We want to build a community of writers who are obsessed with getting books finished and published, and knowing we'll all be able to learn and grow together for a year is awesome. It builds community and relationships, and in a way, signing up for a year is a commitment to getting your book done.

Of course, we still have all of the online courses and live events and author masterclasses and community and live coaching calls. I am so insanely proud. HappyWriter is what I wish I had as I learned to write and before I went to get my MFA.

So, if you want to get a book done, HappyWriter is the place for you. Full stop. To join, head on over to HowWritersWrite.com.

Okay, episode 54 with Mark McGuinness. Interviewing Mark felt like interviewing a creative sage. Mark is a creativity coach for artists and performers, but he is also a poet. This is a guy who really understands what it takes to use our creativity, and I think you'll find Mark answers my questions is such unpredictable and powerful ways. Mark is a gracious guest and I kid you not this interview went by in a snap for me. I'm sure you'll enjoy it as well.

Thank you again to Mark for his time. And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Mark McGuinness.

------

Mark McGuinness Creative Coach Website:  https://lateralaction.com/articles/21-years-creative-coach/
Mark McGuinness Podcast: https://lateralaction.com/21stcenturycreative

Support the show

As writers, it is so incredibly easy to get really hyper-focused on the big things. We want to be published, win awards, roll in money, and all the things. I'm in that boat. I'm a human. Of course, I want my work to someday be noticed and celebrated. Just like you, I have dreams and hopes. I imagine looking at a bookshelf of my own books with a sense of pride and fulfillment. A life spent in creation is about as good of a life as I can imagine.

But it is also so easy to get caught up in what you don't have. Maybe you don't have a published book, yet. Or a finished book. Or a story started. The danger is comparing your dreams with your current position and coming away feeling lousy.

I am so incredibly prone to this. I am a dreamer. Truly. I have big huge ambitions for my life. And I can so easily beat myself up that I haven't published a single book, even though I wrote an entire novel. Or that I haven't written that book of philosophy yet. I still haven't competed in a slam poetry contest.

One thing I've found that allows me to have the best of both worlds is to keep my big dreams, but really really celebrate my small wins. How small is small? Small. Anything. Five minutes of writing. Just the right word choice. A page where I really bond with the character I'm writing. Sometimes, I even celebrate laying in bed all night and reading a good book.

The key for me is to celebrate any action or outcome I've taken in the direction I want to go. So, no, I don't celebrate wanting to write. I don't celebrate having the best of intentions but not doing anything. because I'd just be reinforcing behavior that I do not want to continue. The key for me is to celebrate action. And to really celebrate it. I say nice things to myself. I'll do the ka-ching motion. Or I'll let myself smile.

And you know what? It feels really good to celebrate myself for something I want to do. It feels right to say "good job Brian," and taking a moment to just feel good. Like, feel happy. And then, after I've celebrated my small win, I relax until it is time to take another step.

This week, find one small writing win to celebrate each and every day. Now,I know what you are going to say, "Brian I don't think I'll have one thing to celebrate each day," and my response is to go do one small thing. Make it small. Write for 10 minutes. Or five. The key here is to act, and then celebrate the act, and then to keep acting. Making progress in the writing life is about sustained activity over the course of years. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

Support the show

This episode is sponsored by.... HappyWriter! There was about 1500 hundred writers who participated in our Plot Your Novel in Just Five Days challenge and it was truly epic. If you missed the challenge and you want to jump in, you can now take the challenge in HappyWriter, and we're offering seven days of access to HappyWriter for just $1. So, jump in with Tiffany Yates-Martin and I as we walk you through, step-by-step, exactly what you need to plot your novel. To jump into your trial, visit howwriterswrite.com/plotchallenge/ to register.

Part of the thing I've tried so hard to do on this podcast is bring in all sorts of writers and writing process and backgrounds and people, and I love this interview with PW Singer because he is the first writer I've interviewed who writes a specific kind of fiction called useful fiction AND he writes his fiction with a coauthor.

This is such a fun and unique interview. Not to mention we talk about AI and tech stuff which is like right up my alley.

So, thank you to Mr Peter Warren Singer for this super fun and fantastic interview.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with PW Singer.

Support the show

Listen, I know this is a children's book, but it holds more wisdom than just about any book I've ever read.

Okay... The Places You'll Go

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself

any direction you choose.

You're on your own. And you know what you know.

And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.

You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.

About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."

With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,

you're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.

And you may not find any

you'll want to go down.

In that case, of course,

you'll head straight out of town.

It's opener there

in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen

and frequently do

to people as brainy

and footsy as you.

And then things start to happen,

don't worry. Don't stew.

Just go right along.

You'll start happening too.

OH!

THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!

You'll be on y our way up!

You'll be seeing great sights!

You'll join the high fliers

who soar to high heights.

You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.

You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.

Wherever you fly, you'll be best of the best.

Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don't.

Because, sometimes, you won't.

I'm sorry to say so

but, sadly, it's true

that Bang-ups

and Hang-ups

can happen to you.

You can get all hung up

in a prickle-ly perch.

And your gang will fly on.

You'll be left in a Lurch.

You'll come down from the Lurch

with an unpleasant bump.

And the chances are, then,

that you'll be in a Slump.

And when you're in a Slump,

you're not in for much fun.

Un-slumping yourself

is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.

Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked.

A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!

Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?

How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And IF you go in, should you turn left or right...

or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?

Or go around back and sneak in from behind?

Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,

for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused

that you'll start in to race

down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace

and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space,

headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place...

...for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go

or a bus to come, or a plane to go

or the mail to come, or the rain to go

or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow

or the waiting around for a Yes or No

or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite

or waiting for the wind to fly a kite

or waiting around for Friday night

or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake

or a pot to boil, or a Better Break

or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants

or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.

Everyone is just waiting.

Support the show

There was about 1500 hundred writers who participated in our Plot Your Novel in Just Five Days challenge and it was truly epic. If you missed the challenge and you want to jump in, you can now take the challenge in HappyWriter, and we're offering seven days of access to HappyWriter for just $1. So, jump in with Tiffany Yates-Martin and I as we walk you through, step-by-step, exactly what you need to plot your novel. To jump into your free trial, visit howwriterswrite.com/plotchallenge/ to register.

So, episode 52 is a special one. This conversation with Andrew stuck with me for a long time. Andrew is someone who cares deeply about the creative process, and is just so humble and filled with so much wisdom. This interview explores the relationship between songwriting and novel writing, faith and creativity, and so much more.

I want to thank Andrew again for his time.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Andrew Peterson.

Support the show

All too often I think these talks highlight some of the really difficult parts of the writing life, but I'm totally guilty of not discussing just how amazing it is to have a gift like storytelling. I often wonder what my life would be like if I hadn't found this passion for storytelling. It kinda feels like the thought of "what would my life be like if I hadn't married my wife, or had kids." It is impossible to imagine because storytelling is fundamental to who I am.

And so today's Monday Motivation is a simple, yet profound, invitation to spend a week taking pure joy in your storytelling journey. Wherever you are, what you have or haven't accomplished, the goals you hope to achieve, all of those things fade in the joy of just writing. Just telling interesting stories with fun characters who do sometimes crazy things.

A small mental reframe which pays dividends is to change your expectations for this week's writing. I personally need this. Like, I'm not going to expect pages, or quality, or certainly not brilliance. I'm going to expect joy in each minute of my writing time.

Can you already feel the internal shift in those words? I certainly can.

A few years ago I got the word joy tattooed on my arm inside of a bullseye. I use tattoos a lot to embed messages that I desperately need but oftentimes aren't intuitive. I'm a writer, I am prone to melancholy and folk music, and so this realignment to joy is just so welcome. I cannot wait to write all week from this place.

If these are connecting with you as well, I encourage a week, or a day or a whatever and just be joyful in your writing practice. We are the lucky ones who get to tell stories, who get to join in an unfathomable tradition of storytellers throughout history and express ourselves with words.

I'm holding onto that today, and I hope you will do.

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a JOYFUL week of writing

Support the show

This episode is sponsored by... HappyWriter! Of course!

This month we have a stacked content calendar. On top of the already growing library of challenges, courses, and workshops, in November 2020 we have a writing workshop on how to be more productive, a masterclass with Jennifer Probst, and a storytelling spotlight with James Wade, and another storytelling spotlight with Robert Desiderio. As an FYI, a storytelling spotlight is a video series on EXACTLY how an author writes a book, from the initial idea all the way through editing.

You can grab all of this content and join our community of writers for just $39/month. Join us at howwriterswrite.com and I look forward to seeing you in HappyWriter!

Okay, this episode is almost ONE YEAR to the day of when I launched the podcast. This year has been a total blast, and I'm thrilled to have Kim as my guest this week. Kim has so much practical and useful writing information to share. Make sure to check the show notes for a wonderful character tool that she uses to stay organized when she is working with multiple characters and settings.

https://netorgft5386219-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/g/personal/brian_howwriterswrite_com/EQsBqV3e_KtBn0FTLOew--IBjpNmhVcrcreQ06XW5Yd8KQ?e=WNupfa

Thank you to Kim again for her time, and now without any further ado, here is the interview with Kim Harrison.

Support the show

So, this is a five-minute version of a five-day course that I have in HappyWriter about how to build, maintain, and manage your creative energy. As I am putting the finishing touches on the core HappyWriter curriculum and the promise of the platform—all of that I'll share in a few weeks—the one skill that touches almost every part of the writing life and is interwoven into the curriculum is the ability to manage your energy.

People love to say that time is the most valuable resource, I know you've heard that before, but people are wrong.

Your most valuable resource is energy.

Look at it this way: you can have all the time in the world, but with no energy, you’ll get nothing done and be miserably aimless.

Inversely, you can have just a little time, but if you’re filled with energy, working will come easily. If you’ve ever sat down to write and felt completely drained, chances are one or more of your energy buckets are empty. A good example of the feeling of a drained energy bucket is when you are low on physical energy—aka you are really tired. Physically you are sluggish, mentally foggy, maybe even grouchy (or worse!). If you stay awake for just 18 hours, you’ll drive as if you have a blood-alcohol level of 0.05 (0.08 is considered drunk driving).

So forget about trying to write under those conditions!

I want to share three quick ways to increase your writing energy, but more than that, I want you to have overflowing creative energy, because nothing that feels better than sitting down and just writing with full focus and creative energy. To me, this full-energy experience is just as important as my output. It makes the long months and years of writing worth it.

To set this up, recognize your creative energy is like a muscle. You can use the muscle, but you then need to rest it. And also, just like a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger the muscle will get. So the more you learn to use your creative energy, train it, and strengthen it, and then let it rest, the "more in shape" your creative muscle will be. resulting in more energy to use.

If you want to go deep on this—so like five days of visualizations to help you tap into your energy, a workbook so you can document your progress, and focused lessons to help you really dive into your energy—I invite you to join HappyWriter. This course as well as many other author masterclasses, storytelling spotlights, and so much more is now live. It's all there to help you get your story onto the page, for just $39/month. Check out HappyWriter at howwriterswrite.com to sign up.

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

I remember I used to imagine what it would be like to say episode 50, and here we are. Thank you so much for listening, and sharing this podcast with me. This has truly been one of the most enjoyable projects I have ever worked on in my entire life.

On such a momentous occasion as episode 50, I am happy to share this interview with Anthony Horowitz with you. Anthony is just a titan of storytelling. Again, I often pinch myself being able to ask someone like Anthony, who has published over 40 books, basically any question I want!

I want to say thank you again to Anthony for his time.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Anthony Horowitz.

Support the show

Support the show

I want to say a special thank you to Dr. Ian for his time and graciousness.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Ian K. Smith!

Support the show

If you've been listening to this podcast, you'll know I place tremendous value on intentionally building your beliefs because beliefs are the driver of feelings, and how we feel dictates how we act. So the chain goes beliefs drive feelings, feelings drive actions. That insight alone has radically changed my life. I never ever try to change one of my actions, because when you only focus on changing an action it is sure to fail. To change your life, you have to change your beliefs.

Okay, so this episode goes out to the people who are always cutting themselves down for not being published, not being further in their writing practice, not having the awards, word count, or general praise of whoever else they compare themselves to. I have no doubt that there are people out there who are squirming a bit.

This feeling is not just a feeling. It is the expression of a belief. The belief is that you as a writer should be somewhere other than exactly where you are. I call this an other-than-here belief. You believe that you should have been born into a more literary family, you should have gotten a better writing education, tried harder, started earlier, published that book, not published the book. You get the idea.

At its core, this belief rests on the ultra-belief that you aren't enough. It is a belief of lack and incompetence.

And it is completely untrue.

You are exactly where you are supposed to be. If you weren't supposed to be here, you wouldn't be here. But, like really simply, where you are at is where you are at. There is a true power in just looking plainly at your writing practice and not distorting the view with dissatisfaction. This is ESPECIALLY true if you want to change your life. Don't let the pressure out. Just look at yourself.

But, be careful not to look at yourself and beat yourself up, because you are literally just repeating the same practice. You are saying, "Dang, Brian, you are such a bad writer because look at all these people who are waaaaaaay further in their writing game!"

Instead, break up the observation of this belief into two buckets.

1. The things you want to improve, and
2. A deep, genuine gratitude of all of the wonderful things in your writing life. Make lists of all of the things you do so amazingly great. It can be making characters or dialogue or story ideas or maybe even hope. Focus on your good. Always, always, always focus on your good.

Take just a few minutes a day to fill your life with gratitude and you'll find that soon you won't yearn to be somewhere else because you will be grateful for exactly where you are.

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

This episode is sponsored by... HappyWriter! I just completed book coach Amanda Polick's writing workshop, "what writers can learn from improv." Amanda who also trained at The Second City’s school of improvisation breaks down how writers can learn from the sketch comic’s approach to receiving and processing feedback. Eeeeek. This writing workshop was an absolute BLAST, and as a compliment, we're having a live QA with Amanda on Wednesday, October 14th. And now, for just $1, you can join HappyWriter for a week. Take the improv workshop, ask questions in the QA, and dive into the community. Just for a buck. Head over to howwriterswrite.com/podcast to sign up.

To interview Francine Rivers, a pillar of Christian fiction was such a treat. Francine was so gracious with her advice and wisdom she shared with me about the writing life and just life in general. I think you'll feel her spirit come through in this interview.

I'd like to take a moment to thank Francine again for her time.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Francine Rivers.

Support the show

This week in HappyWriter, a question came up during our coffee hour— which is like our informal time to just hang out, drink coffee, share some wins, and ask questions— that I thought was so good that I'd make an entire podcast out of it. A member asked, basically, how they could manage the different components of their short story—tension, and pacing, and character and so forth— while they were composing.

My answer was pretty straight forward, and it was simply, "don't."

Let me unpack it a little bit more.

Oftentimes, and I am so so so so so guilty of this, we try to do too many things when we compose. We sit down to write and we bring both the artist, editor, and reader to the desk. Maybe even more than that.

What happens is universal. The artist gets going, and then the editor chimes in that a word is off, the reader tells you they are getting bored, and the artist is stifled by the creative constriction. The swirl continues until the three voices produce a stalemate. The result? We call it writer's block. And if you get enough writer's block, it is so easy to believe you aren't a writer at all.

