#AmWriting

Have you ever looked at a project you’ve poured years of your life into and realized… it’s fine? Not catastrophic. Not terrible. Just fine.
No one wants to read a book that’s fine — and I am certain you don’t want to write one.
The first step in making sure you do better than fine is to catch yourself when you know you’ve hit a wall — which is way easier said than done.
We get so used to plowing ahead, getting the words down, prioritizing FINISHING that we often forget to stop and make sure we are writing what we really want to be writing. Think of that pause like checking in with your gut or your heart: do you love this?
Because if you don’t love it, your readers aren’t going to love it, either.
In this Write Big episode, KJ and I sit down for an honest, behind-the-scenes look at what happens when you hit a wall—and decide to set off a stick of dynamite instead of trying to climb over it. Both of us recently threw out huge portions of our current projects (my Write Big book, and KJ’s novel) to start fresh from page zero.
I share the story of my 12-hour wrestling match with ChatGPT over the books subtitle (yeah — 12 hours on the subtitle), the “tough love” reality check I got from #amwriting recurring guest therapist Dr. Diana Hill, and how answering one simple question—are you actually centering your reader?—changed everything about my book’s tone, structure, and voice.
Meanwhile, KJ opens up about why she threw out her protagonist, embraced a dual-timeline structure, and ignored the well-meaning advice of friends who told her NOT to keep starting over.
We talk about:
* How to recognize when a book is polite or timid instead of alive.
* The difference between an echo chamber (which AI can sometimes be) and a true truth-teller.
* A method for salvaging the gold from an abandoned draft without getting bogged down by old words.
* Why starting over isn’t “falling behind”—it’s standing up for your conviction.
If you’re feeling stuck, lost, or secretely suspecting your current draft needs a radical pivot, we encourage you stop playing it safe and build something alive.
Let’s get back to work and finish work we LOVE.
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Books Mentioned
* Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist
* John Wooden’s books on coaching basketball
* Serena Bowen’s novel: Big Stick Energy
* Virginia A. Evans’s The Correspondent
Transcript
Jennie: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Jennie Nash, and you’re listening to the #amwriting podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. This is a Write Big episode, where I bring you short conversations, this one might not be so short, about the mindset shifts that shape the work, and today I’m talking to KJ.
Jennie: Hi, KJ.
KJ: I’m so excited to be here. This is... Uh, you know. I’ll be here lots. This is great. Uh, the, the behind-the-scenes stuff- Is the behind the scenes stuff? KJ
Jennie: often-
KJ: And here we are just to like, you know, having a nice normal, um, a podcast, so
Jennie: yeah. I know. I’m so excited to talk to you and to share this conversation with our listeners, and we’re talking about
Jennie: So we’re talking about the mindset shifts that shape the work. That’s what Write Big is all about, and [00:01:00] oof, some big ones just happened for us both. Yep. Um, if you’ve been listening for a while, you know we’re both working on projects. They’re very different projects. Um, KJ’s is a novel, mine is a nonfiction book, and I just m- literally dropped a bomb on mine and totally blew it up and started in a new direction, and this is years into it, and you recently did that too, and you- I did
KJ: something very similar
Jennie: you were shy about sharing it with me, which I thought was funny. Um- Oh. ‘Cause you were like- Yeah ... “She’s not in the book anymore.” I was asking her about
KJ: something. That’s right. You’re like, “Oh, and this could be s- “ I, I mentioned something, and I was like, “Oh, yeah.” Yeah,
Jennie: I just mentioned changes. That was when we were in person.
Jennie: We, KJ and I were in person, and you know what? We didn’t take a picture.
KJ: Oh my God, we didn’t. You’re right. Oh, well.
Jennie: We both tra- We have a
KJ: lot of things. Travel It just means we have to do it again [00:02:00] soon.
Jennie: We both traveled great distances in order to have lunch and go shopping and talk about books, and we were walking and chatting about KJ’s book, and, and that’s when I learned she had blown everything up.
Jennie: So how are
KJ: you- We both blew things up. So I got questions. I’m sure you have questions. I have. My first question- Yeah ... you just did this, so how did you know you had to do this?
Jennie: Yeah, I did it yesterday.
KJ: I think that’s ... I know. I think that’s the thing that people wanna know, like, “How did you, how did you know?”
KJ: Okay. “Was it gradual? Was it sudden?” Just-
Jennie: Yeah ...
KJ: you know, j- tell, tell us how we should know if we should do the same thing, which I already did, and I have an answer to this too, so.
Jennie: Yeah, yeah.
KJ: How did
Jennie: you know? So I was ... I had a finished manuscript, and I asked two people to read it for very particular reasons, these beta reas- readers, and they, neither of them were people that I would call
Jennie: They’re not the kinda typical people that I would go to. [00:03:00] They were, they were more, um, regular readers, if that makes sense. They’re, they’re not insidery people like you. I mean, you and I- Me ... have a lot of insidery, inside the industry people. These were not those people. So I had a full manuscript. I took it out to both of them.
Jennie: I got feedback from both of them, and the, the first, the first person’s feedback was- Fine? It was, it was fine. It was like, “This is fine. I want more of this or that.” And it was, it was kind of like, not-
KJ: Fine, huh? Great ...
Jennie: not what anybody wants. Fine. I either want my reader to be like, “Oh, hell yes,” or, “I co- totally don’t get it.”
Jennie: Like, I want, I don’t want fine. So that was the first thing, and then the second reader [00:04:00] said, “I ha- I got some tough love for you.” And this was happened after I was really struggling. I was trying to rewrite while they were doing the beta read, and, you know, f- with my own critique and my own next steps and my own thing, and I found myself unable to go forward because of the title.
Jennie: I kept changing my mind on the title. Like, what really is this? And what, it’s particularly the subtitle. What, what am I doing? Like, after all this time, after all this time, after a million blueprints, a million conversations, a whole manuscript, I’m still asking myself, “What is the point? Who is this for?
Jennie: What am I doing?” And I, when I say that I was wrestling with that, I felt that I couldn’t revise until I got it right because I, the revision now is very [00:05:00] specific. It’s not let’s just get some words down.
KJ: Mm-hmm.
Jennie: And so I think I spent, I mean, I’m not even exaggerating- 12 hours? I’m not kidding. Playing- No,
KJ: I, I believe-
Jennie: Playing with my title.
Jennie: And-
KJ: And you kept sending me things, and I’d be like, “Eh.”
Jennie: Yeah, you were like, “Meh.” I was playing in Chat GPT- I was super helpful ... and the reason that I spent so much time was it was really fun. It was, it was like, “Well, what about this? Well, what about the other? I don’t like that word.” Like I was fighting with the machine, which I sort of enjoyed, and, and it was, it was
Jennie: It says, you know, it says ridiculous things all the time. “This is your most original idea.” I’m like, “Blah.” You know? Yeah. Just I was kind of wanting to- Yeah, you,
KJ: you, you can’t listen to it. No. You can only listen to what it’s making you say.
Jennie: I was wrestling with my own mind. Yeah. That’s what I was doing.
Jennie: Mm-hmm. And, and I would land on something, and I would think this, and I would start [00:06:00] to revise, and I’d think, “Yeah,” and then I’d send it to you. And you’d be, yeah, you’d be like, “I don’t like it,” or, “I don’t get it,” or, “Meh,” or, “No,” or whatever. And I was getting mad, not at you, but at my own self. Like, what is the matter here?
Jennie: And if you’ve listened to the podcast, you heard some big revelation episodes with Andrew Perella, who’s working on his novel, where you have to step back from the wrestling to say, “Why am I wrestling so much with this? There’s something else going on here,” right? Mm-hmm. So that was kind of what was happening, and then the second beta reader- Uh, who is, has been on the podcast several times as well and, and will be in the future.
Jennie: It’s therapist Diana. So therapist Diana often comes on to help us with some psychological things around writing. And- And
KJ: she has a book.
Jennie: She does. She has actually three. So she was the one [00:07:00] who said, “I got some tough love for you.” And she said, “Why don’t you come over, and we’ll sit down, and I’ll, I’ll tell it to you.”
Jennie: And so part of me was doing that thing that you do is, where it was like, “Oh, crap, I still have so much work to do, and, and I’m tired of this, and I don’t wanna.” And, you know, so I went into it with that sort of whiny, resistant attitude. And for, like, the first hour when she was talking to me, I had that really defensive thing of like, “You don’t get me.
Jennie: You don’t get, you don’t get what I’m doing. You don’t, you’re not, you’re not in my world.” Like, I was really resistant. And then she did the coolest thing because she’s a, a therapist and a writer and all the things. She used my own system on me, and she was like, [00:08:00] “Okay, step one is why are you doing this?” And she said, “I want...
Jennie: I’m gonna ask you,” I think she said, “15 times, ‘Why are you doing this?’” And we, we were walking, and so she was just go saying, “Why are you doing this?” And I was just spouting out all the things. And I got to about, I don’t know, eight, nine, and she goes, “Okay.” None of these are about the reader. These are all about you and what you want.
Jennie: And, and none of these are about what you’re actually making. Is this book... Are you trying to help your readers with what you’re trying to do with this book? Like, are they in the same place you are? And I s- I had this really strong reaction, and I said, “No. What I’m struggling with around this book is, is a different problem from, from my r- my [00:09:00] reader.
Jennie: I want to meet them here.” And I, and I said where I want to meet them, and what I want, how I wanted to help them, and why it was so hard to deliver that. And she was taking notes on her phone while we were walking, and then, uh, she read them back to me, and, and it was like, oh yeah, that’s the book I want to write.
Jennie: That, that’s the book I want to write. Like, I, I knew it, I just wasn’t doing it. And it was, um, a whole different structure, a whole different attitude, a whole different voice and tone. And, and it really required a page zero start. So I... This was what was really cool. I, um, did not use ChatGPT. I wrote a new subtitle.
Jennie: I guess I did use it, ‘cause I was wrestling with one word. I guess I did use it for this one [00:10:00] word. Um-
KJ: It’s, it can be a really great thesaurus.
Jennie: Yeah, yeah. And, and I sent it to you, and you said, I’m gonna keep this text for the rest of my life. You said, “I’ve already pre-ordered it.”
KJ: Yeah.
Jennie: I mean- You
KJ: got it
Jennie: It actually-
KJ: I mean, you know, you might change a word or something, but, but no, that one was like, oh, oh, yeah, yeah.
KJ: Okay.
Jennie: Yeah. It made me wanna cry. Aw. And then I re- I wrote a new intro, totally new from scratch, which is where I had been stuck before, just like even what is this? And I, I wrote it in, like, 15 minutes, and I sent it to Diana, therapist Diana, and, um, she said, her text reply was, “F*****g awesome.”
