#AmWriting

Our Goals for 2026:
Jess is gonna finish a novel.
Sarina is going to figure out what she wants a long haul writer career to looks like.
KJ is going to write this book as hard as she can and for as long as it takes.
Jennie is going to claim her authority in the writing space.
Our Words of the Year are …
Meanwhile: Fan of Heated Rivalry? You’ll want to read these books by Sarina Bowen!
Ready to talk about your own goals and words? COME ON IN. We are here for that!

Hey - if you’ve been curious about becoming a book coach, Jennie’d like to invite you to a live training she’s doing on February 4th, at 5pm PST / 8pm EST. She’s going to be talking about how to become the kind of book coach writers love to pay. You can sign up at bookcoaches.com/live
WOTYs … in the episode! If you want to know what was so funny, you’ll have to listen.
Transcript Below!
If you love us enough that you got this far…

SPONSORSHIP MESSAGE
Hey, it’s Jennie Nash, and if you’ve been curious about becoming a book coach, I’d like to invite you to a live training I’m going to be doing on February 4th, at 5pm PST, which is 8pm EST, and I’m going to be talking about how to become the kind of book coach writers love to pay. You can sign up for that at bookcoaches.com/live. That’s bookcoaches.com/live. (bookcoaches.com/live) I’d love to see you there.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Jennie Nash
Hey everyone, it’s Jennie, and this is the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast, the place where we help you play big in your writing life, love the process, and finish what matters. All four of us are here today to talk about our Word of the Year for 2026 and our goals. This is one of our favorite episodes to do, and we’ve all been kicking our words around, and we’re ready to share them with you. So Sarina, do you want to go first?
Sarina Bowen
Okay!
Jennie Nash
I just know you are kind of ready.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Right off the diving board. No throat clearing, no chit chat. Yeah, we’re just alrighty.
Sarina Bowen
All right, so I’m Sarina, and I write novels, and pretty much that is all I write. So my goals tend to look kind of the same from year to year, but my, but how I feel about them, changes. So in 2026 I plan to write two to three books, and when I do, I will be rolling off of two contracts with two different publishers. So that means that the other part of my 2026 is really asking myself what I want to do next. Because, you know, finishing energy is a really hard thing, but I’ll be like extra super finishing energy here, because I’m finishing a commitment. And, you know, I used to have goals, like, I’m going to write more books. I’m going to write all the books. And I don’t anymore, because there were, there was a while there where I only wrote books, and then last year, I did a really nice job of meeting my goals that I would also go and have more fun and take more vacations. And it worked. I did that. It turns out that planning fun takes a lot of energy and time. Oh my goodness, it was I, you know, I so I was either off having a wild time, or I was like, you know, nailed to my desk, and, yeah, so I need to do a slightly better job of that this year. Although looking at the schedule, it’s a little hard to see how, because I’m spending a big chunk of March and part of April in Australia and Hong Kong, and then...
Jennie Nash
Wait you can’t just throw that in and not say why. [laughing]
Sarina Bowen
Oh, well, I’m, I’m visiting. I’m doing four reader events in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
Jennie Nash
It’s so exciting, so exciting.
Sarina Bowen
And you know, time will tell if accepting this invitation was, in fact, a good idea. When I get home, I will be—it’ll be June, and I will be launching my second book of 2026, which is a romance and so, but, but then, you know, I will have turned in half of what I’m turning in this year, and I will be able to have big thoughts about what I do next. And that is the thing that is going to be hard about this year, not turning in files, but, you know, deciding what does it mean to me? And also a thing that I realized last year, while balancing my busy life is that in this job, there is no summit. It’s not like you climb that big hill and then you stand there and you hear an angel choir, and then you know that the only thing that greets you after writing a big novel is that you will pretty soon, eventually write another one. So you have to enjoy the hike itself. And I am really working on that.
Jess Lahey
I actually have just—I have just to address what you just mentioned Sarina, I have put in my calendar in June. Since we love to—I happen to love the mid-year check-ins on goals. I put a little note to self, to future Jess to revisit Sarina’s goals at mid-year so that we can talk about maybe what that second half of the year, what comes next, stuff is going to look like. So, expect that to come back around.
Sarina Bowen
Okay, I hope there’s some clarity by then, so I’ll get right on that.
Jess Lahey
Well, and I would also like to mention that you mentioned, you know, all the work you’re doing and doing fun and stuff like that. You also went back to skating this year, and you, I have loved watching you learn, relearn something fairly new, and gain skills and get determined to like, be able to do that. What’s it called, when you change the side of the blade you’re on? When you turn?
Sarina Bowen
Yeah, all that edge work...
Jess Lahey
It’s very exciting.
Sarina Bowen
And those three turns. Yeah. So that is part of my leave the house and have fun plan, and that has worked out really well. It—when you do something that’s so outside of your usual, like, we could just stipulate by now that I’m pretty good at writing a novel, because I have turned in a number of them and sold a number of them, but I am really not good at skating. So when you take yourself so far out of your element, and you do something that is so foreign to you, you learn, relearn all those weird little tricks about how you learned anything, and the fact that last year I could not do a three turn to save my life, which is where you turn around on one foot. And I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried to trick myself into it. And I’m like, okay, I’ll take off on two feet, but land on one. I just every single thing didn’t work. And then this year, now I can do it. And also, I woke up at four in the morning once and thought I could do a waltz jump tomorrow, and then the next day I did, in fact, just do a waltz jump. And I hadn’t even been thinking about it. It wasn’t even on my list of things I was going to try that week. So learning something really, really new is really just great for your brain and your attitude. And I don’t know what the next thing that I do like that will be, but, yeah, I’m a fan.
Jennie Nash
But I must reflect back to you that a few years ago, you were, I think the goals had to you were working so hard and just, you know, book to book to book to book and, like, look at you now .You’re going on all these trips, and you’re learning to ice skate, and I know you and KJ are learning Mahjong.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Mahjong, yes.
Jennie Nash
And you write in coffee shops like, you’ve kind of really changed that, that vibe. It’s cool.
Sarina Bowen
I have! I did it right? Like I said, I’m going to have more fun. I’m going to learn to write out of the house. Like I sat in a room and said to you that this was going to happen. And I did, right? But the, but then, but then, writing the actual books, it magically did not get easier. So I am having more fun, but it’s still hard, and that’s how I’m coming to this new realization that, like you know, I need to stop being surprised that the actual job is hard, but it’s just like a piece of the fun that I’m having, and if and I can only write books that I’m probably going to enjoy, because it’s still hard and it still takes a lot of hours.
Jennie Nash
That’s amazing. I feel compelled to ask you, what are you most enjoying about what you’re writing right now?
Sarina Bowen
Well we are at maximum finishing energy, because I am finishing a revision, which is scary, right? Because then you’re sending it off into the world of telling yourself that it’s done. And I have to say, I have not enjoyed it all that much. This has been one of the more one of the more stressful weeks. But, yeah, I—but there are moments as I look through this manuscript, because I’ve just reached that point where you hate every living word of it, right? Where I read a line and I laugh, and then that’s just a good sign.
Jennie Nash
Like I’m so clever, look at me.
Multiple Speakers
[all laughing]
Jess Lahey
I actually just, just for fun. I just dropped—I got to go—I traveled an hour and a half to go so that I could go sit in a coffee shop and work with these guys, because I miss them so much. And I took two pictures of Sarina while she was working there, and in one, she had this look on her face... I just dropped it in our group text just now, where she’s got this look on her face like this is the hardest, worst thing I’ve ever done. And then I also took one of her smiling and looking like her usual happy self. But it was—I love having those two pictures together on my phone, because it’s so representative of the slog. How there are these moments of really having fun and engaging with the book and loving it, and then there’s those moments of editing where you’re trying to just finish it and get all the words in the right order.
Sarina Bowen
Yep, it’s, it’s, you know that the push and pull and the trick to liking this job is that when you’re in that trench of I have to be finished with this. I have to love it, and I have to set it free. You have to remember that the other side is out there. That like the drafting happy, I haven’t made any big mistakes yet, I haven’t sealed off all the x’s yet, like that’s waiting for you on the other side of it. You know, if you get too deep in one place or the other, so that you can’t remember, the other one is out there for you. Then, then that’s a trap. It makes the job harder.
Jennie Nash
Well, thank you for that. Jess, do you want to go next?
Jess Lahey
Sure! Yeah, so last year, last year was weird. Last year, my, my, I’m going a little bit into what my word was last year; it was ‘amplified’ because it led, it sort of guided a lot of my goals last year, which had to do with just reaching more people, but during the year, during the course of the year, reaching and educating more people on the topics that I feel really strongly about, like mental health wellness, the specifically substance use prevention, as it relates to things like self-efficacy in kids and feelings of competence in kids. I realized sort of part way through the year how much more I was enjoying and feeling engaged when I was talking to the kids, and how much more impactful I felt when I was talking to the kids, and that shouldn’t be surprising. But, if you’re not a speaker, and if you don’t spend your time speaking to adults and kids and especially teens, you should know it takes, you know, maybe three to four times as much energy to talk to the kids as it does to the adults. In fact, yesterday, I was trying to explain to someone why a virtual event to a lot of kids, doesn’t work. I can’t project that much energy through a screen to captivate a big room of kids. It’s just it’s really hard to do. And anyway, so I realized about halfway through the year that I really wanted when I when I thought about the word amplify and expanding on the number of kids that I reach per year, and the depth to which I am able to reach some kids in particular, it comes it comes down to not just people, but just kids specifically. So I talked with my agents, and we’ve agreed that I’m going to try to incorporate more kids this year. That even if it’s more exhausting for me, it’s more fulfilling, and so that’s one of my big goals for this year, is to figure out how—yes, I still have to talk to adults, and I have to help them understand how to talk to their kids about substance use and mental health and how to see, know, love, support the kids you have, and not the kids you wish you had and all that stuff. But when it comes down to it, I have to figure out ways to get in the room with kids more and...
KJ Dell’Antonia
You’re a kid-travert!
Jess Lahey
