Podcast appearances and mentions of rachael herron

Hello Rebels and welcome to fireside chat number forty between Rachael Herron and I. To find out more about Rachael, you can listen to her show “How Do You Write” or visit her website. * If you like dark humour, learning through examples and want to create the best villains you can, then you'll love Sacha Black's guide to crafting superbad villains. Read 13 Steps to Evil today and start creating kick-ass villains.

Times are hard, y'all. So here's a hopeful story. In this solo episode, Rachael shares about the time Madeleine L'Engle wrote to her. ✏️ 90 Days to Done NOW OPEN! http://rachaelherron.com/90daystodone✏️ 90 Day Revision NOW OPEN! http://rachaelherron.com/revision

Michelangelo said, "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free" - How do you do that in your own work? And how do you bring a place to life, even if you haven't ever been there? Traveler and archaeological-thriller writer Luke Richardson is our guide today! Luke Richardson is the author of international thrillers that blend history, mystery, and adventure in exotic locations. A former English teacher and lifelong traveller, he brings his real-life adventures to the page—and to podcasts—sharing insights on storytelling, creativity, and far-off places. ✏️ 90 Days to Done NOW OPEN! http://rachaelherron.com/90daystodone✏️ 90 Day Revision NOW OPEN! http://rachaelherron.com/revision

Money AND power? We're allowed to want those things? Heck, yes, we are. Don't miss this dynamic conversation about how to do it! Amy Suto is a freelance memoir ghostwriter, bestselling author, and the writer behind the top-ranked Substack, Make Writing Your Job. As a ghostwriter, Amy has written memoirs on behalf of Olympians, CEOs and NBA players. Her Substack, Make Writing Your Job, has more than 23,000 subscribers, providing a job board and practical tips for writers. In addition to her ghostwriting business and Substack, Amy published her debut romantasy novel, The Ash Trials, in 2025. Write for Money and Power is her most recent release. https://www.amysuto.com/write-for-money-and-power✏️ 90 Days to Done NOW OPEN! http://rachaelherron.com/90daystodone✏️ 90 Day Revision NOW OPEN! http://rachaelherron.com/revision

