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Sarah Werner on Audio Fiction Podcasting, Storytelling, and Success · The Daily Writer

0:32
SPEAKER_02: Hey my friend, welcome to the Saturday edition of the Daily Writer Podcast.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: For literally thousands of years, readers have enjoyed stories in the form of printed books.
0:42
SPEAKER_02: And like me, you probably have a lot of novels, poetry books, or collections of short stories lying around your house or your office.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: One of the most interesting developments in fiction is actually taking place in the world of audio, specifically podcasting.
0:57
SPEAKER_02: Now, of course, audio drama has been around since the invention of the radio, so that's nothing new.
1:02
SPEAKER_02: But with the popularity of podcasting since the mid-2000s, listeners can now access a huge library of audio fiction, and it's exploding all the time.
1:12
SPEAKER_02: My guest today is Sarah Ray Werner.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: She's a writer, professional speaker, and executive producer of Girl in Space, a multiple award-winning sci-fi mystery podcast.
1:23
SPEAKER_02: She's also the host of the Excellent Write Now podcast, and she's also the executive producer of the fantasy audio drama called Omen.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: So as you can see, she's pretty busy doing a lot of cool stuff.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: Sarah's Girl in Space podcast in particular has really blown up with nearly 2,000 ratings on Apple Podcasts.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: And if you're not familiar with what that means, it means that it's really, really popular.
1:46
SPEAKER_02: In today's conversation, Sarah shares her story behind creating the podcast, how sci-fi reflects culture, and how to know if you're successful as a writer and creator.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: And just a little hint, the answer is not always so simple.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: Now, before we get to the conversation, I want you to know that Sarah is an intelligent, thoughtful guest.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: Now, of course, I would say that about all my guests, but Sarah in particular has a way of articulating her thoughts that reveals her experiences and expertise as a seasoned podcaster and storyteller.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: In other words, she's really, really good at what she does.
2:21
SPEAKER_02: So, with that said, let's get right to the conversation with Sarah Ray Werner.
2:26
SPEAKER_02: Sarah, welcome to the Daily Writer Podcast.
2:28
SPEAKER_02: It is an honor to have you as a guest here on the first of what I assume will be multiple appearances, probably over time, but welcome.
2:35
SPEAKER_02: It's an honor.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh, Kent, you just made my day by saying that.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: I would love to be on here multiple times.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: So I really love what you're doing with your podcasts.
2:46
SPEAKER_02: And I say multiple, uh, that's plural.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: Of course, you have multiple shows, and we're going to talk about one of those specifically.
2:51
SPEAKER_02: But I just want to take a second to recognize the cool work that you're doing to serve authors and creatives.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: And like we were talking about for a couple of minutes before I hit record on this episode.
3:01
SPEAKER_02: It's not very often that I have a guest on my show who also has a writing podcast.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: So I consider this something really, really cool.
3:09
SPEAKER_02: And I just want to take a second to honor you for all the ways that you've been serving creatives and writers for several years through your through your business, through your podcast, and all these really cool things that you're doing.
3:19
SPEAKER_02: So thank you so much.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: Ken, thank you.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: That wow.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Again, day made.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
3:26
SPEAKER_02: Well, let's dive into some things related to your fiction podcast, which is really exciting and fascinating for a whole bunch of reasons.
3:35
SPEAKER_02: One of which is because podcasting is growing by leaps and bounds year after year, but also specifically fiction podcasting is really this the space that has blown up the past few years.
3:46
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's really fascinating.
3:48
SPEAKER_02: So walk us through how you got started with your show, Girl in Space.
3:55
SPEAKER_02: Uh, take us on kind of the journey of where did this idea come from and how did you decide to do a podcast about this concept?
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: I love talking about this.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, um, I have never considered myself a person who writes anything other than novels.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: Novels have always been my joy, my passion.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: I love reading them, I love writing them.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: And so, of course, my first published project was not a novel.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, I come from the marketing world.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: And in the marketing world, um, everything is an experiment.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: And I had launched my other show, the Right Now podcast, in 2015, and really enjoyed um, I don't want to say enjoyed hearing myself talk because, you know, narcissism, but I really enjoyed the medium and it allowed me to connect with people in a way that my writing didn't connect with people.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: And so I was so curious, okay, this has worked for me in a nonfiction space.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: What would it look like to tell a story through the microphone and have it be a fictional experience?
4:56
SPEAKER_00: And of course, at the time, audio dramas or fictional podcasts, uh, they weren't a big thing yet.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: And so, of course, I thought I had invented it.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: Like, yes, I've invented a new genre.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: And of course, it's not because A, you have audiobooks which already exist, B, you have this long and beautiful tradition of uh BBC radio dramas.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, starting with War of the Worlds and then going all the way through, you know, that they've they've really never stopped.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: And every once in a while now you'll see.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: I think the New York Times just had an article last week about, hey, we've invented audio fiction.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, okay, you know, I've been through that too, so we're gonna be patient.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, but really, of course, would say that you know, yeah, you know, no, we did this.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, uh, I I wrote the first episode of Girl in Space just as an experiment.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, I wanted to see what it was like to essentially do the Right Now podcast, but have me be a fictional character and of course have me be in space because there's no better place to be than in space.
