This is K.M. Loyland and you are listening to the 462 episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors

Podcast. After struggling a little bit at the first of the year to get my outline

for the final book in my portal fantasy trilogy, I took

February off and then dived back in in the middle of March. There's a quote from

Margaret Atwood that I've always liked and sometimes have forgotten to heed, which is,

you don't always know when a story is ready to be written, but you always know when it's not ready. For me, this experience was a good reminder

that creativity does not operate on a schedule. Just because a book is there to be written

and I'm there to write it won't always mean

it's ready to be written. For me taking that extra month this year to get my

creativity flowing made all the difference. I'm now outlininglining like crazy enjoying the spring season of renewal and

hoping to get lots of other projects done while I'm added including a couple of

new writing craft books which may be ready by as early as the end of this year.

So we'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast Five ways to use theme to create character

arts and vice versa. What is the easiest way to find your story's theme and

make it stick.

Although any discussion of theme is multifaceted,

one of the best ways to approach this complex topic

is through the realization that you can use theme to create character arc and vice versa.

When asked to explain what a particular story is about some people may respond with a plot answer. It's about the end of the world.

Others may even respond with a theme answer. It's about whether it's morally acceptable

to save a few at the cost of the mini.

...