Revising with the Blueprint: A Summer Challenge Success Story

Jennie Nash interviews author Meghan P. Browne about her journey from picture-book nonfiction to selling her first middle-grade novel, after participating in the 2022 Blueprint Challenge. Browne began the project in 2019, drafted it during her MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts, then used the Blueprint framework to “reverse engineer” the manuscript and discover it lacked plot; the inside outline helped her connect scene events to emotional meaning.

After tragedy and other commitments, she returned to revise intensively, resubmitted to her agent, and the novel later sold. Browne also describes submitting pages to the podcast’s First Page Lab and learning to absorb both critical and positive feedback.

Visit Meghan on her website: https://meghanpbrowne.com

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Join the Blueprint Summer Challenge

Starting a book? Stuck in a draft? Planning a revision?

The Blueprint Summer Challenge is designed to help you make meaningful progress on your manuscript this summer.

Over six weeks, beginning July 10, you’ll use the Blueprint—a proven framework for developing stronger books with greater clarity, purpose, and reader impact—to move your project forward, wherever you are in the process.

Whether you’re writing nonfiction, memoir, fiction, or another genre entirely, the goal is simple: spend six focused weeks making your book stronger.

Start with the Blueprint Course

We’re offering an all-new Blueprint course in Teachable, which includes:

* The full text of The Blueprint

* Fourteen video lessons covering every step of the framework

* Real coaching examples that show writers applying the Blueprint to their own projects

* Practical guidance you can use immediately

The course is designed to help you develop a stronger foundation for your book—whether you’re beginning from a blank page, working through a draft, or planning a revision.

Course enrollment: $19

👉 Enroll in the Fiction Blueprint Challenge

👉 Enroll in the Memoir Blueprint Challenge

👉 Enroll in the Nonfiction Blueprint Challenge

Join the Live Coaching Sessions

Paid podcast subscribers will also receive access to six weeks of live coaching sessions featuring me and a variety of Author Accelerator coaches.

Each session will focus on a specific Blueprint step and the challenges writers commonly encounter while developing, drafting, or revising their books. You’ll have opportunities to ask questions, learn from expert coaches, and watch hot-seat coaching sessions where writers will receive direct feedback on their work.

Some sessions will be led by me, while others will feature experienced Author Accelerator coaches with expertise across genres and stages of the writing process. We’ll hold these sessions at different times to accommodate different schedules, but we know for sure that Jennie will be doing coaching each Monday at 3:00 PST. The first one will be July 13. Other sessions will be slotted in soon.

Whether you’re starting a new project, trying to get unstuck, or preparing for revision, these live sessions will help you apply the Blueprint to your own book and make meaningful progress throughout the summer.

Become a paid subscriber for $12/month

Win a Blueprint Revision

Everyone who enrolls in the Blueprint Course will be entered to win a personal Blueprint coaching session with me and be featured on the podcast.

We’ll award one winner for every 100 course enrollments, so the more writers who join the Challenge, the more opportunities there are to win this Grand Prize

Ready for More Support?

As you progress, you’ll also have the opportunity to connect with a trained Blueprint coach for personalized guidance, feedback, and accountability. We are rolling out a new coach matching system that will give you an easy and intuitive way to find the coaches who are a great fit for your and your project.

There is no charge for this service and no obligation to work with the coaches we match you with – but what a great chance to connect with people who could help you write your best book!

Whether you need help clarifying your vision, solving a structural problem, or creating a plan for finishing your manuscript, a coach can help you take the next step.

Join us on July 10 and spend six weeks making your book stronger.

Learn All About the Summer Challenge

On July 6th at 9:00 am PT, Jennie will be hosting a live AMA to talk about the Blueprint and the summer challenge, and answer all your questions. We’ll send out an email reminder about this event.

Transcript

Jennie: [00:00:00] Hey, it’s Jennie and the Blueprint Summer Challenge begins July 10th. I’d love for you to join us. If you’re starting a book, stuck in a draft, or preparing for a revision, this challenge was designed for you. Over six weeks, you’ll have the opportunity to learn the blueprint framework through our new blueprint course.

