Rachael Herron's Blog, page 24
October 19, 2017
Ep. 064: Chloe Adler on Not Limiting Yourself in Your Writing
Chloe Adler talks about changing tastes in writing (and avocados), keeping it fresh, and not limiting yourself in your writing.
Chloe Adler lives in foggy Northern California under an assumed name with her dead fish Larry and a bouncy bunny rabbit named Fred. Prior to her infamous writing career Chloe was an overachiever, amassing a slew of unimpressive letters after her name. The trouble is that the five people who know what the letters mean, don’t really care. Her first paranormal romance series, Love on the Edge, a genre mishmash guaranteed to rotate heads is available on Amazon. The first book in her next series comes out at the end of this month. When not writing Chloe spends her time collecting striped socks.
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.
CRAFT TIP: Don’t limit yourself. Try everything.
Book Recommendation from Chloe:
Ready, Player, One, Ernest Cline
The Succubus Bargain, L.L. Frost
Listen above, watch below, or subscribe on:
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Sign up for Rachael’s FREE weekly email in which she encourages you to do the thing you want most in the world. You’ll also get her Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use now to get some writing done (free).
The post Ep. 064: Chloe Adler on Not Limiting Yourself in Your Writing appeared first on Rachael Herron.
October 12, 2017
Ep. 063: Ryan J. Pelton on Why Editing as You Go Can Be a Viable Option
Ryan J. Pelton talks about revising as you go (at which Rachael gasps) and what it means to be a Hard Hat Creative.
Ryan J. Pelton is a pastor, writer, and founder of Rock House Publishing. Ryan has written fourteen non fiction and fiction titles (under R.J. Pelton) on a variety of subjects and in multiple genres. In December 2016, Ryan launched a popular podcast to help writers with the craft (The Prolific Writer). When not making up stories in his head, Ryan can be found chasing around three hyper boys, and convincing his wife books are more important than food. Find Ryan’s work, musings, and other resources at www.theprolificwriter.net
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.
CRAFT TIP: Edit as you go!
Listen above, watch below, or subscribe on:
iTunes | Stitcher | Youtube | Facebook
Sign up for Rachael’s FREE weekly email in which she encourages you to do the thing you want most in the world. You’ll also get her Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use now to get some writing done (free).
The post Ep. 063: Ryan J. Pelton on Why Editing as You Go Can Be a Viable Option appeared first on Rachael Herron.
October 6, 2017
Ep. 062: Donika Kelly on How to Bring Physicality Into Your Work
Donika Kelly is a delightful ball of energy who is more prone to stability when it comes to her writing than any cliched poet’s angst, and it’s lovely to listen to her talk about how she stays inspired to do her best work.
Donika Kelly is the author of BESTIARY (Graywolf 2016), winner of the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, long listed for the National Book Award (2016), and a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award (2017), She’s also the author of the chapbook AVIARIUM (500 Places 2017). A Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, she received her MFA in Writing from the Michener Center for Writers and a Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University. Her poems have been appeared or are forthcoming in Virginia Quarterly Review, Tin House, and Gulf Coast. She is an Assistant Professor at St. Bonaventure University, where she teaches creative writing.
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.
CRAFT TIP: Remember the physicality in your writing.
Listen above, watch below, or subscribe on:
iTunes | Stitcher | Youtube | Facebook
Sign up for Rachael’s FREE weekly email in which she encourages you to do the thing you want most in the world. You’ll also get her Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use now to get some writing done (free).
The post Ep. 062: Donika Kelly on How to Bring Physicality Into Your Work appeared first on Rachael Herron.
September 28, 2017
Ep. 061: Olivia Dunn on What it Means to Do Two More Drafts
Olivia Dunn is a Visiting Assistant Professor of writing at Skidmore College and a creative writing instructor at the Arts Center of the Capital Region. She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program. She’s happy to be back in the Capital Region, where she grew up. Her essays have appeared recently in The Pinch Journal and McSweeney’s.
Craft Tip: When I can’t figure out what I’m doing, I go back to the big notebooks.
Book Recommendations from Olivia:
The Idiot, Elif Batuman
Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit
Madness, Rack, and Honey, Mary Ruefle
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.
