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In this Write Big session, Jennie explores one of the most essential—and elusive—elements of writing: voice. In a world full of sameness (and increasingly, AI-generated language), what makes writing stand out is simple but not easy: sounding like yourself. This episode is sparked by a moment on an evening walk, when the call of an owl cut through noise-canceling headphones—clear, distinct, impossible to ignore. A reminder that true voice doesn’t blend in. It breaks through. If you want your writing to connect, resonate, and rise above the noise, this episode is a reminder: your voice is the thing that makes it possible. #AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Transcript Hi, I’m Jennie Nash and you’re listening to the hashtag am Writing podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. This is a right big session where I’m bringing you short episodes about the mindset shifts that help you stop playing small and write like it matters. Today I am talking about the power of tapping into your own voice. A lot of these sessions end up being about voice. The concept of voice in writing is so elusive, but I think it’s just so central to what we’re trying to do When we write big, we’re trying to sound like ourselves and we’re trying to cut through the noise of sameness, of sounding like everybody else, or lately of sounding like ai, which is of course, based on everybody else. It’s critically important to hear your voice and to work on [00:01:00] raising your voice and to understanding how powerful that can be. Something happened to me the other day that I wanna share with you because it was such a perfect description of why voice matters and what voice really means. So almost every afternoon I go on a walk in my neighborhood. And I especially love to go at dusk as the sun is setting and in the winter the lights really pink and in the summer it lingers for such a long time and reflects off of the mountains that I can see as I walk. I live in Santa Barbara, California, so we have these coastal mountains and I live quite close to those. And then the beach is a couple miles on the other side. So we’re in this little strip of land and there’s a rich diversity of plants and trees that grow in this space, especially along the creek beds. And I live right near a creek bed, so there are these really tall sycamore trees and also really tall eucalyptus and pine trees. In some cases, even some redwood trees. And then there’s all [00:02:00] kinds of scrubby chaparral like you get in Mediterranean climates. And the reason I like to walk at dusk is that the birds and animals are super active. So in the sky you’re gonna see hawks flying to their perches and rabbits running around to get away from them, and just all kinds of life and activity. But my favorite thing of all is listening for the owls. These are great horned owls. They have that very classic owl hooting sound that goes in a series like who, who, who. And what’s really cool is that the owls talk to each other. You can hear one call out and then a few seconds later, oftentimes from quite far away, another call out, but other times they’re really close. This one time I was walking and I heard the hoot, and then I heard immediately the other hoot. It’s a little bit like tracking thunder, like you can hear how close they are. I looked up and the two owls were sitting together in the top of this big tree. And the thing about the [00:03:00] owls also is that at that time of night, they swoop from high up on the trees into another tree. Sometimes they go into the middle of the tree to kind of hide or, uh, the opposite. They go from the middle of a tree, like a big spreading oak tree up to the top of a bigger tree so they can have their perch and check it all out. I just love it so much trying to find the owls and listening for the owls. You don’t hear them every night on every walk. It’s just such a joy when you do hear them. So I’m always listening for them. But what happened on the day that I wanna tell you about is they got some new noise canceling headphones. There are new in-ear noise canceling headphone from beats designed for working out so that they don’t fall out of your ears. And I got them because I actually lost one of my Apple ones on a walk in the rain. I had a hood on and it fell out. I searched and searched in the rain. I did actually find it and rescue it, but it stressed me out. So I got the kind that are meant to be more secure in your ear. And [00:04:00] so I’m wearing these new headphones and they’re really noise counseling. I didn’t realize quite how much I like to listen to podcasts when I walk. I also like to talk to friends or family, so I’m often on the phone, but also listening to everything that’s going on around me. It’s both things are going on. So I have these new headphones and I didn’t realize that I couldn’t actually hear anything. They are so good that all I could hear was this podcast that I was listening to. I couldn’t hear footsteps if a friend or neighbor walked up behind me and I couldn’t hear the creek running. I couldn’t hear planes flying overhead. I couldn’t hear anything. And so I’m walking along listening to the podcast, just focusing on that. And of course, the beauty of the light and the trees and everything else. But then I heard the owl cutting through this podcast and this incredible noise cancellation technology. It was like the owl’s voice was so distinctive and [00:05:00] on such a distinctive frequency, and it just cut through everything. And I stopped in my tracks and I took the headphones out and I just stood there and listened to it for like three minutes, maybe just. Doing, its hooting. And then there was a owl quite far in the distance hooting back, and I was just marveling that their voice, this particular way that they express themselves in the world, could cut through this incredible technology design to stop all noise. The owl’s voice is that particular, and that distinctive and just that powerful. And maybe I wanted to hear it that much. And while I was standing there, I thought. This is it. This is what writers want. Writers wanna speak in such a way that is so precise and clear and them that their ideal reader cannot help but stop and listen. I thought if every writer could be like these [00:06:00] owls cutting through the noise to their ideal reader, what an incredible thing that would be for the writers and for the readers. The owl is not trying to sound like a hawk and it’s not trying to sound like a hummingbird. We have a lot of hummingbirds near us too, and they have this very distinctive sort of buzzing sound that they make when they fly. And an owl is not trying to sound like that. They’re just sounding like their own selves and they’re owning that way that they sound. And in that moment I just felt it and I felt how powerful it was and I thought it was so awesome and, and I just wanted to share that with you. I thought it might be inspiring. I’m obviously going to have to choose between listening to podcasts and listening for the owls. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing either. Until next time, stop playing small and write like it matters. 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

In this first installment of Margin Notes—a new series on the big decisions writers face—we explore a question many writers quietly carry: When life falls apart, do you keep writing… or step away? Jennie Nash is joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Diana Hill, author of Wise Effort, for a conversation about grief, illness, recovery and the psychology of returning to your work. Dr. Hill will help us explore the emotional and cognitive side of a creative life. Together, we discuss: * Why “little by little becomes a lot” matters in recovery * How grief, illness, addiction, or heartbreak reshape your creative capacity * The two common paths writers take: stepping away vs. writing to survive * What negativity bias is—and why it gets louder during hard seasons * When writing supports healing—and when it becomes avoidance At the heart of this conversation is a simple idea: You don’t have to return to writing all at once.Sometimes, getting to the “mailbox and back” is enough. Whether you’re navigating loss or a major life transition, this episode offers a compassionate way back to the page—on your own terms. Books Mentioned * Wise Effort by Dr. Diana Hill * Little by Little Becomes a Lot by Eric Zimmer #AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Transcript (00:00:03): Hi, (00:00:04): I’m Jenny Nash, (00:00:05): and you’re listening to the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast, (00:00:08): the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, (00:00:12): love the process, (00:00:13): and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. (00:00:17): This is Margin Notes, (00:00:19): a new part of the podcast where we’re talking about the big decisions writers face (00:00:23): in their work on creative lives. (00:00:25): I’m here today to talk about (00:00:28): this idea of recovery from illness or a breakup or a major life transition and how (00:00:34): you get back to your work. (00:00:36): And I have with me the most of special guests, (00:00:40): uh, (00:00:40): Dr. (00:00:40): Diana Hill, (00:00:41): who is my friend and my client and my colleague. (00:00:45): She’s a clinical psychologist. (00:00:47): Who’s the author of wise effort, how to focus your genius energy on what matters most. (00:00:52): And she’s going to help us dig into this. (00:00:55): Welcome Diana. Diana (00:00:57): I am so glad to be here. Diana (00:00:58): And another form of recovery, recovery from addiction is another one. Diana (00:01:02): Like if people are prioritizing their health and recovery in that way, Diana (00:01:07): how do you write through that? Diana (00:01:09): So I’m super excited to talk with you because I think I’ve been through every Diana (00:01:11): single one of those recoveries in some form or another. (00:01:15): Well, yeah. (00:01:16): And we don’t have to get into it, but you have recently been through some big grief. (00:01:21): You’ve been through all these things in your life. (00:01:23): So how do you counsel somebody who’s trying to get over something or get through (00:01:28): something and also doesn’t want to abandon their writing? Diana (00:01:33): Well, there’s a great book that’s coming out. Diana (00:01:36): We have to mention a book, support our fellow writers by Eric Zimmer. Diana (00:01:40): And I always pick books by their titles in some form or another. Diana (00:01:44): And so there’s a great, how about this? Diana (00:01:46): There’s a great book title coming out, which is Little by Little. Diana (00:01:49): becomes a lot. Diana (00:01:51): And I think that’s something to remember in recovery. Diana (00:01:54): I remember after I had a C-section, Diana (00:01:57): I had two C-sections with my kids and the little by little was, Diana (00:02:01): you know, Diana (00:02:01): first you make it up to the mailbox and back, Diana (00:02:04): right? Diana (00:02:05): You’re trying to get back to that three mile walk that you used to do, Diana (00:02:08): but up to the mailbox and back was pretty darn amazing after you had a C-section to Diana (00:02:12): get to that milestone. Diana (00:02:13): And when you’re in recovery from something, you need to shift that Diana (00:02:19): the expectation to what is a lot. Diana (00:02:21): It’s what is a lot in the context of what you are going through. Diana (00:02:24): When you’ve had a C-section, a walk to the mailbox is a lot. Diana (00:02:27): When you are in recovery from losing a family member, Diana (00:02:31): writing 10 minutes in the morning is a lot. Diana (00:02:34): And being able to shift that expectation would be the first thing and remembering Diana (00:02:37): that little by little becomes a lot. Diana (00:02:40): That’s how we grow it. Diana (00:02:41): That’s one of the most foundational aspects of habit formation and psychology, Diana (00:02:45): And, uh, really is how I do most everything I do little by little. Diana (00:02:50): And then sometimes when I have a boost of energy, I do a lot. (00:02:54): And is that, do you think that that’s true all the time? (00:02:58): Like, (00:02:58): does it become more true when something intends happens in your life or is it (00:03:03): actually true all the time, (00:03:04): but we don’t quite see it so clearly? (00:03:07): Yeah. Diana (00:03:07): Well, Diana (00:03:08): I think it’s all the time, Diana (00:03:09): but more so when you’re in recovery, Diana (00:03:12): because when you’re in recovery from something, Diana (00:03:16): you may get exhausted more easily. Diana (00:03:19): You also may have some shifts in the way that you see the world and the way you see Diana (00:03:25): yourself that, Diana (00:03:27): um, Diana (00:03:28): That negativity bias may be extra strong or your threat system may be on extra Diana (00:03:34): alert so that you’re a little bit more hypervigilant depending on what kind of Diana (00:03:38): thing you’re recovering from. Diana (00:03:39): And so in that sense, Diana (00:03:40): we do need to dial up the gentleness factor that, Diana (00:03:44): you know, Diana (00:03:44): other times in your life, Diana (00:03:45): you maybe just to brush off the intensity of something. Diana (00:03:49): But when you’re in recovery, Diana (00:03:50): yeah, Diana (00:03:50): you need to be extra focused on little by little becoming a lot. (00:03:54): Can you explain what you mean by negativity bias, just so our listeners understand that? Diana (00:04:00): The negativity bias is just how our brains evolved. Diana (00:04:03): We evolved brains to keep us safe, not always to live our best lives. Diana (00:04:09): And so that means that you are the ancestor of people who were a little bit anxious. Diana (00:04:16): And when they looked out on the savannah and they saw some kind of obscure object Diana (00:04:20): out there, Diana (00:04:21): they had a tendency to think that that object was dangerous or negative in some Diana (00:04:25): way. Diana (00:04:25): Yeah. Diana (00:04:26): And so they went back into the cave and that’s how you came about because you Diana (00:04:30): We’re born from that, Diana (00:04:31): but we’ve inherited these negativity biases and they get extra strong when we’re Diana (00:04:36): under threat. Diana (00:04:37): It doesn’t mean that we can’t override them. Diana (00:04:40): It’s more that we learn how to notice them and in some ways allow them to be there Diana (00:04:45): while you still move forward towards what your values are, Diana (00:04:48): what your goals are, Diana (00:04:49): what’s important to you, Diana (00:04:50): even with that little bit of a chatter, Diana (00:04:52): that little what if mind in the background. (00:04:55): So I feel like when a writer is under the thread of something intense, (00:05:01): they tend to either take one of two paths in the recovery phase. (00:05:07): One path would be, I don’t have the time, energy, bandwidth. (00:05:13): to add this in, I’m going to push this way off. (00:05:17): And the other is the opposite. (00:05:20): And it’s this is going to keep me alive. (00:05:22): And I, I have to do it. (00:05:24): I have to keep my project going, keep my writing going, keep my voice up. (00:05:31): Can you help make sense of those that kind of binary response that I sometimes see? Diana (00:05:38): Well, Diana (00:05:38): like any kind of story, Diana (00:05:40): both of them are stories or frames or interpretations of your experience. Diana (00:05:45): There’s usually some kind of nugget of truth in it. Diana (00:05:47): And then sort of like that yin-yang sign, there’s also a nugget of not truth in it. Diana (00:05:52): So I don’t have enough time is a classic one. Diana (00:05:54): I mean, Diana (00:05:54): that’s again, Diana (00:05:55): whether you’re in recovery or not, Diana (00:05:56): that’s a classic writer’s statement of I don’t have enough time. Diana (00:05:59): And so we put it off. Diana (00:06:01): You know, we say things like in six months when I have things more in order, I’ll get this done. Diana (00:06:07): Or I will, would I feel better? Diana (00:06:10): I’ll start working on it. Diana (00:06:11): But the nature of our experience is that we really never have enough time. Diana (00:06:16): It’s more about prioritization of our time. Diana (00:06:19): And we miss that reality that when we engage in things that are more meaningful to Diana (00:06:25): us, Diana (00:06:25): we feel like we have more time. Diana (00:06:26): So there’s some research by Cassie Holmes out of UCLA that showed that folks that Diana (00:06:32): devoted their time towards others or engaged in meaningful projects actually had Diana (00:06:36): more what’s called time affluence. Diana (00:06:38): They feel like they had more time. Diana (00:06:40): So if you have that feeling, Dia

This episode is connected to: * Hot Seat Coaching #1 * Hot Seat Coaching #2 When you find yourself spiraling over a structural choice—looping between two different plot points or debating a table of contents—it’s easy to treat it as a technical puzzle to be solved with logic. But as book coach Jennie Nash explores in this episode, the hardest writing decisions usually aren’t about craft; they are about courage. Inspired by a profound "hot seat" moment with writer Andrew Parella, Jennie discusses how the simple question "Why is this so hard for me?" can reveal where you are "playing small." Whether you're deciding the scope of a nonfiction argument or the emotional vulnerability of a memoir, being stuck often means you are hovering between a safe version of your book and the big, ambitious version that actually wants to be written. This session is a call to align your head with your heart and step into the bigger power your project is asking of you. #AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Transcript Jennie: [00:00:00] This is a right big episode where I bring you short conversations about the mindset shifts that shape the work. Today I am talking about something that Andrew said in our hot seat coaching session the other day. That’s just really captured my attention. If you listen to that episode, which I’ll link to in the show notes, you’ll be able to hear him say this, but I wanted to take some time to talk about it on a right big session because the question was just so profound. What he asked himself was just simply, why is this so hard? So what was happening was we were talking through a writing decision he was struggling with. It’s one of those decisions where as a coach you can feel the writer circling around it, going back and forth, trying one thing, then another just sort of spiraling and not sure about how to move forward. And I. Was prepared to say the thing that I always say as a book coach, which [00:01:00] is, okay, let’s go through all the options. Let’s make a pro con list of how to proceed with this, of what your different choices are, and we can step back and look at the possible directions. That’s the analytic way that I was thinking to approach this decision. But Andrew had actually already solved the problem, and he had solved it not by going through all the options or using his mind. He had solved it by asking, why is this so hard for me? Which is a question of the heart. So what he did was he took it out of the intellectual sphere and he took it into this sphere. Of feeling I was there ready to start diagramming possibilities and using our head to figure this out. And he was the one who was like, well, wait a minute. Let me look at why this is hard. And what he realized was that the reason it was hard was because the decision was poking up against why this book so much to [00:02:00] him. What he actually said was he realized he was playing small. He was circling around a decision ‘cause he wanted to do the thing that would make the book big, but he felt like he should do the thing that would keep the book small. He was pinging back and forth. Between his desire and it was showing up as a structural decision in the book about how he would approach. In this case, it was the reality of vampires in his story. And one way would be, I can handle this. I’m capable of this. I can wrap up my hands around this. And the other way was, oh no, that’s gonna be a big scary book that I’d be having to. Handle and tackle, and I’m not sure that I could do that. So by not making this decision, he was holding himself back. He was hedging his bets. He was not fully committing to the version of the book that he really wanted to write. And as long as he was stuck in that place, every single decision was going to feel wrong. He was never gonna [00:03:00] land on one that was like, yes, this is it. And this moment stayed with me. So hard because I think a lot of writing decisions that feel technical or structural are actually something else. They’re about whether we’re willing to write the book that wants to be written. So imagine for example, that you’re writing a nonfiction book and it’s about burnout at work, and you keep getting stuck on how to frame it. Is the book a step by step guide on managing stress? Or is it about something bigger about, say how the culture of work itself is totally unsustainable. The