Rachael Herron (RH Herron)'s Blog, page 9

Our darling Willie died, suddenly, last week. As I’d mentioned in the post about the brother kitties, he’d had kidney problems in the past. It came roaring back, and within days, he went into renal failure and was gone quickly. I still can’t quite deal with it, honestly. It’s all too much, and I’m beyond heartbroken. 

But you know who’s having the hardest time of all? 

Waylon. 

Waylon is the most loving cat we’ve ever met. He loves to be held upside like a baby and have his head smooshed. He is the opposite of an aloof cat–he comes the instant he’s called. He’s desperate to to cuddle with someone, anyone, every minute of every day. 

Waylon and his dog, Clementine

Waylon is heartbroken. 

His favorite dog died a month ago. 

His littermate brother, the one he’d cuddled for 14 years, died last week. 

Making it worse, Dozy, our last dog, refuses to cuddle with him, getting up and moving every time Waylon tries to sneak up on her in a canoodle attack. 

Waylon: “Wut? I cuddle!” Dozy: “NO EFF YOU VERY MUCH.”

Waylon cries all the time. (He’s always been a VERY vocal cat, yelling when he’s not actively cuddling, but now…) 

We keep wondering if we should just take him with us to New Zealand, but he’s 14, and that would be a 24-hour journey plus two weeks in a cage in quarantine with no cuddles at all. He might not be strong enough to make it, due to his age (though he’s a tough guy and has never had a single health issue except his allergies which make his elbows go bare).

We can’t bear to imagine him crying in a cage, alone for two weeks straight. 

My dog.

We need to find a perfect home for him. 

Ideally, Waylon’s new home would: Have other dogs or cats or both who love snuggle time. (Okay, it doesn’t really matter if they love it. If they’ll stay in place and tolerate cuddles, that’s enough for him.) Or: have a person at home most of the time who wants to snuggle a lot. An older person or a person with disabilities would be lovely. (Be sure there’s someone who can keep his nails trimmed–he can be pointy!) You can’t be lonely when Waylon is around. Or: both! Be in NorCal so we don’t have to put him on a plane. We’ll also consider SoCal at this point. Also, whoever is lucky enough to bring this ultimate love boat into their lives should okay with sound. His yell is loud. He’s slept on the enclosed porch cuddled with his brother for all those years, because 1) both Lala and I are allergic to cats (IRONY) and we can’t have them on our pillows, and 2) I just can’t sleep with him in the main house yelling (that said, the sound of bare feet on carpet wakes me with earplugs in, so I’m a pretty sensitive insomniac). Lala is a sound sleeper and his voice has never bothered her on the other side of the bedroom door. Without his brother, now he’s out on the porch with nothing but a hot water bottle. I cry every night as I tuck him up and so does he.  

Here’s how he sounds:

What Waylon Comes With: Absolutely vast, deep, unlimited amounts of love. He’s the Mariana Trench of love. Free medical care for life. At his last routine vet visit, the doc said there’s nothing wrong with him, but he’s 14, and we know things change. Free food/flea treatment/treats – we’ll reimburse you for whatever you spend. (Please, for the love of God, don’t let him talk you into buying him a diamond collar.) A Litter Robot 3 – you don’t have to scoop, ever! His favorite snuggli. I’ve written whole books with this little businessman cuddled right here.

Did I mention the love? He loves you already. And he’ll never cost you a dime! 

He started the cuddles young. Here, with Clara.

Okay, that picture kills me. We’ve lost 3 of our 5 pets in the last year of old age, and the assholes who thought it would be a good idea to fill our house with love 15 years ago were IDIOTS. Stagger the ages of your pets, please, for your own mental health.

Yesterday, just before he tried to sneak on top of Dozy who then leapt away

The fact that Waylon has lost both his favorite dog and his only brother this month is killing us. Knowing he’s going to lose us, too? There aren’t enough crying emojis in the world.

The only thing that will make this okay is finding him the perfect docking spot for this little love boat. Are you that person? Please let us know.

The post Waylon Needs Cuddles appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

How do you write dark? Like, REALLY dark? Abigail Dean tells us.

Abigail Dean works as a lawyer for Google, and before that was a bookseller. She lives in London, and is working on her second novel. Girl A is her first novel, just out in the United States after a competitive international auction that saw the book sell in 25 territories. It’s been optioned for TV rights for a limited series with Johan Renck, the Emmy winner from HBO’s critical and commercial hit “Chernobyl,” attached to direct.

How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you’ll gain insight from other writers on how to get in the chair, tricks to stay in it, and inspiration to get your own words flowing. 

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers!

Transcript

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #224 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. And I’m so pleased that you are with me here today to talk to Abigail Dean. Y’all, this book rocked my world. This was such a great book and it was so dark and it got me really excited about reading dark again. You know, 2020 kind of took a little bit of a, you know, the glow off of darkness? Is that a thing? I’m not even going to rerecord this because you understand what I mean. Like, I didn’t really want to read that dark in 2020, but I tell you what, 2021 looking a tiny bit brighter, the tiniest and I’m back into reading dark thriller. So, I will speak to, what’s been going on around here for just a second, and then I want to go back to talking about Abigail Dean before we start talking to her.  [00:01:10] So, personal update around here, I’m just chugging along. It feels really, really great, as I have said multiple times, to be well enough to be back in the chair. I am working on, it feels like a million different projects at once, but I am doing it in big chunks, according to my new schedule, which is just brilliant each day that I’m on. For example, today’s Thursday, talking Thursday. Each day that I’m on, I always decide that it’s my favorite until I get to the next day when I decide that that’s my favorite. So I think that’s a really, really great sign as to how things are going around here. I did finish the read for revision of the Quincy book and I’m plunging tomorrow into starting to write a synopsis of it, which I will use to guide our revision eventually. And I did a bunch of work on this nonfiction book yesterday. Things are just going really well. Knock all the wood that is around. 90 day classes are going great and my students are just kicking ass and they’re getting stuff done and I’m really proud about them. Proud about them? Yes. I’m proud of them as well.[00:02:18] How about you? Are you getting your work done? You are listening to this podcast because you are a writer. I know that. So, if you’re not getting any work done, try to get some done. Just a little bit crappy first drafts are what we make people. That’s what we do. They’re not going to be good. I say this all the time, because it takes a long time for this really, really to sink into people’s brains. It took me, being a professional full-time writer, for years before it sunk into my brain. Oh, that my crappy first drafts, they were never going to be good. I was never going to finally get good enough to make a good first draft. It doesn’t happen. Crappy first drafts are what we do or what 99% of writers do. So, write some crappy first draft words and then tell me about it. Okay. So we’re going to go back to talking about Abigail Dean. This book is called “Girl A” and I talked to her about the prologue, which I thought was fascinating. It’s very short. It’s one page. And I asked her permission to read this to you, and then we’re going to talk about it in the interview and you can see what she does with this, but, oh, it’s good. No spoilers. Again, this is just the first page, prologue of the book. [00:03:44] You don’t know me, but you’ll have seen my face. In the earlier pictures, they bludgeoned our features with pixels right down to our waists. Even our hair was too distinctive to disclose. But the story and his protectors grew weary. And in the danker corners of the internet, we became easy to find. The favored photograph was taken in front of the house on Moorewoods road, early on a September evening. We had filed out and lined up. Six of us, in height order and Noah in Ethan’s arms while father arranged the composition. Little white wraiths squirming in the sunshine. Behind us, the house rested in the last of the day’s light, shadows spreading from the windows and the door. We were still and looking at the camera. It should have been perfect. But just before father pressed the button, Evie squeezed my hand and turned up her face toward me. In the photograph, she’s just about to speak and my smile is starting to curl. I don’t remember what she said, but I’m quite sure that we paid for it later. [00:04:53] Oh, okay. And then the next line, that’s the prologue. The next line is I arrived at the prison in the mid afternoon. Tell me that you would not have to keep reading that. That prologue just knocked me out and I wanted to talk to her about how she came up with it, what it meant to her, how she does this. It’s one of those things that, you know, I went back to kind of take apart. There’s a “sweetness” to it, you know, a childlike sweetness at the end when she’s smiling at her sister, but there’s also that foreboding sense of menace and dread that just hangs over it. I just think she is phenomenal. So let’s leap into the podcast now and you’ll be able to hear me talk with Abigail Dean and, I think you all should read Girl A. Right, I also think you all should be doing your own writing, which is why you’re here while you’re listening. And, I know that you can do it. I know it’s hard and I know that you can do it. All right, happy writing.[00:05:59 Hey, is resistance keeping you from writing? Are you looking for an actual writing community in which you can make a calls and be held accountable for them? Join RachaelSaysWrite, like twice weekly, two hour writing session on zoom. You can bop in and out of the writing room as your schedule needs, but for just $39 a month, you can write up to 4 hours a week. With our wonderful little community, in which you’ll actually get to know your writing peers. We write from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM on Tuesdays and 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM on Thursdays and that’s US Pacific Standard Time. Go to RachaelHerron.com/Write to find out more.

Rachael Herron: [00:06:40] Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show, Abigail Dean. Hello, Abigail. 

Abigail Dean: [00:06:46] Hi, Rachael, thank you so much for having me on as well. 

Rachael Herron: [00:06:49] I was, I was just bending your ear with what I thought about your book, but I want to talk about it a lot more today with a little intro here. Abigail Dean. Wow. I’m very excited. Abigail Dean works as a lawyer for Google, and before that was a bookseller. She lives in London, and is working on her second novel. Girl A is her first novel, just out in the United States after a competitive international auction that saw the book sell in 25 territories. It’s been optioned for TV rights for a limited series with Johan Renck, the Emmy winner from HBO’s critical and commercial hit “Chernobyl,” attached to direct. So, first of all, just, wow, flipping wow, I loved your book, couldn’t put it down, at all. How are you feeling about all of this like, sudden critical, big attention, just blowing up in your face? How does that feel?

Abigail Dean: [00:07:42] So I’m probably just going to sound completely, inarticulate. Because I, like, I don’t know really how I feel like I think I’m still in a bit of a state of shock. And you know, I think the shock is like 90% joyful and 10% terrified, I’d say. Like the best thing is, the characters being out there in the world and people getting to know the characters and, you know, as a reader like of my life, I’ve had known, I have so many relationships with so many characters, you know, you feel like I’ve loved them and I have detested them. And I think that hearing from readers that they have felt that way, about the characters, that’s the best feeling in the world. So yeah, kind of, a lot of joy, and then I think, inevitably a tiny bit of terror because there’s some exposure, of course, in terms of, you know, a small piece of your heart being out there. It’s a strange feeling as well.

Rachael Herron: [00:08:48] And Lex, the main character is so perfectly drawn. And without any spoilers, I will say that at the 25% mark, after we have, I was trying to figure it out as a writer, you know, why did we just go from first person into this third person? Why, why am I, why am I here with this male character? And then, Lex communicates with him at the very end of that scene and says, hello. And I burst into tears, at the 25% mark. Like that doesn’t ha, I don’t cry in books anyway. I just thought it was beautiful. It was beautiful. It was such. It was also such a dark book that dragged me through it. And I am a, you know, a psychological thriller junkie, I read them all. I’ve almost been feeling bored lately. I feel like I’ve seen all the angles and yours was fresh and new and beautifully, absolutely beautifully written. The way that you write characters is stunning. But what I wanted to talk about real quickly first is just before in the intro, I will have read the very short prologue to your book. And I wanted to read it because I think it is an absolutely brilliant way of capturing the reader’s attention and giving them just enough information to peak their interest in a way that is, it is absolutely impossible not to turn the next page because we must know more. And this is a very technical question, only the writers will be interested in it, but at what point did that scene arise? Either being written or when you knew it was the start of the book? 

Abigail Dean: [00:10:21] It was there from the beginning. It was like the first scene written. 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:26] Holy crap. 

Abigail Dean: [00:10:26] Yeah.

Rachael Herron: [00:10:27] I was sure you would say like, no, that was impossible to come to. That’s amazing. 

Abigail Dean: [00:10:33] I think that what the reason, like the reason behind it was, I am a true crime junkie, you know. I’m like, I’ve listened to the podcasts, I’ve watched the TV shows. And I, you know, I think often in these cases there is this defining photograph or this defining image. And that’s how you know, that the people who were involved in that, in that instance, that’s kind of what these human beings, I think, sometimes are almost like reduced to and compacted into like these images that we kind of remember for years after. And I think in a way I wanted it to be like, sometimes that’s the end of the story, and that’s all you, that’s all you get. But in a way for, yeah, so for Girl A, I was, I wanted that to be the beginning of the story and then, everything that comes after the, you know, the rest of the novel is how the Gracie family, you know, who are they really? You know, this photo is such a, it’s defining, but at the same time, it’s completely not defining it. It’s like the tiniest tip of, of this iceberg of them, of what they’ve been through and, and the people they’ve become as well. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:53] So, okay. I love all this. So for a debut novel, did not read as a debut, it read as I, and I feel like I am, you know, covelling and waxing repsotic even too much, but it read like a masterpiece in thriller. Where is your writing history? I know you’re a lawyer, which is all writing and there are so many lawyers who then move into writing or the other way, is that part of it? Or where else do you come from in writing? 

Abigail Dean: [00:12:19] So I think it’s, I’ve been writing a lot since I was really little, like really, really little. And my, my mom has recently unearthed like some fantastic line of two pages of a four stapled together, I was like, yeah, this is my serious novel and I’m six. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:36] How cute.

Abigail Dean: [00:12:37] Everyone has to read it. Yeah. It’s like, thanks mum, very much. Just what I, just I always wanted. And you know, I filled notebooks, with various stories and a lot of them were dark as well. I think, you know, in a pretty early age, I was sort of often writing once it was the soft toys. You know, basically someone’s had a bad time and then it was like the Barbies and they had a pretty bad time as well. And as a teenager, I also wrote a lot of fan fiction. Huge amounts of fan fiction.

Rachael Herron: [00:13:12] I don’t do it. That’s such a good training ground. I think. 

Abigail Dean: [00:13:17] Yeah. It’s one of those strange, strange things isn’t it? I don’t know if it’s, because it’s something that, you know, teenage girls often do and sometimes people like, well, your teenage girls, what are, what do they know? You know, fan fiction has, seems to somehow have a really bad reputation, but it’s an awesome way of writing and, you know, I can’t think of a, yeah. As a writer as well, they, I can’t think of a greater compliment in a way than people wanting to make your characters their own in a particular way. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:49] What was your favorite fandom that you were writing in? If you don’t mind sharing.

Abigail Dean: [00:13:52] No, that’s okay. I am. So I was a big gamer and I wrote a lot of like final fantasy. Fantasy seven and eight was my, was my light fandom at the time. And I still, they were still great. They are still great stories and incredibly inspiring stories that, yeah, I still like look back and I’m like, incredible inspiration.

Rachael Herron: [00:14:15] I just absolutely love that. Okay. So what, so you’re busy, you’re a lawyer where, where, how do you get the writing done? Where does this fit into your life? 

Abigail Dean: [00:14:24] So, for Girl A, I took some time off to start writing. It had been a case that in my twenties, I just, I basically just worked for at least sort of six, seven years, at that time, and I kind of didn’t write at all. You know, I would, I was doing like lawyer writing, so I was writing contracts and writing emails, many emails. But I kind of let writing slip away a little. And I was sort of coming with my 30th birthday and was like, why have you kind of abandoned this thing that you absolutely loved, you know, this long standing ambition and, and yeah. But more than ambition, I think, really just the thing that, you know, was probably for me, the most satisfying thing that I can do. So yeah, I decided to just sort of shake things up a bit and I left my job at a law firm, which we had incredibly demanding hours, lots of travel time, and spent three months, basically just sitting in my local library and, and starting to write Girl A. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:42] So it wasn’t even a, it wasn’t even a sabbatical. You, you quit, to do this?

Abigail Dean: [00:15:48] Yeah, I, I did. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:49] Wow. How did that feel?

Abigail Dean: [00:15:50] I had. So I should, I want to be totally frank. I am a risky, a risk averse, lawyer standard, and I had another job lined up at the end of the three months. So I didn’t, I didn’t kind of quit, without anything, anything waiting, but I did, I, you know, it felt. Even just having a three months where you’re unpaid and you’re like, okay, I’m gonna see how this goes. I sort of made a bit of a deal with myself that if I was going to do it, I had to actually write, you know. Like, I have as much temptation as anyone to lie in bed and read and then watch Netflix. And I was like, okay, you know, you’re taking three months off. You have to actually, show up every day, you know, it doesn’t have to be good. It doesn’t have to be, you don’t have to write X number of words a day, but you do need to show up and try and that was the deal, for that. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:49] Did you get most of the book done in that three months or was that the start of it? 

Abigail Dean: [00:16:54] It was the start. I had really grand ideas, you know, I saw myself like just getting this first draft, just getting it out in three months. And, yeah, that did not happen. I got about, maybe a third to a half of the way back and then it was another nine months of evenings and weekends and just, you know, just finding time, wherever I could. Like, I’m a big, I think a lot of the time I’d been quite precious about how I wrote. And I think one of the reasons I didn’t write in my twenties was I had ideas that I needed to be sitting in silence with like, you know, writing by hand, have like hours of time. And a lot of Girl A was written, you know, I would wrote on the note section of my phone. I wrote, you know, sometimes by hand, sometimes with a laptop, like whatever was easiest. And I think I kind of had to let go of those notions that the muse was going to like, come on, find me in my bedroom because yeah, it didn’t and you know, some scenes were difficult and challenging. I didn’t want to write them, but, yeah, it was, it was a much more mundane exercise than I had allowed myself previously to think. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:17] That is such a deep comment and I want listeners to really hear that writing is just, work a day, so much of the time. Even when we’re very excited, we show up when we do the work. We kind of touched on this when we were chatting before, but how. So you’re writing dark stuff and I love writing dark stuff. And I just want to know how much do you have to do of self-care when you’re writing this? Because I sometimes worry about myself that I don’t need to do very much. Like even writing and thinking about dark stuff, kind of lights me up and I’m a really positive, well-lit soul probably. But, as I was telling you, I told my wife the idea for this new book and she was like, I can’t, I don’t know if I can live with a person who just thought of that idea. And I’m like, this is the best. I’m so excited. How do you handle writing that darkness and being in the world?

Abigail Dean: [00:19:07] I think there is definitely a big contrast between my writing and my personality. Kind of as, as you exactly, as you’ve sort of said, Rachael, you know, I think my, my husband would read some chapters of Girl A and, you know, he was kind of like, I, sometimes you, where does this come from? 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:25] Are you okay? Yeah. 

Abigail Dean: [00:19:28] Yeah, yeah, slightly. And, you know, I think if me, it is obviously, it’s fiction and, I think that I do have to be a little careful at times. I think, especially, I write often quite late into the evening. It’s kind of one of the times I actually really liked to write and I kind of have to stop doing that a bit. It was a pace that, you know, you go to sleep and I think the characters are sometimes still there, or they’re even worse, maybe that they kind of where you left them. And, that was a strange, and that was a surprise to me that I was actually like, oh, maybe this, you know, this is affecting you. And I’m obviously, there’s also the, there’s the constant reminder I think, that this is something that happens to people and you know, that I think is something that you need to be incredibly sensitive about writing, I certainly found, and I’m really kind of do consider the gravity of that. I think in a way as well.

Rachael Herron: [00:20:33] I love how, and again, no spoilers, but we’re dealing with Lex’s basically mental health and in most ways, not always, but in most ways she’s come out this very, very strong, beautiful person with a support system that is also beautiful. And I just, I really love that. I found a lot of inspiration in that. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing? 

Abigail Dean: [00:20:59] I think my biggest challenge is probably, it probably is the showing up and the finding time. I think that, you know, for Girl A, I had the, just this luxury of that, of that period off. And I think that after that, you know, it, there is always the temptation of, of doing other things. And, you know, I think especially sometimes when being fortunate enough to be published in a way, sometimes that means there’s even more distractions. You know, it’s fantastic to connect with readers on social media and, you know, especially at this time at such a joy and, I think that all of those things, though, I know the way I try to sort of overcome that weakness and that challenge is very little as ever as satisfying as just a really good day of writing. You know all the kinds of feedback and reviews in the world are very unlikely to ever be a satisfying as when you’re like, yes. Like when you look back the next day and you’re like, that was a really good day, like I’m happy with those paragraphs. And I tried to cling to that a bit. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:16] How is the writing of the second book going? Cause I really struggled with my second novel. How, are you, are you having second book blues or is it just going well? 

Abigail Dean: [00:22:26] It’s gone in different, it’s gone very differently at different times over the last year, I would say. At present, it’s going pretty well, and I feel like I’m getting there. Things are kind of really moving into place, some sort of getting that. For me, I think, you know, needs to be an obsession in some ways, you know, but I need to be thinking about the characters when I’m out for a walk or when I’m like, you know, unstacking the dishwasher, you know, they’re kind of, I’m thinking of them and trying to sort of, you know, think what, what they, what they’ll do next and think about the conversations that they are going to have. And it took a while with this, with this novel to, to get to that stage. I think it took a while for the obsession to set, to set in. I think I was maybe a bit stuck with the Gracie family and with Girl A. And I think now I’m there and that feels really, really good, like they’re my obsession now, rather than a Lex and her story. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:27] Oh good. What’s really nice is that now the rest of the world has this obsession with Lex and it just, we’re recording on February 4th and it just released in the US I think two days ago, right? 

Abigail Dean: [00:23:40] Yeah, that’s right. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:42] I’m looking forward to this one climbing the charts. I really, really am. So no, I mean, not to make anything more intense, but I just, I can see this rocketing to the top. When, so talking about writing, can you share a craft tip with us that you use in your writing? 

Abigail Dean: [00:24:01] Yes, I, yeah, I think I can. So I think I said before about kind of using notes on my phone, as a sort of way that I write and I kind of do that very, very sort of consistently. So I sort of try to use, I think I try to use kind of my phone in terms of it being something I have to hand as a way of kind of planning and writing. So I write, and I promise this is not a promotion. I always feel very guilty saying this. I write on Google doc, this is not a promotion. Something I find really useful is, is having that the manuscript in one Google docs file. And I, as I sort of think of different things, different points that need to happen later in the manuscript, I just drop them in to the bottom of the file. And sort of in a way that I find that by doing that, the plan, almost shapes itself. So you have kind of everything you’ve actually written so far. And then underneath that you have featured kind of snippets of dialogue and you have a kind of vague plan of the plot. And I think it just means that as you get to future scenes, you find that you’ve already got, you’ve got kind of little guiding beacons, I guess, in a way that you’ve added in the past. I find it’s a way that the, you know, a way of planning that doesn’t feel like planning. It still feels like it has an imagination, imaginative side to it. And yeah, it just means they feel, you never come into a scene completely blind or clueless because you might’ve already left yourself little, little assists, I guess, to help guide the way.

Rachael Herron: [00:25:53] Yeah. You’re never alone on the page there’s always something below you to kind of catch you almost. I would love to ask a direct question about something you’re so good at, and that I really struggle with, which is character description. You have a way of- I really believe that, when we’re describing characters who may not be the most important characters in the book, the best way to do it is with a sentence or two that are extremely explicitly clear and visual, and then leave them alone for the rest of the book and you do it so beautifully. There was one where I think the person was just described as looking round and damp, with round and damp hands and around a damp body. And it was so good. Is this something you consciously think of or is there something that just comes out of your fingers? 

Abigail Dean: [00:26:38] I think it is something that I am that I think of quite a bit, yeah. It’s, there is an amazing book that I’ve certainly found really, really useful, which is called “How Fiction Works” by James Woods. I think he’s a critic for the, I think he’s a critic for the New York Times, I want to say, but I might have that wrong. I found that incredibly, and it just has some fantastic little insights into sort of describing characters, and it is one of the sort of, I don’t tend to, I try not to read too many kinds of books about writing because I feel like it can kind of often throw you slightly off course, but this is one that I kind of, I read probably for the first time, like by my late teens and I’ve kind of kept returning to it. But another thing I would say that, that I found really useful for, for kind of character descriptions, is actually songs. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:38] Really?

Abigail Dean: [00:27:39] Song lyric. Yeah. I think it’s a case that, you know, in a song you maybe have like what I mean, like in terms of word count, you probably have it down, maybe in the tens, I’m not sure, maybe a little more early hundreds. There are some, artists though, I think, so vividly draw characters, 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:04] That’s so good.

Abigail Dean: [00:28:06] In their lyrics, you know, that you really get an impression and, you know, as to who this character is, and you’re like, the artist has done that in like, you know, seconds. And I found that really, really, useful, especially what one of my, just to give an example, I think, Craig Finn, who writes the whole study. So, and as an independent artist too, he is someone whose songwriting I kind of go back to again and again, in terms of how he draws these characters, this whole cast of characters on an album in a space of like a few lines. So there, there’s a few things I tried to look to in terms of character descriptions and, and just, yeah, quite to sort of study how other people have done it and how to shape my characters that way.

Rachael Herron: [00:28:57] Well, if it gives you any pleasure to know, I always underline and highlight in my kindle the lines that then I can go back and study and there are a bunch in your book, but I was like, how did she do that? That’s amazing. Okay. So, what thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way?

Abigail Dean: [00:29:18] It’s, there’s a few, there’s a few things I think. One has been actually, I’d say it’s the support of my, of my partner. He, you know, I, I’ve known him obviously I’ve known him for a while now. And he, you know, I think you know, he’s not actually somebody who is particularly interested in writing or at all, like, he’s a big reader, but you know, he doesn’t write himself. And it was really his, his sort of encouragement towards the end of my 20 years, that did make me think, you know, maybe this is something that I should go back to. We’ve known each other for quite a few years at that point. And I’d always said, you know, I’d love to be a writer, you know. I love writing. It’d be fantastic to be a writer. And he sort of said to me, well, he is very kind of blunt and said, you know Abby, you’re probably not going to be a writer if you don’t write anything. And, 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:25] That’s a good man.

Abigail Dean: [00:30:27] It was one of those moments that, you know, it was actually a sort of epiphany moment slightly because it was very close to the bone. But I thought, you know what, that is, it still, I think the piece of advice that I keep going back to, as well. So yeah, that, and it was just, I think it just also came as a surprise because, it was one of those things that at the time it didn’t necessarily feel so supportive. It felt quite kind of a bit of a sting to, you know. 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:57] Absolutely

Abigail Dean: [00:30:58] I, it was, I think it was deeply very, very supportive, and, and a very kind of, there was a kindness to him saying that. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:08] That is beautiful. I love that. Do you have a hard stop at the top of the hour? Or can we go a couple minutes over? 

Abigail Dean: [00:31:14] We can go over that. I don’t have a hard stop

Rachael Herron: [00:31:16] Okay. Then I’ll ask you the next couple of questions. Well actually, I guess there’s just one left, before we talk about your book, what is the best book you’ve read recently? I know what mine is. 

Abigail Dean: [00:31:28] Oh, it’s tough. Isn’t it? 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:31] No, no, mine is not tough. The best book that I’ve read recently was yours, so. 

Abigail Dean: [00:31:36] So most recently, the one I loved was Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane. I read that a month or so ago. And it was just one of those books that I found really, really moving. It is not told in a particularly kind of, emotional way. But it’s, I think it’s really a story about mental health and at about mental health at a time when it was not really understood or acknowledged. And I think what’s quite frightening is that time was not that long ago either. I think we’re talking kind of novel setting us begins at least in the seventies, I think, and yeah, just a really, really beautiful exploration of that and how it affects two particular families and in upstate New York. And it’s also a novel that I’ve, I hugely admire in terms of it deals with a really long time period, you know. Sometimes, years are told in the course of a few paragraphs, but it still managed to be really specific and really moving in spite of that, and that’s something that I kind of really admired. 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:48] Oh, thank you very much. I wrote that down, going to the top of my TVR pile. That is always a selfish question that I ask on my part. And now can you tell us, what, what is your elevator pitch for Girl A, for the people who don’t know what we’ve been talking about? 

Abigail Dean: [00:33:03] Sure. Girl A is Lex Gracie, and as a child, Lex manages to escape from her family home, which becomes known over time as the house of horrors in the press. And as she escapes, she manages to free her six brothers and sisters and exposes her parents’ crimes, which have been committed as part of a kind of religious cult, governed by her father. And Girl A opens for 15 years after that escape. By that time, Lex is a successful attorney, like she’s living in New York. And she really lives independently of her past. She does everything she can to avoid thinking about it, and that isn’t until her mother dies in prison. And when she does, she leaves Lex and her siblings, their family home, the house of horrors, where they grew up, and forces lacks as the executor, the administrator of this will to return to the UK, to reconnect with her siblings in order to decide the fate of the house and to try to turn the house into a force for good.

Rachael Herron: [00:34:24] The way that you draw the relationships between Lex and her siblings is marvelous. I, at the beginning of the book, I love talking to writers transparently about this stuff. At the beginning of the book, there were a lot of names, you know, Ethan and Noah, and I’m like, and I was like, how am I going to keep these names apart? And you worry about that as a reader moving forward. And they’re all so unique and drawn so vividly. And each such a very real relationship between all of them. It’s just, it’s just beautiful. I cannot say enough about your book. This is going to be the one I recommend to everyone who loves thriller. You know, people who love thrillers, who love a certain genre, we have, you know, the list in our phone of our best friends who only read the great stuff and I’ve already been, I’ve already emailed, I texted all of them. Just, just go by it. 

Abigail Dean: [00:35:13] Rachael, thank you. Thank you so much that just mean the world to me, like, you know, that I think having like people talking about the book and recommending it to their friends is that’s the dream, beyond the dream 

Rachael Herron: [00:35:27] It is. And I’m so glad you’re living the dream. I am going to be following your career with incredible interest and I can’t wait to buy the second book. So thank you for being on the show today. I really appreciate your time and your book. 

