✨"You'll Make it Not Bad Later" and Other Wise Words From Internationally Bestselling Author Clémence Michallon✨
Plus, the winner of the A Most Puzzling Murder launch Flash Fiction Contest; and it's 📕Books with Hooks🪝time over on the pod!
Happy Friday, writing friends!
“‘Tis better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all.”
With apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson, we’re kicking things off today with a spin on one of his more famous quotes, inspired by a sharp bit of wisdom from today’s Q&A with Clémence Michallon, author of the international bestseller The Quiet Tenant and her latest, Our Last Resort (which came out Tuesday!). Writing might be one of the most potentially discouragement-fraught pursuits a person can take up, but when Clémence says that she “figured out early on that trying and failing to write something still puts [her] in a much happier state of mind than not writing at all” we knew exactly what she meant (and suspect many—most?—of you do, too). She also shares her own spin on the classic “You can’t edit a blank page,” along with a comparison of marathon running and writing that echoes a similar analogy from last month’s excellent essay by Rachel Joyce, so clearly this is one we should be paying attention to!
Meanwhile, over on the podcast, it’s📕Books with Hooks🪝time again, and this week a commercial women’s fiction and a book club fiction query are the subjects of our hosts’ insights as they discuss character development, emotional resonance, and the importance of clearly conveying conflict and stakes in query letters. They also talk about how important originality is, and how hard it is to strike a balance in your query between situating your manuscript in the marketplace using comps ("these popular books are like mine, therefore mine will be popular too"), while demonstrating why yours is different ("but here’s how I’m making it completely fresh”). We also have some bonus content for you this week from Harrison Browne in the form of a reading from his non-fiction book Let Us Play, about his remarkable journey from competing as a female athlete to living authentically as a transgender man. Totally compelling, and a perfect of example of why telling stories matters.
If you read our Tuesday edition with it’s awesome Hattie Williams quote (“It is more important to write something really fucking good than it is to write something really fucking original”) you might be thinking there’s a contradiction here, but if you look more closely you’ll see that Hattie and our hosts are actually saying very similar things: It’s not about finding a premise that no one in the history of novel writing has ever thought of before, it’s about finding a demonstrably compelling premise, and then executing it to the very best of your abilities in a way that only you can.
By the way…you’ll notice when you tune in that it’s just Carly and CeCe on the show this week—that’s because this week’s episode was recorded while Bianca was off preparing for the epic party that was the launch of her latest book, A Most Puzzling Murder. The party that happens to have been where the winner of the Flash Fiction Contest was announced. We’re excited to have this opportunity to recognize Leslie Henderson Armstrong for her winning story, The Button, and to be sharing it with you today in it’s entirety (we’re also glad she included that disclaimer about her husband…😉).
On a related note…Did you see the news that Bianca and A Most Puzzling Murder made the USA Today Bestseller list a month after the book’s release⁉️⁉️ We can’t help but think it might have something to do with you, so on behalf of Bianca, a HUGE thank you to everyone who supported this book (it means the world, AND helps ensure we can keep bringing you The 💩 every week!).
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✨🎙️✨
In this episode of 📕Books with Hooks🪝, Carly and CeCe are back with more insightful feedback, this time on queries for a commercial women’s fiction and a book club fiction submission. They dive deep into the craft of storytelling—discussing character development, emotional resonance, and the vital role of originality in fiction. This episode also highlights the importance of clearly conveying conflict and stakes in query letters, offering practical tips for writers looking to capture an agent’s attention.
“I'm coming to the word which gets used in publishing a lot, and CeCe and I can talk about it…[the] word ‘familiar.’ Agents use this word sometimes, ‘familiar.’ Editors use the word. What does it mean? I'm sure you guys who have been in the querying trenches or submission trenches might have heard this word before.”
