Episodes
Tuesday Jan 19, 2021
Episode 52 - Leveling Up While You Wait For Success
Tuesday Jan 19, 2021
Tuesday Jan 19, 2021
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 writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!
We hope you enjoy We Make Books!
Twitter: @WMBCast | @KindofKaelyn | @BittyBittyZap
"Submissions September" Episodes Referenced:
- Week 1 (9/3/2019): Is This Ready For Other People to See?- Submitting Your Manuscript
- Week 2 (9/10/2019): My Entire Novel in Three Hundred Words - The Dreaded Query Letter
- Week 3 (9/17/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 1: An Interview with Literary Agent Caitlin McDonald
- Week 4 (9/24/2019): What is Going On Over There? - The Other Side of the Submissions Process
- Week 5 (9/30/2019): Now I’m Even More Confused – Submissions September Q&A Episode
Episode Transcription (all errors are entirely Rekka's fault)
Rekka (00:00):
Welcome back to We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between. I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.
Kaelyn (00:09):
And I'm Kaelyn. I'm the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.
Rekka (00:12):
And today we apparently just have baking on our mind.
Kaelyn (00:17):
Yeah, I don't. It was. I. I'm just really surprised that you watch the Great British Baking Show. I don't know why I'm surprised by that. I shouldn't be.
Rekka (00:26):
Well, it starts when we're looking for holiday content, that's feel good and we don't want to worry about like, you know, getting drawn into one of those crappy made-for-streaming movies that everyone's talking about. And it turns out to be like worse than a Lifetime romcom kind of thing. That happened a couple of times this year. So we basically have said, okay—
Kaelyn (00:49):
Lookin' at you, Christmas Prince.
Rekka (00:51):
We can, we can trust Great British Baking Show. And so we started with the holiday episodes and then this year we were not satiated by the holiday episodes when we ran out of them. So then we just started watching season eight and now we're working our way back.
Kaelyn (01:06):
Yeah. But, um, in this episode, you know, we're just—for full disclosure, get ready for a lot of baking metaphor as being shoe-horned—
Rekka (01:14):
As many as I was eager to fill in, but I was, you know, like, you know, it was trying to be refined in my application of them.
Kaelyn (01:23):
Yeah. Well, so along the lines of refinement, um, you know, today we're talking about, uh, leveling up. What you can do as an author, as a writer, to help improve yourself.
Rekka (01:35):
Yeah. Cause you know, you can always be making forward progress even while you're waiting for the success to come to you, you know? Cause it's not going to come *to* you, for one, and for two, there's a lot of waiting involved for going out and getting it.
Kaelyn (01:51):
Yeah. So I think a lot of people, especially those who have been trying, you know, sending out a lot of queries, trying to get published for a long time, fall into the trap of passiveness. Of, you know, just waiting for something to happen rather than continuing to work and improve themselves and try to make something happen instead. Um, it is publishing is a weird, I can't even call it balance cause it's pretty lopsided of just like, you know, having to rely on other people to say yes and no to things. But that doesn't mean that you have no agency in this process. There's other things that you can be doing to try to tilt the scales towards a yes more than no.
Rekka (02:36):
And even if the scales aren't tilted, you are becoming a better writer, which is in theory why you're here.
Kaelyn (02:43):
Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, today's episode, we go through some, um, you know, bullet points of different things that you can be doing while you're waiting to hear back or taking a break to sort of try and improve yourself and reevaluate. Um, this is everything from, you know, as we always like to talk about, working on your writing to, you know, coming up with like a plan and having goals in mind, we'll talk a lot about goals and what is realistic and you know, what you should be doing to meet those.
Rekka (03:15):
Yeah. And if you, you know, if you put your entire career on pause while you wait for someone else to make a decision about you, you're going to spend more of your writing career on pause than you are actually writing. And so it's a good habit to get into, to send those, you know, queries or submissions out into the ether and then get back to it. And, uh, really that's what it's about. And even if you are nervous and creativity is hard, we have suggestions of other things that you can do that don't necessarily mean like sitting down with the keyboard and just writing and pretending like you've never sent a query out.
Kaelyn (03:54):
Yeah. So, um, you know, as always, we hope this, uh, episode is informational and educational and uh, that you enjoy and we'll see you on the other side of the music.
New Speaker (04:19):
Very nice segue Rekka.
Rekka (04:20):
Thank you. Uh, speaking of which, I don't know if it's a nice segue, if you call attention to the fact that as a segue, like I think that negates any credit you get for coming up with a decent segue.
Kaelyn (04:32):
Or am I just acknowledging your craft here?
Rekka (04:36):
Speaking of which, uh, today, uh, we had no topic and Kaelyn said, what do you want to talk about? And my suggestion was to talk about what you can do when everything else is up in the air and out of your control to keep moving forward and keep improving yourself so that you are getting stronger as a writer and making yourself hopefully a little more appealing every, you know, every time somebody talks to you about business stuff, whether they're an agent or a publisher.
Kaelyn (05:14):
Rekka's exact words were "leveling up."
Rekka (05:16):
Yes. I used leveling up.
Kaelyn (05:18):
Yeah, no, I liked it.
New Speaker (05:19):
Well then you asked me what I meant. So I felt like maybe that wasn't a good description. Yes. Following the description, it's a good shortcut.
Kaelyn (05:29):
Yes. I liked it. Leveling up. Yep. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, we're talking today about, um, as Rekka said, things you can do that are within your control to help move your career and forward and achieve your goals in writing. Because so much of this is not in your control. There is so much of just having to wait on other people to hand down judgements.
Rekka (05:51):
Yes. And, and you cannot even wait patiently for their judgment and know that you get a good judgment.
Kaelyn (05:58):
Yes. Yeah. On top of that, it's um, it's very, it's very much a spinning wheel of anxiety with a lot of this. Um, so yeah, but you know, that said you are not completely at the mercy of a cruel universe here. There are things that you can be doing to, uh—Rekka possibly disagrees.
Rekka (06:19):
I might've pursed my lips and bopped my head side to side and say welllllll, you know, that's, that's debatable, but we don't have time for that debate.
Kaelyn (06:28):
No, no, certainly not. Um, but in terms of writing, there are, you know, there are things that, yeah, you have to wait on external forces and powers and in some cases, deities to, uh, you know, let you know what's gonna happen here, but there's things that you can be doing in the meantime, you are not completely adrift on this sea.
Rekka (06:46):
In fact, sometimes it's helpful to be doing things in the meantime. So you're not fixated on how you are adrift at sea.
Kaelyn (06:53):
Writing, like every other craft, every other profession, there is always room for improvement and growth. You are never to a point where you achieve some sort of enlightenment status as a writer where okay, you now know, see and write all things. Anything that you jot down is perfect and needs no work whatsoever. There's not a —.
Rekka (07:16):
Unless you're Stephen King.
Kaelyn (07:16):
Unless you're Stephen King.
Rekka (07:18):
Which is a result of capitalism, not necessarily skill.
Kaelyn (07:21):
And possibly cocaine, but moving on.
Rekka (07:24):
I thought that was his directorial career.
Kaelyn (07:29):
But you're never to a point where you can't improve.
Rekka (07:35):
In fact, if you got to that point, somehow you would probably be quite bored and move on to something new.
Kaelyn (07:42):
Yeah. You pick up a new hobby, like, like crocheting.
New Speaker (07:46):
Otherwise you'll just be sitting on that throne like Conan and going, dammit. Now what?
Kaelyn (07:49):
Yeah. "And Alexander wept for, there were no more worlds to conquer."
Rekka (07:54):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. "No more words to conquer." That's what I heard. Um, yeah. So my thought and I'm, sub-tweeting literally all of my friends right now, um, is how many times I have seen people get to a certain stage where they rely on the judgment, as you say, or the response from others to move ahead to the next thing they want and how that causes them to experience a deterioration in creativity and motivation, focus, self-confidence. I mean, like there's a lot of stuff that falls apart when all you do is recycle your inbox to see if something's come in.
Kaelyn (08:42):
Yeah. This is, you know, there's a certain point where you're just beating your head against a wall, doing the same thing over and over again and not figuring out why this isn't working. Um, if you're just going to keep submitting the same thing over and over again, keep getting rejections and just go, "well, they just don't like it. It's fine. The way it is. I'm going to find somebody who likes us." You're not going to get very far in your career and you're probably going to end up pretty bitter. And—.
Rekka (09:09):
Yeah. And that's, that's the part that I'm most concerned about is, you know, cause you're, even if you make it in this career, you don't necessarily become that, you know, Hollywood picture perfect writer, successful writer. Um, but your enjoyment of being a writer can really, you know, it can take a hit when you let that kind of resentment and bitterness seep into you.
Kaelyn (09:38):
Yeah. So—
New Speaker (09:39):
Don't become a rum cake of bitterness.
Kaelyn (09:45):
Uh. Yes.
Rekka (09:46):
Right. Cause the rum cake, you soak it with rum after you finished making it. And yeah, that's what I meant. I said what I meant!
Kaelyn (09:55):
You heard me!
Rekka (09:58):
We've been watching great British baking show lately, so like all—
Kaelyn (10:00):
Oh hey, me too!
Rekka (10:00):
Okay. We are not allowed to talk about that because, cause we'll just go on for hours. I'm sure. Yes.
Kaelyn (10:10):
I have the best bread recipe now.
Rekka (10:12):
You're gonna, you're gonna put your name into the hat and get on the show?
Kaelyn (10:15):
Oh God. No, I'm terrified of everyone that's on that show.
Rekka (10:19):
I would just hang out with Noel and, and Paul, honestly.
Kaelyn (10:24):
Yeah. Yeah. They seem fun. Um, Paul, Paul's a little scary though.
Rekka (10:28):
No, see, I, I swear to God, Paul is only sc—see, I said, we weren't allowed to talk about this and we're talking about it. I said, um, the other day that Paul is only scary because of the way they edit the episodes. Like if you, if you have your ear to what's going on, like, yes, he walks around and stares at people, but I'm sure that's the same face I would make, if I were watching people I was concerned about, you know? Um, but he says really encouraging, wonderful things to people whenever he's given the opportunity.
Kaelyn (10:59):
But then, when they have to bring it up there, he's always the one like picking the bread up and like knocking on it. And he's like "I will rip this in half." It's a little, um, it's always, Hmm. "I, uh, think it's a little bit underdone didn't that mate."
Rekka (11:14):
Wow. Was that, was that your Paul Hollywood?
Kaelyn (11:17):
That wasn't a good Paul Hollywood.
Rekka (11:19):
Paul Hollywood isn't Australian.
Kaelyn (11:22):
Yeah, but it does call people mate.
Rekka (11:24):
I have not really heard him say that yet. I haven't watched enough. Obviously we need to finish this episode so I can go watch some more. Yeah.
Kaelyn (11:30):
Okay. But so you can be Paul Hollywood.
Rekka (11:33):
So wait for judgment from Paul Hollywood and be—
Kaelyn (11:38):
You can be your own Paul Hollywood
Rekka (11:40):
Be David from season eight, where you take all that critique and you actually turn it into more skill.
Kaelyn (11:47):
Yes. So.
Rekka (11:48):
Everyone go watch season eight. And so, you know what reference I just made.
Kaelyn (11:51):
We'll stop. I promise we're stopping right now.
Rekka (11:54):
I don't know if I'll I'll cut this or not. It was kind of fun. Depends how long this episode is. Since you told me it was all me, it's going to be short. So we need that filler, like rice crispy in the middle of a cake for structure. Sorry.
Kaelyn (12:10):
Oh my God. It's amazing because I don't think there's been a single thing made on that show that you would eat.
Rekka (12:16):
Oh, I can't eat a word of it. A word of it?
Kaelyn (12:18):
Yeah.
Rekka (12:18):
I can't eat a crumb of it.
Kaelyn (12:20):
Yeah.
Rekka (12:20):
Words are for writers. Crumbs are for bakers, but it is delightful to watch.
Kaelyn (12:26):
That said, speaking of words... We're going to get back on track here, I promise.
Rekka (12:33):
Nah.
Kaelyn (12:33):
Um, no. So there are, you know, there's a lot of different things you can be doing that are under your control to try to make yourself more appealing and to take, uh, to give yourself agency in this process, where frankly, um, it seems like you don't really have a lot of that through all of it.
Rekka (12:54):
It depends. And I, and I think this is exactly the point, what you see as your goals.
Kaelyn (13:02):
Yeah. Exactly.
Rekka (13:03):
Because a goal is a thing, in theory, that you have some amount of control in reaching. But if you say your goal is to get an agent and get a big publishing deal and become a best seller, where is the control in any of that? Let me tell you: there's none.
Kaelyn (13:25):
There's only so many writing courses you can take to get yourself to a point where you've written the world's greatest book.
Rekka (13:33):
But there are so many writing courses that will promise to make you a New York Times bestseller.
Kaelyn (13:38):
Yeah. Um, let's, you know, let's take a step back here and kind of identify, you know, some things that are attainable and things that just happen. New York Times bestsellers. I won't insult anybody by saying they just happen, but there's a lot more machination that goes on in behind the scenes—
Rekka (13:57):
Machination is the right word.
