Ep. 203: Alexis Henderson on How To Write Books, Not Just Beginnings

Alexis Henderson is a speculative fiction writer with a penchant for dark fantasy, witchcraft, and cosmic horror. Her debut novel is The Year of the Witching. She grew up in one of America’s most haunted cities, Savannah, Georgia, which instilled in her a life-long love of ghost stories. Currently, Alexis resides in the sun-soaked marshland of Charleston, South Carolina.

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 #203 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. Thrilled that you are here with me today as I talk to Alexis Henderson. I have had the great, good fortunate recently of speaking to a lot of people in, there’s more interviews coming up. For some reason, I have a bumper crop right now, and there are episodes waiting in the wings which does not excuse the fact that this podcast is now by like 11 hours late. It’s okay. It’s my podcast. It’s alright that I 100% forgot to do it last night because I was so tired and, but I didn’t finish my thought, which was that I have been talking to some people who have written some books that I have a really loved that is not a requirement to come on the show. In fact, I do not have time to read all the books of everyone who comes on the show. However, Alexis Henderson blew me away with her book and it was a really wonderful to talk to her about something so creepy and dark and beautifully lyrically written as her book, The Year of the Witching. So I know that you will enjoy that. That is coming up.

[00:01:23] What is going on around here? What is not going on around here. In the bad news, our sweet dog, Clementine, who is older, she appears to be very sick and we were waiting for some biopsy results. However, they don’t look good. And, we are battling a lot of sadness because this will be the second of three dogs that we will have lost in mf-ing 2020. Speaking of mf-ing 2020, Trump has coronavirus. So there are silver linings. Oh my gosh. I know I lose followers and listeners every time I say things like that, and I don’t care. I have this texting service through Patreon, where if you support me at the $3 and up level, I send you encouraging texts to do your work, to be creative, to live life fully and this last week to vote. Just reminding you to vote and to encourage other people to vote. And oh my goodness. Somebody got so mad at me for saying something political. I honestly do not think saying that you should vote if you are in America and have the ability to do so is political. I wasn’t saying who to vote for, although everybody knows who I think you should vote for and it isn’t Trump. So yes, we let those patrons go. We let those listeners go. I really, truly believe that as writers, I’m being really serious all of a sudden. As writers, we must be political. That is our job. We have a skill set that most people do not have. We get to use our language, our words to help convince people of what we believe is the right thing to do- Waylon wails and agrees with me.

[00:03:16] Okay. Now I’m wearing the baby sling that I bought for the cat, which you cannot see on camera, but he’s on my lap. You might hear him purring. I think the purring is probably preferable to that wailing that he does. So, yeah. So that’s all I need to say about that. You already know that you have a skill given to you that you can use. I was phone banking last week for the first time ever. Wrote a Patreon essay about it and about calling blindly people to talk to them about how they’re feeling about this year was one of the scariest and most difficult and rewarding things that I have maybe ever done. So I have signed up to do it again, and we were not cold calling lists of Democrats. We were cold calling this of everyone. So it was, it was really fabulous to talk to people and I get to do that because I understand how language works. I’m much better on the page talking extemporaneously is not one of my skills, although I practice it a lot on this podcast. But I do know that skill with words is one of my super powers so I must use it. You must use, you must use it in your way. That is enough about that. In other news, I think we might be moving to New Zealand for real. Not just because of politics, not just because of our worries about an upcoming civil war or, but honestly, because I’m 48, Lala’s 52. We can move to New Zealand. We have the right to. We actually are allowed to enter right now. However, we do have to do the mandatory isolation, which is it’ll be about $4,000 for both of us to spend two weeks in a hotel room, not leaving. They bring you your food and your snacks and things like that.

