The Worried Writer Podcast

Hayley Chewins is an author of magical, feminist middle grade fiction. Her debut, The Turnaway Girls, was a Kirkus Best Book of 2018, and her second book, The Sisters of Straygarden Place, is forthcoming from Candlewick Press this September and has already been called ‘superb, spooky and unforgettable’ in a Kirkus starred review. Hayley lives […]

Wendy Heard is a thriller author with two novels out from Mira in the US. Hunting Anabelle, a serial killer thriller, and The Kill Club. She co-hosts the Unlikeable Female Characters Podcast in which feminist thriller authors discuss female characters who don’t care whether you like them or not. For more on Wendy Heard and […]

This month is a ‘just me’ episode. I know that everyone in the world is affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and I just want to say that I wish you well wherever you are, and hope that you are safe, healthy, and coping as well as is possible in these scary and uncertain times. I […]

Terry Lynn Thomas is a USA Today bestselling author with two historical mystery series. The Sarah Bennett mysteries are set in California during the 1940s and feature a misunderstood medium who is in love with a spy. The Cat Carlisle series is set in Britain during World War II and the first two books are […]

My guest today is USA Today bestselling fantasy author Meg Cowley. Meg has two epic fantasy series The Books of Caledan and The Chronicles of Pelenor, as well as an urban fantasy series Relic Guardians. We have a great conversation about independent publishing, reader support, writing in series, and consistency, as well as self-doubt, mental […]

This month is a ‘just me’ episode in which I chat about my writing and publishing goals for 2020. The full rundown of my goals is available in a separate article here. Please feel free to head over and add your own to the comments section! THANK YOU! Huge thanks to everyone supporting the show […]

This month is a ‘just me’ episode in which I chat about lessons learned in my author career during 2019. THANK YOU! Huge thanks to everyone supporting the show on Patreon. Thank you so much! Join our growing Patreon community at The Worried Writer on Patreon. I love creating the podcast but it takes a significant […]

This month is a ‘just me’ episode in which I discuss branding for authors in response to a listener request. THANK YOU! Huge thanks to everyone supporting the show on Patreon. Thank you so much! Join our growing Patreon community at The Worried Writer on Patreon. I love creating the podcast but it takes a significant […]

My guest today is Vanessa Lillie whose debut thriller Little Voices is out this week from Thomas and Mercer. We talk about dealing with reviews and being read, and how Vanessa transformed from a free-writer to an outliner. Vanessa has fifteen years of marketing and communications experience and enjoys organising bookish events in Rhode Island, where she lives. She worked as an editor for a publisher, before leaving to concentrate on her own writing. For more on Vanessa head to vanessalillie.com or find her on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. THANK YOU! Huge thanks to everyone supporting the show on Patreon. Thank you so much! Join our growing Patreon community at The Worried Writer on Patreon. I love creating the podcast but it takes a significant amount of time (and money) to produce. If you want to help to keep the show going, please consider becoming a patron. You can support the show for just $1 a month! If you pledge $2 or more, you also receive an exclusive mini-episode that I put out in the middle of every month, plus instant access to the back list of nineteen audio extras. WRITING UPDATE This month I’ve been battling with the third Crow book. I said I was almost done and I thought I was, but the ending keeps moving away from me. This is partly because there are scenes which are in the wrong place (or I’ve realised there is a better, more exciting way to order them) and that takes lots of thought and weaving together and rewriting, and partly because the ending itself got a wee bit more complicated and I needed a few more chapters than I expected. It’s nearly done, though, which is very good news as it’s due out in November! SPEAKING Also, I did a talk for the lovely folk at the Borders Writers Forum. If you’re a member of the group and have tuned in today, hello and thank you, again, for having me. It was so much fun and I have great writerly chats with people after the official Q and A had finished. One thing I wanted to talk about was somebody said that a person in their life had said something about ‘why write?’ because there were enough books in the world and every story had already been done, or something similar. I realised this was a doubt I dealt with a long time ago and had actually forgotten that I’d once had… So. There is nothing new. No new ideas. No new stories. And that doesn’t matter. The execution is what matters and, crucially YOUR VOICE. Nobody else has your POV and so your book most definitely hasn’t been done yet. Also, who cares? Who gets to say ‘enough books’? Who has that authority? It’s not like writing books hurts anybody. This is not life or death, this is just telling stories. Who on earth has the right to tell you that you’re not allowed to tell your stories? Also, yes, there are loads of books which have been written in the past and they are valuable and wonderful, but they are products of their time. Books written now are products of this time, this moment in history. That’s important, too. Finally, and most importantly, think of a book that was just the right book for you at just the right time. Something you loved with a passion, something you fell into at a time you needed to escape. Think about that book and how you felt the first time you read it. It might be one you’ve gone back to many times in your life as a comfort read or one that you only read once, but it transformed your world during the time you spent in it and you are eternally grateful. Now imagine that the author who wrote that book let self-doubt stop them. They will have felt the same fears, have heard the same arguments, they might have let that stop them and you would never have had the magical experience of reading it. Now go a step further. There is somebody out there who needs the book that is currently inside you. You don’t know them and they don’t know you, but you are connected by this need. The book inside you is the one story, the one voice, the one moment that will give them that same perfect experience. If you don’t write your book, that reader won’t get to read it when they need it. It’s a thought which I found massively inspiring and helpful and I hope you do, too. PUBLISHING In more practical news, I’m not sure I mentioned it before but I have hired my husband out of his job one day a week and he’s doing lots of stuff to free up my time such as editing the podcast and the transcription of the interview. This links to my overall business plans, but also to my mission to write as many of the books I have inside me as possible before I shuffle off this mortal coil. Remembering that this is my purpose, my ‘why’, is very motivating, and I highly recommend delegating stuff to other people as soon as you can afford to do so. This could be paying someone to do your cleaning to free up writing time or, if you’re indie and running the publishing business side, delegating operational tasks such as book-keeping. LISTENER QUESTION I had a great listener question on Twitter from Joanne Mallory about branding. Thank you! It has inspired me to dedicate a whole episode to marketing and branding for authors next month. If you have any questions about writing, process, procrastination or the business side of things such as marketing or publishing options, email me, leave a comment on this post, or find me on Twitter.   IN THE INTERVIEW I’m still trialling the full transcript of the interviews (see below). I want to make the podcast more accessible for those who prefer (or need) to read, rather than listen. I would love to hear what you think! Do you like the full transcript or do you miss the ‘selected highlights’ of the old format? RECOMMENDED Vanessa is a reformed free-writer, and she recommends the following books to learn how to outline and structure a novel. Writing The Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maas Save The Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody   THANKS FOR LISTENING! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.   INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT  

I have a great interview for you today with a dear friend of mine, historical romance author Emily Royal. Emily has written several novels and is impressively prolific, but 2019 is her first year as a published author. She has gone from submission hell to having several books out in one year, so there is lots to dig into, and I’m sure you will enjoy her story. Emily’s books include medieval romance – The Sins of the Sire – and a Regency series, the London Libertines, which starts with Henry’s Bride. Book two, Hawthorne’s Wife, is out on 3rd September. For more about Emily and her work, head to emroyal.com or find her on Twitter or Facebook.   THANK YOU! Massive thanks to everyone supporting the show on Patreon. Thank you so much! Join our growing Patreon community at The Worried Writer on Patreon. I love creating the podcast but it takes a significant amount of time (and money) to produce. If you want to help to keep the show going, please consider becoming a patron. You can support the show for just $1 a month! If you pledge $2 or more, you also receive an exclusive mini-episode that I put out in the middle of every month. You also get instant access to the backlist of extra episodes (there are eighteen now!).   WRITING UPDATE It’s been a busy month with more summer holiday fun, a family trip down south and lots of drafting on my third Crow Investigations book. I have also been sorting through all of the notes I took at the publishing conference in Edinburgh. One of the many things it’s made me think about is my branding as an author. I have been trying to work out what my ‘promise to the reader is’ as although my books tend to have a wee bit of magic in them, they do span different genres such as supernatural thriller, women’s fiction historical, and urban fantasy. There was a brilliant session from Derek Murphy (CreativeIndie) and he spoke about the importance of working out how you want your readers to feel when think of you/your books, and how that is linked (or should be linked!) to the way you present yourself (your branding) MINDSET As I mentioned last month, one of the most important things I got from the Edinburgh conference was a mindset shift. It could perhaps more properly be described as a mindset confirmation. Doing this author thing is a wee bit odd, and stepping outside the traditional route and running it as a business is another step away from the usual… Much as I love it, I hadn’t realised how and uncertain I still felt. Physically being in the same space with hundreds of talented, successful, businesslike authors and small publishers, was transformational. It confirmed that I’m not alone in doing this (or delusional!). It was amazing to hear from people who are extremely successful, who I would like to emulate, but it also helped me to recognise the success that I have enjoyed and the things that I have achieved. Since I’m pretty rubbish at doing that, it was really helpful! Another great tip I got from the conference was a reminder on the importance of working out your core ‘why’ for writing. People spoke unselfconsciously about their ambition for their writing and publishing, about financial and other goals, and about their core values and reasons for writing. It was another reminder that I’m on track for my core goals, and confirmed that my heart and head are in alignment. It also reaffirmed my commitment to being a hybrid author, with some projects done through my own publishing company and some with other publishers. I know that many of you are aiming for the traditional route, and may prefer not to deal with the business side at all, and that’s completely fine. For me, though, it’s an exciting and creative part of being an author, and I’m so grateful that I have the opportunity and control. If you have any questions about writing, process, procrastination or the business side of things such as marketing or publishing options, email me, leave a comment on this post, or find me on Twitter.   RECOMMENDED I give a shout out to some lovely folk on Twitter, including humorous suspense author Bill Cokas. I throughly enjoyed his interview on Paul Teague’s podcast, Self Publishing Journeys. I’ve recommended Paul’s podcast before (especially if you are interested in the nuts and bolts of running an author business), and this interview with Bill was great. Also, long-time supporter of the show, Clare Sager, has started a podcast called Confessions of a First Time Author.   IN THE INTERVIEW I’m still trialling the full transcript of the interviews (see below). I want to make the podcast more accessible for those who prefer (or need) to read, rather than listen. I would love to hear what you think! Do you like the full transcript or do you miss the ‘selected highlights’ of the old format?   THANKS FOR LISTENING! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.   INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT   Sarah [00:00:09] Emily Royal writes historical romance in both the medieval and Regency periods. Her debut novel The Sins of the sire came out in March this year and was swiftly followed by Henry’s Bride, Book One in the London Libertines series. Now, full disclosure, Emily is a close friend of mine. and I am thrilled that she is finally being rewarded for all her hard work and tenacity. Welcome to the show. Emily and thank you so much for joining us.   Emily [00:00:40] Oh hello Sarah. It’s so good to be here at last. After so many years of rejections and rejections and rejections it’s great to be here and I’ve been a bit of a fan girl of your show for ages, so it’s lovely to be on the other side of the microphone.   Sarah [00:00:55] We got here! I’m so glad, too. Before we get into your twisty path to publication which I’m very excited about,  I was hoping that you could just kick things off by telling us all a wee bit about the London Libertines series, because I believe Book 2 is actually going to be out quite soon.   Emily [00:01:18] Yeah. Book 2 should be out in a couple of weeks time. Just doing final tinkering on the format. So yeah the London Libertines series, I suppose you could describe it as Jane Austen with sex and dark stuff. There is a set of romances which currently is set in the Regency period but I suspect as the years progress it will move into Victorian. Set mainly in London but also in the country and country states and everything. And the heroes are unashamedly alpha males, so you could say it’s a bit bodice-rippy. But the heroines are all misfits in one way. So the heroine in the first book she’s quite plain, she’s awkward, she’s gawky, she’s intelligent and she speaks her mind, and she’s a bit of a social outcast. In the book that’s coming out in a couple of weeks time, Hawthorne’s Wife, the heroine is a complete outcast who’s afflicted by a childhood trauma and lots of horrible things happen to her and she has to overcome it. And actually in the third book the heroine is recovering from a mental breakdown. So it’s actually quite dark stuff. It’s interesting to put it in a regency setting, so it’s not your typical frothy sparkling romance with glittering gowns, it tackles some quite horrific issues sometimes.   Sarah [00:02:42] Excellent. And as I mentioned in the intro, we’re pals, so I do already know your path to publication story, having lived it alongside you a tiny wee bit, but it’s so inspiring. Especially since your debut year is such a busy one. Would you mind talking us through your path to publication?   Emily [00:03:12] Yeah. So how long have you got? I’ve been tinkering with writing for a couple of years. If we go back to kind of 2013, 2014, which is, yeah, five-six years ago, I’ve been writing for a couple of years and I think I ended up having three books that were really really rough and overly long. I remember telling you ‘I’ve written a book, Sarah, and it’s a hundred and eighty thousand words long’ and you kind of burst out laughing and said ‘yeah, you’re going to need to cut it down’.   So I had these books and I stumbled across the website for the Romantic Novelists Association, and on their website they talked about this new writing thing which they have. Where there’s a limited set of unpublished authors who can join the association so they get all the benefits of the magazine and access to seminars and conferences etc.. But with that comes a full critique of a novel. And I thought, yeah yeah I’m gonna have some of that. It’s massively oversubscribed so the slots are like T in the park tickets they get oversubscribed within about two minutes of the beginning of the year beginning. So it was March 2014 so I already missed the boat, but 2015, I stayed up at 2 minutes past midnight on the 1st of January and got in. And I got this critique in June of that year and it was really really positive and it was quite scary because that was the first time anyone had ever read anything I’d written because I just had you under the bed and didn’t even show it to my husband and kids, I was terrified of it. But it was really positive, so I though ‘brilliant brilliant’ and I started submitting to agents. And I got agent interest in September of that year which, for me, those three months submitting and getting rejections was just forever, but actually looking back I think that was pretty quick.   I got signed at the end of the year and I thought ‘Oh this is it. This is it. I’ve made it, I’m going to get a three book deal, I’m gonna get books in Waterstones.’ And now I look back and think you naive little fool! I just knew nothing about the publishing industry. So fast forward three years, nothing happens. I went through two books with my agent. I had periods of submissions to publishers, waiting to hear, lots of rejections, lots of radio silence. I can remember being stressed waiting for emails back from my agent and publishers, and every time my phone pinged it was like ‘yes, yes, check it!’ and it was an email from the Carphone Warehouse with an offer for a new phone and I just turned into a complete obsessive with this thing and it just stressed me out so much. And then I got to the end of it, and the second book failed to get a deal. So this was at the end of 2018, beginning of 2019, so a long time, and my agent and I decided to part company. So yeah, that was long and tortuous.   But during that, what I did was I just carried on writing more books. And what I did was the first book that my agent couldn’t get a deal for, I started submitting that to smaller publishers, and I finally managed to get a contract for that. That took about six months, and that book’s actually not out yet. But I got a deal for that middle of 2018. And then the second contract I got actually came out as a result of a Twitter pitch, which was a book that my agent looked at it and just went ‘No I’m not touching that, that’s way too dark, way too violent’. And that was that the Sins of the Sire. And I chucked it up as a Twitter pitch, May 2018, just really to see whether I could write a half decent tweet, whether I could do an elevator pitch. I didn’t think anything would come of it, but I got a ‘like’ from an editor at a publisher called Tirgearr which is based in Ireland and I’d heard good things about them, they’ve got quite nice covers and some of my friends published with them. I sent in the book and I gave full disclosure, I said ‘look, this book is way too violent and I’m sure it breaches all of your guidelines, but just out of courtesy here it is’. So I was quite blunt about it. Didn’t think anything of it. And I heard back from them a few weeks later and I didn’t even open the email because I just thought it was gonna be a rejection. And about two to three hours after I got the email, I came back into my hotel bedroom because I was actually away with work, had a couple of beers, thought ‘let’s see why they’ve rejected me’ and this email actually says we’re actually quite interested, what else are you writing? And they offered me a contract, which was a bit of a shock!   [00:08:03] And then the third contract was absolute lightning fast. It was just after I’d parted company with my agent beginning of 2019. My agent was based in the States and I wanted to have closure on publishers in the States, but there was one more publisher I was really interested in because they had great authors on their list who are topping some of the some of the charts, authors who I admire, who I fangirl over, so I thought I would kick myself if I didn’t at least chuck it at them and see what they thought. So I chucked it at them and then two days later I got an e-mail saying can we talk? I got back home that night and she phoned me up and then three or four days after they offered me a three book deal!   [00:08:44] So actually that one took a week to get a three book deal on that book and yet everything else has been years and years and years. Sorry, that was a long ramble!   Sarah [00:08:53] Not at all, thank you for sharing that. It’s an absolute head spinner how much things have changed and turned around for you. And there was that long torturous waiting period while you were agented, and I know so many folk listening will be able to empathise with that hugely. That glacial pace of traditional publishing and how it can go like that… Slow, slow, slow, wait, wait, wait and then fast!  It is so normal, unfortunately. The rejection and the submission process and getting an agent doesn’t mean it’s a done deal, but when we’re going through it we feel as if we’re failing or that it is a bad sign. So I’m so grateful for you being willing share it, because I think it’s really helpful for other people who are either going through it or looking to start submitting or whatever. So, in terms of speed, you went from effectively nothing, to, I believe several out this year?   Emily [00:10:28] Yes. So this year, I’m probably gonna have five books out, which is completely insane. It’s like I was sat with my engine idling for three years, getting really stressed, and then wallop I’m up to 100 in half a second. I still haven’t quite recovered from it.   [00:10:50] And there were so many lows during those three years. I can remember just being absolutely gutted and heartbroken with some of the rejections and the close ones were the worst. I mean, I had one where a publisher from a pretty half decent imprint was showing lots and lots of interest in my book. It was the first book that my agent tried to submit and actually then my agent really came into her own. She was really interactive and there was loads of communication and they were talking about careers, and three book deals, other projects, where is my career going, blah blah blah… And she was like ‘No, no, this is really positive’ and then it fell at the last hurdle. The editor really wanted it, but they just said no it’s the wrong timing, we’re not we’re not taking it. And that went from being just on the brink of this massive high, and I just plummeted off a cliff. I look back and say what was the worst day of my life. It probably wasn’t, it sounds quite melodramatic, but that was a low. And then for this to happen, particularly with the DragonBlade contract, as I kind of blinked and it happened. It was like, you look away and that’s when the unicorn just trots in front of you…   [00:12:07] Yeah it’s insane. It’s not this process of, it takes you six months to get an agent and it takes you a year to get a contract and a year to get another contract. It’s not a straight line, it’s up and down and all over the place it’s backwards and forwards and, yeah, it’s completely mental this industry.   Sarah [00:12:24] Having just been through that, is there anything that you wish that you could go back and tell yourself or what advice would you want somebody listening to hear if they are going through the same submission hell?   Emily [00:12:39] Actually the advice that you gave me, Sarah, was along the lines of just keep at it, you’re getting closer. And the only way to make sure it never happens is to give up… Just carry on, just chalk it up to experience and write another book, the market goes up and the market goes down, tastes change, it’s all a matter of timing, just keep at it and you will get there. And I remember looking at you thinking ‘Yeah well it’s all right for you because you’re on the other end of it’ but it is true. Just keep at it. Be true to yourself sounds like a cliché but just carry on writing what you love.   [00:13:19] The only way to get a deal is to just keep it keep writing books. You’re not going to build a career on one book. So even if you get a deal you’re going to have to write another book at some point, so you might as well crack on with it while things are out on submission. So long as you’re getting decent feedback so that you can see where the issues are, but you can see what’s good about it, what needs to be done,  then you’re always going to be learning and you’re always going to be getting that bit closer.   Sarah [00:13:47] I think that’s excellent advice, and I do think your advice to keep on writing – if you can – while you’re going through the submission hell is really a super-good tip.   Emily [00:13:59] I think the reason, or the main reason I got the DragonBlade contract is because when we were chatting she did say well we would like to have books in series and relatively rapid release, and because I’d been writing and writing and writing during this desert period, I already had three books which were drafted, and I think that was one of the things that swung the deal. So, yeah, keep at it.   Sarah [00:14:24] If it’s okay with you I’d like to go back to the beginning a wee bit and ask that very common question, did you always want to write?   Emily [00:14:32] Yeah I did. I never really liked English at school, so I didn’t like English language. I didn’t like having to read a book that you never would have read in the first place and having to analyse the characters. So I was never really good at that, but I was a hopeless romantic at heart and I always loved little romantic stories and occasionally we would do creative writing in English and I’d do little medieval romances with little drawings of girls in pretty dresses and everything. I’ve obviously got a lot darker since then… But I do remember saying to an adult when I was about 10/15 years old saying I’d love to be a writer and I’ve got some ideas for romantic stories’ and they just turned around and said to me ‘Oh yeah I’ve got a friend and she’s actually good and she’s not never got published so you got no chance don’t do it.’.   [00:15:17] [Laughter] The look of horror on your face! Slight digression. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the TV show Lost, when they crash on this kind of weird magical bizarre island? And there’s a character in there who is my favourite character called John Locke, and he’s a bit of a misfit in society. He’s disabled, he’s kind of the typical mark for con men, so he’s not valued in society but actually in the island he really comes into his own. All throughout his life in the real world people say to him you can’t do this you can’t do that. And he stands up and says ‘Don’t tell me what I can’t do’. And actually that really struck me when this adult said to me you got no chance. I thought don’t tell me what I can’t do.   [00:16:07] But that kind of festered and lay dormant in my mind until thirty odd years later. So I always wanted to do it. Actually that’s one thing I think that drove me forward during this kind of three years of horror of submissions, I though someone told me I can’t do this,  I’m gonna prove them wrong! So it’s almost like a 40 year grudge that drove me through it.   [00:16:31] I have always wanted to be a writer. But then when kind of adult life and you think the responsible thing to do is to get a job that pays a regular salary. I did that and actually I love my job. I love my maths and everything that I do, but this thing lay dormant and it’s kind of the creative side I think which is my release from all the mathematical stuff I do during the day. So yeah.   Sarah [00:16:54] And I was going to ask what led you to choosing a historical romance and whether it is easy to pick a genre. But you’ve just said that your very early stories were quite romantic. Was it very simple to choose that genre?   Emily [00:17:07] It was yeah I had what I read when I was beginning to write the romance stuff I was reading a lot of crime not quite dark crime stuff. And there always seems to be this stigma with romance. If people ask me what genre I write and I say romance, you sometimes see their eye twitches a little bit as if to say ‘Oh well that’s kind of rubbish, cookie-cutter type stuff’. And they don’t realise that romance is a fantastic genre and it’s everywhere, it’s all about emotions and everything. So, I think I kind of held back a little bit earlier on, just because I thought people don’t value romance, but actually people do. There’s just a little bit of snobbery associated with it. But it was really easy to do romance and the historical romance, just the whole thing about knights in shining armour although now my knights are always a little bit tarnished.   [00:17:59] Yeah it was easy and it was it was natural. I am by no means a historian, so it’s not like I do hours and hours of research, but I do enough so I’ve give a flavour of the period. It’s authentic in terms of the period, and the flavour and the ambience.   Sarah [00:18:26] So people can really get into the story and not be thrown out of it – enough detail to anchor them in the story.   Emily [00:18:34] Yeah. You don’t want a Regency heroine picking up her mobile phone.   Sarah [00:18:40]  [Laughs] Not unless it’s a time travel one.   Emily [00:18:41] Wibbly wobbly timey-wimey time travel stuff.   Sarah [00:18:47] We’ve mentioned the fact that you have a really crazy year of publishing. I know I’ve said this to you personally many a time that you are having quite the introduction to being a published author. But it’s also true that you’ve always been incredibly productive in terms of your writing. And I admire it and I really want to learn from you. So while I’ve got you on the show I’d love to hear more about your writing process. So things like you know do you write every day and keep business hours Monday to Friday. What’s your routine?   Emily [00:19:28] I have to fit it around the day job which pays the bills. When I am actually drafting I do try to get myself in the zone, as it were, and I do try and be disciplined to write something every day. So if I’m in the throes of a draft and it’s all plotted out, it’s all good to go, I will aim for about two thousand words a day. Often I don’t reach that I then say to myself if I can make a thousand, which if I’m really concentrated I can probably churn out in about an hour of real concentrated writing. And if I’m really at full pelt, I can do five thousand a day but that’s normally if it’s a day off or if it’s a weekend. But I do try and make sure I’ve just put something in everyday, so at least every day I’ve moved forward even if it’s only by a little amount. I always feel that I might lose my touch if I don’t write, so I force myself to write a bit every day.   [00:20:27] In terms of how I do it. I plot like mad to the point of obsessive compulsive disorder. I have to have it all plotted out. And then I will blitz it through from start to finish. So in terms of plotting, I see it like a painting. I’ll kind of start fleshing out the story with big blocks of colour, with the themes and the character profiles, just to get some ideas. And then I’ll start fleshing out some of the detail by, say if I’ve got fight scene in Chapter 22, I might talk about who’s fighting who, what weapons they’ve got, whether there are any other characters witnessing the fight getting involved, what they say, ideas for dialogue. Eventually, once I’ve done that, I’ll have a whole mass of bullet points which just cover the scenes. Probably about 10 or 20 bullet points describing each scene. I’ll then colour code it, I mean I’m so obsessive, I will colour code it red for the heroine’s point of view, blue for heroes point of view, green for anybody else. Just to check whether the switches are happening at the right time, so that you haven’t got twelve chapters in one point of view in two lines in another. And that normally ends up being about 20 pages of A4. Then I lay it all out in front of me. Then I’ll do my character profiles with little spider maps. So the heroine on one side, hero on the other, with lines interconnecting all the other characters in between them. Once I’ve got that it’s good to go. And then I basically sit down and blitz through the first draft and just hide under a rock and write and write and write until at the other end a first draft is spat out.   [00:22:09]  I love things like the National Novel Writing Month that happens in November where you aim to write fifty thousand words in a month. Because that’s like one thousand six hundred and sixty six words a day, which is quite doable if you sit down for an hour a cup of coffee. So I tend to use that as my month for really focused drafting a book. It works really well for me because I just I love plotting but I know there’s some people who just the thought of plotting in advance just freaks them out.   Sarah [00:22:42] But it works for you. Do you have any other tips for writing regularly or for producing lots of books? Do you have any other tips for productivity?   Emily [00:23:10] Things like writer’s block. Some scenes I find really easy to write and others I find really difficult and I’m sure a lot of a lot of people find that. And a lot of people say to me ‘just leave that and go into an easy scene’ but actually I can’t do that. So one of the reasons why I do go from start to finish is I know that if I have got a difficult scene I just have to push through it. It’s like climbing a mountain, you might get a real difficult part and you think well you’ve got to do that halfway up or otherwise you’re never get to the top of the mountain. So I’ll just push through it, even if I think it’s gonna be rubbish, because at least then I will get to the other end. I overwrite a lot, and I do know that if I’ve got scene which is difficult I’ll overwrite even more, so I just think just chuck words at it and eventually you will end up with something that can be edited down. And I always find, and I’m sure a lot of people find this as well, is that when I’m writing something I think it’s gonna be rubbish, it’s going to rubbish, but I keep saying to myself you think it is but actually when you look back at it with a clear head it’s never going to be as bad as you as you think it is. So I try to switch off the little devil inside me which says ‘you’re rubbish, this sucks, you suck, everything sucks, the world sucks’ and just push through that. And what I was saying before about forgetting submissions and cracking on with the next book, because you’ve almost always got something out on submission, so I try and switch off from that and just plough through the book. Arguing that whatever happens with the book that’s out on submission, I’ve still got to finish this book and I’m writing now so I force myself to do to do that.   [00:24:44] Oh another thing I do that stops, in terms of research and things you might if I’m writing something I’m not sure whether it’s absolutely historically accurate or I feel I need a bit more to make it authentic. I won’t stop and research and look up I will add in square brackets and capitals and ‘check the bit of history/add in a little bit of history here’ and then go back to it later on. That helps to keep the flow going of writing. So if you’re unsure about your facts I will always just stick a little note or comments. I always find that if I get interrupted when I’m writing that really causes problems. I stop and have to get back into it.   [00:25:27] Word races a great. I am I am super, super competitive, so as soon as someone says to me ‘right we’re going do a world race’ and we kind of connect on Facebook or something,  think ‘right, I want to get more words out than the next person’. And I set the timer on my iPad and I blitz it for half an hour and that really helps out an awful lot words because then I’m just determined to get the words down and not worry about how perfect they are. And that really helps. Short bursts. If I try and set races for myself, I might think ‘right, I managed a thousand words yesterday, let’s see if I can do fifteen hundred in the same space of time.’ So I compete with myself as well.   Sarah [00:26:12] That’s a good tip. I meant to ask you this before when you were talking about outlining. Have you got any resources or books that you’ve read about outlining and so on that helped you to learn how to do it? Or is it just something that you’ve developed and naturally?   Emily [00:26:31] Yeah it kind of just happens. But in terms of ideas, I carry around a notebook in my handbag. And if I do get an idea and sometimes it might be in the middle of a in the middle of the meeting or in the middle of the office, I’ll pick up my notebook and excuse myself and nip into the loo and just scratch out a few little notes. So if ideas pop in, I make sure I write them down. I dream a lot as well, so I wake up in the morning and write down lots of dreams. Actually loads of the scenes in the book Hawthorne’s Wife, a lot of that came from a dream.   [00:27:16] So yeah, I’m constantly writing out lots and lots of notes of ideas that might be good for novel. I’ll often use ideas from stuff I’ve written in the past, I mean there’s one thing I wrote a kind of young adult thing which is the first thing I ever wrote, which is just awful, it’s never going to see the light of day, but some of the ideas from that I’ve been able to poach for future novels. So I tend to have a whole mass of random ideas and then I’ll start ordering them into plots. But it’s just a system that’s really kind of come naturally, although I am aware of things like you have to have a change of pace. You can’t have it all at a fast pace or slow pace, you need to have ups and downs and dark things and you’ve got to think about obstacles for the characters to overcome, so I’m kind of aware of that in the back of my mind, but I don’t set out to follow any specific structure which is outlined in a book about writing I just kind of get on with it and tinker it and massage it into shape. And I do find critique buddies and another pair of eyes, sympathetic understanding eyes, is good as well. Because if all my critique buddies come back and say ‘look that really doesn’t work, please change it’ then I will change it.   Sarah [00:28:26] Oh that’s fantastic advice. And you handwrite your outlines and you type your drafts. Is that correct?   Emily [00:28:35] The notes are all handwritten. When I actually start plotting things out with the bullet points, I will then type that so I can cut and paste scenes.   Sarah [00:28:58] Excellent. Now as you said earlier, you’ve really had quite a launch into being a published author – so many deals and so many deadlines! How are you feeling having finally achieved this dream? How is the difference between writing for fun and for external publishing deadlines?   Emily [00:29:18] Yeah. When I got the publishing contract that’s when reality struck. Before I got published, it was like ‘oh that’s the dream, isn’t it wonderful isn’t it happy and like I’d have unicorns and rainbows stars flying out of my ears when it happens’. But then when it happened, I actually felt quite low two days afterwards because it was like ‘okay this is no longer a dream’. I’ve actually got to got to stand up and do something and step up to it and treat it as a business and take a professional approach to it, as opposed to an airy fairy this is my dream. That actually was a bit of a shock.   [00:29:50] In terms of marketing, that just seems to be some form of dark art which hopefully I will learn when I enter the non-Muggle world later on. But, yeah, writing to deadlines I’ve never actually had to draft to a deadline, yet, because I already had these three books done, which was which was quite good. That will be something I’m gonna have to do next year, I suspect, certainly if DragonBlade are interested in more books in the series. So it might be you have to ask me that in a year’s time.   Sarah [00:30:36] How have you found being out there as an author, having your work read widely and that side of things because I found that incredibly terrifying. How have you found it?   Emily [00:30:48] I think having Emily as a pen name, I can detach a little bit from it. So if you do see a bit of a stinky review, even if it gets personal about the author, you think ‘oh they’re talking about somebody else, I’m not her today, I’m me.’ And when I step into Emily’s shoes, hopefully she’ll be able to cope with it. I actually find it more scary having my books read by people I know, because then they look me in the eye. And it’s people who know me and think yeah I can see which aspects of you are in that book. Whereas if it’s a complete stranger, it’s just like a book they’ve liked or not liked. So in that way it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be, but yeah when you start seeing reviews coming up on Amazon or GoodReads it is a bit of a daunting thought. I think because they’re strangers and we’re all detached and it’s all online, you’re not standing in a group of baying readers who are chucking things like you physically it’s not quite so horrific.   Sarah [00:31:55] And has anything about the experience surprised you – either in a good way or a bad way?   Emily [00:32:04] I think it was a surprise how quickly I came down from the high when I got the deal, because then I did realise that I’ve got to take a professional approach to it. I did burst into tears the other day. I got an email from someone – I just had a really bad review on Amazon – and I got an email from someone that came through from my newsletter. A complete stranger. Just to say lovely things about the book, saying they absolutely love it. They talk about the characters and said I’ve fallen in love with the character and I was like ‘blimey, that’s a complete stranger’ has actually opened up their email and sent me a note to say they love a character which has come out of my head and I didn’t realise what a rush that would give me and what a warm glow inside. So that that actually is amazing when a total stranger gets in touch.   Sarah [00:32:51] Brilliant. I’m just going to spoil your wonderful, positive answer, now, as I do want to ask you whether you ever suffer from creative block. You were saying you’re good at writing down ideas and you’re extremely prolific, but do you either suffer with creative block or self-doubt, or are there any parts of the process that stop you or freak you out?   Emily [00:33:22] Yeah, I’m always terrified that my work is rubbish, terrified that it sucks. Even if someone says something nice, a little voice in my head says to me they’re only saying it just to be nice, just to shut you up, because they don’t want to tell you that it sucks and tell you why. Because it’s less effort to say I like it than it is to say ‘I absolutely hate it and this is why’. So whenever I get an e-mail back from my editor I’m always thinking she’s going to tell me this sucks she’s going gonna say ‘why on earth to be offered you a contract you’ve written a load of absolute rubbish woman’. So I’m constantly feeling like that. I got an email from her about the second book. She got halfway through and actually she stopped with her edits and said I would like you to change a few things. And she was really complimentary, she said ‘your writing is lovely, but there’s just a couple of structural issues, don’t worry it it’s quite common with a new author’. But I interpreted that as ‘this book sucked so much, I got one hundred and sixty pages in and just gave up, what on earth are you doing, let’s check it back at you and hopefully you’ll go away we never have to publish this pile of absolute rubbish’. So that’s the biggest problem I have is a massive lack of self-confidence. I have imposter syndrome. I go into groups where there’s other authors and I think they’re probably looking at me thinking ‘what’s she doing here? She started writing later tonight, she’s only just started, she writes bodice rippers’. So, yeah, massive lack of confidence.   [00:35:00] It’s something I’m always having to struggle with. What I do is occasionally, I kept the initial e-mails that I got from my agent, even though we parted company I’ve still kept her initial email, from editors who’ve come back, the critiques from the New Writers Scheme. I kept those and I read those and say ‘yes, at that point somebody did say that they liked my writing enough to actually come out and tell me and go to the effort to tell me and offer me a contract or representation or something’, so I keep going back to that, and go ‘no, there was a point where people did actually think this was okay so just carry on’. So, yeah, it’s just dealing with that lack of self-confidence is a really difficult thing to do.   [00:35:47] I will often click open a good review and have a look at that, but it’ trying to focus on the good reviews not the bad ones. But even the bad ones I’ve had a really bad review which said this was one of the top five worst books, I absolutely hated it and I was crushed when I read it. And then part of me thought was a pity it wasn’t the top worst book I’d like to know what their worst book was because actually I would probably quite like it!   [00:36:13] But again the fact that it’s brought out such an emotional reaction in someone, that they feel compelled to log into their Amazon account and write about six paragraphs of why they hated it, that actually make me think it’s kind of done what I wanted, because it’s elicited an emotional reaction. And I did say to myself way back when I started I didn’t want to write books that were kinds of middle of the road I know because I like emotion and dark stuff is going to be Marmite, it is going to be love it or hate it. And I would rather have a mixture of five star and one star reviews from people where it’s really pulled out an emotional reaction than a whole mass of three stars of people saying ‘oh, it was all right’.   Sarah [00:36:52] And I remember that!   Emily [00:36:58] [Laughs] I know, when my first ever one star review came through, I said ‘this is what you said you wanted, you wanted ones and fives’.   Sarah [00:37:07] It’s so tough. And, again, thank you so much for sharing, because I do think most of us, if not all of us, feel the same way. So thank you again for sharing that. I think it’s a good strategy, definitely, trying to focus on the positive, on the positive reviews or positive feedback you’ve had. But, as you said it’s really difficult to force ourselves to believe it. Believe the positive. Listeners can’t see, but I was nodding away when you said that because that’s the crux of it, is that it’s very difficult to believe that positive feedback.   Emily [00:37:57] You do think are they just being nice to placate. Actually sometimes I’ll look at some of my favourite books and look at their reviews and think ‘yeah, it obviously wasn’t for them, but actually that’s an amazing book’. It does make me think at least I’m in good company. Yeah. We’re not gonna like the same thing. It’s just hard when you put your heart and soul into something and someone really hates it to the point where they have to tell the world just how much they hate it. It’s always gonna be tough. I’m hoping I will be more immune to it as the years go by.   Sarah [00:38:37] Well I can’t believe it, the time has raced by, so I will just finish up by asking what are you working on at the moment or what’s next for you?   Emily [00:38:48] Right. Well yes, book two in the London Libertines Hawthorne’s Wife should be out beginning of September. Book 3 which is called Roderick’s Widow, I think that’s scheduled to come out in December and that’s with my editor at the moment. I’ve plotted out book four in that series as well and I’ve got some embryonic ideas for books five and six, at least who the characters are going to be and what the main themes are. So I’m hoping to have book four written by the end of the year maybe and full drafts for five and six, and then hopefully I’ll have a chat with my publisher to see if I want to take this on. I’ve got two more medieval romances which I drafted ages ago which I had submitted a couple of times and got good feedback. So I might actually maybe self publish those because that’s something I’d like to branch into. I think once I’ve got just got a bit more experience of being an author, built up a few more newsletter subscribers, and just got a bit more of an idea about what the marketing thing is that I might actually give that a go myself.   Sarah [00:39:55] Fantastic. And where can people find out more about you and your books?   Emily [00:40:00] Oh right. I’ve got a Web site which is www.emroyal.com. I can be found on Twitter @eroyalauthor and on my website there is a link for my newsletter, as well.   Sarah [00:40:19] Fantastic. I’ll put all the links in the show notes but thank you so much for that, it was lovely to speak to you.   Emily [00:40:26] Thank you, Sarah, it has been so wonderful this chat to you.  

