The Author Alchemist

Join me for updates on my own serials, the 1 Million Words Club, and advice on how to transition your idea/outline for a book series into a long-running serial! Links: My website Serials beats spreadsheet 1 Million Words Club information Subscriptions for Authors fb group

My book "By the Seat of Your Pants: Secrets of Discovery Writing" is out! I explain a bit of what it is about and why I wrote it, along with some updates of my fiction stories. For more about me and my work, visit my site hub, https://houseofyork.info -------------------------- RESOURCES MENTIONED: By the Seat of Your Pants: Secrets of Discovery Writing My new book all about discovery writing/pantsing! "Writing for the Long Haul" at the Scriptorium An essay about the mindset of writing long-running stories. 1 Million Words Club Membership community of writers supporting writers! Survival Kit for Writers Who Don’t Write Right Patricia McLinn The Pocket Guide to Pantsing [Full Audiobook] M.L. Ronn Write Into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline Dean Wesley Smith

A quick update on what I'm writing, what I'm working on, and what kind of money I am making. I talk about Kobo Plus, sales numbers, and the launch of Dragon's Grail on Ream! --------------- For more about me and my work, visit my site hub, https://houseofyork.info

Here's my first podcast of 2024! I'm excited to announce the launch of the 1 Million Words Club, a community created by writers FOR writers to help us get the words out! It's focused on accountability and productivity as well as craft and mindset, and welcomes all writers of every genre, professional or amateur! I also update you on Dragon's Grail (it's been a hot minute!) and progress on my next craft book, By the Seat of Your Pants: Secrets of Discovery Writing which is coming soon! ----------- Links: 1 Million Words Club info page My Ream community

Back from a lovely writer's retreat held on the Gulf Coast of Florida, I'm thinking a lot about "what makes a writer" and the importance of creativity in our lives. There are a lot of definitions of what makes a "real writer" and most of them are about gatekeeping, so instead I propose that a real writer is someone who invests time and energy into their practice. For those who feel overwhelmed by it all, I offer this simple goal: 1 million words. Maybe you'll hit that goal, maybe you won't, but you'll learn important lessons along the way! This episode was inspired by my colleague and friend, Matt Posner! He is both an author and a teacher who asked me to record an episode roughly on this topic. Hope it fits! -------------- For more about me and my work, visit my site hub, https://houseofyork.info

First off, apologies in advance for the tapping noise that occasionally shows up, I think it was my headphones' cord knocking against the desk. I'll be more careful in the future! This is an update, overview, and discussion about all my current writing projects. I get sidelined talking about discovery writing, but then again, I'm writing a whole book on the topic so I'm just calling it "advanced marketing"! So there!!!! I also introduce you to my newest project, and one that will likely be ongoing for a while, the grief memoir The Empty Bowl. I don't have a completion date set for it, either. (Just a heads up, this topic about grief, mourning, and my parents' mental illnesses, so it's pretty heavy.) Thanks as always for listening in!

A short episode about a question I was asked last week, and how answering it has changed the course of my writing career. ---------- Check out ALL THE THINGS! It's all at House of York!

She's BAAAACK! After a full year of letting this podcast languish, I decided I needed to jump back into the saddle. I have a lot going on, including new author platforms and new stories and new goals. If you've wondered where I went and what I'm up to, this is the episode for you!

Better late than never! I'm back with an episode I recorded last year, and is the final episode in my mini-series about our deepest fears. Stay tuned for my next episode, which will go over "What the heck has KimBoo been doing since 2022????" But for now, in THIS episode, I talk about why it is so important to love your characters deeply and passionately. Yes, even the characters who are unlikeable or problematic! You need to hold emotional space for them so that you can write them compellingly and avoid flat characterizations. Save the objectivity for the editing stage!