Kaelyn (13:57):
Yeah, than you realize, um, New York Times bestsellers aren't because everybody loves these books and, you know, buys a ton of them. There's a reason that the same books sit on this list for weeks, months, in the case of Harry Potter, years. Um, and it has to do a lot with, um, publishing houses, marketing dollars, um, to be clear, they're not bribing the New York Times, but the New York Times is not picking their bestseller list strictly based on how many of these books are sold.
Rekka (14:34):
And not even based on the merits of the book itself.
Kaelyn (14:38):
Yes. Having the aspiration of being a New York Times bestseller means what your actual aspiration is, is to be a globally known household name. Because that's kind of what you are looking at to get on these, some of these lists. Not always. And you know, of course, you know, bestseller lists have all kinds of subcategories and different genres, et cetera, but that is not a realistic goal because there is very little direct influence that you can exert over that process.
Rekka (15:13):
A goal itself, as we said, you know, you have to have some control over, and there are, you know, definitions in business planning and all that of what makes a goal. And the obnoxious, you know, uh, acronym is S.M.A.R.T., which means that the goal is specific that the goal is measurable, that it's achievable realistic and time-based, and you can see how the things that I mentioned earlier, getting an agent, getting a big publishing deal, becoming a New York Times bestseller doesn't really match this S.M.A.R.T. goal description definition. You cannot say, "Oh yes. By September I will be a New York Times bestseller."
Kaelyn (16:06):
Not this September, I hope.
Rekka (16:08):
Or you cannot even say, "Oh yes. In 10 years I will have an agent." You know, like you cannot control these things.
Kaelyn (16:15):
Yeah. These are, these are forces beyond your, your ability to control.
Rekka (16:21):
Are they achievable? Yes. Are they realistic? Yes. Bue because they happen in reality, but not because you can just sit down in a checkbox, you know, to-do list and say, "I will achieve these things."
Kaelyn (16:34):
Well, that's the logical fallacy that plays into the lottery. "I could win because somebody is going to have to win this." "Somebody will win this, why shouldn't it be me?"
Rekka (16:43):
Or "I should play because if I don't play, then I cannot win." It's not the same as "If I do play, I will absolutely win."
Kaelyn (16:51):
Two different, two different logical issues there. Yeah. But there's, you know, there have been so many books even that got exactly what they needed to be successful, and flopped.
Rekka (17:03):
Yep.
Kaelyn (17:04):
I think in some ways it helps to think of books like movies. You know, there's a lot of stuff that goes into them that has to do with marketing, has to do with names attached to it, has to do with, you know, can you get the right audience? Did you, you know, make the book appealing to the right group of people? The same way, books flop the same way movies, flopped, and you know, there's time and money investments that go into them. And, you know, it's, it's all a numbers game. Um, you know, that said, it's the same thing with the awards, to an extent, you know, like you don't just win an Academy award because your movie was fantastic. There are tons of really fantastic movies that have not won awards. It's all marketing. it's very political and very who-you-know, et cetera.
Rekka (17:47):
And we did do an entire episode on fiction awards. So go back and listen to that from last year, I'll link it in the show notes, if you want to hear about how that works. Um, and that's another bingo card item. And, and maybe that's how I distinguish them as like, "these are things that I put on my bingo card that I hope someday that I will punch off, you know, and say like, yes, I got an agent. Yes. I was guest of honor at some writing conference. Yes. I was, uh, received my 100 rejection." You know, like those are on there, too. Uh, won an award, uh, got a big, you know, publishing contract with X number of zeros, you know, put those on that list, but don't make them your standard for whether or not you've achieved what you want. And if that's all you want to achieve, please reevaluate step back and ask what, what it is that you really want out of a writing career? Pretend that none of that can ever happen and just work on you. What can you work on?
Kaelyn (18:51):
Yeah. So to that end, and you know, we're going to get in a minute here into some of the things you can be doing in the meantime. And this we'll, we'll certainly circle back to this, but decide what you want out of your writing career that is not to be the next Stephen King, because that's not necessarily a realistically attainable goal for everyone.
Rekka (19:10):
Or what that means to you, that you want to be the next Stephen King. Do you want to write a lot of like hometown horror stories? You can do that, but, and you can appeal to Stephen King's audience. "If you like Stephen King, if you loved The Stand, you will love this," you know, but, um, can you control whether you have that same level of success? Absolutely not.
Kaelyn (19:33):
You know, deciding like, well, I just want to get a book published. I don't necessarily need it to be one of the stories I've already written. Um, I don't necessarily need it to be in this specific genre in this genre only. "I just would like to have a book published" versus maybe a different goal is "I want to get this book that I've written published." And we'll talk about that a little bit more down the line here, but, um, so, you know, let's kind of get into this here. Some things you can do to improve your chances of attaining your goals. Um, first and foremost, as we always talk about, one of our favorite things to harp on: work on your writing.
Rekka (20:13):
Yeah. Don't stop writing when you send off a query to an agent. You know, like don't make that the only thing you've got in your hopper.
Kaelyn (20:20):
Yeah. As we said, there is no such thing as the writer who has attained enlightenment. That's not,
Rekka (20:28):
Especially if it's your first novel. Chances are, you're not very close.
Kaelyn (20:33):
Um, there's always room to be working on and improving your craft, um, in any craft really, but especially in writing. Um, it's, you know, and you may be thinking, okay, well, "I got published or, you know, I had some short that were picked up. I'm good." No, that doesn't matter. Go join a writing group anyway. Go take some, you know, maybe you don't want to take some courses. I mean, I, I love taking courses and things. I don't know why you wouldn't want to do that. But you know, join a writing group, attend a workshop, take some courses, join a group that Um, you know, reviews each other's work and gives feedback. Read things and give feedback on them. That's a great way to improve your own writing is to help other people work on theirs. So I know this is something we say all the time, "work on your writing, here's ways to do it," but this is a great way to be moving yourself along. Because on top of just staying on top of your writing, what you're doing is you're probably creating new stuff while you do this, that you may not have otherwise taken the time to do.
Rekka (21:40):
And every word you write is more skill that you are building.
Kaelyn (21:44):
Exactly.
Rekka (21:45):
Giving you the chance to say, you know, is, "am I using economy of phrase? Am I, um, you know, getting emotion across the way I want, am I, is my world building, you know, solid? Am I leaving the reader wanting more? Or am I leaving them in a coma because I've, you know, overdone it on the exposition?" Every time you write and you revise, you have the chance to analyze this and you have the chance to look at yourself honestly, and your writing honestly, and figure out, you know, how do you, how do you want to improve it? Like if you say "this revision pass, I'm going to work on characters," you know, or "this next book, I really want to delve into characters where before it's been all like, you know, the hero doesn't really change. It's just an adventure. And this next book, I really want to give the character arc the spotlight." You know, look for ways to challenge yourself. Because if you're just doing, what's comfortable, it is a little bit less effective. It's still good to keep writing. If you mostly do the same thing, but you are going to grow more, the more you flex your muscles and try new things.
Kaelyn (22:56):
Think back through the careers of all of the, you know, best-selling authors, you can name off the top of your head. They have not recently been writing what they started out writing.
Rekka (23:10):
Yeah. And that's the weird thing is—
Kaelyn (23:12):
Maybe they stay in the same genre, but the stories and the books themselves are not the same.
Rekka (23:21):
If you think about our obsession with classics, it's really interesting how people want to go back to like an old Spielberg movie and point out how this was so much better than any of his recent work. Um, or they want to go to an author who's written twenty books and they go back to the first book and they, you know, this series was their favorite. But if people look and even musicians, you know.
Kaelyn (23:48):
I was gonna say.
Rekka (23:49):
"This album is classic," you know?
Kaelyn (23:51):
Yeah.
Rekka (23:52):
But when you take in the discography or the bibliography or the filmography as a whole, people get really annoyed when artists evolve and change and don't do things the same way.
Kaelyn (24:07):
I think one of the best, uh, things I heard of that ever was I was listening to an interview with Billy Joel of all people. And Billy Joel, by the way, is a ridiculously talented pianist, like apart from, you know, we just think of him as like these poppy classic songs that are, you know, old people dance to at weddings and stuff. Billy Joel is actually very into classic piano music. And it's a very highly skilled with it. And then he composes as well. Things that aren't like, you know, what we think of Billy Joel music. And I was listening to him in this interview and he, um, he said, you know, like "I was to the point that like I was getting bored with, you know, just playing like Big Shot and Scenes From An Italian Restaurant over and over again. Um, and so every now and then I'd stop and I'd play like, you know, something new that I had written or something that was just, you know, not on an album, but, and everyone would, you know, I could feel the audience die down a bit." And, but he did say at the same time, these people have paid a lot of money to come here and see me play the songs that they love. And what he said was "I need to strike a balance between that because I'm going to be miserable if every time I just, you know, have to get up there and perform the same songs over and over again with no creativity." And so that's what happens with writing too, if you're just regurgitating the same stories over and over again with no evolution and no creativity?
Rekka (25:36):
You're not going to want to stick around long.
Kaelyn (25:38):
Yeah. I mean, I would think you'd get bored of that eventually. Um, especially, you know, if you're not in a position where you can challenge yourself, I think that's something that drives writers forward a lot is trying to challenge themselves and solve problems within their books.
Rekka (25:54):
And I think, you know, the genre does evolve and you are going to be left behind. You know, so if that's something that's concerning to you is about being included in the genre when people talk about it, you know, don't stand still.
Kaelyn (26:08):
Yeah. And that is, um, our next point here is reading. Apart from doing a lot of writing, one of the best things you can do is reading. And you know, some of this is just because you're absorbing other people's writing, you're seeing things they did, identifying techniques, tricks, et cetera. But also you're keeping up on the genre that you're interested in.
Rekka (26:27):
And the more books you could read. And there are a lot of them, you know, don't get me wrong. My To-Be-Read pile is, you know, taller than I am. But when you have read a lot of things, when that agent calls you back and wants to talk about your book, you will know if you've read something similar to your book that you can help position it with and help narrow down that audience again.
Kaelyn (26:50):
There is nothing to me, quite as disheartening as talking to an author, you know, like people I would just run into at conferences or seminars and stuff, and they'd be telling me about their book. And I'm about to say, "Oh, sure, send it along. I'll take a look." And they say, "Oh, so it's like such and such." "I'm sorry, what?" "Oh, okay. Oh, you haven't read that. Oh, okay. So kind of like this." And I don't expect everyone to have read every book, but if I named four or five and none of them are ringing a bell even a little bit, that's, um, I'm kind of looking at this and going like, does this person like science fiction and fantasy? You know, it's and again, I don't expect everyone to have read everything or for their tastes to line up exactly like mine, but there's a lot of stuff I haven't read that I at least have heard of. And I'm familiar with where its place is in, you know, the, yeah.
Rekka (27:48):
I mean, at least look at the long list for awards each year and make sure you're familiar with what's going on there. Even if you don't read every piece on there, um, you know, what, what is the appeal? Why did it make it to the long list? And yeah, that's a big day of homework. I did not assign you some light reading there. Like, you know, the long list itself is long. And then you also have to look into each book and see what's going on. Take a look at the cover. How was it being placed on the shelf? Is it, YA? Is it adult? You know, and be aware of the different aspects of how that book is being marketed. Because someday someone will ask you, hopefully, how you want your book marketed and you need to kind of have this background.
Kaelyn (28:32):
Now some of you may be going, "why do I need to be bothered with all of this? Why can't I just write the book I want to write? And if somebody is interested in it, they can get it published." Now here's the thing. Yes, you're right. On some level, it's like, "I don't, this isn't my full-time, you know, career goals and aspirations. I just wrote a book. It happens to be, you know, a science fiction and fantasy book. I enjoy that. I'm not super mega involved in all of this. I have some books I like, why can't I just write this book, put it down, and walk away?" And the answer to that is in some cases you can, yeah. That is a thing that can happen. The reason that's difficult to do is because you're going to be working with an agent and editor and a publishing house that eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff.
Rekka (29:15):
Right. And they rely on this for their, for their careers. And if you aren't as passionate as they are, they're not going to be passionate for you.
Kaelyn (29:22):
I know it's a weird, difficult spot to be in. I know it's kind of like a answer. You got to sort of get yourself in the club. Like you need to demonstrate—.
Rekka (29:34):
Or at least know who's in the club.
Kaelyn (29:36):
Yeah. Or at least know who's who's in the club. Um, I, I'm going to use this example, even though I really don't like it because I have a lot of problems with the fashion industry, but there's a scene in The Devil Wears Prada where, uh, Andy walks in and, you know, Meryl Streep's Anna Wintour avatar character is, you know, berating somebody and she says, do this. And, um, Anna or whatever her name is laughs. And they all look at her and she's like, Oh, I'm sorry. I'm still just learning about this stuff. And everyone in the room is very insulted because she is a complete newcomer and outsider to this. And Stanley Tucci gives her this sort of dressing down later where he says, "you happened into this job. There are people who spend their entire lives wanting to work in this industry. They dream of working here and you only deigned to work here. So you want to know why no one likes you, it's because you don't take us seriously. And therefore we can't take you seriously." It's very similar with publishing.
