SPEAKER_00 0:00

Every single gain that I have made in this industry has been by doing something that I am completely terrified of. And I think that's the most important thing is not letting that kind of fear and self-doubt keep you where you are. Because, you know, your work will grow. The last thing you wrote is the best thing that you wrote right at that moment. But you know what? The next thing that you write is going to be even better. And it's embracing that change and that growth that's really going to push you to the next level.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Welcome to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser, a formerly 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 Red It Scared. I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hey writer, welcome back to the Red It Scared Podcast. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser, and today's a guest episode. I'm joined by returning guest AK Nevermore. And this conversation is such a good reminder that growth as a writer is rarely neat or linear. The last time AK was on the show was almost two years ago. It was episode one, season eight. And since then, she has written a staggering number of books, experimented across genres, leaned even harder into independent publishing, gotten clearer on what actually works for her creative process, even if that process is a bit chaotic. We talk about trusting yourself, writing messy, learning through experience, and how the definition of success has changed for her over time. We also get into why fear, doubt, and even a little bit of spite can sometimes be very helpful as fuel when you're trying to build your creative life. So if you've ever wondered if your process is too messy, uh you're too all over the place to be a real writer, then this episode is going to remind you that there's no one right way to do this, and that growth often comes from embracing who you are and how you write instead of trying to force yourself into someone else's process. Here's AK's bio, and then we'll go into the interview. AK Nevermore writes a lot. An award-winning, best-selling author of Spicy Dystopian, Urban Fantasy, and Paranormal Romance, she's been traditionally, digitally, and indie published. She enjoys operating heavy machinery, free basis coffee, and gives up sarcasm for Lent every year. Unable to ignore the voices in her head and unwilling to become medicated, she writes full-time around a nest full of ravens. Her books explore dark worlds, are perversely irreverent and profound, and always entertaining. AK belongs to a bunch of industry associations, volunteers for far too many committees, teaches creative writing, has been featured on Blush magazine, made the book bub blog roundup, and has spoken on NPR, and on rare occasions she manages to sleep. Hello, AK Nevermore. Thank you so much for coming on the Right It Scared podcast. I'm glad to have you back. The last time you were here, it was two years ago. So a lot of shit has changed, and we're gonna talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Absolutely. And I'm very psyched to be here.

unknown 3:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 3:51

I'm here.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Okay. All right. Me too. Me too. For anybody who doesn't know, aka you were on season one, episode eight, which I think came out somewhere in May of 2024. Which holy shit, that means the podcast has been out for almost two years. And the last time we talked, Book One of the Day Diaries was out and Breaker was out. The first book in your Price of Talent series. And then you had a bunch of the grimoire that were out too. So why don't you tell us about where you're at now and how you got to this place? Just give us a little background on how you came to be in this position as a writer and an author of many books.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Like most of my life, it was mostly accidental. So I fall into things a lot. And I always enjoyed writing. I'm I'm very passionate about it. And one day I just got this kind of, I had this very vivid dream after having kids and everything and doing kind of that thing. And I was at this point where they're getting older and they're getting more independent. And it's okay, so what do I do now? And I had this dream and I was like, I'm gonna write, I'm gonna do this. And I buckled down and I wrote a book that was way too long and totally not publishable. So I had to go through the motions of fixing that and making it something that I could actually publish and be proud of. And it just spiraled out of control as far as all of these. It was like the wellspring opened up and I can't stop. And it's maybe an illness, but it's a fun illness and I enjoy it quite a bit. I started out with urban fantasy, and then I went into more dystopian sci-fi paranormal stuff, and then I went into paranormal romance. Yeah, I just I'm in that niche that's really all over the place, but it's super fun. So yeah, I just I write what the muse tells me to, and I don't fight her anymore because she's really mean and she won't let ideas leave my head until I put them down.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

I was listening back to the last episode with you. I think you were the one that said, that muse is a bitch. It hasn't changed.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

She's a tricky bitch. I love that. So tell us what you're working on now.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