The third installment of my Deepest Fears series focuses on "writer's guilt" and, in a round'about way, our fear of guilt. Oftentimes we slap a label on what is holding us back from writing, calling it perfectionism or guilt, when it is in fact a deep-seated fear of those very emotions. It sets up a dangerous feedback loop of negative emotions that can be hard to break! Hopefully this episode will help you identify what your real stumbling block is and provide you with ways to deal with it! Links referenced: A very very old blog from 2012 on Writer's Guilt Building your support network (Ep 007): An early Author Alchemist Podcast discussing the positive and sometimes negative aspects of your support network

Welcome to the second episode in a mini-series I’m doing about confronting our deepest fears as authors! Fear of being vulnerable is at the core of many of the fears that keep authors from writing, and in this episode I am taking aim specifically on the fear of being seen and of being shamed. I cover the ways guilt and shame are not the same thing, and techniques you can use to understand what you are feeling and how to deal with it. The goal is always to get you back to writing what you love!

Welcome to the first episode in a mini-series I’m doing about confronting our deepest fears as authors. This is not simply about the fear of being bad at writing, or the fear that no one will read our work, but rather about the fears that keep us from writing in the first place…which often circle back around to simply one word: vulnerability. Fear of vulnerability can take many forms, though, so I’ll be diving deep into the types of fears we may have about being “seen” for who we are as writers and as people. First up: fears about being labeled as “self indulgent” a.k.a. writing self-insert/mary sue characters. Yes, I talk about James Bond. Yes, I talk about Rey Skywalker. No, I don’t believe writing mary-sues is intrinsically bad. Fight me!!!! References: Fanlore entry explaining “mary sue” “2018 is the year we stop wasting our time on discourse and start writing the self-insert naruto fics we’ve been planning since we were eight. Thank you.” Source: http://kimboosan.tumblr.com/post/169561118551/harpygf-2018-is-the-year-we-stop-wasting-our

A recurring theme in a lot of advice about creativity is "show your work/share your work." It is often hailed as a great way to "grow your audience" but I want to go a step beyond that and talk about how it is a great way to stay motivated and find inspiration, even if what you have to show is not polished and perfect yet. I've grabbed three classic modern stories that were created and molded on the internet as examples of how wonderful and inspiring it can be to simply show your work! Links! God of Arepo Original tumblr posts The lovely comic Neighbor Steve (Antler Guy Saga) AO3tumblr postStabby the Space Roomba Example 1Example 2Set Godin’s Akimbo podcast My podcast on the War of Art Struthless on YouTube ("Weekly Videos about Creativity")

Giving yourself permission to sit down and write is a major hurdle most writers face...but then what? The next step is giving yourself the permission to succeed as a writer, however you want to define "success." That can be just as hard, though. We all say we want to be successful, but do we feel like we have earned that right? In this episode I use Elissa Altman's fantastic post from 2016 "Writing and the Permission to Succeed: The Intersection of Art and Shame" as a jumping off point to talk about struggling with expectations, hopes, and dreams. Resources: Elissa Altman's award winning blogDiscovering the Inner Mother: A Guide to Healing the Mother Wound and Claiming Your Personal PowerStill Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life

There are a lot of tools out there which are designed to help you be a better writer, but did you know there are also a lot of tools that can help you simply write the words? There are! In this episode I talk about apps, communities, and systems that you can use to help you get the words out of your head and into a document! Resources mentioned: https://www.putwordsdown.comhttps://v2.writeordie.comhttps://4thewords.comhttps://writingstreak.iohttps://www.writetosmite.comhttps://imissmycafe.com

This is all about one of my favorite motivational books for writers, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (Note: this is an affiliate link with bookshop.org!). This is justifiably considered a modern classic in the field of motivating and inspiring authors, with great insights into productivity and our eternal nemesis, Resistance. However, it's not perfect, and in this episode I talk about the good, the bad, and the ableism.

