Romance Awaits You in Paris with Dufflyn Lammers

On this week’s episode, Publisher and CEO ⁠Kristen McGuiness⁠ sits down with author and Paris-based love coach ⁠Dufflyn Lammers⁠ to explore her journey as a creative and coach. They dive into the world of writing, love, and creativity, and learn about her upcoming book, You Had Me at Bonjour, ⁠Story Magic Paris, and the ⁠RiseEA publishing⁠ experience for Dufflyn’s memoir.

Automatically Transcribed Transcript

Welcome to Write Now, a podcast from Rise Literary about what it takes to write the good fight.

Welcome to this week's episode of Write Now with author Dufflyn Lammers. Dufflyn is a Paris-based coach, writer, and speaker known as the American love coach in Paris. Her writing on relationships has appeared in the LA Times Business Insider and on Russell Simmons' Deaf Poetry on HBO.

Her one-woman show Discovered debuted on the West End in London in 2018, and was nominated for the Duende Award at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. She co-edited chorus with Saul Williams and Aja Monet with Simon and Schuster in 2012, and is a certified professional coach and IPF facilitator, offering one-to-one coaching remotely for women all over the world who want to end the struggle to love and be loved. She has the best Frida Kahlo costume you've ever seen, a self-described hyena laugh can often be found, wandering the streets of Paris searching for Hellman's mayonnaise.

Good luck. Catch her presentation of Attachment Games at the Global Exchange Conference in 2026 in Las Vegas. And I'm very excited to say Dufflyn is also the newest Rise Literary author whose debut book, You Had Me at Bonjour, will be published in June of 2026 with Rise Literary.

And we are so excited to announce that here. And so excited to be doing this book with you, Dufflyn. So welcome to Write Now.

Thank you so much. What a gorgeous introduction. And I'm so excited to be working with you too.

Well, it's been a long time coming. Dufflyn and I have known each other for eons at this point. I always remember actually like that coffee we had in Atwater in Los Angeles a billion years ago.

And I had just moved back from Paris where I had done a master's program. And you were heading to Paris. And I remembered having like a very brief like just chatting about living in Paris and the community there, which was so exciting when I first read Dufflyn's draft.

I was like, I know everybody in your book because they're my friends.

Oh, yeah. My god, that seems like so long ago. It's been nine years now that I've been in Paris.

Crazy.

It's unreal. And we've come so far together since then.

I know. Well, it was so exciting getting to be a part of your book. So I'd love for you to share a little bit more about what is You Had Me at Bonjour, what motivated you to write it and what that process looked like, even just writing those first drafts, you know, even before it got to me and we began working on it together.

Yeah. So it's the very unlikely love story of a failing actress who comes to Paris and falls in love with a French outlaw and then sort of has to figure out how far is she willing to go for love, but also how can she find herself and her way back to herself inside that love in Paris and with this very unlikely gentleman. So I started writing it actually during that time when I saw you and I was coming to Paris, I came here for a summer.

I was working on a different book at the time. And one day I was lost near the Opera and I asked a handsome Frenchman for directions. And we started dating over that summer.

And then we were, you know, I remember I went home back to Los Angeles and he called me on the phone one day and he said, you have to come back. And I said to Paris and he said to me. And I was like, well, how can you say no to that?

You know? So I did. I started coming for 90 days at a time.

And then I would go back to LA for 90 days. And then I kept doing that for three years until I got caught because I wasn't supposed to be doing Airbnb with my subletted apartment and I got busted. But in the meantime, you know, I fell in love with Paris as much as I fell in love with him.

And so I started writing these essays and it was just sort of one moment at a time, but it was happening at the same time that I was falling in love with this person. So it really is the chronicle of a really difficult relationship. I mean, you said to me many times when we were workshopping certain chapters, this relationship shouldn't work on paper, but it does.

Yeah, and still does.

And still does, 12 years later.

I mean, I will say this and I'm so excited to publish your book for so many reasons, but Ray is going to crack up as I drop Heated Rivalry. Yet again, is that like, it's like I can't get through a day. I'm actually over it, you guys, I am.

