Ep. 264: Amber McBride on How to Write a Novel in Verse

Amber McBride is an English professor at the University of Virginia and holds an MFA in poetry from Emerson College. Her poetry has been published in several literary magazines including Ploughshares and The Rumpus. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia with her dog, Shiloh. Me (Moth) is her young adult debut.

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Rachael Herron: 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 #264 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. And I’m so glad that you are here with me today, as I talked to the author of a book that I loved. I absolutely loved this and I filmed this recording way back because I’m quite ahead in schedule, which is an awesome problem to have. And I have been dying to tell you about it. It’s called Me Moth and I could not put it down. I could not put it down. It was incredible. It was gorgeous. And it is different. It is structured differently than any book I’ve read in a long time. It is a novel wrote in poem form and it works. It is magical. So you’re going to love the conversation that I have with Amber. 

[00:01:11] What’s going on around here? I’ll make it quick because I know I’m already late in uploading this podcast this week, because I was real tired yesterday. The biggest thing, well, I guess there’s one big work thing and one big life thing. Let’s do the life thing first because that’s really, really big. We got the house. We got the three-bedroom house to rent as the upper, as the upper floor of a large house on the side of a hill in Wellington that looks over the harbor. There are Harbor views from the living room, from the kitchen, from the dining room and from the bedroom. The main bedroom and the other two bedrooms don’t have views and that’s great. There’ll be offices. And it has a garden, a very neglected garden, which I will be able to plant flowers and vegetables, hearty things that can stand up to the wind of being on a Wellington hillside. So I’m going to learn about that. But, we move in, it is as I record this the 16th of October, 2021, and we will move in on November 1st. So just about two weeks from now, we will be able to unpack our things for the first time in five months. We will be able to put things in drawers and leave them there. We will be able to buy things. 

[00:02:35] My consumer tendency has really been quelled and that has felt pretty good. We haven’t bought anything except food because we have had no place to put it. Literally no place. I couldn’t have fit an extra playing card into my luggage that we’ve been carting around. That is a total lie. Now that I say it out loud, because if I turned my head to the right here, I can look up 12 books that I’ve bought. I think that’s all the books I bought since we’ve gotten here. Oh, that can’t be true. It’s got to be, but no, I can think of where a couple more. I am an inveterate book buyer and I will never stop and those just get shoved in the car, where they fit, that will fit in there somewhere, but otherwise we have not been buying anything.

[00:03:17] So I’m moving into this house. We really won’t have to buy big stuff, honestly. I think I mentioned it, but this house comes furnished because the people that were taking the lease over from are moving out of the country and they had to get rid of everything. And instead of getting rid of everything one by one, we offered to buy it all because we have nothing. So we bought all their furniture, their outdoor furniture, their barbecue, their kitchen appliances. And it’s feeling like this really exciting grab bag that we have bought. We’re going to go on November 1st and we’re going to start opening drawers and find out what we own. We’re going to say, oh, this is what our towels look like. Oh, these are our sheets. Oh, this is where the couch is comfortable and where it is uncomfortable. And that is so exciting. It’s so exciting. Also exciting is the news that we have, apparently our stuff is in Wellington somewhere. Out of customs, these are the 70 or so small boxes that we shipped over. I don’t, I’m having a real hard time thinking about them. 

[00:04:20] I don’t need a thing. I have everything I need right here, except most of my boxes, hold unread books. So that’ll be good. I’ll have a little library coming. But I know that I shipped over a bunch of clothes that I don’t need. I have enough clothes right now for about 10 to 12 days without doing laundry. And every place we’ve stayed has had laundry. So you do laundry once a week. I don’t need any extra clothes. I love my clothes. I have t-shirts when I’m writing, t-shirts and yoga pants. And if I leave the house, I wear linen and that’s, that’s it. That’s all I need. The layers have been adequate for the low temperatures and the warmer temperatures that we’re moving into as we move through spring here. We have just entered peony season and if you’re watching on the YouTube, I will just do you a favor. Look, this is as big as my head, you guys. You should really come over. This is, it’s a peony. It’s incredible. It’s pink and huge and as big as my head, open right now, it’s anyway, loving spring, loving Wellington, super excited. 