5:57
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: And and so I just wrote this little monologue.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: It was just 20 minutes.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: I spoke it into the microphone.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: I played around with some sound effects in the background and I released it.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: And I did not know when I released it, um, A, that it was going to take off, and B, that it was going to change the entire course of my career.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, so shortly after I launched that first episode, um, there were all sorts of things happening.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: I went to my first podcasting conference.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, I got to do kind of some speaking gigs and I met a bunch of people, and things happened in a way that um Girl in Space, of which only one episode existed, uh hit the new and noteworthy charts.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: It got featured on the front page of iTunes.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: Spotify had just launched podcasting, and so it got picked up and featured on Spotify right away.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: So it just it was it was a huge success in the way that my other show had not been.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I don't know if that's because of where podcasting was at the time, if it was because, you know, it's a fiction show and that was just starting to catch on, or all of the above.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I and I wanna I want to also do this without sounding like I'm completely full of myself.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: And I realized okay, good.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay, good.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, but really, you know, I had one episode out there and I was getting a lot of downloads, and I was like, well, I guess it's time to write episode two.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: And so this has sort of been where my life has been for the last couple years, just experimenting with writing for audio and recording for audio and learning how to work with actors and learning how to direct and just sort of going on this adventure that I did not know I was embarking on.
7:47
SPEAKER_02: Wow, that is absolutely fascinating.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: I love this.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: There's so many directions we could go with this.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: Um maybe, maybe let's go here.
7:57
SPEAKER_02: Um, because I'm so fascinated by this.
8:00
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, when you mentioned War of the Worlds, you know, my heart jumped a little because I'm a huge Orson Wells nerd.
8:06
SPEAKER_02: My favorite movie, Citizen Kane.
8:08
SPEAKER_02: Like literally, my son just a couple days ago, he rolled his eyes, yet again, he's 17, so that's natural.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: I was I got the Criterion collection of Citizen Kane in the mail, was watching that on Blu-ray.
8:18
SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh my gosh, I'm in heaven.
8:20
SPEAKER_02: So I love that radio drama stuff and this idea of of bringing something from the world of radio to to another form like podcasting, which is essentially radio, of course.
8:33
SPEAKER_02: Um can you talk a bit about the importance of just taking a risk and doing something because you love doing it, not really knowing where it's going to go?
8:43
SPEAKER_02: Because if you could have known it was going to lead all these cool places, you maybe you would have done it sooner.
8:48
SPEAKER_02: But can you talk about the importance of just doing something, not knowing where it's going to lead?
8:54
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: I love this question because it it's kind of everything.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I uh I went through college and I got a degree actually in creative writing.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: And so when I was learning about writing, I was learning how to do it.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: And what you were supposed to do was you were supposed to write short stories, submit them to literary magazines.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and at first you wouldn't get paid, you know, you would just get a free copy of the magazine, and then you would, you know, query agents and stuff.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: And for me, taking a risk meant just experimenting outside of the sort of rubric that I had been given.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: So the rubric of success was one thing.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I just want to do something completely different.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: And um I don't know if you know, I tend to be uh not a huge risk taker.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: Like I don't go skydiving and you know, I look both ways before crossing the street, but you know, there's a way of wanting to live that is um sort of free of anyone else's expectations and uh direction.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: And this kind of all started when I started thinking about what does it mean to live a creative life?
10:16
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to live into the creativity that I feel?
10:22
SPEAKER_00: Um uh Kent, you and I before this episode started, we talked a little bit about, you know, creativity is something that we've been gifted with.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: It's something that we've been given.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: And what are we going to do with that gift?
10:34
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, but uh I've been in marketing for 10 years, and even before that, I was in office jobs where I was doing data entry, you know, I was filling in spreadsheets.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: And I thought so often about what am I doing with my life?
10:51
SPEAKER_00: What am I doing with the gifts that I've been given if I'm asked to prioritize like not only putting numbers into a spreadsheet, but like making money for a corporation that's maybe not necessarily doing, you know, what I would like them to do with all that money, you know.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: Right.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: And it is so this whole thing just ended up boiling into um this large system that I decided I didn't want to be a part of.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, sorry, I know this is like a really long roundabout.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: Oh, this is fantastic.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: It's fantastic.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay, good.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Um so really for me, taking those risks happened in stages.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: I had to understand that there was value in a way of living that had not been prescribed.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: I had to understand that I had value as a person and that my my gift of creativity had value.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: And I had to understand that there was value and then honor that value and really take a look at what I was doing, notice that it was out of alignment with what I was feeling, and very slowly take action from there.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, they say that uh they talk a lot about, oh, I'm taking the leap and I'm quitting my day job.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm taking the leap.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: For me, it was not a leap.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: It was a like two-year process of very carefully putting one foot in front of the other, gingerly like walking across ice almost, like very thin ice.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, okay, I've okay, I have to get health insurance.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so this this all ties in because that same mindset applied to trying a new creative medium uh with absolutely no knowledge of it, just one foot in front of the other, making sure the ice didn't break through underneath.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, experimentally writing and then releasing an episode, testing the water, you know, seeing if it if it held, um, if people were interested in it.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: I was very willing to walk away from the project if people weren't interested in it and just try something else.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think that a spirit of experimentation, a spirit and a spirit, a spirit of willingness to just go in and fail wildly and make mistakes.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: I think that that that ended up serving me really well.
