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61 - Rejection mindset with Kayla Stansbury · Story Magic

2:28
Emily: Hey, writers.
2:28
Rachel: Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.
2:32
Kayla Stansbury: I'm Rachel.
2:33
Rachel: And I'm Emily.
2:34
Kayla Stansbury: And today we are talking all about rejection with a very special guest, Kayla Stansbury.
2:41
Emily: Yay, Kayla. Welcome. Hi, Kayla.
2:43
Emily: Hello.
2:44
Emily: Hi.
2:46
Kayla Stansbury: About rejection with you and to give our listeners a little context, you're great at this.
2:54
Kayla Stansbury: We were.
2:55
Kayla Stansbury: We were on.
2:56
Kayla Stansbury: You're one of our tenacious writing members.
2:57
Rachel: And we were longest standing members.
3:00
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah.
3:01
Rachel: We just recently had Amelia on, and I think you two have been with us forever.
3:05
Emily: Yeah, I mean, I think since that very first wave of folks that came in, I think I was in that little first class.
3:11
Kayla Stansbury: Wow, that's crazy because that was like three years ago, back when we had classes.
3:18
Kayla Stansbury: Anyway, so we were on a call recently, and we were on like a. It was either an open coaching call or like an office hours call.
3:28
Kayla Stansbury: But for our listeners in tenacious writing, we do these kind of open calls where Emily and I will host some time, just qa time.
3:37
Kayla Stansbury: In this specific instance, I was on a zoom, just hanging out, and people were coming in to.
3:43
Kayla Stansbury: To chat, brainstorm, ask questions, get coaching, hang out.
3:47
Kayla Stansbury: And Kayla was there.
3:48
Kayla Stansbury: And we had this really great discussion about querying and rejection and what it's like to go through that process.
3:58
Kayla Stansbury: And you had shared some of your journey through querying over the last couple of years and everything that you've been through.
4:06
Kayla Stansbury: And some of what you were just saying was, like blowing my mind.
4:08
Kayla Stansbury: And it just made me feel, like, so incredibly proud.
4:11
Kayla Stansbury: And I was like, we need to get you on the podcast to talk about this mindset that you have, that.
4:16
Kayla Stansbury: That it feels like you have been through the querying ringer.
4:21
Kayla Stansbury: And right now you are.
4:25
Kayla Stansbury: You are feeling like, okay, this is just how it happens.
4:29
Kayla Stansbury: We have ups, we have downs, but we continue.
4:32
Kayla Stansbury: And I want to talk to you about that today because I think I just, as I was listening to you, it was just so poignant to hear your view on it, knowing that your in the trenches and so many of our listeners are either in querying trenches or will be at some point in the future and would really benefit from hearing what this process has been like for you.
4:54
Kayla Stansbury: So, yeah, I wanted to start with, tell us a little bit about you and your journey and like, when you started querying what that felt like compared to where you are at currently right now.
5:07
Emily: Yeah. So I actually had to go back through my email inbox to figure out when all of this happened because it's kind of a blur, but I, in early 2021, I did this author mentoring program.
5:23
Emily: My mentor's name is Jessie Cole Jackson.
5:25
Emily: She's incredible.
5:26
Emily: But I applied for this, and I am someone who often will put myself out there for things that I really don't have any business applying for.
5:35
Emily: And I've found that that's really motivational for me.
5:38
Emily: And so it doesn't, it's more to do with, like, a mindset thing than anything else.
5:42
Emily: Like, I know that I will want to show up more when it's part of some group which is part of being in tenacious writing or when it's part of a contest or when it's part of a workshop, you know?
5:54
Emily: Anyway, so I applied for this with my middle grade Sci-FI novel that I'd been working on for several years.
6:02
Emily: I got in, and then Jesse and I spent about a year fully overhauling, like, full rewrite this novel.
6:10
Emily: And in April of 21, I sent her an email that was titled, like, the draft is finished.
6:15
Emily: And she was like, great, I'll read it.
6:17
Emily: And then about two months later, I sent her an email that was like, I started querying.
6:22
Emily: She was like, why?
6:25
Emily: And I, it was fine.
6:28
Emily: Um, but I think for me, I remember the day so clearly that I decided because I was waiting to get feedback on a couple of things, but I really felt like, I was like, you know, I I feel like right now, if everyone in the world decides that they don't want to publish my book, I think that I'll be okay.
6:46
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah.
6:46
Emily: And I think I'd rather start querying when I know it's gonna not rock me so much, then get too caught up in, like, is this the right time?
6:57
Emily: Because with querying, you know, in the, when you query a book, sometimes you only get one shot with that agent, with that product.
