✨Bianca Launches A Most Amazing Contest; and Writing Duo Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka Share Encouraging Words on...Basically Everything✨
Plus, The Great Beta Reader Match-Up continues and an exciting new course offering from CeCe!
Happy Friday, writing friends!
One of the biggest things no one tells you about writing (but one which you are bound to discover on your own) is that writing a book is the easy part. Which is hard to believe until you’ve actually finished writing your first ms and then find yourself faced with everything that comes next—like querying. A version of The Holmes-Rahe Stress Scale designed specifically for writers would likely place querying somewhere below Divorce, but above Incarceration and Personal Injury. And what’s one of the hardest things about querying? Battering your ego against the rocky cliffs of rejection, sure, but before you can even get to that stage you need to get past the dreaded writing of the query letter. ✍🏽📝
Fortunately, you’ve got us, your friends here at The 💩, and this week we’ve got even more ways we’re helping you navigate this particularly stressful leg of your journey. First, it’s 📕Books with Hooks🪝time on the podcast, and our hosts have some excellent insights to share on what agents are looking for in your comps (Ugh. Comps. Amirite?), how to know if you’re starting your book in the right place (odds are good you’re not) and (of course!) more. But that’s not all…
We are SUPER-EXCITED about the contest we’ve just launched as a companion to the A Most Puzzling Murder giveaway on Goodreads because the prizes Bianca is offering are… 🤯😲🤩 The winner will get to choose one of four amazing prizes—including the chance to appear on a special upcoming episode of 📕Books with Hooks🪝 where the lucky winner will have their work critiqued by our hosts! Given how many of our listeners have reported back about the publishing deals they’ve landed after using our hosts’ insights to revise their queries, we think this might just be one of the best prizes we’ve ever offered! See below for complete details!🎉🎉🎉
This week’s Q&A subjects, successful romance and YA authors Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka (whose latest, Book Boyfriend, is out next week) are partners in both writing and life and it would be soooo easy to be jealous of them (if they’re not living the dream, who is?) except they seem really, really nice. Their answers come from such a thoughtful and kind place (like their advice on forging friendships in the writing community) as well as lots of experience—anyone who agrees that querying is the worst, will definitely want to read about what they went through on their journey to publication. 📕🧑🏻❤️👩🏻
And speaking of starting your book in the right place…The always fabulous CeCe has just announced a new course that’s all about the secrets to hooking your readers from the very first page. Registration for Starting it Right: How to Start Your Story in the Best Place and in the Best Way is now open—check it out below!
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading! ❤️
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Team
P.S. Still not sure about upgrading to paid? Check out our Tuesday Teaser below to see what you’re missing!
This Week’s Podcast✨🎙️✨
This week on the podcast (listen to it here or watch it on YouTube!), Bianca, Carly and CeCe discuss a gothic horror novel submission as well as psychological thriller.
They highlight the importance of starting a story in the right place, the challenges of multi-POV narratives, and the need for clarity in character perspectives. The critique emphasizes the balance between emotional depth and curiosity in storytelling. The hosts discuss the challenges of originality and character development in psychological thrillers; while navigating the complexities of writing compelling protagonists, particularly those with darker traits.
The discussion also emphasizes the need for curiosity-inducing plots and the delicate balance of character portrayal to captivate both agents and readers.
“So the rule is everything before the story's climax is fair game in a query letter, but then you stop at the climax… ‘Cause you don't want to give away those spoilers. So that's something to think about.”
-CeCe
A Most Puzzling Murder and Its Most Amazing Contest!
How would you like to win an appearance on 📕Books with Hooks🪝and discuss your work with all three hosts on the show? 😲
Or maybe you’d rather interview Bianca about A Most Puzzling Murder on the podcast? Of course, there’s also the free Deep Dive 2026 registration to consider…
Or maybe you’d like $200 worth of books of your choice?