But I will say there's something so wonderful about a romance with a happy ending. And I don't think there's like no spoiler in that. Like there's such a joy as a busy woman whose life is like every day is like, is it going to be a happy ending, right?

Like, is the bill going to get paid? Is the kid going to get picked up on time? Is the water going to be turned on so I can take a shower today, right?

Like, life is just consistently throwing like curveballs and hard times and like questionable outcomes into our path. And so there's something I think for the nervous system that is so stabilizing when we get to read a story that actually turns out well. And because, yes, in your story, like, there are so many challenges, there are so many twists and turns and like, this should not work, right?

I mean, and I'd love to dig into your love coaching here because it is so ironic, this is what you do for a living, right? It's like, you know, how many times do we end up in relationships that are bad on paper, but they're also like bad in real life, right? It's like, oh, yeah, we don't make sense.

But actually, we just that's because we don't actually make sense, right? And you were in one of these like, you were in one of these like rare, phenomenal relationships that like didn't make sense on paper, but actually did make sense in real life. And like, and not that that made it easy, right?

You were overcoming so many different things, but love ruled. And so, I mean, I would love to hear from like even a romance perspective. And I'm, I'm going to bring in, we're doing a fantastic retreat in Paris in June, on June 5th and 6th, called Story Magic.

And Dufflyn is helping us to put it on, but is going to be part of our second day of like really bringing the romance into your writing. Because I think no matter what kind of story you were writing, there's always the recognition that every story at its heart is a love story. And I think love story is so important, you know, in terms of how we write, how we create, and where we build our creativity out of.

So what was it like for you even writing this book as a love coach, but also being in this relationship and sort of recognizing what works, what doesn't work?

Such a good question. Honestly, there were many times where I would write something. And as a memoirist, I want to tell the truthiest truth I can tell, right?

And so I'm letting it all hang out. And then I would get scared and I would be like, well, what if my clients read this? Honestly, there were moments, right?

And what happened over time was that I started to see, because there are lots of relationship gurus out there. And you watch these people on Instagram, or you hear their podcast or you read their book, and you think, well, they just know something that I don't know. And I don't play that way.

I don't know anything that anybody else doesn't know. What I'm willing to do and what my partner is willing to do is show up and do the work. We just keep showing up for each other and for ourselves.

And that's largely what has made it work. Now, I will say the French are truly the most romantic people I've ever met in my life. But that is actually true.

I mean, he brings me more flowers than all my other boyfriends put together, for real. And I think that that's true just about French culture in general. There is something incredibly romantic about Paris.

When we do the retreat in June, there are these different experiences that the women can have. And I'm going to take them on a romance adventure, where we're going to shop for perfume and shop for lingerie. And there is something, like, even without a partner, that's incredibly romantic about Paris, and just the light and all of those things.

So there also was this element, as I was writing the book, setting it in Paris, that I was like, is this about Paris or is this about him? So I had to kind of check myself around fantasy, because as a coach, your adversity is your advice. So all of the traps that the other women fall into, I fall into all those same traps.

And what I get to do in this book and in my work is go back down into the cave and say, okay, put your hand here, and now put your foot here, and this is how we climb out together. But I'm getting to do that on the page in real time, exactly as it actually happened. So for me, it was one of those pieces of work that was incredibly healing to write.

And I don't know if I would have made it, if we would have made it without this book, to be honest.

Oh, I love that. It's so meta. Well, and I think that's what, I mean, I've loved this book obviously since I started working on it with you.

So to get to publish it, I mean, it's why, like I wouldn't let you go. Like I kept being like, okay, let's, okay, let's figure it out this way. Okay, let's figure it out this way because I'm just supposed to publish something of this book because I do think it's so beautiful.

And what I love about it is that for all the single ladies out there, you know, it is this thing about sometimes we have to put ourselves on the line. And I think, you know, I'm not a single lady, although, you know, I might be, but I mean, but I've been one, right? And I wrote a dating memoir many, many years ago in 2010.

And I think that, I mean, dating has become so different. I mean, 16 years, my goodness. But also at any period when you're dating, there are all these rules on like what you're supposed to do and how you're supposed to protect yourself and the rules that you're supposed to, and the game you're supposed to play and all of this.

