I still wonder what the attendees of that Zoom event must have thought when my eyes went wide, I tipped my brow in surprise, and I paused to collect my thoughts before giving this parent the exact opposite answer they were looking for.

(How I Found Success With the Writing and Publishing Process.)

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that… I’m a dream-chaser; every artist is in some way. I would be doing your middle schooler a disservice if I told him to be anything less than what he is. But what I can do is offer encouragement and steer him towards resources that can help make his writing goals achievable.”

Why did I answer this way?

Because I remembered the highs and lows of every step on the road to publication. I remembered my family’s support as I walked away from a 15-year corporate career—with no guarantees—and worked every day to chase down my dream of becoming a writer. And now, more than a decade and 17 publications down that road, I’m grateful I still have people around me who serve as dream-defenders so I can do the work I love.

If I could peel back the curtain, this is what I’d show that middle school dreamer how I spend my days (and making a wage) as a writer:

—-

5:00am—Alarm. [Ugh] Alas, no snoozing. Let’s do this!

5:15am—The non-negotiables. Early in my career, I would sit for 12-hour days and soldier through a novel-writing deadline. I have a different view in 2025. If I want to be at my best and keep doing this job, then every day has to begin with a non-negotiable focus on my health. Whether it’s yoga, strength training, running/walking at the park once the sun comes up (safety first), or hitting local hiking trails, I start the day with one of these activities—sometimes plus an audio book or industry podcast. (Hint: I start each day with what brings peace and clarity, and a much-needed battery charge to set intentions for my day.)

7:00am—Breakfast, baby! Along with the health focus, this typically involves a high-protein breakfast or recovery smoothie and listening to a favorite podcast while I load the dishwasher, do laundry, and straighten up from the carnage teenagers may have left in the living room the night before. (Hint: I’ll do whatever is needed to partner with my family on household chores and keep moving while I tidy up my home workspace.)

7:30am—Writer basics. This is the stuff we all have to contend with… Reviewing my schedule, planning the day, checking email, connecting with my agent or publishing team etc. (Hint: It helps to have copious amounts of coffee with a splash of unsweet coconut milk.) 

8:00am—Writers gotta write. I make sure to plan time in my day that feels like going to a physical office, so I put on clean clothes and “get out” to greet the world. If it’s a writing day, I may get lost in a coffee shop corner and pound a couple of thousand words on the keyboard, work on a freelance editing or coaching project, or I could write articles for an upcoming book release. (Hint: Multiple income streams are the key to the freelance life!)

11:00am—Social media marketing. In autumn of 2016, our family went on a research trip to Ireland. I couldn’t pay the roaming fees overseas, so I only used my phone for the clock and camera. I realized then how much time I’d been burning through by scrolling on social media, so I deleted social media from my phone and it’s not been invited back. Now I design graphics, post about what’s happening in my author world, and connect with readers through scheduled time on my PC. (Hint: If social media goes over time, it will just have to wait until the next business day. )

12:00pm—Community. Oh, does this matter to writers! Much of what we do is solitary, so I might grab a quick salad with a friend. I’ll probably text or talk with author friends. Or I could snag a quick lunch and chat with family when they’re around. (Hint: Connect with your people even when writing on your own; they’ll brighten your days!)

1:00pm—Walking meetings. If I don’t have to be in front of my computer for a meeting, I’ll probably lace up my running shoes and get outside. This could be coaching a client, a call with my agent, connecting with an author friend or listening to an audio book, etc. (Hint: Take advantage of your flexible schedule and keep moving while working throughout the day.)

Click to continue.

2:00pm—Editing sprint. If I’m on deadline, I’ll probably take the afternoon hours to get back to my WIP. I’ll edit what I wrote in the morning, do research, check in on social media, etc. Whatever I need to keep a sharp focus going until the end of the day. (Hint: Healthy snacks help!)

5:00pm—Author to soccer mom. You never know, but by evening I could be sending an email from sports bleachers, attending a virtual book club or in-person signing at a bookshop, or I could have a quiet family evening at home. (Hint: Evenings are almost always “go-with-the-flow” flexible.)

