Subject: Get writing coaching *and* a marketing boost! ❤️ 📚

Sci-Fi Fantasy Fiction + Genre Writers, Tools and Events to Feed Your Creative Soul

🚀 Specializing in supporting science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction writers, and creative entrepreneurs 🐉



Get writing coaching *and* a marketing boost! ❤️ 📚


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Weekly Podcast


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

Registration now open for the Creative Writing Professionals apprenticeship program. 




Not sure it's right for you? Then take the Creative Business Style quiz!


Application period extended for Next Step Critique Group to Aug. 31st.


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

Friday, August 29, 2025

Hi Friend,

I'm a life-long learner. Learner is my #1 strength in the Clifton Strengths tool.


All that to say, part of my morning routine is dedicated to learning via Youtube.


Recently I listened to 2 different people who reminded me of some key factors as a creative being that I need right now.


  1. I need more visioning time so I can see (hear, feel, sense) my next big steps.

  2. I need more day dreaming time (I like to call it Nothing Time) and to do that I need to set down my phone and unplug from all media 100% -- if even for 5 minutes at a time.

In case you're curious, those 2 videos were "The Ultimate Guide to Reinventing Yourself in 2025" and "39 Brutal Truths I Know at 39 and Wish I Knew at 20".


What are some of your recent learnings or Ahas?


Hit reply, if you care to share. I'd love to know!


❤️


Next...


I've created an easy and fun way for you 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 week's podcast episode. Or read the transcript. All the links are next ⬇️

On to the weekly podcast...

You’re invited to the Story Success Clinic with Beth Barany

”I believe that your unique vision that you are sharing in your stories can impact the readers in unknown and amazing ways.” – Beth Barany


In this How To Write the Future episode, I'm inviting listeners to sign up for a free Story Success Clinic session. In these sessions, I will coach you and give you feedback on a short piece of your writing.


You’ll gain insights into how to enhance scenes in your world-building and brainstorm ideas to bring your story world to life.


The Story Success Clinic is designed to leave you confident and ready to take the next step in your writing. All recorded sessions get featured as an episode on the podcast.


Sign up for a 30 minute Free Story Success Clinic Session here:


https://writersfunzone.com/blog/story-success-clinic/


To listen or read this episode's transcript, go here (Writer's 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.


Enjoy!


🤩 Sneak peek


In the next episode, Ep. 168, I share upcoming classes in the Barany School of Fiction for Fall 2025.


If you're a reader of this newsletter, then you've been seeing me promote some of them. :)


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


❤️


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 so far, 9 of those interviews are up on Youtube.


Check them out!


  • Nicky Blewitt on how his punk rock roots and social work background shaped his mission to empower authors with marketing skills.

  • Matty Dalrymple on her journey from novelist to podcasting expert.

  • Bailey Lang on building sustainable writing practices for authors.

  • Romy Sommer on how she built Gemini Writers Studio by starting small—offering free editing at charity auctions, then scaling up.

  • Melquea Smith on valuable insights for children's book illustrators and creative entrepreneurs.

  • Sarah Ramsey on insights about PR for creatives, emphasizing when to delegate tasks versus doing them yourself.

  • Miranda Darrow on how she balances a corporate attorney career with her editing work while practicing the crucial skill of appropriate pricing.

  • Savannah Gilbo on her journey as a developmental editor and podcast host who built her business around removing gatekeeping in the writing industry

Coming soon in the video series:

  • poet and teacher, Meg Hartmann

  • novelist and developmental editor, Nadine Shaw

  • novelist and found of the Plot Forest summit, Daniel David Wallace

  • novelist and community builder, Danika Bloom (aka Donna Barker)

  • novelist and coach, Ainsley James (AJ)

  • author and story coach, Megan Fuentes

  • author, freelance editor and founder of Shortcuts for Writers, Stacy Juba

  • author and writing instructor, Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer

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



❤️

Timely Book News


Sale!


📚 For a limited time my space station mystery, Into The Black, book 1 in the Janey McCallister Mystery series, is on sale for $0.99 -- where ebooks are sold.


If you're curious to taste what fiction I write, now's your chance!


❤️

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


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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. 

Here be the legalese: In connection with the operation of this newsletter and business, Creativity Sparks includes affiliate links to trusted partners. Barany Consulting earns a commission from the Affiliate Links which commission is based on the number of sales that are made as a result of users of the Newsletter clicking over to the Affiliate Link and purchasing from the Affiliate Link a product and/or service. Thus endth the legalese.

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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