[laughing] Apparently.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Which some people get their energy from being with people, and some people get, you know, it takes—that’s extroverts and introverts. So you’re a kid-travert, you get your energy from talking to kids. That’s delightful!
Jess Lahey
It’s in the moment. In the moment, it’s much more exhausting. But there was a—I spoke at a school in Los Angeles. It was one of the best days I had in front of kids. And the number of emails I got afterwards explaining why it was meaningful to them. You know, I love when the kids, anytime a kid reaches out, it’s this huge honor, because, you know, I’m, who am I? I’m some adult that comes into their school because their teachers say that, and now their teachers say they have to listen to this bozo. They don’t know who this person is. But over time, I’ve figured out ways to help them trust me a little bit more, even before I get there. Like creating these videos where I introduce myself ahead of time. So I’m trying to figure out all the ways in to getting being a trusted adult, becoming a trusted adult to more and more kids, is something that’s incredibly important to me, because that’s where the great education stuff lies. So that amplify word changed for me over last year, and it’s reflected in this year’s goals as well, which is, get in front of more kids. I track those numbers really carefully. Last year, I was in front of just shy of 10,000 people generally, and a couple of 1000 kids. And I just want to change that ratio a little bit so that it’s have more heavily in the kid direction and less heavily in the adult direction. Just because it’s fun and really interesting and challenging. That’s the other thing is, when you’ve been doing something for a long time, there are some talks I can do in my sleep, because I’ve done them so many times, and I don’t want to do that, like, why would you want to come and spend time with someone who’s asleep in front of you? But you know, they look good and it sounds good, but they’re not totally invested. And I think everybody can feel that. So I’ve had to find ways to change things up, to reevaluate my content from other angles, so that I’m not getting sick of myself, and so that I can be fresh and new and useful to people. So, and then, like, I have small goals, you know, Sarina was just talking about her skating and looking, you know, trying to do something completely new that makes you a little nervous. You know, the beekeeping thing still makes me super nervous. And as I mentioned in another episode, I think Tim saw me emotionally preparing to do something I needed to do with the bees and he said I have never seen you so nervous and so doubting yourself about your ability to do something, and I realized how good that is for me. And so we will see at the end of this winter if my bees actually made it through the winter, and if they did, I’ll have a hive of bees to deal with, and if they don’t, I’ll have to get a new hive. But that’s been really, really good for me. Sarina, did you want to add something?
Sarina Bowen
I have a question.
Jess Lahey
Yes, ma’am.
Sarina Bowen
Do we have a writing goal for this year?
Jess Lahey
Yes, we do. And that’s actually at the bottom of my list, because it’s new. So I’ve been attending this weekly, really interesting virtual Blueprint for a Book Fast Track. What is it? Jumpstart you guys? With Jennie Nash, this really great book coach and founder of Author Accelerator, and KJ Dell’Antonia and I have been actually writing—working on this novel that I’ve been working on for ages and ages and ages and thinking about at a minimum once a week, and I’m going to finish it this year. 100% I’m going to finish it this year. And I’m really grateful to Jennie and KJ, because being in that, in—being in there, is forcing me to ask me all kinds of questions about, why am I even bothering to stick with this thing that has stymied me for over a decade? Like, why bother if it’s been that hard and I haven’t ever gotten it done, why am I even doing it? And I love asking myself those questions. It’s been really fun. Plus, there’s like 100 other people in that virtual session asking themselves the same questions and coming up with really cool answers for why they’re even writing something in the first place. And it gets at all these fundamental questions of why we do what we do. So yes, I will be, I’m researching a nonfiction thing still. I have a—I’m looking at a stack of books behind me, and but I’m going to finish this YA novel this year period, full stop, it’s going to happen.
.
Multiple Speakers
[Unintelligible] [several speaking at once]
Jennie Nash
Well what’s cool is, is, I mean, YA is not children, but it’s young people. So that’s kind of cool. It goes with your other thing.
KJ Dell’Antonia
There’s a trend there.
Jess Lahey
Yeah. And it was funny, because when you were asking the why the other night, and one of my things was, oh, because these characters speak to me, blah, blah, blah. And KJ mentioned, oh, I do know what Jess is talking about. And maybe it’s, you know, she wants to write a coming of age story, and that’s 100% it. I think I have, I have. I very much love that coming of age space and the struggles that middle school and high school kids go through in that coming of age space. And I think I have an interesting insight into it, and an ability to, an ability to make it come alive on the page. And I, for me, really want to do that. I really want to see it on the page, and I’m really excited about it.
Jennie Nash
You do have such a compassion for that age and what people are going through and how hard it is and it’s...
Jess Lahey
And I love these characters. And I said I love these characters, and I want to do right by them. And that’s true too. I do love these characters, and I can’t stop thinking about them.
Sarina Bowen
That is the best reason to finish any piece of fiction. You know?
Jess Lahey
Yeah, no, I really it’s like they’re stuck until I help them get to the other side. And I would hate to leave them there. I would it would make me feel really bad.
Jennie Nash
I love it. Well you know, committing to something that you’ve been working on for that long, that’s a that’s a big deal.
Jess Lahey
Yeah, it’s also one of those. I know it’s going to feel really, really good when I finish it. It’ll be like, oh my gosh, I’ve been harping on that for whatever it is now 12 or 13 years, and I finally finished it. So I know it’s going to be one of those. I’m going to be very, very glad I did it when it’s done. And is it super hard? Yes, I’ve, you know, bitched and moaned about this in the past, that fiction is really hard for me and dialog is so hard for me, but that’s what I’m writing right now.
Jennie Nash
That’s another, another learning edge, right?
Jess Lahey
Yep. Yep.
Jennie Nash
Awesome. KJ, what about you?
KJ Dell’Antonia
My only goal this year with respect to writing is to write this book as hard as I can for as long as it takes. That’s all I got. I got a couple other goals. I’d like to get my Christmas tree down at some point during the year. It seems like a plan. I was pretty excited about the Valentine’s Day concept a few years ago, but I don’t know, people have been really negging on it. Easter also, apparently not tree material. I mean, come on the fourth? I’m seeing it. No one else is. So there’s that. No, my and my big life goal is to leave more white space for myself in my day and in my calendar, to do things, to not do things, and for the unexpected things, both good and bad things. I have a real tendency to be like from 11:30 to one I’m doing this, and from 1:30 to 2:30 there’s this, and hey, at three there’s this. And that is, in fact, an excellent description of my day. And sometimes I like it, but I just do it to myself constantly, and I need to stop.
Multiple Speakers
[all laughing]
Jennie Nash
That’s all? Okay. Mic drop. I’m just thinking about that white space. What? What happens when you have white space?
Sarina Bowen
You know what happens to me when I have white space, because I’m actually pretty good at keeping it in my calendar, is that I get an email that’s like, and today, we will be choosing among these eight narrator auditions. And then you will decide who is the narrator for this book that you haven’t been thinking about for four months since you last did the copy edits, and then my whole day just explodes in a little puff of admin, like trying to get out of my own inbox is killing me. So, yeah, I don’t, I don’t. It’s not even that I planned it. Other people are making this my, my problem, and I wish I had a 2026, goal for how to fix it.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Yeah, there’s that. I mean, to some extent, I think that’s my point. Is that I would like to stop doing it to myself, because I mean it through exactly the thing it is was not my was not my idea, nor was the thing, the unexpected event at eight o’clock this this morning, or the one when I walked in from the expected thing from nine to 10. I need to do a little less of it for myself, to allow for the fact that the other things in my life, I think, and I did this to some extent last year too. My final kids have actually all left for college this year, which is great, but there’s still a lot of trouble. And also I have a lot of pets, and also just, there’s a lot going on. So I sort of thought, and I really made this mistake in the Fall pretty hard. I thought, oh, I should probably fill like I should put some things on the calendar because I might feel sad. A, I still felt sad, and that was okay. And B, I put way too much on the calendar, given the number, amount of time I had to spend on... I’m just yeah, and here I am thinking I didn’t do it in the spring, and I didn’t, but I sort of am doing it on a daily basis, like, oh, look. And some of that is just that this was, what am I wrong? Was this the longest holiday season ever in the history of holiday season? Like it was still Christmas on January 17, I swear to God. And so a lot of it, I think, is I’m feeling a little dejected, because my days are really packed, because I had the sense not to put everything in the week of January 6, but I put a lot of things this week and last week. So hopefully I’ll, but, but having done that, and now feeling it, I think, I hope, will inspire me to block off more time that, no doubt, will get filled with things. But that’s better than it getting filled with things and my having already filled it.
Jennie Nash
Yep.
KJ Dell’Antonia
It’s not going so great.
Jennie Nash
I get that. Okay, so, so for me, I made some really big moves in my business in 2025 and they worked, and that was great. And I made a decision toward the end of the year to make even bigger moves, and did some thinking about, I wouldn’t say, an exit strategy or a succession plan, but I’m 62 this year, and I’m working really, really, really hard in my business day to day, running, you know, pretty big small business, and I really want more time to create. To create curriculum, to, I just like making things. You know, to work on the podcast, to work on my own book, and I’ll talk about that in a minute. And so I made a training plan to teach my team to take over the things that they are fully capable of taking over, if I just get it out of my head and onto a page to teach them how to do it. So it’s a really big move for me, and kind of a terrifying move. It means trusting people. It means handing over some things. It means there’s some ego-y things involved in that, the idea that nobody can do it as well as I can. And so, yeah, that’s, that’s big. It’s big mindset. It’s big actual shifting of duties. It’s, it’s kind of the white space idea writ large. What, what would it look like for me to have more white space? And it is, it is not retiring, it’s not stopping. It’s just, can I do more of what I want to do and less of the—of the day to day of this business? I am constantly surprised by the thing I have made. Author Accelerator has more than 375 certified book coaches now, and it’s this huge community, and they’re having a huge impact. And a lot of my coaches are becoming huge their own selves and doing really well, and just we’re becoming known. And all of that takes time to manage, like the, I don’t know, I wouldn’t call it the brand, it’s, it’s the community. It just takes a lot of time to manage and the kinds of inquiries that we get and that sort of thing. And I, it’s a thing that needs care, and I’m the one to give it that care. So just meeting the moment, I guess, is what my goal is for the year, and as part of that, the Write Big Sessions that I’ve been doing here at the podcast are my stepping into that space of thought leadership and creation, content creation in a different way. And haven’t talked about this a lot, but I am writing a Write Big book, and I went out and found myself a brand new agent. I did my search from scratch. I did it cold. I tried to find the perfect agent for this book, rather than somebody that I knew, because I know a lot of agents, and I don’t want to, I don’t want to talk about a lot of specifics at the moment about who that person is, or what’s happening really, but I will say that it’s taken a little minute to get it together, because that’s how it happens sometimes. But the book is out on submission, even as we speak, and I was telling KJ, this agent does something that I’ve never heard of and never seen, and I love it so much, which is that she shares a spreadsheet of the submissions and puts the responses right in there so I can log in, you know, 10, 12, 25 times a day and...
