The Author Alchemist

Hey y’all, it’s KimBoo! Welcome back to The Author Alchemist! In this episode, I’m taking a quick break from getting ready for my presentation at Author Nation 2025 to talk about something every writer deals with sooner or later: decision fatigue. This topic comes straight out of my book Out From Fanfic: How to Build Original Fiction from Fanfiction , where I look at how setting “guardrails” for y...

It's been a year! I feel it's been a whole year of "have a day!" every day. Which isn't to say good things haven't been happening. In this short update, I talk about what I'm working on, where I'm going (literally and figuratively!), and how much I love writing! --------------- For more tools for writers, including books on craft and previous podcast episodes, visit my website: https://www.authora...

I'm back! KimBoo checks in from the wilds of 2025 to update you on what's going on, what to expect next, and (most importantly) how Keely is doing.

Hey ho! Hear me ramble about my super-goth look! Special limited edition! ;) This is a short episode where I talk about how important it is to find joy in your writing practice, and what you can do if you feel like everything is drudge work! -------------------------- For more about me and my work, visit my studio, https://houseofyork.info

In this episode, I discuss balancing world-building details with reader imagination in fiction writing, sharing insights from social media posts I've seen on different approaches to world-building and the importance of leaving holes in the narrative. Using my own experiences to illustrate how details can enhance or hinder creativity, I explore techniques for creating immersion, such as using cultu...

What is the true source of writing mastery? As the old joke goes: "How do you get to Carnegie Hall? PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE!!!" In this episode I talk about what having a large goal like "writing 1 million words" can do for you, and why it is important! --------------------- My website: https://houseofyork.info

Join me for updates on my own serials, the 1 Million Words Club, and advice on how to transition your idea/outline for a book series into a long-running serial!  Links: My website Serials beats spreadsheet Subscriptions for Authors fb group 

My book "By the Seat of Your Pants: Secrets of Discovery Writing" is out! I explain a bit of what it is about and why I wrote it, along with some updates of my fiction stories.  For more about me and my work, visit my studio, https://houseofyork.info -------------------------- RESOURCES MENTIONED: By the Seat of Your Pants: Secrets of Discovery Writing My new book all about discovery writing/pants...

A quick update on what I'm writing, what I'm working on, and what kind of money I am making. I talk about Kobo Plus, sales numbers, and the launch of Dragon's Grail! --------------- For more about me and my work, visit my studio, https://houseofyork.info

Back from a lovely writer's retreat held on the Gulf Coast of Florida, I'm thinking a lot about "what makes a writer" and the importance of creativity in our lives. There are a lot of definitions of what makes a "real writer" and most of them are about gatekeeping, so instead I propose that a real writer is someone who invests time and energy into their practice. For those who feel overwhelmed by...

First off, apologies in advance for the tapping noise that occasionally shows up, I think it was my headphones' cord knocking against the desk. I'll be more careful in the future! This is an update, overview, and discussion about all my current writing projects. I get sidelined talking about discovery writing, but then again, I'm writing a whole book on the topic so I'm just calling it "advanced m...

A short episode about a question I was asked last week, and how answering it has changed the course of my writing career.   

She's BAAAACK! After a full year of letting this podcast languish, I decided I needed to jump back into the saddle. I have a lot going on, including new author platforms and new stories and new goals. If you've wondered where I went and what I'm up to, this is the episode for you!

Better late than never! I'm back with an episode I recorded last year, and is the final episode in my mini-series about our deepest fears. Stay tuned for my next episode, which will go over "What the heck has KimBoo been doing since 2022????" But for now, in THIS episode, I talk about why it is so important to love your characters deeply and passionately. Yes, even the characters who are unlikeabl...

The third installment of my Deepest Fears series focuses on "writer's guilt" and, in a round'about way, our fear of guilt. Oftentimes we slap a label on what is holding us back from writing, calling it perfectionism or guilt, when it is in fact a deep-seated fear of those very emotions. It sets up a dangerous feedback loop of negative emotions that can be hard to break! Hopefully this episode will...

Welcome to the second episode in a mini-series I’m doing about confronting our deepest fears as authors! Fear of being vulnerable is at the core of many of the fears that keep authors from writing, and in this episode I am taking aim specifically on the fear of being seen and of being shamed.  I cover the ways guilt and shame are not the same thing, and techniques you can use to understand what yo...

Welcome to the first episode in a mini-series I’m doing about confronting our deepest fears as authors. This is not simply about the fear of being bad at writing, or the fear that no one will read our work, but rather about the fears that keep us from writing in the first place…which often circle back around to simply one word: vulnerability.  Fear of vulnerability can take many forms, though, so...

A recurring theme in a lot of advice about creativity is "show your work/share your work." It is often hailed as a great way to "grow your audience" but I want to go a step beyond that and talk about how it is a great way to stay motivated and find inspiration, even if what you have to show is not polished and perfect yet.  I've grabbed three classic modern stories that were created and molded on...

Giving yourself permission to sit down and write is a major hurdle most writers face...but then what? The next step is giving yourself the permission to succeed as a writer, however you want to define "success."  That can be just as hard, though. We all say we want to be successful, but do we feel like we have earned that right? In this episode I use Elissa Altman's fantastic post from 2016 " Writ...

There are a lot of tools out there which are designed to help you be a better writer, but did you know there are also a lot of tools that can help you simply write the words? There are! In this episode I talk about apps, communities, and systems that you can use to help you get the words out of your head and into a document! Resources mentioned: https://www.putwordsdown.com https://v2.writeordie.c...

This is all about one of my favorite motivational books for writers, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (Note: this is an affiliate link with bookshop.org!). This is justifiably considered a modern classic in the field of motivating and inspiring authors, with great insights into productivity and our eternal nemesis, Resistance. However, it's not perfect, and in this episode I talk about the good...

Too often, well meaning people discourage writers from "thinking big," or getting too big for our britches. They want to protect us from disappointment, but what they are really doing is crushing our inspiration and motivation.  I want writers to get clear on what "thinking big" means to you (bestseller? award winner? literary journal renown? mid-list lifestyler?) and embrace it! Doesn't matter if...

What happens when you get in a fix and a story stalls out on you? Or runs away from you? Or forgets to that that left turn at Albuquerque?  In this episode I talk about the metamorphosis of my in-progress novel, The Bones & Brews Café, which was originally envisioned as a trope-tastic rom-com novella. Turns out it was anything BUT, and because I did not sit down and really look at what I was w...

A deep look at outlining from the perspective of whether it is actually helping you or not, and why it is helping you (if it is!). Links discussed in this episode: 10 Different Outlining Techniques Brian Sanderson's BYU 2020 class lectures  

(FYI: I recorded this back in January, and it was originally supposed to be the 7th episode, which is what I say in the opening, but nope! It's really truly the 10th episode of season 2!) Inspired by part of a graduation ceremony speech Neil Gaiman gave wayyyyy back in 1997, this episodes starts from there and spirals out into talking about the value of your obsessions to you as a writer, not just...