How can you build iconic characters that your readers want to keep coming back to? How can you be the kind of creator that readers trust, even without social media? With Claire Taylor In the intro, Dan Brown talks writing and publishing [Tetragrammaton]; Design Rules That Make or Break a Book [Self-Publishing Advice]; Amazon's DRM change [Kindlepreneur]; Show me the money [Rachael Herron]; AI bible translation [Wycliffe, Pope Leo tweet]. Plus, Business for Authors 24 Jan webinar, and Bones of the Deep. Today's show is sponsored by Bookfunnel, the essential tool for your author business. Whether it's delivering your reader magnet, sending out advanced copies of your book, handing out ebooks at a conference, or fulfilling your digital sales to readers, BookFunnel does it all. Check it out at bookfunnel.com/thecreativepenn This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Claire Taylor is a humour and mystery author, the owner of FFS Media, and a certified Enneagram coach. She teaches authors to write stronger stories and build sustainable careers at LiberatedWriter.com, and her book is Write Iconic Characters: Unlocking the Core Motivations that Fuel Unforgettable Stories. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights, and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Why Claire left social media and how she still markets her books and services What the Enneagram is and how core fears and desires shape character motivation Using Enneagram types (including Wednesday Addams as an example) to write iconic characters Creating rich conflict and relationships by pairing different Enneagram types on the page Coping with rapid change, AI, and fear in the author community in 2026 Building a trustworthy, human author brand through honesty, transparency, and vulnerability You can find Claire at LiberatedWriter.com, FFS.media, or on Substack as The Liberated Writer. Transcript of the interview with Claire Taylor Joanna: Claire Taylor is a humour and mystery author, the owner of FFS Media, and a certified Enneagram coach. She teaches authors to write stronger stories and build sustainable careers at LiberatedWriter.com, and her book is Write Iconic Characters: Unlocking the Core Motivations that Fuel Unforgettable Stories. So, welcome back to the show, Claire. Claire: Thank you so much for having me back. I'm excited to be here. Joanna: It's great to have you back on the show. It was March 2024 when you were last on, so almost two years now as this goes out. Give us a bit of an update. How has your writing craft and your author business changed in that time? Claire: One of the things I've been focusing on with my own fiction craft is deconstructing the rules of how a story “should” be. That's been a sort of hobby focus of mine. All the story structure books aren't law, right? That's why there are so many of them. They're all suggestions, frameworks. They're all trying to quantify humans' innate ability to understand a story. So I'm trying to remember more that I already know what a story is, deep down. My job as an author is to keep the reader's attention from start to finish and leave them feeling the way I hope they'll feel at the end. That's been my focus on the craft side. On the author business side, I've made some big shifts. I left social media earlier this year, and I've been looking more towards one-on-one coaching and networking. I did a craft-based Kickstarter, and I'd been focusing a lot on “career, career, career”—very business-minded—and now I'm creating more content again, especially around using the Enneagram for writing craft. So there's been a lot of transition since 2024 for me. Joanna: I think it's so important—and obviously we're going to get into your book in more detail—but I do think it's important for people to hear about our pivots and transitions. I haven't spoken to you for a while, but I actually started a master's degree a few months back. I'm doing a full-time master's alongside everything else I do. So I've kind of put down book writing for the moment, and I'm doing essay writing and academic writing instead. It's quite different, as you can imagine. It sounds like what you're doing is different too. One thing I know will have perked up people's ears is: “I left social media.” Tell us a bit more about that. Claire: This was a move that I could feel coming for a while. I didn't like what social media did to my attention. Even when I wasn't on it, there was almost a hangover from having been on it. My attention didn't feel as sharp and focused as it used to be, back before social media became what it is now. So I started asking myself some questions: What is lost if I leave? What is gained if I leave? And what is social media actually doing for me today? Because sometimes we hold on to what it used to do for us, and we keep trying to squeeze more and more of that out of it. But it has changed so much. There are almost no places with sufficient organic reach anymore. It's all pay-to-play, and the cost of pay-to-play keeps going up. I looked at the numbers for my business. My Kickstarter was a great place to analyse that because they track so many traffic sources so clearly. I could see exactly how much I was getting from social media when I advertised and promoted my projects there. Then I asked: can I let that go in order to get my attention back and make my life feel more settled? And I decided: yes, I can. That's worth more to me. Joanna: There are some things money can't buy. Sometimes it really isn't about the money. I like your question: what is lost and what is gained? You also said it's all pay-to-play and there's no organic reach. I do think there is some organic reach for some people who don't pay, but those people are very good at playing the game of whatever the platform wants. So, TikTok for example—you might not have to pay money yet, but you do have to play their game. You have to pay with your time instead of money. I agree with you. I don't think there's anywhere you can literally just post something and know it will reliably reach the people who follow you. Claire: Right. Exactly. TikTok currently, if you really play the game, will sometimes “pick” you, right? But that “pick me” energy is not really my jam. And we can see the trend—this “organic” thing doesn't last. It's organic for now. You can play the game for now, but TikTok would be crazy not to change things so they make more money. So eventually everything becomes pay-to-play. TikTok is fun, but for me it's addictive. I took it off my phone years ago because I would do the infinite scroll. There's so much candy there. Then I'd wake up the next morning and notice my mood just wasn't where I wanted it to be. My energy was low. I really saw a correlation between how much I scrolled and how flat I felt afterwards. So I realised: I'm not the person to pay-to-play or to play the game here. I'm not even convinced that the pay-to-play on certain social media networks is being tracked in a reliable, accountable way anymore. Who is holding them accountable for those numbers? You can sort of see correlation in your sales, but still, I just became more and more sceptical. In the end, it just wasn't for me. My life is so much better on a daily basis without it. That's definitely a decision I have not regretted for a second. Joanna: I'm sorry to keep on about this, but I think this is great because this is going out in January 2026, and there will be lots of people examining their relationship with social media. It's one of those things we all examine every year, pretty much. The other thing I'd add is that you are a very self-aware person. You spend a lot of time thinking about these things and noticing your own behaviour and energy. Stopping and thinking is such an important part of it. But let's tackle the big question: one of the reasons people don't want to come off social media is that they're afraid they don't know how else to market. How are you marketing if you're not using social media? Claire: I didn't leave social media overnight. Over time, I've been adjusting and transitioning, preparing my business and myself mentally and emotionally for probably about a year. I still market to my email list. That has always been important to my business. I've also started a Substack that fits how my brain works. Substack is interesting. Some people might consider it a form of social media—it has that new reading feed—but it feels much more like blogging to me. It's blogging where you can be discovered, which is lovely. I've been doing more long-form content there. You get access to all the emails of your subscribers, which is crucial to me. I don't want to build on something I can't take with me. So I've been doing more long-form content, and that seems to keep my core audience with me. I've got plenty of people subscribed; people continue to come back, work with me, and tell their friends. Word of mouth has always been the way my business markets best, because it's hard to describe the benefits of what I do in a quick, catchy way. It needs context. So I'm leaning even more on that. Then I'm also shifting my fiction book selling more local. Joanna: In person? Claire: Yes. In person and local. Networking and just telling more people that I'm an author. Connecting more deeply with my existing email lists and communities and selling that way. Joanna: I think at the end of the day it does come back to the email list. I think this is one of the benefits of selling direct to people through Shopify or Payhip or whatever, or locally, because you can build your email list. Every person you bring into your own ecosystem, you get their data and you can stay in touch. Whereas all the things we did for years to get people to go to Amazon, we didn't get their emails and details. It's so interesting where we are right now in the author business. Okay, we'll come back to some of these things, but let's get into the book and what you do. Obviously what underpins the book is the Enneagram. Just remind us what the Enneagram is, why you incorporate it into so much of your work, and why you find it resonates so much. Claire: The Enneagram is a framework that describes patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions that tend to arise from nine different core motivations. Those core motivations are made up of a fear–desire pair. So, for instance, there's the fear of lacking worth and the desire to be worthy. That pair is the Type Three core motivation. If you're a Type Three, sometimes called “The Achiever,” that's your fundamental driver. What we fear and desire above all the other fears and desires determines where our attention goes. And attention is something authors benefit greatly from understanding. We have to keep people's attention, so we want to understand our own attention and how to cultivate it. The things our attention goes to build our understanding of ourselves and the world. Being intentional about that, and paying attention to what your characters pay attention to—and what your readers are paying attention to—is hugely beneficial. It can give you a real leg up. That's why I focus on the Enneagram. I find it very useful at that core level. You can build a lot of other things on top of it with your characters: their backstory, personal histories, little quirks—all of that can be built off the Enneagram foundation. Why I like the Enneagram more than other frameworks like MBTI or the Big Five is that it not only shows us how our fears are confining us—that's really what it's charting—but it also shows us a path towards liberation from those fears. That's where the Enneagram really shines: the growth path, the freedom from the confines of our own personality. It offers that to anyone who wants to study and discover it. A lot of the authors I work with say things like, “I'm just so sick of my own stuff.” And I get it. We all get sick of running into the same patterns over and over again. We can get sick of our personality! The Enneagram is a really good tool for figuring out what's going on and how to try something new, because often we can't even see that there are other options. We have this particular lens we're looking through. That's why I like to play with it, and why I find it so useful. Joanna: That's really interesting. It sounds like you have a lot of mature authors—and when I say “mature,” I mean authors with a lot of books under their belt, not necessarily age. There are different problems at different stages of the author career, and the problem you just described—“I'm getting sick of my stuff”—sounds like a mature author issue. What are some of the other issues you see in the community that are quite common amongst indie authors? Claire: One that comes up a lot, especially early on, is: “Am I doing this right?” That's a big question. People say, “I don't know if I'm doing this right. I'm going to mess it up. This person told me this was the way to do things, but I don't think I can do it this way. Am I doomed?” That's the fear. A lot of what I help people with is seeing that there isn't a single “right” way to do this. There's a way that's going to feel more aligned to you, and there are millions of ways to approach an author career because we're all constructing it as we go. You were there in the early days. We were all just making this up as we went along. Joanna: Exactly. There was a time when ebooks were PDFs, there wasn't even a Kindle, and there was no iPhone. We were literally just making it up. Claire: Right. Exactly. That spirit of “we're all making it up” is important. Some of us have come up with frameworks that work for us, and then we tell other people about them—“Here's a process; try this process”—but that doesn't mean it's the process. Understanding what motivates you—those core motivations—helps you see where you're going to bump into advice that's not right for you, and how to start making decisions that fit your attention, your life, your desires in this author role. Early on we do a lot of that work. Then there are the authors who started a while ago and have a bunch of books. They hit a point where they say, “I've changed so much since I started writing. I need to figure out how to adjust my career.” Joanna: Tell us more about that, because I think that's you and me. How do we deal with that? Claire: Well, crying helps. Joanna: That is true! There's always a bit of crying involved in reinvention. From my perspective, my brand has always been built around me. People are still here—I know some people listening who have been with the podcast since I started it in 2009—and I've always been me. Even though I've done loads of different things and changed along the way, at heart I'm still me. I'm really glad I built a personal brand around who I am, rather than around one genre or a single topic. How about you? How do you see it? Claire: I'm the same. I just can't stick with something that doesn't feel right for me anymore. I'll start to rebel against it. There's also that “good girl” part of me that wants to do things the way they're supposed to be done and keep everybody happy. I have to keep an eye on her, because she'll default to “this is the way it should be done,” and then I end up constricted. As we advance through our careers, positioning around what motivates us and what we love, and allowing ourselves to understand that it's okay to change—even though it's painful—is crucial. It's actually destructive not to change over time. We end up forfeiting so many things that make life worth living if we don't allow ourselves to grow and change. We end up in this tiny box. People sometimes say the Enneagram is very restrictive. “It's only nine types, you're putting me in a box.” It's like: no. These are the boxes we've put ourselves in. Then we use the Enneagram to figure out how to get out of the box. As we start to see the box we've put ourselves in with our personality—“that's me, that's not me”—we realise how much movement we actually have, how many options we have, while still being ourselves. Joanna: So many options. This kind of brings us into your book, because part of the personal brand thing is being real and having different facets. Your book is Write Iconic Characters, and presumably these are characters that people want to read more about. It uses the Enneagram to construct these better characters. So first up— What's your definition of an iconic character, as opposed to any old character? And how can we use the Enneagram to construct one? Claire: An iconic character, in my imagination, is one that really sticks with us after we've finished the story. They become a reference point. We'll say, “This person is kind of like that character,” or “This situation feels like that character would handle it this way.” It could be our friends, our enemies, someone we meet on the bus—whoever it is might remind us of this character. So they really get lodged in our psyche. An iconic character feels true to some fundamental part of the human condition, even if they're not strictly human. So, all the alien romance people listening, don't worry—you're still in! These characters take on a life of their own. With an iconic character, we may hear them talking to us after the book is done, because we've tapped into that essential part of them. They can become almost archetypal—something we go back to over and over again in our minds, both as writers and as readers. Joanna: How can we use the Enneagram to construct an iconic character? I'm asking this as a discovery writer who struggles to construct anything beforehand. It's more that I write stuff and then something emerges. But I have definitely not had a hit series with an iconic character, so I'm willing to give your approach a try. Claire: It works with whatever your process is. If you're a discovery writer, start with that spark of a character in your head. If there's a character who's just a glimmer—maybe you know a few things about them—just keep writing. At some point you'll probably recognise, “Okay, it's time to go deeper in understanding this character and create a cohesive thread to pull all of this together.” That's where the Enneagram becomes useful. You can put on your