7:06
Emily: Right.
7:07
Emily: Unless you do, like, a giant overhaul.
7:09
Emily: And so there's a little bit of that, like, it's a nerve wracking thing of, like, oh, my gosh, I have one shot with this person, and if I don't take it seriously, I'm never going to be able to work with them again.
7:20
Emily: Right.
7:21
Emily: And so it feels very all or nothing, very black and white, very, like, you have one chance to do this.
7:27
Emily: And I think for me, like, that day, it was, I think, literally, it might have been exactly three years ago because it was May 5.
7:36
Emily: So I walked into my kitchen and told my husband.
7:43
Emily: I was like, I think I'm going to query.
7:45
Emily: And he's like, why aren't you waiting for feedback?
7:50
Emily: He was like, yes, but this is the way, you know, and I did it in batches, you know, and that's the thing.
7:58
Emily: It was a combination of, like, following advice of what people said was the right thing to do, you know, and also listening to my own gut as far as, like, what felt manageable for me in terms of a process.
8:13
Emily: Like, I knew, I don't know.
8:16
Emily: It felt like the right time.
8:18
Emily: And so I did get a spoiler alert.
8:21
Emily: They were all rejections, you know, but it was that I felt really good about those rejections.
8:29
Emily: I felt like I could weather them really well.
8:32
Emily: And I don't know, I still hold to the fact that if I had waited longer, perhaps I would not have been in the right headspace at that point because of other things going on in life.
8:43
Emily: And it would have rocked me more than starting when I did, you know?
8:50
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah. When you were saying, like, you knew that it, you wanted to try it out, it felt like the right time.
8:58
Kayla Stansbury: You didn't feel like it would rock you, and then you got all those rejections.
9:05
Kayla Stansbury: What was that like?
9:06
Kayla Stansbury: Did it rock you?
9:06
Kayla Stansbury: Did you feel fairly good about it?
9:10
Emily: You know, what.
9:10
Kayla Stansbury: What was it like going through that process?
9:13
Emily: Yeah. So they weren't all rejections at first.
9:17
Emily: That's part of it.
9:18
Emily: So the first batch that I sent out, I got two full requests out of that first batch that I sent out.
9:27
Emily: And so to me, it communicated, like, oh, I'm on the right track.
9:33
Emily: And I think it's also about knowing your market and knowing where you fit.
9:37
Emily: Middle grade science fiction is kind of a tough, and I knew that from talking to people.
9:43
Emily: Again, this business of, like, putting yourself in a place maybe you don't have any business being.
9:47
Emily: I was talking to everybody.
9:48
Emily: I just, every book conference anywhere that was near my town was just bothering people about, like, tell me everything, you know?
9:55
Emily: But I knew, I was like, I know that this is going to be a tough sell.
10:02
Emily: I know it's a tough sell for somebody who's debut, meaning, like, I have not published anything before.
10:09
Emily: And so, but I got those full requests.
10:14
Emily: And so that immediately for me, like, I took those, like, right into my heart of, like, okay, there are people whose livelihoods depend on selling books, who are interested in more of my writing, you know, so people who have, like, skin in the game, there's something on the line for them.
10:31
Emily: They're not going to spend their time on something that they don't see any potential in.
10:36
Emily: And some of those people see potential in my work, and that was all I needed, you know, I was like, that's fantastic.
10:45
Emily: And even just sometimes going in of folks who would send full requests in, in that initial batch, I would go and look at the people they represented and just reminding myself of, like, oh, like, other people that this person has represented went through this process.
11:05
Emily: Like, this person who's big name to me now was getting an email, kind of like the one that I got, you know, and, like, there's, you don't know until it happens to you.
11:15
Emily: And so every one of those full requests could have been legitimately, could have been the one that led to me having an agent, you know?
11:20
Emily: Yeah.
11:24
Emily: And so then when I got on the other end of that, when I got a ton of, like, fully not personalized form rejections, I knew it was a lot easier for me to say, like, every book is not going to be everybody's cup of tea.
11:42
Emily: Yeah.
11:43
Emily: And everybody's list is different.
11:46
Emily: What they have space for is different.
11:48
Emily: What they know they can sell is different.
11:50
Emily: And also just knowing myself and knowing this was the first book that I had queried it, it was gonna be wild if I just rolled up with the first book I'd ever, like, really polished and said, like, I will succeed, you know, chances are it probably wasn't as good as other things I'm going to write later, you know, so that's kind of how I dealt with those.
12:13
Emily: The hard ones, I think the hardest ones to handle were, like, getting rejections back on the full request.
