SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's really important to have a strong vision for your story because you're gonna want that plot to be clear and you still want that story to have a strong beginning, middle, and end. So it's gonna hit all the main points that you would see like in a novel just on a very small scale.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Welcome to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacy Fraser, a formally repressed creative soul, turned fiction writer, story editor, and author accelerator certified fiction book coach. At Write It Scared, we tell the truth about why writing a novel is so hard by acknowledging that most writers grapple with two stories: the one they want to put on the page to the best of their ability, and the often subconscious internal story that prevents them from doing it. This show is designed to help you identify and rewrite the internal narrative holding you back while you discover and write the story you want to tell and learn all the tools to help you do that successfully. Join me each week for a new episode where we'll talk about writing to deepen our understanding of the craft and of ourselves as writers. Writing a novel is an inside job that we do not do alone. Welcome to Write It Scared. I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hi, writer. Welcome back to another episode of the Write It Scared Podcast. I'm your host, Stacey. Today I'm talking to a special guest about writing short stories. I'm in conversation with Demi Michelle Schwartz, who is an author and an editor among many other things, and we break down how to go about approaching writing a short story to improve your skill set as a novelist. And truth be told, I've always been a bit intimidated by writing short stories, but after my conversation with Demi, once I finished the first draft of my latest book, I decided to sit down and write one, and I was so pleasantly surprised by the experience. So I hope that today's conversation affords you the same feeling of freedom and exploration, and that you try it out too. So let me give you her bio and then we will jump into the interview. Demi Michelle Schwartz is an author from Pittsburgh represented by Michelle Jackson at LCS Literary. She primarily writes young adult fiction focusing on the fantasy and thriller genres, but she also loves to explore other genres and age categories in her short stories found in multiple anthologies. She holds an MFA in writing popular fiction from Seton Hill. Along with being an author, she is the host of the Literary Blend Podcast, a publishing podcast, which, by the way, is fantastic. Please go have a listen. She's also a freelance fiction editor through her independently run services, Amethyst Inc. and an editor for RevPut. In addition, she is a publicist for Wild Inc. Publishing and a literary agent intern at the Purcell Agency. When Demi isn't working on her manuscripts and finding ways to further her involvement in the publishing industry, she is chasing her other dream as an award-winning songwriter and recording artist. Hi Demi, welcome to the show. I'm so glad that you are joining us. How are you? I'm fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Yeah, it is a pleasure. Today we are going to talk about the magic of writing short stories and how that can help us become stronger novelists. But before we jump into that, would you please share with our listeners a bit more about your journey to becoming an author, an editor, a podcaster, and a lit intern. What don't you do? And I think I forgot something too. I forgot publicist.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yeah. Yeah, so I've always loved stories ever since I was young. I feel like a lot of authors have that kind of same path of loving stories as kids. And when I was in high school, when I was a senior, I had a creative writing class, and my teacher was like, you should major in English. And I'm like, nope, I'm majoring in music. And I did that, but then I learned very early on at school that I loved English as well. And so I ended up double majoring. And then I didn't really think I would go into publishing. But when I was a junior, I believe, or senior in college, one of my professors mentioned that she thought I would be a good fit for the MFA program. And so I went to one of the residencies, fell in love with it, started grad school, like as soon as I graduated undergrad. And that's how I got into being an author. As soon as I graduated, I started querying, did that whole thing, signed with an agent. But in the midst of all that, I really fell in love with editing and beta rating, had many critique partners. Many of them went on to sign with agents and get book deals. And it was really cool to see like books I've worked on get representation and published. And so many of them were like, you should become an editor. And so I started Ammethystync editorial last March. Around the same time, I launched my podcast Literary Blend. And then around the same time, I started my publicist internship at Wilding Publishing. I'm now a publicist for them. And then I'm friends with Amy Nielsen, and she got me an internship at the Purcell Agency that I started in January of this year. So it's kind of snowballed. And I'm also obsessed with short stories, which invited me to chat about that today. I'm the author of seven published short stories at the time of recording this. The eighth one is coming out on February 25th. And then there are two more coming later this year. And I'm still waiting on some submissions. So that's a little about me.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

That number one, congratulations to you for putting that in. Wow, what a what an amazing tight container. You delivered all of this in that was fabulous. But and also congratulations on just all the short stories. And yeah, looking forward to that. What are the genre veins for those short stories?