first version is contained, it’s small, and the other version is making a much bigger claim, and it’s asking that writer to step up into a much bigger kind of power. So if you’re circling that structural decision endlessly, you might think that it’s different choices about. What the chapters are gonna look like are the table of [00:04:00] contents. But the real question is, am I willing to say the bigger thing, am I willing to go out there and say this bigger thing? Or imagine this for memoir. Maybe you’re writing a book about moving to a new city and the first year of showing up in a new place and building community, but there’s something you keep avoiding, which is that there was a breakup that happened before you made this move and that precipitated your. Coming here and you keep asking yourself, does this even belong in the book? Will it derail the narrative? Is it taking it in a different direction? Should I have a prologue? Should I start it at chapter one with that breakup? Should I just assume that people are gonna know, should I not put in it at all? But the real reason that decision probably feels hard is that that decision changes what the book is about. Uh, it stops being a story about a new city and a new adventure, and it becomes a story about rebuilding [00:05:00] a life. So it becomes a bigger story. And in order to write big, you have to embrace that bigness of it. So what Andrew’s question does, why is this so hard is shift. The focus inward to what you’re hesitating about, to what version of the book you might be avoiding to what version of your own self as a writer you might be avoiding because every writer has a story about who they are and how they’re showing up. There’s the safer version of that story, and there’s the bigger version. There’s one that might be more honest or more ambitious or more emotionally exposed, and when we try to write the smaller version of that story, whatever it is, the whole project will start to wobble because we’re not in alignment with our goal. So maybe your scenes don’t quite land, or the structure of the book feels wrong, or every decision feels impossible. And it’s not [00:06:00] because you don’t know enough about your story or your material or craft, or your skills need sharpening. It’s because you and what you’re doing aren’t aligned yet. So the next time you find yourself circling some decision about your work. Whether it’s rewriting the same paragraph over and over, or asking everyone you know what they think, or debating some decision. It’s definitely worth pausing and asking this question, which is not what is the right choice here, but why is this decision so hard for me? Odds are good that your project is asking you to step into a bigger power than you’re comfortable with, and you’re still debating whether you’re actually willing to do that. You’re debating the commitment of the whole thing. It’s a really brilliant move to make. And I would urge you to listen to Andrew talk about asking that question on our coaching call because it was so profound to hear him talk about it, and it was such a good [00:07:00] reminder for me that I have to remember to help the writer get out of their head and into their heart. Thanks for listening. Now let’s get back to work and finish what matters most. Outro: The hashtag am Writing podcast is produced by Andrew Parella. Our intro music Aply titled Unemployed Monday, was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output because everyone deserves to be paid for their [00:08:00] work. 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

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

After ten years of the #amwriting podcast, KJ, Jess, and Sarina are marking a milestone—and a transition. In this episode, the longtime hosts reflect on what the writing world looked like when the show began and share their best advice for writers trying to do meaningful work. They also pass the microphone to Jennie, who will carry the podcast into its next chapter. Moving forward, Jennie will keep the show focused on helping writers do their best work and make smart decisions about their writing lives. Expect familiar features and new conversations, including Write Big solo episodes, Book Lab breakdowns of listener submissions, coaching sessions with writers across genres, and Margin Notes exploring the thinking behind creative choices. The mission remains the same: helping writers play big in their writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. #AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Transcript Jennie: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Jennie Nash and you’re listening to the hashtag am Writing podcast. The place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. KJ: Hey everyone. I’m kj and you are listening to the hashtag am Writing podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. So today is a big day. We’re we’re Jess: big day. KJ: Yeah. We’re celebrating the 10th year of the hashtag am writing podcast, which I have to say is officially the longest I’ve been able to sustain any job-like thing. Um, and we’re announcing that we’re going in a new direction. So this is really cool. After a decade of talking to y’all, um, Jess and I and then [00:01:00] Sarina, who is at minus a decade. I don’t wanna, um, have decided to step back and hand over the reins to Jennie. Jess: Yeah Jennie: It is, it is such a big milestone and such a big deal. And before we. Actually say goodbye to the three of you. I mean, it’s not forever. You’re coming back as guests, all of you, all the time, hopefully. KJ: Oh, heck yes. Absolutely. You, you, you and I have already planned all the things, so don’t get too excited and, and weepy here folks, but things are just, things are gonna be. New and fresh and more interesting and, uh, more craft filled and more inspirational. When I need inspiration to write, I look for one of our episodes. That’s Jennie. So I think this is gonna be, this is gonna be great. Jennie: I think it’s gonna be great too. But before we actually say goodbye, I mean, 10. Is a long time and I thought it would be fun to ask you all what it was like 10 [00:02:00] years ago when you started, and Sarina 10 minus whatever the time is, but what was the writing landscape like as a whole maybe for you, and then all this wisdom, all these years that you’ve shared. What’s, what’s the thing that sticks in your head the most is what you would want to leave with, with the listeners, what is the your best piece of writing advice from all of this time? So. Jess, why don’t you start? You’re the og. Jess: Well, I, I definitely wanted to start. For those people who have not been around since the very beginning, you have to understand that it’s really horrifying when people say they go back and like start from the beginning because, um, and we’ll be posting pictures in the show notes. I have a ton of pictures throughout the years, but we originally, um, we, we would go into this little, I had a tiny, tiny house and we would go into the eve space off of my daughter’s room. And it was raw insulation with a light bulb, and we sat on the floor and it was [00:03:00] like. Maybe at the tallest point, maybe four feet high, so you had to kind of crawl in. And I have a picture of us, um, podcasting from inside there. And it was, and it was very hot in the summer. It would get very, very hot. My house did not have air conditioning and um. But it was delightful and it was this thing that we had talked about doing for such a long time, and I was so proud of us. And mainly it was kj. KJ was the one who said, we’re not gonna talk about this anymore, we’re just gonna do it. So she got us into gear and just brought her stuff over to my house in her basket and said, let’s go. Let’s do it. And we bought microphones and everything and it was. It was a big new adventure. And if you had said, then, how long do you think this is gonna last? I don’t know that I would’ve said 10 years. But there’s, you know, then Sarina came in and, and Sarina has, has been a part of this as a guest since the very beginning too. And a couple of things that I wanted to share were that one time Sarina and KJ and I, uh, were doing a [00:04:00] double, a double header episode and I forgot to hit record for both of them. And so. We did this incredibly fun, very long episode, broken into two pieces that, um, it went off into the ether and. I did learn from that. And then at the same time, by the time we were sort of on our game enough to be able to really interview people, we went up to Maine to interview Richard Russo and we went to record at his daughter’s wonderful bookstore in Portland, Maine. And um, I had three modes of recording. I had, um. Two microphones and I had a handheld digital thing that I had on the table between us and, um, mode one failed and mode two failed. And so the only thing we had was, you know, our little digital handheld on the table in between us. So. There’s a lot of stuff like that. There was the moment I got to text KJ and tell her that we were getting David [00:05:00] Sedaris, there was the day she emailed me to tell me that we were getting Anna Quinlan. You know, and I just so many cool things that, um. It makes me so happy that we’ve produced something good out of all of that. And one last thing. The, the, the thing that I think I’ve learned the most is there is no one right way to do this. That every single time I hear about, like whether it’s the, you have to write, writer write every day, you have to write every day, or you have to write in a certain way, or you have to write in a certain place, or you have to write with the door closed, or you have to write with the door open, all of those things. Um, none of those are rules. None of them are rules. They’re things that people do and I’m really glad that I’ve had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people about all the different ways they do it. Jennie: That’s amazing. Um, kj, do you remember this, uh, light bulb and no insulation time? KJ: Oh yeah. I don’t remember the time you didn’t record particularly just ‘cause it happened more than once. And [00:06:00] the other thing I would throw in is that the more famous, the guest, the. Less interesting. They were, it was almost KJ: always true. Jess: It wasn them. It was, yeah. I think we got all jacked up about like, I don’t know. It just, Jess: I don’t know. Wasn David Sari’s advice to young writers was the worst. KJ: Yeah. It advice really was Jess: anyone has ever given, it KJ: was, Jess: yeah, a writer. He said, don’t submit your work. Don’t ask. Don’t try to get you, wait for people to read it. Wait for people to ask you if they can