Episodes
Tuesday Nov 19, 2019
Episode 22 - Magical Gummy Dollars - Thinking About Your Publishing Income
Tuesday Nov 19, 2019
Tuesday Nov 19, 2019
Rekka: 00:00 Welcome back to We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing and everything, everything, everything in between. And sometimes after.
Kaelyn: 00:07 Sometimes after. I'm Kaelyn Considine. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.
Rekka: 00:12 And I'm Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.
Kaelyn: 00:16 And today we're talking about that after.
Rekka: 00:17 Huh. Whoa. Yeah. So folks,
Kaelyn: 00:21 Yeah, just... This is a little bit of a heavy episode.
Rekka: 00:23 Sliiiiightly.
Kaelyn: 00:26 Um, we're talking today about money, but not in the way we talked about money in our previous money episode. Which was episode nine, uh, if you want to go back and check that out.
Rekka: 00:36 Yep. Um, that's the other half of the, well, the other third, I don't know, there's probably many more pieces of this conversation.
Kaelyn: 00:40 There's a lot of pieces. Yeah.
Rekka: 00:42 But you can, you can brush up on that episode if you're thinking about money for your writing career lately. Um, this episode will cover a lot of other stuff, so they don't really overlap that much.
Kaelyn: 00:53 Yeah. This is the episode... So before we talked about how you get your money, this is after you get your money...
Rekka: 01:01 How to not lose it all.
Kaelyn: 01:02 And...
Rekka: 01:04 Unless you want to!
Kaelyn: 01:05 Unless you want to.
Rekka: 01:06 Blow chunks of money, all you want.
Kaelyn: 01:09 Yeah. Um, so we talk a lot in this episode about, you know, when you hear numbers, what those then actually come down to and setting realistic goals and expectations for yourself and you know, just some general things to know about how money works in publishing, especially if this is going to be your primary or only source of income.
Rekka: 01:31 Right. And I think the biggest takeaway from this episode, um, is clearly the attitude that we come at our money with in the writing industry.
Kaelyn: 01:42 Yeah. So, um, you know, it is, it is a little bit of a heavy episode. Um, it's a lot. We...
Rekka: 01:46 It's a lot, but I mean, it's not like we get into specific—
Kaelyn: 01:50 No, no.
Rekka: 01:51 We did some rough math at the beginning.
Kaelyn: 01:53 Just for an example.
Rekka: 01:54 But we're not talking about like, OK, and then you move this amount of money over here into these—
Kaelyn: 02:00 Yeah do not take advice from us on that.
Rekka: 02:03 We're not offering specific investment advice. What we are trying to offer is like the mindset by which you, uh, pay attention to your writing income and how that can build into your life in whatever way you dream your life taking shape.
Kaelyn: 02:20 Yup. So, um, you know, we hope you find this episode helpful.
Rekka: 02:24 Yeah, we really, we debated doing this topic, but the fact is that Kaelyn came up with this podcast as all the things we didn't know about publishing and didn't know who to ask. And so this is definitely in that category.
Kaelyn: 02:41 And you know, as we talked about, like in the first money episode we did, there is this taboo around it. And this is a different kind of taboo because this isn't talking about, you know, how much money they agreed to give you. This is talking about now dealing with the money they agreed to give you. So, um, you know, take a listen. Like I said, it's a little, it's, it's a lot in this episode, but it's important. So, um, yeah, we hope you enjoy, we hope you find it informational.
Rekka: 03:08 Yeah. I mean you may not enjoy this so much per se, but yeah, this one is important, I think. If... You may want to set aside, if you're just like, you know, doing something where you're only half listening, I honestly would say come back a little bit later and give this one your full attention. And I'm not just saying that because we were the ones talking.
Kaelyn: 03:27 No, no.
Rekka: 03:28 But that's a very good reason. All right everybody take a listen to this episode and you know, hit us up online if you have any questions after.
03:50 Piano Music.
Rekka: 03:52 Today's episode is kind of a follow up sort of second part sister, cousin thing to Episode 9: "I get paid for this, right? The money episode."
Kaelyn: 04:05 We're talking about a completely different aspect of money today. So in episode nine we kind of went through like how you get money essentially. Um, you know, the process, how you get paid and who's taking it along the way. Today we're talking about kind of when you get that money, when you already have it. And this is again, you know, it's... Money is a taboo topic, especially in publishing, I think.
Rekka: 04:34 Yeah. I'm not sure how this shame around money came up in society, but people definitely don't want to talk about how much they're making. Um, how equal or less equal they are to other people. Um, it might be in your contract that you can't even disclose how much you make as a, you know, as a sale.
Kaelyn: 04:54 Yeah. Which by the way, that's, that's pretty illegal in most states. So what we're talking about in this episode is money that you've earned and in, as a writer, and I'm not going to say what to do with it because obviously it's your decision to come up with what to do with it.
Rekka: 05:16 Right. And you, you have specific needs and expenses in your life that are going to be different from even your neighbor. So when we talk about money coming in, we talk about your author income, we're referring to the advances and the royalties.
Kaelyn: 05:33 Yes. And again, these are two separate things. So I think the question on a lot of people's minds when, you know, they've sold their first book, they get a decent advance, very excited, is, okay, well I can do this full time now, Right? And—
Rekka: 05:53 Oh, that's whew. Okay. So you've got the American dream and then you have the dream. You know, the American dream is hold down a job until you retire and make a salary and have predictable income. The writer's dream is "I'm going to make writing my only source of income and that is going to support me through the rest of my life," essentially.
Kaelyn: 06:15 Yeah. And I'm going to say something that I'd like everyone to keep in mind when listening through this episode. A lot of people, even people who have sold multiple novels, who have had successful book series, this is not their only job.
Rekka: 06:33 Their only source of income.
Kaelyn: 06:34 Their only source of income. Yes. Um, well, I would even say their only job. I know, you know, a lot of people who write do not write full time. They're teachers. They're, you know, they're working in office. It's—
Rekka: 06:47 Right. And the reason I rephrased it was because for some writers their life support income comes from someone else, some other source and not through them putting through physical labor. So this could be a spouse, they could be supported by a parent or other family member, they could be on some kind of structured income that is not related to the writing.
Kaelyn: 07:14 Yes. Um, yes. So a lot of people who have had successful books, this is not their only source of money. Um, and like Rekka said, the writer's dream, "I've done this and now, I'm going to quit everything else and be a writer full time."
Rekka: 07:34 Often it includes things like "move to this fabulous city."
Kaelyn: 07:38 Yeah. Um, yeah.
Rekka: 07:41 So I mean that's, that's an extra point then we'll get to later is like the cost of living.
Kaelyn: 07:46 Yes.
Rekka: 07:46 As part of your writer's dream, the way you envision it might be very different for the cost of living where you are now.
Kaelyn: 07:51 Yeah. So we were, you know, we were talking at length before this episode about how to kind of walk through this because it is, it is a sensitive subject and this is different because it's not factual, like the other—
Rekka: 08:02 Right. Unfortunately we have to make a lot of assumptions to even have this conversation.
Kaelyn: 08:08 So one of the things, and we talked at, we mentioned this briefly in in episode nine, but it's much more appropriate here is to manage your expectations of what's going to be happening now that you've sold a book. Um, a lot of authors, especially debut authors, you're not going to sign for a book and then get handed a check for $1 million.
Rekka: 08:31 Right.
Kaelyn: 08:32 That—
Rekka: 08:33 Would be lovely.
Kaelyn: 08:33 That would be amazing. But you would basically have to be the first person to touch down on Mars or something, you know, like you, you know, you, you rescued one of the Royal babies, you know, something like you've got to have like THE book.
Rekka: 08:48 And notice, those are autobiographies, those are not genre fiction.
Kaelyn: 08:53 Exactly. And so, and you know what, that's a very good point, genre fiction, it's even going to be, you know, especially for debut authors, it's going to be even a harder sell, so to speak. Okay. So let's say for just the sake of round numbers, you've written a good solid book. Uh, one of the Big Five has picked it up and you've gotten a $30,000 advance.
Rekka: 09:14 Okay. Is this for one book or a trilogy?
Kaelyn: 09:16 Let's go with one book.
Rekka: 09:17 Okay.
Kaelyn: 09:17 Let's say this is, you know, they're really solidly behind this.
Rekka: 09:21 Okay.
Kaelyn: 09:23 Well, first of all, right off the bat, you're not getting handed a check for $30,000. You're probably going to be getting handed a check for 15.
Rekka: 09:30 Right. So what you're assuming there is that it's going to be paid in two installments, one upon signing and one upon publication.
Kaelyn: 09:37 Yes.
Rekka: 09:39 If the Big Five publishes your book, chances are you also had an agent that was helping you submit to those Big Five publishers because Big Five don't tend to take unsolicited. Um, or even if they have open calls for them, it's, it's a very, very—
Kaelyn: 09:54 They're gonna make you go get an agent regardless.
Rekka: 09:56 Yeah.
Kaelyn: 09:57 Um, so the $15,000 check is going first to your agent.
Rekka: 10:02 Right.
Kaelyn: 10:02 They're going to take their cut of it, then you're going to get a check. Then you've gotta pay taxes on that.
Rekka: 10:08 Right. So say you have 15,000.
Kaelyn: 10:10 Yeah.
Rekka: 10:11 Say your agent takes 15% the check that the agent sends you is 12,750. So you've, you've lost a chunk already. Now you have to pay.
Kaelyn: 10:22 Now you've gotta pay, probably about 30%—
Rekka: 10:24 Yes, so—
Kaelyn: 10:24 —on that. So that's going to take it down to 8.
Rekka: 10:27 30/33, depends on the size of the check. So now you're at $8,925. Yes, everyone, I have a calculator out. You've heard my math before. I was not going to mess around with this one, but you've gone from $15,000 to just under $9,000, which is probably not what you had in mind when you heard that first number.