KJ: Yay.
Jennie: And I was like, okay, okay.
Jennie: [00:11:00] Like, two people I trust.
KJ: She didn’t say, “Fine.”
Jennie: Right? Two people I trust had that reaction, and when I... I wish I could find the text. Maybe I can find the text. Because when I sent it to her, this was what was so great. I do wanna find this. I’m scrolling through my texts now while we’re talking, because I said, um- New intro, just three pages.
Jennie: Will you read? This is it, period. I hardly even need to ask you because I know it’s it. Like, I, it wasn’t looking for confirmation or validation. I kind of just wanted her to see. But I, I felt it was it. I knew it was it. And then I started... I can’t stop writing now. Like, I’d been so stuck, and I can’t stop writing.
Jennie: I’m so fired up. I’m so excited. It feels alive and amazing. Um, it feels like butter on toast. Like, it’s just [00:12:00] smooth and easy, and I get it, and I, I, I’ve clicked in, and it, and it... This has come after, like, I tried to sell this book. You know? I mean, I went through that whole process and, and it didn’t. And now I’m so delighted that it didn’t sell, that I’m not writing that other book, that, that I get to write- Yes
Jennie: this book. And it’s, like, such a pain in the butt really because, you know, I wanted it to be done, and I wanted it to be over- ... and I wanted to be close. And I thought I was there. Um, I had all these plans, you know, for launching and making it happen and blah, blah, blah. And it’s like, oh gosh, now I’m like six months or a year behind.
Jennie: I’m using air quotes. Like, behind what? I don’t know. I mean, if I’m perfectly honest, there, there’s a colleague who has a book coming out in 2027 that I’m [00:13:00] twitchy about, and I sort of wanted to beat it. And- ... it was never gonna happen. And also, like, what is that even? What is that even? So I, yeah, I feel amazing.
KJ: This is great.
Jennie: Yeah. Yeah. I, I feel amazing.
KJ: That’s, that’s fantastic. Yeah.
Jennie: I, I just love it. I’m so grateful for, um, you know, the people that I have who are truth tellers, which is, you’re one of them. And you
KJ: know- It is hard to find a truth teller. And I pick up so many books now, some of them by, you know, very well-known authors, and I’m like, there, there was no truth teller- Right
KJ: for this person. And- I mean, I, I, yeah. You know, sometimes it’s just like, “Well, this could’ve been better,” but the- I’ve had a couple where I was like, “Wow, damn.” Like, I would’ve, I would... [00:14:00] Even though I don’t know you very well, if you’d given this to me in time, I would’ve stopped you, but-
Jennie: Well, I think sometimes the more famous people get, the, the less often- I think so
Jennie: people will tell them the truth, and- Mm-hmm ... you have to seek that o- out your own self. And, y- you know, I’m so lucky that I have s- have, I mean, so lucky. You know, you, you’re not gonna let me get away with crap, and I don’t wanna put crap out there. Like, what I had was fine. It
KJ: wasn’t crap. It was fine. It
Jennie: was fine.
KJ: Mm-hmm. But- And some of it was great, was, like, inspirational, really. Helped me, and had lot... But you couldn’t, you just couldn’t nail that the subtitle was the point.
Jennie: Yep. It’s so true. Yeah,
KJ: and you just couldn’t, you just kept sending me, like, “Ugh.”
Jennie: I know.
KJ: You know? Like, like, “Oh, this is a book about...” You know, I was like, eh, just like, you know-
Jennie: This is a writing book
KJ: boring thing, boring thing, colon, [00:15:00] boring thing. And it was- I know ... or, you know, like, like, “Meh thing, unexciting, dash-” “... probably okay.” I don’t know. It’s, it’s-
Jennie: I know, and it, you know, this is in fact the whole write big process. I am going through the very thing I am teaching people to do. And- Mm-hmm When I, what I really understood finally is the reason
Jennie: So one of the things, um, when Diana asked me, when she stopped me from saying all the reasons why I wanted to write this book and, and said none of these are about the reader, she understands about me that my whole career is about the reader. I, I train book coaches. I’m a book coach. I- it’s what I do. And, and so she was e- then asked me to really define.
Jennie: She was like, “When you’re coaching someone and it’s magic and it [00:16:00] just works and it’s awesome, what are you doing?” And, and it was like, I’m not pulling any punches. I’m not, you know, a- and I, and I described to her an incident that just happened, and I can’t say very much about it. But a very, very well-known performer was sent to me by an agent, somebody we would all know, with a book proposal that needed help.
Jennie: And, and I read the proposal, and the word that was just like a neon sign flashing in my mind was timid. It just felt timid.
KJ: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jennie: And everybody does this. Everybody shrinks to a certain extent from the thing that they know they can write, and it was like, wow, s- super famous performer who is connected to all the famous people, don’t write a timid book.
Jennie: Like, we don’t, we don’t want you to write a timid book. No. You don’t want to write a timid book. And in what I do, so I, I got on the Zoom with them, and I said, [00:17:00] “This is timid. This is a timid book. You’re shrinking from your authority.” And, you know, they were obviously taken aback. Um, but also then they ... It landed.
Jennie: Like- Yes ... I, I see that. And that’s what I do when I’m coaching someone. So, so why is that not in the book? Yeah. So the book has gotten much more confrontational, much more tough love, much, much less equivocating. It just feels- Much
KJ: less how to not do something.
Jennie: Ugh. Like. It’s so much more me, and I- Yeah
Jennie: sometimes pretend like I’m a, a polite and kind and whatever, patient person. But the people that know me, you know, know I’m not actually like that, so. Anyway.
KJ: And that would not be a helpful, I mean, that’s not a helpful book coach.
Jennie: That’s right.
KJ: You know, people may need that, but- For some people, give somebody
KJ: I don’t, yeah. I mean, yeah. Some, sometimes. But by and large, if you give somebody [00:18:00] something and they’re like, “This is great”-
Jennie: Yeah.
KJ: I, I mean, and maybe it’s great. Yeah. It’s probably not.
Jennie: Yeah.
KJ: You know, 99% of the time it’s almost, or it’s not even close, or it’s ...
Jennie: Yeah.
KJ: Yeah.
Jennie: So I’ve pulled off of my shelf some different books for inspiration than the ones I was using before.
Jennie: Um, Austin Kleon has a really cool thing in his new book. Why can’t I remember the title of his new book? It’s quite hard to remember.
KJ: I don’t know. What does he want you to steal now?
Jennie: I mean, steal, Steal Like an Artist is so memorable, and I can’t remember the new, the new one. It’s a good book, but he has this really cool image where he says, “Books are made of books,” and, and he has the cover of his new book with these inputs and the cover of, like, I don’t know, maybe six or eight books that went into his [00:19:00] book.
Jennie: You know, like the, that went through his mind to create his book, and it’s really beautiful. Like
KJ: real books?
Jennie: Yes.
KJ: Like his cover is like if you put, I don’t know, I’m look- reading titles from the back of you- you- you’re behind ... Deep Work and Dare to Lead and Made to Stick, and, and you like- Yep ... fed them into a brain- Yep
KJ: and then it spat out your book?
Jennie: Yep.
KJ: Wow. Huh.
Jennie: It’s really
KJ: cool. That’s a, that’s an interesting ...
Jennie: Yeah, it’s
KJ: bold.
Jennie: That’s really- It is bold, and it, but I do think it’s, I do think it’s real. And, and I had some books that were sort of ... What’s weird is I wasn’t reading them or studying them. I was almost like I would almost just touch them.
Jennie: Like, these are the books I want my book to sit next to, to be like. And I’ve changed out the books that are, are that. I’ve pulled ... Like, I have this book that I love that is, um, by John Wooden, the basketball coach, about coaching basketball, and you know, it’s about [00:20:00] coaching, and, and I’ve always loved that book, and I’ve loved how he was revered as a coach.
Jennie: And you know, that, that book is now one that’s informing me more. It would never be a comp title. This is a very different concept than a comp title, right? But, um, yeah, I just feel, I feel great. And, um- And folks who have been listening have heard me share some things where I’ve not been feeling great, and I’ve been feeling lost and confused, and, you know, shouldn’t I know better?
Jennie: I’m the coach of the coaches, and shouldn’t I know better? This is my 13th book, and shouldn’t I know better? And it’s like, no, you always have to do the work. You just do.
KJ: Well, and that’s what I hope, you know, people who’ve been listening along to us for the years we’ve spent on these projects now take is, I mean, there are people who write great books really quickly.
KJ: Typically, they are also people who are able to, uh, you [00:21:00] know, process and keep pots on the stove. And, you know, like Serena writes three to four books a year, and that’s, uh, you know, a really hard person to have next to you at all times- Yeah, no kidding ... as I pretty much do. But I also can see that she’s got pots boiling at all the time.
KJ: She doesn’t, you know, wake up on March 1st and say, “Okay, I wanna have a book by July 31st. What should it be about?” And, and that’s not how it works for her. And, and so even though she is absolutely faster at producing quality work than, than I am, it’s still, it’s not that. You know, it’s more like, “Okay, here’s this thing that I set up before, and here’s this thing that I spent, you know, a week plotting, and here’s...
KJ: And I’m gonna pull this, this toge- together,” and, you know, she gets stuck, but she, and she also, you know, she’s full time all the time- Eh, not [00:22:00] doing, you know, that’s what she does. That and promoting them. And incidentally, she had a book come out today. Uh-oh, you’ve gone silent for me.
Jennie: Sorry, I was raving and saying she did.
Jennie: Um, it was, it’s called Big Stick Energy.
KJ: Yeah.
Jennie: And when this podcast airs, it will not have just come out today. It’ll be-
KJ: No, but, you know, as we talk ...
Jennie: a few weeks ago. But yeah, yay Serena. Okay. Yeah. So do you have more questions for me?
KJ: It was more that I just wanted to express that I, uh, felt similarly, but minus all the other people.
KJ: Mm. It was a very, like I was really stewing in like, “I just can’t- You know, I wanted to have, um, a, a, something that I was thinking about the whole time as I write. You know, I really wanted to know the, what the theme was and what the point was, and I just wanted to know why. Why was I doing this? And every day I would like sort of wake up [00:23:00] and, and stew more on that, and like put some more things in that.
KJ: And it was like a, a 40-page Google Doc of, you know, me ranting and trying to get there. And then, then I was, I was putting words on the page, and I had 35,000 words, but I would sit down and I found the protagonist boring. She just ... The other people around her were more interesting.
Jennie: That’s
KJ: not a
Jennie: good- And- That’s not a good- No
Jennie: feeling.
KJ: No, it was bad. And I just kept sort of poking at this, and, and it was always so ... I’d say it’s, it’s, um, I would call it, I would call it domestic suspense except that it, it’s more of an outdoorsy book, so, you know, I don’t know, campground suspense. I don’t know. But, um, it’s, it’s not exactly a thriller.
