Rachael Herron's Blog, page 16

Ep. 157: Daniel Willcocks on Writing Fast and Getting into Flow

Daniel Willcocks is an international bestselling author and podcaster of dark fiction. He is one quarter of digital story studio, Hawk & Cleaver, co-producer of iTunes-busting ‘The Other Stories’ podcast, as well as the host of the ‘Great Writers Share’ podcast.

Residing in the UK, Dan’s work explores the catastrophic and the strange. His stories span the genres of horror, post-apocalyptia, and sci-fi, and his work has seen him collaborating with some of the biggest names in the independent publishing community.

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. 

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 number 157 of “How do you, Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. So pleased that you’re here with me today as I talk to Daniel Willcocks, who is a part of Hawk & Cleaver. He runs the ‘Great Writers Share’ podcast, which I was on, and he’s just one of those people that I fell into delight over when we first met online. So I am so pleased to have him talk here at you will find that he is just a charmer and he knows what he’s doing and he’s going to talk about writing fast, which all of us want to do. 

I tell you what, little bit of update around here. I have been hitting my word count every day except for today. Honestly, I ran out of battery power when I was over at the uh, the college where I write, and I didn’t have my charger with me for reasons and I came home and wouldn’t you know, as soon as I came home, there have been 1 million things for me to do. If I’d had my charger, I would have stayed there and gotten my last thousand words, but it’s okay. I, hmm, might give myself today, I’ll make myself a little gimme, uh, get back into it tomorrow or I might catch those words in the afternoon, which I hate to do, but I have been really proud of myself for keeping up with my goals because I can be a slacker, not a big slacker, but a slacker enough that it makes me feel bad. And, uh, I’ve been having so much fun with this book, although I was lamenting to a friend that I believe I’m a third of the way through it now, and the inciting incident just happened. So I’ve got some timing issues, some things, some major things that are going to need to happen in the revision when I get there, but I just write myself a little posted about what I think is going to have to happen later and I go on, as if it’s always happened. I needed to get them out of the house, uh, this morning. So, I gave her a cat that slips out and she asked to go get it ‘cause she has to go find something outside and I write, she has a cat named Freddy. He’s big and orange. This sounds so familiar to me, I may have had a big orange Freddy cat in a book before. Maybe I need a big orange cat named Freddy, I don’t know. Um, but that’s my post it. And then when I go back and revisions, that’s a one of my many revisions post-its and Freddy, I will weave him in from the beginning. See, um, that’s how I kind of do it and I kind of don’t worry about it. 

And I’ve just been having a very nice time letting it all fall on the page sloppily. Badly. I know that I’m writing a terrible first draft, and that makes me feel so much better to know that what else has been going on? Oh, classes wrapped up. Um, my memoir class finished and uh, that was really nice, it was an in person class at Stanford, and I have to say, might’ve been my best class ever, in terms of the most delightful people, usually, to be honest, I get the most delightful people plus one challenge, and even my challenges are pretty darn small and I had no challenges in this class. They were just a lovely and good writers and compassionate and supportive and eager and no one dropped out. That’s one of the things I love about this memoir costs. A one person had to stop coming because she was moving, but everybody else just kept coming. And also my 90 days to done wrapped up, so today is Thursday, December 12th that was the first day, and nine, nine months that I haven’t met with a group of people at noon. I did 90 days to done, followed quickly by 90 days to revision and then followed by another 90 days down and I’m taking a few weeks off as I try to recalibrate and see where it’s going to fit into my life in the beginning of the year, because January is very, very busy. I am going to be in Pittsburgh for a, um, teaching at Seton Hill in their MFA program. Which I’m really looking forward to and there is going to be a live in person thing with me and Sophie Littlefield and Juliet Blackwell. So if you’re interested in that, hit me up. If you’re in that area and want to come say hello. Also, I’m going to, that’s the first week of January and the first week of February, February 1 through 3, I’m going to be at a story shop summit in Austin. I’m very much looking forward to seeing Austin. It is a city that Lala and I have been thinking about. Maybe it’s a good place to live. Who knows? I, um, am looking forward to looking around while I’m there. So if you have any Austin recommendations, let me know. And yeah, almost is going well. 

Let’s jump into the interview now or after I thank new patreon, Anita Ramirez, thank you very much, Anita. You should have gotten your personalized little video thank you in your email. I like to do that when I can, but also a big thank you to you and to everyone who supports on the show. You can always check that out at www.patreon.com/rachael and I hope that where you are, you are getting some happy writing done and if you let yourself slack off a day or a few days that you don’t beat yourself up as I am often want to do that you just let that go and start again tomorrow. Remembering that tomorrow morning, you might not feel like writing either, but do it anyway. I’ll be doing it. I’ll be writing with you even though I don’t want to. 

Yesterday was a really rough day for me to get to the page and I made myself drive out to the coast and write before I got to eat this crab sandwich, it’s crab melt that I love to get outdoors in Pescadero. Uh, so that was my reward. Maybe you should be thinking a lot about rewards for you. It’s harder this time of year. It’s hard mentally at this time of year, I have a lot of family and friends who are struggling with some mental health stuff right now. So if that is you, please be gentle with yourself. You are doing writing work right now and you listen to other writers, that counts as part of your job as does reading. Nothing counts more than writing, of course, but reading and listening and learning, that all counts toward your writing goals, and your writing dreams. So, um, I hope you enjoyed this interview and I wish you happy writing and we’ll talk soon. 

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, nice 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’d 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 it, the $3 level, you’ll get motivating texts from 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 www.patreon.com/rachael R, a, c, h, a, e, l to get these perks and more. And thank you so much. 

Rachael Herron: [00:07:40] Well, I could not be more pleased today to welcome to the show, Daniel Willcocks. Hello Daniel!

Daniel Willcocks: [00:07:45] Hello Rachel, how are you? 

Rachael Herron: [00:07:46] I’m so glad to see you again. 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:07:48] I know; it’s been a whole like two or three weeks. 

Rachael Herron: [00:07:51] Terrible. It’s so long. I was on your wonderful, Great Writers Share podcast, which was so fun. Thank you again for having me, and it was one of those reciprocal things as soon as we hung up, I said, you have to be on my show. So now you’re here. Let me give you a bit of a bio before we start. 

Daniel Willcocks is an international bestselling author and podcaster of dark fiction. He is one quarter of digital story studio, Hawk & Cleaver, which is a name I always admire, co-producer of iTunes-busting ‘The Other Stories’ podcast, as well as the host of the ‘Great Writers Share’ podcast. Residing in the UK, Dan’s work explores the catastrophic and the strange. His stories span the genres of horror, post-apocalyptica, post-apocalyptia? Is that what you say?

Daniel Willcocks: [00:08:36] Post-apocalyptia 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:38] Oh, thank you. And sci-fi, and his work has seen him collaborating with some of the biggest names in the independent publishing community. And you and I met through J thorn, who is, 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:08:48] we did 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:48] one of those biggest names in the independent publishing community. Jay really gets 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:08:52] Jay is a goddess of his own source. The best part is, he doesn’t even realize it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:57] He does – he doesn’t, but he

Daniel Willcocks: [00:08:58] So humble

Rachael Herron: [00:08:59] When you do tell him that he just rolls his eyes and yeah, it’s great. But I also, um, so it was, I was saying on your show how I connected with him immediately, and I connected with you immediately and I really want to hear about your process and how you, because you do all of this stuff and you’re writing the most important part. Um, and you’ve got a kid or two, right? 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:09:26] Yeah, I’ve got a, a four soon to be five-year-old as well.

Rachael Herron: [00:09:29] Oh my goodness. So tell us about that. You, this is your full time gig now, right? 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:09:33] Yeah. So I went full time in April this year, so just over the 6-month mark. But um, 

Rachael Herron: [00:09:39] Yeah, that’s right. And you’re right in the terror point, right? 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:09:43] Yeah. Yeah. I’m kind of in that middle of, you know, enjoying what I’m doing. It’s, it’s, it’s getting me by. It’s, it’s everything that I kind of want it to be. Um, and as you always wants to do when you’re taking your career sort of solo is I want to start looking at hitting that next level. So it’s now taking those steps and trying to try to make that happen, I think I’m sitting in that part of learning what my process is, learning what my day looks like, learning how to say, capable the ins and outs of what it means to be freelance, and, to do this all the time. But yeah, I’m slowly getting there. Six, six months is a good milestone marker. So I’m just gonna keep pushing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:17] I am at four years and I still am trying to figure those things out. So,

Daniel Willcocks: [00:10:20] Yeah, that seems to be the common consensus. It never seems to get any, any easier, really, 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:25] Which is kind of what I love and why I do this show, because our processes are always, always changing and adapting and there is no one right way, although we all should think that our way is the right way, the one right way. And I want to hear about your one right way. So tell us about your writing process, when and where and how much and how often. 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:10:43] Um, so my day tends to be built up that I will typically on a good day. Okay, I’ll put sort of half five and my first thing I’ll do is I’ll go out and have sort of a 10-15 minute run just to get my body going and get outside, get a bit of fresh air, wake up the body. Um, I’ll come home, I’ll sort of make myself a coffee while the kettle’s boiling. I’ll have a 5-10-minute meditation just to try and get my mind into the right state of calm, knowing what it is I’m going to do. Um, one thing that I haven’t done for the last few months, which I’m bringing back in, uh, over the next few weeks because it works very well at the time, is, um, I’m not a journaler as such, but I did buy a sort of note pads that I started writing on my to do list in the morning. Comparing it to what I wanted to do the previous day and sort of transferring over a bit, It’s very bullet, journal and style. Um, and I think five minutes of sitting down and what I do is I’ll write three things I’m thankful for and then write my sort of to do list of things that I just want to get done that day. And then out of that list of everything, ‘cause I will, I’ll, I’ll literally put everything on there that I can think of, but then I’ll sort of pick three things where I’m like, all right, this is your priority, anything else is just notice. Um. And then I’ll, from about six just gone six, I’ll write until 7 o’clock when my son gets up, I’ll sort him out, take him to school, do all that kind of dad stuff, and then I’ll generally get writing again about half 9, 10 o’clock and aim to finish at about midday one o’clock depending on how much I’m trying to get done that day and, and what I’m doing. Um, but I mean, like I said, that’s kind of a typical day that I try and aim for. But then the afternoons on me filled with being on my laptop, doing podcast stuff, uh, doing the marketing, the evenings usually spent with that, some sort of super big stuff I’m trying to plan for next year. Um, and I think I’m absolutely obsessed at the minute with the work I’m doing and I’m loving all the stuff I’m doing and I’m finding I’ll try and find that balance between home life and work. Um. But at the same time, I know that I will need to start taking a bit more of a break soon, and I do tend to hit it quite heavy when it comes into the stuff that I am doing. Um, so yeah, it’s finding that balance, but typically, yeah, that’ll be my sort of, when I’ll get my writing done, will be those, those hours in the day.

Rachael Herron: [00:12:44] Your schedule is; I think maybe the first time I’ve ever heard. Basically, my exact schedule, exactly down to, and including the bullet journal and the grand

Daniel Willcocks: [00:12:56] We have the right ones

Rachael Herron: [00:12:57] Exactly. We are the right ones, exactly! Um, and the gratitude, I think is something that nobody else has ever brought up, but, but, in our brains cognitively, doing these gratitude lists actually helps us be happier. Literally, it raises the happiness level. They prove it. Yes, so,

Daniel Willcocks: [00:13:14] I am – I put a diary in, I wanna say March. It was called the 6-minute journal, which you could buy on Amazon for about 20 pounds. Yeah. That was the, the principles of that is three minutes in the morning, three minutes in the, in the evening. And a big part of that was the gratitude and I, you can look back and scan ‘cause it makes you basically score different parts of your, your mental wellbeing against like family, finance, um, health, friendship, all that kind of stuff.