Listen above, watch below, or subscribe on:
iTunes | Stitcher | Youtube | Facebook
Sign up for Rachael’s FREE weekly email in which she encourages you to do the thing you want most in the world. You’ll also get her Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use now to get some writing done (free).
The post Ep. 061: Olivia Dunn on What it Means to Do Two More Drafts appeared first on Rachael Herron.
September 11, 2017
Ep. 060: Rachael Herron with 3 Writing Tips You’ve Never Heard Before
Rachael Herron gives 3 tips to help you get to the page, daily. These are tips she doesn’t see many other people talking about, and she wants to share them with you. Listen or watch now!
CRAFT TIP: Break the seal. Watch your breath. Counsel yourself on the page.
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.
Listen above, watch below, or subscribe on:
iTunes | Stitcher | Youtube | Facebook
Sign up for Rachael’s FREE weekly email in which she encourages you to do the thing you want most in the world. You’ll also get her Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use now to get some writing done (free).
The post Ep. 060: Rachael Herron with 3 Writing Tips You’ve Never Heard Before appeared first on Rachael Herron.
September 1, 2017
Ep. 059: Amy Bernhard On Getting Uncomfortable While Still Finding Joy In Our Writing
Amy Bernhard talks about finding the new joy in the process of writing and about putting ourselves in situations in which we feel a little uncomfortable, in order to have something new to write about.
Amy is a writer whose essays appear in The Rumpus, VICE Magazine, Redivider, upstreet, The Toast, Ninth Letter, The Iowa Review, and The Colorado Review, among others. She presently teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Texas-Arlington and The University of Iowa. She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program, and her work has been awarded grants from The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts and the Virginia Center for the Arts. She is currently working on a book about the prison town of Huntsville, Texas.
HAZLITT ESSAY ON COWGIRL BOOTS
CRAFT TIP: Go to spaces where you feel a little uncomfortable, a place where you’re an outsider.
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.
Listen above, watch below, or subscribe on:
iTunes | Stitcher | Youtube | Facebook
Sign up for Rachael’s FREE weekly email in which she encourages you to do the thing you want most in the world. You’ll also get her Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use now to get some writing done (free).
The post Ep. 059: Amy Bernhard On Getting Uncomfortable While Still Finding Joy In Our Writing appeared first on Rachael Herron.
August 28, 2017
Ep. 058: Karen Dionne on Not Being Afraid to Try New Things in Your Writing
Karen Dionne is the internationally bestselling author of the dark psychological suspense novel The Marsh King’s Daughter (June 2017, G.P. Putnam’s Sons), and three other novels. She is co-founder of the online writers community Backspace, the organizer of the Salt Cay Writers Retreat, and a member of the International Thriller Writers, where she served on the board of directors. She has been honored by the Michigan Humanities Council as a Humanities Scholar, and lives with her husband in Detroit’s northern suburbs.
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.
Listen above, watch below, or subscribe on:
iTunes | Stitcher | Youtube | Facebook
Sign up for Rachael’s FREE weekly email in which she encourages you to do the thing you want most in the world. You’ll also get her Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use now to get some writing done (free).
The post Ep. 058: Karen Dionne on Not Being Afraid to Try New Things in Your Writing appeared first on Rachael Herron.
August 17, 2017
Ep. 057: Rachael Herron on Why You Should be a Liar and a Thief
Rachael Herron was born to lie — and guess what? It’s a hallmark of many creative types. Turns out, dissembling is actually good for your creative brain. Caught in a lie? Blame your creativity! On this episode, Rachael gives you on of her Patreon essays – learn scientific reasons for this boost that comes from lying and gain inspiration from one of the best deadly sins.
Listen above, watch below, or subscribe on:
iTunes | Stitcher | Youtube | Facebook
Sign up for Rachael’s FREE weekly email in which she encourages you to do the thing you want most in the world. You’ll also get her Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use now to get some writing done (free).
The post Ep. 057: Rachael Herron on Why You Should be a Liar and a Thief appeared first on Rachael Herron.
August 10, 2017
How Can I Help After Someone Dies?
When my darling mother-in-law died a few weeks ago, it was awful. I say that lightly, as if such an inadequate word can possibly be appropriate.
A person I loved died, and worse, she was the mother of the woman I’ve chosen to share my life with. We made it to her bedside with just hours to spare before she died. All I could do was hold Lala afterward.