armchair psychologist hat and ask: which of the nine core fears seems like it might be driving the parts of their personality that are emerging? Thankfully, we intuitively recognise the nine types. When we start gathering bits for a new character, we tend to pull from essentially the same constellation of personality, even if we don't realise it. For instance, you might say, “This character is bold and adventurous,” and that's all you know. You're probably not going to also add, “and they're incredibly shy,” because “bold and adventurous” plus “incredibly shy” doesn't really fit our intuitive understanding of people. We know that instinctively. So, you've got “bold and adventurous.” You write that to a certain point, and then you get to a place where you think, “I don't really know them deeply.” That's when you can go back to the nine core fears and start ruling some out quite quickly. In the book, I have descriptions for each of them. You can read the character descriptions, read about the motivations, and start to say, “It's definitely not these five types. I can rule those out.” If they're bold and adventurous, maybe the core fear is being trapped in deprivation and pain, or being harmed and controlled. Those correspond to Type Seven (“The Enthusiast”) and Type Eight (“The Challenger”), respectively. So you might say, “Okay, maybe they're a Seven or an Eight.” From there, if you can pin down a type, you can read more about it and get ideas. You can understand the next big decision point. If they're a Type Seven, what's going to motivate them? They'll do whatever keeps them from being trapped in pain and deprivation, and they'll be seeking satisfaction or new experiences in some way, because that's the core desire that goes with that fear. So now, you're asking: “How do I get them to get on the spaceship and leave Earth?” Well, you could offer them some adventure, because they're bold and adventurous. I have a character who's a Seven, and she gets on a spaceship and takes off because her boyfriend just proposed—and the idea of being trapped in marriage feels like: “Nope. Whatever is on this spaceship, I'm out of here.” You can play with that once you identify a type. You can go as deep with that type as you want, or you can just work with the core fear and the basic desire. There's no “better or worse”—it's whatever you feel comfortable with and whatever you need for the story. Joanna: In the book, you go into all the Enneagram types in detail, but you also have a specific example: Wednesday Addams. She's one of my favourites. People listening have either seen the current series or they have something in mind from the old-school Addams Family. Can you talk about [Wednesday Addams] as an example? Claire: Doing those deep dives was some of the most fun research for this book. I told my husband, John, “Don't bother me. I need to sit and binge-watch Wednesday again—with my notebook this time.” Online, people were guessing: “Oh, she's maybe this type, maybe that type.” As soon as I started watching properly with the Enneagram in mind, I thought: “Oh, this is a Type Eight, this is the Challenger.” One of the first things we hear from her is that she considers emotions to be weakness. Immediately, you can cross out a bunch of types from that. When we're looking at weak/strong language—that lens of “strength” versus “weakness”—we tend to look towards Eights, because they often sort the world in those terms. They're concerned about being harmed or controlled, so they feel they need to be strong and powerful. That gave me a strong hint in that direction. If we look at the inciting incident—which is a great place to identify what really triggers a character, because it has to be powerful enough to launch the story—Wednesday finds her little brother Pugsley stuffed in a locker. She says, “Who did this?” because she believes she's the only one who gets to bully him. That's a very stereotypical Type Eight thing. The unhealthy Eight can dip into being a bit of a bully because they're focused on power and power dynamics. But the Eight also says, “These are my people. I protect them. If you're one of my people, you're under my protection.” So there's that protection/control paradox. Then she goes and—spoiler—throws a bag of piranhas into the pool to attack the boys who hurt him. That's like: okay, this is probably an Eight. Then she has control wrested from her when she's sent to the new school. That's a big trigger for an Eight: to not have autonomy, to not have control. She acts out pretty much immediately, tries to push people away, and establishes dominance. One of the first things she does is challenge the popular girl to a fencing match. That's very Eight behaviour: “I'm going to go in, figure out where I sit in this power structure, and try to get into a position of power straight away.” That's how the story starts, and in the book I go into a lot more analysis. At one point she's attacked by this mysterious thing and is narrowly saved from a monster. Her reaction afterwards is: “I would have rather saved myself.” That's another strong Eight moment. The Eight does not like to be saved by anyone else. It's: “No, I wanted to be strong enough to do that.” Her story arc is also very Eight-flavoured: she starts off walled-off, “I can do it myself,” which can sometimes look like the self-sufficiency of the Five, but for her it's about always being in a power position and in control of herself. She has to learn to rely more on other people if she wants to protect the people she cares about. Protecting the innocent and protecting “her people” is a big priority for the Eight. Joanna: Let's say we've identified our main character and protagonist. One of the important things in any book, especially in a series, is conflict—both internal and external. Can we use the Enneagram to work out what would be the best other character, or characters, to give us more conflict? Claire: The character dynamics are complex, and all types are going to have both commonalities and conflict between them. That works really well for fiction. But depending on how much conflict you need, there are certain type pairings that are especially good for it. If you have a protagonist who's an Eight, they're going to generate conflict everywhere because it doesn't really bother them. They're okay wading into conflict. If you ask an Eight, “Do you like conflict?” they'll often say, “Well, sometimes it's not great,” but to everyone else it looks like they come in like a wrecking ball. The Eight tends to go for what they want. They don't see the point in waiting. They think, “I want it, I'm going to go and get it.” That makes them feel strong and powerful. So it's easy to create external and internal conflict with an Eight and other types. But the nature of the conflict is going to be different depending on who you pair them with. Let's say you have this Eight and you pair them with a Type One, “The Reformer,” whose core fear is being bad or corrupt, and who wants to be good and have integrity. The Reformer wants morality. They can get a little preachy; they can become a bit of a zealot when they're more unhealthy. A One and an Eight will have a very particular kind of conflict because the One says, “Let's do what's right,” and the Eight says, “Let's do what gets me what I want and puts me in the power position.” They may absolutely get along if they're taking on injustice. Ones and Eights will team up if they both see the same thing as unjust. They'll both take it on together. But then they may reach a point in the story where the choice is between doing the thing that is “right”—maybe self-sacrificing or moral—versus doing the thing that will exact retribution or secure a power-up. That's where the conflict between a One and an Eight shows up. You can grab any two types and they'll have unique conflict. I'm actually working on a project on Kickstarter that's all about character dynamics and relationships—Write Iconic Relationships is the next project—and I go deeper into this there. Joanna: I was wondering about that, because I did a day-thing recently with colour palettes and interior design—which is not usually my thing—so I was really challenging myself. We did this colour wheel, and they were talking about how the opposite colour on the wheel is the one that goes with it in an interesting way. I thought— Maybe there's something in the Enneagram where it's like a wheel, and the type opposite is the one that clashes or fits in a certain way. Is that a thing? Claire: There is a lot of that kind of contrast. The Enneagram is usually depicted in a circle, one through nine, and there are strong contrasts between types that are right next to each other, as well as interesting lines that connect them. For example, we've been talking about the Eight, and right next to Eight is Nine, “The Peacemaker.” Eights and Nines can look like opposites in certain ways. The Nine is conflict-avoidant, and the Eight tends to think you get what you want by pushing into conflict if necessary. Then you've got Four, “The Individualist,” which is very emotional, artistic, heart-centred, and Five, “The Investigator,” which you're familiar with—very head-centred and analytical, thinking-based. The Four and the Five can clash a bit: the head and the heart. So, yes, there are interesting contrasts right next to each other on the wheel. Each type also has its own conflict style. We're going into the weeds a bit here, but it's fascinating to play with. There's one conflict style—the avoidant conflict style, sometimes called the “positive outlook” group—and it's actually hard to get those types into an enemies-to-lovers romance because they don't really want to be enemies. That's Types Two, Seven, and Nine. So depending on the trope you're writing, some type pairings are more frictional than others. There are all these different dynamics you can explore, and I can't wait to dig into them more for everyone in the relationships book. Joanna: The Enneagram is just one of many tools people can use to figure out themselves as well as their characters. Maybe that's something people want to look at this year. You've got this book, you've got other resources that go into it, and there's also a lot of information out there if people want to explore it more deeply. Let's pull back out to the bigger picture, because as this goes out in January 2026, I think there is a real fear of change in the community right now. Is that something you've seen? What are your thoughts for authors on how they can navigate the year ahead? Claire: Yes, there has been a lot of fear. The rate of change of things online has felt very rapid. The rate of change in the broader world—politically, socially—has also felt scary to a lot of people. It can be really helpful to look at your own personal life and anchor yourself in what hasn't changed and what feels universal. From there you can start to say, “Okay, I can do this. I'm safe enough to be creative. I can find creative ways to work within this new environment.” You can choose to engage with AI. You can choose to opt out. It's totally your choice, and there is no inherent virtue in either one. I think that's important to say. Sometimes people who are anti-AI—not just uninterested but actively antagonistic—go after people who like it. And sometimes people who like AI can be antagonistic towards people who don't want to use it. But actually, you get to choose what you're comfortable with. One of the things I see emerging for authors in 2026, regardless of what tools you're using or how you feel about them, is this question of trustworthiness. I think there's a big need for that. With the increased number of images and videos that are AI-generated—which a lot of people who've been on the internet for a while can still recognise as AI and say, “Yeah, that's AI”—but that may not be obvious for long. Right now some of us can tell, but a lot of people can't, and that's only going to get murkier. There's a rising mistrust of our own senses online lately. We're starting to wonder, “Can I believe what I'm seeing and hearing?” And I think that sense of mistrust will increase. As an author in that environment, it's really worth focusing on: how do I build trust with my readers? That doesn't mean you never use AI. It might simply mean you disclose, to whatever extent feels right for you, how you use it. There are things like authenticity, honesty, vulnerability, humility, integrity, transparency, reliability—all of those are ingredients in this recipe of trustworthiness that we need to look at for ourselves. If there's one piece of hard inner work authors can do for 2026, I think it's asking: “Where have I not been trustworthy to my readers?” Then taking that hard, sometimes painful look at what comes up, and asking how you can adjust. What do you need to change? What new practices do you need to create that will increase trustworthiness? I really think that's the thing that's starting to erode online. If you can work on it now, you can hold onto your readers through whatever comes next. Joanna: What's one concrete thing people could do in that direction [to increase trustworthiness]? Claire: I would say disclosing if you use AI is a really good start—or at least disclosing how you use it specifically. I know that can lead to drama when you do it because people have strong opinions, but trustworthiness comes at the cost of courage and honesty. Transparency is another ingredient we could all use more of. If transparency around AI is a hard “absolutely not” for you—if you're thinking, “Nope, Claire, you can get lost with that”—then authenticity is another route. Let your messy self be visible, because people still want some human in the mix. Being authentically messy and vulnerable with your audience helps. If you can't be reliable and put the book out on time, at least share what's going on in your life. Staying connected in that way builds trust. Readers will think, “Okay, I see why you didn't hit that deadline.” But if you're always promising books—“It's going to be out on this day,” and then, “Oh, I had to push it back,” and that happens again and again—that does erode the trustworthiness of your brand. So, looking at those things and asking, “How am I cultivating trust, and how am I breaking it?” is hard work. There are definitely ways I look at my own business and think, “That's not a very trustworthy thing I'm doing.” Then I need to sit down, get real with myself, and see how I can improve that. Joanna: Always improving is good. Coming back to the personal brand piece, and to being vulnerable and putting ourselves out there: you and I have both got used to that over years of doing it and practising. There are people listening who have never put their photo online, or their voice online, or done a video. They might not use their photo on the back of their book or on their website. They might use an avatar. They might use a pen name. They might be afraid of having anything about themselves online. That's where I think there is a concern, because as much as I love a lot of the AI stuff, I don't love the idea of everything being hidden behind anonymous pen names and faceless brands. As you said, being vulnerable in some way and being recognisably human really matters. I'd say: double down on being human. I think that's really important. Do you have any words of courage for people who feel, “I just can't. I don't want to put myself out there”? Claire: There are definitely legitimate reasons some people wouldn't want to be visible. There are safety reasons, cultural reasons, family reasons—all sorts of factors. There are also a lot of authors who simply haven't practised the muscle of vulnerability. You build that muscle a little bit at a time. It does open you up to criticism, and some people are just not at a phase of life where they can cope with that. That's okay. If fear is the main reason—if you're hiding because you're scared of being judged—I do encourage you to step out, gently. This may be my personal soapbox, but I don't think life is meant to be spent hiding. Things may happen. Not everyone will like you. That's part of being alive. When you invite in hiding, it doesn't just stay in one corner. That constricted feeling tends to spread into other areas of your life. A lot of the time, people I work with don't want to disclose their pen names because they're worried their parents won't approve, and then we have to unpack that. You don't have to do what your parents want you to do. You're an adult now, right? If the issue is, “They'll cut me out of the will,” we can talk about that too. That's a deeper, more practical conversation. But if it's just that they won't approve, you have more freedom than you think. You also don't have to plaster your picture everywhere. Even if you're not comfortable showing your face, you can still communicate who you are and what matters to you in other ways—through your stories, through your email list, through how you talk to readers. Let your authentic self be expressed in some way. It's scary, but the reward is freedom. Joanna: Absolutely. Lots to explore in 2026. Tell people where they can find you and your books and everything you do online. Claire: LiberatedWriter.com is where all of my stuff lives, except my fiction, which I don't think people here are necessarily as interested in. If you do want to find my fiction, FFS Media is where that lives. Then I'm on Substack as well. I write long pieces there. If you want to subscribe, it's The Liberated Writer on Substack. Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Claire. That was great. Claire: Thanks so much for having me.The post Leaving Social Media, Writing Iconic Characters, and Building Trust With Claire Taylor first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Hello Rebels and welcome to fireside chat number thirty-nine between Rachael Herron and I. To find out more about Rachael, you can listen to her show “How Do You Write” or visit her website. * If you haven't read The Anatomy of a Best Seller, what are you waiting for? Grab my latest craft book and start deconstructing so you can write your own best seller today.