Rekka (30:47):
I don't feel like that situation—I mean, yes, there are people who are like," okay, agents come to me, bring me your offers." But, um, I feel like there are a lot of people who look for an agent so that they end up with a mentor and someone who's going to educate them on all this. And it would be great, I'm sure, for the agent to hear that you've done some of the homework already.
Kaelyn (31:20):
Yeah. So that kind of leads us into one of the other things that we can, you know, discuss here is work on ways to make yourself more appealing. For a lot of writers, the ultimate first step is landing an agent. There's a lot of stuff that goes into this. Listen to the Query Letter episode, listen to the Agents episode, listen to all the Submissions September, probably because that's, you know—
Rekka (31:46):
Yes. And also there are a lot of agents out there with YouTube channels or podcasts of their own, and newsletters, mailing lists, you know, like there is a lot of information out there to be had to help you understand what's going on from the agent side so that you can make their lives a little bit easier by not expecting miracles of them, but also not expecting them to do the work of educating you.
Kaelyn (32:09):
Yeah. So everything that I just mentioned, you know, that we talked about with the Agents episode, with Submission September, with the Query Letters, all of those have a significant element of things beyond your control. What you can do to make yourself more appealing to an agent or a publishing house is as we said, familiarize yourself with the genre, but also have a plan.
Rekka (32:31):
Know what kind of books you're going to be writing in a couple of years? Not necessarily like, "I have this one book, please make it sell." You want like, okay, "I have this book." And then they say, "What else you working on?" And you have more than one answer for them.
Kaelyn (32:45):
I think beyond, you know, all of the agent pet peeves that were talked about in terms of submission and querying, one of the things in agent least wants to hear is "I don't know what to do with myself and my book." I think there is very little that is more disheartening than he completely directionless author. Um, it's one thing to show up and be like, "well, I don't, I don't know how this industry works. That's why you're here." It's another to be, "I have no idea of what my goals and plans are beyond just this book." Um, Rekka made the example before of think how hard it is to cook for somebody who doesn't know what they want to eat. Yeah. Now imagine it's a book.
Rekka (33:31):
Yeah. Now imagine that your career depends on this person being successful at and enjoying their dinner.
Kaelyn (33:37):
Yes, exactly. So, um, you know, all of this ties together with writing, into reading, into getting yourself into the genre and that kind of atmosphere in a world that you want to publish and live in.
Rekka (33:54):
As part of that, I would also suggest, and, you know, we all hate social media, but get on social media and just be aware of the discourse going around in your genre. Hear the discussions that are taking place. Hear the concerns that people are having. Um, either over the industry or subject matter or diversity or, you know, all the different aspects that go into a community and an industry and a livelihood. There's a lot to just absorb. Like you don't even have to participate. You don't have to feel like you have solutions.
Kaelyn (34:28):
Yeah. That was exactly what I was going to say is you don't even need to participate. You can just be like an observer or a lurker.
Rekka (34:34):
That's the nice thing about Twitter is like everybody's airing their dirty laundry on Main. And you can just, you know, get an idea of what's out there without having to step into anything messy to begin with before you've got an agent before you've made a name for yourself. However—
Kaelyn (34:48):
I would even, I would even go so far as to recommend doing everything you can to avoid stepping into anything messy.
Rekka (34:54):
Yes. Uh, what I might suggest is with all that reading you're doing, um, it might be nice if you, you know, talked on Twitter about what you're reading and, um, and how it's impacting the way you're thinking about your own writing. Like keep it keyed into the fact that you are a writer. Like don't make a review Twitter account, make a, "I am a writer. Here's the subject matter I'm engaged with." And, you know, like, "this makes me think about this in this way as I do my own writing" kinda stuff.
Kaelyn (35:28):
And along those lines though, you know, it doesn't have to be a review account, but never hesitate to shout out an author who you're reading and either enjoy.
Rekka (35:36):
Oh absolutely, that's what I'm talking about. But like, for example, I read a book recently where they were dealing with subject matter that I absolutely had plans to approach on my own and I was concerned about a certain aspect of it. And um, this author handled it, you know, in a way that made me go, "okay, this is something to consider as I go into this."
Kaelyn (35:57):
Never hesitate to, you know, shout out somebody whose work you're enjoying or who, you know, has contributed to your ability to do your own work. It's um, trust me, authors cannot hear that enough.
Rekka (36:09):
Right. Yeah. Definitely to understand, to know that someone is out there seeing what they're trying to do and appreciating it is a big deal and it will get you maybe—um, I don't know how soon this next one was going to come up, but it might get you a little bit into networking, um, on Twitter, on social media, you know, in your groups and stuff like that. When you are talking about the work that everyone else is doing and appreciating it, and without, you know, posting 10 times a day, "my book is on Amazon at this link," you can also present the fact that you are a writer as part of this discourse.
Kaelyn (36:48):
It's funny because I was reading something quite a while back about how people get jobs. And most people get jobs through the recommendation of other people or through people they know. Um, I think a lot of that comes from, you know, reputation and, uh, what's the word I'm looking for here? Recommendation. Because, you know, as I always have to, I have to explain sometimes, especially for my previous job where I dealt with a lot of new hires, hiring a new person is expensive. It costs a lot of money to onboard a new full-time employee. Um, which it doesn't seem like it should, but it actually does. The same way authors are an investment. So having friends or just even people, you know, and interact with in the industry who, you know, someone can say, you know, "Rekka, you're an agent, do you happen to know Kaelyn? Like I was interested in working with her possibly like, is she, you know, is she cool? Like, should I talk to her?" And coming to that person to be able to get some feedback on you is, is very important. Um, I think, you know, especially go back and listen to our Agents episode. Agents, you know, have to be very careful about these things and have to be careful about who they choose to work with because somebody who you talked to a few times and they seem like pretty cool and everything, and then they can just go off the rails. That is time and money down the drain that they are not going to recover.
Rekka (38:28):
Yes. And it's going to make them more nervous to sign the next author—.
Kaelyn (38:31):
Definitely.
Rekka (38:31):
—which is not a benefit to anyone. Um, but if you, you know, if you're not even sure where to begin with networking, I would suggest volunteering with some of the organizations that put on conferences, whether they be in person or online.
Kaelyn (38:46):
Absolutely. Yep.
Rekka (38:46):
Um, that's a great way, assuming you're reliable that you can build a networking, or at least an awareness of who you are, to people who might be able to help you with a recommendation later, um, whether you know it or not. You know, like if people appreciate the hard work you put in to help with, uh, you know, an event or they appreciate that you were able to run the Slack that, you know, corresponded with, uh, uh, an event that was prerecorded or, you know, whatever else is going on in the world right now, it's hard to predict, but
Kaelyn (39:23):
Yeah, God only knows if we'll ever have in-person
Rekka (39:27):
Conferences again. Well, we will certainly be thinking hard about it. Um, but anyway, the, the idea that you proved yourself reliable. Yes. Like that person maybe didn't read your writing, but they can say like you have a good head on your shoulders. You, um, were where you said you would be, when you said you would be there. You signed up and you didn't flake. Um, you were able to go above and beyond by helping people, you know, in ways that wasn't really in the job description or whatever.
Kaelyn (39:56):
I will tell you, I have my current job because of that. Because yeah, this is because my boss is somebody that knew me before I worked for him. Yeah. And knew that I was a reliable straight-forward person who could do basic math. Yeah. That's the only requirements for my job, basic math.
Rekka (40:18):
Yeah but the Venn diagram of all those things is a small overlap. But yeah. I mean, you never know how being decent and helpful to somebody is going to pay off later and, you know, do it for altruistic reasons. But it's a good idea too.
Kaelyn (40:35):
And that's exactly what I was just going to say is," this is not using people. Yeah. This is, you know, you may like, you may feel like squeamish about it. You may feel like, Oh, I'm just, you know, I'm just trying to, like, I feel dirty for just trying to get my face and my name in front of all these people." First of all, you're helping them with something. Okay. So if you want to think of it in terms of that, then think of it as transactional, but that's not necessarily what's going on here. This is how people get involved in things and get introduced and meet people. Um, it's, it's difficult. And for some people, this kind of thing does not come easy. They can't walk into a room and just start chatting people up. But if you have a reason to talk to people?
Rekka (41:18):
That was exactly what my thinking was. The first time I went to the Nebulas, I volunteered, you know, I'd never been there before, but what I did know was that it was a really long weekend. If I didn't get to know anybody to have conversations with, I was going to be feeling real awkward by that third day. So what I did was I volunteered and I volunteered in the book room, which meant that there were coworkers to speak to, um, people who could, you know, show me the way that the room was working. And then I had conversations with those people about books. I had conversations with those people about publishing. People would walk in and say, "what's good?" And I can make recommendations because I'd been reading in my genre and I knew some of the books in the room, you know, like this works out really well on many levels.
Kaelyn (42:01):
And by the way, one of the great things here is that if you're volunteering at a writer, writing conference or a science fiction and fantasy conference, you're going to be around other people that enjoy those exact same things.
Rekka (42:13):
Well, it's easy to have those conversations at the genre conferences rather than like, say it's just the book fair, you know? Um, yeah. It's—
Kaelyn (42:22):
Well, I wasn't even going, you know, like this is, it's really easy compared to, "Oh, come meet, you know, a group of friends that I know."
Rekka (42:29):
Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Cause then, then you end up designing a podcast. I mean, yeah. Um, no, the, I think that was the best choice I ever made. I think that's why I had so much fun that first Nebulas conference was because I had a purpose and it wasn't the entire weekend, but then, you know, there were people I could, you know, pass by in the corridors between, um, presentations and panels, who I'd talked to in the book room, you know. And you could smile and nod. And I was getting really good about, you know, just talking to random strangers and that translated into having conversations later in the corridors, in, you know, in the, you know, restaurants and all that kind of stuff, because I'd already sort of like dip my toe in. And in the capacity of like, "this is my job to do this," it really helps.
Kaelyn (43:24):
And you know, what's, and we've definitely talked about, you know, conferences and all of this stuff before, but just one more thing to sort of reinforce there. A lot of people come to these things by themselves. There is going to be a lot of, you know, single people just walking around who, are just there because, you know, if it's something like the Nebulas that moves every two years, um, you know, maybe it was in their neighborhood and they decided to check it out.
Rekka (43:48):
This was the year that we're going to try it out. Yeah. And now keep in mind, some people come alone and they're there to have friends and family reunions, basically, with their found families within the community. And you don't want to tread on the toes of people clearly having a more intimate moment, but you know, like being there is the first step.
Kaelyn (44:07):
Believe me, there is no shortage of friendly people eager to talk to somebody about their favorite Orsen Scott Card book that you're going to find. Yeah.
Rekka (44:17):
Or, or someone a little more recent like P Djeli Clark or, you know
Kaelyn (44:23):
Have you been to the Nebulas, Rekka?
Rekka (44:25):
I have. We clearly ended up in different corners because nobody that I've ever stepped into a conversation with at the Nebulas is going to want to go off about Orsen Scott Card except in a different way than you're referring to.
Kaelyn (44:38):
Fair. Fair.
Rekka (44:38):
So anyway, um, you will find your people, they are there, they're in different corners. Check a different one if you didn't find them the first time. But yeah. Um, networking is important and volunteering is a great way to get started in networking. And even though we've currently moved into a virtual space where all these conferences are happening online, there's still a way to network by volunteering.
Kaelyn (45:02):
Yeah. Absolutely. And by the way, the fact that a lot of these are moving online and hopefully will stay virtual and therefore available to more people will give you more of an opportunity to participate and attend with these. Um, you know, it was definitely a problem that, you know, like there's a lot of these big conferences that had very little virtual presence, and so—
Rekka (45:24):
Very little virtual presence, and they required you to fly in from another country if you weren't a United States citizen, which therefore like you've already just pretty much blown half of your salary, if not more, for the year just to get here and you haven't even paid to get in the door or for the hotel room yet. So they were very restricted and these online, um, it it's a good thing. And even if we go back to in-person conferences, there needs to be—if you're hearing me conference organizers, I think you already know, but—uh, it needs to, it needs to stay expanded into these virtual spaces. For sure.
Kaelyn (45:58):
I think one of the things and not to get too sidetracked here, but I think one of the things that put off, you know, apart from sort of this awful gatekeeping aspect of these, these events, but I think one of the things that put off the organizers may have been, "this seems difficult and complicated. I don't know how we do this." And now that everyone was in a position where they have to do it, we've seen that, you know what, it's not actually as difficult and complicated as we thought it was.
Rekka (46:22):
Only that, but the things that made it difficult and complicated have been solved because it was a problem that everybody shared as compared to when, you know, people who needed this access for, you know, their health and safety were complaining about it but it was a small portion of the population and easy to ignore. Uh, people could just say, "Oh no, no, that's too hard. Sorry. You'll just have to come in person." Now. Now we can say—
Kaelyn (46:48):
We found out actually, it's not that hard.