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Oh my goodness. I write across all genres and age categories for my short stories. So they span middle grade, Y, and New Adult. So there's a couple fantasy, one's a speculative thriller. I have a couple horror ones, one's a Christmas romance. And yeah, so they really span, and that's the really cool thing about short stories I'll talk about later, is you can kind of step outside your comfort zone with them, and you don't really always have to write the genre that you write with novels.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

That is a fantastic segue. And because we're going to talk about writing short stories today, how that can make a stronger novelist. And I, for one, am someone who, I mean, I was when you pitched this topic to me, I was like, yes, I love this. Because I'm terrified of short stories. Because for a reason, the idea of just the expanse of 80,000 words or more just, I don't know, it makes me less nervous than having to deliver uh a satisfying experience and change to a reader in a span of like 5,000 words or 10,000 words max. So let's jump in. So, what are the benefits of writing short stories for novelists?

SPEAKER_00 6:55

So there is quite a few. So I'll list the main one. So the first one, which is a big one for me, is consistency. And as novelists, we're not always drafting. We're revising, we're waiting on feedback, and so we're not always actively writing. And one of the biggest benefits with short stories is it's a way to consistently write. And that's just going to help you when it comes to drafting a new novel. If you're someone like me who kind of writes a novel every year, I write them pretty quickly in like a month or two months or so. And then I spend the rest of the year with Biden and doing other things. And so if I would go a complete year without drafting at all, I would find it extremely difficult to get back into it. And so writing short stories is a great way to keep up that consistency. Another point I want to make is that it helps you with writing succinctly. I don't know about you or any of the listeners, but when I first started writing novels, I was an overwriter and I had to cut thousands and thousands and thousands of words out of the manuscript. However, when you're doing short stories, especially submitting to anthologies, you will have word count limitations. And so you're forced to write a story in under 5,000 words if that's what the submission call is asking of you. And so you really need to pay attention and make sure that every single word counts. Sometimes when we're writing novels, we have these little filler scenes and we have like long info dumps and things that we're like, oh, it's okay. Like I can have an 80,000 wordmata script. All this stuff is fine. But when you look at the closer level of it and like the pacing and things like that, we have this extra stuff that's not needed. And when you're running a short story, you absolutely cannot have any of that because you are limited with the work house. Another point I want to make is it really helps you focus your ideas. So if you're someone who goes into writing a story and you have a really vague idea, you're not quite sure what you want to do, you can get pretty far into drafting that novel. And like once you hit 40,000 words, you can stop and be like, this is a mess. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Like this makes no sense. And you kind of have to go back and start all over. But writing short stories is a great way to really try to focus your ideas. So when you sit down to write, whether you're a plotter or panther, you have a stronger vision for a story before writing it. And writing short stories consistently will help you do that. Another benefit is something I kind of mentioned earlier about writing across the genres in age categories. I love doing this because it allows me to stretch my creative muscles and try different things. And sometimes you'll end up writing in a genre that you never thought you would write in. For example, I wrote my first horror short story last year, like during the summer, and I loved it. And now, like every time I see a horror submission call, I'm like, I'm all over this. But if I hadn't stepped out of my fantasy and thriller comfort zone and wrote horror, I would have never known that that's a genre I like to explore. And so writing short stories is a small-scale way to test out genres and age categories. And also if you say you have like two or three WIP ideas and you're like, I don't know which one I want to do. You can play around with writing short stories with those characters, playing in the world a little bit to see like which one you would be most interested in. So you can definitely play around with existing story ideas to see which one you want to turn into a novel, which leads me to my last point of sometimes when you write short stories, they inspire novels. There's two that I wrote. One is called Dabria's Shadows, which is a new adult dark romanticy, and then another is called Rosalia, which is a young adult speculative thriller or new adult speculative thrill, but the book would be YA. And when I wrote both of those short stories, I immediately got this whole vision for like possible novels. And if I hadn't written those short stories, I would not have gotten those potential novel ideas. So it's a great way to play around with some ideas, and you never know if one of those short stories will lead to you writing a full-length novel down the road. So those are some benefits. There's definitely more, but those are the ones that I wanted to highlight.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you make a good case for it. So consistency, developing narrative efficiency, really understanding pacing, exploring different aspects of genre. And, you know, in today's world, I mean, we we are blending genres.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

