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Anthony Moore is an author, speaker, and one of the top 100 writers on the entire Medium.com platform. In the past 3 years, he’s gone from virtually zero readers, subscribers, and income to 45,000+ Medium followers, 75,000+ email subscribers, and a 6-figure writing business. His book What Extraordinary People Know: How To Cut the Busy B.S. and Live Your Kick-Ass Life (Sourcebooks) hit bookshelves in 2019, and his book Wealthy Writers: How To Go Viral, Get Followers, and Get Rich Writing has been read by hundreds of his writing students through his online courses and coaching. 

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 #190 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. Really glad that you’re here with me. Today we’re talking to Anthony Moore, who is, charming and sweet and has some great things to say about how to keep and capture the ideas you get. So many of us have these ideas, assault us wherever we are. No matter what we’re doing and we lose them. I know I do. And it was really great to talk to him. He has a business model that is not like everybody else’s and I know that you’re going to enjoy listening to this smart man. I’m a little slower and I usually am today, a little bit down speed. Possibly, I have been sick. I don’t know if it’s been COVID. I really don’t think it has been, because as basic, because I’m better in a way week. Right, I, the last time I talked to you was pretty much the last time I felt good. So I’ve had this for a week and exactly is the same thing I got in the beginning of March with, all of the symptoms of COVID, but none of them lasting very long. Thank God. Right? So, I don’t know what’s going on, but a week later I am up at my desk for the first time and we’re waiting for my test to come back. However, they said it can be up to 10 days to get the test back. So it’s still just waiting. 

[00:01:44] There’s a part of me that hopes it is COVID just so I can have this assurance that, yeah, no, I’ve had it twice and I’m one of the people that gets it lightly, perhaps. Perhaps this time. I know a lot of people have gotten it twice now. However, this disease is so awful and bad and scary, and I know it mutates and does crazy, awful different things to so many different people. I also don’t want that to be true. I would like to know if we can lift our total quarantine cause right now, we’re not even going to the store when, of course we’re not going to the store. We’re not doing anything. I am not even talking to neighbors out the window right now because I feel weird about it. So yes, we do that in my neighborhood. We do talk to neighbors out the window sometimes. But not right now. And if I don’t have COVID, then I just have bad flu or cold or something like that and I can go back to after well, socially distancing, going to the grocery store, doing things that I enjoy doing, going swimming. I have not gone swimming again in the Bay. I have not even taking a walk in the last week. I’ve just been sleeping like 20 hours a day. So, very glad to be back at the desk, not looking for sympathy, just kind of explaining why my affect is like this today. But today I had a great day, I’ve done 45 minute sessions in revision cause I’m behind. I three, I lost three work- no four work days because of this. And I’m on deadline again for this book, but it’s, you know, a lighter weight deadline, lighter weight revision. So that is okay. And you know what life happens and we can’t always write on the days that we need to, we can’t always write on the days that we want to. I was reminded over at the Writer’s Well of, by Stephanie Bond, who’s awesome. And who filled in for me this week on the Writer’s Well. So if you don’t listen to that podcast with me and J. Thorn, you may want to go check that out, but I was reminded by Stephanie of the serenity prayer that I made for writers a while ago, and it is secular, non-God related. It just opens with the generic, please, please grant me the serenity to accept it when I cannot write. The courage to write when I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. There are many times in my life where I think to myself, I can’t write today. And what, what it is, is, is I just really want to, you know, screw off and watch Netflix or work in the garden or whatever it is that I’m working on. That’s what I’m talking about, the courage to know when I can, the courage to know, you are just procrastinating right now, Rachael. You’re just being a big whiny baby. Sit your butt down in the chair and do some work. You’ll feel better. That’s where I need courage. I also really, really, really need to embrace the serenity that comes with understanding when I can’t do work, I really tried to work when I was sick and my wife just kept rolling her eyes and reminding me, look, you’re sick. You can’t, your brain is not working. I was barely able to speak English. Your brain is not working. You must rest. And I don’t know if any of you are like me, but when I am sick, I am convinced, and this is weird. I’m convinced I’m just being too big a baby, and that anybody else would push through the fever, push through the coughing and get to the desk and do the work. And I’m just a lazy loser slob. And that is an abusive brain pattern that I have. I have, you know, I’ve, I really do struggle with a lot of guilt. Which is dumb. It’s so dumb and I’m not even beating myself up when I say this. I’m saying this gently and lovingly. That kind of guilt is not useful. I am a good person who does good things who feels good about my life choices. I am harming the earth little as possible, except I do eat meat and there’s no reason for me to feel guilt. I have an awesome life, but guilt, guilt is the engine that keeps me trucking along. And I know that and when I am sick, there’s no need for guilt, Jesus Christ. So it’s good to have a wife who is wonderful and reminds me of that and tells me to go back to bed and, and quit being even bigger baby and it’s really good to feel better and be back at the desk. And if you are struggling with illness or if you are struggling with stress or trauma or chronic illness or depression or chronic depression, those are all things. There are days where, you know, in your gut that you have the courage to push past the procrastination and that’s all it is, it’s procrastination. You’re lying to yourself. You can get up and sit in the chair and do 45-minutes work. And then there are other days when you can’t on those days, I’m asking you to give yourself that pass, that I was finally able to give me self this week. That just says, yeah, I need to rest, resting is my job. Whenever I realized that resting is my job, oh my gosh, I rest my ass off. Tell me to do a job. I’ll do a job. And when you tell me resting is a job, I embrace it. But when I think of resting as being lazy, then I get guilty and all of that, you know, the whole cycle starts again. So, if you need to rest my friend rest, like it’s your job, but because it is, and, please do what you need to do right now in these really difficult times to take care of yourself. Please don’t get COVID, please. I hope that everyone listening to me right now is healthy and safe. And I wish those things for you. I also wish, and hope that you are getting your own writing done and that it is filling your soul. Even if you’re writing terrible crap that you absolutely do not believe in, nor do you believe that you are the person who should be telling the story. Those are all just lies that we all are fed by the, the group unconscious that says, no, you shouldn’t write this. Yes. I’m telling you, you should write this. You have to write this. It’s your job also and it’s wonderful and I’m really proud of you. So, reach out to me wherever you can find me on the internet.

[00:08:05] Don’t reach out to me on texts cause my phone just broke. It’s just been one of those days. So, I am very glad to be in this chair. Very grateful for all of you who are listening and, and, and that’s all, that’s all I’m going to end this clumsily. Please enjoy Anthony Moore and we’ll talk soon.

[00:08:24] 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: [00:08:42] All right, well, I could not be more pleased today to welcome to the show Anthony Moore. Hello, Anthony. 

Anthony Moore: [00:08:47] Hello, how’s it going?

Rachael Herron: [00:08:48] It’s good to have you, let me give you a little introduction before we start. Anthony Moore is an author, speaker, and one of the top 100 writers on the entire Medium.com platform. In the past 3 years, he’s gone from virtually zero readers, subscribers, and income to 45,000+ Medium followers, 75,000+ email subscribers, and a 6-figure writing business. His book, What Extraordinary People Know: How To Cut the Busy B.S and Live Your Kick Ass Life (Sourcebooks) hit bookshelves in 2019, and his book Wealthy Writers: How To Go Viral, Get Followers, and Get Rich Writing has been read by hundreds of his writing students through his online courses and coaching. What brought you to all of this like that- so that was how many years ago did you do this in the past three years? 

Anthony Moore: [00:09:32] Yeah, three years. 

Rachael Herron: [00:09:33] What was the motivation behind doing this? 

Anthony Moore: [00:09:46] Oh man. Well, Rachael, I’ve been wanting to write it for a long time. When I got to college, my construction business owner dad, wanted me to be an engineer or some kind of like, you know, working with, with, with my hands, like he did, but I took a creative writing class and I just fell in love and I was like, I have to be a writer. So I became an English major. I got all the laughs, people followed me, all those lists of like worst majors to get, you know, like anyone who’s an English major knows that. Right. But ever since I was in college, I wanted to be a writer. And so for several years, four or five years after college, I tried to be writer and I just basically failed at everything. I mean, I, I tried everything you were supposed to try. I had a blog, I was paying a lot of money for like hosting fees and like constantly redesigning my website for some reason, trying to guest posts and like figure out advertisements and like, nothing was working. I made like 40, 50 bucks total after like five years.

Rachael Herron: [00:10:28] Yeah. Yeah. 

Anthony Moore: [00:10:30] So, the past three years, everything changed. And I really just changed my whole mindset on how I approach my business. And before basically I was just treating myself like a casual blogger who wrote every few weeks and didn’t really do much. But changed it until like looking at it as a business, like how can I treat myself as a professional top tier writer? Like what were like the top paid authors and speakers and coaches and writers doing? And I should do that. So, just really saw a huge growth in the past few years. So it’s been a long time dream. I tell my wife every day. I mean, I’m so thankful for this life. I mean, I, I used to work in telemarketing. I was doing all kinds of crazy odd jobs or horrible, always wanting to be writer. So I finally made it thank God. I’m so grateful. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:09] I have been a full time writer for four years now, and I am the same way. Grateful every single gosh, darn day that I get to do this kind of thing. So where does the actual writing, fit into your day. Talk, talk to me about your process of writing. Writing, kind of the new work or the revision of the work.

Anthony Moore: [00:11:27] Yeah, sure. So, like what you mentioned in my intro, thanks for that, I am a top writer on Medium.com, which if listeners don’t know what that is, this is a big writing hub. You can talk about all kinds of stuff, you know, politics, tech, social issues, whatever and I’ve kind of built my platform on medium. So I post two or three articles a week, and frankly, they’re only about maybe 1500 words, not that long, maybe 5, 10 minute reads and I’ve been doing that for several years now. And just the consistency, I think is the backbone of my writing period, you know, and 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:00] And nowadays, people get paid to write on medium, right? If you get a certain number of readers, how does that work? Or certain number of blocks? Or?

Anthony Moore: [00:12:07] Yeah. They actually changed the algorithm a lot, which is a little frustrating, but yes, they do pay you based on how long people read your articles.

Rachael Herron: [00:12:16] Oh, how you try to get them through. Yeah

Anthony Moore: [00:12:07] So, it used to be flags, it used to be views. It’s just like the read ratio who reads the whole thing and you get paid based on that. So it’s a great platform if you’re looking to make money as a writer, they can pay you starting immediately. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:29] Yeah. Fascinating. Okay. So, and how do you get that done? Are you a first in the morning kind of guy or are you late in the evening writer?

Anthony Moore: [00:12:38] You know, I have spent a lot of time figuring this out because as writers, this is our bread and butter. Like, how do you write the best, right? And I’ve written when I had a 9-5 and I’ve written as a full time writer myself. And basically what I found Rachael, is that, different things work at different times for me, like I used to wake up at 5:00 AM every single day. My wife and I were teaching English abroad in South Korea, super crazy. It was like language barrier and food and culture. And it was so busy, but every single day I was writing at 5:00 AM. It was awesome. But then I moved back here and it’s like, Hey, I can sleep in. I don’t need to do that. So it’s like, whatever my life becomes it’s like I write around that. So now it’s like my whole basis of writing, Rachael, it was just writing a little bit every day, small progress every day. And that’s how I’ve written my, my two books, how I’ve made huge online courses. It’s like when I have these deadlines and like word counts of the day, that really stresses me out. I feel like I’m already falling behind if I’m not feeling that day, whatever. But if I can just write a little bit, all the time, eventually I looked down and it’s like, wow, I’ve written a book. I like, I’ve written a whole book. I’ve written five articles like this week, and they’re all really great. So it’s just small progress every day for me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:47] Do you, any of your articles end up in your books? Do you kind of collate them in or are the books completely standalone from the articles? 

Anthony Moore: [00:13:55] No, they actually pretty connected. And I studied a lot of like bestselling authors and figured out how to write, you know, and a lot of it is like my kind of like rise to where I am now, it’s like I work a lot, I had a couple of articles that really, really hit, like, you know, really, really big semi viral articles. And it’s like, that works. Let’s focus on writing this kind of concept and for like a book. And it just connects into the business of my writing. So any online courses I have, or coaching I offer, or other books I’m making it, it’s like everything is mentioning everything else. So it’s a big cohesive connection that really fits, across the board. You know.

Rachael Herron: [00:14:30] Yeah. That’s really smart. I write in five different genres. So I, I, I screwed the pooch on that one. That’s not what you want

Anthony Moore: [00:14:40] It’s hard to connect all to that

Rachael Herron: [00:14:42] to do. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing? 

Anthony Moore: [00:14:44] Oh, that’s a good one. Good question. You know, I think as writers, I’ve stumbled on this, this writing style that worked, you know, it’s like short, clear, concise. If you read my writing, it’s like pretty brief blunt. It’s like lean meat, you know? and, and like that work and it’s like, I tried for years, I finally found something that works, but it’s challenging to break out of that once you establish yourself as this, this person and I work with a lot of new writers and like I have writing coaching and writing courses and they come to me asking like, oh my gosh, like, I’m so scared. I’m going to get rejected. We’re going to laugh at me. It’s not gonna work. And on the one hand, I want to tell these people, like you’re in a great place because like, and like most loving, caring way, I can say nobody’s reading yet. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:30] Yes

Anthony Moore: [00:15:31] So you can do whatever you want and I’m like, 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:32] nobody’s waiting for you

Anthony Moore: [00:15:33] Yeah. Once you kind of establish yourself, it’s harder to break through a mold. Like, hey, you’re this personal growth guy who like, writes this way. Like, why are you branching out into like in fiction or like, whatever it is. So it’s challenging to adopt new styles, even write a new John Rose. Once I have established myself the way I am now. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:51] Do you want to write in fiction?

Anthony Moore: [00:15:56] Yes and no. You know, like I like write primarily nonfiction, which is great and actually I studied fiction so much. A lot of fiction techniques are in my nonfiction writing, like storytelling, the hero’s journey, a tone, like, like different ways to like structure the article in a nonfiction way. So down the road, yes. But again, it’s like, I have established myself here. It’s hard to break out in like other areas.

Rachael Herron: [00:16:17] Yeah, yeah. What is your biggest joy when it comes to writing? 

Anthony Moore: [00:16:24] You know; I get pretty vulnerable in my writing. I talk about my history with addiction and my family issues. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:30] Hey, Hey, I’m a fellow addict here. 

Anthony Moore: [00:16:32] Okay, great. It’s like, yeah, it was great to meet another person to talk through

Rachael Herron: [00:16:36] Recovering. Yeah

Anthony Moore: [00:16:40] I talk a lot about that. I mean, as a kid, I used to stutter and I got bullied and like all these things, I never let, you know, I used to hide in shame for years. Right, and now that I write about it, Rachael it’s crazy seeing how many people email me saying, Hey, I have the exact same thing. Like, what did you do? Like, Hey, I stutter her too. How do you fix that? Or like, Hey, I also have addict issues, like family issues, or I feel so helpless. Like I write about my deepest, darkest struggles. And it’s so rewarding to see people message me like out of nowhere, I’m like, Hey, I found this article. It really spoke to me like one of the best articles I’ve ever read, because it really cut to the core of what I’m feeling. How can I, how can we talk more? It’s like helping them in ways I want to be helped for so long. It’s just, it’s incredible. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:23] It is the best. It is the best. And I really believe that about the more, true we are, when we’re talking about our own shame, the more we connect with the reader. And I swear to God as a memoir writer, I thought I was tapped. And then I really discovered that I was an alcoholic and addict. And, and then there was, you know, it was an awful time to like get sober and do all that stuff. But in the back of my mind, I’m like, yes! More to write about, more to talk about. Yeah

Anthony Moore: [00:17:52] Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:53] Can you share a craft tip of any sort with us? 

Anthony Moore: [00:17:57] Yeah. What I do is that once I’m in like the momentum of writing, ideas, just, just come to me, you know, and if you stop for even a little bit, it’s like the whole process kind of dies really quickly. I mean, I, I read Stephen King’s book on writing, I’m sure a lot of listeners have, and he mentioned something like he like stopped writing for two weeks. And it felt how much harder it was to start again, right? So the craft tip I have, is a, once, you’re writing a lot, which is a given, you should be writing all the time, right? Start writing down these ideas that come to you. And for me, I use an app called Evernote was just like one of those mini generic note taking apps, but like I’m walking the dog, I’m in the car, like I’m going to a stop light. This, this headline pops into my mind like this, this idea and I write it down. And I feel like if you don’t use it, you’re going to lose it. But the more that you like writing it down, it’s like the more things are unlocked. There’s this great kind of like an analogy by, I forgot who it was, it’s a kind of a crew name. It’s called “Idea Sex” And they’re saying like, if you can connect like business with like, you know, arts or like two totally different things, if you connect those, you can make crazy idea babies, like things you’d never consider, but you have to like be listening to these thoughts all the time. And eventually you’re going to make these connections automatically, passively as you’re hanging out in the shower, walk your dog because you’re always thinking kind of like opening up your mind to these things. So I say, write all the time and then write down what comes to mind, because the more you write down, the more it’s going to come to you. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:29] It’s, it’s such a thing that I always forget to do that. I always think when I’m walking the dog, that I’m going to save the idea and I’m going to have it when I get home. Not only do I not remember the idea when I get home, but I don’t remember that I had one, 

Anthony Moore: [00:19:40] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:19:41] Not like I get back to the desk and struggle. It’s just, it’s just gone forever. Perfect.

Anthony Moore: [00:19:43] Yeah. I’m like walking the dog like learning how to type as Alicia’s like, oh my gosh, that’s like, hold on. I was like, write this down, you know, I’m good at that. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:50] That is good. Voice to text man hit that speaker, man.

Anthony Moore: [00:19:52] You’re right. That’s true. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:56] What thing in your life affect your writing in a surprising way? 

Anthony Moore: [00:20:02] Well, you know, I mentioned my, my stories growing up. Before I was trying to be a writer, right. And I actually recall, I wrote this like dumb little article about like, you know, career stuff or something and somebody comment me, Rachael, they said nobody ever commented on my stuff, right? Cause I was like a no name writer. And so I’ll come and it’s like, wow, somebody commented. They wrote, this is the worst article I have ever read my entire life, like period. But that’s it, it crushed me, crushed me. Right. So horrible. And so for years, I’m, I basically made it my subconscious mission to never write anything that could elicit that reaction ever again. And so, Hey, like that happened. Nobody ever commented because nobody ever read any more because it was the most vanilla boring, junk, 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:44] Exactly

Anthony Moore: [00:20:45] You know, non-controversial stuff. So

Rachael Herron: [00:20:47] You can’t make everybody like your stuff.

Anthony Moore: [00:20:49] Exactly. So, when I started writing, like kind of getting back to like these roots of like, Hey, I’m going to make a stand. I’m going to draw a line in the sand saying, Hey, this is what I believe. Here are my stories. Here’s my darkest deepest stuff. Like this is me being vulnerable. Using these things, I never talked about it. Never wanted to talk about like I made a point to hide. When I talk about these things that hugely affects my writing, because that’s what I can bring lots of fiction techniques into like, save myself up as the year’s journey, overcoming adversity, bringing different characters, of tones of voice, dialogue into nonfiction. And so that makes like, just to adds a whole other level on my nonfiction work and really just builds huge rapport with my audience and me who have gone through the same thing. So not hiding those dark stories, but you use them in a way to say, Hey, I’m not perfect. I struggled too, but here’s what I’ve done. And maybe you can benefit from this too. That’s just worked wonders of my work

Rachael Herron: [00:21:36] That’s the kind of creative nonfiction that I love reading the best is when we go into a moment of another person and get to inhabit that with you. Yeah, that’s awesome. What is the best book you’ve read recently?

Anthony Moore: [00:21:50] I read books all the time. I think that’s a huge technique for writers to just get out of your craft. One I just read was the autobiography of Malcolm X. A really intense with just right now with, with the current climate, I want to be more informed as a straight white guy. I’ve had the wind in my sails pretty much since I was born. So I just, just hearing just the side of like black America, especially back then, it was just so eye opening and that’s such a good technique for writers to, and anyone like writers to like were like, Hey, I’ve never considered this before. And like writing characters or just like writing truths and principles. So that was a great book. I also just read, Phil Knight’s autobiography called Shoe Dog. He was a founder of Nike, just again, two great autobiographies that were almost like novels they’re written so well, like you’re like reading for them. And like things happen. It’s like, like you never forget, it’s a true story. So two great autobiographies. I found great just input from reading autobiographies of famous people across the board. It’s just really helpful for me to understanding how people work. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:46] That’s fabulous. Thank you for those two. I haven’t read either of them and I’ve meant to read the Malcolm X forever and thank you for reminding me of it.

