Rachael Herron's Blog, page 32

In Which I Write a Lot

A while ago, I had the idea that I’d put together a little book—pulled from blog posts—about moving from the desire to write to being a writer. I hired a person to go through my fourteen years of blog posts (that’s a lot of posts, a great many of them full of angst about wanting to write more and not doing it).

I’m still going to do the book, because I think it’s a fun project, but I realized I hadn’t edited it yet because I’m too busy writing. Same thing with not blogging more.

I used to write about wanting to write.

Now I’m too busy writing.

And that’s so awesome!

There’s a lot of hustle in this self-employed game, I’ll tell you that much. I’m constantly plotting, both literally and figuratively. I’m writing a book that’s due in a month to Random House Australia (the third Songbird book!), and then I’m going to write a book (newish genre!) for my agent to sell, and then I’m going to write another Ballard Brother book, so the next six or seven months of fiction writing are occupied. (That’s the way I think about it. FULLY BOOKED. Like the hotel I used to work at, the shingle is out: No Occupancy. I get ideas and shuffle them into a file in Scrivener. No time for you now, come back later. Book your brain reservation early.)

I’m happy with the side gig I’ve recently made for myself, formatting the interior of print books for self-publishers. It’s bringing in a little cash, and while Lala’s still unemployed, that’s welcome money. Another thing I really like about it is that it’s not creative. At all. I plug manuscripts in. I format them. I collect money for doing it. It’s like doing the budget: I put numbers in and move them around, and it feels good. My word brain rests.

It’s nice to rest the brain. I’m still very bad at relaxing, and it’s perhaps possible I’ve gotten worse at it, now that I feel that all my time at home should be Productive, but I’m working on it. Later today, I promise to spin a little bit. Spinning while watching TV is something that never fails to soothe my spirit and brain.

What will you do today to soothe your brain? (And thanks, as always, for reading. You’re the reason I do this. YOU.)

(Also! I’m trying to be more active on Pinterest. Turns out that it’s a good place for resting the brain, too. Come join me?)

Ep. 013: Clara Parkes

Over a decade ago, Clara Parkes abandoned San Francisco’s high-tech hubbub to build a quieter creative life on the coast of Maine. Since then, she has become a trusted voice in the knitting community. Her most recent book, Knitlandia, has taken a well-earned position on the New York Times bestseller list for Travel. “Clara Parkes is the MFK Fisher of knitting: unflinching, all-seeing, mysterious–and also kind,” writes Ann Shayne and Kay Gardiner of Mason-Dixon Knitting. She is also the publisher of KnittersReview.com, has appeared regularly on the PBS Television series “Knitting Daily TV,” and is a frequent contributor to Twist Collective. In her spare time, Clara loves to putter in the kitchen and is a huge fan of butter.

Craft tip: Read your own work aloud. It’s a very helpful way to hear your words in a different way than on paper.

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The Songbird’s Call

Darlingest reader,

I used to spend quite a bit of time in Bolinas, a tiny one-horse town just north of San Francisco. I fell in love with Smiley’s Schooner Hotel, and I have to admit that the saloon and cafe and hotel in Darling Bay are directly stolen from that delightful property. (Yep, writers are thieves, magpies collecting shiny real objects to tuck into our story nests. A couple of years ago, the property was for sale, and I still dream of buying it sometimes.)

One New Year’s Eve, we drove into town through a storm so big it closed the roads behind us, washing them out. The power went out all over town, and we ate that night in the cafe, lit by candlelight. The cook had worked overseas and was good at cooking on propane. They cranked up the Victrola near the front door, and our table was so merry that our laughter rung from the wooden beams overhead. That night, we rang the new year in while listening to the Whoreshoes play “Easy Like Saturday Night” in the saloon (which had a generator, so the amps and speakers worked, along with the many strands of twinkling white lights which shone as the only light in town).

We danced and whooped and reveled inside the old beach saloon, and it was perfect.

