Ep 213 Writing True to Your Passions with Susan DeFreitas
Pencils&Lipstick podcast ·
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Transcript
SPEAKER_00
00:00:04
Welcome back everyone to Pencils and Lipstick, it is January 15th, 2024, I always have to look at my calendar as I say this to you guys. Today I have a wonderful guest, her name is Susan DeFreitas, you can of course find her links in the show notes below, susandefreitas .com. I really enjoyed this conversation and I think you're going to enjoy it as well, especially if you're around Susan in my age, which we'll just leave into like the 40 -ish. We have a
SPEAKER_00
00:00:35
really interesting conversation about what literature meant to people who were born in the 80s and grew up in the 80s and where internet was not something that permeated our lives as young children. It really came about when we were teenagers. The idea of what you could read and what you couldn't read. And then just Susan De Freitas has way more education than me. She is, she is an amazing woman, has a lot of experience editing. And it's just really interesting to see how that has that experience, both education and working has led her to where she is now in her editing and book coaching. And what she says all the and what's put on her website is that her mission is to tell stories that matter and help others do the same. Which is really great and if you've, as you go through 2024 and the guests that I have had and I have not done this on purpose,
SPEAKER_00
00:01:36
but a lot of them are really like wrestling with this idea of writing the books that really matter to you and being really true to your own worldview as the author and putting forth a story that you think will change the world in your small way, right? We're one of eight billion people -ish, so of course we always sometimes feel like we can't change anything, but as you listen to this conversation and a couple more interviews coming up, you're going to hear that if you get into it, if you allow yourself to have this conversation, you can start seeing and believing again that even your book can have a big impact, right? And so Susan's work just centers around encouraging writers to write that story that deeply resonates with them to make a difference in what they feel passionately about.
SPEAKER_00
00:02:39
So I think you're really going to enjoy this interview. Of course, Susan works with writers, and so if she resonates with you, if that message resonates with you, I encourage you to check the links below. Susan De Freitas, her last name is spelled D -E -F -R -E -I -T -A -S. Of course the link is below, but in case you're listening and you kind of want to put that into your head. And I encourage you to check her out and get on her newsletter and get to know her more. Join the workshop that she talks about, we'll have that link below as well. So without further ado, let's meet Susan DeFratis. Hello, welcome back everyone to Pencils & Lipstick. This is Kat Caldwell and I have a guest today. Her name is Susan DeFratis and I am so excited to talk to her because I've seen her around in a lot of places and she always has great advice for all of us writers. So welcome Susan to the show.
SPEAKER_01
00:03:36
Thanks so much for having me.
SPEAKER_00
00:03:39
I am so glad to have you here. I've, again, I've seen you like on so many workshops and different summits and things and you just like you always have new and exciting things to teach us. But before we go into that, could you just tell us a little bit about yourself?
SPEAKER_01
00:03:55
Sure, I am an author and editor and a book coach. I'm the author of a novel called Hot Season that won a Gold Ippie Award for Best Fiction of the Mountain West. That was nice.
SPEAKER_01
00:04:14
I'm the editor of an anthology called Dispatches from Henares, Tales in Tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin, and that was definitely a passion project because Le Guin one of my all -time favorite authors. years. I have been an editor and coach since, let's see, 2010. And I, I'm originally from a small town in Western Michigan, but I have lived most of my adult life in the West. And And I currently divide my time between Santa Fe, New Mexico and Portland, Oregon.
SPEAKER_00
00:04:58
Oh, well, that sounds fantastic. Well, I am from your neighboring state. I'm from Wisconsin, but yeah, haven't been there in a while. New Mexico is amazing.
SPEAKER_00
00:05:11
So you've done kind of like the full gambit of the writing journey, I say. But like, how did you get into writing in a novel and like why was writing the novel and then getting into editing, how has that become your journey?
SPEAKER_01
00:05:29
You know, the writing thing goes very deep for me. I am one of those people who started writing fiction just as soon as I was old enough to read it. And I was always working on the novel. And, you know, it was all in notebooks, and it was often illustrated in part. But I, as somebody who has worked with with young writers, this is something I've seen with these kids, you have a big idea, you start writing your book, but you're growing so fast, that by the time you're 3040 pages into it, you turn back to the of the story and it's like, who is that baby? Who is that person?
SPEAKER_01
00:06:16
So I didn't finish a novel until I was 11. And I'll tell you, you know, the reason I finally finished a novel was because it was one of those horrible sixth grade, you know, social experiences where my best friend just decided that she was never going to get popular with me as her bestie that was kind of dropping her stock. right? I know. I've talked to so many people whose sixth grade was one of the worst years of their life. And she turned everybody against me. I don't know what she said to this day, but I was suddenly alone at lunch, right? And I think we all come to writing for different reasons, but I return to that as a touchstone in my life, not to make it a big sob story or anything, but because I know that writing and the characters and the depth of the world of story and the depth of feeling of story was there for me at really the first big hard time in my life. And that big hard time made me a writer. And in time since, you when I've gone through big hard times in my life, so often it was being able to live inside a book, you know, big fat books. I like the bigger the better when when life sucks. I know a lot of us felt this during the pandemic too. you know, there's such a freedom in fiction, in the world of story, and it just can take the pressure off of your real life for a moment. So when people say, accused fiction of being escapist, like that's a detraction.
SPEAKER_00
00:08:12
You know? Why we not, I don't understand the insult.
SPEAKER_01
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How is it not adaptive to be able
SPEAKER_01
00:08:19
to escape the world for a while? So that is really what made me a writer. I wound up attending a boarding school for the arts my senior year. This is the Interlochen Arts Academy in Northern Michigan. It's widely known for classical music, but fantastic arts program there. And that absolutely set my course because up to that point on my parents' bookshelves, we had all my dad's science fiction and fantasy. and those of you of a certain age will remember that there was a book club you could join where the first 10 books cost you a penny or something but then they would send you a book every month and if you forget if you didn't want to pay for it you had to send it back and of course who's gonna remember to do that so I grew up with that's where all the Le Guin came from that's where you you know, the Bradbury, you know, I could go on and on about all the writers that I found that way, but Patricia McKillop, you know, CJ Cherry, and especially a lot of science fiction and fantasy of the 80s, that was really important, I read that. And then my mother's tastes were more literary, you know, so on her shelves, I wound up reading, you know, all of Toni Morrison, who was an absolute pillar of my high school reading, just opened my heart and mind in a way that still remains just foundational to who I am. And, you know, Barbara Kingsolver and folks like that. So those two things kind of come together in who I was as a writer before I went to grad school. But it was there at Interlochen that I discovered like really, I don't know, I guess you would say, what's considered like literary fiction, you know. So I read my Hemingways and Faulkner's, but then also Italo Calvino and some Borges and that opened my mind to how these two worlds can kind of go together in terms of speculative fiction and literary fiction. And that's been a big part of my trajectory ever since. So that at least answers your question about my trajectory as a writer.
