Subject: 🐲 🐦‍🔥 Today, A Dragon, A Phoenix + A Griffin

❤️ Hi! 👋🏼 Beth here to empower you with core principles, mindset tools, and doable roadmaps to build your sustainable, thriving creative author career on your own terms.

🐲 🚀 Yup, I'm passionate about supporting science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction writers; and creative entrepreneurs serving writers.

🐲 🐦‍🔥 Today, A Dragon, A Phoenix + A Griffin

Let's jump right in!

Weekly Podcast

Excited to bring you this week's How To Write The Future podcast episode:

🎧 Ep. 180. Crafting Ethical AI Worlds with Abigail Hing Wen
https://writersfunzone.com/blog/2025/11/25/crafting-ethical-ai-worlds-with-abigail-hing-wen/

Also in this newsletter:

Cool inspiring things in my inbox
Writerly offers
Latest Writer's Fun Zone posts
My Favorite "Unlock Your Creative Flow" Technique

❤️

** This email may show up long in your inbox, so you may need to click to expand and to read the full email. Or read online.

Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025

Hi Friend,

As a writer, specifically, a science fiction and fantasy writer, I love mythological creatures.

I’ve written about all three of these: a dragon, a phoenix, and a griffin in my YA fantasy series Henrietta The Dragon Slayer.

These three creatures came to mind this morning as I was thinking about writing to you, because they each have different skills and abilities. And I love them all!

I thought it would be fun to see which one you identify with.

Here’s my interpretation:

The dragon loves fire, protects what it loves with fire, and lives a very long time.
The phoenix is an amazing creature that is born of fire and dies in fire. It seems to live an infinite number of lives and symbolizes rebirth and the ending of cycles.
The griffin is a kind of chimera, a creature made of other creatures. It is unexpected, surprising, and possesses magical abilities not always predicted.

Some Griffins have an eagle’s head, a lion’s body, eagle wings, and a lion’s tail. They were first discovered in human art in ancient Mesopotamia, dating back to around 3500 BCE.

Dragons are known in nearly every culture in the world and show up in art starting around 6200 BCE, and phoenixes originate from Greek and Egyptian traditions.

🐲 🐦‍🔥 🦁

🎉 ⭐️ ✨ Question of the Week ✨ ⭐️ 🎉

Which of these three creatures do you most identify with in your own life?

Dragon
Phoenix
Griffin

Hit reply and let me know!

❤️

I also want to wish you a very happy Thanksgiving.

I wasn’t able to do much work this past week because I needed rest, and got a cold, especially after being on a film set last weekend. (Grant Street Dragons!)

I helped with production on day one and assisted the director as 1st AD (assistant director) on day two. It was so much fun.

So no Black Friday sale this year. Maybe an end of the year sale. I'll keep you posted!

Today, I just want to share a few great deals my friends are offering, along with this week’s podcast. Enjoy!

❤️

On to the weekly podcast...

Crafting Ethical AI Worlds with Abigail Hing Wen

"I try to write worlds that I believe are attainable and that I think we can aspire towards."

– Abigail Hing Wen

In this How To Write the Future episode, I had a blast interviewing author‑filmmaker, Abigail Hing Wen.

Abigail shared about her book The Vale, a middle‑grade fantasy where a family builds a clean, AI‑generated virtual world.

Together, we get into why ethical AI matters for storytellers, what "clean AI" looks like, and the real‑world tradeoffs creators face as tech evolves.

A few weeks after the interview, I got to go to her screening of The Vale's prequel, "The Vale -- Origins," that Abigail shares in school visits.

Enjoy!

All the places to listen to this week's podcast:

Listen on Buzzsprout

Apple Podcast

Spotify

YouTube (Watch us too!) (Like and Subscribe!)

Writers Fun Zone

The How To Write The Future podcast is for science fiction and fantasy writers who want to write positive futures and successfully bring those stories out into the marketplace.

Share with your friends!

Thanks!

🤩 Sneak peek

In the next episode, Ep. 181, I chat with fellow writing and creativity coach Catharine Bramkamp as she dives into why creativity matters in the second half of life. And how you can get involved in her coming book!

Stay tuned!

Where you listen to podcasts, be sure to like, follow, subscribe to How To Write The Future -- all the things!

🚀

When we vision what is possible, we help make it so.

