Book Shop Chats:

From Fantasy Realms to Swoony Rom-Coms: A Conversation with Shameez Patel

• Victoria Hopkins • Season 2 • Episode 1

Share episode

Shamiz Patel shares her journey of writing across different genres, from a fantasy trilogy to a flirty rom-com, highlighting how each book has its own unique development process and timeline.

• Writing a trilogy requires understanding character arcs across multiple books while maintaining flexibility
• Fantasy and romance have different requirements but both benefit from character-driven storytelling
• Shamiz wrote her entire fantasy trilogy while her rom-com was still being developed
• Publishing journey included both independent and traditional publishing paths
• Rejection is part of the process and often leads to improved writing and new opportunities
• NaNoWriMo and writing communities provide vital support and confidence for new writers
• Marketing books requires active social media engagement regardless of publishing method
• Finding joy in reader connections makes the publishing journey worthwhile
• South African author perspective brings unique challenges to publishing internationally
• The best sign of success is making readers feel deeply emotional about your characters

For more information about Shamiz's books, visit ShamizWrites.com or find her on Instagram, TikTok, and Threads at @ShamizWrites.

About Victoria:

Hey there, I’m Victoria! As a writer and developmental editor, I specialize in helping busy writers bring their publishing dreams to life without the overwhelm. Your story deserves to shine, let's make magic together. 

Here’s how I can help:
📖 FREE 7 day Writing Reset: Daily support in your inbox for 7 days.
Grab it HERE

📝 Developmental Editing: Get expert feedback that elevates your manuscript, strengthens your story, and polishes your characters.
✍️ 1:1 monthly support: Revitalize your creativity, map out your novel, and unleash your authentic voice.

Your story deserves to shine, and I’m here to make it happen. Let’s turn your writing dreams into a reality!

📱 IG: @editsbyvictoria
🌐 LINKS: Victoria Jane Editorial

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Bookshop Chats, where we cozy up with books, creativity and embrace the magical, messy process of writing a book. I'm Victoria Jane, a writer, developmental editor and coach for sensitive, busy writers, and I love to support you on your journey of bringing your story to life. So, whether you're here for inspiration, behind the scenes peeks of what it means to actually write a book, or just some bookish conversations, you are definitely in the right place. And if you're looking for more personalized support, I also offer one-to-one writing support sessions to help bring your story to life, because sometimes you need a little bit of support digging through the noise that is your brain, because same. And if you've got a finished draft, I would love to chat to you about developmental editing. It is my favorite thing. I love supporting authors and bringing their story to life.

Speaker 1:

You can find all of the details in the show notes. So grab a coffee, grab a tea, plug in your headphones, go on a little walk and let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back to Bookshop Chats. In today's episode, I am chatting with Shamiz Patel. Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Hi, victoria, thank you for having me. I am very, very excited to chat with you.

Speaker 1:

Obviously, we were chatting just before we hit record and I would love for you to dive in and kind of introduce a little bit about yourself and the books that you currently have out in the world.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. So if we start at the beginning, my fantasy series went by Shamiz Patel, papa Thanesio, but it should come up if you search for Shamiz Patel. I have a trilogy starting with the Last Feather. It is a portal fantasy based on a main character named Cassia Khan, whose younger sister is ill and she's a medical student. She, and the hospital that she works at, has no idea what's wrong with her sister. Meanwhile, she's also dreaming about her best friend, who went missing four years prior, and the reason for this is that he's stuck in another realm and he knows how to save her sister. But to do so, cassia has to go to this realm, where magic and monsters and all of those fun things exist, and, of course, there's a time limit to get home. If she doesn't leave the Selene Realm in time, she could get stuck there, in which case she will not be able to save her sister. But leaving also means leaving her best friend there behind. So what will she?

Speaker 1:

do, leaving her best friend there behind. So what will she do? What will she do? Oh gosh, I love this, I love it, I like you, you have me, you have me pulled in.

Speaker 2:

Good, good, and I'm terrible at pitching, but that book continues into the eternal shadow and everything ends in the first king. Then I decided to take a little fantasy break and write a rom-com on the other end of the spectrum. Yes, a fun and very flirty. So flirty that it's in the title, called Playing Flirty, which is a very short, I would say. I mean, it's less than 350 pages, I think. A short, quick, easy read. And it is about two rival gamers who end up having to team up in an attempt to win a board gaming competition. But they are so used to trying to outplay each other at everything that they turn flirting into a game and try and out flirt each other. I love it. So it's it's. It's filled with a, a lot of silliness and a lot of swoon-worthy moments, if I may say so myself.

