Strange & Deadly

Strange & Deadly is in stores!

This is not a drill. IT IS HERE! Strange & Deadly is in stores today.

This is both my first independently published book and my adult debut!

After seventeen years in the young adult (and traditional publishing) space, I’m releasing my very first book that’s actually labeled adult1 and I’m doing it totally solo!

Buy the book!!

If you want to learn more about how this whole self-publishing process has gone, check out this AMA Part 1 video or read the transcript! I spent almost an entire hour discussing my behind-the-scenes steps, reasonings, and (in true Sooz fashion) fears for the entire journey.

So, please consider supporting me? 🙏

I almost never, ever ask for things from you guys. I know it’s annoying to get inundated with buy links or pre-order requests! You’re here for my writing advice, and you don’t want to know about my books.

That’s fine! It’s why I split my book and writing stuff back in 2022, so as not to keep bothering the writers who followed me.

But today I’m please-please-please asking if you’ll buy the ebook while it’s only $2.99.

Buy the book!!

Again, I never do this kind of thing in the Misfits & Daydreamers newsletter! Sure, I’ll occasionally plop in a pre-order link or cross-post a cover reveal because my publisher asks me to, but otherwise I try to keep the M&D Substack clear of book stuff.

So please—just this once!—would you consider buying a copy of Strange & Deadly?

I’m obviously anxious about how this whole indie thing is going to go for me. Will I make my money back? Will people enjoy this book? Will the whole endeavor BACKFIRE SPECTACULARLY, LEAVING SOOZ-SHAPED PIECES OF MY SOUL SPLATTERED ACROSS THE INTERNET?

We shall find out soon enough. 🙈

But there are twenty thousand of you receiving this newsletter! If even a fraction of you buy the ebook during this launch week, it would make an absolutely enormous difference in how the algorithms pick up my book and how readers discover me moving forward.

And look! To make it worth your while I’ve even made an absolutely, monstrously, huge post below with nitty-gritty craft detail just for you. And this is only part 1! The newsletter got to be so long, I ran out of space and had to split it in two.

So please, please, please. 🥹🙏 Buy the book?

I’ll make it even easier for you and give you a list of the major retailer links right here. All you have to do is click on a link, then click on a buy button. 🥹🙏🥹🙏🥹🙏

• Buy on Amazon

• Buy on B&N

• Buy on Kobo

• Buy on Bookshop.org

The paperback is also available now, so if you’d rather get that, that’s fine too! I will be thrilled either way. 😅

Okay, I’ll stop begging and being annoying now. I promise!! So, onto that aforementioned nitty-gritty craft stuff…

A Tale of Two Chapters, Part 1

I spent entirely too much time this past Saturday trying to figure out how I wanted to approach a side-by-side comparison of Something Strange and Deadly (written in 2009, published in 2012) and Strange & Deadly, my adult debut (written in 2026, published in 2026).

But what I found was it’s like trying to compare an apple to an orange. Sure, they have similar shapes, and yeah, they’re both fruits, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end.

Apples and oranges don’t taste the same. They don’t look the same. And the texture inside and out is completely different.

And actually, once I thought about that, I realized it was the perfect way to tackle the volume of differences between what—on the surface—look like they are very similar scenes.

So let’s break it down below. We’ll start with the shape—oranges and apples are round—and then we’ll zoom in to assess where the texture, juice, color, etc. have changed.

The Story Shape

At a cursory glance, the opening chapters of the 2012 and 2026 books have the same broad shape. Their beats are as follows:

• Eleanor is waiting on her brother at the train station.

• Her brother doesn’t arrive.

• A decrepit corpse arrives instead.

• Chaos ensues.

• Eleanor goes inside a telegraph office.

• And there she discovers a message from her brother.

On the surface, that looks a lot alike that overlaps, right? I mean, really, how can two scenes with that much in common actually be any different?

Oh, my sweet summer children.

They can be so different.

And this is why authors say all the time that it doesn’t matter if two people have the same idea, because how they execute the idea won’t be the same.

Or, in this case, how 2009 Susan executed her idea is nothing like how 2026 Susan did.

But wait, why don’t you see for yourself?

Look, I’d rather have no one ever read the opening chapter of the 2012 book. I mean, I wrote it in 2009! It was literally the first book I ever finished.

But, alas. To fully feel and study the differences between the 2012 version and the 2026 version, you’re going to have to read my raw, beginner words.

Start by reading the 2026 version of Chapter One, though. Please.

This is partly for my own ego’s sake, but mostly I suggest this because I think you’ll have an easier time comparing and contrasting the chapters if you go backward in time, rather than forward. With the 2026 version fresh in your mind, you’ll be able to look at the 2012 version and say, Oh goodness, she wasn’t joking.

• Read the 2026 version here

• Read the 2012 version here (cringe)

Beat-by-beat Comparison

In case you didn’t read the chapters—or in case you’re like me and a visual learner—I’ve made a detailed table breaking it all down.

Take a look to see how the more specific beats are and are NOT the same between the two scenes.

(Reading this on a mobile? Open the post on a computer or tablet to see a larger version of the table!)

If you look at the table, the first two rows only apply to the 2026 version. And those two rows actually cover the first 303 words.

In those opening paragraphs, I set up:

• Eleanor’s voice (sassy)

• the story’s main stakes (a hapless brother who keeps missing trains and asking for money)

• and Eleanor’s unique view on the world (Shakespeare! Murder most foul!).

The 2012 opening had none of that. Instead, I opened in medias res with a woman screaming (row three).

Full disclosure here: I never liked the 2012 opening—it was something my very first editor wanted. I was a newbie author then, who was still figuring out what she liked, so I didn’t push back.

But even back in my earliest author days, opening like that wasn’t my way. And 2026 Sooz definitely knows better. I always start with character voice now. (Which isn’t to say you can’t start like I did in the 2012 version. Only that I don’t personally like it for my books.)

And this is the perfect segue into…

From character comes plot (not the other way around)

The reason I always open with a line that comes from my character’s voice is that it allows me, the author, to set up everything that will come afterward.

Sure, my 2012 opening might let you know what kind of book you’re getting in terms of zombies and chaos, but it offers nothing about the person you’re going to sit with for the next 400 pages.

Nor does that 2012 opening line really give you the overall “vibes” of what’s ahead, and I think both of those pieces are vital for setting up an engaging tale.

You’re welcome to disagree, of course! And I won’t argue with you. This is my subjective preference, though, so it’s what I enjoy reading and writing.

On top of that, it’s a vital requirement for my intuitive drafting process. My stories literally unspool based on what I see as my character at any given moment. So how on earth can I see a scene if I’m not fully immersed in the head that’s telling the story?

Here are a few opening lines from assorted books of mine over the last decade, and I think they each one sets up well the voice and tone of what’s follow.

That last line is, of course, from the 2026 Strange & Deadly. And it sets up immediately that Eleanor feels something we can all relate to.

It is annoying when someone stands you up!

Plus, we also see she has a vaguely historic, somewhat “elevated” style of speaking. That might be to your taste, or it might not be. But you know right off the bat what you’re getting.

We’re also left asking, as readers, Well, who missed an appointment and why didn’t they show? That’s a good hook to keep people at least moving on to the next paragraph.

And in those subsequent paragraphs (about 300 words in total), Eleanor answers and gives us a full display of her character.

We learn she’s sassy, we learn she’s exhausted by her brother who keeps standing her up and requesting money, and we learn she’s somewhat selfless—but also kind of resentful that she has to be selfless at all.

So when things implode after those 300 words, we’ve got a good handle on who she is and why we ought to care about her.

That, in turn, means that when she makes the choices she makes in the rest of the chapter, I don’t have to explain to you why.

The plot now comes from the character.

We understand perfectly why, when a kid shows up in the chaos screaming her head off, that of course Eleanor has to sweep her up to help. That’s what she does!

But she’ll also be annoyed about it. Especially when circumstances escalate around her and the child, forcing her to make new decisions that aren’t necessarily the wisest but are now the only thing available.

That’s pretty much the entire thesis of the book in a single scene.

Eleanor is, as a character, incapable of leaving people to fend for themselves—even when she really, really should. It’s a virtue and a flaw rolled into one. And the whole book is about to show you what that means for her at scale.

So literally every plot point that follows the first 300 words of the book is a result of this one characteristic I introduce right away.

2012 Eleanor was a blank slate

The 2012 opening had none of the annoyed, selfless Eleanor 2.0 that the 2026 book has. So even if I’d possessed the writing chops to foreshadow the entire book in the opening scene, I wouldn’t have been able to do so since there was nothing to foreshadow!

Eleanor 1.0 just didn’t have much happening in the way of real character development.

She had enough dimension for me to get a book deal, so don’t get me wrong. She’s not a complete piece of cardboard. BUT—and it’s a big but—I was a beginner writer. I told you she liked buttered toast and Shakespeare, and I thought I was showing this by sprinkling in a few examples of those characteristics. (Show vs. tell again! More on this to come in part 2!)

But every plot point that happened was because I’d made an outline, then I’d found reasons for Eleanor 1.0 to go do those things on the outline RATHER than seeing what she would actually choose based on what came before.

You can see this plot-dictates-character issue right on the page. It’s evident in the sheer number of times I have to explain to the reader why Eleanor 1.0 does things. Not just in chapter one, but throughout the book! I would spend multiple sentences or even paragraphs explaining the why of an action because that why wasn’t clearly baked in and obvious.

In fact, here’s an example of this from the 2012 Chapter One:

Really? Eleanor 1.0 had just ignored the papers and believed the Dead were only from children’s tales? Then why did she open the chapter saying she’d heard reports of the Dead escaping their graves? And for that matter, why was there a Dead alarm in the train depot and how did she know what it sounds like?

Also, her solution to her ignorance is to…grab a conveniently placed newsletter ?

Nah.

I fixed this issue by simply not having Eleanor in 2026 find a newspaper. (Instead, she proactively goes after a newspaper in a later chapter—and I’ll get into the proactive vs. reactive character stuff below!)

All of this is to say that if you have to constantly explain and justify why a character is doing what they do, then you’re telling the story instead of showing it.

And this rule doesn’t only apply to main characters! Throughout the original 2012 book, all my characters did things because I’d written on my outline that now was the moment it needed to happen.

This was especially true with backstory info dumps. Characters were pouring out their backstories like a BioWare dialogue.2 Zero subtlety.

Note: If you often get external feedback from readers that says, Wait, why did Gary Stew do this? This doesn’t feel believable to me, then this “show vs. tell” piece of motivation might be your problem. You might very well have written Gary Stew doing things for the sake of the plot instead of for the sake of his needs, wants, and motivations.3

Character agency and consequences

Another major difference between the two books, 2012 vs. 2026, is that Eleanor 1.0 was very reactive. Eleanor 2.0 is much more proactive.

This doesn’t mean reacting is always a bad thing in a story. There will be plenty of instances in a book (and should be) when a character is reacting to the antagonist or the world.

But in a truly proactive story, a lot of the reactive beat will come from consequences that spring out of previous proactive decisions.

So in other words, even when Eleanor 1.0 seemed to be “proactive” in Something Strange & Deadly, her choices don’t lead to ripple effects that would change entire trajectory of the story if I tweak a single early scene.4

Let’s break this down in the context of the two opening chapters—because again, on the surface, Eleanor 1.0 seems proactive(ish). But was she really driving the story? Or was she simply making in-scene decisions that look proactive in the moment but don’t truly change the story’s trajectory?

2012 version:

Eleanor 1.0 chooses, out of self-preservation, to go into the telegraph office and wait out the chaos at the train depot.

→ She then decides to search a stack of telegrams for one from her brother. (How convenient!)

→ How even more convenient, she finds a newspaper right there explaining that the Dead are walking in Philadelphia. Yoink! She’ll read it later to educate herself, she tells us.

→ Then when one such Dead arrives, Eleanor gets scared. Lots of reacting happens here.

• In fact, from here out, she stops being proactive, and all she does is react.

→ She trips in her own skirts trying to flee, then generally panics.

→ The corpse drops a handwritten message.

→ To her horror, she sees it’s from her brother. Oh no! He must have been taken by a necromancer!

On the surface Eleanor 1.0 seems to make choices: she goes into the telegraph office, and looks through some telegrams—and this does make her available and alone when the walking corpse arrives. That’s a consequence, right?

But this beat didn’t need to happen in the telegraph office. It could have happened anywhere at the depot and still worked because the corpse would have still delivered the message to her—and it still would have been a handwritten note from her brother.

In other words, we see some proactive choices, but we don’t see any consequences.

2026 version:

I still wanted Eleanor to run into that corpse for the new 2026 book! It was the opening premise of the original novel, and I was determined to stick to ths.

But I also knew Eleanor had to have real character reasons this time for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. On top of that, I wanted to make sure there were real, longterm consequence to her being in the ticket office versus outside out of it.

So here are the new beats:

Eleanor 2.0 hears a girl screaming and scoops the child up from the chaos.

→ They’re getting stampeded, so Eleanor shoves them into the relative safety of an empty telegraph office.

• This is a CONSEQUENCE of her decision to grab the kid, since she can’t handle the stampede while also protecting the girl.

→ The girl scrambles off Eleanor and hides under a desk. DRAT.

• This is another CONSEQUENCE of Eleanor’s decision. She’s stuck now.

→ While Eleanor is trying to coax the kid out, the corpse arrives.

• Now, rather than react, Eleanor continues to be proactive—and in a way that shows her character. She distracts the child by being silly.

→ The corpse drops a piece of paper, and Eleanor continues her distraction ploy by telling the tale of The Tempest.

• Again, proactive! And also still a consequence of saving that kid in the first place.

• This is also Eleanor’s character lens in action with Shakespeare love! (More on that lens in part 2!)

→ The corpse leaves, but by then, the kid has warmed up to Eleanor, so Eleanor is more focused on the kid than whatever the corpse was doing.

→ Eleanor finally notices what the corpse dropped: and to her confusion, it’s a telegram from her brother.

• The telegram piece is vital because it means Eleanor 2.0 can dismiss the message! If the corpse had cornered her outside the office, then nope. Obviously it came from her brother by way of corpse.

• However, since she was in the telegraph office and the paper landed on all the other telegrams, she’s able to assume she mixed up which paper the corpse dropped.

• There will be a critical consequences from this moving forward!

The rest of both books continue in similar fashions to their above beats. Eleanor 1.0 continues to frequently do things for the plot rather than for her internal compass, and worse, she’s often told what to do by the Spirit-Hunters rather than coming up with steps to execute on her own.

Eleanor 2.0 meanwhile, continues to make decisions—many of them terrible—that drive her ever closer toward her goal while stirring up heaps of messy consequences to deal with along the way.

Coming up next!

I have two more aspects I want to discuss about these opening chapters (and the books over all). Think of them as the differences in texture and taste between our apple and orange!

We’ve compared shape, so next time, we’ll zoom in to the sentence-level and discuss:

1. How I use what I call “character lenses and superpowers” in my writing now.

2. How I fully understand the phrase “show vs. tell” in action, dialogue, and interiority.

Alas, I’m out of space here. But I promise I’ll share them soon, along with the second half of the AMA! And I hope this first part has been illustrative and educational.

Feel free to ask questions below if you have them! Better to get answers now and make sure it’s all clear before we continue onward.

Now I’m off to celebrate my ADULT DEBUT’S RELEASE DAY!!! 🎉🎉🎉

Again, I’d be so grateful if you’d buy a copy of Strange & Deadly! And remember: it’s only $2.99 for a week, so now is the perfect time to support me! 🥰

Buy the book!!

💚 - Sooz

First off, in case you missed it, I revealed the cover for Strange & Deadly over on Instagram and in my fan newsletter! Woohoo!

The Worlds of Susan Dennard

Strange & Deadly cover reveal

I am absolutely thrilled to be sharing the incredible cover by Leo Nickolls for Strange & Deadly with you all today. This book will be releasing in ten days…

Read more

13 days ago · 29 likes · 15 comments · Susan Dennard

The book releases in only 8 (!!!!) days, and I hope you all will consider supporting me with an ebook buy when it comes out. ☺️

Now onto the answers for our AMA. This is just part 1, since—unsurprisingly—it took me a while to fully answer the questions in my rambling-Sooz way.

I’ve got a transcript below, if you don’t want to watch or listen.

And if any of you have follow-up questions, please feel free to leave a comment. Or if you have new, unrelated questions, then go back to the original AMA post.

Now onward to the transcript, and thanks for being a subscriber!

Transcript:

Hi everybody, ‘tis I, Susan. It’s been a while since I did a video, and especially on here. And yeah, I just thought that this would be maybe the easiest and most interesting way to do that: answer the AMA questions versus writing out long posts—or just doing an audio recording. I thought you all might want to see me, and if you don’t, well, you can just listen or read the transcript. So there we go.

As you all know, I did an ask me anything, AMA…What day did I do that? The 12th, and today is the 19th. A week ago, a week ago exactly. And as I expected, I got a lot of questions about self-publishing and sort of why I made these, the choice that I’m making, what I’ve done, and I will do my best to answer that, and also to direct you elsewhere when I don’t have the answer.

And then I got some questions about some assorted sort of creative life, attitude, mindset questions, and I will get to those. And then of course there’s some fun gaming questions, and then a few sort of Witchlands questions.

So, I’m gonna start with the self-publishing Strange & Deadly questions, just because that’s probably gonna take me the longest. We’ll see how far I get, because I will probably have to do this, just based on timing and where I have to be today, I’ll probably have to split this in half.

So let’s start with part one: all of your self-publishing slash Strange & Deadly slash traditional publishing questions and why I’m making the choice I made.***

So first one up we have from Taylor. Taylor asks,

“I’m not sure how re-releasing a book whose rights have reverted works. So please bear with me. Was there a trad option to releasing the new version? If so, what were your reasons to pursue going hybrid?

So, I got my rights back for Strange & Deadly in 2023. The book actually released in 2012, so it was a long time. And it was HarperCollins, my original publisher. They were actually really great about giving them back to me, even though I wasn’t even technically quite selling under the threshold requirements, a lot of the threshold requirements were made before e-books existed or e-books were a thing, and so when they said you need to sell under 250 copies a year in order to get your rights back, well, it’s a lot harder to do that now in the age of e-books, where you can continue to churn out that many a year pretty easily, but you’re not selling any physical copies. So all of that is to say, they were very kind, and they gave me the rights back.

And I thought at the time, the plan for a while was that I would just sort of maybe do a light edit, a sensitivity read kind of thing, and then put the put them up on KU and just sort of see what happened, you know. Put them out there for readers who wanted to read my debut work, and otherwise just leave it be.

Well, with that plan in mind, I went into last fall giving them, I was talking to my agent about it, and she and I came up with this plan to do that, and we were doing all this research and setting all that up behind the scenes-ish. It wasn’t like a. It should not take that long. The reason it took that long is this was not in any way a priority for either of us.

And so finally, in around March, I had gotten some feedback from an editor to sort of edit it and bring it into the modern age just a little bit, lightly. When I was sitting down to edit, based on her notes, my own, you know, growth as writer, what I would see when I opened up the book, and yeah, and I opened up the book and read that first line, which is open quote dead. It’s the dead. I’m not even sure it’s that whole sentence. I think it’s dead. A woman cried. It’s the dead. Something like that. I didn’t like it. I never liked that opening line.

And the only reason it was the opening line was because back in the 2010, when I was editing it with my very first editor, who did not actually stay on as my editor for very long. She changed companies before that book ever came out, she felt we should open in medias res, you know, in the middle of the action. So, you know, I didn’t have my own instincts yet, and I did what she wanted, which isn’t to fault her, to be clear. It just wasn’t ever really my way of actually opening a book.

So immediately, I was like, “Oh, great! This is a chance to rectify that. I’ll just change the opening line. Oh, but the second line’s not very good either. Oh gosh, the third line’s terrible. Oh my, this whole first page is just really bad. This is not how I show emotion. That was the big thing that I kept running into as I was reading. I don’t show emotion this way. It’s what I would actually qualify as telling now instead of showing, and so by page eight, I had rewritten every single word. I was working in track changes, and the whole thing was just red. I had not saved anything, so I was like, okay, this is silly. I’m not even gonna work in track changes anymore. I’m just gonna transfer it over to Scrivener and start working there. Well, by the end of chapter two, I wasn’t even sticking to the original plot anymore, so I was like, “Hmm, perhaps ‘tis time to accept the story is changing.