Over six weeks, you’ll have the opportunity to learn the blueprint framework in our new blueprint course. You can also participate in live coaching sessions with me and Author Accelerator coaches and see the blueprint applied to real books and real writing challenges. The course is just $19 and includes the full blueprint book, 14 video lessons, and coaching examples.

And remember, everyone who enrolls in the course for the blueprint challenge is automatically entered to win a blueprint revision with me and a live coaching session on the podcast. We’ll select one winner for every hundred enrollments. If you’ve been looking for a reason to recommit to your book this summer, this is your invitation.

Visit the link in the [00:01:00] show notes and join the Blueprint Summer Challenge today.

Hi, I’m Jennie Nash, and you’re listening to the #AMWriting Podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick

with it long enough to finish what matters most.

I’m so excited today to be talking to Meghan Brown, who has an incredible story connected to some of the things we’ve been doing here at the podcast, including the upcoming Blueprint Challenge.

So I’m gonna talk to Meghan about her journey to getting her first novel published and on its way to being on the shelf and in readers’ hands. So welcome, Meghan.

Meghan: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Jennie: This is such a fun story. I just, I just love it. So we heard about you and your book- Because we chose you to do one of [00:02:00] our First Page Lab readings where we look at the first pages of a novel and give feedback, and we’ll get to that in a minute.

But through, through that, we learned that you did our original Blueprint Challenge in the summer of 2022. So can you talk about where you were in your writing life, and why you decided to do that, and what the experience was like for you?

Meghan: Sure. I was so excited when y’all ran that challenge in 2022. I actually first started working on this project in 2019, which feels like a bazillion years ago because it was pre-pandemic, of course.

And I took a little class at a local place, it was virtual, but called The Writing Barn here in Austin that does a lot of great classes. It was a middle grade class. I had just gotten representation for some picture books I had been working on, and my agent and other people in the industry were telling me that my voice was very middle grade.

So I took this class, I wrote 20 pages. [00:03:00] I got nominated for a big award at our local SCBWI, um, conference that spring, and I actually used my very first advance money from my picture books to start at Vermont College of Fine Arts for my MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults, where I was hoping to learn how to write middle grade.

And through the two years that it took in that program, including being in that program during the pandemic, and working with Linda Urban and Anh Nha, who are both very, very incredible, um, authors in their own right, I was able to finish a first draft by the summer of 2021. And I basically, because of a lot of things, just didn’t really touch that work until I heard that you were running this challenge, and I was so excited to kind of dive back in and realize that I needed to kind of reverse engineer the whole project.

So I had a first draft, and I just [00:04:00] was looking to fix it.

Jennie: Amazing. So the... I just want you to be able to tell our listeners about your picture books because they’re- they’re so beautiful, and we’ll link to your website in the show notes so people can find you. It’s Meghan P. Browe, and it’s Browe with an E on the end.

Um, but just, just so we sort of know the vibe of what your work had been, uh, beforehand. Sure. Yeah.

Meghan: Um, well, thank you. They are very beautiful, and I did not illustrate any of them. Um, so the, the first one is called Indelible Ann. It’s the larger than life story of Governor Ann Richards. It’s a nonfiction picture book for young readers all about the life of late, great Ann Richards.

Um, and that one is illustrated by Carlyn Witt, who is an awesome Texan that lives in LA now And then the second is called Dorothy the Brave. It’s the story of a female aviator from World War II who I got to meet and interview for the first time when I was in eighth [00:05:00] grade.

Jennie: What?

Meghan: A wild story. And, um, then I ended up writing the book that she got to read just months before she passed at the age of 99.

Jennie: What?

Meghan: Um, and I know. That one was a, a true book of my heart. Um, that one is illustrated by Brooke Smart, who is based in Utah. And the third book that came out last year was, is called The Bees of Notre Dame, and it’s illustrated by E.B. Goodale, and it’s the true s- survival story of the honeybees that were housed on the rooftop of the cathedral when it burned.

Jennie: Wow, that’s so timely, ‘cause the cathedral just opened.

Meghan: Yes, yes.

Jennie: Wow.

Meghan: And I actually got to go back over the summer with my family. We did a huge bucket list trip and went to see the Olympic Games, and so it was really cool to be back there over the summer.

Jennie: How did you... Now I’m just curious about this story.

