Ep. 141: Amy Koppelman – Write Something That Doesn’t Suck

This is for you writers.

Write something that doesn’t suck.

It’s a simple goal. A low stakes goal. You have nothing to lose.

Amy Koppelman had nothing to lose, so she sat down and wrote her first book, “I Smile Back.”

The book was rejected at least 80 times. Publishers told her that it resembled the truth too much. One publisher even said, “This is the reason we got into publishing…but I can’t sell this.”

But now, Sarah Silverman is starring in the movie. She’s going to play the main character, Laney. 

You read this book and you get scared for Laney. You feel sorry for her.

But sometimes you have to feel sorry for someone else to stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Good fiction can do that. It can help you escape.

They will tell you that you can’t run away from yourself. But they lie all the time.

In today’s interview, Amy reveals how you can write great fiction.

She tells me that the best kind of writing understands you somehow without even knowing you.

It helps you understand yourself better. “All of us, whether we’re writers, carpenters or teachers, we just want to be heard and understood,” Amy says.

Whatever you’re doing now, you don’t know what it’s doing for your future. That’s why I recommend a daily practice.

Amy didn’t have a daily practice. She used to sit and wonder if she could ever make coffee again.

Depression made instant coffee look impossible. Everything loomed over her. But one day she made coffee. And over the course of many small victories, she survived.

Listen to Amy Koppelman to learn how to write to survive.

I mean it, listen to Amy, she is the master of fiction that bleeds.

Resources and Links:

• Amy Koppelman’s Website
• Hesitation Wounds by Amy Koppelman
• I Smile Back by Amy Koppelman (soon to be I Smile back the movie starring Sarah Silverman. Watch the trailer here)
• A Mouthful of Air by Amy Koppelman
• Listen to my good friend, Brian Koppelman interview Amy Koppelman on his podcast The Moment with Brian Koppelman
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, Revised and Expanded Edition by Walter Kauffman
• The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr
• Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

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