Top 21 Common Mistakes Writers Make

                        

  

Albert Einstein once said, “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” Purportedly, after his lesser-known E = mc4 debacle. I made the last part up, but the point is: We all make mistakes, and that’s not such a bad thing. Author and writing coach Melissa Clark joins host Jon Small to list the most common errors writers make so that you can try to avoid these blunders in the future. They speak from decades of experience writing, editing, and screwing up. Topics include such classics mistakes as telling not showing, overly creative dialogue tags, waiting for inspiration to hit, writer’s imposter syndrome, and gingerly using really annoying adverbs.

Jon: Melissa is a good friend of mine, and she is the author of three novels, including the wonderful Swimming Upstream Slowly. But she is also a writing coach these days, and she’s working specifically with journalists who are looking to work on creative projects, like me. She’s really great with that, and we’ll find out more about that a little bit later in the show.

Melissa has taught writing at the Otis College of Arts and Design. In fact, if you go back and listen to the earliest episodes of Write About Now, Melissa was one of my first guests. She made a fantastic appearance as one of my first guests, so I always appreciate that. She’s a big fan of the show, too.

Melissa: Mm-hm.

Jon: I should also mention that you are considered my podcast wife because we go to all podcast events together, and you’re a very, very good wingman for me. Wingwoman, sorry.

Melissa: I think I’m your podcast wingwoman.

Jon: You’re a wingwoman, yeah.

Melissa: That’s better than wife.

Jon: Yes.

Melissa: That’s weird.

Jon: Sorry to my real wife. She could really freak out about that. No, she wouldn’t. You’re also very good friends with my wife. But yeah, you are so great at striking up conversations with random people and just talking. In fact, we were just in Nashville together and we met so many interesting podcasters and made so many connections.

Melissa: From afar, masked, by the way.

Jon: Yes, we were super masked. We were probably the only people – that was so weird, to be in Nashville and nobody was wearing a mask except for us.

Melissa: Not a one.

Jon: It was like, does anybody else read the newspaper or watch the news?

Melissa: They didn’t believe in COVID.

Jon: What is that?

Melissa: And they were firm about it. I felt like they looked at me funny when I walked places.

Jon: [laughs] Okay. I thought it would be really fun to bring you on the show to talk about a topic that I think about a lot, and that is mistakes that writers make. I want to make clear that these are mistakes that we make, and we’ve been writing for many years. These are common mistakes not just new writers make, but that all writers make. But I think it’s good to call them out because if you’re aware of these mistakes, then maybe you won’t do them as much, and hopefully we’ll have some tips about how to get through these mistakes.

But I don’t want this to be a downer, this episode. This is really about calling out common hurdles that you might face or things that can potentially make your writing better if you just knew about them. Some people don’t even know about these mistakes. I thought there were very few people better than Melissa to have on the show because she’s basically spending all her days coaching writers anyway.

Melissa: And making mistakes of my own. It’s perfect.

Jon: Yes, and making a lot of mistakes. So we jotted down some ideas, and who knows what we’re going to come up with here? I also really welcome your feedback. We can do a “Mistakes Part 2” if you want to write in and let me know at the writeaboutnowmedia.com website. I’ll post the podcast up there and you can write in the comments, and also on Facebook, where people tend to tell me what’s on their mind.

But I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and as I’m writing, I’m like, “What mistake am I making?” This is kind of the way I live my life anyway, because I’m constantly aware of all the mistakes I’m making in life, so it wasn’t that hard. I think the biggest mistake I made as a writer was choosing to be a writer. [laughs]

Melissa: Wait a minute. This is now turning into therapy.

Jon: This has gotten very dark.

Melissa: Very fast.

Jon: Very fast. No, I kid, sort of, about that. It was never a mistake, but I think that becoming a writer is a challenging line of work. It’s a challenging profession.

Melissa: I think a mistake people make is thinking that they want to become a writer and that it’s easy and you can just vomit out whatever.

Jon: Right. They forget that in order to be a writer, you actually have to write. They just like the idea of being a writer – which is a great idea. It’s wonderful to go into a party and say, “I’m a writer.” And then you realize you actually have to write. But let’s backtrack here. You grew up with a dad who was a very successful writer.

Melissa: Yes. I grew up with a writer father, so I never had the struggle of like “How do I do this?” I saw it from age zero on. I saw that it could be done and that if you did it, you had to do it pretty much every day, every hour.

Jon: And who is your dad? Let’s explain here.

Melissa: His name is Ron Clark, and he’s a TV/film playwright.

Jon: That’s awesome.

Melissa: He did a lot of work in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, and I’d go so far as to say ’90s.

Jon: A little bit more in the ’90s. Always comedy?

Melissa: Always comedy. He’s writing his memoirs now.

Jon: That’s exciting.

Melissa: I’m helping him edit it, and it’s filling in a lot of blanks for me personally.

Jon: That must be fascinating.

Melissa: Yeah, he had a very interesting and circuitous and lively career.

Jon: What are some of the shows he worked on?

Melissa: Back in the day, in New York, he did the Smothers Brothers.

Jon: Famous, famous show. Did he do The Show of Shows?

Melissa: No. He ran with people in that crowd, but he did The Dick Van Dyke Show. He did a lot of sitcoms in the ’00s.

Jon: So cool.

Melissa: And a lot of plays that went to Broadway. He worked with Mel Brooks, did a bunch of Mel Brooks movies, co-wrote. High Anxiety, Silent Movie. And yes, someone had to write Silent Movie even though nobody spoke.

Jon: It’s true. People don’t think about this. Silent movies had to be written.

Melissa: Yep.

Jon: That’s funny. And you’re also a podcast producer and writer, and that’s really exciting. You are very involved in the world of fictional podcasts, and a lot of people might not even know that those are a really big thing right now. Tell me a little bit about that.

Melissa: That’s true. Scripted fictional podcasts, meaning it’s an audio play. I have two of them. One is called Becoming Mother Nature and the other one is called Grandma for President. The first can be found anywhere, on Apple; the second is via Audible. It’s similar to TV in that you write scripts and you cast it and the actors record it, and you have to add a lot of music and sound effects and all that. It’s really fun. Of all the writing I do, I think it’s my favorite.

Jon: That’s so interesting. It’s so interesting that that’s a new way to do writing.

Melissa: A new old way.

Jon: A new old way. It’s like radio. This is radio.

Melissa: Old-timey radio shows. And I specifically right now work in the kids’ market, which is – I think the parents are so happy for the kids to get off screen, although you are listening to audio probably on your phone or computer. But yeah, it’s been really fun.