And I wrote this in the author’s note, but I’ll share it with you guys too. I remember sitting in my daughter in my car while I was waiting on my daughter at ballet, and I was like, “Am I gonna rewrite this entire book? We had a plan. The plan was to self-publish it, just throw it back up there, not do anything, no work for me. I have four books due with HarperCollins. What am I doing? Am I gonna rewrite this? And yes, I did.

I can’t. If I can see a better way to do something, I can’t leave it. It is for those of you who know CliftonStrengths. I’m number two Restorative. If I see a problem that can be fixed, I can’t not fix it. So I did. I wrote an entirely new book.

I think it’s awesome. I love the book, but because the plan had always been the reason for that long story, because the plan had always been to self-publish, I decided to stay that course. I’ve been wanting to experiment with self-publishing for a while.

I know traditional very well. I’ve been in the traditional industry for 16, 17 years. No, 16 years. I wrote the book 17 years ago. 16 years. I sold in 2010. So I’m very intimately familiar with this, and there has actually there have been times in my career where I almost went indie, but then some sort of circumstance conspired against me, or I managed to sell a book I didn’t think would sell. But this time it was no, doing the thing.

I’ve wanted to learn how to fish for a while. I’m going to teach myself to fish, and we’re doing this. So that was the choice that I made. I never even considered giving it again to traditional, which isn’t to say that I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t like in foreign markets. I would still be open to that, but the U.S. We’re going hybrid. Well, for this, my career will be hybrid, but this book will be indie all the way. So those were my reasons.

Next question from Taylor says, “How do you feel your experiences differed from your previous trad experiences?

Well, there’s no advance. That’s number one, right? I have no money coming in. I had saved up for this from past advances because I actually always one day I wanted to go indie, so I have been saving money for that eventuality so that I could do this the right way, so to speak, and try to mimic my own traditional experience as much as possible.

So I hired a cover designer who is, as far as I know, has only worked in traditional. And wow, did an incredible job, but it was very expensive, right? I know that there are more affordable options out there, but I chose to go this route on purpose, and it’s a big expense upfront. Those sorts of things that my publisher would pay for, I had to pay for when it comes to advertising. I had to pay for that in a way that I wouldn’t have had to in the past. But yeah, the that I’m not even to that point yet.

The main thing that has differed so far is that I am both in charge and in control of everything. I just figured out what I wanted for the cover. I found the artist. I hired him and worked with him and gave him my exact feedback, and he executed it beautifully.

I. I typeset the book, right? So normally, I would get send off my book, and it hits copy edits, and the copy editor turns it into a format that the typesetter can read. And then I get it in pass pages. I see what it looks like. I hope it looks good. I don’t really get to decide. I mean, I can make some small tweaks here and there, but I don’t. It costs them money every time they retype set it. You reflow it. It’s what it’s called, and so you can’t do a whole lot of pass pages.

Whereas for me, even though it’s pain in the butt, and I did do it, if I decided to change something in after later, literally, I was catching still a typo today. There was a missing space I noticed. I can fix that myself because I did all the typesetting.

I used InDesign, which is Adobe product, and the only reason I went with that, for those of you wondering, versus the much easier to use Vellum, is because for those of you who’ve read my books, you know I love some found footage. I love to have documents, newspapers, transcripts, letters, clips from books, and all that. And so there were just so many different found footage formats that I wanted to have. And Vellum is not very flexible in that way, so I needed to go pull out the big guns, work with InDesign, taught myself how to do that, and that was its own process, right? I had to learn how to use the software,

so it’s all these things that, on the one hand, it’s really awesome. I had such granular control. The book looks exactly like I want it to look. I wish I had a printout right here. I’m looking around, I might have a printout, but I don’t. Of course not. I’m not prepared.

You’ll see it soon enough, right? The book is going to come out in 10 days when I’m recording this. Nine days, hopefully, from when I post this.

So, yeah, I had to typeset it. I had to figure out how to make from there a reflowable EPUB and what all that means. I had to write my back matter. I had to get a copyright, right? All these things that the publisher handles for you, typically, I had to do myself, and it’s not. It’s both been more work than I anticipated, and not like I have enjoyed having control. Again, to go back to my CliftonStrengths, number two Restorative. Really like to learn things, problem solve, make it the best it can be, and so I really liked having that control so far.

But there is no one to blame if things are messed up, if there is an issue with the typesetting. I know that there was one page in the paperback where the lines don’t line up at the bottom perfectly. I could not, no matter what I changed with the tracking, even with the actual words I added or took away, I could not get it. So it’s one line off. Normally, you want your paperbacks to line up perfectly at the bottom, or your physical copies couldn’t get it. One line, whole book, every other page works. So that kind of thing. That’s on me. I can’t. I can’t blame anyone. If there is an issue in terms of actual rollout next week, no one to blame but me.

You know, in the past I’ve had issues where books didn’t leave the warehouse, so they didn’t reach stores the first week, or while I was even on tour. That happened with Sightwitch. I was on tour and it was like, cool. I don’t have any books to sign. It happens, and I could, I didn’t blame my publisher, but I could just say, you know, this is life, warehouse problem, publisher, whatever. At that, for that, that was actually a Barnes and Noble warehouse issue.

I don’t have anyone here. It’s just me, c’est moi, c’etait moi. It was me. If it if it goes wrong, you’ll have you’ll have to come to me and say, Sooz, we’re so mad. So that will be interesting. We’ll see how that goes. There is more control, but also more at stake, I suppose. And again, since I’m not getting paid, it’s all out of pocket for me. The costs of all of this stuff. So we shall see.

I was thinking, and I will put this in the show notes so that people just know in case they don’t listen this far, I will do some follow-up videos probably, or just posts talking about everything, how the rollout goes, what I learn. Again, the difference between traditional, my traditional public publishing experiences, and this, which is technically my adult debut.

Wow! And normally in publishing, you would make your adult debut a really big moment. It’s a big deal. And instead, I’m hopefully not squandering it on this quieter release. But I’m excited. I’m excited. It feels very full circle. It is the first book I wrote, except a completely new take on it with 17 years of experience under my belt, and ultimately it did end up being becoming a completely different story, because even though I tried to always, I tried so hard to use at least the same some of the same big locations from the original, just in case there are any fans who were reading it who would be like, oh yeah, there’s the Dynamite Factory, but I’m a better writer.

Back then, I would make the characters do things for the sake of the plot, and now I cannot do that. The plot can only come from the character and the choices that they would logically make based on their needs and their motivation. And so, I couldn’t always find reasons for my characters to go to places that they did back then in the original.

And definitely, things happen in a different order. But I’m excited for anyone who is familiar with the first series. You’re gonna be like, “Whoa, this is similar but so different. And anyone who doesn’t remember it is gonna be like, “Oh, same vibes, same character names. Sure, maybe it’s the same. I don’t remember. Hopefully, either way, you have fun.

Okay, next question. See, this was why I was like, “This is gonna take at least two videos, because I ramble.

What am I most excited about for this release? This is still Taylor’s question.

I am really excited about this book. I just I had so much fun writing it, and I’m just, I think it’s really fun. And that has actually been the number one sort of feedback comment from readers so far, it’s just really fun. So I hope you read it and you’re just like, wow, that was such a fun time. It got a little spooky at times, or a little dark and intense because it is, you know, necromancy and zombies and stuff. But it never stopped being fun. And Eleanor as a character, I just think she’s a delight. I enjoy being in her head. She’s nothing like me. I wish that I was like her. She’s nothing like me.

Okay, Taylor, you had another question, but I’m gonna save that for when I talk about creative life stuff.

All right, next up, Katt has asked: setting up your own publishing company, how hard is it? Katt with 2t’s, not hard at all.

It really depends on how intense you want to go, right? Some people set up LLCs in order to and separate bank accounts in order to give themselves liability protection and/or just to keep things organized.

Other people just throw up a book and put it out there, KDP is not hard to set up. I’m also going to be distributing through IngramSpark, and full disclosure, my agency is helping me with that just because they have a lot of experience with the stuff, and so they are also helping me. So I’m not totally solo as I figure my way through this, but I have also done a lot to educate myself.

I took a fantastic, very intense. I mean, I cannot believe she gives you so much information. It seems like a lot of money, but it is not given the volumes of content you get. I mean, it walks you from beginning to end, and that is Sarah Cannon’s Publish & Thrive course. Highly recommend. Highly recommend. Sarah’s fantastic.

From just anything, anytime I see her online, anything she’s ever put out, she does the HB 90 planning, which I use that planner still. I never actually took the course, but I use her planner all the time. I find it very helpful for my scattered brain who doesn’t like to. I don’t like to plan everything daily, as you all know. I have the journey, but it does help me sort of lock in on how long things might take, and realistically versus Susan’s positivity, always optimistic [C1] outlook, which I never seem to actually succeed with. Sure, that’ll take me a week, she says. Then three weeks later, they is when they actually get it. So yeah, Sarah Cannon, Publish & Thrive. Highly, highly recommend.

But if you don’t want to spend the money, I totally understand. All of this information is out there. Indies are so generous with sharing how to do things. So just a Google search is going to give you so much information. And yes, you do have to wonder, do you trust? But I think you can tell. You know, we’ve all gotten pretty savvy, right, in today’s age at telling who’s legit and who’s not. So you can decide.

Yeah. All right. So not that hard to set up company. You don’t need to set up a company. You can just publish it as yourself. It really just depends on how complicated you want it to be. There you go. I have an LLC, but I have an LLC anyway because I have this Substack. I have my academy. I just for bank account purposes, it flows through that. It’s just easier for me, but you don’t. You don’t need to do that. You really don’t.

Okay. Next question. I’m not used to talking this much. Oh, all at once. My voice is getting shot. Such a weakling.

All right, Sarah. Hello, Sarah.

Exciting. I would love so much to know how to even get started in self-publishing. One of my biggest challenges is that I do not have much of a social media presence, and I don’t know how to build one. I see you, girl. Love writing, but I greatly dislike much of what social media has become. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Substack is one of the few platforms I still engage with, and even then, I’m fairly limited. Learning how to handle that aspect of self-marketing would be hugely helpful. And seconding the negative energy, this was in response to Taylor’s other question. It’s the worst time to be a debut. Get offline.

It’s true. It’s true. I will repeat that when I do the creative writing advice here. I’m gonna make a little note. I color coded my question, so I’ll make sure I put the blue next to that one so I repeat it again. But yes, okay, Sarah.

Again, like I said for Cat, Google’s your best friend right now. If you even want to know how to get started, I think it can seem really overwhelming because there’s so much you have to do yourself and so much you have to think of, and there’s so many things I didn’t think of.

So for example, I have this amazing cover, and initially when it was just going to be something Strange & Deadly, the original trilogy that I was throwing back up on Kindle, I was just going to throw it in KU. I need a cover for that, but I wasn’t going to do paperbacks or anything. I was just going to throw it up in KU, see what it did. But now, because I wrote a new book and I’m very invested in it, I’m really proud of it, and I think my current readers would just really love it because it’s such a Susan Dennard book. If you like Susan Dennard books in the last five years, last 10 years, you’re gonna love this one. I wanted to do a paperback.

Well, for a paperback, you need a full jacket because it’s printed right, it has to have a back cover and a spine. I didn’t think of this, duh, duh. But I didn’t think of it, and so that was one of those things that’s just today, literally today, I got the final jacket. So even then, I think I’m gonna have to make a few tweaks on my own.

Which is one of the things too to go back to costs and things. I had to pay for, make sure you pay for the full commercial license and that you own what you get because then I can modify and mess with it. So for example too, I’ve made I’ve animated the cover in Adobe After Effects because I just I love doing that. I’ve been a long time Adobe After Effects and Premiere user, and so this is a fun. It’s the perfect cover to pull apart and animate. So I animated the bells and the candle, and I couldn’t have done that, right? You have to have the right kind of license to do that with art. And so for me though, because I bought the whole thing and I paid that money. I can do that. So that’s just a side note to consider.

Going back to costs, but things also that I didn’t think of: the jacket copy. Oops. Hey, Leo, dude. I need a full covered spine. Everything. Can you do that? And he can. And of course, he had to charge me more. But yeah, I just got it today, and I’m like, oh, this book comes out in 10 days. Phew, thank God, we got that in time. Hopefully, I can get that, the paperback probably a few days later than the ebook, depending on how long Amazon and IngramSpark take to process and approve me. We’ll see. Fingers crossed, it’s not too long.

So yeah, there’s just a lot of things that you don’t think of, and so, and I think it could seem really overwhelming, but take it one thing at a time, right? First, first and foremost, you need a book. You need a finished book. Second, you need an edited book. I urge people to work with professional editors, but of course, not all editors are made equally, so oh wait just a second.

I’m back. Sorry about that. My phone, because I get really in the zone on things and I lose track of time. I have alarms set to remind me to pick up my kid from school, so it’s about to go off. But don’t worry, I have time. She does after school program, so we’re good for now.

Okay, where was I? Editors-they’re not all made equally, so these are the sorts of things you need to sort of figure out on your own.

I am someone who would hire someone I know who’s probably worked in traditional just because that’s what I’m used to, but that’s also going to be really expensive. You know, they charge a whole lot of money, and we all have budgets, so I understand not. I understand people skimping there and not skimping is the wrong word, but I understand people not using editors, and you know, to each their own. That’s totally up to you. But if I was going to spend for me, if the number one cost would be in that editorial space, especially if it’s my first book or early in my career.

At this point, I’ve published 14 books. Two more are coming out in the next year, so they’re already done. So that means 16 through you know with editors with publishers. Two more after that already lined up with HarperCollins that are mostly written. I have a Strange & Deadly book this year, so that’s 18, 19 books, and there’s still more on my hard drive that I finished. So I feel pretty confident in my own editorial skills. But even then, I think it’s really important to have other people read and critique and give you thorough, rigorous feedback.

So just all this is to say, there’s a lot of steps, a lot of things you need to do. You get your editor, you get it edited, and once you’ve got that, then what do you? What’s next, right? And

I, I am not gonna reinvent the wheel when there are a million again people out there teaching this and have checklists for you to look at, so Google it, find that, and just remember, it might seem like a lot, but it’s one thing at a time, just one thing at a time. And a lot of this stuff doesn’t actually take that long. Setting up a KDP account, Kindle for Kindle, for Amazon doesn’t take that long. But then, meanwhile, working with a cover artist could take a while, depending on their workflow. So there’s things you just-it might seem like a lot. Some are bigger, some are smaller, some are more expensive. It’s just kind of up to you to go along with it.

And then your question about social media presence-I mean, I have zero social media presence now, but obviously, I built a following before social media became a horrific hellscape.

I back on Twitter was Twitter, and it was super fun. I really, I loved Twitter. I built a really great following there, and then, Twitter became X and then early days of Instagram. You know, they would show your posts to the people who actually followed you instead of caring about this algorithm and pushing you toward video and all of that, which is just not for me. So and.

Now, I have not budged. I’ve stayed at 33,000, 34,000, just kind of waffles up and down for years. And admittedly, I am not on at all anymore. But last year I was. Last year I would install the app pretty much every day or every other day. Post and delete the app again, and maybe it knew that, so it penalized me. But I had posts that would go viral. I had one that got two and a half million views, and guess what happened. I didn’t sell more books, and instead I just got inundated with bot follows.

Sorry, but no, that is not what I’m here for. So all of this is to say that I support you not being on social media. I don’t think you need to be on social media. If you like Substack, then I actually think that’s a good place to be.

People do engage here, and I still believe in the power of a newsletter. People have given you their email for a reason, and admittedly, it’s not quite like a newsletter on Substack because people do-it’s-it’s lower cost to sign up and follow someone, especially if you have an account and you’re already logged in. All you have to do is kind of click follow or click subscribe, and so people tend to subscribe and follow more often. And then after a post or two where they’re like, “Never mind, this isn’t what I came here for. I liked that one thing she did, but she doesn’t do much of that. They unsubscribe, but I still Most people are subscribing to you because they want to get information from you, and unlike Instagram, where they can follow you, they’re not going to see your posts. At least in Substack, you know they’ve subscribed, and that information, your emails are going to land in their inbox, and hopefully they’ll read them. So I think that’s good. Stay here, go for it. Build up, build up a Substack following.

Just be aware. So, I have two newsletters, right? I split my writing advice from my books because what I was finding is no shade on you guys. No one on my writing advice newsletter was buying my books.

Well, it used to be that I had one. They were one, and I had a lot of lot of subscribers, certainly compared to most people’s newsletters. But they just weren’t converting to sales, and I realized I would be better served splitting because the people who are here for writing advice don’t care about my books. Alas, I wish you did. It would be great. It would help me feed my kid. It would help me not be so nervous about this release next week. But such is life. And instead, the people who wanted my book stuff were this group. So I split the two.

I try not to talk too much about my books over here because I people don’t want to hear it; they unsubscribe. So, just give you free writing advice instead, and yeah. And then the fans who want the writing stuff, the non writing stuff, who want just the book stuff, they’re over there.

So I would just be aware of that. If you’re gonna talk about X, then when it comes time to sell your book, that’s about why people might not want it, and they may not convert to sales. So just be careful about the content that you put out there and how it aligns with your book. And I have I’ve have this with friends who are influencers in some way, and yet they can’t seem to get those people to convert to their books because people come to them for maybe I don’t know fashion or hot takes, and then their book is, you know, I’m trying to think of some random genre, and all I can think of is my own genre. So we’ll just say a Gilded Age romp through Philadelphia with zombies, and people don’t want it. So understandable.

Next question that is on this subject. Lots and lots and lots about world building or writing, and some about creative life. And here we go.

Some practical questions that I’ve always wondered about for self-publishing. How do you actually do it? See earlier questions and answers for details. Do you only have e-books available, or will you have printed copies? And how do you get printed copies? Where do you sell printed copies in our e-books? How do you get them to be available for purchase? And can your book be picked up by a library?

Okay, so this is one of those things that I think is really commonly misunderstood in traditional publishing, I have a sales team, right? Whose job it is is to go to bookstores and be like, “Yo, you know Susan Dennard, do you guys know you liked that last book from her? She’s got another one coming. Don’t you want it? You should stock it in your store. And so the stores who can be like, “You know, we have sold a lot of her books. We will stock more of her books. Thanks for letting us know. Or they might be like, you know, she’s not selling that well here, but give me an early copy, and we, I, the bookseller, will decide if I think my store audience would like it. Or they just might be like, no, sorry, I don’t even know who that is. No, not.

And so I have a sales rep, and that sales rep—they are not just one, but many. They go all around the country, and they are selling books, pitching it to bookstores on behalf of the publisher.

If you’re an indie author, you don’t have that, right? And so it’s really going to be down to personal relationships and going to bookstores, and if you know if you have some evidence, if there’s some evidence, like you have sold a lot of books in the past, and they can see that number if they look at something where they can see your sales somewhere, then they might say, yeah, you know, we’ll stock you or your local author. You know, I’ve people love to not always, but especially in a small town or something, indie stores are usually willing to, or often willing to support indie authors.

They might be willing to buy a copy or two of your book to put on the shelf. But you cannot expect your book to be in every store. You certainly can’t expect it to be in every Barnes and Noble. My book sure ain’t in every Barnes and Noble. And Barnes and Noble has been very supportive of me in my career. I owe a lot to them as a company and a bookstore. So, but that doesn’t matter, right? They stock and they distribute based on where they think the book’s going to sell. It doesn’t matter who you are. It just is. It’s a business choice.

So I see people getting upset because an indie bookstore won’t stock their indie book, but the two aren’t. They have to make money. Books don’t make very much money. It’s very low profit margin. So unless there’s some really clear evidence or reason for them to do it, that’s their choice.