Too often, well meaning people discourage writers from "thinking big," or getting too big for our britches. They want to protect us from disappointment, but what they are really doing is crushing our inspiration and motivation. I want writers to get clear on what "thinking big" means to you (bestseller? award winner? literary journal renown? mid-list lifestyler?) and embrace it! Doesn't matter if you don't "make it" or not, what matters is creating the kind of life as a writer that you want to live! If you would like a copy of the "Write to Market" freebie mentioned in the podcast, please email me! ⨌⨌⨌ Transcript Transcript Episode 34 Think Big Promo Intro: It's KimBoo, and welcome back to the Author Alchemist podcast! Today were going to be talking about, or I'm going to be talking about, thinking big, which may or may not be exactly the kind of thinking big that you're thinking about. So hang in there with me and let's talk about motivation, aspirations, and creativity! Intro: I'm KimBoo, the host of the Author Alchemist podcast. I'm bringing my years of experience as a fan fiction writer and a professionally published author to the problem we all love to hate: the act of writing. You can't improve on something that doesn't exist, which means the most important thing you can do is simply write. Anything. Just write something. I'm here to help. Podcast: So here we are, and if you listen to the intro, I am going to be talking about thinking big. One of the reasons I want to talk about it is because too often authors are discouraged from thinking big. There is very good reason for that in the sense of just hitting a bestseller list or becoming the next incredibly popular author is a gamble. It's a gamble because there's so many variables, and if it was possible to, like, make a spreadsheet to become a world famous best-selling author whose books are optioned to be made into movies and you're beloved by all your fans, then the traditional publishing industry would have discovered that formula a long time ago. They are still looking for that formula, actually. As are a lot of independent writers, I mean, that is the goal for some people. That's not to say that that's a bad goal but it's like aiming for the Olympics. You've got to not only just work your ass off, but you have to hope that a lot of things that are basically down to luck, fall into place for you, including not getting injured, having the money to pursue the training that you need. Yada yada yada. The Olympic metaphor. You kinda get what I'm talking about here. So the important thing is that you understand that a lot of time some of those types of goals are, I don't know how to say exactly but had weighted on things that are out of your control. You can only do your best and move forward. The people who are around writers take that information and, well, you know leverage it as a weapon. I think often times they do so from the goodness of their heart. They don't want to see someone they care about be disappointed because the book didn't become a bestseller, because their writing career never really takes off in the way that they dream about. Fair enough. I don't want to see people I love get hurt either right? But the damage of holding writers back from dreaming big is profound. I think it affects motivation more than almost any other thing a writer can come across. The idea that you're not allowed to have dreams or goals or aspirations because you might be disappointed down the line at some point is...just honestly when you look at it on the surface, when you when you read the label and packaging on that, you realize some yeah that's that's not how you go about this, in any way shape or form. This is not how you go about supporting someone is trying to write, including yourself. Remember you are your biggest supporter. Of course it's easy to talk about dreaming bed when you're talking about a specific project. You have a book that you're dreaming big...

