This week, I’m joined by Rebecca Serle, bestselling author of One Italian Summer and Once and Again, for a conversation that feels a little like a master class in trusting the work. We talk through her process, turn the tables on each other, and swap the Jedi mind tricks we use to keep our brains from getting in the way. Rebecca shares what happens when you refuse to give writer’s block any power, and how letting go of the need to know exactly where a story is going can make room for something better.

We also talk about the strange privilege of getting to do this work at all, and the importance of remembering that “getting to” write is very different from “having to” write. It’s a conversation about trusting yourself, staying curious, and finding a little more joy in the strange privilege of making things up for a living.

And Riley, my Muppet-shaped dog, would like it noted that she was also present for this conversation and contributed several important thoughts from off-mic.

Links:

Follow No Write Way on Instagram

Credits:

Host: V.E. Schwab

Producer/Editor/Mixer: Jenna Maurice

Some writers write with a single voice. Others carry generations with them.

This week, I’m joined by poet and bestselling author Nikita Gill for a conversation about the people, histories, and inheritances that find their way onto the page. She tells me about her Kashmiri grandfather, the first person she ever wrote a story about, and the way she feels she carries her ancestors with her in the very way she speaks. We talk about the particular power that comes from writing as a woman and from the perspective of the oppressed, and how stories rooted in the past can somehow arrive in the present at exactly the right moment.

Nikita and I also discover another happy bit of creative kinship: we both must start at the end. We talk about why word counts can be a distraction, and how some days the work is less about producing more words and more about finding the right ones.

Links:

Follow No Write Way on Instagram

Credits:

Host: V.E. Schwab

Producer/Editor/Mixer: Jenna Maurice

Some writers have always been storytellers. C. L. Clark is one of them. From short stories and novellas to high fantasy novels, they’ve spent a lifetime finding new ways to tell them.

In this episode, we discover an uncanny overlap in some of our favorite non-writing pursuits, from fencing and running to growing up as soccer kids with dreams of making it to the World Cup. We wander into the relationship between the body and the page, talk about writing rituals (Morning Pages, anyone?), and consider what happens when you let yourself get a little bored and give your mind room to wander.

Because a writing life doesn’t always look like writing. Sometimes the best “writing” happens when you’re doing almost anything else.

Links:

Follow No Write Way on Instagram

V.E. Schwab’s Website

C. L. Clark's Website

Credits:

Host: V.E. Schwab

Producer/Editor/Mixer: Jenna Maurice

For the first episode of Season Five, I’m joined by Karin Slaughter, bestselling author of Pretty Girls and her latest, The Secrets We Hide, for a conversation about writing stories that are dark, strange, and unapologetically intense. We talk about the particular experience of being a woman who writes this kind of work, the strange expectations that come with being taken seriously, and what happens when you commit fully to a story and see it all the way through.

Karin also lets us into her writing process, which involves a cabin in the woods, a lot of focus, and very little messing around. We talk about the discipline of finishing what we start, even when the work gets difficult, and why sometimes the most important part of writing is simply refusing to stop.

Credits:

Host: V.E. Schwab

Producer/Editor/Mixer: Jenna Maurice

Some books are a surprise, even to the people who wrote them.

For the final episode of the season, Jenna takes the reins and turns the mic on Cat Clarke and me (V.E. Schwab), the two halves of Evelyn Clarke, to talk about our debut novel and the very unexpected path that led us here.

We get into the origin story, how a writer who swore she’d never co-write (it me) and another who had stepped away from publishing entirely somehow found themselves building a book together. We talk about the craft of collaboration, what it means to stop writing alone and start writing as a team, and the delicate challenge of learning how to share instinct, voice, and control. There were moments it felt impossible, and others where it felt like the story was writing itself.

And because we’re on the other side of it now, we get to laugh. A lot. About the chaos, the growing pains, and the strange, specific problems that only exist when you’re trying to write a single book with two brains. And, fittingly, we never quite figured out how to trap us. We’re a little too unhinged to pin down.

Links:

Follow No Write Way on Instagram

V.E. Schwab’s Website

Credits:

Host: V.E. Schwab

Producer/Editor/Mixer: Jenna Maurice

Some books reclaim the stories we thought we already knew.

This week, I’m joined by Ayana Gray, author of Beasts of Prey and her latest, I, Medusa, for a conversation that begins with origin stories and winds its way through the very particular internet experiences of a millennial upbringing—back when blogs were everything and a place called Twitter still existed.

We talk about learning what was “allowed” on the page, and the quiet realization that there was never a rulebook to begin with. Ayana shares how her early hesitation gave way, over time, to curiosity and experimentation, and how each new project helped her step a little further outside the boundaries she once believed in.

We also get into the shift from writing YA to adult, and how those spaces ask for different kinds of storytelling, different freedoms, and different risks.

Links:

Follow No Write Way on Instagram

V.E. Schwab’s Website

Ayana Gray’s Website

Credits:

Host: V.E. Schwab

Producer/Editor/Mixer: Jenna Maurice

Some books remind you that fantasy can be brutal, funny, and painfully human all at once.

This week, I’m joined by Joe Abercrombie, author of the First Law series and his latest, The Devils, for a conversation about the strange dance between fantasy and the expectations that come with it. We talk about drifting around the edges of genre labels (including the ever persistent “grimdark”) and what it means to write stories that refuse to behave exactly the way readers expect.

Joe shares how his background as a film editor shaped the way he builds a story, from pacing to perspective to the careful balancing act of an ensemble cast. We also commiserate over a familiar writerly condition: the convenient amnesia that allows us to forget the horrors of drafting just long enough to start the next book. Joe compares the process to laying bricks. You keep placing them, one after another, even when some are crooked and others will need replacing later. Eventually you look up and realize a wall has begun to take shape.

Links:

Follow No Write Way on Instagram

V.E. Schwab’s Website

Joe Abercrombie’s Website

Credits:

Host: V.E. Schwab

Producer/Editor/Mixer: Jenna Maurice

Some books feel like a rom com written in a minor key.

This week, I’m talking with Ashley Winstead, author of In My Dreams I Hold a Knife and her latest, Future Saints. We chat about the idea that first drafts are just secret monsters, something you have to let out just to learn their shape. Ashley tells me about the sticky note she kept on her laptop that read, “no one will ever see this,” a small, stubborn permission that made it possible for her to keep going.

She walks me through her rigorous and deeply self-aware writing process, including how she lets her brain decide what it can realistically handle each day instead of having word count goals or a time frame. And somewhere along the way, I realize I’ve found a kindred spirit, especially when it comes to our shared tendency toward slightly psychotic outlining. What a joy.

Check out the playlist for Ashley’s book Future Saints (mentioned in this podcast) in the links below.

Links:

Follow No Write Way on Instagram

V.E. Schwab’s Website

Ashley Winstead’s WebsiteOfficial Future Saints Playlist

Credits:

Host: V.E. Schwab

Producer/Editor/Mixer: Jenna Maurice