Abigail Dean: [00:35:41] It was wonderful to be here and yeah. Thank you to you and thank you to everyone who’s listening as well.

Rachael Herron: [00:35:46] Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.

The post Ep. 224: Abigail Dean on Writing (Very Deliciously) Dark appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

In 2016, Janna Ruth’s plans for the new year was one submission to an agent. By the end of the year, she had won a writing competition with German publisher Ueberreuter and was deep in the throes to publish a second novel with a group of self-publishers. That novel, a modern fairy tale retelling with mental health topics, went on to win the SERAPH Phantastikpreis. Since then, Janna has published more than fifteen books in German and English.

How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you’ll gain insight from other writers on how to get in the chair, tricks to stay in it, and inspiration to get your own words flowing. 

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers!

Transcript

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #223 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. So thrilled that you’re here with me today to talk to Janna Ruth, who was a delight to talk to. And we talked about transforming trauma into art, which is something I think we do so often both in fiction and in memoir. So, stick around for that. It’s a good, interesting, deep conversation. I know you’re going to enjoy it.[00:00:46] What’s been going on around here. What hasn’t been going on around here? Good things. I’m feeling lots, lots better still working on getting diagnoses and stuff and having tests and things like that. But I’m able to be in my chair happily all day, most every day of the week for the last a week and a half or so. So that has been wonderful to feel that energy again. And I must say that my new process that I shared with you last week, so I’ve been doing it two weeks is so cool. It’s so good. Oh my God! For me in my life where it is right now, it works very well for me to designate a day with a large task in it. Instead of trying to do a little bit of, a lot of dark, a lot of heavy time consuming tasks on one day, I’m breaking them up into days. So Mondays and Fridays are for working on my current project, which is right now in novel. Tuesdays are for teaching. Thursdays are for talking, doing stuff like this, making the videos for my classes and Wednesdays are for the creative non-fiction the memoir stuff that I do. And yesterday was a Wednesday and I had the best time. There’s always this sense of guilt. When I am working on non-fiction, when I’m producing episodes for You’re Already Ready, or writing essays for the Patreon, or working on the four different nonfiction books that I’m working on right now.[00:02:16] There’s always this little voice nagging at me saying, you know, you should be working on one project and it should be the Quincy book, which is the book you’re focused on right now. How dare you do this? And to give myself a full day to do that and to give myself these full days, just to focus on one thing has been truly, truly awesome and liberating and makes me feel so happy. So I can recommend identifying one big task per day and trying to get it done instead of like, I’ve always done before trying to get 73,000 important things done in one day. So I may be the last person to learn this, but, you know, I got there. On Friday, speaking of this Friday, was a working on my current project day, and I finished the book. The tentative working title is Quincy Maddow Wants Her Stuff Back. And I finished the first draft. And what that means for me is I wrote the dark moment and I realized this is such a dark moment. She has lost everything now, and I, it’s a good one. So I can’t easily get her out of it. I don’t know how to get her out of it. It’s so dark that I need to take some time away from it. And for me, that looks like going back and starting my revision process. So it’s, I consider it finishing a draft, even though I always tell everybody to finish their whole draft and then have the satisfaction of writing the end at the end.[00:03:39] I can’t do it, but I have to kind of cheat myself every time and say, nope, I got as far as I can and now I need to start revision. For me that is a complete draft. If I get to write the full dark moment, which I did. So on Monday I started revising and right now here’s my plan and it’s not conventional, but what my agent would like is for me to write out a full synopsis. So I’m reading the entire book with my revision process. And making a plan of what I want this book actually to be, because right now it is trash mountain. It is a pile of garbage. I am not being, I’m not a belittling myself, it is just not good. It is not readable, but in my revision plan, I come up with what the book actually is going to be. That is my revision plan. From there I can write her a synopsis, after that I’m going to write the first, I don’t know, three to six chapters. I’ll probably get up to the inciting incident and make those goods so I will revise them and then I’ll do some more revision and then I’ll do some more passes, kind of like I would do on a full book, but I don’t want to do that for this.[00:04:49] I want to send her the synopsis and these first really clean, really good chapters, which she can then try to sell on proposal without the whole book being enhanced. If you’re a first time author, you cannot do this period, you can’t do it for fiction and you generally can’t do it for memoir unless you are, you know, Kardashian famous. So, but once you are established and you’ve already proven that you can finish books to deadline, that’s when you get to do this. It may not work. She may try to sell it and nobody bites and then I have to revise the whole thing and make it fantastic and then make it irresistible that we may end up having to go down that route. I hope not because number one, I like selling books and number two, I like revising to deadline. So that would be awesome. After I send that package to my agent, my next current project on the docket will be to do kind of the same thing for the terribly dark thriller that I told you about. Last week, which I’m not going to tell anybody about, but it is so dark, so horrifying that I want to read it. So I’m going to do the same thing right out of synopsis as best I can because everyone hates us synopsis, people. We hate writing them, editors and agents hate reading them. They’re dry, they’re dull, but you do the best you can. And then I’m going to write out three to six, hopefully fantastic chapters that she can also then try to sell and proposal when there’ll be awesome. Great.[00:06:14] So those are the things coming up for me on my Monday and Friday writing days. Oh, other news. Let’s see, I had a BookBub, middle of January. I can’t remember exactly what it was. My amazing assistant Ed is a BookBub whisperer. And I just want to say, since the Biden administration came into office, I have sold so many more books. And I know that I personally have had just more bandwidth in my brain to read. Also I have more bandwidth because I’ve taken most of the apps off my phone, which has really helped with quieting some of the noise. So I’m enjoying that. Speaking of noise. I don’t know what’s going on in the streets. Sorry if you hear strange noises. Also in news, I have been getting some of my rights back for older books. I got my rights back for a Lichen Stitches, which is a collection of essays, that like in a memoir form. And that book came out in, I want to say 2012. So it’s been nine years. I’m really excited to get this back. The physical book went out of print maybe six or seven years ago. No one’s been able to buy that, but because they were still selling the digital version, and because I wasn’t diligent about trying to get my rights back, I’ve just been letting them sell the Kindle version, right. So that kind of kept it in print.[00:07:36] However, now I have all of my rights back. They are going to un-publish Chronicle books is going to un-publish that book, and then I get to buy a new cover. I get to do editing. I get to add, I’m going to add two essays and an introduction, which will make it attractive for even people who bought the book in the past, who loved the book. Now I get to offer them kind of an added bonus value, second edition, which I will be able to offer cheaper than Chronicle books was able to, I think they’re selling it at 9.99 and I’ll probably sell it at 5.99 and I’ll make 70% of that instead of making 25% of net. So that’s exciting, it’s quite a bit of work to do, but I also got back the rights for books, one and three in the Cypress Hollow series, which was my first series. So this is my first book. I just got the rights back for How to Knit a Love Song and the third book. Very exciting, cause there’s five books in that series and I would love to be able to, and the fourth and the fifth book are mine in all countries, except for Australia where they own the rights. I might try to get my rights reverted there too. So then I would own all five outright, but right now I don’t have number two. [00:08:52] HarperCollins still has that and they have it because, in their declamation of rights reversion, they said, we will not revert these rights, because there are still books in the warehouse. And apparently as a term of this particular contract rights can’t revert. If they’re still holding onto books in the warehouse, why they have a ten-year-old book with physical copies, still in a warehouse that they haven’t remaindered total mystery to me. But I did something that I’m proud of. I wrote to them, I found out that there were 54 copies sitting in a warehouse somewhere and there’s this thing inside publishers called special sales and special sales will sell the books to the author. Generally, at 50% off, you don’t make any royalty on them, but you can buy them for that. And then you can sell them if you want it to or do what you want. So I wrote to the special sales department and I am requesting to purchase the 54 copies of those books, they are 13.99. So I did the math and if I’m paying half price on those I’ll end up spending $377. $377 to get all five books in under my control so that I can then set the first book to free and have Ed my assistant run BookBub’s on that and get them, get to drive them all the way through a five book series, that I’m proud of. I am super, super excited about doing this and I’ve already heard back from them and that is getting underway. So kind of big stuff happening around me, a lot of stuff. And it feels really good after having more than a month, basically off feeling so badly. [00:10:37] And now to have this motion around me, it’s delicious. I’m loving it. And I’m also trying to, I’m trying to rest before I need rest, which is if you’re a person like me, that does that, you don’t even understand what I just said, but I’m trying to learn how to do it resting before I need rest. And in fact, as soon as I finished this recording, instead of spending the hour that I would have free, that I would normally fill with Slack and email and all of those things that need to get done, because this is a long working day for me. I’ve been working from 8 and I’ll be working till 6:30 tonight because of appointments and coaching stuff. I’m going to go lay on the couch for an hour, even though my brain is saying, think of everything you could get done in an hour. Think of all the things you could catch up on. No, I deserve rest. I am worthy of rest. And even though I don’t feel like resting, it is good for me. So I’m want to do, go do it. Look at me learning. We can still learn people. All right, please enjoy this a wonderful interview with Janna. I know you will. I hope that you’re getting your writing done. If you are not, why not? Why not do 10 minutes today? Just to stick it to the man to show me that you can do it and then come find me on the internet and tell me how it went. Okay my friends we’ll talk soon. [00:11:53] Do you wonder why you’re not getting your creative work done? Do you make a plan to write and then fail to follow through? Again? Well, my sweet friend, maybe you’d get a lot out of my Patreon. Each month, I write an essay on living your creative life as a creative person, which is way different than living as a person who’ve been just Netflix 20 hours a week and I have lived both of those ways, so I know. You can get each essay and access to the whole back catalog of them for just a dollar a month. Which is an amount that really truly helps support me at this here writing desk. If you pledge the $3 level, you’ll get motivating texts for me that you can respond to. And if you pledge at the $5 a month level, you get to ask me questions about your creative life, that I’ll answer in the mini episodes. So basically I’m your mini coach. Go to patreon.com/Rachael (R A C H A E L) to get these perks and more and thank you so much.

Rachael Herron: [00:12:57] Okay. Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show Janna Ruth today. Hello, Janna, is it Jenna or Janna? 

Janna Ruth: [00:12:59] Either way.

Rachael Herron: [00:13:00] What do you prefer? 

Janna Ruth: [00:13:04] I’m German. So I originally picked a name that could be read either in English or in German. So it’s German, it’s Jana Ruth and English it’s Janna Ruth. So whatever 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:15] That is very sensible and clever of you. I like that. Okay. Let me give you a little introduction to our listeners. In 2016, Janna Ruth’s plans for the new year was one submission to an agent. By the end of the year, she had won a writing competition with German publisher Ueberreuter? Am I close at all?

Janna Ruth: [00:13:39] You probably top it

Rachael Herron: [00:13:39] And was deep in the throes of publishing a second novel with a group of self-publishers. That novel, a modern fairytale retelling with mental health topics, went on to win the SERAPH Phantastikpreis. Since then, Janna has published more than 15 books in German and English. Since 2016, you have published more than 50 of the books in German and English. That is so exciting. You know, that this podcast is about process and I really want to talk to you about process. How do you publish 15 books in the last four years? Let’s talk about your writing process, when and where and how and all of that. Now, first of all, you live in the country I am moving to, 

Janna Ruth: [00:14:22] Okay 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:23] In New Zealand, I’m a new Zealander as well as an American and we’re moving soon and we are considering Wellington, cause we love Wellington. So you’re there, you’re writing there. And how does it, how does it go? 

Janna Ruth: [00:14:36] Yeah. Well, I have the luck to be able to write full time, not because I can afford it, but because you know, having a husband, bought it and hopefully by the end of this year, I’ll be getting closer to actually contributing to the family money again 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:54] It’s excellent

Janna Ruth: [00:14:55] But until then I can, yeah, I can write until the kids have all the kids at school. So that’s gives me about six hours a day, and then I am a terrible night owl. So as soon as the kids sat in bed, that’s when my creativity hits and I, yeah, I write until midnight or later. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:16] Wow, what time do you get up? 

Janna Ruth: [00:15:18] During school time at 7:30. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:22] How old are the kids? 

Janna Ruth: [00:15:25] They’re between 5 and 10. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:26] How many kids? 

Janna Ruth: [00:15:28] Three. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:29] Okay. You didn’t say five or something. Shocking. Well of course you write at night. The rest of the time you’re probably just insanely busy. So are the kids in school and back in, in New Zealand, they have gone back to school, right?

Janna Ruth: [00:15:46] Not yet. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:47] Not yet.

Janna Ruth: [00:15:48] It’s just, yeah. So it’s pretty much one more week and they’re going to go back next Thursday. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:53] And then when they’re in school, do you write during the day or is it just, are you just a night person?

Janna Ruth: [00:15:57] I do write during the day, but usually I use those day hours to do all the admin stuff and, you know, contacting people or I’m very bad with procrastinating. So I sit down and it takes, sometimes it takes me like three hours to get started. It’s just, 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:14] I feel that 

Janna Ruth: [00:16:15] I could be more effective. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:17] I totally understand that. Okay. So, so this is a question that I’ve wondered before about people who write at night. Because I’m sorry, I’m just, I’m terrible at it. How does it go when you start to feel sleepy and you’re writing? 

Janna Ruth: [00:16:30] I don’t actually

Rachael Herron: [00:16:32] Okay. That’s the answer because I get this feeling like I am going to, like, my head is going to hit the computer.

Janna Ruth: [00:16:38] It’s really weird because usually, I mean, there are days where I’m like, sleep is a whole day and I’m like, okay, I have to go to bed early today. And so, and then 10:00 PM hits and I’m like wide awake and it’s really weird. And, yeah, if it’s writing, I think it depends a lot. Like if I’m in a flow, I can keep writing and pushing past the tiredness, which then probably hits around like one or two or, it very rarely goes past 2:00 AM, but yeah, it has happened this week. So 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:10] is that when you’re in a good flow and things are happening, is that tend to happen?

Janna Ruth: [00:17:13] Yeah. That was a really good chapter and I really wanted to finish it 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:19] And you write primarily speculative fiction, right? Yeah, you have a fantastic covers by the way, too. Okay. So do you write, you’re obviously right at home. Do you have an office or is that where you’re sitting here?  

Janna Ruth: [00:17:33] Yeah, that’s basically my office, in the back, that’s where my husband sits and plays games. So it’s not just for me. Pretty much, especially in winter because you know, New Zealand houses, aren’t the warmest.

Rachael Herron: [00:17:46] My wife is terrified about that. Yeah. So tell us more. 

Janna Ruth: [00:17:52] So, for some reasons the whole family then starts to move into my office. Gosh, it’s the warmest places 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:00] Also all the bodies in one room yeah. 

Janna Ruth: [00:18:03] It has really worked, yeah, it hasn’t really worked with closing myself off to have writing time or something. It’s yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:10] But you do okay

Janna Ruth: [00:18:12] We’ll stay out during the winter. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:13] You’re able to write with that kind of distraction around you. Some people find that it actually helps them. Does it help you or does it distract you?

Janna Ruth: [00:18:20] It does distract me. That’s probably why I’m more productive at night. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:25] Yeah. When they’re, when they’re quiet. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing? 

Janna Ruth: [00:18:32] Yeah, I would probably say the procrastination. Like I it’s just like, especially if I’m not really in the flow yet, it’s like a riot, a hundred words and then have to check Facebook again, or my emails and still someone answered me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:49] What, what techniques do you use to combat that? 

Janna Ruth: [00:18:54] I guess I have a, like, It’s basically like a level approach. So, most of the time it works to just set a time, like a Pomodoro unit and say, okay, I’m writing for 25 minutes and have a 5-minute break or something, if that doesn’t work, I love to use word crawls, which are like this, it comes from the NaNoWriMo page and it’s like this, these amazing they work with every kind of story. Like there’s a Harry Potter word crawl, or a supernatural word crawl or something, and it basically follows the story, but it gives you like little lighting tasks, like write a hundred words or throw a dice and multiply as a number by a hundred and write that amount, or write 20 minutes to the next sound or something like, that caught, that sort of diversity really helps. It’s like a small tasks, but so you can do them rather quickly. And, but it’s like always changing. You don’t get bored by doing the same thing all the time. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:55] And it is, and it is still NaNoWriMo, so that if people are listening and this is the first time I’ve heard of it, that’s National Novel Writing Month. cAnd is it on their page? Is that where you find the word crawl? 

Janna Ruth: [00:20:06] It’s in that forum. There’s one section and a forum. I think it’s a reaching 50K and they have a sub forum, which just word crawls and 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:16] So smart 

Janna Ruth: [00:20:17] And it’s, yeah. And it really helps because of the, all the constantly changing tasks and they also like these little tasks. So it’s basically, it’s like, like eating sweets. It’s like, I’ll just one more, one more, 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:30] Just a little bit more. I love that idea and I’m going to look it up. That is brand new to me. And I’m a huge NaNoWriMo fan. So what is your biggest joy when it comes to writing? 

Janna Ruth: [00:20:40] This will probably surprise many writers, but I love editing 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:46] Me too. What do you love about it?

Janna Ruth: [00:20:50] I just love that moment when everything starts to click together. And it’s really feels like puzzle pieces that are suddenly slipping into place and making this good book into a great book. And you can really feel how it’s getting better. And, Oh, you’re like, yes, this was my part, because this is a book now this is not just a story. This is a book, you know. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:09] So let me, let me ask you, because I feel like most people come to that realization that they love revision. Like, it’s one of the last things we realized. Did you, when did you realize that revision was good? For me, it took a book or two to realize that revision was my sweet spot.

Janna Ruth: [00:21:28] Pretty much miss the first novel that I did in my novelling part of my life, because I did have a long time where it didn’t write or when I just wrote my series. And for that, I didn’t really do much revision of, I was basically just drafting, drafting, drafting, and then in 2014, that was the first time I did NaNoWriMo. And I brought my first novel and then I stuck with a page and it started these revision months and I was like, okay. Yeah, let’s do them, 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:01] Did you have any fear about revision or were you just a jump in kind of person 

Janna Ruth: [00:22:06] No, I jump in and read all the tips and stuff and then started working on my novel and it was really fun.

Rachael Herron: [00:22:14] That is, I love hearing that. I just think that revision is magical. It’s really where the fun is for me, for me. And for a lot of other writers. Can you share a craft tip of any sort with us? 

Janna Ruth: [00:22:28] Yeah. So my mind is probably a bit out there. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:32] Oh good

Janna Ruth: [00:22:33] So as I said, I’ve been writing my series for a long time and this series is not improv, but a drama basically it’s a TV script. That’s anyone that’s doing them, TV series for it, but 

Janna Ruth: [00:22:46] Not yet. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:47] Not yet. We’ll see about that, but it has really helped me like, so it’s just this dialogue and just action points and just telling a story by a dialogue. So it has taught me so much about first writing my dialogues in novels and making them sound natural and have subtexts and all these kinds of things. It also taught me about pacing, because you have like these short scenes you don’t ever have like long winded cutoffs that go on and on, you know, you have like cut, cut, cut, basically. And it also taught me how to do good hooks at the end of chapters, because each scene has to and on something, it has to be a witty one line out, or it has to be a cliff hanger, or it has to be something that hooks you onto the next scene. And that has a, I’ve just transported that to my novel writing as well. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:36] How does it, how does that work for you when you’re in a first draft, are you doing it more like dialogue and the action points and then you fill it out in revision? Because that’s how you work or how does it work for you?

Janna Ruth: [00:23:50] I mean; I sometimes do that in plotting. Like when I have like an idea for a scene, sometimes the dialogue comes immediately to me. So I just write down the dialogue without any insertions or so. But when I’m drafting, it’s pretty full. I mean, my weak point is probably description. So that can be a bit thin during the first draft. So it’s usually something that I, you know, it’s two or three sentences, more so when I edit, but mostly it’s actually quite readable. I would say the first draft is quite readable. 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:22] If somebody wants to get better at doing dialogue, what would you suggest that they do, 

Janna Ruth: [00:24:28] Speak it out loud? Like really talk it through because that’s something that we did at the beginning of the series was basically role play the dialogue, because that will tell you whether your dialogue is actually natural and not stilted or anything. And cause a lot of dialogue is, isn’t just like, you know, we don’t speak complete sentences. We constantly interrupt each other and, you know, 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:54] We don’t answer the questions that people are asking us. 

Janna Ruth: [00:24:56] No

Rachael Herron: [00:24:57] We avoid- that’s one of those things that, that I used to think, like if somebody answered, asked a question that the other character would have to answer it half the time we don’t in real life, especially when we’re in a relationship with somebody where you, we avoid questions.

Janna Ruth: [00:25:11] And now you still have to edit it. But because, cause really natural dialogue, you don’t want to read that in a book because that’s a lot of –

Rachael Herron: [00:25:22] Yes. You said we, when we were working on it, were you working with a team or?

Janna Ruth: [00:25:27] So that series, I’ve been writing since I was 17 and was basically born out of my best friends and my left foot Buffy back then. I wanted to write our own version of it. And she, since then she has dropped out, but she’s actually now my editor for it. So now I’ve been rewriting and publishing it in German. As a script version. So 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:54] I will mention too, that you are also an editor as well as a writer. Isn’t that right? You edit, or do you translate into German or do you do both? 

Janna Ruth: [00:26:05] I do both. So, I only started my page last year, which was Kibby Barry Editing. And I do editing. I’m personally, I have to say I do copy editing, but I really love developmental editing. I’m really good at that. So, and then of course I do translation from English to German and my favorite, my love child of the service, which is probably not being used enough, but please, if you have a fantasy map, come to me, I’m a geologist. And I will check your fantasy map and we’ll check whether your rivers are actually flowing downhill because in about 80% of authenticity maps, they don’t. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:45] Oh, my goodness. Okay. So tell me about a fantasy map. It is actually a drawn out map. Is that right? I don’t really know what one is.

Janna Ruth: [00:26:53] Oh yeah. It’s just a lot of fantasy books, like high fantasy books they have a map in front and we love maps, maps are beautiful. And it helps you orient yourself. Like where are they going? Like a lot of the rings, for example, where it’s going

Rachael Herron: [00:27:06] Right, that’s what I’m picturing. Yeah. 

Janna Ruth: [00:27:08] Yeah. And, yeah, but a lot of them actually have uphill flowing rivers and very weird mountains. And especially like climate sounds like there’s like deserts next to forests, which is like that that’s not happening.

Rachael Herron: [00:27:25] That is magic. Right? And then perhaps your rivers could flow uphill, but, that is fascinating. And I’ve never thought of somebody doing that and what a great service to offer. Also super fun. So geologist is your other, your other 

Janna Ruth: [00:27:41] it’s my previous career. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:46] Oh, that’s so cool. Okay. So what thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way?

Janna Ruth: [00:27:54] Yeah, that’s really hard to answer. I thought about that question. I probably would have to say it’s my kids. Like I, my oldest he’s 10 and he’s a storyteller as well. He doesn’t know it yet.

Rachael Herron: [00:28:10] He’s like, no mom. It’s not me.

Janna Ruth: [00:28:12] Exactly. But no, he’s been basically been plotting with me since he was five. And, and he has just this amazing insight. Like I’ve been thinking about that, middle-grade story, which I still haven’t written for like the last eight years, but it’s always on my list and I’ve been telling him about it. And it’s a little bit about science communication. So it’s, there are kids there, they have like oneself, like, so a little bit like Digimon, Pokemon, but it’s also supposed to explain geology to you. So my whole exciting bit was, Oh, that’s going to be an earthquake and there’s going to be volcano. And then he’s like, what am I going to fight monsters? I was like, no, but it’s actually a good idea. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:00] It’s a great idea. 

Janna Ruth: [00:29:02] Yeah. So now they have like these entropies, which entropy of monsters. And then of course the kids’ monsters they have of course have to have powers and stuff and it’s, it just makes it more colorful and it’s. Yeah. It’s like surprising, but good addition.

Rachael Herron: [00:29:21] How, I just want to take a moment and appreciate, because not everybody has this, but I have great in-house counsel. Like my wife is just so good with story. And for those of us who have that in-house counsel, who, who have people who love us, who want to talk about our stories, we’re really lucky. If we want that, there are some people who really keep their stories close to their chest and don’t talk about these things. But for me, I always get to a sticking point and it’s really nice to be able to go to somebody in the house and say, well, what do you think would happen here? 

Janna Ruth: [00:29:49] Yeah, I kind of, I mean, it works really well with my oldest and my oldest is always eager, especially if he doesn’t have to sleep and can talk through a story instead. My husband is more like just this one thing and being like, okay, are you done now, but it’s helps. It’s still help. I still have some talk. Tell them all about necessity. I get the idea. And so he’s, I always called him my soundboard. Like he doesn’t have to reply. It’s just, I need to be able to talk to him.

Rachael Herron: [00:30:18] Just make your face, look like a pretend. You’re pretend listening. That’s all I need. 

Janna Ruth: [00:30:24] I mean, sometimes he actually does have good ideas, but most of the time I’m properly annoying him. 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:30] Hilarious. I love that about your son. That’s so cool. Okay. So what is the best book that you’ve read recently? And why did you love it?

Janna Ruth: [00:30:38] So I would have to say, I really love the Sebastian De Castell’s, Spellslinger. I think it’s the Spellslinger series. So I read the final book of episodes. Pretty much the last best book I read and I just really love his voice. So he always does like this first person narrator, and it’s just really snarky. And even though there’s lots of action, there’s even drama. It’s like, it gets really dark, but there’s still like this humor in it. And that makes it read so enjoyable. It’s just, it’s just really fun to read. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:09] I love that. I love that kind of humor. And that’s the Spellslinger series. That’s very hard to say.

Janna Ruth: [00:31:16] Yeah. He also has The Greatcoats series, which I actually loved a little bit better. And it’s, and that’s basically like the three Musketeers and fantasy and it has like all of this action it has romance, it has darkness, it has humor. Like I said, most importantly humor, but it really, it has this really action fantasy plot and it just has everything. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:39] Now, what is his name again? 

Janna Ruth: [00:31:40] Sebastian De Castell. I think he’s a, he’s a Montreal. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:45] Okay. I don’t know him at all. Fantastic. Thank you for that. And now, will you tell us a little bit about your latest, most recent book? What do you want to tell us about it? 

Janna Ruth: [00:31:59] Okay. I’ve got this prepared. So my

Rachael Herron: [00:32:00] Gorgeous

Janna Ruth: [00:32:01] It’s going to be published next month on the 25th. And it’s contrary to what we talked about, it’s not a fantasy

Rachael Herron: [00:32:10] And it’s called Time to Remember 

Janna Ruth: [00:32:12] Time to Remember. Exactly. And it’s about the Canterbury earthquakes, which I experienced

Rachael Herron: [00:32:21] So my family is from Christchurch and that’s where my people are. You were there?

Janna Ruth: [00:32:26] I was studying geology in Christchurch at that time.

Rachael Herron: [00:32:28] Holy cow

Janna Ruth: [00:32:31] So it’s by probably my most personal book yet. It’s fiction, it’s more in my other love, which is coming of age stories. So this is about students. So that’s a group of people that have been about 10 years old during the earthquake and how it affects them to the state and it comes out next month and that’ll be really, really personal to me.

Rachael Herron: [00:32:55] That is wonderful. And actually, I think I’ve got a bunch of interviews preplan. So this, when this goes live, we’ll probably, your book will probably be live. So it’s called Time to Remember by Janna Ruth and so, can we, can you tell me a little bit more about being there during it? When I, so I, I had been gone from Christchurch for a long time and we went back probably about five years ago, I would say. And I did not recognize the city. 80% of the buildings 

Janna Ruth: [00:33:26] I know

Rachael Herron: [00:33:27] Are gone or red zoned or, you know, taken out and I got a migraine from the grief of just driving through the city that I didn’t know anymore. What was, what was it like being there? 

Janna Ruth: [00:33:36] I know that feeling because I think it was like two years off after the earthquake when they just opened up the red zone and I was driving through there the first time and it was just like, you don’t know anywhere where you are, you don’t know where you are. It’s like, which street am I on, it’s like it’s so weird it’s. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:33:59] Where were when it hit? 

Janna Ruth: [00:34:01] Okay, so I was at home with my oldest who was three months old at that point. I know. And I mean, we were incredibly lucky as nothing happened. We didn’t lose anyone, we didn’t lose anything. Our home was okay. We’ve also moved at the beginning of March and the new home that we moved into, which was lucky that it was already, you know, all settled and done, was fine as well. But still that day, I mean even 10 years later, I mean, that book, I cried during writing it. I cried during editing. I even cried during type setting it and like it is just such a personal moving thing. And that day, because I was at home with my boy and my husband was working at university in the Rutherford building, which is one of the highest ones in Christchurch, and he didn’t make it home until like four hours later. And there was four hours where you’re just like home alone. You don’t, you can’t contact anyone. You’re just like sitting and waiting and hoping it it’ll all be good. 

Rachael Herron: [00:35:13] the baby in your arms. 

Janna Ruth: [00:34:15] Yeah. That baby that’s the other story. It’s because he was a really bad sleeper. So we usually went out with a stroller until he was falling asleep. And then I left him in the living room, just in his stroller. I’m not there to move him. And then I was in the office working on my master’s thesis. And so when the earthquake hit, I ran from the office to the living room and just threw myself on top of that stroller because there was no time to, you know, go under the table or anything. It was just like, get to that baby. And hopefully if something happens, you know,

Rachael Herron: [00:35:51] The baby’s okay.

Janna Ruth: [00:35:52] The baby’s okay. Yeah. That was all that was going on. He was of course, crying like, why are you holding onto me? 

Rachael Herron: [00:35:58] Because like I was getting rocked well. Oh, my goodness. Well, I’m sorry that you went through that and I am, as soon as we hang up, I’m going to go pre-order that book because I want to read that. So 

Janna Ruth: [00:35:11] Oh thank you. 

Rachael Herron: [00:35:12] Oh, that is so exciting. Okay. So tell us where you can be found online. 

Janna Ruth: [00:36:16] Okay. So I’ve got a webpage, which is Janna-Ruth.com and you can also find me on Facebook (authorjannaruth) where I am very active. I also have an Instagram (janna_ruth) and a Twitter, which the Twitter is somehow just Janna_Mobs. Well, that’s because then our resource was gone. You’ll still find me if you look that up. I can’t promise I post a lot on there, there, because I have this love-hate relationship with Twitter, which is like, sometimes I post a lot, and then I’m gone for months. 

Rachael Herron: [00:36:45] Me too, I’m gone right now. I just

Janna Ruth: [00:36:47] Yeah, at the moment, I’m like, I’m trying to get back into it, but it’s getting slow and yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:36:57] Well, it has been a delight talking to you. Please enjoy the city to which I might be moving and maybe we’ll reach out at that point and have a coffee or something. 

Janna Ruth: [00:37:06] Yes. Yes. I would love it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:37:07] Thank you so much for being on the show and for doing all the work you’re doing. And I can’t wait to read your book. 

Janna Ruth: [00:37:13] Thank you so much for having me

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.

The post Ep. 223: Janna Ruth on Transforming Trauma into Art appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Lisa Gardner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-three suspense novels, including The Neighbor, which won Thriller of the Year from the International Thriller Writers. An avid hiker, traveler, and cribbage player, she lives in the mountains of New Hampshire with her family. Before She Disappeared is her latest stand alone novel. 

How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you’ll gain insight from other writers on how to get in the chair, tricks to stay in it, and inspiration to get your own words flowing. 

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers!

Transcript

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #222 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. And I am thrilled that you are here with me today, as I talked to thriller writer, Lisa Gardner, who I am a huge fan of. I have been having some excellent luck with reading some thrillers that are just setting my hair on fire. I just can’t stop thinking about them and what they’re doing with these books, craft wise and skills wise. So I know you’re going to enjoy that part of the interview with her. That’s coming up in a little catch up around here. What’s going on, I’m feeling better. Thank you all for your concern. Still no resolution still fighting, still fighting for a diagnosis, but getting closer to something. So thank you for your good thoughts. But I have been sitting up at the desk for most of all of the days of this week. Today’s Thursday, pretty tired, but I haven’t had to, you know, tap out and go lie down from pain. So that is truly exciting. I’m trying not to overdo it. I’m really trying to rest as often as I can. So I know I’m kind of getting a little bit better at doing that. I just put up a post at the other podcast, Youre-Already-Ready, about how to rest when you’re a workaholic and people are liking that one. I am not alone in this difficulty with resting. So if you’d like to hear that that’s at my other podcast, which is a very short hit, usually 5 to 10 minutes of something I’m thinking about. And the most recent one is how to rest when you are a workaholic at You’re Already Ready. [00:01:56] And writing wise, so I like to tell you about books I’m reading. I’m always reading something and lately, I’ve been reading a lot since the beginning of the year. So it’s been really fertile reading ground. And I finished, since we last talked, I finished a book called Make Time, which was, which I was told about I’m in, you know, take a drink if I mentioned Becca Syme. Here’s Becca Syme, I was in Becca Syme’s Patreon level, where you get together once a month with a coach, it’s a group session and everybody gets 10 minutes and you get to listen to everybody else talk and you get to ask a question during your 10 minutes that you would like help with. So I was asking kind of just how to use my strengths better. And, the idea of this book Make Time came up and I thought it was a good one, but I was saying to Ellie, who is the coach on the call. I was saying, I just have such a hard time making myself do all of the little things that I need to get done every day. Like how do I get writing done every day on a Tuesday when I teach all day and I’m focused on teaching, how am I supposed to get my writing done? Even though I do have a pocket of available for doing that. And she said, number one, read, make time. And number two, why don’t you do things on different days? And I thought to myself, of course, knee jerk reaction. I can’t do that. Everybody has recommended that I’ve tried that before that won’t work. And then I really started to think about it and I bought the book Make Time.[00:03:30] And one of the things that happened to me when I read Make Time is I basically disabled my phone of any soul-sucking app. I got rid of Twitter. Tik-Tok, Instagram. I’ve never had Facebook. I, hold onto your hats, got rid of my internet browser. I got rid of my email and by getting rid of, I have a Google phone, so it’s actually impossible to get rid of either email or the internet, but you can disable them. So that if you try to use them, they don’t work. And it has been awesome. I have gotten so much more time back already. Which allowed me to read and finish the book. Basically I did, I took that action almost in the first chapter of reading that book, something I played with before, but it’s working great right now. And I realized that my goal is to write 2000 words a day.[00:04:25] That’s generally it, when I’m writing for strapped words, I’m generally wanting to write about 2000 words a day. I write five days a week. I don’t wear it on the weekends if I can help it. So that’s 10,000 words a week. That’s a nice, respectable pace for me. And I realized though, and I didn’t work on if I didn’t write on Tuesday, where would those, where would I put those, those words? What if I wrote more on Monday? What if I wrote a lot on Monday? And at first I will tell you I had a migraine. I was on migraine medication and I decided that I was going to write 10,000 words every Monday. And I told my wife that at dinner and she said, I’m moving out. And I said, no, I’m right. I know I can do this. And about four hours later some of the migraine medication wore off and I went back to her and said, I’m not going to do that. Some people can write 10,000 words a day. I am not that person. Once I wrote almost 8,000 words in one day and I didn’t write it again for a week, I’m still recovering from it, but I know that I can almost easily write 5,000 words in a day. That is not a depleting level for me. I can do that in about three and a half hours or so, which is generally about the amount of time I tried to spend either first drafting or revising on a day. [00:05:37] So listen to this, my new sched- I love sharing my schedule with you because you listened to this show because you are a fan of processes. So my new schedule is Mondays are for writing, all morning until I hit 5k. I hit 5k early, done for the morning. And then in the afternoon, I could do whatever I want, which is usually like email and Slack and stuff. Tuesdays are for teaching. Wednesdays are for my nonfiction, which is really exciting to me. Right now, I am working on finishing this novel. But my nonfiction always has my heart, things like the You’re Already Ready posts, and my Patreon posts, and Revision of Replenish, which has just been sitting on the back burner for so long. And I don’t even want to confess this, but I have like three other non-fiction, creative non-fiction memoir-ish type books in the hopper. So Wednesdays are going to be for that. And I had my first Wednesday, this week of doing that and it was magical just to be able to let myself play in that space without feeling guilty about not doing the 2000 words of fiction beforehand. Thursdays are for talking. They are for things like this podcast they are for making the question and answer, answer videos, which take hours for my classes, because I love answering their questions Thursdays are for talking Friday is for writing again for the fiction writing. And that’s when I do the other 5k. I’m still getting the exact same number of first draft words written, but in a less frantic harried way, I, in the Clifton strengths, I have discipline. Discipline is very low and adaptability is very low. So once my day gets thrown off, I tend to drop all the other things. I drop all the other balls because one thing got knocked out of the way. [00:07:26] That’s just part of who I am. I don’t need to fix it. Cause those are my low strengths. Don’t need to boost those up. If you haven’t heard the Becca Syme episode, you should go listen to it. It’s so good. She’s amazing but what this lets me do is on the, I really love having a goal for a day, but I like getting there in my own way. And when I know that Mondays are for writing and Fridays are for writing fiction, I’ll get there in my own way. Wednesdays are for writing nonfiction. Fantastic. I’ll do some other things too. Yes. I’ve only been doing this for a week, but yes, I am so excited about how well it’s working and how well it’s fitting into my body. And that is because I’m thinking about the best ways for my process to get stuff done. I want you always to be thinking about what is the best way for your process, the way that feels good and organic and natural and not like you’re fighting yourself every step of the way. I was getting exhausted from not only fighting myself every step of the way, but then losing, not doing what I wanted to do and then beating myself up and that is a vicious circle. One that I’ve been you know, dealing with for a very long time. And the more I am able to break that the better, we don’t want to be beating ourselves up. We want to be healthy, happy writers who are taking care of ourselves and understanding what you need to get the writing done, is so key, so pivotal.[00:08:51] So I encourage you to think about that. You might want to pick up the book, Make Time. It was one of those really fast reads about productivity that actually changed something. I did promote to you last week. What was the other one I was reading? Indistractible. I liked the first part of that book, but the second part of the book was just really predictable. Make Time, remained interesting to me. So I do recommend that one. All right. Very quickly. I’d like to thank new patrons. I can’t remember if I thanked Pam Rosenthal before, but she’s been on the show. You know how wonderful she is. Thank you again, Pam. And Laura Loner, increased her pledge and that means a lot to me. So thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you, everyone who supports at any level patreon.com/Rachael, it means so much to me, it’s like this little vote of confidence that you put in me as a human being. And it keeps me going on the hard days. It really, really does. Also the essay that I sent out this week on or this last week for my patron essay, it was about me really becoming a poet, stepping back into being a poet. And I don’t, I cannot remember when I have enjoyed writing an essay more. And I am glad that so many of you seem to have really liked it. And if you want to see that one, you could get it for just a buck by going over to Patreon, and then you would get access to like all the 48 essays that are over there that are currently unavailable anywhere else. And I’m always still working on that. And those are projects in the hopper. [00:10:20] I have not had any caffeine. I am just amped up on life and talking today cause it’s talking Thursday for me. When you listen to this, it’ll be Friday. I hope your day is a good Friday. If you’re listening on a Friday, I hope that you have been getting some of your work done. If you didn’t listen to the mini episode that went out yesterday, listen to that if you’ve been having a hard time doing the work, you’re not alone, getting writing done is hard. It is just painful. And it helps to remember that other people are going through that with you. So come find me on the internet, tell me how you’re doing and let’s jump into the awesome interview with Lisa. Okay, here we go. [00:11:02] Hey, you’re a writer. Did you know that I send out a free weekly email of writing encouragement? Go sign up for it at www.rachaelherron.com/write  and you’ll also get my Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use today to get some of your own writing done. Okay, now onto the interview.

Rachael Herron: [00:11:19] All right. Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show today. Lisa Gardner. Hi Lisa!

Lisa Gardner: [00:11:24] Hi, Rachael. It’s very nice to be here. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:27] Oh, it’s such a pleasure to have you. I have been a fan for a long time. So when my publicist sent me the query would you, would you like to have at Lisa on the show? Yes! I really would! Plus, I get an advanced look at your new book, Before She Disappeared. So let me give you a little intro here. Lisa Gardner is the number one New York Times bestselling author of 23 suspense novels, including The Neighbor, which won Thriller of the Year from the International Thriller Writers. An avid hiker, traveler, and cribbage player. She lives in the mountains of New Hampshire with her family. Before She Disappeared is her latest, stand alone novel. I just realized my microphone wasn’t close enough to me, there’ll be able to hear. So welcome! On this show, we talk a lot about process and this is a show for writers. Can you tell us a little bit about your process and how you get all these books done when and where and how much? All of that good stuff.

Lisa Gardner: [00:12:26] Okay. So let’s start by just talking about how I wrote, you know, the making of Before She Disappeared. I actually really love these conversations and I think it’s fun to talk to writers because we all have a very different process. So the first thing for me in art is inspiration, you know, especially 23 books later, where am I getting ideas from? Me, it’s generally something from the headlines, real life. So in my free time, I watch a lot of crime shows, IDTV, all that kind of good stuff. So I either look like I am a serial killer or I’m studying being one, it’s either one or the other, and the keys Before She Disappeared. It was, I’d read an article on BBC about a real life woman who was frustrated by the number of women going missing on tribal lands. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:12] Wow. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:13:13] Just the lack of resources, and in many cases in her mind, the lack of interest, the cases are dismissed. Oh she must’ve run away. Well, you know, she’s a, you know, an alcoholic who’s troubled. I mean, why do we just write off people? It’s sad enough that we do it while they’re alive, but then once they disappear 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:31] and especially women of color, right?  

Lisa Gardner: [00:13:33] Yes, exactly. And underserved communities, minorities, all of that. You know, sadly where you live in the socio-economics of your community are going to make a big difference in you getting justice. So Lisa Yellowbird chase was frustrated enough to do something about it. She actually started working. She’s just an everyday person, no special background herself. She’s like, investigating some of these cold cases. And I was so struck by that, like, how crazy, right? I mean, I actually kind of consider myself to be a true crime enthusiast, let’s say, 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:10] And I still can’t imagine making the leap to actually working an investigation. So that captured my imagination. What kind of person would do this and what would that life look like to go from community to community? A total outsider? Trying to find, you know, the people, the rest of the world have forgotten. So that inspiration is where I started. And then in particular, I think for the making of Before She Disappeared, it’s the who, it’s the character question that drove me. What kind of person would do this, and it was interesting to me because as I then started to do research on other people who work cold cases, if a 15-year old Haitian female goes missing from Boston, which became the basis of the book, what are the police steps you would take to find? And then I, then I had to learn, well, of course, none of those could actually discover the girls. So what would be the problems along the way? And one of the themes that came up pretty quickly talking to people who do missing persons, and this is how it becomes workable for someone like an everyday person in amateur sleuth. Often if you can figure out who the person is you can figure out what happened to them.

Rachael Herron: [00:15:22] Right. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:15:23] And that to me is kind, almost like the nature of writing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:26] Yeah. That’s a good point. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:15:29] Like yeah. I mean when I read that I was like, oh, this is like book, because I feel the fastest for me writing often is discovering who my characters are. And then that enables, you know, what happens to them next? 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:44] And that’s so fascinating because and it’s true, especially in these underserved communities, the police just don’t have time to unpack every single case and somebody coming in fresh can just like, you’re unpacking Frankie as you go. Tell me more about, you know, coming up with Frankie and building her.

Lisa Gardner: [00:16:02] So, once I knew what I wanted to write, I didn’t really have all the answers to Frankie yet, but I’m like, well, let’s just start with how you do a missing persons investigation. So I did some research with retired police. If a missing person happened here, at basic steps they would take and somewhere along the way you start to realize, okay, so the police have all the technology, all the toys. I mean, they have surveillance cameras all over Boston. There’s potential witnesses. They have license plate, reading technology. They could absolutely retrieve Snapchats, which was kind of, I was thinking my teenagers, 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:35] I didn’t know that. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:16:36] Yeah. And I was thinking that would be the way my teenagers could get away with stuff. And they’re like, oh no, that data is still captured. And with a search warrant and like particularly 11 months later. And that actually became really fun for me because- Okay. So like a tech, a hacker, someone like that won’t do me any good for my character because that really is what the police are bringing to bear and it still isn’t helping them find this 15-year old girl. So I decided what we really needed was like a social engineer, like that’s, Frankie’s, that’s who Frankie became. She’s a professional bartender. She’s a recovering alcoholic who was a professional bartender, 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:15] Which I love as I am. I’m actually a very, you know, out recovering alcoholic. And I know so many people in my community who tend bar. It’s weird that it’s possible, you know,

Lisa Gardner: [00:17:25] Among the, my alcoholic or friends addicts I know, they’re like for some, it’s a trigger and for some it’s not. So and that became part of it too. It’s like, okay, so what kind of woman would do this? And one of the answers was obsessive and that made me think of, well, she’s an, she’s an addict, 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:44] That’s so smart 

Lisa Gardner: [00:17:45] That gives you that great obsessive personality and even better. Addicts have a tendency to be self-destructive and to a certain extent, 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:54] And isolating, they isolate themselves. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:17:57] Yes. Yeah. Very much and so that captures Frankie pretty well. She’s almost using like her addiction as a superpower. Like I’m going to take that obsessive and self-destructive streak. And focus it on trying to do some good, 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:13] Which is what I loved about this book is that you’re taking it from, I mean, you know, the, the, the cliché of the hard-boiled P.I., you know, alcoholic guy is so tired and she is so specific. And you’re just such an excellent researcher, everywhere I turned in this book, the research is just impeccable, what you bring to her and what you bring around this place. So tell us a little bit more about that. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:18:39] So then I had to come up with the location. So I started along this question of, okay, who is this? Who is Frankie Elkin and it finally, the answer to that was to do this kind of work she’s so obsessive, a recovering alcoholic makes a great deal of sense. And her super power really is, she’s a good listener. And that really can make the difference. So then it’s like, so what happened? So work with the police realizing disappearing, someone from an urban environment is incredibly hard, actually became the heart of the puzzle. It wasn’t even finding the girl. It’s how she disappeared in the first place. You know, last seen entering the school on a Friday afternoon. Never seen again, it became kind of a fun closed room mystery. So then it was like, where will this happened? So it’s like, you know, you’re putting the pieces together for the novel and I needed an inner city neighborhood underserved, but I wanted someplace, you know, with a rich cultural heritage, you know, with a community and Mattapan, Boston definitely fits that bill. It has a largest Haitian population outside of Florida. It’s known for its Caribbean parade each year. Also very sadly, unfortunately, because of gang violence, as one of the highest crime rates in Boston, it’s nicknames among the locals is murder pan. So it kind of fit that it’s dark, it’s gritty. It’s dangerous. You know, Frankie is a surrogate for you or me. And she’s having to walk these streets at night and, you know, she puts it out, feels like she’s grow in the dark white. She’s standing out

Rachael Herron: [00:20:06] Yeah, well I wanted to ask you about that too, because this is something that we, you know, talk a lot about in writer circles, you know, how do we do this well? You are a white woman writing a white character who is in, you know, predominantly surrounded by people who are not white. And you do such a good job. I’m kind of, you know, knee jerk, liberal, and always looking for when and there was this one point where I was like, wait a minute, is Lisa going white savior on me here? And then the very next page, somebody pokes the balloon of white savior by, by bringing it up. And you do such a good job with that. How did you approach this book with this large challenge to get it right? 

Lisa Gardner: [00:20:48] My sense from the very beginning is the Frankie’s an outsider and race becomes yet one more way. She doesn’t fit. And I think that’s why Frankie resonates with people. When they read this book, she is so human and she is so vulnerable and she does feel so alone. And I think for a lot of people, if you were a minority, I mean, that is often how you feel like no one people- at one point, Frank even talks about she’s now in a position of thinking people see only the color of her skin. I mean, anytime you’re a minority in the room, but I think we can all agree on those feelings of isolation, of being alone. I think we can all agree we’d like to get to a point where everyone is just helping everyone. And it doesn’t matter that it’s a white woman in a black community or black person in a white community, you know, heaven help us we just take care of our neighbors. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:46] Exactly. So when you, when you are done with the drafting, did you use sensitivity readers?

Lisa Gardner: [00:21:51] We did for this book because it is a big deal right now. I mean, and I appreciated that because I don’t want to get anything wrong. I mean, I am writing about the Haitian culture. I’m trying to bring an immigrant story to life in Boston, the Haitian community. And this is the missing girl in the book, Angelic Buddo. So many of them are on TPS, temporary protective status. Following the Port-au-Prince. Earthquake. That’s now been probably 12 years ago now. Cause their visas were really good for 10 years.

Rachael Herron: [00:22:25] I never knew that either. That was a really interesting detail that after 10 years after the earthquake, the visas were up 

Lisa Gardner: [00:22:31] You’re supposed to go back and at this point, so many of them they’re gainfully employed. They really are the healthcare industry in Boston. I mean, Boston will tell you, we want to keep them. We don’t. So there’s been a series of lawsuits, but what’s it like you have an entire community living on limbo. I mean now Biden is saying that he will give them green card status, but who knows? I mean, they have been living for the last few years waiting to just be told that’s it. Pack up everything and go home. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:01] I’m so, so, so enjoying this. Okay. So once you’ve got all of these ideas, how do you work to get them to, how long does it take you to write a book like this?

Lisa Gardner: [00:23:09] So I write a book a year and it’s three months of this research. So I had to talk to the police, go to Mattapan. Eat a lot of Haitian meat patties for the book. Yeah. Yeah, it was totally, it was, you know, in the interest of authenticity, I had eaten some really amazing food. The things we do for our job. And then I’m big on Anne Lamott’s The Shitty First Draft. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:29] Yes me too. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:23:31] it’s pretty much the only thing that enables me to write is to know it’s okay if it’s terrible. So for six months, I get the shitty first draft. And then I really do believe in rewriting. I mean, I often argue I’m not a good writer, but I’m a great rewriter. So I work with my editor. I mean, still at this age, I mean, I’m at this stage of my career. I’ve given up on this whole concept of ever getting it right the first time. And I trust on, you know, smart people and good input. And I love my editor and I, it was great, big picture comments, you know, like I can tell you what lost here and you need tighten up there. And I already know your bad guy on page 20, which is always a very frustrated comment. And then I revise and polish and try to make it everything I want my readers to, I feel my readers deserve, 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:23] Oh, it’s just a, you’re so good at it. I feel like I’m, I’m learning. I’ve only written two thrillers. The next one comes out next year and I’m just soaking, soaking up all of this knowledge that I’m learning from your work. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing? 

Lisa Gardner: [00:24:37] Plotting. The characters come to me organically, like Frankie Elkin. I mean, I had to think about a few things, but the more I spent time writing, the more she just became real and alive and whole and human and traumatized and, Oh, she just breaks my heart a little bit. Like she’s-

Rachael Herron: [00:24:56] She’s one of my favorite characters in a long time that I’ve read 

Lisa Gardner: [00:24:59] You so want her to find whatever it is she’s looking for. And I’ve loved this notion of this whole anti-life that, you know, normal life is what triggers her to drink. So she has to just keep on keeping on moving from town to town, obsessing over other people’s problems, because if she stays still bad things happen for her. And just, but the loneliness of that, I don’t know, she just fascinated me. But the plotting is real. It’s talking to the police and figuring out, okay, here’s some logical steps or things that need to account for, it’s a lot of days of banging my head against the blank computer screen, going, yelling at the computer to work harder when really it’s probably my brain needs.

Rachael Herron: [00:25:45] That makes me feel better because you make it look so easy, you know, and I know it’s not that easy

Lisa Gardner: [00:25:49] You know what, it’s been 30 years and there’s not been an easy book yet. Back to my biggest advice for writers is just get comfortable, being uncomfortable. Each book is going to torture you in its own way. But that probably also means you’re doing something right. Because you don’t want to be writing the last book again. Right? You want to be doing something fresh and original. So if it’s incredibly painful, good job!

Rachael Herron: [00:26:15] Which is more painful for you, the first draft or the revision? 

Lisa Gardner: [00:26:19] the first draft. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:20] Yeah, me too. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:26:21] Finding my way to the end. Yeah. And there are definitely days I don’t know what I’m doing. I think as a writer, you need to know inspiration, not just what inspires the book, but what gets you motivated to write each day. And I live in the mountains of New Hampshire and hiking for me is a big thing. It’s kind of like the active meditation. Get out. Think about the book problem. Think about the fact that I’m on page 50, a 450 pages, and I have no idea what’s going to happen next and that’s really darn intimidating. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:52] And there’s a deadline coming. Yeah. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:26:54] Yeah. Start walking and inevitably the walking part leads to an idea part and I can go home and actually be productive versus just curse the computer again.

Rachael Herron: [00:27:07] So is that kind of a daily process for you then the hike and then the writing? 

Lisa Gardner: [00:27:11] Well, I generally try to write some pages, at least first thing in the morning before you have really good conscious thought. And then I get stuck and I get frustrated. So I will do something active. I mean, might not be a hike or a little walk or better weather go out in the garden or just, I don’t put it on the house. Something that just lets my mind wander. But I have to be physically moving to think. I don’t know why. As long as it works. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:37] I believe you said when we started that you’re, you’ll pace while we’re talking too, which is actually 

Lisa Gardner: [00:27:41] I’m pacing right now. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:45] Amazing

Lisa Gardner: [00:27:46] But that then often reveals to me one, all the flaws with what I wrote first thing in the morning but also sometimes solidifies my thought, this is where I need to go. This is what I’m trying to do. And yay me. I get to throw out the last 10 pages, which just hurts. It just hurts.

Rachael Herron: [00:28:05] It always hurts

Lisa Gardner: [00:28:08] I cut and save them because then it doesn’t feel like I’m throwing them away, but I’ve never, ever gone back to a deleted scene and put it back in. But just, 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:18] But you have to tell yourself, you have to tell yourself this is beautiful. I’m going to use it someday. I’ll put it safely over here. And 

Lisa Gardner: [00:28:28] Yeah, I think big part of being a liar, being a writer is lying to yourself. I mean, whatever works. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:32] Yes! I really believe that too. I believe that we have to lie to ourselves and we have to have this inordinate wellspring of hope every time this hope just can’t leave us. And I think that writers are a very hopeful bunch that I’m going to finish this book too. I’m going to get this one done. It’s going to be okay. I’m going to figure it out. Can you share a craft tip of any sort with our readers? 

Lisa Gardner: [00:28:52] Gosh, what is, I, so I had to think about this. So when I was writing, Before She Disappeared, I had to make the neighborhood of Mattapan come alive and I feel this is a weakness of mine. Like I am not very good at description. Like I’m not, I love to read books with rich world-building, but I’m not very big on it. So I visited Mattapan and walking the streets, I’m eating the food and I’m trying to think of, I mean in my own mind, start to set the stage and I can’t capture, I can’t capture any of it. And it occurred to me that so often when we’re trying to do scenes or relying on just our eyes, what it is, we see. And really what Mattapan became, what does it sound like? Sirens and stuff everywhere. What does it smell like? You know, you have the diesel fuel and it was summer and they had that city stench to it kind of thing. You know? You know, if Mattapan was a character, is that’s the other thing that occurred to me walking through the streets was a location can be like a person. Like there’s a couple of blocks we walked down that my friend and I both were like, we should not be here. We’re going to die. But then the next block would be like this lovely renovated 1950s house. I mean, it’s like you have the flaws and you have the hope. And, you know, when you start thinking of your location as a character and using all of your senses to describe it, I think that becomes the key to better world building.

Rachael Herron: [00:30:20] So it’s shocking to me that you say that it doesn’t come to you naturally and it has to be brought in because you’re so good at it. And it is something that I really struggle with too. And I never write it in a first draft. I put it in later as a pass basically because I can’t fit it in. Is that what you do or are you actually weaving it in as you go with this first draft?

Lisa Gardner: [00:30:42] Oh, it’s so cute. I can see your little dog opening the door. 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:47] She just let herself out

Lisa Gardner: [00:30:48] That’s awesome. I will give myself a pass. I will do often what I do in a book, especially if I passages with the writing is starting to bog me down. Like I’ve generated two pages and even I know it’s one sentence. I just, it’s almost like I’m writing around the thought. I just don’t have it well enough yet. And at a certain point, I’ll just make a note, come back to this and try to move on the story. Like I really like Stephen King. He talked about there’s great writers and there’s great storytellers. I don’t think I’m a great writer to tell you the truth. I get very frustrated. There’s days the word doc just pisses me off. Like it just should not be in the English language, but try writing a sentence, not using it. I’m the storyteller. So when I’m having a bad writing day, when I’m getting really bogged down on the words, you know, I can’t describe this damn street for love nor money. Sometimes it’s better to say, I’m going to come back to that. It’ll be okay. And let’s get on with the story. So again, I’m under deadline. I need to have something to show for it and hating the word that doesn’t get me to the end there again, 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:56] I get ands and buts are the ones that pick me up. I don’t know why, but yeah. Okay. So what thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way? 

Lisa Gardner: [00:32:08] What thing in my life affects my writing in a surprising way. I am a notorious, neat freak. Like my office is very clean. Someone asked if we looked at your desk, could we see what you were working on? And I’m like, no, not at all.

Rachael Herron: [00:32:27] Wow. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:32:28] And it’s interesting. It’s like, I almost need things to be a little bit sterile to be creative. If there’s other stuff going on around me, maybe, I guess just get too distracted, but I need it to things nice and neat and clean to kind of go into the creative mind. 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:44] Is there any, is there ever a time in your process that it explodes? I like to keep things pretty neat, but when I’m at the end, like deadline, deadline, like the week of 12 hour days, my office explodes. Do you have any of that or does it remain neat? 

Lisa Gardner: [00:33:00] It’s actually the opposite and it’s awful. My phone will tell you if like, you know, two weeks before deadline, this desk has to be cleaned out and organized. Go, go, go! They’re like, she’s reaching deadline now. It’s like the futility closet. We never need, we need to clean this out. We need to organize this. 

Rachael Herron: [00:33:17] That’s hilarious

Lisa Gardner: [00:33:18] Yeah, I think it’s neurotic, but thank you. 

Rachael Herron: [00:33:21] Did you watch, the Home Edit when it came out? Did you watch that series? 

Lisa Gardner: [00:33:24] No

Rachael Herron: [00:33:25] Ooh, you might enjoy it. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:33:26] Okay. 

Rachael Herron: [00:33:27] The Home Edit, they just go in. It’s like Marie Kondo, but these two American women and it’s

Lisa Gardner: [00:33:32] Oh, anything about organizing just makes my heart go

Rachael Herron: [00:33:35] The Home Edit it’s like six or eight episodes there. You’re welcome. You’re going to love it. Love it. What is the best book that you’ve read recently? 

Lisa Gardner: [00:33:45] I have been raving about the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, by V.E. Schwab 

Rachael Herron: [00:33:50] Schwab, I believe? 

Lisa Gardner: [00:33:51] Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:33:52] I’ve seen that everywhere, but I haven’t, I haven’t read it. Do you love it? 