And sometimes it is just jumping in with both feet and being like, you know what? Like, I'd rather, you know, I'd rather risk drowning and get to love than sit on the shore and wonder whether it was worth the swim, you know? And I think that for so many of us, we've gotten so into protective mode that we actually are missing out on some of the greatest of human experiences.

And I think there is something about being okay with just being messy, and just being like, fuck it, like, let's jump in and try to figure it out, right? And like, and maybe it doesn't work, and maybe you end up heartbroken, and that's okay. Like, I was actually reading this morning, Ethan Hawke was like interviewed on the Oscars red carpet, and he said, you know, the best experience that one can have is being the person who's the most in love.

Because even though you might get your heart broken, it means you got the experience of being truly alive. And I was like, I know, I was like, oh, someone said, like, you just came up with that, you know? I was like, I mean, seriously, Ethan.

But I think it's so true, and I think so many of us are so afraid to be the one who's the most in love, who's so afraid to be the one that's like, you know what, fine, I'm gonna move to France, right? Like, the one that's gonna be like, okay, this is crazy, and I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't have a job, and I don't know how I'm gonna make this work, and yet look at what comes out on the other side of that risk. And then you wrote about it, it's so beautiful and funny, and I do love a solid Paris memoir on any day of the week.

So you've done all that and more. And so I am so excited for everyone to read it. It comes out, we have to figure out an exact date, but I think it's gonna be June 4th, because it's a Thursday, and that's when our e-books come out.

And then we're gonna be celebrating on the 5th and the 6th. And we are publishing it through our Rise EA imprint, which is e-book and audio book. And I'm gonna share a little bit about that.

And then I can have Dufflyn share a little bit about her decision to do it. But the exciting part about Rise EA is that for authors that have been trying to sell a book, and look, book publishing is a bitch, right? And I don't mean that in the best way, because being a bitch is an awesome thing to be.

Amen. Yeah, it can also be very hard and territorial, and there's a lot of gatekeeping. And to be fair, it's also that there are only so many slots for so many millions of people.

And so the competition is so high. And I always say I've written book publishing since 1999, long before there was social media. And even back in that day, like it wasn't that anybody got a book deal.

Like it was people who already had like massive platforms in their own way. They were public speakers, they had a TV show, they had a really big byline. Like that's who was getting book deals.

The only difference is with social media, they found a really easy way to quantify platforms. And so if you don't have a massive following, and now like a massive following used to be like 50,000 and above, now it's like half a million and above, just because it's been so easy for people to like get big followings. And so they really want to see like you've got a really big community that you already have a built in like audience that's going to buy this book.

And if they don't feel that an author has that, they just recognize the amount of work it takes to build it. And so for us, our idea is like, hey, let's build that together. Let's help you to take your fantastic book and story, and let's build a platform for it.

Let's use the book as the platform. And for us, the ebook audiobook option, which is a lot less expensive for us to produce because we're not publishing like a printed book, which we do our distribution with Simon and Schuster. And that can be really costly because we have to print those books in advance, right?

Like we're not just printing on demand, so we have to order 2,000 copies and print 2,000 books. So the idea of an ebook audiobook is that you're getting the value of getting your book out there, but also that audiobook, especially for books like Dufflyn's, like your book is so made for audio and you're an actress. I mean, can it get any better?

But we're really looking at audio as the pathway to film and TV. Because if you make audio cinematic, if you make it something that people, oh my God, they hear it in their ears and they want to see it on their screens, there's such a natural sell for a book into TV and film from there. And then I promise you, a hardcover publisher is going to come a call in, right?

It's so much easier to get a hardcover deal then. And then that hardcover publisher is going to buy back your ebook and audiobook rights, and there's just more to make on the back end. So I just think it's like a fantastic way for authors who are struggling to get a hardcover deal to get that book out there, to grow the audience with the book, to get that audiobook popping and selling, and even get some film and TV interest, that then leads to a hardcover sale.

And so I'm super excited. We're launching our first one on March 26th with Elena Ozone's Tizzy, which is like the exact same idea. And we're so thrilled to be having yours come out on June 4th.

And we're going to be celebrating it at Story Magic. But first, I would love to hear about your process of trying to get a book sold and why you finally agreed to all my annoying nudges.