Sacha and Rachael get real in their annual Lessons Learned show! Don't miss it! Write in the Junkyard! https://rachaelherron.com/online-writing-retreat-2026/

Finally, someone's written the book for creative people who need to use their time to care for loved ones. How do you set aside perfectionism and guilt? Fan favorite Donn tells us how! Donn King is an author, podcaster, and communication coach who helps writers and speakers say what they really mean without losing the personality that makes them worth listening to. A longtime professor turned publishing sherpa, he blends clear storytelling with a warm, wry voice that leans more Anne Lamott than corporate handbook. Through his books, his podcast The Alignment Show, and his teaching, he helps people live and create in courageous alignment with their values. His latest book is entitled Creating While Caring: Practical Tips to Keep Creating While Caring for a Loved One.Links mentioned: The Alignment Show: http://thealignmentshow.comAnd creating a care community: donnking.com/creatingcarecommunity Donn also appeared on episode 439 of this podcast! ✏️ Writing in the Junkyard Online Writing Retreat! Join us! http://rachaelherron.com/retreat

V. F. Mejia has a process for writing that might change the way you show up for your writing! And she's just funded her first Kickstarter, and Rachael can't be more excited about this one! V. F. Mejia is a sapphic fantasy author dedicated to writing for all the Latine sapphics out in the world. With a focus on Peruvian folklore, history, and mythology, her books transport readers to immersive new worlds outside the Western sphere.When she's not writing she's hiking through ruins or reading sapphic fantasy/sci-fi or both simultaneously (thank god for audiobooks). Her debut novel The Glory of Gold is fully funded on Kickstarter and will be released March 2026. Find everything here: https://linktr.ee/vfmejiaThe Glory of Gold Kickstarter here! http://rachaelherron.com/valeria✏️ Writing in the Junkyard Online Writing Retreat! Join us! http://rachaelherron.com/retreat

