Ep. 240: Kathryn Nicolai on Focusing on the Good in Life and Writing

Kathryn Nicolai is the creator of the enormously successful podcast Nothing Much Happens and the author of the book of the same name. Nicolai is an architect of coziness, writing soothing stories that both ease the reader into peaceful sleep and teach the principals of mindfulness so that waking hours likewise become sweet and serene. She leans on her years of experience as a yoga and meditation teacher to seamlessly blend storytelling with brain training techniques that build better sleep habits over time. She is the owner of Ethos Yoga. She lives in Michigan with her wife and three dogs.

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

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers!

Transcript:

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

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #240 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. I’m absolutely thrilled that you are here with me today because today I am talking to Kathryn Nicolai and I fan girl quite a bit. This woman has changed in my life, because she has changed my sleep. She tells stories that help you go to sleep. And she has a book about it too. And it just popped into my head one night when I was listening to her voice. I thought, oh my goodness, I want to talk to this writer. And she said, yes. And it’s a fantastic conversation. We talk about focusing on the good in life and also in writing, I know you’re going to love it. I can’t wait to re-listen to it myself, honestly. So that’s coming up, stick around for that. 

[00:01:03] What’s going on around here? Well, the house sold, it went on the market last Wednesday, and it’s sold on Monday. So five days, tons of people through the house, we were not here. We exited the house and stayed at a friend’s house who was out of town, which was so miraculous and wonderful. It sold quickly. It sold for above asking, and I will believe it when the money hits the bank and I hand the keys over until then, I’m just very, very hopeful because everything is working out. Timing wise, the staged furniture gets to stay in here we were out of the house for about a week or so, and it was really hard to un-nest the house that we had lived in 15 years and leave just the stage furniture in here. And some things that we hid in closets and drawers, you know, like our spices, I still want to cook for the next five weeks while we’re in the house. And then we came back to the house last night and re-nested all of the stuff that had traveled with us over to my friend’s house is now all over all the tables and the counters. And, you know, my desk has exploded and it’s everywhere and we’re going to have to un-nest again for the appraiser to come through. And then for the buyers who we are allowing to come through and measure things and do things like that.

[00:02:23] So we have to re-stage it. Which is weird. But it feels really good to be back in these walls where we have spent 15 years, even if the house looks nothing like ours, it looks beige. If you’re looking at me on YouTube, number one, I apologize about my hair. It’s just been a day. And number two it’s all gray. Like I said, white carpets. It’s not us. I literally went to Home Depot and bought seven drop class to cover the carpets. I am not letting our feet touch these white carpets, even for a moment, I don’t trust us. So that’s where I’m at and living still in chaos and trying to get more and more comfortable with that because it’s going to be this way for a while. In terms of writing, I have only been writing during Rachael Says Write, I think I mentioned this last week. I really like Rachael Says Write, those two hours twice a week people show up and write and I am one of them, that is like a sacredly held space for me to do my writing. Otherwise I’m having such a hard time finding time to fit it in. So that’s I always record these on Thursday and that’s happening this afternoon. Thank goodness. I’m going to be writing a Patreon essay about nesting, about what it means to have home, what home means, what it means when you adjust it for good reasons, you know, good grief. We are the luckiest. We’re not being displaced by war. We are choosing to do this amazing, exciting thing that we are very, very, very privileged to be able to do. But it still makes me feel like a cat who’s just had cold water thrown all over them and just the lack of continuity really puts me on edge. And that’s, you know this, an exciting thing for me.

[00:04:22] I believe that one of our biggest goals in life is to learn how to deal with moments that aren’t comfortable. Especially when it comes to our writing, dealing with moments that aren’t comfortable. If we want to be comfortable people who have a happy, smooth life, we are not going to be writers. Writing is hard to do, and it’s not smooth. And it is uncomfortable. A great majority of the time. And if we are people who cannot stand discomfort and run away, of course, we’re going to stay away from our manuscripts forever and knock it back to them and not do the writing of our hearts. If we get comfortable, or more comfortable, nobody’s going to get comfortable with it. But if we get more comfortable with discomfort and being able to sit at the desk and look at the words that are just stupid, that sound wrong, that sound awful and realize, oh, they went, now it won’t be very good right now, but I can fix them later. I’m not going to fix them today. I’m going to fix them later when I’m in a fixing stage. And when we’re in that fixing stage and it feels bad and wrong and uncomfortable, we just know that that’s part of the process as a writer. That’s what it feels like. We just keep coming back and therefore things get done. We are not going to be comfortable as writers, but we are going to be living as writers. And I think that’s really, truly amazing. 