-Carly Watters
And don’t miss this week’s powerful reading from Let Us Play. Harrison Browne opens up about his remarkable journey from competing as a female athlete to living authentically as a transgender man. Through his story, he sheds light on the emotional and physical complexities of transitioning, the hurdles trans athletes face in sports, and the ongoing evolution of inclusion policies. With honesty and courage, Harrison explores the vital role of advocacy, visibility, and compassion in creating a more equitable athletic world.
Listen to it here or watch it on YouTube!
Q&A with Clémence Michallon!
TSNOTYAW: Do you have a go-to mantra or pep talk for the days when writing feels hard?
Clémence Michallon: "Finish the first draft." My author friend Holly Baxter (whose excellent debut novel Clickbait came out in 2024) told me that over and over again when I was working on The Quiet Tenant—and I thought about it all the time while I was working on my new thriller, Our Last Resort. It sounds simple, but it really is a hopeful sentence for me. It reminds me that—for some mystifying reason—it's a thousand times easier to fix something that's not perfect (but that exists) than to try to get it right the first time. So just finish the first draft. Yes, even if it's bad for now. You'll make it not bad later. And it will be far easier to make it good once you have a finished story to look at.
Were you ever close to giving up on writing and, if so, what stopped you?
No! I figured out early on that trying and failing to write something still puts me in a much happier state of mind than not writing at all. I'm miserable when I don't write. Even the worst writing day I'll ever have will still feel better than a period of my life when I don't have a writing project at all.
What one piece of advice (craft- or publishing industry-related) has always resonated with you?
I have always been a word count girl. It's the only way I know to get it done. I know some people have a more intuitive approach, or some people choose to spend a certain amount of time at their desk—and truly, you should do whatever enables you to write. Word counts work for me, I think, in large part due to my background in journalism. Working in a newsroom, you're always aiming for a specific word count (be it 500 words, 1,000 words, or more) and you have to deliver it on deadline. So it feels natural to me to bring that work ethic to my life as a novelist as well. It also helps me to structure my work day and to know when I'm "done".
One important spin I put on this was to give myself slightly flexible word counts. For example, instead of aiming for 1,000 words a day, I started aiming for 500 to 1,000 words a day. That way, if I wrote 800 words, I hadn't "failed" to write 1,000 words—rather, I had gone 300 words over my minimum goal for the day. Those are the mind games I have to play with myself in order to get myself to write. More seriously, though, writing tens of thousands of words can easily feel discouraging or demoralizing, and I think we writers owe it to ourselves to do what we can to prevent that. Flexible word counts did that for me.
How do you ensure you have enough time to write amidst so many obligations competing for your time?
I remind myself that nothing happens if I don't write. Yes, promoting the next book always feels urgent—as does answering my emails, or posting on Instagram. But if I don't write now, then there's not going to be a future book to promote, or anything to share on social media, or even emails to answer. Writing is my main job duty. Everything else depends on it. It's also my favorite part of my work day, so I'm usually pretty happy to make time for it.
What's one writing "rule" or commonly followed piece of advice that you decidedly break?
I LOVE breaking rules! One common piece of advice I heard before I started working on my debut thriller The Quiet Tenant was that beginning writers should avoid writing multiple points of view because they're tricky. They are tricky, but they were also the only way to tell the story I wanted to tell, in the way I wanted to tell it. That book wouldn't have worked if I hadn't used multiple POVs. So I broke that rule, and I'm glad I did.
Writer’s block: myth or unfortunate reality? If you experience it, how do you overcome it?
Oh, I think writer's block is totally real. I think writers who experience it need to have compassion for themselves. It's so easy to feel stuck with a story. Even if you outline, I think writing a novel is just a daunting exercise, and it's natural to feel like you don't know where to head next, or maybe you've written yourself into a corner, or maybe you've run out of road. (Should I come up with another metaphor, or is this enough?)