Kaelyn: 10:45 Yeah. So, okay, so now you're going all right. Well I mean I still have nine grand. That's great. That's fantastic.
Rekka: 10:51 It is fantastic.
Kaelyn: 10:52 Can you live off of that? For a year?
Rekka: 10:53 How long? Yeah. And, you know, you still have probably 18 months maybe before this book is going to come out and you'll see the other nine thousand.
Kaelyn: 11:03 So when we say managing your expectations is yes, this may seem like a lot of money. Yes. I've got a $30,000 advance, I'm gonna walk into my day job and you know, flip off my boss, march out and, you know, go do a victory dance on the street outside.
Rekka: 11:20 If your boss was going to fire you in January anyway and you were only going to make $9,000 have at it, sure do that. That's unlikely.
Kaelyn: 11:31 But so when we say manage your expectations, is that first thing figuring out how much money you're actually going to be getting with your advance and when you're going to be getting it.
Rekka: 11:41 Yep.
Kaelyn: 11:42 Then figure out how much money you need to live off of, say for a year and then figure it's going to be even longer than that.
Rekka: 11:52 Yeah. So this scenario and the reason I asked about how many books were in this contract was because in this contract the book is already written. So you are being paid 9,000 now and 9,000 in say 16 months for work you've already done. And at this point you may have to do a round or two of revisions and go over line edits and copy edits and then you're mostly done with the book itself.
Kaelyn: 12:19 Yes.
Rekka: 12:19 This does not include marketing and and uh, any touring or anything that you might, events that you might have to do. So at this point you are receiving money for work you've already done, which is different if you get a three-book deal based on one book. Now you've got two more books to write.
Kaelyn: 12:41 Yeah. So now let's use the same scenario. And this time you're getting $30,000 for each book as an advance.
Rekka: 12:50 Okay. So assuming that this is a three-book deal?
Kaelyn: 12:55 Three-book deal, let's go with the three-book deal.
Rekka: 12:59 For 90,000 total. You're getting paid 9,000 and 9,000 for a book that's already written. And I would recommend you start writing book two right now.
Kaelyn: 13:10 Yes.
Rekka: 13:10 Because you're not going to get the next 9,000 until you hand in the manuscript.
Kaelyn: 13:16 Book two.
Rekka: 13:16 Yeah.
Kaelyn: 13:17 So you're going to be getting $9,000 six times over the course of probably about four years. Yeah. So quick math, that's $54,000. Can you live for four years off $54,000? Now those of you at home screaming at your, into your headphones, we'll have royalties.
Rekka: 13:39 Right, so if this is a jointly accounted three book deal...
Kaelyn: 13:43 Well yeah and we can get to that. But then on top of this, you first have to earn out the $30,000 advance. They don't care about taxes and your agent's cut. So it's not like you earn out the money that you received. You have to earn out the entire advance.
Rekka: 13:59 Right. So you have to earn out $30,000 as opposed to earning out $18,000 that you actually got. Yes. And that's assuming that these aren't jointly accounted.
Kaelyn: 14:09 Yes. And so if they are jointly accounted, you are earning out $90,000.
Rekka: 14:15 Before you see a penny of royalties.
Kaelyn: 14:17 Yes. And in your contract (read the contract), it will say, you know, it depends on if you know your first book sells and sells really, really well and they haven't paid you the next part of your royalty yet. There'll be stipulations and you know that's tough agents work out and.
Rekka: 14:33 yeah, you can have some input there too.
Kaelyn: 14:35 Yeah, exactly. But you have to keep in mind a lot of books do not earn out their advances. And obviously the hope for every author is that their book sells and is very successful and everybody makes money off of it and readers get to love and enjoy the book, but.
Rekka: 14:57 and the publisher is happy and comes back for another trilogy.
Kaelyn: 14:59 And publisher's happy and comes back and wants more for you. A lot of books do not earn out their advances. Um, so banking on, well then I'll have royalties is not necessarily a sound decision to me.
Rekka: 15:17 Plus, think about how long it would take to earn out that advance. By then your book sales are probably on a downward slope because of the nature of it not being a new release anymore. So your royalties for a book are very unlikely to ever feel anything like those advanced payments.
Kaelyn: 15:38 Yeah. Um, now again, this is not always,
Rekka: 15:45 This is not always the case there. There's a reason we call it the writer's dream. There are people who do exceed expectations and make money off a series for a very long time.
Kaelyn: 15:55 Yeah. Um, so the, the whole point of this is just manage your expectations. Go out there and do some research. There's all kinds of websites and um, you know, even communities that will give you like statistics and information about this stuff. And the thing is that it's scary because it's very hard to quantify because this moves into the next point we're making, which this is sales.
Rekka: 16:18 Yup.
Kaelyn: 16:18 You are essentially working in sales.
Rekka: 16:22 And from the moment that you find an agent and start working on that book with that agent, you are working on a product.
Kaelyn: 16:29 Yes, you are. And this is a product that you have to invest time into without being paid for. And you have to make something that other people are going to want to buy in order for you to live off of it.
Rekka: 16:46 This is the little bit, this was your, um, metaphor that you said earlier. It's a little bit like software development.
Kaelyn: 16:52 Yes. It's, if you're making an app that people are going to use and spend money on, that's great. But you still have to build the app.
Rekka: 17:04 and not every app becomes the killer app.
Kaelyn: 17:06 Not every app becomes, you know, Snapchat. Um, I think we kind of fall into this mentality in any sort of creative process. And that could be from writing a book to developing an app that "I made this, this thing and it's great, and everyone should give me money for it," but that's not what actually happens. What happens is you need to sell this to them. So if you want to write, you know, this book that you just love this story and it's just great but no one wants to buy it, that's not going to work out for you with your career as a writer then. So you are working in sales and like any other person working in sales, be they, you know, for instance like a medical device salesperson or you know, a purveyor of bulk coffees and spices. You have to manage your money in a way that allows you to live off of it.
Rekka: 18:07 If you think about this more like you are not an employee at a company with this money, you are the company itself.
Kaelyn: 18:15 And you have to pay yourself. Rekka and I were talking about this, um, beforehand and you know, I am not a writer. I am on the business side of things. Um, you know,
Rekka: 18:26 You happen to cut some checks every now and then.
Kaelyn: 18:27 Yes. And as you know, I've mentioned a few times on this. I also work in finance. So I come at all of this with a little bit of a different mentality and approach. The way writers get paid and the way writers earn money. And by the way, I don't mean writing, I mean how they are paid is not the same for a lot of other people in the world. For most of the other people in the world who do work and then receive a paycheck.
Rekka: 18:57 For an agreed amount for per either item or hour.
Kaelyn: 19:02 Yes. That they did. And I am, you know, focusing on writers. But this is, you know, this is creators a lot of times, and I'm not talking about, you know, somebody who's a graphic designer for a company that goes in and gets a salary to show up, to do work every day. I'm talking about people who make things and then have to hope that other people buy them.
Rekka: 19:21 Right.
Kaelyn: 19:23 I think writers especially fall into a little bit of a trap because let's, there's a difference between a writer and say a craftsman because in order for the craftsman to have something to sell, they need to buy things beforehand to make that. They have to maybe get a business loan and invest time into this. And, you know, take this enormous risk.
Rekka: 19:47 So the closest parallel would be the time the writer has to, you know, make for their writing in order to create a product.
Kaelyn: 19:55 Yeah. And I think we can fall into this thing where, because it is, yes, you're not making money, but this is not costing you anything to do either.
Rekka: 20:05 The upfront investment is all time.
Kaelyn: 20:09 Yes.
Rekka: 20:09 And effort and energy.
Kaelyn: 20:10 Yes. So you don't have any money coming in, but you also didn't have to take out $100,000 business loan that now you also have to pay back.
Rekka: 20:20 Which by the way, as a writer, you're not going to get a business loan.
Kaelyn: 20:23 No, you're not. Um, so I think sometimes writers especially can fall into this trap of going, well, this isn't costing me anything. Don't think that it is costing you something because your time is valuable and your effort.
Rekka: 20:43 And your energy.
Kaelyn: 20:44 And your energy that you put into this where you're going, well I don't, it's just my time and my time is free.
Rekka: 20:53 Well, that's what our country wants you to believe. However, you should put some value on your time.
Kaelyn: 20:57 Put some value on your time and, but because of that, it's like, well, I can just write another book. I can just write another book. It's not going to cost me anything to write another book and then that will be my job. And that's for a lot of people, that's not how that works. So when I say I'm coming from, you know, like the business background of this and how for a lot of the people in the world that, you know, uh, earn money for themselves to live off of or have income coming in from somewhere, I think they would be very shocked by how writers live this way.
Rekka: 21:40 Shocked and discouraged.
Kaelyn: 21:41 Discouraged. But also the thing is that within this community, this seems normal because this is what everyone around you is doing. And I'm, I'm painting with a broad brush there, but like, it's something that you encounter more on a regular basis. So it's like, Oh, okay, well that's just, you know—
Rekka: 22:00 Right. Yeah. If most of your exposure is to other writers versus people who go in to work at a gas station, at a doctor's office, at a, you know, a factory or something like that. Your experience and the experiences you see are going to be very different from what I think we were brought up at least in this country to expect from money. We have a very strange relationship with money in this country too.
Kaelyn: 22:28 Well, so now why am I saying this? The point that I'm trying to make here is that mentally, I think it can be damaging to disconnect yourself from the quote-unquote rest of the world and how they manage their money. At the end of the day, it's no different than yours. You still need money to live off of. You still have living expenses. You still want, need money to retire, money set aside for, you know, emergencies and catastrophic events, money for things that you want in your life.
Rekka: 23:01 Right. So you still need a budget.