What happens when you get in a fix and a story stalls out on you? Or runs away from you? Or forgets to that that left turn at Albuquerque? In this episode I talk about the metamorphosis of my in-progress novel, The Bones & Brews Café, which was originally envisioned as a trope-tastic rom-com novella. Turns out it was anything BUT, and because I did not sit down and really look at what I was working with, didn't trust my instincts, and stalled myself for over a year on it. A sordid tale! Come enjoy my misery! And hopefully grab some advice you can use in your own writing life! ⨌⨌⨌ Transcript Promo Intro: Welcome to the 12th episode of the Author Alchemist podcast. My name is KimBoo York, and today I'm going to be talking about trusting the process, specifically how to deal with your story when it starts to run away from you. I talk about some personal experiences and my kind of perspective on both the good and the bad of when that happens. So thank you for joining me, and let's get to it. Main intro: I'm KimBoo, the host of The Author Alchemist podcast. I'm bringing my years of experience as both a fanfiction writer and a professionally published author to the problem we all love to hate: the act of writing. You can't improve on something that doesn't exist, which means the most important thing you can do is simply write. Anything! Just write something. I'm here to help you do that. Podcast: Hi, it's KimBoo, and I am back. I'm recording this on a Thursday, which is kind of new, now that I've got my own schedule and I complete control of my own schedule. This is being recorded in late March, where I'm about the third weekend into being not employed by Florida State University anymore — by choice, which as regular listeners will know all about that story. Won't go into it now. So I've switched up the schedule a little bit, I don't have to give up my Saturday mornings to recording a podcast. But I do have to give up my Thursday mornings to recording a podcast. Here we are! As I said in the intro, today's topic is about trusting the process. And there's a lot of different levels to that trusting the process is trusting yourself, right? So there is the fact of trusting how your brain works or trusting how you approach writing, trusting the skills that you have — you could go into impostor syndrome with this, but I'm not here to do any of that. I'm here to talk about trusting the process when your story goes off the rails, and I'm going to use a personal example of a story I'm currently working on. So if you want a little sneak peek about what might be coming up in the publishing world of KimBoo York, or specifically Cooper West, as this happens to be under that name, under that pseudonym, then stay tuned. So here we go. And how am I starting this off? I'm talking about the way a story can get away with you. And this happens, not just a Pantsers, but it does...or discovery writers, I think it's the new term...It also does happen to planners or outliners. People who spend a lot of time trying to figure out what their character motivations are, and what happens after they cross that bridge and come through the new door to the castle, whatever. You get my point. They deal with it too. And I know this because I hear this from writers all the time, when we're talking about our stories, a writer who has carefully outlined everything will sit there and go, "Oh, my character just did X. And I don't know why it wasn't in the plan. And now I don't know what to do gonna have to shuffle things around!" The approach might be different between discovery writers and planners, but in a lot of ways, we're dealing with the same issue, which is learning to trust our creativity to not be wrong. And that's a hard one, even for Pantsers. Because we still have ideas about where we wanted the story to go, at least for me as a pantser. I know that's true. I know, there are probably some pantsers out there who have just a completely blank slate on...

A deep look at outlining from the perspective of whether it is actually helping you or not, and why it is helping you (if it is!). NOW WITH TRANSCRIPTS! Thanks to otter.ai I am getting easy, fast, quality transcripts for these podcasts now. whew! Links discussed in this episode: 10 Different Outlining Techniques Brian Sanderson's BYU 2020 class lectures ⨌⨌⨌ Transcript Promo Intro: It's KimBoo! Welcome to the 11th episode of the Author Alchemist podcast, season two, where today we're going to talk about outlining. Specifically, we're going to be talking about the type of outlining that works for you, that keeps writing fresh and interesting, and helps motivate you, as opposed to weighing you down with the burden of doing something the way other people tell you should do it. Let's get to it. Main Intro: I'm KimBoo, the host of the Author Alchemist podcast. I'm bringing my years of experience as both a fanfiction writer and a professionally published author to the problem we all love to hate: the act of writing. You can't improve on something that doesn't exist, which means the most important thing you could do is simply write. Anything, just write something. I'm here to help you do that. Podcast: So yeah, good morning! It is morning, as I am recording this beautiful gray morning. That's really the last of the Florida winter here, we're into mid March, and so temperatures are creeping back up. Which means that summer is right around the corner, and I try not to think about that too much. But despite the fact that the humidity is also creeping back up, it's still really nice out. So I have all my windows and doors open, letting the air run through my house. I know a lot of people in the rest of the country live in the USA, but they open their windows when spring comes. Because they're warming up, they're wanting, you know this, the warm spring breezes to come through their house and chase out the chill. Whereas for me, I usually do the opposite. I started opening up my windows and doors in October there abouts, and keep opening them up until March or April hits, and then everything shuts, closes, and we keep the air conditioning running as much as possible without going bankrupt for the bill. So that's where I am right now, enjoying the day as much as I can. Today we're going to be talking about outlining. And as usual, I'm not going to focus on the craft of it too much. I will talk about different styles of outlining a little bit later. But one of the reasons I brought this up as a topic is because you hear so many pieces of advice and so many different experts telling you how the perfect way to outline a story should happen. And usually I'm pretty dismissive of all that because I figure once you've been writing for a while, and if you're a fanfiction writer you've been writing for a while, then you pretty much know how things work for you. But unfortunately, what tends to happen whether people are previously writing fanfiction, or have not previously written anything, so they get into original writing, and suddenly they feel like they don't know anything. And they go looking at the books and they go looking through the blogs and YouTube videos and they stumble across something that sounds like it might work for them or that an expert they trust tells them they should do it. And then they try it out and maybe it doesn't work. So here I want to talk about outlining as a motivational tool, because I think that is the key that's really missing. We talk a lot about in the community, in the writing community, the using templates, certainly Scrivener has templates, plotr has templates, world anvil, and camp ire. They all have built in templates that you can just plug and play for using, and there's save the cat for novel writing as well as script writing. And there is the hero's journey, which if you're in the fantasy and science fiction genres, is used a lot. So there's lots of different ways to do it. I was listening...