SPEAKER_00
00:10:48
As a writer, yeah. Well, what did you think, like when you look back, I look back at the 80s and 90s and I, you know, you had the books, like you said, that were available to you, like Grandma's Bookshelf, Poldark, which like the tiniest print, I that, and the Thorn Birds, you know, like whatever grandma had. And I never thought that much about genre back then because it was like, if you were a reader, you just read. Right?
SPEAKER_00
00:11:16
So like this idea of like literary fiction. I mean, I guess we knew classics. I was like, maybe they're dead books, right? So how did you feel about genres back then? Was that a thing to you at the point or was it just more about story?
SPEAKER_01
00:11:34
You know, it was absolutely just about story. I'm from a town of 2 ,000 people, that is the county seat, which means every other town in the county is smaller than that.
SPEAKER_01
00:11:48
And I, as a child, I just read my way through the library. You know, I read up mysteries. I read, I dabbled a little bit in horror. I, you know, I read the Sweet Valley Highs. I read, you know, the kind of deeper, more interesting stuff. I love Madeline L 'Engle. Again, I love Le Guin. But like even working my way like through the romances probably at a inappropriately young age, you know, to me it was absolutely all just story. And I bring that sense of genre agnosticism to my work in an opposition to snobbiness, right? I find it, you know, really distasteful for anyone to give anyone else any grief about their tastes in reading. They are reading, like who cares, right? And sure, yeah, the Da Vinci Code is horribly written, but what is the pacing on that book? How is that story arousing curiosity? Where is it delivering the dopamine?
SPEAKER_01
00:13:04
It's a masterclass in keeping people reading via curiosity, right? So there's always something in every story. And I think, yeah, people who are snobby about romances because they're into literary fiction, they would be shocked to learn at the depth of character development in so many, you know, those schools. And
SPEAKER_00
00:13:25
I'm sure I learned a lot. and 80s ones, like, oh my gosh. Right. And I'm sure
SPEAKER_01
00:13:30
I learned a lot about history via historical bodice rippers as a kid, right? Yes,
SPEAKER_00
00:13:37
yes. Because keep going through them. And setting, like, they used to write setting, you know, I mean, I think we somehow have lost that a little bit in our snobbiness these days. Like it just seems to be so prevalent these days of what genre
SPEAKER_00
00:13:53
is it? I mean, don't you think Toni Morrison, if she were to like appear today, be like, well, you must be speculative fiction, possibly more literary, dabbling in the fantasy. Like you're just like, it's a good book.
SPEAKER_01
00:14:11
But
SPEAKER_01
00:14:12
at the same time, I have to say, there is something I discovered at Interlochen that was literature at a level that I had not, if I had read it, I had not been aware of what it was doing, right? And to me, it's like, you're playing a chord, there's like a harmonic, there's another level that it is possible to hit that is eerie, magical, beautiful, tricky, right? And that's the sort of thing that I began to understand. It expanded my idea of what was possible. Oh, okay. Read the short stories of John Barthes, you know, it expanded my idea of what was possible in seeing the intricate ways that stories could be connected, like somebody like Alice Munro, right?
SPEAKER_01
00:15:15
Yeah. Yeah. You know, where I see it a little bit and we all have our differences of opinion with our parents, you know, my mother is a great reader. But, you know, she doesn't like what she doesn't like. And she's not very patient with things that don't immediately suit her tastes. And I feel like what I got during that year at Interlochen was the understanding that there are riches to be had in things that you don't understand right at first,
SPEAKER_00
00:15:49
right? I like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
00:15:50
It's something like Gravity's Rainbow. When I read Thomas Pynchon, I was like, how is that possible? And it's that same sort of understanding that later on I'm going to take to a book like Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and see this intricate way that everything echoes each in this carried through, or the way that Trust by Ernan Diaz. You know, those sorts of books, they reward a little more effort and they reward rereading as well.
SPEAKER_01
00:16:27
Right. So something about these books that are constructed in this way that they can hold up a bit over time because not all of their riches are spent or consumed, let's say, in the first reading or the first sitting and they lend themselves to conversation, you know, and that's part of their value to the culture.
SPEAKER_00
00:16:50
I like that. You're making me think like that. That's a really nice way to put it. So I would assume too that your your vast like reading plus learning sort of the differences and not having that savviness has probably benefited you quite a bit and then becoming an editor and working with writers because while you can appreciate the science fiction, you can also appreciate the story that you must be a little more patient with and maybe you're not going to just be tossing it aside as a board reader, right? When it's your client and you have to you have to kind of like the book that you're editing, you know, like it's It's fair to the writer if you aren't willing to like it, I would say. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
00:17:42
And you know, one of the things I have gotten from my clients from the very beginning is that they've had previous experiences with feedback, whether it was an independent editor that they were hiring or a mentor in school where that person, or even critique partners, where the feedback that they were getting was essentially somebody attempting to overlay their vision for the book and their tastes, which can extend to such granular issues as how much backstory to include, or how much exposition to include, or how much interiority to include, you know, sometimes people offering their feedback, they might be great writers, you know, themselves, and they may be genuinely well -intentioned and good -hearted, but they are attempting to overlay their vision for your book onto yours, right? Or to enforce their tastes as if there's only one way to do things. And that is something that from the beginning, I deeply knew that there was not just one way to do things. Because, you know, I loved the the most commercial of work and seen its power, and then also the most top shelf, right?
SPEAKER_01
00:19:23
So what, you know, these sort of guiding questions, what sort of thing are you trying to do? What type of story are you trying to tell? What other types of stories is it in conversation with? What is the tone that you're going for? It's almost like, you know, when you're listening to the beginning singer. You're you're not trying. To to get them to sing like you, and and it's not as if they are in the place where they have fully tuned in what their voice sounds like or what songs they like to sing, but you're listening
SPEAKER_01
00:20:05
for what they're trying to do and what their native capabilities might be. And then if you're a good mentor, if you're a good critique partner, if you're a good teacher, you help them bring, you know, amplify the things that they're doing well, and then bring the things that they're not doing well into consistency with that vision. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
00:20:34
Do you feel like if you've been in, so you've been writing for decades, but you've been in editing since 2010?