Watching a loved one grieve doesn’t hurt more than your own grief (it can’t, of course), but it hurts differently. When you’re in your own grief, you can’t do much more than lie down in it and pull up its grimy blanket around your chin. When you’re proximate to it, you want to help and you’re sad—it’s a terrible, difficult mix.
You know you can’t help the hurting.
So you want to help in any other way possible.
Last year, one of my best friends lost her only child in a freak accident. He was just 24 years old. All I wanted to do was help, but I didn’t know what to do. I googled then, and I googled last month, and I still came up with mostly-unhelpful checklists of legal things to do, of processes that needed to be taken care of, of forms you needed to get.
I’m not knowledgable enough to write that kind of article. Instead, this is for you, the friend or the partner of the bereaved. You’re the person who wants to help, who says, “Let me know if I can help in any way,” and you mean it, I know you do. But those grieving don’t even know yet what needs to be done, so consider offering to do something specific from the below list.
TL;DR: Just show up. Keep showing up. Next year, show up on the anniversary. Be there. Listen. If they’re huggers, hug. Help in small ways. They add up.
Some Things That Will Need Doing
1. Make Phone Calls.
In the best possible world, plans will be in place. In tragedies, though, they’re not. Help brainstorm what should be done with the remains. Cremation? Burial? Where? When? Organ donation? (Yes, it’s terrible that you need to think about this so quickly. But it has to be done.)
Who needs to be contacted and told? Can you help with those notifications? The immediate family can be overwhelmed by making those phone calls, by having to say the same, terrible thing, over and over.
2. Help With Decisions.
There are two parts to a funeral – the ceremony (and a reception/wake), and the placement of the remains. Does the family want a church service? A secular service? Nothing at all? All fine. Start making the calls to the right places to schedule what you need. Hear what the family needs, and make the phone calls.
Have a piece of paper with all the information you’ll need to give, over and over, so you don’t have to keep asking: Full name, date of birth, place of birth, date of death, social security number.
3. Help With Immediate Organization
If it’s been a long time coming, the house might be full of medical equipment. Find out if you can help clean some of this out. It meant a lot to my father-in-law that the hospital bed in which his wife had spent 20 months being very ill be donated to charity, immediately. We found a hospital supply charity in the next town who wanted the goods, but they couldn’t pick them up, so we hired a moving company to do a small move of the equipment for us.
If there’s a ton of medicine in the house, offer to get rid of it. Look up the local medical waste box (often in police department lobbies) and bring the pills, all dumped together into large ziplocks. Remove personal data from the bottles (a Sharpie is good enough) and toss them.
Some medical supplies like saline flushes are great to donate to the local SPCA – check with them. Other medical supplies that aren’t drugs can be donated to organizations that pass them out to the homeless, who really need this stuff. Again, get out your phone and make a few calls.
4. Offer to write the first draft of the obituary.
It can be wildly helpful for the bereaved to have something to edit rather than coming up with the obituary themselves. Be factual, but make it real and compelling, too. Find an obituary you like and copy the format. You won’t get busted by the plagiarism police. Here’s my mother-in-law’s.
If the family would like donations in lieu of flowers, now is when to decide on the appropriate charity. Call them and find out what their best contact is. Once the obit is done and approved by everyone, send it to the local paper (it’s usually charged by the column inch). Consider sending it to their hometown paper, too, if that’s different.
5. Help Get the Death Certificates
Get ten. You will think this will be too many. It won’t be. Contact the mortuary or Vital Statistics in your state to start this. Later, when it quiets down, Social Security needs to be notified, phones deactivated, banks closed, credit cards deactivated, online accounts accessed. All of these things will need an original death certificate. A good list of what will need to be done later is here. These things are hard, by the way. Offer your friend/family member your assistance in doing them. Even going along with them to the DMV can help.
6. Help with Funeral planning.
There is so much to be done for a funeral, and this is where you can come in super handy. Pick one of these things, and offer to do it (and then do it well, and on time).
Speakers: Who will speak at the service? Make sure those people want to speak. Don’t make anyone talk who doesn’t want to, even those closest to the deceased (especially those). Can I offer my favorite funeral poem for this? Is it weird that I have one? I read that first in a Rosamunde Pilcher book in which someone dies, and I thought, that. That’s what I’d want read. That’s what I believe.