read it. KJ: Yeah, Jess: that’s which this, this is, KJ: this worked for him. He is an NF one and it will not work for you. Jess: Right. Yeah, I think that KJ: my favorite, I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna lay it out there. I’m not even gonna put any caveats on that. That won’t work. Jess It won’t work. KJ: No. I think it’s always been the most fun when we get in deep into the craft and anytime someone is too practiced with their answers or it’s the same answer they’ve given a million times. You’re [00:07:00] right. It was cold and it was, um, it just wasn’t good. Sarina: Yeah. So the more fun people were always the people who were really in it with us. KJ: Yeah. Yeah. Jennie: So, Sarina, do you know when you came in, do you know what the, the n minus number is? Sarina: No, because I was a guest star even before we got out of the, the, um, kgs closet. It’s true. It’s true. KJ: One of those not recorded episodes was recorded in the eve space. That’s true. We had, we roped during fairly early. Jennie: Yeah. In that 10 years, you’ve probably written more. More than, well, how many books have you written in that time? Sarina, I mean, Sarina: um, 50. At 50 50 ish. Jennie: That’s crazy. That’s crazy. So what do you know now that you didn’t know then? Sarina: Oh, so much, so much that, like giving advice, you know, I, I [00:08:00] now feel like less qualified to give advice than I did then, you know how that goes. Like, the job gets harder, not easier. I have a, a good working vocabulary for why, but it doesn’t make me feel like anybody’s, you know, special savior. Jennie: Yeah. Yeah. What do you remember about starting in and the, the, um, all these episodes? What sticks in your mind as Sarina: you know? Um, I loved the opportunity to talk to people who I think are fantastic. I also learned that I am not a fantastic interviewer and that, and that, um. That isn’t a skill of mine that I, it’s, there’s so many things, like I’m so busy, I write so many books. I can’t learn to be the interviewer that you deserve. So I only. Did interviews selectively and sometimes they were just so fun. Like, [00:09:00] um, the, the person who broke broke the mold about the interview being interesting, the more famous they are was Emily Henry. ‘cause she was Oh yeah. She was fun to talk to. She was just right there with us and, and ready to have a good time and, and so wise and also so, so nice. And that, that’s really great when you can talk to somebody who’

It’s very rare for me to demand that the readers of my #AmReading substack pre-order something. And the bar to be my “Just One Book” is high. But here we go: The book is The Fountain—debut speculative fiction from Casey Scieszka—and you’ll want to read it, but even more, you’ll want to hear us talk about what it took to pull this big, beautiful novel from her Tuck-Everlasting-loving soul. And here’s the question her agent asked her that is now stuck on a post-it on my computer and may be my next tattoo: How can you reveal these things in action? Casey is reading: Open Throat by Henry Hoke (“It’s funny and deeply tender and unlike anything I’ve ever read.” Follow Casey on Instagram and Substack: Spruceton Inn. Transcript Below! EPISODE TRANSCRIPT KJ Dell’Antonia This is the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast, the place where we help you play big in your writing life, love the process, and finish what matters. I am KJ Dell’Antonia, and today we’re talking with Casey Scieszka. And I meant to ask Casey how to pronounce her last name before we started. How’d I do? Casey Scieszka I think you did great. Especially over in Poland, we say “SHESH-kah” over here, but I’ve been corrected many times. I think it’s supposed to be more like what you said. So… bravo! KJ Dell’Antonia Okay… SHESH-skah… SHESH-kah… all right, off we go. Y’all, you’re going to want to know how to spell it, because you’re going to want to order Casey’s debut novel, The Fountain, and it is spelled S-C-I-E-S-Z-K-A. But to carry on with my introduction, Casey is a ridiculously well-traveled innkeeper in upstate New York, and we are just going to let that fantasy sit there for a minute without talking about the amount of snow she’s going to be shoveling tomorrow, because we’re recording this in January and are talking about the fact that I can see her and she is wearing a full-on puffer. So… romance, Hallmark, innkeeper, debut novel—all the things—and also a puffer and snow shovels and pipes and, yeah. You will hear this episode just as Casey’s first book, The Fountain,, comes out, and that is what we’re here to talk about, because I happened to have gotten an advanced copy of it, and I happen to actually have read it—which does not always happen—and even more relevantly, loved it. Therefore, here we are. And Casey, welcome to Hashtag AmWriting. Casey Scieszka Thank you so much. I am so thrilled. I’m like really just beyond that you enjoyed it so much. KJ Dell’Antonia Ah, I’m so—I’m, I really did. I will be encouraging everyone to pick it up. It’s mind-boggling that it’s not… and it is your debut. So I’m going to go ahead and—is it, is it really? Like, I mean, I know it’s your debut, but like, is it the first book you’ve written? Oh no, you’ve, you’ve got a kind of a memoirs situation out, right? Casey Scieszka I wrote like a young adult travelogue with my now husband that he illustrated about when we lived like in China and West Africa and wound up literally out in Timbuktu. So I had some experience that way, but that was nonfiction and for a totally different audience. All that said, this novel is my first published one, but you better believe I have a bin in the drawer. KJ Dell’Antonia That’s what I meant. Casey Scieszka Drawer. (laughing) KJ Dell’Antonia Yeah. Yeah. So, The Fountain, is—just as briefly as possible—it’s the story of an immortal woman who really would like to die, for excellent reasons, because immortality is a weight that is really, really heavy, and you convey that beautifully and wonderfully in this book. And so I want to just start right off—I maybe should let you describe the book—and then I’ll just warn you that my next question is going to be, “Man, how did you have the guts to swing for the fences like this?” Casey Scieszka Well, I think it probably began when I read Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting as a fifth grader in English class, which is about a family that—or a little girl who comes across a magical spring that an immortal family is guarding, and then she has to decide, ultimately, throughout the book, what she’s going to do with this information and this knowledge while other people are hunting it down as well. And those questions just haunted and delighted me for decades, and I kept returning to them, and at some point I was working on a novel, had a whole manuscript going, was deeply frustrated, and I started a little something on the side where I was like, this will just be a short story. We’ll see where this goes. This is nothing, and I think, because… I don’t know, maybe you’ve experienced this before too, where if you’re not looking it directly in the eye, sometimes it can just take off, and it all of a sudden had a life of its own. Essentially, this grown-up version of Tuck Everlasting, where it’s about a woman who has come back to her small hometown in the Catskill Mountains, where she was born in the 1800s, 214 years later, to figure out what did this to her so she can reverse it and finally be released. KJ Dell’Antonia Wow, you really have the… the short pitch. What’s your book about? Down! Congratulations! That’s a tough one. Yeah, you, you nailed it. That is what it is about. And I will say that it took—one of the things that I loved about it, and that I like in a book—is that not only was I not sure at some points what the protagonist wanted for herself, I was not sure what I wanted for her. All I knew was that I wanted “something” for her. And that makes for a really interesting reading experience. Because normally, you know, you find yourself sitting there going, well, just, you know, just tell the person, or just, you know, kiss them or accept your reality, or you’d normally—you know what you want—like, take the ring, Frodo, or whatever. Or don’t take the ring, Frodo. And now there’s no book. But, and in this one, we didn’t. How hard was—was that for you to write—sort of, I don’t know… did you know what you wanted the protagonist—or what you wanted the reader to want for her? Or…? Casey Scieszka Yes and no. KJ Dell’Antonia How did you feel about that? Casey Scieszka Right. Yes and no, and yes and no. I think when you’re writing, ultimately, later on in draft, you have to be very clear about what your character wants. But in the early process, I had no idea. The whole thing, like I said, began as a short story, and that’s really just the first chapter or two, and then I was essentially hunting with her. When I was writing that first draft, I was like, what are we looking for? What has happened in the past 200 years in your life that would make you feel one way or another? And then every time I had a different little angel or devil on my shoulder, whatever you will, who was the—well, what about this point of view? What if? Wouldn’t this type of—wouldn’t someone say, well, living forever would be amazing, because you could share that type of science with other people, and you could, you know, have these wonderful medical advances or, you know, things like that? I could then have other characters essentially embody those, those other points of view as well. Although, I’m really glad that you say that in your reading experience, you still weren’t quite sure what she wanted, because I definitely didn’t want, you know—I mean, no, no author wants characters to just be symbols for points of view. KJ Dell’Antonia Oh yeah, no, absolutely not. And I should say that I know that she wants to reverse this. That’s never in question. But this sort of—there—you’re always aware of the question of what does she really want? Because that’s kind of only part of it to want… Casey Scieszka Right. KJ Dell’Antonia An end to this pain, but, but why and what other alternatives there are. And then, of course, I just—I did not know how you were going to end it. I could not imagine how you were going to land that plane. It must have been a tough one. Did you always know where you were going? We will not in any way spoil this. Casey Scieszka Right. No spoilers. KJ Dell’Antonia No, no spoilers. Casey Scieszka I’d say that about halfway through my first draft, I just saw the ending. I was like, “Oh, this is…” KJ Dell’Antonia That’s amazing. Casey Scieszka This is like that very last moment. I was like, this is where I need to get. And those handful of chapters before the penultimate one, whoa, boy, those were the ones that are like I wrote, like seven different books, you know? KJ Dell’Antonia Oh yeah. Casey Scieszka Completely different versions to actually get there. KJ Dell’Antonia So what was your… what’s your hope for the reader experience of this book? Besides, you know vast entertainment and pressing it into the hands of their friends. Casey Scieszka Right. Naturally. KJ Dell’Antonia Yeah… Casey Scieszka Beyond that… KJ Dell’Antonia We love that. Casey Scieszka Um, I mean, I love books that essentially look at what it means to be human and what makes a life worth living. And those are the type of questions that I hope someone would then linger on in their own life after putting down the book. Even in between chapters, you know? That you would be able to reflect on the choices that each character is making and think, like, oh, I would do this. I wouldn’t do that. Or, you know, to kind of just bring that back into your own life that way. Because… I don’t know. Time is perspective, like ever—what is—what does it mean to live forever? What is a long life? Is it? You know, when you’re when you’re little, a summer lasts an eternity. I guess what I’m saying is like our perspective of time is always bendy, and that was an interesting challenge in trying to write a 214 year old woman, where it was very tempting to just turn her into a superhero, where I’d be like, “O

