Episode 50: [CELEBRATE] Taking a Walk Down Memory Lane

It’s time to celebrate!

Thank you listeners, guests and loyal subscribers for your support! 

We show up each week for you.

Our hope is you feel inspired to keep taking the next step on your creative journey. 

This week on the podcast, we’re taking a walk down memory lane as we look back at our year of podcasting.

When we started the podcast, we had no idea what we were doing, but we knew we wanted to offer valuable guidance to writers and share great stories.

It’s become our favorite project each week.

We keep it authentic and real because we know it’s important. 

You want to hear real stories from real writers and that’s what we offer you.

It’s not easy to pinpoint a favorite episode because each one offers something unique to you.

If you’ve joined us later in our releases, we hope you’ll take a look back at episodes that came along earlier. 

Many of our early episodes are still being downloaded today. 

The behind-the-scenes data gives us insights into our community of listeners and we dig into the details in this episode.

We are transparent about the challenges we’ve faced creating an online community space for writers and how this has led to the creation of courses.

The Memoir Cohort Course led by Elizabeth is a course that will transform your writing. If you’re looking back at your year and you haven’t reached your writing goal for your memoir, it’s a course to put on your calendar for 2025. 

Stephanie will be offering a course in January 2025 to help you organize your writing using Scrivener. If you’re overwhelmed and getting lost in Word or Docs, you’ll want to join this course to discover how Scrivener can change your writing experience and productivity.

In December 2024, we’re taking a break from podcasting to allow the pause to rejuvenate us for the coming new year, so if you’re not caught up on episodes it will be a great time to binge listen to ones you’ve missed.

As you listen this week, what can you celebrate?

Thank you again for joining us on this creative journey!

 Welcome to the Inspired Writer Collective podcast. If you've ever felt the pull to write your truth, to shape the chaos of real life into something meaningful and to share your journey with the world, you're in the right place. We're your hosts, Elizabeth and Stephanie, writers, coaches, and entrepreneurs who believe in you and know how important it is to find a writing community to guide you on your path to self-publishing.

Stay until the end of the episode to learn about our Virtual Memoir Summit on March 14, 2026. 

Join our Embodied Writing Experience where you’ll get a writer’s retreat directly to your inbox on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays each week. This is an invitation to slow down, tune in, and write with embodied intention.

Get on the waitlist for the Memoir Master Plan cohort here.

Apply to join the Finish Your First Draft in 90 Days program here.

If you prefer to watch our conversations, you can find all of them on our YouTube channel.

You can find us on Instagram and Threads

Transcript

Elizabeth 1:14

Welcome back listeners. This is a special episode. This is the Inspired Writer Collective Podcast's 50th episode, so we're going to take some time today to take some walks down memory lane and also talk about our vision for the future I am Elizabeth, and I'm joined here with Stephanie, and you guys may not know this, but this is Sarge, and he pops into a number of these recordings because he's obsessed with podcasting. Sometimes it's just his tail, like, coming along the part of the desk, or, you know, an ear that sticks out, but he is often here with me when I'm recording, either with Stephanie or with guests, so. This is Sarge. Um, Stephanie, it's hard to believe that we're here at this point. Um, it feels like not even that long ago that we started the business side of the Inspired Writer Collective and then a week later decided, Hey, let's start putting up some podcast episodes and we really didn't have a a clear plan of what that was going to look like. Do you want to talk about like those early days?

Stephanie 2:25

Yeah. I mean, it's just so amazing when I think about how we're sitting here at episode 50 and jumping in without any real guidance. I mean, we were just like, Hey, let's just start the podcast episode and see where we go. And our first episode is very indicative of that, where we're just reflecting and talking. And, and interestingly enough, that episode is in like, look at our, you know, behind the scenes information, it's in one of our top, it's in kind of the top 10 of episodes that's been downloaded and, which is kind of fun, you know, people have wanted to get to know us even back at episode one and have, you know, many have followed us through and, every day we have new listeners and that's, that's So exciting to see and there's just been so much learning and growing in our own identities as writers and then contributing to the conversations out there with writers. I mean, it's just every day. I mean, you know, yes, this is the Inspired Writer Collective, and it is inspiring to see where we're, where we've been and where we're going and to think that we have this whole bank of resources for writers to pull from and explore and hear from different writers and yeah, it's, it's exciting. How are you feeling?