13:05
SPEAKER_02: How do you, in your own heart and your mind, how do you balance these impulses that sometimes are conflicted within people who do what we do?
13:15
SPEAKER_02: So we're entrepreneurs, we're business owners, we have to make money.
13:19
SPEAKER_02: You know, that's kind of a given because we like to eat and have health insurance and all that.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: And and coffee.
13:24
SPEAKER_02: And coffee, uh, obviously, of course.
13:26
SPEAKER_02: At the same time, we also have this creative impulse.
13:30
SPEAKER_02: And we're we're fundamentally different than the kind of person who says, I want to make a million dollars, so therefore I'm gonna go start a bunch of hot dog stands, or I'm going to do this or this or this, where what they're creating is not as important as making the money.
13:45
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not critical of that.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: I'm just saying creative people and artists are just fundamentally different in that way.
13:51
SPEAKER_02: And it's hard.
13:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you have felt this, I'm sure you have.
13:54
SPEAKER_02: Where you you have this tug of war between the entrepreneur nature, which is like, okay, I want to monetize this, I want to maximize this financially.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: At the same time, there are things I want to do.
14:04
SPEAKER_02: I have no idea how it's gonna work out, which is exactly the case, it sounds like with Gorilla and Space.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: So, how do you resolve that that tension in your own mind and how do you deal with it?
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, do we ever resolve tensions like that?
14:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure, but I think we can learn to manage them and deal with them.
14:20
SPEAKER_02: Good insight.
14:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it never is resolved.
14:23
SPEAKER_02: It's like this dissonance that just never quite goes away.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: It is, but you know, you saying that reminds me of um, like I said earlier, I was an English major, I was a creative writing major in college, and then I always remember saying, like, I'm not gonna sell out, I'm gonna be a starving artist, and I'll live under a bridge if I have to.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: And you know, my art is blah, blah, blah, you know.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe some of your listeners also originated with that mindset.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: I know I definitely did.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: And then, like, hilariously, I graduated college uh during the recession and there were zero jobs.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: And the one job that opened up for me was marketing, aka everything I dreaded, aka selling out in quotes.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I had to learn really early on what does it mean to reconcile?
15:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, A, what does it mean to sell out, right?
15:12
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to make money?
15:14
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to make money for your from your creative work?
15:17
SPEAKER_00: And is that a good thing?
15:18
SPEAKER_00: Is that a bad thing?
15:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, we talk about selling out like it's a negative thing, and we talk about selling out like you're compromising your art, or you are, you know, like you're an underground like indie garage band, you made your first album, it was awesome.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Now you're you're with a label and it's like corporate and terrible, right?
15:37
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what we think of as selling out as money tainting art or money ruining art.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: And there's ways to do it your own way that I've found.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, and there's just different concessions that you that you make um with each like different method.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: So for me, um, you know, I stayed at my day job until I uh had what I called my um, now I'm not gonna remember what I call it, my runway, my creative runway set up financially.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I just lived, my partner and I lived very frugally for years and years.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, one car, no takeout.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh we were making our own bread and all of that stuff.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: So living very frugally um and just saving as much as we could.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: And then later on, when I wasn't uh making a steady corporate paycheck anymore, um, I was doing all sorts of, that's when I got into ghostwriting.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: I was building websites, I was a columnist for Forbes, I was doing all sorts of stuff.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and I had this principle that um I never wanted all of my eggs in one basket income-wise.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Like I always wanted five to seven income streams coming in, just so that I wouldn't ever need to rely on just one of those income streams because they could easily go away.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, so that ended up being writing for Forbes.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: It ended up being doing some consulting, again, ghostwriting, building websites.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: I got a little bit of money through Patreon from the Right Now podcast.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: I started a Patreon for Girl in Space.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: And um, so that sort of helped diffuse uh the risk there.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, but as for like the morality of it, as for the feeling of making money from my art, um, I've kind of kept out of the world of advertisements and sponsorships because I'm a little bit of a snob uh when it comes to that.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm not saying that anyone else should be.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: I think that if you get offered an ad deal, you know, for your podcast or for whatever project you're working on, if it's a good fit for you, I think you should take it.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, being able to live off of your creative work is a beautiful free luxury.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Like it's just very freeing.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I would encourage you to just really take a look at that.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: Um currently I am relying solely on donations.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Like that is where I am this year in 2022.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: And it's been interesting.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, so that's where I am now.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: And um I could see a place where um if and when I decide to publish a novel or publish a book, I'd be really comfortable charging money for it.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, but like podcasting is also in this weird place where historically it's been a free medium.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: And so like making money from podcasting, even is just even inherently weird, even if you're not if you even if you don't already have hangups about money.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's even more of a weirdness there.
18:52
SPEAKER_02: And and I think that's why podcast sponsorships can get a little squirrely sometimes.
