Ep. 148: Rachael on Making Changes

Rachael goes on vacation and talks about some big, new decisions. She’s stopping an income stream, and trying some others. Listen in!

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: [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 number 148 of “How do you, Write?”

[00:00:21] I am Rachael Herron and I am so pleased that you’re back here with me after I took a few weeks off to be on vacation. It is, today it is October 31st and you know what that means? It means that tomorrow is the start of the best time of the year. And yes, I’m talking about NaNoWriMo my friends. You know how I feel about NaNo… 

[00:00:46] Hello cat. This cat is going to complain the whole time, so I’m just going to pretend like he’s not here. He’s kind of a whiner. Um, I have a lot to tell you so this is just going to be a solo show. Probably will be a pretty quick one, but I wanted to catch you up on what has been going on around here. I was away and boy was I ever away.

[00:01:09] I was away, away. I, we went to Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Antelope Canyon, Zion, and then to Vegas. It was about 10 or 11 days, and the majority of that time was spent offline. I could not go online if I wanted to. So when you can’t go online, you stay offline. And I read so much, I did not respond to email.

[00:01:39] My email was a nightmare. It was a garbage can fire when I got back. It was incredible. But I have fought my way through that and I’ve come up on the other side, still breathing. I’m still alive. And, I just realized that I needed a break. I didn’t know that I had needed that much of a break, but I really, really did.

[00:02:00] And it was so enjoyable. So, the quickly we get there, we find a Phoenix, we drive up and we get to the Grand Canyon after dark. And neither my wife and I have ever seen the Grand Canyon, even though I was born in Arizona. Uh, so we just go to the hotel, we go to sleep. But we get up very early, we barely missed any sunsets or any sunrises.

[00:02:24] We tried to view them all wherever we were. So we got up heck early and drove ourselves over to a place in the Canyon, took the shuttle bus to a place I’d researched, had a good sunrise, and we set ourselves up on the cliff just to watch it happen. And it was incredible. That’s where we met the Grand Canyon.

[00:02:45] The sun came up and I was telling Jay about this on my other podcast, the writer as well, and every time we thought the sun rise was over, he got better and it got bigger and grander. We went on this wonderful fossil hike with a ranger, and he kept saying, “Here at the grandest of canyons…” and I really do believe that is the grandest of canyons.

[00:03:12] It is like nothing I’ve ever seen. It did not disappoint. I was kind of a little bit worried it would disappoint because I’ve heard about it my entire life, and it’s just gonna be a big hole in the ground, but to be looking down at rock, and I say looking, because we’ve not climb all the way down there. But to be looking down at that black rock, which is 1.8 million years old and it is exposed to air. It has been there since then. The top layers of the Grand Canyon don’t have any fossils of dinosaurs because the top layer has been worn away. Right. The fossils that we saw were pre-dinosaurs.

[00:03:52] Oh, it just boggles the mind. And I feel like I look at geology and I look at the Hills around here. I look at everything so differently now that I’ve seen basically this cross cut of what’s happening in there and what has happened in the timeline of this earth. And it made me feel very small, very insignificant, and also very lucky to be living in a time right now where as a woman, I can choose to make my own money. I can choose to marry another woman. I can choose to use the money that we make to go to the Grand Canyon and spend time there on our vacation. And I just felt very, very, very grateful. Then we went to Bryce, which was so cold. We had gone from 92 degrees when we landed in Arizona. Um, it was beautiful at Grand Canyon, 70, 75 and then it was 22 degrees with a windchill in Bryce.

[00:04:47] So we greeted that sunrise with abject terror. We’re on the face of this cliff trying to look down into the hoodoos at Bryce and the wind was so intense and in my head I knew we were fine. It was just cold. We were wearing all of our layers. We were still called. We don’t have jackets. We’re from California.

[00:05:08] But my body, the looser brain said, you are going to die. There were children sobbing out on that platform where we were. Their parents wanted them to see the sunrise, but they’re like, “Please Daddy, no more I can’t take it.” It was pretty funny, but Bryce was beautiful. And then we went to, I guess before that, we went to Antelope Canyon, which are all of those red rock scenes, the that you see the sculpted rock walls that have happened in these slot canyons as millions of years of flooding water has gone through them and has created these incredible shapes.

[00:05:49] It was literally impossible to take a bad picture in there. You see these pictures of the slot canyons and you think, Oh, those are; What amazing photographers they are when they take those pictures. You do not have to be, you just have to point your camera in any direction and take a picture. In fact, Lala took a bunch of pictures like that just by holding it up and pointing and shooting, and she couldn’t tell which ones they weren’t later.