7:00pm—Shut it down. Early in my corporate career, I wasn’t as knowledgeable about boundaries (or wise, I hope?) as I am in this season of my life. Now, whether I’ve been a leader or literary agent or parent, I try to model an intentional work/life balance. It could be cooking with family and gathering in the kitchen to talk about our days, or enjoying a dinner out, but the hours between 7:00pm – 7:00am are non-working and reserved for me/family. (Hint: Set a daily reminder on your phone so you’re “off the clock.”)

8:30pm—Book + Zzzzzz. I’ll settle in with a cup of tea and read, have extra family time, review the next day’s schedule, or catch-up on an episode of my current Netflix show before I crash for the night. (Hint: While readers may long to stay up late… runners and writers know we have to get gooooood sleep if we want to be top of our game the next day! )

Happy writing, dream-chasing author friends!

KC   

Check out Kristy Cambron’s The French Kitchen here:

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The post Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Day in the Life of a Successful Writer appeared first on Writer's Digest.

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We first connected with Mazey Eddings for her debut novel’s publication and featured her in our March/April 2022 Issue‘s Breaking In column. Now that her next publication hit shelves yesterday, we’re reconnecting with her for a quick Q&A.

What was the time frame for writing this latest book?

Time is such a blur, and publishing time is a different beast entirely, so I’m not 100 percent sure! I know the first hints of Well, Actually came to me in September 2022 as I was heading on tour for my sophomore novel Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake. I jotted down a bunch of ideas about this second chance romance that starts with a viral callout, and then didn’t touch it again for quite some time until it was sold on proposal in August 2023. Because publishing contracts are weird, and my situation was somewhat unique in having multi-book contracts I was navigating plus severe writer’s block on one that was due, Well, Actually was supposed to be my eighth published book and come out in 2026/27. But my main characters, Eva and Rylie, were so loud and rompy and irreverent, and I wouldn’t let me work on anything else, and I got the greenlight to bump their story up in the cue, and I turned in the initial draft in April 2024, and it is my sixth published book.

Has your perspective on the publication process changed since your debut was published?

So much. I think I’ve come more to terms with how little is in my control when it comes to publishing. I’ve spent the last five years since my debut got picked up by my publisher, pushing and grinding and saying yes to anything and everything that came my way and spending so much time strategizing and agonizing on what I could do to make a book “successful” or a “break-out.” The reality is there is nothing I alone can do to really change the trajectory of one of my books. All I can focus on is creating a story that I genuinely love and hoping that it finds the readers that will love it too. Being hungry and pushing and asking for things in publishing is good and important, but I’ve learned not to feel so much despair when that pushing doesn’t yield the results I would hope for.

What was the biggest surprise while getting this book ready for publication?

How much more excited readers seem for it! As I’ve mentioned, this is my sixth book, so none of this process is new to me, but early readers seem to be responding differently to Well, Actually compared to my past books. I have no idea why things seem to be different this time around, though!

What do you feel you did really well with this novel?

I honored my characters’ voices, particularly my heroine. Eva is an extremely prickly and irreverent female main character, and her sass and crass are a protection mechanism, but I knew while drafting that she would be deemed “unlikeable” by many readers. I decided early on that if Eva didn’t care how she was perceived, then I wouldn’t be the one to water her down! My characters feel very real to me—and Eva is a particularly precious one—and I had so much fun discovering what she would do next, and I like to think that by being true to her character, she’ll feel real to readers as well.

Anything you would have done differently?

With this book? Not at the moment. The more time and space I get from each novel, the more I realize what I could have changed or tried, but I also am a firm believer that once a book is done, it’s important to allow it to just be. I think of my books as little time capsules for where I was as an author at different stages. There are things I would change and edit down or fine-tune if I were writing past stories now with more words under my belt (fingers?), but who am I to edit the purple prose of 25-year-old me? She needed to be gratuitous and sweeping and play with words as she did. 

Would you like to share some advice for our readers?

I think this is advice I shared with WD readers in the past, but protect your joy of writing at all costs. This job is brutal, creating art is brutal, so it is imperative that you fiercely defend and safeguard the joy it brings you.

What’s next for you?