So, I've been going sort of that traditional route of building my byline, publishing personal essays, and I've had a career as a writer for a long time now. And I've had an agent for a long time, right? So my agent, this is the second book with this agent.

And she's wonderful. The first book was more of a personal development book called Wake Up Juliet, which we worked on the proposal together. And that one didn't sell.

So, then she started pitching the memoir, and she's been out pitching the memoir. And as you know, right now, I mean, I'm looking at Publishers Marketplace, I'm looking at what Jane Friedman is saying. And it's very clear, it's like 1%, you know, of memoirs that get written, get sold.

And I've been working on this book far too long to let it just kind of sit on my shelf or on my couch or, and never get read and never get heard. So when you came up with this idea, you know what really clicked in my head was, I had this thing in the back of my mind, like the next thing that comes out, right? There was, you know, there's Instagram, there's TikTok, there's Facebook, then Substack came out.

And there are sort of these different media opportunities. And I was like, the next one that happens, I'm going to jump on that, the new thing, right? And when you said this, I was like, this is it.

This is it, right? Audiobooks are the way of the future. And as you said, I'm built for it.

Having done spoken word and acting and public speaking and all of that, I speak enough French. We'll see if I can do Benjamin's accent.

I'm going to love that.

It'll be super fun. And also with you, because you've been with me all the way through this book. There's nobody else that I would want to be my editor, to be honest.

Well, I'm so excited. I'm so excited to finally get to see it in print. And yes, and I'm so thrilled about the audio.

And I do think that, you know, I mean, audio isn't just the future, it is the present, right? It's happening right now. I think as we just did with Tizzy, we also layered in a lot more, like, we layered in some music, some cinematic, some street scene.

Like, we're trying to make audio more cinematic, so it's not just disembodied voice, but also really gives a sense of, like, tone and space and atmosphere to the book. So we're really excited to do that with you as well. You know, the author Tembi Locke just did this with her most recent, she just did a book that was just only, she only did it in audio.

And it was set, I think, primarily in Sicily, and so she brought in, like, Sicilian street sounds, and I was like, oh my god, Tembi, I love that so much. I think that's such a fantastic way to, like, make audio more granular and offer it, again, this really nice bridge into TV and film. And she's thinking the same things, right?

Like, how do we set things up for adaptation? And I see that so much with You Had Me at Bonjour. I absolutely see the TV and film opportunities for it.

I just think it's like, it will make the best TV show or movies, which movies are coming back, because now it's like cheaper to make movies than TV. So, you know, it was like, wait a sec. And I do think there's just such a fantastic world for it.

But also I think there's so much lead in to your work as a book and love coach. So I would love to chat a little bit about that. And I really want to talk about what we should do together in Paris.

So just so everybody who's listening knows, Story Magic again is on Friday and Saturday, June 5th and 6th in Paris. And we're doing it at the Odeon Theatre, which is just so magical. I can't say enough about the theatre.

And then we're doing it in this beautiful Salon Roger Blen, which Dufflyn went and visited in person for us. And I think was definitely like, what is this? So it's so pretty.

But also we're really talking about this idea of love story and, and how we romance our creativity. Friday morning, just so everybody who's listening is gonna open with a creativity coaching session with our Chief Creative Officer, Viana Novus. We're gonna really dive into the somatics of storytelling, how storytelling is such an embodied experience.

And I do think it goes back to this idea of Eros, right? I've often said as a mother and as a creative that I often feel like I tap the same well for my creativity, right? It's like this same vat of energy that I pull my motherhood out of, I pull my storytelling out of, but I also pull romance out of, right?

And that's all Eros, that is all Eros. And I think that is the embodiment of creativity. So we're really gonna spend Friday morning connecting into that Eros.

Then we're gonna send everybody out into Paris for two hours of integrated writing. And then we're gonna bring everybody back in for live one-on-one feedback and coaching. I often, and that's with me, which Dufflyn has been through.

I'm a very gentle and loving editor. And I really believe that, like, that editorial process is really about feeding the energy well. Like, it's about giving, replenishing it, right?