Rekka (46:49):
It's not that hard. We've handled it. And yes, we can have live closed captioning and yes, we can control the quality of that live closed captioning, and should control the quality of that live close captioning. So, um, yes, it has been a big learning year for everybody. Good job us and no more excuses. So let's, uh, let's do that. All right. Sidetrack over, what's next on our outline. Cause you have the outline. I didn't write down any of our notes,
Kaelyn (47:12):
Actually, that was it on the outline.
Rekka (47:14):
That was it! All right. We did it! And we have time to leave in the Great British Baking Show references. Just drop a few more like their cake sliding off a tray. Why not?
Kaelyn (47:24):
I can't remember which season it was that like, they all, like, first of all, here's what I don't get about this show. Every year they film it in the summer in an un-air conditioned tent
Rekka (47:38):
And are surprised when the chocolate won't temper.
Kaelyn (47:43):
And the chocolate won't stay together!
Rekka (47:43):
I was watching, we watched season eight. So what we normally do is watch the Christmas episodes, the holiday episodes.
Kaelyn (47:50):
Exactly, yes.
Rekka (47:50):
And, um, so we watched this year's and we were not satisfied because last year we got to binge a whole bunch of them for the first time. And this year there was only one new one. So we, um, we went back and watched season eight and I remember the devastation of Chocolate Week being in the middle of— it was 35º Celsius in the tent when they were trying to cool and set chocolate and temper it.
Kaelyn (48:22):
Yeah. Anyway. Okay. We should stop.
Rekka (48:22):
So yes. So when you need to make the ice cream cake of your career, you can set yourself up for success, by at least making sure that you've cooled your, uh, work area on a bunch of really cool genre books that were written in the last five or ten years. That was a little weak, but I'm going to go with it.
Kaelyn (48:43):
No, no I like it. Keep going.
Rekka (48:43):
And, um, and then, uh, temper your excitement over that query you just sent out by keeping yourself busy and continuing to work and writing out your goals and your business plan so that when the agent asks you, you don't drop your biscuits on the floor.
Kaelyn (49:05):
Rekka, that was beautiful.
Rekka (49:06):
I'm very proud.
Kaelyn (49:07):
That was stunning. That was truly amazing.
Rekka (49:09):
Do I get a handshake?
Kaelyn (49:09):
Yes! Paul Hollywood would be proud of you.
Rekka (49:14):
Okay. So if you're not watching the Great British Baking Show, I hope you're inspired. They're a thankfully, um, really feel good show and it's nice to watch the contestants help each other and network and be good to each other and take that as your, your role models.
Kaelyn (49:32):
It really is a, uh, very inspiring show to watch for how you should conduct your career really your lives. Because when I tell people they should watch and they're like, "Oh, I don't like those reality shows. I'm like, no."
Rekka (49:44):
We didn't think we would either.
Kaelyn (49:45):
Yeah, I don't either. Everyone is so nice.
Rekka (49:47):
Everyone is so nice. Even the person that they tease for being heartless, is, I would happily hug.
Kaelyn (49:51):
Yes. Yes, definitely. Okay. So anyway, so network, um, read. Write. Work on, you know, familiarizing yourself with the genre. Work on building your knowledge base. Make it so that you can have a conversation with people that are going to be important to have conversations with.
Rekka (50:08):
Or just people who are going to come up the ranks with you. You know, and I say "ranks" as if there's a ladder, but you know what I mean? Like be friends with—.
Kaelyn (50:16):
There's totally a ladder.
Rekka (50:16):
Be friends with the people who are entering at the same point as you. And if you surge ahead of them, lift them up behind you. Don't, you know, shut the door and say, "Ha ha! I have excelled beyond my need to be your friend now." Um, that's just hopefully good, common sense and how to be a human, but it's yeah, not everybody, but, um—
Kaelyn (50:37):
Just remember a rising tide lifts all ships.
Rekka (50:39):
And also know what you want out of this. Like have a plan and be ready to talk to anybody about it and you can modify it as you get feedback, which is also good.
Kaelyn (50:49):
There is, there is no one is going to handy with stone, say, "Chisel your plan in it. And this is also your tombstone now."
Rekka (50:58):
I mean, it might be, you know, the time you take to chisel a message into a stone is time you could have spent writing.
Kaelyn (51:05):
That's a good point. Yeah. Like with like a computer, which is faster than chiseling into stone. Yeah. Never try to stop improving on this. Especially if there are certain goals that you want to hit and you're not hitting them, you are I—.
Rekka (51:19):
In other words, if you have goals you want to hit and you're not hitting them, the answer is not to stop and wait for them to come to you.
Kaelyn (51:25):
Yeah. I'm going to say something that's going to come off sounding kind of mean. And I don't mean it to be. If you have goals that you're trying to hit and you're not hitting them, the problems— it's either you or it's the goal. There are absolutely be some times in your life and your career that you're just going to be unlucky. But, more often than not, there's things you can be always be working towards improving.
Rekka (51:47):
Even if luck, you know, turns against you, you can keep moving forward. It just might be, you know, a little bit more disheartening. It might be more work. But if you really love this, then you know, you should be up for the challenge. And, you know, hopefully these tips will help you set yourself up to, you know, have tools you need in those darker moments to just keep working on something.
Kaelyn (52:10):
So for instance, when somebody puts you in a sweltering tent in the middle of a field outside a British estate and tells you to make a chocolate sculpture and it's 35º Celsius and Paul Hollywood is giving you weird looks, you can go, "All right. I trained for this."
Rekka (52:24):
I guess, I guess that is exactly the metaphor we needed.
Kaelyn (52:31):
So well anyway, that's, um, you know, we'll leave you there. Hopefully, you know—
Rekka (52:35):
Hopefully that's enough or made any sense.
Kaelyn (52:38):
Hopefully it's encouraging or, you know, maybe a little bit of a fresh thought on it.
Rekka (52:42):
If not, you can yell at us on Twitter or Instagram at @WMBcast, or you can find old episodes at wmbcast.com. And if that really was helpful, somehow you can thank us by supporting us on patreon.com/WMBcast. We do just appreciate anybody who supports us, but, uh, the best help you could give us would be to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and, uh, let people know that you enjoyed the content, how it's helped you. Um, you can even ask us questions through the comments there.
Kaelyn (53:16):
We love questions. If you send us a question, there's a very good chance we'll talk about it.
Rekka (53:20):
Yes, cause sometimes we don't know what we're going to talk about until we get on the call. And sometimes it shows. But, uh, yeah, either way, any of the ways that you reach out to us, we look forward to hearing from you and we will talk to you again in a couple weeks.
Tuesday Jan 05, 2021
Episode 51 - We Trunk Books (with Hilary Bisenieks)
Tuesday Jan 05, 2021
Tuesday Jan 05, 2021
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 writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!
We hope you enjoy We Make Books!
Twitter: @WMBCast | @KindofKaelyn | @BittyBittyZap
Hilary's Links:
Twitter @trunkcast
Twitter @hbbisenieks
Website hilarybisenieks.com
Transcript (All Mistakes are Fully Rekka's Fault)
Kaelyn (00:00:00):
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a show about writing, publishing, and everything in between. My name's Kaelyn Considine, and I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.
Rekka (00:00:09):
And I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.
Kaelyn (00:00:13):
This is an exciting episode. We have our second repeat guest.
Rekka (00:00:16):
Yes, I am looking forward to lots of people coming back on. When we crafted this podcast together, I wasn't sure how many guests we were going to do other than people who were experts on things that we didn't really feel comfortable dispensing advice on, but we've ended up just having like really great conversations where I don't necessarily think it was because we just needed to sit back and get out of the way of somebody. But like, because it's fun to talk to more than one person. And I don't blame you for not wanting to talk to just me all the time.
Kaelyn (00:00:48):
I could talk to you forever.
Rekka (00:00:51):
This is true. We have done this. There's no smoked meat now. So like it doesn't feel the same.
Kaelyn (00:00:57):
I know. We've definitely forgone sleep by like large quantities, because we were just like up talking.
Rekka (00:01:04):
We had slumber parties in the time before this is so sad.
Kaelyn (00:01:07):
I know. Yeah. And there's, there's no smoked meat. There's no slumber parties. There's no movie after movie. You don't what I just realized? We didn't actually say who our guest was.
Rekka (00:01:18):
Is that important?
Rekka (00:01:19):
No, I just.
Rekka (00:01:20):
We're terrible hosts.
Rekka (00:01:21):
We said our second repeat guests, so,
Rekka (00:01:24):
Well, I mean suspense, that's another genre.
Rekka (00:01:26):
Suspense. Definitely. We'll give you a hint.
Rekka (00:01:28):
It's Hilary Bisenieks.
Kaelyn (00:01:30):
Oh, okay. Or we could just tell you who it is.
Rekka (00:01:33):
That was my hint. It's just a good hint. I'm being kind at the end of this year.
Kaelyn (00:01:36):
Well, I was, so we had Hilary came back on to talk to us about trunking stories.
Rekka (00:01:41):
Well we did say that we were going to have him back on as soon As possible.
Kaelyn (00:01:45):
We did, yeah. This, this shouldn't. Yeah, this shouldn't be like a huge shock, but yeah, it was a, it was great to have Hilary back on. Um, uh, hopefully you listened to the episode.
Rekka (00:01:53):
Hopefully you listened to Hilary's podcasts because Tales From The Trunk is just a delightful podcast. It's so much fun. It's one of those great, like "two people who clearly like each other and like having a conversation, talking to each other for a while," and it's very friendly and I love it. Um, as I've said before and will say again.
Kaelyn (00:02:10):
Very relatable. So yeah. Hilary came on to talk to us about trunking stories today, being somewhat of an expert on the subject. Um, you know, it's a, it's a difficult thing to do, I think, for a lot of writers, it's definitely a milestone. It's definitely like, you know, there's an other side of it where it's like, okay, I have done this thing now. Um, and there's a lot of reasons to do it. Um, it sounds like something that you want to never do, but I think most people will and probably should, at some point in their writing career, trunk a story.
Rekka (00:02:45):
We're going to have more than one story that you write. Hopefully. You're not just going to write one novel and retire on the proceeds of that one novel.
Kaelyn (00:02:52):
I mean, that would be great, but like, is that really what you want?
Rekka (00:02:55):
Yeah. I mean, then you don't want to be a writer. You just want to be famous, right? You're not going to trunk that story if you're that committed. So if you are a writer who plans to be prolific, you're going to stumble into trunking a story at some point or another, you're just going to be done. You're going to move on. And I mean, we're going to go into those reasons in this episode so I won't, you know, distill them again down here.
Kaelyn (00:03:20):
Don't be ashamed of trunking a story. It's a natural process. It happens to everybody. Just because your friends are acting all cool and like nothing's going on with them. Doesn't mean they have a trunked a story, too.
Rekka (00:03:33):
Just because your friends on Twitter have announced 10 stories sold this year. Doesn't mean they're not trunking stuff as well. Um, yeah, so it's, it's just something that comes with being a prolific writer. So be proud of it and then hit up Hilary to go on his podcast and read one of your trunked stories to audience, which is just really nice. Um, a nice way to say goodbye to the story, maybe.
Kaelyn (00:04:11):
So, um, well, you know, speaking of things that are bad—
Rekka (00:04:15):
I had a segue for the traffic thing before. Oh, speaking of slowing it down. That's what I was going to use. Yeah. So we have a guest who might sound somewhat familiar to you.
Kaelyn (00:04:27):
Our second returning guest. This is so exciting.
Rekka (00:04:30):
Yes. And um, so Hilary Bisenieks is back. A triumphant return—
Hilary (00:04:35):
Woohoo!
Rekka (00:04:35):
—to help us talk about quitting.
Hilary (00:04:41):
I'm an expert at quitting.
Kaelyn (00:04:42):
Has come back to talk about quitting. No, specifically, we're talking about, uh, trunking stories today, what that means, why and when you should do it?
Rekka (00:04:52):
And can you reverse it?
Kaelyn (00:04:54):
Yeah. Is, is this permanent? Is this, uh, something that you have to live with for the rest of your life? So Hilary you're the, you're the expert on trunking, uh, for those of you who didn't listen to the previous episode Hilary joined us on, Hilary is the host of a very awesome podcast called Tales From The Trunk. Um, Hilary, do you want to tell everyone about that real quick?
Hilary (00:05:16):
Absolutely. Uh, Tales From The Trunk, subtitled Reading The Stories That Didn't Make It, is a podcast where I talk monthly with authors from all over science fiction, fantasy and horror about stories they've trunked. Every author comes on with a trunked short story or a selection of a trunked novel. They read that. We talk about why they trunked it. And then we just chat about being writers for the remainder of an hour. Uh, it has been described as just sitting around listening to a couple of friends chat.
Kaelyn (00:05:52):
I mean, those are the best kinds of podcasts. Um, so Hilary, before we, you know, get too far into this, as you know, our listeners know, I always like to start with definitions. So, um, for those who didn't listen to the previous episode you were on, can you, uh, tell us what it means to trunk a story?
