Rachael Herron

(R.H. Herron)

Rachael

Ep. 248: Patti Callahan on How to Know What Your Characters Want


Patti Callahan is a New York Times bestselling author and is the recipient of the Harper Lee Award for Distinguished Writer of the Year. She is a frequent speaker at luncheons, book clubs, and women’s groups. Surviving Savannah is her most recent novel. 

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

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers!

Transcript:

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

[00:00:15] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #248 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. Today, I am talking to Patti Callahan. I know you’re going to enjoy the interview. We were talking about how to know what your characters want. And for me, this is always one of the bigger challenges about writing my books. It takes me a while to really, really know what my characters want. I can come up with a great idea, but as I write, things always change. And I always, I always forget that my characters have wants that are different than, you know, Rachael Herron’s on a general day. So, that is something I would have to work on in revising a lot. So it was fun to talk to her about this. I know you’re going to enjoy that. 

[00:00:59] What is going on around here? Well, I am, if you are watching on the YouTube, I’m in a new spot, I’m in a coworking spot in Idaho. We’re here for one week, seeing my wife’s family. And it has been awesome and challenging. A lot of family in the house. I think we have eight people in the house now, six of us sharing one bathroom. But it is a house full of love and it is really wonderful. Yesterday, Lala and I, there were only three of us who wanted to raft down the Boise River and what that means is actually, just kind of like tubing down the river. It’s a very slow, very cold, very shallow river at this point, I kept swearing myself in the river. But I would whack my knees on the rocks at the boulders at the bottom of the river, because it was so shallow, but I really wanted to cool off. And it was just me and Lala and our 12-year-old nephew who ended up wanting to go and it was so fun. It was a moment of remembering that, when I want to, I get to let go of control. And I am kind of a control freak, you all know that, in so many ways. And so of course, I started out the day. 

[00:02:20] We want to be in the ideal position in the river. We want to be ahead of those people behind those people. I don’t want to hear them talk. I don’t want to have to have conversation with these strangers on the river. So let’s, you know, fight our way there. And eventually I ended up giving my paddle to the 12-year-old nephew and he became the best river guide. And it didn’t matter when we crashed into trees and the banks of the river, it didn’t matter.  It was just fun. I just got to hang out in the middle of the boat in the 96-degree weather, repeatedly throwing myself into the snow water and then climbing back up onto the boat. There was this one brilliant moment that I will share with you. Every once in a while, the river would speed up. And we would have like these tiny little rapids, which were very fun to scream as we went over. And you know, the eddies would swirl and the water would get a little rougher. And I had put myself in the water and I was, you know, the boat was towing me because it was a little bit deeper there and a little bit faster and it was exciting. And then I realized it was getting shallower, but really, really choppy. And I was getting banged around on the rocks, you know. If I had stood up, it could not have been higher than my thigh, really. But, kind of freaked me out and I wanted in the boat. I couldn’t get in the boat, because now the boat is going really fast and I’m having a very hard time hanging on to it. Everybody in the boat, Lala and Isaac are, they’re busy. They’re busy doing other things, but I needed somebody to help me up and I was really terrified in this delicious adrenaline. This is life or death, must get back on the boat, screaming. Lala was trying to haul me up my knee. My nephew hits me in the head with the paddle which was hilarious. And I managed to get on board gasping and I’m lying in the bottom of the boat, gasping and howling with laughter because the adrenaline pumping my system said that, yeah, you almost just died and, reality said that, had I let go of the boat and stood up and walked to shore, it would have been just fine and they would have pulled the boat over and I would have either walked down over to them or swam if I could, but it was not deep enough really to swim. So it was just this really delicious moment of fear that was laced with a hundred percent knowledge that I was completely fine. And it was just so great.

[00:04:39] So we’re having adventures like that. And the reason I’m telling you about that is that, I was writing this morning and I was beating myself up for not doing more writing while we’re here, while the house is full of eight people. And I can only use this coworking space for a little bit of time at a time because it’s expensive. And I was trying, for the last few days, I’ve been trying to get work done in the house. And I am interrupted all the time by people who love me, who want to talk about things. And I just had the major revelation, of course, the realization, that I should have had a few days ago, which is it is okay. I am not going to be the most productive writer for the next nine days. We’re in this country for nine more days. We are going on a big tour of after we leave Idaho going around California, seeing people and saying goodbye to them.

[00:05:31] I’m not going to get that much work done on my current projects. I have a couple that are really, really invested in working on, and I’m letting that go. I’m going to call this maybe like a little vacation. And for this workaholic, that is hard to do. There are some things, there, I’m just going to ask myself to keep on top of a few things. My email, which is hard for me to do, but I put on the vacation responder that says, I’m moving to a different country, responses will be delayed, and that helps me feel better. And I’m going to keep on top of the two classes that I’m teaching because that’s easy and fun and I love doing that. And I’m going to try to keep on top of my slack messages and everything else, I’m going to let go. I, yeah. I just thought I probably will not be able to do a podcast next week. I might do a mini podcast, Q&A, because I’ve got a cup full of questions from darling Maggie, which is a song. And I might do that and put that out next week, but I might also miss a week in here in the next few weeks and that’s okay. We have to adjust with life. And I personally, I like to talk to you all a lot, but right now I’m talking to myself. I have to take a moment and chill out and enjoy this exciting moment in our lives. There’s enjoy embarking upon this adventure, which we are already in the middle of. 

[00:06:55] So that’s what I’m doing. I’m giving myself that permission. What kind of permission do you want to give yourself or do you need to give yourself? Do you need to give yourself the permission to push yourself to write a little bit more than you are doing? Or do you need to give yourself permission to read a little bit less than you are trying to make yourself do? Where are you in your life and in your capacity to get your work done? There are times in our lives where it is easier to get more work done and when it is harder. If you are spending all your time watching Netflix and TikTok, that’s a different conversation.

That is time you could be spending writing. However, if you’re just busy living, moving, grieving, whatever it is, be kind to yourself. You have to be kind to yourself as a writer in order to do this really difficult work. I think that if I have one rallying cry, one mantra, when I am talking to writers, it is that to be kind to yourself and be honest. With my students, I always talk about how I am always two things. I’m always kind, and I’m almost always honest. Those two things go together perfectly, beautifully. We can be kind to others and we can be honest to others. And we really importantly, have to be those things with ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I’m very good at lying to myself. And I lie about all sorts of things to myself. You know, I’m going to get more work done tomorrow, or it’s really important that I get this done today. And those are sometimes just big lies that I get to uncover and say, no, it’s really okay if I take a day off or conversely, no, you’re really slacking Rachael. That is actually slacking that you’re doing. That’s not resting. That’s slacking. So why don’t you do one Pomodoro, get that done. And then of course that usually leads to more, but I’m letting myself off the hook. I’m not doing Pomodoros for at least the next nine days or until tomorrow morning when I panic and forget this resolution and hopefully remember it. 

[00:09:05] Besides, tomorrow morning, I’m going for a swim at the Y with my father-in-law, then I’m going to go get a pedicure with four of my family members. And then, we’re going to go down the river again because the family saw the little TikTok video that I made of my nephew boating us down the river while singing a song. He was making up at the time in his beautiful voice. We had this little gondolier, who learned while we were out there, how to steer a boat. You could see his body shifting and assimilating and understanding what happens when you put the ore that way, what happens when you put it that way? And by the end, he was doing all of it and Lala and I were just relaxing, staring up at the blue sky. So, ask yourself, where in the river you are, what kind of paddling you should be doing. And I hope that, at some point you come back and find me, tell me about it. 

[00:09:59] I am getting ready to send out a Patreon message pretty soon here. So, if you’re not on my Patreon, you can always check into that. I’ll do a little mid-point read of that in a second. But I would like to thank new patrons, Jenny Grant. Thank you, thank you so much. Appreciate it, Jenny Momsen, that’s a Jenny Day. Thank you. Thank you. Miley, editing her pledge up. Thank you. Thank you, Miley. Irene Scoonwinkle. Hello, Irene, wonderful to have you and Diana Ben Aaron. Same. Wonderful to have you. Claire Lydon edited her pledge up. Thank you. Boy, I love it when you guys do that because not just for the money, the money is fantastic. Thank you. It supports me in doing this work for you. However, when you edit a pledge up, it just is like this added load of confidence that you’ve been around for a while and you’re doing that. So, I don’t know, it just warms my heart. And thank you, Tyler. This, that you’re pledge just came in. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you to everyone at every single level in Patreon. It means the world to me. All right, I’m going to finish up doing some work around here. And then I’m going to take tomorrow off and the next day and the next day. And, I hope you were very kind and very honest with yourself, wherever you are when you are listening to this. All right. Happy writing my friends.

