✨You Can't Force Magic & Other Words to Live by from Sally Blakely; & Clueless Mystery Writers Take Heart—Liza Tully's Got Your Back!✨

Also inside: A brand new video series from Carly & CeCe!; mastering the delicate balancing act of dramedy with Dingo Doodles & Felix Irnich; and last week's podcast guest's agent-landing query letter!

Happy Tuesday, writing friends!

Big things happening here this week, Shitlets! 🎉📣🎉

As colleagues at The 💩 and in their agency lives, our fabulous agent co-hosts Carly and CeCe are constantly chatting about all things book- and writing-related. One day Carly had a lightbulb moment that went something like this: “Say…do you think people would be interested in hearing us dish on all this hot publishing industry gossip, trends and news?” And from that, Shooting the Shit, a new recurring series featuring Carly and CeCe (unsupervised!) was born. We’re excited to invite you to be a fly on the wall as they kick things off this week with a conversation that ranges from “how dark is too dark when it comes to dark romance?” to how we think about social media and the shift from “influencers” to “thought leaders.” Tune in (our premiere episode is online now!) for behind-the-scenes content we just can’t find room for on the podcast, exclusive glimpses into agenting life (where’s Carly off to, and why?), and more!

In the spirit of a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, we love when an essay is as entertaining as it is instructional, so when Liza Tully pitched us “A Handy Compendium of Clues for the Clueless Mystery Writer” we knew we were in for a treat (as are all the emerging mystery writers out there). Of course, we’d expect no less from someone whose novel (the equally hilariously titled The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant) is described as “The Devil Wears Prada meets Hacks and The Thursday Murder Club.” If you’re wondering about categories of clues (from the “obviously important” to “missing”), what kinds of things might serve as clues, how many you should have (and more!) dive in below for Liza’s insights!

Today’s Q&A with Sally Blakely (Friends to Lovers) includes one of those pearls of writerly wisdom that is so perfect in its truth that it’s our newest candidate for “things writers should get tattooed somewhere visible on their person.” Actually, there are tons of hard-earned lessons in Sally’s thoughtful answers to us, including this one (that we think many of you may be able to relate to): “It used to annoy me so much when I would hear published authors tell writers in the querying trenches to enjoy writing now, before it becomes a job, because it will never feel the same after that. I thought it was easy for them to say—they had what we all wanted! But it was one of the first lessons I learned, and I do sometimes wish I'd taken it a little more seriously as a querying writer.” Keep reading for more of Sally’s wise insights.

We may not know a ton about Dungeons & Dragons here at The 💩, so forgive us if we get this wrong, but we couldn’t stop thinking about the term “chaotic good” while watching this week’s video from Dingo Doodles & Felix Irnich (Fool's Gold: Death by Karaoke). Like Liza’s essay, this conversation between the trio of creative forces behind the graphic novel based on Dingo’s popular YouTube series (which is in turn based on a game of Dungeons and Dragons she played with friends a decade ago) is fun and informative; it’s also a lot like eavesdropping on creative besties you wish would invite you to hang with them. Want to know what Lord of the Rings and Muppet Treasure Island have to do with each other (and writing)? It’s all part of their lesson on how to successfully balance comedic and dramatic elements in your writing—a lesson that can be applied to any genre.

Finally, last week wasn’t even a 📕Books with Hooks🪝week, but we’ve got a bonus query letter for you from Laura Reseau, last week’s podcast guest, who has generously shared the letter she even more generously credits The💩 with helping her get across the finish line: “Your insights helped me make my query letter and first pages the best they could be... which led to four offers of representation within a month... and led to me signing with my agent, Kim Lionetti, of BookEnds Literary! TSNOTYAW has been such an essential (and fun!) part of my journey in bringing THE ALCHEMY OF FLOWERS into the world.”

This kind of feedback makes our day! Thank you Laura, and thank all of you for being here—we can’t wait to hear all of YOUR future success stories.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading! ❤️

❤️ The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Team