Rachael Herron's Blog, page 12

I Found It

I have been looking for this beach for most of my adult life. 

Above Keller Beach. Photo by Mia Cotton Harlock

One of my most vivid memories as a child is being on the sand in a small sheltered cove. My dad was far out in the water in his styrofoam sailboat. I loved that boat, loved the way I could pick small pieces off with my fingers. (I know! But those little chunks of styrofoam were like bubble wrap to other people. I just couldn’t help myself.)

On this day on the beach—I only remember being there once—my sisters and my mother were on the sand. Mom had a thermos lid of coffee in one hand and the baby cradled in the other. Christy and I had digging tools and a desire to make the best sandcastle ever made, but so far all we had was a lump of wet sand and a brewing argument. 

Something happened with Dad’s boat as he tried to sail back into the cove. I don’t think what happened was related to any hole that I might have helped along with my seven-year-old fingers—at least I hope not. I imagine that the wind gusted from a surprising direction, or maybe a rogue wave hit him unawares.

His boat capsized.

I don’t remember hearing him yell, and I don’t remember my mother being visibly scared (even though she was terrified of being on the ocean in a boat). All I remember is a group of handsome young men rushing into the water and swimming out to him. Together they towed him and the boat in safely.

Even though something ostensibly scary had happened, I just remember it as exciting and fun. We didn’t often spend an afternoon playing on the sand, so in my mind, it’s a good memory, not a bad one. 

I’ve been living in the Bay Area for almost 25 years as an adult, looking for this beach. The beach was particular. Like I said, it was small, and I knew there was a view of a big island with just the top of the Golden Gate Bridge visible behind it. But I’d never been able to find it. 

It wasn’t until I read Bonnie Tsui’s book Why We Swim and interviewed her for my podcast, How Do You Write, that I learned about Keller Beach. We talked about open water swimming, which is something I’ve been doing during the pandemic. I thought I had googled every good place to swim nearby, but she mentioned Keller as her favorite place to swim.

Yesterday, I met my friend to swim there (safely socially distanced, of course). And it was the beach that had featured so strongly in my memory, the beach that walks into my dreams with often! Accessed from side roads that run off side roads, the only way you would know it was there was if a local told you. And, as it happened, it was just 10 minutes from where we lived as a kid.

Yesterday, the water was incredibly cold, the coldest water I’ve been in so far. Okay, it was 53 degrees, so it wasn’t glacier-cold, but still, even with a wetsuit, it was breathtakingly frigid. I forgot my goggles on the beach and I tried to swim anyway, keeping my eyes closed, but it turns out I’m very bad at that. Every time I put my head into the water, I got a persistent and very painful brain freeze—I thought I’d felt that from ice cream before, but it was no match for bay water. 

So instead of swimming hard, head down, my friend and I just bobbed and paddled and chatted, which was exactly what I needed. I didn’t feel seal-like and coordinated, the way I did the last time I swam at Aquatic Park in San Francisco, but it was more important just to be with a friend and connect. 

And from out there, looking in, I realized I’m now twelve years older than my father was when he capsized. The brawny young men who rushed into the water must have been just kids, teenagers. No matter what, it was a short swim to land, so the excitement and shouting and splashing must have been purely about saving the boat, not saving a person. (Which they did—the boat survived to be picked at some more though I don’t remember going out to watch him sail again.) 

My body was in the same place, forty-one years later. I walked on the same beach, a beach I’d almost given up looking for. I swam in the same water my father did. 

I’m not a person who looks back often. I don’t live in the past. I try to enjoy my memories, but I usually forget to remember them. But the rush of the memory of that day was as welcome as the heated seat in my car afterward. 

And I’m left wondering—what do our bodies leave behind? My whole self reacted as I walked onto the sand—a recognition. 

Will I feel that in New Zealand? Is there an ancestral piece of my soul that will open when we get there?

We’re planning on trying to find a place in Wellington, where my mother lived when she worked for the prime minister as a speechwriter. I have deliciously woo-woo thoughts about the fact that since women are born with all the ova they’ll ever have, I was there with her, in—well, not in utero, but in pre-utero (sometimes I get tangled up in my mind thinking about this maternal link. How far back does that connection go? If my mother’s gamete was inside my grandmother, and I was in my mother, was I also somehow inside my grandmother as she helped run the sheep farm in Methven? She was the biggest knitter I’ve ever known—the knitting gene skipped Mom and went straight to me. Was Grandma scared of the water? Is that where my mother got it from? Is the way I pine to be in water just a genetic twist on obsession?).

Yesterday, I found a memory, one I’d actively looked for for years. 

My goal is to make more of them, lots more, but with no capsized boats or daring rescues. I made one yesterday, kicking lazily through the icy water with Mia.

We may have gone into ultra-lockdown again today, but I’m so grateful I have this new memory. I’ll remember laughing with Mia in the same body of water that we floated my mother’s ashes in years ago, the same body of water that connects to New Zealand just on the other side of the Golden Gate. 

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You’re Already Ready!

Listen here:

So, what’s You’re Already Ready about? Well, it’s a book that’s being written, so that’s Thing One. That book is non-fiction, and it’s about how you – yes, you! – are already ready to do what you want most to do, whether that’s to start a new business, to learn to scuba dive, to write a novel, or to teach ballroom dancing.

Here’s the truth: you’re never going to feel confident enough to start. Ever.

You’re never going to feel like you’re ready to make the leap, no matter what you want to leap into.

And once you start? You’re never going to feel like you’re good enough to keep going.

Asking people to tell you that you’re ready? It’s going to feel good for the moment, and then you’ll go right back to not believing what they say or forgetting that you believed it for a moment.

So I’m not going to waste your time by encouraging you to believe you’re ready.

Instead, I’m going to remind you, over and over again, of one thing:

You don’t need to feel like you’re ready.

(The actual truth is that you already are. But you’ll never feel that way, so you can’t waste time worrying about it.)

You just do the thing. One tiny step at a time, you inch your way toward being the person you want to be.

Those tiny steps add up. If you live in New York and you walk a mile every day toward California, you’ll eventually end up there, even if it takes you almost seven years. (That’s one of the tricks, you know. Take the smallest steps you possibly can. Eventually, you crest a hill that you were scared of, and you start moving faster on the next downhill, even though you never meant to. But don’t worry about that now. A single step is all it takes at first.)

So, the book You’re Already Ready is about punching resistance right in the snoot. It’s about showing up and doing the work, even when you don’t think you can. Okay, especially when you don’t think you can.

But that’s not what the podcast is about, or at least, not entirely. There will be some of that good stuff as I work on the book. I’m going to be exploring what this all means for myself, and I’ll share it with you.

Even more, though, the podcast is an audio-diary – kind of a blog for the ears.

See, I’ve MISSED my blog. I started it eighteen years ago when I could only dream of being a full-time writer. In a very large part, it’s WHY I’m a full-time writer now. Putting my words out into the world was how I found out that I wouldn’t die if I did. That was way back in 2002, two years before blogs became mainstream, and yes, I do mention that as a point of pride.

My middle sister, Christy, told me about this thing called a Web Log, aka a blog. I told her I couldn’t imagine who’d want to read the thoughts of strangers online (she’s the same sister who told me about Nanowrimo, four years later — I’m very grateful to her and that she doesn’t mind when I tell her something is a bad idea that turns out to be the best idea ever. She was right about the Spice Girls, too.)

I just wrote about my life on the blog, and it turned out that yes, people did want to sit in my virtual armchair and chat with me about my stories (more than a million people a year, in Yarnagogo.com’s heyday). I made so many friends through ye olde blogge (maybe you?), and a ton of those friends and I are still connected.

This was still seven years before Facebook would catch on, when everyone got their own little platform from which to tell stories and secrets and conspiracy theories. Me, right around then, I defected to Twitter. That’s where I told my stories and tried to make people laugh or, just in general, tried to connect, always the thing that’s one of my highest priorities.

But sometimes it makes me sad, actually, that I’ve written almost 80,000 tweets on a platform I don’t own, and can’t easily scroll back through.

And eventually, all the attention I put into my blog waned, and then stopped altogether.

Since my first book was published in 2010, I’ve felt too busy making words for a living, and I let go of writing here as a creative outlet.

I really miss it.

I go back to posts every so often, just to read what life was like back then. I love reading about when Digit came home after walking to me for four months. I like to read about getting engaged to my wife, and about our wedding, and our second wedding, and our third wedding. I like to read about when she went on tour with her band in Europe. I like to read about when I fell in love with Clara, the first dog of my own. And when I got to quit the day job!

I’ve done almost no blogging since I quit, since 2016, when I became a full-time writer. A lot of that has to do with the fact that I’ve been really preoccupied with making sure I bring in a living that can keep our roof over our heads.

But I want to capture those moments, big and small, that make up my life. That show motion, and intent, and dreams. For the first six years of my blog, I wanted to write books but couldn’t. Then I did (love you forever, Nanowrimo). I kept doing it, and now I’m here, at another big crossroads in life.

We’re moving to New Zealand!

This is arguably a bigger move than changing careers, and it’s absolutely terrifying. We don’t know if we’re making the right decision.

But this is true:

We will never feel confident that this is the right choice.

We will never feel ready.

And this is also true: We’re already ready.

Except, of course, we are by no means ready in practical terms. I want to chronicle this journey here, reviving the blog and making the blog into an audio-diary of sorts, which you can follow on any of your favorite podcatchers.

And as I go, I really want to hear from you:

What are you going to do next? What are you not ready to do? What aren’t you certain about? What do you lack confidence in?

Take a step toward it. Tell me about it? (Subscribe here to be kept apprised of The Big Stuff! I read and respond to all of my emails, even though it might take me a little while.)

I’m so glad you’re here. Let’s leap into something new, together.

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My Wife Just Wants to Be Warm

Lala and I are starting to get a little bit more freaked out about this planned move to New Zealand.

Last night we sat at the dinner table and looked at each other with very big eyes.

“I’m just nervous,” she said.

“Me too.” I’m nervous about so many things, number one being that we’ll regret going so far away from our loved ones. “What are you nervous about?”

She said, “That I’m going to be cold.”

This is something we’ve been mildly squabbling about for months. Legend has it that Kiwis don’t know and don’t care what insulation is in houses. This actually explains SO MUCH about the house where I lived during high school and undergrad, the house where my dad still lives. It has no heat except for the fireplace in the living room. Yes, it’s California. And yes, it still freezes in the winter. My mom never tripped on it, and therefore, we really didn’t, either. We just bundled up and spent a lot of time reading under the covers.

Lala and I recently watched a home improvement show set in New Zealand called Creative Living, and the house they restored had no insulation at all. As in, they ripped out the drywall, and the beams behind it were naked and shivering.

Me, I like a bit of a draft. I like it when my feet are cold. When I sleep, I like the room to be as cold as humanly possible, and I still keep the fan directed right at me, year-round.

I’m also of the belief that being cold is empirically better than being hot. After all, you can always put on a sweater. You can always do some jumping jacks to move the blood if you’ve been sitting a while. You can always put on some wool socks that your wife made you out of your collection of many wool socks that your wife has made you.

[Image: ice floe, water, with steam in background. Text: My wife just wants to be warm, and I’m trying to help for once.]

So I can admit that I haven’t been as receptive to Lala’s worry as I could have been. It’s a human thing to do, to assume that everyone else feels approximately the same way that you do. If they don’t, there must be something wrong with them, because it certainly couldn’t be you. Very honestly, this is something I’ve been working on a lot in the last few years. Humans are selfish beings, and I don’t begrudge them that. We’re all trying to avoid suffering and achieve equanimity, if not outright happiness.

But when you finally realize that your wife hasn’t just been grumbling but is actually frightened — when you realize that, it’s time to make a change. When she was a kid, her mom used to find her sleeping on top of the heat vent. She needs heat just the same I need coolth (which is so a word).

So for the last three days, I’ve been practicing. I’ve been heating the house way past what I’m comfortable with. I spend most of my waking hours in my office, and if I close my door and cover the heating vent with a collection of blankets and pillows, I can keep my office cool as the side of a refrigerator while the rest of the house shimmers like a desert road in the sun.

Lala, when she realized the house was finally warm enough for her, admitted she thought I might be being passive-aggressive. I will point out I am not above being this on a bad day. But in this case, I wasn’t. I really want to reassure her.

So last night as we talked again about her fear of being cold, I said, very seriously, “We will not let that happen. If we have to buy three space heaters and sit you in the middle of them for the whole of winter, we’ll do that. Haven’t you noticed how I’ve been keeping you warm lately?”

She exclaimed, “You’ve been doing that for one day!”

“Two days,” I corrected her.

She grimaced.

Today makes three days.

Here’s the thing, we both want to go to New Zealand. We both think it’s a good idea. So many people want to go, but we’re actually able to.

And the fears we are feeling are big and real, and what I have to remember is every time I downplay one of her fears, I’m not listening to the person I choose to spend my life with, not listening to the person I’m in love with. And that’s not okay.

So!

I now plunge into a new winter in Oakland, where I will wear a tank top and shorts inside the main part of the house in order to reassure Lala that she never has to be cold again.

We won’t rent a house in New Zealand until we get them to demonstrate the heat pump to us, whatever a heat pump is. We’ve googled, and we still have no clue. It certainly sounds colder than the forced heat we have. A heat pump sounds like the suggestion of heat. Our forced heat is just that — a wild surge of hot air that has similarities to what I’m full of sometimes.

In the meantime, I’ll just keep the desk fan pointed right at me. As usual.

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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. 

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers.

Transcript

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

[00:00:15] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #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.

The post Ep. 203: Alexis Henderson on How To Write Books, Not Just Beginnings appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ep. 201: How Do You Know When You’re Overcomplicating Your Book?

Bonus mini-episode, brought to you by my Patrons at the $5+ levels! 

Including: 

Will I lose the humor in my dark comedy if I move to thriller? How should I sensitively write dialect? How can I know when I’m overcomplicating my book? 

Join now! http://patreon.com/rachael

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 # 201 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. So glad you’re here today for this mini episode in which I will be answering the questions from patrons, like you, who subscribed at the $5 a month and up level, you get to use me for all of your questions, whatever they are.

[00:00:36] So let’s jump into it. I’ve got a couple of longer questions from Johanna here and I’m really excited to answer them. So, the first one is, I am about to embark on the sixth draft of my novel Social Debt, which is a contemporary dark comedy, about a snarky barmaid who has to find out how long she can stay dead on the internet when she’s alive in real life. Aside to say, I want to read this when it comes out, because that is such a great premise. I love it. Okay. Going on. I’m part of a writer’s group and have also had recently had two really helpful one-on-ones with agents. A common piece of feedback I’ve had is that some of the action in the book felt too out of place, too horrific and strong to be in what is essentially a comic story, albeit a dark one, having resisted this at first, I am now in agreement and as such, I’ve been doing some rethinking and reworking of my plot. I’ve come up with a new storyline, but before I get to the long business of rewriting, I’m hoping for a second opinion or about whether this new plot has overcome the problem of essentially trying to squash two genres into a book or have I now in fact, just crossed over into a straight thriller. So Johanna sent me her two different ideas, the way it was and the way she’s thinking about doing it.



[00:01:55] And I won’t go into those because that is her book and we talked about it a little bit on email. However, my- the reason I’m reading this on air is that my opinion is, Johanna that you could not possibly write a straight thriller without the comic snarky darkness. And I don’t think you have to worry about that. Yes, you are writing something darker and more horrifying. Because, and I was just talking about this with somebody yesterday, when we introduce a terrible element, a dark, terrible element, the reader has to be prepared for that. We make a social contract with them when we start our books, if we are writing light, bright, light, bright, funny, funny, funny, funny. And then at the dark moment, there is a horrific murder, and there has been no evidence or thought of violence before this, the reader is going to be mighty put out. And that’s why thrillers worked so well. We’re kind of gearing them up the whole way through. It’s getting darker and darker and more and more fraught with tension. It sounds like you are going towards the more fraught with tension, which I think works really well for what you were talking about. However, you are such an automatically funny person who thinks in a funny way, and I am cheerfully jealous of that. I wish that I could do that. I think in a funny way, and I think in a dark way, and they don’t often overlap and I wish they did.



[00:03:23] I think that is a really wonderful superpower that you have. So no matter what, you are not going to cross over into a straight thriller, and I just wanted to reassure you about that. No matter what thriller you write, no matter how dark it is, it would still be darkly comedic. So embrace that hold onto it and absolutely lean into exactly that. So there are some more questions here. And she says, okay, so I’m feeling a bit paralyzed at the moment with the book as I have this big decision to make about which way to take the plot as per my original question. I’ve been fiddling about with early chapters and doing some research to help with one of the main characters, but I’m hesitant to get going properly on the next draft without making a decision, but it feels hard to decide without having done some writing.



[00:04:13] I know you said in your how to revise a novel webinar, that you should always do rewrites in order, but I wondered what you might think of writing a rough draft of a chapter from the middle, ie: one of the key scenes that would change to see how it feels. And if it seems promising, going back to those early chapters and working forward again until I reached that new chapter. I suspect the answer will be yes, go for it as the rules are, but there are no rules, but I thought it might be something too interesting to discuss on the podcast. Big things here. The rules are, there are no rules. However, there are very strong suggestions and in revision, one of my strong, very, very strong suggestions, is to not go back and re-revise during a draft. What happens if we do that as we get there is potential, there’s great potential. I see it happen hundreds of times that people go back to re-revise to try to make it exactly perfect with this new direction they’re taking it in and they never get out of that whirlpool because they don’t quite make it into what they want on that attempt. So then they start second guessing what they were trying to do. So they try to come up with a better new idea and then go back to those chapters and re-revise them again. But it’s not perfect because nothing is ever perfect. So they try to come up with a better idea again and I say this from not only watching many students do this, but from doing it myself.



