Carter Wilson's Making It Up
Making It Up is an unscripted conversation series about the messy reality of being a writer.
Each episode is a deep, unplanned conversation with writers at every stage of the journey. New York Times bestselling authors. Award winners. Debut novelists just getting started. No prepared questions. No talking points. Just two people following the conversation wherever it leads.
We talk about where stories really come from. Childhood influences. Fear. Luck. Loss. Discipline. Doubt. The highs, the lows, and the long stretches in between that rarely get talked about.
At the end of every episode, we put the philosophy into practice. We choose a random sentence from a random book and use it to create an impromptu short story. No prep. No outline. Just making something out of nothing.
Because that is the job.
And that is the point.
Visit Carter at www.carterwilson.com.
Carter Wilson's Making It Up
Making It Up with Clémence Michallon, author of The Quiet Tenant
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“I figured out at some point along the way that I was happier trying and failing than I was not trying at all.” — Clémence Michallon
Clémence Michallon is an author and a journalist. Her debut thriller The Quiet Tenant was published in June 2023 and is an international bestseller. Her thriller Our Last Resort came out in July 2025. She was a staff writer at The Independent for five years, and is now a freelance journalist. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Time Magazine, Cosmopolitan UK, and more. Clémence graduated from Sciences Po in Paris. She studied journalism at City University of London and received a master’s in Journalism from Columbia University.
Among other things, Clémence and Carter discuss forcing yourself to be bored to spark creativity, the benefits of having training in journalism, and why they never write the words “The End.” At the end of their conversation, they make up a creepy story using a line from Tana French’s The Searcher.