Rachael Herron's latest: The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland, is, truly and in so many ways, the book only she can write. It pulls from every part of her life: identity, spirituality, a love of what's magical in the world, her joy in crafting and her understanding of community and family. I, of course, wanted to know: how did you find the guts to put it all on the table? We talked about vulnerability, the challenges of writing the book of your heart, and learning to play with what you fear. Rachael says, “I'm spoiled for any smaller kind of writing. I'm not sure I can go back.”You're gonna love it. Links from the Pod:The Seven Miracles of Beatrix HollandInk in Your Veins podcastRachel's website: https://rachaelherron.comThe Jennifer Lynn Barnes “take my money” list.The War of Art, Steven Pressfield#AmReading:Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch, Tabitha Carvan Transcript below:EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMultiple SpeakersIs 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'AntoniaHey, listeners, 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. I am KJ Dell'Antonia, and today I am bringing to you an interview with Rachael Herron. I just finished talking to Rachael, and I really enjoyed this. We talked about vulnerability. We talked about the challenges of writing the book of your heart. We talked about what should show you where that book is, the idea that the fear is where you should play. It's, it's a really great interview, and I know that you are going to enjoy it.Let me tell you a little bit about Rachael. She is the author of so many, so many books, thrillers and romances, and most recently, in the book that we are talking about, The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland. And I have to read you—Rachael's going to describe this to you, but I got to read you the very short thing that basically made me say, take my money. And it went like this. A psychic tells Beatrix Holland that she'll experience seven miracles and then she'll die. No problem, though, Beatrix isn't worried. She is above all things pragmatic. She vastly prefers a spreadsheet to a tall tale. Then the miracles start to happen.It's a really great book, and more importantly, it's a big book. It is a book where Rachael is writing what comes from deep inside, and it is a book that only Rachael could write. And that is why I asked Rachael to join me today. I hope that you enjoy this interview, and before I release you to it, I just want to remind you that the place to go to talk more about writing big and playing big in your writing life is anywhere that we are: the AmWriting Podcast, Hashtag AmWriting, AmWritingPodcast.com. Find us on Substack. Find us by Googling. Grab those show notes—you should be getting them—and join us for all the different ways that we need to come together in a community to give each other the strength to do our very best and biggest work.So I'm going to ask you to describe The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland to me. But also before I even do, I want to say how much I enjoyed it. And also so we have been spending most of our time on the AmWriting Podcast lately talking about writing—writing big and striving big and trying to do something different and bigger and better than what you have done before. We, I think as writers, we're always trying to up our game, but there's upping your game, and there's reaching for the stars. And I felt like this book reached for the stars in a way that you maybe didn't even set out to because to me, as someone who has read much of your work and followed your career and listened to a lot of the Ink in Your Veins Podcast and sort of just knows what's going on with Rachael, this is the book that only you could write. So when I say this is your big book, I don't mean, you know, that this is, is going to be a—I'm sorry—I don't actually mean that 200 years from now, people will be passing this around.Rachael HerronExactly.KJ Dell'AntoniaWhat I mean is that this is you. This is and it's you. All of your books are you, but this was really you in a way that felt downright magical to me. And it's a magical book. So can you tell us a little bit about Beatrix Holland? And I will also say that even before I read it that you had me at the premise. So give us that.Rachael HerronWell, I don't know how to talk about it now that you've talked me up so well. But thank you. Thank you for, you know, being honestly an ideal reader for this book. The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland is about a woman who is pragmatic and sensible and doesn't believe in, you know, mumbo jumbo, not really worried about that kind of thing. But she is told by a psychic that she will experience seven miracles and then she will die and whatever, that's not a big deal. It doesn't bother her, because none of it is true. She doesn't believe it. And then, me… miracles start to occur; things that even she cannot say are not miracles. And so therefore, maybe, what about that death thing that's going to be preying on her mind?KJ Dell'AntoniaSo on top of that…Rachael HerronWho likes what the book is about…KJ Dell'AntoniaWe're on an island, and there's family secrets being revealed. And there are amazing family secrets that I think many of us would, I mean, they're kind of awful, and I've talked to some people, and some people would be thrilled by them, and some wouldn't, but yeah, just it just kind of keeps giving and giving and giving. And it's funny because you say I'm the ideal reader, and actually, I don't know that I necessarily would be…Rachael HerronOh, that's even better…KJ Dell'AntoniaExcept, if somebody else had written this, I would not be the ideal reader. And I don't think that's because I know you. I think it's because of the way that you wrote that. And when what I when I say, I wouldn't be the ideal reader, I am getting a little tired of books that are giving me certain specific elements that are very trendy right now and that people feel obliged to give me. And you know you have, certainly, you've got LGBTQ characters in this, but also you have LGBTQ characters in your life. You are yourself such a character.Rachael HerronAs my wife is one of them over in the other room.KJ Dell'AntoniaAnd this isn't me saying I will only read books about queer people by queer authors. No, no, no. It's that these are the thing, the elements of this book that sort of fall into that, that are just there, because that's your life and what you see…Rachael HerronRight. Right.KJ Dell'AntoniaAnd it just is perfectly natural. And of course, you have a lot of—and it's in the sort of the same way that, of course, there's a lot of witchiness and spirituality, because it's part, it's part of you and part of who you are. So it's, it's, it reads as authentic.Rachael HerronOh, that's such a, that's such a—that's such a huge compliment. I wrote this book to please myself.KJ Dell'AntoniaThat's what… that's my next question. Don't make me. Don't make me interrupt you. What? That was my question. What was your intention? What did you set out to do with this book?Rachael HerronI—so this is my sixth genre, and I've been writing for—I've been published for 15 years, and this is my 26 or 27th book. I've lost, I can't remember, maybe more. I have a list somewhere. And I have always thought about, you know, the market and what people want to read and what people want to hear, as you know, as you know this, you've been, you've been doing the same thing a long time.KJ Dell'AntoniaAnd there's nothing wrong with that.Rachael HerronThere's nothing wrong with writing tree, market around market, exactly. But, but in this case, I wanted to write a book, and I wanted to have fun, and, and, and to be honest, I talk about this regularly is that I was going to self-publish it. I didn't even want to deal with my agent coming back and saying, oh, you should edit it this way. Or, you know that this or that editor doesn't want it, or they wanted to change in some way. I wanted to write a—I wanted to write a series of about found family, and I did, I did the Jennifer Lynn Barnes thing, the adored Taylor, where I just, I just made the list of everything I love the most. You know, I love witch stuff. I love practical magic. I love sisters. I love twins separated at birth. Why wouldn't I? I love grumpy, grumpy, older women and fireflies and all of the things that I love the most. And I and I wrote that book, and it was one of the fastest books I've ever written, and not because I was rushing, just because it came easily. I was following my heart and following my gut, and I was also following my tarot cards. When I would get stuck, I would just pull a tarot card and see what it did with my subconscious and moved me forward, and I it was just play. And then I revised it quickly. I hired my favorite editor, edited it, got it copy edited, and then I decided, oh gosh, I don't think I want to do a whole series, and I'm not sure if I want to self-publish, because that's a lot of work, so I'll just let my agent have it and to see if she could sell it. And she said, okay, I'll take a look at it and see if I could sell it. And then it sold at auction because it was, I don't… there's no because there it was just no surprise. There's no because there's no because there's never a because in publishing. You can also write the book of your heart.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah, and then this—the rest of the story wouldn't fall that way and it would never sell that way…Rachael HerronExactly. So it happened to go this way. And of course, a lot of it is a lot of it is luck. Cozy, cozy, queer fantasy is, you know, on an upswing right now, but that wasn't, you know, a couple years ago. It took a couple years for it to come out.KJ Dell'AntoniaWhat do you love most? Yeah, what do you love most about this book and the experience?Rachael HerronThe thing I love most about the whole experience is that it has spoiled me for any other kind of writing; I think now, which may be a good or a bad thing. Ask me in a few years. But I kind of refuse now to write a book that I don't desperately want to write, that I can't stop thinking of. Because I've written a lot of books that I love, but they were, you know, what they were, they were my job. They were the book I sold. And now I will write the book that I sold. Now I will do, do what the contract says. And I don't want to do that anymore. I just want to write the books that grab me and fascinate me and keep me in their thrall and what that means is that I have to, you know, focus on other ways to bring in money and to support. And really, I'm now, I'm supporting this writing passion with things like teaching and with, you know, you know, old backlist books. But I'm not, I'm not sure if I can go back. I don't want to, I don't want to be a work a day writer, writing to a contract that I don't maybe love as much as other contracts I've had, right?KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah.Rachael HerronSo, yeah, it's spoiled me a little bit that way.KJ Dell'AntoniaSo are there other ways that this book feels bigger than things that you have written before? And this is again; we're not denigrating our old work. We're not…Rachael HerronNo, of course not. Of course not. I think that every—for me, it's always been a goal that for every book that I write, it needs to be me playing bigger. It needs to be me playing truer, more, more free. And in this book, it's only recently come up in my in my consciousness that I think that I needed to leave the United States and move around the world to New Zealand. And one of the reasons we left the states was because we were scared of the way LGBTQ rights are, are trending. There's 867 pieces of legislation that are anti LGBTQ on the dockets right now in the United States, and that's, that's up by like 700% in the last four years, and it's and it's terrifying. But it I didn't strike me until recently that this is my first novel that has a queer love story. It's not a romance, but there's a queer, queer love story inside it. And I finally, perhaps, felt safe enough to do that, you know, because it and when I came into the industry, I came in writing straight romances, because that's what would sell. And when I would ask to write other things that was turned down by traditional publishing because they thought it wouldn't sell. And then, you know, obviously self-publishers came along and said, oh, there is a market. Wow, look who wants to read these books. But, and so it was me kind of exposing myself in that way, and also me exposing myself in in the way that Beatrix does is that I always, I also just want to believe in magic. I want to believe I want to believe in things out there that I can't explain, that are bigger than me, that I don't actually need a name for or to understand. Because if I could understand something that is that big, something that is powering the universes, I can't be expected to understand that. But can I, can I engage with it? Can I play with it in the in the exact same way that that Beatrix does? I think the answer is yes. And I did. When I would pull the tarot cards to help me write the next chapter if I got stuck, it was an actual process of engaging with a larger thing, saying, I don't know how to write this book. Help me write this book. Asking for help in writing this book from, from whatever is out there. I don't have, I don't have big ideas about it, but yeah. So that was, that was, it was scary, and maybe that's why I originally wanted to self-publish it, because then it, it felt like I could keep total control.KJ Dell'AntoniaSure.Rachael HerronIf I did that,KJ Dell'AntoniaOf course, you could keep anyone who wouldn't like it from reading it then.Multiple Speakers[Both laughing]KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah, okay, so maybe not so much. But no, I get it. It must have felt…Rachael HerronYeah.KJ Dell'AntoniaLess vulnerable. So I was going to ask you next, what was hard about it. And I guess that's, is that what was hard? But maybe something else was.Rachael HerronLet's see, what was that? So that was hard, being that honest and vulnerable. And you know how when we write our novels, the thing that we want to do is be as truthful as possible, even though we're just making up a pack of lies. It's it feels more true often than even memoir can when we're when we're doing this. What else felt hard? Not much felt hard about this book. And I have had books that I have struggled with like I am wrestling muddy alligators for decades at a time. It feels like those that's what those that's what those books feel like. And there's nothing wrong with those books. They were just; you know where I was at the moment. But this book, I it's one of those gift books. It just, I must have struggled, and I do not remember. I honestly do not remember struggling.KJ Dell'AntoniaWell… I wish for…Rachael HerronI just remember it being joy.KJ Dell'Antonia…all of us. I wish that. I wish that journey for all of us. Oh. Yeah, yeah…Rachael HerronAs usual, I struggle whenever I get copy edits back. When I get copy edits back, I realize I don't know how to write a sentence.KJ Dell'AntoniaSo if any of our listeners are sort of trying to find within themselves the freedom to write what they really want to write, and maybe can't even figure out what the heck that would be, what would you say to them…asking for a friend?Rachael HerronI would encourage them to do one of those “ID lists”, to sit down and write a list of the thing that if you saw that something about it was on the box of the of the video cassette at the video rental store, because that's how old I am, if you saw that listed on there, would you pick it up and rent the movie? Write down all of the things that you love the most and then actually use it as an exercise in creativity within constraints. How many of those things can you actually shove in there? Can you get them? Can you get them all in there? The other thing I like to ask myself when this question comes up is, if I am alone—well, it doesn't actually matter if I'm alone or not—but if I, if I walk into the bookstore, any bookstore, and and I reject any “shoulds,” you know, should I look for that cookbook I was thinking about, or should I look for that new nonfiction I heard about on the podcast, if I'm if I'm released of all shoulds, where will I want to—and say somebody tells me you can only look at one section of the store today. What is the section of the store that I will go stand in front of and pull books off the shelf and look at? And perhaps that is a clue as to where you should be writing.KJ Dell'AntoniaAnd how about freeing yourself up to actually do it. We can't all move to New Zealand, Rachael.Rachael Herron[Laughing] Freeing yourself up do you mean to write the book, to write that book?KJ Dell'AntoniaTo write that book. I don't. Yeah, most of my listeners—well, most of our listeners aren't you know, we tend to be a podcast for professionals or people that are playing professional so, you know, these aren't people who can't put their butt in the chair, but to be vulnerable and admit that you want to go bigger and then do it. That's a different question. Got any advice for that?Rachael HerronI do like to think of Steven Pressfield's advice from his book The War of Art, where he talks about resistance with the capital R. And the place where you feel the most resistance, that's your that's your compass that is pointing north to what you what, what you are meant to do. And a lot of times when we think about these bigger stories that we may want to write someday, the someday, right when I get there, I'll write it someday, that you've already got this compass pointing you there, and it is terrifying. And the fear of how can I do that now is maybe the thing that says that you do not need to put aside the fourth book in the series that you're writing that you need to finish before you write this next series. You can do that. But maybe listening to that resistance, listening to that fear, and dedicating 15 minutes, three times a week, to playing with the idea of this book. If you were to start to write it anytime in the future, you can, you can at least be courting it and flirting with it, making it know that you are going to be available to write that, that book of your heart, because everybody, every we all need that. We all need that. We also need to pay the bills and do the professional writing and do all that too.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah, yeah.Rachael HerronBut…KJ Dell'AntoniaWe got to; we got to try to do the biggest things we can. All right. Well, that's a great place to lead into my next question, which is, what have you read recently where you really thought the writer was playing big?Rachael HerronCan I give you two?KJ Dell'AntoniaOf course!Rachael HerronOkay, the first one, and strangely, these are both nonfiction. So make of that what you will, Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams, who is a QE. Have you heard of this one?KJ Dell'AntoniaOh yeah. This is the…Rachael HerronOh yeah, the Facebook book.KJ Dell'AntoniaThe Facebook book. We moved fast, and we did indeed break things.Rachael HerronWe did move fast. We broke things. And Sarah has a uniquely Kiwi sense when she's looking at them, because she goes in and she's really watching it all happen. And I don't care about Facebook. I don't actually engage with all of the stuff that said about it. And this book is written basically it felt like a thriller. It was—I couldn't put it down. And she was fearless, the things that she said. No wonder Zuckerberg wanted to silence it. He looks like a moron. And she was absolutely fearless. And it was one of those schadenfreudy, why am I reading this? Why can't I put this down? But I can't put it down. And I think it was because of her bravery.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah.Rachael HerronSo I really enjoyed it for that. And then the other one I want to tell you about is kind of on the flip side. And you may not have heard about this one. It's called This Is Not a Book About Benedict CumberbatchKJ Dell'AntoniaNot only have I heard about this one, it's entirely possible that I sent it to you.Rachael HerronReally?!KJ Dell'AntoniaI love this book! All right, go on. Go on.Rachael Herron…The Joy of Loving Something--Anything--Like Your Life Depends On It, by Tabitha Carvan. Oh, my god, isn't it brilliant? She writes about how, yes, she does love Benedict Cumberbatch, who I'd really never considered very much in my lifeKJ Dell'AntoniaNo, I couldn't pick him out of a lineup of youthful-ish…Rachael HerronYeah.KJ Dell'AntoniaBritish-ish…Rachael HerronYeah.KJ Dell'AntoniaActor-ish,Rachael HerronAnd she loves him, loves him, loves him, no, no joke, loves him. And the whole book is about recovering from any shame around loving the thing that you were put on this earth to freaking love with your whole heart, no matter what anybody says. And I really think the Benedict Cumberbatch is a really great thing to tie this whole book in.KJ Dell'AntoniaIt had to be something like that, because if it was like knitting, I mean,Rachael HerronRight, exactly.KJ Dell'AntoniaOkay, that's fine, honey, you can love your knitting. And you know it also is…Rachael HerronExactly,KJ Dell'AntoniaYou know, it also is…Rachael HerronThis is not a book about yogurt. Who cares, you know. But Benedict Cumberbatch is funny to say. He's actually kind of funny to look at when you do look at him, when you do look him up. And it's so evocative, and it is, and it is something that people would snicker at.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah.Rachael HerronRight? People would snicker.KJ Dell'AntoniaStill even… yeah, it's like, she snickers it herself. But also she's like, okay, why? Why is that, you know? Why would it be? What if I were super obsessed with the stats of some obscure ball—baseball player, no one would mock that. If I wanted to watch every football game played by, you know…Rachael HerronThat blew my mind when she said that, of course, of course. So, and she goes deep. She's again, she's so brave. She plays big. She goes into what it means. How does it like? How does it affect her husband? What does she think about how it affects her husband? Like she goes all of the places. I'm so, I bet you did tell me about it, and I'm so glad that you did.KJ Dell'AntoniaI love, I love. I keep extra copies to force people to read it. I tie people up in like, you know parts of my house and force them… no. I don't really do that.Rachael Herron[Laughing] I love that. But, and what are those all have in common? I think that what are, the both those books have in common? Is these women who, who, at any point, anybody in the whole world could have told them that's not really a good idea to write.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah, no, that's exactly right.Rachael HerronAnd it would've been true.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah. It would have been true. It would have been excellent advice.Rachael HerronExcellent advice not to write that book.KJ Dell'AntoniaReally, you should not admit that you love Benedict. Or really, I mean, you're never going to work in this town again, man.Rachael HerronYou're never going to work in this town again. And the whole, during the whole book of Careless People, she's talking about being inside, she is inside the beast that is doing the damage. And that's and that's brave too. And I don't think Seven Miracles is as brave as those books, but there was, but there was bravery and resistance around moving, moving toward, really putting yourself on display.KJ Dell'AntoniaRun towards the fear.Rachael HerronAnd that's what we writers do.KJ Dell'AntoniaThat's our theme.Rachael HerronYeah, run towards the fear. Even if you can only give it 15 minutes a day or so, three times a week, that's enough. That's good enough to tell your bravery. It should come back more.KJ Dell'AntoniaYes.Rachael HerronScooch, door bravery, little scooches.KJ Dell'AntoniaEdge towards the fear. Tip toe.Rachael HerronOh, that's beautiful. I love that you're doing this series.KJ Dell'AntoniaWe love it too. So, yeah, it's going great. Well again, thank you. I was really excited to talk to you about this book. I was really excited to read this book. I enjoyed the heck out of it, and I think, listeners, that you would too. You should absolutely check it out as well as all the rest of Rachael's work. Links of course, as always, in the show notes, and follow Rachael in all the places. Although, to me, the best thing to do is to go and listen to the Ink in Your Veins Podcast. Because obviously, people, you're a podcast listener, you wouldn't be here. Where do you most like to be followed, Rachael?Rachael HerronAt Ink in Your Veins or on Rachaelherron.com/write, if you are a writer and want to get on the on the writing encouragement list. But I just want to thank you for doing this amazing show and for having me. I feel very, very honored to be here.KJ Dell'AntoniaWell, thank—thank you. All right. And as we say in every episode, until next week, kids, keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game.NarratorThe 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. 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