[00:05:47] And that is why I believe in the multiple passes of revision from beginning to end and every time you get a great brand new idea, if no one’s ever heard me say this, well, listen up. If you’re moving through your book through a revision and you- you’re moving forward, always forward, you have a great idea that you wish you would have done and that you would like to try, make a post-it about it. That’s a great new idea, make a post-it, keep it with all your other posts-it of your great ideas that you’re reading all the time to refresh your memory about what’s there and then make yourself a note in the manuscript. I like to use all caps so I remember what I’m doing and I say, gosh, I wish I had done this in the last three chapters, I am moving forward from here as if I did. Then I know where I started and I pretend that I’ve already revised those chapters. What it means is that if this idea doesn’t work, I don’t have to go back and undo all the work I did. If I’d gone backwards to fix it. And I keep moving forward and I have a post-it, just there waiting for me that I will go in on the next draft and fix quickly all the way up to the point where I made the decision to move forward as if I had already done all the work behind it. If you have to listen to that again, to make sense of it, I don’t blame you, but it works. And Johanna, I already have very, very high hopes for you. And I know that you can do this because I think you said you’re on your sixth draft. Is that right? That already means that you know how to go through a draft and you know how to complete one.



[00:07:19] So to have a great idea, start where you are and start working with it and moving forward to the end. Means that you’re already confident that you will go back and do the seventh draft and catch yourself up to that idea that you had. I would encourage you trying that again, not a rule, but in my experience, this is a way that gets people through drafts faster. With more confidence. You’re actually moving forward with less clarity, which is okay. But it gets you to clarity faster by actually trying it and not going back and back and back and trying to fix it and I will also say people who are not in revision. This is how I write first drafts. I write a first draft, I have a great new idea, it changes the entire book. I pretend that the book has rewritten that way up until now I make a post-it, I make a note in the manuscript where I start a fresh as if everything behind me is perfect in the way that I want it to be now. And I move forward and that is how I get to the end of a crappy first draft. It means that I am Frankenstein creating a monster and nothing fits together. And there’s arms coming out of the eyebrow and legs sprouting out of the rib cage. And that’s all fixable. That’s actually really, really fun to fix. So that is what I suggest. Okay. 



[00:08:35] So another question from Johanna, and actually, as I write another question occurs to me. I currently have two characters in the book who have accents, at least traces of accents, which are not mine. So I’m just going to skim ahead here. We have a new castle Jordy accent the Jordy only comes out when he’s angry. Which given who he is fairly often and then there’s another character who is British Jamaican. Parents were Jamaican and came to English and came to England on the wind rush. This character was brought up in South London and he tosses around a lot of British Jamaican slang. So that was a paraphrase. Now, going back, what is your opinion of writers trying to write in dialects that aren’t theirs?



[00:09:15] I’ve done various bits of research, watching YouTube clips and TV shows or listening to audio books where people have those accents or use that sign. And sometimes I think it’s working well, other times I think I’m kidding myself and should just another way to make these voices distinct. Plus, of course, there’s the delicate issue of trying to write a book, which is truly representative of multicultural London, whilst- I just like, I just like the fact that I got to say whilst; whilst also not committing cultural appropriation. What are your thoughts and or tips? Fantastic question. And a very important question. And there’s a very simple solution that many, many authors use and I subscribed to it and basically it goes like this.



[00:09:57] When those characters are introduced, let us hear their accent in one or two sentences, and then remind us of that accent, every two to three chapters with a word or two. If you introduce the characters to us with the accent using, you know, the apostrophe to show dropped vowels or alternate spellings to show different pronunciations, we will remember those characters and our reader’s brains can hold. That this guy always speaks in a Jordy accent. I don’t even know if I’m saying the word Jordy, right? Honestly. But this person will have the Jordy accent. This person will have the British Jamaican slang and an accent. We will remember that. And then you don’t have to do the hard work of trying to put it into a phonetic dialect, which can be offensive, which can read as offensive. Also it can tire out the reader. We get tired of deciphering transcribed, dialects. The brain just doesn’t want to do it. So show it to us and then hint at it with one or two words. Every two to three chapters, I think is a good ratio. So the reader is re-reminded, but otherwise just write in straight up anglicized English and the reader will imbue that accent in their own head when they’re reading and you don’t risk offending anybody by doing it wrong. Make sure that those first sentences are really good, strong, and non-offensive random via sensitivity reader. If you’re not British Jamaican that is what I meant, but then otherwise let your reader do all the work. So you don’t have to, it’s a, it’s a wonderful answer and it works really, really well. 



[00:11:43] So I think that that is all your questions. So I’m going to scoot over and we’ve got one more question from Mel. Thank you for this, Mel. I’m getting questions from all over. I’ve gone from the UK. Now I’m going down to New Zealand. Where is the line between over-complicating things in a story and adding depth, richness, and good complexity? This makes an assumption that the latter is a good thing and adds value to the reader experience asking myself this question can occur in outlining drafting or in revision stages or all three. Oh yes. I love this question. So where’s the line between over-complicating and adding depth, richness and good complexity. So you are correct. The depth, the richness, and the good complexity is something that people love. Not all writers write with it. Not all writers have to write with it. However, if you’re drawn to writing with it, then you love it. And it should be in your books. That line between over-complicating though, and adding richness is something that is so easily blurred and stepped over. Especially in our first few books, there tends to be this thing that happens where we panic a little bit, that perhaps our conflict isn’t as conflicting as we would like it to be. So we think about throwing in a little twist or a surprise or a plot point that we didn’t see coming or, a thematic element that hasn’t been in this book before in order to bolster it, to make it stronger. And this is where the danger lies. I did this, I know in my second through fourth or fifth book, I know this because my editor and my agent would always send my books back to me saying, you know, take out some plot, take out some plot, take out some plot.



[00:13:29] You have too many things going on. While books can hold a whole hell of a lot, the book still has to be cohesive. It needs to cohere to this theme that you have in your book. If you are writing a first draft or even a second draft, and you don’t know what your theme is yet, that’s fine. It will come. But at some point you need to know what your theme is and what you’re actually arguing for in this book. And that includes novels that especially includes novels. You, no one wants to write or read a book that is about the power of the mother-daughter relationship plus the right for all men to bear arms plus the idea that war is a mockery of the gods plus define- exploring true communication and compatibility between people who are very different. You are doing too much with this book now, and those are the books I kind of, I used to write, I would put in a little dash of everything, hoping that the conflict then would seem richer because I had so much going on.



[00:14:45] But really what I wanted to tell was the story of a person finding her chosen family. And that is a story that I come back to over and over again. And I can’t throw in all of those other things I can throw in touches of things, but it can’t be the main point. So, but I’ll pull back on that and, and say, if you’re writing a first draft, throw in everything. Throw in the proverbial kitchen sink. You don’t know what’s going to stick and you don’t know what this book wants to be yet. So don’t hold back in the first draft. Just know that in that big, huge revision, the second draft where you pull your book apart and put it back together again, which is necessary for every good book. That’s the point at which you’re going to say, gosh, I was trying to do a little bit too much here and I was hoping I would get away with it and we never get away with it, people. Whenever I try to get away with something in a book, that is what the editor always points out and says, Oh, you don’t get to get away with that.



[00:15:43] And I would like to also say to everyone listening, you will have an editor. You will have an editor at some point, whether. You go the traditional route and you find an agent who then sells your book to an editor, and then that person will edit your book and help you make it as strong as it can be. Or if you hire an editor, I recommend through Reedsy.com. Because I have great editors there, in order to sell, publish, your editor will be helping you with a lot of these things. So there is this difficulty, Mel, and I know you might be feeling it that how can I tell when I’m stepping over that line of over-complicating versus adding depth. Sometimes we can’t tell. Sometimes, especially in our first few books, we need somebody else to say, all right, this is all beautiful and organically fits together. And where did this come from? This is a spear, you just tried to stick into a blender. And those two things don’t go together. But now the images in my mind and I’m enjoying it, and that’s what an editor’s for. And you’ll all have an editor. As you move forward. So trust in that, it’s nice to let the editor do her job.



[00:16:51] She has a job. You don’t want to hand her a perfect book. No one’s ever done that in the history of the world. So play card, do the best you can. None of us are writing perfect books. There’s no such thing as a perfect book, especially before an editor has seen it. So take heart. You’re doing exactly right. I love that you asked the question. And, all of you, thank you for listening. Or watching this mini episode, I really enjoy doing them. Please, if you are a patron at the $5, and up level, I run out of questions. This is all I have. This is why I haven’t done them in a while because I’ve been trying to save them. You all, aren’t utilizing me enough. Give me some more, throw me a challenge. I would love to have a question where I just say, I don’t know. I’m pretty bad at saying, I don’t know. And I would probably do some Googling, but, I’m also pretty good at saying, I didn’t know. So, or, and I’m also very good at saying that is beyond my capabilities. So don’t throw like legal questions at me or tax questions. I’m not gonna answer those, everything else, lay it on me. Thank you so much for listening. I really, really appreciate your patronage and I appreciate every single listener here. I hope that you are doing well and that you are happy and safe and that you are getting some of your own writing down. Okay. We’ll talk soon.

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.

The post Ep. 201: How Do You Know When You’re Overcomplicating Your Book? appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ep. 198: Joshua Bennett on Making Sure There’s Blood in Your Writing

Poet, performer, and scholar Joshua Bennett is the author of the just released book of poetry, Owed, which speaks to the expansive range of registers within the world of Black aesthetics and experience: the joy, rage, love, terror, and awe that gives a world within a world all its shape and tenor.

He received his PhD in English from Princeton University, and is currently Mellon Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College. His writing has been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. His book Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man was published by Harvard University Press in May 2020. His first work of narrative nonfiction, Spoken Word: A Cultural History, is forthcoming from Knopf. He lives in Boston. 

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

Join Rachael’s Slack channel, Onward Writers.

Transcript

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

[00:00:15] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #198 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. I am thrilled that you are here with me today. Today, I am talking to the marvelous Joshua Bennett, who is a poet as well as many other kinds of writing that he does, he’s just an incredible person. I was really honored to get an early look at his new book Owed, and I can just guarantee you that you’re going to love the conversation. So stay tuned for that. This’ll be a quick recap because I’ve had some coffee. I feel kind of weird today going in a bunch of different directions, perhaps because I’m not going in a single direction. This week I turned in a final revision of Hush Little Baby, a good friend of mine, Carrie Luna, and I just chatted and she said, she’s working on her scalpel revision. And I love that. I was just doing my scalpel revision, which is that very last final making everything perfect. So I sent that in on Monday. I sent out to Patreon essay on Monday. And I started 3 new 90 Days to Done classes also on Monday. So this week has been about finishes and start, and its Thursday as I record this and I’m kind of tired, I’m kind of brain dead. I am excited to have the book off my plate for a little bit, and to go back into working on what I am calling now, You’re Already Ready. That’s the new title for replenish, working on that. 



[00:01:57] The news broke last week. I think I mentioned it in the show last week, but The Writers Well is no more. So J Thorn and I are not doing our podcast, The Writers Well anymore. We’re still besties. Everything is good, but it has been really nice to be hearing from people who loved the show, and I just wanted to thank you very sincerely for watching it. I guess you never watched it, it was always just audio, not like the show- for listening for years. For those of you who did it was really, really fun. Yeah. So mourning that a little bit, but not mourning the loss of J cause I’m gonna talk to him on Monday and he’s got lots of things to tell me, so that’s great. I wanted to quickly thank new patrons. Because what happened is The Writers Well, we closed it, but we had patrons over there and we invited people to come support us at our own Patreon, and some people have done that. I never expected it. And it is really, really nice. 



[00:02:54] So I would like to thank new patrons, Nicole Knightley, Rosie Radcliffe. I might’ve thanked you guys last week. Claire Chandler, upped her pledge. Thanks Claire. That’s so nice of you. Michelle Maida also upped her pledge. Thank you, Jeremy Neander who was a patron over at The Writers Well, thanks Jeremy. Amanda Ward. Thank you very much. Sue Roth edited her pledge up. Amazing. These two names are completely hidden from me. Oh, Kim Martin. Hello Kim. Thank you so much. And this one’s also a little bit hidden from me. Waname L. Spencer, thanks Waname. That’s amazing. Thank you so, so much everybody. If you ever want to look at what I’m offering, you can always go over to patreon.com/Rachael. There’s some cool things there. However, the thing that I’m always most excited about is those essays that I get to write and then put into collections of books and then get to share with you. So that is work. I really enjoy. 



[00:03:54] What else is going on around here? I went for a run this morning because J has been influencing me, and that he has become a runner. I used to be a runner. If you’re watching the YouTube video, you can see that I’m wearing my Honolulu marathon finisher shirt. I don’t wear this very often because I need this shirt to last by the rest of my life cause I’m never doing another marathon. I’ve done two, never doing another one. It was fabulous. The shirt I need to point out is old enough to have a driver’s license. It was 16 years ago that I did that marathon. I can’t believe that, I’m 48, so I was only 32. And there’s a part of me that’s saying, why are you trying to run? I just really, really like running. So I am starting out with something and I think J told me about this it’s called None to Run. Not a nun and a habit, but N-O-N-E, None to Run. It is a little bit slower than Couch to 5k, because I have tried to get back into running, using Couch to 5k apps, and they’re a little bit too fast and I ended up messing up my knees or shin splints. So None to Run is a little bit slower. And I tried it this morning and it was dang easy. I, I have to admit, I didn’t even break a sweat. So that’s an awesome way to run, to start getting back into it, even though there was some running, no sweating that will change. But, if anybody is thinking about getting into a running program, number one, consult your doctor.



[00:05:20] Number two, maybe none to run is for you just Google it. It will come right up. So without further ado, let’s get into this interview with Joshua, which I am so pleased and proud to bring you, like I said, this book blew me away. I usually only read two or three books of poetry a year. Cause I’m so intimidated by poetry and because it moves me so much, I’m a little bit scared of it, honestly. And I kind of show that in this interview, you will hear me kind of displaying that. The caution that I feel around the incredibly huge surges of emotion and meaning that can come through poetry in a way that is, I believe, inaccessible in other mediums. So have a good time with this interview. Thanks so much for listening and I wish you all very happy writing.

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

Rachael Herron: [00:06:58] Well, I could not be more pleased today to welcome to the show. Joshua Bennett. Hello, Joshua, welcome.

Joshua Bennett: [00:07:02] Hi Rachael thanks for having me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:07:04] I am thrilled to have you. We share a publisher and my publisher sent me your book and it blew me away. I spent an evening lost in it, so I’m so glad that you’re here and you’re gonna share a little bit with us, but I’ll give you an introduction first and then we’ll start chatting. A poet, performer and scholar Joshua Bennett is the author of the just released book of poetry, Owed, which speaks to the expansive range of registers within the world of Black aesthetics and experience: the joy, rage, love terror, and all that gives a world within a world, all the shape and tenor. He received his PhD in English from Princeton University, and is currently Mellon Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth. His writing has been published in the New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review Poetry and elsewhere. His book Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and The End of Man was published by Harvard University Press in May 2020. His first work of narrative nonfiction Spoken Word: A Cultural History, is forthcoming from Knopf and he lives in Boston. You ha- let’s start off with, you’ve had a really frickin’ busy year. 

Joshua Bennett: [00:08:12] Yeah, you know, there’s a lot going on. 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:14] There’s a lot going on. And did I read- and something that the publisher sent me that are you about to have a baby? 

Joshua Bennett: [00:08:20] Yeah. In the next couple of weeks.

Rachael Herron: [00:08:22] Oh my goodness. So you’ve had two books come out, one forthcoming a baby on the way, a global pandemic, the country in racial uprising. And you speaking to that, like how, how are you doing, today? Let’s not talk about how are you doing, but how are you doing like today. 

Joshua Bennett: [00:08:40] Yeah. I’m all right today. Today I’m preparing, you know, start teaching in two weeks, yeah right. A little bit now getting ready to teach this modern black American literature class, getting my son’s nursery ready. I mean, so there’s, there’s like the real singular joy of that, and I just had a book come out yesterday. So there’s joy in the midst. 

Rachael Herron: [00:09:10] Yeah, yeah. A beautiful, beautiful, important book. Would you read us a poem from it please?

Joshua Bennett: [00:09:16] Of course. So this poem is a favorite of mine in part just during the pandemic. I think one of the things that I’ve missed most is barbershops. So this is barber 

Rachael Herron: [00:09:25] I love this one. Yes.