Anthony Moore: [00:22:51] Really good, great book

Rachael Herron: [00:22:52] Okay so now, where we can find you and everything that you are doing? 

Anthony Moore: [00:22:57] Yeah. So basically two places first, is just my blog, AnthonyMoore.co  all my stuff is there. And also just I made a free writing training. It’s focused on medium and like how to kind of make money from that. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:09] Excellent

Anthony Moore: [00:23:10] So if you go to freelance writer, starter package.com. It’s an hour long free training that talks about how I make my income streams, how to just write great articles. Freelance writers’ starter package.com, free training, check out how to write on media and kind of build-up this writer’s feels.

Rachael Herron: [00:23:22] Fabulous. I want to do that. I want to read that. So I’m going to go sign up for it right now. And I will put it in the show notes for everybody who wants to come by HowDoYouWrite.net and you can find it there. 

Anthony Moore: [00:23:31] Perfect. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:32] It’s been a treat to talk to you, you are really, really 

Anthony Moore: [00:23:35] It was great

Rachael Herron: [00:23:36] You tell your energy and how you are living your life, and you have achieved your wildest dreams. 

Anthony Moore: [00:23:42] I am so grateful. Thank you. It’s great talking to you, Rachael. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:45] Awesome. Thank you. 

Anthony Moore: [00:23:46] Thank you.

Rachael Herron: [00:23:47] Bye.

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

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

Steven Rowley is the author of The Editor and the national bestseller Lily and the Octopus, which has been translated into nineteen languages. He has worked as a freelance writer, newspaper columnist, and screenwriter. Originally from Portland, Maine, Rowley is a graduate of Emerson College. He lives in Palm Springs, CA.

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 #189 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. So pleased that you’re here with me. Today, I got to talk to the awesome Stephen Rowley whose book, The Editor, I just love and I kind of fan girl a little bit, which is one of those wonderful things to be able to do, if you have a show like this, and if you like books, and you like talking to authors, it’s kind of hard not to. So it was a real joy to talk to him and he is a delight. I know you’re going to enjoy that part of the show. 

[00:00:55] A very quick catch up around here because I am revising my little fingers off and I’m seriously just taking like a five-minute break to record this and get back to it. Everything has been going well, enjoying revising. It is not heavy lifting this time. It’s got just the right amount of thought that I need, like, I kinda got to go deep for a minute and then I can paddle around and words that I’m already really proud of and that belong. So, this is one of my favorite parts of writing. I think I say that a lot. My wife always laughs at me because I have many best friends, but they’re all my best friend and I have many favorite plates and favorite animals. I believe we can have lots of favorite things. And apparently I like a lot of the writing process. So this week I got to speak to the Jericho Writers’ Conference in England about revision, and that was so much fun. If any of you are here listening to the show for the first time, thank you for having me. My chair has got some creeks to work out I can hear today. So that was great. That was yesterday and the only other really big news in my life since we last talked is, we have air conditioning. It may have been being put in the last time I talked, but we have it now. I was really sad actually, after we got it, because it just didn’t seem to be cooling down our house. And I thought, well, that’s ridiculous. We spent all this money and we have a new, big, I don’t know what it’s called the compressor or something out on a concrete pad in the driveway. And it- it’s was sending cold air out of the vent, but it really wasn’t cooling down the house. It was a little tiny bit cooler, but the house would still continue to heat in the afternoon. And I finally emailed the, the guy who installed it a couple days ago and I said, is this normal, should this actually cool down our 1000 square foot house? And he said, what is your filter look like? And so I looked at the filter. I don’t think we’ve changed that filter in years. It was, and we have four animals. It was disgusting. I constantly confronted with the way that I am failing to adult. And that was one of ‘em, so I went over to the ACE hardware, bought myself a new filter and all afternoon, cool air has been coming in and then turning off because the house cools down. For the first couple of days that we had the AC, it ran all the time. And then I would just turn it off in frustration and open the windows because at night it gets cooler outside here and I would let the air in, but now it works. And I’m such a happy person that I can sit in my office. And it’s a temperate 75. It’s like 85 outside and it always heats up more in the house. So it would have been like 87 in my office right now. And it isn’t, and I’m so happy even though right now I’ve had a bunch of sugar in my face, just went very red and I’m very hot. That just happens. I cannot stop that. Revision means sugar. So I’m back on the sugar train, I will kick it again in a couple of weeks. No worries. 

[00:03:58] Thanks to new patrons at Elizabeth Dum- Dumpy. Thank you, Elizabeth. So much. I just mangled your name. Elizabeth Dunphy. It’s a very pretty name. Thank you so much. And Abby Stoddard. Thank you. Thank you, Abby. I have accidentally written two books where the main character was named Abby, one was Abby. One was Abigail. They were both called Abby. And I didn’t realize I had done it until this second book was literally published. I was heading into love song and then seven books later pack up the moon. Oops, love your name too. Thank you everyone who is supporting on Patreon. I know that these times are hard and if you need to dial back on your pledge or cancel your pledge, I will love you always forever. Don’t worry about that. You need to take care of you. But please know that everyone who does support me on Patreon, you really allow me to sit in this chair and to write these essays that I love writing and to do this show that I love doing. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I’m going to get back into revision now. And I wish you all very happy writing, please come tell me how your own writing is going. Please sign up for my email newsletter if you’re not on it because I really do write back to every email I get and I love discussing writing with all of you. So enjoy the interview with Steven and we will talk soon. 

[00:00:55] This episode is brought to you by my book, Fast Draft Your Memoir, write your life story in 45 hours, which is by the way, totally doable and I tell you how. It’s the same class I teach in the continuing studies program at Stanford each year. And I’ll let you in on it secret, even if you have no interest in writing a memoir yet, the book has everything I’ve ever learned about the process of writing and of revision, and of story structure, and I’m just doing this thing. That’s so hard and yet all we want to do pick it up today. 

Rachael Herron: [00:05:53] Well, I could not be more pleased today to welcome to the show. Steven Rowley. Hello, Steven!

Steven Rowley: [00:05:57] Hi, I’m so happy to be here. 

Rachael Herron: [00:06:00] I’m thrilled to talk to you about your writing process and about this particular book. Let me give a little introduction for those who might not know you. Steven Rowley is the author of The Editor and the national bestseller Lily and the Octopus, which has been translated into 19 languages. He has worked as a freelance writer, newspaper columnist, and screenwriter. Originally from Portland, Maine, Rowley is a graduate of Emerson college. He lives in Palm Springs, California. That’s a large jump from Portland, Maine. That’s 

Steven Rowley: [00:06:28] It is a little hop, skip, and a jump for sure. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:06:32] Yeah. You’re missing a bunch of snow. 

Steven Rowley: [00:06:35] Well, I, I, you know, I love Maine. It’s always, you know, going to be considered my home, but I had enough snow for, for a lifetime growing up there. And I don’t know, there was something about the desert that ultimately was what’s calling today.

Rachael Herron: [00:06:50] See, I was born in the desert, but I keep trying to talk my wife literally into moving to Portland, Maine. So, yeah. 

Steven Rowley: [00:06:58] It’s a great town, and, you know, I go back there now and I think, you know, why was I in such a hurry, run away from it because, but you know, it was a combination of being 18 and also I’ve grown up a lot in the city. The city has grown in tremendous ways. It’s got an incredible restaurant scene, culture theater although I miss, I miss live performance, I know all about art. Portland’s an incredibly beautiful and thriving city. 

Rachael Herron: [00:07:25] It’s funny that I wanted to move there and I haven’t been, but that’s another thing why I keep saying maybe we should visit,

Steven Rowley: [00:07:30] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:07:31] No time soon. 

Steven Rowley: [00:07:32] I really highly recommend.

Rachael Herron: [00:07:33] Speaking of everything that’s going on, how are you doing in this moment? 

Steven Rowley: [00:07:37] We’re holding up, well, I am here in Palm Springs with my partner Byron Lane, who is also a novelist

Rachael Herron: [00:07:45] I know his name. And I’m wondering if I’ve read him. 

Steven Rowley: [00:07:48] Not yet his, his debut is called The Star is Bored and it comes out July 28th. So people can look for that as well. But he’s been undergoing chemotherapy. So it’s been, prognosis is very good. In fact, his last day of chemo was Friday, 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:02] Good

Steven Rowley: [00:07:03] but undergoing that, and caring for someone going through that during, with a global pandemic as a backdrop is a perhaps stressful, but we’re, we’re making it through. 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:14] It’s, it’s so incredible. And that you’ve got to deal with taking care of him and making sure that none of the germs get in. Have you found that your house is like half the size, you thought it was? That’s what we have learned. We thought we had enough room

Steven Rowley: [00:08:28] Yeah. A lot of space. No, I will say though, our house has never been cleaner. That’s good. 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:36] See, that’s the opposite here we have a house cleaner, so our house has never been dirty.

Steven Rowley: [00:08:38] Yeah. Yeah. It’s just, it’s just you know, trying to keep, trying the extra steps that we take to try to keep the germs out. 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:48] Yeah. And both of you releasing a book, so

Steven Rowley: [00:08:50] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:08:51] Oh, still together. That is super, super exciting. But let’s talk about for you right now and how, my question is usually what’s your writing process? What does it usually look like? but also feel free to answer what it looks like right now in this moment too.

Steven Rowley: [00:09:10] I feel so grateful right now to have a job that allows me to escape into other, other worlds and other times. I, I really think that as a, as something to help mentally help me get through these times that that’s very fortunate. You know, I can sit down on a desk and almost travel to someplace where all of this isn’t, isn’t happening, even though I don’t leave my home. And I’ve never been more grateful for my job than I am right now. I’ve also been strangely productive and this is not, not a knock against anyone who is having trouble creating in this time. And in fact, this is incredibly difficult time to feel creative. But me, my biggest obstacle in writing has always been a FOMO. You know, that sort of fear of fear of missing out on what everyone else is doing. Particularly when you work at home and novel writing is such a solitary occupation, you know, my biggest fear was always, you know, wait, wait, wait, what’s everybody else doing? You know, like what are people having fun? And, you know, the answer right now is people aren’t doing a damn thing. So, you know, the world has kind of brown to a halt. And so it’s allowed me to sort of let go of that fear as it were, and, and really embraced getting work done. Now. Having said that, I sort of finished the projects that were on my desk and I’m, I’m finding, starting something new, it’s incredibly daunting against the backdrop of, of these times. You know, not just COVID, but everything that’s going on right now, as, as we think about what we want our country to look like and our world to look like and building a more, just fair, you know, a place to live for, for us all the lag time between, you know, sitting down to write a book and what it might be come out and hit shelves can be three, four, five years. So when you, when thinking about starting a project and there are important things to say right now, but what is it that you want to say about this rapidly changing world and how can you have a little bit of foresight into what the world will be when that book hits the shelf. I find that to be, you know, quite daunting. So we’ll see, 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:30] How are you-

Steven Rowley: [00:11:31] we’ll see if this productivity grinds to a halt. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:34] How are you answering that? Because I’m finding the same thing. My last book was a thriller about, corruption within the policing industry. So that was good all time. But the one I’m writing right now is about fetal abduction. It’s just a straight up thriller pregnant lady being stuck, and you know, like, and I’m, I’m really struggling with that, what does this book mean in the world? I know it will help somebody pass the time and that is important to me. But, but how do you, how are you addressing that? 

Steven Rowley: [00:12:04] Yeah, I think I, you know, this is an ongoing process, so I don’t have- forgive me over the, the answer is not fully articulated, but, you know, I tried to strip it back and think about what fiction means to me as a reader and, and I keep coming back to connection and there is something about the importance of sharing stories and kids human stories to sort of remind us that even though we may be isolated in this moment or, or sheltering at home, or, or not being able to be with our loved ones that there are, there are many stories that we can tell that, that even though the plot of those stories, don’t address this, this moment in time. If we can sort of write the emotional truth of what, what this feels like in his time and find a story, that you could sort of lay that over. I think that’s where the answer is going to lie 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:05] Gorgeous, and it’s such a good answer and it just made me feel so much better. And I want to say about your book, The Editor, which I just loved. I devoured it over the weekend because I am plunging. I’m sober. So I have nothing to distract me from. I have punched so much deeper into books, right. And these last few months, and I was always deep into them, but, you do this incredible job of really, exploring the emotional connection of a son and his mother in a meadow way. That the, the novelist, the, you know, the character is a novelist writing a book about his mother and, and the way you were able to do that, to draw the emotional connections out and, and not tire until the emotional resonance was found was really deep and really rich to me. And my, my favorite kind of book is a mother, mother-child stories. So, thank you for that. 

Steven Rowley: [00:14:00] Yeah there are many, many more mother-daughter stories that this is, 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:11] There are

Steven Rowley: [00:14:00] This is a true mother-son love story and you know, at its heart, it has, it has a fun hook for those 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:13] Oh, please tell ahead. Now. I don’t read blurbs. I don’t read anything. I just have somebody say, you know, let’s get them on your show. I’ll read the book. So I did not see it coming. 

Steven Rowley: [00:14:27] Oh, fantastic. As an artist, I really wish that’s how everyone could experience now. I would not win that fight with my publisher and the marketing department, you know, in a million years, I’m not gonna win that fight, but it’s fun to talk to someone who is able to sort of go in blind. But the book takes place in early 1990s, New York. And our narrator is a young, writer sort of armed with a candidly autobiographical, manuscript. He’d written about his relationship with his mother and the editor that acquires the book for publication and the eponymous editor is none other than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who was at the time, perhaps the most famous book editor, for those who, who may not remember, or weren’t really aware of this, she had this incredible 15-year career as an editor first at Viking Press and then a double day which has spent the bulk of her career. She- 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:26] I did not know any of this. In fact, it was one of the wonderful moments-

Steven Rowley: [00:15:29] Yeah. Yeah. It’s truly fascinating

Rachael Herron: [00:15:30] I put the book down. I’m like, this cannot be true. Is this science fiction? 

Steven Rowley: [00:15:29] You actually google 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:30] And I was Googling and the Wiki came up in 15 years as an editor. She, in fact, I believe it was in the Wiki, not your book, but, there were still manuscripts in her apartment when she died, she was still working. It’s incredible 

Steven Rowley: [00:15:49] Yeah. She worked right up until, until her passing in 1994. Yeah, she had sublimated so much of her own life to these two marriages, you know, to be very powerful men and it wasn’t until, her second husband Onassis, Aristotle Onassis died that she sort of put her head down, and went to work and I think people were very skeptical of her at first or assume she was some sort of you know, vanity hire or, or assume that she was hired for her role at decks that perhaps the publisher wanted to access to many people who could, who could write books, and thought she would be a way to reel them in, but she proved everybody wrong. She really did the nuts and bolts of editing. She did the hard work, you know, line editing, and what’s involved in every step of the process along the way. She was very interested in the way for books, books the quote right down to the, the weight of the paper and, you know, like the cover design and everything. And then you know, getting to learn more about that and, and really research that was one of the great joys in writing this. And unfortunately, I had a very, supportive editor myself and the great Sally Kim at Putnam and a, and a publisher who helped put me in touch with many of her former coworkers.

Rachael Herron: [00:17:10] Oh, wow. 

Steven Rowley: [00:17:11] And now, 25 years later, you know where people who are just starting out, but are now in very senior positions in publishing who were generous with their observations. And there’s great stories about, you know, her elbow deep in a photocopier clearing a paper jam, you know, to running down the hallway and stocking feet to make a, you know, on a deadline or something. And it’s just, it’s just the, just the fantasy of what it would have been like to work with her is incredibly fun to think about. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:34] I have that image that really didn’t leave me where, I can’t remember who said it in the book, but basically, you know, we’re all dreaming of getting out of the office and onto the yacht. And she was actually dreaming about getting off the yacht and into the office and she remained there until she died basically and, but, but you know, she’s, she’s your hook and she’s an incredible person in the book, but I just really loved our narrator too. I, I just loved being with him and his relationship and the, Oh, it was just, it was so real and so good. When you are writing, just to get into the next question that I have here. What is your- cause when I’m reading a book that is completely done and polished and perfect, when I’m working on a revision of my book, as I am, you know, it’s always like, Oh God, I could never be a writer again. I’m never going to write a book again because it’s so perfect. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing? 

Steven Rowley: [00:18:30] It’s actually getting my butt in the chair. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:34] Easier with coronavirus. 

Steven Rowley: [00:18:36] Yeah, yeah. Usually, that’s the problem now and I’ve got no place else to go. So yeah, I know I’m banking work now because I know I’m going to want to be out in the world when we can all, we can do that again, but that’s, you know, writers are famous procrastinators. I’m also a very social person. I haven’t figured it out yet. I love to chat. So, it’s, it’s kind of ironic that I picked this sort of very quiet and solitary job. So I don’t think it’s, it’s showing up to do the work. Once I’m, once I’m going, you know, we all have you know, have to come up with little tricks sometimes because just to jumpstart, you know, like once it’s flowing, it’s flowing, but you know, it’s a daunting feeling to try to figure out how to, how to jumpstart that each day.

Rachael Herron: [00:19:28] What are some of your jumpstart tricks that you pull out?

Steven Rowley: [00:19:30] You know, it’s different than, you know, often it’s just as simple as getting a running start. So that, and I mean that in several different ways, it could be going back and reading the previous day’s work just to, just to sort of ramp up to where you left off. It can be writing some emails, doing some other kinds of writing correspondence or, you know, even making lists of things that I have to get done. So I don’t, so I can feel like I can download that and not stressed about that while I’m working, then I won’t forget. I made a list. So that can be, that can be very helpful. I think the biggest lesson I learned is not to punish yourself. For instance, I know when I sit down at the computer, it’s very hard for me to just dive right in. So I might check my email. I might look at Twitter. I might read the headlines, although I don’t advise that for different reasons, but, but so understanding, but that’s part of the process and not, not punishing myself for way for wasting the first 30 or 40 minutes that I sit down and not having accomplished anything, because what used to happen is I would be so mad at myself that then I would sit there and stew for another 30 or 40, and then I’ve doubled the time that I lost. But if you understand that that’s part of the process and you allow for that and build in time for that. Then you don’t then, then there’s no reason to feel bad about it 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:01] It’s how you get there. That’s what I love about doing this yeah. Is talking about people’s different processes and how they sneak up on writing. I don’t think anybody just takes off their clothes every morning and pushes himself up against all the words in the universe. We don’t want to do that. We want, we need a little bit more gentle. What is your biggest joy when it comes to the writing process? 

Steven Rowley: [00:21:23] Oh, goodness. I think, you know, there’s the very famous, now I forget who said it but, the, the sort of having written, the feeling of having written, having written there’s no better feeling in the world, but like a really well-crafted sentence still, you know, it turns me on 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:42] Yeah, totally.

Steven Rowley: [00:21:435] When I do something that I’m proud of, but I hear things, lyrically or rhythmically sometimes. And the struggle is to get words on the page and the same sort of rhythm and the same beats that I hear them in my head. So that’s, sometimes when that happens, you know, sometimes it takes writing that sentence four or five times, but when I feel like, Oh, that clicks into something, that’s almost a poetry at least to me then, then that’s, that’s where real joy was.

Rachael Herron: [00:22:21] That’s lovely. Do you and Byron share work while it’s in progress? 

Steven Rowley: [00:22:25] Sometimes I would say, you know, it’s not like we don’t do a daily living with another writer. A lot of people think that would be hell. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:34] I think it would be hell, yes. 

Steven Rowley: [00:22:35] Yeah, there, there are some advantages to it as well. For instance, you know, you’re in it, it’s hard to shut off sometimes, you know, just because it’s time to eat dinner or come together as a couple at the end of the day, it doesn’t mean that you can just lose everything that your brain is working on. And sometimes I need to sit there and think, still because I’m downloading what I’ve done for the day, or I’m trying to, trying to think ahead to the next day’s work. Not lose something important and to have a partner that understand, you know, that doesn’t, doesn’t get angry or take it personally when you’re not a hundred percent there you know, in front of them at the dinner table, like that, that, that helps. We definitely read each other’s work, not, not on a, you know, like chapter by chapter basis, but, you know, certainly, certainly he’s my first reader for, for a draft of something and vice versa but, but it’s nice to have someone to talk through, you know, we can bounce, like we do bounce ideas off each other along the way, or I’m really stuck on this and you think of a way you know, that’s helpful.

