Lover of fairytales, folklore, and mythology, Ines Johnson spends her days reimagining the stories of old in a modern world. She writes books where damsels cause the distress, princesses wield swords, and moms save the world. Aside from being a full time author and professional reader, Ines Johnson is a seasoned educator. She’s taught college level courses and workshops in screenwriting, story development and plotting, and media history. A lifelong learner (read: academic addict), she holds a Bachelor’s in Communications, a Master’s in Instructional Design, and a Doctorate in Educational Technology. She is banned from getting the MFA in Creative Writing she so desperately wants until both her children are in college. That might be soon as she is the proud mother of a college sophomore and a rising high school senior. Ines lives just outside Washington, DC and can be found getting her words early in the morning at coffee shops. In the afternoons, she can be found on a park bench contemplating what she will do with her life once her kids have grown up.
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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.
[00:00:15] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #186 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. So pleased that you’re here with me today on a really exciting podcast day. Today, I am talking to Ines Johnson and she is phenomenal. She reached out to me because she joined my Patreon at the mini coaching level and had this really big question for me. And I wrote back to her and I’m like, please come on my podcast, let’s talk about this. It’s a major question. So Ines has hit total success. Six figures just from books and still there’s something else she wants. So we talk about that on the show and I think you’ll really enjoy it and her, and she’s just lovely and charming and hilarious. So stay tuned for that. [00:01:06] Little update about what’s going on around here. I am waiting for the editing letter from my editor on this big draft re- revision that I did for her, it’ll probably still be a medium sized revision I’m hoping with a lot of line editing. Hopefully I don’t have to rip the whole book up again, but I’ll probably know by the next time I talked to you. So cross your fingers for me. Although, you know, I love revision. Speaking of revision, I had a silly thing happened to me earlier this week. So in 2017, three years ago, I was feeling very, very broken, very, very empty. I had just like run out, they’ll create a wellhead run out. It had been spent. I attributed this to overwork. and I embarked upon this 12-month challenge that I used Patreon for, I wrote an essay a month. The collection is called Replenish and every month, I challenged myself to do something different. One month I spent an hour outside every day. One month I put my body in water every day. One month I meditated every day. One month I let go of every other kind of distraction and only read no TV, no social media, no, nothing just reading. So that those were the things I was playing with, and the year of replenish truly did replenish me. It fixed me, however it fixed me because I, well, I don’t even know if it fixed me really. During that month, I mean, sorry, during that year, while I was looking for the solution, three months in, I realized that I had become an alcoholic and that is what fixed me, finding sobriety, fixed me. [00:02:50] But at the meantime, I’m still doing this challenge. I’m still committed to doing it for the Patreon readers. And I also believe in it doing things that are good for us. Good for our souls. What can that do for our creativity? So I’ve had this collection of 12 essays. Roughly 65,000 words sitting around staring at me. I really, really, really want it to be a book. However, every single essay felt like a lie. None of it was a lie. Not one bit, but it was emitting the deepest truth, the deepest, darkest truth, because I didn’t want to write very much at all about sobriety during that fourth- first year. I just, I couldn’t handle it. I didn’t want to handle it. It was a really private thing. And even though I’m a memoir writer, and even though I display everything almost, there are some things that I keep very close to my chest for a while, and then I usually get around to sharing it. But I was just beating my head against this brick wall of these essays. And like, should I put, you know, should I write, you know, revise them and then put in some notes around them. And then I just realized sitting here at the desk, this is going to sound so obvious, but I realized that revision is my superpower and I could revise each one in total. [00:04:03] And it was like realizing that you can breathe air, you’ve been holding your breath for a while, and then you can read there. I realized over revision will save me. I can make this into a book that is supported by the journey to and through sobriety. As I was sitting there looking at the different months, and what was happening in each month that I didn’t write about it actually has traditional story structure already. It has the inciting incident, the context shifting midpoint, the dark moment. It’s all there. I just need to bring it out and develop each. And this is a book, people. It wasn’t a book before. It was a collection of desperate essays. Each of which was a little bit too smug. I air a lot of times when I’m writing essays in the smug wrap up. I don’t do it on purpose, but I like the essay to feel complete and to feel whole, and in this book, nothing felt whole that that year and everything was incomplete as I was making these connections. So I’m super excited to be working on these revisions and it’s just delicious to dive into them. [00:05:11] Another thing that happened that was funny, was that I was sitting there like, okay, now I got to revise this whole book. I don’t even know where to start. And another five minutes later, I was like, oh, Rachael, you know exactly where to start. This is what you teach. You haven’t- you have an entire system on how to revise and I did everything that I tell my students too. I didn’t print out my book because I prefer to read it on my Kindle, but I sent it to my Kindle. I started making a sentence outline. I got up my post-its, I’m making my map so that when I start the revision, when my fingers are actually inside the manuscript, moving things around, I have a map to refer to. So again, it was this great sense of relief, but also I wanted to share it with you because we all forget everything that we know, every book feels different and every book we come to it feeling like a beginner, even though we aren’t. Each book, I believe teaches us how to write this book. Unfortunately, no book teaches us how to write the next one. But we have this toolbox. We’re always adding to the toolbox and my toolbox has a lot of tools. And I just had to remember to go looking for the right tool instead of reinventing the wheel, which is basically like a sport to me. I’m an Olympian athlete at reinventing the wheel. And I’m trying to, trying to stop doing that. Everything else I’m struggling