 In this generous Q&A for Writing Day Workshops, Tamatha Cain opens up about the grace we so easily forget to give ourselves, the inner critic that never quite quiets, and the surprising gifts that come from staying at the keyboard even when no one seems to be reading. Whether you’re wrestling with self-doubt, stalled mid-plot, or wondering if your manuscript will ever find its way into the world, her honest reflections offer the kind of encouragement every writer needs to hear.  If you could go back to your early writing days, what one piece of advice would you give your beginner self? I would tell myself, 'Self, in a few years you're going to look back and wish you hadn't been so hard on yourself.' It is so hard to give ourselves the same grace we give others. Speak gently to yourself, appreciate your time at the keyboard (or in your journal, or legal pad, or wherever), and focus on progress, not moments you think of as failures. Our worth as writers does not depend on the results of queries or the sometimes inexplicable reasons for our rejections. As hard as it can be to keep going when it seems we're writing for no one but ourselves, we can turn that around and say, "Even if that's the case, it's enough. At least for now." And keep going. How do you tackle writer's block when you're stuck mid-plot or with a flat character? My writing tends to be rather cinematic, and I think part of that comes from the way I visualize the characters and scenes. If the plot gets stuck, I often take time to imagine the story thus-far as a movie. If I were watching this movie, what would I be hoping happens next? What would surprise me if it happened? What would be just so-o-o very satisfying? Then I try to work those ideas into scenes that are compelling not just for content, but in their settings, sensory impact, and emotional pull. Flat characters? They are just not allowed. Just like actors, they need to embody and convey the story by all means at their disposal, and I love working on giving them those tools. Every writer faces self-doubt. What’s a moment in your career when you questioned your work the most, and how did you overcome? This is a big issue for me actually. My inner voice has always been a mean little thing, and it's taken a lot of work to teach her to be nicer to me! There isn't one moment yet, though there have been moments that were worse than others. But when those moments happen, I've learned to step back and try to remember all the good that has come of my choice to change careers and pursue this thing I truly love. Lately, I've been able to overcome those times by remembering that no one is everyone's cup of tea, but that I have readers who have loved something I wrote, who have been touched by it enough to reach out to me and make a connection. That will never get old, and I can hardly believe it every time it happens. Those connections can be a real balm to artists, and we need to collect them and keep them in a little mental jar we can dip into when the self-doubt rubs our hearts a little raw.  Buy Tamatha's book here: https://amzn.to/4uqu2Pf In 1969 near the Florida/Georgia Line, idealistic young Betty Langdon and fast-rising R&B singer Dominicus Owens begin an irresistible but dangerous interracial romance that ends under mysterious, heartbreaking circumstances. Betty is forced to return to her rural home to care for her manipulative mother, while Dominicus goes on to mega-stardom with his band The Downtown Sound. She follows his skyrocketing career from behind the front desk of a dying highway motel--until one day decades later, she disappears. Now, a popular true crime podcast produced by college friends Melody Hinterson and Dorian Santos takes on the cold case of a missing local woman. The duo’s carefully-balanced workplace dynamic is weirdly off-kilter lately, but they can't take their eyes off the investigation as the intriguing new story suddenly boosts the show into the national spotlight. When the investigation uncovers the missing woman's diaries full of family secrets and the local legend of a fortune hidden in an old chimney somewhere in town, the truth behind the podcast's mystery becomes personal, and Melody must make life-changing choices before the final episode airs. What’s one way this manuscript has forced you to face something painful about yourself or your past? Oh, it has done this in many more than one way. To some extent, we all write to unearth the things that have made us who we are, whether we realize it or not at the time. There are certain themes in my books that come up again and again, without my planning it that way. Looking back over them, both the published books and those waiting in a drawer, I see a through-line of discovery, admission, and searching. It's like opening a new puzzle and scattering all the pieces on the table, then setting to work on it little by little until a whole image appears. Sometimes you know what the image is supposed to look like, but many times you have no idea until it comes together with those last few pieces. On the outside, hopefully you come out with a great story or deeply-layered novel. On the inside, you actually feel those pieces click, and it can be very revealing. Scary, sometimes, but almost always it feels like the healing of a wound. The practice of taking a painful thing out and finding a way to have your characters face that thing in their own way... it's a form of therapy. How do you reconcile the tension between writing what you love and writing what the market demands? Have you ever regretted following (or ignoring) trends? I have all but given up trying to write to what the market demands. I do look for holes in the market, and think about them as I write. My books so far have all been very different from each other, and I think that is at least in part because I have tended toward writing stories that fill the holes.  