[00:11:20] Do you wonder why you’re not getting your creative work done? Do you make a plan to write and then fail to follow through again? Well, my sweet friend, maybe you’d get a lot out of my Patreon. Each month, I write an essay on living your creative life as a creative person, which is way different than living as a person who binges Netflix 20 hours a week and I have lived both of those ways, so I know. You can get each essay and access to the whole back catalog of them for just a dollar a month, which is an amount that really truly helps support me at this here, writing desk. If you pledge at the $3 level, you’ll get motivating texts from me that you can respond to, and if you pledge at the $5 a month level, you get to ask me questions about your creative life that I’ll answer in the mini episodes. So basically, I’m your mini coach. Go to patreon.com/Rachael R-A-C-H-A-E-L, to get these perks and more. And thank you so much!

Rachael Herron: [00:12:19] Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show today, Patti Callahan. Hello, Patti.

Patti Callahan: [00:12:23] Hi! I’m so happy to be here. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:25] Well, we were just talking, before we got started on era about how our paths had missed crossed and I got sick and you were double booked and it was, so this is perfect timing today.

Patti Callahan: [00:12:35] I believe in the right timing and this is it.

Rachael Herron: [00:12:38] We do. Let me give you a little bit of an introduction here. Patti Callahan is a New York Times bestselling author and is the recipient of the Harper Lee Award for Distinguished Writer of the Year. She is a frequent speaker at luncheons, book clubs, and women’s groups. Surviving Savannah is her most recent novel, which just came out. And she’s got another one coming out called Once Upon a Wardrobe, which comes out in a few months after this, and we’re recording this in April of 2021. So, no matter where you are in time, Patti has a book that has just come out around when you’re listening. So, Patti, obviously, you are prolific, you get your work done. But I can’t wait to talk to you about Surviving Savannah too, because it’s got some really heavy research involved in it too. Before we go into the research world, how and when do you get your writing done? 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:31] I think we broke up just for a little in bit. Okay.

Patti Callahan: [00:13:33] I write in the morning.

Rachael Herron: [00:13:35] Okay, so, you’re a morning writer. 

Patti Callahan: [00:13:38] I’m a morning writer. So, when I first started writing, I, my kids were five, three and one. And so, the only time I could write was the morning, right. Or the middle of the night, and I’m not a middle of the night person. So, I would rise it on. I would write from before dawn, I would write from 4:30-6:30 in the morning. I don’t do that anymore. I think that’s crazy. But it was what I had, and so it began this morning routine, that, that is now what I do. So, I try to keep my mornings blocked off for the writing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:13] What is your morning routine look like nowadays? What is included in it? 

Patti Callahan: [00:14:18] Well, my kids are grown. They don’t live at home. Well, they did during the pandemic. That was actually kind of fun. I have one, one married with a baby and then two, one in graduate school and one in college. So, they were home. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:31] Oh, how fun.

Patti Callahan: [00:14:32] I know, but it, my routine looks like, I rise, I stumble to the coffee pot, I sit down and I immediately start. Sometimes on my better days, I do my morning pages, which is from the artist’s way. I’m a big believer in morning pages. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:48] I still do those every day, every day that I can. Yeah. 

Patti Callahan: [00:14:51] Yeah. I mean, and I can tell, can’t you tell when you’ve gone too long without doing them? 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:56] Absolutely.

Patti Callahan: [00:14:57] I can tell. I get a little ungrounded, I rush into my work and make mistakes. So, I try to take a little bit of time, even if it’s like not the full three pages, but half a page or, and then I try to dive into my work. I try to ignore the ding of the email and the, you know, the text messages and the to dos. And yet at the same time, the earlier I get up, the better I can do that. And then I look up, and the day is, the rest of the world is going. So, I try my best to do it that way. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:32] I love that. That is also my perfect way to do it. Although, sometimes it gets, 

Patti Callahan: [00:15:37] Harder and harder

Rachael Herron: [00:15:38] You know, if you glance at an email once, you’re, especially around release, when you’re doing all the things, I’ve got a release in two weeks as we speak.

Patti Callahan: [00:15:47] Which one comes out in two weeks? Hush Little Baby?

Rachael Herron: [00:15:49] Hush Little Baby. Yeah. I just got the poster in the mail today, actually. So,

Patti Callahan: [00:15:53] It looks fantastic. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:54] Thank you. 

Patti Callahan: [00:15:55] Yes. And during release, I didn’t even try and write. I mean, I’m gentle with myself. If the two weeks before the week during, you know, if I can get to it for a couple minutes and just touch base with it and say, hello, honey. I’m here. I’m not leaving you. Right?

Rachael Herron: [00:16:11] I’ll be back. 

Patti Callahan: [00:16:12] I’ll be back. I promise. Just like I tell my family, but yes, in a non-release world, that is my, the way I like to get it done. 

[Read more…] about Ep. 248: Patti Callahan on How to Know What Your Characters Want

Ep. 247: Amy E. Reichert on Writers and Procrastination

Amy E. Reichert is an author, wife, mom, Wisconsinite, amateur chef, and cider enthusiast. She earned her MA in English Literature and serves on her library’s board of directors. She’s a member of Tall Poppy Writers. THE KINDRED SPIRITS SUPPER CLUB is her most recent novel. 

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

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers!

Transcript:

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

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #247 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. So thrilled you’re here today with me as I’m speaking to Amy Reichert about one of our favorite topics of all time, procrastination. I have this working theory and I bet you subscribed to it too. That writers are better procrastinators than most normal human people. There is something about writing. Well, I know what it is. There’s something about writing that makes us procrastinate because it is painful, because it is never as easy and as fun as say, takin’ a walk to the local ice cream parlor, is it requires thought and effort and an angst and low levels of pain, sometimes high levels of pain.

[00:01:08] Of course we become expert procrastinators. There are exceptions. You may be, one of those people who actually gets their work done early every time. I really liked to listen to Adam Grant’s podcast, which forgotten what it’s called but it’s really good. And he is a, he calls himself a pre-crastinator. He loves to get an assignment and start working on it that very day. But the majority of us are not that, we are procrastinators. So, I know you’ll enjoy the episode. Very quickly what it’s going on around here? Well, we’re on the grand adventure. We’re still in the same Airbnb where I was last week. We move this next week out on Sunday, this coming Sunday, we’re going to have our going away party, which I’m kind of sick about. Honestly, I’m so nervous. I don’t like goodbyes at all. I, as a recovering addict, I have made my whole life about avoiding pain, and throwing yourself a goodbye party as you leave the country so that you can say goodbye to the people who are most beloved to you really sucks. 

[00:02:21] However, I do think a lot about discomfort and living with it and thriving with it. I think we have to, as writers, we have to get comfortable being uncomfortable because writing is discomfort. Writing is resistance, is the discomfort that we feel. And we must be able to sit down with that discomfort and just do the work. So I’m thinking a lot about that as I think about this party coming up, I’m walking toward it with as much of an open-heart as I can. Understanding, and I’m going to cry a lot that day and I hate crying, and I’m getting to better and better at doing it. I’m going to walk forward knowing that it is going to hurt and that, that is part of life. And that I want to see these people and I want to be around them. And I want to tell them that I love them. So, that’s, what’s coming up for me this weekend. I am being saved. My ass is being saved by Pomodoro’s. I mentioned this on Twitter yesterday, but in the busiest times of my life, when everything is all chaos, Pomodoro’s always come to my rescue. I- Pomodoro’s, if you don’t know what they are, it is just a technique of writing in bursts; a traditional Pomodoro is 25 minutes working for 25 minutes and then taking five minutes to do something else.

[00:03:46] Usually it is prescribed to do something that does not checking your email or your Twitter or something that has a lot of open loops. You want to do some closed loop stuff on that five-minute break, go get yourself another glass of water. Go to the bathroom, get a snack. Do something that won’t completely hijack you and your brain and for me on a normal and in a normal life, 25 minutes is an irritating time. Amount of time to get stopped in. And I prefer to work in 45 minute chunks or hour chunks, but on these chaotic days where I know that I wouldn’t get any writing done, I have been setting my goal of a bare minimum of two to four Pomodoro’s because you know what? I cannot write today. I will absolutely not write today. There’s no way I’m going to write today. But, could I write for 25 minutes? Okay, fine, fine. Turn on the Pomodoro timer. And for me on Mac, I like to use the Be Focused app, I have the paid version of Be Focused and it works well for me. 