Lisa Gardner: [00:33:55] Yes. So it’s a really great high concept book. So it’s like 17th century France. A young girl makes a deal with the devil. She wants to get out of an arranged marriage. So he promises her basically to live forever belonging to herself. That’s what she wants. So, you know, reading, you get this, this desire. I don’t want to be owned by anyone. However, fine print is she will never be remembered, like as fast as she meets someone, they forget her. And so it’s now been hundreds of years and 

Rachael Herron: [00:34:26] Oh that just give me goosebumps. That’s really high concept yeah.

Lisa Gardner: [00:34:28] But no one knows, no one even knows her name. Like she’s not heard her name spoken, you know, like 300 years. And then she goes into this bookstore and she’s stealing a book because that’s how she supports herself because no one can remember her. So she just kind of steal. He can, but she also can’t open a bank account. Think about it. You can’t get a guy, but she can’t be photographed as part of it. Like, she can’t be caught on video. Like it’s all part of the curse. So and she goes back the next day to steal a second book and the clerk actually recognizes her. 

Rachael Herron: [00:34:57] Oh, I love this. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:34:58] And then, I mean, and just how. So that’s kind of your starting mystery, but it’s very philosophical book about the things we think we want. The fine print that existed in everything and everything. Now, did she win? Did she lose? I mean a lot of the books. She’s not sure 

Rachael Herron: [00:35:17] That is lovely. Thank you for explaining it to me because I didn’t, I, I keep seeing the cover and keep thinking, Oh, you know, I’ll check that out at some point, but that really makes me 

Lisa Gardner: [00:35:25] Yeah. It just, it sucks you in, and then in long after it’s gone, you’re thinking about it and you’re in particularly remembering her. It’s such a unique life. 

Rachael Herron: [00:35:36] Speaking of characters who are memorable, will you tell us a little bit about where Before She Disappeared can be found and a little bit about where you can be found, because that is the book that I am really, really enjoying so much right now. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:35:51] So Before She Disappeared, we’ll be on sale on Tuesday, January 19th. And I will be doing a virtual book tour that week. So if you go to LisaGardner.com or Facebook (LisaGardnerBks) or Instagram (LisaGardnerBks), you can find the schedule. And it’s really fun, but I’m really, really can’t wait. So Monday night I do a fun radio thing in my hometown with White Birch Books, Tuesday for Poison Pen, it’s like a, kind of a zoom like event that you’re invited to join. You can get the information from online. I’m with Riley Sager, who is my favorite authors, and then. I think Wednesday night is off, but Thursday night I get to do an event for that Who Yoga County Library with Lee Child. Friday night, I get to be with Lisa Scott Delaney. 

Rachael Herron: [00:36:37] Oh, my gosh,

Lisa Gardner: [00:36:38] If you want to set an entertainment, 

Rachael Herron: [00:36:40] Lisa Scott Delaney just last night blurbed my new book and she’d loved it. And I’m still like, walking on air 

Lisa Gardner: [00:36:48] Yes! And you should, you should all, that’s such a great moment when, especially when another writer and while you’re writing heroes likes what you’ve done. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:36:55] It’s not a friend, not a writing friend that, you know, they have to give you one out of pity, you know, but yeah, that’s. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:37:01] Stephen King used my name in a book, people around yard sale characters, and they were picking between a Lisa Gardner book and something else. I walked on air for weeks after that, 

Rachael Herron: [00:37:12] That’s even better than it’s got a Leni quote. Oh my God. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:37:14] It’s like Stephen King knows I exist. That’s enough for me. He didn’t say the book was good. He didn’t say anything like that. He knows I exist. And that’s enough for me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:37:23] I would put that on my epitaph really

Lisa Gardner: [00:37:28] Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:37:29] Well Lisa Gardener, thank you so, so, so, so much for being here. Thank you for writing this book. I think it’s important and it’s beautiful and it’s just unputdownable it really is. I try my best to put down every book because I got so many I wanna read. I, you know, and I just can’t put it down. So,

Lisa Gardner: [00:37:43] Oh, yay! Thank you very much, Rachael. 

Rachael Herron: [00:37:46] Thanks for doing this and happy writing to you and best of luck, may it fly from the shelves. 

Lisa Gardner: [00:37:49] Best wishes with your next novel. 

Rachael Herron: [00:37:51] Thank you so much. Bye!

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.

The post Ep. 222: Lisa Gardner on How To Keep Moving Forward With Your Story appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

In this bonus miniepisode, Rachael talks about how to start writing your book when it’s all you want to do and you’re still not doing it. Also: how to lay groundwork in a first novel in a series for the next book without letting down the reader, how to deal with a revision letter, and how to use a foreign language in context! 

How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you’ll gain insight from other writers on how to get in the chair, tricks to stay in it, and inspiration to get your own words flowing. 

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers!

Transcript

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #221 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. So pleased that you are with me here today on a mini episode day. I didn’t have very many questions. And then suddenly I had them. Bunch of them. So let’s move into answering some of these awesome questions and a reminder you can be a part of this by being at the $5 level on Patreon, patreon.com/Rachael, and this is kind of like a mini coaching service. You can send me questions whenever you want about anything, which is pretty cool. And I collect them until I got a whack of them to go through. [00:00:55] So this is from Alan Tansley. Alan, you’ve been waiting the longest. Thank you for your patience. I’m writing the first book of a trilogy. I know that part of the second book will cover events which take place during the same time period as the first book, but using a side character as a new point of view. I want to lay some groundwork now so that it doesn’t feel as though it comes out of nowhere. My question is how do I do that without making a promise to the reader that this event slash mystery will be dealt with in the first book, I don’t want to end up with a disappointing ending because I accidentally created intrigue, which never gets resolved or even explored. First of all, it’s huge that you are thinking about that, the fact that you are thinking about it knows that you are going to be treating it sensitively enough. And here’s my answer, and it comes from the first two words of your question. I’m writing, I’m writing the first book of a trilogy. While you’re in the first draft, don’t worry about it too much because you’re going to get it wrong. You will absolutely get that balance wrong. And then, and that’s normal. You should be getting that wrong. It will be impossible to get right the first time through. When you’re in revision, you’re going to make it better. You’re going to make it as good as you can. And this is one of those things that falls into the editor’s camp. You, as the author will never quite be able to see if you have sprinkled in the information enough so that it feels resonant in the next book, but not so much that your reader of the first book gets impatient because you don’t solve that question.[00:02:37] You will not be able to see whether you have done that right or not. We are never able to objectively view our work in a way. That is real and true and we rely on editors to do that. And every single person listening to this who publishes their books will have a professional editor, whether your agent sold your book, and now you’re working with an editor at a traditional publishing house, or whether you have hired your own very professional editor to help you with this book. You’re not going to be able to see this with your own eyes. So in a way I hope this is a relief to you, do the best you can, but don’t do worry about doing it right. You’re going to need help with it anyway and the project sounds really exciting and I encourage you to keep going and get that book done. Okay. It’s been a while, maybe it’s done by the time you listened to me saying this. Okay. [00:03:27] This next one is from Jill Ross Nether. Hi, Rachael, I have a question that I suspect might be a bit too complex for a mini episode. No. But I’ll throw it out there anyway. Do you have any tips or suggestions for getting emotion on the page? I write light middle grade fantasy and my agent and the editors, she’s sending my book to like my premise, the action and the humor, but in the immortal words of Peewee Herman, everyone has a big but. They aren’t connecting with it on a deep enough level, which I’m believe is code for not enough emotion. This is something I’ve always struggled with. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. [00:04:03] Yes. And here you all will get my very many very fast version of a lecture I often give, which is that our brains run like computers. They’re always running these simulations. When we are reading words or watching something on a screen, our brains believe that it is about to happen to us in a very real lizard-like back of the brain way and we can’t control that. If something jumps off the screen at you, in a horror movie, you know, a jump scare, you recoil and scream because your lizard brain says that that thing is going to jump off the screen and get you. The front of your brain knows that it can’t, back of your brain cannot figure that out. When we read books, if we are told something, we can’t feel it. However, if the words are put into language that then run like a simulation on our brains, we can understand what the author is talking about. And that sounds strange. So let me make that clear if you are writing olfactory words. So words like lavender, and, what else is smell – a vanilla if you’re talking about the smell, if you’re reading words that are talking about smells, your olfactory cortex lights up as if it is about to smell the object. If you read that somebody jumps on a skateboard and balances, your motor cortex is getting ready to help you balance [00:05:34] Everyone, when it comes to processing emotions to get to your question. Everyone feels emotions in very, in a very similar way on the viscera. So the middle part of our body, like our throat, our chest, our stomach, our heads, all these things kind of in the core of our body, also things do flash out to our hands or legs or extremities. These are things we cannot control and they are also things that everyone feels in a very similar way. As I mentioned. The problem with finding what these things are, is remembering what they are. A lot of us, when we’re writing about visceral feelings, default to the things that are easy to think of like palms being sweaty, or throat being tight. For me because I’m a chronic migraine suffer, I always think of the head starting to hurt. When we show these bodily reactions on the page, your reader will understand what is happening emotionally with your character. A thousand times better than they would. If you said she was stressed or she was angry or she was lonely, if you show the things that are happening in their body, instead of, so it’s basically really showing versus instead of telling, don’t worry about telling them your reader, that this person is sad. Show instead where those emotions live in people’s bodies. [00:07:00] As I started to say, the problem is kind of breaking out of your own rut. I always default to tight throat and a headache, there’s a hack for this. And this is a fantastic tip. I think everybody should go out and buy The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becky forgot her last name. The Emotion Thesaurus, basic- I buy it. I would recommend buying it on Kindle and then getting the Kindle app for your computer, if you don’t already have it so that when you’re working on your book, you can just bring it up and go to the table of contents. And just randomly, I have it open in front of me and I clicked on the chapter for eagerness. And if I were to be asked where let’s see, I haven’t looked at the things yet. If I wanted to show eagerness on the page, I might show, fluttering. Like a fluttering feeling at the top of the lungs. I think that for me, that maybe is eagerness. But in this book, you get to go to the page that says eagerness and the internal sensations and hey, a fluttery stomach, increased heartbeat and expanding feeling in the chest. So there we’ve got fluttery and the chest feeling, so that connects it to mind, breathlessness, adrenaline causing alertness. For each of these emotions there’s also, so there’s these interior signals and there’s also exterior physical signals. So if your character is looking at someone, they can read their emotion by what they’re looking at and what they’re seeing.[00:08:23] So for eagerness, those kinds of things are fiddling with an object, squeezing the hands at one sides. Speaking in a bubbly or loud tone, rushing one’s words, strong eye contact, all of these things that you can drop into your book that then run on your reader’s brain, like a computer simulation and tells the reader at a very base visceral level, what this character is feeling and suddenly, this is the secret sauce for so many of us. I am quite sad that it took me so long to learn this trick because honestly, I don’t, I have a problem with emotions in my own body. I am very good at compartmentalization and I don’t always understand what I’m feeling. And I’ve learned to look inside my body and see where I’m actually feeling something. And then I’m able to figure out how to put it on the page, but this is a tip, a hack that will change your writing so much. It’ll bring it just up to that next level. Your reader will be able to connect with the character on the page in a way that they were not able to before. So Jill, helped that, that’s a good answer for you.[00:09:36] Okay. The next question is from Sarah Bailey. Thank you, Sarah, for your patience. And, this is a really good one that I have been looking forward to answering. I will also say that my wife is in the room next to me because she’s having a dog meetup on zoom. So if you hear a voice in the background, hopefully it’s very, very thin. You can’t hear very much. And, that’s what they’re doing, which sounds fun. Okay. So Sarah’s question. I heard your call for questions. And I nervously wasn’t going to send one in at first, but if nothing changes, then nothing changes. So here it goes. How do I start writing the first draft? I’m my own worst enemy and recognize I’ve researched myself right into analysis paralysis. It’s like my brain shuts down and refuses to form coherent thoughts. The second I try to leap from a few pages of thoughts, snippets of scenes notes on character, story threads, to the actual craft of a story drafting stage. I know I just have to do it to break the wall and I still haven’t done it. Extra planning and outlining ends up with another notebook, tossed away and discussed, and no planning at all is antithetical to my being. I have listened or read so many blogs books, podcasts for many, many years at this point on how to start. And every idea sounds so amazing till I sit down and try it for myself. Then my brain freezes again, writing this, it seems like maybe I just don’t want it that bad or I’d love, or I’d be able to do it, but I want to write empowering female fantasy fiction books.[00:11:02] Every time I’ve tried to set the dream aside, it quickly starts climbing. It’s clawing its way back till I can’t ignore it anymore. I do want it that bad. And I’m so sad that I haven’t been able to honor myself by fulfilling this dream. Anyways. That was a lot. Thank you for your time. And the reason I’m so thrilled to answer this, or at least speak toward it. Sarah is that you are sharing the feeling of so many people. There are so many people listening right now to this podcast and to many other podcasts and reading books and all of that who are wondering the same thing and are feeling the same frustration. And I love that you asked it. I sat in that frustration for years and years and years, I think that, I think almost all writers have pushed through this time and have gone through this kind of pain. And it is pain. This is your dearest dream, and you want to do it and you’re not doing it. So it is pain. I love when Becca Syme talks about the essential pains of writing.[00:12:06] And I think this is one of the biggest. For most people for a lot of people, I will say what it comes down to is the gap is IRA Glass’s theory of the gap. The reason we want to write books is because we have amazing taste. We are great readers. Therefore, we know what good writing looks like. Good writing however, is a whole book and many drafts later, plus editors, plus copy editors, plus proofreaders, plus all of these things so much time is put into the books we read. That is what a good book is. And we know a good book when we read it. When we read what we actually write in those few halting sentences, it is nothing like the feeling of the book we want to put on the page. And that is so devastatingly disappointing that it is too hard to hold. It is too painful and too upsetting. And we don’t do it because it hurts too much. We’re also not thinking this consciously, we’re not sitting at the desk going, this is too painful. I’m not living up to my potential.[00:13:13] No, we just know we can’t do it. We don’t know why it’s frustrating. We get angry at ourselves. We get sad and we walk away. There’s only one, there’s only one real fix to this. And it is the reason why national novel writing month, NaNoWriMo is so popular and so, and has contributed to so many amazing published books. The only way through this is to get a little bit more comfortable with writing crap. We’re never going to be comfortable with writing total crap with writing total shit we’re never, ever going to be happy about that. It’s never going to feel good, but we have to learn how to do it because that’s the only way to get a product that then we can revise and make into something good. No one sits down and writes a good book. Literally no one sits down and writes a good book. There are like five people in the world who revises, they go and end up with finished books that they are proud of, but those are in the vast minority of writers. And you can only know that you’re one of those in that vast minority.[00:14:22] If you are writing, revising, as you go and completing good books on a regular basis that are then getting published, then you’re in that. Otherwise, if you’re having this stuck feeling that you’re having Sarah, you’re one of the people that has to barrel through a terrible draft and it is painful. And humans, as I often say, we are built to avoid pain from a existential level. We do not like to do things that cause mental pain, physical pain, obviously we move away from those things and it does take accepting, this is not going to feel that great. And then we put that feeling. I always talk about like putting it in the side car here. It is letting it rest there, sitting down for half an hour or a 20, 25 minute Pomodoro session and writing terrible words. And maybe inside there, there’s one sentence that doesn’t suck as much as the rest and then making that the reward. Making the satisfaction you get actually be doing the work of writing crappy words of a crappy book that you are sure you will never be able to fix.[00:15:36] That is what we all have to do and there’s no easy way to do it. However, I will say that in the quit cast, which is on YouTube again, Becca Syme, she talks about why her most recent video is Why Am I Not More Productive? And she’s talking a lot about open and closed loops. She believes, and I believe that the best way to get your writing done, if you’re struggling with actually doing the writing is to write first before you open any loops that are not closable like the internet in any way, shape or form. You should write first before you look at your phone, before you look at any technology. Go ahead and walk the dog and make the coffee and take the kids to school or whatever. But once you enter into the vastness, that is the internet that is always going to be pleasurable and be giving you dopamine hits. And it is so much harder to then go to your work and try to do something that is painful and that you’re not good at because nobody is good at a first draft. I have written, I don’t know how many books, 27, 28 books. And I am still bad at writing them. And my first drafts are terrible. And I know that you have already absorbed a ton of information about writing.[00:16:48] You already know about story structure. You probably know about character arc, you know, all of these things. And that is also a stressor because now that you have a huge library of knowledge, every time you do put down crappy words that also don’t do anything to advance a plot or advanced a character you get stressed out about that too. All of that, I’m just going to say repeatedly is normal and that’s part of the essential pain of writing. None of us can do it any other way than to do it badly. So ask yourself, have you tried writing for 25 to 45 minutes a day, five days a week, in order to get a set number of words, that is what works for a lot of people. For NaNoWriMo it’s 50,000, you’re just driving towards 50,000 words. It doesn’t matter how you get there, and then you can revise it later. If you are trying to write a longer book, maybe you’re driving towards 70,000 words or 90,000 words, but you just keep putting terrible words on the page until you hit that goal. And then you can start thinking about making it into a good book. And it really is a process of sitting down and rewarding yourself, not for writing well, or for writing the book of your heart. The book of our heart never exists. The book we imagine in our minds that we want to write is never the book we write, and that is also and also holds its own level of essential pain. However, the book that we create, the book that we revise, the book that we breathe the life into is always a better book than we imagine. Always. It’s always better than anything we can imagine, but when it doesn’t look like what we want and it lands on the page, it hurts.[00:18:27] So you are normal acknowledging that and making the reward, just getting terrible words done is the only thing that works for most people, honestly, most successful writers, they just have to get the bad words on the page first. I know I’m harping on about this, but Sarah, write back and tell me how you feel about that. Other people, reach out and contact me and tell me how you feel about that advice. Okay. Y’all I have got to say that it is incredibly hard to, do a podcast and this is the only time I can get it done, while listening to my wife in a dog meeting. All the dogs are squeaking things. She’s throwing things for the dog. So it is pretty fun. I wish I was also in that meeting, but I’m very glad to be here. [00:19:11] Okay. Last questions come from Michelle. Hello, Michelle. Okay, Michelle says in Miami, almost everyone knows some Spanish words. It’s part of the dialect. My editor asked me to translate the non, the non-super obvious ones. I feel like the translations lose the flavor, but does not translate it. Lose the reader. How do you intertwine translations so the cadence doesn’t break? Okay. So this is something that people feel differently about. And perhaps my answer is flavored by the fact that I live and grew up in California and Spanish is everywhere, but I do feel like there are a lot of Spanish words just in the air in America, right. The question always is, can the reader pickup through enough context to know what was said? Readers don’t have to understand everything. They just have to be able to follow along. And I personally really like it when I see things I can understand and I’m picking it up by context. We honor our readers by letting them do a little bit of mental work and readers like that. They like to be asked to participate in thinking about this book. Yes, some readers might get frustrated by not knowing every word and those readers are going to get frustrated about something anyway. As long as you are not giving information, that is absolutely necessary for every reader to have, and the conversation can be followed contextually. Then you do you, you get to make that decision. The reason you’re asking it- I think is probably because you don’t agree with all of her suggestions on this. Follow your gut. Trust your gut, not the ego, which always says I am right about everything in my beautiful book. Make sure that it’s your gut telling you that it’s the right thing to do. And then, and then do that follow that editors are fantastic and they’re absolutely necessary. And we don’t have to do everything that they say. [00:21:10] Okay. Number two question. Last question. What is your process when you get your edits back from the editor? I feel like you answered this before, but I can’t remember. I read everything over, made notes on stickies. And then I’m leaving in the bigger comments from the editor that I need more time to review and doing the smaller edits first. Is that about right? Yeah. So if your editor is not telling you, which my editors often have to pull your book apart and put it back together again, then yes, that is a perfect way to do it. If the editor’s revision letter is bigger than that and addresses a lot of structural problems, then you’re probably going to want to go back to and start ye oldie process of revision. And, Michelle has been through my revision masterclass, but for those of you who haven’t, you can listen to episode number 108 of this podcast and that’s kind of how I recommend doing revision, or episode number 177, which is how to do revision passes. So if it’s a very, very large overview pull apart, put back together again, structure just very briefly, I recommend making a sentence outline. Doing a lot of thinking about what you want to change and then re-outlining, and then starting from there.[00:22:25] But if your book is already in the shape that you know that it wants to be, and your editor agrees with you, then yes, make those ideas to yourself on post-its. If post-its work for you, but I think they work for a lot of people and then leave those bigger comments inside the document and handle them when you get to them, when you arrive at them. And at that point, hopefully your vision will be helping you to answer those things. I kind of tend to work through my manuscript from top to bottom after I have read all the notes inside the document, and I’ve read her revision letter and taken some time to really put the two things together and marry those two things. And then I tend to start at the top and work all the way through. So I do the big stuff and the little stuff at the same time as I’m going through in order. However, if it’s making you feel more confident to address the smaller sentence level questions, and then go back to the big stuff. Absolutely great. The only time I would say that might be a bad idea or not ideal idea is if you’re fixing sentence level questions on scenes that might need to go. That might need to be lifted out and removed. But Michelle, I don’t think you’re in any danger of that because you understand this whole process. So, but for other people who want a deeper dive into revision, check out episode number 108 and 177. And Michelle, it sounds like you’re doing it exactly right for you.[00:23:49] Thank you everybody for coming to this mini episode show that was really, really interrupted by dogs and car horns. And I don’t think a show has ever been like the universe is saying stop recording Rachael. So I’m going to stop recording right now and wish you happy writing my friends. 

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.

The post Ep. 221: How Do I Even START Writing My Book? Bonus Episode appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Rachel Lynn Solomon writes, tap dances, and collects red lipstick in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of the YA novels Today Tonight Tomorrow, You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone, Our Year of Maybe, and We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This (June 2021). She will also tell anyone who’ll listen that it really doesn’t rain that much in Seattle, where she lives with her husband and tiny dog. Her newest novel is The Ex Talk.

How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you’ll gain insight from other writers on how to get in the chair, tricks to stay in it, and inspiration to get your own words flowing. 

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers!

Transcript

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #220 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. And I am thrilled that you are here today. Today, we are talking to Rachel Lynn Solomon, and she has a little tip that blew my mind and maybe might help me change the way I first draft because my first drafts are really, really bad. And she gives us a tip that might help with how we look at some of the scenes inside our books. Plus, it was really fun to talk to her. She has a process very much like my own and her name is pretty great. So, it was just a delight talking to her. You’re going to enjoy that. What’s been going on around here? Well, I’m feeling a little bit better. This is really my first day, maybe my second day up all day sitting here at the desk, continuing to work. I took a little tiny break, but I didn’t need a big break. I’m still pretty tired, still working things out, still trying to get a good diagnosis and I’ve still got multiple tests coming. But feeling grateful to be sitting here, able to do my work. It feels really good. I wanted to mention that I’m reading a book called The Kindness Method. I love to read the self-help books. I just read the 12-Week year, which I really enjoyed. Which is kind of the way I already operate, but the 12-Week year really made me think, how can I do more, more, how can I do more? How can I do more faster? And The Kindness method says, what the hell? Why don’t you treat yourself well with the kindness and compassion that you deserve? And I’m really, really loving it. [00:02:07] The whole reason I started You’re Already Ready. I started that podcast. I’m writing the book slowly. One of the reasons that I started that, and one of the reasons why I do this podcast, and why I do all the things I do, like the teaching and all of that is because there isn’t enough encouragement out here in writinglandia. We do beat ourselves up too much. And I know that because I am an expert at beating myself up, it is, I could be a pro. I am a pro. I’m actually professional at beating myself up. And its just kind of obscene when I think about the stuff that I have said to myself in my own head, while being very sick while going through an lockdown for almost a year now while rough things are happening. And I still tell myself, why aren’t you getting more done? How can you possibly not be living up to your expectations? And if you do live up to your expectations, why can’t you make them higher? And I am just putting a stop to it. I am so good. I really know this is something I’m good at. I’m so good at helping other people stop that in their own creative life, or at least allowing them the space to remember that they are important and that they are already worthy and that they’re already doing a great job. Actually trying to remember that for myself and do it for myself is something I am making into part of my job now. Part of my job is being kind to myself and having realistic goals and being gentle and loving with myself around my work. I’m pretty good already being loving to myself in terms of my personality and even my body, which is a challenge for a lot of people. I’ve been working on that for a long time, but what I have not been able to work on or have chosen not to work on for many years is being kind to myself in terms of the work arena and this productivity model that honestly capitalism gives us, right?[00:04:24] What are you worth if you’re not producing? And I had a month where I wasn’t producing. And it really shook me up. So the kindness method is pretty wonderful, really enjoying that book. So if you are a person who needs that kind of break, I would recommend picking it up. There’s a lot of exercises in it and I’m actually doing them. So that’s good. I’m also gone back to journaling daily because that gives me so much, it’s so silly when I don’t journal, like the revelations that I have on a daily basis are enormous just because I sit down and think in terms of Clifton strengths, which, you know, I love, yay, Becca Syme. I am input and intellection. I have to be thinking about things and it is easy not to think about things. It’s easy to go from task to task, to task without asking yourself the big questions of why am I doing this task? Why am I doing it this way? Why am I treating myself this way? So journaling is not something right now for me, that is optional. It is almost imperative to my soul to be, I know that sounds silly, but to be journaling, to be willing to be present with how I’m feeling and looking at that on the page has been awesome in a non-driven way. In a non you must do this, you must get X number of pages by 9:30 in the morning just in a, in a really beautiful way. I’ve made myself a cup of coffee and I sit down with my journal and it has been great. So if you have forgotten to be kind and gentle to yourself, if you have gotten yourself into a place where your productivity or the speed of your productivity is getting you down, take a deep breath. You are just fine. You are doing great where you are. You can always change things to make them feel better to hit your goals. That’s important. However, being kind to yourself I think is more important. Honestly. So that’s what I’ve been thinking about this week. [00:06:38] Let’s see, I want to thank Mandy Stevens for supporting me on Patreon. Thank you, Mandy. Mandy and I have been friends for a long time and it really means a lot to me that you support me there. It really means a lot to me from all of my patrons. Thank you so much, always, always for helping me do this job. I’m about to write my next Patreon essay and that’ll go out this week and is going to be a good one. I’m really excited. I’ve I’m, I’ve been writing it for a little while now and can’t wait to send it. So if you ever want to learn more about those, you can always go to patreon.com/Rachael. Otherwise let’s jump into the interview with Rachel Lynn Solomon. You’re going to love it. Okay my friends happy writing. [00:07:20] This episode is brought to you by my book Fast Draft Your Memoir. Write your life story in 45 hours, which is, by the way, totally doable. And I’ll tell you how. It’s the same class I teach in the continuing studies program at Stanford each year, and I’ll let you in on a secret. Even if you have no interest in writing a memoir, yet the book has everything I’ve ever learned about the process of writing, and of revision, and of story structure, and of just doing this thing that’s so hard and yet all we want to do. Pick it up today.

Rachael Herron: [00:07:54] All right. Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show today. Rachel Lynn Solomon. Hello, Rachel. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:08:00] Hi, Rachael, it’s nice to talk to you! 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:03] Thank you so much for being here. I always enjoy talking to another Rachel, it’s fun to say. It’s weird to say the name. Do you ever feel, and this is a very strange question to ask, but don’t you feel that Rachel’s a very good name and like Rachel’s who inhabit Rachel’s are awesome people? 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:08:18] It’s rare to meet a bad one. I’ve not met like a complete dud. I don’t think 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:22] Exactly! That’s what I’m saying. Okay. Let me give you a little introduction here. Rachel Lynn Solomon writes, tap dances, and collects red lipstick in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of the YA novels, Today Tonight, Tomorrow, You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone, Our Year of Maybe, and We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This. She will also tell anyone who listens that it really doesn’t rain that much in Seattle, where she lives with her husband and tiny dog. And so welcome to the show, your new book, and I’ve just, it’s just got out of my head and it’s not in your bio for some reason, The Ex-talk, read it. Loved it. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:09:01] Thank you. 

Rachael Herron: [00:09:02] It’s such a unique premise. And as soon as, our mutual publicist sent me the thing I’m like, no, no, no. I have to read that book. So this particular show, talks about your writing process. You are obviously prolific. Are you a full-time writer? 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:09:18] I am, that as of two months ago? Yes. 

Rachael Herron: [00:09:23] How does it feel? 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:09:25] Good. I thought that I would be doing less of it on my couch, but as that is just the environment that we live in you know, I am, I had a side hustle for the past couple of years, and then before that I was working full time. So I’ve been kind of transitioning into it, but I did not think I’d be able to do it this soon. So I feel very, very fortunate that I have a lot of books cooking right now. 

Rachael Herron: [00:09:49] I have been, I’m almost up to my five-year anniversary and I have being full-time. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:09:54] Oh congrats

Rachael Herron: [00:09:49] Left the day job and it still feels completely unreal. And I remember being at the two-month mark and thinking, all right, I’m going to be living under a bridge soon. And it’s still not happening. So I’m so glad about that. So on this show, we talk about writing process and how you do what you do. And especially during the you know, lockdowns, I’m really interested to find out how do you get it done? First of all, where did you get it done? Cause you weren’t expecting to be on the couch so much. And how is it going now that you’re in your house? 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:10:24] Yes. So, most of my writing in the past has been done at a coffee shop, near my apartment in Seattle and they are known for their homemade truffles.