with sleep and headaches right now, I’m doing this, I’m sleep restriction, CBTI, insomnia therapy and it’s gone off the rails and I need to, I need to restrict my sleep, get a little bit less sleep in order to learn how to get more sleep so, and that’s been triggering headaches. [00:06:53] So that’s not fun, but hey, self-care, being forgiving, understanding that we have really productive times. And right now, while I’m waiting for edits, I can be a little bit less productive. That is totally fine. I would like to thank new patrons and honestly, you guys, I have this amazing system. I star them in Gmail, when you all up a pledge or start pledging on Patreon, and then I forget to take the stars off. So I think some of these people, I may have thanked already, and it doesn’t matter because if you are a patron now, if you’ve been a patron for years, thank you. Thank you. Thank you to you. And also thank you perhaps again to these people, perhaps not. Sandra Mori, thank you. Ines Johnson, new patron, thank you. Thank you for this episode. Jen Tarell. It was great to talk to you this week, Jen. Thank you. T.B. Markinson. Thank you. Marco Neil. Thanks so much. Leah edited her pled up, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Leah. One thing that I never do on this show is talk about when people edit their pledges down. Holy cow. Whenever I see a pledge has been edited down, you know what I think, I think that person is prioritizing their family and their finances in the way that makes sense to them. It never hurts my feelings if you’d like to give me $10 a month, and then go down to $1 a month because you have to, I will send you all the love if you have to cancel entirely. Yes. Still get all my love for those times when you were supporting me. And this means the world to me. So thank you. And never feel like you’re doing anything wrong if you have to step down. But Leah, thank you for stepping up your pledge. That’s amazing. Lani Goebelletsah. See, that’s a name I remember saying before and, and crucifying before Lani Goebelletsah, thank you. Thank you very, very much. And Kathleen Fordyce. Thank you. Maddie Dalrymple, who runs the Indie Author podcast, which I am on pretty, shortly coming up. If I’m not already on there. Maddie is awesome. Thank you, Maddie. Kiran Fatima. Thank you. And Jody Terry, you darling. Thank you. Thank you to everyone who has been a past, present or potentially a future patron. It really, really does mean the world to me. So now, business is done. I want you to go jump over to the next segment, I don’t even know why I said jump over. All you gotta do is like remain in your car or keep the podcast running and listen to what Ines has to say, it’s truly, truly inspiring. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for listening. And I wish you very, very happy writing. [00:09:32] 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: [00:10:13] Well, I could not be more pleased than- nor could my cat, way be more pleased to welcome, Ines Johnson to the show. Hello, Ines!
Ines Johnson: [00:10:21] Hi! I’m so excited to be here.
Rachael Herron: [00:10:24] Oh my gosh. Let me give you a little introduction and I am so excited to have you here this is going to be fabulous. Lover of fairytales for folklore and mythology. Ines Johnson spends her days reimagining the stories of old in a modern world. She writes books where damsels caused the distress, princesses wield swords, and moms save the world. Hell yeah. Aside from being a full time author and professional reader, Ines Johnson is a seasoned educator, she’s taught college level courses and workshops in screenwriting story development and plotting and media history. A lifelong learner (read: academic addict), she holds a Bachelor’s in Communications, a Master’s in Instructional Design, and a Doctorate in Educational Technology. That’s amazing. She is banned from getting the- the MFA in creative writing. She so desperately wants until both her children are in college. That might be soon as she is the proud mother of a college sophomore, and a rising high school senior. Ines lives just outside Washington, DC, and can be found getting her words early in the morning at the coffee shops. In the afternoons, she can be found on the park bench contemplating what she will do with her life once her kids have grown up. What are you doing, nowadays? I’ve so many questions to go with, but what are you doing nowadays that you can’t go to the coffee shop? Because that’s where I used to write too.
Ines Johnson: [00:11:40] It’s hard. It’s really hard because I get up and my body is still prime to get up at six in the morning. So like in, in that, and I’m in, I’m just over the bridge from DC in Northern Virginia. And so the sun is shining at like 5:58 in the morning, and so I’m up like bright eyed and I’m like, I can’t go to the coffee shop. Cause that’s my wake up. I get it. I grabbed my stuff, get in the car, go to the coffee shop. And as I have my cup of tea and sometimes my oatmeal, I’m waking up, I’m ready to write. That’s not happening.
Rachael Herron: [00:12:05] So, how did you change things for yourself?
Ines Johnson: [00:12:07] It’s- it’s been hard. I learned recently I took the Becca of science classes of every writer eventually,
Rachael Herron: [00:12:14] Oh great. Yes.
Ines Johnson: [00:12:16] and I learned that I’m high discipline, which I was shocked. I thought that I was going to be a woo person. I was like, why didn’t I get woo?
Rachael Herron: [00:12:23] Oh, I thought I was gonna blew the all woo. And woo was like five from the bottom for me,
Ines Johnson: [00:12:28] I was so offended that I didn’t get woo. My number one was high discipline though. And I, and I had some, some one on one time with Becca and I said, well, I don’t understand what my, why I keep trying to change my routines, because I totally see that I’m high, I’m high discipline because you see the Kanban board behind me. What you can’t see off to the side is three calendars and post it notes. And there’s three planners, you can’t see all of that, but it’s there. But I’m constantly looking for ways to change my process. And I was like, well, why do I do that? And she said, Oh, I got your number. She let me know that, because I’m high discipline, if one thing goes wrong in my day, I need to reorganize everything else. So,
Rachael Herron: [00:13:16] That is so true. I also have high discipline; I think is like my fourth or something. Yeah.
Ines Johnson: [00:13:21] That was good for me to know, because now I, I see that about myself and now, now I’m able to stop and say, okay, one thing went wrong, but that’s okay. You can still get everything because I love checking things off lists. You can still check everything off the list, even if it’s not at the right time that you put it there, they’re all nice and color coded and highlight it. You can still check it off.
Rachael Herron: [00:13:42] I am so glad you brought that up though. Cause I completely forgotten that she said that to me and that’s me like if the, if something doesn’t get done in the right order, I’m like, well, I can’t write today.