Buy Tamatha's book here: https://amzn.to/4cJjkNM Abandoned by her father as a young child and left to her own devices as a teenager in Manhattan, Oona O'Neill made her own luck. Days spent at an Upper East Side all-girls school were followed by nights on the town with friends Gloria Vanderbilt, Carol Marcus, and Truman Capote. She became an inspiration for Capote's character Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's and boyfriend J.D. Salinger's Sally Hayes in Catcher in the Rye. Beyond her famous parents, wealthy friends, and stories in the society pages was a brilliant and savvy young woman determined to make something of herself on her own terms. From Bermuda to Florida, New Jersey to Manhattan, and Hollywood to Switzerland, experience the singular life and fascinating times of the enigmatic young woman who would become Lady Oona O'Neill Chaplin. What’s the loneliest moment you’ve had as an unpublished writer, and what (or who) helped you through it? In the first few years, when you follow all the advice and you know you have a good book that deserves to be considered, it is extremely disheartening to face the days and weeks and months of waiting for someone, anyone, to reply with a word that shows they actually read what you submitted. It can be heart-wrenching. And when those moments come when it feels as though something good may be happening, only to be dashed by something that makes no sense to you, well, what do you then? These are the times you have to examine yourself and your motivations: Would I be doing this even if there were no possibility of success? For me, frankly, the answer is no, at least not in the same way, and that informs how I move forward. What is success to you? It is different for each person. Stagnating for too long in the bad times does not serve me, and so I give myself some time to feel the feelings, to wallow in the injustice of it all, and to eat a lot of chocolate. Then I keep going. What’s a mistake you’ve made in this writing process that you’ve since forgiven yourself for? I have been too trusting in some situations, not trusting my own discernment or judgement. I tend to take people at face value until they prove me wrong, and that is frankly not always the best practice. I hate to change that soft element of myself, but in this business, it is a good idea to go into situations with a bit of a self-protecting guard up around not just your work, but your heart, too. My oversharing, effusive, thank-you-for-even-talking-to-me ways had to change. I'm still working on that, though. Looking at the writer you are today versus when you began, what unexpected strength or softness have you discovered in yourself? This goes back to the previous question a bit, but if we're talking about strength or softness in ourselves in the actual work, then I'd say I found an unexpected strength of stamina when it comes to writing. I never get tired of it, never wish I'd never started writing in the first place, never say, 'Yeah, you know what? I'm just not feeling writing today.' I always want to write, even when the procrastination monster looms, I'm still working toward sitting down to write. It's just that the laundry has to be done and the sink must be empty and the rugs vacuumed first, that's all. At this point, I consider all that part of the process, and I embrace it, because when the writing is flowing, it is such a wonderful feeling. What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned about love—love of story, love of self, or love of the work—through this season? Something surprising I realized is that the same rules of love apply in writing as they do in other areas: "Love is patient, love is kind," etc. All that is true when it comes to love of story, of the work, and even of self. We know love is also not a feeling, but an act. It's so important to choose to love, even when it's hard, and that describes the way we might approach our writing life, too. We love it, even when it's not very lovable. If your current WIP remains unpublished forever, what would you need to believe to still feel you had spent your life well? I would not need anything in order to believe that. That is the truth. But it's a truth that came to me after a long time of feeling quite the opposite, and writing has helped me come to this place. I suppose that's the irony of an artistic life.  The daughter of a US Air Force Morse Code Operator and a voracious reader from Southern India, Tamatha Cain is the author of Only Oona, the first biographical novel about Oona O'Neill Chaplin, and the multi-award-winning Song of the Chimney Sweep, a sweeping dual timeline double mystery full of music and heart. Tamatha is a former musician, bandleader, and entrepreneur. She writes for Southern Literary Review and is a member of the Women's Fiction Writers Association and Women Writing the West. She is a wife and mother of three and lives in a hundred-year-old bungalow in North Florida.  This post was complied by Brandy Vallance, a literary agent with Barbara Bova Literary Agency, an award-winning author, and a Story Consultant for Writing Day Workshops. Brandy is the winner of two national writing awards, one of which included a $20,000 prize. Her novel, THE COVERED DEEP, has been featured in USA Today & Writer’s Digest. WITHIN THE VEIL has been called “passionate and riveting” and Publisher’s Weekly encourages those who like sweeping Scottish sagas to dive in because “the journey is wonderful.” Brandy loves helping writers break the chains of fear and self-doubt. You can find out more at brandyvallance.com.  Attend a Writers Conference in 2026:
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