Another time, when a big group of us were given the large room over the saloon, we chose to sleep on an air mattress on the veranda that hung over the saloon’s front door. We fell asleep tipsy and happy, waking up just as happy but also quite damp in the early ocean fog which soaked our sleeping bags.

And last year, one of my sisters rented a cottage there for Christmas, and the three Herron girls converged on Bolinas with our loved ones. (Okay, yes. There are three sisters in my family, just like in this series. We all have good singing voices, and we harmonize beautifully. However, we’ve never been a famous country girl band, and the characters are not based on us, I swear. I could never do the love we share justice, though I often borrow its flavor to bring into my books.) We all splashed our way through the rain to the cafe where we ate huge quesadillas and drank bottomless cups of coffee.

Darling Bay is my way of honoring Bolinas’s spirit. There really is a town poet laureate. Rangy black dogs run on the sand, barking at sand pipers. Patchouli incense wafts over the town as fragrantly as the other burning weed that’s ever popular in small-town Northern California.

BUY LINKS FOR US/Canada (also available world-wide!

Amazon | Kobo | iBooks | Barnes & Noble | Google Play

BUY LINKS for Australia/New Zealand

Amazon Australia |iBooks AU | Google Australia | Booktopia | QBD | Angus & Robertson

I hope you like it. Please tell me what you think? It always means the world to me.

love,

Rachael

BONUS:

Want to see what Darling Bay looks like? I’ve started a Pinterest board – find Bolinas photos there! (I found a picture of me singing there. I’d forgotten that entirely.)
Are you a writer or think about trying to write? Subscribe to my podcast How Do You Write on iTunes or Stitcher!

Ep. 012: Courtney Gillette

Courtney Gillette is an essayist and reviewer, reviewing books for Lambda Literary since 2010. She co-hosts The Hustle reading series, helps behind the scenes at BinderCon, and has served as a judge for the Lambda Literary Awards. In 2013, her work was chosen by A.M. Homes for The Masters Review, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Most recently she was one of ten finalists for the BuzzFeed Emerging Writers Fellowship. She lives in Brooklyn with one bookseller and three cats.

Craft Tip: Whenever you’re writing something, if you can’t remember something specific, just write XX to fill in later. Keep going with the story at hand.

First of the Month TinyLetter (you want to be in on this)

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Ep. 011: Kim Werker

Kim Werker is a writer and freelance editor who tries to make something – anything – every day. Many of those things are awful; some are not. She runs a project called Mighty Ugly, leading workshops and lecture-conversations to help people embrace the hard parts of creativity so they can have more fun making stuff and trying new things. Her latest book is Make It Mighty Ugly: Exercises and Advice for Getting Creative Even When It Ain’t Pretty.  She has written six crochet books and recently helped a client start a clarinet magazine. Originally from Brooklyn, NY, Kim lives in Vancouver, BC, with her partner, their son and their mutt.

Craft Tip: Read it out loud. If you sound like a robot, you need more contractions.

SUPPORT KIM’S AWESOME PATREON HERE!

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New Days

This morning, I lamented on Twitter how I don’t blog as much anymore, and was immediately smacked upside the head with the obvious answer: I could just blog more.

The problem is a good one: I’m not blogging because I’m writing so much. This new life, my friends. It really suits me. I write books and essays, I tweet, I Facebook, I send my emails. I’m writing ALL the time, and it’s rad.

I was talking to some friends the other day, and I realized that I’m finally over not feeling worthy of this.

I do deserve this.

I’ve written so much, and I’ve written so hard, and I’ve dedicated my life to this. Now I get to sit around and work even harder, and I love it.

Let me tell you about my days now. You know I’m the kind of person who unpacks in a tent, I love routine that much. So it took me just a few weeks to set up my new routine, which, for the last four months (four MONTHS of being self-employed!), has brought me so much joy.

I wake up. Whenever I want. I don’t set alarms anymore. I usually get up between 6 and 8, but I wait till my brain clicks on and I want to get up.

I shower. Sometimes. Not always.

I do yoga. Mondays tend be brisk yoga, which leads to gentler yoga on Tuesday and Wednesday, longer sessions on Thursday and Friday again. I say long, but I don’t go over 30 minutes, because that seems long to me. Daily is the trick for my success.