I’m not sure how much I can say at this point, so I’ll leave it at an angsty, sapphic romance dedicated to Stevie Knicks and inspired by her singing “Silver Springs” at Lindsey Buckingham live in 1997. It releases August 2026.

Where can our audience find you online?

Newsletter: Mazey.substack.com
Instagram: Instagram.com/mazeyeddings
Threads: Threads.com/@mazeyeddings

The post Breaking Out: Mazey Eddings appeared first on Writer's Digest.

In this interview, Mariah discusses breaking writing rules in her debut short story collection, Extinction Capital of the World, her advice for other writers, and more.

Name: Mariah Rigg
Literary agent: Amy Bishop-Wycisk, Trellis Literary Management
Book title: Extinction Capital of the World
Publisher: Ecco
Release date: August 5, 2025
Genre/category: Literary Fiction/Short Stories
Elevator pitch: Magnetic, haunting, and tender, Extinction Capital of the World is a stunning portrait of Hawaiʻi—and a powerful meditation on family, queer love, and community amid imperialism and environmental collapse.

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What prompted you to write this book?

Growing up, I didn’t see a lot of positive depictions—or really, a lot of depictions at all—of Hawaiʻi in popular media. The depictions of the Hawaiian Islands I did see often reinforced settler colonial structures of sugar and pineapple plantations, extractive tourism, and the American military industrial complex’s occupation of the islands. As a child, I didn’t understand the extent of the harm perpetuated by these stereotyped depictions of my home. It wasn’t until my teens that I began to recognize my own role as a settler of Hawaiʻi, and to interrogate how the stories of the Islands I saw in popular media were used to occupy both the narrative surrounding Hawaiʻi, and the literal islands themselves.

Some of the stories in Extinction Capital of the World are written from my anger toward the people who have and continue to bastardize and colonize the Hawaiian Islands. But most of the stories are written from a place of deep love. I feel like I’m always repeating this wisdom, but I had a mentor once tell me: You write to the places you’re not. For the past five years, I’ve been writing love letters to Hawaiʻi. I’m not sure I’ll ever stop.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

I wrote the earliest story—“After Ivan,” a queer love story between an American and Soviet Olympic kayaker, set just before the 1989 fall of Berlin—in February of 2020. I was halfway through my first year in the MFA program at the University of Oregon and had no idea how to write a short story, let alone a collection. I thought maybe I could sell “After Ivan” by stretching it into a novel, but as I continued to write stories, I found a momentum building.

I never set out to write a linked collection. But as I revised stories for my MFA thesis, I realized that what I’d thought had been separate lives was really a universe. Much like my own childhood on Oʻahu, the characters in my Extinction Capital of the World are hopelessly intertwined—through blood, marriage, work, friendship, the ʻāina, and over and over again, through love and loss. Only a third of the stories I’ve written between 2020 and now are in the final book. I think I queried at least three different times, with different arrangements of stories and different titles, before signing with Amy Bishop-Wycisk in 2023.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

So, so, so many! Writing a book and publishing a book feels like it requires two completely different parts of the brain—one’s creative and world-building, the other is a lot of admin. I’ve been lucky that my agent Amy Bishop-Wycisk, my editor Rachel Sargent, my publicist Nina Leopold, and my teams at Trellis and Ecco have been so patient and kind.

One of the most surprising and affirming things in this publication process is the number of truly amazing people I’ve gotten to meet. It’s so easy to fall into stress and anxiety when you’re working to get your book on shelves—will I get enough blurbs? Is my book in the hands of the “right” people? After the years of work I put into this book, is anyone even going to read or like it?

This past January, I was driving through Kentucky when my partner and I stopped into a record store to browse. If you’re ever in Louisville, you have to stop by Surface Noise. Part record store, part bookstore, part gallery, the place has rotating art exhibits, monthly readings, and shows. My partner is an extrovert, and he and the owner immediately hit it off. We found out that the owner is a poet—Brett Eugene Ralph, whose book Black Sabbatical, published by Sarabande, is an absolute banger—and that he’d studied at UMass Amherst with David Berman. Brett Eugene was thoughtful and funny, selling us Gabby Pahinui’s “Rabbit Island Music Festival” for a fraction of its value, and inviting us to do a reading at the store later in the year. I was pretty frantic about my book at the time, but what he said as I left the store helped me to reality check: “You’ve got to remember that we do all this”—he gestured and the records and books and prints in the store around him—“for the access it gives us to other artists. For the community we form.” And you know what? He’s so right.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