18:58
SPEAKER_02: Um and when people do them well, and I'm hesitant to really criticize anybody, but it does seem kind of weird sometimes when you're listening to a show and it's on a certain topic, and then all of a sudden it's an ad for stamps.com or an ad for mattresses or some sort of random thing.
19:15
SPEAKER_02: And that's I don't I don't begrudge that and I don't mind that.
19:18
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, you know, as a listener, but at the same time, as a creator, you you kind of sometimes feel a little it's a little bit of a jarring experience.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: You're like, whoa, oh yeah, I guess they are sponsored, you know, by something.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's oh you know, I always appreciated.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, I was not allowed to watch TV growing up, but I could watch a little bit of PBS, and I always appreciated that there were no commercials.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: So, like when somebody's listening to an episode of Girl in Space, you know, there's not somebody yelling at you to buy stamps or mattresses in the middle of the episode.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: And again, that's a choice that I've made.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: It also means that I make less money than I could be making.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: So, like, you know, like you said, as a creator, when I hear someone else uh in the middle of their show, they have an ad.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, good for you, you're making money.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: You are making money from this system.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: Good for you.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: I applaud you.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: I will still skip the ad, but I am I am clapping for you.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: I'm the same way.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: But it's just yeah, it gets it gets really convoluted and and concessions have to be made when money is involved.
20:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:20
SPEAKER_02: Well, I want to ask about sort of the I was gonna use the phrase cultural underpinnings, and I don't even know why my brain thought of that phrase.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: It sounds very pretentious, but I'm gonna go ahead and go with it.
20:34
SPEAKER_02: The uh and one of the questions that that you suggested um right before we hit record on this that I asked was what's the deal with sci-fi?
20:43
SPEAKER_02: What why are we so obsessed with sci-fi as a culture?
20:45
SPEAKER_02: Why is that such an effective medium?
20:47
SPEAKER_02: And I'm really glad you uh gave me the prompt to ask you this because I I haven't ever thought to ask that question, but since you asked it, I'm really fascinated as to what might be behind that.
20:58
SPEAKER_02: Why are we so interested in, you know, if you think of I mean, my goodness.
21:02
SPEAKER_02: So my favorite show of all time is The Twilight Zone.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: I just was obsessed with that as a kid, and I think the writing is still impeccable, it's absolutely amazing.
21:11
SPEAKER_02: Star Wars, Marvel, superhero stuff.
21:13
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's so much that's a part of this.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: What are your thoughts on that?
21:17
SPEAKER_02: And what why do we love sci-fi so much?
21:19
SPEAKER_02: And why personally do you love it so much?
21:22
SPEAKER_00: I hope you have about 10 hours because no, I'm kidding.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, I get it.
21:27
SPEAKER_02: My Mac.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: Let's see, recording space.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Oh, get ready, listeners.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm kidding.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, oh my gosh, there's there's so many reasons to love sci-fi.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: And I was just thinking, as you were mentioning the Twilight Zone, um, I love the X Files, which I feel like is like a almost a spiritual successor to that.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, and there's so many X Files illusions in Gorilla and Space, but um, I came to Sci Fi as a teenager, um, you know, looking for an experience outside of my own.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: And for me, that's where it started.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, you know.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: I see houses and trees, but like what else is there?
22:02
SPEAKER_00: I want more, I want innovation.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know maybe the word innovation at the time.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: And I want adventure and I want something completely new.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: And I really love science fiction because at the very beginning, for me, um it allowed me to see just the infinite possibility that was uh inherent to fiction.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: And later on, you know, as I matured and as I read more sci-fi, what I've discovered was that in looking to possibility, in looking to the future, and looking to human innovation and spirit and all of these beautiful things, what we're also doing with sci-fi is we're holding up a mirror to how things are now because we're necessarily contrasting the future, whether it's the near future or the far future, with our present setting.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: And there's just so much that you can discover from a projected future when you're reading it, you know, in the present.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: And it's just, it's not even just warnings, because sometimes, you know, you'll see science fiction and it'll preach like, oh, be careful because in the future this happens because in the present we didn't do this.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes there's moral lessons, but really I what I appreciate more is is the expansive beauty of just human capability and human imagination and innovation.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: And what I really wanted to take with me in this journey was compassion and kindness and human warmth.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, I read a lot of sci-fi and and a lot of sci-fi, um, or at least the sci-fi that I've read, maybe there's just a ton of this that I haven't read.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, I really was aching for a warmth and a sense of community and family and love uh within a sci-fi setting.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like a lot of the sci-fi that I was reading was like space adventures, or, you know, we're on a ship, or there's some kind of immediate physical danger or threat.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't as much about how do we nurture each other and how do we exist together in this future.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: And so I really wanted to bring those themes into Girl in Space.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: And so Girl in Space ended up being um a little bit different way of telling science fiction, where yes, they're still on a space station and there's still like asteroids and sentient planetary things.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's also trauma and you know, human suffering, and how do we reach out to each other and how do we exist as community uh in such a huge vacuum?
24:40
SPEAKER_00: And that is just that's just extremely fascinating to me.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: And I could really talk about this all day, but I'll stop just for now.