Multiple Speakers
[all laughing]
KJ Dell’Antonia
Just normal, healthy behavior, right?
Jennie Nash
Which is so fantastic. Rather than, like, why isn’t she telling me, or how come we haven’t heard or whatever? But it’s very, very early days, and so all that’s coming in are the no’s, because that’s, that’s what happens. But the no’s are so great. I love them so much. They’re totally boosting me up. Because, like, people know me. They know my work. They like my work. Like I, I don’t know. I’m just so delighted by the nature and quality of the no’s, which is just a funny place to be, but that is, that is where I am so...
Sarina Bowen
Jennie, it’s a fantastic place to be. Like I have never heard another author say the no’s make me happy. Like that is not a sentence I have heard in my life. And I know a lot of authors, so the fact that you know that that’s, I just have good, good feelings and good thoughts about this project, and you are amazing.
Jennie Nash
Well, thank you. And that is not by accident. That’s what Writing Big means, right? It’s like I own this idea. I’m not waiting to be picked; I’m not waiting to be anointed. I’m not waiting for somebody to say, you know, good job. But, when they do, and you know, these no’s are just indications, like I self-published the Blueprint Books and I sort of think of them as this little thing that I made. I made them for my coaches to use in their coaching, and I made them to, it’s a model that I teach. I didn’t ever think of it as a thing, but I’ve sold more than 20,000 copies of the Blueprint Books my own self, and, but I just didn’t think like editors would know what they are. They would use them with their own authors. They would know my company. They would know my coaches, and that’s what all the no’s are showing me. And that I’m just, I’m just like, when do you get a mirror into your impact? It feels like the no’s a mirror into my impact, and I feel, I feel like there’s no doubt that something great is going to happen with this book. I have no doubt. So bring on the no’s and have them be awesome, because I know good things, great things are coming, and whether, who knows what path that is going to be, but that, that is where I am, and that sharing of the spreadsheet that this agent has done is just feeding right into, I mean, for other people, it might be the biggest disaster in the world, but for me, I’m like, this is so fun. I love it. My goal is for the year to lean into this bigger vision of what I can be.
KJ Dell’Antonia
That’s a good goal.
Jennie Nash
Thank you. Well, I’m going to share my word first, because it just goes so well with what I’ve just been saying, and it’s so obvious, and it’s so great. And my word of the year is ‘play big’. Play big.
KJ Dell’Antonia
That’s two words.
Jess Lahey
That’s two words.
Sarina Bowen
I get two words.
KJ Dell’Antonia
She’s allowed to have two words because she’s playing big.
Multiple Speakers
[all laughing]
Jennie Nash
All right, we have to go in reverse order then so KJ, what’s your, what’s your word?
KJ Dell’Antonia
Oh, my word of the year is, is ‘alive’.
Jess Lahey
Oh, dear. Okay, that’s a... quite a goal you got there missy.
KJ Dell’Antonia
It’s a good word... laughing
Jennie Nash
Can you explain?!
Sarina Bowen
She can’t, because she’s laughing really hard right now.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Um, it was going to be enthusiast, because I wanted to be sort of a welcoming both the challenges and the excitements of my life. But I really just feel like, and then it was going to be relish, but, but that’s pickles, and I hate them. And then I’m just, I just feel really good about just letting it all come and, and being a part of it.
Jennie Nash
Okay, good word.
Jess Lahey
Oh, Sarina?
Sarina Bowen
I’ve used a lot of the words.
Jess Lahey
Oh, not yet. Sorry.
KJ Dell’Antonia
She said, reverse order.
Jennie Nash
I’m laughing so hard that I’m crying.
Jess Lahey
Oh, she said, reverse order. That’s right.
Sarina Bowen
We have done this so many times, and we have never laughed all the way through it. Okay, okay.
Jess Lahey
KJ is right though we have used all of the words, I actually considered reusing one of my words this year, but then I thought maybe that was a cop out. So I did come up with a new word.
Sarina Bowen
I considered it, and then I was too lazy to go look them up.
Jess Lahey
That’s quite a statement there, Bowen.
Sarina Bowen
I know!
Multiple Speakers
[all laughing uncontrollably]
KJ Dell’Antonia
I know I had savor before, that was kind of where I was going, but...
Jennie Nash
I can’t stop laughing.
KJ Dell’Antonia
I don’t know I feel very gritty about my... [unintelligible]
Jennie Nash
I’m like snort laughing over here at the idea of I’m never going to not hear relish and pickles. [laughing uncontrollably]
Jess Lahey
I know, I know, I like it so much. I love it.
Sarina Bowen
Well, she really doesn’t like pickles. KJ is that friend where if she is served a pickle with her lunch, you can take it.
Jess Lahey
Yeah. Absolutely.
KJ Dell’Antonia
And the bit of bread that it touched.
Sarina Bowen
Okay Jess? Jess, I don’t know how you’re going to follow this, but do you have a word?
Jess Lahey
I do have a word, and I’m really excited about this word, because years ago, when I did a really cool conference in Abu Dhabi, I met this woman that I was shocked I hadn’t met before. But her name is Elke Govertsen, Elke, and she has a Substack. Her Substack is just, it’s @ Elke, is her. She managed to snag @ Elke. She has a newsletter. She has something called Open Nesting. She’s got older kids. Anyway, I subscribed to her Substack. I love it. She’s one of those people that when she walked down on stage to give her talk, she just glowed from inside, like she was one of those people that you just, I felt really drawn to. So I started following her and her year, her word for this year I really liked, although I thought about it in a different way than she did. Her word for the year is ‘allow’—a, l, l, o, w—and so that is my word for the year, to allow myself to do some things. For example, finishing this book, and just realizing, allowing myself to be really bad at it and hoping that I can pull it off, allowing myself to look really dumb doing stuff like the beekeeping, allowing myself some grace about the fact that I’m probably killed my bees this winter because they’re not insulated enough, all of the things. But I just really liked her word allow. So that’s where I am. That’s my word. I was going to redo evaluate, because I really did like that one, because that the emphasis there was, like, figure out what’s valuable to you, but whatever, I’ve used that one before, so I’m going to give credit out to Elke and go with allow.
Jennie Nash
Okay, Sarina, what about you?
Sarina Bowen
Well, you know, I picked a word, and I usually really struggle with this, and I never feel quite comfortable with it, but I pick something, or it just picked me one day, and that word is ‘esteem’. And my little job, my little job is having a strange little moment of esteem, because there’s this show that’s at the tippy top of HBO right now called Heated Rivalry. And Heated Rivalry is a book that is a queer hockey romance, which is something that I have also written since 2014, and it has; strangely, some of my best performing books ever over the last decade fall into what I thought was a niche. So I write this niche thing, and people read it and they love it, but you know, it has always stayed in its corner until now. And Rachel Reid is the author of the book called Heated Rivalry, from which this TV show was made very faithfully. And Heated Rivalry is a fantastic novel, by the way. Fantastic conflict, and an interesting story structure. So it has been quite a revelation to watch her book and story reach an audience that I did not feel it was capable of. And there is something about that, that really spoke to all the parts about my, of my business, where, for example, sometimes I have to do research. And early on, I almost felt apologetic about asking an orthopedic surgeon to talk to me about something for a romance novel, because I just assumed that they would roll their eyes. I did it anyway. Thank you, Mark, Dr. Mark, for explaining knee surgery to me. But um, so esteem is a couple of different things. It is choosing projects that I esteem and that I care about, not because I think they’ll sell, but because I love them, and also just realizing that the esteem that comes to various things that we do is not always predictable or measurable or something to rely upon. So I have to esteem it all on my own before I commit the time to do that. And that is how I ended up picking this word that I that I really like. It’s kind of a quiet word. It doesn’t, it isn’t sexy, I guess is, is a word I would describe it, not really, but, um, but it is a, it’s like asks you to pause and measure how we feel about something before we commit. And that is how I ended up there.
Jess Lahey
I love that meaning to the word. I love it.
Jennie Nash
Something that also occurs to me is you spoke with such esteem about this other author and the work that that she’s done, and that’s something that you often do, and you lift up all the writers in lots of different ways. And that esteem you have for the process of writing and the publishing business and the hard work of it comes across as well. So I like that meaning too.
Sarina Bowen
Well thank you. I had an interesting conversation with my 22 year old son, who is quite a reader. Right now he’s trying to get to the end of Crime and Punishment before his semester really kicks in. And he asked me over drinks, on a trip to Boston that I was making time for, so go me, if I could write like anyone, like if I could suddenly have the skills of any author, dead or alive, who would I pick? And I instantly gave him a couple of names in contemporary fiction that he has never read and never will, because there are people who write books that are not for 22 year old nerds. And, um, and he, he sort of blanked and he’s like, no mama, like you could have, you could be Tolstoy, you know, like you could pick anything. And I’m like, no, I’m serious. I have esteem for the things these people are doing in contemporary fiction. And it’s like that, um, that George Michael quote, like, when are you going to make some serious music? And he says, you don’t understand, I’m very serious about pop music. And you know, it’s my right to esteem whatever I choose. And I really do choose this. It’s not; it’s not a runner up thing for me. This is my interest, and I’m going to value it.
Jess Lahey
Hell yeah,
Sarina Bowen
Yeah. Woohoo!
Jennie Nash
I feel like we should end on that.
Jess Lahey
Yeah. I think that’s a good place to stop.
Jennie Nash
That was some power, power language there. We would love our listeners to share in the chat your goals for the year, your words for the year, how you feel about pickles and their touching a bread. [laughing] We would love to hear all the things from you, and until next time, keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game.
Narrator
The Hashtag AmWriting Podcast is produced by Andrew Perrella. 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 the


