Unpublished

QandA part 2! Thank you to everyone who listened to last week's episode and who interacted with me over at the Unpublished insta ! I'm doing my best to respond to all Dms so if you want a chat, please come on over! Questions this week are about: Self-publishing, the craft of writing, finding a workflow that works for you, building self-confidence, writing about trauma (incl. worries about...

We're answering questions from the members of the Inspired Collective (our membership program). We got so many great questions so we decided to make this part one of two! Questions include: What are your predictions for the indie creative scene in the next few years? How do you foresee traditional gatekeeping being further disrupted? You interact and support so many creatives. What are the mos...

Amie and James talk about the way hustle culture has ruined the way we look at accomplishment, painting it as an end in itself and a moral good where it should be a journey of self-discovery and joy. They discuss: their own fears about buying into hustle culture and how a reframe can help us to achieve the things we want to achieve in a more gentle, healthy way; the joy of achievement and doing ha...

Today Amie had the pleasure of interviewing the author of Already Enough, creator of Human Stuff on substack, and one of our instagram heroes, Lisa Olivera. Topics Discussed by Lisa and Amie:  The magic of being introverted and quiet as a creative. How to create when it feels like the world is burning Why creativity and art is revolutionary Creating when it isn't 'of value' to other people Ho...

Join us for a very casual conversation about our work life. We go through our past week and tell you what we did each day, why we might have done something or not done something, how we build rest into our week, why we don't work THAT much, and much more. This is one for those of you who like to just sit back and listen to friends chat. There isn't a huge amount to learn, just casual conversation....

In this episode, we prompt Chat GPT, an advanced chatbot, to ask us "What are ten surprising questions to ask a creative in an interview?". In the first half, we answer the bot's (scarily good) questions. Then, we discuss the ethics of AI art, whether or not we're scared of AI, how we as a society might prepare for more advanced forms of AI, and steps our society might take to protect artists from...

We are thrilled to be interviewing Morgan Grace, poet, fantasy author, and recipient of one of Ireland's basic income for the arts grant. The grant guarantees Morgan and 2000 other artists 325 euro per week for three years, no strings attached.  We discuss the incredible feeling of being recognised and supported by our society, how a basic income has impacted her creative practice, the basic...

We are super excited to have Tiktok sensation Millie Ford on the pod this week! We discuss: how to evolve and mature personally when your life is so public, perfectionism and procrastinating content creation when it's literally your job, having a safe place to make and share shitty art (+ how that can help your brand and creativity), taking advantage of inspiration, organising your day when you ar...

Did we get you with the title? We're trying to be catchier! Today we have a rambly episode about how varied everyone's taste in art is, why it's actually a good thing that not everyone will like your (or  your favourite creative's) art, why you shouldn't be mean about art that you dislike (and how that will help your own art), James' problem with Goodreads, radical self compassion and much mo...

Did you know Amie has a new book out? You can listen to the first chapter here on the podcast feed! A bit about the book: 1535, Oxfordshire. Lady Maude Shaftsberry has it all sorted. She will marry the well-connected lord, ascend the ranks of the Tudor court, and be mother to a small battalion of boys. But Maude has a secret that she carries everywhere: a birthmark that stretches over her stomach...

Today we have our good friend Leenadria on the pod. We have watched Lee's creative journey for several years now and are amazed by the mountain of amazing work she's produced in the last several months. Lee has one of the most incredible stories of anyone we've had on the podcast. This conversation is wide ranging and so important. We talk about "deservitude" versus gratitude journaling (a great p...

We're playing a game of "would you rather"! Questions include: Would you rather have one extremely successful project in your life OR lots of moderately successful ones; Would you want the ability to write perfect first drafts BUT the word poo will appear once every hundred pages in your final manuscript; Be the strongest person alive BUT you do a huge fart every time you lift something; and much...

We're honoured to welcome psychologist, anxiety coach and our favourite Tiktoker, Lily Sais, on the pod. Lily runs a successful online business coaching people to better manage anxiety, panic, and OCD. Amie credits Lily with helping her get a handle on her health anxiety. In the podcast we talk about: why you should be on Tikitok, anxiety, running an online business, creating online courses, membe...

Today we have writer, naturopath, and creative burnout coach, Gauri Yardi, on the podcast. As people prone to exhaustion and burnout, we found this chat invaluable. Where much of the conversation around burnout centres on purely psychological factors, Gauri takes a holistic approach. In our podcast we talk about Gauri's four pillars of nervous system care, how to listen to your body when it's tell...

Amie chats with her mama Kath McNee. They discuss each other’s journaling practice, how to journal with your kids and how to support your parenting journey with journaling. They also discuss what it is was like to be a mama to Amie, and an exciting new book coming out soon.

James has compiled a list of all the products we offer and ranked them by how much money they've made us. In this ep, he reveals the list to Amie in order and they discuss why they think certain products may have done better than others. This is basically a complete inventory of our entire business and the lessons we've learned from it. Apologies if the audio is shit, we recorded the whole thing i...

This week we're talking about how simply acting on a project is the best way to learn, research, get better. Every time you post something, write something, paint something, record something, you are producing information that you can use to do it better the next time. For us, business and art have always been about learning by acting.  Merch is available on wednesday 2nd of November! It will...

We have the first ever James solo episode today! I talk about whether I mind taking a "back seat" to Amie in the business, what it might mean to run an ethical business under capitalism, what I'm writing at the moment and what my plans are for my novels, how Amie and I give each other space while working in close proximity and much more! I'm a little nervous about this one as I've never done anyth...

This is a slightly off topic episode all about LYING. Amie is on a mission not to tell any lies until the end of 2022. Why is she doing this? What does James think about it? What does it have to do with our creative journey? Check it out!

This episode is all about getting negative feedback online. We talk about some heating discussion (and some trolling) we've had to engage with in the past week. We also discuss the stress of trying to ensure everyone in your audience feels seen, rules for dealing with negative comments, how to disagree with people well, and much more! I guess I should link to something otherwise I'm wasting this s...

Join us as we chat to Seth Haddon about his debut Queer Fantasy novel, Reforged. We talk about Seth's experience landing his first publishing contract while working full time, letting go of old projects, how Seth successfully built a social media following from scratch to drive interest in his novel and massively exceed his publisher's sales expectations and much more! I might be biased but I LOVE...

This is more of an "insight into our business" episode. We debrief about our coaching tour of Europe. What were our highlights and low lights? How did we handle the logistics? Was it financially viable? Why we chose ease over higher profits. And maybe a larger than usual amount of random chit-chat! And yeah, this is Season 6 now because... I don't know... it is!

Join us in Denmark in the home of our friend MJ (@mjunleashed_) where we discuss showing up as sexual beings through our art. We talk about: whether putting sex in your art is just a way to "sell". How do show up online as a sexual being. What holds us back from expressing our sexy sides. And, most important, what if our mums see it! MJ has her own podcast, The Journals of MJ Unleashed , where she...

We're coming to you today from Stockholm! We start with a travel update, talk to you about what we've been up to in Europe, how our in-person one-on-one coaching has been. Then, we move onto a discussion of why breaking routines can be great for our creative projects and how we've found creating outside of our normal routine. At least, I think. We recorded a week ago and I have only a hazy memory...

We tell stories from when we were writing and trying to be creative around non-creative work. We give some advice and, as one recent reviewer put it, engage in "indulgent chit chat"!