How do you help your creative flow by freeing yourself from a strict writing place? How does one read 100 books a year? How do you write multiple genres? There’s so much goodness in this episode, from topics about the writing process to the most personal real-talk you can imagine. It’s all here in our conversation with the one and only V.E. Schwab.
Guess what? We are finally releasing the full, unedited three-hour long conversation with V.E. Schwab. You asked, and you shall receive. V.E. Schwab is the #1 NYT, USA, and Indie bestselling author of more than a dozen books. Most of you know her from “The Shades of Magic” series where an Entertainment Weekly article describes her writing as “Addictive and immersive.” Her work has received critical acclaim and has been featured by The New York Times. Get ready for an insanely inspiring episode.
Books & Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness by Jon Ronson
S-Town
My Favorite Murderer
Dexter
I Am Not A Serial Killer: John Cleaver, Book 1 by Dan Wells
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
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What You’ll Learn From This Episode:
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- How working with a flexible schedule and freeing yourself from a strict writing place helps with productivity
- Why it’s crucial to create as few parameters around your writing as you can
- Advice on writing morally ambiguous characters
- The differences in writing multiple genres
- Learn how Victoria reads 100 books a year!
- Why reading different genres and styles of writing helps to strengthen your writing
- Discovering the voices of your characters
- Writing multiple points of views
- Recognizing the differences between self doubt and knowing when your story has taken a wrong turn
“No one has efficacy of 100%. You have to rebuild everything you’re tearing down. Creative output takes a toll and you have to compensate with creative input.”
-V.E. Schwab
“I’m a very, very firm believer that rejection exists in this industry not to test if whether your craft is ready but to test whether your ego is.”
-V.E. Schwab
“I sit down with each and every one of my characters and ask them, what do they want? What do they fear? And those two questions and answers to the questions inform the entire character.”
-V.E. Schwab
“I do whatever that works. What works for one day does not have to be the same thing that works on another.”
-V.E. Schwab
“You can not fix a blank page.”
-V.E. Schwab
Kell is one of the last Antari―magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.
Kell was raised in Arnes―Red London―and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.
Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see. It’s a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.
After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.
Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they’ll first need to stay alive.