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Anyone who ever listened to Jenna Blum do interviews on the A Mighty Blaze podcast will not be one bit surprised to hear that we had a great time talking all things writing but most specifically writing BIG—which Jenna has absolutely done with her current book, Murder Your Darlings. Murder Your Darlings is a contemporary thriller and a real departure from Jenna’s very popular historical fiction—a departure that’s totally in keeping with Jenna’s own enthusiastic, passionate personality. As her agent said, her earlier work was elegant and restrained (although still powerful) but in this one Jenna lets herself loose. We had a wonderful time talking about it, and I know you’ll have a great time listening.
#AmReading
The Plot and The Sequel, Jean Hanff Korelitz
Last Seen, Christopher Castellani
You, Caroline Kepnes
Join Jenna on tour—she’s absolutely a joy to listen to on writing and probably any other topic! Dates HERE.
And do grab Murder Your Darlings—who doesn’t love a tell-all thriller set in this ridiculous industry we all love so much?
Hey—if you’re reading this in January 2026, it’s not too late to join our Blueprint Sprint and get in on a rapid-fire roadmap to writing the book you want to write this year (instead of writing 100K words in search of it… ask me how I know!)
First Blueprint post below—upgrade your subscription to get started.
Episode Transcript Below!

SPONSORSHIP MESSAGE
Hey, this is Jennie. Happy New Year! If you’re a subscriber to the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast, you can join us in our Blueprint Challenge, which is starting on January 12. We’re going to be working on new book ideas, books where we’re stuck, and books that we’re revising, and using the Blueprint framework to help us get unstuck, get clarity, get confidence, and move forward. KJ is leading the charge this time with some write-alongs, some Ask Me Anything sessions, and all kinds of good stuff to help you on your way. I’ll be jumping in as well, and I’ll be cheering you as you get your books into shape and get ready to write forward in 2026. Details are in the show notes, and we’d love to have you join us.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Multiple Speakers
Is it recording? Now it’s recording—yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don’t remember what I’m supposed to be doing. All right, let’s start over. Awkward pause. I’m going to rustle some papers. Okay, now—one, two, three.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Hey, writers, KJ here. I just interviewed Jenna Blum, and any of you who have listened to her when she does the interviews on the A Mighty Blaze Podcast will not be one bit surprised to hear that we had a great time talking all things writing, but most specifically, writing big, which Jenna has absolutely done with her current book, Murder Your Darlings. Murder Your Darlings is a contemporary thriller and a real departure from Jenna’s very popular historical fiction, a departure that is totally in keeping with Jenna’s own enthusiastic, passionate personality. As her own agent said, Jenna’s earlier work was elegant and restrained, although absolutely still powerful, as you know if you’ve read it, but in this one, in Murder Your Darlings, Jenna lets herself loose. We had a wonderful time talking about it, and I think you’re going to have a really good time listening. Jenna, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us for the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast.
Jenna Blum
You’re so welcome. I am the one who’s honored to be here. Thanks for having me.
KJ Dell’Antonia
I am really excited. So, listeners, as you probably heard in the intro, which I haven’t recorded yet, I asked Jenna to join us because she’s doing a big thing. She’s making a jump into a new genre for her, and I can totally relate, and I suspect many of you can too. Her new book, which is out approximately now, as you hear this, is kill your dollar, Kill your darlings. [intended title: Murder Your Darlings] And it is one of those, like, if somebody wrote a book just for me, it would be this kind of book, or this possibly exact book, which is such a thrill. It’s, you know, that combination of the thing that makes me my buy now list, which is, isn’t a thing like that thing where you’re like, if you tell me the book is about such and such, I’m like, yes, yeah, just, just take my money. So it’s that, plus that really great, commercial, friendly, accessible, like the voice I want to read. It’s not—I mean, I don’t know if any of those adjectives thrilled you—but easy reading is hard writing, and nobody knows that more than me, and you do that very well.
Jenna Blum
That is so kind of you, KJ. Thank you. So I’m going to rudely start out by issuing a small correction, but the...
KJ Dell’Antonia
Oh no.
Jenna Blum
Actually, no, no, it’s fine. It’s Murder Your Darlings. And they’re...
KJ Dell’Antonia
Oh, okay, sorry.
Jenna Blum
Popular phrase. And one of the reasons I call the book Murder Your Darlings, as opposed to kill your darlings, which people tend to gravitate to, is that the book is really about writerly appropriation in the biggest way, about story thievery in the biggest possible go big or go home kind of way. And the phrase kill your darlings is itself an appropriation, which I didn’t know until I started writing this. But the original phrase is Murder Your Darlings. It was coined by a gentleman called Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in 1914, and he was giving a lecture on good writing, and he said, whenever you think you’ve done something exceptionally clever in your manuscript, by all means, put it in, and then go in and take it out: murder your darlings. And then William Faulkner ran with it, and Stephen King ran with it, and it became really popularized. And I thought, how cool to go back to the original in a book about appropriation. So it’s Murder Your Darlings.
KJ Dell’Antonia
It’s also—that’s better. I can’t believe I got it wrong, because it has this great cover with the quill and the blood. And I—it that’s, that’s better. It’s just it, I don’t know, kill your darlings has also become a very glib phrase. So to switch it to Murder Your Darlings kind of makes—kind of gives you that record scratch moment of like, oh, oh wait. Oh! Right? So I like it.
Jenna Blum
I appreciate that. Thank you. I mean, I myself was thinking, kill your darling, so I love to, sort of like, care what of that phrase, that Murder Your Darlings had a sort of a weightier sound to it. And despite, like, the joy that I had in writing about writing, and I hope all your listeners just like me, I’m—my must order now books are all about writers, about writers about writing, especially fiction about writing. I had so much joy in that, but the book also has some pretty weighty subjects at its heart as well. So I feel like that weightier murder is somehow indicative of...
KJ Dell’Antonia
Well, that brings us really well to the next question that I wanted to ask you, which is, what was your intention around this? This is definitely, you—now I think probably we step out with every book, but this is you stepping out and playing big, which is, you know, is a new theme that we’re talking about around here. So what was your intention for Murder Your Darlings? What did you want it to be?Jenna Blum
I love that you’re doing the go big or go home theme. I always think that way. I’m not a quiet writer, not probably, not a quiet person.KJ Dell’Antonia
You’re not really, no, not—that’s not what I would say. Oh, Jenna, she’s so shy and retiring...yeah. Yeah.Jenna Blum
So I had so much joy and so much fun writing Murder Your Darlings, because all I had to do was unpack my life. She’s such a wallflower. My sister saw a photo of me with a megaphone at a—as an activist at a rally, and she’s like, nobody here is surprised. This is what I’ve been living with for all the years. Anyway. So my intent with this was really just to have some fun, honestly. I have been working on historical fiction, and I’m known primarily for historical fiction, and I was working on historical fiction when the idea for Murder Your Darlings came to me, and I felt like I had two books trying to elbow their way through a doorway at the same time. And because I am more known for historical fiction, and my editor had already green lighted that idea, I was very dutifully working along on it—and it was a terrific idea, I have to say, like on paper. It was an idea on paper that should have been good, but it really wasn’t. There was no juice to it. So I kept writing, and then thinking, right, what was the motivation? What did the character actually want in that scene? And then I would realize I had no idea and didn’t care. And so I was thinking about Murder Your Darlings, which is about a female writer—mid career, female writer who falls in love with a stratospherically successful and very charming male writer and then finds out that he may or may not be killing female writers to take their stories, or is it one of the number of women who are stalking him, especially this very persistent stalker named the Rabbit. And so I had this idea kind of elbowing its way into my head, and I thought, I don’t, I don’t know if I’m qualified to write a thriller. I’ve written a thriller. Who am I to do this? And then I read Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot, which is so good, so contemporary, so fresh, so funny, so smart, so everything. And I stalked her. I called her, got her phone number, called her, and said, how was it for you making this pivot, going from quote, literary fiction end quote, to writing a thriller? And she said, I just write what I want to write and let other people market it. You should write what you write. And I thought, Babu, because I had always loved reading about writers. I’ve always wanted to write about writers, and she kind of gave me—well, she literally gave me permission to do it.
KJ Dell’Antonia
And like you said, it really has some bigger themes around that. Did they come with? Did they come with the idea? Did some of them come with the idea, and some of them had to get pulled in later? Like, how? How did that piece of it play out?
Jenna Blum
Yeah, great question. I am a writer who always knows what her theme is going to be. I would have a mission statement on the board in my study saying, like, here’s what this book is about, and then I hope it reaches the reader through osmosis, as opposed to me being preached. So the plot has to express that idea. But then I am so plot focused when I’m writing and just wanting to get all the blocking down and get this play down so the reader doesn’t get bored that I have to go back through often and shade in the theme and the emotional resonances I hope are there. And one of the very big themes for me in Murder Your Darlings is of codependency, and what makes a smart, successful woman with a stable life, a good community, who’s a teacher, who’s a writer, who has really built her life for herself, fall for somebody who she knows very well may be sketchy AF. It’s like, okay, I’m just going to keep my hand on the hot stove. You know? Why is that? And I feel like, if you know a woman like this, if you were a woman like this, you are a woman like this. I certainly have been this way my whole life, like falling for the sketchy dudes and feeling great shame about it. I thought, I really want to write this book for all of us, or women or men—I should say this is not gender specific.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Yeah.
Jenna Blum
Or that person who’s like, don’t open that door, and you open the door anyway.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Yeah.
Jenna Blum
Why?
KJ Dell’Antonia
And people are like, so many flags, and you’re like, I kind of like flags.
Jenna Blum
But he’s... but he’s so cute.
KJ Dell’Antonia
He looks so good in red.
Jenna Blum
Right? Exactly. And I have to say that the relationship at the center of the book between Sam, the female writer, and William, who’s the male writer, they do have some really rare commonalities too that are hard for Sam to overlook. And she comes from a trauma background, so she can’t trust her own instincts. And so I wanted to, as in all of my novels, work with people who have survived trauma: how they react in the atmosphere and the aftermath, and how their behavior gets kind of torqued or twisted, and sometimes makes it difficult for them to make the healthy decision, which makes...
KJ Dell’Antonia
Right!
Jenna Blum
Good fiction. Good fiction is about people making bad, bad, bad decisions, so...
KJ Dell’Antonia
And you make him real too. He’s not just bad for the hell of it. You know, it’s not—I— that’s one of the things that is a pet peeve of mine in books, is when you’re like, yeah, that person had really bad parents that really messed them up. But why? Like, yeah. I mean, you can’t have everyone and their parents mess them up. And I would totally do that instantly. That’s my beige flag. Would you like to know how their great, great grandparents screwed everyone up with epigenetics?
Jenna Blum
It’s like the poem, right? Is it the Larkin poem? They
KJ Dell’Antonia
Oh, yeah, “They screwed him up,” yeah, yeah. But I always know, like, who screwed them up? And hey, who screwed them up? And who screwed them up?
Jenna Blum
That’s a funny thing. Thank you for saying that. So William, and a third of the book is narrated from William’s point of view, and then Sam and the stalker the Rabbit get the other two thirds of the book, and Sam and the Rabbit go back and forth, and William has his own narration at the center of the book. I have to say, I loved writing William. I really did. He’s first person, like, in the guy’s skin. He is really arrogant, like, really narcissistic, and he was, and could never use a, you know, five cent word when a $30,000 word will do. But I really loved writing him, because, as you said, you’re right, like, he doesn’t, he doesn’t mean to be any of those things. And I mean, we all recognize a narcissist, which is such a hot word these days, and I mean, he is a legitimate narcissist, but he doesn’t need to be narcissistic. He just is that way, and he has his reasons that are very clear for being that way. And it wasn’t until—this is when you ask him, before, what did I put in afterwards?—it wasn’t until I was really done writing his first draft, and one of my writer friends said to me, but like, what were his parents like? And I thought, I don’t care. Like, I don’t care what his home life was like. I don’t care about any of that. But when I did go into that room, because I knew I had to, there were things in that room that were a chamber of horrors, that were like, truly grotesque. And I thought, this actually makes sense to help explain why he’s motivated the way he is.
KJ Dell’Antonia
And why she would be drawn to him. Like, you know, he’s not just—there’s there is more in there. I, you know, not to excuse, not to excuse William. Is he the first character you’ve written that was, that was like that, deeply narcissistic, and in the first person?