So I just I finished up a trilogy in a it's a small town spicy paranormal series. I finished the third one, and that's actually coming out tomorrow from when this is being recorded. And then I was supposed to write the final book in my Price of Talent series, which is Dystopian. But unfortunately, I had this like really interesting idea, and it came from a bunch of different things. My oldest is studying Polish, and she's on year two, which is, I think, is amazing because I took one class with her and I bailed. I was like, there's no way. There's I can't figure that there's not enough vowels. How do you even say half this shit? So it was very confusing to me, but I was intrigued because my ancestry has that bent to it. And I was going back and I was thinking about things. And I actually live in the house where my grandparents they built when they came over here, type kind of thing. And I'm thinking about all the stuff that used to be in here, like the different wallpapers and the way that they did things, you know, the things that they would snap at you when you were a little kid. And I got this idea for writing an urban fantasy that is bases in like Polish mythology, but it also has mafia connotations. So I have a mafia assassin who falls in love with a fairy who doesn't believe that she's a fairy. So that's been taking over my brain lately. Is this fairy tale? It is uh yeah, it's fairy tale. And I wrote it originally as a standalone short story for any anthology that didn't come to fruition. But I was like, I've got this, I might as well use it as a reader magnet. So I threw it out to some of my beta readers, and all of them yelled at me that they wanted more. So I was like, I can totally do more. And I've actually decided to serialize this one, which is interesting. It's nothing that I've done before, but I'm putting it out in like under 20K installments. And I think that I just started writing the fourth one, and there's probably gonna be six or seven of them. And I'm gonna send those out every other month or so as Reader Magnets' free stuff for my newsletter, and then at the end of it, I'll put it all together into one volume. But it's it's something new, something interesting, and it's definitely I'm a little obsessed with it.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

It sounds fun. So when you're saying serializing it, are you using a specific platform?

SPEAKER_00 8:40

No, I'm not. And I did look into going and putting that on Substack and doing something like that, but there's a couple problems inherent with that. First, my audience isn't there right now. I don't have an audience on that. And second of all, I can do that through my website. So it's very easy to put it on there and to just have them do the book funnel download and have it go out in my newsletter and keep ownership of that and not spread myself too thin on all of the things that are out there that can be really time consuming and distracting from actually doing what I like, which is writing.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Makes sense. And so the path for this is all independent, right? We're not pursuing any traditional with this because they No, not with this.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

I have done traditional publishing and I've done that path, and I've done the digital first and basically any kind of hybrid publishing I have done. And I really like being in control of things. I like being able to set my schedule. I like being able to have that final say when it comes to edits. I like being able to say, oh no, this is my cover and I've picked it out. And I like being able to say, I'm gonna have a sale on this, or I'm going to drop the price for X amount of time, or this and that. And it's not the kind of freedom that you get with a traditional publisher. And I've found that at least that model for me works much better as far as being lucrative, which is what you need to do when you're publishing a ton of books and you have to pay for the things.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

You need to be able to pay yourself and pay for what you put into your business. When we talked two years ago, were you full-time writing at that point?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah, I was. I had a bunch of other like distractions going on. I still have those same distractions. But yes, I would say that I am, I have been a full-time writer for that amount of time.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

And so just over the last two years, you shared that you've moved it back and forth of these speculative genres. So, what, like, where are you at bookwise now? How much have you written over the last couple of years?

SPEAKER_00 10:48

I actually had to go through and add all of these up for something. So I wanted to pin Stacy from one of the associations that I belong to. So I had to go in and I had to do page counts and all this kind of stuff. I've written 15 works that are over 40k. All right. But if you take all of them into account that's out there that is published, it's more like 32. So yeah, there's a bunch of stuff out there.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

So how do you know what to work on? Like you have all of these different avenues. How do you decide what to invest your time in and when? Or are you working on multiple projects at once?

