This month we’re doing a series to get our listeners in the mindset to write! Once you have a goal and a deadline (last week’s show), the next hurdle you will invariably face is time—lack thereof or mismanagement or both. Don’t worry, this week’s guest, Laura Vanderkam, has got your back. There are such practical tips and helpful reframes in this episode. If you’re not planning to write with us in January, maybe this will help you venture to give it a shot. You can write in the nooks and crannies. You can make the very best use of time confetti. You can do the things you say you want to do—if you change how you look at how much time you have and plan accordingly. You can, you can, you can.

Laura Vanderkam is the author of several time management and productivity books, including the forthcoming Big Time: A Simple Path to Time Abundance (May 5, 2026), along with Tranquility by Tuesday, Juliet’s School of Possibilities, Off the Clock, I Know How She Does It, What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, and 168 Hours. Her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Fortune. She is the host of the podcast Before Breakfast and the co-host, with Sarah Hart-Unger, of the podcast Best of Both Worlds. She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and five children, and blogs at LauraVanderkam.com.

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Through the month of December, Memoir Nation podcast is hosting a series called JanYourStory Prep to get listeners ready and excited to participate in our January writing challenge to write 500 words a day every day in January. Inspired by Grant’s 12 years as Executive Director of NaNoWriMo, JanYourStory is for memoirists, but anyone can join this free challenge. Instead of writing 60K words in November as was the case with NaNoWriMo, we’re inviting writers to write 15K words in January. Many of the principles and values of NaNoWriMo are buoying this event, which is why we’re so grateful to have the blessing, support, and wisdom of Chris Baty, who joins the show this week to talk about why writing challenges are helpful and should always be grounded in fun, and what he’s learned about writing and writing in community since he accidentally founded NaNoWriMo in 1999.

Chris Baty’s idea for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) sprang into the world in 1999 with 21 friends writing novels together in the month of November. He watched the event grow to more than 300,000 writers in 90 countries. He’s currently working on a novel about an assistant librarian trying to return a DVD in post-apocalyptic Canada. He’s also the author of No Plot? No Problem! and the co-author of Ready, Set, Novel. In 2025, Chris launched NaNo2 with a group of other volunteers in the wake of NaNoWriMo closing its doors—and he’s happy to take the credit we’re giving him for being the father of it all.

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This week’s Memoir Nation is an onstage interview with Brooke and guest Susan Orlean, author of the new memoir, Joyride. This interview was a LitQuake event that happened in late October in Oakland, California. Susan is a delightful storyteller on the page and on the stage. There are some not-to-be-missed stories about working for Robert Gottlieb and Tina Brown at The New Yorker; what it felt like to have Meryl Streep play her in the movie, Adaptation; and insights about whether or not she could have the career she’s had if she were starting today. Thank you to LitQuake and Susan for allowing us to repurpose this interview—and Happy Thanksgiving week to all.

Susan Orlean is the bestselling author of The Orchid Thief, The Library Book, and eight other works of nonfiction. A longtime staff writer for The New Yorker, she’s known for her vivid storytelling, deep curiosity, and ability to illuminate the extraordinary in the ordinary. Her work has been widely anthologized and adapted for film, including the Oscar-winning Adaptation. She is one of the most influential nonfiction storytellers of our time.

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