My guest today is debut novelist Paul Tudor Owen. Paul is a Guardian journalist and his literary crime novel, The Weighing of the Heart is out now from Obliterati Press. We discuss Paul’s path to publication, how to fit writing around a day job, and the benefits of joining a writing group. You can find out more about Paul and his book at Paul Tudor Owen. Or find him on Obliterati Press or Instagram.     THANK YOU Massive thanks to everyone supporting the show. Thank you so much! Join our growing Patreon community at The Worried Writer on Patreon. I love creating the podcast but it takes a significant amount of time (and money) to produce. If you want to help to keep the show going, please consider becoming a patron. You can support the show for just $1 a month! If you pledge $2 or more, you also receive an exclusive mini-episode that I put out in the middle of every month. You also get instant access to the backlist of extra episodes. I will be answering some patron questions in the next audio extra (out mid-August) and, as a patron, you get priority access to email me with questions. WRITING UPDATE At 50BooksEdinburgh, finally meeting fellow podcaster and Worried Writer guest Paul Teague in person! I’m still working on the third Crow Investigations book, but July was mostly taken up with family holiday stuff and conferences! I went to the RNA (Romantic Novelists’ Association) annual conference in Lancaster University and the 50BooksEdinburgh publishing conference. I did a talk at the RNA conference (all about overcoming fear, self-doubt and procrastination) and I was appropriately ‘on brand’ ie. TERRIFIED. It was a wonderful experience, though, and I met so many kindred spirits and lovely writers. The 50BooksEdinburgh conference was a life-changing, mindset-altering, incredible, overwhelming, inspiring event. I’m going to take a few weeks to sort through my thoughts and impressions, and will give a proper overview in the next episode. At both events, I got to meet listeners of this podcast, which felt amazing. If you said ‘hi’, please let me take this opportunity to say ‘thank you’ (again!). It was lovely to meet you! IN THE INTERVIEW I’m still trialling the full transcript of the interviews (see below). I want to make the podcast more accessible for those who prefer (or need) to read, rather than listen. I would love to hear what you think! Do you like the full transcript or do you miss the ‘selected highlights’ of the old format?   THANKS FOR LISTENING! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.   TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH PAUL TUDOR OWEN   Sarah [00:00:01] My guest today is Guardian journalist and debut author Paul Tudor Owen. Paul’s first novel The Weighing Of The Heart is literary crime fiction and was released in March 2019 by Obliteratti Press. Welcome to the show Paul and thank you so much for joining us.   Paul [00:00:18] Thanks very much for having me on. I really appreciate it.   Sarah [00:00:22] Well just to get started I was hoping that you could tell us a wee bit about your debut novel. Did you always intend to write literary crime fiction and am I describing it correctly?   Paul [00:00:33] Yes. The novel is set in New York. It’s about a young British guy living in New York and he splits up with his girlfriend and moves in as a lodger with two elderly ladies in an opulent apartment on the Upper East Side. And there are all these priceless works of art on the walls all over the apartment. And he and the young woman who lives next door steal one of the works of art. It’s an ancient Egyptian scene and after the theft, the stress of it begins to work on him and the imagery of ancient Egypt, the imagery from the picture starts to come to life around him and it’s not clear to the reader whether that’s really happening or whether that’s that’s just in his head. So it’s literary fiction and there’s a crime at the heart of it. I think that, you know, I don’t know whether the author is always the right person to say what genre a book is. And I’m quite happy for the reader to make that come to that conclusion. And I’m also really aware that people like Margaret Atwood and Ian McEwan always really annoy everybody when they write a book that’s blatantly science fiction and then they claim in every interview that it’s not science fiction at all. So what I’d say is that any readers of crime fiction please read it. I think you’ll enjoy it. Readers of literary fiction. Go for it. People who like books about New York ancient Egypt arts basically the more the merrier.   Sarah [00:02:22] Absolutely. As you say, genres are kind of labels so that people know where to put things on the bookshelf and in the store. They are a marketing construct and convenience. But congratulations on becoming a published author. That’s great.   Paul [00:02:51] Thank you. Thanks very much.   Sarah [00:02:53] And it’s it’s a long and twisty path for most of us so I would love to hear your path to publication story.   Paul [00:03:01] Yeah no absolutely, it’s definitely taken a while for me. I think I first started trying to write fiction when I was in my early 20s and I managed to get an agent at that time and I finished a book. He sent it out and no publishers were interested. And then I was sort of going back and forth and I was working on other ideas and eventually around about sort of 2011 I started writing this current book and I think once I’d written the first couple of chapters I just really felt like, you know, very confident really that what I was writing now was much better than anything that I’d written before. And so I went back to the agent with what I’d written but sort of by this time he’d taken the other book to publishers and they hadn’t been interested and I think he’d sort of lost interest really. So I kind of was faced with a choice you know. You’re usually told as a as an author especially when you’re starting out you really needs an agent and if you have one to do everything you can to keep them. You know I think there’s a lot of truth to that. However I just felt like this was not going to result in this book getting published. So I sort of cut ties with him very amicably and I set about sort of starting to try to find another agent. And it was such a different process by that time because I think when I when I was in my early 20s trying to find an agent I’d been posting things out you know I would have been printing out page after page, stapling these bundles together taking them to the post office just so time consuming. And I remember the night when I just tried to find another agent I just basically after work I went to a secluded spot and I got The Writers And Artists Yearbook and I just started going through from A and emailing it to everybody, and I think that evening I got about halfway through the alphabet and there was a lot of interest. there was a lot of interest quite quickly. So that was that was really great. That felt very heartening. And then so I guess for the next couple of years I was kind of working with a really great agent,  Maggie Hanbury, who I’m still working with now. But when she came to to send it out, again we didn’t have much luck with publishers. And one of the reasons was that at the time another book about art theft in New York had just come out. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and it was a massive hit. It was everywhere and a lot of these publishers were saying well we really like your book but it’s just too similar to The Goldfinch. And so once again, the kind of momentum really slowed at that point, and we were talking to one small publisher at this time but around this time I got a job in New York. I worked for The Guardian newspaper and I got a job in their office in New York. And so at the time I was moving now which was March 2015 I was talking to this small publisher and she really didn’t like the ending. And you know not to give anything away but she felt that the ending should conclude in a sort of what I felt was quite a heavy handed manner. And so we went back and forth over this and I don’t know if if you’ve found this but sometimes when somebody points out a problem and you set about… Well first of all you try to figure out whether you agree that it’s a problem. Often it turns up something that even if you didn’t agree with the original problem it turns up some issue that you agree that does need to be solved. So while I was in discussion with this publisher I kind of came up with an alternative ending and I actually really preferred the alternative ending and I thought it was it was it was much better. But by this time the publisher had lost interest. So I’d just moved to New York and started a new job and I think really then for the next year I didn’t do anything on it. Life was just too busy and too complicated and it was only really about a year after moving to New York that I sort of came back to it and I spoke to my agent and they said that they didn’t feel that they could continue to send out because they’d sent it out to a few publishers already. And I just said them ‘Okay I’m just going to send it out to small publishers.’ And so again I went through the writers and artists yearbook and also the one and in the US which is it’s called something like the writers market. And I just started at the beginning and started sending out chapters to all of them, really. All the small publishers and the response was really good. And I think that the writers who are sitting at home waiting for agents to get back to them and thinking that they need to have an agent in order to go that further steps towards publication. I think it’s true if you were if you want to get published by HarperCollins or if you want to get published by Penguin or Faber like it probably is true but to be published by a small publisher I don’t think it is necessarily true. And two or three were interested and we talked to them and in the end I went with Obliterati who are a brilliant small publisher. They set up a couple of years ago. The whole purpose is to get books that they think are brilliant that have not had a chance elsewhere out to the public. It’s two guys running it. I really respect what they’re doing. And yeah. And that’s been a really great process. So that was about, I guess that was about a year and a half ago or a year ago when I signed with them and around the same time my wife and I were talking about whether to stay in New York or come back here and we decided to come back. So that was really exciting time actually because we were coming back and I knew the book was going to come out when we got back to Britain and you know it felt like I was finally going to achieve this ambition and do something that I wanted to do for so long.   Sarah [00:10:05] Well thank you so much for sharing that. As I said at the beginning, most of us have got this twisty path filled with close but no cigar and rejection and things but I’m always so grateful when and other authors are willing to share it because it’s so important that everyone knows that that’s just normal. That is absolutely the usual experience, because when you’re going through it… I mean you had that tenacity, you know, you kept on going you might have a wee break at times because of life will you get a bit too ground down with it. but you come back and you try again. Is there anything that you wish that you could go back and tell yourself? Is there any advice you would give to other people in the same situation or anything you wish you could have known?   Paul [00:10:57] This is a sort of impossible one but it wouldn’t be really it would have really helped me a lot to know that in the end I was going to get there because I think you know there’s definitely periods where you feel like, God I’m putting so much into this I’m putting so much time so much of my sort of creativity into this and maybe it’s just going nowhere and maybe I should really be using that time and effort for something else. So you know if there had been a way to let myself know that you will make it, that would have would have meant a lot. Obviously that’s impossible. I mean advice for other people you know it’s so it’s so different for each person and each person’s set of responsibilities; their job, their family life. So you know I suppose anything I can say, anyone with kids for example would just probably say what you’re saying is impossible. But what I found was that if you want to do it, you have to cut something else out. You have to not do something else in order to do this. Otherwise he’s just not going to get it done. So I think when I when I started off in my 20s like what that meant I guess was not going out at my friends or not watching TV in the evening or whatever. Just making time to do this. And I suppose now it’s more that sometimes I’ll stay behind after work and work on my book for a couple of hours. Quite a lot, I’ll try and spend Saturday and Sunday in the day working and I think that’s it really you just have to carve out that time. And it’s not it’s not easy you know.   Sarah [00:12:51] I’m very impressed that you sometimes work on your writing at the end of a working day, because when I was in journalism I wanted to write fiction desperately but I know that I felt as if I had used up the word part of my brain by the end of the day. So I’m very impressed that you managed to do that.   Paul [00:13:57] I didn’t really feel like that, I felt more like I was in a very productive state of mind at work… And also, the kinds of deadlines that we’re working to, there’s a lot of pressure to work very quickly and it was better if I just carried that on.    Sarah [00:13:57] Yeah that makes a lot of sense. And I’m going to be fair to myself and also say that I was bringing up two small children at the same time, so that’ll be it as well!   Paul [00:14:04] That’s so impressive.   Sarah [00:14:07] Oh well, it took me a wee while,  but I wanted to say about the journalism as well… So was non-fiction your first love, or did you always want to write fiction?   Paul [00:14:18] No I always wanted to write fiction and I think I remember actually having a chat with one of my lecturers at university when I was just about to graduate and talking about this, and it was really clear to me, you know, that it would be very very difficult to make a living from writing fiction. And so I was thinking about what what I could do instead that would satisfy some of the same sort of creative impulses. And in the end, they’re not that similar in some ways. I mean for me, anyway. I work in news. Our main task is really to get information across to people as quickly and as clearly as possible. And I think writing fiction you’re doing numerous things at once, you’re building the characters, you’re working on the architecture of the plot, maybe you’re doing something interesting with the structure, you’ve got to think about the dialogue. You’ve got to do all those things simultaneously and you know, sometimes, you don’t want to get information across clearly and quickly to a to a reader. Sometimes you want to do the exact opposite you want to withhold information from a reader and have them gradually realize it or only realize it at the end. And I think in some forms of journalism like a creative non-fiction as they call it in the US or longform magazine journalism I think in those forms of journalism people are using some of those similar techniques but for me, news reporting and news editing which is what I’ve done as a career it’s quite different in those ways to writing fiction.   Sarah [00:15:55] Yeah absolutely. And so were there any resources or books or courses or anything that you used to help you study writing fiction and help you transition from non-fiction?   Paul [00:16:08] I haven’t done any formal creative writing courses. I mean I do remember even sort of as far back as do my A Level English, that I was always thinking about how these authors were doing were creating the effects that they were creating, why they were choosing to do it that way. And I feel like looking back I was trying to teach myself essentially and it was the same at university where I was studying American literature and American history. And so you can see the influence of some of the books that I studied at a level on this book like The Remains Of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro one of my favourite books has an amazing unreliable narrator. And I’m definitely doing some of the same things in the Weighing of the Heart, and then the Great Gatsby we also studied, and I think I’m sort of looking at the same idea of the corroded American dream as Fitzgerald did in The Great Gatsby and I deliberately put in some nods to The Great Gatsby in the text because I thought it was pretty obvious how influenced I was, and I just wanted to make sure that the reader knew I wasn’t trying to like pull the wool over their eyes.   Sarah [00:17:23] It’s like ‘I know, I know I’m influenced by it. Look!’   Paul [00:17:30] But I have been in writing groups where you read to each other and give feedback and I’ve found that very useful, and the most recent one actually was when I was in New York and I hadn’t written anything for about a year and I really wanted to get back into it and I wanted to start a new book. And I joined this group run by an organization called Gotham Writers. The class was was fairly simple. It was basically there were about 15 of you and the facilitator comes up with a word or a phrase and you have 10 or 15 minutes to write basically whatever you like on that subject or based around that subject. And it was just exactly what I needed really because it just forced me to write and it kind of sparked off creative ideas. I really enjoyed it, there was such a variety of work from all the other people. One really stuck in my mind where I think yeah the subject was lemon or lemons. and at these classes a lot of stuff that people read is sort of blatantly autobiographical, and so this one just really came out of the blue. So the guy said that his story was that his narrator was on a date and he kissed this girl and her lips tasted of lemons and it was really disturbing because it reminded him of when he was a baby and his grandma leaned over him when it was in his crib and she was sucking on a lemon cough sweet and it fell off her mouth and it fell into his mouth as a baby. And this is disturbing. So he left the date and as he walked home a truck hit him and killed him. And the truck was full of lemons. Brilliant! A jaw dropping story. So it was really great, hearing everybody else’s stories as well and talking to them, and they gave you a glass of wine and a bite to eat. The whole thing was a total bargain actually that was really good.   Sarah [00:19:49] That sounds good. And so now that you’re not in a writing group which feeds you wine, what’s your routine or process now? Do you aim for a particular word count per day or writing session? And do you plot books in advance? Or is it too soon to say…   Paul [00:20:08] I work shift work so I often have to work at weekends and what that means is that then I have a day off in lieu in the week and that’s actually pretty good for me really. So for example today I had a day off and I used it for quite a bit of writing. So what I tried to do is get as many of other chores responsibilities and tasks and things out of the way, so that I have as long a block of of time to write as possible because I just find that the more you can immerse yourself in that world the more new ideas will will spark off. And I usually work in the kitchen and try to have as much natural light as possible. The one thing that has really changed my life recently as a writer is you know on your phone you can get it to and to read out anything that’s on the screen. So what I do is when I’ve been working on a chapter and I feel like it’s in quite good shape and then I’m going somewhere else and going to do something then I put on my headphones and have the phone read it back to me. And it’s really brilliant because it really puts that kind of distance between you and the writing so that you are able to appreciate it as I as a reader rather than as the writer. So today for example I was doing some work and then I had to paint the bathroom floor so I loaded up the chapter so that I’d just been working on onto my phone and I just listened to it as I was painting and you really come to view as the reader. But I just oh it’s going to and I was going to play you a bit if if if that’s all right so you can hear what it sounds like because people do think it’s kind of ridiculous when they hear what it sounds like. But anyway it works for me. Oh I’ll play you a bit.   Phone [00:22:26] ‘Sooner or later everybody comes to New York and I was no exception.’   Paul [00:22:45] You can see that they haven’t quite mastered human voice yet but I think that that they’re getting there, and perhaps part of the the way it’s kind of stilted and everything is actually quite good because it’s so clearly not my voice in my mind that I can almost see them as a reader.   Sarah [00:23:06] And of course it’s going to read exactly what is there as well. So I think from a self-editing point of view it’s going to be useful even if it’s just picking up and repeated words so that kind of thing.   Paul [00:23:16] Oh yeah totally.   Sarah [00:23:17] Because you know you’re in when you’re reading your own stuff you read what you expect to see don’t you. Yeah yeah. And that’s a really interesting tip I’ve not heard that one before. So well done, that’s a first. So this is the Worried Writer, so I’m afraid I will delve into any struggles that you’ve ever had. So do you ever suffer from creative block?   Paul [00:23:39] I think one one thing that I do find that’s good from journalism is that if I can usually get from A to B in writing even if I’m so stuck on how to do it or you know not doing it in a particularly beautiful or elegant way. But I can just get from A to B and then move on and come back and improve it later. And I think that probably comes from the sort of pressures of journalism and just having to do it. So that’s really good. But I am very easily distracted and it’s not always great trying to work at home, you know, I’ll go and water the plants to tidy something up or sort my books out or or whatever. There’s that cliche isn’t there about writer’s homes, that they are very tidy because the writer who claimed that they were spending the day writing has actually been sort of pottering about tidying everything up.   Sarah [00:24:39] (Laughs)I can’t possibly comment on that.   Paul [00:24:43] So when I was when in New York we only had a very small flat and so, you know, it would have been pretty antisocial of me to try and take up all the space writing and our office was in this, I dunno if you know this corporation called WeWork, which is this coworking office space company. So basically you you sign up and you can then go to any of the WeWork offices around that city or around the country, whatever you’ve signed up for, and the Guardian’s office was in a We Work office. And what it meant was that if I had booked rooms I could book rooms and in other We Work offices around the city. So what I would do was go to a different one each time, like on a Sunday say book a room in a We Work and and then go in and it was great actually because I really got to explore the city and work in lots of different places and you know the book’s set in New York and the new book I’m working on now is also set in New York. So it was great to feel immersed in New York and to be seeing the sights of New York out of the window as I was working.   Sarah [00:25:57] That sounds perfect. And in terms of the experience of being a debut novelist because as we were saying in the path to publication, it takes an awful lot of grit, and you have to really want it and you work and you get rejected and it’s the dream and then it finally happens and has it been all you hoped for or have there been any sort of unexpected stresses or has it just been joy?   Paul [00:26:24] I mean it’s been brilliant in the sense that this is something that I’ve wanted for so long and I felt so great to have achieved this ambition. The book launch for example I just felt really fantastic to be finally presenting myself as an author and you know people’s responses have been so good both in terms of people who have read it who hadn’t read it before and really really positive and also just you know my friends have been really really supportive and really happy for me and that’s all been absolutely brilliant.   Sarah [00:26:59] That’s great.   Paul [00:27:00] I mean you know Obliterati my publishers are a small publisher. And I think that it’s probably a different experience for me than it is if you are signed to one of the the big publishing houses. You know I think when it comes to marketing and promotion you know, Obliterati are working very hard but they are a small company and I think that one thing that I’ve found and we’ve found is that it’s much more effective for me to do everything personally than for them to do it. They the results are much better and it feels like the personal touch is is what’s needed you know whether that’s contacting podcasts like yours or literary festivals, newspapers, bloggers, bookstagrammers. It all seems to work better if it comes directly from me. And you know what one example is is bookshops getting it in bookshops. So I’ve been you know going around up into almost every bookshop in central London and persuaded them to stock it. And you know it works. It works to turn up, to show them the book, to tell them a bit about yourself. It does work. There’s only one bookshop that hasn’t taken it which is Hatchards in St Pancras. So Hatchards if you’re a regular listener to this podcast please please reconsider.   Sarah [00:28:29] That’s great that that worked so well.   Paul [00:28:31] Well yes. You feel a sense of achievement, but it’s very time consuming. You know it’s hand-to-hand combat to get it stocked everywhere. And I’m doing it. But it’s takes me a while.   Sarah [00:28:48] I was going to ask you about the kind of balancing of and because you’re definitely not alone, regardless of the size of your publisher, in having to do the lion share option. And that was something that I was happy to do and I am still happy to do, but it does have a time attached to it.    [00:29:10] Again I don’t know how you feel but I also had to kind of adjust… As happy as I was to be finally like ‘out there’, as an author, I also kind of had to deal with a wee bit of imposter syndrome and sort of self-doubt, with regards to the marketing and promotion side. Have you struggled with anything like that or are you just very confident and happy to go into bookshops, as this sounds?   Paul [00:29:31] Having spent three years in New York. I sort of channelled my inner American and I just thought how would an American handle this? Just go in and say look here’s my book, it’s brilliant, you won’t regret it.   Sarah [00:29:45] It’s great, put it on the shelf.   Paul [00:29:55] It is sort of going against your nature as a British person. And I think for example I’m like tweeting and putting posts on Instagram like every day. And I think that my friends are probably getting a bit sick of seing it, you know, but I’ve just got to do it because if I don’t do it nobody is going to do it. You know so it’s my only choice really.   Sarah [00:30:21] It’s definitely part of the gig, yeah. in terms of kind of going forward, do you have any strategies in mind for making sure that, I mean you want to do everything you can to make your debut a success which makes perfect sense, but going forward do you have any strategies for kind of making sure that promotion and marketing and kind of the business side don’t totally take over your writing time?   Paul [00:30:48] Yeah I mean that’s that’s totally totally it. Really I think the time that I was using for writing I am now using a lot of it for, like 90 percent of it really, for marketing. I think that I have just kind of resigned myself to maybe for this whole year that’s going to be the case, because when a book comes out you’ve only got a short window to really make it, to make it count really. So I feel like I’ve just got to this year throw myself into that 100 percent. And I’m still you know I’m still making some time for writing the new one and I’m still trying to keep up with sort of making notes and I’m just keeping the idea going in my head. But if at the end of the day I’ve spent this year promoting The Weighing of the Heart and trying my best to to make it as successful as it possibly can be. I think now is the only time that I could do that and I can come back to the new book in the future and the more successful The Weighing of the Heart has been, the stronger the position the new book will be and once it finally gets to that stage.   Sarah [00:32:13] Was it a one book deal with a Obliterati Press or will you be submitting your new book when the time comes?   Paul [00:32:23] It’s a one book deal and they get first refusal on the next one.   Sarah [00:32:28] Yes, okay. So I was going to say what’s next for you but I’m assuming it’s this second, also New York set, book.   Paul [00:32:36] Yeah. That’s right. So that the next one. It’s. It is still set in New York but it’s gonna be set in the 1970s when New York was a sort of crime plagued hell. And I think that that was the kind of New York that I first fell in love with through films like Taxi Driver and Mean Streets. New York felt so exciting but also so gritty and I really wanted to sort of you know I really wanted to sort of conjure up that New York in my writing. So it’s set in the mid 70s and it’s about a sort of failing newspaper journalist in New York who it starts looking into conspiracy theories about the moon landings and he starts meeting these conspiracy theorists who believe the moon landings were faked and as he gets drawn into deeper into the world he sort of finds himself against his better judgment starting to believe some of their paranoia. So that’s the that’s the basic premise.   Sarah [00:33:51] Excellent. Just to finish up, where can listeners find out more about you and your books online?   Paul [00:33:58] Sure. Well if you if you go to the Obliterrati web site then you’ll see all about the book and the other books they publish. Or you can find it on Amazon. My own website is Paul dash Tudor dash Owen dot Tumblr dot com.   Sarah [00:34:38] Well I will put all the links in the show notes. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time. It has been lovely to speak to you.   Paul [00:34:48] It’s been fantastic. Thank you very much for having me on.