Elizabeth 3:56

You know, it's just so surreal to like think about it. I mean we had this idea and this like just deep understanding that community is really important around writing and that there was a void of community particularly post Covid. When things had to become virtual or just, you know, groups stopped existing totally. And while in full transparency, we have struggled to recreate that on the, like the business side of things, you know, with our time to write sessions, we had multiple a week and it was hard to get people involved in that. Now we're doing a special thing in November where we just have one hour a week and we've had people showing up and that's really cool. Um, But what I've seen through the podcast, even though things have not gone how we expected with like our Mighty Networks community, is that community is important and is present and we are still building it despite that. Like, I really feel such a bond to our podcast community, not just You know, the people that listen and comment, um, but also even the guests that we've started to have, like listener, you probably aren't aware of this, but like, I continue to keep up conversations with a number of our, our previous guests. Um, we're like, I'm checking in with them, seeing how things are going. What's the new project following up based off of things that they said while they were on the podcast. Um, and so it's been so cool to be a part of it. the writer community in this way and also a part of the podcast community in a broader sense, um, and just creating that space hopefully for people to kind of sit in on these conversations and, and join us. Um, I probably should have had that quote ready, um, from my, my hairdresser, shout out to Becca, who now listens to the podcast, who is not a writer, and you know, but she was cutting my hair the other week and talking about how she loves podcasts and didn't know that I had a podcast, and she started listening and then sent me some texts about just how informative certain episodes were and how, you know, It was and just the casual conversations and how even if you're not a writer, even if you're just kind of looking for a good hang, you might find something here. And that was just so, um, reaffirming for me to know that like our authenticity is coming across our interest, our passion for what we're talking about or what we're doing, the way that we support others with our, you know, the guest interviews and trying to figure out their stories and, and highlight their voices. Um, I mean, I wouldn't take back one single minute of it. Like I absolutely have loved just the experience of podcasting and developing. That skill set, um, shout out to Stephanie because she is our tech guru. You guys don't get to see her as much like on the episodes because I do the bulk of the guest interviews, but y'all, Stephanie is working so hard behind the scenes because she edits every episode and makes sure it gets all uploaded. She also writes our weekly emails that go along with the episode and episode descriptions. And so shout out to you, Stephanie. Like it's, it's been so fun to do this project with you and have this shared vision of, you know, what we want it to become. Cause we started with like PowerPoint presentations, right. To kind of guide our conversation. We were still kind of getting our sea legs, figuring it out and. And now literally like right before we hit record I was like, hey, should we just hit record and stuff? He's like, yeah, let's do it which is such growth from you stephanie because I know we we went from you know, The pot the powerpoint version to having lists of things to talk about to now We're just more comfortable and can just jump in and know that important conversation will naturally come out

Stephanie 8:09

Well, and that's what's become so much fun for me is just seeing the evolution of just being more comfortable. And, you know, I haven't always wanted to be on camera or on stage or any of the above. And I've just really discovered that podcasting is So much fun. And if you're out there listener and thinking about starting one, just really try it, you know, jump in and see if you just have something you love to talk about. I mean, we've gotten so much feedback about how people love our casual style. They love the fact that it's a conversation. They feel like they're inviting friends into their, you know, they are, their car, their living room, their, you know, daily cleaning or whatever, however you, you know, listen to podcasts or even, the viewers on YouTube, you know, it's interesting because we have, it's kind of cool because we have both sets of, you know, data and I've, I've been, you know, geeking out a little bit this week, looking at the data because I like looking at that stuff and it's been fun to see that, you know, with our podcast, like the first month there were 10 downloads and then the second month there were 74, you know, it's just, we've had this, you know, really cool stuff. Steady climb of people engaging. and that's, what's really cool to see. And it's just continued to grow with our reach. We've been, you know, downloaded at least once on every continent, except Antarctica. Um, so,

Elizabeth 9:41

So if you're traveling there, please do us a favor download an episode

Stephanie 9:46

I'm not even sure that's in Buzzsprout's, you know, data piece with the, with the world map, but if it is,

Elizabeth 9:53

Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh

Stephanie 9:58

I mean, and that's just so cool to see and then all the cities, you know, not just in the U. S. but just worldwide and, you know, having some international cities like Frankfurt, Germany at the top of our list of places where people are downloading from. And that's so cool. And shout out to listeners there. And, um, and it's, just really neat to see how people are engaging and there's, and what's also interesting is there's such a cool balance between, know, episodes that you and I do ourselves. And the guest episodes and there's kind of an equal balance of where people are listening or what they're interested in. And, and that's cool too. And I love the diversity of voices we've had on you know, listener, if you haven't gotten a chance to dive in to, you know, the wide variety of topics we've covered, you know, take a look at our, you know, past episodes. because there's just so much, whether it's writing craft, book marketing, our book club, which of course, like, I just crack up because our most popular episode of all is episode 14, why we couldn't finish Demon Copperhead. And I, I don't know why it makes me crack up, but I just laugh because I just think, like, I mean, it's a little bit of a clickbaity top, you know, title, but at the same time, like, we legitimately could not finish it. And I still see people reading the book, and I still see the book, I mean, I think there's even a movie coming out now, because the, The newer editions of the book have a, you know, picture on the front and, you know, all this stuff and it's just, it's just so interesting to see how people are engaging with that one. I mean, I think overall that one had like 154 interactions, whether between YouTube or downloading and,

Elizabeth 11:46

huh.