Hilary (00:06:09):
Absolutely. So trunking a story is the moment that you decide "I can't sell this for whatever reason, I'm not going to continue trying to submit it. Or in some cases I'm not going to try to submit it at all." And, uh, that comes from any number of reasons, uh, which we will get into, but
Kaelyn (00:06:33):
Oh we're going to get into it! Yes definitely. Yeah. So, you know, if you're a, if you're in the writing sphere, if you, you know, frequent areas that writers collect, you've probably seen, you know, people talking about trunking a story and you know, kind of going like, "well, what the heck does that mean?" So exactly as Hilary said, you know, it's kind of like, "I'm quitting on this story." That's making it sound so much more dire than it than it actually is. But, um, you've gotten to a point where you're like, "I either don't think I can sell this or maybe I don't have the energy to try to continue selling this. I've just gotten disheartened to the point that for my mental health, I have to walk away from it." Um, but yeah, you're taking the story and you're putting it in a trunk and not going to think about it anymore.
Rekka (00:07:20):
And I like to imagine that, like, that's the trunk you find in your grandparent's attic. So someday, like someone's going to explore your—well these days, your computer hard drive.
Hilary (00:07:28):
Yep.
Rekka (00:07:29):
And, um, so you better change all the icons on your writing folders to look like little trunks, if you, if you decide to put a story away. But, um, Hilary also pointed out really quick there that you might've blinked and missed it, that, um, you can also trunk a story that you've never attempted to sell.
Kaelyn (00:07:47):
Yes, yes.
Hilary (00:07:48):
Yep.
Rekka (00:07:49):
And that might be like more like the secret novel that you didn't know, your grandmother wrote kind of thing. Um, because it was like, so passionate, your grandmother was this like adorable church lady
Hilary (00:07:59):
Uh, or it can be something that you decided you had no place in writing.
Rekka (00:08:04):
Also a good, good thing to consider. "Um, am I the right person to tell this story? Like, yes, I had this idea and yes, I had fun writing it, but maybe it's not for me to tell." Um, so that's, uh, that's a good point. So let's start from there. Like trunking a story, you just finished it, you're looking at it, you sit on it maybe a couple of weeks, a month or something, and you just feel like there's something about this that I don't want to take it out into the world. Now for that reason, I'm assuming not too many of your guests have ever come on and read a trunk story that they wrote and didn't want in the world.
Hilary (00:08:38):
No, no. They, uh, I think that I'm the only person who has brought a story onto the show that I was embarrassed of, um, which felt like the right decision. Honestly, I had a, of, um, I had a lot of good things to talk about with that particular story. Um, but I've had this situation for myself, certainly a number of times, especially right after the 2016 election, I wrote a lot of, uh, very angry stories that were from the experiences of people who are not me, who are much more marginalized than I was. And I was, you know, angry and scared. And then I finished the stories and I kind of treated it like free therapy in some ways.
Kaelyn (00:09:34):
Yeah. Yeah nothing wrong with that.
Rekka (00:09:34):
And said, "Okay, I exorcised this from myself and now I can stick it into—" uh, I think I just call it my "retired" folder, but, uh, I've been meaning to change that to a trunk.
Kaelyn (00:09:47):
I was going to say, not trunked? I'm very disappointed.
Rekka (00:09:50):
Well, you know, that would come up every time he did a search for his podcast files.
Kaelyn (00:09:54):
That's a good point. That's a very good point.
Rekka (00:09:54):
So if he calls it the same thing that it's going to tangle up, all his files, that makes sense.
Kaelyn (00:09:59):
Yeah. So, you know, this is kind of a way to segue into like, well, why would you trunk a story? So, you know, we've kind of, you know, for logical and human reasons kind of put this into, "maybe this, isn't your story to tell maybe this isn't something that you want to be putting out into the world," but past that then where you've got to make a personal decision, you know, why is this something that an author would decide to do? Um, you know, we talk a lot about on this show about how much time and effort it takes to write something, even, you know, a short story versus a novel. Don't— I go online and, you know, I'm in all these writers groups and then the discourse and the slacks, and everyone just keeps telling you, "you got to just keep trying, you got to keep trying it's, something's gonna, you know, if you, as long as you try some things eventually going to happen," but trunking a story seems to be completely opposite of that. That is not the case.
Rekka (00:10:55):
There is an element of energy that it takes to keep putting yourself out in the world over and over and over again. And at a certain point, I think when you love a story so much, and it just keeps getting rejected, it's almost protective that you just can't take it anymore, or this deserves better than that you know, 1 cent per word market, or this deserves better than going to a, uh, exposure-only payment method. You know, at some point you go, "maybe I'll just keep this for me" or "maybe I'll hang onto it and it can be part of a like single author anthology later "or something. But I don't know if that ladder counts as trunking, but I think we might get back to that too.
Kaelyn (00:11:40):
We'll certainly come back to that.
Hilary (00:11:42):
I, I kind of considered that level to be provisional trunking, that there are, there are stories that are in my... there are some stories that are still in my active folder that I haven't sent out in a couple of years, just because I've been waiting on the right market to reopen for them, or just because I haven't reorganized my writing folder. But there are stories in my actual trunked folder that I still stand behind. And if the opportunity came up, if somebody, you know, called me up tomorrow and said, "Hey, we like your writing. We want a whole bunch of it right now." I would be able to pull out and say, okay, yeah, this is still representative of me.
Rekka (00:12:34):
So on sabbatical, not retirement.
Hilary (00:12:36):
Yeah.
Kaelyn (00:12:39):
So let's kind of talk real quickly through some, some reasons, you know, to trunk something beyond, uh, you know, the more definitive ones that we had mentioned here. So one, obviously, you know, as Rekka had mentioned: exhaustion. This is you're to a point where you're like, look, I love this story. It's not selling for whatever reason. Maybe you've gotten really good feedback about it, but you just can't get a bite on it and you've hit the wall. This is as much as you can do with it. The cost of the emotional labor is too high for your own, you know, sanity and mental well-being, you have to stop doing this at a certain point. Um, another reason. So that's, you know, that's one assuming like good feedback, the flip side of that is maybe not so good feedback on the story. Um, and you know, when we'll, we'll talk about this more, but when a story becomes quote-unquote unfixable, and that's when it's time to stop on that side. Um, but you know, another reason might be that, you know, as Hilary had said, this isn't the right time for this story, for whatever reason, you know, environmentally in the publishing sphere that you're interested in, you know, maybe you wrote, you know, maybe you had the misfortune of writing a teenage vampire book back in the early two thousands, and just so happened to coincide with all of the other teenage vampire books that were, uh, being released at that point.
Rekka (00:14:05):
Or for example, you have a anthology story that was a themed anthology, and you didn't quite make it, and it's still a good story. And they told you it was a close call, et cetera. So you really want to rush it off to the next market, but everyone else who was rejected from that themed anthology has a story with the same theme. And now they're going to flood the rest of the markets with those stories. And those stories, those editors are going to know that there was a themed anthology call recently because of how many stories they're going to get like this. And that's another sabbatical sort of, um, item, but, um, another instance where good feedback does not necessarily mean send it right back out again.
Kaelyn (00:14:48):
Yeah. So let's, let's spend some time talking, you know, the good feedback side of this and the reasons that you might trunk something that has been receiving good feedback. So, you know, as we said, one of those could be the emotional and mental cost and labor of this. It's a lot of work to submit stories. Um, anybody who tells you like, "Oh, whatever, you just go online and you drop the file in there and you click it," um, clearly has not been doing this or has been doing it wrong. So there's the time. But then there's also the emotional and mental labor aspect of this. If this keeps getting rejected, that's going to wear on you. That's really difficult to just have to deal with day in and day out. Especially if it's a story that everyone's telling you, "I loved this. This is great. I have a couple little notes, but nothing, you know, nothing major," that can be very difficult to deal with. And, you know, like we were joking about quitting, but I, I don't necessarily like to think of it as quitting. I like to think of it as, you know, being realistic and, you know, taking good care of yourself.
Rekka (00:15:55):
Well, sometimes you quit a job to take good care of yourself. Isn't that true, Kaelyn?
Kaelyn (00:15:58):
Oh, yes. Yes.
Rekka (00:16:01):
So let's not forget that quitting is not always, uh, a failure on your part. Sometimes it is literally saying, um, "I need to not be here right now." And sometimes not being here right now means not being in the trenches of getting constant rejections or waiting 83 days to get a rejection or more.
Kaelyn (00:16:20):
And by the way, the quitting analogy is actually very good because I quit a job that was, um, it wasn't great. And I went to a much better one. So sometimes, you know, walking away from something that is maybe doing things that aren't great for your mental health and stability gives, opens you up to walk away and go to something that is going to be better and may actually help improve that.
Hilary (00:16:46):
Yeah.
Rekka (00:16:47):
Right. So in this case, stopping focus on like one story and revising it every time you get feedback and instead, like going and writing something fresh and, you know, using all the skills you've developed as a writer, writing all these other stories that maybe didn't make it, they're all going to create the story that does. Yeah.
Kaelyn (00:17:03):
As writers, I'd be curious from both of you about the obsessive characteristic of this, if you can get very obsessed and infatuated with revising and tweaking and fixing a story so that somebody will see how awesome it is and take it.
Hilary (00:17:20):
Yes.
Rekka (00:17:22):
I think a lot of that, at least speaking for myself, and some folks I've talked to is the, uh, inability to have the confidence in your own work to say, "no, I, I meant to do it this way. Um, and there are reasons why your feedback is, while appreciated, not appropriate in this case." And so when you are submitting, you have essentially put yourself in mode of, "I am seeking external validation for myself and my work" and when you don't get it, but you do get feedback, that's pinging something in you, I think. And when you're, when you've set your mind to that mode of looking for other people to approve of you, when they tell you what it would have taken for them to approve of you, it's very easy to then feel like you need to follow through on that unsolicited or solicited advice.
Kaelyn (00:18:16):
You don't think it's coming more from the, like the obsession with the story. So much as the obsession of getting somebody to say yes to the story and therefore validate it.
Rekka (00:18:29):
Part. Well, so there are people who never stop fiddling with a story, um, and they might submit it and then go look at it again and go, "Oh, you know what, I'm going to do that differently." I am the type where if I'm submitting it, I don't look at the story again. I will open it and make sure that nothing's gone wonky with the formatting and then I will send it off. And, um, if I hear back with someone else's advice, now I'm like, "okay, now I know what I would be looking for if I opened that document again." But if I just am myself without any external input, opening a document, like I could fiddle with it forever. And I know that, so I tend to be better about not fiddling once I say, "okay, this is done, I'm sending it off" because I know how frustrated I would be if I decided to change something and it's out with somebody at that moment.
Hilary (00:19:25):
Yeah. From my perspective, uh, you know, I, I answered yes, extremely quickly because when I was a brand new writer, I absolutely, I think kind of like what Rekka was saying, not having that confidence in my own work, but also, uh, because of how long it can take to write a short story and get it to a place where you want to submit it. I think, especially when you are young, when you are new to the field—uh, and I'm speaking purely from my experience in this—I pinned all of my success on that one story. My, you know, my feeling was, and especially because I had very positive feedback right out of the gate through a series of, uh, very privileged happenstances that I had, you know, all this great feedback immediately on this first short story that I ever sent out. And I thought, "okay, I have to sell this one because I don't know if I can do that again."
Kaelyn (00:20:50):
Yeah. I think, you know, the, the investment, and I don't even just mean time investment in this as like, is a major factor. It's like, it's the sunk cost fallacy. "I've gotten so far in this and I have done so much and everybody's telling me, just keep pushing, just keep trying." So, you know, that said, as you know, both of you have trunked stories that you've gotten very good feedback on that people have enjoyed. And for whatever reason, they just, you know, didn't, didn't go where you wanted them to. Um, I'm going to start with Hilary and then we'll go to Rekka. What happened that you said, "okay, now it's time to stop?"
Hilary (00:21:32):
I didn't think the story represented me anymore. That's, that's usually the reason I trunk stories at this point. If I have been submitting them, I trunk them because they are not something that I want to attach my name to anymore. Uh, especially I'm thinking about the stories that I was writing, you know—I started writing, uh, with an aim to get published 15 years ago. And me 15 years ago, uh, is, was a very different person than me in 2020.
Kaelyn (00:22:16):
Yeah, of course.
Hilary (00:22:17):
Um, in a way that like me from 2015, isn't as different that there are still stories I send out from 2015, but, or would if I had markets for them, but, uh, stories from 20, from 2005. Absolutely not.
Kaelyn (00:22:38):
Okay. Yep. Rekka, how about you? What's, uh, what's an example or two of a time you were like, okay, it's time to be done with this?
Rekka (00:22:45):
You're going to be very sad that, um, my answer is basically the same as Hilary's, but also—
Kaelyn (00:22:51):
Oh. That is a little disappointing.
Rekka (00:22:51):
Yeah, I knew you would be disappointed in me.
