#AmWriting

Hey #AmWriting Listeners. It’s April 13, 2020, and this episode, like the last, is a throwback to a simpler time, when we left our homes without masks and took baristas and lattes and a whole lot of other things for granted. So it may feel jarring that we’re not discussing the current situation, but at the time there was little to discuss—and we wouldn’t have, anyway, because our guests, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, had so much fantastic advice to share about co-writing, writing suspense and just writing in general. They were a blast to talk to, and we hope they’re hard at work on a new thriller via Google docs. If you’re hard at work on a project—or would like to be—our sponsor, Author Accelerator, has some free resources for this tough time, including a free ebook—The brilliantly titled Writer’s Guide to Agony and Defeat, writing resources for families and an upcoming webinar with creativity coach Jennifer Louden that’s just what every writer needs: Why Bother? Why write this book, and why now? I’m already signed up for that one. Find more at authoraccelerator.com/spring2020writingresources.Greer Hendricks  and Sarah Pekkanen are the co-authors of New York Times bestsellers The Wife Between Us, and An Anonymous Girl. Their latest book is YOU ARE NOT ALONE, on-sale March 3. We're recording just before its release, and it's getting a TON of buzz. I loved a Bookstagram review that called it "intrusive, suffocating and creepy. In a good way." Here's the background on these two: Sarah is a former journalist and the author of 8 novels--with Greer as her editor. They decided to collaborate, and the rest is history--that we will be digging into in depth on the podcast. You’re going to be jealous. But in a good way. LINKS FROM THE PODCASTA video of how Greer and Sarah collaborate.Before I Go to Sleep, S.J. WatsonGone Girl, Gillian FlynnLiane MoriartySome of our favorite co-written things: Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan (They each took a character) The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus (They passed it back and forth) KJ's: The Knockoff and Fitness Junkie, by Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza (They pass it back and forth, but Jo’s the plotter and Lucy provides the juicy stuff.) FIND OUT MORE ABOUT OUR GUESTS:http://www.sarahpekkanen.com/http://www.greerhendricks.com/#AmReadingGreer: Dear Edward, Ann NapolitanoSarah: Good Morning Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery, Catherine GildinerKJ: The Worst Best Man, Mia SosaBrooklynaire, Sarina BowenSarina: What Happens Next, Colleen Clayton This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

Hey campers, KJ here. In this week’s episode, we talk to the brilliant Jessica Abel, a creativity coach extraordinaire, about how to get past whatever’s stopping you and develop a sustainable creative life. In so many ways, it’s a timely episode, and it WILL inspire you to get in there and get some work done.But it may also inspire you to wonder what planet we are living on, as we lightly discuss such exotic activities as driving children to school and going to work. Sorry. That was Planet February, also known as the good old days. We were prerecording for some planned travel that—well, you know the drill. As we press go on this episode, life has changed for all of us—but in every other way, this call to creative action is completely timely. So take a break from the news and revel in it. It’s also a great time to check out our sponsor, Author Accelerator, where you’ll find a free seven-day writing challenge that can help you narrow in on the project you want to write—and let me just say I love that thing. I do it over and over again whenever I lose focus or start a new project. You’ll find it at www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting. Here’s something else that might help: Jessica Abel’s What’s Stopping You Worksheet. And be sure to follow her in all the places: Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.She has more resources on her website as well. No transcript this week. It’s all just too much. But here’s what we’ve been reading: LINKS FROM THE PODCAST#AmReading (Watching, Listening) Jessica: Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, James ClearThe Stone Sky, the last book in NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth seriesJess: As Needed for Pain: A Memoir of Addiction, Dan PeresWhy We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, Matthew Walker & Steve WestKJ: What Happens in Scotland, Jennifer McQuistonShout Out to the Get Booked podcastThanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below:But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode. Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

Hey writers—super-practical episode this week! Call it part two of the Sarina coaches KJ through her book launch series. This week, it’s the #MarketingMojo page—things you’ll need as you market your book no matter what the book is or when it launches. This is the road to creating things like back-of-the-book or flap copy, ad copy, social media post copy and more, for fiction and non-fiction both. We go in deep in the podcast, but here’s a quick primer, starting with the easiest and building up to the biggest challenges. Sarina suggests creating a Google doc with the following: * Praise for the book/General praise for you and your work. Why? People buy things because of the emotions they’re expecting to feel. The praise you get from others—or the praise you’re hoping for, which is another way to approach this—is a shortcut to what emotions people have when reading your work.* Short quotes from the actual book that say something in a few words that’s really indicative of the theme. Note—they can be shortened, condensed, or made more pithy as needed. You’re allowed to misquote yourself.* A list of the conflicts, curiosities, tropes or other standout traits of the book. Cliffhangers? Puzzles? Thought-provoking questions? Identical twins, billionaires? Small towns and second chances? These are things that get people to pick up a book. List all you’ve got. * From there, you’re on your way to creating your taglines and cover copy. We give examples in the episode—or just flip over any book in your genre and take a look.#AmReadingSarina: The Weight of Ink, Rachel KaddishKJ: Gaudy Night, Dorothy SayersJess: The Biggest Bluff, Maria Kornikova No transcript this week, because of … things. All the things. Too many things. But the podcast is there and waiting! Enjoy, and stay safe.PS: It’s a great time to check out our sponsor, Author Accelerator, where you can launch a career as a book coach or get paired with the right coach to get your project moving. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

Feeling a wee bit stuck? Struggling to get anything on the page? Well, we all are—and not only does this week’s guest know from writer’s block (her last book came out in 2004), but she gave a raging case of it to her protagonist in her new novel, which allowed her—and us—to really dig in deep into what happens when the words don’t come.Join KJ and Sarina as we talk to Laura Zigman, author of Separation Anxiety (a perfect book for this moment, all about how we’re all, every single last one of us no matter how weird or obnoxious or even put-together-seeming, just doing the best we can with what we’ve got) about writing funny, the edge between humor and empathy, and how life can get in the way of publishing even when it seems like you’re on the right track.#AmReadingJess: The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz, Eric LarsonGood Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs, Jennifer Finney BoylanPodcast: The Long Form Laura:Weather, Jenny OffillDept. of Speculation, Jenny OffillKJ: Separation Anxiety: A Novel, Laura ZigmanPodcast: Beach Too Sandy, Water Too WetSo, we know it’s rough out there. It’s rough in here, too, but I guess, in a way I’ve personally never experienced before, we really are all in this together. And we’ll come through it together whether we like it or not. As I say in the intro, we recorded this just as the Covid19 shutdown wave was about to crash over us all, and we’ve got a few other episodes we recorded in anticipation of cancelled travel that just take us right back to the olden days—those are coming in weeks ahead, along with more timely episodes.Thanks for listening and for sticking with us. We feel supported by every one of you. If you feel like kicking a little into the production kitty, (and getting #Minisodes and #WriterTopFives) click the button.This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator—training book coaches and matching coaches and writers.Find out more: https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting.Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)KJ: Hello it’s KJ here and this is going to be a slightly longer than usual pre-roll announcement. Jess, Sarina, and I want you to know that Sarina and I recorded this episode, an interview with Laura Zigman, just as the covid crisis was just beginning to hit. We do mention it, but probably not in the way that we would now. And on that same note, this week our sponsor Author Accelerator is giving their time over to our effort to encourage you to support your local independent bookstore during this. Remember, Amazon is not going to have any trouble making money while we're all shut up in our houses. But your bookstore is - if you want them to still be there when this is all over and it will be over and we will want them - please do the less convenient thing and support them now.  Here's how when you're looking for some new books (for example Laura Zigman’s Separation Anxiety) call your favorite independent bookstore and see if they're offering curbside pickup or home delivery, many of them are. Hopping in your car getting out there and just letting them drop that book in your window is entirely still possible for a lot of us. The mail is at least still coming, or check the website to see if they have an online store. If they don't consider purchasing your books via Bookshop.org. Bookshop is the new site designed to give away 75% of their profit margins to independent bookstores. We have a small presence on Bookshop, I'll try to include that in the show notes for this episode. Profits go to all independents, we’ll have a list of them there. If you listen to audiobooks, try LibroFM. That’s Libro.FM - when you start a membership with the code shopbookstoresnow you get two audiobooks for the price of one and 100% of your payment will go back to the independent bookstore of your choice. Everyone that has an internet connection should be following our favorite bookstores and sharing them all over the place, even if they don't have a social media presence you can talk about them and share how their store is personally important to you. Help your local stores tell their story. Do take a minute to subscribe to Author Accelerator’s weekly emails, a number of their online courses are free to subscribers during this crisis. It's a hard time to keep writing (and more on that in a later episode), but this could help. Is it recording?Jess: Now it’s recording.KJ: Yay. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.Jess: Alright, let's start over.KJ: Awkward pause, I'm going to rustle some papers.Jess: Okay.KJ: Now one, two, three. Hey, I’m KJ Dell’Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is the podcast about writing all the things - long things, short things, emails, proposals. In short, as I say every week this is the podcast about getting your work done. Jess: I'm Jess Lahey. I'm the author of The Gift of Failure and the upcoming Addiction Inoculation, coming out in 2021, and you can find my work at The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. KJ: I am KJ Dell’Antonia, the author of The Chicken Sisters, which is coming out this summer. well as How To Be a Happier Parent, out now in paperback and coming out in hardback this summer. You can also find my work at the New York Times, and all the things. I’m the same person I am every week. We have a guest today I'm so excited about. We have Laura Zigman she is the author of (as you probably know) the new, and current, and very timely (in a weird way, but we'll get into that shortly) book Separation Anxiety, as well as Animal Husbandry which was made into the movie Someone Like You starring Hugh Jackman and Ashley Judd, Dating Big Bird, Piece of Work, and Her. E2 is a contributor the New York Times, as well as the Washington Post other places. She produced a popular online series of animated videos called Annoying Conversations I know that she pulled some annoying conversations into her own writing. We're so excited to have you here.Laura: I’m thrilled to be here. KJ: So, Separation Anxiety is your first book in how many years? Laura: 14 years has passed since my last novel was published in 2006. It was a completely different world.KJ: Yes, and the amazing thing about that, or one interesting thing is that you gave your protagonist a similar case of writer's block, which unlike you she did not triumphantly overcome before the book was written, because that wouldn't make for a very good book. It’s wonderful that she has that, it works so well, but as a writer myself I feel like I would hesitate to put something autobiographical into my person. I would feel like it was wrong somehow, but it was so great that you did it. Talk about the choice to do it. Laura: You know I've always written what I call semi-autobiographical, which really starts from a place I'm always at. So my first novel was based on my experience of being a single woman living in New York and working. All of my other books sort of followed the starting point where I was, and this was no exception. I couldn't really imagine writing from another place. My experience when I started writing this novel in 2015 was just a point where it felt like the aperture on so many parts of my life had really darkened and shut down. And so that's where I was, I completely had writer's block and had had writer's block for quite a while. And I just had to start there and so I gave that to my character as well.KJ: Well it really works because it becomes a way to approach about life, but before we even get into that I would love to talk about the writer's block itself. Sorry, but we have listeners who are right there in that position whether it's for some of the same reasons like there’s just so much going on in your life or whether it's because the words just aren't coming. Back in 2006, when did you know this was big?Laura: Well, you know what happened was my fourth novel was published in 2006 and very quickly it tanked. Let's be frank, it just didn't do very well. We've all been there. I have often forgotten this little piece of the story in my head because I usually take responsibility for everything that happens to me, my own choices whether I choose to stop writing or wasn't able to overcome a lack of confidence. I forgot that at the time the book came out my agent (when it was clear the book wasn't doing very well) called me at home and said maybe I should take a break from writing fiction for a while. At the time it really crystallized my own lack of confidence so I didn't question the fact that my agent was telling me this and it would have been nice if she would have given me a different message and so I take responsibility for internalizing the message, but it really had an effect on me. It really was like somebody in a position who could have encouraged me was saying why don't you take a break because this isn’t working for you? That very quickly pushed all of my shame buttons, you know I was already embarrassed that the book didn't do very well, it just really shut me down. And then everything else started to happen - I was diagnosed with breast cancer, my parents got sick, a lot of stuff happened in my personal life which just cemented my pre-existing condition of writer’s block. And that lasted a really long time, even though there were things I did along the way that were kind of baby steps. But for the most part, in terms of writing fiction, writing a new novel, I totally shut down.KJ: Yeah, I mean that is exactly what you don't want your agent to say to you. First of all, you don't want your agent to say that and second of all, who says that?Laura: Right, it was unfortunate.KJ: You know, perhaps with the best intentions. I don't know, it’s hard to grant that one. Wow. So, rule number one - no shooting down people’s life work, and saying maybe you should do something else for a while. Now that we've established that, moving on. You may not have been specifically writing a book or working on fiction not shut down creatively. So tell us some of the things you found you could do. And let's just owned that you're time was sucked up by having breast cancer and having your parents as well. This was like all day, every day for a long time.Laura: Right, so it was like “sandwich generation” for many years. What happened was, one of the first things I did was sort of accidentally pivoted to ghostwriting. In 2007 or 2008, I was able to start ghostwriting. And that was something kind of lucky I felt that I had found. I had blogged about a television show I had started watching while I was recuperating from my surgery and then I was contacted by the show's producer and I ended up doing a book for a television matchmaker, which led to a few other projects. That led to some really interesting memoirs that I wrote for people like Wendy Davis and Eddie Azard, who is a British actor and comedian. And those were great projects and that was a great thing to do in terms of earning a living in writing, which was helpful to not have to write my own stuff. It was a relief not to have to come up with ideas for plot or characters, I was just able to use my skills almost like a job.KJ: It's almost as if by using someone else's words you could kind of guarantee that when you sat down there was work.   Laura: Exactly. It lowered the pressure.KJ: Whereas if you are relying on yourself and you're feeling blocked, you might sit down and nothing may come out. That must have been terrifying.Laura:Exactly. I was doing that over the years and I think it was 2011 I discovered this platform on the internet called extra-normal. And you could write these little scripts and have these animated characters speak your words. And so I discovered it and thought Oh my God this is the best thing ever, because I would sit down in the morning and just whip out two or three minute scripts that were based on something annoying that happened the day before - either a conversation with my son or couples my husband and I were socializing with, whatever it was there were lots of annoying conversations. And so I would sit down in the morning, whip out a script, and have no writer's block because it wasn't like I was writing a novel.I just sat down, wrote it, and it would take a few minutes to generate the video, and then I would post it on social media. People really loved them. I think I would have still done them if the platform hadn’t shut down back in 2013. But I made 75 of them and I really loved doing them. And I loved that it made writing feel fun again. And then of course, I felt like a failure because I couldn't monetize them. I thought, it's only a matter of time before I have a show with these, but nothing happened. A lot of us feel that if we can't monetize something in some way then we've failed. Or I did, anyway. Then a few years later I tried again and wrote a script from scratch, like a film script, and my agent at the time really loved it and couldn't sell it, and again I felt like a failure. And it wasn't until 2015 that I finally had a break in my writer's block and decided I was going to try to write a novel again. So I went back to that script that was about a couple who couldn’t afford a divorce and had all the same issues that the novel dealt with, but I ok went back to that script, took just a little piece of it and used it to sort of seed the novel. And I went back to some of those old little videos and found little things in there that I used. So in retrospect, nothing that I did was wasted. In fact, they were really useful when I started again. But in the moment I still felt frustrated that I wasn't able to get the flame to catch.KJ: I was waiting to see if Jess might want to weigh in so I wasn't dominating the conversation. Jess: No I'm just listening. I find it fascinating. I always love the idea of you know when I get stuck sometimes and recently I've been stuck on sort of how to move forward with this new thing, so I really have just been going back through David Sedaris's book and my old notes. And so that idea of being able to go back to the script and say well I really like this story why it doesn't necessarily have to exist in this format and finding new inspiration in something you've already put out there. Especially when it's something you've already put out there that didn't come forward in the way you wanted it to. KJ and I talk about this all the time, we both have things in the drawer that didn't see the light of day - some of those I was able to use for articles in magazines. And I love the idea of recycling and repurposing things you love in a new format. I think that's a great way to jump-start yourself out of writer's block.Laura: It was great because I realized I had the script itself and it was sort of a road map, but I had the characters and a few scenes to start with. It was just a great way and if I hadn't done it a few years later I think it would have been so much harder for me to start. Not impossible, but it was such a gift to start with. And that made all the difference.Jess: Actually, can I go back? Since I've never had the writer's block (and I guess it can be described differently for lots of different writers), but for you does that mean literally you sitting there and not having any words to put down on the page? For some people I know it manifests anxiety and panic attacks, authors have described it in lots of different ways. I'm really just curious on a nitty-gritty level how it came about in your life and what it felt like and looked like.Laura: That's a really good question. I think for me it felt like just a total shutdown after that fourth novel. I have had a lot of success - I use that term loosely as we all define success and failure in relative terms. Always really happy with my career and so when the fourth book came it just felt like going very well. There's a certain sense of ambient shame like everyone knows if your book didn't do well, you know and you get filled with this sort of shame. I think it was a lot of that shame and it was also a sense of even if I wrote another book would I be able to sell it and that mushroomed into a complete lack of confidence. And it was interesting because years later around 2015 when I started to be friendly with a group of writers in Harvard Square someone told me about the quotation that Norman Mailer had said about writer's block, which he defined it as a failure of confidence. And something about that when I heard it I realized it really didn't have anything to do with the fact that writers are writing, whether they're good or not, whether they're commercial or not, whether they're literary, they just keep writing. They have confidence. And once I saw it in terms of that and not about my skills, it was about my sense of myself. Then I was somehow able to say I'm going to try again. There was something about taking out the personal and making it more about my lack of confidence. Because I saw all of these other people writing and I thought you know I can write as well as they can. You know less good than some, but maybe better than others - it's all about confidence. Which seems so simple, but I don't know. Jess: I think reading other people’s crappy writing can sometimes be a good jumpstart, too.KJ: So what else did you think shifted in your life to allow - I just want to point out that you had writer's block, you didn’t stop writing . You just stopped writing that. You had fiction block. You had novel block. You had voice block. You didn't have word block. But what moment freed you up again sort of loosely in your life that allowed you to be able to sit down and actually say okay I'm starting again? Were you able to do it that way or did you have to trick yourself into it? Laura: I still had to trick myself. What happened was I was working for a startup in Boston, a wellness app similar to the one described in the book. And I was there for about a year and then I left. It was then that I decided okay the universe has given me some time and maybe now is a really good time to start. I was able to make a little start because I rented a shrink's office by the hour in Harvard Square. I wanted some space and I was ghostwriting a lot and I thought if I could just have a dedicated day that I decide I'm not going to do ghostwriting today - so I went on Craigslist and found an office to rent by the hour, which I did on Mondays. So I would show up, sit in the chair, look at the art on the wall, and some days I would write, and some days I would play Solitaire on my phone. But by the end of a few months I had a #amwriting on Instagram and had gotten to a few pages and I feel like that was the way I really got started.KJ: Did you work on it in between the Mondays? Or was it just like only when you were there?Laura: I really just did at the office at first. After I gave the office up I felt like I had made enough progress in those three or four months, having those 50 pages I felt like I had something. I started something. Then I started to take little trips with a writer friend of mine and we would go away for a few days to work. And I was really able to start to feel like I was onto something. KJ: I love that pieces of the book came and you were able to pull pieces that had been around awhile. Because one of the amazing things about Separation Anxiety is just how funny every detail is. You know, you don't miss an opportunity to drop in some humor. When you talk about the depth of the material but you were working with, I can feel that. So when you sat down to write how much of the funny comes out of you or how much do you put in later? It's a thoughtful and empathetic book, yet also very funny. So it's not like it is just funny - it manages to be funny as well as all the other things. Laura: You know, that’s a really good question, too. Because I know when I sat down to start it I had no interest in writing a really funny novel. And I didn't feel funny at the time. I started writing it before the political situation had changed. But when I really started to really get going on it it took a while. And so by 2017 is when I really started to feel like I was making really good progress. And by that point the world didn’t really feel funny, it felt frightening. And I wanted to be true to that, but I didn’t want to overwhelm the reader with how the world and my world had changed. In the decade that I had stopped writing I had lost my parents and several close friends. And middle-age just felt different. And I also didn't want to write a completely grim book because I don't think that’s necessarily what people want to read either. There had to be space for the light to come in, a kind of feeling of hope. So I was really conscious of just trying to be true to all the parts. I wanted the sad parts to be sad and the funny parts to be really funny. Because they often just really coexist. Maybe at the time that I was going through the most difficult periods of time there may not have been humor in the moment, but looking back it was always really side by side. I remember in some of the saddest times getting an email from my son's school that inspired me to include these people puppets. I just ended up using them in the plot; in reality