In this Write Big episode, Jennie Nash is joined by AJ Harper, author of Write a Must-Read: Craft a Book That Changes Lives—Including Your Own, to talk about a more meaningful way to define success as a writer. AJ shares her concept of writing a “Top Three” book—one that becomes a reader’s personal favorite, the kind they keep forever, recommend constantly, and return to again and again. Together they explore why chasing external metrics like speed, bestseller lists, or book deals can distract from what really matters, and how focusing on writing something truly beloved often leads to those wins anyway. Links from the Pod: Ep 416: The Art of Helping Writers Do Their Best Work, with AJ Harper Write a Must-Read, AJ Harper Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich The War of Art, Steven Pressfield 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

Hello and welcome to Nerd Corner with Sarina and Jess! I love these episodes because I will never, ever know as much about the publishing industry as Sarina Bowen, and I learn so much from her. This week, she answers a question she got from a listener, paraphrased thusly: Dear Sarina, I want to support you and your work, so which format of your books do you profit from most? The fact that we live in a world where any reader is interested in the answer to this question soothes my troubled soul. So let’s break it down: hardcover, paperback, audio, ebook? What about borrowing from the library? What about subscription services such as Kindle Unlimited? Here are a few helpful links that expand on the topics we discuss in this episode: The Top Five Reasons Pre-Orders Matter 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

In this Write Big session, Jennie Nash talks with podcast co-host Sarina Bowen about what it really feels like to finish a book—especially the anxiety and pressure that can come with “finishing energy.” Sarina shares a powerful mindset shift: there is no summit in a writing career. You may reach the end of a draft (or even launch day), but the work doesn’t magically get easier—there’s always another book. The key, she says, is learning to love the hike itself and stay connected to your curiosity so you can keep showing up. 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 Goals for 2026: Jess is gonna finish a novel. Sarina is going to figure out what she wants a long haul writer career to looks like. KJ is going to write this book as hard as she can and for as long as it takes. Jennie is going to claim her authority in the writing space. Our Words of the Year are … Meanwhile: Fan of Heated Rivalry? You’ll want to read these books by Sarina Bowen! Ready to talk about your own goals and words? COME ON IN. We are here for that! Hey - if you’ve been curious about becoming a book coach, Jennie’d like to invite you to a live training she’s doing on February 4th, at 5pm PST / 8pm EST. She’s going to be talking about how to become the kind of book coach writers love to pay. You can sign up at bookcoaches.com/live WOTYs … in the episode! If you want to know what was so funny, you’ll have to listen. Transcript Below! If you love us enough that you got this far… SPONSORSHIP MESSAGE Hey, it’s Jennie Nash, and if you’ve been curious about becoming a book coach, I’d like to invite you to a live training I’m going to be doing on February 4th, at 5pm PST, which is 8pm EST, and I’m going to be talking about how to become the kind of book coach writers love to pay. You can sign up for that at bookcoaches.com/live. That’s bookcoaches.com/live. (bookcoaches.com/live) I’d love to see you there. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Jennie Nash Hey everyone, it’s Jennie, and this is the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast, the place where we help you play big in your writing life, love the process, and finish what matters. All four of us are here today to talk about our Word of the Year for 2026 and our goals. This is one of our favorite episodes to do, and we’ve all been kicking our words around, and we’re ready to share them with you. So Sarina, do you want to go first? Sarina Bowen Okay! Jennie Nash I just know you are kind of ready. KJ Dell’Antonia Right off the diving board. No throat clearing, no chit chat. Yeah, we’re just alrighty. Sarina Bowen All right, so I’m Sarina, and I write novels, and pretty much that is all I write. So my goals tend to look kind of the same from year to year, but my, but how I feel about them, changes. So in 2026 I plan to write two to three books, and when I do, I will be rolling off of two contracts with two different publishers. So that means that the other part of my 2026 is really asking myself what I want to do next. Because, you know, finishing energy is a really hard thing, but I’ll be like extra super finishing energy here, because I’m finishing a commitment. And, you know, I used to have goals, like, I’m going to write more books. I’m going to write all the books. And I don’t anymore, because there were, there was a while there where I only wrote books, and then last year, I did a really nice job of meeting my goals that I would also go and have more fun and take more vacations. And it worked. I did that. It turns out that planning fun takes a lot of energy and time. Oh my goodness, it was I, you know, I so I was either off having a wild time, or I was like, you know, nailed to my desk, and, yeah, so I need to do a slightly better job of that this year. Although looking at the schedule, it’s a little hard to see how, because I’m spending a big chunk of March and part of April in Australia and Hong Kong, and then... Jennie Nash Wait you can’t just throw that in and not say why. [laughing] Sarina Bowen Oh, well, I’m, I’m visiting. I’m doing four reader events in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Jennie Nash It’s so exciting, so exciting. Sarina Bowen And you know, time will tell if accepting this invitation was, in fact, a good idea. When I get home, I will be—it’ll be June, and I will be launching my second book of 2026, which is a romance and so, but, but then, you know, I will have turned in half of what I’m turning in this year, and I will be able to have big thoughts about what I do next. And that is the thing that is going to be hard about this year, not turning in files, but, you know, deciding what does it mean to me? And also a thing that I realized last year, while balancing my busy life is that in this job, there is no summit. It’s not like you climb that big hill and then you stand there and you hear an angel choir, and then you know that the only thing that greets you after writing a big novel is that you will pretty soon, eventually write another one. So you have to enjoy the hike itself. And I am really working on that. Jess Lahey I actually have just—I have just to address what you just mentioned Sarina, I have put in my calendar in June. Since we love to—I happen to love the mid-year check-ins on goals. I put a little note to self, to future Jess to revisit Sarina’s goals at mid-year so that we can talk about maybe what that second half of the year, what comes next, stuff is going to look like. So, expect that to come back around. Sarina Bowen Okay, I hope there’s some clarity by then, so I’ll get right on that. Jess Lahey Well, and I would also like to mention that you mentioned, you know, all the work you’re doing and doing fun and stuff like that. You also went back to skating this year, and you, I have loved watching you learn, relearn something fairly new, and gain skills and get determined to like, be able to do that. What’s it called, when you change the side of the blade you’re on? When you turn? Sarina Bowen Yeah, all that edge work... Jess Lahey It’s very exciting. Sarina Bowen And those three turns. Yeah. So that is part of my leave the house and have fun plan, and that has worked out really well. It—when you do something that’s so outside of your usual, like, we could just stipulate by now that I’m pretty good at writing a novel, because I have turned in a number of them and sold a number of them, but I am really not good at skating. So when you take yourself so far out of your element, and you do something that is so foreign to you, you learn, relearn all those weird little tricks about how you learned anything, and the fact that last year I could not do a three turn to save my life, which is where you turn around on one foot. And I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried to trick myself into it. And I’m like, okay, I’ll take off on two feet, but land on one. I just every single thing didn’t work. And then this year, now I can do it. And also, I woke up at four in the morning once and thought I could do a waltz jump tomorrow, and then the next day I did, in fact, just do a waltz jump. And I hadn’t even been thinking about it. It wasn’t even on my list of things I was going to try that week. So learning something really, really new is really just great for your brain and your attitude. And I don’t know what the next thing that I do like that will be, but, yeah, I’m a fan. Jennie Nash But I must reflect back to you that a few years ago, you were, I think the goals had to you were working so hard and