Hey friends,

I just published a new conversation I’m really glad to share with you.

It’s called “Writing Became My Super Strength”: A Conversation with AJ Skelly.

AJ is the author of thirty-one books (including An Alliance of Ash and Jade and The Rat King, both heading to vertical film with Lumiview). In this interview she talks honestly about the season when writing became a way to process things that felt completely out of her control… and how that survival tool slowly turned into something deeper: strength, creativity, and unexpected healing.

She also gets real about self-doubt, the decision to keep writing only as long as it stays joyful, messy first drafts, protecting creative energy while raising a family, and the quiet wisdom that comes from staying in the work for the long haul.

If you’ve ever needed the reminder that the hard parts of this journey can still become part of your strength, I think this one will meet you right where you are.

You can read the full conversation here: https://www.writingdayworkshops.com/blog/writing-became-my-super-strength-a-conversation-with-aj-skelly

I’d love to know which part lands most for you.

Holding space for the work you’re doing,

Brandy

Hey friends,

If you’ve ever written a fight scene that felt more like a polite scuffle than something that lands in the reader’s gut, this one’s for you.

Today I’m sharing a post from literary agent and author Mike Nappa called Creating Fight Scenes with Real P.U.N.C.H.

Mike breaks down a simple, memorable framework (P.U.N.C.H.) that takes fight scenes from “they punched each other a few times” to the kind of visceral, character-revealing moments that stick with readers long after the book is closed.

Read it here: Creating Fight Scenes with Real P.U.N.C.H.

I’d love to hear what lands for you. Drop a comment and tell me which letter of P.U.N.C.H. you’re going to try first—or share a fight scene you’re currently wrestling with. We’re in this together.

Go give your characters a real fight.

Brandy

​Arthur Gee was born in Moldova and raised in a house where Russian literature and the early Soviet dissident movement shared the dinner table. He settled in Brooklyn in the 1980s and spent nearly forty years writing code instead of stories . . . until the quiet isolation of Covid reignited an old creative itch.

Now the author of two published poetry collections (with a third on the way) and a novel accepted for publication, Arthur is back at the page in earnest. In this conversation he talks candidly about the lessons of rejection and resilience, and what it means to keep going when the work still feels unfinished.
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His answers are honest, practical, and full of hard-won perspective, especially for anyone who has ever wondered whether it’s too late, or whether the years away from the page were somehow wasted.

Read the feature below and let him know which point resonated with you.

https://www.writingdayworkshops.com/blog/a-conversation-with-arthur-gee-what-nearly-forty-years-away-from-the-page-taught-him

For those of you who have decided to launch into self publishing, check out these resources. I mentioned some of these at the July 2026 Fireside Chat.

For formatting:

Do it yourself with Vellum software: https://vellum.pub

If you want to have someone else to format your book for you, I recommend Polgarus Studio: https://www.polgarusstudio.com They are excellent and I have worked with them in the past.

Get Your ISBNs:

Bowker: https://www.myidentifiers.com

Printing and Distribution:

Ingram Sparks: https://www.ingramspark.com (You can have a signing at Barnes & Noble if you use Ingram Sparks.)

Amazon KDP: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/bookshelf

Book Cover List:

https://writingtipsoasis.com/book-cover-designers-for-self-publishers/

Also:

100 Covers: https://100covers.com

Friends of mine have used Damonza, BookFly, and Ebook Launch.

To Create Your Audiobook:

ACX: https://www.acx.com/

Book Promotion Mentioned on the Fireside Chat:

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/partners/overview

I dive into a lot more book promotional tools in my class Launching and Promoting Your Book on the Patreon platform.

Another Great Resource:

The Self Publishing Show: https://www.learnselfpublishing.com

Hope this helps!

Do you know of a great resource that might help someone? Drop it in the comments. 🙂

Friends,

There’s a particular kind of quiet courage required to look at the work in front of you—unfinished, unpublished, still finding its shape—and say the words out loud:

I am a writer.

Not “aspiring.” Not “trying to be.” Just… writer.

Olivia O’Sullivan recently sat with a series of questions about that exact threshold. What follows is her honest, unguarded set of answers. She writes as a teacher, a tennis coach, a woman still in the long unpublished season, and someone who is learning that the act of writing itself is enough to make the name true.

Her responses are full of rooms that finally feel like her own, tennis metaphors about playing at the net, the ache of wanting to be kind above all else, and the quiet discovery that she has capacity to love more characters (and more of herself) than she once believed possible.

Let Olivia know which points resonated with you.

With you in the long becoming,

Brandy

Read the feature here:

https://www.writingdayworkshops.com/blog/claiming-the-name-olivia-osullivan-on-what-it-means-to-call-yourself-a-writer-before-the-deal

Some AI news for you. This is worth the read and we also talked about it on the July 2026 Fireside Chat.

What if we’re looking at a future where there are no more printed books? Anthropic is buying books by the millions… and then destroying them after they are scanned. 😟😲😢

https://www.instagram.com/p/DbYqeY_jrb-/?img_index=1&igsh=MXc2YXZyaHZ2bXF3NQ==