You know, so much in our fiction. And so and I and and so I think that element of experimentation is fun and delicious and exciting and leading to and leading into new things. And I would imagine that you can use your short stories to explore character development as well. Yeah, no, absolutely. And turning those things into lead magnets too, whether you're Trad or Indie.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Yeah, building up your publishing credits if you're submitting these to like anthologies and stuff, like your bio will just get really developed if you can show people, hey, look, I've been published here, here, here. It can catch Asians' attentions, it can catch small presses attentions, and just readers in general. If you have your work published in other places, that will show your writing talent before someone even dives into your sample pages. So submitting short stories to anthologies is like my whole personality. But it's something I wish I would have done while querying. I started it when I was on submission, but that's something I wish I would have done while queering. So definitely something to consider for all the queering authors out there.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Right on. So let's define what a short story is in publishing terms before we keep going. What are the word counts that we're talking about here?

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Yeah, so you will get some varied opinions, but I'm basing this off of because I've submitted to so many, like kind of the typical things I see. So on average, I would say the sweet spot for submissions, especially, is usually between 2,000 and 5,000. However, some are shorter. And once you get to like the thousand workout range, that's kind of more flash fiction, which is like a mini short story. I have seen some go up to like 7,500. But once you go above that, you get into like novelette territory. And then I would say once you hit like 10,000, 15,000 or higher, you're kind of into novella territory. But when you think about a short story, the whole idea is that it's intended to be read in one sitting. And so anytime you kind of go beyond the page count of like someone can actually sit down and read this in one sitting, you're gonna get into like novelette and novella territory because short stories aren't tended to be quick reads. So that's a little snippet of that.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Yeah, that's a really good takeaway. Great. Well, can you walk us through how to approach writing a short story just in general, like idea development and just the aspects that we need to think about and how to think about them, maybe in a way that's different than we do with a novel.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, there's a lot of differences. However, when I sit down to I'm a plotter, so I'm just gonna say that. I approach a short story similar to a novel. So I do all the planning in advance and I have a mini outline that's obviously way shorter than my 40,000-word outlines for my novels. But I think the main thing is having a strong concept. If you're submitting places and looking at submission calls, then you'll be able to come across prompts that speak to you. But if you're just writing a short story on your own, the same applies. It's like coming up with a concept that you really connect with or that fits a submission call. And then looking up the elements. So I'm gonna kind of break down some of the main ones. First, with plot in a short story, you aren't going to have the complexity of a plot that you would have in a novel. You don't have all those subplots. Short stories typically follow one very clear thread because that's all you can do in that word count range. And so that's why it's really important to have a strong vision for your story because you're gonna want that plot to be clear, and you still want that story to have a strong beginning, middle, and end. So it's gonna hit all the main points that you would see like in a novel just on a very small scale. So you're gonna have an exciting incident of swords, you're gonna have a midpoint of swords, a climax and a resolution. So all the things that you see in a novel just on a much smaller scale. When it comes to characterization, this is one that can be a little tricky because you want your character to have some evolution, but you obviously aren't going to be able to have them have the same level of a character arc as in a novel. And so the way I like to look at the characterization in a story is determining what is the main conflict of the story, which is why it's important to know the plot. Because if you have the plot, you know the main conflict of the story and the main situation or the main obstacle that this character needs to overcome. And as a result of them going through that journey, they're going to change, maybe not as drastically as in a novel, but we still want to see some kind of character development. In terms of like the number of characters, for me personally, major characters, I would say like most of my short stories have two or three major characters. There's obviously others that are just like in passing, but again, you don't have the space to have a huge cast of characters. And so really keeping your cast small will allow you to develop those characters because if we have too many, you're going to be using a lot of page space, like describing those characters. And also if you think about a novel, when we're running an opening pages, we often get the advice to not hit the reader with a bunch of characters at once. Like we want to get to know the protagonist and maybe like one or two of the characters in the first chapter that are important to the story. And so if you have a 10-page short story, look at it as like a 10-page first chapter. You wouldn't have 10 characters introduced in a first chapter of a novel. And so on the short story side, you should keep it limited. When it comes to setting descriptions, this is one that I've often seen like the world building obviously can't be at the same level, and you don't really have the space to do a ton of sensory description. However, the sensory details are like a huge part of my voice and my writing style. Like every short story I write, my friends are like, it's so vivid. Like, how do you like write that many details in a short story? I just find a way to make it work because that's like my style. But just be aware, like, if you're writing especially like fantasy or science fiction, you're gonna have to keep it a little more simple because you're not gonna have all the space to really describe like the world and the backstory and things like that. The last point I wanted to make is on theme, which is really interesting. So when we think about, especially like in school, like when we were analyzing short stories, a lot of them had very clear themes where it's almost like the author was much more direct than you would expect with a novel. When we write novels, we're often told to like don't hit the reader over the head with the theme, it will come out on its own. But because a short story is so shorter and you don't have 300 pages or longer to allow a reader to immerse themselves into that story and discover the theme for themselves, you have to be a little more direct. And that's something that I've been mindful of is like not overdoing it, but still making it a little clearer based on like the character's interiority or just the story concept in general. Like, what do I want readers to take away from this? Because sometimes that isn't as clear as it would be in a novel. So those are some things, but my process in general, like I said, I come up with a concept, then I pick a character. I I love picking character names because as soon as I pick a character name, like the rest kind of falls into place. Then I start playing around the plot. And I think brainstorming with friends is really important. Like a lot of my friends and I swap on short stories because I got all of them obsessed too. Um, and so we'll have like brainstorming sessions and talk about like our ideas and things like that, and then after I draft the story, I always give feedback. So I follow like a similar process as a novel, it's just on a much smaller scale.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Yeah, that makes complete sense. Can you speak a little bit more about the difference, the narrative arc and in the character arc? What kind of change is the reader looking for in a short story? And you didn't say that it's on a much smaller scale than it would be a novel, but can you give us an example and maybe speak a little bit more about that?