just, you know, book to book to book to book and, like, look at you now .You’re going on all these trips, and you’re learning to ice skate, and I know you and KJ are learning Mahjong. KJ Dell’Antonia Mahjong, yes. Jennie Nash And you write in coffee shops like, you’ve kind of really changed that, that vibe. It’s cool. Sarina Bowen I have! I did it right? Like I said, I’m going to have more fun. I’m going to learn to write out of the house. Like I sat in a room and said to you that this was going to happen. And I did, right? But the, but then, but then, writing the actual books, it magically did not get easier. So I am having more fun, but it’s still hard, and that’s how I’m coming to this new realization that, like you know, I need to stop being surprised that the actual job is hard, but it’s just like a piece of the fun that I’m having, and if and I can only write books that I’m probably going to enjoy, because it’s still hard and it still takes a lot of hours. Jennie Nash That’s amazing. I feel compelled to ask you, what are you most enjoying about what you’re writing right now? Sarina Bowen Well we are at maximum finishing energy, because I am finishing a revision, which is scary, right? Because then you’re sending it off into the world of telling yourself that it’s done. And I have to say, I have not enjoyed it all that much. This has been one of the more one of the more stressful weeks. But, yeah, I—but there are moments as I look through this manuscript, because I’ve just reached that point where you hate every living word of it, right? Where I read a line and I laugh, and then that’s just a good sign. Jennie Nash Like I’m so clever, look at me. Multiple Speakers [all laughing] Jess Lahey I actually just, just for fun. I just dropped—I got to go—I traveled an hour and a half to go so that I could go sit in a coffee shop and work with these guys, because I miss them so much. And I took two pictures of Sarina while she was working there, and in one, she had this look on her face... I just dropped it in our group text just now, where she’s got this look on her face like this is the hardest, worst thing I’ve ever done. And then I also took one of her smiling and looking like her usual happy self. But it was—I love having those two pictures together on my phone, because it’s so representative of the slog. How there are these moments of really having fun and engaging with the book and loving it, and then there’s those moments of editing where you’re trying to just finish it and get all the words in the right order. Sarina Bowen Yep, it’s, it’s, you know that the push and pull and the trick to liking this job is that when you’re in that trench of I have to be finished with this. I have to love it, and I have to set it free. You have to remember that the other side is out there. That like the drafting happy, I haven’t made any big mistakes yet, I haven’t sealed of

Anyone who ever listened to Jenna Blum do interviews on the A Mighty Blaze podcast will not be one bit surprised to hear that we had a great time talking all things writing but most specifically writing BIG—which Jenna has absolutely done with her current book, Murder Your Darlings. Murder Your Darlings is a contemporary thriller and a real departure from Jenna’s very popular historical fiction—a departure that’s totally in keeping with Jenna’s own enthusiastic, passionate personality. As her agent said, her earlier work was elegant and restrained (although still powerful) but in this one Jenna lets herself loose. We had a wonderful time talking about it, and I know you’ll have a great time listening. #AmReading The Plot and The Sequel, Jean Hanff Korelitz Last Seen, Christopher Castellani You, Caroline Kepnes Join Jenna on tour—she’s absolutely a joy to listen to on writing and probably any other topic! Dates HERE. And do grab Murder Your Darlings—who doesn’t love a tell-all thriller set in this ridiculous industry we all love so much? Hey—if you’re reading this in January 2026, it’s not too late to join our Blueprint Sprint and get in on a rapid-fire roadmap to writing the book you want to write this year (instead of writing 100K words in search of it… ask me how I know!) First Blueprint post below—upgrade your subscription to get started. Episode Transcript Below! SPONSORSHIP MESSAGE Hey, this is Jennie. Happy New Year! If you’re a subscriber to the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast, you can join us in our Blueprint Challenge, which is starting on January 12. We’re going to be working on new book ideas, books where we’re stuck, and books that we’re revising, and using the Blueprint framework to help us get unstuck, get clarity, get confidence, and move forward. KJ is leading the charge this time with some write-alongs, some Ask Me Anything sessions, and all kinds of good stuff to help you on your way. I’ll be jumping in as well, and I’ll be cheering you as you get your books into shape and get ready to write forward in 2026. Details are in the show notes, and we’d love to have you join us. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Multiple Speakers Is it recording? Now it’s recording—yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don’t remember what I’m supposed to be doing. All right, let’s start over. Awkward pause. I’m going to rustle some papers. Okay, now—one, two, three. KJ Dell’Antonia Hey, writers, KJ here. I just interviewed Jenna Blum, and any of you who have listened to her when she does the interviews on the A Mighty Blaze Podcast will not be one bit surprised to hear that we had a great time talking all things writing, but most specifically, writing big, which Jenna has absolutely done with her current book, Murder Your Darlings. Murder Your Darlings is a contemporary thriller and a real departure from Jenna’s very popular historical fiction, a departure that is totally in keeping with Jenna’s own enthusiastic, passionate personality. As her own agent said, Jenna’s earlier work was elegant and restrained, although absolutely still powerful, as you know if you’ve read it, but in this one, in Murder Your Darlings, Jenna lets herself loose. We had a wonderful time talking about it, and I think you’re going to have a really good time listening. Jenna, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us for the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. Jenna Blum You’re so welcome. I am the one who’s honored to be here. Thanks for having me. KJ Dell’Antonia I am really excited. So, listeners, as you probably heard in the intro, which I haven’t recorded yet, I asked Jenna to join us because she’s doing a big thing. She’s making a jump into a new genre for her, and I can totally relate, and I suspect many of you can too. Her new book, which is out approximately now, as you hear this, is kill your dollar, Kill your darlings. [intended title: Murder Your Darlings] And it is one of those, like, if somebody wrote a book just for me, it would be this kind of book, or this possibly exact book, which is such a thrill. It’s, you know, that combination of the thing that makes me my buy now list, which is, isn’t a thing like that thing where you’re like, if you tell me the book is about such and such, I’m like, yes, yeah, just, just take my money. So it’s that, plus that really great, commercial, friendly, accessible, like the voice I want to read. It’s not—I mean, I don’t know if any of those adjectives thrilled you—but easy reading is hard writing, and nobody knows that more than me, and you do that very well. Jenna Blum That is so kind of you, KJ. Thank you. So I’m going to rudely start out by issuing a small correction, but the... KJ Dell’Antonia Oh no. Jenna Blum Actually, no, no, it’s fine. It’s Murder Your Darlings. And they’re... KJ Dell’Antonia Oh, okay, sorry. Jenna Blum Popular phrase. And one of the reasons I call the book Murder Your Darlings, as opposed to kill your darlings, which people tend to gravitate to, is that the book is really about writerly appropriation in the biggest way, about story thievery in the biggest possible go big or go home kind of way. And the phrase kill your darlings is itself an appropriation, which I didn’t know until I started writing this. But the original phrase is Murder Your Darlings. It was coined by a gentleman called Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in 1914, and he was giving a lecture on good writing, and he said, whenever you think you’ve done something exceptionally clever in your manuscript, by all means, put it in, and then go in and take it out: murder your darlings. And then William Faulkner ran with it, and Stephen King ran with it, and it became really popularized. And I thought, how cool to go back to the original in a book about appropriation. So it’s Murder Your Darlings. KJ Dell’Antonia It’s also—that’s better. I can’t believe I got it wrong, because it has this great cover with the quill and the blood. And I—it that’s, that’s better. It’s just it, I don’t know, kill your darlings has also become a very glib phrase. So to switch it to Murder Your Darlings kind of makes—kind of gives you that record scratch moment of like, oh, oh wait. Oh! Right? So I like it. Jenna Blum I appreciate that. Thank you. I mean, I myself was thinking, kill your darling, so I love to, sort of like, care what of that phrase, that Murder Your Darlings had a sort of a weightier sound to it. And despite, like, the joy that I had in writing about writing, and I hope all your listeners just like me, I’m—my must order now books are all about writers, about writers about writing, especially fiction about writing. I had so much joy in that, but the book also has some pretty weighty subjects at its heart as well. So I feel like that weightier murder is somehow indicative of... KJ Dell’Antonia Well, that brings us really well to the next question that I wanted to ask you, which is, what was your intention around this? This is definitely, you—now I think probably we step out with every book, but this is you stepping out and playing big, which is, you know, is a new theme that we’re talking about around here. So what was your intention for Murder Your Darlings? What did you want it to be?Jenna Blum I love that you’re doing the go big or go home theme. I always think that way. I’m not a quiet writer, not probably, not a quiet person.KJ Dell’Antonia You’re not really, no, not—that’s not what I would say. Oh, Jenna, she’s so shy and retiring...yeah. Yeah.Jenna Blum So I had so much joy and so much fun writing Murder Your Darlings, because all I had to do was unpack my life. She’s such a wallflower. My sister saw a photo of me with a megaphone at a—as an activist at a rally, and she’s like, nobody here is surprised. This