Decisions, decisions…
So many great prizes, we almost feel bad for whoever wins having to decide between them! But not really—after all, what better way to celebrate a novel that pays tribute to all the Choose Your Own Adventure books the author loved so much as a child than by hosting an awesome giveaway in which you get to choose your own prize?
Plus, this is a contest where there are no losers! Everyone who enters is guaranteed an exclusive invite to a Zoom discussion between dynamic duo CeCe and Bianca, as they spill all the behind-the-scenes tea on how this book was written and brought to life.
Entering is easy! There are just two steps:
Go to Goodreads and add A Most Puzzling Murder to your Want to Read list while entering the Goodreads giveaway for the book.
Share a screenshot of your entry on socials using the hashtag: #AMostPuzzlingMurder so we can find your entries to enter them into the draw.
The Details:
Each reshare (with a note about why you're excited to read the book) gets you another ticket into the draw.
If you are our lucky winner, you’ll get to choose 1 of 4 fabulous prizes depending on how you’d like your adventure to unfold:
Being on 📕Books with Hooks🪝with us live to have their work critiqued
Interviewing Bianca on the podcast about A Most Puzzling Murder
Registration to the 2026 Deep Dive Virtual Retreat
A hamper filled with $200 worth of books of your choice
Deadline: February 28th, midnight. The winner will be announced on March 3rd, when you will be asked to choose you prize.
Zoom Discussion: The Zoom with CeCe and Bianca will take place at 7pm ET on the September 17th. Every person who enters the contest will get a link to the Zoom session, where they will get the opportunity to be a part of the discussion.
Q&A with Emily Wibberley & Austin Siegemund-Broka
Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka met and fell in love in high school. Austin went on to graduate from Harvard, while Emily graduated from Princeton. Together, they are the authors of Book Boyfriend, The Roughest Draft and more novels about romance for teens and adults. Now married, they live in Los Angeles, where they continue to take daily inspiration from their own love story.
TSNOTYAW: Do you have a go-to mantra or pep talk for the days when writing feels hard?
Emily & Austin: We focus on *not* being perfectionists. We give everything to everything we write, but day by day, it's more important to get words down even if they're not the greatest version you ever imagined of the scene, conversation or description. Editing will offer plenty of opportunities to perfect what you're working on. When writing feels difficult (and it does, on many, many days), we remind ourselves constantly that the most important part is starting and pushing ourselves until we find something that resembles a rhythm. Everything ends up stronger than you expect, and ultimately, having something on the page is preferable to not.
Were you ever close to giving up on writing and, if so, what stopped you?
We have never been close to giving up on writing, but we have been close to giving up on writing in a certain genre or market. What stopped us is remembering that you can always, *always*, at any time, find that idea or those perfect market conditions that permit you to sell something you love working on. It's literally never *over*. When you know that the only limit to pursuing writing, whether on the whole or in a particular genre, is your own determination, it's a good reminder to keep going.
What would you say you’ve done right to build a strong and supportive writing network?
Celebrate your friends' successes, commiserate on their difficulties, and most of all, never, ever pursue or maintain a friendship out of an expectation it will lead you to professional gain. In writing, it's impossible to know who's going to have success one day or struggles the next. Forging friendships out of some expectation of who will succeed leaves one with fragile, fake friendships, which are joyless, and which won't provide you the support you need when you're having difficulty. Find people you genuinely admire and whose company you enjoy, and stick with them come what may.
What one piece of advice (craft- or publishing industry-related) has always resonated with you?
The piece of writing advice we've followed closest from the very start of our writing journey is to *finish manuscripts*. Everyone knows how the "shiny new idea" can distract us from whatever we're working on, and when you're in the middle of drafting, it can feel like a joyless slog. It's important to slog on in those situations, pushing yourself to stay inspired and finish strong. You cannot query or sell a manuscript if you haven't finished one, and in the process of pushing yourself to come up with a complete climax, character arcs and satisfying story, you'll learn more about the writing process, the intricacies of plotting and poetic motifs, and even your own preferred working style. And at the end of the journey, you'll have something you can edit, polish, and share with pride.
