Latest / No Mess, No Magic / Making Peace With Your Writing Pace with Gala Russ
Transcript
- speaker-0: Hello and welcome everyone to No Mess No Magic with Monique, a podcast for writers. I have Gala here, my dear friend. I am so stoked for this conversation because I feel like this is going to be a funny, conversation. ⁓ First, let me introduce my dear friend. creatives understand how they work and build sustainable creative lives and businesses that fit them. After writing and publishing nine romance novels under the pen name Willa Drew, love it, she developed a practical path to help writers start their novels and bring them into the world. Through workshops, small groups, and one-on-one coaching, she teaches writing craft, storytelling fundamentals, and creative systems so creativity becomes a part of everyday life, not something squeezed into the margins. obsessed with this fucking obsessed with this so we have the idea that our this episode will be on making peace with your writing practice but i don't know where this conversation is going to lead let's see my first question so you've written and published nine novels under the name willa drew how how has your own writing journey led you into the work you do with writers what was the inspiration of your journey as a writer and published author into what you do now. Starting off with the big ask question. speaker-1: No, I love it. It's like I have two very different entry points. One entry point in how I started writing Thirty Late in Life at 39 and how I started doing the coaching, which was basically a friend and former coach of mine. I was doing ⁓ body, soul ⁓ kind of ⁓ connections. ⁓ that's a different... I don't want to go into too far, but I met her and she was a coach of mine for a while and I had a lot of ⁓ problems with my own emotions and with like feeling what I feel in my body because I've gone through this whole, you know, childhood growing up in USSR, the ⁓ tanks on the street when I was 11. Like there was a lot of things I had to unlearn and a lot of... ⁓ The things were, I wasn't really paying attention to how my body feels and what I am like. I was just like, ⁓ this is how you have to operate. Let's just download the operating procedures and follow him instead of actually thinking through what do you want? How do you feel about it? anyways, moving person, if anybody needs a somatic coach, I always recommend Milana. ⁓ but she opened up a coaching program and she said, you need to come and join my coaching program. And I'm like, what am I going to coach? I don't. I know, thank you, but no, I'm not ready. What are you talking about? And then, ⁓ a couple of months later, ⁓ we met again at a party. She's locally, ⁓ local to me and, ⁓ we were talking and I said, so how's, how's that coaching program going? She's like, I haven't started it yet. It's going to actually start next month. Why are you asking? And in those two months, because I had that conversation with her where she basically said, you are. A person to whom people constantly come for advice and you currently are that person who loves giving advice like supporting people likes helping people like I've been doing a volunteering jobs at my kids. was like, ⁓ originally I had an ESL as my bachelor's degree English as a second. So I was a teacher for a elementary school. was teaching French at a high school and I was tutoring and working, was working for. ⁓ language center, then I was training other teachers how to teach foreign languages overall. I was working for Berlitz and then I was a swim teacher. was an volunteer art teacher and she's like, you constantly are like whatever area that you've learned something or know something about you constantly are helping other people be better in that thing. That's a vibe you have. You just don't recognize it. And I feel like a lot of times we don't recognize our own thing until somebody else comes and tells you and you're like, oh, right. Yeah, there is actually that pattern. Why didn't I see it? You're so right. So I ended up joining her. It was a 10 week, 10 week, 10 month, very long coaching session. And that's when I actually ended up being in one of the summits and I met you on one of the summits. I'm going to say it was Danielle's summit, but I don't remember what it was. And Rhonda, I watched the entire summit and then you and Rhonda were the two people who resonated with me and I reached out to you and to Rhonda separately. Say like hey guys, can I talk to you about this book coaching thing? I'm like considering it and you both said yes And then I found out that you know each other again like it was so random And after that I kind of like okay book coaching I've been doing I've been writing books at that point at publishing for a while So I'm like I can actually I know I am constantly that person who people come to and I'm giving free advice on how to publish how to put on KGP how to develop your character, how to edit, how to structure stuff, how to do certain aspects of marketing. Maybe I can do this, but I couldn't really understand what book coaching is because I myself hasn't worked with book coach. And then literally a couple of months later, I think in October or November at a local event of California Writers Club, I meet Beth Barani and you know Beth Barani in person. And she does this presentation and I come afterwards to her and we have a common thing, we both speak French, we both lived in France. So I come up to her and like we speak French and then we have a chatty chatty conversation, like chairs are being put away and it's like glaring is like, we have to go and we're still talking. And then at the end I'm asking her, have you ever been a mentor to somebody? I'm looking for a mentor in this like book coaching thing, because I don't know what I'm doing. And I don't even know how this works. And she's like, yeah, let's. speaker-0: Yeah, sure. Do it. Wow. You just asked her like, can you be my mentor kind of thing? Interesting. speaker-1: With you and with Rhonda, did the same thing. Because I saw you and I saw you and the same thing with her. I saw her do the workshop. like, I like that person. I like their vibe. How they talk about the things. Yeah. I want to be... I want to be in that person's orbit. Like there's something I can learn from them. speaker-0: I love that. I love that. Were you nervous when you asked or were you just like, I'm going for it? ⁓ speaker-1: You know, I was not nervous because I think it was kind of like in we were talking for I don't know half an hour after that workshop and it was just kind of part of and that is because I think I also give credit to my to the coach, to Milana because I think that now more and more and more and more I am comfortable listening to this ⁓ inside voice of mine and to trusting that if there is this desire to be around that person more, need to go for it. a reason and before I just didn't hear that voice now that I hear that inside me and then we're going all, you know, but I trust my- speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. leave the USSR, like when did