but they seemed like a potentially funny plot device.KJ: They work with the overarching plot because as someone who writes fiction I've had the problem of a plot device that doesn't match the rest of the book, but this one matched.Laura: And back to your question, in the old days I think I would have just used them as a sight gag and let it go, but this time I understood things differently. I was like each character has to serve a purpose. A bigger purpose here - and what is the purpose? For my message in this book it was like everybody is suffering and struggling. And even when we don't know it, everyone has a story and everyone is really doing the best they can to get through their life and I found that that was the important message I was trying to communicate in this book. Because when I had so many years of struggle, whether it was with my sick parents, or with friends, or my career so many people helped me. I was so grateful for that level of humanity that I really wanted the book to encompass that.KJ: It’s an amazing achievement - there's not a word wasted, there's not a character wasted.Laura: I'm glad you feel like it worked. KJ: It definitely works. The last thing I want to touch on with this writer's block and you not having another novel coming out again is financially how did you handle it? Like how did that affect your writing?Laura: It's a really hard thing. Because on the one hand when you are financially strapped you have the impetus to work because you have to, to hustle every year. So I did that with the ghostwriting, but I was also very lucky in that I had earned a fair amount with my first book and I had been careful with that. And so we were living off that for a while. Every year with the ghostwriting I managed to get a gig that was just enough to get us through. It’s exhausting and that is one of the things taking away from the more creative aspects. We all khow that to write a novel you need to be firing on all cylinders of your brain for that. We all know what that's like. You just have to have that kind of mental energy; so much of it is diverted into stress thinking. It is exhausting and is a really fine line. Part of it helps you churn out words because you have to and the other part depletes you - every year I was just walking that line. Jess: And of course what fills us back up is the reading. So can we talk about what we’ve been reading? I'm excited to talk about mine. Laura: I am behind in my reading, but I'm very excited to read KJ’s book The Chicken Sisters. I also have right in front of me Weather by Jenny Offill. Because I love her Department of Speculation I'm so excited to read Weather.KJ: I have heard that if you liked Department of Speculation then Weather is just the right amount of goodness that she offered up the first time. I haven't read it either yet. I just finished Separation Anxiety and you have been listening to me rave about it and the characters just stuck in my head. As it turns out I could totally handle, it called me and I put down books without hesitation. it was a really fun read. I went to my local bookstore and bought a bunch of things.Laura: Some of them, like Politics and Prose in DC are doing free shipping through the end of March. Jess: Eric Larson’s new book I had been really excited to read for a while. It’s called the Splendid and the Vile. I love Eric Larson and love how he uses historical research and weaves it into this just compelling tale and I’m getting drawn into the world of Churchill and it’s really been delightful, especially since this is an area I’m not particularly expert in. I haven’t read a ton on it. So I’m really loving it, I’m a fan of Eric Larson. And on the flip side of that, I’m reading a book I’m really enjoying, it will be out in May I think. Good Boy: My life in 7 dogs by Jenny Finney Boylan. I have to tell you that there’s a dog on the cover and dogs in the title, but it is not a dog book. It’s hard to describe, but it’s very much about trying to figure out who she is and in conjunction with her dogs. I don’t think you need to be a dog person to love this, I think you need to be a Jenny Finney Boylan fan to love this book. I highly recommend pre-ordering it. And lots of podcasts, I was on the road a lot, but a lot of my speaking gigs have been cancelled and I’ve found myself unexpectedly at home so I’ve been on a podcast deep dive. I have to put a plug in for the Long Form podcast, if you haven’t been listening you have to. A good starting place is episode 378 with Ashley Sea Ford where she gets nitty gritty on money and she talks about figuring out what you’re worth. KJ: If anyone wants a super dopey podcast, guaranteed not to stress you out, I have been listening to Beach to Sandy, Water to Wet, Dramatic Reading of One Star Reviews.    Jess: This episode of #AmWriting with Jess and KJ was produced by Andrew Parilla. Our music, aptly titled unemployed Monday was written and performed by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their services because everyone, even creatives should be paid.    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

Well, fellow writers, when we recorded this we were just at the beginning of it all. It’s safe to say things have already changed—all of us have families at home, we’re all shut down, with noisy houses full of people trying in various ways to work online.We went from “trying to work anyway” through “I give up for a few days” and now we’re back to “trying to work anyway.” So this advice still applies—we’re setting small goals, giving ourselves schedules as best we can, and trying to strike that balance between cutting ourselves necessary slack and still trying to be who we want to be as writers. It’s true that this keeps happening: And when it does, we’re trying to find things we CAN do with absolutely zero attention span. Like share our friends’ books on Instagram. Or record a podcast about how crazy we feel. Which we will keep doing. So, same time, next week?Now’s actually a good time to check out our sponsor, Author Accelerator—get matched with a book coach, or send some of your forced isolation time becoming one! Here is a list of great writing-related resources that are all available for FREE. Those marked with F are great for fiction, M for memoir, and NF for nonfiction. Feel free to share them around!* Author Accelerator's Writing Challenge – This mini course introduces you to the first six steps of our Blueprint for a Book process to help kickstart your next book or figure out what might be missing from your draft. F M NF* The Inside Outline course – We're offering our renowned course on how to use an Inside Outline to transform your story for FREE until the end of March. Take your book to the next level and propel your draft forward. Use the coupon code SPRING2020 at checkout. F M* The Outcome Outline course – The Inside Outline equivalent for nonfiction writers is the newest tool in our arsenal – and it can be yours for FREE. Use the coupon code SPRING2020 at checkout between now and April 1. NF* Writing fun for families – Certified book coach Jen Braaksma put together some writing activities that you can download and use for yourself or with your kids.And for the aspiring book coach:* Author Accelerator's The Basics of Book Coaching – This mini course introduces you to the world of book coaching, where it came from, who makes a good coach, and how you can get started, even if you've never edited before. If you've been thinking about dipping your toe in the water, why not now?We create transcripts of the podcast every week with the help of an AI. That means there are always mistakes. We usually try to clean them up, but I won’t lie. This one is particularly bad.Hey, fellow potential carriers. Welcome to our #Howtoworkanyway episode.Will it be the first of many, or outdated and boring in no time at all?We can only hope for the latter and probably do a lot of sighing, but hey, as long as we're all going uber virtual, let me suggest spending some of your screen time at authoraccelerator.com Get matched with a book coach, or look into becoming a book coach. The side gig many of us are perfect for, complete with social distancing. If you've got some unexpected downtime maybe now is a good time to set yourself up to do something new.That recording now it's recording. Yeah, in a... It is the part where I stare blank and so I remember what I supposed to be doing. Alright, let's start out award has...I'm gonna wrestle some papers. Okay, now one to it is a one-to-one OneNote. I'm delete.And this is a hanging Ting-A-team writing is the podcast about writing, all the things under all the circumstances, fiction, non-fiction, proposals, pitches emails. This is in short as I say a very weak the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done, and I'm justly I am the author of The Gift of Failure in the forthcoming addiction inoculation. That'll be out in 2021. and yeah, I write at various places including The New York Times, The oleic and The Washington Post and I'm seeing about the author of 30 old romance novels and my newest one is going to be called sure shot and it comes out in May, is an even number. And you gonna start saying 30, I don't know, or even a... Do you know... What do you know how many Suresh makes by the way, in?Okay, so I think it's amazing. It's an amazing number.Yes, we love it. Well, I am Jess Lahey.Yes, I come on. You guys know who I am, but that you... At the author of "How to Be a happier parent and of the novel, the chicken sisters coming out in June of 2020 and super excited about that one. I also write for a number of other publications occasionally including the New York Times, and we are recording this on a... Oh, I, 5th and the Ides of March indeed 20020, and the world has gone crazy. And so the title of this is so that you guys know because you all are listening is hashtag how to write.Anyway, I quick got a... At first, at first I really resisted this topic because I didn't think that I was a very good advertisement for it, it just took me twice as long to do the final edits on a project because that's what happens when you refresh the New York Times, home page all day long.Yeah, and as we've been talking all week anxiety was a problem, but then, while I sort of settled down and got to this place of...Okay, so this year is not going to go the way that I thought. And as we discussed this in March, we haven't been personally affected by everything that's happening yet, but still it requires a big attitude adjustment, and as we all know, writing through an attitude adjustment is pretty tricky.Actually, I think Jess and I would both differ with the... Haven't been personally effective. Yeah, for me, it's taken me. I'm finally getting to a good place today where I was in a holding pattern until I knew whether or not Is my speaking gigs. Were gonna be cancelled and for me I couldn't plan ahead until that happened, and people were taking really wanted to wait till the last minute to make those announcements. So for me, and because a lot of my travel is a domino effect in then I was scrambling to plan the travel from somewhere else instead of where I was supposed to be, but it's actually been a relief in a way in a... Now everything is cancelled for the most part, because I'm not having to constantly be playing catch up with. Okay, well, so what next? So this week has been really emotionally challenging for me, not only because of the financial problems I make. A large percent of the majority of my income was coming this month, so that's been an adjustment. But for me being able to get myself in the headspace of, of... Okay, well now is gonna be for at home.That really was a big adjustment, right? And when I said we weren't affected I meant we weren't coughing.Right, right, exactly. None of us is coughing but I think we should own here because they are universal and pretty gender neutral. The family challenges that we are dealing with Jess has been struggling to get a family member out of Europe, the struggling, but we are fortunate that we can do these things. I've got a house full of notes, my kids, but extra kids which I recognize is probably not gonna happen for very much longer, because everything major, major sporting events in their lives were cancelled this weekend. And also I, I don't know, I'm coping with parents that are not worried enough about this that are too far away for me to get to so I'm not very happy about that, but yeah, and it's stressful. Is this super, super stressful?So, not null. Wanted to do this so that you guys could help me. But I will say after like RNA refreshing the news constantly. I did finally today, managed to sort get my head background play. It's also the little voices in the my back of my head going. Or am I writing a book about the olden times?That's an interesting opening is it gonna be like, "Is it gonna be super-dated because nobody does anything this way I use, I don't think so. We're gonna get back to normal we are, we are we at a cantus people shake hands in your novel, they don't touch feet. I'm pretty sure they do. Shake is what's really interesting. That was a total game in my novel. People go to a football game. What's also really interesting from my perspective at my house full disclosure is that my husband is helping run the task force in Vermont that's doing incident. There's sort of this thing called Incident command. So, even when he's home, he's feeling these conference calls and his pager going off, constantly, and so my husband will not be able to stay home during this period. And so there's the added sort of thing, where I feel like, "Oh my gosh, I need to keep him as healthy as possible, and so I'm making sure we have healthy meals and making sure he gets enough sleep and the chaos that would be... That would especially once we get our other kid home the chaos that could happen in our house, can't really happen because we do have to keep someone on the straight and narrow, and healthy and going to work every day.So that's been interesting too.It's all... Yeah, interesting. These are the interesting side times for which a Chinese famously put in A, the I and I, because that's the best description for it. I love what you said the other day, Serena. Everything is different, nothing is different.And that's kind of, unfortunately, where we are at least for the moment. So I, through this topic out on our Facebook page a hashtag am writing on Facebook and I'm getting calls for and requests and commentary on basically the real nitty-gritty of this.Like, how are we doing this? If the kids get quarantined how are we moderating our news intake, how are we trying to maintain our focus? So, anybody got Serena? You sound like you kind of pulled it back together, do you have any good... Yeah, so... Or tips, launched something launches off. First of all, we're going to... And we never do this, just shut off the internet at our house for a few hours every day.You heard you say that you and I thought "Oh we're gonna need to do that too.Singapore's gonna be home, which they are sooner or later. I think I got an alert on my phone today, saying that I hit my internet usage had gone way up and I was like, Oh, that was a nice little alert to remind me that I need to keep the lid on that. So I love your idea, Serena.Well, I would just like to remind us because this comes up from time to time that when you're writing a book, there's a certain amount of cognitive dissonance that happens anyway. There's the world inside your book where you have to put your head and then there's the world of your family and everything else that's going on. And I'm constantly constantly struggling to maintain two realities at once. And now we've got a third one. It's like the life inside my house is actually not changed all that much yet, but... But the world is blowing up in various other ways. So now I feel like the burden just went out. 50% of all the things I have to keep track of and shutting off the internet for a few hours every day helps. It eliminates one of those vectors.I love it, I think that'll be a relief that sort of exhalation, that happens when first you panic and you're like, Wait, where to go and then you go.I-A...Oh, that's, that's kind of nice, yeah, it will also stop what is continually happening, for me, which is that I get my head into the space where I need to be. And then someone bursts in shrinking the nail just suspended its season and then I take a deep breath and I get my head back where it needed to be, and then someone burst in shrieking card against not going back to school until April. 26, literally I just don't you feel like you're just walking through your life carrying a box with a little punching glove, you're like... No, those cartoon punching glove. And every time I turn someone just punches me.And I think we all feel like that it's not and we're punching each other, it's not like I don't immediately grab my phone and text you guys the exact same thing. Somewhat date to me off, I forgot to pay at the grocery store yesterday because while I was paying one of my kids' opened up their phone and said, "Hey sections, I try to walk out. Oh yeah, it was like, "Oh no, I did not mean to do that I... Well, the economy is also gonna hit us a little bit. I feel so bad for anyone who's launching there once a year, once every two year or three year but a great now, yeah, because it's hard to... We have some people like that in the Facebook group. I-E and to get news it's hard to get attention versus stuff.Yeah, and you also feel bad for asking for that attention too. There's the guilt factor. Nobody likes to run around shouting about their own book all the time, but it's even harder when people are sick.Well, we're gonna meet, we need other things to talk about, right?If you've got a non-fiction book on a different topic, we're we need that and we certainly need escapist fiction, so sure if you're in that position, and you've got that book go ahead, you tell it tell us about it thoughtfully acknowledging and we may both be. Well, you're in, you will be 'cause sure shots coming out any minute.No, it's not your once a year thing, but I know well, so here's a thing. I just had to adjust my expectations and that was quite difficult 'cause I have real-time data about what distraction is doing to book sales. So we're recording this on a Sunday. Yesterday was a Saturday which is usually like the second best book selling day in the week for me and I was down 19%. week over week yesterday and the day before that was Friday, and I was down 22% week over week.So those are real numbers that are going to pile up and affect my bottom line eventually, but I'm... As you mentioned, sort of insulated because I have more than one release a year and that short shot is part of a series and the people who are reading that series are gonna probably wake up and see it in so there's some, there's a little less selling I have to do and I, in the book selling curve for me, than for other people, so I feel the most pain for those whose curve is movable. Well, and can I clarify for those who are not as familiar with how Serena cells or books and how we sell ebook? So if I wanted to get the information that Serena has available at our fingertips, I really can't because my publisher holds on to that information and even if I wanted to go through book scan or something, that's not all the information and it's behind, but because series, you could you could not Tortola. It's not necessarily super it accurate, but it's there. But I just wanted to clarify that because Serena is she's got a three is she is the publisher, so she has up-to-date, minute-minute data on her own book sales, which is really interesting to have. And for someone, especially like Serena who loves data, it's a teething to be able to look at... Well, the... There's this other one in yet. Go ahead, in economics called an inferior good and friends. I don't like to refer to us as inferior if I can help it, but an inferior good is something that people buy when they can't buy more expensive things. So the classic example of an inferior good in economics is bus tickets poor people buy more bus tickets than rich people in general, but books could in a pandemic, behave like an inferior good where people buy more of them because they can't buy the more expensive thing they want which is like a trip to Italy.Well, that would be nice. And I am hoping for that but we also have the problem of where the people are gonna hear about the books, right?So I am the once-a-year release at best and I'm not out tooth so I'm super hopeful that by June 30th, for one of a couple of possible reasons I will still be able to get out there and do my book tour and people will be wanting to grab books for their beach bags and they'll be going to the beach, but we don't know it. And this is the moment when book sellers would be ordering my book and book sellers are in big trouble.Independence, so that is definitely... I am not without I've got a stack of books that I've addressed to all the... And book stores in Kansas and a bunch of other ends. And I wrote the notes last week, and now I'm like, "Oh those are out of date now. The ease, not gonna send them. I guess I'll put a post-it on them or something, I don't know. Well, but they are like the world has changed dramatically.I'm still feeling helpful, but definitely a little bit of worry, and I guess... But here's a small...I'll probably do a little... Well, I do less launch related stuff.No, that would be bad because I think this is still... I have reason to think it could still go the way that I would like it to go, and if it doesn't, the social media stuff I will still need. I'm trying to see if there's a silver lining in which I get more time to work on the other new book.Yeah, I'm not really seeing that the entire...I'm planning to Here's a silver lining with all sports cancelled. I'm doing a lot less driving. That is actually... That is definitively more time. And since my kids are older, once I get them in the habit of doing something useful then, then yeah, it is more time and hey, you won't have to pick anyone up from school, perhaps in a couple of weeks.That's right, I just have to make sure they actually do their school work and deal with the fact that if there are three people trying to be in Zoom classrooms in my household, the US that I can record a podcast or going to be extremely slim and they'll all be running in, freaking, my Zoom class where we work because that person zoom as room is sucking up all the internet.Yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be good to one being a fine as we in a line at work anyway, yeah, but speaking of podcast, actually, this is really interesting and this is about how to work anyway because I was supposed to be on two podcasts next week that are in-person podcast. They sort of really pride themselves on being in-person podcasts and I... And it's still up in the air, but those probably are not gonna happen. So I have to say, we are so ahead of the curve because we tend to... We tend to record online, so we've been social distancing. Since the beginning. So, since for... It was cool, so that exactly.I have been wondering to myself whether as we record podcasts people are gonna want us to touch on this with the people that we're writing and listeners, I would love some input on this. I have a feeling that I'm gonna want my podcasts to be fairly virus-free. Yeah, but you also don't wanna sound like you were recording in some alternate reality which we were, and several upcoming podcast that you're gonna hear, and I'll probably say something at the top of the episode. I'm definitely gonna want my podcasts, to be non. I would prefer them not to be that punching right? I love that comes out of the box. So I think that's a good plan. The "Alans will strike there.I think we'll see as it plays out, but I think we wanna be able to talk about how people are managing to get their work done and stick with that, but try not to harp too much on the bad, the bad value.A year from now, and people are listening to the back list, they're like, "Oh yeah, then as the days... Yeah, that's a... Well, I got a say I'm very optimistic, I actually... Now that I'm making my mental shift away from... Honestly, I've talked about this on the podcast before. This was gonna be me on the road for the pretty much the entire month of April, and March in April, so now that I'm not once I know that I'm not gonna be... And PS, in the back of my mind, my kid, I still have one kid out of pocket, I need one more kid to come home before my brain can finally settle in to being able to work very well. But once that happens, I'm shifting to new book proposal, so that's been my plan to that was my plan A... But a lot faster now that's gonna happen a lot faster now I can move that up. And now that my edits are pretty much done for the substance abuse book, I can sort of mentally put that away for a little bit and make room for the new book. So in a way that's really exciting for me, I really... You know me, I love the deep dive into the research, and that's where I have to start with the book proposal, so that's where my brain is gonna be very much for the next couple of months, and my speaking stuff will get rescheduled. Maybe in the fall, we'll see, but for now I've gotta let that go and move on with what is rather than what I could have been. I have to let go with that regret in order to be present for the stuff that is on the table in front of me.And what you're basically saying is that goals episode we recorded so recently, so right, but I... Or definitely revisiting those things. And there's this temptation to look at those goals for the year and think what was the point of this? But of course, there was a really good point to that. And even if we all end up ripping that page right in half, it doesn't mean it wasn't a useful exercise for establishing our priorities and what we hope to get done.Absolutely, and that kind of attitude adjustment is what I'm trying to hang on to... I was just looking at my goals from March only, and I just added at the bottom, I get through March and April with sense of humor intact, because that soil... It's important that that is a very good goal.Yeah, I am thinking an interesting side thought about this, is that nothing about my work life or work goals changes because of this. There's nothing that I was previously expected to, other than a few small travel things, there's nothing that I was previously expected, to do that. I am now not expected to do. There's nothing, there's nothing that I should let go or put off everything stays the same, it's just I am going to have to look at it and go. Okay, well my time is going to be different because there is both the mental coping with this and then the... Yeah, when I have three kids to homeschooling, all day even, no matter what the schools provide that's gonna be... That's gonna be on us to some extent. So yeah, it's a revisiting but you might have to revisit with the project you're working on, too. Like I write pretty fluffy. Books and people keep saying... But we need your fluffy books. But the truth is, I don't know if I can be all that optimistic. And I a first kiss seen this week, right?I might have to pick up a different project, instead and shuffle some things around because I'm maybe not in the head space for the things that I thought I was going to be in the head space for.I always like there was a tweet or a text that you sent us one time about the fact that it was really, really hard to write a sex in when your kids were home from school, and in the next... So I can imagine that's the head of space, you have to be. And sometimes to write your books is not having a lot of clamor and kids around the house is not conducive to that, but I think not sticking this into our work is gonna be the emotions are gonna creep in. So, maybe choosing things that emotionally are