Writer's Routine

Ryan Pyle is an adventurer, documentary-maker and now, author. He travels the world making films for the Discovery Channel, the Travel Channel, BBC Earth and more. After starting out living in China and writing for the New York Times, he was named by Photo District News as one of the 30 photographers to look out for. Now, he makes documentaries.

His films have taken him on adventures up mountains in South America, through treks across India, and seen him set a Guinness World Record for the 'Longest Motorcycle Trip in a Country', when he travelled through China. When he returns from these adventures, he'll let them rest and then a few months later, will write their story. Following a process that involves video-diaries and many screens at home, he's able to remember precise moments from a journey months ago, and gets them down into books. These are self-published, and we talk about the fine points of improving when you're your own editor and soundboard.

He's published 'The India Ride', 'Tough Rides: Brazil', 'The Middle Kingdom Road', and 'Sacred Mountains of China'. We talk about why it's important to not get misty-eyed and try to remember the bad bits. Also, how he's managed to translate a documentary into a gripping, page-turning read, and how he's moved from being a picture man to now someone who deals in words.

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Daisy Stephens is a journalist who has written stories forever. When she was young she filled notebooks with them, now living in a house-share with 3 friends and a grumpy cat, she fills notebooks with ideas and plots. During lockdown, she tried to turn one into a novell. It didn't go well. After 100,000 words she fell out of love and put it away. Then, for her job, she interviewed an author who did what she hadn't. An author who carried on. That writer turned her lockdown project into a published novel... why couldn't Daisy?

Then, whilst querying one finally finished novel, she had the idea for another. An idea about a twin that goes searching for her sister on a desolate, abandoned island. That novel became 'The Island of the Lost', which you can find on horror shelves in bookshops right now.

We talk about why horror is hard to classify into genre, and why most scary stories are actually so much more. You can hear how Daisy manage to make her sentences chilling, and why she litters description through the plot to keep things claustrophobic. Daisy discusses why she still overthinks sentences, how to keep true to your characters even when the ending is in mind, and how to write a good query letter.

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Laurell K. Hamilton is a pioneer of romantasy and urban fantasy. One of the biggest names in the genre, Sarah J. Mass has cited Laurell as an enormous inspiration. She's published more than 40 novels and has sold over 20 million of them. She's a Number 1 New York Times bestseller known for her 'Anita Blake' series and the 'Merry Gentry' books - the first of which was published in 2000.

She's back with the penultimate novel in that series, 'A Glimmer of Death'. Merry Gentry, the Fairy Princess turned Private Investigator is looking into a string of magical attacks against up-and-coming Hollywood actresses, which bring up things from her past she'd preferred stayed forgotten. Originally it was the final book, but she was pursuaded by her publishers to split it in two.

We talk about the lead in process for a book... how long does it take to get from premise to being published? Also you can hear why this new novel is probably the hardest thing she's ever done, and how she discovered which colours boost her creativity.

We discuss her late in life ADHD diagnosis and how it's changed her process, also why an entire book was inspired by a fleeting glance at one picture gave her inspiration for an entire book, and how she's come to have 3 seperate desks.

Get a copy of the book - uk.bookshop.org/shop/writersroutine

This week's episode is sponsored by Philippa Hall's 'Quick Book Reviews' podcast. Take a listen wherever you get your shows.

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Elif Shafak is an incredibly successful and influential author. Born in France to Turkish parents, Elif was raised by her single mother and traditional grandmother. She spent her childhood moving across the world, living in Madrid, Cologne, Amman and Istanbul.

Her debut 'Pinhan', won the Rumi Prize in Turkey, and since her first English translated novel, 'The Gaze', she's published more than 20 books which have been translated into almost 60 languages. Her books have been finalists for the Costa Award, the British Book Awards, the Women's Prize for Fiction, have been Reese Witherspoon Book Club Picks, and Elif has been nominated for the Booker Prize. Her novel, 'The Forty Rules of Love', was picked by the BBC as one of the 100 novels that have shaped our world, and her book, 'There are Rivers in the Sky', was the UK's bestselling literary hardback novel in 2025.

Elif's new book is 'In One Brief Moment All Eternity'. It's a reinvention of the story of Gustave Flaubert. The French author created perhaps literature's most scandalous heroine, in Madame Bouvary. Shafak imagines a moment where the women history have overlooked get to tell their side of his story.

We discuss why colour is so important to her space and stories, also why connection is more important than ever, and why she doesn't really believe in routines.

You can hear why she believes stories tap into something bigger than us all, why you need to ask childish questions, and also how it ends up damaging her health.

Get a copy of the book - uk.bookshop.org/shop/writersroutine

This week's episode is sponsored by Damonza, the premier cover design and formatting solution for independent authors. Head to damonza.com/routine for a free cover genre guide, and use ROUTINE10 when you're ready to get started, to save 10%.

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Jenna Helwig is a food editor, a cookbook evangelist, and now novel writer. She's a culinary school graduate, and in 2025 launched, the Cookbookery Collective, a very successful Substack for cookbook lovers. Jenna has published 5 cookbooks herself focusing on everything from feeding a baby, to cooking on a budget.

Her debut novel, 'The Foreign Correspondent's Wife' tells the story of reporter Kat Kelly, and her husband, a foreign correspondent. She lives in Paris in 1949, just a few years after the end of the war, at a time when the city is starting to find its joy again. When Kat finds the body of an old American classmate, she must race to solve the case, and save her marriage, before it's too late.

We talk about what inspired her switch to novel writing, and how difficult she found diving into the story after so long focusing on food. You can hear about her incredibly focused research, and how she got into the mind of a half-French, half-American journalist living in Paris 70 years ago.

Get a copy of the book - uk.bookshop.org/shop/writersroutine

Support the show -
patreon.com/writersroutine
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This week is sponsored by Philippa Hall's 'Quick Book Reviews Podcast', take a listen wherever you've found this.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.