One thing I've learned from interviewing 50+ authors is that they have an incredible ability to stay rooted in one personality—the artist, editor, or reader—while they are doing their work. When they are composing, they don't let the editor do their edits. They don't question a word choice. They don't go back and edit the same paragraph a million times. They wait until the book is done, and then they switch hats to the editor hat, and then to the reader hat for polish.

And so the answer to my friend in HappyWriter was to write triple the words they needed. Write for the joy of writing. Write the thing that makes your heart beat faster and your skin tingle with electricity. Give the editor ample amounts of raw, beautiful creation from the artist. Let the editor go to work molding and sculpting until the best material comes out.

This week give yourself permission to be one personality. If you are in composing mode, just write. Don't edit. Don't critique. Just have a blast. Write 3 or 4 or 5 times more than you need. Write all the little you want with all the little characters. Don't take the first-round too seriously, because you know you have a world-class editor waiting to take your creation and perfect it.

Just do one thing.

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

HappyWriter—our new community for creative writers—is live! Right now for just 39/month, you can sign up for HappyWriter. And October's content is packed. You can jump into a writing workshop on what writers can learn from improv with book coach Amanda Polick, attend a live author masterclass on October 22nd with James Wade, and you can even retake the plotting challenge that we just concluded. And that, my friends, is just a snippet of what is inside HappyWriter. To join HappyWriter, head on over to howwriterswrite.com.

So, come on over to HappyWriter to make some friends writing friends and learn from some of the best educators and writers. To sign up, go to howwriterswrite.com

Today's interview is with a pillar of an entire genre, Laurell K Hamilton. We cover a ton of ground in this interview and I could not be more grateful to Laurell.

I want to say a special thank you to Laurell for his time and graciousness.

Support the show

This week we ran a challenge called "Plot Your Novel in Just Five Days." The idea for the challenge was to try and create the perfect learning environment to teach a huge group of writers something that many of them believed they were incapable of learning—specifically how to plot a novel. I had seen these kinds of challenges before work so well. I know a lot of people do NanoWriMo and love the thrill of writing a novel in the month.

So, overall there were pretty close to 1500 writers who participated in the challenge, and about 1000 of those people joined our Facebook group which we made just for the challenge. I learned a lot, but one of the things that has reaalllly stood out to me is how many people came into the challenge saying something along the lines of "I can't plot, never have been able to, but I'm curious enough to give this a shot," and how many of them left saying something along the lines of "holy moly I plotted my entire book in five days and I never thought that was possible."

I don't say that as a "wow we are amazing" statement—though, of course, I am so proud of the results of the past week—but the insight here is that what so many people needed to take a major step forward into their writing life was just the right tools.

It got me thinking about how many people came into the challenge with the perception that they couldn't do something. And that perception was not reality. They could plot. They could learn. They could do it, but there were two things holding them back

1. Their beliefs in their ability
2. The right tools and environment

And so, riding high on a stellar week with a heart full of emotion, this Monday Motivation is super simple. It is that whatever is your perception of yourself and what you are capable of doing, the reality is most likely much much much higher if you only have the right beliefs and tools.

Think about that for a minute with me. I watched dozens... I mean maybe a hundred or more people have their perception of their abilities ROCKED in just five days.

I think this is the thing that makes me so insanely excited to see HappyWriter come to life. We've worked so hard to put the right tools in front of writers—specifically community, accountability, and education—so that they can actually become the writer they've always wanted to be. Just having educational programs isn't enough because you need a community and accountability. If you have accountability, but you aren't learning the craft of writing, you'll quickly plateau. And accountability and education without a community is a terribly lonely existence. I believe the combination of these three things is like the holy trifecta for writers. It is what makes for a HappyWriter.

HappyWriter's fall programming is completely packed with content. We have masterclasses being taught by authors James Wade, Jennifer Probst, and many others. We're kicking off all kinds of writing accountability groups. And yes, the entire plot your novel in Just Five Days Challenge will live forever inside HappyWriter. And all of this is wrapped in an inclusive, safe, and diverse community of writers. To me, it is about as good as it gets. If you'd like to join HappyWriter, head on over to howwriterswrite.com and you can read more about it and jump right into the community. I'd love to see you there.

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

Here we are. Episode 46 with Marybeth Mayhew Whalen. Sometimes I get to interview people who feel as if they are just so aligned with a similar vision of the power of storytelling. This is how I felt interviewing Marybeth. I know you will find so much insight and wisdom in this interview.

Also, as a quick note, I misspoke the title of Marybeth's new novel. It is not "the Secret thing..." it is THIS secret thing. So, sorry to Marybeth!

I want to say a quick thank you to Marybeth.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Marybeth Mayhew Whalen.

Support the show

This week I want to talk about the most important skill to develop as a writer. The skill that all other skills derive from. I'm sure as I say this, there are lots of different thoughts of what this could be. I wish I could talk with you, because the interviewer in me would love to know all of the answers to this prompt. I'd guess some people might say something curiosity, or structure, maybe even having a critical writer's eye. All of those things are important, but to me, the most important skill you need to develop as a writer is learning how you write.

Not how to write, but how you write.

What this is means is a tactical, nuts-and-bolts understanding of how your creation process works. In the same way a mechanic looks at an engine and sees all kinds of parts that add up to create one whole, your writing life is a number of disparate actions, thoughts, and processes that when added together will hint towards the results you are likely to achieve. That is because an engine, like your writing life, is a process. It is not a single part, but a sum of its parts. And these parts need to work together, they need maintenance, they need fuel, they need a skill operator. Somebody somewhere had the inspiration and creativity to design the engine, but it is the process of the engine that makes a car move.

Yes, creativity is magic, but creation is a process.

Accepting process as a critical part of my writing life took me a long time to understand. For a good chunk of my early days of writing, I was terrified of losing the magic, and so I only worked off the fuel of creativity.

But, what I learned is that creativity can be fickle. I'm using the word creativity here, but you can interchange that for the muse or inspiration. What I realized is that I sat down a lot with no inspiration and no muse. And yet, I still needed to create.

And so I threw myself into learning the craft of writing and I obsessively wrote and studied and went to an MFA, all to try and add more magic, more inspiration, into my writing. But, while my skill as a writer improved, my output and results didn't, partly because I'm not sure I ever learned how to control the magic. In fact, I still don't. But, I learned I could control the process, and oddly it was the process that produced the writing results I wanted. Not the magic.

Once it clicked that I had to learn how I write, it was like the proverbial lightbulb went off. And the good news is that it didn't take me very long to figure out how I write, and the results on my writing life have been tremendous. I'm not worried about losing the magic or even about harnessing it, because I have a process, and my process works for me.

There are two questions to answer to start unpacking this for yourself.

The first question is what is your standard for your writing time? Is your standard to sit down and crank with no distractions? Is your standard more relaxed? Is your standard 1,000 words a day? 10,000 words a day? Define what it is your expect from yourself first and foremost.

The second questions is to think about what had to happen for you to achieve your standard? Did you leave your phone in a separate room? Did you have a plan for what you wanted to write? Were you at a certain time or place?

These questions can help unlock ideas and steps you can take, but I'd also recommend approaching your writing life like a detective who collects clues. If you have a great day or week of writing, tkae a moment and try to understand why. Same as the other side if you had an awful week. In the end, this is a process of learning about you. So it is you studying the way you work. Be selfish with it, and see what opens up for you.

Support the show

It is not too late to join the free How to Plot Your Novel in just Five Days challenge. We are going to have well over 1,000 people join the challenge which just makes me so insanely excited. The challenge kicks off on Monday, September 28th. Tiffany Yates Martin will lead you step-by-step on how to build a killer plot. I know a lot of writers say plot is their big sticking point, so if that is you, head on over to howwriterswrite.com/plot to save you spot.

Today's podcast is with screenwriter and author Simon Stephenson. Simon has such an incredible story, from experiencing personal tragedy, working and learning how to write at Pixar, and so many lessons learned along the way. This is a fun episode with a wonderful soul and writer.

I want to say a special thank you to Simon for his time and graciousness.

And now, without any futher ado, here is the interview with Simon Stephenson!

Support the show

Support the show

Oftentimes, when I connect with writers, one of the biggest struggles they have is learning how to plot. In fact, many of the authors I've interviewed say they want to learn how to be a better plotter. For those of you out there who want to dive into plotting your own novel, like maybe you just need a little extra support and kick in the pants, on September 28th I will be running a FREE challenge with editor-to-the-stars and podcast guest Tiffany Yates-Martin on how, exactly, to plot your novel. This isn't some intellectual exercise on how to plot. Oh no... this is How Writers Write style, meaning each day Tiffany and I will share a video and assignment in a closed Facebook group of writers. You're going to learn plotting by plotting, by doing the work, so you will leave at the end of five days with a killer, dynamic, compelling, and thrilling plot. But seriously, Tiffany is the editor for numerous Amazon and NYT bestsellers... this is a chance to learn plotting from the best in the world. For free.

Registration is now open. Visit howwriterswrite.com/plot to enter the challenge.

I loved interviewing Madeleine Roux. Madeleine is a perfect example of how important it is to find your way of creating. Madeleine details how learned the very special and unique way that she has learned how to write, and how it has unlocked better production and more overall happiness.

I want to say a special thank you to Madeline for her time and graciousness.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Madeleine Roux!

Support the show

Do you enjoy listening to all of the amazing answers guests give when I ask about their one piece of writing advice? If so, I've compiled the first 35 responses in a FREE eBook. The answers are all sorts of awesome, with some inspirational and others a kick in the pants. To download your free eBook go to howwriterswrite.com/ebook and I hope you enjoy!

This week's episode with Brad Parks is a wild ride. Brad is full of energy, stories, and passion for writers. We cover so much ground on how to build a routine, how to keep away the temptations of the internet, and how to focus on what you can control in the writing life. I loved recording this episode, and I am SURE you will love listening. I was literally laughing the entire time.

I want to say a special thank you to Brad for his time and sharing so much.

And now... without any further ado, here is the episode with Brad Parks!

Support the show

Support the show

Before we kick off this episode, my friends, I have just completed a project that was a total blast. So, you know how I ask each guest for their one piece of writing advice? I went through the first 35 episodes, transcribed the answers, and dropped them into a FREE eBook for you to download. Did I say free? Why, yes, I did. Free. To get your copy and also get a sneak sneak sneak peek into our new writing community- HappyWriter, head over to howwriterswrite.com/ebook. Again... howwriterswrite.com/ebook ENJOY!

One of the fundamental beliefs of the institute where I did my coaching training is that people are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. It is one of the first things you learn during your first weekend of live training. I remember sitting in the conference room in an enormous hotel in New York with just twenty or so other first-time coaches, hearing those words, and almost feeling like an exhale. My entire life I bucked against anyone who said people are born bad or sinful, and yet I also acknowledge our capacity for tremendous evil. My truth is that we all contain the raw materials for anything—evil, genius, creativity, and goodness. And so when I heard the phrase in coaching, it connected dots in my head in a profound way.

The writer in me loves the phrase because each word does so much work. If you take out a single word in the statement it all falls apart. Ahhh... good crisp writing.

So what does it mean as a writer to be naturally creative, resourceful, and whole? It means you naturally have just about all you need to tell stories. Now, that doesn't mean you're going to need to work your tail off. It certainly doesn't mean you have all the skills and experience you need. But, how I read it is that you have the raw materials.

The statement is hugely empowering because of the word naturally.

It means that if you have a big plot problem, that's okay, you can tackle it because you are naturally creative.

If you don't have enough time, that's okay, you can find the blocks of time you need because you are naturally resourceful.

If you get some tough feedback and want to quit, that's okay, because you are naturally whole.

You are naturally what you need to be a storyteller.

Support the show

Do you enjoy listening to all of the amazing answers guests give when I ask about their one piece of writing advice? If so, I've compiled the first 35 responses in a FREE eBook. The answers are all sorts of awesome, with some inspirational and others a kick in the pants. To download your free eBook go to howwriterswrite.com/ebook and I hope you enjoy!

This interview with Ben was a real blast. Ben is a literary treasure-trove. Ben is humble and gracious and shares so much for fiction writers. I think you'll find because Ben is an educator, he really knows how to communicate these huge writing concepts in ways that anyone can understand.

I want to say a special thank you to Ben for his time and graciousness.

And now, without any futher ado, here is the interview with Ben Marcus!

Support the show

Before we kick off this episode, my friends, I have just completed a project that was a total blast. So, you know how I ask each guest for their one piece of writing advice? I went through the first 35 episodes, transcribed the answers, and dropped them into a FREE eBook for you to download. Did I say free? Why, yes, I did. Free. To get your copy and also get a sneak sneak sneak peek into our new writing community- HappyWriter, head over to howwriterswrite.com/ebook. Again... howwriterswrite.com/ebook ENJOY!

So let me start this week's episode with a little backstory. In the past six months, we've had the move to Denver. And, here at How Writers Write I have been working nonstop for about six months on a huge project, I've really struggled to get into a creative rhythm. I'm often working very late, up very early, and, like generally stressing about getting this project at How Writers Write off the ground.

I know so many of you have experienced the same feeling of creative and energy drain that makes the idea of writing a book completely and totally unrealistic.

So a few weeks ago, I did an episode on how I was getting back on the horse to start writing again. As I've started to write again, one thing I've noticed is that I've definitely been unjustly blaming my work schedule on the reason why I've been struggling to get into a writing rhythm. The truth is I also have these enormous problems with my book that have killed my interest in the project, and I've been confusing being super busy with narrative problems...

Support the show

Hello and I hope you are having a wonderful week. This episode with Miranda Popkey is a welcome change of pace. Miranda and I discuss a topic that is so relevant in our crazy world - how is it writers decide when to be producing work and when to take a break?

Miranda and I discuss her writing process, but what is really special is Miranda's openness on how she has come to the decision to take a pause in her writing. I'm happy to provide her perspective and I'm sure there are lots of you who will pull so much out of this episode.

And so now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Miranda Popkey.

Support the show

I probably wouldn't have really thought about what my friend had said, but something about it really stuck with me. I chewed on it for a week. Do you know that feeling? When you just know there is some insight if you can just dig deep enough? The thought is like a thorn you need pull out.

So I was on one of my morning runs where I let my mind just totally slip into that hyper-creative and abstract place, and then bam! Like a bolt of lightning, I had to stop and scribble down in my notes a bunch of thoughts. I realized the thing that stood out to me was how afraid my friend was of failure.

When we realize we are afraid of something, we reach for the obvious, immediate question which often feels belittling, "what are you afraid of?" There's a belief that if we can voice our fear, somehow the voicing of it will make it magically disappear. But, I don't know. I've often only felt worse—more afraid—when I spend an hour digging into what I am so afraid of. And why wouldn't that happen? Why would we believe that if we just voice our fear, that somehow it won't be that scary all a sudden?

Support the show

This was a super fun interview to record. I've had a fun time ping-ponging between guests who have been writing for decades and brand new debut authors. Laura is an absolute pro, having written over a dozen crime and standalone novels.

I want to say a special thank you to Laura for sharing so much writing wisdom with me.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Laura Lippman.

Support the show

Last week I took a walk with my dog Lulu, who has grown into truly the sweetest, cutest dog I have ever seen. And yes, I know I have a lot of listeners who have dogs who they also believe are the cutest and sweetest dogs, and so we're just going to have to agree to disagree on who has the cutest dog.