Ines Johnson: [00:13:21] And its us
Rachael Herron: [00:13:42] Oh, well yeah, totally false. Okay. Loving your stickies behind you. Loving, loving, loving. So I want to ask you a couple of the questions that I normally do, but we also have a bigger place to talk about, the bigger thing to talk about today. So let us get it right out there that you are full time writer, you are successful. You have two or three pen names?
Ines Johnson: [00:14:19] Three
Rachael Herron: [00:14:20] That’s what I’ve thought. So you have the paranormal over fantasy, you have the sweet Western and what’s the third one.
Ines Johnson: [00:14:28] Steamy, steamy, steamy stuff
Rachael Herron: [00:14:30] You really like cover all of the bases in terms of the heat levels and everything.
Ines Johnson: [00:14:34] But Rachael, I didn’t know that that was the wrong thing to do. They were all together to begin with
Rachael Herron: [00:14:41] Oh yeah. You will piss people off with that.
Ines Johnson: [00:14:44] Oh yeah. Lesson learned
Rachael Herron: [00:14:47] I even did. So I had these really steamy books. I mean, they’re just, they’re just contemporary romance, but they’re on the hot, hot level. And I was really getting tired of writing that level of heat. And I actually polled my readers to see who would mind. And it was like, who wants me to stay this steamy and who doesn’t mind if I back off a bit? And it was like 97% of the reader said, stay steamy. I could not even back off, like cause that’s what they want. They want us to have that level of heat
Ines Johnson: [00:15:12] That’s not what I’m expecting you’d say. Wow.
Rachael Herron: [00:15:14] I wasn’t either! I thought they were like, no, Rachael, we love your books. Just do whatever you want. No, they’re like, we want the hot sex. and you can’t let them down after that.
Ines Johnson: [00:15:25] No
Rachael Herron: [00:15:26] How do you juggle, doing the writing for three different pen names,
Ines Johnson: [00:15:30] Whoever is paying the bills gets the first detention. That’s the honest truth.
Rachael Herron: [00:15:39] So I, I, I don’t, you probably don’t want to share all your pen names unless you do and that’s fine.
Ines Johnson: [00:15:43] I don’t mind.
Rachael Herron: [00:15:44] Oh, okay, great. Will you tell us who’s paying the bills right now?
Ines Johnson: [00:15:54] Shanae. Which is my middle name. Shanae Johnson, the sweet, western romances, she pays the bills.
Rachael Herron: [00:16:01] Which is so surprising to me. I would have thought I would have thought it would’ve been the erotic stuff, the hotter stuff.
Ines Johnson: [00:16:07] Nope. Nope. The, the hottest stuff, which is my initials, N.S. Johnson. You see, there’s Shanae, there’s an S and then there’s N stuff. It’s so complicated.
Rachael Herron: [00:16:16] Oh I like that. Yeah.
Ines Johnson: [00:16:17] Oh sheesh, and as I told someone recently that she basically pays for my family to have a nice Japanese steakhouse dinner once a month. That’s, that’s all she handles. Yeah. So she, is last on the list.
Rachael Herron: [00:16:29] Shanae is just killing it,
Ines Johnson: [00:16:32] Killing it. Killing it.
Rachael Herron: [00:16:35] Sweet westerns. I had no idea. Also your covers are great.
Ines Johnson: [00:16:38] Thank you.
Rachael Herron: [00:16:39] Do you hire those out or do you do them yourself?
Ines Johnson: [00:16:39] Not for the sweet stuff. I- you still have the degrees, I have, I have a lot of skills. I learned Photoshop like 2.0 when I was in school. So I know enough to be dangerous where I can make a more contemporary cover that doesn’t need a lot of photo manipulation, but no, my, my N.S., the paranormal and the urban fantasy no, I need help with those.
Rachael Herron: [00:17:02] Okay. Perfect. Oh, and I love that you’d know that about yourself. So when you’re looking at your workday, how does that workday breakdown?
Ines Johnson: [00:17:11] That’s really, that’s a really good question. Cause what, again, what I learned from, from being high discipline is that I don’t, I can’t schedule times. I can schedule in blocks and a block of checkoff, to check off a list. So I still get up really early. But now with COVID isolation, I just kind of lay in bed. I might turn on an audio book or I might turn on a podcast, Wednesday mornings. I always have breakfast with you and J. Thorn podcast, the Writers Well. And I’ll just either lay around in bed or I’ll get up and make myself a cup of tea and just not do any writing yet. Just kind of, cause I, I guess I needed that travel time and that’s kind of my travel time. So I get up and around 7:88 o’clock in the morning, then I’m like, okay, I’m ready. So I typically will do about two Shanae chapters, around breakfast time. Take a break.
Rachael Herron: [00:18:07] How long is a chapter for you?
Ines Johnson: [00:18:10] It depends on if I’m first drafting or if I’m revising, if I’m fast drafting, I’ll do, I can do a complete first draft of a chapter in a sprint and my sprints are about 20-ish, 25 minutes long.
Rachael Herron: [00:18:22] Oh, that’s awesome.
Ines Johnson: [00:18:23] Yeah. Chapters quotes or I’m using air quotes simple for me, because I plot out the beginning, middle and end, and that’s in a mixture of that. There’s some kind of a twist and I, and I can hold that in my head and I can get it all out from beginning, middle- end. It’s like telling the story so I can do that in about 20-ish minutes. Then when I’m revising though, I, I don’t- I take my time. It might take me another 20 minutes, or it might take me 60 minutes to revise cause I take quote unquote, take my 60 minute time when I’m revising.
Rachael Herron: [00:18:54] So you are a real planner then. Is that right?
Ines Johnson: [00:18:57] See, here’s the funny, the short answer is yes. The long answer is, I have so many plots in my head because I had to learn this. And when you’re in, when I went to school for media production, the main goal, the first thing that they tell you in class is, you will not watch television and films the same way that a normal person does. If we are successful in teaching you your craft. And I, and I don’t. So there’s so many plotting systems, so much craft stuff in my head that I don’t always have to write down the plot, but best believe I am a plotter through and through.