KJ: It’s definitely a, a suspense novel. And it all came down to like, well, why did this [00:24:00] happen, and why and why and why? And I realized that all of it was in the past. The more interesting story was in the past, and the more interesting people were the ones who had had that past experience, and were still here in this book.
KJ: And it didn’t mean that, that I didn’t need a second generation of people, but they needed to have been, um, honestly fed by the trauma of the thing that happened in the past, and it ... So I, at some point, I was looking for the text while we were talking, but I can’t find it. I texted, um, Serena and Jess, and I was like, “Ugh, I think I gotta
KJ: The, I gotta, I gotta have a second, I gotta have a dual timeline. I gotta ...” A- and Serena was like, “Stop doing this. You keep stop, you keep blowing this bo- book up. You know, just write what you’re writing. Just write.” And I was like, “No, no, no, no. I really, I, I do. I do.” And, “Why?” She said, “Why?” I said, “Because that’s where the interesting stuff is.”
KJ: And she said, “Okay, fine.”
Outro: Okay, but you said- And then she made me explain it
KJ: when
Outro: we had a, a walk,
KJ: but,
Jennie: um- You said it didn’t involve people, but that’s people. [00:25:00]
KJ: Oh, yeah. Yeah. But the people were saying, “No, no.” And, and she’s right to do that. I’m very prone- Oh, I see. They were not- I’m a little prone to blowing, blowing things up
Jennie: they were not egging you on. They were saying-
KJ: No. Yeah. Uh, it was, it was, you know, “Can, can you stop rethinking this book and, and write this book?” And yes, yes I can, but it needed the, the rethinking. It’s, this is, it’s, it’s much more interesting. And, you know, it was at a point where things would kinda like, I’d come up with something and be like, “Oh, yeah, that locks into this, and this locks into this, and this locks into this,” but- The method of telling it wasn’t working.
KJ: It’s not really a different story. The method of telling it wasn’t, wasn’t, wasn’t working. But it really is kind of like it bugs you, and it bugs you, and it bugs you, and it bugs you, and it bugs you, and finally you just give in to it.
Jennie: Well, yeah. I mean, it’s a really interesting question of how do you know when you’re hiding from something, or avoiding something, [00:26:00] or telling yourself a story about your story, and how do you know when you need to make a move?
Jennie: I, I feel like it’s very, very hard to do that in isolation. You know, even with your situation where your people were saying, “No, KJ,” that’s a mirror that somebody’s holding up to you where you get to decide how you feel about them saying no. Like, the point- Right ... really honest, good feedback is not that you take it all the time, it’s that does this resonate with something in you or not?
Jennie: And with me it was like, oh, yeah, my fine manuscript, and then, and then this tough love. I’m like, “Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it needs to change.” And you hearing that, you’re like, “No. No. This...” Like, it, it was all, it all goes back to your conviction, but it’s- It,
KJ: it’s just like the way you were using ChatGPT. ChatGPT wrote nothing, said [00:27:00] nothing, con- added nothing because he is...
KJ: He. I don’t, uh... You know, it is not an anything. It is a echo. It is- Yeah ... a reflection. It is an echo and a reflection of all of our work combined into, you know, a, a, a stolen creation. But e- and therefore, as far as I’m concerned, we have a right to use it however we want. But- It’s not capable of producing anything original, but it is capable of reflecting
Jennie: That’s right
KJ: And that’s what you were using it for, and I think that’s really
Jennie: It’s really helpful when you’re strategizing- Mm-hmm
Jennie: and sorting out your thoughts, and this is what I think I wanna do, and this is why I wanna do it, and this is why that word isn’t right for that. And for me, that was just the-
KJ: And the peril of it kind of is that it refuses to stop
Jennie: So that’s what’s so interesting you say that, because I... When I... So I said 12 hours.
Jennie: I spent a whole lot of time on airplanes the last month, and this [00:28:00] is kind of what I would do on an airplane, is I was on airplanes that now have super fast, like that satellite hotspot- Mm-hmm ... WiFi. It’s super fast. And so it was kind of fun to get to do this stuff on an airplane. And you know, I can... I love to work on airplanes, but I can’t do deep work.
Jennie: So I would sort of tap into this, and I was just playing, playing, playing, playing, pushing, pushing. And I did have the thought at one point: There is no friend that I have on the planet or anybody that I could pay that would stick with this as long as I’m doing it. And-
KJ: That is true ...
Jennie: and that was in, on some, some ways I was like thank goodness that this thing will stick with my brain, saying, “No.
Jennie: No, not that word. Let’s find 47 other words to think about right
KJ: now.” But you’re the one saying, “No, no, no.”
Jennie: Yes. Yes.
KJ: Yeah.
Jennie: And no human
KJ: would do that. But I do find that a peril of it, like, [00:29:00] like I was trying to use it to, to find a, a stand-up paddleboard today. This is a fine use to... And, and you know, it kept... It just keeps saying, “Well, if you’ll tell me this, I could do this.
KJ: And if you’ll tell me this, I could...” Like, it never... It doesn’t want... You know, it’s not a thing, so it wants to keep you there like all things of its sort. So it’s a, it’s a little bit of, um It, it’s, it’s just something to be aware of. Like, it’s, it is keeping ... Its job is to keep you in that conversation.
Jennie: Yeah.
Jennie: And it
KJ: wa- But it is not a conversation because it is not a, it is not something that you can converse with. But so, so to use it for as far as you can get, and then as you did, to go, “Uh, and now, you know, uh, my thoughts have, have churned enough to have, have, have ... And, and you have to sort of, uh, you know, leave it going, “But wait, if you’ll sugg- you know, tell, [00:30:00] I, tell
KJ: Right. It- “I can still think of 452 more words for, for,” you know.
Jennie: And it, and yeah. No. It’s relentlessly helpful- It’s relentless ... in suggesting things.
KJ: Yeah,
Jennie: yeah. And it’s ... So on the one hand, that was lovely, and on the other hand it was like, “Just stop.” Like, the writer’s job is to have an opinion or a point of view.
Jennie: And-
KJ: It could have any point of view ...
Jennie: it will never have a point of view- No. Yeah ... or opinion that is based on anything. And so, like, your reaction to your, your longtime people who know you and know your writing, know your process, and know your goals, and know all that, y- you know, that reflection allowed you to tap back into your point of view, which is, “No, I have to have two timelines.
Jennie: I have to blow this up. I have to do it differently. It’s ... My protagonist is boring.”
KJ: Yeah. Don’t worry, future readers of this book. She’s gone. [00:31:00]
Jennie: But new protagonist is not boring.
KJ: New protagonist is not one bit boring. It was funny ‘cause there were just some things that I, that had come from the point of view of non-protagonist characters that I was just like, “This is so much better than
KJ: Like, this is the, this is ... Like, I wanna be with this person. I don’t wanna be with this person I’m ... This person just threw themselves into this,” whereas, you know, the person I was imagining and creating and, uh- Anyway, it- it’s okay. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.
Jennie: Um, I mean, I know you’ve had that thing I’ve had, which is I’m gonna have a draft by X, and you’ve had that- Yeah
Jennie: for many, many months.
KJ: The number of times I’ve said I’m gonna have a draft by on- Yeah ... this particular manuscript are- Really embarrassing. They’re not embarrassing, it’s just, you know, it, it, [00:32:00] it just, it just is. I’m trying to do something different, and doing something different takes time, and you are trying to do something big-
Jennie: Yeah
KJ: and something that has a big shadow and a big resonance, and you can’t ... You’re not gonna ... That’s not gonna be that way in the first or the second or the fourth or the fifth draft.
Jennie: Well, you said to me ... I, I’ve always had a vision of this book I’m writing as, as being small. I have a couple of-
KJ: Small physically, like thin.
Jennie: Both. Small in length and small in trim size. Uh, uh, spare, I guess, is maybe- Yeah ... a word I, I would think of. And there’s several books I have that do that, that I admire, and it’s a thing I want. And you’ve been always saying to me, “It’s really hard to write a book like that.” It’s n- you don’t just ... [00:33:00] Just ‘cause it’s little and short doesn’t mean it’s easy
KJ: It’s hard to write short.
Jennie: Yeah. And, and you’ve been warning me about that, and I think I really encountered that buzzsaw here. Uh, I’m like, “Ugh.” Um, so.
KJ: Well, you’re just trying to channel ... I think you’re also trying to channel a part of yourself that mostly comes out in reaction to others.
Jennie: Mm, yeah.
KJ: And that’s hard, because you don’t have anything to react against.
KJ: Yeah. You’re reacting against an imaginary version. You’re reacting against everyone that you’ve ever had to go, “That’s timid.”
Jennie: Yep. “
KJ: That’s, you know, that’s not what you meant to do.” Okay, great, but I didn’t ... Like, uh, this is, is, is fine writing, but why? Where does it fit? Right. What is this? What the hell are you doing?
KJ: What- Right ... you know? And you’re trying to write for all of those people, but as an abstraction.
Jennie: That’s super astute. That’s super astute. And I,
KJ: I’m gonna- Maybe, [00:34:00] maybe, maybe you, you address this book to, to the, this, um, unknown celebrity.
Outro: Well, I actually did write that
KJ: story. Dear Taylor Swift, this is how you-
Outro: Oh, gosh.
Outro: Can you
KJ: imagine? Don’t write a ... Don’t- Uh ... don’t write a, a, you know- Uh ...
Jennie: a
KJ: timid book. And I know it wasn’t Taylor. Well, I don’t actually know that it wasn’t Taylor. No. But it wasn’t Taylor Swift, guys. It wasn’t Taylor
Jennie: Swift. Oh, my gosh. Um, the ... Yeah, that is a really helpful thing for me to think about, actually, because I need to keep specific people in mind at specific points, and that’s gonna help me.
Jennie: And that’s the reason why I love book coaching, is I love the back-and-forthing. Interactive nature that is
KJ: very- Well, and you said to me the last time we talked about my book, I wrote it down, hold on, ‘cause it’s very, [00:35:00] “What can I say that’s not being said? What can I say that’s offensive? How can I make people mad?”
KJ: Here, do that. I’m shaking the page at Jennie. Jennie, what can you say that’s not being said about writing? Why, how can you offend people? How can you hurt their feelings and make them go away and go, “That’s worse. I’m not either doing that. You’re so
KJ: mean”?
Jennie: Well, the reason I said that is because we were talking about what books ... I mean, so far listeners, Kate is obviously at a level many of us will never get to, and in her career. She is at a very high level with- She
KJ: does not feel that way.
Jennie: I know. But, you know, with really big goals and, uh, big possibilities in front of her.