Kaelyn: 23:03 Yeah. And I think there is this disconnect almost between somebody who goes and, you know, works at an automobile plant for eight hours a day and is paid X amount of money for that hourly thing, and somebody who for instance say sells a book and gets a $30,000 advance because windfall money is a tricky, scary thing.
Rekka: 23:31 And I think even calling it windfall money here is, is the opposite of what you're trying to convey.
Kaelyn: 23:36 Exactly. Yes. But that's what it is.
Rekka: 23:39 Right. It is, it is as if your employer paid you once a year for all the work you did for that year.
Kaelyn: 23:51 Yep.
Rekka: 23:52 And if that were the case, you'd be doing a heck of a lot more in, in intensive budgeting.
Kaelyn: 23:56 Okay. So I'm going to use, uh, a personal example here and this is, this is an interesting story and um, req is going to hear this as you hear this because I didn't tell her about this beforehand.
Rekka: 24:06 Oooh, juicy.
Kaelyn: 24:08 We have family friends that won the lottery, but they won the $1,000 a week for life Lottery. Um, I learned a lot of very interesting things about how lotteries work when this happened. Um, so you know, it's married couple, they have one daughter. Here's something interesting. I didn't know when you, when especially like the lottery like that where it's an ongoing payment, um, you can percentage it out to people.
Rekka: 24:40 Okay.
Kaelyn: 24:40 It's just an interesting fun fact. So like, you know, their daughter gets X percent of it. Each of them have X percent in their name, even though they're married, you know, but every year there's a day of the year where they get the lump sum of money for that year.
Rekka: 24:58 Okay. So even though it's a thousand per week, they're not, it's not, being direct deposited every week.
Kaelyn: 25:03 They don't get a check of $1,000 every week. They get a lump sum payment once a year.
Rekka: 25:07 So instead of having to budget what's left after taxes of their $1,000 a week, they have what's left after taxes of 52 weeks each year.
Kaelyn: 25:15 Yes. Now they both are still working. I mean, they're getting to retirement age, but that's actually, you know, very smart of them. I think they're just, you know, kind of setting all this money aside. But even if they weren't, they're being handed their money for a year all at once.
Rekka: 25:32 And that is a windfall.
Kaelyn: 25:33 And that is a windfall. And they knew this. So what did they do? They went to a financial planner. Now again, this was, it's a different situation, but it's kind of not, because if you're, you know, let's say you have like a really big great advance and that's supposed to last you for whatever, going to talk, even if you get, you know, the $30,000 advance and you're just going to get like six installments of $9,000, iit's a not a bad idea to talk to someone about this. And you know, I think we hear financial planner and we get scared. It's a little intimidating.
Rekka: 26:08 Well, you know, just like tax professional and all this kind of stuff, the first thing you think is, "I'm going to lose money to this person. I'm going to have less if I go get help."
Kaelyn: 26:17 Yeah. But there's a reason that these people exist. It's because managing money is scary. Yes. And,
Rekka: 26:25 And just like submitting to a publisher is scary and you feel that that agent earns are 15%...
Kaelyn: 26:31 Financial planners also earn their 15%. And look, I'm not talking about, you know, giving it all to a brokerage firm to invest. Just, you know, saying like, I have this much money, um, I can, and they'll say, you can put it into this accountant how much, you know, if you continue doing this, this is how much you'll make and when do you want to retire? Do you want to retire? Um, but where I'm coming around to in sort of a little bit of a roundabout way here is windfall money can be very dangerous and... Just punch "lottery winners" into Google. And it will just give you story after story of people who won a good amounts of money.
Rekka: 27:14 Enough to call a gob.
Kaelyn: 27:15 Yeah. And it was gone in two years. Yeah. I'm gonna say this and it's not a judgment or anything. If you, especially if you are not used to having extra money and suddenly you've got a lot, it's going to seem like, wow, this is amazing. I've got all of this extra money. It is probably not as much as you think it is. Um.
Rekka: 27:42 And when you think you have a lot, you might be less careful in how you budget it.
Kaelyn: 27:46 Exactly. And that's exactly what I'm... The point I'm trying to get to here is that you need to be realistic about how far that money will get yet.
Rekka: 27:55 And you brought up something earlier that we didn't discuss when we were planning this episode, but is another perhaps good way to think of it, not just as your salary, but think of it as your retirement savings. You get access to your retirement savings when you retire. You know, there's different kinds of accounts, there's different ways you get access to it, but you have a finite amount there.
Kaelyn: 28:18 Yup.
Rekka: 28:18 And you know, when you retire that you are going to be living off this amount for as long as possible, hopefully. Um, and I think there's a little bit more of a sense of reality of what that means in that framing than there is of like this is your advance until you get another advance for another book.
Kaelyn: 28:39 You know, this is... We said at the beginning of the episode. No one can tell you how to spend your money on this. Everybody's going to have different needs and priorities, but if you're looking to make a living off of this, if this is what you want your regular full time job to be, being realistic about how much you're going to be making and how far it's going to get you is important when then deciding the lifestyle you want to lead. If you're very happy making whatever you make and you can just exist off of that, then you know, fantastic do that. But you've got to decide what your goals are, what you're aspiring to, what is going to say I consider myself a successful full time writer now.
Rekka: 29:23 Mm-hmm. Yeah, what does that look like to you?
Kaelyn: 29:25 And there's no answer. It's going to look different for everyone.
Rekka: 29:28 And it's going to be very based in what you want, what you see as your vision of success. One thing you can do before you get that giant windfall is start to plan what it would cost for what you see as your vision of success so that you know, obviously every year, that cost will go up a little bit, but you'll have a really good baseline for what that means and take into account things like the cost of groceries. Take into account... If your vision of success is living in New York city, you need to put a, you need to account for the cost of groceries in New York city. The cost of getting to the grocery store because they are not usually nearby and owning a car may not seem practical. I mean like there are so many things to consider.
Kaelyn: 30:12 Yeah.
Rekka: 30:13 For something like that. You know, really budget this out. Like it's really happening so that you get real numbers.
Kaelyn: 30:19 Just be realistic. I'm not saying don't aspire to things. You absolutely should.
Rekka: 30:23 No, this is, this is building the budget for the life you want and that's great, but it will tell you how much you need to have that life. And it's not meant to be discouraging, but just to temper your enthusiasm when a big check comes in as to whether that big check gets you there.
Kaelyn: 30:38 A lot of people who you know want to be full time writers are going to have to spend a lot of time confronted with the reality of how their money is going. But again, I'm gonna stress it's no different from anyone else in the world, in terms of...
Rekka: 30:53 Right. The difference comes in terms of the frequency of these payments, but the dollar is still worth a dollar. It's not a sparkly gummy dollar that, you know, is, you know it has no extra magic than regular currency.
Kaelyn: 31:07 Don't disassociate yourself from the rest of the population in terms of how your money works. How you get it may be very different, but how it works and how you have to plan for it is exactly the same as everyone else.
Rekka: 31:19 Once it's in your bank account. Those dollars function the same as everyone else's.
Kaelyn: 31:23 So don't fall into this trap where, "well I'm a writer, it's different."
Rekka: 31:29 Okay. It is. It may be slightly different but not in the way you think it is.
Kaelyn: 31:36 Well yeah. What I mean is like, "I'm a writer. How my, how I manage my money is different," because everyone still needs the same things. You know, regardless of where you're living, you are presumably part of a society that has certain norms and standards in the way that it functions and you need money in order to adhere to those.
Rekka: 31:53 Right.
Kaelyn: 31:54 So none of this was meant to be discouraging. None of this is meant to, you know,
Rekka: 31:59 if anything, this is to empower you to have, you know, a plan before you get to the point where you cause your own financial collapse because you are overwhelmed. And the idea of coming up with a plan sounds scary. So you avoid coming up with a plan and then the money doesn't last.
Kaelyn: 32:19 When I was working on my MA, you know, I was a, I was a graduate assistant and one of my jobs was to run the graduate student events series. Most of them were academic based, except one of them was what we called the PhD scare session. And a lot of, you know the people that I was with that we were all working on this graduate degree, were all planning to go get a PhD and once a semester we had the PhD scare session, which was, we went and got a pizza and a few beers and we brought all of the professors in and they sat there for two hours and told horror stories about getting their PhD and how hard it was, and how you're just basically not going to have money for five to seven years, and how they didn't sleep, how, you know, all of this terrible stuff. And they always finished it by saying, "we would not have taken you into this program if we didn't think that, you know, you were capable, everyone was capable of going to do this. But you need to understand that this is how it is. It's, there are times that it's going to be very unpleasant. It's not going to be fun. It's not going to be easy. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it."
Rekka: 33:40 Right.
Kaelyn: 33:41 Now, that said, I didn't, do it.
Rekka: 33:42 I was just about to say.
Kaelyn: 33:45 For a whole bunch of different reasons. But, um, when I was in grad school school, uh, that was the, the great recession started in the middle of that. And um, a lot of people were losing funding. Things were changing. But then that's another thing to consider is sometimes the economy changes. Things can change in your financial future. So in my case, I made the conscious, like I had to sit down one day and work all of this out and go, well, I'm not going to get a PhD because to me, it wasn't worth it. I didn't want to spend, you know, all of these years when the financial situation of the world was just so bad, you know? So I decided not to do it. And that's why I am not Dr. Kaelyn.
Rekka: 34:30 I was literally about to say that. Get out of my brain.
Kaelyn: 34:33 So yeah. So I mean, the point of this episode is not to make it sound like you've chosen so poorly, but to give you the information to prepare you for when those these circumstances arise. And the maybe a voice in the back of your head will say, Oh, Kaelyn warned me about this, that you should not go buy those very expensive shoes that are so on brand from my book title.
Kaelyn: 35:01 I have a bad shoe habit.
Rekka: 35:04 I was not trying to point fingers.