Speaker 1:

I love that. I am so here for that, and I love the sort of like complete like difference between the two stories. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that sort of like transition in genre writing. Is that something that sort of just naturally happened, or was it something that you're like? I really want to give this kind of genre a shot at writing.

Speaker 2:

So fantasy and romance have always been my my two favorite genres. I enjoy a little bit of everything, but by far fantasy and romance I. I started writing the romance and that story just took so much longer to find its final form that in the meantime I managed to finalize a trilogy. I love that. The one the one rom-com you would think it's easier, but the one rom-com you would think it's easier, but the one rom-com took all that much longer to really reach its like. What I felt like was its perfect form. Yeah, and while that was happening in the background, I couldn't start another rom-com. It didn't feel right to have two stories that I was balancing within the same genre, so I decided to work on something completely different, completely unrelated, not the same genre, not even a similar main character, because if you put Rose from my rom-com into an alternate realm of monsters, she would die immediately.

Speaker 1:

So yes, which doesn't make for a very good story, right?

Speaker 2:

so it. It gave me so much creative freedom to be able to write a complete new set of characters with different goals and motivations, absolutely unlinked to what would happen in a rom-com. And yeah, so for me, maybe not a natural transition, but a very fun one.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that's such an interesting thing of just kind of realizing the difference.

Speaker 1:

I feel like that's a really cool way of kind of keeping them separate, as they are two very different kind of like genres, and what can happen in one versus what is can happen in another are two like vastly different things. So in some ways it is very much like you've got these two separate um entities and it's so interesting how like every story really is so unique, uh, and they really kind of like move through you. You know as they want to, as clearly as you, as, as you've shown with, uh, being able to get through like three books and then one is still like so slow, but you're so right in that it really does. Sometimes it needs that time to really like come together and you like to be able to figure out who the characters are and to really give it the best kind of chance in the world, um, so that readers actually like fall in love with it as well absolutely, and I think it is harder to be original with a contemporary romance, because already the world isn't original.

Speaker 2:

It's a world that we all live in, and oftentimes the characters can't be all that unique because you want them to be very relatable for your readers, which is what makes romance such an immersive genre. So to find it's, you know the the unique story among all these very, very popular rom-coms out there, it it takes a while to find its feet definitely, definitely well, I would love to hear a little bit about, um, the process of writing a trilogy.

Speaker 1:

This is always so interesting to me, of how, like an author can, can number one, think that far ahead and like create these things because it just feels like so overwhelming, especially, especially in fantasy, but it's, it's done so well and I really like I like I'm in awe of authors that that that do that. So I'd love to hear, like, how you kind of structure that. From what I understand, it's sort of like they continue, they kind of build on each other and they're not really a standalone, correct?

Speaker 2:

Correct.

Speaker 2:

So the Lost Feather can be read as a standalone, and, um, I wrote it that way. Just in case you know, the publisher decided not to renew. I yeah, I really didn't want to leave any readers on a cliffhanger, um, but when writing book one, I already knew how book three would end. Everything in between was negotiable.

Speaker 2:

I am not a plotter in a way that I do not have a spreadsheet up front with chapter breakdowns or even an act breakdown.

Speaker 2:

What I have going in is an idea of what I want my characters to achieve over the course of a story. All my stories are very, very character driven, even in fantasy, when the world plays such a big role. So with that in mind, I write, and it does mean a lot of rewriting, and so there was some discoveries happening in book two, which thankfully tie in with book one, because that is a little bit tricky. You end up having to go back and rewrite book one as well, but it is a very daunting task and, yeah, and it is incredibly rewarding, though, to spend so much time with the same story and the same characters. They stayed with me for such a very, very long time. It was over a period of years. It gave both me and the readers a chance to really get to know those characters so intimately, and I I just think that is a really fun thing about series yes, right, like I feel like these characters really do become like your, your, your friends.

Speaker 1:

As wild as that sounds, it is wild.

Speaker 2:

I. I cried at the end of every read with the final book in the trilogy. So I cried when I wrote it and I got to the end. I cried when I edited it. I cried when I proofread it, like every time the manuscript came back to me for like a final check. By the time I got to the ending, I was sobbing and I was like this is very strange, considering I'm making myself cry.

