Ep. 206: Do You Need a Writing Mentor? Or a Pen Name?

Rachael Herron tackles some difficult questions in this mini episode: Do you need a writing mentor? Or a pen name? How DO you write in a year like 2020, anyway? And what’s the best way to hack your way to a productive writing day? 

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 # 206 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. So pleased you’re here today is a mini episode where I answer your patron questions. I didn’t have any, and suddenly I have a bunch. So, I will try to go through these as quickly as possible because it’s supposed to be a mini episode, but I want to make sure that you get your questions answered. So let’s jump right in. This will be nice I’ll release this episode today and then a new regular episode tomorrow. I must say really quickly that I apologize that I missed a week, which I was cool with. And then I missed another week because I forgot to upload it to the app. I did upload it on YouTube. If you follow me on YouTube, the Vicki Pettersson episode was live on the day it was supposed to, but a week later a couple of people reached out and said, I hope you’re okay. You’ve missed two weeks with no explanation and I thought, oh no, no I haven’t. And I had, cause I had just forgotten the most important step of putting it on the podcast feed app, that distributed, distributes the show to you. So I do apologize for that, in order to make up for that last week, you got two episodes in one day. Today you’ll get one and tomorrow you’ll get another one. So I hope that that helps and thanks for checking in on me. I really appreciate it. And it’s the only way that I knew that I didn’t upload the episode was because of that. 

[00:01:03] So, okay, let’s start. This is from Giana Floyd. Here is my patreon question, oh yes, I should mention that you get to ask me these questions and I am your mini coach. If you joined my Patreon, Patreon at the level of $5 a month or up, and that’s over at patreon.com/Rachael R A C H A E L. Okay. Giana says, here’s my Patreon question. “2020 is killing me. How do I keep writing? You’re the best.” No Giana, you’re the best. It is so hard right now. It is just so hard, 2020 is in many ways, the worst for a lot of people and you are absolutely not alone when you are feeling this. So thanks for asking that. And the answer is not that satisfying, but it is to just keep showing up. Just keep showing up. I know that sounds easy and facile and I don’t mean it to, but for me, this is what I do. I remember that my goal is to have my words help somebody someday. In some way. And I mean, not whether I’m writing a romance or a thriller or a memoir, or just an essay, all of those can help people in different ways. They can help them get through a rough spot. They can give them inspiration. They can help them choose to live their life in a way that is more fulfilling to them. My words will have a difference in the future and when it’s a very hard day or when it’s a very hard year continually remembering that does help me get to the page. You may want to even make a little post-it, use a Sharpie. So it’s strong and bold that says my words will help. Put it up where you can see it, get to the computer for 15 minutes, I have written, I always say this I’ve written at least two books that were written in 15 minute chunks because my year was so hard or I was depressed or dealing with other the life events that I couldn’t give my work more priority than that. And you know what? The books are good. They got written and I’m proud of them. And they were written first drafted in 15 minute chunks. 

[00:03:58] Usually for editing, I need usually about at least 30 minutes to get deeply into it. But yeah, you just, you just show up, you show up more stubbornly than ever. There is nobody more stubborn than a stubborn writer, and Giana that is what you are. If it’s just for 15 minutes a day, write some terrible words. Again, give up any hope of making them good. If you go to the page in a good year and hope that your words will come out of you, good and strong, and beautiful, you will let yourself down. In 2020, it’s 10 times worse. So, and that’s hard. I understand it’s really hard to let go of the need for your words to be good, but a first draft word, shouldn’t be good. They should be crap. And you can close the computer when you’re done writing crap and say, Hey, I wrote crap for today. That’s my job as a writer, when I come back and do some more tomorrow, eventually you’ll be in revision and you’ll be cleaning them up and that is so fun. But to get the writing done, you just show up, remembering that you really, really will help somebody else and that is everything. So, I hope that helps you a little bit with this terrible year. 

