Latest / Story Magic / 94 - Writing process with Karisa DeLay and Jaime Vendera

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94 - Writing process with Karisa DeLay and Jaime Vendera · Story Magic

• 2:28
  Emily: Hey, writers, welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.
• 2:32
  Rachel: I'm Rachel.
• 2:33
  Emily: And I'm Emily.
• 2:34
  Rachel: And today we are talking about writing process, the individualness, the individuality process itself.
• 2:42
  Rachel: With some very special guests.
• 2:43
  Rachel: We have Carissa delay and Jamie Vendara on the podcast today.
• 2:47
  Rachel: Welcome.
• 2:48
  Rachel: Thank you so much for joining us.
• 2:49
  Karisa DeLay: Thank you for having us.
• 2:51
  Jaime Vendera: Absolutely.
• 2:51
  Jaime Vendera: Thank you for having us.
• 2:52
  Rachel: Of course, you both are the hosts of the Always Right podcast, which we love, and we have been guests on earlier this year, which is amazing.
• 3:00
  Rachel: So we're very thankful to have you on with us today.
• 3:04
  Rachel: Before we dive into process, would you tell us about yourself, your writing journey, your books, and a little bit about the podcast?
• 3:12
  Rachel: And let's have Carissa, would you want to go first?
• 3:17
  Karisa DeLay: Sure, I guess.
• 3:19
  Karisa DeLay: Yes. So my name's Carissa delay.
• 3:21
  Karisa DeLay: I'm an author with Bandera Publishing.
• 3:23
  Karisa DeLay: I have two fiction novels, one nonfiction novel, and I'm working on a fourth book.
• 3:29
  Karisa DeLay: And I also am one of the hosts of the Always Write podcast where we talk about everything.
• 3:33
  Karisa DeLay: Writing, editing, you know, process.
• 3:36
  Karisa DeLay: Kind of the same idea as you ladies.
• 3:38
  Karisa DeLay: Definitely laid back like you girls, but it's kind of like two different types of author personalities that come together and share our.
• 3:47
  Karisa DeLay: Our.
• 3:48
  Karisa DeLay: Our ideas and all that stuff.
• 3:51
  Rachel: Awesome, Jamie.
• 3:54
  Jaime Vendera: So I kind of became an author by mistake.
• 3:57
  Jaime Vendera: It really wasn't what I wanted to do.
• 3:59
  Jaime Vendera: I love writing, but I just.
• 4:01
  Jaime Vendera: I'm a vocal coach, and there really wasn't a lot out there at the time.
• 4:05
  Jaime Vendera: And so I started writing my first book in 2000.
• 4:07
  Jaime Vendera: Took about four years.
• 4:08
  Jaime Vendera: Couldn't find a publishing company interested in taking me on, so I said, well, I'll just do it myself.
• 4:14
  Jaime Vendera: And I thought that would be the end of it.
• 4:16
  Jaime Vendera: And then it exploded.
• 4:17
  Jaime Vendera: And I've.
• 4:18
  Jaime Vendera: I've written dozens of books on non fiction, but then I also love fiction.
• 4:23
  Jaime Vendera: So 2008, I started writing fiction novels in horror, fantasy, YA, fantasy, spy, a bunch of different genres, and it just kind of grew from there.
• 4:34
  Rachel: I love that.
• 4:34
  Karisa DeLay: So that.
• 4:35
  Rachel: That actually gives me a really good segue because writing, you said you fell into it by accident, Jamie.
• 4:42
  Rachel: So when you first started writing to how you write now, do you find there's a lot.
• 4:46
  Rachel: There's difference in your process or.
• 4:47
  Rachel: Or maybe there's not, but what's it been like to like, I think I'm gonna do this.
• 4:53
  Rachel: So then now you've written dozens of books?
• 4:55
  Jaime Vendera: Oh, no, it definitely has improved.
• 4:57
  Jaime Vendera: I'm still really.
• 4:58
  Jaime Vendera: I'm sporadic and I Don't have a, Like a tight process.
• 5:04
  Jaime Vendera: In the beginning, it was.
• 5:05
  Jaime Vendera: I was so analytical and I thought I had to write 10 hours a day and I was writing everything by hand.
• 5:11
  Jaime Vendera: And then I had to transfer to a computer and I was using Microsoft Word at the time.
• 5:16
  Jaime Vendera: Big mistake, because I remember one day I literally wrote like 14 hours and did not have auto save on.
• 5:22
  Jaime Vendera: I didn't even know about it.
• 5:24
  Jaime Vendera: My. I don't know what happened.
• 5:25
  Jaime Vendera: Went out, lost everything.
• 5:28
  Jaime Vendera: And to me it was like losing an entire novel.
• 5:31
  Jaime Vendera: So I'm sure it wasn't that much, but it, like I said, it took four years.
• 5:35
  Jaime Vendera: So it was a lot of hit and miss and getting over those hurdles of getting consistent and learning something a little more about grammar until I could better place it so that when we send it to our editor, he doesn't have to go through a lot of garbage.
• 5:49
  Jaime Vendera: At the beginning, I'm sure he had a lot of strokes working with me, but the process has got better.
• 5:57
  Jaime Vendera: So I have grown.
• 5:58
  Jaime Vendera: And I'm sure Chris, she's on the.
• 6:01
  Jaime Vendera: The opposite.
• 6:02
  Jaime Vendera: And I'm just sporadic.
• 6:03
  Jaime Vendera: I'm just.
• 6:03
  Jaime Vendera: I wake up, write whatever comes on my mind, don't worry about the typos, and I fix it later.
• 6:08
  Karisa DeLay: Chris, how I was.
• 6:10
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, we're opposites now.
• 6:12
  Karisa DeLay: So in.
• 6:13
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, we're absolutely yin and yang when it comes to most things.
• 6:16
  Karisa DeLay: But that's what.
• 6:16
  Karisa DeLay: That's what works with Jamie and I is, you know, that.
• 6:19
  Karisa DeLay: That balance.
• 6:20
  Karisa DeLay: But for me, I. In the very beginning, I was more of that, like, structured but flexible routine with my writing.
• 6:31
  Karisa DeLay: So I've significantly evolved since then to more of a chaotic burst, but trying to be more perfection, you know, more of a perfectionist.
• 6:40
  Karisa DeLay: Whereas I wasn't very good with grammar in the beginning as well.
• 6:44
  Karisa DeLay: So I was just writing on the fly, just putting it down there.
• 6:46
  Karisa DeLay: Um, and the more feedback I got from my editor about how to do things more, you know, cohesive, I feel like mentally that has blocked me from being as free flowing.
• 6:58
  Karisa DeLay: I've almost become more of like the opposite.
• 7:00
  Karisa DeLay: I've become more.
• 7:02
  Karisa DeLay: More.
• 7:03
  Karisa DeLay: I guess I use the word chaos, but that's how I am.
• 7:05
  Karisa DeLay: Like, I'm like, oh, I can write, but I have to make sure that when I'm writing it's more concise.
• 7:10
  Karisa DeLay: Versus before, when I was just throwing stuff on the page just to get the thoughts out and the imagery.
• 7:14
  Karisa DeLay: I didn't care how it flowed.
• 7:15
  Karisa DeLay: It was just on there.
• 7:16
  Karisa DeLay: I just can't get back in that mindset.
• 7:20
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah, I've never left that mindset.
• 7:22
  Jaime Vendera: We have the same editor, and I love Rich, and I think I told you ladies a story.
• 7:27
  Jaime Vendera: So I was writing like a book about a mermaid and then a book about living in space and all this, and it was all me.
• 7:34
  Jaime Vendera: And we used all these different pen names.
• 7:35
  Jaime Vendera: And I remember my partner had left.
• 7:38
  Jaime Vendera: He just got too busy with interior design.
• 7:40
  Jaime Vendera: And I told Rich Dalglish, our editor, I said, well, I know the cat's out of the bag.
• 7:44
  Jaime Vendera: I know.
• 7:44
  Jaime Vendera: You know, I write all this.
• 7:45
  Jaime Vendera: I mean, come on.
• 7:47
  Jaime Vendera: And he's like, wait, what?
• 7:48
  Jaime Vendera: You.
• 7:49
  Jaime Vendera: You're Jamie Lynn Sanders, and you're this one and that one.
• 7:52
  Jaime Vendera: What?
• 7:52
  Jaime Vendera: There is no way.
• 7:54
  Jaime Vendera: He said, when you take on a different novel, it's like you're a completely different writer.
• 7:58
  Jaime Vendera: And I learned a lot of it from him.
• 7:59
  Jaime Vendera: But it's small things.
• 8:01
  Jaime Vendera: I mean, goofy little things I remember, like.
• 8:03
  Jaime Vendera: Like there was blue, red and black, blue, comma, red, comma and black.
• 8:08
  Jaime Vendera: Or instead I am.
• 8:09
  Jaime Vendera: I'm.
• 8:10
  Jaime Vendera: So I pick up those little things from him, but I still let it flow.
• 8:14
  Jaime Vendera: And then I'll go back and fix my typos.
• 8:16
  Jaime Vendera: And then at the end of the day, I'm like, I'm paying Rich anyway.
• 8:18
  Jaime Vendera: He can fix this.
• 8:21
  Rachel: I love that.
• 8:23
  Rachel: It feels like both of you embrace your own brand of chaos to get it down on the page.
• 8:29
  Karisa DeLay: And then I'm trying to keep less work for Rich.
• 8:31
  Karisa DeLay: Jamie's just adding more.
• 8:33
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah, I'm paying him anyway.
• 8:35
  Jaime Vendera: He can.
• 8:35
  Jaime Vendera: He can do.
• 8:36
  Jaime Vendera: Deal with it.
• 8:38
  Emily: So what is your.
• 8:39
  Emily: I'm so curious, like, what does your process look like?
• 8:42
  Emily: Kind of from when you have the idea to, like, the, you know, the finished product or when you send it to this editor?
• 8:49
  Emily: Like, do you do a lot of passes?
• 8:49
  Emily: Do you do, like, story level edits?
• 8:52
  Emily: Do you just, like, get it out and send it?
• 8:52
  Emily: Like, how.