SPEAKER_01
00:20:42
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
00:20:42
So have you seen a difference in the way that we seem to be approaching writing? Like, you live in America where we tend to really be busy, like some for some reason really want to do everything faster. I don't know why. And then with the Kindle, and I think the Kindle and self publishing has opened up a lot of doors, especially to people who did not have access to publishing before. And I think it's great to have a lot of books, but I don't know about you, but I feel this like weird pressure to put out more books, more than the book you want to write maybe. Like, have you seen a difference in editing and in like how writers approach writing in the last 13 years?
SPEAKER_01
00:21:30
You know, what I have seen is that the people who are still focused on what used to be the goal for everyone, which is to make a living via selling books, they are being forced, whether it is their natural tendency to do so or not, to produce more titles. As that is what the data tells us, right? It's that you need that backlist. You need, it's like, you know, binging a TV show. If you get them with one book, you want to be able, you know, them to, And certainly the e -book readers, that is working very much on the streaming model, instant gratification, you know, where you don't have to go to your bookstore.
SPEAKER_00
00:22:34
You
SPEAKER_01
00:22:34
don't even have to wait for Amazon
SPEAKER_01
00:22:36
to deliver your paperback via drone. It's just right there. And I think that that does lend itself to an economics based on many titles. But at the same time, I think we've seen, people write for different reasons. And even among people who really do strive to be writers first and to make a living via that, And so many of them are either making the bulk of their wages via teaching in the academic system or outside the academic system. And I am a founding coach with Jenny Nash's Author Accelerator Program, which is the first certification program for book coaches. And it's been really interesting to see how, as that program has evolved, the types of people who come into it, right?
SPEAKER_00
00:23:49
Okay.
SPEAKER_01
00:23:49
Because we're all readers first. And some of us decide that writing is really a passion and something we want to pursue wholeheartedly, but have to find a way to make a living being a book and a writer can be, you but then I've also seen people come through that program who, you know, might otherwise have wound up as literary agents or librarians or booksellers or there's some combination of those things. So it's just, it's interesting to me the way we're all finding our way into our literary lives, how that keeps changing,
SPEAKER_00
00:24:38
you
SPEAKER_01
00:24:38
know? And many people, writers offering their own courses, their own, you know, little critique groups, many of us have moved outside the idea that we're going to teach via academia as a way to make a living. And I kind of love that because I think there are some definite problems
SPEAKER_01
00:25:08
with the creative writing academic world that I have explored in detail by having a lot of education in that world.
SPEAKER_00
00:25:18
Well, you're kind of limited. I mean, the wonderful thing about the internet and how it's exploded over the last two decades, I guess, is you're exposed and you can find, like I can find someone like you when I went to college and was trying to, on the side, take some writing classes, unbeknownst to my parents, because they didn't want me to do that. Like, you only have the professor, right? I mean, it's the late 90s, early 2000s, you're just like, and whatever their opinion was, like I was young enough to be like, well, I must must be that. That's how you write. That's how you because I so desperately wanted to be a novelist. So the internet is wonderful that we get to do that. We get to find other people and other voices. But at the same time, we have to like wade through them. So like, how did you go into like get into helping other writers by editing? because I mean not well a lot of writers do that now I I feel like that's almost a maybe I feel like it's a new phenomenon but not every writer wants to do that like not every writer wants to edit right and take on that responsibility of helping a writer make this this thing that they have in their head exactly on paper so how did you get into it yeah
SPEAKER_01
00:26:31
so um I was in my second year of grad school, I did my MFA at Pacific University, and a woman from the Portland literary community had come to, this is a low residency program, so she came in to give a presentation at one of our residencies, and she owned and still owns an editing and now book design agency based in Portland called Indigo.
SPEAKER_01
00:27:04
And she heard me, this is just the most bizarre fluke. And mean, you have to laugh given where all this led in my life. But she saw me read poetry. And it's a poem I never published, not for lack of trying. At different times in my life, I've been more serious about poetry, I guess, than I am now, although I studied fiction at the time. Anyway, she saw me read that and she said, oh, I'm looking for somebody to join my agency as a contractor to edit poetry because nobody at Indigo knows the way around that. And I was like, oh, okay, yeah, let's like meet for lunch. And, but at the same, like in the back of my mind, I was like, it's not really even my thing. And it's not what I went to school for, but like,
SPEAKER_00
00:28:05
I'm
SPEAKER_00
00:28:05
an entrepreneur. I
SPEAKER_01
00:28:06
have always like, you know, all through my twenties, I was doing all sorts of different gigs to support my creative writing habits. So I was like, okay,
SPEAKER_00
00:28:14
here
SPEAKER_01
00:28:15
it is. This is the next thing for me in Portland.
SPEAKER_01
00:28:17
And I sat down to have lunch with her and immediately proceeded to sell her on how I could edit literary fiction, how that was my background too. And I could see from her reaction that she already had folks with that background. And it was like almost as we were getting up and I was like, and if you ever need anyone to edit like fantasy and sci -fi, like I love that stuff. And she was like, Oh, really? Right. And in the entire time I was with Indigo, maybe nine years, I think I edited one book of poetry, but science fiction and fantasy became my bread and butter. Right. And I loved helping people with that. And Indigo was such a beautiful opportunity. I'm eternally grateful to Allie Shaw for giving me that opportunity because I learned to trade, right? Had an education and I've always had, you know, lots of strong opinions about writing, hopefully well -founded, you know,
SPEAKER_01
00:29:27
but learning editing as a trade, learning the Chicago Manual of Style, you know, learning why the commas go wherever they go and how a book is laid out, and what are the phases that a book goes through at a publisher, it gave me a new understanding of what every book I had ever held in my hands had actually gone through. You always think, oh, it's just the author wrote it that way, that's almost never the case. Although sometimes that is the case with self -published books now.
SPEAKER_00
00:30:00
Usually you can tell though.
SPEAKER_01
00:30:02
Usually you can tell, right? So it was a real education in publishing and it was a really wonderful opportunity to work with people in shaping their work. I started off developmental line editing and proofreading, eventually moved to just developmental by the time that I left there,
SPEAKER_01
00:30:24
because again, that's what I went to school for. And it's what my real joy is
SPEAKER_00
00:30:32
in. Could you tell us, as the listeners are mostly writers here, but could you tell us a glimpse into what that looks like? Because as you said, most writers are like, oh, I have my first draft, and we always kind of cross our fingers that it's pretty good. And I feel like these days, the first draft or maybe the second goes off to some editor that they found on Instagram. And I mean, that's like, unfortunately, that's kind of what life has been become. You like you don't really know your editor or whatever. So what could it be like? And what did you see as the way that these, the books that came in and then went out? Like, what was that process? Just a little glimpse.
