Show Notes
You’ll get a regular Write Big episode tomorrow!
Hi! As you may know, after ten years of #amwriting, KJ, Jess and Sarina are moving on to other endeavors and have handed the reins of the podcast to me. I’m honored—and very excited—to carry it forward. For the past nine months, I’ve been trying things, listening to what resonates with you, and weighing my own energy and my options for what #amwriting could become. And I’ve landed on a new plan. The goal is to keep the spirit of what #amwriting has always done—help writers get their best work done—and to offer more ways to see your own work more clearly. This is one of the hardest things about being a writer. Is this working? What’s not working? Is the problem on the page—or in the way I’m thinking about the book? Am I solving the right problem? What should I do next? There is endless writing advice out there. What I want #amwriting to give you is something different: the chance to listen to writers work through real problems, hear the thinking behind the solutions, and get better at seeing and solving problems in your own work. And this is work I know how to do. I’ve trained more than 400 book coaches and spent years developing frameworks for coaching writers through the decisions, problems, and stuck places that come up as they make books. That means I also have a deep bench of skilled Author Accelerator certified book coaches I can bring into #amwriting. I think that puts me in a unique position to make a different kind of writing podcast—one built around showing you what good coaching looks like in action and helping you become better at thinking through your own work. You’ll continue to get free #amwriting episodes every week, including Write Big, my episodes about what it takes to do your best work and keep doing it; and Margin Notes, short episodes that take a close look at a particular question, problem, or moment in the writing life. That is where I will often have guests join me. And, I’ve started writing the Substack posts each week as mini lessons for those who want to read rather than listen. Before, they were generic summaries and no one wants to read that. But a big part of this new #amwriting is now going to happen for paid subscribers. Why I’m asking you to pay $8/month BookLab and Hot Seat Coaching take real time, effort, and energy to produce. They involve reviewing work, preparing for coaching conversations, bringing in the right coaches and guests, recording, editing, and producing the episodes. I love doing this work. I want to do more of it. And I need the support of paid subscribers to make it sustainable. So I’m making BookLab and Hot Seat Coaching part of the paid #amwriting membership. If you want to get better at seeing your own work clearly, making stronger writing decisions, and knowing what to do when you get stuck, I’m asking you to support this work by becoming a paid subscriber. It’s $8/month. For $8/month, here’s what you get * All the regular weekly #amwriting episodes, including Write Big and Margin Notes. * BookLAB — We take apart real submissions—first pages, book jackets, query letters, and more—to see what’s working, what’s not, and why. The more you learn to see in someone else’s work, the more you can see in your own. I plan to share a BookLAB episode each month. * Hot Seat Coaching — Listen as real writers work through real writing challenges with me and Author Accelerator certified book coaches. You’ll hear not just what they decide to do, but the thinking that gets them there—so you can get better at working through your own challenges. * The complete #amwriting archive — Ten years of conversations about virtually every stage of the writing life, organized by topic so when you hit a problem, you can find the conversations that can help. (This will take us a little while to organize but we’re already working on it!) If you want to do more than listen, you can come further into the work. Annual — $80/year Annual subscribers get every
More from #AmWriting
When you open a book, what are you actually looking for? Sure, we want a good story or useful information. But at a deeper level, most of us read because we’re looking for a mirror. We want someone who has wrestled with the hard, messy realities of being human and figured out something we haven’t quite articulated for ourselves yet. That’s why there’s nothing more frustrating—as a reader, as a book coach, and as a human—than reading a book where the writer holds back. In this Write Big session, I’m talking about a concept that blew my mind while listening to grief expert David Kessler on the Mel Robbins podcast. He spoke about the idea of “half-felt feelings” in relation to grief and emotional processing. The second I heard that phrase, I knew it was the exact diagnosis for what happens when a writer hesitates on the page: * In fiction, it shows up as characters who are only halfway experiencing their stakes. * In memoir, it’s a protagonist who protects themselves instead of being vulnerable. * In nonfiction, it’s an author who is so focused