If they want to stock your book, though, then the best way to do that is to have your book. As far as I’m aware, if there are indie authors watching this who have alternative approaches, please, I would love to know them. But my understanding is the best way to do that is to go through IngramSpark, and IngramSpark is where then the indie bookstores can get on and see, oh, look at that, you’ve got, you do have your book, and I can order you know copies for the store, and I, I think the same is true. You know what? Let me check this before I say it. Yes, I was right. Just wanted to make sure. Yes, libraries are same, same thing. IngramSpark. They can look in the IngramSpark. But same as with an indie store, they may not. They may not want to stock your book. They have limited budgets. Are they going to want to spend their money on your book? So don’t be offended if they don’t, they don’t just take it or buy it or whatnot. Put it on their shelves, because also too in traditional, I have library, I have a school library team, I have a team that goes to libraries and pitches my books to librarians and really nurtures those relationships so that the librarians and there’s also publications, right, that have reviews. So a library might get Booklist or School Library Journal, and they can read the reviews and say, yeah, that’s a good fit for my school or not, or that yeah, that’s good fit for my library or not.

So there are places in the traditional world that naturally it’s an ecosystem that’s very well established, and that’s not to say that that doesn’t exist yet in indie, but it’s not like that yet. I think it’s growing and changing because indie is really dominating these days, so that will become more and more common. And I think, from my understanding, is IngramSpark does make you make it easier to make those connections, and certainly if they do decide to stock or put your book on shelves, be it a library or store, they can do that.

The printed copies, like what I’m doing for print, is what a lot of people do, which is just print on demand. So Amazon, Barnes and Noble Press—or B&N Press, I guess is what they’re called—and IngramSpark all do print on demand, so somebody orders it, it is printed in the moment and sent. But they also each take a cut because that costs money, right? And so you just have to think about those costs. I don’t actually, I’m sure it exists, but I don’t know anybody who prints ahead of time, not for paperback anyway. Hardcover is different, which I’m not doing at this point. But maybe one day down the road, if there was an interest or a reason. But for now, I’m just doing ebook and paperback. And it is. Don’t forget to have a jacket, a full jacket. But other than that, it is. They make it pretty seamless and easy to do.

All right. What do I miss most about being a trad pub author? I am not leaving traditional, so I don’t have to answer that. Nothing. I still have four more books coming with HarperCollins, and hopefully I will sell them more. So, or if not them, someone else. I can. I plan to continue to traditionally publish in the YA space because I really need that distribution connection and library and school connection, which I don’t feel like I can get on my own. I know I can’t, and I just if I want to continue to be you know in the right schools and libraries and on state lists and things like that, which also helps with exposure. A lot of libraries will look at their state list to see what to stock. I yeah, I’m going to continue to stay in traditional for that, and who knows, maybe do all of my adults in indie. We’ll see how this experiment goes.

And what am I most scared of? What was I most scared of before I started? I don’t know. I don’t. I wasn’t scared before I started. Before I started, all I saw was possibility. Now I’m getting nervous.

Are people going to show up and buy it next week? Am I going to earn my money back? That would definitely be my main goal. Can I just break even, at the very least? And to be clear, I haven’t spent reams of money. I don’t have ream. I don’t have reams of money to spend, but I have put more on the line than I certainly have for any past book, pretty much.

So I just would like to make my money back at break even, and then most I guess I have the same fear that I would have with any book, which is I hope people like it. I think it’s really fun. I loved writing it, and so whenever people are disappointed in a book, I take it personally. Not, not as an like a. I mean, yeah, I do feel sort of like I failed, but I mostly just feel like terrible that I let people down. If it doesn’t, if they don’t have as much fun as I thought they would, I always feel like I have failed them in some way, and I don’t like that feeling. It’s not a nice feeling.

So, yeah, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and that you do take you know for the however long you spend reading it, that readers come away like, Wow that was awesome, and not like Damn, Sooz. I’m never reading another book by you, but we’ll see. We’ll see very soon.

Next question about self-publishing. I have been talking for quite a while already. See, I knew this would happen.

Oh wow! As someone in the midst, this is Becky, of trying to figuring out how to self-publish, self-republish a YA fantasy series which sold poorly originally. I understand. I just got the rights back too. I have so many questions. I wish I could just ride along and watch everything you do….

(I will actually, like I said, try to give as much of lessons learned before after. Here’s what I figured out here’s what I did differently, so you can sort of sit on my shoulder and watch.)

…which platforms are you looking at selling.

I’m doing right now, I’m doing KDP Kindle for ebook and so KDP, which is Amazon for ebook and print on demand, Barnes & Noble ebook and print on demand, and then I’m going through IngramSpark for everything else. That might change. The nice thing is that it seems like you can just toggle things off and on. If I find, oh my gosh, people on Kobo love my book, and I don’t want to lose a cut of my Kobo income to IngramSpark, I can turn it off on IngramSpark and set it up on Kobo instead. Maybe I’m still figuring this out. See,

I and you can go, you can be on Amazon and go wide. It’s just the question of if you’re in KU, Kindle Unlimited. Although my understanding is you can pitch to Kindle Unlimited, and they might accept you in. That’s certainly how it works with traditional, right? Because the Witchlands is in KU. Read them all now if you’d like. Entire series in KU, but it also is sold widely. So my understanding is you can pitch them, but you might not be accepted. So we’ll see. But for now, I’m not planning to be in KU. I might eventually because the Witchlands has actually done decently well in KU, and it would be nice to capitalize on that.

Number two from Becky. Does my marketing and strategy change at all for self-pub compared to what I do in trad pub? Not really.

I make graphics. I deliver the information to my fans on my newsletter, predominantly, but also on Instagram. Make some reels. I love making reels. I mean, I don’t like reels. I like making videos. I like editing videos. I’ve been doing it since I was in college. I feel like if I hadn’t become a writer, I would have become a music video edit, like director or something. Not even the director. I just want to edit the footage. So yeah, I like that part, but I’m not really doing anything differently. The big thing that will be different is that I will be doing my own ads. So we’ll see how that goes.

I’ve run some ads before, like for the academy. It can be effective, but it does require a lot of management. So we’ll see. But I do think ads are pretty important when you’re indie published. So if you’re not into that, then that’s you know something to consider a point in traditional’s favor, I suppose. So yeah, I’m gonna be running ads. We’ll see how that goes. It’ll be a learning experience for sure. That’s really the only difference. Yeah.

Okay, I’m about. This is from Shante. I’m about to indie pub my 10th book in three years. Dang! Look at you. I’m impressed. I love being indie. I hope you will as well. Thank you. With that said, I’ve been considering making the leap to hybrid, but I’m a control freak and have had mixed experiences working experiences working with audio publishers and foreign publishers. So I’d love to know your favorite parts of being a true author. And do you think it’s better or easier to sell all of your rights to a book, or better to sell only certain rights like print?

Yeah, don’t sell all your rights. No. And anyone who tries to get, I mean, most publishers, traditional publishers, are gonna want print and ebook because that’s just standard. But I am seeing more and more indie authors only negotiate print rights. So do that for sure. Don’t tell them I told you that; they’re gonna hate me. But do that for sure if you can. But other all the other rights, the only you can do audio if they do audio. So HarperCollins does my audio and my Print slash ebook for the upcoming Murder Quartet. Tor did audio for one of my series. They did my ebooks as well—or not ebooks, my audio books. I sold them the rights to that as well, but not for the Witchlands. We sold those separately, so it just depends on if you want to sell them your audio rights or not.

What else? do I think it’s do do? Also, I love to hear how the YA market has changed since the pandemic. Oh man, okay, we’ll save that question for when I talk about creative life because it’s relevant to that. I’ll mark it with blue.

But yeah, I mean, look, I don’t know how easy. I don’t know your circumstances, so I don’t know how easy it is for you to get a traditional deal. There are certainly advantages to again going back to distribution. You have those channels, right, which can be really worth it, right? If you want to get into airports, you know, or Sam’s clubs; those are things that a traditional publisher can do for you. Maybe depends on the place, right? My Roomba had turned on. Let me turn that off, and I’m back. I will have to leave shortly to get my kid. Now, Roomba is my other alarm.

So, I think there are definitely advantages in that regard, but the markets are changing. Things are changing so much. If you really have (there goes my dog!) a big team and strong infrastructure in place already, some people are finding their own paths to that stuff.

It just depends on what you need. I do know many an author from indie who’s gone traditional and then really, really struggled with that lack of control, and it’s not even a lack of control; it’s a lack of transparency. I do not say this to disparage publishers in any way. I’m used to this. This is how it works. They don’t tell you anything, and you just kind of get used to it that you will never be part of the loop, or they will sugarcoat things where you’re like, I know that’s not why you’re really doing this. Just be honest with me, but they don’t. So

I can see it’s hard enough when you’re you’ve only been in traditional to deal with that stuff, to come from a place where you did have full control and you did understand the decision behind every choice you made to a place where you’re like, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would you do it this way? And you don’t get an answer, and you will never get an answer. That can be really hard. So I think it’s worth considering that, and talking to indie authors who’ve gone traditional and how that experience has gone for them, because it’s very different from a trad author going indie.

Yeah. All right. I need to hurry. So two more questions on left that I highlighted pink. So pink was for self-publishing Strange & Deadly questions. Okay,

Dom says hello. How did you find the typesetting process? In 2006, I used QuarkXPress 5, and whilst I didn’t make any mistakes, I don’t think my text was formatted properly. As for the cover, did you go for a specific design to prevent spine format issues where the spine itself didn’t match up with the width of the printed book. I’m guessing the ebook process is pretty straightforward. Anything else you found really difficult you’d like to share? Thank you.

All right, Dom. I think I mentioned this earlier. I used InDesign typesetting. It’s a lot, but there are so many walkthroughs on the internet on how to use it. I found it to be crunchy at first, and even still, I’m like, I don’t know how to do this. Google. But once I got the basics, and now I have a template set up for the Strange & Deadly series. So now when I it’s time for me to put in book two, I’ve already got everything set up the way I want it.

But you don’t even you don’t need to use InDesign. You don’t need to go that fancy or that complicated. Vellum, if you have a Mac, is very user friendly, very user friendly, and Atticus I think is the one for PC if you have Microsoft, so you don’t have to go difficult like I did. I made my life harder, and like I said too for the spine, I. When it comes to all these print-on-demand places, they give you a template. You have to put in your ISBN. They then put a barcode for your ISBN on the book template, and then for me, I gave that template to my cover designer, and he made the full spine with that template. So what he gave back to me matches exactly what I need to upload.

Anything? Oh, in the ebook process, yes, very straightforward. Especially if you don’t use InDesign and you use something else, which Vellum plays really nice at making you an ebook from and print version. Although you do, to print, you need the full software for Vellum, which is not a subscription, which is nice. It’s 200 and something dollars, 240 maybe, to get the print and ebook. If you’re only doing ebook, I think it’s much cheaper. I don’t, I don’t remember, but it’s a one-time fee versus my Adobe subscription, which they take out of my account every month. That’s a lot of money. Adds up real fast.

So yes, nothing else I found that difficult. The most difficult thing has definitely been the typesetting. So far, we’ll see once we release.

One more question from me. This is Dom again being sneaky. Did you use a pseudonym at all? And if you did, do you use your newsletter subscriber list from Substack to send emails about your new book.

No, I don’t have a pseudonym. I should have. If I could go back to 2009-, 2010-Sooz who sold her first book to HarperCollins when she was a bright-eyed 20-something. How old was I? 26. It’s like 20. Oh my God, 26-year-old. I’m trying to figure out if that math is right, but I’m pretty sure that math is right. Yes, 16 years ago.

I wanted the world to know Susan Dennard wrote this book. And if I could go back in time, I would not use my name. I would use a pseudonym for sure, for privacy reasons and just for protection reasons. And I didn’t see the internet turning into what the internet is today, so there are advantages to a pseudonym. If, but no, my name is Susan Dennard, and it is Susan Dennard on the Substack, and it is Susan Dennard online, and it’s Susan Dennard on my books.

So yeah, I think if you want to use a pseudonym, then start an online profile with that pseudonym. That’s what lots of people do, and then that is your online persona. That’s the name you use everywhere online, and it’s what’s on your books. So there we go.

All right, I believe that is the last of my indie-related questions, at least for now. I will come back because there are more questions. Not about this topic, topic though. I will come back with stuff about the writing, creative life, the challenges of that, and the publishing life. Some of you asked some awesome questions about gaming. Many thanks. I’m excited to answer those, and yeah, thank you for listening. Thank you for asking questions. If you have follow-up questions, feel free to put them in the comments here. That’s probably the easiest way for me to keep track of them. If you have new questions, the AMA is still technically open, so go throw them on there.

And yeah, Strange & Deadly is coming out in 10 days from this recording. I just released the cover. I’ll put the cover actually along with this video so you guys can see it because I’m really pleased with how it turned out. You know, I got what I paid for, and I paid for something beautiful. So it was it was worth the money to me, and I think it will just look fantastic once it’s in a bookstore. You’re scrolling by. I think it’s very eye catching, and it’ll look fantastic once I get a print on demand copy. We shall see. I don’t have it. I’ve never seen a physical copy before. It is fraught.

That is one thing I will say I’m struggling with is just the timeline. In traditional publishing, you finish your book, and then it’s like, all right, I’m gonna twiddle my thumbs for six months while I wait for the all of the stuff to happen behind the scenes. You know, the sales reps I mentioned, the school and library reps, the marketing team, the publicity team, all these people setting all that up.

You know, I’m in constant contact these days with my HarperCollins marketing and publicity person people. It’s two people, and then I’m sure they have people working under them. And it’s wonderful, it’s great. But that book doesn’t come out until the end of January. It’s months away, and I am in as much contact with them as I am with the people helping me do the self-publishing stuff.

So it’s an interesting. It’s interesting to see how short the timeline is. But I’m also excited about it. I it means I can finish writing this sequel because I’ve written a whole new sequel, of course. Too. It’s even more different from the original. I’m struggling even more to get back to those original. Set pieces of the second book than I did with book one. We’ll see. It might deviate significantly more in terms of locations. We’ll see, but it’ll be cool. I’ll be able to finish it, edit it, edit it, and then publish it. There’s no waiting.

So that will be very interesting. So, but that’s also stressful, right? Because I’m like, oh my god, there’s so much to do. Can we get it all done? Yes, I can get it all done. Lots of indie authors do this all the time. So it just seems like it’s a lot to do. But 10 days, 10 days. I hope you guys will support me.

And yeah, stay tuned for another AMA. I will try to get it out next week, but we’ll see if I can find time to record or not. But that’s my that’s my hope. Okay, bye! Thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for being awesome.

First off, I’m opening this AMA to the broader public instead of just paid subscribers. The main reason being that I figured a lot of you will have questions about my next big endeavor.

Which is self-publishing.

I have published 14 novels traditionally, and I have 4 more coming in the next two years. But I’ve decided to take my adult debut—the Strange & Deadly reboot—and independently publish it. This month, in fact, if all goes well.

It’s been a fascinating journey so far, and on the one hand, I’ve loved having so much control. How do I want the chapter headings to look? What font do I want this telegram to be in? How much do I want to charge for the paperback versus the ebook?

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On the other hand…if this book fails, it’s all on me. I’ll have spent money getting a topnotch cover from an incredible artist. I’ll have spent money on software (InDesign, eg) and ads. And I’ll have spent hours on hours on hours getting everything just right. So any mistakes that crop up or errors that appear in the files or mishaps that hit during the roll out…

I’ll have no one to blame but myself. 😬 (Every time I think that, I start singing Radiohead’s “Just.”)

All of this is to say: ASK ME ANYTHING. I won’t answer in the comments here, but I’ll instead accumulate questions for a big post later this month.

And of course, the word ANYTHING is key! Your questions don’t have to be just about my publishing or writing or craft advice. I’ll answer more personal and fun stuff too.

Thanks, dear readers and fellow writers!

💚 - Sooz

Evolution of a Voice

One of the most “educational” things I’ve taken from tackling the Strange & Deadly project has been seeing how much I’ve developed a voice and style in the last seventeen years.

I wrote the first draft of my debut novel in 2009. It was the first novel I ever finished, and it wasn’t very good.

I knew it wasn’t very good back in 2009, so I spent a year educating myself on craft, rewriting as I learned, and working with critique partners. (I also spent that year heavily learning how the industry worked, writing + polishing my query letter, and researching agents.)

I got my agent in October 2010, then I was fortunate enough to sell the original Something Strange & Deadly to HarperCollins shortly after. Hooray! My career began because of that book, so I owe it...

Well, everything.

I also owe everything I have now to that stubborn 2009 Susan who stuck with a book she knew could be better with enough time and effort.

As many of you know, Something Strange & Deadly didn’t “meet expectations,” as they say in the industry.

In other words, it didn’t sell.

The sequels especially went nowhere.1

And look: I don’t blame my publisher for the series’ failure. No one can make readers buy books, and HarperCollins not only published the entire trilogy when they could have easily cancelled due to low sales, they actually gave the books a second shot with a cover repackage after Truthwitch performed well.

Alas, no one could make fetch happen. The repackages didn’t save the Something Strange & Deadly series, And a few years ago, the sales were low enough annually for the books’ rights to revert back to me.

Cool, I thought. I’ll take these three finished books and the prequel novella, and I’m throw them up on Kindle Unlimited.

Fast forward to winter of this year: I still hadn’t gotten around to the “throw them up” plan. Mostly because I knew I wanted to at least give the books a light edit to address some sensitivity issues. And a lovely editor (hey, Kate!) even went so far as to comb through the books for me to help me find areas I could improve.

So in March, I opened the Word document she sent me for book 1…

And this was the face I made immediately: 😱

To be clear: that face was for my own writing. Not Kate’s minor notes.

Because oh no. Oh no. THAT was my opening sentence? My opening paragraph?!

It didn’t even read like a Susan Dennard book. The sentences were clumsy, my main character did whatever the plot dictated without any real cohesion in her motives or emotions, and all the characters were two-dimensional stereotypes.

Oh no.

So I started from the first sentence, thinking I’d just go line by line and try to improve the prose.

Well, that plan derailed before I was even finished with Chapter One. Because by the end of Chapter One, I had a new Eleanor with a completely different voice and personality. She suddenly had different motives, far more depth, nuance, and calculation to her character, and whoopsie! That meant the plot had to change in turn…

So over the next three weeks, I wrote the first two thirds of a completely new book.2

Thus was Strange & Deadly born.

And thus was one of the most fun books I’ve ever written born. I had so much FUN writing that book. Just pure joy, even when I inevitably got stuck in the final 40% and spent two months in a quagmire. Even the usual “quagmire” of my intuitive process became a joy.

New Eleanor was just a total blast to hang out with.

If you plan to read the new Strange & Deadly (coming out soon! Details to come!) and you ever read my debut Something Strange & Deadly back when it was in print, you probably will just say, “Oh, okay. Same story. Cool.” Because you won’t remember enough to recognize how much I changed.

The vibes with necromancy and 1876 Philadelphia are the same, after all. And the same character names populate the book (Eleanor, Daniel, Jie, etc.). I still send Eleanor to many of the same broad locations like the Centennial Exhibition or a dynamite factory. And I do still have the same bones of magic built in (necromancy! ghosts! animated corpses!). And oh yes, even the opening premise is the same: her brother doesn’t arrive on a train.

But if you’ve read the original SS&D recently and were to then compare it to the new S&D, you’d say, Holy smokes, these are completely different books.

You’d also—more importantly—point to the new S&D and say, Oh yeah, that’s a pure Susan Dennard book right there.

The Humanness of Human “Generation”

So what is a Susan Dennard book? And why do I care about defining one?

As mentioned at the top, I started thinking about this a lot after I dove into the reboot.

But I’ve also been thinking about it a lot because we now exist in a world where we are inundated with AI writing. It’s in the emails we get, the articles we read, the books we pay for. Sometimes authors disclose their use, and I frankly respect their honesty. But most of the time, people just slip in AI-generated prose and hope the rest of us don’t notice.

Fine.

Whatever. I can get angry that people are laying claim to a “stolen valor” they haven’t earned.

Or I can just keep my eyes on my own page like I’ve always done and work to make my writing so clearly HUMAN you know exactly what you’re getting when you open a Susan Dennard book wide.

I jump genres a lot. For better or worse (mostly worse, let’s be real3) I can’t seem to stay in one lane.

This makes sales reps miserable. Especially since I’m also always mashing genres together, so they can’t easily pitch the book when they’re out talking to bookstores.

Erm, it’s cozy horror mystery romance? And yeah, it’s funny too.