gonna resonate, but we don't need an entire six months, from now, we're not gonna need the entire world to be nothing but essays about your experience with it.And nobody's gonna wanna take those... Let's just... Unless you have some... And I did have a particular experience and I did write an essay about it, but unless you have a particular expertise or something very particular going on the moment when anybody's gonna wanna hear about this has already expired, other than sort of in your own personal in your email if you have a weekly email or in your personal social media anyway, I think we have to sort of try not to let this take over what we're working on.Definitely, that's a personal journals are for... We can write about how we're grappling with all our stuff and our own personal writings all we want, but that does not mean that we need to have published 3000 essays on how, in personally coping with the loss of income and kids being a net right, so says they just are gonna have to be about something else.Yeah, it's a time, it's a time.Some of the stuff that I'm hearing on our Facebook group is get up is stuff we've talked about before. It's the same thing, I guess, this is just like writing during the Nanaimo and trying to do it during Thanksgiving when you have your whole family home, get up early. Take advantage of the small verse for me today, I was like, okay, an hour I just want an hour and I admit to watching. The clock but I didn't take any internet-connected. Well, I have my laptop, but I turned out the Tintern it was just an hour just in our... Just gonna do it our... And if you pull yourself back and pull yourself back and pull yourself back to it for an hour, you are going to progress and three months from now, two months from now, six months from now, whatever we're gonna wanna have progressed.Yeah, I was actually thinking today about how that works best for me and for me that means Writing deadlines that I self-imposed writing deadlines, and of course, I have very few, I have two book reviews, one that's due in two days, and one that's due in about a month, so I have those deadlines, but I think I'm gonna need to sit down and get back to my calendar and create some deadlines for myself around this book proposal so that I can feel like I'm staying on some sort of track rather than just floundering about and thinking. Oh, I have all this time to write because I'm actually home I need to have some structure, so self and post deadlines for me are my structure and sometimes that means and this is always a little risky for me but sometimes that means that I email my agent and I say look myself and post deadline to have this to you is X date and then I actually put it on my calendar, send X to my agent by this date and that helps keep me. And sometimes it's just telling you if I tell you A and Serena that I really wanna have this done by. Oh, could you ask me about this a week from Friday? That helps to... And I also observe the of this is a little bit like when summer descends upon one if when whatever if our kids are out of school and even for me with the disappearance of all the extra-curricular activities, what had been a fairly regimented schedule of every day there would be four or five very set things. So then I was slotting stuff in around it. That creates a structure for me, that I rely on more than I know.So when that structure suddenly disappears, it is entirely possible for an entire day to waffle away into nothingness. Because I didn't have to get someone to school at 8, and therefore did not have to sit down immediately when I got home to... So I'm thinking about ways to create to rebuild that schedule for me and probably for the other people in my house, and I think Serena, year two hours without the internet, is gonna be good. I'm thinking about putting together some daily extra... Well, I exercise every day anyway, but if I put it on the schedule and sort of they get something I have to work around, I think that is gonna help me.That's been tricky is a co-other interesting goals to set up my yoga studio that I like to go to with my IT every night with my husband and my kid. We've been going for the past couple weeks to get ourselves back into it and I'll get the whole family going to yoga again, which we love.Yoga studios, closed. So it turns out there are some great online options, and so I'm just having to sort of insist that we keep that routine up except we do it here, instead of out there. And I think that's gonna help me with my sanity too, 'cause it would be real easy to let that fall well and it weirdly, weirdly, might be better to find an option where you're actually watching something life like as it. We must all gather here to do this thing that we want. I mean, I'm just a... That would be better for me.So I'm trying to put things on my schedule that are at five, I'm doing this and at such and such, I'm doing that because that it, it gets my brain into that, working spine.There are various ways to do that live thing too, and it's been... It's nice 'cause like you feel like... Because the people are there in real time, if you have Peloton YouTube, there's some online yoga people in some online exercise, people that have these sort of real-time classes and it really makes you feel like you're actually there and present with those people as opposed to... Yeah, it's a good thing, I... Well, there's a community there going on which we're all desperately going to mean. Probably I was in a book club in New York City. Let's see, I left it 11 years ago, I guess, and I just got a text yesterday from my friend Barbara who said Listen, or doing book club on Zoom now and look, it's like six of the same people from 20 years ago. Are you in... And then all that to see. I was co... You're a genius.Okay, so that's a brilliant idea. Book clubs create virtual date with you and we have... You could have a resume writing club too. We could co-work and sit here with our laptops able to see each other and the various screens. That would be another way to do it. A co-working date or even a you know text somebody go and then text somebody stop every morning that would... Yeah, but that's really cool. I like that, I moved away from these women 10 and a half years ago, so I'm just so excited I have. I lost touch with them completely. So this will be one weird way that I get those friends back that I wasn't going to. Otherwise.Everybody started selling in a... Yeah, there it is. That's my first entry.Well, here's my... They're silver lining.Hopefully we will have more time. Yeah, red.I actually picked up with e-books yesterday just for that reason.Oh, I have picked up so many books, and I'm actually meeting a friend to have coffee at the bookstore while keeping six feet apart? In washing our hands and doing all the things because we wanna support the book store. I'm pretty sure I'll come home with a few more books that tell me what to buy, but have you guys...I guess this is kind of about like what are you buying the stock up because...Well, I can start, because I bought books yesterday, I bought a book, so when I was little, I was positive, absolutely positive that I was gonna be... As "Cetacean biologist, I was gonna be a whale scientist and I was obsessed with Wales, and I haven't read anything about whales in a long time and so I bought a book by this guy Nick Pinson, I hope I spelled that I pronounce that right. He's actually the curator of mammal of marine mammals and fossils at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, and he has a book called spying on whales, and it's about whales today and well fossils and all that kind of cool stuff. So I'm reading about whales I'm reading. I decided to listen yesterday when I was working in the woods, I was listening... Re-listening actually to Diana NI ads book, find a way about when she swam across the from "orest Cuba and it's an incredible, incredible story and I read it, I listen to it, first a long, long time ago.So there's sort of a... I'm noting an escapist kind go other places, kind of thing, because if I'm gonna be in my house and in my yard, for the most part, I wanna be other places I wanna be underwater with whales, and I wanna be in Florida women to Cuba, that kind of thing. So, I'm definitely on an escapist jag at the moment, other places.Well, speaking of the box with the punching glove in IT, I flipped over my phone, to look at the name of a Bo and I just got a text that was game cancelled a night, let me know what to do, I just stop. People just stole just a ton.Okay, I'm still looking for the book name because I got sucked. So, I am a... Or know what you got. I'm about to buy a copy of the mirror and the light the new Hilary Mantel. Oh, I wanna hear what you have to say because I'm really excited about that too.You know I'll probably read it first, because he has been checking her website every month for five years, but eventually, yeah, I can't wait. Okay, well, just that these are things that I have bought that I am Ying Amanda air awards, the jet setters. I did not just eyeing it I actually bought it and I'm super excited about that. And then we've got a couple of...I've got a bunch of arts because I the... And then somebody just texting me again, stop in How can I look at my picture of books if you keep doing me in, I don't care what's canceled, but don't care.Oh, I'm super excited about mother land by Lea... Frankie. I'm not... I think that comes out.Let me make the picture a little bit bigger. Oh, that's not out 'til July, sorry people, I'll let you know how it goes, but there's a lot, there's a really lot of good stuff out there now, so I go to your book store by some of it, tell us what it is and if you like it, we'll have a writing Facebook page book group, and please, don't forget. So you can order directly from your local bookstore. In fact, I saw it was interesting, I saw there was someone on Twitter who owns a bookstore. Oh shoot, I can't remember where it was, but she was saying that they were actually hoping to set up delivery to people that they could say they could leave books in their mailbox are on their door step for books they had ordered from the bookstore, so that they could expand their sales beyond just okay if people aren't coming to our store will deliver to you, so check to see if that's an option.Well, the guests that the guests Arena, and I interviewed a couple of days ago but which you listeners will be hearing next week probably, or possibly the week, after said that politics and pros and DC is doing free shipping, so some of the bigger ends may be able to do that. And I know my bookstore still north and Hanover, New "hansi and also Norwich books in norm. You can call them up and say, "I would like a copy of... Don't overthink it by an BOGO. That's another one that I actually... I'm gonna be looking for that at the book start today and such and such by so-and-so can I just pay you on the phone and you could put those in a bag, and when I pull up, roll down light wind, you can come drop them into my car. They will totally do that they will absolutely do that, and we gotta think these are our people, out there with the book stores, we wanna take care of them as best as we can while we're taking.Can I just add also keep an eye out for what books are coming out. If you normally find out about new releases because you go to a bookstore keep an eye out for what's coming out week to week. I know, for example, not that she's gonna need much help but you...Glennon Doyle's book, came out last week and she had a huge national tour planned to promote the book and get out there and do signings and stuff, and the entire tour has been canceled. So there are people who are putting books out and aren't able to go out and promote their own books. So keep an eye out for new releases, and buy those.We will try to do some little new release of a... Yeah, in our spare time, let's try to do some new relates updates on the Facebook page. On my Instagram, I'm constantly doing new books. That's at DA. Serena, does too. She's always got... Especially if you love the romance genre, she's cut that all over her stories. She's at Sinai. We're in a... We're gonna try to be noisy about King. Keeping the reading going, keeping our link to that strong yeah, especially since I think that you normally... My kids excuse for not reading for pleasure at home is... But I was reading so much at school today. But if he's gonna be out of school, then I'm gonna make sure he is quiet reading time with the internet, off at my house. So we will be a point is like a night.Alright, we good everybody, we're as good as we can be. Yeah, that's alright, everyone.If people, if you would like to get an update in your email inbox every time we release a new episode you can sign up for that at am Writing Podcast, dot-com, it's gonna invite you at that point to support the podcast and while we would love your support, if you just click "No subscription at this time, you will be signed up for the free weekly emails and that that's fine. We love that, too. Please do it. There's usually something extra and the emails, depends on the week.And if you do wanna support the podcast as I think just said recently, maybe use again some of that extra spare time that Hey, that just kinda has... Let's don't call it spare to create things to keep us all on track and to keep us working that we'll send out to hash again, writing sports sounds good, okay, I'm done talking about the right until next week. Everyone stay healthy, stay safe, to keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game. 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Hey listeners! It’s been a mad mad mad week here (all of you in the future, check the date), and I bet there too. Result: there are no shownotes for this episode. We’re talking about revamping my website to get it in gear for my forthcoming second book. Here’s the image we mention—the before—and for the after (which is still in progress), head over to my site and see what you think. Any questions, shoot me an email (kjdellantonia@gmail.com or reply to this.Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)KJ (00:00):Hey #AmWriting listeners, this is KJ and this is my seventh time attempting to record this pre-episode discussion of something really cool that's being authored by Author Accelerator, our sponsor. I think you all know that I loved working with Jennie Nash on revising my manuscript for The Chicken Sisters. Well, if you'd be interested in working in a small group with Jennie, she is offering a Rock Your Revision small intensive workshop for fiction writers ready to revise manuscripts this summer, July 16th - 19th of 2020 in Santa Barbara, California. If that interests you, if it sounds like something you'll be ready for, if it sounds like something that having it scheduled might make you get ready for (and I think that will work) head on over to author accelerator.com click on the retreats and summits link, and then scroll on down to Rock Your Revision to learn more. Is it recording now?Jess (01:05):Now it's recording.KJ (01:06):Yay.Jess (01:06):Go ahead.KJ (01:08):This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing.Jess (01:12):Alright, let's start over.KJ (01:13):Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay. Now one, two, three. Hi, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #Am writing the podcast about writing all the things and getting them out into the world. And that's all I'm going to say about that this week.Sarina (01:37):Really? Well, I'm Sarina Bowen and I write long things, primarily genre fiction and I've written 30-odd romances and my newest one is called Sure Shot. If I ever finish it.KJ (01:50):I can't wait for it. Okay. I am KJ Dell'Antonia, the dithering other voice on the other end of the microphone. I am the author of the novel, The Chicken Sisters coming out this summer and the book How To Be a Happier Parent as well as the former editor of the New York Times' Motherlode blog. And those are the things that I do and it's just me and Sarina today.Sarina (02:23):It is. We're here to work on KJ's launch sequence.KJ (02:26):Yes. And if we sound a little odd, we are (as we often are) working in our local libraries. So, yes. Sarina, as we all know, has many, many, many past identities and for all I know is also cat woman when we're not together. But one of those past identities is helping people, specifically authors, with their websites. So that's our plan today. We're going to go over my website and talk about how I can shift it from being a website, primarily designed for a parenting author to a website designed for an author in general. And the way we're going to do this (if you want to take a look) by the time you hear this, I will have changed it. So we're going to take a lot of screenshots. So if you'd like to see what we're talking about and we will describe it cause you're probably in your car. But if you do want to just head over to the show notes at amwritingpodcast.com and there will be pictures, screenshots of this website as it is today before the dramatic changes that I'm going to make to it. I mean, it's a good website somebody made it for me and I can change it and you know, there's nothing wrong with it other than that there is absolutely no mention of my nove,l at all whatsoever.Sarina (03:55):Right.KJ (03:56):Because that's the first thing that's wrong with it. Check.Sarina (03:59):So I usually get involved with an author's website at about this same point. Sometimes I'll get calls earlier before people have cover art for their book and those people have been told that they must have an author website and start building their platform and blah, blah blah, but they don't have a book cover. And that is fine. Like, it's great to be invested in handling your book launch, but if you really do your website before you have cover art, you're wasting your money because it, you know, it would be disappointing to do a website all in purple and to find that your book cover is bright yellow. So, you know, I gently dissuade people from spending their hard earned cash early on, but you're ready to go because you have your cover art.KJ (04:50):I do.Sarina (04:51):And I have to say that I have seen some smashingly beautiful author websites over time, just so original and stunning that angels weep.KJ (05:03):That's not really what I'm going for.Sarina (05:04):Well, that's not really what I go for either. I mean, I think that the most important, pretty much the only important thing is that your website do two things. One is that it helps readers bond with your book before they're ready to click that one-click button. So that means that they're familiar with the cover art. So when your page loads at kjdellantonia.com we should see the new cover art immediately. That's pretty much step one. And the second thing is that most readers, I mean they can learn about us anywhere, right? Like social media, Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com, there's so many places. But if they actually take the trouble to find their way all the way to your website, it's probably because they have a question. So we're going to anticipate that question and try to answer it within one to two clicks, two being the absolute maximum. So if you can do those two things, you're doing so, so well.KJ (06:10):Excellent. And one of the reasons I'm leaping on this is that I searched another author somebody that I know because I knew that they had a new book coming out, and I couldn't remember the name, and I needed to know for various reasons. And I went to their website and it wasn't there. And that's exactly what someone could do for me. Although let me just say that author's book is coming out before me. Okay. So that person had better just get on it.Sarina (06:40):And this is sometimes difficult, like not everybody likes noodling with websites. Like I love it, honestly.KJ (06:46):I'm happy to crawl around in there, too. I just want to have a mission.Sarina (06:51):Right. And for some people this is like the hardest partKJ (06:55):And if it is the hardest part, hire someone. You don't have to do this yourself.Sarina (07:01):It doesn't have to be fancy.KJ (07:02):It doesn't. Or you like Squarespace, right?Sarina (07:06):I love Squarespace. But there are even easier things to do. Like did you know that if you join the Author's Guild for approximately $200 a year, you get a free website from them and they will help you set it up?KJ (07:18):I did not.Sarina (07:19):Yeah. And you won't have as much control over it as I like to have over mine. But if you just hate websites, that is not a bad option.KJ (07:27):You know, we don't need blogs anymore. You know, your website is probably (correct me if I'm wrong) a largely static entity.Sarina (07:38):Well, mine is not actually.KJ (07:40):No, I know yours isn't. Because you are a person who puts out many, many books a year. So if you're that, then you're working with a website with probably shopping, and possibly merch, and some other things. I, on the other hand, am a one book every couple of years author at the moment, although I'd like to speed that up. And so I am not really needing to use my website to inform you of immediate developments.Sarina (08:10):Right. So I would like to add a third thing to our little to do list, though. Because I don't want to burden everyone and say that you have to do a million things on your author website. But honestly, this third thing could save your career, which is that you must have a way for people to sign up for your newsletter that is both easy without being irritating.KJ (08:29):That's a challenge.Sarina (08:31):Yeah. Well, I mean, we're all quite used to popups now. There are obnoxious ones and less obnoxious ones. And anyway, I'll leave that to our readers to decide.KJ (08:41):I turned my pop-up off because it was outdated and I could not figure it out. So normally I have a pop-up.Sarina (08:49):I turned my off as well because I didn't like the conversion rate of it. Like I thought, wow, I'm irritating 97 people for every three that type their email address in. But, instead I have many other very useful solicitations for email addresses.KJ (09:10):If you want to sign up for my email, you can go to followkj.com and there you will find my website sign up.Sarina (09:16):That's great.KJ (09:17):I think so, I'm pretty pleased with it. Wait, you'll laugh, I have to show it to Sarina. Because I changed it very on the fly recently I had to come up with an image very quickly and...Sarina (09:34):Oh, you know, that is funny. And I saw this the other day. I don't remember why, but I looked at it.KJ (09:39):It's a Playmobile character barfing into a tiny little Playmobile toliet.Sarina (09:42):Yes, we're going to have to work on this, KJ.KJ (09:44):I know, but I figured it would get attention.Sarina (09:48):It does, but your book cover needs to be right there.KJ (09:49):Let's start with the website and then we'll do the signup in a minute.Sarina (10:00):So right now, KJ's website has a bunch of wonderful parenting pictures on it, which suited her last book perfectly.KJ (10:07):And they're all in a sort of a red - pink theme.Sarina (10:10):Yes. I would quibble with the way that your cover art is not above the fold here. I will just tell you a couple of things about this challenge. So, websites as we design them on a screen are usually horizontal. Books are vertical. This is the main challenge of my life, aside from plotting novels. So KJ also just opened the website on her phone because this is something that I beg people to do and they don't usually listen. But more than half of your website visitors will be on their phones. And that is really hard for authors to figure out when they're struggling to get their hands around their website in the first place, that the phone part is almost more important. You know, people will come and say, 'Could you move my name a half an inch to the right?' And I usually let fly that line from The Matrix. Because most modern web building tools, i(ncluding Squarespace and the better templates at WordPress) now build a website on the fly for every single visitor based on the dimensions of their screen. So there is no one website, you can't design it like a movie poster anymore, you have to make something responsive. And that's why I use Squarespace because they're very good at that. And obviously lots of WordPress themes are too, I just am not as familiar.KJ (11:37):Mine is a WordPress theme, so we're not going to mess with the backend. I'm going to go and do that on my own. We're just going to talk about what it looks like and what it ought to look like. So step one...Sarina (11:48):You have a banner on yours with your name kind of in the middle instead of here above the main navigation. For displaying cover art I actually think that's a little trickier, but you can probably find a way around it or you can just move your name to the top. I know it's boring but it works. Okay? And then your main navigation is terrific. You have a home, you have the book which is going to have to change to books at the top and one of those books will be your new one. You have share the book, which is a great idea, you have blog, the podcast, resources, about KJ Dell'Antonia, and media, which are all great. So I actually wonder if about KJ Dell'Antonia and media couldn't become one thing if you wanted them to be. There's nothing wrong with there being two. So people get tunnel vision and let's say somebody wants to book you on The Today Show for your new book. So one of these things should say contact, because people get tunnel vision and I'm sure your contact information is here. But I've been like half asleep, needing coffee, and not spotting it on a website, and you really don't want that to happen to you. So, contact should always be one of those things. And also, if you did dispense with your pop-up and you're leaving that that way, then the thing on the far right should be subscribe. And that can hop right to that page you showed me a second ago, the follow KJ page, but it should be there. Yeah, so we're doing great. Now, if you scroll down on KJ's front page you do get her most recent book before this new one. Oh, okay, I would've put the bio links right here, but you have them fairly close. So that's all good. And then you could also have, instead of this got a book club thing (not that there's anything wrong with it) an email signup here, as well. So I would like to have one up in the main nav and then here on the scrolly scrolly front page. So the reason that websites got scrolly scrolly is because of phones.KJ (14:01):Let's have a look at it scrolling on my phone. So on the website you see things laid out, like you see the book cover and then to the right you see the text about the book. On the mobile, you see the book cover and then you scroll down and you see the text about the book, and then you scroll down and you'll see the by the book in a vertical list.Sarina (14:25):So the buttons are horizontal on the laptop and they're vertical on the phone. And that's because you have a properly responsive website. Now, there are some authors who had their websites built more than 10 years ago, and the site still looks good when you pull it up on the computer. But if you pull it up on the phone, it's quite broken. And here's the reason that's not good. Google will punish you. They promote (in their search rankings) sites that perform on a mobile device and they sort of demote sites that don't. And you don't want to be demoted by Google. You know that old joke like, where's the best place to hide a dead body? On the seventh page of the Google search result. Okay, so don't be that dead body.KJ (15:21):So, but it's okay to have the scrolly scrolly first page is what I'm hearing. So the fact that if you just keep scrolling, you just get stuff, after stuff, after stuff is fine. It's just that maybe the stuff is not in the right