Alas, the only way out is through. Write badly. Write something you'll delete later. Retrace your steps if you need to. I've learned that when I try to write too fast (as in, too many words a day), I lose the thread of the story, and my brain needs a day or two to catch up. So I re-read my manuscript and try to reacquaint myself with this whole project and its characters. But really, think of it as a car stuck in the mud. The priority is to get out of the mud, even if it doesn't look pretty. You'll figure out the rest of the itinerary later. And eventually, you'll draw a new route that will avoid the mud altogether. But get out of the mud first.
How important do you think it is for writers to be on social media?
If there's one platform that works well for you and resonates with you, then I think it's good to be on it. It's a nice way to connect with readers, to make yourself findable, and to uplift other writers. However, social media can also be toxic, so if you find that it's getting in the way of your writing life, then I think it's okay to take a break or exit altogether. With this, as with so many other aspects of the writing life, you have to find what works for you.
If you could travel back in time and meet your past self in the year after the publication of your debut, what words of encouragement and/or warning would you give yourself?
You are about to learn that you are a writer who craves variety. You feel at home in the crime genre, but it's a vast genre, with plentiful possibilities. You are going to want to explore different kinds of stories and different kinds of characters. You will not want to write the same book twice. This is a good thing. Trust yourself. You know the metaphor that says you can't ever swim in the same river twice? I think you're a slightly different writer with every book. Don't fight it. And for crying out loud, please start packing snacks when you're on tour or traveling for book events. You know there's never time to eat.
Do you have any regrets about your journey so far? Do you wish you had done anything differently?
When I went to the Mississippi Book Festival in August 2023, I realized on the morning of the day my panel was scheduled that the lovely maxi skirt I'd packed was entirely see-through. So I had to wear a second skirt underneath it. That's two skirts total. In Mississippi. In August. I've never sweated so much in my life, and I've run six marathons. I wish I'd checked my skirt before leaving for my trip, and I wish I'd packed some kind of half slip. Lesson learned.
What question do you wish an interviewer would ask you? (And what’s the answer to that question!)
You've run six marathons. How is writing novels similar to running?" "Why, I'm glad you asked! I don't think I would have been able to become a novelist if I hadn't started running long distances. I'm not a patient person by nature—not at all. And writing novels requires almost nothing but patience. Patience with yourself, patience with others, patience with the work itself. Training for and running marathons taught me—in my bones, in my body—that small efforts add up. When you train for a marathon, you don't actually run the full distance. A marathon is 26.2 miles, and most training plans will have you run 20-ish miles at most as your longest training run. So you just run a lot of days, and you do five miles, and then eight miles, and then twelve miles, etc. Your distance builds up over time. Now, I'm sure there are more diligent runners than I, but I don't try to run *well* when I run. I just show up, do the distance, and then I go shower. That's the whole job for me: to show up. The same goes, I've found, with writing—especially during the drafting phase. The whole job is to show up and get the word count done. It's not to write well—not at that stage. "Another parallel is that, when you're running a marathon, you're never... *running a marathon*. You're taking one step, and then another, and then another. And if you don't stop running—this is a mathematical, physical certainty—you will, at some point, run a marathon. When you take 30 minutes to an hour a day to write 500 words, it's hard to believe that those small segments could ever add up to a book. And yet, it's also a certainty that if you keep writing, you will at some point have a whole novel. You run a marathon one step at a time the same way you write a novel one word at a time. The two are completely linked for me.
FLASH FICTION WINNER
“THE BUTTON”
By Leslie Henderson Armstrong
The button. It was all I had left of him. Holding it in my hand, I rolled it between my fingers, feeling the solidness that reminded me of him. Solid in body and loyalty. There when I needed him, lurking off stage when I needed to be alone.
That part of my life was now closed, buttoned-up, so to speak. But every time I’d thought I was ready to move on, that button had drawn me back into the memories of the life I’d once had. It had come from his favourite shirt; a grey-checked flannel which intensified the blue of his eyes whenever he wore it; and he had worn it often. So often, the flannel had frayed on the pointed tips of the collar and the edges of the cuffs ─ one button precipitously hanging on.