Sure. How did

Meghan: you hear

Jennie: about the bees?

Meghan: I was at home with a bunch of sick kids right before [00:06:00] Easter, the week leading up to Easter. My kids were really tiny at the time. And, um, I am a beekeeper, and so all of my friends were sending me the link to the article about these honeybees. Everyone was wanting to know if they survived the fire.

And I sent the link to my agent, Alyssa Eisner Henkin, and sh- I said, “Is this the bee book?” She had been kind of pushing me, like, “Bees are so in the zeitgeist. What is your bee book?” And I said, “Is this the bee book?” And she said, “How fast can you get it to me?” And I told her I had only ever been to Paris, Texas, so I needed to jump on a plane.

And my husband actually flies for Southwest, and so I was able to use his pass privilege to hitchhike there on, like, taxes. It was a miracle. And on the way over, Jennie, on the way over I was, like, googling the email addresses for the people that were interviewed in the USA Today article, and emailing them and telling them, “I’m on my way.

Can I please have an interview?” And they were telling me no, like, three times in a row, and finally they relented, and they were so [00:07:00] wonderful. And I got to go beekeeping on the rooftops of Paris. I still can’t believe that that happened.

Jennie: This is a crazy story.

Meghan: It is wild.

Jennie: Wow, that is so cool.

Meghan: It was really cool.

Okay.

Jennie: So this is the, this is the vibe of what you were working on when, when you started to write the novel- Yes ... that you’re, you’re talking about. So-

Meghan: Yes ...

Jennie: I’m curious about your instinct to come do the Blueprint Challenge with a finished manuscript, because for me that’s actually- One of the most powerful times to use the tool of the blueprint is- Mm-hmm

to sort of see, well, what do I have? What’s working? You know, to your, you used the word fix. What, what needs to be fixed? What was your instinct for doing something like that with this finished manuscript?

Meghan: Well, I just knew that it wasn’t working, and even after having spent all this time and money on the MFA, I still didn’t know how to fix it.

And I [00:08:00] I just was really lost. I knew that there was a good story. I knew that, that this middle grade voice was very much my natural voice. I think that’s the reason why I have fallen into picture book nonfiction, is because that voice kind of trends older anyway. Um, so I knew that what I had written was good, but it just wasn’t working, and I couldn’t figure out how to make it work.

And so I thought, “Well, I, I have to try this. W- why not?”

Jennie: Wow, okay. So the... Some people think that 10 weeks to do the blueprint is kind of a long time, where you’re very methodically doing each... There are actually 14 steps in the blueprint. Mm-hmm. We combine them into, to making it, um, a 10-week podcast challenge that is coming up again starting in January.

Um, was the 10 week, did that feel like a good pace for you to work through this, or did it feel... I imagine you still have pretty little kids, if they [00:09:00] were really, really little in, in the pandemic.

Meghan: Yeah. Yeah. So it was interesting because I think that the first time through I needed all of that time to just really marinate.

Like, I would, I usually listen to y’all’s podcast when I run, and I would go out with my dog, and I would run, and I would listen to it, and then I would be percolating on it, and throughout the week. I’d even listen to it multiple times before I actually sat down to do the work. Um, but I think the first time through that that was a great pace because I really wanted to learn what the steps were, what was the reasoning behind it, and how could I really do it well.

And so the first time through, um, actually I think I only got a few weeks in and had this terrible tragedy in my family, and my father-in-law passed away suddenly. And so I had to kick it down the road, and I didn’t actually, um, finish in time to put my name in the hat for the drawing or whatever. Yeah. And I picked it up and ended up [00:10:00] finishing in, like, late October.

But I was really grateful for the inability to, um, to just binge the whole system, because I think it really helped me pace myself and learn each step, and the reasoning behind each step.

Jennie: Right. Right. That’s interesting. Um, I’m gonna make a note that maybe we should make that available, um, to people who sign up for it, ‘cause I think we could.

I’ll talk to KJ about that. Um, so okay. So it, y- you’d started and then you set it aside and you came back to it, and what did you, what did the blueprint process show you about the story, or, um, what insights did you have at that point?

Meghan: Well, my agent had seen ear- like, the, the very first finished draft that I had done during my MFA program, and she was like, “This is great.