order.Sarina (15:38):Well, your stuff was in a decent order. It's like the New York Times - you know, above the fold, below the fold. So here's the thing, when I'm helping an author with a website, I send a questionnaire. And these are the questions on the questionnaire. Which author websites in your own genre do you like best? Cause that's not a bad place to get inspiration; to take a shortcut to figure out what other people are doing. Right?KJ (16:06):That's how we made our podcast. There's a podcast, it's called Hurry Slowly. I love her and I love the design of her website. And I basically was just like, this really looks great. I'm going to make ours look pretty much just like this and it is. Thank you very much, Jocelyn Keighley.Sarina (16:26):Then the second question, the colors on your site will be chosen to compliment your cover art, but please tell me what colors do you not like and what are you hoping to see? And so with you, you have a lot of colors between your two books, but they compliment each other and that's just where you know we would go.KJ (16:41):Yeah, we're going to lose the pink-iness of this theme and shift it.Sarina (16:47):And shift it to highlight the yellow. And then it will look right. So then, one of the hardest decisions is what do you want your visitors to see first when they arrive on your site. In other words, the most valuable real estate should be allocated to which of the following? And these four choices cover almost everybody. So choice one - your newest cover art and a blurb quote, which is never a bad choice. So maybe you have that cover because you want readers to bond with it immediately. And you have a very short blurb quote, like the best little bit of something that somebody said. And then a button that says 'Read more' so you can put that person right onto that book's page. So that's always a good decision if you have a book coming out. Then choice two - a view of all of your covers, like an art gallery. Like if you have an extensive backlist and you want readers of your most recent book. Cause what if someone arrives on your site with a question, what else did she write? So that's the one click thing. And in your case we would have it in a dropdown menu probably cause the art gallery doesn't really work for you. So choice three - your newest blog post. So this is usually not the right choice for my clients, but it could be if you are a very active blogger and your blogging was related to the book you were trying to sell. Then that might work. And the last choice I have here - is a book representing each of your various series.KJ (18:18):And that's what yours looks like.Sarina (18:20):Yes. And the websites that have the most content on them are the biggest challenge. Because when we have that question - what question did the person arrive with? The more books you have, the more varied that question could be. Like what's next and this or that series, which audio book did I not listen to? You know, the questions get more complicated with the more books someone has in their catalog.KJ (18:44):Yeah. I don't think that there are that many questions you're going to come to my website looking for an answer to. I guess a peculiarity of my website is that I have these resources. And they are parenting resources. You can get holiday survival guides, you can get an ebook about homework, you can get the 10 mantras for happier parents. I mean, I have quite a few of them. Most fiction readers aren't going to be here coming after these things. But my parenting book is also coming out in paperback. So some people will be coming out for them and sometimes I will be talking about them, so it's a little more complicated.Sarina (19:28):I wonder if your website shouldn't have two book covers sort of facing each other on the front of it. With The Chicken Sisters on the left and The Happier Parent on the right. And it's basically like, people make a grand choice the minute they arrive at your website because they're probably there for what topic. And then you would sort of move the person on to the page that deals with that and your resources might be down at the scrolly scrolly bottom of the parenting book.KJ (19:56):And right now the resources require you to add your email and they might as well continue to require you give your email. That seems like a good idea although in terms of my personal ability to adjust this website, hopefully I can pull it off. I've done them. Somebody else did this one. I don't have the money to have them go back in and fix it. I might get somebody else. But see on this page your name is at the top, not in the middle. So you just need to duplicate a page like this. You're right. So what I can do is abandon the current - just to get a little bit into the weeds, but you might be in my position too - is abandon the current. So right now, when you go to kjdellantonia.com it's actually not pointing to what's called home here. It's pointing to the book. So I can pick anywhere. So you can pick anywhere for you know, u.com to point to. I mean home is probably not a necessary piece of it. Okay. Like you said, I can do some redesigning here.Sarina (21:14):And you know, as you move through the process of pre-launch, to the book launch, to after the launch, your needs change a little bit. I am accustomed to people who come back once a year to have their website gussied up for their new book. One thing I would like to mention for any listeners who are considering paying to have a website done is please don't hire someone who wants you to pay them on a monthly basis forever. This used to be the way it was done. And there are still some people out there who are paying for a website which is static and they're just paying to have it hosted cause they're stuck. And you don't have to do that. You can pay someone to design a thing and to set up the hosting for you, but then you have to have the keys, you know?KJ (22:10):So part of your design process, and it was part of mine, should be the person walking you through the most basic changes that you might want to make on your website. So, to change the pictures, to change the pop-up, to change where the homepage points, you should know how to do those small things. And I do, it's more that I think they used something called Bakery Builder to build this. And it's not my more familiar thing. I can do it. And I will say, you can find that, just ask around. Ask your author friends for who has designed their website but do ask around, because I also have a friend who's been working on designing her website with her web designer for let's see, since August. Yeah. The person is really slow and she called me fairly recently and was like, 'Is this normal?' And I was like, 'No, absolutely not.' Of course, this friend also draws a picture of what she wants it to look like and then sends that to the web designer. So the web designer may also be a little frustrated. There may be fault on both sides, but I don't think so. I think it just should not be taking anywhere near this long. It's crazy. Somebody should be able to get you rolling fairly quickly.Sarina (23:39):And also just to have the ability to say when it will be done.KJ (23:45):Alright. What's next?Sarina (23:47):Well, if you really like working with your website, there are so many things you can do to help guide your author destiny using your own website. For example, you can give away a free book in exchange for an email signup. So the parts of my website that you can see when you just navigate to Sarinabowen.com is like just the tip of that iceberg because I have lots of other hidden content there that is serving special purposes for me. And the more comfortable you are touching your own website and making pages, the more fun you can have with that. So during launch week, I usually have a contest where people enter it by sharing the book. Now, not every reader of my books is interested in entering the giveaway and sharing the cover, and that's fine. But for that core of people who is really interested in helping me promote it (for whatever reason) I have a contest on a hidden page in my website where you enter the link of where you shared it, and you put in your name, and the winner gets a $25 gift card or something. So there's all kinds of things you can run off of your own website that are more controllable than social media. And if you think about Facebook, which we all basically have to use when we promote a book, it's ugly and you can't make a post do what you want. You can't make it have a button. It's just not a friendly, friendly place in the world. And when you become a little more comfortable with using your own site, you suddenly figure out how much you can do.KJ (25:34):I think a lot of people who have a website don't realize that you can have pages on your website that aren't immediately visible to every visitor to your website. And it's not that they're hidden. It's not that someone who typed you know, KJDellantonia.com/potatocakes wouldn't get to the potato cakes page, but who's gonna do that? And it's not in your menu. So you can have, you can have a hundred potato cake pages or whatever. And I think even I forget that sometimes.Sarina (26:13):So if you're doing an event in Chicago, you could have kjdellantonia.com/chicago if there was something, a resource there that you wanted those people to have.KJ (26:20):And if you want to, you can buy you can buy a special URL. Like you can create a page within your own website. So it's kjdellantonia.com/potato cakes. But instead you buy the website you know, potato lovers.com and then you just point it, you don't create a website for potatocakelovers.com. You just point it to that page on your website. So there's all kinds of playful things. So for example, this follow KJ link, I just own that and I just point it to different things. Right now it's actually pointed to the Flodesk, which is the email software that I used to create my emails. But it used to be pointed to a page within my website. And before that it was pointed to a Mailchimp page. I can point that wherever I want to.Sarina (27:08):Right. And you actually bring up a really good point, which is it's usually better to point your signup at your own website. Like you have this capacity to point at different places which protects you. But I have a friend who can never leave MailChimp because she has the MailChimp signup link in the back of a 40 book backlist. So she's stuck there at their new higher prices because she can't go and change. She literally can't, because the people that bought that book before now and they read it and click on that link are going to her old spot.KJ (27:50):Yeah, no she's stuck. I remember you telling me about that cause I had kind of fallen into that cause I pointed something that I couldn't unpoint because I forgot things.Sarina (28:01):So I use a service called Genius Links and it's a page short linker, but you can change the destination link of absolutely anything.KJ (28:13):That is very nice because you can't do that with tinyurl.com.Sarina (28:17):Right. So Genius Links is great. There are probably others. I believe smartURL allows you to change the ultimate destination. But the other thing that Genius does (it does several things well, actually) it also points people to the Amazon store of their geographical location. So I can make one Amazon link, but it's a Genius link and if that person is in France, it will take them to Amazon.Fr. And the other thing it does (it pays for itself) is that if you have affiliate accounts at Amazon, Apple, Google, Kobo, (those are the ones that come to mind) you put that information into Genius and it just adds it to every single link. And that is very helpful to me as well. Yeah, not Kobo actually. But anyway, there's lots of ways. So, I just got a check from Apple Affiliates for 500 bucks, which I'm sure paid for my entire year's worth of Genius linking. So it's not just this added expense, but it can actually put money in your pocket.KJ (29:30):So, what's next? Should we look at anything else on my thing specifically?Sarina (29:36):I think your work is cut out for you in a way that is quite doable. You're gonna change some colors around.KJ (29:45):I'm going to just have fewer things up here at the top, I think. There's already some chickens so I'm partly set.Sarina (29:52):You're going to get both of those books on the front page and probably lose some more personal pictures because they won't make as much sense to your novel.KJ (30:02):So I'm just going to abandon some of these pages. I'm just going to make a new page - a new landing page.Sarina (30:12):Just like if you were going to redo chapter four of your work in progress, you wouldn't delete chapter four, you copy it, and tinker until we're satisfied. So this will be the same.KJ (30:23):Yup. That's my plan. Any other thoughts for people as they embark on either changing or creating their own websites?Sarina (30:32):I would look into the Authors Guild if you're really hesitant to play with websites. I would look into Squarespace if you're slightly more adventurous. I dislike WordPress with the fire of a thousand suns, so I can't in good conscience recommend it. Although lots of people like it, I'm not a fan of Wix. Usually the platforms that have a free option look kind of...I don't know, but I don't like them. But one free option that is, you know at least more user friendly is Blogger. Like you can still make a website at Google and it is what it is, but if you need a landing spot and you have no funds to devote to that at this point then there are ways to make happen.KJ (31:26):I'm trying to think if there's anything else we should say about websites before we move on. You should have one.Sarina (31:35):You should have one. It won't sell your book, though. It's great to be find-able and to help you answer questions.KJ (31:45):I wanted to talk about the whole, should I have a blog page? Not me personally, but as a general rule. If a blog feels like a like a mandatory additional task to you, then my thought for you is no, you don't really need to. Cause there's nothing worse than clicking on someone's blog page and seeing three entries from 2016.Sarina (32:11):Right. Well the other thing is you can call it news. And you can just put something there three times a year when you have news. Like, here's my new cover. And the nice thing about having that there is that it's also then you can put the link to that news on Facebook instead of typing the news into Facebook.KJ (32:33):And the other nice thing is that typically if you use the blog software of whatever you are creating, that is designed to be easily updatable. So if you use that for your news, it's designed so that you could just pop in and be like, 'I'll be in Chicago.' And that's it. You don't have to sort of change something that feels more set on your page. So there's reasons to use that software, but maybe not to call it blog.Sarina (33:03):Yeah. It used to be, like 15 years ago. Every agent would say you have to blog. But that's just not true anymore. People consume their news differently.KJ (33:39):The first decision is going to be to go in here, put the two book covers up and close off everything else while I revise it. Basically I'm going to just do that. So if anyone comes in the meantime, there are two book covers, there are links to the books and I'm playing around in the background.Sarina (33:58):Right. And when you link your book, you should do a few vendors. Cause nobody wants to live in a world where Amazon is the only store. No. And we do have that new one.KJ (34:12):What's it called again? I can't remember.Sarina (34:17):Is it BookShop?KJ (34:17):Maybe...Sarina (34:18):We're going to find this and put it in the show notes.KJ (34:20):Yeah, because it's important. Yeah, we've been linking to Indiebound, but it's changing. The booksellers association is creating a new way for authors to link to an Indie supporting platform, which can help you sell books. Cause I will say Indiebound affiliate linking is agonizingly painful (as the person who does it). And also, you listeners typically don't end up buying the book that way. And I get it. But I could see why you're not buying it on Indiebound, but we don't want to link to Amazon because while we're all buying stuff from Amazon, we don't want them to rule the world.Sarina (35:17):So bookshop.org is the new storefront and it's new, new, new, like it just launched within the last four weeks. And they're going to take some of the friction of buying from Indiebound away. So give bookshop.org a look and they also have an affiliate program, but every book that is purchased on here kicks profit into a fund, which is divided among the member bookstores, which is most independent bookstores.KJ (35:48):And the cool thing that they're doing is helping those independent bookstores set up their own websites. So this doesn't really apply to us, but it's kind of neat. I'm pleased, I'm delighted that it's out there.Sarina (35:59):After I read about it, I thought, Oh my goodness, this should not have taken so long.KJ (36:06):Now we got to figure out what we've been reading.Sarina (36:08):Oh, I know. I'm ready. Well, yesterday I opened an envelope and discovered a copy of Chasing Cassandra by Lisa Kleypas inside, which means that at some point I pre-ordered it and I never preorder anything, but I love this author so much and she has a new novel about once a year, which is just about right because if she had more of them, I would never get anything done because she is my queen. She is a romance author, her series is set in the Victorian era, actually in England. But she's so skillful with characters and just so amazing with dialogue that I have to take a few deep breaths after I finish her book and go look at my poor excuse for a book afterwards.KJ (36:59):I think everybody has somebody that is like that. So I have just finished Minor Dramas and Other Catastrophes by Kathleen West. I don't think I've mentioned it on the podcast yet, but I loved it. If you liked The Gifted School, if you have liked books by Tom Perrotta, basically if books set in hothouse schools (public, not boarding schools, that's a different genre) but books set in a hothouse schools full of crazy parents are something that you enjoy (and I do) then this is one for you. It's a really fun story of a dedicated teacher who's a little bit too too intense about teaching her students about the social evils of the world and how the parents around her react to that. It just fun, it's a weekend read, it's entertaining, it's smart, the characters are great. I think you'll enjoy it. So that's Minor Dramas and Other Catastrophes from Kathleen West. Alright, that is our podcast, but before we shut down, let me please remind you to head out to Facebook if you can stand it and join our Facebook group where we don't talk about any of the things that you avoid Facebook for. Instead, we talk about all things writing related, and writerly questions, and just about anything you can get it answered. If you want to find the show notes and the screenshots from the website that we're talking about that's amwritingpodcast.com, which is also where you can find links to support the podcast if you'd like to with a small donation and supporters of the podcast get (pretty much weekly) top fives and small mini podcasts, five minute long shorts, little bits of advice from one of us to all of you that drop right into your podcast player once you get it set up, you don't have to go somewhere special to listen. I think that's cool. That's it. Now you can take us out.Sarina (39:35):Until next week, keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game. This episode of #AmWriting with Jess and KJ was produced by Andrew Parilla. Our music, aptly titled unemployed Monday was written and performed by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their services because everyone, even creatives should be paid. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

And you thought our shelves full of self help books were just to manage our own issues! Nope, there’s another use for them. Our guest this week, Kathleen Smith, is a therapist and writer and the author of Everything Isn't Terrible, a helpful and humorous guide to shedding our anxious habits and building a more solid sense of self in our increasingly anxiety-inducing world. It’s very useful, and we’re valiantly attempting to tame our own anxieties—but that’s not (much of) what we talk about. Instead, we’re focused on what’s really important—and within our control: Creating believable, dysfunctional characters and then helping them to grow and change.We talk about romance dynamics: the pursuer and the pursued, the over-functioner and the slacker—and how important it is that a couple be at a similar level of maturity (or, more likely, immaturity) to be believable. From there, it’s headlong into siblings, birth order and circumstance, family coping mechanisms and some of the ways to develop deeper conflict within our work. It’s such a great conversation. Episode links and a transcript follow. Thanks for being with us! If you love the podcast, tell a friend. Right now. Just drop everything and go sit someone down and make them listen. And if you love the podcast, you can support it! There are perks. #SupporterMini episodes. #WriterTopFives. LINKS FROM THE PODCASTGenograms: Assessment and Intervention Family Constellation, Walter Toman#AmReading (Watching, Listening)Kathleen: Bringing Down the Duke, Evie DunmoreKJ: Ex Libris, Anne FadimanThe Uncommon Reader: A Novella, Alan BennettSarina: 19 Love Songs, David LevithanOur guest for this episode is Kathleen Smith, author of Everything Isn't Terrible: Conquer Your Insecurities, Interrupt Your Anxiety, and Finally Calm Down. For more: Website - KathleenSmith.net Twitter - @fangirltherapy Instagram - @kathleensmithwritesFree Anxiety Newsletter - https://theanxiousoverachiever.substack.com/This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator—training book coaches and matching coaches and writers. Find out more: https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting.Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)KJ (00:01):Hey listeners, KJ here, if you're in with us every week, you're what I like to call people of the book. And some of us book people discover somewhere along the way that not only are we writers, we're people with a gift for encouraging other writers. Maybe that comes out in small ways for you, but for some of you it's a calling and an opportunity to build a career doing work you love. Our sponsor, Author Accelerator, provides book coaching to authors like me, but also needs and trains book coaches. And if that's got your ears perked up, head to authoraccelerator.com and click on become a book coach. Is it recording? Now. It's recording.Jess (00:44):Now it's recording.KJ (00:44):Yay!Jess (00:44):Go ahead.KJ (00:46):This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone, trying to remember what I'm supposed to be doing.Jess (00:50):Alright, let's start over.KJ (00:51):Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay. Now one, two, three. Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is the podcast about writing all the things - short things, long things, fictional things, non-fictional things, something in between kinds of things, which I don't know that we really recommend, it depends on where you're writing for. But in any case, as regular listeners know and any new listeners are about to find out, this is the podcast about figuring out how to sit down and get your work done.Sarina (01:30):I'm Sarina Bowen. I only write long things and fictional things. I'm the author of 30-odd romance novels and my newest one is called Heartland. You can find all about it at sarinabowen.com.KJ (01:46):I feel like the things that we write are feeling particularly long this week. I don't know about you, but I feel like I only write really long things that somehow don't have enough words. Yeah, but they sure feel long to me. I am KJ Dell'Antonia. I am the author of my first novel, my debut novel, is The Chicken Sisters coming out in June of 2020 and I'm also the former lead editor and columnist for the New York Times of the Motherlode and the author of How To Be a Happier Parent, which is out in hardback now and will be out in paperback this summer.KJ (02:20):And I am delighted to say that we have a guest today. This is going to be a really fun, if somewhat fictionally focused episode. Today we are joined by Kathleen Smith, a therapist and writer and the author of Everything Isn't Terrible: A Helpful and (I can vouch for this) Humorous Guide to Shedding Our Anxious Habits and Building a More Solid Sense of Self in Our Increasingly Anxiety Inducing World, which is brilliant. And we love it. And we are working away at our own anxieties. But we've actually asked Kathleen here today to talk about the anxieties we have more control over - the anxieties of our fictional characters. In other words, we're going to talk about creating believable, dysfunctional characters and families and then helping them to grow, and change, and get better. Welcome.Kathleen (03:12):I'm so excited to talk about this topic with you guys. Thanks for having me.KJ (03:16):Thanks for suggesting it and coming. We think this is fantastic. It's so funny because as I read, Everything Isn't Terrible and I have been, I sort of flick between, Oh wait, I need this. Oh wait, my character needs this. Oh wait, I do this with my mother. Oh wait, does my character? I think I need to read it twice, once in each guise. So how did you think of the idea of using a therapeutic formula, a therapeutic lens to view fictional characters?Kathleen (03:54):First of all, I'm a huge fan girl and I love reading books and watching TV shows with complex families. Right? You know, everyone these days is obsessed with succession, right? Or the crown or these sort of glamorous, dysfunctional families. But as a therapist, I'm a firm believer that everyone's family is just as interesting. You know, if you'd sorta take a dive in and look at the rich sort of emotional history of a family. So I love seeing it in real life and I love seeing it in fiction, too, especially when it's done really well.Sarina (04:30):Which fictional families in print have you enjoyed recently? I was so curious about this.Kathleen (04:36):Yeah. Well one thing I'm reading right now is I'm rereading Emma because you know, the new movie is coming out. So it's interesting to see some of the family dynamics in that. And you know, sibling position. And I think Jane Austen in particular does such a wonderful job bringing out those differences and the dynamics of people. So that's one thing I'm enjoying right now.KJ (05:00):You used another Jane Austen example with us, which was just sort of to get right deep into it, you were talking about how spouses tend to be at the same level of emotional maturity, even though they might express it differently. And you gave the example of the Bennetts in Pride and Prejudice. And that just made me laugh because I've read Pride and Prejudice many times, but also multiple recreations of it, recently. That happens to be a trope that I love and yes, absolutely. I'd never thought of it that way, but they're both equally awful. It's just that one of them is awful in a more appealing kind of way.Kathleen (05:41):Absolutely. You know, and I think we like to think that we're more mature than our spouses, but at least the theory I was trained in, that is not the case. We tend to be attracted to people who are at the same level of emotional maturity. So I think that's important to think about when you're creating characters, and a marriage, or in a relationship. What that kind of reciprocity is and how that sort of fits together. Like just you said though, one person might be seen as the problematic one, right? But that's often not the case.KJ (06:12):We are going