This book was at least three other books before it became this one. The biggest change between the first draft and the book that will be on shelves is the addition of “Target Island,” which opens the collection, and the titular story, “Extinction Capital of the World,” which closes the book out. I wrote these two stories the winter before I queried for the last time and honestly wasn’t thinking about how they’d fit into my larger body of work as I drafted them. I just wanted to play with form and voice. When I returned to each of them in the spring of 2023, I began to see how they were connected and knew that they’d have to be in the collection.

As I’ve gotten more comfortable writing short stories, I’ve been more willing to mess with form and point of view and voice. I’m grateful that the first draft of this book wasn’t published, because even though I love the stories that were cut from the collection, a lot of them felt more “traditional,” which contributed to a sense of repetition and even stagnancy in the collection. I wouldn’t say this book is weird, but my hope as a writer (and person) is to keep getting weirder. Breaking “rules” in my writing gives me the courage to do the same in my life.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope people will stop telling me about their vacations to Hawaiʻi. Ha. But really, I do hope that this book helps people to reconsider their role as consumers and perpetrators of settler colonialism in Hawaiʻi, the North American continent, and beyond. As Haunani-Kay Trask famously said: “The First world nations must still learn what Pacific Islanders have known for millennia: Upon the survival of the Pacific depends the survival of the world.” Now more than ever is the time to educate ourselves on the infinite ways that our struggles are connected.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Don’t count yourself out before you’ve even begun. There are enough people out there who want to knock you down a peg, and you don’t have to be one of them. Apply for every single thing you can afford (and always ask for fee waivers!), even if it feels out of reach, because you might just get it. Write the story everyone tells you won’t work, because if you’re interested in it, odds are there are thousands of other people who will be interested in it, too. Rejection hurts, and I’m not sure it ever gets better, but “no” is a lot better than wishing you’d done more, that you’d had the courage to believe in yourself.

The post Mariah Rigg: I’m Grateful That the First Draft of This Book Wasn’t Published appeared first on Writer's Digest.

We just had our annual conference, where I had the pleasure of running the debut author panel! It got me thinking about stage fright, and what kind of person has never experienced it.

For today’s prompt, write about someone who thrives on stage.

Post your response (500 words or fewer) in the comments below.

The post The Opposite of Stage Fright appeared first on Writer's Digest.

In this interview, Rachel discusses how writing out a rant at her daughter’s swim meet led to her new horror novel, Tantrum, her hope for readers, and more.

Name: Rachel Eve Moultong
Literary agent: Kim Witherspoon, Inkwell
Book title: Tantrum
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Release date: August 5, 2025
Genre/category: Horror
Previous titles: Tinfoil Butterfly; The Insatiable Volt Sisters
Elevator pitch: What would you do if your baby girl was born with a full set of teeth and an untoward appetite? What would you do if she wanted to devour the world?

Bookshop | Amazon
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What prompted you to write this book?

When I was pregnant with my first daughter, I was surprised by the parts of pregnancy no one had ever warned me about. It seemed to me that there was a full-length-horror movie of details that had been left out. So, at the end of the 16-hour extravaganza called labor, when I finally got to hold my newborn in my arms, I found myself shouting directly into her sweet face, “It’s a baby! It’s a baby!” I didn’t fully understand until that moment that I’d felt sure I was carrying around a monster rather than a beautiful, strong baby girl. The relief was overwhelming.

Lucia, the protagonist’s baby in Tantrum, is the monstrous version of that baby.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

The first draft of this book came to me pretty quickly. I wrote much of it by hand on the bleachers of my eldest daughter’s swim meets. And although it took another six months to shape it into something I was ready to show to anyone else, the idea and character voice remained the same.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

My aforementioned daughter was briefly a part of a club swim team, which meant a tremendous amount of time spent in hot, chlorinated spaces waiting for her to swim for approximately 39 seconds. Weekends were spent on bleachers, which were particularly physically and emotionally painful—I’m being only a little dramatic. I would look around at the other parents and wonder why they all looked so happy to be there. It was miserable! At one of these meets, I sat in my camp chair on those bleachers and wrote an early draft of Tantrum by hand. It was more of a rant than a story at that time, but it came out almost all at once. A novel the length of a swim meet!

