Episode 182 #WriteFlailRepeat

Novelist Abbi Waxman makes us laugh talking process and inspiration almost as much as we do when reading her books, with emphasis on using settings you know and love.

Our transcription assistant reports that this was “her favorite episode ever.” It’s definitely a contender—Abbi Waxman is funny and candid about the challenges of creating characters and worlds that are engrossingly real yet also comical—and about her next novel, the first one not fully set in her California ‘hood.

Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, you don’t want to miss the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, October 28, 2019: Top 5 Goodreads Secrets for Authors. It’s a good one! If you haven’t yet plunked down a tiny chunk of cash to support the podcast, maybe now is the time. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #WriterTopFives with actionable advice you can use for just $7 a month.

As always, this episode (and every episode) will appear for all subscribers in your usual podcast listening places, totally free as the #AmWriting Podcast has always been. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it with the shownotes and a transcript every time there’s a new episode.

LINKS FROM THE PODCAST

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Abbi: A Miss Silver Mystery: Lonesome Road (#3), Patricia Wentworth

Jess: Home, Run Away, Harlan Coben

KJ: Confessions of a Bookseller, Shaun Bythell

Three Things You Need to Know about Rockets: A Real-Life Scottish Romance, Jessica A. Fox

The Gyrth Chalice Mystery, Margery Allingham

#FaveIndieBookstore

Chevalier’s Books Los Angeles, CA — if you’ve read Nina Hill, this is the real life bookstore she works in, and we love that.

Our guest for this episode is Abbi Waxman. Abbi is the author of:

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

Other People’s Houses

The Garden of Small Beginnings

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwritingfor details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.

Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.

Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful—and, this time around, Jess is “New Speaker.” We don’t know why. AI is mysterious.)

KJ: 00:01 Hey writers—you all know we love our sponsor, Author Accelerator, which offers intense book coaching to help writers keep their butts in the chair and their heads in the game and finish what we start. But what if you’re not ready for full on coaching? What if you’re still trying to figure out where your story or memoir is going, and you need help? In that case, Author Accelerator has something new: the four-week Inside Outline Coaching program, which will help you quickly and efficiently visualize your entire story, spot the holes and places where your characters have lost momentum and ensure that you’re working forward with a structure that will support the story you want to tell. I love this tool, and working with someone to stick to it and get it right is going to save you a lot of time and a lot of typing. Find out more at https://www.authoraccelerator.com/insideoutline.

New Speaker: 00:01 Go ahead.

KJ: 00:01 This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.

New Speaker: 00:01 All right, let's start over.

KJ: 00:01 Awkward pause, I'm going to rustle some papers.

New Speaker: 00:01 Okay.

KJ: 00:01 Now one, two, three. Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. The podcast about writing, which is pretty much why we named it that. We are a podcast about writing all things - fictional, non-fictional, proposals, pitches, writing emails in the quest to get an agent, and I've run out of my list, but it's one I give you guys weekly and as I hope you know, we are the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done.

New Speaker: 01:50 And I'm Jess Lahey. I'm the author of the Gift of Failure and a book I just turned in on preventing substance abuse in kids. And you can find me at the New York Times, and the Atlantic, and the Washington Post .

KJ: