Author Diary Entries
Author Diary Entries (formerly known as the Indie Author Weekly podcast) features your host, Sagan Morrow, as she shares diary-style personal stories of life as an indie author and her behind-the-scenes journey of writing and publishing books as an authorpreneur.
You’ll learn more about the books Sagan writes, her insights and stories of being an author and a multipassionate creative, and a peek behind the curtain of a writer's life.
The Author Diary Entries podcast is hosted by Sagan Morrow, a Kamloops-based writer with more than a decade of experience as a small business owner. She is also a hobbyist burlesque dancer and performs on stage as Babe Maverick.
Sagan started out as a blogger and freelance writer (and editor) around 2008. In 2016, she began teaching other freelancers how to improve productivity and time management through her online courses. She is an internationally board-certified Success & Life Coach who specializes in personal fulfillment, solopreneurship, and anti-hustle productivity.
Sagan writes the Polyamorous Passions romantic comedy series, and has published several business books in addition to her work as a romance novelist. She published her first work of fiction in 2018.
RECOMMENDED STARTING POINT: "Ep 179: Author Update (one year later)" AND "Ep 140: Welcome back to the podcast!" AND "Ep 50: What made me start writing the Polyamorous Passions series" AND "Ep 53: Top 5 episodes from the first year of podcasting on Indie Author Weekly (and why I started this podcast)".
The first 12 episodes of this podcast were originally published on a “secret” platform only for email subscribers, but you can tune into all of those original episodes right here. Access bonus materials to go along with podcast (including cheatsheets and spreadsheets relevant to the episode topics), plus full episode transcripts, sample chapters of her novels, and additional resources, at https://saganmorrow.com/secretpodcast. This podcast was rebranded from "Indie Author Weekly" to "Author Diary Entries" in April 2025.
Learn more about Sagan’s published works and upcoming novels at https://saganmorrow.com/books/. Connect with Sagan on Instagram & Threads: @Saganlives
Author Diary Entries
046: A handy trick for boosting your word count
Learn a handy—and very simple—trick for boosting your word count in this episode of Indie Author Weekly...
I’m curious to know if this is something you struggle with! I find it really interesting, as a writer of novellas, because my stories are all quite short. Less than 30,000 words. And I feel very strongly that in some ways, word count doesn’t really matter: it doesn’t really matter how long a book is because the important thing is to tell your story in however many words you need to do your story justice. That’s all it really comes down to.
That being said, sometimes, we get stuck in a particular part of a book, or the idea of meeting a particular word count goal can feel overwhelming, or we’re just really struggling to put pen to paper. If you are nodding your head right now and you are in this boat, then I encourage you to tune into Episode 45 of this Indie Author Weekly podcast to find out 3 tips for how to deal with it when you’re struggling to get any writing done.
And by the way, if you are a writer and you haven’t experienced this struggle or overwhelm from time to time in your own work, then please, tell us your secrets, because you, my friend, are a magical human being!
One more thing, before we get to our writing tip in this episode: I have a word count tracker spreadsheet that I use to set word count goals and keep track of the number of words written every single day, and you can now access the exact spreadsheet I use, totally for free! It’s one of the bonus resources you get on the “secret” version of this podcast, at SaganMorrow.com/secretpodcast. So definitely check that out if you want a proven template for tracking your own word count.
Okay. So, here we are, trying, struggling, to increase our word counts. It can feel overwhelming and exhausting and a complete uphill battle.
The good news with all of this, is that we can kind of “trick” ourselves into boosting our word counts. It’s a little sneaky, but it’s effective!
Tune into this episode of Indie Author Weekly for my super useful and very simple trick for boosting your word count...
Resources & links mentioned in this episode:
- Learn more about all of Sagan's books at SaganMorrow.com/books .
- Episode 45 of Indie Author Weekly: 3 tips for how to deal with it when you're struggling to get any writing done .
- Bonus resource: word count tracker spreadsheet at SaganMorrow.com/secretpodcast .
- Episode 15 of Indie Author Weekly: 10 tips for how to edit your own work .
- Grab the time-saving tips cheatsheet at SaganMorrow.com/savetime .
- Tune into Indie Author Weekly on your favourite podcast platform at SaganMorrow.com/podcast .
- Rate & review this podcast on iTunes .
Let's chat about this episode:
- @Saganlives on Twitter and Instagram .
- Hashtag: #IndieAuthorWeekly .
- Email hello@saganmorrow.com .
- Share your thoughts (or submit requests for future episode topics) in this survey at SaganMorrow.com/question