Kaelyn: 35:05 No, It's fine. It's, I, I've, I've accepted it. It's, you know, there are a lot of things about writing a book that are very hard in all different aspects. One of the harder ones is going to be the money issue. It's just, I mean, it's just how it is. It's not, you know, it's something that we don't want to think about. We want to, you know, say like, Oh well I'm going to write this book and then it's going to be, you know, my life is going to be exactly where I want it to be. The money side of the writing process is, I won't say the hardest because I don't think that's it, but it's definitely up there. And while it may not be the hardest, I think it's the most difficult to deal with.
Rekka: 35:50 Yeah. And there are a lot of difficult steps. I mean, like if writing was easy, everyone would do it. It's the phrase and—.
Kaelyn: 35:56 Well, that's the thing is everyone, everyone can do it. Just not everyone necessarily should.
Rekka: 36:01 well, okay. So if being successful at writing easy, then everyone would be, um, yeah. And as I said, like going in with the, for knowledge of what your actual needs are to have the writing life that you envision and there is no correct answer to what you should envision. Some people are happy to make writing their side gig,
Kaelyn: 36:27 Decide what success looks like for you.
Rekka: 36:30 Yeah.
Kaelyn: 36:31 And that can change by the way.
Rekka: 36:32 Yeah. Yeah. And you can reevaluate every few years.
Kaelyn: 36:34 No one's going to tattoo it across your back and say like, Oh well sorry,
Rekka: 36:39 Look at you, you failed cause this is what's written on your back. And ya changed your mind. But you know, no the um, you know, you can reevaluate it every couple of years. You can change your mind and say, you know what, I thought I was happy writing on the side, but like writing gives me passion and my day job doesn't. And I would really like to figure out what it would take. Suddenly, I am curious what it would take to write full time. Yeah. And that's the thing is, research it before you attempt it.
Kaelyn: 37:05 and just think about money. And I won't go so far as to say, be careful with it because that's not my business. But think about it and consider these things. And if you're unsure, reach out to someone. It doesn't have to be a financial planner. You know, like this is, I mean, my mom is really good at handling money and if I, to this day, if I have a question about something I call her and go like, "I dunno, what do you think? Like what should I do here?" Or in some cases, "what is this?" Um, you know, if you have someone in your life or reach out to other authors and ask them if they did anything special or talk to you know, your agent, your, you know, ask questions. Don't expect people to tell you things.
Rekka: 37:52 Right. It never hurts to ask and it never hurts to get multiple opinions cause one person's experience, like we said, is not going to match another's. You can ask these questions, don't expect that someone is going to volunteer everything you need to know.
Kaelyn: 38:08 Yeah. And don't feel silly asking the questions. It's okay not to know things.
Rekka: 38:13 And everybody deals with these things.
Kaelyn: 38:15 And it is much better to ask someone than to just remain ignorant of something that's important for you to know.
Rekka: 38:24 Because then you're not only afraid of the money or afraid of being broke. You're also afraid of looking like you made a horrible mistake or that you can't manage money or what, I mean, there's like—
Kaelyn: 38:34 —any number of things—.
Rekka: 38:34 —like I said there's a lot of shame surrounding money in our, in our society. The people who don't have it are, um, shamed for not working hard enough, et cetera. When there's a whole lot more to it and the more you look into it. And plan and, you know, keep dreaming. It's just...
Kaelyn: 38:50 Look, I'll use a personal example here. Um, you know, when I came in and Parvis and I have these business partners and I had to sit down and go through my finances with them and it was a very, like, jarring experience.
Rekka: 39:04 You feel very vulnerable.
Kaelyn: 39:05 Yeah. I felt very exposed. And at the same time I'm kinda like, there's nothing, you know, there's no reason this shouldn't, this should be something that, you know, especially with people that I'm invested with, to talk about.
Rekka: 39:18 Yup.
Kaelyn: 39:19 And now, you know, and this is coming from someone who, like I've mentioned in other episodes, I work in finance where we talk about money all the time, but we don't talk about our personal money,
Rekka: 39:31 Right. Yes. It's a little bit like flashing your underwear at somebody. There's just a, um, a whole social, uh, parfait of—
Kaelyn: 39:39 There's a social dynamic to it definitely.
Rekka: 39:40 Yeah. I'm talking about money. And so there's... People are afraid of, of being heard, talking about money in the wrong way around the wrong people.
Kaelyn: 39:49 Exactly. Yeah. And all of that said, you know, that's, you know, your own personal, what you're comfortable with, but don't be afraid to ask questions about money and don't be afraid to be frank about it because at the end of the day, it's your money and you need to make it do what you want it to do for your life.
Rekka: 40:05 Yeah.
Kaelyn: 40:06 On that note, we'll end with the same sentiment as the previous money episode, don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to talk to people about it and be realistic.
Rekka: 40:15 Yeah.
Kaelyn: 40:16 Windfall money can be a very dangerous thing.
Rekka: 40:20 Right. Because it feels like a lottery dividend or something like that.
Kaelyn: 40:25 Yeah. If nothing else, just seriously look up stories about lottery winners. Look at that. There've been studies,
Rekka: 40:31 This is your PhD scare session.
Kaelyn: 40:34 Yes. Um, look up stories about lottery winners. They've done studies on, you know, people getting windfall amounts of money in all different denominations and what's happened to it. And a lot of times the mismanagement comes down to people not realizing how much money they actually had. Right. How far it goes in what you can do with it. Yes. So, you know, look, I really hope that everyone listening to this goes out there and gets a $500,000 advance for a book that becomes a national bestseller and.
Rekka: 41:06 Earns out and keeps earning.
Kaelyn: 41:08 And just, you know, and then you get to go live in your, you know,
Rekka: 41:12 Whatever your definition of dream author life is.
Kaelyn: 41:15 I think I want like, I like being in New York, but like I want a castle in New York.
Rekka: 41:24 You gotta write something first, Kaelyn.
Kaelyn: 41:25 Yeah. Well, yes. Okay. Fair. But,
Rekka: 41:29 So that's part of what you're planning.
Kaelyn: 41:32 Yeah. Um, so yeah, I, you know, be realistic. Yeah. Manage your expectations.
Rekka: 41:35 And we hope, you know, and we are not trying to scare anyone.
Kaelyn: 41:39 No, no, definitely not.
Rekka: 41:40 This episode is not your PhD scare session. That lotto Google search,
Kaelyn: 41:44 That's your, that's your PhD scare session.
Rekka: 41:47 Um, but we do just want to bring it up because that's what this podcast is for. We want to talk about the things that people don't understand about publishing. And one of the things is how strangely your income would be structured if you relied on this income to live.
Kaelyn: 42:03 Yeah. It's, um, quarterly at best.
Rekka: 42:07 At best. And that's royalties.
Kaelyn: 42:09 Yes.
Rekka: 42:10 And not even advances.
Kaelyn: 42:10 Yes. So do your research, manage your expectations, but also, you know, aspire to what you want to do with it.
Rekka: 42:18 Don't be afraid to dream. Just also know what goes into that to make it functional.
Kaelyn: 42:21 Just wake up every now and then.
Rekka: 42:22 No! And like that's the thing, it's like there is nothing wrong with wanting.
Kaelyn: 42:28 yeah.
Rekka: 42:28 But you need to understand what's under the chassis of that dream and how it's going to function.
Kaelyn: 42:35 Yeah. And don't fall into the trap of just wanting and not doing anything about it. So anyway, that's the episode. That was a bit of a while. I won't say a bummer, but
Rekka: 42:44 no, but we, we tackled that one. We grabbed it by the throat and we shook it a lot. So
Kaelyn: 42:50 No, we did, we did really spend a lot of time beforehand talking about this and kind of deciding what we wanted to do and say, so,
Rekka: 42:57 and we understand that our audience has a very wide experience of, you know, finances and life and abilities. Um, so we wanted to make sure that what we said was not the bright and sunny best case scenario for everybody.
Kaelyn: 43:14 I would be very curious and I'm going to do some digging on this and if I come up with anything, I'll post an update authors and writers who, you know, are internationally known and that's, you know, what they do. Um, and be curious to see what their advances were
Rekka: 43:31 and also, are they receiving royalties as most of their income? Are they receiving, I'm speaking fees as their income? Are they receiving, you know, dividends from investments that they made with a large advance that the advance went straight in and now they're being paid out on money market money.
Kaelyn: 43:52 Exactly.
Rekka: 43:52 So that's, um, you know, that's all very likely in many of those cases.
Kaelyn: 43:59 Yeah. Okay. Well, um, yeah, thank you for listening. That was, you know, we know this was, this was a lot.
Rekka: 44:04 Yeah, it was a heck of a lot.
Kaelyn: 44:05 This was a lot. So, um, but you know, as always questions, comments...
Rekka: 44:09 You can find us on Twitter and Instagram @WMBcast. You can find our older episodes wmbcast.com. If you found this—we hope you found this—episode very helpful, and if you have a few of those magical gummy dollars to throw our way, we'd love your support patreon.com/WMBcast. If you are still waiting for those gummy dollars to come in, you can, uh, share the podcast with a friend who would find the information useful. Or you can leave us a rating and review on iTunes to help random strangers find us through searches. And we'll talk to you next time everyone.
Kaelyn: 44:45 Thanks everyone.
44:45 Outtro Music
Tuesday Nov 05, 2019
Tuesday Nov 05, 2019
Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between!
First episode of November and some of you are probably 1/6 of the way into NaNoWriMo. If so, you no doubt know just significant your involvement in writing communities can be with help, support, and encouragement. But writing communities aren’t just for when NaNoWriMo rolls around and no one knows that better than our guest on today’s podcast, Miri Baker. We got to talk to Miri about her extensive history and experience in all kinds of groups and oh boy did she have some great stories! Miri also offered us some sage wisdom for those looking to get more involved in their communities or even just find one to join. You can (and should) check her on her socials, linked below.