[00:05:26] In terms of what’s going on with work, my assistant, Ed, he’s in episode 200 if you want to go hear him speak. He’s the most amazing. He’s also really good at getting Book Bubs. And so he got me a Book bub ad for the fourth book and the Cypress Hollow series. It’s called Cora’s heart. I have not owned the first three books in that series. So whenever we would get a BookBub for Cora’s Heart, we would try to push them on into another series, or to the fifth book in the series and then to another series. A Book bub ad is basically when you set your book to very cheap or free in order to give it away as a lost leader to get people interested in you to read a whole series. What’s really exciting is that I got the rights back for all three, all five of the books in America. I only owned two of them in America and all five of the books in the series from Australia who owned them all, Harper-Collins did, I think, or Random House. I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter. I have all the rights back now. However, Harper-Collins in the states, when I got my rights back, they were super proactive. And they pulled down their eBooks, as they should have. 

[00:06:36] So right now on, also on November 1st, there’s going to be a BookBub for Cora’s Heart, which is book four in a series and books one through three do not currently exist. So suddenly, I am pulling up those old books, making new covers, choosing new titles, uploading them with Ed’s help, who is doing all the heavy lifting. But here’s the big problem. Books one through three were copy edited in the stone ages. I know I mentioned this in a previous episode. They would mail you the pages and you would mail them back when you were done. They were hard copy, copy edits. So I do not own them. I never got the final file. That was not a thing that they gave to authors. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they kept, you know, if they purposely didn’t give that copy edited file to the authors. So what I’m having to do is to go through the books, through these three books, superfast, bring them up to, I’m a better writer now. And so make them a little bit better and make them a little bit cleaner, which has been really fun, but I have to go fast and I will not have time to get them professionally copy edited before I need to put them up. To have them available for people to buy when they want to read books one through three, which they will. Readers fly through series. So I want this up there. This is an advanced dance move and I do not recommend it. I am not happy with this choice that I am making, but it is the choice that I need to make in order to publish these books quickly. 

[00:08:13] What will happen then is, so the first book, let’s talk about Cypress Hollow one. I have done my edit of it. I am now going to send it to my copy editor. My copy editor will have it for whatever amount of time she needs and then she’ll send it back to me. I’ll accept her changes. And then I will hire a proofer, who will go over it because tiny errors even slipped through a copy edit. So then you hire a proofer and then you can feel pretty comfortable. You can put it up online. It’s good. I’m skipping that at first. I have done my own edit/revision on it. I’m not doing a proof. I put it instead through pro writing aid, which is a tool I really like, and it catches a lot of typos and it does not catch all of them by any means. In doing the revision, I’m sure I have added some typos. And, but after that, that is the, that’s the file we’re going to upload and that’s the file people will buy. [00:09:09] Hopefully, there aren’t too many typos. Hopefully, I don’t get bad reviews immediately that say this is badly edited, typo written. But, I’m not going to trip on it too hard because it still will be copyedited, it still would be proofed. I will be able to re-upload the file because I am self-publishing it, which is so cool. And I can change the file at any time. And then every book moving forward, after I get those done, it’ll be a good, strong, mostly typo-free book, all books have a typo or two. But it’ll be mostly typo-free, by the time I re-upload it. If, for example, I got a hundred reviews, one star reviews says, this is the worst edited book I’ve ever read in my whole life, I will take down that book and I will re-upload it with a new ISBN, and start from scratch. 

[00:10:01] I’m starting from scratch anyway, with zero reviews, et cetera. So, if that happens, I hope it doesn’t. I hope it’s clean enough. I hope these books are clean enough to pass muster. I write pretty clean anyway, but there are errors. But if that happens, I’ll take them down and restart. So, I’m having to move very, very quickly for the next two weeks, which is super fun for me anyway. And also, it’s good because I think I could have taken probably a couple of months to go through three, these three books and do all the work. And this is forcing me to do it fast. Just like, I just rereleased A Life in Stitches, the 10 year anniversary edition. I don’t want you to go run out and buy it because the audio book is not out yet. And you should probably get the audio book because I read it myself. But if you are interested in reading it with your eyeballs, it is out there. And I had to rush to do that because a knitting retreat wanted 120 copies of it and it needed to get in the mail. So I needed to finish all the uploading. So these books that I have gotten the rights back on, I am being pushed to do them fast. And that is good because I could take forever. 

