#amwriting With Jess & Kj

Maybe you’re drafting a novel, maybe you’re not. Either way, we vote for seizing on the community energy generated by NaNo and getting some work done. The magic of NaNoWriMo isn’t in the number of words or the length of time or even the month of November. It’s in the community seizing this time—when we could so easily heave a giant sigh and say oh, well, November, it’s practically December, might as well give up—and instead bestowing upon it this extra energy, turning it into a holiday of our very own. We’re all for writing a 50K word novel (and there’s much advice in this episode on prepping for just that) but we’re also in favor of creating your own National Whatever Write Month. Pick your poison, name your deadline and join us in taking back November.  Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, October 21, 2019: Top 5 Ways to Tame the Internet Distraction Beast. Support the podcast you love AND g

Shortcut to finding our characters’ worst flaws and deepest fears? Yes, thank you. All Sarina had to do was say “protagonist character analysis” and we were off. Enneagrams, for those who have never heard of them [raises hand high] are descriptions of character types intended for “journeys of self-discovery.” But when it comes to knowing more about your protagonist (and love interest and antagonist and their mother and all the people) they’re pure solid gold, especially if you go romping down the rabbit hole of reading what people in various types (there are 9, with a “wing” in one direction or another) think of themselves and their relationships.  Suddenly, you can think about how your character would play fantasy football, or interview for a job. But the best part is diving deep into how your character behaves at her/his/their very worst, and very best, along with what they most fear and what they believe they want. It’s like real butter on movie popcorn, people. Episode links and a transcript fol

Not writing what your inner parent says you “should” be writing? How to get over it. Fellow writers, KJ here. I have gathered you here today to discuss the moment last week when I sat down on my bed, surveying a pile of literary fiction, some of which I liked and some of which I most emphatically did not, and asked myself, as I have many times on other topics—should I be writing something other than what I am writing? Should I be good at something other than that which I am good at? This week, I lay it out there: sometimes I feel ashamed that I don’t write something more … serious. Then Sarina slaps me around a little, and Jess declares that even writers of serious stuff (I give her that title) sometimes feel like they’re not using their time wisely. Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, October 7, 2019: Top Five Reasons to Embrace NaWhateverWriMo. It’s a good one! And I happen to know the ne

More words, better words, in less time? Sometimes. In this episode, finding your own path to write faster. If only we could write as fast as we type! You could set your clock by our book production, right? Not so. This week we’re exploring how to write faster with Sarina in the lead. Finding your own patterns, prewriting and avoiding that “stuck” feeling by finding tangible ways to explore your characters and book without doing battle with words dominate our conversation as we riff on ways to up our daily word counts without ending up with something that’s destined for the cutting room floor file.  Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, September 30, 2019: Top Five Reasons to Be on Instagram. Not joined that club yet? You’ll want to get on that. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #WriterTopFives with actionable advice you can use for just $7 a month.  Upgrade to Supporter As al

Joshilyn Jackson doesn't just write best-selling thrillers. She narrates them, too. Should we? Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, September 23, 2019: Top Five Steps to Burn Chart Success (a How-to). Not joined that club yet? You’ll want to get on that. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #WriterTopFives with actionable advice you can use for just $7 a month.  Upgrade to Supporter 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.  Get New Episode Emails To support the podcast and help it stay free, subscribe to our weekly #WritersTopFive email. LIN

The burn chart mindset, whole book project management, and a how-to for finding a progress tracker that works for you.

Writing through chronic illness and other challenges, with Karen Locke Kolp.

Funny thing—writers for popular pubs tend to see literary magazines as an unsurmountable challenge (I know I do) and vice versa. Danielle Ofri, though, straddles both worlds as the Editor-in-Chief of the Bellevue Literary Review and a regular contributor to the New York Times and Slate as well as journals like The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine, making her the perfect person to talk to about that crossover, as well as the crossover between a career with confidentiality at its core, and one where telling the whole truth is key.  #AmReading (Watching, Listening) Danielle: Ragtime E.L. Doctorow and Little King, Salmon Rushdie's short story excerpt in the New Yorker from his book, Quichotte. KJ: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport #FaveIndieBookstore The Strand again! We don't mind repeating a good one. Our guest for this episode is Danielle Ofri, the author of What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear; Singular Intimacies ; Incidental Findings;