[00:06:10] It’s that incredible and that beautiful. It was stunning. I am so glad that we took the time to do that. Then we went to Zion, which was rad because number one, it is incredibly beautiful and the leaves were turning and the hiking was amazing, but we also glamp it up. We did a little bit of glamping in these, uh, these tent cabins that were big, and they had this enormous California king bed that was huge and high and fluffy and downy comforters and wonderful pillows and a wood stove that you got to start yourself. They will give you all the stuff to start it. And I tell you what, a woodstove? Boom! That tent is hot. It goes from, you know from freezing, literally freezing to hot instantly.

[00:07:05] And it was pretty fun. It was my job to feed the fire, and that was awesome. Um, both nights that we stayed there, I did not quite manage to beat it all night and we woke up freezing, but soon I got another fire started and that was very fun to be there. And they have, you know, a restaurant there and you’re eating outside and you’re watching the rocks change in the sunset.

[00:07:28] Then we went to Vegas and saw Lady Gaga. And Vegas was Vegas. Vegas is exactly what it is. No more, no less. Um, it would be very hard for it to be any less. Actually, it’s Vegas. But the wonderful thing that happened was Jay had, Joanna had heard that I was going to Vegas. Joanna Penn, who, uh, has the amazing podcasts, The Creative Pen, which is just one of my favorite podcasts on earth. I never miss it. If you are not listening to the creative pen in your writer, you should listen to it. She had reached out to Jay to say, is it okay if you give me her phone number because I’m going to be in Vegas too. She’s from Britain.

[00:08:06] She lives in Bach, but we happen to be in Vegas at the same time. So we grabbed a breakfast together and we had to talk all things writing plus all things life related, and we’d never met in person, and it was just such a great breakfast. It was this obscene Las Vegas breakfast with so much food.

[00:08:25] She was sensible and got a sensible breakfast, Lala and I did the Vegas thing, and we never even touched our leftovers. I had been eating and eating and eating, and then we got a box to go and it still looked like I had not started eating my- the plate of my food, yet. It was that kind of breakfast.

[00:08:40] Uh, but again, I was just struck with this gratitude of being able to hook up with a friend and make that friend in real life. It was so joyful. It was also a little bit stressful for me to be in Vegas. This is my first time in Vegas since I quit drinking 20 months ago. And, um, yeah, there are some people doing some stupid alcohol things there.

[00:09:03] But at other times that alcohol, really good. So I was cool. I made it. I’m home. I was very grateful to be home because I had been missing writing so much. That was the best part of being away, was really realizing how much I was missing writing. And tomorrow’s NaNoWriMo. It starts, and this year.

[00:09:32] Barring unforeseen things to happen in my publishing world, I will be writing a full novel in the month of November. I am aiming for about 80 to 85,000 words. I think on this first draft of this book that I’m very, very excited to write and I will give you its high concept pitch. Uh, basically a woman who is like Marie Kondo but is not Marie Kondo. Marie Kondo wants her stuff back there. That’s the pitch. It makes me laugh every time she regrets minimalism. Um, so that’s what I’m going to be writing and I’m just going to be having a lark doing it while I was gone. And this is what I wanted to talk about really to you today is, I just had this mindset shift.

[00:10:13] I came back knowing that the way that I run my writing business is great. It works for me. Uh, you know, I always catch you up on the money that I make the beginning of the year. I will just say, and I tell you how I make it in that first episode of the year, um, but I will just say two weeks ago before we left, I hit six figures in mid-October.

[00:10:38] So I’m going to be making more than that, more than I made last year, which was the, you know, six figures in just a little bit. Uh, but I hit that I’ve already hit and surpassed that for this year, which is incredible. Considering that, um, a great deal of my money’s, most of my money’s come from coaching, teaching, writing articles, doing all of those things that does not come from selling books. Because that is hard to make money on and it would be interesting to find out how much I made this year on books. I wonder if it’ll be lower or higher. I’m guessing right now it’s going to be a little bit lower than last year because I only put out one book this year, so we’ll see. Well, I’ll catch you up on that, but I came back with the willingness and the peace of mind after being offline and not thinking about work for so long, but I was really willing to think about work from a higher level and I want more time to write.