[00:11:10] Speaking of that, I just did a little video which you might like, and I will make sure this is, this video is live by the time this podcast is live, go to rachaelherron.com/felt, F-E-L-T as in, I felt silly. And I just recorded four minutes of me doing a lightning round through an old manuscript when I still used words like felt and realized, those words, there’s a bunch of them. But for me, I kind of, my crutch words are felt and realized, especially in the old days, in my early writing. Now they just don’t come out. I don’t write felt or realized for the most part. What felt does, and what realized does is it gives a layer of distance from the character. And when you remove those words, you make the sentences they are in less passive and more active and more voicey. So if you want to see an example of me doing that and kind of talking my way through it, go to rachaelherron.com/felt. This is a micro revision. I will just warn you. This is something that you do at the very last minute, literally before you send it off to your agent or your editor, or right before or before you send it to your copy editor. But it can be a strong change to make. So if that’s something that’s fun for you, come check that video out. That’ll be up on the YouTubes. 

[00:12:41] Otherwise, let’s jump into the interview with Amber McBride. It was so awesome to talk to her, so exciting and, you should get the book because it is incredible. All right, my friends, happy writing, and we’ll talk soon!

[00:12:57] 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 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. 

[00:13:30] Rachael Herron: Okay. Well, I could not be more pleased to have on the show, Amber McBride. Hello, Amber! Welcome. 

[00:13:35] Amber McBride: Hi! How are you? 

[00:13:36] Rachael Herron: I am so excited to talk to you because I loved, loved your book. Let me give you a little bit of a bio here. Amber McBride is an English professor at the University of Virginia and holds an MFA in poetry from Emerson College. Her poetry has been published in several literary magazines including Ploughshares and The Rumpus. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia with her dog, Shiloh. Me (Moth) is her young adult debut. So we are recording this way in the past. We’re recording this on June 24th and it probably won’t come out for a while because I’m pretty backed up and podcast episodes. When does the book come out? 

[00:14:13] Amber McBride: It comes out on August 17th.

[00:14:15] Rachael Herron: Okay. So it’ll be after. We have time. How, but let’s talk about real quick right now. How are you feeling about leading up to the launch of this book? 

[00:14:25] Amber McBride: I, it’s amazing. It’s overwhelming. I think every writer says that their first book is, it’s surreal. Like you’re experiencing all the steps, but you’re like, is this real? I’ve dreamt of this, but is it? So I feel like I have a lot of those moments. When Moth was part of Indies introduced, I really was like, I don’t even know. Cause I would always look at the Indies introduced titles. So like it’s just been surreal and amazing and the amount of support with everyone, specifically because of the times we’re living in right now, for so many, 2020 and 2021 debuts has just been so great within the writing community. And it just like was very heartening to like, everyone’s just supporting each other. So it’s just been a wonderful experience. 

[00:15:09] Rachael Herron: And you are coming into it. Are you going to be able to have an in-person launch?

[00:15:13] Amber McBride: As of right now, no.

[00:15:16] Rachael Herron: It’s still all virtual? Yeah.

[00:15:18] Amber McBride: It’s going to be virtual. I do think some, I’m going to have something at a local bookshop, but it’s not going to be my launch-launch, but I’m still excited.

[00:15:25] Rachael Herron: I’m convinced that virtual launches now are the way to go. I had one from my last book a couple months ago and it is so awesome because people can come from anywhere. 

[00:15:33] Amber McBride: Exactly. And that’s the thing is like one thing, one wonderful thing is we’ve all started using technology more. And the fact that, like you said, anybody can come, it’s nice to have a local one where your, all your friends are there, but they have like that access for like the world. It’s amazing! It’s amazing. 

[00:15:51] Rachael Herron: It’s so very, very, very cool. Well, I was telling you before the show and I’ll tell people I always get books from publicists and I usually dip into them, but I don’t always dip into them and stay stuck and riveted and couldn’t fall asleep last night and woke up this morning to finish it. Your book is really, really special and unique and I don’t know how you pull it off and it doesn’t matter cause you did. And it is, how would you describe the book?

[00:16:19] Amber McBride: It’s a, wow. I think it’s a book about, that’s another thing, you know, you’re saying debuting, then it’s like realizing how to summarize your book. And you’re like, wait.

[00:16:31] Rachael Herron: Well its structure is so unique.