12:19
Emily: So once people had really sat with it and had given it a shot and then ultimately decided, this is not for me, you know?
12:24
Emily: Yeah, yeah.
12:29
Rachel: Harder.
12:29
Rachel: Like, how did you tackle those ones?
12:31
Rachel: Like, what was that experience like?
12:34
Emily: Yeah, so there were some that gave me feedback in those emails and that was super helpful.
12:40
Emily: Even if it's something really small.
12:41
Emily: A lot of the feedback that I got had to do with just not feeling sold on the story or not connecting to the story or not.
12:52
Emily: You know, you say it a bunch of different ways, but ultimately what it means is, like, it is business for them.
12:58
Emily: And they did not think that this book was going to make the money that they needed to make to, like, take care of their families and live their life, you know, and then you can't fault people for that.
13:09
Emily: Like, it's their job.
13:12
Emily: And so if they don't think that they can sell it, then it's not a good idea for them to take it on.
13:18
Emily: So those were easier.
13:20
Emily: I did get some that were, that didn't have any feedback, and that was hard.
13:26
Emily: Cause you played the guessing game.
13:27
Emily: I think that's what I mean by it was hard, is sitting and thinking, like, well, what could I have done differently?
13:33
Emily: Like, what's the one thing that I can take from this experience?
13:36
Emily: Change in my manuscript and go out and do it again.
13:41
Emily: Yeah.
13:41
Emily: And it was, there was a feeling of being stuck or confused and wanting to make edits and make changes, but not knowing exactly what those edits or changes really should be.
13:56
Emily: Yeah.
13:57
Emily: And it's always kind of a slippery slope if you make changes based on an agent's feedback who rejected you because they're not, you're not gonna resend it to them.
14:07
Emily: Once you've made edits with their feedback, they've already said that they're not interested.
14:11
Emily: Right.
14:12
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah.
14:12
Emily: So you're kind of having to guess what the next person is going to like or not like.
14:18
Emily: And it's harder to do that when you don't have a lot of material to work with.
14:24
Emily: Which is why I think going back to, like, deciding to query why that was so important.
14:28
Emily: Because I didn't decide based on, like, I know my manuscript is exactly right.
14:33
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah.
14:34
Emily: Because that wasn't why I decided to start querying when I got evidence that it wasn't perfect.
14:40
Emily: That didn't, like, completely rock my world, you know?
14:43
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah. Yeah.
14:44
Rachel: That's such a hard line to draw.
14:48
Rachel: I mean, it sounds like for you, a lot of it came down to, like, gut instinct.
14:51
Rachel: You're like, it's good enough, but I haven't been obsessing about it.
14:55
Rachel: And so there's, like, you're leaving that room open.
14:58
Rachel: Do you have any advice on how to, like, how somebody would go about making that decision?
15:06
Emily: I mean, the short answer is no. But then I'll turn around and I think, okay, well, the real truth is this is that we know, like, writing is so it's personal and it's holistic, and it's your whole self that shows up to do the writing.
15:24
Emily: And if you are, like, not well in any number of areas in your life, your writing is going to reflect that.
15:35
Emily: And so oftentimes the best, like, when I feel stuck in my writing, it's also probably connected to some other thing in my life in some other dimension.
15:47
Emily: Right.
15:48
Emily: So it's connected to something that's, like, a little tensiony or off in relationships or related to, like, spiritual practice or faith or it's something that's off in relation to my day job, where I work.
16:01
Emily: Or, you know, like, you.
16:03
Emily: You are your whole self in all of those places.
16:05
Emily: And so with querying that's why I think, like, it's gotta be this, like, holistic decision because it's, like, there's no way to make the perfect choice about when to query because a lot of it is luck and a lot of it is the right person at the right time.
16:26
Emily: And you just can't control that.
16:28
Emily: Right.
16:29
Emily: But what you can, what's in your, like, locus of control, right.
16:33
Emily: Is kind of you, but also maybe not really, you know?
16:39
Emily: So I like, my advice is more this, like, holistic advice of, like, if you've got, if you've got, like, a creative, passionate project that you want to put out into the world, like, get to know, like, the person who's making it, which is you, you know, and what is working for you and what's not working for you because that's what's going to stick with you all the way through the process.
17:05
Emily: You know?
17:05
Emily: Like, the person who was with me at the start of querying was me and the person at the end was also me.
17:11
Emily: And so I needed to take care of me because that was where I was.
17:15
Emily: That's who was gonna do it, you know?
17:17
Emily: Yeah.
17:18
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah.