The next step was shaping the rant I’d written into a plot driven story. This was where I learned, once again, what a tremendous editor I have. Daphne Durham was able to see the first rambling draft and help me shape it into the full world it is today. She reminded me to focus on the narrative and not just the voice.

Always listen to your editor!

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

My hope is that the novel’s exploration of generational trauma and motherhood will make readers feel less alone in their experience. Becoming a parent often coincides with a genuine curiosity about how your parents parented you. Often this exploration opens untended wounds, and the opportunity to see yourself in a new light. I want to encourage women to dive into this exploration. To try to understand their own anger in order to pass something more examined down to the next generation.

Shame thrives in the dark. It gains power when the experience of it is not voiced. The examination of our own horrors, inherited or of our own making, leads to freedom.

I also hope Tantrum makes readers rage a little and laugh a lot.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Rejection doesn’t mean you are a bad writer or even that the rejected piece is bad. It only means that you need to keep writing until you find your authentic voice and with it your audience.

The post Rachel Eve Moultong: Always Listen to Your Editor appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(25 Common Writing Mistakes Writers Make.)

Many of those metaphors tucked inside a single word can be surprising, others picturesque or poetic, and still others are downright entertaining. The metaphors and lively stories behind such words are the kind I love sharing each week on the radio show and podcast “A Way with Words” and in my new book, Friends with Words: Adventures in Languageland.

Here are some of my favorites, specifically selected for writers.

Magazine

Open up the word magazine, and you’ll find it comes into English via Middle French, and ultimately from the Arabic word makhāzin, which means “storehouses.” By the 17th century, magazine meant a place used for the storage of arms and munitions, and by the 18th, the word was applied to a publication that was a “storehouse” of articles on lots of topics. This also explains why the place where a gun’s ammunition is stored goes by the same name.

Lorem ipsum

The gibberish that serves as a placeholder while awaiting your pristine prose comes from a mangled passage of the great Roman orator Cicero. In De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, or “On the Ends of Good and Evil,” Cicero talks about the value of enduring short-term pain for a lasting payoff—just as we writers must do. Centuries later, some unknown typesetter later took that passage, which starts with dolorem ipsum, or “pain itself,” then scrambled some of the rest and started using it as dummy text, which looked real but ran no risk of being confused with regular text.

The practice was so handy it caught on. (By the way, that family name Cicero? It comes from the Latin word cicer, or “garbanzo bean,” apparently because one of Cicero’s predecessors had a bean-shaped growth on his nose. Latin cicer also found its way into English as garbanzo’s synonym, chickpea.)

Anthology

If your poem is included in an anthology, you can be doubly pleased that it’s part of a literary bouquet. One of the loveliest words in English, anthology in its most literal sense means a “gathering of flowers.” The word comes from Greek anthos, or “flower,” also found in such words as chrysanthemum, or “golden flower,” and anthurium, or “flower with a tail.”

Blurb

If you read the blurbs on the back of a book, you have one Belinda Blurb to thank. Belinda’s not a real person, though. She’s a clever invention by an author who used her as a marketing ploy to promote his latest book. In 1907, humorist Gelett Burgess wrote fake jacket copy for his new book and promoted it at a national gathering of booksellers. The gushing copy praised the contents of the book with breathless hyperbole, and above it all, in giant letters were the words: “YES, this is a ‘BLURB’! All the Other Publishers commit them. Why Shouldn’t We?”

Below that there was a picture of a woman with her hand cupped to the side of her mouth as if shouting, with a caption that read: MISS BELINDA BLURB IN THE ACT OF BLURBING. The effort paid off handsomely, and blurb became lodged in the language of publishing.

Click to continue.

Spam

Wondering why that editor didn’t respond to your query? Or maybe you’re still waiting to hear back from a potential agent. In either case, maybe you should check your spam folder, and while you’re doing so, take a moment to reflect on this word’s amusing origin.

