SPEAKER_00 0:00

You know, writing is like cooking. You have to let things simmer. Stories have to simmer, characters have to simmer sometimes for years, depending on the book or the idea. And and critique is the same way. It takes a few days, I think, to kind of like settle into our system so we can process it honestly and think about whether it resonates enough to make changes and what those changes might look like.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Welcome to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacey 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 Reddit Scared. I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hey writer, welcome back to the Reddit Scared Podcast. I'm your host, Stacy. I have another guest episode for you today, and I'm talking with author and book coach Gabrielle Byrne. This was such a nourishing conversation. We talked about a lot of things, but we really focused on how to build healthy critique partnerships and what life inside traditional publishing actually looks like for an author. And we also talk about some mindset shifts that can help us let go and loosen our grip when we, you know, find that we're hanging onto the story really hard, maybe trying to force things. Gabby offers a lot of very kind and grounded, generous wisdom, which remind us that we are not alone in the struggle. So if you've been wrestling with comparison or feeling stuck in your draft or wondering how to navigate critique or even the bigger publishing ecosystem, this is a great episode for you to tune into. I'll give you Gabby's bio in just a moment, but real quick, I did want to remind you that Drafted Scared, my small group book coaching program for writers who are working through story development or are in the drafting phases, is now open for enrollment. Spots are limited to six writers per cohort. So if you're interested in a group coaching environment to get your story on the page, figure out your characters, discover more about your plot, and enhance your conflict while you do it in a community of like-minded individuals where you get lots of support and have a good time, head on over to the website to take a look at the details. The website is writitscared.co forward slash draftit scared. The cohorts will kick off in mid-January and will run through May. All right, here is Gabby's bio. Gabrielle K. Byrne is a fantasy author and book coach living in the tangled wilds of the Pacific Northwest, where she has wielded words for more than 15 years. She is the author of Rise of the Dragon Moon, a junior library guild selection, and The Edge of Strange Hollow, which Kirk has called spooky and thrilling with superlative world building. Gabby has worked as an editor, critique partner, and mentor for all kinds of writers, published and unpublished, to help improve their stories, including three years as a mentor in the now retired global pitch wars contest. She has a master's degree in literature and a second bachelor's in environmental studies. She is currently taking coaching clients who write genre fiction, particularly fantasy, middle grade, young adult, and adult or romance. Gabby, thank you so much for coming on the Right It's Scared podcast. I am delighted to have you here both as an author and as a book coach. I gave you a little bit of a bio, but before we dig into all the things that I want to ask you about, would you please share just more about your journey of how you went from studying literature and environmental studies to becoming both a fantasy author and a certified author accelerator book coach with our audience?

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you so much for having me here, Stacy. It's so much fun to talk about writing with people who write. And, you know, talking craft is just always a treat. So I really appreciate the invitation. How did I become a published writer and a book coach? I mean, I am a reader and I have read voraciously all my life. I was very much one of those sort of meta kids that was into both big ideas and the metaphysical side of the universe. And fantasy spoke to that. And I didn't have a lot of friends, and so I read all the time. And as a reader, I started to do some writing. That developed into just really enjoying literature classes and more reading. And when I studied in Scotland, I got very much into Celtic literature and the traditions and culture of folk stories and fairy tales. And very, very slowly I started to write more and longer. And one day in my late 20s, I found out that there was a writers' conference in Seattle, near where I was living at the time. And I thought, oh, that looks really interesting. And people learning how to write. That's huh, you can do that. And I went and they had an agent panel. You know, it was uh kind of like a speed dating for agents where you could sit and pitch your book and they gave you a little pitch class how to write a pitch. And from that moment on, I was completely obsessed. And I think just the leap from point A, I can write long form stories to, oh, this is the thing people do, and you can, you know, they can read your books, and there is a path, and this is the path or a path. And that's how I got super obsessed. And I just wrote books and started pitching things and got involved with writing community online through Write on Con and then Pitch Wars and NanoRimo. And yeah, it took me about six books, I think, to get my agent to get my first agent, and then another couple books before I got a publishing contract. So I have two published books, I think, depending on sort of how you count the books I've written. I've written maybe like 12 or 13 books-ish with some starts and stops, and you know, some that are completed and some that aren't, but more or less 12 or 13. So, you know, it's something you love and you need to love to do. And how did you get it into book coaching? Yeah, coaching, coaching, you know, that I think I can attribute in part to pitch wars. I was a mentee for in in pitch wars many years ago. I think it was 2015. And then, and then I became a mentor. And I was a mentor for about three years, and I loved it. I loved working with writers and I loved sort of helping them have aha moments, both in terms of their craft and then in terms also of their story. And a good friend of mine who's been a critique partner for a decade or more or more now, I think, is a book coach with Author Accelerator. And she told me how much she loved it and how great the program was. And I really wanted to continue with that work. And so I've very slowly sort of completed that course to have a framework that I felt confident about. And so now I'm a coach and I I adore it. I love it. What do you tend to gravitate towards with your coaching? I mean, I primarily coach fantasy, although it's for all age readerships. My published work is in middle grade, upper middle grade, but I coach YA, I coach adult, working on an adult myself right now. And then I also coach a lot of romance because I read a lot of romance. So I love rom-coms and I love, you know, both spicy and cozy. I've done some mystery, but I'm primarily focused on fantasy. Yeah, that's that's my where my heart is.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