17:19
Emily: So I think, I mean, I think that's really it of, like, when something gets, like, gets stuck or discouraging or despairing when it comes to writing or the business of writing, getting into the habit of saying, like, okay, well, what?
17:35
Emily: Like, zooming out.
17:37
Emily: Like, it's never gonna be just about the writing.
17:40
Kayla Stansbury: Yes.
17:40
Emily: If something's up in your writing, it's gonna be.
17:43
Emily: It's showing up there because it's on the inside and you've got to figure it out.
17:48
Rachel: Yeah. I love that.
17:51
Emily: Because querying is so related to the business.
17:53
Emily: I think sometimes we want to be a little more clinical about it, and I don't know that that serves us well, you know?
18:00
Emily: Yeah.
18:03
Emily: Something you can plan or predict.
18:05
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah. I mean, this is exactly what I loved from hearing you talk on that TW call is it just appears to me, and I was thinking this earlier, like, that you have this, you have this fearlessness.
18:21
Kayla Stansbury: But I don't think that that's really the right word because I even know from still.
18:25
Kayla Stansbury: Right.
18:25
Kayla Stansbury: Like, I know from talking to you that it's not like queering is still fraught with distress.
18:30
Emily: You know?
18:30
Kayla Stansbury: Like, it still has its ups and downs.
18:33
Kayla Stansbury: It's not fearlessness.
18:34
Kayla Stansbury: But I also see in you this level of confidence.
18:38
Kayla Stansbury: But it also is, like, you're able to clearly articulate so much of this is not personal.
18:45
Kayla Stansbury: And, like, you have your personal, like, I'm making this gesture with my hands where you're, like, a whole circle.
18:53
Kayla Stansbury: Like, you have taken care of your personal, and, like, that has, from what I can see, allowed you to view the querying process as business.
19:05
Kayla Stansbury: And when you get those rejections, like, yeah, they still sting, but I don't hear that you let them reflect on you personally, you know?
19:11
Kayla Stansbury: Like, and I think that's a really tough part of querying, is that it does feel like a rejection of your story is a rejection of yourself, and that's not the reality.
19:23
Kayla Stansbury: And that's not what I'm hearing from you, either.
19:25
Kayla Stansbury: That that's not how you view it.
19:27
Emily: Yeah. And that's not, like, if you read other.
19:31
Emily: Other, like, agents who are gracious enough to write about their side of things and put that out there so that we can read it, that is also what agents are saying, that it isn't personal in that way that you shouldn't.
19:44
Emily: And I, like, I think there's two ways you can take that in.
19:49
Emily: You can take it in as, like, oh, they're just saying that.
19:52
Emily: Or you can be like, they've got a really busy life and they didn't have to say anything.
19:57
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah.
19:58
Emily: And then they decided to say this, so it might actually be what they think.
20:01
Emily: Yeah, that, like, what if it's fine?
20:01
Emily: What if.
20:06
Emily: What if they're not secretly judging you based on 30 pages of your writing?
20:14
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah.
20:15
Emily: You know?
20:15
Emily: Like, what if.
20:18
Emily: What if they're not?
20:18
Emily: And then what?
20:19
Emily: Like, and then it's fine, you know?
20:21
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah.
20:21
Emily: And. But the.
20:23
Emily: I mean, the disappointment is there, too.
20:24
Emily: I know we've talked about, like, grieving before, too, and that, I mean, that's a real thing.
20:30
Emily: I'll.
20:31
Emily: There were.
20:32
Emily: When I knew that my sort of querying time was coming to a close with this manuscript.
20:37
Emily: Bawled my eyes out.
20:39
Emily: I was so sad because I love this story and I love these characters, and I was so proud of the work that I did.
20:47
Emily: And it's just this monumental thing in my life that I was able to write this book.
20:53
Emily: And I want, like, the reason why I wrote it as a book and why I pursued publishing is I want other people to read it.
21:02
Emily: So it's sad that other people are not reading it, you know?
21:06
Emily: And that, like, it took a while to grieve that and to, like, let myself feel sad about that and not immediately kind of.
21:16
Emily: That's the dance, right?
21:17
Emily: Is not immediately trying to explain away what I'm feeling of, like, oh, you shouldn't feel sad because, you know that it wasn't personal.
21:24
Emily: You shouldn't feel sad because you know that no book is ever really dead.
21:28
Emily: That's the other thing, too.
21:29
Emily: If you read the acknowledgement sections of a bunch of different published works, that's the most encouraging place in the world.
21:35
Emily: The number of people who write in their acknowledgments.