SPEAKER_01
00:31:22
Well,
SPEAKER_01
00:31:23
let's, the agency that I worked for was built to approximate for authors themselves the same process that they would go through with a traditional publisher. And that was by design because that agency also works directly for traditional publishers. And sometimes the people, So the authors that we worked directly with, they wanted to improve their manuscript and get it in shape to submit for traditional publishing. Increasingly over the years that I worked with them, a good portion of the writers were headed towards self -publishing. And they were smart enough to know that they shouldn't just slap it up on, you know, on Amazon without going through this sort of process
SPEAKER_01
00:32:21
that nobody unrelated to them would want to read it if they did it that way. So, you know, those stages are number one, a developmental edit, right? This is, I mean, there's two versions actually of a developmental feedback, right? And the first version is big picture editorial letter on plot, characters, pacing, that kind of big picture feedback on the story itself. Round two is more detailed developmental editing where you're working on tightening up scenes. You're working on does this whole paragraph graph need to be there? How about the end of this chapter? Seems like it could be stronger, better focus on questions or tension or whatever. And let's, you this ending, I think, might require this finesse in order to work. And sometimes that's about actually deepening things that are working well too, for better impact. Then, and each one of these stages, is it goes back to the author, right? Revision and incorporating the feedback. And then there's a line edit, which is all about tightening up the prose. Different people, different line editors have different approaches there. Because of the background I come from, when I give detailed edits of this sort, I'm very clear about these two sentences say basically the same thing. I think you need to cut one of them.
SPEAKER_01
00:34:03
That's more than, I guess it's called substantive editing, right? It's more than, there are editors who will only, you know, apply the rules of the Chicago Manual of Style and ask a few questions here and there. And then there are ones more like me who are like, let's improve your prose style, let's eliminate redundancies, let's get rid of your mushy words, let's cut down your word count, right? And then the proofread, you know, that is purely mechanical editing, applying rules. But then even, you know, after that, there's the final, which is when the book is laid out. Because there can be errors introduced in formatting, right? Does this chapter beginning even look like the same as the next chapter's beginning, right? and you check for things called widows and orphans, which are fun, you know, publishing terms,
SPEAKER_01
00:34:58
but that's the whole ride, right? It's a lot.
SPEAKER_00
00:35:04
That's a lot. That's a lot more than most, I would say most indie authors do. A, money -wise, B, trusting somebody to do that. So have all that. Yeah, did all of that. And there came a
SPEAKER_01
00:35:21
point where I realized it was not good for my mental health or constitution for me to be a proofread reader. I I, I'm not the person that's just there to apply rules and I never want the last line of defense on a, on a published book. That's for people who I'm naturally a big picture person.
SPEAKER_00
00:35:43
Yeah, yeah, well, that's okay. We all have our, you know, boundaries. I would not want to be that person either. It's funny though, because more and more even traditionally published books you find at least one year. It my heart. Those dang typos, man, they're crazy.
SPEAKER_00
00:36:04
So then after nine years, like, is that when
SPEAKER_01
00:36:07
you, did you leave? My work with Indigo was always on a contract basis. So I was always, you know, bringing in my own clients as well. And, but there came a point in that process, you know, where I was, I was well established as an editor and I had a good base of clients and I had published my first book, which was part of having a higher profile, let's say, around bringing in clients.
SPEAKER_01
00:36:43
So it wasn't that I was hungry for work, let's say this. It was that I was really frustrated at the quality of the stories that people were bringing to me. And I don't say that in a snobby way. You know, I say that in a way that is genuinely frustrated for the writer. You know, that they spent so long, you know, sometimes I say it's like running for a thousand miles in the wrong direction. There's, to have such manuscripts brought to me and attempt to help these people make these books, what they wanted them to be, it felt like a Herculean task. And it was one I was asked to do over and over again. And it's a saying in the editing industry that editing can only make a manuscript about 10 % better, 20 at the top.
SPEAKER_01
00:37:50
That was never enough for me.
SPEAKER_00
00:37:53
Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_01
00:37:54
Because when I first went to grad school, I thought I was going to teach college. Right. This is. And luckily, that didn't work out. Things went in a different direction because, you know, sort of the bottom started to fall out of higher ed around that time, too. Out of all the friends who went to grad school because they wanted to teach college, you know, less than a tenth of them wound up doing so. Right. because it became so competitive. And the thing where colleges just exploit adjuncts, you never, even with a PhD, you never get beyond comp and you can't make a living working for just one school, et cetera, right? So I feel dodged a bullet there,
SPEAKER_01
00:38:40
but I always had that thing in me that I wanted to teach. I wanted to help people learn the craft. I want to just help them try to fix their cake racks. And also, I'm a very relational person. That's part of what makes me naturally a teacher, is that I'm very much about let me relate to this person, find out what they need, and then let's see if I can communicate that in a way that will specifically help them. And I'm not afraid of the personal, intimate side of writing, not at all, right? And there are lots of people who don't want anything to do with that messy side of the writing process, us, and they just want to work on the book itself, you know, I'm not that person. So I was, I'd arrived at a point where I was feeling kind of frustrated. I was feeling the point where I'd sort of hit the ceiling, in terms of, you know, what I could do for people, and also how much of my own native abilities I was using, right, let's say my self actualization in terms of career. And so when I met Jenny Nash, which was right around the same time I won an award for my first book, it was all at the same conference. So it was one of those like plot twist weekends, right? Change your whole life. Um, yeah, you know, I knew immediately that I wanted. I wanted to be her when I grew up, right. And it was in in this industry, it's not that obvious. I've always been very good with female mentors and older role models. If I can see another woman doing it, I can do it too. I can feel like I can do it too. But in the absence of that, it was really hard to figure out where to go. So Jenny changed my life there and she gave
SPEAKER_01
00:40:53
me a very different business model. One where you work with the writer as they are writing or revising their book, right? So I always start with big picture, whether I read the whole book that they have written and give them chapter notes and then we develop a revision plan, Or we just work on outlining via a special process that I've developed, which is, I've encapsulated in a course of mine called Anatomy of the Novel, different approach than anyone I've seen out there. And then from there, you know, via book coaching deadlines, they send me 25 pages at a time, starting on page one. And for every 25 page submission, I respond with big picture feedback via an email and then detailed editing, a combination of developmental and line editing or whatever they need, depending on what stage they're at
SPEAKER_01
00:41:58
on the pages themselves. And then the important part is because have a conversation about it, right?