SPEAKER_00 11:23

No, how's your brain work? I I can't, I actually can't work on multiple projects at once. My brain does not work on that. When I go into something, I get like very hyper-focused on it. And that's all I live and breathe is that particular story in my head at that time. I also find it really difficult to watch any kind of media, listen to anything, or to read any other books when I'm doing my own, just because I do have that like intense focus. And I've tried to like rein it in, but it's very difficult. Like this last one that I wrote with the Star Cross Chronicles. So the third one in that I wanted to finish that because it's like it wasn't at a good stopping point. But the thing with that is I'm stopping there. And then I have to, before I invest more time in it, I have to see if it burns out anything before I put more into it to see if the readership is there. I think that there's enough manuscript-wise and book-wise, chunk-wise, to figure out if that's something that is going to resonate with the people who follow me. So that's on hold for a little bit. I know price of talent does, and it's a matter of I've got to get back into it and start working on that. And I know that, but then I have this thing screaming at me and I can't concentrate on it when I'm focused on Nico and Charlie. And that becomes a problem. And I've tried to work on projects at the same time, but the problem that I have is that I get bleed through. And what I mean by that is my dynamics. So if I'm writing like an intimate scene with one set of characters, and I'm trying to write another scene with a different set of characters, they mesh. And it was really funny because my mom, my mom is one of my alpha readers. Like she reads everything that I write first, which is terrifying, but she does. And at one point she flipped the manuscript back to me and she's like, this isn't Flynn and Kara. This is Grim and Kit. You need to take this out and you need to rewrite it. And I'm going, Oh crap, it really is. Shit. So it just doesn't work. That's not something that I can do. And I know people do it, but I can't.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

But is that intense focus? Is that innate in you? Or is that something that you've trained yourself to do with writing?

SPEAKER_00 13:47

I think maybe it's a little bit of both. Like I'm notorious for having projects where I'm just like, okay, no, I'm gonna do it. And then it's like you just go through it like a bulldozer. Whether it's home renovation and my husband comes home and there's no cabinets in the kitchen all of a sudden, what the hell happened? Or I went through a stint of beekeeping, which was really fun for a while. And then it's just it's like on to the next thing. But this has been more sustainable than all of those other things, maybe because you only need to replace cabinets once, I'm not sure. But yeah, I think that it is innate to some degree. But then again, there's days when I get up and I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it, I don't want to do it. So I have to sit there and I have to be like, shut up and do it, and just make myself sit there and put words on the page. And you know what? The first couple pages are crap and I don't care, or I have to read through the whole thing to get back into the mood of it. But it's like at some point that switch flicks and it's okay, no, I'm in it and I'm doing it, and there it is. So it's a combination, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Be independent. You have a lot of freedom in what you choose to do. So, what is a typical writing day look like for you? What's your writing week look like?

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Yeah, okay. So ideally, I get up and I write, and that's my ideal day. Like, what's get up? Is that four o'clock in the morning?

SPEAKER_01 15:09

It used to be like four o'clock in the morning, if I remember it from last year.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

It's still pretty early. It's drifted a little bit because I'm old now. But yeah, it's pretty much, I don't know, I'll be up like six, something like that, and just start writing. What's taken over from just starting out writing, which I would like to do, is I usually do my admin stuff in the morning. So it's answering emails and it's checking on socials and it's making sure, you know, what needs to have done. And I'll send out like a list to my PA. Did we do XYZ? Can you get this for me? I have this coming up and that kind of thing. And that's mainly because yes, I have a lot of releases, but I'm also doing a lot of in-person events. So it's coordinating all of that stuff. And also I do a lot of volunteer work. So it's answering those things and getting that up and moving and making sure that all that stuff is ready. And then once that's out of the way, it's dealing with my kids. So we've got the homeschool stuff that we'll sit down and we'll do that kind of thing. And then usually meetings. I have so many freaking meetings, but those are usually in the afternoons and evenings, and I'm writing in between all of that stuff and trying to get the next thing out. So that's where that is. And then I have those blessed days where there's nothing and I can just sit there and it's like, all right, I'm gonna work. I don't really take weekends. It's like this, it's because writing is it really is for my mental health, a lot of it. And if I don't, I feel like crap. And not because I'm guilty about not writing or not because I feel like I have to do it. It's because it's an outlet and it gives me that endorphin boost to have these words on the page and to be writing this story. Uh so yeah, that's that's what it's like.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

So de-pants, deep plot. Where are you at there? You somewhere in the middle?

SPEAKER_00 17:01

I no, I totally pants everything. Like I have no plans of anything. I don't write anything down. I really don't have any notes. It's just I write, and sometimes, like I know with this last part of fairy tale, I rewrote the ending probably four times, and I have to go back and tweak it still. But I then I take that and I use that for the next thing. So it's not I lost the writing or it's wasted or anything like that. But yeah, I do a lot of tweaking. I do edit as I go. I go back, I add things, it's constant, it's like a ping pong ball, just constantly going back and forth. But you know, it it's also like a squirrel in a nut factory. So yeah, I'm all over the place, but my horde is growing, so that makes it okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Yeah. Yeah. Did you start out in with that same kind of process, or have you evolved into this particular process?