So did you always want to pursue traditional publishing? Did you ever consider independent or you know, I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

I really didn't consider it. And it wasn't, I, you know, it was almost like that was just my default. I've since, you know, now I know a lot of indie published authors and I know some self-published authors, and there's good reasons for taking those paths. And especially because post-pandemic, you know, publishing as a whole is such a different creature. Just as a business model, it's very different. It's and it's very, it's not an easy place to reside, you know. So there are lots of good reasons for going indie. And I I didn't. I just sort of took this path that I saw laid out before me from that first writer's conference and sort of ran. And it's worked for me, but it's definitely not the only way.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Oh, yeah. And the publishing landscape on in whether it's independent or traditional is continuously changing. That's right. Yes. You know, so yeah, it is. So you never, you never know, but there's always more than one way to scan a cat, right? Mm-hmm. Correct. So I would love to talk about. I mean, here you are, you've written, I don't know, I think you said 11 books, right? A bunch. Maybe a bunch of books. So what has your writing process like been like and how has it evolved over the years? And and and with each of these, not maybe not with each book, but just what can you extrapolate from the process of writing all these books? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

It's it's quite a few books. You're not wrong. I mean, what I can say sort of definitively is that I started out concretely in the plotting zone, right? Like I was a plotter. And I think part of that it was, you know, I'm I'm very vergoian. I like to have a plan, but also it was, I mean, it was a very much a comfort food. It's the comfort food of craft to have a plot laid out, you know, or to have even the character sketches right, like planned out. And it feels like a safety net. And so when I first started writing, I plotted the heck out of my books. And I stuck to those plots. And as time has passed and more books have been written, I've embraced allowing things to evolve and be a little more organic. I would not say that I am now a pancer. I am I'm not a pancer. I like to have still a kind of a framework for my books, but they're much more touchstones. And I do a lot more work on the characters and the world than I do on the plot itself. I like to have those tied together in some way. So the, you know, you have like an internal arc and an external arc that work together, but I let myself assess it constantly and make changes constantly. And so it still works to feel kind of like a safety net. Like I have some next steps I could take in this story. But I really like to encourage people to go back to what they have planned as they're writing, because it's okay to make changes based on what you learn about your characters as they move through the story landscape.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

What did you find was kind of your catalyst for allowing that? Did you identify a problem? Or did you feel like that kept things too rigid for you?

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Yeah, I mean, I think it was a combination of those things. I mean, certainly there is no book, no zero draft without story problems. Like that is a thing that doesn't exist. Oh, really? I'm sorry to say, right? You will find story problems and you will find rabbit holes that you have fallen into. And, you know, you will find characters that are, you know, acting improperly.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Things you didn't think about because your focus was somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Yeah. Well, you're just trying to get, you know, from point A to point B and have a manuscript that you have written, right? That's like the overarching goal, write a book. Here's a premise, or here's a character, or here's a scene that that made me want to write this story, I want to put it on paper. I think often it was uh the rigidity, I think it's a really good word for it, you know, because unless you allow your characters to grow in the ways that that come through your heart, they can start to feel pretty stilted. And your plot can start to feel pretty stilted and just too rigid and contained. And also you can force a plot point that just doesn't work. You know, you thought it would work and it doesn't work, it doesn't have the emotional impact that you thought it would, or it doesn't turn things in the right way, or it's landing at the wrong time in the story. So yeah, I think just allowing yourself to sort of flow. I have this metaphor that I often use with my friends when we are stuck on something, right? Or, you know, you hit that sort of writer's block, which is just another way to say it's time to let go of something and reassess things. I always think of writing as falling into deep water, and that in that you have to kind of like take a deep breath and relax and let yourself rise and float down and flow through the story. And if you're struggling or you're trying to get to some other place or you're fighting the current of the story, that can really just make you unhappy. And it doesn't do your story any favors, right? So I often, when I'm um sort of hitting those reassessment points, or my friends are hitting those reassessment points, or my clients are hitting those reassessment points, which can feel just really uncomfortable no matter who you are. I like to tell people like, just try and immerse yourself and let things flow forward as if you were as a writer with the story in the river going whatever way it's carrying you. And that I sometimes find helpful as sort of a way to twist my thinking into a different perspective, you know.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Which can be such a struggle if you're driven by achievement, if you're driven by external markers like word counts, or you're you want to be so far into the story, or you know, what what productivity looks like for you and how you identify that? Yeah, that can be a very frustrating experience to let go and to have to take a step back and have to breathe. I know I have been like that, and it feels like I'm chomping at this bit, and I can't get anywhere to get any purchase. Yeah. And so it can be such a frustrating experience. So, what would you say to a writer who is putting a lot of value on the be ability to produce words on the page when they're stuck like that?