Jennie: And so the, when we talk about it, it’s like, “What will make people pick this book for their book club?” And, and that’s a question anybody could ask, and should [00:36:00] ask, if that’s what their goal is, to write such a book. And, you know, that’s why I was saying write something offensive, because you want some book clubs to be like, “That is a book we will not touch,” because- Yep
Jennie: that that means there are other book clubs that are gonna be like, “This is our next book, no question.” Yeah. You know?
KJ: Yeah. Like, if you- And we say it all the time, you write for everyone, you write for no one, but also it’s just hard to-
Jennie: Well, and I have
KJ: been- Hard not to like pull your punches and back up a little and be like, “Uh, I can’t mention that.
KJ: I can’t, I can’t-” Or, “I
Jennie: can’t be that person.” And you, as a human, I mean, I am so fortunate to be your friend, because you as a human will often say things that other people will, will maybe not say, or, you know, are maybe not super popular. And I go to you to hear those things, you know? And, and you, you say them with conviction, and I love [00:37:00] that about you.
Jennie: And that should be in your book, you know?
KJ: Well, I’m trying. I think it’s closer. Amazing. I think it’s a lot closer.
Jennie: Well, if folks are getting tired of hearing us talk about this, the endless struggle and challenge and up and down and whatever, you’re probably not in the right business. Because-
KJ: Yeah ...
Jennie: this is- I
KJ: would hope this would be reassuring
Jennie: this is how it goes.
KJ: I always wanna hear. That is part of the problem with the, the standard podcast model of talk to author whose book has just come out, because that is an author whose book has just come out. They have just, they’ve, they’ve done all this, and, and I’m not... I mean, by all means, you know, listen to podcasts about authors and then go buy their books.
KJ: Um, but you know, as a writer, you just hear that and you’re like, “Oh, look, they’re finished. Look, that,” you know, they, they, they... And they, they’ll say, “Well, there was this really low moment where, you know, the, my book pre- before [00:38:00] this got turned down,” or whatever. But they’re, they’re past that and, and you’re just like, “Well, yeah, but that was probably really short.
KJ: That was probably a blip. You probably didn’t feel that the way I would’ve felt it.” And I,
Jennie: yeah, so- Right? You hear Virginia A. Evans say she was rejected and rejected and rejected, and she finally just said, “Screw it, I’m gonna write this weird story in my head,” that turned out to be The Correspondent, you know?
Jennie: And, and she tells that in three minutes on a podcast,
KJ: and- Right ... I- And you’re like, “Well, that, that, that was short. That can’t have been very painful.”
Jennie: Right? And look at what it got her, and she’s fine now. But- Mm-hmm ... yeah, I’m mostly interested in talking to people when they’re making the decisions that lead to whatever, whatever they’re gonna make, ‘cause it’s the process, man.
Jennie: You gotta like the process. Yeah. Even on the days when it sucks and- Ooh ... oof, there are days when it does. They really-
KJ: There, there are, [00:39:00] there are indeed Yeah. Well, but this is pretty g- like we’re, we’re back. We’re back, kids. We’re, we’re- We’re, we’re back ... we’re writing. We’re, we’re, we’re here. We’re doing it.
KJ: We did. Yeah. We blew some stuff up, but now we’re
KJ: building it back. Hopefully a year from now you won’t be listening to the exact same podcast. We’ll be like, “Here’s what we said a year ago. Here’s how we’re blowing up our books today.” At some point everyone should be like, “You know they’re never gonna finish these books.” When is that point?
Outro: 2029.
KJ: If we’re still doing this in 2029
Jennie: and talking about the same books, you can, you can all just turn off. No, I’m on fire now. I’m on fire. I am too,
KJ: I swear.
Jennie: Yeah, yeah.
KJ: This is it.
Jennie: And there’s a thing that I’m doing that we could talk briefly about, ‘cause I know you’re doing too, which is when you blow something up, there are parts of what you made that you can keep.
Jennie: And what’s part of the fun is discerning that. Yeah. And for me, I’m [00:40:00] going through the manuscript and, and saving a story here, a page there. I would say like one out of 10 maybe. One-
KJ: That is not how I do it.
Jennie: Mm.
KJ: I start a new thing and then I will go back. Whenever I run into something that I know is in the other thing, I pull it in.
Jennie: Mm. Yeah, I’ve been
KJ: mining- It’s kind of my rule. I’m allowed, allowed to be in the other thing.
Jennie: Interesting. Interesting. It’s
KJ: only I have to take it ... And sometimes I don’t even drop it right into the Scrivener. I’ll like put it somewhere else- Yes ... and then play with it somewhere else-
Outro: Interesting ...
KJ: so that
KJ: Yeah, ‘cause I, I, I don’t wanna Sometimes, and sometimes I will realize that revising something that I already did, even though it’s good, to make it fit is actually harder than just rewriting it.
Jennie: Yeah. I just really like the physical act. I, I do this physical thing. I go in and [00:41:00] I literally strike out what I’m not gonna use.
Jennie: Mm. And it, it feels really satisfying. Just like, “Nope, nope, nope, nope”- Yeah ... nope. And then I’ll encounter a thing I am gonna use, and I’ll highlight it gray. That means it was used. And-
KJ: Nice ...
Jennie: it just ... I like the physicality of there are parts of this that are useful, and there’s a lot of this that is not, and, and I’m making that decision.
Jennie: It’s gone from-
KJ: Right ...
Jennie: well, it’s not really, it’s struck out, but- Yeah ... that physical, um- Yeah.
KJ: That was, that was what ... I forget the phrase that Serena used, but when I said I was doing this and I was gonna start it, and she said, “Okay, save past draft.” Like, she said something very clear. It was just, like, three words that were just like, you know, like, “Okay, but don’t, don’t throw it away.”
KJ: That’s so funny.
Jennie: Which I,
KJ: I wasn’t going to, but yeah.
Jennie: Do you feel 100% committed to the forward path now? [00:42:00]
KJ: I feel 100% committed to the forward path. Thanks. This is so much more alive.
Jennie: Yay. Same. That’s what we’re looking for, alive. Alive.
KJ: Yes.
Jennie: Yeah, I love it. All right. Well, um, so fun to chat with you, KJ, and we will continue the conversation.
Jennie: Um, also you have some stuff up your sleeve that, um, folks will get to listen to coming up. And for everyone tuning in, so glad you could join me to talk to KJ. Now let’s get back to work and finish what matters most.
Outro: The hashtag amwriting podcast is produced by Andrew Perilla. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday, was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were [00:43:00] paid for their time and their creative output because everyone deserves to be paid for their work


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If you haven’t caught episode 523 yet to hear me and Dr. Diana Hill talk about juggling all the things, you can catch up below.


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

On the #amwriting podcast’s Margin Notes, host Jennie Nash talks with Dr. Diana Hill, author of Wise Effort, about how writers handle mishaps and self-talk when juggling book-related obligations. Hill describes accidentally booking two plane tickets to a Washington, DC conference, prompting a discussion about shifting the story from “I’m disorganized” to one of abundance and opportunity.
Hill introduces Buddhism’s “wise speech” filters—helpful, kind, timely, and true—and distinguishes guilt (which motivates clean-up and repair) from shame (which labels the self as bad and can paralyze writers). They share examples of painful feedback and feelings of insignificance, discuss the “worldly winds” (fame/insignificance, pleasure/pain, blame/disrepute, gain/loss), and conclude that choosing to “pay the price” of a busy, opportunity-seizing life can be healthier than spiraling into blame or defensiveness.
#AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Read Wise Effort by Dr. Diana Hill
Transcript
Jennie: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Jennie Nash, and you’re listening to the #amwriting podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. This is Margin Notes, the place in the podcast where we talk about the big decisions writers face in their work or creative lives.
Jennie: And I’m here again with Dr. Diana Hill, author of Wise Effort, and we’re gonna talk about a really interesting reality that you and I have both noticed, Diana, which is that when you’re out there in the world with your book as a writer and you’re juggling all the things, you’re ... You have interviews, you’re putting, you know, inquiries out, you’re showing up for conferences or workshops or events or things, and sometimes things don’t always go the way that you planned.
Jennie: So today you have a little experience [00:01:00] with that, which is why we’re even talking today.
Diana: Well, it’s, it’s more like things don’t go the way that I plan. It’s more like I had no idea about my own plans because I’m juggling so much. Bec- I, I’m on my way to this pretty, uh, big conference in Washington, DC, and I’m going to present on a book that I wrote, uh, called I Know I Should Exercise, But: 44 Reasons Why We Don’t Move and How to Get Over Them.
Diana: And I’m going to present to a bunch of researchers and therapists about this sort of model of what gets in the way of us exercising. And I open up my American Airlines app and realize I have booked myself a ticket today and a ticket tomorrow. I bought two plane tickets to this conference without any awareness that I had already bought one.
Diana: And so I had to decide, am I gonna go tomorrow or gonna go today? And, uh, I canceled and said, “Hey, I’d rather...” And I called you, I texted you right away, “Hey, I have an open af- afternoon. Do you wanna meet up, Jennie?” But this is the case, right? [00:02:00] W- when you have so much on your plate because you’re, you are moving pieces around to make things happen, little bits of sand drop through the cracks.
Diana: I think, yes, that’s, that is a problem. But what’s the bigger problem is how we treat ourselves after that or during that, or the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and our capabilities. I think I said, “I’m so disorganized,” and you said, “Oh, I’m so disorganized.” And then we said, “Wait a minute, maybe we need to change our script.”
Diana: Right? Which is hilarious because that’s what your entire book is about, is telling yourself a different story, not believing the first story that y- comes into your head, which is, oh, well, what happened was you told me that you did this and I laughed and I said, “Oh, I, I do things like that all the time. I c- I think of myself as a terribly disorganized person.”
Diana: And that’s when we both stopped and said, “Well, wait a minute. What would the other story here be?” So that’s what- Yeah ... we thought we would talk about. Yeah. I often [00:03:00] think of the Lucille Ball episode when the chocolates are coming down the conveyor belt, and they start speeding up, and she’s stuffing them in her bra, and she’s stuffing it in her face, and they’re, and they’re flying off.
Diana: And then you realize, well, wait a minute here, there’s an abundance of chocolate coming your way. Like, this is, this may be a good thing, you know? Like, you have a conference that you’re going to, or you have all these different opportunities that you’re juggling. And we could start there with, uh, shifting to that type of a story, which is a story of there’s so much ‘cause it’s an experience of abundance.
Diana: It’s an experience of opportunities, of possibilities, which already shifts our mind into a different place. And you could notice that even in your body when you shift from, “I’m a disorganized mess,” to, “Oh, I have so many opportunities and possibilities right now.” Well, and what’s interesting in your case is that you, it, it wasn’t like you didn’t have a plane ticket.