Uh, I guess it’s gaslight fantasy with some horror and steampunk thrown in?

My love of jumping around is not going to change. Ever. And I’m okay with that. I am what would call an Island, meaning I write whatever the eff I want and I do not give a single, solitary bleeeeeep if there’s a market for it or not. (My poor, poor, long-suffering agent.)

But I think this is a good thing in today’s world. I am leaning into the ME-ness of my storytelling. And ME likes a lot of genres, especially when they’re smashed together.

I mean, I’d love to see Claude try to write a 1960s-vibes cosmic-horror, closed-door mystery with an ensemble cast, heavy themes on mortality, and a monster that spits out fortunes printed on tiny tickets before it consumes your soul.

Claude will write something, sure. But it won’t be what I write.

And people come to me for what I write.

This brings me to the idea of a “writer’s DNA.” You could also call it a “fingerprint,” I suppose, but I like DNA because of the incredible complexity, detail, and scale contained in an elegant, predictable structure. DNA can be flawed, it can mutate, it can even lead to terrible pain...

But my DNA is my DNA; your DNA is your DNA; and AI just can’t copy it no matter how much it might try.

SIDE NOTE: I can already feel some of you adding the word yet to my last sentence. And sure. Maybe one day, ChatGPT will be able to create a book that reads exactly like something I would have written.

But then, all the more reason for me to lean into my ME-ness now. All the more reason for me to give you all the things I write now, and all the more reason for me to write, write, write in the most Susan Dennard way possible. Then, when the future comes and Gemini4 can copy Susan Dennard, you’ll actually know right away that it’s a copy.

Because you’ll be able to look over at me—the REAL HUMAN BEING who loves writing with every Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, and Guanine in her double helix—and say, Nope, Sooz didn’t write that book. I know because I follow the human, and this isn’t on her list of titles.

My Writer DNA

So finally, to end this, I want to share the DNA I’ve (so far) come up with for a Susan Dennard book.

And I want all of you to start thinking about your DNA. What are the unique “tells” that mark your writing? What are the story ideas or sentence structures you fall back on again and again?

Here’s what I have on my list thus far—in no order and with no organization at all:

• All my characters have a very distinctive “superpower” which directly flavors how they see a scene, how they act in a scene, and what their thoughts look like directly for the reader to read.

  • Winnie (from The Luminaries) knows the Nightmare Compendium by heart. So even completely unrelated scenes and setups get compared to nightmares and their adaptations/ecology. Metaphors also rely on this imagery, and her obsessive knowledge saves her life many times throughout the series.

  • Eleanor (in the new Strange & Deadly) is a deeply devoted fan of Shakespeare. Much of her life is framed through her knowledge of the plays and what the many characters do in myriad situations. And, in a few instances, her knowledge is literally what saves her life (I won’t spoil how that works!).

  • Iseult has a literal “superpower” in her Threadwitch magic (from the Witchlands series), but her more character-based “superpower” is all her Nomatsi training that allow her to control her emotions, control her feelings, and rely on logic to move through the world.

• I will wound, kill, and permanently scar my characters. SORRY, readers. But it’s true.5

• I always end my stories with hope. Even the really intense and brutal ones have a note of hope at the end.

• There are always moments of humor. Like, I love me a joke, running gag, and witty banter to lighten the shadows.

• I love a “thinking spiral.” Like...this is maybe the most distinctive thing about my writing: I will take phrases that came before, then I will repeat them as italicized thoughts for my character. This shows where their brain is spinning/chewing while also keeping key details at the front of the reader’s mind.

  • Some characters do this more than others—it depends on their personality. Winnie and Eleanor are more “stressed-out” types, so they call back especially often.

• I love a call-back for resonance.

  • If you go read the romance scenes in Witchlight between Aeduan and Iseult, you’ll see that many of the sentences are “mined” from early books. I reframed and rearranged the sentences, of course, but I want the reader to feel the resonance of their romance coming full-circle.

• I LOVE including in-world fables and framing.

  • The Luminaries books have prologues told in a fable-like voice.

  • My project, Sector 26 (which is a weird post-apocalyptic dystopian horror with WWII vibes) is framed with in-world fables in the prologue. And those fables are then woven throughout the books, foreshadowing the tale (and its outcomes) ahead.

  • The Witchlands is truly rife with in-world fables and songs. And almost all of them end up foreshadowing the overall plot.

  • All of the Murder Quartet books and The Executioners Three use poems, Shakespeare, or nursery rhymes as spooky scaffolding for the plot.

• SECRETS HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT. This is actually probably the most SOOZ thing, and sorry if I sound a bit arrogant here—but it’s also the thing I think I’m really good at: I hide the most important details right where you can see them. But they mean nothing to you. And yes, sure—any good mystery will do that. But I’d like to think I take it up to eleven.

  • Go back and re-read the Witchlands after you’ve finished Witchlight. You’ll see it’s all there. Every single tiny hint was planted in the first half of book 1. It might be hidden in a song or a random line by a wayward prince about Paladins and their big swords...But it’s all there.

• Friendships! Epic, epic friendships and non-romantic relationships. Even in my more romance-focused books like The Executioners Three or the upcoming Four & Twenty Blackbirds (and the rest of the Murder Quartet), there are still vital friendships and non-romance relationships on the page.

• I write slow-burn romances built on yearning.

  • The “fastest” romances are in my standalone mysteries, and even then, it’s all about the aching yearn...

• I like to repeat things in pairs or triplets for rhythm and emphasis.

  • So I might say, She was running, running, but it was never fast enough.

  • Or, I slammed, slammed, slammed my heel into his face.

• I really like to write about sleeping gods and/or awakening gods.

• I love me a tortured immortal trickster character.

• I write books that are “harder” to read. I love dense world-building, and I love to complicate, complicate, complicate a plot for maximum twistiness.

  • But there are plenty of readers out there who love this too. So they know they can come to me to find it.

I’m sure there are so many more pieces that make up my unique DNA.

In fact, I bet there are many things my readers would point out that I have never even noticed!

But the point is that the list is long. And it’s a list I am actively trying to LEAN INTO.

You might pick up a sci-fi by Susan Dennard one day, but you can look at the above list and know most of those things will show up in the tale. Or you can pick up a cozy horror mystery romance and much of it will be there too.

To wrap this up: At the end of the day, I’m tired of being afraid that AI will come for my job and my readers.

And I’m really freaking tired of seeing AI-writing in every newsletter or reddit post or social media caption I read.

But I can’t make other people not use an LLM to produce theirs words. All I can really do is lean into my own Sooz-ness as I generate with my own brain each word that appears on this page.

The characteristics that make me human are what also make my output human; the DNA that defines my genetics is what also defines my prose and storytelling.

And I urge all of you to do as I am. Find what makes your writing exclusively yours and do more or it.

I truly believe it’s the best way to stake a spot in this confusing world of art and creation, and I truly believe—in turn—it’s our best weapon for fighting back.

💚 - Sooz

Latest News from the Desk of Sooz

Sorry I’ve been absent for July, friends. We went to visit the French family, then I came home to multiple deadlines.

But life has smoothed again, so I return from the depths of my office!

And in completely unrelated news, I’m finally watching Widow’s Bay—which, lo and behold, is just as good as everyone said it would be!

It’s also such a Sooz show and very much in line with what I write. Give me the horror and the laughs, thanks!

(And if you enjoyed Widow’s Bay, I highly recommend you check out The Executioners Three or my upcoming Four & Twenty Blackbirds.)

The Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series

We’re down to the VERY LAST ROUND-UP in the Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series, and as mentioned last time, this is a big one.

It would seem I have written quite a lot about the realities of publishing. And even as the industry itself has changed since I entered it in 2009, I think my advice is evergreen—because so much of “surviving in this business” is mindset-oriented.

Like, if I had to pick one single lesson to try learning, it’s that you cannot control the outcome. You can only control the words on the page.1

But before we get into that, here are all the other entries in this 7-part series:

1. Following the “Right” Story — Shared Feb. 16, 2026.

2. Building Characters & Worlds — Shared Mar. 9, 2026

3. Scenes, Sentences, & Series — Shared Apr. 6, 2026

4. Revisions & Editing — Shared Apr. 20, 2026

5. Finding Your Unique Process — Shared May 20, 2026

6. When Things Get Difficult — Shared June 10, 2026

7. Publishing: the Honest Truth — We are here!

Now onward to our final compilation!

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7. Publishing: the Honest Truth

If you’ve followed me since the early aughts, then you may recall that what first “broke me out” in the writing advice space was that I was really honest about the difficulties of traditional publishing.

Nowadays, everyone is honest and “authentic.”2 But back in 2011-2015 days, it was rare. We all wore smiles and were toxically positive about everything.

I wore a smile too…but I wasn’t always positive.

I’m still not today.

That said, I do always try to find some kind of positive spin for whatever I’m preaching on, while simultaneously offering concrete steps you can take to help your situation and/or mindset.

Because as mentioned above: if I had to pick one single lesson to TRY to learn in this industry, it’s that you cannot control the outcome. You can only truly control the words on the page.

But I’ll be the first to acknowledge that’s not an easy lesson to learn.

It takes effort to 1) familiarize yourself with the nuances of the industry so you understand what’s happening (and why it’s not personal), and 2) to accept the parts we’d all prefer would change.

As someone who has now been publishing for 17 years,, and as someone who has weathered lows and highs (and plenty more lows again), I’m here to tell you that longterm sustainability and even joy are possible.

But at the end of the day, I can never guarantee an agent will represent me, I can never guarantee a publisher will want to publish me, I can never guarantee the market will want what I’m publishing, and I never guarantee readers will enjoy.

All I can do is keep writing and (to help keep the joy) change what my metric of success looks like.

Now onward to the nitty gritty details!

The Big Lessons

Three Publishing Lessons I Wish I’d Learned Sooner: This is basically e’erything in a nutshell. It’s a good primer, in other words, on how I generally view this biz and what I prioritize.

What I Would Do Differently With a Career Do-Over: Ah, the joys of hindsight. It’s really interesting to look back and say, “Here’s what I wish I’d known sooner,” while also knowing I wouldn’t actually change anything—because how else would I have learned all I learned without experiencing it?

How Publishing Actually Works

How Books Get Publisher Support: Herein lies my very detailed timeline of how Truthwitch went from a book I was drafting (and discussing in my 2013 newsletters as I wrote!) to it hitting the New York Times list—and ultimately transforming the trajectory of my career for a while. But not forever.

Editorial Turnaround Times: Here I discuss what it’s like go from developmental editing to pass pages on the traditional side. I break down that process and offer tips for learning how to be a better editor.

Working With Developmental Editors: This piece is about when to hire a developmental editor and when to save your money. (Spoiler alert: I’m usually in favor of saving your money.)

Audio: How Authors Sell Their Next Projects: This is a deep dive into what it’s like for me to create a proposal (which is how I sell my next books to publishers) + how I choose what I want to try selling next.

Choosing the Best Path for Your Books Questions to ask before each project, when deciding whether to go indie or traditional. I’m obviously a traditional first author, but I’m pretty familiar with indie publishing—and I’m also diving into it for my Something Strange & Deadly series reboot this year. There are pros and cons to either direction, and the choice really boils down to you and your unique needs at this moment in time.

Two Things I Would Change About Publishing: What’s so depressing about this post is that very little has changed since 2024. If anything, everything I was worried about back then is so much worse now. 🥲

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Failure & Success

Audio: The Benefits of Failure: This is about how I expected it would feel to be “famous” versus the womp-womp reality. So many of us go into publishing thinking WE will be the exception to the rule—that WE will be the ones to break out and become the next Stephen King… But lol, no.

Writer Career Shifts: As someone who came from a different field into publishing, and who has since pivoted multiple times within publishing, I have some thoughts on making big changes!

My Books Ranked From Easiest to Hardest to Write: This post is less about actual publishing as a business, but since some of my hardest books were hard BECAUSE of the reality of publishing deadlines + pressures of success… Well, I decided to link to this post here.3

Promo & Marketing

Swag, Travel, Social Media, and Writing: This is about where and how to focus your efforts—based on what actually moved the needle for me (and what absolutely didn’t). BUT, please keep in mind, things are always changing and much of what I used to do is not what I do now.

Author Self Promo and Social Media: This was a live chat for premium subscribers on the my failures (and successes) with self-promotion. It’s a doozy, if I’m being honest.

Finding Your Social Media Spot...Or Not!: Not every platform is for every person. And maybe none of them are for you—which is okay too. I like Discord these days (and Substack), and that is IT. Once upon a time, however, I was all about Twitter and Instagram. People change, platforms change, and it’s okay to go where you want to go and when.

Standing Out in a Crowded Market: This is advice for querying writers in an increasingly difficult landscape. (Which has only gotten worse since the posting of this newsletter in 2024). To go back to my constant advice: all you can really control are the words on the page!

How to Support an Author If You Can’t Pre-Order: This is for the readers who want to help but can’t afford to pre-order books by authors they love. We get it! Truly we do! And there are so many other ways you can help us authors out.

Querying & Pitching

How to Write a 1-Page Synopsis: This is absolutely, hands-down my most popular and successful post of all time. It has migrated to a few different blogs/newsletters over the last 13+ years as I myself have moved around, but the content is unchanged (and evergreen).

Developing Your In-Person Pitch: Pitching your book in under thirty seconds is a skill not everyone has. But if you’re new to this whole publishing thing (indie or trad!), it’s good to be able to hook a reader in a few seconds. Here are my tips on how.

Going Full-Time

Quitting Your Day Job to Write Full Time: This post and the next should be read together so you understand the realities of this business. Follow your dreams, FOR SURE! But also please go in with clear eyes.

Income As An Author: Per the previous link, I really wish people would pay more attention to what income is actually like in this industry. A seemingly “big” deal gets small real fast when you spread it out over multiple payments (and then subtract agency fees and taxes). There’s a reason so many authors have day jobs!

PHEW.

And there you have it, friends. We’ve reached the end of the Misfits & Daydreamer Primer Series.

I’m sure there are many posts I’ve failed to link to, but I did my best! There is a lot of content on this Substack—and even more over on my Susan Dennard Writing Academy!

(Seriously: if you want even more insights or craft lessons, then go to the Academy. So much of the content over there is TOTALLY FREE!! You don’t have to give me your email or anything. You can just read and learn.)

I am now going to turn back to One Raven for a Dove—which is the final Murder Quartet installment. I was so, so stuck on it (for over a year!), and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve rewritten the first 30,000 words trying to crack the love interest…

BUT I FINALLY DID IT. (And yes, I’m certain I’ll do a post on that breakthrough soon.)

Thanks for reading, fellow misfits and daydreamers! Until next time. 👋

💚 - Sooz

Today was supposed to be the final newsletter in my Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series, but as frequently happens with me, I started writing my introduction…

And oh look at that. A completely unrelated thing poured out instead.

So let’s dive in.

Reaching Destinations

HOORAY! I finished another book! And I’m quite pleased with myself, if I’m being honest. 😌

Because not only does this mean I’ve now reached my “destinations” for the year (more on that below!), but it proves that leaning into my fluid creative approach has truly been effective for me.

And that’s what I want to talk about today: abandoning the shoulds and instead finding what works for you.

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Surprise Books

So what book did I finish?

It’s the Strange & Deadly reboot, and boy, has everything about this book been a surprise.

For one, I didn’t plan to write it.

I was only supposed to lightly edit my debut novel, Something Strange & Deadly. All of the books in the series, actually, were to be edited lightly then republished independently.1 Because why not? I have the rights back, and the books are currently just sitting unread on my hard drive.

But then I opened the manuscript…

And oh. I immediately hated the first line. So that needed to change.

And then that second line—not great either. Hmmm, this whole page just needs redoing, methinks.

Okay, okay, yeah, so the entire chapter doesn’t work. None of these emotions land for me, and why is my heroine Eleanor so tell-y instead of show-y? I just don’t write this way anymore!

Surely the second chapter will be better, and I won’t have to start from scratch again…

Ohhh, no. Nope. It’s just as bad. Worse, even. So let’s rewrite this one too. And hmmm, now I’m in chapter 3, and I just don’t think my character would do what I have her doing in the original. She’d actually do this different thing over here…

AND OFF I WENT, MY FRIENDS.

From there I just stopped even trying to adhere to the original structure or storyline. I didn’t even keep the same magic system! There are necromancers and walking corpses, but that’s basically where the similarities end. Now, the magic system is much richer—and I use the actual 1876 setting in much more interesting ways (or at least I think I do!).

And oh, Eleanor! My heroine! I initially planned to age her up to 18 (from 16 in the original), but as I wrote, I realized it would be much more fraught—and believable with regards to her independence—if she were actually a 24-year-old spinster.

So she got changed too.

And then, the love interest. Why was he such a jerk in the original book? Peak 2010s YA hero—and hey. I loved that back then, so I shouldn’t be too hard on myself or the plenty of readers who loved Daniel…

But it’s just not how I write my love interests or romances now. So he wound up with a personality transplant and (I think) a much more interesting backstory.

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The second surprise was that the book ended up being much longer than I’d planned for. I was hoping for a pacy 80,000 words…

But it came in at 99,000 words instead. I’ll absolutely tighten that in revisions, somewhat, but there’s a lot of meat on that bone I can’t cut.

And that’s okay! The book also wound up being so much richer in the magic and world and character department. So longer doesn’t make it bad!

My third surprise was how lopsided the drafting actually was. The first 66,000 words of the book took me only 2.5 weeks to write. And honestly, they’re quite words good considering!

But the last 33,000 words? Oooooh boy. Those took me so long and with so many false trails, backtracked chapters, reframes, and generally miserable days of stuckery.

Which is basically how all my books come together! So I really should not have been surprised.

Like, really, Sooz. This is how all of your books go!

Sector 26, the first book I finished this year, was no different! Nor was Four and Twenty Blackbirds or The Executioners Three or The Luminaries or basically any book I’ve finished in my entire writing career.

I always hit ~60-75% mark and I grind to a halt. It’s painful. It’s slow.

But for the first time, I just made myself not get frustrated. I accepted this is a feature of my process, NOT A BUG. And I determinedly chipped away at the story bit by bit—backtracking, cutting, rewriting, voice-memoing-my-brainstorming-thoughts, etc.

And as I myself have preached: hard writing isn’t bad writing. To prove this, as well, I think the Act 3 of Strange & Deadly might be one of the best climax sequences I’ve written yet!

Even if it was a slog in the moment, the finished Act 3 is just pure EPIC ACTION.

Side note: yes, I’m trying to figure out the best way to show paid subscribers how I will take this behemoth and edit it! So stay tuned!

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Why I Gave Up On Goals

You’re probably wondering why I gave you all that backstory on Strange & Deadly. Like, Sooz, how is that relevant to destinations instead of goals?

Because Old Susan would have said, No, you can’t work on that. You have other things you need to do, and you should be sticking with only one project until you finish it.

Old Susan would have set a goal for 2026 that read something like this:

• Finish the third Murder Quartet book, Three Mollys in the Well (under contract)

• Finish An Unkindness of Mirrors (a WIP my agent wants)

Then I would have only let myself work on those books for the entire year. And in all likelihood, I’d have probably dragged one of them out of me (the contracted one, is my guess), but I’d have been generally miserable from all the stuckery.

(I think I’ve mentioned about 8,000,000 times now that I am at my most unpleasant when I’m stuck in a story. I certainly said it here.)

I would have then closed out 2026 frustrated I didn’t produce more, and I’d have gone into 2027 with my final Murder Quartet book due—and hanging around my neck like a lead weight.

And I know I would have done this because, to go back to the evidence, it’s what I always did for the first thirteen years of my publishing career. And because of that, I believed I was slow. I believed contracted books were automatically impossible for me. And I believed that me + endings ≠ friends.

But it just didn’t have to be that way! And now I have overwhelming evidence to prove I can do this whole “write faster and be happy about it” thing.

Why I Use Destinations Instead

I’ve discussed this before, but I’m going to go over it again with a slightly different take on the metaphor.

A destination is vague. That’s why I like them.

I mean, yes, I do typically put a specific address into my Google Maps when I need to go somewhere.

BUT there are times when I just need a coffee. Or gas for the ol’ tank. Or a grocery store. Or a post office.