Lisa Dailey had a sideways entry into writing fiction, and she's been having a ball ever since. Don't miss this super fun interview! Lisa Daily is one of the top nonfiction and self-help book coaches in the US, coaching everyone from first-time writers to 7-figure authors. She's a USA Today bestselling author of more than 15 romance and non-fiction books herself, including HOW TO WRITE A SELF-HELP BOOK in 14 DAYS. She's the founder of Author (dot) coach and the Bestseller Academy, and hosts a popular publishing YouTube channel, Bestselling Author Writing Coach. Bestselling Author Writing Coach publishing and writing advice on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe36_egPO62qjzjF-cNO44g?sub_confirmation=1Lisa Daily's book publishing resources: www.author.coachUse code IWROTETHAT (25% off, good thru 12/31/2026)Lisa's contemporary romance: LisaDailyBooks.com✏️ Writing in the Junkyard Online Writing Retreat! Join us! http://rachaelherron.com/retreat

This is one of Rachael's favorite episodes, ever — join Paul as he tells us about Cai Emmons's new book The Bells. Paul Calandrino is a playwright, educator, and actor based in Eugene, Oregon, where Cai and he lived until she died. Since she passed, he has been curating her literary legacy with the release of this book, and he is currently collecting her blog content into book form. Cai Emmons (1951-2023) was the author of seven novels and a story collection, Vanishing. The Bells, is her final novel. She held a BA from Yale University and two MFAs, one from New York University in film and the other from the University of Oregon in fiction. Before turning to fiction, Emmons wrote plays and screenplays. Winner of a Student Academy Award, an Oregon Book Award, and the Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize, and finalist for the Narrative, The Missouri Review, and the Sarton awards, she taught at a variety of institutions, most recently in the creative writing program at the University of Oregon. She died in 2023 from Bulbar-onset ALS, a fast-progressing form of the disease that had taken her voice. The Bells, which features a protagonist with ALS, has just been released by Red Hen Press. Her final years are also the focus of an award-winning documentary Vanishing: A Love Story, directed by Sandra Luckow. ✏️ Writing in the Junkyard Online Writing Retreat! Join us! http://rachaelherron.com/retreat

In which we catch up on two months! Sacha's new goals, her amazing Shopify success, and Rachael's new book idea (plus a challenge from Sacha).