• 8:55
  Emily: How does it work for you?
• 8:57
  Emily: And like, what does that timeline look like?
• 8:59
  Karisa DeLay: I mean, I'll let you go first since, you know, yours is.
• 9:02
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah, I. No, I. I still do get it ready for him if it's a non fiction book.
• 9:08
  Jaime Vendera: Since I've done a lot of workshops around the world.
• 9:10
  Jaime Vendera: A lot of vocal workshops and performance workshops.
• 9:12
  Jaime Vendera: Any non fiction book, I do, I do make bullet points.
• 9:16
  Jaime Vendera: And I think of them as if I'm going to get up in front of, you know, a hundred people and teach something.
• 9:22
  Jaime Vendera: What will be the order, the process?
• 9:22
  Jaime Vendera: And to those.
• 9:25
  Jaime Vendera: Those become my chapters.
• 9:26
  Jaime Vendera: And then I have sub bullet points under them.
• 9:28
  Jaime Vendera: And then I. After I got the skeleton, then I build the meat as far as fiction goes, I do.
• 9:33
  Jaime Vendera: I have to do several passes because I'll take notes to make sure I don't mess up.
• 9:38
  Jaime Vendera: Like, a character has green eyes in one scene and blue eyes in the next.
• 9:41
  Jaime Vendera: So I try to check all that.
• 9:42
  Jaime Vendera: So he.
• 9:43
  Jaime Vendera: He's caught that stuff before, and that's one of the things I learned from him.
• 9:47
  Jaime Vendera: But I don't have a process for that because for me, it's like I turn on Netflix and the hottest show on Netflix right now.
• 9:54
  Jaime Vendera: Oh, I haven't seen it.
• 9:55
  Jaime Vendera: What's it about?
• 9:55
  Jaime Vendera: What's the next episode going to be?
• 9:55
  Jaime Vendera: I don't plot it out.
• 9:59
  Jaime Vendera: I just let it come to me like I'm watching a show and I let my mind unfold it.
• 10:03
  Karisa DeLay: But then, yeah, he's definitely a panther.
• 10:05
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah. But I definitely have to go back with that approach.
• 10:09
  Jaime Vendera: So non fiction and fiction are two different writers for me.
• 10:12
  Jaime Vendera: I mean, one is very analytical.
• 10:13
  Jaime Vendera: It's processed.
• 10:15
  Jaime Vendera: Rich won't have as much problems with it.
• 10:17
  Jaime Vendera: The fiction.
• 10:18
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah, I have to go through it three or four times to make sure that everything's, you know, pretty cohesive.
• 10:23
  Rachel: Right.
• 10:24
  Rachel: Karissa, what about you?
• 10:26
  Karisa DeLay: So for me, with fiction writing, so I can envision the end, the goal line, and I will plot out the order in my head how I want the storylines to go.
• 10:39
  Karisa DeLay: Now, when I wrote my second fiction book, I actually wrote them down like, this is where I want this to happen.
• 10:43
  Karisa DeLay: There. This is where I want this to happen.
• 10:44
  Karisa DeLay: It's almost like each chapter, I gave it a brief sentence or two to say where I'm at with that storyline.
• 10:51
  Karisa DeLay: And then I could rearrange and fill things in like, oh, no, I did this to happen before this.
• 10:55
  Karisa DeLay: It's the same idea in my head, like, oh, I need this to happen before that.
• 10:58
  Karisa DeLay: It's almost like I use the term murder board a lot, where you want to have all the pieces connecting, but sometimes you got to sprinkle those in spots.
• 11:06
  Karisa DeLay: So I have it laid out that way.
• 11:08
  Karisa DeLay: But when it comes to actually writing, I have to write in order.
• 11:12
  Karisa DeLay: I cannot write chapter one, chapter 20.
• 11:15
  Karisa DeLay: I have to do it all in order.
• 11:16
  Karisa DeLay: And if there is a timeline between when I'm writing, where I'm not writing, I have to go back and start from the beginning.
• 11:23
  Karisa DeLay: I cannot, like, pick up where I left off.
• 11:25
  Karisa DeLay: I have to go back, reread now a day, two days.
• 11:29
  Karisa DeLay: That's different because it's still fresh.
• 11:32
  Karisa DeLay: But I want to make sure I'm one, not repeating words.
• 11:34
  Karisa DeLay: Two, I'm also not over, over Describing something I've already previously described, if that makes sense.
• 11:42
  Rachel: Yeah, definitely.
• 11:43
  Rachel: And I were just talking about this because we.
• 11:46
  Rachel: Because we were sick.
• 11:47
  Rachel: As we were telling you, we took a large break off from writing and we actually just.
• 11:53
  Rachel: We've recorded a podcast.
• 11:54
  Rachel: It. It will be out by the time this one comes out, but about, like, getting back into your story.
• 11:59
  Rachel: And we even had, like, different ways of trying to get back into it because I. I feel the same way, Chrissa, where I feel like I have to reread everything and, like, get back into the zone and whatever that looks like.
• 12:10
  Rachel: But even that feels different because Emily was.
• 12:13
  Rachel: Was a little bit.
• 12:14
  Rachel: Like, that wouldn't really work for her because of perfectionism issues or just other, like, needed a different way to do it, you know?
• 12:21
  Emily: Yeah, that would entice me to revise.
• 12:24
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah, that's crazy because I.
• 12:25
  Jaime Vendera: Same thing.
• 12:25
  Jaime Vendera: I got to reread it, but I may be like, you know when you go on Facebook and you're like, watching Walking Dead or something, and someone's like, spoiler alert.
• 12:33
  Jaime Vendera: And then you.
• 12:34
  Jaime Vendera: You learn something, you're like, God, I haven't got to that part.
• 12:37
  Jaime Vendera: I'm not that way.
• 12:37
  Jaime Vendera: I'm excited about it.
• 12:38
  Jaime Vendera: But I'll be writing and then it'll be like, oh, I thought of something, but it's in the future.
• 12:43
  Jaime Vendera: It's like three or four chapters ahead, so I have to jump ahead and I write all of it out and then I come back.
• 12:48
  Jaime Vendera: But that does make it harder for me because then I have to reread a lot to make sure that I.
• 12:52
  Jaime Vendera: I make sure I glue it together correctly.
• 12:54
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, I keep notes for those kind of things.
• 12:56
  Karisa DeLay: I keep a side note where it's like hidden mysteries or cryptic messages or different things about that I. Maybe my reader has to figure out on their own.
• 13:06
  Karisa DeLay: I will keep a side side note for those kind of things.
• 13:08
  Karisa DeLay: And that way I don't forget them.
• 13:09
  Karisa DeLay: But also so I remember to put them somewhere in the book if I have to go back and be like, oh, yeah, make sure you put that in there.
• 13:14
  Jaime Vendera: Oh, speaking of forgetting things, Carissa.
• 13:17
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah.
• 13:18
  Jaime Vendera: I forgot about your two year sentence that you need, but I'm on it this week.
• 13:23
  Karisa DeLay: Here we are.
• 13:24
  Jaime Vendera: It had to do with a little musical piece.
• 13:26
  Jaime Vendera: And I'm like.
• 13:26
  Jaime Vendera: As soon as you say.
• 13:27
  Jaime Vendera: I was like, no.
• 13:30
  Karisa DeLay: Sorry, ladies.
• 13:30
  Jaime Vendera: And I have no excuse.
• 13:32
  Karisa DeLay: No worries.
• 13:34
  Emily: So do you guys.
• 13:36
  Emily: How do you develop your characters?
• 13:37
  Emily: Does it happen as you're writing?
• 13:37
  Emily: Because it sounds like, Jimmy, you're a big pantser discovery writer.
• 13:43
  Emily: Like, do you.
• 13:44
  Emily: Do you do any work on your characters ahead of time, or does it just come out as you're writing?
• 13:48
  Emily: You can take it first.
• 13:49
  Jaime Vendera: I definitely do not do any.
• 13:52
  Jaime Vendera: Nope, nope, nope, nope.
• 13:56
  Jaime Vendera: Well, I'd say it's visual, too, because I'll be like, ooh, I got this.
• 13:59
  Jaime Vendera: This kid.
• 14:00
  Jaime Vendera: Pimp.
• 14:00
  Jaime Vendera: Pimp.
• 14:00
  Jaime Vendera: The knife.
• 14:01
  Jaime Vendera: He's got a knife.
• 14:01
  Jaime Vendera: Oh, no, no. He's got this black hair.
• 14:03
  Jaime Vendera: And then it just starts folding.
• 14:04
  Jaime Vendera: I just see this character, and then I write down those notes, and, I mean, there'll be little things I add.
• 14:09
  Jaime Vendera: Like, I. I had a character, and he was always going around saying instead of a cursing, he was like, them bastages.
• 14:15
  Jaime Vendera: And I don't know why that stuck with me.
• 14:16
  Jaime Vendera: And I kind of.
• 14:17
  Jaime Vendera: I wanted to put that in because somebody at work years ago used to do it.
• 14:21
  Jaime Vendera: So I'll stick little things in with characters, but it's more mannerisms.
• 14:25
  Jaime Vendera: It may not be the way they talk, you know, the way they look.
• 14:29
  Jaime Vendera: That just doesn't unfolds for me.
• 14:31
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 14:35
  Karisa DeLay: What we're going to ask.
• 14:36
  Karisa DeLay: I'm sorry, Rachel.
• 14:37
  Karisa DeLay: What are we going to ask you?
• 14:38
  Rachel: Well, I want to circle back around on it because I want to ask you both.
• 14:41
  Rachel: So you go first, Chrissa, and then I'll come back.
• 14:44
  Karisa DeLay: Okay. So for character development for me, I typically envision a Persona.
• 14:51
  Karisa DeLay: Like, do I want them to have a.
• 14:55
  Karisa DeLay: I guess I'll write it down, but I'll be like, do I want.
• 14:58
  Karisa DeLay: What kind of conversation do I want them to have?
• 15:00
  Karisa DeLay: Like, for example, this new book I'm writing, there are three angels.
• 15:04
  Karisa DeLay: Of course, they're not going to speak as slang as we would, but they've also been around a long time in the human.