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Yeah, for sure. So for me, it's it's looking at the protagonist and where they're starting and where they end up. A lot of times it's interesting because you'll see like a parallel between the beginning and the end of the story. Like that character kind of ends up in a similar position, but during the story, they may have gotten some realization that completely changes them. So I'm gonna give you an example of one of mine to kind of clear this up. So one of my stories is called A Pinch of Cinnamon and Lore, and now it's published in Dragonflight, which is a charity anthology by Dragon Soul Press. We actually hit number one on the fantasy short story bestsellers list for Amazon, which is absolutely nuts. Like all of our friends were like, What? But in that story, it follows a character named Fiyama, and she lives in this valley where the the full valley values vanilla as a fragrance, and that brings good luck to them. And in their lore, they believe that cinnamon is a curse, and if anybody uses anything with the spice or the fragrance, it's believed that this cursed rain will fall from the sky and give the entire valley bad luck for a century. And so everyone is terrified of cinnamon. Well, at the beginning of the story, Fioma works in a candle shop and her pet dragon Aiden brings an order form for cinnamon candles. And she has this bias, right? Like, oh my goodness, like this is bad. Like someone's trying to do dark magic, blah, blah, blah. Well, it turns out you find out at the end of the story that there's another girl, Ashmere, who's just moved to the valley, and she was from another place. She was from an island that was known for cinnamon that got destroyed by a volcano. And in her culture, cinnamon is good luck and valued. And so Fiyama's journey during the story is going from her own cultural biases and beliefs and her own lore and recognizing that there's other people out there, there's other cultures out there. And the at the end of the story, like she thinks cinnamon for the first time and she embraces the fact that this other girl who just moved to this valley, like her culture matters too. And she has a bigger of like a bigger open mind and like wants to get to know that. And so that's an example of like how she had her character of like her own beliefs and how that changed through like a realization. So that's a way to do it. But that's that's very straightforward. So there's not a lot of extra stuff going on. It's her very straightforward belief system shifting. And other stories, you can have situations where maybe a character had to overcome like a personal struggle, like internal struggle. And so think internally, the external conflicts definitely play a role. But in terms of the character arcs and the narrative structure, like the plot is important. But especially I think with a short story, like the reader, you have to hook a reader right away. And the way to do that is with character and by showing their flaw or maybe something that. They want to change about themselves, seeing them overcome that flaw or see that change come to light by the end. That's how you can really grab a reader. And so I feel like sometimes the short stories can be more character-driven because of that.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

That was so beautiful. Thank you for sharing the part about your story, the premise. Yeah. What happens in your story? And what was it called again? A Pinch of Cinnamon and Lore.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

And where can readers find that?

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Yeah, that's in an anthology called Dragon Flight, and it was published by Dragon Soul Press.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

So cool.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

So what if you have a character with a flat arc? How do you deal with that in a short story span? I would imagine that it would become much more about the external conflict and the situation of the world. I mean, because that's really what a flat arc does, right? It's just it's the characters staying steadfast and true to their belief system. And because they're able to do that, the situation around them or the people around them can change.