Joshua Bennett: [00:09:28] Barbara song, postmodern blackness blacksmith, straight razor reshaping, self-esteem, huge dream in geometries unreachable by any other means. Speak and entire phrases abandoned standard American etymology hence, you liberate waves from the sea. Corn rows from the corn field reclaim fade. So I now hear the word and imagine only abundance. Caesar never meant anything to me, but a cut so close, you could see the shimmer of a man’s thinking. You are how we first learned to bend language built to unmake us except implausible risks. Some much older man, shaver in hand like a baton full of laughs gossip asking with the grain or against, and the question feels damn near existential. Given this is the only place we can live, in such thoughtless proximity to another person’s open hands, be held by the face. Ask outright to be made glamorous shaped by your polymathic brilliance. You biweekly psychoanalyst first stopped before funeral, before wedding and block party alike. You, soothsayer cooing children to calm, as they sit in the chair for the first time, as still as storm, as one might reasonably expect. You, ethicist defending hairlines at all costs, your vigilance keeping online and otherwise slander at bay. Philosopher king, the source in the drawer. Domino’s and scotch and barbasol adorning your counter top, right above the chorus line of clippers swaying to the clamor of checkmates and offhand insults now filling the shop. Each moving as if the unfettered locks of some great metal monster, some far away watcher and you, guardian of it all clean as a Pope.

Rachael Herron: [00:11:29] Listener so what just happened to your brain, is what happens to your brain when you read this book Owed. I live in East Oakland and there’s a black barbershop, like just the end of my block. And it’s called the Pull Up Your Pants Barbershop. And he will, he will give you a belt if you walk in without a belt. It’s- it’s but, and it’s obviously, obviously not my place. It is not a place for me to partake in any of this. So, so actually getting to listen to your voice makes me feel like I do when I walk past like real slowly with my ear open, just because it, it, it strikes me as this magical poets, poet scholar, Pope, place of learning. So that’s, that’s gorgeous. So you as a writer, the show is about writing as process and finding our process in the midst of life. You do so many things. How do you get the damn writing done? That’s what I would like to know. 

Joshua Bennett: [00:12:29] Well, that’s a great question

Rachael Herron: [00:12:30] And knowing that everything might change in two weeks when you have a baby and you’re teaching.

Joshua Bennett: [00:12:33] For sure. I mean, yeah. I mean, I’ve just been going hard every single day. I mean I write every day if not a poem, a line, an idea, a grant proposal something, I mean, I always try to get just language on the page usually for a long time I wrote at the dining room table behind me, but my wife asked me to stop doing that. So I’m just going to stop doing that. I have stopped doing it, hi honey, in case you’re listening later. Right now, 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:52] No okay, let me ask you, why did she stop doing it, was it because of the faces you would make when you did it, or do you talk to the computer or- 

Joshua Bennett: [00:13:00] That’s a great question. No, I mean, she’s great with this. I mean the dining table is for eating. So I think she just has tried to help me organize my base around it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:14] Yeah

Joshua Bennett: [00:13:15] She’s like, don’t write during meals, I get, you know, this is- you can rest sometimes, you can watch TV, you can read the pleasure and all that kind of stuff. So no, I just do my best to write every day and I just try to make music out of it. You know, whether it’s something I overhear someone saying in a restaurant historically, or there’s a passage in the book, you know, that really resonates with me like almost all the titles of my books, for instance come from passages of thinkers that matter a lot to me. So, yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:44] So you write narrative nonfiction, you write nonfiction, literary criticism, and poetry. What I, I, I’m, I’m leading the witness, but what, how’s your heart the most? Is it poetry or is it something else? Or I know it’s like, you know, which kid is your favorite? But- 

Joshua Bennett: [00:14:01] That’s tough. I mean life is not tough, I mean it’s tough to say maybe because we’re not supposed to outright state preferences like this in some ways, but no, I mean, poetry will always be my home genre. It’ll always be my heart in no small part because it was first, you know, sort of the first, poets I ever saw were preachers. And I still regard that as a certain form of poetry. One of my favorite thinker, Hortense Spillers, brilliant black feminist, critical theorists. I found her dissertation about two years ago. And in the beginning she makes this argument that a black preacher and the plantation were sort of the first poets of the black community. And so it was this incredible moment thinking that against my own childhood and my own upbringing. And whenever I feel like the criticism or the nonfiction is dry or the language isn’t there, I always turn to the poems to electrify and to bring it back to life. So, it’s, it’s a, I’m a, I’m a poet first and foremost, you know, 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:55] I have, I have a hero worship of poets if that’s not already coming through because I am not a poet. And even when I was in grad school, the one poetry class they made us take, right, you had to do one outside your, your, your major. And I remember them telling me, you know, you just, you can’t write fiction in a poem. There’s gotta be some poetry in there. So, so, and so when someone does it as beautifully as you do, it’s just really inspiring to me. So thank you for sharing that. What is the biggest challenge you have when it comes to writing of any type?

Joshua Bennett: [00:15:28] The biggest challenge I have when it comes to writing of any type. It’s funny I was asked the question like this recently and I feel bad. I don’t, it is, it feels good. I don’t know. I mean, I guess the challenge of writing for me soon will be time for sure. But if I can be, be completely honest. I mean, writing has been such an intimate part of my life for as long as I can remember. I mean since I was about four or five years old. I wrote short stories. I wrote poems. I improvised sermons off the top of my head and I was in a really tight knit super weird family culture, where people need space for all that stuff. I don’t listen to the whole 40 minutes of the improvise sermon of the seven-year-old boy. They would gather around me in the dining room and they would just let me go. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:13] How beautiful is that? 

Joshua Bennett: [00:16:14] It’s incredible! No, definitely, yeah great notes, you know, in parenting very early that experience. But it was, I mean, in one way it was a kind of countervailing narrative, right? So the school system, I was a part of where I was told when I was five, I would never function in the classroom. You know, that my day dreaming was a problem. But then in the home space, my parents really just kind of left me alone and they were like, Josh is writing, you know, I’m a little boy, five, six years old right. And so for me writing is that, it’s a liberatory space, you know, I think I have an issue like we all do with kind of putting it out into the world sometimes, but the actual writing itself, I’m very comfortable with it not being good. If I can be completely honest. I have poems that just- they’re not swinging, you know, everything doesn’t swing that you put on the page and that, that’s fine. And I, I really mean that. And that’s, that’s made a, a big difference as I get older and have to go through a bunch of drafts to get to something like this book, you know, I’m, I’m acquainted with it and that it doesn’t scare me. You know, the page is home. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:14] Yeah. The page is home failure to me. Doesn’t matter on the page. It’s the, it’s the repeated process of going back. I, I, I eat failure for breakfast cause I fail basically every single day and every couple of, couple of days I get a line or two that’s okay. You know? What it is, so along those lines, you probably already, you’ve just described some joy, but what’s your, what’s your biggest joy, if you had to name it when it comes to writing?

Joshua Bennett: [00:17:37] Yeah. I mean, the biggest joy for me is, well, actually let me think about this from a slightly different angle. Recently, it’s actually been the real life discovery as something that might become a poem later. So for example, my wife and I are doulas named perpetual.

Rachael Herron: [00:17:51] Oh my gosh, that’s a novel, there’s a whole novel right there. 

Joshua Bennett: [00:17:54] Right. And the moment she said her name, it wasn’t that, Oh, I’m going to put this in a poem. It was just the nature of the interaction and the revelation and even the kind of doula she is. I think seeing that story unfold in real time and felt like it was giving me another instrument to write with whether or not that actual detail ever gotten a poem, right? Like there was something that was happening. I felt like it was all threads in the universe coming together in a certain kind of way. So I think that’s the joy of writing for me is having a moment where I feel like my writerly imagination adds a little spice to my actual phenomenological experience. You know, that that’s been part for me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:32] So putting all those pieces together, inside a life. Yeah. What, what is the thing- is there a thing in your life that affects your writing in a surprising way? Maybe, maybe your wife telling to move the computer 

Joshua Bennett: [00:18:45] Yeah right, to go, go relax. Yeah I mean, being in level won’t do it. I mean, I think the realization that being smart is not the most important thing in the world.

Rachael Herron: [00:18:58] Don’t tell me that, no. I reject, no.

Joshua Bennett: [00:19:02] I kid you not, I just got there like a year ago, maybe a couple months, really. And I think, I think for me it was a defensive posture for most of my life. Right. That it was a weapon again, largely that my mother had kind of honed in me. Right. You have to be bright. You have to be eloquent, and this for you as a way to move through the world, it’s a kind of armor against narratives will project onto you. And ways that people will try to hurt you. Right. And a part of what I think happened is that becoming a writer, and a scholar, I internalized a defensive posture and I made it a kind of mission to just be, you know, the brightest to sharpest, most rigorous and it’s just not, that’s just not the measure of a human life and I think in part through my relationship with my wife and my close friends and colleagues, I think I’ve found various other strands of a human experience that just mean a great deal to me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:55] This is a, this is an intimate question, but do you think you would have come to the same realization if you hadn’t and please forgive me for saying this, but like made it PhD from Princeton, like you’re teaching at Dartmouth, you’ve got all these, like, would you have come there if you were still struggling to get there? 

Joshua Bennett: [00:20:11] Maybe not, that’s a great sort of material conditions question. Yeah. I mean, I think it was really when I got here to Harvard, if I can be honest, and it was in the society of fellows, this kind of elite group within an elite group, you know. These 12 people selected every year from all across the world to eat together for three years and write books and I’m with paleontologists and astronomers who we’re eating together three times a week, and I think just the realization that what made me happiest was actually getting to know these people, I’m in so many ways and just it was the sharing of the ideas again. It almost really felt like being a kid and when you’re on the playground and no one has money, so you trade skills. Like I was fairly good at telling time and my best friend, Danny was really good at helping me not get beat up, you know, and we kind of exchanged you know, those goods and that was the foundation of our friendship for a while as mutual aid. And the understanding that we need each other. So, yeah, I mean, I think especially my success as a, as a young professional scholar and writer helped me realize, and actually even before that, when I was doing the spoken word stuff and touring the world and was financially independent and was getting stopped on the street and it was at the white house, I mean, the night I performed at the white house, I sort of sat alone in my hotel room as a 20-year-old and realized, you know, this can’t be all that I do. Like, I kind of hit the pinnacle of my career as a 20-year-old and I realized there had to be something else. And I think that was, I’m really thankful for that every single day being famous on the internet or well-known is not a, it just can’t be the end all be all, because there’s really nothing in that, that will sustain you.

Rachael Herron: [00:21:44] It’s pretty great that you got that early and not, you know, when you were 72 and you know. So are you still friends with those Harvard 12 that you were with? 

Joshua Bennett: [00:21:54] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There’s 36 of us in total and every year maybe 12, but yeah, no, I’m, I’m cool with the other junior fellows. People are very sweet and, you know, we keep up with each other on Facebook and stuff, so people know that the baby’s on the way. And it’s good 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:10] Such an interesting image to me. Can you- moving back to writing, can you share any kind of craft tip with us? Any craft tip.

Joshua Bennett: [00:22:17] A craft tip. Yeah. Just really read books, you know, so again, this is actually part of my ongoing issue as a, as a self-taught person, you know, is that I didn’t come through an MFA program. I came up through poetry slam and through reading books. That’s how I learned how a line should look on the page. How it should sound, the kind of subject matter that compels me to sit down and write, it comes from those experiences. You know? And so for me, when I, you know, cause I teach both creative writing and sort of literary theory at Dartmouth and I’m always telling my students, of course your, your feelings can be a sort of primary impetus to get to the page, but why wouldn’t sort of historical research or these other narratives outside of you sort of get the texture and tenor and shape and form. It’s what we’re doing to give it stakes, right? To make sure there’s blood in it and that’s the best craft advice I think I’ve gotten, that’s the best craft advice I’ve given, the best craft advice I’ve got is from Gregory Pardlo, who told me to use all of my Englishes. And I think him telling me that felt like permission to use both the kind of theoretical language of the Academy and the vernacular language. That is really how I sound in my head. I just didn’t feel like those could ever collide in a meaningful way. I was always worried it would feel performative or that I would, it wouldn’t be a good representation of the race or something. If I wasn’t writing in a particular way, every time I sat down and I feel like Greg helps liberate me from that.

Rachael Herron: [00:23:48] I was just gonna say, what a liberation. Yeah.

Joshua Bennett: [00:23:50] Yeah, the teachers would do that.

Rachael Herron: [00:23:52] Yeah. So speaking of books, what I always liked to like narrow things down to, you know, an essential one, what’s the best book we read recently? And recently it can be in the last, you know, five years, but, but what is the book you want to tell us about.

Joshua Bennett: [00:24:06] The book I want to tell you all about, well that’s tough. Cause I write about this in my new books are, I spent so much time with it, but probably Song of Solomon about Toni Morrison. I mean, that’s a book I always talk to people about just because it was so transformative for my life. It changed the way I thought about masculinity, about love and care about religion, about parenthood. If I can be completely frank and redemption, there are so many different kinds of redemption happening in that book and Morrison doesn’t really let us go. She doesn’t let us off the hook. Another really good book that I read last week is The Voice of the Children Anthology that June Jordan put together, in the early seventies. She used to host a workshop for children at church of the open door in Brooklyn. And I anthologize all their work at the end of the year. And I was just sitting down with these poems I mean one was written by a girl named Vanessa Howard, who I think might have been 14 or 15 years old. It’s called Monument in Black. And it’s just this gorgeous opening stanza about putting her parents on money, it was like, put my father’s black- what is it? It’s like, put my father’s black smile on the penny or something, I think is the opening. And it’s just this, I don’t know. It’s just a gorgeous image to me because she doesn’t even want, she doesn’t even make a radical move to say there are historical figures that are under studied and that should be on the currency. It’s like about everyday people you know, those are her heroes. It’s the people on her block, the people at her home. So that’s an incredible book those-

Rachael Herron: [00:25:34] Voices of the what? 

Joshua Bennett: [00:25:36] Voices of the Children

Rachael Herron: [00:25:37] Voices of the Children Great.

Joshua Bennett: [00:25:38] Yeah, yeah. It’s great.

Rachael Herron: [00:25:41] I’ll put the link in the show notes for that. Okay. So will you tell us now about number one, where we can find you on the internet and number two, tell us a little bit about Owed.

Joshua Bennett: [00:25:49] Yeah. Yeah. You can-

Rachael Herron: [00:25:50] How you came out. How that, how that all came together. Sorry to interrupt you.

Joshua Bennett: [00:25:53] Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, you’re fine. You can find me on the internet mostly. I do most of my thinking out loud on Twitter. So @SirJoshBennett, that’s also my Instagram handle (SirJoshBennett) and then I have a Facebook fan page, you could just find by searching Joshua Bennett poet Facebook. (PoetJoshuaBennett) How did Owed come about? Well, one stormy night, 2016. Yeah, I was at the comic con retreat, actually, this is really what happened and it might’ve been stormy that night. The comic con retreat in 2016, and I had Willie Perdomos workshop the next day, so part of how comic con works, and I don’t think I’m giving away too many trade secrets here, but you have to write and write a new poem every day. I was sitting down and I’ve been in a kind of old space, like a celebratory space in the writing. And I knew I wanted to write a poem about my big sister, and everything she taught me, which was everything from how to write and read, to how to fight and how to do long division. So I wanted to get that all onto the page and it became not just about celebrating my sister and that occasion, but what was owed to her, right. It felt like Owed was actually a way of traversing that space between my love for her and this tremendous debt that I felt like I- I’d owed this woman who helped shape my life. And also the little girl who helped shape my life, you know, when we were both little kids. And so that’s how it began. The first quote I wrote was owed pedagogy, it’s the second poem in the book. And then from there, I just thought about it as a larger project. What would it look like to create an aesthetics of reparation or to contribute to it rather, right, and invent this stuff, but, but my idea was that, that’s of course, think about physical reparations as the material redistribution of wealth, but what about the kind of soul work? The symbolic work, the literary work that has to be done alongside that, to really counteract all the negative images of blackness that we all inherit. Right. And then we all internalize, right? So I wanted to think about that as, as my contribution through this book. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:46] And you do such a gorgeous job of doing this with your father too, and he’s kind of this touch stone all the way through. He’s even on the cover, that he’s the one holding you, right?

Joshua Bennett: [00:27:56] Yeah, yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:27:57] It’s- and you know, what’s really embarrassing, I’m just going to admit this to you right now, is this is so much of a poetry lover and a non-poetry understander that I am, I didn’t understand until you were just saying these things out loud, that Owed is a play on words.

Joshua Bennett: [00:28:10] Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:11] I only saw it as O-W-E-D. So I would like to share that with the listeners, if you’re just listening in your car, it’s not O-D-E, which makes absolute sense. But the, the play on that is so gorgeous and then ending the book with your father too. 

Joshua Bennett: [00:28:26] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:28:27] What a, what a, what a gift this book is. Thank you so much for being on the show and thank you for speaking so openly. And the book just came out yesterday, may it fly from the virtual shelves. I hope that you’re having a wonderful time promoting it, and I hope that you’re getting the praise that is your due 

Joshua Bennett: [00:28:47] Thank you, Rachael, that means a lot. Thank you. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:50] Well, you’re welcome. Good- I’m so excited for your son too. Welcome to him!

Joshua Bennett: [00:28:55] Yeah!

Rachael Herron: [00:28:56] Welcome to him when he gets here! I’m gonna go stalk you on Instagram just so I can see pictures of that. 

Joshua Bennett: [00:29:01] Sure! No, no, I’ll be posted up. I’m gonna have a little baby and he’s going to be in the front and I’m going to be annoying. I can’t wait. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:07] Please be annoying. There’s nothing like Instagram is for cute dog pics and babies. That’s what is for.

Joshua Bennett: [00:29:12] And baby. Yeah. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:14] Thanks Joshua so much.

Joshua Bennett: [00:29:18] It’s a pleasure.