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah, in some ways I think it's cultural, right? We're a very outcome-driven culture, and it's hard not to be product-oriented, right? Like I want a book, I want a book in my hands, I want to hold it, I want to see it, I want to be able to show people this book that is mine that I wrote, right? And that does have value, that's important. Sometimes it feeds our hearts tremendously, right? But having that as your goal is uh an almost surefire way to take the heart out of your stories. So true. It's like a reverse magic, right? It just deadens your spirit and deadens, I'm being very dramatic about this, right? It deadens your spirit, deadens your ability to storytell because it takes the fun out of it. It takes the love out of that process, and that is what feeds the story, and it's also what feeds the writer, you know, and so you can't have, you know, like a starving person can't produce a book that feeds people, right? Like can't produce a story that feeds people. You have to be able to let go of that to some extent, right? It will always linger, I think, you know, because I think I don't know a single writer who wouldn't love to hold their book in their hands, right? That's a all of us have that, but it cannot be the driving force because there are too many variables and uh there's too much outside of the author's control. So, you know, being able to just sort of allow yourself to love the work of storytelling and to love the process of following these people that you made up and watching them become people, you know, and watching that story sort of unfold sometimes in unexpected ways can be such a delight, and it can really feed you in some unexpected ways, I think.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

I love everything that you said a lot of times in my with my clients or in and in both in private and group coaching, you know. There's this, and I feel it too for my own, for my own work, right? This I just had a podcast episode come out about and it was talking about you know what to say when somebody outside the writing world asks you, how's your work coming along? And how that what that often makes us feel, you know, especially if we've been working on this thing for a decade. Yeah, and you know, it tends to bring up some crunchy feelings of because there's nothing to show. And there's nothing to show for all the hours of of of the labors of love that we put into or and the sacrifice and the fact that we shut the door when our kids want something and we're asking them to stay out there, you know. There's nothing, there isn't anything concrete. And so one of the kind of the focus point there is like, where are you allowing your value to be assigned? And are you driving that? Or are you letting society or expectations or your ego drive that? You know, right? It's we have the power to take that back, and sometimes we have to do it minute by minute, yeah, hour by hour, and pursue something we enjoy and we're curious about simply because we enjoy it and we're curious about it. And that in and of itself gives the process merit and value.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

Absolutely. Also, there's all kinds of research now about how creativity reduces stress, you know, and is supportive of your health, your mental health, and sets a good example for your children and your peers, right? That you're caring for yourself in this important way by allowing yourself to have some creative space and making that space for yourself, I think can be its own goal, right? Like, and that can take a lot of the pressure off, which is so lovely, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Like sitting in a beanbag. That's what it made me think of. It's like I'm sitting in a bean bag. So that one doesn't work for me. Just enjoying myself.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

I I know what you mean though. Like a nice puffy cloud. I mean bag in the right. I would not be able to get up out of a bean bag.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

I probably wouldn't either. But I think what we're saying here, what we're talking about is this idea that writing's a lifestyle.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Yes, it's a choice that we make, a lifestyle choice.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

It's a choice and a lifestyle. And we get to decide how we explore that.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Yes, that's exactly right. And and I think sharing with people, you know, when they ask those inevitable questions, and especially people that aren't part of the writing community and don't recognize how fraught it can be, right? Emotionally and just actually. I think answering those questions in ways that talk about, you know, how much we love to write, like and how it's a good reminder to ourselves, too, to that that is a a healthy, safe place to focus, is where we are loving the pro yeah, the process of writing, of creating it's important to us without exception, right? Or we wouldn't be here.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

So this I think will bridge us nicely, you know, this idea of of speaking about our work in front of others and what it means to us brings up this nasty thing called imposter syndrome. Yeah, right. And and a lot, I mean, I do. I struggle with it. I struggle with imposter syndrome, I struggle with comparison. Looking outside, I get distracted, I stop swimming in my own lane, and I have to be brought back sometimes physically and forcibly by other people who love me in my writing community. But so what is your take on imposter syndrome and writers? And if you see that in your clients, do and how do you help them?

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Yeah, I mean, we we do all, we all have it. And I think it's partly again that sort of systemic issue we have of being outcome focused. Focused and product focused. And then, you know, it's important to sell for all of us to celebrate our successes, right? And we celebrate our successes, however small or large, by sharing them with our community. And that's really important. The flip side of that, of course, is that when you're struggling, you know, we tend not to share that as much. And so when we're hopping into community, especially on social media, what we're seeing is all of the small celebrations because those are the things that people have fun sharing, right? And want to celebrate with one another. And I think often struggling is a much more isolated affair, right? We might share that with our small group of trusted advisors or our family, right? That this is we're struggling in our lives or in our story or with our craft, but we don't shout about it, right? And so, and when we do shout about it, people get overwhelmed quickly because everybody is sort of in their own struggle bubble, right? So I think it's sort of a setup, if you will, you know. I mean, it's set up in a way that is not, it's outside of our control in many ways, and it's human nature to feel that striving, but also it's culturally encouraged to constantly be striving for more and better. And when we reach goals, we as humans, and I think particularly writers, set more goals, right? So there's always goals that we haven't reached and that we can put emotional weight on.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

It's a very double-edged sword in a way. I mean, it's expansive and wonderful and amazing. And it also feels like there's I don't know, depending on your personality, like yeah, it's hard. Like the there's there's you get to this little rift in the mountain, and it's you thought you were at the top. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

No, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Sometimes that challenge is amazing and I love it. And other times it makes me feel exhausted.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah, and I think they can exist in the same space because we're very strange creatures who can hold a lot of, you know, opposing ideas at the same time. And the thing I think that has helped me with that, a friend of mine, Heather Kastner, who's a wonderful writer and friend, she's also just one of the most lovely human beings. And she is constantly like supporting other writers and you know, promoting their books or their celebr their successes, reaching out to them, checking in on them. She's just really like a very kind human. And she and I were talking about imposter syndrome one time, and I forget exactly what she said, but it basically it amounted to, you know, what makes her feel better when she's feeling low is helping other writers, is like reaching out and supporting other writers. And, you know, it's like, oh, you know, I like to do that, but I never thought of it as sort of a remedy for feeling shitty, right? And I tried it the next time I was really feeling pretty low, and I was like, hey, that's pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Yeah, I I think it makes you forget about yourself and your own problems in the communities in the circles that I travel in in recovery. That's one of the pillars is like the key to helping yourself is actually helping others, right? And you know, uh just shifting your lens around a little bit. So I couldn't agree more, and that is part of the impetus for the podcast, the reason behind it is one to talk about the reasons writing is hard, not just on the external, on the story side and the craft side, but on the emotional side that very rarely we get to see because we are bombarded by all the success stories, and the you know, that is tends to be where we put our our focus, yeah, is getting to the end of whatever instead of being in the meat of the process. And so talking about those things and and normalizing the crunchy feelings that come up, like comparison and imposter syndrome, and and not having it work out, not getting a publishing contract until you're 11 books in, despite having an agent and stubbing with two other books, right? Right. That's the truth. That's the truth, and so that is what I think it's really important to share with world, because then it takes the playing field and and I think it just allows everybody to take a big deep breath and go, you know what? I am not alone, and and maybe I'm not so different, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:44

It's you know it makes the the that feeling of unity universal, right? Yeah, and I think too, you know, it's a good reminder that no matter where we are in the process, you know, like there are best-selling authors that get rejected, right? There or that, you know, get their movies shut down, or that are struggling with some kind of, you know, another friend of mine is recovering from a brain injury, right? And has had to relearn how to write. So there's just all kinds of struggle in being a human and in being a creative and tapping into the community to remember that is incredibly it's a balm, right? For when you're feeling that drive to out-achieve people, right? Which is sort of what that boils down to. It's not always just I want to achieve this, it's I want to prove it, right? I want to to myself or to whomever. And that's just such a hard place to live for very long, right? In that feeling.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Yeah. And I think the best one of the best things we can do is just work on becoming very self-aware, you know, of motivations, what's driving us, right? And embrace the fact that we're flawed. Yeah. And we're gonna we're gonna mess up.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Yeah, I think that's a really important point, actually, just being very kind to ourselves and you know, and we can remind ourselves to be kind to ourselves by being kind to others. That could be a good sort of impetus to remember that the best way to achieve things is not ever going to be through, you know, bombarding ourselves with criticism or I've never been able to beat myself happy.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