We pull from it as we write, but we actually put back into it as we receive feedback. That's about restoring that sense of creative potential and what we can do. And then on Friday night, as Dufflyn so beautifully described, we're gonna be doing four different adventures that folks can sign up for.

So they can do their romantic night with Dufflyn. They can do an artistic night with Vianna going to an art gallery, and it's gonna be a sensorial, somatic experience at the art gallery. They can do a theatrical night with me.

We're gonna go see Scenes of a Marriage, Saint-Domingue at, I'm not even pronouncing that right. My French is terrible. It's gonna be me and Paris for four days just massacring the French language, okay?

Just so everybody knows, that's what I do. I once got into a fight. I was once, when I lived in Paris, I was walking down the street, and this old man, I was looking at my phone, and he was looking at his phone.

And we both like kind of almost bumped into each other, and I was like, oh, excusez-moi. And then he started yelling at me in French, and he said like something en salope. Yeah, he called me a bitch.

And I literally turned around, and I was like, vous êtes en salope, which I always laugh at, because I literally used the formal you. And then I turned bitch into a masculine term.

Vous êtes en salope. You are a bitch.

You are a male bitch.

Let me give you something to say instead. If it happens again, because it probably will, because it's France. Yeah.

You can say, mange tes morts.

Mange tes morts.

Mange tes morts. It means eat your death. It's a gypsy curse.

And that will get them. Yes.

Mange to morts. Not, vous êtes en salope.

Although that might be the best thing I've ever heard.

Pardon me, sir. You're a male bitch. So that's what it's gonna be like.

It's four days of me just massacring the French language. But in addition, also taking people to a play at the Odeon. And our fourth and final adventure that night is with Elena Ozzoni, the author of Tizzy, who's gonna be taking people on a gastronomic experience in Paris.

I'm sure she's gonna make it 90s style because Tizzy is set in college in 1995. So if Ani DeFranco isn't woven into the night somehow, like, forgive us all. And then Saturday.

So I'd love to chat about Saturday because Saturday we actually have not yet figured out because we weren't sure what we wanted to do. And all I know is that I wanted to include you, Dufflyn. So I would love to talk about how you work with women and especially this idea of creativity and romance and eros.

And I mean, I don't know, let's just workshop it here. What would you, what do you think you'd like to do if we gave you an hour or two with our group?

I mean, listen, I'm a Tantrika. So, uh, so coming from when you're talking about embodiment and I learned that a long time ago, I always meditate before I write. Yeah, because I need to drop into my body.

And then I also need to be connected to the genie in the corner, the cosmos, whatever it is out there, that that creativity, the source comes from. And when I'm in that place, I write way better than myself, way better. I did a thing the other night with our mutual friend, Jen Pasteloff, and it was just little writing prompts.

And I'm not even thinking, it's just coming through me. And it's so much better than if I sat there and worked really hard on the page. So I think there's opportunity in that.

I think there's creativity in that. And I think there's romance in that. There's, right?

Because I'm romancing the words. I'm romancing the page when I allow it to expand out, when I allow it to be bigger than right here, right now. And that's the thing, for me, with my book in my life and in my creativity, that's always like, I walk this line between fantasy and reality, right?

And the thing that I came to, this was the crux of that book, which I realize is kind of the crux of my life right now, is that the opposite of fantasy is not reality, it's intimacy. And when we get that, when we get that on the page, that's what people want. That's what I want anyway, when I'm reading a book.

I want to get closer to an experience, and like you were talking about, of being fully alive. That's what I want. And that's what Tantra is about.

So if we were to do, I'll come up with something. I mean, I think there's a lot of different exercises that we can do, but it's about spontaneity and play, right? And connecting to something bigger than yourself.

Yeah, I love that. Well, it's funny, because our idea is that the idea is for folks to be inspired to either start their story or finish their book. So that is the goal.

Like we were actually talking about that yesterday, like because I really want people to feel that they're and change their life in two days. Like, and I do feel that way. I feel like if you come to this retreat, your life will absolutely be changed in two days.

And I don't say that, like a lot of our retreats are more like, they're about book publishing. We bring in agents or producers. It's all about meeting gatekeepers and also just learning.

You know, basically, I always joke all of our, like, one day book coaching experiences are ultimately to show you how hard it is to be published by traditional publishing. So you just come work with us anyway. But we're not lying.