Jon: It’s different than watching a two-minute TikTok video. Or not two-minute, 20-second TikTok video.

Melissa: I think it activates a different part of the brain. It stimulates the imagination in a new-old way.

Jon: So you come from writing royalty, and it was common to you. Thankfully, my dad was not a writer, but he was a movie composer, so I was used to growing up watching somebody make a living doing creative things. I meet a lot of writers who are like, “I had no idea this was even a possibility.”

Melissa: Right, exactly.

Jon: I do feel fortunate in that way. But I also then basically decided very early on, “I want to be creative just like my dad!” And then I’m like, “Oh man, being creative is such a pain.” [laughs]

Melissa: What’s the alternative?

Jon: Yeah, what is the alternative? I don’t even know. So mistakes writers make, aside from being writers. We could start anywhere. We’re going to come at this a little bit from different angles because you are a novelist, and I’ve never written – actually, that’s not true. I’ve written a novel; I’ve just never published a novel. But you are a novelist and I am a journalist and have written mainly nonfiction. I know you’ve written some nonfiction in your life.

It’s hard to figure out where to start, so maybe we’ll just start at the beginning. One thing that I’ve noticed lately is there seems to be almost like people don’t write leads anymore. And by leads, I mean – “leads” is the word we use in journalism for the first few paragraphs of a story or the opening of a story that pulls you in.

Melissa: Right.

Jon: I’m sure there’s an equivalent of a lead, an intro in a book, in a novel. But often when I get copy from writers, professional and new writers and people who’ve been doing it for a while, there is a new tendency, especially among the younger generation, to almost forget to even do the lead. I don’t know if that’s just because on the internet, that’s a lost art. You don’t want to have a big opener that sucks the reader in; you just go right to – I don’t know, maybe it’s for SEO purposes or whatever. You go right to –

Melissa: To the meat of it.

Jon: To the meat of whatever your story is. But I was always taught – somebody said to me, “You need to grab somebody by the lapels.” That’s when people actually had clothes that had lapels.

Melissa: Now they say balls.

Jon: Now they say balls, right. “You’ve got to grab somebody by the balls.” Literally, the first sentence should be the most interesting thing in your entire story to really suck them in, whether it’s a quote or a story or – there’s so many different ways. I feel like that is lost. I don’t feel like anybody does that anymore. They usually start right away with the nut graph, which is the “This is what my story is going to be about.”

I don’t know, I feel like that’s what separates your writing from normal, everyday writing, and that’s what can really make you come alive as a writer: if you know how to start a story. I actually sometimes obsess over the starts of my stories, because I usually write linearly. Some writers just write and then they go and find their lead. I think obsessively about how I’m going to lead the story before I even start writing it.

Melissa: That’s your process.

Jon: Yeah. Do you do that?

Melissa: I would say that you don’t know the beginning until you get to the end. You’re talking nonfiction; I’m talking fiction. I’m coaching someone who’s doing a true crime podcast, so all the facts are in there, but I think until she gets to the end, she’s not even going to really know where to start structurally.

Jon: Oh, that’s interesting.

Melissa: I don’t know if that applies to what you’re talking about.

Jon: Oh yeah. So you don’t always recommend that people start with their lead. But the point is, wherever in your process you decide to write that intro, you still have to have an intro. What do you tell your writing students about how to write a provocative introduction or a lead?

Melissa: I don’t teach nonfiction; I haven’t necessarily taught nonfiction. But the biggest thing I tell them is that they want their reader to be saying, “And then what?  And then what? And then what?” from the first sentence. And it’s the same thing. We’re talking about the same thing here. So yeah, I think it has to be compelling. The reader has many choices of things to read; why are they going to pick yours? It has to be compelling some way. Usually if it’s compelling to you, the author, it’ll hopefully be compelling to the reader.

Jon: I remember one time I wrote a story – it was a really weird story about a man who had had a sex change to become a woman, and then became a lounge singer as a woman, but then became a man again. He had two sex change operations.

Melissa: So ahead of the curve.

Jon: It was very – yeah, exactly, like a now story that I wrote in the early ’90s.

Melissa: Is it the one Blanche McCrary Boyd liked?

Jon: No, this was weirdly for Stuff magazine. But anyway, on the story – I wrote the story and I had an editor, and he pointed out, “The most interesting thing in this story comes in the middle when you’re talking about the sex change operation process” or whatever. I don’t remember exactly. But he’s like, “Why bury that in the middle of the story? Let’s start with the most powerful part of the story.”

Melissa: Right, and that’s where the term “bury the lead” came from.

Jon: That’s exactly where it came from. In this case maybe bury the genitals. But it was all about the sex change operation. Anyway, so he told me, “Move the most important thing up.” Oftentimes when I’m reading a story that I’ve written or that somebody else has written and I’m editing, I’m like, what’s the most interesting thing here? If I lead with that, does it still make the story – I don’t want to give away the best part, but does it pull the reader in in a way that the intro now doesn’t?

Melissa: That’s really good advice, I think. That’s a great way to look at it.

Jon: I credit this guy Dennis, whose last name I remember.

Melissa: Den-nis, Den-nis!

Jon: Dennis knew. [laughs] But I do think, think about your opener more than you probably do. An opener isn’t – I get a lot of stories because I edit cannabis content these days. A lot of writers will start with, “Cannabis is now a $50 billion industry, and it’s gone mainstream.” They always think that’s the lead. Somebody in Journalism 101 school told people, “Open up about the” – I don’t know what it is.

Melissa: The facts.

Jon: The facts about “Why am I writing this story?” And that’s not interesting. That’s the second paragraph. The first paragraph should be like, “When Snoop Dogg lit up the other day, his pants fell down.” Whatever it is, that’s the lead. A story or something that makes me want to –

Melissa: Connect.

Jon: Connect with it. Because that is so boring. Anyway, I’ll stop at that, but I think you get our point. Intros have somehow died, and I think if we bring them back, it really makes your writing stand out.

Melissa: It’s funny you say that, because my dad and I actually spoke at Emerson College in LA a couple of years ago. I can’t remember the question he was asked, but his answer was that he felt in comedy, endings have died. Endings have disappeared. People don’t know how to end sketches and stuff. I think you can see that on SNL.

Jon: Yeah, you do see that.

Melissa: They start strong and then they sort of peter.