Rachael Herron: [00:10:36] Oh wow

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:10:37] So my husband would always say, when I get home, that I smell like chocolate, so it’s 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:46] Delightful. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:10:47] Yeah. And I would, it was also a really great motivator because I would get a truffle and put it on the edge of my desk. And when I hit, or edge of the table and when I hit like a word count goal, then, then I would get to have it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:59] That’s brilliant. I can’t believe

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:11:01] It’s not as much self-control at home. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:04] Exactly. And if you’ve got a box of truffles and I would probably eat the whole thing watching Netflix. So how has it been to shift into working at home? 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:11:13] It’s definitely been a challenge. You know, I try to split up my days, so I’m doing half in an office, and then half on the couch. But it’s also just, there are so many distractions, you know, the dishes have to be put away. Laundry has to be put away. Dog has to go out and its, focus is really tough. So I’ve been relying on some like productivity hacks, a little more than usual. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:41] Tell us a little bit more about that. We know we love a hack.

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:11:45] You know, I don’t know if it’s so much of a hack as it is just a method, but I am a full believer and devout worshiper of the Pomodoro method. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:54] Yes. Do you use the 25-5 or do you change the time at all? 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:11:58] I change it up. Sometimes I do 25. Sometimes I do 35 but so I do focused work for 20 to 30 minutes and then a five-minute break, and it is just kind of changed my writing process because you don’t notice until you start thinking about it, how often you just pick up your phone and mildly scroll through it. And then, you know, 20 minutes has gone by and what have you done? And same with the internet. So I try to, when I’m on deadline drafting or revising, I will block the, block social media, but I actually have to now put my phone in another room. Like I can’t physically have it near me. I mean, it’s an addiction really. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:45] I don’t know if you’ve heard of this new newish book called Indestructible. But he actually showed that being able to see- having your phone in your line of sight, Alexa stop, sorry. Real life, actually does require a certain amount of brain processing just to keep yourself from reaching for it. So, yeah. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:13:10] Yeah, absolutely. Because you’re seeing it in part of your brain is wondering what’s on it.

Rachael Herron: [00:13:14] Yes. Exactly

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:13:15] I also, this is something I did two years ago and it, I tell everyone to do it like every author, because it helps so much, but I turn off push notifications on my phone for everything except calendar notifications. And I can not imagine ever turning them back on because I hate my phone telling me that I have to look at something I want to decide. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:35] Same book said that only 15% of people turn off any push notifications. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:14:41] Wow 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:42] 85% of people let all of those apps tell them things all the time.

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:13:46] Oh wow. For me, the book was How to Break Up With Your Phone, I read a couple of years ago. The sad thing is I feel like any book like that is going to get outdated in a short amount of time. So I got to pick up, I’ve got to pick up this one, but it really had me thinking about my relationship with my phone, and how it’s affected my writing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:10] I maybe I should turn on calendar notifications on my phone. That’s one that I don’t have. I just have texts, but even that is enough to really, really. Yeah. I also have to move my phone out of the way. Any other hacks that you have for getting your work done? 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:14:23] Those are the main ones. Oh, actually a tremendous one that they should’ve mentioned is just I make trackers in a journal and I give myself stickers each time and I usually try to theme the tracker to the project. So, that’s a lot of fun and kind of exercises, a different part of my creative brain. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:44] So is it in like a bullet journal kind of format or is it, 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:14:46] Yes

Rachael Herron: [00:14:47] Oh, that’s lovely.

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:14:48] Yes, I love bullet journals for productivity. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:51] Is there any way you would consider sharing a photo of that with me that I could put at HowDoYouWrite.net? Maybe one of your

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:14:58] Yeah, I actually, I have a few on my Instagram right now, if you- 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:03] I’ll just grab one from there. If you don’t mind and I’ll screenshot it.

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:15:05] Yeah. Yeah. There’s one, if you scroll down, not too far, there’s one up an umbrella that, I think is a good visual. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:13] I am passionate about, doing my bullet journal very badly, but that’s fine. It’s just, it just has to be near me somewhere. That’s wonderful. I’ll just one more question about writing in the office versus writing on the couch. Are there, is it different types of writing that you’re doing in each place? 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:15:28] Sometimes

Rachael Herron: [00:15:29] Were you like revising in one place in writing first draft in another, or? 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:15:32] Yeah, I try to do admin at my, this is really bad, but like, I’m not as productive at my desk as I am on the couch, because I think there’s better lighting in the living room where the couches and the light is a huge factor for me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:44] Interesting.

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:15:45] Yeah. And like, I have to have natural light to be, to feel productive. Which is another reason I miss my coffee shop, cause it was on the edge of a Lake and it was just, I know it’s so nice. I hope, I hope they’re still there at the end of the year. But, yeah, natural light is huge for productivity any, the majority of like my good work gets done on the couch. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:12] I have just recently discovered my couch for writing. Cause I’ve been ill and I had no idea couches were so good to write on. I had no clue. So I love that. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing? 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:16:27] For me, a lot of times it is my own self-doubt and not even so much self-doubt in the industry, although that plays a role, but every time I open a word document and start a new project, I’m wondering, can I actually write another book? Cause it just, when you have that blank page feeling. Thinking it’s going to become this 350-page thing feels massive. So my first drafting process is I just write the complete, the messiest draft you’ve ever seen. Like it is incoherent. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:05] Yes. Love that. I have that too

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:17:07] I actually have bits of that on my Instagram as well. I have, like a page of a messy draft in a page, in a version I turned in, and it just has blanks everywhere. It has like, you know, add description. It, they’re not coherent. I would never send them to someone. But I actually get that out as fast as I can. And I am working off an outline. So there is some chronology and like some method to the madness there, but I have to get that out as fast as I can, because I have to prove to myself that I can write a book. That’s in some part of my obsessive brain. Like I have to get that out. Quickly. And if I don’t, then I won’t have a book so 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:49] A good way to say that, that you have to prove it to yourself because otherwise the imposter syndrome just steps in and takes over. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:17:55] Right. And it’s sometimes it’s a bit unhealthy because I will write 300 pages in three weeks. And then, you know, my hands are, you know, not happy with me and my back is not happy with me. So I, I mean, I have to take a break between drafts, but I’m trying to like extend that process a little bit, so I don’t get too, so I don’t get burned out with a project too soon. But sometimes like, it’s just going so quickly and you need to catch up with it. So that that’s a great feeling to have the recovery is not so great. But yeah, like I always feel as long as I can get a book shaped thing, I can revise it and make it better, even if the trash draft is just a nightmare. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:42] I have a goal to finish this first draft of this book I’m working on, by the 31st, which is three days from now. And I’m going to have to skeleton my way there. I’m still at least 15 scenes away from the end and I can’t write them all, but I will write a crappy, the most crap task dick skeleton to the end, because I am like you, I need that shape. What is your biggest joy when it comes to writing? 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:19:05] I love revising. I love going in and, 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:10] Rachel’s for the win!

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:19:11] Yes! I love going in and making things sound better, making things beautiful. And I really love figuring out my character’s voice as I do this. Like my first drafts don’t have any voice really. It’s like you said, a skeleton draft. So I love discovering things as I’m going back through and then, I mean, just on the author side, I love connecting with readers. I love hearing from readers and it still feels surreal every time I see a photo with my Bowker receive a message. And especially this week with a book, the book having just come out, it’s been exciting. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:49] Might I say, I have seen the excellent cover in up a bunch of places when I’m on Instagram, it just keeps coming up. So, they’re doing a good job of getting it out there and everyone is loving it. So 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:20:01] Oh thank you, I’m so grateful. 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:02] That’s so exciting. Can you sh- I know you’ve already sent, shared a couple of great tips, but can you share a craft tip of any sort with us?

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:20:09] Yes. So my favorite tip and I am not sure where I found it, or who told it to me, but someone once said that anything that happens slowly in real life should be sped up in fiction. And anything that happens quickly should be slowed down 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:25] That is brilliant. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:20:26] Isn’t it? So if you think like a long car ride or like road trip, unless it’s like a road trip book, but if you’re taking a trip somewhere, you’re not going to document every minute of the flight or the car ride, but a first kiss when writing romance, you are going to want to slow that down and give them at least like a solid couple pages of, of kissing action. Even though that’s like a split second. 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:53] That, you’ve just blown my mind. And I hear a lot of tips on the show and that one I have never heard and I’m going to attribute it for the rest of my life. So 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:21:01] Oh, thank you. I really wish I knew where I heard it. It was a long time ago. So

Rachael Herron: [00:21:07] Oh, it’s so good. Thank you so, so much. I’m going to write that down.

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:21:10] Of course. I love that. Yeah.

Rachael Herron: [00:21:12] What thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way? 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:21:17] I think it’s that lately I’ve been trying to do more artistic things aside from writing and really trying to develop other hobbies. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:26] Good!

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:21:27] So I drew and painted a lot as a kid and lately I’ve been trying to teach myself brush lettering. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:34] Oh, fun

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:21:35] Yeah. That’s really fun. It’s just, again, like a totally different part of the brain. So the bullet journaling is great, but that also does have a direct impact on writing. So it does help that that definitely does help, especially with productivity and trackers but I am also a dancer, although sadly, not right now. But I tap dance and that is a great way to just get my brain doing something else. And sometimes I’ll even just be like puzzling a plot, tangle out while doing it and just those, it’s kind of a rough transition and it wasn’t when I was expecting. But when your hobby becomes your job, you need them to do hobbies.

Rachael Herron: [00:22:18] Yeah, exactly. How do you solve that urge for dance though? Right now? Do you do any emotion inside the house that is dancelike? or 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:22:28] A little bit. I have a small apartment and we’re on the third floor, so yeah, so it’s a little tough. I mean I walk my dog and that’s something, but yeah, it’s been tough. So I’m very eager to get back into the studio, hopefully by the end of the year. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:45] Fingers crossed, fingers crossed. Okay. So what is the best book you’ve read recently? And why did you love it?

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:22:51] Yeah. So I really loved, How to Fail At Flirting by Denise Williams

Rachael Herron: [00:22:57] I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know anything about it.

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:22:59] So it is about a type, a professor who makes a to-do list of things to get herself out of her comfort zone, because she realizes she’s just kind of living this sheltered-hermity life and she ends up falling for a guy who is a consultant charged with figuring out which departments to consolidate at her university and it is, the characters are wonderful. The banter is great. It really leans into like the cheesy jokes and pick up lines because she’s like figuring out how to, you know, flirt and like how to, have, well, of course, you know, she thinks it’s just a casual relationship, but we all know it’s not. The characters were so endearing and, I love, I loved every, every bit of it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:46] Oh, it’s flying to the top of my TBR pile. You had me at type a professor. I am a sucker for any book set in academia. Like 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:23:55] It’s great. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:56] Thank you so much.

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:23:57] The author is a professor, so all of that feels very authentic.

Rachael Herron: [00:24:01] That’s awesome! Okay. Thank you. Speaking of wonderful books that people should put at the top of their TBR pack. Can you please tell us a little bit about your new book? 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:24:11] Absolutely. So the Ex Talk-

Rachael Herron: [00:24:12] It’s so, so good. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:24:11] Thank you. The Ex Talk is a romantic comedy set in the world of public radio, and it is about two employees who have been at odds with each other for a while and they are forced to pose as exes to host a new show about dating and relationships in order to save their station.

Rachael Herron: [00:24:33] I have been dying to ask you this. How did you come up with this idea? I know I never ask. I never ask writers this, but, but I’m curious about this one. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:24:42] So this one grew out of actually a, I was on another interview earlier today and they said, how did you know that this was the right idea? And I said, because I came up with the wrong idea first, and I think that’s really kind of a crucial thing with this story. 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:57] Tell us about that.

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:24:58] Yeah, so I actually pitched a completely different public radio book to my agent first. And it was about two producers who were trying to, win a national slot for a show and they were like producing, competing shows and it was like, whatever show was better, got picked up nationally. And I think it was just too much radio. Like it didn’t have an entry point for someone who wasn’t a radio listener. Like if you’re not a radio fan, I don’t think that’s appealing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:28] That’s true. I’m a huge NPR fan. So I like, I like that one too. Yeah. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:25:34] Yeah. And then I was brainstorming with a friend and this one, just kind of came up organically. The idea of Exes hosting a radio show. And then what if the spin on that is that they were never actually exes, and it throws all these like journalism ethics into the equation and you know, them having to create this whole backstory for themselves in the first scene I thought of was their boss telling them, and this doesn’t happen until halfway into the book, but they get a listener call that throws their past relationship into question and their boss sends them away for a weekend to an Airbnb in an, on an Island in the Northwest. And he’s like, I want you guys to come back and know everything about each other so that no one doubts that you were ever exes. And I was just like, well, that’s, those scenes on the Island are going to be an absolute blast to write. So I need to get there. And a lot of my writing was, was trying to get to that point. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:29] Oh that is so good. That is so good. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:26:31] Thank you. Thank you so much.

Rachael Herron: [00:26:32] It also just like number one, I loved your writing, but number two, it also really assuages this urge, urge that I have had because now that we’re in lockdown, I barely listened to public radio. Like it was always when I did in the car and I don’t have any car time anymore. And it like ticked all these boxes and the chemistry between them is so fun. So, okay. So tell us where listeners can find you out on the social media internet. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:27:00] I am @ R L Y N N underscore Solomon, (rlynn_solomon)  all owes on Twitter and Instagram and RachelSolomonbooks.com  

Rachael Herron: [00:27:11] Thank you so much for writing this book and thank you so much for being on the show. It has been really fun to talk to another Rachel, who has a very similar process. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:27:20] This has been an absolute blast. Rachael, thank you so much for having me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:23] You’re welcome. Take care. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon: [00:27:24] You too. Bye!

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.

The post Ep. 220: Rachel Lynn Solomon on Speeding up the Slow and Slowing Down the Fast appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ashley Audrain previously worked as the publicity director of Penguin Books Canada. Prior to Penguin, she worked in public relations. She lives in Toronto, where she and her partner are raising their two young children. The Push is her first novel.

How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you’ll gain insight from other writers on how to get in the chair, tricks to stay in it, and inspiration to get your own words flowing. 

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers!

Transcript

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #219 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. I am so thrilled that you’re here, today, we are talking to the marvelous Ashley Audrain. I had the chance to read her book, The Push, which is out now, and you should get it. It’s so good. It’s so good. And she is delightful and charming. And so smart about all of this. And we talked quite a bit about what it is like to be doing writing during lockdown still, almost a year later. So stay tuned for that. [00:00:50] A little update about what’s going on around here. I am still sick, I still haven’t had an MRI, still fighting with insurance. It is a full-time job and quite disheartening. The thing that disheartens me the most, and I’ll only dwell on this for a moment is that I am a strong and mostly healthy and stubborn and well off. And I had, I have a partner who advocates for me too. I have all of these things and we can’t get the help that I need. And I am the exception to the rule. So many people in this country have no one fighting for them. Don’t have the resources, don’t have the means. Don’t have half of what I have, and they are struggling with bigger, worse things. And it makes me so upset at this healthcare system. Yesterday, we were kind of losing it and my wife came in my office and looked down at our old dog who is still happily with us and she’s curled up on my couch right now. But if she were not here, my wife pointed out, we would be packing our boxes right now. I am not saying in any way that New Zealand is a panacea. It’s not a cure. All New Zealand has its own problems. [00:02:08] But in New Zealand, I could get healthcare. We have excellent insurance. We have a high cost PPO top of the line, through lawless job and still just can’t get anything done. So, I’m struggling with that. But in good news, yesterday was also as I record this, the inauguration and we don’t have to deal with the previous person who sat in the white house because, he’s gone and it makes me happy. And yesterday was a good day for that. So, I thought the inauguration was beautiful. I thought the speeches were great. Yeah, it’s, it’s a good feeling. There was a real sense of relief that was lifted a sense of this burden that was lifted from us just a little bit. And it, we still have every single systemic problem that is in this country, but it’s actually being named now, you know, Biden said the words, white supremacy and domestic terrorism. He said those words in his speech, the moment of silence for those lost to coronavirus, like so incredibly moving and it’s just such a relief to have somebody taking this stuff seriously. So I take heart in that. [00:03:29] Oh, what else is going on? My classes started the 90 Days to Done classes. And I have to tell you, I can say this now because it’s Thursday, as I record Tuesday was the first day of classes. I had pushed the classes a couple of weeks because of my health and I was not sure I would be able to set up for those hours. Honestly, I did not know if I’d have enough energy to do the classes. And I did. Not only did I have the energy, but that night was the best that I have felt in more than a month. I had energy. I was bouncing around the house, doing things, dieting, cleaning, probably wear myself out a little bit. But it felt so good. I feel like I was a little vampiric perhaps like stealing some of my students’ energy. I don’t think I was, my whole goal in life is to give my energy to students, but there was some kind of exchange and it was beautiful. And I loved opening these classes and it’s going to be so fun to work with them on writing their books in 90 days or revising their books in 90 days. So that has been awesome. Also, I am actually writing again. I took like three and a half, almost four weeks off. Just could not write on my book while I was dealing with all the pain. [00:04:44] So, starting Monday, I got my butt in the chair and I’ve written every day since including yesterday, inauguration day, which was very difficult. But, I can’t- I don’t think I’ve said this on this podcast. I just can’t remember, but I have been reading this book Called The 12-Week Year, which is pretty basic. It’s about setting goals and moving toward them by calculating and watching your actions. But I have, I’m finding it inspiring. I basically, I live my life in 12 week chunks anyway, so this has been helping and I have some pretty big goals for the next 12 weeks. And it’s been great to be able to sit in the chair and get some writing done. And that has felt really good. I’m hoping to finish the first draft of the book I’m working on right now in the next two weeks. I think. I’m looking at my calendar. So that’s the goal. And I hope that I hit it. If not, I will rejigger, rejiggering is always an option, but I think I’m on track. [00:05:42] That’s the catch up around business. I would just like to shout out Kanny. Hello, Kanny! Kanny has been transcribing my podcasts for my blog for more than a year now. And she just got married and Kanny, happy wedding to you. I hope that you are full of nuptial bliss and thank you for the incredible, excellent work that you do on the show. I really, really appreciate you. So, oh, the other thing I want to say is, thank you to Sarah, my new patron. If you ever want to look at the patron levels, you can always go to patreon.com/Rachael. I owe ya’ all a mini podcast bonus episode answering. I think I have only a couple of questions. So if any of you are at the Patreon level $5 and above that, you want to ask me any questions about writing? Let’s get a few more in and then I’ll do that mini episode before you, cause I’m feeling better and I can do that. So let’s jump into the interview with Ashley. I know that you are going to enjoy it, and I wish you, yourself, you are listening to the show because you are a writer. You are a writer. You’re not a wanna be. You don’t feel like perhaps someday you wish you could be a writer. You are a writer. So do some writing and then come find me and tell me about it. Okay my friends, bye! [00:07:01] Hey, is resistance keeping you from writing? Are you looking for an actual writing community in which you can make a calls and be held accountable for them? Join RachaelSaysWrite, like twice weekly, two hour writing session on zoom. You can bop in and out of the writing room as your schedule needs, but for just $39 a month, you can write up to 4 hours a week. With our wonderful little community, in which you’ll actually get to know your writing peers. We write from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM on Tuesdays and 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM on Thursdays and that’s US Pacific Standard Time. Go to RachaelHerron.com/Write to find out more.

Rachael Herron: [00:07:42] Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show today. Ashley Audrain. Hello, Ashley! 

Ashley Audrain: [00:07:47] Hi, Rachael, thank you for having me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:07:50] I am thrilled to have you. Let me give you your bio quickly. So we’ll just get this out of the way. Ashley Audrain previously worked as the publicity director of Penguin Books Canada. Prior to Penguin, she worked in public relations. She lives in Toronto, which is a city I love, where she and her partner are raising their two young children. The Push is her first novel. Okay. So I write for Penguin as well, Penguin United States. And, they sent me, you know, would you be interested in this book? And I say yes to books, and then I forget what they were about or whatever and I’m just reading the net galley and there’s no cover. And I started reading your book. I’m like, Oh, this is just, this is going to be a nice, you know, novel about motherhood. And then it got real. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:08:34] Very real. I know

Rachael Herron: [00:08:36] I loved it. I loved your book. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:08:37] Thank you Rachael, 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:38] I read so many- what genre would you call this? 

Ashley Audrain: [00:08:44] Well, we sort of are calling it psychological thriller. I mean, that’s sort of what the publishers are coming it, although we all sort of agree, it’s sort of a hybrid between that and sort of more of a middle of the road kind of fiction that’s somewhere in the middle. 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:59] It’s really, it’s kind of- I hate that phrase, domestic thriller. That’s where they put me too, but it’s kind of domestic thriller plus literary fiction. And I was lulled into the sense of literary fiction at the beginning. And then I was like, yes, you’re here. I mean, I love both. Here we go. And it was shocking and beautiful and your language is so incredible. And I just really loved the book and this is- as my listeners know, this is not what I tell everybody. So,

Ashley Audrain: [00:09:24] That’s so lovely. Thank you so much, Rachael. That means a lot. Thank you. 

Rachael Herron: [00:09:28] How does it- we’re going to get into your process. You know, that’s what we talk about on the show, but how does it feel to move from being inside baseball, to being like the pitcher at bat? I don’t, like I actually don’t know sports, so I hope I got that right.

Ashley Audrain: [00:09:42] Yes. I think it sounds right. I don’t know either, but it’s very strange, honestly, it’s sort of a strange, as you would imagine, it’s, there’s a severe illness to it because you’re sort of, I’ve been in this world before on the other side. So it’s, yeah, it’s sort of, I think being in, working in publishing and having been in publicity, I mean, I’m sort of prepares you for what this experience can be like. And so, you know, you certainly don’t go into it blind. I sort of, you know, done that all, like spent time arranging the interviews and the tours and all of that. But I do think, you know, I think my expectations have been very managed because I’ve worked in publicity and in publishing. And, you know, I know firsthand from just the stuff that I used to work with the books and the authors that I worked on that, you know, just because you put a lot of energy and effort in marketing dollars behind a book, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to work. You know, you don’t know until it gets in the hands of readers and then vice versa, you know, there were always those books that they don’t get the pre-pub attention and they end up doing, you know, phenomenal things once they’re in the hands of readers. And so, yeah, it’s sort of, I’m very appreciative. And so I just feel so grateful for like the effort that you know, all of kind Penguin put behind this book. But you just don’t know until it’s sort of, you know, in reader’s hands 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:55] Well, and I got an email from your publicist yesterday that says it’s been chosen for the Good Morning America Book Club, or I can’t remember exactly the terms, but holy crap!

Ashley Audrain: [00:11:06] Yeah. Yeah. So that’s what I said too. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:10] Holy crap. That is some sales. I’m so happy for this book. And I’m so happy that I got my little grubby mitts on it early. When does it come out? We are recording this on January 6th so, 

Ashley Audrain: [00:11:21] It actually just came out yesterday. So this is like publication week now. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:25] Congratulations!

Ashley Audrain: [00:11:6] Yes. Thank you! Thanks.

Rachael Herron: [00:11:27] Oh, that’s so exciting. I really, really encourage anybody who loves this kind of thing to go out and get it right, right now. Well, so let’s talk about how you shifted to your life. Where, where did writing this book fit into your life? Were you at Penguin then? Or was it in the margins? What, how did you get this done? 

Ashley Audrain: [00:11:44] Yeah. So I was not in Penguin yet when I started writing this. So I had always wanted to write and, you know, wanting to be a writer. That’s what I would’ve told you I wanted to be, when I was like six. But gone to a different route of sort of, you know, because I had to make a living and find, went down the route of, you know, communications and PR and marketing, which kind of brought me that sort of the career path that brought me to Penguin to do publicity and I didn’t write much when I was at Penguin, when I was working there. And I think it’s because it’s, you know, such a humbling experience to be an aspiring writer and working in publishing with, you know, these great authors. So I kinda had put writing aside and I left Penguin to go on mat-leave, to go on maternity leave here, which we have a full year here in Canada, which is lovely, 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:26] Amazing, yeah. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:12:27] Yeah. And so he, my son was about six months old when I started writing. And it really was I felt a lot of creative energy at that point. You know, having become a mother, I felt like I had a story to tell, and I, it was sort of that urgent feeling when you just, you know the voice, you know the story, you know exactly what you need to be writing about. And that that’s kind of the head space that I was in when he was around that, around that six-month mark. So that’s when I began. So, and I, and I didn’t go back after that, you know, for lots of reasons. But, that was the shift where I realized when I started writing, I thought, no, like this is finally the time to pursue like a novel, like, not just kind of the writing courses on the side and sort of the playing around with fiction, but that the novel was there. So that that’s when it really began in my life. Yeah, 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:13] Lovely. So did you fit it in around the naps or at night? Or how did that work? 

Ashley Audrain: [00:13:18] So, I didn’t and I think, you know, a lot of people will say, usually people who’ve never had children will say, Oh, do you do your work during nap time? Or once they go to you, I could not, I could not function during nap time. I literally just needed to also lay down and have a nap. And so 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:33] That makes sense to me. Yeah. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:13:35] Yeah. So there was nothing productive happening in those hours, but, but what I did was I thought I, we were lucky enough to have around again, around that six-month mark, a babysitter coming a couple of times a week. And she came probably at that point twice a week. And it was like for two or three hours at a time. And instead of using those hours, you doing errands or socializing or whatever it was, I, those hours in my mind were completely devoted to writing. And so I have this visual of myself, like she would walk in the door and I would like run past her with like my laptop under my arm to the coffee shop down the street. And that was, those were the hour, that was it. And they were the best hours of my week. And they were so productive because they were so limited. And I would, that is how the book started. That was kind of the, you know, the only time that I had and, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t really go back to that once I was back inside the house and my son anymore, I was just acting so, so it was really, it was really these small chunks of time, which is, I think why the book took me so long to write. It took like over three years to kind of get it to a place where I felt like it was as good as it could be to go out to agents. So, yeah, and I, there was definitely with pockets- big pockets of time when I started, you know, getting more hours back and started being able to focus on it more. But I would say for a good year, I was sort of on that twice weekly schedule,

Rachael Herron: [00:14:50] You bring both of those passions to the page. And I know that we don’t, you know, we do not write about ourselves. These are not, we are not the character on the page. However, the main character in this book does have that deep, deep passion for this new bloom of motherhood with her son. Right? And she also has this deep, deep passion to get the words on the page. And they both, they’re both happening on the right there in front of us. And you can really feel it. You bring a depth and a realness to that. But I was just really knocked out by so absolutely gorgeous. I could feel both of those longings. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing? 

Ashley Audrain: [00:15:32] You know, my biggest challenge is, hands down, just time and space, finding time and space. And I think, especially kind of being a mom with like 2 little kids now they’re three and five. And I think from day one, from that six-month old mark, when I started writing, I mean, that, that was out has always been my challenge. I’ve always, you know, some people say, oh, look, what do you do to kind of like escape and get away from writing. And it’s like, I’m always trying to get to the writing. I’m never trying to get away from it. But, so, time and space, like mentally and physically, I think, you know, really, really mentally and physically kind of getting that, that, that time and space back. And a lot of it has been having to, like, you know, financially invest in hours to write, which is very, a very hard thing to do when you’re not being paid to write yet. Like, you know, when you’re, you know, it’s your first book and you’re just an aspiring writer. Like, you know, thankfully I have a partner who’s very supportive and like, saw that, that was very important to me. But you know, those, that that can be a hard thing to kind of negotiate or a hard thing to convince yourself of, to like, you know, spend the whatever amount of money it is an hour to pay for a babysitter so that you can be like pursuing something that you never know is ever going to make you any money back. So you have to, and I think I never thought of it that way. I really just thought of it as like, this is, you know, some people might spend like 20 bucks to go to a gym class and like I was spending 20 bucks to like sit down for an hour and write and that, that’s kind of how I looked at it. Like it was what brought me happiness and it was what brought me joy and it was like my escape from life. And so I tried to just put it in that context for myself to try to get that. That time and space and yeah. But yeah, it’s still the problem now is like, you know, especially during lockdown and pandemic, like 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:06] Yeah. Everything got so much harder. I cannot imagine being locked in a house with little kids, like that has got to be difficult,

Ashley Audrain: [00:17:14] It’s very difficult. And it’s not good for writing. It’s just not, it’s not good for writing. Like sometimes, you know, it’s, I mean, hard, no matter what, but like I have other friends that were trying to keep up like a nine to five. Like, you know, corporate job from home with kids. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:27] I can’t

Ashley Audrain: [00:17:28] But in a- which I cannot imagine, like at least I had the flexibility of not having to like, be at a meeting at one o’clock or whatever, but it also, yeah, it also makes it hard to kind of prioritize that time as well, because nobody is waiting for you, you know, at one o’clock on a conference call. So yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:42] How do you do it? how do you make yourself do it?

Ashley Audrain: [00:17:44] I’ve really, 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:47] That’s a big question I know. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:17:49] You know what, yeah, it’s hard. You know, what I’ve been doing now is, and I don’t love doing, I’m starting to like it. I’m starting to convince myself I like it, is getting up early. It’s just the, and I know there’s like, you know, this 5:00 AM writer’s club idea that so many writers do. I don’t know if you do that or if you’ve done that before 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:05] I used to do it a lot when I worked like a 12-hour day job, I would get up at 3:45 or 4, but now I get up at 8, you know, 

Ashley Audrain: [00:18:12] That’s luxurious. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:13] Yeah, exactly. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:18:16] Yeah. So that is really how I’m getting it done now. Ever since, I guess, March, just kind of shifted. I was in this lovely period where there’s this magical moment. I think, as a parent, when both your kids are finally in full-time childcare and that kind of happened for me earlier, like last year where one was in preschool and one was in kindergarten and I was like, oh my God, I like dropped them off. I went to a coffee shop. I would write for six and a half hours and then I would go pick them up and I would feel so satisfied and productive. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:43] And now that’s gone. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:18:44] And now, that’s gone and so now we’re yeah, so now we’re doing the 5, 8 it’s 5:00 AM, which isn’t as bad as 3:45. But, so that’s, you know, Still painful. It’s like, you know, two or three hours before one of them wakes up. And so I just try to do that every day and hope it adds up. We’ll see. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:02] Good luck to you with that. My heart goes out to you. What is your biggest joy when it comes to writing? 