24:47
SPEAKER_02: Wow, there's so many directions we could we could go with this.
24:52
SPEAKER_02: It is so fascinating that so much of sci-fi does seem to give us a warning of the future in in many ways.
24:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you think of I think of like Blade Runner.
25:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, my goodness.
25:03
SPEAKER_02: And I forget what year that's supposed to take place in.
25:06
SPEAKER_02: Is it 2029 or 20?
25:07
SPEAKER_02: It was 2019, right?
25:09
SPEAKER_00: I think it was because the next one's 2049.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: So yes.
25:12
SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's that's right, because it's supposed to be like 30 years after the birthday.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
25:16
SPEAKER_02: And you look at that and go, man, back in the 80s, they everybody who was projecting what the 2000s and beyond would be like.
25:22
SPEAKER_02: It was such a bleak, dark thing.
25:24
SPEAKER_02: Not that they were necessarily wrong, but in many in many ways.
25:29
SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's so interesting because we always assume that the future is going to be some bleak, dark place, except for things like Star Trek, which wasn't that way.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: Beautiful.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like Back to the Future was not necessarily that way.
25:42
SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm still waiting for my hoverboard to come in the mail, but I know me too.
25:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:47
SPEAKER_02: Every ever anybody who you know loved those movies, we want our hoverboards for sure.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: And my shoes that tie themselves.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Is that so hard?
25:54
SPEAKER_02: I know you think we can put a man on the moon, but we can't have self-licing Nikes.
25:59
SPEAKER_02: What's the problem with this?
26:01
SPEAKER_00: I know, I know, but constant tripping hazard.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: What would you say are the best in your view, some of the best sci-fi shows on right now, whether it's Netflix, you know, other streaming services, um, broadcast TV, cable, whatever.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: I do love Star Trek.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: I do.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: I have not so as a person who I probably read more than I watch, but I do also try to watch the things that you know, my friends who know me like recommend.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: So I've seen uh Star Trek The Next Generation.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: I have not seen Deep Space Nine or um the new Picard show or anything like that, but I just love shows like that that have heart and human hope.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: I started watching the remake of Battlestar Galactica and I appreciated what they were doing.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, they're looking at um, you know, who's human and all of that stuff, but I didn't find it.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: It's so hard for me to find that hopefulness.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: It's so hard for me to find um something that honors the human spirit.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: So, like you said, I think Star Trek is is one of the best examples.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, I like Star Wars for its imaginativeness, but I'm not necessarily sure it's as um present about you know the human future as like Star Trek necessarily is.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, I really enjoyed um Leviathan Wakes, which is the first book in the Expanse series, which is now a TV show on Amazon, on Amazon Prime at streaming.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: I have not seen the show yet.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: Um again, I appreciated uh the book and how it talked about, you know, uh class differences, um inherent differences between the belters and the earthers and all of that stuff.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: But um, I don't know.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: I think I'm still really looking for um something warm.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: And and something that really got close to it was Firefly, which I really enjoyed.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Um what really got me in Firefly was that scene where they're all having dinner together around the table.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: And of course, you know, something horribly traumatic happens right after that, but I really wanted to hold on to that scene where they are laughing around the dinner table and the light is so golden and warm, and you can just feel how human and kind and loving and generous it is.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know if I've answered your question in any way.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, you yeah, you really have.
28:29
SPEAKER_02: I just I love thinking about what what is good to watch these days, and it's not necessarily always the stuff that's brand new.
28:37
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes there seems to be a huge shift back to the old stuff now that everything's kind of available all the time, which I like kind of cool.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I do too.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: I was just thinking too, you know, what do I have on DVD?
28:50
SPEAKER_00: Of course, I have all of the X files.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: Like, if you go back and you look at Mulder and Scully's relationship, like they're discovering this world together, like they have such a beautiful friendship.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, I haven't seen the new reboot, so I can't talk about that, but um, just looking at how uh they exist in a science fiction universe together is really beautiful.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: I I was also just thinking of um the new Shi-Ra cartoon on Netflix and then also Steven Universe, which are two um animated shows, which really do have a beautiful um kind of glittery future um sort of lens that they look through.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: And I I really appreciate both of those shows.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: They're very hopeful, they're very humanitarian.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, even though they're like very silly cartoons, they're also very beautiful works of art.
29:41
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, absolutely.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:43
SPEAKER_02: Now, speaking of TV shows, one of the things that you have some experience in, which I'm interested in exploring here for a second, yeah, is translating your podcast to the TV medium.
29:55
SPEAKER_02: Um, can you talk about that?
29:56
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure all what you're kind of allowed to talk about.