So I pop that in Google, and I select whichever one makes the most sense for my current needs and location. Then, eve if I end up at a Starbucks instead of a Tim Horton’s, I’m getting myself coffee. And that’s really all that matters!

Which is how I view destinations in my writing now. If my destination is to finish a book—without specifying what book—then I reach that destination…

Well, I finished a freaking book! And the more books I have finished on my hard drive, the higher my overall odds of career success are.

And if I can actually finish 2+ books in a year and feel good doing it versus being miserable and barely finishing one…

I think it’s clear which approach wins.

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The other VERY IMPORTANT PIECE OF THIS VAGUE DESTINATION APPROACH is that it allows for surprise.

It’s like finding a dinky coffee shop that turns out to have the most amazing coffee you’ve ever had. You went there because it was on the list of possible destinations in Google Maps. It looked interesting. And then oh my god, why is this iced latte so delicious?! Why is this vibe so cute?! Thank goodness I didn’t just stop at Starbucks again!

To go back to Strange & Deadly, I didn’t expect to write that Book. It wasn’t on any BINGO card anywhere for my career…

And yet, it was such an incredible experience! I had fun! Even when I was miserable and stuck (ha!), I still had an absolute blast diving into that world and exploring it with Eleanor 2.0.

The entire Murder Quartet was also an unexpected surprise that felt like it poured of out of me.

Sector 26 was also another surprise that burst forth.

(Until, of course, I got stuck in all of those books at the 66-75% mark. Lol. 😬 But that’s okay! It’s a feature, not a bug!)

If I hadn’t let myself run after those ideas, I wouldn’t have all these new books under my belt from 2024-2026. I’d have just chipped away at one or two things and quite possibly finished none of them.

So all of this is to say: shooting for vague destinations instead of specific goals has let me have the freedom to explore the unexpected. It has let me follow my muse down unexpected paths. And that in turn has made me a much, much happier human!

My Destinations For 2026

Since I don’t think I ever actually shared my destinations for 2026 (I know I shared my list for 2025, but nowhere do I seem to have explicitly made a similar list for 2026…), I want to do that now.

So here it is. For 2026, I want to:

• Finish a book.

• Finish a second book.

• Stretch goal: finish a third book.

And that’s it. That’s all I had on my Destinations List when I went into 2026.

And golly gee, look at that. I’ve already reached my main destinations!

For 2026, I have:

• Finished a book.

• Finished a second book.

Now to be clear: I did not require myself to finish a brand new book I started this year. No way. That would make no sense and turn Jan. 1 and Dec. 31 into arbitrary barriers.

If there’s one thing I no longer abide, it’s barriers and containers that don’t actually serve me!

Plus, since I allow myself to work on so many things at once—and I’m constantly hopping between books at different stages of completion—I will always have some books nearing the finish line while others are just starting out.

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And that’s good! Because it means that while I might not finish more than two books this year, I will almost certainly make lots of progress in other ones.

In fact, I already have! In addition to finishing Sector 26 and Strange & Deadly, I’ve managed to:

• Edit + line edit + copyedit Four & Twenty Blackbirds (with my editor/publisher)

• Edit Sector-26 (on my own and with some light external notes from beta readers)

• Edit Strange & Deadly (also on my own—currently awaiting beta reader feedback!)

• Add 10,000 words to my ongoing, very-difficult-so-why-do-I-keep-torturing-myself WIP, An Unkindness of Mirrors

• Finally, finally work through knotted scenes in two WIPs so I can hopefully start writing those again in earnest when the muse returns:

  • The Hand That Feeds — I shared two chapters of this book here! I was so stuck on one little scene and couldn’t figure out why! But I finally managed to rearrange some earlier chapters, and oh! That did the trick. Now the dominoes line up, and now I’m finally cooking with gas again!2

  • Three Mollys in the Well — this is my third Murder Quartet book. I hit 55,000 words and I just couldn’t crack the emotional state of my character in that moment. But phew! I got through! And now it’s off to the races again—or in this case, off to solve a murder!

Keeping Track of Progress

In this post, I talk about tracking progress. In Classic Sooz Fashion, I gave up on tracking progress about a year ago.

I just…stopped remembering to do it.

And remember my point about barriers and containers? You can add routines to that list. I cannot overstate how bad I am at them.

But guess what: that’s fine! I know generally what I’ve gotten done this year, and more importantly, I know I’m happy. And I don’t know about you all, but for me, being happy is a pretty good marker of success.3

But for those of you who do want to track output, then check out the post linked above for ideas on how to do so while still maintaining fluidity.

IGNORE THE SHOULDS

To end this newsletter, I just want to remind you all to ignore the freaking shoulds.

There is no moral goodness in being able to “write everyday.”

There is no moral goodness in being able to “write everyday at the same time.”

There is no moral goodness in being able to “write a book from start to finish and never deviate to other projects.”

There is no moral goodness in “setting goals.”

There is no moral goodness in “reaching goals.”

There is no moral goodness in “outlining.”

There is no moral goodness in “pantsing.”

There is no moral goodness in “revising as you go.”

There is no moral goodness in “fast drafting without looking back.”

There is simply finding what works for you and doing more of it.

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So I urge all of you to find what brings you true satisfaction with your work (while acknowledging there will always be friction and difficult spots in creative work).

Experiment! Ditch goals! Ditch destinations! Try writing everyday! Try writing every night! Try not writing for a week! Try only writing when inspiration strikes!

And definitely try getting the heck off social media. 😌

Just please see what feels right for you, and then do it more. And if you need further guidance, I’ll just yet again recommend you check out ’s work at the Better-Faster Academy!

I want all of us to find what makes our creative brains tick, and then I want all of us to accept that what works for me might not work for you—and that’s just fine.

Until next time, my friends! I’m off to poke at a few manuscripts on my hard drive and see which one is singing to me…

💚 - Sooz

Latest News from the Desk of Sooz

Holy whoa, the last few weeks have been total chaos with the end of the school year + deadlines. But I am through the worst of it, and now visiting family in Georgia.

And oh my goodness, I have had the best time! I discovered a few days ago that my mother has heaps upon heaps of letters that my grandfather wrote his family during WWII.

For those of you haven’t heard me talk about it at events, I’ve been in my “WWII Dad” era the last few years. But I mostly only read about the Western Front and civilian life/adaptations. My Pacific theater knowledge is woefully inadequate.

So this was such a joy to find, since my grandfather was a naval gunnery officer in the Pacific. And I’ve been transcribing his letters while also piecing together what he was really doing during/between each one. Censoring meant he had to be super vague about his location and activities, and some of his most “upbeat” letters came during what I now know were his most horrific moments of the war.1

But now onward to what you came here for!

The Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series

We’re down to the final TWO in the Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series, and phew. These are big ones! I’ve apparently had a lot to say about work/life balance, as well as the realities of publishing.

But in case you’ve missed it so far, this is a planned 7-part series, and the topics are:

1. Following the “Right” Story — Shared Feb. 16, 2026.

2. Building Characters & Worlds — Shared Mar. 9, 2026

3. Scenes, Sentences, & Series — Shared Apr. 6, 2026

4. Revisions & Editing — Shared Apr. 20, 2026

5. Finding Your Unique Process — Shared May 2026

6. When Things Get Difficult — We are here!

7. Publishing: the Honest Truth

Catch up or dive in starting today. No right order or wrong order to see what I’ve been writing about on Substack over the last four years.

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Reminder: this is a separate series from my much more robust Susan Dennard Writing Academy! If you want truly deep dives on all these topics spanning back to the early aughts of my writing advice, then the Academy is the place to explore.

6. When Things Get Difficult

Many of you have followed me for many, many years. So you’ve seen my career dip to its lowest moments, then rise to its highest…and dip back down again.

And you’ve seen my life rise to its highest moments…and you’ve seen me get hit hard. Repeatedly.

That is the joy (and challenge) of a long career: you hit all the highs—personally and professionally—and you hit all the lows. The real success is if you’re in it long enough for that to happen.

Do I wish life had been a bit gentler to me and my family? Sure. Ha! Do I wish I were a mega bestseller with guaranteed sales and a big advances? YOU BET! But…

I’m also just really glad to be here. I’m really glad I get to wake up and write every day—or that I get to wake up at all, for that matter!

And look: I won’t pretend I’m some saint who doesn’t get into grouchy tailspins because a plot just will not cooperate. (I’ve been stuck in one of those grumpy moods for weeks now!)

But I will say I’ve gotten a lot better about at least recognizing when I’m squeezing the bird too tightly—and hey, a decade ago, I still put all my energy into publishing/writing only. My emotions and identity were completely tied to success and output. Setbacks set me back personally.

But I’m not that person anymore, and phew!

I’m so much happier.

Motivation & Mindset

Audio: Staying Motivated: Here I talk about what actually keeps me going—the spark of new ideas, the foundational need to connect with my readers, and how assessing your relationship with external pressure can be help you find happiness.

Battling Your Own Impatience to Finish the Writing: As my taekwondo teacher tells me constantly: “Patience, Miss Susan. You’re not patient enough.”

I’m really not, guys. I want every book to be done now.

Finding Your “Fulfillment Metric”: Sometimes what works for YOU in your downtime doesn’t work for me. I really hate the advice to “just relax” or “take a vacation.” No! My idea of a “vacation” is what I described at the top of this newsletter: transcribing old letters and making a timeline. I need mental stimulation to unwind.

Finishing What You Start: Do you really need to? I’ve stopped believing in the myth of “don’t start new things until you’ve finished other projects,” and my output (and completion rate) has exploded!

Your Last Book Won’t Write the Next: I really wish people would let go of past manuscripts. Because every new story is a chance for fresh discovery and success. Past performance—good or bad—doesn’t predict what comes next!

Redefining What Success Looks Like: As mentioned above, my biggest gains in the last few years have come from detaching myself from what everyone else thinks success looks like. It’s okay to reimagine what you want in your career!

Audio: Strengths as a Writer: I love Clifton Strengths. Understanding mine and working with transformed my life. And what I’ve learned about Strengths has helped me both understand my own writing better, but also everyone else’s processes too.

Writing Even When It Sucks: Oh, the eternal question: write what sells or what you love? I think you can all guess my answer on the subject.

Chasing Perfection: “Perfect” is a moving target that will never stop moving for your writing and your life. It’s hard, but sometimes you’ve just got to accept, “This is good and I’m done now.”

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Burnout & Recovery

Procrastination or Burnout?: Is it “laziness” or do you just need a break? (Shocker: it’s rarely laziness.)

Hitting Cement Walls and an Industry of Burnout: This is an old newsletter from the start of my Substack, but the things I worried about then—the systemic burnout baked into publishing—have only gotten MUCH worse in the last four years.

Publishing employees (and authors) are exhausted!

Finding Flow Again After Burnout: How do you get back into the creative stream after everything has dried up? I have been in this state multiple times in my life, and I won’t pretend it’s easy… But it is doable.

Burnout Recovery: Again, me and burnout go way back. Baby burnouts and some mega burnouts too. But I always come back from it!

Balancing Creative Work With the Business Stuff: Holly Black once told me that story immersion is like swimming in cool water—keep jumping in and out, and you’ll never acclimate. I’ve never forgotten that advice, and it’s what works best for me. All in on X, then all in on Y, then all in on Z.

Cross Finish Lines & Celebrate Milestones: I share this advice which I myself never take. But hey—maybe you’ll do it! That part where we actually celebrate our accomplishments and hard work.

Healing & Resilience

Take the Time to Heal: This is tough to read, so you can skip through the first half. I won’t be upset, I promise. But I go into my near-death delivery, the PTSD that resulted, the utter cruelty of my own self-talk, and how I slowly (so slowly) learned to extend myself the same grace I give my friends.

The writing will still be there when your body is ready. I promise.

Grieving the Loss of a Dream: Even after discussing grief that I can’t have a second child, I had to go through that grief all over again—and with far more intensity and physical impact—when we lost a baby a year ago.

Honestly, I’m still grieving that loss. A lot. And I do “just want to cry a little bit.” Often. And it’s okay! That’s part of life.

Learning to Forgive Ourselves During Tough Times: Sometimes we can’t stay on track with the words—and that’s okay. Truly OKAY. (I won’t pretend I’m great at accepting this myself, but I am getting better!)

You’re Not a Failure: How to rewire your brain to create healthier thought patterns. This was a skill I learned in therapy, and it has been transformative for my life in so many ways.

It’s Been a While: This is about adjusting to my new normal (again) after intense life disruptions and difficulty. Phew. I’ve gotten pretty good at this by now!

Writing Rituals as a Mom: I was not prepared (no one can be) for how much becoming a mother would change my writing life. What an adjustment! I won’t pretend it’s easy, but I did eventually find a new rhythm.

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Quitting Social Media

I WILL FOREVER EVANGELIZE THAT ALL OF YOU QUIT SOCIAL MEDIA. AND YOU CAN IGNORE ME. BUT I WON’T STOP SHOUTING IT. Because do the benefits really outweigh the cost? I can’t answer that for you, but I’d bet for many people, the answer is no if you really drill down and get honest with yourself.2

Ahem.

What Happened When I Got Off Social Media: Here’s my original post on quitting social media. I wrote more words in 2023 than any year before. And oh yeah, most importantly: my mental health improved dramatically.

What Happened When I Got Off Social Media, Part 2: The one-year update. Holy smokes, I thought I wrote a lot in 2023? 2024 was only bigger and better.

Goals Achieved for the Fluid Creator: Okay, I know I also shared this in the last primer, BUT. I had even more gains in 2025, and so much of that is thanks to quitting social…So I felt I ought to share again here.

Okay, back I go to transcribing letters from 1945. I’m so happy my grandfather was a sentimental hoarder and kept all these—and that my mom kept them in turn!

I’m also almost done (finally!) with the Stange & Deadly reboot. I finished the climax last week! Just have a few denouement scenes to write. Woohoo!

💚 - Sooz

Latest News from the Desk of Sooz

It’s the end of the school year, so life is chaotic to say the least. Recitals! Concerts! Field trips! Art shows!

But I like chaos!1 It forces me to be smart with my time. If I’ve got 45 minutes now, then I’m going to use that 45 minutes now.

Yesterday, for example, I was helping with an all-day field trip with my daughter’s school. So I made sure I got up at 4:30 to get in some words. Then I brought my laptop with me, since there was a 30-min break I needed to fill while I waited for a bus of kids to arrive…

I always think of Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle on days like that.

Today is more chill for me—only a school concert tonight, ha! But that means I actually have to work harder to enforce strict focus and the busy, busy, busy I achieve more naturally on crowded days.2

Wish me luck. I’m so, so close to the end of the Something Strange & Deadly reboot (WOW, is this a completely different story now! OOPS). I don’t even know what the actual ending is now, but I’m so excited to keep writing and find out!

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Four & Twenty Blackbirds 🐦‍⬛

Oh, hey! In case you missed it, I revealed the cover for my next upcoming cozy horror mystery romance, coming January 19 2027 from HarperCollins (and Daphne Press).

Please pre-order if you can! Here are links to do that. ☺️

The Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series

In case you’ve missed it so far, I have an organized primer series running that covers the many topics I’ve explored over the years on Substack. This is a planned 7-part series, and the topics are:

1. Following the “Right” Story — Shared Feb. 16, 2026.

2. Building Characters & Worlds — Shared Mar. 9, 2026

3. Scenes, Sentences, & Series — Shared Apr. 6, 2026

4. Revisions & Editing — Shared Apr. 20, 2026

5. Finding Your Unique Process — We are here!

6. When Things Get Difficult

7. Publishing: the Honest Truth

Remember: this is a separate series from my much more robust Susan Dennard Writing Academy! If you want truly deep dives on all these topics spanning back to the early aughts of my writing advice, then the Academy is the place to explore.

5. Finding Your Unique Process

As many of you know, I’ve written a lot about this subject in the last few years. It’s been my biggest aim on the personal front: finding what makes me creatively tick—and then leaning into that more instead of molding myself according to what I think a writer should look like.

And I’ve succeeded! Beyond my wildest expectations, honestly. I’ve never been happier in my creative life than in the last few years. And that’s in spite of objectively difficult life stuff happening behind the scenes.

Not to mention, my output has just exploded. Part of that is absolutely from quitting social media. No more noise in my brain! More space for story! No more wasted time on my phone! More time for daydreaming and writing!

But a 75% of the output explosion (and happiness improvements) are absolutely from accepting my brain as it is, and leaning into it.3

So without further ado…

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How I Actually Work

My Typical Work Day: This post really resonated with people in a way I wasn’t prepared for. Turns out MANY of us don’t do well with the strict “work on only this for eight hours a day” approach, and my “jump as often as needed” approach was exactly what many of you were looking for!

Goal Setting for the Fluid Creator: In response to the previous post, some of you asked how I handle goals. Welp, tl;dr: I ditched SMART goals, replaced them with “Really Vague Destinations,” and now I track progress without word counts.

Goals Achieved for the Fluid Creator: Did the fluid approach actually work in 2025? Yes, friends. It did beyond my wildest dreams.

3 Tricks For Easily Jumping Between Projects: Again, since so many of you wanted more on this subject, I laid out some tips for anyone who—like me—is happiest when working on multiple stories at once.

Experiments in Focus: I started 2026 with a plan, and this was a January update on my progress. (Spoiler alert for May: it’s going so well, and last week was the first time since December I logged onto Instagram, posted, then immediately logged off and deleted. FREEDOM!)

The “Permission Slips”

Remember: Not All Writing Advice Is For YOU: Just because someone else writes 5,000 words a day at 5 AM doesn’t mean you have to. I spent so long trying to follow all the advice I read—be an outliner, write everyday, etc. But when I stopped “shoulding” myself, guess what: my output and joy erupted.

Why I Stopped Writing Things I Don’t Enjoy: Since short stories never clicked for me, I finally accepted and stopped trying to be a short-story writer. So this post for all of you who also need permission to lean into what you love and let go of what you don’t.

Hard Writing Isn’t Bad Writing: I was torn on whether to share this on the Right Story primer day…since it might fit there better? But then I ultimately put it here because it’s a “permission slip” of sorts. Basically, sometimes writing is HARD, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad…

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Tools That Support the Process

Working in Scrivener: I don’t use most of Scrivener’s features, but what I do use—Snapshots, the Binder, easy scene rearrangement—is invaluable for my process. I love variety, so I’m always trying new programs…but I never last long. I always end up back in Scrivener.

The reMarkable 2, a Review: I remain obsessed with this device. I still use it constantly, and if it ever dies or gets lost, I will immediately purchase a new one. No hesitation. (That said, they discontinued the reMarkable 2 device and have a new version!)

My Top Writing Tools of 2025: This is a list with some obvious choices (the reMarkable 2, ha!) as well as some new surprises that most of you likely hadn’t heard of before.

Standing Out in a Crowded Market: Though the second half of the post is about markets, the first half offers a detailed look at my brainstorming tools.

A Gift Guide for Writers: MORE TOOLS! And books on writing! And softwares! If you want to treat yo’self or a writer in your life, then head here.

Alright, back to the drafting I go! I mentioned at the start of the year (newsletter linked above) that my writing computer has no fun stuff on it at all. Everything is blocked—even email—24 hours a day.

That continues to be the case.

If I want to check email or write a newsletter or pop onto discord or even check the news, I have to use a very old, very cracked, very sad iPad which is kept in a completely different room. (I also keep my phone in a different room.)

It’s been so good for my happiness and focus while writing.4

Until next time, friends! 💚

For a few weeks, I’ve been in what I call a state of general stuckery.

Basically ever since I finished drafting a book a month ago, I’ve been feeling meh about everything.

And while sure, I have chipped away at three other books in the meantime, and I’ve made some progress in each of them, my gains have been small steps instead of big bounds…

And ugh.

Ugh.

I am at my least happy when I’m in one of these funks. When flow is elusive and each project I poke at requires heaps of thinking. Heaps of cutting. Heaps of reworking.

To be clear: thinking and arranging and assembling are all necessary at certain points in my process. And I actually enjoy them during revisions. But during the drafting process? When all I want to do is see word count go up 📈 and then type The End?

Well, this is when I get the most frustrated with myself.