Rachael Herron: [00:19:36] So when you’re talking about writing that scene, that you’ve already broken into three. When do you do that breaking into three of the scene. Is it like the morning you sit down and you go, okay, it’s going to happen here. So I’m going to sketch that out or is that another time that you’ve done that to go on your outline?
Ines Johnson: [00:19:50] So it depends on how clearly I see the story. Sometimes I just, and I, and I could, because they come from television, I’m usually not thinking just one story at a time. I’m usually thinking in a season of stories. So I know a little bit about each of the characters in their- in their story arc, and know how to kind of like plant little seeds here and there, but I might not see character to or character in the book for, very well, but I know what they’re supposed to do. So usually in book one, it’s, it’s an outline. It’s a treatment that I have written. Your body-
Rachael Herron: [00:20:23] Cause you’re really learning their world at that point,
Ines Johnson: [00:20:25] Exactly,
Rachael Herron: [00:20:26] Yeah
Ines Johnson: [00:20:27] But I’ve, I’ve realized that every book too, I think I know what I’m doing every single time. I think I know what I’m doing. And everything. And I don’t really put that much. I’m like, I got this and I write, I write act one and I’m usually good with my act once. And then I get to act two and I’m like, okay, what are they supposed to be doing? Who is this character? What is, and I have to, it happens every single time like clockwork. It’s every time I see it, it’s going to be different, it never is. So in book ones, I, I plan. By book two it’s- it’s like a one sentence outline that always changes always gets revised. And then probably book three, I’ve learned my lesson and I outline again and then probably book four I’d do the same thing again. And I’m like, what? What’s happening
Rachael Herron: [00:21:12] Isn’t it funny that we just keep coming back around to the same problems about how long are your series normally?
Ines Johnson: [00:21:19] Depends. I told myself that I don’t like long series because again, I come from, I come from cable television
Rachael Herron: [00:21:25] Yeah
Ines Johnson: [00:21:26] Where you typically, you typically plan the whole se- the whole season. And you, you, you plan that maybe 6 to 12 episodes. And then you have to kind of leave it open, but close enough. So that’s how my brain thinks. So I usually thinking in multiples of 3, 3, 6 or 12, something like that. And then what I learned, and it took me a while to learn this, because I’m so used to the, the, the, the, the closed series or one of those short, like summer series, is that if some, if it’s a series of selling, do not for the love of God, stop writing books in those series because people want them.
Rachael Herron: [00:22:06] Yeah
Ines Johnson: [00:22:07] You who shouldn’t keep them waiting in the,
Rachael Herron: [00:22:09] Did you learn that the hard way?
Ines Johnson: [00:22:11] The very hard way? Not once. Maybe the steak, not once. Maybe three times, I made that mistake. I’m hard headed.
Rachael Herron: [00:22:21] I love that you have so much diverse background in terms of storytelling, really coming to it from the television world is fantastic because you’re talking about seeing a season in your head. I can barely see the two or three characters that I’m dealing with. Like let alone subplots, as soon as I throw a subplot, another couple of characters and I’m like, oh no, I don’t know what’s going on. So that is such a superpower that you have
Ines Johnson: [00:22:46] Thank you.
Rachael Herron: [00:22:47] Oh my gosh. Okay. So what is, let’s see, can you share a craft tip with us of any sort.
Ines Johnson: [00:22:57] Oh craft tip. One of the things that, that people have been kind of listening to me about is, is this thing that we have in television, where we have twists and open doors. So when you, when you’re in television, we call them seen in sequel? Or hooks and sequels. There’s a whole bunch of terms. So in television, we have to compete with the commercial break. So you always think of when you’re coming to a commercial break, every six or so minutes. So you can’t, you have to make sure to leave the audience with such at the edge of their seats, that they don’t turn the channel, or if they get up to go and grab a snack and they come back and sit down, even though he’s really practiced scheduled television before. I know, I know. I was teaching a class once and I had a whole lesson plan on primetime TV, and I was going to the lesson like 20 minutes and someone finally raised her hand, like, what’s primetime?
Rachael Herron: [00:23:49] No
Ines Johnson: [00:23:50] I kid you not. Anyway. So that’s less than, yes, this is the age I live in. So I’m so used to thinking of what’s the twist, what’s the hook? How do I get them back at the end of the commercial break? Or how do I get them back at the end of the chapter to turn that page? But I not only take it to, okay, get into the end of the chapter, leave some type of a, a hook in there to turn the page. But I also think about that at the end of the book as well. I never end with the end. I always end the book with either the next character in the book, introducing their story problem or whatever the next series might be. I don’t write the end, hardly ever. Probably never.
Rachael Herron: [00:24:35] There’s always something left hanging. What did you call that? The turning in the open, what?
Ines Johnson: [00:24:40] Lots. Okay. So in, in film, a lot of times it’s called the open door ending. In television, we kind of call that when it’s coming out of a c-, when it’s going into a commercial break, we call it the hook. Cause literally you’re gonna hook them back in,
Rachael Herron: [00:24:55] Right.
Ines Johnson: [00:24:56] Yeah
Rachael Herron: [00:24:57] Okay.
Ines Johnson: [00:24:58] For some people when, when it’s a, when, when you’re coming off the back of a commercial, it’s called the sequel cause you gotta get them that
Rachael Herron: [00:25:04] That’s the scene in sequel. Okay. That’s, that’s a phrase I’ve heard. Is this something that you do organically as you’re writing your way through your books? Or is there something that comes in in revision? Cause for, for me, I write, I write chapters so that like you could close the book and never pick it up again. And then I always forget. And then, so in revision, that’s just one of the things it’s one of my passes I go through and look at, and usually it’s as simple as moving four paragraphs from that scene to the next chapter, you know? But is that something that you do naturally or is it something you do in revision?