Diana: You had two plane tickets. So in some ways there’s a story of [00:04:00] you’re quite organized. You were gonna get yourself to this conference no matter what. Or a story of I didn’t trust myself, that I bought the plane ticket. So I had, I had to do it twice. But yes, I mean, the, the nature of the human mind is that it’s a story-making machine, and actually everything that we experience comes through the, our, our mental filters, and we get to be the chooser of which stories are most helpful.
Diana: In Buddhism, there’s something called wise speech, and wise speech has these four qualities to it. The first quality is, is it helpful? The next one is, is it kind? The next one, which I think is a very useful one, is, is it timely? Like, is it a good time for m- for me to tell myself this story? Sometimes you might wanna tell yourself the story that you’re disorganized and you need to go get organized.
Diana: You need to, you know, clean stuff up, do a little , spring cleaning. But telling yourself that when you’re in the middle of a ton of other things and now you have to deal with your low mood and feeling bad about yourself isn’t helpful. And then the fourth [00:05:00] quality of wise speech is, is it true? Sometimes we do need to question, is it true?
Diana: Is it not true? But most of the time, if we’re getting all wrapped up with the, is it true? Is it not true? Am I disorganized or not? We’re just doing black and white thinking, and it’s m- usually more a little bit of both. That type of questioning our thoughts or questioning our stories and asking ourselves what would be the most helpful, what would be the most kind, what would be the most timely, and maybe what would be the most true, is a better angle to take with it, I think.
Diana: I love that. I love that so much. I know another thing that happens when writers are juggling all the things is sometimes we, we drop one of the balls and w- we disappoint someone. So let’s say in a different iteration of this that you actually were supposed to fly yesterday, and so you missed the conference.
Diana: You know, that, that happens when you have a whole bunch of things going on, or you wrote the time wrong down for the podcast interview, or you missed [00:06:00] some critical deadline, and now you have on top of that like, “Oh, I, I let these people down. I said I was gonna show up, and I’m not.” Or, you know, what, what do we do when the disorganization leads to those kinds of thoughts?
Diana: Mm-hmm. Well, if, if there is something you need to clean up, sometimes we do need to clean up. Yeah. I mean, that’s kind of getting radically honest with ourself, and there’s, there’s t- two layers to that. Guilt is a, actually an emotion that we evolved as humans for a good reason, to clean stuff up. I made a mistake, I feel a little guilty, I go apologize.
Diana: Um, I’ve, I had a, I gave, I did a white lie about something, I got caught, so I admit it. You know, whatever it is. That happened this morning. My son took my AirPod and he, he wouldn’t fess up. And finally he fessed up. I’m like, “See, doesn’t it feel better just to be honest?” Like, it’s just be honest about it.
Diana: But there’s a, there’s a distinction between guilt, [00:07:00] which motivates us to just, just to clean stuff up, and shame. Shame is I am bad. There’s something wrong with me. I’m a bad person because I scheduled two flights or because I, you know, had, said a white lie to my mom for taking her AirPod. Shame is pretty detrimental, and it’s the type of emotion that makes us climb back into a hole and not put ourselves out there.
Diana: And as writers, we need to be putting ourselves out there a lot. We need to be making lots of mistakes. Maybe every once in a while feeling a little bit guilty for something that we need a course correction on, but we course correct and we move on, as opposed to shame of I am bad, and then we’re paralyzed, frozen, and we go nowhere.
Diana: Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, you’re making me think of something that happened to me one time when I was out there promoting a book, and I had been invited to do the keynote speech at a big conference. And- There was a process in place where [00:08:00] my presentation was vetted. Like, I had to submit it and, um, and it was vetted and, and we were really clear on what I was talking about and what I was doing there vis-a-vis what some other of the speakers were doing.
Diana: So there was this nice work on the whole presentation, and I felt really confident about what I was doing. And I, I did the, um, presentation and, and it was sort of s- short and, um, I thought it was awesome. And then I got feedback from the conference presenters that I had completely misunderstood my role, that I should have spoken three times longer than I had, that I had delivered something sort of thin and not what they were expecting and what they had hired me for.
Diana: I, I just remember I... Actually, what I did was I gave the money back that they had paid me. [00:09:00] I felt so bad. I felt so shameful that I, that I said, “I, I can’t take the money if, if it didn’t go well. You know, I’m giving it back.” I was so freaked out about it. But as... This is years and years ago. As the years have gone by, I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’ve thought, it wasn’t actually my fault.
Diana: Like, I did i- all the steps that I did to make sure I was doing what I thought I was doing, and somehow I told the story that it was my... I did something bad. So- Yeah. Yeah ... that’s kinda, that’s what’s coming up for me when you said that. Isn’t that amazing? I think that that can be, um, our experience in so many different ways where we can fall into feeling bad, we can, um, we have experiences of feeling insignificant.
Diana: I mean, especially when you’re putting yourself out there, and we take one little thread of feedback, and it can destroy us, especially where that feedback is coming from. Because you’re getting that feedback from the presenter, you know, whatever committee. The person who hired me, yeah. Who hired you.
Diana: Imagine if w- if we went around and [00:10:00] we passed a microphone to the people in the audience. You would have been gotten a l- very different, you know, perspectives. And the, the question becomes, like, who, who am I doing this for? And, um, there was in- unclear communication. The last time I was at a big, uh, conference, uh, just a few months ago- I gave what I thought...
Diana: It was on, on the book Wise Effort, and I gave what I thought was, like, the best talk I’d ever given, ever, on this. I was, I was flying high. I got great feedback. I thought it was, I thought it was pretty amazing. And it was- You’re like, “I’m so good at this.” Yeah. Yeah. I’m like, “I, I finally nailed it.” Yeah. Like, so many times.
Diana: I finally said it the way I wanna say it. And, and when I give these talks, I- there- I- a la Jennie Nash, I bring in a giant notepad and a Sharpie, and I sometimes I do these little one-on-one exercises with people in the audience demonstrating Wise Effort. Like, draw what it feels like in your body and, and then I hold up the notepad for everyone to see.
Diana: And so it was the day after, I’m leaving the conference, and I had the notepad under my arm, and [00:11:00] I’m getting a coffee, and this guy comes up to me looking like a very stately psychologist. He comes up to me, um, in line and he’s like, “Oh, did you go to the conference?” And I said, “Yes.” I said, “I...” And he said, “Oh, big notepad.”
Diana: I said, “Yeah, actually, I presented yesterday.” And he said, “Oh, yeah, great. What did you present on?” And I said, “Well, I- uh, my name’s Anna Hill. I presented on Wise Effort.” And he said- ... “Oh, I think I went to that workshop.”
Diana: It sounds like it made a mark. Insignificance. Insignificance. And i- in Buddhism, there’s something called the, um, the four worldly winds, which are the, the, the things that push... Or sometimes they say the eight worldly winds, but they’re things that push us off our game, right? And they are fame and insignificance.
Diana: Ah. When you’re on either one of those, right, you’re- you got, you got, you got a chance that you’re gonna get knocked off. Another one is pleasure and pain. Another one is, um, blame and disrepute. Ooh. Ooh. Which is what you’re talking about there, blame. I feel like I was blamed. It knocked me off. [00:12:00] And then the last one is gain and loss.
Diana: Hmm. And so as writers, we’re constantly, like, facing those winds, right? I get pr- I get, I feel famous, I feel insignificant. Oh, this is so great, so much pleasure. This sucks. This is the most painful thing I’ve ever been through in my life, right? Oh, I got the book deal. Ooh, it’s with this, you know, kinda crappy publisher.
Diana: So f- you know, all up and down, up and down, up and down. And the question becomes, I mean, back to the story of juggling all the things. If you’re juggling all those things, where are your feet planted? Are you stable? Even, even if you’re dropping stuff right and left. And that doesn’t really matter if you’re dropping stuff, if you feel planted in who you are, what you have to offer, you know?
Diana: And yeah, you’re gonna ... It’s gonna go high and it’s gonna go low, and you’ll double book. Well, that’s what I thought was remarkable about what you did today. You pivoted so fast. I think you texted me, might have been before 8:00 AM. You were just, just like, “I have a whole day.” You know, do, like you just started making meaning of your new [00:13:00] reality, which was you’re not on an airplane today.
Diana: You’re on an airplane tomorrow, and it seemed like it took you no time at all to, like you said, your feet were so planted that you sort of just shook it off and moved on. Is, is that what it felt like? Yeah, it felt like carpe diem. You know? It was one of those, I was mad, I was disappointed, I was ... I, I hate those airline apps, and then I’m calling the airline.
Diana: I was in the struggle for a little bit, and then, and then I just dropped it and said, “Okay, then what do I wanna do today?” So already today I, I’ve been to yoga, I went to I went to Savoy to get my favorite salad, I’m talking to Jennie Nash. I’m like, “This is a great day. I’m so glad I’m not in Washington DC.”
Diana: Wait, is your favorite salad the kale blueberry? At Savoy? It’s ... No. Yeah I go s- I go to the salad bar because they, I think they’re the only salad bar that has like the, the most amazing salmon, like in the salad bar. Like, you can just like, you know, put wild salmon- Pile it on. Okay, okay ... yeah, pile it on. So that’s what I do.
Diana: Yeah. All right. We’re talking about [00:14:00] a little deli in our town. Um- Down in Santa Barbara. You gotta go ... I mean, it does sound like a great day. And then- Yeah ... we’re recording a podcast, ‘cause why not? So that, um, that’s really instructive. You, you sort of let the struggle be, and, and then you said being solid on your feet and not spiraling into the blame, um, of it.
Diana: Yeah. Choosing ... You know, you get to be the chooser of the story that you tell. And, um, and so, you know, choose, choose ones that are kind and ones that are, you know, for the most part true, but also ones that are helpful and timely. Yeah. And then when you do that, you can kind of n- weather stuff a little bit better I think.
Diana: And I’m curious what happens if this kind of thing happens to you and other people say, “You’re so disorganized. You need to slow down. You need to stop saying yes to so many things.” What do you say about that? ‘Cause that happened to you. Jennie, are you... I was gonna say, are you, are you only asking that because this happens to you?[00:15:00]
Diana: Yes. Does this happen to you sometimes, Jennie? It happens to me all the time. What do you do when people ask you that? Oh, dang. You’re putting it on me. Um, I usually totally take it in and think, “Oh yeah, there’s something wrong with me. I should say, say no more often. I should go slower. I should, uh, should, should, should.”
Diana: Mm-hmm. I do. That’s what I tend to do. Yeah. And then what are the, the costs and consequences of that for you? I lose faith in my own knowing, my own intuition. I like to be busy, I like to be challenged, I like to have all the balls in the air. Um, and so I lose faith in that, and it doesn’t feel good. Uh, then I, I also feel like I have to get defensive, um, why I do that.