It's never happened, not once.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Yeah, and I don't know, it doesn't work externally and it doesn't work internally, right? Like it's just not success. Yes. But it can be hard to let go of, right? Because that's our instinct, is like to force something. And often, you know, it's that flow, it's that like letting ourselves drop into that deep water and just roll that can that can loosen up the story and can help us achieve our goals. It's anti-intuitive, I think, in a lot of ways, right? We want to grip it tighter to make it work. Yeah. And it's often the letting go of it that that really lets the story rise or the characters rise or your star rise.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

So let's transition a little bit. You've you've walked the road of the traditional publishing process. And I'd just like to know what that process of has taught you about just the dedication and persistence and and managing expectations, because I am sure that is tricky.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Yeah, it is for sure. I mean, publishing is surprising in so so many ways. I think without exception, it's the business of it shocks new writers, right? Like as you're entering the publishing industry, just how truly it is a business is quite shocking, I think. And all of the decisions, you know, are really pretty much outside your control. Your agent is a really important partner in protecting you in a lot of ways. But the other side of that, uh the fact that publishing is this, you know, sort of big business huge entity that we don't have a lot of control over, is that the people in publishing, like the editors and the publicists and the people that are like, you know, walking the walk and really involved in the stories that they're working on, are so wonderful. They love stories, they love writers, they love helping to cre you know bring these things to life. And and that can be just a super lovely experience.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

And so they're like the humanity of the machine.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yeah, yeah, it has a heart. It has a heart. But yeah, I mean, the little moments can be very disorienting, and it's not the end all be all, you know. It's and again, like there's always more. There's always the next, you know, you get then the next story, or then the next, you know, attempt to promote your story or market your story, or you know, talk to this person or that person. Like there's just an endless stream of goals. And so I think again, that brings you to loving the work as a remedy for all that sort of disorientation that happens over time, or you know, it's a constant learning experience, really. You're coming up against new challenges throughout the process and learning new things about publishing as an industry throughout the process. And and a good place to go and focus and regain sort of emotional equilibrium is is the work, even if your story is never whatever you happen to be working on at that moment, isn't, you know, and gonna end up on a printed page.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

What's your editorial process like with your editor? Like, how many rounds do you go?

SPEAKER_00 32:16

I suppose it depends on the book, but yeah, yeah, and the editor for sure. You know, I mean, I've had two. My second agent, my first agent was not super editorial. My new agent is quite editorial, and that's really fun for me. He's you know, worked as an editor in publishing houses, so he's really a good editor, and it's fun to learn from him. And usually for my books and for most of the authors I know, there's two rounds of developmental editing, and then a round of line editing, and then a round of copy editing. And that is after your agent has gotten their hands on it at least once or twice. That's so amazing to me.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

I mean, on this, on this side, you know, we work so hard to make these books as perfect as they can be. Yeah, yeah. Perfect as they can be, and then we get them to an agent, and then we change shit, and then we and then if they get if they get purchased, you know, uh then we change them some more. I mean, so I think therein lies the the lies. Well, uh another guest said it so beautifully. She's like, you don't have to be perfect to be published. You do not. Yeah, you can, I mean, you can't be. You can't. I mean, I think that demonstrates the point right there. And still there will be things.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I every author I know can look at their published work and be like, oh, I wish I had done that. You know what I mean? So, I mean, that is so real. And I I I find some comfort in the idea of people sitting around the fire and telling stories and how, you know, sort of oral tradition has changed over the eons, you know, one story becoming a different story over time. I feel like storytelling as a whole is a sort of communal thing that we do as humans, right? Stories change and evolve, and the reader takes from each story what they love and, you know, and can develop it or own it in their hearts, right? And so it's no different with publishing a story. It's everybody wants to be a part of that story, and they are, and they are because of the nature of how a book is published. Like you have a whole team of people from your very first readers, your friends, your critique partners, your agent, your editor. Then you've got, you know, usually it's a a staff of copy editors and other line editors who get their hands on it, the artists, the, you know, the cover designer. Like there's so many people involved in creating a story that comes out to the public that it really does feel like a communal experience.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Sharing your experience about working in the traditional publishing landscape and what that's been like for you. Let's go back and talk about process for a bit. And let's go back and dive into the deep waters of the beautiful ocean that you painted for us earlier. So if you want to write books and you want to write stories and you want to love it and get good at it, what are the some of the things that you need to do?