21:38
Emily: Thank you so much to whoever for taking a chance on this book, because it was, like, the first one I wrote, but we came back to it when I was already established and da da da, you know?
21:47
Emily: Like, that happens all the time.
21:50
Emily: So who's to say that this, like, this book is not dead?
21:53
Emily: It's just not the one that's gonna get me an agent, you know?
21:57
Rachel: Yeah, well, I love how you explained, right, that you didn't explain away those emotions, right?
22:04
Rachel: You didn't try to write them off as, like, maybe in the future, right?
22:06
Rachel: Like, all the things that, like, well meaning loved ones will say to us, right, to get us to not feel the hard thing.
22:13
Emily: You know, it hurts them that you're hurting.
22:15
Emily: Yeah.
22:16
Emily: Yeah, totally.
22:17
Rachel: But I think that's what's so brilliant about the way that you approach this is you have such strict boundaries around what you are willing to think about things, right.
22:29
Emily: You're in.
22:30
Rachel: And what I mean by that is, like, you're willing to feel all the messy feelings with rejections.
22:35
Rachel: Like, Kayla's talking, like, oh, yeah, I've.
22:37
Emily: Sent all these things.
22:38
Emily: I've got all these rejections.
22:39
Rachel: Like, everything's hunky dory, right.
22:40
Emily: Well, we've seen you struggle, right?
22:40
Emily: Some of them messages that were just like, what is going on?
22:48
Emily: This is abysmal.
22:51
Emily: Why did.
22:52
Emily: And it just.
22:53
Emily: But it was sad, you know?
22:53
Emily: Yeah, but it's those boundaries.
22:56
Rachel: It's those boundaries that you set around what you allow yourself to think in those moments, right?
23:00
Rachel: It's like, you're allowed to feel whatever you feel, but you're not allowed to think that it's personal.
23:06
Emily: Right?
23:06
Rachel: Like Rachel was saying earlier, like, I think you set those really good boundaries around.
23:10
Rachel: Like, I'm just not going to engage in, like, these certain, like, making this about me and making it personal and taking it personally.
23:16
Rachel: And I think that's what's allowed you to keep showing up and, like, you've written more books since then and.
23:22
Rachel: And it's just been really inspiring to watch you just keep putting yourself out there.
23:28
Emily: Yeah. I'd say, though, that.
23:30
Emily: That, like, that being able to be strategic about your thinking, I guess you have to have all of the tools and resources to be able to do that, too.
23:41
Emily: So. Yeah, things like.
23:43
Emily: And I've found the things that.
23:45
Emily: That I kind of keep in my pocket that work for me, like, reading the acknowledgement sections.
23:49
Emily: That's the first thing I do anytime I pick up a book.
23:51
Emily: Cause I'm not gonna spoil anything in there.
23:53
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah.
23:53
Emily: So I. That's the first thing I do, because I. I need all of those reminders of how many people it takes and how long it takes and how many different second chances there are for things.
24:09
Emily: Because sometimes the messages that you're getting is this, like, all or nothing thing of, like, if this book dies, even the language.
24:17
Emily: Right.
24:18
Emily: And we've talked about this when I was, like, in the throes of my grief, is that the language of, like, this book has died in the queering trenches.
24:27
Emily: You know what I'm saying?
24:27
Emily: Like, oh, that sounds awful.
24:30
Emily: But it also is how it feels.
24:32
Emily: So it's fine.
24:34
Emily: But I need to know.
24:36
Emily: I need to be able to look at a bookshelf and know how many, countless numbers of people have gone through something similar.
24:44
Emily: And I need to read interviews with agents who are saying with their own words that it's not personal, you know?
24:50
Emily: Yeah.
24:52
Emily: And I need to hear from other authors online who are saying, like, this is really stressful, so that I can know that it's not a me problem.
25:00
Emily: It's just.
25:01
Emily: Writing a book is stressful.
25:02
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah.
25:03
Emily: You know, and you have to build your own little, like, box of messages to help in the moments where the feelings are overwhelming, you know?
25:15
Emily: Yeah.
25:15
Rachel: Beautiful.
25:16
Emily: Yeah.
25:17
Kayla Stansbury: I obviously, I know, like, oh, we're part of your community, but I also know that, like, you have people in tw that you talk to and rely on, and you have a support system that is, like, here to be with you as you feel those things.
25:31
Kayla Stansbury: And it's.
25:33
Kayla Stansbury: Those people can also tell you, like, these are stories that deserve to exist and that these.
25:39
Kayla Stansbury: You are a writer who can do this and that it is not a one time.
25:43
Kayla Stansbury: Like, there's also not either a rule that you query one and that you're only allowed to query one book ever.