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Yeah, no, that that's a good point as well. I feel like I'm more a character-driven as a writer, so I try to go more toward like the character changing. But you're exactly right. I think like those kind of stories I feel like can really lend themselves to the very high stakes, like like science fiction or fantasy or horror even. And one of mine, I guess like it would it would be more of that where it's a horror story and she faces like uh demonic possession. And so she as a character like doesn't really change. She ends up dying at the end. Spoiler alert. But so like they're that whole thing, but it's it's more of the external. And when you get into something like that, it's less, I think, of like how the character changes, but more of how they cope with the situation. And that's how you can bring out their characterization because they're not necessarily changing, because different people deal with fear in different ways. So if you draw up two characters in the exact same story, they're both going to react differently based on the external situation. So even if it's a more plot-driven external high-stakes conflict kind of situation, I think you'll still be able to bring out the characterization because how they adapt and how they deal with the situation will show about who they are, the person.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yeah. I'm thinking about the short stories that I have read, and perhaps this is why my view is so limited. Because I read a lot of the Stephen King short stories, which, you know, I love. And a lot of times those characters do not have nice endings. Yeah. A lot of times. And so, you know, just to in terms of arc, I see a lot of falling arcs there, or or not necessarily falling, but negative character arcs. Yeah, yeah. They maybe believe a truth and then they realize, you know, that that truth is damning. Right. Yeah. Either treat you believe it or not. So they're much more tragic in coffee.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it's funny because like in fiction, like with novels, it's like the golden rule is to not kill your protagonist. And for the one I was like talking to my best friend, I was like, I kind of feel like I should kill the main character. She's like, dude, I think you have an aren't you not so still? I think in short stories, again, like it's more experimental, you know, like you can do crazy stuff like that. Another thing I like to do, I just did it for when I wrote, is the more like ambiguous ending where like you're kind of left wondering, like, what in the world just happened or like what's gonna come next. So there's a lot of things you can kind of do in short stories and be more experimental with.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Yeah. So you talked about the fact that short stories, just because of the landscape and the scope that they cover, can't handle as many characters. And that makes sense. So when it comes to point of view, do you have any recommendations or is there anything that your writer should lean on? It feels like the short stories that I've read have all been more written in an omniscient or third person. And the other short stories, like that, that's true, but newer short stories, it seems like there's a bigger push into more intimate POVs.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Yeah. Well, the interesting thing with the point of view is I think the same really applies as novels. I mean, like, people have their opinions. I personally prefer first person present, and some people are like, oh my goodness, no, like I like third person fast, and that's totally fine. My best friend likes third person fast, and we co-write a lot, and she's always like, Let's do it in third-person fast. I'm like, really, just do we have to? But it's funny because like you have different options, right? You basically have like, you know, third person omniscient or third person past present, first press present. And so I would just say, like, think about your voice, right? So when someone reads one of my short stories and one of my novels, you're going to get the same authorial voice because it's still me. And so I think authors can lean into that. If you love writing first person past, then write that for your short stories because that's what's natural for you. For me personally, like, even though I love first person present, I have done thirds sometimes. There's one, it's called Dabria's Shadows, which is coming out on February 25th, which is my hands-down favorite. I love this story. And I wrote it in third person present. And that story is a fairy tale reimagining of a brother's grim fairy tale. And if you read the brother's grim fairy tales, like not a single one is in first person. Like they're all like a little distant and they have that ancient traditional feel. And even though I wanted mine to be a little more immediate with having it in present tense, I wanted to do third person because I wanted it to read like a reimagining of a brother's grim fairy tale. If I would have written it in first person, it wouldn't have had the same effect. And so there are some things that you can keep in mind with like, what are you trying to achieve? Like, do you want a very deep immersive point of view, or do you intentionally want to make it a little more distancing? And so any of the point of views could work in short stories based on what you're trying to achieve as the author.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And do you have any advice for someone writing their very first short story?