29:58
SPEAKER_02: I know sometimes things are more secretive and whatnot, but anything you're willing to share about how you actually write for TV, I think would be really fascinating.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you asking that, and I appreciate sort of the concessions there that so there are so I just won't talk about anything that I can't talk about.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, which is totally, totally cool.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: But and all of us who are involved in you know, any kind of uh streaming, sometimes TV movies, ghostwriting, there's certain things we we just can't talk about.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: So um, what I can't talk about is how uh it was very surprising.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: Um so up until um I started working on this show, um, I had always been a solo creator, and I'm the kind of person who like I do not work well with others um because uh not to sound unhumble, I have like really high standards and I have a very strong vision and like I know what I want out of a creative project, and like not everybody always agrees, and you know, that could also be, you know, to my detriment.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, you've seen writer directors who just make horrible projects because they didn't let anyone else have a say in them.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't want to be that either.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: So uh working on a TV show in a writer's room uh with a showrunner for the first time, I was in not necessarily the back seat, but I was sort of just in this bus with these other creative people.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: And um it was very, very interesting.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: I had learned how to act and react in meetings in my marketing career.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, okay, this is just gonna be like meetings every day where we like have meetings about what this story is gonna look like.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: I can do that.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: And it's just very interesting because you're a writer, but you're not always actively writing.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: And um one other thing that I learned that completely blew my mind, so this was all completely new to me.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: I had never even necessarily wanted to be a TV writer, I just kind of like fell into it, and so I didn't know a lot of this stuff going in.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know that, you know, when the credits roll in the beginning of a TV show, all of those names that flash there, the associate producer, all of that, those are all just writers.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: And I did not know this.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh my gosh, everyone's a writer.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: We're all writers.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: And I went from sort of being maybe a little bit standoffish and uncertain of what I could contribute to being really excited and sort of just celebrating in um, I'm making it sound like really beautiful and whimsical.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: It was also a lot of really hard work.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: Um being in a space with a bunch of other creative people who are all dedicated to the success of this one project.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think it also helped that our showrunner was very um approachable and was willing to listen, like no matter what status of writer you were, because it's very hierarchical.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, he was willing to listen to everybody.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: And I really, really liked that.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of whether or not you have a good time writing for TV probably depends on what kind of showrunner you're working with.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, which sounds obvious.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I lucked out I had a wonderful showrunner.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, and yeah, it was just getting together.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: This was during uh the height of COVID, uh, getting together on Zoom every day uh for hours and writing.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: We storyboarded, we looked for um what kind of twists, what kind of subversions.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: And even in adapting it, it was very interesting because I had written this for audio and I didn't necessarily know what everything looked like.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, even having to say definitively, oh yes, this part looks like this.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: Like it was a little scary to commit to things that I wasn't uh that I hadn't committed to before.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, and I'm trying to think there's there's also a huge difference in telling a story audio, odd audially, audi, audially.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: What is the word?
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Via audio.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, versus telling it visually.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, there were a lot of things that we just cut out because we're like, oh, we could just show um this part of this room and there's a carving here.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: So we don't need to actually talk about this.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: We can wordlessly show, and you know, it's so weird because in writing you hear, you know, showing and telling, and like what does that all look like?
34:34
SPEAKER_00: And you just do it so differently in in writing for a visual medium.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, so there's just a lot there in the in the adaptation.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
34:44
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
34:44
SPEAKER_02: And is there anything you can say about when we can expect to see something like that?
34:48
SPEAKER_00: Ooh, um, not at this time.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: I can say that things are in development, um, but development is a eternal limbo of right.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: So that that is what I can say.
35:04
SPEAKER_02: But but it's but it's hopeful that we may see this at some point.
35:07
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, yes.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Fair enough, yes, fair enough.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: My fingers are crossed.
35:10
SPEAKER_02: Well, I hope so.
35:11
SPEAKER_02: It sounds like you've already put a lot of time and effort and thought into this.
35:14
SPEAKER_02: But I do know I in fact, I was telling somebody a couple days ago, um, a friend of mine who he's a writer, but he also does some stuff with uh actually, was that who I was talking to about?
35:26
SPEAKER_02: I don't remember who it was.
35:27
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, I was making the point of I had heard somebody say one time that in the book world, everything is a no until it's a yes, but in Hollywood, everything is a yes until it's a no.
35:38
SPEAKER_02: So but based on your experience, it sounds like that might that might be the case.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: That's like the most accurate thing I've ever heard.
35:45
SPEAKER_02: I don't remember where I've heard that before, but uh wow.
35:50
SPEAKER_02: Well, I I hope in your case, I hope that everything is a yes from here until eternity.
35:55
SPEAKER_02: Because I can't wait to see it.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: Now, as we head into the home stretch here, I I want to wrap up with this question, which I think may be the most important question of all um of what we've talked about here today, which is how do you define success for what you're doing?
36:10
SPEAKER_02: How do you know if you're successful?
36:12
SPEAKER_02: Because people measure success in so many different ways.
36:15
SPEAKER_02: And we can think that we're successful until we see somebody else who has more of what we want and then we think we're not successful.
36:22
SPEAKER_02: How do you think about that whole topic in your own mind?
36:25
SPEAKER_00: It's so hard.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: I struggle, I struggle with this so much because I'm also an achiever.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm thinking that maybe a lot of people listening to this podcast are also achievers.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: Like they have vision, right?
36:38
SPEAKER_00: They want to see their work in print or they want to see their work published, etc.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: And I think so a lot of us are very achievement focused.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, when I started out, I everything that I thought of in terms of success came from what I had learned in school and what I had learned in the corporate world.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: And that was um, in order to be successful, you have to be the best, you have to be perceived as the best, you have to earn those gold stars, you have to have the right title, right?