The idea of spam as “junk mail” goes back to a madcap British TV show from 1970 called “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” In one sketch, a couple goes out to breakfast and asks the short-order cook what’s on offer that day. The cook replies, “Well, there’s egg and bacon. Egg, sausage, and bacon. Egg and Spam. Egg, bacon, and Spam. Egg, bacon, sausage, and Spam. Spam, bacon, sausage, and Spam. Spam, egg, Spam, Spam, bacon, and Spam—” at which point, some Vikings also who happen to be in the restaurant (don’t ask), break into a loud, lusty song about the wonders of spam. (Search for “Monty Python,” “Spam,” and “ridiculous” online and you watch all the silliness and sing along yourself.)

A few years later, after someone mistakenly sent the same email to hundreds of people, the term spam took on the added meaning of something as repetitive and unappetizing as the spam in the comedy sketch.

Cocktail

At the end of a long day of writing, maybe you’re ready for a cocktail. But did you ever wonder how that drink got its name? Etymologists suspect it derives from the fact that the word cocktail originally applied to a horse with a docked tail—that is, with the tail cropped so short the hairs stood up perkily like the tail of a rooster or cock. Unlike thoroughbreds, cocktails were unpedigreed, working horses.

Around the same time, in the early 1800s, mixed drinks were regarded with some disdain because they were adulterated—after all, why dilute perfectly good booze with other ingredients? Over time, people began likening those watered-down beverages to less-than-purebred horses, and the name cocktail stuck.

Banana problem

One last term every writer should have in their vocabulary: banana problem. If you have a banana problem, you’re unsure whether something is finished. Maybe you’ve rewritten the same sentence way too many times when you should have stopped 20 minutes ago or tossed one too many pinches of salt into a perfectly good broth. 

In the tech world, the term banana problem denotes badly written code for terminating a computer process. This handy expression was inspired by the joke about a little kid who insisted, “I know how to spell ‘banana’. I just don’t know when to stop!” 

Check out Martha Barnette’s Friends With Words here:

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In this interview, Joy discusses the surprising humor in her new thriller, Jenny Cooper Has a Secret, her desire to see older characters across all genres, and more.

Name: Joy Fielding
Literary Agent: Tracy Fisher at WME
Book title: Jenny Cooper Has a Secret
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release date: August 5, 2025
Genre: Psychological suspense
Previous titles: The Housekeeper; Cul-de-sac; All the Wrong Places; The Bad Daughter; She’s Not There; Someone Is Watching; Shadow Creek; Now You See Her; The Wild Zone: Still Life; Charley’s Web; Heartstopper; Mad River Road; Puppet; Lost; Whispers and Lies; Grand Avenue; The First Time; Missing Pieces; Don’t Cry Now; Tell Me No Secrets: See Jane Run; Good Intentions; The Deep End; Life Penalty; The Other Woman: Kiss Mommy Goodbye; Trance; The Transformation; The Best of Friends. Plus Home Invasion, a novella designed to encourage adult literacy.
Elevator pitch: A 92-year-old woman suffering from dementia claims to be a serial killer.

Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]

What prompted you to write this book?

As far as what prompted me to write this book, I’ve always enjoyed writing suspense, and I thought it would be an interesting twist on the genre—as well as high time—to have both the protagonist and the villain of the novel be women over the age of 70 (and one of them over 90!). Older women have been largely ignored in suspense fiction—all fiction, for that matter—and I thought it was time for our voices to be heard. I also just found the whole topic of memory and how it defines us to be a fascinating subject to explore.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

It generally takes about two years from the time I conceive an idea until it ends up in print. It’s about a year from the time I get an idea until the book is finished, and then another year—sometimes longer—to go through the editing and other publishing-related issues. As to whether the idea for this book changed during this process, the answer is that while the basic idea didn’t change, the manuscript itself underwent a number of changes. I did some restructuring to heighten the suspense in the first half of the book, and I made a number of cuts to dialogue that were too repetitious. I also made a significant change regarding something that happens to a secondary character. But as I said, the basic idea remained the same.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

