In this episode, we talk about creative energy, burnout, routines, self-preservation, and what it takes to build a sustainable creative life.

We explore why burnout is not always caused by doing too much. Sometimes it comes from working against your own rhythms, ignoring your needs, fighting your process, or trying to create in conditions that make you feel unsafe, depleted or disconnected from yourself. We talk about front-loading creative work, trusting low-energy days, mean inner critics, sensory needs, routines, and the real strange niche conditions that allow us to make art.

This is an episode for anyone who has ever felt embarrassed by the amount of structure, comfort, quiet, routine, coffee, sleep, water, lighting, solitude or control they need in order to function.

Order Amie’s book We Need Your Art: https://www.amiemcnee.com/order-we-need-your-art-book-amie-mcnee
Read Amie’s Substack: https://substack.com/@amiemcnee

What if you didn’t have to know everything before you were allowed to speak?

In this episode, we talk about the way artists and thinkers self-censor when they’re afraid of being wrong, mocked, misunderstood, or exposed as “not expert enough.” We discuss over-researching as a form of perfectionism, the gatekeeping of big ideas, and why making things simple is not the same as dumbing them down.

We also talk about work, economics, class, gender, Fully Automated Luxury Communism, and the kind of future artists might be brave enough to imagine if we stopped waiting for permission from the serious people. Your ideas are allowed to be alive before they are flawless.

Order Amie’s book We Need Your Art: https://www.amiemcnee.com/order-we-need-your-art-book-amie-mcnee
Read Amie’s Substack: https://substack.com/@amiemcnee

What if rejection wasn't bad news? What if chaos, disappointment and rejection could become part of your creative power? What if the more 'bad stuff' that happens to you, the more brilliant you become?

In this episode, we explore the idea of the anti-fragile creator: the artist who does not simply endure difficulty, but learns, adapts, expands and becomes more themselves because of it. We talk about rejection, self-publishing, the fragility of creative industries, the danger of needing permission, and why artists need curiosity more than thick skin.

Order Amie’s book We Need Your Art: https://www.amiemcnee.com/order-we-need-your-art-book-amie-mcnee
Read Amie’s Substack: https://substack.com/@amiemcnee

We're recording from a hotel room with questionable acoustics and a very concerned James. Welcome to the Hotel Season!

In Episode 1, Amie makes the case that if you want to be a serious artist, you need to be an equally serious consumer, not just of your own genre, but of everything you want to see more of in the world. We get into why consuming great work is more useful than craft content, the stress of reading Robin Hobb when you're trying to write your own novel, how to have a genuinely good scroll on social media, and why the attention you give is the culture you're actually building.

Be OUR favourite consumer, READ We Need Your Art: https://www.amiemcnee.com/order-we-need-your-art-book-amie-mcnee

We're back!

Topics:

Creating while travelling/busy

The importance of confidence in your own work

Whether James' justice streak makes his life harder (feat. sauan etiquette)

And lessons from the biggest year of our life

I Don't Want a Job, the book, is available for the next two weeks only! Also available, cool t-shirts, a masterclass with Amie, and signed copies!

Read the original essay here

We take you on a journey from Amie's first painful attempt to write a book to now, Amie's settled routine as a professional author, with all the steps along the way.

Pre-order To Kill a Queen now

Join Amie in Barcelona for a book event on Friday November 7th!

Join us for a rambling discussion that starts with us assessing how successful we feel, goes on to a long digression about preserving energy for hard times, talks about honesty in the publishing industry, and finished with Amie's message to artists just starting out.

Pre-order To Kill a Queen, Amie's book about a non-binary detective in Elizabethan London who has the hots for their bartender. If you're outside the US, your only choice is to get it shipped to you from Amazon :( But we are so grateful if you do!

If you're in the US, it would be a huge help to us if you pre-saved the audiobook on Spotify (even if you don't plan on listening to it there!).

Q+A ep! It just so happened to be that most of your questions were about our work and writing routines. There are also a few other Q's answered including: how exactly is making art generous, big breaks we've almost had (and why they may not have mattered anyway). Sonja, I'm so sorry, I forgot to answer your question about bilingual artists... please email us with your question again and we'll answer you.

Amie's WNYA events in England:

Oxford Blackwells Saturday 16th of August 3-4PM (tickets essential)

Waterstones Canterbury 18th of August 6:30PM (tickets essential)

Pre-Order To Kill A Queen

Read James' Substack about the guy who steals his friend's crypto

Did you know you can buy PRINTS and ORIGINALS of Amie's love notes? Available on our website now. Stock limited to ten for each large note and fifty of each small.

We're talking:

When the internet gives you the ick

The flattening of culture by algorithms

How social media sows the seeds of its own destruction when it prioritises attention over quality

And more!

Pre-order To Kill a Queen, Amie's queer detective novel set in Elizabethan London. Remember, this is literally the most important thing you can do for an author!

Order We Need Your Art or get a SIGNED copy here

Enshittification was coined by our mate Cory Doctorow which we should have known!

Hello friends! Today we're talking about the rise of the middle class artist. Based on Amie's substack post.

Buy Amie's book for F***'s sake!

ALSO you can pre-order Amie's queer Elizabethan detective novel, To Kill a Queen!

References:

Hollywood is Broken. Can YouTubers Fix it? Colin and Samir interview Max Reisinger.

Brandon Sanderson podcast about AI

I'm so sorry everyone but it's another AI episode :(Listen to us, two people who aren't experts on anything really, talk about AI, climate change, utopias, the housing crisis, Australian politics and what's wrong with the left these days.⁠

Would love it if you bought We Need Your Art!⁠

Things mentioned:⁠

Review of Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson⁠

⁠Basic Income: And How We Can Make it Happen, by Guy Standing⁠⁠

TikTok’s annual carbon footprint is likely bigger than Greece’s, study finds⁠⁠

Hank's video about the state of renewable energy⁠

Anthony Albanese buys a $4.3 million home

Australian Housing Crisis compared to other countries