[00:05:14] Okay. May asks, she said- this is kind of a big one. “How do you feel about writing mentors? How does someone find a published author willing to take the time to read their book and give feedback? When is a good time to go, looking for a mentor? When, what should one look for in a mentor? Is it even a good idea? Help!” Says may. So the first time I read this, I thought, oh, no, I don’t know where one would find a writing mentor. How do you even do that? And then May, you will be unsurprised to learn that like a week later I was like, oh yeah! it wasn’t a mentoring program. And I was a mentor and it was awesome. So I think the answer for this is if you want a writing mentor, find a program that is offering writing mentors. The one I did; this was probably six or seven years ago. I don’t remember what it was called. And I got paired with two beginning writers and one write- and we didn’t, I didn’t read their work that wasn’t part of it. Most published writers usually don’t have time to read and, you know, give feedback and edit a whole another book but they can encourage you to do the writing. So I was encouraging these two young women and we were, we emailed a couple of times a week and we were just talking about the process of writing and one of them, I honestly, I hope she’s not listening to this show because I’ve forgotten her name and that is embarrassing, but I forget names, but another one is Courtney Gillette and we are good friends now and I have hung out with her in New York where she used to live, when she just moved. And we became good enough friends that when she finished her memoir, we were not mentor-mentee related anymore. Oh, we were just friends and I said, send me your memoir and I read it and it was beautiful. And I didn’t have any feedback to give her. She’s an incredible writer. She was a better writer of non-fiction than I was at the time I was learning from her. I really pivoted and learned how to, I learned a lot about writing essays from her skill. And that was just because we were friends. So I’ve never been in the mentor relationship of actually looking at other people’s work in that kind of way. And I but I do know that some programs will offer it. I would just Google writing mentor-mentee and see what comes up. 

[00:07:35] Generally, like I said, reaching out to authors who are currently writing, that’s a hard one the, there, most of them will say, Oh God, no, not another obligation I can’t do it. The best is to be able to hire an editor. I always say that. You will learn more from having your work edited than you will in any other thing that you do. Actually, having your words edited by a strong editor is honestly the way to go. If, and if you want to do that, I always recommend Reedsy.com. My students have gotten the best editors from that site and there’s going to be more editors available on there. Simon and Schuster is up for sale, again, they’re one of the big five. So we’re looking at possibly going down to the big four for traditional publishing. There’s talk that Penguin Random House might buy it, which, wouldn’t be surprising. Either Penguin bought Random House or Random House bought Penguin or Bertelsmann who owns them both, but in, so everything is contracting again in publishing with the pandemic, which means that more of those editors will be available for freelance hire. And guess what? The only thing I remember from economics is the supply and demand. The more supply you have, the more inexpensive these things will be. So I predict that editing rates might go down a little bit. They’re generally between 2 and 3 cents a word for developmental edit, editing. I don’t, you know, I’m probably wrong about the prediction. I am not an economist. Probably won’t go too much below 2 cents a word, but there’s going to be more of them out there and really, really qualified people. So, I don’t have a good answer, May for the mentor question. However, I will say that I got a lot out of being a mentor because I got a really good friend and Courtney Gillette actually has a sub stack email that she sends out once a month on the first of the month. And I get so much out of being on her list. So I recommend that you Google her, find her email and sign up where she talks about writing. She talks about life. She’s a beautiful, beautiful essay writer. So that is my recommendation. 

[00:09:48] Okay, this is from Maggie. And she says, please edit this as I am having a hard time articulating. No, Maggie, you said, you said all of this beautifully, a follow up on a previous episode where you talked about the importance of having diverse characters in books. Agreed. There’s also a bigger conversation asking white people to take a step back from inhabiting the bodies of BiPAP people as main key protagonists for a variety of reasons, all valid. If you want to write a series, how do you balance both of these things? I could change the group so that they are not diverse and I’m only writing white main characters as I go through each of their stories in parentheses, “boring”. I could write the main characters of color, despite the ask from the community not to, which is risky and possibly disrespectful, or I can toss the series idea and write a standalone, which will have some grieving. I like their stories and had hoped to share them. Advice? Super huge question. You guys are asking really hard questions this time, huge question. I have been thinking about this a lot. I always think about this a lot, but I’ve been thinking about it even more since I put out that show and got some, some mighty, mighty big push back from it, which is absolutely fine. We should be writing diverse characters. We should be writing them in our worlds. We are surrou- many of us are some people who live in a more homogenous society, perhaps are not surrounded by a diverse, a diverse group of friends. 