you, you're in the US now. speaker-1: Yes, I am in the US. I've been in the US. I've lived in the US longer than anywhere else in the world. OK. But I left for college. So I came here when I was 20. speaker-0: Got it. ⁓ speaker-1: And then I came back here again for it there speaker-0: Yeah. Okay. So in the idea of making peace with your writing pace, so you talked a bit in your intake about how we have this, like you work with people on accepting their kind of output and making peace with that. And so I'm very curious. A lot of writers struggle with this gap between the pace that they wish that they could write. and the actual pace their real life allows them. can, this is probably a big question, but how can you help writers with getting honest about the actual capacity without feeling like they're failing or falling behind? speaker-1: In my class, Write Your Novel, I teach at local Arts and Rec Center, and I teach beginner writers who sometimes have some chapters, sometimes have gone through to half of their book and then they're like, I don't know what to do. Sometimes just have an idea and don't really know what to do. And pretty much, would say, half of them ask me, how long is it going to take me to write this book? And my answer is... The answer for each of you is going to be different because there are so many components that go into it. Right. So the first component, and I call it book math. I feel like I need to create a nonfiction book that's book math because there are so many things in writing and publishing things that you can actually sort of estimate and kind of see, have an idea of how long certain things take or how like between the like. How long does a querying process take? How long does it take to write a book? How long does it take to edit a book? How long does it take to find an aid? Like so many different things that you can't have an estimate. Like writing a book is one of them and it will depend a your writing speed, length of the length of your book and how much time do you write a day or week, a month. And if you have those three numbers, you will have the answer. And I, as a project manager, spent a lot of years and being a project manager in the corporate world, I always say, and pad it because then life happens and you're sick or you go on vacation or something happens. Something always happens just because. you always want to pad. So this is a, and I'm horrible at actual math, so I feel like I need to like take a calculator. Pardon me for my calculator use. I can't do numbers in my head, but let's say when you, a beginner writer, but when I was a beginner writer, my speed was probably like 200 words an hour. Now on an average day, my speed is about a thousand words an hour. Okay. And on a good day, it could be like, 1500. First of all, type quickly and second of all, I started as a pantser. So I was reading and figuring out what's going to happen. And now I call myself a plantser. Like I have some like, yeah, and then I pants in the chapter. But when I started chapter, I kind of have a plan of more or less what we're going for here. And now it also accelerates the speed. speaker-0: somewhere. Yeah. speaker-1: There is a book by Rachel Aaron called From 2K to 10K and she's a hardcore planner, hardcore planner. I am not that at all. And I don't really think that everybody needs to be a planner. I think you need to be wherever you're comfortable with. And I was a pantser at the beginning and then I tried to be a planner and I realized that's just not me. It's not going to work for me. But I took certain things from being a planner that I like. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: mainly work around knowing your character a little bit more in character development and just understanding like the structure of book in the end. And if I can't get to that structure in the book of the book in the first draft, I'll just get to it in my edits. Like I'm not too up to about it, but I know what it should look like in the end at this point, which helps. But your writing speed is going to be one thing. yes, you can this off to me and I can speaker-0: and speaker-1: copped out 1500 words in an hour and you can only do 200 well don't 200 words is a valid number for sure there's there and will you ever in five ten years be writing 1500 words i don't know maybe not some people still write 300 words 500 words and are but like my first drafts are ugly dirty uh messy things where there are parentheses around was like and put how he got here or I don't know a here or like sometimes I call it blank room dialogue where the entire chapter is just like dialogue without any descriptions. ⁓ speaker-0: the same type of writer. speaker-1: And then I go and I spend time on editing. But a lot of people I know write their first draft. Like I was just reading a client's draft and this is her first draft and I'm reading it. I'm like, yeah, I would totally like change some things, but this is ready for a line edit. You know, it's beautiful. It's, it's done. It's, and that's how it comes out fully formed. So don't compare yourself to other people and their speed because you don't know how they, their brain work. Figure out what is your speed and how can you figure out. by actually documenting it. as you write, put a timer, see how long it took, see how many words you produced, and then take a week and see because- And check it out. Yeah, check it out, average it out, and you're gonna say, okay, back of the envelope, my speed is, let's say 500. I always start calculating how long it take me. I'm gonna be about a thousand. And then you say, how long of a book am I writing? And I am an overwriter. So I always write more and then I cut. a lot of people are underwriters. They write less and then they add. And when you're writing your first book, you just don't know who, how you write. So you're going to experiment and you're going to just say, OK, I'm writing a 100,000 word book. Because, you know, depending on the genre, you kind of more or less can guesstimate. And you're to say, OK, I'm writing 100,000 word book. My speed is 100. Words an hour ⁓ and that's the first numbers and the last one how frequently do you sit down and actually do the writing? So if you sit down like when I started writing at the very beginning I have I had a full-time job. I had two elementary school school kids and ⁓ I was only writing 5 a.m. To 7 a.m. About five days a week So I have about 10 hours a week to write and yeah That was that was all I could write and I was writing a thousand words and it took me about eight months to write a first book. speaker-0: Eight months. Interesting. Like hearing you talking about this, I'm curious if you've, because in my practice, something that I talk about is like writing neurons building up writing neurons. Welcome back, guys. Sorry, we had some technical difficulties. So I was asking about, you know, when you see writers tracking their progress. So something I've noticed from when I was a beginner writer is that my I do tend to speed up in a draft. When I'm writing for the first month or two of a draft, I'm slow and I'm methodical and it's hard for me to get the words out. Then when I start building writing neurons, which is the neuroscience stuff I teach, which I think you know about. But when I start building more neurons and having just overall more confidence in the writing that I'm doing, speaker-1: Yep, yep. speaker-0: My pace has speed up a lot. And that's something I've noticed with a lot of the writers I work with is they speed up when they have more neurons in their project. And that just means like, it's kind of like going to the gym, right? Like if you're going to the gym and you're doing it consistently, you're building more muscle and you're able to build muscle faster because you're doing it. Has your pace changed at all in your writing experience and your journey as a writer? Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, I think I have both worked with different people enough now and have written myself like I've written 15, 16, like completed books that I think that it varies in general. I see both with myself and with other people. Some people start strong because they have an idea and then they're super passionate about, but they don't know how the structure works. or they get to the middle of the book and I like catch some people who got to the middle of the book and then they come to me because they're like, I sort of lost the momentum. And I'm like, yes, I know is called that for a reason. If you didn't build everything up enough, you can get to the middle and you're like, I don't know what to do. What else to put there? Like, do I finish? But clearly is to have a book to write. And some people are more like, at the beginning, especially, feel like pancer is I'm just learning about my characters. I'm trying to figure out how all of this works. And now at a certain point, they're like, ⁓ and then they start firing up and they speed up and all of that. work also with people who call themselves like mosaic writers who don't write right in a row. They just write, I think they write the beginning and then they end and then the middle and then here and here. And it kind like whatever inspires them and on edit, tend to kind of put it all together. And what I noticed is also each project is different because some projects you are ⁓ just, you have the story, you know, the story downloaded and you just know exactly what's going on. And with other stories, you have to follow the character or you have to You get to a certain point and you're like, yeah, that was the wrong turn. Let's rewind and go back and restart again. So I struggled to say that there is a single speed, ⁓ because like to me, my analogy is going to be, ⁓ as a driver, ⁓ let's say just past your driver's license. And I have been driving for 25 years, but then there's another person who has been driving for 25 years who took. special driving skill tests, and evasive driving and all that. And all three of us are going to go on the road from San Francisco to LA, where you basically go on this one highway and you just are going through that one highway. We will be driving differently. We will be driving at different speeds. As a beginner rider, I probably don't want to go into the leftmost lane. I might be sitting in that ramp lane and annoying everybody why I'm so slow, right? And like, as a person who has been driving a lot, but hasn't done evasive maneuvers, you probably maneuvers, you're going to go like in the faster lane, but maybe are not going to go where the super speedy crazy people go. So we're going to all have different doors. Now you take us and that's that's project one. Now you take us and you put us on the road. do not know somewhere in the middle of Tennessee where neither of us has ever driven. And it's like. GPS is not working, the signal is down and it's country roads and it's dark and there are no lights and we're all three driving and we're all the same skilled drivers and we're not going to be driving differently, right? So every book project, you don't know which road you're going to be, but as you mature as a writer, there absolutely are going to be certain skills that you're going to get with time, whether you know yourself better as a writer, whether you know the writing craft better, hopefully both. ⁓ But at the same time, I, for example, I just get tired with driving, but I know like a lot of newer drivers, they're like so excited. They're like, yes, I get to be in the car, I get to drive by myself finally. So our attitude towards driving could also be to me, it's like, ⁓ my God, it's like the 15th time I have to go from San Francisco to LA, this is boring, like when am I gonna get there? And the new driver will be like, ⁓ my God, this is so cool. Cars pooping around me smell so bad. You know, just very different expectation, very different energy. So when I talk about book math, this is your average. It can give you like, yes, you are a beginner writer. This is your speed. This is the road you're on. This is how much time you're spending in the car. So you can guess. the general direction, but then all the other things are going to come into play. Yes. That's where, ⁓ yeah, things differ. So life happens and the fastest I've ever written a book, first draft was six weeks, like a hundred K book. But I know people who can do it in like two weeks. Who, who, but they also are like, they're indie publishing. speaker-0: Yes, like life happens. speaker-1: people who publish six to eight books a year. speaker-0: They're they just are more used to that pace. Yeah, it's funny because I think I have so many things that I want to like talk about. I love it. I love it so much. ⁓ It's funny. Have you so there's a person named Becca Syme who I really, really love her work and she wrote this book called Dear Writer Are You Intuitive? And I read it maybe a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago now. And speaker-1: You like my writing metaphor? speaker-0: Something I like that she talks about in that book is that all writers have to learn what works for them. And when you're a newbie writer, you don't fucking know. You still have to write the book to find out how does this even work? It's kind of like when you pick up a guitar for the first time and you start learning guitar, you're not going to know what you're doing. You're going to need to figure things out and you're going to get lessons. I think it's very easy for newbie writers to maybe beat themselves up when they start writing. more seriously or take writing more seriously and things are going slower than they want it to go. first of all, it's okay to be a slow writer. Like I hear from a lot of people, they're like, oh, I wish I wasn't so slow. I have friends who have chronic illnesses who get really sad because they're like, well, publishing won't want me. I'm like, you know, I have friends who are agents who are totally respectful of when people need to slow down because they have a chronic illness. it's, you know, yes, you might, there might be that like... you know, pressure from the publisher to, need to make the deadline, but