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Yeah. I some at some point long ago, I started working on a uh workshop that I can give to various and sundry audiences about what it takes to write a book. And at that time I came up with sort of a list of words and I realized that they all started with P. So it's the three P's for me, which is practice, right? You have to practice, and I include reading in that in that category. You have to be persistent, you know, you can't stop. If you stop, that that's like the only surefire way to not have your story completed and or published, right? So you have to be persistent and you have to have a lot of patience, which is not something that comes natural to me personally. That has been a huge challenge for me to find a way to be patient. I am a very driven person. And, you know, I think it's taken a really long time for me to recognize that the that that patience lines up with the persistence, right? Like you just have to, and you know, it's what we've been talking about, loving that process, loving the writing, allowing ourselves to let go of you know, externally placed outcome. It's just about being persistent and putting words on the page. I think there is some evidence that playing could also be added to the P words. And any partners. And partners, yeah. I mean, it's a whole keep going. It's a whole extravaganza of P-words, a plethora of P-words, if you will. Oh my gosh. So yeah, I think, you know, I I do think reading is really important. And I often tell my clients that, you know, when they're feeling burnt out or when they're feeling disoriented about the work that they're doing right now, which I think happens for all of us, especially in the middle of stories, we can really become like, what the heck am I doing? Like, what do you think? In the middle of editing, revising it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's a natural part of the process. But sometimes, or even just when we're just burnt out in in life, right? Switching genres, reading something unexpected, allowing a good friend to give you a recommendation that you wouldn't normally read. You know, I have been having a graphic novel extravaganza this year. So, you know, I think just allowing ourselves to sort of absorb into story, audiobooks, podcasts, whatever, the the medium isn't important. What's important is, you know, letting yourself fill your cup again. And I think that's a really good way to also be improving craft because we as humans naturally sort of analyze what we like and what we don't like. And my a good friend of mine, it I did this exercise with her. I don't know where it originated. It she didn't, it didn't come from her, but Gita Treleise suggested that we make a list of the things we love in our story in stories that we read. You know, I love like rainy, rainy nights. I love uh twins, I love, you know, rocky shores, you know, I love super conflicted sibling wreck relationships. I love, you know, luxury makeovers. Like, you know, I mean, it just making a list of the things you love to all the tropes you love to bump into, all the scenes that you love, the sort of sensory details. I love the smell of petrichorp, right? Like just a list of things that you adore, and then writing a scene with a couple of those things that you love can sort of be a good jump start when you're feeling uninspired and just lost in your work. I love that. I've never heard that before. Yeah, and it can help us, you know, like what we love to read when we are loving what we're putting on the page, that comes through to the reader too. You know, it's it's so often a way to really amplify our our story when we start to write things that we love.

SPEAKER_01 40:01

Yeah. Or hate, honestly. Or hate. You know, that comes through too. Uh when. Yeah. But I think the deeper you feel it yourself, the more the page can embody it, the more that you can put it in there. And I don't know what voodoo magic makes that happen, but I do know that it works. One thing I wanted to make sure I asked you before we wind down is you found your way in through a writing conference that led you to being a mentee in like the things like pitch wars, and then later on became a mentor yourself. And a lot of those things involve the critique process and giving your work to other people. So could you speak a little bit about how a writer can best utilize working with a critique partner when that is a good idea and how to manage the relationship?