[00:04:46] So I just turn it on and I do 25 minutes and after 25 minutes, oh suddenly that time is up. It didn’t take that long. Take a little break. I guess I could do another one. So I do another one and that has been saving me. That is the only way I’m getting work done. So I mention it just in case. I know we’ve been talking about it a couple of times on the podcast. Recently here, because I’ve heard from people hello, Eliza, who have heard about it and have tried it and I’ve loved it. So I’m saying it again to reiterate. If you’re not getting your work done, try to get some smaller chunks of work done. One of my students is writing in 12 minute bursts because that is her. And then another one is doing 17 minute bursts because that is the least amount of time that feels like they can actually get a number of words that would make them feel like they have a little bit of success. So they’re doing that. What is your minimum viable product? Have you decided that, have you tried it, have you played with it? I want to know. So come find me. If you’re not on my email newsletter list, you should be, I’m going to ask you to subscribe to it. And I’m going to put it in the little add read in the middle today. Join my email list. That is important. I promise you, I’m going to send one out really soon. Maybe I’ll use a Pomodoro to write one really quickly to get it out because I have not done that in a while. But everything else is going a pace. Very excited. We will be in the air in two and a half weeks. And, I’ll just keep talking to you from New Zealand, tell you how it’s going there. So my friends happy writing to you. Get some work done. Come to find me online and tell me how it’s going. And now please interview this enjoy, how about enjoy this interview with Amy? Happy writing everybody. 

[00:06:30] Hey, you’re a writer. Did you know that I send out a free weekly email of writing encouragement? Go sign up for it at www.rachaelherron.com/write and you’ll also get my Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use today to get some of your own writing done. Okay, now onto the interview. 

Rachael Herron: [00:06:30] All right. Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show, Amy E. Reichert. Hello, Amy! 

Amy E. Reichert: [00:06:52] Hello, Rachael. Thank you for having me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:06:54] It is a pleasure to have you, let me give you a little introduction and then we’re going to jump in talking about all things writing. Amy E. Reichert is an author, wife, mom, Wisconsinite, amateur chef, and cider enthusiast. She earned her MA in English Literature and serves on her library’s board of directors. I love that. That’s sexy. 

Amy E. Reichert: [00:07:13] Thank you.

Rachael Herron: [00:07:14] It really is. She’s a member of it really is library’s board of directors. Wow. She’s a member of the tall copywriters and THE KINDRED SPIRITS SUPPER CLUB is her most recent novel. So congratulations on that. The covers amazing

Amy E. Reichert: [00:07:27] Thank you! I have it right here. 

Rachael Herron: [00:07:30] It’s, look at that beautiful! That is- Oh my gosh!

Amy E. Reichert: [00:07:32] It looks really good on the screen. 

Rachael Herron: [00:07:35] It looks amazing. I was just actually looking at it a minute ago, thinking like you won a cover lottery for that one. Good job! 

Amy E. Reichert: [00:07:41] Thank you. Well, I had nothing to do with it. I just

Rachael Herron: [00:07:47] I know, but it’s really nice when we do hit that lottery and we’re like, yeah. Thanks. So tell us about your writing process. How do you get your books done with all of this other stuff? You mentioned that the kids are going to be walking in the door any minute. 

Amy E. Reichert: [00:07:59] Yes. 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:00] They’re back in school? What does it look like? 

Amy E. Reichert: [00:08:02] They are back- they’ve been in school the whole year. They, it was a hybrid situation where we were so, like if there was a contact tracing situation, they’d be at home for a couple of weeks and then they’d go back.

Rachael Herron: [00:08:15] It sounds smart

Amy E. Reichert: [00:08:17] It was really, really well done. They’ve been wearing masks, they have spacing. They know you have to sit in the exact same spot so that if there is someone who’s, who hasn’t, you know who they were in contact with. So it’s been really, they’ve kept it open. And I think that was a big win for our school district. 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:34] Probably a win for your writing as well. 

Amy E. Reichert: [00:08:36] Yeah, I can procrastinate and under the best of circumstances

Rachael Herron: [00:08:42] under any circumstances, if you’re like me. Yeah.

Amy E. Reichert: [00:08:44] Yeah. I’m really, really good at that. That’s my super power. Sadly, most that, like, I can get away with doing that with cleaning. Cause eventually, somehow I can get things off of the list. Someone else will just do it, that doesn’t work with writing. No one else, there aren’t little elves that come in and do the writing for me. So at some point I do have to do it.

[Read more…] about Ep. 247: Amy E. Reichert on Writers and Procrastination

Ep. 246: Why It’s Essential to Be Okay with Writing CRAP!

In this bonus miniepisode, Rachael talks about how to get better about being okay writing truly crappy first drafts. Also, she talks about marketing from a trad perspective, as well as marketing memoir when your platform might be a little wobbly! 

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers!

Transcript:

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

[00:00:16] Hello writers! Welcome to episode #246 of “How Do You Write? And this is a bonus mini episode brought to you by the patrons who support me at $5 a month or up. I get to ask, act as your coach and you get to send me questions. And then I get to feel a little bit guilty when it takes me a long time to do the mini episodes, but I do answer every question eventually. So, here we are, let’s jump into some of these awesome questions and I have to tell you that answering these, just makes me really happy. It makes me really happy to have this honest to God back and forth conversation with you, about the things that really matter to you. So, thank you to every patron at every level, including the ones who are at this level. 

[00:01:04] So, let’s start. Darren first asks. Let’s see, preamble, when I signed up for your newsletter of encouragement, which I love to pieces, you asked the question that I replied and answered. To paraphrase, what is the thing keeping you from the page? To which I replied, that I am not very good, and I know it. You graciously sent a response, which I did not expect that said, and again, I paraphrase, then write badly on purpose. I’ve tried and failed. My question for the mini coach: How do I put aside my ego that wants to write good words, even if my ability sticks out its tongue at the notion and just write crap on purpose? It feels counterintuitive. I mean, how are you supposed to improve if you’re intentionally writing crap? I heart your podcasts. I heart your spirit. I hope things continue to progress for you in your trek to New Zealand. Stay awesome, because that’s exactly who you are. Thank you for your time. 

[00:02:05] I think you’re awesome, Darren. Thank you for your patience and me getting back to this. I love this question because I lived in this question for at least 10 years, maybe more. I knew that everybody was telling me to write crap badly on purpose and move forward so that then later I could fix it. But in my heart, head and soul, my true deepest part of my soul, and this is hard to confess, but I’ve confessed it before on the podcast. I’m going to do it again. I really believed, that at some point, I would be a good enough writer that I wouldn’t have to that. I really, truly believed that the great writers that I admired, even their first drafts, were pretty damn good. I truly thought that on a cellular level. I even thought that, okay, well, if everybody else’s first drafts are crap, then I need to be the exception. And I will someday, if I try hard enough and I read all the books and I, and I keep trying to up my craft, even though I wasn’t writing very much. 

[00:03:21] Someday I’ll be good enough that I won’t have to deal with the pain, the essential pain and agony of putting words on the page that just are not up to standard. And I really believe that I held this belief on a cellular level until about two years ago, maybe. It was when I realized that that’s actually what I was saying to myself deep inside my soul. I was expecting myself someday to get good enough that I wouldn’t have to deal with that. Let’s just, Rachael. Rachael, that was bullshit. Oh my God. Nobody, nobody, nobody sits down and writes well, what they want to write. What happens is we sit down, we write badly, but we think we want to write, and then that changes too. When what we are actually meant to write is something else that we only get to by writing crap and leaving it behind. And so, I really, really understand what you’re saying, Darren. I have 100% been there. Your question is how do I put aside my ego that wants to write good words? For me, let’s talk about this in practical, usable ways. For me, the best thing that ever happened to me was doing NaNoWriMo. Because you write 1,667 words a day, every day for 30 days, or you write more and then less or whatever you need to do. But if you’re writing 16, almost 1700 words a day, sure, the next day you can sit down and try to make them better. You know, try to edit, revise a little bit or edit and revise after you write those words on the first day. But the next day you still have to get those 1700 words. And the third day you got to get those 17 words and the fourth day, and after a while, you’re so tired. You cannot, you don’t have time to write the words and then make them as good as you want them to be. At some point, you have to wave the white flag of surrender and just keep moving forward every day, making those 1700 words and you have to leave them behind because you just don’t have time to fix them.