Speaker 1:

I feel like you're doing something right when it hits that emotion, like I just, I feel like if you're crying when you're writing, whether it's like from joy or from like heartbreak, it just it, it infuses into the story in such a like a magical kind of way. Um that, yeah, I just, you know, I always think that I'm on the right track when I'm like I'm feeling it so much that I'm sobbing as I'm writing a scene, absolutely I had.

Speaker 2:

I had a few readers reach out to me.

Speaker 1:

Um, some of them even sent me photos of themselves crying and I was like, yes, and they're like that's a bit mean and I'm like, oh sorry, I mean I'm really sad that you're feeling sad, but I'm really glad that it hit that deep right, that means I did my job as the author here, right, like that's the goal is that you want your readers to feel things because, like you said, like if you're writing emotionally, emotionally or character driven stories, it's the emotion that's really like driving things and that's what I mean. That's what we connect with as as humans and readers is we're very emotional. Being so. That's so, like, when you can get reactions like that, it's magic, it is amazing. I'd love to like go back a little bit further and hear a little bit about, like, what drew you to writing. Is it something that you've always kind of done, or was it something that you just decided to give it a shot one day?

Speaker 2:

A bit of both. So I've been writing as long as I can remember. I always tell the story, but the first story I've written was titled the Treasures of Zombie Island. I was nine or ten years old and it had no zombies at all, so I don't know why I titled that. It was a very loose Beauty and the Beast retelling. If I'm being honest and I mean my parents I remember how very proud my parents were of this, the story. That didn't make much sense and it meant so much to me that they cared.

Speaker 2:

But and I continued trying to write stories. But I I very clearly remember never finishing any of them. So, starting a story, I remember spending an entire day designing a cover on like paint when I was like 13 or something, and sort of starting the first chapter, you know. But it never really went anywhere and until I think I was 20 or so and I decided to write a full-length story. It was also very terrible, but nonetheless it was the first story I'd finished in such a long time. I then joined um NaNoWriMo at the time, um, who has been a bit disappointing lately.

Speaker 2:

But back then, back then, they were a great resource right, and I met up with a writing group for the first time in my life. You know, locally. They had everyone that had participated and it brought back my love for writing and also just this idea that, like, other people are writing as well, like you, can do this. This is something you love. Just go for it. And I think it was 2015 when I wrote what was the seeds of the idea for the Celine trilogy. It was a very different version, a very messy, dumpster fire version of the story, but it was there and it never quite left me. I kept thinking about the Celine realm and you know the, the magic and the abilities that I'd created, and even though the characters didn't work and the story didn't work, I kept thinking about it until Cassia, lucas and Lachlan sort of walked into my mind one day and demanded that I put them in this world and and write their story instead. So yeah, after that, it came very easily.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I feel like that's such. I think you just have to have one of those moments where, for what, whatever it is like it just finally clicks that you're like, oh, like I can actually do this, and those like dumpster fire stories are like so good for that right. Like I feel, like I always look back at myself I'm like, thank goodness I wrote that. Yes, it's horrible, but it's like you said, it's the foundation of you know what could be and you know it, ultimately showing you that you can write a book.

Speaker 1:

And I think that's the biggest hurdle, often that a lot of us are going through yes, proving it to yourself, yeah, definitely, because it can feel, um, like you know, it's only those special people are good enough to be, to be authors and be writers, and I think, yeah, that's kind of like art isn't always something that was valued growing up of, like it's a hobby, all of that kind of stuff. So then to be able to surround yourself with people who are also kind of like in similar experiences, I think that's a really helpful thing. Just to know that, yeah, that you can do it. It just it takes. It takes time as as clearly right, like it's a lot of time it takes a lot of time.

Speaker 1:

It's very much a marathon, it's, it's.

Speaker 2:

It's not a race, um it's. I think it is easy to also get bogged down by um, by comparison. So you meet somebody who's writing and within you know, six or a year, they've got a book out, or an agent or whatever it might be, and you're like why are we still so far away from achieving this goal? It's very easy to compare and get yourself down with it, but I think everyone's publishing journey is very unique, which is why this podcast is awesome.