Rachael Herron: [00:29:19] 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.

The post Ep. 198: Joshua Bennett on Making Sure There’s Blood in Your Writing appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ep. 197: Can I Write a Main Character Outside my Race?

Today in this mini-episode, Rachael talks about whether it’s a good idea to write outside your race, as well as what to do when you’re bored stiff by your own book. And what about virtual retreats? 

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!

Refs cited:

https://www.businessinsider.com/right-wing-extremists-kill-329-since-1994-antifa-killed-none-2020-7

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/pence-dhs-officer-death-rnc-speech

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/27/us/jacob-blake-wisconsin-thursday/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/27/us/kenosha-wisconsin-shooting-suspect/index.html

Transcript

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 #197 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. Thrilled that you’re here, it is a mini bonus episode today although it might not be so mini cause I got some things to say and I’ve got a bunch of questions to answer. So stick around. What is going on around here? Big news you may have already heard, but J Thorn and I have stopped doing The Writer’s Well. For a many really good reasons but if you are a fan of the show, don’t worry, mom and dad are not divorcing. We are still together, just not doing the show anymore. We love each other just as much, but we’re both going kind of new directions in our careers, which you all will hear about as we move forward and we needed to cut back on some things. And this was a thing that we immediately agreed, needed to go. Even though it breaks our heart. So, that show The Writer’s Well was awesome. If you’ve never listened to it, start at the beginning, there’s 190 episodes and basically we talk each other through the process of becoming full time writers.



[00:01:28] I had only been one for a few months when we started the show and he became one the next year, and we’ve been talking to each other for the last four years and it’s been wonderful. And I miss him already. I missed the listeners already, but it gives me more time to do the things that are important to me right now. So that was a big thing that happened this week. And what else, I am about to finish that last revision of Hush Little Baby before copy edits. And I always say it, but I’m always discovering again that, this is the sweetest spot, all the words that are in the right place, they’re going to stay and I’m just massaging them and making them better and fixing a little bit of plot stuff, but, and a little bit of character stuff, but very minor so it’s really, really enjoyable and fun. And I should have that done tomorrow. So that’s exciting. And what other news? I also got a new computer because my old six-year-old MacBook air finally gave up the ghost. And I have to say I’ve got a new Mac book pro loving it, except that in order to plug in anything that is USB, you must use a USBC hub, and the only way to keep that from disconnecting the wireless is to wrap the hub in tinfoil. So my brand new, very expensive computer is sitting on my desk with a hub that is wrapped in tinfoil. And people I think that is janky. Come on, Mac. Get it together. However, I love everything else about it. And perhaps my computer won’t crash all the time, including when I am making podcasts and videos and being on zoom, it’s pretty important.



[00:03:04] So that is fun. A shout out again to YNAB. YouNeedABudget Y-N-A-B.com. They are the ones who taught me how to use money at a very late age and allow me to do things like put money away every month for the new computer. So even though this was an expensive computer, I just moved the money over from where I had it in a special savings account for our next computer in our family and paid it off in full. And that gives me a lot of pleasure and a lot of pride. I just, honestly, we put it on the Apple card in order to get like the money back, but I just paid it off and it felt so good. It felt so good to be able to do that. So if you’ve, if you struggle with money, if you struggle with debt, YNAB.com got us out of $125,000 worth of debt.



[00:03:53] So it was no small thing when I learned how to use money. Long after I should have knowing how to use money. So yes, gonna answer some question, but first of all, let’s talk politics just for a minute. You listeners are so wonderful. I got some pushback emails and comments from the last show in which I kind of castigated Trump. And what I love is that many of us all agree that 98% of us want the same things. Even if we are on different sides of the political spectrum, we want to be happy. We want to be free. We want the people who are not treated fairly and equally now. To be treated fairly and equally, we all want that. We want our families to be safe. We all want to be loved. And I love that kind of reaching across the aisle. We’re humans. That’s what we want. Even if we’re using different words and different rhetoric. However, I would like to talk just a little bit about some stuff that has been happening and how I feel about it. It’s been another emotional week and first of all, real quickly, COVID deaths in the United States of America have reached 180,000. If Trump and his group had put together the correct response, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, as well as many other research reports and other countries reporting we could have had 90% fewer deaths and 90%, fewer contractions of the disease.



[00:05:38] That means that 18,000 people would have died, not 180,000 people who have died because we did a bad job. Everybody else. In the world, most countries have a lockdown COVID, they’ve eradicated it and they are now back to business. They’re doing sports and going to schools and going to libraries safely, without fear. We screwed that up. So royally, I’ll put the link to the research in the show notes. HowDoYouWrite.net But I can’t do the math real quick. 162,000 people would have been saved had we acted earlier just like everybody else in the world has, this is why we can’t leave our country. We are not allowed to go places because America is too dangerous. No one will let us in right now. And that drives me in cra- that drives me insane. Just absolutely crazy. The people who are behind Trump, many of the people who vote for Trump, they are, many of them are pro-life. This however is anti-life and there is no way that there’s any possible way to excuse- sorry about that, the death of 162,000 Americans who didn’t have to die. 18,000 of them probably would have. But 162,000 who didn’t and those numbers are still going up. Taking a deep breath. Another thing that has happened last night was the Republic, the national convention. It’s this week, it’s been really fun and amusing to watch on Twitter.



[00:07:12] However, Mike Pence said that a federal officer was shot and killed during the riots in Oakland, California. That is absolutely true. But he failed to mention that the person who killed the federal officer was a right wing extremist member of the Boogaloo movement, Steven Carrillo. He’s a 32-year-old air force Sergeant who came into town in order to perform this killing during the BLM protests. He is a white wing extremist and Mike Pence, absolutely deceived people when he said, when he tried to cast it off of the riots had killed his officer. No, Steven Carrillo did. He is now in jail for it. The fact is, is that right wing extremists have killed 329 people in this country. And Antifa, antifascist. Like I am, I am a guest fascism have killed zero. Absolutely not one. Right wing extremist 329. Antifa, none. BLM movement, none. This week, Jacob Blake was shot seven or eight times. They’re not quite sure yet in the back by a police officer. Look, I worked for the, the police department for a long time. Cops are trained not to kill anyone unless a life is being threatened. They’re trained not to kill anyone unless a life is being threatened. It doesn’t matter what’s on their record. It doesn’t matter what’s in their car. It doesn’t matter unless they have a weapon in their hand and could kill someone. They shot him in the back as he opened the car door where his three children were inside. Thank God that Jacob Blake is alive. He’s going to be paralyzed if he makes it, I hope that he does so he can sue and own Kenosha. He absolutely deserves that. 



[00:09:16] The next night during the protests, the town Kenosha was filled by right wing militia who wanted to help out the police. They actually asked the chief of police to deputize them, the chief refused. However, 17-year-old, white boy, Kyle Rittenhouse drove 30 miles into Kenosha with his long gun shot, three of the protestors killing two of them, and then walked out past the officers while people screamed at the officers that that kid had just killed people. He went home, he was not stopped by the officers. He went home, and slept. He went home and slept and then was arrested the next day. He, he was in the front row at a Trump rally in Des Moines. Very, very front row. He’s very blue lives matter. He’s very pro-gun. Blue lives matter is not a thing people. You’re not born a cop. You can’t, you, when you take off your cop uniform, you don’t, you’re, you can’t be identified as a cop. Although that could be argued. I can usually pick a cop out from a long way, even when they’re not in a uniform. It’s about the voice, but they’re not born that way. Black lives cannot take off their skin. They are in danger all the time when they are walking around this country because systemic racism has been embedded into every single facet of our society.



[00:10:50] And it’s really, really exciting right now, as we are finally becoming a country that is talking about this, where white people are talking to white people and calling them in their bullshit and I really appreciate that we can have this dialogue that you and I can talk about this in a reasonable manner. And li- listen, you know this about me already though. I am not interested in talking about it in unreasonable manner. I like to deal with facts, things that are true. And all of this stuff I know is hard to talk about. It’s hard to hear. So I thank you for listening and for thinking about this stuff and for whatever you are doing to try to help anti-racism to try to move two-word racial justice in this country. It is not something that I can do. It’s not something that you can do by yourself. It’s something that we all have to do together, which is why I talk about it on the show. And honestly, if it offends you that much, you shouldn’t listen to this show. So peace be with you. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass, but the majority of you, like I said, 98% of you are good.



[00:12:09] And you know, that the stuff that is happening is wrong. And with that, I will just say, thank you for whatever you are doing. Not just tweeting or Facebooking, but actually, what are you doing? What are you doing to affect change? Just ask yourself that. Please feel free to let me know what you are doing to affect change. I would love, love to see that. I’ve been more on Twitter lately. Please feel free to hit me up there because it’s an easy way to respond back. And I’m RachaelHerron there. So politics to the side. Now let’s move into some writing questions. I told you, this was not going to be a mini episode, even though that’s well, we’re calling it.



[00:12:50] Okay. So here’s a great question from Thomas who always has good questions. He says, my question is, “Do you have any coping strategies to share regarding that phase in revision when you feel like you just can’t go on anymore? When you’re so sick and tired of the story that you just want to move on and leave the work unfinished. I’m about two thirds through, with the second draft in my first book and I’m finding myself exhausted at times. Taking a break is really not an option for me because when I set my mind on something, I’m so stubborn that I just have to push through somehow.” Oh, I was not going to tell you to take a break. Some people, for some people that can work. For me, I’m more like you Thomas, I cannot take a break when I’m trying to push through something. I am a pusher, I’m a mover. I like to get my shoulders up against the door and all of my weight behind it to push that door open. I am completely where you are during every single revision of every book and during the first draft. Usually about two-thirds of the way through, I lose all hope and all heart and especially when you’re in that second draft, it is the hardest draft to write. This will be the most that you struggle with your book. Usually there are exceptions, but this will usually be the biggest revision out of many. And I call that the Hoot, that you’re right in the middle of the who cares draft. Cause nobody cares. Nobody outside of your brain is waiting for this book, even though a friend or a spouse might say, can’t wait to read your book. Nobody’s waiting for it. Nobody’s lying in bed right now thinking, “Oh boy, I can’t wait to read Thomas’s book.



[00:14:27] Nobody cares, including ourselves. We lose the heat and the spark of the idea, and it happens to everyone. So when it happens to all of you who are listening, be pleased, that means you’re a working writer and you’re in exactly the right spot. What I do about that is, I’d like to have some kind of touchstone image in mind, it could be a scene in the book. It could be the kernel of the idea that got you to want to write this book. Something that can still excite you, when you think about it. It could be a phrase, a quote. It could be a line from the book itself. It could be a line from music, whatever inspired you to write this book, write that down. If you can’t remember, which is usually my case, I flipped through the book until I find something that excites me. And I write that down because I can look back at that and say, this is why I’m writing it. What is your reason for writing this book? What change do you want to make on the world with this book? Write that down and get excited about it. The other thing that I do is I look forward in my, I usually have a sentence outline. So I know all the scenes that are coming up and I will, if I hate the scene I’m in, I’ll jump forward to the scene that I’m most excited to write next. So I don’t really go out of order and I never go backwards. But I sometimes jump forward if I’m just not feeling what I’m doing. And unfortunately, a lot of times when you do that, you realize later you didn’t need that scene you were actually stuck in that you were working in. But don’t tell yourself that now. Because your- the forefront of your brain will say, no, of course I need that chapter.



[00:16:15] That is part of my book. It’s part of my thesis, it’s part of where I’m going with this. So believe that for now and just move forward to the next thing that you’re excited to do. The other thing is just butt and chair time. And you know that Thomas when you sit down and you open up the damn document and you look at the damn file again, and you say, okay, I’m here for 45 minutes or an hour and a half, or whatever it is you’ve got that day and I’m just gonna work and you just keep putting one foot in front of the other. The problem with the who-cares-draft-feeling is it can last for a while. I usually want to get out of it in a couple of days. And honestly it usually takes me a couple of weeks, maybe up to a month to get out of? And that is just sitting in the chair every day, kind of dreading what I’m doing, disliking what I’m doing and every once in a while catching something that is really beautiful and feeling okay, maybe there’s something in this book, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that I believe that the book I’m writing is a very bad idea and I should never have spent this time on it and I should probably throw it out. It’s not an exaggeration. That is how I feel and that is how a lot of writers feel when they are in the position you are in. So just remember, that you are doing it right and keep moving forward. Keep moving forward, it’s, it’s like the sun going behind the clouds. You know, when we talk about it in meditation there, the sun is still up there somewhere. It just takes a while for those clouds to move out of the way. And the only way to move those clouds is to keep doing the work. So that’s a terrible, mixed metaphor, but you know what I mean? Thank you, Thomas. You always get the best questions.



[00:17:52] Maggie, also an excellent question asker. Hello Maggie. She says, “You have mentioned a few times that you keep getting edits that your thrillers are emotional more than stabby, and we know you write gorgeous women’s fiction.” Thank you. “So what prompted the move to thriller and what keeps you wanting to write in it?” So I love reading deep, dark women’s fiction that is about family drama, family trauma that needs to be fixed. I love writing it and I love reading it because I am good at character work. I am good at knowing how people relate to each other and how badly wrong that can go. However, I’m one of those people that in difficult times, I like to read books in which the people are having a harder time than I am. Many people during difficult times, like we’re all going through right now. Many people reach for lighter, happier, softer books and I do that sometimes. I know I told all of you about the house, The House in the Cerulean Sea, which was just one of the lightest, most delightful books I’ve read in years.



[00:18:58] And that just cheered me up. But other times I like to know that this woman is going through terror, trouble, stalking, whatever it is. And my heart beats faster and I’m lying in bed reading, and I know she’s going to be okay because I’m reading this book. I can think of one exception of a thriller where that wasn’t true and I’m still mad about it. But I won’t say it cause I don’t want to spoil anything. But, but if you read it, you know which one I’m talking about. And I like, so thrillers for me, kind of give that happily ever after, that a lot of people get from reading romance. Thriller gives me, usually the feeling that everything is gonna be okay. Tana French, no spoilers. Tana French has done a couple of books in which it doesn’t end up okay. But somehow she manages to meet and surpass reader expectations. So that can be done too, but that’s why I write it because I love it so much. I would say the majority of the books I read are thrillers followed by memoir, followed by a women’s fictions and nonfiction. And I do read quite a bit of nonfiction too. So, yeah, I write all those things because I love all of those things. Thanks. That’s a good question. And then Maggie says, “Authors rave about your retreats, Europe and local. Do you see a place or value in virtual retreats with the new normal? If so, what core elements of your- in person retreats would be essential to retain in a virtual format?” I love this question Maggie, because I am putting together, as soon as I get this deadline done and another deadline, I’m putting together a virtual retreat. So, I will keep all of you posted, but I have been to a couple of virtual retreats, and went in highly skeptical. Thinking I’m at my house, I’m on zoom. This was actually pre-pandemic even. 



[00:20:54] How can this be a retreat? And it depends on how the retreat leader structures it, basically when you’re doing a virtual retreat, the retreat leader should put a very clear box around the time in which you are inside that retreat. So there needs to, you need everyone who is attending, needs help delineating that space for themselves so that it isn’t a normal day. It’s not a work day. It’s not a day where the kids are swinging from your arms. It is a day that you need to be supported, to be available for the retreat, for the other participants to do the work. And I honestly think it can be just as good as an in-person retreat. And maybe even better because you get to sleep in your own bed at night and I have such sleep issues. I love doing the retreats but I never sleep on them, honestly, because of those sleep issues. So I love going to bed in my own bed. I think I’m gonna do a one-day retreat to start and if that goes well, I might branch it out to a two or a three-day retreat, but that would probably just be in the mornings. Because two or three days of sitting in front of zoom, doing things that would be too much for anyone, but a one-day retreat would kind of, it’s going to be kind of all day with a couple of big breaks in it. So if that is interesting to you, make sure that you are on my email newsletter list for writers, which you can subscribe to at RachaelHerron.com/Write  



[00:22:22] I swear to you Maggie doesn’t even know that I was planning on doing virtual retreats, I don’t think so. Thanks for asking that, Maggie. Also Maggie, you know me really well. If there’s something that I need to put into my retreat that you want to make sure I don’t leave out, let me know. Speaking of the retreats though, I cannot foresee a time where I’m going to feel completely comfortable leading an out of country retreat. Again, I am still out $20,000 from the hotel in Barcelona from March. They, they tell me every single month that they are, they are refunding the money this month and I still don’t have it. So you know, really gun shy that money belongs to my retreatants and I haven’t been able to give back to them. And that is essential for my mental health. So it’s gonna happen. I will get that money. But I am once bitten, twice shy. I am really nervous about leading another retreat in these days, besides, who knows when we’re going to get to leave the country. So until then, virtual retreats, I think are going to be really fun and awesome and useful. And that goes for anybody. Anybody can write to me, tweet at me, and tell me what you would like to see in a virtual retreat. That’s going to be fun to put together. So thank you, Maggie. 