[00:16:33] Amber McBride: Right. So it’s a book, it’s a novel in verse so it’s through poetry. And it basically tells a story of a girl named Moth whose parents and family have passed away. And she feels invisible because she’s the only black student at a school. Nobody really talks to her. And then a boy who’s from the Navajo nation arrives and they kind of hit it off. They really see each other and it’s a story about being seen. And then they ended up going on a road trip to the Navajo nation to try to like heal each other by seeing each other. I think that’s the best summary I have. I think it’s a story about being, like seeing yourself and other people, specifically marginalized groups, and then in that being seen and seeing yourself better, so identity a lot.

[00:17:19] Rachael Herron: What a beautiful way to put it, what a gorgeous way to put it. And the whole idea of a novel in verse is incredible. And I did ask if you would not mind reading a piece of the novel to us.

[00:17:33] Amber McBride: I will, I would love to, I have a poem that is not, it doesn’t have any spoilers, so that’s good. And it’s called Transverse Orientation. It’s near the beginning of the novel. It was one of the first poems I wrote for the novel. So, Transverse Orientation. Before my grandfather died, he taught me that a lot of what we think we know about Moth is as flimsy as their delicate wings, which sprinkled death and dust like whispered omens. Grandfather used to say, there are no omens, just balance. Balance is what brings about magic. It’s true that my name is often an omen, but not always. It is not true that moth like light. That’s a butterfly thing. The truth is, it started with the moon when there were no flames or torches, no cars beaming and hurdling down freeways, certainly no cozy front porch lights, looking at the night. Transverse orientation means follow the angle of the moon. It led Moths straight for millennia until fire and the tragic light bulb. A flashlight shambled a million years of celestial navigation, the artificial hue somehow outshining the actual moon. Grandfather used to say we light candles because they are lighthouses for the spirits of our ancestors to come sit with us. We give offerings out of respect, but what of other light? Like the sea turtle moving towards spot lit pavement instead of moon rippled sea. Who will answer for the sin of it being so easy to get lost when so many orbs mirage the illusion of brightness.

[00:19:19] Rachael Herron: That is incredible. And I love hearing it in your voice. 

[00:19:23] Amber McBride: Thank you. 

[00:19:24] Rachael Herron: Thank you for sharing that. So we’ll get to the, we’ll get to the questions I sent you eventually if we do, but if we don’t, that’s also okay. How did you come up with the idea of writing this novel in reverse? Was it something that you came up with and you thought I’d like to try that and sat down or did it come to you through a poem or how?

[00:19:43] Amber McBride: That’s a really good question. So interestingly enough, my agent did not sign me on this book. She signed me on a high fantasy sci-fi book.

[00:19:52] Rachael Herron: Just straight up regular prose? 

[00:19:54] Amber McBride: Yeah, straight up regular prose, I was writing some regular prose. I was writing poetry in like the literary form for literary magazines, for what I like went to grad school for. I didn’t even realize, I knew novels in verse were a thing cause I had read Brown Girl Dreaming and all these books. I love Jason Reynolds, but I’d never thought to do that. And so I was kind of just tinkering around and I hit a really hard spot. My grandfather passed away and it was my agent, Reena Rosner, who suggested she was like, Amber, why don’t you just go back to your roots? Why don’t you just try writing a novel in verse? Like, just, just try it out and see how it goes. 

[00:20:31] Rachael Herron: Wow, wow. That is not a normal thing for an agent to say, I don’t think.

[00:20:35] Amber McBride: No. I mean, my agent’s great. She also knows I’m, my agent is a poet too. And so she knew I loved poetry and I was like, okay, maybe. And interestingly enough, as soon as I sat down, I outlined the entire book in a day. And then I told my mom the whole thing and the end. And she was like, I don’t know if this is going to work. And I was like, it’s gonna work. I promise. I think, maybe. Then I wrote it. I wrote it in, it’s the fastest book I’ve ever drafted. I did the whole thing about a month. And then I went back, edit it. And then my agent sent some notes and we went back and forth only over like six months. And then it was on sub and McMillian liked it. And here we are. 

[00:21:17] Rachael Herron: That is awesome that you felt it coming, that you really, you know it would work.