Like, I literally bring book agents and all the book agents, and I bring book publish. I like, we have an editor from Hachette that comes every year to our stuff. And she's like, I don't know, just go publish with Rise.

Like, don't, she's like, this is really hard over here, folks. Like, go have a fun experience, you know? And I'm like, we don't pay her to say that.

But this is way different, because this is really like this, you know, just bubble bath of creativity. Like, and I do think it is, it's deeply somatic. I want people to really walk out of it feeling like, wait, writing a book is not this hard or scary thing.

It should actually be this really fun thing. And as people who've written books, like the best time you might ever have with your book is when you're writing that first draft. When you actually find the spigot where it begins to pour out of you and you just can't stop and you can't wait to get home and write the next story and you're thinking about, you're driving in the car and you're like, it's like fantasy, right.

It's like when you're, you know, like when you're dreaming about a guy, you know, and you're imagining what's gonna happen and, oh my god, I'm gonna see him here and this is what I'm gonna wear and this is what we're gonna say and this is what we're gonna do, right? And you're like, you build a whole fantasy world, but you get to do that and turn it into a book. And I think there's something that's so beautiful about that experience that sometimes we lose sight of because we're like, hey, I want to write this thing, but it's really stressful and how do I have the time for it?

And it's like anything that becomes really juicy and fun, like it just becomes you can't wait to do it. It's not how do I have the time? It's like, oh, the time just suddenly expands and it's there for it.

And so I want people to walk out feeling like they just expanded time because they have the space to do the thing they love. So I love the idea of doing some fast prompts with you and just, we'll have this longer kind of integrated moment on Friday and then on Saturday. Like I really want people to walk out with the piece that they're like, they're like, yeah, that's it.

Like that's the fire. And I want to keep that going and I want to leave here and keep writing. And so the great retreat ends on Saturday night with a fantastic little cocktail party.

And we're going to have a professional photographer there. And we're going to ask everybody to dress up in their fancy garb and get a beautiful editorial Parisian shot. Like they're in the 1920s and not in the 2020s.

We didn't get a good period. Our 2020s, there was no roaring 20s in our 20s. You know, it's just been shit.

It's just been hard times. So we're going to pretend we're in a different pre-Depression era than our current pre-Depression era. And we're going to doll it up and have a fantastic celebration of beauty and romance.

And You Had Me at Bonjour that we're going to be celebrating over those two days.

I'm super excited for it. And I loved you said the thing about the bathtub, right? Because then I was thinking about, I had this experience on a tantra retreat once I was assisting and we had this exercise at the end where we were all, there was like 20 of us in groups of two or three, we went separately to different little areas.

It was this huge complex, right? And we were to wash each other. You could wear your swimsuit and there was nothing inappropriate about it.

You had consent, you had boundaries, right? But I'm tell you what, at the end, we all somehow ended up in one bathtub together. It makes me want to cry.

There were like 15 people in the bathtub at some stage of undress, just singing like spiritual songs and washing each other's hair. And it was one of the most beautiful experiences. But that's what I want for this to be, only write, only with words.

And that we get to create something like that together. Well, you just don't know what's going to happen.

No, you don't.

Hey, who knows? We could all end up in the bathtub.

I mean, I will say this, we are renting this Airbnb, and we're going to see if we can host the party there because it's so beautiful and it would photograph so well. And it's got a courtyard and it's a gorgeous space. It has this really big living room.

But the funniest is the bathrooms all look like you need to be doing like a massive amount of cocaine in them. So, look, anything can happen, people, okay? I mean, Dufflyn and I are both a billion years sober, but like anything can happen.

We might all end up in the shower together. But if anything, I definitely get that feeling of, yes, the beauty of this retreat, it's called Story Magic for a reason, that like we don't know the magic that's going to happen yet. And that's what magic is.

Like you don't know what you're going to get going into it. All we know is that we're all going to come out different on the other side. So I'm so excited to be doing your book.

I'm so excited to be publishing it at Story Magic, and I can't wait to get started. So without further ado, because Dufflyn and I have work to do, as soon as this podcast ends, we're going to be talking timeline and Kickstarter. And I will finish with that.