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I’ve talked about my “circling process” before. But for the uninitiated, it’s basically where I regularly reread what I’ve written, edit as I go, and then proceed onward.

As a person who writes entirely based on the emotional state of her characters, I have to regularly reread so that I can make sure I’m following the emotional dominoes correctly.

Often times, when I get stuck while drafting, it’s because I wrote a character behaving out of character. And as soon as I spot (or rather feel) in the course of my reread were the emotions went awry…

Well, I fix and move onward.

In other words, I’m accustomed to writing lots of pages. Then cutting lots of pages because they don’t '“feel right.”

I’m also accustomed to backtracking and brainstorming and mind mapping and voice memo-ing. And I’m accustomed to my current state of moaning and despairing and being generally unpleasant as I feel my cortisol rise, rise, rise…

Because what if I NEVER figure out the words?! What if this book is the one where it never, ever comes together?

Fortunately, I have enough evidence to the contrary by now. And as puts it so very eloquently, confidence comes from evidence.1

I’ve written a lot of books in the past seventeen years. I’ve been in this exact state of general stuckery more times than I can possibly count. And even the books where every chapter was a constant state of circling and cutting and frustration, I’ve always figured out the Right Story eventually.

Always.

It might have taken literal years, but I have always figured it out.

And for the reader, there’s no difference between my flow and my frustration. By the time the book is printed, I will have edited and polished until it’s all flow on the page.

I know this because I have done this. And so I have confidence I will get through this stuckery just as I have many times before.

But ugh.

Ugh.

This is my least favorite part of my creative life. The part where gains are so tiny as to be nearly imperceptible. The part where my left brain has to push against my right. The part where I’m still tasting the high of typing The End in a different book, so I’m hungry for a fresh hit of those endorphins…

But alas. This is simply not how my process works.

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After almost a month of simmering in this state of self-loathing, I can practically taste the cortisol.

I’m squeezing the baby bird too tightly.

I’m beating myself up over my “failures” to finish a second book in the past thirty days2

And I’m not even making small gains anymore so much as moving sentences around that I’ll probably move right back when I have more clarity.

So yesterday, after lunch, I made myself stop.

I did not brew my usual post-lunch coffee. I did not sit back at the computer.

Instead, I read a book, cover to cover. Then I trained hard at the dojang. Then I played a made-up game called driveway ball with my daughter until sunset.

Now here I am, using my usual 5AM writing session to write this newsletter instead of thinking about a book’s next scenes or draft new words in a project.

Do I hate it? YES. I absolutely hate it. My 5AM writing session is my most favorite time of the day. A sacred creative time where my brain is sharpest and that first cup of coffee always tastes the most delicious…

Plus, just as a rule, I’m not great with “taking time off.” At least not in the traditional sense (it’s not a control thing but an energy thing, I swear!).

Yet I need to loosen my grip on the baby bird.

I need to accept that maybe my creative well needs refilling and I’m actively losing ground instead of gaining it.

So that’s my mission for the next day or two. I might game a bit3. I’ll definitely read. I’ll get outside with the dog and practice my forms. I’ll play more driveway ball. And I’ll just see see how it goes.

Evidence from the past suggests the spark and clarity will return. I just have to be patient.4

But hey, Sooz, what if I’m a beginner? What if I have no evidence on which to base my confidence?

Well, get started building your evidence.

I was a beginner once. I taught myself everything I needed to know about writing thanks to an internet connection and a library. And I wrote and I revised and I wrote some more. I read books on craft and took workshops when I could afford them. I emulated other people’s processes and meticulously applied what seemed to work while discarding the bits that didn’t.

Now here I am. After fourteen published novels later (and with many more finished or in the works), I have a very, very clear writing identity. I know how I create stories and what works best for my brain, my goals, my voice—and I know I can finish projects, even when all I want to do is rip out my hair out and scream BEHAVE, CHARACTERS! BEHAVE!

I did the thing, which built the evidence, and now I have the confidence.5

One side note: I would urge you to detach yourself from the external outcomes of the writing.

Or at least do so as much as you can.

Trust me, I know how hard it is to compartmentalize, and that’s not what I’m urging you to do here. Life will impact art, and it took near death for me to really understand and see that.

But! But. Keeping your creativity as separate from your success as you can will only lead to positive gains, both in your work and your life.

Just as losing at a taekwondo tournament has no actual bearing on whether or not I can do a powerful side kick tomorrow at the studio, the sales of my book have no bearing on whether or not I can write through my current stuckery.

Sales and commercial success are something I cannot control. I can drive myself toward that outcome by being the best I can be at all times, but I can’t ultimately make anyone buy or enjoy my books.

Creative success, however? Pushing through stuckery and writing more books? Oh yeah. I’m completely in charge right there.

I just have to keep showing up and doing the thing.

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Okay, off I go now to intentionally…not…create something for today. (Ugh! Ugh!) Wish me luck.6

I was supposed to do the next Primer Series post this week, but then I felt inspired to write about squeezing baby birds and building evidence instead. So I promise the next post will be a resumption of the Primer Series!

Until then!

💚 - Sooz

Latest News from the Desk of Sooz

I finished a book! Two weekends ago, I got to type The End on a project. ☺️

No, it was not my reboot of Something Strange & Deadly1, ha! In classic Susan fashion, I hit the 2-week mark on SS&D and had to get some variety in.

So I finished a post-apocalyptic, dark fantasy, WW2-vibes with monsters book (yeah, it’s a lot of genres mashed together). I’ve been working on for a bit, and yay! It was so exciting to cross the finish line on it.

My goal was to finish two books this year—with a stretch goal of three books—and that gets me through number one! 🎉

Now onto the main event: REVISIONS!

Speaking of revisions, you all definitely seemed interested in seeing my edits on SS&D 2.0!

So if I get permission, I’ll share my edits between different drafts along with explanations for why I did what I did. 🥰

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The Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series

In case you’ve missed out so far, I have this organized primer series running that covers many topics I’ve explored over the years on Substack. This is a planned 7-part series, and the topics are:

1. Following the “Right” Story — Shared Feb. 16, 2026.

2. Building Characters & Worlds — Shared Mar. 9, 2026

3. Scenes, Sentences, & Series — Shared Apr. 6, 2026

4. Revisions & Editing — We are here!

5. Finding Your Unique Process

6. When Things Get Difficult

7. Publishing: the Honest Truth

Today, we’re heading into one of my favorite parts of the process. REVISING!

I love taking a book that I know is broken and making it into the thing I actually intended for it to be.

But I also realize most people hate that part of the process, so I hope my resources below can help ease some of your friction!

Remember: this is a separate series from my much more robust Susan Dennard Writing Academy! If you want truly deep dives on all these topics spanning back to the early aughts of my writing advice, then the Academy is the place to explore.

4. Revisions & Editing

As mentioned above, I really love revising.

It’s that #2 Restorative (to use Strengths language): I love “restoring” broken things. A first draft has so much potential; I know what I was aiming for; and revisions are when I actually get to take the mess on my hard drive and turn it into it’s final form…

It might take only one round of light edits. It might take an uncountable number of rewrites, backtracks, do-overs, and polishings.

No book has ever been the same as the one before, and no book has ever been wrong. It just took a few more “choices” to get to the Right Story. (More on that concept below!)

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The Basics to Revising

A Guide to Revisions: I shared my VERY first guide to revisions way, way, way back in 2011. Before my debut novel had even released! But I updated it over the years (and the newest version is available FOR FREE on the Academy!). Although most of this is intuitive for me now, I still follow a lot of these steps—I just no longer need to break them down as I do so.

Rewrites & Later Draft Edits

How I Revise and Edit Later Drafts: What changes in draft three, four, five? I never edit only once and them I’m done. Instead I get more and more granular with each draft…

Tackling the Big Rewrites: As you all know if you’ve followed me a long time, I’m sometimes prone to be a REWRITER. If I see a better way to tell the story, I have to do it. I can’t just burnish what I have—I will start over. Repeatedly. 😅

Audio: Rewriting and Reframing: As per the previous link, some books just take a lot of drafts to get right. Here I have an in-depth audio post of what that actually looks like in practice. And HERE is where I discuss this idea of a “series of necessary choices to find the Right Story.”

Beta Readers & Editors

Why You Need Feedback From Someone Who Isn’t Your Editor: Outside readers—critique partners, beta readers—catch things you can’t see yourself. I find them not only good for my books, but downright necessary. And by the time a book hits readers hands, I’ve worked with a lot of beta readers and incorporated their notes along the way.

Working With Developmental Editors: This post is about when to hire an editor and when to find “free” support instead. (I have links to other posts in here about finding critique partners and beta readers!)

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The Screechers Revision Series (Paid)

Some of you were with me for this series way back when I launched the Substack. But for newbies, this is a real-time, behind-the-curtain look at how I revised a novel from scratch. (It’s also available on the Academy—but for members only!)

It starts with the full WIP chapters (no need to read, unless you’re just curious to how bad I was as a writer 15 years ago), followed by a discussion of what I think works and what I think is terrible.

Then I dig into the actual revision process, which included a complete tense change. 😬

• Work In Progress: Screechers, Chapter 1 — Read the opening for free

• Chapters 2–12 — The full WIP

• Screechers Discussion & Revisions — What works, what doesn’t, and how I plan to fix it

• Revising Screechers: Introduction 🎬 — My general methodology

• Part 1: Finding the Problems — Reading the book and taking notes

• Part 2: Changing Tenses — Taking the book from past tense to present

What’s almost hilarious—and also kind of painful 😓—is that I wound up not only rewriting Screechers as seen above…

But then taking that rewrite and turning it into a novelette for an upcoming anthology.

It was NOT EASY. Holy wow. I had to condense and summarize, cut and tighten, and what was like 100,000 words I squeezed into 9,000 words.

Admittedly, I didn’t do the whole book. I just condensed (heavily) the opening and got us up to the book’s midpoint, a high action “hinge” point in the story with some of my favorite scenes I’ve ever written.

Then that hinge sequence of scenes became the bulk of the novelette.

I’m really, really excited for you all to read that when it releases from OwlCrate later this year!

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As I say with each post in this series, there are probably more posts I’ve written on the subjects, but so many of my posts straddle the 7 topic lines…

Well, these felt like the best for today’s theme.

Don’t forget: there are so so many more craft-focused posts on the Susan Dennard Writing Academy. Even just on the free resources page! So head there if you want more!

Now stay tuned for Part 5: Finding Your Unique Process. And thanks for reading Part 4 in the Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series!

💚 - Sooz

Latest News from the Desk of Sooz

I’m rewriting my debut novel. From scratch. And let me tell you, gang: it has been an absolutely delightful experience.

For one, it’s been just sheer joy because whenever I am in the “writing zone” I’m at my happiest.

For two, seeing the growth in my writing from when I was a total beginner—I wrote Something Strange & Deadly in 2009!—to today is a real comfort. Like, Oh, wow! Look at that! I guess I have learned something from all this writing I do!

I have a True Sooz Voice now with a cadence and style that uniquely my own. I have a writing process that taps into how I work best. And my craft—wow! The quality of how I build character and world, magic systems and relationships is just exponentially better.

Does that mean people like my books more now? Not necessarily.

But I’ve reached a point in my life where I also don’t really care.

I have a profound certainty in my own writing—something that also took me seventeen years to hone.

You can take my words or you can leave them. It won’t really change what I’m going to do.

Which is to keep writing, keep learning, keep trusting my intuition, and keep waking up everyday utterly delighted that I get to do this as a job.

Does that mean every day is easy? Hell no. But the good stuff makes all the frustrations, challenges, tedious moments, exhausting deadlines, and terrifying pressures worth it.

I love telling stories. I just do.

So stay tuned for news on the Something Strange & Deadly reboot, coming direct to readers later this year.

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QUESTION: I’m considering doing a first draft to finished draft Substack series for paid members. I’d show my first draft of SS&D—truly, a first draft with rough edges and all—then I’d share the next draft (and next draft after that) along with an explanation for why I made the choices I made.

If that’s of interest to anyone, please leave a comment and let me know! It would obviously be a lot of work to pull together, so I’d only want to do it if you all would find value in it.

🥰

The Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series

In case you’ve missed out so far, I have an organized primer series going that covers the many topics I’ve explored over my years on Substack. This is a planned 7-part series, and the topics are:

1. Following the “Right” Story — Shared Feb. 16, 2026.

2. Building Characters & Worlds — Shared Mar. 9, 2026

3. Scenes, Sentences, & Series — We are here!

4. Revisions & Editing

5. Finding Your Unique Process

6. When Things Get Difficult

7. Publishing: the Honest Truth

Today we’re diving into the nittier, grittier pieces of craft. The scenes, the sentences, the show vs. tell trick that took me years (YEARS) to really understand.

Initially, that’s all I was going to cover, but then I decided we needed just a bit more meat on this bone…

So today, we’re also zooming out to look at series and complex plotting. Onward!

Remember: this is a separate series from my much more robust Susan Dennard Writing Academy! If you want truly deep dives on all these topics spanning back to the early aughts of my writing advice, then the Academy is the place to explore.

3. Scenes, Sentences, & Series

Today’s stuff covers things that, while drafting, I simply intuit.

I’ve written so many books by now, I don’t have to think about “accessing interiority” so I can show instead of tell.

Nor do I have to think about the shape of a scene. I dive in, sometimes with a scene screenplay (more on that below), and the words simply come.1

BUT. Big BUT. That doesn’t mean I get everything “right in one.” Far from it. I lean on filter words constantly. I use way, way too many action tags when I only need one. My action scenes aren’t crisp or clear…

So I fix a lot of the below topics in revisions, using the tools I share in each post.

And then complex plots and series…

Sigh.

I love you so, Complexity and Earned Payoffs, but boy do you make life difficult…

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Sentences

An Easy Trick for Showing Instead of Telling: What makes for actual showing instead of telling? Read on to see. This one trick alone is what takes a flat scene (for me) into a breathing one.

Filter Words: This is SUCH an old post for me, updated and shared many times over the years. Because filter words creep in for everyone, often when we want them least. Sometimes I do want to build in distance, but it’s like salt. Every recipe needs a different amount, but too much will always make a meal inedible.

Tightening Your Prose: Part 1: I am an impatient reader. Get to the point. Move me along.2 And when it comes to my own writing, I am ruthless. Any beat that feels redundant or sentence that doesn’t add to the narrative in some way gets slashed. Period.

Tightening Your Prose: Part 2: This is a continuation of my approach to tightening, trimming, and generally improving your sentence-level prose and scene-level construction. Just say no to excess!3

Scenes

Assembling a Story Scene by Scene: I like to imagine that writing a book is like stacking LEGO bricks. Scenes are discreet units that can be moved, removed, rearranged, reoriented, cut apart, glued together…Whatever I need to create a castle at the end.

How to Structure a Scene : There’s no one right ring to rule them all for scene construction, but there are useful ways that I like to think about it. (And here’s where I link to my old scene screenplay method!)

How to Build Tension in Your Fight Scenes: Personal stakes! Interiority! Fight scenes can be shockingly dull if they don’t have the right pieces to connect to the reader.

Series

Writing Big Complicated Stories: I naturally lean toward complexity. I don’t mean to, it’s just the kind of reading I built my inner algorithm on growing up. So me and “complicated” have…well, a complicated history. But to resolve that, I have a very simple “promise index card” method.

Keeping Track of Subplots: When you have 14,578 plot threads and character arcs (as I tend to do), it’s easy to lose track of them all. I came up with a very straightforward way to make sure I can “see” at any given time what the balance and flow of my story is.

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As always, there are probably more posts I’ve written on these subjects, but as mentioned in the past primers, a lot of my posts straddle the 7 topic lines. These felt like the best for today’s theme.

And don’t forget: there are so so many more craft-focused posts on the Susan Dennard Writing Academy. Even just on the free resources page! So head there if you want more!

Now stay tuned for part 4: Revisions & Editing. And thanks for reading Part 3 in the Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series!

💚 - Sooz

Today’s post is brought to you by Cal Newport’s podcast. I am a longtime fan of his work, and his podcast is one of the only few I listen to with any regularity.

On this week’s episode he talked about something called “the bottleneck.” This is the aspect of your work where productivity gets slowed.

The general gist is this:

• We think a tool will greatly improve our productivity.

• We start using it.

• But then it turns out the actual bottleneck for our work isn’t solved by the new tool at all.

• The new tool simply streamlines some side things that, sure, are nice, but not transformative.

• The bottleneck is where the real work happens, and the tool hasn’t touched that at all.

• So our long-term productivity holds steady.

To quote Newport’s blog (where you can read more on this):

When working on Deep Work, for example, I spoke with a prominent Wharton professor who told me that one of the keys to publishing journal papers in his field was access to interesting data sets. He published more papers per year than most of his peers, largely because he spent more time building relationships with companies and institutions in search of good data. This was the bottleneck for his work.

Newport dives into this more on the podcast, so I highly recommend giving it a listen.

But the point is: no tool can help Wharton actually do the part where he has to talk to people and hope they’ll share their datasets. In the end, there’s only the difficult work of rolling up his sleeves, making phone calls, finding people, and doing that work directly.

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So what’s the bottleneck?

You can no doubt guess where I’m going with this.

What is the bottleneck for writers?

Well, let’s assume the main thing we want as output is actual writing. Words on pages or books finished or sales made—that final productivity metric is up to you.

But no matter what, the starting point is always: words.

It’s always the act of putting your hands on a keyboard (or pen or mic or whatever!) and doing the difficult work of translating concepts and ideas into little symbols that convey something.

So then from there, if the bottleneck is the actual act of producing words, then the thing most of us need in order to write more words is pretty straightforward.

Admittedly, it will also vary person to person.

You might be someone who also needs chunks of uninterrupted time. Or you might be someone who needs a special combination of factors to get your brain into flow.1 Or you might be someone who needs their life to feel stable so you have the energy to give to your sentences…

All of that is perfectly valid!

But it doesn’t change the fact that at some point, you need to write words. And no one else can do that for you, nor can any software do it.2

There might be tools that help you write faster. (I love Scrivener! I love my reMarkable 2!) But they can’t actually do the difficult, bottleneck part of writing.

That’s why it’s a bottleneck: only YOU can do it.

Nurturing my bottleneck

As you all know from following me over the past few years, I’ve been downright merciless in my elimination of anything that I felt wasn’t “adding” to my career in a meaningful way.

(Note: my definition of “meaningful” might not be yours. We all have to define it for ourselves.)

But as you all also know, I didn’t cut back on social media, email, etc. with the aim of simply increasing productivity. Instead, I was faced with an absence of choice.

Life was not easy on the personal front; it wrecked my schedule; if I ever wanted to finish books again, I had to peel away the parts of my “job” that weren’t actually vital.

But now (knock on wood! Oh my gosh, KNOCK ON WOOD. DO NOT JINX ME, UNIVERSE), life has found a decent rhythm. In theory I could reintroduce my social media presence or all-day-inbox-checking or whatever else I used to think was so “vital” to my author career…

Yet I haven’t reintroduced any of those things.

Because the increased output of more books written is all the proof I need that what I once thought was vital, wasn’t vital at all.

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Okay, so fine. YES. I did fracture my big toe last Wednesday while teaching a children’s taekwondo class. See the above X-ray.

And no, I wasn’t doing anything cool. I just tripped like the graceful gazelle I am not. Then I ignored the pain for an hour and kept teaching.

Then I finally got a ride to Urgent Care because my toe was enormous and blue and excruciating. Whoopsy!

But this is just a little hiccup. Nothing like the nonstop trauma and vigilance we were going through for several years.

(Knock on wood. Again.)

Nurturing YOUR bottleneck

Every one of us is different.

How we write, how we create, how we fall into flow (or don’t), how we spend our free time and refill the well and search for inspiration and yadayadayada, Sooz.

I get it: I always preach this same message of our individual uniqueness. You’re probably sick of it by now.

But once again, it’s true.

I can’t say what YOU need in order to write more words. All I can do is focus on my own needs and try to accommodate them.

But I do urge you to look at the bottleneck and consider it AS a bottleneck. As the point at which words will get throttled if you don’t “keep it open.”

For me, ensuring I have uninterrupted “immersion” is the key to output. Existing all-in on a project so that all I want to do is sit at my computer and pour out words—that’s when I produce the most and I’m at my happiest.