Rachael Herron: [00:13:37] Oh, that’s great

Daniel Willcocks: [00:13:38] Yeah. On a scale of 1 to 10, and so look at like the first few pages then sort of about four or five months after and see those numbers go up.

Rachael Herron: [00:13:46] Because it is, yeah. It’s so hard to do that. Um, just in our brains, there’s also another one called the productivity planner, uh, which, which you may have seen and what I took from that one is exactly what you do, where you list everything out, but then you pick the top. You know, one, two or three things that if you did them, your day will be complete, that you can, and then everything else is bonus. And it sounds like you’re doing that too. Yeah. Yeah, that’s, I heartily approve! 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:14:11] Yeah. I’ve been high school studying this stuff for probably about, you know, I’d say about two, two and a half years or so, particularly. Um, going back to my old job before I got into the writing was I took a big step very quickly from sort of assistant to coordinator to a manager role. And in trying to handle that, I spent a lot of time trying to refine this process and find the things that would help me get through that. And I’ve kind of carried a lot of that into my writing, so, 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:34] Well then if finding the exact perfect one. So they will say that everyone gotta get up at five. Uh, but that’s just nuts. That’s just, that’s terrible. All right. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing? 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:14:44] Oh, myself 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:48] Quite simpe,

Daniel Willcocks: [00:14:49] So, yeah. My, I guess my biggest challenge is the expectations of what I think I can get done in a day versus physically what I can get done in a day. And I’m someone that I, I pride myself on quality of work, but at the same time, um, the, the way I’m working in the projects I’m working on at the minute are quite fast moving projects. So there’s a certain level of, okay, this is good enough to be shipped and, and go out, and it’s a lot about getting out of my own way and try not to get bogged down because. I’m trying to understand which part of my author journey I’m on. I’m trying to look at what my end goal is and where I want to get to. Um, and I just know that some of the stuff I’m doing at the minute, it’s just the work that needs to be done to get to where I am. And, you know, things like this, they don’t just happen overnight. Even, even in becoming full time. I had a month period where in, I think it was probably about month four. So, um, my head started going, okay, you’ve made it. Which meant that then I slowed down and everything and then things started to catch up and I was like, no, no. You’ve only just started this journey. Really. You’ve only just gone full time, because that was the hard thing was to go from, I really want to be a full time author to I’m now a full time author that feels like you’ve hit the big time and you’ve made the jackpot. Obviously it’s a, it’s a monumental, um thing, in his own right. But then you suddenly realize, okay, you now, have to find a way to keep this and make it sustainable, and then that’s the next part of the journey. So, um, yeah, I think the biggest challenge really is one, overcoming those obstacles and getting your head into a way in which you’re looking at what your end goal is and trying to find the right steps to reach there, that are going to work for you. Yeah, it’s normally getting out of my own way and try not to destroy myself or get this hard because I’ll have days where I do, I did do quite bit of word counts. I like days when I rise with 5,000, 6,000 words, and it won’t be the amount of words that I want to get. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:36] That’s not – do you want more? 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:16:38] Yes. Yes, I do. Yeah. I’ll take them. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:43] What’s an ideal day a word count for you on a day? 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:16:46] I think I want to; I want to average about 7 or 8. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:50] Holy cow. I am not that smart. Like once I hit about 3000 words, I’m out of ideas. I could keep going, but I don’t have any more for the rest of the day and my brain refuse it. It just shuts the gate. No more ideas for you today. You must rest.

Daniel Willcocks: [00:17:02] Yeah, I know, um

Rachael Herron: [00:17:04] Are you on dictation or is this all typing?

Daniel Willcocks: [00:17:07] This all typing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:08] Jay told me yesterday that he hits 1700 words in 22 minutes and I wanted to punch him in the face. That’s so fast.

Daniel Willcocks: [00:17:17] Yeah. I, uh, I think the best that I’ve done, particularly last six months or so was, and I still don’t know how I did it, but I was in a Starbucks, Um, it was the first time I used an accountability partner. I think I was tired. I tend to write well when I’m tired. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:28] I do too.

Daniel Willcocks: [00:17:29] Yeah. Because he’s just not thinking. And within the hour I looked up and I’d written 3000 words somehow, and I was like, 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:35] Wow, that’s my goal. That’s my dream. 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:17:37] Imagine if you could do that regularly, you could do that one hour, boom checkout.

Rachael Herron: [00:17:41] You have now proven like breaking the 4-minute mile, you’ve now proven it can be done. So, you can work towards that, exactly.

Daniel Willcocks: [00:17:50] Yes

Rachael Herron: [00:17:51] Keep me posted on that. What is your biggest joy when it comes to writing? 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:17:55] Um, I think, I think it’s two things. I think, uh, number one is I love the, the flow state of writing and just being in the story and just, I mean your name, because obviously you, you, you want to fit this as well. There’s no real, real way to explain it. It’s just that that blesses just writing and just knowing that the words are pouring out and feeling like it’s good, even though it might not necessarily be even an insight. But that moment where you just sort of spend 20 minutes, half hour away ever is, it’s all gone, right? You feel fantastic. You can just, you know, hit whatever close your laptop and just, and just call it a day.

Rachael Herron: [00:18:28] Oh, it’s so good

Daniel Willcocks: [00:18:35] And it’s so rare that it makes you, seek even more because I love it, but I’m trying to remember the last time I actually had it and I think it was probably a few weeks ago. Um, but then the other thing is actually hearing from, from the readers and sort of real people reaching out to you and, um, I mean, we’ve got one person, I won’t name her, but she’s an avid fan of everything Hawk & Cleaver does. And, uh, the minute you bring something out, she’s, she’s shouting about it. She’s messaging. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:57] I love those people

Daniel Willcocks: [00:18:58] Yeah. And she, she’s a person that’s sort of gone through a lot of, um, uh, health issues over the past however many years. She’s really, really struggling and she’s one of these people that just, the, the stuff that we do is bring in her relief. And I think there’s something just so rewarding about that. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:13] That’s amazing

Daniel Willcocks: [00:19:14] And to find those people as well because not everyone wants to reach out 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:17] and to find those people, to, to have those people find you and for you to appreciate them, I think is really, really special and important. And, um, to make those people be heard and feel heard is also a gift that you’re giving. So that’s beautiful. Yeah. I love that. Can you share a craft tip of any sort with us? 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:19:37] Uh. I kind of already have, so write fast. It’s my craft. It, yeah. and I’m sure, um, I know Jay speaks about this sometimes, and I’m sure you’ve had it before, but my, my whole system at the minute is particularly with first drafting just right there. Can I swear on here? 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:57] Oh yes. Go right ahead. 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:19:58] Yes, write the fucker as fast as you can, because there’s, there’s so much that you can do when you have that first draft done and you know what your story is, and you know the parts you need to fix, you know what, you need to add everything else. And I think it’s very easy to get bogged down in a, I’ve forgotten what this name is, so I’m going to Google it. Oh, that’s Google. Okay. That’s 20 minutes distracted looking at other things. Okay. Back. Okay. So that, um, and there’s nothing really more valuable, um, in my opinion and actually getting that first draft done and then knowing what the story is because it’s really difficult to know what your story is until you finish it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:32] Absolutely. 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:20:33] It will change from the start to the end. So that’s probably my biggest one is just write fast and move out of your own way. Just get it done. 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:39] What are your specific tips as to writing fast from me? Um, my biggest one is to cut off the distractions and uh, do sprints of any length cause, and I really like what you said about doing a sprint with an accountability partner opposite you at the table, because I am supremely competitive mostly against myself, but if somebody else is there, I want to, this is terrible to admit, but I want them to overhear the typing of my fingers and wonder if I’m faking, you know, doing fake typing. I want them so fast. I’m so busy. Um so, do you have any other tips like that, that you use to get the words out quickly?

Daniel Willcocks: [00:21:17] Yeah, so I mean, um, I’ve jumped through those different methods. Most of what has worked well for me has been time sessions. I did go through a period for a good few months actually, where I just, as long as I picked the same days, the same times every day, my body would start to get into that. But I think that’s because I built that habit. Um, my, my biggest ones that I found keeping productive in the morning, um, when I’m first on my computer, what I would do is open up my calendar app and actually blocking the times that I’ll be writing and how many words I’m going to get done. And I don’t say how much I want to,

Rachael Herron: [00:21:49] I love that

Daniel Willcocks: [00:21:50], I will say I’m going to. Um, so I mean, I’ve got like pages and pages on my calendar where it was sort of there’ll be a block though. Say 2000 words, 1/2 thousand words, 800 words, whatever time period, period. I’m trying to fill in, and

Rachael Herron: [00:22:02] That’s so simple, and, and it seems like it would work really well. 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:22:06] Yeah, because I don’t look at the calendar and I’ll be like, okay, I’ll know if I hit one thousand five hundred two thousand before that time is up, I reward myself with a little break until the next block happens, or I can try and push a bit further and then build that tally up at the end. Um, but also means that I’ve got a visual of how long it will take me to write 1000, 2000, 3000 words in, in those colors. So that’s one of the big ones. And then, yeah, I’ve jumped back now into 15 minute timers and I’ve just bought a new Fitbit watch, which I can set a timer on so every while do is I’ll set 15 minutes and then just hammer out words, try not to think about ’em too much, and then just get them done until it buzzes. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:44] I love that. I’m so glad that I asked you to expand on that. I’m immediately stealing the Google calendar thing, that is brilliant.

Daniel Willcocks: [00:22:51] I don’t know how I came up with that but yeah, 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:54] I, I don’t know why I’ve never heard it. You’re the first to bring this to me and I, and I adore it, so thank you very much. This is why I do this show. Copyright. 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:23:00] Copyright. Dibs. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:04] Write a book on that, no one’s written that book yet. Um, what is the thing in your life that affects your writing in a surprising way? 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:23:12] I tend to fit surprising so much, but reading in that, so I tend to read quite widely. Um, I like, I like my horror a lot, but depending on the types of book I’m writing, I’ll try to find books similar to what I’m trying to achieve because I tend to be very, I found, um, from a very early age that I’m very good at mimicking, um. Which sounds awful. I’m not seeing people’s content, but like 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:40] That’s how we do it. That’s how we learn. 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:23:41] Yeah. Yeah. And if it came to drawing, I was always really good at sort of copying while he was on the creating my stuff. But with writing, I find that whatever book I’m reading that will just influence 100% while I’m writing that day. So I have to be careful about what I’m reading that leaks into it because I mean, I’m going to struggle to give examples now, but the last thing I want is for a book to not sound like it’s all come from one unified voice and say I’m writing something in the post-apocalyptic zone, and then I’m reading something really, really horror, a lace. Then it’s a case of, I don’t want too much horror to go into post-apocalyptic. So I then have to specifically find a post-apocalyptic book to bring out, to read, to, to do that. And when I started writing, um, back in 2015, I would deliberately sit and read for five minutes before every writing session, like book next to me. Read it. Okay. Just to get my head into this or paragraph structures, the sentence structures, how will the tone of voices just to get me started? And that was kind of how I built up craft and started looking at voice as well. So reading, um, which seems like the most obvious thing when you’re a writer anyway. But yeah, massive, massive impact depending on what I’m reading to what I’m writing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:48] That is also a bonus craft tip people. So that’s awesome. Um, speaking of reading, what is the best book you’ve read recently and why did you love it?

Daniel Willcocks: [00:24:57] Wolf Land by Jonathan Jan’s. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:00] What genre is it? It sounds like horror.