• 15:11
  Karisa DeLay: In the human world, so they're not going to also talk too.
• 15:16
  Karisa DeLay: Too professional, I guess you would say, or too ancient.
• 15:20
  Karisa DeLay: But so I envision how this particular character is, and then I imagine, like, just.
• 15:27
  Karisa DeLay: I don't know, like, for me, it has to be almost realistic.
• 15:30
  Karisa DeLay: So would it make sense if this person is blonde in this situation or make better sense to this per.
• 15:37
  Karisa DeLay: I have to completely think about what makes sense in the storyline, if that makes sense.
• 15:42
  Karisa DeLay: I don't know if that's crazy, but I always have to be like, okay, how would that fit?
• 15:46
  Karisa DeLay: Okay, this.
• 15:46
  Karisa DeLay: It would make sense if this person had a limp.
• 15:49
  Karisa DeLay: I mean, right now, this would make sense if this person.
• 15:52
  Karisa DeLay: Da, da.
• 15:53
  Karisa DeLay: You know, So I have to kind of, like, walk myself through their personalities.
• 15:57
  Emily: Yeah, I'm like that, too.
• 15:58
  Emily: I have to think through like, everything.
• 16:00
  Emily: Like, what.
• 16:00
  Emily: What beliefs do they have?
• 16:01
  Emily: Like, what do they want?
• 16:01
  Emily: Like, all of those things.
• 16:03
  Emily: Like, I have to kind of know that even for my secondary characters, in order to, like, have pieces on the.
• 16:08
  Karisa DeLay: Board to play, you have to know how they're going to react to a situation, because then otherwise, it just sounds like the same character all the way through.
• 16:14
  Emily: Yeah.
• 16:15
  Jaime Vendera: Are any of you on Zoom right now?
• 16:17
  Jaime Vendera: See, that's why me and Rachel are lined up and Emma lined up.
• 16:22
  Rachel: Exactly. Yes. We've got the same.
• 16:24
  Rachel: Because what I. This was the question I was gonna ask was, I'm also a pantser, and I just kind of come up with it.
• 16:31
  Rachel: But one thing that's, like, drastically changed my process is in, like, the knowledge of craft that I've learned over the years influencing, like, the choices that I make.
• 16:42
  Rachel: I'm never gonna be a plotter, but learning about, like, character change helped me decide when I was writing on the fly, okay, I need a character to have a flaw.
• 16:52
  Rachel: What's it going to be?
• 16:52
  Rachel: And how are they going to act?
• 16:55
  Rachel: And then that allowed me to make those choices a little bit easier as I was writing and, like, play around and have fun.
• 17:01
  Rachel: So I'm.
• 17:01
  Rachel: My question is, do you feel like learning craft or what have you learned from craft that has kind of impacted the way that you write?
• 17:09
  Rachel: If anything, like, one that made a big difference for me, too, is, like, learning more about scene structure.
• 17:15
  Rachel: And, like, I don't ever plan my scenes.
• 17:18
  Rachel: If I do, that's not far in advance.
• 17:21
  Rachel: But I know when I'm writing, you know, this character needs to have a goal, so what's it gonna be?
• 17:24
  Rachel: And they're gonna.
• 17:25
  Rachel: There's gonna be conflict, so what's it gonna be?
• 17:27
  Rachel: And that's helped me give structure, like, give boundaries around my work.
• 17:32
  Rachel: That's not.
• 17:33
  Rachel: It's still chaos.
• 17:34
  Rachel: Let's be real.
• 17:35
  Rachel: But it's not.
• 17:36
  Rachel: Like, it at least feels a little more purposeful to me.
• 17:40
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 17:40
  Rachel: So what do you think?
• 17:42
  Karisa DeLay: So from my personal experience with trying to develop, like, these, when you're talking about not plotting, and I'm trying to figure out this if I'm answering the question properly, but I have, whatever the plot, little twist or the mini twist that's in the storyline, that itself will kind of echo out through my book for me to be like, okay, to get to this point, I can't just throw this at the reader.
• 18:03
  Karisa DeLay: So I have to start this somewhere in the beginning.
• 18:05
  Karisa DeLay: And so I have these little filtered, you know, twists that happen, but I can't make it seem like I just abruptly put it on them.
• 18:12
  Karisa DeLay: So I have to think back.
• 18:13
  Karisa DeLay: So for me, I almost have to feel the.
• 18:15
  Karisa DeLay: The vibration of the coin drop into the water.
• 18:18
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah.
• 18:18
  Karisa DeLay: In the beginning of the book.
• 18:20
  Rachel: Right.
• 18:20
  Rachel: And you're aware of that.
• 18:21
  Rachel: Like when you sit down to write, you're aware, like, I have.
• 18:24
  Rachel: I know there's this thing that's going to be happening.
• 18:26
  Karisa DeLay: So. Yeah, no, I'm sorry.
• 18:29
  Rachel: Yeah, I was gonna say.
• 18:30
  Karisa DeLay: I was just.
• 18:30
  Rachel: You're.
• 18:30
  Rachel: You're like planning those ripples ahead of time.
• 18:33
  Karisa DeLay: Right. And. And if one of.
• 18:34
  Karisa DeLay: If a coin drop happens while I'm maybe in chapter six and I'm like, oh, this is so much better, I will go back to chapter one and two and find a way to like, briefly put it in there as a snippet or a clue.
• 18:47
  Karisa DeLay: I always like clues and usually the clues are always there for my reader.
• 18:50
  Karisa DeLay: You just gotta pick up on them.
• 18:52
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:53
  Karisa DeLay: They're very subtle.
• 18:54
  Karisa DeLay: But I always make sure that.
• 18:55
  Karisa DeLay: And I did that.
• 18:56
  Karisa DeLay: I was terrible at that.
• 18:57
  Karisa DeLay: My first book, because I had so many unanswered questions that I went back and I was like, okay, I answer these questions.
• 19:04
  Karisa DeLay: So whenever I wrote that, I asked people like, what kind of questions do you want answered in book two?
• 19:07
  Karisa DeLay: Because I forget what I put in there for you.
• 19:09
  Rachel: Yeah, I love that you're doing that.
• 19:12
  Rachel: And like in like a pre publishing stage, like, what.
• 19:16
  Rachel: What's even in this book anymore?
• 19:17
  Rachel: I don't know.
• 19:19
  Karisa DeLay: After you read it for.
• 19:20
  Karisa DeLay: After you read books so many times.
• 19:22
  Karisa DeLay: Forget you do.
• 19:23
  Rachel: Yeah, I'm like, I don't know what happens.
• 19:26
  Karisa DeLay: Whatever.
• 19:26
  Rachel: I have to go back and reread it.
• 19:28
  Rachel: And like I'm.
• 19:29
  Rachel: I'm writing the third book in a series right now and the big stuff is there, but like, I've had to go back to book one all the time.
• 19:37
  Rachel: What did I even.
• 19:39
  Rachel: What were their voices like back then?
• 19:39
  Rachel: I don't know.
• 19:43
  Jaime Vendera: I get it.
• 19:43
  Jaime Vendera: I just read all three sigils, made a bunch of notes and had told Chris this, but I'm like, I would have to reread them.
• 19:52
  Jaime Vendera: Started like, oh my God. For me, I mean, I've learned a lot.
• 19:55
  Jaime Vendera: Like, in the beginning, I used to buy every book I could find on Amazon about like grammar and about like fantasy writing and this and that.
• 20:02
  Jaime Vendera: I read a lot, but I'm like, honestly, for me, I went to school with two people.
• 20:09
  Jaime Vendera: Rich Dalglish.
• 20:11
  Jaime Vendera: I have to be submersed in it.
• 20:13
  Jaime Vendera: I can't read it in a book and apply it.
• 20:15
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 20:15
  Jaime Vendera: All his edits is like, oh, you know, Jamie Lynn Saunders, who was me, this teenager, she doesn't know how to write.
• 20:21
  Jaime Vendera: She's showing or she's telling, she's not showing.
• 20:24
  Jaime Vendera: And then same thing with Daniel Middleton.
• 20:26
  Jaime Vendera: He used to do some writing with me who does my interior design.
• 20:31
  Jaime Vendera: Just little things they.
• 20:32
  Jaime Vendera: They would guide me on and I'm like.
• 20:34
  Jaime Vendera: And it would stick and like, okay.
• 20:36
  Jaime Vendera: And so if I learn a little bit at a time, then I pretty much always apply it.
• 20:42
  Jaime Vendera: You know, setting the scene and developing the characters.
• 20:46
  Jaime Vendera: But it took me years.
• 20:48
  Jaime Vendera: You know, I write, like I said, I've written a lot and didn't really know what I was doing, even though I've written my whole life.
• 20:54
  Jaime Vendera: But that's, you know, everybody's different.
• 20:57
  Jaime Vendera: Like you said, you've taken courses and you've grown.
• 20:59
  Jaime Vendera: For me, it's just.
• 21:00
  Jaime Vendera: It's guidance from, you know, mentors.
• 21:03
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah.
• 21:04
  Emily: Makes a lot of sense.
• 21:05
  Emily: So you just kind of like collected knowledge that you kind of put into your muscle memory.
• 21:08
  Emily: And now you just, like, apply it.
• 21:11
  Jaime Vendera: With Carissa, too, because there's.
• 21:12
  Jaime Vendera: I mean, her and I for years have went back and forth and like, I know I have driven her nuts with some of the books she's written.
• 21:19
  Jaime Vendera: You know, like, what about this?
• 21:19
  Jaime Vendera: You need more of this?
• 21:21
  Jaime Vendera: You know, like the.
• 21:23
  Karisa DeLay: The non fiction one.
• 21:24
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:25
  Jaime Vendera: The non fiction.
• 21:25
  Jaime Vendera: Why?
• 21:25
  Jaime Vendera: My brain just draw a blank.
• 21:28
  Jaime Vendera: It's like, you need more.
• 21:29
  Jaime Vendera: You need more torsion energy.
• 21:31
  Jaime Vendera: You need this, you need that.
• 21:32
  Jaime Vendera: And you know, I'd mentioned stuff, her, she's like, oh, you know, what about this?
