Once you’ve gone through the fun and messy creative process of freewriting and generated a bunch of material, it’s time to figure out the heart of your story. The transformation that occurs in stories is called throughline. This driving force is something every story needs. In this episode, Roxan and Desi define throughline, discuss recognizing it in books and movies, and share ways to incorporate it into your writing. Warning: Identifying throughlines in stories may ruin your reading and movie-watching experience for a while.

Dialogue is a unique art form that any writer can master. In this episode, Roxan and Desi discuss how verbal dialogue is a small percentage of communication and how nonverbal communication can make our scenes believable and telling. They also share tips and exercises to liven up the dialogue in our stories.

Roxan and Desi dive into joining and participating in feedback groups this week. They cover some things that come up as we grow with a group of writers, such as creating and voicing our boundaries, knowing the difference between being challenged to improve and being misunderstood, having vulnerability overload, and taking risks. They also share tips on giving better feedback and finding a writing group to help you develop your authentic voice.

This week Roxan and Desi make a case for why everyone should write a memoir. They get into the unexpected perks of writing a memoir, address some of the beliefs that stop people from starting, and share tips on where to begin your memoir.

This week Roxan and Desi are joined by writer and teacher Andy Couturier. Andy loves to help writers stumble onto unexpected ways of writing and engages in techniques from improvisational theatre, Buddhist meditation, deep nature awareness, movement, and radical fields of philosophy to achieve this. In this episode, Andy shares how he met Roxan, why most writers get uninspired, and his favorite writing exercises to overcome creative blockages.

This week Roxan and Desi are joined by writer and teacher Andy Couturier. Andy loves to help writers stumble onto unexpected ways of writing and engages in techniques from improvisational theatre, Buddhist meditation, deep nature awareness, movement, and radical fields of philosophy to achieve this. In this episode, Andy shares how he met Roxan, why most writers get uninspired, and his favorite writing exercises to help writers overcome creative blockages.

Most writers stick to the point of view and tense they started writing in, usually first-person present tense, never exploring the numerous options available. In this episode, Roxan and Desi make a case for experimenting with the available options and understanding the bounds of our choices. Tune in to hear the drawbacks and benefits of each tense and point of view.

For many of us, even when we try to diversify our reading list, we somehow still get stuck reading similar types of books. In this episode, Desi and Roxan outline tangible ways to widen our reading list and how engaging with other people’s stories improves our writing.

If a character’s motive is the heartbeat of every story, then why do most writers forget to include it? This week, Roxan and Desi dive into the importance of including our character’s yearning in our stories and give examples of ways to achieve this.

In episode two, Roxan and Desi discuss how slowing down can make the emotional impact of a piece stronger and draw readers into our world. They also give examples of various ways to slow down and ground into a scene. When we remember that everything is a symbol, vibrating with emotion, slowing down becomes easier, and we’ll enjoy discovering what we write.

In this episode, Roxan and Desi discuss juggling their everyday life with their creative life. Topics covered include staying motivated, maintaining a relationship with writing, being a literary citizen, defining success for ourselves, and much more. After listening to this episode, we hope you’ll remember that you're not alone in your creative journey through the obstacles and immense joy that comes with living the writer's life.

In this first promo episode, Roxan and Desi talk about how they met, why they started the podcast, and what to expect every week.