Rachael Herron: [00:23:43] So good. That’s so good. I actually, my wife is very good at that. She is an artist, not a writer, but she reads so much that she’s very good to bounce against, but yeah, that sounds so cool. You may have already done this, was sharing the, the, how you sneak up, get the running start, but can you share a craft tip of any sort with us?

Steven Rowley: [00:24:02] That’s a good, that’s a good question. Oh yeah. I, I would say, you know, I moved the systems are crafted so much, but one thing that I’ve learned that I would love to share, if I can just,

Rachael Herron: [00:24:17] Yes, please.

Steven Rowley: [00:24:18] If I can just do a parallel question, for years, you know, I published my, I was in my forties when I published my first novel and I’m still in my forties, but you know, it took years for me to, to get published and there were several manuscripts that I’d written along the way years, and, you know, and they sit on the shelf and, and I had a, you know, it’s only very recently in the last couple of years, that I have been able to make writing my full time profession. I always had to take off. And so when people ask me what I did, I always, don’t, you know, I’m a, I’m a writer, but, you know, and then I would, I would say what my day job was, and I was almost embarrassed. Thinking that, because the bulk of my financial income didn’t come from writing that I wasn’t a writer and I wish I could go back and tell a younger me that now, if you, if you write, if you are pursuing this then, and you’re passionate about it, it doesn’t matter if that’s where your income comes from or not. You are a writer. And I w- I want people to be able to say that with confidence and with pride. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:27] Yes. I wish that more people would do that. I remember the very first time I ever said it at a party. I said, I’m a writer, even though, it was not my job. And the very next question was, are you published? And I was like, Oh God dammit. And you know your answer for that, then everyone who’s listening, who doesn’t know how to answer that. You just say very sweetly. Not yet. 

Steven Rowley: [00:25:47] Not yet. Not yet. Yeah, I wish we could train people. You know, there’s certain questions that you know are coming. I wish we could train a society to, to be a little more, gentle with their, you know, if your dog passed away, are you getting another dog? 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:01] Oh my god

Steven Rowley: [00:25:03] There are certain questions, it’s like, it shouldn’t be the first question. You know, like it’d be a little bit, perhaps a little more sensitive you know, more, more who’s like, Oh, what, what types of things are you working out?

Rachael Herron: [00:26:13] Absolutely right, yeah.

Steven Rowley: [00:25:14] That’s a, that’s perhaps a better, a better follow-up. But here everybody thinking, you know, 90, 95% of writers also, supplement their income through other, you know, other forms of writing through editing, teaching, working at Starbucks and I was like, you know, you know, incredible other jobs as well. So they’re, they’re certainly, shouldn’t be any hesitation just because you have some other job as well. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:44] So that’s a challenge to listeners. The next time you were asked what you do if you ever go to a party again, your answer should be I’m a writer. Okay. This is, this is a good one for you. What thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way? 

Steven Rowley: [00:27:04] Well certainly the answer for me there is having a dog you know, I think it’s I mentioned, you know, it’s a very solitary career. It’s also a very sedentary career and I have loved, you know, not only is it the book, that broke through for me, my, my first novel, Lily and the Octopus was, was in fact about a relationship I had with the dog but, we’re inspired by that relationship, but, you know, just the simple act of having another soul near you, another bar, you know, you, just sleeping, like not just seeing, you know, that chest rise and fall sometimes. It’s, it’s deeply comforting and it’s allowed me to continue working sometimes even when I felt very lonely. It’s also someone you can, you can have a conversation with. They may not talk back, but you can talk things through with them and they get you out of the chair every few hours to move around and honest to God, you know, I think this is obvious to most people who’ve written getting the blood flowing, you know, just moving your physical body every short while is really gonna help, you know, the blood flow to the brain and the quality of your work. And I never would have connected owning a dog to, to as to being integral to writing but for me it has been.

Rachael Herron: [00:28:26] I, I don’t think I’ve ever put such clear words on it. Yes. If I didn’t take my dog one, we have two dogs. I take one out in the morning and the other one is so old that basically the rest of every time I get up, I’m just putting another blanket on her, you know, even in the summer, that’s my full time job.

Steven Rowley: [00:28:41] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:28:42] Oh, okay. So what is the best book you’ve read recently? And why did you love it? 

Steven Rowley: [00:28:46] Oh, goodness. Well, just to keep the peace at home, my, my favorite is The Stars Are Bored by Byron Lane coming July 28th, but that’s a, that’s a cop out, 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:56] That’s a good title.

Steven Rowley: [00:28:57] You know, you know, I’m here to, to I’m talking about The Editor, which was released on paperback June 30th, but also in paperback on June 30th, the same day was Colson Whitehead’s, The Nickel Boys 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:10] I haven’t read that one.

Steven Rowley: [00:29:11] If you happen to miss that, because of the field service, but if you happen to miss that in hardcover, now’s a good time to check that out. But I also just read a book cause I love a family drama. I mean, that’s, that’s my bread and butter it’s what I love. And my new novel coming out next year is this sort of sibling, steroid, but there’s a book I just read called The Second Home by Christina Clancy, which is the story of three strange adult siblings who have to come together and decide the fate of their childhood vacation home and it’s really a fantastic summer read. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:47] Thank you. I, that’s my jam too. I will immediately put that on my list along with Lily and the Octopus. Cause now I know that I love reading you and it’s about a dog in some way. I mean. 

Steven Rowley: [00:29:56] It’s about a dog. Yes.

Rachael Herron: [00:29:59] So you’ve told us about, The Editor, where can we find you? Where can we find it? Also, just from me to you. I have a book going to paper in August and I’ve never gone from hard covered to paper back. I’ve always been in paperback first how have you found the release of that during all of this? Just doing a lot of this kind of thing? 

Steven Rowley: [00:30:17] So I, the paperback has a brand new cover. 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:21] It’s gorgeous

Steven Rowley: [00:30:22] A different color hardcover, which is really beautiful and one thing that I found so interesting as I’m thinking about covers differently right now, and I don’t know if your book has the same cover as the hardcover,

Rachael Herron: [00:30:31] Different. They changed it.

Steven Rowley: [00:30:33] or not yet. Yeah. But one thing to keep in mind now, when, when bookstores aren’t necessarily open for us for browsing, many are open for curbside pickup, or if you know what you want, you get it. But some stores eliminate or schedule browsing, but we’re not free to just get lost in a bookstore and the way we were right then or used to be. And so we have to think about covers a little bit differently because we’re doing a lot of our book buying online and so like, what is that? And, and a lot of book marketing has shifted to, to Instagram bookstagramers, or so, you know, such an integral part of the publishing community now, you know, Instagram, Facebook, all this stuff. So what does the cover look like, you know, in a thumbnail size online? Do these colors really pop? It’s very interesting, it’s very interesting to think about, but it’s also very exciting, cause I think, you know, it’s hard to break through the noise. Sometimes there are a lot of titles out there and just the idea that there’s a new edition coming out and that might attract new readers that that maybe missed it the first time around it’s, you know, it feels very excited. So,

Rachael Herron: [00:31:37] I, I feel like my cover, my new cover is good, but I feel like your new cover is great, like, it just pops off the page. And when I did find out that it was Jackie O I was like, Oh, that’s. Okay. Now I can, now I can see what’s going on here. Cause it did give me that, but it was very subtle. It was not necessarily Jackie O on the cover. Fabulous. Okay so where can I find-

Steven Rowley: [00:32:00] To hit you over the head with it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:01] Where can we find you?

Steven Rowley: [00:32:02] So I’ve got at the back of the paperback running when it wants to pick up the paper back, there are two sample chapters. For my new novel, which will be out next spring, God willing, we’re all still here. That’s part of the, the paperback is the opportunity to have some supplemental material. This is a good booklet questions and then a sneak peek at what comes in. So people can find me I’m on all social media @ Mr. Steven, S T E V E N, Rowley, R O W L E Y. So find me Instagram (mrstevenrowley), Twitter (mrstevenrowley), Facebook (mrstevenrowley) there and, I have a website, www.stevenrowley.com 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:37] You were very clever to get all of the same handles everywhere. Minor. Just a little bit.

Steven Rowley: [00:32:43] Well, I, yeah, you say that, but, and I thought, Oh, Mr. Steven, cause Steven Rowley was taken by Mr. Steven. And now I have to tell the world that I’m, it doesn’t say Mrs. Tevin.

Rachael Herron: [00:32:57] I would not have seen that coming, but you’re right. That is what it looks like.

Steven Rowley: [00:33:00] Bad that’s like, that’s my plans. 

Rachael Herron: [00:33:02] I apologize for mispronouncing your name earlier too, it’s-

Steven Rowley: [00:33:05] Oh, no. I think I’m the oldest person in the world. Me and my father are the last two people. 

Rachael Herron: [00:33:11] Thank you so much for being on the show, Steven, this has been an absolute delight to talk to you and  

Steven Rowley: [00:33:17] It’s a thrill to be able to talk to someone else outside our home, so thank you for having me.

Rachael Herron: [00:33:20] That is the way. And you’re the only person I’m doing that with today, so that’s great. All right. Thanks Steven. Bye.

Steven Rowley: [00:33:27] Take care.

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.

Elizabeth Kay works in the publishing industry under a different name. She lives in London and has a first-class degree in English literature.

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 188 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. So thrilled you’re here with me today, as we are talking to Elizabeth Kay, who wrote a phenomenal novel called Seven Lies. And she, which I learned during our interview, is actually an editor and kind of came into writing from that standpoint, so it’s a fascinating interview. I think you’re really gonna enjoy it. Hope you, hope that you do, I’m sure that you will. And just a quick catch up on what’s going on around here, I am just revising again. I live in revision land. It’s wonderful. And it’s hard. And I think that I’m at the point with this book where I just want maybe to be writing a different book. We all get to that point where we’re like, Oh God, I don’t want to look at this scene even one more time and I need to, this is the fourth revision that I’m doing for my editor. And when I get to a scene, I’m like welcome friend, good grief! Back again. I will say something. I got pro writing aid, I had used Grammarly for a long time to kind of check to see, I am really, really bad at doubling words or leaving words out. I type very fast and my brain goes too fast and I usually like, one word every three sentences is left out and it’s often an important word. So Grammarly was helping me with that. However, I tried pro writing aid, which was cheaper to buy outright and have it forever than it was to have Grammarly. And I just tested it out this week with a Patreon essay. And it was very, very helpful. 

[00:02:03] While I was looking at my revisions of my book yesterday, I tried putting in a chapter to use pro writing aid and it was overwhelming. It actually got me way too far into the minutiae of editing. And I’m not quite there yet. I’m still dealing with some character issues and some plot issues. So I need to back out. But I know that at the very last, the very last point, when I’m about to send it to my editor, I will run it through pro writing aid, which I like a lot more than Grammarly, especially for it pointing out unwieldy sentences and words or phrases that you have repeated too many times. I’ve got a pretty good ear for repeats now, it used to be terrible when I started this game, I would use the word bus, you know, twice in a paragraph or whatever. And I wouldn’t hear that you don’t want to use the same word two or three times close together on a page. It’s hard to see, that’s what editors see for you. So don’t worry about that if you can’t see it, but it is nice to also have a program that will point it out to you. 

[00:03:06] So, that was fun! In other big news, it’s my birthday weekend, it’s the 4th of July weekend as I record this. And I did something really fun today for my birthday. I went out into open water and swam in the Bay. I got a wetsuit, I got it for my birthday, for myself, online and I put it on and a friend met me out there and kind of taught me how to sight as we swim, because it’s a different experience. You have to raise your head to sight where you’re going and to breathe. Combining the two moves when I am just used to, you know, breathing on the side and looking down at a lane marker, it’s very, very different. I got a little bit dizzy because it was choppy out on the Bay today and I loved every single second of it. I absolutely loved it. I am now an open water swimmer and so for my birthday, I am going out at 9:30 AM with a group and they swim every week in Berkeley. They swim three times a week. They just go out into the Bay and swim and it’s the Bay, it’s just there. It’s, it’s a little dirty and it’s a little, the ground is slimy, and it’s okay. It was so fun. I am such a water baby. I just want to have my body in water all the time. I always wanted to surf. Because I wanted just to sit on the surf board, I never wanted to actually surf or get in line or deal with other people who are waiting in line to catch the, the surfing wave. I also didn’t want a huge board that could hit me the head, none of that. And I realized recently that no, I just wanted to go out in the ocean and hang out and you can do that in a wetsuit. It’s a buoyant. You just kind of get tired of, of swimming, just kind of kick back and look up at the sky or roll around. It was so much fun. So I am a new convert and I’m kind of obsessed and I can’t wait to go for my second time. So that is what’s exciting around here, nothing to do with writing, but outside hobbies are fantastic for our writing. Right? I hope that you are getting some work done. Please come to wherever I am online and tell me about it. I really love to hear from you all. And now we’re just gonna jump right into the interview with Elizabeth Kay. Please enjoy and happy writing to you. 

[00:05:26] 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: [00:05:44] Well, I could not be more pleased today to welcome to the show. Elizabeth Kay. Hello, Elizabeth!

Elizabeth Kay: [00:05:49] Hello! Thank you so much for having me.

Rachael Herron: [00:05:52] Oh, I’m thrilled. I loved your book, we’re going to talk about that. Just a little introduction, Elizabeth Kay works in the publishing industry under a different name. She lives in London and has a first class degree in English literature, and Elizabeth, your book Seven Lies as we record, it comes out tomorrow. Is that right?

Elizabeth Kay: [00:06:08] It does. Yes. It’s been out in the UK for a couple of months now, but out in the US tomorrow. 

Rachael Herron: [00:06:13] Okay. That is so exciting. We were just talking off air a little bit. This is your debut novel and you are the, the really, the “it” girl right now. Does it feel like that?

Elizabeth Kay: [00:06:29] No, actually, maybe it’s partly locked down as well. I feel like I’m in a little bubble in the middle of nowhere, in a way. But the whole thing has been really exciting. I mean, I’m so thrilled to see it published here and I’m with you guys. So, it’s a whirlwind. 

Rachael Herron: [00:06:46] It’s one of those that I, I get a lot offers from publicists on books and I don’t always have the time to read the books, but your book looks so compelling that I picked it up and I just could not put it down. It was one of those, you have a long list of people who blurbed it so beautifully and it’s worth every blurb. I just could not stop turning the pages, so, 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:07:09] Oh, thank you so much. 

Rachael Herron: [00:07:10] Have you always been drawn to the thriller genre? 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:07:15] No. Well, no, actually the first thriller I really read was Gone Girl, 

Rachael Herron: [00:07:19] Okay.

Elizabeth Kay: [00:07:20] So not that long ago 

Rachael Herron: [00:07:20] Yeah

Elizabeth Kay: [00:07:21] when that came out, and but I mean, what a place to start

Rachael Herron: [00:07:24] Yes

Elizabeth Kay: [00:07:25] And since then I’ve been, it’s definitely what I read more than anything else, you know? And there’s been, I mean, there’ve been so many good novels in that space in the last few years. You’ll never short of it. That’s a great book if that’s your area. 

Rachael Herron: [00:07:37] Never short and if you know, once you get a couple of friends who do the texting back and forth, Oh, I got another one. You got to read this one. And your book was one of those that I’ve been telling all of my tight thriller reader friends to read. 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:07:49] Oh good.

Rachael Herron: [00:07:50] But let’s talk about your writing process, cause that’s what we do on this show. So what is, what is your writing process look like? How did you get this done? I’m assuming, do you have another job in the industry on the side? 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:08:02] Yeah, so I work Monday to Friday, as an editor for payment random house in the UK. So this is very much a weekend project. This was a Saturday, Sundays, for about nine months, six to nine months as my first draft. And it was basically, I found that if I got dressed for the day, then I have to start the day. So as long as I stayed in my pajamas, it was easy to just pretend I was in kind of a weird limbo between night and day, where I would just sit down and write for a good few hours. So that was my process for getting the bulk of this novel, this novel done. 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:36] That is so, so clever. I love that little hack and I, I didn’t realize that you were an editor there. What kind of literature do you edit at Penguin? 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:08:46] I work quite a lot. I do keep you through this, but not very many, but some kind of book, club-fiction and lots of nonfiction as well. So a real mix. 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:54] How did it feel coming to this book with your editor’s hat- were you able to take the editor’s hat off for the first draft?

Elizabeth Kay: [00:09:02] No, I’m terrible. I’m terrible at taking my editor hat off and I much prefer, once I’ve done the first draft, I’m much happier kind of fiddling and playing around and free working. I find the first bit of real slog. I’m trying to watch that word count, go up really slowly. And I had, I’d worked on a few novels before this, tried to write things and nothing had ever felt that exciting. So in a way, with this book, I wrote the first chapter and it’s in the voice of Jane whose main character, and once I had her, this felt so much easier. I actually, I would almost say I enjoyed the first draft with this one 

Rachael Herron: [00:09:38] Oh my goodness.

Elizabeth Kay: [00:10:39] Which I really liked. I like being in her head. So that made it a lot easier but, says me, the editor in me was always having to make her be quiet.

Rachael Herron: [00:09:51] The, without giving any spoilers, of course, the end actually surprised me and I have a harder and harder time finding that in books as we, as we push envelopes, and as we write everything we possibly can, and I read all the thriller, everything and your ending surprised me both what it was and how it was done. Did you, this is just a curiosity on Rachael’s part question. Did you know the ending when you were writing toward it or did it come to you later? 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:10:20] I knew from the very near the beginning where the ending was set, and sort of the bones of what was going to happen. The kind of the detail took a lot longer. I think that’s probably the bit that had the most drafts. I wrote, I would say probably at least 10, maybe 15 different versions of the ending with black, not huge changes, but different characters in different places, slightly different ways to twist it. And it was certainly the bit that I found most challenging. So I’m glad it was a surprise because I agree with you. That’s, you know, it’s hard to do something that does shock people, I think. 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:56] Yeah. I think, I think it is. And you did something really creative with tents and at the very end where it was just, I had to like go back and check to see how you had done it. So good job ‘yo!

Elizabeth Kay: [00:11:05] Thank you.

Rachael Herron: [00:11:06] What, what is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing? 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:11:10] Certainly it, it’s the editor in me mostly, but, I had a baby at the beginning of the year. So now it’s time. I used to be able to, in a way I think, well, I’m just having to be stricter. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:21] Yeah

Elizabeth Kay: [00:11:22] If I have two hours, I write and I try and write fast. I don’t have time for the editor anymore, she’s gone. Get the words down. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:29] So, and is this your first baby? 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:11:22] Yes. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:29] So how interesting to have this happen after you’d written all of this what, you know, maternal stuff? 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:11:39] Yeah. So it’s kind of, I don’t, I haven’t read my book since I’ve had my son. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:43] Yeah

Elizabeth Kay: [00:11:44] I wonder if it would make me feel differently. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:46] I don’t know. It’s like-

Elizabeth Kay: [00:11:49] I might do it and see what I feel.

Rachael Herron: [00:11:51] What is your biggest joy when it comes to writing? 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:11:53] Actually, for me, it’s been people saying, I thought it was kind of the editing bits and in a way it is, but it’s also people saying, Oh, you know, I’ve, I’ve told my mum she has to read it or I’ve suggested it to my book club. It’s really exciting to have people want to share it and want to talk. I think that’s the thing I love about reading when I finish a book and I want to say, you’ve got to read this cause I have to speak to someone 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:15] Yes

Elizabeth Kay: [00:12:16] and for people to be doing that about my book, it’s just a real joy because that’s, those are the books that really like, I really love when I want to do that. I know it’s been a great read. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:25] That’s a- that’s a really beautiful way to show love I think too, between, you know, family members or friends who are doing that. I, my, my mom, it was always my best person that all got all of my books. And she sent me all the books that she loved the most and that, and that hole has never been quite filled. Like I have other people, well, this is my thriller person. This is my club person. But, but yeah, no, that’s beautiful. Can you share a craft tip of any sort with us? 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:12:51] Well, in terms of silencing your inner editor, one of the things I did a lot last time, and I can see myself having to do again, working on a book 2, is turning the font to the color white as you’re typing. So you can’t see what you’re writing you just- as long as you can type fairly, fairly well, not too many typos. It’s a good way to kind of just write two or three pages. So everything I’m talking to myself, there’s no way I’m thinking it, stop going back and saying, no one would ever say that, or that would never happen. Well, that sounds really messy. Just keep going. And then once you’ve done a chunk, you can turn it back to a black font or whatever color you work with first and read through it 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:26] That’s genius.