[00:05:04] So, that sounds nightmarish. But, actually maybe getting out of the country for a while and trying something else, all politics aside, why wouldn’t we? Okay. Here’s why we wouldn’t because we’re comfortable because we are in this house because I finally have a flower garden that is gorgeous. Lala’s desk, she finally got it in exactly the right position for her to be able to work and to do her art. All our friends and family are here. We have a house full of stuff that we would have to do something with. None of it is easy, but I don’t know something about being in quarantine for so long has made me miss that, that feeling of challenge, that feeling of being pushed outside one’s comfort zone. And that I’m saying from a really, really great position of privilege. And I know that, my job is still paying me. Lala’s job is still paying her. We have the privilege to be able to say that and there are so many millions of people in this country on its own right now that are not comfortable, that have been forced into untenable situations. So I remain very grateful to where we are, but yeah. So right now we’re thinking about New Zealand. We’re thinking about just going and trying out different cities till we find a place where we would like to rent. So I don’t know how long that will take, but we’re working also on all sorts of paperwork requirements now and I’m having fun with that. So there might, or might not be a podcast coming out about making these decisions to move and the move. Don’t know. We are recording our conversations just so, we can, if we want to put one of those together or there’ll be helpful to me if I want to write about it. So that’s, what’s going in our world, kind of big things.  Writing-wise, I just wrote my Patreon this week. I haven’t been doing much of anything else, playing with a new book and revising. You’re already ready a little bit, but otherwise kind of, kind of going slowly and that’s okay. So wherever you are right now, whatever you are doing, whether it is comfortable or uncomfortable, I hope that you are getting some of your own writing done. I hope that you are taking things like screaming kitties and making them into a lap full of a love just by buying a baby sling. Going off on a tangent, let’s jump into the interview with Alexis. You are going to love it. Enjoy and happy writing my friends. 

[00:07:36] Do you wonder why you’re not getting your creative work done? Do you make a plan to write and then fail to follow through? Again? Well, my sweet friend, maybe you’d get a lot out of my Patreon. Each month, I write an essay on living your creative life as a creative person, which is way different than living as a person who’ve been just Netflix 20 hours a week and I have lived both of those ways, so I know. You can get each essay and access to the whole back catalog of them for just a dollar a month. Which is an amount that really truly helps support me at this here writing desk. If you pledge the $3 level, you’ll get motivating texts for me that you can respond to. And if you pledge at the $5 a month level, you get to ask me questions about your creative life, that I’ll answer in the mini episodes. So basically I’m your mini coach. Go to patreon.com/Rachael (R A C H A E L) to get these perks and more and thank you so much.

Rachael Herron: [00:08:36] Well, I could not be more pleased today to welcome to the show. Alexis Henderson. Hello Alexis!

Alexis Henderson: [00:08:43] Hello. Thank you for having me, I’m so excited to be here.

Rachael Herron: [00:08:45] I, I am the one who is thrilled because I loved your book. I absolutely love it’s called “The Year of the Witching” and it was just, it was everything I want from like a dark, what’d you call it like a grim dark fantasy? What is the genre? You tell me what it is.

Alexis Henderson: [00:09:04] I say dark fantasy/horror because I can’t make up my mind and I think it kind of sits neatly between the two. 

Rachael Herron: [00:09:10] It really does. It just ticked all of my boxes. I just loved it. Okay. Let me give you a little bio for people who don’t know you. Alexis Henderson is a speculative fiction writer, that fits right there, with a penchant for dark fantasy, witchcraft, and cosmic horror. Her debut novel is The Year of the Witching. She grew up in one of America’s most haunted cities, Savannah, Georgia, which instilled in her a life-long love of ghost stories. Currently, Alexis resides in the sun-soaked marshland of Charleston, South Carolina, all places that I’ve always wanted to go. So this is your debut, congratulations.

Alexis Henderson: [00:09:44] Thank you so much. Thank you! 

Rachael Herron: [00:09:46] How has it been having the book out there? 

Alexis Henderson: [00:09:50] It is, it is mind blowing and challenging and interesting and wonderful. And I, I feel like just honored to have been on this journey. I mean, it’s been a weird year to debut because of this pandemic. But I think in some ways I’m weirdly grateful because I think that my experience is like, so unlike the average debut experience. I’ve met, like a lot of people, friends and stuff through these virtual events and these amazing opportunities and it’s been great to see the way the community has come together to support other debuts like me during this difficult time. So, yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:26] I’m so glad. Are you with, are you with Penguin? 

Alexis Henderson: [00:10:29] I am. Penguin random. My imprint is ace. 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:32] Okay. I’m with Dutton over there. And I think that’s how we were originally connected because some of their publicists send me those books. And, and I was, it was one of those things where I, I normally, if I get the book ahead time before I talked to somebody on my podcast, I tend to skim it. But yours was impossible to skim. I like read the first couple of pages I’m like, well, there goes my weekend. So it was, it was one of those. It was just beautiful, scary, sexy the whole, the whole swamp. Oh, everything, everything, everything. The forest, I loved every part of it. So thank you for being here. And I would love to talk to you about your process for writing, because that’s what this show is really all about. How, what does your life look like right now? How do you fit the writing in, especially like with pandemic days? What does that, how did that work for you? 