[00:11:37] I want to try to make some more money. With books and a little bit less with teaching and coaching, which is terrifying because I don’t know if I can do it, but I will not find out if I can do it until I make some space for that. Right now, all of my afternoons pretty much are just stacked back to back to back to back with clients, which is a great problem to have.

[00:12:00] I am not complaining about it. This is a diamond problem. Dab dimes on the soles of your shoes, as Paul Simon would say. And I am giving up a couple of things. I’m going to give up my Patrion high level coaching, uh, at $100 for my Patrion campaign. In the past, you’ve been able to get, words read by me and critiqued, edited, and a chat every month to go over those words and just to talk about where you are. I came back and canceled that and I had 10 people on that level. So I am basically rejecting a $1,000 a month, which- I live in the Bay area, we have a huge mortgage. Um, Oh, the cat was tangled in my dress. Goodness. Uh, and that’s terrifying to me that I just did that. And when I did it, it felt right.

[00:12:55] I don’t know how I’m gonna make that money up. I’m going to try different kinds of things moving forward. Uh, things that will impact my own work less. I will still be taking clients on one off basis. If you ever want me to look at your work or to talk to you about your stuff, you can always go to rachaelherron.com/coach all my options are there, but I’m charging a little bit more and I’m only doing one offs. I’m not doing them on a monthly basis. When you do them on a monthly basis, people feel like they have to meet with you on a monthly basis. Now I can meet with them whenever they need me, which is probably going to be more like every six weeks or every 12 weeks at the point at which they panic and say, “Oh God, I need help!” They’ll make an appointment. I’ll have more time. So I’m happy about that. I am doing something new of my Patreon campaign, which I’m just going to tell you about right now. I’m adding at the $5 tier. If you pay $5 a month, you get to be part of my Q&A audience, and what that means is I’m going to be trying to bring to you, short mini podcasts in the middle of the week answering those questions that come from my $5 Q&A Patreons. Basically, it’s mini coaching. You can ask me whatever you want, as many questions as you want, whenever you want, and I’ll answer them in the mini podcast episode. So if you wanted to support me like that, I’d sure be grateful as a https://www.patreon.com/rachael R, A, C, H, A, E, L and hopefully I’ll get some people like that and then we’ll get some more podcasts too.

[00:14:23] We’ll get these mini episodes, which I think will be really fun. They will not replace the interview episodes, the longer ones, uh, but they will be in addition to, and they will deal exactly with what I want to talk about more, which is craft, which is the business. I talk a lot at interview, uh, interviewees about process, but that means we do not talk that often about craft and about the business of writing.

[00:14:48] So please, if you’d like to throw as many questions at me as you want, anytime, hoover there, and join that, it’s felt really good to have this mindset. It also feels scary, but I do think that if you’re not scared in your business, then you’re probably doing it wrong. Honestly, there’s always has to be a cutting edge of fear, right?

[00:15:10] I can’t be lax or, well, I would like to relax and I did relax. That was great. I could take some more of that. Um, but it feels good to be making these decisions to write more, to spend more of my time doing the thing that is most important to me. That makes my heart sing. Which is writing. It’s always been writing and it always will be writing and reading.

[00:15:33] Oh my gosh. I got so much reading done on my trip and I still have like eight library books on my Kindle. I cannot turn my Kindle on because it’s in airplane mode. If I turn my Kindle on to the wifi, all those books will be stripped off, so I’ve got to read a lot of books in the next couple of weeks.

[00:15:51] One more thing that I wanted to tell you about, is I’m just putting the finishing touches on my spring retreat. I usually go to Venice, and I think I shared with you guys a while back that I’m just not feeling Venice. I love Venice is the city of my harness, my favorite place in the world to be. And I’ve been there every year for the past three or four years, which is incredible and so lucky! And amazing, but I need a little bit of a break. Maybe so that I would say so that Venice could miss me, but I know that, that it says not give a rat’s ass about me so that I can miss Venice perhaps.

[00:16:26] Ooh, that sounds delicious. So this year I’m going to do Barcelona, putting the finishing touches on that. I got the hotel that I wanted, that I scoped out when I was there. It’s in the best part of town. It is the best hotel. It is gorgeous. Oh, I’m so excited about it and those dates. Um, so if you want to put a 10 definitely on your calendar are going to be April 26th through May 2nd it’s a weeklong retreat.

[00:16:47] I’ll tell you more about it when everything is up, when you can register for it, but I just wanted to put it on your radar. I’ll probably be announcing the opening of it next week on my podcast. So those slots go very, very fast. Um, my, your portraits always sell out. So if you are interested in that, in doing that, it is really one of the best times I have all year.