your agent will help protect you and advocate for you. Right. And also I think that you, as you learn your process, you can speed up. You can start being able to say, ⁓ I know how this usually goes and I know what I need to do here. Because you just start getting more information. You start iterating your process. You learn. And then that way, that iteration gives you information for future you. 100 % and I really I know that when I started writing ⁓ my god, how long has it When I started writing more seriously, I wrote all through being a child but like when I started writing for publication I think I was averaging about 2,000 words a week because I was working full-time as a social worker. Okay, and nowadays it's funny. My pace is a little bit faster but I also accept that like It's okay if each book has a different pace. And that doesn't mean that I'm failing. It just means that every, you know, every project is different, like you said. am very curious. how do things you talked about when life happens? So how do things like stress or life transitions or emotional bandwidth affect this pace and our writing process? speaker-1: ⁓ I just have been going through that. I think this has been my first, I wouldn't call it a writer's block, but my first period in my writing life where I have not been writing consistently. And that's been going on since about September and now we are in what, March? March. I have been writing a little bit here and there. I have not been not writing at all, but... I have not worked at this slow and this chaotic of a pace since I have started writing. it was one of the... I had a lot of personal things going on, but I think one of the big things for me was also I realized this is a little bit where I need to switch gears. Like this showed me that the way I have been doing it over the last five years is no longer working. And I was trying... I felt like, you know, I finally have the formula. Like I know how fast I know how to I know I know how my romance genre works. I know all of these things. Like if anything, just keep going. You just going to be amazing. But I realized that I no longer am a person who I was five years ago. And although I've learned all of these new things, they no longer work for the me who I am right now. And I have to give up certain things to figure out why is it not working, what would work and experiment and kind of going back into that beginner mindset and learner mindset because writing was no longer what I was looking forward to was no longer joyful, it felt heavy and it felt... Don't take me wrong, writing is hard work. It's not like every day I sit down and it's just this magical... That's completely wrong. It's hard work. You have to sit down, you have to do the work. It's work. It's work. But there is still a lot of this... Like I would normally be thinking about my books and I will be like standing in the shower and the ideas will be in here. My mind was not going to my writing at all. So I have that back and say, okay, why not? What's going on? What's happening? Right. And I think that ⁓ before I had problems and not problems, I slowed down a lot when a life was happening, but it was almost like ⁓ like my husband lost his job and I had to do a lot of other things and I knew that I have less time but I was eager. I was searching out for that time and I was sitting down and I was still trying to write. I had less time, I had less opportunity but that desire was still there. So I was writing lower but the intensity, the interest was still there. And it's a very different thing when... you go to this kind of identity crisis or what I call a writer's block, what people call writer's block, where it's not about that you don't have enough time or that your life has changed and you have a big life transition. It is that you are going through a transition and you're trying to do stuff the same way as it worked before and it's just no longer working. So it ends up being this paralyzing thing. ⁓ And I need to differentiate between what is changing, are things around you stopping you and preventing you because you physically have no time or energy or sometimes money, like you have to pick up a second shift and that's more important. Or is it that your internal requirements for yourself as a writer no longer fit who you are as a person? that's, feel like where the creative Battle starts where the words start coming, where the ideas don't appear, where you are not escaping into this world that you're creating any longer. ⁓ Yeah. If that makes sense. Like to me, those are two slightly different things. like with life happening, you just need to be gracious to yourself and say, Hey, yeah, you know, I have people who say, ⁓ you know, my mom died and I have to go and speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: figure out the funeral and clean her house out and sell her house. And I'm like, yeah, for the next six months minimum, you're going to have like a huge other thing you have to take care of. And emotionally, you're going to be a wreck for a year or two. Who knows? Depending on you. Yeah. You need to be like, this is just how it is. Or if you have a surgery and you have to recover from that and you might be in a brain fog and on medication. Be nice to yourself, give yourself grace, be nice to yourself. But if you're on the other side where you are like the inspiration is not coming and you feel like you just don't want to write, I think that you need to also like it's okay to slow down, spend time figuring out what is going on with you. Because you can't push through that type of a block. It's not just sitting your ass down and writing that, you know. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: And this is a bad analogy, but you said anything goes. It's like if you're constipated, just sitting on the toilet is only going to give you hemorrhoids. It's not, it's not going to make you go. So you need to figure out what's wrong with your stomach and what kind of medication you need and like be nice to yourself instead of like trying to push it out to problems. You said anything else? speaker-0: Yeah, I love that. hilarious. I think you're pointing at really important pieces here and one is self-compassion and another is that like when you change as a writer, right? And I think a lot of writers are complete dicks to themselves and you know, maybe something will happen in life and there you know, you start thinking like like I really wish that I could keep up my pace and you know, they start beating themselves up and. speaker-1: themselves to other people. speaker-0: Yes. And I think it's important. I think self-compassion is such an underrated skill. I know a lot of us have seen like self-compassion memes on the internet or things like that. And we might be like, ⁓ yeah, be nice to myself, whatever. Like, we might like roll our eyes at it. But when it comes to being, giving yourself grace, it's not just like, I'm letting myself off the hook. It's, know, whatever. it's there's like real reasons that being kinder to yourself is going to give you actually