Diana: And, uh, so then I’ll bring that defensiveness into my relationships. So it, it impacts me both inside and it impacts my [00:16:00] relationships. And then I think I second-guess the next time I say yes to something that feels like too much. So there’s like- Mm ... a lot of repercussions. Mm-hmm. There’s like dominoes falling from, from that.
Diana: Mm-hmm. And then if I were to say, that happens to me, you know, what you just described in terms of people are telling me, “Diana, Diana, you’re doing too much. You’re taking on too much. You’re, um, juggling too much. That’s why you messed up the plane ticket. You need to be more organized”- Yeah ... what advice would you tell me?
Diana: Gosh. Um I don’t think that I would’ve gotten to where we got together. Um, I think, I think I might be a person who would say that, who would say, “Yeah, you’re moving too fast. What are you, what are you doing?” Hmm. “Slow down. Take a minute.” I think I- Mm-hmm ... I think I might say that [00:17:00] to you. Mm-hmm. That was in fact the first thought that came through my head when you told me what happened to you.
Diana: I was like, “She’s doing too much. She’s ta- she’s got too many irons in the fire.” Mm-hmm. I put that... I did have that blame thought. Mm-hmm. Um- So it’s a, it’s a really interesting thing, this, you know, sort of the blame, or even if you’re s- what you’re saying has a, has a kernel of truth to it. When you tell it to somebody, you don’t necessarily get back, “Oh, you’re right, Jennie.”
Diana: What you get back is what, what you just described, which I said, what are the costs and consequences to you? Well, I go into either self-blame, blame, or defensiveness, right? So the question becomes, if, if there’s a kernel of truth or maybe there is a shift in, in, you know, I’m juggling too much, that’s why I booked two plane tickets, yeah, you know.
Diana: Um, or you’re juggling too much and your friends are noticing it. There’s also another kernel of truth in there, which is there’s a reason why you’re juggling all those things. Yeah. And, [00:18:00] and, and I would be... I’d actually go for that first. Hmm. So I would go for, in, in asking of you, uh, if I were your friend and I was noticing this, or if a friend were noticing it of you, to ask yourself, why am I juggling so much?
Diana: Hmm. What is important to me? Like, what, what... You know, why are you so busy, Jennie? What’s important to you? Oh, gosh. Um, I feel like I could answer that very easily. I hate missing opportunities, and the opposite of that is I love seizing opportunities. Things, really good things have come to me from... I’m gonna use the word impulsive, and there’s a reason I’m using that word, but impulsive decisions.
Diana: A lot of what I’ve built has, has come from that. I’m really good at that. Um, I think I’m good at juggling a lot of things. Uh, I like the feeling of, [00:19:00] uh, fast decision-making. I think I do better making decisions under pressure than I do when I have a lot of time. Yeah. So there’s a lot of reasons why I like having a lot of irons in the fire.
Diana: Mm-hmm. It doesn’t scare me. It usually energizes me if I were, uh, able to do them all without the blame or the defensiveness. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It’s a quality I actually like about myself. Yeah. I, I, I’ve, I’ve gotten a sense of that from you, and there’s also a bit of... And I’m willing to have the, I’m okay maybe more than some other people may be okay with having a little bit of that, you know- a, a tousled hair experience of things are kinda moving at me quickly, fast, you know?
Diana: And, and there’s a little bit of feeling like I’m kinda juggling too much. Like I- Yeah ... I’m willing to tolerate [00:20:00] that feeling because of these other things that you, that you care about. And the, it’s the, it’s the second arrow. It’s the layer on top of the blame and defensiveness that is the problem, not necessarily the layer of, I juggle a lot, it’s kind of a mess sometimes, and then it’s also exhilarating and I, I, I, it’s impulsive and, and I found that that’s actually a secret to my success.
Diana: Yeah. And there’s, um, it’s, there’s a, there’s a thing in psychology where they talk about, um, are you willing to pay the price? And what that means is like, you know, for example in, in a relationship, you’re never gonna get everything that you want. Are you willing to- You’re not ... you’re, are you willing to pay the price of like, you know, he has all of these qualities, but then there’s this aspect of him that wouldn’t, you know, he has that too.
Diana: Am I, am I willing for, because I love all of this, to also have that? Yeah. And if you love the intensity and the, um, uh, um, you know, the, [00:21:00] the level of feeling and impulsivity, then you have to be willing to pay the price of sometimes things being in that tousled hair state. And I’m, and I’m, I’m the same. You know?
Diana: I don’t, I’m not meticulous with things like plane tickets. Yeah. I don’t spend my... Like, my husband, he would spend like, you know, double check, triple check, put in the code for everything kinda guy. Yeah. Make sure we don’t have any credits. I’m like, I’m just... I’m just booking my flight ... No, what, what’s the harm?
Diana: What, what harm was done? Yeah. No one died.
Diana: And I can pivot quickly, so it’s fine. You know? And, and that’s, so I’m willing to pay the price. I love that so much. So that’s the story. The story is not, look at Diana, she’s so chaotic. Look at Jennie, she’s got too many irons in the fire. It’s we’ve chosen to pay that price- Mm-hmm ... for being this way, for working this way, for moving through the world this way.
Diana: I love that. Yeah. [00:22:00] Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Well, I feel like that is a great place to end, and you get to continue on with your great day, ‘cause it’s still the afternoon, so who knows what will come out of this day for you. Maybe something good. Yeah, surprise. Thanks for joining us, and have a good, uh, conference.
Diana: And for our listeners, until next time, stop playing small and write like it matters.
Diana: The #amwriting podcast is produced by Andrew Perilla. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday, was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output because everyone deserves to be paid for their [00:23:00] work


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If you haven’t caught episode 522 yet to hear me and Stuart Wakefield talk about his marketing efforts for his latest book, you can catch up below.


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

In this Margin Notes episode of the #amwriting podcast, host Jennie Nash talks with book coach and author Stuart Wakefield about approaching marketing as a creative project by making joyful “artifacts” that expand a story world rather than simply asking readers to buy a book. Wakefield shares his creative background, a past period when his creative practice stopped, and how he now immerses himself in projects tied to his latest novel, All Hands on Dick, set in 1956 aboard the cruise ship SS Celestial.
Stuart describes the book’s comedic, queer, mid-century influences and its characters, explains creating items like a 3D-printed ocean liner and a hand-cut 10-inch vinyl record featuring AI-assisted big band songs, and discusses building an animated music video. Nash also previews upcoming episodes with Wakefield on using the Blueprint method to develop a series, as he launches his trilogy A Gay Odysea.
#AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Connect with Stuart
* Visit his book coaching site
* Read his books
* Watch his music video
Transcript
Jennie: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Jennie Nash, and you’re listening to the #amwriting podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. Hi, everyone. This is Margin Notes, the part of the podcast where we’re talking about the big decisions writers face in their work or creative lives.
I’m here today to talk with Stuart Wakefield about making marketing a creative project. And you’ve heard from Stuart before. He has coached on the podcast, and we’ll link to that episode in the show notes. He also will be in episodes to come, which we’ll talk about in a moment, and Stuart is a fascinating individual who’s had a long career in all kinds of things, including TV writing, playwriting, a long stint in IT.
What? [00:01:00] And, and now Stuart works with me at Author Accelerator, and he runs his own book coaching business at thebookcoach.co. Welcome, Stuart.
Stuart: Thank you for having me, Jennie. I’m really excited to talk to you today.
Jennie: I’m excited too. This is such a, such a interesting topic. So the reason this came up is that Stuart launched a new book, which he’ll tell you about in a moment, which is part of a series, which he’ll tell you about in a moment, and I started seeing out on social media just all this really fun content that he was producing.
And obviously then I would get to talk to him at work, and I- he just would have so much joy, and then he would say, “Oh, let me show you this other thing.” And when I talk about fun content, I’m talking about, like, music videos, cartoons, animated [00:02:00] little shorts. He wrote a song. He, he’s writing a music video. He 3D printed a ship.
He printed a vinyl record. I mean, it’s bonkers. And so I just wanted to dig into this about what are you doing, and why is it creating so much joy, and what can we learn from it? So that’s what we’re here to talk about.
Stuart: Oh, oh, oh. Right. Okay. So, so in, in my creative practice, I have always enjoyed... You know, I started acting when I was five, um, so I’ve always been in kind of around the theater, even when my kind of IT career and project management career was all kind of going on.
So I’ve always enjoyed that. I, um, started a, a- A degree in fashion design. Um, after a year at art college, I, you know, carried on acting and then had a break in 2003. Uh, if I’m really honest with you, I had a breakdown and- Yeah ... m- [00:03:00] my creative practice just stopped. And about six years later in 2009, I started writing.
And you know, I’ve always been a creative person, and I’ve always been a storyteller, and I tend, but I tend to do it in a very short, concise way. So the shortest piece of fiction I’ve sold was 50 words.
Jennie: That’s short.
Stuart: Right. Okay. So I, um- Have had like a, a side art project. It’s called The Queer Historian of Emotional Truths.
Um, and there is a website that sits with that, and the idea is that the queer historian has found artifacts, um, and he is curating those and sharing those on the website, and they might be voicemails, they might be found photos, found objects. And when I got my... So I really love that kind of very small to- storytelling, those, those really poignant moments, [00:04:00] as opposed to great big, long stories.
Um, I recently s- sold a story to Divine Femins- Feminine Publishing as well, um, which is again, it’s cozy sci-fi, but it’s very much the small kind of human moments.
Jennie: Right.
Stuart: And I found that after writing this book, I became so invested in the world that I wanted to do small art projects that kind of lived within that world.
So that’s where this has come from. I, I don’t see it as marketing. I see it as telling those smaller stories within that wider world that really convey the joy that not only have I got from writing that, that work, but I think lives on after the reader closes and reads that last, that last page and then closes the book.
Jennie: Well, this is why it’s so exciting and inspiring to me, because so often when writers talk about marketing or think about marketing, they’re thinking [00:05:00] about, “Buy my book. Buy my book. Buy my book,” and that’s not at all where you’re coming from. I suspect... Well, with this current project, it’s, it’s brand new, but I suspect that that’s where it’s gonna go, right?
That it’s impossible to imagine sh- that you’re gonna share all these creative acts and artifacts and not get people... I was gonna say on board, but that’s gonna be like- The, it’s a- It
Stuart: is set follow... It’s set on board a, a ocean liner. Right. So on, on board is great.
Jennie: Right? Like the, how could those two things not happen?