[00:06:45] So that’s about what’s going on around here. I would love to hear what’s going on with you, how your writing is going. Please reach out to me. I will be releasing a couple of bonus episodes here, coming up, including the talk that I had when my book launched last week. I got the permission to do that and that’s going to be fun. And then I have a writer Q&A, for those of you who subscribe at the $5 and up level on Patreon. I’ve got some many questions, many answers coming at you. So hopefully I’ll get those out this week, but I wanted to make sure that this went out on Friday as always. And I’m going to wish you a very happy writing and I’m going to also wish you happy sleeping, perhaps listen to Kathryn’s dulcet tones as you go to sleep tonight. And let me know how that goes for you. You’re going to love the way she writes stories. Okay, my friends I’ll talk to you soon and happy writing.

[00:06:35] 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’ll 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 a 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 of just doing this thing that’s so hard and yet all we want to do. Pick it up today.

[00:07:11] Well, I could not be more pleased today to welcome to the show, Kathryn Nicolai. Hello, Kathryn! 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:07:16] Hi, thanks so much for having me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:07:18] I am a little giddy. I’m a little starstruck. We were already connecting before this. Let me give you a little introduction for people who don’t know who you are yet. Kathryn Nicolai is the creator of the enormously successful podcast, Nothing Much Happens, and the author of the book of the same name. Nicolai is an architect of coziness, writing soothing stories that both ease the reader into peaceful sleep and teach the principles of mindfulness. So that waking hours likewise becomes sweet and serene. She leans on her years of experience as a yoga and meditation teacher to seamlessly blend storytelling with brain training techniques that build better sleep habits over time. She is the owner of Ethos Yoga. She lives in Michigan with her wife and three dogs. Welcome!

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:08:01] Thank you so much for having me.

Rachael Herron: [00:08:04] So I found you by, probably the way everybody else finds you, which is, you know, searching sleep podcast. And I’m sure that yours was the first one that came up and I have tried everything to sleep over the course of my life, literally everything. And I swear to God, Kathryn. Yours is the only freaking thing that works. 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:08:23] I’m so glad that you’re getting sleep. 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:25] It is amazing! I have been, I usually go to bed before my wife, but every once in a while she comes to bed at the same time. And she, and this is what I want to first start asking you here. Like, so my wife goes to sleep like four seconds before her head even hits the pillow and it’s incredibly irritating and I never sleep. So, I asked her the night that she came to bed recently at the same time as me. Do you mind if I play my friend’s story? And she goes, no, I’d love to hear what it sounds like. And she never even got past the introduction. So your story, how are you asleep? I’m dying to know 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:09:03] I do sleep really well because I’ve been doing this my whole life. One of my first memories being like four years old, was laying in bed at night and having that awareness of imagination where, oh, I can take my mind anywhere? Oh. And being like four years old and going, I could tell a story, you know, I was obsessed with stories even as a kid and especially audio stories. I can remember, I have a condition called aphantasia, which means I can’t visualize anything. I have no inner eye. So, I think I really have always responded to audio and I remember like I had a Peter Pan record, and I would play it over and over the story of Peter Pan. And then my dad got me in like my first books on tape and I ran that thing out. He had to check it out from the library, like every other week for the entire summer. And so stories were always big to me and so I’d always done this my whole life. And I remember the stories that I would tell myself as a kid. And so as I got older and I was meeting, you know, just paying attention to my yoga students, listening to my family and friends, hearing from so many people who kept saying, I can’t sleep, I feel anxious. I can’t settle down. And I kept thinking, how do I get this from me to you? Because I know how to do this. And that’s when I thought, oh, it’s a podcast. 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:29] It’s the most brilliant podcast and it is the most brilliant book. So let me tell what my experience of this is, and then you can actually tell what you actually do. But my experience is that you tell me a story with really rich detail. And this is really why I wanted to have you on the show because with all writing detail, the more detail we are, the more specific we are, the more universal it becomes in terms of understanding what’s happening. And you give my brain a track to follow. Like right now we are in the middle of a move to New Zealand and I am anxious as hell. Like my brain just wants to follow every track on like, how are we going to have to get the house painted? What kind of suitcase should I buy? But you give me a different track and then you do this beautiful thing where you say, and if you wake up in the middle of the night, you can replay it. And I do, and it works. I’m like there was a lemon tree and then there was a pencil. How would you describe how you tell these stories?