Jenna Blum
That is a great question. He’s not the first character I’ve written who is narcissistic. In my first novel, Those Who Save Us, there’s a Nazi officer who is deeply narcissistic and also totally unaware of his own qualities, which I guess actually defines a narcissist, like they have...
KJ Dell’Antonia
Oh yeah, yeah. I think if you know you’re a narcissist, you’re not a narcissist.
Jenna Blum
Right? Exactly, right, right. Nobody’s going to be like, I’m a narcissist. Who cares? I love being a narcissist. They’re more like the world serves to please me, and if it doesn’t, then the world is wrong. But this is the first I’ve written from the first person, and in fact, this is the first novel I’ve written anything in the first person. So the Rabbit in this book is first person—the stalker—and William is in the first person. Sam is third person. And I haven’t written in first person since graduate school, and when I did, I was kind of soundly spanked for it. And they’re like; there are graduate school scenes in this book as well. And in Murder Your Darlings, the workshop scenes that I love so much, because I pretty much just airlifted them from the [unintelligible].
KJ Dell’Antonia
Yeah, which is the best. Absolutely.
Jenna Blum
And it’s so fun, so much fun to write, like grad school, boot camp, you know whatever... I’m here for all of that. Murders the people who it doesn’t make stronger, but, but yeah, I remember writing...
KJ Dell’Antonia
So what was that like to—what is it like to switch your normal writing perspective, so the POV to first person? And did you, did you do it from the right away? Or did you, you know, did you write it the wrong way and then switch it? How did—and did it bother you? Were you like, oh, no, I don’t know if I can do this?
Jenna Blum
No. I loved it very much. I loved it so much. And William was actually not even supposed to be in the book, so I can talk about that in a minute, but the first, first person character to come in was the Rabbit, and she wasn’t originally supposed to be there either. It was supposed to be Sam narrating, and the third limited, which is my lane, and I’ve been in that for years and years. And I do love it. I love Sam’s voice as well. But the Rabbit came to me on Christmas Day. I want to say 2023, and I was thinking about Sam’s relationship with William, and how Sam, which is still in Murder Your Darlings, gets very jealous, because she knows that William is really opaque about his relationships with other women, and he cannot resist the charms of the opposite gender, shall we say. So Sam is stalking him. She still stalks him a little bit in this book. And I thought, what if one of the other women were also stalking him alongside Sam? And what would that look like? And I was supposed to be at a friend’s house on Christmas Day. Our whole family got the flu. I was lying in my apartment in Boston feeling wretchedly sorry for myself. It was raining. It wasn’t even snowing. It was a sort of Dickensian awfulness. And I was lying around feeling bad for myself and thinking about this, as one does. And then all of a sudden, I jumped up and ran into my study and put my hands on the keyboard and wrote what would become the prologue of the novel. It is unchanged, in that.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Wow!
Jenna Blum
And she just came out of freaking nowhere. And I will tell you, it was like plugging my hands into a socket. Like, every time I sat down to write the Rabbit, I just felt electrified. Her voice is not my voice. She’s very colloquial. She’s the person who tells it like it is, speaks truth to power, sits down at the kitchen table and says, like, look, here’s what you got to do. You all just follow suit, we’re going to do, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she just really is very plain spoken and very funny and very sarcastic. I think she’s also not me in terms of, like, what she looks like, in terms of her background. She comes from a poverty background. She comes from an abuse background. She’s a bookseller, which actually I was. But it was astonishing that, like, every day, when I looked at my schedule and I knew I had to write the Rabbit, I was like, oh, thank God, because every time I put my hands on the keyboard, she was there. And I just got such a kick out of her—stalking William, stalking Sam. I think she’s amazing. And there’s a big surprise tied up to the Rabbit. So not to spoil anything, but those of you who love, you know, your twists in your fiction will, I think, be—hopefully—be gratified by, by the twist with the Rabbit. William came in about halfway through. I want to say maybe the first draft. I was going Sam, Rabbit, Sam, Rabbit, Sam, Rabbit, and I was going into the second section of the book, act two, and I was going to continue doing that. And I had this whole outline. Sam, Rabbit, Sam, Rabbit, Sam, Rabbit—rising action. I knew all my plot points all sketched out. And then one day, I was like, what if, instead of sort of reheating these leftovers and trying to make the action continue to step ladder up, what if William gets a section in all of his William glory and all of his narcissistic glory? And that kind of gives the reader a little bit more reason to be hopeful for Sam and also scared for her, because we know from his perspective what his life was really like, and he’s not being truthful with her about it. And I called my editor and said, I’m going to do this thing, maybe, with your permission. Like, do you mind if I write, you know, some sample William chapters? And I was so nervous about it. I had this whole defense about it. Here’s why this is going to be good. She was like; I think that’s a brilliant idea. Do the whole section from his point of view, if you want to, if you want to. I think that’s great. And again, sitting down to write, I felt like I plug my hands into this socket. But William grounds the whole book with this sort of dark electricity, I think, because he is...
KJ Dell’Antonia
So you already had it from the other points of view? Did you have it planned, or did you have it written?
Jenna Blum
I had it planned. I had a plan. I had bits of scenes. I had snippets of scenes and chapters. But I have scenes they dearly love that are not in the book at all because William usurped...
KJ Dell’Antonia
Because he can’t—yeah, he doesn’t—well, and he is not there.
Jenna Blum
Access, no. But, I mean, I kind of flipped them inside out in like a pocket, into, like, other parts of the book, so that, like, I know what Sam and the Rabbit are doing during William’s sections. And you see them, of course...
KJ Dell’Antonia
Yeah, yeah.
Jenna Blum
From his point of view instead. It was not a darling I had to murder. Like, again, like sitting down to write his point of view was a relief, in some ways, to get out of my own skin. Getting into somebody else’s skin, in the first person, is the farthest you can go from yourself if that character is not, in fact, you. And that’s why I love writing fiction. I get out of my own skin into somebody else’s skin; walk around in that virtual reality. I just freaking love it. It’s the best part—kind of insanity there is.
KJ Dell’Antonia
So with this project, what did you love most about the process? Sounds like there’s going to be—sounds like there’s a competition, because it really sounds like you had—I mean, I’m sure there were some hard moments. We’ll get to that. That’s my next question, actually. But what did you love most? What do you love most about how it turned out, and what did you love most about doing it?
Jenna Blum
I love all the things. I literally have goosebumps when you say this. I mean, it is a competition, because I love this book so much. And I know you’re not supposed to say it about your own books, but I do. I just love this book, and it might be my favorite book that I’ve written. My favorite. I love it so, so much. I hope readers feel the same way. I think one of the reasons I love it so much is I think it’s really funny. Like, there was never a single day where I sat down to work on this book that I didn’t snort laugh, like, in the middle of the scene, because William is so charming and yet so horrible and fatuous and whatever. So he really made me laugh, whether I’m viewing him from the outside or from inside. And the worse he gets the more funny I thought he was. The Rabbit, likewise, in her speaking truth to power kind of way. And then Sam sections allowed me to spill the tea about the weirdness and the wonderfulness of the writer life, much of which is just so peculiar, whether you’re on tour or you’re trying to, you know, zhuzh an idea into being and you can’t quite get it, or, you know, being in a relationship with another writer. I mean, all of those things are just—they’re just nuts. And so every day I sat down and laughed and laughed and laughed and, like, cackled in my apartment, scaring the dog. And I thought it was so much fun. And now looking at the book and, like, holding it in my hands, I can open it to any page and be like, yeah, oh my God, I totally remember that line that was so great. So I hope people have fun with it. The early reviews that have come in have been, thank God, you know, Inshallah, they were great. And that’s what people have been saying. It’s a delicious book. It’s a fun book. It’s a delightful book. Nobody’s ever said this about my books before.
KJ Dell’Antonia
It’s totally very different. It’s totally, really different than your other work, right?
Jenna Blum
Yes. Well, I mean, I think so. Like, when you’re not writing historical fiction, fiction requires—or at least it did for me—because I’m writing about big, serious things, you’re writing about World War Two, it’s probably not going to be all that funny. But I feel like the third person voice that I’ve been using most of my authorial career has been hopefully elegant and restrained, because I really, you know, working with my word choices—every author does—but I’m trying to maintain a very even narrative tone. This one is just so freaking off the chain, because I got to write in a contemporary way. I got to get into the first person, other people’s voices, other people’s experiences. It was interesting. My agent, who’s very, very smart, and she is French, and when I came to her and said, you know that historical fiction that you thought I was writing, it’s actually not that. It’s a thriller. That’s something different. She read it, and I was, again, sort of terrified of what she would say. And she called me, and she was like, [imitating her French accent] “Jenna, I think what you are doing is smart, but more than that, I think it is brave, because your whole life you have hide behind this voice you use for your historicals. And instead, this is like, really, you taking the gloves off. This is your voice. This is you.” And I just felt so validated and empowered by that observation.
KJ Dell’Antonia
That is exactly why we were—we are here. If this is—it’s so, so meet. We are meeting for the first time. Lots of times when I get somebody on the podcast, we’ve never encountered each other, and your vibe is so Murder Your Darlings. And really, you know, at this point in your life and in your career, this is really, you know, who you’re presenting as. And I, of course, don’t know how you presented, you know—maybe we should go back seven years to before a lot of things that have evolved in your life. I don’t know whether you were maybe a little more elegant and restrained yourself. I have no idea.
Jenna Blum
Uh uhh, never.
KJ Dell’Antonia
No?
Jenna Blum
Nope.
KJ Dell’Antonia
I mean, it must feel so great to have released that part of yourself into this much, you know, loved part of your world.
Jenna Blum
It just feels so much easier in a lot of ways. I remember—and I’m thinking about this while we’re talking—lying on the couch and watching the You series by Caroline Kepnes, like, based on a series of books that she’s written that are really tremendously good. And I remember I was looking for a binge at the time. I just finished something that was fantastic. And, like, you know, what am I going to watch? And I clicked into You, and I was so happy that I did because I thought, this woman writes the way people actually speak. Her dialogue is so smart. It’s so Cracker Jack. It’s so spot on. And I am now friends with Caroline. Caroline is amazing, and I remember saying that to her the first time I met her, just as a total fangirl. Like, how did you do that? She was like, this is just how I write, and I have not been giving myself permission for years and years to do that.
But in fact, again, my agent would say to me, you know, [imitating her French accent] “You write these, these book, and you go to your readings and people think they’re going to meet, like, Margaret Thatcher or something, because books are very serious and very heavy and very, you know, weighty about this big topic, and then you are a goofball.” And I am!
KJ Dell’Antonia
I love the French accent you are giving us here. As a student of French, I’m particularly enjoying it.
Jenna Blum
Oh, I’m so sorry then, because my agent hates when I do this. She hates it. She’s like; please don’t use the French accent. I’m like, I have to use it. And she’s in the book, and her name is Mireille, and I wrote her exactly as she speaks. And she—my editor, whose name is Sara Nelson—is in the book as Patricia, and I pulled no punches or even tried to disguise them whatsoever. And they like to bicker over who is more important in the book, Mireille or Patricia. So that’s super fun. But I mean, I do think there is something really liberating about entering a scene, entering a chapter, and thinking, I don’t have to fancify this language. I don’t have to smooth over its edges. If I want to say somebody is sketchy AF, I say they’re sketchy AF.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Yeah, I don’t have to figure out how someone would have said that in 1942, which is—I mean, I do—I don’t want to—your past work, which I haven’t read all of, but what I have read is very much infused with a humanity and a female power. It may be elegant and restrained, but it’s in there. It’s like, you know, coiled, but it’s in there. So I don’t want to propose that those books aren’t really you. But this is, you know, this is definitely more who you come out of the box as.
Jenna Blum
Yeah, there won’t be such a mismatch with this for readers who are coming to my work for the first time. If you do that and then you see me in person, you’ll be like, oh, this totally tracks, as opposed to... And I think one of the great things about writing fiction is you can be in that sort of disguise. And my previous fiction, the historical fiction—and I did have one contemporary novel in there as well—I think the topics were just not as funny to me. Like, writing life is very funny, and contemporary life is funny. But I think that writing historical fiction enables you to get in a time machine and go back and put on a different set of clothes, and that is reflected in the narration. And this, I think, shares some commonality with my other fiction, in that, like William, I am a friend of big vocabulary. Like, I love my vocabulary. I love to deploy. But it just feels more bouncy to me. Like, it just feels buoyant and super energized. And I love it. Like, I have three more thrillers lined up in my head on the runway that I would love to write.