Daniel Willcocks: [00:25:02] Yeah. All right. Yes. Um, I mean, number one, it was a beautiful hardback, which I wasn’t expecting it was a present with my brother. Um, but I asked for a paper – well, I thought I’d ask for paperback, but it came as a hardback, but it was beautiful and it had this sort of red and black color out the Wolf on it. And, um, I think the thing about the books that I love the most was just how, and this is, this can make the horror side of me. Cause I know that I sound really sweet and soft and everything. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:28] All these, all these sweet people, the sweetest people have the darkest writing. Yeah. 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:25:32] Yes. Um, and there were just, ah, the story itself was centered around a group of, um adults who had come back and they were basically doing a school reunion and a couple of days before the actual school year reunion, they’re out in the woods and they get attacked by the zombie or this werewolf something that’s somebody where we’ll figure who comes in attacks a few of them. I mean, it’s their story of how they deal with becoming werewolves while hiding it linked with everything else, but just the, the descriptions and the way that it was very poetical and how it actually described a lot of the actual horror stuff. I love it when, I love it when people stray away from cliche, you can come up with really original source. Um, sense inducing ways to, to make you feel the horror and that’s, that’s one of the things I do, but from horror is that people who can attack the fire centers really get me. And that’s what I love it’s that communication of words into feelings?

Rachael Herron: [00:26:19] Yes. 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:26:48] So I just sit there and she feels physically scared to actually like taste, smell certain things and this guy just captured that in some really, really beautiful sequences which I put marks and now I get back to, and just have a little look and like yeah, this is what I want to have on my own so it was that kind of stuff. I think it was just a fantastic story as well, I say. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:39] And so I love what a deliberate reader you are too, as well as getting lost in the story, but you’re very deliberate about the use, which you can take out of the enjoyment of your reading. So 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:26:48] Which takes out the enjoyment of reading 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:49] It absolutely does. It ruined you as a writer forever and ever. And as a, as a, not as a writer, as a reader, and as a watcher of TV and as a watcher of television shows and movies and yell all of that, it’s really annoying. Yeah. But we are running out of time. What would you like to tell us about right now? Tell us about your last book and where we can find you perhaps.

Daniel Willcocks: [00:27:10] So, yes. My, uh, my latest book is the Mark of the Damned and it came out on the 25th of October, and it is an occult horror about a guy who essentially just gets a tattoo appear on his arm a month after his father’s died. And they may or may not be a connection between the two. And it kind of goes a lot into the depths of the occult, which is, um I, it was a book that I absolutely love writing and, uh, it seems to be doing pretty well. So if you want it out, then do. Um, and yeah, I’ve also run The Great Writers Share podcast, which obviously yourself has featured on, um, in which I go into the, the tips of strategies and mindsets of some of the writers around today from all different walks of life. And, uh, the other stories podcast is the podcast idea of Hawk and Cleaver, which is a 20-minute horror sci-fi thriller fiction. Which comes out every Monday, absolutely free. And we’re approaching four years on that podcast now. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:02] Wow

Daniel Willcocks: [00:28:03] We got lots of content there for people to eat. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:15] And where can we find you yourself on online?

Daniel Willcocks: [00:28:17] Uh, find me on my website, www.danielwillcocks.com and that’s W, I, L, L, C, O, C, K, S, contrary to every certificate, a piece of paper, anyone signs with my name on in my life. Um, and you can find me on social @willcocksauthor. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:32] I actually got my social security card, um, twice mailed to me from the federal government, R A, C, H, E L and I have that extra AEL in mind and I just couldn’t get it right. And yeah, so I, I definitely feel you on that. Thank you so much for being on the show and it’s so lovely to know you. And let’s keep in touch. I want to keep watching you progress and talk to you in a few years when you’re like, I’ve been doing this for years and I, I still don’t know what I’m doing and it still feels good.

Daniel Willcocks: [00:29:01] So that seems to be the trajectory, so I’m looking forward to that. Yeah, absolutely. It’s a, it’s pretty good to know you as well. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:07] Thank you, Dan. All right. Have a wonderful day and happy writing. 

Daniel Willcocks: [00:29:08] Happy writing. Bye.

Rachael Herron: [00:29:10] Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, https://twitter.com/RachaelHerron or at my website, http://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 https://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 http://rachaelherron.com/write. Now, go to your desk and create your own process. Get to writing my friends.

The post Ep. 157: Daniel Willcocks on Writing Fast and Getting into Flow appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ep. 156: Jeremy Spillman on Taking Nashville Songwriting to a Novel

Kentucky born and bred, Jeremy Spillman moved to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue his dream of success as a songwriter at 24. It would be five years before he landed his first cut by a major label artist and signed a publishing deal. Since then, Jeremy has had songs recorded by Eric Church, Tim McGraw, Keith Urban, Reba McEntire, Luke Bryan and many more. Spillman lives with his wife and four sons south of Nashville, TN. He considers his role as a father the most important in his life. When he’s not writing novels and songs or recording music, Spillman is supporting his sons at football and basketball games and spending time with his family at home. Spillman’s debut novel, The DeVine Devils, was released September 24, 2019, with an accompanying soundtrack EP and full-cast audiobook. The music was written by Spillman with Nashville songwriters Randy Montana and Dean Dillon and recorded and produced by Spillman at his home studio. For more about his debut novel The DeVine Devils and the soundtrack, visit www.jeremyspillman.com.

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. 

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 156 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. I’m recording this on December 5th, 2019 and I am thrilled that you’re here today. I am talking to the fabulous, Jeremy Spellman, and I like to try to get a little bit of a cross section of people on this show, and he is a Nashville singer-songwriter who has translated those skills to writing a novel. And I just thought it was fantastic to talk to him. He was charming and sweet, and I could listen to that accent all day long, ya’ll. So I know that you will enjoy the interview with him. Hold tight for that. 

A couple of things, just update around – what’s going on around here, I’m writing continuous pace on the thriller. It now has a working title for my publisher. Hush Little Baby. Which, I like a lot. I really do. Uh, there’ve been a couple of books titled that, but nothing huge and you can’t copyright a title. So nothing huge, nothing recent. So, Hush Little Baby, it will be HLB as I like to call it. And yesterday, I was lying in bed thinking about how I wanted to get a draft done in like a month, and you know 4,000 words a day or so on the days that I write. And then I was lying in bed, unable to sleep last night, dreading my next 4,000 word-day. I just don’t like doing 4,000 words a day. 2,000 to 3,000 is really comfortable for me. So, you know what I did?

If you’re watching on the video, you can see me holding up my calendar. Uh, I just wanted to mention, this is something I do a lot and something I teach a lot, is the art of rejiggering. When something becomes onerous, we, we, we, we jigger, we rejigger it so that it is not onerous. So that is not something to dread.

Also, I learned in teaching that a British people say rejig. Isn’t that interesting? They rejig things. We, Americans rejigger is how we say it. So I liked learning that fact. I rejiggered and I’m going to get it done by the end of January, which means I only have to do 2200 words on my writing days. And I was really honest.

When I do this, basically what I do, is I print out a blank calendar. I do not look at Google calendar, which is what I use everything else for because that’s too confusing. I print out a blank calendar and I do it on paper. I could make X’s through every day I’m not going to write, I try not to write on the weekends.

I know that I don’t write on travel days, no matter how much I tell myself I will. I have a silent retreat in January. No books, no phones, no paper. So no writing. So I will not be writing. Then I’m traveling a lot of January, so I needed to take out those days and do the math. And then once I know how many days that are actually good writing time, or I’ll get my one to three hours of writing on those days, uh, you can write whole books in just 30 minutes a day, people.

I promise that’s how I did it for a long time before I went full time. Um. Then I get- then I’ve got a new math, and I’ve got new math to hit, and it is always okay to rejigger your goals. We do it a lot, and relaxing around that and accepting the fact that things change and you’re not doing anything wrong is huge.

Speaking of not doing anything wrong, just about, oh an hour ago or so, I finished this uh, course, this semester’s course of the 90 days to done class that I teach. This was the –  I do in 90 days to done class, where you write your book in 90 days with me, and then I do a 90 days to revision class where you revise it.

This was the first one, the writing the book and the people in it. Oh, my heart. My heart is so full; I can’t explain what it is like to be the one witnessing the community coming together. It was a writing community coming together to support each other, and I cried during the call. I cried afterward when one of the people who just finished her book today, her first book today, on the last day of class, uh, when she emailed me, I just feel incredibly verklempt and overcome and again, this is a plea to you to find community where you are. I cannot write my books by myself. I mean, I actually could, and I did write my first one by myself, but I was, it was so hard. It’s so much easier to do it with community and you’re already part of this one. So, um, if you have not joined my onward writers Slack channel, do that. It’s free. You just write your goals, people talk back and forth to each other. Uh, that link is always www.howdoyouwrite.net and or on any place else, you can find that or email me if you can’t find a link to that Slack channel. 

One thing that is brand new community that I did want to mention to you is, I don’t think I’ve said this on this show, but I’m doing this thing called, Tuesday Morning Write-ins with Rachael and we just started it this last Tuesday, and it was phenomenal. Basically what it is, you can join if you’d like. It’s $49 a month, and for that price, you show up on Tuesday mornings in the United States and we write together for two hours. What happens is we show up in the zoom room, simple app to use. Um, everybody can see each other and we wave at each other, and I talk a little.

Encouraging talk to you for a few minutes and then we share with each other what we are going to be working on. And then guess what? We write for about 45 minutes. We take a little coffee break, we go brush our teeth if we need to do what we need to, and then come back and we write for another 45 minutes or so together.

And I know it sounds weird, but you can always flip over to zoom and see people with their writing faces on it. And it’s really funny. I know my writing face is ridiculous and my mouth is always moving back and forth. Of course, if you want to turn the screen off while you’re writing, you can do that, but I really encourage leaving it on because nobody’s looking at you. They’re looking at their words, unless they’re glancing at you and then you don’t feel alone. You are writing together. You’re not looking at Facebook, we already closed all that. Your phone is not within reach. It is the early morning and you’re doing your work once a week on Tuesdays together. So if you are interested in that, go to http://rachaelheron.com/tuesday. 

http://rachaelheron.com/tuesday is so cool, and what was the other thing I wanted to tell you? Oh yes, it is hella early for West coast of the United States. I neglected to say this at the very beginning. We write from 5 to 7 and the reason we write, write from 5:00 to 7:00AM is because looking at all the United States time zones, then the East coast is doing from 8 to 10 and I know that really gets in the way of things like, child running around and working. So that’s about the latest that the East coast can go. So West coast, we’re looking at 5 to 7. What that means is we have started basically hashtag smug club, because once you do your writing on Tuesdays, you wonder around the rest of your day feeling completely smug because you have done this with community.

And boy, do you sleep well that night? If you live on the West coast and haven’t gotten up at like 4:55 to get to the screen at 5, you do not need to look good. Bedhead and pajamas are encouraged. Please wear clothing of some sort. Um, it’s really great for Europeans. However, it’s about 2:00 PM for them. I believe I’ve got one or two Europeans attending, New Zealand and Australia, you are unfortunately, I know that you’re three hours behind me tomorrow. So that would be 2:00 AM for you so I don’t think we’ll ever be seeing the Southern hemisphere in this particular iteration, but it is fun. So check that out if you would like to.

I’d like to thank a couple of new Patreon subscribers. Thank you so, so much Amy Tessakata. Hi, Amy. She upped her edit, her- she edited her pledge to the $5 level at which I become mini coach for those many podcasts. Thank you, thank you, Amy. Clint White is new, as well as Johnston. Thank you again to all of you who support me on Patreon. It means I get to write the essays that I love and that I release nowhere else. The, none of these are out in the world yet they’re just on patreon and they are about living your creative life, so thank you very much for that.

So yes, I hope that your writing is getting done. You’re getting a little bit if you are not, if the holidays have you frazzled, sit down and rejigger it. Honestly, really pay attention to the voice that says, “Oh no, you are not going to write on the day that aunt Jane is coming into town” because she’s such a pain in the ass and you are going to be frazzled from the morning you open your eyes. And perhaps you’ll look at your calendar and write down those Tuesday mornings that you’ll be writing with us. Hell, I don’t even care, you don’t have to come to the zoom room. You could be writing at that time period, which is 5:00 AM Pacific standard time on your own, not in the zoom, but knowing that there are a bunch of amazing people doing the same thing at the same time. So think about that. Get some writing then, let me know how it goes. Thank you for listening and please, please enjoy Jeremy Spillman. 