SPEAKER_00 17:53

No, I've always been a mess.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

That's what I love about you, is that you just embrace it. You just embrace it.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

I've literally, because I took so many classes at the beginning of this, and they're like, Okay, you're gonna make your character outline, and you're gonna do this, and you're gonna do that, and you have to write a bibliography, and then you have to have like your map of what's gonna happen and your outline, and why don't you try to do the synopsis first? And I would cry. I would just cry. I'd be like, I can't do it. And it's weird. One thing that I've definitely discovered about myself is once I know the end, I totally lose interest in the project. So I think that's one of the reasons why the end is really it's like moving through molasses in every project for me because I know what's gonna happen. And I'm just like, oh, I'm done. I just don't want to do this anymore because it's not exciting anymore. I like finding out what's happening as I'm doing it, and that plots where I'm going with it. And it's really fun in this one. Like things are happening where I'm going, oh, holy shit, really? What? Like, how did that oh no, now this makes sense? And it'll be fun because you can look back on your work then and you're like, oh, and I foreshadowed it right here. No, really, I did. Because and it just it works together. And I just I love that. I just love it. It's it's magic, it really is. It's fun, very cool.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Yeah, I've seen that so many times. I think the subconscious brain is so fascinating. And a lot of the writers I work with, I'm like, do you realize what you did here? Did you do this intentionally? They're like, no, not at all. I'm like, well, it's beautiful. Like you you not only nailed what you were intending, but you did more. And here's how. So you called those very happy accidents. Very happy accidents. I like that. Yeah, I would like more very happy accidents in this story. In my own writing, that would be wonderful. Okay, did you start out writing knowing the basics, what needs to happen on the page, or did you learn that as you go?

SPEAKER_00 19:58

I I read a lot as a kid. Like I was that book nerd, and even in summers during high school, I would sit at my computer and I would write books, and they're all terrible, and they will never ever see the light of day. But that's something that I did. And I think that you have writers who take classes and learn like the acts and how things are supposed to go. And then you have writers who were absolutely crazy, voracious readers, and you just get like this intuition on what needs to happen next. So when I was taking all those classes, it was it basically just gave a name to what I was doing, if that makes any sense. And they were important and they were helpful in the way that I knew why I was making those happy accidents. Like they're great, but it's much more important to do them intentionally and to have that purposefulness behind them. Because when you know why you're doing something and what you're doing, you can expound on it and you can make it more impactful. So I think that, yeah, that's definitely how I feel about that.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

I think that's a really good point is understanding what you're doing and the mechanics and the why behind it is gonna do nothing but make you a stronger writer, a better storyteller. And some people are just naturally inclined to be able to tell a story. Like they have it. They have that. I don't know. They just they know how to build tension. Like I think of my dad, he's a natural bullshitter. Like you could just stand there and listen to him all day and you're just hung on his word and you're waiting. Like, what happened next? Because he knows how to set it up. I don't necessarily think I inherited that. I've had to work really hard to learn it. But okay, so craft wise, do you do anything for world building or do you just see what happens?

SPEAKER_00 21:55

I see what happens pretty much. So world building. I love world building. I really do. It's like one of my favorite things to do, but I don't set out intentionally to do it. I don't think it's more of one of those things where the way that I see it, it plays out like a movie in my head. And I just have to put myself in there. So I do that and I go through and I write what I'm seeing. And then I'll go back and I'll be like, okay, you're standing in this room. What do you smell? What do you feel? What do you hear? And put in the other senses at that point to make it more realistic and more immersive. The issue that you get when you start doing that, though, is telling. So it's really a difficult balance to give the reader what they need. And then it's so, are you a gardener, Stacey? I kill a lot of things. So the easy the way that I explain that this when people ask is you know how you have those trees that are trellised and they go up the trellis and they grow a certain way that you want them to. The way that I think about world building is that you're giving the reader that trellis, and you give them enough detail and support for them to fill it in so that their imagination grows and fills the space in a way that you're cultivating it to. You only give them like a plant, you only give them what they need when they need it, so that they're not overwatered or there's too much fertilizer or whatever you want to call it. But it's a definite balancing act. And when it's done well, it's done really freaking well. And when it's not, you kill the plant. So that's kind of, I don't know. That's how I feel about world building.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

I love that. I'm just thinking about my garden. It's like the things that I forget to water, right? Do you write more in first person or third person? What's your tip?