[00:11:22] However, Maggie, I know where you sit and where I sit, my friend group is diverse. And so it is naturally, it is natural for me to write a diverse group of people which actually reflects the society in which I live. I have heard one black writer, who a female, who was, and I, I don’t want to say her name because she’s actually had some controversy recently, so I don’t want to bring that into it. But she has said, look, if you want to write a black character, just don’t write about her blackness. Like don’t write about her journey through understanding her black identity, because you have no clue how to do it, make her a black woman with all of the things that her personhood, that her femalehood imply use those, but definitely go down, don’t go down the race aisle cause you are not equipped to do it. And I, I honestly liked that version, of talking about this. So if that helps you feel a little bit more comfortable, it’s actually made me feel a little bit more comfortable to perhaps someday write a main character of color. Although I am not ready to do it yet. And I don’t know if I ever will be. Maggie, I know your series and I know the, the, the, the premise behind it, and I adore it. And I honestly think that if you wrote perhaps the first two books, and this is me guessing, this is Rachael guessing out her ass. I do not know what I’m talking about here, but this is my guess. I’m guessing that if you wrote the first two books in the series with white main characters, as you are white, and then in the third book, perhaps if you were bringing a main character who is another race, do all the things you need to do get multiple sensitivity reads. Do the author’s note that says I am white, whatever I get wrong in this book about this main character’s experience, these are my mistakes and my errors and own that. But I would say play with it, try it if that is what you want and, and be brave. I would love to hear what you think to this, to what I’m saying here, Maggie, it is a very, very large question. 

[00:13:46] If anybody wants to come by, HowDoYouWrite.net and also try to answer this the way you would answer this for Maggie, we always appreciate that. So Maggie, keep your eye on the comments over there. Okay and you had another question. Let’s see. Second question, when using programs like Grammarly or Edit Pro, which is the one I have, they have so many reports it is overwhelming. Are there certain ones you use and ignore others? How do you trust your instinct that a sentence is right for your voice, even if it is wrong by their editing standards? I am such a rule follower. LOL. Thank you for all you do. Okay. So really great question. I’m so glad you asked it. I’m not familiar with Edit Pro, but I’m sure it’s like every, all of the other ones I used to use Grammarly and I switched to Pro Writing Aid, which I love. It is stronger, more robust than Grammarly. I highly recommend Pro Writing Aid or perhaps Edit Pro, which is the one you have, but they all do the same thing. They tell you that this sentence is in passive voice. They tell you that you missed a word here. They tell you that this is spelled wrong they tell you that you have echoes that you use the same words over and over again. Those are all things to be looking at but I want to just say it right here for everybody to feel better. I just put something through Pro Writing Aid this morning, and this is what I look for. I let it catch my spelling errors. I really let it catch my doubled words or my left outwards. I think so quickly. And I type really quickly, but I don’t type as fast as I think. So my bugaboo, my personal bugaboo is always leaving outwards. I can leave two or three sentence, two or three words out of every other sentence, honestly, that happens to me so much. So it helps me with that. It does flag the passive voice.