Photographs: This is an enormous task, and I honestly think it’s the most wonderful job of all. Send requests to everyone you know to send you pictures of your loved one by a certain day and time. Ask them to look in their phones, their photo albums, and their social media. Accepting them digitally is great. Share the DropBox you create for the service with everyone.
Start sorting them early—you won’t be able to put them all into the slideshow, so put the best ones into a separate file.
PROTIP: If many of them are paper photographs, go to a big box store and buy an expensive, fast scanner (not a flatbed — you want a feed-through one built for scanning multiple photos at a time, trust me on this).
Don’t worry about what you pay for it, because you’re going to return it when you’re done (keep the receipt!). Is this morally wrong? Totally! Do we care, though, about screwing a big box store a little? Not right now, no, we sure don’t! Plus, you’re going to come back to this big box store and spend a million dollars on food and drink and other things for the service, so they’ll survive.
Slideshow: By no means a must, I have to say that I think the slideshow with music is a really, really beautiful moment in a funeral. Typically 5-7 minutes, set to one or two songs (their favorite songs or the favorite songs of the bereaved), you get to look at your loved one from birth to death. Include all the best photos. Include some funny, terrible shots, too. The audience needs that break, the laugh that comes when you see the bunny fingers, the flipped bird.
Use iMovie or any other app that works. Let each photo show for 4 seconds. Any shorter is too short, any longer will leave you with fewer photos to look at. Divide the seconds of your song(s) by 4 to see how many pictures you’ll be able to fit, and then cull your awesome photos some more. Burn the slideshow onto whatever medium the funeral home/church requests, thumb drive, CD-ROM, or whatever, and then make backup copies, in case one doesn’t work. Bring your laptop the day of the funeral, also just in case. Make sure they test it once, and that you can see that it works.
PROTIP: Put ALL the photos, not just the great ones, onto another music-less slideshow and have that looping at the wake.
Photo on easel: Pick the best photo of all, the one that everyone agrees on, and send it online to your local CVS or Walmart. You’ll be able to get it blown up within an hour for a ridiculously low price. Get three or four copies, one for the framed one at the front of the church, and a couple to give away. Then go buy a frame at Michael’s or other craft store. Take the photo with you so you can decide what suits best. Double-check with the church/funeral home that they’ll have an easel to display it on (they will, but dude, double-check everything).
Memorial Fliers: Use that same best image, and make something simple. Full name, date of birth, and date of death. A favorite quote, perhaps, or a Bible verse if that’s appropriate. You can go as simple as 4.25/5.5 (8.5/11 cut in half, vertically) on good quality heavy paper. On the back, you can put the obituary for those who didn’t see it in the paper. Send to a local printer or FedEx (you can do it all online) and pick them up early to check to make sure it looks good. Arrange for a family friend to hand to them out at the service.
Guest Book: Finding a guest book that isn’t made for a wedding is difficult. If you have time, do it online and Amazon Prime it to the house. If no time, hit Michael’s again and look for something in a darker color.
Other Fancy Things to Do that the family might like (placing wishes in a jar, burning letters after the service, etc). Buy the appropriate items with the family’s approval and be responsible for getting them where they need to go.
House Protection: Get someone (hopefully not closely related or a good friend) to stay at the house during the funeral. Unfortunately, houses are sometimes burglarized while the funeral is going on (the time of the service is usually in the paper, after all) — burglars can be pretty sure most people are at the service. I’ve loaned my dog Clara for this service, too — a good barker and someone to call the police if there’s any problem is added peace of mind.
7. After the Service
Cleaning: If people are coming to the house, don’t bother really cleaning that much. Do what you can to help tidy. No one will care, honestly.
Doing: That said, if you’re at the wake/reception, and things need doing, do them. Take liberties. Ask for forgiveness if you overstep. Wash the glasses by hand. Figure out where the paper towels are stored by looking through cupboards. Make tea without being asked. This goes double for when you’re just hanging out with the bereaved, before and after the funeral.
Drinks: Stock up on all the drinks. People will bring food, but have plenty of drinks of all kinds.