My guest today is Aileen Erin, author of YA Paranormal and Science Fiction. Aileen has a BS in Radio-TV-Film from the University of Texas. After working in commercial editing in Los Angeles for a few years, Aileen moved to writing novels. Since then, she’s hit the USA Today Best-Selling list twice, has shifted nearly five hundred thousand books in her Alpha Girl series and sold 1.5 million books to date.   We talk about publishing options, the pressures of success, and Aileen gives her tips on writing. I love that she emphasises that writing is ‘a craft and that craft can be learned.’ You can find out more about Aileen and her books by going to aileenerin.com. Or find her on Facebook or Instagram. Check out her publishing company: Ink Monster. THANK YOU Massive thanks to everyone supporting the show. Thank you so much! Join our growing Patreon community at The Worried Writer on Patreon. I love creating the podcast but it takes a significant amount of time (and money) to produce. If you want to help to keep the show going, please consider becoming a patron. You can support the show for just $1 a month! If you pledge $2 or more, you also receive an exclusive mini-episode that I put out in the middle of every month. You also get instant access to the backlist of extra episodes.   WRITING UPDATE The launch of The Silver Mark: Crow Investigations Book Two went really well. At one point, The Night Raven and The Silver Mark were hanging out at the top of the paranormal suspense chart, which felt great! Also, more importantly, I’ve heard from fans of The Night Raven that they like the book, which is a massive relief. I really didn’t want to let anybody down with a disappointing follow-up. Phew! I’m now busy working on the third Crow book. I’ve shelved my other book, for now, as the deadline is pretty tight and I’m also thinking about what else I might need to cut out in order to focus on my fiction. I’ve got so many ideas and plans and not quite enough time and headspace. Which, to be clear, is a wonderful position to be in and I’m delighted!   IN THE INTERVIEW As I did last month, I’ve put a full transcript of the interview (below). I want to make the podcast more accessible for those who prefer (or need) to read, rather than listen. It’s pretty time-consuming to do, so I would love to hear what you think!   RECOMMENDED   Save The Cat by Blake Snyder Freedom – internet cancelling app Jim Butcher’s ‘path to publication’ story. Lani Diane Rich’s Worried Writer episode featuring her ‘claim your awesome’ speech!   LISTENER QUESTION If you have a writing, productivity or publishing question that you’d like me to tackle in a future episode, please get in touch via email or Twitter or leave a comment on this post. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous).   THANKS FOR LISTENING! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.   TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH AILEEN ERIN Sarah [00:00:03] My guest today is YA paranormal and science fiction author Aileen Erin has a B.S. in TV film from the University of Texas. And after working in commercial editing in Los Angeles for a few years Eileen moved to writing novels. Since then she has hit the USA TODAY best selling list twice and has shifted nearly 500000 books in her Alpha series and sold one and a half million books to date. Welcome to the show Aileen. Thank you so much for joining us.   Aileen [00:00:34] Thank you. Nice to be here.   Sarah [00:00:36] I mean I could start waxing lyrical about that amazing success but perhaps we should start off with a wee bit about your Alpha Girls series.   Aileen [00:00:45] So I wrote my Alpha Girls series in my MFA. I wrote the first one, I mean. I went through so many revisions as you do when you’re in the writing process. But when I graduated I wasn’t sure what to do with the book or what I wanted to do with publishing and there were so many different avenues to go about it, right then. There was indie, there was small press, and I could do traditional, submitting to editors and and agents and everything. But the problem that I ran into was that no one really wanted to see a submission of a YA paranormal in 2013. So I just I decided to go Indie, it felt very low risk. I started a publishing company, formulated a business plan and I started working on making a series out of the one book, and did it every six months a new release. And by the third book I was on the USA Today list. So that was pretty great.   Sarah [00:01:45] That’s incredible. My next question was going to be to ask you about your path to publication, and I was going to say you’re published by Ink Monster and that I love the logo for the imprint, it’s gorgeous. It’s so cute! So you have a big hand in all of that then?   Aileen [00:02:04] Yes. Ink Monster is my company. I started it early 2013 and I just wanted to find a way to break in with my novel. I worked with another author who has since left but we built this company.    [00:02:20] She had a marketing background I had more of a publishing books editing background and together it just really worked well for a while and I decided I knew exactly what I wanted if I was gonna be publishing and going indie, I wanted it to work with a distributor, I wanted to have the links to the next book in the series in the back of my current release, I wanted somebody that could really fight for me at retailers because as like just an individual it’s really hard to rise above from all the books and all the the people out there so, um, yeah.    [00:03:02] Yeah. And then we started with branding, logos, website design. It took some time it took about a year to get everything really together looking like we wanted it to look, with a business plan and how we were going to reach our readers and and really break into the business. And it ended up working out really well for us.   Sarah [00:03:20] I should say so and it’s so so impressive. I mean I’ll be putting the links in the show notes and I urge everybody listening regardless of whether you’re thinking about hybrid or indie or traditional to go and look at the beautiful beautiful publishing website and the fantastic logo and the branding – everything about it is so impressive and you deserve every success. I’m certainly taking some tips for from my own publishing imprint from the level that you are working at. And so in terms of…I mean I think because this is the worried writer I’m always thinking in terms of mindset and I think we run a similar timeline. So my first book came out in 2013 and, like yourself, I’d gone to university for writing and I’d worked on it for many years before, but I didn’t have any confidence whatsoever in my own work. And I kind of needed that stamp of approval from an external source. So I so admire that ability to sort of choose yourself and to be business minded from the beginning. And what do you think what helped you to do that or is that just part of your personality?   Aileen [00:04:34] It’s probably not part of my personality. I still sometimes struggle with like I kind of went around the box, I didn’t really go the way that most people do this and I’m doing it all myself. So for a little while didn’t consider myself a real author. I was like ‘No I’m just kind of like putting out books I’m not really…’ But then I had the USA Today list and I actually didn’t know that I hit the USA Today list until the next book came out and I was like I wonder if this one will. And I was checking and I was like ‘oh wait a second’ I already did, because I was my own publisher nobody tells you – the publishers are looking at that and I was doing it myself so I didn’t even think about it. I was like ‘oh my numbers are pretty high I wonder’. I just had no context of what was doing well and what wasn’t, as in was this competitive with what was out there? So I think it’s just something that you have to decide for yourself. You have to know that inner editor is in there for every single author out there, every single writer, and you do crave that validation from, you know, a big publisher or a big agent that would get you this great deal. But I think having that idea that you don’t necessarily need that, that you can do it yourself is really like a freeing thing. I get that validation from my readers who are buying the books and writing these really wonderful reviews from my superfans group who cheer me on while I’m writing and I just. Yeah. It’s just one of those things. You have to you have to tell it to be quiet, you know?   Sarah [00:06:22] Absolutely. And I think we’re so lucky to have these options now. It’s great. And like you say, getting that sort of validation direct from the reader and ultimately they’re the important people.   Aileen [00:06:36] Yeah. It made it very easy for me to go indie because I went to a lot of different conventions and sat in some agents and editor sessions and everybody was always asking like ‘what are you looking for? What are you not looking for?’ And you know different authors and writers trying to write toward whatever trend was hitting or what was coming up next and they were all across the board saying ‘please do not send us anything with werewolves or vampires’ and I was like ‘well, I’ve got this werewolf book…’ But they were just not going to take it. They were not going to look at it. They were not going to accept it. And so I was like ‘well, this is very low risk because nobody says they even want to look at it.’   Sarah [00:07:21] So it made it quite clear then?   Aileen [00:07:24] Yeah. I was like I could just throw it away or I can try this other thing. And if it fails and, you know, it turns out that I’m maybe not a good enough writer or can’t make it on my own then you know it’s not my only idea. I can go back write something else and then do that traditionally. It was just my time and energy if it was going to be a success or not.   Sarah [00:07:56] Fantastic. And then, you know, you obviously set everything up to give yourself the best possible chance of success, as I was saying you’re doing this incredible job with the with the publishing side. Was that hard to learn that side? I know you said you were working with somebody that had some marketing experience.   Aileen [00:08:14] It was all a learning process, you know. In my MFA I loved learning the writing from there but I wasn’t getting enough of the business side, so I got like a subscription to Publishers Weekly, to Writer’s Digest, and I started watching for trends and what agents were acquiring what to see what was happening and all of the indie stuff was really starting to take off. It turned from something that was like oh this vanity press thing, this horrible thing that writers that can’t cut it do, to something that like a lot of writers were making quite a bit of money and having success doing and I was like well you know what I’m going to try this. But I understood that publishing was a business and I had to have a business model and a business plan and a brand and a website and a whole the whole nine yards it had to be professional. So that was kind of kind of something that I think some indie authors miss. They’re just like oh well I’ve got the book and I’ve got the cover and it’s edited and I’m just gonna pop it up on KDP. But then how are you. How are you going to stand out?   Sarah [00:09:22] Yeah absolutely. And I mean all of this stuff takes so much work doesn’t it? It takes work and it takes time being the publisher as well as being the writer. So and I would love, I mean I’m looking for tips, so I would love to hear about how you manage to balance your business side with your writing side because you’ve also been impressively productive with your writing, so please give me your secrets.   Aileen [00:09:51] So, for a while it’s just you know writing as much as you can. I I tried different tricks and tips to try and kind of balance it. It ended up being a lot of work. I had other authors that I was publishing as well and I ended up giving those authors over to a friend who was starting her own publishing business because I was like ‘this is now getting into too much work’ as the publishing stuff is a lot of work. So I try to do whatever publishing stuff I need to do –  marketing, whatever is not writing – at the beginning of my day and then at lunchtime whatever it is that’s not urgent, it waits till tomorrow and then I the rest of it is like that’s my my writing time and I kind of hold that really sacred and true and I don’t try to bleed into the two. I find that can get like really tricky. And when I’m launching a book, it’s so much work I just say I’m I’m going to plan on not writing for these few weeks and then I will get back into writing that way. I’m not like beating myself up for not getting a word count in that day. But you kind of have to separate the two at least for me. I can’t switch back and forth all day from writing and publishing. It takes up, you know, two different parts of my brain so I’ve got to kind of segregate them. I also for a little while I was doing like one day a week of publishing stuff and then the rest of the week was writing. But I found stuff like bleeded over as I as I sent an email and stuff would trickle in and ‘oh can you do this?’ and ‘there’s an opportunity here’. So that’s why I decided to do all the mornings.   Now, I have someone that helps me so that’s amazing. So that’s kind of changed it a lot, so I’m writing even faster now,  but it’s a balancing act, so you kind of have to figure it out, what works for you how you’re going to manage like one day a week and do the rest writing in the mornings and the afternoons. Like when is your most productive writing time? When is your mind awake and and present enough to do the writing part? I’m not a morning person so that’s why I do the publishing stuff in the morning.   So whenever you you know your peak writing time is, hold that sacred that’s your writing time and the rest of it, you fit in the publishing stuff in the cracks.   Sarah [00:12:29] That makes a lot of sense. Do you aim for a typical word count when you’re having writing days or do you have any other kind of process things that you do?   Aileen [00:12:41] So I use Scrivener. I I know it takes me about six to eight weeks to get a first draft done. So I kind of put that into Scrivener. They have like a little word count per day to get to your deadlines. Now that I have a daughter, she’s three now, I don’t like to work on the weekends if I can avoid it so I mark off the weekends and tell it I’m only going to write Monday Wednesday. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday then that’s it. And it will count how many words I need per day to make that deadline. Some days you know I hit that word count easily and go way over it, some days I’m under it but it’s usually it’s steady. I can do comfortably twenty five hundred words a day, so that’s about what I try and aim for. Some days I get like 5000 words and some days I get a thousand.   Sarah [00:13:35] So it kind of works out. Writing sci fi I imagine involves a fair amount of world building and things, do you do all that stuff up front and kind of plan things out or do you dive in and work everything out sort of organically?   Aileen [00:13:52] So I do it kind of in kind of spurts because in the beginning I do a lot of the worldbuilding and then I think I’ve got everything how I want it to be and then I start writing the draft I’m like actually I need to know about this and that. So I usually write through to the first two acts. And when I’m about to do the third act I stop, I look at all the world building do I need more information, do I need something else? And I mark things in my in my document with a double X and then hit a find for x x . Like xx name here, x x fact here. And so that I don’t break my writing flow for something that I can google later or think about and world build later. So like ‘x x new religion here’, and then I’m like OK I need to think about how this is going to play into that and then when I do my first revision, I go through and I fill in those blanks and I fill in that worldbuilding and then I send it off to my editor and inevitably she’s going to be like ‘Yeah, but what about this and this and this?’ And that’s all the editing process I take about three rounds of revisions with my with my developmental auditor to really get it polished.   Sarah [00:15:12] Hmm. Excellent. And you mentioned that getting into the flow state and not breaking the flow of writing which I think is a great tip. Do you sort of shut off the Internet or do you have a particular place that you write? Are there any other things that you do to help you get into the flow and stay there?   Aileen [00:15:30] Yes I shut off the Internet. I use Freedom. It’s an app that you can either cancel your entire internet, it turns off your Wi-Fi and it makes it completely unusable for a period of time unless you shut off your computer entirely and turn it back on. There’s no off switch. You know I’m not going to turn off. It has to be pretty desperate and dire if I’m actually going to turn off my computer to look something up. So I use that and I also like to use Scrivener’s full screen function so it blacks out out the rest of my screen, and I have notifications off, I make it fill up the screen and I kind of just let it flow until I need a break to get up and grab a drink water or whatever and then I try and get really quickly back into the story.   Sarah [00:16:26] That’s great. And do you have silence or music or white noise?   Aileen [00:16:36] Music, but no words. So I have a few Spotify playlists with kind of relaxing ambient music so it’s almost like you’re at the spa.   Sarah [00:16:50] Because this is the worried writer I’m afraid I’m going to ask you to delve into any struggles. Do you have to suffer from a sort of creative block or is there a particular part of the process when you’re more likely to struggle? Like is it drafting or is in the editing, or do you never suffer from any?   Aileen [00:17:10] Oh man. Do you ever meet a writer that never suffers?   Sarah [00:17:14] No never. You could be the first though!   Aileen [00:17:21] The second act. For me the second half of the second act I’m always like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. This book will never be finished and is carrying on forever. I don’t think I’m ever going to finish it. This is horrible it’s all horrible life is horrible. And inevitably, I come in from my office and whine to my husband and he is like and ‘where are you at in the process, where are you right now?’. I’m like ‘oh I just hit the midpoint.’ He’s like ‘Alright OK why don’t you just have a glass of wine?’.   Sarah [00:17:53] We’ve been here before! You know it’s so funny isn’t it? Why doesn’t it get easier, that’s what I keep thinking? Why do I still suffer at the same point every time?   Aileen [00:18:08] It’s so funny. And I think every writer does this and I think I mean if if there was one I’m like… Good for you. Slow clap. What do you do? I want to know. But yeah, there’s always that one point where you’re just like oh this is a disaster. And every single time I’m like No this time it’s different, this is gonna be terrible it’s horrible. It’s all awful. Read it you’re going to see how bad and he’s like ‘uh-huh, uh-huh’.   Sarah [00:18:42] So, we have to have a glass of wine and we have to moan about it and then we kind of have to grit it out, but are there any strategies that you use for when you’re really stuck when you’re trying to grit it out?   Aileen [00:18:57] When I’m really really stuck, I know that there’s there’s usually something that’s wrong. It’s like my subconscious telling me there’s something not adding up correctly here. So I try and go back in and reread. If I’m stuck for more than like a day or two I know it’s something that my subconscious is saying hey hey go back. You need to go back. So I I try and be aware of that but if it’s something that’s just happening during like, each day, one trick that I learned somebody told me a couple years ago and I was like ‘this is so smart, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this.’ He told me never ever to end the day at the end of a scene or at the end of a chapter, always stop in the middle of a paragraph, middle of a scene, middle of dialogue. Even if you’re like Oh no I have no more time, just keep going for like five more minutes and get into the next something, so you have a place to start when you’re sitting down again. And it kind of keeps the flow rolling from one day to the next, so you keep that kind of that constant consistent writing going.   Sarah [00:20:13] That’s a great tip. And in terms of I know you mentioned the sort of second act there so and I’m guessing that you kind of know a fair amount about story structure. I mean not just from writing but from your education. And is that something that you find very helpful or do you have any resources or books that you recommend for anybody who would like to learn more about that?   Aileen [00:20:39] I use a screenwriting book for my story structure it’s super basic, super easy to digest and understand. They recently did a novel version but I haven’t read it yet my husband actually just gave it to me on Friday. He was like hey they made one for novelists, don’t you want to see? It’s Save The Cat by Blake Snyder. He talks in the beginning a bit about genre and high concept and that’s more movie kind of and so that doesn’t apply for novel writing but his 13 beats that are the key points in a story and the 40 note cards, I think that really lends itself well to an outline. So that’s what I do before I start anything, I have a little beat sheet and I write out the 13 key points and then I draw the little lines. How do we get from this beat to the next beat in the next one to the next one you know? And those are my 40 note cards. So it’s 10 note cards for Act 1, 20 for Act 2 which is why it always seems like a beast to write because it’s twice as long and then ten again for Act 3. So it’s it’s really easy to do. You just write like one sentence on each no card it’s just kind of the gist of what that scene is going to be. And that’s pretty much what you need to get started or what I need to get started on a book. It usually changes and like as I write it fleshes out and becomes something else a little bit. And I go back at the end of act two and I’m like Does this still make sense? Am I still writing this ending? Okay great. I’m gonna fix it or keep going. But yeah I really really love Save the Cat by Blake Snyder.   Sarah [00:22:29] That’s great. And I’ve had that book recommended to me and I haven’t actually read it but I did get the and Save the Cat Writes A Novel and I just I just finished it is super good.   Aileen [00:22:42] I haven’t I haven’t read it yet. It’s sitting on my on my desk and I’m really anxious to get to get into it because I’m curious how they changed it for novel writing.   Sarah [00:22:53] On structure, some people hate reading about it and some people find it useful and like all of these things you know, if it helps great, if it doesn’t throw it out the window. But in terms of self-doubt and that kind of thing, are there any parts of the publishing side of it, there’s being read which is great but can be scary. Do you ever suffer with fear or self-doubt around any of those areas?   Aileen [00:23:29] Of course, of course! You know I just launched Lunar Court, it’s book eight in the series and you know I had anxiety the night before it was coming out I didn’t sleep at all. Total insommnia, I was nervous. So so nervous, even though I had reviews already that said that they all enjoyed it, five stars everything… I was like Oh but you know once the fans get it they might not like it and I hate to disappoint them you know? I think it’s just part of it. Writing is such a personal thing you know and sharing it you want it to be enjoyed and accepted and everything and that’s always, no matter what art form you’re doing, it’s always scary. You’re putting a little piece of your your heart out there and you want it to be accepted. And it’s hard to do it, but it’s kind of you can’t be a be an author without putting it out there. You can’t reach any kind of success if you’re not doing it. So yeah it’s kind of kind of one of those things that you’ve just gotta kind of get through.   But you know the self-doubt it’s there. It’s that little inner editor and I think even non-writers and  non-artists kind of get that, it’s that thing that tells them that they’re not good enough. You know everybody can relate to that. Everybody’s got that in them. And it’s like how much power are you going to give that little voice? How much of yourself are you going to let that take over, and just kind of deciding you know what, it’s gonna be fine. It’s great. I’m actually doing a great job. And getting those people in your life that will support you and say ‘this is good, I would tell you if it was bad. This is good. You’re doing a great job. Keep going.’ Having those key people in your life is really helpful.   Sarah [00:25:24] Yeah. That’s great advice. That’s so true. And I was also thinking about how success, not to complain about it because it’s amazing and brilliant, but you kind of do feel that new pressure. Like you were saying about not wanting to let readers down, you’ve got this beloved series and then you’ve got that added thing of hoping that these readers that are so supportive of you, hoping that they like it. That must be that must be tough.   Aileen [00:25:55] You  know it’s really a good problem. It’s a sweet problem to have. But you know I wrote this book about some of the side characters and it was one that readers had been asking me for for years and until I wrote the last book I kept telling them I don’t know that they could be together I don’t know that these two characters can be together. They’ve got too much to overcome. And then I was writing the last book and I had this idea I was like oh wait. So it was something that readers had been asking me for and I’m like if I then give it to them and they don’t like it, it is going to feel horrible. I was like, I don’t want to disappoint them because they have been asking me for years for this. So. So I finally wrote it. Then I get an e-mail last night from a reader, you know all in caps about how much she loved it and how I made her ugly cry and I was like ‘yay! I can sleep again!’. Everything’s fine. It’s gonna be fine. So yeah it’s good. I mean it is part of the process. But I think also having that little inner editor, sometimes it’s good it keeps you wanting to do better, to keep striving to be the best writer that you can be. And like questioning ‘is this a good draft?’. I’m going to have somebody else read it let me make sure I’m doing a good job, you know? So I kind of try and push it in that direction rather than you know something that’s really hounding on my shoulder. You know something really bringing me down.   Sarah [00:27:30] That makes a lot of sense. And lots of folk listening might be trying to finish their first book or they might be going through submission hell when they’re trying to get published. What advice would you give to a beginning writer or is there something that you wish that you’d known when you started out?   Aileen [00:27:50] I think for beginning writers I would say just keep writing and I think finishing that first draft, you’ve just got to finish it. If you got something that you’re just starting working on or you’re stuck in the middle and you keep going back and revising, let it all go. Your first draft isn’t going to be good. Your first book isn’t gonna be good. You have to like learn the process. It’s a craft and the craft can be learned but you have to welcome the revision process. Get that first draft out and start working on revising the whole piece. There’s a great saying that I love to tell people you can’t revise a blank page, so you’ve got to just keep going and get the story on the page and then you can fix whatever needs fixing later. And if you end up not happy with that book, know that that is a great achievement just finishing that book, start on something new. Keep going keep writing because every book that you write will get better and better every time you revise it. You will get better at this writing process. It’s a craft, you know. And it just is learned and the more you do it the better you get. And I would say my writing has changed drastically from my first book to the one I just put out. I keep learning new things taking going new seminars there’s always more to learn. I think my writing is much improved even after my MFA like way drastically even more so than when I was in my MFA so. So yeah, just keep keep going keep writing and don’t give up.   Sarah [00:29:26] Fantastic. And it’s so true. The more we practice the better we get. But somehow we don’t always think that when it comes to writing for some reason. I don’t know why.   Aileen [00:29:37] Well it’s it’s hard when you pick up a book and you’re like wow this is really amazing. I bet they just sat down there and wrote that in one draft first try – gold! I’m like ‘No no everybody’s like trying really hard and rewriting and then going through the same thing.’ You’ve just got to keep going. Jim Butcher he’s a great urban fantasy writer. He has this little tale about how he first got published on his website and when I was first starting writing I would go to Jim Butcher’s page every day and read his page about how he got published and how not to give up and how to keep going. And I found it extremely inspirational so I was like No I’m just going to keep going. And it’s just really powerful to go to his website read it. It’s so great, he really inspired me and before I got my MFA, when I was in my MFA, when I started publishing and every once in a while when I’m like ‘you know what, I don’t know if I’m going to make it’ I go back through to his website and I click on About Jim Butcher and go and read his his little piece about publishing.   Sarah [00:31:01] Oh that’s brilliant. And hopefully, you saying this now, that will be encouraging. And yes, like you say, you’ve got to keep on going. And I will put a link to that in the show notes. that’s fab. And so finally I’d love to hear about what’s next for you. Like what are you working on now will your next release?   Aileen [00:31:21] So right now I’m working on Off Balance. It’s the sequel to Off Planet which came out in March. It’s coming out St. Patrick’s Day next year, so I’m about 40000 words into that and really loving it. And then after that I’m gonna be writing Alpha Erased which is book 9 in my Alpha Girls series. That’s gonna be really fun. I’m finally doing the main POV character’s mate in it, and having her memory wiped. So that’ll be really fun for readers. They’ll get to fall in love all over again. Yeah. So, it’ll be romantic and I’m really looking forward to writing that one, too.   Sarah [00:32:04] And you’ve just reminded me, I wanted to ask what led you to writing in a slightly different genre. You’ve got sci fi and you’ve got paranormal with werewolves. What made you change genre a wee bit?   Aileen [00:32:19] Well I guess most people say write what you know but I don’t know anything about paranormal or going into outer space. I mean hopefully we’ll never go to outer space, although I did read an article that they’re accepting or will be accepting people into the space station soon. Just privately you can fly up there I’m like I don’t know how much it’s going to be, maybe a billion dollars… One day maybe it’s possible… No probably not.   Sarah [00:32:47] You never know.   Aileen [00:32:49] Crazier things have happened. I could win the lotto… So yeah, but I love the write what you love. I love space opera, I love sci fi, I love paranormal, I love werewolves, I love fairy tales, so I just kind of write what I love. It was interesting making such a big change from werewolves to interstellar travel. So that was a big leap but I kind of worked you know really hard on it hoped it was going to be accepted by new readers who had never read me before and also encouraged my fans to go with me. I’m like ‘just give it a try’. Read a sample. I sent out a lot of samples, I posted it on my social media, I just said give it a shot and they did. And they were like actually we will read this too.   Sarah [00:33:48] That’s really good. And I think from a creative point of view I can imagine it’s it’s I mean I like writing across genre because I read across genre and I love across genre. And so I can imagine that it’s kind of creatively refreshing.   Aileen [00:34:01] It is. After so many werewolf books it got to be you know a little bit like I didn’t feel like my ideas were fresh anymore. I was like I need sort of like a palate cleanser. And that’s what Off Planet it was for me.   Sarah [00:34:14] I love that you were following your passion with your writing and, as I say, doing it so well and being so successful at it. Very inspiring. Thank you so much for your time. Just before we finish, where can listeners find out more about you and your books online?   Aileen [00:34:32] You can find me at Aileen Erin dot com on Facebook and Instagram. I’m also on Twitter but I never checked that and my Alpha Girls Series and Off Planet are at all major retailers.   Sarah [00:34:46] Brilliant. Well as I say I will put all the links in the show notes but thank you so much for your time. It was lovely to speak to you.   Aileen [00:34:52] So nice to speak to you. Thank you for having me.  