Anyways, I now live right on Sloan's Lake Park in Denver, which is this massive lake just west of downtown. The park is stunning. There are all sorts of gardens and mature old trees. As you walk on the East side of the park, you have stunning views of the mountains to the west. The energy in is amazing with smiling people walking their dogs... I mean I love it. I don't think I'll ever move ever again. I know, those are always the famous last words.

Okay so I was walking along the lake this week with Lulu right as the sun was setting, and a beautiful song —Godspeed by Frank Ocean—came on through my headphones. I sat down on a bench and played the song on repeat about a million times. I just it all come together: the warm sun, beautiful music, and the stunning surroundings.

I had one of those moments, and I know you know what I'm talking about, when I just felt so alive. I felt creative and happy. I felt as if I was exactly where I was supposed to be. And even know though my life isn't perfect and the world is crazy, I felt deep hope. I went home and wrote my little heart out.

I'm reminded how important it is—especially in a world where we are socially isolated, when there is so much tension, so much change, to stay connected to our essential humanity. It is just too easy to build walls, when as artists, as writers, one of our missions is to connect with our humanity so that we can peek over someone else's wall and into their life. To connect with our humanity is to connect with the part of ourselves from where we create. It is incredibly powerful, incredibly balancing.

What is your version of a walk around the lake? What are the things you do that just make you feel alive. I challenge you do that thing this week. Don't think about it. Don't plan on it and then skip out. Really do it. Connect with that space, and then go create.

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

Here's the free course about reading and watching analytically: http://foxprinteditorial.com/online-courses/ 

Support the show

So, today I want to talk about a superpower for writers. As I continue to interview and study more and more successful authors, I'm also making notes of the common practices and characteristics of these amazing people.

One thing that has stuck out to me, and something I've experienced first hand in my life, is the superpower of learning how to learn. All of the super successful people I've interacted with in my life share this trait. They have an uncanny ability to self-reflect on the things they need to learn to accomplish their goals, and then they have the ability to go out and source that information or resource.

The reason this is so important for writers is because writing is a solo-sport. Outside of writing for specific mediums, generally, if you write fiction, you're going to be doing a lot of it alone. Knowing the gaps in your writing practice—and this can be anything from plot to discipline—and then going out and filling in those gaps is one of the big traits that separates good writers from the best writers.

To go one step deeper, implicit in this process of learning how to learn is a belief that you can grow through learning, hard work, and self-development. It is a belief that people are not static. Like, we are malleable and able to create ourselves from the inside out. Yes, there is a thing called natural talent and a thing call privilege, but I believe the human need to thrive can be activated to overcome any obstacle. And even though we all have different starting points in life, as Bukowski says, "your life is your life." You are still the only one who write your book. There is no one coming to write it for you. No one.

Let's some specific steps you can take to learn how to learn.

The first step is to take a hard look at your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Where do you shine and where are you maybe not so strong. I believe everyone has an innate sense of this. But, get crystal-clear with it by writing it down on a piece of paper. If you are struggling with the categories here, this is how I start would break it up in my life:

1. Writing skill 
   1. Character
   2. Pacing
   3. Plot
   4. Dialogue
   5. Prose
   6. Tension & momentum
2. Writing craft 
   1. Discipline
   2. Routine
   3. Motivation
   4. Heart
   5. Energy
   6. Honesty

Again, take some of these ideas and add to them. Those are just a handful of thought starters and not a complete list.

Next, take a moment and ask, based on the places where you are strong and weak, if you have the tools you need to accomplish your goals. If you want to publish a novel, do you have what you need to get there? Do you have the plotting skills to knock out a series? Do you have the discipline to get a book of poetry written?

Now, one you have a map of where you need to develop, go out and source that information. Find instructors, writing groups, courses, books, friends... anything!

In some ways, I have this kind of loop always running through my head. With enough time, you'll be constantly evaluating your needs and wants versus your resources, and then finding ways to improve. Sometimes I need to dive deep into a topic, but other times I can quickly grab the info I need and move on.

Outside of the obvious benefit of more or less knowing you can learn anything at all, learning how to learn is an enormous confidence booster. If I don't know how to do something, I have all the tools I need to go learn about it. And given a long-enough time frame, I believe I can learn anything at all. I mean maybe not anything because I am like super music dumb even though I love it. The point here is that I have the confidence to dive into anything I want, because I know I can teach myself how to do it.

That

Support the show

So, this is a special episode. Tiffany is a world-class development editor and author of a wonderful new book named Intuitive Editing. The interview is broken up into two sections that I'm going to air in two parts. In today's episode, Part 1, Tiffany and I dive into the world of development editing and I tried to cover every question I could possibly think about. Tiffany shares SO MUCH value here. So much.

In part two, next week, we'll dive into the specific narrative changes and edits that as an that she sees as getting the best bang for your writing buck. You will not want to miss the second part.

I want to say a special thank you to Tiffany. I learned so much from this interview about the entire editing process, and I have no doubt you will LOVE all of the knowledge bombs that Tiffany drops.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Tiffany Yates Martin.

------------------

Here's the link for the guide Tiffany mentions in the interview: http://foxprinteditorial.com/guide/

Here's the free course about reading and watching analytically: http://foxprinteditorial.com/online-courses/ 

Support the show

I am in a really interesting spot in my writing life and I want to share my journey with you, as well as some thoughts on how I am addressing this... uh... interesting time in my life.

So I've had a real season. Like a lot of you, COVID has been nuts, I've moved across the country, started a business and we're right now cranking on getting out a truly transformative product for writers. More on that later, but, the end result when you add all of those things up is that two of my life pillars are completely, totally out of whack.

Just as a quick refresher, my life pillars are the things that support my life. Said another way, they are just the most important things in the world to me. For each pillar, I have a standard I am always trying to achieve. Sometimes I do achieve that standard and sometimes I don't, but... what I like is that it is always there. It is a reminder to me of what is most important in my life.

So, my standard for writing is 2hrs of joyful writing, six days a week. Over the past month, I've been lucky to scratch an hour or two PER WEEK. This is truly the first time in probably ten years where I haven't written consistently, and it has shaken me. I have thought thoughts I've not confronted for a long time, like "am I even a writer, did I lose it, am I total fraud for doing this podcast?"

As I preparing for this podcast, I asked what I wanted to share. I always try and distill these little talks down to the most important nuggets, and if this talk had a nugget, if I had just one word to describe my thoughts on being in a period of my life when I am hardly writing, it would be the word grace.

We all go through periods where putting words down on the page will range from hard to downright impossible. When you are working late, or dealing with kids, or troubles in a relationship, when money is tight or someone is sick, writing can feel as if it is a million miles away. Today, right now, I feel as if my story is a million miles away.

If you are feeling the same way, take a moment and release yourself from all of that negative bullshitty talk about how maybe you aren't a writer, maybe this story isn't for you, blah blah blah, and just show yourself some grace.

Grace that the world is insane right now. Grace that for some of you, money is really tight.

Grace that your family may be sick.

Grace that this season is a season where your energy is being focused elsewhere.

Its okay. The season to create and write will come again. Maybe in a week, a month, or a year.

I'm not making excuses for people. But I believe EVERY PERSON intuitively knows the difference between needing grace and making an excuse. I don't need to explain that.

While I am giving myself TONS of grace, I also want to take whatever steps I can to reconnect with my creative life. It may not be 2hrs a day, but I want to do something. Here is my game plan...

Support the show

This week's episode is really fun. I got to interview Daniel Handler, who you may also know as Lemony Snicket. Oftentimes, I pinch myself when I get to ask amazing authors any question I want, but I am always blown away by the generosity and openness of the show's guest. Daniel fully embodied these attributes.

I want to say thank you to Daniel again for his time and sharing so much with me. And so now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Daniel Handler.

Support the show

I am sooooo excited to be back here recording a fresh Monday Motivation. I feel as if I've escaped the black hole of moving and it is just so good to be back here with you. This is my happy place.

So, as I was driving through Nebraska, I had this powerful thought that unfolded over the course of a few hundred miles of open road. As some of you know, when you drive through the middle chunk of the country, there are long stretches where all you see are fields of corn. Just, fields of corn. All of you who live in Iowa and Nebraska know what I mean.

Of course, my mind got to thinking about the insane complexities of cultivating that much land with that much corn. Regardless of your beliefs on industrial farming, that scale is impressive. But, as I kept thinking about how wonderful humans can be, I was stopped dead in my thoughts, because no matter how wonderful our progress, to plant those vast fields of corn, we still rely on tiny seeds. Going a step further, even though we have the systems to grow corn across what felt like half the country, we cannot actually create the corn. For that, we need a seed. We need something that is beyond ourselves.

There's a powerful analogy in this thought. I believe stories come to us as seeds. We don't create the stories, in the same way we don't create the seeds for corn. Our job is to sow the seed, to plant it in fertile soil, to tend the tender shoots that spring from the ground, and ultimately harvest the crop. We find these seeds in the emotions of our lives, books we've read, experienced, or been inspired by.

Seeds are really incredible. They are little capsules of life that only need the right conditions to sprout brand new life. Like... take a moment to let that set in. An oak tree which can grow to 100 feet starts as a tiny acorn. Seeds are life contained in a shell, ready to grow and provide shade or fruit, or maybe even a flower.

The seeds of your story are the same. They are often compressed life in a single "flash" moment. Maybe the seed is a character or snippet of dialogue. Regardless, the seed is all you need to get started tell that story.

I still remember seeing a line of rundown tanks cross the Brooklyn Bridge. That was the seed of my current novel. That was all I had when I started almost five years ago.

Whereas a gardener can look down and identify a seed, oftentimes, when we look down at our stories, we don't know what kind of crop they will yield. This places just that much more emphasis on ensuring we plant our stories in fertile soil, we care for them, water them, study what makes them grow strong, ensure we see them to harvest, and then celebrate whatever grows.

One last thought, and this one is punchy. The seeds of your stories already exist. And so you don't get the choice to have seeds or not. You are alive and a human. You have seeds. The question for you is whether you plant them or not. There is a crisis scene in East of Eden when Samuel and Adam are speaking about what they'll pass onto their children. Samuel says, "You're going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. Even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles. Something will grow.”

For you, as a writer, remember, even if you do nothing and never plant that seed and tell your story, something will grow... it just might be weeds and brambles.

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

I am so excited to share a replay of this episode from January of 2020. Interviewing Madeline was such a blast, both because of Madeline's amazing openness and the wisdom she shared, but also because I love talking about the ancient world just about as much as I love talking about anything.

Please enjoy this interview with the wonderful Madeline Miller.

Support the show

Support the show

Support the show

I had so much fun interviewing someone who is so aligned with the mission and philosophy of How Writers Write. In a lot of ways, I felt as if I was interviewing a philosopher-writer, someone who writes beautiful stories, but also deeply engages with the writing life. James is someone who has such a rooting in himself and his writing that when we ended the interview, I felt some of that same energy transfer to me.

Thank you again to James for such a fun interview. And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with James Wade.

Support the show

Support the show

It isn't every day that I get to interview such a veteran writer. Michael Elias has written for just about every medium - film, TV, fiction, and theater. I am so grateful to share his insights into the writing life, his process, and some lessons he's learned along the way.

Thank you again to Michael for his time and sharing his story with me.

And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Michael Elias!

Support the show

Support the show

I hope everyone is having a good week of writing as we dig into the dog weeks of summer. Here in NYC, we are enjoying a Phase 2 Opening as finally, playgrounds are open.

So, it is with this happiness that I get to intro this week's wonderful guest, Francesca Serritella. Francesca is the author of a series of non-fiction books that she co-wrote with her mother, Lisa Scottoline as well as a debut novel, Ghosts of Harvard. This interview was such a joy to record. Francesca shares her writing journey from her earliest stories through the publication of her novel.

There is one part of this interview that really stuck out to me, and that is when I asked her how she decides it is time to give up on a project and when to push through. I won't share her answer. It is best to let the moment unfold, but her response alone is worth the price of admission.

So, thank you again to Francesca, and without ado, here is the interview.

Support the show

This isn't going to be a Monday Motivation per se, more of a general catch up episode. There are so many changes happening in my life and for HWW that I wanted to take a week to just communicate them all at once.

So first, some personal news. In about three weeks my family and I will be relocating to Denver, Colorado. Even before COVID hit, we had eyed moving back to sunny-ol Colorado. While we will miss our Brooklyn life and friends, it feels like we are stepping into a beautiful new chapter of life with a little older kids. We all want to play hard in the mountains. We have a great apartment that is still being built and I've secured an office.

So, that brings me to How Writers Write. The month of July is going to be really insane with the move AND with the fact that I am finishing off the content for a brand-new program called HappyWriter.

I kicked around a lot of ideas, but ultimately, I wanted to deliver a program that was TRANSFORMATIONAL. Traditional writing programs like MFAs, undergrad degrees, books, online courses on teach the "what" of the writing life. So, things like and character, plot and character.

And while those things are critical, we super under develop how to get those to get those things onto the page. The how is routine, rituals, discipline... the building blocks of producing results. You can be the best writer in the world and know exactly what to write, but if you don't know how to consistently put words on the page, what does it matter? This is the secret I've learned from interview 50+ authors. They aren't always the best writers, but they are the best at consistently working to get the results they want.

The promise of HappyWriter is to turn any writer into lean, mean writing machine. No more struggling to get words on the page. No bouts of crippling doubt. I'm still ironing out the last details, but expect HappyWriter to be eight weeks of live classes and content, a HUGE community component, and lots of accountability both in the course and tools to build lifetime accountability to your goals. This program is truly the best I can offer. It is for the hardcore. The ones with big dreams. The ones who have to write and when they are really honest with themselves, the ones who want to write for a living.

So, with the move AND launching a new premium program, I'm going to have about a month hiatus from doing new Monday Motivations. Instead, I'm going to post the audio from my favorite writing speeches. Luckily, author interviews are already recorded so you'll have fresh episodes, but I wanted to give everyone a heads up.

Okay, so, last point... in the new HWW future, we are going to pull back in some areas and overinvest in others. What does that practically mean? In August, I'll be launching a YouTube channel with weekly videos on both the how and what of the writing life. Stay tuned for how you can check out that new content.

Also, starting sometime in August, all author interviews will also be recorded in video, so you can check them out on YouTube and Instagram as well. I'm also adding new content to YouTube that I am so so so so excited about.

This is a really exciting time for me and How Writers Write. I'm excited to step into this new season and truly live my dream by inspiring and empowering writers to tell their story.

Support the show

I love the opportunity to interview authors on the bigger picture stuff, like where do stories come from and how or where do characters live? I find myself drawn to those topics because I have so many questions. Do stories exist outside of us? And if so, where? What about characters? Are they real or part of our imagination? I could disappear for days in those thoughts. 

I am so grateful that I was able to explore those questions with Sofia. This interview is a wonderful balance of both practical, hands-on writing advice mixed with existential wandering. It was such a fun episode to record, and I am so grateful to Sofia for her time. 

And so now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Sofia Segovia. 

Support the show

At one point in my life, I was living in my brother-in-law's basement with my wife and newborn. I'd been trying to get a job for six months after my start-up failed, but I was struggling to land on my feet. I was down to just a couple hundred dollars, and my relationship with Jennifer was strained to the point of failure. It. Was. Awful.