I love it, but there’s nothing happening here.” And so, like, great setting and great characters, but [00:11:00] what is the plot? And so, um It really helped me figure out that there wasn’t a plot, and people had said that, but I was like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not really sure how to, to invent a new thread.”

And it really, the inside outline really helped me make those connections. In fact, I’m going to just tell you that I have this Post-it Note that lives on my laptop that says, “Each scene, plot what happens, point the emotional meaning for the main character.” And I just like because of that, and then again, plot and point, plot and point, and this has helped me because since then I have done the blueprint challenge again twice.

Once over this past summer I did it for a nonfiction project, and then I actually recently worked through it again for a new novel that I’m hopefully gonna have ready for my editor when I finish edits on this new thing that I just sold. And, um, it’s been [00:12:00] really just such a good tool for me. I think as someone who grew up with an athletic background, I was so used to having a coach and like I’m really good at following directions.

I like cooking because a recipe is easy to follow. I just need someone to tell me what to do and then I can do it. So it’s been so good for me to have that roadmap.

Jennie: Wow, that just makes me smile so hard, um, to hear that that’s on a Post-it Note on your computer. That’s so cool. Yes. It’s, um, we’re talking about the inside outline, which is the culmination of the fiction blueprint.

There are different outlines that culminate the nonfiction and memoir blueprints, but the idea is to have a very small outline that captures the emotional arc of the character or in the other genres of the, of the reader’s transformation and marries it to the plot. Because so often, well, the feedback you got is exactly what often writers encounter is [00:13:00] nothing happens or nothing matters that happens.

Exactly. Seems there’s a, there might be a lot of drama or action, but it doesn’t actually impact the protagonist and their movements and decisions. So that’s very cool. That makes me so happy. Okay, so you find out that, um, that nothing’s happening in your story, so then what did you do?

Meghan: Well, I was able to...

So I did the inside outli- finished the blueprint, including the inside outline, which really was the key for me to understanding that I needed things to happen so that other things could happen. I, I had the idea for what was going to be the, the final scene, like that was maybe one of the first things that had come to me with this idea for the book.

But I didn’t know how to get there or how to get there that mattered, like you’re saying, and so that was really illuminating. And once I finished the blueprint, I then, again- Unfortunately or not, set it aside for what [00:14:00] turned out to be like a whole nother year. Wow. And I launched the ... And part of it was because it was really hard for me to emotionally, like launch these picture books out into the world, and market them, and then also be writing this completely different thing, and be a mom, and all the other things that are going on.

So, um, I came back to it about a year ago, a little more than a year ago. And, um, I actually had like a week of school visits lined up. Um, my Ann Richards book had made it onto this big state list called the Blue Bonnet List, which in Texas is like the big list, and it’s a big list, um, nationally. I grew up reading the Blue Bonnet List.

It was a dream come true. I was, as soon as this happened, I was like, “I could die happy tonight.” Aw. Um, so my Ann Richards book was on the Blue Bonnet List. I was doing lots of school visits, and I had booked a week of visits in the Houston area. But for some reason, a couple [00:15:00] schools backed out, don’t know why.

Um, and anyway, I had these two or three days that my, my traveling husband had already like blocked off for vacation so that he could help at home with the kids. And I just booked myself a fancy hotel in downtown Houston, made myself stay there and finish revising according to the blueprint that I had created.

And at the end of that process, I was able to send my agent a new revision, and then she and I worked on it for the first half of this year, and it finally went out, um, at the end of the summer.

Jennie: Wow. So then that brings us to the, the, the place where the podcast hosts got an email from you saying that we had done your pages on, in the First Page Lab, and that you had, you had sold this novel.

And [00:16:00] we It was so funny because we don’t know who the writers are. People are, you know, we don’t know, it’s anonymous, or we don’t look at the names, or we don’t know who they are. We’re just looking at these pages. And so we, we did those pages, and I don’t remember what we said, but do you want to tell us, uh, first of all the name of the novel?

Meghan: I would love to. So the, um, this was, I think I renamed it, uh, I don’t even remember. It’s been a long time. It’s called Welcome to Heaven, tentatively, and actually, I was talking to my editor, and it’s not officially announced, and I said, “Is it okay for me to do this podcast?” She was like, “Why don’t you an- officially announce the novel on the podcast?”