Jon: It’s like that classic thing where you don’t have a great Act I, a good conflict or a good joke, but you don’t know how to wrap it up. I see them very self-consciously trying to do it on SNL now, and it sometimes works and sometimes it doesn’t. But yeah, that’s really interesting. That’s the big challenge of comedy, I think.

Melissa: Totally. He sees it as lazy writing. Back in the day, you had to have a complete piece. Beginning, middle, end. Now it’s like the beginning and middle is enough.

Jon: Yeah, “Here’s the joke. Wait, how do we end this? Oh, let’s end it by everybody’s pants falling down.”

Melissa: Twice you’ve said that now.

Jon: And that’s comedy.

Melissa: Are you wearing pants right now?

Jon: I’m actually not. But that’s comedy. Bring it back.

Melissa: We’re at two now. I’m going to keep track.

Jon: Yeah, we’re at two. We have a little bell. Ding. [magical sound effect] There we go.

Melissa: That’s more than a bell.

Jon: I don’t know what the heck that was. It was just whatever button was there to press.

All right, here’s another one, and it’s something that I say to writers all the time, and it’s something I think about a lot when I’m writing, and that is this phrase, “Show, don’t tell.”

Melissa: Classic.

Jon: It’s a classic writing trope. But there’s a reason for it, because it’s actually true.

Melissa: Totally.

Jon: A lot of people don’t really know what you mean, especially newer writers, so I thought we would explain what that means. It was hard for me to – I had to think a little bit about what I mean by that, but I found this quote. I was looking this up and I found this quote by Chekhov. You might’ve heard of him. He once said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of the light on broken glass.”

Melissa: He’s so pretentious. [laughs]

Jon: He’s so pretentious. He’s freaking Russian. An example of showing, not telling – when you tell somebody something, you’ll write something like, “He was really scared of the dark. This character is really scared of the dark,” or if you’re writing nonfiction, “This person that I’m writing about was terribly scared of the dark” rather than saying something like, “When his mother switched off the light, he tensed, grabbed the covers and held his breath.” That’s showing. That’s not telling the reader and hitting them over the head with “This is exactly what Michael is and what he feels.” You’re showing it in a much more poetic or interesting way, and it makes your writing really come alive.

Melissa: And it lets your reader interpret what’s happening.

Jon: Right, so you don’t have to. That’s a good point.

Melissa: They have more agency in digesting your story.

Jon: Yeah, let them come up with their feeing about whether Michael is scared of the dark or whether the moon – whatever Chekhov said, that the moon is shining.

Melissa: Glinting, yeah.

Jon: The thing I worry about in giving this advice is sometimes when you tell people to show, not tell, they get a little too poetic.

Melissa: Right, that’s true.

Jon: And a little flowery in their language.

Melissa: But that’s okay for a first draft.

Jon: For a first draft. You can always pull it back. You want to be economical with your words. But I think in some ways, you should always do a “show, don’t tell” pass, and if there’s a way to say something that is not exactly the way it is, or you’re telling people stuff when you should be showing them it, I think that is a little note for you to go in there and do a pass, like “Is there a way I could show this rather than tell this?” That is my “show, don’t tell” gripe.

Melissa: We had to have that one.

Jon: We had to have it. I don’t want to dwell on it, but it’s a mistake that writers make. Show, don’t tell.

Melissa: For sure.

Jon: This is kind of a funny one, and I want to know what you think about this. I’ve noticed that sometimes inexperienced writers – or maybe even an experienced writer – well, it’s generally inexperienced writers. [laughs] When they send me copy, they get obsessed with saying the dialogue tags in new ways.

Melissa: Ugh! Agreed.

Jon: This is a big one. A dialogue tag is when you say “said Jon” or “says Jon” or “Jon answered” or whatever. That’s a dialogue tag.

Melissa: “His pants fell down,” said Jon.

Jon: “The moon is shining,” said Jon. Here’s the thing. Here’s a little secret I’m going to let you in on. It’s okay to keep on repeating “said” or “says.”

Melissa: Give me “said” over almost any other word.

Jon: When you start saying “intoned Jon” or –

Melissa: “Postulated Jon.” Ugh.

Jon: In fact, any time you get flowery with those words, it is so obvious that you are new to writing.

Melissa: It’s a turnoff.

Jon: It’s totally a turnoff.

Melissa: Beginner move. You can see why people do it, though.

Jon: I do. I can see why people who don’t have a lot of writing experience do it. I’ve noticed one guy who writes for me where English isn’t his first language, and I think he thinks, “I can’t keep saying ‘says.’ That’s repetition and you’ve got to shake it up.” “Commented Jon.” No. The thing is, first of all, when you’re reading, you don’t even see the dialogue tag after a while. It’s not even in your brain. So it doesn’t matter. It’s a formality that it’s even there. It really doesn’t count as repetition, I don’t think.

Actually, I’ve even gotten to the point where if I don’t have to put “he says” or “answers” or whatever, I don’t put it at all. If it’s obvious the person is speaking…

Melissa: Exactly. If they’re in dialogue for a long time and we know – you’ve established that it’s Jon and Lisa speaking, and you can stop by the end of six lines saying who it was.

Jon: Right. So don’t worry. Dialogue tags. Common rookie error, trying to shake it up and have people say things in different ways. It’s okay to say “says/said.” Maybe “answered” occasionally. Don’t say “commented” or “postulated.” Never say “postulated.”

Melissa: Ever.

Jon: Never, ever use the word “postulate.” That word itself just makes me uncomfortable.

One of the things I thought about – and this is a little bit more big picture than little mistakes that people make – a lot of writers, people who want to be writers, don’t read.

Melissa: So true.

Jon: Isn’t that true?

Melissa: Yep, 100%.

Jon: I think people think that for some reason you can be a writer but not read, and it drives me crazy. It’s like sometimes I have people who tell me they want to make a podcast but they’ve never listened to a podcast.

Melissa: Right.

Jon: But it’s even worse with writing because you really can’t be a writer without being a reader.

Melissa: Absolutely.

Jon: Most writers I know – in fact, all the great writers I know are big readers.

Melissa: Like Chekhov?

Jon: Like Chekhov. I mean, that guy would read sometimes three or four books a week. That’s what he would tell me. So let’s hear your take on that. Do you find that also with your students, that a lot of times they don’t read?

Melissa: Well, my coaching students are grownups, and a lot of them are big readers. But in college, yeah, I taught at the Art School at Otis. I don’t want to call them out, but…

Jon: No, can you tell me specifically who it was?