• 21:36
  Jaime Vendera: What about this?
• 21:36
  Jaime Vendera: So those are when I'm.
• 21:38
  Jaime Vendera: I have a tight circle and those are the people.
• 21:41
  Jaime Vendera: Those three are the ones that really have inspired me and keep me on point with writing.
• 21:45
  Rachel: Yeah, I think that's incredible because we talk a lot on our podcast about how lonely the writing process can sometimes feel, if not when you're experiencing it, but on the outside looking in.
• 21:57
  Rachel: And even the topic that I approached you guys with, the individuality of the writing process.
• 22:04
  Rachel: Yeah, it's individual, but it's also really collaborative and really, to us, community based.
• 22:12
  Rachel: Like, I would not be the writer that I am without Emily, without my alpha readers, without my writing buddies, because I.
• 22:18
  Rachel: Yeah, you learn so much from them.
• 22:21
  Rachel: You learn a lot.
• 22:23
  Rachel: Also, like, the motivation is a huge part of the writing process for me, knowing that, like, I have people who are going to encourage me to keep going.
• 22:32
  Rachel: So I think that's a big part of this too.
• 22:35
  Rachel: And I, I love that you brought that up just how important it is to have other people around you, that circle in the process.
• 22:41
  Rachel: It's not just like you sitting down writing.
• 22:43
  Rachel: It's a circle of people that are helping you learn.
• 22:47
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah. And it takes.
• 22:48
  Karisa DeLay: It takes.
• 22:48
  Karisa DeLay: It takes.
• 22:50
  Karisa DeLay: Oh, my gosh.
• 22:51
  Karisa DeLay: I'm stuttering here.
• 22:51
  Karisa DeLay: But it takes someone you can trust that's going to have your best interest.
• 22:55
  Karisa DeLay: But at the same time, be honest with you, because you.
• 22:59
  Karisa DeLay: There are people like, oh, it's great.
• 23:00
  Karisa DeLay: Which, no offense, my husband's one of those people.
• 23:02
  Karisa DeLay: It's great.
• 23:03
  Karisa DeLay: Um, but then I need people that are like, well, I need a little bit more here.
• 23:08
  Karisa DeLay: But then there's that fine line when someone's, like, way too analytical, and you're like, you know what?
• 23:12
  Karisa DeLay: I don't want you in my circle.
• 23:13
  Rachel: Yes.
• 23:15
  Rachel: No. Legit. Yes. Because you have to have that trust.
• 23:19
  Rachel: And as soon as it gets too far, it damages that.
• 23:23
  Rachel: And, like, it becomes a really.
• 23:25
  Rachel: Writing is so deeply personal.
• 23:27
  Rachel: It's so vulnerable.
• 23:28
  Rachel: You don't want that.
• 23:30
  Rachel: We have a whole training in our program called Feedback Training, where we teach people how to give and receive feedback, how to ask for the feedback that they need, how to tell people, that's not the feedback that I want right now.
• 23:42
  Rachel: Please do this instead.
• 23:44
  Rachel: Because it's like walking on eggshells sometimes.
• 23:47
  Rachel: And if you just get hurt, like, right the wrong way, then it can really damage your relationship with writing and with that person.
• 23:55
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah. Especially when they're like your children.
• 23:57
  Jaime Vendera: But also if you have these Alpha readers.
• 23:59
  Jaime Vendera: My. And I've had this happen before.
• 24:00
  Jaime Vendera: I. I've had some Alpha readers in the past, but then they get so involved, like, it's their book.
• 24:05
  Jaime Vendera: And, like, why didn't you do it the way I mentioned?
• 24:07
  Jaime Vendera: And I'm like, it's my story.
• 24:10
  Jaime Vendera: It's.
• 24:11
  Jaime Vendera: I'm not.
• 24:11
  Jaime Vendera: I'm not writing what you want to hear.
• 24:13
  Jaime Vendera: You know, if you want to do.
• 24:14
  Jaime Vendera: I'm not being.
• 24:14
  Jaime Vendera: I'm not being mean when I say this, but that's what you want.
• 24:16
  Jaime Vendera: Then write your own book.
• 24:19
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 24:20
  Rachel: Yeah. Trust is so important.
• 24:23
  Rachel: Yeah. So with, like, process itself there.
• 24:27
  Rachel: There's so many different parts of this conversation.
• 24:29
  Rachel: There's craft, there's showing up, there's planning, plotting, all that.
• 24:31
  Rachel: But, like, what's it look like on a daily basis for each of you?
• 24:35
  Rachel: Jamie's like, I don't.
• 24:37
  Rachel: Not written days.
• 24:38
  Jaime Vendera: Next question.
• 24:41
  Jaime Vendera: Carissa, you go first.
• 24:43
  Jaime Vendera: I don't have much to say.
• 24:44
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah. Jamie's answer will be really short.
• 24:46
  Karisa DeLay: It's not happening.
• 24:51
  Karisa DeLay: His longest writing process is texting me.
• 24:53
  Karisa DeLay: And it's usually, it's usually talk to text so he's not writing it.
• 24:57
  Jaime Vendera: This is not even an excuse.
• 24:58
  Jaime Vendera: And because I will.
• 25:00
  Jaime Vendera: I got so many books to finish.
• 25:01
  Jaime Vendera: But when I start a book, the problem is, is I teach so much.
• 25:06
  Jaime Vendera: That's not the problem.
• 25:07
  Jaime Vendera: When I start a book, screw everything else.
• 25:10
  Jaime Vendera: I don't want to do anything.
• 25:12
  Jaime Vendera: I don't want to eat, I don't want to talk to student.
• 25:14
  Jaime Vendera: I don't, I don't want to go visit my family.
• 25:17
  Jaime Vendera: I don't want to go hanging out with my friends.
• 25:19
  Jaime Vendera: I want to write until it's done.
• 25:21
  Jaime Vendera: And I could literally write.
• 25:22
  Jaime Vendera: I don't write big books, but I could write two or 300 pages and be done in, you know, in a couple weeks and that would be like, okay.
• 25:30
  Jaime Vendera: But then I have to shut everything down.
• 25:31
  Jaime Vendera: So that, that is a fear that I have to overcome because I know when I start sigil, which is soon, I swear to you, Chris, it's like an ongoing joke now.
• 25:40
  Jaime Vendera: That's my worry.
• 25:41
  Jaime Vendera: I'm like, oh my gosh.
• 25:42
  Jaime Vendera: I had to get up at 3am Because I know I'm going to want to write for four hours every day to finish this thing.
• 25:47
  Jaime Vendera: And it's, it's, that's the toughest thing for me.
• 25:48
  Jaime Vendera: I get, I get consumed.
• 25:50
  Jaime Vendera: Like binge watching your favorite show, right?
• 25:53
  Rachel: Yeah, I think we call that hyper focus.
• 25:55
  Jaime Vendera: Yes. And that's not necessarily a good thing.
• 25:58
  Rachel: So yeah, so you're like burst of creativity whenever you can and then.
• 26:07
  Rachel: But those days you're, you're writing like literally as much as you can.
• 26:09
  Jaime Vendera: Those days I will not stop.
• 26:11
  Jaime Vendera: I mean, I'll write for hours now.
• 26:13
  Jaime Vendera: Like I remember writing one book was maybe 125 pages and it was done in a week.
• 26:18
  Jaime Vendera: And my partner told me like, how in the world.
• 26:21
  Jaime Vendera: I'm like, what's the only 125 pages?
• 26:21
  Jaime Vendera: It ain't that much.
• 26:24
  Jaime Vendera: You know, what would you do?
• 26:24
  Jaime Vendera: But I'm like, I'm writing every day.
• 26:27
  Jaime Vendera: I'm like, okay, it's going to have 20 chapters.
• 26:29
  Jaime Vendera: I'm going to write two to four chapters a day and I'll be done by this weekend.
• 26:33
  Jaime Vendera: But that's all I did, you know, my wife come out.
• 26:36
  Jaime Vendera: Did you eat today?
• 26:37
  Jaime Vendera: Huh?
• 26:37
  Jaime Vendera: What time is it?
• 26:38
  Jaime Vendera: It's seven.
• 26:39
  Jaime Vendera: I'm like, oh no. So.
• 26:41
  Rachel: And you just, you, it just like you have the energy to keep doing that.
• 26:46
  Rachel: You have the idea amount.
• 26:49
  Rachel: Like you know, you have enough to say is to get it done.
• 26:53
  Jaime Vendera: I was.
• 26:53
  Jaime Vendera: I shouldn't even say this on this podcast.
• 26:55
  Jaime Vendera: This is going to get me a lot of trouble.
• 26:56
  Jaime Vendera: And I've told this before, if I could do.
• 26:59
  Jaime Vendera: I love coaching voice, and I love singing.
• 27:01
  Jaime Vendera: I've been doing it my whole life.
• 27:02
  Jaime Vendera: I've got to coach some amazing pop and rock stars.
• 27:05
  Jaime Vendera: But if I could do one thing and one thing only, it would be writing books.
• 27:09
  Jaime Vendera: Yes, I. And that's.
• 27:10
  Jaime Vendera: That's.
• 27:10
  Jaime Vendera: That's the one thing.
• 27:12
  Jaime Vendera: Like, I love teaching, but at the end of the day, like, whew, I'm so tired.
• 27:15
  Jaime Vendera: I don't get tired when I'm.
• 27:16
  Jaime Vendera: When I'm writing.
• 27:17
  Jaime Vendera: I'm just.
• 27:17
  Jaime Vendera: But I can write anywhere.
• 27:18
  Jaime Vendera: I can write out in the forest.
• 27:20
  Jaime Vendera: I can write sitting on the couch, in the bed.
• 27:22
  Jaime Vendera: I don't have to have a writing space.
• 27:23
  Jaime Vendera: I can write on my iPhone, on an iPad, whatever.
• 27:26
  Jaime Vendera: And you know what?
• 27:26
  Jaime Vendera: I told Karissa to go first, and I took over, and I can't shut up.
• 27:29
  Jaime Vendera: So let's pass it over to Carissa.
• 27:32
  Karisa DeLay: I feel like this should be, honestly, an intervention for Jamie.