Ines Johnson: [00:25:35] Similarly naturally, but I don’t, I’m not I’m, I’m far from perfect. So when I’m going back through in revision and I see, wait, did you just let them go to sleep at the end of this chapter? I will change it to make sure that they, that you turn the page
Rachael Herron: [00:25:54] And it’s such a good thing to be reminded of. Okay. I want to skip now to the comment that you left me on my Patreon. Cause this is, I was like, can you please be on my show? Alright. So if you don’t mind, may I read this?
Ines Johnson: [00:26:10] Yeah Go for it
Rachael Herron: [00:26:11] You say, you don’t know it, but I’ve been one of your biggest fans for years ever since I heard you on the rocking self-publishing podcast, talking to Simon Whistler about how you got your writing done during your shift working dispatcher. It was so long ago.
Ines Johnson: [00:26:24] Yeah
Rachael Herron: [00:26:25] I have breakfast with you every Wednesday morning while I listened to the Writer’s Well, and I feel like it’s a treat when, How Do You Write pops up on my podcast feed. Cause you know, I try for Fridays, but I don’t always make it. Okay. You go on to say, after 15 years in higher ed, as a digital media instructor, I broke through as a successful romance author and have been making a full time living for two years now, first of all, Yay. Yay. Yay. Freakin’ yay! Last year, about four months in, I realized that I was not cut out for the “dream” of being a full time author. Oh, I’m making six figures, the words continue to flow. Fans are amazing, but it hasn’t been enough. I’m not as happy as I felt I should have been. Something was missing. During COVID isolation I figured it out. I want to teach again. I want to teach writing and marketing and personal/professional development to other seasoned and aspiring romance novelist. I’m just unsure about how to go about it. This is what I’d like coaching on. Do I need to get my MFA first? I’m pretty sure I want to be at a college or university again, cause you’re addicted to learning or even at a writing center. Can I even get a position as someone who’s never had a trad deal? So let’s talk about this. Okay. First of all, have you, have you ever, I just realized my microphone is really far away from me. Sorry, people. Have you heard the way I feel about MFAs?
Ines Johnson: [00:27:49] I think I have. Yeah.
Rachael Herron: [00:27:51] Yeah. I have, I have this theory about MFA’s is that they’re awesome to have, if you can just afford to buy them and knock, put it on credit. Cause that’ll kill all of us.
Ines Johnson: [00:28:02] Okay.
Rachael Herron: [00:28:03] And if it’s, and if it’s something that you want for cache, like, I just wanted to have the letters. I just wanted a grad degree in writing and that, so that’s why I got it. But you are so far, like you’ve blown past most MFA, anything you’re going to learn. You learn in an MFA program, how to write, you already know how to write. So this would really be about getting the letters after your name. Right? And you already have so many letters.
Ines Johnson: [00:28:34] I do have it, but do I, is, is that the calling card for someone to even look my way to become a writing teacher?
Rachael Herron: [00:28:46] Right. Your- I’m scrolling here. Your doctorate is in Educational Technology. So I have a few things to say, number one, if you want a number cause you wanted MFA, then wait till the kids are growing, like you said, and then go get it. And no one can tell you not to. But with as much publishing as you’ve done and with your doctorate, I think even though this is indie pub, did not trad pub, I think that you could find a place within a college setting and you live in a great place for that. There’s a high volume of colleges and JC’s and universities all around where you live. So that is something that could be done. Let me ask you though, let me just ask you some questions. So what attracts you to teaching this?
Ines Johnson: [00:29:42] I, I have a hard time having conversations with people that don’t turn to writing. I can talk to you for about five minutes about nonsense. And then I am evidently going to turn some way, shape or form, to book stories, words, something. So, I need people to talk to. I want to, when I, when I was teaching media, one of the things that I always told my students is that I really believe that iron sharpens iron and I was at the top of my game as a television person, when I was teaching that craft, makes me sharp.
Rachael Herron: [00:30:24] Yes
Ines Johnson: [00:30:25] And that’s not necessarily the world that I want to be in anymore. I wholeheartedly want to be in the writing world. So I want to talk that craft. I want to talk that talk. I want to teach. I want to learn from people, that answers your question?
Rachael Herron: [00:30:43] Yes, it does. And it’s beautiful. And I already know that this is something you’re going to love doing. So for me, teaching other people writing, my superpower is that, cheerleading coaching personality. And I can already tell that you have that, but, plus all of the knowledge especially with the story stuff, that is insane. But what I am going to push back on just a little bit is, what would it look like to you if you started teaching from exactly where you are right now? Like with an email newsletter list or with a YouTube channel and kind of build up a following and some street credit for teaching writing, and then, maybe trying to parlay that into teaching at a university or a college. And the reason I say this is, that, oh colleges can be so snooty.
Ines Johnson: [00:31:56] Yeah
Rachael Herron: [00:31:57] They can be so snooty. I got, I got a gig teaching at Berkeley in the, in the extension program, because I was just like, you know, cheeky and pushed and knocked on doors and kept emailing and stuff. But I’d been doing that for Stan- at Stanford for years and years and years. Trying to teach anything at Stanford just to get my foot in the door there cause they paid so much better, obviously. And it wasn’t until I got the gig at Berkeley, I literally wrote to Stanford and said, I’m now teaching at Berkeley. May I teach for you? And they were like, yes. Now you can. That is exactly what happened because there’s such a rivalry between Stanford. So, I mean, and that is just ridiculous. That that would be the difference. So they can be snooty and to have already a body of work or body of comments or a following can be a really good thing. Cause when, when colleges do hire you, they also want you to bring your own students in and make them money, as one of their, one of their biggest hopes. The other reason I, the reason I kind of suggest doing this from your chair right now, starting it there, is that anything you do teach on your own is going to necessarily be more lucrative too, because you keep all the money. And I don’t think I can get in trouble for saying how much I make teaching a semester. I think I make two, maybe it’s like 17 or $1,800 at Berkeley for a semester. And it’s 6,000 at Stanford. So it’s literally three times. Stanford always pays three times what the Cal system pays, but then you have to like weigh your opportunity cost, of driving and all of this time. Have you, so have you thought about starting in your chair right now as the expert that you already are?
