Is writer’s block always a creativity problem—or can it mean your attention has moved to the wrong project? In this episode of Author’s Notes with Lula Starling, I talk about writer’s block, indie publishing, creative process, self-imposed deadlines, and the difference between avoiding the work and being creatively redirected. Using my Haven Hollow series as the starting point, I ask what happens when the ideas are still flowing—just somewhere else.

What if some of the places we think are thousands of miles apart are not quite as far apart as we have been taught?

We interpret weather systems, geography, migration, oceans, and even seemingly unrelated natural events through a particular picture of the Earth. But historical maps have not always shown the continents the way our modern maps do, and today’s coastline does not necessarily represent the full landmass beneath the water.

In this Author’s Notes conversation, Lula Starling is not trying to prove that one particular old map is correct. The question is what happens when we stop assuming the modern map is the one part of the conversation that cannot be questioned.

What would Saharan dust look like if the journey were shorter than we think? What might submerged land change? Why could one cartographer depict the world so differently only nine years apart? And what if some events look disconnected simply because of the map we are using to understand them?

Maybe the map we know is right.

But what if there is another possibility?

This episode is speculative inquiry, not an attempt to establish an alternative geographic model as fact. Historical and scientific material is used to explore the questions, not to prove that unrelated events share a cause.

Follow Author’s Notes with Lula Starling for more conversations exploring history, belief, unusual ideas, creativity, and the questions hiding underneath what we think we know.

Sources & further exploration

Library of Congress — Martin Waldseemüller Maps
1507 Universalis Cosmographia and 1516 Carta Marina
The Library of Congress notes that the 1507 map depicted a separate Western Hemisphere and Pacific Ocean, while the later Carta Marina reduced the New World, eliminated the Pacific from the depiction, and showed North America joined to Asia.

U.S. Geological Survey — Florida Basement Geology
USGS research identifies the ancient basement beneath Florida as including the Gondwanan Suwannee terrane with West African origins.

NOAA — Saharan Air Layer
NOAA tracks Saharan dust traveling across the Atlantic and reaching the Caribbean, Florida, Central America, and during stronger outbreaks, Texas.

Recent weather context
The August 2026 Nepal/Tibet flooding and Grand Canyon flash flooding were among the recent events that inspired the broader question explored in this episode. They are not presented as evidence that the events shared a cause.

What if the early 1900s were not simply when society became modern?

What if that was when a new system became permanent?

In Part 3 of this speculative-history series, Author’s Notes with Lula Starling looks at the period when more of everyday life became formalized through deeds, banks, government records, compulsory systems, institutions, and paperwork.

Family land that may once have depended on agreements increasingly required documentation. Money moved more deeply into banking systems. Records became the official version of identity, ownership, and history.

During this same broad period, fires destroyed buildings and records while large institutions classified and managed growing populations.

None of that by itself proves a Great Reset.

But together, it raises a larger question:

Were these simply signs of progress, or were we watching one version of society being replaced by another?

Then there is the present.

If so much of our identity, money, property, and history now exists digitally, what would another major transition even look like?

This episode is speculative inquiry, not a claim that one theory has been established as historical fact.

If you would rather investigate something safely fictional afterward, step into the Haven Hollow Mysteries by Lula Starling.

Step into Haven Hollow:
https://sites.google.com/brinixholdings.com/lula-starling-author/haven-hollow-mystery-books

This is Part 3 of a three-part speculative-history conversation.

Follow Author’s Notes with Lula Starling for more conversations about books, creativity, history, speculation, and alternative ways of understanding the world.

What if the enormous families we see in old records were about more than simply having a lot of children?

This Author’s Notes conversation continues the question of whether some people identified as adults in historical photographs may actually have been much younger than we assume.

From there, another mystery appears.

Why were some families so enormous? What happened to all of those children? Why do so many branches become difficult to follow? And could large households, early reproduction, orphan systems, and the movement of children look different if we consider the possibility that a population itself was being rebuilt?

Lula Starling also brings personal family history into the conversation, including a great-great-grandmother who had twenty-two children and observations that emerged while tracing those family lines.

This episode is speculative inquiry, not established history. The purpose is to follow the connections, question familiar explanations, and consider what the evidence might look like from another angle.

If you would rather investigate a quieter fictional mystery, step into the Haven Hollow Mysteries by Lula Starling.

