Here’s a picture of the room I was talking about on the August 2026 Fireside Chat. 🙂

And here are some further thoughts:

Some rooms don’t just hold you.

They rewrite you.

Standing here felt like stepping inside a story that had already been waiting for centuries. Every flower, every curve of the arch, every shade of blue was placed by hands that understood beauty is never accidental.

Places like this remind me why I love stories: they are mosaics too. Tiny, deliberate pieces that, together, become something larger than the maker.

This is the kind of beauty I want writers to chase—not decoration, but atmosphere you can feel on your skin.

Where have you stood lately that changed the way you see?

What kind of atmosphere are you writing into your book?

Brandy

The call of a creator is the call of abundance.

But first we have to look deeper. And in that looking we step into a space made solely for us—our sandbox of discovery, of beauty, of joy. A place where we can build castles and tear them down only to make them better. A place where we bring in buckets of water just to see what kind of rivers and moats we can create.

I am using this metaphor because once, when I was talking about the pressure of being a writer, a mentor of mine said, “Just play in the sandbox with God.”

That stuck with me. It freed me. I hope it helps you too.

I’ve walked the places this video highlights, and it is exactly as he described. Mythic and deep. An invitation around every carved wall.

(Website friends can watch the video here:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcUwzsDgVOb/?igsi=MWtmd2I2dDBrcWZuaQ==)

We who write are doing the same work those stone carvers and architects and glassmakers did in Oxford. We arrange words the way they arranged light and line and weight. We are trying to make something that makes the soul lean forward. Something that says, Look. This too is true. This too is possible. This too is charged with meaning.

Tolkien called it sub-creation. We take the raw material of the world God already made—nature, longing, ordinary Tuesday mornings, the way light falls across a kitchen table, the complexity of humans—and we shape it into story so that others might feel the weight and the wonder of it more clearly.

This is not a small vocation. It is a high and holy calling, even on the days when the sentences are still tangled up inside.

Beauty does not wait for us to feel strong enough to receive it. It keeps arriving—through a well-turned phrase, a character who surprises us with grace, a single image that somehow carries more truth than we planned. And when we steward that beauty carefully, when we refuse to rush past it or cheapen it for the sake of speed or trends, we participate in something larger than ourselves.

There is a particular kind of abundance available to the writer who will slow down long enough to notice. Not the abundance of metrics or platforms, but the abundance of seeing. Of naming. Of offering a reader a place where the soul can rest for a moment and remember that the world is still enchanted, still held, still worth the labor of love.

You are not just writing a book.

You are practicing the ancient art of making beauty that points beyond itself.

Keep going.

The world is still hungry for what only you can create.

And I am here for all your pages, even the messy ones. ♥️

Brandy

Friends,

If your inbox has been unusually full of glowing praise from strangers lately, you are not alone. I am seeing the same patterns land in my own email and hearing about them from clients and writer friends.

Scammers have gotten very good at using AI to scrape book descriptions, reviews, and public profiles so their messages sound personal and informed. The goal is always the same: get you talking, lower your guard with flattery, then ask for money.

Here are three of the most common versions circulating right now.

1. “Your book is so great… tell me more.”

This is the soft opening. Someone claims they just finished your novel (or short story, or entire backlist), gushes about the voice, the themes, the emotional impact, and asks for more details about your writing process, upcoming projects, or representation status. It feels wonderful. Someone saw you.

What usually follows is an offer of marketing help, a “visibility campaign,” paid reviews, or an introduction to someone who can “really move the needle.” Real industry professionals almost never cold-email authors with unsolicited praise and then pivot to services. Legitimate interest starts with a query or a mutual connection, not a stranger’s sudden deep reading of your work.

2. “I want to hand you my high-rolling client.”

This one targets both authors and agents. The sender presents as another agent, manager, or industry insider who has a successful, high-earning client looking for new representation, co-representation, or a fresh publishing home. They want to “hand” that client over or make an introduction—because your list/agency is the perfect fit, of course.

The flattery is directed at your professional reputation. The ask that follows is usually some form of fee, “processing,” “transition support,” or a paid service that must happen before the introduction can proceed. Real agents do not shop clients this way, and legitimate referrals do not require the receiving agent (or author) to pay.

3. “I’m the leader of a very large book club and we want to promote you.”

This is currently one of the most widespread. The email is warm. They name your book. They claim hundreds or thousands of engaged members. They want to feature you, host a discussion, or have the group “immerse themselves” in your work. Sometimes they even reference specific details pulled from your blurb or online reviews.

