Episode 73: [End of Season] Getting Ready for Summer & Writing Plans

In this episode, Elizabeth and Stephanie talk about:

* writing goals for their works in progress
* books they'll be reading this Summer
* Love is Brewing ​Substack​ & ​Podcast by Stephanie
* what to expect in July with shorter episodes
* limited podcast guest interest spots available

Get our Summer Bingo game here

Subscribe to our email list to be the first to know about our weekly podcast episodes, get insights into our writing lives, and learn about upcoming programs for writers!

If you prefer video versions of the podcast or want to leave a comment on this specific episode, you can find all of them on our YouTube channel.

We hope you've found guidance and inspiration for your own writing.

Here are two resources for you:

Get your list of 4 Essential Reads for Memoir Writers

Get your Character Coffee Chat Guide for Character Development

Transcript

Elizabeth: 0:00

Welcome to the Inspired Writer Collective podcast. We're your hosts, Elizabeth and Stephanie book coaches who help you finish your book. Tune in each week as we dig into the writing process, including reaching your goals and silencing your inner critic. You'll learn how to deepen your characters, hone your authentic storytelling style, and strengthen your writing muscles by exploring books in and out of your own genre. You'll also hear from published authors, industry experts, and marketing specialists who will give you tools to navigate this. Self-publishing landscape. We are here to provide the support and accountability you need throughout the marathon of writing so you stop running in place, editing the same chapter over and over, and find the confidence to move forward. Get your copy of a curated list of four essential craft books to assist your memoir writing or a character coffee chat for fiction writers through the links in the show notes, let's bring your book to life together. Welcome back listeners to the Inspired Writer Collective podcast. We are your co-host, Elizabeth and Stephanie, and we are here with the final episode of our spring season. We'll be taking a break for the month of June, and then we'll be coming back with really short July episode, so really easy like. Quick sound bites. 10 15 minutes on a singular topic, um, for you to catch while you're at the beach, in the mountains doing whatever it is you're doing this summer. And then we'll be back with our normal full length episodes and guest episodes in August for our fall season. And speaking of guest episodes, we have recently opened our calendar again to accept guest interest meetings. Those are 30 minute Zoom meetings. Not recorded. Just a informal, casual conversation about what it is you would be interested in talking about on the podcast. And. You can get that scheduled within the next week or two. I will be working on recording those guest episodes throughout the summer, and then they will be released on a rolling out basis between August and November. So if that's something you're interested in doing, if you wanna put your workout through this platform, if you have a certain thing about your writing process that you would like to share with other writers to help inspire them, struggles you've overcome, roadblocks you faced and navigated. Or even if you're an expert and have experience with something that our writers need, whether that's systems search engine optimization for their websites, cover design, um, character development, any sort of editing or um, tips and tricks like that, we'd be happy to talk to you as well. We do like to feature a variety of. Guest with a vast amount of experience. And so use the links to schedule a time to meet with either myself or Stephanie and let's get the ball rolling. So Stephanie, I wanted to kind of use this last episode of our full season to go over and talk about what we're looking forward to with these upcoming summer months. So we're, we're taking a break at least. From the external view of what we're putting out, we're slowing down our emails for the summer. Um, we're not putting out a weekly episode in June, even though we'll be recording behind the scenes. Um, but what is your, what do you think your writing is gonna look like for the summer? What's kind of your goal or plan for your writing?