• 27:35
  Karisa DeLay: There should be a complete episode for just getting him to take the time to finish a book.
• 27:41
  Jaime Vendera: Because if you three ladies start.
• 27:42
  Jaime Vendera: Group text.
• 27:43
  Rachel: I was gonna say plot twist.
• 27:45
  Rachel: This was a setup.
• 27:46
  Karisa DeLay: Jamie.
• 27:47
  Jaime Vendera: Wait a minute.
• 27:48
  Jaime Vendera: I don't have a problem.
• 27:50
  Karisa DeLay: This is the thing.
• 27:51
  Karisa DeLay: If Jamie gets free time, Jamie doesn't use his free time in a way that is valuable to Jamie.
• 27:57
  Karisa DeLay: He uses his free time that is, like, for someone else, and this is a problem, and I have to deal with this problem.
• 28:06
  Emily: Well, I'm so curious.
• 28:07
  Emily: I'm so curious, Jamie, because you've said, like, this is the kind of thing I'll often hear from someone who's never finished a book, right?
• 28:14
  Emily: Like, oh, I just.
• 28:15
  Emily: I don't have enough time or I need to have more time or whatever.
• 28:18
  Emily: But you've clearly finished many, many books before.
• 28:20
  Emily: So, like, what, 40?
• 28:21
  Karisa DeLay: Or how have you.
• 28:21
  Karisa DeLay: 40 to 60 books.
• 28:23
  Emily: That's so many books.
• 28:24
  Emily: So, like, obviously you've gotten through this wall before.
• 28:27
  Emily: So, like, what.
• 28:28
  Emily: I'm so curious.
• 28:29
  Emily: Like, what's worked for you?
• 28:30
  Jaime Vendera: It's. Well, I had more time before.
• 28:32
  Jaime Vendera: I mean, I've been a coach for 30 years, but it's to the point where it's ridiculous, but not ridiculous.
• 28:38
  Jaime Vendera: Like, even I talked to Chris last year, and I worked in a way to.
• 28:40
  Jaime Vendera: To narrow it down to just three days instead of five.
• 28:44
  Jaime Vendera: It's not.
• 28:44
  Jaime Vendera: It's not even hard.
• 28:45
  Jaime Vendera: I'm up a five instead of setting.
• 28:49
  Jaime Vendera: All I got to do is open up sudowrite and work, you know, work on whatever and I'd be done.
• 28:56
  Jaime Vendera: So I'm finishing my taxes and then I'm starting on them.
• 29:00
  Jaime Vendera: I'm finishing this week.
• 29:03
  Karisa DeLay: You. You all have witnessed this.
• 29:05
  Karisa DeLay: We'll see.
• 29:06
  Emily: Taxes are a great recording.
• 29:08
  Jaime Vendera: Ladies group text me Monday and we'll.
• 29:11
  Jaime Vendera: I'll be like, I'll do the easy thing.
• 29:13
  Jaime Vendera: I'm like, I threw those three books, those first three books in the pseudo.
• 29:15
  Jaime Vendera: Right.
• 29:16
  Jaime Vendera: So they can map out my characters and all that.
• 29:17
  Karisa DeLay: Oh my gosh.
• 29:19
  Karisa DeLay: Easy.
• 29:20
  Jaime Vendera: All right.
• 29:21
  Karisa DeLay: I don't even remember the original question.
• 29:23
  Karisa DeLay: What was the original question?
• 29:24
  Rachel: What's your writing process look like on the daily.
• 29:29
  Karisa DeLay: Oh, gosh.
• 29:30
  Jaime Vendera: So 10 minutes later.
• 29:31
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, right.
• 29:32
  Karisa DeLay: My writing process is.
• 29:34
  Karisa DeLay: Has significantly evolved.
• 29:36
  Karisa DeLay: But like, for me, over.
• 29:38
  Karisa DeLay: I guess for me, I.
• 29:42
  Karisa DeLay: I can con.
• 29:43
  Karisa DeLay: If I had the time, same as Jamie, to write all day, I probably would.
• 29:47
  Karisa DeLay: But I'm.
• 29:47
  Karisa DeLay: I'm a functioning ADHD er.
• 29:49
  Karisa DeLay: So for me, I could write a few chapters or not chapters, a few paragraphs and then think the next process through.
• 29:56
  Karisa DeLay: Go fold a load of laundry, you know, write a little bit more.
• 29:59
  Karisa DeLay: Oh, go put the dishes away.
• 30:01
  Karisa DeLay: Oh, this or that.
• 30:02
  Karisa DeLay: If I was home all the time, I could probably finish something, but I'm not.
• 30:05
  Karisa DeLay: I have to go.
• 30:06
  Karisa DeLay: I have clients.
• 30:07
  Karisa DeLay: I have these things.
• 30:09
  Karisa DeLay: I can.
• 30:10
  Karisa DeLay: I can think of things while I'm with a client.
• 30:13
  Karisa DeLay: Like, oh, yeah, doing their lashes and I'm like, oh, yes, so Alice should do this and then dah, dah, dah, dah.
• 30:19
  Karisa DeLay: Like it's in my head all the time.
• 30:22
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 30:22
  Karisa DeLay: I mean, so that's just for me.
• 30:23
  Karisa DeLay: My writing process is from brain to page, so I'm always envisioning it.
• 30:28
  Karisa DeLay: I just have to find the time to get it onto the page.
• 30:31
  Rachel: Yeah, I like to call that marinating.
• 30:34
  Rachel: I'm always like, I'm marinating an idea or I'm slow cooking it and then it'll come out.
• 30:40
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah, I can't do that.
• 30:42
  Karisa DeLay: You're fast.
• 30:43
  Jaime Vendera: It's all or nothing.
• 30:45
  Jaime Vendera: I will say that about Krista because for one, she's my most favorite tattoo artist ever.
• 30:51
  Jaime Vendera: She's done quite a few amazing pieces on me and then doing the hair and extensions and this and that and handling all the girls and the volleyball and all.
• 30:59
  Jaime Vendera: I mean, she's crazy busy all the time, so she's not.
• 31:03
  Jaime Vendera: I'm not any more busier than she is and still she makes time.
• 31:07
  Jaime Vendera: But maybe I need.
• 31:08
  Jaime Vendera: I either need Adderall or learn how to marinate.
• 31:16
  Rachel: Oh, my God.
• 31:18
  Karisa DeLay: I make use of my downtime, let's put it that way.
• 31:20
  Rachel: Well, what.
• 31:20
  Rachel: I mean, what is that?
• 31:22
  Rachel: So for me, the timing of the day makes a big difference.
• 31:25
  Rachel: And, like, usually it's after I put my daughter to bed from, like, 9:30 to, like, 11.
• 31:30
  Rachel: So I'm like, I'm gonna write.
• 31:32
  Rachel: That sounds great to me.
• 31:33
  Rachel: I'm a night owl.
• 31:34
  Rachel: I love reading at night, but that's what I can find.
• 31:37
  Jaime Vendera: Well, this is where I like Emily better than you.
• 31:43
  Karisa DeLay: Wow.
• 31:45
  Jaime Vendera: Now Chris is on your side.
• 31:47
  Jaime Vendera: I can't write late at night.
• 31:48
  Jaime Vendera: It's in the mornings.
• 31:49
  Rachel: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:52
  Karisa DeLay: We did an episode on that where we talked about, you know, late owls and, you know, early birds.
• 31:56
  Karisa DeLay: And for me, my very first two novels, I. My first book I did in nine months.
• 32:01
  Karisa DeLay: Like, bam.
• 32:01
  Karisa DeLay: Every night writing every second writing that possibly could.
• 32:04
  Karisa DeLay: But I had.
• 32:04
  Karisa DeLay: I had, you know, three babies under the age of four.
• 32:08
  Karisa DeLay: And so I was up all the time.
• 32:10
  Karisa DeLay: I didn't have sleep.
• 32:11
  Karisa DeLay: Was not something I had.
• 32:12
  Karisa DeLay: So I used my lack of sleep to just create.
• 32:15
  Karisa DeLay: And so those first two books were a lot easier to come out of me.
• 32:19
  Karisa DeLay: I got the first one nine months, second one, 11 months.
• 32:21
  Karisa DeLay: This one's taking years because I'm so much more busy.
• 32:25
  Karisa DeLay: Because when I put my kids down, I don't know, it's like my.
• 32:29
  Karisa DeLay: It's my.
• 32:30
  Karisa DeLay: It's.
• 32:30
  Karisa DeLay: Now that I'm in this space, it's like I'm decompressing.
• 32:33
  Karisa DeLay: So I. I'm more creative at night for the most part.
• 32:36
  Karisa DeLay: But at the same time, I have sprinkles through the daytime where I'm like, you know what?
• 32:40
  Karisa DeLay: Like, right before we were getting on this, and I didn't realize it was like, you know, a minute pass.
• 32:44
  Karisa DeLay: I'm like, oh, crap, I gotta go over here.
• 32:45
  Karisa DeLay: I was writing of, like, two or three paragraphs.
• 32:48
  Rachel: So, yeah, it's random.
• 32:50
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah. But she can do this really cool trick, and it blows my mind.
• 32:53
  Jaime Vendera: She can play video games and then write too.
• 32:57
  Jaime Vendera: And I don't understand that.
• 33:00
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, I do that at night.
• 33:02
  Karisa DeLay: I will play video games and write in between while I'm playing.
• 33:06
  Rachel: Now we're besties.
• 33:08
  Rachel: Because I will do that too.
• 33:10
  Rachel: And I'll also write with a TV show on or something.
• 33:13
  Rachel: I just did a writing retreat with one of my really close writing buddies.
• 33:17
  Rachel: And we watched all of the Twilight movies, two seasons of the Crown and all of Chernobyl.
• 33:24
  Rachel: And meanwhile, just writing 3,000 words a day.
• 33:27
  Rachel: And we're.
• 33:28
  Rachel: We're, like, chatting like, oh, my God, can You believe that?
• 33:30
  Rachel: Or like, oh, Edward, you're so dramatic.
• 33:33
  Rachel: Like, right.
• 33:35
  Jaime Vendera: One of my personalities is team Emily and the other is Team I can't figure.