on sounding like a polished authority that they strip away the deep human heart of their topic. When we hold back, equivocate, or hedge our bets, we become emotionally stingy with our audience. But our job as writers isn’t just to arrange words; our real medium is human emotion. In this episode, I challenge you to look closely at your current draft and ask: Where am I settling for half-felt feelings, and where can I go deeper? The goal is to stop being afraid of what’s scary to say, step into real vulnerability, and write pages that actually resonate. #amwriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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I want to take you inside my favorite yoga studio in Santa Barbara. It’s called Yoga Soup, and it’s a giant, grounding mix of movement, actual nutrient-dense soup in a crockpot, fresh fruit from local trees, and community. My husband Rob and I practice there a few times a week, and one of our favorite instructors—who is also a middle school English teacher—starts every class by reading a poem. She weaves its themes throughout our practice and reads it again at the end. Now, I’ll be honest with you: these classes are often equal parts healing and deeply unsettling for me. Why? Because I’m in there without a notebook or phone, frantically trying to memorize brilliant lines so I don’t lose them! A few weeks ago, she read a poem by Mary Oliver called “Today” from her 2012 collection A Thousand Mornings. One line hit me like a bolt of lightning: “Today I’m flying low, and I’m not saying a word. / I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.” I spent the rest of the class scrambling to hold onto that concept because the “voodoos of ambition” are my constant companions. They’re the noisy, bossy, pushy engine behind everything I make, write, and build. They drive the desire to “play big.” And if you’re listening to this podcast, I bet your voodoos are pretty loud, too. But as I wrestled with Mary Oliver’s words, a new thought took root: What would happen if we actually let those voodoos take a day off? In this Write Big session, I’m reflecting on: * The double-edged sword of high ambition and why we need energy to drive big work. * Why scrambling to capture every thought is just another “voodoo” in disguise. * How giving your ambition a rest—letting it sink into child’s pose—is actually what allows it to wake up re-energized and full of life. Writing big requires big energy, but it also requires rest. This week, I’m offering you a permission slip to fly low, be quiet as a feather, and let your ambition sleep for a little while. Until next time, stop playing small and write like it matters! #AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Have you ever looked at a project you’ve poured years of your life into and realized… it’s fine? Not catastrophic. Not terrible. Just fine. No one wants to read a book that’s fine — and I am certain you don’t want to write one. The first step in making sure you do better than fine is to catch yourself when you know you’ve hit a wall — which is way easier said than done. We get so used to plowing ahead, getting the words down, prioritizing FINISHING that we often forget to stop and make sure we are writing what we really want to be writing. Think of that pause like checking in with your gut or your heart: do you love this? Because if you don’t love it, your readers aren’t going to love it, either. In this Write Big episode, KJ and I sit down for an honest, behind-the-scenes look at what happens when you hit a wall—and decide to set off a stick of dynamite instead of trying to climb over it. Both of us recently threw out huge portions of our current projects (my Write Big book, and KJ’s novel) to start fresh from page zero. I share the story of my 12-hour wrestling match with ChatGPT over the books subtitle (yeah — 12 hours on the subtitle), the “tough love” reality check I got from #amwriting recurring guest therapist Dr. Diana Hill, and how answering one simple question—are you actually centering your reader?—changed everything about my book’s tone, structure, and voice. Meanwhile, KJ opens up about why she threw out her protagonist, embraced a dual-timeline structure, and ignored the well-meaning advice of friends who told her NOT to keep starting over. We talk about: * How to recognize when a book is polite or timid instead of alive. * The difference between an echo chamber (which AI can sometimes be) and a true truth-teller. * A method for salvaging the gold from an abandoned draft without getting bogged down by old words. * Why starting over isn’t “falling behind”—it’s standing up for your conviction. If you’re feeling stuck, lost, or secretely suspecting your current draft needs a radical pivot, we encourage you stop playing it safe and build something alive. Let’s get back to work and finish work we LOVE. #AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Paid subscribers can join us in the chat to respond to this invitation! #AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.