Author's Notes with Lula Starling

Books, Creativity, and the Author's Journey

Stories don't begin with finished books.

They begin with questions, observations, strange ideas, creative detours, difficult decisions, and sometimes things a writer can't quite stop thinking about.

Author's Notes with Lula Starling is a conversational podcast about books, creativity, storytelling, independent publishing, creator identity, and the creative life behind the finished work.

Sometimes we talk about writing. Sometimes we talk about publishing. And sometimes we follow a question simply because it is too interesting not to explore.

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Recent Conversations

How Far Is Too Far? | When Fiction Gets Too Real

Writers research real places, beliefs, traditions, symbols, rituals, and practices all the time in the pursuit of believable fiction.

But where is the line between representing something and actually reproducing it?

In this conversation, I explore what happens when fiction incorporates real spells, prayers, rituals, invocations, symbols, or spiritual practices—and whether realism should automatically mean reproducing something exactly as it exists.

There's another layer too: the writer may put the words on the page, but a reader, actor, or audiobook narrator may eventually be asked to say those words aloud.

It's a conversation about research, realism, creative boundaries, belief, consent, and one deceptively simple question:

How far is too far for the sake of fiction?

Listen to the Episode (Available Novemebr 2, 2026). Follow so you don't miss out.

How Real Is Too Real? When the Character Isn't Just a Character

Part One asked what happens when writers reproduce real rituals, words, symbols, or spiritual practices.

But what happens when the character itself may not be fictional to everyone?

Spirits, demons, gods, monsters, folklore figures, and other entities can appear easily inside fiction. Some come from mythology. Some belong to living spiritual traditions. Others are created by writers—although sometimes even something invented can turn out to resemble beliefs or traditions that already exist.

This conversation explores creative responsibility, research, representation, belief, and the difference between borrowing from an idea and bringing something much more specific into a fictional world.

It isn't a debate about what anyone must believe. It's a question for storytellers:

What happens when something you're treating as fictional isn't fictional to someone else?

Listen to the Episode  (Available Novemebr 9, 2026). Follow so you don't miss out.

Is Writer's Block Really a Problem, or Have We Turned It Into One?

What if writer's block doesn't always mean you've run out of ideas?

While thinking about the next book in the Haven Hollow series, I had to admit something: I kept telling myself I was going to return to one particular manuscript, but my creative attention kept going everywhere else.

And yet I was still creating.

That raised a different question. What if you're not creatively blocked at all? What if you're simply blocked from one particular project?

This conversation explores creative redirection, independent-author deadlines, discipline, publishing pressure, and the difference between avoiding difficult work and recognizing that your creative energy has genuinely moved somewhere else.

Sometimes discipline means sitting down and finishing the work.

Sometimes it may be worth asking what your resistance is trying to tell you.

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Inside the Creative Life

Author's Notes looks beyond the finished book and into the creative life behind it: where ideas come from, how stories develop, why writers make certain choices, what happens when creativity changes direction, and how real experiences, research, belief, technology, culture, and imagination find their way into the work.

Conversations may explore writing, fiction, storytelling, independent publishing, creative identity, originality, author life, reader culture, book publishing, creative boundaries, inspiration, and the changing relationship between creativity and technology.

There isn't always a lesson at the end.

Sometimes an interesting question is reason enough to have the conversation.

Explore More from Lula Starling

Explore the Haven Hollow Mysteries

Enter Haven Hollow for atmospheric mystery, quiet suspense, old secrets, and stories designed to pull you into another place for a while.

Browse Lula Starling Books

Explore mysteries, poetry, guided journals, activity books, and other work from Lula Starling

About Lula Starling

Learn more about the stories, experiences, and creative questions behind the books.