[00:05:29] That is the way I learned how to do it technically is I gave myself a big enough challenge, and for me it was 1700 words a day. Yours may look different, but I gave myself a big enough challenge that the only way I could keep up with this challenge was to write words and then stop writing for the day because my brain was empty. My brain was done and tired by that point. And what that necessarily produced was a whole whack of words that I had to leave behind me on the page to fix later. Your real existential base of your question though is, how the hell am I supposed to get better if I’m just writing badly? How do I get better? 2 answers to that. Number one, it just happens. The more we write, the better we get, the more we write, the better we get, even when we’re writing crap. And number two, you actually get better measurably and you can feel it when you go back to revise that mountain. That trash mountain of a first draft, because you have learned, you have, number one, you’ve learned from the words that you wrote. You’ve learned a little bit about what the book wants to be, what these characters want to be. They’re not what you thought they would be, and they are not as good as you thought you could do on a first draft. They disappoint you, they let you down. And that is part of writing. Our writing will always disappoint us.

[00:06:55] Our writing will always let us down. That is part of writing and we just keep showing up every day and we get used to the feeling of being let down by our writing. However, when we go back to revise, we have learned from doing the writing and we learn, literally, we literally learn from reading the words we left behind and we think, well, that just sounds awful. What a stupid sentence. I must be an imbecile to even think I could try this. And then somehow we stay at the page and we fixed that one sentence. We make it a little bit better or we get rid of it entirely. And then we go to the next sentence and it’s just as bad. And we fixed that. And in fixing it, we learned a little something. And then by the time we get to the third sentence and I’m breaking this down very simply, but the building blocks are true and reliable. By the time we get to that third sentence, you are a little bit smarter than you were when you sat down that morning to work on your work. And that third sentence, you’re gonna revise in a different way, in a way that you wouldn’t have been able to. Had you not started revising this and had you not written all this first draft.

[Read more…] about Ep. 246: Why It’s Essential to Be Okay with Writing CRAP!

Ep. 245: Karen White on How to Leave Yourself Clues In Your Writing

Karen White is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty-five novels, including the Tradd Street series, Dreams of Falling, The Night the Lights Went Out, Flight Patterns, The Sound of Glass, A Long Time Gone, and The Time Between. She is the coauthor of multiple bookswith New York Times bestselling authors Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig. She grew up in London but now lives with her husband and two dogs near Atlanta, Georgia. The Last Night in London is her most recent release. 

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

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers!

Transcript:

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

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #245 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron, thrilled that you are here with me today. Today on the show, we are talking to Karen White on how to leave yourself clues along the way as you are writing. This is one of those things that I love to talk about to think about. It was kind of a revelation when I started writing that you could be leaving yourself clues along the way. Sometimes we know it, sometimes we don’t know it. So, stick around for the conversation. You might hear in my voice, that it sounds a little bit different. Of course it does. It’s going to sound different for a long time. 

[00:00:52] Right now, I’m coming to you from an Airbnb in Tamasca, Oakland, and it’s a lovely little Airbnb. It’s fantastic. It has two bedrooms, which is great because then my wife gets one bedroom for all of her stuff. She likes to lay her suitcases out and get everything out, whereas I like to be a little bit more compact and I’ve decided that maybe two bedrooms is the way to go. This Airbnb is particularly nice because I’m at a desk. I have a whole desk. Also, it has a front little patio and a veranda, which is kind of surrounded by this enormous fig tree and, what is the other one? Some kind of a plum tree and a lemon and it’s on the second story and it really feels kind of tropical and wonderful to sit, just surrounded by greenery on this big, long veranda, with a beautiful table. So as soon as I finish recording this, I have decided I’m going to go out there and do a little bit of reading. Because, I don’t think any of us take enough time to read on the veranda, do we? 

[00:01:56] One of the things that broke my heart a little bit about leaving our house, which we did on Monday, and Tuesday, two days ago, is that at the very last minute one of the very last things I gave away on Craigslist was our hammock. And I am a hammock girl. I love a hammock. I love to be in a hammock. I love to be reading, well, the number one thing I like to do in a hammock is read. The number two thing I like to do is do fall asleep while reading. And it is not one of those things that I prioritize. And I only did it once this year in 2021 since taking the hammock fabric part out and hanging it up for the season. I did it once and maybe only for 20 minutes and I was in a hurry and I was doing other things around the house and getting things ready. I regret that and I want more time outside with a book, chillaxin. So, I am thinking about prioritizing things.

[00:02:55] For the last four months and approximately one day, I prioritized moving. I also prioritized working and working, work is something that I am good by now at prioritizing, even when it doesn’t feel good, I just do it. That’s fine. But we decided to move and four months and one day later, we had sold the house and we’re completely out on Tuesday. We left the keys, we left a bottle of champagne for the new owners. You could always see those kinds of things if you follow me on Instagram @RachaelHerron. And it was really emotional, you know, you guys have been with me on this journey. A lot of you have, as we get ready to go and actually locking the door with the keys that we’re no longer at, why am I gonna just cry thinking about it, with the keys that were no longer ours. Leaving the keys inside our residence that we no longer own. But there’s this also real childish reaction that is like, oh my God, I can’t believe we never burned down the house. I can’t believe we didn’t destroy things while we were living there for 15 years. We were adults enough to do this, to have a house, and then to sell it and to make a little bit of money and to walk away happy and healthy. Those walls of that house saw so much happiness and a lot of grief, of course, and lots of squabbling of, you know, it’s all a lot of life. But more than anything else, I think it’s our happiness and I just hope that the people who bought it from us have half that much happiness and they’ll be set. 

[00:04:34] So, that was a big emotional thing that happened this week. And I’ve been talking to classes, my two classes that I’m teaching right now and thinking again about prioritizing because in the 90-day cycle that I teach, we are at about week nine, and this is where enthusiasm flags regularly. This is just where it drops off. And I just wanted to mention this real briefly that our enthusiasm for doing our writing will always flag. It will always fail. We will read a fantastic book on writing or we’ll read a fantastic novel or memoir, and we will be so inspired to write and to create that space where we are writers and we are actively doing our work. And then that might last for a few weeks, even a few months, sometimes. And then life gets in the way. We constantly have to reprioritize our writing. So, right. I wonder if you can hear that breeze that’s coming through the window, right on the microphone. It’s really a gorgeous day and the wind is just moving through the space. But I want you to ask yourself, where are you in terms of prioritizing your writing? Most writers, you’ve heard me say this before, and I’ll say it again many times in my life. Most writers don’t write, especially first drafts, more than an hour or two a day. More than an hour or two of first draft writing tends to exhaust the brain.

[00:06:00] It has been proven that deep work, even by people with high levels of mastery, can’t usually maintain that kind of deep mental thought work more than three or four hours max. So, it doesn’t take long to do your life’s work. It’s just that you have to figure out where you’re going to fit that hour or two into your day, into your busy life, into your busy schedule. So, when was the last time you sat down and said, okay, I’m going to get one hour a day, four days a week on my book and then make it happen? Put it on the calendar, actually do it rather than just hoping you will find a time to do it. You’re never going to find a time to do it, my friend. It doesn’t happen. We are occasionally moved to do work without planning it, but it is not a reliable way to get your work, your book or books done. So just a reminder, if writing has slipped away from you a little bit, it is time to reprioritize, fit it into your schedule. 

[00:07:05] Dude, I am in a stranger’s apartment in a place I’ve never been and still, I know the bare minimum of what I need to do to progress on the project, which I am working with right now. And I show up and do it. And it doesn’t matter how much you have to do in a day. You are never going to be less busy than you are right now, never. We always think we are. But you can’t wait until the job gets easier or until the kids leave the house or until the kids go back to preschool. You gotta find those 10 minutes, those 15 minutes, I’m being very prescriptive and bossy right now.  But I think that this is just something I’m hearing a lot from other people, the difficulty in finding the time in their day. I think that there’s a way that we speak about that that is not helpful. We talk about finding the time in our day. We don’t find the time in our day, every once in a while, you can find time in your day. But mostly honestly, my days are booked am-pm, hour by hour. I have to make time. I have to sink my teeth into the day and chew it out of the day. There’s blood and sinew left behind after I create and force myself to find the time where I write. And then I show up and I do a crappy job and it feels a little bit uncomfortable and I’m used to that discomfort and I show up the next day and I either write a more first draft crappy words, or I fix the ones from the day before, if that’s where I’m at in my process. 

[00:08:35] Where are you at in your process? Where do you need to find that time? Where do you need to make that commitment to yourself? And again, you’re gonna make that commitment and you’re going to keep it for awhile and then you’re going to fail. And that is the writers’ life. And then you realize, oh, I failed again, need to reprioritize. It’s just like in meditation, the magic is in getting distracted and bringing your thought, your thoughts back to what you were trying to focus on, your breath or a candle flavor, whatever it is you’re trying to do. The magic is in the distraction. The magic of keeping coming back, back to writing is noticing when you haven’t been writing and bring yourself back, gently and with love. And sometimes with sharp teeth. You can have gentleness and love and sharp teeth at the same time. As long as you are simply biting yourself, don’t bite anybody else. It’s not, it’s not hygienic or sanitary. 