Stephanie 11:46

um, but it's

Elizabeth 11:47

Well, uh.

Stephanie 11:49

to hear us and connect

Elizabeth 11:50

Yeah. I think what makes that one so funny for us is that we thought it was a bust. We couldn't finish the book. We were like, Oh my gosh, I'm like texting Stephanie, you know, a week or two ahead of recording. I'm like, I just can't finish. And she was struggling too. And so we agreed, we were going to flip to the end and try to see if there was somewhere like in the middle or the end where we could get back into the story. And we were just like, okay, well, I guess we have to put on an episode. So we'll record something, but we thought it was a bust. You know, like to have a book club book that we literally could not get, get past like page 60 on out of the like 300, 400 pages. Um, so for me at least that's what made that one so funny that like, Oh, that's the one that, that took off. How, how interesting.

Stephanie 12:39

Well, yeah, no, it's interesting. And, you know, the other interesting thing from looking at are, you know, going back and looking at some of our episodes is, you know, the ones that are standing out are of course the ones that we've talked about how much we believe in, like why community is important, you know, the importance of reading to help improve your craft. I mean, just so many things. so we know that we're, you know, reaching the audience that we want to reach. And I think like we've talked about is looking forward is really at building our community. In a, in a different way, I think we're

Elizabeth 13:16

Yeah.

Stephanie 13:16

with this new, just, you know, sending out a zoom link with our email newsletter for the Monday, uh, co writing sessions where we just hop on and all write together is really cool to see, you know, uh, and to see the number of people who showed up even just this past Monday and, You know, we've gotten emails from others who are expressing interest in saying like, Hey, like I want to do this. And you know, maybe there's that piece of taking away the pressure of like, Oh, you're going to have to hop on and share and talk and read, you know? And it's like, no, this is literally like hop on. We're just writing together.

Elizabeth 14:00

Yeah. No prompts, no nothing. Work on your own project, do whatever feels right for you. You know have some accountability if you want in the chat with stating what you plan to work on set the Intention and then yeah, I think it's great And it's it's so interesting to like the way The business side has evolved like we spoke about just a minute ago where we started with the mighty networks platform and it Just really never took off the way we had hoped and it being cost prohibitive We've scratched that and we've taken all of our courses and everything that we were offering on that space And now have integrated it in with just our emails and everything Um, so in one sense, it's like oh, well, we didn't end up building necessarily the community as we envisioned it But one thing that's come out of this first year of the business and the podcast that I feel super proud of is the memoir course. I'm currently running, you know, the second iteration of it. Um, I expanded it from its original like four week form to now a six week form. And frankly, I think it could be eight weeks. Um, even with just the content I currently have. And It's also been cool to bring in these like memoir themed guests that we had within our our kind of series that we did in October with a bunch of memoirists, um, in their various forms. And so I feel super proud with the community we're building specifically around memoir and supporting memoir writers and And I just feel really, really proud of the way that that's continued to develop. And I know Stephanie, you're working pretty hard on figuring out what kind of courses you want to offer, whether they're going to be onesie Tuesday, kind of special interest categories at a time. That's not like a recurring thing. That's always offered. Um, or whether you're going to pick some sort of specific area to focus on. Um, and that'll just be really cool as we go forward to see how that looks. I know going forward I plan to offer the memoir course again, um, sometime this spring, depending on, like, interest level and stuff. And when I get, um, enough interest to, to run the course again, it'll be run again February March time frame. Um,

Stephanie 16:18

I, and I think Listener really, I mean, You know, shout out to Elizabeth here with the, the work and the effort and the energy and everything that she puts into the memoir course. It really is an absolutely outstanding course. And if you're thinking about writing a memoir, you're curious about it, you could just literally have a seed of an idea and working with Elizabeth, you will find that she will take that seed of an idea and help you frame it in a Into your quorum message into what you want to write and and I think that you know It's such a it's such a gift that Elizabeth has and I'm sure if you've been listening to the podcast for a while You know that just in the way, you know, she's interviewed the guests who who are you know, memoir writers and, and I do think it's such a cool part of the growth of, you know, the inspired writer collective to have this focused amount around memoir writers and people's stories, because that's, that's really the foundational piece that, you know, brought us together, brought this whole vision together was just really championing people with their stories and getting the stories out there because there's so much that, you know, we can learn from from other people's stories, learn about ourselves through those stories, you know, whatever it is you're working on. And, and yeah, I mean, I'm still exploring what You know, I'm going to be offering and, and as Elizabeth said, I've been doing a lot of the behind the scenes, everything you

Elizabeth 17:51

hmm.