Elizabeth Kay: [00:13:27] and see if it works.

Rachael Herron: [00:13:29] I’ve heard so many other tips and tricks about, you know, make it too small, so your eye can’t see it or, or, you know, close your eyes, but the white just works and you can probably still see where the cursor is, right?

Elizabeth Kay: [00:13:40] Yes. And you can see the pages going,

Rachael Herron: [00:13:29] Right

Elizabeth Kay: [00:13:40]  which is very satisfying.  

Rachael Herron: [00:13:45] Satisfying and also I, I always worried that, like, if I couldn’t see it or close my eyes, I would worry that I’d clicked away and I’m not actually writing, you know, in the wrong window or something 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:13:54] Yeah, you can see the cursor, you can see that there are red lines underneath every time you’ve made a typo, but you can’t read the words. And you can’t see 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:05] That’s genius. 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:13:54] The length of your paragraph, so any of your grammars, you have to ignore all of those bits and just think about the story for a few pages. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:12] I am loving that. Thank you. That just blew my mind and I can hear it blowing the minds of the listeners. So, thank you. That’s brilliant.

Elizabeth Kay: [00:14:20] You have to try

Rachael Herron: [00:14:21] Yes, absolutely. Oh my goodness. Okay. What thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way? 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:14:29] I think probably, probably my mood. I find, there are some chap- sometimes I’ll be writing a chapter and I think I just can’t write this now, or I’ll be in a really bad mood or pretty cross about something. And I think I’m going to go write that, that chapter I know needs to come soon. It’s a really angry one. I’ll go do that now. I’m not very good at kind of silencing myself to put on a different pair of glasses or a different coat, and far better to follow where I’m at. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:56] So you use it, you use the mood to do what

Elizabeth Kay: [00:14:59] I tried to

Rachael Herron: [00:15:00] you need to do. 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:15:01] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:15:02] That’s so clever, when I’m in a-

Elizabeth Kay: [00:15:03] I don’t think you can write a love scene if you’re in a really cross mood,

Rachael Herron: [00:14:06] No

Elizabeth Kay: [00:15:06] maybe other people can try, but I can’t. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:08] I’ve tried. I’ve tried. I cannot. It does not work. That’s so much smarter usually when I’m in a grumpy mood, I just stop things and avoid the page completely. 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:15:17] Well, that works as well. Sometimes I have to walk away.

Rachael Herron: [00:15:20] It feels pretty good. I got to tell you, I just turned in a revision to my editor four days ago, so I’m still like, high on the fumes of being done, so

Elizabeth Kay: [00:15:31] And having a creative time where you’re like, it’s not my job anymore. It’s someone else’s job for a little bit.

Rachael Herron: [00:15:35] Unfortunately, my editor is, I don’t know about you, but she’s one of those people, she’ll get it back to me in a week. 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:15:39] Oh so you got to make the most of it

Rachael Herron: [00:15:44] She’s horrible. So just know that as an editor, we love it when you say, Oh, I hope to get to it in the next six weeks. No, you can take eight. You can take twelve. I don’t care. Yeah. Okay. What is the best book that you’ve read recently? And why did you love it? 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:15:58] I have just finished reading, Shari Lapena’s a new novel, Shari Lapena, Shari Lapina, which is called The End of Her. It’s out in the UK next month. I think it’s probably similar in the US. Which is another, if you’ve read The Couple Next Door or any of her other books, this is another brilliant suburb and thriller, great characters, love to hate most of them, lots of good twist, really fast paced. So it’s very much fun to look out for. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:25] Perfect. I really- she’s Canadian, right? 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:16:27] Yeah, she is.

Rachael Herron: [00:16:28] Yeah. I’ve never heard the term suburban thriller. I’ve heard domestic thriller, but I really liked the term suburban thriller because that’s really what hers. 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:16:36] And they’re always like mini – aren’t they?

Rachael Herron: [00:16:38] Yeah, absolutely. 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:16:39] So neighbors, all of that. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:41] I love that. Thank you. And will you tell us a little bit like your elevator pitch of Seven Lies and tell us a little bit about it.

Elizabeth Kay: [00:16:50] Okay. So it is, it’s the story of two friends, Jane and Marnie, who’ve known each other since they were 11. It’s the seven lies that Jane tells to Marnie, which gets more and more sinister as the novel moves on and which results in a death near the middle of the novel. And far darker things further on. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:09] I loved, I talked to my students a lot about that context shifting midpoint. And when you use that midpoint of, we will not name who died, but somebody died, and I was like, yes, that’s a perfect place. Death is always a good thing to put in the midpoint.

Elizabeth Kay: [00:17:21] I think that you should start in the middle. That’s what I always say, it works out well, when what happens in the middle first? 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:26] Yes. When I remember to do that, it works well. Usually I do not.

Elizabeth Kay: [00:17:30] I’m on my own. I’m always forgetting all the good advice that people telling me.

Rachael Herron: [00:17:35] So are you in the process right now of writing book two? 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:17:38] I am writing a couple of book 2, it’s to see which one works best. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:42] Oh, good for you.

Elizabeth Kay: [00:17:44] See which one fit. And I’m kind of flashing out a few first chapter to see whether one of them feels strong enough. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:51] I love that. Yay! All right, and where can people find you? 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:17:55] They can find me if they’d like to, I’d love to hear from anyone who reads the book, if people will enjoy it or have a question I’m at AnyOtherLizzy on Twitter and Instagram AnyOtherLizzy. So come find me there. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:06] Perfect. Thank you, thank you so very much for this interview and thanks for a book that puts spring in my step again, when I, when it comes to the thriller genre. So thank you. 

Elizabeth Kay: [00:18:18] Thank you for having me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:19] Welcome. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:20] 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.

Eddie King is an author, screenwriter, and television presenter. Born and raised in Hampstead, London, he spent many years working in the film industry as a producer and script consultant on large-budget Hollywood productions. He is a prominent ambassador of American country music across Europe and co-hosts a weekly primetime television series where he interviews some of Nashville’s biggest stars. Eddie has written five novels, all in the contemporary romance genre. His first book, ‘Spoilt For Choice’ earned him a Young Writers’ Award nomination and ‘Southern Girl: Daisy Dukes and Cowboy Boots’ has been adapted for screen. He currently splits his time between London, Los Angeles, and Nashville.

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

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Transcript

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

[00:00:15] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #187 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. So glad that you’re here with me today. 

[00:00:25] Today, I am talking to the awesome Eddie King, who is doing something with his book. That I have never heard of being done. You want to stick around for how he is using social media and this new release of his, it’s completely fascinating. And he is a super sweetie, super genuine and willing to share. And he talks about there being no right way of writing. And I love that. I am constantly telling people how to write and always trying to remember to add onto the end of that. I’m right. Unless I’m wrong. In which case, you’re right. Do your own thing that is so true about writing, so I know you’re going to enjoy this really interesting and very different interview. 

[00:01:15] And let’s see what’s going on around here. Well, I got my revision letter from my editor and it was so good. She, she spent a whole single spaced page. So we’re talking 500 words or so praising me. And you know, when you get a revision letter from your editor, usually often they say, you know, a few nice things, and then they jump into the meat of the revision letter, which is what you need to fix, which is the job, right? That’s the revision letters job, is to tell you what is broken and what needs fixing and so when you hear the compliments as a writer, all of our brains say something like, well, you know, she has to say that, you know, that’s her job. She’s supposed to build me up before she tears it apart. But these compliments were so specific that in my email, back to her, I wrote something like I actually believe you because this is the difference between somebody saying you look pretty. And somebody saying, oh my gosh, that color is divine. It brings out your eyes. And what skincare regimen are you using? Oh, I’d love to get the name of whatever product you’re using on your skin because you are glowing. That’s the difference? and that’s, that’s that latter one is the thing where I got the revision letter. So that’s great. So I am now going into my fourth, big revision. So I’m going to take moment to kind of break down right now what happens when you get a revision letter from an editor. 

[00:02:44] So I’m working with Hush Little Baby coming out next year. It, I did a terrible shitty first draft, which is the way I write, which is the way I believe most people should write, but there are no, there’s no right and wrong. I do accept that. And I did a massive, massive makes sense draft, which was then followed up by a couple of passes that clean things up and did a little bit of smaller things. So I would consider those my first and second draft. And then I sent it to my editor. Second draft doesn’t really cover what happened after the second draft, before I sent it to my editor where I do the smaller passes of looking for specific things. But you, kind of get the gist, the big, huge, heavy lifting of the second draft was done before I sent it to my editor, my editor at that point I’ve mentioned on the show, just called me it wasn’t-  I, the book needed too much work even to get into a revision letter, honestly. I had to move so much stuff around in the book that it was just a conversation and she said less slow in the beginning, less stabbing at the end, get some more stabbing up front and some emotions in the back. So I rewrote the book in another very big, third draft, heavy lifting kind of thing. And that’s what she got a couple of weeks ago. And now I have the actual revision letter and this is what you get from your editor. You will have an editor, whether you get an agent to sell your work, and are traditionally published, or then your editor kind of works for you and they give you money. And then they edit you, which is a nice part of traditional publishing. If you choose to sell, publish, you have to hire your editor and you’ll get just as good an experience if you know what to look for and it’s marvelous to hire your own editor. I always recommend Reedsy.com, everybody there is vetted most have worked in the traditional publishing industry. I’ve never heard a bad thing about an editor that my students and coaching clients have used. So I recommend that if you’re going to the self-publishing route, no matter what you’re going to get what’s called a revision letter and a revision letter, for some reason, it was always single-spaced who this one was 6 pages long. I have heard of 20 and 30-page revision letters. I think my shortest was two pages and my longest was maybe 10. So this is about average 6 pages and, with the revision letter talks about is the broad stroke stuff this character needs to be expanded, this red herring doesn’t work. And here’s why this entire plot line can and should be lifted out. 

[00:05:29] There were recommendations that you get to choose whether or not you take, I take all of them, because every editor I’ve ever worked with has been way more right about these things than I am. I can’t see the forest for the trees. They are right. So, what I do, this is my process. It is exactly the same process that I use in any other revision pass revision is something, I talk about it a lot that can be learned. It is a process. Once you learn it, you have it forever to use in every revision process. I’m doing it on that book of essays I talked about last week. You can listen in episode number 108 of like a, a breakdown of how I revise, but just real quickly for this one, for an editing letter, for a revision letter, from an editor, I do the same thing I always do. I print out a new and correct an up-to-date sentence outline, which just has a snippet of each scene. Not even a snippet, it has a few words that say what happens in each scene. So I can basically read my whole book in 30 seconds or so, 45 seconds of casting my eye over those. I leave a lot of space in between the scenes so I can scribble in there because this sentence outline will become my map for revision. So I print that out, and then I sit down with the revision letter and I get out my little two and a half by one inch post it’s, and for every idea, my editor gives me. I make a post it, and I stick it in my whatever journal I’m using at the time. Or you can put it on an eight and a half piece of paper by 11, or you could put it on the back of your sentence outline wherever you want. Just stick them somewhere. Every single idea that she gives you, write it down. 

[00:07:15] Then, what I do that probably took me an hour and a half this morning, just doing those post- it’s. Then, you open the document that she sends you, she’ll send you your revised document in word with comments. And what I do, is I just hit that next comment button and I look at all of the comments. I would say 90-95% of the comments my editor this time has put in my document are small line edits, like this doesn’t make sense. What about what happened in the last scene? How does this fit? They’re small things. This editor tends to give me all the big ideas that I have to spend a lot of time thinking about in the revision letter, not inside the body of the document, which is fantastic, but in the past, what I’ve had, is editors who will leave the really big ideas as comments in your manuscript. Totally great. Just as long as they’re somewhere. So what I do before I start any work is I look at every comment and make sure she hasn’t snuck one in there that is, that is like, you know, get rid of this character, or get rid of this storyline. So I scanned my eye down those and make sure I don’t need to make any more post-its I think I only got two or three from that process this morning. And then you kind of sit down with these post-it’s, you sit down with your sentence outline, and that’s when you brainstorm that’s when you start to scribble all over the sentence outline, how can I make this post it happen? Where in the manuscript can I do that? How can I do that- for me, it’s always, when I’m writing thriller, apparently it’s always about increasing suspense because I like to hang out with emotions, not suspense. The suspense is not an emotion. So for me, it’s really about looking at that sentence outline. Where can I increase suspense and decrease relaxation, decrease the break intention. So that’s what I was doing today. And it’s so fun. It’s so fun. And then what you do is you just open your document and you start with revising and you go from there looking at your map, it’s all mapped out. You know, what’s going to happen in the next scene, what you need to fix, you’re going to have ideas on the way. Yay. More post-it’s. I should just call this the post it program. Honestly, you know that I have a problem. It’s such a good problem to have. Okay. So that’s enough about revision. I hope this has answered any questions you might have about getting a revision letter from an editor. It’s not scary. It’s a process. It can hurt. Definitely. This time, this revision letter didn’t hurt because I got the first revision letter verbally just saying, fix the mess you made, which I did. 

[00:09:47] So, what else did I want to tell you? Oh, if you like these tips, you can always become a Patron, at patreon.com/Rachael, R, A, C, H, A, E, L, at the $5 level a month and up, you get to ask me any questions about writing and I will answer them on the podcast in a mini episode. Nobody asks this question about the revision and letter. So it was just in a regular podcast but I figured some of you might be wondering what you do when you get that dreaded, feared and awesome revision letter. I will be recording an episode next week, got a couple of questions. So if you have any, and you are one of the $5 and up Patrons, please leave me any of your writing questions or really, you know, any questions at all. I’m pretty much an open book. 

[00:10:31] Thank you. Speaking of Patreon, to new patrons, Evan Oliver, who has already sent some questions, and Marie, thank you. And Lisa Lucky. I really appreciate your patronage. It means that what I am doing is important to you and I am so grateful to all of my patrons over at Patreon. It is, it’s literally the difference in me being able to afford the time to do this kind of thing, and to write those essays that I write for you and not doing them. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. I think that’s what I wanted to tell you before we get into this interview with Eddie King, please enjoy this innovative approach to publishing. He’s kind of pushing some old boundaries here, so I hope you enjoy it. And I wish you very, very, very happy writing my friends.

[00:11:24] Hey, is resistance keeping you from writing? Are you looking for an actual writing community in which you can make a calls and be held accountable for them? Join RachaelSaysWrite, like twice weekly, two hour writing session on zoom. You can bop in and out of the writing room as your schedule needs, but for just $39 a month, you can write up to 4 hours a week. With our wonderful little community, in which you’ll actually get to know your writing peers. We write from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM on Tuesdays and 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM on Thursdays and that’s US Pacific Standard Time. Go to RachaelHerron.com/Write to find out more.

Rachael Herron: [00:12:06] Well, I could not be more pleased today to welcome to the show, Eddie King, all the way from Germany, Eddie, how are you?

Eddie King: [00:12:08] I’m good. Thank you very much for having me.

Rachael Herron: [00:12:10] I’m so excited to have you. You are a writer who is doing something I have not seen any other writer do. So we’re going to have time to talk about that towards the end of our time. Super exciting. And let me give a little bio for you. Eddie King is an author, screenwriter and television presenter. Born and raised in Hampstead, London. He spent many years working in the film industry as a producer and script consultant on large-budget Hollywood productions. He is a prominent ambassador of- this is so weird, Eddie, and I love it, of American country music across Europe and co-hosts a weekly primetime television series, where he interviews some of Nashville’s biggest stars. Eddie has written five novels on the contemporary romance genre, his first books, “Spoilt for Choice” earned him a Young Writers’ Award nomination, and “Southern Girl: Daisy Dukes and Cowboy Boots” has been adapted for screen. He currently splits his time between London, Los Angeles, and Nashville. I am a, I’m a huge country fan, but old country. I’m not so into the new country. And I was raised, 

Eddie King: [00:13:17] the old country, the Johnny Cash. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:21] Yeah. Or even some of the stuff today that’s coming out but sounds a little bit older. I actually wrote out a romance trilogy about three countries, singing sisters, which remains probably my favorite romance I’ve ever written. And I was looking at the cover of Southern Girl and it looks like one of my books. It’s pretty awesome.

Eddie King: [00:13:41] Well I like to think country music is a love story, right? It’s a 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:46] Exactly. And you can have an entire romance novel inside one song. Your bio does not say that you’re a song writer. Have you ever attempted that? 

Eddie King: [00:13:56] No, not yet either I’m not very good musically. So,

Rachael Herron: [00:14:03] What drew you to this is not on our list of things to talk about, but what drew you to country music in the first place?

Eddie King: [00:14:08] I think just growing up, I always listened to sort of the, there’s always Johnny Cash playing around my house and a little bit of Rockabilly, and rock and roll and they got into it. And I started visiting Nashville and I fell in love with the new country as well. So, 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:26] Yeah.

Eddie King: [00:14:27] A little bit of everything so, and it was weird because, you know, I’d come back to London and nobody knew about any of these stars and they were like huge in the US, right? So,

Rachael Herron: [00:14:39] Interesting.

Eddie King: [00:14:40] It was, yeah, it was. It was very interesting. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:43] Did you see that recent mashup video? I think it’s just called Country Music and it basically has all the stars in it? From Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, to all the new people. Have you seen that?

Eddie King: [00:14:55] Yes I have seen that.

Rachael Herron: [00:14:56] It’s so gorgeous. I don’t know how new it is. Maybe it come out months ago but I just thought the other day.

Eddie King: [00:15:02] It’s a really nice. It’s already a nice sort of community. I used to work and the film industry out in LA and that was, you know, it’s still in the entertainment genre. But when you move to work in country music out in Nashville, people are so different and so nice and so welcoming and yeah, and it was something new because, you know, you’re, we had like a big gap in country music, so it was nice, guys in the US and bring some of that back.

Rachael Herron: [00:15:28] That is so awesome. I was supposed to be in Nashville two months ago, but Covid got in the way and I still haven’t been, it’s definitely like a bucket list item for me to go to the Bluebird. Okay. Well, let’s talk about you and your books because you are a busy fella and you’re still getting books done. What is your writing process? What, how and where, and how much all of that. 

Eddie King: [00:15:50] Well, it differs every time. Usually it’s kind of a, at a pub or a bar or maybe a coffee shop. I liked a bit of background noise. Some sort of distraction to get your mind off of it. And it really just matters. I know people say you should keep it of a 9 to 5 schedule and I base a week, but that just doesn’t work for me. So 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:16] I don’t agree with the should’s. That’s why I like the show. We don’t, we don’t worry about the should’s. 

Eddie King: [00:16:23] Yeah. So whenever I’m in the mood, I usually go around sort of 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM and I’ll sit there until I’m done. And that’s usually about sort of 5, 6:00 PM. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:37] How have things changed since Covid though, since you can’t go out? 

Eddie King: [00:16:40] It’s been tough. Yeah. It’s I think that it’s been, it’s been a bit of both sort of, it’s nice where you can just sit in your pajamas all day and just write from your couch. I should be sitting up at my desk and writing, especially when there’s deadlines coming in, but, yeah, it’s a, but things over here, I’m out in Germany at the moment and everything’s back to normal pretty much. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:05] Really?

Eddie King: [00:17:06] Everything’s open. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:08] Can you, you actually go sit in the pub now?

Eddie King: [00:17:11] Yes, yes, yes. So I just take my laptop. The weather has been nice here and you can sit outside as well, so. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:19] That must be really nice. I miss, I miss things. Yeah. America, we’re not, we’re not handling this whole thing very well, so it’s going to be a bit longer. Okay. So what is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing?

Eddie King: [00:17:35] There’s so many and there’s new one every day. I think 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:40] It’s the truth. 