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:11:29] Well, I always think of it sort of as a recipe, there are three factors that I always like to put together for a solid bedtime story. One is that the overall action or activity of the story should be soothing. So no off the bat, anything we’re going to do, it’s going to be enjoyable and soothing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:45] There’s no bungee jumping in these stories, yeah. 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:11:48] There’s no suspense, there’s really very little in the way of action, but that’s kind of nice. As a reader, I always love the part of the book before the inciting incident, when the person is just moving through their life and I’m 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:01] Status quo?

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:12:03] Just a little bit longer because I just want to hear like, what are they going to eat for lunch 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:07] I love list of things. Like what did they put in their luggage? I want to know what goes in the luggage.

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:12:10] Yeah. I intentionally put a lot of lists into that

Rachael Herron: [00:12:13] yes,

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:12:14] Into the podcast and whenever I, you know, if the character goes to the farmer’s market or there’s going to be lists and lists and lists of everything. So call me an activity and then there needs to be this element of familiarity or nostalgia, where even if you haven’t had the experience, you can relate to it so easily and you know, that it would feel good. And then last is tons of sensory details. Cause that’s going to make you present. It’s going to keep you in that moment following that track and just on sort of the neuroscience level what’s happening in that moment, is that we are shifting you out of your default mode network and the default mode network is the place where everything spins, it’s sort of the background static. It’s what your brain does when it doesn’t have anything else to do. And we’re putting you instead into a task positive network. Task positive network means your brain now has a job 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:07] interesting 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:13:08] you can sleep in task positive, but you cannot sleep in default. So that’s why it works to think through it in the middle of the night, even if it’s just, and usually it’ll happen in just a couple of seconds, 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:17] A few seconds and then I’m gone again. 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:13:19] Yeah. Oh, I remember there was this I’m out because I got switched over in my brain network. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:25] It is bizarre. So I listened to the podcast for probably about a month or two and during that you tell the story once, and then you tell it again a little bit slower. And the, for the first few weeks I was listening, I could, I listened to all the way to the end. Yeah. Both. And now I listened to, now I can, now I’m listening to the book because it’s just easier for me to put on audible and press the go to the end of the chapter. And I listened to each chapter. I don’t know, five or six times before I even know what you’re talking about because I’m faster at sleeping now.

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:13:55] It does progressively get better over time.  

Rachael Herron: [00:13:58] You’re a freaking saint. That’s all I gotta tell.

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:14:00] Glad to help

Rachael Herron: [00:14:02] So can we talk about, because this is where it’s even more interesting for me, you as a writer and how you came to this. Was this something, I mean, obviously this is something that you intended to do. It is something that you were bringing to people to share your talent with sleeping. But where does writing exist in your body and in your background?  

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:14:21] You know, it’s new 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:23] Shut up!

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:14:24] It is, it’s something I’ve wanted my entire life, but always been too afraid to do. And then I got to that age where I started to embrace what I call my, “What The Hell” mantra, where you feel, what the hell, I’ll just try it. But I was so sure. Because I’m such a lover of books and narrative and storytelling and literature, you get into that place of going. I’ll never do that. So maybe I shouldn’t. And then luckily I feel like there’s this moment as I got older, where I embraced a little bit more of my own mediocrity and went, it doesn’t have to be that, it could just be because you like to create it. So I honestly had not really written until about three and a half years ago. And then I just, you know, I remember hearing years ago an interview with Erin Morgenstern who wrote The Night Circus, she was on Terry Gross and she talked about how she’d never really written before. And then she wrote The Night Circus during, 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:23] NaNoWriMo

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:15:24] Yeah. I remember like taking that seed and going, put that in there for later. Like even if you haven’t, that doesn’t mean you can’t start. And now I am writing so much. I have so many other projects going and, it’s different kinds of writing and it is so fascinating to me. So now, and the thing is before this, I never considered myself to be a creative person. I thought I was creative, adjacent. Like I was a creative jealous kind of person who was like, I like to hang out with those people the artists and the actors, that’s where I found my friends and my relationships. And, but I just thought I don’t have that thing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:03] You hung out there because you were one. 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:16:06] Yeah. I just didn’t have the strength yet to go actually start typing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:12] And that is the hard part actually. 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:16:14] But it’s, you know, once you build some muscle memory of that, then, you know, I was writing yesterday and I was telling my wife, like, I feel like right now, I am like got the wheel of this giant boat in my hands and I am trying to steer it, but the wind is blowing. And right now I only kind of know what the shape of the map is. And artistically it’s incredibly exciting and also terrifying because I don’t know where the ship’s going and I can’t control it. Which as a writer is really kind of fun, but a different experience for me because I wrote the same kind of thing for so long. So now that I’m branching out into other things, it just keeps growing, you know, that capacity for creativity and to create new worlds. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:57] I’m going to predict that that only gets bigger and wilder as you go, as you go. So what, and I’m sure people ask you this, and maybe it’s a, it’s an uncomfortable or rude question, but I’ll ask it anyway. What percentage of the stories are memoir-ish and what are fiction? I mean, I know that you’re not in, you’re not an innkeeper, so I know that that’s, that was not true.

