This week on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re talking about lessons learned from Fable’s work co-leading an anthology project. Recently Fable has been working with another author to put together an anthology to benefit a charity. This process included inviting other authors to contribute connected stories with a common character, reading through and organizing those individual stories into an overarching arc, and communicating feedback and line edits to each author in order to prepare the pieces for publication.  This episode serves as a sort of examination unpacking Fable’s experience in real time. She shares some unexpected experiences and lessons learned, different ways of looking at things that have helped her navigate challenges that arose, and new practices that she intends to lean on if she does any future anthology projects. But, also, we feel this conversation can be useful for those considering participating in future anthologies and those thinking of leading them to help look at the experience from both perspectives, and find ways to help strengthen the initial handshake at the beginning of a project so that expectations are as clear and well communicated as possible. Here are some of the takeaways: - Be as clear and specific as possible up front about the rules and expectations (who does what), timeframes (when will certain actions be taking place), and level of editing (copyediting vs proofreading vs line editing). - Consider making an anthology submission based, allowing yourself the option to select work that fits within your intention and to gently reject work that doesn’t. - Communicate feedback as early as possible. - At the outset, clarify to yourself what you want the work to be (your intention) and what level of labor you are commiting to the project. - Meet difficult interactions with patience, empathy, and compassion. Try to see from their perspective and acknowledge their feelings, and hope they will do the same for you.  - Don’t take baggage from one experience into another, but use what you learned in a thorny situation to help finesse your next interactions and communications. - As a writer, be open to feedback reminding yourself that the intention is simply to improve the work and make it better. Within the anthology setting, it’s also meant to help it fit better with the other pieces in the project. Try not to take it personally or hold your work too closely, and if critique feels like an attack consider doing some journaling to explore why. - Plan for what to do if the relationship breaks down, allow for other’s work to be withdrawn or ensure the project allows for your work to be withdrawn if an agreement cannot be reached. Towards the end of our conversation, we discuss how valuable having a difficult experience can be in teaching what not to do in the future and also what you can add or adjust to make a project smoother. Reviewing and assessing what you would do differently in real time during the process — while you are experiencing pain points and see clearly where there are failures — can help streamline future projects. But, also, compassionate communication and patient understanding go a long way. However, in the end you can only control how you react, so release yourself from gilt over how an interaction ultimately unfolds.  We hope you enjoy this episode and that you can take away some of the lessons that Fable learned through doing to use in your own writing life! And keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there! Into the woods, Fable & The Verbivore

These notes include affiliate links. Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re sharing our rescent interview with writer Becca Wierwille.  Becca is an award-winning middle grade author of the Road Trip Rescue adventure series, editor and book coach, and active member of the Instagram writing community. She and fellow author Amanda Trumpower recently premiered their podcast Ice Cream with Authors made especially for children ages 7 through 13 that features interviews with Christian middle grade writers where they read from their work, share about their stories, and give practical writing advice. The third book in her “Road Trip Rescue” series titled Road Trip Redemption is set to release on April 9th, 2025. You can check out Becca’s work and connect with her on her author website beccawierwille.com, on YouTube at @BeccaWierwille, on Instagram at @beccawierwille, on Facebook at @beccawierwille, and on Twitter at @BeccaWierwille. Throughout this episode, Becca talks about many different aspects of her writing life as well as lessons she’s learned along the way. Things like: - Starting to step your toe into writing in a lower stakes way, like through a blog - Playing with genre as a method for figuring out what’s yours - The power of asking the question: what if - Some of the ups and downs of working with an agent and giving yourself permission to pivot when you feel something is right for your work - Her Kickstarter crowdfunding process for her books and ideas for how it can help authors financially support their work and bring supporters into the writing process - Ways to help hone in on what you’d like to see for your cover, so that you can communicate your ideas well. Like through identifying symbols, color schemes, and existing covers you admire. Towards the end, Becca walks us through how she first got into doing author visits in schools and suggestions that she has for any authors who’d like to explore starting to do them. She also shares how her own experiences helped lead to the creation of the Ice Cream with Authors podcast, so that kids who may not have access to author visits in a school setting can still enjoy them in an online format.   We hope you enjoy this episode! It was such a great conversation filled with Becca’s heartfelt personal anecdotes and her useful takeaways on how to navigate the craft of writing in a way that prioritizes listening to what feels right for you. It was a pleasure to get to be a part of this! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there! Into the woods, Fable & The Verbivore