37:12
SPEAKER_00: You have to be promoted to manager, executive director, you have to be promoted to all of these things, and you also have to be compensated financially uh in a certain way that affords a certain lifestyle.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: So there were all of these trappings of success.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: And I think that there's a huge difference between the trappings of success and the freedom of success.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: And it took me a really long time to work through what I was experiencing with success.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: So, like I said, when Girl in Space first launched, it took off, and I was very grateful for that.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: But also, podcasts are free, and so I was making no money, but also, you know, there so it was just this weird um feeling of success that did not align with what I thought success was going to be.
38:03
SPEAKER_02: It was actually costing you money.
38:04
SPEAKER_02: It actually, yes, time investment.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's hosting, there's I paid my actors, yeah, like thousands of dollars.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: Like, and this was all just coming out of my savings account.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, um, and I was attending conferences and I would try to like speak at the conference so that I could attend the conference for free.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: Like I was like hacking the system the best I could.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, but there was just such a disconnect between my perception that, oh, I'm gonna be driving a fancy car and you know, whatever, all these material trappings of success.
38:39
SPEAKER_00: When really, what was success?
38:42
SPEAKER_00: It was people listening to my show, it was people sending me fan art, it was getting fan mail.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, it was people sending me pictures of themselves wearing girl in space t-shirts.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's cool.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: It was, yeah, and it's like that did not line up with the money and the cars and you know, whatever Stephen King's mansion with his giant spider web iron gates, you know, like because and then it's so it's so hard and so easy, right, to compare.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: So, like if I compare myself with Stephen King, I am not successful because I do not have the mansion, I do not have the millions of dollars, I do not have the name recognition.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: But if I compare myself to who I was five years ago, I'm extremely successful.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: People know who I am, I get fan mail, I feel good about my life.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: People are waiting for season two of Girl in Space.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: I have other projects that are going on.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: And oh my gosh, it's so horrifyingly relative, or at least it is for me.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, let me put that even into relative terms.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I can compare myself with my sister who has a doctorate, and I don't have a doctorate.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: And so am I a failure?
39:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe if that's how I'm defining success.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: I can compare myself to another podcaster who gets half the downloads as I do, and I can say, oh, I'm successful, and they are not successful.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: It's just so relative in just like the worst way.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: And we're not taught as creators how to either evaluate our success and others' success and how to deal with it and how to say, yes, I have reached this place because we don't ever, there's no finish line.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, I guess the day that we die, you know, that's the we've crossed the finish line.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, but really with creating with success, there's no, there's no finish line.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that you're running toward because there's always something beyond it, right?
40:40
SPEAKER_00: When I finish season one of Girl in Space, there's season two waiting for me.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: Um and so, sorry, I just have like so many, so many thoughts about this.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: I think that a lot of it comes from shifting again from trappings to freedom.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: And so for me, success today, and I'm still trying to internalize this.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is I've not achieved some kind of like mental state where everything is great and I'm happy all the time.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: But like I try to focus on I'm living the life that I wanted to live at the beginning.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: Back when I said, you know, this corporate cubicle life does not align with who I am and my creative gifts, right?
41:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, I am today, I'm able to live creatively.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: So I'm able to take time out of my day to do an interview on your beautiful podcast.
41:32
SPEAKER_00: I am able to take time to go and have coffee with a friend during work, during, during normal work hours.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, I can work from eight to midnight tonight if that's when I work best.
41:43
SPEAKER_00: That's freedom.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: That's the life that I want to live.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: That life lets me integrate my creativity and my passion and my vision into my life.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: And I get to move forward through this life as a whole person.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: And it feels wonderful.
41:59
SPEAKER_00: So there's different versions of success, I think.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: And you just have to work really hard and understand what you've been told is success and what success actually means for you.
42:12
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
42:13
SPEAKER_02: What a beautiful way to wrap up this conversation.
42:16
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
42:16
SPEAKER_02: Because that is something I think we all need to hear as writers and as creative people, because really the only known quantity that you can compare yourself to is who you were a year ago, three years ago, five years ago.
42:31
SPEAKER_02: Because even when you see somebody else and what you perceive of as success, you're only seeing the tip of the iceberg.
42:38
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like that old thing of you're only seeing 10% of something, and we may not be seeing the price that they're paying for that perceived success.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
42:47
SPEAKER_02: Maybe their success is actually a curse in their life.
42:49
SPEAKER_02: That does happen a lot.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: Well, it goes back to that Play-Doh quote that you were saying earlier.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, everybody is going through their own battle and you can't see it.
42:57
SPEAKER_02: Right.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: We just judge the, you know, what we can see.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: And again, that's just that 10%.
43:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
43:04
SPEAKER_02: I mean, do you really want to be like the number one podcast uh in the country or something in your niche where you have everybody contacting you all the time, they all everybody wants a piece of you.
43:15
SPEAKER_02: You can't get a moment's peace.
43:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, there's so much pressure probably from sponsors or from advertisers or whatever.