We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.
We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and what your reactions and theories were when you first saw Azula at the end of Season One of Avatar.
We hope you enjoy We Make Books!
Twitter: @WMBCast | @KindofKaelyn | @BittyBittyZap
Find Miri at:
Twitter: @MiriBaker
Website: https://miribaker.com
Kaelyn: 00:00 Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the We Make Books podcast, a show about writing, publishing and everything in between. I am Kaelyn Considine and I'm the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.
Rekka: 00:09 And I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.
Kaelyn: 00:13 So a couple exciting things here. Let's do first and foremost.
Rekka: 00:19 Yeah, I mean this is, this is a big day. We've been telling you that you about -
Kaelyn: 00:22 This is a milestone.
Rekka: 00:23 Yes, you can, you know, if you've been listening that we have been asking for support@patreon.com/WMBcast and someone's heard us.
Kaelyn: 00:33 Someone's heard us. We have our first patron. Thank you so much to Robert McAdams.
Rekka: 00:37 Our first patron, uh, who, you know, went online and found value in what we're giving out here on this show and the guidance and everything. And so it's just fantastic.
Kaelyn: 00:48 Means a lot to us.
Rekka: 00:49 It really does. So thank you. And, um, if you would like to join in and also participate in that support, you can go to patreon.com/WMBcast.
Kaelyn: 00:58 Um, second exciting thing. We have a guest on this episode.
Rekka: 01:01 We have kidnapped someone. Wait, no, the lawyers are telling me, I can't say we kidnapped somebody.
Kaelyn: 01:04 She came here of her own will.
Rekka: 01:06 She might've been coerced with pizza.
Kaelyn: 01:08 And we did let her leave eventually. So I think essentially that doesn't really count.
Rekka: 01:13 I mean we got gotta we got the airline in on our whole conspiracy to keep her longer.
Kaelyn: 01:18 Miri had quite a hard time trying to get outta here.
Rekka: 01:20 So there it is. Miri Baker is our guests today. Uh, this is a friend of mine that I met through Twitter. Um, and then we met in person, uh, about a year before this recording at um, world fantasy con in Baltimore. And we have just been peas in a pod since we started talking. And Miri is a fantastic person, a fantastic writer, fantastic cosplay costumer. Like there is no -
Kaelyn: 01:47 Astounding.
Rekka: 01:48 Miri is kind of like me and that like she will say, I want to topple that and then go topple it. And um, so Miri is just a fantastic human being and as happens with fantastic human beings, they make friends. And, um, so Miri is here to talk to us today about the writing community. Um, the different forms that can take Miri's experience with which extends over half her life.
Kaelyn: 02:13 Yes. Um, you'll hear some stories in this episode. She has been not shy about getting involved in things right from the get go.
Rekka: 02:20 Yeah. And, um, and the value that she finds in that, and I think it's important because, uh, writing tends to be a very solitary act, but I think we've talked about before in other episodes that you need support from the outside and there are different kinds of support and Miri talks about what they are and where she's found them and the recommendations and some tips and tricks from that.
Kaelyn: 02:43 You know, um, it can be a little intimidating to uh, dip your toe in the water here and a Miri's got a lot of thoughts on why it shouldn't be.
Rekka: 02:50 Absolutely.
Kaelyn: 02:51 Even if you are still intimidated, some, uh, suggestions and advice for how to mitigate that. So, um, we had a really great time talking to Miri. We'll probably, definitely have her back again in the future.
Rekka: 03:01 Almost certainly.
Kaelyn: 03:03 Almost certainly.
Rekka: 03:04 And yeah, Miri is just fantastic. And here comes the evidence
Speaker 2: 03:15 [inaudible]
Kaelyn: 03:24 There's going to be awesome, uh, a mulled, things to drink.
Rekka: 03:29 There's a uh, oh, what do you call it? The thing that I have been doing and the word is not soaking.
Kaelyn: 03:37 I mean, soaking is not wrong.
Rekka: 03:41 It is literally technically correct. The best kind of correct. However, not the word I was looking for. Well, um, uh, an infused bourbon.
Kaelyn: 03:48 Yes.
Rekka: 03:49 And I basically took mulling spices and -
Kaelyn: 03:51 I'm very excited.
Rekka: 03:52 And it smells amazing. So, um, if you can't tell we were recording this on or close to Halloween.
Kaelyn: 03:57 Yes. We're very excited about this.
Miri: 03:59 A lifestyle.
Rekka: 04:00 Yes. And so as we have, um, a company in one of these company happened to be another writer in my circle of writing know, know these peoples, yeah.
Kaelyn: 04:11 I mean petition to officially change communities to Circle of Know These People's,
Rekka: 04:16 I mean that's obviously going to be the episode title. Now we've hit it already.
Miri: 04:19 Yes. Humans. I am also a people.
Rekka: 04:22 So, um, why don't you introduce yourself, A People as you claim to be, and we'll get into actually doing this episode so we can get to actually eating all the food that we've just mentioned.
Miri: 04:33 It's delicious, delicious food. Hello everyone. My name is Miri Baker. I write fantasy for adults and weird fantasy, paranormal, sometimes Gothic whatever nonsense for middle grades and young adult. And I am just about to be working on a middle-grade Gothic for one of my very favorite things of the year in National Novel Writing Month, which I'm sure no one on this program has ever heard of before.
Rekka: 04:55 Definitely not.
Kaelyn: 04:56 We didn't talk about this at length two weeks ago for sure.
Miri: 05:00 So we wanted to talk about, um, sort of one of the side benefits of NaNoWriMo and um, lots of other venues of writing with other people.
Speaker 1: 05:09 Yeah. We haven't actually said what we're talking about in this episode yet.
Rekka: 05:13 It didn't people listen to the intro?
Kaelyn: 05:13 Well, there's an intro, but I'm, you know.
Rekka: 05:15 We always assume that they are all with it and together they're like obviously we were up all night talking and just chatting last night. So we can't make, do good words.
Kaelyn: 05:25 We're talking about writing communities today.
Rekka: 05:27 And Miri has fingers in many writing community pots.
Miri: 05:30 Extensive interactions.
Rekka: 05:33 Miri washes her hands by the way.
Miri: 05:35 Yes, human I do wash my hands.
Kaelyn: 05:37 Yeah. So, um, why don't you tell us a little bit about like some of the communities you're in an active in?
Miri: 05:44 Yeah, so I've been involved in local and online NaNoWriMo communities since 2005. I have held regional in-person write-ins. I hold zoom, uh, online write-ins I'm participate in online Slack groups, uh, writing Twitter. We all know about writing Twitter.
Kaelyn: 06:04 We do.
Miri: 06:04 I have dug up coworkers in my tech organization who I found out also, write. And taking them out to cafes where we also write.
Rekka: 06:10 Necromancy is going to be a theme, by the way, when she's digging up people like, let's just assume she means literally.
Miri: 06:17 Look, there's a skeleton inside you right now that wants to be free. Let's see. I have attended the writing excuses retreat workshop. Which is held on a boat. And that means that you can't get away from your community unless you just go hide in one of the many wonderful looks on the ship. And I'm several online Slack groups, discords etc. Etc.
Rekka: 06:36 So if there are people you will find them.
Miri: 06:39 And dig them up.
Rekka: 06:41 And dig them up [laughs] reanimate them if necessary. So start with like your first intro into, I think it is going to be the NaNoWriMo story or yeah, so the Kaelyn was excited for the story. So let's get -
Kaelyn: 06:52 It's a good story.
Rekka: 06:52 She twitching until you tell this story. So go ahead.
Miri: 06:55 It even goes back a little bit further than we were talking about before the show. So I don't know if anyone remembers Gaia online, but there was a writers' forum on Gaia online and that's where I first found out about NaNoWriMo. I think it was June, 2005 something like that. And I had clicked over to the NaNoWriMo forums, reading the NaNo wisdoms thread, looking at all these hilarious mistakes people made and then posted to drag themselves. And I went to my mom and yes, I was 12 at the time, to level set, went my mom and said, "Mom, there are people on the internet and they write a book in a month and it sounds really cool and I want to do it." And her response as a good mother is like, "Yes sweetie, that sounds interesting. That could be fun." "And some of them meet up in our town and I want to go meet them." "I'm sorry you what?" And I distinctly remember forming this whole contract of all the chores I would do and all the good. I was already a good kid.
Miri: 07:45 I didn't actually have a whole lot of leverage here to get my mom to take me to this in person, pre November meetup. And she finally agreed to, I found out later that she messaged our ML and said, Hey, my kid wants to come to this thing. It's not going to be a problem. Like I can tell her no, that's fine. And my ML said no, that's great. We'd love to meet her. That's, that'll be fun. So we go to this little coffee shop that we did not even know existed, uh, less than two miles from our house. And we're waiting in the parking lot because they're getting late opening and she's looking around looking for weird people and readers, she, she did find weird people, but she also found some -
Kaelyn: 08:20 I'm sorry, from an internet group?
Miri: 08:21 No! Um, but also just people getting someone from the local theater group that she knew and it's like, Oh, Pam, uh, I didn't know you wrote. And she's like, Oh, I do. I do. I write. And she did a little bit. And by the end of that first meetup, we had convinced my mother to do NaNoWriMo and then we slowly convinced the rest of my family to do NaNoWriMo and hosted regional meetups at our house. And now we have both been doing and winning NaNoWriMo for 15 years, and neither of us can blink first.
Kaelyn: 08:53 So, all right, who is going to give up first eventually down the line?
Miri: 08:59 Oh. Oh. I don't want to think about that.
Kaelyn: 09:03 All right, well keep us posted every year. We're going to check in.
Miri: 09:06 Sounds good. I, to be fair, I'm the person whose life is going to go through more stage changes between now and whenever. So it's likely to be me, but I'm going to put that one off as long as possible.