KJ Dell’Antonia
That’s amazing.
Jenna Blum
So I’m really excited about—I hope this book does well. So everybody should buy it, please, so I can write more thrillers. Please.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Everyone do that. We’re going to put all the links for that in the show notes. So one more question before we turn to me asking you about other people’s books. What was the hardest thing about writing this? I have a guess for what you’re going to say, but I want to hear what you say first.
Jenna Blum
I don’t know if there was a hard thing about writing this book.
KJ Dell’Antonia
I was going to say; maybe it was giving yourself permission to do it in the first place.
Jenna Blum
Oh, interesting. No. I mean, that’s more about marketing, in some ways. I had to get permission. I didn’t want my agent to be like, no, this sucks. I mean, she would try to sell it no matter what, but I really...
KJ Dell’Antonia
Oh, you’re such a disappointment.
Jenna Blum
Right? If we must write it. Nash, my editor as well—I’ve been with my agent for 24 years, and I had been with my editor for, like, almost 10 years now, which is pretty amazing.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Yeah, that’s the dream.
Jenna Blum
So glad to have one on one shoulder and one on the other shoulder. So I didn’t want them to both be like, oh gosh, she’s writing a thriller, everybody writing a thriller. What was the hard thing about writing this book? I think the fact that I’m no longer writing it, honestly. It’s one of those, like, tough act to follow books. You know, I think about other ideas and I’m like, but they’re not darlings, though. So, like, I really had so much fun with this book that when I was done, I was really bummed. I will say that there is a paragraph toward the end of the book that is, for me, the heart and the soul of the entire book. And I’m always curious about other writers, whether they have these paragraphs that are really the sort of nut graph of the whole piece, to use a journalistic term—like, the whole, the heart of it. And I cannot read that paragraph without crying. And I revised this book eleventy-two times, and I could never get through it without weeping. I read the whole thing aloud when I was in the copy edit stage, and I was like, you know. So, I mean, is that hard? I don’t know if that’s hard, but it was like a part that stabbed me, I think. And then the rest of it is just, like, a pure freaking joy. And I really hope people feel the same way, because, I mean, it’s just—why not bring joy?
KJ Dell’Antonia
Why not bring joy? That is the thing that has stuck with me most about stuff I’ve read most recently about writing. And unfortunately, I’ve already forgotten where I saw it, but someone was saying, if you’re read, why should people read your book? What are you—what are you giving them? They were like, if, if your whole point is, but I worked so hard, that is not how this works. But yeah, like, great. I mean yay. But also, I mean, what’s in it for me, man? I’m the reader, and what’s in it for me? And joy is the answer that I want. So I think it’s going to be the answer everyone else wants too.
Jenna Blum
And, like deliciousness and fun and hopefully—I mean, I write all of my books at the bottom line, at the common denominator, to help people feel less alone in their experiences. So if people read this book and they’re like, oh my God, I was totally—say I’m walking into this relationship—oh my God, oh my God, that’s me, oh my God. Like, I really hope that people see themselves in her.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Yeah, it’s the gift of getting yourself, getting out of your head and also seeing yourself more clearly.
Jenna Blum
Yeah.
KJ Dell’Antonia
That, to me, is the hope with fiction.
Jenna Blum
Yep, totally agree. You get to escape. You get to have an adventure. You get to feel the work through somebody else’s experience. And then you also get to feel like, whatever your weirdo experience—all weirdos—like, you’re not alone in that experience. We are here.
KJ Dell’Antonia
I love it. All right. Well, switching gears completely, tell me what you’ve read recently where, again, we’ve talked really hard about this—this book was a leap. It was a great leap for you. You’re playing big. What have you read recently where you could tell that the writer was also playing big, going, going to the outside of their abilities?
Jenna Blum
Yeah, I think—I mean, I know so many talented writers. I think they’re just trying out different keys the same way I am. And my answer really runs along my own track, because there are a lot of writers I know who are writing thriller or true crime disguised as fiction type of stuff, who have been primarily and previously known as quote literary fiction, end quote, and just, like, a term that that I don’t like. But when I say that, I really mean when the attention is paid so much to the language and the characters, and you can be a little more experimental in form, et cetera. But I think really, like Jean Hanff Korelitz, who I mentioned earlier.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Yep, I loved The Plot and The Sequel. They’re both great.
Jenna Blum
I love The Plot and The Sequel. I did not have the pleasure of interviewing Jean for The Plot, although somebody on [unintelligible] did. But I did have the pleasure of interviewing her for The Sequel. And I was fascinated by, like, that is a go big thing, because everybody’s like, oh, The Sequel is not as good as the original. So even to write a sequel in the first place is going really big in my work.
KJ Dell’Antonia
And then to, to have it be what it was. I actually, in some ways, thought it was better. But, I mean, they were both great. I really enjoyed both of them, but The Sequel was just like, “ooohh, oooww,” in the way it just... Anyway. It was, it was very skillful.
Jenna Blum
I loved that it was really ingenious. And I loved talking to her about thrillers. I was like, how do you do this when you have a plot and you need to figure out, you know, at the end, how do you surprise the reader? And she said, it’s like going down a long hallway filled with doors, and you keep opening a door and closing the door. You know, that’s not the answer to the plot problem. That’s not the answer. That’s not the answer. That’s not the answer. And at the end, you have only one door left, and that is your thriller solution. Like, that’s the twist ending. And I was like, people plan that? I mean, I have to plan everything. I plan going to the market, you know. I’m like that person. And, you know, she didn’t. She doesn’t plan it. And I thought that was [unintelligible].
KJ Dell’Antonia
Yeah, I too am a planner. And that boggles my mind. I don’t mind if the plan then changes, but without—I could not. I cannot operate without the plan.
Jenna Blum
I can’t write without the plan, even if I’m not writing a thriller. So to write a thriller that is still satisfying and not have that delicate calibration of, yes, this is the surprise that I’m going to plant in chapter 39—that’s astonishing. So she is one. And my friend Chris Castellani, who has the book coming out February 17—I want to say its called Last Seen. And Chris is a beautiful literary writer. He had a book called A Kiss from Maddalena that grew into a series of three books. His last book was called Leading Men, and he got a review in The New York Times that said his prose was—I memorized this, not because I’m jealous, don’t worry—was opaline, and likened him to F. Scott Fitzgerald. And I remember calling out that review, and I was like, sir, you should get that as a tramp stamp. I certainly would. And so he has this reputation as this fine, fine literary writer, and he decided to go into true crime slash thriller territory alongside me. And I’m so glad our books are out at almost the same time so we can kind of keep each other company in this venture. So Chris’s book, Last Seen, is about the victims of the smiley face killer, and they are all of these young men who are killed by the smiley face killer, narrating from within the frozen rivers in which they are trapped, dead. So they’re, like, sort of narrating from beyond.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Well, that’s still experimental. He did not fully leave his form.
Jenna Blum
He didn’t, and it’s...
KJ Dell’Antonia
He’s taking his form with him.
Jenna Blum
Yeah, he is, in a way that I don’t know if I have or not. And I would leave that for greater minds to determine. I mean, I hope that what I’m writing is still smart. And again, there’s the big vocabulary, but, but there does seem to be more of a jump in some ways. But Chris—it is a little sort of Virgin Suicides, I guess, but from the point of view of all of these lost boys. But you also get what their family members are saying, or the people who love them, the last time they saw them. And it’s this beautiful, sort of kaleidoscopic endeavor that also provides satisfying answers as to who did this. So he’s taking his craft and applying it to almost a whodunit in a way. And I think it’s really ingenious and really fascinating to watch this track change from the outside, where I feel like it’s almost like T. S. Eliot is writing a thriller—like that’s kind of how it reads—except with more sex and death. And Chris and I are going to speak together at Politics and Prose on March 5, I want to say, and we...
KJ Dell’Antonia
Now I can put that in the show notes, because this will be out. If anybody’s in the DC area, you could hit Politics and Prose.
Jenna Blum
Yeah, come on down.
KJ Dell’Antonia
That would be amazing.
Jenna Blum
We are calling our panel the sex and death panel, or the sex and death conversation, because both our books are so sexy and so deathly. And then my friend Alex George, who I love, said, well, you should invite an accountant to be on your panel, and then it could be sex, death, and tax.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Yes.
Jenna Blum
Which we’re not going to do, but...
KJ Dell’Antonia
Oh well.
Jenna Blum
But that’s funny.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Oh well, they’ll, they’ll charge sales tax or something. It’ll—they’re still taxes. Taxes will always be with us.
Jenna Blum
Right. Exactly. Sex, death, and taxes. So come on out for sex, death, and taxes. And the book Last Seen. And it’s just—it’s really haunting. It’s a very haunting book.
KJ Dell’Antonia
I love this. Well, I know that what’s next for you is a pretty big tour for this, which I will put all the links to in the show notes, not to raise the bar. But are you? Are you already working at—this is sort of, this is actually more like a craft question. Are you already working on something new? Are you noodling something new? How do you manage this process part of your writing?
Jenna Blum
I’m noodling something new. For all of the ventures into new territory, I haven’t been able to change my spots yet in terms of process, which, for somebody writing thrillers, is not great, because you can, you know, hopefully turn them out faster than fiction. To me, the historical fiction requires so much research that took me much longer to write. But I do have those ideas lined up. I think what I like to do with ideas is I kind of roll them around in my head like marbles to see if they are going to stick around, or if they’re going to roll down a hole and disappear somewhere, like a little rabbit hole. And then you know that they don’t have stick-to-itiveness. All three of the ideas that I’m thinking about are still there. The thing for me is I’m a very single-task person, and when I’m promoting, I’m really promoting. Like, my tour—amazingly bananas. Like, I am going to be in a different place every single day connecting with readers, like Sam in Murder Your Darlings, the heroine. I write to connect with readers. I don’t write for the joy of the writing, although I love this book and enjoyed writing it so much. Like, I write because I want it to meet you guys and be out there, like talking about my book, talking about other books. So when I’m on tour, I don’t actually write. And I was saying this to my friend the other day, Dawn Tripp, who’s also an amazing writer, who wrote Jackie, and has been on tour. She did something like 162—I’m making it up—but she...
KJ Dell’Antonia
I actually saw her at... outside Boston, the Newburyport Book Festival. Oh, I know, which is amazing, which I also will be at. Yeah. That’s a great festival.
Jenna Blum
Yeah, it’s so good. And I’m going to be in conversation with my editor, so if you have any...
KJ Dell’Antonia
Oh, there? At the Newburyport festival? I’m sure—I usually go. So that sounds great.
Jenna Blum
Please come, please come. Because that’ll be really fun, because she can spill the tea on, on, like, how disorganized I might actually be. But Dawn—I was saying—she’s like, oh, I’m home now. I’m so happy I can write. I was like; I can’t imagine how you would have written on that tour. And she said, oh, no, I write every day, because if I don’t, I don’t feel great, you know, I don’t feel great in my own skin. And I was like, that’s just nuts, man. Like, I’m going—I’m done with this book. I’m going to Nordstrom Rack. I’m going to go shopping. I’m not touching another book for five years. But I do, I’m kind of looking forward to being back this summer. I have a couple of months that I think are slower, and I want to develop those ideas. So let’s see if I can, you know...
KJ Dell’Antonia
Let him audition a little more loudly.
Jenna Blum
Yeah, I love that audition. That’s so great. I’m going to steal that, but I’ll credit you.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Yeah, yeah. It’s all yours. All right. This was so great. Thank you so much. This was a super fun conversation, and I’m going to enjoy creating the intro and writing up the show notes for it. And, gosh, I hope everybody goes out and buys this too. It is a wholly enjoyable experience, a great way to cleanse your palate from your January, your December, whatever, whatever that may have been. And now in January, you know, come Murder Your Darlings with Jenna. You’ll—you won’t be sorry.
Jenna Blum
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. This is a sheer, pure delight. Thank you.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Thank you. Okay, writers, until next week, keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game.
Narrator
The Hashtag AmWriting Podcast, is produced by Andrew Perrella. 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 work.