is what I’ve been living with for all the years. Anyway. So my intent with this was really just to have some fun, honestly. I have been working on historical fiction, and I’m known primarily for historical fiction, and I was working on historical fiction when the idea for Murder Your Darlings came to me, and I felt like I had two books trying to elbow their way through a doorway at the same time. And because I am more known for historical fiction, and my editor had already green lighted that idea, I was very dutifully working along on it—and it was a terrific idea, I have to say, like on paper. It was an idea on paper that should have been good, but it really wasn’t. There was no juice to it. So I kept writing, and then thinking, right, what was the motivation? What did the character actually want in that scene? And then I would realize I had no idea and didn’t care. And so I was thinking about Murder Your Darlings, which is about a female writer—mid career, female writer who falls in love with a stratospherically successful and very charming male writer and then finds out that he may or may not be killing female writers to take their stories, or is it one of the number of women who are stalking him, especially this very persistent stalker named the Rabbit. And so I had this idea kind of elbowing its way into my head, and I thought, I don’t, I don’t know if I’m qualified to write a thriller. I’ve written a thriller. Who am I to do this? And then I read Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot, which is so good, so contemporary, so fresh, so funny, so smart, so everything. And I stalked her. I called her, got her phone number, called her, and said, how was it for you making this pivot, going from quote, literary fiction end quote, to writing a thriller? And she said, I just write what I want to write and let other people market it. You should write what you write. And I thought, Babu, because I had always loved reading about writers. I’ve always wanted to write about writers, and she kind of gave me—well, she lite

This is a Bonus Episode, which means that it doesn’t have any of the beautiful audio engineering from our amazing team. In this Bonus Episode, Jennie Nash talks with physician-writer Carolyn Roy Bornstein about how one Blueprint exercise brought clarity to a long-stalled book project. By identifying a single ideal reader, Carolyn was able to see exactly who she was writing for and shape A Prescription for Burnout with purpose and focus. They discuss why audience clarity matters and how the Blueprint can unlock momentum at the right moment in the writing process. Our guest, Carolyn Roy Bornstein, MD is a retired pediatrician, narrative medicine teacher, and author whose work explores the healing power of reflective writing. Her forthcoming book, A Prescription for Burnout: Restorative Writing for Healthcare Professionals, will be published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Carolyn draws on her clinical experience, her own journey through trauma and recovery, and her work with healthcare trainees to help writers—and caregivers—find voice, purpose, and resilience through the written word. Join Us for the Blueprint Challenge Starting January 12 Hi there supporters and subscribers! Many of you are joining the Winter Blueprint for a Book, and if that’s you, you must opt-in to receive posts, AMAs, write-alongs and podcasts. In 10 weeks, future you will be thanking current you for all the work you put in to figure out what you want this book to be—and how to best get it there, whether you’re starting fresh with a new draft or revising something that still hasn’t come together. If you don’t opt in (how-to below), this will be the only Blueprint-related email that comes your way. (So no worries and no extra emails for those of us having a normal chaotic writing season!) And for those of you who haven’t yet signed up—WHAT are you waiting for? This is a killer deal—put in an hour a week (okay, maybe more some weeks) and you could have a blueprint in hand by March—with a cohort, AMAs, write-alongs and plenty of help. Last chance—or at least, this is the last time we’ll prod you. If you decide to jump in next week, we’ll be here. Want to learn more? We published a whole series about the joys and benefits of the Blueprint: * What the Blueprint is and why Jennie made it * Introducing the winter book coach hosts * Overcoming Pantsing Pitfalls: How the Blueprint Method Can Save Your Story * The Blueprint is the Solution for Time-Strapped Writers * How to Use a Blueprint for Revision * Befriending the Blueprint * Using Mindfulness to Master the Blueprint Not yet a paid subscriber? There’s still time—in fact, there’s still a special deal in place for those who want to jump in: 20% off an annual subscription until 1/15/25, and you can spend the next ten weeks figuring out what you want this book to be, instead of writing 250K words over the course of the year to achieve the same thing. Ask me how I know. To join Blueprint for a Book, you must opt-in and set up your podcast feed. Don’t worry, it’s simple! Click here to go to your #AmWriting account, and when you see this screen, do two things: * Toggle “Blueprint for a Book” from “off” (grey) to “on” (orange). * Click “set up podcast” next to Winter 2025 Blueprint for a Book and follow the easy instructions. (It is MUCH easier to do this step on your phone.) Once you set those things up, you’ll get all the future Blueprint emails and podcasts (and if you’re joining the party a bit late, just head to our website and click on Blueprint for a Book Winter 2025 in the top menu). 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 the December Booklab, and while our booklabs are normally only for subscribers, we’ve made this one free as a little present to you—something to listen to while all the other pods are having a well deserved break.How this works: we’ve chosen two among the brave souls who have submitted their first pages (i.e. first 350 words) to us. As always, we read the page aloud, with no other information other than genre and (sometimes) title. We talk about what we read, how it was received, what we think we do and don’t know about the book and what we should know. We offer constructive comments to these writers, and to all writers, on how to make that first page work as hard for you as it can. And then we answer the question: would we turn the page? Kids, those first pages have to WORK. People download a book, or grab an audio sample, often without the benefit of your flap copy or the beautiful cover, and you need to sell them on sticking around from that first minute. The two entries for this episode: * The Burning Truth is a commercial thriller centered on a woman whose sister’s death is reopened when a teenage true-crime podcaster starts investigating a case that hits dangerously close to home. * Camil and Bloom is contemporary literary fiction about a middle-aged woman at a bar grappling with being ghosted, using sharp observational detail to explore loneliness, aging, and stalled lives. Our takeaway is that a first page must work with extreme efficiency: it needs to establish character, stakes, and story direction all at once. Vivid details and strong writing aren’t enough on their own; those details have to be focused and clearly tied to the protagonist’s emotional core so readers understand whose story this is and why it matters. A compelling hook helps, but clarity of perspective and purpose is what ultimately makes a reader turn the page. #AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 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

Most writers start revision by re-reading their manuscript from page one — but that’s the least effective way to improve a book. In this episode, Jenny explains a clearer, more strategic way to revise using the Blueprint and the 3D Revision Process. You’ll learn how to step back, see your book with fresh eyes, and create a plan that actually moves your manuscript from good to great. We also invite you to join the upcoming Blueprint Sprint. In this episode you’ll learn: * Why a full-manuscript read is often the wrong first step in revision * The mindset shift every writer needs before diving into revisions * How to use the Blueprint to create a clear, confident revision plan before touching your pages Join the Blueprint Sprint Starting January 12 and rolling though February, KJ Dell’Antonia and Jennie Nash will lead you through the 14 foundational questions that every writer should ask of themselves and their book, whether you’re just getting started, are mid-draft or starting on on the whatever-number revision with weekly assignments, live events, workbooks and updated access to all the Blueprint resources. All you need to do is be a paid subscriber and stay tuned—we’ll let you know how to get signed up. I NEED a January Blueprint! APPLICATIONS CLOSED What if you want even MORE? Then you could be one of a very few #AmWriting subscribers who join our first ever Blueprint Sprint cohort. 6 weeks of working together and write-alongs, 5 group-only live sessions, which will be recorded for anyone who can’t attend and a members-only community dedicated to helping you create a Blueprint that leads you to the book you want to write, ending with direct feedback from me and from Jennie on your flap copy and 3 page Inside-Outline. We’re keeping this small on purpose—we max out at 10 and we might drop that down—so applications to join this group open today and will be evaluated on a first-come, first serve basis. Once we have 10 people, we will close down the application, so get yours in early! Early-bird pricing is $1000 until December 22, after that the price goes up to $1200 (if there are spaces left by then). What are we looking for? 10 writers who are prepared to commit to the process and to the cohort, who do what they set out to do when they set out to do it, who welcome constructive feedback and are willing to do what it takes to build a blueprint for the book they want to create. Writers who know that sometimes you must look a hard truth in the face and cut your losses, that what goes in the scrap heap is rarely resurrected but that the scrap heap is a necessary part of the work. Writers who won’t take no for an answer, but can hear “not this” and feel both disappointment and a burning determination that the next effort will be the one that gets there. Also: no a******s. What will you need to apply? We want to hear about your professional and publishing backgrounds, but no publishing experience is necessary. We want to know where you are with this current project, but “still noodling” is a fine answer. The primary requirements are