Eddie King: [00:17:42] Probably like everyone says the editing process. You send your book off and you’ve got your baby that you’ve been working on, comes back with so many revisions and every time I think, okay, they’re going to come back and say, it’s perfect. Don’t change anything. Yeah. But every time it’s like, all right, take this chapter out, take this character out. This doesn’t work. I spend a lot of time on that. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:05] You have no idea how hard I worked for that. And I love that you say that. I always think that, that this time I’m sending it away and I’ve nailed it. 

Eddie King: [00:18:13] Yeah.

Rachael Herron: [00:18:14] I’m always thinking and then I’m supposed to get a revision back on Monday. And I now know like, Oh, it’s going to be bad again.

Eddie King: [00:18:21] And the bad thing is that they’re usually right, so.

Rachael Herron: [00:18:25] Yes, they are.

Eddie King: [00:18:26] That’s, that’s always the process to sort of, admit it, you have to say it, well.

Rachael Herron: [00:18:31] How long does it take you to realize that this particular editing letters right again? 

Eddie King: [00:18:40] Again, it’s different, you know, with Southern Girl, I was convinced that you know, I wanted to release a sort of a writer’s cut version of it because I was not happy with, but sort of when the sales started coming in and I was like, okay, well maybe they were right.

Rachael Herron: [00:19:04] I’m going to steal that idea for my students. Like, if you really hate those editing ideas, just put your book aside into a writer’s cut. You can always share that later for lots of money

Eddie King: [00:19:13] Yeah. Nobody’s gonna read it, but you know, at least put it out.

Rachael Herron: [00:19:18] And psychologically you have it. And then they’ll see also, we all see after we do our edits, we’re like, oh yeah, the book is a lot better now. 

Eddie King: [00:19:30] Yeah, I mean, I’ve got all types of ending for most on my books

Rachael Herron: [00:19:35] You know, that’s funny. I have alternative books for most of my books. I rewrite so much. What is your biggest joy? 

Eddie King: [00:19:43] What’s the biggest what? Sorry. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:45] Oh, What’s your biggest joy when it comes to writing?

Eddie King: [00:19:48] I think when it all comes together, right, there’s always sort of points when you’re writing and you’re just, you think, Oh, actually this works, and sort of things that surprise you while you’re writing. So usually have a plan of what you wanted, where you want to take the story, but then something pops in your head, take it in that direction and it works. Yeah. And then when you sort of stopped connecting with characters that you were writing, I think that definitely whether you’d like them or hate them, if you have any feeling about the characters that you’re right. That’s always a nice feeling because you sort of, kind of, as a writer, you live in this world where there’s all these fictional characters around you. When you, kind of see that they’re real people in your head, that’s, that’s fun. That’s a good proper writing I would say.

Rachael Herron: [00:20:43] That’s such a delicious feeling to think of them as friends and to kind of miss them.

Eddie King: [00:20:48] The sad thing as well, but 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:50] Yeah,

Eddie King: [00:20:51] The writers’ well

Rachael Herron: [00:20:53] Speaking of your plans moving as the characters take you, are you more of a planner? A plotter or are you more of a seat of your pants or something in between? 

Eddie King: [00:21:04] I try to plan more and more and it does help. And I’ve been trying to get into this habit of, before I stopped having a solid plan, but I hardly ever stick to it or something to preach. And a lot of the stories are right at to current affairs as well. So you have to, dig in, just what’s happening around you. And I’m very impatient, so if I hear something or if I see a truth about character, I just want to get it in this book. I didn’t think about sort of two or three books. I tried just cram everything and 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:40] I really believe in that. I really believe and if it wasn’t Annie Dillard said something like, Save nothing. Keep nothing back. And it was much, it was a beautiful, long quote, but you know, I’ll spend it all play it all. Because as soon as you spend it all and play it all, and put it in this book, you, you know, we all have that worry. Like, well, the next book won’t have anything, but it backfills with these new ideas. Yeah. I love that. Can you share a craft tip of any sort of as regards to writing? 

Eddie King: [00:22:14] I would say. There’s no right way of doing anything. And I’ll explain that a little bit. I think a lot of people, starting out with writing, they, you know, they do all this research of how to write and even how to format stuff. And I try to break, I deliberately going to break the rules, but I think, you know, those rules are there to be sort of bent and you can play with English and you can, you can just do whatever you want. There’s no right way of doing it. And there’s no one way of doing it. And as great as all these sort of writing books are, and stuff, I think the advice I give to all sort of new writers and young writers is just go out there and just write and just start, just get pen to paper, just get words out there and you pick it up along the way. I mean, look at Shakespeare the greatest writer, you know, he just made words up the way he wanted to.

Rachael Herron: [00:23:16] He made a lot of words and he made a lot of them up. Yeah.

Eddie King: [00:23:19] Yeah. So I think you can play around sort of being a fiction writer, anyways, you can play around with words and sentence structure and a lot of, sort of the stuff I write kind of sentences border into poetry. And so I think, you know, there’s a lot of space there to do what you want and you should just be yourself and not try and imitate anyone else. Yeah. I think that would be it. There’s no rules with writing and just be yourself. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:50] That is such a huge tip that it is not one that we talk about a lot. We talk a lot about the specific ways to be better, be stronger. All of these things, you know, what books we should read. And we read all of the books and we listen to podcasts like this. But what we forget is that we’re all completely unique. But the one thing that we all share is that we learned how to do it by doing it. 

Eddie King: [00:24:13] Yeah.

Rachael Herron: [00:24:14] None of us learned everything by reading all of the books, putting it together, perfectly in our brains and being able to sit down and do it. We all had to learn on the job. 

Eddie King: [00:24:16] Exactly. And that’s the best way of doing it. Plus, get all your comments right.

Rachael Herron: [00:24:28] That is for someone else. I always think that is what a copy editor is for, they are not that expensive, you know? Yeah. Yeah. They can, every time I get copied edits back, I’m like, I am the world’s worst writer. Like I have no idea what a comma is, you know, I think I do. I don’t.

Eddie King: [00:24:43] Yeah, that’s so funny.

Rachael Herron: [00:24:40] Well, and then you have that frustrating thing where different copy editors do things differently. You’re like, I just learned how to do this, then you’re doing it differently. Yeah. What thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way?

Eddie King: [00:24:052 I think maybe well, unsurprisingly people I think just, I think people inspire me. I sort of, I’m one of those people that goes and sits down and just people watches and that’s how I get inspiration for actually writing. And then somebody might come into your life and they’re just sort of this, this force. And that sort of encourages me to write. I use people as muses all the time, whether they know it or not. Love again, you know, I’m one of those people that falls in love three or four times a day with people. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:35] Me too

Eddie King: [00:25:36] So that really encourages me to write and then probably more surprisingly music as well. I take a lot of inspiration from music. And I often have songs in my head while I’m writing and I sort of play them over and over again, and it could be anything from sort of a gangster, rap song to get me all pumped up to sort of some classical music to calm me down or a little bit of Taylor Swift, you know, just why not. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:09] I really liked her latest documentary. That was good. 

Eddie King: [00:26:13] Yeah, and I think, again, she’s such a times at songwriter. And I think there’s so much talent in music and just the stories and they get to tell a story in such a short amount of time, so, yeah. Music, surprisingly, people not so surprising. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:31] It’s interesting. Would you agree that, and this is a thesis I’m just making right now, so I could be wrong, but would you agree that most writers have to be somehow in love with people? I think there are some legends, yeah, I think there are some, probably some curmudgeonly writers that aren’t, and perhaps they write because they kind of hate people. Maybe we fall into different camps, but I am one of those like you, I fall in love constantly with I’m in love with you right now, you know, you’re going to be inspiring something that I do later. 

Eddie King: [00:27:05] But that’s the thing, even if you hate somebody, there is an element of love in it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:12] Yes.

Eddie King: [00:27:13] Love is sort of a feeling of passion and

Rachael Herron: [00:27:16] Fascination

Eddie King: [00:27:17] So if you actively go out and hate everyone, there’s something loving about that in a weird way as well.

Rachael Herron: [00:27:26] Yes. In terms of intention, yeah.

Eddie King: [00:27:26] But yeah, I mean. I think you can’t- you can’t write characters and you can’t write about people without loving them or loving the idea of the diversity of the world really 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:42] And loving them completely, including all the flaws that we have to build into our characters. We don’t write books with perfect people. 

Eddie King: [00:27:50] Exactly. And, you know, there’s that old phrase that writers feel more, writers love more, writers hate more. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:59] I’ve never heard that. And I love it. 

Eddie King: [00:28:02] Yeah. It’s kind of true. I think.

Rachael Herron: [00:28:04] Yeah

Eddie King: [00:28:005] all the time, so

Rachael Herron: [00:28:07] My wife calls that being a drama queen, but everything affection, 

Eddie King: [00:28:14] I get told that as well, all the time. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:16] Maybe that’s what writers have in common. What is the best book you read recently? And why did you love it? 

Eddie King: [00:28:26] I should be reading more. I, you know, that’s one thing is a, that’s one of my flaws. I just don’t read enough. But then when I do read, I sort of read everything from an author in one sitting. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:40] So you’re a binge reader

Eddie King: [00:28:41] Yeah. But sort of author wise. So I, recently re-read all of Fitzgerald’s, but yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:50] Oh really?

Eddie King: [00:28:52] Yeah. And there was a collection of short stories called Flappers and Philosophers. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:54] I just saw that the other day. 

Eddie King: [00:28:58] Yeah. and so I read that recently. I really enjoyed it, but I had sort of mixed feelings as well after that. Cause I, I read it, I enjoyed it. And I thought, okay. That it’s been a while since I’ve read some of this, some of them I haven’t read, but then I saw a show like Amazon or Netflix show about Zelda Fitzgerald. And it’s sort of a mini documentary about Fitzgerald, he was, he didn’t come across as the nicest person in the sort of in the series. So it kind of put a bit of a sour taste.

Rachael Herron: [00:29:32] That’s difficult. Yeah. That’s difficult to put those. I hate it when a favorite author lets me down in some big way. Well, not over some other ones. Okay. So now is the time that we talk about you, and what you’re doing, where people can find you, but please tell us about this latest book that just came out this week as record- as we record, so it’ll be about two weeks when it goes out. And what is different about this book? 

Eddie King: [00:30:00] What isn’t different about this,

Rachael Herron: [00:30:03] First, tell us the title. 

Eddie King: [00:30:01] Yeah, it’s called the Lost Romantics. So it’s about three friends, three wealthy friends from London that are trying to navigate sort of love, modern love and relationships in the digital world with sort of Tinder and Bumble, and instead of, and it’s, the concept is that these guys are tired of swiping. They’re tired of online dating. They’re tired of sort of not going out on real dates. So they’re coming together to bring romance back. To make romance cool again, as it was right again. But yeah, so I think there’s, sort of a lot of people I feel anyways, or they will be in this sort of early to mid-thirties that are kind of rebelling against social media and updating and online dating. And it’s been fun for a while and it’s been a new thing, but this is nostalgia factor that kicks in, and everyone’s sort of remembers the old times and, you know, going out and picking up a girl at her house for a date. Taking her, you know, having dinner and you know, it’s sounds like such a simple thing, but a lot of the time, these days it’s, they’ll meet at the bar, have a drink at lunchtime or something. You know, it’s a,

Rachael Herron: [00:31:30] Yeah

Eddie King: [00:31:32] I think those stories of romance are at risk. And you know, I’m not saying it’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s just a different thing.

Rachael Herron: [00:31:42] Is this a, is this a trilogy or will all three friends end up in the end with love? 

Eddie King: [00:31:48] Well, you’ll have to stay tuned. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:51] Okay. And how do we stay tuned? 

Eddie King: [00:31:54] Yeah. Well, that’s a weird thing. I mean, this book is actually available for free, on Instagram if you follow @thelostromantics or you follow me @eddieleeking. I publish, I think, 10 to 15 pages a day at the moment. And it’s just the next chapters that keeping coming out, coming out.

Rachael Herron: [00:32:18] And it’s in the stories function.

Eddie King: [00:32:21] Yes

Rachael Herron: [00:32:22] So basically your, your most recent pictures on your feed, basically say how to go to the stories and you have this really clever thing. So a story, you know, a story only lasts for a few seconds. But you have that little heart to kind of show where a right handed person would put their thumb. 

Eddie King: [00:32:40] Yeah, I’ve got all those people telling me, you know, I can’t read that fast cause you only get sort of 10 seconds. 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:46] But you explain it clearly! They were not reading directions.

Eddie King: [00:32:50] So there’s a little heart in the corner where you put your thumb, you rest your thumb, and it holds the page. And you can read the whole book it’s in the highlights section story.

Rachael Herron: [00:33:01] Yeah. So you keep the highlights those are always there. We’ll, I just think it’s such a fascinating model. And what I really love about it is, the tension that you hold between these people wanting out of social media and swiping and everything like this but, 

Eddie King: [00:33:14] Yeah I mean, that’s, the irony it’s not lost for me

Rachael Herron: [00:33:19] Well, I love it. I think it’s, it feels really intentional to make the reader think about what is going on in the book while they’re holding their phone. What will happen when all of the pages are in, will you then publish the book as well as a standalone or where you always have to go through Instagram? 

Eddie King: [00:33:38] Yeah, I know. So this is kind of just for the release. So there’s three books at the moment and there’ll be released over Instagram, but I think the first book is available on Amazon.

Rachael Herron: [00:33:55] Oh, it is? okay.

Eddie King: [00:33:56] In a copy, I think in two weeks. 

Rachael Herron: [00:33:58] Okay

Eddie King: [00:34:00] And then in bookstores, I should know this, but I think it’s around six weeks. 

Rachael Herron: [00:34:08] Is this your idea to do this, or is it your publisher’s idea, or?

Eddie King: [00:34:13] It was actually my publishers and I, you know, I have to admit this was another thing I was totally against because I was like first of all, I was like, how are we going to give this book away for free? And then it was sort of, I’m a big fan of sort of paperbacks and hardbacks and actual physical books. And I’ve always thought that corner, or, you know, I don’t even like reading eBooks or audio books. I’ve never sort of got into it. So I was against the idea from the beginning. But then like everything, sort of they broke me down and it sort of kind of made sense. And I liked the fact that it is free, for people to go out there read because you know, times are tough, especially now with Covid and everything. Spending eight, nine pounds or $12 on a book, you know it’s a luxury sometimes, and it’s a whole new book as well.

Rachael Herron: [00:35:13] Think the thing, it’s a whole new audience and I think the thing that I hope that you find is that you’re, I’ve seen this with friends when they publish a book on their blog, like in pieces is people still buy the book. 

Eddie King: [00:34:26] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:35:27] And these people, will be like, well, I kind of wanted to reread that chapter and I don’t want to go back through the stories, I’ll just buy the book. And they are going to be telling their friends and it’s such a fascinating model.

Eddie King: [00:35:37] Yeah and that’s the thing, you know a lot of sort of a, you know, when I write, I write for a certain audience and, you know, that’s completely the different audience that I get. But you know, people spend so much time on Instagram or on social media looking at sort of all sorts of rubbish. Yeah. This is sort of a way to say, well, actually I’m doing something good on my phone. I’m actually reading book.

Rachael Herron: [00:36:03] Yes

Eddie King: [00:36:04] and you know, it’s in the Instagram, you know, you’ve got all of your friends, things and vacation pictures and all sorts of things. So it’s nice to break it up a little bit with a story as well.

Rachael Herron: [00:36:17] And I get, I personally get really stuck in stories. I really, really like them. So, and in fact, 

Eddie King: [00:36:23] It just keeps going on and on, right

Rachael Herron: [00:36:24] Yeah, exactly, they just keep turning. In fact, I’m going to try to remember today, and also when this comes out to put your first page in my stories so that people can see that that would be really cool. And that’s what a great way to share too. Like free book. Here you go.

Eddie King: [00:36:39] Oh yeah, that’s sort of the idea, and sort of a lot of brands, and a lot of influences and people are mentioned within the books, sort of from a mass view of point, they all share and it gets bigger in that way so

Rachael Herron: [00:36:51] And you can tag them on those pages when they’re shared. 

Eddie King: [00:36:57] Exactly, so 

Rachael Herron: [00:36:58] Oh my mind is blank. I’m never ever going to do this. This sounds like a nightmare to administer 

Eddie King: [00:37:04] I mean yeah, the logistics items, I couldn’t even get it formatted. Yeah. Me trying to put a story together is a nightmare. So luckily, it goes that.

Rachael Herron: [00:37:13] The format is beautiful. The format is really well done. I think, it’s just 

Eddie King: [00:37:17] I mean, you know, it’s not, it’s, on such a small screen, sometimes it well, it must be hard to read, but I think they’ve got the balance right, you know.

Rachael Herron: [00:37:26] They got the balance right. These are, these are 47-year-old eyes. And as soon as I see something that’s a little bit too small, I leave it. I’ll pick up a book in the bookstore and go, well, can’t read that. And yours was like, Oh, I’m in it. I’m reading. So, yeah. Fabulous. Okay. So tell us again where we can find you and all of these things. 

Eddie King: [00:37:44] Yes. So Instagram is probably the best way to go. So the book’s called the Lost Romantics and the handle is @thelostromantics and me, you can find also an Instagram @eddieleeking. And the book is published on both places and you can find out information about like my previous books and upcoming books and all sorts of stuff. That’s probably the best way.

Rachael Herron: [00:38:08] Thank you for being here and for being so different. 

Eddie King: [00:38:14] Thank you for having me. Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:38:17] Of course, I’ve never interviewed an author, an author just like you. And I enjoy that.

Eddie King: [00:38:24] That’s a good thing

Rachael Herron: [00:38:25] So it’s been a wonderful thing. I was really looking forward to this interview and you did not disappoint. So thank you so much for being here and happy writing and may it fly from the Instagram and also the paid for shelves.

Eddie King: [00:38:27] That’s so cool.

Rachael Herron: [00:38:40] Thanks, Eddie

Eddie King: [00:38:41] Alright. Take care.

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.

Lover of fairytales, folklore, and mythology, Ines Johnson spends her days reimagining the stories of old in a modern world. She writes books where damsels cause the distress, princesses wield swords, and moms save the world. Aside from being a full time author and professional reader, Ines Johnson is a seasoned educator. She’s taught college level courses and workshops in screenwriting, story development and plotting, and media history. A lifelong learner (read: academic addict), she holds a Bachelor’s in Communications, a Master’s in Instructional Design, and a Doctorate in Educational Technology. She is banned from getting the MFA in Creative Writing she so desperately wants until both her children are in college. That might be soon as she is the proud mother of a college sophomore and a rising high school senior. Ines lives just outside Washington, DC and can be found getting her words early in the morning at coffee shops. In the afternoons, she can be found on a park bench contemplating what she will do with her life once her kids have grown up.

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 #186 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. So pleased that you’re here with me today on a really exciting podcast day. Today, I am talking to Ines Johnson and she is phenomenal. She reached out to me because she joined my Patreon at the mini coaching level and had this really big question for me. And I wrote back to her and I’m like, please come on my podcast, let’s talk about this. It’s a major question. So Ines has hit total success. Six figures just from books and still there’s something else she wants. So we talk about that on the show and I think you’ll really enjoy it and her, and she’s just lovely and charming and hilarious. So stay tuned for that.

[00:01:06] Little update about what’s going on around here. I am waiting for the editing letter from my editor on this big draft re- revision that I did for her, it’ll probably still be a medium sized revision I’m hoping with a lot of line editing. Hopefully I don’t have to rip the whole book up again, but I’ll probably know by the next time I talked to you. So cross your fingers for me. Although, you know, I love revision. Speaking of revision, I had a silly thing happened to me earlier this week. So in 2017, three years ago, I was feeling very, very broken, very, very empty. I had just like run out, they’ll create a wellhead run out. It had been spent. I attributed this to overwork. and I embarked upon this 12-month challenge that I used Patreon for, I wrote an essay a month. The collection is called Replenish and every month, I challenged myself to do something different. One month I spent an hour outside every day. One month I put my body in water every day. One month I meditated every day. One month I let go of every other kind of distraction and only read no TV, no social media, no, nothing just reading. So that those were the things I was playing with, and the year of replenish truly did replenish me. It fixed me, however it fixed me because I, well, I don’t even know if it fixed me really. During that month, I mean, sorry, during that year, while I was looking for the solution, three months in, I realized that I had become an alcoholic and that is what fixed me, finding sobriety, fixed me. 