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:17:24] First, I want to say that my own life is ridiculously charmed and wonderful, but these aren’t about me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:31] Yeah. I figured.

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:17:32] And people often would prefer that they are. And I say, if you like to think of it that way, 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:38] I don’t go to the farmer’s market every single day, 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:17:40] I’m going on a bookstore, 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:42] every dog, you know

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:17:44] I don’t live in the cottage and in the brownstone and in the farmhouse, you know, but I remember somebody wrote me after I wrote a story last season about a kitten that gets found and brought in from the cold, and she just kept insisting. She was like, can you send me a picture? I just need to look at and I kept going, I’m sorry, I don’t have a cat. And she’d be like, I don’t understand what you’re talking about. This just becomes really real for people. So, there are little elements sometimes that I’ll pull from my life or something I notice, but they’re not about me. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:20] Yeah. Okay. That is what I was. That is what I was predicting. The work that you’re doing now, may I ask, is it more fictional or is it more memoir-ish?

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:18:27] No, it’s more fictional. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:30] Exciting. 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:18:31] Yeah. It’s going to be a really groovy piece. I have a couple of cool pieces on the go right now and I’m writing every day. So I think the world of Nothing Much is going to get bigger and more in depth. We’re going to see people as individuals more, there’ll be characters still –

Rachael Herron: [00:18:47] Stop it, I love it.

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:18:48] Yeah. But we’re really going to dive in a little bit and you’re going to get to know that guy who sold the bakery. The one with the flower in his eyebrows who put gram flour in everything. Let’s find out about something from his life. And the house he lives in and the cardamom bums, he bakes for his neighbor. So the stories are going to get bigger and richer which I’m, like as a writer interested in sinking a little bit deeper. So yeah, this next piece is going to be really great. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:16] What is your biggest challenge when it comes to doing this writing or any writing?

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:19:19] Mostly it’s the actual doing of it. Once I get the wheel turning I’m okay. And right now I have a goal of 5,000 words a week and I’m mostly hitting it. So you know what I had like dry spell in the summer where I think it was just the anxiety of 2020 and realizing we were still a long way away from the end of, you know, what we were going through. And it was really a struggle for me to find a place for creativity because I was feeling so anxious. And so I started, I did like 30 days where I wrote for 20 minutes a day, just a real approachable number. It doesn’t feel, I mean, I almost you can’t get anything done. Almost by the end of 20 minutes, you’re like, wait, wait, I just

Rachael Herron: [00:20:06] I was getting going 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:20:07] Yeah. So I do set up a timer and it really helps remind me, I know how to do this. I can, you know, I enjoy this. I’m not somebody who’s tortured by writing you know, I know a lot of writers are, but I think specifically the genre that I write in, is incredibly pleasant. So once I’m in that world, I’m happy. Leave me alone. You know, 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:29] What is your biggest joy when it comes to doing this? 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:20:33] Just when I find something I didn’t expect to find. You know, when you sort of suddenly and I think I’m not a great strategic thinker. Like I could never play chess. Part of my aphantasia, I can’t hold much in my brain. A lot of memory is processed visually and I don’t have access to that. So things are kind of immediate to me. And then every once in a while, I’ll realize subconsciously or however through the creative gods, I have laid something out and, oh my gosh, when I turn this corner that door’s going to open and it’s exactly where it needed to be. It feels surprising to me as a writer. So I feel, that is a great joy as a writer when you realize, oh this is going to go over there. Oh, that’s great. I can’t wait to see what’s over there. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:24] I love that feeling so much. And I think that is the default mode network sometimes at work, like it has been spinning, but in the background, maybe pulling some things into where they should be. So that’s one of the good sides of that. Can you share a craft tip of any sort with us?