Kaelyn (00:22:56):
I was hoping for some sort of like, "I had a dream and a cat appeared to me and said, 'Rekka there's a new story.'"
Rekka (00:23:02):
See here's the thing. I haven't, I haven't trunked the cat story yet. I'm not giving up on that one yet. Um, Kaelyn's read that story.
Kaelyn (00:23:12):
Hilary, have you read the cat story?
Hilary (00:23:14):
I have not yet.
Rekka (00:23:14):
Hilary hasn't. Hilary might get to hear it next spring because I might trunk it by then.
Kaelyn (00:23:21):
Okay, so we have no spoilers.
Rekka (00:23:22):
We're not referring to the cat story now. We're referring to a very short piece of flash fiction I wrote for a library contest and it won the library contest and it was supposed to appear in an anthology that they were going to print cause they had a new espresso machine, which is a book printer, not an espresso machine. And I'm.
Hilary (00:23:43):
confusingly enough.
Rekka (00:23:45):
I'm not sure
Kaelyn (00:23:46):
Especially considering how often books and coffee shops overlap.
Rekka (00:23:49):
Right. You really would think that they would have at least called it an eXpresso machine or something like that.
Kaelyn (00:23:55):
I'm just like, I'm picturing like this, you know, things showing up and they're like, this box is gigantic. It's just supposed to be a coffee machine. What's it here. Okay.
Rekka (00:24:03):
I think you would notice if you accidentally bought an espresso book machine. They're about, I think $12,000 or something like that. If there
Kaelyn (00:24:10):
There are coffee machines that cost that much.
Hilary (00:24:13):
I was going to say, I just read this year's take down of the Williams-Sonoma holiday catalog.
Rekka (00:24:19):
Oh,
Kaelyn (00:24:20):
There's a take-down of it?
Hilary (00:24:21):
There is an annual takedown of it. Uh, the most expensive item in the catalog every year is somehow a coffee apparatus.
Kaelyn (00:24:31):
Well, so this is, um, this is very funny because, uh, I'm gonna just, you know what, I'm not sure when this, this episode's getting posted after Christmas. So Rekka will have her present from me by then, which is a coffee based thing from Williams-Sonoma.
Rekka (00:24:46):
I hope it's the coffee based thing. I'd be really disappointed if it's not at least several grands worth of coffee of apparatus.
Kaelyn (00:24:54):
It's not the $12,000 espresso machine. Be it either something that makes coffee or something that makes books, but it is a coffee based device from Williams-Sonoma.
Rekka (00:25:05):
Imagine if I could become a small press just like that.
Kaelyn (00:25:09):
Um, you could, you could become a kind of a small coffee shop, maybe?
Hilary (00:25:17):
You could become an Aeropress. Eyyyyyy.
Rekka (00:25:18):
Nicely done.
Kaelyn (00:25:23):
Very well done. Extra points for puns on this show.
Rekka (00:25:26):
Always. Um, so I, okay. Now I have, now I remember what I was talking about. Sorry, we went off coffee. I was like, wait, also my coffee mug is almost empty. So like now I'm just upset.
Kaelyn (00:25:42):
Yeah that's exactly how you distract Rekka all the time. "Rekka. Rekka... Coffee with heavy cream."
Rekka (00:25:50):
Um, so they were going to print an anthology on their espresso machine book, printer, and never did. And so I was like, I'm going to go ahead and say that two years is enough time that if there were a contract, which there wasn't, that the rights would have reverted to me by now. So I started shopping around and it wasn't getting any hits and it wasn't like super fantasy or science fiction or anything. It was kind of just like on the edge of reality kind of thing. So I wasn't super committed to it. It wasn't very long, so it wasn't like it was going to get me, you know, very far along those SFWA guidelines for membership, you know, um, for the minimum word count, you got to sell at a pro rate. And, um, and then, yeah, I think I opened it one time to see if I should revise it. And I was kind of like, "you know what, this is not that great a story. I'm like, it might've been pressed the library, but this is not reflective of what I can do." So I stuck it in a folder.
Hilary (00:26:48):
The story that I brought on to the Tables Turned episode of my podcast, where I had Sharon Hsu interview me, instead of me interviewing her, faced a very similar set of circumstances where I wrote it in 2011 and sold it to, uh, a semipro market in the beginning of 2012. And got a contract, returned the contract, never got a countersigned one sent back to me. This was 2012 and people were still sending things through the mail. And then never heard anything from the market, uh, for over a year and then heard, "Hey, we found this. We were meaning to publish it. We'd like to put it in this feature and we've upped our pay rates. Would you like us? Can we still do that?" And I said, "Yes, please. And can you send me a new contract?" And then never heard anything from them? Uh, and I think I submitted it one more time maybe after that. Uh, I think to the first open submission period for Uncanny, and then it came back rightfully and I looked at it and I said, "Oh, this is, this is not great. I don't want to attach my name to this anymore." And so.
Rekka (00:28:29):
Thank goodness that contract never showed up.
Hilary (00:28:30):
I did the smart thing and read it publicly on a podcast that you can go download for free right now.
Kaelyn (00:28:36):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, it's interesting because both of you, um, you've kind of, you touched on something and, you know, as I said with, you know, "tell me about the time you've talked a story" and both of you said, "well, the story wasn't really representative of me anymore." Um, and you both skirted around something, well Hilary, you just dove into it, which is, "I don't think it was good anymore. And I didn't want my name on this." Um, so I'm going to take that and segue us into the other reason you may trunk a story is apart from you deciding this is isn't good. I don't want my name on this. Maybe be getting some negative feedback here about, uh, about your story and whether or not you should continue to try to publish it. Um, I will, uh, put on the editor hat here in a minute and talk about—
Rekka (00:29:30):
Cause you haven't been wearing the editor hat this whole time.
Kaelyn (00:29:33):
Um, first of all, they're editor headphones,
Hilary (00:29:37):
I was gonna say.
Rekka (00:29:37):
Hang on, I've got a, I've got a hood. I can put the, the editor up.
Rekka (00:29:43):
This is so, so we can't spit in her eye when we get the feedback.
Rekka (00:29:47):
This is, this is so like, this is so I don't have to like actually, you know, make eye contact when I'm telling people this story is a tear down. Um, um, but yeah, so, you know, you both have kind of mentioned, you know, instances of like, "I, I really don't want my name on this and out in the world." And I'm assuming that kind of just comes from growing and changing and developing your craft as an author. And, you know, like, you know, we all look back at the thing we colored when we were, you know, a kid and be like, "Oh God, I remember being so proud of this." And, um, you know, you do you change and you grow and develop as a writer. And, um, but so then why out of curiosity, did you not go back and revise? What made you say "I can't, this is not something I can work with anymore."
Hilary (00:30:39):
TBH. I thought about it. And then I thought, you know, this is, I can spend my energy better on writing a new, better story. The things specifically in, in this story that were, that I didn't want to attach my name to anymore, weren't necessarily, uh, an intrinsic part of the story, but I didn't feel like I wanted to spend the energy to navigate around the ways that they were problematic.
Kaelyn (00:31:21):
Okay.
Hilary (00:31:22):
Uh, that like the text, the prose itself was functional. I having read it out loud on this show. I found problems with it that I could have dodged by just reading it out loud to begin with. But the things that I objected to were more on the content side of like, when I wrote it in 2011, I thought that I was a cis straight dude and I am a bisexual genderqueer disaster.
Rekka (00:31:58):
So the story isn't reflective of your truth anymore.
Hilary (00:32:01):
Yes. Yeah.
Kaelyn (00:32:02):
Well, I mean, you know, there's, it was more, there's the, the bisexual gender. I, I refuse to acknowledge or accept you as a disaster. I'm going to, I'm going to change that to force of nature.
Hilary (00:32:19):
I will take that.
Kaelyn (00:32:19):
Um, you know, that was just inside looking to come out and, uh, you know, come out.
Hilary (00:32:30):
Come out? Eyyyyyy.
Kaelyn (00:32:30):
It's just looking inside looking to get out into the world there. And uh, okay. So yeah, no that's, and I think that's something, you know, I, I don't really write, um, uh, fiction. I have written academically and it is funny you say that because I go back and I have the opposite thing now where I go back and look at stuff that I wrote that like, you know, some things I had published and I'm like, "Oh my God, was this me? I don't like, I don't remember being this insightful." And I don't think I actually, I'm not sure if it was insightfulness, or if it was exhausted and my professors were like, ah, yes, this is clearly I, uh, a smart person or, you know, I was basically just like drooling onto a page and trying to make sense of it at that.
Rekka (00:33:18):
What you're saying is that you reached enlightenment while writing that.
Kaelyn (00:33:22):
I, I don't, there are like papers that every now and then I dig up and I'm like, "I genuinely have no memory of writing this, but I clearly did a lot of research here." And like, I think, especially when I was in grad school, I was in just like such a, a haze of, you know, like I was reading three books a week and having to write 7 to 10 pages on them within that time. And then like, you know, then you get to the things that you're actually doing research on. Um, but it is interesting because, you know, if you told me to go back, like, I think like, you know, 10 years later now, I'm, I don't want to say more intelligent, but I think like I have a lot more information and, you know, stuff that I've gathered and I certainly have access to, you know, different things and I've just lived life.
Rekka (00:34:10):
Yeah. I was going to say the context or experience is a big part of it.
Rekka (00:34:13):
Yeah. Yeah. I still don't think I could recreate that time where I was just completely submerged in all of this. So, um, you know, I think like life stages have a lot to do with like what you're generating and like what, you know, you can go back and look at something and say like, "Oh, well, I don't remember this exactly. But based on what I've written here, this must have been when this was happening in my life." Um, but anyway, so I'd like to kind of pivot back to, you know, you guys had both, you know, said things that you're like, "I can't fix this. I can't, this isn't worth my time and energy have more to do with, um, it's not representative me anymore and it's not worth trying to fix."
Rekka (00:34:55):
For me. It was that, um, this piece wasn't really genre. So I, wasn't going to go outside of my genre markets that I'm looking at to find a place to submit it to, what, build a name that nobody cares about? You know, like there'll be one 501 word story out there in a non genre magazine, or, you know, maybe? Um, it just like, you know, I could write of 5,000 word version of this story, and that might be interesting to do, but like I was exploring, it was a, um, a word prompt, you know, challenge. So everyone, I think, honestly the word prompt was "writer." And so I, you know, like I, wasn't going to write super fantasy about it. I could have, but I just sort of had this idea and I went with it. I think I turned it in the next day or something like that. And they picked it like, so it barely got revised. It barely got re-read. And, um, it's not really representative, not just of me as a writer and what I'm capable of, but of the rest of my body of work. You know, like 500 words. I'm not going to sit here and revise it to add more fantasy or add more science fiction. I'm just going to let it go.
Hilary (00:36:09):
Yeah.
Kaelyn (00:36:10):
One of the things that's really interesting and what I like hearing from both of you is a level of self-awareness that you don't find in humanity a lot. And Rekka always teases me about, um, about like how, what I think of writers as like, as a collective and whatever. But one of the things that I will say that I always find with writers is they're self-aware to the point of their own detriment.
Hilary (00:36:33):
That is a mood.
Rekka (00:36:36):
And are you still self-aware of like, if you're going far off the other end where you are, so self-deprecating, you know, it's, it's one thing to be not—
Kaelyn (00:36:45):
Yeah, no, it's, there's, there's a cer there's definitely like, you know, there's a surface tension that's going to break at some points to be sure. Um, but Mo a lot of writers are incredibly self-aware. Um, obviously not all of them, because the other reason that it might be time to trunk a story— Rekka, that is the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life.
Rekka (00:37:07):
I told you I'm in a shed. I can't just like wave my coffee mug in the air and make someone come and fill it for me.
Kaelyn (00:37:12):
I'm so concerned for you right now. And I just really hope—
Rekka (00:37:15):
I just tilted my head back—for our, for our listeners, if I don't trim this out—I tilted my head back to get the last of my coffee out of my mug. And I tapped to the bottom so that,
Kaelyn (00:37:23):
No. No, tap implies a much more gentle action than what was taking place there. This was a, like, "you give that to me right now."
Rekka (00:37:33):
I mean, yes.
Hilary (00:37:34):
This was a glass bottle of ketchup at a diner sort of motion.
Kaelyn (00:37:39):
Yes that's exactly what that was like, you know, like someone's holding it up to their eye. Like, that's exactly what was happening there.
Rekka (00:37:46):
Look, I like coffee.
Kaelyn (00:37:48):
We know honey. Um, but the other reason, you know, the, if we're go into a little bit of the more depressing side, maybe the side where you're not the one that makes the decision that it's time to trunk a story and other people are telling you too, is that the story is I am just going to say it: unfixable. As, you know, an editor as somebody who reads a lot of submissions, you know, I have come across multiple instances of novel length books that are unfixable.
Rekka (00:38:21):
I have a question.
Kaelyn (00:38:23):
Sure.
Rekka (00:38:23):
Because while revising, you can literally replace every word in the story.