[00:17:09] And the people who do them go on them over and over again. So they’re obviously getting something out of them too. We write in the mornings, and then we play and explore in the city in the afternoon and evening. So, and I set all of that step up for you, so you just have to attend. That is what I’m working on right now.

[00:17:27] I feel like I’m working on nine other things that I am forgetting to tell you about, but what I’m really excited about most is starting NaNoWriMo tomorrow. NaNoWriMo in 2006 was the online LARC that I participated in, that changed my life completely, absolutely, completely. It taught me how to write a book fast and badly so that later I could revise it and you know how I feel about it.

[00:17:53] I believe 99% of writers, that is their process to write it fast and badly. If you write and you revise as you go and you’re finishing good books, then that’s your system. If you write and revise as you go and you’re not finishing good books, then that’s not your system. Your system is actually like most of the rest of ours, which is to go as fast as you possibly can, which is the NaNoWriMo way.

[00:18:14] I actually got a really great chance to speak to Chris Beatty’s class last night at Stanford. He teaches, he’s the founder of NaNoWriMo, and he teaches a class every year at Stanford and the same program I teach in. On NaNoWriMo, and he has a 100% success rate with his students. Every single student that he’s ever had in that class has won NaNoWriMo.

[00:18:37] So, which I think is really remarkable because I think honestly, it’s only something like seven or 8% maybe 12% it’s, it’s low of the rest of the world who finishes NaNoWriMo, who are into NaNoWriMo. But, um, that was really fun. And it got my – excite levels are so, so high. I cannot wait. So if you’re doing NaNoWriMo, I would love to hear about it.

[00:19:01] Drop me a line, at anywhere. Twitter, Facebook, Email. You can find me on rachael@rachaelherron.com. Um, reach out. Tell me how you’re doing. Tell me what you want to do. Tell me if you’re interested in Barcelona. Sign up for the new $5 Patreon Q&A. If I don’t get anybody on there, then I won’t do those little mini episodes.

[00:19:21] That’s just dependent on whether people drive that by wanting those mini episodes on craft of business. So, um, I’ll wait and see how that pans out. And in the meantime, I’m jumping, taking the leap into letting go of a lot of my coaching and leaping into more writing. Ah, I’m scared to saying it, but I am completely excited.

[00:19:43] I’m completely excited. It feels, I feel genuine. Um, I had a day yesterday that just, it happened to be a full day of writing. I didn’t have anything scheduled and it felt like me, I love coaching. Don’t get me wrong. That is, I get so much energy out of coaching and talking to writers. But I need those sometimes days that are just writing and I don’t have any of them right now.

[00:20:06] So this is going to be amazing and exciting. Tell me what you think. And in the meantime, I wish you happy writing. If you have never done NaNoWriMo, and you’re listening to this on November 7th that there is still time, there are people who write 50,000 words on the last day, those people write 24 hours a day and they are crazy.

[00:20:25] I would not recommend that. That’s going to break your hand. There are also people who write 50,000 words. On the first day also insane. Then there are other fools who write 500,000 words in the month of November. We don’t like them, who we like a good hard challenge, which is NaNoWriMo, which is 50,000 words in the month of November.

[00:20:44] If I forgot to say that, if you don’t know what that is, which ends up to be 1,667 words a day, absolutely doable. Absolutely doable. So, yeah, I’ve never tried it. It’s super, super fun. Let me know. I am, I think I’m just Rachel here and over there, so please buddy me, make buddies with me and we will watch each other’s progress.

[00:21:07] That is all my friends. It is so nice to connect again, thank you so much for listening, for being along with me on this ride. I am very, very – I’m feeling grateful about everything, especially you guys. You listeners, who reach out and also the listeners, who don’t reach out. All the listeners that I know I have because I see the numbers that are writing in their card.

[00:21:29] You don’t have to respond back to everything I ask. I just, I still know that you’re out there and then we’re connecting and you continue to listen. So, um, that’s a good sign. If there’s anything you would like me to do differently, let me know. If it’s something like slow down my speech, which I do get requested to do every once in a while. I can’t. It’s impossible. I have not even had any coffee today. This is just the way I talk. I’m sorry, but anything else? I’m willing to take suggestions, so thank you my friends and I wish you very happy and sweet writing. 

[00:22:09] Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you, Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, https://twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, 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 https://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 at http://rachaelherron.com/write/ Now, go to your desk and create your own process.

Get to writing my friends.