NaNoWriMo Q&A with literary agent Carly Watters

Bad On Paper

Becca Freeman

Skincare, Beauty, Society & Culture, Comedy, Advice, Books, Arts, Careers

4.9 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2023

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

To celebrate the start of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) we’re chatting with Carly Watters, SVP and Senior Literary Agent at P.S Literary and co-host of The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Podcast!

We ask Carly about trends in fiction, how to know when a manuscript is ready, how book deals are made, if it actually is harder than ever to sell a book right now, and more!

Books about writing Carly recommends

On Writing by Stephen King

Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses

Obsessions

Olivia - Tayvis (Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce)

Becca - A Thing or Two’s October 9 Episode: Rats, Rain Clogs, and Romance, Birkenstock Boston Clogs

What we read this week

Olivia - The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

Becca - Do Your Worst by Rosie Danan (out 11/14)

This Month’s Book Club Pick - The Christmas Orphans Club by Becca Freeman (have thoughts about this book you want to share? Call in at 843-405-3157 or email us a voice memo at [email protected])

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Badon Paper Podcast. I'm Becca Freeman. And I'm Olivia Mentor.
0:22.8	And today, November 1st is the first day of Nano-Rymo National Novel Rating Month, and so we have
0:28.9	a literary agent, Carly Waters, on the podcast today to answer all of your questions about writing a book,
0:34.3	fiction trends, and getting published. But before we get into that, Olivia, let's do some highs and
0:40.0	lows. Tell me you're high. I don't really have like a super fancy high, but I feel like I made a good
0:48.2	plan this week for like the future with house stuff. I kind of like outlined with Jake what projects
0:54.0	we're going to work on. I just feel like for the past six months, we've kind of been like a little
0:59.1	more relaxed about stuff just so we could like save money, pay effort, credit cards. And so going
1:03.7	forward, I feel like we have a good plan. Like I see a light at the end of the tunnel. Will everything
1:09.5	take more time than I expect? Absolutely. But at least I feel like I'm clear about that. So yeah,
1:16.0	just a little high, but it felt good. Do we the people get a sneak preview? What is the next in line
1:21.6	project? Well, the next in line big project is that we're finally going to in the new year
1:28.8	finish the guest bathroom. So maybe you can come visit and I won't be embarrassed in the spring.
1:35.1	Yeah, that's very exciting. Okay, that's my high two now.
1:40.3	Stay tuned. We'll see how that works. I'm sure it will take us nine years to get in contact
1:44.4	with the contractor. But anyway, what is your high? You just added something to the outline as we
1:49.4	hit record. And I need to know what it is. But anyway, tell me about your high. I have like five small
1:55.4	highs. Oh wow. So I went to New Orleans. It was great. My friend Rachel's birthday party was
2:00.7	incredible. She had this like Motown cover band. They were singing all divas like Whitney Mariah. It
2:08.1	was so good. The food was so good. The commitment to theme. It was 90's themed was so good. It was
2:14.8	just such a blast. I love that bar by the way. That bar that the party was at. Also while I was in
2:22.4	New Orleans, I had a top three sandwich of my life. I had a spicy muffaletta from from verti
	...

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