Alexis Henderson: [00:11:24] So at the moment I’m, I’m writing like full time, just kind of focusing on this. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:28] Awesome.

Alexis Henderson: [00:11:29] I was fortunate in that before I was an author, I was like English teacher. So I taught English as a second language remotely. So I’ve always kind of had to like fall back on if necessary and there are certainly times when I did both, but it allowed me to control my own schedule. So right now I’m just kind of only writing and it’s been, it’s been really interesting. So, I was homeschooled from the first grade, all the way up to my senior year of high school. So I’m very used to kind of setting my own schedule and working and doing school from home. So I think that that piece comes naturally to me. The piece that doesn’t is dealing with a global pandemic and trying to focus on writing a book. That’s, that’s the learning curve for me at the moment. So it becomes a game of trying to block things out, but let enough in to where I don’t feel disconnected or ill-informed. So it’s kind of like where I am with the writing and at the moment I’m focusing on I’m writing the sequel to the Year of The Witching.

Rachael Herron: [00:12:26] I’m so glad. I was really hoping you were going to say that. 

Alexis Henderson: [00:12:30] Yeah. It’s been exciting. And I, I was telling someone, I was like, I realized I don’t actually know how to write a sequel. So it’s interesting to kind of teach yourself the ropes. I’ve never written a sequel before, so it’s interesting to sort of teach myself, like this is how you write a sequel as I’m trying to write a sequel. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:45] It was one of the hardest things I ever did because I sold a Stand Alone was my first book and they asked me for a sequel, but I hadn’t written the book with that in mind. And I also didn’t really know how to write a book. I don’t even know how I’d written the first book. So, so it was that, that book too can be challenging. Yeah. How, is it fun or?

Alexis Henderson: [00:13:07] It is fun. It’s fun. In a way, it feels like returning homes and then there’s so much world-building and like character development that I feel like don’t have to do because the foundation is there. And so I’ve never had a writing experience really, where I haven’t had to build everything from the bottom up. And so to have that freedom to just kind of take the characters in this journey and not have to worry about establishing them as much is wonderful and I can feel, I feel a little bit unleashed. Like I can just do whatever I want and that’s great. But it’s also course daunting, you know, trying to follow up my first book and, you know, wanting to fulfill the promises that I made in that book and the second it’s, yeah, I hope I can do it justice. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:44] Oh, I am sure. I’m sure that you can. What do your days look like? How much time do you spend on the writing? How much time do you spend on the business? 

Alexis Henderson: [00:13:52] You know, it varies day to day. This year I’ve had a lot of promo. And I think that is oftentimes because like so many of the events that, wouldn’t be available to me because they required a lot of travel. Like, you know, they’re all virtual now, so there’s really no way to say no that all these amazing events and panels and I want to do them all and I do. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:11] Yeah, good point. 

Alexis Henderson: [00:14:13] Yeah. So because of that, my, my schedule, I think, has been more busy than maybe what have been in, in, in the business aspect. So, yeah, I, I, normally I wake up, I am thinking about the writing first and foremost in what I want to accomplish that day. But normally my approach is to try to get all of my emails out and kind of like, before I took my social media hiatus, I would try to like, you know, check on my notifications and DMS and all of that. And then I would get to the writing once I felt like that was kind of designated box.  But now that I know I’m on a tighter deadline, that’s kind of reversed. So it’s like writing and a little bit of like answering emails, social media, my response times have gotten longer because of that and then more writing and just kind of trying to fit things in around the writing. Because at the end of the day, that is the most important and I feel like, after I published the book, it was just kind of like I had to readjust and remember that like my primary job and my primary focus should be the writing. And so you kind of shifting from the promo and the business side, back to my writing or my roots, has been good for me, I think.

Rachael Herron: [00:15:17] Oh, I love that. And at the end of the day, are we going to be proud of the emails we sent or the books that we wrote. So 

Alexis Henderson: [00:15:24] That’s so true. I, I should write that up. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:28] It’s something that I’m, I’m constantly thinking of. I’m constantly like you should, you know, you should be writing that, not doing your email. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing? 

Alexis Henderson: [00:15:38] God, there’s so many, it’s so hard to choose from. You know, I think that characters are a real challenge, 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:45] That does not show in your writing. Your characters are so full and rich. Amazing

Alexis Henderson: [00:15:49] Thank you so much hard, hard fought. I feel like a lot of revisions, I think go into just kind of making them feel that like as fleshed out as possible, or at least as fleshed out as they do in my head, because it’s amazing how much you can lose when you’re like going from your head, putting it on the page. And so maybe I would say that’s also one of my biggest challenges is taking everything up here, which feels so fully formed and making that translated because I often find that there’s like this dissonance between the two or disconnect. And so making sure that what’s in my head is present in the book is like a constant struggle. And it’s like trial and error. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:24] It’s one of those things that, yeah, editors are so good at. Cause they’re the ones who pointed out to us. Cause we don’t know. We think that we have presented our brain onto the page and it’s just not there. 

Alexis Henderson: [00:16:33] It’s so, so true. Thank God for them, because I don’t know what I would do, but didn’t have someone to, like you say, like, this is not coming together. Please fix this. It’s just, just the best thing ever. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:44] Editors are the best. Who is your editor? I’ve been with a couple of editors

Alexis Henderson: [00:16:47] So Jessica Wayne and she’s so smart, she’s so smart. And she has such a keen editorial eye, but I think that, I aspire to give edits the way she does, because she’s just, she’s so clear in her direction, but she’s also just a genuinely kind person. So I never feel like hurt or attacked by any of her edits to mention explains things so well. Yeah, she’s great. And her ideas and her suggestions are also really, really great. So I feel like I’m in good hands with her 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:14] I feel like as writers that’s where we learn the most is being edited. 

Alexis Henderson: [00:17:18] Yeah, for sure. Definitely. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:20] What is your biggest joy when it comes to writing? 

Alexis Henderson: [00:17:24] I like that stage it’s- it’s, this is a little kind of cheating because it occurs right before I start writing. And it’s when I get this idea and I become obsessed with it and I’m making Pinterest boards and playlist, and I’m dreaming about the characters and I’m writing like plot outlines on my napkins at like restaurants. Like that’s my favorite part. I sometimes I feel like I wait, sometimes it takes years between ideas that grab me like that. And when they do, it’s just like a drop everything. It feels like falling in love almost like it’s so fast. And I just, that’s what I love and I feel like I’m always chasing that feeling and it comes and goes, I always love writing, but that specific feeling comes and goes, but I feel like once you felt at once, it’s almost like addicting. Like it’s just, yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:13] Yes! That’s the way I’m thinking of it, when you’re speaking of it, it’s that, it’s that high that we get when we’re on it. And we’re always trying to get it again.

Alexis Henderson: [00:18:20] So, yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:21] Oh, and then the problem is of course, when you’re in the middle of the book and you’re like, I would rather write a recipe book right now, you know, any, anything else.

Alexis Henderson: [00:18:30] A math textbook, really anything, 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:36] Very bad idea for me. Can you share a craft tip of any sort with us? 

Alexis Henderson: [00:18:41] Yeah. The one that made the most difference for me, must finish what you start. I don’t remember where I first heard it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:48] Yes

Alexis Henderson: [00:18:49] Yeah. I told him, he told to me, and I think it’s so important to break yourself of that habit that a lot of new writers fall into, which is where you start a project. It gets hard, like you just mentioned, and then you abandon it for the shiny new thing. And it’s a vicious cycle I can go on and on and on. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:04] It can last for life

Alexis Henderson: [00:19:05] So when I started, yes, and I’ve seen that like writers who’ve spent a decade or more just kind of abandoning projects. Like I, I started kind of falling people like writers since community when I was pretty young. I think it was like around 13 when I first developed my obsession with theory shark, and, you know, I would see people who are just for literally years, we’re kind of like your start and restart projects. And I was one of them for a long time. But I think that when I was purposeful about the projects that I started, and then it was purposeful about finishing them kind of making this like unspoken contract with myself that every book that I started, I, actually, it wasn’t even unspoken. I told myself if you get 30,000, it was 10, 10 or 30,000 words within a book, to into the book, you have to finish it. You have to give it an ending because if you don’t finish the books that you start, you don’t actually know how to write books, you know how to write beginnings. So 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:57] Yes, yes

Alexis Henderson: [00:19:58] That’s, that’s when I think my writing process sort of changed a lot and I grew so much from just learning how to put endings on things.

Rachael Herron: [00:20:08] Well, I was wait, so 2006, I was 34 before I ended a book and I had a master’s in this and I still just didn’t know how to finish a book. So the fact that you’re doing this earlier than you, how- do you mind if I ask you how old you are? 

Alexis Henderson: [00:20:22] No, no, no. I’m 24. I’m still 24

Rachael Herron: [00:20:26] Amazing! Like the, the fact that, you know that finishing is like this magic potion is everything that is so freaking cool. What thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way? 

Alexis Henderson: [00:20:44] Oh, that’s a good question. Music, I can’t, I can’t start writing a book until I have the playlist. Right. I mean, I spent months trying to get the sound, the sound of the book right before I started, because if that doesn’t fall into place, I just don’t know what the narrator’s voice feels like or how 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:02] Interesting. 

Alexis Henderson: [00:21:03] Yeah. So music is a big thing for me, but also, what kind of tea I’m drinking. Like I’m hard pressed to be able to get anything done. If I don’t have like a good cup of tea and a good coat, it’s like the right to cover tea emotionally for me in that moment, sometimes it’s Green Jasmine, sometimes it’s a black tea, a little bit of almond milk, whatever it is I just need. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:24] Okay. So I want to, I have so many questions about these kinds of things. Cause these are the processing’s that I love. So if you’re drinking the black tea with almond milk, say, is that going to last for the book or is it just on a day to day kind of basis? 

Alexis Henderson: [00:21:39] I think that normally with each book I have like three teas’, that are just the teas that I have to drink during that book. So I remember a book I wrote a few years ago, not The Year of the Witching, but I really got hooked on this gunpowder green tea had this like 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:53] I love the gunpowder

Alexis Henderson: [00:21:54] it too, so good. And the book was about well, one of the major themes in the book was fire and smoke and ruin. And I don’t think it’s any coincidence that I got fixated on this gunpowder, smoky gunpowder green tea at the time I was writing that. So I do think that, you know, from the music to the tea, sometimes I bring candles or incense. All of it is helping me kind of ground myself in the story. And I think that in books, I put so much of myself into the story, but sometimes I just want like, little details from the story to be present in my life too. And I think that the music and the tea is kind of a way of me like bringing the story into my like physical products. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:32] What a gorgeous way to say that. And I’ve had the experience of like every once in a while, out in the real world- world running into one of the songs, it was a major pivotal part of my soundtrack. And I have been known to burst into tears because that was the scene where Robin died, you know, I love that. So your, so your playlist, are you, where are you making this on Spotify or Pandora? Or?

Alexis Henderson: [00:22:51] I’m using Apple music 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:52] Apple music

Alexis Henderson: [00:22:54] Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:55] And how long is your playlist?

Alexis Henderson: [00:22:57] Hundreds of songs, hundreds of songs. I, I will kill hours looking through like the classical music or my actual favorite section to dig through is movie scores 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:08] Yes

Alexis Henderson: [00:23:09] And so I will look at Apple all the new releases I’ll look at what’s on sale. I kind of just sort of like add to my collection, my ever growing collection of movie soundtracks. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:19] Is it mostly worthless or?

Alexis Henderson: [00:23:23] Mostly with a few exceptions. So I think my biggest exception is probably Florence New Machine I’ve listened to for years. I love her music. She’s just so talented and brilliant. But for the most part, I try not to listen to too many songs with words, because I have this weird thing where like a, hear a word, a song or a phrase, and like the words for that phrase will appear in my book. Like if it mentions wind, I’ll have wind 17 times on one page. So I, I’m susceptible to like, cause like Osmos. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:55] The suggestions. Yeah. 

Alexis Henderson: [00:23:56] So yeah. I try to avoid listening to like Beyonce too much when I’m like writing all with lemonade here, like rearranged in my book. So, 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:08] You know that would not be a bad thing at all. So maybe not a particular book. Right. What is the best book that you’ve read recently? And why did you love it? 

Alexis Henderson: [00:24:18] I have here The Scapegracers by Hannah Abigail Clarke 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:23] Gorgeous cover. 

Alexis Henderson: [00:24:24] Yeah it’s a thriller fantasy, and you look at them like the shine on it, it’s so beautiful. I can’t stop looking at it. And it has the rest of it kinda has this like nice, it’s like almost matte feeling. It’s a really, really great book. It’s a, I would say like a dark contemporary white fantasy. It’s very witchy. And I would pitch it as the craft with the voice of getting in the ninth. It’s quite good. It just came out, I think two or three days ago and Hannah is great and they wrote an amazing book. So, 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:56] That sounds amazing. I want to, I’m putting that on my TBR pile now. Oh, that’s so, so, so you love the witchy stuff as do I, I’ve got like four tarot card, tarot decks right here. How, how much does that inform the craft of your writing? 

Alexis Henderson: [00:25:15] You know, I think I, I’m just so inspired, I think by like the imagery of all these witchy things and like the vibes and the feeling. So structurally, I think I always knew that I wanted to experiment with something that was kind of opposed to systems of power that are kind of in control in our world. And I felt like at which you quote things, you’re just kind of like a natural rival to that. And it’s very much kind of like. I think representative of like the underdog, but people, also people who traditionally don’t have a lot of a power claiming it for themselves by like new means through the occult. So yeah, I think that’s something that be probably stick with me in the stories that I write for, I hope years to come, because I think there’s so many different ways to approach that. And I was excited to do The Year of the Witching, but I’m also kind of up for the challenge of exploring that more, and seeing how else I can like manifest those themes in different stories and different worlds. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:10] I would like to subscribe to your newsletter immediately so I can stay abreast of all of these things that you are going to come up with. That is amazing. I’ve just lost my notes here. Oh, well easily. What would you, you know what, tell us where we can find you online, but I would also, could you give us like a little bit of an elevator pitch to get people into The Year of the Witching.

Alexis Henderson: [00:26:30] Yeah. So, The Year of the Witching here is a dark fantasy novel, I know she’s so pretty, so dark fantasy/horror novel about a young girl named Immanuel, who, is a shepherdess and she lives in a very rigid puritanical society that’s ruled by a prophet who is pretty close to all powerful. And one day Immanuel enters the forbidden woods that surround her home and there she encounters spirits of four dead witches and they reveal dark secrets about her own past and the church. So it is, 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:03] her my mother, I love a mother-daughter story also, I’m a big knitter, spinner person. So you got all the fiber details right too. 

Alexis Henderson: [00:27:12] Thank you. I did research, I only crochet and I’m not great at it, but I did research. I would love to be able to do more.

Rachael Herron: [00:27:20] I’m very, I’m very critical, especially when it comes to like the wool and you’ve got it. You just nailed it. So 

Alexis Henderson: [00:27:25] Thank you! Thank you. Oh my gosh. It’s just like, I think one of my favorite compliments I’ve ever received because no one has picked up on it from the research I did. I’m like, yes, that four hours spent researching textiles was well spent, thank you. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:39] Oh my gosh. That’s amazing. Okay. So where can we find you online? Where do you prefer to be found?

Alexis Henderson: [00:27:43] I’m on Twitter @alexhwrites and Instagram is LexisH, and then I have a website, alexishenderson and you can subscribe to the newsletter that I haven’t written yet, but you can subscribe to it there. I will release a newsletter eventually. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:01] Good. Just as long as you have a place to capture these people. Yeah. Can I ask just not on the list of questions, but the, your incredible cover. Did they do a photo shoot for you or is that like an amazing stock photo? They found somewhere?

Alexis Henderson: [00:28:13] This is a photo shoot. Yeah. So do I think her name is Eve is actually a really close to Immanuel’s age and I think that she’s just such a beautiful embodiment of that character. So this is a photo shoot, and then Katie Anderson did some like

Rachael Herron: [00:28:31] Manipulation 

Alexis Henderson: [00:28:32] Yeah, and some work to make it look like this. So 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:34] it’s perfect. 

Alexis Henderson: [00:28:36] I think so too. I love, I love, love, love this cover. So 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:40] I’m so glad we got a chance to talk Alexis. I am so looking forward to following your future progress up into the skies because I, I just love your book. I can’t, I can’t make that more clear. So thank you for being on the show!

Alexis Henderson: [00:28:53] Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. I really appreciate it. I had a great time. 

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.