Ashley Audrain: [00:19:08] My biggest joy is just the idea of possibility in writing.

Rachael Herron: [00:19:15] That’s beautiful

Ashley Audrain: [00:19:16] Oh, thanks. I, that is what it’s always been for me is just this possibility, like big scale and small scale, you know, just the idea that, you know, as a writer, you can do and you can write anything. Anything, you are in charge of the possibilities of what you’re going to write and what you’re going to create. I love the possibility of you can tell whatever story you want to tell. Like you can explore anything in life that you want through writing. And I love that about it. And you know, on the larger scale, and then on the smaller scale, you know, I love the possibility of sitting down for one of those precious writing sessions. And like, you don’t know, you could have your best sentence ever. You could write a paragraph that you love. You could have a breakthrough about something you’ve been trying to solve in your writing. And I love that. And you know, not all, not all sessions, kind of that possibility is not always realized as we all know, some days are painful, but I love that every time you sit down, you don’t know what you’re going to get 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:12] And you can’t predict it. You can’t be at, you know, go to the page and think I’m going to have a breakthrough today. It’s always unexpected when it happens, but it only happens when we’re working that kind of breakthrough. That’s gorgeous.

Ashley Audrain: [00:20:25] And I love that. I love that about it. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:27] Okay. Can you share a craft tip of any sort with us?

Ashley Audrain: [00:20:31] Yeah, so I. Yeah, I don’t, I, I feel like I don’t, I feel like I don’t have quite the, I mean, I’m still new at this, so I feel like I’m taking tips instead of giving them to be really honest with you. But I think, it’s kind of what we were just talking about. Like a lot of times I, you know, we need our bum in the seat and we need to be writing. We need to have a, we need to be productive, but for me, again, coming back to that possibilities, like I need to do that. And then I need to walk away and I need to like give myself that time to not be thinking about the book, because when I’m not thinking about the book, that’s when things come to me and the best- and so in sometimes I’ll think no, I’ve got like two more hours and I’ll have to pick the kids up. So I’ve got to just keep cranking away and keep working. And, you know, more times than not, if that’s not those aren’t the best writing hours, and if I feel like I’m, in stuck or whatever, I’m much better off to kind of like put on a podcast or go for a walk or whatever, and something, something will come. A good moment for me is before, when I have to drive to pick up both my kids from school. And if I, and I really liked that drive because I’ve had all these hours well before pandemic, I would have all these hours of thinking and writing and focus. And then I would walk away and I would just like, again, like turn on a podcast in the car or turn on a radio and then like halfway through the drive, it would, something would come to me and I would like pull over and write it down. And that, so that’s that I think for me, like part of the craft is just letting things percolate and letting things kind of come to you and maybe more of a practical one is, I’m a huge note taker and I, I almost don’t know how people do it, who don’t take notes all the time. Like, that’s just so much a part of it for me. And I take notes on my iPhone on, you know, the little yellow notes app on iPhone. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:14] Yes

Ashley Audrain: [00:22:15] I use that religiously, like, I mean, multiple times a day, I will take that out and make notes about things. Things I see or overhear, you know, out and about, or like things, you know, something that will come to me after seeing a friend or whenever like falling asleep any time. I always write it all down, even if I don’t know exactly what the use is for yet. Just things that to me speak volumes about life or have meaning or just like anything. I write it all down and then I have these lists. And then when I do sit down to write, I often go back and kind of mind the lists for ideas or things to incorporate or like I’ve never had- knock on wood- I’ve never had like a writer’s block before, because I just feel like I go to my list and there’s something in the list that sparks something for me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:00] So I love this and I just- a little bit more detail on this, cause this is just the delicious stuff for me. When you’re sorting these little, you know, basically the yellow notes. Do you put them into the list then when your kind of going over them? Do you have one for character and one for ideas or how does that work? What does that look like?

Ashley Audrain: [00:23:14] So, yeah, so I have a note, like a titled note for different categories. So, like for example, like when I was going through kind of the revisions last changes on The Push, I would have like a note that was like revisions for like things I needed to go back and put into the story, and then I would have one for Violet and one for Fox and kind of all the characters or the problems I was solving. Like I had a list for backstory. And so as things came to me, I would like plop them in the list. And then when I went to like work on that part of the revision, they would kind of all sort of be organized there and then all, and then I have I also have a random note. That’s just like random ideas that I, they don’t really belong on what I’m writing right now, but I just things I never want to forget, you know, like I want to use somewhere. So I have that ongoing note. And then I have a note about the next idea. Like, whatever that like, so this is the second book I’m working on now. I had a note for a long time on this idea that was just like just like dumped anything in there. And I didn’t really know if I’d end up using it or if it would fit or not. And then when I came time to start cause I kind of outlining, which I, you know, use the term very loosely. But when I started doing that for the second book, I kind of had a place to go to like, to kind of jog my memory about the kinds of things I wanted to write about. So there’s, you know, it’s like organized chaos in there. I don’t know, but it works for me.

Rachael Herron: [00:24:37] I love that. I use Post-Its that so the physical kind for my revision exactly the way you do, but then for catching those daily ideas, I use Trello in exactly the same way.

Ashley Audrain: [00:24:45] Oh yes. Exactly

Rachael Herron: [00:24:46] Inbox and Trello, and I’m just constantly throwing things into there. And I don’t know how people do it without. I have no idea. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:24:53] I don’t know. Neither do I. 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:55] They’ve got their ways, but yeah, 

Ashley Audrain: [00:24:57] Everyone’s way where it’s, I know I’m also a very forgetful person. I don’t know if you’re forgetful, are you forgetful?

Rachael Herron: [00:25:01] Very. Very.

Ashley Audrain: [00:25:02] So I think I, yeah, we need them. I feel people like us need them. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:05] We had fallen back. We don’t make it through life without them. Exactly. Exactly. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:25:08] Yes. For sure.

Rachael Herron: [00:25:09] What thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way? 

Ashley Audrain: [00:25:13] So yeah, I don’t know. Well maybe you’ve had other authors say this. I don’t know how surprising it is, but my physical environment where I am trying to write is huge, affects my writing hugely.

Rachael Herron: [00:25:26] Me too! And really nobody ever says that. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:25:28] Oh, interesting. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:30] Has to be right. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:25:32] Yes

Rachael Herron: [00:25:33] And also I need to know that the dishes are done. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:25:34] Yes. Oh yes. Oh, I could. Yeah. I, it’s I’m- I am like that where I need every little thing done and then I can kind of sit down and do it, but the physical environment for me has been, I sort of just learned this about myself I think like, just how much it influences what I can do that day. Like what I’m writing that day, just the kinds of writing I’m doing. And unfortunately, I do not write well at home, which is not a good thing right now. And I’m really missing writing in public. I think that I just, I get an energy from writing in public that I’m realizing now is like very crucial to my work and the tone and the voice and everything. And I you’re not, 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:12] Yeah. Me too. I’m exactly that person. I can’t, I was never able to write a home until the pandemic I had to learn. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:26:18] No. And because now we’re-  and I’m, I’m the same way. I’m like forced to kind of learn how to feel more creative in my kitchen or wherever. And I don’t love it and I’m struggling with it. So yeah, I really miss going to a coffee shop and sort of, you know, not being in the center of the busy-ness, but like sort of removed against the wall, the back of the coffee shop. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:35] Yes. Yes. Where you can watch everything

Ashley Audrain: [00:26:36] Yeah, and I don’t put your phones on. I really just let the noise of the coffee shop kind of like that is what I like. I love writing on like airplanes and you know

Rachael Herron: [00:26:47] Me too

Ashley Audrain: [00:26:48] All these other places we’re not allowed to be, right. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:49] You know where I love is a hotel lobby. There is nothing like a hotel lobby. It’s so vanilla and bland and there’s just so good. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:26:59] Oh, I love it so much. I love that.

Rachael Herron: [00:27:01] I- sorry, I live in Oakland and sometimes I would go to San Francisco and just pick a hotel and go sit in the lobby and work there. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:27:07] That’s a good idea.

Rachael Herron: [00:27:08] So how have you, kind of made up for that? For in my life here, I have turned my body 90 degrees, so I sit at this little table here and I make sure I have my drink and my candle. And I actually use cafe noises, people noises in my white noise. You, have you come up with any other?

Ashley Audrain: [00:27:25] That’s a good idea. I should also do that.

Rachael Herron: [00:27:27] Try it

Ashley Audrain: [00:27:28] No. Yeah. You know, I don’t know. I haven’t been really, I, I mean the early morning helps in a sense that it’s dark out and it feels like I can kind of, you know, I always have like a cup of tea, obviously kind of rolling. And it, the early morning is better than trying to do it I find like at other times of the day, there’s something a little more. I don’t know that just the mood is different in the house and it’s obviously quieter, but yeah, I haven’t, I’ve tried to move to different spots in the house, like tried to try and pick different places like, you know, the bed and the couch and the, you know, moved around, but I haven’t solved it yet, but I better, the way things are going, I think I better figure out the solution because it’s going to be awhile. So

Rachael Herron: [00:28:10] At least your conscious of it. Yeah. Okay. That’s awesome

Ashley Audrain: [00:28:11] Yeah, for sure. For sure. Oh, one thing, sorry. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:13] Yes, please say it.

Ashley Audrain: [00:28:14] One thing that they have done is because hotels are open. I haven’t gone to the lobby, which I should do, but twice, since the pandemic started, I have gone to a hotel for like a night. Like I think I was like less than 48 hours to write, just to write. And they’ve always been at like a breaking point where I’m like, I can’t, the kids, the thing, the house that I was like, I need to get something done. And especially for the second book I’m working on, like, you know, there’s deadlines there’s and so, and they don’t change in a pandemic. And so I’ve, so twice I’ve just said, like I know I’m outta here and kind of pass it over to my husband and said like, I’ve just got to go get like work for two hours, which I think is totally reasonable given you know, the circumstance that we’re in. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:52] Abso-freaking-lutely. Yes. You just like you blew my mind because I did realize that of course hotels are open and I wonder if their lobbies are open just to sit in.

Ashley Audrain: [00:29:00] Well, you, 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:01] Nobody ever asks if you belong there, nobody has ever come along and carted somebody. What room are you in, Ma’am? Right? 

Ashley Audrain: [00:29:06] That’s so true. Yeah. That’s a good idea 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:10] I’m gonna try it. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:29:11] What we’ll do this week? Yes. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:12] Firmly masked. Yes. All right. What is the best book that you have read recently? The best book that I have read recently is The Push by Ashley Audrey. So what about you? 

Ashley Audrain: [00:29:22] Thank you. It means a lot. So, okay, so there’s, there’s a few. And I know you probably can only pick one. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:29] No you can tell us about as many as you want

Ashley Audrain: [00:29:31] Okay. So the best recently. And I’ll only kind of go into detail on one, but I really loved Leave the World Behind by Romaan Alam. I don’t know if you’ve read that. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:38] I haven’t heard of it. No. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:29:39] It is really good. I feel like it was the book that really like, just, I mean, really got me back into being like, we were all kind of in a slump and that one really,

Rachael Herron: [00:29:51] What’s the genre?

Ashley Audrain: [00:29:52] It’s like literary fiction. But, I think, you know, I hope people aren’t scared off because there’s a bit of a like, not dystopian, but kind of like a bit of an angle where there’s something very strange happening in the world and you don’t know what it is but that’s not at all what the book’s about. So, so I’ll tell you a bit of it, but so the book is basically about this family who goes on vacation and like upstate New York and this like really nice rental place they get on like Airbnb and in the middle of the night, they get a knock on the door and they answer it. And it’s an older, black couple, very wealthy black couple. And they introduce themselves as the owner of the rental and say, we need to stay here. Like you need to take us in and will you let us just hide out here with you because there’s something going on in Manhattan and we don’t know what it is and we’ve lost our cell service. And so it’s this really kind of creepy sort of the premise, and so of course they say, you know, they’re reluctant, but they invite them in. And then the book is less about kind of, you know, they’re all losing cell service. The TV doesn’t work, like something’s happening, but the book is less about what’s happening and more about like how we cope with fear and uncertainty. Like what do you do in a situation like that? And then there’s, you know, this dynamics of class and race, and it’s really good. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:01] And it’s called Leave the World Behind?

Ashley Audrain: [00:31:03] Leave the World Behind by Romaan Alam. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:05] Fantastic

Ashley Audrain: [00:31:06] I loved Luster by Raven, Raven Lielani I don’t know. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:10] I’ve heard so much about it, but yeah, it’s on my list

Ashley Audrain: [00:31:13] the, but the book I will talk more about is, The Heartbeat by Megan Hunter. And I feel like you probably haven’t heard of it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:21] No

Ashley Audrain: [00:31:22] She’s a UK writer and maybe it’s bigger than the UK, but it’s so good. And I hope more people pick it up here. It’s about a woman who discovers her husband is having an affair and her husband agrees to let her hurt him three times. No questions asked and for revenge. And it’s such a great, again, such a great premise.

Rachael Herron: [00:31:40] Such a great premise. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:31:41] Yeah. And the book is basically about, you know, retribution and revenge and marriage.

Rachael Herron: [00:31:46] That sounds so fun

Ashley Audrain: [00:31:47] It’s really good. It’s really, really good. Yeah. I highly recommend it. I like raced through it. It’s not that long. But it’s just a great portrait of like, you know, domestic life and motherhood and marriag,e and it’s sort of the other storyline is her lifelong obsession with harpies, like the mythological creature of you know, a woman’s face and bird wings. It sounds like it was the myth 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:09] It sounds like it’s written for me. Speaking of books, you do a really, really beautiful job of creating that, that relationship showing what a marriage is like on a daily basis, you know, and how that, how that moves. Well, let’s bring it back to you. Will you give us your log line for this book and tell us where we can find you online? 

Ashley Audrain: [00:32:28] Oh, yes, for sure yes, also, so where you can find the book. So, you said tell me where to find me online?

Rachael Herron: [00:32:36] Yeah, where to find you, where to find the book, where to find that and a little bit about the book. Yeah.

Ashley Audrain: [00:32:39] Okay, oh about the book. Sure. So it’s really about the expectations of motherhood. It’s about a woman who you know, comes from a long line of women who have struggled greatly with motherhood, and she’s determined to break the cycle. She’s determined to be the kind of mom she always wanted to have. And she has a baby Violet, and with her husband Fox and quickly realizes that there’s something wrong with Violet and she is, you know, aloof and distance and malicious towards other children. And the problem of course, is that her husband cannot see what she sees and thinks that this is all in Blake’s head. And so they are, you know, marriage and their families sort of unravels from there and that’s, that’s sort of the premise

Rachael Herron: [00:33:20] Ooh, good way to put it. And I have to say, I love the, girl’s name. I just my Book Hush, Little Baby is coming out in I think May. And the baby’s name is Violet

Ashley Audrain: [00:33:29] Oh really? Oh, funny we both have Violet. We both have a little baby Violet. That’s good. That’s a good name. I’ll look forward to yours. That’s good. 

Rachael Herron: [00:33:37] And where can we find you? 

Ashley Audrain: [00:33:38] And you can find me at Twitter on, @Audrain and Instagram at AshleyAudrain. And I have a website, AshleyAudrain.com  that has events and that sort of things coming up. So 

Rachael Herron: [00:33:50] Thank you, so, so, so much for being here, I was just thrilled to get to talk to you. I’m thrilled about the Good Morning America, every all of it. I want to watch your continued success and rise, and I can’t wait to grab your next to it too. 

Ashley Audrain: [00:34:02] Oh, Rachael, thank you so much. I look forward to your book in May, too.

Rachael Herron: [00:34:05] You’re welcome

Ashley Audrain: [00:34:06] Yes. Thank you.

Rachael Herron: [00:34:07] Thank you so much and good luck with everything. Okay. Take care.

Ashley Audrain: [00:34:09] Thanks Rachel. Okay, bye. 

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.

The post Ep. 219: Ashley Audrain on Getting Work Done During Lockdown appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ricardo Fayet is one of the four founders of Reedsy, a marketplace connecting authors to the world’s top publishing talent—from editors to cover designers, book marketers, author website designers, and literary translators. He’s the author of several Reedsy Learning courses on book marketing and a regular presenter at several prestigious writers’ conferences: NINC, RWA Australia, and The Self Publishing Show Live, among others. He’s also currently finishing his very first book on marketing. In his spare time, he enjoys watching football, and carrying tactical analyses to explain why his favorite team won—as well as referee mistake analyses to explain why it lost.

How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you’ll gain insight from other writers on how to get in the chair, tricks to stay in it, and inspiration to get your own words flowing. 

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Transcript

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #218 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron, and I’m so thrilled that you’re here today. Today, we are talking to Ricardo Fayet of Reedsy. And if you haven’t heard me wax rhapsodic about Reedsy.com, (R E E D S Y.com) you will love this interview and if you’ve heard me wax rhapsodic, you will still love it. What it is really quickly, and then we’ll go into it. It is a place to find editors for your work. If you are going to self-publish or if you want an editor to help you, before you go out to find an agent, it’s a place to find them. And I need to apologize right upfront right now that I am so enthusiastic about the service it sounds like a commercial for him. He did not for him and the company, he did not come on asking me to do this. I reached out to him and asked him to come on my show. I believe in Reedsy. And before we get into my update, I just want to tell you, I want to read from an email that I got and here it is. Okay. This is from a reader. I get another reader, this from a writer, I get a lot of queries and I’m very flattered by them from people who want me to read and edit their books, especially their memoirs.[00:01:37] And I just don’t have time to do that. I did that for a while, probably about a year, I did that and it took so much away from my writing. I’m a writer, not an editor. I’m good at editing, not my own work, of course, but other people’s work, students work. I’m good at that. But, I just can’t do that. I don’t have the time. So what I do is for years, I’ve been sending them to Reedsy. And I just got this email, a couple of weeks ago. I want to thank you for recommending that. I use reading to Reedsy, to find an editor to read my first draft of my book. I found the most wonderful person. She wrote a long editorial letter, gave an overview of each chapter and on many pages posed questions that when answered will add emotional depth to the story I’m writing. She is extremely encouraging and thinks the format is very good. The first writer who critiqued my work thought I should structure it differently chronologically, but this editor noted anecdotes. She loved and liked the chapter. The first critiquer told me to definitely drop. So although I asked you, if you would be able to do a critique and you weren’t able to, I really appreciate you recommending Reedsy. Thank you so much based on her guidance, I have my work cut out for me. So real letter that I got, I redacted the names. About Reedsy, you can go to RachaelHerron.com/Reedsy  to find out more about it, or just listen to me, do this commercial for Ricardo’s company, but it is so important to be able to find an editor that you can trust that you know is good because that’s the hard part. How do we just go out and find an editor if we don’t know they’re any good, or if our friend says are good, how do, how does our friend know that they’re good editors. [00:03:16] So, that’s what we’re talking about today., I know you’ll love that. A little bit of an update around here, I still feel like shit. I feel better than I did. I have a little bit more energy, but I’m still not at full Rachael energy by any means. I can only sit up for about an hour or so without getting very uncomfortable in having to go lie down again. I’m trying very hard to find a balance between work and rest, which is difficult for me on a good day. So I’ve been challenged by that, but I did, and I put the links up over at Twitter, if you want the names of these things that I bought, I did buy a bed desk. And then I proceeded to use it yesterday for most of the day in bed, I did a little bit of the work at the desk. I got really tired. Then I went to the bed and worked for the rest of the day and I absolutely overdid it, just working on the bed desk. So I have got to be very, very careful in a circumspect about where I spend my energy right now, if you’ve ever heard of the spoon theory. The spoon theory is about people who are sick, especially people who have chronic illness, but it’s this idea that you have a certain number of spoons when you wake up and normally, I have an unlimited amount of spoons and that’s such a blessing and a privilege. But if you think, you know, maybe you need one spoon to make a cup of coffee and another two spoons to take a shower. And if on that day, all you had were three spoons, then by the time you’ve made a cup of coffee and taking a shower you’re done for the day and you have to go back to bed.[00:04:56] So I’m figuring out how many spoons I have in today. How, what I can do. I actually, I will say this, I am recording this on Thursday afternoon, 14th of January, and I have a full afternoon. I have a podcast interview, and then I have RachaelSaysWrite, which I’m back to being at. Thank God. I really missed being with the writers but that means I’m in this chair for three hours. Not sure how that’s going to go. We’ll see. Might have to retire to the bed with the bed desk during Rachael Says Write, but what I mean to say is that I spent the morning in bed sleeping, not even trying to work, just sleeping until noon so that I could work this afternoon and I am incredibly bad at this. And I’m trying to be very, I’m trying to be as gracious and as loving as I would be to you. When you come to me. When my students come to me and say, this is what’s going on in my life, and I’m not getting the work done that I want to get done, my attitude is always your life and your health is the most important thing you can fit the writing in. Where you can, but you have to give yourself grace and permission to not do as much as you want to do, and, and you’re good and you’re fine. And you’re wonderful the way you are, but of course, you’ve heard me talk about this before in my head those rules don’t apply. I must be super, super human, which is annoying as hell. I know that for everyone who around me, especially the person who is living inside this body, which is me, excuse me. [00:06:29] So I’m trying to figure that out but you know, in the meantime, while I’m in bed and have some downtime, I’ve been reading a lot of books and listening to a lot of podcasts. And I just wanted to recommend right now I’m reading something called the 12 Week Year, which you may have read. It’s pretty simple. It’s about goal setting, but about changing actions in a shorter window of time. So, yes, I’m trying to relax more and I’m reading a book about ramping up production, which is making my brain feel very good. So if you haven’t read the 12 Week Year, I do recommend it. Getting ready to, as soon as I feel better ramp up production. Let’s see. I also wanted to thank new Patreon members. Thank you so much. Kelly Grogan and Jana Floyd for upping your pledge. Thank you. Thank you so much for doing that. And Glory Medina. Glory is a friend of mine and I’m so glad to see you and thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. For all of you who support on Patreon or who have in the past and are not able to now. Thank you. Thank you so much. It means the world to me. Oh, and I can’t remember if I mentioned this, but, for the first time in five years, I didn’t deliver a patreon essay last month, I had to apologize and say, I can’t do it. I’m not sending you on this moment and I didn’t lose a single patron. I expected them all to flee en mass, but the thing we need to remember about our readers and our friends is that they want to support us. They don’t necessarily join our Patreon, if we have one, to get the goods to get the stuff I’m a proud high-level member over at Becca Symes, Patreon. I do the kind where you get to be in a group coaching setting with her once a month. And she got sick recently and I was not mad at her. I want to support her. I love the stuff she gives me too, but I want to support her because I’m a Becca Syme fan. [00:08:29] And speaking of being a fan, I’m a very big fan of Reedsy.com. Let’s talk to Ricardo about how it works and what you can expect if you use them. And I want to wish all of you, very, very happy writing. I hope that you all are feeling well and are moving into the future with steps that feel good to you to take, and I wish that you would come by me somewhere and tell me all about them. Okay friends, happy writing. [00:09:00] Hey, you’re a writer. Did you know that I send out a free weekly email of writing encouragement? Go sign up for it at www.rachaelherron.com/write  and you’ll also get my Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use today to get some of your own writing done. Okay, now onto the interview.

Rachael Herron: [00:09:18] All right. Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show today, Ricardo Fayet. Hello, Ricardo. 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:09:24] Hello. Thanks for having me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:09:25] I am thrilled to talk to you. I’ve heard you on many other podcasts and your familiar name in the indie publishing world, but I want to give you a little introduction. Ricardo Fayet is one of the four founders of Reedsy, a marketplace connecting authors to the world’s top publishing talent from editors to cover designers, book marketers, author website designers and literary translators. He’s the author of several Reedsy Learning courses on book marketing and a regular presenter at several prestigious writers’ conferences, including NINC, RWA Australia, and The Self-Publishing Show Live among others. He’s also finishing his very first book on marketing and in his spare time, he enjoys watching football and carrying tactical analyses to explain why his favorite team won- as well as referee mistake analyses to explain why it lost. I’m assuming you’re talking to what America, about what Americans call soccer. Is that right? 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:10:18] Yeah, that’s it. That’s it? Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:10:20] I love the sound of soccer. I just like it to be on in the background. I have no idea what’s going on. 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:10:27] I was in the sun with the fans on the ball and all that.

Rachael Herron: [00:10:29] Exactly. The, the people who are talking about, I don’t even know what to call them, announcers all of it. 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:10:36] It’s soothing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:37] Yeah, exactly. I’m also a new Zealander, so I’m more, well, much more familiar with rugby and American football, but it is soothing. I have so many questions that I don’t even know which direction to take first, but let’s first of all, talk about your writing. How is that going? How is this book on marketing? When does that come out? 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:10:57] Slowly, it’s going slowly. It’s always gone slowly. It’s coming out hopefully, early 2021. So if it can be like 1st of January, just start the year on a good note to forget about 2020 and start 2021 with a book. That’d be great. So that’s the objective right now, but I’ve pushed the, the supposed launch date so many times now that I’m not going to make any promises, basically. I’ve never really made any promises, but yeah, so yeah, early 2021 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:28] You’re speaking to an entire crowd of writers who really, really understand pushing, I pushed everything really up until the very last minute. I was speaking to some students last night and reminded that one of them who is this Professor Emeritus at Stanford. And he was one of my students and he would always deliver me his papers at 11:59 PM at the cutoff moment. So if he could do it, we could do it. What is your, so you’ve got this business, which is phenomenal, which I can’t, the reason I wanted you on the show is to talk about this business, which I really believe in but I want to talk about your writing process too. How do you get your writing done around Reedsy?

Ricardo Fayet: [00:12:05] I, so I tried for a while doing it, you know, around retail, as you said, in the evenings, weekends, et cetera. And just, it just didn’t work. So I ended up doing get a sport of Reedsy, I created a weekly newsletter that’s about marketing, which I send, which I tried to send every week. So. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:23] I get that. And I have a, it’s one of the few newsletters that is actually helpful. And now it makes sense that you were writing a book with it. 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:12:33] Exactly. I took the idea a little bit from David Goveren who started with his weekly newsletter as well. And then he bundled a bunch of newsletters into your book, then another one. And I said, hey, I can do that too. So, so yeah, that way I just try to write a little bit every week, you know, around a thousand words. And then it was a pretty complicated tasks to put everything together and something that made sense structurally and I had to do a lot of rewrites, but yeah, starting from a super rough draft of a bunch of newsletters that I had to mash up together was actually easier than trying to write a book from scratch.

Rachael Herron: [00:13:09] Absolutely. You already have the clay on the wheel as it were. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to actually doing the writing?

Ricardo Fayet: [00:13:19] Procrastination. Cause they’re always, it’s one of the things I do for Reedsy and they’re always a middle and all the things that are going to distract me from it, a spreadsheet, you know, looking at ads, looking at anything that doesn’t involve writing that newsletter. It’s probably going to distract me from it. That’s why it’s probably the newsletter and we send the latest in the day, I usually send it around 10 or 11:00 PM my time. Yeah. Whereas all our other newsletters go out much, much, much sooner cause I’ve got a team who is a lot less a lot more discipline than I am basically. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:59] Great. What is your biggest joy when it comes to doing the writing?

Ricardo Fayet: [00:14:05] When it’s done, I like it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:09] You’re a writer. Yes. 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:14:12] I like it when it’s done. Like I’m generally, you know, somewhat proud or like, happy about what I wrote. I don’t reread it usually because otherwise I’m not, I’m not happy or proud about what I wrote, but yeah, when it’s done, I’m happy about it. So yeah, hopefully when this book is out, I’ll be happy about that. And I do. I mean, I do enjoy the process of writing. I’d say it’s one of the things that I enjoy the most about my job is being able to write whenever I want. But yeah, practically I don’t do it that often because again, procrastination. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:43] So you are writing a book and you have a company that is about supporting writers. Where is your particular unique history when it comes to writing? Is it something you were called to, or is it something that has just kind of come across your plate? 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:14:59] No, it’s definitely on something I was called to, we got into publishing because we really liked the industry, but more from a reader perspective, we’re very early adopters of Kindle and we’re starting to wonder, you know, what it meant for the industry when it changed on the author side, I’ll refer side. But I think I’ve gone to so many conferences where authors always ask me without knowing that it was with Reedsy. You know, the number one question when you meet someone at writer’s conferences, what are you writing? Or when do you write? And I was getting really tired enough for not having a good answer to that. Really good at writing a book

Rachael Herron: [00:15:36] That’s exactly the good reason as I have ever heard, especially that I know now that you are going to be writing something super useful because honestly, and you must find this too, but when you get useful newsletters, I think, oh my gosh, Ricardo just sent a really useful newsletter. I am not going to remember anything he said, and I’m going to archive it and never remember to go look for it again. So that’s why I love that it’s going to be all in a book. That’s fantastic. How are you feeling though about the updates that you’re going to have to do to this book? Because it is so tech it’s going to be so technical heavy I’m sure. Right? 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:16:10] Yeah, I hadn’t. Yeah. I preferred not to think about that, but now that you’ve mentioned it. No, it is going to be a little bit of a nightmare. So I hope you only updated once a year. And I’m always going to get very nitpicky people sending me emails, Hey, this information is outdated as of yesterday. And I’m like, yeah, yeah, I did this once a year and that’s what it’s going to be. But yeah, so I’ve got one quite year ahead of me and then I’ll have to think back I, and change a bunch of things. But yeah, we do it for, we do it for the blog posts for the courses we have on received for a bunch of things. So it’s, it’s part of the job. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:48] So you keep saying we, we came into it as you know, from the reader side, we were interested in the indie. Can you tell me about like these people that you came into this business with? 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:16:57] Yeah, definitely. It started with my co-founder, Emmanuel, he was a really good friend of mine. We’ve known each other for, for a lot of years and we, yeah, he had this idea. Yeah. Actually a fell off the marketplace and he contacted me about it. And then we started looking for all the co-founders would be a bit more technical, like designer or developer and that’s how we met Matt who’s early designer and Vincent, who’s our CTO. And yeah. The four of us got along really well and yeah, we started the company and really baby steps, but everything went in the right direction and we were really lucky, I think, to come in at the right time and with the right people. And yeah, it’s been really great so far we’re a team of more than 30 now, so it’s,

Rachael Herron: [00:17:47] Wow

Ricardo Fayet: [00:17:48] it’s definitely, it’s been a few, a few great years for all of us. I think. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:52] When did it start? 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:17:54] In late 2014. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:58] Okay, perfect. Absolutely perfect timing. I would love it if you would just give a little bit of a description for the people who have never heard of, Reedsy the only reason I’m doing this with you is, well, number one, I like you and I’ve heard you on other shows, but number two, I emailed you all. And I said, I love the service so much. I want to be an affiliate, tell me how to do that. And then I was in touch with you and I asked you on the show, but please tell the listeners who don’t know what Reedsy is, what it actually does. 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:18:24] Sure. So at score and that hasn’t changed really, since we, since we released it reaches a marketplace, that connects any author or person looking to publish a book with any people they might want to hire in the process. So that’s from, you know, developmental editors at the very start and copy editors, proofreaders, cover designers, typesetters, illustrators, ghost writers. If you want to get into, into that business, author website designers. And we recently opened also the marketplace to literary translators. So for the, for the shoot and the authors who want to explore, you know, translating to the German market to Italian and French, et cetera. So we have literary translators in there as well. And yeah, the particular video Reedsy. Cause you can find all these people and all their marketplaces out there as well, is that, we really curate the people who are on the marketplace. We accept around 3 to 5% of applicants and we get a lot of applicants.