Food: People will bring cakes and cookies and casseroles, but when in doubt, bring over a shitton of wings. For people who’ve been grieving and forgetting to eat anything besides cookies, this straight-up delicious barbecued protein can save their lives.
To the same point, don’t send flowers, send an Edible Arrangement. I have no affiliation—I just know that we got two last month, and both times, the whole family stood around the kitchen eating that fruit right off their perfect little sticks. They’re expensive and delicious, and they’re appreciated.
Extra little things:
If you can’t do any of these things, that’s okay, too. Just show up. Hug. Listen. Don’t try to fix anything, and for the love of all that’s holy, don’t say something stupid like, “God picks the prettiest flowers first,” or you’ll get a well-deserved punch in the snoot. Show up the next day. And the next one, too.
Don’t forget to keep showing up.
Everything’s a blur up to the funeral itself, and then the wake is overwhelming, and then everyone is gone. Those first few weeks and months (and years) are the hardest. Keep texting. Keep emailing. Don’t feel hurt if you don’t hear back (this isn’t about you). Just keep letting them know you’re thinking about them. Drop off random gifts. Send cards out of the blue, or on holidays (which are always so much worse than projected, even the Hallmark ones). When you send a card, remember something specific about the person who died. Not so much, “I’m so sorry for what you’re going through,” but more of “Remember when he fell off his bike and didn’t cry even though his elbow was fractured? Wow, what a tough, amazing kid he was.”
Remember that some people Will Not Help. They will be there in body but not in spirit. Or worse, they just won’t show up at all. This doesn’t mean they’re not grieving. It means that they just can’t deal with what’s going on inside themselves. They can’t do it. Try to forgive them, I guess? I have a hard time with that, but that’s because I grieve by doing, not by evacuating.
The people who help won’t be the ones you think will. The ones who do will surprise you. This is part of grief. Lala always says that after her first wife died of cancer, she was completely astonished by who showed up and who didn’t. Be the person who shows up.
Book recommendation: Buy How to Survive the Loss of a Love for a surviving spouse.
Don’t blame anyone for anything. Don’t argue about anything, either. If the person you’re helping wants to yell at you, let them (this is the rare time I’ll tell you this – letting them roar harmlessly is a gift you give them – they might need to roar). For the love of God, don’t fight over divvying up possessions. Who cares what your cousin wants? Is it worth a fight, to have what you didn’t have last week? Nah. Be the proverbial duck, let it all run off.
On the same note, though, so take care of yourself. Talk to your lovies. Get hugs when you need them. I’m a huge advocate for watching reality TV. When my mom was dying, I watched America’s Next Top Model. While in Idaho, I watched The Bachelorette (got all the way to the last episode and don’t even care enough now to finish watching). There’s something powerful about being swept up in problems that simply do not matter at all. Reality TV is kind of magical for grief.
Indulge in vices if they’re not too unhealthy and you’re not maintaining sobriety. If you are, get to more meetings than normal. You’re holding weight on your shoulders — find people who can help you bear a little of that.
Bonus list: Here’s a good PDF checklist I found while cruising around online if you need more help – this one is a little overwhelming, but just printing it out and offering to help fill it in could be a huge help.
Overall: Be the person who shows up. Who sticks around.
You’ve got this.
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Ep. 056: Fiona Maazel on Pushing Yourself In Your Writing
Fiona Maazel is author of the novels A Little More Human (2017), Woke Up Lonely (2013); and Last Last Chance (2008).
Maazel is winner of a 2017 Guggenheim Fellowship and the Bard Prize for Fiction. Her stories have appeared in Conjunctions, Harper’s, Ploughshares, Tin House, and Best American Short Stories 2017.
She has taught in the creative writing programs at Brooklyn College, NYU, Adelphi, Princeton, Syracuse, Columbia, and the University of Leipzig, Germany, and is currently the Director of Communications for a legal nonprofit, Measures for Justice. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Listen above, watch below, or subscribe on:
iTunes | Stitcher | Youtube | Facebook
Sign up for Rachael’s FREE weekly email in which she encourages you to do the thing you want most in the world. You’ll also get her Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use now to get some writing done (free).
The post Ep. 056: Fiona Maazel on Pushing Yourself In Your Writing appeared first on Rachael Herron.