This week on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re talking about curiosity and life lessons from creativity. During a previous episode (Episode 258: Death, Poetry, and Light), we touch on a book called “The Lost Art of Dying” that the Verbivore has been reading. This book does include a lot of information on preparing for death, but the biggest takeaway is how a life well lived helps us face the prospect of our finite time on this Earth. In this episode,  we unpack some takeaways from this book as well as Pity the Reader by Kurt Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell, creative lessons that relate to many aspects of our lives, and the benefits of shifting how we manage ourselves from a dictatorial method to one based on curiosity. Things like: - Bring in practices that force you to face yourself in the mirror and ask what matters most - Notice how any new project that requires thought, brainstorming, and intuitive exploring — like designing a room, writing a difficult letter, or writing a will — helps strengthen creative muscles that are useful for writing - Embrace challenging and vulnerable conversations/thoughts which can help us dig deeper with ourselves and find the words for the raw and difficult to accept - Pay attention to when your active and dynamic imagination is having an negative impact on your mental health - There’s an important balance to find with acceptance - avoid trying to ignore the situation or overly control it - Work on being open to different ideas and create space to test out options - Remember that the lessons that are useful for creative practices such as writing are also useful for creating your life as a whole Towards the end of our conversation, we talk about how binaries of pass or fail often lead you to feel guilt or shame if you don’t meet your arbitrary goals and leave little room for celebration if you do (since that’s what you were supposed to do). The Verbivore mentions how shifting over to a life hack of asking yourself a curious question like “how many words can I do in 40 minutes?” or “how many loads of laundry can I get done today?” helps you to feel good about what you accomplish no matter how much. We hope you enjoy this episode and that you find whatever processes work best for you! And keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there! Into the woods, Fable & The Verbivore

Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re checking in to see how Fable’s vision board for the year came together. During our episode on setting intentions for 2025, Fable mentioned that she would be performing her yearly intuitive vision board creation process between Christmas and New Years. So, today we’re following back up with Fable on this process and seeing how this year’s board ended up. In this episode, we talk a lot about creativity, using our intuition, and ways of working that help manage anxiety and burnout. Things like: - Letting something become in a way that surprises or challenges you - Not forcing something in that you may like, but feels wrong - Noticing and allowing for themes and patterns to emerge - Asking yourself “does it fit?” for creative and writing projects - Giving yourself the ability to do both things you need to do and things you want to do - Freeing yourself from overly prescriptive deadlines - Reducing pressure to just get things done to remove them off your plate and instead prioritizing regularly moving them forward - Leaning into things that don’t feel like your typical preferences, but will stretch you We hope you enjoy this episode and that you find whatever processes work best for you! And keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there! Into the woods, Fable & The Verbivore

Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re sharing how small decisions, working with your hands, and giving yourself things to emotionally react to — like playlists — can help your creativity. In this episode, the Verbivore talks about how she’s approaching managing through some of the worry and anxiety of the moment while also making mental room for creativity. Last week, she finally decided to move forward with a painting project that she’d been sitting on for at least the last eight months (spent trying to decide on colors, methods, finishes, and when would work best to start). After finishing this work, it became clear that the benefit was not just in having a revitalized room or a feeling of accomplishment, but in helping clear her mental landscape and provide a jolt to her creativity. The process of painting allowed for her mental focus to sharpen on the task at hand — temporarily quieting down the noise and creating space to notice some of the ideas in the background that had been drowned out. A wip-specific playlist also helped direct ideas — test out scenes, try out details or character choices to see if they felt like they fit, and dig in a little deeper emotionally since the songs already had a personal emotional connection and meaning. Towards the end of the conversation, Fable notes how some of these things wouldn’t be effective for her, but how great it is for us each to find whatever works. Be it taking a walk, taking a shower, knitting, working with note cards, or visually managing your project on Pinterest it’s great to find things that help support and strengthen your creative process. These specific activities may not work for everyone, but we hope the ideas shared here help spark other practices that could be useful. We hope you enjoy this episode and that you find whatever processes work best for you! And keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there! Into the woods, Fable & The Verbivore

Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we are sharing our intentions for 2025. In this episode, we each talk about how we settled on our intentions. The Verbivore felt hers sprang naturally from last year’s focus on not blocking and doing the work of the current moment. For Fable, it was more of a struggle based on resistance she felt for how this new year was starting to take shape. But as she sat with it, a visual image came to her that really fit with her commitments and resonated with what felt like the spirit of this upcoming season. This is also the sixth time we’ve walked through this process together, and we talk about how previous years words have helped us stretch and grow and focus our year. For the Verbivore (Laura), the phrases “prepare for the life you want to have” and “be audacious” felt right. These ideas include laying the groundwork, engaging with some difficult and vulnerable conversations, prioritizing and making space and time for things that have been previously sacrificed, embracing uncomfortable experiences that have lessons to teach, and boldly saying both no and yes as needed. For Fable (Beth), she settled on the ideas of “following through” and truly embracing and believing that “you don’t have to earn your existence”. This led her to the image that she was in a time of harvest, that this year is about both doing the work of reaping what she’s sowed and taking the time to enjoy the fruits of her labors. We both also set specific writing goals that we’re working towards in 2025. The Verbivore wants to continue strengthening her writing skills through strategic practice and has two developing projects she wants to bring to a boil and get them to the point where they successfully represent her vision. Fable plans to attend her first writers conference, release the six books she’s already completed into the world, complete the remaining three that she’s committed to, and maybe let that be enough. Towards the end of the conversation, Fable talks about some of what she’s learned by creating her yearly vision board and what she’s hoping will go onto this years version. It’s an intuitive and prayerful process that serves as a visual reminder for what she is wanting to bring in, but also a space that lets her subconscious play and react to things that feel they resonate with the season ahead. This year is going to involve a lot of labor for both of us, but we also have some fun things we’ll be talking about here on the podcast and that we can’t wait to share with you! We hope you enjoy this episode and that you take a moment to connect with your own hopes and intentions as we step into this brand-new year! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there! Into the woods, Fable & The Verbivore

These notes include affiliate links. In this episode of Fable and the Verbivore, we’re reflecting on the intentions and goals we set for 2024 and talking about how the year actually unfolded in both life and our work. At the start of the episode, we talk about how setting these phrases help us clarify what we hope for the year and how they often have an uncanny way of describing the year in ways that maybe we don’t expect, but that absolutely fit. We feel these words become almost self-fulfilling prophecies and can also help us change how we see the year and more actively lean into those things that reflect our desires and goals.  For the Verbivore (Laura)’s 2024 intention the word was “improvisation” — the act of making or doing something without preparation and trusting you already have what you need inside you — and the phrase “look for and embrace opportunities”. For Fable (Beth) in 2024 she came up with the phrase “slow and steady” and this vision of a triathlon that requires training in several different areas. We both initially felt resistant to these phrases, but as the year went on it was clear that they really suited us well. The Verbivore had a year of great pivoting, needing to help a lot more in actively homeschooling her kids and absorbing some significant shifts in her schedule. But the rules of improv — especially “don’t block” — helped her use the small stretches of time she did have to meet her goals of going through the exercise of querying one of her projects to agents and developing further two of the stories she’s actively writing, while also doing a lot of writing practices. Fable was able to expand her work into many different areas — publishing with 5 different co-writers and creating her first audio book, while also writing several book length and novella length stories and submitting poems to several poetry collections. The steadier pace of her work in comparison to 2023 allowed her to get many things done, but also notice she was starting to feel burned out towards the end of the year and needed a break. Towards the end of this conversation, we talk about the complications — both positive and negative — to having a project do well.  We note that it may be helpful to set up your own markers of success prior to putting your work out, that loving your own work is a practice, and that a book's quality isn’t always reflected in sales. This led to a discussion about navigating through seasons of doubt, noticing how other authors deal with bestsellers and disappointments, and consider doing preparation to support yourself through both failure and success — including listening to and then reframing the messages you tell yourself. This is our sixth year of doing this process and it’s one of our favorite practices. We hope you enjoy this episode. We’re so grateful to you, our listeners! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there! Into the woods, Fable & The Verbivore