more results in the long term. ⁓ And I think a lot of people, we're just not taught about self compassion, like most of us in school aren't aren't learning those skills, right. And if you did, I'm very jealous of you listening. ⁓ speaker-1: percent Do you know this book? speaker-0: Yes. So this is Kristin Neff, speaker-1: Yes, this is the workbook version of her in collaboration with Christopher Germer, but yeah, it started with a self-compassion book. Yes. speaker-0: Yes. I'm it's funny because in the last couple of months, my life has been very hectic and I, you know, I'm like, apply for renewal visa, like my my business is stressful. Like there's been a lot of things happening and I won't go into a lot of detail about all of it because like your girl has some privacy, even though she's internet. And, you know, it's like at some point I had to be like, OK. speaker-1: It's. speaker-0: Even though my life feels like this right now, I still want to make space for my art. Even if that means I'm showing up really messy and I showing up for five minutes a day. Does that mean that I'm getting to the result of a finished book in two seconds? No. But it means I'm making space for my art in a time when things are very uncertain. And I think it's, know, self-compassion, first of all, is wonderful. But also, think permission to have it be a hot fucking mess. When you make time is also really helpful because for the last several weeks, just show up, you know, I'm a night owl. think it's just shocking that you can be awake at five or six AM. But it's so funny. If I try to write in the morning, my brain's like, what the fuck are doing, bitch? Like, excuse me, we are not awake. Why are you here? Like it yells at me. Whereas if I haven't had a full day of meetings and like I'm so tired. My brain will still show up creatively for my writing. It's very weird. So I'm jealous of you! speaker-1: I'm so fucking jealous. Because I'm by the end there, I feel like I have a decision fatigue issue. So by the end of the day, I've had to make so many decisions. So when I have to sit down and write, I have to make so many decisions and I'm like, ⁓ don't, I, ⁓ I can't, like I become a zombie. And unless I have something else that is, if I've been thinking about it all day or something, I can sit down and I call those like download moments. I can go and sit and do that all night. But those are rare. That's not an every day. speaker-0: So it's so funny that we're like the opposite. I, you know, and what I'm saying is that like, even if life is life-ing, that's what I call it, and like somebody passes away or you're having surgery, like, first of all, we are not machines. And it's very easy for us to want to be them because our society kind of expects us to be in a lot of ways. Also, you might be surprised by what showing up for one minute can do for you in these times. And I think I've learned that my creativity, my art does give me a space to process my life. You know, whenever I'm going through something. so maybe when you're, you you lose your mom or something happens in life, letting your creativity kind of save you or holds you in those places can be really helpful. But I also really like what you're talking about with how you have changed as a writer and you're kind of figuring out what that looks like and what that means for you. Have you figured out what you think it is? speaker-1: Yes, I have. I have figured it out. Going back to the self-compassion, I'm actually, every year, this is my third year, I've been meeting up with a group of people online and we read a book and we meet once a month and we discuss a chapter and we kind of work through it. We started with the artist way. Because I read it several times, but I never did the exercises. So for a year we went through and we actually did all the exercises and we were like talking about it. The second year we were going through this book, Design Your Life. ⁓ Yeah. Interesting. There are a couple of chapters that are very hardcore, corporate world oriented, but otherwise was very good. And this year we're going to do, we're starting ⁓ actually like in a week, we're starting this book and we're working through this. And I actually have been, read through the ⁓ original book that is called ⁓ Mindful Self-Compassion. That is just a book I listened to a home. ⁓ And I ended up creating in January, ⁓ hang out for people that is called self-compassion quarterly planning. And I'm going to do one at the end of March again, where I created a workbook and ⁓ explain how to use it. And then we sit there for a couple of hours and we plan, we figured out what our goals are, what our whys are, what our values are, what is it that is important for this quarter? And then spend some time. hearing ourselves because again, yes, I'm big into this. We're so hectic. We just doing doing doing doing doing and we forgot to spend time to ask actually ask ourselves questions. What is important? Why am I doing this? What am I getting out? What do I want to prioritize? And if you don't prioritize certain things, you prioritize nothing things that just going to happen randomly. ⁓ So I try to say, okay, for this for this quarter for the first quarter, my priorities were I was going to work more on my ⁓ coaching business, a second one I was working on rest and third one was I want to have writing as joyful activity. So I want to enjoy whatever I'm doing writing wise and not for like the last five years writing for me was the breadwinner. And I think that that me out a lot. I flipped that. So going back to answering your question, have I figured it out? I think not. Yes. So I think I've been writing to publish. ⁓ the last five years. that's why in the five years, me and my co-author, we published nine books. That is not nearly as neck breaking pace as a lot of ⁓ indie authors have, but still nine books in five years. It's a lot of books and that's writing and publishing, right? And marketing and all of that, running a business. So I think that ⁓ speaker-0: It's a lot. It's a lot of books. speaker-1: Publishing kind of became my enemy and writing was my wish and I was thinking a lot about ⁓ what is it because it was like we were experimenting. We started with YA and then we ended up in ⁓ like closed away ended up in spicy adult romance because we were trying to see what is it that the market responding better for us. There was a lot of business thing. And when I started writing originally, I started writing because My mom was a writer and a couple of years after she died, I got all of her journals and I finished things she wrote longhand and I was reading through that and I was inspired to actually write something that was a story that was like talking to me because I never thought I can be a writer. Like that's one of the things why I like writing, working with people who are at this idea stage who are just normal people because I wasn't that face where like I'm a project manager, I'm a product manager. Well, maybe I'm a teacher. I have that education. I've been a marketer, but I'm not a writer. Writers are these amazing