I found it was so easy to let my mind run into a grim future. So easy that I internalized a belief that the future would be worse than the present. In came deep, painful anxiety. At times, my focus on the future killed my sense of work. What was the point if it was all going to end in my destruction, regardless?

I'd never want to go back to that time, and yet I learned an incredible tool, and that is to get small. Even when times were insanely hard, I found if I kept peeling back my life to a smaller and smaller field of vision, eventually, I could find something to root myself. So, if I couldn't see a future where I had meaningful employment, I'd get smaller and smaller until I took comfort in the fact that I had a roof over my head (note: it was my brother-in-law) and food to eat. If I couldn't see a future where my wife and I stayed together, I'd keep going back until, at the most simple level, I told myself she and I still lived together, and there was still a chance.

I found if I could think as small as possible, I could always see the next step, even if that meant sending out one more resume. My mood lifted because a little bit of movement felt like progress. It was almost as if getting stuck in the muck of life, that immobile feeling that comes when we have a dream or need that we aren't moving closer to was worse than anything.

Said another way, the feeling of languishing in my own life was nearly as bad as the obstacles in my way. Progress gave me hope, even if it was the smallest little steps of progress.

Maybe your writing life isn't as dramatic as financial collapse and your marriage on life-support, but getting small can still immensely benefit your writing life. Often writers get so stuck in the big things of the writing life. We focus on getting published, getting a book deal, an agent, a finished manuscript, praise from our friends, or getting into an MFA program that we get crushed by what we need to be doing in a future we haven't even lived yet. The truth is that the future doesn't exist, and those things we have so much anxiety are not under our control.

Getting small in your writing life means focusing on today's work. Did you show up? Did you write for 10 minutes or three hours? Did you take even the smallest step? I'm not telling you all you have to do is write for 10 minutes each day to reach your dream, but I am giving you permission to let go of whatever you want to happen in your future and instead let your focus fall on the daily work of telling your story.

If you are struggling to get into a writing routine, get small. Focus on today and write for literally the shortest amount of time that is meaningful to you. Start at 15 good minutes. Don't let your mind slip into an anxious future, and just repeat that activity again tomorrow. And then again. Stay small and keep focused on putting good words on the page.

Ironically, you'll find this reduced field of vision is the path to those things you want. You might just live your way into the future you dreamed about.

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

Before we get started with this episode, I want to share a quick word of encouragement to the writers out there. I know times are crazy. I believe in times of crisis, stories and storytelling becomes even more important, because often a good story reminds of the truth we already know: that we are all the same on the inside. A good story refreshes and encourages. It transports you to a place of hope, even if the story ends in tragedy. 

This interview with Lily King is an interview filled with hope. To me, interviewing Lily was like jumping in a cold lake on a hot summer day. Lily shares so much of her heart and wisdom. I’m grateful to Lily for opening up on her writing process, routine, and the tips that have helped her create. 

And so now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Lily King. 

Support the show

Today, I’m not going to do a writing Monday Motivation, but I want to share a 25-minute clip from one of my heroes, James Baldwin’s. In 1965, Baldwin debated William Buckley at Cambridge University. I encourage you to go listen to the entire debate, but this clip is powerful and raw and so so important. 

On a quick note, I’ve intentionally kept this podcast as non-political as possible, because I believe everyone has a story to tell, regardless if you a democrat or republican. And, authentic storytelling brings people together, it always sparks progress because it is rooted in truth and honesty. Dishonest writing is merely propaganda. But, the Black Lives Matter movement is not political. To fight and advocate for human rights and dignity is not political. 

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing. 

Support the show

For those die-hard How Writers Write fans, do you remember how I intro’d last week’s episode? I said it doesn’t matter how you write, just so long as you get the work done. This interview with Catherine is the juxtaposition of the highly organized Andrew-Mayne method. Catherine highlights the “pantser” side of the pantser/plotter spectrum.  

And you know what? It works.  

I am so happy to have these interviews back to back, both because Catherine was an absolute blast to interview, but also because you’ll see how Catherine approaches the writing life in her unique style, from a non-writer background, and she gets her work. This interview is seeped the stuff that How Writers Write is all about. 

And so now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Catherine Bybee.  

Support the show

This is a special Monday Motivation for me. I’ve been working a lot a lot a lot behind the scenes to define what is this thing called How Writers Write. When I launched this project six months ago, I really had no idea what would happen.  I’ve said this before, but I had no clue if anyone would listen to this podcast or be into my message. But listen they have, and it feels as if I’ve hit on something in the writing life that is both under served and super important.

What is that?

Well, it took like six months for me to really wrap my arms around it. But, it is the difference between what to write vs how to write. Let me know explain.

The big problem in how we learn to write is that we really focus solely on what to write… so things like plot, character, meter, dialogue, etc. More or less the mechanics of how to write a story. Every writing program or book or even my MFA heavily emphasized the ‘what’ and for good reason. There is an entire world of technique hidden in the what. 

But, here’s the thing, the what is not nearly as important as the how. Said another way, learning how to write is a critical and underserved part of this writing adventure that we are on. How to write means learning discipline, routine, beliefs, goals, energy. It is the skills we need to literally take all of that head knowledge of what to write and actually make something of it on the page. 

The how of writing, though, isn’t just about production. The how is also the path to the joy of storytelling, when we are in the flow of writing and the words just pour out of us. 

For a long time, I wondered why I met writers who were 10x more talented than I was. Like, they could write sentences with a skill I couldn’t even imagine. But, these same people couldn’t get their stories onto the page. They’d have a drawer filled of half-finished manuscripts, which is just another way of saying half-finished dreams. By all accounts, these were the phenoms who should be the next Shakespeare, yet they were stuck. I can think of a few now who never ever went on to finish their work, publish, anything.

These people had the what of writing down pat. Signed, sealed, delivered. 

But, they didn’t know how to write. 

How Writers Write is now and forever more in the business of teaching writers how to write. Not that the what isn’t important—it is critically important—but you better believe it is worthless to know how to plot if you aren’t putting words down on the page and loving the journey. 

Here’s some good news. I believe some people are born with a special gift for the what. Truly. I’m not one of them. But, I believe that. But, I also believe 100% of people can learn how to write. And, in the long run, learning how to write will pay 10x dividends than any inborn talent. Many of your favorite writers—I’ve interviewed some of them on the podcast—will tell you the biggest struggle they had was just learning how to write, and then once they learned their process, the pieces fell into place. 

And so now we come full circle, now I can see that this entire thing is all about. The mission of How Writers Write is to empower and inspire 1M writers to tell their story. Yes. 1M. I told that number to a consultant and he laughed, and then I told him to expletive off.  

The world needs your story and you need to tell it. It is a double entendre. You may not have been born with every writing gift, you may not have been taught the what of writing until later in your life (like me)… but dammit you can learn how to write. I’ll go to my grave believing that. 

Support the show

One of my favorite parts of this podcast is highlighting the different ways that writers write. The takeaway is so critical FOR ANYONE in the writing life: how you do your work doesn’t really matter. Doing the work is what matters. 

This interview with Andrew highlights his unique style on writing novels. I had played around in this intro with highlighting some of my favorite parts, but I think it is best to just experience it with me.  

I want to say a special thank you to Andrew for his time.       

Support the show

The willful disregard of rationality is the way in which, as a writer, you look at a project that by all measurements should be impossible for you to complete, and yet… you decide to do it anyway. 

As writers, we feel this impossibility at the onset of each new project. When you first start writing, the idea of taking a short story or novel seems irrational. There is a mountain of things you don’t know how to do. There is a technique you don’t have.

Later, taking on complex plots and dynamic characters, you might feel as if you aren’t smart enough or capable. 

At each new step, there is a perfectly rational reason why you shouldn’t be able to work on a project.

And yet, as writers, we must find a way to willfully disregard the rationality of what we do. We must stop asking, “is it probable,” and instead ask a new, insanely powerful question, “is it possible?”

I’ve yet to coach a single person who after a long, heartfelt monologue about the logical reasons of why I will not complete a project are more or less ground to a pulp when I ask, “yes, those are all true, but is it possible?”

The two most common responses are a long pause, and I mean sometimes 20-30 seconds of silence. Or, a deep sigh, as if I’ve voiced exactly what the person already knows. Because spoiler, I’m just reminding here of you of what you already know.

Here is my own flow of thoughts to pivot from rationality to possibility:

1.       Is the project that I want to take on possible? Yes.

2.       Am I capable today of writing it today? No. 

3.       Am I capable of learning how to become the writer who can write it? Yes.

4.       Who is the writer who can write it? That’s the answer of who I must become.

You’ll find when you leave out the question of whether something makes sense, and instead turn your focus the story you want to tell, the entire world opens up to you. 

Thank you for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Before we go, I want to share my gratitude for this amazing community. You know, when I launched How Writers Write last year, I had so many questions that I knew I could only answer by actually doing this thing. I had no idea if anyone would listen to this podcast. I had no idea if the message would resonate. I am so honored and floored that I get to do this each week and share what is on my heart with you. So, I just want to say thank you. A lot you I don’t know, but by engaging with HWW, you’ve given my life new purpose, in that I now serve a community I love. 

Thank you again for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

And so now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Jennifer Probst.  

Support the show

1.         What do you imagine as your ideal self? What are all of the good things you want from your life? From your writing? From your relationships? Body? 

2.         Now, in the same way you’d create a character for a story, how do you construct the person who you’ve imagined in step one? Here are some additional question:

a.         What does this person do every single morning?

b.        And before bed?

c.         How does this person deal with failure?

d.        What does this person say to themselves when they are sad? Lonely? Depressed? Overjoyed? In love?

e.          How does this person act in the world? 

f.          How does this person work? 

In the end, you’ll find you’ll live your way out of the story of your inner critic and into the story of your ideal self.  

 This is a lot to deliver in a podcast. I know a lot of you will reach out with questions, but I’d also encourage you to dig deeper. Reach out to a coach or therapist if you need it. Read books on your inner critic. This is such a huge topic that my hope here is not to give you the game plan. I can’t do that via a podcast, but my hope is to open up your mind to possibilities. Awareness that change is possible is always the first step.

 Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

If you could learn just one skill that would be the backbone of your writing life, more than learning how to plot or build characters… more than any specific craft skill, it would be learn how to work. I’ve said this so many times. You can be the best writer in the world, but if you aren’t putting your story onto the page, it doesn’t matter. 

So, if you need help putting the wheels on a writing routine, TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT. I’m hosting a live workshop at 8 pm ET. It is free to attend. To register, go to howwriterswrite.com/prolific  

I hope to see you there! 

Support the show

We ended last week with a call for you just to awareness to your inner critic. What came up for you? What did you notice about when your inner critic speaks up? Here are some of mine:

1.         My inner critic comes up when I try to start writing

2.         When I want to exercise 

3.         Try to improve myself in any way possible

4.         Lean into something where I’ve already failed and the failure hurt. The worse the hurt, the more subtle and powerful my inner critic’s attempts to shut me down.

So, I’ve come to realize that often these Monday Motivations somehow wind up being my subconscious speaking on a topic before I become aware that the topic is important to me. Oddly, I get tattoos in the exact same way. Which may sound like an awful idea. But, I find I get obsessed about a obsess about a tattoo and then until I finally get it, and then it is about a year before I realize just how important the tattoo is to my story. It is as if I live my way into the tattoo. 

In the same way, I’ve lived my way into this talk. My inner critic has been so sly and powerful it has been almost imperceptible. This highlights just how challenging it can be to “see” your inner critic. I mean, I am coach. That is my livelihood. And I STILL COULDN’T SEE IT. 

So, what am I afraid of? 

I’m afraid of my message. Of THE MESSAGE of How Writers Write. I’m afraid to “market” my stuff and even myself, because I don’t want to look like a snake oil salesman. I’m afraid of people making fun of me. I’m afraid of selling transformation and delivering mediocrity. 

My fears are suffocating me. My fear keeps my story and my message locked inside my ribs. 

Who is saved by me living by my fear and NOT living by my inner guidance? That little light that people call all sorts of things from a soul to God to whatever.

It is my future, failed self. 

NOT my future, successful self. It is the Brian of six months from now when I shout from the rooftops my message and it falls flat and I end in financial failure and existential crisis. 

What does your failed self look like? What is it you so afraid of failing into that it keeps you from your life’s work? 

Take out a piece of paper and a pen. Write down your answers to a few questions.

1.         What does the future failed you look like? What has happened to you? What does it feel like? 

2.         Now, flip it on its head. What if it all worked out exactly how you dreamed it would happen? How would that feel in the future self of success?

3.         Now, meditate for the next week on what separates your failed future and your successful feature. There are two really important questions to ask in living to your .

a.         What do you have to “say yes” to live into your successful future self? 

b.        What do you need to “say no” to live into your successful future self?

Support the show

The first course will launch June 1 and it’s all about building a prolific writing routine, no matter what kind of life and schedule you’re coming from. To kick off this new program and give you a taste of the course, I’m hosting a live one-hour workshop called “How To Create A Prolific Writing Routine, Even If You Are Stressed, Short Of Time, And Unsure If You Are A Writer.” 

To me, if you can learn one thing, one skill that will have the single biggest impact on your writing life, it is building a routine to produce work.  If you’re ready to start creating a life-changing writing routine then register for the free workshop at HowWritersWrite.com/Prolific. 

The first workshop is Thursday, May 14th at 8pm ET. 

I hope to see you there!

_____ 

Okay, so, this episode with Barbara O’Neal is everything How Writers Write is all about. Barbara shares so much practical, useful information. As the author of dozens of incredible best-selling books, Barbara is an absolute authority on the writing life. I don’t want to wait any longer, and so without any further ado, here is the interview with Barbara O’Neal. 

Support the show

 Hello and welcome my friends. I hope everyone is having a wonderful week of writing. 

By far, the most common thing I coach writers – and this is writers from all backgrounds, projects, and level of accomplish (I’m talking brand new to #1 NYT people) – is their relationship with their inner critic. 

We have ALL heard this term – the inner critic – and like a lot of really important things, we’ve heard about that inner critic so much that it just doesn’t register as something that impacts our lives. But, here’s the thing: your relationship with your inner critic defines the limits of your writing life. Let me say that again: your relationship with your inner critic defines the limits of your writing life. 

So what is the inner critic and why is it so important? In coaching, we call the inner critic “the saboteur…” coaching just loves those kind of mysterious names. But, in essence, your inner critic is the tiny voice in your head that tells you what you can and cannot do. Calling it a voice is really generous. Generally, the inner critic manifests in writers when they hear themselves saying things like, I can’t I won’t I’m not able to… 

The inner critic is around to keep you safe. It is an ancient system that keeps you from taking a risk… especially when you can remember a time when that risk didn’t pay off. And, on the balance, it is has been great for humanity. It has kept us safe, kept us in tribes, kept us close to the fire and away from dangerous animals, and kept us believing the same thing… all of the good stuff needed for the survival of a species. But, while the inner critic has helped the human race survive, it will not help you thrive. 

Here’s the thing, inherent in writing is risk. And, more than that, failure. To write is to fail 9 times, only to get it almost right on the tenth. In writing, we are inundated by rejection, by criticism veiled as feedback, by naysayers, by people who tell us that we’ll never writing a thing – and that is probably because they have unrealized dreams. 