[00:23:40] And another question, last question from Anita, and this is a fantastic question. For my next novel, I’ve chosen a- Oh, there’s something, okay- a 16-year-old protagonist who is an immigrant from Peru. I’m always worried that I will be accused of misrepresenting a culture that isn’t my own, although I’m half Latina and my husband’s Peruvian, it isn’t the same. Should I write this book or should I only write characters, who is this, who are the same as me, half white and half Latina? If the answer is, yes, please also speak about authors who write a main character of the opposite gender, or does this quote unquote rule only applied to race. Thanks. Anita, you are an own voices writer. This is my professional opinion and others may disagree with me on this, but the fact that you are half Latina, and that your husband is Peruvian, it means that you can own this experience of a Peruvian immigrant. I would be more concerned if you were trying to write a black character, and the reason for that is if we are writing a story that is about a person, the main character who is a race that is not our own, I really believe we should be holding the place for that book to be written by a person of the same color of- as the main character.



[00:25:11] However, in our books, we want them to reflect the multicultural world in which we live. So if we are a white writer, don’t have all the characters around your main character, be white, have them be gay, black, Asian, disabled, all the things that you might not be. Just like, I am sure your friend group is or could be, if you wanted it to be, that reflects actual reality? But if we’re white, main character should be white. If the writer is not white, I think that they should be writing in the race that they are. The exception for that and this is a really weird exception and this is where I may get- I might get a lot of email about the show, but the exception to this is, if you’re black or if you’re Latin X, or if you are a Bipoc writer, I say you get to write a white main character whenever you want. Because reverse racism isn’t real. So, Bipoc writers get to write whatever the hell you want, keeping in mind that perhaps a Latin X writer might not want to write a black character, that character might not want to write a Latin X main character, but if you all want a bright white, any time, absolutely. You have been living in this white supremacist culture. You get to write in it whenever you want. It’s kind of like me being queer. I’ve written three or four queer characters right now. But I write about straights all the time because we live in a heteronormative society and I’m able to do that. So boy, am I getting a lot of email for this, but anyway, Anita, absolutely write that character it’s fabulous. Yeah, the other, the other question about gender I feel very comfortable writing about men, writing from a male point of view because we live in a patriarchal society and I know a lot about men because of that. Men who write in women’s voices, with a woman main character I’m also totally down for that. As long as they can use their imagination, maybe get a sensitivity reader and don’t have their breasts move boobly when they walk down a set of stairs. Cause I think we’ve talked about this recently, but men, no woman ever thinks about her boobs unless they hurt, unless they’re flapping around as she’s running.



[00:27:44] No woman ever looks down at her body and says, “Hmm, my breasts are sexy!” It doesn’t happen. And I have seen it hundreds of times in male written books, including the first page of this New York Times’ bestseller. A bookseller actually took me over to the book while we were talking about it. She goes, check this one out. It was on the New York Times’ best seller list. It was number one that week and that happened on the first page, the male writers’ female main point of view character looked down and admired her breasts. It doesn’t happen men. So otherwise, the gender thing I think is a to me is much more of a flexible, just like, just like gender is a spectrum. People play with that, but keep in mind what you’re doing. Try not to be offensive. Sensitivity readers are amazing. Pay them well, and that’s what I got to say about that. 



[00:28:40] So, wow! What a fun, exciting show. I have a lot of opinions today, apparently to share with you. And if you’ve been watching on YouTube, sorry that my face froze. I was worried that I lost all the audio, but I didn’t. It’s still there. So that’s fabulous. I guess I’m still struggling with this new computer a little bit. I want to say thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting me, thank you for letting me support you. That is truly the second most important part of my job. The number one most important part of my job is the writing. The second most important and really beloved part of my job is supporting you. So please let me know how I can do that better. If you would like to pledge to Patreon at the $5 level, I can be mini coach too, and answer any of your questions. That’s at patreon.com/Rachael. And I hope that y’all have a good week that you stay safe from hurricanes and fires and floods and COVID, and remember some self-care as well as getting some writing done. Okay my friends, we’ll talk soon. 

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.

The post Ep. 197: Can I Write a Main Character Outside my Race? appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ep.195: Ivuoma Okoro on Changing Forms to Get Better at Plotting

Ivuoma Okoro is the writer, producer, and performer of the narrative fiction podcast Vega: A Sci-Fi Adventure!. The show is stylized storytelling, where she, as a colorful narrator, talks to listeners directly as she leads them through the tale of a bounty huntress of the fantasy future. After launching the show in late 2018, Vega won “Best Writing of a New Spoken Word Production” and “Best Performance of a New Spoken Word” in the 2019 Audioverse Awards. In addition to that, Ivuoma was invited to speak on Film Independent’s 2019 panel for narrative podcasts “Narrative Podcasts: Stories & Sound” in the spring of that year. While most of her writing efforts are focused on the podcast, Ivuoma practices prose fiction through a bi-weekly newsletter and ultimate dreams on making her way into television animation.

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.

Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #195 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron.

[00:00:21] So thrilled that you’re here with me today. Fantastic interview lined up for you from Ivuoma Okoro and it was just a thrill to talk to her about something that we normally don’t talk about on this podcast. She’s writing and producing and putting on like a drama podcast. And it’s going to be so exciting for you to listen to, because she reminded me as I always need reminding. There are so many different paths to doing what we’re doing and the creative talent and energy and inspiration that is out there is incredible. So please enjoy, she talks a little bit about, changing forms in order to get better at plotting, which is something that I had never even thought about doing. We really bonded over the difficulty in plotting. Some of you don’t have that difficulty. She and I do. So that was really great. I know that you’re going to enjoy that interview. 



[00:00:25] What’s going on around here. I am actually really enjoying this tiny bit of down time. I am working on this big idea, taking the collection of essays that I was working on and making it kind of skewing it a little bit to a new angle which has me completely fired up. I am just a light with ideas for this in a way that feels magnificent. So I’m just really enjoying going down that rabbit hole, letting my brain play with it, letting myself have time to think about what the best course of action for this particular book will be and what I want to make sure that I don’t miss in this revision. It’s a massive revision. Yay. Yay. So I’m very excited about that. In technical. Interesting news. So I think I mentioned that I got an iPad mini because I had enjoyed doing the very, very last cleanup of Hush Little Baby before I sent it to my editor on my wife’s iPad. I loved it so much that I think I was only like maybe half an hour into the experience. And I asked my wife to buy me an iPad mini because she enjoys buying Apple products. So she got me one and I have been addicted to it since I got it. And it’s in a very professional and what’s the word organizational way. I loaded Good Notes onto it. After researching what is the best kind of note taking application for this. What I really, really wanted was to be able to use the Apple pencil on it and take notes, right? Because we all writers tend to like taking handwritten notes. My handwriting’s not that beautiful. It’s a little bit hard to read, but I can read it. I love it. I have books everywhere, planners everywhere. They’re coming out my ears. And I always loved to try the next new greatest thing. So I learned that with Good Notes, this app, you could go onto Etsy of all places and download Good Notes configurations. So I looked at all of their daily planners, Bo Joe’s journals, and I found out one I really liked, bought it for like $9 and uploaded it onto Good Notes. I’m using that right now as my planner, even though I have like two paper planners on my desk as well. I am addicted to planners, but I’m loving the ability to write by hand on the planner, but have it look really good. I got a matte. A screen protector for it. And using the Apple pencil with the matte screen protector really feels great. It almost feels like you’re writing on paper. I’m keeping my journal in there now. I am reading a friend’s book and making marks all over it. I am currently actively going in and updating all of these ideas I’m having for this revision of this collection of essays for this memoir. And it feels really, really good.



[00:04:31] It is so fun. It feels very, very productive. And I have to tell you I’m a little bit scared because I had already downloaded the post-its app for my phone. I know don’t stop laughing and I hadn’t ever used it, but I thought, Oh, it might be a little bit more usable on an iPad. So I just, this afternoon downloaded the posted app. It’s free by 3m, right. And I downloaded it onto the iPad and I have all of these post-its. My beloved post-it’s for the book I’m working on and it let me hold the iPad over them. Take pictures of the pages of post-its it automatically separates the post-its. Your handwriting is right there and you can still move them all over on the screen into whatever formats you want them. You can change the color of the post-it, this is the post-it that I wrote by hand. Now it’s inside my post-it app. I can move around with my finger to go wherever I wanted to go in. I can change the color. I can write new ones. I actually have an important post-it on my desk, which is kind of like my mission statement, my purpose. And I held up the iPad and took a picture of that post-it and now it’s a post-it inside the app. I don’t think it will take away my love for paper post-its and God knows I hope it doesn’t because I just got into composting those. 



[00:05:57] But it has been really, really exciting. I don’t know if I’m the only person to get this excited about post-it notes but I bet I’m not, I bet one of you really loves post-it notes as much as I do. So anyway, I’m loving the iPad. I got a stand for it to sit on, on the desk and it’s kind of working as a second screen sometimes. I do absolutely everything for my entire business. And I always have on a tiny 11-inch MacBook air. This one is actually like six years old and keeps crashing. So at some point I’m going to have to upgrade. But and having the tiny laptop, I love having the tiny screen. It works for me, but having the second screen is pretty nice too. So in terms of enjoying production and tech, this iPad mini is really treating me right. I very much like it. Plus, I got an incredibly cute comp book cover for it, which matches the comp book cover I have on my Kindle and I have a theme, because we love notebooks. I am passionate about notebooks. I’m not losing my notebooks. I’m not losing those other planners. This is in addition to, and it’s really working for my process.



[00:07:11] So, in terms of business stuff I would love to thank new patron. I’m going to guess that your first name Lane, Lane Anderson? or Leanne Anderson. Thank you. Thank you so much for your patronage. I really, really appreciate it. It means that I get to sit in this chair. And write those essays for you all and answer those questions that are for the mini episodes. It’s like the one that came out, I believe it was yesterday or the day before as this episode goes out. So thank you all patrons. You can always go look at my Patron levels, over  patreon.com/rachael and all else is well here. I’m just, I’m moving through my days and getting a lot of writing down as much as I can. And I hope that you are getting some writing done. If you’re not, go over to, HowDoYouWrite.net and tell me why, if you are go over there and tell me why I never get comments over there on my show with Jay, The Writer’s Well, we get so many comments, sometimes almost a hundred on a post on my show. I never asked for them and that’s fine. You don’t have to come over there, reach me anywhere that I am online. I am often on Twitter. I’m always in my email. So hit me up. Tell me how you are doing, because people don’t believe this, but I am actually very, very interested to know how you are doing with your writing. That is important to me. 

So yeah. Follow me on Twitter. Follow me on Instagram. I love Instagram. I’m just, I think I’m just RachaelHerron over there. So come follow me over there. Let’s connect. Tell me how you’re doing. Happy writing and enjoy this awesome interview. 

[00:08:52] 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: [00:09:52] Well, I could not be more pleased today to welcome to the show, Ivuoma Okoro.  How- Hi Ivuoma. I don’t know why I said it. How, how are you Ivuoma? 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:10:01] I’m doing well, Rachael, thank you so much for having me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:03] Of course. You’ll notice with this podcast, if we make mistakes, I don’t worry about it because life happens. I rarely edit the show. Let me give a little introduction for you so people know who you are. Ivuoma Okoro is the writer, producer and performer of the narrative fiction podcast, Vega: A Sci-Fi Adventure! The show is stylized storytelling, where she, as a colorful narrator, talks to listeners directly as she leads them through the tail of a bounty huntress of the fantasy future. After launching the show in late 2018, they go won “Best Writing of a New Spoken Word Production” and “Best Performance of a New Spoken Word” in the 2019 Audioverse Awards. Congratulations on that! In addition to that, Ivuoma was invited to speak on Film Independent’s 2019 panel for narrative podcasts called “Narrative Podcasts: Stories & Sound” in the spring of that year. While most of her writing efforts are focused on the podcast, Ivuoma practices prose fiction through a bi-weekly newsletter and ultimately dreams of making her way into television animation. That is such a cool bio. And when we were introduced, I was like, yes, I have to talk to you because you are like, no one else I have talked to on this whole show. I’ve talked to writers and poets and some artists, I think one graphic novelist, but what you’re doing in terms of writing, production and dissemination is like this new frontier, you’re really, I know, and I know people are doing it, but not very many people are doing it and not many people are doing it really well and winning awards for it. So I would love to know just before we jump into your process, how did I get into this?

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:11:42] How did I get into this? So I, I did kind of start off more so what I feel like is what many people move to LA doing? So, I wanted to write features and then I heard all the jobs are in TV. So I thought, okay, I need to write violets and write a spec thing and try to get a job in TV. And very quickly, I don’t know. I just don’t have the stamina for asking people to for permission to make things, or even just read my things? You know, like I would finish the script. I’m so excited about it. And then I could find one person to read in that and that person’s like, “Wow, you’re really talented.” And then they like, they’re ghosts, they just disappear, you know? And so I, I got to a place where I was like, I, you know, I think the story, this whole story that my podcast is about, it’s, it’s a really big world. So I’m like kind of like, I hope to be like an epic sort of like fantasy sci-fi sort of thing. So I just realized a better medium might’ve been a novel anyway. So I thought, great do it by myself, you know. Don’t have to worry about many things for a while. In terms of getting people to read it, I can just focus on craft. So that’s what I did. And then I heard a really awesome show, audio fiction called a Bubble. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:58] Never heard of that one

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:12:59] And then Yeah, it’s, it’s, it was one of those ones that it had like a big cast. Like I had heard of a couple of the actors they’d been in, like, one of them was like in parks and rec, like it just had a cast that I was like oh, I’m gonna check this out. And so I did, and I really enjoyed it. I think I had heard a couple of audio fiction things before or audio plays and I had trouble following it along because they, the ones that I had heard really depended on sound design to like take you through

Rachael Herron: [00:13:29] Yes. 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:13:30] So I’m like, I don’t know where I am anymore, like the sound design in, I dunno, who’s speaking, a lot of these characters’ sound kind of similar, but this show, Bubble was really great cause it had a narrator and it kind of to read the scene directions. And so I thought, Oh, maybe my story can be that. And so I recorded a couple of test episodes, and I really enjoyed it. It brought together a lot of skills that I already have. I studied it as a, a performer in theater in college. And so I thought, Oh, well this kind of melds a lot of things that I already really like to do. And it’s been awesome. I am so glad, like getting to connect with people, people like connecting with the audience directly, like not needing anybody to tell me I can make things like it’s been, it’s been awesome.

Rachael Herron: [00:14:15] This is one that I’m going to listen to with my wife, because she’s really, really good at listening to audio drama and I kind of get caught up sometimes in what you were reading, like where’s the, where’s the, where’s the sound, what is it doing? What is happening? And she’s kind of translating that for me. And she gets super into that audio dramas. So what is your writing process? What does it look like? Where do you get it done? How do you do it? 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:14:41] Pretty much it. So my writing process, I would say I’m not a coffee shop girl, though I wish I could be. I like the community atmosphere, but I kind of need to be alone.

Rachael Herron: [00:14:52] Oh that’s kind of perfect. Right?

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:14:54] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:14:55] Coffee shop writers are dying and I have been practicing with this.

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:14:58] Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So it kind of works out, but so what that ends up looking like, is me getting up really early when it feels like nobody else exists and writing and hopefully, I mean, I would say like, I like to write like in an ideal world where I didn’t have a schedule for other things, like get up at like 4:30-5, right. Till like, like 9, have breakfast, right, again, till lunch have lunch and then write a little bit. So maybe like total of like six or so hours a day. And when I, when I write, when I’m really into it, like when I’m in a draft, so right now, I’ve been focusing on getting the podcast out and relaunching that soon, but when I’m in a draft, I, I need to work every day or at least every weekday. And then I like to take the weekends off. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:43] Yeah.  So when you say you like on like a perfect day, you’d get up at like 4:30 or 5, is that when your eyes pop open or is this something that you set like an alarm for, to do?

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:15:51] Oh I’m definitely 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:53] Okay

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:15:55] That makes me feel so much fun. Yeah but like once you’re, I feel like once you’re like two weeks in, it does feel like your eyes will pop open on that first alarm ring. As opposed to being like dragging yourself out of bed. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:07] I used to get up routinely at like 4 or 4:30 just cause I had to write before I went to work and I remember like that feeling of the alarm going off and you just don’t think. You put your feet on the floor and you stand up and then by the time you’re at your desk, you’re in the mood.

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:16:19] Yeah, 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:20] But if you have one thought- I don’t know if you have this, but if I had one thought like could I stay in bed? then you’re doomed. You just have to put the feet on the floor first.

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:16:28] Yeah. That, that happens to me. So that’s why I say I get up at 4:30 or 5 because I’m okay with a snooze, and I’m like, if I, if I have the time, if it’s, if it’s before work, then I’m like, I, I have to get my three hours done, you know. But. Yeah, I’m with you there. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:44] So what is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing? 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:16:47] My biggest challenge? It’s kind of funny to say this as a fiction writer, but I think it’s plot. I think it’s plotting. I feel like- 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:53] Me too! I am the exact same. I hate pot. 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:16:56] Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:58] It’s terrible. 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:16:59] Yeah, for me, like emotional journeys and, themes, really get my mind going like that like I could tell you what the theme is, you know, like if her character starts out like dutiful and loyal and they’re going to need to learn to be you know, more spontaneous so that I can tell you, like how they’ll feel when they’re challenged with these new circumstances. And I can even like, see their faces. Like it’s really clear to me the inner journey, but when it comes to answering the question, like what happens, it’s really hard for me to just like, come up with like, a sequential logical plot that gets them there. So yeah, I find that really challenging and I feel like I come to this place where I’m like throwing things out and I’ll have people read it. And I’m like, is this work is, is this good enough? Is this passing enough plot wise for you to understand the emotions? Like it almost doesn’t matter to me what happens as long as they feel a certain way 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:52] That you can move them through their emotions, right. So, how do you generate, how do you generate plot ideas? And I’m really asking for myself, cause I’ve always, I have a, I have a good friend, Adrienne Bell who wrote The Plot MD. She’s like the plot doctor and she’ll sit down and like, you’ll say, I have a story about a man who feels this way. And she goes, well, he could be working here. And then this happens. And then like, like plot just pours out of her. And I get so jealous. Like, so how do you generate your ideas? 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:18:23] Gosh, I wish I kind of, I’m going to read that book. You say that she had a book?