Big dreams, and how to achieve them. (Jess likes to be told she can do it. KJ prefers to be told she can't.) #AmReading (and watching)  Other People's Houses, Abbi Waxman Jess: The Butterfly Girl: A Novel, Rene Denfeld A Discovery of Witches (book one of the All Souls Trilogy), Deborah Harkness   (and the miniseries) #FaveIndieBookstore Northshire Books, Manchester VT and Saratoga Springs 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 2-tier outline template. Find more about Jess here, and about KJ here. If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.

The risks and benefits of writing about religion in any genre, with author Phoebe Farag Mikhail. Phoebe's publisher: Paraclete Press A few other notes from the episode:  Phoebe's book: Putting Joy into Practice: Seven Ways to Lift Your Spirit from the Early Church https://paracletepress.com/collections/new-releases/products/putting-joy-into-practice Phoebe's blog: Being in Community (beingincommunity.com) Instagram & Twitter: @pkfarag    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/phoebefaragmikhailauthor/  andhttps://www.facebook.com/beingincommunity/ Phoeble also mentioned her essay in Talking Writing Magazine about "bridge people":https://talkingwriting.com/agreeing-other-side-can-be-revolutionary She chronicled her path to writing after becoming a mom in this essay as well: http://redtri.com/having-children-was-the-best-thing-i-did-for-my-career/ #AmReading KJ: Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, Sendhil Mullainathan Phoebe: The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Po

Tracking your why, your how, your money and your time with Katherine Reynolds Lewis. A few assorted links, comments and tools Toggl time tracker  The 3Ps: Pay, Prestige and Personal Passion Katherine's Excel Spreadsheet: Katherine's Press Club slide show and her checklist for new clients. #AmReading: KJ: City of Girls: A Novel, Elizabeth Gilbert Katherine: Middle School Matters: The 10 Key Skills Kids Need to Thrive in Middle School and Beyond - And How Parents Can Help, Phyllis Fagell Code Like a Girl: Rad Tech Projects and Practical Tips, Miriam Peskowitz Searching for Sylvie Lee: A Novel, Jean Kwok #FaveIndieBookstore(s): Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, D.C. East City Bookshop, Washington, D.C. Solid State Books, Washington, D.C. Bard's Alley, Vienna, VA Katherine: KatherineRLewis.com  Twitter Instagram  Facebook This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Vis

Jess is going gangbusters on her summer writing, and KJ may be struggling, but they’re both plowing through some serious recs for  your summer reading list from them and from members of the #AmWriting Facebook group. #AmReading KJ: Rules for Visiting: A Novel, Jessica Francis Kane Honestly We Meant Well: A Novel, Grant Ginder What You Don't Know About Charlie Outlaw, Leah Stewart The Gifted School: A Novel, Bruce Holsinger City of Girls: A Novel, Elizabeth Gilbert Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein The Sentence is Death: A Novel, Anthony Horowitz Bowling Avenue, Ann Shayne The Library of Lost and Found, Phaedra Patrick Jeeves and the King of Clubs: A Novel in Homage to P.G. Wodehouse, Ben Schott There's a Word for That, Sloane Tanen Mostly Dead Things, Kristen Arnett The Bride Test, Helen Hoang Everything Is Just Fine, Brett Paesel The Late Bloomers' Club: A Novel, Louise Miller After the End, Clare Mackintos

As the wheel of fortune spins, Jess gives us the blow by blow of this week’s celebrity endorsement - spoiler alert...it wasn’t entirely luck! When someone with 10 million followers on Instagram shares a pic of herself reading your book—things happen. And they happened for Jess. But there's a little secret history there. Sure, lightning struck, the stars aligned and everything fell together. But if Jess hadn't done the groundwork, it probably never would have happened. #AmReading Jess: Archaeology From Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past by Sarah Parcak, @indyfromspace www.sarahparcak.com KJ: City of Girls, Elizabeth Glibert #FaveIndieBookstore The Vermont Bookstore in MIddlebury Vermont

Book Coach Jennie Nash returns to tackle some effective strategies for revising; it can be a tortuous process, but it can also be where some of the fun happens! Jennie mentioned Susan Bell's The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself. #AmReading KJ: Bowling Avenue, Ann Shayne Jess: In Pain: A Bioethicist's Personal Struggle with Opioids, Travis Rieder and Red, White & Royal Blue Casey McQuiston Jennie: Daisy Jones & the Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid #FaveIndieBookstore Chaucer's Bookstore, Santa Barbara  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 2-tier outline template. Find more about Jess here, and about KJ here. If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.