That, I guess what I’m getting at is I, I often think that the results people want don’t usually come from the path that they think is gonna get them there. Right. The results come from doing the work you love, writing the story you want, and in your case, making this a creative project. Do you- Yes ... do you think that’s [00:06:00] true?
Stuart: Yeah. You know, very much so, and I was discussing this with a marketing book coach, uh, Rebecca Grogan.
Jennie: Mm-hmm.
Stuart: Highly recommend her to any romance writer. So that’s beckythebookcoach.com, and, you know, we got talking about creative projects and how much I don’t really like marketing. I always thought it was a very British thing not to like marketing, but the more and more US writers I, I meet and fellow coaches, again, you know, marketing can feel like something unsavory.
Jennie: Right
Stuart: And what I really want to do is show people these cool things I’ve made and invite them very much into the world. Because what I do in any of my creative writing projects, I have objects that represent what I’m writing on my desk. So, um, I have a book that’s set in 1907, so I got [00:07:00] artifacts from, from that time.
I have a book that’s set, well hopefully coming out in a few months, which is, uh, set in Madrid in 1958, and one of the characters works in a print shop. So I have wooden blocks, wooden printing blocks that spell out this character’s names. So-
Jennie: Oh,
Stuart: that’s
Jennie: so cool.
Stuart: So as I switch from project to project, I bring those things and put those onto my desk, and I just find it helps me get into that head space-
Jennie: Yeah
Stuart: and that emotional connection.
Jennie: Yeah.
Stuart: So because I still have a, a very strong emotional connection to what it is that I’ve just published, and I know there are two more books coming, I really wanted to sit and kind of immerse myself in that world. And the first object I created was this 3D printed ocean liner, because that has what has been sitting on my desk while I’ve been writing this first book.
Jennie: So when you say you 3D printed it, how did you go about [00:08:00] that?
Stuart: Okay, so I-
Jennie: Oh, and, and let’s just describe, since people can’t see it. It’s, it’s about like eight inches, 10 inches? Uh, yeah, yeah. So- And it’s... Is it made of plastic?
Stuart: Yeah. So it’s 3D printed, uh, so it’s kind of a, a resinous kind of plastic that’s- Yeah
just melted as it comes through the head. And yeah, so I found, uh, a model online, and then I... My comput- my computer modeling is not great. It’s one of the few things that I’d see that I don’t really, you know, have a skill at. So I contacted a friend and said, you know, “Can you modify this for me? Um, can you change the name on the side of the ship?”
‘Cause the model that was already there, um, had a different name. And yeah, you know, we, we worked on the look and the feel, and then when we were ready, we found someone else to, to actually print it up. So for me, it’s just a lovely object, and I know I’m going to be able to take it to book fairs. There’s one coming up at the end of September- So I have little [00:09:00] wooden life rings, we have ship’s rope, I have a reception bell.
Um, so all of these artifacts, again, when s- if somebody comes to my stand at the book fair, they will be walking into the world of the SS Celestial.
Jennie: That’s so fun. Okay, so let’s, let’s talk about the, this, the ship and what happens on the ship and the story and the whole thing, ‘cause it’s just too much fun.
So it’s, um, set in 1956 on a cruise ship. The name of the book is called All Hands on Dick, and it is currently out. So why don’t you tell us about first All Hands on Dick, and then the series that it, um, begins?
Stuart: Okay. So All Hands on Dick follows cruise director Dick Dockery, and Dick is one of those people that puts the passengers’ needs before his own.
So, and he is very good at his job But on the voyage from New York to Bermuda, [00:10:00] a slightly seedy kind of underground guy with a reputation called Van Valentine boards the ship. And Van very quickly identifies that what Dick is doing, that he’s fulfilling everybody’s needs but his own. So throughout a...
It’s very much a comedy of manners. So throughout that and some farcical moments and lots of beautiful sub-stories, um, Dick eventually learns that being needed is not the same as being loved.
Jennie: Very, very, uh, profound message in a very fun setting. So some of the other characters, tell us about some of these other characters.
Stuart: Okay. So we have, uh, newlyweds, uh, Buck and Kitty Devereaux. And Buck seems very nervous in his marriage, so one of the kind of mysteries is what is Buck hiding? And then eventually we start to learn that actually Kitty might be hiding some- something as well. We have [00:11:00] Aurelia Cashmere, who is a sort of a, a grande dame, I guess.
She, she’s first class. Um, she has come on board with a secret that she’s going to reveal something when they get to Bermuda. We have, uh, Tony’s sidekick, uh, Bunny Marlowe. We have a steward who seems to know everything called Tony Two Towels. We have a light-fingered magician called Pip Larkin. Um, and- This
Jennie: is just so great.
And you s-
Stuart: And then lounge singer... Sorry, then we have a l- a lounge singer called Rex Devereaux. Uh, and he has a on-off affair with his piano player, Joey Lamplight.
Jennie: Okay. So you shared with me that, um, you loved The Love Boat, the, the TV show, right? Oh,
Stuart: it’s one of my... It, it’s just fantastic. And I, I tell you what happened, I love the movie An Affair to Remember-
Jennie: Mm-hmm
Stuart: with Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant. [00:12:00] And you know, I was... My mom loved kind of ‘40s, ‘50s movies. So she kind of introduced me to those when I was growing up, ‘cause I was born in the early ‘70s. So you know, sh- I was kind of weaned on, on movies by watching those. And I loved watching The Love Boat, and more recently...
I say recently, it’s a few years old now, but the movie Down with Love, uh, with Renee Zellweger.
Jennie: Yeah.
Stuart: And I watched that and it reminded me of the Doris Day, Rock Hudson kind of sex comedies.
Jennie: Yeah.
Stuart: So the vision for All Hands on Dick and the series that it fits into, um, very much came from those, those influences, and the love of, of the, all of those things.
Jennie: Well, and it has that, and has that feel. So we’ll talk about the whole series in a minute, but some of the other things that you made artifacts that you made, uh, well, there was a song and then there was a record, [00:13:00] and then there was a music video. So how much time have you spent making all these things?
Stuart: I, I, I think, I think that wh- what, what happened was, I, I, I’d finished the book and I w- I was, I, something had happened.
I think, I think an old Drifters song came up on my, um, Irene’s, uh, list, and I’d been listening to... We have a, a TV, um, advert that’s on in the UK that, uh, has the song, um, Beyond the Sea.
Jennie: Oh, sure, sure.
Stuart: It’s Bobby... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I was, “Oh, okay.” So I knew that Rex, the lounge singer, one of his storylines is that there’s a song that he can’t sing.
Jennie: Oh.
Stuart: It is too emotional for him, and he’s desperately trying to get his career back on track and, but there’s this one song that he just cannot sing, but it’s one of the most powerful songs that could potentially bring his [00:14:00] career back. And I’d been thinking about songs and, you know, again, my mom was just a very, very funny wom- woman and, you know, we would make songs up together.
And I wrote some jokey lyrics, uh, called, for a big band number sung by Bunny, called Everybody Needs Dick. And, and, you know, uh, you, the lyrics are, are, you know, a bit silly here and there, but, uh, I just had fun with it.
Jennie: Yeah.
Stuart: You know? So none of this was planned. Um, now I know some people are gonna be really anti-AI, and I, I totally get that, but this was for my personal consumption.
So I put those lyrics into an, a, an AI and said like, “Can you write a big band, you know, backing track to go with this?” Just as an experiment, and what came out just really took me by surprise. So-
Jennie: It’s amazing. I mean, it sounds like a fully produced Andrews Sister song.
Stuart: Yes, yes. Love The [00:15:00] Andrews Sisters.
Yeah. And then I got thinking about Rex’s song, and I thought, “What kind of avoidant thing would Rex sing?” So I wrote some lyrics for that and, um, again, put it into the same AI, AI, and it came out with a couple of versions, and one of them immediately made me start to cry. Oh, no. And I thought, “Okay, if I have an emotional connection to this song, then I need to do something with these tracks.”
So I’d been kind of living in the world of the SS Celestial, which is the, the ship that the story is set on, and got to thinking about kind of souvenirs and, and would the ship sell souvenirs, and what kind of things might they sell? And I thought, “Okay, if I’m gonna have an object that’s all my own, then as my kind of reward for finishing the book,” I thought, “wouldn’t it be great to have a vinyl record?”
So then I get into researching how much music can you get on, you know, a seven-inch, a 10-inch, [00:16:00] 12-inch record. Settled on a 10-inch record because, um, Rex’s song is six minutes. It won’t sit on the seven-inch. Then I had to do my research. You know, were 10-inch singles available in the US in the 1950s? Turns out they still were.
Um, then I got to designing the record covers and the labels. I found a company in, uh, the, in London who handcraft. So rather than press a record, they hand-cut it.
Jennie: Oh,
Stuart: wow. Um, found a company to do that. And yeah, you know, a week later I had in my hands a, a, a 10-inch record, and that is just for my personal consumption, but, you know, I will share that on,
um, you know,
uh, social media. I will play parts of the record on social media. And yeah, that’s where I kind of got to in there, and I just wanted to share with people like, “Oh, look, I made this cool thing.”
Jennie: Yeah, yeah.
Stuart: And-
Jennie: I mean, it’s so cool, and [00:17:00] when... We’ll share, hopefully, uh, uh, cover a picture of the, um, m- the, uh, record so, in the show notes so people can see.
But when, when you share it and talk about it, again, you’re just filled with so much joy, like a kid. Yeah. Like, “Look at this.” Yeah. “Look at what I made.” And that has to feel really good, right?
Stuart: It, it really, really does. And, and, you know, my family, immediate and wider, are going through some really difficult times at the moment.
We started kind of March last year, and, um, I won a, a, a grant from the Arts Council here in the UK to, to really help me kind of zone in on my playwriting.
Jennie: Right.
Stuart: And a full-length play that I’ve written is, it’s very dark, and it deals with some very dark kind of, uh, themes and issues. And a friend of mine had said to me, she said, “There’s something wrong with you.
There’s, [00:18:00] there’s, like, this little light that has gone out.”
Jennie: Oh.
Stuart: And she said, “I think you should get back to writing comedy.” Um, when I wrote for TV, that was comedy. Um, my last full-length novel, you know, had lots of comedic stuff going on. Um, and she’s like, “Why don’t you, you consider going back to comedy?”
She’d read a lot of my writing when I was doing my master’s degree, and she said, “I, I really think you need that, that kind of lift.” So when I was thinking about what to write, I was like, “Okay, I need to do something that, that just really sits with me.” I’m not... You know, writing a novel is a big commitment, and you need to be around people that you kind of really love.
Jennie: Yeah.
Stuart: And I wanted these people to- So many queer stories I think are written from a place of trauma.
Jennie: Mm-hmm.