Stephanie: 3:38

Well. I have a very lofty goal of trying to finish the draft of my work in progress my 50th birthday, the beginning of August. So, I say lofty at this point because with some plot changes and other things, I am not sure that I'm gonna reach it, but I've said it, and I'm not gonna beat myself up if I. Don't hit it. So I'm, you know, resigned to that. But, um, that is one of my, uh, goals for my writing. And for those, some of you who are following me, you know that I also have a substack I. called Love is Brewing, so that'll, I'll be continuing that every week. I have a podcast component that it goes, goes along with that as well. So that's pretty exciting. Um, my work in progress, I feel like I've really hit a stride with it, with my characters and so that's what's really exciting about that. And it continues to be reaffirmed with, you know, every step I take forward, and as many of you know who are listening, this is, you know, my first real entry into writing fiction. I've written a lot of nonfiction, so it's been scary, because I haven't been completely confident, but I just. Keep moving forward. I keep reading in the genre and so yeah, it's, it's gonna be exciting for me this summer. I think

Elizabeth: 5:08

you know, as you were talking, I picked up on some of those aspects that we learned through Amanda's Path program, which is a program that we are affiliates of and that we strongly recommend for any writer who's trying to set any sort of. Writing, editing, publishing goal. Um, because you talked about, you know, setting the goal, setting the intention, but also like not beating yourself up if you don't get there. And that just reminds me of like the principles that she frames her goal setting practice around of like it wanting to have a particular feeling, not compromising the feeling for the, the end goal and then not beating yourself up if. Life happens or you don't get there a hundred percent because you still made significant, you will still make significant progress in reaching for the goal even if you don't meet it all the way. Um, and that's something I'm trying to keep in mind too, going into summer.

Stephanie: 6:07

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I. I know that summer could throw some curve balls at, you know, I'm having shoulder surgery there. It's gonna be the recovery time with that. It's gonna be tricky to figure out exactly how I wanna accomplish my writing, so I know there are gonna be some potential barriers. But like you said, having gone through Amanda's path program. it gives me a better framework in my mind to not like think like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna fail if I don't hit my goal. No, I'm not

Elizabeth: 6:39

Mm-hmm.

Stephanie: 6:40

I'm still working on it and I'm just gonna take whatever the next indicated step is to move forward. And so that, that gives a lot of confidence for the process, is just knowing like, okay. I have this goal, I've set it. I'm gonna, you know, plan out how much writing I need to get done between now and then, and then just see what happens.

Elizabeth: 7:03

Right. There's so many unknowns for many people I think when it comes to the summer season, and certainly for me, that's what continues to make it difficult to. Really plan specifically of when I'm going to continue to work on my edits, but that is still the big picture goal, is to work on the edits throughout the summer with, you know, knowing that it's, I'm going to want to send it to an editor. As soon as those, this round of edits is done, and I'm gonna wanna get it out to beta readers once this round of edits is done in order to get some of that feedback to incorporate into what will hopefully be the last round of edits after that. And so, but this summer is sort of tricky. I hope that even though I'll be doing childcare for four kids three days a week. That they are at the age, and that editing is a little bit more like I can stop and go a little bit easier than when I'm in the drafting stage that maybe I can get some of that done while they're here. Um, but I, I was just having this debate last night over dinner about whether I wanted to do a big push. This summer and really like pedal to the metal, get the edits done. Or if I wanted to continue the approach that I've used in April and May, which is, you know, setting the intention of the time I'm gonna sit down. But then the pace that I move at is just the pace that I move at and. I think in hearing some feedback and realizing what answer I wished for, it sort of answered my own question of I really wanna maintain that feeling of having summer be a little bit of a downtime for me. Um, I work a job during the school year, in the school system, and that can be really draining and I, I need to make sure I use this summertime to decompress a bit. Yes, I wanna still work on my writing goals. Of course. We also have, like I said, all the podcast recording. That's gonna take up some of the time that I would've had for writing, but we do it that way because. That frees me up to do what I need to do with the book during the school year is like we sort of block this time for a lot of podcast work behind the scenes, uh, course development, all of that kind of stuff, so that there's time in the fall to do a more like dedicated writing or editing process. So I think that's where I'm landing as far as. What that's gonna look like. I'll certainly have a better idea by the time we come back and record our first episode, one of our short, you know, July episodes as to where I'm at and how that's fleshed out. Um, so that'll be interesting to, to see how it all unfolds. But that's, that's the intention I'm going into the summer with as far as, um, my book is concerned.