Rachael Herron: [00:19:24] That makes sense. This is, and this is my biggest point about Reedsy is that you have fulfilled a need for people who work with others. I work with authors, I teach authors and the number one question for the past few, you know, for the past 10 years has been. Who’s your, who’s your editor? How do I get an editor? How do I hire one? And my, it was always such a struggle to answer. And now I feel 100% confident saying go to Reedsy.com and hire somebody there because they’re vetted. So how do you do this vetting process? I know that most of them have been involved in traditional publishing in the past. Right? 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:19:57] Yeah. Yeah. That’s one of our main criteria for editors, because I think right now it’s starting to change a little bit, but so far, most of the really good experienced editors, they come from traditional publishing because indie publishing didn’t exist 10 years ago, basically

Rachael Herron: [00:20:12] Right

Ricardo Fayet: [00:20:13] So, for editors to have really a lot of experience in a big background, it has to be international publishing. So that’s one of our main criteria that said, we do have a bunch of you know, let’s say indie editors. So editors who started with the indie movement and who’ve worked have edited for big names, like Mark Dosen, for example, or John & Ben. And so when we see like big names like that or books that have sold really well, and the portfolios, we tend to accept these people as well, because we knew that these indie authors who were in those portfolios have been really, really careful about the editors that they’ve hired. And they’ve probably tried quite a few editors for you know, finding the right one. 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:53] Yeah. And you also do this great thing where you’re not setting the prices, the editors are setting their prices and, and you can reach out and get bids from different editors and kind of almost like speed date a little bit, right?

Ricardo Fayet: [00:21:08] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we had this idea for I think for a, an April’s fools a few years ago. Releasing MeetSee, which would be actually a speed dating app for authors and editors. But we, we haven’t done that yet. There has been a lot of interest since that we haven’t done it. But yeah, that’s right. It’s you get quotes from different people. You can, you can request a maximum of five quotes because we have to maintain a balance.

Rachael Herron: [00:21:35] Of course

Ricardo Fayet: [00:21:36] You know, we, we don’t want authors spamming the whole database of editors just to get quotes because some authors actually want to do that. We were limited to five people and you have to do the research. You have to say, okay, I’ve written, you know, a psychological thriller, cause I’m gonna, so I’m going to look in the psychological thriller category. I’m looking for a developmental editor, not a copy editor or something. I’m going to filter like that as well. And maybe I want someone who’s, you know, worked for this best-selling author or that one. So I’m going to use those as like search keywords as well to really find the editor I want. And you can contact five compared to the quotes. And then my advice is always to have a chat if possible, on the phone, or at least you send a couple of emails with the editors you want, you want to hire to make sure that you click on, on a personal level, because at the end of the day, you’re going to give them, you know, your babies, your books. So you want them to be really, you know, to yeah to have a, you want to have a personal connection with the editor I find. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:36] And this would be a great place to insert for everyone listening is that you have to have an editor. There’s, that’s one of those, you know, I don’t believe there’s many rules in publishing but you have to have one, whether you are traditionally published and your editor is at your publishing house, or if you hire one, I mean, you can self-publish a book without having an editor and your reviews, if you get any will eventually show that. So this connection that you make with the editors super important also, it’s not, it’s not, inexpensive. You are going to be shelling out for this crucial service. So I know that I’m just like sounding like a salesperson for your company, but I actually am a salesforce for your company

Ricardo Fayet: [00:23:19] Thank you

Rachael Herron: [00:23:20] Because it has taken so much of the burden of responsibility off of us. And the thing I like is that number one, I already have my team like in place, right. But I know that if one of my team ever retired, I would just go to Reedsy and do this. What was I going to ask? Oh, in terms of traditional publishing is always contract, you know, contracting and getting smaller. And you’re probably more up on this than I am. I heard that Bertelsmann and Penguin Random House we’re buying Simon and Schuster, but then I heard the next week that they weren’t. So I don’t know if that’s going through, but when those kind of large seismic shifts in publishing happen, do you get an influx of, at now newly freelance editors? 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:24:05] Yeah, definitely. I mean, we constantly get a small influx because there’s been, I mean, there have been a lot of, a lot of layoffs, 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:17] Yeah. This year. 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:24:18] A lot of redundancy, and also I think there, we’ve set an example. Like we we’ve gotten some, some great editors early on who were, you know, publishers at Del Ray, for example, Penguin UK and these people, it’s a small world. Publishing is a small world. Traditional publishing is an even smaller world and they all knew each other. And when, when these editors started doing really, really well and reached an earning maybe three, four times what they used to earn at a tertiary publishing company, then their colleagues immediately knew about it. And at the time we were trying to get publishers on board to use the marketplace that didn’t work out because they have, you know, they have their own ways of doing things and we didn’t really want to adopt through that. So when, when I went on these almost, you know, sales, sales presentations to get them to use Reedsy, instead of questions about how can I use the marketplace to source, you know, copywriters are proofreaders? I got questions about, Hey, if I leave my publishing company right now, could I come and reach as a developmental editor? So yeah, we definitely get an influx. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:27] Because they’re getting, you know, you’re, you guys are taking the cut that you obviously take, but they’re getting the bulk of the money instead of working hourly for that on a salary for a company 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:25:37] That’s right

Rachael Herron: [00:25:38] It’s genius. It’s genius. Okay. Anything else that you want to tell listeners about that I haven’t remembered to, gush over.

Ricardo Fayet: [00:25:48] No, I mean, the only thing is, so since Reedsy is a marketplace, it’s very, self-serve, we’re not going to push you, like we don’t push authors into packages and we don’t even push them into any direction. We’re not going to say you have to hire first, a developmental editor, then a copy editor and then a proofreader. Cause it’s not always a case you can bundle edits here and there. Maybe who knows, maybe you’re great on mechanical editing and you can do some of the proofreading yourself, you know, case, there are different case scenarios. Each author is unique. So what we’ve done instead is so that people can use our self-serve marketplace and not feel lost because if you’re starting out, you might not even know what a typesetter is. For example, 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:30] Right. Right

Ricardo Fayet: [00:26:31] We’ve- what we spend most of our time doing and most of our money actually doing is creating educational resources. So we’ve got, if people haven’t checked their blog, I highly encourage them to do that. And we have free courses as well on writing, editing, marketing. We use our market and we leverage our marketplace to get free courses, basically. So we recently had one of our top romance editors writing a free course on how to you know, turn up the heat in your Romance novel, which I’m going through right now. It’s very entertaining. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:04] Yeah. Helpful

Ricardo Fayet: [00:27:05] There are a lot of, a lot of educational resources in there, which I really encourage people to check out. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:14] And it’s also useful again, for me, there’s a constant question is how do I write a nonfiction book proposal? And I just send them that link on your blog. How do I write a nonfiction book proposal? There’s I think you have another great link. One of my goals in life is to fair it out and expose all of these, basically. They’re the hybrid publisher, but really falling into the vanity publishing camp who want to sell to an author, a $15,000 freaking package where you don’t get a choice of editor. You don’t get a choice of cover designer. They present things to you, and then they do it all for you, but they’re taking your money and they’re never going to sell a book for you and I think you have a great, I think it’s you guys who have a great piece on how do you tell the difference between an actual hybrid publisher and a vanity publisher, and there’s not, it’s, it’s hard to tell. So you guys are doing a lot of that. I would like to plug my affiliate link, which is brand new and sparkly. And it’s at RachaelHerron.com/Reedsy (R E E D S Y) But if people want to get on the list, like I am for your emails and stuff like that, they can just go and create an account at Reedsy, right? Is that how you get on the list? 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:28:21] That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. That’s how you get on the list then, then you’re going to start getting emails. And if you don’t want to get sorted emails, you just update your preferences and you choose like, whether you want to get like writing stuff, marketing stuff, design stuff. Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:28:33] I think I only get the writing in the marketing stuff. Wait, one back. I wanna jump back to when you said people don’t understand what typesetters are. I don’t think I do. When you say typesetter, are you talking about a format or for the book? 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:28:46] Yeah, that’s right. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:48] Okay. Great 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:28:49] Typesetting is for, is really for print. We like formatting is more for eBooks and typesetting is, you know, setting the type on the paper for the print. It’s kind of an old name from when people actually used to, you know, for the printers, they actually set each 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:05] In the line of type machine. Yeah

Ricardo Fayet: [00:29:07] That’s fine. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:08] That’s great. I have a, I’m hybrid published, but I, I indie published my book on memoir called Fast Draft Your Memoir, and I use Develom for the formatting for the paper print formatting. And it did a, an adequate job it’s adequate, but I don’t like the way it looks. And I’ve been thinking lately, I need to hire a formatter, for the interior, a typesetter as it were. So I’ll be heading over to Reedsy myself. Thank you for indulging me in commercializing your entire business. But everybody should go to RachaelHerron.com/Reedsy and I didn’t do it for that purpose. I did it because I wanted to talk to Ricardo. Anything else from you? 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:29:48] No, I think we pretty much covered everything. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:53] And it sounds like, and it sounds like when you are, when you are struggling to get the work done and like hitting the deadline and meeting the deadline, it just, you know, it just sounds like you’re actually a real writer. That’s 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:30:03] Right. I feel, I almost feel like, when your book is out, 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:08] but you are, you’re already being the angst. So welcome to the club. And now, and now it’s like this infection you’re doomed. You’re going to have to keep writing books.

Ricardo Fayet: [00:30:15] Probably

Rachael Herron: [00:30:16] Well, Ricardo, thank you. Thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:30:23] No, thanks for inviting me. And thanks for all the kind words about Reedsy. 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:28] Of course. Take care. 

Ricardo Fayet: [00:30:29] Thanks. You too.

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.

The post Ep. 218: Ricardo Fayet on Finding the Perfect Editor appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Every year, Rachael Herron talks you through what she made over the previous year and how she made it because she firmly believes there’s not enough transparency in publishing. In 2020, she made $186,000, and here’s how she did it. 

How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you’ll gain insight from other writers on how to get in the chair, tricks to stay in it, and inspiration to get your own words flowing. 

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers!

Transcript

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode # 217 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. Could not be more thrilled you are here today for our annual money, honey roundup. We’re going to be talking about how much I made in 2020, and I will spoil it a little bit right here and tell you that I made more than I made in 2019. So hazah! that’s the whole goal. Well, it’s not the whole goal. It’s actually not even a big part of the goal. So let me backtrack that a little bit, but it is a nice goal to have and I hit it. So I’m really pleased about that. First of all, though, a little bit of an update around here. Thank you all for your concern that you sent after the last podcast. I am still sick. I’m still battling some tough organs in my body that want to, like I said, leap out of them, leave out, leap out of it. So I have a CT scan scheduled for tomorrow. I did end up pushing my 90 day classes for two weeks which I just want to say was really huge for me. And I talk about it a little bit over at my Youre-Already-Ready podcast, which is not about writing. It’s more about life and I’m really loving that podcast. [00:01:31] I’m so glad that I started it. Would I have started a brand new project? Had I known I would get sick a week later? Absolutely not. My goal for You’re Already Ready was to post to it a couple times a week, two to three times a week. And I can’t do that right now. Maybe once a week is my max for that. So that’s kind of rough, but the fact that I am listening to my body and like I talked about last week, I have one job right now and my one job is to get and stay healthy. And I’m working on that. I have other little jobs and one of those little jobs I have decided today is being able to do this podcast for you to update you. I was not sure. I was going to be able to get this out this early in the year. Usually I try to make it my first episode of the year. I couldn’t do that this year, but it’s the second. That’s not too bad. And I don’t feel like I’m pushing myself too hard after this. I will go lie down for another great long while during my lying down, I am reading a ton and treating it like my job because my writing friends, reading is your job. You should be reading. I really recommend the Good Reads Reading Challenge. I hate Good Reads as a platform. I hate that Amazon owns it. I don’t use it for book recommendations. Although a lot of people do get a lot out of that. I do that. However, a couple of years ago, I discovered that they have that reading challenge per year. And when you finish a book, you just zap over to Good Reads. Put in that you finished it. You can give it a star rating if you want. You can do a long review if you want. I don’t. I only do star ratings and I put red because I wanted on my list. Sometimes I don’t even do the star rating if I don’t care that much. If I love a book, I give it five stars. If I don’t love a book as much, normally I don’t finish it. But if I do, I just leave those stars blank because as writers, we are polite to each other. If you give a writer a two or a three-star review, absolutely, you will hang out with them at a party, at a conference someday. And you will wonder if they remember that and they might, so I leave five stars or nothing, but I always mark them as read in Good Reads.[00:03:41] Wow. I’m already going on lots of tangents. It’s going to be that kind of episode. Yay! So, in a little bit of an update of my health, I do have a little bit more energy and that’s great. The infection is gone and the fever’s down and I feel a lot better that way. So that’s good. I am taking my time as I move through things and that’s also awesome. So quick little chat about goals for 2021. I keep thinking that 2020 is so far in the future and it’s done, we spent it inside and it’s done. So now we’re in 2021. My goals for 2021 are to get well and to be strong and healthy, to remain strong and healthy. I tend to be a very strong and healthy person, which is why this is kind of get me down, but those are my, that’s, those are my top goals, honestly, along with spending time with friends and family, those are my goals in this year to come. Another big goal is to move to New Zealand. We don’t know when we’re going to do that, it depends on again on the dog who’s doing really well actually right now.[00:04:48] So we’re not moving imminently but that’s in the cards. The other business goals are to continue to make a little bit more in 2021, ever since I’ve gone full time, I’ve been making about 15 to 17% more every year. And I think that is incredible. That’s double digit growth. It’s fantastic. I am so lucky and grateful, so I’d like to continue that growth. I would like to write two novels, hopefully sell both novels or publish them on my own. And I would like to publish three books of non-fiction they’re all in various States of togetherness. They are all memoir-ish, they are creative non-fiction, none of them are about writing. I’ve kind of left that I loved doing Fast Draft Your Memoir and my assistant, hello, Ed! Would really like me to write more about writing because that is my best-selling book by far, in terms of the self-publishing. My romance does okay. But Fast Draft Your Memoir just keep selling, it sells in print, it sells an e-book, it sells an audio book and people really like it. So if you have read it and liked it, thank you, thank you so much. But I’m not doing any writing books right now. I’m doing just the creative non-fiction, which is what I love, the kind of thing I write for my Patreon essays. Those, these things that I’ve already mentioned are things that are mostly within my control. [00:06:20] The things that are out of my control, I don’t call goals. I call those wishes cause that’s all they are but I have a couple of wishes for 2021 and may my book, Hush Little Baby comes out from Penguin and I wish it does really well. I wish that all the big vendors take it and that people fall in love with it. And that it shoots to the top of the charts, which is, you know, a book of mine has never done in this country. So they, you know, my books generally sell okay. But they don’t sell great. And I’d love this one to sell outstandingly well, surprisingly shockingly well, wouldn’t that be fun? I have no control over that. So it’s a nice wish. Another wish that is completely out of my control, but I like to have it is to have more of my student’s books on my shelves. One of the things that I have in my office is just a little shelf and it has four or five books that people that I have worked with their books that they have written. Then I just want that book shelf to keep filling up no matter where I live, I want my students to send me their books when they’re done with them. So I can read the book and put it on my shelf. I want it signed to me. That is something that, again, out of my control, but I want more of that. And I have just had such an incredible year. 2020 was a really great year for working with students. I worked with students in many, many ways. [00:07:48] The 90 Days to Done online classes, the online pre-recorded classes. I taught at Stanford. I taught at Berkeley and I taught online at a bunch of different conferences and all of those things combined added up to money, which is great. That’s how I support myself and it added up well, but it makes me a better person. When I am the person who can talk about how I write and suggest ways to other people that might work with their particular writing process. Nobody’s ever going to have my writing process, but I know enough about enough people’s writing process’ processes now to really teach this well. And I love doing it, and I love getting those books when they’re done. And I also love that this podcast is built around that. How Do You Write has always been about the writing process. How do we get it done? And the whole idea, about 90 Days to Done and 90 Day Revision is getting it done, actually getting out of your own way for long enough to get a body of work in front of you. And in 90 days, and we’ll talk about seasons. When you’re in something like that, and when I’m talking about not just my classes, but I’m talking about NaNoWriMo or any other artificially constructed timeframe that you want to get something done in, that’s a season of your life that you are pouring into doing your work because you have set an intention. And I just feel so grateful and lucky that I have had the chance to teach these this year.[00:09:25] And it’s been really, really wonderful. Okay. I can hear you Rachael. Move on to the money. Wow. I feel so underpowered. Usually I’m quite high powered not today, so I apologize. I’m very, very excited to share this with you. I hope that you can hear that in my voice at least. All right. So drum roll please. What did I make in 2020? I made, and this is pre-expenses, pre-taxes people but I made $187,272. So I don’t like the number 187. Cause I used to work in law enforcement and that means murder. So let’s call it. Let’s call it 186, rather than rounding up. We’ll round down. I made $186,000 last year. Holy shit. Right? That’s amazing. That is 15% more than 2019 where I made 159,000. This is my third or fourth year of a six-figure income. I can’t remember whether it’s three or four, but it has been mind-blowing. That five years ago, I stopped working and I knew that I needed to bring in $36,000 a year. And it has gone up ever since then. So I’ve gone up by a lot. What does $186,000 look like? It looks like 433 payments during the year. That’s how I was, what I added up to get to these numbers. 433 different kinds of payments from a coaching payment to a payment that a Penguin gives me when they release a book or when I deliver a book to them, all of those are included in there. That averages out to about 36 payments a month. And think about that. I’m getting paid for something. F more than every day. The average amount of each payment is about $433 which is very strange that it was 433 payments at the average of $433 each. But I will say that that average is a little bit skewed by big numbers that I get from things like New York Publishing and a lot of smaller numbers from, you know, like one-off coaching kind of things.[00:11:41] So where does that money come from? Okay. So I made the most from teaching and I know that that can be dispiriting for people to hear who don’t want to teach. You do not have to teach, to make money writing. However, a lot of writers make the bulk of their money from teaching. And I do too. So, from teaching, I made $113, $114,000, rounding up $114,000. That includes all of my 90 Days classes and I did those, I did three sections of those over three or four sections. No, it must have been three sections over the year all of my online classes, all of my in-person teaching, which was very, very limited, although there was some of it but it also includes everything at Berkeley, everything at Stanford and inside that teaching bucket, I include all of my coaching and inside the coaching, I include things like Rachael Says Write. Even though I’m not really coaching during Rachael Says Write, but I’m showing up as a coach, as a mentor. And that’s how all of this money gets put together. So, that is amazing. And wonderful. When I look at that number, I’m like really? Really, that’s so cool.[00:13:00] So, but the thing that you’re probably most interested to know about is how much did I make from books. And I am glad and grateful to say that I made more in 2020 than I did in 2019. And that is not always true. I’ve been published. Since 2010 and that money has gone up and now, and it is not steady. It is not reliable in any way, shape or form. I made a total of $52,278. So 52,000 from books that breaks down to 23,000 from traditional publishing. So from contracts or royalties, and I don’t make many royalties because I don’t usually earn out my books. Hopefully that’ll change someday. So that was 23,000 from traditional publishing and 29,000 from cell publishing. Last year I made, I think about $40,000 from traditional and self-publishing combined. So this year I made 23,000 and 29,000. So that is up considerably. I didn’t do the percentages on that, but from 40,000 to 52,000, the self-publishing extra money I have to say is directly due to my assistant Ed’s help in getting BookBub’s. I have done nothing else to promote these books and I have not sell, published a new book. So this was all back stock. This was all stuff that was already out there. And he managed to make more money than I had before just by getting BookBub. So Ed’s one of, Ed can do anything. I think he can fly, but one of the things he’s really good at is like, he’s a, BookBub a whisperer.[00:14:38] I swear I had one every, every month or two during the course of 2019. So, and that’s all him. And what he does is around each BookBub, he gets smaller buy-in ads like Freebooksy and ENT those kind of ads. And he puts those around the BookBub so that there’s a, there’s a slow rise and a gradual taper off. He does all of that. I do none of it. I’m hands-off and he’s brilliant at it. So thank you, Ed, for making me more money in 2020. Let’s see, from Patreon and which is another one of my big support basis. Another income stream that I rely on from Patreon MH, $17,117. That’s a nice, pretty number. And my patreon supporters think I have about 350 of them. So that’s not that many. I mean, that’s a lot, but it’s not. It’s not 14,000 or something like that. Most of them are at the dollar level, the dollar support level, which I have said before on the show. I absolutely love because it means that if you know, a $10 patron leaves, there’s a lot of other, $1 patrons that are still supporting that and keeping the income steady. So I know that I can rely on 1100, $1,200 a month from Patreon. So that is the Patreon income. I did cancel a Patreon stream of income when Jay and I stopped writing. I stopped writing, sorry, stopped recording our show, The Writer’s Well, we canceled our Patreon completely. It went away and that was one of those things where we made a choice. Shall we make less money in order to do this? Absolutely. We were not making a ton from that, a couple of hundred dollars a month from that, but hey, that’s an income stream and it’s remarkable. So we stepped back a little bit. I’ll probably make less money from Patreon next year.[00:16:35] All right. And then there’s this miscellaneous category, and I really want to mention it because in this miscellaneous category, I have collected three things that also made me money. I made $2,000 from audio. I made $1,275 from query letter help. I, if you go to RachaelHerron.com/Query for a hundred dollars, I will assist you with your query. I don’t really ever advertise that much and they kind of come in dribs and drabs, but I really liked doing them. So I haven’t canceled doing that. And I made $600 from one magazine article that I submitted. I just did not focus on magazine articles. Like I normally don’t. So that totals up to almost $4,000 from those three miscellaneous categories: audio, query and magazine. The audio I want to bring up, I want to make more on audio in 2021. Ed could tell me exactly and he has, and I’ve forgotten, but I have earned out already one of my big expenses, for one of my books that I paid out of pocket. I think I might be close to earning out for the series that I paid out of pocket. So that means everything that’s coming in now is just going to be straight up cash.[00:17:47] People are still listening to audio books and this number kind of surprises me. I thought I had sold more audio. But it’s still two grand, right? That’s amazing. And this, but this small miscellaneous category tells me that what I’m doing around the queries is right. If I I’m accepting them, when they come in, they don’t take me long to do when I really enjoy doing them, I’ll keep doing them. I call this sushi money. On a random Tuesday afternoon somebody will ask for a query and now I’ve got a hundred extra dollars. And if we get a ton of sushi and it’s really delicious and it’s delivered and we tip 20% for the driver, it’s going to come to about $75. So, hey, that’s just a free sushi delivery. And, but what it also tells me is that this magazine category, this writing for other articles, I have it in the right place in my life. I don’t miss not doing it more. It is, for me, it is not worth the hustle to get those kinds of gigs that pay $600 for a, you know, a thousand-word article. However, it does make me think about other income streams. And I just wanted to mention this. So I have a new income stream, yesterday I got paid from something new. I got paid 78 cents. Yes. 78 whole cents from medium. So medium.com, I’m sure you’ve seen articles on there. It is a really good place to go to read good stuff. The nice thing about medium is that you can cross post. So in firing up, You’re Already Ready as a podcast, I’m also putting the transcriptions of those podcasts onto my blog. And it’s actually a little bit backwards. I do the blog and then I read it. So it starts as a piece of writing that then I present on You’re Already Ready.[00:19:34] So it’s already on my blog. Over on medium.com I can push a button that says import this and it imports. And it’s just on Medium. All by itself. I have joined as an author on Medium and therefore I get to choose whether I put my articles behind the paywall. And the reason I do this is to put those articles behind the paywall. So these millions of medium readers who have never heard of me may, just may, stumble past me and read an article or two, and like my voice and at the bottom of every post, there is a way to subscribe to me and you get tiny fractions of cents for people who read your work on medium behind the paywall. And I just started doing this a couple of weeks ago and I made 78 cents. And that is 78 cents that I would not have made had I not decided to try this new income stream and, you know, I would love it if it got up to a hundred dollars a month or so, $200 a month, like one of my friends has that would be just more money coming in and why not?[00:20:38] So the reason I mentioned this is try all the little income streams and then decide what works for you. For me, hustling for magazine articles is exhausting and dispiriting. And I don’t love doing it. What I love is when magazines come to me and actually that’s what that $600 was, somebody came to me and said, would you write this article for $600? And I said, hell yes, I will. But I don’t, I don’t want to spend my time seeking those out. However, something like Medium, where I can actually just put up what I’m already writing and attract a new audience. Why wouldn’t we try that? Even if I ever got one extra reader, which I obviously have, that’s just a little bit, that’s not sushi money, but that’s maybe, it’s going to add up to sushi money someday. So I am excited about that while we are talking about income streams, I would really love to thank some new patrons Maria Frazelle. Thank you very much. Adrena Mussai. Wow. Why do you all have such beautiful names? Thank you, Adrena. Sandy, welcome. Nicole Morgan and Sarah Bailey, thank you.[00:21:51] Isabelle Kanyas. And Roxanne Abali. I am not making these people, these names of people, these are gorgeous. Fe White, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Joevan Evri, Hello, Joe edited her pledge up. Oh my God. That’s amazing. Juliet Martin, thank you and welcome. Sarah Bailey, who has a recently arrived. She edited her pledge up. And Sarah, thank you for your beautiful kind words. Sometimes you meet somebody that already feels like a friend and Sarah found that in my essays and now I’m finding it in her. So thank you, Sarah, I really appreciate that. Yvonne Bennett. Welcome, welcome. Thank you. I’m wondering if some of you are new patrons because you felt sorry for me on the last podcast. And if that happened, I am sorry about that. That was never a goal, but I really, really appreciate every single patron. It means the difference. It makes the difference in me having to go out and get a second job. And I get to sit at this desk and write those essays that I love writing so much. I always say that, but it’s very, very true if you’d like to look at the Patreon and what the levels are and what you get at those different levels, patreon.com/Rachael (R A C H A E L) [00:23:02] What else did I want to tell you? You guys I’m out. I’m out of breath. I’m out of energy. I need to go lie down. But I also want to take this moment to thank you. It is because you are here and it is because we communicate that there has been so much added joy in my life. Just this fire hose of joy that I get from being with you, from sharing time with you, from sharing interviews with you, from hearing back from those of you who respond to my emails, if you’re on my writer email list, which you should be RachaelHerron.com/Write. I love hearing from you. I think that’s where I hear from the most readers is in response to those writing emails, so keep that up. I really, really love it. I will say. And I just, this just crossed my mind that I should say this is going out on Friday, which is January 8th, 2021, because I pushed 90 Days to Done. It’s not starting until January 15th and the first class is January 19th. In the session of 90 Days to Done, which is not the revision, it is 90 days to getting your book done in the 11:00 AM Pacific time. Which is 2:00 PM Eastern time on Tuesdays in that particular class, I have two slots because two people had to drop because they had plans in those last two weeks of the class because the class got pushed out. Those are the only people that I had dropped. All the other classes are full. But if you are interested in 90 days, then you can go to rachaelherron.com/90daystodone and read about it. See if it’s something you would like to do and then just email me. If that is something you would like to do at Rachael, rachaelherron.com [00:24:56] So, I’ll just mention that. But if those, if that class remains smaller than other classes, that is also fantastic. I’m fine with that. And I would really, really like, as we go out of this podcast, I would really like to know what your goals are for this upcoming year, I’d like to know what your goals are for yourself, for your writing and tell me some of those wishes, if you would like, I think the comments are working over at HowDoYouWrite.net. So try that, but if you can’t leave a comment at HowDoYouWrite.net, then come over to RachaelHerron.com, go to the blog and leave a comment on the most recent blog posts that will get to me and other people will be able to see it. I want to know about your goals and about your wishes for 2021, because when we say these things out loud and when we keep saying them, that is when we start to get stuff done. I don’t believe that saying it once out loud is enough. I believe that saying it, stating it, repeating it, telling it to the same people over and over again, that’s when we start to do stuff. In RachaelSaysWrite, every single week we talk about what our larger current goal is. And that larger current goal gets pushed out all the time, goals and deadlines or something to create and then blow past. And then rejigger. Right now I have been sick, so I need to rejigger that goal for the book I’m writing. That’s just right now called Quincy in my head. And I had to push that out too. And that is okay. But every single time I go to RachaelSaysWrite, I type into the box of what my current bigger goal is, because eventually you get tired of seeing yourself, continue to push things or say the same thing without motion. [00:26:50] It’s kind of like doing morning pages. You can’t write three pages to yourself every morning without hearing the same things, come up over and over and start to do something about them. So, being accountable to somebody, to a group of somebody is important. Oh, and I’m just realizing I should invite you to Onward Writer, my Slack group, which is free and open. I haven’t been there in a couple of weeks because I have been avoiding work and just trying to rest. However, the people in it are great. And at HowDoYouWrite.net, I always leave the link to join. So go over there and join our Slack channel. That is a built in community of writers. And you get what you put into it. If you go over and post every day, you’re going to have people commenting back to you. So, I would love to see you over there as well. Totally free. All right, my sweet friends. I’m fading. So happy writing to you. Happy 2021. May it be better to you than 2020 was and by God for a lot of us that will probably come true because 2020 was difficult. Congratulations for making it through. All right. We’ll talk soon. 