I’d come to hate that shirt. He’d worn it on our first date. It had been new then; the fabric complete, unflawed and comfortable; like him. After a prolonged dinner and too much beer at a local pub, we’d found ourselves ambling along the bridge on a quiet street in town; our conversation flowing like the never-ending river below.
I’d loved that spot. It’s where I’d often gone to clear my thoughts. The river’s stormy flow, without fail, seeming to settle my churning mind. But no longer. Too many memories, like the boulders in the river, and my thoughts unable to divert over or around. I wondered again and again what had gone wrong ─ in my life, in our relationship.
Months after he’d gone, I’d thrown the button into the garbage. But later that same evening, when my thoughts had grown dark like the night, I’d found myself digging through the green plastic bag, frantic until my fingers closed on the flat disk, rubbing it between my thumb and index finger as if polishing the filth and wrongs away.
Sighing, I had clutched it to my chest, backed against the kitchen wall, and slid down amongst the trash. I’d cried. I’d cried the tears that should have been shed months before. Tears of guilt. Tears of regret. Tears of relief.
Silly, I’d thought. It’s my fault he’s gone, so why am I sitting on the floor blubbering like an idiot? It was what I’d wanted, wasn’t it?
“Pull it together” I’d said to no one but myself.
Piece by piece I had picked up the used tissues, empty food packages, and the remains of a ceramic mug I’d swiped off the counter, days before, in a fit of anger. A senseless murder. A shard drawing blood, its revenge.
I’d taken no time. No time to mourn him, to mourn the demise of our relationship. Unsentimentally, I’d cleared out the stuff he’d left behind. Clothes donated; toiletries disposed of. The furniture had mostly been mine but the bed had been ours. Bought on a whim after a bonus at work had paid out.
We had lain in the middle, entwined. His arms warm around me, two-thirds of the king-sized bed unused ─ at the beginning. But as time went on and arguments became more frequent, we had migrated to the mattress edges. Forgiveness rarely returning us to the centre. After he’d gone, it had taken weeks to inch my way from my side of the bed to the middle, claiming the spot as my own; knowing he wasn’t coming back.
I thought of that last night together. The meal at the pub, the stroll to the bridge; a sad reiteration of our first date. He’d worn the same shirt, flaws and all. I’d placed my hands on his chest, not a light flirty touch but firm and intentional. As I’d increased the pressure, he’d raised his arms as if to grab my shoulders. Pushing him further off balance, the loose button had caught in the webbed yarn of my bulky sweater, snapping the thread. Ignoring the splash in the river far below, I’d slipped the button, freed of its restraint, into the pocket of my jeans and walked home ─ alone.
The inspiration for The Button, contrary to what my family thinks, was not my husband, (and yes, he’s okay), but something Bianca said during the 2023 Deep Dive Series. She’d mentioned an exercise where you pick an object and write about it ─ using a button as an example. I took it from there. The bridge and river are exaggerated versions of my home town, the plaid flannel shirt an homage to my father. How I took the idea of a simple button to where the story ended is a mystery, even to me.
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, along with bestselling author Susan Wiggs’ (Wayward Girls) unapologetic essay on she writes the books she does (and why you, too, should not let other people’s opinions of what’s worthwhile dictate what you write). We’ve also got Leigh Radford (One Yellow Eye) sharing a favourite quote about writing in her Q&A, and we think everyone would be in much better shape if they could find a way to take this mantra on board (can’t stand the suspense? It’s a Thomas Mann line about how a writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people, because we make it be that way. We’re sure no one out there can relate…); and Tasha Coryell (Matchmaking for Psychopaths) shares what she’s learned about handling feedback so that it’s productive and keeps your emtoions in check so they don’t interfere with your ability to move forward.
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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.