[00:15:34] However, sometimes you just need to use the passive voice. That is how this sentence wants to be constructed. It’ll flag echoes that are intentional, that I set up to repeat for a particular sound for my writing voice. So those are basically what I look at. I look at spelling, missing words, or doubled words. I tried to clean up and clean up some of my passive voice. And it will also sometimes point out dumb things that I can just leave out. A lot of times you can leave out the word that you put into that, but it can be taken out all of those other suggestions that it gives me, I do not care about. I don’t care. Every once in a while, I will look through the things that it says, you know, you may want to use a thesaurus to look at this word. Is this word too simple? You might not want to use the word small. What about tiny? It’ll suggest. What about minuscule? No, I want the word small. That’s- that’s what I want. That’s what my voice wants. So I, I ignore 93% of what those programs can do and just use it for what, my where, where I am not as strong. I can’t, I’m never going to see my own typos and I use them more for fixing typos and I would say, trust your instinct that the sentence is right for your voice. Even if it flags it as wrong, you may be using fragments of sentences in dialogue. It’s going to flag that as wrong. No, that’s how we speak. That’s how we talk. We don’t want everybody to speak perfect grammar checked English. That’s not realistic. And also the voices of our main characters have their own way of speaking, we want that voice to come through. You get to trust that if you look at it, suggestion and go, no, I want it the way it was 100% stick to that. So if, Maggie, when you are feeling like you need to follow rules, just follow Rachael’s rules. And I’m going to tell you right now, I’m giving you permission to ignore 97% of what your grammar checker recommends for you and just do the things that are underlined in red and pick and choose from the other ones. There’s way, way, way, way, way too much information on those things. And we don’t need any of it, except for the important things. So I hope that that helps. 

[00:17:53] Okay. Ellen says, I have a question. I realized this is probably my decision, but I’d love your perspective. I’m looking through each section to see if I put any, don’t forget to add notes and adding some extra stories. Is this revising? Is my first draft done? Does it matter? Is there a reason for me to decide first draft is done and I am now revising? Does it matter if I don’t state that? Okay, Ellen, you’re totally right that this is your decision and you do not need to follow what I do, but I personally like to finish writing and then I say, the end! First draft done. Your first draft Ellen is definitely done. If you are going back to add those kinds of things in. And then I like to start with my second draft and I do the things I talk about. I think the revising episode of the show is episode 103, just, just Google, how do you write revising? and it will come up and you can follow my steps. If you would like to do that to start your big second, makes sense draft your book will not be perfect after the big second draft, but it will at least have all the scenes in the right places. Things will hang together. You’ll trust that the scenes that are there, you’re going to keep instead of the scenes that you needed to pull out and move or get rid of entirely, because they don’t support your character arc or your theme or what you’re going for with this plot. So yes, you are ready for starting that second draft, maybe making yourself a little sentence outline, make it, maybe make an, a sentence outline map, maybe doing some posting of these ideas and then jumping in from the beginning and starting to take your book apart so that you can put it back together again in a better form that makes it stronger. And I know that sounds scary, but it is doable, break it up into bite sized pieces, check out that episode, which is just the revision chapter from my book. How- Fast Draft Your Memoir. Fast Draft Your Memoir, I really titled it poorly because it should be Fast Draft Any Book You Ever Want to Write. And that tells you everything I know about writing, that tells you everything I know about revision in that one chapter. And again, it is available for free in audio, on I think it’s podcast either 103 or 109 of this show.  So I hope that helps. Congratulations on finishing your first draft, and I hope that you have a blast revising. I honestly believe that’s where the fun lives. 

[00:20:21] So good question. Thank you. All right. Josh Kylan says I was hoping for some advice or maybe, you know, a resource to point me towards. I’ve been writing as a hobby off and on since 2011 and I’ve developed a diverse back catalog from kids’ books to sci-fi novels, to travelogues, parenting books and more. There’s even a series of Minecraft books that somehow have survived Microsoft’s wrath. I’d like to make this more of a business and it seems like all these different styles and genres would be confusing to readers. My question is, should I break these out in to pen names now? And if so, any tips on doing that? I appreciate your advice on this. Okay. So Josh, there are multiple voices that are going to tell you to do different things. And here is what I think. I think that the differing, the different pen names used to be really, really important back when Amazon’s algorithms couldn’t quite tell what people the difference between their different genres. However, the algorithm on Amazon particular, because that’s what sells the most books. And that’s what we look at has gotten so strong that when you look at my romance books, the suggested books that people might like to buy are all romance books. When you look at my non-fiction about writing, the suggested books are books about writing, and those are in the same name, Rachael Herron. My women’s fiction are under the same name, and those will recommend women’s fiction. What else do I write? My memoir underneath that, it will recommend memoir. So I really believe that the algorithms are more robust now, and it is much easier to keep just one pen name. There are exceptions to this. Your publisher may ask you to take a pen name, like when I went to Penguin for the thriller, they just wanted me to have initials. so I am R.H. Herron for thrillers, is still my name. 