You see, your inner critic wants to keep you safe from all those reasons above. When you’ve been rejected, your inner critic says, “I’ve got you,” and shuts down any attempt at what might lead to a similar failure.

But the writing life is a life of failure, criticism and risk. It is impossible to learn to write and not flub sentences, miswrite characters, have flat dialogue. It is actually impossible because the skills to be a writer are not born into anyone. Even if you don’t show your writing to a single soul… we still place expectations on ourselves. And those expectations come with the risk of meeting them or not. 

And so we have two forces who are diametrically opposed. The inner critic, who wants to keep you from writing, and your desire to write, which is rife with failure. The two are in a constant battle. 

This is a battle that will never ever go away. I’ve learned through coaching and interviewing some of the most successful writers on the planet that the professional writer does not ever shed the inner critic. The professional writer learns how to write through or around it.
Said another way, it does not matter if you are a #1 NYT bestseller or a writer attempting your first story, the inner critic is going to be there, doing its best to keep you safe, aka keep you from taking a risk, aka stop you from writing. 

And so what in the world can we do? For this first week, don’t want try to silence or suppress the inner critic. This might sound harsh, but you will not have the awareness to even make a dent. It’ll be like playing whack-a-mole where you are always swinging too slow. 

I’ve this a million times, but the first step is awareness. Get a journal and pencil or pen. It is f

Support the show

I knew I was onto something good when I did my research on Kelly. On her website, she has this great section on books for writers, and one of the books she lists is one of my all-time-favorites, a book I’ve referenced a zillion times—Deep Work.  

For me, Kelly is a model of what a writer can be. She has built an inner game along with her skill, so that she writes from the inside-out. It was such a pleasure to interview her and try to parse out some of her secrets and working habits. This is an incredibly practical episode, especially since Kelly had a decade as an editor and agent in the publishing industry.  

I am so excited to share this episode with you. Please enjoy this interview with Kelly Harms.  

Support the show

Today’s interview is a special one, but before we get started, I need your help. I am working on a new program called the 21-Day MFA Series. The program will teach one MFA-level skill over the course of 21 days… things like “How to Build a Writing Routine” and “How to Plot.” But, I want to make sure this program is 10 times better than any other writing programs out there, so I am asking for input from this amazing community by taking a 2-minute survey. In exchange for your input, I’ll send you a 50% off coupon for any 21-Day MFA course you’d like. Check out www.howwriterswrite.com/21day to be directed to the survey. THANK YOU.

This week’s episode is with Luanne Rice. Luanne and I recorded this episode the day after I left New York for my parent's house in Michigan, and meeting with her, talking about writing and her process was like a balm for my soul. I really think it “straightened me out.” 

I think you’ll find Luanne is a model for writers. I know I scribbled down notes the entire time we spoke. I felt as if I was learning the entire time, while also feeling as if I had known Luanne all my life. 

I cannot wait to share this episode with you. And so without further ado, here is the episode with Luanne Rice. 

Support the show

For this Monday Motivation, you’ll need a piece of paper and a pen. Your computer or phone will work fine, but ideally you are writing this out by hand. I’ll do the “pause until you get this” notice that I always heard as a kid. 

Got your writing piece? Good.

Now, in this order, this is what I want you to do.

1.       Write just one thing that makes you incredibly excited about the story you are working on or want to work on. So, this can be a theme about the story, a main character who has captured your heart, or the setting. Anything that just fills you with deep, creative energy. Maybe it is the reason you kicked off this project in the first place.

2.       Write one amazing thing about your relationship with your story. Said another way, what does the story mean to you personally? What makes this story so important for you to tell? Let’s imagine this story is out in the world, and someone reads it, calls you up, and says... “wow your story deeply moved me, and here is why...” what is the why? 

3.       Write one thing about you as a writer. What is your superpower? What do you uniquely bring to the table that no one else in this world can bring? It isn’t arrogant to say this, it is beautiful and special. 

Okay, if you haven’t done this, take a moment to really dig into these answers. Feel free to take a moment if you need.  There is no rush.

Now that you do have these answers beautifully written out, hopefully in your own hand, read them to yourself three times each day. But don’t skim them. Let the words you just wrote sink down into you. Let them be your north star about yourself and your work. Feel free to add to them as you’d like. Make them more robust, let the language swell as the words more deeply connect with you. 

Read these three answers next two weeks and see what happens. I challenge anyone... I mean anyone... to do this exercise with gusto and focus and not see a dramatic improvement in their relationship with their self, their writing, and those around them. Sometimes, what we need most, is just to reconnect with our own hearts.

Thank you for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing. 

Support the show

I have two announcements of happenings around How Writers Write. The first one is a call to check out our online reading series. As you know, book events are all canceled, and as readers, we are stuck in social isolation. I wanted to bring together those two groups to weather this pandemic storm. So, be sure to register for a free reading with some amazing authors. Go to howwriterswrite.com/onlinereading to see this week’s line up and watch the previous recordings.  

Okay, so second thing, last month I opened up a free one-on-one coaching session per day. We booked the entire month of March, and it was an absolute blast to connect with a new writer each day. And so, I’m offering a free session per day for the month of April! Anyone can book an hour to work on any issue they’d like. Maybe it is deciding on which project to start, dealing with self-doubt, or how to keep writing during a pandemic. To schedule your free call, go to howwriterswrite.com/freeapril  

This week’s episode is with Joel Rosenberg. Joel has an uncanny ability to read the tea leaves of the world and write compelling, gripping fiction that always seems to be one step in front of the headlines. I loved interviewing Joel and learning about his journey from political consultant to best-selling fiction author.  

Support the show

 I know I’ve said this before, but so many of these talks start from the question, “what is heaviest on my heart?” I try to let these talks come from the inside out, which mirrors the way I taught myself to write: starting with what is in my heart, and trying my best to translate that feeling into words. 

 I say this because this topic is a straight-from-Brian’s-heart-onto-the-page type talk. 

 You see, I am an expert at setting a limiter on myself. I’ve developed a kind of governor for how fast I can go with my life, much in the same way a car’s governor won’t let the car go past 100mph. Even though I have an entire course on setting powerful goals, I still struggle with stepping into my full potential.

 In my life, this shows up as limiting beliefs. If you haven’t heard the term before, a limiting belief is a belief that places an artificial constraint on our lives. We all have them, and they show up when we say things like, “I don’t, I can’t, I’m supposed to, I am not, That is the way it is…” Fill in the blank there and see how they come out for you. Here are a few of mine:

“I’m not supposed to want to write a best selling novel.” Getting better. 

“I will never make a comfortable living from writing.” Good. 

Let’s keep going. “I am not original enough. I am not smart enough. There is not enough time, enough money, enough space.”

“It is not possible that Barack Obama (one of my heroes) will list my novel as one of his top reads.” That’s what I want. Truly. My hands are sweating as I say it because it is absolutely ridiculous to say it out loud. But that is how bad I want it... AND how powerful limiting beliefs can be in our lives. 

 That took me all of 20 seconds to write. That goals. That dream… it is always bubbling right below the surface, in a place where I can imagine it, but a place where it is never exposed. A perfect safety...

Support the show

I have two announcements of happenings around How Writers Write. The first one is a call to check out our online reading series. As you know book events are all cancelled, and as readers, we are stuck in social isolation. I wanted to bring together those two groups to weather this pandemic storm. And, that looks like nightly online readings with a new author. The week of April 10th features Lisa See, Honor Moore in conversation with Claire Messud, Zack Jordan, and L. Penelope in conversation with Cerece Rennie Murphy. These events have been so much fun, so be sure to register for a reading at howwriterswrite.com/onlinereading  

Okay so second thing, last month I opened up a free one-on-one coaching session per day. We booked the entire month of March and it was an absolute blast to connect with a new writer each day. And so, I’m offering a free session per day for the month of April! Basically, anyone can book an hour to work on any issue they’d like. Maybe it is deciding on which project to start, dealing with self-doubt, or how to keep writing during a pandemic. To schedule your free call, go to howwriterswrite.com/freeapril  

Okay! So, now onto the interview with Emma Chase. Emma is the first romance author that I have interviewed, and I loved chatting with her. Emma shares how she produces book after book. Her spirit and generosity just flood this interview. I think I had a smile on my face the entire time.  

Thank you again to Emma for her time. And now, here is the interview with Emma Chase! 

Support the show

Lately, I’ve been getting into entomology. As a writer and someone who thinks about writers and words basically all day, it seems like the natural progression on my path to the ultimate ending of linguistics. Then I will complete the writer’s circuit and die, be made into a tree, only to be cut down to make the paper of a book. Okay, I’m getting away from myself. 

So, in this crazy world, a word that pops up over and over again is courage. It is one of those words we use a lot. “Have courage” we like to say, almost as a throw-away. It is one of those words that winds up being used into oblivion until the meaning of the word is watered down and unimportant. 

But, it is word courage is filled with power. I did a deep dive into the entomology in the word courage, only to find that it is rooted in the Latin word “cor” c-o-r. Cor means heart in Latin. Later, in old French, the word courage meant “innermost feelings.” Our modern dictionaries define courage as the ability to do something that scares us.

To put it all together, what is the courage to create? 

It is to write from the heart, to write from your innermost feelings. To write. Courageous writing is writing that counts. It is writing that transforms not just the reader, but the writer as well. It writing that empowers, that stretches, that is scary and yet propulsive. 

This courageousness manifests differently for each writer. For some, that might mean picking the pen and writing for the first time, because dear god it takes courage to start something new. For others, it might mean writing about a topic that stings. Maybe it is writing what you dream to write but don’t feel qualified. 

Courage is writing from the heart. 

All too often we get lost in the craft of writing. We want to have poetic prose that moves the reader to tears. A plot and characters who are unique and compelling. I’m not here to bash language. I am a writer. I’ve devoted my life to words. But, focusing on craft while the story lacks courage, lacks heart, will leave both the reader and writer as if something is missing from the page. 

Said another way, courageous writing is more than just intellectually learning and then mastering a set of rules. It takes more than a command of language to get a compelling story on the page. It takes heart. It takes emotion. Language is the way we bring our heart to the page, and it is amazing and wonderful, but it is the vehicle to communicate our writing heart. It is not less important than courage, but it is also not more important. 

This is one of my major gripes about how we teach writing. We focus on the brain and the how-to and not on the soul work it takes to be a writer. 

And so this week, as the world is crazy, as we feel so many new things, have courage. Write from your heart. Explore your feelings on the page. 

Support the show

Before we get started, I am so excited to announce the How Writers Write Online Reading Series. Come listen to your favorite authors read from their books, have a thoughtful discussion, and answer audience questions. The schedule is already packed with incredible authors like  Amy Harmon, Lisa See, Zack Jordan and so many others. To sign up, visit www.howwriterswrite.com/onlinereading -- that is all one word. 

The first reading is Amy Harmon on April 1st at 8pm ET. You do not want to miss it.

This episode with Elizabeth Wetmore was such a treat to record. Elisabeth spent 14 years writing her debut novel, Valentine, and we dig into her process,  that time, and how sometimes it takes some growing before you can write the story in your heart. 

I want to give a special thank you to Elizabeth for her time. 

And now, please enjoy this interview with Elizabeth Wetmore.

Support the show

This talk is inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous quote, “The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” The concept is so deeply impacted me that it has reframed my understanding of what it means to grow, not just in the writing life, but in life in general. 

 A good example of this quote is a recent experience I just had. I’m teaching myself how to be more handy for some upcoming home projects. One of the things I need to do is learn how to frame, which is basically how to make a wall. For about a week I was watching all of these videos on framing and just couldn’t understand what they were saying, because I couldn’t follow the language. And then, finally, I found a YouTube video where a guy went step by step to talk through framing terminology. So, what is a header, cripple stud, plate, king stud, nailer, level, plum, and on and on. I watched the video like three times, writing down the terms and definitions, and then, went and watched a video on framing.

I’m sure you already know what happened. Boom. I understood the video. I could follow the language, and so I understood, at least intellectually, how to build a wall. Now, who knows what happens when I go to do it, but the point is I can now engage with all the training and informational videos I want. I know the language. 

 What’s the language of writing? What is to story what plum is to framing? 

 The language of writing is feeling. Not the definition or explanation of feeling on the page, but the writer herself feeling emotion and then writing that feeling. 

 Oftentimes we are afraid of feeling. We don’t want to feel hurt because it hurts. We don’t want to feel joy because soon it will fade. We are afraid to feel fear. I say those things to you and to me. I feel hurt and fear. Even though here I am, a podcast host speaking into a microphone, I am just like you. 

For a long time, I was afraid of my feelings, and so I numbed myself. I used video games, busyness, alcohol, friends, willful blindness, mindless media consumption… anything in an attempt to not touch feelings that were locked inside of me. 

This happened with my first book. The book stalled thirteen times for various reasons—plot problems, character problems, my sheer boredom while writing it. I used my head to write those first thirteen drafts and the story was soulless—like a calculation of what should or shouldn’t happen on the page. 

But, then, for whatever reason, and I wish I could remember, I made this huge switch. I excavated myself and I wrote my feelings into the page. The story flipped overnight. Instead of some lame plot, the main character came alive. I saw him as I saw myself—in 3d. To write his story, I went into the hard places—my regret, my feeling like an alien in my own life, my failures, my fears, the times people expected something from me and I didn’t deliver. I let myself feel those things that were bubbling right under the surface. And what came out onto the page was good, even though I wasn’t a good writer. 

 The point is, if I wouldn’t have let myself feel those things, I would have never grown as a writer. I’d have stalled, unable to access the emotion needed to really make have a soul.

 To rewrite Wittgenstein’s quote for writers- “The limits of my feeling are the limits of my writing. The limits of my feeling are the limits of my writing.”

 You can’t write joy without allowing yourself to experience joy. You can’t write rage without allowing yourself to experience rage. The writing will be flat, like looking at the emotion through a buffer. Powerful writing happens in and through our emotions. 

Support the show

I am so excited to announce the How Writers Write Online Reading Series. There is this huge gap in live book events now that the world has more-or-less shut down. We’re stepping in to fill that void. We are scheduling as many daily readings as possible. These are live events, where the author will read from their book, answer some questions, and take questions from the audience. Your truly is hosting most of these. Come hear Amy Harmon, Lisa See, Zack Jordan. You can ask that question you’ve wanted to ask, maybe win a signed book, all for free. To sign up to attend, visit www.howwriterswrite.com/onlinereading -- that is all one word. The first reading is Amy Harmon on April 1st at 8pm ET. You do not want to miss it.

Okay, so this episode is Lisa See is timeless. Lisa is such a wealth of knowledge and gracious shared a lifetime of lessons about the writing life. I felt as if I could have spoke with Lisa for hours… in fact we stopped the recording only to restart it because the information she was sharing was just too good not to capture. 

Thank you again to Lisa for her time. 

And now, here is the interview with Lisa See. 

Support the show

I am very rarely prescriptive in my Monday Motivations. I like to offer perspectives, thoughts, or strategies that have worked for me in my writing life, and hope that some of it lands. 

Today’s Monday Motivation is different, and it is super simple. It is probably going to sting a little bit.

Put your phone down. Turn off the TV. Go do anything else other than consume story after story about the chaos in the world.

There is a lot of things we cannot control in this world. I think for some, this realization is just landing. We live not outside of nature, but within it. We are part of an order, we don’t create the order. 

