The Friction Episode

Here's the full description: What if the thing standing between you and your best work isn't a better template — it's not enough resistance? Amanda Polick has been thinking about friction. Not the kind you eliminate, but the kind you seek out: the static electricity of doing hard things anyway, showing up when it's inconvenient, sitting with a sentence until it finally lands. This episode is a case for why writers who are obsessed with removing every obstacle from their process might be accidentally removing the thing that makes the work worth doing. It starts with her handwriting, which has, by her own admission, become garbage. And it ends somewhere much bigger. In this episode: A Dan Koe post on writing without AI, without templates, and without knowing what you're writing yet — and why it stopped her cold Why a template is only valuable after you've sent hundreds of terrible versions first, and what we lose when we skip that part What C.S. Lewis, dense reading, and the lost art of wrestling with a text have to do with becoming a better writer Why she deliberately packed her calendar to the point of hair-on-fire panic, and what she learned from it Poetry as a friction practice: sitting for hours with three sentences, waiting for the fourth to arrive The difference between doing something and doing it done well, and why writers who care about their work feel that gap viscerally The question she's sitting with, and leaving with you, is this: what would it look like to let yourself be a little more uncomfortable? Not in a punishing way. In a this is where the real thing lives way. Perfect for: writers at any stage who are reaching for a template when they should be reaching for a pen, creators who feel the pull toward easy and are suspicious of it, and anyone who's been wondering why the work feels hollow when it comes too fast. Find Amanda: @amandapolick | amandapolick.com

You can listen to The Friction Episode online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Friction Episode is an episode from Babe Cave by Babe Cave.

This episode is 22:15 long.

This episode was published on Apr 8, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Babe Cave when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.