Stephanie: 10:03

You know, listener, we definitely encourage you to set your own intention too, um, for the summer and just, you know, even as I'm sitting here and just listening to, you know, what both of us have said, I. This is all part of the process and it's part of why we have these conversations for you, listener, is to mirror, you know, to show you like figuring out from day to day, from time to time exactly what it is we're doing because it can change, and your rhythm and method and all of those approaches, it's okay to change them that you don't have, there's not. Really one set way to approach the writing process, even though there, I mean, there are tons of craft books and there are all kinds of things out there that you can use as resources, which are great to scaffold and provide foundation for you. But ultimately, at the end of the day, as you can see with, if you've been listening to us for a while with our own process, there's an ebb and flow. You know, one minute we're like, oh yeah, we're, you know, going right ahead and getting it done. And then other times we're like, well, you know. You know, maybe there needs to be more balance and like you said, Elizabeth, just allowing yourself some time this summer to just have time for yourself to breathe and not be so, know, in the writing at, at every downtime that you have, which I think is also a healthy approach to it because you don't want to be so in it. That you can't really see what you're looking at. And I think since you know, you're looking at, you know, eventually publishing, I love that you mentioned that you're gonna bring in another editor because I think there are a lot of people who are self-publishing or doing the, you know, independent publishing who are not looking to having an outside editor. I think it's really so important to think about. So that's. Just a few things that of came to mind as you were talking, but for our listener to consider.

elizabeth_3_05-23-2025_130342: 12:03

Yeah, and it's gonna vary for everyone. Like maybe someone else would look at my schedule and think, oh, this is a great time to really knuckle down and, and utilize this time. But when I look at it, it's one of the rare times because my boyfriend is a soccer coach. It's one of the rare times that soccer season is not in full swing. And so I really like to utilize. That together time. Right. It's so rare, and especially with my daughter not in school, I have her more. Um, and. So there's definitely a big swing towards family events and time together. And while there will be plenty of weekends where both of them will be preoccupied and gone doing different things, and those will be times that I can use for, you know, a block of editing. I don't wanna be spending every night, every weekend when they're here, you know, chipping away at it. It's just. That's just not what, like I'm not feeling pressed to get it, you know, published by a certain timeframe or anything like that. And so that's just not what's in line with my values at the moment. Um, what kind of books are you hoping to read this summer? Stephanie, are you gonna read anything?

Stephanie: 13:16

Well, I do have a rather large stack of books that that been growing. Um, I'm gonna be reading kind of a balance of. Of business focused books and of course a lot of romance. Uh, and, and I'm probably gonna go back and reread, you know, some books by romance authors that I really admire, like Abby Himenez, for example. Example. Um, so starting with the business books, I know both, we both talked about reading, uh, the business of being a writer by Jane Friedman,

Elizabeth: 13:55

Mm-hmm.

Stephanie: 13:55

for some of you listening, um, her name might be very familiar to you. She is very. well known in the publishing industry as one of the go-to voices and people to listen to, to get a pulse on what's happening in that industry. so this is her latest edition that she's updated to be more current. And so we're gonna be. Reading that together, which will be a lot of fun, uh, to dive into that. And then I have Seth Godin's book. This is Strategy. which Seth, I mean, all of his books are great. So if you're an entrepreneur or entrepreneurial minded, you know, picking up anything by Seth Godin is great. Uh, just for grounding. In reality, for one thing, he is very well grounded and he's not really heavy into, you know. Online and social media heavy. It's just really a lot about your values, a lot about, you know, who you are and what you see for yourself and what you see within the market. And then in terms of within the genre, um, definitely going back and looking, reading Abby Jimenez's book little bit more closely to look at her pacing. How she's using dialogue, you know, the character arcs. Those are pieces that are really interesting to me because I wanna make sure that I am doing a similar thing in my own book. Uh, Catherine Center is another author that I. I, uh, discovered recently, and so probably going through her books. Uh, and of course Emily Henry's newest book. I don't have the title off the top of my head. Um, but so I have, quite a few to, I. Uh, dive into this summer mostly. And I mean, I'll, I'll of course be reading them to enjoy the stories, but there's also that piece of really paying attention to, you know, how they create the meet cute, how they use the dialogue to move the story along, how much backstory they give or don't give, and how soon, and, you know, really picking it apart in a critically minded way. How about for you?