Then comes the fee—an “admin fee,” “spotlight fee,” “coordination package,” or a request that you “tip” dozens of reviewers at $20–$30 each. Real book clubs do not charge authors to be read or discussed. Ever. If money is required for the privilege of their attention, it is not a book club.

How to protect yourself

•  Unsolicited praise from someone you have never heard of is a yellow flag. Immediate requests for money or personal financial information turn it red.

•  Search the group or person’s name + “scam.” Look for an actual web presence, recent activity, and independent verification that is not just a shiny new site created last month.

•  Legitimate agents and publishers do not cold-solicit with offers that require you to pay first.

•  When in doubt, do not engage further. You can always reply once with a polite “Thank you, I’m not interested” and leave it there. Scammers often escalate if you keep the conversation going.

Your work has value. Real readers, real agents, and real opportunities exist. They just do not arrive disguised as strangers who love everything about your book and then hand you an invoice.

If any of these have shown up in your inbox (or if you’ve spotted a new variation), feel free to share the red flags in the comments so we can keep each other sharp. We are stronger when we compare notes.

Keep writing the real work. The rest is just noise.

—Brandy

Friends,

After the shiny beginning of a new story fades, the middle arrives. It’s where the inner critic gets loud, progress feels glacial, and the quiet question starts pressing in: Does any of this even matter?

I recently sat down with L.G. McCary for a conversation about that exact territory. She’s the author of That Pale Host (a women’s suspense novel with a supernatural twist that has already helped at least one reader heal from a deep wound). And now, L.G. is currently deep into a young adult mermaid story that has required her to revisit old high-school pain she’d rather forget.

What emerged from our conversation was honest, funny, and quietly hopeful–the kind of talk we need while we’re still in the thick of the work. She no longer feels ashamed that her first book took eight years and other people’s timelines no longer own her.

Wow! That victory is huge!

There’s more. About critique groups. About measuring success by whether a story helped someone. About writing in the nooks and crannies of motherhood. About Ephesians 2:10 and good works prepared beforehand.

You can read the full conversation here: Finding the Grace in the Messy Middle: A Conversation with L.G. McCary

If you’re in the middle right now, whether your draft is stalled, your confidence is thin, or the work simply feels slow, I hope this lands as a gentle reminder that you’re not alone, and that the middle is not a failure. It’s where a lot of the real formation happens.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments: What’s one thing your inner critic says that you’ve learned (or are still learning) to answer back to? Or how are you practicing patience with your own process these days?

Brandy

Friends,

There’s a particular kind of quiet that settles in after you’ve been at this writing life long enough. The rejections stack up. The “almosts” start to feel heavier than the maybes. And somewhere in the middle of it all, it’s easy to start measuring your worth by whether an agent said yes, whether a publisher took the book, whether the world is currently clapping.

That’s why this conversation with Laurel Saville landed so hard for me.

I compiled her Q&A for Writing Day Workshops this month, and her closing sentence has been echoing in my chest ever since:

“Remember that it is writing, not publishing, that makes you a writer.”

Laurel has walked the long road. Twenty years of hurdles before her memoir found a home. An editor who later called one of her novels the biggest mistake of her career. Magazines that folded. Publicists who vanished at launch. And still, she keeps showing up to the page.

What I love most is how she talks about the actual work. She compares writing to gardening: most of the job is getting down in the dirt and pulling weeds so the real plants can grow. Cliches. Shortcuts. Purple prose. All the things that try to choke out the fragile, true thing that first sparked in your imagination. Her “ritual,” she says, is simply to work like a word farmer.

She doesn’t romanticize inspiration. She doesn’t pretend the business side is easy. She just keeps returning to the one thing that still belongs to us no matter what the industry does: the writing itself.

If you’ve been feeling like you’re only as good as your last yes (or your last silence), I hope you’ll read her full answers. There’s gold in here about knowing when a book is “good enough,” about creating characters who feel alive, about protecting your creative energy while still doing the necessary business, and about how connection (not perfection) is what keeps her excited after all these years.

You can read the whole feature here: https://www.writingdayworkshops.com/blog/laurel-saville-remember-that-it-is-writing-not-publishing-that-makes-you-a-writer

I’d love to know in the comments: Which part of Laurel’s advice do you need most right now? And where are you still tempted to let publishing define whether you’re “really” a writer?

I’m right here in the dirt with you,

Brandy

P.S. The work you’re doing on the page today counts. Even if no one else sees it yet. Especially then.