Melissa: I’ll tell you off-mic. They were not necessarily readers in general. They were artists. They were mostly painters and sculptors. I understand; you, too, were probably taught to be a reader at a very young age and it just became a thing of comfort to you and familiarity, and you were read to. Not everybody has that privilege. So getting someone who didn’t grow up that way in a writing class who’s never really read before had its challenges. There was a lot of – not the word “postulate,” but there were a lot of words other than “said” when they would go to write their own thing.

Jon: Right, because they hadn’t seen how the masters do it.

Melissa: They’d never seen it before, right.

Jon: Yeah. When I talk about reading, I don’t actually mean reading your newsfeed in your Twitter. That’s not really reading. I mean sitting down and actually reading a great writer. Or even reading a really great article in the New Yorker or reading a book. Just seeing the way people put sentences together or put words together who really know what they’re doing. It rubs off on you.

Melissa: Yeah.

Jon: What’s your take on listening? Do you think you get the same experience listening to writing as you do reading it? Or do you think you actually have to read it?

Melissa: That’s a good question. Now that I’m in the audio space so much more, I think listening is very precious, and I think, like I was saying earlier, it activates a different part of the brain. So I don’t think it’s bad, but…

Jon: It might not help you be a better writer.

Melissa: I wonder. I don’t know. That’s a really good question.

Jon: I’ve thought about it, because these days, as a lazy old man, I’m listening to a lot more books.

Melissa: Right, audiobooks.

Jon: I’ll take a walk, and especially when I’m prepping for an interview, I maybe don’t have time to read somebody’s book, but I want to listen to it.

Melissa: Oh, the truth comes out.

Jon: I know, the truth comes out. But that’s the best time.

Melissa: A good story is a good story, and a well-written thing can be taken in audially – is that a word? oh my God – or visually. But I wonder if that’s going to change the tenor of writing in the future for people who have only listened to books.

Jon: Right. Maybe they’re going to just write audiobooks. That’s kind of what you’re doing. You’re basically writing stories audio-first. Also, it took me a long time to get over feeling like I was somehow blowing off life by reading in the middle of the day. Especially when I had an office job; it was almost impossible. But now that I work from home, I can take off an hour to read, and that still counts as working and training my brain. I shouldn’t feel guilty about that. I think a lot of people feel like you can only read when you’re in your off time.

Melissa: Right, or in bed.

Jon: In bed, and of course you fall asleep. If you’re like me, within the first paragraph you’re asleep, so you don’t really get a good concentrated reading time. So I recommend doing it at a time when you’re pretty awake. It’s a great way to, I don’t know, take a break.

Melissa: Fall asleep.

Jon: Yeah, it’s definitely a great way to fall asleep. I actually find I can’t even read lying down, or that’s it. I have to read sitting up.

Melissa: I always had this theory about reading is like EMDR, which is that psychological therapy where you move your eyes from left to right to alleviate trauma.

Jon: My wife does that.

Melissa: For me, I think reading is the opposite of exhausting. It’s so calming and meditative because you are doing that with your eyes.

Jon: That’s true.

Melissa: But also, I do at night fall asleep faster than I ever used to.

Jon: It’s definitely a thing.

Melissa: But yes, writers have to read. Even wannabe writers have to read. You have to. You just have to. There’s no arguing.

Jon: I want to talk about the vomit draft.

Melissa: Love a good vomit draft.

Jon: Everybody loves a good vomit draft, especially with no pants on. [laughs] [magical sound effect] I think I have a drum. But to explain what a vomit draft is, a vomit draft is exactly what it sounds like. It’s when you basically sit down and write everything that comes up in your mind.

Melissa: Yeah, you have an idea.

Jon: You have an idea. This is not like morning pages. Like let’s say you know vaguely what you want your chapter to be about, and you just write, with no judgment. This is personally very, very hard for me.

Melissa: I think a lot of people, yeah, because the inner critic wants to fix it immediately.

Jon: So true. But I find that a lot of really good writers are good about doing a vomit draft, and they actually – I don’t say they necessarily enjoy it, but they don’t have as much of the inner critic as say I do. At least from talking to them, it doesn’t sound like they do. So basically, you write a draft.

Melissa: You allow for it.

Jon: You just allow for it. Do you tell your students that, just to get out of the way?

Melissa: Yeah. I say vomit it out and don’t judge it. Nobody’s going to see it. Pretend it’s almost like a journal entry. It’s like throwing the clay on the table, and then you’re going to mold it. But you have to get the clay out of the package.

Jon: You’ve got to get the clay out of the package. Do you think even your dad did vomit drafts and stuff?

Melissa: Yeah. I think even your dad did vomit drafts of music.

Jon: Oh, for sure. I’ve heard many of them now that I’m transcribing some of his tapes. I’ve been doing that. I think all creative people do that. The problem I have is that I do that, but the inner critic is very active in this one. So as I’m writing, I’m like, “I could say that better,” and I go back.

Melissa: You do it immediately.

Jon: Yeah, immediately.

Melissa: Before the rest of the vomit comes out.

Jon: Yeah, before the vomit comes out. I’m basically heaving. It’s a heave draft. And not only that, but I’m stopping to get on the internet to be like, “Oh, I’ve got to make sure I get that fact right.”

Melissa: So you’re researching on top of vomiting on top of rewriting.

Jon: I was talking to our mutual friend Max about this, Max Brooks, who’s been on the show a few times, and he said that what he does – especially in the cases of “I don’t really know what I’m talking about. I need to research this before I write this down,” he puts a big yellow mark at that point, like “Research this part.” He doesn’t stop himself. He just keeps it going because he doesn’t want to lose the momentum, and I though that was really good advice.

Melissa: Are you going to do that now?

Jon: I’ve been starting to do that. You get stuck in your ways and then it’s hard, but I think I probably spend twice as much time writing as I need to because I don’t do a vomit draft, because I’m so precious about every sentence that I write down.

Melissa: That’s a habit.

Jon: It’s a habit.

Melissa: It’s not necessarily a bad habit.

Jon: It’s not a good habit. I hate it.

Melissa: It would be interesting to do it the other way.

Jon: Yeah. I’m sick of the heave drafts. I want to do a vomit draft. I guess it’s a dry heave draft. [laughs] Sorry, this is getting gross.

Melissa: This is turning into an eating disorder conversation.

Jon: Right, what’s going on? [laughs]

Melissa: But yeah, ultimately, don’t judge your first draft.

Jon: Right. So the mistake people make is they’re very judgy on their first draft, and as a result they don’t write anything at all. They’ll write one sentence and be like, “I suck at writing. I’m done.” That’s the biggest mistake you can make, because you’re not going to know until you get it out there. And most writers love the rewriting phase. They love going back in after everything has been written and then doing the rewrites.