Kaelyn: 09:19 Alright.
Rekka: 09:19 Refuse to believe.
Miri: 09:20 Yeah.
Kaelyn: 09:22 So, um, you've been active in writing communities, this kind of thing for over half of your life.
Miri: 09:28 Yes.
Kaelyn: 09:29 That's, that's a lot. So no, but like you keep going back to it. So obviously it's something that's really important in, you know, your writing and your career as a writer. So, but it's also time consuming.
Miri: 09:43 Yes.
Rekka: 09:44 But still important. So can you talk about that, like what it is that makes you still take the time to do all of these things?
Miri: 09:52 Yeah, I think a lot of it does go back to that first nano group. I was, I was 12, I was the only person younger than 21 in that group. And it was the first time I felt like I'm having a conversation with a bunch of adults as a peer, we're all in this thing together. I can contribute, we can all have these shared jokes and kind of build that relationship. And there's something about writing communities where you don't quite have to do small talk in the same way. You can just skip straight to what are you working on, what are you writing? And you learn so much more interesting stuff about somebody in a very short time when they're answering that question. So it's sort of a fast track to friendship has been my experience with it. And after that you have this, this group of people who understand something that's actually very weird in the grand scheme of things that humans spend their time on a, it's like, Oh, I'm making up stories, but it's, it's being made up wrong. How do I deal with this? Um, and just that level of understanding of listening, of getting to know people on this very kind of deep level almost immediately is something that I've sort of been chasing the highest I've ever since.
Kaelyn: 11:02 Okay.
Rekka: 11:03 So you've chased it into many directions. You manage to be a participant in all of these almost simultaneously with the exception of Writing Excuses cruise. Because what will, with the exception of the Writing Excuses Retreat, because you're on a cruise ship with terrible wifi, so you can't participate in all the others at the same time. But um, all those things you listed, like you, you have an ongoing relationship with all those communities pretty much throughout the year, even if they are time basedevents. So why so many, I mean semper majus but you know like why, what do you get out of each one? Like are there different aspects that you're getting or some of them more for professional advice are some of them more for like bonding, friendships, emotional support. Like -
Kaelyn: 11:56 Yeah.
Rekka: 11:56 I'm listing things that I know are part of community. Um, I'm leading the witness. But yeah, like talk about like why so many groups and like could you give up one, I mean like, could you pick a favorite? You know, stuff like that.
Miri: 12:09 Yeah. It's interesting cause I don't think I've ever thought about specifically what I'm getting from each one that's different. But there definitely are things. Obviously writing Twitter is a little bit more of a shout into the world brand building, sort of -
Rekka: 12:22 If we scream into the void together, we're not alone.
Miri: 12:24 Exactly. Yeah. Um, why didn't that, um, the ability to passively keep up with what's going on or what's not going on? Kind of pick up all the pieces there. Uh, and that is, you know, where some of my deeper relationships have formed. For example, I just kind of showed up in Rekka's DMS one day.
Kaelyn: 12:44 This is true.
Miri: 12:44 But I definitely see Twitter as a place where relationships start, but it's a little bit harder for them to deepen. And then I've got Slack communities where depending on the makeup of the Slack community, it could be more professional advice oriented or more emotional support oriented or just everybody key smashing in a very collective supportive way, which is an underrated form of community I find. And then in the Writing Excuses Cruise, the part of that that's really good is that you are spending, you know, 24 hours a day minus whenever you turn into a pumpkin and hide under a tablecloth somewhere with these people. So you form those much deeper relationships very quickly. And then that alumni group is much more close to knit in a shorter time and continues to do in person meetups at conventions or digital write-ins and Hangouts throughout the year. So there's a slightly different tone, like I'm more likely to know that someone I've met in person has kids for example, which is something that might not come up on the internet. And that just gives me something else to talk about. Another point of experience that, that they're drawing on that I can draw on too.
Rekka: 13:50 So as being part of all these online communities, then you can take this into this one space that we left off that initial list I think, but we did talk about before we were, I'm planning the episode is now you can go to a writing conference and what does that do and like how does that defer or how was that built in?
Miri: 14:10 Yeah, it's, it's been a really important part of definitely feeling the community and being able to talk to people. I know humans bad. Yes, human. I'm also a human, but my first conference, for example, world con San Jose, I would not have gone to if I didn't know someone who was going to be there and who told me, Hey, I have an extra spot in my hotel room.
Kaelyn: 14:31 So wait, your first conference was Worldcon San Jose?
Miri: 14:34 Writing conference, yeah.
Kaelyn: 14:34 Writing conference, that's like, that's a dive into the deep end.
Miri: 14:38 My first convention at all was DragonCon.
Rekka: 14:41 Yeah. It was just, for Miri, that was walking backwards.
Miri: 14:46 Yeah. So someone invited me into their room, which meant if all else failed, I had friend or at least one place to go hide. And then of course there were other people in the room and I got to know them and they were awesome and I was invited along to dinner where we're meeting even more people or I'm introducing, Oh Hey, there's this person that I met on writing excuses is going to be here. Anybody want to come out for ice cream with us? And just sort of forming those natural connections. And it's really easy to think like, yes, I will learn my way into the hotel room with the fancy people. And that's, that's, that's, that's just so much energy y'all, that's not an efficient way to go about it. In addition to the other obvious problems but -
Rekka: 15:28 Also slimy.
Miri: 15:30 But also there's the, I'm in person, I can present myself in a more immediate way than I can online. Like I can have all of the goth paraphernalia on my personal profiles as I want, but if I'm just out on Twitter, that doesn't always come through. Whereas one of my actually local writer friendships I made at a conference because I was wearing some kind of nonsensical doc Martins and another wonderful writer was also wearing kind of nonsensical doc Martins and we are now bonded for life.
Kaelyn: 16:01 I think that's definitely how that, yeah.
Rekka: 16:03 Yeah. I've had a lot of people approach me at conferences because of the earrings I'm wearing and they just, I don't know if it's really that they see the earrings and they have to go talk to the person who wears those earrings. But it definitely gives you like, like I can talk to you about something.
Kaelyn: 16:16 Yeah.
Rekka: 16:17 When you have in your, when your brand is out there and you're, you know, displaying something that is interesting in some way. But then also, yeah, you find other people who know exactly. You know what you're about when you're wearing them and then they just walk up to you and they don't even have to say anything. They just, you know, this person can stick their, their foot out and you see the shoes and you're like, all right, cool.
Kaelyn: 16:37 Yes.
Rekka: 16:38 So I'll see you. Yes.
Miri: 16:39 My people.
Rekka: 16:40 We are -
Kaelyn: 16:40 I found my clan.
Rekka: 16:41 Yes. So, so aside from, um, having someone to go have ice cream with, you know, like what, where do those relationships go after the conference is over?
Miri: 16:53 I think I'm still in a phase of figuring that out, but there's definitely sticking around on Twitter, being able to engage in more conversations, generally knowing more of what's going on because I know more people who know what's going on.uh, there is always so much going on and I've, I mean, if we want to go super transactional, whether it's like I met this person who introduced me to these people who introduced me to this community and I can just trace this back to that one hotel room in San Jose.
Kaelyn: 17:20 Well, that's, I mean, and we've talked about this previously on this. There's, I think there's like this weird guilt of like showing up to conferences and with this idea of like, I'm not just here to network, but it is okay to go to conferences and meet people that you're hoping to work with or to develop a professional relationship with in the future. And you know, conferences are a great place to do that.
Rekka: 17:41 Yeah. I mean Miri used the word transactional, like yeah, if you go in with the attitude of what can you give me in exchange what I can give you, then your networking is not going to grow organically in the way that you're describing. Um, you are going to have to claw and fight for every business card that you get because you're going to be putting off that like used car salesman vibe that everyone in the room can smell.
Miri: 18:07 Um, yes -
Kaelyn: 18:08 It's smells like weird cologne and plasticky suits.
Rekka: 18:11 Yeah. And that new car smell, air freshener, that does not smell like new car. Um, but when you go in and sincerely and then you have a great conversation and you realize like, Oh, I need, I want to go attend this programming for example, then it's okay, do you have a card? Because like I am desperate not to like lose this connection that we just made as opposed to like whipping out the card before you even get your name pronounced all the way. Like I guess that's where you visually, that's the definition of transactional for me. It's like, I'm, I'm here to give you my card. If you've ever been to a, um, a trade show that's, uh, like, uh, electronics trade show or security trade show or all this kind of stuff that I've attended where people leap out into though aisles to scan your badge, that is the like extreme end. But that's kind of what that feels like. Where someone's looking like, I know what book you wrote, I'm going to talk to you. Do you know an agent for me? I'm like -
Kaelyn: 19:11 No, that's, yeah.
Kaelyn: 19:12 Yeah.
Kaelyn: 19:13 But other good communities.
Rekka: 19:14 So yeah, we have, we have to touch on how to be the good community.
Kaelyn: 19:19 You know what, and that's actually, you know, a thing too that we can talk about too is bad community participants and people who maybe aren't improving the community by their presence. It's a thing that happens.
Miri: 19:36 It is.
Kaelyn: 19:37 And it's something that, you know, you don't want to be that one in the community. Um, so you know, in your experience, because you're in a lot of these communities, what would you say, like how should you come to the table and what should you not bring to the table in terms of expectations and why you're there and behavior and behavior?
Miri: 20:00 So there are two sides of this. I think the obvious one is don't be a jerk. Well that, I mean rule number one, right? But there's the specific implications of that here are don't only show up when there's something out there for you. Like it's very easy to tell when somebody is only in a community for the perks or maybe advanced reading copies of something show up occasionally or maybe, Hey, there's this cool opportunity that I'm extending to you, my community first. If somebody only shows up in those moments, you're like, all right, okay. Um, and then if, if they don't show up in the times when other people in the need them or want their input or just want that connection. Um, the other side of it is, and this is more of a, I guess like caution, I would warn against showing up only to be helpful and only two be seen being helpful only to be seen being helpful only to hope that you can give enough and do enough that the important people in the community will notice you and you can, you can do a lot of genuinely helpful things under that motivation and you can feel very good about it for a little while, but it'll just never end up being enough.