[00:22:18] However, it is separate and it requires having a separate entity on Amazon, which is a pain, but my publisher still thinks that it should be separated by thriller, sorry, by genre. So that’s what we did. That was part of their request when I signed the contract with them at the very beginning of working with them. Another thing to keep in mind is how disparate are these genres, if they’re all fiction, which mine are not but if they’re all fiction and fiction that could bring crossover readers, then I recommend keeping your name the same. However, I have had friends who write sweet Amish romance and which is, which is like so clean that there’s often not a kiss. Right? And then the same person also writes incredibly steamy, hot erotica. So those pen names cannot cross. Those, she cannot be known as both. Those are separate names and they are secret. Oh, another thing, the third thing that people do is they’ll have pen names, but it’s an open secret, which is kind of what it is. It’s not kind of, it is exactly what I do. I am R.H. Herron and Rachael Herron on all social media. My publisher asked me to set up separate social media accounts for R.H. Herron and I, like Maggie am a good rule follower and that, and that I just balked. I cannot, I cannot, I cannot do- I can, I can’t do Facebook the way I should. I cannot do it twice for two different characters, two different writers. So on all my social media, it says both names. So it’s a very, very open secret people can find all of my books, which I think is really great. I mean, if you R.H. Herron thriller, and you want to see what I write, you can figure out real easily that I’m Rachael Herron and perhaps you don’t want my romances, but you do want one of my darker women’s fiction or mainstream books.

[00:24:11] So again, it’s not that helpful, but you get to make that choice. So you were talking about sci-fi novels, travelogues, parenting books, and more with the Minecraft. I think a lot of people in your position might think, might divide. So maybe Josh Kylan does the fiction and Josh X. Kylan, whatever your middle initial is, does the nonfiction. That’s a nice way to separate it and could be one of those open secrets people can know that you write both. The question is what are you drawn to? What do you want to do? The algorithms are better. However, oh, what’s his name? Chris Fox who writes really great books about writing. And he’s an awesome person. I buy all his books on writing and I still get Amazon recommendations for his, science fiction when it comes out. So the algorithms are better, but they’re not perfect. So I can’t, I can’t give you a clean answer on this either, but I would love to know what you are drawn toward. There’s, there’s much less should than there used to be. The should used to be yes, pen names all the way. But that is kind of disappearing. So yeah. I wish you luck in that decision and good for you for making this more of a business. As you said, this is, these are business decisions and you’re thinking about them clearly deeply. There’s no right or wrong, at this point, it is what you choose to do. Good question.

[00:25:40] So last question is from Katrina. She has two questions. Okay. So the first one is, “Do you have any advice on outlining within a memoir chapter? I’m very clear on the book outline, but thinking more now about what I say should hit with each chapter. I did J. Thorn scene writing challenge, which included a very useful framework, but wouldn’t always fit easily within memoir or would it?” So great question. I love J. Thorn’s system and he talks a lot about conflict choice and consequence. What’s going on within a scene at the scene level. Hugely important to think about, especially when you’re writing fast paced fiction, fiction that needs to turn pages that needs to keep the reader glued to the page. But I will admit, and I’ve told him as much that my scenes are personally for me, they’re a little bit more organic. I definitely look at every scene when I’m in revision, not in a first draft, but when I’m in revision, I make sure that they are doing something very specific. Is there conflict in this scene? Does my character make a choice, that makes things either better or worse? Hopefully worse. Is there a consequence to this choice that she makes? However, I don’t always get all of those things into the same chapter. Sometimes I can do a conflict and a choice and have the consequence pop up later in the book. Sometimes it’s not so much of a choice as a change, a decision to change something and try something new, which might lead to the character either in memoir or fiction, which are exactly the same to me which might lead the character to moving forward but then sliding backwards. Basically, we want to make sure that every scene is doing something more than just moving the plot along. Plot is important. Things that are happening in your book are important, but we also need to show character development. We need to show character growth we need to show how the external plot is working on the internal change that’s occurring within the main character or characters. So my answer to this is if your scene feels to you organically correct as it is, and it stands as a good scene or chapter, then I say, let it stand. Let it be that. The only thing that I will often do, pretty, pretty late in my books is I will go through and look at the end of every chapter, and make sure I ask some kind of question and I’m using the word chapter to be the same as seen in this because in my books, my scenes are chapters, so it’s easier to discuss. 