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This is a Bonus Episode, which means that it doesn’t have any of the beautiful audio engineering from our amazing team.
In this Bonus Episode, Jennie Nash talks with physician-writer Carolyn Roy Bornstein about how one Blueprint exercise brought clarity to a long-stalled book project. By identifying a single ideal reader, Carolyn was able to see exactly who she was writing for and shape A Prescription for Burnout with purpose and focus.
They discuss why audience clarity matters and how the Blueprint can unlock momentum at the right moment in the writing process.
Our guest, Carolyn Roy Bornstein, MD is a retired pediatrician, narrative medicine teacher, and author whose work explores the healing power of reflective writing. Her forthcoming book, A Prescription for Burnout: Restorative Writing for Healthcare Professionals, will be published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Carolyn draws on her clinical experience, her own journey through trauma and recovery, and her work with healthcare trainees to help writers—and caregivers—find voice, purpose, and resilience through the written word.
Join Us for the Blueprint Challenge Starting January 12
Hi there supporters and subscribers! Many of you are joining the Winter Blueprint for a Book, and if that’s you, you must opt-in to receive posts, AMAs, write-alongs and podcasts. In 10 weeks, future you will be thanking current you for all the work you put in to figure out what you want this book to be—and how to best get it there, whether you’re starting fresh with a new draft or revising something that still hasn’t come together.
If you don’t opt in (how-to below), this will be the only Blueprint-related email that comes your way. (So no worries and no extra emails for those of us having a normal chaotic writing season!)
And for those of you who haven’t yet signed up—WHAT are you waiting for? This is a killer deal—put in an hour a week (okay, maybe more some weeks) and you could have a blueprint in hand by March—with a cohort, AMAs, write-alongs and plenty of help. Last chance—or at least, this is the last time we’ll prod you. If you decide to jump in next week, we’ll be here.
Want to learn more? We published a whole series about the joys and benefits of the Blueprint:
* What the Blueprint is and why Jennie made it
* Introducing the winter book coach hosts
* Overcoming Pantsing Pitfalls: How the Blueprint Method Can Save Your Story
* The Blueprint is the Solution for Time-Strapped Writers
* How to Use a Blueprint for Revision
* Befriending the Blueprint
* Using Mindfulness to Master the Blueprint
Not yet a paid subscriber? There’s still time—in fact, there’s still a special deal in place for those who want to jump in: 20% off an annual subscription until 1/15/25, and you can spend the next ten weeks figuring out what you want this book to be, instead of writing 250K words over the course of the year to achieve the same thing. Ask me how I know.
To join Blueprint for a Book, you must opt-in and set up your podcast feed. Don’t worry, it’s simple! Click here to go to your #AmWriting account, and when you see this screen, do two things:
* Toggle “Blueprint for a Book” from “off” (grey) to “on” (orange).
* Click “set up podcast” next to Winter 2025 Blueprint for a Book and follow the easy instructions. (It is MUCH easier to do this step on your phone.)
Once you set those things up, you’ll get all the future Blueprint emails and podcasts (and if you’re joining the party a bit late, just head to our website and click on Blueprint for a Book Winter 2025 in the top menu).