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Yeah, I mean, I think critique partners are vital. You don't have to have a ton of them, but you know, one or two, three tops, I would say, critique partners that you trust to read your work and be honest with you and give and at the same time give you encouragement. Right. And that's a difficult balance. And finding somebody that you trust to read your work is a process, right? It doesn't happen overnight, like just like finding people, trusted people never happens overnight. Like you build trust over time, and that is true for critique partners also. In terms of when that happens, you know, I think that probably varies a little bit from writer to writer. Some people really feel strongly that they want a completed draft before somebody reads it, or they want to feel pretty good about it themselves before it's read. And I have worked with writers who really want early critique to kind of help them guide where the story is going and both work just fine. You know, it just very much depends, again, on your relationship with your critique partner. I think in critique, it's very important to sort of not get salty with people. You know, it's it's hard to receive criticism. That is universally true. Criticism is hard. It's also really hard to give criticism. And for that to be a growing experience for both partners, you know, I think there's a balance between encouragement and being clear about what you think isn't working. And on the receiving end, it's really important to just say thanks for all of this time and energy that you've put into thinking about my work. And then I encourage people to just say the say the quick thank you when they get that feedback and then step back and give themselves a day or two to process. So often when somebody offers me critique on my work, I'll say, I really appreciate this so much. I can't wait to dive into your comments. I'll let you know if I have questions or I want, you know, to talk more with you about it. And that's it. And then I take a step back and I read through the critique and I let it settle. I think, you know, writing is like cooking. You have to let things simmer. Stories have to simmer, characters have to simmer sometimes for years, depending on the book or the idea. And and critique is the same way. It takes a few days, I think, to kind of like settle into our system so we can process it uh honestly and think about whether it resonates enough to make changes and what those changes might look like. And then we can go back to those partners and and talk about it, right? Like what, you know, can you explain this a little more? Or, you know, let what what are your thoughts about how I could solve this particular story problem? Right. And that's how we grow as writers. And that's Work is reciprocal, right? We grow and we critique and we grow when we are critiqued. And it's it's really a special, special kind of friendship.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

Can you think of any immediate signs that a writer should bail out of a critique partner relationship? Are there any red flags?

SPEAKER_00 44:17

Yeah, there are. There are. I mean, the reddest of the red flags is when somebody cannot receive critique, right? When they are up in arms about it or or fight fighting you, you know, let's take it things.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

You don't understand my vision.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

Yes, yeah, yeah. You're wrong. You're wrong about your critique. That's never something you want to hear from a critique partner. Or yeah, I mean, you just don't want to because it's an indicator that the person isn't open, isn't open to growing, right? It doesn't mean necessarily that your critique is correct. I don't think critique, you know, often critique isn't like right or wrong. Yeah, it's objective. What resonates and what will improve the story in a way that makes it stronger and more emotionally powerful, right? And I think when folks are really resistant to critique, it's just an indicator that they're not ready to to grow and to really sort of learn from the process of analyzing the critique, right? Of thinking through and processing that critique. So that's really the only red, red flag, I think. And it's it's it happens, it's fairly common.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

Yeah, I think that's a the probably the most important one to point out because I would not have known, you know, if you took me back a decade ago how to handle that. Right. I would not have known as another writer that was a sign that maybe I should be walking away. The other stuff, like somebody who's rude or mean or yada, yada, on the page, like, yeah, that okay, I won't, you know, immediately walk away. But that idea of someone who says you're wrong, it I wouldn't have known how to handle that. So I think that's a beautiful point that you brought up.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Yeah, good. Yeah, and it does happen, right? And and that's not to say that critique partners aren't wrong, right? They they can be, absolutely, all the time. But you know, I think so much of it is about how we receive that effort, right? And that energy from somebody, and then you know, processing it to see what what about this, what about this feel gave them this feeling. Like if they received it this way, then I need to look at like what part of the story is generating that confusion or generating that, you know, disconnection from my main character, or, you know, where can I improve? And I think that sort of growth mindset, if you will, is really it's important to being a successful writer in any capacity.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Do you have any recommendations for writers who are looking for critique partners as far as is there anything that you do through your book coaching services to have people meet up, maybe that are writing in the genre that you work within?

SPEAKER_00 47:03

Yeah, I mean, I think you're right that book coaching itself is a sort of amplified form of critique partner work. It's it's it's a large group of very dedicated and often, you know, sort of very experienced writers who can provide that cheerleading, which is so important to people's sort of inner spirits, as well as the craft guidance and the story experience expertise to sort of find those pivot points that are so problematic in a lot of stories and build those up. I haven't done a lot of critique partner connecting, but in terms of resources for that, you know, I know that obviously book coaches are a huge resource. I think also just getting involved still on social media can be helpful a lot.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

And looking into your like whatever, whatever genre that you're writing in, whatever world that you're writing in, whether that's mystery or thriller or that's fantasy or whatever, looking up the the other or romance, looking up some of the the organizations that are behind some of those, like romance writers of America or the International Thriller Society, or mystery writing. I can't remember what the acronym for mystery writing is, or the Society of Children, yeah. Please say it for me. I can I always mess up the Society of Children's Book Writers. Book Writers and Illustrators, S C B W I. So finding networking in those veins can definitely lead you to the people who write similar things to what you write.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