25:50
Kayla Stansbury: Like, you can keep writing, you can keep doing it.
25:52
Kayla Stansbury: And I also can sense a patience in you that you're willing to withstand the length of this process.
26:01
Kayla Stansbury: And I think a lot of people aren't willing to do that, and not in a conscious way.
26:07
Kayla Stansbury: But if you don't have that support system, if you don't have the mindset, if you don't have the foundation, if.
26:13
Emily: You don't have the.
26:14
Kayla Stansbury: The ability to feel yet differentiate.
26:19
Kayla Stansbury: It can wear down on you so hard that you do end up giving up.
26:25
Kayla Stansbury: But in your case, I feel like you have built this structure around you that you are unwilling to give up.
26:33
Emily: Yeah. That's also the unwillingness to give up as a stubborn streak as a person.
26:44
Emily: You know, if it's a contest of wills, then I'm like, kayla is the definition of tenacious.
26:51
Emily: Like, if it's however long, which of us can stand in the weather, you know, buckle up.
26:58
Emily: But I think, like, the language you're saying of, like, building a community.
27:03
Emily: The.
27:05
Emily: I was talking with somebody the other day because they had asked this question of, like, how did you.
27:10
Emily: They were asking me about tenacious writing and how I got connected.
27:13
Emily: And there are other, like, writing groups that I've been connected to over the years.
27:19
Emily: And when I first started looking for groups to get connected to, I was in a similar boat where it just feels really overwhelming of, like, how do I even find people and what do I look for in a group of people?
27:32
Emily: How do I know I've found a good group of people?
27:35
Emily: How do I, you know, all of that?
27:38
Emily: And truly, truly, truly, it's like, trial and error is a bad way to put it.
27:43
Emily: Cause it makes it sound like the other things were mistakes and they weren't.
27:45
Emily: Cause they were super important.
27:48
Emily: But it really is, like, putting yourself out there in ways that feel, like, just a smidge out of your comfort zone.
27:54
Emily: So not like.
27:56
Emily: Like, the first thing that I ever did in a writing group.
27:59
Emily: I was connected with some people on a contest that I shouldn't apply to online, and it was a bunch of folks in the comments, and they're like, we should all get together and, like, on different things.
28:11
Emily: And I was like, yes, for sure.
28:12
Emily: Definitely never had been in a writing group ever in my life.
28:16
Emily: And somehow I ended up, like, running part of it, I believe, for a small period of time.
28:24
Emily: Like, not.
28:26
Emily: I was.
28:27
Emily: I learned very quickly that that is not the best place for me in this sort of, like, ecosystem.
28:32
Emily: Right.
28:33
Emily: But we weren't, like, that group of people wasn't setting out to make a thing with a name and a brand and, like, a. You know, it was just like, we're a group of people all working towards the same goal.
28:45
Emily: We know nothing about each other, but we all really want to get this opportunity, and we all write kind of similar age range of stuff, so let's just, like, help each other the best we can.
28:56
Emily: And then that group kind of, like, faded at the end of that contest, but some of those folks are still trading stuff six years later, you know, like, I know that different groups of those people are still super connected.
29:09
Emily: And then some of those people were in my same little class in author mentor match.
29:14
Emily: We, like, got connected years later, and we're like, oh, my gosh.
29:16
Emily: Yeah, we're still trying to write, but you just kind of have to.
29:23
Emily: You just have to try.
29:25
Emily: You have to try different things, and you have to be okay to say when something doesn't fit you.
29:30
Emily: Like, don't try and fit your.
29:31
Emily: It's creative work.
29:32
Emily: So if you're having to, like, really struggle to get dialed in with a group of people, nobody's gonna be mad if you're like, this isn't working for me.
29:42
Emily: I need to go do something else, you know?
29:42
Emily: Yeah.
29:46
Emily: And I think that's.
29:47
Emily: That's part of it, is you just have to show up.
29:49
Emily: You have to try a bunch of different things, see what works for you, what doesn't, and then be willing to, like, let go of what doesn't work, you know?
29:59
Emily: Yeah.
30:00
Emily: Yeah.
30:00
Rachel: And that's hard in relationships when you're, like, you know, you meet critique partners, and it's not working out.
30:06
Rachel: It's just not.
30:07
Rachel: It doesn't always.
30:08
Rachel: Doesn't always work out, and that's okay.
30:10
Rachel: And learning how to.
30:11
Emily: That.
30:11
Rachel: We teach that in Tanisha training, in our feedback training is like learning how to say thank you, but no can.