[00:21:23] Amber McBride: Yeah. It just worked. I think I have said in other things, it’s like something about Moth was like a girl. Like her reality was my reality when I went to a primarily white school and felt very invisible. And so when I started writing her, I was like, I know her. And so she just came so much easier than other characters I had written before. And yeah, it was just, it was one of the most rewarding writing experiences I ever had. And when you know you love your book, when, after I finished it, I was like, I don’t even care if anyone likes it. I love it. And then people liked it. So then I was just thrilled. So it was a roundabout way of getting to Me Moth. And now my second book will also be in verse. So, 

[00:22:08] Rachael Herron: That is so, so, so cool. Also, you do something amazing with the main character that, you know how there’s that, there’s usually two or three pages at least, when you’re starting a book and you’re getting to know the character and you’re just not sure about them. Like, you’re just, you know, whatever. I didn’t feel that I was just on her side from jump from the very first page. I just felt like I was welcome to be with her in that moment. And I just thought it was incredible.

[00:22:34] Amber McBride: Thank you. I really wanted that feel. I really wanted people to feel like she was your friend and she was telling you about herself. And so that means so much that you say that. 

[00:22:45] Rachael Herron: Oh, I’m going to revisit this. This is going to be one of those books I reread. And I don’t do that often. Can you now tell us a little bit about your writing process? You are teaching, you are dealing with living a pandemic, hopefully, like when do you get the writing done? 

[00:23:01] Amber McBride: I’m a pretty disciplined writer. And I think I got that from grad school of having to have a poem ready every week to workshop. And so I write every, I say, I give myself the weekends off and I don’t, I write every day and that can be literally like five words or a lot of words. It just depends. But I am a firm believer in creativity sparks when you’re doing the work. And so you might not get something every time you sit down, but you’re not going to get anything unless you’re sitting down and doing the work. But, and then when I say sit down, I mean, either I’ve written poems on my notes in my phone, but generally every day, I try to write. And also I, because I teach at UVA, I write in my office, I write in my car. I write everywhere, in my bed and like, wherever I happen to be, I write. But the one thing that has to be consistent is I can’t write without music. So I generally have a playlist for every single book I’m working on, so I can listen to that. 

[00:24:09] Rachael Herron: And the playlist changes by book?

[00:24:13] Amber McBride: Yeah, I’ve noticed. It’s kind of like a weird thing where, you know, when you leave a book for a while, you, even as a writer, you come back into it and you’re like, what was my book about? Like, what am I trying to do? And I started doing this in grad school with single poems is like, I would pick a song that I thought was the feel of that poem. And so when I went to write that, go back and edit that poem, I would listen to that song and it would put me back in that mindset really quickly. And so, I listened to the same playlist that I put together when I write a book and it can be anywhere from like 10 songs to 50 songs. I think this one, while the playlist is in the back of this book of what I used. And so, yeah, I play the playlist. I get back in the mood of Moth and then I start writing or whatever new book I’m working on. 

[00:24:55] Rachael Herron: There’s a, I have done that with varying degrees of success for different books on, but there’s a few books that it worked really well for. And there’s this one Moby song that if I hear it in the grocery store, I will almost burst into tears because that’s when Robbin died, you know, and they don’t know. 

[00:25:12] Amber McBride: Right. Someone to see you in the grocery store, like near tears and be like, what is wrong? You’d be like, you don’t understand. 

[00:25:17] Rachael Herron: Get about a book, an old book, exactly. 

[00:25:21] Amber McBride: I understand that, yes, definitely. 

[00:25:24] Rachael Herron: What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing?

[00:25:30] Amber McBride: I tend to get bored easily, and so I have to draft my first drafts very quickly because I love editing as a poet. I hate writing a first draft. So like if I’m writing in prose, I’ll write 3000 to 5,000 words a day to try to get a draft done. Then I know I can come back to it, but if I don’t write at that speed, I will, I’ll leave it. I’ve shelved so many things because I just get bored. So for me it’s like, finishing the draft is the hardest thing. I can work with the draft after I can take suggestion, all that. But getting that draft out is the hard thing for me. Yeah. 

[00:26:14] Rachael Herron: I am exactly the same way and I wish it wasn’t that way. I just think it’s probably always going to, I’m a huge NaNo fan. I’m on the NaNoWriMo writers board. I really believe in getting that fast, terrible draft out of your body, especially when you’re going that fast 3 to 5,000 words a day. You don’t forget anything. There’s no time.