Amazing. So here it is, the official announcement that Welcome to Heaven is gonna be published by Firewell and Friends, and, um, it’s due out in spring of ‘26. But the funny thing was that, um, in, so in the timeline of things, [00:17:00] I had sent you these pages on a whim because I was feeling really insecure about things.

I had just heard back from my agent about things she felt like still needed to be fixed before it went out on submission, and I was like, “I just feel like I should put this in a drawer. I haven’t sold anything in four years. I keep creating stuff and nothing is taking, and maybe I just need to put this away.”

And, um, it was at the very beginning of the summer, and y’all had put out the call. Um, I was not in a good space mentally, and so for, like, a kick in the pants, I threw the, the first pages on, and it was actually at an experimental prologue that I had just come up with as, like, something new. I posted them or submitted them to y’all and thought, “Well, maybe this is just the kick in the pants that I need.”

And then I heard back after it had already gone out on submission that it was going, and I had finished a bunch of other revisions, that it was going to be [00:18:00] reviewed on the podcast publicly. And I was terrified. Terrified. Truly terrified. I think KJ actually said, “We’re going to read your stuff,” and I responded that I was terrified And unfortunately also, I was unable to, I think I was, like, up late folding laundry, doing something really mundane and boring, and I was up way too late, and I got a notification on my phone that it had gone live, and I should have just waited till the next morning.

But I listened to it, and I couldn’t fall asleep that night at all because, to be frank, it wasn’t a great review.

Jennie: I’m just laughing because it’s so brutal, actually, what we do. It’s really just awful. Like, we’re just talking about how things land with us. But I remember it was titled Welcome to Heaven at the time, ‘cause I remember then the first lines are that it’s taking place in a place called Heaven, Texas.

[00:19:00] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And, and I remember loving that, that, um, sort of little twist that the title you think is something different than what it is, um, really, or, or maybe actually not. But, um, I, I remember that part and loving that, and what did we say?

Meghan: Well, so I, I mean, what you said was totally true, and part of it is that this, like, experimental prologue needs, like, formatting to really be understood, and there’s no formatting in the form that you send in your first pages.

Um, and I was really interested. I actually only got edoto- my editorial letter and my notes back from my editor last Friday. Oh, wow. And I was dying to see if she had excised the prologue, and I, she hasn’t. I’m only, I have only gotten a little bit into it, so she hasn’t yet, but there might be some implications later that’s like, “Maybe we should nix the prologue.”

I’m not sure. Yeah. I’m not there yet. Um, but basically what you said was, and it took me a long time to hear the truth of [00:20:00] what was actually being said. Maybe other writers can, uh, and maybe you can relate to this, that sometimes when you get critical feedback, it’s hard to hear any of the positive feedback, too.

Jennie: Yeah.

Meghan: So the first time, when I listened to it at midnight, I was terrified. I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out, and I thought, “Wow, what a mistake. I can’t believe this is on the desk of editors. I’m never gonna get a contract ever in my life.”

Jennie: Oh, no. “

Meghan: What a huge mistake.” But then I went back and made myself listen to it again when the sun had come up, and I, I thought, “Well, there’s actually some really great compliments in here about how I do have good writing chops,” and writing a story is hard, and it takes more than just being able to, to write beautifully.

Like, you have to be able to tell the story correctly, and that’s always been something that I feel like I’ve struggled with. So I am so grateful for the critical feedback, and I think that it’s such a lesson and a good reminder to me And hopefully other people that when we receive critical feedback, to really listen to the parts that are positive too, because [00:21:00] that’s just as important as the, as the critical pieces.

Which are also really wonderful. I had an advisor, Jane Kurtz, when I was at PCFA, who was helping me with my Notre Dame book, and she had given me some, um, some brutal feedback, and I was really kind of discouraged. And she actually said, “I think I need to get on the phone with you because I can tell that this is hard for you, and let’s talk about it.”

And she told me on that phone call that... She said, “You know, what I want you to think about this as is these are, these are opportunities to make it the best that it can be because once it’s published, you can’t change it anymore, and I want you to be so happy with what it is.” And so I try and remind myself of Jane being my little guardian angel on my shoulder just telling me all the time, like, “It’s okay.