[00:09:29] Hey, you’re a writer. Did you know that I send out a free weekly email of writing encouragement? Go sign up for it at http://rachaelherron.com/write and you’ll also get my stop stalling and write PDF with helpful tips you can use today to get some of your own writing done. Okay, now on to the interview.

Rachael Herron: [00:09:51] All right, well, I could not be more excited to welcome today to the show, Jeremy Spillman. Hi, Jeremy. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:09:56] Hello, how are you, Rachael?

Rachael Herron: [00:09:59] I’m good. I’m glad to talk to you and I’m looking really, I know that probably everybody says this, but I’m looking forward to your accent. Please lay it on thick. Let me give you a little bio here.

Kentucky born and bred, Jeremy’s Spillman moved to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue his dream of success as a songwriter at 24. It would be five years before he landed his first cut by a major label artist and signed a publishing deal. Since then, Jeremy has had songs recorded by Eric Church, Tim McGraw, Keith Urban, Reba McEntire, Luke Bryan, and many more. Spillman lives with his wife and four sons south of Nashville, TN. He considers his role as a father the most important in his life. When he’s not writing novels and songs or recording music, he’s supporting his sons at football and basketball games and spending time with his family at home. His debut novel, The DeVine Devils, was released just, this last September 24, 2019, with an accompanying soundtrack EP and full-cast audiobook. The music was written by Spillman with Nashville songwriters Randy Montana and Dean Dillon and recorded and produced by Spillman at his home studio. For more about his debut novel The DeVine Devils and the soundtrack, visit www.jeremyspillman.com.

Rachael Herron: [00:11:05] Welcome to the show! 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:11:07] Glad to be here.

Rachael Herron: [00:11:10] That sounds really, really cool. Especially the soundtrack. Did you approach the book writing with a soundtrack in mind or was that something that came after? 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:11:18] Um, yeah. This is a very, convoluted, it’s kind of way to tell the story. But I wanted to make a certain kind of music, so I wanted to do like cowboy rock. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:31] Yes

Jeremy Spillman: [00:11:32] And you’re allowed to laugh.

Rachael Herron: [00:11:33] No, I’m deep into cowboy country music. I’m, I’m an old school country music kind of girl. So yeah.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:11:39] Okay. Okay. So I want to do a record, like the Eagles’ Desperado record

Rachael Herron: [00:11:43] Yes

 Jeremy Spillman: [00:11:44] or like bad company’s, bad company. And so there’s just, not much marketability for that in today’s market, you know? So, uh, I thought, well, I’m going to write this story around this record and see if I could maybe scare up some, something there. And so, so I started, uh, trying to write a story so I could make the music, but then the story kind of overtook the music…

Rachael Herron: [00:12:11] That’s so cool

 Jeremy Spillman: [00:12:12] and I ended up, yeah, the music ended up kinda – kinda more of what the book was. It’s not like a 180 from where I started musically, but it definitely, the book became bigger than the music, so the music had to fit the book. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:26] That is not what I was expecting you to say. And that is really cool and that makes me know that I’m gonna download the album too, because that sounds what I love. I’m actually in a seventies band. We play yacht rock and some of that smooth 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:12:42] How awesome! 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:43] rock of that time, so…

Jeremy Spillman: [00:12:44] What are you playing?

Rachael Herron: [00:12:45] I’m just a singer. Oh, I just show up.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:12:48] It’s not just a singer, you’re like the- you’re the star

Rachael Herron: [00:12:52] I love doing it. But yeah, in my, in my family, this is the kind of music we were raised with. So, so you’ve been a Nashville songwriter, which is, to me, kind of super, super dreamy, like that’s living a dream. Um, what, how does the writing process differ? How does it feel different? I mean, obviously, you know, a song is three minutes and a novel is however much time of your life that it took, but how else did it differ? 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:13:22] It felt like, you know, um, it felt like I was using the same muscles creatively. Um, I definitely learned I couldn’t do both things on the same day, so it took five years to write the book, and that was with a couple of, I got a cabin in the mountains by myself and like, enough food for a week and a half and literally didn’t leave. And that’s how I finished it. But, uh, you know, for a songwriter, for somebody who’s tried to condense their stories into three, three and a half minute things, it was, it was pretty liberating to be able to try to, you know, expand and expound on whatever character I was talking about. And, and, uh, I think like creativity feeds creativity. So I think writing a novel in some ways made me a better songwriter. And I think, I don’t – I don’t mean this arrogantly, but I think maybe I had a little better grasp on of a book because I’m creative. I guess, I’m saying-

Rachael Herron: [00:14:23] Absolutely.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:03] I have a little bit of grasp on the creativity. I’m not that, uh, you know, obviously everybody wants to write the great American novel. Not that I did that, but I think I had a grasp on what I needed to do. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:36] That you are used to selling commercially something that you have born from creativity. So that you, you were already over that hurdle. You’re used to that, whereas a lot of people can’t quite blend their creativity yet with, with presenting it in the world. So you must’ve had that also on top of it. So to keep five years to, to write, um, did you know where the book was going when you were writing it, or were your kind of following it?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:03] No. What do they call that? Pancing?

Rachael Herron: [00:15:05] Pancing. A-huh.   

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:07] Uh, definitely pancing. Uh, you know, I, I had the concept, and knew broadly how I wanted it to end, but no, I did not know details. So they came as, as I was writing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:19] Did you sell it beforehand or did you write it on spec and then sell it?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:23] No, no, I self-publish. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:24] Oh, you self-publish? Well that’s even better!

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:26] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:15:27] How fascinating. I love that. I am a hybrid writer. I, traditionally and I self-publish, so no wonder you got to really make this the dream of your heart then. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:38] Well, I, you know… 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:40] Especially with the music around it, 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:41] I’ve been in a publishing deal for two decades, the song publishing deal.

Rachael Herron: [00:15:46] You understand publishing.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:41] Well, it is you know, it’s a different thing, but you know, you’re still selling your soul a little bit. Um, but, um, I’d never talked to a publisher; there’s a couple of, uh, published authors here in Nashville. I wrote a subpetty’s; is one that lives here, and, um, I got to talk to- kind of get there, evaluation of their workload as a published author. And then I’ve got to talk to a couple of self-published people who were doing well as self-published authors. And I thought, you know, I just want to own something. So, um, I never talked to a publisher, you know, who knows what would’ve happened. But, um, I’ve proudly self-published it. We’ll see what happens.

Rachael Herron: [00:16:35] Um, same way with myself published books. Um, the ones that I don’t even offer to my agent, uh, the covers’ gorgeous too. I just assumed you were a tad published because it’s a stunning cover and you hired a publicist who contacted me about talking to you. So that’s not the norm for indie writers.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:16:50] Well, we, I think because we live in Nashville. I have access to things like that. She’s a friend, she’s a professional publicist, but she’s a friend. And, uh, but the artist who did the cover was a lady from, uh, North Carolina, Robin Boschnik. She’s amazing like, and that was her concept. I literally,

Rachael Herron: [00:17:09] it’s really, it’s gorgeous. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:17:11] I told her, I said, I don’t want two silhouettes of cowboys on the front, like every western, like, she asked for scenes, you know, she wanted important scenes in the novel and she came up to that. Props to her.

Rachael Herron: [00:17:24] Oh, that’s awesome. I’ve written a couple of westerns and my heart belongs with the western genre, I think like I was my, I broke teeth chewing on Louis L’Amour books, you know, and I’ve read every single one, and I think I’ll always be, I’ll always love that. So what is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing? And this can be any kind of writing. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:17:47] Ah, well, I think it depends on what period I’m in. If I’m in a, you know, as a writer, uh, um, I’m not, uh, uh, even kill dude, I’m high or low, and so if I’m high, it’s, um kind of focusing myself on the task at hand. If I’m below, it’s probably self-doubt and I think that applies to the book and to songs, you know, 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:15] That’s a beautifully simple way of putting it, exactly.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:18:18] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:18:19] And what is your biggest joy when it comes to writing? 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:18:24] Again, I would say that that would change. I, I thought as a song writer, like, um, I always thought like having a few hits or, or whatever, getting a few accolades with, I still can say that my biggest joy is the process and, and I think that process changes. I think when I started like writing this song was the joy now. It’s more like the whole process, like recording the song and, and you know, producing the song. Anything that I get to like really big creative at, gives me joy. And, and the, you know, when something is successful, um, I’m not good at it. I’ve never been good at like feeling that, like I always don’t want to think about it. I want to think about the next thing I’m doing. And I don’t know if that’s healthy or not, but for me, it’s not healthy to look at, you know, what I’ve done or what I’ve got going on right now. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:20] Yeah 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:19:20] It’s just healthy to keep my head in the creative process. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:23] Oh, that’s awesome. That makes so much sense. Can you share a craft tip of any sort with us about writing in any way?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:19:33] Uh. This is probably very elementary to somebody like you who’s written a bunch of, uh, books. But, um, when I was writing the characters in my book, I had a great editor, Alice Sullivan. She was amazing. And you know, I think, I don’t know if this is normal or not, but when she edited the book, there was, she had over like 5,000 comments. And some of them were good comments and some are bad comments. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:58] That’s pretty normal. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:20:00] But, I was good at describing the big things, but I wasn’t good at describing the little things. If a dude popped up, you know, that had, we’ll say in a paragraph, she would say, “Hey, give me something like, tell me he’s got a handlebar mustache.” And so I think my rep, what I really learned from my editor was they have to see everything. And I know, I knew that in songwriting, like if they can’t see the song, it’s not gonna, it’s – doesn’t work. It’s being country music especially, but in the book, you know, like, I wanted to, you know, wax poetic on these big scenes, but on the little scenes I was just passing through and she’s like, “A-huh, nope.” I gotta, you know, when I turned the, the, uh, the book into her, it was 89,000 words, and after we finished the, we went with two edits, I guess, and it was over a 100,000 now.

Rachael Herron: [00:20:53] Wow. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:20:54] So, she basically had me add 11,000 words to the book, and that was all little tiny descriptive things. So that was the lesson I learned. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:03] She does sound really great. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:21:04] She is amazing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:06] Oh my gosh. Okay, so what thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:21:13] I think, uh, my sons and, and uh, in a, in a weird way, they, uh, uh, they make, they make me not be as selfish… that creatively, it becomes about more than me. It’s like, okay, I’m doing this so they can have a good life so they can live in a good place. And that does like, I think after you’ve done something for a while, you can lose some fire for it. You know, it’s it, it becomes old hat a little bit, but that kind of lights my fire a little bit. It’s like, okay, I’ve got these four boys, I got to get them through college, I got to do all this stuff for, that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing now. It’s not just because I want people to think, Jeremy Spillman is a brilliant writer like I did when I was, you know, in my twenties. So I think having a family has very much been positive influence on my creativity. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:10] I will ask you another question that is not on the list of questions that I sent you, but I was just looking over your bio… um, I am sober 19 months. So, um…

Jeremy Spillman: [00:22:20] Congratulations 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:22] Thank you. That’s pretty still pretty new to me. How does sobriety affect your writing and particularly now, I’m very curious about country music, because I find it sometimes, when my first year sobriety was actually hard to listen to country music because every single goddamn song was about what I wanted to drink. And you’re surrounded by that. So how, this is just, just a personal Rachael question, I want to know the answer to, how does that affect you? 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:22:46] Um, so, um, 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:48] was it 16 years, is that right?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:22:50] it’ll be, it’s gotta be 15 years. The 31st of October, yeah, 15 years. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:56] Oh my gosh. Wow.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:22:58] Yeah. I was so messed up when they put me in rehab. I didn’t know it was Halloween. I probably would’ve stayed out another day, but, uh, but, uh, you know, it was, the first year was pretty tough, creatively. Um, I did all the things, I did all of the things that you probably know about it. I really did the steps. You know, I was single when I got sober, so I didn’t date or anything for a year. I didn’t, I had an old school AA sponsor. I mean,