Speaker 1:

Yes, definitely, and I feel like that's really been kind of the core of it, of just chatting with authors from all different genres and different experiences with publishing, which kind of does lead me to the next question of obviously, now you've got these books done, they're out in the world. I'd love to hear a little bit about kind of like the journey to getting them published and kind of like how that was for you.

Speaker 2:

I. I mean, like I said, I think everyone's publishing journey is interesting, but I do think mine is um, a little tiny but unusual, I think. Already being in South Africa, I feel very disconnected from the rest of the world. All the publishing houses that I want to be part of are either in the States or in the UK and locally in my country, south Africa, publishers don't tend to publish genre fiction unless it is explicitly South African. So the world needs to be South African, the cultures need to be South African, that sort of thing. And I really wanted to write African, the cultures need to be South African, that sort of thing. And I really wanted to write.

Speaker 2:

I don't want to call it general fiction because it makes it sound very bland, but I wanted to write genre fiction without having to box myself into a stereotype, essentially. So I always knew I was going to be submitting to US publishers and agents and that sort of thing I considered self publishing. But the amount of work that goes into it and the amount of time that I had at the time very limited, limited funds, limited time it wouldn't have made sense for me. So I wrote the rom-com, as I mentioned, and very, very bravely decided to start querying agents with it ahead of its time and got quite a few rejections which made me very, very sad my first heartbreaks over a book and while that sort of simmered in what needed to be changed, I moved over to writing the fantasy trilogy and I'd learned so much during the process of querying that I'd read.

Speaker 2:

I read a lot of manuscript wishlists by agents. I actually got some feedback from agents on the rom-com agents on the rom-com. I, um, I, I watched an incredible amount of videos and and read articles and guides on what is required by the genre and really just everything that I didn't know, because I went into that first draft of the rom-com completely unprepared. Um, I wrote, I wrote, I wrote with, you know, with vibes.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I feel you deeply on that.

Speaker 2:

And it I think it had hearts, which is why so many agents replied. But it needed work and it seemed like such an insurmountable task that I was like you know what? I'm just going to start something fresh. I'm going to leave that one. I'm going to take everything I learned and I'm going to put it into this fantasy trilogy, which I did, and the querying process for the rom-com was so grueling that I decided to approach indie publishers with um with a fantasy trilogy and I sent it out and I think it was. Within 10 days I got an offer and I remember getting out of bed and going to find my husband and just showing him the email and being like is this a scam?

Speaker 1:

I don't know if I'm being scammed.

Speaker 2:

They want to pay me money for a story I wrote, a little like make-believe thing that I wrote words of. They want to give me money for this in dollars and it was such a wonderful, wonderful moment and such a wonderful experience as well. The publisher is Flame Tree press and they have. I would always recommend them for any um fantasy spec fic, so fantasy, horror thriller. Anyone looking for an indie publisher.

Speaker 2:

I think flame tree is incredible and so I I said yes because I was amazed and I really liked what the editor had said in the email, the things that he pointed out and what he enjoyed in the manuscript. And he also mentioned that he could see that while I wrapped this one up quite nicely, he knows that there was room for more books and he'd like to talk about it. So that's when I approached him on the second and the third book book and he was like cool, let's, let's see how it goes. We'll be renewing it annually, you know if it, if it works, and that really gave me the confidence to revisit the romance. So it's funny how these things keep playing off each other. So I I went back with to the romance with sort of this newfound confidence and fresh eyes, and I edited it for an inch of its life and yes, and then went back into the query trenches, or at least intended to, but at the same time twitter was having back then twitter.

Speaker 2:

You see I'm giving away my age.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I, I feel, don't worry I know, I know was having like a pitch contest, um, and I pitched my rom-com and got a few sort of interested likes and requests, as they. They called back then and I submitted to one agent that I liked quite a bit and, yeah, a few months later she replied saying let's hop on a call. And yeah, I was so, so amazed because I really already liked her going in and once we chatted I liked her even more, signed on and I think it was about a year and a half later that she sold the rom-com to forever, which was amazing. And yeah, that's that the story. So it was a really up and down journey.