Stephanie 17:53

and that's been talk about a learning curve. I mean, I did not

Elizabeth 17:56

Hahahaha.

Stephanie 18:03

it out. And, you know, and cause Elizabeth's been like, okay, I'm doing my course and that's, you know, and it's really nice because we balance each other out with, you know, our skill sets and our interests and what we're doing. And that's one of the coolest things about this partnership that we have is that we do have this balance, but Along with the shared common vision and you know, and that's been, what's also been just so fun is just to have that continue to grow and We laugh a lot. We have a lot of fun. I mean, these podcasts are fun. We're just, you know, flying by the seat of our pants right now, which quite honestly, listener, it makes it a lot more fun than having to read off a script or have a plan. I mean, when I think back to those early episodes where we had the PowerPoint, I mean, I don't know. I probably don't even want to go back and listen to them because they probably sound really like academic and, you know, very like proper. And I just, I don't know about you listener, but I love listening to podcasts where I just am feeling like I'm talking, you know, having, listening to a great conversation

Elizabeth 19:10

Yeah.

Stephanie 19:11

on a great conversation.

Elizabeth 19:13

Totally. And we have some fun things laying ahead. So we're, this is the 50th episode. We're going to go through, I believe 52. So a full year, every Monday you have had a new episode, and then we are taking a well deserved break. Okay guys, we are taking the month of December off and by off, I mean, Stephanie's not writing weekly emails. We're not releasing a weekly episode. We'll still be recording stuff You know on the back end that we'll release in our next season But we're going to take a break to transition into our next season of the podcast Um, you can expect to see you know similar format going forward where we sort of stagger guest episodes with episodes and updates from stephanie and I Stephanie's even playing around with the idea of having like a special series that either appears on YouTube or maybe appears on a different day of the week or something like that Um, around the young adult genre. So, you know, there's definitely some fun things moving forward. I've been networking with a number of other writers. I have a yoga instructor who does writing. Um, with her, uh, poses and prose that I'll have coming on. I have a political thriller fiction writer that I'll be interviewing soon. I have a woman who is publishing her own poetry book. but also established a publishing company. Um, let's see what else I got here. I've got a guy who had a incident with marijuana when he was traveling and he wrote his memoir about the struggles with that, um, and trying to get into the U. S. and all the complications that caused for him and now his advocacy for decriminalizing marijuana. And so there's just so much great stuff that's coming down the pipeline. So I thank you for your listenership thus far and also we are working so hard to make sure that we continue to bring really engaging topics and discussions. We'll continue the book club episodes because clearly based off of the downloads that's something people are still very interested in. And please if you guys have certain topics that you want to see, that you would love to hear our take on or want us to find, you know, an expert or guest to, to talk about, um, we are all ears. Shoot us an email. Hello at Inspired Writer Collective. Um, dot com or you can comment on if you're watching this on YouTube. This, this we do because we love it and because we want to inspire others to brave this path because it's, it's not easy writing your story or incorporating your personal experience into a fictional story. Especially as a first time writer, um, and even once you've done it for the first time, like. Hearing people talk about how they then have to get into their second book after writing their first book and that transition and how some things are easier but some things are harder. Um, I, we are just here to, to support in whatever way we can. Uh, and we just, we love doing this and we hope you love listening.

Stephanie 22:40

Absolutely. I mean, we just, I mean, I know I love showing up and like you just said, we love showing up for these times when we get to talk and share ideas and, you know, hopefully inspire you with some little nugget that you can take away from and definitely, you know, connect with us, join our email list. The links are all in the show notes we, we do read every email that, that is replied to, that's sent to us. And, you know, we take into consideration, you know, all voices and sometimes there are those that don't fit, but because we want to make sure that we maintain the integrity of everything we're sharing with you, because it's really important to us that we bring you value, that we, maybe make you laugh or, you know, we show you that it's possible to do this because both of us are, you know, introverted and definitely prefer to be at home with our notebooks and our books and our animals and our people. And, you know, and so, you know, if that resonates with you, you can absolutely show up. And we've had, uh, you know, guests who've commented like, Hey, if they're doing it, like I can do it. And I think we've learned just that the consistency of it has been so huge for us. And I feel like it's trickled over into, you know, our writing and our vision for ourselves as writers. And we hope that we're bringing that to you, listener.