Rachael Herron: [00:23:28] Call me every day?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:23:30] Yes, she had staff meetings every day, you know. Um, and I’ll never forget, I had a buddy of mine who has been a good friend, um, for a long time, and he’d been sober. He’s been sober a lot longer than me, but at the time, I think he’d been sober 10 years and there was this rock band that I’d always written with down in Atlanta, and I’ve been sober six months. And so they called my publisher in there, said, “Hey, uh, can ya’ll send Jeremy down to Atlanta next weekend? Uh, we got a bus, like we want to write with Jeremy.” And so I freaked out. I’m like, Oh my God. Like, you know, it was a good opportunity, but I didn’t know if I could do it cause I’d always, that was party central. And, um, and so I called this friend of mine who’s in the business and had been sober for a while and, and I really wanted him to go, man, you can’t do that. You’d know, better than that. And so I told him the situation and he said, um. Uh, I said, what do you think I need to do? He said, I think you need to get your ass to Atlanta. And I said, what? And he goes, dude, do you want to be a songwriter? And I’m like. Yeah. And he said, well, then you’re going to have to learn to, to handle this. Like, you know, if you can’t be around alcohol, how are you going to be in the music business? So I made peace with that pretty early. Like, and I still, I mean, I was out on the bus a month ago, you know, for four days with a band and a lot of drinking’s, some drugs. I mean, I just, they know I don’t do it, and, and It’s not a problem. Like it’s, I’ve just learned to, um… if it gets too weird, I’d crawl in my bunk, you know what I mean, pull the curtain. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:18] There’s an old timer in my group who always says, if the day gets bad enough, just go to bed. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:25:24] Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:25] Go sleep and you’ll wake up and it’ll be tomorrow.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:25:27] A 100%. And creatively, I think about, we’re about a year I learned to write again, but it took me a year, because I pulled from that, you know, that ball attention that, you know, cause you’re screwing up everything and man, there’s a lot of energy there. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:46] Sure is

Jeremy Spillman: [00:25:48] Good creative juices flowing there. But I think I had to learn to pull from life. I think I had to learn to just use my brain instead of, you know, uh, being in some ways I think it was cowardly, like a, I was creating tension and drama and things just so I could be creative and I had to like actually stand up and, you know, try to be a good man and, and write from life as opposed to, you know, screwing up everybody else’s life to try to have something to write about. But, um, yeah, I think, I think for a year creatively it was really tough because I had to learn a new way to- I knew I had to go to a new will to draw. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:36] I really liked how you say that. Yeah. Um, 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:26:38] But congrats on 19 months. That’s a big deal.

Rachael Herron: [00:26:40] Thank you. The thing that keeps flooring me is, is how strong my brain is now. I really thought I was losing it. Like I just, I thought I was getting dumb and I was getting dumb. I was literally killing brain cells and the way that they’ve come back and the way I’m able to write with so much more clarity and precision and energy, 19 months later, still astonishing to me. So it’s pretty exciting. That’s one of the reasons I wanted you on the show.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:27:07] and it just keeps getting, your brain will keep getting better. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:09] It’s amazing

Jeremy Spillman: [00:27:11] It really does. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:13] It’s so great. It’s like one of the biggest, biggest benefits, and there’s basically nothing but benefits in my life about it itself. Um, what is the best book you’ve read recently, and why’d you love it? 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:27:25] I saw where you’re going to ask me this question, I’m nervous to answer, but, but um, I’m gonna say, Oh, I always hate rooting for the big dog, but where the crowded sayings, is just blowing my mind like her, that the writing in that book is so, like, the story’s amazing to not taken away from the story, but just her use of language just, I mean, I’m just, I’m flabbergasted at how good it is.

Rachael Herron: [00:27:48] I’m glad you said it because I own it and I started a chapter and maybe I was in a bad mood I didn’t get past the first chapter and everybody says it’s a sublime, so I’m going to keep going. Just pick it up and start it over again. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:28:02] I hate rooting for the big dog and like, and when something’s got so much hype, I just naturally go, uh-uh. But it really, it’s worth it. Like she is, she’s really brilliant and noble.

Rachael Herron: [00:28:13] I look forward to sending you an email saying you were right, that, that’ll be great. All right. What would you like to tell us about now? Would you please tell us about the book a little bit about what it’s about, where people can find it? A little bit about the music, I love all of that.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:28:27] Um, so you can go anywhere, books are sold online, you can go find it. And, uh, um, you can go to my website, www.jeremyspillman.com if you for some reason would want a signed copy and buy one there. Um. And the soundtrack is on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, all those things. Uh, you don’t have to download it, you can just stream it. So whatever, whatever- 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:50] if I like something like, I usually stream it on Spotify first, but if I’m going to play it a lot on Spotify, I always buy it. I’m old school like that. And then you can stream on Spotify with that. Yeah, exactly. And then I can stream on Spotify to my heart’s content. I never feel guilty; you know? Yeah. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:29:06] But the, the music was, I did it. I’m the band except the fiddle and the vocals. And so we did it here in my home studio right here where you’re interviewing me. And, uh, uh, uh, Ross Holmes is the fiddle player. He plays for a band Cobnitty Gritty Dark band.

Rachael Herron: [00:29:23] Oh, never heard of that one

Jeremy Spillman: [00:29:26] Yeah, and he, uh, and then Randy Montana is the vocal, the lead vocalist, and Ken Johnson’s background vocalist. And both of those guys are humongous songwriters. Randy was an artist for a little while, you could, you could find some stuff online about him, but, um, yeah, we just had a lot of fun. Like, it was fun for us as songwriters, because we got to kind of get out of maybe the, the commercial, the commercial lanes are very narrow as far as music goes. So we get to kind of get outside of that. But I’m working on the audio book now, which is full cast, has music, sound effects, and it’s, it’s read by, it’s narrated by my hero. This, this name probably won’t mean anything to you unless your huge country music buff, but a Dane Dylan. So Dane, is a hall of fame songwriter, he wrote all the George straight hits and a ton of other things, but they narrate it. And uh, uh, yeah, it’s very, I hope it works. It’s what I wanted. It’s very Southern. It’s very swanky. It’s like, you know, there’s music coming and going. It’s, it’s, I think it’s a very original audio book in the way it’s done, but that won’t be done till, I’m hoping we get it out the middle of November. 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:45] Oh, that’s so cool. That is so cool. I’m so glad that you are on the show today. Can I ask you the dumbest question?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:31:51] Sure

Rachael Herron: [00:30:52] That you may really roll your eyes and fall out of your chair. But, um, do, do people in Nashville or, or people like you, did you watch the show Nashville when it was on?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:31:02] I did. Now, some people do, some people do.

Rachael Herron: [00:31:08] I only watched the first two or three seasons, and then I jumped to Shark. But I loved it and I, I’ve got it. I’m going to Nashville next year for a conference in 2020, and I’m going to go to the Bluebird, and 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:31:20] I think; I think it was probably a good show. I had a song that was the, uh, on one of their commercials, I had a song that they used of mine on that I wrote with a band called Little Big Town that was, they use for their promo for a while. But, um, 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:36] Wow!

Jeremy Spillman: [00:31:37] But I think watching Nashville for a guy like me, it’s like, it’s almost like if you, if your job’s picking strawberries, you don’t want to come home and eat strawberries. You know, it was a little bit like that to me, but I’m sure it was a good show. I did not watch it because of quality or anything and just, 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:54] There was a 911 show also with Connie Britton actually, who was in Nashville and I can’t, I did 911 for years and I cannot, no, I do not want to watch that. So same thing. Yeah. Well, you’re a delight. Thank you so much for talking to us today and I’m happy writing. I’m going to run right out right now and grab the soundtrack so,

Jeremy Spillman: [00:32:12] Awesome. Thank you very much. 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:14] Thanks, Jeremy. Will talk to you soon. Bye. 

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, https://twitter.com/RachaelHerron or at my website, http://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 https://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 http://rachaelherron.com/write. Now, go to your desk and create your own process. Get to writing my friends.

The post Ep. 156: Jeremy Spillman on Taking Nashville Songwriting to a Novel appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ep. 155: Blog vs. Memoir and Couch to 5k for Writing – Bonus Episode

Ep. 155: Blog vs. Memoir and Couch to 5k for Writing – Bonus Episode

How do you decide if writing a blog is for you if you’re writing memoir? Are blogs even still a thing? And how do you boost your reading and writing comprehension like runners do with Couch to 5k? (Bonus fireplace insert question!) Thanks for Lorajean, Erin, and Catriona for today’s questions!

Transcript

Rachael Herron: 00:01 Welcome to How Do You Write, I’m your host, Rachael Herron, and this is a bonus episode brought to you directly by my $5 patrons. If you’d like me to be your mini-coach for less than a large mocha frappuccino, you can join too at http://patreon.com/rachael.

00:15 Well, hello writers. Welcome to a bonus mini-episode of How Do You Write. This is episode number 155, I am recording on December 4th of 2019, and I am going to try to get through three questions today. Bam, bam, bam. Quick like a bunny. So the first one today comes from Laura Jean. Laura Jean, I just have to say is my ideal reader, she has always been my ideal reader ever since she became a fan of my books years and years ago, and now when I’m writing a book, I really do think about that one person that this will please. Especially when I’m writing romance, I want it to please Laura Jean. And it’s really nice to have that kind of reader in mind, so thanks, Laura Jean, and thanks for your support. 

01:01 And here is your question, Laura Jean, “I’m working on my reading comprehension and I think working on my writing would go hand in hand with that. Can you recommend exercises to get this process started? Like a Couch to 5K, but Couch to writing an email, Instagram posts, blog posts with cohesion”. This is such a great question. Reading comprehension and writing ability do kind of go hand in hand because we are always using reading comprehension when we’re writing. It sounds obvious, but a lot of people don’t quite think of that. So this is something that comes up for writers. I just jotted down kind of the things that I do to start something, I always need to break down tasks, including all writing tasks to smaller bits of information, otherwise, I’m overwhelmed. If I’m writing in my journal, I’ll just start writing free flow, whatever comes to me, but if I’m actually working on something that has any kind of a point, like a blog post or an Instagram post or a full novel, I need to know what that point is first, so I bullet point some things out. It sounds prosaic and businesslike, but for me it works. I think about two things, “What’s my point?” and “What’s my proof?”. The proof that proves this point I’m trying to make, that I’m trying to get across to another human being, it doesn’t have to be scientific proof. It can be a feeling that I had, that’s enough proof for me and for other people, especially like if we’re writing something inspirational on Instagram because we had a magical walk in the woods in which we realized that, yeah, we’re freaking just fine the way we are right now today. I am happy with my body, I’m happy with my brain, I’m happy with where things are, I can be content in this place. 

02:59 So yeah, I’ve had that revelation and I want to come back and tell people about it and show them a beautiful picture of a tree. I would think, “What’s my point?”. My point is perhaps something like, “I need nature to remind me that I’m part of it and that I’m okay as I am”, that’s my point. “What’s your proof?”, I start thinking about what I saw, what I heard, what made me feel that way, maybe what I was thinking about before I came to that revelation or how I was feeling before I came to that revelation, and I bullet point those out too. As I’m having these thoughts, I bullet point them out, I list them, and then I kind of flush them out. I flesh out the idea of how I was feeling before I went into the woods. And then I might flush out what the creek sounded like when I realized that, “Oh yeah, I’m part of nature too”. I might think, “Oh, you know what? I flushed that point out and I don’t actually like it”. Great, we get to erase it. Once you flush out those little bullet points, you put them together. You can add connectors if you want. Also, human brains are super willing to make connections. Sometimes I don’t even bother with transitions, people just understand what I’m saying. A real technical point that may help, and this is something that I’ve only recently learned, when you are writing, it’s very hard to compose when things are small or in a type that doesn’t lend itself easy to read. And it has been proven that if you type in Comic Sans, you write faster. Isn’t that interesting? 