SPEAKER_00 23:56

No, I I have written in first person. My first book was actually in first person, is not my preference. My preference is writing very close third multiple POV. And I like that. I like that you're basically sitting on your character's shoulder and you're whispering in their ear, and every once in a while you're peeking inside their head. I very much like that kind of point of view. First person, it annoys me to a certain extent. And I know that's really popular right now, especially in contemporary romances, but I find it limiting. And I think that for me, when I'm writing in close third, I can do the same thing and have more freedom by being able to just take that little step back from being inside someone's head.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Yeah. And you mentioned that one of your tricks is to imagine yourself in the scene and write what you can imagine yourself experiencing, but telling becomes it can become a problem. So how do you mitigate that? What do you do?

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Do you just let it rip when you're drafting and then go back and be like one of the big things is just staying away from filtering words and causes to makes sees, looks, feels, you just get rid of all those things. And that right there really helps a lot not tell. And then it's with the close third person, you can say what it is instead of he looks across the room, he saw her standing there. So it's a trick in vernacular to change the two and to make it more less telly and more showy. You can still have the same things, but you just have to work on your word usage.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Yeah, I do something very similar. It's like trying to avoid those, not necessarily what I'm drafting, but in revision when I go back for a tightening pass, but trying to avoid those distancing words or a lot of times you can just lop them off completely. Yeah. He looked across the room, she stood there. Yeah. Like you can just let it go. Cause whether you especially if you're in third, close, third, or first, it's you you don't have to explain to the reader what they are in the character with you. Yeah. Okay. So when you look back over your author career, this is what I was really interested in talking to you about today. And so I saved it for last, of course. But when you look back over your author career, which has been, how long have you been at this? How long you've been writing?

SPEAKER_00 26:28

I want to say seven years, but it's been longer than that. But I've been, it's probably been close to a decade. I've been like doubling down and really trying to do it professionally.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

So when you look back at that decade, what comes up for you? What does it make you realize? What does it make you think of? That's a really hard question, Stacey. That's a nebulous question. But what do you wish you would have known? Or even does it matter? Was there just like shit you had to learn with experience?

SPEAKER_00 26:54

So yeah, it is something you have to learn when you're with experience. I think that the biggest question that I remember from when I started out is just, is it gonna happen? And that was the thing that would keep me up at night. Am I gonna get a book published? Are people gonna read my work? And my question, I'm questioning my life choices. Is this something I really want to spend my time on? Can I do it? Am I any good? Blah, blah, blah. This and just all of those doubts coming into your mind. I think that you actually said, and this is very, it hit home when you're like, you can't be creative without doubt. And I think that's very true. I think it doesn't matter what book I'm putting out next, whether it was my first, my second, my 20, whatever the hell it is. You always have that doubt. Is this any good or is it crap? So that's always going to follow you around. And I had somebody ask me, does it get easier after the first one? And no. And that's because it's okay. So the first one was great. Is the second one gonna suck? Is it gonna be received as well? Are people not gonna like this because it's a little different? You always have these things going on in your head. And I think that it's really important just to write the book that you want to write and make it something that you really enjoy. And I love the people that wrote my books, but at the same time, I'm writing them for myself. I'm not really writing them for them. And you can't, because not everybody is gonna everything that you put out there. And I think that just dealing with that kind of doubt is something that every author, every creator needs to get over and wrap their head around. And in the end of the day, you don't have to sit back and be like, okay, so why am I doing this? Am I doing this for validation? Am I doing this for my family? Am I doing this for me? Am I doing this because I think that I'm gonna make a million dollars? You're not? It's one of those things where you have to double down on your reasoning and then just go with it. And I will say that I'm not big on people. I'm not big on putting myself out there. And at first I was really terrified about that too. But every single gain that I have made in this industry has been by doing something that I am completely terrified of. It's been putting myself out there and being like, I have no business in this room, or I have no business standing up in front of these people, or who the hell am I to put this book out? Or it's been all of these doubts and all of these, I'm a complete idiot. I'm gonna totally fail. But and sometimes like, don't get me wrong, sometimes I totally fall flat on my face and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's on brand. It's okay. But like you, you really just have to do it. Like step off the ledge and hope, like hell, that you know, you're gonna land softly. Sometimes you won't, sometimes you will, but you move forward. And I think that's the most important thing is not letting that kind of fear and self-doubt keep you where you are because you know, your work will grow. The last thing you wrote is the best thing that you wrote right at that moment. But you know what? The next thing that you write is gonna be even better, and it's embracing that change and that growth that's really going to push you to the next level.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

When you think back, what do you think your version of success was 10 years ago versus now?