Elizabeth: 16:17

Um, similarly, like you said, we're both reading the business of being a writer and that's something that I know listeners will see, you know, insights and tidbits rolling out in our once we hit the fall season, because I'm sure there's gonna be insights that we're gonna wanna share with everyone from that book. So, you know, feel free to read along with us, um, this summer, or. Um, stay tuned for those episodes come this fall. I'm also gonna be digging back into Deep Memoir by Jennifer Sig, which is a book I've talked about a couple of times now because ever since I discovered this book, I've been just raving about it as a memoir craft book. And I'm gonna be incorporating her, some of her insights from this book, especially when it comes to the wide variety of memoir structures. And incorporating that into my memoir program so that when we run it again this fall, that we've got, um, this as an additional resource that is provided within that program. Um, and then otherwise I've got. Probably a handful of books that are written by some of the guests we're gonna be having in the fall that I'll want to at least read parts of before those interviews. And my sister has a stack of books for me when I, uh, visit her this summer. We're gonna be doing a book exchange of the things that we've been like, oh, you need to read this book, you need to read this book. So I'll have a whole stack once, uh, once I get a chance to see her. So yeah, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Um, probably a lot of nonfiction, a lot of. Um, yeah. Business stuff or memoir stuff, but. You know, we've got our bingo cards that we just released that you put together for us, Stephanie, which if you haven't, if you aren't on our email list, there will be a landing page where you can specifically get our bingo card. But some of it is reading outside of, uh, your genre. One is read a book in a new to you genre. So I do have a sci-fi book that I got from, that I won, um, from a writer at the. Mountain Words Festival last year around this time that I'd like to read as a part of, to meet that goal on the Bingo card. So we'll see. We'll see how it all unfolds. I do, even if I can't do a lot of editing while the kids are running around, I'm sure I can do a good bit of reading. So one way or the other will be consuming things or working towards things. And as we talk about all the time, like. Even when you're reading stuff, you are developing yourself as a writer. You're gleaning important, um, insights as you described and your approach to reading some of the romance this summer, Stephanie. And so I know that whether I'm reading or whether I'm editing, it's all gonna be beneficial to my craft left. Um. So I've sort of touched everything that I'm planning on working on, because again, I'll dig into the memoir course and kind of freshen that up a little bit. Um, is there anything else you, I know, do you wanna talk a little bit about your Substack and the podcast? You've just started over there.

