I’m writing a novel. Here’s how it’s going.
About this episode
Lucie Fink shares her journey of writing her first novel, discussing the challenges and unexpected opportunities she faced along the way.
Today's episode is a little different. It's just me, going deep on something I've never fully unpacked before: what it's actually been like to write my first novel. I take you back to 2023, when I tried to sell a nonfiction book about the science of curiosity—and how both publishers I was in talks with pulled out of the auction the morning it was supposed to happen. I thought that was the end of my book-writing chapter. It wasn't. Fast forward to January of this year, one conversation with Michael turned into an idea for a psychological thriller (think Gone Girl meets Severance), and within three hours of posting a single Instagram video announcing it, a literary agency reached out wanting to represent me, before I'd written more than two pages! I get into why that happened, what it says about the power of a platform in 2026, and the very unglamorous reality of book proposals, 43 chapter summaries, and my own "fatal flaw" as a writer (spoiler: I can't write a messy first draft to save my life). But this episode isn't really about publishing logistics. It's about the strange split between the person you think you know from my videos—grounded, married, happy—and the darker…
Sponsors
Labcorp, Spindrift
More episodes of The Real Stuff with Lucie Fink
- “I had a mental breakdown on a yacht in Ibiza.” (Keltie Knight)
- The Woman Who Stole Her GLP-1 From Her Dad's Fridge (Sabrina Chazen)
- Working with my husband (6 month update!)
- Inside our parenting highs and lows (with my husband, Michael)
- I asked Instagram the questions every parent wants to know
- The woman who discovered she was trans at 45
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