unicorn people who have, I don't know what, like, I am normal. I am like very basic. I am, I cannot possibly be a writer. And then I, that kind of gave me permission to, well, we're not going to call ourselves a writer. It was a journey. It took me probably a year, if not a year and half to start calling myself a writer. I decided I'm just going to write down what is in my head. I'm just going to write it. And that was kind of the beginning. And I was writing not because I was going to publish it, not because I was going to sell it, not because I was writing it because that story was in my head and I wanted to put it on paper. And then I ended up going to Wattpad because, so another long story, just to share it with people and kind of get the reader's reaction. Because I think the reader's reaction still matters a lot to me. I want the characters... from my head to live in somebody else's head. that's the biggest thing. Relatable. They are going to talk about your characters as if they're real people to them too. Like success. That's my success as an author, Yes. So I, all those five years, I kind of beaten, like started writing and then the last five years it was published, published, published, published, I beaten myself down in. Then I had to pause last year and figure out what is it like if I had no obligations, nobody's waiting for this book, no publishing is involved. I have to think about nobody at all. But what is it that I want to explore as a writer? What do do? And that was interesting. That was an interesting experiment. And that took me like About six months to figure out. Yeah. I ended up going on a two and a half week trip solo to Europe. I just came back a week ago without my kids. It's also a story. It was not supposed to be a solo trip, but then like life fell apart and I was like, do I still go if it's just me who's going or do I cancel the trip? And in the end I went and I'm so glad I did. But that was the final thing kind of solidified to me. What is it that I care about now as a writer? And I think... It just took however long it took. It took us to figure it out. speaker-0: Yeah, it's very interesting that you talk about you writing to publish. And it's, it's funny, because I often will have people ask me like, well, you're not a published writer. So why are you writing, coach? And, you know, I have a master's in publishing. So that's one of the reasons that I chose this, this work. But I was in a very similar space many years ago, when I had graduated, and then COVID happened, which we all remember that. And I got into a very, very toxic place with the publishing industry, not necessarily like to the point where I was like, I'm just going to give up. But I worked for a literary agency. You know, I was on Twitter. I was trying to like, you know, write my book and get an agent and all these things. I hadn't started querying to just mention like I hadn't done the querying process. But all I was thinking about was like, how can I write so that I'm chosen? so that I have approval from others. And I'm very into the Enneagram. Do you know what your Enneagram is? speaker-1: I use them for writing my characters as well, actually. speaker-0: I love it. Same. So I'm a three, which means that ⁓ I just seek approval. Like I achieve but in a lot of approval ways, which I don't love that about myself, but it is what it is. And throughout my life, I have been that person where like I was a dumb kid with the undiagnosed ADHD, felt like she was broken, felt like there was something wrong with me. And then when I suddenly started quote unquote, getting smart in college and suddenly people started taking me seriously. I feel like I started living my life in this addiction of the praise from other people. one of the reasons I decided I'm not going to publish yet is because I need to let myself write without being addicted to it. Before I publish, before my work goes out there. I have to learn what I want and what kind of writer I am before other people get a say. Because I know that it's going to matter. I know I want to work so well on my characters and I want the same as like, I want these people to be obsessed with my characters, right? But I have to connect with me first and write without needing approval and learn how to do that. And so I love this concept. Wait, what is your enneagram? speaker-1: I don't actually remember. I haven't written down a I want to say four. I have them all written down the same thing like for strengths. Find are the only thing I always remember is that I'm a learner, but I've done all of those like ENTFG, but I can never remember what it is. I have a note being on my Gmail and I have to go and like, what are you? I know that I'm a speaker-0: funny. speaker-1: projector in human design, but I also don't remember what kind of projector. And I know that I'm a learner, but I feel like I'm a four. That's what comes to mind. But don't take me ⁓ up on it. I have to go and look it up. everything you said, I relate 100 % the ADHD part, the not being the smartest person in school and then in college is like, ⁓ she actually knows what she's talking about. ⁓ Because I feel like in college you have a little bit more room to figure out what is it that you want to do and how you want to do it. While at school it's a lot more rigid. These are the rules you have to follow them. And if you're not following them exactly, like you're a bad person, bad student, bad like everything. So and as an adult you grow and you start learning about what works for you, what doesn't. So you can be a... better performer and then, and performance is such a difficult thing, like, you know, living for performing for somebody else's approval. The mask you talked earlier, like off camera about like, all of that comes into play and it's such a weight. It becomes so heavy. When I talk to people, I was at a film ⁓ networking Q &A with Beth and my daughter this Sunday. And ⁓ because I worked with teens also, I also teach teens how to write ⁓ and how to write a novel. And they were like, well, we heard that teens are so ⁓ like their attention span is so short and they like don't really care about anything. And I was saying, well, OK, I'm working with teens who have self-selected, who love writing and who just want somebody to talk to them about writing and who wants to get the support. So the teens that I work with are amazing. They're amazing. I love and it's so much fun. But when I was teaching at a high school, it was very different. Half of my time was just trying to make sure that the room did not explode. I'm sorry. And the other half was, okay, let's try and teach something as well. So because everybody's so different and everybody's needs and wants and do they like Teaching ESL, especially, it's like, it's so difficult. It's so different. ⁓ And it really, once you are an adult, once you kind of don't have to be in places where you don't have to be, you can be more yourself and you can not do this whole masking thing and all of that. And to me, masking is kind of like teaching at high school. You are spending half