Speaker 1:

I love that and I think that's such a great reminder because obviously, rejection is naturally a part of this sort of like space that you're, that you're going to be in, whether or not like, obviously, even if you get a publishing deal, you're putting your work out in the world and people are not going to like it and that's the reality, right. So I think it's such a great reminder that these moments, as much as they suck, can really teach you a lot and kind of like, just if you just keep going, then eventually it ends up hitting, it sticks eventually. But it's just sometimes playing that long game, that marathon sticks eventually. But it's just sometimes playing that long game, that marathon, you're like, oh my gosh, I'm going to die. This is just too much, I can't do it. But it's, yeah, it's, it is, it is a lot and I think really like going into that and I echo a lot of that of like query agents.

Speaker 1:

I'm like so way, way too early, um, and obviously shockingly, they rejected it, but it I think it was still that confidence. It didn't rock my confidence so much, it just was that sort of like reminder of doing the scary thing. Right, like we did the scary thing, I put myself out there. Yeah, I didn't work the way I wanted to, but I like you going back and giving that story more attention. Learn with all of what you've learned in that time and it's just, it's wild how much you can learn by those crappy dumpster fire drafts and then all of the all of the other things in between and the feedback from you know, alpha readers and editors and all that kind of stuff yeah, it's, it's, it's.

Speaker 2:

it's such a journey, and I do think that every book has its own process as well.

Speaker 1:

Like I said with the romance just needed so much more time, same author, same like capabilities, but it just had its own journey A hundred percent, and I think that that's something that can be easy, easy to you, like you like, obviously we chatted about that comparison and I think, obviously, with the nature of like social media and just like seeing a lot of authors being able to, like some of them put out like two books a year they're self-publishing and I'm like, wow, that's insane, how do you do that? I can't write a book in a year. They're self-publishing and I'm like, wow, that's insane, how do you do that? Uh, I can't write a book in in a year. And I think, really, just being mindful of that, like it's not, it's not a competition, because your story is, people are going to connect to it, because you wrote it, because of your characters, your perspective, um, your humor, all of that kind of stuff. So I think that's something that I'm constantly like reminding myself of is it's okay, like it doesn't have to be this it does.

Speaker 1:

It's not a competition in my world, like every there's a space for you at the table too, and I think that's something that I I'm grateful for. And there's a reason why people thing that I I'm grateful for. And there's a reason why people I mean like love, like romance, and why like tropes are so prevalent in marketing now is because we like that sort of like consistency and repetition and comfort and predict, like predictability to a point, obviously, like there is like a vast space that you can kind of play with within that. But just knowing, okay, these are some of the things that I always really like in a book and stuff. So I think that, yeah, it's it's, it's amazing to see all of these like books get out in the world and that so many people are reading even more than I feel like they ever have. So I think so.

Speaker 2:

I do think that COVID played quite a big role in bringing people back to reading and also give making people want a comfort read, in whichever genre that is. I think there's a lot of comfort in predictability, because of what an unpredictable time we all live through and also living through for different reasons, living through for different reasons. Um so to to go into a book knowing that you can trust that author with your feelings tonight, whichever feelings you're hoping to feel at least I think that's very special yes, I think it just it and it just helps us feel that we're not alone.

Speaker 1:

I think that's what I love about like the characters, whether they are like fantasy or, um, like romance. There is that sort of like connection that you build with the characters, that it just feels like, oh, oh, okay, like I'm not, I'm not crazy, this is nice. You know, somebody else might have experienced something similar to me, and stuff. So I I'm, I'm loving that that is, uh, so becoming so common in in writing and the stories that are getting put out into the world right now. Another two amazing. Well, I would love to hear a little bit about, obviously, like publishing, with being like with an indie publisher and a trad publisher, like what is the sort of like marketing side of things? I feel like that's often something that a lot of authors kind of struggle with of the social media connection, um, feeling like they constantly have to be creating content instead of writing. Um, I, yeah, I'm always curious to see how that like kind of like works when you are looking at more like traditionally published versus self-publishing, where you are doing all of the things by yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so I I think with it, with traditional, there is a team supporting you and if you did absolutely nothing, you would still sell some books, because there are readers that support publishers and so readers that are already subscribed to their newsletters, which will feature your book at some point. That being said, a publisher still puts out multiple books a year and cannot be raving about your book that you spent, you know, four years writing, four years writing. So I personally promote quite hard on social media because for me, it's my, it's my, my top priority. I don't expect that from the publisher I'm one of. You know the 50 books that they put out in a year, or how many ever they are putting out in a year.