Since 2022. 180 episodes to date. Over 20,000 downloads.

Distributed by Buzzsprout. (Referral link)

Edited with Descript. (Referral Link)

It takes a village. Thanks team!

SHOW CO-PRODUCTION + NOTES by Kerry-Ann McDade
EDITORIAL SUPPORT by Iman Llompart

❤️🥇▶️ Follow the podcast on YouTube!

⭐️ 🎧🎙️ All previous episodes of How To Write The Future podcast listed here.

❤️

Oh! Thanks for your ideas for the podcast!

Coming soon:

How to find a good agent
Do I have to include magic in a fantasy steampunk novel?
How many supernatural elements is needed for it to be fantasy, or steampunk?
What are your recommendations for world-building without information dumping right in the beginning? (Thanks Julie R.)

If you have questions for me for the podcast, hit reply and let me know.

😍

🐦‍🔥 In my inbox 🚀

I'm a grand collector of ideas and fun tidbits.

Here's a few things that caught my attention today -- may they inspire you too:

I'm a huge Scrivener user to write my novels and scripts, so I saw their makers, Literature & Latte are offering a sale! On Scrivener and other cool writerly tools! (Not an affiliate)
Since I write sci-fi mysteries, this group caught my attention: Writer’s Detective membership, by (retired) Detective Adam Richardson. (Not a sale but a good deal at $10/month)

❤️

🖊️ Writerly Offers with affiliate links ☕️

If you want to offer courses...

I recommend Thrivecart for its one-and-done price and thorough hands-on customer service.

Pinterest, baby!

I'm in the process of revamping my Pinterest account and boards to promote our books and courses and love the search engine evergreen aspect of it -- perfect for a working creative.

So I was excited to find Nadalie Bardo's Pinterest trainings.

I did get her big course and am enjoying it.

You can start with her free stuff here.

Build Epic Rivalries!

How to Build Epic Rivalries Between Heroes and Villains

Learn all about my friend and fellow author and teacher's course here.

Happy Writing!

Best,

Beth

PS. We're already scheduling our 2026 event calendar! Wow!

Here are some of the upcoming events!

😍 Bailey Lang will teach on Habits of Mind, January 21, 11am PT. I'm producing and she'll be doing an in-depth writing workshop for you. Registration opens in a few weeks.

🚀 In March, Gala Russ and I will be running our first "Find Your Creative Entrepreneur Niche -- Challenge for Writers Serving Writers" -- March 20-24. Stay tuned!

📚 I'll be teaching in Lorin Oberweger's Free Expressions: (Topics TBD) (Any special requests let me know! Get on her list to get all the details. Save the dates!

April 9, 4:30pm PT
May 14, 4:30pm PT

🎙️ And I'm excited to announce that I'll be speaking at Alexa Bigwarfe's Marketing Bootcamp for Authors and Publishing Professionals, June 12-13, 2026.

🌟 If you find my resources helpful, please forward them to a friend who may need them too. Thanks!

Beth Barany
Creativity Coach for Writers

Teacher, Speaker, Workshop Facilitator
bethbarany.com

I not only teach and coach novelists, I am one too!

*Magical Tales of Romance, Mystery, and Adventure* author.bethbarany.com

Including the award-winning, Henrietta The Dragon Slayer (Book 1), and Into The Black, about Janey McCallister space station investigator (Book 1)

__________________________

Writer's Fun zone blog by and for creative writers, published by Beth Barany

Subscribe to be notified when each blog post goes live. Or wait for the weekly round-up in this newsletter. *Write for us.

Latest WFZ posts

From the Archive -- My Favorite "Unlock Your Creative Flow" Technique

Last week, I shared articles about writer's block last week (listed here).

This week I'm sharing about my favorite "Unlock Your Creative Flow" Technique, also articles from Writer's Fun Zone.

Enjoy!

☕️

Support This Creative Entrepreneur

My mission is to support your adventure as a creative and step into your next best self.

If you want to support my mission, I invite you to:

📚 buy my books: Fiction | Nonfiction

☕️ buy me a coffee

Or share my work with your friends. Thanks!

Beth Barany is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy novelist, and certified creativity coach for writers.

She specializes in helping writers experience clarity, so they can write, revise, and proudly publish their novels to the delight of their readers.

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