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
047: How 4 different authors outline their books
Learn how 4 different authors outline their books and get started with writing a new story on this episode of Indie Author Weekly...
Today we have a slightly different take on our usual format! One of the most popular episodes here on Indie Author Weekly is an episode I did way back, all about my process for how to outline a book. If you want to hear about that, you can tune into Episode 3.
Since so many listeners are interested in that topic, I thought it would be fun to get a variety of different writers’ processes for how they go about outlining and starting to write a new book.
With that in mind, I reached out to some writer friends and asked if they’d be willing to share a little bit about their unique processes. They very kindly wrote in their answers, so today I’m going to read their incredible insights with you! We have four different writers sharing their processes with us today.
Plus, after each author shares their methods for how to outline and start writing a story, I've distilled their processes into 3 key takeaways each so that you can apply it in practical ways to your own writing.
Hit play on today's episode to get the book writing tips and find out real-life methods that WORK for these authors to outline their own stories...
Resources & links mentioned in this episode:
- Learn more about all of Sagan's books at SaganMorrow.com/books .
- Episode 3 of Indie Author Weekly: how to outline a new book .
- Kali Rainwater (Daimonika series): @KaliRainH2O on Twitter, writing blog on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17122329.K_B_Rainwater/blog), books on Amazon at www.amazon.com/author/kbrainwater.
- Alana Westwood: AlanaWestwood.com.
- Ashley Hoffmann (book: Nostrum): find on Amazon at bit.ly/nostrumbook or learn more at nostrumbook.com (Read full article about how to write a book in 1 month at https://medium.com/@ashhmarketing/how-i-wrote-a-book-in-a-month-ad309b77c494).
- Episode 15 of Indie Author Weekly: 10 tips for how to edit your own work.
- Episode 27 of Indie Author Weekly: NaNoWriMo prep tips.
- Episode 32 of Indie Author Weekly: writing prompts for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).
- MJ Beckett: @mj_beckett on Twitter & Instagram, or https://www.facebook.com/pg/mjbeckett.writing on Facebook.
- 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