How do you ensure you have enough time to write amidst so many obligations competing for your time?
Meticulous scheduling. Austin has a demanding day job, and working on three books a year in multiple genres as well as managing social media and other extra-professional obligations leaves Emily with little "down time" as well. We plan every single outline and manuscript down to the number of scenes, chapters and/or words we need to write per week and often per day, and we commit ourselves to those manageable micro-goals. They push us to avoid getting caught in endless perfectionism or second-guessing and get words on the page instead, and they remind us how manageable the manuscript-size obligations really are when you subdivide them.
What's one writing "rule" or commonly followed piece of advice that you decidedly break?
Avoiding unlikable characters! We love characters with not just a dash of spite thrown in, but who have deep, even frustrating, internal contradictions and questionable decision-making. It makes them more fun and, in our opinion, more realistic.
What is the most challenging part of being a successful author? And how do you mitigate its effects?
We don't know if we'd say we're successful authors! And in that lies our answer. One of the greatest difficulties is the constant presence of a new goal out of reach, and of the possibility of one's career declining. We've learned that while it might feel like every problem will disappear when we finish querying and get an agent, or get a book deal, or get a second book deal, or get a bigger book deal, or work in a new genre, or get this opportunity or that, the pressure and want for the *next* thing never disappears. We have learned over years and years to really appreciate every success, and remind ourselves that the future is uncertain, so what we can focus on instead is our passion for each idea we develop.
Writer’s block: myth or unfortunate reality? If you experience it, how do you overcome it?
It's not a myth in that on many days, writing feels difficult and like one doesn't know what to put on the page. It *is* a myth in that one doesn't need to let this stop the process. We use our carefully set goals, and we push through times we feel less inspired by reminding ourselves that the work needs to get done. And sometimes, the forceful effort ends up unlocking creative constrictions.
How did you get your literary agent? What was the querying process like for you?
We queried for about a year, with two different manuscripts. One received numerous requests for more material, but no offers. It did yield one "revise and resubmit" process that ultimately went on for months of numerous developmental rounds of edits. We completed each efficiently and enthusiastically in hopes it would yield an offer. In the meantime, we continued working on a new manuscript, as it's important to us to constantly maintain focus on a new idea even as we continue to shop an existing manuscript. Finally, as we completed and started querying the new manuscript, the querying attention *that* manuscript received compelled our revise-and-resubmit agent to make an offer. We've always felt it was proof of the value of continuing to finish manuscripts and then fix our hearts and efforts on the next project!
You can pre-order Book Boyfriend on our Bookshop.org affiliate page here. Buying books through this link supports a local indie bookstore, as well as The Shit No One Tells You About Writing 📚❤️
Exciting New Learning Opportunity with CeCe!
The beginning—that’s the most important part of your story. It’s the part that must hook the reader. That must make them fall in love with your characters and your world. It’s the beginning that must convince the reader to buy your book, or stay up late and ignore real life in favor of reading your story. The beginning is more high stakes than your climax, because if the reader doesn’t love the beginning they won’t stick around for the rest.
So all you’ve got to do is nail that first chapter? Well that shouldn’t be too hard, right? Wrong. The bad news is that it’s actually very difficult to write a compelling beginning. The good news is that it’s a skill that can be mastered, and literary agent and podcast co-host CeCe Lyra’s got a workshop for that!
This four-day workshop will cover various aspects of how to start your story right, including:
different types of beginnings and how to choose the best one for you;
how to frame your inciting incident in an irresistible way;
elements that go into every effective beginning;
common mistakes made by writers when beginning a story;
how to balance exposition and mystery;
how to make readers fall in love with your protagonist;
how to make readers want to turn to chapter two;
Q&A session;
Surprise bonus session.
Here’s when we’ll meet via Zoom:
March 20 at 7pm Eastern Time (Day One)
March 27 at 7pm Eastern Time (Day Two)
March 30 at 1pm Eastern Time (Cozy Q&A session, cameras on (optional)).