Hello Rebels and welcome to fireside chat number thirty-eight between Rachael Herron and I.  To find out more about Rachael, you can listen to her show “How Do You Write” or visit her website. * If you like dark humor, learning through examples and want to create perfect prose, then you'll love my guide to crafting sensational sentences. Read The Anatomy of Prose today and start creating kick-ass stories.

I ADORE this episode, in which I talk to Louisa about making things by hand, including books! Louisa Owen Sonstroem considers garment-making skills to be deeply empowering. Louisa writes and teaches about patternmaking and hand stitching clothing. For most of a decade, she worked in technical design and patternmaking, most recently for Macy's and Eileen Fisher. Previous projects have included a self-published book called Hand Sewing Clothing: A Guide, as well as two seasons of “Patternmaking in Public Places,” an outreach project she started to democratize access to patternmaking skills. This year, Louisa is celebrating the August release of her newest book, The Handsewn Wardrobe: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own Clothes, from Patternmaking to the Finishing Stitches, in collaboration with Storey Publishing.https://theclothpurpose.substack.com/https://www.louisamerry.com/✏️ Writing in the Junkyard Online Writing Retreat! Join us! http://rachaelherron.com/retreat

Samantha Browning Shea is an agent who knows about selling books, and we talk about how it felt when her first book didn't sell on submission, and how she started again. Also: on the struggle of the middle, on touring, and on how to keep readers reading (hint: it's about those open loops). Samantha Browning Shea is an author and the vice president of Georges Borchardt, Inc. literary agency. A graduate of Colgate University, Samantha lives in Connecticut with her husband and their two daughters. Marrow is her debut novel.

Livia Sara chats with Rachael Herron about creativity, art, and how words will always fail. If you or your loved one are terrified of letting go of the eating disorder identity, this conversation is going to inspire and empower you to become the person you were born to be! Sign up for Liv Label Free emails: www.livlabelfree.com/join

Becca Syme is at it again, telling us how to quit what we should quit (and how to keep going when it's the right thing to do). Don't miss this amazing episode! Becca Syme (MATL) is a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach and has individually coached more than 6000 authors at all levels. She is the author of the Quitbooks for Writers series and the popular Write Better-Faster course, and the host of the Quitcast for Writers podcast and YouTube channel. She also writes mystery novels and lives on one of the thousand lakes in Minnesota.All Becca's links: http://betterfaster.com/linksBecca's Kickstarter: http://rachaelherron.com/beccaRosie's Kickstarter: http://rachaelherron.com/rosie

Rachael's got a new diagnosis! And a new office. (And they both start with the sound Awwww.) Listen as she takes you on that journey, and then enjoy Elle Hartford's delightful story! Elle Hartford has written in several genres but is currently working on a cozy mystery series with an alchemical twist. As a historian and museum educator, she firmly believes in the value of stories -- and fantasy in particular -- as a mirror for complicated realities. Though she grew up on the beaches of the Pacific Northwest, she now lives in New Jersey with a grumpy tortoise, a three-legged cat, and a very supportive partner. Find her blog and other stories at ellehartford.com.

In which we talk about perfectionism and how to get out from under it, as well as loving yourself as who you are. Kaila Yu is an author based in Los Angeles. Her debut memoir, ‘Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty,' was just published with Penguin Random House's Crown Publishing. She's also a luxury travel and culture writer with bylines in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times, Condé Nast Traveler, and many more.

Rachael's so excited to have Lorena on the show today! Lorena Hughes is the award-winning author of The Night We Became Strangers, The Queen of the Valley, The Spanish Daughter, and The Sisters of Alameda Street. Born and raised in Ecuador, she moved to the United States when she was eighteen to study fine arts and mass communication & journalism. Her novels have earned acclaim from outlets such as The Washington Post, Ms. Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Woman's World, The Christian Science Monitor, BuzzFeed, PopSugar, and Bustle. The Spanish Daughter is an Amazon Editors' Pick, an Amazon Unforgettable Reads book club selection, and one of Reading Group Choices Most Popular Books of 2022. Her latest novel is The Night We Became Strangers. When she's not writing, she draws inspiration from her work as a family photographer.

You don't want to miss this one, in which we talk about how art is connection (to ourselves first) and why words will always let us down (and why that's okay). Livia Sara is a neurodiversity advocate and eating disorder survivor who now helps others overcome their own mental barriers through her books, courses, and coaching programs. She is the creator of the blog livlabelfree.com and the host of the Liv Label Free Podcast. Livia is a lifelong learner who stays curious about discovering what it means to live a meaningful existence, and she is always looking for ways to turn every MESS into a MESSage.

This has to be one of Rachael's favorite episodes in a long time - Dr. Zoe will blow you away with the story of her path to publication! Dr. Zoe Shaw is a licensed psychotherapist, author, speaker, podcast host, relationship coach, and proud mom of five. After fifteen years in traditional psychotherapy, Dr. Zoe left the therapy couch to create a more dynamic way to help women heal—blending the best of psychology, faith, and just the right dose of feminism. She's best known in her field for coining the term “complex shame.” Through virtual coaching, programs, and her podcast Stronger in the Difficult Places, she guides women to break free from codependency and shame, and reclaim their voices, boundaries, and self-worth. Her new book is Stronger in the Difficult Places: Heal Your Relationship with Yourself by Untangling Complex Shame https://amzn.to/3KxFFSE

Hello Rebels and welcome to fireside chat number thirty-seven between Rachael Herron and I. To find out more about Rachael, you can listen to her show “How Do You Write” or visit her website. * If you like dark humour, learning through examples and want to create the best villains you can, then you'll love Sacha Black's guide to crafting superbad villains. Read 13 Steps to Evil today and start creating kick-ass villains.

Rachael shares the big news she JUST got right before Sacha jumped on the call, and Sacha shares her new reading and outlining discoveries!

Annie Mare (she/they) writes queer contemporary young adult romance and cowrites queer romance and mysteries with her wife, Ruthie Knox. Mare lives with her wife, two teenagers, two dogs, multiple fish, one cat, four hermit crabs, and a bazillion plants in a very old house with a garden. COSMIC LOVE AT THE MULTIVERSE HAIR SALON is her most recent release.

In which we talk about a book dying on submission (and the pain of that!) as well as being STUBBORN enough to keep going. Alexandria Bellefleur is a bestselling and award-winning author of swoony contemporary romance often featuring loveable grumps and the sunshine characters who bring them to their knees. Her debut novel, Written in the Stars, was a 2021 Lambda Literary Award winner and a 2020 winner of The Ripped Bodice Awards for Excellence in Romantic Fiction. The Devil She Knows is her most recent novel.

Dana K. White had always wanted to be a writer, but she never could have predicted how she'd get there or how she would reach so much success. Dana K. White is a blogger, podcaster, speaker, and (much to her own surprise) a decluttering expert. She taught both English and theatre arts before leaving her job to make her family her life's work. In an attempt to get her home under control, Dana started blogging as "Nony" (short for anonymous) at A Slob Comes Clean. Dana soon realized she was not alone in her housekeeping struggles and in her feelings of shame. Today, Dana shares realistic home management strategies with her signature humor and a message of hope for the hopelessly messy through her blog, weekly podcasts, and videos. Dana lives with her husband and three kids just outside of Dallas, Texas.

On vampires, and deep work, and what it means to actually be (and feel) successful. Evelyn Skye is the New York Times bestselling author of several novels, including The Hundred Loves of Juliet and The Incredible Kindness of Paper. A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, her books have been published worldwide and translated into sixteen languages. Find out more at EvelynSkye.com.

Sacha and Rachael talk about some REAL stuff. Don't miss it!

Hello Rebels and welcome to fireside chat number thirty-six between Rachael Herron and I.  To find out more about Rachael, you can listen to her show “How Do You Write” or visit her website. * If you like dark humor, learning through examples and want to create perfect prose, then you'll love my guide to crafting sensational sentences. Read The Anatomy of Prose today and start creating kick-ass stories.

My new book just hit the USA Today Bestseller list, and I AM SO HAPPY. And also, I want to tell you a story about scammers who are scamming! (The list, though, is not a scam, don't worry!)

Isabelle Taylor writes sweet, steamy fantasy Romance under Isabelle Taylor, LGBT+ Horror/Paranormal Romance under I.S. Belle, and spicy MM Romance under Chase Moorcox. She works in a bookstore in New Zealand. If your local bookstore allows dogs, PLEASE bring them in.