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Yeah, so there's two main things I would like to say. So the first one is to focus on writing a story that you feel passionate about. And whether you are looking to do a submission call or submit to an anthology or let mag or something like that, find a call that resonates with you, or if you're just writing on your own, I think this goes for novels too. Like if you're not passionate about a project, you're not going to feel motivated to start it. And then once you're halfway through, you might not feel motivated to finish it. And so I think the biggest thing, especially if you're just starting, is to think about what would you love to write about? What stories inside you that you feel would lend itself to a short story that you could tell? Then I would just say, go for it. I mean, like, it's it can be scary if you haven't written it before and you don't know what you don't know until you try. And so the second big piece of advice I have is to get feedback, just the way you do with novels. I've had several short stories accepted and published so far, but still every single time I write a story, I have my friends critique it because I need that outside feedback. And especially if you haven't written a short story before, you may have read some, but that's different than actually writing one yourself. So once you have a draft that you feel pretty confident about, definitely get that feedback. It'd be beneficial to have someone beta read it who has done short stories before because they'll know like the kind of elements to look for and to point out. And then you can revise it and possibly submit it somewhere. But I would just say start with that passionate, that topic or that concept that you're passionate about, because that's going to be the fire for the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

Awesome. Awesome. Okay. So a big part of this podcast is talking about exposing internal narratives that all writers face that are unhelpful to us and that keep us from doing the work that we love to do. And so, in that vein, as a writer yourself, would you please share a time when the writing has gotten hard and you struggled as a writer? And would you share what that was like and then what helped you and how you were able to move through it?