Melissa: And Chekhov even had vomit drafts, I bet.

Jon: Oh, I’m sure he did.

Melissa: What’s the Russian word for vomit?

Jon: Anna Karenina, I think it was?

Melissa: [laughs] Ba-dum-bump.

Jon: [laughs] I don’t know. Thank you. I’m very funny when I’m with you. No, I don’t know. For our Russian readers – actually, we do have some listeners in Russia. I’ve noticed that.

Melissa: And Chekhov was a doctor as well, so he might’ve been good with the vomit talk.

Jon: Yeah.

Melissa: Anyway.

Jon: Anyway, vomit drafts are okay.

Melissa: I’ll jump in and say really quickly something that makes me a little crazy is when people – and maybe it’s their vomit draft, but when they write half in past tense, half in present tense. They switch the tense within sometimes a sentence. To me, that’s just lazy writing, and it’s not reading it out loud. To not catch that seems like a mistake.

Jon: Yes.

Melissa: I see it a lot.

Jon: It’s a very, very common mistake. One that I make sometimes.

Melissa: Me too.

Jon: And it’s embarrassing when an editor catches that I’ve changed tense. They’re like “tense change.” I’m like, grrr. That’s embarrassing.

Melissa: You’re like, “Now I’m tense.”

Jon: Yeah, now I got very, very tense.

Melissa: It happens a lot.

Jon: But you bring up a really interesting point. The way you catch that is that you read it out loud when you’re done with your draft. I just had a guy on, Dan Barry, who’s a big New York Times writer, been writing for them for years, and he says he reads every story he writes aloud to his wife. That’s pretty cute. Maplewood, New Jersey, by the way.

Melissa: His spouse editor.

Jon: Yes, he has a spouse editor, and he reads them out loud to her. His poor suffering wife has to listen to his stories. But that’s how he catches mistakes like that.

Melissa: I would say 98% you could probably catch reading out loud. I don’t know what the 2% that you don’t catch is, but…

Jon: Yeah, so read it out loud. We’re sort of ahead of ourselves in that way because that’s kind of when you’re all done, but I always do that. I have to say – I don’t know if this is controversial – I do read aloud, but I do use a program. It’s called Grammarly.

Melissa: Oh yeah.

Jon: Do you use Grammarly?

Melissa: I used it when I was teaching, and only because I made them use it.

Jon: So you wanted to be aware of it. I mean, take a little bit with a grain of salt what Grammarly tells you, but Grammarly will catch that stuff.

Melissa: They’re militant. Grammarly is militant.

Jon: It’s militant about the passive voice. Boy, does it hate the passive voice. That’s in one of my don’ts here, but yeah. Grammarly might be worth the investment because it will catch things like that.

Melissa: Exactly, and it’ll show you in red.

Jon: Yeah, you’ll see it in red and you’ll be like, “Oh yeah, that’s obvious. Duh.” So anyway, I would recommend reading out loud and getting Grammarly. That’s one.

The other very, very common grammatical mistake, I feel like, is the dangling modifier. This is a little bit hard to explain.

Melissa: Try it.

Jon: Let me see where I wrote it – a dangling modifier is when you start a sentence, like you say, “While the man didn’t want to ride the bike,” comma, and then the next part of it should be “he…”, but they’ll be like “America decided that it was going to ban all bikes. So the subject is not corresponding with the modifying – and that is a real common mistake, and it really doesn’t read well.

Melissa: Do you see it more in journalism?

Jon: I see it a lot in journalism. Do you not notice it, or do you not see it?

Melissa: Not as much. I don’t see it that much, but I know what you’re talking about.

Jon: It’s a mistake I make. I always have to check to make sure that like, after this comma, is the next thing I’m saying modifying whatever came before the comma?

Melissa: There’s a lot of subject/verb stuff happening.

Jon: Yeah. It’s just something to think about. Another thing is transitions. This might be more of a journalistic thing, but the transitions between paragraphs – sometimes somebody will end a paragraph and start a new paragraph and it’s just completely disconnected.

Melissa: Right. In their mind it’s connected.

Jon: In their mind it’s connected, but there’s no connection between the paragraphs. I remember I used to always – one of my most frequent comments during my editing days – and I still edit somewhat today – is “awkward transition, awkward transition, awkward transition.” People don’t know how to transition. Just remember that when you’re writing, each paragraph needs to lead into the next paragraph. Naturally, either through the way you’ve ended the paragraph or the way you’re beginning the second paragraph, try to find a way to transition. A lot of times even the word “but” is a good transition. “Da-da-da-da, but… da-da-da. However…”

Melissa: And if it’s not happening fluidly, that’s what the extra space break might be good for.

Jon: Yeah, the double space. That’s good for novelists to know, for sure. Or a sub-header, maybe, in the case of journalism. Maybe you add a sub-head there.

What is your take on adverbs? Because I don’t know if you knew this –

Melissa: Swiftly, loudly…

Jon: Stephen King said, “I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops.” He hates adverbs because he thinks any time you add an “-ly” to a word –

Melissa: Is it passive? Is that part of it?

Jon: I think he thinks they’re passive. I have his quote here. Let me read it. “Adverbs, like the passive voice, seem to have been created with the timid writer in mind. With adverbs, the writer usually tells us he or she is afraid, he/she isn’t expressing himself/herself clearly, and that he or she is not getting the point or the picture across. Consider the sentence ‘He closed the door firmly.’ It’s by no means a terrible sentence (at least it’s got an active verb going for it), but ask yourself if ‘firmly’ really has to be there. You can argue that it expresses a degree of difference between ‘He closed the door’ and ‘He slammed the door,’ and you’ll get no argument from me…”

He’s basically saying, why firmly? He closed the door. It’s almost like a self-conscious thing that writers do. They throw it in because they’re afraid that they’re not being writerly enough or something.

Melissa: Or making a definitive movement or choice. Yeah, I see exactly what he’s saying. He did sort of say what I just said, which is it’s more of the passive voice. It feels like a writer who’s not confident.

Jon: I’m sure you could go through Stephen King’s books and find a lot of adverbs.

Melissa: I wonder.

Jon: You would think after he made such a definitive statement – I think we’ve finally found something that Stephen King is scared of. He’s scared of adverbs. [laughs]

Melissa: Adverbs. Scared and a little judgy about them. I’m going to look for adverbs. I didn’t think twice about them until I heard that quote. And I don’t feel like I see them that much as being a problem.