[00:02:50] But at the meantime, I’m still doing this challenge. I’m still committed to doing it for the Patreon readers. And I also believe in it doing things that are good for us. Good for our souls. What can that do for our creativity? So I’ve had this collection of 12 essays. Roughly 65,000 words sitting around staring at me. I really, really, really want it to be a book. However, every single essay felt like a lie. None of it was a lie. Not one bit, but it was emitting the deepest truth, the deepest, darkest truth, because I didn’t want to write very much at all about sobriety during that fourth- first year. I just, I couldn’t handle it. I didn’t want to handle it. It was a really private thing. And even though I’m a memoir writer, and even though I display everything almost, there are some things that I keep very close to my chest for a while, and then I usually get around to sharing it. But I was just beating my head against this brick wall of these essays. And like, should I put, you know, should I write, you know, revise them and then put in some notes around them. And then I just realized sitting here at the desk, this is going to sound so obvious, but I realized that revision is my superpower and I could revise each one in total.

[00:04:03] And it was like realizing that you can breathe air, you’ve been holding your breath for a while, and then you can read there. I realized over revision will save me. I can make this into a book that is supported by the journey to and through sobriety. As I was sitting there looking at the different months, and what was happening in each month that I didn’t write about it actually has traditional story structure already. It has the inciting incident, the context shifting midpoint, the dark moment. It’s all there. I just need to bring it out and develop each. And this is a book, people. It wasn’t a book before. It was a collection of desperate essays. Each of which was a little bit too smug. I air a lot of times when I’m writing essays in the smug wrap up. I don’t do it on purpose, but I like the essay to feel complete and to feel whole, and in this book, nothing felt whole that that year and everything was incomplete as I was making these connections. So I’m super excited to be working on these revisions and it’s just delicious to dive into them.

[00:05:11] Another thing that happened that was funny, was that I was sitting there like, okay, now I got to revise this whole book. I don’t even know where to start. And another five minutes later, I was like, oh, Rachael, you know exactly where to start. This is what you teach. You haven’t- you have an entire system on how to revise and I did everything that I tell my students too. I didn’t print out my book because I prefer to read it on my Kindle, but I sent it to my Kindle. I started making a sentence outline. I got up my post-its, I’m making my map so that when I start the revision, when my fingers are actually inside the manuscript, moving things around, I have a map to refer to. So again, it was this great sense of relief, but also I wanted to share it with you because we all forget everything that we know, every book feels different and every book we come to it feeling like a beginner, even though we aren’t. Each book, I believe teaches us how to write this book. Unfortunately, no book teaches us how to write the next one. But we have this toolbox. We’re always adding to the toolbox and my toolbox has a lot of tools. And I just had to remember to go looking for the right tool instead of reinventing the wheel, which is basically like a sport to me. I’m an Olympian athlete at reinventing the wheel. And I’m trying to, trying to stop doing that. Everything else I’m struggling with sleep and headaches right now, I’m doing this, I’m sleep restriction, CBTI, insomnia therapy and it’s gone off the rails and I need to, I need to restrict my sleep, get a little bit less sleep in order to learn how to get more sleep so, and that’s been triggering headaches.

[00:06:53] So that’s not fun, but hey, self-care, being forgiving, understanding that we have really productive times. And right now, while I’m waiting for edits, I can be a little bit less productive. That is totally fine. I would like to thank new patrons and honestly, you guys, I have this amazing system. I star them in Gmail, when you all up a pledge or start pledging on Patreon, and then I forget to take the stars off. So I think some of these people, I may have thanked already, and it doesn’t matter because if you are a patron now, if you’ve been a patron for years, thank you. Thank you. Thank you to you. And also thank you perhaps again to these people, perhaps not. Sandra Mori, thank you. Ines Johnson, new patron, thank you. Thank you for this episode. Jen Tarell. It was great to talk to you this week, Jen. Thank you. T.B. Markinson. Thank you. Marco Neil. Thanks so much. Leah edited her pled up, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Leah. One thing that I never do on this show is talk about when people edit their pledges down. Holy cow. Whenever I see a pledge has been edited down, you know what I think, I think that person is prioritizing their family and their finances in the way that makes sense to them. It never hurts my feelings if you’d like to give me $10 a month, and then go down to $1 a month because you have to, I will send you all the love if you have to cancel entirely. Yes. Still get all my love for those times when you were supporting me. And this means the world to me. So thank you. And never feel like you’re doing anything wrong if you have to step down. But Leah, thank you for stepping up your pledge. That’s amazing. Lani Goebelletsah. See, that’s a name I remember saying before and, and crucifying before Lani Goebelletsah, thank you. Thank you very, very much. And Kathleen Fordyce. Thank you. Maddie Dalrymple, who runs the Indie Author podcast, which I am on pretty, shortly coming up. If I’m not already on there. Maddie is awesome. Thank you, Maddie. Kiran Fatima. Thank you. And Jody Terry, you darling. Thank you. Thank you to everyone who has been a past, present or potentially a future patron. It really, really does mean the world to me. So now, business is done. I want you to go jump over to the next segment, I don’t even know why I said jump over. All you gotta do is like remain in your car or keep the podcast running and listen to what Ines has to say, it’s truly, truly inspiring. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for listening. And I wish you very, very happy writing. 

[00:09:32] Hey, is resistance keeping you from writing? Are you looking for an actual writing community in which you can make a calls and be held accountable for them? Join RachaelSaysWrite, like twice weekly, two hour writing session on zoom. You can bop in and out of the writing room as your schedule needs, but for just $39 a month, you can write up to 4 hours a week. With our wonderful little community, in which you’ll actually get to know your writing peers. We write from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM on Tuesdays and 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM on Thursdays and that’s US Pacific Standard Time. Go to RachaelHerron.com/Write to find out more. 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:13] Well, I could not be more pleased than- nor could my cat, way be more pleased to welcome, Ines Johnson to the show. Hello, Ines! 

Ines Johnson: [00:10:21] Hi! I’m so excited to be here. 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:24] Oh my gosh. Let me give you a little introduction and I am so excited to have you here this is going to be fabulous. Lover of fairytales for folklore and mythology. Ines Johnson spends her days reimagining the stories of old in a modern world. She writes books where damsels caused the distress, princesses wield swords, and moms save the world. Hell yeah. Aside from being a full time author and professional reader, Ines Johnson is a seasoned educator, she’s taught college level courses and workshops in screenwriting story development and plotting and media history. A lifelong learner (read: academic addict), she holds a Bachelor’s in Communications, a Master’s in Instructional Design, and a Doctorate in Educational Technology. That’s amazing. She is banned from getting the- the MFA in creative writing. She so desperately wants until both her children are in college. That might be soon as she is the proud mother of a college sophomore, and a rising high school senior. Ines lives just outside Washington, DC, and can be found getting her words early in the morning at the coffee shops. In the afternoons, she can be found on the park bench contemplating what she will do with her life once her kids have grown up. What are you doing, nowadays? I’ve so many questions to go with, but what are you doing nowadays that you can’t go to the coffee shop? Because that’s where I used to write too. 

Ines Johnson: [00:11:40] It’s hard. It’s really hard because I get up and my body is still prime to get up at six in the morning. So like in, in that, and I’m in, I’m just over the bridge from DC in Northern Virginia. And so the sun is shining at like 5:58 in the morning, and so I’m up like bright eyed and I’m like, I can’t go to the coffee shop. Cause that’s my wake up. I get it. I grabbed my stuff, get in the car, go to the coffee shop. And as I have my cup of tea and sometimes my oatmeal, I’m waking up, I’m ready to write. That’s not happening. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:05] So, how did you change things for yourself? 

Ines Johnson: [00:12:07] It’s- it’s been hard. I learned recently I took the Becca of science classes of every writer eventually, 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:14] Oh great. Yes.

Ines Johnson: [00:12:16] and I learned that I’m high discipline, which I was shocked. I thought that I was going to be a woo person. I was like, why didn’t I get woo? 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:23] Oh, I thought I was gonna blew the all woo. And woo was like five from the bottom for me, 

Ines Johnson: [00:12:28] I was so offended that I didn’t get woo. My number one was high discipline though. And I, and I had some, some one on one time with Becca and I said, well, I don’t understand what my, why I keep trying to change my routines, because I totally see that I’m high, I’m high discipline because you see the Kanban board behind me. What you can’t see off to the side is three calendars and post it notes. And there’s three planners, you can’t see all of that, but it’s there. But I’m constantly looking for ways to change my process. And I was like, well, why do I do that? And she said, Oh, I got your number. She let me know that, because I’m high discipline, if one thing goes wrong in my day, I need to reorganize everything else. So,

Rachael Herron: [00:13:16] That is so true. I also have high discipline; I think is like my fourth or something. Yeah. 

Ines Johnson: [00:13:21] That was good for me to know, because now I, I see that about myself and now, now I’m able to stop and say, okay, one thing went wrong, but that’s okay. You can still get everything because I love checking things off lists. You can still check everything off the list, even if it’s not at the right time that you put it there, they’re all nice and color coded and highlight it. You can still check it off. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:42] I am so glad you brought that up though. Cause I completely forgotten that she said that to me and that’s me like if the, if something doesn’t get done in the right order, I’m like, well, I can’t write today. 

Ines Johnson: [00:13:21] And its us

Rachael Herron: [00:13:42] Oh, well yeah, totally false. Okay. Loving your stickies behind you. Loving, loving, loving. So I want to ask you a couple of the questions that I normally do, but we also have a bigger place to talk about, the bigger thing to talk about today. So let us get it right out there that you are full time writer, you are successful. You have two or three pen names?

Ines Johnson: [00:14:19] Three

Rachael Herron: [00:14:20] That’s what I’ve thought. So you have the paranormal over fantasy, you have the sweet Western and what’s the third one. 

Ines Johnson: [00:14:28] Steamy, steamy, steamy stuff 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:30] You really like cover all of the bases in terms of the heat levels and everything.

Ines Johnson: [00:14:34] But Rachael, I didn’t know that that was the wrong thing to do. They were all together to begin with

Rachael Herron: [00:14:41] Oh yeah. You will piss people off with that. 

Ines Johnson: [00:14:44] Oh yeah. Lesson learned 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:47] I even did. So I had these really steamy books. I mean, they’re just, they’re just contemporary romance, but they’re on the hot, hot level. And I was really getting tired of writing that level of heat. And I actually polled my readers to see who would mind. And it was like, who wants me to stay this steamy and who doesn’t mind if I back off a bit? And it was like 97% of the reader said, stay steamy. I could not even back off, like cause that’s what they want. They want us to have that level of heat

Ines Johnson: [00:15:12] That’s not what I’m expecting you’d say. Wow.

Rachael Herron: [00:15:14] I wasn’t either! I thought they were like, no, Rachael, we love your books. Just do whatever you want. No, they’re like, we want the hot sex. and you can’t let them down after that.

Ines Johnson: [00:15:25] No 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:26] How do you juggle, doing the writing for three different pen names, 

Ines Johnson: [00:15:30] Whoever is paying the bills gets the first detention. That’s the honest truth. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:39] So I, I, I don’t, you probably don’t want to share all your pen names unless you do and that’s fine.

Ines Johnson: [00:15:43] I don’t mind.

Rachael Herron: [00:15:44] Oh, okay, great. Will you tell us who’s paying the bills right now? 

Ines Johnson: [00:15:54] Shanae. Which is my middle name. Shanae Johnson, the sweet, western romances, she pays the bills.

Rachael Herron: [00:16:01] Which is so surprising to me. I would have thought I would have thought it would’ve been the erotic stuff, the hotter stuff.

Ines Johnson: [00:16:07] Nope. Nope. The, the hottest stuff, which is my initials, N.S. Johnson. You see, there’s Shanae, there’s an S and then there’s N stuff. It’s so complicated. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:16] Oh I like that. Yeah.

Ines Johnson: [00:16:17] Oh sheesh, and as I told someone recently that she basically pays for my family to have a nice Japanese steakhouse dinner once a month. That’s, that’s all she handles. Yeah. So she, is last on the list.  

Rachael Herron: [00:16:29] Shanae is just killing it, 

Ines Johnson: [00:16:32] Killing it. Killing it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:35] Sweet westerns. I had no idea. Also your covers are great.

Ines Johnson: [00:16:38] Thank you.

Rachael Herron: [00:16:39] Do you hire those out or do you do them yourself? 

Ines Johnson: [00:16:39] Not for the sweet stuff. I- you still have the degrees, I have, I have a lot of skills. I learned Photoshop like 2.0 when I was in school. So I know enough to be dangerous where I can make a more contemporary cover that doesn’t need a lot of photo manipulation, but no, my, my N.S., the paranormal and the urban fantasy no, I need help with those.

Rachael Herron: [00:17:02] Okay. Perfect. Oh, and I love that you’d know that about yourself. So when you’re looking at your workday, how does that workday breakdown? 

Ines Johnson: [00:17:11] That’s really, that’s a really good question. Cause what, again, what I learned from, from being high discipline is that I don’t, I can’t schedule times. I can schedule in blocks and a block of checkoff, to check off a list. So I still get up really early. But now with COVID isolation, I just kind of lay in bed. I might turn on an audio book or I might turn on a podcast, Wednesday mornings. I always have breakfast with you and J. Thorn podcast, the Writers Well. And I’ll just either lay around in bed or I’ll get up and make myself a cup of tea and just not do any writing yet. Just kind of, cause I, I guess I needed that travel time and that’s kind of my travel time. So I get up and around 7:88 o’clock in the morning, then I’m like, okay, I’m ready. So I typically will do about two Shanae chapters, around breakfast time. Take a break. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:07] How long is a chapter for you? 

Ines Johnson: [00:18:10] It depends on if I’m first drafting or if I’m revising, if I’m fast drafting, I’ll do, I can do a complete first draft of a chapter in a sprint and my sprints are about 20-ish, 25 minutes long.

Rachael Herron: [00:18:22] Oh, that’s awesome. 

Ines Johnson: [00:18:23] Yeah. Chapters quotes or I’m using air quotes simple for me, because I plot out the beginning, middle and end, and that’s in a mixture of that. There’s some kind of a twist and I, and I can hold that in my head and I can get it all out from beginning, middle- end. It’s like telling the story so I can do that in about 20-ish minutes. Then when I’m revising though, I, I don’t- I take my time. It might take me another 20 minutes, or it might take me 60 minutes to revise cause I take quote unquote, take my 60 minute time when I’m revising. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:54] So you are a real planner then. Is that right? 

Ines Johnson: [00:18:57] See, here’s the funny, the short answer is yes. The long answer is, I have so many plots in my head because I had to learn this. And when you’re in, when I went to school for media production, the main goal, the first thing that they tell you in class is, you will not watch television and films the same way that a normal person does. If we are successful in teaching you your craft. And I, and I don’t. So there’s so many plotting systems, so much craft stuff in my head that I don’t always have to write down the plot, but best believe I am a plotter through and through.

Rachael Herron: [00:19:36] So when you’re talking about writing that scene, that you’ve already broken into three. When do you do that breaking into three of the scene. Is it like the morning you sit down and you go, okay, it’s going to happen here. So I’m going to sketch that out or is that another time that you’ve done that to go on your outline?

Ines Johnson: [00:19:50] So it depends on how clearly I see the story. Sometimes I just, and I, and I could, because they come from television, I’m usually not thinking just one story at a time. I’m usually thinking in a season of stories. So I know a little bit about each of the characters in their- in their story arc, and know how to kind of like plant little seeds here and there, but I might not see character to or character in the book for, very well, but I know what they’re supposed to do. So usually in book one, it’s, it’s an outline. It’s a treatment that I have written. Your body-

Rachael Herron: [00:20:23] Cause you’re really learning their world at that point, 

Ines Johnson: [00:20:25] Exactly,

Rachael Herron: [00:20:26] Yeah

Ines Johnson: [00:20:27] But I’ve, I’ve realized that every book too, I think I know what I’m doing every single time. I think I know what I’m doing. And everything. And I don’t really put that much. I’m like, I got this and I write, I write act one and I’m usually good with my act once. And then I get to act two and I’m like, okay, what are they supposed to be doing? Who is this character? What is, and I have to, it happens every single time like clockwork. It’s every time I see it, it’s going to be different, it never is. So in book ones, I, I plan. By book two it’s- it’s like a one sentence outline that always changes always gets revised. And then probably book three, I’ve learned my lesson and I outline again and then probably book four I’d do the same thing again. And I’m like, what? What’s happening

Rachael Herron: [00:21:12] Isn’t it funny that we just keep coming back around to the same problems about how long are your series normally?

Ines Johnson: [00:21:19] Depends. I told myself that I don’t like long series because again, I come from, I come from cable television

Rachael Herron: [00:21:25] Yeah

Ines Johnson: [00:21:26] Where you typically, you typically plan the whole se- the whole season. And you, you, you plan that maybe 6 to 12 episodes. And then you have to kind of leave it open, but close enough. So that’s how my brain thinks. So I usually thinking in multiples of 3, 3, 6 or 12, something like that. And then what I learned, and it took me a while to learn this, because I’m so used to the, the, the, the, the closed series or one of those short, like summer series, is that if some, if it’s a series of selling, do not for the love of God, stop writing books in those series because people want them.

Rachael Herron: [00:22:06] Yeah

Ines Johnson: [00:22:07] You who shouldn’t keep them waiting in the, 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:09] Did you learn that the hard way?

Ines Johnson: [00:22:11] The very hard way? Not once. Maybe the steak, not once. Maybe three times, I made that mistake. I’m hard headed. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:21] I love that you have so much diverse background in terms of storytelling, really coming to it from the television world is fantastic because you’re talking about seeing a season in your head. I can barely see the two or three characters that I’m dealing with. Like let alone subplots, as soon as I throw a subplot, another couple of characters and I’m like, oh no, I don’t know what’s going on. So that is such a superpower that you have

Ines Johnson: [00:22:46] Thank you. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:47] Oh my gosh. Okay. So what is, let’s see, can you share a craft tip with us of any sort.

Ines Johnson: [00:22:57] Oh craft tip. One of the things that, that people have been kind of listening to me about is, is this thing that we have in television, where we have twists and open doors. So when you, when you’re in television, we call them seen in sequel? Or hooks and sequels. There’s a whole bunch of terms. So in television, we have to compete with the commercial break. So you always think of when you’re coming to a commercial break, every six or so minutes. So you can’t, you have to make sure to leave the audience with such at the edge of their seats, that they don’t turn the channel, or if they get up to go and grab a snack and they come back and sit down, even though he’s really practiced scheduled television before. I know, I know. I was teaching a class once and I had a whole lesson plan on primetime TV, and I was going to the lesson like 20 minutes and someone finally raised her hand, like, what’s primetime?

Rachael Herron: [00:23:49] No

Ines Johnson: [00:23:50] I kid you not. Anyway. So that’s less than, yes, this is the age I live in. So I’m so used to thinking of what’s the twist, what’s the hook? How do I get them back at the end of the commercial break? Or how do I get them back at the end of the chapter to turn that page? But I not only take it to, okay, get into the end of the chapter, leave some type of a, a hook in there to turn the page. But I also think about that at the end of the book as well. I never end with the end. I always end the book with either the next character in the book, introducing their story problem or whatever the next series might be. I don’t write the end, hardly ever. Probably never.

Rachael Herron: [00:24:35] There’s always something left hanging. What did you call that? The turning in the open, what?

Ines Johnson: [00:24:40] Lots. Okay. So in, in film, a lot of times it’s called the open door ending. In television, we kind of call that when it’s coming out of a c-, when it’s going into a commercial break, we call it the hook. Cause literally you’re gonna hook them back in, 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:55] Right.

Ines Johnson: [00:24:56] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:24:57] Okay.

Ines Johnson: [00:24:58] For some people when, when it’s a, when, when you’re coming off the back of a commercial, it’s called the sequel cause you gotta get them that

Rachael Herron: [00:25:04] That’s the scene in sequel. Okay. That’s, that’s a phrase I’ve heard. Is this something that you do organically as you’re writing your way through your books? Or is there something that comes in in revision? Cause for, for me, I write, I write chapters so that like you could close the book and never pick it up again. And then I always forget. And then, so in revision, that’s just one of the things it’s one of my passes I go through and look at, and usually it’s as simple as moving four paragraphs from that scene to the next chapter, you know? But is that something that you do naturally or is it something you do in revision? 