SPEAKER_00
00:42:07
Right. This is key. For anyone who hasn't yet gotten the editing process, I don't know about you, but I have found editors who then I would contact and said, okay, can we have a conversation? No. The price that you paid, the fee was my line edits, that's it, whatever. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
00:42:27
Okay. Yeah. And again, there are plenty of folks who are very good in this industry who that's their skill set is just, you know, responding to what's on the page and you can take it or leave it. That's not their problem.
SPEAKER_01
00:42:41
But when, you know, as an editor, I learned what it takes to improve a manuscript, right? And bring it to publication. But as a book coach, what I really learned is what it takes to help someone improve their skill set to progress as a writer. And you cannot do that in the absence of these sorts of conversations. I need to understand from what I wrote, what are you hearing? What do you understand? And then also there's some important disambiguation there where, you know, especially if you're the sort
SPEAKER_01
00:43:18
who feels a lot of sting when you get feedback on your work, it can all just kind of occupy the same sort of white noise, you know, feedback sort of situation, or you've just highlighted the one thing that's a problem and you're not hearing any of the praise, right? But in those conversations, I'm able to say, you know,
SPEAKER_00
00:43:40
so
SPEAKER_01
00:43:41
I don't know if it's, I
SPEAKER_00
00:43:42
hope
SPEAKER_01
00:43:45
it's clear from my feedback, but if not, the thing that I'd like to impress upon you is that the most important thing is this, right? And when I'm talking about the most important thing, I am generally talking about this is the core skill that I want you to A, understand what I'm talking about, what I'm asking you to do, and B, I need to see you demonstrate that you can do it. Because that's what it's gonna take to get your book, to execute the book the way that you imagine. So, that's the book coaching journey there.
SPEAKER_00
00:44:21
Right, right. I think that's an amazing distinction and a reason why, like, why a writer would choose to work with a book coach. Like, a lot of writers ask me the difference between them and they ask me, you know, to maybe how to find an editor, how to find, you know, like why they would need a book coach. And if you really want to be the kind of writer that will continue the evolution of your writing and get better and better each time, you have to have a mentor. I mean, you can read all the books. I got all the books here, you know. You can do some courses, but at some point you have to be really hungry for that mentorship
SPEAKER_00
00:45:06
and that being open to somebody else's thoughts and ideas and brainstorming. And like you said, also being that person being open to what you're trying to say as well and having that conversation is actually what's going to help your brain go, oh, this is what I need to do. Like so many writers try to be alone and do it and then send off their manuscript and then they get frustrated. And there's tons of stories out there of how they stopped writing because this editor said this. And I find that just heartbreaking because that's not how it used to be, you know, like Fitzgerald did not have an editor where he sent off an entire manuscript.
SPEAKER_00
00:45:47
It was a relationship. It was sending pages like you have with your clients and getting feedback and asking them to put something green in every room or something. I can't remember what it was, you know, giving them, but it was from the bigger picture to the smaller picture and making sure, like his characters are so distinct, not because he is a genius, which he is, but at the same time, he had somebody else's eyes
SPEAKER_00
00:46:14
in the conversations constantly. So like, what can you do even better? Like, I don't know why we're, why, I don't know that we're opposed to mentorship or like why it's, it's, you know,
SPEAKER_01
00:46:27
there are genius writers in history who wrote in isolation, you know. It's not as if those people don't exist. But I think what you're saying is so true, you know, that those people are the exception. And it's, you know, why hire a book coach, like, it's quite expensive to work with a book coach, it takes a lot of our time to engage in this close relationship over the span of time that it takes to write a book, right? And it takes a lot of education and experience for someone like me to be able to provide the sort of feedback that I do, right? Not only helping to steer your particular project towards the best possible version of itself, and that's often like bearing the end in mind, right? Bearing the big picture in mind, which is very hard as an individual writer to do when you're down in the weeds trying to figure out how to make this fricking scene work, right? Now you're not thinking about your end game with this story. Yes. But then also to be systematically guiding the writer towards the core skills that they need in order to not
SPEAKER_00
00:47:49
have
SPEAKER_01
00:47:49
to hire us for another book, right? But that then is part of what has led to my next evolution as somebody, yeah, who is, teaches a lot and teaches a lot of, offers self -paced courses because, you know, what I began to see, and this is not true of every coaching client by any means, but part of what I was seeing is that People were loved the way that my feedback would help them improve these individual sections of their novel and the way, in the end, it allowed them to produce a first draft or a second that is way more like a fifth draft, right?
SPEAKER_01
00:48:45
Much further along, the way that helped them to save time. And they're absorbing what I would say on the phone and the way that I was basically steering or directing them. You know, people say that after working with me, they've developed like a mini Susan that like lives in their head. So when they're trying to get away with something mushy or like half -baked or, you know, it's the voice. Right, right? because it'd be easier, they're like, okay, no, I won't do that. But what I would see is that some of these folks, especially, they were not necessarily getting the why behind what I was, behind my feedback, why these are the core skills that you need to develop, why I'm pushing you to play out this conflict further in this key scene and not go, you know, and particularly in a way that they could apply to their next book, right? Because without actually understanding the framework behind the feedback that you're receiving, you're sort of just getting it on osmosis. and that is the way apprenticeship used to work in the arts, right? But I really feel like it's a bigger service, for me at least. I am also a pretty analytical person. I'd like to know why things work. And just to feel like, well, it worked. Cool. No, I'm going to do it because that's what Susan would say to do.
SPEAKER_00
00:50:39
Right. Which I think, yeah, in understanding the why is going to sustain you over more books, I would say, because maybe they could write the next one with the little Susan in their head. But eventually, like, life gets busy, things happen, your osmosis falls away. And they need to know why we all
SPEAKER_00
00:51:04
need to know why the Da Vinci code and gray, why does it work? Right?
SPEAKER_01
00:51:11
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
00:51:11
And so
SPEAKER_01
00:51:12
this kind of leads through to I have a year long alternative MFA program that that I've developed called Workshop Empire. And the idea behind it is like, yes, I have a complete framework of craft from big picture down to, you know, prose, voice, all of that stuff. And also let me please teach you what I know about publishing because there's, I didn't ever receive any education on that minor part of being a writer in, you know, of course, in two degrees. Right, other 50%. But also because one of the things that I think is wrong with the American MFA system,
SPEAKER_01
00:52:05
and we could have a whole hour -long conversation just on this, but one of the things that I really absorbed, and really without anybody quite saying anything, both, I mean, through all of, through Interlochen and then also graduate school. I will absent my undergraduate degree in fiction from this because I went to a college that is very focused on social impact in the environment, right? But that stands in opposition to the other two types of like top shelf literary schooling I have received, right? And that's fun because I don't think I've fully put that together until now, right?
