Happy Tuesday, writing friends!
Last week was 📕Books with Hooks🪝week on the podcast, so you can find Carly and CeCe’s written query critiques below.
Carly and CeCe were back with a Shooting the Shit episode yesterday. As per usual, they covered a lot of ground, including all the fires agents have to put out behind the scenes. And why your sneaky AI-produced query letter will likely go up in smoke.🔥
While stuck in the hellscape that is ‘being out on submission’ with a novel, Juliet Izon, author of The Encore didn’t want to “write the next thing”, not when what she really needed was to distract the 💩 out of herself. Instead, she wrote a play!
“I wasn’t expecting how much writing a play would pay dividends when it came to returning to book edits… I learned to think so much more critically about pacing, dialogue, and narrative arc. When it came time for me to tackle my developmental edits, it almost felt like I’d unlocked some cheat codes.”
Keep reading for Juliet’s four excellent takeaways!
In the first of today’s two author videos, Cassie Miller, author of Meet Me Under the Lights, discusses connecting with your target audience while sharing four practical tips for building an authentic author brand.
Alicia Jo Rabins, author of When We’re Born We Forget Everything shares a wonderful essay on Using Negative Emotions As Rocket Fuel For Writing:
“I didn’t worry about what was “serious” enough to write about, I just let myself write. And through this process, I found my way to numerous scenes which turned out to be keys to the book. I never could have planned these in outline form; I had to follow my own negative emotions to find my own story.”
In our second video, Jessica Urlichs, author of They Bloom Because of You, discusses choosing between indie and traditional publishing paths while she also unpacks timelines, advances, creative control, platform building, and how to decide which path fits your life season.
Ever heard of making the muse your b***h? 😂 We hadn’t either, until Elizabeth Arnott, author of The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives enlightened us in today’s delightful Q&A.
Finally, registrations are open for Bianca’s next Beta Reader Match Up which will take place on the 2nd of April!
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading! ❤️
❤️ The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Team
This Week on ‘Shooting the Shit’
Carly and CeCe are back! This week they chat about audiobook double-dipping stats, the behind-the-scenes “fires” agents constantly put out (covers, contracts, timelines, leverage), and whether traditional media still moves the needle—or just feeds our very human need for validation. They also dive into buzzy memoirs, literary-agent characters in fiction, and why AI submissions are getting spotted instantly and what that means for writers who don’t trust their own voice.