Tips for getting the work done when the season shifts around you.

Sometimes, the internet turns against you. What to do, what not to do, how to ride it out and remember--the loudest voices aren't necessarily the most numerous.  Over the course of our careers, both Jess and I have endured some PR storms. We share some of the gory details, but more importantly, advice from PR pros and from our experiences on how to handle it when you go a little bit viral in the worst way. We heard from PR experts Ophir Lehavy and Carol Blymire. Ophir pointed us to a crisis control article, and Jess called out (in the good way) a couple of books that are useful when you're at the eye of the storm: Shame Nation: The Global Epidemic of Online Hate, from Sue Scheff and So You've Been Publicly Shamed, Jon Ronson. #AmReading KJ adored Ben Schott's P. G. Wodehouse homage, Jeeves and the King of Clubs. Jess is treasuring The Truffle Underground: A Tale of Mystery, Mayhem, and Manipulation in the Shadowy Market of the World's Most Expensive Fungus, Ryan Jacobs and Michelangelo and the Po

Subscription services like Kindle Unlimited and Audible do make books—some books—cheaper for readers, but what do they do for authors—and what are readers missing? (with Sarina Bowen) A few highlights from this episode:  If you take something expensive—good content—and you pay people reasonably to create it, it’s tough to make this work. What we're often seeing as consumers are loss leaders for big media. Amazon doesn't have to make money from Kindle Unlimited.  One you might not have heard of: Scribd. So far, it's reasonable for authors and for readers (although their "unlimited" may really mean "unlimited unless you're a superuser, in which case maybe not").  The takeaway for writers: limit yourself to Kindle Unlimited with great caution. The takeaway for readers: Unlimited is still limited--to what's there and available. Relying on suggestions and highlights from various services is probably limiting what you see, and maybe what you read.  #AmReading Sarina is seeking "great books with

Mary Laura Philpott tells all. It's glorious. It's embarrassing. Nobody told you you'd be sitting on a barstool in front of a crowd in a short skirt. Mary Laura Philpott is the author of I Miss You When I Blink, a book with the most awesome subtitle ever: Essays. That's it. Here's a little something she wrote on subtitles and why we love to hate them, from LitHub.  We've been following her book launch (check back to Episode 150, #NeverReady) and now, her triumphant tour. Or maybe not so much and certainly not all the time.  Links to some of the fantastic Indies who hosted Mary Laura: Whistlestop Bookshop Books Are Magic M. Judson Bookseller Word Bookstore in Brooklyn and New Jersey Malaprops Bookstore in Asheville, NC The Snail on the Wall Huntsville, AL Politics and Prose Washington, DC Books and Books, Florida #AmReading City of Girls, Elizabeth Gilbert #FaveIndieBookstore And finally, no interview with Mary Laura would be complete without a shoutout to

Remember those goals you set with Jess and KJ back in January? Neither did they, but they dug them out and sort out how the year’s going so far. In Episode 140, we set our 2019 goals. (Listen here). Now, at 2019's halfway mark, it's time to check in on those--and we'd love to hear how you're doing on your goals in the #AmWriting Facebook group. Halfway here? More? En route? Revising the endgame? We get it all.  Jess, in particular, gets moving the goal posts--and in fact, the whole point of a check in is to consider doing just that. Goals aren't there to help you fail, they're there to help you move towards them--and if a goal is unreachable this year, it's time to set a goal you can achieve that moves you in the right direction. For Jess, that's a new, revised book deadline. I'm reporting a big fat checkmark on one goal--finding a publisher for my novel (hello, Episode 147). The Chicken Sisters will be out in the summer of 2020, and the new goal I'm slotting in there is to finish my revisions on time