Subject: Creating Positive Visual Futures + Sustainability ❤️ 📚

🚀 Empowering you with core principles, mindset tools, and doable roadmaps for science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction writers & creative entrepreneurs serving writers -- as a coach, teacher, and consultant -- to build your sustainable creative career on your own terms. 🐲

Creating Positive Visual Futures + Sustainability ❤️ 📚

Jump right in!

Weekly Podcast

This week's How To Write The Future podcast episode:

🎧 Ep. 169. Creating Positive Visual Futures with Illustrator Melquea Smith https://www.buzzsprout.com/2012061/episodes/17806440-169-creating-positive-visual-futures-with-illustrator-melquea-smith
- Video version -- visuals are fun! (YouTube)
- Transcript here.

Stuck in a perfectionism loop? I challenge you to start small with timed writing.

🖊️ Structure and Creativity: Timed Writing

Not for everyone... Maybe for you or someone you know... Registration now open for the Creative Writing Professionals apprenticeship program. Until tonight 9pm PT/12am midnight.

🔥 If you're a creative writer who wants to serve other creative writers then this may be the program for you: https://bethbarany.thrivecart.com/creative-writing-professionals/

Quiz! ➡️ What's your Creative Business Style!

🧐 Sign up to take the quiz here: https://bethbarany.com/quiz/

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** This email is long, so you may need to click to expand and to read the full email. Or read online.

Friday, September 12, 2025

Hi Friend,

Last week I talked about being in the back to school energy and starting something new. And boy did I!

I started planning a new sci-fi mystery in my Janey McCallister Mystery series using my Plan Your Novel Like A Pro material (listed here for free; or in book form) and

I responded to a beta reader's request to read one of my paranormal romantic suspense novels and spent over 15 hours reading it and doing light edits. And then sent it to them.

It was SO fun!

I got to reconnect with a story I'd written 10 years ago that's part of a larger series I still want to write.

The work was easy compared to final edits I'm doing.

And I realized my vision for this story and series is still important to me.

All that to say, your work as a writer is not wasted even if the story doesn't see the light of day for a while.

What story have you written but that still in the vault that wants to come back out and play?

Let me know!

❤️

Want free book coaching?

I've created an easy and fun way for you (and no cost to you except your time) to get coaching and a marketing boost in one fell swoop.

Be a guest on my Story Success Clinic of my How to Write The Future podcast.

To learn more, listen to this recent podcast episode. Or read the transcript.

❤️

On to the weekly podcast...

169. Creating Positive Visual Futures with Illustrator Melquea Smith

“I think of hope.

And especially in a world that can be seen as cruel, that can be experienced as cruel, I think of those who have the capacity to do what they can to spread that hope and to spread that joy so we can uplift the folks that need a little bit more help.”

- Melquea Smith

In this How To Write the Future podcast episode, I chat to children’s book illustrator Melquea Smith.

Melquea shares:

the inspiration behind her unique art style
how her multicultural perspective enhances her vibrant, forward-thinking illustrations.
and describes the importance of representation in art and on creating diverse, positive visuals through her inclusive character design.

Listen on Buzzsprout

Watch on YouTube

Read the transcript on Writers Fun Zone blog

Apple Podcast

Spotify

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.

Enjoy!

🤩 Sneak peek

In the next episode, Ep. 170, I talk with New York-based author Michael Colon about building creative confidence as a science fiction writer.

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

❤️

Creative Entrepreneurship - How Creatives Build Thriving Businesses: Interview with Nicky Blewitt

I'm so excited to bring you my latest media creation: the Creative Entrepreneurship Interview series, co-created with novelist and strategist, Gala Russ.

Our focus is on how creative writing professionals, like coaches, editors, promoters, etc. build thriving businesses.

We've interviewed 16 people and all the interviews are up on Youtube now!

I describe all them here in this Writer's Fun Zone blog post.

All are authors and all run businesses supporting authors.

Along the way, Gala and I share our stories, tips, and philosophy.

Please leave comments, like, subscribe, and share our series with people you think would benefit from these conversations.

Thanks!

⭐️

Want to know your Creative Business Style?

➡️ TAKE THE QUIZ

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Timely Book News

- Happening Now! Or Soon! -

Sustainable Writing Summit by Sloan Fiffer, a 4-day event, Sept. 10 - Sept. 13. I'll be speaking live tomorrow at 1pm PT/4pm ET on "Write the Future You Want to Live In: Sustaining Hope Through Storytelling." Sign up here: https://bethbarany.com/sws092025
Weekend geteaway for avid readers, offered by LA Bourgeois, in upstate New York, Sept. 26-29. Perfect for travelers who love to read and want a weekend getaway. Check out all the details here. Space very limited.

Happy Writing!

Best,

Beth

🌟 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!

I'm the author of 12 published novels of *Magical Tales of Romance, Mystery, and Adventure* author.bethbarany.com

Into The Black (Book 1) - On sale: $0.99 - limited time only

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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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I live in the territory of Huichin, part of the stolen land of the Chochenyo Muwekma Ohlone, the successors of the historic and sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County, in Oakland, California, the San Francisco Bay Area. Northern Hemisphere. Earth.

The Solar System. → Carina–Sagittarius Arm in the Milky Way galaxy. Milky Way subgroup → Local Group → Local Sheet → Virgo Supercluster → Laniakea Supercluster → Local Hole → Observable universe → Universe.

I stand with people of Ukraine and all peoples 🎗️ in their fight for freedom from oppression and the right to self-determine. Yes, all peoples. Not just some.

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