To start out, I thought I would introduce myself and tell you why I decided to make this podcast. So, hi 🙂 My name is JodiMarie, and I live on the eastern coast of the United States with my husband and my dog. I grew up in the South in a very, very small town in the countryside, but I moved to the suburbs of a big city when I was sixteen, and now I live further north than south but also further south than north—basically the middle of the eastern coast, but in the countryside again. Like many artsy people, my favorite things are books, travel, nature, music, and history. I like British detective shows and Asian romance, fantasy, and thriller dramas. I’m also a huge dog lover, and I’m addicted to collecting stuffed animals. The fluffier and cuddlier the stuffed animal is, the better! I am also quite addicted to blankets and warm cardigans because I am cold all the time. Also because there’s just nothing cozier and more relaxing than being swaddled in blankets.
I am a writer—I write romance and fantasy—and I always wanted to try something like podcasting because it seemed cool, and I like listening to other people’s podcasts, mostly about writing and other nerdy things. And, of course, if you want to do a podcast, you should probably do it on a topic that you have experience with, which, for me, would be writing. So, in this podcast, I will discuss the curious craft of writing, my own writing process and journey, and probably offer unsolicited and dubious life advice along the way because why not.
I used to think that because I don’t have that many credentials yet that I shouldn’t act like I’m a professional and talk about my craft and talk about my work. But that’s actually a really backwards way of thinking. Everything takes practice, including talking about what you do. And I am not the greatest public speaker because I have so much anxiety; I’m completely at home talking to a page, but the moment I have to talk to a person, I blank out and freeze up and ramble.
But I want to be able to speak in public about my work and my craft, and I would rather be proactive and prepare now while I’m in this very low pressure situation under the optimistic assumption that one day I will make twelve-year-old me proud and actually get to talk about my work in bookstores. I don’t want to wait for that to happen, and then panic because I’ve never done anything like that. I want to practice talking about what I love doing, so that’s another reason why I decided to make this podcast.
Did I always want to be a writer? Pretty much. I’ve always had other worlds in my head. I wrote my first (fully illustrated with stick figures) story when I was seven. I’ve wanted to be a career writer since I was in middle school. I have had numerous setbacks on that front, hence why you have probably never heard of me unless you know of me from the fanfic world or by some miracle have run across the one book I have thus far released on Amazon. Nevertheless, writing is and has always been my number one passion, and it’s a passion I’d like to share with other people.
Like I said, I’ve had a lot of setbacks. I almost totally quit writing when I was in my early twenties because I learned in college that my writing had so many issues, and I thought it was rather silly that I had majored in writing because I quickly realized I did not want a nine-to-five job doing that, at least not for a company and not doing technical writing or marketing material or something of that nature. I was exclusively interested in writing poetry, songs, and fiction, but I also had no idea topic-wise or genre-wise what I wanted to write about. I was a writer who didn’t want to write for other people but also didn’t know what she wanted to write for herself, and, at the same, had all these technical problems with her work. However, instead of quitting, I dug my heels in and worked through those issues, and I think I have a lot of lessons that I’ve learned in the past seven years that may be helpful to writers that are just starting out and are struggling with the same types of issues I had.
This podcast is not going to be from the perspective of someone who has ‘made it’ in the publishing industry, and to be honest, I think publishing is a whole separate topic altogether. But in terms of writing craft, I know that making a lot of mistakes and working through those mistakes and struggling to find my place in fiction writing has taken me on a journey that is worth chronicling. And I would also like to chronicle my journey as I move forward and continue learning about this enchanting and mysterious craft.
I am so glad I did not give up on writing when it would have been easy for me to do so, so I hope that this podcast will be informative but also encouraging. We are in this together, and we will learn together and we will laugh together and perhaps we will cry together. We will probably—we will definitely cry at some point, just being honest. But we will also grow together, and it will all be worth it in the end.
Thank you for joining me on this magical journey. I’m JodiMarie Meyer, and you can find me at jodimariewrites on Instagram or at jodimariemeyer.com .
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