Sacha Black writes YA fantasy – the Eden East series, and non-fiction for authors. Her writing guides include 13 Steps to Evil: How to craft Superbad villains and 10 Steps to Hero: How to Craft a Kick Ass Protagonist. Sacha is a proud indie author and recently went full-time with her writing. Find out more about Sacha and her books at sachablack.co.uk or find her on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. THANK YOU Massive thanks to new patrons and to everyone supporting the show. Thank you so much! Join our growing Patreon community at The Worried Writer on Patreon. If you want instant access to the audio and to become an insider member of the podcast, you can sign up for just $2 a month via the link above. (You can support me for as long or a short a time as you like – cancel any time). WRITING UPDATE I have been busy with the launch of The Silver Mark: Crow Investigations Book Two. In the introduction, I give an update on the launch, read the blurb and talk about my recent writing retreat. Also, I mention my non-fiction writing mindset book, Stop Worrying; Start Writing: How To Overcome Fear, Self-Doubt and Procrastination. It’s available in print, ebook and audiobook formats (and I read the audio book!). Click here to buy it on Audible (get it for just £3.49 if you buy the Kindle edition, or listen for free with a one month Audible trial!). IN THE INTERVIEW: We discuss tips for writing compelling villains, antagonists, and heroes, as well as Sacha’s own writing process and publishing journey. I’m trying something new this month, with a full transcript of the interview (below). I want to make the podcast more accessible for those who prefer (or need) to read, rather than listen. It’s pretty time-consuming to do, so I would love to hear what you think! Recommended by Sacha (and me!): Deep Work by Cal Newport           TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH SACHA BLACK   Sarah: Sacha Black writes YA fantasy the Eden series and non-fiction for authors. Her writing guides include 13 Steps to Evil How to craft super bad villains and ten steps to hero how to craft a kick ass protagonist. Sasha is a proud Indie Author and recently went full-time with her writing. Welcome to the show. And congratulations on making the leap to full-time writing. Sacha: Thank you so much. It’s an absolute honour to be here. I’m really really excited to be on your podcast. Sarah: You’re so kind. I would love to hear more about making the leap into the full-time writing. Was that a goal that you set for yourself? Sacha: Absolutely. I kind of meandered my way to making the decision that I wanted to write full-time. I’m not really one of these people who was overly self-aware as a child so it became a goal as I started writing more but I didn’t really enjoy my day job. So I worked as a project manager at a very corporate quite conservative environment, and they didn’t really allow for much creativity. I mean they wanted to they tried really hard but you know you come up with these creative ideas and it’ll be a no we can’t we can’t do that. So about I would say probably five or six years ago I started writing with the intent to publish. I had written prior to that but that was kind of the, you know, the pivotal turning point where my mindset shifted and I and I kind of got this obsessive tunnel vision, you know kind of single-minded. This is what I want to do. I want to do this full-time and the more I write the more I wanted it. So yes it was definitely a goal. Sarah: So you mentioned there about and sort of the beginnings of your writing so was it something that you’d always wanted to do?   Sacha: Yeah I think if I’d been more self-aware I’d have realised that’s what I wanted to do. But you know when I look back on my childhood all of the signs were there. You know I would carry around notebook and pen and scribble little sentences. And I think my mom also had to move libraries once, I remember because we were sort of in this local library which was sort of quite small but I’d read everything. I mean literally everything. And we had to go to like this larger library… So you know when I look back I think, actually, you know I should have realised that that’s what I wanted to do. But I was also brought up knowing that I had to get a proper job and I had to wear a suit or, you know, have some kind of a qualification. So I went to university and I probably should have done creative writing or something or English even just because I loved it and I didn’t.   I did psychology because I thought ‘that’s a career’. It’s kind of on the peripheries of medicine. And then I did a Masters and I sort of fell into being in my students union as president. And then I got onto a graduate scheme, a fast track management scheme because that was a proper job and that’s what you do. And it did not take very long for me to realise that was really not what I wanted to do. So I started blogging. I kind of just needed like this platform or this place to just vomit out rants about things that annoyed me. As you know writing is so cathartic, so many people say that, and that’s exactly why I came back to writing.   And then I got out my notebooks and kind of remembered, and I found one of these stories that I had written when I was nine. And that was the story that I always wanted to turn into a novel. So I decided to do NaNoWriMo and I took that novel and that was the novel I wrote in my first NaNo and the rest is history. You know I that was it. Once I got the bug and the habit in NaNo it was game over for me I realised very rapidly this is what I wanted to do exactly as you say the more you write the more you want to write or the more you get obsessed with it it’s your thing.   Sarah: So were you doing non-fiction about writing alongside writing fiction or which did you publish first?   Sacha: Okay that’s a great question. So I am one of these super geeky nerdy people. So no matter what I’m obsessing over I just I go to the extreme of geekery when it comes to it.   So I started this kind of obsessive journey to develop my craft and the other thing I am is very senile. Literally, if I don’t write something down, usually by hand, there is no way I am going to remember whatever it is I need to remember. So what I do is every book I read I add – this is sacrilege, so people please forgive me if you think I’m a kind of heathen – but I have a pencil and little sticky tabs. And every time I see something that I think is well written whether it’s description or dialogue or foreshadowing I’ll underline it very lightly in pencil and stick a sticky tab in and then when I get to the end of the book I go back and review all of the sentences that I’ve underlined. I started out by hand writing them up and then I quickly moved in to using my blog and what I would do is I would copy and paste them down and then I would look for patterns and trends and what I tended to find is that particular authors had you know really good skills in one particular area whether it be description or dialogue.   And so then I would go down to kind of sentence level detail and look at why it was that they did so well and I would write those lessons that I was learning up into blog posts and I did, I think it was a post on female villains, which just I mean it didn’t go viral but you know I think it had quite a lot of hits. And so I wrote I think three or four more.   Collectively, I think they garnered me you know 50000 or 100000 hits something like that on my website which to me at the time having not been blogging for that long was just an enormous amounts of hits. So I dug a bit further and I looked into whether or not there were kind of books on this and there weren’t. So I was like well, hey, you know, there’s obviously a market for this. I’d already started writing up my lessons. Why not do a bit more research and compile it into a book? So that’s what I did. So my 13 Steps to evil was the first book that I published which I know some people like ‘well, you know, what validity do you have?’   Sarah: Well I think teaching creative writing is different. I mean some people will say ‘I’ll only ever take class with someone who is a bestseller in my particular genre.’ And I’m not criticising that opinion, that’s a perfectly valid opinion, but speaking as someone who has done a Masters in Creative Writing and been taught by very very talented writers, not all of them are great lecturers, not all of them are great tutors. They don’t necessarily go hand in hand. So I’m not sure I completely agree with that.   Sacha: I completely agree and that’s why I wrote it, because I’d learnt these lessons. You know, one of the things that I was really keen to do, because I was also reading a lot of writing craft books at the time, was create something that wasn’t dry because so many of these writing craft books, forgive me, they are incredible fountains of knowledge, but they’re also so dry and I am a very sweary, very sarcastic author – I’m on my best behaviour today – so I just I wrote in my voice. So my writing craft book is sarcastic and it is sweary, but people like that. Well actually that’s not true. People either love it or they hate it. That’s fine. But you know I kind of I had a goal of making writing sarky and fun and not dry. And I think actually not necessarily having those years and years and eons of knowledge enables you to craft non-fiction in a way that’s slightly innovative I suppose.   Sarah: And another thing you said there about your voice and writing it in your voice I think that’s so key. And again it comes down to the teaching thing when I said that some of the lecturers maybe weren’t so good. They weren’t good for me. And what matters is your teacher is right for you and that’s why you know when writing craft book or business book or whatever it is will speak to a particular reader and it makes it the perfect match.   But  if you don’t write your blog post or your teaching book or record your podcast then those readers out there who would respond to your voice don’t get a chance. And so I’m aware that we’ve sort of gone a wee bit into whole non-fiction antagonist, we’ve uses the word antagonist and I love a good antagonist so I was instantly drawn to that title but thinking in terms of protagonist and antagonist doesn’t always come naturally to everyone. So I thought before we go any further we should maybe just have some basic definitions.   Sacha: Yeah absolutely. So I kind of think and talk about villains and antagonists as being on a continuum. So a villain is somebody or a character who is inherently evil and by evil I mean perhaps they perpetrate acts of violence.   They might murder lots of people, their mindset is very dark. An antagonist, the similarities with the antagonist is that an antagonist gets in the way of the hero. So they are a blocker or an obstacle. They they want to prevent the hero from achieving his or her goal but they aren’t necessarily evil at the core.   So a good example of this would be Harry Potter. You have Lord Voldemort who is a villain. He is evil. He you know he kills people freely. And one of the, I mean there are many antagonists in Harry Potter, but one of the most obvious ones would be Draco Malfoy. You know he’s just you know he does step in the way of Harry. A lot.   But at his core he’s just a bit of a weak coward. He’s not necessarily evil and violent. And so with a protagonist and a hero the protagonist is typically who the story is about and a hero is somebody who will have you know magical powers or they would be Superman somebody who tends to have you know unnatural amounts of strength or skill or power.   Sarah: Okay. So what makes a good antagonist?   Sacha: Another great question. So there are so many things, so many things! I will try and summarise I think, I could be here all day because I just love it and I obsess about it, but I think I think one of the most common mistakes with villains or antagonists is not having a sound motive. We all do things for a reason, even villains. And I know that somebody is going to come and argue ‘well you know look at a psychopath they don’t necessarily have reasons or justifications for doing things’ and okay, sure, sometimes that is the case, but that’s the difference between writing truth and writing fiction. We we are writing fiction we are not writing truth, and in order to convey fiction effectively and make your characters believable you do need to have reasons and justifications for your characters doing things.   Sarah: So I know from my own experience that sometimes I get stuck in my story because I haven’t thought through my antagonist and their goals or their point of view properly. Is that something you’ve found?   Sacha: Yeah I think so and the thing that I always come back to is making sure you have the why behind that behaviour. This is a bit from my psychology background, but as children we build these things called heuristics in our brain. And they’re kind of a set of rules by which we categorise things so a square, as a child you learn that a square whether it’s big or small or red or blue or patterned is still a square.   And one of the things that we learn about people is that, you know, 99.9 percent of the time people do things for a reason which is why to make your villain believable, you have to come back to them having a why and a justification and a motive for doing something. And even more than that is having a cause or a driver behind the motive. And this is probably one of the key tips is to go further than just saying why your character is doing something.   For me, I try to link my villain’s behaviour to something that happened in their past.   So we always talk about heroes and how they have a wound that creates the flaw but actually your villain ought to have the same thing. You know they are perpetrating things that are bad or they’re doing these negative actions that are getting in the way of the hero. And and why is that? Go create a motive and then go back into their past. I’m not saying that you have to have reams of background and information dumps in your story but you knowing why your villain is doing something will help you naturally convey more believability and depth in your villain.   And the last thing that I do is that I try to connect that flaw or wound in your villain to the theme. Your hero obviously embodies the theme itself and your villains should embody the ante theme so the opposing kind of force to whatever your theme may be. And I try to derive something that happened in their past that is connected to that. So say if your theme is sacrifice perhaps your villain failed to sacrifice something back in their past, and perhaps they lost somebody that was really important to them and that then would be the why and the drive and cause behind the motive for why they’re behaving the way they are now.   Sarah: So, developing your hero and your antagonist kind of in tandem is a good idea, then?   Sacha: Absolutely and I talk about this in, I think it’s my heroes book, but I actually try to develop all of the characters in tandem and I know that’s really overwhelming and it sounds ridiculous, but bear with me. So often we just concentrate on the hero, but if you’re a smart author you will look at the hero and the villain as kind of a yin and yang with each other.   But actually if you can take that one step further and look at how all of the characters are an embodiment of your theme.   A good example of that would be the Hunger Games. So Katniss embodies the theme of sacrifice. She constantly sacrifices herself for others. The villain, President Snow, embodies the anti theme in that he constantly sacrifices other people for his own benefit. But when you look deeper at the story and you look at the other characters they are all reflections on that theme. So Rue for example is a good portrayal of this, in that she is also a tribute. For those who don’t know what the Hunger Games is it’s essentially a dystopian novel where lots of these children have to go and fight each other to the death. And Rue is one of these children fighting against Katniss and instead of fighting and killing Katniss which because she has the opportunity to she decides to save Katniss. So Rue in herself makes a sacrifice and is a reflection of that theme in a different way and all of your characters should do that. They kind of mesh together on different representations of the theme. Does that make sense?   Sarah: Absolutely. And while we’re on heroes, what do you think makes a really good hero – is it that link to the wound that you mentioned?   Sacha: Absolutely. My favourite types of heroes are heroes who aren’t perfect. I think heroes who are perfect are boring. And I think your readers are going to think that they’re boring as well.   So you know I think the best kind of heroes are the messy dirty ones who make bad choices and poor decisions, but they learn from them. For me, having a hero who does have a bit of a moral greyness to them I think builds depth because it makes them more of a reflection of humanity. We are not perfect beings. And I think when you when you can kind of embody that in your hero it makes your reader connect much more, and on a much deeper level your hero because they can see parts of themselves in your in your characters.   Sarah: And it’s seeing them struggle as well, isn’t it? I know when I first started I found it quite difficult to be mean enough to my characters because I like them. I wanted them to make the right choices because I knew they were a good person and I like them. But, as you say, making sure that they do fail, making sure that they don’t always make the right decisions, is super important. What you said about the yin and yang thing reminded me that one of my favourite types of antagonist is the doppelgänger antagonist, where they start out very similar to the hero and then you see them make different choices throughout the story.   Sacha: Absolutely. I think I think you can always see the difference between a hero and a villain when they are forced to make a choice in a difficult situation because the hero will make the right choice for the right reasons or, okay, sometimes they make the wrong choice but for the right reasons. But that’s more going into the anti-hero realm, but the villain will more often than not make the wrong choice or you know they’ll make the wrong choice for what they deem to be the right reason. And this is what I’m talking about, that moral kind of greyness. Sometimes, in the villain’s mind they’re making it for the right reason, which means morally they are on the right side of the line in their eyes.   Sarah: Do you develop your characters before you start writing, or do you just dive in and then get to know them as you write?   Sacha: So my writing process is still in fluctuation and kind of going through this process of change. When I wrote my first book I was very much a plotter, but what happened was I plotted for an entire year before I even wrote a word.   I was like ‘what are you doing? It’s going to take me 20 years to write this book unless I get on with it!’   I am moving away from that and I am actually now trying to write completely as a pantser. I haven’t quite found the right balance yet, but I think I am probably going to end up more on that continuum more towards the pantser side than I am the plotter side. I quite like to let the characters develop on the page because if I don’t they’re just going to do what they want anyway. You know I spent all of this time doing character interviews and development and, actually, they never ended up anything like what I thought they were going to end up. Yeah. I don’t know whether it was a newbie mistake or I was just delusional about what my process really was, but I stopped trying to control my characters and we all get along much better now.   Sarah: That’s fantastic. I think it is, as you say, a case of just learning what your own process is, and you don’t know that without doing it and trying things so that makes a lot of sense. Because this is the worried writer I do like to ask about blocks and things, so do you have any tips for writers who are maybe trying to come up with a really good antagonist or they’re trying to round out their characters either while they’re writing or in the planning stage? Do you have any methods that you would offer people to get unblocked on that.   Sacha: Yeah absolutely. A few actually. So that the first thing to say is to just stop what you’re doing and write something completely different. So I play this game with some of my friends and we call it the one word game or the one sentence game and somebody will pluck a random word out of thin air or out of the dictionary or out of something they are reading, and we will just write a sentence. Or a paragraph or sometimes we end up writing a whole page, it really just depends.   The point of that is to just get you writing because, so often, the answers to block come when you are not brow furrowing and concentrating on trying to find the answer, but when you’re in the shower or, if you’re me, when you’re driving and have no pen. So that would be the first one. Write some flash fiction – something that doesn’t have to be part of your story or whatever.    The second thing would be to take your character out of your story and put them in a high stress situation and just write it completely out of context. Put them in a different story or a different situation, because people as a whole tend to show their truest self when they are under high stress or high pressure. So that’s something that I quite like to do. And another thing to do would be to either add in an obstacle or throw in some conflict. Now for me conflict comes at kind of three levels. So you have a macro conflict which is you know usually kind of in dystopian it’s like wars it’s world battles or societal issues or you have micro conflict which is between characters.   That’s often the best unblocker for me is to put an argument or a problem between two of the characters because that will lead you to generating more plot, and then you have inner conflict and this is one of my favourites. So inner conflict is where your characters have emotional battles. So a good example of this would be Ned Stark from Game of Thrones. And actually George R.R. Martin generally does a lot of this, but Ned Stark has kind of two personal values. The first one is that he values wisdom and the second one is that he values loyalty and he is very loyal to the king who asks him to go and work for him in the palace. But Ned’s wisdom leads him to realize that he’s probably going to die if he does that. That puts his two most valued values against each other. What does he go with? Does he go with his wisdom or his loyalty? And that butts up against each other and gives him this inner conflict that he has to kind of turmoil over and that will also usually unblock for me or if it doesn’t necessarily unblock me it will unblock the characters who will then tell me what I need to write.   Sarah: While we’re on the subject, we’ve been talking about quite big stories with real villains – the examples of Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games – but something that sometimes people ask me is what to do if you were writing a romance or a quieter story that doesn’t have a serial killer as the villain? I’m aware that you still need an antagonist; are there things in your book about crafting super bad villains that are applicable to people who are trying to write those quieter or non-crime-driven stories?   Sacha: Absolutely. So talking about that kind of inner conflict, that’s often what you see in romance stories. So you’ll see a character conflicted against what they think they should do versus what their heart wants them to do. And I talk about that kind of turmoil and how to create that conflict and that is genreless, almost. Also, one of my favourite topics in there is around mental health, because so often villains are given a mental health issue and it’s the reason why they’re doing their thing that they’re doing. And actually that just creates stigma, it creates discrimination, and it’s just wrong. Mental health does not cause you to behave badly. You being a bad person causes you to behave badly! There’s that chapter as well which spans genres. There’s also a chapter on clichés and clichés tend to span genres. So yes I have tried to make my book as genre-less as possible and I have got examples from lots and lots of different genres as well. I also have a book on endings and I talk about which endings most suit which genre.   Sarah: That’s brilliant because I know that sometimes it can be a wee bit trickier to get a handle on conflict or villains or antagonists when you are writing those kinds of stories. So that’s fantastic. Now I want to move on a wee bit to your writing process and so on, and your head space and time management particularly since now you have gone full-time which is great. You’re writing and publishing in two separate genres, and that of course requires lots of different tasks. And I just wondered how do you balance the various parts of your professional life both in terms of the head space and the time management?   Sacha: Really badly!   It’s hard for me to answer how I am going to be doing that because I’m really literally only in my first week of being fully self-employed. So, I mean how did I manage it before when I was working full-time? I have a five year old and I have a wife and a house and I managed it really badly.   I was essentially working two full-time jobs. And it’s not healthy, it’s not clever and I ended up suffering from burnout all of the time. I had really bad imposter syndrome all of the time, really bad doubt, because of course all of these things derive from being exhausted and not treating yourself very kindly not giving yourself any self-care. I mean the biggest thing that I did was to make lots of sacrifices. So I gave up TV about four years ago, I think. I will binge watch something on Netflix once I’ve finished a project or once I’ve hit a goal. But, of an evening, I wasn’t watching TV anymore and you would be surprised quite how much you are capable of achieving if you don’t watch TV. You know I kind of gained four hours every evening. People like to say they don’t watch TV. Trust me you are watching TV! I gave that up.   I kind of withdrew a bit from my social circle. So I would go out less so that I had more time to write, I would get up early sometimes, I would also write on my lunch break or I would do marketing and admin on my lunch break at work and when I was walking down corridors at work I would write a sentence or two on my phone. I had Dropbox and iCloud sync up so everything was accessible everywhere, and you’d be surprised, I would go home sometimes with 1000 words because people had been late for meetings or I had to walk further for a meeting. So, I say badly, but I was just acutely aware of how I spent my time and I tried to maximize every opportunity to write or do marketing that I possibly could.   Sarah: Do you think it’s key to know why you’re doing that or to have a goal, as that sounds quite full-on?   Sacha: Yes, I don’t really recommend it. I did suffer some quite intense burn-out and that’s just inefficient as it stops you from working essentially.   Sarah: Do you have plans, now that you are full-time, for making sure you have boundaries and self-care?   Sacha: While I’m transitioning, I’m still doing some freelance work, so I’m trying to time-block so that I have calls or freelance work related time on some days and great swathes of time on other days so that I can do deep work. There’s a book called Deep Work by Cal Newport which is fantastic and it really helped me to set clear strategies for deep work.   One of the other things I gave up was exercise which was really bad… So, I’m planning to get back to that.   One of the other things is I have a Fitbit and that shouts at me every hour, if I haven’t moved enough, so that’s good, and there are some woods near my house so I’m planning to walk there.   Sarah: I also love Deep Work! Just to finish up what you working on at the moment or what’s next for you?   Sacha: I have three things. I want to finish my YA fantasy series, which is about a third done. The next is to finish my next non-fiction book. I don’t quite have the pitch down yet but it’s something along the lines of the anatomy of prose. I’m not looking at grammar, but sentence level word choice. It’s right down at the deep sentence level, on the exactly how you convey emotion, how you use juxtaposition to foreshadow etc etc. It’s my piece de resistance. And the last thing is creating some mini writing courses.   Sarah: Where can we find out more about you and your books?   Sacha: I have a website sachablack.co.uk. And that’s Sacha with a ‘c’. I have a blog and I’m on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’m pretty much everywhere, please come and say ‘hi’. I don’t bite unless it’s a Tuesday! —  

My guest today is Barnaby Walter, who writes under the name B. P. Walter. His debut novel, A Version of the Truth, is a dark psychological thriller published by Avon. It has been called: ‘Beguiling, surprising and sometimes shocking.’ Barnaby is an alumni of the Faber Academy and currently works in social media coordination for Waterstones in London. Follow B.P. Walter on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.       IN THE INTRODUCTION Thank you so much for supporting the show on Patreon. I wouldn’t still be doing the podcast without you as, much as I love podcasting, it does take a lot of time and some money to produce and I wouldn’t be able to justify it as part of my business. Massive thanks to new patrons and to everyone supporting the show. Thank you so much! Join our growing Patreon community at The Worried Writer on Patreon. If you want instant access to the audio and to become an insider member of the podcast, you can sign up for just $2 a month via the link above. (You can support me for as long or a short a time as you like – cancel any time). LISTENER QUESTION I answer the following listener question… Holly asked: I’ve now got a ‘finished’ manuscript and I know the next steps will be to send it out to readers, agents and ultimately publishers. However, I can’t bring myself to let anyone read it – even my very supportive husband!  I just seem to have a real worry about anyone reading my fiction (which is a bit of a contradiction in terms for someone who wants to be a novelist…) The fear of being judged or finding out I have no talent is really holding me back, but I know I won’t improve my draft or my writing generally unless I get some feedback. Do you have any strategies for getting over this wall? If you have a writing, productivity or publishing question that you’d like me to tackle in a future episode, please get in touch via email or Twitter or leave a comment on this post. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). WRITING UPDATE This month I’ve been editing The Silver Mark and I sent it out to my ARC team last week. I’ve already had some feedback – good feedback – which is, as always, a massive relief! Those who have been listening a while may already know this, but my Crow Investigations series is something I decided to do independently, another step along the hybrid publishing path and, so far, it’s gone really well. Far better than I hoped, I’ll be honest, which is very exciting indeed. I’m in the process of signing a deal for the audio rights, too, so The Night Raven will be truly hybrid with a traditional deal for the audiobook. I think a large part of The Night Raven’s success is down to the amazing cover and, in case you are hybrid or independent (or thinking about it!), I want to recommend the agency I used. It’s called Books Covered and the art director is Stuart Bache who has many years of experience in the traditional industry. He has designed covers for authors such as John Le Carre and Stephen King and he is absolutely brilliant to work with. www.bookscovered.co.uk   RECOMMENDED Barnaby plans his books and recommends the following book for getting to grips with story structure. Stealing Hollywood by Alexandra Sokoloff Barnaby also did a creative writing course at the Faber Academy and he recommends it highly. His tutor at the academy was Rowan Coleman.     IN THE INTERVIEW On his book industry day job and how it affected his dreams of becoming an author: I started for Waterstones as a weekend bookseller when I was fifteen or sixteen years old… Now I work in the head office doing social media coordination… Surrounded by the industry, the traditional publishing world, being surrounded by a lot of success… And on the other side of it, knowing that some books don’t do very well… Knowing the astonishing the highs which are possible – and it’s very exciting to see a book catch fire like that, I think in part inspired me. Not that I thought I could achieve that, but seeing people be so passionate about story was amazing. The other side, it meant I knew how difficult it was for any book, even once it’s published, to even make it to a bookshop shelf… Simply there’s just not enough space… It’s a fight, really. It didn’t stop me, thankfully, I didn’t shrink away in fear.   On the Faber Academy: I had an idea for a third novel, but I was conscious that I had never been taught creative writing… So I read in the back of a lot of books, I quite like reading acknowledgements in the back of novels, particularly if you’re trying to get published… The things they say are often really interesting and the Curtis Brown and Faber Academy courses kept cropping up… I was so lucky, my employer made it possible for me to got to the Faber academy and change around my working schedule to make it possible for me to attend on Thursday mornings… I felt I needed some kind of guiding hand, a route through the darkness. The Faber Academy was a very important turning point when I was trying to do this thing we call writing. It gave me tools, almost like an armoury, to approach it in more of a methodical way… It helped me realise that it wasn’t this strange potion making, this mystical magical thing that nobody knows how it works… It helped me to find my formula, my own mystical alchemy. And by sharing it with other writers and by being guided by a brilliant tutor, I had the wonderful writer Rowan Coleman…  She’s such an incredible inspiration to her class because she really, clearly loves what she does and the art of storytelling and that really helped me get to grips with the story I wanted to tell. The WIP I did while at the academy was the one that ended up getting published. I can’t even say how helpful it was because it’s so buried in the fabric of what I do… If anyone is considering it I would say go for it.   On the submission process: So many times in this industry you are ready for the next step or for things to get better, or you think ‘my God this is the next step, this is it’ … Each time you get an email which says can we have the full manuscript or can we have an exclusive on this title or whatever, you think ‘oh wow, it’s really going to happen’. And then it doesn’t. It’s hard not to feel as if you’re back to square one.   On writing when working full-time: I find it really difficult… Trying to cram in the thing that’s most important to me, but squeezing it into little bits of time here and there is quite upsetting really. Because it’s the thing that you want to devote your full attention to and to do the best you possibly can… but you really have to slot it in. I try to write a little bit in the evenings and I write every lunchtime for an hour. The main hassle for me is that I spend my entire day in front of LED backlit screens so when I get home the last thing I want to do is spend more hours in front of a laptop screen. Weekends are when I’m most productive because I can do bits and have breaks… I would struggle to give tips because I don’t have it figured it out. I would say do what fits in the rhythm of your own life and don’t get too hung up on trying to get a routine if your current situation doesn’t lend itself to a routine yet. I don’t focus on the amount of words I’m doing or pages or anything like that. A lot of it can be research or thinking which doesn’t lead to a thousand words a day… I do try to think about the book each day and think about how it could progress and to think about any of the nitty gritty problems in the plot and try to untangle them.   On plotting: I need a map to follow. When I have an idea for a book… I then have to write it down step by step. I normally write down a chapter breakdown, with a plot synopsis. Just having it makes me feel in control of the process rather than the process being in control of me. I quite often cast my characters with actors. I cut out their pictures from publicity stills or whatever and I copy that to a cast list with every character and their age, job, where they figure in the plot and have their picture next to that. It helps me visualise them when I’m laying it out and that probably comes from my film studies days.   On writing process: I can write at home, I can write in a coffee shop, I’m not too sensitive or particular, really. Complete silence would probably be the worst thing. If there’s nothing, I put on rain sounds or something in the background. Something to generate white noise so it’s not pin drop silence which can create an echo chamber in your head.   On the three act structure: ‘Once you’ve got structure to build on, the building on it becomes a lot more enjoyable.’   On life post-publishing: ‘It introduces a new level of consciousness and anxiety into the process’ ‘It’s very strange… When you’re writing you think of it as the dream. You think something really stupid, you think once this happens all my problems will be solved and I’ll be forever happy.’ ‘You just collect other problems and stresses… Which isn’t to diminish the wonderful feeling of having done it. It is wonderful but it’s not a one-sided thing.’ ‘The feeling of anticlimax… Your life, quite often, doesn’t change.’ ‘The week of publication when there’s a lot of focus on you and your book, I actually found that trickier than I expected… I’m a natural introvert and I’ve spent decades making sure I’m not the focus of attention in a room full of people.’     Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