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Definitely when I was queering, I feel like it was a very difficult situation because I started queering as soon as I graduated with my MFA. And I felt like, okay, I have an MFA, I'm good, I know exactly what I'm doing, and I was so wrong. And I feel like that just knocked my confidence. Like I literally have a master's degree in writing and I'm getting rejected. Like, what am I supposed to do? And I think that changed, to be totally honest with you, from that point on, even till now, it changed my perspective on writing completely. Because before that, yes, I love writing, yes, I wanted to be an author. But before I really started getting rejected, I saw my writing as something I love to do, which is still the case. But as soon as you cross the line into wanting to be published, whether that's traditional or indie or with the spawn press or traditional self-publishing, whatever, it changes your perspective on writing because this is now a product that you want to sell. You want to sell a short story to an anthology, you want to sell your book to a big five editor or whatever, or you want to get your book to readers. And so it completely changed my perspective. And so it was so difficult for me during that time because every time I started to write something new, I judged it like I never judged my writing before. And I got into these major blocks that I couldn't get out of. And it was really hard. But the thing that really got me through it was author friends and knowing that I wasn't alone and being able to talk to people and recognize that what I was feeling was normal because I hadn't experienced that before. I thought it was just me, but that wasn't the case. And so once I started to make those connections with other writers, that helped me recognize that was just part of the process and helped me to push forward and keep going. And even though I still kind of have that same judgmental perspective when looking at my writing, I now know like that's just the way it is. I feel like at the beginning it was a total shock because I wasn't expecting to have that shift in mindset. But now that I've been doing this for a bit and like I know that's how I'm going to react when I start writing something new, it's easier to manage.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

One that was beautiful. And thank you for sharing that. Yeah. That vulnerable piece. But it's just, you know, so powerful to hear our experiences through other people. Other people who've been there before can look back and say, that's that's okay. That's normal. You're not doing anything wrong. This is just this is part of it. And that it cultivates empathy and compassion for us. Yeah. That's for ourselves. And that's incredibly, incredibly powerful. So when you look back on your writing life, what did self-doubt look like for you initially before the query process started? Before you move that internal, what did self-doubt look like for you? And what does it look like now? And how do you deal with it?

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Yeah, so this is really interesting. It's something I actually reflect on quite a bit. Before, I think self-doubt was like just in general, like, do I even have what it takes to be published? Am I even a good writer? Kind of the stereotypical things you hear all the time. And it shifted for me because, like, when I got agented and when I start getting short stories published, it gave me some validation that I was doing something right. And so for me now, like the self-doubt is less of, am I a bad writer? And it's more of can I do it again? Which is a struggle that I face all the time. Like, especially when I'm writing new books. I have five completed manuscripts. And when I started, when I wrote the fifth one at the end of last year, I sat down to write it. I'm like, I did this four times before, but like, what if I can never write a good book again? Like, what if those four were it? And this fifth one is going to be terrible. Like, how am I gonna handle that? Like, I don't know if I can handle that. And then with the short stories, like, I at this point I have 10 acceptances and I only I've only been submitting to short stories for about a year. And every time I write a new short story now, like I have that pressure, like, what if I just got lucky and got a bunch of acceptances and from here on out, um, could I get his rejections? Like, how am I gonna handle that? So the self-doubt is less of like, am I a good writer anymore? And it's more of like, I did it, but like, do I have what it takes to do it again? And how I get over it, I tell my friends and they're like, just sit your butt down and do it. And I give myself these talks too, like, look, you did it once, you can do it again, you got this. Like, I give myself these little like talks, and then I sit down and do it. But sometimes it takes me a bit to like get started to get past that block.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Yeah, yeah. I find that breaking things down into smaller bites, just focusing in on pieces that I like, pieces that I enjoy, and if I can hang with that just long enough, then I'm then I'm deep enough in that I keep going. What do you think the best piece of writing advice you've ever received is find your people because writing can feel very lonely because we're writing by ourselves, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:19

Like shut up in our rooms or in our offices, like by ourselves, glued to the screen, and having our characters running around in our heads all the time, like we're very like alone. And if you are doing this completely alone, like I I probably would have quit a long time ago, to be completely honest with you, if I didn't have people to talk to, if I didn't have friends to vent to, if I didn't have friends to swap manuscripts with to get feedback, and just people to like support on their journey and to have them support me, like having your people is so important because then you'll feel less alone and then you'll realize that like we're literally all facing the exact same thing. And whether you are going self-publishing or if you're agent in an on-submission, if you had 10 books published already, like we all start at the same place every time we sit down to write a new book, no matter where we are on our journeys. And I think sometimes we can forget that like there's millions of other people who are feeling the same way. And when you have that group of people that you can turn to, it's a constant reminder that what you're feeling is normal and that's okay. And you also have those people in your life to support you as well.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