to think of this firmly from a fictional perspective and yeah, let's dig into that. So we've got maybe we've got two romantic leads and we're seeing one of them as the problem, you know, one of them is not returning phone calls or is not living up to expectations, but it's important that they both have sort of equal level of flaws is what I'm hearing you saying.Kathleen (06:40):Yeah. I mean you could have, and this is such a classic relationship thing, you could have one person who's the distant one, right. And then one person who is sort of the anxious pursuer and we interpret one as necessarily having the problem, but they're both caught up in this sort of anxious dance of trying to relate to one another. Or trying to get away from the anxiety. Or another classic example is like one person is an over functioner, right? And they take on all the responsibility and do everything and the other person is seen sort of as a slacker, right? Or the lazy one, but they're just responding to the other person's behavior. So, it's definitely a two person dance.Sarina (07:20):This also makes me think of a trope that I see in romance all the time that I'm not a huge great fan of, which is the crazy ex. Sometimes you get sort of cheap conflict in a romantic plot arc because somebody has a crazy ex, but it's really hard to write a good crazy ex without painting your hero or heroine as kind of an idiot for staying with that person in the first place.KJ (07:48):Oh, good point. Yeah.Kathleen (07:51):It doesn't make any sense to have them be sort of at different levels of functioning. They probably wouldn't have been together in the first place if that were the case.Sarina (07:59):Yeah. I mean, you can always make a case for somebody experiencing a lot of growth since they originally got together with that person. But yeah, it's hard. One time I was writing a book three with my collaborators and we already knew from books one and two who the hero and heroine of book three were. And this romance had a lot of potential already. But we realized as we were sitting down to plot it, that both characters came from really wonderful, stable families and we sort of looked at each other and went, 'Oh, we're in so much trouble.'KJ (08:39):Yeah. Let's talk about how that family background matters. I mean, why can't we create a book around two people from wonderful, stable homes who've been supported, and loved, and had only good experiences all of their lives? Besides because they don't exist.Kathleen (08:56):Well, you know, in my book I use that well-known Mary Carr quote that a dysfunctional family is any family with two people in it. Right? Or it's something like that. So I don't know if such a thing exists, first of all. You know, there's always some amount of anxiety and dysfunction in any family, but you know, it's much more interesting and it's much more rich to sort of go back a generation or two and ask yourself what are the processes that work here, you know, is this a family that avoids each other in distances and that's how they deal with everything. Is this a family that cuts people off the second they disagree with them or do something scandalous? Or is this a family who's all in each other's business and is constantly doing things for people that they can do for themselves? You know, it's interesting to think about what some of those patterns might be and then all of a sudden you have kind of set the stage for your character to kind of emerge from that. And that can influence then how they are in their romantic relationships, or in their work, or with their own family. So just by doing that sort of homework ahead of time, you have such a great jumping off point for creating conflict and plot.Sarina (10:08):Sometimes it feels like it's really hard to do that ahead of time and you have to kind of wade in first.Kathleen (10:14):Yeah, I mean I think that's why it's useful to know your own family really well, first of all. It can be an inspiration or other people's to kind of get you curious about that. But you know, just taking the time to kind of draw that out and draw a little diagram or just some, some facts can be really useful.KJ (10:34):Well, you suggested four different sort of family patterns, let's talk about those and how we might be able to use them in fiction.Kathleen (10:42):The first one is distance. That's sort of the most obvious things that we do as humans when we're nervous, or upset, or stressed, right? Like we just get out of there as quickly as possible. But there's also emotional distance, right? So as a family, only talking about the weather, or sports, or very superficial things as a way of managing sort of the underlying anxiety. And then the second one is conflict, which is a little weird because at first glance you don't think, well, conflict doesn't manage anxiety, right? Like doesn't that cause anxiety? But if I'm convinced that someone is wrong all the time, then that calms me down a little bit. It's actually adaptive. So a lot of families use conflict and sort of focus on one person as the problem. To calm them down. And I think that's so useful in fiction because it sort of helps you see that just the person who is identified as having the problem isn't the only player here. Right? Everyone is contributing to that in their own way. And you want me to keep going?KJ (11:49):No, I'm thinking about that. The conflict one. I think it kind of goes back to what we're talking about in a romantic relationship where from a fictional point of view, you can draw a picture that looks like one person is the problem. And what is going to evolve is that the people who are making that person the problem are also the problem.Kathleen (12:16):Exactly. Everyone is contributing. Right? And I think that's a good point is you can't look at a person sort of and tell how mature they actually are. Because you know, everyone is sort of propping up other people and so one person in a family might be doing really well and they might have a stable job and seem like a healthy person, but it's because they're directing all their attention onto fixing a kid. Right? Or a sibling or a parent. It all sort of gets diverted to this one per person who gets identified as the problem. So that's what's so great about humans is we're just such tricky, complex creatures you can't necessarily take at face value, how mature a person is and how they're going to act in crisis people who are actually much less mature than we think we are.KJ (13:10):And how does that dynamic play out on the other side, the person who is sort of constantly being fixed?Kathleen (13:16):Yeah, I mean it's sort of - we're getting into Jess territory with her writing about parents focusing on kids. But you know, the idea is that if you tell a person that there's something wrong with them or there's something to be anxious about, they start to believe it. So it's useful for them to fall into that role and to play that role to kind of keep things stable. But that doesn't mean that they won't have problems, you know, they might develop more of the symptoms or more of the problems because everyone in that family is anxiously focused on them.KJ (13:50):So what I'm hearing is that it's worth, like everyone in the story is invested in keeping the status quo, even if the status quo is crappy.Kathleen (14:00):Yes. And that's such a great plot turning point as well, because if that person gets sober, or starts doing better, or acts differently, it throws everybody off. You think that they want the person to get better, but then they start doing things differently, and it changes the whole system. It changes all of the dynamics. And so that's such an interesting thing to play around with when, okay, what if the person who is seen as the problem child or the problem spouse starts doing better? That is a great sort of turning point for shaking things up because people don't like it. They will push back, you know? And it's just really fascinating to see or to read about.KJ (14:45):Okay. So that was two dysfunctional family tropes. What else you got?Kathleen (14:50):Yeah, well, the other one is very classic. It's overfunctioning and underfunctioning. And so this plays out a lot in marriages especially, but can also with parents and kids, or with siblings. You know, who is the person who is becoming over responsible in times of stress, right? They are doing things for others that they could do for themselves. You know, and who was the underfunctioner, they're letting the other person take on that responsibility and that sort of ends up - you know, the underfunctioner is often a person who might develop substance abuse problems or other issues because they're sort of in that one down position. And so, you know, based on your sibling position, right? Like, so if your mother was an overfunctioner and her mother was an overfunctioner, you know, you're really gonna get it, right? If you're the first born, that's probably going to be your role. Or if you had a parent who was always overfunctioning for you, you might be a little bit less capable. And so that's kind of an interesting thing to play around with. And if you're looking at a family, you're creating and saying, okay, who are the overfunctioners here and how did they get in the way of everyone else growing up a little bit?KJ (16:07):Does it work like horoscopes where overfunctioners are more likely to be drawn in relationships to slackers or are they drawn to other overfunctioners or could it just be anything?Speaker 4 (16:22):Oh no. Yeah, it's reciprocal. Right? So it's the two people participating in the dynamic.KJ (16:29):So you might have an overfunctioner within their family and they're drawn to someone who's an underfunctioner within their family?Kathleen (16:36):Well if you're talking to a romantic relationship?KJ (16:39):Yeah, I was talking about a romantic relationship.Kathleen (16:40):Definitely, that works a lot. Two overfunctioners are probably gonna butt heads a lot. So you could still write that in a romance. Absolutely. But it would be an added challenge because both people are trying to care for each other, and help each other, and that causes issues.Sarina (16:56):That sounds fun to me actually. Like the butting heads is often a really terrific romantic conflict.Kathleen (17:05):Absolutely. And if we're going to talk about siblings later too, that's another thing. If you have two oldest children, they're probably gonna be that way. So it's an interesting dynamic. But yeah. So if we want to move on, the fourth one is triangles. And everyone knows about triangles, right? It's human nature when two people are tense to pull in a third person or to focus on a third person to calm things down. So it's not just a love triangle. It's sort of the ways that we use other people to calm down our relationship with another person. And those are fun if you're drawing a family diagram to sit down and ask yourself, what are the triangles in this family? Is it two siblings against parent? Is it a parent who's using a sibling to talk to another sibling? You know, is it two parents and a child? The example I love to give - it's from television, but you know, everybody's pretty familiar I think with the show Everybody loves Raymond, it's been awhile since it was on, but I think most people are familiar with it - and there's this classic triangle in it between the mother-in-law Marie, the son Raymond, and the wife Deborah. And everyone thinks that the conflict is between Debra and Marie, right? The mother-in-law and the daughter. But you know, Ray is actually (whether he realizes it or not) is actually quite manipulative because he is able to stay out of the conflict by putting it on the two of them. But, you know, his stance is, Oh, this issue is between you guys. But he's actually contributing to it by being a part of the triangle and by saying he has nothing to do with it. And so it's so interesting to kind of play around with and see how these dynamics with three people could be interesting because - the idea is that when two people are getting along, the third person feels like they're left out and they'll try and butt in and cause conflict. But if two people are having a fight, the third person doesn't really want to be involved in it. The safe place is kind of on the outside. So that's just another fun family dynamic or relationship.KJ (19:20):Or you might have a third person who is trying to fix it. Or a third person who's trying to make it worse.Kathleen (19:26):Yeah, absolutely.KJ (19:27):Yeah, I think it's neat. This is an interesting thing to think of from official perspective because I feel like we often sort of have a conflict, or a plot point, or something that's happening and we've only looked at the point of view of maybe the two main players and to always think, well who's the third player here? That's a different approach.Kathleen (19:49):Yeah, absolutely. And who's maybe trying to give them advice or calm things down. And it can be a positive thing. It's not necessarily negative, but there's usually always more than two people involved when there's conflict.KJ (20:03):So it sounds like from there we should start, you know, taking a look at the siblings in our people's relationships, even if we weren't thinking of a sibling as a big player in a plot. It sounds like we better know who the siblings are and how they play out.Kathleen (20:19):Yeah. And that's one of the most interesting questions you can ask is what is the person's position in their family? And how does that inform how they are in all other relationships? You know, sibling position is definitely a part of it. There's actually this other cool book I would recommend to listeners. This guy named Walter Toman in the 60s did this huge study where he interviewed people about their sibling positions and he wrote this book about what other people they would match well with in a romantic relationship, and who they'd be friends with, and who they'd get into fights with, and sort of what their careers would be. You know, it's such a cool resource. The only issue is it was written in the 60s, right? So it's only talking about straight couples and women aren't assumed to have careers. So you kind of have to take that into account when you're reading it, but it's almost like kind of reading a horoscope in a way. It's just so interesting to me because I love reading them to people to see if their spouse or other people in their life match with it based on this description.KJ (21:28):So what is the book?Kathleen (21:29):It's called Family Constellations.KJ (21:32):It sounds very horoscope.Kathleen (21:35):It does, right? But it's interesting, you know, the idea is that oldest and youngest tend to pair well together. You know, oldest and oldest tend to butt heads a little bit. And youngest and youngest kinda just faff about and don't know what to do a lot. So and obviously there's a lots of exceptions and lots of happy marriages despite these things, but it can play a role, you know, and so it's interesting to read these and think about whether they could be useful when you're creating characters. And yeah, it's just an interesting resource I would recommend to people. But it's not just your sibling position, it's what was happening in your family around the time you were born. So, on a serious note, say like a woman had had a stillbirth or multiple miscarriages right before the birth of a child, that child is probably going to get a little bit more of an anxious focus when they're born. Because of all the things, or if there's just been a death in the family, right? There's just more anxiety in the air. And so they might have a little bit of a harder time kind of growing up and being an individual because that is sort of one extra challenge that they have. Or is it a younger sibling and the parents are a lot older and so they're just kind of doing whatever and are more sort of Laissez Faire in their parenting. Or is it six boys and one girl? How was that girl treated differently in the family and how is her role different? And it's not just the sibling position, it's your parents' sibling positions. I mentioned this earlier, like if this is the oldest of an oldest of an oldest, right? They're really gonna like to be in charge and they're probably going to be an overfunctioner. And it's just interesting to kind of play around with it and think about those positions.Sarina (23:32):You know who I feel is really good at writing these relationships is a novelist, Kristin Higgins. She uses siblings a lot, and she does this wonderful thing where she is able to use all of this family position stuff. And then at the end of the books, avert it, so that the sister that you weren't expecting to really be there in the clinch, is the one who makes the difference.Kathleen (24:02):That's really interesting.Sarina (24:03):Yeah. But she does it in a very believable way. So it's not as if she's throwing away those tendencies, but rather, you know, the exception proves the rule kind of manipulation. It's pretty neat.KJ (24:16):Well, that's kind of the point of what we're trying to do here is to see where our characters start out and then pull them to a different place. Right? So we want the character who maybe without sort of saying it in so many words, but who looks at their distancing relationship with their family and goes, okay, I'm going to stop hiding, I'm going to stop not talking. I'm gonna change and grow. And yeah, it's the relationships with the other people around them, but ultimately, it's that protagonists, you know, where they start and where they end that matters for the story.Kathleen (24:58):Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a good question to ask. If you're thinking about, okay, how do I create a disruption too - is anytime someone is doing the opposite of what they would normally do to calm things down, that's when you get the shakeup, that's when you get the initial pushback, right? Like it might help things in the long run, but temporarily it's going to increase the anxiety and maybe increase the conflict a little bit. So that's a wonderful question to ask is what does my character normally do in stressful situations or when they are anxious and can I create a situation where they do the opposite and what is everyone's response to that? How does everyone sort of turn on that moment? And I think that's an interesting way to kind of play around with creating a little bit of conflict in a family.Sarina (25:48):Yeah, you went into this in your book, Everything Isn't Terrible, I can't remember which example, but when somebody finally started having more productive responses to the two less functional people in their family it freaked everybody out and made everything harder immediately, even though it was the right course of action and eventually got there. But you're right, that's a nice plot drama.KJ (26:19):So something else you also mentioned was drawing this out and you use the word genograms and you triangles. And I think we're getting this picture of family trees and geometry. And how might that work? What can we draw?Kathleen (26:36):Well, you know sometimes it's called a family diagram. Sometimes it's called a genogram, but basically it's sort of a family tree that has the facts, but also has the sort of emotional processes. I recommended one book, it's called Genograms by Monica McGoldrick. It's the one that's sort of used when people take a family therapy class in grad school. But you know, you can come up with your own symbols. It doesn't have to be the same technique, but you know, if you're drawing conflict, drawing little lightning bolts, right? Or if there's cutoff, you draw a line and then another line that's perpendicular to show that gap, right? There's lots of different ways that you can do it, but it's sort of mapping the emotional history as well. Looking at the triangles, you know, drawing just a triangle between three people. And sort of looking at how that, but also the facts of the family, can kind of inform you as to how people act. Because I think that's useful to write down, you know, when do people die? What else was happening at the same time? When were people born? When did people get married? You know, did a bunch of people get married after the death of a parent? Like you see that a lot of times in families. Or are there missing relatives or branches of a family tree that are sort of just big question marks? There's something about being able to see that on paper drawn out that really just adds another layer of complexity to thinking about the family. And I think it's such a useful tool to have as a writer. And maybe if people are inspired they can do it with their own family. But you don't know what you don't know until you draw it out. And I think it's useful to see what facts are missing. You know, do you not know about people's careers, or their education level, or illnesses, or substance use issues, or where people lived, when they immigrated. Those are all useful facts to know.KJ (28:45):Right. And you can get a long way in fiction without knowing everything about your person. And you can also get a long way down a rabbit hole by trying to write out everything about the person. But you know, every time I create someone, and this is going to be more true for Sarina because she's done it more, it's amazing how much I need to be able to go back and go, okay, wait a minute. I mean, I can't even name them until I know who their parents are. So right away, you're thrown right into it.Kathleen (29:27):Absolutely. And I think, you know, you don't have to have all of the information for every character, but I think if a character is missing information about themselves, that's important too. That shapes who you are also. So it's not just what they know and what's available to them and what, you know, as the writer, it's what's unknown as well and how that influences people.KJ (29:47):Do you sometimes see authors sort of failing to take this stuff into account? Like are you reading along and you're like, wait a minute... You don't have to name names. I'm just curious.Kathleen (29:58):I think the example that Sarina gave about the crazy ex was such a good one, because I think what I see the most is just this incredible mish-mash and sort of lopsidedness of maturity and functioning, when we don't operate that way as humans. You see this a lot in literature, someone has a really terrible parent and then they're this just this angel, right? Like we paint things as heroes and villains. And it's much more complex than that. And so I think doing some of this thinking keeps you from falling into the trap of good person, bad person, victim, hero, villain, right? Not that there aren't terrible people, but I think it just adds so much more to the story when you're able to see the interaction between people and when you see the family as the unit and not just the individual. It helps you make people much more relatable, even if they're maybe not the greatest person in that story, but they're not just a straight up villain.KJ (31:09):Right. You have to know where all that stuff comes from.Sarina (31:12):I think my downfall is sort of the opposite way. Like I write really cerebral characters who can usually find the right way and then I turn on the news and I'm like, wow.KJ (31:22):Plus it's a problem because you don't want - and I do this all the time too - I'm like, and then they calmly and rationally resolved the problem. Because to some extent I guess you're writing what you would like to see happen, but it doesn't work. We need them to not calmly and rationally resolve the problem.Kathleen (31:51):Well I think the only other thing I would add, and you know I talk a lot about this in the book, is that I think it's important to remember that people do what they do to calm things down to the best of their ability. People aren't just randomly throwing in bombs to shake things up necessarily. And we know we've evolved that way for a reason, and it might seem very strange, or upsetting, or annoying to you, but if you can see it as sort of an adaptive thing that that person does to deal with things the best that they know how, I think it allows you to be a little bit more empathetic towards that character and add a little bit more to that character than to someone who's just dropping in to wreak havoc. They're actually doing what they have been programmed to do as a human to try and get through a challenge.KJ (32:40):It's just important that it be wrong.Sarina (32:43):Yeah. That sounds like a fun way to write a drama llama sibling.Kathleen (32:47):Yeah, absolutely. You know, how has this become a person's way of dealing with the chaos?KJ (32:55):There's gotta be a reason why they are the way that they are. Well that is so helpful. And it is a different way to think about it and also a chance to broaden and deepen what we're creating in our fiction. And I I don't think we should miss those. So this was really good. I like it. This is fun, and smart, and a great way to sort of create the dysfunctional family that you can manipulate as opposed to living in the dysfunctional family that you're kind of stuck with. Well, this is the part where we like to talk about the dysfunctional families that we're reading about, or functional, or whatever. And I forgot to warn you, but I know that you listen all the time, so hopefully you knew that we were going to ask you if you'd been reading anything good lately.Kathleen (33:57):Yeah, I actually have. Since my book has come out, I'm just letting myself read only romance because that is just like a gift to me and it's something I don't do a whole lot. So I've just really been enjoying reading tons of romance. And one that I've really enjoyed recently is Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore. I don't know if you guys have heard of that one. It's part of her series she's writing called A League of Extraordinary Women and it's about women revolved around the suffrage cause in the U.K. And so it's just a really fun, great romance. And I recommend it.Sarina (34:33):You know, I haven't read her yet, but that book is getting a lot of chatter among my friends, so it's definitely on my list.KJ (34:39):I too had heard it. I think I heard it probably on Book Riot, which is a source of many, many book recommendations for me. Do not listen to the Book Riot podcast unless you have a large budget of disposable income to just go and buy all the books because that's what happens to me every single time. How about you Sarina? You read anything good lately?Sarina (35:04):I have a brand new book I'm about to start called 19 Love Songs by David Levithan. And David Levithan is a wonderful YA author who I have read, you know, pretty much everything he's written and this is a special anthology coming out right now, which is Valentine's day-ish because he is so wonderful that he's written some extra stories so I can't wait for 19 Love Songs.KJ (35:35):I'm just looking through what I've been reading lately and I've been reading a lot, like I have big stacks and then of course the minute I get on the spot and I'm trying to figure out what it is that I read and what I enjoyed, I can't, so I'm in the middle of something that I love, but I'm going to wait and talk about it when I finish. And I'm going to tell you all if you have not heard about it, I'm going to give you a pair of fun, fun books that I read. One was Ex-Libras: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman and it's just a bunch of essays about reading. And the delight of that was that I had it on my Kindle and I went to dinner by myself and foolishly grabbed only one book off of the stack of books that I had by the bed. And then the other thing that just reminds me of it is a book, I don't think I've mentioned it before, it's called The Uncommon Reader. And it's a novella by Alan Bennett. And it is the story of what happens when the Queen of England begins to take a passionate interest in reading. And it is hysterical, and beautiful, and wonderful, and very short. So I recommend it. And that's it. I guess that's our show today.Sarina (37:12):KJ, are you going to give a book away?KJ (37:15):I am, yes. Right now. Right now. What I wanted to say to everyone, I'm helpfully holding this up to the microphone so I hope you can all see the adorable copy. We're going to give away a copy of Everything Isn't Terrible by Kathleen Smith and you can read it for your own life and conquer your own insecurities, and not interrupt your own anxiety, and finally calm down, or you can pretend that you only need it for fictional reasons and try to figure out ways to get your characters to conquer their insecurities. We're doing both and we would love to give this away. And what I thought we would do is we will pull a name from our list of subscribers to the show notes. So if you are on our subscribers, if you get the podcast in your email every week, you are already entered. And if you don't then you should go to amwritingpodcast.com and sign up to get the show notes every week. And they are more than shownotes. It's always what we thought of the episode, and all the links, and all the books, and usually some bonus lunacy just because none of us is capable of writing anything straight up anymore. So that's the idea. Sign up. Maybe you'll get to win the book. Alright. I want to thank you, Kathleen. This was great and this was really fun. Where can people find you on all the social media and in all the places?Kathleen (38:40):Yeah, the main place is my website, Kathleensmith.net. I write a weekly newsletter called The Anxious Overachiever about my own efforts on myself and my work with clients that people might be interested in. Or they can catch me on Twitter at fangirltherapy.KJ (38:55):And the book again is Everything Isn't Terrible: Conquer Your Insecurities, Interrupt Your Anxiety, and Finally Calm Down by Dr. Kathleen Smith. Grab it. It is fun. And like I said, we can all just pretend that we're buying it for purely fictional reasons. That's our show this week. Yay. Alright, you want to take us out, Sarina?Sarina (39:18):I will and thank you both. And until next week keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game. This episode of #AmWriting with Jess and KJ was produced by Andrew Parilla. Our music, aptly titled unemployed Monday was written and performed by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their services because everyone, even creatives should be paid. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