• 33:40
  Rachel: We contain multitudes.
• 33:42
  Emily: Gosh. I cannot.
• 33:44
  Emily: I cannot multitask to save my life.
• 33:48
  Rachel: That's what feeds my ADHD is like, no.
• 33:51
  Rachel: If I don't, I just get bored.
• 33:53
  Rachel: And then that's when I pick up my phone.
• 33:54
  Rachel: Yes.
• 33:54
  Karisa DeLay: Yes.
• 33:55
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 33:55
  Karisa DeLay: It's why it's functioning adhd, because I can multitask and not feel.
• 33:59
  Karisa DeLay: And some people are like, oh, you cannot multitask and be productive.
• 34:03
  Karisa DeLay: I'm like, oh, but I can.
• 34:04
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, I absolutely can.
• 34:05
  Rachel: Yeah, I can.
• 34:06
  Karisa DeLay: And sometimes fit a 20 minute nap in there too.
• 34:08
  Karisa DeLay: At the same time.
• 34:08
  Karisa DeLay: Exactly.
• 34:09
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah.
• 34:10
  Jaime Vendera: As you're writing, I can't.
• 34:12
  Emily: I tried to multitask this weekend and I burned three things in the stove.
• 34:16
  Emily: Three different things.
• 34:18
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah. The last.
• 34:20
  Emily: The last one, I was just, like, so angry.
• 34:23
  Emily: We were going to a birthday party and I was like, I. I hate myself.
• 34:25
  Emily: I was like, I'm so angry at myself.
• 34:28
  Karisa DeLay: I was like, my brain can't do it.
• 34:31
  Emily: All I'm trying to do is get my daughter out the door and not burn the muffins.
• 34:35
  Karisa DeLay: That's hilarious.
• 34:39
  Rachel: So you're like, not writing and cooking at the same time.
• 34:43
  Karisa DeLay: I will.
• 34:43
  Jaime Vendera: Me.
• 34:44
  Rachel: I will too.
• 34:45
  Rachel: I'll have my laptop up while I'm, like, stirring something.
• 34:48
  Emily: And like, that sounds so efficient.
• 34:51
  Emily: But I can't.
• 34:52
  Rachel: I don't know if that's the word I use, but I guess it gets things done.
• 34:57
  Karisa DeLay: Like, I really in the mood to write.
• 34:59
  Karisa DeLay: So guess what you're getting.
• 35:00
  Karisa DeLay: You're getting Crockpot foods today.
• 35:03
  Karisa DeLay: Just put it in.
• 35:05
  Rachel: But Chris, when you're doing this, like, you know, snagging little time throughout the day, which I think is a really effective way to make progress over time, I think people feel like this was.
• 35:16
  Rachel: This was one of the beliefs that I held when I first started writing, that I had to sit down and I had to have, like, a certain amount of time to get into it to, like, write anything good.
• 35:26
  Rachel: And so I used to be like, nope, I can't.
• 35:28
  Rachel: That's kind of how my after work writing started.
• 35:31
  Rachel: And now I've realized that actually just works for my body.
• 35:34
  Rachel: So I like writing at night, but I used to think you needed to have, like, dedicated amount of time.
• 35:39
  Rachel: And once I became a parent, that was impossible.
• 35:41
  Jaime Vendera: So.
• 35:41
  Rachel: So then I was like, I need to write whenever I have time.
• 35:46
  Karisa DeLay: But do you think that sometimes that's a mental thing?
• 35:50
  Karisa DeLay: That was Given to us when we watch movies where there's writers or authors in the movie.
• 35:54
  Karisa DeLay: Like, yeah, I went and went to this retreat in, like, New Hampshire so I could finish my book.
• 36:00
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 36:01
  Karisa DeLay: And you're feeling.
• 36:02
  Karisa DeLay: And then, like, they have this room that overlooks the bay and, like, you know, in Nantucket or something like that.
• 36:07
  Karisa DeLay: And you're like, wow, that's amazing.
• 36:09
  Karisa DeLay: And these private times and, like, they sit down and just write.
• 36:11
  Karisa DeLay: I'm like, that's what an author is.
• 36:13
  Karisa DeLay: That's what my brain thinks an author's supposed to be.
• 36:15
  Karisa DeLay: No, that's not who we are at all.
• 36:17
  Rachel: It's all very aesthetic.
• 36:19
  Rachel: You know, the.
• 36:20
  Rachel: The projected version of being an author is all very aesthetic.
• 36:23
  Rachel: And, like, most writers are.
• 36:25
  Rachel: Do, like, have other jobs.
• 36:27
  Rachel: A lot of writers.
• 36:28
  Rachel: I won't say most.
• 36:28
  Rachel: I'll say a lot of writers as they're writing, have other things to do.
• 36:31
  Rachel: They have other responsibilities.
• 36:33
  Rachel: They have other.
• 36:33
  Rachel: You know, it's not just let me sit down in front of my picturesque view of the bay and get my words done.
• 36:40
  Jaime Vendera: Or, I mean, have.
• 36:41
  Jaime Vendera: You're lying on the bed, have your feet tied up in the movie Misery.
• 36:44
  Jaime Vendera: I mean, it's just.
• 36:45
  Jaime Vendera: It's not the way it is.
• 36:46
  Rachel: Right?
• 36:46
  Rachel: It's not.
• 36:47
  Karisa DeLay: Finish this.
• 36:48
  Rachel: Do you, like.
• 36:49
  Rachel: Do you guys use, like, different tools to do this?
• 36:51
  Rachel: I know Jamie said you write on your phone sometimes.
• 36:54
  Rachel: That's more or less effective for me.
• 36:56
  Rachel: Like, I use.
• 36:57
  Rachel: I use Scrivener, and sometimes I'll take notes, but, like, what are we doing to get these words down in these kind of random snippets in the day?
• 37:06
  Jaime Vendera: I mean, the one thing that helped me.
• 37:07
  Jaime Vendera: And this is from another friend of mine, Jeff Rivera, who we've interviewed.
• 37:10
  Jaime Vendera: I remember years ago.
• 37:11
  Jaime Vendera: He's like, oh.
• 37:12
  Jaime Vendera: Because I remember they had dragon naturally speaking, which was really clunky, and it would do voice to text.
• 37:19
  Jaime Vendera: He's like, no. He said, you can.
• 37:20
  Jaime Vendera: They have a microphone on your Google.
• 37:23
  Jaime Vendera: You can do that.
• 37:24
  Jaime Vendera: This is, what, 10 years ago?
• 37:26
  Jaime Vendera: And as soon as I was able to do that, I do.
• 37:30
  Jaime Vendera: I guess I don't want to lie to you ladies there.
• 37:32
  Jaime Vendera: I do have spurts.
• 37:33
  Jaime Vendera: If I'm in a car in the past, I'm like, oh.
• 37:37
  Jaime Vendera: And then I would do text to speech.
• 37:39
  Jaime Vendera: So, yeah, And I still do that.
• 37:41
  Jaime Vendera: I'm not really good at it, as Chris will tell you.
• 37:44
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, he's either got better at it or AI's got smarter about it, because.
• 37:50
  Jaime Vendera: I haven't gotten better.
• 37:51
  Jaime Vendera: But that's the only thing that's Helped me.
• 37:53
  Jaime Vendera: That's the only tool.
• 37:54
  Jaime Vendera: But I can.
• 37:55
  Jaime Vendera: I've written.
• 37:56
  Jaime Vendera: I've written complete books with my thumbs on my iPhone or I have an iPad with a magic keyboard that I use.
• 38:02
  Jaime Vendera: And of course, I used to use laptops.
• 38:04
  Rachel: So, yeah, just kind of anything.
• 38:06
  Rachel: What about you, Karissa, again?
• 38:08
  Karisa DeLay: What's the question again?
• 38:08
  Karisa DeLay: Like, sometimes I'm losing the question.
• 38:12
  Karisa DeLay: I'm just like, moment.
• 38:13
  Karisa DeLay: I'm like, wait, what were we talking about?
• 38:15
  Rachel: Tools you're using to, like, write throughout the day.
• 38:17
  Rachel: If you have, like, these little snippets.
• 38:19
  Rachel: Are you on.
• 38:20
  Rachel: Are you doing something else to.
• 38:22
  Rachel: I mean, writing can happen on the go.
• 38:25
  Rachel: So, like, what's that version?
• 38:26
  Karisa DeLay: What's your.
• 38:27
  Karisa DeLay: So for me, if I'm walking, if I'm on a walk by myself and obviously be really weird if I was someone else and doing this, but I will open my notes app and I will title it whatever chapter I'm thinking, and I'll just talk to it and I'll be like, okay, don't forget to do this.
• 38:41
  Karisa DeLay: I'll just normally have a conversation.
• 38:43
  Karisa DeLay: And like, I told Jamie, this is so weird.
• 38:45
  Karisa DeLay: When I do this, I do it always in a British accent.
• 38:49
  Karisa DeLay: I don't know why I do that.
• 38:51
  Karisa DeLay: So if I'm talking out loud, as if I'm talking to myself, I don't do it in my regular voice.
• 38:55
  Karisa DeLay: It's always British.
• 38:56
  Karisa DeLay: I'm like.
• 38:57
  Karisa DeLay: I feel like that's less the same.
• 39:00
  Rachel: Is it?
• 39:02
  Karisa DeLay: So I'm like.
• 39:03
  Karisa DeLay: I told Jamie, I said, well, I do that.
• 39:04
  Karisa DeLay: It's always a British accent.
• 39:07
  Karisa DeLay: But then if.
• 39:07
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah, it is kind of weird.
• 39:09
  Rachel: That's awesome, though.
• 39:10
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, I know.
• 39:11
  Emily: It's probably a way to, like, dissociate the story from your.
• 39:15
  Emily: Your identity.
• 39:16
  Emily: Like.
• 39:16
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, I'm just externalize it somehow.
• 39:19
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah.
• 39:19
  Jaime Vendera: Ye.
• 39:19
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah. But either way.
• 39:20
  Karisa DeLay: So that's what I'm doing if I'm walking, but if.