Then I get a cup of coffee, and this is the big change: Without looking at my phone, Twitter, or email, I quickly go over the words I wrote the day before. I’m not really revising, because that comes later, but I’m reminding myself what I wrote. I make notes about the plot in my sentence outline. I futz with words if I feel like it. Then I turn to my Midori Traveler’s Notebook (oh, how I love thee) and I plot out the words I’m going to write that day.

These two things, the going over yesterday’s words and plotting out today’s, have made writing so much easier for me.

I’m hitting 3,000 words a day without pain. Okay, it doesn’t hurt very much. First drafts are always hard for me, no matter what, but this one, the first book I’m writing as a full-time writer, is flowing. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that when I was working the 48-hour shifts at the fire station, I spent my days off in various states of recovery and battling migraines. Add working extra 24-hour shifts on trades, and I don’t know how I got anything written at all. I really don’t. I could revise a little in the middle of the night there, but I couldn’t work on anything serious.

This writing full-time thing? Let me say it again. It’s a-freaking-mazing.

After I plot, I let myself Check Things. I respond to emails. I look at Facebook. I tweet. I have breakfast and play with dogs a bit.

Then, at about ten, I start writing, and I don’t stop until I’ve hit my word goal for the day, which has been 3000 lately. 3k is a brisk pace to step through a book, but not so fast I lose control of the reins. I do this either on my writing couch, or at Mills, depending on whether or not I have plans for the rest of the day. If I have to go out later, I might as well write at the college, which feels still feels like a magical place to write (I lost my cafe when their prices went up so high I couldn’t justify a coffee). And lately I realized that not only does the library allow drinks, but it has carrels with electricity, good for my old computer which only gets about an hour of use without needing to be plugged in. I love it there. And I’m definitely getting my money’s worth out of that degree I earned there.

Then I’m FREE!

And by that, I mean I’m free to write other things. Like this blog. After I write this today, I’m going to work on an essay I’m writing for Clara Parkes (NAME DROPPING, yes, I just did that). After that, I’ll think about working on my new Patreon essay. I can easily keep myself working till 6pm, and often, till 9 or 10 at night. I’m really trying to be more balanced, though, so I try to walk away at 6. I fail most nights, but someday I’ll get it.

And I’ve been doing SO MUCH FUN STUFF.

I’m formatting book interiors, for those of you interested in going from a digital book to a print book. I’m good and I’m as cheap as you’ll find. (Did I mention Lala’s now unemployed? She’s unemployed. I should be panicking more, but I’m not. It’s just going to work out. It has to. But hey, if you know any front-end web developer jobs, let us know.)

I’m hosting two (TWO!) podcasts. My solo project is How Do You Write, and on it, I talk to working writers about their process (I love to think about process. See above.) And I’m cohosting The Business of Writing in Romance with Carolyn Jewel, and that’s so much fun, too. I’ve discovered that I really love doing the production for these. Lala says it’s just that I spent so many years being on a radio (fire/police radios) that I’m addicted to it now. (She might have something there.)

In fact, the Patreon essays on creativity are going to be a podcast, too. Interested? Get early access to them a month ahead of time by pledging as little as a buck an essay. I’m calling them Creativity Field Notes, because I really do feel as if I’m actively studying creativity, taking notes and reporting back.

Oh, my god, PLUS, I have a book coming out in two weeks. It’s getting awesome reviews on GoodReads, so add it to your list! Preorders available on all platforms. I love this series about sisters, small town, and love. Hopefully you will, too.

Best part about all this? I’ve been able to be present in my life. I see my friends. I hang out with my sisters. I walk the dogs. I am HERE.

I am so lucky. Yes. Absolutely. But it’s not just luck.

It was also damn hard work that got me here. I’m going to keep on working damn hard, and hell, if I need to get a part time job at some point, I’ll do that, no problem. But knowing that I can do this? That I can trust myself to work harder at making this work than anything else I’ve ever done leaves me feeling proud of myself.

