The Resilient Writers Radio Show – Details, episodes & analysis

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Welcome to another episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show!

My podcast editor is in sick leave this week, so thanks for your understanding with this unedited episode. 🥰

The stretch from Thanksgiving through New Year's can feel like a creative black hole for writers. Between holiday preparations, family gatherings, and end-of-year obligations, that precious writing time often disappears completely. In this episode, I offer a powerful mindset shift to help you protect your writing practice during the busiest season of the year.

The reality many writers face is stark: you enter the holidays hoping to finish a chapter, complete a draft, or prepare your manuscript for querying in the new year. Instead, six weeks vanish, and by early January you wake up exhausted, guilty about not writing, and disconnected from your project. When you've been away from your manuscript that long, the characters feel distant, the plot grows hazy, and climbing back into a consistent writing rhythm becomes another mountain to scale.

The goal isn't to write a novel in December—it's to stay connected to your creative identity and maintain momentum. 

Whether you choose to take a guilt-free break or carve out intentional writing time, the choice should be yours, made consciously rather than surrendered by default to holiday overwhelm.

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If you’ve ever felt like your novel is taking far too long—or wondered whether you can keep writing through big life challenges—this conversation with novelist Melanie Schnell will speak straight to your writer heart.

Melanie is the author of While the Sun is Above Us, which won both the Saskatchewan First Book Award and the City of Regina Award and has been part of the ELA A30 curriculum in Saskatchewan schools. 

Her new novel, The Chorus Beneath Our Feet, began with a single, vivid image: two women standing on a tree branch in the middle of a violent storm. That image stayed with her for 15 years, slowly growing into a story about siblings, war, grief, and everything that lies hidden beneath our feet—and beneath our lives.

In this episode, Melanie shares how that first image evolved into the fictional city of Ravenswood, a Regina-inspired setting anchored by a central tree. She talks about how research into unmarked graves at the Regina Indian Industrial School, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, mass graves in Ireland, and the history of the British Home Children all fed into the novel’s themes of buried histories, family bonds, and unseen networks—like fungi and tree roots—running under the surface.

We also dig into her unforgettable characters. Jes, a grief-stricken soldier returning from Afghanistan with his best friend’s body, and Mary, his ethereal, elusive sister, form the emotional core of the book. 

Melanie describes the challenge of getting Jes’s voice right, balancing his trauma and anger with real vulnerability, and how early reader feedback helped her deepen both siblings until they felt fully alive on the page.

Melanie is candid about what it took to finish this novel over 15 years while raising her son as a single mother, navigating a demanding academic career, and living with chronic illness. 

She talks about losing the ability to read and write for stretches of time, the frustration of feeling like the book was always moving ahead without her, and the moment an editor helped her finally “see” what the story needed structurally—especially around Mary’s voice and the ending.

If you’re a writer living with chronic illness or other big life constraints, Melanie offers gentle, hard-won encouragement: you are not your illness, and your story is coming from a central, lit-up place inside you that doesn’t disappear, even when you can’t reach it every day.

If you’ve been wondering whether it “still counts” if your book is taking years to finish, I think this conversation with Melanie will remind you that deep work takes the time it takes—and that the story is still there, waiting, even when you have to step away.

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In this episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show, we break down the complete roadmap for finishing your book—because contrary to what movies show us, it's not just "type, spell check, publish." 

Finishing a book requires a systematic, step-by-step approach that prevents overwhelm and helps you track real progress.

Why You Need a Step-by-Step Process

Our culture perpetuates myths about book writing—think Jo March in Little Women or countless Christmas movies where characters magically go from manuscript to bestselling author tour. The reality? Finishing a book takes everything you've got and requires becoming the writer you need to be to complete your unique project.

Breaking the process into clear phases gives you momentum, prevents paralysis, and allows you to celebrate milestones along the way. Instead of facing an overwhelming 300-400 page project, you work through manageable steps, always knowing exactly where you are in the process.

The 11-Step Process to Finishing Your Book

Step 1: Prepare Your Project Plan Treat your book like any other major project in your life. Calculate how many words you need, determine your weekly writing capacity, and create a realistic timeline. For example: if you need 50,000 more words and typically write 3,000 words per week, you're looking at approximately 16 weeks to complete your draft.