And there is an association. I mean, there's the science fiction and fantasy writers association, there's you know, there's a prison horror writers, horrors association, romance writers association, and they often have events as well, you know, where you can go meet people, and where you can go meet people, where you can talk to and exchange ideas with folks. I mean, yeah, that's absolutely and conferences if you can pull them off, especially locally, you know, is always a fantastic way to grow. I think, you know, there are still ways to build writer community on blue sky. I don't know about Twitter. I am myself am off Twitter at this point, but I was never there. Yeah, I mean, you know, it was kind of the heyday of writers' community during pitch wars. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

But I know a lot of people miss that.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Myself included. And and just, you know, building that community over time, I think is really, really valuable. I think there's also you can go to critique, you know, critique groups that often meet at libraries or coffee shops. It can be hard to track them down sometimes, but they're they're around. And again, you don't need you know an entire breakfast club of critique partners.

SPEAKER_01 50:02

Like, and it's overwhelming too, if you get into a writer's community and six people are swapping pages and you have to give feedback on all of those. That's a lot. That's a lot, you know, that's a lot of heads to be in. I mean, a lot of story heads to be in. So it is.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

And you can get a lot of conflicting advice, which can also be really confusing, right? Which is why that, like sort of stepping back and letting it be processed is important.

SPEAKER_01 50:24

Yeah, and I just want to really quickly shout out to a mutual friend, Julie Arts, who is an author and also an author accelerator certified book coach. She has a critique partner matching service, which is fantastic, by the way. Yeah, so I will make sure to link that into the show notes. And she definitely is in the speculative fiction world, but but not, but I don't think that her critique partner match service is specific to that. I think you can no, she matches matches that and genre. So you might be writers who are looking for something like that might look into that. And I think it's free. Yeah, she does it for free. I think it's free. So we'll I'll definitely drop that into the show notes. Okay, well, let's we're wrapping up here. And I just have a couple of other questions. What wish would you like to impart to a writer out there who is listening who might be struggling with that grabby energy of wanting to get this done? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and that heartbreaking place of being like, it's probably never gonna be enough.

SPEAKER_00 51:32

What would you say to them? Gosh, it's so hard. I think I'd start with, gosh, it's so hard, right? Like it's uh it's so hard. That is real, that is real, and none of us are immune to it. I think what I would wish for that person are in no particular order, I would wish for them to be able to visualize their success and then let go of it. You know, I would wish for them to find a really good book that they love to read. I would wish for them to find community with other writers because that is where you become inspired again. That and you know, reading something that you love, that's where you become inspired again and recognize that you're not in this by yourself and that you're not, you know, some untalented hack that can't do X, Y, or Z. You know, you are a creative who is in the process of creating, which is painful and difficult, you know. As much as it can be beautiful, as much as it can be beautiful, yeah, yeah, that's right. And it and it's a process that feeds you, and so you have to continue giving yourself that fuel, and that comes in the form of community and other work that you love, you know, reading, listening to audiobooks, whatever, drawing that creative energy. Yeah, and then and then I wish for them to be able to let go of that drive to get to the end.

SPEAKER_01 53:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:13

You know, and to just sort of be learn to be comfortable in them in the doing.

SPEAKER_01 53:19

You have been such a beautiful guest, and we talked for way longer than I anticipated, just because I could really, I could just listen to the way you present ideas, and I can tell that you do everything with such a spirit of I don't know, there's just a unity, a piece, a together we go-ness, you know, about you. And I really appreciate that. So, with that, would you please share what you're currently working on, either as an author or as a book coach or both, please. And then where can listeners find you and learn more about your book coaching services?

SPEAKER_00 53:55

Yeah, I'd love to. Well, as an author person right now, my have a middle grade that is on sub. So everybody wish me well. I am working on and have been working on for quite a while now an adult fantasy. Currently, it's called Entanglement, and it's about the three fates and sort of family dynamics and sisterhood and what it means to be human. So it's a little complicated as these things tend to get, but I'm really enjoying working on it, and that's that's keeping my creative juices flowing. And then with book coaching, I, you know, I am loving just being able to work with clients to improve their stories. I I mostly work with fantasy authors and romance authors of all stripes. So whether they're writing children's literature or adult, whether they're writing cozy rom coms or spicy, spicy, spicy novels, I I love all of that. And I do still have spots open this fall, a few. And if people want to find me and learn more about me, please visit my website. It's gkburn, which is b-y-r-n-e, gkburnbooks.com, or you can email me at gkburnbooks at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_01 55:21

Well, thank you so much for being a wonderful guest. And I love you.

SPEAKER_00 55:27

Yeah, me too. Thanks so much, Daisy.

SPEAKER_01 55:30

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.