Ines Johnson: [00:33:51] I started a YouTube channel just because I haven’t been teaching for two years and I just started recording myself. Oh look, I’m making things again, this is how you do it.
Rachael Herron: [00:34:00] Oh, what a great idea. Yeah.
Ines Johnson: [00:34:01] Yeah.
Rachael Herron: [00:34:02] Perfect.
Ines Johnson: [00:34:03] Yeah. So marketing, I had started to do like write with me, with Stans where I was just so I’m right, I’m, I’m on a deadline. I need to write. So I’m going to write this chapter and I started explaining like, here’s the goal of this character. Here’s the motivation. And now, I’m going to make sure that I use this particular craft technique, which I don’t think Stans were interested in.
Rachael Herron: [00:34:20] I wouldn’t have to, but they love it?
Ines Johnson: [00:34:22] Well, I’m not so sure. I stopped doing it. And I, I, I stopped doing it for fans and I started to do it specifically talking to writers because again,
Rachael Herron: [00:34:29] Yeah
Ines Johnson: [00:34:30] Just like I just told you, if after five minutes, I’m going to start talking to you about craft. I cannot help myself. So I stopped talking to fans about that and I started talking my writer’s speak.
Rachael Herron: [00:34:40] And are you charging anything for that?
Ines Johnson: [00:34:44] I do, do some, I had started doing I’m like, you know, RWA does the email workshops. I’ve been doing that for, for a long time, just because I had all this- I write lesson plans, one of my degrees, and I made all these lesson plans and I just, I emailed them out and I just, it’s just something that I have. So I have that. I did not think that that would translate into potentially going to someplace in higher ed.
Rachael Herron: [00:35:13] For me, it was really that. I started the podcast before anything else. And after I started the podcast, I realized, Oh, I should have an email newsletter for writers so I can like segment them. I have, you know, here’s my readers, but here’s my writers. And the more I did with the podcast, the more I realized what I could be teaching and how I could be sharing that. And that’s why that particular newsletter became so important to me. And honestly, Berkeley picked me up because for one of the reasons was because I teach, you know, I have this, How Do You Write podcast? And I had taught at little at smaller conferences, but I was able to drop all those things into a CV that looked worthwhile. They are not going to check your CV for an MFA. They will -my cat is just talking. I apologize.
Ines Johnson: [00:36:06] He’s agreeing with you.
Rachael Herron: [00:36:07] He is. He is. They don’t look at they won’t look for an MFA. They’ll just look for a master’s or higher. That’s all you need to have to teach in a secondary, post-secondary level.
Ines Johnson: [00:36:19] Can I, can I ask you about that? So does it matter what the master’s is in?
Rachael Herron: [00:36:23] No.
Ines Johnson: [00:36:24] Are you serious?
Rachael Herron: [00:36:25] Yep. Yep. Also your sound so ready to go for anything. What was it again? Educational strategy?
Ines Johnson: [00:36:28] Educational Tech,
Rachael Herron: [00:36:30] Educational Technology. Yeah.
Ines Johnson: [00:36:31] Yeah. I just became interested in online learning in how my – and the school, when I was at a media college, they paid for it. School was right across the street. And I was like, I told you, I’m an addict, an academic addict. And they were like, Oh, did you know we have this program? I was like, really? I’m going to take some classes. I’m not kidding. I’m not kidding. People were looking at me like I was crazy. I was like, are you going to be a principal? No. What are you doing here? Learning.
Rachael Herron: [00:36:57] Oh, that’s wonder- no, you could teach anything, anything. And I mean, if you’re, if you’re doctorate was in Marine biology, you know, emphasis, whales, perhaps you wouldn’t be teaching like, you know, there’d be like creative writing, really? But the word educational, they’re not going to look anything past, have a freaking doctorate that is amazing. So that’s what I would think of doing in this time right now, while you’re waiting for the kids to grow up and deciding if you want an MFA, you obviously have this passion that you have to share with other people about what you know, and how to use it. Also, I wanted to point out that in your note to me, you said, I want to teach writing and marketing and personal professional development to other seasons and aspiring romance novelists. The whole thing about niching it to romance, novelist, two things. Number one, it makes it extremely awesome and useful and can be lucrative for you because romance writers want to know everything and they’re such an incredibly smart and savvy group of people, right?
Ines Johnson: [00:38:05] True that.
Rachael Herron: [00:38:06] And they know where to look for information and they know how to share information and your name will get around. But the, but the drawback to that is I have never been able to talk any place ever with an academic name to do anything with romance.
Ines Johnson: [00:38:21] That was another concern.
Rachael Herron: [00:38:22] And I keep trying.
Ines Johnson: [00:38:23] I only speak romance. I don’t speak thriller. I don’t speak mystery. I speak Romance.
Rachael Herron: [00:38:28] Yeah. The nice thing about you speaking romance is that, that that’s what you speak. That’s what you are really fluent in, but that also makes you fluent in all the other languages. Honestly. Like I, I truly believe that contemporary romance is the hardest genre to write. When you have two good people that you’re trying to keep apart from each other for really good reasons. Nobody understands how hard that is. So you are an expert in all of these other things too, and you could teach to all of them, but your passion seems to be for romance and for romance writers.