Ines Johnson: [00:25:35] Similarly naturally, but I don’t, I’m not I’m, I’m far from perfect. So when I’m going back through in revision and I see, wait, did you just let them go to sleep at the end of this chapter? I will change it to make sure that they, that you turn the page 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:54] And it’s such a good thing to be reminded of. Okay. I want to skip now to the comment that you left me on my Patreon. Cause this is, I was like, can you please be on my show? Alright. So if you don’t mind, may I read this?

Ines Johnson: [00:26:10] Yeah Go for it

Rachael Herron: [00:26:11] You say, you don’t know it, but I’ve been one of your biggest fans for years ever since I heard you on the rocking self-publishing podcast, talking to Simon Whistler about how you got your writing done during your shift working dispatcher. It was so long ago. 

Ines Johnson: [00:26:24] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:26:25] I have breakfast with you every Wednesday morning while I listened to the Writer’s Well, and I feel like it’s a treat when, How Do You Write pops up on my podcast feed. Cause you know, I try for Fridays, but I don’t always make it. Okay. You go on to say, after 15 years in higher ed, as a digital media instructor, I broke through as a successful romance author and have been making a full time living for two years now, first of all, Yay. Yay. Yay. Freakin’ yay! Last year, about four months in, I realized that I was not cut out for the “dream” of being a full time author. Oh, I’m making six figures, the words continue to flow. Fans are amazing, but it hasn’t been enough. I’m not as happy as I felt I should have been. Something was missing. During COVID isolation I figured it out. I want to teach again. I want to teach writing and marketing and personal/professional development to other seasoned and aspiring romance novelist. I’m just unsure about how to go about it. This is what I’d like coaching on. Do I need to get my MFA first? I’m pretty sure I want to be at a college or university again, cause you’re addicted to learning or even at a writing center. Can I even get a position as someone who’s never had a trad deal? So let’s talk about this. Okay. First of all, have you, have you ever, I just realized my microphone is really far away from me. Sorry, people. Have you heard the way I feel about MFAs? 

Ines Johnson: [00:27:49] I think I have. Yeah.

Rachael Herron: [00:27:51] Yeah. I have, I have this theory about MFA’s is that they’re awesome to have, if you can just afford to buy them and knock, put it on credit. Cause that’ll kill all of us.

Ines Johnson: [00:28:02] Okay.

Rachael Herron: [00:28:03] And if it’s, and if it’s something that you want for cache, like, I just wanted to have the letters. I just wanted a grad degree in writing and that, so that’s why I got it. But you are so far, like you’ve blown past most MFA, anything you’re going to learn. You learn in an MFA program, how to write, you already know how to write. So this would really be about getting the letters after your name. Right? And you already have so many letters.

Ines Johnson: [00:28:34] I do have it, but do I, is, is that the calling card for someone to even look my way to become a writing teacher?

Rachael Herron: [00:28:46] Right. Your- I’m scrolling here. Your doctorate is in Educational Technology. So I have a few things to say, number one, if you want a number cause you wanted MFA, then wait till the kids are growing, like you said, and then go get it. And no one can tell you not to. But with as much publishing as you’ve done and with your doctorate, I think even though this is indie pub, did not trad pub, I think that you could find a place within a college setting and you live in a great place for that. There’s a high volume of colleges and JC’s and universities all around where you live. So that is something that could be done. Let me ask you though, let me just ask you some questions. So what attracts you to teaching this?

Ines Johnson: [00:29:42] I, I have a hard time having conversations with people that don’t turn to writing. I can talk to you for about five minutes about nonsense. And then I am evidently going to turn some way, shape or form, to book stories, words, something. So, I need people to talk to. I want to, when I, when I was teaching media, one of the things that I always told my students is that I really believe that iron sharpens iron and I was at the top of my game as a television person, when I was teaching that craft, makes me sharp. 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:24] Yes

Ines Johnson: [00:30:25] And that’s not necessarily the world that I want to be in anymore. I wholeheartedly want to be in the writing world. So I want to talk that craft. I want to talk that talk. I want to teach. I want to learn from people, that answers your question? 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:43] Yes, it does. And it’s beautiful. And I already know that this is something you’re going to love doing. So for me, teaching other people writing, my superpower is that, cheerleading coaching personality. And I can already tell that you have that, but, plus all of the knowledge especially with the story stuff, that is insane. But what I am going to push back on just a little bit is, what would it look like to you if you started teaching from exactly where you are right now? Like with an email newsletter list or with a YouTube channel and kind of build up a following and some street credit for teaching writing, and then, maybe trying to parlay that into teaching at a university or a college. And the reason I say this is, that, oh colleges can be so snooty. 

Ines Johnson: [00:31:56] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:31:57] They can be so snooty. I got, I got a gig teaching at Berkeley in the, in the extension program, because I was just like, you know, cheeky and pushed and knocked on doors and kept emailing and stuff. But I’d been doing that for Stan- at Stanford for years and years and years. Trying to teach anything at Stanford just to get my foot in the door there cause they paid so much better, obviously. And it wasn’t until I got the gig at Berkeley, I literally wrote to Stanford and said, I’m now teaching at Berkeley. May I teach for you? And they were like, yes. Now you can. That is exactly what happened because there’s such a rivalry between Stanford. So, I mean, and that is just ridiculous. That that would be the difference. So they can be snooty and to have already a body of work or body of comments or a following can be a really good thing. Cause when, when colleges do hire you, they also want you to bring your own students in and make them money, as one of their, one of their biggest hopes. The other reason I, the reason I kind of suggest doing this from your chair right now, starting it there, is that anything you do teach on your own is going to necessarily be more lucrative too, because you keep all the money. And I don’t think I can get in trouble for saying how much I make teaching a semester. I think I make two, maybe it’s like 17 or $1,800 at Berkeley for a semester. And it’s 6,000 at Stanford. So it’s literally three times. Stanford always pays three times what the Cal system pays, but then you have to like weigh your opportunity cost, of driving and all of this time. Have you, so have you thought about starting in your chair right now as the expert that you already are?

Ines Johnson: [00:33:51] I started a YouTube channel just because I haven’t been teaching for two years and I just started recording myself. Oh look, I’m making things again, this is how you do it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:34:00] Oh, what a great idea. Yeah. 

Ines Johnson: [00:34:01] Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:34:02] Perfect.

Ines Johnson: [00:34:03] Yeah. So marketing, I had started to do like write with me, with Stans where I was just so I’m right, I’m, I’m on a deadline. I need to write. So I’m going to write this chapter and I started explaining like, here’s the goal of this character. Here’s the motivation. And now, I’m going to make sure that I use this particular craft technique, which I don’t think Stans were interested in. 

Rachael Herron: [00:34:20] I wouldn’t have to, but they love it?

Ines Johnson: [00:34:22] Well, I’m not so sure. I stopped doing it. And I, I, I stopped doing it for fans and I started to do it specifically talking to writers because again, 

Rachael Herron: [00:34:29] Yeah

Ines Johnson: [00:34:30] Just like I just told you, if after five minutes, I’m going to start talking to you about craft. I cannot help myself. So I stopped talking to fans about that and I started talking my writer’s speak.

Rachael Herron: [00:34:40] And are you charging anything for that? 

Ines Johnson: [00:34:44] I do, do some, I had started doing I’m like, you know, RWA does the email workshops. I’ve been doing that for, for a long time, just because I had all this- I write lesson plans, one of my degrees, and I made all these lesson plans and I just, I emailed them out and I just, it’s just something that I have. So I have that. I did not think that that would translate into potentially going to someplace in higher ed. 

Rachael Herron: [00:35:13] For me, it was really that. I started the podcast before anything else. And after I started the podcast, I realized, Oh, I should have an email newsletter for writers so I can like segment them. I have, you know, here’s my readers, but here’s my writers. And the more I did with the podcast, the more I realized what I could be teaching and how I could be sharing that. And that’s why that particular newsletter became so important to me. And honestly, Berkeley picked me up because for one of the reasons was because I teach, you know, I have this, How Do You Write podcast? And I had taught at little at smaller conferences, but I was able to drop all those things into a CV that looked worthwhile. They are not going to check your CV for an MFA. They will -my cat is just talking. I apologize. 

Ines Johnson: [00:36:06] He’s agreeing with you.

Rachael Herron: [00:36:07] He is. He is. They don’t look at they won’t look for an MFA. They’ll just look for a master’s or higher. That’s all you need to have to teach in a secondary, post-secondary level.

Ines Johnson: [00:36:19] Can I, can I ask you about that? So does it matter what the master’s is in? 

Rachael Herron: [00:36:23] No. 

Ines Johnson: [00:36:24] Are you serious? 

Rachael Herron: [00:36:25] Yep. Yep. Also your sound so ready to go for anything. What was it again? Educational strategy?

Ines Johnson: [00:36:28] Educational Tech, 

Rachael Herron: [00:36:30] Educational Technology. Yeah.

Ines Johnson: [00:36:31] Yeah. I just became interested in online learning in how my – and the school, when I was at a media college, they paid for it. School was right across the street. And I was like, I told you, I’m an addict, an academic addict. And they were like, Oh, did you know we have this program? I was like, really? I’m going to take some classes. I’m not kidding. I’m not kidding. People were looking at me like I was crazy. I was like, are you going to be a principal? No. What are you doing here? Learning. 

Rachael Herron: [00:36:57] Oh, that’s wonder- no, you could teach anything, anything. And I mean, if you’re, if you’re doctorate was in Marine biology, you know, emphasis, whales, perhaps you wouldn’t be teaching like, you know, there’d be like creative writing, really? But the word educational, they’re not going to look anything past, have a freaking doctorate that is amazing. So that’s what I would think of doing in this time right now, while you’re waiting for the kids to grow up and deciding if you want an MFA, you obviously have this passion that you have to share with other people about what you know, and how to use it. Also, I wanted to point out that in your note to me, you said, I want to teach writing and marketing and personal professional development to other seasons and aspiring romance novelists. The whole thing about niching it to romance, novelist, two things. Number one, it makes it extremely awesome and useful and can be lucrative for you because romance writers want to know everything and they’re such an incredibly smart and savvy group of people, right?

Ines Johnson: [00:38:05] True that.

Rachael Herron: [00:38:06] And they know where to look for information and they know how to share information and your name will get around. But the, but the drawback to that is I have never been able to talk any place ever with an academic name to do anything with romance.

Ines Johnson: [00:38:21] That was another concern. 

Rachael Herron: [00:38:22] And I keep trying.

Ines Johnson: [00:38:23] I only speak romance. I don’t speak thriller. I don’t speak mystery. I speak Romance. 

Rachael Herron: [00:38:28] Yeah. The nice thing about you speaking romance is that, that that’s what you speak. That’s what you are really fluent in, but that also makes you fluent in all the other languages. Honestly. Like I, I truly believe that contemporary romance is the hardest genre to write. When you have two good people that you’re trying to keep apart from each other for really good reasons. Nobody understands how hard that is. So you are an expert in all of these other things too, and you could teach to all of them, but your passion seems to be for romance and for romance writers. 

Ines Johnson: [00:38:58] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:38:59] So before attaching your, your star to the college, that probably won’t pay you very well to teach people that they don’t care about, i.e., romance novelist. Pointing yourself to a place where you can help them the best you can and charge well for that, because you have this knowledge. I think you’re really excited and then you could also add to teaching at a college, if you wanted to. Am I depressing you, am I letting you down?

Ines Johnson: [00:39:31] Not at all. You’re giving us discipline people, are getting, I’m getting a game plan. I’m making, a checklist is forming in my head now.

Rachael Herron: [00:39:41] Yeah. 

Ines Johnson: [00:39:45] Okay. 

Rachael Herron: [00:39:46] What do you, what do you like best in these ideas? And what do you randomly reject?

Ines Johnson: [00:39:51] That was one of my fear that because I speak romance and I’m, I speak it unabashedly, unashamedly. 

Rachael Herron: [00:39:57] Yeah. As you should.

Ines Johnson: [00:39:58] I don’t understand people who are like… romance. I’m like, Oh, you poor thing 

Rachael Herron: [00:40:03] It’s like that about women in general. 

Ines Johnson: [00:40:06] Right? So I’m, I’m, I’m pretty unabashed about that. And that’s, I’m hearing that there will be either a conflict or there will be the door won’t open for that. And that was, that, that’s sad. That’s sad to me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:40:24] It’s really sad to me. And I actually had and this is even sadder, I think, but Berkeley allowed me to put on a one-day course, that was like, how to write romance or something like that. It was going to be a really broad overview cause I’ve been pushing and pushing and pushing for it. And we had to cancel it for lack of signups, I think. 

Ines Johnson: [00:40:43] No!

Rachael Herron: [00:40:44] In the Bay area, 

Ines Johnson: [00:40:47] It makes me so sad.

Rachael Herron: [00:40:48] It made me so sad. I could not get it done. And that was a few years ago. That was probably five years ago, four years ago. But, but still so. I see you. You have this that you have to share and the most important part of your, your message to me, was that just, just being a full time, six figure successful-

Ines Johnson: [00:41:16] I felt so…

Rachael Herron: [00:41:17] novelists. No, that’s brilliant. No, I love it. That knowing that that is what you have and it’s still not enough. That is exactly. I think that’s why I wanted you on this show so much, because that’s what I identify with.

Ines Johnson: [00:41:28] Yeah, I’d said this to my, my, my writing, my weekly writing mastermind. And I felt so awful. Well, those, those are my long-term friends, but I still felt so awful saying even typing it out to you, it felt so awful cause this is the dream. Like, this is what people dream of. And I was like, I should be, it’s like someone who married the wrong person. I was like, I should be happy. Why am I not happy? And I wasn’t, 

Rachael Herron: [00:41:50] But you labeled it. You figured it out what it is that will make you happier. And I really truly believe that I have this, this whole thing about like how service does make us happier people. You’re serving somebody that needs help in this. And I’m also, I’m enough of a capita- capitalist, although burn it all down that I will accept people’s money for helping for me helping them, because I know I’m good at it. And, and when you combine something you really, really love and you get paid for it too, is there any better? And then you’d have two of these things happening to you, the writing and the teaching. 

Ines Johnson: [00:42:37] Okay. So I think what I going to do is start to double down on what I can do right now to, to fill this need. And, and I think, as you said, the most immediate things were where the YouTube, which I just enjoy doing the YouTube. I enjoy doing the YouTube. I enjoy doing the RWA classes, that are just online to, to writers, maybe look at more writing centers and put that online degree that online doctorate to use. 

Rachael Herron: [00:43:06] Yes, actually, that’s something that I hadn’t thought about is that you could teach it any of the online colleges and there are some that are coming up with commercial MFA programs. So any of the commercial MFA programs, the ones who major in commercial fiction and genre fiction, they’re going to be looking for romance people like you. 

Ines Johnson: [00:43:30] Okay

Rachael Herron: [00:43:31] Like the one that springs to mind is Seton Hill, but there’s another one I want to say, North Carolina has a genre, focus, which again, you don’t need that MFA to teach that, you will just teach there and because you have the online strength, you could do that. What was I going to say? Oh, if you’re doing the YouTube channel, how do you, how do you feel about doing a podcast? Want to do a podcast?

Ines Johnson: [00:43:58] I’m not sure. Because I, I’m honestly not sure. I’m a very visual person, television, so I’m not sure that just my voice can tell the story. Like I liked the reason that I liked doing the YouTube, cause I’m like, cool, look here, I’m going to show you, like, I’m writing this thing. Look, I’m going to show you how, and that’s very interesting to me. But just a podcast with just my voice, that seems hard? Hard. And I do listen to you and J. and all the millions of podcasts that you guys start talking about how much work it is. 

Rachael Herron: [00:44:36] Oh, it’s not much work, especially if you’re already, if you’re already doing the reason I say it is, if you’re already doing a YouTube, you just export the audio from it and upload it.

Ines Johnson: [00:44:46] I’m going to put that on my think about list. 

Rachael Herron: [00:44:49] Think about it.

Ines Johnson: [00:44:50] Think about this.  

Rachael Herron: [00:44:49] Love it that you have to think about this. And that might be something that you would actually hire out and, you know, hire somebody, hire somebody else to upload it every week. Once the YouTube is up there, they know to go in and get it and upload it as a podcast. just because podcasts still, even in the days of Covid they’ll have set, I get such a higher, like almost all of my listen, come on Podcatchers and not on the YouTube, even though I put it up on YouTube every week. That could be saying something about me as a, as a media person. 

Ines Johnson: [00:45:25] I didn’t know you had a YouTube channel. Now, I’m gonna look that up. Cause you’re in that you’re in my phone. 

Rachael Herron: [00:45:30] It’s not very good. And it’s just like this. You could just look in the back of me and see my cluttered office. It’s not great. Yeah, so that, but that I do just because it’s, it’s almost easy, just as easy to do it as well. I’m just hitting both because I, because you can, 

Ines Johnson: [00:45:48] Okay.

Rachael Herron: [00:45:49] What has this conversation jelled for you? 

Ines Johnson: [00:45:55] None of- well, I’ll tell you this, you, you are in agreement with my mastermind, my writing mastermind. When I said this, they have the same reaction that you did about MFAs. Like – they have the same concerns about knowing that I am an academic addict and I like being on a college. And they, they, they all said the same thing. It’s not the, not the podcast, but they all said, well, why don’t you, you already do in all these RWA classes, just keep that up. You have your interest; you start a YouTube channel. So they said that. So I, I guess I just I’d like the idea. And that was the other part. This is, they did get this out of me too. We, we realized that I’m, I want it for the social aspect too. Cause I’m in this room so much time, especially during Covid. And even when I go out to the coffee shops, I’m in a booth by myself, earphones in and I’m typing for hours.

Rachael Herron: [00:46:49] Yeah. Yeah

Ines Johnson: [00:46:51] And when I was teaching, even though I started to get more and more miserable, because I didn’t want to really talk about media anymore. I wanted to talk specifically about writing. It was still that interaction. I still got to see somebody, one of my students’ eyes light up when I explained something to them and they got it. And I was missing that too. So I am still missing that. I don’t, I don’t know where to, where to take that sentence, but I, that is something that I do recognize that I am still missing that, missing that social aspect.

Rachael Herron: [00:47:21] What do you, what do you prefer talking to a group of people or talking to somebody one-on-one?

Ines Johnson: [00:47:27] Group

Rachael Herron: [00:47:28] Okay. Yeah. I also really, really enjoyed the group I’ve done. I’ve done a lot of coaching. But there’s nothing like leading a group through them, helping each other,

Ines Johnson: [00:47:39] Yes

Rachael Herron: [00:47:40] Like watching the class gel and hold each other up. So, okay. So I think it’s just time to start making some lists of what to do, get that writer’s email list going, offer them something free to sign up. Do you already have a place for writers on your website? 

Ines Johnson: [00:47:58] No. I just had a place for people who want me to teach online. Like the, again, the email courses, I have a place for them. But not for- for, Hey, sign up for this.

Rachael Herron: [00:48:09] Yeah. You need a tab for writers, offer a couple of free things, immediately like, and it could be like a PDF of something or here’s a YouTube that you can’t find anywhere else that’s, you know, private or whatever. And, and you get this for joining my list. Yeah. 

Ines Johnson: [00:48:34] Okay, I have, I have a, I have a page of to do list. 

Rachael Herron: [00:48:40] I’m just so happy and proud of you for knowing this about yourself for knowing that this is important and that you need that connection. For me, it is and this is why I wanted to talk about it. Cause I’m so grateful for it. It’s like I love writing. It’s my whole heart, but I also hate it more than anything else do. Right? Like it’s, but working with students is there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just perfection. It is 1% less than the way I love writing. And some days it threatens to take it over and I won’t let it, you know, I’m like, no, no, no. It’s gotta be the writing. It’s gotta be the writing first, but they’re so close and it does, it just feeds your heart.

Ines Johnson: [00:49:18] Yeah. It makes me feel like you don’t really hear from the fans. You, you see the downloads, you might see the dollar signs, 

Rachael Herron: [00:49:25] right. 

Ines Johnson: [00:49:26] But a fan is, wants to talk to you about the character. They don’t want to talk to you about the crap. Their eyes are going to light up because they learned a technique from you.

