No Write Way with V. E. Schwab

V. E. Schwab wrote The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and the Shades of Magic series, and she is very open about the fact that her process is not like anyone else's, and that yours does not have to be either. That is the whole premise of the show. Every episode she sits down with another working author and they compare notes on how they actually get books written, from the outlining-everything plotters to the write-by-the-seat-of-your-pants pantsers to the people who do both depending on the project. Guests tend to be novelists across romance, fantasy, thriller, literary, and young adult, and Schwab asks the kind of specific questions you only get from someone who has been through it herself. How many drafts. How long between books. What happens when a manuscript breaks. How to keep going when the book you are writing is nothing like the one you sold. The conversations run long, usually an hour or more, and they tend to wander into work-life balance, mental health, the anxiety of contracts, and the practical business of staying in a writing career for the long haul. For aspiring novelists who want permission to stop comparing their process to someone else's, it is genuinely useful listening.