(FYI: I recorded this back in January, and it was originally supposed to be the 7th episode, which is what I say in the opening, but nope! It's really truly the 10th episode of season 2!) Inspired by part of a graduation ceremony speech Neil Gaiman gave wayyyyy back in 1997, this episodes starts from there and spirals out into talking about the value of your obsessions to you as a writer, not just as "things that you can talk about in a story" but as things that inspire you on a daily basis to practice your creativity. “Go where your obsessions take you. Write the things you must. Draw the things you must. Your obsessions may not always take you to commercial places, or apparently commercial places. But trust them.” ~ N.G. Along the way I mention a couple of books I was reading, which you can find out more about here: Reality is Not What It Seems: The Journey of Quantum Gravity The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe (Bonus! Co-author David M. Perry's twitter account) NOTE: This are affiliate links, so buying from Bookshop.org helps not only independent booksellers but also me! And we could all use the help, yeah? ⨌⨌⨌ TRANSCRIPT The Author Alchemist Podcast Episode 10, Season 2 Title: Trust Your Obsessions Intro: I'm KimBoo, the host of The Author, alchemist podcast, I'm bringing my years of experience as both a fan fiction writer and a professionally published author to the problem, we all love to hate the act of writing. You can't improve on something that doesn't exist. Which means the most important thing you could do is simply write anything. Just write something. I'm here to help you do that. Good morning. Podcast: It is Saturday, and I'm recording the podcast like a dutiful podcaster. on schedule. Will this get posted on Monday? That's an entirely different story. And I'll keep you posted. For sure. You know that I am absolutely devoted to y'all because I had to turn off the heater to record this podcast because my mic was picking up the noise of the heater running in the background. So I had to turn it off. And it's very cold, I think it's just under 40 degrees, despite the fact that it's 10:30am. And for me, as a Floridian that's pretty much Arctic temperature. So heater is off, but I am wearing a hoodie. I've, of course fully dressed, got a blanket wrapped around my legs to keep my feet warm. I have socks on. So I'm about as bundled up as I can be and actually not have my teeth chattering while I tried to record this. So moving on, this is episode seven, of the author, alchemist. And today we're talking about trusting your obsessions. This podcast idea was inspired by actually the confluence of two different things. One was an old tumblr post that I had saved, that was quoting an old, even older speech by Neil Gaiman. What is it 1997 or so about trusting obsessions in the value of going down research rabbit holes. And I'll get to that in a sec. But the other part of the inspiration of this was me on Twitter. Of course I I'm Mutual's or follow a lot of writers who talk about writing, that's what we do. And there always seems to be a theme, when writers talk about writing, of how we're not writing, how we are not actually doing the thing, how we are doing something else, how we're tweeting, instead of writing, how we're writing a book, instead of writing, how we are learning some new obscure trade or skill, and we're learning how to cobble shoes, instead of writing. Alright, that's all fair. We do need to write at some point. But I think sometimes we tend to get away from the fact that writing is energy intensive, brain intensive, and we can't do it 24 hours a day, as much as honestly, I would love to. We can't, brains just don't work that way. Even writers with incredibly high output on a daily basis, two to 10,000 words a day -- And it's possible to do -- to need breaks scheduled into their life, whether it's a day off, or they write long and hard for three months, and then take another full month...