Elizabeth 24:20

And always, we thank you for using any of the affiliate links that we include, which are largely books that we mentioned that you can purchase on Amazon that go to support, um, the podcast. And, uh, what do you think, Stephanie, do you have, like, is there certain episodes that stick out to you as some of your favorites from this last year? Like, for you versus, like, the data?

Stephanie 24:46

Um, you know, I think that, you know, It's really hard to narrow, like to narrow it down because they're just so many to choose from.

Elizabeth 24:59

Mm hmm. Mm

Stephanie 25:00

think about it, I mean, I definitely think just being able to share the ideas and, Just going through the process of doing the podcast and just saying like, Hey, like, this is what we want to talk about hmm. running with it. And, and also I think, you know, the other cool thing is, is that like, yes, I was looking at the data this week, but. don't drown ourselves in the data every week. We honestly, we don't really look at it every week because, you know, I think that that's one of the like things that people get so bogged down in this is they think they have to reach certain metrics or certain levels. And I mean, we just hit 750 downloads and we're not even a year old. And I know some people probably hit that way before this, but I mean, that's like a huge celebration. Like, 750 years, whether they've listened to an entire episode or part of it. I mean, that's huge to me in, you know, less than a year's time of the age of the podcast. And I think that that's kind of the fun piece is like, if we're, you know, touching one person somewhere, that's what's most important. And that's, what's so cool. And like I shared, like, you know, our podcast has just had this steady. growth. And that's cool. Like, you know, it doesn't have to be, you know, a big thing. It's just, we're showing up, we're sharing our ideas. We love what we're doing. And that's, that's the part that I love is just, you know, contributing to the conversation.

Elizabeth 26:42

And I'm so grateful for like the trust that our guests have bestowed upon us to allow us to help them, you know, get their voice out and tell their stories. Um, when I, um, Refer specific episodes to people to kind of like give them an idea of what the podcast is like. I find myself often sharing the episode with Lina Aberafi Because I remember just laughing so much as she and I were recording that episode and she's one of those people that I've kept up with um post recording And and have like an idea of what's going on in her life and in her writing journey Um, and then another one, and of course I'm picking the ones that like seem to hit more on the emotions, um, the other one that always stands out to me is the one I did with Catherine DeMonte and, um, that's the one I think I cried during, you know, got a little choked up. And so it's like, we have a whole, whole range of emotions. Um, one was more about the actual, like, process of writing and finding an agent and getting published. The other one's about doing all the shadow work and dealing with all the feelings that come up as you're pouring your heart out onto a page. So it's both the how to and just the very deep emotional introspective process of writing and creating a world or recreating your world. And um, those are some of the ones that really stand out to me. And I find myself, Sending the links to people over and over again of like oh, we'll check this one out this one's super fun or this one shows you like The intensity of writing and what you're really getting into and what what kind of support you may want to have You know in your back pocket as you do this

Stephanie 28:31

Yeah, no, I mean, it's just been such an incredible journey. And when we started this whole process, We didn't even really have guests as a part of our vision. It's, just naturally evolved and grown, which has also been really cool to watch too. So, you know, if you're thinking about starting a podcast and you're thinking about having guests, you know, it takes a little bit of time, but then. And it really becomes a natural part of the growth when start recognizing the existence of your podcast that you have guests on and, and that's really fun. And it's, and it's fun to what, you know, we, we make sure that we, you know, share with our guests. You know tools that they can use to help share and that's become a new thing We've added and we're going to be reaching out to previous guests with those Uh resources to help them better get their voices out because that's of course part of it and that's part of our vision is it's not just always about us talking but Giving a stage for other voices and getting people's stories out there in the world.

Elizabeth 29:52

Well, it looks like we did it. We did 50 episodes without a single break a single week off Somehow we've come up with topics or found guests or whatnot to do 50 and I'm just so excited for the rest and rejuvenation and also the chance to come back in January with our brand new season and all the brand new voices we get to hear from and new topics we get to discuss and it's been quite a ride and I've loved loved every minute of it.

Stephanie 30:27

Yes, thank you listener, and again, connect with us, email us at hello at inspiredwritercollective. com, join our email list, links in the comments, connect with us on social media, find us on YouTube, You know, we look forward to continuing to grow this community and join us on Monday afternoons in November to get your, some writing done. If you aren't already on our email list, that's how you'll get the zoom link. So make sure you connect with us that way. We'd love to connect with you and have you join in the conversation.