[00:09:30] So, those are my words to you today. And I don’t know, I’m just feeling pretty freaking good that we did it, that we got out. I can’t keep saying that I hope the hardest part is over, of moving. I hope the hardest part is over. We both have two suitcases here and a backpack. That’s what we own. And, I, now we just have to move. Now, we just have to move from place to place. We’re going to be moving around Oakland a little bit. We’re going to be going to Idaho and then down south to LA to see family and friends before we leave. And then in 23 days from today, we’re on a plane to our new life and I am very excited about it. Maybe next week, I’ll try to remember to talk about fear setting, which is something that I did recently, and it really helped me become truly excited about. I’m going to make myself a note to talk about that.  Also, if you’re waiting for a mini episode, because you asked me a question, because you’re at that $5 a month level on Patreon and haven’t answered it yet, I am very sorry. Every single day, I’m trying. I have a note, must do the bonus mini episode and I haven’t done it because I’ve been too busy. And then when I do collapse on the bed, I’m just scrolling through TikTok because I’m so tired. So, that is coming soon, I promise. And I’ll talk about fear setting next week, and I know that you’re going to enjoy this interview with Karen White. Please come find me on the internet, where I live, wherever that is, good by me, basically all the places. Leave me a note with how you are doing. 

[00:11:02] Oh, I got a really nice note from someone this week who said, I always hear you talk about your email list, but I was actually sitting at my desk this time. So, I rolled over and I typed in the URL and I joined your mailing list and y’all. My writers email list, haven’t sent any new ones out for a while because I’ve been busy, but there’s one already drafted on my desktop. I’m going to stop making excuses. But my auto-responder sequence is I think it’s probably seven or eight emails long, and it is juicy goodness of gifts. Basically, I’m giving you of things I have learned the hard way from writing. It’s all free stuff. Just sign up and get it. It’s letters of encouragement. That’s all it is. So, if you’re sitting at a place where you could reach your phone or at a computer, type in RachaelHerron.com/Write and just sign up for my email newsletter.  Right now, why don’t you do it? Rachel Herron, Rachael spelled funny, R A C H A E L H E R R O N.com/write. Sign yourself up for that. The thing I love from that the most is that in that first email, I ask and I want to hear from you, what you are struggling with. I read every letter and I respond to every letter because you matter to me. So, I would love to hear from you. I would love for you to sign up and enter that correspondence with me. It’s, I always complain about my email backlog and email is the bane of my existence, except for hearing from writers. That is the joy of my existence. So please come get some email into my inbox from writers. All right, I’m feeling a little silly and a little punchy, and I’m going to go sit on a veranda and read a book. I’m reading The Echo Wife. It’s a trip right now. And I’m really enjoying it so I can’t wait to do that, right the heck now. Enjoy the interview and get some writing, reprioritize your time, my friends. And then tell me about it. All right, goodbye. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:57] Okay. Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show today, Karen White. Hello, Karen. Welcome!

Karen White: [00:13:03] Hi, Rachael. Thanks for having me today. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:05] I’m thrilled to have you. Let me give you a little introduction. Karen White is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty-five novels, including the Tradd Street series, Dreams of Falling, The Night the Lights Went Out, Flight Patterns, The Sound of Glass, I love that title, A Long Time Gone, and The Time Between. She is the coauthor of multiple books with New York Times bestselling authors Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig. She grew up in London but now lives with her husband and two dogs near Atlanta, Georgia. And the Last Night in London is her most recent release. And we were just saying that you might hear or see some of our dogs as you’re listening or watching this. So, welcome, welcome! Your new book is so exciting and I’m so thrilled to be able to talk to you about it.

Karen White: [00:13:50] Thank you.

Rachael Herron: [00:13:51] This show is for writers, about writers and it is about the writing process. And you’re so prolific. I can’t wait to talk to you about it. 

Karen White: [00:14:01] I’m sorry about that

Rachael Herron: [00:14:02] No, I know I am too. I love talking to prolific writers, but I would love to know how you, how do you do it? How do you get it done?

Karen White: [00:14:10] I honestly, I don’t know. When I, you could see my desk right now. I mean, I have been struggling the last few months, really the last couple years, just because, you know, I have, it was easier when my kids were younger and lived at home. It was easier to organize my days. And then the more popular you become, you know, the more demands on your time. I’ve also inherited my older parents, which is a full-time job. And it’s not as regulated as when, you know, I knew that when I dropped my kids off at school, I would have X amount of time before I would have to go pick them up. And even after I picked them up, I could bring my laptop and take them to the, you know, horseback riding or whatever. And so, it was just very, very diligent. And now I’m just, you know, I’m plus the social media that, you know, social media is just exploding and I’m expected to spend a lot of time on social media and I didn’t have that before. So, it was a lot easier to stay focused, to not be constantly, you know, texted or whatever. I mean, when my kids were growing up, I had my phone, I would just leave it in the car because I just wanted for emergencies or to, yep, there’s your doggy.

Rachael Herron: [00:15:22] There’s my dog coming out.

Karen White: [00:15:24] You know, so, I think it’s just getting harder and harder because of that. Not just because of my life, but also because of the world and how, you know, authors now are expected to be very accessible. And so it, I don’t know how I’m doing it anymore. I will tell you one thing, I have like little to no downtime, so it’s hard. But I’m really working to change that, but, I, I’m at a good holding pattern right now. I’m trying to be very structured with my days, you know, but it’s hard. It’s hard. So I just do what I have to do. I write whenever I can, whenever I’m not doing anything else.

Rachael Herron: [00:16:09] So you’re not strictly a morning writer or an afternoon writer, but it fits it around everything else.

Karen White: [00:16:15] Right. I try to be a morning writer. You know, I do get up an hour early before the dogs and my husband. Cause that is my best time. And I don’t turn on my phone. I don’t look at social media. I don’t do anything, but sit at my computer. And even if it’s not the best writing I can do, at least I’ve got something. So, when I go back to it during the little snatches of time to the rest of the day, I at least have got a flow going and I know kind of where I’m heading with the scene or whatever. And that really helped because I love morning writing and, yeah, the rest of my life would go away. I could really, you know, just sit down for a few hours and you know, and get it done. But I even not that long ago, I remember just sitting when I was on deadline and just locking myself in my office and working and writing and it was joyous. And now it’s like, oh my gosh, I’ve got to get up and I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to pay these bills for my dad. And I, sorry and the squeaking. 

[Read more…] about Ep. 245: Karen White on How to Leave Yourself Clues In Your Writing

Ep. 244: Sanjena Sathian on How to Make Every Word Count

A Paul and Daisy Soros fellow, Sanjena Sathian is a 2019 graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She has worked as a reporter in Mumbai and San Francisco, with nonfiction bylines for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Food & Wine, The Boston Globe, and The San Francisco Chronicle. Gold Diggers is her debut novel. 

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

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers!

Transcript:

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

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #244 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. And today, I am talking to Sanjena Sathian about how to make every word count when you’re writing in your book, in your work, in your world. It was a delight to talk to her and you are going to love the interview, so stick around for that. What is going on around here? Well, my friends, I just realized right before I pushed record that this is the last time you’ll see me in this spot. If you watch on the YouTube, but most people don’t. Most people listen on the podcast. So just know that right now, I am in Oakland, on a little street in east Oakland, that is a fantastic little, cul-de-sac, very, very family oriented. We know all of our neighbors. We have loved living here. Behind the house is a creek, there’s huge trees back there, eucalyptus and some terrible Acacia. On the other side of the trees is the high school and just a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting on the porch and could hear the way I always love to hear. I could hear the kids graduating and having their names called out and thank God they got to do a little bit of something in person this year. So that was nice. And I don’t know where I’m going to be recording this next week. Actually I do. I’ll still be in Oakland. I’ll be in an Airbnb. Don’t know what it looks like. It’ll be fine. 

[00:01:41] But it’s Thursday, June 24th, as I record this and this weekend, we’re out. We are out, we are loading the pallets we’re loading our boxes onto a pallet, which will be picked up by the shipping company and put onto a big boat. The staged furniture will be getting picked up on Monday. Everything we own needs to fit in our two suitcases. And on Monday, we will trundle our stuff out the front door and leave it locked behind us for the last time. And I’m really honestly right now feeling pretty okay with that. I feel ready. It feels like we have been gearing up for this for a long time, even though it’s only been about four months that we, since we have actually made the decision to move and sold the house and did all this stuff. But I am ready and ready for the motion. Ready, I’m ready to live out of a suitcase. I’m pretty stoked to live out of a suitcase, honestly. Packing is one of my favorite things. I don’t get to pack all the time. So that is wonderful. That’s happening. 