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:21:43] Well, I think that 20 minute exercises are really useful one when you feel stuck. I also think, making them, I take a ton of notes through the day. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:57] Where do you take them? I like, I like the nitty-gritty specifics. Do you think of any phone or

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:22:00] Sometimes it is just, you know, as I’m writing, I’m going, oh, wait a minute, in like 20 minutes, we’re going to do this thing 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:09] and I’m looking, I can get to you then, take a number 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:22:11] Yes. I know, you like tug at your sleep and you’re like, I can’t get to you right now, can you hold? And I take them also on my phone. If I’m out walking my dog or something, like I just was walking my dog and I saw something that will, I was writing a, episode of the podcast. It’ll come out just in a couple of weeks, but I just saw something that I was like, oh, this is going in. I know what this is going to be. So I jotted it down in my phone, but I have like a long list. And often that just sparks a thought for me. Just starts to get the wheels turning. I keep like a Pinterest mood board going again because I don’t have a visual imagination. It’s so useful for me to be inspired by visuals but I think whatever, you know, whatever, however you relate to your creativity, the more you practice it, the more it feels like, I always feel like it’s something like everybody has it, but it might be like in a box in your basement and if you tried to find it, you couldn’t get your hands on it real quick, but if you keep going out and digging out and putting it in your front pocket, you’ll be able to get your hand on it right away. In the moment that you need it, it’ll be there in your grasp. You’ll feel more confident. And that inspires like continual creation. So it is sometimes just slog through, pick it up, do it again, even if it’s a mess, do it again. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:29] I love that analogy of just having it to hand all the time, having being ready to catch those synergistic synchronistic things that you see, like on your walk. What is the lag time between you writing a piece and then it actually showing up on the show?

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:23:46] Pre COVID, it was like two months. Post COVID, it’s like eight days 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:54] See and I almost would have expected this the opposite. Why is that?

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:23:58] I think I had a really rigorous schedule before, I guess that would be my other tip. Is I need a schedule and I write it out Sunday night and it’s almost hour by hour for the entire week but because I’m still in my house, no one’s like enforcing it, but I used to have these really rigorous go and sit in the coffee shop or go and sit in the library, writing days. I miss that so much. 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:19] That’s the thing I miss most about, besides all the, like the actually traumatic heartbreak kind of stuff. But writing out of my house is the thing I miss the most.

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:24:27] Yeah. And that kept me going and now it is a little bit more of a slog, I think also just because I’m writing so many other projects, then I’m like, oh an episode, we don’t take breaks. We just keep creating. So, yeah. So now it’s a short window.

Rachael Herron: [00:24:45] What is the thing in your life that affects your writing in a surprising way? 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:24:52] My overall mood affects me a lot. And you know, I’ve been on an upswing for the last month or two, I think just feeling sort of optimistic and I own a yoga studio and we’d been shut down again and we’re open again so I’m teaching. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:08] Oh, wow. 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:25:09] Yeah. And- 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:10] It’s awesome. 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:25:12] Yeah. So I’m able to flex other parts of my brain and all of that, I can get out. I’m in Michigan so, and it was like 67 degrees today.

Rachael Herron: [00:25:20] Wow!

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:25:21] So being able to like get outside and do the physical activities that really contributes to my mood. I find that when my mood is low, when, especially if I’m anxious, it’s a lot sometimes just to get from that through the day, and there’s not a lot of extra energy. So, that’s why I think I’m writing a sort of at a fevered pitch right now. I need to make hay while the sun shines. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:47] Yeah, literally. 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:26:48] And the sun is shining right now. So I think probably mood. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:53] How? So I have a pretty long-term meditation practice and a yoga practice that is mostly on sometimes off, but I find, and I tell my students a lot that like my meditation practice is the single most useful thing that I can do for my writing. Because just like when your brain starts wandering, when you’re meditating and that gentle bringing it back is the same thing. It’s exactly the same thing we feel on the, when we’re sitting in front of the computer, I’ve got to go get a cookie. No, you can write one more sentence. How do you find that yoga and meditation affect your writing and your creativity?