04:40 If you write in Comic Sans, which is ideal for people who have dyslexia or other kind of difficulty reading, Comic Sans just doesn’t confuse the brain. I know it’s not the most attractive font to look at, but it is great for reading comprehension. If you are not battling reading comprehension of the things that you’ve just written, you write faster and you write better, you write cleaner. You can also use a bigger font. So a large font Comic Sans as you’re writing, not too large, you don’t want four words on your screen, you know what I mean? So give that a try, see if that also helps with that whole drafting process. And also, most of all, trust yourself. When you have made the points that you want to make, you can stop. If you don’t get to all the points you wanted to make, you can also stop. If you start a post of any kind, an email or a blog post or an Instagram post or whatever it is you’re writing and it goes somewhere else, that’s really interesting. A lot of times I will sit down to write an email or something to my list and it goes in a place I absolutely did not expect it to. In that case, generally, I will go back and revise the first part to kind of match if I need to bring it back in line. But sometimes the journey is the point, and that’s fine too. People are willing and happy to read interesting words and they want to know what’s in your brain. So I love this question, thank you, Lorajean.

06:03 Um, let’s see. Aaron has a– I told you guys you could ask me anything and I love this. “I read your opinion on Fireplace – maybe Fireplaces, I think I lost that word – as a former nine one one dispatcher – sorry about that horn honking out there, rude – but where do you stand on wood burning fireplace inserts?”. We’re about to have four giant cypress trees trim for the first time in decades, and I’ve already got about a half cord of dried split and seasoned pine from the giant Monterey pine that we’ve we had to cut down three years ago. There’s at least a quarter pine that still needs to be split, we could probably heat our home for the next four or five years by the time we have all the woodcut. I am a super fan of wood burning fireplace inserts, I think that they’re beautiful, I think that they do pollute the air, but you know what? Not as much as everything else that’s happening. Here, and Aaron, I know that you live on the coast, we do have spare the air day, so you just have to make sure that you don’t burn on those days, and you can always check sparetheair.org to find out what those days are. But otherwise, wood stoves are, especially when they have the inserts, they are efficient and they are generally very, very, very safe. I cannot think of a single fire that I ran while I was working for 17 years as a nine one one dispatcher that occurred because of a fireplace insert.

07:22 This is not legal advice, of course, you’ve got to make sure that everything is in working order and that the chimney is good, but they are definitely safer than just an open fireplace, which have burned down so many houses since time immemorial, so I love that idea. Do it or don’t do it, don’t take this as legal advice, Aaron, oh my God. Let’s see, another question from Aaron and from Katrina, basically asking the same thing. “Memoir versus blog, where to start, how to decide, either or both?”. That’s such a big question. It depends on what your heart wants. Isn’t that just a frustrating answer, Katrina? I know you and blogging, you do a great job with blogging. Your words lend themselves to blogs and it will absolutely fit into your memoir. So, Katrina, I say keep up what you’re doing. The nice thing about blogging memoir pieces or short creative nonfiction is that you can get eyes on, you can get readers that way. If you are going to blog these things, always have a place for people to sign up to your newsletter, even if it’s your very first blog post and you know that literally one person is going to read it and it’s going to be you. And you’re going to refresh it tomorrow and it will be you again and the next day. The thing about blogs nowadays is that there is so much information on the internet, it is hard to get noticed at first. The thing that changes that is to have more content. If you only ever put up three or four blog posts, no, it will almost guaranteed be seen by no one, because Google won’t give it the juice that you need. But once you have content, once you have time, Google starts to push people there and it starts to do its Google magic. 

09:17 As a place to be consistent and to give yourself kind of a purpose or a deadline, I think blogs can be great. You say, “Well, I’m going to do one blog post a week”, and that becomes a goal that you can meet. And at that point, you don’t care if people are reading it or not, it is a form of accountability. If your memoir, however, is– that works really well for pieces like a memoir made of pieces or a memoir made of essays in an essay format. If you are writing a memoir about a time in your life, a specific time during which you overcame something and learned and grew, it’s a little bit harder. You want to show that character arc all the way through your memoir and it’s a story, not necessarily essays. So if you’re showing a story, you can absolutely blog it, but I would be a little bit more hesitant about that because, just like a novel, you’re going to be doing a lot of revision on it, and if you put up all your first draft stuff, are you going to be comfortable with that later? If your first draft pieces are up there, and as you wrote your memoir, you realized it was actually about something else in your life that you want to illustrate, and now you’ve got these pieces of the book left behind on the internet, it’s 100% fine. I do not worry about copyright crap, I really don’t. Nobody’s going to steal these pieces and make a book and then try to publish it, I promise. It’s just about what you are comfortable having out there. So the smaller polished kind of piece, that’s awesome in a blog.

10:54 If you are still exploring what this memoir is, it might just be best to have a first draft on your computer of the book, of the whole memoir, and if you still have that blogging urge, then do smaller pieces or cut down pieces that kind of stand alone and put them on the blog. Either way is fine, do what your heart wants and definitely don’t do a blog unless you really, really want to. There’s no reason, there’s no good reason to do it very early. Only do it if you really, really want to. I hope these answers help and if you would like to send me questions, you know how to do it. And I wish you very happy writing, my friend, and there will be a full-length podcast coming out later this week with Jeremy Spillman and you are going to very much enjoy that interview, I found him delightful to talk to. So we’ll talk to you soon my friends. Thanks. 

11:48 Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of How Do You Write. You can reach me on Twitter, Rachael Herron, or at my website, http://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 http://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 at http://rachaelherron.com/write. Now, go to your desk and create your own process, and get to writing my friends.

The post Ep. 155: Blog vs. Memoir and Couch to 5k for Writing – Bonus Episode appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ep. 154: How Do You Keep Writing When No One is Reading You Yet? Bonus Mini-Episode

How Do You Keep Writing When No One is Reading You Yet? Bonus Mini-Episode

Yeah, writing alone while you’re unpublished is so difficult. How do you keep your spirits up? How do you keep believing in yourself when you’re spending hours, weeks, months, and years doing something that has nothing to show for it yet? Listen along as Rachael Herron answer’s Leftie’s question on this mini-episode of How Do You Write.

Transcript

Rachael Herron: 00:00 Welcome to How Do You Write, I’m your host, Rachael Herron, and this is a bonus episode brought to you directly by my $5 patrons. If you’d like me to be your mini-coach for less than a large mocha frappuccino, you can join too at http://patreon.com/rachael. 

00:15 Well, hello writers. Welcome to episode number 154 of How Do You Write. This is a bonus mini-episode and today’s question is brought to us from Left. Leftie is a longtime listener. Hello, Leftie, I’m thrilled that you left this question and I hope that it helps other people. It’s a long question, so here we go. From Leftie, “A long time ago, you asked for questions for your newsletter for writers, and I asked you to give your advice to new-to-publishing writers about traditional versus indie since you know both from experience, and I’d still really like to hear you talk about this. But the question I’d really like you to answer is this one, how did you keep going when you had no agent and no publishing credit? You touched it a bit in the episode of the writer’s well, is it worth it, and you said that it’s the worst when you don’t have a published book. But I’d really liked to hear you talk more about this because it’s going to be soon five years that I’m writing really regularly with intention, that I’m learning about the craft and the business, that I’m really into it and close to 13 years of writing for fun, and sometimes I feel like I’m not farther along in my writing journey than I was five years ago. I love writing, I need it in my life, but with a little one and a partner and a full-time job, sometimes it gets discouraging to feel like I’m investing so much time in something that seems, at least to everyone else but me, to bring absolutely nothing in return. I know you have been there and you are now where I want to be and I’d really love to hear you speak about how to keep going from one place to the other”.

01:44 Oh, Leftie, this is such an incredible question and I also want to address the great tact with what you said, “I asked you a question and you never got around to it”. And I apologize for that, I remember you asking me that. So there’s actually two parts of this question, and I think that the really important and most difficult part of this question is, “How do you keep going when you are not getting any outside encouragement, any outside motivation?”. And that is a really hard question to answer for me. I was by myself and that is what I don’t recommend. So after I got my MFA, I tried to write three different books and totally failed. They’re in the drawer, they’ll never come out. And then I was writing by myself for another couple of years after that, all by myself. I had NaNoWriMo, which was my first experience with community, but I didn’t engage with the community on a personal level. So I went to a couple of writings, but never made any friends. So I was trying to write professionally and failing to really, really get my heart work done. I was not feeling to get to the page, but that was nine years. So if that makes you feel better, I was writing in the dark, alone, for nine years, seven years before I started NaNo, and then two years afterward.

03:15 In that time I wrote a total of four books, and the fourth book was the one– there was the NaNo, and I got an agent from it, and I sold that book. And I say that really easy and simply, and it sounds like it wasn’t hard and it was hard. My mass rejections came from that agent search and that was really difficult, and the most difficult part of it was that I was doing it alone. I didn’t understand how community was necessary. And Leftie, you already have such a leg up on that because you have this community, you have us, you are our friend. You know me and Jay over at the Writer’s Well, we know who you are and we know what you do. I follow you on Instagram and I find your Instagram posts on your writing journey completely inspiring to me. I’ve told you that before and I’m not blowing smoke, I try very hard not to blow smoke ever. You are already finding your community. But what I wonder, and if anybody else is feeling like this out there, I wonder if you have those heart close writing friends, close to you, where you live, that you meet on a regular basis.

04:24 I honestly think that that is one of the most important things for writers. I don’t think that I would be where I am if I didn’t have my core group of writing besties in the Bay area, in a place where we get together as often as we can, and that was a very deliberate putting together a people in order to have this community. And I cannot claim credit for it, Sophie Littlefield, who I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about, she put it together. And it was back in the day when grogs were a thing, group blogs, it’s a terrible word unless you’re talking about drinking grog, that’s okay. But a group blog called a grog is not okay, but we did it and she gathered together eight women whom she liked. She just picked them, she handpicked them, they were writers she knew from RWA, which is when I first started to get community. That’s what I joined, Romance Writers of America, and I met Sophie in it. Shortly thereafter, she started the grog, invited me, and those eight women are still so tight. We gave up the blog years ago. It was called Pens Fatales, I think it’s still archived out there somewhere. But it was almost an excuse just to become friends, we had to get together and talk about how the group cloud blog would work, we had to talk about who would write what posts and from that we fell into this friendship, but it was very, very deliberate on Sophie’s part.

05:47 And so perhaps anyone who’s listening to this who says, “I don’t have those in person friends”, it might be up to you to go out and find those. If you live in the Hinterlands and there is no community, there’s no town near you, then this is something you’ll have to do online. But I recommend that if you’re in a little town where you can make a couple of writing friends, even if they’re not writing in your genre, that’s totally fine, they just have to be people that you connect with on a really true level. I would say that my writing friends are my closest friends and I have a lot of friends. Luckily, I am lucky enough to say that, but the writing friends are the ones who get me the most. So form a group, do a meetup, you will get that guy who comes and he’s so annoying and he wants to run the group, and that’s okay because the group that you set up is really just a place to poach friends from. Then you start hanging out with those friends and talking writing all the time, and you’re not even meeting up anymore. You’re just getting coffee, you’re getting breakfast, you’re getting lunch. And it turns into a community that you can keep going through all of this pain and disappointment and wondering, “Can I really do this?”.