Speaker 2:

So I I post probably as much as self-published authors and it can be very, very tiring, but I just keep reminding myself that I'm still supporting me. You know it would be nice, of course, if publishers could do more, but, again, doing that much for each book that they put out would be I don't know. It would be very difficult. So I'm trying. Whether it's sticking or making a difference is hard to tell because, as a trad pub author, I don't have access to immediate data the way self-published authors do. So. If I do have a post go viral or, you know, jump on a trend that gets a whole bunch of feedback, I have no access to like page reads that week, right? Or sales immediately. I get my my sales report like two months later and I've got no idea whether that post did well or not in terms of converting to sales. So it is a bit like posting just into the void and hoping for the best yeah, I feel like that's regardless.

Speaker 1:

I feel like that's pretty much what we're all doing is that we have no idea what's going on. We are just, we're just here. Uh, sometimes we're thriving, sometimes we're surviving, um, so, yeah, it's one of those things where I think, honestly, it's so true of the nature of just with social media now, there is still a level of requirement of like even even the big, like you know, top 10 best-selling authors, there's still that sort of like social media presence that is pretty much expected of them to maintain as well. So I think that it's just part of it. Just with how we, we consume media now, it's something that you can't really get away from completely, but I think just like having fun with it is like the best way. I'm like, yeah, whatever, like, if it's gonna work, it's gonna work. If not, well, at least I made myself laugh in this silly, silly reel and and I I think it is really nice again being in South Africa.

Speaker 2:

It is really nice being able to have a bond with your readers that I might never meet. You know I'm I'm not able to have a book launch in the states or anything of that kind, so it's, it's very, very cool to get tagged in. You know some reader in wherever new york or philadelphia or something posting about picking up playing flirty at a barnes and noble, and my heart just like really races knowing that they walked into a bookstore and picked up a book by written by somebody that they have no real connection to between so many other books that they could have picked. So it is. It's such a very special thing and had I not been on social media I would have missed all of those moments. So there are pros to it as well.

Speaker 1:

Yes, definitely, and I honestly that's really kind of what I'm focused on when it comes to that sort of side of it, because the reality and I honestly that's really kind of what I'm focused on when it comes to that sort of side of it because the reality is, yes, it's a lot, but it's okay if you need to take a break and scale back and like, just focus on your writing and doing that and I think, really learning how to trust yourself and your own unique writing journey. I think that's really the key of just knowing that you know this is working for me right now Great. If not, then I can change it and it's no worries, so that I think that's really helped kind of like take that pressure off, and I think you're right of just that connection with the people, like the readers, like really, that I feel like is the ultimate goal as an author is to be able to have like feedback from people that are like I can't believe you did this to your character, like why did you do this to me?

Speaker 2:

And then it's the crying selfie. It's being sent the crying self and I'm like, oh, perfect, I love it.

Speaker 1:

I love it Amazing. Well, as we wrap up here, I would love for you to share how people can connect with you, follow you on social media and also, ultimately, find your books, because that's definitely a very important thing.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. Thank you so much so I go by Shamiz Writes. So it's Shamiz Writes for the website. It's at Shamiz Writes for Instagram, TikTok and threads. I'm on Blue Sky but not very active, and my books Playing Flirty can be found almost everywhere, provided the bookstore is willing to order it, and the Celine Trilogy, because it was an indie press. It is available in brick and mortar stores like Barnes, Noble and so on, but slightly less so, so you might have to look a little bit harder, but both books are available everywhere, online and at plenty of libraries, which is amazing.

Speaker 1:

So, yes, please look for them search and you will find yes, amazing, awesome. Well, it was so lovely chatting with you.

Speaker 2:

I feel like.

Speaker 1:

I always learn so much listening to other authors and their writing journey. Um, it's so fun.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1:

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode, and if you really loved this author, I highly encourage you to go check out their links and comment and share their work because, let's be real, as an indie author, all that stuff makes such a difference. And if you're feeling a little stuck on your draft and just want some gentle accountability, check out my one-to-one offers that are linked in the show notes as well. I'd love to support you with your writing or editing journey, and if that's not quite where you're at, I've also put together a really amazing free resource to help with taking your writing to the next level, because there are so many amazing resources available without needing to spend a ton of money or get that MFA or all of the things that you may think that you need in order to write a book. Until next time, keep writing your way and trust yourself enough to tell your story, because I promise, if it's coming to you, there's a reason and someone needs to hear it.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Victoria Hopkins

Host