Paul Simon, Plot Progress, and Rich’s Full-On Writing Doldrums | Ep 359

This week, Jerry actually has real writing progress to report, which is nice, because lately Book 3 has felt like one long hostage situation involving outlines, rewrites, and editor notes. He adds 5,643 new words to Networking Murder, pushes his yearly total to 15,240, gets the green light from Super Editor Cee, and starts moving through the early chapters for real. So yes, the rewrite is still a monster, but at least now it is a monster with momentum. A lot of the episode lives in that weird middle space writers know too well, where progress is happening, but none of it feels clean. Jerry talks about drafting Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, figuring out how to open the story, balancing plotting with actual words on the page, and using his custom writing app to keep everything moving. He also gets into how AI tools inside VS Code are helping him improve the app on the fly, which is either a brilliant productivity move or the kind of side quest that programmers tell themselves is productivity. Probably both. Rich, meanwhile, is stuck in the creative mud. He talks about being in the doldrums, not writing, not editing, cleaning fountain pens, getting notebooks ready, and basically circling the runway while waiting for his brain to commit to takeoff. He has some new story ideas, and it sounds like he is close to jumping into something just to get moving again, but right now he is still in that familiar writer state where the work has not stopped existing, it has simply wandered into the fog and refused to answer questions. There is also plenty of regular-life chaos in this one. Jerry is running on fumes after a Paul Simon concert, a barking dog, almost no sleep, and three straight days of golf. He talks through the concert in a way that feels exactly right for an 84-year-old legend: a strange first set, a stronger second half, a fantastic encore, and the kind of traffic leaving the venue that makes you question every decision that brought you there. Rich has the opposite problem at the library, where the heat, the crowds, and a brutal solo day at the desk leave him feeling like he got worked over behind a woodshed. They also get into NFL nostalgia, World Cup fan clips, Substack confusion, vacation-property temptation in Myrtle Beach, and the ongoing truth that writer life never stays politely inside the writing lane. This episode feels like one of those honest midseason check-ins where nobody is pretending they have cracked the code, but both guys are still showing up, still thinking, and still trying to build something worth finishing. Contact Us Jerry Evanoff Email: ⁠[email protected]⁠ Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠ ⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich Kacy Email: ⁠[email protected]⁠ BlueSky: @RichKacy ⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ Tags writing podcast self-publishing indie author mystery writing book rewriting writing process AI for writers VS Code author life Paul Simon golf Substack football nostalgia The New Author Podcast