Rachael Herron: [00:18:27] Yeah. The Plot MD. Yeah 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:18:28] The Plot MD. Yeah, I’m going to read that because I need that. I feel like I’m still trying to work it out. I feel like something that’s really helped me. So I, I did mention it in the, in the bio that you mentioned at the beginning of the episode, these like short stories

Rachael Herron: [00:18:44] Yeah

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:18:45] As a, as a bi-weekly newsletter, which I haven’t been so diligent about lately 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:48] Wow with all short story, but like, even

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:18:52] Yeah. So I saw it, so I want, I was trying to get into this habit of writing just plot for these stories. Cause you don’t have time to really get into like

Rachael Herron: [00:19:00] Great idea

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:19:01] the whole journey. Yeah. So it was just like, okay, this happens, that happens. Cause what I started realizing when, when, so my podcast is called Vega. And so like when Vega was doing well, I was hearing from a couple people and they’re like, Hey, can you pitch us things? And I just couldn’t, I don’t know. Like, it was really hard to like, they’re like what happens? I’m like, okay. So like, this is the theme, you know, so I, I thought maybe doing short stories will really helped me just like focus on this happens, that happens. And that happens and I can create a little bit of emotion out of that, but mostly about like things happening. But I think probably the biggest book that was helpful for me was this book called The Art of Dramatic Writing. Have you heard of that one by-

Rachael Herron: [00:19:40] Ooh. But I’m gonna write it down. 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:19:42] Yeah, it’s, it’s a great one. It’s by this guy named Lajos Egri (E G R I) and it’s really about playwriting but it’s applicable for all kinds of writing. Cause all kinds of writing, like the basis of it is drama. So that one was really good and he was all about having a premise, which is a thing like, you know poverty leads to ruin or whatever you’re thinking, be anything, whatever you believe, and then having each thing that happens in your narrative, justify or prove that premise.

Rachael Herron: [00:20:16] I love that. I’m always trying to tell that to students and I’ve never managed to say it that succinctly before. That makes total sense. Yeah, I’ve been, the listeners will know that I’ve been struggling a lot with that. I wrote this thriller that is, that really turned out to be an emotional novel. And my editor just kept saying, okay, but can you make it a thriller? Because you know you need the dramatic tension. You need that motion. So let me ask you about these short stories. Do you think that it has helped? With your, your plot to help your plot?

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:20:46] I- I do. I think now that I know, I think it was pitching that really made me realize my plotting was weak as a, as a muscle, and I, and I’ve always known, like I would get, I would have a really strong idea of the beginning, have a very strong notion about the big exact ending moment, but everything in between, I don’t know. So I think that’s what led me to get that book, The Art Dramatic Writing because I would get so lost. And so I, I do think it is helpful, or that it has been helpful for me to think about what happens. And I think too, every time that I’ve switched mediums, so I started off, you know, writing features and then I, I was like, okay, I’ll write pilots. And then I started writing this, this pilot as a novel, and now I’m in audio fiction, like understanding what each medium needs and understanding in audio, if you’re writing an adventure people want to know what happens. They’re, they’re listening to see like what happens. Though audio is a great space too for just like talking to a person, you know, like hearing thoughts. But I do want it to feel like, Oh, this is moving along. So I think, I think all those things, you know, and the short stories are different medium. I think each of those things have taught me, yeah, like how do I move the story along? And what are the kind of beats I need to hit? I do think it’s helpful. So I need to be consistent with it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:10] That’s the hardest part. I send a weekly letter of encouragement to writers and I don’t think I’ve sent it in like eight weeks, so you know that’s, the times are strange. I’m sorry. I’m so stuck on these, these short stories. How long are they normally? 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:22:22] I would say I, my goal is 400 to 500 words. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:27] That, how do you do that? That’s so short

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:22:30] I know. Well, so, so the, so the premise for it is like it’s I call it the short story machine and it’s like give me a Facebook comment or like a headline and I’ll like, make a short story about it. So like the first one, the, the Facebook comment was like, if I say Candyman three times, will he appear and like keep me company during quarantine basically. So, I wrote a little story about that. So it starts off with a very like small premise. And so I think that’s what helps me keep them come shorter 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:07] That’s so cool

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:23:08] And just like expounding a little bit on that, on that little word. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:10] I am immediately subscribing to your newsletter. So, no, no, no pressure. What is your biggest joy when it comes to writing?

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:23:18] My biggest joy, I would say I am a huge fan of that quote. I forget who says it. I think most people have been accredited, but the quote that goes “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.” Have you heard that?

Rachael Herron: [00:23:30] No, I, I’ve heard it, but I, I, it sounds vaguely familiar. So let me think about it. “No tears in the writer. No tears in the reader.” Yeah, that makes sense. 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:23:37] Yeah. So it’s this idea of, if you’re writing something and it’s boring to you, it’s going to be boring for everybody else. And if you’re writing something and you’re moved by it, or you’re like, man, this really captures what I was trying to say, or you know, I, I feel like anytime. And it doesn’t happen often, but anytime I’m able to write something and I feel like, this is what I wanted to say. Or it makes me feel emotional or I’m going over and over because I’m like, I feel so bad for this character right, I feel so good for this character. Those are times where I feel like, I feel like man I’m meant to do this. Whereas in other times I feel like, you know, kind of like what I was saying with plotting. Is this working, I’m throwing it out, hoping people like it. But I feel like those moments where I, it, it moves me when I, when I write something or times where I feel like, okay. This is, I feel purposeful. I’m supposed to be doing this. I know that if I feel this way, other people will feel something. And so I feel like those are pretty joyous moments for me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:39] Oh, that’s delicious. I love that feeling. I love that. What can you share a craft tip of any sort with us? 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:24:46] Craft tip. I would say the biggest thing that I’ve learned, especially doing sci-fi fantasy world building all this kind of stuff, is do research. I did, I under miss- I underestimated the power of research, for a long time. And then I 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:01] I am still underestimating it. Like, I just don’t like research. Tell, tell me more about this. How did you, how did you learn, you did this, especially for something that you’re really, you know, you’re making up

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:25:12] Yeah. You’re making up. Yeah. Everybody thinks, oh, you can just make your own rules or whatever, but the best science fiction and yet, I mean, you can go ahead, you can see this in examples, countless classic examples, whether it’s fantasy or science fiction. It’s based on something real, like it’s based on no world war one, or you just like something like. So I think I really started to understand this when I was first crafting Vega as a novel and I’m sure, you know, novels take a lot of- like a lot, there’s a lot that goes into them. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:42] So much!

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:25:43] You have to think about everything about this world. Yeah. And so I was having a lot of trouble, like even visualizing, what do they wear? Like what did they eat and why? What’s, what, what are the rules of their religion and all this kind of stuff. And so I started, you know, doing research on like science, I think like all of like one of the gods are the ones that, the one that my main character believes in is like based off of like electricity and the rules of like thermodynamics and all this kind of stuff. So it’s like, once you are able to, you know, like there’s like whole fields of research about these things, you know? So if you’re like, it will to do that, it becomes this creative springboard for you. Like, okay, well, if the electrons are moving in this way, maybe when they’re doing their ritual, they move in that same way, you know,

Rachael Herron: [00:26:28] That’s so cool

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:26:29] You can just base these things off of other things and do less work for yourself and just pulling things out of thin air. So I feel like once I realized that I was, or like once I was able to do a certain level of research, it basically wrote itself like 70% of the world was kind of there.

Rachael Herron: [00:26:44] Wow. So how do you, how do you restrict yourself to not getting lost down the rabbit hole of research? And I know a lot of writers have that problem. 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:26:52] Yeah. So, I mean, I’ve, I’ve heard a lot of writers talk about this idea of, yeah, I think, I don’t know if there’s two kinds of writers, but two things can happen. Like you can get so into building the world and doing the research that you neglect the plot or you, or you can just like see the plot and then do as much research as you need to continue writing. I kind of fall into the second one. I was telling you earlier, like themes and characters are really what drive me. And I, I think I’m like this in general, once I know enough about it, I’m good. I can like leave that and go back to the story and kind of fill in the cracks that I know are showing. And then kind of move on from there. So I think it’s really about, like, I think research for research’s sake is fun, but that’s not writing. And so yeah, if you want to get back to your novel, knowing what the plot is and knowing okay, they’re going to move through this area and this area is based off of this country and then do research on that country and just enough for you to keep on writing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:51] To inspire you to- to get new ideas to, to fill in. Let me ask you quickly about theme too, because I know that it’s a word that sometimes panics right? New writers. What is, what is your theme? Do you mind me asking for a Vega? 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:28:03] Yeah. So my, so my premise, according to, Mr. Egri in our dramatic writing is that, active doubt leads to deeper understanding.

Rachael Herron: [00:28:14] That’s gorgeous. 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:28:15] Yeah. So it’s just this idea that, so it’s like a, it’s like a faith-based world that they live in. Like they have these beliefs that are really extreme. And so as I, as, as you mentioned at the beginning my character is a bounty huntress, but she, her, her nation and they, they employ her to go kill off like the world’s biggest criminals, but like, she, she kills them, you know? And like, they’re like trying to purify the earth, but she’s a killer, you know? And so it’s this idea of, she comes to a point where she’s like, is this right?

Rachael Herron: [00:28:45] Right

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:28:46] Is this what I do? You know, so she has doubts and that those doubts as painful as they are lead her to question things and those questions lead to a deeper understanding as she gets more answers. So, yeah, that’s kind of like the overarching theme of the whole narrative. And so every, every conversation, every fight every, hopefully plot point leads to further developing, like, okay, if she’s the only one who’s actively doubting things, she’s the one who will grow in her understanding 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:16] and then perhaps to see other people starting to doubt or learning how to doubt almost in this faith-based society. The thing I love about this theme is that it is not a common one. How some themes repeat and, you know, we pull from them a lot and you know, like a lot of my books are written around the same theme. Cause I go back to my core story over and over again, but that is a really unique and beautiful one. Right.

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:29:37] Thank you. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:38] Thank you for sharing. 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:29:39] What is your core story? 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:41] My core theme is that; true family is chosen. 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:29:46] I want that. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:48] it’s good. Isn’t it? But even, even when I set out to write a story with a different theme, by the end of the first draft, god damn it. I’m back at it again. But that’s okay, right? Because I believe and I prove with my own life. And I’m attracted to those kinds of books and stories and movies. So 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:30:05] and there’s so many ways to tell that story. 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:07] Exactly, you and I could tell- anybody watching, sorry, I have a hair in my eye. We could have the same premise and you would write, we could have the same plot premise and have two separate themes. Your theme versus my theme and we will come up with completely different books, completely different stories. And that’s, what’s really exciting to me about theme.

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:30:28] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:30:29] Especially when we go into revision. I think we have to have to have it first draft, I think can play but into revision. I love theme. It was delicious. What thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way? 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:30:42] This one’s a hard one. I don’t know if it’s surprising, but I definitely like if there’s any relational disharmony, any, anything going on, like, even if it’s like somebody didn’t text me back and I’m like, are they mad? Like I just, yeah. I feel like that’s not surprising. Cause it’s, it’s just like how we are, you know, like, writing happens in your head, and all this other thing happen in your head. And so it’s hard to separate those things. So when everything is smooth, it’s very easy for me to focus on, on what I need to do in terms of getting stuff down on paper.

Rachael Herron: [00:31:16] But I wonder also if that is something to do with your emotional intelligence, which you bring to the book, you know, you’ve already said that you understand the emotions of your characters and perhaps when you are in a place of limited understanding about the emotions of the people that you care about that throws you off a little bit.

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:31:32] Yeah 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:33] Because I don’t, I don’t care. Like she’s mad at me, she needs to tell me later and I’m going to write, you know,

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:31:38] Yeah. That- I wish I had that power, but I think you have a point about that. Yeah, cause I do, I, I love talking about emotional behavior. I love understanding how people click. I said, I was, I said earlier I was an actress. I think that was a large part of it. Like, why does this character act this way? If I find out, then I can understand them and act like them, you know, like I think, I think there’s something to that 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:01] and that’s, there’s an undercurrent of empathy that you probably bring to everything. 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:32:05] Yeah. I like the thought though.

Rachael Herron: [00:32:10] What is the best book that you’ve read recently? And why did you love it?

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:32:13] In the same vein, my, the book that I think I’ve read recently that was really powerful, it was called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:26] Because I’m in recovery and I was already thinking adult children of alcoholics often have this kind of emotional response to other people’s emotional responses. So there’s probably similar. Tell us again, The Children of Emotionally, what?

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:32:38] Immature Parents. Yeah. It’s, it’s probably similar. It’s this, it’s this kind of thing, I read it and it told me my entire emotional experience in my childhood and I was like, this is why, like all these other you know, personality tests and all these things that kind of get, get at it? But I think this book really got to the core of things. And I think the reason I loved it so much again, is I love understanding behavior. There, there many things I do that I don’t understand why I did that or why I feel this way. So growing in my knowledge of like why people behave the way they do anything that can open up that field of mystery for me is something that I want to read. So I read a lot of like nonfiction, social behavior, sociology, behavioral science books, and yeah, that was one personally for me that, yeah, it was like five years of therapy. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:33:30] That’s awesome. Also, I love these books because the, and you know, it can be seen as naval gazing. And I always feel like I’m naval gazing, but the more I understand myself, and the more I figured this stuff out, the better we are at understanding our characters, right. This is part of our job. 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:33:45] A 100% agree. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:33:46] That’s so cool. Okay, so tell us now where we can find you out in the world and especially where we can find Vega and where we can subscribe to your newsletter list.

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:33:55] Yes. Okay. So you can find Vega on any pod-catcher. Well not any, but most of the big ones, iTunes, Spotify, Google, Vega podcast. Oh, sorry, Vega: A Sci-Fi Adventure Podcast, exclamation point. 

Rachael Herron: [00:34:09] I like the exclamation point.

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:34:11] Yeah. Cause it’s an adventure! And then you can find that show on Twitter @VegaPodcast and you can also find it on Instagram. There you can find me on Instagram(IvuomaOkoro) and Twitter @IvuomaOkoro. I’ll be there and you can find the newsletter at Ivuomatellsstories.com 

Rachael Herron: [00:34:35] Awesome. And Ivuoma spelled I-V-U-O-M-A 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:34:38] That’s it. Yeah.

Rachael Herron: [00:34:40] Thank you Ivuoma it has been such a treat and a delight to find you. And now, you know, this is why I do the show is because now I can go out and suck you and follow everything you do. So, you know,

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:34:50] I will do the same. 

Rachael Herron: [00:34:54] You’re, you’re more interesting than I am. I can guarantee you that. Thank you Ivuoma, so much. 

Ivuoma Okoro: [00:34:59] Thank you, Rachael. 

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.

The post Ep.195: Ivuoma Okoro on Changing Forms to Get Better at Plotting appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ep. 194: Should You Hire an Editor Before Submitting Queries to Agents?

In this bonus episode, Rachael answers your questions, including: 

Should you hire an editor before sending out agent queries? What are some great memoirs and why should writers read them? Do I need specialized tax help as a writer? 

Don’t miss Ines Johnson’s writer’s channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClivO7XAP2GCRRz-7Bm3Nhw

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: 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 #194 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. This is a mini-sode! This is brought to you by Patreon subscribers who get to ask me any questions that they want, and I get to answer them for the benefit of all of you. So it’s really kind of a cool system. So thank you to those Patreon supporters who are supporting me at the $5 and up level a month. And I’ve got a collection of some questions here, so let’s get to them. I actually have heard from a couple of you, I will just say in an aside, that you really like the mini episodes. It is possible that one of you, just tunes in for those and not for the interviews, which is kind of really nice. It means that you like listening to these answers from me. And I like having the time and the space and the ability to do so. So thanks for listening. Okay. Let’s jump in. 



[00:01:13] This is from May. Hello, May! She says, okay, I have another question. So I’m doing my first round of edits on my first novel. Still cannot believe I wrote a whole novel. Yes, you did. And I can’t help, but think about the next steps. I know I want to at least attempt getting an agent and do traditional publishing. Should I hire an editor to go over my manuscript before I start sending it out? Should I just polish it as much as I can and then send it? I know most publishers will have their own editor before publishing. How do I go from cleaned and polished draft to a draft that is ready for an agent to fall in love with?



[00:01:48] I’m so glad you asked this because I get asked this in every single class I teach, it comes up all the time. How do you know if this manuscript that you’ve spent so much time now revising and revising again, and then doing passes on and then doing cleanups on and then proofreading, and then maybe getting beta readers? Although VBR, very careful with that as I’ve spoken about in the past, be careful with who you ask to beta read any of your work. How do you know if it’s good enough to go out to agents yet? The simple answer is you don’t and that’s okay. The truth is agents know that the submissions they get are not perfect manuscripts, that’s just necessarily so. The most agents, I would say most agents I’ve ever met I know there are some who don’t do this, but most agents guys are willing to work with writers or want to write work with our writers on edits before taking them out and attempting to sell them to the traditional publishing world. My agent did that. And in fact, I was one of those people that her picking me up as a client was contingent upon my agreeing to do the edits that she suggested.