• 39:23
  Karisa DeLay: If I am, like, in a stationary position where I'm, like, waiting on a kid to get out of something, and I have, like 30 minutes or so or less, I can go onto my writing app on my phone.
• 39:33
  Karisa DeLay: Like, you can go to sudo write.
• 39:34
  Karisa DeLay: I use a lot of sudo, right, to hold my stuff, and then I save it and other stuff.
• 39:39
  Karisa DeLay: But I will.
• 39:40
  Karisa DeLay: I will go into my chapters and I will just kind of see where I left off, if I'm feeling it, and I'll go in there and do that kind of stuff.
• 39:46
  Karisa DeLay: So it's just whenever it hits me, if I have a moment to stop, I will.
• 39:50
  Karisa DeLay: I will do it.
• 39:51
  Karisa DeLay: If I don't, I just try to hold onto it and make a quick note to myself somewhere.
• 39:55
  Rachel: Yeah, you're taking that marinating and just processing it into.
• 39:59
  Karisa DeLay: Because I'll forget that I marinated and I'll burn it.
• 40:01
  Karisa DeLay: Like, Emily.
• 40:04
  Rachel: Burn the idea.
• 40:06
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, the Emily will.
• 40:07
  Emily: Or.
• 40:07
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, the Emily idea will burn, and then I won't have it.
• 40:10
  Karisa DeLay: I'll be like, oh, dang it, it's gone.
• 40:12
  Rachel: Toss that one out.
• 40:13
  Rachel: Lost it.
• 40:14
  Rachel: Start over.
• 40:15
  Rachel: Yes.
• 40:17
  Jaime Vendera: I love that.
• 40:18
  Rachel: So expectations, though, I. It sounds like as you have grown and changed over the years and written more books, you've kind of adjusted to, you know, what you.
• 40:30
  Rachel: This vision we're talking about of, like, what we thought a writer was and like, what a writer actually is.
• 40:38
  Rachel: You have different expectations for yourself than you were.
• 40:41
  Rachel: Than you did maybe when you started.
• 40:43
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah. Volume versus quality of work.
• 40:45
  Rachel: Ah, okay.
• 40:47
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 40:48
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah. So before I was like, oh, I wrote.
• 40:50
  Karisa DeLay: What is it?
• 40:51
  Jaime Vendera: That's why I'm so slow.
• 40:52
  Jaime Vendera: I prefer quality of work over volume.
• 40:53
  Jaime Vendera: Indeed.
• 40:54
  Rachel: Yes.
• 40:56
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, we're gonna go with that one.
• 40:58
  Karisa DeLay: No, I feel like I. I've learned to.
• 41:02
  Karisa DeLay: In the beginning, it's always.
• 41:03
  Karisa DeLay: It's like a. It's almost fairy tale.
• 41:05
  Karisa DeLay: Like, when you're like, oh, I wrote a novel.
• 41:07
  Karisa DeLay: Like, you want to hit that, like, large novel that was kind of like a brick wall that Jamie and I faced was.
• 41:12
  Karisa DeLay: Whenever I first met Jamie and he wanted to take my book, he wanted to break it apart.
• 41:17
  Karisa DeLay: I'm like, no, no, we're not breaking apart.
• 41:20
  Karisa DeLay: I did.
• 41:20
  Karisa DeLay: I didn't.
• 41:20
  Karisa DeLay: I didn't write 425 pages for nothing.
• 41:23
  Karisa DeLay: We're not doing that.
• 41:24
  Jaime Vendera: So in my defense, it was like thinking she could have more books and make more money and we could do one six months apart.
• 41:31
  Jaime Vendera: But that's.
• 41:32
  Jaime Vendera: That's where I was.
• 41:33
  Jaime Vendera: I was writing shorter books, reading her book.
• 41:36
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah. Thinking now you can't break it apart.
• 41:40
  Karisa DeLay: Right.
• 41:41
  Karisa DeLay: So that was more of, like, that volume.
• 41:43
  Karisa DeLay: I wanted that novel.
• 41:44
  Karisa DeLay: And then the series.
• 41:45
  Karisa DeLay: It was like these.
• 41:45
  Rachel: These.
• 41:47
  Karisa DeLay: These words that were just kind of playing in my mind that I was attracted to.
• 41:51
  Karisa DeLay: To complete.
• 41:52
  Karisa DeLay: But now it's like, I. It's not that I wasn't trying to write quality because I had a vision in my head of the books.
• 41:58
  Karisa DeLay: Now I've.
• 41:58
  Karisa DeLay: I've surpassed that, and I'm more gained experience of not only the editing and like that, but shifting my pursuit more to, like, a more perfect book and taking the time to value it versus just creating that volume in a certain, you know, timeframe.
• 42:13
  Karisa DeLay: And, you know, not getting too frustrated as a writer at the same time, still being able to, like, keep the creative juices going.
• 42:20
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 42:21
  Karisa DeLay: So I'm.
• 42:22
  Rachel: I'm. Sounds like you've.
• 42:24
  Rachel: When you say, you know, you're trying to make a more perfect book, it sounds like you're in a spot now where you've learned a lot over the years and you're consciously putting that into, like, your efforts as you're writing so that it feels tighter, it feels stronger, and it feels like, you know, that this is a reflection of your growth.
• 42:43
  Rachel: Is that right?
• 42:45
  Karisa DeLay: Yes, I would agree with that statement.
• 42:47
  Rachel: Yeah. Yeah.
• 42:48
  Karisa DeLay: I feel like that was just like kind of like it was on the witness stand or something.
• 42:50
  Karisa DeLay: Yes.
• 42:51
  Karisa DeLay: Yes.
• 42:52
  Karisa DeLay: Accurate.
• 42:54
  Rachel: Let the record show.
• 42:56
  Karisa DeLay: Let the record show.
• 42:59
  Rachel: Let's love it.
• 43:00
  Rachel: Love it.
• 43:00
  Rachel: I mean, that's, like, a really important part of this too.
• 43:03
  Rachel: Do you feel like that's become easier?
• 43:03
  Rachel: Cause I. I definitely feel like, for me, as I've written more.
• 43:09
  Rachel: Not that writing becomes easier, because it doesn't, which is weird, but.
• 43:16
  Rachel: But, like, the more you learn, the process maybe is a little more knowable, a little easier, at least in, like, what you can expect of this part, this stage, you know, you're not forging forward into the unknown.
• 43:27
  Rachel: You, like, know what you're doing a little bit.
• 43:29
  Rachel: And so there is.
• 43:30
  Rachel: There is a difference in.
• 43:33
  Rachel: I don't.
• 43:33
  Rachel: Easy is not the right word, but, like, you know what I mean?
• 43:35
  Rachel: Like, there's a comfort in that, knowing that, like, I've been through this before and I can do it again.
• 43:41
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, I've seen this movie before.
• 43:43
  Karisa DeLay: For me, personally, I wish I could somehow get with my old self and my new self together and somehow write a little bit more flowy and not be such a perfectionist about it.
• 43:55
  Karisa DeLay: Because sometimes I will stare at a conversation, and I'm like, this is.
• 43:58
  Karisa DeLay: I can just move on.
• 43:59
  Karisa DeLay: But it's.
• 44:00
  Karisa DeLay: It's like I can't mentally move past it unless I figure out what the words are.
• 44:05
  Karisa DeLay: Now, with that said, recently, Jamie and I use Sudo, right?
• 44:07
  Karisa DeLay: In which we've interviewed the engineer on Sudo, right, who works with the AI in the back end.
• 44:13
  Karisa DeLay: Now, you don't have AI write it for you.
• 44:15
  Karisa DeLay: I mean, there's options to help you reword or whatever.
• 44:18
  Karisa DeLay: But what I use it for is I. And this is a new thing.
• 44:21
  Karisa DeLay: And I love this.
• 44:23
  Karisa DeLay: I love it for its organization, first of all.
• 44:26
  Karisa DeLay: But for me, I love that I can write an entire chapter.
• 44:29
  Karisa DeLay: And I just did this.
• 44:30
  Karisa DeLay: This is a new thing.
• 44:32
  Karisa DeLay: Write the chapter and then it will actually analyze your chapter and say, okay, this part, these are the awesome parts.
• 44:38
  Karisa DeLay: These are the parts that are boring, these are the parts that are confusing.
• 44:42
  Karisa DeLay: And this is the part that's unbelievable.
• 44:44
  Karisa DeLay: Like, no one's going to believe this.
• 44:46
  Karisa DeLay: I'm like, oh, it, I mean, it literally is like that person you're looking for to give you constructive criticism, but a little bit of positivity at the same time.
• 44:53
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah. And then I go back in.
• 44:54
  Karisa DeLay: I'm like, oh, it's so right.
• 44:55
  Karisa DeLay: So you go, you have to personally go back and look at it and be like, okay, I'm gonna change this around.
• 45:00
  Karisa DeLay: So it's actually something that has helped my writing process go faster.
• 45:03
  Karisa DeLay: So I just write it down how I wanna go, makes my writing go faster, like I said.
• 45:08
  Karisa DeLay: But then when I hit that, it tells me where I need to work on stuff and I'm like, okay, now I can go back and kind of fine tune that.
• 45:13
  Jaime Vendera: That's interesting.
• 45:14
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah.
• 45:15
  Rachel: So you're making those changes as it's giving you that feedback before you move forward.
• 45:19
  Rachel: Or you're just like, okay, I'm aware of that.
• 45:21
  Rachel: I'm going to come back to it.
• 45:23
  Karisa DeLay: No, I have to do it in the moment because it's fresh in my mind.
• 45:25
  Karisa DeLay: So I will write the chapter and this has made it, like I said, more, more efficient.
• 45:29
  Karisa DeLay: I'll write the chapter and I'll just hit the little plugin that it's like a deep seek.
• 45:34
  Karisa DeLay: So it'll really go in there and read your stuff and say what seems confusing.
• 45:40
  Karisa DeLay: For example, I had the first chapter I was working on and the character was in her head, an inner monologue.
• 45:47
  Karisa DeLay: And the inner monologue is italicized.
• 45:49
  Karisa DeLay: And then the person that's in the thing is conversation normal.
• 45:53
  Karisa DeLay: But it was saying the inner monologue is great.