If you are listening, we will be launching a Kickstarter. Part of our Rise EA program is that folks can fund their books through Kickstarter, which is so exciting. We use Kickstarter to fund all of Rise Literary.

So we began this company exactly three years ago with a Kickstarter campaign, and that's how we opened our doors. I can't say enough about Kickstarter. They are fantastic partners.

They have a whole publishing side that they just focus on book publishing. And we are so excited to launch Dufflyn's book through Kickstarter. It's a great way to get the word out about your book, to get everybody excited, to give them amazing rewards that they're definitely get with Dufflyn.

The beauty of working with people who are coaches is that the rewards are so freaking cool. So we're going to be dialing all of that in and getting Dufflyn's Kickstarter going in the next few weeks. And we are just so excited.

We can't wait to do this with you, and we can't wait to have your Book It Story Magic.

I'm super excited too. And in terms of the things that I can give away, right? Like, I don't know much about Kickstarter, I'll be honest.

But I know a lot of the other platforms because I've tried them all. So on Kajabi, for example, I have a bunch of digital courses that I can give away. There's one called Boundaries Are the New Black.

There's one called Heartbreak to Heal. There's one called Love Him or Leave Him. So no matter what your problem is, I've got solutions for you.

But then I think I'd also love to give away, I've been doing this new thing in Paris, which I absolutely love. I've done it with a few of my high-end clients. And what I do is I call it guerrilla matchmaking.

So I go to their hotel, I give them a really embodied experience. So we do some tantra exercises, we do some movement, helping them get really fully in their body. So when they're feeling super juicy, then I take them out to a super classy place.

Like we did the bar at the Hôtel Crion, which you may know.

Oh my God, I want to do this with you when I'm in Paris.

I know, right? It's so lovely. And I mean, the man sitting next to me was a full-on billionaire.

He's Keanu Reeves, this is his neighbor back in Los Angeles, weirdly. So we go out and I help them flirt and just meet men. And it's absolutely extraordinary.

The funny thing is, like, I'm not actually doing anything there. What I'm doing is that the work that we do before we go out is what makes them just feel absolutely magnetic and gorgeous. And if we've already done some lingerie and perfume shopping, God knows what could happen.

Oh, my God. I'm going back to Paris just for that, Dufflyn. I can't wait.

Oh, we're going to have so much fun. So if you want to have fun with us, come to Story Magic, and we'll be launching the Kickstarter soon, where you can access all these amazing rewards from Dufflyn. And I'm just so excited to be doing this with you.

And yay, all around yay. So many links will be coming out shortly, but I'd love to finish the way we finish every single one of our podcasts where we ask our writers for one tip on writing.

Now it's time for just the tip.

I love that.

Okay, let me think for a second. One tip on writing. Sorry, I wasn't expecting that.

Here's where I'm at right now. So I think the tip is don't be afraid to take a risk. I say that because I think maybe like 15 years ago, I wanted to write a memoir about my car accidents, and someone said to me, no one wants to hear about your car accidents, and I regret not doing that.

But I don't do that anymore. So with this book, I like to describe You Had Me at Bonjour as Emily in Paris Meets Alyssa Washuda's White Magic, because it has that element of domestic fabulism and speculative element. And that didn't come into the last draft, you know, to your point of what you were saying before.

We have the beginning of the story, that's starting your story, and then we have finishing your story, right? In the same way, you have a first love, and you have a last love. And finishing your story is also super magical sometimes.

And that might be where the risk comes. You don't know where it's going to happen, but just don't be afraid to take a risk. Whatever it is that you're most scared to do with your book, do it.

I love that. All right, well, let's go take a risk. We're going to do it.

We're going to jump in.

Yeah, we are.

We're going to jump into the bathtub with 15 people, all right? Scrub-a-dub-dub, motherfuckers.

All right. Well, thank you for being here today, Dufflyn. So excited to be doing all the things with you, and we appreciate you being on Write Now.

So for all of you listening, we hope to see you in Paris, and we hope to see you on the Kickstarter very soon.

Merci, a biento.

A biento.

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From Write Now.: Romance Awaits You in Paris with Dufflyn Lammers, Mar 19, 2026
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