[00:28:28] So at the end of the scene, am I opening a tiny, tiny loop, a tiny question that makes my reader turn the next page. It does not have to be a cliffhanger. It doesn’t have to be anything huge and dramatic, but is there a tiny question- question that is raised that is going to continue to pull my reader through the book? And again, I do that very late it’s very systematic oftentimes it just entails moving the last three or four paragraphs from the scene to be the first three or four paragraphs of the next scene, because I can ask that tiny question that gets that one page turned and then they’re into the next chapter. So, what I’m saying again, as apparently, maybe perhaps this is the theme of this show is trust your gut. Trust your instinct. If you’re scene feels right, then it is right. And let it be right. You don’t have to cross off lots of boxes unless you really, really enjoy that kind of challenge. So, thank you for asking that also her last question, last question of the show is, I am looking also for all the hacks to turn a free day into a productive writing day. So I love this. I know that Katrina is a mom. And when she says a free day, ooh, she is going to utilize that. 

[00:29:48] So for me, the number one thing lately has been, and this really kind of ebbs and flows in my life there are times when I am a great writer, no matter what, and by a great writer, I mean, I’m great at showing up and doing the work no matter what’s happening, no matter what is on my desktop, my screen, no matter what’s pinging, I can just write, there are times in my life where that has happened. However, lately, and it might be 2020, I can’t. If I show up to the laptop and I start writing and I am still online, unless I am in inside. Rachael Says Write insides, inside the zoom room with other writers. If I’m on my own and the internet is on, I get lost. I just somehow end up Googling something, asking a question. Following bunny trails. Oh, might as well check email. Oh God. I forgot to do that one thing in email, I’ve got to do that really quick. I’ve got to get this back to the student. I forgot about that. I better go check Slack. So 2020 has really gotten me back on the train of writing with the internet off and the phone, not within my grasp. It doesn’t have to be in the other room. A lot of times, if you’re watching me on the screen on YouTube, I will just throw it onto the couch over there. It lands on the couch. I cannot reach it easily without getting up, which reminds me that when I reached for my phone automatically I go, oh, I’m not looking at my phone right now. I can’t reach it. For me it involves choosing how much time I’m going to spend on writing for the day or, or whatever work you’re working on and then a really productive day for me when I go deep work like this, is 45 on, 15 off, which means I set a timer. I have a timer for my computer, or you could even use like an old egg timer or whatever you have around the house. And I set it for 45 minutes, which is a perfect chunk of time for me. I work, work, work head down right around 45 minutes. I’m starting to get a little bit tired, the timer goes off. I get up. I try not to go back online. That 15 minutes is for a snack. I’m making another cup of coffee, for going to the bathroom, for letting the dogs out, for doing the things that life involves. If I, if I actually go onto my email or Slack, I might not ever get out. So I try to stay away from there until all of my cycles are done. I usually do three or four cycles, a 45 fifteens. And then that is my deep work for the day. And then the rest of the day, I can spend doing all the email and Slack and those kinds of things that keep our writing lives going. For me, that is a productive working day.

