Amy Shearn wants you to sync your writing goals to your actual life

"It is important and useful and freeing to remember that the kind of time you have shapes the book that you can write."

This week I’m talking with Amy Shearn, the award-winning author of the critically-acclaimed novels Dear Edna Sloane, Unseen City, The Mermaid of Brooklyn, and How Far Is the Ocean from Here. Amy’s newest novel is Animal Instinct, is about a 40-something newly divorced woman rediscovering her desires during the height of the COVID pandemic, and doing so both through her interactions with actual live humans and an AI chatbot she designed to compile all her favorite parts of actual live humans and none of the annoying, boring things. This was a book I couldn’t wait to read each night because I knew it will take my mind off my worry du jour and give me a lot to think about (like, for example, how the patriarchy can really mess up a marriage) while also being a ton of fun (suddenly single dating and sexcapades!).

Amy has nearly twenty years experience as an editor for digital publications, has published hundreds of essays for places including New York Times’ "Modern Love" column and The Rumpus, and she currently works one-on-one with writers as an editor and writing coach.

Listen to Amy’s episodes:

• Practical matters: Matching your writing goals to the time you have available + keeping yourself accountable when you don't have a deadline

• Inner stuff: Writing to your one, true reader + how to decide you’re doing ‘enough’ to promote your work

• What’s next: The pursuit of being a “joyful amateur”, counteracting the slide of turning into a “human shrimp”, and dreams of starting a cat farm.

Or, get the complete interview in one ad-free episode by becoming a paid subscriber and supporting my work and becoming the recipient of my undying gratitude:

We covered:

• Her really insightful take on how loving reading as a kid can lead to wanting to be a writer (I hadn’t thought of it in this way before)

• The mix of calling and coercion that got her to think beyond writing novels to also penning personal essays

• Making the shift to freelancing as an editor, teacher, and book coach (and away from working for a publication for her primary income source)

• Matching your writing goals to the time you have available

• How to keep yourself accountable when you don't have a deadline

• Using a 50-50 parenting agreement post-divorce as an "every other weekend writing retreat"

• Reconciling the sensitivity and openness required to be a writer and the need to have a thick skin in order to share the work you so lovingly create

• Why a three-star review is actually a sign of success
  

“In my 40s is the moment when I've been able to really assess, like, all right, what are we doing here? What do I want to say? What am I no longer afraid to say?”

• How teaching writing has helped her view her own inner critic differently

• How to feel like you’ve done ‘enough’ to promote your work

• Her definition of a work’s success

• The best moment of her writing life that happened just last weekend!

• What she’s no longer afraid of now that she’s 45-½

• Why there is no formula for creativity

• How she refills her creative well after publishing and promoting a book

• Why she’s on a kick of reading writers’ and artists’ published journals

• A sneak peek at the novel project she’s diving into next

• The three things on her to-do list for later in the afternoon that perfectly encapsulate her answer to my question “Is there anything you sense that you need to shift?”

A glimpse of the cat farm Amy dreams of starting? From her Facebook page.

Specific Things We Mentioned:

• All Fours by Miranda July

• Booktopia book festival in Vermont

• Northshire Books in Manchester Center, Vermont

• Southern Vermont Arts Center

• May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude

• Yellowjackets TV show

• Lucy Dacus, “Forever Is a Feeling”
  

“My inner critic loves to say ‘Nobody cares about this, who are you to share your experience with the world?’ It has really helped to teach personal essay workshops, because whenever I hear one of my writers saying that, I'm like, ‘That's absurd. It sounds crazy when you say that. What are you talking about?’ I want to know everyone's experience of the world. So it helps me to remember that I'm one of them.”

Connect with Amy

Instagram @amyshearnwrites

Substack:

Amy Shearn

Bluesky: Amy Shearn

Facebook: Amy Shearn Writes

Website: amyshearnwrites.com

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Listen to Past Episodes:

• Samuel Marquis, practical matters: Bringing the strengths of your day job into your writing

• Samuel Marquis, inner stuff: Why villains are so fun to write (hint: it’s not because they’re evil)

• Samuel Marquis, what’s next: Writing a book that’s historically accurate and sells well—with nods to Abraham Lincoln and Michael Keaton

• Full show notes for Samuel Marquis

• Katy Bowman, practical matters: Finding the kind of writing that feels like a downhill flow

• Katy Bowman, inner stuff: The similarities between non constructive feedback and farts

• Katy Bowman, what’s next: Can clearing clutter create space for creative world

• Full show notes for Katy Bowman

• Allegra Goodman, practical matters: Why her advice is to write 100 words per day

• Allegra Goodman, inner stuff: Thinking of writing as being a performer in the reader’s mind.

• Allegra Goodman, what’s next: Setting a Goal to help people think much harder and imagine much better

• Full show notes for Allegra Goodman