Sheila Roberts: No Problem, No Story

Sheila Roberts wanted to be a songwriter. Sixty books later — with movies on Lifetime, Hallmark, and Great American Family — she says the writing life has cost her nothing at all.That answer is worth sitting with, because it doesn't come from an easy career. Sheila talks about crashing twice: once over a research error in a Regency romance that nobody caught until the reviewer did, and once when a box of influencer copies never went out, her editor stopped taking her calls, and her agent let her go. She calls the second one a dark night of the soul, and describes the friends who showed up with champagne and chocolate and told her the only writers who fail are the ones who quit.Along the way: the purple gaucho outfit, the Dancing with the Stars audition, a mother who hid the naughty book face-to-the-wall, and the New York Times list she has decided to stop wanting.Topics & Timestamps(01:05) Stumbling into a career, and a book sold on the first try(03:19) Paying your dues: beginning, middle, or end(04:21) The purple gauchos, and a friend who said "you look like a cliché"(05:14) Auditioning for Dancing with the Stars(06:37) The résumé — and roughly sixty books(07:09) What it cost: nothing(08:54) Crash #1: the Regency error four sets of eyes missed(10:25) Crash #2: copies that never shipped, an agent who let her go(11:21) The dark night of the soul(11:49) Champagne, chocolate, and Susan Wiggs(13:18) "No problem, no story"(14:28) Nashville, and an ambition that became an idol(15:27) Songwriting success or the marriage(16:26) The movies, and bribing a film crew with cookies(18:15) What an extrovert knows about loneliness(19:50) Why isolation starves the idea machine(20:21) Not fear exactly — not knowing who she was(21:20) Did success change how people see her?(22:09) How it changed how she sees herself(22:50) Two older brothers and no pedestal(23:31) The naughty book, and a discovery after the funeral(25:47) Once it's in print, it's there forever(26:32) The hardest conversation: being dropped(27:24) Brain baby versus product(28:20) Letting go of the New York Times list(29:34) A cat on his last life, and an agent who laughed(30:39) Muses, wiring, and ideas circulating in the air(32:06) The Man Next Door: Rear Window with two nosy women(33:20) Killing darlings, fool's gold, and the ideas still waiting(34:57) How you know it's gold (you don't)(36:04) Tennis, ping pong, and a husband who'd rather pretend(37:11) Writing every day but Sunday(38:18) Miss one boat, be ready for the next(39:16) What it gave her that outsiders never see(39:57) Genre fiction, humor, and the layer underneath(41:20) Giftings, and becoming who she's meant to be(42:36) Unexpected Journey, and the copies she still sends to strangers(43:43) Why books — "because songs didn't work"BOOKS: 9780999439807, 9780369773784, 9780312594497, 9780312370220