[00:02:42] What else is going on? Oh, I wanted to share with you, let me bring it up here, an amazing email that I got from my friend, Mariah. You have heard me talk about Mariah before. She is an amazing, beautiful writer and she’s also a friend. We go back a long time, from the knitting world. And she was a good friend of a friend of mine and that’s how I think we got him introduced Mariah. Is that right, through Carrie? Anyway, I have worked with Mariah and I have worked with Mariah because Mariah came to me when I went full-time as a writer, maybe a little bit before I went full-time and she said, you should coach writing. And I said, I don’t, I don’t know about that. And she said, you should coach me. And I said, well, okay. So I kind of practiced on Mariah. And I will always be grateful to her for allowing me to do that because what Mariah did it was, she showed me that I freaking love it.

[00:03:37] I love being a book coach. It is fantastic and listen to this letter that she sent me. This is, this made my day, this literally brought tears to my eyes. So, I’m just going to summarize a little bit. She sent her book off to her editor for the second round of structural comments. So that’s awesome. Huge progress for celebrating that. But this is something a little bit different here. So, this is what she says: “There’s something else I need to tell you about yesterday before I made the final, final touches for now, I sent a snippet from my epilogue to my critique partner. She had some good stern notes about what wasn’t working in the snippet and it wasn’t on a language level. This was deep stuff about the relationship between my guys.” “As I said to her,” and this is now Mariah talking to her critique partner: “A few years back, they might’ve sent me into a spiral of ‘I’ll check the whole book. Can’t write for toffee.’ And now I thought, right, good points. Let me try and see whether this works or this maybe? No, that’s better. And I went ahead and found some relevant moments in the story where I could add new details and poof! Made it work, at least temporarily. Won’t upset me at all, if it turns out if it wasn’t the correct solution, I’ve got the tools now to try different approaches.” And then she says she owes it all to me, dearest Rachael, which is not true, Mariah, you owe it all to yourself. She goes on to say: “You’ve given me those tools and the confidence to apply them. Practicing it over and over has helped too, of course. But, where before, I got so very, very nervous reading about the endless editing rounds that you went through with your agent, I now think that yes, I could do that. A muscle has been built. Not saying that muscle will work forever and endlessly, but at the moment, I feel that, dare I say it, I actually like editing.” My life is complete, honestly. 

[00:05:36] This feeling that people get when they understand their best process for revision, which is not the same as my best process, everybody has their own best processes, but when they learn their best processes for revision and they have the tools, it really is like a muscle that we can continue to use. I always say that first drafts, you never know what you’re going to get. You cannot prepare for a first draft. A first draft might come to you super, super easily, or it might be the worst thing you’ve ever experienced in your writing life. But revision is reliable. It’s just a set of tools. You pick them up, you put them down, you use what tools work for you the best and the, and your muscles get stronger to use these tools better. And Mariah, you just made my whole life by sending me this. So, thank you, thank you, thank you for saying that. Yes. Revision is where it’s at. 

[00:06:31] Okay. Another little business thing I would like to do that I haven’t done for a while is thank new Patrons. You can always become a patron of the show over at patreon.com/Rachael. And I send out really kick ass essays every month. And I got to start thinking about writing this month’s essay. Right now, I’m using the Patreon essays to write about this move of moving around the world. And I’m writing the memoir that the book will become, so you’re getting the first draft. You’re kind of getting 1.5 draft, like it’s a first draft, but I have cleaned it up for grammar, but I don’t know if it’ll actually make it into the book because I’m writing a first draft. First drafts teach you what a book wants to be. So that’s what’s happening over Patreon and these are the new patrons. Thank you, thank you so much to April Smith and Lisa Belkin and Bill who edited his pledge. Thanks Bill. You know, I love you. No, Bill is amazing. Thanks Bill. Sandy Miranda, Robinet is new, Julia Borghini, hello, Julia. Deborah Hart and, Amanda Schiller and Caressa Swanson. Thank you, Carissa and Lisa Page. 

[00:07:40] Thank you, thank you all of you, whether you are a patron now, whether you have been one in the past, whether you want to be one in the future, seriously. Those small amounts really add up into something that allows me to spend my time at the desk and do this work for you, for myself. You’re truly a patron of the arts and that is really freaking cool. So thank you very much. I think I have caught you up on all the most exciting things. Oh, I will say that I finished recording the audio book of Life in Stitches this week. And I got the copy edit out to my copy editor, who you will be hearing from on a future episode, you’re going to, with Katrina, you’re going to love that episode. But I realized that I have this kind of little break built in right now, because as I was doing, I did this a little bit in the wrong order, so I will tell you about it really quickly. I revised a Life in Stitches. I added a few essays to it. And then I already had the copy-edited manuscript because it’s a rerelease of a book I got the rights back to 10 years later. So, I have a very clean draft. And I added to that, I revised it a little bit. I added the essays to it, and then I sent that off to my copy editor because I will have introduced new errors and the new essays absolutely need probably a lot of cleanup copy-edit wise. 

[00:09:00] And then, I used my document to create the book, to record the audio book. And then I realized that all these changes that I’m making as I’m recording, because this sounds a little bit better, or I just used that word, I don’t want to use that word again. I’ll change it. I realized that that’s not the version that my copy editor is working on. So, I can’t do the edits on the audio book until I am looking at the copy-edited version from Katrina in front of me. And I can change those few little words here and there that I, that I moved. So, I can’t even edit the audio book. I just got to kind of sit around and work on some other projects, which is really nice, really, really nice. I’m trying to get faster after memoir of the workbook off of my desk. I’ve been working on that for a while. I’ve had the interior formatted workbook back for a while, and I just have had no time to sit and figure out the changes. Cause it looks great, but I do want some things different so I can give it back to the designer. So work is going on even while we’re moving. I feel like I have talked enough. Let’s jump into the interview. Shall we? I hope that you are getting some of your work done and please, wherever I am on the internet, come and tell me about how it’s going for you. I always love to hear. All right, my friends, happy writing.

[00:10:19] Hey, you’re a writer. Did you know that I send out a free weekly email of writing encouragement? Go sign up for it at www.rachaelherron.com/write and you’ll also get my Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use today to get some of your own writing done. Okay, now onto the interview.

Rachael Herron: [00:10:37] I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show Sanjena Sathian. Hello, Sanjena!

Sanjena Sathian: [00:10:41] Hi, thank you for having me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:43] Welcome. Welcome. Let me give you a little bit of an introduction. A Paul and Daisy Soros fellow, Sanjena Sathian is a 2019 graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She has worked as a reporter in Mumbai and San Francisco, with nonfiction bylines for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Food & Wine, The Boston Globe, and The San Francisco Chronicle. Gold Diggers is her debut novel, and Sanjena, I loved it. 

Sanjena Sathian: [00:11:06] Thank you.

Rachael Herron: [00:11:07] It was everything that I wanted to read. It was, I’ve just had such good luck lately of diving into books that just lift up my heart and fill my writer’s spirit. So, I have been so excited to talk to you. Welcome, welcome. 

Sanjena Sathian: [00:11:23] Great to hear. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:24] This is a show for writers and we talk about, on the show, we talk about process and how we get the work done because, I think all writers are all curious about other writers’ processes. I would love to hear about yours. You get a lot done in different areas. How do you do it?

Sanjena Sathian: [00:11:39] Yeah. Yeah. I’m very excited to talk process and craft. I mean, a lot of it is regularity. I, you know, I had a full-time job for, sort of the first half of my twenties and it was, it was hard to write on top of that. So, I have like deep sympathy for everyone who’s trying and like, mad props if you’re trying to, it’s so hard. I was not the kind of person who could wake up at 5:00 AM before going to an office and get stuff done. Like I couldn’t function that way. So, I tried to write in the evenings when I had that job. And it was okay. A lot of what I did actually was kind of takeoff on weekends. And just like, I had a job where I basically was working like 80-90 hours a week. I had to be on six days a week. But, my one day off on the weekend, I just turned my phone off and I would drive, I lived in San Francisco at the time, I would drive across the golden gate bridge and get myself a hostel and like, point Reyes or just drive for the day. You know, I would walk in the morning, take a little solo hike and then come and literally sit in my car and work. I think that was less good for actually producing great work, but it was really good for cultivating like an inner space where I could write. Because I think that’s one of the things that’s so hard is keeping up your relationship with your own, like private writing self, when you have to exist in public as someone else. I did a lot of this work when I did eventually go to grad school. And I’m sure you talk about grad school, whether or not that’s the right choice and things like that. For me, it was the right choice because I had already taken some time in the real world. And that meant that I could appreciate what it was like for someone to say you’re only job is to write. I can make use of that.