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.

The post Ep: 217: Show Me the Money, 2020 Edition appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Heid E. Erdrich is the author of seven collections of poetry. Her writing has won fellowships and awards from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Bush Foundation, the Loft Literary Center, and First People’s Fund, and she has twice won a Minnesota Book Award for poetry. She was also the editor of the 2018 anthology New Poets of Native Nations, which was the recipient of an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation and a Midwest Booksellers Choice Award. Erdrich works as a visual arts curator and collaborator, and as an educator. She teaches in the low-residency MFA creative writing program of Augsburg University and is the 2019 distinguished visiting professor in the liberal arts at the University of Minnesota, Morris. Erdrich grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota, and is Ojibwe enrolled at Turtle Mountain. She lives in Minneapolis. Her latest book is Little Big Bully. 

How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you’ll gain insight from other writers on how to get in the chair, tricks to stay in it, and inspiration to get your own words flowing. 

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers!

Transcript

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

[00:00:15] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #216 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron and I am so pleased that you’re here with me today. Today we’re going to be talking to Heid E. Erdrich on writing poetry in the dark. I have been getting so much more into poetry this year. I have mentioned it. I took a class. It has really unlocked and un-bottled some stuff inside me that is really important. And speaking of importance, Heid really talks about how writing can be transformative and we talk about how important to can be in terms of emotional health and strength and recovering from trauma. So I know you’re going to enjoy the interview. Very quickly, what’s going on around here? Well, what is going on? And I mean, very quickly, what is going on is I am very sick there’s something wrong inside me and doctors can’t figure out what it is and I’m in a great deal of pain. Right now, all the time. And I have been for the last 10 days and I need more tests and an MRI and all this other stuff. So, I have been feeling terrible. That is why there was no podcast last week. And I just need to say right now, that if there’s no podcast next week, that is why I’m going to try like hell to get this up. But I can only sit up for about 10 minutes at a time right now. So I’m kind of hearing my voice that I’m upset. I put on lipstick for you and I put on mascara but let me just talk for a minute about what we do when this kind of shit hits us. We do the freaking best that we can. That is all. [00:02:09] I have my 90 day classes starting on the Tuesday after this goes out, I’m recording this on Wednesday. It’ll go up on Friday. Hopefully, if I get it done. And then I have 90 day classes starting on Tuesday. That is my focus right now, are these 90 day classes. They are so important to me. They are what I love to do. Number one in my life, you know is writing in terms of my work life. Number one in my life is my people, but number one of my work life, is writing in a very close number two, are helping other writers write their books and revise their books. You know that I love that so much and I don’t know what’s going to happen. I may have to push the class for a week or two, and I can’t even think farther than that, but I don’t think I will. Which is why, if you are taking one of these 90 day classes, I haven’t made that announcement because I think I’m going to be able to do it. Hoping, fingers crossed and that is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. We don’t- in writing, we don’t need as much certainty as we think we do. There are plotters and there are pantsers. There are people who plot their books and there are people who fly by the seat of their pants. A real truth of life, I think for most people lies somewhere in the middle, we plan quite a bit and then things happen and we have to fly by the seat of our pants. And I am one of those people who prefers to plan things out. I prefer to have an outline. However, in reality, when I’m writing, I deviate from the outline almost a hundred percent, as soon as I start writing, Oh, one page later, I’m in a different land and that is just life. Remembering that is very important to me, remembering that everything is changing all the time and I don’t need to have the answer for what’s going to happen tomorrow or the next day or next week, when the classes start understanding that we can make shifts. And most importantly, we have to take care of ourselves in whatever way that looks like. [00:04:13] Knowing that my writing will get done. Yesterday I did my writing while lying on my back on the couch and I got some good words done. I was writing about poetry, about poetry, actually. That was really, really fun. And it didn’t look like sitting up at my desk and it didn’t look like me being the very, very sturdy, resilient, energetic person that I usually am. I’m not sturdy right now. I’m not resilient and I’m not energetic. And I can do some of my work and some of my work, I can’t, I really need to be allowing myself to rest right now. And that is my work. I have a new mantra and I want to share it with you really quickly. It is, “What is my one job right now?” I can only have one job at a time. Right now in this very second. My one job is to record this podcast this intro to this podcast, not even this podcast, just this intro. That is my one job right after this. My one job is to go back to bed and my one job while I’m in bed is to rest. It is not to do anything else. It’s not to worry about doing anything else. My one job is to rest. I don’t want you to be too worried about me. There’s, it’s, it’s something interior. I probably need to lose another organ. My wife says that eventually I’ll just be a brain in a jar because I just, I like to lose organs as often as possible.[00:05:36] And one of them definitely wants to go away. So, my one job will be to rest. What is your one job? What is your one job right now? Are you driving? Great. Your one job can be making sure you get to where you’re going safely, but also kind of listening to me, listening to me talk to Heid, in our interview thinking about how, what we talk about applies to your writing. That’s your one job. When you get to where you’re going, what’s your one job then. Multitasking is a myth. You know that, I know that I like to do it still my very favorite thing to do is like watch TV while knitting, while eating some ice cream and having a conversation with my wife and I don’t have to do all of those things perfectly when I’m doing them. They don’t require perfection, what requires dedication and deserves all the intelligence you can put toward it however is our important work. And right now my important work is writing, teaching and resting. And I don’t need to know exactly how all of those things are gonna fit together yet.[00:06:43] So this is a lot longer than I thought it would be anyway. So I’m going to sign off. I’m going to wish you very happy writing as I usually do, but also very happy single-tasking. And very happy thinking about how you don’t need to have all the answers right now on how you’re going to finish your book, how you’re going to be published, how you’re going to get an agent, how you’re going to self-publish we tend to get so wrapped up in trying to future trip and figure everything out. Don’t worry about that. What’s your one job right now. That’s my words for you today moving into the new year generally the first episode of the new year is about money. And I guess this will be the first episode of the new year. It looks like it comes out on January 1st so that’s not going to happen. Hopefully I’ll do it next week, and maybe I won’t, who knows I will do my best. But I like this as the first episode of the new year. What’s your one job? That is what I am asking myself in every moment. And in every moment that kind of shifts a little bit and I think I might continue this as the year moves forward. Single tasking, perhaps. That’s my focus for 2021. So my friends happy writing. Hit me where you find me, come send me an email. Tell me how you’re doing and thank you so much for being here and supporting me and listening to the show. You all mean so much to me. Thank you for getting through this difficult 2020 year let’s move forward into a difficult 2021, and we can do it together. So glad you’re here. [00:08:28] Hey, you’re a writer. Did you know that I send out a free weekly email of writing encouragement? Go sign up for it at www.rachaelherron.com/write and you’ll also get my Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use today to get some of your own writing done. Okay, now onto the interview.

Rachael Herron: [00:09:02] Okay. Well, I could not be more thrilled today to welcome to the show, Heid E. Erdrich. Hello, Heid! How are you? 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:09:09] Hi Rachael! You know, it’s, it was a good day here. It was sunny and I got a lot of work done. So things are shifting. 

Rachael Herron: [00:09:18] Fantastic. Good. I love that. Let me give you a little introduction and then we’re going to talk all things, poetry and writing. Heid E. Erdrich is the author of seven collections of poetry. Her writing has won fellowships and awards from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Bush Foundation, the Loft Literary Center and First People’s Fund, and she has twice won a Minnesota Book Award for poetry. She was also the editor of the 2018 anthology, New Poets of Native Nations, which was a recipient of the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation and a Midwest Booksellers’ Choice Award. Erdrich works as a visual arts curator and collaborator and as an educator. She teaches in the low-residency MFA creative writing program of Augsburg University and is the 2019 distinguished visiting professor in the liberal arts the University of Minnesota, Morris. Erdrich grew up in, can you help me say this? Wahpeton?

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:10:20] Wahpeton.

Rachael Herron: [00:10:21] Okay. Washington Putin, North Dakota, and is Ojibwe enrolled at Turtle Mountain. She lives in Minneapolis and her latest book is Little Big Bully and it is really so gorgeous. There it is. If you’re watching on the YouTube, you can see it there. I was so pleased to have been offered this opportunity to talk to you. And as I love to do, and I talk to poets, I would love to invite you to read a poem for us?

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:10:47] Oh, I’d be happy to. I’m going to read something that’s not quite characteristic, but it does a good job of describing some of the things that happen in the book. And then I’ll tell you about that later. It’s called, I Feel Like a Fool. Do you? I feel like a fool. Do you, a tarot deck fool, looking back to see if you were looking back at me, I’ll trip right off that cliff. Once in North Dakota, in my actual childhood, I saw a hobo. That’s what we said then with an actual red bandana bundle, he had slung on a stick. He tried to get me to walk under a bridge with him. He said he had a great gift. My bigger sister sniggered at that, or there’d be a red dress hanging in a tree for me too, which brings me back to that fool tumbling ass over tea kettle into some gully, having fallen for it. Then dusting full self’s ass off. Pick yourself up. Start all over again. This is a world of men, this tarot deck and shore the world. And yet I won’t give a single pronoun for it. We were both fools. We are all fools. Once in my actual adult life in hideous time of lies, our own stories were required of us. Fool though I feel real and truly fucked though we be, I picked my first person. I set my truth free. Fool, me fool, me fool me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:37] Thank you. 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:12:38] You’re welcome. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:39] That is so beautiful. And I love that it’s the fool. When I heard this, I was really, really moved the full card. I’m a tarot fan. And the full card tends to really frighten me in a way that it, maybe some people don’t feel, but I never like it when I get the fool. And I think that you capture so much of that danger. You capture a lot of danger with your work.

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:13:04] Yeah, there’s a lot in there about fear and danger, but the fool actually comforts me and I do get that card off. And one of the reasons is because it, the fool is moving happily along in the world has no idea they’re about to fall down, but you know, the good nature looks after fools and drunks they say. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:25] Yes

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:13:25] They’d never really get harmed. They just don’t see things coming

Rachael Herron: [00:13:29] That’s true

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:13:30] And they go on and it’s actually a good trait to just be like, okay, I don’t know what’s about to happen, but I am going to travel blindly. So I like that. And, but I felt it keenly when writing from personal experiences and from things that felt really intimate and personal to me in this book, which is something I don’t usually do. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:50] That is a beautiful way. And I think I’ll try to be less scared of the fool when he shows up when I turn him over. So talk to us a little bit about- you are very busy. You do all these things. You’re doing a lot of stuff, not just the writing, but what does your writing process look like? 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:14:05] Well, you know, I like the color green, so my office is filled with green things and I get a new chair every time I finish a book 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:15] You get a new chair?

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:14:16] Yeah I usually get them. I pick them up on curbs. I get them on yard sales. I get them, I get them secondhand and I think I’ve only once purchased a new chair from Ikea. So, you know, I, it was COVID times and I was finishing a book and I couldn’t stand the chair I worked on in for so long. So I went on to something like, you know, Facebook marketplace or something, and got myself a new green Victorian chair with swan’s heads that’s very regal. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:43] I love that. 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:14:44] And that’s where I sit. And usually I work on a laptop on a lap desk and I like to work a lot from dreams. So I will allow myself to snooze because often I have a really good idea after I’ve slept or sleep in a little bit that tends to really jog my creative abilities and I don’t write long hand very often if I’m traveling and travel is a really a good process for me moving in a vehicle or walking even. So I use walking when I can’t travel. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:18] How do you manage to capture the dreams and they’re so ephemeral

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:15:22] You know, sometimes, and then this book most of, maybe about half of the poems in the last section are just literally how the dreams came to me. I didn’t have it to tweak them very much. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:33] Amazing. 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:15:34] Yeah. They’re quite vivid and you know, the ones that have narrative are easier to stick with because I can remember aspects of the story and resupply them in my waking self, but generally they’re sensory vivid. So those things are right there. I don’t need you know I don’t need to work too hard to get them. And they’re so strange, usually that it’s, it’s great to just have them come to me. I don’t have to reach for it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:04] You’re kind of blowing my mind right now because listeners of the show will know that I have been, I write novels and memoirs. I do not write poetry because I was kind of a little bit scarred in grad school by poetry. And I’ve recently unlocked that. I took this incredibly beautiful course on writing poetry and I also have incredibly vivid dreams. And I have never thought until I just heard you say those words that I could wake up and write a poem with what I, with what I saw and, you know, not I’m, I want to go to bed now

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:16:36] It’s imperative advice because in a way, because I had a professor in graduate school, Wyatt Prunty, the poet Wyatt Prunty, and his advice was a little different and it was to drink a nice little neat scotch and then lie down on the divan or the sofa or whatever he called it. And, and when you get out for sure, you’ll have a poem he said. it might’ve been like, you know, a blessing that he gave me that. And I believe that there would be a poem because he said there would be. So sometimes there are.

Rachael Herron: [00:17:05] I think that’s beautiful. Sometimes when I want to have a dream, I always have dreams, but I’ll have a piece of cheese before I go to bed, because my mother always said, if you have a dream, if you have a piece of cheese 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:17:16] It’s just cucumbers, 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:17] Really?

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:17:18] Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:19] That’s like the opposite of cheese. 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:17:20] I know

Rachael Herron: [00:17:22] Okay. So, when you sit down to work, do you have a set time that you like to work or set number of words that you’re aiming for or, or is it more organic?

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:17:34] Yeah, you know, I don’t do set number of words. I may be like, I gotta finish a poem. I’ve got it. No revise two poems today, or if I’m working on an essay, I gotta get through this section. So you know, those like very encouraging months of the year, when you have to write so many words, they just, I think they have the best of intentions. I’m like, that sounds fun. And then I sit down and I don’t know how many words I wrote, so, and then I just ended up being not interested in that. So I am better at working in the morning and in the late afternoon, somewhere in between, I have to kind of take a break and I can’t really work at night anymore, unless something wakes me up. Like I can’t sleep and I have to go and get it out. And that happened with some of the poems in this book. I just, I couldn’t sleep. I had so many things and I just had to get them out and I think I got 30 of the poems in this book in a very short period, less than a month. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:32] That was my next question. Is that because I don’t know much about poetry. I’ve been it’s it scares me like the fool card does. Do you, with your books, do you go at them because your book is so thematically gathered. Do you go at them with an idea or do you kind of find them as you go, do you often write them in such a short time or was this anomaly?

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:18:54] No. I’ve never done anything like, you know, the amount of work that came in such a quick period? I mean, I had been thinking about some of the poems and I’d been driving, commuting, every week out to Morris where I was in residence in 2019. So I had, you know, kind of the stirrings in my head. And I sat down to find out if I had a book and I would find one poem and I was like, it makes sense if I have another poem that goes with it. So it become, came a kind of I used to smoke, kind of a chain smoking adventure. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:28] I miss smoking every day. I understand that.

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:19:30] And I think one goes with this one, right. You know, one more couldn’t hurt. Yeah. So it kind of had that feel to it. It was like, Ooh, that was good. I’ll try another one. So yeah, I think it was, it was unusual. It was probably some, you know, slightly manic swing due to the low light during the polar vortex. And I definitely was using my happy light. I might’ve over done it a little bit. But we were really, we were literally stuck in this house for 10 days or 5 days when my daughter didn’t go to school and my husband happened to be in Florida for work almost the entire time. He came home for like less than 48 hours during the only temperatures above minus temperatures. So he didn’t know what we had gone through and it, you know, and it was just, just dark. That was the strangest thing about it. There was no lights, so it was isolation that really helped me to focus. And I hope that is helping some people. I don’t believe we should be multiply productive or overly productive because we’re isolated due to the pandemic. But I do hope that people embrace it as a time to have some interior thoughts that you respect and not be afraid because. You know, this is something poetry is like, I don’t know, like anything you do intimately that doesn’t get rated, like immediately don’t be afraid. Cause nobody’s right there to rate you except for yourself. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:05] Right. No one is going to definitely read all your poems, you know.

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:21:07] Yeah, exactly. So just. You know, do not proceed in fear. In fact, the cover art on the book is called, it’s a Sigil Against Fear. It’s by Andrea Carlson. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:19] Okay that just gave me goosebumps

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:21:20] And she’s a good friend of mine. I know. Isn’t it beautiful. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:24] It’s incredible. 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:21:25] These are emblems from multiple sources, but several of them are indigenous art works that are made in the earth or in trees or made with minerals and Andrea’s Ojibwe too, and helped me a lot thinking about this book. I went to see her that January, I was working on it and we talked a lot until I felt like I really knew the shape of the book. And then luckily, her artwork is available for the cover. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:51] That is so divinely. Cool. I really, really love that. What is your biggest challenge then when it comes to writing? 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:21:58] I don’t know. What is your challenge? I am so like, I’m not going to think about that. I kinda like, you know, 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:06] Yeah, no, I guess my challenge, always is, first drafts. First drafts are everything. Once I get a first draft on the page of a book or whatever, I can revise happily. And, but first drafts really, I guess I’m made, I’m learning by talking to you in this episode that I’m just- I’m just made nervous by that, which I don’t know. And the fear of losing control, which I think first drafts are, you have to lose control in a first draft. Yeah. What about you? 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:22:34] And I like to surprise myself. I’ve turned that into surprise.

Rachael Herron: [00:22:39] I like that 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:22:40] I was like, oh, what was I doing here? It’s not what I intended to do, but I’m gonna go with it. See what happens.

Rachael Herron: [00:22:44] Surprise 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:22:45] Yeah. I think of it as surprise. Surprise yourself. I mean, it’s actually one of the qualities that I have to evaluate my students on in the MFA program. Surprise was a category. Don’t talk about that a little bit, but yeah, I think, I mean, for me, occasionally I have that voice. That’s like, Oh, this is not going to be relevant. Or this is only relevant to you or who is going to understand. I come from a very, you know, very marginalized background and the native person. And with Ojibwe, you know, an educated person. It’s just, it’s such a strange group of things that I am, that the idea of being relevant is very unlikely to me. So if I start to think about that, then I get like, I get a little nervous. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:33] Yeah. Yeah, I, but I, but I love this idea of surprise. I’m going to add that to my, to my arsenal. What is the biggest joy you get from writing? If you can name one thing. 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:23:46] The actual process of writing. I feel good when I am working on the first draft. So I’m the opposite of you. I like it, you know, it feels like imaginative and creative and I’m, if I’m, if it’s going well, I’m tapped into, you know a voice where I’m, you know, communicating with myself and with others that I kind of imagine it, imagine being part of the conversation. So that part is good, but I guess it is equal to the joy of having an audience that understands the book. I think getting a good review is one of the greatest things that anyone can give you, especially if it’s somebody you don’t know and you don’t know how they did the review and then also winning this contest, man. That was that was up there and one of the top 10 days of my life to win the national poetry series of the judge, I never met, you know? So 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:40] How did that feel that day? How, how did you, what did you do?

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:24:43] Oh it’s incredible. Oh seriously, I just cried. I don’t cry very often and I, it was, it was some crazy crying and laughing, you know, similar to election the day of, or the Saturday after election. Very similar. Yeah, but it felt, you know, like satisfaction and completion. I’ve been writing a long time. I had, you know, this was my seventh book of poems to be published. I have an eighth that is out there still and I just really never expected to have a national publisher or a national audience. So it’s really huge for me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:22] I adore that. That just makes me feel so good to hear.

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:25:24] I hope everybody gets a little piece of that somewhere. No matter what it is, savor it.

Rachael Herron: [00:25:31] Yeah. And sit in it and rejoice in it. Like we did that Saturday after the election

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:25:36] Yes exactly. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:37] Can you share a craft tip with the writers in the audience? With the whole, the whole audience as writers as well.

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:25:42] Yeah. You know, the, the poem that I read, I Feel Like a Fool, Do you? Switches pronouns a little bit. And I often ask my students to consider how a poem would feel in a different pronoun in we or you instead of I, and just to try it and see, you know, or she, or her, or they, or them just switch it a little bit and see how it feels. What does it do for the poem? How does it expand it? Or how does it make it more intimate if you switch back to I, when you’ve been doing a she/he and I think that sometimes it gives you a perspective that you wouldn’t have, and often, it shows a writer that they have not stayed in the same person throughout the whole poem. So they have to justify why they’ve switched from I, to she, or we,

Rachael Herron: [00:26:40] They have to, they have to pick really, they have to decide, which is most powerful,

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:26:44] Right, I mean, you know, we don’t have that luxury often in writing pros, you know, you really got to stick with it, but in poetry you can be true to the poem and take it outside of your experience or move into your experience with something that is not actual to you because we’re not bound by the same rules of nonfiction. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:07] It might be like naming the favorite child, but do you have a particular pronoun or voice that you like to use? like first person, second person, third person. What is your, what’s your favorite in poetry? 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:27:19] I like second person. I like seeing you, you know, I feel like I’m inviting someone or addressing someone, but I also am enlarging the experience. So it’s not just me, you know, I do like that. We can’t do it too much, it gets a little tedious to the reader, but there are times when I think it would make sense. I don’t stick with one, usually throughout a whole book. I can tell you, I don’t like the first person 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:52] Okay, so you know that 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:28:53] That’s work for me. That’s hard for me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:58] What thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way? 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:28:03] Coffee. Oh my goodness. If I don’t have coffee, I’m like, what is wrong with me today? You know, I don’t even know

Rachael Herron: [00:28:14] I gave it up

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:28:15] Oh you gave it up?

Rachael Herron: [00:28:16] I gave it up for a number of years. Cause my acupuncturist told me my cortisol response would be better and I just recently took it up again. I was stupid to have given it up is so it’s like so perfect. It’s a perfect drug

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:28:29] Yeah. I’m, you know, it’s either that, or I seek medication to have the stimulation, you know, and I, I use other stimulants too legal ones, you know, but I, I do need it. It’s good for the neurons firing and you know, walking helps too. Some people it’s exercise I used to swim. Oh my gosh. Do you remember when you could just go into a gym and go into the pool? 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:54] I fell in love with swimming, unfortunately, a year before the pandemic and I’ve been 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:28:59] Yeah, well, that for me is super meditative, you know, 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:05] Have you read “Why We Swim?” 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:28:59] No

Rachael Herron: [00:29:05] by Bonnie Tsui?

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:29:06] Oh. I need to read that

Rachael Herron: [00:29:08] It’s beautiful. It’s, it’s one of those personalized memoirs, but with a lot of reportage and she’s actually gonna be on the show next week and, and it’s a beautiful book and you’ll love it because you’ll feel like you’re in the pool. 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:29:20] Oh, that would be great. Yeah. I mean just the, and apparently chlorine is supposed to open up your synapses too.

Rachael Herron: [00:29:19] That’s interesting.

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:29:30] So taking a shower, going swimming, 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:31] You know, and cigarettes too actually help the neurons connect better in your brain, which is why we love to do it. You know, I haven’t smoked since I was 20.

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:29:41] Briefly. And then after a few years, it’s the opposite. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:45] Exactly. Yeah. I also have ADHD and I have prescribed to stimulants myself, but I have been preferring coffee. Coffee is just to bring it back to your, the thing that affects you in a surprising way.

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:29:57] Yeah, and I mean, and it has health benefits, so I’m all for the coffee. You know, I did worry like what if we, you know, people hoarding TP. I was like, oh no, what if we have a coffee shortage? I’m a terrible person. That’s my concern when, you know, we have so much to worry about, but honestly, if you don’t focus on some of the smaller things, it’s really hard to have the emotional bandwidth to understand and try and change the larger things. So go ahead and care about your coffee.

Rachael Herron: [00:30:27] Heck yeah my perfectly cup by cup Malita brewed. My wife makes a whole pot, but I just like my one, my cup by cup. What is the best book that you’ve read recently? And what did you love about it?

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:30:38] You know, I, I’ve been doing a lot of these lists of things and, you know, what did you like, when did you read. Cause I haven’t actually been able to read that much. It’s sort of sad, but I went back to a book. I think it came out 2019, Brother Bullet by Cassandra Lopez. It’s a book of poems and it’s a very, very sad book where she names the bullets that killed her brother and addresses it and talks about what it’s doing, where it’s been, and it just is, it’s extremely helpful for looking through processing grief the way she wrote it you feel you know, company in a difficult place. And I think it’s a beautiful, beautiful book for that so I think, you know, take a look at it and I’m trying to remember published hew New Mexico. So yeah take a look at that book. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:45] Thank you for the recommendation. One of my favorite topics is grief. That’s what I always want to read about. So thank you. That was Cassandra 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:31:52] Lopez, 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:53] Lopez. That’s right. Brother Bullet. Thank you. 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:31:59] Kinda great to talk to too. She’s a very interesting person. 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:04] I’m going to put her on my list. That’s how I get names for this show. And can you please tell us a little bit about Little Big Bully now and where people can find it, but just kind of tell us the what’s behind it.

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:32:19] The book has an arc to it. It starts with a poem called how, which asks, how did we get to this place? I asked that question in 2017 or 18 in the spring. When I saw a lot of contentiousness between people who should be allies and just weren’t and I, and it’s a, it’s a sort of meditation on distracted thinking and how like everything just piles up and how did this happen? How did that happen? And then the rest of the book I learned, I understood later was sort of answering that question. How did things happen? And it goes through an arc of how do we come to be abused? What within us is the mechanism that gets tripped and when that especially women allow for abuse in their lives, I’m not blaming women for being abused, but there is something that has been done to girls to make it more likely that they will be abused. And I looked for where those things came from and, and how can you fight it? And how could you use a narrative change to fight it? That was so there’s some sort of fairytale quality to some or, you know, kind of mythic quality to some of the first poems about witnessing and experiencing you know, assault of acts and how to move through them. And that’s sort of the micro and its interest with love poems, which I thought nobody’s going to like this because they’re love poems in here, but the love poems are about self-sovereignty and about how can you stay safe and love someone else even a safe person. So those poems are there and they’re really important to that kind of, you know, it’s not a series of poems in the victim mode at all. It’s about moving through these things and on you know, encountering narcissists and understanding that there’s a rhetorical way to get rid of a narcissist and it’s just, don’t respond. Don’t talk to them, let them, let all of their disengaged. And it’s like incredibly powerful. If you can do it, you do it. There are many people who can’t, but it’s one of the most powerful things you can find for yourself. So I moved through that and moved to political situation of abuse. Since they’re a little larger issue of the people side with a bully, or do they side with those who need protection? And what does that, let’s the implication of that, that, you know, in my opinion, 25% of our fellow citizens and people I know and have loved people who I’m related to, sided with the bullies. And what does that mean? How could that be? So they moved from that to the future, 

Rachael Herron: [00:35:17] The book, I really believe that things happen, you know, the way they do and you are led to things that you need. And, and I just want to say very personally to you that this was a book that I needed and I’m doing a bunch of stuff around an abusive relationship that I was in, in my twenties. And it was really, really helpful to me and, and deeply upsetting in a visceral way that was completely necessary to some of my healing. So thank you very much. I wanted to kind of thank you publicly for that.

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:35:50] You’re so welcome. And I’m so grateful because you know, you worry when you write frankly, about assault and other experiences, stocking and abuse that you’re, you know, when you’ll trigger people and that is not at all my intention and then I tried in every poem to take a personal responsibility and also to show people some way forward from the difficult actions that others have inflicted on them. 

Rachael Herron: [00:36:18] You’re contributing to that method of healing. I really believe with this book. So thank you. How can we, where can we find you out on the internet? 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:36:27] Oh well, I’m giving one more reading this year with oh, Cracked Walnut reading series and its Pullets and Pints and that little be online and zoom reading. I can’t remember who my co-writers are they just kind of yeah, so Google that that’s, tweak, I think it’s on the eighth and I’m also part of the LA book Fest, series of readers. And that was pre-recorded, but that’s going to be shown on the 17th. The book you can get pretty much anywhere since it’s from Penguin. However, if you buy it from Birchbark Books in Minneapolis, I will have a signed copy. 

Rachael Herron: [00:37:16] Very cool. Oh, that’s awesome. 

Heid E. Erdrich: [00:37:19] I know that’s the only place that you can get things signed in. I really miss that part of having a new book, it’s signing it to people. 

Rachael Herron: [00:37:25] Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.

The post Ep. 216: Heid E. Erdrich on Writing Poetry in the Dark appeared first on R. H. HERRON.