Step 2: Complete the Essential Book Outline Create a basic outline that tracks your protagonist's journey from beginning to end, including their desires, obstacles, and transformation. This serves as your roadmap for brainstorming scenes.

Step 3: Fast Draft Using "Rules for the Draft" Focus on getting the story down without perfectionism. The goal is completion, not perfection.

Step 4: Optional Manuscript Evaluation Consider getting professional feedback on your messy first draft to understand what's working and what needs development before diving into revision.

Step 5: Story Clarity Revision Shape your draft by determining what story you really want to tell and ensuring that vision translates clearly onto the page.

Step 6: Submit to Beta Readers Send your revised manuscript to 3-4 genre readers who can provide supportive critique. Ask specific questions about pacing, character development, and any sections where they found themselves skimming.

Step 7: Integrate Beta Reader Feedback Carefully evaluate feedback and decide what serves your book's vision. This may require additional revision passes.

Step 8: Line Edit Perfect your language, sharpen verbs, and ensure every sentence serves your story. Only do this after incorporating beta feedback to avoid attachment to scenes that might need cutting.

Step 9: Copy Edit Focus on spelling, grammar, and catching typos—especially important if you use dictation software.

Step 10: Prepare to Publish Choose your publishing path (traditional or indie) and complete the specific requirements for that route.

Step 11: Build Your Author Platform Develop a minimalist marketing approach that builds your presence without taking over your life—whether for pitching agents or self-publishing success.

The Power of Process

This step-by-step approach transforms an intimidating project into manageable milestones. You can see your progress, celebrate achievements, and maintain momentum knowing exactly what comes next. Each completed step moves you closer to your goal and proves you're further along than ever before.

Mentioned in this Episode: 

Book Finishers Bootcamp, September 11-17
First Book Finish

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Don’t let the title mislead you—author Michael Blouin knows a lot. Specifically, he knows a lot about persistence, and how it can impact your writing life forever.

Michael’s learned firsthand how almost giving up could have cost him big, and how we can’t let rejection bog us down. After all, sometimes all it takes to change everything is one acceptance letter, and the next thing you know, your writing is going to the moon!

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In the world of publishing, small and independent presses don’t get nearly enough love.  Large publishing houses may have all the metaphorical glitz and glamour, but working with an independent press has its own advantages. 

Aimée Parent Dunn, owner of Palimpsest Press, tells us what working with an independent press is like, from manuscript selection to the book’s release. Take some notes—you might learn that getting published by a small press is exactly right for you!

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As writers, we have tons of tools at our disposal. Strategies, motivation, beloved writing utensils or software… 

But many writers are missing an incredibly valuable tool—self-compassion. In this solo episode, host Rhonda Douglas shares how we as writers can use just a little bit of grace and self-compassion to create a writing life we love. 

We need to make writing enjoyable if we want to love our craft. What better way to do that than showing ourselves some kindness when we write?

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Indie publishing. Does that send shivers up your spine, or leave you buzzing with excitement? 

For author Emma Dhesi, it’s definitely  excitement. Becoming a self-published (also known as Indie) author is a fascinating process, and one that requires a lot of learning. 

But as Emma’s published books show, it’s one we can learn, and it gives us plenty of options and benefits that traditional publishing doesn’t. In fact, Indie publishing might be YOUR perfect publishing path.

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Focus is both a great boon and a great curse to writers. We need it, but finding it can be difficult… and that was before we lived in a world built to distract us!

Luckily, there are specific techniques we can use to improve our focus. All we have to do is commit to being focused, and learn the techniques that work for us—taught this week by our podcast host, Rhonda Douglas.

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In his new book, On Writing and Failure: Or, On the Peculiar Perseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer, author Stephen Marche argues that writing is, and always will be, an act defined by failure. The best plan is to just get used to it. 

Join me for this interview as we talk about facing rejection, artistic failure and continuing to write anyway. (And we go on a little tangent about AI there at the end!)

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The writing process has many critical aspects, but a very important one often falls to the wayside: writing community.

Today’s episode features poet and short fiction author Frances Boyle, who tells us the ins and outs of her experience with the writing community. We’ll learn about the value of writing groups, connections in the community, how to approach rejections and how Frances finds inspiration in the compost heap.

Being a writer can feel lonely and difficult, but it doesn’t have to. There’s always ways for us to find and connect with community.