Welcome to episode 50 of The Worried Writer! I cannot believe it has been over four years since I started this podcast and, I must admit, I’m a little bit proud! Thank you so much for listening and, if you’ve been listening for a while or have ever tweeted about the show or sent me a message or asked a question or recommended the podcast to a friend, please know that you are the reason I have made it this far. A Life-changing Podcast This podcast has been life-changing for me. I feel more confident than I did when I started, and the conversations I have had with other authors has helped me to refine my own working process and to feel less alone and weird in my self-doubt. That’s the key, really. I am still as filled with self-doubt and fear as I was before, but I am now solidly aware that it is completely normal and an occupational hazard of this profession. Whereas I used to feel that my various neuroses  and tendency to procrastinate meant I wasn’t cut out to be a writer, now I know for sure that it’s part and parcel of creating new things in the world. And while there is a variety of experiences and intensity, we all feel it to some degree. I’ve also made lots of new writing friends, and feel more a part of the writing community than I did before. The main thing, however, has been the satisfaction I get from helping others. It means the world to me to hear that I’ve helped another writer feel less alone or to gain a little bit of motivation. We Can Do This! Joanna Penn’s Creative Penn podcast this week featured Damon Suede and his book Verbalize. They were talking about the importance of language and Damon said that he had come up with verbs to describe himself in his professional capacity. As soon as he said that, I started to think about what my words would be… Joanna must’ve have been doing the same as she ended her show by saying that her word would be ‘create’. That’s a great one, but thinking about this podcast, and the WW side of what I do, I came up with ‘comfort’. I hope that I inspire and enthuse and energise people, but I do think there are plenty of folk who do that better. Ultimately, I want you to feel comforted. To know that I empathise with your writing struggles, that I battle them myself, but that we can do this thing. It is hard and it is wonderful and, through learning more about ourselves and our own particular processes and strengths, and by being kind to ourselves, we can do it. And succeed. Okay! Today’s show is a just me episode. I haven’t done one for a while and I thought it would be fitting for my fiftieth! Also, I have had a few questions from my lovely patrons, but which I think will be widely useful. My kind patrons have said they are happy for their questions to be answered on this show so that everyone can benefit. THE WORRIED WRITER ON PATREON www.patreon.com/worriedwriter A huge thank you to my supporters on Patreon. While I wouldn’t have got to year three without the amazing feedback and support of our little podcast community, I definitely would not have got to this point without my Patreon supporters. Knowing that you value the show so much that you are willing to support it financially is huge. I really can’t articulate how big a deal it is to me. Head to patreon.com/worriedwriter to support the show from as little as $1 a month. For $2 a month, you get access to the exclusive audio extra every month (there are thirteen backlist extras to enjoy right now!). Thank you! WRITING UPDATE A quick writing update before I get to the questions. Having written ‘The End’ on the second Crow Investigations book, I then immediately went back to work on making it a proper, readable draft. As long-time listeners know, my first drafts are so awful I can them zero drafts instead. This month, I got to The End on something I would consider a proper draft. It’s still going to need editing and, for me, that usually means adding more words and scenes as I tend to underwrite, but it’s a readable draft which I have given to my husband who, handily enough, is my first reader. I’m a bit behind where I wanted to be at this point, but I will make my planned publishing month of May. It’s just likely to be at the end of May, rather than the beginning. In other news, I revealed the cover and title to my Sarah Painter mailing list (sign up here!) and had lovely feedback, which is very reassuring. It’s called THE SILVER MARK and here is the cover. Meep! I think the designer has done another brilliant job and I’m absolutely thrilled. For those interested in how running a hybrid career works, I thought I would also share that The Night Raven was chosen for a Kindle Daily Deal this month. It went very well and I grabbed screenshots of TNR with the orange bestseller flag and topping a few category charts. I’m mentioning this not to boast, but to reassure you that these kinds of deals are still available, even when the book is independently published. Also, a few days later, I was contacted by a prominent audiobook publisher to enquire about the audio rights for TNR and TLG. My agent was already in talks with another publisher for these rights, and it’s too soon for me share any definite news, but I just wanted to let you know as it demonstrates that going hybrid is possible. It isn’t a case of indie publishing or traditional. You can do both. And independently publishing a book doesn’t mean you won’t be able to license the subsidiary rights to traditional companies, too, if you so wish. LISTENER QUESTIONS In this episode I answer listener questions about my methods for tracking daily and weekly goals and word counts, tips for writing dialogue, and how to protect your ideas when sharing your work with fellow writers. If you have a question you would like answered on the show contact me via email or Twitter or leave a comment on this post. Recommended: The Passion Planner – my current planner of choice!W Zebra Mildliners Washi Tape WordKeeper word tracking app Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

My guest today is writing coach and bestselling author Kate Harrison. Kate has written contemporary women’s fiction, the YA Soul Beach trilogy, and has recently moved into adult thrillers with the dark and twisty The Secrets You Hide, under a new pen name Kate Helm  She has also got a successful non-fiction brand with a range of diet and lifestyle books based on the 5:2 intermittent fasting method and regularly teaches other writers through courses, events and her consultancy service. You can learn more at Kate-Harrison.com Or find Kate on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. IN THE INTRODUCTION Plan, Pitch & Sell Your Book Course **SPECIAL OFFER** Kate says that writing pitches (or ‘hook lines’) for books is her ‘superpower’, and she shares her knowledge – and enthusiasm – on the subject in her online course: Plan, Pitch & Sell Your Book. The course covers much more than writing a compelling pitch, though. I’ll let Kate explain: In seven steps, you’ll learn how to attract an audience and overcome rejection by identifying what is unique and irresistible about your work. It’ll help you to  hone your story or concept – without losing the excitement.  The course is reasonably-priced at £99, but Kate has generously offered a SPECIAL 50% DISCOUNT for Worried Writer listeners. Thank you, Kate! I give thanks for the wonderful Patreon support and a shout-out to new patrons. I love the ‘community within a community’ that we’ve created over on Patreon and I really enjoy making the audio extras (which go up in the middle of every month). Thank you so much to everyone supporting The Worried Writer in this way – it means so much to me. To become a Worried Writer insider and to support the podcast – for as little as $1 a month – head to The Worried Writer on Patreon. LISTENER QUESTION If you’ve got a question you would like answered on the show, contact me via email or Twitter or leave a comment on this post. IN THE INTERVIEW On writing: I have a butterfly mind It’s always all about the idea for me… An idea either grips me or it doesn’t and once it’s gripped me, I have to do it. Process: I do aim for a word count… I wrote part time for the first four years, and switched full time in 2007. I imagined I would get loads done, but it didn’t quite work out that way… So, I have a word count… I tend to sent a lowish goal and then exceed it because I’m a bit of a girly swot.’ I try to write really quite quickly because I like the bright shiny thing and if an idea is knocking around my brain for too long, it gets stale for me… I try to get it down fast and then go back and edit it later. But it can vary from book to book, too ‘I do find that 25 minutes on a novel, to start with, is quite hard work. We’re just so addicted, now, to getting distracted by things around us. And I will give myself a bit of talking to with that and say ‘look, if you can’t write for 15 minutes without checking your email you’re a bit of a lost cause…’ On self-doubt: Although I have written a lot, now, I still get imposter syndrome, I still get the doubts in the saggy middle or near the end and I have no concept of whether a book is good or bad until I have a bit of distance When I’m very stuck I consciously change my environment. On writing pitches: My one superpower seems to be to listen to someone’s book idea and go ‘okay, that’s what you need to put in your pitch, and this is your hook or your elevator pitch… It’s just something I’ve got a knack for. All my writer friends ask me to do this… Partly, I think, it’s my background in journalism and television. You can’t expect everybody to love your book but you must have a clear idea of what you’re offering them. Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

My guest today is author and editor Kerry Barrett. Kerry Barrett is the author of eight novels, including the Strictly Come Dancing-themed A Step in Time, and The Girl in the Picture, about a crime novelist who solves a 160-year-old mystery. Kerry’s latest novel is a time slip called The Hidden Women. For more about Kerry and her books, head to kerrybarrett.co.uk Or find her on Twitter or Facebook. Kerry’s editing services. IN THE INTRODUCTION I give thanks for the wonderful Patreon support and a shout-out to new patrons. I love the ‘community within a community’ that we’ve created over on Patreon and I really enjoy making the audio extras (which go up in the middle of every month). Thank you so much to everyone supporting The Worried Writer in this way – it means so much to me. To become a Worried Writer insider and to support the podcast – for as little as $1 a month – head to The Worried Writer on Patreon. THANK YOU! WORLD ANVIL INTERVIEW I talk about my recent live interview on the World Anvil Twitch stream (video now available on YouTube HERE). And here is the link to World Anvil – an app which helps you to create and organise your fantasy world for book-writing or RPG gaming. LISTENER QUESTION If you have a question you would like answered on the show contact me via email or Twitter or leave a comment on this post. IN THE INTERVIEW On making time to write: ‘I wrote a lot on the train, I kind of squeezed my writing in wherever I could.’ ‘My son is a swimmer so I do a lot of writing poolside, watching him.’ On transitioning to full-time writing: ‘It was quite lucky as soon as I finished at the magazine, I was stright into edits on the The Girl in the Picture… I didn’t really have time to think which was brilliant… The edits on that kind of got me into the swing of things.’ ‘If I hadn’t had those edits with the deadline, I might have been a bit floaty… I did watch quite a lot of Netflix, I have to be honest. It was quite funny to have all that time and it almost made me less productive, Kerry’s writing process: ‘I’ve been a journalist for a long time so I thrive on a deadline.’‘I aim for a chapter a day… I consider it a triumph if I write more.’‘I just write on Word.’‘I do write down my word count every day and I cross it off and write the new amount.’‘Head down, keep going.’ On getting blocked: ‘My mantra when it comes to writing is I’m very inspired by Dory and how she says ‘just keep swimming’… I wear a charm bracelet that’s a fish which reminds me… Just keep going, it will happen eventually.’   ‘Just keep swimming!’   ‘I write an outline initially with a beginning, middle and end, on an A4 sheet of paper, and I print it out and then I start writing. And as I write, things change and I realise things that won’t work… I’m very old school and I scribble on my outline and stick post it notes and write in different colours and draw arrows…And when it’s got to the point when I can scribble no more I type it up again and print it out. And then I staple the new one on so by the end of the novel I will end up with 12 or 15 outlines that have all come from that initial outline.’ On self-doubt: ‘I can always write something… When I was preparing for this podcast I started thinking about what worries me and it’s not the writing…  Maybe because it’s been my job  for a hundred years… I just write… But once I have that’s when – oh my – I’m just so scared…’  ‘For me it’s not the process, it’s the aftermath – I just want to hide.’   Recommended: Save The Cat by Blake Snyder On Writing by Stephen King Into The Woods by John Yorke Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

My guest today is Adam Croft. With more than a million books sold to date, he is is one of the most successful independently published authors in the world. His psychological thrillers include the hugely successful Her Last Tomorrow and Tell Me I’m Wrong, and his Knight & Culverhouse crime thriller series has sold more than 250,000 copies worldwide. Adam’s Kempston Hardwick mystery books are being adapted as audio plays and he has just stepped into non-fiction with The Indie Author Mindset. Adam has been made an honorary Doctor of Arts by the University of Bedfordshire in recognition of his achievements and he runs a crime fiction podcast with fellow author Robert Daws. For more head to AdamCroft.net or find Adam on Twitter or Facebook. Adam’s podcast for crime fiction fans: Partner’s in Crime IN THE INTRODUCTION I recorded this introduction on 20th December 2018 when I wasn’t quite ready to set my 2019 goals. They will go up in a blog post next week and I will discuss them in February’s episode. Also, I reveal another new novel! My supernatural thriller, THE LOST GIRLS, is out this month. Huzzah! If you are interested in my fiction, do visit sarah-painter.com and sign up for my reader newsletter. I give thanks for the wonderful Patreon support.  I love the ‘community within a community’ that we’ve created over on Patreon and I really enjoy making the audio extras (which go up in the middle of every month). Thank you so much to everyone supporting The Worried Writer in this way – it means so much to me. To become a Worried Writer insider and to support the podcast head to The Worried Writer on Patreon. THANK YOU!   LISTENER QUESTION If you have a question you would like answered on the show contact me via email or Twitter or leave a comment on this post.   IN THE INTERVIEW On the pressures of success: ‘When I’m writing a book and when I finish it, the thing I always ask myself is is it better than the last one… So I think for me I’ve always had that pressure that I put on myself.’ ‘I was an overnight success between my eight and ninth books, I guess, as it was my ninth book that really took off and did anymore than just paying the bills.’ On staying fresh: ‘It’s one of the reasons I dipped into non fiction and I write plays…   On self-doubt: ‘They all cause me trouble… I always thought that once I’d written more books I would get more confident at it… But I still get that sense of dread on release day. I still think this is the one where I will get found out… Those things don’t change, the only thing that’s changed is the amount of money that comes in from the books.’   On The Indie Author Mindset: ‘I get lots and lots of emails from authors asking for help and advice which is great and I’ll always help if I can, because when I started that help simply wasn’t there… I think we should all help each other. But one of the things that struck me was that a lot of the questions had their root in mindset…   On being professional: ‘It’s the attitude you have… You’re turning up, you’re getting the job done… You are focusing on the task.’   On writing life: ‘I wish I had a typical day, to be honest with you… I’m releasing normally four books a year so when I’m gearing up to a release, which is regularly, things change completely and I do a lot more of the marketing. I spend hours a day on Facebook ads and tweaking those.’ ‘It moves in waves, but there’s not a typical day… I’m an author and I run the publishing company.’   Coping with overwhelm: ‘I’m currently working on a machine which turns 24-hour days into 43-hour ones, so that’s gonna help!’ If you can, outsourcing stuff is vital… It’s also focusing on what’s most important. Writing is what’s most important… There’s only one thing which is guaranteed to make you more money and secure your future as a writer is to get more books out.’ ‘If you learn too much beforehand, things like Facebook advertising can seem like a really big and scary thing but it’s not… If you dive in and learn as you go along it seems much easier… Just crack on and do it.’   Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

My guest today is urban fantasy superstar Sherrilyn Kenyon. Sherrilyn is a number 1 New York Times and Internationally bestselling author. Her first novel came out in 1993, she has over 70 million books in print worldwide and she writes in several successful series such as the Dark Hunters and Black Hat Society. Her latest Dark Hunter book (number 28) is Stygian. I spoke to Sherrilyn in the summer while she was busy packing for DragonCon and she was incredibly nice and upbeat, despite having just come back from a visit to the dentist. A real professional! Sherrilyn shares the worst rejection of her career, secrets of longevity in publishing, and her writing process. Find out more about Sherrilyn at www.sherrilynkenyon.com Visit her on FaceBook or Instagram IN THE INTRODUCTION I go through my goals for 2018 and talk about how I’ve done, and some lessons learned. I mention my on-going attempts to improve my concentration and focus after reading Cal Newport’s Deep Work. Here is the link to my 2018 goals (set in January).   I give a shout-out to new patrons supporting me via Patreon. Thank you so much! You can support the show for as little as $1 per month and, for supporters at the $2 and above level, there is an exclusive mini-episode released in the middle of every month. There are nine ‘extras’ already available and another one will go up mid-December. So far, I’ve answered patron-questions and given writing craft tips, but I’m also open to suggestions… To become a Worried Writer insider and to support the podcast head to The Worried Writer on Patreon. THANK YOU! LISTENER QUESTION If you have a question you would like answered on the show contact me via email or Twitter or leave a comment on this post.   IN THE INTERVIEW On writing a long series: ‘I’ve been writing Dark Hunter since I was eighteen… I love the characters, I love the world.’ ‘Don’t write anything you don’t love… Go into it thinking that these are lifelong friends… Don’t chase a trend, don’t write just to get published, write what is in your heart, what is in your soul, because you may have to live with these characters for the rest of your life.’ On the pressure of success: ‘You never want to disappoint a fan, you do have that pressure… And nothing hurts worse than hearing that a fan didn’t like a book, that’s a stab to my throat and my heart.’ ‘I put my heart and soul and every ounce of time, I don’t rush a book, I respect my fans too much for that.’ Sherrilyn’s writing process: ‘I know when I’m really in the zone when it’s just me and the characters and I don’t hear anything else.. I used to keep my babies literally strapped to my chest because I was worried they would need something and I wouldn’t hear them.’ ‘All I’ve ever really done is write.’ ‘Writing advice is like a buffet, take what you like… Leave everything else behind.’ ‘I attempt to do 25 to 30 pages a day, but I don’t always.’   ‘To me writing is like channeling spirits, its almost like being a medium.’   On self-doubt: ‘I hate it when writers beat themselves up… Writers – don’t be cruel to yourselves! Respect your muse, because that’s a quick way to kill her.’ ‘No, we all think we suck. The suck song goes on every time I write.’ ‘All I ever wanted was to be a writer and I pursued it wholeheartedly.’ ‘Be fearless when you write. Just turn those chickens loose in the yard and let them take you on a journey.’ On not giving up: ‘Let those characters fly… We’re all writers but those characters chose you. They live in you. They could have picked another writer but they picked you, don’t let them not have their story told.’ ‘I’ve seen so many writers give up over the years and that really breaks my heart because I think of all the stories they had in them… And I hate that… Please don’t give up, get that story out there.’   Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

My guest today is Rachel Burton, author of contemporary women’s fiction. Her two novels, The Many Colours of Us and The Things We Need To Say, have been called thought-provoking and emotional. Rachel and I first connected as she was a listener of the show, and I was delighted to chat to her about her writing success. Rachel suffers from chronic illness, M.E and Fibromyalgia, and we talk about writing books under challenging circumstances. For more information on Rachel and her books – and for tips on writing with a chronic illness – visit RachelBurtonWrites. Or you can find Rachel on Twitter and Instagram. IN THE INTRODUCTION I give an update on the launch of The Night Raven. Short version – it went really well and I’m a very happy author! If you are interested in London-set paranormal mystery which has been called: ‘My favourite new urban fantasy series, clever and twisty and deliciously magical, with a shivery sense of wonder that feels utterly grounded in its London setting. Perfect for fans of Ben Aaronovitch, Genevieve Cogman or Robert Galbraith!’ You can click here for shopping options – thank you! And I give a shout-out to new patrons supporting me via Patreon. Thank you so much! You can support the show for as little as $1 per month and, for supporters at the $2 and above level, there is an exclusive mini-episode released in the middle of every month. There are eight ‘extras’ already available and another one will go up mid-November. So far, I’ve answered patron-questions and given writing craft tips, but I’m also open to suggestions… To become a Worried Writer insider and to support the podcast head to The Worried Writer on Patreon. THANK YOU! LISTENER QUESTION I answer a couple of listener questions this month. One from Karen Heenan (via Twitter) about writing a synopsis. I run through the differences between a synopsis, blurb and pitch, and recommend a book I found very helpful back when I was submitting to agents: How To Write A Great Synopsis by Nicola Morgan And one from Catherine Barbey. Catherine has published her first novel – congratulations, Catherine! And is getting fabulous reviews, but is finding it really difficult to write the next book in the series. Catherine wrote: ‘How did you know, after you got your first book published (which I know wasn’t the first you’d written) that you wanted to carry on and keep writing? How did you know that you weren’t just a ‘one-hit wonder’?  And how did you get over ‘second book syndrome?’   If you have a question you would like answered on the show contact me via email or Twitter or leave a comment on this post.   IN THE INTERVIEW On publishing: ‘It felt very like I had no idea what I was doing… It felt very overwhelming, like I was totally out of my depth.’ On writing her first book: ‘The last few chapters of that book seemed to take a hundred years.’ Rachel’s writing process: ‘I write the end first. So when I plan a book, I know how it opens and I know the ending… When the going gets tough which, for me, is usually around 40,000 words in, I go and write the end. I write the last 5000 words, and then I’ve got something to aim for.’ ‘I’m not a huge believer in necessarily writing the book in order. Some scenes require more research, some are harder than others… So just leave it and move on… Don’t just sit there hoping they will miraculously write themselves, just move on and write the next bit; keep it flowing, keep going.’ ‘Little and often is the key because it gets you in the habit of putting words on the page.’ ‘It is hard to get to the end so make your end somewhere you want to get to.’ ‘There are days when I will do anything rather than write.’   On writing with a chronic illness: ‘I do suffer from chronic pain issues… I do have to make sure I’m sitting in the right chair. I also have to take very regular breaks and I can only write for a little bit of time and then I have to get up and walk around the room or I will get stuck in a chair shape for the rest of the day.’ ‘In terms of energy levels, that has been hard. It’s hard to work out when you can and can’t write. With M.E one of the biggest problems is brain fog and when your brain is foggy, concentrating is hard, focusing on something for a long time is difficult.’ ‘There are times when I’m not well enough to work at all, but I do find that even if I’m just writing a few notes about a character… I find that really does help my illness and helps me find a bit of energy and joy.’ ‘Creativity does energise me.’ ‘With chronic illness than can be a lot of feeling bad about yourself, feeling that you’re not adequate enough. You compare yourself to other people who aren’t ill and the word counts that they do…’ ‘You can’t compare yourself to someone who doesn’t have the same setbacks as you.’ ‘Be honest with everyone. I think we want to hide our chronic illness sometimes, we think people will judge us… Think we’re not capable. But I found when I was honest with my editor and my agent, they were absolutely fine with it.’   Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

My guest today is Gillian McAllister, Sunday Times Bestselling author of psychological legal thrillers Everything But The Truth, Anything You Do Say, and No Further Questions. This is Gillian’s second time of the podcast (I first spoke to her about pre-publication nerves, before her debut was released in March 2017) and this time we discuss her stratospheric success and the unexpected psychological cost. To find out more about Gillian and her books, head to GillianMcAllister.com Or find her on Twitter or Instagram Gillian also runs a podcast – The Honest Authors Podcast – with Holly Seddon. WARNING! As Gillian and I both suffer with capital ‘A’ anxiety, there is frank discussion of mental health (along with a bit of joking on the subject). If this is something which is likely to offend or upset you in some way, please proceed with caution. Also, if you have any concerns about your own mental health, please do seek help from your local medical service. There is help available and you are most definitely not alone. Finally, although I usually keep this podcast family friendly, there are a couple of mild swear words used in this interview. I have marked it as ‘explicit’ on iTunes, just in case that is something you would prefer not to hear. IN THE INTRODUCTION I give an update on my writing. My month has been largely filled with publishing tasks for The Night Raven. It’s going up for pre-order this week on Kobo and iBooks, and will be released everywhere (including Amazon) on Tuesday 23rd October in both paperback and ebook. I also read out the blurb (meep!): Meet Lydia Crow… Lydia has always known she has no power, especially next to her infamous and more-than-slightly dodgy family. Which is why she carved her own life as a private investigator far away from London. When a professional snafu forces her home, the head of the family calls in a favour, and Lydia finds herself investigating the disappearance of her cousin, Maddie. Soon, Lydia is neck-deep in problems: her new flatmate is a homicidal ghost, the intriguing, but forbidden, DCI Fleet is acting in a distinctly unprofessional manner, and tensions between the old magical families are rising. The Crows used to rule the roost and rumours claim they are still the strongest. The Silvers have a facility for lying and they run the finest law firm in London. The Pearl family were costermongers and everybody knows that a Pearlie can sell feathers to a bird. The Fox family… Well. The less said about the Fox family the better. For seventy-five years, a truce between the four families has held strong, but could the disappearance of Maddie Crow be the thing to break it? If you would like to be notified when it’s available (and be entered into my publication celebration giveaway) sign up for the Sarah Painter Books newsletter HERE. In other news, I was delighted to be included in this round-up of podcasts. Thanks, Nate! The Digital Reader: Nate’s Big List of Writing, Marketing and Publishing Podcasts And I give a shout-out to new patrons supporting me via Patreon. Thank you so much! The seventh exclusive audio extra went up in September and I answered patron questions about NaNoWriMo and surviving the editing process. The Worried Writer on Patreon. If you want instant access to the audio and to become an insider member of the podcast, you can sign up for just $2 a month via the link above. (You can support me for as long or a short a time as you like – cancel any time). LISTENER QUESTION The Night Raven is a new direction for me and I’m very happy to discuss any aspect, including my launch strategy (including whether it worked!) in a future episode. Please feel free to ask me any questions (on that, or anything else about writing, publishing or productivity) and I will do my best to answer. Get in touch via email or Twitter or leave a comment on this post. IN THE INTERVIEW On being a publishing success story: ‘It does change your life forever… You become somebody in the public eye.’ ‘When your novel does so publicly well it changes your identity… It’s definitely changed me as a person.’ On hearing that her debut was a top ten Sunday Times Bestseller: ‘It was bizarre, like an out of body experience.’ Downsides to success: ‘I like to hear from readers, but it’s quite confronting the amount of contact you can have with people that you didn’t contact yourself… It’s all unilateral and, you know, sometimes abusive and sexual and strange. So, that’s maybe a downside or certainly something I was unprepared for.’ ‘I do have troublesome worries about what I owe readers. Do I owe everyone a response?’ ‘I wanted to be published so badly, I was not aware of collateral associated with it. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it does send you a bit bonkers.’ ‘The things I worry about are reception and sales and ability to continue doing the same thing.’   On anxiety: ‘I literally started to worry about why I was feeling worried and I would have non specific feelings of dread… And then I would have feelings of panic and not know how to dispel them… Basically I felt unsettled for four straight months.’ ‘I don’t know what really caused it… I have noticed a pattern with my anxiety where if I’m really worried about one thing and then it resolves itself, ie. My book sells well, I then have a lot of non specific anxiety with nowhere to go.’ ‘I felt like I was in a completely dangerous situation one hundred percent of the time… I was always risk assessing things.’   Gillian’s work schedule: ‘For me, the luxury of being able to waste time is quite healthy.’ ‘I really like having a day job… I like my job but also the socialisation and getting you out the house and when you’re worried about your plot it’s great to go just somewhere else and do something that will pay you a wage and you know I went to law school for a really long time.’   On writing: ‘Do prioritise the writing. It’s very easy to get swept up in other things… But writing the novel is the most important part.’ ‘It’s difficult in the world of instant gratification that we live in. It’s far easier to stick a blog post up and get immediate likes, but I would say, bum in chair most days and just write it. It will feel crappy and difficult but that’s because it is difficult, rather than a reflection on your own talent.’ ‘I’m existing in a tradition of people before me who have done it… I am a writer and I’m doing that for a living and it’s all I’ve ever wanted, really. It is the most important thing in my life; it’s the core of my identity’ ‘The worst thing is the uncertainty of it and uncertainty is my Kyrptonite, really, like any anxiety sufferer.’   Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

My guest today is thriller and science-fiction author, Paul Teague. Paul is a former broadcaster and journalist for the BBC and he has transferred those skills to his fabulous podcast, Self Publishing Journeys. One of the reasons I wanted to have Paul on the show is his refreshing honesty and openness about his own publishing business. In our chat, he talks about the money he has made and his future plans, as well as revealing the pain of comparing himself to others and his own struggles with self-doubt. For more on Paul and his books go to PaulTeague.net To learn more about Paul’s podcast: Self-Publishing-Journeys.com IN THE INTRODUCTION In writing news, I am just finishing the rewrites on my new book, The Night Raven. It is going to the copy-editor next week and will be out this October – meep! Here is the cover and a little info: It’s the first book in a new London-set paranormal mystery series, featuring private investigator Lydia Crow. If you like the look of it, perhaps you would like to join my author newsletter? I will let you know when The Night Raven is available and enter your name into my launch giveaway. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP! Also, I reveal that I have failed to start my new book project (and have been working on the next book in the Crow Investigations series, instead), but that I’m being kind to myself. It’s been a tough few months, emotionally, and I’m just glad I’m able to write at all! I talk about my plans to develop my career as a hybrid author – publishing both independently (as I did for Stop Worrying; Start Writing) and with publishers such as Lake Union. RECOMMENDED Adam Croft’s book The Indie Author Mindset. This is a fabulous guide to developing a professional attitude to your writing – something I believe is important whether you are traditionally or independently published. I also give a shout-out to my new supporters on Patreon. I appreciate my patrons (new and existing!) so very much – THANK YOU! The next patron-only exclusive extra will go up mid-month and in it I will be answering a question about NaNoWriMo and giving some tips. For more information on becoming a patron of the show, see The Worried Writer on Patreon. IN THE INTERVIEW On writing productivity and schedule: ‘Ever since I was sixteen I’ve been a formulas guy. The only way I can cope with life, really, is to parcel it up… I make meticulous plans.’ ‘I don’t do panic. I don’t like surprises.’ ‘Time management is a big thing for me… I’m planned out on my weekly planning sheet until December.’ On self-doubt: ‘I was on stage with L.J. Ross who’s just sold zillions of books… And I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was a privilege, but I left feeling deflated.’ ‘There’s always somebody who is envious of where you are… But I’m beating myself up because I think I’m rubbish and doing terribly.’ The secret to success: ‘Persistence seems to be the one thing that comes through time and time again – just keep going, just keep getting better, just keep putting the next step forward.’   Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.  