But, you control how much media you consume. 

I get there is a value to being connected in this time of change. I’m not saying you should go off grid. I’m saying there is a diminishing return in the value of that information. 

It is not easy to disconnect. I deeply struggle with this. Some days I downright fail. But, any additional moment not spent throttling my stress level is a win.  When I limit my media consumption, at the end of the day, I feel a relaxation in my neck and shoulders. My head doesn’t feel like it is going to explode. The death of myself and all my loved ones is not imminent. 

So give your nervous a break. Start with a small action or task and build from there. Take a bath, take a walk. Read a good book. Write a story. Write down how you feel. Cry. Run. Hug those close to you. Find a way to help. Draw, paint, watch a good movie. Clean your house. Write a letter to someone who is alone. Call an old friend. Donate to people or organizations that need aid. 

Here’s the thing. The world is suffering, and it will suffer for a while. There is no way around that. You and I can’t control the suffering. But we can bring light to those around us. We can show ourselves grace. And humans are tough. We survive. We adapt. Even in hard times, there is the human to create and protect. 

 We can make lemonade. 

Thank you for listening. Stay safe, stay isolated. And I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

Before we start the interview, I am offering free daily coaching session. But only one appointment can be scheduled each day, so once that day is gone… its gone. You can sign up for the day that works for you and bring any topic you want to the table. If you are dealing with doubt or struggling to write in what is turning out to be a crazy world… whatever it might be, I’d love to connect with you. We’ll spend 60 minutes driving towards a plan to help you out. Right now, there are like 60% of the days taken, so if you are on the fence, hop on go to www.howwriterswrite.com/30days to book your appointment. 

And now, here is the interview with Rhys Bowen. 

Support the show

I grew up playing football and sports in general, so I tend to see parts of the writing life through an athletic lens. “Play offense, not defense” is a football term that was adopted in the business world. In business, the point is that it’s easy to look over at a competitor and try and do what they are doing. In defensive mode, you are always reacting, always trying to catch up to a good idea from someone else. Businesses like this are fearful, they look at the world as a zero-sum game, where only a few win and many others most lose. 

We play a lot of defense in the writing life. It is just so easy to compare ourselves to others. Here are some of my favorites:

1. Who is publishing before me?
2. Who is writing more than me?
3. Who seems to be writing in a happier mood than me?
4. Who is just a plain better writer than me? 

And on and on and on. 

Writing is a risky, solitary activity. There aren’t a lot of other things we do where we sit by ourselves for long periods of time and then expose our heart for the world to see. Oh, and along the way we get little to no feedback.

And so it is natural that we look at what others are doing and ask the question, “am I okay?” 

And what happens? Oftentimes, we see the success of those around us. We don’t see the struggle, and so we think we are doing something wrong. If this person is a publishing monster and here I can’t seem to get through a manuscript, something must be wrong with me… right? 

No.

I’m not here to absolve you of personal growth, but to point out that you are on your own path, and there is so little to gain from comparing yourself to someone else.

Playing offense means you keep your eyes on your writing journey. You wake up to tell your story on the timeframe that works for you. You write with your heart. You publish when it is time. You play your own offense, not defense. 

This is hard as hell, but releasing yourself from the comparison game is a powerful gift. And it is free, to give to yourself. 

Before we go, I am offering a month of daily free coaching sessions. Basically, each day there is a 60-minute slot open. If we haven’t had a coaching call before, you can sign up for the day that works for you and bring any topic you want to the table. Stuck on a manuscript? Dealing with doubt? Writers block? We’ll spend 60 minutes driving towards a plan to help you out. To sign up, go to www.howwriterswrite.com/30days. 

Thank you for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

I want to say a special thanks to Robert for his time. 

Before we get started, this episode is sponsored by… me! How Writers Write is a platform to help writers tell their story. One way I do that is through one-on-one coaching. I help writers move from where they are, to where they want to be. That can mean getting started on a writing project, conquering their self-doubt, or building the discipline to see their story come to life. I invite you to schedule a free, 45-minute introduction call with me. You'll be able to determine both if coaching is for you, and if I am the coach you want to work with. Visit www.howwriterswrite.com/coaching to read more and schedule time with me. 

And now, here is the interview with Robert Dugoni. 

Support the show

For those of you who have listened to this podcast, you know that I absolutely love Les Misérables. And I don’t just love the book, I love the musical as well. In fact, I love the musical so much that I know every single word to every single song. If you don’t believe me, ask my wife, who will tell you the painful, painful truth, because I love to sing it and I am completely tone-deaf. 

Anyways, one of the reasons why I love Les Mis is the story of Jean Valjean. I discussed the impact this story has had on me on the “How Goals Saved my Life” Monday Motivation episode. I’ve learned, and continue to learn, so much from Valjean. 

To dive in even deeper, what I really love is Valjean’s transformation. The book, as is common for the style, spends dozens of pages on the passage when Valjean steals the silver from the priest, is caught, is shown grace by the priest, and then ultimately changes his life. (cue music) But the musical, while different in some ways from the book, does an incredible job of summing up Valjean’s internal turmoil with a single line when Valjean is confirming the metamorphosis that he must go through. He sings, “Another Story Must Begin.”

The point hits home because Valjean realizes he has to change, and that in order to change, he needs to end one story and start another. 

For some of you out there, just like Valjean, its time for a new story to begin.

At any given time, you are only living a draft of your life story. If it is your early draft, and you haven’t done the hard work of editing, it might be a really rough draft. It may not work, just in the way that the first draft of a story is often problematic. Maybe you have the wrong characters in your life, the wrong storyline, dialogue. 

But, with time and hard work, you can make edits. You can write a new story. You can change. 

In coaching, I am always asked if people can change. To me, everything I believe about the human condition, about the possibility of people as a species, rests on the question of whether you can create a new story of your life. My answer is a resounding, shout it from the mountain-tops hell yes. The entire platform of How Writers Write is solidly based on this belief. 

Think about it, as writers, we rip entire sections out of manuscripts. We rebuild characters. I just did this with one of my main characters, in the middle of my second rewrite, 300 pages into my manuscript. We do these things because we realize that those extra words just weight the story down, it keeps the story from being what it wants to be.  

There’s no difference in your life.

For some of you, its time for a new story to begin. Maybe the current version of you is a rough draft. Maybe you’ve gone through some edits, but to get to where you want to be, you’re going to have to rewrite yourself. If that’s you, sharpen your pencils and get to work. 

By the end of the book, what happens to Valjean? He goes on to live a new life where he is a good man. He cares for those around him. He clothes the poor, feeds the hungry. He begins a new story. 

Thank you for listening. If it is time for your new story to begin, but you don’t know where to start, I’m here to talk. Send me a note at brian@howwriterswrite.com 

Thank you again, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

This episode is packed with information and insights about what is takes to make a living through writing. For me, since recording this episode, I’ve had days and days and days of thinking about my writing strategy and goals. Libbie just gave me so many things to think about, from writing commercial vs literary fiction, to transitions, to how to think about writing as a job. This is a good one. 

I am so grateful to Libbie for sharing her time and wisdom with this podcast. 

And so, here is the episode with Libbie Hawker.

Support the show

I’m in a season right now with young kids where traveling is a challenge. But that doesn’t keep me from wanting to travel and experience new places. And so to scratch the itch, I do what we all do—I watch the exotic travel shows, I read books, and study maps –god I am such a dad. I can really get into a place that way. There’s a texture that comes from that level of detail and attention.

But, take a moment with me, and imagine the first time you set foot in a really special new location. For me, I’ll pick the first night out in New York. I had just driven in as a young young young man with my soon-to-be wife and her family. 

After getting our bags into the shared hotel room, my wife asked me if I wanted to go out to grab something to eat. It was maybe 10 pm, I told her sure, but like, what would even be open at 10 pm? She laughed, and without saying a word she took my hand. A few moments later, I stood on a bustling corner in midtown. Even at 10 pm there were more people than I’d ever seen in my entire life. I’ll never forget the feeling on that corner, being sandwiched in a sea of humanity, with the heavy smell of street meat—hot dogs, kabobs, roasted nuts in the air. Even at night, it was as if it was the middle of the day. I think I fell in love with New York in that moment and I’ve never quite gotten it out of my system. 

Now, I could have read about New York all I wanted, I could have watched any video about that insane city, but until I walked the streets at 10 pm, I would have never understood New York like I did in that moment.

The same experience vs study mentality applies to writing. Yes, of course, there is value in knowing the map of your story, of getting the history down, but as soon as you can, you need to get out on the street at 10 pm to see the people, smell the smells, and just feel the air. This means you leave the world of thinking and planning about writing into the world of writing. Experience your story by putting words on the page. It does not matter if you are putting down good words, or the right words, it really doesn’t, because what you are after is not a good sentence, but an experience of your story. Have fun, take in the sights and talk to people. Notice the things you notice when you are in awe in a new place.

Once you’ve experienced your story, you can edit that experience into a working draft. But you can’t edit a blank page, or a bunch of research, or good intentions.  

The practical next step here is to put words on the page, but do it not with the expectation and anxiety of having to tell your story, but through the lens of arriving in a new destination for the first time. Your only goal is to “get a sense” of your world and people, to see them in a variety of environments and challenges. Release yourself of the expectation of having to get it right, and you can just have fun.  

Thank you for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

And so now, without any further ado, here is the episode with Brian Freeman.  

Support the show

Support the show

I first heard Whitney speak during a lecture for my MFA. I remember being captivated by the amount of practical, meaty information Whitney shared with the class. My pen was catching fire as I tried to keep up.

This episode with Whitney follows that same trajectory. Whitney shares so many usable ideas—from how to write from the other, to tips on pacing, and story structure. I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed speaking with Whitney. I could have gone on and on with him.

So, I made THREE error in my intro of Whitney. Even though I do a healthy amount of research on all of my guests, I managed to not pronounce Whitney’s last name right in his intro. It is not Ter-rell, but Terrell. Correcting that for the record now. Also, Whitney is the co-host of the Fiction nonfiction podcast with the novelist V.V. Ganeshananthan. Last, Whitney is an Associate Professor, not an Assistant Professor. Please forgive me.

Before we get started, this episode is sponsored by… me! How Writers Write is a platform to help writers tell their story. One way I do that is through one-on-one coaching. I help writers move from where they are, to where they want to be. That can mean getting started on a writing project, conquering their self-doubt, or building the discipline to see their story come to life. I invite you to schedule a free, 45-minute introduction call with me. You'll be able to determine both if coaching is for you, and if I am the coach you want to work with. Visit www.howwriterswrite.com/coaching to read more and schedule time with me. 

Without any  further ado… here is the episode with Whitney Terrel 

Support the show

I touched on this topic a few weeks ago in an Instagram post and the idea has been rolling around in my head a lot. The term Massive Action comes from Tony Robbins who is one of my earliest inspirations. I love the guy, as tacky as he’s been on late night TV, his books and events have absolutely changed my life.

The premise of this platform is to provide encouragement and inspiration to write. And to do that, oftentimes we talk about tools, tips, insights, routines, motivations. I do this believe I believe in the power of learning not just information but learning how to work. 

Sometimes the hardest part of learning to write is learning how you write. I used to get really frustrated when people would say, “just write.” It felt empty and cheap, like some platitude that person didn’t even believe. I subscribe to the Abe Lincoln quote when he says, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I’ll spend the first four sharpening the ax.” 

That said, sooner or later, it is time to chop down the tree. Yes, learning is good. Yes, sharpening your ax is good. But, really, the job is not to sharpen the ax, it is to cut down the tree. And so that means once your ax is sharp enough, you need to start taking your swings. 

So many times, we make our writing problems to be more complex than what they actually are. You may not know how to technically write at the skill of a pro. That’s true. I don’t. And that’s okay. The answer to that problem is massive action. 

Plot doesn’t work? Massive action.

Don’t know how to write dialogue? Massive action.

No motivation? Massive action.

What is massive action? It means an outsized amount of writing. Yes, sharpen that ax. Learn how to write dialogue. But dammit don’t sit on the sidelines waiting for enough information to write. Just start making two characters talk to each other and do that over and over and over and at a certain point, you’ll see you’ve worked your way into competency. 

I hope you take this as encouragement because it is good news that there isn’t some magic formula you need to know. There isn’t some guy that controls what you write. Whatever you are missing is found through putting in the work. Your writing problems are solvable. They just require a massive amount of action from you.  

Thank you for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

Last week I was rock wall climbing at Brooklyn Boulders, an indoor gym in Gowanus. Rock wall climbing is one of my favorite activities in the entire world. Specifically bouldering, which is essentially the same as rock wall climbing, except instead of climbing up a wall with the safety of ropes, in bouldering you climbing walls that are about 15 feet high. The moves in bouldering are generally more dynamic, and more challenging because the routes are so much shorter. Because the moves are tough, it isn’t uncommon to work on a single route for an hour or more. I’ve sometimes worked on a route for weeks. On each attempt, you learn a little more about where to press your body, how to position your toe just right—I’m talking within millimeters—and along the way you gain the strength in your grip. 

And so it was on the like 15th failed attempt to finish a route that I realized just how similar bouldering is to writing. Here are a few ways:

1.       Before you climb, you study the route. You look at the holds, the distance, and where there might be trouble. But, ultimately you have to just get on the wall to see what happens. You have to actually feel the holds, the strain in your body, and then through sometimes multiple attempts, you’ll finally get it. It’s the same thing with writing, isn’t it? You can study and think about a story, but sooner or later, you have to just start writing. And as you write, the story unfolds to you. There are parts of the story you won’t know until you are writing it. Characters, plots, events, and even words just like holds, become clear. Just like climbing, you learn to write through writing, in the action itself, not the sidelines.

2.       Next, to boulder is to be comfortable with copious amounts of failure. As I said, it isn’t uncommon for me to fall and fall and fall (and just to note, I’m falling onto a padded floor, not like hard concrete or rock). Part of the fun of climbing is that it isn’t easy. It takes commitment and sometimes just pig-headed determinism.  I’ve talked about this a lot in the writing life. Sometimes you’re going to just have to work on one scene or sentence or book over and over and over. Sometimes it is going to take an “I will not quit until this is right” attitude. You're going to fail and need to find a way to pick yourself up and get back onto the wall to give it another shot. 

3.       Third, no one—and I mean no one—would try to climb a route once, fall, and then say, “well I guess I can’t do it.” Failing is part of the culture of climbing. It is okay to fall. It is okay to need time to work on a route. You might need time to gain experience. You might need to strengthen your grip, you fitness. You might need the ability to see complex moves. Oftentimes, you need the courage to push yourself past your comfort zone, especially when you are fifteen feet in the air, upside down, with your fingers holding onto a grip the width of a pencil. 

But, how often do we try something in writing, just to fall off the wall once and say, “well, I guess I can’t do that.” 

If you had that response in climbing, you’d never ever climb, and maybe that is why so many people just dabble at writing, fail once, and then say, “well, I guess I’m not a writer.” 

No no no, you just need to increase your grip strength, your confidence, fitness, vision. You need to put in the work and climb over and over and over and eventually, you’ll get to the top. You have to expect and prepare to fall, and so when you find yourself on your back, the only thing to do is to get back up and try the route again, because come hell or high water, you’re getting to the top.