[00:32:19] So, butt in chair, hands on keyboard, nothing else open on your computer, no internet, you will, if you stay in place, eventually you get bored enough to work on your document. It used to be a lot easier when we could go to cafes. We can’t go to cafes where we are, probably where you are Katrina, in Denmark, you probably can go to cafes that is helpful because then you can’t wander away and, you know, do dishes or something. Something that has been really interesting for me lately is thinking about managing the way my body moves. And I know that sounds weird, but I’ve always had a really, really difficult time with sleeping for many, many years. Insomnia has plagued me and I heard on a sleep medic- meditation, this person said, pretend you are asleep and don’t move your body. Don’t allow your body to move. Pretend you’re asleep and you’ll eventually fall asleep. And I thought, well, that is bull. That is not going to work. And I am a flipper. Basically I am like a rotisserie chicken in bed. I just roll and roll and roll and roll and I’ve timed it. It’s like every 15 to 20 seconds. I moved something or somehow I, I can roll a 360 in under a minute and get comfortable about four times in that minute, but then get uncomfortable and then roll again. So I’ve been doing this thing in sleep where I lie down. I get as comfortable as I can. I put my arms and legs in one position. Look at myself on the camera and then I try to freeze myself there. I try not to move. I pretend I’m asleep and you guys, then I go to sleep. Apparently, if you rotisserie chicken all over the bed, that’s part of not going to sleep. I’m never letting my muscles relax to get to sleep. And the reason I’m saying this is gluing my butt in the chair.

[00:34:18] How many times have we heard butt in chair, hands on keyboard? But when you make that decision to put your butt in the chair, hands on keyboard, you can’t touch anything else. You’ve moved everything else out of your way. You can’t open anything on your screen, except for the document that is in front of you, you cannot look up one thing. You can’t research anything. If you have a research question or something that pops up to you, you write it down because in 45 minutes you can look up whatever you want. If you are allowing yourself to look at the internet to ask these things, or you can do it after your sessions, glue your butt into the chair. Just like I glue my whole limbs to the bed to stay still, even though it’s not comfortable, it works, butt in chair, hands on keyboard works. So, I hope that that helps Katrina also, rewards. Reward, reward, reward. Whenever you have a productive day of any kind reward for me, it is always reading whatever I want. Sometimes it is a little bit of TV, but I can’t do any of those things until I get my work done. So, reward yourself and I know being a mom has gotta be 400,000 times harder than anything I can imagine. So mad respect sent your way. Also, Katrina is an amazing editor and copy editor. And she was just working with me on my book. And I’m going to give you her website right now because you need to know it. Hold on, please I gotta look it up. Okay. Here it is. She does not do developmental editing, but she does copy editing and proofreading. And her site is TheWordBothy.com. Katrina, I don’t know if I’m saying that right, but it is The Word B O T H Y.com and a Bothy or a Bothy is a Scottish mountain retreat, a tiny cottage offering shelter from the elements. If you’re out in a wilderness of language and grammar, come on in and I’ll help you get cozy with your words. Y’all. Testimonial time here. I asked Katrina to go over my traditionally published books, copy edits to see what the copy editor had missed. And she found 34 things. 

[00:36:36] So that’s her eye, I pay her out of my own pocket to proof what is being copy edited and proofed by traditional New York people who are on a salary for doing this. I still pay Katrina to do this as an extra set of eyes. She helps me sleep better at night. She did not ask me to say this but she’s really, really marvelous. And I’m going to trust no one else with my copy edits and proofs from for the future. So get her while you can. Yes. So anyway, that was fun. Thank you so much for all the questions, everybody. If you would like to have me answer any of these questions for you, you can always join up at patreon.com/Rachael (R A C H A E L) and pledge at the $5 and up level. I love answering them. I love being honest with you when I don’t have a good yes or no, do this answer sometimes I know to tell you, yes, this is the right thing to do. You should do it this way. And a lot of times I don’t, but I hope that I provide you with some context and some things to think about so that you can make up your own mind on these really awesome questions and decisions that we have to make because we are writers. So I am honored by you asking them. I am also very honored that you are listening in 2020 when everything is awful. And I’ve stopped listening to most podcasts because I never drive any more. So the fact that listening to this one really makes me feel wonderful and I am so grateful for you. Please reach out and tell me what you think about anything you can always go to HowDoYouWrite.net  or reach me wherever I am online, which is mostly on Twitter these days. So happy writing to you, my friends, and we will 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.