07:03 Because they’re saying the same thing. And that’s the most important part, is to have somebody to say this to. And I’m so glad that you have me, and Leftie, yes, it’s so hard to just keep going. Once you have a book published, whether it is traditional or independently, and let’s get into that really quickly, it will feel a little bit different. People before they are published always feel, and I felt this way, that being traditionally or being any kind of published would complete me. That was my goal in life, was to publish a book. Then once I published a book, the goal was gone and my goals for life got bigger and further away, and I still feel like I’m just touching the edge of the water I want to be in, but I understand the feeling completely. Today, traditional versus indie, it’s such a difficult choice and I really like how my friend J Thorn always points it out, “You can’t choose between traditional and indie, you can choose between pursuing traditional and going indie”. You can pursue the traditional path by going after an agent and getting that agent to sell your book into the traditional marketplace, which is usually the way it goes.

08:17 No one can guarantee that you’ll get into that, it is a small number of people who get into that. It is still the gatekeeper system and it is still disheartening. The lovely thing about indie publishing is that you just do it. You just do it. You hire the cover designer, you always hire the cover designer, you always hire the developmental editor, and then the copy editor and the proofer. You do all those things, but then your book is just as legit. I think that at least 12 or 15 of my books are indie published, so I’m almost half and half right now, hybrid, and I can’t honestly tell you which I like more. I do enjoy the cache of traditional publishing, I always admit that, and I like going into a bookstore and seeing my book on the shelves. It is always a thrill and it is a thrill I hope I never get over cause I would be an asshole if that wasn’t a thrill. But independent to me is more fun. I have more creative control and I honestly, normally most years make more money in the independent publishing sphere.

09:21 So it is really about what you want and if you want to be traditional published and you want to go after the agent, then do that for a while. Go after it, give yourself a time limit. Don’t say, “I must be traditional published or I will die unpublished”. Why do that? Give yourself a year to look for an agent or two years or whatever feels comfortable to you, and then reassess whether you’d want to be indie. Or you can do what a lot of friends of mine do, they publish a few books indie while they’re taking this particular book, whatever, for whatever reason, that’s the one they want to save for the agent and take it out. And you could just keep on sending those query letters out. Remember that a hundred query letters is not a lot of query letters to send out in order to get an agent. I did hear about a guy, and I can’t remember, it was recently, he had sent more than a thousand query letters and had never been asked for a partial, so I’m thinking that guy might want to reassess his query letter at least. So know what your heart wants, know that it’s okay to go either way. Like I said, I love both, I really believe in my heart that for me, being hybrid is really my happy, sweet spot, and I find a lot of people feel like that. I know some indie diehards who are now thinking, “Well, you know, I wouldn’t hate trying a traditional deal”. It’s interesting how many kinds of different mad you can get entering a traditional deal. However, I have to say that the publisher that I’m with right now is outstanding and they are blowing away all of my expectations. And they are helping me solve my PTSD, which I’ve talked about for a long time, in which the P stands for publishing, the traditional publishing industry. 

11:09 So it’s hard. All of this is hard. It is hard when you’re published, but there is a special kind of lonely and discouragement that comes before you have that connection. And what exactly did you say here? “I feel like I’m investing so much in something that seems to bring me absolutely nothing in return”. It hasn’t brought you absolutely nothing, it’s brought you to us, it’s brought us to you. Make those connections, have a best girlfriend or two or three that you can sit down and talk about this with, I cannot emphasize it more. And if you have those friends and you’re still feeling a little bit parched, like you need more to keep going, tell them that. Build in a couple of reward systems, you know. If you want to go the traditional route, every 10 rejections from agents, you’re going to go get a mani-pedi with one of those friends, or something that pleases your heart. I am not into mani-pedies myself, but something that pleases you, that gives you a reward system. What you are looking for right now is that dopamine reward of somebody saying, “Yes, this is worthy”, and we have to give it to ourselves and we have to continue giving that to ourselves even when we are multi-published. And it’s amazing how we still have to keep loving ourselves and loving our work, and it’s hard, it’s really hard. 

12:37 So I love that you asked this. I hope that I said something a little bit hopeful. You are not alone, we all feel this with you and thank you for being inspiring to me, Leftie. And I believe, I don’t know if you want me to do this, but other people who might want to follow Leftie’s journey, I think if you just search Leftie Aube, A-U-B-E, on Instagram, you can follow her there, her posts are incredible. So there, Leftie, you just got some more community, I hope you don’t mind. All right you all, this was a little bit longer than a mini bonus episode, but no matter where you are, if you are in the United States, Thanksgiving, as I record this is tomorrow, good luck to you and family. Oh, what a holiday. So if you’re not, I just hope you get some good writing done and we will talk soon, my friends.

13:42 Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of How Do You Write. You can reach me on Twitter, Rachael Herron, or at my website, http://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 http://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 at http://rachaelherron.com/write. Now, go to your desk and create your own process, and get to writing my friends.

The post Ep. 154: How Do You Keep Writing When No One is Reading You Yet? Bonus Mini-Episode appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Clara, My One True Dog.

Once upon a time, I fell in love with dogs. Well, really, I fell in love with my future wife Lala, and she had two dogs and I fell in love with them, too, and then suddenly, the world bloomed with dogs! It’s like when you buy a blue Nissan and then you see blue Nissans everywhere – I finally realized that dogs weren’t just mildly cute, but they were AWESOME and EVERYWHERE and after a while, I wanted one of my own.

We went to shelters one day. I was gonna get me a dog. I met Clara. I liked her a lot. We decided to think about her, so we went to breakfast. In the middle of breakfast, halfway across Oakland, I suddenly fell in love with her. “She’s mine!” I realized. “We have to go. Now! What if someone else gets her?”

We made it in time (there was another family looking at her then, but we got there first. So ha).

We took her home. The next morning, Lala and I were sitting on the back porch, eating bagels. The back door was open. Clara ran out and past us, a bagel held in her lower lip, the container of cream cheese in her upper lip.

Lala looked at me and said, “Your dog is so dumb. She forgot the knife.”

Clara was the nicest living being I’ve ever met. I never saw her get mad even once. She chewed up the whole house as a young dog, true. But she got over that (although she never gave up a chance to chew and rip up important papers).

But with people and other animals, she was the most empathetic dog I’ve ever seen. She’d play rough with big dogs, and softly with small ones. Once, a baby friend was visiting our house. The baby was propped up on the couch. She was old enough to sit and hold things but not walking yet. She dropped her teddy bear and it rolled off the couch. Clara picked it up and set it in front of her gently, nudging it just enough so the baby could grab it, and then they continued this game for half an hour.

This is how she played with little dogs:

Then we got her a cat (or really, we got two kittens, and Waylon chose her for his very own. Clara was bemused by this.

For many years, Waylon was usually wet. This is why:

Once, we were very broke. Lala really wanted a copy of the magazine The Shambala Sun. She bought it. She came home and put it on the counter. She walked away for five minutes, and when she returned, it was in pieces, torn to bits silently. Lala was mad. That was seven whole dollars, wasted. Torn up on the floor. Our friend Rachel O. heard this story. She subscribed Clara to the magazine, and to this day, Clara Hehu gets credit card offers and Buddhist donation appeals.

Her favorite place was the Albany Bulb, where she turned into a Sand Monster. Nothing made her happier than swimming and then rolling in the sand.

Clara was in my first book, Abigail’s dog in How to Knit a Love Song. In the American version, I forgot to get her out of Abigail’s truck before a cliff collapsed and TO THIS DAY, I get worried emails about Clara. (We caught it for the Australian version and left her safely tied to a tree, so these emails only come from Americans and Canadians.)

I’ve always, always been able to write back and say that Clara is okay. That she’s real. That she’s snoring safely behind my chair.

Because Clara was not only my best dog, but she’s also been my coworker for the last four years. Every other animal in this house loves Lala best, including Dozy (it just happens), but not Clara. She and I belonged to each other. Always near me, in these last few weeks, she’s been even more clingy, unwilling to let me out of her sight.

We ran hundreds of miles together. When I’d take a walk break, I’d say, “Walk.” Then I’d say, “Scritch,” and she’d raise her head and lean toward me. She was just the right height for me to scritch her ears without leaning over.

Lord, could she RUN.

She got sick about a month ago. Tumor in the stomach (that looked like a simple infection at first). We tried everything. She hated getting pills, but she never snapped or bit or even snarled.

Today, we took her to the beach she loved the best.

This is when she realized we were near the beach, and not the vet:

We had a wonderful (and excruciating) last walk. (Look, SF is visible behind her, as is the Golden Gate Bridge).

Green has always been her color

Clara was made of grace. When I think of the word, which I love, I see her face. She gave, and she loved, and she napped, and she just was.

I was gone for work for 9 days, and I just got home two days ago. When I got home, she was sleeping in front of the door, something she never did. She’d moved herself there right about the time my airplane had touched down, Lala said.

She’d waited for me to come home.

Goodnight, my sweetest girl. Run fast, and run free.

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3 Reasons Resolutions Can Bite Me

Hello, dear friends!

Happy New Year!

Okay, I have to confess, I love to plan. I’m a List Maker. I make out with bullet journals in public. My washi tape stash could probably stretch from Oakland to New York, and I’m unfaithful to every planner I’ve ever bought (Shiny New Planner syndrome).

I normally start brand-new years with the confidence of a toddler in a bead shop. And I end old years sitting in a deck chair, wondering why the ocean is up to my ankles and rising. My washi tape can’t save me then, unless I make a boat out of it and Post-its (which would make a good reality TV challenge, I think).

Resolutions can bite me for these three reasons:

1. I’m not in my right mind when I make them.

Seriously. The last week of December acts on my brain like alcohol used to. I CAN DO EVERYTHING! I spin around in the front yard, almost able to touch the moon. I CAN WRITE THREE BOOKS BY TUESDAY. Every year, I get drunk with the power of potential, and it goes right to my head, making me think that when the calendar rolls over, I’ll be a new me. Truth is: I’ll just still be me, but maybe a little more tired because I’m a few days older.

2. Everyone else does them better.

Have you been on Instagram lately (you should follow me there!). All those people you used to like have already lost ten pound plus they’ve increased their bank accounts by six or seven figures. AND IT’S ONLY THE FOURTH. We hate them.

3. I always pick the wrong things to resolve.

Things I said yesterday (gospel truth): “I will get up every day at 7:30 am, even on weekends.” Also: “I will write every day, even on weekends.” ALSO! “I will do yoga every day, even on weekends.” (From this you might think that I’m a lazy slob on the weekends. You would be right.)

These are the wrong things to focus on! I will fail at these resolutions! Sometimes I will get up at 4:30 am! Other times I will sleep till 10. I never write every day – I never have and I never will, no matter how much I want to be that person. I love yoga, but sometimes this softly-rounded body just wants some caramel corn and a nap.

So, as I’ve done a few years in the past, I’m resolving to stab absolutely no one. Chances are good I’ll succeed (BUT YOU NEVER KNOW).

But seriously, all I resolve to do this year is to just focus on giving myself and those around me some grace. I’m already doing the best I can. So are you (even if you feel like you’re not. You feel that way for a reason, whether it’s your kids or your schedule or your mental/physical health. That’s keeping you from doing all you want to do, but you’re still doing your goshdarn best and you should be proud of yourself).

Give yourself some grace. Some forgiveness. Some real, true love. You deserve it.

That’s the best resolution of all, and it isn’t new for 2020. (Y’all, I just started typing 19__ – that’s how far behind my typist fingers are.) If you can be just a tiny bit kinder to yourself this year, that will spread to the people around you. And that can change the world, I just know it.

Thanks for being here with me on this crazy ride through life. I appreciate you.

What are YOU going to do differently when it comes to being kind to yourself this year?

love,

Rachael

Do you need help getting your writing or revision done? Let me help! (Share this email and tell a writer friend?)

90 Days to Done Masterclass (write your book in 90 Days!) is now open! http://rachaelherron.com/90daystodone

90 Day Revision Masterclass is open, also! http://rachaelherron.com/revision

Praise from a past graduate who finished both her first book AND revisions: “Thanks to Rachael’s classes, I’m realizing my strengths as a writer, and learning how to use them instead of being mean to myself about my weaknesses and trying to force myself to be different.” -Sara

Grab your spot now – these seats sell out quickly!