Jon: I know. I was very interested that he said that. I hadn’t really thought that much about adverbs. I don’t feel like I use a lot of adverbs, but I can see why they would be extremely annoying if you were not an experienced writer.

Melissa: Now we’re going to see them in everything we read, I bet. He’s ruined it for us.

Jon: He ruined adverbs.

Melissa: Thanks, Stephen.

Jon: I used to love adverbs and he’s ruined them for me.

Melissa: I have one thing I want to ask you about, and this is maybe more fiction. What is your take on prologues?

Jon: Oh, prologues.

Melissa: And epilogues. I’ll throw them in as well. Do you have any thoughts?

Jon: That’s so interesting. I don’t really like them. I often skip them. I’m weird that way. I like to get right to the book.

Melissa: Why do you think the authors use them? What do you think they’re accomplishing?

Jon: I think authors are trying to – that is such a good question. I’ve never written a prologue in my life, so I can’t imagine the thought process behind a prologue. Have you ever written a prologue?

Melissa: I may have written one, but I’m not sure if it made it into the actual book.

Jon: I feel like it’s the kind of thing Herman Melville would use. I feel like it’s an old-fashioned thing. I mean, is a prologue supposed to give you a little bit of backstory?

Melissa: Well, maybe it’s the lead, like you’re talking about in journalism. That’s the lead into the story. But I’m finding that a lot of newer writers think that they need to write a prologue when really their prologue could easily be Chapter 1. It’s a structural question.

Jon: It’s slightly pretentious, I think. Maybe it’s literary.

Melissa: Or it’s the writer’s way of organizing their mind in order to tell the story.

Jon: What is the function of the prologue in your mind? An example of a prologue would just be a moment?

Melissa: Yeah, a moment, or maybe it shows the character in another setting or something. Maybe you’re reading about a character named Peter and the prologue is about Peter’s father, and then we get to Peter in the book. So you have a history.

Jon: A little history.

Melissa: Hi, Peter. That’s my nephew. [laughs]

Jon: Hi, Peter. Shout out to Peter. Yeah, it’s a little device. I guess it’s kind of cinematic in some ways. It’s like when a movie starts off with a scene that’s not completely connected to the movie, but then later you find out why that scene is in the movie.

Melissa: Epilogues, too. You end the book and then –

Jon: It’s like another ending.

Melissa: Right.

Jon: In nonfiction, I like when they do the epilogue as what happened to the people, like where they are now kind of epilogues. I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever written a prologue or an epilogue. I feel like if you can’t fit it in your actual story, maybe it shouldn’t be there.

Melissa: I was going to say, I don’t know if it’s a mistake to do that. It’s a choice, and I don’t know that it’s ultimately necessary. But yeah, just putting it out there.

Jon: When you end a story, what do you think people – we talked about this a little bit in talking about your father and what he thought about comedy, that they didn’t have good endings. When you’re writing a book, do you know how it’s going to end when you start it?

Melissa: Maybe not right when I start it, but early in the process of writing, I do know what I’m writing toward. One of my favorite classes I’ve ever taught is about structure, and I have a specific class about endings, and there are so many different kinds. An elliptical ending where the story would end sort of “…”, like an ellipses.

Jon: Oh, I thought you were talking about an elliptical machine.

Melissa: It’s a Peloton? [laughs]

Jon: Yeah, it’s like a Peloton ending.

Melissa: You could do a circular ending, where the ending circles right back to the beginning.

Jon: That’s a popular one in journalism. At least it’s a popular one among columnists, I’ve noticed, like Thomas Friedman. They love to do you end where you start.

Melissa: Right. It’s effective.

Jon: It is effective. But it can be – the worst endings are the ones that are completely unsatisfying, where you’re like, “Wait…”

Melissa: “Did we miss 10 pages of this?”

Jon: “What just happened to the character?” It’s frustrating. I think ending a story is one of the hardest things to do.

Melissa: And starting. And writing. It’s all a miracle.

Jon: It is a miracle that it gets done, but it only gets done if you do it. One of the mistakes I have written down here is that people always wait for inspiration. I think people are like, “I’ll write my book when I feel like I’ve got a great idea, or when I feel like I’m motivated to write.” And let me tell you something: as somebody who’s written for 30 years, I’m never really motivated. I think less so than maybe some other writers. The actual process of writing I don’t mind, but starting writing to me is one of the hardest things. If you don’t do it, it’s never going to happen.

Melissa: You don’t do it, you don’t do it. But that was a very good transition, speaking of transitions, into this part.

Jon: Oh, thank you. No awkward transitions from me today.

Melissa: No awk.

Jon: Yeah, awk. Always “awk.” You remember seeing that note?

Melissa: I used to give it.

Jon: Yeah, always “awk.” But yeah, don’t wait for inspiration. Just do it. And I’ve said this on the show before, and it’s a mistake I think people make – it doesn’t mean you have to sit down for an hour and do it. You can literally do 10 minutes. I don’t do that, but I know people who will sit down, even if they make it 10 minutes a day.

Melissa: It’s like compound interest. It adds up.

Jon: By the end of the week you actually have a good hour –

Melissa: What’s the math? [laughs]

Jon: Exactly. We’re both writers trying to do math, like “Uh, 10 times…”

Melissa: You have at least an hour and 10 minutes of writing.

Jon: That makes sense. And by the way, I think once you start doing it 10 minutes a day, it’s just like working out. You’ll suddenly be like, “I could do 15 minutes today. I might even do 20.” I think it can be very intimidating if you’re like, “I’ve set off the whole afternoon to write today.”

Melissa: Totally.

Jon: “Inspiration, please strike me.”

Melissa: Self-imposed pressure. That’ll weigh you down.

Jon: So much pressure. So just give yourself little bites. Maybe even set a timer. I know David Hochman was on the show saying that he sets a little 50-minute timer for himself. For some reason he does 50 minutes. As soon as the timer goes off, he gets up and does something else and then comes back.

Melissa: You said five-oh minutes?

Jon: Yeah, 50. For some reason he sets 50. That’s for him, and he’s been writing for 20 years. But I’m saying you could set a 5-minute timer. So don’t wait for inspiration.

Melissa: I would add to that if you even have an idea, you have that idea for a reason. It didn’t come to you just for kicks. Something in your soul wanted to – sorry, I’m going there – wanted to expand in some way. So I would say along with that, trust that idea, that kernel of that idea, because you had it for a reason. Don’t let it fall to the wayside.