My guest today is author and blogger, Victoria Walters. Her debut novel, The Second Love of my Life, saw Victoria labeled an ‘Amazon Rising Star’ and was called ‘Brilliant and superior women’s fiction’ by Heat magazine. Victoria’s new book, Random Acts of Kindness, has being released in a four-part series by Simon & Schuster. It has just been packaged as a single ebook and given a new title, Summer At The Kindness Cafe, and is out this month. Pre-order here. The paperback is out next year. We talk about the challenges and benefits of writing in a serial format, Victoria’s road to publication and her writing process. You can find out more about Victoria and her books at victoria-writes.com or find her on Twitter or Facebook. IN THE INTRODUCTION I give an update on my writing life in July, including my writing progress and plans for releasing my new novel in October. Also, I talk about my decision to accept my own writing process (and my lack of planning/outlining!). Do let me know if you would like me to talk about how I write novels without outlining. I also give a shout-out to my new supporters on Patreon (thank you!). The latest audio extra gives tips on creating and naming characters. You can access it, and the previous four extras, for as little as $2 per month. For more information, see The Worried Writer on Patreon. LISTENER QUESTION I answer two questions this month: Ian Howlett asked: When you’re in writing mode, how many words do you produce in the average day (if there is such a thing as an average day!)? I’m thinking specifically about non-fiction, since that’s what I write. Julie Cordiner asked: Please do you have any tips for how to step back and look holistically at the plot, character arcs and historical setting? I’m getting too close to it! Thank you. If you have a writing, productivity or publishing question that you’d like me to tackle in a future episode, please get in touch via email or Twitter or leave a comment on this post. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). IN THE INTERVIEW On writing a four-part series: ‘I had about a month to write each part… So that was tricky.’ ‘There was always something happening, I either had editing to do or one of the parts was coming out and I had reviews to tweet or whatever. More activity than usual.’ On writing: ‘I’m an only child so a lot of my childhood was using my imagination and making up stories…’ ‘I do try to write a bit each day, but I’m not really strict about it… I find that quite stressful, I’d rather write when I’m feeling okay to write. I think when I try to force myself then I just start hate the book I’m writing so I’d rather do it when I’m in the best mood.’ ‘I tend to write better in the mornings. By the time it gets to about three o’clock I start to think it’s time for Netflix now, surely!’ ‘I don’t have a set wordcount… Some days I might write 1000 words, but some days I’ve written 10,000 words in a day, it all depends on the mood I’m in.’ ‘For me, I like to write a first draft and then I edit it afterwards… I’m more productive when I just get it down on paper… Especially when I had these really tight deadlines for the serial, I couldn’t be really perfectionist about it because my editor just needed it.’ On publishing: ‘There was a lot of rejection.’ ‘The most challenging part of being a writer is that you really don’t have much control over anything but your writing.’ ‘All we can do is write the best book we can write.’ ‘More than the self doubt, it’s the uncertainty of the business that worries me.’   On self-doubt: ‘Once you start talking to other authors you find out that we all feel the same way.’ ‘Sometimes a bit of self-doubt is good… It can motivate you, push you forward a bit… I think I would worry if I started to think I was the best writer in the world.’ Victoria’s writing tips: ‘You’ve got to find what works for you.’ ‘Reading is the best kind of learning for a writer.’ ‘When I’m stuck, everybody just has a meal.’     Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

This episode is a ‘just me’ show. Next month, I’m bringing you an interview with author and blogger, Victoria Walters, but this month I review my 2018 goals. A massive thank you to everyone who has pledged support for the show on Patreon – I truly appreciate it. There are four exclusive audio extras (with a new one coming mid-July) and you get access to all of that content as soon as you become a $2 per month patron. Head here to find out more. Thank you! Recommended: This Author Can A new resource set up by a friend of this show and past guest, Tracy Buchanan. This Author Can aims to help traditionally published authors to take control of their careers and to increase their book sales. While the focus is for those who are traditionally published (Tracy noticed that there wasn’t much business-focused advice aimed at trad authors), there is plenty useful information for independent authors, too. Personal news: I share that I have just got a Russian deal for In The Light Of What We See and talk about refreshing my attitude to fiction writing – reframing it as play. For more, see my blog post on the subject: Is It Time To Hit The Reset Button On Your Writing Life?. Also, I am still dealing with my sad personal news and am working on getting back on track. I talk about the importance of being kind to myself!     Update on my goals for 2018: We are halfway through the year so a good time to take stock and check progress. Remember that it’s completely fine to update or change your goals – they are a tool to help you achieve what is most important to you, not a document which is set in stone just for the sake of it. I go through the goals set in my January post: My 2018 Writing Goals. I was actually really worried about looking over my goals as I’m always so aware of all things I could/should be doing, and how much slower I am at finishing books than many others. However, I was pleasantly surprised – I have achieved more than I realised. So. Halfway through the year might feel scary and ‘oh goodness where has the time gone’ but six months is a long time. We all have plenty of time left in 2018 to achieve success. And you get to decide what that looks like to you. Imagine we are in December, rolling down to the Christmas holiday and the end of the year. What do you want be saying? What do you want to have finished or started? I mention a few tips that have been helping me to refocus: New keyboard (mechanical) for writing sessions – used alongside the separate log-in on my iMac for ‘writer Sarah’ which helps signal this is a writing session not a general admin, marketing or podcast session. Focusing on one thing at a time and trying to resist the urge to open lots of documents and browser tabs. I’ve tried a few writing in café sessions which have been very successful and I’m planning a ‘proper’ retreat in the autumn. Experimenting with listening to different soundtracks to help me to focus. I’ve used loud music for ages and always create a book soundtrack which I listen to on repeat while writing the book, but while I’ve been finding it hard to concentrate I’ve been trying video game music, film scores, brain.fm and even atmospheric soundtracks – things like crackling fireplaces and weather sounds. So, goals for second half of 2018: Continue focus on creative writing. I have finished the current book (hurrah!) and sent it to my first readers, and I want to write another new draft by the end of the year. However, this doesn’t mean I’m dropping The Worried Writer. Far from it! I want to carry on helping you, but it’s also super-valuable and helpful to me, too. Stop Worrying; Start Writing as an online course? Thoughts? So, I’m also going to write another non-fiction book and I’m also thinking about creating an online course based on Stop Worrying; Start Writing. It would be a series of videos and a private FB group for discussion and support, so that you could jump in and take the course anytime and at your own pace. Let me know what you think – good idea? Bad idea? What Should I Write Next? Please help! For my next non-fiction book I’ve got a couple of ideas and I would love your input as to which topic I tackle next. I’ve got two main ideas, but I’m happy to take other suggestions, too! Hybrid Author How to publish both traditionally and independently. The pros and cons of each route and why you might choose to have a foot in both camps. Plus, the practicalities of running your career this way. Book Marketing Some discussion of the tools available such as targeted advertising through FB and Amazon, but focusing on the strategies and the mindset issues around putting ourselves ‘out there’ and ‘selling’ as well as a bit about money mindset. Let me know which you are most interested in!  Also, as ever I would love to hear your questions or suggestion for the show. I’ve had a few requests for more content from pre-published writers and I’m thinking about how best to incorporate that – whether it’s reading out more questions or anecdotes from you guys or interviewing somebody who is trying to finish their first book or similar. Let me know your thoughts if you have any on that. That feels like a scary amount of work for six months but in a good way. I’ve got a rush of excitement along with the fear so I know I’m on the right track. How about you? What do you want to get done in the second half of the year? What do you want to have achieved by the end of 2018? Leave a comment below if you would like some public accountability, but definitely write it down somewhere for yourself. And let’s all kick writerly butt during the next six months. I want each and every one of us to be celebrating our successes come December 31st.     Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

  Cressida McLaughlin writes feel-good romances for Harper Collins, including the bestselling The Canal Boat Cafe and The Once in a Blue Moon Guesthouse. Cressida’s latest series is called The House of Birds and Butterflies and is being released in four parts in ebook format before the paperback arrives this summer. You can find out more about Cressida and her books at CressidaMcLaughlin.com Or find her on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.   IN THE INTRODUCTION I give an update on my own writing… It’s been a very tough month for personal reasons, but I am getting back to work and planning to finish my WIP in June. Also, I’m still on submission for my supernatural thriller, so fingers crossed I will have some news to share on that front soon. In more positive news, Writers’ Forum magazine featured me (and The Worried Writer) in the latest edition, and I got sent lovely flowers and tea-related goodies by Lake Union to celebrate selling 50,000 copies of In The Light of What We See. I wish I could tell ‘2011 Sarah’ who was seriously considering giving up the pursuit of publishing… Huzzah!     LISTENER QUESTION Marie Madigan, a longtime listener and patron of the show (thanks, Marie!) asked: When you’ve finished a first draft, how do you tackle self-editing to get it into shape for submission, whether to an editor or your agent? In particular, how do you do this without letting the critical editor side go too far, and maybe strip out what makes your voice and novel unique? I also give a shout-out to my lovely new patrons and a quick reminder that you can join my Patreon community and get access to the mid-month audio extras:  The Worried Writer on Patreon. Thanks! If you have a writing, productivity or publishing question that you’d like me to tackle in a future episode, please get in touch via email or Twitter or leave a comment on this post. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). IN THE INTERVIEW Cressida on the pros and cons of the serial model of writing and publishing: ‘Lots of people like to wait for the full thing to come out. I kind of think of it like television boxsets. You get to the end of the episode and there is a cliffhanger and you’re really excited to see what happens next but also, there’s something enjoyable about that sense of anticipation…’ ‘Lots of people seem to like it and from a publishing point of view I’m very lucky because I get five beautiful covers and five publication days quite close together… It feels like it’s got a more solid lead-up and reviews can start coming in.’ ‘From a writing point of view, it’s kind of strange because all of my books with HarperCollins have been published in this way so I’ve never had the experience of publishing a book in one go… When it came to plotting it and planning it, I found that really helpful because as well as the story arc for the whole book, I had it split into four separate parts and I knew I needed to make each part really good and have an arc of its own which meant that there was always lots going on in the book and I wasn’t getting to a point where there was a lull.’ ‘It was nerve-wracking but I had planned it really tightly so when it came to writing it I was never sitting there thinking ‘what comes next’… I could be really free and enjoy the actual writing.’ On learning to plan: ‘Mainly a case of gritting it out and just seeing what worked.’ ‘I started with a synopsis that was a page long but then I just slowly added bits and built it up over a few weeks.’ ‘For me, it was about taking the pressure off myself and thinking you don’t have to have the synopsis done in one day… Just do it, mull it over in your head and build it up as you go along.’   Cressida’s schedule: ‘I start about seven in the morning, I work much better early in the morning and I’ll write through till probably about 2pm (with a lunch break as well). I aim for about four to five thousand words a day… And I usually do that four or five days a week if I’m in the first draft or editing thing. I do like to be quite strict with myself in that respect and leave all the peripheral stuff until the afternoon.’ ‘When I get into the story I get so enthusiastic about it that I don’t really want to stop. Sometimes I have to drag myself away from the computer.’ On process and procrastination: ‘There are days sometimes when I just sit down and my brain won’t be in it ‘I find if I just open the document and it’s sitting there then I’ll get on with it, but the problem I have is that I won’t always open it…’ ‘I just remind myself that actually I’ve written some books and that is quite a big achievement and at some point, I had this problem with the first book and the second book and the third book… And I managed it.’ ‘I use Scrivener for my first draft which I find really helpful and that keeps track of word counts and you can see how chapter lengths compare with each other and I find that really useful for getting the balance of the book right.’ ‘Quite a lot of the processing happens when you’ve stepped away from the computer or the notebook.’   On inspiration: ‘I love women’s fiction, warm romantic reads. One of the books that made me realise I wanted to be a writer was called A Hopeless Romantic by Harriet Evans…It’s a real life fairy tale…I want to create something like this and I want to make readers feel about my characters the way Harriet Evans makes readers feel.’ On being a productive writer: ‘You have to love the story and love the characters – you have to be really invested and engaged.’   Recommended: On Writing by Stephen King Release The Bats by DBC Pierre Letters to a Young Writer by Colum McCann           Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

My guest today is James Blatch. James is a co-founder and director of the Self Publishing Formula with bestselling indie superstar, Mark Dawson. SPF offers fantastic training courses for authors on advertising, self-publishing, and book cover design, as well as a brilliant weekly podcast and free ebooks and resources. James is also an author and is working on his debut novel, The Last Flight. We have an interesting chat about the writing process for a first book, the pressures (and benefits) of writing a debut as a visible figure within the indie publishing community and the tips and resources James has found invaluable in getting to this stage. For more about James and his forthcoming book, head to JamesBlatch.com or find him on Twitter @JamesBlatch. The Self Publishing Formula podcast, free resources and courses can all be found at selfpublishingformula.com IN THE INTRODUCTION I give an update on my writing this month and admit to falling foul of the ‘fear demon’. On the plus side, once I realised I was scared of finishing the book (because that means showing it to people!), I started to make progress again. Sometimes just recognising the fear is enough to diffuse its power. LISTENER QUESTION Maria asked: How do you get back into a novel project when you’ve been away from it for a while, and your life and your responsibilities have changed? This is one of two excellent questions from Maria and I answered the other one in my second, Patron-only mini-episode, along with another question from another Patron. If you want access to the mid-month audio extras, consider signing up to support The Worried Writer on Patreon. Thanks! If you have a writing, productivity or publishing question that you’d like me to tackle in a future episode, please get in touch via email or Twitter or leave a comment on this post. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). IN THE INTERVIEW James’s writing routine: ‘I try to maintain a family balance… But somewhere in there I’m going to have to find more time to write my book. On motivation: ‘London Book Fair is always a good boost for me… As soon as I get there I feel like I should hand a card out to explain where I am with my book as I get asked about it so much.’ ‘I live and die by whiteboards.’ ‘I use a word count target and it goes onto the whiteboard and it gets crossed off and if it doesn’t get crossed off then a little piece of me inside dies.’ On writing ‘in public’: ‘People reading it… That’s the bit that worries me! That people will read it and say ‘what’s all the fuss about, this guy can’t write.’ ‘I’m big enough and ugly enough to cope with the bit of glare that there is on me… So I’m fine, really, and I’m using it positively.’ On Dan Brown’s plotting: ‘He very cleverly makes sure the reader is ahead of him. The reader has worked things out two or three pages ahead and there’s a trick to that.’ On shifting from journalism to fiction: ‘I want to tell people what’s happening but that’s not what you do in a novel… I keep giving it away, which is why the plotting is important.’ ‘I’m learning the craft and it’s not obvious, is it? You might think it is, it might look easy from the outside but it isn’t…’ On doing the interviews for SPF: ‘Every week I learn something.’   Recommended: James rates author and teacher Joan Dempsey for revision advice and recommends her online course. Joan was also a guest on the SPF podcast in episode 88. The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne The Bestseller Experiment podcast Novel Factory software for writing (free trial available)       Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

  My guest today is Michael Ford, who writes under the name M.J. Ford. Michael has written and edited children’s fiction for Working Partners for several years, as well as working as a ghost writer on other projects. His debut novel for adults, Hold My Hand, is out this month from Avon and we talk about what it’s like to be published under his own name, his writing routine, and why others should consider writing for a book packager like Working Partners. You can find buy Hold My Hand here, or connect with Michael on Twitter.   In the introduction I give a writing update and talk about the strategies I’ve been using to make progress while wrestling a second draft into shape. SHOW SPONSORSHIP I conduct my very first Patreon-supporters shout-out (yay!). If you want to support the show (and get a mini audio extra mid-month, your very own shout-out, and my eternal gratitude) head to The Worried Writer Patreon Page. Beneath The Water had a successful launch (phew), but now I’m on submission for my supernatural thriller and am back to obsessively checking my emails for news. I share some good news about my second novel, The Secrets of Ghosts. I’ve secured the print rights back from the publisher, so I will be able to release the paperback later this year. Yay! I also recommend the informative and honest Self Publishing Journeys podcast by Paul Teague for those interested in independent publishing or a hybrid approach to their writing career. Another show I’ve been enjoying recently is The Honest Authors Podcast by Holly Seddon and Gillian McAllister. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at the writing life of two successful (traditionally published) authors. LISTENER QUESTION If you have a writing, productivity or publishing question that you’d like me to tackle in a future episode, please get in touch via email or Twitter or leave a comment on this post. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). IN THE INTERVIEW On Working Partners ‘Working partners is a packager… Packers essentially do the same thing as a writer in that they sell manuscripts to publishers. The difference is that packagers tend to be collaborative creators… Lots of people work on a book, not just a single writer.’ ‘At Working Partners we come up with storylines through brainstorming and those are enhanced and elaborated until they are quite detailed synopsises of several thousand words and after that we find a writer to write the book.’ ‘We work a bit like a TV or film studio writer’s room.’ ‘We look to exploit the content across all media so it’s not just books, it’s also TV and film, it’s video games, it’s live theatre shows… And we often produce series rather than standalone books.’ ‘Working Partners are behind some of the bestselling children’s series in the UK and globally, things like Beast Quest, Animal Ark, Rainbow Magic…. These are all series which have been running for a decade or more… Although lots of writers may have worked on them, there has always been a core team at Working Partners team which keeps the editorial content consistent.’ ‘It’s fair to say that everything I know about writing has come because of my experience there (writing for Working Partners) which is why I bang on about it so much. You know, being edited, editing, talking constantly about story and how story works, has really helped me on my own writing journey.’ ‘If you’re fairly new to writing then working for Working Partners can be a good training ground.’ Michael’s writing process: ‘I’m quite regimented… In theory at least… I tend to have a few things on the go. I’m still editing for Working Partners and I’m also freelance writing for them… Because I only have really three days a week to write in and I don’t particularly like eating into my family time, I know that within those three days I have to meet a certain word count or something will have to give further down the line, you know sleep or seeing the kids.’ ‘I start in the morning straight after the school run and I just write as hard and as fast as I can to meet that word count.’ ‘Objectively I’m getting quite a lot of words written, they’re very rarely are in good shape… I’m not happy with them at all. I tend to burn out in the early afternoon and then I revisit that awful writing the next morning or that evening and try to lick it into some sort of shape.’ ‘I tend to have lots of things on a go. Within a day I’ll concentrate on one book and the next day I might be doing something completely different.’ On working concurrently on several book projects: ‘It all comes down to knowing your character and slipping into their shoes as quickly as possible.’ Recommended: On Writing by Stephen King Save The Cat by Blake Snyder           Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

My guest today is Caroline Mitchell. She’s an ex-police detective turned USA Today bestselling thriller author. Her latest book, Silent Victim just became a global bestseller when it hit number 1 on Amazon in the UK, USA and Australia. Caroline brings her real-life experience as a police officer to her writing and she also has an incredible work ethic – something I really admire. Caroline reveals the ‘what if’ questions that kicked off her latest thriller, her writing process and the secrets behind her amazing productivity! Find out more about Caroline and her books at carolinemitchellauthor.com Or follow her on Twitter or FaceBook. In the introduction I give an update on Beneath The Water and mention the blog tour which is starting next week.   If you’ve bought the book – a massive thank you! I really appreciate your support and, if you could spare a few moments to leave me a review, that would be amazing. Reviews really help other readers to discover my work and they are also an important sign of success within the industry, looked at by publishers and promotional services such as BookBub. Basically, reviews will help me to sell more copies of Beneath The Water which will in turn make it more likely that I will get another publishing deal. SHOW SPONSORSHIP In the three years I’ve been doing a monthly show, my listening figures have grown – which is fabulous – but that has increased the cost of the hosting service. Plus, each show takes around five hours to research, record and edit. There are lots of things I would like to do with the website and show to provide more content and value to you and your support would help me to do so, as well as ensuring the show continues. When I asked which you would prefer, the majority said ‘Patreon’ rather than corporate adverts within the show. So, although I feel a bit embarrassed about it (it’s hard to ask for help!), I have set up a Patreon account for The Worried Writer. Click here to go to my PATREON PAGE. I would like to cover my hosting costs every month so that the show can be a sustainable part of my business. You can support the show for as little as a dollar per month and if you become a silver subscriber ($2 per month) you will have access to an exclusive patron-only audio extra mid-month. This will be a (short) ‘just me’ mini-episode with a quick business, writing, or productivity tip. Also, after a very nice listener (thank you, Andy!) asked to send me a one-off payment as a tip, I set up a PayPal button, too. So, if you would prefer to support me via a one-off payment of whatever amount, there is that option, too: paypal.me/worriedwriter Thanks so much! LISTENER QUESTION This month’s listener question comes from Amy. She asked: ‘I know you shouldn’t use info dump or too much background detail on your characters but how do you know what is too much?’ If you have a writing, productivity or publishing question that you’d like me to tackle in a future episode, please get in touch via email or Twitter or leave a comment on this post. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). IN THE INTERVIEW Caroline’s inspiration: ‘Given my experience in the police I also enjoy writing a good crime thriller with various detectives involved and I take experience from the people I used to work with and the characters I met on a day-to-day basis.’ ‘I do a lot of research as well.’ On self-publishing ‘I found it all fascinating.’ On getting an agent: ‘Don’t give up. Just keep trying and maybe prove yourself first is sometimes the best way if it’s possible…’ On writing everyday: ‘It is a very strong work ethic. I think it’s because when I was in the police any officer or anyone in the emergency services will tell you, you work very very long hours, you don’t really have breaks very often and I used to be on call as well… So I would go home after a twelve hour shift and then be on call, so the call could come in at two or three in the morning and I would get up out of my bed and deal with the victim and with that for maybe five, six, seven, eight hours. ‘ ‘It was that strong work ethic which transferred to my writing. So when I was still in the police I wrote my Jennifer Knight series. I would get up at half five in the morning and I’d write on the train commute to work which was an hour and if I could get a lunch break, which was rare, I would just eat a sandwich while I was writing and then I’d write again on the way home… ‘ ‘I was really really determined, I really wanted to leave my job and I was totally committed to it and I think you have to be.’ ‘When I left, I seem to have kept that work ethic up but it’s much easier now because I love what I do.’ ‘It’s really hard when your writing and working full-time, that’s really really tough…’ ‘I pretty much carry my laptop around me most of the time, when I go anywhere I bring it with me and I don’t tend to take days off and I enjoy it so yeah, the books keep coming.’ On productivity: ‘Social media is the demon of procrastination.’ ‘For me it comes into goal setting, word count and everything is set. I have a diary where I write everything I’ve done and if I don’t keep up one day I have to make it up the next day.’ ‘Goals, deadlines and plotting is the answer… And having an app on my computer to stop me going on Facebook during the day.’ ‘I’m producing a book every six months but the last couple of years I’ve been writing three books a year which is hard going.’ ‘I dictate the first draft so I get it out really quickly. I can get a first draft out in five weeks. It is rubbish, though, then I have to go back and edit it all and fix it. But I find the dialogue is much better when I dictate because basically it’s all dialogue and then I go back and I put in the setting and the scenery and the descriptions and it’s like a painting, it’s just layer upon layer.’ ‘If I’m dictating I can do 10 or 15,000 words in a weekend because I’m just telling the story.’ On process: ‘If I get stuck with anything I go for a good long walk… I can be heard mumbling to myself as I work out these plots that refuse to budge.’ The dreaded editorial letter: ‘I struggle to open it for about a day… I can hardly look at it.’ On the writing life: ‘I’m the luckiest person in the world.’ Advice to those who want to write: ‘Constantly work on your craft, never stop learning… And don’t give up!’ Recommended: Caroline uses various tools to help her to block out distraction (social media!) and focus on her work. Freedom – blocks websites and apps on your devices and computers (PC and Mac). I use and love this one, too! RescueTime (Mac only). This tracks the time you spend on websites and applications, giving you accurate details on how you spend your day. Dragon software for dictation. Joanna Penn’s advice on dictation. Caroline recommends listening to motivational tracks (some available on Spotify). Caroline’s writing advice can be found on her blog.   Thanks for listening! [I just realised that I forgot to update you on my progress with dictation. To be fair, that progress has been minimal this month (I have just bought the software). I am going to make a proper effort to try it in March and will report back next month!] If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or whichever podcast app you use) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

Joanna Penn is an award-nominated New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, writing thrillers, supernatural crime and fantasy under the name J.F. Penn. I consider Joanna my unofficial mentor and I’m personally very grateful for the information and encouragement she puts out into the world. If you aren’t aware of Joanna’s wonderful website and podcast The Creative Penn or her non fiction books such as Business For Authors, do check them out. Joanna has been on the show before but today we are talking about her new book, The Healthy Writer. It’s an important topic for everyone, whether you are writing full time or not, as writing is a sedentary (sometimes stressful!) job and there are plenty of ways it can mess up our physical and mental wellbeing. I highly recommend the book. It’s full of sane, non-judgemental advice which is tailored for the particular health issues writers face such as back pain, RSI, eye strain and loneliness. The Healthy Writer is available in print and ebook with audio coming soon! Joanna’s site and podcast for writers: thecreativepenn.com J.F.Penn author site: jfpenn.com Joanna’s previous appearance on The Worried Writer – Episode #08 ‘I Measure My Life By What I Create’. Twitter: @thecreativepenn Facebook: The Creative Penn Writing update: In the introduction, I talk about my new novel Beneath The Water, which lands in shops next week. Here’s a little bit about it and a pre-order link! Beneath The Water is set in both Arisaig on the west coast of Scotland in the present day and amidst the medical community of Edinburgh in 1847. Stella Jackson is broken-hearted after her fiance leaves, and she runs away to Scotland to stay with her best friend, but she ends up working for the mysterious Jamie Munro. It’s a Gothic love story set in a stunning part of the world with a historical strand which explores the background to some of the medical breakthroughs we take for granted today such as obstetric anaesthesia. If that sounds like your cup of tea or you just want to support my writing career(!) please do check it out. It’s published on Thursday 8th February in ebook, paperback and audiobook. In other book news, the audio version of Stop Worrying; Start Writing is up for sale. It’s available on audible (free with a one-month free trial or one credit) or through Amazon. I narrated it myself so if you can’t get enough of my voice and think hearing my tips on self-doubt and procrastination might work for you, it’s available for your listening pleasure! Audible link : Amazon link Also, I am keen to get some reviews on the audio book, so if you would be willing to leave an honest review after listening, do email me as I have a limited number of free review copies available. In writing news, I’m waiting to hear whether my latest rewrite of my supernatural thriller is ready for submission to publishers and getting ready to dive back into my current shiny new project. It’s been on hold for the last week or so while I’ve been doing publicity stuff for BTW, but I’m determined to make February a high word-count month. Also, a quick word on the audio quality of the this episode – my side of the interview doesn’t sound quite as clear as usual, I’m afraid. Of all the people to have a tech failure with, my heroine for both creativity and professionalism would not have been my first choice. I was utterly mortified when an update to my recording software meant things weren’t working properly when I jumped onto Skype to chat to Joanna Penn. However, I tell you this as I like to share the warts and all experience with you and also to demonstrate that even when things go wrong, it’s not the end of the world. In this instance, Joanna couldn’t have been nicer about it and she even offered to record the interview on my behalf so that we could still go ahead. As is so often the way with putting yourself out there, people are usually super-supportive and nice and forgiving. On which note, I hope you forgive the difference in audio! In the interview: Joanna on writing: ‘As writers, we need to lean into that muse.’   ‘Being a writer can just be a cranking wheel of content creation instead of the dream job we want it to be.’ On the importance of focusing on health: ‘In 2016 I realised that I had to change my physical health… I had reached the point where I was in enough pain to change.’   ‘I just considered my body as vehicle for my brain.’   ‘I discover that the best brain hack possible is good nutrition, good sleep, exercise – these things will make you more productive, more creative, more happy and those are the best hacks we can do for our brain. I really had to learn the connection between my mind and body.’   On loneliness as a writer: ‘Social media is great but when we moved to Bath I started friend-dating.’   ‘I started my podcast in 2009 so that I could talk to people.’ On co-writing with Dr Euan Lawson: ‘I’m a control freak so I had final say!’   ‘If you want to co-write, one of the parties has to be the alpha.’   ‘Co-writing is a trend because it’s so much easier now… You can work with something like Bundle Rabbit which will deal with the payments.’ On dictation: ‘Destroyer of Worlds was dictated and that is award-nominated so I can certainly say that dictating a first draft does not affect the quality of your final product which I think a lot of people worry about.’   ‘It’s a bit like health – you will not get fit in one day and you won’t become a master dictator in one day.’   ‘Don’t replicate what you would have done with typing… Just start by doing a bullet point kind of outline.’   ‘You are dictating first draft writing, do not try and dictate anything that is final draft.’ Also, I pledge to try dictation and Joanna challenges me to report back! Tune in next month and I will let you know how I get on. Recommended Resources: Fool Proof Dictation by Christopher Downing Dictate Your Book by Monica Leonelle The Writer’s Guide To Training Your Dragon by Scott Baker Healthy Writer Tips on The Creative Penn   Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast in iTunes and makes it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.  