Miri: 21:29 So there's the side of this that's, you know, try not to engage in a community just because of the fancy people or whatever you think you can get out of it, but also don't completely discount your own wants and needs as part of being part of that community.
Kaelyn: 21:42 That's a good thing you brought up. You know, an interesting thing is the power dynamic of like the important people in the community. There are going to be important people in any community you go into.
Miri: 21:52 There always are.
Miri: 21:54 And I think some people, you're right, we'll come in with a need to ingratiate themselves to said group, but you know, at the end of the day you still are in this community for a reason. And do you need to get something out of it as well?
Rekka: 22:07 I do see, um, for instance like between the three Nebulas that I've gone to, there are obvious like high school reunion feelings from a lot of -
Kaelyn: 22:20 Oh absolutely.
Rekka: 22:21 Family reunion, like in a positive way. I know like some people go, Oh, high school reunion. I mean like the positive aspects where you get to see someone that you only see on these occasions because we are spread out all over the place online. So, um, you knew if you go and you are not creating relationships that the next time you see that person, their face is going to light up to see you, like maybe rethink your approach.
Miri: 22:46 You're, you're missing an opportunity. You're missing the key opportunity of these impersonal events and they're not for everyone. They're expensive there. There are lots of reasons to not engage, but if you are engaging, take advantage of that.
Rekka: 23:00 Yeah. And people will want to help you and you know, you will, you will go to them like you go to friends because they are your friends now you know when you need support and it's not in the like, you know, Hey, I, you know, where you have to add, like we'll pay a fee in the same statement because you're looking for help and nobody knows who you are.
Miri: 23:18 Yeah.
Rekka: 23:18 You know, like if you just, you go into these communities and like just let yourself fall all the way on like memory foam, you know, like these, I mean then maybe that's a better analogy than I meant. Um, you know.
Kaelyn: 23:32 It's got layers. I like that.
Rekka: 23:34 Well it's got layers. So the community remembers you as long as you keep showing up to leave your impression.
Kaelyn: 23:40 Yes.
Rekka: 23:41 Leave a good impressio, a healthy impression. Be a good human if you are a human.
Miri: 23:45 Yes, human.
Kaelyn: 23:47 So, you know, the conferences, aside conferences are a once a year thing, you know, you go there, great. You meet people, you see people you don't always get to see, but then you're done and you leave. What you're actually using and interacting with more are your online writing communities. So when you're having a problem, when you're, you know, stuck on something, you're feeling unmotivated, that's who you're going to go to. So do you have like an example or a story you can tell us about? Like, you know, something you, one of your communities, your writing communities has helped you work through.
Miri: 24:20 Yeah. I, I think recently I've been a little bit more on the rah, rah, you can do it side because what's better when you're feeling unmotivated than to try and motivate someone else? Um, this is how we create value, right? But I definitely had a book that I've since put aside for a little while that was just kicking my ass for about three years. And I had friends who had been my friends through all of that time or who came in midstream and went, Oh wow, you've been kind of working on this for awhile. And I don't even remember a specific time, but just being able to pop up in one of the channels and say like, Hey, I'm really feeling it today.
Miri: 24:52 Like I want to be writing and I'm just not, and it's terrible. And having a bunch of people not necessarily go the shallow like, Oh no, you can do it. But like, yup. Sucks. I understand. Just the like onslot of we see you, we hear you, we've been through it. Um, and since we've been through it, you can see what it looks like to get through it to the other side. It's just the constant parade of examples of all of us on this wacky sign wave of I'm the best writer ever. No wait, I'm the worst writer ever.
Kaelyn: 25:26 Are you implying that writers have emotions that fluctuate quite a bit? Because I've never encountered it.
Rekka: 25:35 And you remind me that uh, there's that phrase like you are, you're comparing your rehearsal to someone else's, like -
Miri: 25:43 Performance.
Rekka: 25:44 Performance and stuff like that.
Miri: 25:45 And when you're in this community to that level, like you get to see other people's rehearsals as well. And it kind of helps, you know, it's like, Oh, if the person who wrote my no favorite and novella of 2017 is just sitting here key smashing about how words are hard, yo, then maybe I'm okay, maybe it's fine. Well it's, if I got, never underestimate the power of just a repeated, sustained stream of cat gif.
Kaelyn: 26:11 Okay.
Rekka: 26:12 Distraction when you need it.
Miri: 26:13 Yeah. Yeah.
Rekka: 26:14 Cuteness when you need it. Warm fuzzy thoughts and you know, taking torches to the brain weasles.
Miri: 26:20 Yep. And then also like you, you mentioned a little bit earlier, just like people who know what's going on.
Miri: 26:26 And sometimes you think you are in a struggle completely alone that might be like related to the business of the industry itself. And you go to your community and find out like, Oh no, I am not the only one going through this. And that other person that you find going through this realizes, Oh, I'm not the only one going this. And then you can all join hands and care, bear stare at something and fix it.
Kaelyn: 26:47 So, you know, along those lines of people realizing they're not the only ones going through something, someone who's maybe like looking are interested in getting involved in writing communities. What do you suggest? What do you recommend going about doing this? Where do you start looking for the, for the community that's right for you?
Miri: 27:06 Yeah. It's a hard question because a lot of what we've been saying is, Oh, just go make friends and I know I have to go straight to the inner sanctum. Yeah. And especially I was just out of college, you know, doing that. Oh gosh, how do I make friends as an adult thing? It was like, yes, I will just pick friends from the friend tree. That sounds reasonable.
Rekka: 27:24 Um, well maybe I think Old Navy has seasonal sales on friends.
Miri: 27:28 Yeah, I think so. The buy one get one is the deal you want to wait for.
Rekka: 27:30 Yep.
Miri: 27:31 But I think it starts from whatever platforms you're most comfortable interacting on or most familiar with.
Kaelyn: 27:39 Okay.
Miri: 27:40 And because then you sort of don't have to take on the burden of learning. Um, for example, Twitter. Twitter is an acquired language and it's an acquired language that varies by community and there is a lot to be said for working and learning the norms before you're trying to I guess, speak that language. So I was, I was a longtime lurker on Twitter before I showed up in Rekka's DMs. Um, so it, it can be, it can be very slow. Uh, if you can just go to an event and meet people in person, uh, not everyone can again, for many reasons, but that tends to be the fast track.
Rekka: 28:18 But that's sort of like starting from the outside and working your way in. Another way to do that with far less costs would be like to start at the NaNoWriMo forums.
Miri: 28:25 Yes.
Rekka: 28:26 Because that is expected that strangers will show up and start talking to them, um, as opposed to like suddenly finding access to someone's private Slack group showing up one day and everyone goes how did this person get here? Do I know this person? And even, and even that, if you're starting from nothing, it's even hard to do that.
Kaelyn: 28:46 Yeah.
Miri: 28:47 The NaNoWriMo forums are great for that there where I spent a lot of time between ages 12 and 18 and look in the other places that you already are. Cause there might be a writer there. There's, there probably is. We're there .
Rekka: 29:01 You mentioned coworkers -
Kaelyn: 29:02 They're pretty, pretty prolific, you guys are popping up in weird places that I'm -
Miri: 29:09 Like daisies.
Kaelyn: 29:10 I am very surprised in talking to people as soon as I mention anything about like I work in publishing either, Oh I've written something or I know someone who's written something. There's, there's a lot of, and I feel like there that a lot of isolated writers who just kind of write at home like, Hey, if that's, you know, if that's what works for you, that's great. But to any isolated writers that may be listening to this, there are groups of you, what do we call a group of writers? A Confusion?
Miri: 29:38 A Murder. I've used flock a few times.
Kaelyn: 29:43 A Complication of writers.
Rekka: 29:46 An Anxiety of Writers.
Miri: 29:47 Oooooooh.
Kaelyn: 29:48 An Anxiety. Yeah. Nailed it. That's it.
Miri: 29:51 That's it
Kaelyn: 29:51 Yes. So, um, there are Anixieties of Writers.
Miri: 29:55 So many.
Kaelyn: 29:57 Out in the wild.
Rekka: 30:01 I feel like I've reached my peak self.
Kaelyn: 30:04 Nope, Rekka's we can just stop the podcast. It's not this, thank you everyone. This has been wonderful, but it's not going to get better than that, so we're just going to leave.
Miri: 30:12 We're going to be very nervous about it.
Kaelyn: 30:15 Um, but yeah, there, there are so many, like writers are everywhere. Um, go find them.
Miri: 30:21 Yeah. I like take my mom as an example. Her writing community came from her kid wanting to do NaNoWriMo.
Kaelyn: 30:28 And she stumbled into it.
Miri: 30:30 Um, I, I didn't find out until that point that my nap time when I was little, which had gone on weirdly long and turned into my, just go to your room and be quiet and read time was my mom's writing time. I just never knew. It never came up. And I definitely consider myself really lucky to have stumbled across the NaNoWriMo forums because that was that first community that was the people who treated me like adults. That was the people who showed me that, Oh, it's, it's not just me because I was the weird kid. I think writing is a large collective of the weird kids because you, you stick with the imaginary friends thing way longer than is socially acceptable. And from having that community and feeling that I started plucking other isolated writers that I noticed out of my high school, out of my tech job, out of my college. Anyone I talked to, if you've ever met me ever on the street, if it's been more than 20 minutes, you've probably heard about writing, you've probably heard about NaNoWriMo. Just because going from going from nothing to something is such a big jump that it doesn't even necessarily matter what that something is.