This week on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re sharing an unscripted episode where we touch on creativity and death, poetry, and light. Over the last year, we’ve done a wide range of topics — from writing about disabilities to writing with empathy —that took a lot of energy and preparation. We’ve also been doing this podcast for almost 5 years and as we celebrate our 250th episode this last month we felt it would be fun to do a series of episodes getting back to our roots of how this first began — through unplanned conversations about life, books, and the writing craft. So, for right now we’re continuing to see where our conversations take us, without planning in advance what we’ll talk about. This conversation came about from the Verbivore talking about how she and members of her extended family have started to talk about end of life wishes and choices, which led to digging into creativity in that area and what art has helped buoy her spirit as she navigates some difficult and varied feelings during this process. In this conversation, we talk about death and light and their place in our creative lives. Things like: - The Lost Art of Dying by L.S. Dugdale as a tool for preparing to think about end of life wishes and choices - Getting into the mindset to write letters with final messages to pass on to those closest to you - How poetry (like Mary Oliver’s House of Light) can help lift up and sooth you through difficult and emotionally wrought moments - Paying attention to the impact light has on your life and space, and consider how changes could impact your work, mindset, and even mental health - Noticing light (both literally and as a metaphor for hope) in storytelling and how making purposeful lighting choices in your stories can add layers of meaning, tension, and interest Towards the end of this discussion, we talk about a specific scene that Fable’s writing partner wrote where the strike of a match gives a feeling of dread, but also ratchets up the tension by holding back the face of the person for several moments. It serves as an example of how you can orchestrate the feelings of your readers through those choices. We hope you enjoy this episode and the more improvisational format of this series and that some of our thoughts connect with your own journey! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there! Into the woods, Fable & The Verbivore

