(Not Quite) Losing It Podcast

Homemade pajamas for Cookie Monster, a brief hop off the Julia train (Girl, what is your trauma regarding family?) and we’re finally into uncharted territory as our sage guide, Melissa, is reading these final chapters for the first time! None of us know what to expect from here on out. Our checkin covered Melissa’s final push to finish her revise and resubmit, Brynn’s homebrew DnD campaign, and Ka...

What does success look like to you? What are you afraid of? What resentments are you carrying around? Julia asks us to be (brutally?) honest with ourselves this week, which was fine because we were in total agreement with her. Brynn even issued an apology for all the mean things she said back in week 5. Julia asks us to forgive ourselves this week. For being afraid, for being petty, and for chicke...

Okay, for a couple weeks there, we were all feeling a little skeptical and frustrated with Julia, but this chapter offered the refreshing, realistic, practical advice we all needed to hear: Making even tiny shift in your creative trajectory will have incredible impact on where you land. Don’t be so obsessed with how you would ever afford to chase your dream full-time that you refuse to chase it pa...

Yes, we’ve had a few bones to pick with Julia over the past few weeks. Perhaps a whole skeleton by the time we got to the horse comment in the last chapter. But this week, we are in accord with 85% of the chapter. Perfectionism is the common enemy we can all rail against, and Julia’s got some piercing insights to share. Join us as we fight that stupid inner critic that keeps us from making stuff....

Show of hands. Who would like (Not Quite) Losing It to write an artist’s way for people who may or may not believe in God, who may or may not have money and who may or may not have a bajillion children? (We’ll workshop the title.) Once again Julia has some really great advice about the important of paying attention and intentionally incorporating joyful pursuits even in fifteen minute increments o...

When we recorded this episode, Brynn hadn’t read the chapter and was at the level of tired where everything seems funny, which is, as we all know, a contagious condition. That worked out great because Katie and I, who did read the chapter, were coming in feeling a tad bristly about some of Julia’s claims. Some of her ideas really resonated though. Is it OK, after all, for our creative ambitions to...

In week 4, Julia asks us to take a 7 day reading deprivation as a vehicle for connecting more deeply with ourselves. Brynn refused on principal. Melissa couldn’t find her book but got right on board as soon as she realized it was deprivation week. Katie was so busy that she accidentally participated by virtue of not having any time to read. We all agree that Julia’s intention of getting us to quie...

Are authors the most masochistic of all artists? Is serendipity God stepping in or are you just finally paying attention? At Katie’s funeral, which one of us will hype her as the undisputed queen of all hype-girls? We ask some big questions while checkin after week three. This week sparked some of the strongest pushback against Julia’s advice and we dig into how privilege plays a role in our abili...

Week 2 inspired some hot takes, our first unanimous disagreement with Julia, and justification for finding the perfect teacup and chair for your life. We also recorded while one of us was getting texts from upstairs reporting the baby’s oxygen levels so is this our most organized episode ever? No. Did we breakdown the chapter, offer our recommendations for the worthwhile tasks, and do the dang thi...

We made it through week one with only a single ER visit cutting into those morning pages. We made some important discoveries. The size of the notebook really helps getting through all three of those morning pages. Childfree artist dates are about as likely as a winning lottery ticket, but if you and your kid build Lego space cats together, it is both a parenting and creative win. It’s better to re...

How excited are we to be starting on The Artist’s Way path with y’all? SO EXCITED. Will we do it perfectly? No. Will we write morning pages first thing in the morning literally every day? Almost certainly not. Will we lower the bar so we can clear it? You know we will. And we’re dragging you along with us. Whether you are determined to follow AW to the letter or just want to see what you can pick...

Buckle up Buttercup. We’ve got dragons, quests, raw numbers and feelings about publishing, about trying to get published and some really excellent advice for when the “tea party is wooined”. We start with some honesty about Brynn and Melissa’s publishing quests. Brynn shares her sales numbers from the first two months of her book’s life. Melissa talks about where she stands a year in the agent que...

Summer bookclub #2! Y’all, when we decided to do this podcast, we agreed that we’d keep going as long as it was fun for us, not too stressful, and that we were genuine and fresh in our topics. So we are letting ourselves follow our whims and talk about what we want to talk about, which is, at this point, Robin Hobb’s Farseer trilogy. But even if you haven't read the books (YET), you should stick a...