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Oh my God, 10 years ago, I was gonna have a movie, dude. I was gonna have a movie and it was gonna be amazing, and I was gonna have a million dollars and it was gonna be fantastic, and I was probably gonna have to move and like all of these things, all of these things. And that really was not realistic. Fair enough. It really was not realistic. So it definitely my idea has changed, and I think that it continues to change and continues to evolve with every little step that I make. Right now, I am really happy that people are buying my books. I'm really happy that they're reading. I'm really happy when I get a response to my newsletter and somebody says something resonated with them. It's just, it's the little things, and I'm I'm just really happy that I still have these ideas because that's another fear of people. What do I write after the first what? Am I gonna have another idea ever again? And I don't, I don't have, I have too many ideas and not enough time. So now I'm like, oh my God, I'm gonna die before I freaking get all these stupid things down on paper. But yeah, it's I'm I'm just happy putting work out into the world where I'll have people come up to me at shows and say, I love what you write. And that just that really freaking makes me happy. So it's definitely stepped back from the fame and fortune, and it's more of like that, the validation. Just that I am I'm I am creating worthy things, which is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

Things that you enjoy that other people enjoy. Yeah. Your journey is such a great example that creativity begets creativity. If you can manage to push through the doubt, more will come. Even if it's messy and chaotic, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. So it's just an a beautiful demonstration of leaning into trusting yourself. And nothing is necessarily a failure. It's just oh no, I've had failures. Yeah. And learn from it and just you go on.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

But what is that saying? It doesn't matter how many times you fall down, it's how many times you get up, type kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Fall down 10, get back up 11.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Yeah, and like that. It's for me, it's really important that I can just laugh at myself and just be like, okay, this wasn't a huge thing and whatever. And everyone, they know I'm a hot mess. So it's okay. It's okay. It's all right.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

So you embrace who you are and let other people see it. And that's a brave act. All right. I've just got a couple more questions for you, and we'll wrap it up. And mostly I just want to know two things. When you were on the podcast last time, except one of the things that really motivated you was spite. We did things out of spite.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

I still do.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Still true. Does that still motivate your writing?

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Absolutely is. Absolutely. I'm a fairly competitive person, even if it's against myself, which doesn't necessarily help all the time. So it's one of those things where I'll have, and I do dumb stuff all the time. Like I will triple book myself, and it'll be right around a release or right when I'm supposed to. I'll be like, oh no, I can totally prove freedom, get all the copy edits done in a day. What? No, that's completely feasible. So I will do stuff like that. I will sabotage myself and then I'll sit there and I'll be like, You dumbass, you can do this. Shut up and blah blah blah blah. So I'm I yell at myself too. But yeah, so it's one of those things that I will do it just because I said I was gonna do it and screw everything else in the universe that is barreling down on me. It does not matter, it's going to get done. So, yes, that's I am spiteful towards myself lately.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

I totally sounds like a beautiful combination of intense competition and focus, and you can direct that, you can wield that. And if it needs to be a fuck you externally somewhere else, it can be, but you also use it as your own fuel and momentum to get whatever it is that you need to get done.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

And my husband is very happy that's not directed towards him. So it is definitely a win.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

All right. What wish would you like to impart to your fellow writers out there? What do you want them to think about?