[00:03:09] Should you do that? Absolutely. You should do that if, and only if you agree with the changes that the agent wants you to make, if you don’t, if she’s trying to turn your book into a book that is not your book, then you run away and you don’t have to worry about this at all. But I loved the suggestions that Susanna gave me and I took them and we have been in business together for almost 13 years now. So that is absolutely fine. You can send out a not quite perfect manuscript to an agent. And when I say not quite perfect, it is as perfect as you can make it by yourself. You don’t look at it and say, this is not quite perfect. You look at it and you say, this is the best I can do. This is the best it’s ever going to be. The last sentence is a lie. It will be better because you will have editing. Feel free to send out at this stage, if you can’t figure out what else to do to make this book stronger, you’re ready to send it to agents. There is however, an optional route you can take, between your book being done, to the best of your ability and sending it to an agent, you can hire a developmental editor to make sure that your story structure, that your character arcs, that everything developed mental in the book is the best it can be.



[00:04:25] This is not the time you’d ever hire a copy editor. A copy editor is a much lower level of editor. And they’re just looking for typos and sentences that are confusing. The developmental editor is the one you’re really worried about. An agent understand that your work is going to have copy yet. It’s going to have errors in it because it hasn’t been copyedited yet. But choosing to hire a developmental editor to help you at that high 30,000-foot level, before you send to an agent, can be useful, especially if it’s a first book and you just can’t- can’t see, see the forest for the trees that are, you know, jammed in around you- kind of sticking you in the middle of this forest. That can be a really good way to go. It is however, not inexpensive. It is- it costs quite a bit of money to do that kind of edit and it doesn’t have to be done. Just let me make that very clear. It does not have to be done. If your book is as good as you can get it, send it out to agents and feel good about it. If you want your book to be a little bit better before you do that, hire an editor, where do you hire and developmental editor? I always recommend Reedsy.com (R E E D S Y.com) because all of their editors are vetted. Most of them come out of traditional publishing and I have had so many students and clients be absolutely thrilled with the edits that they have received from there.



[00:05:49] So that is what I suggest about that. Let me make sure I got all of your questions. You said, should I hire an editor to go over my manuscript before sending it out? Only you can make that decision there’s no should, there’s no should not. If you think your book needs to be stronger and you just can’t see how, yes, hire an editor. Yes, and then of course, when your agent sells your book to a traditional publisher, then you’ll get an editor and that editor will work with you on the actual big edits. So that always comes with any publisher that you’re ever going to sell a book to your editor will be assigned. You will probably meet your editor before you even sell your book to them, or at least meet them on the phone and talk about this kind of edits that they want. Again, they’re accepting your book. They’re buying your book from you, through your agent may be contingent upon you doing those edits that this editor wants you to do. And again, do it if you want to. Only do it if you want to. 



[00:06:53] But do keep an open mind, your book, which is so perfect right now, it can get a lot better. They always, always, always can with the help of outside editors. So, excellent, excellent question. Let’s see, Thoulma says. What are two or three of your all-time favorite memoirs from the craft slash execution point of view and why? What can aspiring writers learn from them?



[00:07:21] I absolutely love and this is going to sound so trite and clichéd but The Glass Castle. The Glass Castle had been pushed on me for so many years that I just, she wasn’t going to read it. You know, when you kind of get that knee jerk. Nah, I don’t want to kind of think the only reason I read The Glass Castle is because a student in a memoir class at Stanford, challenged me. I had been talking about story structure about the inciting incident, about the context shifting midpoint, about the dark moment, about all the things that go in between those things. And she challenged me and she said, I don’t think The Glass Castle follows that. So I read it over the weekend. That weekend and it follows it so perfectly, they’re not even approximately at the right areas. I brought in my book with post-its inciting incident was at 20%. The context shifting midpoint was like at 49.5%. Everything was perfect. And the book is so beautifully executed and so well written. I really, really love it. 



[00:08:26] Another one that I really love is called Priestdaddy it’s by Patricia Lockwood, Priestdaddy. The reason I love it is it is almost poetic in the way it is written. She is much looser at hitting those story structure elements. Although they’re in there, they’re just suggested like the fragrance of them and her writing is so incredibly strong and so funny and deep and poetic. I can recommend that one more to kind of show the elevated writing that can go with a very sturdy feet-on-the-ground piece of prose. And the third one I’d recommend is one that kind of, kind of shows the humor that can be found in memoir. I love Eve Schaub’s book, A Year of No Clutter. Year of No Clutter. It is basically her attempt to con Marie a room in her house, which is very large and basically held everything. And the book is about decluttering that room and it does not have the final ending that you would expect. She’s a really beautiful writer. She’s been on the show actually. You may want to go back and listen to that. And she just gets how to wrap her arms around, a project memoir or as many people call them a stunt memoir. When you give yourself a challenge and then write about it. So I would recommend those. You will not lose anything by reading those, you will in fact, learn so much and you’ll enjoy them.



[00:10:02] Let’s see, which book do you recommend for getting a good understanding of AA slash NA alcoholics anonymous and narcotics anonymous, and the process of addiction recovery. I’m researching the subject for my upcoming book. So for me, I would recommend, what we call the 12 and 12, which is the 12 steps and 12 traditions of AA. It’s a slim book, and it goes over all of the 12 steps that are in alcoholics anonymous. Don’t worry about the traditions part. You won’t need that, but the 12 steps at the b- the first half of that book really kind of break down how they work without having to go to what we called the big book, the big blue book of the book of alcoholics anonymous. It is hard to read it’s archaically written. It’s completely a product of the patriarchy. There are amazing things in it. This I know, however, is not the place that you want to be., if you just kind of want to get the understanding of recovery. 



[00:11:11] Let’s see. There’s another good book called Living Sober. That is, kind of little vignettes of day to day living. What else do I really like? Oh, I remember what I think you would probably like maybe pick up The Three Daily Meditation books for AA/NA, and Alanon, AA is just for today. AA is daily reflections and for Alanon, which is for people who are, who love people in recovery or in addiction is called the courage to change. And each one of those has a daily reading with usually a quote and a reflection and it kind of all three of those books really get into the heart of the matter of what it is to be in recovery from an addiction. And to almost, I kind of know a little bit about what you’re doing with your book that you’re writing. And let me just say, I cannot wait to read it. Let me know if you have any other questions about that. But those are books I would recommend right off the top of my head. We can go deeper if you want to just email me. 



[00:12:21] And then lastly, this is from Ines Johnson who is also on the show. She’s fantastic. Ines says, Hey Rachael! I have a question. What should a writer look for in a financial planner slash tax accountant? I took a look at my midyear income and hooray! it looks like I’m moving on up to a new tax bracket. Congratulations, Ines. The kind where I can’t TurboTax my filing anymore. I need a human person’s knowledge cause my smarts aren’t going to cut it any longer, but I don’t know what questions to ask a money person or what to look for any advice? Yes, I do have advise, so doing the taxes for a creative person, for a person running a creative business. It’s different from a lot of other businesses and tax accountants, financial planner, financial planners have to understand that not only are our jobs a little bit different and that we can write off different things depending on what job we’re in, but it really helps if they understand the creative process. So this is a blatant plug for my tax accountant, who I absolutely love with all my heart. Her name is Katie Reid. She will file your taxes from wherever you are in United States, you don’t have to be here. But the reason I love her is I just randomly Googled a tax preparation place when I got my first deal and I went to them and she happened to be the one doing my taxes. And let me explain this: Katie gets excited on February 1st of every year, the same way that we get excited when a book is released. She is so happy that tax season has opened. She knows everything about it. And I was her first writer. Or maybe her second writer, but I was really early in her collecting creatives to work with.



[00:14:18] And she leaped into that challenge to figure out what it was I needed. The other thing is, is that, Oh, I think for the first five or so years that I went to her, I didn’t have anything like on an Excels spreadsheet. I didn’t have anything written down. I had a shoe box of tax receipts, that I, or, you know, have receipts that I would bright and handwrite into a notebook, a spiral bound notebook, where I kept all of my money information. And I would literally photocopy pages in this handwritten spiral bound notebook. And Katie thought it was charming. She thought, it was just the best. And in fact, I used to be so excited to do my taxes with her. That for many years, I tried to get February 1st, her very first appointment so that we could get excited together. This was a little bit pre me being in the self-publishing world. In self-publishing world, I got in around 2011, 2012, and there are so many 10-99’s that come, and they come so late. Sometimes you’ll get your 10-99 mid-February or end of February, even though you’re supposed to have them by January 30th. That I just couldn’t keep doing that with Katie. Now I usually go see her in March or April. But what happened with Katie is that she left that agency. And she had a baby, started a family. And I went back to that agency a couple of times, couple years, hated who I worked with because they weren’t Katie. Stalked Katie, found her on Facebook and asked, can you please do my taxes for me? And she said, yes. And over the course of the last five or six, seven years, she has turned that request into basically a full time gig that she runs from her own home. 



[00:16:03] That’s my dog shaking in the background – and she allows us, me and a couple of friends to come to her house where she does her taxes, me and Sophie Littlefield and Juliette Blackwell every year, go to Katie’s house, we do our taxes together. So Katie takes each one of us into her office for about an hour each, sometimes less cause she’s so fast. And she does them in front of us while she’s talking about what sewing project she’s doing and about her kid or about our next book, she’s typing things in. She turns to us and said, well, your refund is this much or you owe this much to the IRS by the time we walk out and the person who is getting the biggest refund or who owes the least to the IRS pays for lunch, and then we all go out to lunch. But Katie’s actually done things like tax parties where the same thing happens.



[00:16:57] Somebody has a hot party in the house and everybody’s hanging out, having fun while one person at a time is getting their taxes done. She’s incredible. She has so many writers now in her stable, I would say dozens of writers in her stable. She really knows what she’s talking about. And I know that I’m selling a friend here and she has everything. One year Lala, my wife and I got hit with a $29,000 tax bill from the IRS. It was the year that, we were married legally in California, but the feds still didn’t see gay marriage as legal and it was this huge disconnect. There was literally one person at the IRS who understood gay taxes. Katie had to get him on the phone and explain the tax code and the tax law to him. I am not exaggerating. They went ahead and canceled that $29,000 tax bill because the IRS had done it wrong. And Katie had set them straight about their own rules. 



[00:17:51] So, where do you find this Katie? Katie, I hope you don’t mind that I’m announcing to the world where you can be found. But she is katie@done.tax. (K A T I E @ D O N E.tax) You can look her up at done.tax, that’s her, she’s phenomenal. I can’t recommend her highly enough. And also, Ines let’s just take a moment and step back and really luxuriate in the fact that you need this, that you need this help. I recommend getting this kind of help whenever you feel a little bit wobbly about your taxes, about your planning. I love having somebody that you know, right now it’s August as I record this, I can send. And I should do this probably this week or next. I’ll send her what I’ve made for the whole year and what I’ve put aside to pay for taxes. And she tells me whether it’s going to be enough. She helps me with my estimated taxes when I get around to paying them. She’s just on call and she’s fantastic. So let’s see. Oh, and Ines says, I’ve been posting on YouTube videos since we talked, because we were talking about her launching a YouTube video for writer’s channel, and she’s already up to 200 plus subscribers. So I will link to her YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClivO7XAP2GCRRz-7Bm3Nhw) in the show notes of this episode @HowDoYouWrite.net.



[00:19:14] Speaking of HowDoYouWrite.net, you should come over and you should leave comment. Also, I promised that I’d be keeping my eye on reviews since I asked for them. And there’s unknown review of over at iTunes for How Do You Write, and this one is from Giana Floyd. Hi, Giana. She says five stars! A must-listen. When I envisioned myself as a famous author someday, I make sure Rachael is my best friend. Oh my God I love this. I actually didn’t read it before I started reading it out loud. Her advice, vulnerability, and interviews have me checking my podcast app every Friday, sometimes before coffee. And if that statement doesn’t convince you that this podcast is a must listen, nothing will. Giana, you don’t have to wait until you’re a famous author to be my best friend. Let’s be best friends now. Plus, I’m not a famous author, I’m just a, an author with a lot of books and some readers. And I think that’s really what I love being. So thank you for this incredible, wonderful five-star review. Please go over to any of your podcasts, your apps, and leave a review or a star rating or something like that.



[00:20:21] It helps with discoverability and I really appreciate it too. And its fun to go look for them when I remember. So that clears out my backlog of questions. So if you are a Patreon subscriber at the $5 and up level, please lay some on me. You cannot give me too many questions. This is a mini, bonus episode, because when I get those questions, it’s a bonus episode. So please send them to me. I can’t wait to answer them. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for supporting and from the bottom of my heart, Thank you so much for writing. When you are writing, even when you’re thinking about writing, you are changing the world one word at a time. That is what we do as writers. So I wish you very happy writing and we’ll talk soon, my friend.

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.

The post Ep. 194: Should You Hire an Editor Before Submitting Queries to Agents? appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ep. 191: How Do You Keep From Getting Distracted While Writing?

Miniepisode with Rachael! How do you keep writing when your brain won’t sit still? Also, would you recommend Scribe? What about those sites that promise to promote your book for you? 

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: 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 #191 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. This is technically a mini episode, but it may be more like a maxi episode cause I have three questions to answer and I want to do them justice. But there’s no interviewee this week, just these questions. So a little catch up while we are at it. I do not have COVID. That is the best thing ever. I got sick and from the point of which I got sick and got a test, two days later, it took them 12 days to get me the test results, which were negative, and for those 12 days I was stressed out and really, really watching my wife Lala, to see if she was going to get sick. And then she seemed to, because of course she would, I’m staring at her 24/7 waiting for her to get sick. And it was just allergies or whatever. And my thing that I had was just a bad cold, which is what I’ve been hoping for but that was stressful. So if you’re going through that or dealing with anybody, God forbid, who is sick from COVID, God bless. We are thinking about you and it sucks to have this kind of worry. So if you do have this kind of worry, take care of yourself, maybe write a little bit about it. Maybe journal a little bit about it. You know that as a writer, you process things through writing. So consider doing that. 



[00:01:39] In business news, I’m just finishing up this last revision, after which I think the book will go to copy edits unless my editor has some more little changes for me, but those will be pretty minor. Everything is in place. And now I’m in the beautiful, sweet spot of fixing the tiny things. Oh, you know what? And I shared something with my 90-day class earlier and I kind of want to share it with you now that I am thinking about it. I really love when I am doing these micro edits, because this, I call it my lyrical pass as my last pass. It’s when I get to make all the words, saying all the sentences as tight as they can be, but let’s face it. I am a workday writer. I write good solid pros. I don’t write lyrically, beautiful phrases that sing off the page. I write stories and I write them well. But this is the point at which when I’m doing these micro edits, the macro edit, the micro edits, I will sometimes come across sentences – okay, like a lot of times I’ll come across sentences that can be better in terms of mood and tone. And I’m just going to read a couple of sentences here that I wrote. So this is a scene that occurs in my book when my main character is having, she has just had a big phone fight with her ex-wife and it’s really tense, she thinks her ex-wife is out to get her and her ex-wife might be, we don’t know. So the paragraph that was in my book, as soon as her wife, her ex-wife hangs up on her. This, this the, the here’s the three sentences: I listened to a plane, drone overhead, and watched three bees poke at the flowers in lemon tree. Our- my backyard was in oasis. Too bad I felt like tugging out the delphiniums Rochelle had put in before she left. So that’s my normal writing voice. It tends to be kind of warm and fuzzy. It tends to be rainbows and puppies and this was a thriller and my big thing that I’ve been doing is upping the tension on every page to pull a reader through feeling the tension grow and grow and grow.



[00:03:58] So just today I was like, Oh, I can show people the difference here. So I went back to that paragraph, and just have to go, just going through the book in order and I got to it and I changed the paragraph just a little bit. And now it echoes the tension that I want to have in the book. So the revised sentences read like this: A helicopter roared angrily overhead as I watched three bees stabbing at the lemon trees and flowers. Our- my backyard had been in oasis. Now I felt like taking a blow torch to the delphiniums Rochelle had put in un-abandoned before they even bloomed. So that’s the tone that I was looking for. Harsh, stubby, uncomfortable. Yes. I used an adverb angrily because I wanted to. I use adverbs sparingly, but their words and I use all the words, you know, I do. So, thought I would just show you that right there. So that’s kind of the level of revision that I’m doing right now. And it is just a joy. It’s a joy, it’s so much fun. So I’m in heaven. And this book is due on Monday. I am talking to you from a Thursday and I think it’ll be done. I’m really, really close and I’m not stressed out. I’m just having fun. 



[00:05:14] So that is awesome. Well, let’s jump in to some of these questions. So I think I will have a normal opening and closing segment on this podcast. So I will just remind you that if you support me at the Patreon level at $5 a month or more, I am your mini coach. And you can ask me any question that you want about anything probably about writing. That probably would be the best idea since writers listen to this show. But how about it? And I really, really, really appreciate your support. This allows me to do this show to write the essays that you will get, that I love to write. They’re my favorite thing that I write and I’m going to be writing in one next week. As soon as my book has turned in and I already know what it’s about. For once. So you can always check that out at patreon.com/rachael R A C H A E L.  And now let’s get into these questions. 