• 45:56
  Karisa DeLay: This is, it was telling me how awesome that was.
• 45:58
  Karisa DeLay: But what the thing is, is not believable is why she went from this point to this point with this character.
• 46:03
  Karisa DeLay: And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's true.
• 46:03
  Karisa DeLay: I probably should have made a little bit more of a.
• 46:06
  Karisa DeLay: A movement there between how she jumped to that thought process.
• 46:10
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah, this is like the non biased ultimate alpha reader.
• 46:14
  Jaime Vendera: So for those of you watching, oh, AI.
• 46:16
  Jaime Vendera: She's using AI.
• 46:17
  Jaime Vendera: No, this.
• 46:17
  Jaime Vendera: You could pass this, your novel off to somebody else and they could give you the same constructive feedback.
• 46:23
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:24
  Karisa DeLay: In longer time.
• 46:25
  Jaime Vendera: Yep.
• 46:26
  Rachel: Yeah. Do you.
• 46:27
  Rachel: Okay, so you mentioned though, and we're getting to the top of our time, so we, we can start wrapping up here.
• 46:33
  Rachel: But you mentioned, though, Chrissa, that you would love to find, like, the balance between the old version of you that was so flowy and free and the new version of you that's, like, learned a lot and is trying apply that learning and, like, write a really tight book.
• 46:49
  Rachel: And I think we.
• 46:50
  Rachel: We all kind of wrestle with those different pieces of ourselves as different parts of ourselves as we learn and as we grow.
• 46:57
  Rachel: So imagine that you're talking to, like, you, I don't know, 10 years ago, or.
• 47:03
  Rachel: Or a newer writer who's like, I. I don't know what I'm doing.
• 47:07
  Rachel: I don't know how to make a writing process.
• 47:09
  Rachel: Like, what would you tell them from.
• 47:11
  Rachel: For try to walk this balance?
• 47:11
  Rachel: Or like, here's the main thing I learned and I'm still working on it.
• 47:19
  Rachel: Or like, what.
• 47:20
  Rachel: What would be kind of your lesson or takeaway for, like, process in general?
• 47:24
  Rachel: In.
• 47:25
  Karisa DeLay: In.
• 47:25
  Rachel: In growing, in changing and trying to find this medium.
• 47:30
  Karisa DeLay: So for.
• 47:31
  Karisa DeLay: My personal advice would be not to step away.
• 47:34
  Karisa DeLay: Even if you're staring at that one little line, you're still in the book.
• 47:38
  Karisa DeLay: So I feel like when you walk away, you have to start all over.
• 47:41
  Karisa DeLay: So stay in the book.
• 47:43
  Karisa DeLay: Whether the flow.
• 47:44
  Karisa DeLay: Because the flow may come, the flow may be there, and.
• 47:46
  Karisa DeLay: Oh, I've got five paragraphs.
• 47:47
  Karisa DeLay: I just did this.
• 47:48
  Karisa DeLay: Great.
• 47:48
  Karisa DeLay: Or I may only get one sentence.
• 47:50
  Karisa DeLay: So we've talked about this in our podcast.
• 47:52
  Karisa DeLay: Just write something every day, or at least look at it every day.
• 47:56
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, like, I think that would be my advice.
• 47:58
  Karisa DeLay: It'd be every day.
• 47:59
  Karisa DeLay: At least look at it.
• 48:00
  Karisa DeLay: Look at your work or think about your work every day.
• 48:03
  Karisa DeLay: Take time for that.
• 48:05
  Karisa DeLay: That would be my advice.
• 48:06
  Karisa DeLay: I love it.
• 48:07
  Rachel: Jamie, what about you?
• 48:09
  Jaime Vendera: And it may not work for everybody.
• 48:10
  Jaime Vendera: I should take my own advice for yourself, yes.
• 48:17
  Jaime Vendera: But just write every day.
• 48:19
  Jaime Vendera: Quit. What I see with beginning authors.
• 48:21
  Jaime Vendera: Like, I'm never going to finish this book.
• 48:23
  Jaime Vendera: And I don't.
• 48:24
  Jaime Vendera: I don't remember how he came up with the word flowetry.
• 48:26
  Jaime Vendera: Chris.
• 48:28
  Karisa DeLay: Yeah, it's one of our words that we have a. We have a dictionary of words we create and make up on our podcast.
• 48:33
  Karisa DeLay: And flow.
• 48:33
  Karisa DeLay: A tree is one of them.
• 48:36
  Jaime Vendera: And so.
• 48:37
  Jaime Vendera: But in the beginning, don't so many people get stuck in that paragraph or sentence.
• 48:41
  Jaime Vendera: They.
• 48:41
  Jaime Vendera: They try to write this perfect, elaborate, elegant sentence.
• 48:47
  Jaime Vendera: Everything's perfect.
• 48:48
  Jaime Vendera: It's like poetry.
• 48:49
  Jaime Vendera: And you got to kind of meet in the middle and let it flow and don't worry about the typos.
• 48:55
  Jaime Vendera: So, again, this may not work for everybody, but my process was and this was always my process with fiction.
• 48:59
  Jaime Vendera: I would write a bunch of stuff, and when I felt like, okay, I'm done.
• 49:02
  Jaime Vendera: I need to go do whatever, then when I hop back in the next day, I always had two parts.
• 49:07
  Jaime Vendera: I would reread what I did so I could clean up the typos.
• 49:10
  Jaime Vendera: I didn't even want to think about them.
• 49:11
  Jaime Vendera: And then it got my juices flowing.
• 49:13
  Jaime Vendera: And then I started writing again.
• 49:14
  Jaime Vendera: So it's always, check for typos from yesterday.
• 49:17
  Jaime Vendera: Write the new part today.
• 49:18
  Jaime Vendera: Typos.
• 49:19
  Jaime Vendera: Write the new part back and forth.
• 49:21
  Jaime Vendera: And you know what?
• 49:21
  Jaime Vendera: You may have to play around.
• 49:23
  Jaime Vendera: It may be like Emily and I may be early morning.
• 49:27
  Jaime Vendera: It may be right after school.
• 49:28
  Jaime Vendera: It may be late in the evening.
• 49:30
  Karisa DeLay: But not when the muffins are in the oven.
• 49:33
  Rachel: Hard pass.
• 49:35
  Jaime Vendera: Yes. You don't want to burn it, but finding you can find that sweet spot that works for you.
• 49:40
  Jaime Vendera: It's not the same for everybody else.
• 49:42
  Jaime Vendera: Find what works for you.
• 49:43
  Jaime Vendera: And who cares if it's weird?
• 49:45
  Jaime Vendera: It could be like I go down and I'm riding in the restroom down in the basements, and the cats are coming in here.
• 49:52
  Jaime Vendera: But at least, you know, but whatever works.
• 49:54
  Jaime Vendera: Just find it.
• 49:55
  Jaime Vendera: And just like Karissa said, consistency.
• 49:57
  Jaime Vendera: You got.
• 49:57
  Jaime Vendera: You got to do this.
• 49:59
  Jaime Vendera: So don't give up.
• 50:00
  Jaime Vendera: Stay in it.
• 50:01
  Rachel: Love that experiment, but keep doing it.
• 50:04
  Rachel: Keep trying.
• 50:06
  Emily: Keep moving forward.
• 50:06
  Emily: Stay in it.
• 50:07
  Emily: Love it.
• 50:08
  Karisa DeLay: Just keep swimming.
• 50:10
  Emily: Just keep swimming.
• 50:12
  Rachel: To. To send us off here.
• 50:14
  Rachel: Tell us again how our listeners can find you.
• 50:17
  Rachel: And the podcast, the Always Right podcast.
• 50:20
  Karisa DeLay: So the Always Right podcast, you can go to alwayswrightpodcast.com, which that is A L, L ways.
• 50:26
  Karisa DeLay: W A. Oh, my gosh, I'm a terrible speller.
• 50:29
  Karisa DeLay: That's why I have an editor.
• 50:30
  Karisa DeLay: W A Y S W R I t e alwayswritepodcast.com or you can go to alwayswritepodcast gmail.com and send us an email.
• 50:40
  Karisa DeLay: And we're on all the.
• 50:41
  Karisa DeLay: All the fancy schmancy podcasting outlets, and we also have a YouTube channel.
• 50:47
  Rachel: Love that.
• 50:48
  Rachel: Yeah. Because you guys do like the video recordings, too.
• 50:51
  Karisa DeLay: Yes.
• 50:51
  Rachel: Which is pretty cool.
• 50:52
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah. So you can see my goofy faces.
• 50:54
  Jaime Vendera: I make it worth the watch.
• 50:57
  Rachel: Goofy faces and all our hand gestures.
• 51:01
  Emily: What about your books?
• 51:01
  Emily: Where can people find your books?
• 51:04
  Karisa DeLay: Amazon.
• 51:05
  Karisa DeLay: You can just Google our author names.
• 51:07
  Karisa DeLay: Author Clarissa delay.
• 51:09
  Karisa DeLay: Author Jamie Vendara.
• 51:10
  Karisa DeLay: We're on Amazon.
• 51:12
  Karisa DeLay: Barnes and Noble online.
• 51:13
  Jaime Vendera: Yeah, you can.
• 51:14
  Jaime Vendera: Or you can head to Vendera Publishing if you want to break down, because we handle several other authors as well.
• 51:19
  Rachel: All right.
• 51:19
  Rachel: We will put links for all of those things in the show notes so you can swipe up and tap away and go check them out.
• 51:26
  Rachel: Thank you both so much for coming on.
• 51:28
  Rachel: This was such a fun conversation.
• 51:30
  Jaime Vendera: That's been great.
• 51:32
  Karisa DeLay: Yes. Thank you.
• 51:33
  Karisa DeLay: Love it.
• 51:34
  Emily: Awesome.
• 51:35
  Emily: If you want to build a successful, fulfilling and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.
• 51:41
  Rachel: Sign up now to get our free email course, the Magic of Character Arcs.
• 51:44
  Rachel: After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.
• 51:49
  Emily: Link in the show notes.
• 51:50
  Emily: We'll see you there.
• 51:51
  Emily: Thank you so much.