SPEAKER_00 34:40

I think what I'm going to impart this time, because I think last time it was just like do the thing, which I still believe that you should do the thing. But this time I've been working a lot with beginning writers in one of my volunteer hats. And I think that it's really important to consider the source when you're taking any kind of criticism. And what I mean by that is when we all start out, we the only thing that I wanted was somebody just to read it, just freaking read it. And I really didn't care who it was. And unfortunately, that came out and it bit me in the ass quite a bit because the wrong people were looking at my work, but I was still taking their comments and criticisms to heart. And it definitely screwed up one of my manuscripts. And I ended up writing, rewriting it so many freaking times because of that. And to the point where it wasn't my story anymore, which was really heartbreaking and horrible when I sat back and I looked at it again. So I think that what is what's really important is that when you're getting this feedback from people, you really need to consider the source and look at if they have a body of work, look at that. And if you don't like their writing, if you don't like who they are, if you don't like what they're saying about other people's work, why on God's earth would you apply it to your own? Your writing isn't going to be for everyone. It shouldn't be for everyone, marketable-wise. It's just not, it's just not possible, if not feasible. And I think that that's something that everyone just has to be aware of is that everyone is viewing their work through their own lens. And you can work really hard to put it out so that it fits your view of things, but everyone else is going to have a variation on that. And sometimes it's way out of skew, sometimes it's spot on. And you really have to learn to take things with a grain of salt and consider where this person is coming from before you freak out and rip your look apart to sue something that is not meant for it.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Yeah. Those are tough lessons to learn that not everybody's what you write. And not everybody is the reader for what you write and to be discerning about the feedback that you get. So I think best advice is really investigate who you're asking to read your work and do your best to understand what kind of feedback you want and can they give that to you? And that's hard to know when you're a brand new writer. Like you said, you just wanted somebody to read it, right? And so our natural inclination is just to go, okay, if I'm serious about this and I'm want to be a professional, where's the most professional place I can go for feedback? Right. There's lots of different places, but are they in line with what you're writing or the vein that you want to tap? And you might not even know what that vein is yet. You might still be figuring it out. It is definitely a trial and error kind of thing. But if you can make sure they at least read this genre, this spice level, they like books like this, and you like books like that, and those books are like what you've what you're aiming towards, I think you're gonna be a lot better off.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Oh yeah. I mean, it's one of those things like I make an amazing pasta putinesca, but I can't serve it to somebody who's gluten-free. It just doesn't work. It doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Yeah. Yeah. And I have bought seen it. Other writers like get they get a they get very wounded from that experience of going out to someone for feedback and that someone is not their reader. So very good thoughts. Okay, so I know you have some events coming up, so why don't you tell us where we can find you? We can hunt you down, we can come say hello. I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Oh, holy crap. I can find you. And so we were talking about things that terrify you. What am I doing here? I don't belong here. I will be at BookCon in New York City. Big deal. Yeah, I don't know how I managed to weasel my way in there, but I'm gonna be there and I will have books at actually two booths. I'll be at the RWA booth and I will be at the Fantasy Author Legion.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Of course you are. You're gonna be in two places at once.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Yeah, I double booked myself yet again. So no stress there. No, none.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Yeah, exactly. 20,000 authors, I think, that go to that.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

It is a stupid amount of people, and it's in the Jibet Center at New York, which the last time I was there was during a snowstorm, and I got abandoned with 20 bucks in my pocket to find my way home. So I have no trauma associated with going there. But yeah, so that's gonna be fun. I'll be at BookCon, I'm gonna be at books. That's in the fall in Pennsylvania, and that's so much fun. I'm always popping up around various breweries for work purposes around the New England area. Let's see, I'm at the New Hampshire Book Ball up top Mount Washington in the spring, which is gonna be amazing because the hotel looks like the Stanley and the Shining, and it's supposed to be haunted, and I'm very excited about that. Um, so yeah, you can find it all on my events page and on my website, which is aknevermore.com. And all that stuff is on there if I remembered to update it, which I think I did recently. So we should be good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

And can they sign up for your newsletter? Because you said that's where you are releasing your serialized fairy tale story, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:15

If you go to the main page on akanevermore.com, it's just there's a box right there. You can sign up for it, and there's a ton of freebies on there. I think every single one of my series, except for the Star Cross Chronicles, because I haven't gotten that far yet. All the other ones have free novellas that you can download. I think that there's, I don't know, maybe a dozen of them or something like that altogether. So there's plenty of stuff that you can check out for free and see if, you know, it is your cup of tea or if you're gluten-free. Like either.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

Thank you so much for your time today. And even though you don't talk about it much, I know you do a ton of advocacy for writers who are coming up and you always extend your hand. And so just want to say thank you.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Yeah, absolutely. I it's something that's near and dear to my heart because when I was coming up, I did not have that hand. So it's something that I really enjoy doing.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

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.