[00:06:06] So this one is from Evan Oliver. Hello, Evan. Evan says, Rachael, first, let me say thank you for all the encouragement and inspiration that comes from your podcast each week. Your welcome. You do an amazing job. You do an amazing job and it’s so encouraging and helpful to hear you talk about everything that goes along with the writing life, especially self-care. I’ve only been a fan for about a month now. So I’m still going through the old podcast and hope to be able to read your essays this weekend. I have written three short stories on KDP, which is Kindle Direct Publishing. And I’m working on a fourth, but the marketing is currently kicking my butt and I have a couple of questions. Number one, do you know anything about services like whizbuzzbooks.com that claim to promote your book for you? And number two, what are good resources for self-publishing authors who are trying to figure out marketing in KDP? It feels like a lot of the stuff I come across as full of spelling errors and typos, or has little useful info. Okay. Good, big questions. 



[00:07:04] So I had never heard of Whiz Buzz Books. So that kind of tells you something there, but I went and looked at it, it looks like what I do for these kinds of things. So Whiz Buzz Books is one of those places where they will push you out, this one it looks like it’s on social media, I can’t remember if this one said it would also go to their newsletter list. But what I do in these a lot of times, even when I get offers like this, because they will end up cold emailing you, you’ll go to their Facebook page and they have 200 followers, or they say that they’ll tweet you to 2 million people and the only Twitter you can find for them has 7 followers. So whiz buzz does look like it’s been around in a while and for $49, they will, they say that they will push you out to over 600,000 real followers. Used to notify users of new books. They actually give their social media platforms a spot on their website, which makes me trust them a little bit more. They have 164,000 followers on Whiz Buzz Twitter, on Facebook they have 3000, although that is going to be a professional page. So it’s actual outreach will be a lot smaller. So, I mean, you could try this one. I wanted to right now, though, share with you the ones that I use. So I have Ed, I have an Ed. You know, everyone should have an Ed. So Ed Giordano is the one who does everything for me. And he’s a BookBob master. So BookBob, you may have heard of it’s the holy grail of this kind of marketing. When we’re talking about sending q book’s picture and its info out to a whack of people. BookBob does it, using their newsletter. BookBob used to be extremely effective. It is now effective. It’s- it’s now quite effective. 



[00:09:05] We have not done a BookBob yet that has not returned our money and made us but I’m talking about, you know, back in the gold- golden age in 2000, I don’t know, 12 or 13. If you got a BookBob, you’d make 10 grand that month and that doesn’t happen anymore. But you can make up the amount and then I do see a long tail of people who download all these free books from the BookBob and then they do read them. And then they do go on to read the rest of your books. So BookBob, I think is worth it. However, in your case, BookBob will not work because your book has to be, I think, 150 pages for BookBob to consider you for a BookBob. I think it’s called a featured deal. The one that you, the, the, the big one. However, you can buy BookBob ads we have not played around very much with that, but I’m not sure if there’s a length restriction on that, but you can look into that. The other blasters that I am, I am- Ed has tested this to make sure that they work and are working right now at the time of this recording, which is July 23rd, 2020.



[00:10:11] We are still liking e-reader news today. That’s a $50 blast. And let’s see, I’ll just give you numbers. Okay. So that was $50 and we got 673 downloads for that. We use e-book Betty, which is only $12.50 cents and we got 155 downloads from that. So that was about 8 cents a download, e-reader news today, we just spoke about with 7 cents a download, FreeBooksy, still does well. And that your book, your book that you’re advertising does have to be free on Freebooksy. That was $110. We got 2,700 downloads. So that’s 4 cents a download. Fussy Librarian that was $41, and that was 453 downloads for a cost of 9 cents a download and Robin Reads is the most expensive at 10 cents a download and it’s a $75 ad with 777 downloads in terms of my last book. But I think this was a just standard romance. So with the cost of BookBob being $657, I know ouch. That was a total outlay of money of almost a thousand dollars and we made it up and then some. The reason that we do this is to get eyeballs on our work, hopefully that reader for our mailing list and in what we really, really want is for them to go on and read the other books in our series. 



[00:11:46] So what Whiz Buzz looks like, they’re doing something similar to the ones I was just talking about. But I kind of want to say one thing and then it is hard. It is hard. If you are struggling to figure out your marketing, it is hard and it is hard with short stories. So I don’t know if you’re writing something long, if you want to, or if you want to write a series or if these, I’m assuming that you have a first in series free and you’re pushing a free first short story and it’s going to a series, if not, you may want to consider that first in series free, still does work. I believe all of my series that are self-published have a first book in the series as free. So that is still, it’s not a big organic marketing thing, but people do find the free book. So you may want to try that and give Whiz Buzz Books a try if you feel like it. It looks like their site looks legit. It’s just arguable, but about like how much effect anything has really. So keep an eye on the numbers. Write down what the, what, how your book sales changed, how many downloads you got that day, as opposed to other days, all of those things are really, really worthwhile tracking, which is why Ed is so amazing. Cause I’m so terrible at tracking that. And he sends me these incredible spreadsheets and all the information is on there. And right before I got on to this podcast, I sent him an email that said help send me what we do. And he sent it to me. 



[00:13:14] So, that is what I recommend, is just trying some things when I am experimenting with ads, I like to do them by themselves without trying anything else. So I won’t try an ad or, you know, a social media push by a company, if there’s anything else going around, going on around it. So we can test it cleanly that first time. So I hope that helps a little bit, but yes, please just know it is hard. So good resources for self-publishing authors who are trying to figure out marketing and KDP, I really have to say it is. M-effin expensive, but Mark Dawson’s course ads for authors is probably still the gold standard. I have taken it. I recommend him. I have also heard great things about Nick Erik, Nicholaserik.com  E R I K, I guess he does a great ad’s course too. I was just actually went in looked to see if I could take it and it is closed right now, but I put myself on the mailing list because, I do believe that nowadays selling books is many times pay to play and I’m saying many times, but really in my heart, I’m saying all the time, because there’s so much competition out there.



[00:14:32] And so we do have to spend money on ads in order to make money by selling books. And you can start out at a very low, very cheap rate. But yeah, it used to be, you could be found for free. And now that opportunity is a little bit less, but it’s out there and it’s doable and God knows, I have done it without Ed and have made money so I can do it. Anybody can, it just takes some thought and there are some books out there. Let’s see. I think Nick Erik has a book. I know he does because I bought it. I just haven’t read it yet on ads, and I would go to, you know, Amazon and look to see what the most popular best reviewed book on Amazon ads is. And then the best reviewed book on Facebook ads, if you don’t want to shell out for Mark Dawson’s course, which I think is more than $700. So there’s that. Okay. Yeah. So those are the resources I would use, also make sure that you’re listening to shows that talk about this a lot. Joanna Penn of course, I think is the gold standard for that. She’s always bringing on guests who are talking about this kind of thing. Six-figure author, that’s a podcast that talks a lot about this stuff too. So those are some good free resources that you should be listening to the career author podcast. If I think of others, I will pop them out to you. 



[00:15:55] Okay. So speaking of things, whether I recommend them or not, Tom Langer is a new patron. Hi Tom. Thanks so much for joining. And Tom says, have you ever discussed, Scribe on a podcast or do you have thoughts on it? A friend is recommending their services. Oh my gosh, Tom. Do I have thoughts on Scribe? Yes, I do. Yes. Yes, I do. It is a, it’s not a vanity publishing service. It is what I would consider to be a hybrid service in that you pay them a lot of money and they do all the steps for you that you would need to do if you’re self-publishing. There is some merit to those kinds of businesses.



[00:16:43] Most of them are teetering on the edge of vanity publishing, which just means that they take your money and you get nothing from them except you have to buy some copies of your own books, and that’s it to you, see you later. Goodbye. There is one called She Writes Press that I’ve heard very good things about, and that’s honestly, the only one that I’ve heard, very good things about. So people, when I hear these kinds of questions and I get them a lot, what I always do is go to Google and I put in like in quotes, “Scribe Publishing” close quote, predatory. Used the word predatory and just everything will pop up on these kinds of presses. I do believe that Scribe is predatory. It is owned by Tucker Max, who is just not somebody that I admire, he began his career, his illustrious career by publishing the definitive book of pickup lines. He kind of started, the literary genre frat tire. It’s, it’s, you know, that’s kind of fun. You can sell a lot of books. But he’s also just kind of a big jerk. Let’s see, I’m trying to scroll through his Wiki, even as Wiki doesn’t look at it, and it’s his own Wiki he is kind of the charmer that I don’t love. He offered to give planned Parenthood $500,000 if they named an abortion clinic after him. So of course they declined. He is kind of the, the guy who started the whole, how to pick up women book thing. And he has had multiple New York Times Bestsellers. 



[00:18:37] Anyway, don’t love the guy, don’t know him, perhaps he’s wonderful and decent and kind and gentle. I doubt it, but he started Scribes. So what he gets from running Scribes is a hell of a lot of money, let me click over to their costs. So, in order to publish with them, it starts at 10 grand and that is them doing the bare minimum of stuff. So, let’s just break it down. I went the most expensive way that I could do this self-publishing and I wrote down the cost. So a cover generally I’ll pay a hundred, $150 for cover, but even if you budgeted $500 for an awesome cover, okay, that’s $500. The edit that you will have to pay for, as a self-published author- I usually splash out about 2 grand for that, but say you did 3 grand, you get an excellent developmental edits, fantastic. You do your revisions. Then you hire a copy editor for 800 bucks say, and then you hire a formatter, to do all your formatting for you. Let’s say $150, even with these big numbers, bigger than I usually pay. We’re looking at $4,450. And so they’re making that other, by- can’t do the math, $5,550. I think that that is an egregious amount to charge somebody. And not only that, but they are obviously in the market of pushing you into higher ad spend. They do a really good job on their site about trying to talk you into the 16,000 guided author thing, which, you know, people pay for. The guided author gets you an audience with Tucker Max along with a bunch of other people, he’ll tell you how to write a book. And then there’s a Facebook group that supports you and they help you write your book in six months and then they help you put it up and get the book. And they, they don’t do the editing in that case. If you want the editing, oh no, maybe they do, do editing on that one. I take it back. But if you don’t want to write it for $36,000, that would, that’s the Scribe professional package. You just tell them what you want the book to be about, and then they’ll write it. They say we handle all the typing and the writing for you, but the words and ideas and voice are still entirely yours and you can have that for about an hour and a half on the phone per week. 



[00:21:05] Oh my gosh. There’s a hundred k option. Wow. There’s a – there’s one you can get for a hundred thousand there. I do not recommend Scribe. That’s, what I’m going to say about this. So let me tell you a few other things when you are looking at pack- kind of this, kind of like a packaging company. They’re going to take your book and do things to it and put it up online which you could do for free after paying for those services that I’ve already quoted to you, you could just upload it for free. You don’t need to pay $5,000 for somebody to do this for you. But if you do, there are people who do really like to keep their hands off, and don’t want to do this and they have the money to spend, in which case absolutely use a good service of one of these. I know that She Writes is good. I don’t know about anybody else. And I know you’re not a she, so I don’t know if that would stop it, but this is what I do. I put the publisher name into the Amazon advanced search and look at their books. I look at their covers and I look at how many reviews they have and how good those reviews are. I also look at the frequency with which they are publishing.



[00:22:15] So for a Scribe, their imprint is called Hounds Tooth Press. And if you do this with Hounds Tooth Press on the advanced search they’ve only been doing this since February, apparently of 2020. I will say their covers look great and they do have good reviews. So they may have some method of distribution of pushing out the word to people that these books exist, but they are brand new at doing this. So I would just encourage you to do the same thing with whatever company you are thinking about using, put in their press name and go look at it over on Amazon. The best thing to do, and you can’t do it in this case, cause they’ve only been doing this since February, as far as I could tell. The best case to do this, if you are looking at a different packaging company, go to an author, who’s about a year out. Who’s had their book for out for about a year, and email them through their website and say, would you recommend the company that you used? Do you feel like you got your money’s worth? Did they do distribution? Did they do promotion? What would you have changed about that experience? That’s the best way to find out, but I’ll tell you what, Scribewriting.com, it was just a joy to look at because it’s just so awful and is trying to hurt some people and that makes me angry. Don’t want these kinds of predatory people to hurt you.



[00:23:39] So, Tom, I love that you asked this question, and there are such better options out there. There are so many, including just hiring people and doing it yourself, which is what I do. I hire the people I need, and then it takes me, oh an hour to upload at all the different platforms, or I have my assistant Ed do it and that’s all it takes. It’s fantastic. And then you were in charge of everything and you are making every decision rather than letting some company who does not care very much about you make those decisions. That’s my advice. Okay. Thank you Tom, for the question. 



[00:24:15] And we are at the last question. Okay, this is from May, and May, she already knows this, but somehow I lost this question for a long time and just found it in Patreon unread. So I apologize to you May. Let’s see, she says I’m having problem focusing. I will start writing and go for maybe 10 to 15 minutes if I’m lucky and then I get distracted. Not always by outside things like my phone, sometimes my mind just wanders. Lately it’s been getting worse since I’ve been stuck inside since February. She’s in Korea and the viruses hit there hard. How do you develop the discipline to stay focused on what you are writing and not suffer from ADOS? Which is attention deficit oh, shiny! I love that. I’ve never heard that. Are there any mental exercises I can do to help? I already use freedom on my phone and computer, but I can’t block daydreams.



[00:25:03] Yes. May, I love this question. This is me, this is my problem. And the truth is, is that environment dictates what we do so much. Which is why so many authors, environment will always win against willpower. It’s just fact environment wins. You can only use your willpower so long and then your willpower goes, but I want to daydream, but I want to sit here and you know, this is where I’m comfortable and I can think about other things. So that is why writers for years, hundreds of years have gone outside their house to write. Once you go to the cafe, if you don’t have the password to the wifi, you’re going to write cause you get bored. That experience, that ability has been taken away from us during COVID-19. We can’t leave the house. We have to stay in the house. So all of us are really struggling with this, May. And I love that you asked it. For me, the biggest difference that has ever occurred in my writing is when I started a regular meditation practice because on a really secular level, meditation is just your brain doing pushups in order to stay focused. Meditation is not clearing your mind.



[00:26:18] It has nothing to do with clearing your mind. Meditation is just about focusing your mind. And that is what we do when we write, when you meditate, you focus on something, you could focus on a candle’s glow. You can focus on your breath is a really common one to do. And then you get distracted because that’s part of meditation. Sometimes it only takes a third of a second to get distracted from thinking about your breath. And when you eventually realize that you’re thinking about something else, you gently bring yourself back to the focus back to your breath. If that’s what you’re using, I use my breath cause it’s always there. And that right there is one rep, it’s one pushup for your brain. When I started doing this for my writing specifically for my writing, I felt the difference in a week, but I was able to stay on the page for longer, without getting distracted. And the benefit just goes up. And I know I’m proselytizing. I know I am preaching to the choir. I know a lot of you already do this. Writers just meditate because so many of us have discovered that it is the secret weapon, when it comes to staying at the desk, but girl, I also got to tell you, I have ADHD. You will not be surprised to know this from just knowing me and hearing me on a podcast. You will know that I am definitely shiny squirrel everywhere. I have been since I was little diagnosed when I was like six re-diagnosed as an adult and I have Adderall, I do not take it often. In fact, I usually don’t take it unless I’m on deadline. And you know, this is the way I always talk. I did take Adderall this morning, but it’s been like eight hours and that does honestly, helped me, slow down and focus. Apparently, people who don’t have ADHD when they take Adderall speed up. But those of us, I’m the age of ADHD. I am the hyper age. I don’t have the attendant- the attention deficit part. I have a hyper, so taking it slows me down and stops my brain from frizzing out and seeing all the shiny things around me and being distracted by the hair that’s on my arm that fell out of my head that is itchy. And oh my gosh, pull my hair back. I’m a little bit hot, normal, little bit cold. Put on my slippers. Take off my socks. 



[00:28:33] That is really what happens to me when I’m writing at home and when I’m actively meditating. And when I take Adderall, when I really, really need it, I try not to use it very much. It is prescribed by my doctor and my sponsor knows about it. But the fact remains that I am an addict, so I am very careful about it, which is why I don’t use it very much, but it can be very, very helpful. So if you do actually have ADD also, then maybe think about that May, as you think about treatment as an option. But far better than any drug I ever tried is meditation for keeping my brain on the page and in the place I want it to be, of course we will get distracted, but the distractions get fewer and you get to stay on the page longer.



[00:29:20] So this was a fun episode. Thank you very much for listening to me. I have been revising for like, 7 hours already today. So I know that are a little bit jumbled and that’s what happens. But so glad to talk to you all, and I wish you very, very happy writing. Please come over to HowDoYouWrite.net and leave me a comment or reach out to me anywhere where I am on the internet. And if you’d like your questions answered, you can go to patreon.com/rachael and just join it at the $5 level. Plus, you’ll get all of the back essays. There’s like 40 of them. Okay. That’s enough shelling. I hope you’re having a great week. I hope you do not have COVID and I hope you’re healthy and happy and be gentle with yourself. Give yourself permission to have what you need right now. And hopefully some of what you need is some writing. Bye now. 

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.

The post Ep. 191: How Do You Keep From Getting Distracted While Writing? appeared first on R. H. HERRON.