Everything Is Writing Time: How Creative Play Fuels Your Stories

Your other hobbies aren't distracting you from writing! They might actually (almost certainly) help your writing.

This is THE episode to listen to when you have guilt around PLAY.

In this episode of No Mess, No Magic, I’m joined by author and story coach Megan Fuentes to talk about experimenting with other creative mediums, and why stepping away from your WIP might actually help you come back to it with more ideas, energy, and excitement.

We talk about the discomfort of being a beginner (and being very, very bad at things), why creative hobbies aren't necessarily a distraction from your writing, and how everything from baking and Canva to crochet, drawing, short stories, and solo journaling RPGs can feed your storytelling.

We also get into finishing projects, using your own hobbies to understand your characters, borrowing expertise from the people around you, and what to do when sitting at your desk and trying harder simply isn't working.

Plus: chess-induced tears, pancake-mix banana bread, Dutch honesty, Dungeons & Dragons, hard-won dopamine, and the realization that sometimes the best way to get unstuck creatively is to go do something completely different.

Because as Megan reminds us: your creativity doesn't only exist when you're sitting down to write.

About Megan:

Megan Fuentes is an author and story coach who teaches writers how to craft the kind of character arcs that make books compulsively readable. With over a decade of pulling stories apart and reworking them from the inside out, her one-on-one clients describe her as electric in a brainstorm, with a sixth sense for asking the question that cracks the whole book wide open.

Learn more about Megan here: https://subscribepage.com/storycoachingbymeganfuentes