SPEAKER_01
00:52:52
Because when I attended my MFA program, there was this unspoken edict. I was trying to write about politics. I was trying to write about the environment. I was trying to write about activists because that's who I am. That's what I care about. You again, I went to this undergraduate institution that was very focused on social impact and the environmental crisis. So of course I'm gonna write about that. And of course I'm gonna write about the people I have known and loved, right? But I soon received a pretty clear message
SPEAKER_01
00:53:30
that nobody knew what to do with these types of stories I was trying to write, you know, about people grappling, you know, with trying to save a local river, you know, trying to grapple with issues like what can one person do in the face of the environmental crisis, you know, what can, you know, what are the dynamics and around being mixed race and how might that impact the way you operate in the world. You know, that latter part of my identity, that was more acceptable. That was more acceptable, right? It's not as if it were understood. It's not as if it were received with cultural competence, the way that we would hope in a workshop setting. but it was at least understood that that is a thing you can and should write about if you're a serious, you know, literary writer. And why, though? I couldn't figure out why you could write about this and not that. To me, those are all political, right? It wasn't until I read a book by Eric Bennett called Workshops of Empire that I began to understand why, which is that we have a legacy see in this country, the first MFA programs established
SPEAKER_01
00:54:54
at Stanford and Iowa, the Iowa Writers Workshop, were in part treated as a tool of soft power against the USSR and its propaganda. And the USSR's propaganda was all politics all the time, all about the collective struggle, and very thinly veiled. There was this idea that the American aesthetic was going to be in direct opposition to that, and it was going to foreground the individual,
SPEAKER_00
00:55:23
right?
SPEAKER_01
00:55:24
And,
SPEAKER_00
00:55:24
and
SPEAKER_01
00:55:25
of
SPEAKER_00
00:55:25
course,
SPEAKER_01
00:55:26
been so.
SPEAKER_00
00:55:29
Okay, so we're not going to talk about collective issues,
SPEAKER_01
00:55:32
you know, we're not going to talk about, you know, and it exists to this very day, you know, it's a weird. Yeah. And even if you've never heard of that, even if you've never had an MFA, the tastes in New York publishing are still so influenced by that idea that the only proper province of literature is the evolution of the individual. And I mean, people hearing this who know my work, I've gotta be laughing because I mean, a huge part of my practice is focusing on character arc, right? I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And me, that's the, you know, focus on character arc is profound in its emotional impact. But the hell is telling us that it's not okay
SPEAKER_01
00:56:27
to write about people trying to change the world or grappling with injustice and ills? If you look at the actual history of American letters, you look at Steinbeck, you look at Morrison, you look at Ralph Ellison, and they're all grappling with so -called political issues. And in fact, the more that, you having a strong moral center or edge in your work, it gives the work power, you know? Exactly, they're the ones that change us and help us find our way.
SPEAKER_01
00:57:03
And I find at this particular moment in history, don't we need such books?
SPEAKER_00
00:57:12
Yeah, yeah, it does feel a bit like American literature does. I don't know, there's something about I want to say watered down possibly like there are some books have stood out over the years. But now that you're saying this, this kind of makes sense. And I bet your professors don't know. And what
SPEAKER_01
00:57:33
they would say to that sort of work is honestly the same thing that they would say to anybody trying to write genre fiction, which is that I don't have the training to respond intelligently to this. This is not what I read and this is not what I've studied. So I'm not the best mentor for you on this.
SPEAKER_01
00:57:55
And that wouldn't be wrong, but look at how that perpetuates in crap. Right. And nothing gets broadened. Yeah. Right. And nothing
SPEAKER_00
00:58:04
gets
SPEAKER_01
00:58:05
published. And meanwhile, those graduating from the top MFA programs, you know, still have this sort of entree, you know, let me introduce you to my editor, let me introduce you to my agent. And, you know, often they have absorbed those same edicts.
SPEAKER_01
00:58:21
This is changing, and thank goodness, you
SPEAKER_00
00:58:25
know.
SPEAKER_01
00:58:25
You have people like Carmen Maria Machado, you know, who is bringing that genre. She is not respecting the bounds of realism, you know. She's blending literary and speculative fiction. She's writing directly about feminism. She's writing directly about the experience of living in a misogynistic culture, like, yay, a yes, please, or of that, you know? But there are still these old walls, right?
SPEAKER_01
00:58:57
And it's like, there's still this sense, and of course you're going to absorb it as a writer who wants the entree, wants the introduction, right?
SPEAKER_00
00:59:11
Right, we, we want to be published, like in the end you can't. Yeah, I mean you think of like King's solver, she, you go back, always, always. She writes about politics and community, always, always. What is the one about? Yeah, but the evolution and I mean, it's, it's amazing. uh -huh right um the one before that too but it i can never remember the names of books but i mean but so there of course you can pull out authors you know who have done that throughout the years but you're right like in the end we want to be published and so if you are if your mentor is somebody who has a right exactly and so much self -censorship happens in an MFA
SPEAKER_01
00:59:55
program, because you want to write
SPEAKER_01
00:59:59
what will
SPEAKER_00
00:59:59
be pleasing, you know?
SPEAKER_01
01:00:02
And you wind up, yeah, I've been there, you know, and luckily I'm very hardheaded, you know? And determined, I did, you know?
SPEAKER_00
01:00:13
And it was a hard, honestly, like
SPEAKER_01
01:00:16
my initial ambition to write about outsider characters, you know, environmental activists and sort of living at the fringes in a high literary style, that's quite a project to pick out for your first book, you know? And so it took me a while, it took me a lot longer to publish that than I imagined that it would, you know? And now I'm expanding more into full range.
