Hot Seat Coaching: Building a Killer Twist: Going Deeper Inside a Gothic Mystery Blueprint

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.

You’ll get a regular Write Big episode tomorrow!

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.