Kaelyn (00:38:28):
Jason and the Argonauts, if you replace all of the pieces of the boat, is it still the original boat?
Rekka (00:38:33):
Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, if this happens over multiple revision passes and you, you know, are the same person, roughly, as you work on it, is it not possible to replace all the words over a period of time and turn it into a better story.
Kaelyn (00:38:53):
Okay. So let's talk about that because, and this is, you know, something where I know I'm going to be on the, uh, the defensive here a tiny bit, because.
Rekka (00:39:01):
No, you are the aggressor here. I'm sorry.
Hilary (00:39:02):
You have uttered fightin' words to a couple of writers.
Kaelyn (00:39:09):
Writers do not like to hear that something is unfixable.
Rekka (00:39:12):
I can edit this out too. I can make her say anything I want. I can change every word in this podcast. I have hours and hours of Kaelyn speaking.
Hilary (00:39:23):
It's just going to be me uttering nonsequitors.
Kaelyn (00:39:28):
This entire podcast is just going to be reduced to us laughing about coffee. Yes.
Rekka (00:39:32):
If it must be, it must be that will make it better, at least right, than you telling us that we didn't write a story and we have to put it away.
Kaelyn (00:39:39):
So here's the thing. Editors also do not like to say something is unfixable. Me as an editor, all I want to do is fix this. All I want to do is, and there's actually, I've shown Rekka a couple instances of like stories I got. And I wrote, like there was one of them, I think I wrote five pages single-spaced of just notes and like the first two were identifying all of the problems. And then the third remaining three were okay, here's how we fix this. And I remember showing it to, uh, to Collin Coyle. And he was like, "Kaelyn, this is supposed to be a pretty much completed draft somebody turned in, you've read this, sat down and spit this out in an hour and a half. This is nowhere near a complete list of what, you know, would have to be done here. And you're basically suggesting that they take everything they did and start over. This story is not fixable." And he was right. But I don't like to admit that because I am—not just in terms of stories, in terms of everything in my life—I'm a fixer.
Rekka (00:40:46):
Well I think most people are. You go on Twitter and say you have a problem and you will have so many comments, so fast, of people giving you advice that you didn't ask for us. This is human nature.
Kaelyn (00:40:55):
Is that, is that people who just want to give you advice or is that people who like genuinely want to fix something?
Rekka (00:41:03):
It happened to me today. A friend told me a situation that they had that was untenable. And my immediate reaction was "well, could you...?" You know, and it wasn't because I was thinking that they were incapable of solving this on their own. It's just, I really enjoy solving problems. That's why I code, you know, like when I, when I find that semi-colon in PHP that's broken everything, like I'm really happy.
Hilary (00:41:24):
Ughhh, PHP.
Kaelyn (00:41:25):
I mean, look, I work in, you know, I work in sales and like, this is, you know, I always, whenever I have to train someone new or whenever I have to, you know, talk about something, I always say, "they're coming to you because they don't, they may not realize it, but they have a problem. They need something to, you know, help with whatever. So that's what you're, you know, you're helping with here as you're being a problem solver." I wanna... But here's the thing. I want to make the distinction between problem solving and fixing, because problem solving is helping is, you know, trying to mitigate a situation, to an extent. Fixing something is "there are things that are broken here and we need to glue them back together. We need to pop them back into place so that the machine can go back to ticking."
Kaelyn (00:42:10):
Um, I don't like to think that there are stories that are unfixable, but there absolutely are. It's not pleasant, especially considering how much time and effort go into these. And sometimes that may be the problem. Is that, you know, you have like, like, you know, like with cooking, like if you, I, I love to cook. And one of the most important things about cooking is knowing that when a dish is done. Where you're like, "Okay, this is it. I don't need to put any more garnish on this. It doesn't need any more salt. It doesn't need any more seasoning me adding more butter to this is not going to improve upon it." It's now over cooked or the sauce is separated or, you know, whatever. So I always kind of lump stories that are unfixable into two categories. Um, one is that the story is a mess. Um, this is a trap I think a lot of writers fall into where they get very excited and then get overwhelmed.
Rekka (00:43:12):
How dare you.
Kaelyn (00:43:12):
I know both of you are feeling very personally attacked right now.
Hilary (00:43:15):
You come into my house on my zoom.
Rekka (00:43:17):
Exactly.
Kaelyn (00:43:20):
But writers, you know, have a lot, especially, you know, in the genres that Rekka, Hilary, and I live in and, you know, fantasy, horror, science fiction, where you've got to create so much stuff and you can just come up with all of these things. And it's like, it's like word vomit. It's just like, it just keeps coming and coming and coming. And it makes the story a mess. You lose track of character arcs, you lose track of plot lines, you lose track of themes because the story is just so ladened down with so many different things. And it could be, you know, it could be the world building is too much, there's too much detail and that's resulting in things being inconsistent. And it's not simply a matter of, okay, we have to make it line up consistently. It could be well, that affects the plot of the story.
Kaelyn (00:44:06):
You know, like you have one character explaining that the magic system works this way, but another character that's completely flying in the face of it. And that's, they do something that is relevant, you know, pivotal even, to the plot moving forward. So there's no way to fix that. Um, you could have too many characters, you could have too many points of view. And some of these sound, you know, individually maybe a thing that you address, but when they're all together, you're just, it's, it's too much. The story at that point is a tear down, where maybe you can salvage the foundation of it, but you're going to have to really like, do some major, major remodeling.
Rekka (00:44:48):
You're literally describing what happened with Flotsam. I worked on this story. I worked on this story for 14 years, but the version that made it to the shelves did not exist until 2016. You know, like the, the story was, um, my NaNoWriMo project every year. And then I would revise it. And as I was rereading it, I would go, Oh, but what if I also, and I always also had it into it. So it just kept getting bigger and more ungainly and yeah.
Kaelyn (00:45:18):
"Ooh, But what if I also" is emblazoned on the outside of so many trunks with stories in them. That is the epitaph on the tombstone.
Rekka (00:45:27):
Yeah.
Hilary (00:45:28):
Yeah. I've been in the situation though. And I think that this comes up more in short fiction than in longer form stuff, where I have ripped and replaced an entire story because the concept of it wouldn't leave my brain. And I think that's the coming back to earlier of "why didn't I try to fix this one trunked story?" I was over the concept. And I've rewritten other stories from the ground up with entirely new characters, but the same basic hook, because I couldn't get over the hook.
Kaelyn (00:46:09):
This is where I was, you know, kind of saying like where you get fixated and infatuated with something. Like you just, there's this thing in your ear that you just, you can't let go of, um,
Rekka (00:46:19):
But that doesn't necessarily create messy drafts. The way that overworking one draft does.
Kaelyn (00:46:24):
Yeah, Absolutely. Yeah. Another time where it's time to trunk a story is you need to work on your writing. There isn't a lot we can do with this story until you get better as a writer. And, you know, there's a lot of different ways and resources to improve on writing, hone your craft. Um, you know, one is just writing. Two, You know, take a class. There's lots of great online classes get involved in writing groups. And you know, that's a, that's a whole topic for another time, but if you're not doing a good job with the actual writing, the story is not going to go anywhere. It's not going to sell. And by the way, speaking of, you know, then being in another place, when you come back to revisit this, you may just start over anyway, because all of the time you spent developing yourself as a writer is going to bring a fresh perspective to this story.
Rekka (00:47:17):
If you come back to it all at that point.
Kaelyn (00:47:19):
If you come back to it all at that point. Um, so yes, unfortunately there are unfixable stories. Um, it's apart from, you know, the time and effort and emotional labor involved in this, there are some points where, you know, you and probably in combination with someone else are going to hit a wall where you just have to say, "it is time for me to be done with this now. I have done everything that I can do. And maybe I've done too much."
Rekka (00:47:48):
If only they'd said that with The Last Jedi.
Kaelyn (00:47:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hilary (00:47:55):
Yep.
Rekka (00:47:55):
At every level we can fall victim to this. Um, yeah. So, you know, it's funny while we were talking, um, I went back to my trunked folder and I did notice that I have a note about this story. Cause I put a story in a folder, because if like there are different versions of it, if I have, you know, a, a version for anonymous submissions or I have a version where they wanted Times and a version where they wanted Courier, I have, you know, each file saved separately. And so each story gets a folder. And the note for this one says "in the drawer, maybe rewrite?" So like, you know, 500 words would be a total rewrite, not like rework. Um, you will also be happy to know that I did apparently have the cat story in that folder. Um, except it is out on submission right now. So, um, I obviously didn't care, uh, that I decided to trunk it. Um, it has been at one market for 106 days now. So just kind of out of mind, out of sight. I don't know whether I put it in the folder before or after I sent it off.
Kaelyn (00:48:56):
So Hilary, you know, as kind of, kind of the expert here on, on trunking stories, what advice do you have for people who are, you know, can't quite figure out if they've hit the wall yet?
Hilary (00:49:11):
Oh, geez.
Kaelyn (00:49:15):
Well, you've been on this show before. You knew we were going to ask you—,
Hilary (00:49:18):
But last time I brought the ending question.
Kaelyn (00:49:22):
That's a good point.
Hilary (00:49:25):
Um, you know, on my show, I get to ask those hard questions and not have to answer them. Um, so the things I would say, if you're not sure about trunking something are really just set it aside for two weeks. If you still feel like, and it doesn't have to be two weeks, but like pick an arbitrary amount of time that is longer than a day to let the story sit and see if it still compels you. And you don't have to reread it in order to decide if it's still compelling to you, just whatever your metric is for you believe in this story.
Hilary (00:50:16):
If that's something that you still want to put out into the world, and if you have the energy to do that, then don't trunk it. You can put it on hiatus. You can say this is waiting for a specific market. I've sat on stories for, I sat on a story for six months this year, because PseudoPod only is open for original fiction submissions during October. And I knew that this was a horror story that hadn't yet been out to PseudoPod and I wanted to try it on them. And got rejected. It's out at another market. That'll be okay. And this is, you know, this is a story with 20-something-odd rejections under its belt. There's no threshold of rejections. There's no threshold of markets. It is, "Does this story still means something to you?" Yeah. Um, and if it still means something to you, you could still decide to trunk it, because I like nothing better than to be a contradiction.
Hilary (00:51:28):
You could, you know, you could trunk it today and then in a year think, "Oh, whatever happened to that story?" Um, and the other thing I would say is don't let your story that you are obsessing over right now be the only thing in your life. That, uh, you know, I have, I have spent probably a good year of my 15 years as, uh, a submitting working writer, obsessing over stories and tinkering on stories and worrying about stories that I could have spent just pouring that energy into something new. And it doesn't have to be a story. It doesn't have to be writing. Just something. It's not healthy to think about writing every day of your life. It's not healthy to think about any single thing every day of your life to the point that it upsets you.
Kaelyn (00:52:46):
Yeah.
Rekka (00:52:47):
And yeah, once you start submitting the story, as you are putting yourself in that position where you're more likely to be upset than not because there are, um, I looked yesterday, so this might not be up to date, but on the Submission Grinder, um, which is run by Diabolical Plots, uh, of markets that were either open or only temporarily closed, uh, there were 590. So you could put yourself through an awful lot of rejections with a single story and it not having anything to do with it being a bad story, but just, you know, the market submitted to wasn't right for it. There were too many great stories that, you know, submissions period. There were, um, you know, other people with the same topic, you know, and they had to pick one or they decided there was an anthology call because too many people sent them the same kind of story and then they didn't take any of them. Yeah. Because they thought someone else would too.
Rekka (00:53:44):
So, you know, there are lots of reasons that have nothing to do with that validation that you want, um, that your story might get rejected. And then there are also lots and lots of markets where if you just kind of get it in your head that this story might get shot out in 500 different directions, you can go back to your life and forget that you have a story in submission until you hear back about it. Um, which is why I try to always log my submissions in the Submissions Grinder. So I remember if I have a story out right now. Because I really try to put it out of my head until I get some sort of letter one way or the other, um, which I definitely recommend. Just like Hilary said, it's like have something else that you're really focused on. Don't be focused on "What's the story doing? What are people thinking about it? Um, will it be rejected? Does this editor hate?" It is, it is. There's a thing called rejectomancy that people attempt to try and divine what is happening with the stories at markets and how that market is moving through their slush pile and whether all the stories that are still out are, are now second tier or third tier—
Hilary (00:54:53):
Rekka, I'm on this call, you don't have to say "someone."
Rekka (00:54:59):
I was trying to make you sound bigger, you know? Um, and this is, you know, this is a thing that people do and it can be fun. And then suddenly you're reloading the submissions grinder three times a day on the single market and you were going to write, but that twenty-five minute timer you set for your writing sprint goes off and all you've done is stared at markets and what they're doing and tried to imagine your way into their brains. And it's not going to happen because you're also dealing with slush readers, plus editors, plus, you know, exhaustion. If somebody doesn't read your submission for three weeks, it's not because they're busy necessarily. They might just be coping. Um, so yeah, the, the idea of thinking too hard about what's out there in the world is, is a good point. Like don't, don't stress about it.