Rachael Herron: [00:49:35] Yeah. And that is one thing I’ve always said about writers, is that no matter what, if we’re having a conversation about anything else? The back of our mind is thinking about writing. In the back of our mind is waiting to see if we can turn it towards writing, which is why when you go to conferences, right? You love going to a conference because all you do from morning till night is you talk about writing and it never gets, never gets old. 

Ines Johnson: [00:49:55] Yes. Never.

Rachael Herron: [00:49:56] It’s the best. Yes, you need to be, you need to be doing this.

Ines Johnson: [00:49:55] Okay, I got homework.

Rachael Herron: [00:50:05] How can I help you in the future? 

Ines Johnson: [00:50:08] You know, as I start to think about approaching, conferences approaching online schools or, or, or on campus schools. I would love, cause I know you do, you help with getting agents. I wonder if you would help with me writing that cover letter.

Rachael Herron: [00:50:31] Absolutely. I would love to. I would love to write a cover letter for your CV. Just your academic, like learning, is a full CV right there

Ines Johnson: [00:50:44] Yeah. Yeah.

Rachael Herron: [00:50:45] You know; this is so cool. I’m so excited for you. I wish that I had had somebody talk to you when I first started to think about these things, you know. There’s so much noise in my neighborhood today. I’m sorry. There’s dogs and beeps and car horns. 

Ines Johnson: [00:51:00] It’s okay, it’s okay.

Rachael Herron: [00:51:02] Okay. Well, I am so pleased to know you. And so 

Ines Johnson: [00:51:06] I’ve known you for a year or so, 

Rachael Herron: [00:51:09] But now I know you, you, 

Ines Johnson: [00:51:10] Yes!

Rachael Herron: [00:51:11] And, I want you to come back on to after things are going and, and, and if you set up a place, when you set up a place for your email newsletter to be collected, let me know the address and I’ll put it on the show notes for this. So, because everybody needs to be following you cause you’re killing it. You’re killing it. 

Ines Johnson: [00:51:32] Thank you. Thank you, Rachael.

Rachael Herron: [00:51:36] Thank you for being on the show today. 

Ines Johnson: [00:51:37] Thank you for all for all my homework. Thank you. 

Rachael Herron: [00:51:41] Your welcome. 

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

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

Ep. 185: Should I Look for an Agent for my Debut or Self-Publish It? (Bonus! How To Be an Anti-Racist)

Rachael answers Tuomas’s question about what to do when you want to be a hybrid author, with a foot in both camps – trad- and self-publishing.

Also – if you’re white, what you can do to be anti-racist AS A WRITER! This goes beyond allyship (centering BIPOC voices) and activism (protesting, donating to BIPOC-led organizations) Anti-racism is the act of opposing ALL white supremacy including the racism inside you and within the system you live in.

Transcript

Rachael Herron: Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron, and this is a bonus episode brought to you directly by my $5 Patreons. If you’d like me to be your mini coach for less than a large mocha Frappuccino, you can join too at www.patreon.com/rachael

[00:00:14] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #185 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. I’m so glad you’re here with me on this mini episode, which might not be so many when I’m done with it. We’ll see what happens. Let me look at my notes here. But in news of what’s going on around here, the book is done. I’m sorry that I wasn’t with you last Friday. I got up to about Thursday night and thought, huh? There’s not going to be a podcast tomorrow. That’s okay. Next week, we’ll go back to having a normal interview section. But honestly, I haven’t interviewed anybody in a couple of weeks because of the revisions I was doing on the thriller, Hush Little Baby. And I am so excited that I got it done. It ended up, so basically I wrote the book, I did my big revisions myself, send it to my editor and she sent back the big revision, which wasn’t even a manuscript that she had marked up. Then the revisions I needed to do were bigger than that. They were harder than that. It was a verbal conversation in which I took notes on what she wanted me to change to the book. 

[00:01:22] Everything that she wanted me to change made the book a better book. It did mean that I took out about 38,000 words and added I think 42,000 words. I keep forgetting the numbers. I have them written down somewhere. So now the book is 97,000 words long, and there are 93,000 words in the trash. So I’ve written two books to get this one book out. It is the book I plotted more than any other book I’ve ever plotted that a full synopsis, just this, the synopsis was broken and none of us saw it. I didn’t see it. My agent didn’t see it. My editor didn’t see it. I was trying to get away with something. I didn’t know I was trying to get away with something, but I was doing some hand-waving when I turned in that synopsis, like I wrote some good sentences and I promised to pull off something that I don’t think anybody could have done. But my language was good enough that they bought it and I bought it and I couldn’t write it. So that is why this book has been a little bit extreme but I got it done this Monday, 10 minutes until New York close, which was my deadline was Monday. So cut it in in time. It is truly astonishing to me how I can put something off till, it’s like this timer pops up in my brain. It’s this panic timer. And it says, okay, you have screwed off enough. You don’t have another second to waste screwing off anything. So that’s when you know, 14, 15, I think 15 days in a row without stopping all day, every day, I’d had four weeks to do the revision and I did it in the last two weeks because that’s what my body knows I can pull off. The exciting thing about that is it, at the very last minute, I came up with a framing device that I had not thought of. So in the last three days, I’m trying to pull off this framing device. I think it worked great, but it was one of those things that reminded me that we never really know what our books are meant to be.

[00:03:25] There is a possibility that my editor is reading my book right this very minute and she’s thinking, oh no, this isn’t what I wanted either. This isn’t a good book yet. And I might have to do this all over again. But I’m pretty confident that the next round of edits will just be lying in it. And that will be such a joy. In the meantime, I’ve got a couple of weeks off while she reads that. And I have been thinking about the next book, which is a large revision of a collection of essays that I have been trying to figure out how to make into an actual memoir. And yesterday I was writing with the Rachael Says Write Group and it was awesome. It was so good to be there, not working on my revision of the novel, but working on this problem. And suddenly it occurred to me and I, it was one of those moments of revelation where everything fit together. All of a sudden I saw the structure that was behind this collection of essays. Which I just hadn’t seen because I had forgotten the cardinal rule, which is I can revise anything. And these essays will need revision in order to pull off this structure. But it will end those essays will end up being more true. They will reflect a more, a bigger, and deeper truth of my life. And I know I’m kind of being vague about this, but the working title for that now, it has been replenished, it was a collection of 12 essays over the course of the year that I tried to figure out what was wrong with me. Basically, this was a couple of years ago and the working title now is, Replenish How Fixing Creative Burnout Accidentally Saved My Life. Don’t you want to pick that up? I want to pick that up. And I remembered, oh yeah, I could read by these essays to show what was really happening while I was writing them. Ooh, it’s exciting.  

[00:05:19] I also just, this afternoon, got a very strange and interesting offer from somebody that might change the course of my publishing career. I don’t know yet. I’m so overwhelmed by the thought of it that I don’t know what to do with it. So you know what I’m doing? I’m doing nothing with it. I said, thank you for the offer. I will think about it and I will get back to you. And sometimes that’s all you can do. So that is exciting. And again, I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t, but if it happens, if it becomes something, you will know. 

[00:05:55] We are going to get to a question from Thoumas, who is one of the $5 patrons who is using me as a mini coach. I don’t have too many other questions right now. So you $5 patrons, please send me all your questions. I’m your mini coach. Let me mini coach you. But before we get to Thoumas’s question, I want to lay something on you that I have been laying on my classes for the last week or two. I have not communicated with you in a couple of weeks because I’ve been on deadline.

[00:06:24] The other reason is because the world exploded in a big, huge necessary way. And it can be very hard when things are upside down to get our work done. We were already struggling with that with COVID-19, and now that the world has shifted in a big, important way, it can be even harder to consider why is my work important? Why am I spending the time doing this? I am writing a, you know, sweet Amish. Let’s make it a sweet, Amish fantasy novel with dragons. So you’re writing that. Oh my God. I hope somebody is writing that. Those, those authors are coming to me saying, what, what does it matter? How am I helping change the world? If I’m writing a sweet, Amish fantasy romance about dragon is number one, obviously, you’re going to make people happy by reading- writing that but, but honestly, it’s in these moments that we have to remember that we are artists for a reason. You are a writer because you can’t not be a writer. You are a writer who was the kind of person who listens to podcasts in their time off of writing and the rest of their lives, because you want to fill your brain with writing things. It’s the thing you can’t get enough of. You are called to be a writer because you are called to communicate. And I truly believe that with every word that we write as writers, with every sentence that we get better and stronger at our craft, those words are changing us as human beings and they are emboldening us and bolstering us and making us better humans and they are making us stronger in the fight that we must fight. It does not matter what the hell you are writing. I am writing a silly thriller about a pregnant woman who another woman tries to steal her baby. This is not going to change the world. My last thriller was about police brutality. Hey, Hey. So that one, I feel a little bit differently about it. I’m like, Oh, I hope it changes some people’s minds. This one is not it’s, it’s an escape for people.

[00:08:55] And the thing is escape is really, really, really important. You provide the service of giving a piece of art to someone and it can get them through their darkest night. It can get them through the hospital stay, or when they’re waiting at the hospital for their loved one to come out of surgery, you have done something incredibly important. You have changed somebody with your words, even more than that insanely awesome thing. You, as an artist, as a writer, have this power and almost unfortunately, this responsibility to share your truth with other people. Every word you write in your fiction makes you better at doing that. Every word you write in your nonfiction makes you better at doing that. I am not advocating that you are the one. You’re the one who should go on Facebook and fix your racist uncle Frank, because you can’t fix racist uncle Frank, you can’t change him. Our words are not used that way. We cannot build a battalion of words that can win that particular war. It just doesn’t happen like that. What our words do, and what we as writers do, is to inspire other people to be a little bit braver than they were before they heard you or before they read you. That is the power of word. You bring your idea to somebody and by doing so you empower them to say something to someone else to change a little bit in their world. And that is incredible. 

[00:10:41] And so at this point in this podcast, I want to speak to my fellow white people who have been really, really shaken up by some of this. I have been working in the anti-racist arena for a little while now. This is not new to me, however, I am talking to a lot of people right now for whom words like white privilege, white fragility. They are big, hurtful, scary words. And the first time you screw something up, when you are talking about systemic racism, oh my gosh, it hurts the first time that you, as a white person, I’m speaking just to you, white people right now. The first time you were hit with that white fragility stick, it hurts. You go into a cave and you rant and you rave and you say to everyone, I’m not a racist. I’m not a racist. This is look at me. I’m good, I’m a good person. This is when I just talked to you about the four stages of becoming anti-racist because it’s not enough just to be not a racist. P.S., we’re all racists. Like all of us white people are racist. That’s very hard to hear at the beginning. I know that I just lost some of you by switching it up, but just stick around for a minute because I’m going to answer Thoumas’ question about hybrid publishing. Don’t you want to hear that? Yes, you do. The first stage though, is awareness. The awareness that we live in a racist society. Merriam Webster just changed their definition this week. I didn’t look it up before the show. But it talks about racism being a system. Because you are white, doesn’t mean that you had an easy life. It doesn’t mean that you weren’t raised poor with an abusive family and had to fight for every single thing in your life. It doesn’t mean that. It only means that your life wasn’t harder because your skin color was darker than white. That is white privilege. And when you first become aware of that, when first, somebody first told you that, you definitely want to go into a shell. And if you’re just starting to kind of peek your way out of that shell, if anti-racism is new to you, welcome. It’s awesome out here working to dismantle that and it’s hard and it’s scary, but awareness is where it starts. And when you start realizing that racism is a problem that needs to be fixed. And it’s you who are going to do something to help dismantle that you can no longer be a bystander in this. 

[00:13:21] The second stage of being coming an- four stages of becoming an anti-racist, after you’re aware that maybe you could be one, the second stage is just education and I want to pull up this week’s New York times list. It came out a Wednesday. Number one on the list is White Fragility, which is an amazing book, which if you haven’t read, you should read it as by Robin DiAngelo. Number one, apparently they’ve sold out of these books all over the country. Traditional publishing is scrambling to republish these books, but you know what, you can get out on your e-book or from your library. The second one is, So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, which is also fantastic. And then the third one is How to Be An Anti-Racist, which I would, it’s my favorite that’s the one I would recommend is by you from Ibram X Kendi. But all three of them are incredible. And that’s just your next job just to get a little bit of education so that you can learn what you don’t know. We don’t know what we don’t know until we find out. So your job is to be looking to the bi- BiPAP community, which stands for black indigenous and people of color. Watching what they have done watching the documentaries, where they are speaking, reading the books in which they tell you things. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. People have been doing this work for a long time. Welcome in, see where you can join up, a but, number- but the first half to be comment, a little bit educated, I’ll try to put a link in the show notes for a Google doc that was circulating last week on where you can start. If you just have 5 minutes a day or 10 minutes a day. 10 minutes a day to ask us to be uncomfortable is insignificant. When it comes to people of color and what, how they are inconvenienced and made uncomfortable all day, every day in the society. 

[00:15:26] So the third stage is self-interrogation. And this is where you take what you’ve learned and you start to interrogate the ways in which you work in the world. You ask yourself the hard questions. This is also where yes, screw up. I had a, had a doozy earlier this week. I was in a class and a woman was talking about, and I don’t want to get too personal with this. I can’t give details, but she is now living a life where discrimination is going to happen to her in a big way for the rest of her life. And we were talking about that discomfort and I said something to her. I said, well, you know, there comes a time in our lives when we don’t, when we, when we get comfortable with living without discrimination. And the fact that you are now the focus of discrimination, is one of those things, which is making your life so difficult right now in which is making your book so difficult to write about it. And an awesome student of mine put her hand up and said, Rachael, I need to disagree with you. I, as a black woman face this discrimination every day of my life. It is not something that will go away or that will get easier you just learn how to say fuck off. And that was a place in which I was talking to a white woman, white woman to white woman. And I forgot that my experience is not mirrored by her experience. We tend to as white people, because this is what we have been trained to do by our entire society. We tend to center ourselves and make ourselves the most important person in the room forgetting that we are not, and our experiences need to be de-centered so that we can make room for the people who have not been heard for so long, to listen to them and we are going to screw this up and it’s gonna hurt. And in that instance, I got to say, well, I’m sorry. That is, I was just absolutely being a person full of white privilege thinking in my head that I knew everything and that’s complete baloney. Let’s just call it bullshit. And I think white person to white person here, I’m talking to only my white listeners right now. 

[00:17:46] This is the point at which when you’re in this stage of self-interrogation of learning about where you are on the anti-racist spectrum, is where you need to get comfortable with screwing up and apologizing clearly and trying to do better next time. This is never a place for a rationalization, but I thought it was being, but I thought I was, no there’s none of that. Just I screwed up. I’m sorry. I try to do better next time. 

[00:18:13] And the fourth stage, the final stage is community action. And I believe that as an anti-racist, I only have one job in community action, and that is to help encourage other white people to begin their own journey of becoming an anti-racist. This is what I should do now, which is why I’m talking to you, fellow white person, perhaps it’s time for you to start your journey of anti-racism. I got all of this from a, a starter kit online, which I will also link in the show notes. This is a fantastic time to start learning, and this is a fantastic time to be a writer and you may be really feeling moved to use your words, to fight right now, from the coziness and the safety of your home, where you are sheltering in place. These are things to keep in mind and be aware of, as we work for a better future. We have already really screwed it up in the United States and I truly believe that we can’t put band aids on anymore. We can’t do those easy fixes. This is the time to actually do the difficult work. And I am pleased that I can speak to you about this and I want to, I want you just to think about who you can speak to, in your community.

[00:19:48] And let’s talk about books. Okay, Thoumas says my long term goal is to be a hybrid author. I like the idea of having full control over my books, but I also like the idea of being traditionally published with this in mind, assuming I’m good enough to be traditionally published, which I have no idea if I am. Do you think it would be better to self-publish my debut book or to look for an agent?  Such a common question Thoumas, and I’m going to respond to it in a way in which I have heard other people say that they do not like. But I’m going to say it anyway. I like to use and I like to encourage people to use agent querying agents as kind of a test for your book. So if you would like to be traditionally published because it’ll make you feel good because it is a cache that you particularly want. You want to see your book on a shelf in Barnes and Noble, if they exist in the future. That’s totally, totally fine. You can want that just for the sake of wanting it. You never have to justify that to anybody. Give yourself a number of rejections that you will accept before you start to question this book a little bit more. This can be done at any stage in your journey to publication after your, of course your book is written and revised as, as good as you can make it. I don’t believe you need to get an editor to help you fix your book before you go on the agent search, because agents often act as that first editor. There, they’re often happy to do that. They’re not always happy to do that, but they’re often happy to do that. 

[00:21:32] That is not to say that you can’t hire an editor before you start an agent search. That is also often done and can be very advantageous. I always recommend Reedsy.com, if you want to go there and look for an editor before you go to print agent. But after you’re good and set your query letters set in stone, it’s beautiful. Perhaps you’ve sent it to me for my query service. Just go to RachaelHerron.com/query. I am glad that I stuck that in there. Then ask yourself, how many rejections do you want before you start reevaluating this book? Is it 25? Is it 50? Perhaps if you get 25 form rejections or just a no answer, which counts as a rejection, either your query letter is not working, well, if it’s form and you’ve not been asked for a partial or a full manuscript, there’s something wrong with your query letter. Or the idea behind your book. If it is an idea that has been, you know, if nobody’s buying a vampire book right now and I’m actually not sure if that’s true or not, I have no idea where vampires are right now, but it could be that you are querying a vampire book in the time when all of agents, agent has said, I’m not going to pick up a vampire, but because none of the publishers are buying vampire books. Then that is not a reflection on your query. But in, in other cases you want to see, is my query letter are actually good enough. If they’re asking for full and partial manuscripts, then my query letter is good enough. And if they don’t want to talk to me after they’ve seen that, then is my book good enough. 

[00:23:07] Having no responses or negative responses on these can help you try to figure that out. But, on a bigger scarier level, right now, publishing is reeling from COVID-19. They are selling, they’re having a hard time selling books to editors because editors at big traditional publishers are having hard times knowing whether they will continue to exist. I have heard a couple of different things. I know that McMillan itself is shrinking. They laid off a bunch of editors. I have also heard through the rumor mill that Harper Collins is gangbusters that they’re doing really well. So because of COVID, because more people are reading and because they also own Harlequin, which Harlequin suddenly is an incredible business model. Shipping out books on a subscription service who knew that that would come back. Right. But it’s back. So Harper Collins is doing well. 

[00:24:10] But buying books right now and selling books is hard for agents to do. So, again, there is nothing, this is a very long winded way Thoumas, of answering this, that if you would like to look for an agent and then self-publish, if that falls through, I think that that’s a valuable route to go. Other people, I have heard them scream and rail against this and say, no, if you can’t get an agent, then your book is obviously not good enough. And you shouldn’t fail a bad book over into being self-published. I just don’t think that’s true. I think that a hundred agents could look at this book, fail to see its worth. And it could do really well being self-published because it is super niche perhaps, or because it is language that the agents didn’t respond to, but your readers well and if you want to be both, then why not give that book a chance to be traditionally published? And if it fails, and you either rethink it and edit it, change it and try to get an agent after you do that, or you, or you self-publish it, or you do both. That is not a simple answer. That is not a yes or no answer. But I think moving a book that failed to get an agent over into self-publishing is something that can be very good to do. And you’re going to be learning from that whole process and the whole time that you are querying, you’re writing your next book anyway, that book is done. You’re not thinking about it right now and you’re- hello, kitty. And you’re writing your next book. So there’s really, you’re not losing in this. That is what I would recommend to do. If that sounds good to you Thoumas, you should let me know and, and tell me if that resonates with you.

[00:25:56] Everybody else, I appreciate- I appreciate you being with me here today. I hope that you are hanging on and that you are wailing along with your kitties like I do. I know it’s very sad, and that you are getting your work done, and I hope that you come tell me about it and send me an email, send me a Twitter. Let me know how you are doing in these difficult times and tell me what you are struggling with right now. You can also tell me that I’m full of shit and I shouldn’t have- sorry kitty, I shouldn’t have recorded this podcast, but I won’t care because I was speaking my truth to help inspire people like me, who are trying to be brave as well. And that is exactly what I was trying to prove in that middle point of this podcast. So, yes. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being part of my community. It means the world to me. 

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

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