Ines Johnson: [00:38:58] Yeah
Rachael Herron: [00:38:59] So before attaching your, your star to the college, that probably won’t pay you very well to teach people that they don’t care about, i.e., romance novelist. Pointing yourself to a place where you can help them the best you can and charge well for that, because you have this knowledge. I think you’re really excited and then you could also add to teaching at a college, if you wanted to. Am I depressing you, am I letting you down?
Ines Johnson: [00:39:31] Not at all. You’re giving us discipline people, are getting, I’m getting a game plan. I’m making, a checklist is forming in my head now.
Rachael Herron: [00:39:41] Yeah.
Ines Johnson: [00:39:45] Okay.
Rachael Herron: [00:39:46] What do you, what do you like best in these ideas? And what do you randomly reject?
Ines Johnson: [00:39:51] That was one of my fear that because I speak romance and I’m, I speak it unabashedly, unashamedly.
Rachael Herron: [00:39:57] Yeah. As you should.
Ines Johnson: [00:39:58] I don’t understand people who are like… romance. I’m like, Oh, you poor thing
Rachael Herron: [00:40:03] It’s like that about women in general.
Ines Johnson: [00:40:06] Right? So I’m, I’m, I’m pretty unabashed about that. And that’s, I’m hearing that there will be either a conflict or there will be the door won’t open for that. And that was, that, that’s sad. That’s sad to me.
Rachael Herron: [00:40:24] It’s really sad to me. And I actually had and this is even sadder, I think, but Berkeley allowed me to put on a one-day course, that was like, how to write romance or something like that. It was going to be a really broad overview cause I’ve been pushing and pushing and pushing for it. And we had to cancel it for lack of signups, I think.
Ines Johnson: [00:40:43] No!
Rachael Herron: [00:40:44] In the Bay area,
Ines Johnson: [00:40:47] It makes me so sad.
Rachael Herron: [00:40:48] It made me so sad. I could not get it done. And that was a few years ago. That was probably five years ago, four years ago. But, but still so. I see you. You have this that you have to share and the most important part of your, your message to me, was that just, just being a full time, six figure successful-
Ines Johnson: [00:41:16] I felt so…
Rachael Herron: [00:41:17] novelists. No, that’s brilliant. No, I love it. That knowing that that is what you have and it’s still not enough. That is exactly. I think that’s why I wanted you on this show so much, because that’s what I identify with.
Ines Johnson: [00:41:28] Yeah, I’d said this to my, my, my writing, my weekly writing mastermind. And I felt so awful. Well, those, those are my long-term friends, but I still felt so awful saying even typing it out to you, it felt so awful cause this is the dream. Like, this is what people dream of. And I was like, I should be, it’s like someone who married the wrong person. I was like, I should be happy. Why am I not happy? And I wasn’t,
Rachael Herron: [00:41:50] But you labeled it. You figured it out what it is that will make you happier. And I really truly believe that I have this, this whole thing about like how service does make us happier people. You’re serving somebody that needs help in this. And I’m also, I’m enough of a capita- capitalist, although burn it all down that I will accept people’s money for helping for me helping them, because I know I’m good at it. And, and when you combine something you really, really love and you get paid for it too, is there any better? And then you’d have two of these things happening to you, the writing and the teaching.
Ines Johnson: [00:42:37] Okay. So I think what I going to do is start to double down on what I can do right now to, to fill this need. And, and I think, as you said, the most immediate things were where the YouTube, which I just enjoy doing the YouTube. I enjoy doing the YouTube. I enjoy doing the RWA classes, that are just online to, to writers, maybe look at more writing centers and put that online degree that online doctorate to use.
Rachael Herron: [00:43:06] Yes, actually, that’s something that I hadn’t thought about is that you could teach it any of the online colleges and there are some that are coming up with commercial MFA programs. So any of the commercial MFA programs, the ones who major in commercial fiction and genre fiction, they’re going to be looking for romance people like you.
Ines Johnson: [00:43:30] Okay
Rachael Herron: [00:43:31] Like the one that springs to mind is Seton Hill, but there’s another one I want to say, North Carolina has a genre, focus, which again, you don’t need that MFA to teach that, you will just teach there and because you have the online strength, you could do that. What was I going to say? Oh, if you’re doing the YouTube channel, how do you, how do you feel about doing a podcast? Want to do a podcast?
Ines Johnson: [00:43:58] I’m not sure. Because I, I’m honestly not sure. I’m a very visual person, television, so I’m not sure that just my voice can tell the story. Like I liked the reason that I liked doing the YouTube, cause I’m like, cool, look here, I’m going to show you, like, I’m writing this thing. Look, I’m going to show you how, and that’s very interesting to me. But just a podcast with just my voice, that seems hard? Hard. And I do listen to you and J. and all the millions of podcasts that you guys start talking about how much work it is.
Rachael Herron: [00:44:36] Oh, it’s not much work, especially if you’re already, if you’re already doing the reason I say it is, if you’re already doing a YouTube, you just export the audio from it and upload it.
Ines Johnson: [00:44:46] I’m going to put that on my think about list.
Rachael Herron: [00:44:49] Think about it.
Ines Johnson: [00:44:50] Think about this.
Rachael Herron: [00:44:49] Love it that you have to think about this. And that might be something that you would actually hire out and, you know, hire somebody, hire somebody else to upload it every week. Once the YouTube is up there, they know to go in and get it and upload it as a podcast. just because podcasts still, even in the days of Covid they’ll have set, I get such a higher, like almost all of my listen, come on Podcatchers and not on the YouTube, even though I put it up on YouTube every week. That could be saying something about me as a, as a media person.
Ines Johnson: [00:45:25] I didn’t know you had a YouTube channel. Now, I’m gonna look that up. Cause you’re in that you’re in my phone.