Hilary (00:55:45):
Uh, the other thing, and you know, this is, this is something I harp on a lot, uh, on my show and basically to everybody, is like trunking a story isn't the end of the world. And even just a single rejection, isn't the end of the world. And it, and that's, I won't say that you necessarily get hardened to it because I still get rejections that hurt sometimes. But you, the more rejections you have, the less precious any of them feel.
Kaelyn (00:56:21):
Yeah. Yeah.
Rekka (00:56:24):
Absolutely.
Hilary (00:56:24):
You know, just send the story back out if you're not sure if you want to trunk it yet, send it sent out again.
Kaelyn (00:56:31):
I was actually going to say exactly something along those lines, which you know, is to kind of, you know, round out our thoughts here is that there is nothing wrong with trunking, a story. You know, we were joking at the top of this, about quitting. It's not really, like, we shouldn't say quitting, it's not quitting. It's recognizing limitations and recognizing, you know, what you know is best spent with your time and energy. There's nothing wrong with walking away from something and saying, "I did as much as I could with this. I'm proud of what I did, but this was all I could do." Um, I think that there's, I don't want to call it a stigma, but like a sense of self-defeat where when you trunk something, especially if it is something that you put a lot of time and effort into and having to put it down and say, "all right, this just isn't going to work." Um, it's, it's definitely, uh, a moment in your life. Um, but I think a lot of people get scared by that because it feels like quitting. It feels like" I did everything I was supposed to in this still didn't work out. I'm a failure. What am I doing with myself? What am I doing with my life?" And it's not that. It's, it actually displays a really good sense of self-awareness and realism.
Rekka (00:57:54):
And maybe self-preservation. Like we were saying.
Kaelyn (00:57:57):
Self-preservation. Yeah, exactly. So.
Rekka (00:57:59):
And we, we haven't really pointed out how much harder it is to do it with a novel because of how many more words are in there. And then in theory, how much more time and your, you know, everything, and then you told people you were writing a novel and they are like, "so how's that novel coming?" And you're like, "Oh, I gave up on it." Like, that's not the answer you want to give anyone. Um, of course, if you didn't tell them too much about the novel, you can just say, "Oh, it's coming along great." Cause you're talking about like three novels from the one that you last referred to. But yeah, I mean, this is easier to practice on a short story level. Um, and then maybe you can grow those callouses you need for querying a novelty agents. And then if you get an agent, hooray, but now you have to put the book on submission. So now it just starts all over again. You just have someone else who cries with you.
Kaelyn (00:58:46):
It's important. To have someone else to cry with you.
Rekka (00:58:49):
Yeah. Practice having your rejections and, um, eating them too. And then, you know, don't stop writing. Like don't, don't look to the external validation. If writing is the part you love, like if you get in the habit of submitting stories, because that's what everyone does rather than like, my favorite part of the writing process is a submission. Is writing that cover letter, like then go for it. But I mean like—
Kaelyn (00:59:15):
Also if you've ever encountered one of those people run away. Yeah.
Rekka (00:59:19):
Short story cover letters are not that bad.
Hilary (00:59:20):
Short story cover letters are, are two sentences and you're out of there.
Rekka (00:59:25):
And they get copy pasted from my spreadsheet. Yeah. They, um, they are so much better than query letters.
Kaelyn (00:59:31):
Look I'm just saying, anybody who's like "my favorite part of this is submissions." That's not, that's not a human, that's an alien here trying to find ways to infiltrate our society. And they're not doing a very good job.
Rekka (00:59:45):
I mean, Submission Grinder does make it kind of fun, but yeah, not—
Kaelyn (00:59:49):
You're making me suspicious of you Rekka.
Rekka (00:59:51):
You should've been suspicious of me for a long, long time now.
Kaelyn (00:59:53):
Okay. More suspicious.
Rekka (00:59:54):
Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, I just, I just wanted to point out that we hadn't really talked about like doing this with 200,000 words versus, you know, 2000 words, but, um, the feeling of a sunk cost or whatever, uh, it doesn't really go with writing because, you know, like if you were going to sit down and become a concert pianist, you would not sit down and attempt a concert on your first try. You would practice. And writers, I think, have this imagination, uh, have this vision that you write down— or you sit down and you write the Great American Novel, because that's the way we hear everybody doing it. Um, nobody talks about the 36 drafts that they threw out. I mean, now, now we do cause we have Twitter, but like, you know, like the, the fallacy of, you know, sitting down doing it perfectly the first time and then becoming famous and retiring and just like maybe writing two more books before you die and three are maybe found and released posthumously, like—
Kaelyn (01:00:57):
Yeah, I think we've got this thing in our head where we read and we enjoy reading and maybe we enjoy talking about reading. So we don't understand that you don't just sit down and churn out something perfect. To kind of, you know, finish up our thoughts here. Don't think of trunking a story as time that you wasted. Think of it as practice. Think of it as, you know, like Rekka said with the concert pianist,, you're not sitting down and performing a concert. There is a lot of time that went into this. The reason I think that we get a lot really hung up with writing is because, you know, somebody who's practicing the piano at the end of the day, they don't really have anything physical to show you that they did. With writing, there is something that exists. You have produced something that, you know, is tangible in the sense that you can show it to other people. Um, and that makes it harder to walk away from. You know, anytime you're making something, you know, like, um, a painting or, you know, you're into woodworking or some, you know, gardening, something, and you have to walk away from it that makes it so much harder to do.
Rekka (01:02:13):
And also the mistakes when you practice piano are ephemeral and they just sit here. Whereas when you stare at something that isn't quite working, that has become a physical product, there's, there's a lot of, uh, self reckoning all the time forever.
Hilary (01:02:29):
Yeah.
Kaelyn (01:02:30):
So Hilary, to, to kind of, you know, close us out here. Do you have a good, um, do you have a good trunk story to tell us? Either yourself or, you know, maybe one of your favorite stories from your podcast?
Hilary (01:02:44):
Yes. So, uh, I alluded to this story before, but it's, uh, it's not a story I will ever tire of telling, which is the very first story that I ever tried to sell. Uh, the first place I sent it to was Weird Tales Magazine. Uh, this was back in 2005, uh, where the head editor was George Scithers. Uh, and the thing about sending it to Weird Tales. I had that magazine in my head as this is, you know, "this is a place where you send stories and they get published. And like you get noticed by doing that." But George was a family friend for about half of my life. At that point, he had lived about six blocks away from the house I grew up in and my dad had worked for him on and off for years. And when I was a wee small lad would just like, take me over there, talk with George for a while, George would call me a little sprout, and then we would leave. So when I sent this story to Weird Tales, I didn't get a form rejection. I didn't get a personal rejection in the mail. George called my house, not even the phone number I had listed on the top of my manuscript—
Rekka (01:04:25):
Oh my god.
Hilary (01:04:25):
—which was my cell phone. He called my actual house, talked to my dad for half an hour.
Kaelyn (01:04:31):
Oh my god!
Hilary (01:04:31):
—and then said, "Can you put your boy on?"
Rekka (01:04:34):
Oh no.
Hilary (01:04:35):
And told me everything that was wrong with the story and then said, "But it's a damn good story, revise it and send it back to me."
Rekka (01:04:47):
Oh, your first submission was a revise and resubmit, but prolly didn't feel like it.
Kaelyn (01:04:52):
No, it felt like somebody called, spoke to your father for half an hour,
Rekka (01:04:56):
Like the principle.
Hilary (01:04:56):
Yeah.
Rekka (01:04:56):
—and then was, as an afterthought, "Oh right. Your kid. I have to tell him everything wrong with what he just did."
Hilary (01:05:02):
Yep. Uh, so I revised and I resubmitted and he sent back a fully, my same manuscript, fully marked up with all the things that were wrong with it.
Rekka (01:05:16):
Still wrong with it.
Hilary (01:05:17):
Yeah. Uh, because I was an 18 year old boy-shaped person who didn't know any genre conventions of Urban Fantasy. And so, and then I submitted that story again. Uh, and in the time between, when I had gotten the second draft of it back from George and when I got it back out to them, the publisher had a big shakeup and restructured the whole organization. Uh, so by the time my manuscript arrived with them again, uh, it was Jeff and Ann VanderMeer heading up Weird Tales and,
Rekka (01:06:08):
And they didn't call to speak with your father that time.
Hilary (01:06:11):
Yeah. They were not having this story. I think I submitted, I went through two or three other rounds of rejections because I was 18 and didn't have Twitter because Twitter wasn't a thing yet for another year. And certainly wasn't a thing writers did. Uh, so I didn't have anybody to tell me you don't revise and resubmit the story to every magazine. So Gordon van Gelder or one of his slush readers had that story go across his physical mailbox three or four times at F&SF. And, uh, then I left for college and stuck that story in the trunk.
Rekka (01:06:57):
That's an outstanding story. That is probably very similar to what I would have done if I had managed to finish, uh, the first novel that I ever wrote, which I did not know was fanfic, because I did not have very good internet access at the time. I could not run Netscape and AOL on my computer at the same time.
Hilary (01:07:18):
Oh yep, mood.
Rekka (01:07:18):
So had not broadened my horizons very much. And I wrote a Next Generation book because I read all these Pocket books. And I thought, what you did was you wrote the story and you submitted it and then they would pick it and print it if they liked it. So I was getting ready. You know, I was, I was writing my, my novel. I was about a quarter of the way through it. Um, when I made the mistake of showing it to a teacher who was also a Star Trek fan, and I was showing it to him as a fellow Star Trek fan, and then he gave it back to me covered in red pen marks and I never touched it again.
Rekka (01:07:49):
So, um, that probably saved me the, the, um, the experience of having, of having my ego, um, wiped across other people's desks quite a lot. But it's funny that you, you had this experience with someone who knew you well enough that they wanted to give you the best shot that they could at publishing this, and then taught you the wrong conventions of how you go about—
Hilary (01:08:12):
Yeah.
Rekka (01:08:12):
—submitting short stories. Um, it would've been great, and maybe he even did set it, say it, cause you know, like our memories, we pick out the things that you want to hear at the time or that we comprehend. So maybe the conversation even started with now, "don't normally do this, but—" you didn't know, I could just see that happening. And then later you go, "Oh man, I wish you'd told me." He was like, "that was the first thing I said!" But you know, I'm putting words in your memory, but, um, yeah, I'm just like the ego that we have at that age. I'm so glad I didn't start writing seriously. I have enough ego now. I didn't, I didn't need that overflow.
Hilary (01:08:48):
Yeah. I hang onto this story both as a, like a cautionary and a funny tale of like
Kaelyn (01:08:56):
Oh, it's an outstanding tale.
Rekka (01:08:58):
It's hilarious. It's, you know, got pathos, it's got ego, it's got all these things, but also it put me onto the path where I am now. That, you know, I had this encouragement from an editor and I probably like, I was already planning on pursuing writing, but doing this, having this as my first submission experience gave me that boost, uh, which, I mean, it was like a rocket boost straight into heartbreak of like 18 consecutive rejections. But it still put me on that path.
Rekka (01:09:41):
It was still the editor of a magazine that you respected telling you it's worth trying again.
Rekka (01:09:45):
Yeah.
Hilary (01:09:46):
Yeah.
Rekka (01:09:47):
That's awesome.
Kaelyn (01:09:48):
That's great. I think that just about wraps up trucking any, uh, any parting thoughts, anyone, any final words of wisdom?
Hilary (01:09:56):
Yeah, Absolutely. If you don't trunk anything in your life, you have no chance of coming on my show.
Kaelyn (01:10:04):
There you go. So there you go. Well, um, Hilary, thank you again so much for, uh, for joining us. This was, um, you know, a delight as always. uh, where can people find you online?
Hilary (01:10:16):
Absolutely. Uh, folks can find me primarily on Twitter, where I yell about everything, not just writing. Uh, my Twitter is @HBBisenieks. You can find my podcast on Twitter at @trunkcast and tales from the trunk is in whatever podcast app you're already listening to this in. You can also find it at www.talesfromthetrunk.com and links to all my writing can be found at www.Hilarybisenieks.com.
Rekka (01:10:51):
And all of those links will be in the show notes.
Kaelyn (01:10:53):
Yes.
Rekka (01:10:54):
Yeah, cause that's not an easy name to spell.
Rekka (01:10:57):
And it'll be an active link. So don't worry. Just, just go look at the details on your podcast and, uh, it'll be there for you. All right, Hilary, thank you so much for coming back again.
Hilary (01:11:07):
It's been a pleasure.
Rekka (01:11:07):
And, um, I'm sure we'll come up with another excuse to have you back.
Kaelyn (01:11:10):
Yeah absolutely.
Hilary (01:11:10):
I'm looking forward to it.
Kaelyn (01:11:13):
Any of those things you want to rant about. You just let us know.
Hilary (01:11:34):
I'm here for it.
Rekka (01:11:34):
Thanks so much, Hilary.
Hilary (01:11:34):
Bye.
Rekka (01:11:34):
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 at @WMBcast, same for Instagram, or WMBcast.com. If you find value in the content that we provide, we would really appreciate your support 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.