Enter Haven Hollow:
https://sites.google.com/brinixholdings.com/lula-starling-author/haven-hollow-mystery-books

This is Part 2 of a three-part conversation.

Follow Author’s Notes with Lula Starling for more conversations about books, creativity, history, speculation, and alternative ways of understanding the world.

We’re often told that people in the past were simply smaller.

But what if that is not the whole explanation?

In this Author’s Notes conversation, Lula Starling questions patterns seen in old photographs, historical clothing, child-labor records, and the stories we inherited about the people who helped build the modern world.

What if some of the people we have been taught to see as adults were actually very young people forced into adult roles because society was rebuilding?

And if children were working, marrying, raising families, and helping keep society moving, what else might that change about the way we interpret that period?

This episode is speculative inquiry, not a claim that one theory has been proven. The purpose is to look at familiar pieces of history from a different angle and ask whether another explanation could connect them.

If you enjoy mysteries but would prefer your next one safely inside a fictional town, step into the Haven Hollow Mysteries by Lula Starling.

Start here:
https://sites.google.com/brinixholdings.com/lula-starling-author/haven-hollow-mystery-books

This is Part 1 of a three-part conversation.

Follow Author’s Notes with Lula Starling for more conversations about books, creativity, history, speculation, and alternative ways of understanding the world.

Most people speak about “the Bible” as though every Christian tradition uses the same collection of books. But Protestant, Catholic, and Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Bibles do not all share one table of contents.

In this Author’s Notes conversation, Lula Starling explores the 66-book Protestant canon familiar to many Americans, the 73-book Catholic canon, and the 81-book canon identified by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The episode also looks at the Apocrypha in the original 1611 King James Bible and what happens when the tradition we inherited begins to feel universal.

This conversation is not declaring one tradition right or accusing another of hiding or fraudulently removing books. It is an invitation to ask which Christian tradition we mean, how that tradition treated its canon, and what the history can teach us about certainty.

Follow Author’s Notes with Lula Starling for more conversations that question, explore, and look beyond what we inherited.

Sources and further reading

Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church — Canonical Books
https://www.ethiopianorthodox.org/english/canonical/books.html

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — Books of the Bible
https://www.usccb.org/offices/new-american-bible/books-bible

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — Understanding the Bible
https://www.usccb.org/bible/understanding-the-bible

Cambridge University Press — Authorised Version of the English Bible, 1611
https://www.cambridge.org/universitypress/bibles/bible-versions/king-james-version/text-editions/authorised-version-english-bible-1611

Church of England — Articles of Religion, Article VI
https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/book-common-prayer/articles-religion

Creators are constantly told to find an established niche, study what people are searching for, and make more of what audiences already want.

But how can people search for something they have never experienced?

In this Author’s Notes conversation, Lula Starling uses the smartphone as a familiar example of something many of us never knew to miss—until it became part of everyday life. From there, the episode explores what that may mean for creators whose strongest idea, combination of subjects, or way of communicating does not fit neatly into an existing category.

Analytics, search behavior, and audience signals can show demonstrated demand. They can help creators learn, test, and adjust. But they cannot perfectly predict what people may love after someone finally introduces it.

The goal is not to ignore data or reject niches. It is to use the information without allowing it to decide the limits of your imagination.

What would you create if it did not have to fit neatly into a category that already exists?

Follow Author’s Notes with Lula Starling for more conversations about creativity, originality, books, and alternative ways of understanding the world.

YouTube’s full advertising and Premium revenue-sharing requirements are set to change for new creators entering that level on February 1, 2027. The earlier YPP opportunity beginning at 500 subscribers remains unchanged, giving creators time to build before the higher requirements arrive.

In this Author’s Notes conversation, Lula Starling looks at what that means for authors, content creators, and creative entrepreneurs deciding what they want to make and where that work belongs.

The episode explores:

• Building a body of work instead of chasing one successful upload
• Giving creativity room beyond one narrow niche
• Why faceless content is a legitimate format when the work still carries your voice, research, storytelling, and perspective
• Using current opportunities to build toward future visibility and revenue

The larger lesson reaches beyond YouTube: the harvest begins before the harvest.

Plant now. Cultivate what you want to grow. Arrive at the next season with something already built.

Explore Lula Starling’s books and creative work:
https://lulastarling.com/

Follow Author’s Notes with Lula Starling for more conversations about books, creativity, authorship, content creation, and alternative ways of understanding the world.