It’s our 200th episode! In all that time, we’ve never missed a week and never regretted our choice to spend 40 minutes (ish) together—and with you. We love doing the podcast, so this week we thought we’d answer a few podcast-y questions we get a lot: should you start a podcast? Can a podcast help promote a book? Is there gold in them thare podcast hills? We talk about all that and more—but here’s one thing you won’t find in the episode, in part because it seems so obvious now that we never think about it. The smartest thing we did, when we decided we were going for this podcast thing, was this:We made it about writing.That was not, back in 2016, an obvious choice. Jess had just written a best-selling book on parenting. I was the editor of the New York Times’ parenting section. Sarina wasn’t on board yet, and it was just the two of us. The obvious thing to create would have been a podcast about family life. And we would be so, so sick of doing it by now. Or at least I would. (This is KJ writing.) If you are going to start a podcast, either make it about something you love, and have always loved, and can reasonably figure you will continue to love—or make it so broad that it can encompass your changing interests and experiences. Very very few people really want to spend a lifetime talking about, just to offer a parenting example, breastfeeding. Some absolutely do, and if you are one of them, you know it. But for the rest of us, that’s an interest with an expiration date. Don’t start a podcast with an expiration date.(Note—that’s advice with an asterisk. Some podcasts are meant to end. They follow a single story, or offer a series of interviews around a single topic, and that’s it. We talk more about that in the episode.)To bookmark the best choice we made, I offer some of the worst advice I was ever offered, from a PR advisor who, reviewing my “platform” before the launch of How to Be a Happier Parent, put her finger on the podcast and said, that. That doesn’t match. That has to go.I didn’t listen. Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, if you like the podcast, and this not-even-IN the podcast email, please forward it to a friend and suggest that friend might want to take a listen. And if you’re that friend and would like the backstory for the podcast to drop into your inbox every week, click here.Finally—we could use your help for those next 200 episodes. If you love #AmWriting (and if you’ve read this far, you know you do), kick in if you can. Support us, and get a weekly #WriterTopFive full of actionable advice you can use, access to all the past #WriterTopFives and even the occasional mini podcast. LINKS FROM THE PODCASTThe Tanya Eby #AmWriting episodeMagic Lessons, the Big Magic podcastDani ShapiroChasing Cosby: The Downfall of America’s Dad, Nicole Weisensee EganStoryBites Sarina’s podcast#AmReading (Watching, Listening)Jess: Epic, Sarina Bowen, Audio from Pride and PrejudiceKJ: Bunny: A Novel, Mona AwadSarina: This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwritingfor details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)KJ (00:00):It's episode 200! Hey fellow writers, it's KJ here at the beginning of episode 200 of #AmWriting. Alright, pat on the back for us. So I have to tell you, normally I write out my promos for our wonderful sponsor, Author Accelerator. So normally what you get is me reading something timely and happy about what Author Accelerator is doing at whatever moment of the week that we're doing our podcast. And I love doing that. But this week for episode 200, you're just getting my off the cuff, impromptu, completely drawn out of the air thoughts about why Author Accelerator is the right sponsor for us and how much I love them. If you need book coaching, if you want to be a book coach, Author Accelerator is undoubtedly the place to go. But even more than that, there is so much great stuff out there on their website. There's the stuff for creating an Inside Outline. And I tell you, I have finally nailed down the Inside Outline, I think. For mostly, oh, okay, I have, I have. For my work in progress, finally. But that is a process that has really helped me out. They've got a whole arc of emails that you can sign up for where you get five projects to work on for your novel. You know, why are you writing it, writing the back of the book copy, that stuff stays useful throughout the process. Author Accelerator has been a wonderful sponsor and they are really a wonderful source of everything you could (well, I mean, not everything, like they're not a source of agents and, okay, I have flaked off here) but they're great. If you have never checked them out, if you have blipped past this promo at every opportunity, this time, this week, maybe just click over and see what's over there because really it's worth it. Is it recording now?Jess (02:31):Now it's recording.KJ (02:31):Yay.Jess (02:32):Go ahead.KJ (02:33):This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.Jess (02:37):Alright, let's start over.KJ (02:38):Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Now, one, two, three. Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. The podcast about writing so cleverly named so that you can probably figure that out. This is the podcast about writing anything and everything - long things, short things, fiction, nonfiction, essays, memoirs, proposals, pitches. This is the podcast for writers who are struggling, or succeeding, at getting their work done.Jess (03:16):I'm Jess Lahey. I'm the author of The Gift of Failure and the forthcoming book, The Addiction Inoculation out in 2021 and you can find my work at jessicalahey.com.Sarina (03:26):I'm Sarina Bowen, the author of 30-odd romance novels. My latest one is called Heartland, and I'm flogging another release in the spring called Sure Shot, which is kicking my butt right now.Jess (03:38):That's the first time I've heard you say the title. That's exciting. I love it. This is like, I get little bits of information sometimes when we podcast. I love that.KJ (03:47):I am KJ Dell'Antonia. I am the author of How To Be a Happier Parent as well as my debut novel, The Chicken Sisters coming out in June of 2020, the former editor of the New York Times' Motherlode blog, a contributor to multiple places, although not super recently.Jess (04:14):As you say that thing about not having submitted super recently. I've been having a bit of a crisis about that and maybe we'll talk about that.KJ (04:21):Maybe we should because that's definitely on my list.Jess (04:26):But this is a special episode.KJ (04:27):It's a very special episode.Jess (04:28):What is it, KJ?KJ (04:29):Well, everyone, this is the episode where we learned that Jess and I are secretly identical, separated at birth. No, no. It's a very special episode because it's our 200th episode.Jess (04:46):Yeah, this is the 200th episode. And I made cupcakes for the 100th episode, but that was when we lived close to each other and it was easier for me to transport cupcakes. Today, I'm actually traveling through town on my way out of town for a speaking engagement and we realized it gave us the ability to all be in the same room together, which is just more fun than Skyping, I have to say.KJ (05:10):It's so much more fun. It may sound a little different but it's got so much going for it.Jess (05:16):We're at the library, so it's a little echoey in here, but we're doing our best.Sarina (05:19):We have all of our matching notebook planners open on the table.Jess (05:26):Oh and we also have something super special I have to call out. So, KJ gave us some pretty cool presents recently. She gave us this beautiful Corksikle cup in bright yellow with a #AmWriting logo on it. And it's really special.KJ (05:49):I do have one and we could totally give it away in honor of our 200th episode. We totally could. We've done some giving away lately. So you know, somebody going to have to go to the post office at some point. So, alright. It'll be someone randomly drawn from the people who get our show notes. That's what we're going to do. So if you're on our show notes email by, let's call it a week after you hear these words, we'll draw a name. You could win a #AmWriting commemorative cup.Jess (06:36):200th episode. We have a lot of stuff to talk about today.KJ (06:45):We have a lot of stuff to talk about today.Jess (06:47):You've got your lips pursed, Sarina, like you have something that you would like to start with.Sarina (06:51):Do I? I thought we should talk about why a podcast?Jess (06:55):I think that's a great idea. Especially since, you know, you've been brought in somewhere between 100 and 200, partly because people love the episodes that you're on so much and it felt like you were spiritually a part of the podcast anyway. But KJ, why did we start this podcast in the first place? I started it mainly because I wanted to, and then you said we're doing this, but why a podcast?KJ (07:20):I think we started this podcast for what I think is a very good reason to start a podcast, which is that we wanted to spend an hour together once a week talking about this thing that we both do and love. So that was our primary goal. And because we, especially me, I listen to and love podcasts, love the format, and then it became a way to form a community around the podcast. So, we weren't looking to sell a book, we weren't looking to build an empire. When people talk to me about starting a podcast, I'm always like, you should do it if it's something you really, really, really want to do, if you think it's going to do something for you...Jess (08:13):If it's another task to add to your to do list, like 'Oh crap, I have to record podcast again today.' I don't think it's a good idea.Sarina (08:21):Well, you mentioned the community aspect of it and writing can be so very solitary. If you had a job where you spent your time literally in a crowded room full of other people, you might not lean towards doing a podcast about that. But it is so solitary and writers have always had to form their own groups in order to have somebody to talk to you. I mean, you could be lucky enough to have done this in Paris in 1920 or whatever, but you know, here we are at the library.Jess (09:00):Frankly that's what the salons often were, anyway, was talking about the writing. And it was a different era, but it's very much in the same spirit, which is get together and talk about what it's like to write, and how hard it is to write sometimes, and how great it is to write sometimes. And every single time, especially for me, I love getting notes about the podcast. I love getting notes about sort of things that have been particularly helpful to people, but in the #AmWriting Facebook group, especially recently, we've had a couple of people that have had successes. We've had a couple of people share what's been helpful for them. And that group, as an extension of this podcast is another huge reason (not only the only reason at this point that I stay on Facebook), but the reason that I feel like it's worth it. That there are writers supporting writers and frankly, I'm a hermit up where I live now and it's been hard. I had to move away from you two. And I don't have a lot of friends up there and there are days I don't leave my house. And so having a place to talk about this stuff is increasingly important for me. I know that was a downer. I sound like I'm sad, but partly it's in response to like, you know, today I have to go out for the next 48 hours and be extremely extroverted, and social, and on. And it's a huge relief to be able to be a hermit for a little while here and there, but if I didn't have this outlet to talk about the writing stuff, I don't know where I would get it.KJ (10:33):Well and I love that we really are like you just said, helping people to develop their own careers. I mean, we've done things, we have learned some stuff. I'm so proud of us. We have been together as a trio since before any of us had done anything of any particular writerly successful note. And I think that's awesome. And one of our upcoming guests, Kathleen Smith, the author of Everything Isn't Terrible (which is a title I love) wrote me and said that she started a weekly email sort of in preparation for her book. She has 10,000 people on her email now. And she said, I would never have started it if it hadn't been for you guys really pushing. That's where she started really, and here's how to do it, and here's what to do, and here's the mechanism.Sarina (11:33):Giving advice to other writers - for one thing, you always learn something when you're doing it. I don't really critique a lot of other people's fiction, but sometimes I do. And there's always this moment of terror if you read it and you don't instantly fall in love and it's not perfect, you know, which is pretty much everything ever. And I have this moment of fear like, 'Oh my God, what am I going to say? This needs work. Holy cow.' And then you sort of relax into it and you find the moment where you find the heat and you figure out, 'Oh, here, this is what it's really about. This is the strong thing.' And when I say this, this person is going to realize that this is the focus point. And also, every single time I close, whatever it is, when I'm done, I walk away and I immediately realize how I've made one of those exact same mistakes in my own work. So when we come together and we discuss how to do a thing, that's never just me telling, it's always me thinking deeply about oh right.KJ (12:39):People come into the Facebook group and they say things that they have learned or they send us an email and they say things that they have learned and it's amazing. And we get to invite people that we admire, and respect, and would love to talk to, to come and talk to us about writing. And that is a huge, huge buzz.Jess (13:02):I think one of the things that's been really helpful for me is having this podcast on my brain all the time. So like Sarina said, instead of just reading and saying something like, 'Oh, I hate this', I read something and I say, 'Why don't I like this?' So for example, yesterday I was reading a book that I have in hard copy and I have an audio. And I'd started it in hard copy and it was fine. It was okay. And then I was listening to it in audio yesterday and had to shut it off. And I realized what was happening was the author (and I don't know if it was just because I got halfway through and the author turned in this direction or because it was the author's actual voice on audio) became extremely preachy. She became 'I am the expert. You will do what I say you, I know more than you. I am going to tell you how to do things.' And I realized for me it was an incredibly important moment realizing not just that I didn't like it and it wasn't that I didn't like her, it was that I didn't like the style with which she was delivering what could otherwise be really useful information. And so I backed up and I said, 'If I wasn't listening to this voice that I have come to find annoying and a tone I was coming to find annoying, would this information had been helpful to me?' And I realized, yeah, actually this is really interesting information. So that's important takeaway for me. It's that dissection process that we talk about a lot. And since starting the podcast I think I have become a lot more analytical and critical, not critical, but thoughtful about why I don't like something and why I do like something and what makes something really come alive for me and what makes something fall flat. And I think for my writing, selfishly, I think that's really important. I know very specifically now when I do my audio for this next book what landmine to avoid very specifically is don't be preachy or don't use that tone that turned me off.KJ (14:59):So I feel like one of the questions that we get as podcasters is, 'Oh, I like podcasts. Should I start a podcast?'Jess (15:08):Or, 'I have a book coming out. Should I start a podcast? Will that help me sell my book?'Sarina (15:15):And we have listeners who are probably thinking about this. So we should address them.KJ (15:19):And then the first thing to say is 'No, there are not too many podcasts in the world. Go for it. There will be podcasts that are started tomorrow that will turn into huge podcasts. You can't start it any sooner. If you really want to do this, do it and don't let us talk you out of it. If we can't talk you out of it, then you probably really want to do it.' But if you're saying to yourself, 'I have a book coming out, I hear that these things called podcasts are good.' This person's probably not listening to us because our listeners love podcasts. But you know, if it's not a format that you love, and adore, and really want to contribute to, I would say you're probably not going to be very successful at it.Jess (15:58):No, I completely agree., I would hate doing this if it was a chore as opposed to something that I love. And I think that would come across. I think that the good feedback we get tends to circle around - it's clear that you just enjoy talking to each other.KJ (16:12):You know, it's not a money maker.Jess (16:18):It's not a moneymaker, says the woman who ran the numbers and realized we had some $10,000 in during our first hundred 150 episodes.KJ (16:25):Yeah. But thank you to our sponsor. Thank you to our sponsor, Author Accelerator. Thank you to our supporters. We are totally breaking even now, if you don't count the time that we put into it, but we do it for a lot of reasons.Jess (16:43):That's funny you say that because we got a note from or a post, I can't remember, from someone saying that this week's writer top five email was worth the cost of supporting the podcast.KJ (16:57):It was a good one.Jess (16:58):It was great because this week's writer top fives is about things to flag in your writer contract and your publishing contracts that are really essential that can really result in some big problems if you ignore them.Sarina (17:13):And we talk about the grant of rights, and the option clause, and things like that that you need a name for and a vocabulary for.Jess (17:22):That's when things really start to blow my mind when I start to think about where I was seven years ago and how much I didn't know and how much I continue to learn about. And I was thinking about this because the London book fair is coming up in March and I would love to be a fly on the wall there because one of the big purposes of the London book fair is foreign rights. And foreign rights still feels to me like one of those things I'm only starting to understand. And so I'm actually kind of looking forward to learning more about foreign rights so that we could actually talk about this in some kind of intelligible, reasonable way at some point in the future. But it's amazing to me that we're at a point where Sarina is talking about these rights, that it's really important to preserve and why they're important to preserve. Because that was stuff I knew nothing about seven years ago.KJ (18:19):Well. So one of the things (as podcasts) that we're seeing is people starting podcasts in support of frequently bestselling books or books that they are hoping is going to be a bestseller. And we are seeing content creation companies seeking out authors and saying, so, you know, Elizabeth Gilbert did not say, 'Gee, I think I would like to make a podcast.' and then make a podcast. I don't remember what company supported that, but it was a company that supported it. Dani Shapiro, who's doing her podcast right now.Jess (18:50):I love family secrets.KJ (18:52):Same thing. I don't know where it started, I don't know Dani Shapiro, but a content creating company wanted that. I have another friend who has a book coming out who tried really hard to create something around that and worked with a content creation company, and came up with sample episodes, and came up with something, and is now at the point where - it costs so much to produce what they wanted to produce that they can't get anyone to produce it because it was interview-based. But if the book becomes a bestseller, then they have got this that they're sitting on. So we are seeing our peers sort of creating these either limited run podcasts or it's almost like a different format.Jess (19:45):I mean I think it's interesting to me that currently one of the podcasts I'm listening to is Chasing Cosby, which is basically is the book in podcast form. But I don't care, because it's a completely different thing for me. The book, I liked, it's about Bill Cosby and the trial and this one particular woman, her last name is Isensee who writes for the Los Angeles Times and was the one who reported this thing. And now the podcast is interviews with the actual people. You can hear the audio from phone calls. It's a very different experience.KJ (20:21):Isn't that basically what the audio book of Malcolm Gladwell's latest book was?Jess (20:25):So Malcolm Gladwell did something really different, which was really interesting. I don't happen to be a fan of this particular book, this particular podcast. Instead of just reading the book out loud, he turned it into a podcast format and included excerpts from interviews and things like that. And Chasing Cosby isn't just the book, but the fact that it's a compelling story. I'm all in, even though I already read the book, I'm okay with the fact that I already kind of know some of this information. I like it in this new format.Sarina (20:57):So we're seeing a lot of play with the medium and audio versus podcasting versus writing. But I just want to point out that to me, starting a podcast to support your book is not magic. Because to me, it almost feels like you have a double discoverability problem. Well, when anyone publishes a book in any method, you need discoverability for your book. And that is accomplished in all the ways that we talk about every week, right? You could advertise, the algorithms help you, you can have a newsletter, et cetera, et cetera. All that stuff we obsess about all the time. So podcasting, on the one hand is a way to find people interested in your topic in a different spot. But, it's not magic. Like, if we started tomorrow, a brand new podcast, we would be starting from zero and we would have to go find that audience. So if you have this book that's coming out and you're asking yourself, what can I do? I'm not sure that the right answer is always start a podcast and then go try to find listeners for it. At the same time when I'm trying to find people to buy my book.Jess (22:10):Especially if it's a very obscure topic, because then you're really having to work against the fact that people are like, well, I'm not really interested in learning about whatever the topic might be.Sarina (22:23):Well, we could spend a minute talking about my podcast failure, I guessKJ (22:32):It wasn't a failure, you just chose not to continue it. And I think for a very good reason, the number of podcasts that were started and has been chosen not to continue is long. And actually includes Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic, which I think they conceived of as a limited run, but I think that they were maybe thinking about doing it again. I'm just thinking it was like a lot of work for her to find these people. If anybody's listened to it, she finds creative people and they interview, they're terrific. But that was like a whole 'nother job. It's possible Elizabeth Gilbert thought, 'You know, I'd like to just stick to my primary job, which is writing.' And I feel like that's more where you were.Sarina (23:15):Yeah, so the idea was started for the right reasons, which is that I wanted to spend an hour a week talking to Tanya about audio books.KJ (23:23):That's Tanya Eby, who's been a guest on this podcast.Sarina (23:26):That's right. So Tanya Eby is an award-winning narrator of like 800 audio books. And she and I also did some writing together. So we were sort of looking at the market for audio books and we just love it. So we had a brand new format, which is that we would play first chapter of an audio book that was new. And then she and I would discuss what we found in there, like what was the style of the narration, and how did it support the story, and what did the chapter do for us in terms of readers and listeners. And it was really fun. We had it professionally produced. So each episode cost us about $70, let's just say. And we did about four to five episodes a month. We launched on Thursdays. And because the market for audio books is growing at double digits a year, the market seemed obvious to me. There were a lot of people interested in fiction in audio, and the podcast world is also big. So we launched this thing and we pulled in from our reader audiences a bunch of listeners, and our numbers went up a little bit every week. And it was all good, right? Except it costs money to produce, it costs time to produce. And the numbers just weren't where I wanted them to be. We were making, I don't know, 700 to a thousand people happy every week with their listen. But the growth rate just wasn't satisfying. And I felt I'm spending so much energy trying to give this wonderful thing away for free and I should be spending that energy writing my next book instead. And because the economics don't stress me out for writing another book and they stress me out a little bit for the podcast. And so eventually we let it go after we made you know, nine months worth of episodes and it was a good time. And I liked spending the time on it. But discoverability was a problem.KJ (25:30):Yeah. And it's hard. I mean there are a lot of podcasts. It is hard to get any form of traction. So if the goal is getting attention, like you said, you're gonna have the same problem with the podcast that you do with your book.Sarina (25:51):Right. It's also quite difficult to measure what people are taking away from podcasts.KJ (25:58):It's really hard to measure analytics. It's hard for me to measure our analytics. You would think it would be super obvious, but for various reasons having to do with all the different ways that people get their podcasts, and what Apple wants to tell us, and what Google wants to tell us, and the fact that for some reason some podcast players are pulling from Audio Boom and some of them are pulling from SubStack. And this is all very technical. I can't even tell you how many people are listening to us every week. But how many is really challenging.Jess (26:37):On that note, my brain suddenly went to Oh my gosh, I'm paralyzed now. How many people are listening to us? I often have to do this where I just sort of assume it's the three of us talking together.Sarina (26:52):Well, I have to say one time I was listening to a podcast that you guys had recorded in my car with my now 14 year old, but he was maybe 11 at the time, and you guys were speaking and we were listening and then the episode ended with the lovely music and I shut it off and my child turned to me and said, 'Do they have other listeners besides you?'