[00:26:31] Amber McBride: Right. You don’t. You don’t have to go back and be like, what was that character? You’re so close to it. I read somewhere that Stephen King does the same thing. He writes very first, quick, first drafts and then comes back and he’s like, I can edit whatever. But like having it out there, having the whole story and then being able to play with it is like the fun part. So it’s like, I want to get to the fun part.  

[00:26:53] Rachael Herron: I would love to be in revision all the rest of my life. Yeah. 

[00:26:56] Amber McBride: Exactly. 

[00:26:57] Rachael Herron: What is your biggest joy when it comes to writing? 

[00:26:59] Amber McBride: Oh, wow. I don’t, let me think. I love editing. I love perfecting and getting hung up on one word and all of that. I just, I love it. And for this collection, it was interesting when we went to copy edit, I love my editor cause we were getting hung up on line breaks, on how they would look once it was printed. Like literally, we were like, no, we have to shift that up one line, like that’s how nit-picky we were getting. 

[00:27:28] Rachael Herron: This reminds me of a question I had when I was reading it because I’m, I just got a new Kindle cause we’re moving overseas and I’m like, this is the time to get the last Kindle of your life, Rachael. I know it’s Amazon. I know it’s the devil, but I love it. I got the Kindle Oasis and I’m reading it and I’m thinking like, well, my font, you know, I don’t have good eyes. It’s pretty big. Is that affecting my line breaks? Does it? 

[00:27:50] Amber McBride: I’m not a hundred percent sure because I’ve only seen it in the, I guess the PDF file they’ve given me because I don’t have hard copies yet. But, it might be, unless it’s, it might be, it might be. 

[00:28:06] Rachael Herron: I did, I did play around with changing the font size and when it did, it seemed to keep the line breaks on the page that I was at. So, it would actually make it like bigger but with less, fewer lines on the page, but the same breaks, which makes sense to me in a way. You know, because like, if you’re going to break the end of a line and start a new paragraph, that’s not going to change in the Kindle. And it’s exactly the same theory. 

[00:28:30] Amber McBride: Right. I think, fingers cross, because I think for poetry line breaks are so purposeful and what they do and how they work and how much you stress over them as a poet. So it’s good to know that, but yeah, I think that you like the nit-picky stuff I love, I love those tiny little line break. This doesn’t look good on the page, but it makes sense. How can we make this look better? All of that. 

[00:28:56] Rachael Herron: Yeah. And it’s so important for this particular book, because there’s so much dialogue and the dialogue is, or thoughts about dialogue and there’s the dialogue is so much a part of that playfulness. 

[00:29:05] Amber McBride: Right. And it was like setting that up as well and figure it out, that was, the dialogue was put so many different ways until we settled on a way that made sense and read easier. So, yeah, it’s a lot, so those kinds, that’s the fun stuff. So, 

[00:29:19] Rachael Herron: That’s amazing. Can you share a craft tip of any sort with us about anything, poetry fiction, any kind of writing?

[00:29:29] Amber McBride: Craft tip. Okay. I guess, I don’t know if this is like fact cause it’s probably not, but I think that we talked about drafting quickly, right? I also think that my biggest craft tip is that the longer you spend away from your draft, the better your second draft will be.

[00:29:49] Rachael Herron: Ooh, tell me more.

[00:29:53] Amber McBride: Because you’re not so close to it and you’re reading it like a reader would read it and you will see the plot holes so much easier than when you’re close to it. So you kind of knew what you meant to do. So I like to, if I have time, I’ll leave a draft for a month, a couple months, and I find that my second draft tend to be way more concise when I do that. When I don’t, there tend to be things where people are like wait, how does that happen? So I think giving yourself space to create a book, I think there’s such a rush to do things, and I understand the rush because you want to be, you know, I’ve got another book coming out and everything, but giving yourself a lot of time. And then for anybody who is writing and working on writing, my second tip would be to start a new thing as soon as possible. 

[00:30:43] Rachael Herron: So do you, that leads right into the question do, is that what you’re doing while the other book is resting? Because that’s what I do. I just, I generally jump into something new.