I’ve found, by accident, how to create this “immersive life.” But what other ways might I enhance it? What tools—if any—could actually help me get there?

I don’t know.

But I do know, thanks to Newport, I’m going to consider that now every time I do look at a new tool or consider if I really should be on that new platform or…or…or…

You get the idea.

And I hope you all will ask the same questions for yourself moving forward.

Keep the bottleneck open, dear friends!

Okay, now back to the writing I go!

I was supposed to do the next M&D Primer Series today, but I just felt the urge to discuss bottlenecks instead. So stay tuned for more primers next week…

And now I’m going to return to my rewrite of Something Strange & Deadly because yes! I am finally tackling a rewrite of my debut series, refreshing it to match the voice I’ve spent the last 16 years honing. I cannot believe how much I have grown and changed as a writer since I sold that book in 2010!

Until next time, friends.

💚 - Sooz

I’m headed home from North Texas Teen Book Festival, and ah!! It was such a wonderful time. Thank you to all who came to see me! I had an absolutely blast meeting uber fans and new readers alike. 😊

(Side note: I was genuinely surprised and delighted by how many of you had the entire Luminaries series with you and were devoted fans?! I’ll admit, I completely forgot about that series, since I was so focused on TE3 and Witchlight last year. So THANK YOU for loving my dear Winnie Wednesday!!)

Also: I’ll be at the Tucson Festival of Books next weekend! So come see me there!

Also, also: don’t miss the latest Great Critique Partner Meetup, if you’re looking for a critique partner, beta reader, or general writing cheerleader. This is a great place to find someone, and I’ve met multiple people over the years who got their writing friendship start in the M&D comments section.

Now onward to building characters and worlds!

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The Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series

In case you missed it, a few weeks ago, I started an organized primer series that hits on all the many topics I’ve taught and explored over the years on this Substack. This is a planned 7-part series, and the topics are:

1. Following the “Right” Story — Shared Feb. 16, 2026.

2. Building Characters & Worlds — We are HERE!

3. The Craft of Sentences & Scenes

4. Revisions & Editing

5. Finding Your Unique Process

6. When Things Get Difficult

7. Publishing: the Honest Truth

This week, we’re diving #2: the people the world that actually make a story into a story.

Note: this is separate from my much more robust Susan Dennard Writing Academy! If you want truly deep dives on all these topics spanning back to the early aughts of my writing advice, then the Academy is the place to explore.

2. Building Characters and Worlds

As many of you know, my approach to character development and worldbuilding is fully intuitive. (If you saw me just this weekend at NTTBF, I talked about my “pantsing” approach a lot!)

But it’s not as if I dive into a book with no idea what’s coming. Instead, I always know my character and their world.

No, I don’t fill out character questionnaires, and my worldbuilding is less “create a detailed wiki”1 and more “let’s draw a map and build a new magic!”2 But I did use the word system, and system means I have a methodology, messy and fluid as it may be.

On top of that, there are many “lessons” I’ve learned over my seventeens years (!) of writing that I apply while drafting for characters and worlds.

So let’s get started, shall we?

Before I Draft

What I Need to Know Before I Draft: This is the post that lays out why character and world are so critical to me. Without them, I simply have no story! There is literally nothing for me to write until I hear my character’s voice and see the world around them.

How I Create Characters: It begins with a lot of questions. Not a personality quiz so much as an interrogation of the feelings I want to come out of a story. Both feelings for the characters and feelings for the reader.

Character Arcs & Growth

Audio: Crafting Character Arcs Over a Series: This audio (with transcript!) post is about how I handle character growth across many books. This is relevant whether you’re writing a duology or a sprawling multi-POV epic. (Ask me how I know! 😅)

When Character and Voice Go Wrong This happens so often for me. And frankly, it’s terrifying every time because I always convince myself you’ll never figure it out and let everyone down! WOE! But I always do figure it out, and I call it my Circling Process: how I orbit around a character until I find my way back inside their feelings and can proceed onward.

Writing Romance Intuitively: Each of my romantic pairings in my books is distinct—but how? It comes back to ye olde character voice, magical cookies, and earned payoffs. 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨

Setting & Worldbuilding

How I Build Worlds: From logistics to maps, if you’re new to worldbuilding and intimidated by it, this is a good place to start! Worldbuilding is often one of the most fun parts of the brainstorming process for me. (To the point that I will absolutely use it to procrastinate, lol. Don’t do that.)

Audio: An Intro on How I Build Worlds: We think of worldbuilding as only applying to fantasy or sci-fi, but that’s not true. Historical, contemporary—those tales also exist in worlds, and so they require worldbuilding too! This post is a deep dive into how I tackle it.

How to Level Up Your Settings, Part 1: As huge gamer (you all know that), video games are probably the number one source of inspiration for my writing and worlds.3 So I like to also use game development’s approach to “environmental storytelling” for fleshing out settings in each scene.

How to Level Up Your Settings, Part 2: This is how I use character as the key element that takes a setting from “interesting enough” to “downright fascinating.”

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I realize there are probably more character + world posts here on Substack, but a lot of my posts straddle the 7 topic lines listed above—so I had to pick which bucket I felt was a better fit.

There are also so many more craft-focused posts on the Susan Dennard Writing Academy. Even just on the free resources page! So head there if you want more!

That said, if there are any posts from my Substack archives you think should be on this list about character and voice, PLEASE SHARE!!! I will add them. 🥰

Also, stay tuned for the upcoming part 3: Constructing Scenes & Sentences. And thanks for reading Part 2 in the Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series!

💚 - Sooz

‘Tis time again: time for another critique partner meetup. Also, it’s my birthday! So clearly that makes it a good day for spreading love. 😉

So, if you’re in need of a secondary reader, share the following in a comment:

• Title (or working title, code name! Just something for easy reference)

• Genre (e.g. fantasy, mystery, romance—get specific, if you can, with subgeneres too)

• Reading level (e.g. adult, YA, MG)

• Word count

• What you’re looking for in a reader (e.g. a quick gut check, a thorough editorial pass, a cheerleader to read as you write)

If you see someone’s project that interests you, leave a reply and figure out how to get in touch outside the comments section. ☺️

Oh, and I highly recommend that no one share their ENTIRE manuscript right away. Treat this like dating! Only share a few chapters initially, so you can get a feeling for how your writing and critiquing styles align. If the connection is there, keep sharing! If the connection ain’t there…then no hard feelings. Better to be honest that your styles don’t match than to keep reading when neither of you is enjoying it.

Now, happy reading and connecting, friends! 😘

💚 - Sooz

I love how I was like: I’m going to be more frequent in my posting, gang! And then here I am with almost a month between posts.1

IN MY DEFENSE, life got hit with a series of speed bumps. We had 7 (7!!!) consecutive snow days with the kid home. Then I got super sick for two weeks, and it coincided with the Frenchman being out of town for an entire week. And then, write as my brain started to clear of mucus, winter break began and the kid was home again. 😑

On top of that, the post I had planned for today (actually a long series of posts) is something that took far longer to compile than I anticipated. More on this below.

Random side note/correction: I referred to my plant in the last newsletter’s image as a money tree. It is not a money tree. 😂 My money tree is about three feet away and not in the picture at all. I have been beating myself up for almost four weeks about calling that thing a money tree!

Ahem. Now onto the things that actually matter here.

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The Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series

One benefit of having a lot of content is that I have…well, a lot of content. There’s so much for readers and writers to wade into and learn from.

Another benefit is that if someone asks me about anything writing or publishing related, I’ve almost certainly discussed the subject before.

But of course, the downside of so much content is that it’s overwhelming. Not just for new (and old) subscribers, but for me as well. When those aforementioned people ask me the aforementioned questions, I’ll be so certain I wrote on that subject before, but…erm…where was it exactly?

And while yes, tis true I have organized my hundreds of pre-Substack writing newsletters on the Susan Dennard Writing Academy (and the Substack newsletters are there too!), the Academy is intended for rigorous learning for the committed writer.

For this series, I wanted to create an organized starting point that hits on all the many topics I’ve written about over the years.

I’m calling it the Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series, and it’s broken down by theme:

1. Following the “Right” Story

2. Building Characters & Worlds

3. The Craft of Sentences & Scenes

4. Revisions & Editing

5. Finding Your Unique Process

6. When Things Get Difficult

7. Publishing: the Honest Truth

So buckle up. I’ve got part 1 for you today.

1. Following the “Right” Story

We’re kicking off the primer series with what I consider the beating heart of my writing advice: how I find and follow the “right” story.

As you all know if you’ve followed me any length of time, writing a novel (for me! everyone else is different!) is never about following an outline from Point A to Point B. It’s about feeling the story. About being inside the characters, inside the world, and following emotional dominoes wherever they might lead.

Does that mean I never outline? Hell no. Does that mean I simply float along chasing feelings? Hell no.

It’s far messier than that, involves heaps of stop[ing/starting, and is something that—even after almost 20 years of writing novels—can both frustrate me almost tp tears and bring me profound, unmatched joy.

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The Core Philosophy

How I Find the Right Story: Like the name on the tin describes, this is about what happens when the story stops flowing and I can no longer feel the character. I’m just telling the story instead. This post also dives into why forcing words from an outline, even a perfectly logical one that should work, can send my whole plot off the rails.

Magical Cookies, or Don’t Write the Boring Parts: This is the phrase that made me “famous” in the writing world (even if most people now use the phrase without knowing it started with me 😅). Magical cookies drive my entire drafting process, and this idea has helped more writers than almost anything else I’ve ever written about.

How to Stay Excited While You Write: This post is a deeper, more recent dive into the Magical Cookies method—and also an honest look at what happens when the cookies aren’t enough. Just because you find your process doesn’t mean the writing will always be easy! (IF ONLY. 😭)

Unsticking When Stuck

Three Reasons I Usually Get Stuck In My Stories: After 14 published books (and 4 more on the way from HarperCollins + who knows how many on my hard drive?), I’ve noticed a pattern in what derails me. These three root causes are almost always to blame when a manuscript isn’t “working.”

What I Need to Know Before I Draft: This post is about why I’ve stopped trying to plan everything upfront and started leaning into my intuition instead. Not because planning is bad, by any means! But because my brain (and I repeat: not necessarily yours!) just has unique “on-ramp.”

Asking for Help During Story Stuckery: Shocking—I know—but you don’t actually have to figure it all out alone? I am so bad at not doing this, yet whenever I take the leap and ask for help, the results always speak for themselves. (Shout out to Rachel and Jo, my invaluable, go-to story helpers.)

When to Push Through…or Not

When Just Finishing a Draft Isn’t Best for the Story: “Just finish the draft” is one of those pieces of advice that sounds like it should be true…but I’m sorry, it simply isn’t. Sure, it’s true for some, but I am living proof that such advice doesn’t always apply.

When to Let Go of a Story and When to Hang On: Should we listen to the ideas we can’t get out of our heads? For me, it’s almost a hard yes.

When You Have a Book You Keep Coming Back To: An unintentionally part 2 to the previous post—and the long, winding story of —a project I started years ago, abandoned, and have returned to again and again. (And that is finally coming out as a novelette soon with Owlcrate! 😱)

Combining Two Books Into One: This post details the long, agonizing saga that was Witchshadow. I give a behind-the-scenes look at the structural challenge of merging two books into one. It was…well, a saga worthy of the Witchlands.

When the Story Simply Flows Sometimes—only sometimes!—everything just clicks. And oh, the glory, my friends. THE GLORY. In this audio post, I talk all about the true, unmatched joy in that feeling and how I’ve been tapping into it in recent months.

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Aaaaand there you have it: part 1 in the new Misfits & Daydreamers Primer Series.

If there are any posts from my archives you think should be on this list about the “right” story, PLEASE SHARE!!! I will gladly add to this list. 😌

And of course, stay tuned for the upcoming part 2 with my “top hits” for Building Characters & Worlds.

💚 - Sooz

In recent weeks, I’ve had a few friends reach out with a text message along the lines of, I notice you’ve been really quiet on our Discord/WhatsApp/Signal chat. Everything okay?

Yes, everything is great, I’ve typed back. I just got a new computer for Christmas.1 And I’ve blocked all social media and messaging apps on it. Even email, too. So I’ve been in a state of blissful silence working! Sorry I didn’t warn you!

In my defense, I didn’t know how long this experiment would last. Then, once I’d actually been away from the internet for a few days, the thought of ever returning to it…

Ugh. That would require walking into another room and turning on my laptop and just ugh.

So I’ve barely touched my laptop. And the days of focus have accumulated.2

As I was sinking into the vast empty clarity of this new computer, I also happened to listen to a podcast by famed author and computer scientist Cal Newport on neuroscience and phone use. His message really resonated with me.

As you all know, I’ve done everything to make my phone as boring as possible. But I still can’t seem to stop myself from grabbing for the dang thing constantly. It doesn’t matter that there ‘s nothing to do on it, my fingers move of their own accord.

According to Newport (who’s looking at the science here), this constant “grabbiness” is because of the ubiquity of the phone. That fact that it’s in my pocket means I’ll always be reaching for it, seeking dopamine to relieve any brief moment of boredom or discomfort in my life.

And it’s true! Be honest: how often do you check your phone simply because you’re walking from one room to another? That three second lull in mental activity is enough to send me grabbing, certainly. Even though there is literally nothing to do on my phone but look at the occasional WhatsApp or Signal message.

But I don’t want to be like that!

So I was determined to start this year by removing my phone’s ubiquity.

The only reason I haven’t taken this nuclear option before is because I have to be “on call” for my daughter. Her asthma means I might get a phone call from the school at any moment, and that fear of missing an emergency means I’ve never committed to putting the phone far away or even locking it up as some people do…

But if ubiquity is the problem, then surely I can find a solution!

And I have.

Shortly before New Years, I hooked up my ancient Coros Pace 23 to receive phone call notifications.4 It’s not a glossy interface, but the watch beeps at me if a call is incoming.

Otherwise, all other notifications are silenced. Meanwhile, my phone itself is all the way on the other side of the house. Far enough away, in other words, that inertia works its magic.

After three weeks wtith this experiment, the results have been amazing. Unsurprisingly, I don’t need to check my email 8,473 times a day. Twice a day is plenty. And unsurprisingly, there haven’t been any conversations in my group chats that I haven’t been able to catch up with later in the day.

Do I still reach for a phone? Yes! That first week, big yes. I’d hit a pause in my work or reach a point where difficult thinking (ugh) was required, and I’d find myself leaning back in the chair and searching for a phone…

But it wasn’t there.

Then I’d laugh at myself, sigh, and get back to the work.

Now look: I want to be clear that I’m not trying to become an ascetic. I don’t want zero contact with the outside world and nary a disruption to slow my writing.

My goal here isn’t “improved productivity.” In fact, my aim for 2026 is to focus less on work and more on my health and my day-to-day relationships. But phones are active impediments to that!

The reality is that being a parent…or simply being a human can be so stinking boring sometimes. But I hate feeling as if I’d rather be checking my email than engaging with the person directly in front of me.

For that matter, I hate that I can’t walk down a flight of stairs and not reach for my phone in my back pocket. That’s ridiculous. And unhealthy. (I literally broke my heel bone and two metatarsals falling down stairs because I was on my phone. Yet who still keeps reaching for her iPhone?)

The reality is that less I’m on my phone or even on my browser surfin’ the web, the happier I am as a human being.

Addiction runs strong in my family, and I fell down the slippery slope of substance abuse when I was in my late teens/early twenties. Ever since coming out the other side of that, I’ve tried to acknowledge and subsequently manage anything that feels like it’s hijacking my brain and behavior. Sugar, caffeine—even those I have to manage lest they take charge.

But the phone has been this one thing I can’t seem to truly control. Or rather, the one thing I can’t stop from controlling me.

So for now, the phone will continue to stay in Time Out all day, tucked over in a shadow by the refrigerator, while my shiny new computer will remain blocked of all things alluring online.

Wish me luck!

Do you have any kinds of focus-building or tech-limiting plans for 2026?

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‘Tis that time again, although I don’t know how. Last year was such a true blur of deadlines and book releases and, of course, grief.

Thank you for supporting me throughout that.

And now please choose your free, signed book as a Founding Member!

Given that I had two books come out in 2025, I’ve got some new titles (and editions) shoved onto the selection lists. (TE3, for example, is all the way at the bottom. Witchlight, meanwhile, is added into the Witchlands mix.)

As usual, choose a first, second, and third edition to receive! And I’ll send out what copies I have on a first-come, first-serve basis.

And again: THANK YOU. You don’t have to support me financially, but you do — and that means more than a measly newsletter can ever convey.

Choose your free book!

I hope you all are having a good introduction to 2026 so far. I know the world continues to feel unsteady and dark around us, but I truly believe that with each other is how we’ll make it through.

So thanks for being one of my “each others.”

💚 - Sooz

Read more

As mentioned in the last newsletter, I had a year that far surpassed my greatest writing output dreams. And while I credit a lot of that to quitting social media, I absolutely had some more tangible tools that helped get me there.

Some of the items below will be familiar if you’ve followed me for very long. Some will be new.

That said, at this point—fifteen years into my publishing career—my routine is pretty locked-in. Sure, I love to try new things…but I rarely discover something new that truly disrupts my process. Although a few items below have been game changers!

Read on to see what they are! (And note, none of these links are affiliated. I get zero kickbacks. These are just things I really love and use a lot!)

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1. reMarkable 2 ($629, but can be cheaper with sales)

You knew this not was coming. My love for the reMarkable 2 knows no bounds, and it is still my most used tool aside from my laptop.

I have been awake since 5AM, and until right now, it’s the only tool I’ve used today. My favorite work hours are the ones when I never have to crack open my laptop and I can work “analog” with only the reMarkable 2.

I stand by everything I said in this review from almost two years ago1:

And yes: I know the reMarkable 2 might seem expensive once you add on the Type Folio (I highly recommend getting the keyboard!) and marker with eraser…

But given how much I use this item, my only regret is letting the price tag keep me from buying sooner.

2. Scrivener ($60, one-time purchase)

Yep, I always recommend Scrivener.

It’s the most used app on my computer, hands down. Do I even know all it can do? Nope. I doubt I use even half of its functionality—and that’s just fine.

I’ve got my setup; it works for me; and other than changing the font between projects, I always use the same layout.

(Note: as a “circling” writer, the snapshot feature is truly INVALUABLE. Same goes for the binder tool and being able to rearrange scenes at will.)

See how I use the software here:

I realize some people love Word or Google Docs, and that’s great. Use what your brain is happiest with! But there’s a reason Scrivener is so beloved by so many writers.

Plus, there’s a weeklong free trial—so why not give it a try?

3. Voice Dream Reader ($79.99/year)

I added this app to my lineup two years ago at the suggestion of two of my friends with visual impairements.

What does it do? Read documents for you in a not-that-great AI voice. (This is not the kind of AI that is built off real people. It’s…robotic, at best.2)

Initially, I set up the app with the intention of using it when my migraines make screens agonizing to stare at. What I discovered instead was that I love listening to my books read in a clunky, only vaguely human voice.

Again: as a “circling” writer, I go through the same parts of my manuscript many, many times. And as a writer who jumps around often, I have to reorient myself in a book each time I return.

That means I get sick of reading the same pages again and again and again.3

To help alleviate some of that “ugh, I have to read my words again” feeling, I now upload my document to Voice Dream Reader, listen to it at 250% speed, and reorient myself in the manuscript while I’m doing other things. It lets me cram the reread into the parts of my day I otherwise can’t work—while driving, cooking, doing the laundry, walking the dog, etc.

Truly: this app has become an invaluable part of my process.

It’s also great for a final reread before your book heads off to your editor. I catch typos, clunky sentences, etc.

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4. Becca Syme’s Resources (prices vary)

I’ve been singing the praises of Becca Syme for so many years now, I feel like a broken record. But I truly cannot overstate how much her “writing alignment” resources have impacted my writing output and creative happiness.

No, you won’t get results from simply reading some books or even from taking a workshop or two. You have to apply what you learn—which isn’t easy. Yet here I am, four years after discovering Becca, and I am the happiest writer I’ve ever been.

Try her podcast if you want free resources.