.Jess (27:48):What's been fun recently is I figured out (this is a sort of a tangent), but I realized if you go to, for example, iTunes and you're looking at podcasts, some podcasts will list their guests. And iTunes seems to link - I was looking at either Tim Ferriss or the Rich Roll podcast and I went into the podcast episode itself, and the guest was linked and suddenly I could click on the guest and it showed me all the podcasts that that person has been on. And that was really, really interesting.KJ (28:19):That makes me wonder if I need to go back and do something.That makes me wonder if you've just created more work for me.Jess (28:26):Well, since I created it then maybe it has to be my job. That's also been really interesting, sort of this outgrowth of figuring out who's going to do what. Especially when Sarina came on board, especially when we added the weekly top fives, because you know, I just want to be sure the work is evenly distributed. And having three of us has been nice because then we can sort of make sure that it's all getting done.KJ (28:51):So before we go on to what we're reading, let me just throw out there, listeners, if you do love the podcast, if you do want to support us, it'd be great for you to support us via the whole support thing. But pop over and leave a review on iTunes, or even better tell someone, tell a friend that you know is a writer to check us out and go and listen to the podcast. We don't do anything to spread the word about the podcast. Other than that we tweet it when we have it every week and we put it on our various social media. So we don't advertise it or do anything along those lines. But we'd love to have more listeners. So if you can find us some, that's great. And of course, you can absolutely support us by going to amwritingpodcast.com and clicking on the support button or just subscribe to the weekly show notes so you can get us riffing on our various episodes. And that's great, too. Oh, and plus then you'll be entered to win the commemorative #AmWriting travel mug.Jess (30:03):Also check out the #AmWriting Facebook page. The fun thing there is that we do we keep an eye on what's being posted there, so that it's really a supportive place and there is no mean stuff going on there and there's not any excessive self-promotion.KJ (30:20):If you have a question you put up there and people can answer. But we also might do a whole podcast around it. That's totally been more than once that we've done that.Jess (30:29):Yeah, we get great questions from there because that's the real stuff people are dealing with. The real stuff that gets people stuck. The nice thing is it's becoming this self perpetuating answer machine because now if we've ever podcast about something, or if someone has expertise in a particular area, when someone in the group asks the question, suddenly there's 40 comments offering really great answers. Can I bring up really, really quickly - I have a quick question for Sarina and she can be very helpful to me in answering this question. So Sarina, you have a new short story that is out and I want to talk about, I'm really curious actually why you choose to do either the shorter pieces that you had a novella and what those do for you and how that's different for you in promotion and marketing than a novel. I like to watch you as you roll things out and this is a new thing that is really interesting to me.Sarina (31:29):Well, the item that you're thinking about this week is called Epic. And that's part of a co-written series with my collaborator Elle Kennedy.Jess (31:39):From the Him and Us series. And it's short. I love how you call it. It's book 2.5 of the Him and Us series.Sarina (31:48):Well, so all of this is a little bit tricky because we wrote a short thing because we didn't want to write a third book about the same couple.Jess (31:57):Even though we love them, their nickname is Westmead.Sarina (32:00):This is the problem is that sometimes the book you need to write is not the book that your audience wants. And if I did write a book three about Westmead, there would be a bunch of people that wouldn't want to read about them being sad.Jess (32:14):Well, that's the thing. So you're telling me that just because there's market demand for a particular book that maybe the author shouldn't write it.Sarina (32:22):Sometimes the author is tired. But we wrote this short item and we put it in a free holiday anthology. And the goal there was just exposure and new readers. So that's fun, but with low expectations. And then I thought, you know, short audio is finding a spot and I thought we could produce it for not very much money, even though we have amazing fabulous narrators.Jess (32:47):You have the narrators from the original two books and they're wonderful.Sarina (32:49):Right. And we pay them full price but it's a short piece, right? So it just couldn't cost that much. And I had some new ways of potentially marketing that, but then we asked one of our agents to just show it to Audible and Audible ended up buying it.Jess (33:07):That's really exciting.Sarina (33:08):So then that part was out of our hands and you know, it's nice when Audible buys a thing because then you don't have to produce it.Jess (33:15):Do you think they bought it because they looked at the sales from Him and Us and said, 'Oh wowzers.'Sarina (33:21):Those two books actually performed very, very well for Audible studios, who created those audio books. After it came out of that free anthology, just publishing it as a 99 cent ebook, and a slim little paperback for fun, for the super fans who wanted that third thing in print.Jess (33:43):It's not only fun because it's those two characters that people have come to love, but a lot of the other characters that people really love show up in there. Like Blake shows up, and there's jokes about Blake and his fear of sheep, and it's really fun to get a little dose of all that.Sarina (33:57):Well, the other thing I had fun with is this slim little paperback. When you're doing something that's really just for joy, you you have more license there. So I put in all the foreign covers that these books have gotten, like there's pages for what does the book look like in German, what does it look like in Italian, just for giggles. And also there's a line at the end of chapter one of the first book - My weakness is him. - and I put every translation in there. So that was just a little fun thing. It is not a moneymaker and that's just the way it is.Jess (34:35):But the fun things are why we do this and every once in a while it's important to have that as a touch point and it made me really happy, I have to say. In fact, I read it out loud, I read the original story out loud in the car to my husband because the main point of tension in the short story is so well done. And my husband, he adores you, he could care less about this story, about Westmead. But I read the story to him in the car and he thought it was delightful. I didn't read the racy bits.Sarina (35:10):There aren't really racy bits, but okay.Jess (35:13):Anyway, thank you for mentioning that. Mainly because I'm just fascinated when you go off and do something that seems a little scary and different and it's inspiring to me. So anyway.Sarina (35:22):Well thank you.Jess (35:23):What do you want to talk about that you've been reading?KJ (35:28):I read something really weird and kind of a departure for me, but definitely a fun book. It's called Bunny and the author is Mona Awad. And the cover is amazing; it's like a pink graffitied bunny and it is this very strange story of a creative writing master's program and the people within it, who also have a strange power that involves bunnies and it's strange. I just can't, everything would be a spoiler. Other than to say that a dark comedy is putting it lightly. It's pretty, pretty heavy on the dark, but also definitely, definitely funny, and worth the look, especially if you like books about graduate programs. If that's one of your tropes (and it is absolutely one of mine, sort of university life) this is a totally different twist on it.Jess (36:37):Okay. Alright. I'm actually reading a book that I can't talk about because I'm reviewing it, but I am so excited to be able to tell you about it because it's so fantastic. But this week for me, I'm having trouble finishing my edits. I'm at that place where they're almost done and I left the hardest ones to the end. So every one is painful, mainly because every single time I have to do an edit, I have to get back in the headspace of the chapter where the edit exists. Because I keep having this impulse to say things that I've actually already said in the chapter. I repeat myself. It's hard to get in that head space. So for me, this week has been so much about comfort listens. So not only did I listen to Epic of Sarina's, I actually went back into my Audible library and just redownloaded all of my Jane Austen, honestly. This week I relistened to Sense and Sensibility. Juliet Stevenson, the actress, has done a couple of Jane Austen's including Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility and she's great reader. But Rosamund Pike, an actress that I really, really like who was in Pride and Prejudice. She plays Jane the eldest sister. She reads Pride and Prejudice on Audible and she's fantastic. And then I realized as a spin off to that, that I think I'm going to go buy Howard's End by Ian Forrester cause that's also one of my favorites. And I haven't listened to in a long time. So this is a comfort listen kind of week for me. It's been a stressful and just difficult week, in terms of the work. The work has been hard and so I want the listening and the reading to be easy. Sarina's got a lot of nodding going on because Sarina's been working hard writing this week and not reading a lot, right?Sarina (38:31):That's right.Jess (38:36):Happy 200, everybody. I'm so happy you joined us, Sarina. It wasn't quite complete without you.KJ (38:54):Alright, well here's to another hundred.Jess (38:56):Here's to another hundred. And I promise I'll make cupcakes. Until next week, everyone. Keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game. This episode of #AmWriting with Jess and KJ was produced by Andrew Parilla. Our music, aptly titled unemployed Monday was written and performed by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their services because everyone, even creatives should be paid. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

Our guest today, Dan Blank, sure seems like a man who loves his work. On his own podcast, the Creative Shift, he’s a warm and engaged interviewer. In his emails, he’s genuine and engaged. Is he selling his book and his services as an advisor to authors developing their platform and launching their work into the world? Sure, but it never feels like he’s selling. It feels like he’s sharing.Wouldn’t we all like to feel like that, and have our readers see us that way? We were hoping Dan would share his magic sauce and we’d all go skipping off towards easy street down a rainbow path, but it turns out there’s some work involved here. So instead, we talked about process, from the way you manage your personal trolls to the way you manage your emails, and then we talked—buzzword alert—authenticity, and finding the things you genuinely want to share with the people who are a match for your work. (You can download Dan’s free guide, 5 Ways to Immediately Connect with Readers, here.)Episode links and a transcript follow, and that’s it for shownotes, because man has it been a couple of weeks. It’s been February for at least a year, right? And I thought January felt long. A few things you can do to help us out or get more #AmWriting:* Review us in your podcast app.* Join the #AmWriting Facebook Group* Support us with a little cash, and get periodic #SupporterMini episodes (next week: #OutlineShortcut) and weekly #WritersTopFives every Monday that isn’t an unexpected school holiday that kicks my ass. FanFaves include Top Five Details to Flag in Your Publishing Contract and Top Five Ways to Win at Newsletter Subject Lines. As always, this episode (and every episode) will appear for all subscribers in your usual podcast listening places, totally free as the #AmWriting Podcast has always been. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it with the shownotes and a transcript every time there’s a new episode. LINKS FROM THE PODCAST#AmReading (Watching, Listening)KJ: Such a Fun Age, Kiley ReidHow Could She: A Novel, Lauren MechlingRed, White, & Royal Blue: A Novel, Casey McQuistonSarina: The Starless Sea: A Novel, Erin MorgensternDan: Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew RobertsBonus: Clementine, The Life of Mrs. Winston ChurchillOur guest for this episode is Dan Blank, and you can find more about him at We Grow Media.This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting for details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)KJ (00:00):Hey listeners, KJ here, if you're in with us every week, you're what I like to call people of the book. And some of us book people discover somewhere along the way that not only are we writers, we're people with a gift for encouraging other writers. Maybe that comes out in small ways for you, but for some of you, it's a calling and an opportunity to build a career doing work you love. Our sponsor, Author Accelerator provides book coaching to authors (like me) but also needs and trains book coaches. And if that's got your ears perked up, head to authoraccelerator.com and click on become a book coach. Is it recording?Jess (00:41):Now it's recording.KJ (00:43):Yay.Jess (00:43):Go ahead.KJ (00:44):This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.Jess (00:48):Alright, let's start over.KJ (00:48):Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Now, one, two, three. I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is our podcast about writing all the things - fiction, nonfiction, essays, book proposals, all the things that I list every week because this is the podcast about sitting down and getting your writing work, whatever that is, done.Sarina (01:20):And I'm Sarina Bowen. I'm the author of 30-odd romance novels and my new one is called Heartland. You can find more about me at sarinabowen.com.KJ (01:31):I'm excited for Heartland. I was just crawling all over your website today for no apparent reason. Anyway, I am KJ Dell'Antonia. I am the author of The Chicken Sisters, a novel coming out in June of 2020, as well as How To Be a Happier Parent, which is out in hardback now and in paperback this summer. And I am excited to say that we have a guest today. So let me just introduce him. Our guest is Dan Blank. He's so many things that I don't know what to put first, so don't judge me by how I rank these. But he is the host of The Creative Shift podcast, the author of Be the Gateway: A Practical Guide to Sharing Your Creative Work and Engaging an Audience, the creator and wunderkind behind the We Grow Media Organization, and a man with a true passion for what he likes to call a human centered approach to reaching your audience. And I would have to say that Dan has a human centered approach to everything. So, welcome Dan.Dan (02:32):Thank you for the lovely introduction. I appreciate that.KJ (02:36):You're welcome. A couple of weeks to go. We recorded an episode on what we do all day and you don't have to convince either of us that the most important thing that we do is create. But we both struggle to put that first sometimes because of all the other stuff that feels pressing. And all that other stuff is mostly about marketing, and promoting ourselves and our work, and getting it out in the world and communicating with our editors or agents or audio book recorders or cover designers - just so much stuff. So we are hoping to have kind of a two-part conversation with you: if getting the work out in the world is the second most important thing, how do we do that better and smarter instead of just chasing shiny new opportunities and how can we get it done? And full disclosure here, before I stop talking, I think that you love connecting your work with people or at least it feels that way to me. And Sarina and I both would like to feel that way. So I have dubbed this #HowToLovePromotingYourWork. And that's not a challenge or anything. I did not ask you a question. How can we start? What should be my first question?Dan (03:59):To me, it always starts with clarity. And I totally agree with you, that for a writer it begins with their craft. It begins with what they create, why they create it, and of course their ability to do so. And then from that, it's about the idea of connecting it with people. I find that a lot of people absolutely do what you say, they struggle to create because of all the other important things in life. And sometimes it is distracting. Like going on a co-host website for no reason and just spending time there, which I do all the time. But a lot of times it's critically important things like kids, and job, and to feeding your family, and that sort of thing. So when I think of the idea of productivity and getting writing done, a lot of what I think about is that battle for clarity. Of knowing what is the most important thing, and knowing it in your bones, and having made decisions around it. And I think if you don't have that first, then it's very difficult to start weighing things in your day. Of like, well I should volunteer for that, I should do this, maybe let me just check that out, and someone told me about that book let me check that out, or let me get back to email. So the place I like to start is talking about clarity, but I'm not sure if that's starting too far back for you.Sarina (05:23):I would love to jump in and tell you that you're already saying some things to me that really resonate. Because my relationship to productivity and to my clarity of purpose has changed so much over the last five years and not in a healthy way. And I'm sort of struggling to go back to where I was. Well, I started writing romance novels out of frustration about five years ago, because the things that I had been working on were not working, not finding a market. And so I wrote the first couple just out of joy and just for fun. And I accidentally became a romance novelist because the moment that my first romance came out, then I found success. So everything started to work for me. But the problem is now that my relationship to that work has changed so much because of reader expectations. And now my inbox is full of people who want things from me. Whereas, when I first started writing these stories, they were just for me. I mean, I had the hope that somebody would read them, but now I literally get messages every day from people who are demanding that I do a particular thing next. And it's really messed me up a little bit. You know, when I sit down in front of my computer in the morning now, I have all those voices in my head and they want certain things to happen in my fictional worlds and they want certain books next. But I'm on deadline on this other one. And you know, cry me a river, right? Because I have an engaged audience, but sometimes it's too loud.Dan (07:19):Yeah. I mean, KJ knows this about me. I work in a small studio here in New Jersey and on one of the walls is nothing but photos of artists, and writers, and musicians who inspire me. And I pick photos of them when they are either very young, before they've had success, or when they're sort of in that moment of risk. And I stare at them all day. And you talking about that thing that a lot of people have, which is I don't want to write to an audience, but I want to feel that my life is filled with an audience. And how to navigate that is a tricky thing. And as I look at that wall right now, I think of how all of these other creators had to deal with that, too. You come out with a successful album, or painting, or show, or performance, or book and you're immediately thrilled at the success and then saddled with that success. And you're also talking about not just in your head, you're talking about, it's like infiltrating your day through email, and probably through private messages, and things like that.Sarina (08:20):Yeah.Dan (08:24):Now we will get to the crying. I mean the first thing I think about that, is the ability to compartmentalize it. And sometimes that is a system you create. So you have a virtual assistant who is actually in your inbox and moves things to different places so that you're not always confronting them at a bad moment. That's one way to do it. Another way to do it is to sort of reframe feedback from readers almost in a community marketing role. So you're expecting this. And the way I like to think about that is to have a process. Because if we think about anyone, JK Rowling, anyone who has a big fan base, and all day long fans come up and tell them about their life there's a real emotional baggage to that. Let alone if they're saying, why don't you do this, why don't you do that? If it's reframed as this is a marketing role, this is a reader connection role, this is a me being there for people role. In a background way that might be a way to compartmentalize it in your mind, but then the service that you're doing of engaging with them, it's a whole different thing. You have a process by which to process that. And again, I think KJ knows this from from my work, but I have this little thing I call creativity cave trolls and it's basically anything that distracts you, takes you off of your clarity. And I imagine that this is one of those cave trolls for you. And the whole concept behind it is not that you want to kill the troll, the troll will always be there. It's sort of this dumb, lumbering thing that will always be a part of your life. And the way that you manage that is that you build a system to manage it. You're always going to get these emails so let's plan for those emails and let's find a way to process them. Again, it could be hiring someone, it could be flagging them in your inbox, and you deal with them only on Mondays from 4:00 to 8:00 PM. Or you have a script that you use, something where if you know they're going to come and take you off track, we find a way to process them. And then hopefully that would give you more mind space to create and then fewer things to take you way off the rails.KJ (10:40):And I think that we all struggle with that inbox full of demand. Whether it's reader demand, like Sarina gets, or editor demand, or school volunteer demand, or just all the things. My inbox right now is full of direct messages from social media and many of them there were, 'Yeah, I sure I would love to be on your podcast, actually.' But they all require sort of a processing time that is very real and that's so annoying. Why can I not just process them in the amount of time that it takes to read them? That's a little crazy, but it's just like, why does it take me 40 minutes to crank through three emails?Dan (11:35):Can I really dig into email? Is that okay? Cause I'm so passionate about this. Okay, so I know this is another thing KJ and I've talked about in the past, which is my philosophy that your inbox is not a to do list. And the problem I think a lot of people have with email is they ask for it to do too many things. And it's one channel. So a number of ways to even think about what you just said. And that's to: one, turn off the notifications. If they're going to go to Instagram, or going to go to Twitter, let them go to Instagram and Twitter. Don't also have them pop into email because then that's a bottleneck for everything. Another way to kind of lighten the load is to think about having different inboxes for different purposes. So one thing that I do is I have almost every newsletter that I get (and I get a ton of newsletters cause I kind of study them) I have an email inbox (a Gmail account) just for newsletters. So the email that I use every day gets almost no newsletters. And I unsubscribe from everything. You know, if I buy something from Guitar Center and they accidentally put me on their newsletter list, I actively unsubscribe from things, I actively route things to different inboxes. And the idea is the fewer things I have to even look at and sort through, the more clarity I have to manage the things that are there. So that's sort of the first thing I would say with email and the second thing is, again to sort of have a process to process the inbox. So I'm one of those really, really, really annoying people who's basically always at inbox zero. And that's because I'm always offloading things from email. So the super quick version of what I do is I don't consider my inbox my inbox. I use Apple mail and they have like a flag folder and Gmail has a star folder. So right then and there when I open up email and they all pop in in the morning, I don't really read them, I flag emails that I have to look at. So everything I don't flag just goes into the endless archive. I don't worry about deleting them, I don't move them into folders and pretend that I'm like a librarian of my inbox cause that takes a lot of time and decision making power. Then I just go to my flagged folder and there are just the 16 emails I flagged let's say that day. And from what I do then is I try to process what I can quickly. Like if I can just do a one word or a one line reply back, I do that. And for anything more, if it's client saying, 'Oh, can we do it out here and I'm gonna add this to our agenda', I move it out of email, I put it in the folder I have for that client. I move it into another working process, I don't keep it in the inbox. And for things I can't process right away either I leave it in there until later in the day or I email that person and say, 'Thanks, I'm going to get back to you within 48 hours on this.' So I always take action on it and where I can't take action, I at least set an expectation that I see you and you will hear back from me at a certain time. And that sort of has worked wonders for my inbox. It's been a very long time since I've ever worried about email because that system works for me. So I typically end the day with a totally empty flags folder.Sarina (15:05):Huh. I love how analytical that is because it seems like maybe I could manage that as I'm analytical about most everything, but I also hear you sort of saying that I should just get over my anger at some