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I’m Kat! Professional Storyteller & Neurodivergent Creative

Here to help you vanquish those story construction obstacles, slay that imposter syndrome clawing at the back of your brain & stomp boredom flat with heart-pounding Boys Love fiction. Join the Saga and choose your inbox obsession, whether it’s helpful advice to get your writing unstuck or an episode of my weekly Boys Love Fantasy series to devour during your coffee break.

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‘Let’s face it, we all want to be that writer speedily banging out words like they’re possessed by a muse. But sometimes we’re like, “Words. Words would be nice.”’ — Kat Vancil, “The dreaded Blank Page Syndrome”, The Storytellers Saga
Featured Post

The dreaded Blank Page Syndrome 😱

KAT VANCIL THE STORYTELLER'S SAGA QUEST 64 Well hello there, Reader! Right before we kicked off our bi-monthly D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) game this past Saturday, our friend asked me for some storytelling advice. “You’ve had writer’s block before, right? So how did you handle it?” She looked beyond frustrated and a bit defeated. But she’s far from alone in that regard. Because if you type “writer’s block” into Google you’ll get about 18,500,000 results. No joke. So clearly a huge amount of...

6 months ago • 3 min read
‘Perfection is an illusion. It’s an armor we tell ourselves we need when we’re uncertain or afraid to move forward.’ — Kat Vancil, “She took the midnight train”, The Storytellers Saga

KAT VANCIL THE STORYTELLER'S SAGA QUEST 86 2 years ago, Reader, I arrived at the famous Jack London Square on a chilly Friday night. Or as chilly as the Bay Area ever really gets. It’s snowed here exactly one day in my entire life and I wouldn’t even say that really counted. The closest we get is hail and that’s pretty random. Everything was going well. The train was on time. We were standing at the right pole (trains have “poles” instead of “gates” unlike planes, if you’ve never ridden one)....

16 days ago • 4 min read
‘THE ULTIMATE TIME SAVERS - 3 FREE tools you can use right now as a storyteller’ — Kat Vancil, “A feast of FREE tools for you”, The Storytellers Saga

KAT VANCIL THE STORYTELLER'S SAGA QUEST 85 Well hello there, Reader, While everyone else has got Black Friday Deals for you and whatnot, I thought I’d share 3 (mostly FREE) tools I’m grateful for instead. Scrivener Since 2010, I’ve done all my story writing exclusively in this program designed by a UK company Literature & Latte. Hands down, it’s the best writing program I’ve worked with and I’ve never considered switching to anything else. I use it for everything. Story creation, daily prompt...

23 days ago • 4 min read
‘From an alien’s perspective, humans are just plain weird. We murder trees, slice them up, tattoo things on their skin, store them like trophies on shelves of their bones in houses made of their skeletons.’ — Kat Vancil, “But what if no one likes it?”, Th

KAT VANCIL THE STORYTELLER'S SAGA QUEST 84 But what if no one likes it? It’s a common fear among newbie storytellers,Reader. It’s ingrained right down to the bones. Like showing up to the first day of school and getting mocked for your hair or backpack or glasses. That fear of being singled out is at the very heart of what it is to be human. We want to blend into the herd, the pack, it’s how we stay safe. It’s how we keep from getting eaten. But…the point of art—of storytelling—IS to stand...

29 days ago • 3 min read
‘If you’re feeling overwhelmed or disillusioned, you’re NOT alone. It’s OKAY. Your feelings ARE valid. Whether it’s rage, or numbness, or the desire to eat your body weight in lavender honey ice cream.’ — Kat Vancil, “It’s perfectly okay to NOT be okay”,

KAT VANCIL THE STORYTELLER'S SAGA QUEST 83 It’s perfectly okay to NOT be okay right now, Reader. Because the outside world is A LOT at the moment. The implosion of NaNoWriMo. The banning and destruction of all we hold dear in this world. The dystopian fascist hellscape that America has become. It’s enough to make you want to crawl under a blanket and hibernate until 2028. Trust me, Reader, if you’re feeling overwhelmed or disillusioned, you’re not alone. It’s okay. Your feelings are valid....