first, a readiness to do the work and second and more ephemerally, our sense of what makes a cohesive cohort. If that sounds like you, here you go—the time to apply is now. Links & Resources * Learn more about the Blueprint tools * Substack about how each genre has a different primary goal in the Blueprint * #amwriting Episode about the Blueprint origin story and why it’s such a powerful tool: Transcript Below! #AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. “Revision means stepping back, thinking big picture, and being brave enough to rebuild.” SPONSORSHIP MESSAGE Hi writers, the Winter Blueprint Challenge 2026 is on, and I can’t wait to do it, and I can’t wait to tell you about it. Okay, so this time around, we’re going to have two ways to play. First, we’ll run the Blueprint for supporters, 10 weeks of Blueprint assignments, live events, and encouragement starting January 12, 2026—or, and this is the big news, apply to join our very first Blueprint cohort—10 of you will become a small group that receives direct feedback from me and from Jennie on flap copy and the three page Inside-Outline, and joins five group only live sessions and becomes a part of a members-only community dedicated to helping you create a blueprint that leads you to the book you want to start and finish. Applications to join this group open December 15, 2025 and will be evaluated on a first come, first-serve basis. Once we have 10 people, we’re going to close down the application. So get yours in early. Early-bird pricing for the small cohort is $1,000 until December 22 after that, the price goes up to $1200 (if there are even spaces left by then). I am so excited about this. So get your application in early. The regular Blueprint will run for supporters at the usual supporter pricing, but this other cohort is going to be really special details on how and where to apply are in the show notes, or they’re going to be pretty prominently displayed at AmWriting podcast.com EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Multiple Speakers Is it recording? Now it’s recording. Yay! Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. Try to remember what I’m supposed to be doing. All right, let’s start over. Awkward pause. I’m going to rustle some papers. Okay. Now, one, two, three. Jennie Nash Hey everyone, it’s Jennie Nash, and this is the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast the place where we help you play big in your writing life, love the process, and finish what matters. Today, I want to talk about why most writers approach revision the wrong way, and how to use the Blueprint to do it right. Most people think revision starts with reading the whole manuscript, but the truth is I think that’s the last thing you should do. Before we dive into why I think that, and what I think you should do instead, I want to talk a little bit about what I call the “revision mindset.” When you finish a manuscript, it’s really tempting to think, okay, I’ve got it, I did it, I’ll just polish it up a little and be done. But real revision requires openness—being open to seeing the strengths and the weaknesses and the changes that you need to make in the manuscript to take it from good to great. This can feel really vulnerable. I know for me, at this point, I worry that changing one thing is going to break everything else. You feel so close to the finish line that you don’t want to touch anything. But holding that tightly—that kind of clenching—is exactly what stops the revision process from working. It’s important to remember that revising is big-picture work. It’s not line editing. Revising is stepping back, seeing what’s really on the page, and being willing to reshape it. So a “revision mindset” is that openness and that willingness to look at it, to be real about what’s there and what you want it to be, and to be willing to do what it takes to get it there. So a good revision is going to start with that mindset. And if we start there, you can begin to see why doing a full manuscript read-through from page one, marching straight through all the way to the end, is going to lead to trouble. There are two particular things that happen if you approach revision in that way. The first problem is when you go to read the book from page one chronologically all the way through—maybe you wrote it that way, maybe you didn’t—but in any case, if that’s how you approach revision, what tends to happen is that you fall into line editing instead of big-picture thinking. You begin to think, oh, this line is really great, or maybe I should fix that line, or maybe the flow here is a little off from this line to the other. You stay in the weeds, and you lose sight of structure and purpose and the big arc of your story or argument. The second problem with starting revision with a full manuscript read is when you ask somebody else to do that reading for you. Basically, what you’re doing is handing over your power to somebody else. You’re saying you look at this, tell me what you think, tell me how to fix it, tell me what’s wrong. And the problem with that is the tendency to get feedback and then just do everything they ask without thinking strategically through what you want to do or what you want your revision to accomplish. And a corollary of that problem is that usually when people are doing that full manuscript read for you, they’re just dumping all this stuff on you. They’re giving you this long litany of things that they see in the manuscript, or things that they think you should fix, and that list might include small things and big things and important things and not important things. It’s so easy to just get overwhelmed with the process. As a book coach, that’s what I see all the time. People get into revision, they get overwhelmed, they freeze up, they don’t know what to do first. It’s so easy to feel defeated. And that’s the moment when so many writers stall out and shelve the project. They put it in a folder on their desktop—the proverbial drawer—and it’s just away, and they’re done, and they can’t face it. And then the idea of going back to that huge amount of work and trying to figure it out becomes too daunting, and they just don’t. So I don’t recommend starting your revision with the full manuscript read. I have a different approach that I teach book coaches at Author Accelerator, and it’s called the “3D revision process.” It has three parts. The first is a process of inquiry. We use the Blueprint to ask key questions about the project. The second step is mapping everything out using the outline at the end of the Blueprint in a specific way. And the third step is strategizing. We look at that outline and we prioritize what change

It’s on again! The Blueprint is one of our most popular offerings—Our 10 step plan to help you define the book you want to write before you write 100k words in search of it—but this time we’re going in fast and we’re knocking this puppy out in just 6 weeks. Starting January 12 and rolling though February 20, Jennie Nash and I (this is KJ) will lead you through the 14 foundational questions that every writer should ask of themselves and their book, whether you’re just getting started, are mid-draft or starting on on the whatever-number revision. We’ll have weekly assignments and live events (Mondays 6:30 PM EST/3:30 PM PST, recorded so no one missed anything). We’ll have updated access to all the Blueprint resources. There will be chat and solidarity and all the energy that comes from being a part of a community all working together to reach the same goal. Plus, every time we’ve done a Blueprint, somebody ends up with a book deal (listen here: An #AmWriting Success Story! ). That could be you. I LOVE Blueprint season. As Jennie says in the episode, the Blueprint comes from her realization that over and over again in her book coaching career (which is long and storied) she was seeing people come to her with the same mistakes—300-350 page manuscripts that lacked an inner structure, or an internal point, that meandered, were all plot and no heart or tried to offer instruction without ever conveying why it was so badly needed and what it would change for the reader. Her secret is that she developed the Blueprint for revision (more about that HERE) and then realized that using it from the get-go works, too. Look, I’m the first to tell you that the Blueprint doesn’t solve everything. But it helps… a lot. So get ready to Blueprint, whether you’re starting a new project or revising the current one (that’s where I’ll be)—and if you’re not already a supporter of the podcast (the only way to access the Blueprint) you should be. Oh I am so IN, counting the days. APPLICATIONS CLOSED What if you want even MORE? Then you could be one of a very few #AmWriting subscribers who join our first ever Blueprint Sprint cohort. 6 weeks of working together and write-alongs, 5 group-only live sessions, which will be recorded for anyone who can’t attend and a members-only community dedicated to helping you create a Blueprint that leads you to the book you want to write, ending with direct feedback from me and from Jennie on your flap copy and 3 page Inside-Outline. We’re keeping this small on purpose—we max out at 10 and we might drop that down—so applications to join this group open today and will be evaluated on a first-come, first serve basis. Once we have 10 people, we will close down the application, so get yours in early! Early-bird pricing is $1000 until December 22, after that the price goes up to $1200 (if there are spaces left by then). What are we looking for? 10 writers who are prepared to commit to the process and to the cohort, who do what they set out to do when they set out to do it, who welcome constructive feedback and are willing to do what it takes to build a blueprint for the book they want to create. Writers who know that sometimes you must look a hard truth in the face and cut your losses, that what goes in the scrap heap is rarely resurrected but that the scrap heap is a necessary part of the work. Writers who won’t take no for an answer, but can hear “not this” and feel both disappointment and a burning determination that the next effort will be the one that gets there. Also: no a******s. What will you need to apply? We want to hear about your professional and publishing backgrounds, but no publishing experience is necessary. We want to know where you are with this current project, but “still noodling” is a fine answer. The primary requirements are first, a readiness to do the work and second and more ephemerally, our sense of what makes a cohesive cohort. If that sounds like you, here you go—the time to apply is now. 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