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

In this Write Big session of the #amWriting Podcast, Jennie Nash talks with author and book coach Janet Fox about a powerful decision: buying back the rights to her first novel and reissuing it on her own terms.
Janet shares her journey through traditional publishing, what it took to reclaim ownership of her work, and why legacy—not trends or permission—now guides her creative choices. This conversation is a clear-eyed, inspiring look at what it means to stop waiting and start owning your writing life.
In this episode:
* What it really means to buy back your book rights
* Why “out of print” doesn’t have to mean the end
* Publishing as a tool—not an identity
* Self-publishing, kid lit, and changing industry realities
* Ownership, legacy, and writing from the heart
This episode is a powerful reminder that your work belongs to you—and that writing big often begins with claiming what you’ve already made.
Mentioned in Episode
* Darcy Pattison
* 100 Covers
* BookFunnel
* Draft2Digital
* Jane Friedman newsletter
* Janet’s Substack

Guest Bio
Janet Fox has worn many hats—English teacher, oceanographer, rock band singer—but her favorite is “award-winning children’s author.” She’s written thirteen books for kids and teens, from science nonfiction to mysterious middle grade to swoony YA. Janet holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach. She lives in Montana with her husband, and their lively yellow lab. When she’s not writing, she helps fellow storytellers find their voice and bring their best work to life. Her stories are full of heart and always have just a touch of magic. Find her here: janetsfox.com

Join the Blueprint Sprint
Starting January 12 and rolling though February, KJ Dell’Antonia and Jennie Nash will lead you through the 14 foundational questions that every writer should ask of themselves and their book, whether you’re just getting started, are mid-draft or starting on on the whatever-number revision with weekly assignments, live events, workbooks and updated access to all the Blueprint resources. All you need to do is be a paid subscriber and stay tuned—we’ll let you know how to get signed up.
I NEED a January Blueprint!

What if you want even MORE? Then you could be one of a very few #AmWriting subscribers who join our first ever Blueprint Sprint cohort. 6 weeks of working together and write-alongs, 5 group-only live sessions, which will be recorded for anyone who can’t attend and a members-only community dedicated to helping you create a Blueprint that leads you to the book you want to write, ending with direct feedback from me and from Jennie on your flap copy and 3 page Inside-Outline.
We’re keeping this small on purpose—we max out at 10 and we might drop that down—so applications to join this group open today and will be evaluated on a first-come, first serve basis. Once we have 10 people, we will close down the application, so get yours in early! Early-bird pricing is $1000 until December 22, after that the price goes up to $1200 (if there are spaces left by then).
What are we looking for? 10 writers who are prepared to commit to the process and to the cohort, who do what they set out to do when they set out to do it, who welcome constructive feedback and are willing to do what it takes to build a blueprint for the book they want to create. Writers who know that sometimes you must look a hard truth in the face and cut your losses, that what goes in the scrap heap is rarely resurrected but that the scrap heap is a necessary part of the work. Writers who won’t take no for an answer, but can hear “not this” and feel both disappointment and a burning determination that the next effort will be the one that gets there.
Also: no a******s.
What will you need to apply? We want to hear about your professional and publishing backgrounds, but no publishing experience is necessary. We want to know where you are with this current project, but “still noodling” is a fine answer. The primary requirements are first, a readiness to do the work and second and more ephemerally, our sense of what makes a cohesive cohort.
If that sounds like you, here you go—the time to apply is now.
Links & Resources
* Learn more about the Blueprint tools
* Substack about how each genre has a different primary goal in the Blueprint
* #amwriting Episode about the Blueprint origin story and why it’s such a powerful tool.


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

In this Write Big episode, Jennie reflects on the winter solstice as a powerful metaphor for the writing life. Using the natural turning of the year—from darkness back toward light—she explores what it means to keep choosing your work, especially when fear, rejection, discomfort, or uncertainty creep in. Writing big, she reminds us, isn’t about eliminating darkness; it’s about practicing the return to what lights you up again and again.
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Join the Blueprint Sprint
Starting January 12 and rolling though February, KJ Dell’Antonia and Jennie Nash will lead you through the 14 foundational questions that every writer should ask of themselves and their book, whether you’re just getting started, are mid-draft or starting on on the whatever-number revision with weekly assignments, live events, workbooks and updated access to all the Blueprint resources. All you need to do is be a paid subscriber and stay tuned—we’ll let you know how to get signed up.
I NEED a January Blueprint!

What if you want even MORE? Then you could be one of a very few #AmWriting subscribers who join our first ever Blueprint Sprint cohort. 6 weeks of working together and write-alongs, 5 group-only live sessions, which will be recorded for anyone who can’t attend and a members-only community dedicated to helping you create a Blueprint that leads you to the book you want to write, ending with direct feedback from me and from Jennie on your flap copy and 3 page Inside-Outline.
We’re keeping this small on purpose—we max out at 10 and we might drop that down—so applications to join this group open today and will be evaluated on a first-come, first serve basis. Once we have 10 people, we will close down the application, so get yours in early! Early-bird pricing is $1000 until December 22, after that the price goes up to $1200 (if there are spaces left by then).
What are we looking for? 10 writers who are prepared to commit to the process and to the cohort, who do what they set out to do when they set out to do it, who welcome constructive feedback and are willing to do what it takes to build a blueprint for the book they want to create. Writers who know that sometimes you must look a hard truth in the face and cut your losses, that what goes in the scrap heap is rarely resurrected but that the scrap heap is a necessary part of the work. Writers who won’t take no for an answer, but can hear “not this” and feel both disappointment and a burning determination that the next effort will be the one that gets there.
Also: no a******s.
What will you need to apply? We want to hear about your professional and publishing backgrounds, but no publishing experience is necessary. We want to know where you are with this current project, but “still noodling” is a fine answer. The primary requirements are first, a readiness to do the work and second and more ephemerally, our sense of what makes a cohesive cohort.
If that sounds like you, here you go—the time to apply is now.


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