30:19
Emily: Be just how to accept thank you, but no, I think that's it.
30:22
Emily: Like, you have to be.
30:24
Emily: You want to become the sort of person that other people are not terrified to say no to.
30:31
Emily: Yeah.
30:32
Emily: Like, you.
30:34
Emily: You also have a, like, responsibility is a weird word for it, but it's more of, like, you have the opportunity to also make that conversation less uncomfortable in the way that you show up to things.
30:49
Emily: And it's very.
30:50
Emily: It's like a reciprocal kind of deal of, like, what you put out there and how you engage with people is what they will often reflect back to you, you know?
30:59
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
31:01
Kayla Stansbury: I just hear so much of, like, you have a belief in yourself, and that, like, filters through all these different layers, all these different conversations, relationships, stepping stones, where it's, again, it's not personal.
31:21
Kayla Stansbury: It's like, just, we're all trying to do the best.
31:24
Kayla Stansbury: I also feel like not only do you have a belief in yourself, you have a belief in others, and, like, a belief in the goodness of others.
31:31
Kayla Stansbury: And I 100% that.
31:34
Kayla Stansbury: That believe that that's so critical to this publishing process in any way, because when you start to like, doubt the goodness of others.
31:44
Kayla Stansbury: It becomes shame and judgment and comparison, and it just festers to all of these other negative self narratives where it circles back onto you.
31:54
Kayla Stansbury: And anyway, I really admire.
31:57
Kayla Stansbury: I really admire the way that you approach querying and the way that you approach, you know, what, life.
32:03
Kayla Stansbury: The way you approach life, Kayla, I.
32:05
Emily: Admire that you're such a. You're just out here just figuring it out.
32:11
Rachel: You're such a beautiful example, though, of why Rachel and I talk so much about mindset work, because mindset's at the core of everything.
32:19
Rachel: And like you were saying earlier, Kayla, like, when you decide to query and who you are at that point in your life, when you decide to query and, like, what's going on with you, like, really matters.
32:30
Rachel: I know when I. The first time I tried to query, I was not ready, and I'm really glad that I stopped and waited and did the mindset work and came back along with the revised manuscript.
32:40
Emily: Right.
32:40
Rachel: But I think the mindset work was even more important than revising the manuscript again one more time.
32:45
Rachel: So, yeah, it's all mindset, you guys.
32:49
Emily: And there's so many people to learn from, too.
32:52
Emily: Like, one of the things that I did right before I started querying is I, again, had no business doing this, volunteered.
33:01
Emily: I, as someone who has almost no social media presence, volunteered to be part of a grassroots social media marketing team or a book that I loved the COVID of.
33:14
Emily: And I was like, I could do this.
33:16
Emily: And that was for Wings of Ebony.
33:19
Emily: I was about to say, first book, so if you haven't my, like, organic plug, I guess.
33:25
Emily: But all of Jess's books are great.
33:29
Emily: Shadows of pearl comes out anyway, so in September, the same day mine does.
33:35
Emily: Oh, cute.
33:36
Emily: So I, like, again, applied for this thing and was like, the worst they can do is say no. And I'm already living in the world in which I'm not doing this, so it's not really going to change anything about my experience if they say no. Yeah, like, you know, and that, I mean, truly was one of the most, being able to watch someone go through the debut process, because jl was incredible.
34:00
Emily: Her books are fantastic, and she was so generous with her time and advice and talking things through.
34:10
Emily: And I really.
34:10
Emily: I mean, that being able to watch her go through that experience was massively informative to me, and that's how I got connected to tenacious writing in the first place.
34:20
Emily: And so.
34:22
Emily: But all of that, I mean, I didn't go in to apply for that street team thinking, like, I'm doing this because I'm going to try and sort of apprentice myself to this person who, you know, like, I, it was a Tuesday and I was on my lunch break and I saw the COVID and it looked cool, you know, and I wanted to be around other people who thought was great.
34:44
Emily: And I think that's, that is also, in terms of advice, I guess, is just get plugged in to the things you think are great.
34:53
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah.
34:53
Emily: Because those relationships you're going to learn from other people, you're going to get connected to other people.
34:59
Emily: Every, every incredible thing that has happened in my writing life has come out of showing up to a thing that maybe I didn't have any business being at.
35:09
Emily: I love that we're circling around, but it's really, I mean, yeah, it's true.
35:14
Emily: And it's the people that you meet, and I don't live somewhere where I have big conferences or meetups or things where I can meet people in person like that.
35:26
Emily: That's not happening all over the place where I live.
35:30
Emily: And so getting connected to people online was huge, you know, and getting connected about things I cared about, too.