Frankly, I’m always a little surprised when an editor feels some changes are necessary to my books, especially involving structure, because I usually don’t let an editor see the manuscript before I’m pretty sure it’s perfect. But writers have editors for a reason, and I’m always willing to listen to advice that will improve the book. In the case of Jenny Cooper Has a Secret, my original editor felt that while the first half of the book contained plenty of drama, it needed more suspense, which she stressed was not the same thing, so she asked me to move some things around and to try to amp up the suspense in the first half. This involved a lot more work than I’m used to—and frankly, don’t particularly like. Restructuring is very hard because when you change one little thing, it changes everything that came before and after. It’s a lot of work! After I made the changes, the editor still felt I could do more, but I disagreed, and thankfully, my current editor agreed with me. Jenny Cooper is more a psychological page-turner than hard-core thriller.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

I believe it was Flannery O’Connor who once said that if the writer is never surprised, you can’t expect the reader to be surprised, so I look forward to the little surprises that come my way when I’m writing. I always know the beginning and the end of my novels and a few key things that have to happen along the way. I used to write a fairly detailed outline, and this is something I would still recommend to beginning authors. But the more books I write, the shorter my outlines get. As I said, I always know how my books will end, although I don’t always know precisely how. But in writing suspense, you have to know where you’re going to end up in order to build that suspense and everything has to be a little bigger than what came before. If you don’t know where you’re headed, you can’t do that, and you end up wandering all over the place, which just means an awful lot of rewriting. In Jenny Cooper, what surprised me was how funny the book turned out to be and how sympathetic the women were. I got very attached to these women, and actually found myself tearing up at one point. I didn’t expect that.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope that, above all, readers will just totally enjoy the book and find it impossible to put down. I also hope that readers will recognize themselves in the characters and care about their fates. I hope that they’ll realize that stories can still be written that are modern and new while featuring older protagonists.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

If I could share one piece of advice with other writers, it would be this: When telling the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, bring on the three bears! In other words, get to the interesting part of the story.

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(Write What You Don’t Know.)

I also didn’t get anywhere with my writing. Yes, I improved, and I had encouraging beta readers, but I could count the number of full requests I received from agents over multiple books on one hand. It started to feel like this dream wasn’t going to come true.

While querying one book, I started another: The One and Only Vivian Stone. As a lifelong lover of old Hollywood, particularly movies like Gone with the Wind and the sitcom I Love Lucy, this was a compelling time to explore. I wrote the book in first-person POV, but the feedback I received from beta readers was that they didn’t particularly like my main character. Despite spending a whole book with her, they felt like they didn’t know or understand her. There wasn’t anything making them want to keep reading because they didn’t care about her. Ouch.

They were right, though. I tried to model my main character’s personality after what I’d read about Lucille Ball—she had to work very hard to be funny and wasn’t like that off-screen; she was also, supposedly, prone to anger and pettiness. I struggled to write a character like this, and my readers picked up on it. There was a wall in my mind between me and Vivian, and I didn’t know how to break through.

In the beginning of the book, Vivian is an actress struggling to break into the film industry. Surrounded by a sea of talent, she would have had to be worried that a nobody like her would never be taken seriously, would never stand apart from the rest. How long would it take to get somewhere? Would she ever? How long before she threw in the towel?

And then, it hit me: This was how I felt about writing, with those exact worries and questions. Only I hadn’t been leaning into it because I’d been too focused on creating a particular kind of character, one I didn’t truly understand. I needed to tear down the wall between us and rebuild the character was from the ground up—using my own emotions. I needed to become vulnerable for the sake of the character.

Is this obvious? In hindsight, it feels like it. But I’d written three books—four if you count this one before my rewrite—without ever really connecting on a deep, emotional level with my characters. Once I shifted my mindset, the writing became cathartic and so much fun.

“Write what you know?” I finally did.

Click to continue.

The responses from readers were completely different from what they’d been the first time. Vivian had become someone readers rooted for, someone they related to.

I tried to be more strategic about querying this story than I’d been with my previous books. First, I scoured every resource I could find about writing query letters, then I wrote and rewrote mine. I sought feedback and kept fine-tuning. Queries were always a mystery to me. I understood what they required, but I couldn’t figure out how to write a compelling hook and show the character’s wants while also picking out the most important plot strands. But after about a hundred attempts (not an exaggeration), I had a letter I felt confident about.