SPEAKER_00
01:00:48
Right. And look like once you actually, it's like anything, once it's out there, people go, oh, well, of course. Or at a
SPEAKER_01
01:00:54
book like Sunil Yappa's, you know, like often these
SPEAKER_01
01:00:57
books have a multiplicity of voices. He wrote a book called Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist. It's set in the WTO protests of the year 2000, which is a big touch point for people in my generation involved in any kind of activism. And, you know, it's this, there is a protagonist that moves through it, but it's a kaleidoscopic narrative with all these voices. You it's the voice of the police officers, the voice of, you know, the ambassador. It's the voice of the multinational corporation exec. It's like, there's often, you know, breaking form. You know, there's often a need to focus on more than just one individual to tell these kinds of stories. Now, the house on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros,
SPEAKER_01
01:01:48
how could you tell the story of this one girl coming up in this situation on the street if you were only to tell it from her point of view? So let's just say that these ideas of what good craft is or what correct craft is, as Matthew Celassis points out in craft in the real world, it is always subjective, right? So if it is subjective, let us base it. I can say this, my craft is based on some considered concerns, okay? It is based on the idea that I want you to get published, right? So I want your book to meet the expectations of the marketplace for fiction, especially for a debut novel, right? Because once you prove yourself, you do you, right?
SPEAKER_01
01:02:44
But number two, I want your book to have a positive social impact, right? I want to help you write the version of your book that has the highest possible impact on your reader and by extension on society. That's what my craft is based on. It's based on achieving those two aims. And then the how of it is based on neuroscience, right? So when we were talking about the Da Vinci code and why it works, like in my courses, you will find out exactly why that works and how that works, you know?
SPEAKER_00
01:03:23
Right, right. Emerging those together, I haven't seen before.
SPEAKER_00
01:03:28
Like that's very unique process for you because you can read a lot about the neuroscience science and the story and all that. But the way that you focus on the writer, creating the book that impacts the site. Cause I think we're all most proud of the book that impacts somebody. Like we all want to impact someone. Whatever that ideal reader is, we want to leave a mark. Like how, you know, those are the books that we have forever on our shelves, no matter how many times we read.
SPEAKER_01
01:04:01
It's some people more than others. And I say that very clearly, you know, what I do is not for everyone, because some people just want to write the beach read, you know, they just want to write the airport. They just want to, you know, provide some entertainment and, you know, sell some books, bless them more power to them, you know, but based on what I'm hearing from you, we're the same kind of people, right? which is that we want to do more than that. We don't want to just write, want to write a good book. We want to write a great book, you know?
SPEAKER_01
01:04:38
And Jenny Nash calls this like the 3 a .m. friend. Right.
SPEAKER_00
01:04:42
You know, you
SPEAKER_01
01:04:43
have the friends that are like, oh yeah, you see them at the parties, you have some small talk or whatever. But then there's the friend that you call at 3 a .m. when you're losing your mind, right? And her analogy is that books are like that, you know?
SPEAKER_00
01:04:57
Yeah. Yeah. You know, so like, I want to help
SPEAKER_01
01:05:03
people write 3am versions of their books, you know, and there's so I get plenty of blowback for this, right? Because there are so many people, they're often men. I have an occasional series on my newsletter called men on the internet being wrong, which is the gift that just keeps on giving. Let me tell you. You know, anytime that I talk about
SPEAKER_01
01:05:33
writing the power of fiction that has a social impact or the power of engaging with issues in your work, I get some dudes saying, having a message, having something you're trying to say immediately means that it's going to be bad art. Having any way that you're trying to write politics is going to result in didactic, you know, caca propaganda with no depth or artistry to it. And I mean, even as recently as just a couple weeks ago, like this, like it's an article on the Atlantic, the problem with political art, right? I think this is George Packer, you know, talking about this.
SPEAKER_01
01:06:22
And I just don't agree. Yeah, I absolutely don't agree.
SPEAKER_00
01:06:28
Well, imagine if Jane Austen listened to the men in her life. And
SPEAKER_01
01:06:34
these things can be foregrounded in your work or
SPEAKER_00
01:06:37
they can be backgrounded,
SPEAKER_01
01:06:38
you know? I'm not saying everybody's got to write about some issue, right? But even my mother who writes like cozy mysteries, you know, there's, there's a gay character in her town, you know, which is based on my town, which has this kind of subversive, you know, social impact, just by representing the fact that people, gay people exist in rural places, right, in small towns, as well as big cities, you know, that they are, you know, by her characterization shows that they are people just like everybody else. They're not characters who are characterized exclusively by their gayness, right? You know, and it's just this subtle way that she takes a stand in her work for what she believes in. And those subtle things do have an impact on the world. And we're living in a time now of book bans, right? Absolutely. Which, you know, sometimes people are like, well, why do you want to help people write these sorts of books when these are the very sorts of books that are being banned? It's like, well, why do you think they're being banned?
SPEAKER_00
01:07:55
It's
SPEAKER_01
01:07:56
because they're powerful,
SPEAKER_00
01:07:58
right?
SPEAKER_00
01:07:58
Right,
SPEAKER_01
01:07:59
absolutely. So anyways, again, that could be a whole conversation.
SPEAKER_00
01:08:07
So you are looking for writers who want to merge those two, basically. You've created this system called Workshops Against Empire, which as this goes out is launching in, I guess, depending on when they're listening to this, but this will go out. This the end of January. So it's launching soon. So tell us, we know the kind of writer you're looking for, somebody who's willing, like wants to make an impact with their writing, but wants to learn the why behind the storytelling and all. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about the membership and then how people can find you? I'll have a link to your website, but how they can like find out more about you.
SPEAKER_00
01:08:51
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01
01:08:53
So workshops against empire. There's two ways to do it. One is to join a year -long membership that is self -paced through five courses. So those courses are Anatomy of a Novel, which is my guide to big picture storytelling. and let's just say a novel approach to plot that has produced big impact on a lot of people and is very tested over a long period of time. And even pantsers, even pantsers love it, people.
SPEAKER_00
01:09:35
Good, good, good. I tell people I'm a natural pantser, but the truth is life gets in the way And if you're trying to write an novel,
SPEAKER_01
01:09:44
you gotta figure
SPEAKER_00
01:09:44
out a way to put the know, that process works
SPEAKER_01
01:09:46
even for people who have to do a discovery draft to even know their story. You're either gonna plan it on the front end or you're gonna plan it when you're headed into your second draft.
SPEAKER_01
01:09:55
And this is a process that works really well across genres for so many people. The second course is being seen. And this is the guide to using scenes in your story in a really powerful way. This is not something I learned in grad school. And I think it's a really important distinct, it's important skillset to get a hold of. If you want to bring your story to life in your reader's mind, along with his conflicts and characters in a really vivid way, because neuroscience, right?