of your energy. trying to be somebody other people want and you only have half of your energy to actually do the thing. So imagine how much more you can do when you drop that mask and now you're teens who want writing and then they self-selected and it's like 99 % of that is fun and joy and we accomplish so much more because I mean there's still discipline that needs to be done and there's still some rules but it's such a small part. you accomplish a lot more. I do not know why we started talking about this. speaker-0: But anyway, the tangents. speaker-1: Yeah, being yourself does help and in writing being yourself helps. Beth and I are going to teach a bootcamp starting this Friday that's called Find Your Creative Entrepreneur Niche. And people are always talking about niching down and to me the biggest concept whether you're in writing or you're a creative entrepreneur, you are your niche. And that's niches change because you change. You change as a writer. You change as a creative entrepreneur. So need to take time when you starting as a writer to figure out what is it that you are about? What is it you want to do? But then also five years later, you might be about something else. have to as a person, you can try to be the same. Like a lot of writers I know, one of the comps for the book that I'm writing right now is Holly Black. I have her books here. I don't know. don't know. ⁓ I do not know if you know Holly Black, but she was ⁓ writing all of the YA stuff, Curl Prince, stuff like that. And now she has the adult series book of things. And I'm sure, you know, she's changed as a writer and she wants to do different things. And this is a lot greener and darker. And it's like one of the comps for the book that I'm writing right now. ⁓ But if you look around, if you look at Leigh Bardugo also, another comp of mine, she started with YA. ⁓ and Six of Crows and now Hellbent is a very different, very different type of a vibe and a story, right? So I think that it's okay. Tell our yourself to change and it's important to listen. But what you're also talking about is writing for yourself. Figure out what you like. Write for yourself. It does not preclude you from understanding what your comps are or what are your tastes or. What kind of agents do you want to query? Like a lot of people say, oh, I want to be myself. And it means that I am not going to look at anybody else. I think those do not preclude. Right. So when we're saying, find your own niche and I'm going to tell you one of the things that I do is I call myself a publishing strategist because I love helping people figure out, you want to do additional publishing or do you want to do. speaker-0: Yes. speaker-1: self-publishing or like kind of pasty what kind of what kind of money are you trying to make what's your goal and all of that stuff it doesn't mean that I cannot call myself that it's it's a label that I took from another person because I know that that's what I do well now so I can use that label and apply it to me it was not like oh she's doing that I'm gonna also be a publishing surgeon I know nothing about publishing or the difference between all the different paths, but that's a nice label that she's earning a lot of money with. So I'm going to go do that too. That is the bad way, right? You don't want to just see somebody, somebody successful at that and just go do that because they're successful. Like, see what you like, see what actually belongs to you. How do you label yourself? Most of the labels already exist. You can go and find the right label for what you like. speaker-0: she wants. Yeah. Well, I really like, I like the, sorry, I don't mean to keep interrupting. I like keep getting excited about certain things. speaker-1: I love the interrupting part because that's like you have something to say so interrupt. speaker-0: Well, I really like how you mentioned, yes, learn what you like, but there's also the market. And I do think ⁓ as somebody who is both a writer and has a master's in publishing and worked in the industry, that sometimes writers can demonize the industry a little bit. look, I understand that it's frustrating. I understand that it's hard to be told this isn't going to sell, whatever it might mean. ⁓ There's a lesson I learned throughout my time in publishing and as being a writer that I'm really grateful for. And it's also a lesson I've learned as being a business owner is that pivoting and being flexible is really important. And I don't think that that's a very sexy truth. think people get very frustrated by this, but like, you know, if I had an agent, you know, I have this book I'm revising this year. And if I had an agent be like, go harder into the romance, because that's what's selling right now, I'd be like, okay. I got you. can do that. And I do, have that view because business, you know, being a business owner and seeing like what lands with people, what doesn't land with people, what people are looking for, how the market shifts, all those things are lessons. And when people are like, ⁓ publishers just want somebody with a platform. I'm like, yes, because it's easier to sell books with a fucking platform. I'm not saying that it's ⁓ amazing that all these authors are like, do I get a platform? And I'm like, it's not that you have to have one, but when you have one, the publisher knows that you can sell to your platform. That's why they want it. Why wouldn't they want that? I think a lot of times writers can be very married to their own vision and ideas and stories. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but I also think publishing is collaborative. Right? Your editor is going to have their own thoughts on how to help your book sell, how to revise it to make it the best book it can be. Your team is going to have to position your book in the market. Right? There's so many pieces that come into it that it's important to know what you like, but it's also important to know what you're willing to adapt on. ⁓ And that sounds like it's like the opposite of what I saying with not trying to get approval, but I think I have, it's more just like being business savvy. speaker-1: I really don't think that it is different because I think when you're your first draft, it's kind of like when you are on the first date. Imagine if you're on the first date with somebody, do you want that person to pretend and to be the kind of person who will check off all of your marks and then you find out that that's not who they are at all? Or do you want that person to check off those marks because they actually check off those marks in real life and that's how they are in real life. So when you are writing your first draft, if you are writing this things and that this is just how you write and this is how this is what works for you then it is important to know afterwards just like I was saying with the labels like how are you gonna position this but it's like the next book you're gonna write like this is how I write I like for example I'm reading Rachel Gillick's book right now the night and the month and she has this ⁓ flowery ⁓ stylized