Ironically though, in climb

Support the show

This episode is sponsored by… me! How Writers Write is a platform to help writers tell their story. One way I do that is through one-on-one coaching. I help writers move from where they are, to where they want to be. That can mean getting started on a writing project, conquering their self-doubt, or building the discipline to see their story come to life. I invite you to schedule a free, 45-minute introduction call with me. You'll be able to determine both if coaching is for you, and if I am the coach you want to work with. Visit www.howwriterswrite.com/coaching to read more and schedule time with me. 

Throughout this podcast, one lesson that has bubbled up over and over is the hustle and deep well of self-belief needed to be a writer. This message has been echoed so many times, from so many writers. To see your work come to life is going to take grit, self-belief, and an ability to push forward through tremendous obstacles.

Today’s interview with Marlon James hits those points. For Marlon to become a literary household name, it took tremendous discipline, grit, enthusiasm, and self-belief. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I trust that this interview will challenge and inspire you.

Thank you again to Marlon James. Without any further ado, here is the interview.

Support the show

This week I traveled to Detroit Michigan to attend my grandfather’s funeral. Yes, it has been quite the season for me and my family. The night after the funeral, I sat on the couch with my grandmother. We talked a lot about life and my grandfather. She told me stories I had never heard. One of them I want to share with you.

When my grandfather was a young man with a young family, money was tight. My grandfather, to make ends meet, worked two eight-hour jobs. So, he’d wake up early in the morning, work a full day, come home to change clothes and eat a solid meal, and then set out again to work an eight-hour shift at another job. At the end of the day, he’d come home, collapse, and do it all over again. 

The story made me think about the writing life because there are many times when you are going to need the same work ethic to make your writing ends meet. You might work a full-time job, have a family, friends, a spouse—all of the fixings of life.  

And yet, writing is going to have to be the second job to go to.

For many of us, working while writing is the norm.  We aren’t best-selling authors yet, and so we need to find a way to put food on the table, yet often the way we support ourselves is not as satisfying as writing. I’ve lived that way, it was a huge reason why I jumped out of my corporate life and started How Writers Write. But regardless, I’m not making rent with the money from selling my unpublished books. 

So what does that mean? It means to go to your job to support your life, but if you want to write, you’re going to have to change into clean clothes, get a meal in your belly, and get back to work each day at your second job—chasing your writing dreams. You’re going to have to get at it as if you needed this second job to live, just like my grandpa did. If you don’t show up for this second job of writing, you’ll get fired. You show up and do the work, each day. That’s it. 

Thank you for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week of writing. 

Support the show

Today’s interview is with Jeffrey Colvin. I was drawn to Jeffrey’s work by a tweet by Victor LaValle. In the tweet, Victor said to check out Jeffrey’s new novel, Africaville, which Jeffrey had published after working on it for twenty years. And so I did. And the more I dug about Jeffrey and the more I read his novel, the more I had to know about Jeffrey and his process for writing.

Jeffrey shares so much in this interview, from his process for organizing and research his novel to stick with a project for decades. I am so excited to share this interview, and Jeffrey’s work with the How Writers Write listeners.

Without any further ado, here is the interview with Jeffrey Colvin.

Support the show

I learned a lesson with this last series. I’m not a huge fan of the practical, nuts and bolts Monday Motivations. It feels like work to me, and so I’m going to pivot. 

Today, I’m still going to post on Instagram about tools to help you improve your concentration, which was supposed to be the topic of this podcast. But, from now on, we’re going back to the well, to the thing that fills up my bucket and I hope fills up yours: good old-fashioned short motivations. The entire point of How Writers Write is to be an expression of my heart in a way that inspires and empowers people to tell their story. And this is my heart, in audio form.

Today’s motivation is going to be simple. It’s the message I need to hear, as I stare down the barrel of running out of money to birth the dream that is How Writers Write and as I go into year four with a book that still feels as if I just started it. It’s the message that is sometimes so hard to believe.

It’s this… you and I can do it, regardless of what the “it” is. It might be to write a novel, a poem, or a screenplay. It might be to get going or to finish. You might be afraid. You might be untrained. Maybe you just started writing, or maybe you have been writing for decades. Maybe you got a degree in English from a top university. Or maybe you didn’t. 

It truly does not matter.

You can do it.

But there is one condition. The “it” must be the thing you’ve been called to do. I’m not sure who or what is calling you. Some people say God or the “universe.” He or she... I don’t. That answer is way above my pay grade, but I do know your “it” is special to you. It’s the gift you’ve been given to share with the world. Your “it” is not someone else’s. It doesn’t work if your “it” is what you think you should write. Your “it” isn’t around to make you famous. Or rich, or respected. 

Your “it” is your story. 

By virtue of it being your story, you can do it. You aren’t given an “it” you can’t do. It isn’t more complex than that.

Now, it might take years. It might take more work than you can imagine. It might cost you a lot. It might hurt, you might fail over and over and over. Again, I don’t understand why this is the way things break when it comes to creation, but creation is rarely clean. Creation is always messy. 

So the call is to do the “it” this week. Sometimes it’s the first step, sometimes it is the last step. The key is progress. Keep moving. Keep working. But, no matter what, believe in your “it,” and believe in your ability to do “it.” 

Thank you for listening. I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.

Support the show

Let me ask you a quick question. Are you struggling to write with a full-time life? I’ve been there, trying to get down good pages with the demands of work, family, friends, and so much more can feel downright impossible. If you are shaking your head in agreement, I want you to know there is hope. If you want to learn some tips and strategies to write with a full-time life, I’m hosting a free webinar next Thursday, January 23rd at 7 pm. Be sure to register right away. I’m capped at only 100 attendees and I expect it to fill up fast. Go to www.howwriterswrite.com/webinars to register. 

Anytime I get to talk about Greek mythology for an hour is a win in my book. When the conversation is with the author of one of my favorite books of the past decade, it’s even better. This week’s interview is with Madeline Miller, author of The Song of Achilles and Circe. 

Madeline shares so much in this interview. From how she got her start writing to how she wrote Circe—one of 2018’s biggest novels. Thank you again to Madeline. It was an absolute delight to interview her. 

Support the show

Support the show

Thank you again to Eleanor for her time and wisdom. And now, here is the interview with Eleanor Henderson.

Support the show

Support the show

What I did not know is how Amy is a complete baller. I’m not going to give anything away in this interview, but Amy’s writing journey, her grit, and spirit are incredibly inspiring. In fact, when we ended recording for the interview, I asked if I could call her each week for a pep talk. 

In this interview we cover the muscle it takes to write, we talk about Amy’s self-publishing journey and highlight one of the most important traits for a writer to have to be successful. I know you will love this interview as much as I do.

Without delay, here is the interview with Amy Harmon.

Support the show

We are just a few days from 2020. New year, new decade. Boy oh boy, I am so excited I can hardly contain myself. To celebrate, on this Thursday, January 2nd at 7 pm I am hosting a free webinar on crushing your writing goals. The content is like the lite-lite version of the online course, but without the workbook and the full deep dive. If you want some quick pointers on setting your writing goals in 2020, if you want to ask some questions and get inspired, I’d love to have you join me. Check out my Instagram or Facebook page for the link to join. I’ll also add the link to the show notes.

Okay so coming off the heels of last week’s Monday Motivation, which was pretty intense, I’m going to do a series that is just super practical—aka the writing tools. These tools can be like cool software, mental models, little cheats, or just time-proven ways of doing things. I’ve been thinking about how to organize these talks, and I’m going to break up the tools into four buckets: composing and editing tools, organizational tools, concentration tools, and some ideas if you are a novelist, poet, screenwriter, or short-story writer. Now, I haven’t recorded all of these yet, so who knows how this change before it is all said and done. We’re all on this journey together.

 Talking about being on this journey together, I’d love to do a kind of podcast hive mind on this series. I only use a fraction of these tools, so comment on our Instagram and Facebook posts to share your favorite tools, and I’ll pull them all together in a post for everyone to review. And just to say it, I am not sponsored or supported by anyway with any of the companies or tools I’m going to discuss. Just trying to give my honest reviews and opinions.

So, let’s talk about composing and editing tools. The bedrock of writing. We don’t need much to write, and tools are great until they aren’t, basically when the lack of the tool becomes an excuse why you don’t write. I do this so much. I don’t have the right pencil, or paper, or chair, or whatever. It’s all bullshit. No excuses. You gotta write with what you have.

Okay so when I think of composing tools, I think of a long line. On the left side of the line are the simplest tools. On the right side of the line are the most robust. As you move from left to right, you get more power, but also more complexity and a potentially steeper learning curve. There’s a tradeoff.

Support the show

Before I get started, I want to thank all of the people who reached out with kind words about Marlowe. I am so touched by your support and stories. I recorded that episode barely a day after Marlowe died, and I was really, really raw. So, I want to say thank you for letting me share that moment and those emotions with you.

Today is the last of the Monday Motivations on goals, and I’ve been working myself up to this one. There’s a reason why I so deeply believe in the power of goals, and more than that in the ability for goals to help people recreate themselves.

I want to do a warning. In this Monday Motivation, I will talk about mental health. If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, please get support and help. Mental illness is no joke. What I talk about is my story and you shouldn’t it take as advise. It is my experience and my experience only. Get help if you need it.

My story starts on November 11th, 2011. I was working at an ad agency in Denver, CO. I was a miserable, awful employee. I didn’t want to work in advertising, but I had no other options at the time. Strapped with loads of credit card bills and student debt, it was best the best check I could get.

Support the show

We are now just a week and a half away from the beginning of not just a new year, but a new decade. That means goal planning. For some of you, maybe you’ve set goals and haven’t been able to achieve them. Maybe you’ve dropped your goals, or not felt as if you had the right tools to accomplish them. If that is you, I’ve designed an entire online course just for writers on how to set and achieve writing goals. It is the first training I’ve published because, to me, setting and achieving your writing is so central to the writing journey. If you want to blast into 2020 and into the next decade if you want to take your writing practice to the next level, consider taking the course. Through December, the course is only $39. Use the code “podcast” at checkout to get that price through December. 

I am so excited for this interview with John. As you can see, John has such a unique vantage point of the writing world, from writing his own non-fiction and poetry, as the executive editor of Lit Hub, as a professor at NYU, and so much more. John shares so much wisdom about his own writing process and about the writing life. As I produced this interview, I couldn’t help but smile at John’s burning passion for books and writing. 

Thank you to John for hosting me in his apartment in Chelsea, which is a tribute to books. Bookshelves line all of the walls and trust me when I say they are completely packed. 

This will be the last author interview of 2019. I’m taking a week off to celebrate the holidays with my family, but we’ll be back with an incredible line up in 2020. 

And here is the interview with John Freeman. 

Support the show

Early last week, my almost ten-year-old-dog Marlowe started to breathe as if she had a small doggy cold. After a few days, we called the vet and they told us if she didn’t get better to bring her in the next day.

That next day was Thursday. I walked Marlowe to the vet, she got some tests and x-rays, and the vet told me that she had late-stage lung cancer, and at the most had a week to live before her lungs gave out. I took her home it complete and total shock, hoping to have a few days to love on her, take her to the park, make her as much bacon as she could eat, but her breathing got worse almost immediately, as if as soon as the news came out, as soon as we knew how sick she was, she let go of her charade. She didn’t make through the night on Thursday before we had to help her cross the rainbow bridge. 

And so I’m going to wait a week to do the final episode on goals, because the topic is as emotional and important to me as anything I’ll ever discuss, and I just can’t record it when I am so raw and sad from losing my best friend. I wouldn’t do it justice. 

So I’m going to take a moment to say thank you to Marlowe. She never left my side as I stayed up late starting this podcast, making the website, designing training materials. She was pure love, pure joy. She was my protector, my companion. I already miss hearing her snore as I work. I miss her checking in with me when it had been too long since I last pet her. 

Life’s short guys. Seasons change so fast. You wake up with a dog who has a cold, you go to bed and she’s passed on. I guess in that way this motivation is not to wait. Take it from Brian in as raw of shape as you’ll ever hear me, pet your dog, kiss your partner, hug your kids, write your sentences. Because I’d already do almost anything to throw her ball and watch her dumb, happy face as she brings it back. But some doors when they shut, they shut. We can’t stop tragedy or pain, but we can live our short lives in a way that when those doors shut, we won’t look back with regret. 

Thank you for letting me share a little about Marlowe. I’ll be back next week with the final Monday Motivation of the year. I hope you have a wonderful week of writing.  

Support the show

It’d be hard for me to imagine someone who sits in a more unique spot in the creative writing world than Deborah Landau. As I say in the interview, she sees an incoming crop of incredibly talented writers as undergrad and MFA students for NYU, but she also manages a world-class team of authors as faculty. Deborah sees the entire spectrum, from those of us who are starting the writing journey, to those further down the path. This perspective is far-reaching and rare.

Like a lot of lessons in life, Deborah’s advice to writers –especially writers who are early in their journey-- is simple and yet profound. I won’t spoil it now, and I’ll let her share it in the interview. But, at the end of the interview, take a moment to also think of all the things she didn’t mention as well. There is always wisdom in the things we don’t say.

Thank you to Deborah for hosting me in her office at the NYU Townhouse and carving out time for me in her incredibly busy schedule.  

Here is the interview with Deborah Landau

Support the show

My experience with writers is that we generally look at things like structure, process, and goals as being antithetical to the writing life. And to some people, maybe they are. Writing is so deeply personal, that to try and do a one-size fits all approach to how, when, or why you write would be laughable… at best. Some people need goals, some don’t. 

That said, I believe that the wonky, underbelly parts of writing like structure and goals can be tremendously helpful to many—maybe even most—writers. Yes, some people can sit down and just write rainbows, but for many writers, myself included, we need a bit more structure to get our work done. 

Without writing goals, I spin. I’ll have a half-dozen, half-finished projects, none of which achieve the level I want from them. It’s frustrating, and taken to the extreme, has sometimes even challenged me to ask if I am a writer at all. I mean, if I can’t finish a project, if I can’t get something done, why am I spending so much time alone in the early morning to write? What’s the point? 

All that to say, writing goals fill a huge gap for me, because goals put guardrails over what, when, and why I write. Yes, goals constrict my creative freedom, but I am comfortable with this tradeoff because, ultimately, I want to see projects finished at their highest potential. I’m willing to say no to the one thousand ideas that pop into my head each day in order to push towards the goal of creative completion. 

There are tons of reasons to set writing goals, but if you are on the fence and wonder if you should set writing goals in 2020, I want to talk through six reasons of not having a writing goal. 

Support the show

Over the first month of publishing this podcast, I’ve learned that so many of the authors I’ve interviewed have taken their life story and fused it with the stories they put down on the page. This combination of real and imagined creates something powerful and timeless. I think this combination is what we love in the best of stories; the part of the storytelling that breaks from pure entertainment and into something deeper, more human.

That was the thought I was left with as I prepared to publish this interview with Darin. Darin and I discuss a tragic car accident that happened when he was 18, and how that event has rippled through his life. He writes about this event directly in his memoir “Half a Life,” but we also discuss how this event has woven itself into all of his fiction. If I had to describe this interview with Darin in a single, inarticulate sentence, it’d be to “write from your emotional core.”

But, like always, we also cover off on Darin’s working habits, on how he learned to write, and so much more.