SPEAKER_01
01:10:29
So that's being seen and it's a guide, not only to how to write powerful scenes, but how to use scene in your novel. scene and summary, then voice and vision is a guide to what we're getting into when we go into hopefully a third draft, which is tightening down the language. So that's where I get into point of view, right? And both point of view and why we want that, why we crave that, and why it's necessary for getting a reader sucked into your story. How to really develop a distinct voice for your character and for your writing, right? How to make your characters, the writing itself, the character come through that, which is the number one things that gets the agents or editors attention. And all the way through to how to thread in backstory because I consider that a subset of point of view. So again, it's a different way of looking at things, right? It's through from the big picture to the medium picture to prose itself, which is most efficient way to work on a draft of a novel, right? Is via multiple drafts focusing on two different things. And then the final one, story medicine, that is where we really look at bringing what it takes to bring the story from good to great by creating greater sense of depth, more powerful emotions, more complex characterization, especially in the antagonists, right? Because a lot of the social impact of your story has, you know, a lot lies behind how you are dealing with the people doing wrong in the story, a lot of complexity. And then, you know, also how to avoid negatively impacting, you know, people from historically marginalized groups
SPEAKER_01
01:12:28
with your story and your characters, thereby avoiding post -publication nightmares, right? So consider that the final stage of the process is deepening those effects and really focusing the social impact. And then the final course, final draft, is all about the publishing, you know, from your query letters, your synopsis, to how to find agents and editors, how to navigate the current publishing landscape, you A lot of people think it's just self -publishing or the big four.
SPEAKER_01
01:13:02
That is really not true at all, right? And it's also about thinking about your longer career trajectory as a writer and being kind of smart in the way that you are pitching your first book based on where you want to end up. So those are the five self -paced courses that you get access to when you join. And you also get a year -long, you get year -long access to those courses. You get year -long access to my online writers community, the Story Medicine community. And then there's live classes each month with that.
SPEAKER_00
01:13:39
Oh, wonderful. That is, I know, and I probably, you know.
SPEAKER_01
01:13:45
Clearly, I'm very fantastic, yeah.
SPEAKER_00
01:13:49
No, but if you're serious, if you're serious about writing a book and it's January, this is the perfect time.
SPEAKER_00
01:13:55
We all have those goals, like this year I'm going to write the novel. This is a perfect way to just have a process because when I work with clients, sometimes I work mostly nonfiction, but it's like having a process will help all the little stressors in your head. And again, this
SPEAKER_01
01:14:15
process is based on a lot of experience in terms of the most efficient way to work, the skills. You know, it's designed to teach you all the skills that you need, the core skills you need as a novelist as you write or revise a book. And that, to me, that's the clever bit. You know?
SPEAKER_00
01:14:42
Yeah. Yes. Yes. Because that's the place where you go in. And a lot of us go, well, why am I even writing this? You need that community to be like, no, just, you know. Plus I think your process as well could avoid the being bogged down.
SPEAKER_00
01:15:01
You know, where like, if you're, cause you're self editing all the time, right? Like, I don't even know, the same first draft versus third draft, you're constantly revising, right? But you can get so bogged down in the, is that sentence right? You're in phase one, don't worry about that sentence. You're in phase one here. Don't worry about that. You can say just 5 ,000 times, don't worry about it, we'll get rid of that. And a
SPEAKER_01
01:15:29
really powerful community too, at this point that I've built, that I'm very proud of, you know, because we all, you know, we all need people. This is such like a process and can feel so lonely. Yes. And I personally too, I don't wanna sign up
SPEAKER_01
01:15:48
for any course that's self -paced where I can't ask questions, you know, and specifically about how this thing applies to my specific circumstance. That is much where like craft books fall short, right? We read the book and we get so excited, you know, we might even understand the framework. Although often craft books don't really have a framework. They have an approach, not a framework. They're not a real why.
SPEAKER_01
01:16:16
Other than like, this is what's worked for me and I'm a famous writer. But then that excitement dies down is you try to actually apply it to your own weird, beautiful, special unicorn of a book. Yes. Right. I think being able to ask questions and get feedback from the person who wrote the thing or made the system, that's really important to me.
SPEAKER_00
01:16:45
Right.
SPEAKER_00
01:16:45
For the students who have applied it, because you get that, wait, what? Absolutely. Absolutely. That moment you can go to the community.
SPEAKER_01
01:16:52
And you offer a free masterclass every month and that's my service to the community. Like everybody can, can come to that. I believe at the time you'll release this episode, I'll be offering one of these free masterclasses about a week or two after it's released.
SPEAKER_01
01:17:10
And that will be called, maybe it's not your plot, which is one of my favorite titles or presentations that I've given because I offered it first for Jane Friedman because so many people are just tie themselves in knots over this thing called plot. And to me, that's not even the most efficient or logical place to start. Yeah. So this is basically an introduction to my big picture approach to storytelling that's contained in Anatomy of the Novel,
SPEAKER_01
01:17:44
which is in this larger program. But point here is that I offer these master classes as a service to the community and they're always absolutely free, but I only make the replays of those classes each month available to the people in my membership. So that's just a built -in extra perk, you know, that people get. I find that live event and what we share around it, that's part of what makes the community special.
SPEAKER_01
01:18:15
Because those people who see what I offer in the masterclasses, they understand the framework that it connects to, right? So for them, it's like I'm explicating something that they've learned in these courses in a deeper way. And I really like the synergy between those things.
SPEAKER_00
01:18:38
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm a learner who needs, I will go back and re -listen and I want to hear you say it in a different way and I will always be that one to sign up and be like, because you'll always learn something new like our writing process is an evolution you're going to constantly, I want, my goal is for every book to be a little bit better, right? So I also think for this membership, it's people who are like -minded in how they want to approach their writing as well, right? And that's very special for your membership because it's important to have a community that you can really relate to.
SPEAKER_00
01:19:17
And so if you're looking to merge that storytelling with social impact, with your writing, like this workshop against empires is definitely the membership for the writers listening. So we are going to release this on January 22nd or a few days after, if you're listening, and we will have the links in the show notes so that they can go and attend your live workshop after hearing this, and they can see that. And that link, will they also get more information that will be where they can find out more information about you? And
SPEAKER_01
01:19:52
they just want to check it out, even without attending that live event, it's online at workshopsagainstempire .com.
SPEAKER_00
01:20:04
Wonderful. We will have those links in the show notes, so everyone go click on them. Find out more about Susan. It's been so lovely to talk to you. I think we could probably talk for like three more hours. We'll just have to have you back on.
SPEAKER_01
01:20:16
Thank you so much, Kat.
SPEAKER_00
01:20:17
So thank you so much, Susan.