Try her books if you want cheap resources. ($)

Try her workshops if you really want to dive in and get to work. ($$$)

Try coaching if you want help tailored just to you. (−$)

5. Voice Memo app (free on iPhone)

I record voice memos so often that I’ve actually made a shortcut on my home screen. All I have to do is tap the icon, and bam: it starts a new recording.

What do I record? Anything! There is no wrong answer.

If I’m stuck, I brainstorm aloud as if I’m talking to someone. The ideas flow out, and I don’t have to worry I’ll forget something useful. It honestly feels like brainstorming with another person, since so often all we really need is a sounding board.

The simple act of translating a problem into words that I then articulate out loud frequently reveals my solution. With a voice memo, though, there’s no “middle man” necessary—so I don’t have to feel guilty about bothering a friend.4

Sometimes I will dictate actual words I want to write into a scene, and then I will copy/paste the transcript5 into Scrivener.

Other times I describe what I want to come next in the story—broad beats or dialogue that’s on the horizon. Basically, it’s a vocalized version of my scene screenplay that I use to guide me when I sit at the keyboard.

And sometimes, I simply map out my overall life and work plans. Like, here’s a literal transcript from one such “conversation”:

Okay, I’m going to finish editing Three Mollys in the Well this afternoon. Then I’ll take a break and teach the taekwondo class. Then it’s dinner and redacted’s bedtime. So I’ll basically turn off the brain and let the subconscious chew. Then tomorrow I can dive into Sector 26, if I’m feeling it when I open the document. But where did I leave off? I know I was stuck, but was it because the emotions weren’t clicking. Or was it that the plot was missing something? I don’t want to get to dug in like I always do when I squeeze a problem too tightly…

As you can see, the words just flow out, and the act of speaking them feels differently for me than simply thinking them. The insights and planning sinks more deeply into my brain, and since I know everything I’m saying is recorded, I don’t worry I’ll say/think something brilliant…then forget it.

If you’ve never tried just talking at yourself in a memo, I urge you to try! Truly! It’s such a critical part of my process now!

Other Stuff I Use — at varying price points:

6. Boox Mira e-ink monitor ()

The Boox Mira monitors are not cheap. And as such, I would never have bought this for myself (I dragged my feet on the reMarkable 2 for years!). But my husband gave it to me as a gift, and…

Wow.

I use it all the time now.

As with the Voice Dream Reader app, the initial aim was to help with my migraines. Screens become truly unbearable to look at when I get a migraine, but I can’t just miss a work day. I have too many migraines for that.

What I discovered with the reMarkable 2, though, was that I could handle the e-ink screen. No, the migraine didn’t miraculously go away (lol, if only), but at least I could keep working without exacerbating the problem.

What happened with the Boox Mira, though—again, just like with the Voice Dream Reader app—was that I found it useful way beyond migraine management.

Because it’s boring.

Like, looking at your desktop with e-ink makes the damned thing an absolute drag. I have zero desire to click on Safari and start surfing news or gaming sites. I have zero desire to check my email or pop onto Discord. There’s no color. There’s a delay (e-ink has a slow refresh rate). The screen isn’t very large. And on top of that, it’s such a pain in the ass to unplug the monitor just so I can get a dopamine hit…

So I don’t. I take the path of least resistance, and that happens to be the document I already have open in Scrivener. Next thing I know, I’ve spent hours with laser focus.

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7. Canva ($15/month or $120/year)

I did a lot of self-promo this year, and I did so with the guidance and help of a team. So not only was having a subscription to Canva Pro 100% worth it for the wider graphic options, it was worth it for the team functionality.

Canva has its quirks, but it’s more than enough for most authors. Plus, having it sync across my laptop and phone is great. If I’m stuck in a waiting room or at the airport, I can still pull together a graphic or finish one I’ve already started.

8. Desk ellipse ($179)

Ever since I read the book Exercised by Daniel Lieberman, I’ve known that being still all day is deadly. Even just a little movement can have major overall health impacts.

So I invested in a Desk Cycle Ellipse. It goes right under my desk, and I just let my feet spin. I keep it on a low resistance because I discovered I would stop pushing (and not realize I’d stopped) when the resistance was high. But at a low difficulty? Yeah, I just spin…and spin…and spin.

Who knows if it does anything for me, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. And at the very least, I definitely feel less blergh when I eventually rise for a meal or bathroom break.

9. Dumb Phone app ($9.99/year)

About a year ago, I discovered the Dumb Phone app for iPhone. It’s pretty straightforward to set up, and after create a few shortcuts to smooth out my workflow…

Well, I’m pleased to say I have the most boring phone out there. Like with the Boox Mira monitors, my phone is just unfun to use. I won’t say I never get distracted by it, but it certainly happens far less.6

I mean, look at this:

As you can see, there ain’t much here, and I’ve intentionally made it so freaking boring to look at. I have a brown shortcut for recording a voice memo (the microphone icon), a brown shortcut for opening Voice Dream Reader (the ear icon), and the rest is self-explanatory.

If I swipe right, I have access to my other apps, but there aren’t many installed on my phone. And the only one that can be a problem for me is Safari, which Dumb Phone allows you to BLOCK yourself from it.

So I do.

10. Freedom ($39.99/year)

Lastly, to ensure I’m truly blocked from distraction during my prime writing hours, I have Freedom installed across my laptop and phone.

This app blocks whatever you want it to block. For me, that’s specific websites (news, Discord, gaming sites, email, etc). And while I might not have social apps, you can certainly use Freedom to block those too!

What I love most about the premium plan for Freedom is the ability to set a schedule. My best work hours are as soon as I wake up, and the last thing I want is to be derailed by the siren call of “just real quick, I’ll check [insert website].” Because it’s never “just real quick,” and it inevitably fills my head with noise that I don’t want in there.

So I have the hours of 5AM - 7:45AM scheduled on Freedom to automatically block me, and everyday, I awaken to a phone and computer that are just ughhhhh, so boring!

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As you can see, my theme for the year was “ugh, boring.” But in a world built for distraction, boring is exactly what we all need. Being stuck with only your thoughts (gasp!) means you have the mental space to brainstorm, to daydream, to wander and drift exactly like our creative subconscious needs.

And I have clearly had a wildly productive year because of all that enforced boredom!

Now you tell me! What were your top tools in 2026? Share in the comments!

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I’d love to know what you’ve learned you can’t create without or what simply makes your life easier to navigate. Maybe I’ll try something out and discover it’s a game changer! Or maybe you’ll try something listed above and discover it’s exactly what you need…

Until next time!

💚 - Sooz

First off: I realize I’ve been quiet in recent months. The reason for this is multifold.

1. My thirteenth and fourteenth books come out this fall. Which meant I was traveling. A lot. And I also had so much self-promotion to hustle through…

   1. Now the travel and promo hustle is past! Thank goodness. I know I’m very lucky to get to do as many events as I do, but I was getting really tired of planes, hotel beds, DoorDash, and Lyfts. 🥲

   2. If you want to buy The Executioners Three1 or the Witchlands series, what better time to do so than the holidays? Also, get signed, personalized copies!

2. I sold four books to HarperCollins (yay!) and they will be released every six months (yay!) which means…oh yeah. Deadlines.

   1. Because two of those books are even under a crash schedule2, I had to get them done before 2025 was over. BUT I DID IT! 🥳

   2. Now I have more breathing room for the next two are due.

3. Cricket started kindergarten—and extracurricular activities.

   1. I am now That Mom driving her kid around and writing in her car while the kid does [insert class/sport here].

   2. On the one hand, I kind of like that there’s nothing for me to do for an hour other than work when I’m sitting in my car waiting for her to finish a class.

   3. On the other hand, all the driving around + “fighting with her to put on her dance clothes/taekwondo uniform/whatever” is a real time and energy suck. 😂

4. I had some personal tragedy this year that was quite prolonged and physically difficult, and that I am still grieving and processing.

   1. So I hope you can understand that writing newsletters was one thing I decided to cut from my plate to make life a little more manageable.

Now that I’ve made excuses explained myself, I do want to make clear that I feel bad about being so absent this year on the Misfits & Daydreamers.

So to make up for it, you can expect far more consistent content in the next few months.

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At least until I have to dive back into promo mode for my next release, Two for Joy, on May 5, 2025! (Pre-order the US edition here. Pre-order the UK edition here.)

So if there’s any topic you’d like covered, be sure to leave a comment on the latest AMA!

Or if you’re interested in maybe a live Q&A—you bring the Qs, I give the As—before the year is up, let me know below!

Goals Achieved for 2025

Or should I say “destinations reached for 2025” instead? Because earlier this year, way back in February, I wrote about setting goals as a fluid creator. I said:

Rather than set any kind of specific goal with my writing, I instead make a a number of Really Vague Destinations I’d like to get to within a Really Broad Timeframe.

I imagine it like I’m Frodo. Here I am, in the Shire, and waaaaaaaay over there is Mount Doom. I have to reach Mordor to deal with this ring, but the journey? Why, it’s fluid, baby! Maybe I’ll go through the Mines of Moria. Maybe I’ll head toward Isengard or Mines Tirith or the Dead Marshes or WHO KNOWS? That’s the whole point—I don’t know how I’ll get there.

I just know I will make it to Mount Doom.

I then proceeded to out the “destinations” I wanted to reach before 2025 ended. And now that the end of the year is closing in, I though it would be fun to check in and see how I did…

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My Destinations:

• Write a 9,000-word short story for an anthology (this is under contract—so I have to make sure it gets done by April)

• Finish The Executioners Three and Witchlight copy edits + pass pages (also under contract with attached deadlines—will wrap up in April)

• Get a new proposal to my publisher(s) — DONE

• Finish at least 2 books

• Stretch goal: Finish 3 books

How I did:

• Write a 9,000-word short story for an anthology (this is under contract—so I have to make sure it gets done by April)

  • Yep! I turned it in and have done a round of edits now too. And honestly, I think it might be one of the best things I’ve written. It’s definitely perfect for fans of the Witchlands.

• Finish The Executioners Three and Witchlight copy edits + pass pages (also under contract with attached deadlines—will wrap up in April)

  • Yep! Obviously I got this done since both books have now hit stores!

• Get a new proposal to my publisher(s)

  • I not only did this, but I wrote six proposals this year for six different books, went on submission to publishers for four of them, and sold the full Murder Quartet to HarperCollins and Daphne Press!

• Finish at least 2 books

  • Yep! I finished Two for Joy and Four and Twenty Blackbirds this year.

• Stretch goal: Finish 3 books

  • I haven’t finished three…but the year isn’t over yet!

  • And even if I don’t manage to finish before 2026, I still:

    • Wrote 55K in a new book: Three Mollys in the Well (Murder Quartet book 3)

    • Wrote 40K in a different new book: One Raven for a Dove (Murder Quartet book 4)

    • Wrote 65K in another different new book: Salt of my Enemy, book 1 in a planned post-apocalyptic duology (trilogy?)

    • Edited and pulled together an adult epic fantasy proposal that I’ve been noodling at for a few years (The Alchemist and the Nightsong).

      • I then ultimately decided not to sell it, but hey, now it’s ready to work on for another day—and the first 20K words are strong!

    • Edited and pulled together an adult detective fantasy proposal I’ve also been noodling at for a few years (The Hand That Feeds). I will do something with it eventually.

      • I love the ~30K I have written so far, but it’s such a weird, quirky genre mashing project. 😅 Classic Sooz.

    • Added 5K to an adult cozy cosmic horror WIP called An Unkindness of Mirrors. Also been poking at this one for a few years now.

      • This book is so slow-going for me. It’s just so plot-driven and I’m such a character writer. I can’t fall into flow like I normally would—I’m crafting such an intricate arrangement of sneaky plot beats…

    • Made about 85,000 reels and social media graphics. And posted them on Instagram.

    • Wrote about 85,000 fan-dedicated newsletters for .

    • And in a non-work accomplishment, I also got back into martial arts. Which has felt amazing.

      • I slipped a disc over the summer, and recovery has been excruciatingly slow. But martial arts have been the one thing that has truly helped.

What I Failed At

Over all, I’m pretty pleased with my output for the year. Especially when you consider that I had two books release this fall and had to travel a ton.

Leaning into my true nature has truly transformed my writing life. It has also made me a much happier and more resilient person. When the writing life is fulfilling and healthy, that ripples into all the rest of my world!

And oh yeah, quitting social media has also made such a massive difference in my baseline happiness.3 No social also means I have more time for writing, being with my family, reading, gaming—whatever!

Here are all the posts I’ve made on the subject of “finding my true writing nature” and also on quitting social media:

Okay, but if you feel so good about the year, Sooz, then what exactly did you fail at?

Well, for one, when tragedy struck back in the spring, I stopped tracking my progress in the way I described in this post.

To be honest, I wasn’t doing much work at that time anyway, beyond the bare minimum. There was nothing to track, in other words. Only after surgery in mid May did I slowly claw back into some Real Work. But by then, I was out of the habit of tracking progress—and frankly I’d forgotten I was even tracking it! Oops.

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I also fully failed to keep up here, with the Misfits & Daydreamers! Sorry. 😬

And lastly, I still haven’t finished my freaking Creative Life workshop over on the Academy. I have no excuse for this one, other than it’s a low priority so it just keeps getting punted to my “do later” list.

And…that’s it.

The list is honestly pretty small because overall, I’m really pleased by how the year went. Despite tragedy—or perhaps because of it—I feel very glass isn’t half full YET but there’s so much potential for it to get there!

Life was hard; I found solace in my work; and I will continue to write because it brings me true, reliable joy.

I also had such a wonderfully fulfilling fall with all my travel. Yes, the travel part gets exhausting, but not the events. Never the events! I love meeting readers more than any other part of my job, and I got to enjoy so much of that.

It was truly rewarding, and it filled me to the brim.4 Now I can use all that fuel from connecting with readers to feed my writing through winter.

What about you?

Did any of you change your approach to writing this year? Did you maybe let yourself be more fluid or perhaps you added more structure or…?

And if you did try a new approach, what did you learn from the experiment?

Leave a comment and let me know!

💚 - Sooz

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Pre-order Campaign!

First things first, before I get to the meat of this newsletter: the Witchlight pre-order campaign has kicked off! 🎉

So, if you want to join the fun and get access to the goodies, then make sure you’ve pre-ordered Witchlight—and English-language edition will do—and submitted your receipt.

Submit your receipt here!

Also, international orders qualify! Pre-order links are at the buttons below.

3 Tricks For Easily Jumping Between Projects

On tour for The Executioners Three a few weeks ago, one of the most common questions I got was some variation of:

Since you work on so many books at once, how do you keep them all separated in your head?

I love this question! Although, that said, my first instinct was to rebel against it. Oh, I don’t have any problem with that! It’s just natural.

However, as with many things in my writing process, once I actually sat down and considered it, I could tease out some tricks I rely on to keep so many distinctive stories and characters separated in my brain.

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1. Change the Font

This is by far the most important trick. Like, I can’t overstate how much I rely on this hack—and how much I cannot read one of my own books in Times New Roman ever again.

The standard font in publishing, when you turn it in to your editor/agent/pal, is 12pt Times New Roman (usually double spaced). For years, that was all I used.

Now I hate it.

And other than the font size and the spacing (I still use 12pt, but I set spacing to 1.5) nothing is ever the same between my books. Instead, I select a font that best fits the overall vibe of what I’m writing.

I’ll give you some examples. Below, I’ve got the opening chapter of Witchlight and another epic fantasy I’ve been chipping away at for a few years called The Alchemist and the Nightsong.

As you can see, I’ve chosen serif fonts for these books because a serif font just fits the vibe of “epic fantasy” in my mind. Witchlight is in Hoefler Text; Alchemist is in Georgia.

As you can guess, the characters in these books are completely different—not to mention the worlds and magics are nothing alike. Also, oh yeah! The tenses! I’ve got third past for Witghlight and third present for Alchemist.

But when I open up the documents? It only takes me a few sentences to slide right into one voice or the other.

Okay, but what about books that are even more different? Like, not just two epic fantasies with tense changes?

Well, here are two projects. You’ll see that I again picked serif fonts—but note how different the voices are. Also, the genres.

You’ll also likely have spotted that I’ve got first person present tense in one project and third person present in the other. The one titled Sector 26 is a WWII vibes post-apocalyptic with monsters. The other (titled The Hand That Feeds) is a 1920s vibe detective story set in a fantasy city where gods are at war.

(The fonts, by the way, are Averia Libre1 and Crimson Pro.)

Last example, for something more “modern.” These are two screenshots from my upcoming Murder Quartet series. Although each book in that series is a romantic mystery horror set in an alternate 90s with ghosts and murder, each book also stands alone.

Different heroine, different mystery, different setting and romance each time. So, yet again, I must have different fonts for every book.

For the second Murder Quartet book (Four & Twenty Blackbirds), which is set on a tiny, blustery island in the middle of winter, I wanted something that felt edgy. Wren is dealing with a haunted Cold War era airfield and horrifying visions—and it’s very Twin Peaks meets Stranger Things. So I wound up with Optima as the font.

For the fourth Murder Quartet book (One Raven for a Dove), set at a remote, forested campus for a writer’s workshop (during fall), I wanted something that reflected my heroine—an aspiring mystery writer. She loves writing about sleuths and reading about sleuths, so I wanted a font that captured the feel of the paperbacks she’s always devouring. That font, in turn, is PT Serif.

As I’m sure you can guess, I have so many more books I could share here. Some short stories too, all of which I am either working on currently or have finished this year.

I am not exaggerating when I say “I jump projects a lot.” Between Friday and Monday alone, I worked on three different books.

And no, I had zero problem just jumping from one voice + world to another.2

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2. Change the Playlist

This is a more obvious suggestion, since I feel like most writers make playlists for their books. I’m no different.

I’ve got a Witchlight playlist, filled with a lot of Two Steps from Hell and 2WEI.

I have an Alchemist playlist, which is mostly just the soundtracks from Baldurs Gate 3 and Divinity: Original Sin 2 because I love Borislav Slavov. (This one and this one just gut me.)3

For the Murder Quartet, I have a weird playlist filled with present day hits like this, 80s classics like this, and 90s stuff I once loved like this.

I just pop on these assorted playlists, and bam! Vibes reclaimed.

I especially like listening to my playlists when I’m out for my runs. Because I tend to write a lot of action, I will literally (this is embarrassing to admit) pretend I’m my character running from a monster or blasting out magic or swinging a sword through battle.4

3. Refer to the Color-Coded Moodboard

Moodboards are also popular for writers to make, and I’m no different in this regard. (I talked about making moodboards here.)

However, one thing I do for my moodboards is give them a unified color scheme. This helps me really lock into the vibes—and I will tweak and adjust the colors a bajillion times until the moodboard is just right and accurately reflects what I feel inside my brain.

Here are some examples, and I think you can see with a glance just how different each of these books must feel.

You can see we’ve got a pink spring scheme, a red-and-white winter scheme, a purple epic fantasy scheme, a sunset-and-turquoise mystery scheme, a sepia war/apocalypse scheme, and lastly a green-and-yellow summer scheme.

I have all of these moodboards in my Scrivener files, and sometimes—if I’m really wanting to make sure I nail the vibes and the voice—I’ll paste the moodboard directly into the notes feature on the Inspector panel. Then I constantly see the images and colors as I’m drafting.

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A Note for the Non-Visual Creators

I realize not everyone uses visuals in the same way I do to create—and of course, some of you might be visually impaired. I get it! When my migraines are bad, I cannot look at screens or anything bright.

In fact, my migraines are why I turned to the Voice Dream Reader app after two of my friends (who are visually impaired themselves) recommended it.5

So on those days when I can’t rely on mixed-up fonts to help me out—specifically if I’m editing—I will instead let the robotic voices from Voice Dream Reader help me. You can use different accents, different styles, and that also helps me “click” into a new voice, world, and story.

Your turn! I’d love to know if YOU have any tricks for jumping between projects. Share them in the comments if you do—because I will 100% give them a try myself and see if they work for my brain.

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Now, off I go to get edits on Two For Joy turned in before Friday as well as edits on one of my other projects that is a totally different genre and voice (😉). And oh yeah, I have so much promo to do for Witchlight.

I love being busy, though, especially when my personal/family life is (mostly) steady and calm.6 So I would not have it any other way.

💚 - Sooz