This week on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re sharing an unscripted episode where we perform a writing exercise taking something that is socially normal and making it slightly unexpected. Over the last year, we’ve done a wide range of topics — from writing about disabilities to writing with empathy —that took a lot of energy and preparation. We’ve also been doing this podcast for almost 5 years and as we celebrate our 250th episode this last month we felt it would be fun to do a series of episodes getting back to our roots of how this first began — through unplanned conversations about life, books, and the writing craft. So, for right now we’re continuing to see where our conversations take us, without planning in advance what we’ll talk about. This idea was originally inspired during the episode from two weeks ago on preparing for conferences or book signings using the anecdote that author Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club) brings plastic severed mannequin arms to set out on his table and give out to attendees. It’s weird and creepy, but does a great job of representing his brand. We continue last week’s discussion on sticky images and surprising details that can help your work feel distinctive and stand out, by doing an on-the-fly thought experiment about how to change something typical (like brushing teeth or gargling) to make it surprising or memorable. In this conversation, we talk about different thought processes that can help create something new and interesting. Things like: - Switch out a typical detail for a more flavorful one - Having a character gargle with a shot of alcohol, blood (for a vampire), garlic (for a vampire hunter), or tabasco sauce or a wasabi drink (clean out sinuses) - Have a character react surprisingly - Having a character turned on to another character gargling beer (New Girl) - Create a desire to know the why behind a certain detail - Why does the character gargle beer? (Is it to experience more of the flavor?) - Look at the unique preferences you have. Adjust it and add them to a character. (Ex. Kids only being able to use strawberry toothpaste to brush their teeth) - Would a vampire brush his teeth with blood, but only O+ blood? - Notice what quirks you or those around you have that are a little peculiar or absurd - Deciding not to use toothpaste at all to brush teeth; Must brush teeth in rhythm to song “Staying Alive” - Change or dial up a normal thing to make it funny or creepy (Ex. Having a small stock of items that are no longer made) - A cabinet filled with 100 toothbrushes of all the same type and color - Adjust the context of the action - Can a character only brush teeth when sitting cross legged on the floor; Having a character gargle in a restaurant Towards the end of this discussion, we talk about how little details help characters feel more real and relatable and connect us to stories. One of the best ways to come up with these types of details is to set your brain the task of noticing the interesting, particular, and absurd details all around you both in real life and in the entertainment you interact with such as books, movies, and Tv shows. Set your attention in a certain way or vein, and often ideas will come to you riffing off of the things you notice. We hope you enjoy this episode and the more improvisational format of this series and that some of this connects with your own journey! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there! Into the woods, Fable & The Verbivore

Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re sharing an unscripted episode about creating images that do a great job of representing or encapsulating an idea, stand out, and that stick in our memory. Over the last year, we’ve done a wide range of topics — from writing about disabilities to writing with empathy —that took a lot of energy and preparation. We’ve also been doing this podcast for almost 5 years and as we celebrate our 250th episode this last month we felt it would be fun to do a series of episodes getting back to our roots of how this first began — through unplanned conversations about life, books, and the writing craft. So, for right now we’re continuing to see where our conversations take us, without planning in advance what we’ll talk about. This idea was inspired by the anecdote from last week’s episode that author Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club) brings plastic severed mannequin arms to give out at conferences and book signings and continues our conversation about preparing for conferences and book signings by discussing how sticky images and surprising details can help your work feel distinctive and stand out. In this conversation, we talk about visuals that can help make your story memorable or encapsulate your brand. Specifically, we bring up some examples and unpack what makes them stand out in our minds. Things like: - Sofi Tukker’s BREAD album - Using a normal everyday object and creating unexpected images like with the bread dress - A character donating to a pigeon charity in So Not Meant To Be - How the choice of pigeons feels a little odd as many have a negative reaction to them or are likely to champion dogs or cats, the absurd image of a pigeon in a suit or hat cements itself into your mind (similar to mnemonic memory devices like the steps used for creating a memory palace) - The cereal scene in Get Out - Making something uncomfortable by having the context add meaning and unease to a slightly off action a character engages in after commiting a horrifying act, doing something just a little different than our normal social scripts by having the cereal in a bowl separate from the glass of milk rather than mixing them together - The ending of Identity - Use a false ending and a surprise twist to cement the final image in your mind - Paying attention to your own quirks that are a little different, unexpected, or slightly absurd — Taking a lot of extra time to make the perfect bite with a little bit of each type of food when you eat a salad or entree, or only allowing an even number of Cheerios in your final bites of cereal - The tea scene in Blue Eye Samarai — Set a normal activity within an unreal or unsettling context, as with an invitation to tea from an enemy where you are pretty certain it is a ruse for an ambush Towards the end of this discussion, we talk about how imperfect things often get talked about and engaged with more than perfect things. How sometimes the choice to be a little odd, step a foot outside of cultural norms, or push into something that we haven’t seen before can allow your work to gain more interest and traction. We hope you enjoy this episode and the more improvisational format of this series and that some of this connects with your own journey! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there! Into the woods, Fable & The Verbivore