43:22
SPEAKER_02: I don't think I want that necessarily.
43:25
SPEAKER_02: It sounds like a lot to deal with.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, and it kind of sounds like you know, you see celebrities like who complain, like, oh, the paparazzi is invading my life.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, that's a small price to pay for your celebrity.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, but is it?
43:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's like a pretty big price to me when you're I mean, I you see these celebrities they're out with their kids, and they're just getting accosted by by the paparazzi and all the craziness.
43:49
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Man, is that really worth it?
43:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: You think it's not that's for them to do that?
43:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, or maybe exactly like you said, maybe it is worth it for them, and that's what we have to determine.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: Well, this has been absolutely fantastic.
44:02
SPEAKER_02: Um, man, we could dive into any of these topics so much further, but I know.
44:06
SPEAKER_02: But I'll start to wrap this up here.
44:08
SPEAKER_02: Sarah, I just appreciate you so much and the the spirit and the energy and the thoughtfulness that you bring to everything that you do.
44:14
SPEAKER_02: And I'm so excited for what's coming up for your girl in space show and the podcast and and your your right now podcast, which is a really cool success in and of itself.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: So thanks so much for doing this.
44:27
SPEAKER_02: Where is the best place for people to connect with your podcast and you and all the cool things that you're doing?
44:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, gosh, thank you for asking.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, people can find me.
44:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think the best hub is Sarah Werner.com.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: That's just s-a-r-a-h w r n e r dot com.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's links to my podcasts there.
44:45
SPEAKER_00: There's links to all sorts of stuff.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: I have a blog, I've got free stuff, whatever.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: Come hang out.
44:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can also find me on Twitter at Sarah Ray Werner.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: That's S-A-R-E-H R-H-E-A, W E R N E R.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm also on Instagram, but I'm not super active there.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm also really excited, Kent, to uh hopefully interview you on the Right Now podcast.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: So people will get to see more of you there as well.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'd love to have a conversation there as well.
45:13
SPEAKER_02: I would love to.
45:14
SPEAKER_02: We we will make it so.
45:15
SPEAKER_02: We'll end on a Star Trek note.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: Yes, make it so.
45:18
SPEAKER_02: Which which was which character said that?
45:20
SPEAKER_02: Was it Picard?
45:21
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, make it so.
45:23
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
45:23
SPEAKER_02: I haven't seen as many of those as I probably should have.
45:26
SPEAKER_00: He's my favorite, but I think that's just because that's the Star Trek I've seen.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, default favorite.
45:32
SPEAKER_02: I won't attempt a British accent.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: No, I won't.
45:34
SPEAKER_02: Nobody wants to hear that.
45:35
SPEAKER_02: So well, Sarah, thanks again so much.
45:38
SPEAKER_02: This has been an absolute blast.
45:39
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: And thank you.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: This has been a delight.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: I freaking love your show.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: Your listeners are amazing.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for this honor.
45:47
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
45:48
SPEAKER_02: Hey, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Sarah.
45:50
SPEAKER_02: I thoroughly enjoyed that.
45:52
SPEAKER_02: And it was so much fun to hear about her process for creating Girl in Space, talking about success, and also just reflecting on the whole creative process.
46:01
SPEAKER_02: I would say if I had to choose one takeaway from this conversation, I would say it's the importance of storytelling.
46:07
SPEAKER_02: It's the idea of baking stories into everything that you do.
46:11
SPEAKER_02: Even if you don't necessarily write fiction for podcasts or write novels or short stories, all of us are engaged in storytelling.
46:19
SPEAKER_02: Stories are a fundamental part of our human experience.
46:22
SPEAKER_02: And the better that we can harness the power of storytelling and learn to do it effectively, then the better our content will be.
46:28
SPEAKER_02: Whether we're doing speaking, coaching, consulting, writing books, doing TED Talks, or whatever it is that we're doing, storytelling is such a critical part of what we do and how we communicate as writers.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: So I'm thrilled that Sarah was able to join me on this episode to give us some wisdom in that regard.
46:45
SPEAKER_02: Well, I absolutely want to encourage you to check out Sarah's podcasts, and I say podcasts plural because she has several of them.
46:52
SPEAKER_02: Make sure and check those out in the show notes and also make sure and check out her website, SarahWerner.com, for lots and lots of cool stuff, including courses, the newsletter, her podcast, and everything else.
47:03
SPEAKER_02: And in the show notes, you can also find links to all her social media channels.
47:07
SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
47:10
SPEAKER_02: I want to take a moment to let you know about our daily writer membership community.
47:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, one of the very best ways to develop better habits and impact more people's lives with your writing is to spend time around other successful writers.
47:23
SPEAKER_02: So if you're tired of feeling isolated and chasing success on your own, then I know you're gonna love the Daily Writer community.
47:30
SPEAKER_02: For years, I searched for the kind of writing community that I would want to join, but I can never find what I wanted, so I created my own.
47:37
SPEAKER_02: Some of the features include weekly writing sprints, monthly community calls, book discussions, calls with guest experts, and much more.
47:46
SPEAKER_02: For more info, you can visit dailywriterlife.comslash community.
47:50
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.