Rachael Herron: [00:45:30] It’s not very good. And it’s just like this. You could just look in the back of me and see my cluttered office. It’s not great. Yeah, so that, but that I do just because it’s, it’s almost easy, just as easy to do it as well. I’m just hitting both because I, because you can,
Ines Johnson: [00:45:48] Okay.
Rachael Herron: [00:45:49] What has this conversation jelled for you?
Ines Johnson: [00:45:55] None of- well, I’ll tell you this, you, you are in agreement with my mastermind, my writing mastermind. When I said this, they have the same reaction that you did about MFAs. Like – they have the same concerns about knowing that I am an academic addict and I like being on a college. And they, they, they all said the same thing. It’s not the, not the podcast, but they all said, well, why don’t you, you already do in all these RWA classes, just keep that up. You have your interest; you start a YouTube channel. So they said that. So I, I guess I just I’d like the idea. And that was the other part. This is, they did get this out of me too. We, we realized that I’m, I want it for the social aspect too. Cause I’m in this room so much time, especially during Covid. And even when I go out to the coffee shops, I’m in a booth by myself, earphones in and I’m typing for hours.
Rachael Herron: [00:46:49] Yeah. Yeah
Ines Johnson: [00:46:51] And when I was teaching, even though I started to get more and more miserable, because I didn’t want to really talk about media anymore. I wanted to talk specifically about writing. It was still that interaction. I still got to see somebody, one of my students’ eyes light up when I explained something to them and they got it. And I was missing that too. So I am still missing that. I don’t, I don’t know where to, where to take that sentence, but I, that is something that I do recognize that I am still missing that, missing that social aspect.
Rachael Herron: [00:47:21] What do you, what do you prefer talking to a group of people or talking to somebody one-on-one?
Ines Johnson: [00:47:27] Group
Rachael Herron: [00:47:28] Okay. Yeah. I also really, really enjoyed the group I’ve done. I’ve done a lot of coaching. But there’s nothing like leading a group through them, helping each other,
Ines Johnson: [00:47:39] Yes
Rachael Herron: [00:47:40] Like watching the class gel and hold each other up. So, okay. So I think it’s just time to start making some lists of what to do, get that writer’s email list going, offer them something free to sign up. Do you already have a place for writers on your website?
Ines Johnson: [00:47:58] No. I just had a place for people who want me to teach online. Like the, again, the email courses, I have a place for them. But not for- for, Hey, sign up for this.
Rachael Herron: [00:48:09] Yeah. You need a tab for writers, offer a couple of free things, immediately like, and it could be like a PDF of something or here’s a YouTube that you can’t find anywhere else that’s, you know, private or whatever. And, and you get this for joining my list. Yeah.
Ines Johnson: [00:48:34] Okay, I have, I have a, I have a page of to do list.
Rachael Herron: [00:48:40] I’m just so happy and proud of you for knowing this about yourself for knowing that this is important and that you need that connection. For me, it is and this is why I wanted to talk about it. Cause I’m so grateful for it. It’s like I love writing. It’s my whole heart, but I also hate it more than anything else do. Right? Like it’s, but working with students is there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just perfection. It is 1% less than the way I love writing. And some days it threatens to take it over and I won’t let it, you know, I’m like, no, no, no. It’s gotta be the writing. It’s gotta be the writing first, but they’re so close and it does, it just feeds your heart.
Ines Johnson: [00:49:18] Yeah. It makes me feel like you don’t really hear from the fans. You, you see the downloads, you might see the dollar signs,
Rachael Herron: [00:49:25] right.
Ines Johnson: [00:49:26] But a fan is, wants to talk to you about the character. They don’t want to talk to you about the crap. Their eyes are going to light up because they learned a technique from you.
Rachael Herron: [00:49:35] Yeah. And that is one thing I’ve always said about writers, is that no matter what, if we’re having a conversation about anything else? The back of our mind is thinking about writing. In the back of our mind is waiting to see if we can turn it towards writing, which is why when you go to conferences, right? You love going to a conference because all you do from morning till night is you talk about writing and it never gets, never gets old.
Ines Johnson: [00:49:55] Yes. Never.
Rachael Herron: [00:49:56] It’s the best. Yes, you need to be, you need to be doing this.
Ines Johnson: [00:49:55] Okay, I got homework.
Rachael Herron: [00:50:05] How can I help you in the future?
Ines Johnson: [00:50:08] You know, as I start to think about approaching, conferences approaching online schools or, or, or on campus schools. I would love, cause I know you do, you help with getting agents. I wonder if you would help with me writing that cover letter.
Rachael Herron: [00:50:31] Absolutely. I would love to. I would love to write a cover letter for your CV. Just your academic, like learning, is a full CV right there
Ines Johnson: [00:50:44] Yeah. Yeah.
Rachael Herron: [00:50:45] You know; this is so cool. I’m so excited for you. I wish that I had had somebody talk to you when I first started to think about these things, you know. There’s so much noise in my neighborhood today. I’m sorry. There’s dogs and beeps and car horns.
Ines Johnson: [00:51:00] It’s okay, it’s okay.
Rachael Herron: [00:51:02] Okay. Well, I am so pleased to know you. And so
Ines Johnson: [00:51:06] I’ve known you for a year or so,
Rachael Herron: [00:51:09] But now I know you, you,
Ines Johnson: [00:51:10] Yes!
Rachael Herron: [00:51:11] And, I want you to come back on to after things are going and, and, and if you set up a place, when you set up a place for your email newsletter to be collected, let me know the address and I’ll put it on the show notes for this. So, because everybody needs to be following you cause you’re killing it. You’re killing it.
Ines Johnson: [00:51:32] Thank you. Thank you, Rachael.
Rachael Herron: [00:51:36] Thank you for being on the show today.
Ines Johnson: [00:51:37] Thank you for all for all my homework. Thank you.
Rachael Herron: [00:51:41] Your welcome.
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.
Join me.
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