Jon: It’s a little bit like that Blink book, which I sort of read. That idea that the first inspiration is really worth sticking with because there’s something there.

Melissa: Yeah, investigate it.

Jon: And you will lose interest in that idea eventually, so stick with it while it’s hot and know that it’ll be interesting to you again. I think that’s another thing. A mistake some people make I think is they have an idea and they get very, very excited about it, and then the idea gets a little bit hard or they hit a roadblock and then they quit.

Melissa: I’m guilty of that. I’ve had that.

Jon: Yeah, we’ve all done that. I would try to push through that. There’s certain times where I hit an impasse and I’m like, “This is impassable and I’m not going to do it.” But there are other times when I have actually stuck it out and pushed through it, and it actually has led to good things. So I encourage you to push through it.

Melissa: Elizabeth Gilbert has a great story in her book, Big Magic, which is a really nice book about creativity, and it’s very inspiring. She talks about she had this idea about the Congo – it was very vague, but it was like the Congo was the setting. I can’t remember all the details. She was working on it, but she couldn’t find its nut and was getting really frustrated with it. She went to a party where she met Ann Patchett, the author, and said, “What are you working on?” Ann Patchett said, “I’m working on this book. It’s set in the Congo.”

It was like every beat that Elizabeth had originally, and it ended up being the book State of Wonder that Ann Patchett wrote, which is an amazing book, by the way. It’s about older women are able to extend their fertility by eating some tree bark in the Congo, and they were getting pregnant at 50, 60, 70. There’s more to the story, but that’s part of it. And Elizabeth Gilbert said, “It made me believe that that idea floated through me. I couldn’t catch it, so it moved on to Ann Patchett.” I love that idea.

Jon: I really believe that idea. That is so cool. Somebody once explained to me, you’re like an antenna – in the old days when we used to have antennas – and you’re picking up these ideas like little waves. Either they’re going to be on your screen or you’re just going to turn the channel, but they’re coming through. That’s why I feel like a lot of times people have the same ideas at the same time.

Melissa: Right. That one was so niche, too.

Jon: That’s so weird, and to all of a sudden meet Ann Patchett – I remember hearing that. That’s a book I’ve listened to. What was that book?

Melissa: State of Wonder.

Jon: No, but what was the book that Elizabeth Gilbert wrote?

Melissa: Big Magic.

Jon: Big Magic is a great book about writing.

Melissa: Also, same idea – I think it was Michael Jackson who talked about how prolific he was, and he said he stayed up and wrote all the time because he didn’t want Prince to get –

Jon: To steal his stuff.

Melissa: Whatever was floating in the ether, he didn’t want Prince to pick it up.

Jon: This is why you have to create your own Prince. Everybody has their nemesis, right? Like “Oh my God, that writer.” I’ve got a few. I’m not going to name them out loud.

Melissa: Ooh. [laughs]

Jon: I’m always waiting for them to steal my ideas. Have that nemesis that you have to beat.

Melissa: Transition-wise, I’m going to say that’s a little bit of a mistake that writers make. I know a lot of people can have the same idea, but even if I gave you a prompt for an idea and six other people, you would all write six different things.

Jon: That’s true.

Melissa: So I’m not as paranoid as a lot of people are of idea-stealing.

Jon: Yes. I’m so glad you bring this up. Here’s the difference between an experienced writer and an inexperienced writer. Inexperienced writers always ask me – they’re always scared their ideas are going to get stolen.

Melissa: Always.

Jon: Always. I have never in my life heard a really good experienced writer worried about that, or worried that somebody’s going to steal their idea.

Melissa: I believe it happens in Hollywood. I know it does, because I’ve heard in my family. There’s a famous story which I don’t think I should tell. Ut I think that does happen with film, more so than maybe –

Jon: But even then, I feel like it’s really hard to claim ownership of an idea. I mean, I know, and even my dad sued – and I will say this out loud – he sued Bananarama.

Melissa: Whoa, what? For “Cruel Summer”?

Jon: Yes, for “Cruel Summer.”

Melissa: I’m kidding. Are you serious?

Jon: Yeah, he really did. I will play it for you now. Listen to this.

[“Cruel Summer” plays]

Jon: My dad really thought this lyric, the main lyric to “Cruel Summer,” was a copy of his score “Nightmoves,” which was then adapted into a song by this guy Michael Franks, who’s kind of a yacht rock guy.

Melissa: Oh yeah.

Jon: Michael Franks took one of my dad’s themes and made it into a song.

[“Nightmoves” plays]

Jon: Then Bananarama like five years later did “Cruel Summer.” My dad was convinced they copied it. But the judge threw it out.

Melissa: It’s hard to –

Jon: I know. And I guess maybe I’m wrong, but I do think that fear of people stealing your ideas is a little bit of a scapegoat.

Melissa: Yeah, it’s another excuse not to do it. For sure.

Jon: Or not to do it thoroughly.

Melissa: And that’s not to say I don’t register – certainly in my script life, I register everything through the Writers Guild. I want that protection if it comes to going to…

Jon: But a lot of ideas – I mean, man, the Congo one is so specific she could’ve probably sued Ann Patchett if she wanted to. They became like best friends.

Melissa: Yeah, I liked that she was like, “This idea moved through me. I couldn’t grab it, and she got it. It went into capable hands.”

Jon: In keeping with your “procured,” it’s this tendency to use these very, very fancy transitional words, like “henceforth” and “furthermore.” I don’t even like –

Melissa: “Postulated” was my word.

Jon: “Postulated,” I’m sorry. What did I say?

Melissa: “Procured.”

Jon: Oh, “procured,” sorry. [laughs]

Melissa: I would never say that.

Jon: I know. Okay, “postulated.” In keeping with your word “postulated,” yeah, avoid the fancy words. I don’t know if this is the best advice, but I was working at Maxim magazine, and we had a British editor. Maxim magazine at the time in the early ’90s was this new type of magazine that was in the States, and they were called lad magazines, and they were targeted at guys.

Anyway, this editor had been working at English magazines for his whole career and he’d just come over to America, and he was editing us. He’s like, “I don’t understand the way you guys write sometimes. You don’t write the way people talk. You don’t write in a conversational” – now, that’s a very specific kind of writing, but it was because – we didn’t use words like “henceforth,” but we were using words that you would never say.

Melissa: Right. Kind of SAT words.