Stuart: And I really wanted a group of people who had relatively low stakes threat, but [00:19:00] could really live and breathe in their environment and find joy. And that’s exactly as passengers are disembarking at the end of this, this book, that’s, you know, there is hope and there is joy
Jennie: And I imagine that’s what you want your reader to feel.
Stuart: Um, uh, a- absolutely. I’ve absolutely written it for people who, you know, to take on a take on a cruise- Right ... or read on the beach. And, you know, I think it’s fair to say that, you know, politically and, um, literally the world is on fire, right?
Jennie: Yeah.
Stuart: Yeah. You know, we’re seeing huge fires all over, you know, we’re seeing political, just appalling political stuff.
And I, and I just thought I, I need this story and I need these people, and I think other people out there need just some fun and some joy and some lightness.
Jennie: So tell me about, um, right before we r- started [00:20:00] recording, you said you were almost finished with the music video. Tell me about that.
Stuart: Right. Okay. So, uh, Everybody Needs Dick is a huge, joyous, big band number, and I was creating a little short animation to go on, um, social media, and also I wanted the challenge of learning something new from an IT point of view.
Jennie: Mm-hmm.
Stuart: And it kind of grew, ‘cause I was putting some music to the, the reel on Inst- on Instagram, and I just thought, “Hmm, this could... Like, I really like the results of what I’ve been able to animate here. Like, maybe this could be something bigger.” And I used to work for Turner Broadcasting Systems, which is now, like, part of Warner Brothers Discovery.
Was there for about three years working mainly on the Cartoon network side, and I did some work with the animators of The Amazing World of Gumball, which is a very [00:21:00] popular show, um, in the US, and I kind of thought, like, maybe there’s something in this. Maybe I could put all of the Everybody Needs Dick story into, like, an MGM musical number.
Jennie: Right.
Stuart: And like, so again, it, it captures the look and the feel and the tone of the joy of the book as well. So I’m 40 seconds away from finishing. It takes about an hour to get 14 kind of decent seconds. And I... But I’m, I’m exhausted, but what’s keeping me going is watching it over and over again and feeling emotional, feeling that emotional connection to the relationships that are developing, even just through the video i- itself.
Jennie: Right. And
Stuart: what- So again, for me, it’s just immersive.
Jennie: What, um... When you approach Something like that, and you, you know, obviously we’re all, uh, learning, if any of us listening use AI for [00:22:00] various things, we’re all learning as we go d- because it’s so new. How do you approach the technology side of it? Like, in addition to the creative part, you have to figure things out, right?
Figure out how to do it.
Stuart: Yeah. I mean, you know, I spend a lot of time engineering prompts for all different sorts of things. So for my own writing, um, I have a prompt that runs through my chapters and looks at all of the nasty habits that I have.
Jennie: Yeah.
Stuart: And I was talking to another coach the other day, and I was like, “Let me, let me just do a quick word count.”
And that search, that, um, AI prompt, is 9,510 words.
Jennie: Wow.
Stuart: So I might have spent a long time working on that, that prompt, but it really helps me sit back, look at my chapters, really understand what’s working and what’s not working, and then from my past mistakes and patterns of writing, it helps me see those and that I’ve fallen back into to some of those [00:23:00] habits.
Jennie: Yeah.
Stuart: So, you know, I, I like to think I’m relatively good. Um, but again, some of the graphics that I was using on Instagram were... They were by real people.
Jennie: Yeah.
Stuart: And I thought, “Well, that’s not really the kind of look I’m after. I’m kind of after that... For the, for the video, I’m after that mid-century American illustrated look that is somewhere between J.C.
Leyendecker’s illustrations of the sort of ‘20s, and the illustrations that you would expect to see in an American magazine in the mid-’50s.”
Outro: Right.
Stuart: So I worked and worked and worked, you know, with an AI tool on getting the look right, and then locking that look in. Then I was able to take the images from Instagram and say, “Okay, what would those character models look like if they were in dr- had been drawn in this style?”
So again, we worked through those looks, um, you know, how smooth their skin was, what the kind of folds in their clothes should look like. [00:24:00] You know, we did a lot of work on that, and then it was really down to the things that I kind of learned at Warner Brothers and watching the extras on DVDs about storyboarding, um, the animations, and then really teaching myself the best way to use, um, the AI that I was using to get the best kind of effects out of it.
And I- So it sound- You know... Hmm.
Jennie: It, it sort of sounds like play.
Stuart: It is. It really is. And I, you know, I, I love learning. I loved learning to be a book coach. I’m always doing some kind of course, whether it be creative or, you know, to do with writing. And, you know, I like a challenge, and teaching- Yeah ... me this new technology, I mean, I’m 54, and, you know, there’s always that risk that the kids are gonna com- going to kind of overtake you.
Jennie: Sure. Uh,
Stuart: but I’m very curious about the world. You know, I l- I like my K-pop. I’m very excited today ‘cause Hatsize, you know, new EP is out. Um, I’ve had many a conversation with a 13-year-old who’s just shocked that I know anything about K-pop- ... [00:25:00] let alone I’m kind of into different bands. So, you know, I’m interested in, in pop culture and learning new technologies and, you know, it has been a huge, huge challenge for me to do this.
But again, it’s playing in this world, and I’ve also noticed as I’m doing these other creative projects, because I’m still mentally in the world, some of the stories for the later books are, are coming to me.
Jennie: Yeah. Yeah. So let’s talk about the series. At what point did you decide that All Hands on Dick was going to be a series?
Stuart: Pretty much from the beginning. I-
Jennie: Okay ...
Stuart: I, I... So the series is called A Gay Odyssey, and that’s- And
Jennie: it’s, I have to spell it. It’s- Yeah ... O-D-Y-S-E-A.
Stuart: Yes. So it- it’s A Gay Odyssey, and I call it, like, a naughty cal adventure. So- So, you know, I, I very much saw this as the ship as a [00:26:00] container.
Jennie: Mm-hmm.
Stuart: Okay? Quite literally.
Right. But also like a story engine.
Jennie: Right.
Stuart: So I thought this is, this is a world in miniature, and I wanted to have one overarching love story that covers all three books. But like The Love Boat, I wanted that episodic nature to it as well, because I knew I wanted to bring in different characters and different crew.
So A Gay Odyssey is, it’s a trilogy of mid-century American queer romantic novels that also examine, uh, the life we live as performance as well as the life we live in private.
Jennie: Mm-hmm. So that’s where the, the lounge singer and the piano player, the literal- Yeah ... performers and the magician, as well as the just regular people who are performing different roles and things.
Ab-
Stuart: a- absolutely. You know, Buck is, is performing kind of the dutiful husband, and that’s clearly not what’s going [00:27:00] under, on under the surface. And, you know, Kitty is very much wanting to go out, you know, understand what’s w- I want to say in quotes, “wrong with him.”
Jennie: Right.
Stuart: And yet Kitty starts to believe that actually she might not entirely be the person she thinks she is.
So again, it’s, some of it’s around self-discovery, um, and some of it is just how you move in the world when the world is telling you you shouldn’t be who you are. I mean, it’s coming off the back of the Lavender Scare- Mm-hmm ... in the US, um, that Eisenhower signed in 1953 where queer
Jennie: people-
Stuart: I’m not familiar with
Jennie: that.
Stuart: Oh, okay. So I think it was Order 105410
or s- or, or something. But Eisenhower signed it, signed it in 1953, and it basically meant that nobody, no gay man or lesbian could work in a federal job.
Jennie: Oh, I, I was not aware of that.
Stuart: So, you know, thousands and thousands of people were put [00:28:00] out of employment in the US. Wow. So it’s coming off the back of that Lavender Scare, um, and it was very much treated like they were a security risk.
Jennie: Wow. Um, I’m not gonna get really deep into the series because you and I are gonna do a deep dive on, uh, series development. Um, and for our listeners, Stuart is obviously, um, I would say one of the world’s foremost experts on my blueprint method. H- how’s that for a title?
Stuart: That’s very kind of you.
Jennie: Um, he teaches it, he coaches it, he holds the high bar for certification that we have at Author Accelerator around the blueprint and other things.
But one of the things that he has really done is, is to do a very deep dive on understanding how to use the blueprint [00:29:00] to develop a series, and how you think about one book, how you think about the whole series, the, the order of things, the, the way this tool can be used in this way, and his work on this is, uh, blew me away truly.
So I’ve asked Stuart to come back onto the podcast, and we’re going to do a series of two, uh, podcasts, where in one we’re gonna talk about the overview of how to use the blueprint to develop a series, and it can be any genre, uh, any- Mm-hmm ... fictional genre, and then we’re gonna do a second podcast on ... Now I can’t remember what it was, but I think it was
Oh, the story engine, and you, and you referenced that with, for your series, the, the ship and, and this container and how to develop a story engine. [00:30:00] And this will also all lead to a special offer to work directly with Stuart on a series, so, um, using the blueprint. So all of that, I’m making all these big promises.
I hope they all come true.
Stuart: They will. They will.
Jennie: Um, all of this is just, uh, laying the groundwork for, for folks who are interested in designing, developing, building a series, and, um, doing it with somebody who has this incredible creative and playful mind, and you can get a sense of the way Stuart thinks and, and works and, um, of the things that he makes.
Uh, can you tell us, Stuart, w- if people wanna read All Hands on Deck right now, where can they go? If people wanna find you, and how on earth can they see and hear all this cool stuff you’ve made? Tell us all the things.
Stuart: Okay. [00:31:00] So, uh, in terms of, obviously you can find me at thebookcoach.co. On Instagram, I’m Mr.
S Wakefield. Um, so that’s where you’ll be able to see where I share the cool things that I’ve made. Um, and then in terms of buying, I mean, all good bookstores. I’ve already had some, some podcast listeners of mine send me pictures of them holding their, uh, books in, you know, American bookstores, which is fantastic to see.
Uh, so yeah, you know, everywhere that you can buy a book. It’s not just Amazon, boo, hiss. Um, you know, you should be able to get it in all, all, you know, good, good bookstores.
Jennie: Excellent. So, uh, say your, say that Instagram again, just so people can hear.
Stuart: Uh, it’s Mr. S Wakefield.
Jennie: Okay, great. Well, um, we have much more to talk about, and we, and we will be talking about, but this was just so fun to hear your process and this, um, this sense of marketing as a [00:32:00] creative project.
And it’ll be really fun to follow along and check in with you in our next episodes about where all of this stands as well.
Stuart: Great. Thank you.
Jennie: Thanks for joining us, Stuart.
Stuart: Okay. Take care, Jennie. Bye.
Jennie: And for our listeners, thanks for listening. Now let’s get back to work and finish what matters most
Outro: The hashtag amwriting podcast is produced by Andrew Perilla. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday, was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output because everyone deserves to be paid for their [00:33:00] work


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