language and that's how she writes and she's not putting on a face, I missed a list, I have no idea, I have never talked to her, but to me it's kind of, she likes writing that way. When I read Ellie Hazelwood, Ellie Hazelwood is like very straight into the point and she has a particular sense of humor and she's being herself, right? So if you are starting with your first draft, trying to pretend somebody else and writing it for somebody else, It's going back to that masking thing. You're going to be spending 50 % of your energy pretending to be somebody else. So it's very important with this draft to figure out what is your author voice? What does it care about thematically? What kind of books, what kind of genre, what comes out of you naturally? What do you care about? And then they're editing, they're editors, they're whatever. Then you start shaping that and then you start understanding, okay, A lot of editors these days are looking for genre bands, like Assistant to a Doring. It's like it's a dark romance, but also a comedy, but also closed door. Like that wasn't really a thing before. Lights Out was like also a comedy and it was dark. What was it? The book where it's from point of view of the octopus on top of this light. I can't remember the name. speaker-0: Oh yeah, yeah, I think I've heard of this. speaker-1: Like it is totally valid to be original if you have some kind of idea that does not fit any particular. Right. Like genre bending is, is a thing, but also you don't have to be genre bending to be successful either. And I think that if you're trying to be genre bending, just because you think that's the coolest way to be, or if you want to be genre bending, but you're writing straightforward, ⁓ category, genre category, 50k romances, because you think that that's what also sells like, it's like, yeah, you want to figure out what is it that you are passionate about? And what is it? Imagine writing is sitting down every day and writing. If you want to be a professional writer, do you want to be sitting down every day and spending four hours a day? If you are a professional full-time writer, writing the thing that you don't care about because you're to earn money. Like to me that at that point, speaker-0: It's like a balance. speaker-1: I would go and how and work in a corporate world for a bank and get my like, like, to me, that becomes a no, difference at that point. am something on demand and it's no longer. me product, right? becomes downloaded and a lot of people to go straight in a lot of other things and that fits their. speaker-0: Yeah Yeah, that's writing is so cool. speaker-1: giving wrong advice, but I think like if you are writing your own original fiction, start with originality and then make sure it fits into the market because that's how you're going to end up selling it most likely. So. speaker-0: Yeah. Well, I think it's funny because starting with originality, it's a lot of people are like, okay, well, what does that actually look for me or look like for me? And I think it's a process of figuring that out. You know, it's a process of being like, is my original voice? And I can take time to figure that out. And I think it's also okay if it feels like you're not saying anything original because the truth is nothing is really all that original. Like, yes, it is, but it's also not. speaker-1: There's just the combination of things, right? Everything has been already written. I am, fortunately, I'm the pessimist or realist that way. think that everything has actually been already written. And you are just taking, that's why I always go back to you. You are a unique you. There is no other person like this, right? So I am an immigrant from Russia. Are there other immigrants from Russia who are writers who live in the US, who write books? Absolutely, there are. But then, like, for example, I also lived in France and I also speak multiple languages. have two kids. I live in California, I love cats, I have ⁓ traveled, like I play the piano, I sing, that becomes the little ball starts being different. So even if we have bigger broader categories that are the same, then we become each separate thing. So whenever you read a romance that I write, you probably will have an immigrant in them. It does not always mean that it's going to be from Russia, but I pretty much bring immigrant or they're going to be some travel in there. My mom died when I was fairly, not fairly young, when I was in my thirties. So I tend to have some kind of, um, either death in the family or an illness or something like that. That's the theme that ends up coming up for me. Like I like academia, I have a master's degree. I spent a lot of time in educating both being as an educator and ⁓ learning. So I very frequently insert that in. And I think that there is this almost like a fingerprint signature that we all have as writers that even if we switch genres, we are going to have, it's, it just, it is, it is. It is us. We are writing ourselves in different interpretations, whatever we through in life. So that is the uniqueness. That is the niche. That is the originality. speaker-0: I love that. love that. So I have to ask you, where can people find you? And what you said you had a freebie for people. speaker-1: Yes, I have a freebie. It's called, I think, Writing Check-In. And I created it actually for people who are like, I have an idea for my book, but I haven't been writing. I started maybe wrote a couple of chapters, or maybe I haven't written it at all. But it could be applicable to people who have been writing at some point in the past, but can't get back into it or can't return. And it's kind of like it's a writer's check-in. So it takes the temperature on What is it actually that is stopping you from writing? And a lot of people, once they take the test, say, ⁓ yeah, that makes total sense. But it kind of becomes that point of reference that says, ⁓ you are doing this because a lot of people say, ⁓ I just need to learn more. I need to learn more. My craft is not good enough. I just need to take more classes. And then I'm going to be and that is going to Ping you, right? She's like, you know, just need to sit down and start writing. Or some people are like, ⁓ I'm going to write. have all of these ideas, but they never actually sit down and write. Like they don't have a scheduled time. They haven't thought about if you don't sit down and write, you cannot write a book without writing a book. This is like, you have to say kind of diagnose that has a little bit of a diagnostics and ping. Hey, that's probably where you need to look at. If you really want to start writing, that's probably where you, where you want to, what you want to. speaker-0: book. speaker-1: start actually doing. And then Galaraz Author is my website and everywhere where I exist I'm Galaraz Author, ⁓ primarily looking out on Instagram as my social media. ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah, I love it. Well, this has been super fun. ⁓ Thank you for joining us and thank you guys for listening. speaker-1: Thank you so much for inviting me.