April 3 at 7pm Eastern Time (Bonus Session)
This webinar will also feature an interactive component. Everyone who is registered will have the option of submitting the opening scene of their work by March 20th (submissions received after this date will not be considered). Instructions on how to submit will be sent to you automatically after registration (look for an email from Zoom). Please note that this submission does NOT constitute a query to a literary agent—it is a submission to an educational webinar. You are NOT querying CeCe by submitting to this webinar.
Writers of all categories and genres are invited to attend.
If you cannot attend one or more of the sessions live, please sign up as the recording will be emailed to you 24hr later. Recordings will be available to the viewer for 60 days. Recordings will NOT be sold after the fact.
Note: Cecilia “CeCe” Lyra is a literary agent at P.S. Literary Agency, but her work on this webinar is not affiliated with P.S. Literary Agency, and the views expressed are her own, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or positions of P.S. Literary Agency.
The Great Beta Reader Match-Up is Back…and Better Than Ever! 🐉🧚🏼♂️💘
Are you looking for beta readers, some of whom might potentially become writing group members down the line?
Are you wanting to be matched up with those writing in a similar genre and time zone, so they can critique your work as you critique theirs at the same time? (And is your genre by any chance romantasy? If yes, you’re in luck—due to popular demand, Bianca’s added it as a genre to the match up!)
Your manuscript doesn't have to be complete to sign up for this 3000 word evaluation.
Registration for this particular match up is open from now until March 2nd, with the match up emails going out March 3rd .
For more information and to register, click below!
And spread the word! The more writers we have signed up, the better the matches will be!
Tuesday Teaser 😉
Paid members will find Carly and CeCe’s written critiques of the 📕Books with Hooks🪝 queries discussed on this week’s podcast in next Tuesday’s newsletter, as well as a Q&A with debut novelist Michael Amherst (The Boyhood of Cain), who reassuringly name-drops some literary greats who just so happened to be pantsers, and whose thoughts on the best way to share work for feedback are👌🏽
We’ve also got an essay from Marianna Marlowe (Portrait of a Feminist) in which she describes the break-through editing technique that changed her approach to writing—and led to publication of her memoir. And Christine Murphy (Notes on Surviving the Fire) shares a different spin on that old chestnut “Write what you know,” in an insight-packed video.
Not yet a member? For just $8USD a month or $80USD a year you get:
an exclusive newsletter on Tuesdays featuring bonus author Q&As and other exclusive content from industry experts
access to Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra’s written notes on queries from the podcast’s Books With Hooks feature
monthly bonus podcast episodes, AND
regular Ask Me Anythings / Q&As with Carly, CeCe, and Bianca Marais.
If that doesn’t kickstart your writing journey, we don’t know what will!
That’s all for this week’s news! If you enjoyed it, why not share the love? 🥰
Tune in again next week for more invaluable wisdom from our wonderful hosts! Until then, happy writing! 😍
❤️ The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Team
Our work takes place on land now known as Toronto and Ottawa and we acknowledge that these are the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat Peoples as well as the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation. Toronto is covered under Treaty 13 and the Williams Treaties. We respect and affirm the inherent and Treaty Rights of all Indigenous Peoples across this land and acknowledge the historical oppression of lands, cultures, languages, and the original Peoples in what we now know as Canada. We invite you to learn more about the land you inhabit, the history of that land, and how to actively be part of a better future going forward together at Native Land or Whose Land.
Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra are literary agents at P.S. Literary Agency, but their work in this newsletter is not affiliated with the agency, and the views expressed by Carly and CeCe in this newsletter are solely that of themselves and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of P.S. Literary Agency.
💖💖💖💖💖
Hi Sean, thanks for reaching out! Click this link: https://www.instagram.com/p/DGYEIsrAyD-/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== and follow the instructions in the post, let us know if you are still having issues!