Aug 31, 2026 · 52 min · 26 segments
With a mountain of rejections, AWC grad Leearna Shaw was ready to throw in the proverbial towel with her dream of novel writing. But just a few years later, her rural romance *A Farm in Golden Clouds*…
Leearna ShawGuestValerie KhooHostDean KooryNat NewmanNow there's a thing that writers do that makes me want to, well, lie down on the floor.
Someone will be telling me about their book and they're lit up, they're talking with their hands, the plot is, you know, just awesome, it's completely bonkers and I want to read it that afternoon.
and they pull their shoulders in a bit and they say something to me like, oh, it's not literary or anything, it's just a fun read.
And often they say it in the tone of someone confessing like to a small crime or something but somewhere along the way an awful lot of us absorbed the idea that if a book is enjoyable it can't be serious that the worthwhile stuff ought to be a bit of a slog I remember my cousin used to say to me oh this book isn't going to defeat me and I'm like oh my goodness if I feel that way about a book I don't want to keep reading it and some people think that if a reader is you know powering through your pages then maybe you cut a corner somewhere I mean that's just rot right Making a person want to know what happens next is one of the hardest things you can do with words.
There are plenty of beautiful sentences out there written by people who couldn't hold a reader for two pages.
Have a think about the books you've actually given to your friends, right? Not the ones that you kind of admired from a polite distance or that the literary person at book club has chosen and you didn't actually read.
But I'm talking about the ones that you finished at 1am and then sat there for a minute feeling a bit... empty, and then bought three more copies for your friends.
So if you're working on something that's meant to be a good time, like a romance or a thriller or a caper or a big juicy family saga that everybody's mother will read in a I want you to stop apologising for it in the first 10 seconds when you're telling someone about it.
Leave off the it's only or it's not really and just tell them what happens and watch their face.
Entertaining people... is not the consolation prize for missing out on literary.
And the readers who stay up too late with your book know exactly what you did for them.
Mind you, of course, before you can stop apologizing for your novel, you do have to write the thing, which brings me to this week's story about Shannon Kelly White.
Now there's a thing that writers do that makes me want to, well, lie down on the floor.
Someone will be telling me about their book and they're lit up, they're talking with their hands, the plot is, you know, just awesome, it's completely bonkers and I want to read it that afternoon.
and they pull their shoulders in a bit and they say something to me like, oh, it's not literary or anything, it's just a fun read.
And often they say it in the tone of someone confessing like to a small crime or something but somewhere along the way an awful lot of us absorbed the idea that if a book is enjoyable it can't be serious that the worthwhile stuff ought to be a bit of a slog I remember my cousin used to say to me oh this book isn't going to defeat me and I'm like oh my goodness if I feel that way about a book I don't want to keep reading it and some people think that if a reader is you know powering through your pages then maybe you cut a corner somewhere I mean that's just rot right Making a person want to know what happens next is one of the hardest things you can do with words.
There are plenty of beautiful sentences out there written by people who couldn't hold a reader for two pages.
Have a think about the books you've actually given to your friends, right? Not the ones that you kind of admired from a polite distance or that the literary person at book club has chosen and you didn't actually read.
But I'm talking about the ones that you finished at 1am and then sat there for a minute feeling a bit... empty, and then bought three more copies for your friends.
So if you're working on something that's meant to be a good time, like a romance or a thriller or a caper or a big juicy family saga that everybody's mother will read in a I want you to stop apologising for it in the first 10 seconds when you're telling someone about it.
Leave off the it's only or it's not really and just tell them what happens and watch their face.
Entertaining people... is not the consolation prize for missing out on literary.
And the readers who stay up too late with your book know exactly what you did for them.
Mind you, of course, before you can stop apologizing for your novel, you do have to write the thing, which brings me to this week's story about Shannon Kelly White.
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