This is a fun episode for me because Darin was my thesis advisor for my MFA at NYU. This is the first of what is coincidently shaping up to be NYU month. The next two interviews after Darin are all NYU faculty that I met in the program that I deeply admire.

Thank you so much to Darin for hosting me at his office in the NYU Creative Writing Townhouse in Greenwich Village. If you are in the New York area, there are always readings and public events at the townhouse that I could not recommend more. It is a place for writers. Through and through.

Okay, without any further ado, here is the interview with Darin Strauss!

Support the show

Now, I know you’ve heard it said a million times that it is best to set “realistic” goals. I’m putting realistic in air quotes over here. But, let me tell you right now, that the last thing a goal needs is reality. 

A goal is a dream put into action, and dreams are not meant to be rooted in reality. If your reality was your dream, by definition it would cease being a dream. That is what makes goal setting and dreaming so powerful. It takes you out of your current realistic reality, and it places you into the sphere of possibility. The place where anything can happen.

People say that we should set realistic goals because our dreams are so good, and sometimes so huge, that we fear the goal. We pre-emptively cap our possibilities, because sometimes it is safer not to believe that thing we dream about is not even possible.  To accept a realistic dream is to accept a limiter on our life. It is saying the future we see when we close our eyes and dream is too good for us.  

I say... Fuck. That. 

Your future is not determined. It isn’t set in stone. The future isn’t even real yet, and so your goals shouldn’t reflect a realistic future. You only sell yourself short with realistic goals. We don’t know what is realistic. We don’t know what is possible. Think about it. What could you do with a big dream and a plan and a few years of insane work?

Instead, as we come into the New Year, set a goal that sets you on fire. Set a goal that sends crazy electrical energy through your body, a goal that is so so good, so truly aligned to your heart and soul that to achieve it will forever change your life. A pillar of your goal should be that it makes you feel so excited that you can’t help but move. You can’t help but work on it. But, don’t fall into the trap of making the amount you work on your goal the goal itself. So, don’t set a goal to write for two hours. Writing for two hours is a measurement, and you could crush that goal next year and maybe be no closer to what you really, really want. 

I believe goals are powerful, and if you are planning to set a goal in 2020, make it something to amazing, so exciting, that to achieve it would be a dream. And then design a plan against it and get to work.

Thank you for joining me on this Monday. I hope you have an incredible week of writing. 

Support the show

As I’m sure you can see, my goal in these first interviews is to show how authors have worked through the ups and downs of life to create. Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone’s journey is unique and at times challenging and at times wonderful; but, the goal for writers is to write through all of it. This interview with Brian spans the distance of challenge, joy, and so much in between.

I spent a few hours with Brian in his home office and we discussed the writing life, but also about working through challenges. Brian has an undiagnosed neurological disorder which limits the amount he can write, but he has responsibilities like a family, job, and a second job, and yet Brian still finds time to write and tell his story. 

Some things I really loved from this interview is Brian’s candid humor. I found myself laughing through so much of the interview. The topic—and I see now how this has come up on the past few interviews—of writing current events, especially from outside perspectives, just organically came into the conversation. Brian shares his techniques to do research and understand people’s stories, there is just so much to learn from Brian in this interview.

Thank you to Brian for his time and for hosting me. And now here is the interview with Brian Platzer.

Thank you for listening!  

Support the show

Have you heard it said that “Time is your most valuable asset?” I won’t argue that maximizing your time on this Earth is critical, but I wouldn’t say that time is the most valuable. You have all the time in the world, but if you don’t have the energy to write, if you are physically, emotionally, and creatively depleted, you’ll show up to the desk with nothing to give.  

As we come into the holiday season, I want to share a framework of how you can maximize your writing energy. Self-care, when there are parties, family obligations, and work, is so critically important. In your self-care toolkit, balancing your energy is one of the most powerful tools. 

What do I mean by balancing your energy? First, let’s define energy as usable power. It is the vitality and resources you bring to writing. We use and replenish energy. An easy example is sleep. You wake up in the morning (hopefully) feeling awake and full of physical energy, and then by the end of the day, you are tired and need to replenish that energy bucket. There is a constant flow of energy. We use energy, and then we need to add that energy back. 

When you are writing, I believe there are five energy centers: physical energy, emotional energy, creative energy, intellectual energy, and spiritual energy. Let’s unpack this a little bit more.

Physical Energy is the backbone of your energy buckets. Without physical energy, you can’t do your work, because you are not awake enough to focus and feel as if you need to nap or rest. When you are low on physical energy, you feel slugging and tired. When you are filled with physical energy you feel alive, vital, and full of excitement. 

Emotional Energy is the balance between positive and negative feelings in relation to your work. Positive emotional energy powers your work. You feel as if your writing has purpose and meaning, whereas negative emotional energy leaves you feeling as if you either cannot complete your work or if you do, it won’t be important. 

Creative Energy is the source you draw upon to power your imaginary worlds. When you are full of creative energy, you find creative inspiration in your life. You are full of ideas. The universe speaks to you with story direction. 

Intellectual Energy is used to focus and do the “thinking work” of writing, such as ironing out character details, heavy research, or intense plotting. The brain-intensive work of writing. 

Spiritual Energy is the belief that your work fits within a broader tapestry of art. When you are filled with spiritual energy, you see yourself as a vessel for art. While Emotional Energy is cultivated within the self, Spiritual Energy exists outside of the self.

We use all five of these energy buckets when we write, and yet we don’t always intentionally fill them up. What happens? When one of these buckets is empty, we get to the page and feel exhausted and we need to fill it up.

The motivation this week is to take care of yourself by taking care of your energy. I’ve built a tool to help with this. I call it an energy audit—side note, if you can think of a better name, please send it across—but the audit is a way to evaluate your current energy level, and identify ways to fill your energy buckets when they get low. The audit has a key question to ask to query your energy level—such as with your physical energy, “Am I physically and mentally alert when I sit down to do my work?” a scoring on how much energy you have, how it feels, and a place to brainstorm ways to fill up each energy bucket when it gets low.

But, even if you don’t download the energy audit, focus on keeping those energy stores balanced. If you are feeling physically drained and you don’t ha

Support the show

I love this interview with Omar. He is such a wealth of knowledge, he is so encouraging, and down to Earth. We met digitally over a video conference and Omar shares his insights into the writing life. This interview is packed, but here are a few of the things that stuck out to me.

1.       Omar describes how he overcame shelving three novels. We dig into this point because as you know, writing one novel takes a lot. But I wanted to know how he shelved three novels before American War and didn’t quit or pull out all of his hair. There are some incredible lessons he shares for anyone in the middle of the writing journey. 

2.       Omar also details how he wrote American War while he was working as a journalist while covering stories about the Arab Spring, Black Lives Matter, and Guantanamo Bay. 

3.       Last, Omar talks about how he worked through the ups and downs of the writing life. My favorite quote from this section is “don’t rage delete your manuscript.” I’ve been there, and Omar offers some wonderful writing advice on how to work through it.

Thank you to Omar for his time and for sharing so much insight. 

Support the show

I’ll read the pages… 

You can get so confused

That you’ll start in to race

Down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace

And grind on for miles across weirdish wild space

Headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The waiting place…

… for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go

Or a bus to come, or a plane to go

Or the mail to come, or the rain to go

Or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow

Or waiting around for a Yes or No

Or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite

Or waiting for wind to fly a kite

Or waiting around for a Friday night

Or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake

Or a pot to boil, or a better break

Or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants

Or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.

Everyone is just waiting.

 ------------------------------------

Six months ago, I read these pages to my daughters. At the time, I was in the waiting place. I wanted to jump out of my corporate life and into this project, but I was waiting for more money, I was waiting for more experience speaking into a microphone, waiting to get the right skills. I was waiting for something, and if you would have asked me at the time, I doubt I could have even told you what I was waiting for. 

The waiting place felt like I owed someone a debt that could I never repay; but until I paid in full, I’d never get out. I was convinced. CONVINCED! That there was a good reason why I should just keep waiting. 

There wasn’t.

I was waiting because I was afraid. Of course I was. I was afraid of failure. Maybe of success. I was afraid of losing more time, of making a complete and total fool of myself in public. I was afraid of financial collapse and having to again, for the third time as an adult, live in a relative’s basement. I was afraid that what I didn’t know would cripple me. I was in the waiting place, and the waiting place felt safe. It is warm. I was in a line with people in front and behind me, and it felt good to know I was in line. The line was going somewhere important. It would end somewhere. 

Who else is waiting for more time to write? Or waiting to learn how to write? OR how to plot, for a writing group, for more inspiration, for a little more energy? 

So many times we want to write when the time is perfect, and so we wait for perfection. But, to move forward, you have to write through the imperfection of your life. You will have imperfect time, imperfect skill. You will make mistakes. 

But, your imperfection is what the work needs. Writing doesn’t need perfect, writing needs human. It needs fear and hope and disappointment and hurt. It needs things you have, not the things you think you need to get started. Your story is not perfect. Your writing life won’t be either. 

What are you waiting for? What are the things you think you need to write? 99% of the time, the things we are waiting for are just excuses. They are the sanction word for excuses- pragmatism. But, pragmatism is just fear in disguise. 

Take a step today. It can be anything. You can write for 15 minutes. You can share your dream with a loved one. You can edit that manuscript that has sat in your desk for years.  

But do something. Step out of the line, because that line doesn’t

Support the show

But, before we get to the interview, I want to talk about setting writing goals. Those who know me will confirm that I am a big goal setter, especially my writing goals, especially in fall. Wasn’t it Fitzgerald who said, “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall?” It is just the perfect time to reevaluate what has worked, what didn’t work, and what I’m aiming for in the coming year. As fun as that is for me each year, I thought, why not ask a bunch of people to join me?  

So, I am going to host a free webinar on how to crush your 2020 writing goals next Thursday, November 21st at 7:30 pm ET. It’ll work like this: I’ll run through how you can set meaningful writing goals in 2020, how to stay motivated, and just love your work along the way. I also have a few templates to download along with the webinar. Registration is open! Go to www.howwriterswrite.com/crush2020 to reserve your spot. If you can’t make the webinar, I’ll make all of the content available afterward for a small fee, but If you attend live, the content will be free to you forever. One more time… next Thursday at 7:30 pm ET. To register, go to www.howwriterswrite.com/crush2020. I hope to see you there!

Now, for an interview that is going to pump grade-A inspiration straight into your writing veins. Michel Stone shares the playbook for thriving as a writer. From how to survive enough rejection letters to paper a few walls in a bathroom to how to interview people from other backgrounds and experiences. I felt as if I could have spoken with Michel all day about writing and life. There is just so much in this interview.

With that said, I want to take a quick moment to thank Michel for her time. If you haven’t checked them out yet, Border Child and The Iguana Tree are stunning books that are beautifully written and highly relevant to our time.

Okay, here is the interview with Michel.  

Support the show

Ming Lo and his wife live in a shack right next to a mountain. The roof has holes from falling rocks from the mountain, vegetables don’t grow because the mountain is always blocking the sun. One day his wife has finally had enough, and she tells Ming Lo to go to a wise man and ask him how to move the mountain. The wise man tells Ming Lo and his wife to try all kinds of things, like ramming a tree into the side of the mountain, banging pots and pans to scare it, and finally bringing cakes up to the spirit who lives on the top of the mountain. Nothing works. 

So finally, after Ming Lo has tried to push the mountain, scare the mountain, and ask/bribe the mountain to move, the wise man tells Ming Lo to do the special mountain dance. Pack up your house stick by stick, and all your possessions, the wise man says, and then close your eyes and then put one foot forward, and then take two steps back. Do this for many hours without opening your eyes. 

Ming Lo and his wife immediately pack up their shack and follow the special mountain dance for many hours. When they open their eyes, they are in a beautiful valley with warm sunshine. The mountain is far, far away.

What are the mountains in your writing life? The things that no matter what you throw at them, they will never ever move? 

The Stoic philosophers understood mountains to be anything outside of our inner lives. The things that happen in the external world and therefore completely out of our control.

Oftentimes, the mountain in the writing life is the validation we seek from other people...

Support the show

Support the show

I’m kicking off the podcast with a really special interview. I spent the afternoon recording with the one and only Ann Hood in her Greenwich Village apartment. From the moment I met Ann, her warmth was so apparent. Ann has had times of great joy and great sadness in her life, and we talk about all of it in this interview. 

We dive into Ann’s working habits. How she wakes up. When she writes. How she comes up with ideas for her work. Ann’s written 14 novels. She is just a true powerhouse. And she just drops so much wisdom.

Ann also discusses her research method that left me nearly speechless. It seems as if the more authors I interview, the more I see how unique each writing process is to the writer.

We talk about Ann’s journey after the death of her five-year-old daughter, and how it impacted her writing. I was so moved by her story and her deep courage to share it with me.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed speaking with Ann.

Okay, without any further ado, here is episode one with Ann Hood. 

Support the show

One of the reasons I decided to start the How Writers Write platform is because I’ve struggled so much with limiting beliefs, and I felt as if the writing world just wasn’t talking about the emotional, mental, and spiritual strength it takes to write. I said this in episode 0 and I believe it… most people quit writing because they lack the inner strength to keep going, not because they lack the ability to write.

On this first Monday Motivation, I want to talk about five core beliefs about writers and the writing process. 

These beliefs are the bedrock of not just this podcast, but the entire How Writers Write platform.  

These are words I’ve spoken to myself when I’ve felt beat up and needed to dig just a little deeper to get my story onto the page. 

Belief number… 

1.       You have a seat at the storytelling table because you have a story to tell. I believe that our stories are gifts from the gods, but even if you don’t believe that, the story in your heart is yours to bring to life. It means you are part of a tradition of storytelling and writing.  Boiled down, this means your story is unique and it counts. 

 2.       You are exactly where you should be to tell your story, regardless of your age, experience, or education. All writers start somewhere. While some people are born into writing families, others not. It doesn’t matter if you had every advantage, every pedigree. You are a combination of brains, natural talent, experiences, a body, and countless other factors. How those things arrange themselves are unique to you and will deeply reflect the story you are here to tell. But, those things should never be a reason not to write. They are fuel, not excuses.

3.       The difference between someone who writes and doesn’t write is discipline. 

4.       There are always going to be excuses not to write, and you’re going to have to write through them. You have the time. You may not have much time, but you can find some. You are smart enough to write. You can fill in your excuses, but they will always boil down to a binary decision to either listen to the excuse and not write or blow through the excuse to write anyway. Just keep writing.

5.       Process counts. I know writers and creative people hate the “P” word, but a process is simply a tool that enables you to consistently create good results. Process is a combination of a bunch of little things, that when you do them over and over again, they add up to make you a more effective and joyful writer. Like little shortcuts through the mechanical parts of writing. The key elements to my own process are to write early in the morning after a good night’s sleep, lots of hot coffee, and I already know what I’m going to work on. It doesn’t matter how these individual things look for you, only that they consistently help you get your story onto the page.

I hope as you go about your week, some of these beliefs will inspire you to move closer to your writing goals. Remember, 

1.       You have a seat at the story telling table

2.       You are exactly where you should be to tell your story

3.       The difference between someone who writes and doesn’t write is discipline

4.       There are always going to be excuses not to write, and you’re going to have to write through them anyway.

5.       Process counts.

Support the show

Support the show