That feels really freaking great.

Ep. 10: Morgan Jerkins

Morgan Jerkins lives and writes in New York.  She graduated from Princeton University with an AB in Comparative Literature, specializing in nineteenth century Russian literature and postwar modern Japanese literature, and she has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She speaks six languages.

Currently, she’s a contributing editorat Catapult and a Book of the Month judge. On the freelance side, her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Vogue, The New York Times, The Atlantic, ELLE, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, andBuzzFeed, among many others.

Her debut essay collection, THIS WILL BE MY UNDOING, is forthcoming from Harper Perennial.

SHOW NOTES: Morgan recommends Morgan Parker, Julie Buntin, and Vinson Cunningham.

CRAFT TIP: Don’t be afraid to embellish your memories – edit later, not in the moment. Explore every single emotion, don’t hold back, don’t judge the emotion, work through it. Earn your epiphany. 

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Best Gluten-Free Pizza EVER

I would not have believed this, but this is fast and easy, my friends. I’m actually taking a break from eating to put up this post, because I don’t want to risk losing this recipe I’ve made three times now. This is for ham and pineapple, but sub your own toppings (though you’re crazy if you do, ham and pineapple is the best). The crust is both crisp and chewy, and tastes better than any normal crust I’ve ever had (besides Zachary’s deep dish, because that’s god on a plate). Recipe adapted from this one.

Preheat oven to 350.

In small bowl, mix 3/4 warm water and 1 tbsp yeast. 2 min later, add 1 tbsp sugar. Let sit five minutes.

In large bowl:

1 cup white rice flour (sweet okay)

1 cup brown rice flour

1 cup tapioca flour

3/4 tsp xantham gum

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

Whisk together. Then, make a well in the middle. In that well,  pour the yeast mixture, 1 tbsp olive oil, and approx 1 c. warm water. Then mix. Add more water if necessary.

On parchment placed on a cookie sheet, flatten the dough to 1/4-1/2 inch thickness (I use a plastic glove oiled with olive oil to make it easy). Parbake 30 min @350.

While it parbakes, throw this into food processor:

3 or 4 small tomatoes (fresh, if you have them!)

3 cloves garlic

3 or 4 leaves basil

sprinkle of salt

good drizzle olive oil

Run food processor till it’s chunky but not liquid. Add good amount of grated parmesan to thicken.

When parbake is done (it’s okay if the dough cracks, that’s normal), pull it out and top with the tomato sauce, ham, chopped mozzarella, and one small can of chopped, drained pineapple. Add red chili flakes to taste.

Bake another 30 minutes.

AMAZING. Enjoy, my friends. Now I have to get back to eating.

Ep. 009: Raina J. León

Dr. Raina J. León was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was introduced to poetry by her mother from a young age. She holds multiple degrees, and she’s been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in over 50 literary magazines and journals, and her published poetry collections include: Canticle of Idols (2008) and Boogeyman Dawn (2013) which was was a finalist for the Naomi Long Madgett Prize. Her third book, sombra : (dis)locate, came out in February of 2016. León is a Cave Canem Fellow, as well as the recipient of other fellowships and residencies, and the cofounder of The Acentos Review (2008). She is currently an Assistant Professor at St. Mary’s College of California.

Craft tip: Ask a question, and engage with answering that question in different ways.

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Ep. 008: Nayomi Munaweera

Nayomi Munaweera’s debut novel, Island of a Thousand Mirrors was long-listed for the Man Asia Prize and won the Commonwealth Regional Prize for Asia . It was short-listed for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and the Northern California Book Prize. The New York Times called the book “luminous” and Publisher’s Weekly has compared her voice to that of Michael Ondatjee and Jhumpa Lahiri. Nayomi’s second novel, What Lies Between Us has been one of the most anticipated releases of 2016, having been featured on both Buzzfeed and Elle Magazines Best of 2016 lists. She lives in Oakland, California and is working on her third novel.

Craft Tip: From Janet Fitch – Regarding Character – When you write dialog, the reader learns as much from words as from gesture.

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