Jon: SAT words, words that are like, “If I use that word, I’ll sound a little bit smarter.” He really called it out, and I’ve always been very aware of it since he said that. Like, is that the way I would really say it? Sometimes I’ll step back when I can’t figure out exactly how to finish a sentence and I’ll just say, “Let me break this down to the simplest facets. How would I actually say this if I was explaining this to somebody?”

Melissa: Right. That’s a good time to speak out loud.

Jon: And then to speak out loud and say it and then write down – maybe you can give it a little flourish when it’s down on the page, but I think that’s good advice. You’re not going to say the word “furthermore.” What’s another way to say “furthermore,” if you have to say it at all? Grammarly would immediately tell you to take “furthermore” out. Grammarly is on pretentious word alert, I’ve noticed. The algorithm hates pretentious words.

Melissa: Interesting.

Jon: They don’t even like – oh, man – they don’t like the word “indeed” or “in fact.” They always cut that stuff out.

Melissa: Furthermore… [laughs] I think we can also talk about dialogue.

Jon: Yes, please do.

Melissa: I think dialogue is tricky. Beginners tend to write literally the way we talk, which is like when I got here. “Hi!” “Hi, how are you? How was your drive?” “Good, yeah.” In a novel, nobody got time for that. We just want to cut. We want the dialogue to move the story forward. There can be a little chit-chat, but pages of chit-chat – not necessary.

Jon: In your vomit draft you can do it that way, but then you’ve got to go to the part that’s actually moving the story along.

Melissa: Right.

Jon: The other thing I’ve noticed in dialogue – and I notice this a lot when I’m writing scripts – is that people don’t really say exactly what they mean when they talk.

Melissa: Right, exactly.

Jon: Then you’re saying something, but what you mean is completely different. I mean, some writers are brilliant at this. Harold Pinter does this brilliantly in his plays, if you ever want to read somebody who’s – basically, two people are talking at each other, but they’re not saying anything; it’s all in the subtext. I think that’s a problem people make. You don’t have to say exactly what your character is thinking. That’s not actually the way people talk.

Melissa: People interrupt. As you see, I’m interrupting.

Jon: Yeah.

Melissa: Their cadences are different, and they don’t get to finish sentences. They say words wrong. There are so many ways to play with dialogue.

Jon: All right, in conclusion here, because we are coming –

Melissa: Indeed.

Jon: Indeed. Oh, never use the words “in conclusion.” That’s my mistake that writers make. What would be my last thing that I would say? I don’t know. I think people forget to have fun. I make a lot of jokes about writing, but actually, when you’re in the zone writing, that’s really one of the few greatest things in the world.

Melissa: Nothing better. So true. In the flow.

Jon: When you’re in the flow – and it doesn’t happen often, but it does happen, and it can only happen if you actually do it and engage in it in a very non-judgmental – there’s really no better meditation, I feel like, than writing. You’re completely out of your own head and inhabiting the world of another place.

Melissa: And it’s not like you’re sitting back watching Netflix. You’re creating something.

Jon: Yeah, it’s your world.

Melissa: Time stops and everything else goes away and you have tunnel vision in the best way.

Jon: I think that’s why writers get addicted to writing, because that feeling is a really exciting feeling. I’m sure people get in that flow state in other things, in sports, etc., but in writing – and I think that’s where you have to have fun. When you let go a little bit of your ego or your fear, you’re going to hit that flow state, and that is a wonderful place to be.

Melissa: Yes. What does Stephen King say about the flow state?

Jon: I think he killed it. [laughs] If anybody knows how to get in flow – I think Stephen King – he’s just absolutely a genius in the way he can come up with so many different stories and characters. But I don’t think he has any self-consciousness at all. Right?

Melissa: Right. Nothing stops him.

Jon: I can’t imagine at this point in Stephen King’s career that he would be like, “This is a stupid idea.”

Melissa: He’s also plugged into the collective, in a way. Everything he does turns into not only a book, but a movie or a series.

Jon: He’s in the – in music, they call that the imperial phase, where you can literally do no wrong. Like certain artists – right now it’s…

Melissa: What’s her name, Billie Eilish.

Jon: It was Billie Eilish last year, and now this year it’s Olivia Rodrigo. I don’t know if you know her.

Melissa: I don’t.

Jon: She’s at a point in her career where literally every song she puts out is a hit, and she can’t do any – she’s in such a flow state. But these things, also know that they come and go, unfortunately. [laughs]

Melissa: Right.

Jon: Melissa, this has been fantastic.

Melissa: So fun talking to you.

Jon: Thank you.

Melissa: I’m going to go rewrite everything I’m working on now.

Jon: Me too.

Melissa: Taking out all the adjectives.

Jon: Don’t take out adjectives.

Melissa: I mean adverbs. [laughs]

Jon: Take out adverbs. Adjectives are good. “Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here.” Remember that song?

Melissa: Of course.

Jon: So if people want to find out more about you, use your services, how should they find you?

Melissa: I have a website, which is a little wordy – please forgive me. It’s melissaclarkwrites.com. And I’m on Instagram. I have two of them. One is @melissaclark30 because my birthday is August 30th, not because I’m 30, and @mccoacheswriting. Melissa Clark, but the handle is @mccoacheswriting on Instagram.

Jon: Oh, I thought it was because you were “MC coaches writing and I’m DJ Finesse.”

Melissa: Yeah, that’s really hip. [laughs] But I have five coaching clients right now, and all five of them have renewed for another 10 weeks. But once they’re done, probably in early October, I have space to take on some new writers.

Jon: And you’ve also got – you can’t really talk about them now, but we talked about them off-mic. You’ve got these podcasts in the works.

Melissa: Yeah. My podcast producer and I are pitching some new kids’ podcasts. I’ve written a play during quarantine. That was sort of a flow state experience. The antenna caught an idea, and I’ve got to go back and work on that. And I just finished a novel that I’m trying to tweak.

Jon: There’s a lot of creative juice flowing.

Melissa: Yeah, a lot of juices flowing, and I get very inspired by the people I work with, too. I help them create. It’s great.

Jon: That’s awesome. Yes. That’s another mistake. You’re not doing this alone.

Melissa: No, no, no.

Jon: Lean on your friends, and find the creative people that will listen to you and read your work. Don’t do this alone. It’s too hard to do it alone.

Melissa: Thank you so much. This was so fun.

Jon: It was super fun having you. Thank you all for joining me. I hope this was helpful to you. And please, if you have any questions about writing, hit Melissa or I up.

Melissa: Don’t hit me.

Jon: Yeah, don’t hit us up. Hopefully we’ll be wearing pants and we will procure an answer for you.