[00:30:50] Amber McBride: Right, exactly. I think that I’m, specifically for this, I finished Moth. It was out in the world. And immediately, literally three days after I signed my contract, because I signed a two book deal, I started writing the second book, which was before I could get that whole, you know what I’m talking about? Like, oh my God, this is going to be real. Like, I wasn’t second guessing myself yet. 

[00:31:15] Rachael Herron: You were just starting, you were still working. Yeah.

[00:31:18] Amber McBride: Exactly. And so it was one of the best decisions I ever made because I don’t know, it was like, I finished the draft of that book before I even got caught edits for my first book. And so, 

[00:31:32] Rachael Herron: Oh my gosh, that’s perfect.

[00:31:33] Amber McBride: I was probably, I was sitting pretty. I was like not stressed about the next thing. And I was really able to take the time with Moth and know that I already had my second book drafted and ready to send to my editor. So that was just a really good. So just keep writing, really, it’s like, 

[00:31:48] Rachael Herron: That is not enough, for people listening, that’s not a normal thing for people to do, to have the second book done before the copy has come back. I remember I was struggling with my second book, like while I got my copy edits and neither were going well, it’s so hard.

[00:32:03] Amber McBride: Like, it’s so hard. One of my friends right now, who’s like one of my writing people, is doing the same thing. They’re like, I’m trying, they’re trying to draft their second book before they get the copy edits for their other book. It really does because I’m not saying that your first round of copy edits are going to be horrible, but I think it’s the first time a lot of people, unless they’ve had classes, are going to get that kind of critique on their work and the critiques, isn’t, right, exactly. The critique isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s a lot. 

[00:32:36] Rachael Herron: It’s so much. Sometimes like I believe that for me copy edits, I just know they make me feel like a terrible writer, like I’ve never met a comma before in my life. I don’t know what a semicolon is. And I just, now I’m just used to that failing, but when you first get it, it’s the sea of blood. It can be worse than a developmental edit.

[00:32:55] Amber McBride: Exactly. And so I just worry for anyone to like, get self-conscious and start thinking that just because of those copy edits, like, you’re not an excellent, you are an excellent writer. Like your book is brilliant. And so for me it was, it was good because that was my first time getting all of those tiny things. It’s like 5,000 comments in a document. I was like, how we have got that many thoughts like, okay. 

[00:33:18] Rachael Herron: Literal worst. It is the worst. I sometimes bring in pictures of what those look like just to classes. 

[00:33:24] Amber McBride: That’s helpful.

[00:33:25] Rachael Herron: Yeah, because people need to know. 

[00:33:27] Amber McBride: People need to know. I warn everyone.

[00:33:31] Rachael Herron: It doesn’t matter how many times you get it. You’re never going to get everything. You are still going to be 5,000 track changes coming.

[00:33:36] Amber McBride: Exactly. And you’re gonna be like, how did I miss that? And like you said, I’m a comma person too. It’s like, I literally teach writing and I cannot figure out commas when I’m writing my own stuff, how? 

[00:33:49] Rachael Herron: It took me so long to realize that different houses have different style rules, even for commas. That explains a lot of it too. Like they’re literally working from different playbooks. So once I would learn something and then I’d go to a new publisher, like, oh god dammit.

[00:34:01] Amber McBride: And they’d be like, no. With poetry too, and I love once again, my editor list is amazing. It’s like you’re going to bicker about these copy edits because poetry is different. I was like, no, the line break is the comma. I don’t know how many times I said that. I was like, 

[00:34:18] Rachael Herron: It’s hilarious. 

[00:34:20] Amber McBride: So my editor who knows that is like half the stuff was like step, step, step. No, no, she’s right. Yeah. So that was good, but it’s a process. It’s a process. 

[00:34:32] Rachael Herron: And that is unique to poetry because generally, I would say for a copy editor’s 5,000 comments on a document, I probably accept 99.2% of them, right. Just like I could accept all and it would be just fine. I never have, but someday I will. 

[00:34:50] Amber McBride: I respect that. Yeah. I have a more fiction or like, I guess not verse after this and I probably will be the same where I’m like, Hmm, accept it all. I’m sure you’re right.

[00:35:01] Rachael Herron: You’re the expert and I am not exactly. What thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way?