In which Daphne Fama has some incredible advice on how to open a wound in your heart in order to make your book really matter. Daphne Fama was born in the American South, embedded in its tight-knit Filipino community. When she's not writing stories about monsters and the women who love them, she's writing about video games. And when she's not writing, she's spending every minute adoring her partner and pup. House of Monstrous Women is her debut novel. Write in Italy May 2026: http://rachaelherron.com/italy2026

A dash of mystery, a sparkle of magic, and all things cozy! Elle interviews fellow cozy authors in this bookish podcast from Authors on the Air. Today on the podcast, meet Rachael Herron, author of the upcoming The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland and many other great books, both fiction and memoir! Elle and Rachael discuss literally-found family, using tarot for inspiration, and the balance of being highly organized vs. trusting intuition. Enjoy! Rachael Herron's Bio: Rachael Herron is the internationally bestselling author of more than two dozen books, including thrillers (under R.H. Herron), mainstream fiction, feminist romance, memoir, and nonfiction about writing. She received her MFA in writing from Mills College, Oakland, and she's taught writing extension workshops at both UC Berkeley and Stanford. A dual New Zealand and American citizen, she lives in Wellington, New Zealand with her banjo-playing wife and brick-eating dog. Find Rachael's Website and Books Here: https://rachaelherron.com/ And Find Rachael's Podcast Here: https://rachaelherron.com/category/podcast/ ~~~ Elle Hartford's Bio: Elle Hartford writes cozy mystery with a fairy tale twist. The award-winning first book in her Alchemical Tales series, Beauty and the Alchemist, finds amateur sleuth Red mixed up with murderous beasts and moody beauties, and a set of missing books besides! Elle has also written two spin-off series, the cozy fantasy-goes-to-the-beach Marine Magic series as well as Pomegranate Cafe Romance. For other writers and authors looking into “wide” indie publishing, Elle offers coaching as well as the Beyond Writing blog (ellehartford.substack.com) with how-tos and resources. Find Elle Hartford Online: https://ellehartford.com/

Brian not only writes but also illustrates his incredibly popular books—this epic interview will blow you away! Brian Selznick's books have sold millions of copies, garnered countless awards worldwide, and have been translated into more than 35 languages. He broke open the novel form with his genre-breaking thematic trilogy, beginning with the Caldecott Medal-winning #1 New York Times bestseller The Invention of Hugo Cabret, adapted into Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning movie Hugo. In praising his body of work, The Washington Post said, “Brian Selznick proves to be that rare creator capable of following one masterpiece with another.” The Associated Press called Selznick “one of publishing's most imaginative storytellers.” He and his husband Dr. David Serlin divide their time between Brooklyn, New York and La Jolla, California.

In which Sacha challenges Rachael to let go of some stuff and Rachael, unsurprisingly, balks.

Hello Rebels and welcome to fireside chat number thirty-five between Rachael Herron and I. To find out more about Rachael, you can listen to her show “How Do You Write” or visit her website. * If you like dark humour, learning through examples and want to create the best villains you can, then you'll love Sacha Black's guide to crafting superbad villains. Read 13 Steps to Evil today and start creating kick-ass villains.  

How can you tell if what you're worried about in your writing is your intuition being smart or your anxiety spiraling out of control? Don't miss this episode to find out! Elizabeth Greenwood is the critically acclaimed author of Everyday Intuition, Love in the Time of Incarceration, and Playing Dead. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and more. She teaches writing at Columbia University and leads workshops on the transformative power of intuition. Learn more at www.lizgreenwood.com.Elizabeth's first appearance on Episode 52: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpNKxM-po44

Don't miss this gorgeous episode in which we talk about what it takes to stay on the road to publication (and what it feels like to get there). Virginia Evans is from the northeastern United States. She attended James Madison University for her bachelor's in English literature, as well as Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, for her master's of philosophy in creative writing. She lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with her husband, two children, and her Red Labrador, Brigid. The Correspondent is her debut novel.

Should you take a writing retreat? If so, how do they work? Ben and Rachael also talk about the all-consuming vortex of writing as well as battling imposter syndrome. Ben C. Davies is a Californian-based author whose debut short story collection, And So I Took Their Eye, will be published by Bridge House, July 17 2025. Originally from the UK, his short fiction has appeared in journals such as The Fiery Scribe Review, Left Brain Media, and Downtime Review, while his articles have been featured in Electric Literature, Work, Huck, and Lost. He serves as an editor for the Ginosko Literary Journal, a member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto, and is currently at work on his debut novel, Black Sand. In addition to his writing, Davies is the co-founder and director of Studio Luce, a Guatemalan writing retreat and artist residency. Find him here: https://www.bendaviesauthor.com/ and here: https://www.studioluceguatemala.com/Books mentioned: Hurricane Season, Fernanda Melchor https://amzn.to/43OptSOIf an Egyptian Cannot Speak English, Noor Naga https://amzn.to/43MLcdRThe Birthday Party, Shalini Boland https://amzn.to/45csnn0

You HAVE to hear this episode. How did doing just one thing change everything for Jen Butler? Listen, and be amazed, friends. And then go be amazing, too. Jen Butler is a Barnes & Noble bestselling author, dark comedy screenwriter, and one of ISA's Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch. Her work blends absurdity, emotional truth, and big existential questions... often through the lens of recovery, rejection, and being a messy human with a sense of humor. With over 300K followers across social media (@jenbutlersays), Jen is known for sharing real-talk stories that make people laugh, cry, and feel a little less alone. She also really, really loves dark chocolate and her dog, Floyd. Volume Control is her first book. Get started with your Avoidance Journey here: https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3OTE4NzI1NDQ2MDc4NTg5Her Shakti code for a discount! https://shaktimat.com/jenbutlersays (or just use the code JENBUTLERSAYS at checkout, for US & UK only)Her Insight Timer meditations: http://insighttimer.com/jenbutlersaysHer Etsy link: https://www.etsy.com/shop/JenButlerSays⭐️ 90 Day Classes NOW OPEN! ⭐️

Emma Knight tells us how to bring character's to life by inhabiting their bodies to make them more real, as well as how the written word can have shocking, real-world consequences! Emma Knight is an author, journalist, and entrepreneur. Her writing about books, maternal health, and more has appeared in Literary Hub, British Vogue, The Globe and Mail, and The Walrus. Emma lives in Toronto with her family, and The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus is her first novel.➡️ BEYOND AFFIRMATIONS Workshop! Click HERE for the details!⭐️ 90 Day Classes NOW OPEN! ⭐️

Hello Rebels and welcome to fireside chat number thirty-four between Rachael Herron and I. To find out more about Rachael, you can listen to her show “How Do You Write” or visit her website. * If you haven't read The Anatomy of a Best Seller, what are you waiting for? Grab my latest craft book and start deconstructing so you can write your own best seller today.

In which we talk about nervous system regulation, Rachael's desire for ease, and Sacha's desire to GET HER BOOK DONE!

What's the hardest part of writing? Putting on those running shoes! Join us in this delightful chat about trusting your subconscious, leaving yourself breadcrumbs and following your joy, with Rosie Evylin. A kiwi currently living in Australia, Rosie Evylin escapes from the chaos of the world by diving into a magical world of witches and romance. She writes books with strong female characters and cheeky Familiars, where love really is magic. When not writing you'll find Rosie hanging out with her gorgeous family, running amoung the trees, or savouring a soy latte. Wisteria Wishes is her most recent release. ➡️ BEYOND AFFIRMATIONS Workshop! Click HERE for the details!

Rachael's been dying to share this interview with you! No one knows voice better than Greta Morgan, and today, she shares the wisdom she's learned the hard way. Greta Morgan is a musician, songwriter, and storyteller who began her career at age 16 and has since performed worldwide. She was a touring member of Vampire Weekend, accompanied Jenny Lewis, and has released eight records fronting her own projects: Springtime Carnivore, Gold Motel, and The Hush Sound. She has stopped performing for the time being to focus on Long Covid recovery, which affected both her voice and body. She now lives in the Hudson Valley, where she leads a slow life of creek swimming, stargazing, meditating, writing, composing, and teaching. She leads long-form online songwriting and creativity workshops that focus on helping writers access their truest voices. Find her on Instagram @gretamorgan and learn more at https://www.gretamorganmusic.com/. The Lost Voice, a memoir, is her first book. Greta's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/gretamorgan/➡️ BEYOND AFFIRMATIONS Workshop! Click HERE for the details!

Aime Austin is the author of the Casey Cort and Nicole Long legal thriller series, weaving sharp social commentary into gripping crime fiction. Born in Brooklyn, Aime graduated from Smith College and Cornell Law School before practicing family and criminal law in Cleveland, Ohio. She now splits her time between Los Angeles and Budapest, writing thrillers, hosting the podcast A Time to Thrill, and interviewing brilliant women creators. When she's not chasing down a plot twist, you'll find her in a yoga pose, with knitting needles in hand, or lost in a good book. Aime is a 2025 recipient of the Mystery Writers of America Barbara Neely Scholarship. His Last Mistress is her most recent release. Find her at https://aimeaustin.com/➡️ BEYOND AFFIRMATIONS Workshop! Click HERE for the details!

How do you know that dream of yours is worth pursuing? And when do you take yourself seriously? When is a retreat worth it? Holly Bowen is an emerging author of young adult fantasy and contemporary women's fiction. By the Moon is Holly's debut novel. Holly lives in the lakeside town of Taupō, New Zealand, with her partner, two young sons, and a sad lack of a canine companion. When she's not drinking mochas and writing in a local café, she can be found swimming in the lake or hiding in her garden sauna, making up stories in her head.