We are women of our word. We promised a deep dive into Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb. Y’all probably thought we forgot (or hoped we did). Well, we are here to deliver on that promise with the first NQLI Summer Bookclub Episode! This is the first of our 3-episode deep dive into the Farseer Trilogy. We’re starting with Assassin’s Apprentice , the very first book in the Realm of Elderlings. If...

In which we invent our own Pokemon and discuss the greatest actor of our generation who brought to life iconic characters such as Sherlock Holmes, Odysseus, Romeo, D’Artagnan, and Faust: Wishbone. Prompted by a check-in on what media our kids are consuming, we reminisce about classic PBS and conclude Kindly Keyin is no Jack Russell Terrier in a feathered cavalier hat. For our creativity challenge,...

The last time we had a poetry assignment as our creativity exercise, I (Melissa) accidentally doomed us all to write bleak poems. Oops. This time, we went a little sillier. In our check-in, we share some hacks for summer survival, so join us for a very quick break from your children’s summer break. We promise a few giggles and maybe a practical take-away or two. K, love you, bye! This is a public...

This week’s creativity exercise is borrowed from the vaults of Odyssey of the Mind— which is basically the creativity olympics for kids. One part of the competition is for each team to come up with many creative responses to prompts like: Name a thing inside a thing inside a thing. (ex: a foot inside a sock inside a shoe.) Check out this OM website where you can find TONS of these verbal creativit...

Laundry inspired poetry! Y’all Robert Burns could never! This week Mel’s asks us to write poetry using a list of 50 words tailored to the modern American parent such as laundry, spilled and broken. We also share what books we’re reading and what books we DNF’d. We also have a (Not Quite) Losing It first, featuring Future-Katie and Lucy. Have fun with this prompt! Make your own list of age appropri...

Y’all, we made Brynn draw! This summer, we’re releasing a mini-episode each week. Each will be 20-30 minutes, with a creative challenge and a little bit of chit-chat. If you want to join in on the creative activity, grab a pencil and print out this worksheet . (Or, just draw 12 circles on a piece of paper) The first couple of exercises this summer are inspired by the New York Times 2025 creative c...

We did it! We made an entire season of Not Quite Losing It. A pretty impressive accomplishment considering 6 months ago we had no idea how to make a podcast. In this Season 1 finale of Not Quite Losing It, we revisit the goals we set for ourselves back in Episode 4, recorded a thousand years ago. We talk about the challenges of balancing projects with everyday life and the significance of small wi...

This episode’s a fun one, especially if you’re a sucker for a little nostalgia. Listen for mentions of Ann M. Martin, Louis Sachar, and the great Kate Baer (who is one of our creative-mom heroes), alongside our reminiscing about puff paint, severed hand props, and dads diving head first into the baptistry. We all can think of dozens of artists, writers, teachers, musicians who helped shape the kin...

Y’all, starting this week we have video! (Skip to 38 seconds if you want to see our smiling faces after the intro graphics!) This week, we’re talking about creative failures, and man… do we have some to share. Sometimes you have to laugh or cry, and this episode, we may have done a little of both as each of us revisited some of our most notable creative failures, from empty journals, to very earne...

Isn’t it wild how lonely you can feel, even when you’re never actually alone? Parenting can be so isolating. All three of us have gotten relief from that loneliness through different creative communities we’ve found (or created for ourselves): writing critique groups, pottery classes, twitter sub-cultures, text threads, and collaborating on this podcast. This week, our Good Fight Spotlight feature...

Many creatives use social media as their primary way to connect with inspiration and to find an audience. But… how can we make our phones creative tools instead of the place where all our discretionary time goes to die? The short answer? Just be more intentional and less impulsive. Easy, right? 😅 We definitely don’t have it all figured out, but we’ve got some good ideas worth trying. This week’s...

We definitely don’t want to be like those parenting books that tell you what you’re doing wrong (which you already knew), but don’t offer any practical advice on how to actually make changes. In this episode, we compile a bunch of actual road-tested strategies to squeeze creativity into the nooks and crannies of our busy lives. We hope some of what we share will be helpful to you, and we would lov...