Rachael Herron: [00:13:30] That is gorgeous. 

Sanjena Sathian: [00:13:32] Yeah, I can make use of that. And so, when I was writing this, I woke up, and kind of got to my writing desk as soon as possible. Sometimes I would work out before I wrote, other times I would do that afterward. And I would write, say from like 9:00, 10:00 AM until about somewhere between 1:00 and 3:00 PM. And I tried to write a thousand words a day when I was just getting out new stuff. I am a vomit drafter. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:57] Talk to us about that. I love that.

Sanjena Sathian: [00:13:59] Yes, so, yeah. It’s really easy for me to just spew work and really hard for it to actually be usable.

Rachael Herron: [00:14:06] That’s exactly me. Exactly. Yeah. 

Sanjena Sathian: [00:14:10] It’s, so producing can sometimes be hard. But the big thing I knew I would have to do is like write the world, explore the world, write the characters, be in them and with them. And then eventually I was going to have to add some shape. So, I would, you know, I would write for, you know, X amount of time, X number words per day. When I’m editing, which is where like the real work happens, then I can be at my desk from somewhere between like two and like 8 to 10 hours a day. So, it kind of depends. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:42] Isn’t it interesting, how revision for some, for me, and for a lot of people that I talk to, revision seems we can sit down and just do it more like a job. And it, and for me, it’s the most creative part, but it also feels more like a job whereas the first drafting is just body and soul exhausting for me. So, I think that something that is very underrated is people thinking about hostels. I live in Oakland, so, I routinely go to a point Reyes or to the pigeon point hostel, I don’t know if you ever went to that one. That is where, they’re cheap, people. And if you’re a sweet talker, a lot of hostels will close during the day. But if you’re a sweet talker and you say, well, I’m a writer and I would just love to stay on the couch and I’ll be out of the way, then they won’t kick you out. They’ll kick everybody else out. And then you have this house to yourself all day. So, in your life now, do you, is your life set up to support the writing all the time or do you kind of have to still go into that, the beautiful way that you said, having the place to center your writing? 

Sanjena Sathian: [00:15:42] Honestly, the pandemic really messed it up. As we were talking about before we started recording, you know, I was in New Zealand when the pandemic hit. I had a three-month teaching job there and I was supposed to go back to India, which is where I sort of lived on and off and I got locked out. So, yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:03] I heard about people that happened to, but I did read a bunch of people saying, well, if you’re going to be locked out, it might as well be in New Zealand. Did you feel that way or did you, were you just desperate to get home? 

Sanjena Sathian: [00:16:12] The problem was, I would have loved to stay, but I was just frankly concerned that something would happen to my family and I wouldn’t be able to get back. So, instead of staying the perfect utopia, I flew home to Georgia and, not exactly a utopia, especially not in the pandemic. But you know, my life was just a scramble like everyone else’s. Like a suitcase of mine was still in India. It’s still there. Like my, literally my life was just like in, it was in boxes for a while. But I found, in case anyone is considering this, it is very hard to write when you are living in your parents’ home.

Rachael Herron: [00:16:49] What is it, what did that look like living in your parents’ home? and trying to write. 

Sanjena Sathian: [00:16:53] I was in the bedroom that I, you know, had to like spend my teenage years in, which automatically meant I regressed.

Rachael Herron: [00:17:02] That makes me want to cry, just thinking about it.

Sanjena Sathian: [00:17:04] Yup. In some ways, it was cool. Cause my, so everyone kind of came back, my brother and his fiancée came and sheltered in Atlanta because they wanted to get out of New York. And so, like we had like a whole group of people there and like my brother’s an amazing cook, so I was cooked for. But there was something and this kind of gets back to that question of like your inner, private life. They were all working jobs, you know, like consultants and bankers and doctors and people who are like, like highly professional white collar. Like, they’re doing the jobs that like account in society and trying,

[Read more…] about Ep. 244: Sanjena Sathian on How to Make Every Word Count

Ep. 243: Emma Straub on How to Finish Your Book

Emma Straub is the New York Times-bestselling author of four novels, All Adults Here, Modern Lovers, The Vacationers and Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, and the short story collection Other People We Married. Her books have been published in twenty countries. She and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York.

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 #243 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. I am way thrilled that you are here today, as I’m talking to Emma Straub. Emma Straub is a blockbuster. She owns an incredible bookstore in New York and she wrote All Adults Here, which is a book that I absolutely loved. So, it’s going to be one of those episodes in which I covell and fangirl, and she’s such a beautiful writer and a beautiful person and I know that you are going to enjoy this interview. Oh my gosh, you can hear me stumbling. I didn’t even prepare notes of what I’m going to talk about because I am so tired. The house closed escrow. So we have sold the house and we’re moving to New Zealand. It’s really happening. I think I wasn’t willing to really believe it until the house sold. And we were so lucky that our house hit the market, sold and closed escrow in three weeks and six days. It did not even go to four weeks. It was all done and dusted. I’m still in the house. We’ve got another 10 days here in the house that we got back from the new owners. I’m sitting in a house that is not my own. It’s a very strange feeling when it’s been yours for 15 years and now it is not. And I was out there at this morning, watering, not my garden, before the heat of the day. It’s very strange. But that’s been really exciting. And so that was a couple of days ago that happened. So, I guess now we have to move to New Zealand. So, we’re doing that. 

[00:01:55] Let’s see, what else is going on around here? I am still somehow continuing to work and it’s going well. I am working on the revision of A Life in Stitches, adding a couple of essays and you might be able to hear that my voice is super tired. I am doing the audio book narration for it, which I am exceedingly excited about and it’s going great. The publisher never, I think I may have mentioned this last week, forgive me, but the publisher never did an audio book of this book, which was ridiculous. And it was something I was so irritated with them about because knitters and crafters listened to audio books before the rest of the world embraced the new audio revolution. The crafters had always been there and they always wanted this book in audio book. So now that I got the rights back, I get to do it. And now, that we’re in this house with empty closets, I took the closet furthest away from the street, I lined it with moving blankets, using this method that is really working well. And I will just say it here really quickly. I’m using command hooks to hang a cafe curtain rings with little hooks on them, with little, what are they called? Like pinchers. Clasps, and then kind of, I am connecting them to moving blankets. So everything is removable, which is important because it’s all fresh paint in that closet. But when I’m done, I just unhook the blankets, take off the command strip because those come off clean and then it’s like, I was never in there and I have this awesome audio booth set up. It sounds great. And I am truly enjoying the experience of reading this book. What I’m really enjoying is the experience of making this book. That was good. It was really good. I was proud of it, but I’m making it a little bit better and I get to use my voice to bring it to life. And that is just one of my favorite things to do. Y’all know that. 

[00:03:57] You all hear me extemporaneously and speaking too quickly and stumbling over my words. But when I get to do books and actual, really, really reading of what I’ve written, and that’s one of the things I love to do best.  I’m going to tell you a tiny, tiny little story. I was in college. I was not even in college, I’m in community college at this point because I couldn’t bear to leave my mama go to a four-year college yet. I wasn’t ready. So I went to this community college and I was taking English 1, you know, probably the very first thing. And we read in that a story that I’d read a million times before, Steinbeck’s Chrysanthemums and it’s a story that I love and this kind of bored professor, we were going to read it in class out loud and he were going to move around the room. And, you know, one person would read a couple of paragraphs and then the next one, he would move it and somebody else would read. Somebody read the first few paragraphs, I took over two paragraphs in, and then after I was done doing my part and I kind of paused to see if he wanted me to stop. He said, do you want to continue? And so, I read a couple more and then I remember this so clearly, I’m like, you know, 18, but he said to the class, he said, do you want her to continue? And they all, they said, I heard them like, do this noise. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe they were just saying that because they didn’t want to read out loud. But I loved reading that story out loud with emphasis, with passion, with emotion and when I was done, there was a silence and then they clapped and then afterwards a woman followed me outside and she said that it had made her cry. And I remember thinking, I’m reading words that I love and I’m putting my own expression into them. And how cool is that? And now, I get to do that in my own closet, in the back, reading essays that are important to me, reading fiction. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be ready to do that. But reading things, something that I wrote that I love that I’m passionate about. 