PPS – Need a good movie rec? Little Women knocked off my hand-knitted socks. My feet are still cold. I loved loved loved it and can’t recommend it enough. Go see it, in theaters now! I ugly cried!

The post 3 Reasons Resolutions Can Bite Me appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ep. 153: Marianne Power on Writing Truth and Shame in Memoir

Marianne Power is a writer and journalist who lives in London. Her first book, Help Me: How self-help did NOT change my life,, is about a year long quest to change her life by following the rules of a different self-help book each month for a year, is being published in more than 29 countries and is being optioned for a television series. 

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!

The post Ep. 153: Marianne Power on Writing Truth and Shame in Memoir appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ep. 152: NaNoWriMo Crash

What if your NaNoWriMo novel (or any of your writing) is crashing? Does it mean you should give up writing and get a job in finance? Or move to Antarctica where there are no writing devices at all (this is what I’ve been told, anyway…)? Listen to find out!

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!

The post Ep. 152: NaNoWriMo Crash appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ep. 151: Rachael on How to Start Sentences, How to Word Sprint, and Taking on Draft Passes

How Do You Write BONUS EPISODE: This mini-episode brought to you by $5 and up Patreons. You too can use me as a writing coach on retainer – join here! http://patreon.com/rachael

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.

Welcome to “How do you, Write?” mini episode number one 151. I’m Rachael Herron.

I’m so glad that you’re here for this first mini episode. And I’ve decided that I’m going to keep the numbering tradition so that good old iTunes doesn’t get too confused and I’m going to launch right in. Basically what this is, the many episodes are supported by Patreon members at the $5 and up level.

You basically put me on retainer to ask any of your questions and I’ll generally answer between one and three questions, but I want these to be super short so that you can listen to them. And the time that you drive to the grocery store, perhaps. So I’m going to start from the top and work my way down.  I’ve got a bunch queued up, so if I don’t get to yours today, I will get to it soon. Please enjoy!

So this first one is from Afton. Uh, and she says, What? Oh my gosh. I love this because you can ask any question about anything. And I even have like a question about maybe a heater down here, so we’ll get to that one.

But this one is very technical. What is your opinion on the, “Never use the word “I” to start a sentence?”. That is one of those things that we learned in school and I did a little bit of Googling on it, and it is just one of those old myths along with the one that says, you can’t start a sentence with and, or but all myths, all a little bit archaic. And they come from the time when, uh, people were a little bit more formal about their writing. Nowadays, we can start sentences with I in fact, as a memoir writer, I do it all the time. I love starting sentences with “and” or “but”. And the really interesting thing about “and” and “but” to start a sentence is that sometime you can swap the two, which does not seem to make sense. You should logically “and” does not mean anything like “but” does, and it still stands that you can sometimes stop them and the meaning is enhanced a little bit. So go ahead and start your sentences with “and” and “but” and I, what you do want to remember is sentence variation. Don’t start a lot of sentences with “and” or “but” don’t start every sentence with “I”. If you do, your words can sound a little bit, wrote a little prescribed, and you want to mix up your sentence length the way that your sentences are structured to give the reader a more dynamic experience of your writing. But yeah, there’s a, there are no more rules left around “I”, “And”, or, “But” so have fun with those sentences. Afton also wants to know if I ever wear my No Human Is Illegal Armband that she made me, and in fact I do and I love it. So thank you. 

Let’s see. Lefty asks, do you have any other tips and tricks for first drafting? Like the sprint advice? I had a quick show a little while back on sprinting, and that’s actually where I got the idea to do these mini podcasts.

And my only other tricks Lefty, are these: just to remember on a real base, cellular level that we are trying to get terrible drafts done and down on the page, and I always say this, but I am the last person to believe that. I always think that I should be the exception that surely this time, my first draft is going to be something a little bit better than my old, crappy first drafts have been and every single time I am let down by myself that I can’t make them better. And that is true of most every writer. So the biggest thing for me, and first drafting, is to just try to get out of the way of this perfectionist self of mine that sabotages so much of my work. I always have a vision for every book that I’m writing and they show up and I try to put it on the page and my vision fails and it is ugly and awful, and I can see that gap between the book I want it to be and the book I’m actually writing, and that gap just freaks me out every time. And I always believe I’m not going to be able to fix it, and I always am and you will always be too. The thing to remember is to get out of our own way, lower our standards for what our first draft writing should look like and allow our hands to go as fast as possible.

If you are having a hard time with first draft, I do recommend dictation. I think I mentioned it in that podcast, but if you’re using a Mac, there’s already dictation built into your computer. Just hit the function button twice and a voice to text will pop up in whatever program you’re using. It’s not perfect, none of them are. I really like using Dragon anywhere on my phone. It is a paid service, but you basically talk into your phone and then you email yourself the document, copy and paste it into whatever you’re working on because you’re doing that so quickly. You’re doing it at the speed that you talk. It does come out super crappy and it kind of gets you over yourself, which I like.

I can on days where I’m really struggling to write, I will honestly go lie in bed and sometimes I even pull the covers over my head and I just talk into the phone and when I’m done talking for 15 minutes, I have a thousand or 1500 words that are terrible that will need a lot of cleaning up, but I have moved forward and I can put them on my document.

I can spend a little bit of time tinkering with them. I don’t ever edit when I’m writing a first draft, I do not revise. I believe most of us don’t do our work that way and complete books. Uh, but I will let myself tinker to fix up the sentences that make no sense because they were voice to text.

And you know how auto correct works. That happens with our books too. And I prefer to fix those auto correct problems right after I say them or on the same day that I say them. Otherwise, a couple of days go by and I do not know what I said. That made that sound, that made those words appear on the page.

So I do kind of tinker with those, but that’s all I do. So those are a couple of tips and tricks for you, Lefty. And, um, Lefty also asks, I’d love to know more about your draft pass technique for editing. Like you said one time that it takes you one hour to add setting in your novel, and I just don’t understand how you can do it so fast.

It’s cause I’m terrible at setting, uh, when I’m writing a first draft, I leave setting almost completely out. I am not a visual writer. I do not see things in my mind’s eye like a movie. I barely see anything in my mind’s eye. I am a completely word driven person. I have this thing called teletype synesthesia that every word that I say, and every word that I hear, and every word that I hear in a song, and every word I hear in conversation, I can kind of see it running in a ticker tape in my brain. Always. Always, always, always. So it’s very important to, for me to understand spelling of people’s names because I’m seeing it now drive me crazy if I’m constantly playing with the spelling of it as there, you know, as somebody saying their name, so I don’t see images and therefore I’m just very bad at setting.

So I understand. I accept that about myself. And setting is one of those draft passes. What a draft path – pass is for me, I write the terrible first draft, the absolute crap, shitty first draft first, and then I do a major revision and my major revision is the revision that takes the most time. And what it is, is really making sure that all the scenes are in the right place, that my characters have a character arc that I believe in, that they are doing the right things at the right time. It’s a lot of getting rid of scenes that don’t work and writing new scenes that fill in the places. I don’t ever know what a book is going to be really, truly, even if I outline it from hell, I still don’t know what a book wants to be until I’ve written the whole first draft.

So that big a revision that I do, that first revision is just getting things in their place. I don’t make any of the words look pretty. There’s no point to making any words look pretty. If you’re going to take that scene out later, and in fact, it can do you a disservice if you make a scene really good and later it shouldn’t be there.

You for – for plot sake or for character sake, you will have a very hard time recognizing that. If you’ve already gone over it three or four times or more to make it look beautiful and make all the sentences gorgeous and as strong as they can be. So I tend to not do that at all. I like to keep that till much later.

So I do my first big revision and that is the one that takes the longest. And then after that I might have another revision to make sure that the plot really works and that my characters really work. And after that I just get into something I call draft passes. And that means I’m looking at one thing and just one thing.

As I virtually flipped the pages in the book, or as I scroll the word document, so when I’m doing my settings pass, I go to each scene and I make sure that there are one or two, maybe five sentences about the scene. My books are really, really character-driven. So setting is not something that turns into a character.

I am not writing a beautiful mountain that acts as a character in this book. I just don’t think I would ever do that. So my settings are minimal and I can easily do it in an hour, insert one to five sentences into each scene just to make sure my people are in the right place. Maybe, maybe there’s more setting if you know, the fires crackling or something, but even that feels a little bit odd to me.

So I do that other draft, um, passes that I do, uh, include… Let’s see, dialogue. I’ll go through and look at each line of dialogue and make sure that it is as strong as it can be. I tried to get rid of as many tags as I can, like he said, or she said, by adding action beats if I can, and I never let myself do something like, you know, he shouted, or worst of all, remember from, uh, the Hardy boys and Nancy drew, he ejaculated. We’re not going to use those kinds of herbs. Um, he said, and she said, those disappear in the reader’s eyes, but even though they actually disappear, readers don’t actually see them.

I do like to try to remove as many as I can. And still have everything make sense. So that is a pass for me. What else are passes? Sometimes character arc is another pass. I will pull out all of the Stefanie chapters and I’ll just read the Stefanie chapters with nothing else in there and make sure that her story is cohesive and I’ll remove another character and just read his chapters to make sure those are cohesive.

I feel like there’s a lot of other draft passes that I do that I am not thinking about. Um, the- but the very last draft pass that is the most fun pass is what I call the lyrical pass. And it is truly the last, the last, last revision pass that I do. And it is when I look at every sentence to see if I can make that sentence any better or any prettier or any more lyrical or any more strong, I look at the paragraphs around it and make sure that the paragraphs are built beautifully. And this is when I get to put my full craft into play. And that is not an hour thing that is going to take days and weeks to do that lyrical pass. But for me, it’s the reward of knowing that everything is now in its place as good as I can get it, and I get to make the word sing. And it is true that as I’ve been going through and doing all of these other passes and the first and maybe second larger vision that I have been tightening up sentences. So a lot of times I get to sentences in there. It’s good as they are going to get. They are sturdy, they’re doing exactly their job. But the lyrical passes, this is the time I can experiment with metaphor and simile. If it doesn’t get in the way. I don’t want to be creating more darlings that I should be killing, but I just want to make things sing a little bit more. So that is my favorite last pass. I hope that helps a little bit and I am very excited to be doing this particular format for this podcast. I look forward to the next mini podcast of “How do you, Write?” 

Please lay your questions on me. All questions are welcome. I’m sure that we’re going to go over and over some of the similar questions as they come up. In months and perhaps years to come. And that’s fine because I always feel like when I need to know something, I like to hear it a few times and I always learn something else.

So I look forward to doing this with you. Thank you again for your questions, and we’ll talk again about these kinds of things next week. Bye.

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you, Write?” You can reach me on Twitter https://twitter.com/RachaelHerron or at my website, 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 https://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  at http://rachaelherron.com/write/. Now, go to your desk and create your own process. Get to writing my friends.

The post Ep. 151: Rachael on How to Start Sentences, How to Word Sprint, and Taking on Draft Passes appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ep. 150: Shamim Sarif on Marrying Characters to Plot, Organically

As an award-winning novelist, screenwriter, and film director, Shamim Sarif has built a career on creating powerful female protagonists—and in doing so, has earned legions of fans around the world. Her latest novel, THE ATHENA PROTOCOL, is an all-female contemporary action thriller that will be released by HarperCollins in October 2019 as the first in a YA series. The book is currently being developed as a film franchise. 

An accomplished speaker, Shamim has spoken at TED events worldwide. She and her wife and sons are British/Canadian and spend time between London and Toronto.

The Athena Protocol by Shamim Sarif (October 8/HarperTEEN) is a feminist thriller about an all-female secret agency who works to stop crimes against women and children all over the world. 

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.

The post Ep. 150: Shamim Sarif on Marrying Characters to Plot, Organically appeared first on R. H. HERRON.