My guest today is Lisa Hall, author of the bestselling psychological thrillers Between You and Me and Tell Me No Lies, which Heat magazine called ‘breathlessly fast-paced and cleverly unsettling’. Not content with a successful career as an author, Lisa has also crossed the divide to the other side of the business by founding a new publishing imprint, Manatee Books. You can find out more about Lisa and her books at www.lisahallauthor.co.uk or find her on Twitter or Facebook. In the introduction I give a recap on my progress during 2017. It was a good year – my most productive so far, in fact – but I am keen to improve and to make 2018 even better. 2017 In 2017, my main writing goal was to write two new novels and to finish, edit and publish the Worried Writer book. I managed one new first draft, two lots of major structural rewrites on ‘old’ drafts (including Beneath The Water which is out next month!), and I wrote and published Stop Worrying; Start Writing. I also narrated the audiobook version, which was very enjoyable but also quite tricky and time-consuming!  It will hopefully be up for sale by the end of the month. My supernatural thriller is almost ready to go on submission to publishers. This is always a nerve-wracking time and I’m very grateful that I have other projects to distract me… I got The Garden of Magic made into an audio book and created a short story giveaway for my reader group sign-up. Phew! Highlights I’m trying to get better at celebrating small successes, so listed some of my highlights from 2017: Talking about overcoming fear and self-doubt on The Creative Penn podcast. You can listen here or watch the video on YouTube. The Worried Writer being featured in Mslexia magazine. Getting a new publishing deal with Lake Union with Beneath The Water.   2018 I give a brief overview of my goals for 2018, but will put up a more detailed ‘Writing Goals’ post on the 2nd January. Are you setting goals for 2018? I would love to hear about your plans, too. Comment below with your goals, or get in touch with any questions on goal-setting, defining success, or productivity.   In the interview: Lisa’s schedule: ‘Because I’ve got three children I have to cram quite a lot in those hours in the middle of the day. When I’m writing I aim for 2000 words a day… I try not to do anything in that period when the children come home from school and go to bed.’   ‘I do work Saturdays and Sundays. Especially when I’m on a deadline or I’m in the zone… Even I only get 500 words down then I don’t feel so guilty about taking the rest of the day off and spending it with the kids.’   ‘The first couple of hours in the morning I do admin stuff. With Manatee Books there’s a lot of admin… I keep hours in the afternoon free for writing. I mean, it doesn’t always balance-out! It balances out eventually, but it’s quite hard.’   ‘I’ve always got a to-do list… So I can work through and I know exactly what needs to be done every day and then I tag my wordcount onto the end.’   Writing process:   ‘I quite often go for a run if I get stuck.’   ‘I hate the thought of editing and when I get my edit notes, I don’t want to open the email… But once I make a start I’m okay.’   ‘I’m a massive planner… I can’t write any other way.’   ‘When I’m working on a book it’s like the idea for the next book can’t fully come through until that book is finished… It’s like my brain won’t let me think about the full story so I do worry that the idea won’t come, but it’s been like this every time.’   On starting a publishing company: ‘I’ve had a really good experience with my road to publication and the way HQ have handled things for me… And I know there are people out there who don’t have such a good experience so I wanted to set up something where hopefully we give every author a good experience… It’s really really exciting when you sign the contract but I feel like that excitement should keep going all the way through… I just want everyone to have a lovely experience. We’re living the dream after all!’   ‘One day I might run out ideas but even if I can’t write I’ll still get to be involved in books, in publishing and be surrounded by brilliant stories and that’s all I really want.’   ‘We are open for submissions. Liz is always on the lookout for good crime novels. I prefer the more commercial crime novel but she is all about the quirky… I work on the women’s fiction side of it which I really love… I’m looking for good chick lit, nice holiday reading and I’m really on the lookout for a good bookclub read. Um, bit of romance – not too saucy.’   Lisa’s advice to other authors: ‘Building an author brand is a slow burn and you need to be patient.’   Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast in iTunes and makes it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

In this ‘just me’ episode I recap my progress over 2017, give tips learned from my recent ‘performance and presentation’ training, and answer a listener question about getting a trilogy published… Writing progress: As the end of the year approaches, I start thinking about next year – mainly because I tend to go into hibernation mode during this time but I absolutely love the fresh new start of January and get far more excited by the new goal setting and planning of a new year. I’ve tried to recognise that I go into a bit of an energy slump in December and have scheduled a light month. However, I’m a bit behind on some of my November goals, so I want to really push myself this week to get as much done as possible before I wind down for the year. I have revisited my goals from January this year and I’m pretty pleased with what I’ve achieved, but if I can tick a couple more things off the list then even better! I encourage you to check in with your goals on a regular basis – but definitely at large junctures like quarterly or at the beginning, middle and end of the year. When I’m feeling overwhelmed or like I’m not getting much done it can be either encouraging to see what I have actually managed or the kick up the backside I need. This year I planned to write, edit and publish Stop Worrying; Start Writing in all formats. The ebook and print versions are done and the audio should scrape in under the wire, I hope! I also did extensive structural rewrites on Beneath The Water (now available to pre-order – meep!), finished and rewrote my supernatural thriller, and have almost finished the first draft of a new novel. In writing terms, it’s probably my best, most productive year yet but I am still aware of how much more I am capable of or, more accurately, how much more I want to do. I think I have to be happy with my own process, but also to push myself a bit and keep trying to refine my work habits. It’s a tricky balance. This year I also planned to do some real life events, meeting up with author friends who live around the UK and beyond, and I managed a couple of lovely lunches – hurrah! I also made strides with my business training by completing the SPF 101 course and ‘advertising for authors’, both from the excellent Mark Dawson. I’ve started to experiment with ads with some success, so that’s pleasing. I’ve also been building my mailing list, although I have a lot more to do in that area. This month, I was lucky enough to get attend a Performance and Presentation training day put on by the Scottish Book Trust. There were workshops from Jenny Lindsay, a spoken word poet, and Alex Gillon, a voice coach. It was an intense day and quite hard in places, but the workshops were incredibly powerful and useful.   Lessons learned: Mindset is important! Remember why you are doing this (to share your work). The people in the audience are not out to hate you or have a bad time and they won’t be hyper-critical if you make little mistakes or seem nervous. Think of it like talking a group of people you’ve just met in the pub. You don’t know them well, but they seem nice. ACT FINE. You don’t have to be super-confident or to feel fine, you just have to act fine. Practical tips: Walk the space beforehand. Insist on a sound check. Warm up with stretching, shaking out the tension in your body and do some breathing exercises before you go on. Perform! The other big takeaway for me was the idea of really performing the piece. Having only presented non-fiction, I hadn’t appreciated how much feeling and variety you need to put into a piece of fiction to make it come alive. It’s no good just reading the text nice and clearly; if you want your listeners to experience it properly, you have to act with emotion and use different voices for the different characters and so on. I am so grateful to the Scottish Book Trust for the opportunity and feel more confident than I did at the thought of reading my fiction to an audience. I’m still terrified, of course, but it helps to know there are techniques and tips I can follow. Listener Question: This month’s listener question is from Georgia. She wrote: I am currently learning how to edit my first draft of my very first novel! I am planning on making it the first of three in a series. I would like to try to get it traditionally published… However, I have a full-time job and am worried that even if I did manage to get a deal for all three, trying to write to a deadline alongside a full-time job would be too much. Would it be better to write all of the series and then try and get it published? Or would publishers be reluctant to buy a series all in one go? Thanks so much for the great question, Georgia! My advice is to start querying as soon as book one is ready. Traditional publishing is very slow so you will have time to finish your second and maybe even third while you wait to hear from agents and publishers. A publisher might not want to buy a trilogy so it is a good idea to make sure book one can stand alone, too.   If you’ve got a question you’d like answered, please email me or find me on Twitter. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous).   I can’t believe that the next show will be out in 2018! I have a fabulous interview with psychological thriller author and publisher (Manatee Books), Lisa Hall, to share with you, and will also discuss my goals for 2018. Thank you so much for your support this year and I wish you a happy winter holiday!     Thank you for listening! Please spread the word and, if you can spare the time, leave a rating for the show on iTunes or whichever podcast app you use. Reviews and shares really help the visibility of the show.  

My guest today is Katie Cross. Katie writes both YA fantasy and contemporary women’s fiction. Her books include The Network series, which kicks off with Miss Mabel’s School For Girls, and Bon Bons To Yoga Pants. Katie also provides mentoring services for indie authors, and she runs a lively Facebook support group called Indie Author Life. Head here to join. In the interview we discuss productivity, publishing, and self-doubt, and Katie shares wonderful tips for combining writing with parenthood (or other responsibilities). Katie is a bundle of energy and I got so much inspiration from our chat – I hope you do, too! For more on Katie head to kcrosswriting.com or find her on Twitter or Facebook. In the intro I give a writing update: I allowed myself to take my foot off the pedal a wee bit during October, and also had a week away with my family by Loch Ness, which was glorious! Less fun, was hitting the middle of my WIP and, as usual, getting completely stuck. Every single book I have written has hit this point but it’s always a bit scary. I allowed myself to take thinking and freewriting time and, last week, I had a breakthrough on the plot – phew! I’m planning to finish the book during November so, along with everyone who is taking part in NaNoWriMo, I will be writing as much as possible. If you are trying to finish a project or are taking part in NaNoWriMo, let’s make this a super-productive November and cheer each other on! I will post updates on Twitter and the Worried Writer Facebook page. We can do this! I also talk about the importance of finishing, and how getting to ‘The End’ on your first book is so difficult – but so vital. In case you missed it, here is the link to the article I wrote on the subject: The Life-Changing Magic of Finishing Your Book. In the interview: Katie on indie publishing: ‘From the beginning it called to me. I was like that is the way I want to publish a book.’ ‘You have control, you have to do something with it and you really have to it well. I think finding a team can be the hardest part: people you trust at a price you can afford.’ On self-doubt: ‘I had a lot of beta readers give me feedback and I had professional editors.’ ‘I do remember that feeling of vulnerability once I’d hit that publish button… I’ve put a piece of my heart out there.’ On helping others and the FB group: ‘It was a difficult transition for me from full-time author to full-time mom… I couldn’t find other people in the same boat so I put this group together.’ ‘Authors need a tribe. It’s a solitary profession but requires a village, really.’ ‘I’m an extrovert, I thrive on connection.’ Writing process: ‘I do write everyday.’ ‘I freelance and I do mentoring for some self-publishers when I have slots available and I write my own books. It sounds like a lot but I don’t take a lot of contracts for freelancing… It’s very manageable, it’s not too many, it’s just enough so that I feel like I’m working on a team.’ ‘The night before I go to bed I have a to-do list and I write down three things that have to get done.’ ‘If I can get up before my son I spend twenty minutes meditating. I just sit and deep breathe and am just present in the moment… And then I go about the day with my son and I do not check my email.’ ‘An hour before naptime I start preparing for naptime so I get the house clean, I make lunch, I make sure we’ve had lunch, make sure the dog is settled. Everything is ready so the moment my son is down for his nap, my butt is in the chair and I’m writing.’ ‘I call myself a naptime entrepreneur.’ ‘I do try to keep creativity and business separate… I always work on creative things first… And I try to stay focused when I’m in each one.’ On writing while being a full-time parent: ‘It’s a careful balance when you’re a parent of being a parent, but still having time for yourself and taking time for your writing because your writing time can’t be your self-care time.’ ‘There was more time for writing with a newborn than I thought… For me it got really busy once he got mobile!’ ‘I was a hardcore pantser until I became a mom then I found it much more productive to plot.’ Creative block: ‘Typically when I’m blocked creatively it’s because I need to make a decision and I don’t want to… I need to decide where this plot is going and then I’m worried I’ll make the wrong choice and I’ll waste words or something like that.’ ‘Failure if one of our greatest learning mechanisms.’ ‘All of us struggle with imposter syndrome.’ Recommended: K.M.Weiland books  and website: Helping Writers Become Authors Dynamic Story Creation by Maxwell Alexander Drake Joanna Penn for anything author business related: The Creative Penn Robert McKee Playing Big by Tara Mohr For levelling-up in business: Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or the podcast app of your choice) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.  

My guest today is Monica Leonelle. Monica is a USA Today bestselling author writing YA urban fantasy and paranormal romance, as well as practical books for writers such as Write Better, Faster and The 8-Minute Writing Habit. Before becoming an author, Monica had a successful career in digital marketing. For more on Monica’s latest website for authors, head to The World Needs Your Book And there is still a wealth of information on Prose On Fire For all of Monica’s books head to Amazon UK or Amazon US Or find her on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. In the intro: I give a small writing update (10,000 words on my shiny new first draft!) and share tips learned from the process of recording the audio book of Stop Worrying; Start Writing. I answer a listener question: Matthew asked: The late great Terry Pratchett insisted in his will that the novels he was working on at the time of his death be crushed in their hard drive. By a steamroller. This action was carried out today. Morbid Q for the podcast – what would you want happening to your unfinished works in the event of your demise? Tolkienesque approach – the family get to cash in through publication of a bunch of things of varying quality that were never meant for public consumption, or Pratchett’s cleaner approach with death as a full stop rather than an ellipsis? I talk about my own preference (for early drafts to be deleted!) and discuss how thinking about this kind of thing can help us to place proper value on our work and to consider the long-term strategy for our career/finances. Mentioned: Neil Gaiman’s post on will-making for creatives (with sample template). Helen Sedwick (writes about legal/financial stuff for authors). In the interview: On publishing: ‘I’m all for traditional, I think there is a lot of opportunity there.’ On self-doubt: ‘Everytime I publish a book I still feel self-doubt… You don’t know how a large group of people is going to respond to your book.’   ‘The way I think about fear is really that you’re going to feel fear and it’s going to be there with you, but can you take action anyway.’   ‘I will say that years and years ago I was a procrastinator… I remember when I was trying to establish a daily writing habit, that first day I sat at my computer with my ms open and I stared at it for an hour without writing anything…. It was like my mind couldn’t process or something.’   ‘A lot of this is a muscle that you have to work, but I also think ‘yes you are afraid’.’   On the ‘eight-minute writing habit’: ‘It feels like a long enough period to get something done, but short enough that really have no excuse not to do it.’ ‘A twenty-five minute timed session where you’re focused and then a five minute break… So with the eight minute thing, I was like you can do eight minutes, two minute break.’ ‘Eight minutes is very easy to add to your morning routine, so do eight minutes in the morning, eight minutes at lunch and eight minutes in the evening.’   On her own process: ‘Some people do really well with 1000 words a day, kind of paced approach… For me I might write 5000 words a day for two weeks and then not write for a month…. I have embraced that I’m a burst of energy writer.’ ‘About thirty percent of my time goes to fiction but, that being said, I have kind of mastered my own writing productivity. So, this year, for example, I’ve published three YA novels, two novellas for that series and a short story and that’s as of June 2017.’ ‘It’s not my dream to just do fiction… I do have varied interests and I do love both sides of it.’   Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes (or the podcast app of your choice) that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast and make it more likely to be discovered by new listeners. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

My guest today is Phoebe Morgan. Phoebe Morgan is both an editor at HarperCollins and an author, so she understands both sides of the publishing equation. Her debut psychological thriller, The Doll House, is coming out on the 14th September, and it’s an excellent dark and creepy read. I love the way Phoebe has created a sense of foreboding in the book so I definitely recommend you check it out. We talk about self-doubt and pre-publication nerves, but Phoebe also give insights as to what grabs her as commissioning editor when she is reading submissions and, conversely, the common mistakes she sees authors making. Even if you aren’t looking to submit to an agent or publisher, I do think her advice is spot-on as you will always need to grab your reader. For more on Phoebe head to phoebemorganauthor.com or find her on Twitter. You can pre-order The Doll House for just 99p here. In the introduction: I give a small writing update and talk about my great excitement at being a guest on The Creative Penn podcast. Here is the link to the episode on Joanna’s (wonderful!) website. It’s also available on YouTube and through your preferred podcast app. Being invited on the show which started my podcast-obsession (and inspired me to start The Worried Writer) was a big moment for me and I talk about some lessons learned from the experience. I also mention the time I interviewed Joanna on The Worried Writer. Head here for that episode. Stop Worrying; Start Writing audiobook. I said last month that I would try to get it recorded during August, but I didn’t manage to fit it in – sorry! I am hoping to book the studio time during September and get it finished. Thank you for all your replies re. possible funding for the show. Most folk have voted for Patreon and I’m considering ideas for ‘subscriber-only’ perks such as a private Facebook group for writerly support. Let me know what you think!   In the interview: On working in publishing as an editor as well as being an author: ‘There isn’t a switch off button because everything I’m doing is in the same field. At the same time I do really love what I do.’   ‘It can be quite tricky, sometimes. It’s a lot of characters in my head!’   ‘It’s hard to have a full-time job and have the energy to do the thing on the side. I think it comes down to trying to enjoy it… You also need to be kind to yourself.   On writing process: ‘I do best during the day on a Saturday and Sunday.’   ‘It’s about finding the time which works best for you.’   ‘When I’m not actually physically writing, I’m always thinking about it… Stuff takes time to form.’   ‘I’ve spent ages wishing I could be a planner and I’ve tried to be a planner… But it just doesn’t work. It kind of blocks something in my brain.’   On creative block: ‘I get quite paralysed by thinking about the industry… Because of my job I know how many submissions we get and how many get published and it’s not many.’   ‘There will be times when I’m writing and I’ll think ‘this is never going to sell’ and that’s quite paralysing.’   On working as an editor for Harper Collins: ‘Everyone in publishing is so nice.’   ‘Getting a deal is often about timing.’   ‘We have a lot to get through so the opening of a book is really important…’   ‘I find a lot of writers think they need to start a chapter quite softly and they’ll talk about the weather or do a recap on the previous chapter… Cut that out and go straight to the action.’   ‘I always say to my authors that what I’m saying is a suggestion rather than an order. At the end of the day, an author is the one in charge of their book.’   On getting a book deal: ‘The key is to carry on.’   Recommended by Phoebe: On Writing by Stephen King Writing A Bestseller by Jacq Burns How To Become A Writer (short story)by Lorrie Moore – New York Times  Literary Rejections Blog        Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast in iTunes and makes it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

My guest today is A.L. Michael, author of nine romantic comedies including Goodbye Ruby Tuesday and The Last Word. Her latest release is Cocktails and Dreams, part of the new Martini Club series. Andi is also a Creative Therapeutic Facilitator, currently researching the power of creative writing to be helpful in recovering from eating disorders.   Find out more at almichael.com or find her on Twitter or Facebook. In the intro I give a personal update (spoiler-alert – I did more holidaying than writing in July!) and talk about my plans for August. I also mention Joanna Penn’s recent podcast episode about her experience at Thrillerfest, in which she discusses comparisonitis and the difficulty of balancing ambition and contentment. Go here for the episode (it’s really worth a listen) and here for Joanna’s wonderful book on marketing How To Market A Book. Finally, I talk about the future of the podcast and the possibility of adding advertising or sponsorship or joining Patreon. And, in lieu of corporate sponsorship, I plug my own book on writing! Click HERE for store links.   If you have any thoughts on advertising or patreon or suggestions for ways in which I can improve the show, please do get in touch. I would love to hear from you! In the interview: On process: ‘I have a number for that day that I’m happy with wordcount-wise.’   ‘Sometimes, I’ve got no idea where they’re going now so I’ll play with the characters for a bit or research a location and something usually pops up.’   ‘I work from a very brief skeleton, but I usually write little chunks in a notebook that’s specifically for that book.’   On writing as a career: ‘I had my careers advice at seventeen and I said ‘I’m going to university to study writing and I’m going to be a writer’ and he said ‘that’s not a job’.’   On doing a degree in creative writing: ‘I think I wrote a lot of crap then, but I learned how to form a story and how to get criticism and feedback… But you could only be a literary writer in their eyes.’   Andi’s tips for productivity: ‘I like being in control… I do a lot of list-making and goal-setting.’   ‘I would love to do a retreat so that’s on my list… I usually go to a festival every year where I run creative writing workshops.’   ‘I think play is really important and experimenting.’ ‘Always write more than you talk about writing.’   On being a worried writer: ‘You’ll always have worries with writing because it makes you so vulnerable.’   ‘Everyone has that particular number in their word-count when you hit it and think ‘God, I’m awful’… Usually to get over it I remind myself that I’ve done it once so I can do it again. I think finishing a book is the hardest thing you can do… But if you’ve finished a book, you can finish another book.’ ‘I thought being published was the end of the journey, the end-goal, but it’s actually the start.’   On writing as a therapeutic tool: ‘It’s a very freeing experience.’     Thank you so much for listening – I truly appreciate it! If you have a writing (or publishing) question that you’d like me to tackle, please get in touch via email or Twitter. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). And if you have a moment to share the show on social media or leave a rating on iTunes (or your preferred podcast app), that would be brilliant!  THANK YOU!

My guest today is Martin Lee who writes under the name M.J. Lee. He is a bestselling author of historical crime fiction and his books include the Jayne Sinclair genealogical mysteries, Samuel Pepys and The Stolen Diary, and the Inspector Danilov series which is set in 1920s Shanghai. Before turning to novel writing, Martin spent 25 years working for advertising companies in London, Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, Bangkok and Shanghai. For more on M.J. Lee and his books, visit www.writermjlee.com or find him on Facebook or Twitter. We talk about the skills he brings to novel-writing from his experience as a creative director, plotting versus ‘pantsing’ and Martin’s own process. Apologies for the sound quality in the interview – we had some technical difficulties. I’ve done my best in post-production and I hope you can still enjoy it, as Martin and I had a really good chat! In the intro I give a small update on my writing/life. I mention the ‘Goals Update’ post I did recently, and my guest spot on Paul Teague’s Self Publishing Journeys podcast: Episode 66: Sarah Painter I also answer a listener question from Janine Swann. Janine wrote: I’m currently editing my first draft and am struggling to come to terms with the ‘taste gap’ (Ira Glass’s quote, in case you’re not familiar with it). I’ve been reading Jojo Moyes’s latest novel which is just fantastic, and returning to the editing afterwards is really rather difficult. I struggle to imagine my writing will ever be as good, and I so desperately want it to be. Do you have any advice? You can read the Ira Glass on the ‘taste gap’ quote here. I think the key to this lies in focusing on practice over product – something I talk about in detail in Stop Worrying; Start Writing! If you have a question you would like answered on the show, do get in touch. You can email me, find me on Twitter or simply leave a comment on this post.     In the interview: On getting stuck: ‘Read it through until you feel where you’ve gone wrong and then you rewrite it.’   On process: ‘Writing’s an exercise – the more you do it, the better you get.’   ‘You need to be disciplined about your time, it’s a job, it’s work, and then let yourself enjoy life.’   The importance of getting into the zone: ‘I’m in that little world. Everything else vanishes around me…’     Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast in iTunes and makes it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

In this ‘just me’ episode, I give a writing update and answer a couple of questions. Writing update: I’ve been on tight editing deadlines all month with my latest novel, Beneath The Water, but the end is truly in sight. Huzzah! I mostly enjoy editing and rewriting as it’s a brilliant chance to make things better. I’m always grateful that I’m a novelist and not, say, a stand up comedian. With writing, you can work away at something for ages before going public and you get loads of chances to make it as good as possible. Of course, the flip side is that no book ever really feels finished. If I didn’t have deadlines – either external ones or ones I set myself – I would truly never let go and just keeping on tinkering. Having said that, I’m really looking forward to letting this one go, now. I’ve hit the ‘I’m sick of it’ stage and other shiny ideas are clamouring for my attention. Next month, I’ll still be in rewrite mode as I’ve had the edit notes for a different book from my agent. It’s a bit of a departure, genre-wise (supernatural thriller-ish) and I am really excited about getting back to it. I’m also planning to record the audio book of Stop Worrying Start Writing. Lots of you have asked me to narrate the book myself (thank you so much for the vote of confidence) so I’m going to give it a go. No promises, though… If I start and it’s a disaster, I will book a professional! Listener Question: This month’s question comes from Janine. She asks two questions and they are both excellent so I attempt to tackle them both. Janine wrote: I’m really struggling to find time to write. Specifically, I seem to cave whenever I have writing scheduled but people want me to spend time with them or do them a favour. I have a deadline in August and I’m terrified that I’m not going to meet it. I do feel guilty spending time on writing, which is probably why I cave so quickly. Any advice gratefully received! Following on from the previous question, I’m considering booking myself into a hut for 3 nights in order to get some work done. Is this something you’ve had to do yourself? And is it something you’d recommend, or is it better to fit writing around life in 20-30 minute slots as I have been doing? Perhaps I’m worried that if I book it, I won’t have the stamina to write and edit all day! An extract from my answer: Guarding your writing time is a matter of training and every time you break your plan to write and cave in to other people’s needs, you are training everyone around you to believe that you are not serious about your writing and that it simply isn’t that important. Worse still, you are training yourself to believe the same.   If you’ve got a question you’d like answered, please email me or find me on Twitter. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). Recommended: If you are interested in what makes stories work, then I highly recommend Lani Diane Rich’s  How Story Works podcast series. Lani is an alumnus of the podcast (listen to her interview: ‘Claim Your Awesome’) and is a bestselling and award-winning author of twelve romantic comedies. She has also been teaching story craft for years and is absolutely brilliant at explaining the concepts. A big turning point for me came when I took her novel revision course back before I was published. I was working on the book which became The Language of Spells and Lani gave me an encouraging critique of my opening chapter which gave me a much-needed boost, but she also managed to explain the three act structure in a way in which I could, finally, grasp it. I still use her techniques in my revision process and if she ever teaches that class again I definitely recommend it. I also give a quick shout out to Annie Lyons (another brilliant podcast guest) who reviewed Stop Worrying; Start Writing with these amazing words: If Stephen King is your writing godfather then Sarah Painter is the writer’s best friend – kind, honest and full of wisdom. Stop Worrying; Start Writing is available now from Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, and Nook and in paperback, too!   My guest next month is historical crime novelist M.J. Lee, also known as Martin Lee. We had a great chat about historical research, Martin’s writing process and views on writers block, and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you.             Thank you for listening! Please spread the word and, if you can spare the time, leave a rating for the show on iTunes. I truly appreciate your support.  