[00:06:05] So that’s been really, really fun and I’m getting a lot of work done on it. I’m hoping to finish it. I’m not hoping to finish it, I need to finish it by the end of next week. Because then we will be getting rid of everything in the house, including the stage furniture. There will be nothing in the closets including a recording studio. So I record this, I’m recording this on Thursday. By the time I talk to you next Thursday, I hope that I have it done and pushing it a little bit because I’m still continuing edits. I haven’t quite finished that either. So, I’m kind of editing and then recording and then editing and then recording and it’s fun. And I guess it’s giving me a place to put all this nervous energy that is coming out my pores. So, that’s, what’s going on around here. Let us jump into the interview with Emma Straub. I hope that you really enjoy it. Have as much as I enjoyed talking to her. She’s truly awesome. So, I wish you, my friends happy writing and we will talk soon. 

[00:07:03] Do you wonder why you’re not getting your creative work done? Do you make a plan to write and then fail to follow through? Again? Well, my sweet friend, maybe you’d get a lot out of my Patreon. Each month, I write an essay on living your creative life as a creative person, which is way different than living as a person who’ve been just Netflix 20 hours a week and I have lived both of those ways, so I know. You can get each essay and access to the whole back catalog of them for just a dollar a month. Which is an amount that really truly helps support me at this here writing desk. If you pledge the $3 level, you’ll get motivating texts for me that you can respond to. And if you pledge at the $5 a month level, you get to ask me questions about your creative life, that I’ll answer in the mini episodes. So basically I’m your mini coach. Go to patreon.com/Rachael (R A C H A E L) to get these perks and more and thank you so much.

Rachael Herron: [00:08:01] All right. Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show today. Emma Straub. Hello, Emma!

Emma Straub: [00:08:06] Hi! Hi 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:09] Listeners, we have just gotten deep before the show on things like New Zealand and most importantly, cats. So, I, Emma’s already my best friend, but she’s not your best friend yet. She will be after this interview. Let me give you a little introduction so you know about her. Emma’s job is the New York Times-bestselling author of four novels, All Adults Here, Modern Lovers, not Levels, The Vacationers and Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, and the short story collection Other People We Married. Her books have been published in twenty countries. She and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York. Welcome Emma. 

Emma Straub: [00:08:47] Oh, thanks for having me.

Rachael Herron: [00:08:49] I’m so excited. I’ve been so excited to talk to you because Modern Lovers has just been one of those books in my TBR pile forever and I haven’t gotten around to it. And I apologize for that. That is going to be immediately remedied because your publicist sent me a net galley for the upcoming paperback of All Adults Here. And I am in love, Emma. Your book is exactly what I needed to read right now, I fell into it with such excitement and gratitude. And so it’s one of those things, it’s one of those books, listeners that in the first scene, you’re like, no, yup, here I am, 100% committed. I’m not going to touch another book until this book is done. And in fact, I’ve kind of been having a crappy day and I promised myself after we talked, I’m getting in bed with your book and I’m not getting out for the rest of the afternoon. So, first and foremost, thank you for being my new favorite writer. I don’t mean to scare you, but you really are amazing. You’re amazing. 

Emma Straub: [00:09:51] It’s going to take way more than that to scare me.

Rachael Herron: [00:09:56] Good. Oh, that’s wonderful. You’ll hear my cat soon, that might work. Okay, so let’s talk about your writing process. This is a show for writers and we love to talk about process. I’m kind of a junkie for that question that we kind of roll our eyes when we get asked, but then we love to answer it. You know, what is your writing process? Can you tell me what your writing process is now, like now during the weirdness of the world? 

Emma Straub: [00:10:23] So when I was a youth, I used to be precious. I used to be precious about my writing process and I would only write in bed like Virginia Wolf and

Rachael Herron: [00:10:41] Oh I love that

Emma Straub: [00:10:43] a book with a cat or two, and I needed total silence and etc. And then I had children and it turned out that that was a lot harder to come by. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:00] Yeah. I’ve heard this rumor.

Emma Straub: [00:11:03] Yeah. And by the time I was on my, by the time I was on my third novel, when I was writing Modern Lovers, I was writing it like on the subway, like literally anywhere. Literally anywhere where there were no small children that were related to me. And now, you know, so for the first, let’s say six months of the pandemic, I didn’t write a word because I have a five-year-old and a seven-year-old and all of a sudden, I was doing school while husband was at the bookstore, keeping that going, which is no small feat last year. I mean, you know, it’s funny. We like, sometimes we get into like, arguments about like, who was more miserable.

Rachael Herron: [00:12:12] Who usually wins? 

Emma Straub: [00:12:14] I mean, that’s the thing, it’s a problem. I mean, I would say I,

Rachael Herron: [00:12:17] I think you do.

Emma Straub: [00:12:19] I would say, I win, but he was like, I would say my like emotional labor was more intense but he was doing like more physical labor, which was intense and I don’t, I mean, it was bad all the way around is what we ultimately come to usually, depending on who’s having a worst day. But so, the first, you know, from March until like September, October, I didn’t write a word because I had no minutes in which to do so. But then in the fall, my, so one of my kids was in school five days a week, starting in September and the other one started totally remote. And then has, it has like worked its way up. So now they’re in school four days a week. God, it’s so boring. I’m sorry. It’s like, 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:33] This is not so boring. This is fascinating. But, I have just a quick question. What kind of writer are you when you’re not writing? Are you a grumpy one or are you just like kind of bobbing along?

Emma Straub: [00:13:44] I would say I’m bobbing along mostly because, but unhappily, like I’m bobbing along unhappily because I really love to work. I really love to work. Like I love to write. It’s my favorite thing. Like it’s, 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:02] It shows, it shows in your writing. 

Emma Straub: [00:14:06] I know. So, but yeah, so, okay. So basically once school was like reintroduced as a concept and we hired a wonderful, beautiful babysitter who could help, then, my, like professional life started to seem possible again. And then I started writing and yeah, I mean, I, what I’m writing now is so wild. It’s so different. And I think like, I think that this is, I think it’s going to be really, really interesting to be a reader in the next, let’s say five years.

Rachael Herron: [00:14:55] I have thought the same thing. Yeah. 

Emma Straub: [00:14:57] It is like, I mean, like if I am writing what I’m writing, like, it’s going to like I’m writing a book, that is time travel with has time travel. And like, if like I, who knows, like just people are going to be writing some wild, wild stuff and it is going to be really exciting and interesting to see how everyone is like processing the trauma of this year, you know?

Rachael Herron: [00:15:37] Yeah, I’m at once right now, I’m trying to balance two proposals. One is the happiest, most up-lit book I’ve ever written. And one is the darkest book I’ve ever heard talk about and in, up to, and including like, my wife won’t let me talk about the book in the house. 

Emma Straub: [00:15:54] Oh my God, oh my god, that’s going to be a problem.

Rachael Herron: [00:15:58] I think that might be a problem, but I think we are really just we’re all writing those peaks and valleys. Where did you write before all of this happened? Were you an outside cafe writer or were you an inside? Have you had to adjust to that? 

Emma Straub: [00:16:11] I have always been an inside person, but last, I guess I wrote most of All Adults Here in a coworking space that I could walk to. And it was perfect because it got me out of the house and I could drop my kids off at school and then keep walking and it was like a nice walk from home. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:43] I had a coworking space for three weeks before the pandemic, I had just made the decision to do it. And I would take Bart there and take the train and it was like, you know, two stops. But did yours survive? Mine closed.

Emma Straub: [00:16:56] No, mine closed too. And you know, I think that like, I mean, one good side, if we can call it that, is that like, I am now able to work at home. Like, before I would have said, oh, I can’t work at home, but I can and I do. And actually, I bought something recently, just a couple of months ago that really changed my whole game. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:24] Tell me it was an Alpha Smart. 

Emma Straub: [00:17:26] I don’t know what that is. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:28] Oh, that’s a different topic for a different day. Tell me what yours is. 

Emma Straub: [00:17:31] I’ll be next, whatever that is. It sounds like a robot that writes my books for me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:37] Yeah. That I, that I would like to buy. I can’t afford that one actually. 

Emma Straub: [00:17:41] Yeah, I’m looking for that one, but I bought myself a treadmill for my, and an adjustable desk. So, I just walk on my treadmill. I don’t go faster than that because, but I love to walk and I just, I don’t really have time ever for anything. But now, I can walk for, you know, a half an hour or an hour maybe, and then sit for a while and walk and sit, and then I can write. I’m going slow enough that I can write. I can type and, 

[Read more…] about Ep. 243: Emma Straub on How to Finish Your Book