I love that in even just following people that inspire you. Yeah. In not that because of their accomplishments and achievements, but because they're willing to share the struggle. I don't know if you follow B.E. Schwab, author of The Invisible Life of Abby LaRue. I subscribe to her newsletter and it comes out once a month, and it's something that I read every time because she's so honest. And something that she said in the one that just came out was, and I had to I had to go look it up. She says I find myself frustrated daily by the fact that in order to write the best book I can, I must first write its worst version.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Oh, that's very good. Isn't that beautiful? And so good.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

You know, and it's just finding, you know, the people and the voices that that you need to f to remind you that you belong here.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

That there's nothing wrong with you.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Yeah, no, and and the one thing I do want to add real quick is I think sometimes authors can feel like their worth is compared to wherever like, for example, like some authors may feel like, oh, they they don't have worth unless they have an agent, or they don't have worth until they're published. And that's not the best mindset because your worth isn't defined by what you do have or what you don't have in publishing. We're all here, we all love writing, we're all facing the same struggles. And I think sometimes like I see things on Twitter that kind of makes me a little upset just because like people feel like if they don't have an agent, they're not valued as much, or if they're not published, they're not valued as much, and that's not true at all. And anybody who makes them feel that way is like not the right person you want to really be surrounding yourself with. And so I wouldn't be judging your worth on like what you do or don't have, just like focus on your journey. Everyone's journey is different. Find the people who inspire you and support you. And writing is what we're all doing. So that's what matters.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

That's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

So, what is your wish for your fellow writers? Success, no matter what that looks like for you. I think again, we define things differently, and success for one person means success for something else somebody else. And I just wish for everyone to find success how they envision that, and also to be happy along the way. Publishing can be a shit show and a nightmare and just a terrible place at times, based on like how you're feeling and what you're going through, and just like things going on in the industry that can make you feel really discouraging. And sometimes it's easy to lose the happiness. So, like, through all of that, like I wish for like all of my fellow authors to hold on to that happiness even during the dark times and to chase your dream, whatever that looks like for you. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

What are you currently working on that you would like to share? And then where can listeners find you?

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Yeah, so what I'm currently working on novel-wise, I'm kind of in waiting land because I have one of my thrillers out with an editor I work with to get feedback, and I have my other thriller with my agent waiting to get feedback. So I'm currently not working on novels, and so that gets me time to work on short stories. My current project that I'm working on is a YA Quiet Horror that I'm gonna be submitting to an anthology, hoping to get accepted to. But I have a whole list, it's embarrassing. You guys should see like my list of like anthology that I wanted to submit to because I have an obsession. But I'm trying to kind of crank out those as quickly as possible because I know when I get my edits back on the books, I'm going to be diving into those. And as far as where you can find me, I am most active on Twitter, still calling it Twitter. My handle is at Demi MSwartz. My display name is Demi Michelle with the butterfly emoji. Same handle and display name on Instagram. I'm also now on Blue Sky. I'm a RevPit editor and we're required to be on Blue Sky, so I got on there. I'm not gonna be ad-active there, but I have a profile there. And the best place to find everything related to what I do with the podcast, editing, authored music stuff is all on my website, which is dumiemschwartz.com.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

Perfect. And big shout out to your podcast, the literary blend. Yeah, thank you. Podcast it is good. Go listen.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Thank you so much for your time and for joining me today. It was a wonderful conversation, and I learned a ton, and I'm sure that our listeners will have as well. And so until next time, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 41:09

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Thank you for listening to the Write It Scared podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please make sure to hit the follow button so you never miss an episode. And please leave a review. Reviews help other writers like you find the voices and messages they need to hear to continue to write their stories. Let's lift each other up. Remember, you can be scared and still be unstoppable. I'll see you next week.