Stephanie: 19:29

Yeah, so it's, it's been, uh, really exciting to jump into Substack. Now, I haven't really explored it to the ex the full extent, um, of what's available, but substack is love is Brewing, and my vision for it is to really. Talk about my own journey, uh, how much I love romance, and really infuse that into my writing over there. Uh, and that's also why I have a podcast over there that is gonna accompany it where I'm just doing. But for right now, you know, 10 minute or less episodes, um, just on little snippets of thoughts that are also related to my work with book coaching. so I will be opening up spots for coaching closer to the fall so that I give myself time. This summer for the writing piece. Uh, so keep an eye out for those opportunities opening up, and if you're curious in the meantime, feel free to reach out to either one of us. Uh, we both do book coaching depending upon what your genre and needs are, so we encourage you to reach out. Uh, but yeah, my. My goal with that is just very natural writing, as if I was having a conversation at a coffee shop. Um, I'll be sharing some favorite coffee spots, uh, favorite independent bookstores or dreams of independent bookstores I'd like to go to. Um, I was saying to my husband recently, I'm like, we need to do a road trip to all the romance independent bookstores. It seems to be, at least on my Instagram feed. They keep popping up and I'm, I keep thinking, I had no idea that this was such a thing. Um, and so that's been kind of cool. So if, you know, if romance or love stories are something that you love, join me over there, uh, because I mean, that's of course something that, that I'm really loving exploring and sharing with everybody. Uh, for those of you. Who know me or have, or have been listening, you know, my entry into romance was very much I discovered Abby Jimenez's books at a time when I was experiencing a lot of anxiety, and I certainly read them when I was younger. I mean, I've read them my whole life. But really, you know, there was kind of the story in my family that those types of books weren't, you know. Quality reading, and I just really don't like that thought because truly every great book, first of all, has a love story in it somewhere. Even if it's not in the romance genre, you can find a love story. I mean, we, did book club for first lie winds. There's a love story in there. I mean, it's, you know, it's subtle at first, but it grows over time. And, and that was, you know, a thriller style book so you can really find love everywhere. And mean, especially in the current climate of the world, I just think, you know. Love stories can give us so much hope and an escape another place. And like we talked on the Epi episode on our episode last week about outlandish things that happen. mean, Catherine Center's new book, the Love Haters. Definitely has an outlandish meat, cute that involves a great Dane and the female main character getting splinters all up the back of her leg that have to then be removed by the, you know, love interest. So, I mean. Is truth stranger than fiction. I, so anyways, um, but yeah, so I definitely, you know, listener invite you over there and yeah, it'll, you know, it'll be fun.

Elizabeth: 23:40

One thing we're also going to try out this summer is doing a local writer's retreat. So this is something listener that you'll hear a little bit more about as we put it together and figure out what it looks like. This is something that's very small scale and we'll just be invite extending an invite to a couple of our local writer friends where we still stay at our homes for the overnights. But get together to do some different writing activities and physical activities and um, getting out in nature for inspiration. But our intention behind this is to. Test out different ways that people can create a DIY writer's retreat for themselves. Um, because yes, usually there is a little bit more time in the summer to do that, but that may be traveling for, it may be cost prohibitive. Attending one that's already structured for you may not be something you're able to do either for childcare reasons or for financial reasons, or. Anything. Um, so we're going to use our ownselves as Guinea pigs to try and, and put it together for ourselves and then provide a little bit of a how to so that others can do that as well. And of course, the long term goal is to actually be able to host, um, a much larger writer's retreat here in our mountain community. Um, with its hot springs and its trails and its, you know, whitewater rafting and all these sort of fun adventure things. Um, but that's still a little ways down the road, so this is a precursor for that. This is a chance for us to just explore what that might look like and, and try things out. So, um, that'll be something that we aim for in July, and we'll see how it goes.

Stephanie: 25:32

Yeah, that'll be exciting. It'll be a lot of fun because definitely finding community, as we've talked about time and time again, is so important for your writing journey. And I know I about it even over on my other podcast. Like there are just so many things, benefits that come from community. And if you've been listening for a while, you know that we talk about that all the time.

Elizabeth: 25:56

Yeah, absolutely. So listener, we hope you have great success with your goals this summer. Um, like I mentioned, we're gonna be on a little bit of a hiatus through June. We will be still sending periodic emails, but they will be way less frequent. And then we'll be back in July for some much shorter episodes that are just Stephanie and I and then back in full swing in August with guest episodes and everything else. Full length episodes like you're used to seeing and daily emails during the week. Um, so we wish you well. Keep in touch. Send us an email, let us know what you're doing, how you're doing, and happy writing. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Inspired Writer Collective podcast. We hope you found inspiration, valuable tips, and connection to yourself as a writer. Thank you for sharing this episode with your writing friends and leaving us a review. The power of storytelling lies within each of us, and by supporting one another, we can amplify our voices and craft narratives that resonate with our audience. We're not just about words on a page. We're passionate about the craft, the process in building a supportive community. Become a part of our community by connecting with us using the links in the show description or join our weekly email newsletter for updates and a dose of inspiration straight to your inbox. I.