of the things that people email me.Dan (15:24):Yeah, I mean I think that there's such a power, there's such an energy that it takes and I like the idea of how do we flip that? How do we have a script that we can send to these people? How do we have a thing in your website that says how you deal with it?Sarina (15:39):Oh, I have the thing, it's just that people don't pay attention. It says in beautiful pink letters right above my contact form. Like, 'Due to the volume of questions Sarina cannot respond to questions about publication plans, audio plans, paperback dates, et cetera. Between the newsletter and upcoming releases we have you covered. Thank you for understanding.' And every day I get an email that just says, when is the audio book coming out? Or something like that. But it's partly this, I've had to cross this little personal rubicon where pretty much before last year I really believed that everyone who reached out to me with a question deserved an answer, and promptly. Because that person's about to throw down $15 for my audio book. And then I just had to come to a place of, 'Well, I won't ever produce another thing again if I'm always answering that question.'KJ (16:38):It's not a bad problem to have.Sarina (16:41):I saw it as a problem.KJ (16:42):I know you do.Sarina (16:44):Well, I actually don't respond anymore to that particular question and I definitely do not respond anymore to, 'Is there ever going to be another book about so-and-so?' Because, like I've said, I've reached this place where I can't actually reply to everything or I won't finish the writing goal of the day, but it feels bad not to tell that invested person that I can't answer your email. Except it says right over the contact form basically click here to see all the public plans. Like, if you're curious about a thing, here is the page for that. So yeah, I'm a little stuck.KJ (17:38):I know you have a virtual assistant, they could just weed those for you and have a canned response that says what the pink letters say, only friendly, not that pink letters aren't friendly. And then you would know like, okay those people all got an answer that basically said nothing, but I didn't have to do it. When I was getting my New York Times emails, I had somebody do that for some of the years, depending on the years, just, you know, volume of submissions, blah blah blah. Because I did feel like everyone deserved at least a basically automated response. It's hard, cause arguably everyone doesn't deserve a response. It's sort of like the social media direct messages for me. And that's an interesting one, Dan. Cause I don't actually ever go on this particular platform, but I have such a large following there that I don't want to shut it down. That's why the Twitter dm's come and my assistant handles most of them, but these were all things she couldn't handle. Somebody who was cleaning it out, but I don't know. I mean you've probably thought of that and there may be reasons that you haven't done it, or haven't done it yet.Sarina (18:55):Well, I have somebody on some of these platforms. But of course Facebook makes it difficult.KJ (19:04):Yeah, Facebook won't let you.Sarina (19:05):Yeah. Like if I share with my Canadian assistant, my login, then Facebook will flag me as not a real human.KJ (19:16):Really, Facebook messages are like the bane of my...that should have an audit. You should be able to have an automated response that basically says, 'I don't do Facebook messages.' or you should be able to turn it off.Sarina (19:28):Well, Instagram is actually even worse because they pile all of the actual messages in with so-and-so reacted to your story or whatever.KJ (19:38):Yes, that's a new thing that people can like make a little clapping sound under your story, which is fine. That's delightful, clap for my story. But now it's in my dm's and yeah.Sarina (19:49):Well, at the risk that I've just spent the last 10 minutes sounding like a horrible human who doesn't like having invested readers, I did listen to your podcast, Dan, when you were helping someone who was a nonfiction author, develop a more authentic relationship with her Facebook following and she was, I believe, a client of yours. And her topic was something very accessible, but also sort of serious, which was divorced, I believe. And you said the word authentic enough times when I was listening to it that I thought, 'Okay, okay.' So this is another lesson I need to take from you. And basically after I listened to that episode, I cut out a bunch of the things I was doing on social media that didn't feel authentic to me. And I basically came home and I wrote a list of when do I feel the most authentic in my social media communication. And then I just hammer that list lately. Like those are the things we're doing now because I feel the best about them. And I was left wanting to hear how that might change when you're dealing with people who write fiction though, because obviously somebody who counsels others who are going through a divorce has a very one-to-one relationship with helping that person. And since all marketing is sort of problem solving, but the problem I'm solving for you is just that you have something to read this weekend and you didn't before, so it's a more tenuous relationship with that follower. And I just wondered - you must have thought of this and I was curious about it.Dan (21:46):Yeah, I was thinking of this and I think it was maybe in Jennie Nash's newsletter this morning. She referenced like a Harry Potter podcast whose tagline was something like, 'We don't read for escape, we read to become more human or to more fully, you know, be a part of life.' And whenever I think of like a novelist, or even a memoir writer, I think of that. Which is, to me, it's not just about escape, it's about connecting to something within someone, a worldview, part of their identity, a theme, a possibility in life. And I think about how for a novelist that can be a part of what they share. And I also think a lot about the duality here, which is the author is not the work. You know, the work is the work and the person behind it is the person. Yet as a fan of a book, or a fan of a theme, or a story, or something like that, we can get engaged with the person behind it. And that's why we love seeing cat photos or dog photos of an author who doesn't write about cats or dogs. And we have little in jokes that aren't part of the book, they're a part of that. And I think about sometimes there's a crossover. There are things that novelists can share that is about the identity and about the worldview. So if you pick just big obvious themes about love, or friendship, or duality, or commitments, or whatever, you can think of lots of little things that one can share that they align with, the reader aligns with, and also kind of fits with stories. But I also think it is about being what you want to see in the world. The word authentic I think is a very challenging one, cause we like to think it's just what we want to do. It's like who we are. But authentic, you've got to be careful with that, too. Like what is authentic? If we were being authentic, we'd all be wearing pajamas right now. You know, we'd be in big comfy chairs, there'd be ice cream surrounding us, that's very authentic to how we'd like to be. But we're all probably wearing more regular clothing, we're sitting in a desk chair, we're sitting up cause we're on a podcast. And I think that we get to filter how we're authentic online. And I think that with this question or what you're sharing here and I'm thinking about, and even your other one, I think a lot about Bruce Springsteen. Partly because I'm from New Jersey and partly because the few times I've been actually right next to him, I'm surrounded by mobs of fans, and behind them are fans, behind them are fans, behind them are fans. And here's someone like you, who doesn't have enough time to get to everyone and he's had to find a way to be okay with that. And he is (to me) the great construct of an image of authenticity. He has an authenticity he's showing you that is true, but it's also a filter of what's authentic.Sarina (24:52):Yeah, well sometimes my readers help figure out these themes for me.Dan (24:59):Oh wow.Sarina (25:01):So well, yeah. So, of course I write in series and my series tend to have certain themes running through them. One of them is hockey, one of them is Vermont. So people will post in my Facebook group, news stories all the time that remind them of little things that have happened in those books. Like this past weekend, a goalie made a goal for his team by basically flipping the puck all the way down the entire length of the ice and scoring. So, when things happen that are newsy, those things will turn up in my reader group. And so people help me identify what are those external, internal. Like the blend of what people take away from fiction and put there. And for example, I had a book three books ago where a character's avatar was Lobster Shorts because of his picture. And he was known as Lobster Shorts for the entire book and people have been posting lobster printed clothing items since the day that book came out. So sometimes I get a leg up on what it is that people are charmed by or taking away from the stories, but sometimes it's mysterious to me and I have to sort of blunder my way through the conversation to figure out what's resonating and what's not.KJ (26:38):Well, I was looking at some notes from our interview with Marika Flatt a couple of weeks ago. And she had had this thing on her website about finding the theme of your work. Like the huge theme, not the individual theme for books. And I had was writing down sort of samples for me and samples for you. And I had written something like that your theme is romance can be hard but fun or something like that. Like, you know, it's complicated, but there's a joy in it and a humor in it. And to me, that's what comes across in your social media and that's what's authentic about your writing and your connection - is that there is always the humor. I mean, joy may not be the right word, cause sometimes it's kind of a snarky humor. But yeah, finding the funny in tough situations, to me, that's part of your brand.Sarina (27:38):Well that's the thing is it's great when people help you figure out what your brand is. But from where I sit, I'm looking at other romance authors and I see so much that's really not me. Like some romance authors, they're part of their brand or their family is part of their brand. And I'm more private than that, I don't share that much. It's possibly because I'm older and more circumspective, didn't grow up in a sharing culture, but I do struggle with that, too.KJ (28:13):What, with what you're not?Sarina (28:15):Well, just that I'm reluctant to share things that other people might share.Dan (28:19):One thing I look at a lot online is people that seem to be sharing so much as I really try to see, well where are their boundaries? And I'll notice things where someone has a big following and they're sharing their family, sharing their home, and their spouse, and their kids. And on that, well where are their boundaries? And if I look for them, I often see them where it's like, oh, they do share their kids, but it's never more than once a week. It's not always, but often a profile view, or it's at home and they never mention where they live, or the school, they mention them by nickname, they share their home, but it's only in a certain way. It's one thing I like to think a lot about is the agency that everyone needs to choose what and how they share online. Because I agree with you. Everyone needs to have their own boundary and it's a different place for everyone. And I like to think of it as an opportunity to define - you know, I'm going to share this interesting part of myself, whether people care about it or not, because who I am. And I'll share a little bit of this other thing, but only so far. And I think of that even in the offline world with polite conversation with how people talk and introduce themselves and how they're open and they're open to a certain degree so that they can get along and feel human, but then they protect the things that they feel should not be for public consumption either.KJ (29:43):So Dan, one of the things that I have done because of you and that I respect about you, is that you are really big on finding pretty much exactly what it is that we're talking about here. That authentic thing that we want to share or sort of the flip side of that is the audience that we want to reach. And by that you don't mean, you know women aged 18 to 35 living in big cities. You know, you mean who are we and who are we trying to reach? And you have some sort of ways to help people get at that. Can you talk about how we can figure out what our theme and our audience is if we're struggling with it?Dan (30:35):Yeah, there's a lot to take into there. I think in general, you wanna allow your audience to surprise you in a positive way. And I think sometimes we put up these rules about what we're not, and that closes us off to what we are or what we can be. So, one easy place to begin with this, and I'm not sure if this is too simple, but a lot of writers I speak to, they don't know where they fit in the marketplace. They don't know who their comparable books or comparable authors are. And they feel disconnected from social media because they feel they started too late. Is a conversation there a little too far back or is that okay?KJ (31:17):No, that's a good place to start. And let me just say that everyone feels like they started too late on social media.Sarina (31:25):That's true.Dan (31:25):Yeah. It's funny, this is something that I'm working into my next book and it was a part of the mastermind I run. Which is a couple of weeks in, I used to do a little video saying, 'Oh you're not behind.' And I noticed everyone loved that and I started moving it up and now I actually share that video the day before we start the mastermind. Because I found that even on day one, hour one, people now come in feeling behind from a lot of things in life and it already sort of makes their experience of things so much more difficult cause it's like showing up to a beautiful retreat and on day one you walk in and you already think everyone else knows what they're doing. They're dressed better than I am. They know where to go. Like it's sort of casts a shadow on the whole thing. So in terms of what you're about, I guess there's two main ways I think about it. One is internal and one is external. The internal way is I have a lot of different exercises I go through with people to get real clarity about what do you care about, what would you fight for, what would you rather spend time on more than anything else. So I have a process called clarity cards and it's really this idea of looking at not just what you create, but your whole life and thinking what matters to me. And some of that is task-driven. It's you know, your family, your health. But some of it is I've had so many people go through this and there's a lot on there that is about their fiction, and about their memoir, and about their nonfiction work. And what they're doing is getting really clear of this is who I am, this is what I believe, this is what I write about, but this is also why I spend my time there.KJ (33:02):Can you give us an example, without sort of calling out a person? Like what would be one of those themes that might pop up on these cards?Dan (33:12):I'll use myself as an example, cause it's the easiest thing to do with no preparation. You know, for myself, I am an introverted germaphobe who is scared of going out and doesn't travel cause I'm scared to fly. Yet I have this business where I work with writers and it's typically more in the marketing end of things. So, what that means when I look at that (and I tried to describe that really pathetically) so when you look at the themes that I care about, well because I genuinely care about people who create, it's writers and it's not just writers, it's people who create. Because I feel like if you're doing that, you are advancing our culture and you are taking a risk that other people are not. So you are my people. So one, I'm already defining it there. It's not just I help writers with marketing. It's the deeper why of why do I spend all my time? Why is my wife an artist? Why have all my friends growing up been artists and writers, photographers and performers all day now? I'm at 10 years of this company and all I do is talk to writers and creators. So it's that drive part of it. It's not just I help writers market things. It's the deeper why there. Then, I look at how you started this conversation, which is if we're not creating, nothing else can happen. So what I think a lot about is the creative process and like the photos on the wall here, I meditate on this idea of having clarity of what you create and embracing, of going all in. And when I look at stories of writers, or performers, or creators, I look at the ways where they did have to isolate themselves. They had to sacrifice, they had to have the world laugh at them, laugh at their idea, and persist anyway, and only later did they see what the genius was. Also because I believe in the creative process, I mean I'm working a few blocks from where I live. I have a very small life geographically and other things I kind of said tongue in cheek before (Oh, I don't like to fly. I don't like to go out.) well that's allowed me to embrace this idea of having a life that's dedicated to my family. I'm either with them or I'm here working with writers. So in a way that's a very small life. And what it means is that I've had to say no to a lot of things because I want to embrace those two things as fully as I can. So to summarize, if you look at my Instagram, or my newsletter, or my podcast, you see those themes coming up. It's who I am and that gives me a lot of latitude to not just say, 'This is the marketing for writers podcast where we teach you how to sell, sell, sell.' Which, sure, it's part of what I do, but it's maybe paper thin when you think about all the things holding that up and all the things that I love talking to writers about. And that's what I think gives me, you said this very generously earlier, which is like you seem to love what you do. And I do. And that's why I love what I do, because I've just explored - if I don't like to go out, and I don't like to fly, and I do this job marketing with writers, like how is that the thing that fuels me? And I wake up super excited to do this work.KJ (36:31):It is so hard to take the time to work through that thought process. But it's really, I think, important and rewarding and also a great thing to think about at the start of a new year and a new decade. Going back and revisiting if we feel like we've already done it, to go back and try to find those themes and find that clarity. I'm loving this as a general thought. So to bring it all back home to this question of, okay, how can we love marketing our work? I can answer that for you, but I want you to answer it.Dan (37:13):If you know why you create, if you make creating a priority in your life, which does mean a lot of decision making and turning down other potential obligations, and you believe that the work that you are creating has a purpose and that can be a lower case P, it can be an uppercase P for you, that this work can and will connect with someone, and you care about this for all whatever deep reasons you have, sharing that work is your ability to just communicate that, to just say, this is what I believe and why, and I'm sharing it with good intentions and not shoving it down your throat. As the idea of wanting to fill your life, not just with, I wrote these books and they're on a shelf at a store, but living the life of a writer is someone who fills their life with moments, and experiences, and other people who care about these themes, or these types of work, or the conversations you have. And I think that does look different for everyone. But in general, it's not just about how do we get it done. It's how do we build a life that feels fulfilling in what we create, how we share that with other people, how we connect with them, and how that comes back around. And I firmly believe that creative work is complete when someone else experiences it. Because half of that work is what you intended and half of that work is what the reader brings to it. And I think that that is utterly, totally, completely magical.KJ (38:50):I love that. And magic is my word of the year. So, now I'm especially delighted that we're sort of wrapping up on that note. So, to shift gears, I forgot to warn you, but I hope you remember that we ask everyone what they've been reading and loving of late and to give you a moment to regroup, Sarina will start. Ha ha, you're on the hotspot.Sarina (39:22):I am digging into The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.KJ (39:27):Oh, I have that! Is it good?Sarina (39:28):You know, the beginning is great.KJ (39:31):I just finished Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid and I am currently reading a book called How Could She and I forget who the author is. And I'm having this really interesting experience that maybe even gets down to what we've been talking about, which is that I don't like the people in either of these books. I don't think you're meant to, if I'm not enjoying a book on some level, if I'm not getting something out of it, and if it's not well done, if it's not fulfilling, I don't finish. And I 100% finished Such a Fun Age and I'm gonna finish the one that I'm reading right now, but in both of them, they both really center around people with what I would call kind of a sour view of life.KJ (40:40):And in a lot of cases, a sour view of pretty good lives. Now Such a Fun Age has a lot of characters that are hugely demographically different. It's got themes of race, and class, and money. So not every character is sour about their privilege, but none of the people in these books feel very hopeful. And so I'm not having very much fun with them, even though I'm reading them. And I don't quite know what to make of that. They are more challenging than reading, you know Red, White, and Royal Blue, which is so, so totally on my bedside table and I'm super looking forward to. So I guess there's that, there's different themes. But yeah, it is this question of do you spend more time reading about characters that you would actually like to spend time with or characters that you maybe have a different life outlook and maybe you want to know more about? Maybe that's where I am with those. It isn't that I don't recommend, I wouldn't mention the book if I didn't like it. It's just, it's a different kind of liking. It's a weird kind of liking. Your turn.Dan (41:57):My turn. I'm 200 pages into the thousand page biography on Churchill called Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts.KJ (42:08):And do we like this? Do we want to spend more time with Churchill?Dan (42:14):It's interesting really, for probably the reasons you just said, a very complex character, very complex era. And this is a newer biography and it seemed to be the one that balanced (by all the reviews I could read) a lot of different thoughts, recent things that have come out, new archives that were not available earlier. So it seemed to be a very recent, modern take on a very complex subject.KJ (42:46):I just heard about a book that was about Churchill's wife and it's new and I am trying to find it, but I am stymied by the fact that there are actual human beings named Anna Churchill, and I think her name was Ana. Just throwing that out there and I'll find it for the show notes that there's apparently an interesting - I actually don't even know if it's sort of a fictionalized version or if it's a biography, but that she was apparently a really, really interesting character. So you can follow up, if you need more Churchill. Alright. Well, this was great. We really appreciate it. Before we sign off, tell people where they can find you and what you've got going on right now.Dan (43:40):You can find me on my blog at wegrowmedia.com. The podcast is called The Creative Shift with Dan Blank. Social media @Danblank and I have a little Facebook group called The Reader Connection Project that I've been doing a lot of teachings recently on social media for writers. We have a thousand writers in there, you're welcome to join. And I do a lot of different programs on the idea of how to connect with your readers and all the different facets around that from marketing, to book launches, social media websites, and then even what we've talked about a lot here, which is productivity for writers. So you can check all that out. Thank you.KJ (44:26):I'm going to give a co-sign to the idea of signing up for your weekly email because it is really good, and really heartfelt, and an excellent example of the genre, which I guess wouldn't be surprising since you read a lot of them. Sarina, you want to take us out?Sarina (44:45):I will, right after I sign up for Dan Blank's weekly email. I would like to remind you all to keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game. This episode of #AmWriting with Jess and KJ was produced by Andrew Parilla. Our music, aptly titled unemployed Monday was written and performed by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their services because everyone, even creatives should be paid. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

We’re interviewing Julie Lythcott-Haims this week and you won’t want to miss it, because 1) she wrote an amazing, best-selling book called How to Raise an Adult and then followed THAT up with a memoir, Real American, that the New York Times Book Review pretty much thought was amazing and is now drafting the sequel to Adult very much on her own terms; and 2) she could very easily have become Jess’s arch-nemesis, and vice versa.If they had been totally different people.If they had been less open, less willing to see possibility in a scary-sounding situation.If they’d let fear and jealousy win. But they didn’t. So two writers with authority, each releasing a book on raising children to be independent in nearly exactly the same moment turned out to be a recipe for collaboration, not catastrophe. The lesson? In books, it’s really almost never winner-takes-all.We talk about how they pulled it off, how Julie transcended expectations with her memoir and why it’s so important to resist the call to write something that isn’t what you want to write.Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, we’re giving away a set of three LitStarts, little books of writing prompts created by the Writer’s Grotto that Julie talks about during the podcast, to—a subscriber to this weekly shownotes email! Which means you’re very likely already entered to win. If you’re not, just click below, sign up to get our free weekly behind the scenes from the podcast and get your name in that hat. (and if you know someone who would really LOVE to win those—please forward this email and help a fellow writer out.)LINKS FROM THE PODCASTLit StartsHalf a Life, Darin Strauss#AmReading (Watching, Listening)Julie: Wildhood: The Astounding Connections between Human and Animal Adolescents Dr. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, Kathryn BowersJess: Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol, Holly Whitaker KJ: How Could She, Lauren MechlingAndy J. Pizza’s Creative Pep Talk Podcast, especially episode 259 - 20 SURPRISING AND SUPER POWERFUL PROMPTS THAT WILL MAKE 2020 THE YEAR YOU DO YOUR BEST WORK EVER!Our guest for this episode is Julie Lythcott-Haims.This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwritingfor details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful. Sometimes. transcripts may appear a few days after an episode has aired.) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe