#133: A Week in the Life: 7 Days Behind the Scenes with Savannah (March 2024)
Fiction Writing Made Easy
A Week in the Life of a Book Editor and Coach: Planning and Commitments
Explore the detailed schedule and personal insights of a book editor and coach, from podcast recordings to dog food preparation, in this behind-the-scenes chapter.
“Sometimes it's easy to take feedback to mean that your story's broken when it's not.” - Savannah Gilbo
I’m taking you behind the scenes with me throughout my entire work week! You’ll see how I plan my days, what projects I work on, what I learn from the writers I work with, and so much more!
Read the blog post here!
Here’s a preview of what’s included:
[01:48] Sunday Update - This week will be a mixed bag. I’m taking a 2-day online course from Laura Belgray, who’s sharing a behind-the-scenes look at her most recent book launch. The other fun thing I’m doing is giving a presentation for ProWritingAid’s Romance Writers Week. Also, the third Crescent City book from Sarah J. Maas comes out this week, and I am so excited to read that.
[06:48] Monday Update - Today, there are two big things I need to do: craft some emails for the Women In Publishing Summit, which I'm speaking at in March. The other big thing I'm working on is growing my email list and one of the ways I’m planning to do that is to be a guest on as many other writing podcasts as possible.
[11:08] Tuesday Update - I’m coaching a writer who is working on two stories at once. Working on two projects at once would be hard for most people to handle. However, because this author has two novels in different stages of the process, it allows her to use different parts of her brain on different days.
[16:33] Wednesday Update - The virtual class that Laura Belgray is hosting is about how she launched her book, Tough Titties, and it was awesome. I also have a little bit of a selfish reason for wanting to see what she did because I have a book coming out later this year, and I’m hoping to learn from what Laura did so that I can have a great book launch myself.
[21:03] Thursday Update - It's so easy to second-guess ourselves when it comes to mapping out or outlining our stories. There are so many decisions to be made. If you are a student of my Notes to Novel class, you can submit your loglines for me to review during any of our Q&A calls. If you don't know what a logline is, it’s essentially a 1-2 sentence summary of your story—and you can craft it before you’ve even outlined or written a single word of your book.
[28:57] Friday Update - I am writing a book and it’s an analysis of the first Harry Potter book. It’s a craft book for writers that’s going to dig into the big picture and the small picture to find out why and how this story works so well. This project is something I started 5+ years ago, and it got shelved for various reasons but is now coming back into the spotlight.
Links Mentioned In This Episode
- Episode #54: How to Test an Idea Before Writing the First Draft
- Episode #94: How to Reveal Your Character’s Inner Life on the Page
- Episode #102: 3 Common Interiority Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)
Click here to register for my FREE training: 3 Things You Need to Write Your Novel in 2025.
👉 Looking for a transcript? If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, scroll down below the episode player until you see the transcript.
Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts