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:26:27] Yeah. I feel like it really prepared me to write these kinds of stories because I’ve been training my brain for the last 20-years as a practitioner to pay attention to the small details of life that are enjoyable or worth our gratitude and so I’m constantly looking for things and going, oh, that’s nice. And just letting your register in my body. But it feels good. You know, I talk about, about the negativity bias a lot and how that points us always to focus on scary stuff. So when we deliberately go out and look for sweet stuff, we’re not putting on rose colored glasses, we’re just taking off the gray ones. And it’s actually a more realistic look at the world. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:11] I love that you said that. That is, I’m so tired of people being mad at me for my rose colored glasses. You know

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:27:17] Yeah, it’s not Pollyanna, it’s real. And we need that. And so, and it became, can become a habit. So it’s something that I very deliberately do because of my yoga and meditation practice is to look for things to appreciate and enjoy. We’re meant to enjoy our lives. And so I want to just keep bringing them up in front of my readers and listeners and going. What about this? What about this? And people told me all the time, but like, I didn’t think it would do this, but I’m starting to notice as I go through my day, there’s good things happening. And it’s been kind of a theme I’ve been saying through 2020 to my students on zoom. Lots of good things are happening today. Lots more will happen tomorrow. And to be reminded, cause it feels like sometimes we’re just in this big, you know, doomed abyss, but lots of good things are happening. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:07] What a great a mantra. That’s maybe your next podcast. So now it’s oh, no, it’s your current podcast. That’s what it is. It already is. Okay. So can you tell us where to find you and all the things that you are actually, I forgot to ask you, what is your, the best book you’ve read recently? I just skipped that question. You have it at the tip at the time too.

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:28:22] I do. I’m going to tell you who wrote it. It’s called Once Upon a River, Juliet Stevenson. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:30] Yes. I loved that. Loved that.

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:28:33] She is a master storyteller and she writes these characters that I don’t know if you noticed this, but I’ve noticed in the last 10 years, there’s this trend in fiction toward just despair. I call it despair porn where-

Rachael Herron: [00:28:51] I call it miss-lit. but I kind of also write it so I can’t knock it too hard, but yes, there’s such a trend toward it

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:28:59] It’s almost like a plate of hot sauce or vinegar, and they’re like, this is a meal. And you’re like, no, no, no, no. There are other flavors in the world, but every character is reprehensible and unreadable, every situation is just the most gut-wrenching thing you can imagine. And, I find that Juliet Stevenson has this way of, she writes these characters who are complex. They’re not simple. They’re not all good, but there’s, they’re human and they’re relatable. And for they have forgiveness and then there’s magic in the story in a way that just feels really organic and not forced. So when I find a book like that, I’m like, this is point your ship in this direction. This is a true north moment as a writer. I want to make sure that that’s her name and that I don’t have her mixed up with the person who reads her books on audible. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:51] I want to say that I didn’t think that was her name. Once Upon a River, wasn’t it, Sittenfeld no Setterfield. Diane Setterfield. 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:30:00] I think Juliet Stevenson is the woman who voices now

Rachael Herron: [00:30:05] Have you read The House in the Cerulean Sea?

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:30:09] I can get on my list, 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:11] T.J. Klune, it’s right up there with that book for me, in terms of complex character creation, but also just really juicy goodness to sink into just joy but reality, but also a touch, well, not a touch quite a bit more fantasy than in Once Upon a River, but yeah, I think you’ll like it. Okay. Now tell us where we can find you everywhere.

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:30:35] Yeah. We’re on, Instagram (nothingmuchhappenspodcast),   Twitter (nothingmuchpod), and Facebook (nothingmuchhappenspodcast), just Nothing Much Happens or Nothing Much Happens Podcast. If you give it a search, it’ll pop right up and then Nothing Much Happens.com you can listen anywhere that you listen to podcasts, you can buy the book from anywhere you buy books. I always recommend that you look, go to your local store and order it if they don’t have it on the shelf, just tell them about it and they will be happy to order it for you and then just sweet dreams. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:01] Oh my gosh. I love it. When you say that at the end. I was at my neighbor. I told her about it. My neighbor she’s in our pod and I was telling her. I told her about you and the podcast. And then just the other night, she was over having a nice dinner. And she said, I just love it when Kathryn says sweet dreams, 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:31:19] I’m glad it feels that way, because I just want people, people need to have a place where they feel held and safe. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:25] We do. 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:31:26] It is such a joy to me to provide a little bit of sanctuary in the world we’re living in right now. It is a complete joy. So it’s absolutely my pleasure to share.

Rachael Herron: [00:31:36] It’s my complete joy and pleasure to speak to you today. Thank you for doing this, Kathryn. I really appreciate your time. And, yeah, now I can go to bed now not scared. I just go to sleep now. So thank you. 

Kathryn Nicolai: [00:31:47] My pleasure. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:48] All right, take care. 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.