about 1 month ago • 2 min read
‘What if “what you know” isn’t that exciting? I mean we all can’t be secret agents and NASA scientists, can we?’ — Kat Vancil, “Write this?! But my life’s so boring”, The Storytellers Saga

KAT VANCIL THE STORYTELLER'S SAGA QUEST 82 What does it truly mean to “Write what you know”, Reader? Do they mean write a story about an office worker in purchasing who watches a few hours of streaming TV a night with his wife and cat on the couch? Or a retired stay-at-home mom who now spends way too many hours reading social media posts and buying gifts for the grandkids? Or a former picture book illustrator who has never lived further than an hour from where she was born? Click to watch the...

about 2 months ago • 2 min read
‘No one in Gothic Fiction has a happy backstory. Every Legendary Character in a Gothic story already starts out in a state of wanting to return to a time in the past when things were better for them, personally.’ — Kat Vancil, “In the mood to write someth

KAT VANCIL THE STORYTELLER'S SAGA QUEST 81 Is it just me, Reader, or does this time of year put you in the mood to write something spooky? Maybe it’s the music I have running in the background while I work. 🎶 Or the fact that I just binge-watched like 5 episodes of Agatha All Along. 🧙♀️ Or the fact that I’m attending a wedding on Halloween and the invite says dress in your costumed best. (I’m going as Persephone goddess of the Greek underworld and my husband is going as a stylish plague...

2 months ago • 3 min read
‘Who knows, that little plot bunny could become your next great series if you’re not running after it like a crazy person with a hatchet.’ — Kat Vancil, “NOOO! Not another plot bunny!”, The Storytellers Saga

KAT VANCIL THE STORYTELLER'S SAGA QUEST 80 I see things like this every day on Threads, Reader! “I wrote 5K words today. But for something I’m not even working on.😭 ” “I'm supposed to be working on my WIP, but I started another new story. Again.” “Brain you’re being SUPER unhelpful! We’re supposed to be working on THE book! You should not be feeding me M/M fanfic for the anime we just watched!” Does any of this sound familiar? If it does, then you know we’re talking about plot bunnies, side...

2 months ago • 3 min read
‘Dark Fantasies are the sort of stories where the main character can be a terrible person. They can frequent brothels. They can curse and drink and get absolutely covered in monster guts and it doesn’t feel out of character at all.’ — Kat Vancil, “But wha

KAT VANCIL THE STORYTELLER'S SAGA QUEST 79 Well hello there, Reader! While talking to a friend about her upcoming novel, we got into a discussion about Cozy Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, and if there existed such a thing as Dark Cozy Fantasy. Well, one of my upcoming stories—Seventh Swan—is exactly that. It’s a cozy slice-of-life where two young guys run a bakery in a fantasy kingdom’s capital. But also one of them spent a couple hundred years forcibly transformed into a swan 🦢 and might have been...

3 months ago • 4 min read
‘Just to be very clear, you’re still a REAL published author no matter how it happens.’ — Kat Vancil, “You’re not a ‘real’ author”, The Storytellers Saga

KAT VANCIL THE STORYTELLER'S SAGA QUEST 78 Maybe you saw this yesterday, Reader, while scrolling Threads? I mean it had already gained nearly 40K views by the time I clipped this pic. My dude, you just went viral on Threads in the worst possible way. And now all of writer and author Threads is coming for you…and Instagram too. 😬 He’s wrong BTW. And just to be very clear, you’re still a REAL published author no matter how it happens. If your story is trad pubbed… …you’re a real published...

3 months ago • 4 min read
‘In this age of generative AI, real artists have to constantly prove we actually created our work.’ — Kat Vancil, “I’ve always wanted to do this but”, The Storytellers Saga

KAT VANCIL THE STORYTELLER'S SAGA QUEST 77 Well hello there, Reader, The festival this past weekend in my hometown was a blast! We lucked out with the perfect fall weather—a pleasant mid-70s with a light breeze. I signed books, my husband unveiled two new coloring books and explained D&D to bright-eyed festival goers, and we gained plenty of new ideas for next time. But amidst the normal questions, meet-ups with old friends, and befriending of a murder of crows—there was the same wistful...

3 months ago • 2 min read