We’re just making it better.”

Jennie: Oh, I love that. So Welcome to Heaven, coming out in spring 2026. Do you want to talk about what the story’s about, or do you want to save that for, um-

Meghan: I’ll just, just very [00:22:00] shortly, um, because I don’t know how much is going to change. We’re just start- I’m just starting revisions.

Um, but right now we have Maisie, who is a just graduated from sixth grade student. She’s recently lost her father. Her mother’s, um, kind of functional alcoholsm- alcoholism has become not so functional in the wake of her father’s death, and Mom has to head out to rehab. And on the way, Maisie gets dropped off in West Texas for a summer with her aunt.

She meets a guy named Walt out there. He’s a couple years older. They run around town solving a small town corruption case, and in the midst of that, find out some big family secrets.

Jennie: Ooh, sounds so good. So, um, so this will be your first novel, and it’s, uh, middle grade, and-

Meghan: Yes ...

Jennie: it sounds like it will sit nicely next to your pic- picture book work in terms of your, your body of work.

Meghan: I hope so, yeah. It’s fun to be able to move [00:23:00] into something new and something exciting, and I just feel like I’m learning all the time, and that makes me happy.

Jennie: And it sounds like you have another... Did you get a two-book deal, or are you writing this second book on for option, an option?

Meghan: Yes. I d- I didn’t get a two-book deal, which is okay with me.

It feels like maybe a little less pressure. Um- And I also know that I need to prove myself here. So yes, I’ve, I’ve got this other book that I just finished blueprinting, and I hope to be able to have an pretty easy time doing just submitting my outline and some sample chapters, and maybe could sell that.

We’ll see.

Jennie: I love that you are using the blueprint so steadfastly. How is it doing it- It’s

Meghan: such a great tool.

Jennie: So tell me all about how, what you love.

Meghan: Well, I will, because I am so amazed that you have come up with this. It really is a fabulous tool, especially for people like me that just need a little hand-holding.[00:24:00]

Um, it hasn’t become, like, super intuitive to me yet. I think, you know, I hope that that will come eventually. I was listening to, I don’t remember who it was, I’m sorry, a guest recently talk to you about how they can just hear your voice as they’re blueprinting and even writing now because, um, it comes so naturally, and I’m hoping that that is not far away for me.

But I used it last summer to work through a middle-grade nonfiction project that I don’t know when I will get to, but I’m glad that I have something there in case I decide to really go for it. Um, I don’t want to talk too much about it except to say that it’s about a big-time, um, sports hero, and I think that we’re, the middle-grade genre is missing a lot, a lot of, like, sports books, and kids love sports so much, and so I really would love to do that.

When I go into schools and I mention that I’m working on this project, the kids are like, [00:25:00] “Oh my gosh, I want that book.” So I think that I will write it at some point, I just don’t know that I’m ready yet. Um, and then the

Jennie: book- Can I stop you? I’m actually really curious about-

Meghan: Yes ...

Jennie: the assuredness with which you say that.

What, how do you gauge your readiness?

Meghan: Hmm. Well, I think because you know what? I- there was one point, I don’t know if it’s like in the written materials that go along with the brup- blueprint or if it’s in the, um, podcast, but you talk about if you’re not super excited about it at the end, maybe something isn’t quite there.

And so I think that’s what’s making me feel hesitant is I feel like nervous and not excited.

Jennie: Yeah. Interesting. So

Meghan: I think that maybe that’s what’s making me feel not quite ready.

Jennie: Interesting. Okay. Sorry, I interrupted you. You were talking about- No ... um, so you had this nonfiction and now you’re thinking about the second, uh, fiction.

Meghan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. [00:26:00] And I, this is something that this idea came to me, um, when I was up at my kid’s school working at their, like, student store where the currency is given to them based on behavior, and I just had this idea. I talked to this one kid who was so hysterical, and I told him when he left, I said, “I think you just gave me the next idea for my next book.”

And he said, “Well, you’ll have to write my name in the acknowledgments.” I said, “Don’t worry, Robert, you can have that.”