My guest today is Tracy Buchanan, author of The Atlas of Us, No Turning Back and the number one bestseller, My Sister’s Secret. My Sister’s Secret was one of the top ten bestselling books of 2015 and has been published in the US, Denmark, Italy, Hungary and Germany and My Weekly said it was ‘both heartbreaking and uplifting’. We talk about the pressure of writing under contract, plotting using an Excel spreadsheet, Tracy’s writing routine and the opportunities for authors in this new publishing landscape. For more on Tracy and her books, head to www.tracybuchanan.co.uk or find her on Twitter or Facebook. In a quick intro (I’m very tired!), I give a happy and grateful update on the successful launch of Stop Worrying: Start Writing. It hit number one in the creativity chart and got to hang out with Stephen King in ‘authorship’. Meep! I have also been bowled-over by the wonderful feedback and reviews (phew!). Here’s a small extract from one of the Amazon reviews: ‘The best book on writing and productivity I’ve read in years. Sarah tackles the fear we all feel when it comes to our writing in such an honest way that I was left feeling like here was someone who really understood…This book, was refreshing because it deals with the things most writers truly face, and more than that it really offers actionable steps to help see you through the other side.’ Dominique Valente, Amazon Reviewer You can get Stop Worrying: Start Writing from all good retailers including Amazon UK, Amazon US, Kobo, iBooks or Barnes&Noble. Next month, I’m planning a ‘just me’ episode so that I can give proper attention to some of the wonderful listener questions I have received. If you have a writing (or publishing) question that you’d like me to tackle, please get in touch via email or Twitter. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). In the interview: On Tracy’s writing process: ‘In the past I would just be very dreamy and just start writing it and let it lead me… but I have to be a lot more disciplined now.’ On writing the Atlas of Us: ‘It was a really cathartic, wonderful experience and it helped me with all the infertility stuff I was going through.’ On getting started: ‘Write a novel that you want to read.’ ‘First drafts can be rubbish, just write and enjoy it.’ On her routine: ‘I need to get the boring stuff out of the way first… That usually takes a couple of hours and then I start writing.’ ‘I don’t really have a daily word count. My aim is to write as much as I can as quickly as I can.’ ‘I really find walking helps me unblock plot issues.’ ‘I’m trying to do things like go to the cinema and see that as work or go to a museum to get inspiration, but I’m being really rubbish at that!’ Recommended: FB groups Absolute Write forum Listening to podcasts like this one! ‘Listening to other writers and hearing what they are going through feels like a support network, it really helps because you don’t feel like such an alien and so weird.’ Writer’s retreats such as The Urban Writers’ Retreat Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast in iTunes and makes it more likely to be discovered by new listeners and included in the charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question or a suggestion for the show – or just want to get in touch – I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.

My guest today, Rachael Lucas, writes contemporary romantic fiction for Pan Macmillan. Her titles include Coming Up Roses and Wildflower Bay, and her first YA novel, The State of Grace is coming out this month (6 April 2017) from Pan Macmillan Children’s Books. Rachael has also run an award-winning lifestyle blog and worked as a social media consultant. You can find out more about Rachael and her books at rachaellucas.com or chat to her on Twitter or Facebook.   In personal news, my non fiction title for writers Stop Worrying; Start Writing is coming out this month – yay! It should be available in all the retailers (Kobo, Kindle, iBooks, Nook etc) on April 14th in print and eBook with the audio version following later this year. Here’s the cover and blurb (drum roll!): Do you want to write but can’t seem to get started? Are you struggling to finish your novel or frustrated by your slow progress? Perhaps you are starting to worry that you aren’t cut out for the writing life… Let bestselling novelist and host of the popular Worried Writer podcast, Sarah Painter, show you how to skip past negativity, free-up writing time, cope with self-doubt, and beat procrastination. Along with mega successful authors such as C.L.Taylor, Mark Edwards, and Julie Cohen, Sarah will show you how to: smash writing blocks to finish stories faster, handle self-doubt so that it doesn’t stop you creating, trick yourself into being more productive, schedule your time, and much more. Packed with honest, supportive, and hard-won advice, this is your practical guide to getting the work done. Don’t let creative anxiety kill your writing dreams: Stop Worrying and Start Writing today! ‘Inspiring, comforting, warm and wise.’ Keris Stainton, YA author.   Hope you like it!  In the interview: On writing The State of Grace:  ‘The story just fell out of my head’   On writing retreats: ‘It took me a little while to get into the swing of it.’ ‘I realised that I could go there and take off my mummy hat and put on my writing hat’   On writing her debut novel:  ‘I did NaNoWriMo and wrote the majority of the book.’   On self-publishing: ‘I was turning forty and I think I just thought ‘if I don’t do this now, I’m never going to do it.’   ‘I enjoyed the control because it turns out that I’m a bit of a control freak.’   On process: ‘I don’t start writing until I can see the entire book like a film in my head.’   ‘I walk around a lot and I think about it and I sort of let the characters talk to me in my head and then I plot with post-it notes and I plot like a demon.’   ‘I really like silence, I don’t listen to music.’   ‘I’m horrible when I’m writing!’   ‘I do really procrastinate a lot… To the extent that I can almost feel physically sick with dread.’   On marketing and social media: ‘It’s as simple and as difficult as ‘just be yourself’.’   ‘I’m not convinced that Twitter sells books, I think Facebook sells books, I’m interested in Instagram…’   Thanks for listening! If you can spare a few minutes to leave the show a review on iTunes that would be really helpful. Ratings raise the visibility of the podcast in iTunes and makes it more likely to be discovered by new listeners/included in charts. The Worried Writer on iTunes   [Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to rate a podcast on your device] Also, if you have a question you would like answered on the show or just want to get in touch, I would love to hear from you! Email me or find me on Twitter or Facebook.            

In this episode I speak to Marie-Louise Jensen who writes books for children and young adults. Marie-Louise’s books include Between Two Seas and The Lady In The Tower, both of which are published by the Oxford University Press and were shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize. Marie-Louise has also written for Fiction Express, which publishes books in an interactive, serialised format, and her latest book is a YA title, Sixth Formers: Year 12. STOP PRESS: Finding Hope (Fiction Express) has just been shortlisted for the Portsmouth Book Award 2017! For more on Marie-Louise and her books head to her website, Twitter, or Amazon Author Page. In the introduction, I give a writing update and hint at some exciting publishing news! I’ve been busy with a few different projects, including getting my novella, The Garden of Magic, made into an audio book. If you are interested in receiving a free review copy (as well as giveaways and exclusive content) do consider signing up for the mailing list for my fiction. I also reveal the title of the forthcoming ‘worried writer’ book. It is… Drum roll… Stop Worrying; Start Writing: How To Overcome Fear, Self-Doubt and Procrastination I hope you like it! I will have a publication date set very soon, but it will be sometime next month (April 2017). Also, I recommend a couple of other writing/publishing podcasts: The Self Publishing Formula (with Mark Dawson and James Blatch) The Bestseller Experiment And I answer a writing craft question and mention my own mentoring service. More details here. If you have a writing (or publishing) question that you’d like me to tackle in a future episode, please get in touch via email or Twitter. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). Please spread the word and, if you can spare the time, leave a rating for the show on iTunes. I truly appreciate your support. In the interview: Marie Louise explains her writing process: ‘I do tend to do my research first… I read and read and read and get myself steeped in that era.’ ‘I never start a book until I can see the first scene in my head.’ Marie-Louise describes how she uses an A4 ring-binder for both collating her research notes and planning her book. Her journey to publication and how her Masters at Bath Spa University led to signing with her agent: ‘It was kind of a dream walk-in to the world.’ School visits: ‘I think meeting kids and interacting with them is incredibly useful for the author and it’s just fun.’ Marie-Louise reveals the challenges of fitting writing into a family life: ‘A lot of my writing was done in the car while they [the children] were in gym or drama or whatever… I would write whenever I had time.’ ‘I can write pretty much any time I’ve got the time.’ And the difficulties of self-promotion/marketing: ‘I’m absolutely rubbish… I can’t sell anything, let alone myself.’

My guest in this episode is Gillian McAllister. Gillian’s debut thriller Everything But The Truth is out on 9 March 2017 from Penguin and she is represented by Clare Wallace at the Darley Anderson Agency. I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy of Everything But The Truth and it is an absolutely cracking read. It’s a twisty, compelling, domestic thriller and I highly recommend it. I spoke to Gillian last year and it was really interesting to talk about the post-deal, pre-publication phase. For more on Gillian and her writing, head to her website, or find her on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. In the introduction, I give a quick personal update: I finished the Worried Writer book! Last month I put out a call for beta readers and was bowled over by the response. Thank you so much to all of you who offered, the list is now full. I’m sending out the manuscript this week (eep!). One of the really positive things about doing a project like this is that it’s given my brain a break from writing fiction. I felt empty after finishing the latest draft of Beneath The Water and it was nice to change gears for a while. Predictably, I’m missing fiction again, now, and am looking forward to diving into a new novel. Also, I mention that I have (finally!) set up a page on Facebook for the podcast. Please head over and give it a quick ‘like’ if you are so inclined… I would really appreciate it! Let me know the kind of content you’d like to see there, too. I’m considering recording some Q&A videos or perhaps a wee tour of my latest planner system. Let me know on the FB page or in the comments section below. Or, of course, drop me an email. As always, I welcome your feedback and questions! In the interview: On always writing: ‘I’ve had reams of diaries and lists and I write everything down it’s the way I organise my thoughts.’ On the road to publication: ‘I think when you get an agent you think ‘that’s it’ and I was quite emotionally unprepared for rejection… It was just awful.’   And on the adjustment post-deal: ‘I still sometimes wake up and I’m in the old mindset of ‘is my book ever going to sell?’ and then I remember and I’m like, my God, that happened … I’m actually just really relieved because it was such a cause of anxiety and strife for me as I had never wanted anything as badly as I wanted a publishing deal.’ Advice on submission hell: ‘I think somewhere deep in my brain I felt as though if I checked email enough I would get a publishing deal and that is an incorrect thought!’ Gillian is a full-time lawyer. On fitting writing into a busy life: ‘One of the biggest things was getting a MacBook and being able to write in moments where I’m not so busy. Like if I’m on the train and there is a delayed train for twenty minutes I don’t lose the time, I can open the MacBook and write and I’ve kind of taught myself to do that.’   On the difficulties of writing: ‘I do a first draft and I’m quite gung ho about it and then at the end of it I think… Oh, okay, this should have happened or it’s actually about this…’ On the psychology of getting published: ‘My mental health for the three months after I sold was very wobbly… It was actually about control and feeling like this was all I ever wanted but it’s hard sometimes… I had been worrying for two years about getting published and I had all these neural pathways… I remember actively worrying that I wasn’t as happy as I should be until my boyfriend said ‘that’s insane’.’   Thanks so much for listening! If you have a moment, please leave a rating on iTunes or share the podcast. Also, I will be giving out a limited number of review copies of the Worried Writer book in March. If you want to be first to hear about the book (and be in with a chance of scoring a free copy), please sign up here. Thank you!   

Happy new year! This is a short episode to kick off 2017 and I reveal my tip for super-charging your goals. In the January 2016 episode, I defined what makes a good goal and how to set one, and this year I talk about the importance in working out the ‘why’ behind your goals. As you probably know (since I bang on about it enough!), I love setting goals and believe they are one of the most powerful things we can do when trying to achieve things in writing (and life). Last year, I wrote about my writing goals for 2016 and in this episode I recap on how I got on and chat a little about my aims for 2017. I found setting my goals (and putting them in public – eek!) incredibly motivating, so I’m doing it again this year… Look out for my 2017 goals post on Monday! Next month’s episode features an interview with a listener of the podcast, Gillian McAllister. Gillian’s first novel, Everything But The Truth, is out 9th March and it was really interesting to speak to someone who is at an early stage of their career. If you’ve got a question you’d like answered, please email me or find me on Twitter. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). Please spread the word and, if you can spare the time, leave a rating for the show on iTunes. I truly appreciate your support. Thank you for listening!  

Holly Martin is the author of funny, romantic fiction and paranormal YA, including her successful White Cliff Bay series, One Hundred Proposals and The Guestbook. Holly was shortlisted for the New Talent Award at the Festival of Romance, she won the Carina Valentine’s competition and was shortlisted for Best Romantic Read, Best eBook and Innovation in Romantic Fiction at the Festival of Romance 2014. Holly’s latest book Christmas Under A Starlit Sky is out now. For more on Holly and her books, visit her blog or Facebook page or find her on Twitter. In the introduction, I give a short writing update. I managed to finish the rewrites on my latest book. Although I spent the first couple of weeks in despair, feeling as if the story was broken and that I couldn’t fix it, I am so glad I made myself persevere. I am much happier with the latest version and I think the ending it much stronger. Now I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed that my agent agrees! Another thing I’ve done this month is to revisit the goals I set back in January. I haven’t managed to hit all of them, but I have got more done this year on my writing business than in any previous year so I’m definitely celebrating. It’s also encouraged me to make a last push in December and see if I can tick off another of my goals before the year runs out. With that in mind, I’ve started work on a Worried Writer book. A non-fiction title which will bring together my own story with the best tips and advice gathered from two years of author interviews. I’d love to know if that is something you would be interested in. Also, if there is something in particular you would like covered in the book do let me know! I will keep you all posted on its progress on the podcast, but if you are particularly interested and would like to make sure you get updates, please consider signing up for my mailing list here. Once it’s finished, I will be looking for beta readers for the book, and there will be giveaways, review copies and all that good stuff available to those who are signed up! In the interview: I quiz Holly on the secret to her amazing productivity: ‘Well, I just love writing. I just love creating a story… It’s just something I really, really enjoy. Whenever I’m writing a story, my mind is always jumping ahead to the next story I want to write so by the time I finish writing one story, the characters and story for the next one are already fully formed in my mind and I want to get it down.’ On process: ‘The most important thing is that you need to write every single day, even if it’s just a couple of hundred words, because then your mind stays in the story…’ On submitting/trying to get published: ‘Just don’t ever, ever give up.’ Holly on keeping the creative spark alive: ‘You just have to write what you love… If it’s becoming a chore then something is wrong… If you enjoy writing and enjoy those characters and getting back to it every day, then the readers will be able to tell and hopefully they will enjoy it, too. It’s really important to stay true to what you really want to write.’   Recommended: Self-editing For Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King Save The Cat by Blake Snyder           If you’ve got a question you’d like answered, please email me or find me on Twitter. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). Please spread the word and, if you can spare the time, leave a rating for the show on iTunes. I truly appreciate your support. Thank you for listening!

Just a short episode this month and there is no author interview – apologies! I am buried under a deadline and some life stuff and, as alluded to in the title, I also managed to faint and bang my head a couple of weeks ago which knocked out a week of productivity/messed up my schedule. In this episode I give an update on my writing and talk a little bit about how to cope when life (or, in this case, slight concussion) gets in the way. I also chat about the process of making my debut novel The Language of Spells into an audiobook with ACX. If you’re curious to see (and hear!) the result, the book is available from Audible, Amazon UK, Amazon US, or iTunes. Plus, if you don’t already have an Audible subscription, you can sign up for a FREE one month trial and get The Language of Spells completely free! I thank the wonderful Joanna Penn for alerting me to ACX in the first place – listen to my interview with Joanna here. I also recommend a podcast which I am currently enjoying: The Self-Publishing Formula by bestselling thriller author (and FB advertising guru) Mark Dawson and novice author James Blatch. I will be back next month with a full-length episode… Happy writing, everyone! If you’ve got a question you’d like answered, please email me or find me on Twitter. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). Please spread the word and, if you can spare the time, leave a rating for the show on iTunes. I truly appreciate your support. Thank you for listening!  

  Caroline Green is an award-winning author of books for young people. Her debut, Dark Ride, won the RONA Young Adult Book of the Year and the Waverton Good Read Award, Hold Your Breath won the Oldham Book Award, and both Hold Your Breath and Cracks have been short-listed for eleven awards between them. Caroline is Writer In Residence at East Barnet School and teaches Writing for Children at City University. She has recently moved genre with a pen name, Cass Green, and a brand new psychological thriller, The Woman Next Door, which is currently storming the Kindle charts. You can find out more about Caroline and her books at www.carolinegreen.net Also on Facebook and Twitter: @carolinesgreen or @CassGreenWrites    In the intro I give a quick update on my writing (I finished my latest book – yay!) and recommend Mark McGuinness’s new book, Productivity For Creative People which is currently free on Amazon (or from Mark’s website, Lateral Action). Mark is poet and a creative coach and he really knows his stuff. You might also like my interview with him in episode 12 of this podcast! Also, I have completed my first ‘independent’ venture and the audio book of The Language of Spells is out now! You can listen to a short sample on Audible and, if you sign-up for a 30-day trial, you can get the whole book for free. Here is the book on Audible (UK), Audible (US) and iTunes. I answer a listener question on the writing advice ‘show don’t tell’ and mention an article I wrote on this subject for Novelicious. Here’s the link. If you have a writing (or publishing) question that you’d like me to tackle in a future episode, please get in touch via email or Twitter. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). Please spread the word and, if you can spare the time, leave a rating for the show on iTunes. I truly appreciate your support. Thank you for listening! In the interview: Caroline on the realities of publishing:  ‘The year when most of these things were happening and I had national paper reviews and won awards and everything was wonderful, that was the year I actually did my self-employed accounts and cried because I had made no money.’   On using a pen name: ‘I think it just helps you to separate the two writing personas…’ On writing: ‘My perfect writing day involves going to The British Library… It feels like more of a commitment and I feel that when I’m there I really have to make the time count.’ ‘Storytelling is what inspires me.’ Recommended: Caroline recommends Into The Woods by John Yorke Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way Write Your Novel From The Middle by James Scott Bell Zoe Marriott’s blog The Zoe-Trope. The Pomodoro Technique for timed writing sessions.  

Mark Edwards is the bestselling author of psychological thrillers such as Follow You Home, Because She Loves Me and The Magpies. Before going solo, Mark published a number of police procedurals written with Louise Voss including Killing Cupid and Forward Slash. He and Voss also have a series featuring DI Patrick Lennon, starting with From The Cradle and followed by The Blissfully Dead which came out last year.     Mark’s latest thriller, The Devil’s Work, is out on 13th September. You can pre-order it here. You can find out more about Mark and his books at his website, MarkEdwardsAuthor. Or find him on Twitter or Facebook. In the introduction I reference this wonderful podcast episode from Joanna Penn and talk about my own journey over the last eight years. Joanna talks about the value of measuring your progress in ‘Olympics’ and seeing how much you have got done or how your life as changed in four-year cycles. It’s important to look up from the day-to-day grind and take stock of what you have achieved and to set goals for the future, and I think this ‘big picture’ overview is a great addition to the monthly and yearly goal-setting I already do! I also mention the audio book for The Language of Spells, which I have commissioned. It should be available to buy in a couple of weeks time and you can read more/see the cover reveal by heading to my author site. In the interview: Mark talks us through his long – and difficult – journey to overnight success! On writing: ‘I think that being a writer is so hard, the process of writing itself and all the stuff that goes around it, that you have to have it in you, you have to have that drive.’  For people who want to write: ‘Just get started, just do it. And if you aren’t a writer you won’t keep going and if you are a writer, you will.’ On the writing process:  ‘I don’t think you can rush yourself, you have to have time to reflect and let the story settle in your head.’ ‘I don’t plot it out, I don’t use any kind of act structure…. Somehow from reading so much, the template is there in my head and I’m writing to that without being aware of it.’ On writing dark or shocking material and self-censorship: ‘To me, books really have to divide opinion. So if I think I’m writing something that some people are going to hate or are going to be offended by, then I think it’s probably good idea to keep it in there’ ‘There’s nothing worse than being bland and safe… Take risks!’   If you have a writing (or publishing) question that you’d like me to tackle in a future episode, please get in touch via email or Twitter. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). Please spread the word and, if you can spare the time, leave a rating for the show on iTunes. I truly appreciate your support. Thank you for listening!

  Nina Harrington published her first romance in 2009 and since then she has won awards with her fiction, been translated into 23 languages, and sold over a million books worldwide. As well as publishing with Harlequin Mills & Boon and Carina, Nina has dipped her toe in independent publishing with her thriller, Deadly Secrets, and a series of non-fiction titles aimed at writers. She also runs a website, The Prolific Author, which is packed with information and advice for writers wishing to increase their productivity and build a long-term career. Nina took the radical (and not generally advisable!) step of chucking in her well-paid job in order to devote herself to full-time writing before she had written or sold a book. Six years (and several books) later, she received her first contract with Harlequin and hasn’t looked back. For more on Nina and her books, go to: www.ninaharrington.com On hybrid publishing: ‘There is a world of difference between amateur self-publishing and professional self-publishing.’ On balancing business with writing: ‘I just accept it… Most days about forty percent of my day is going to be spent on the business and marketing and promotion side.’ On writing: ‘I had terrible problems with procrastination and it was threatening to derail my entire writing career…And it was all about fear.’ ‘I am a perfectionist and I always have been.’ ‘It all came to mindset… Accepting that there is a psychology behind procrastination and that it isn’t laziness.’ Recommendations: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World by Michael Hyatt. Nina’s non-fiction books: How To Write Short Romance Kindle Books: A Forty Minute Masterclass Keep Your Pants On!: How To Outline A Romance Novel When You Are An Intuitive Writer Nina’s free video training: Keep Your Pants On Video Course Also in the show: I mention Joanna Penn’s excellent new book, The Successful Author Mindset. Joanna Penn runs the useful and inspiring podcast (and website), The Creative Penn, and I interviewed her back in episode #8 of The Worried Writer. In this book she shares the highs and lows of professional writing. Joanna has built a six-figure business and published many novels and non-fiction books, so she really knows what she is talking about. It’s stuffed with practical tips, and I had several ‘me, too’ moments while reading about Joanna’s thought processes, making me feel less weird and alone – always a plus! Don’t forget: If you have a writing (or publishing) question that you’d like me to tackle in a future episode, please get in touch via email or Twitter. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). Please spread the word and, if you can spare the time, leave a rating for the show on iTunes. I truly appreciate your support. Thank you for listening!

My guest today is Siobhan Curham. Siobhan is the award-winning author of several books for adults and children including Finding Cherokee Brown, True Face, Dear Dylan – which won the YoungMinds Book Award in 2010 – and The Scene Stealers. Siobhan is also an editorial consultant, motivational speaker and life coach, and has written for a variety of publications including The Guardian and Cosmopolitan. Siobhan is passionate about helping others with their writing and runs a creative coaching service, Dare to Dream, and has released a non-fiction title, Dare to Write A Novel. Siobhan’s latest YA title is The Moonlight Dreamers and it’s out on 7th July. Order it by clicking the link above or the book cover. To find out more about Siobhan and her books, head to: www.siobhancurham.co.uk Twitter: @SiobhanCurham Facebook: Siobhan Curham Author       In the interview: Siobhan on learning to write: ‘I decided to approach it the way you would any other business and start at the bottom and work up.’ On not giving up on your dreams: ‘When I told my teenage self that I didn’t have what it took to become a published author it just wasn’t true.’ On self-publishing Dear Dylan: ‘I’ll never forget the first book blogger who reviewed the book, I was so grateful to her and amazed.’ On writing routine: ‘I have to be really disciplined about it. It’s my job.’ ‘I have a little reward system, even during the day, I have little reward moments.’ On curing creative block: ‘Put on some crazy music and just freak out.’ On staying creative: ‘Keep your life interesting.’ Recommendations: Meditation. Siobhan meditates every day and she gives some tips on getting started. Also in the show: I talk about the difficulty of writing when life events (or political turmoil) derail you, and give tips on getting back to your creative routine. If you have a writing (or publishing) question that you’d like me to tackle in a future episode, please get in touch via email or Twitter. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). Please spread the word and, if you can spare the time, leave a rating for the show on iTunes. I truly appreciate your support. Thank you for listening!  

My guest today is Cesca Major. Cesca is a fascinating interviewee as she writes in two genres under different names. Cesca’s debut historical novel, The Silent Hours, was published last year by Corvus, to great acclaim. However, Cesca also writes romantic comedy under the name Rosie Blake. The first Rosie Blake book, How To Get A (Love) Life, was originally published by Novelicious Books and was then picked up by Corvus, as part of a three book deal. Rosie Blake’s latest novel is How to Find Your (First) Husband – out 2nd June, 2016! The Silent Hours by Cesca Major For more about Cesca Major or her alter ego, Rosie Blake, head to: cescamajor.com or rosieblake.co.uk or via Twitter: @CescaWrites and @RosieBBooks In the interview: Writing during the holidays as a teacher and the value of chunks of time: ‘I do hour long chunks and I call them word races.’   On the difficulty of writing: ‘It’s hideous sometimes and the first five minutes can be awful…’    ‘The hardest stage I find is that end of the first draft structural edit’.   On rejection and the journey to publication: ‘Frankly, being rejected is hideous and you have months at the start where you lost faith that it will ever happen.’ On bad writing days: ‘Don’t beat yourself up too much, have a cream egg.’ Recommendations: Cesca very kindly recommends my ‘Write Your Novel’ column on Novelicious. The Bookshop Café FB group: ‘It’s lovely to be part of a group where people are just constantly discussing novels.’ Cesca’s own vlogs on writing and editing on The Writers & Artists site. The beat sheet described in Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need The LOCK principle from James Scott Bell’s Write Great Fiction – Plot & Structure: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting and Plot That Grips Readers from Start to Finish On the importance of using primary sources for historical research: Nella Last’s diaries (Housewife, 49 etc) Also in the show: I give a small update on my own writing and reveal my plan to get The Language of Spells made into an audiobook! I’m very excited to dip my toe in hybrid publishing. If all goes well, I will get The Secrets of Ghosts and The Garden Of Magic made, too. I’m using ACX which is a platform which connects people who own audio rights to books such as publishers and authors, with narrators and audiobook production companies. I first heard about ACX via the wonderful Joanna Penn at The Creative Penn and I’ve also read Simon Whistler’s excellent guide to the subject Audiobooks for Indies. I will keep you informed on the process as I go along! Listener Question: This month’s question comes from Jeanna Kunce (windhillbooks.com). Do you feel it is important to be a part of any writers/artists associations? Aside from any conferences or networking benefits there may be, do you think you think it makes a difference simply having on your resume/submissions? Would it actually help someone get their foot in the door? Some people seem to feel it’s only your story that will get you published; others seem to feel that having that “badge” helps to make you seem more serious or professional. Thoughts? If you have a writing (or publishing) question that you’d like me to tackle in a future episode, please get in touch via email or Twitter. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous). Please spread the word and, if you can spare the time, leave a rating for the show on iTunes. I truly appreciate your support. Thank you for listening!

  Alison Waines publishes fiction under the name A.J.Waines and has sold over 150,000 books worldwide. Last year, she topped the UK and Australian Kindle bestseller charts with her number one hit Girl On A Train, and was also awarded the Kindle KDP Top 20 ‘Most Read Author’ in the UK. Alison used to work as a psychotherapist before publishing her dark psychological crime fiction, and she is a hybrid author, straddling both traditional and self-publishing. For more about Alison head to www.ajwaines.co.uk or find her on Twitter or Facebook. The Self-Esteem Journal by Alison Waines I’m giving away a copy of Alison’s non-fiction title, The Self-Esteem Journal, as I think it could be useful for those struggling with creative self-doubt, as well as more general lack of confidence. To be in with a chance of winning, just leave a comment on this post, or send me an email (sarah (at) worriedwriter.com) with the subject ‘win’.* In this episode, I give a personal writing update, as well as share the news about In The Light of What We See (it’s been a wonderful first month of publication, with 99 five-star reviews on Amazon, already – whoop!). I also mention brain.fm which uses AI-generated music to promote focus, relaxation and sleep. Although initially sceptical, I have tried the ‘for focus’ music and it seem to improve my concentration. I heard about brain.fm via Mark Dawson’s new podcast (which is excellent) – Self Publishing Formula. If you have a writing (or publishing) question that you’d like me to tackle in a future episode, please get in touch via email or Twitter. I’ll answer it on the show and credit you (unless, of course, you ask to remain anonymous).   In the interview: Alison reveals what it was like when a high-profile thriller was released with a title which is almost-identical to her own (already published) book. Alison describes her journey into both traditional and independent publishing and her experiences with both: ‘One of the nice things about being hybrid is that for some of the books I have complete control over everything and I really enjoy that.’     Alison’s writing process: ‘I love deadlines!’ ‘Never leave at the end of a chapter or a scene… I always want to put something that just triggers where I am for the next time I am back at my desk.’ On marketing: ‘People should play to their strengths.’ On fear: ‘I always come back to that awful terror of I can’t do this.’ Alison’s Recommendations: On Writing by Stephen King Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg The Artists Way Julia Cameron Life Choices Life Changes Diana Glouberman   Please spread the word and, if you can spare the time, leave a rating for the show on iTunes. I truly appreciate your support. Thank you for listening!  *Giveaway is open internationally. Ends at midnight (GMT), 25th May 2016.