Miri: 31:41 Um, going back to using the communities you're already part of, maybe they're totally different. I used to be very involved in the Avatar, The Last Airbender fan community back in the 10 months.
Kaelyn: 31:47 A worthy pursuit of your time.
Miri: 31:49 Such a good community.
Kaelyn: 31:50 We're going to talk about that later.
Miri: 31:52 I was so excited in the 10 months between seasons one and two, mind you, we had just seen a Azula's face for the first time and we didn't know who she was. It was great. And I was on this theories forum and saw somebody else's forum, a signature who had never talked to that said writing a novel back in December and I'm like, aha, I see you. I have found one and I sent her a private message and you know, we're both like 13 flooding into the DM, sliding into the DMS before it was cool. We're both 13 -
Kaelyn: 32:23 Or before it existed.
Miri: 32:24 Yeah. We eventually convinced our parents to let us talk on the phone and then we both convinced our parents to take us to DragonCon that year, which I'm still not very clear on -
Kaelyn: 32:34 You have really cool parents.
Miri: 32:36 I have pretty cool parents. Yes. My name is Miri Baker. I am literally named after the Star Trek character, literally.
Kaelyn: 32:43 All right. Yup.
Miri: 32:44 Okay. I'm still not clear on how the dragon con thing happened because my parents are cool, but they're also very introverted and now my family has visited her family on vacation. Our moms went to New York city together for their 50th birthday.
Kaelyn: 32:58 That is so sweet.
Miri: 32:59 Like she's going to be in my ways and it was just me going, I know what this person is talking about.
Rekka: 33:07 But that speaks to the depth that you get to with these communities if you do them sincerely.
Miri: 33:11 Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing, if you're, if you're in these other communities like maybe you're really interested in, I don't know, model rockets, I guarantee you there's someone in that model rocket community who writes science fiction.
Rekka: 33:23 Yeah.
Miri: 33:24 Or romance. And even if you're not the person who's going to slide into a stranger's DMS, just signal.
Speaker 1: 33:31 Yeah.
Miri: 33:31 Do the internet version of wearing pins on your jacket though.
Kaelyn: 33:34 It's funny cause I always think there should be something you can just like put -
Kaelyn: 33:38 Yeah, just be like I write things, somebody, if anyone wants to talk to me about it.
Miri: 33:44 There's a standard emoji lower left fountain pen that I've found to be very useful for that.
Kaelyn: 33:49 That's yeah, we should make that a thing. If you're involved in writing, that can be your little signal.
Miri: 33:54 It's a thing now.
Kaelyn: 33:56 And a something next to it that's like and yes, please talk to me about it.
Rekka: 34:01 Like green checkmark, smiley face.
Kaelyn: 34:03 I am open to conversation.
Rekka: 34:05 So what happens if you can't find a community like you are seeking and you do not uncover groups in your area or you do not uncover forums that it feel welcoming to you?
Miri: 34:17 Uh, you start your own. Um, because I was the only child in my, in my NaNoWriMo group, I just started talking about it at school and I was in middle school or don't, don't be a middle schooler. That's my advice.
Rekka: 34:33 Yeah, skip that entirely.
Miri: 34:35 Don't, don't be in middle school. But it was weird enough and different enough that people would notice like, Oh Miri has an awful lot of colors of ink on the right side of her right hand this month. And sometimes people will ask, sometimes you get to be that person who's like, look what I am doing. If your place of employment has any kind of social channels or listservs.
Rekka: 34:57 A bulletin board made of cork.
Miri: 34:59 A bulletin board made of cork.
Kaelyn: 35:01 A yes, an actual bulletin board.
Miri: 35:03 A thing that humans used.
Rekka: 35:05 I just want to be clear, I'm not talking about internet bulletin board.
Miri: 35:08 Yeah. Physical place bulletin boards. I've had success just sending out messages into those voids? Not quite voids of Hey there's this thing, it's NaNoWriMo or I will be, I will be writing at this cafe at this time. I would love for you to join me.
Miri: 35:28 Yup. And creating that place where people can come if they want to and you'll still be there doing your thing if they don't. I really enjoy that because if I am in charge of planning something I lose hours of sleep over it. It could be an act of God and Oh no, there was an earthquake, nobody had fun and it's all my fault. But if I'm doing something anyway and I can say I am doing this, I have done all the work of planning it, it is very low key. I would love for you to join me. That creates a very easy space for somebody who's isolated or hasn't even really jumped in, has just thought maybe I would write something that's something I could do to show up and bam. You have ducklings?
Rekka: 36:11 Yes.
Kaelyn: 36:11 Gooslings?
Miri: 36:12 HONK!
Kaelyn: 36:12 Ah, okay. Yup.
Rekka: 36:15 The zeitgeist is strong in this podcast -
Miri: 36:17 I was wearing my honkus ponkus shirt.
Rekka: 36:18 In three years, will anyone know what that meant?
Kaelyn: 36:21 Does it matter?
Miri: 36:23 We don't. We are all the goose.
Rekka: 36:23 We don't want that negativity in our future.
Miri: 36:25 The goose without a name.
Kaelyn: 36:26 Yes.
Miri: 36:27 A goose has no title.
Rekka: 36:28 So before we wrap up, what are favorite things about the writing community?
Miri: 36:33 My favorite part. Uh, the thing that really makes it worthwhile to being in these communities and make these connections is being able to see and genuinely celebrate the successes of our peers. And they don't have to be these huge successes of, Oh, I got this massive book deal, or Oh, I've landed my dream agent. Sometimes the success, and especially if you're this isolated writer kind of doing your own thing in the corner. Sometimes the success is, I wrote a sentence today and it that she's laughing, but this is so true.
Speaker 1: 37:06 Yeah, no, no, I get it because sometimes my successes are, I edited a sentence today.
Rekka: 37:11 All right, we're all on the same page.
Kaelyn: 37:13 There's the occasional one that gets very tricky and -
Miri: 37:17 Okay, from the outside that doesn't seem like a success. So why would you celebrate it? But in these communities, if you're saying maybe people you look up to or people you would just never seen that side of go, I wrote a sentence today and it was the hardest thing I've ever done and everybody cheers and you understand that, Oh wait one, we're, we're just writers or I'll just writers here and two -
Rekka: 37:39 Human writers.
Miri: 37:39 Human writers, definitely human writers.
Kaelyn: 37:41 Carbon-based for sure.
Miri: 37:43 And two: maybe I've been comparing my day to day trying to write, trying to do whatever to everybody else's curated social network. These are the highlights of my life moments. Whereas within the community you see other people's normal carbon-based human life moments and being able to celebrate your friends successes and even celebrate, you know, your friends huge successes.
Rekka: 38:15 Yeah.
Miri: 38:15 Without just wanting to be seen, celebrating them. And it builds that sense of -
Rekka: 38:21 A Slack chat full of high fives.
Miri: 38:22 It's a slack chat full of high fives, right. Or just, you know, ta-da emoji or whatever it is. Um, it really does feel like that that group coming together and just being happy for each other. [inaudible] and I feel like that's something we could, we could all stand to do more of it.
Kaelyn: 38:43 Yes.
Rekka: 38:43 Yes. So I like on that note, we do have a party to get to.
Kaelyn: 38:48 Yes.
Kaelyn: 38:49 Yeah. So it's, Oh, any last thoughts closing things that one piece of advice that you would give anyone looking to join a writing community? Let's, let's go with that.
Miri: 38:59 Ooh, just one.
Kaelyn: 39:00 Just one. If you could only -
Rekka: 39:01 Wear skeleton doc Martens.
Miri: 39:02 Absolutely.
Kaelyn: 39:03 If you could only offer one piece of advice.
Miri: 39:06 One piece of advice, if you're looking to join a writing community, be both open to getting involved in anything that you may see at the edges of your existing communities. Be it a link that somebody sent you or that the one weird cousin posted on Facebook. Just be looking. And at the same time as you're looking, find a way that feels natural to you to signal that you would like to be involved. And that lets other people like me who will slide into your DMS a have that hook to pull you in.
Kaelyn: 39:36 Miri is actively recruiting.
Miri: 39:39 Constantly, always.
Kaelyn: 39:42 So, okay, well thanks so much for talking to us.
Miri: 39:46 Oh, thank you.
Kaelyn: 39:48 There's a, there's a party to get to and there's couple pumpkin's that need to be carved.
Rekka: 39:51 Before we get to the mulled bourbon, um, where can people find you online?
Miri: 39:55 Yeah, you can find me, well, uh, since we have established that I apparently every writing community elemental, uh, the most reliable way is going to be @MiriBaker on Twitter. I also have a website MiriBaker.com that currently just redirect to @MiriBaker on Twitter and I appear occasionally in the NaNoWriMo forums as MiriMirror, which was a very funny Snow White joke when I made the account in 2005.
Rekka: 40:20 Sure. It's still very fun to -
Kaelyn: 40:22 It holds up.
Miri: 40:22 Yeah. Thank you.
Kaelyn: 40:23 Yeah. Well thank you so much again and um, we'll see everyone in two weeks.
Kaelyn: 40:28 Absolutely.
Kaelyn: 40:29 Thank you all.
Kaelyn: 40:31 Thanks everyone for joining us for another episode of We Make Books. If you have any questions that you want answered in future episodes or just have questions in general, remember, you can find us on Twitter @WMBcast, same for Instagram or WMBcast.com if you find value in the content that we provide, we would really appreciate your support at patreon.com/WMBcast. If you can't provide financial support, we totally understand and what you could really do to help us is spread the word about this podcast. You can do that by sharing a particular episode with a friend who can find it useful, or if you leave a rating and review at iTunes, it will feed that algorithm and help other people find our podcast too. Of course, you can always retweet our episodes on Twitter. Thank you so much for listening and we will talk to you soon.