Jennie: Aw. That’s so fun. That’s so fun. Well, so for folks who are thinking about doing our January blueprint challenge, it starts on January 6th, and it’s open to anybody who’s a paid subscriber of the podcast.

And you get these 10 podcasts, special podcasts where we walk through each step of the blueprint, and there’s a workbook to capture your answers, and you also get a copy of my blueprint book. Um, and people can do it in fiction, [00:27:00] nonfiction, or memoir. And we have a team of coaches, this is new since you did it, Meghan, um, a team of certified Author Accelerator certified coaches who host Ask Me Anything events and write-alongs, and they’re there to guide and answer questions.

And they’re ... We have specialists in all the genres, so it’s really exciting. Um, can you talk about why you would recommend this for somebody who’s got a finished, finished manuscript? ‘Cause it works for so- somebody who’s starting something new, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on why you think it would be valuable.

Meghan: Well, I think it’s certainly valuable for both, for people who haven’t yet started and for people that, that have already finished a draft, because I’ve done it from both sides, and I am grateful for it in both instances. Um, in fact, people ask me a lot, I’m sure that anybody who’s published gets the question of, “How do I do what you’re doing?”

And I always tell them to join SCBWI if they’re interested in children, and then [00:28:00] take a class. And this would be a class that I would advise taking. I would consider it, consider it a class. In fact, I have the m- each blueprint saved under the classes folder in my documents- Oh, amazing ... because I consider it a class.

And so I think that this tool for me, if it’s something that I have not yet written, I’m hoping I haven’t yet done the novel that I’m working on. But I feel like it’s gonna help my process be so much smoother. For somebody that has already finished a draft, I think that this tool helps you with something that can feel super unwieldy to actually see it from a, a bird’s-eye view.

One of the hardest things for me going from writing picture book to a longer form has been that in picture book, I can really see the whole story pretty easily. It’s not that hard to wrap my head around. But the puzzle of the novel is so [00:29:00] intricate, and it’s so complex, and this tool has helped me really see it, um, in my mind more easily

Jennie: Wow, that’s, that’s a great encapsulation of it.

Thank you for that. We would love to have anybody who’s eager to do this tool to join us and, um, you’ll be part of a community going through it together, which will be fun. Um, and Meghan, you’re now gonna be somebody that the, the podcast follows and cheers on ‘cause I feel like you’ve had all these touch points with us, um, in doing the blueprint challenge and then the first pages.

You were very brave to send those in and, uh, tolerate our, uh, judgment and opinions. So- I

Meghan: needed, I needed it. I needed it, for sure.

Jennie: I mean, you know, we’re just, we’re just people with, with our opinions, but I guess we do have a lot of experience and the ability to point to evidence in those pages. So we, we have quite a backlog of, uh, first pages that have been submitted.[00:30:00]

Um, so we can’t do them all, but we will put out a call in the future to continue to do those because they’re, they’re, they’re fun for us, and I think they’re useful for our listeners. So thank-

Meghan: And

Jennie: I,

Meghan: I, I think if your, if your listeners still would like that experience, I think that there’s something to be said about just getting out and showing your work to people in your writing community or forming that writing community and getting your work in front of other eyes and how important that is.

So if you’re having trouble getting through that backlog, just making sure that you get your work in front of other people is super important.

Jennie: Yeah. Well, thank you, and thank you for sharing your whole story and, um, sharing your, your books. These, these books really, this bee book looks just incredibly charming.

I’m gonna, I’m gonna go snag that for somebody for the holidays for sure. That’s such a, what a fantastic idea, and, um, congratulations on the novel. And- Thank you ... um, I know 2026 seems like a long way away, but it’s really not. [00:31:00] It’s, you know, you’ve got your almost a year to do your launch activities, right?

So we know-

Meghan: Yes.

Jennie: It’ll be

Meghan: here very soon ...

Jennie: we know what you’ll be doing and, uh, good luck with the new book as well. Um- Thank

Meghan: you, Jennie.

Jennie: Oh, it’s just really delightful to meet you and to hear your story. Thank you for sharing it. And to our listeners, until next week, keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game.

Outro: The hashtag amwriting podcast is produced by Andrew Perilla. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output because everyone deserves to be paid for their [00:32:00] work.

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