[00:35:12] Amber McBride: Well, I practice Hutu, which is an African-American magic system that kind of grew out of enslaved Africans who were stolen from their homelands. And it’s a magic root system that is kind of underground, but it’s becoming more mainstream, but I practice Hutu. And so that aspect, I think makes an appearance or that whimsical quality and all of my work, I just feel like it’s inherently there, which I think, I don’t know. I like that there’s this fairytalesque quality to a lot of my work. So it does influence that. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to move away from it. It’s just part of me, so, yeah. 

[00:35:53] Rachael Herron: And the Hutu is a beautiful part of the book itself. It is right in there. I am, I know Hutu practitioners here. I live in Oakland, so there’s a nice area for that. And as a white woman, I’m always like, I am not going to culturally appropriate any of that, but I really like to look at the stuff when I go, because I’m a terrible reader. So when I go in the store and I was like, that’s real pretty. 

[00:36:17] Amber McBride: Yeah. I think that it’s so, the history behind Hutu is so beautiful in the sense that so many people, well, because people were stolen from their homelands, they didn’t even know the root systems in the Americas. And like it’s so influenced by native American culture and how much was helped. And like, that’s one of the reasons I really, really wanted Sani to be Navajo. Also, because my cousins are Navajo and my aunt’s Navajo, but, it was just, it just made sense in the sense that they would be able to share their stories because the respect for nature and creation was, it’s so similar. It was just really exciting to do that. 

[00:36:58] Rachael Herron: And you do that in really small, beautiful ways. Like when he gets in the car and recognizes the wormwood and the ginger root.

[00:37:04] Amber McBride: Right. 

[00:37:05] Rachael Herron: It said everything that’s said everything about the two communities that they came from beautifully.

[00:37:09] Amber McBride: Right. And it was when we also had, because I’m not Navajo, we had a sensitivity reader because you should do that. 

[00:37:16] Rachael Herron: Yes, you should.

[00:37:18] Amber McBride: And every time they made me a comment, like, yes. I was like. I was very excited. I’d spent some time on the Navajo reservation and like, I know a lot from my aunt, but then to have someone else from outside. So I know you did that. Right. And I was like, okay, good. We’re doing good. 

[00:37:37] Rachael Herron: That is truly tremendous. I absolutely love that. Okay. Speaking of things we love, what is the best book you have read recently? 

[00:37:46] Amber McBride: Okay. So I’ve been fan-girling about this book ever since I read it, which was last week because I did a Barnes and Noble event with it, The Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley. Yeah. 

[00:38:02] Rachael Herron: What did you love about, is it a fantasy? 

[00:38:04] Amber McBride: No, it’s not. So I think it was the Barnes and Noble young adult book choice. And it’s about a girl who witnesses a murder and I can’t, there’s so many spoilers. 

[00:38:23] Rachael Herron: That’s all I need.

[00:38:24] Amber McBride: That’s why I’m like slowly talking about it, but it’s gotten a lot of attention and then I read it and I was like, this book is amazing. And I’ve been suggesting it to everyone. And I got to talk to the author last week, who is Native American and it’s absolutely beautiful. And she’s talking about how it took her from start to finish 10 years to write this book. And it really made me think about what you accomplished when you’re working with the same thing for 10 years. And you know how we were both, like, we can’t, we have to move on like that idea, like, and you see in the text is just so obvious. It’s the writing is each line is poetry and I just, every time I was reading it, I was just like, man, this is okay. This is when you spend 10 years on something. How brilliant it can be. So Firekeeper’s Daughter, I’m all over that book. Yes.

[00:39:17] Rachael Herron: I am looking forward to putting that on my new Kindle. Excellent. All right. So tell us now where we can find you online. 

[00:39:26] Amber McBride: Great. So my on Instagram (ambsmcbride)  and Twitter (ambsmcbride)  Ambs, A-M-B-S, McBride. And it’s pretty simple. It’s just my nickname, ambsmcbride, and pretty all much all my social medias, is there, yeah.

[00:39:42] Rachael Herron: And by the time this airs, Me Moth we’ll be out and available everywhere. I know! I know you will be. It’s so excited. I’m so excited for you. And I’m so grateful that I got a chance to read this a little bit early. So thank you for being on the show.

[00:39:58] Amber McBride: Thank you so much for having me and I, I’m so glad you enjoyed it. It means so much to me. 

[00:40:04] Rachael Herron: I loved it. I loved it. Okay, happy writing. 

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.