35:38
Emily: I was like, I'm never going to be able to get super excited about a, like, medieval high fantasy novel on the Internet, but I can get super excited about a young adult contemporary fantasy novel on the Internet.
35:53
Emily: And so.
35:54
Emily: And it just makes it more fun.
35:56
Emily: You feel like you're part of something.
35:58
Emily: You know, we're all out here trying to tell stories as a big sort of amorphous blob.
36:06
Emily: That's great.
36:08
Emily: It's so true.
36:09
Kayla Stansbury: Yeah, I just, okay, well, we'll start wrapping up, but I just love this feeling of play, like, this feeling of what if that you bring to this process, to writing in general, of like, what's the worst that could happen?
36:23
Kayla Stansbury: What if I just tried?
36:23
Kayla Stansbury: What if I had fun with it?
36:26
Kayla Stansbury: What if I did what I wanted to do?
36:26
Kayla Stansbury: What if I didn't let someone else tell me when the right time to query is?
36:32
Kayla Stansbury: What if I just decided, hey, what if I tried?
36:36
Kayla Stansbury: I love that attitude of like, hey, let's give it a shot.
36:40
Kayla Stansbury: I'm already not.
36:42
Kayla Stansbury: I'm already, like, you just said, I'm already living in the reality where it didn't happen, so what's the worst that could happen?
36:49
Emily: And I mean, all of that to say, like, obviously do your, like, do your research, listen to people, like, don't.
36:55
Emily: This is not like, and so you can do whatever you want, but it's like there's a freedom to accept the consequence of choosing the thing that feels better for you, you know, like, prioritizing the experience of the thing and not being just so completely sold out to, I have to achieve this thing to the outcome.
37:20
Emily: How I feel at the end doesn't matter, you know?
37:24
Emily: Yeah, yeah.
37:26
Rachel: You have such a jump, jump.
37:27
Rachel: Just jump in mindset that I love.
37:30
Kayla Stansbury: Yes.
37:30
Emily: Thank you.
37:31
Kayla Stansbury: Thank you so much for coming to chat with us.
37:34
Kayla Stansbury: You had, after we were on that, when I was, when we were on that call, I was like, you need to come on the podcast about this.
37:39
Kayla Stansbury: And afterwards, you messaged me and you're like, I don't know if you were serious, I would.
37:43
Kayla Stansbury: And I was like, I will 100 Dixie chick serious.
37:46
Kayla Stansbury: Like, get on here.
37:48
Emily: I told my husband afterwards, I was like, Rachel mentioned, like, being on the podcast, but it's kind of.
37:53
Emily: I have a hard time telling sometimes when people are joking and when they're not joking.
37:57
Emily: And I was like, I'm just gonna.
37:59
Emily: I'm gonna give it a nice, like, business.
38:01
Emily: 48 hours.
38:05
Emily: That's it.
38:10
Kayla Stansbury: I'm so glad you did.
38:11
Kayla Stansbury: I'm so glad you're here.
38:13
Kayla Stansbury: Thank you so much for chatting with us about this.
38:16
Kayla Stansbury: This is awesome.
38:17
Emily: Yay.
38:18
Kayla Stansbury: You said you're not, like, on social media, but if people wanted to connect with you, do you want them to?
38:23
Kayla Stansbury: I mean, like, do they just need to do.
38:30
Emily: I think slack is the thing I use?
38:30
Emily: No, I think, I mean, I for like, 2 seconds tried to really dig into my social media, and it really wasn't for me.
38:45
Emily: And so if you want to find me, join tenacious writing.
38:50
Emily: There you go.
38:51
Emily: I love it.
38:52
Emily: That's where I am.
38:53
Emily: Perfect.
38:55
Kayla Stansbury: The best ad ever.
38:56
Kayla Stansbury: Come join tw.
38:58
Emily: If you would like to hear me wax poetic about stuff that I don't have any business talking about, you too can join us.
39:06
Emily: Link in the show notes.
39:08
Kayla Stansbury: We'll see you there.
39:12
Emily: I love it.
39:14
Emily: Thank you so much, Kayla.
39:15
Emily: This was really wonderful.
39:17
Emily: If you want to build a successful.
39:19
Rachel: Fulfilling, and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.
39:23
Kayla Stansbury: Sign up now to get our free emo course.
39:25
Kayla Stansbury: The magic of character arcs.
39:26
Kayla Stansbury: After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.
39:31
Rachel: Link in the show notes.
39:32
Rachel: We'll see you there.
39:34
Emily: Thanks, everyone.
39:35
Emily: Bye.