I also looked for opportunities everywhere: I submitted my query and first pages to The Shit No One Tells You About Writing podcast, which ended up getting chosen, giving me valuable feedback. I submitted to a mentorship program called RevPit. All of the mentors rejected me, but I received a lot of encouraging messages. I also posted on Twitter/X for #moodpitch, which isn’t around anymore but involved posting a mood board and an elevator pitch. I’d done these kinds of contests for previous books, without any success, but this time I received interest from about a dozen agents. These were all great, low-stakes ways to test the waters.

If there had been more opportunities, I would have tried them too. Yes, a lot of people apply, and yes, it’s easy to get lost in it all. But there is also the chance that it can go very well. I had already put so much effort into the book, so why stop there?

Finally, I started querying, confident that I’d done all I could do but still worried because an agent liking a pitch is not the same as them liking the whole book. And while I received plenty of rejections, I also received several offers.

As I’m drafting my next project, I wonder if it ever gets easier to “write what you know.” I hope so. There continues to be the question of which parts of myself to bring to the character and a resistance to the reflection needed to figure it out. What I do know is it’s essential, even if it can feel vulnerable.

Check out Melissa O’Connor’s The One and Only Vivian Stone here:

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In this interview, Stuart discusses the grief at the center of her new literary novel, Ghost Fish, her advice for other writers, and more.

Name: Stuart Pennebaker
Literary agent: Christopher Combemale
Book title: Ghost Fish
Publisher: Little, Brown
Release date: August 5, 2025
Genre/category: Literary fiction
Elevator pitch: A young woman who’s recently moved to NYC finds herself haunted by her sister, who’s taken the form of a fish.

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What prompted you to write this book?

I never quite know how to answer this question. A lifetime of being utterly obsessed with books? A draft of a completely different novel that wasn’t quite working? A move to New York? A desire to write about loneliness that felt impossible to shake? Many boring (and not-boring) shifts at many different restaurants? A line from As I Lay Dying? A crush on a bartender that took me by surprise? Is that OK to say?

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

The novel was originally focused on the restaurant and Alison’s experience working there, but that changed when I realized why she had moved to the city in the first place, how desperately Alison needed to reckon with the grief of losing her family. I had the idea and finished the first draft relatively quickly, in the spring and summer of 2021, but had no idea how challenging I’d find the revision process. I am not a writer who outlines anything, so my first drafts are always very messy and in need of an immense amount of work. The cast of characters and central idea didn’t change so much but we’ve tried out many different sequences of events—beginnings are hard!—and I think the story now reflects more truly what I wanted to get across with Alison’s tendency to move inward and the people who are able to pull her into the realm of the living.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

I learned that there is a difference between the story one scribbles in notebooks and on computer screens and the product of a book. Writing the first draft of this story was a surreal, heady, singular experience; the book took lots of revising and many very, very smart people to make. I’m so grateful for all the perfect angels that work in publishing: from my agent to my editor to the publicity and marketing team at Little, Brown, and Grace Han, the artist who designed the extraordinary cover. Ghost Fish is a group project; I was and continue to be delighted by how many amazing people were willing to be on its team.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

I never in a million years could have guessed that my first book would be a ghost story. The sister-as-ghost-fish appeared out of what felt like nowhere, as ghosts tend to do.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I do think this story is a summer book. It’s slim, water-resistant, somewhat oceanic, and I hope it’s one people are able to consume in as few sittings as possible, ideally adjacent to a body of water. I recently devoured Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley in such a way that I was completely immersed and the world almost looked like a different color once I came up for air—I’d be ecstatic if I could create that feeling for another person.

My secret hope is that it makes anyone who feels alone less so, or at least less lonely in their aloneness.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Oh, I don’t know, I still sort of feel like I’m starting from scratch every time I sit down to write! I guess I wish someone had implored me not to overthink every little thing. You can’t make anything out of a draft that doesn’t exist. But now that I’m thinking about it, I’m sure someone did tell me this and I ignored it for the circus of neuroses inside of my head. Try to make a smart and generous writer friend or two, if you can. That certainly helps.

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