Write Away Podcast

Intro

Welcome to Episode Three of the Write Away podcast. I’m your host, Crys Cain, and I am recording this May the 5th. This week in my writing progress, it was really consistent, which is something that I have been missing a lot for quite a while. I averaged between about 2000-2400 words every day without having to like sit at the keyboard and drag it out of myself.

I utilized a lot of sprints, which have kind of been my savior, both in getting the words down and enforcing me to get away from my really janky desk system that I really can’t change until I can travel and go to places that sell decent desk chairs and stuff. But with the combo of the sprints and getting up and laying around in my bed in between sprints, I’m actually doing pretty well on both points of progress, health and words.

I actually did so well on the cozy mystery that I ran out of plot. I’m not— with romance, I know the genre well enough I’m able to plot it from start to finish before I sit down and even think about starting to write the actual prose. As I’ve been getting into other genres, I find that I actually get overwhelmed because they’re not as tight in their expectations as romance.

There’s a book called Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes that’s actually a really good pattern for romances of what the reader expects on their emotional journey. And a lot of people don’t like the formulaicness of romance, but there’s a certain pattern that readers expect. not in the actual “things that happen,” but in the emotional responses they have, and that book covers it really well.

But when you get into almost any other genre, the emotional expectation is not nearly as strict. And so I kind of get an a choice paralysis, a choice overload. And what I’ve been doing is only plotting a few scenes ahead of time to limit my fear of plotting the wrong things or just feeling like I have to know where everything is going when I’m still in the learning process of these individuals genres.

And I don’t know if I’ll ever be a full plotter-outer with space opera, or just science fiction in general, because there are so many paths. But maybe I’ll get to a point of comfort where I’m like, okay, I know the kind of stories I like to tell in this genre-slash-setting, and so I feel really comfortable in knowing where I want to take this whole story.

But as it is, I tend to plot just a few, like, five scenes ahead. And I ran out of plot. So I switched projects for a little bit while I tried to get into a super creative mindset. I need more of a deep-thinking mindset when I’m plotting and I was just exhausted over the weekend. I switched to a different project that was already plotted out and had a lot of fun putting words down on that.

And then yesterday I was he able to get into the project. I had to move some scenes around because I’d gotten to that point where I’m like, “Oh, something is wrong.” Not just I’ve run out of plot, but also something is wrong and I don’t know where to go from here because the wrong thing will affect everything from here.

I know a lot of people will say, just write your crappy first draft and continue. I agree with that to a certain extent, but when I know something is super wrong, I have to fix it. So I did that, and really, all it was is that I had to take the last scene I’d written and move it about three scenes previous, and then adjust things to follow from that. And then boom, problem solved. I was able to move forward. So that was quite exciting.

Other than the writing, I’m a big learner and one of the things I’ll probably do in these intro bits is talk about something that I’m learning. Yesterday, I started the Write Better Faster 1.0 class with Becca Syme, which I’ve been really wanting to sink my teeth into for, maybe, about a year or so. But time and money had never lined up. And it finally did.

I started it yesterday and it’s just an intro, which is really hard for me when classes are doled out one piece at a time—which is a really smart way to do it—but I’m an overachiever. And I’m like, well… can you just give me all the things at once so I can blitz through and do them all? Which is not ideal.

So it was just introductions yesterday. And then I found myself sitting here this morning staring at the class website thinking… How many hours until tomorrow? How many hours until tomorrow? That’s just ridiculous. But tomorrow, we’ll get into some of the assessment stuff, which is personality profiles, and I’m a total personality profile chunky. That’s right up my jam.

One of the reasons I’m taking this class is I have burned out at least three times in the last three years from working too hard, writing too much, writing in a genre  I don’t love—a multitude of things have contributed to them. But because this is the only money my family lives off of, I couldn’t quit.

I had to sit there and keep going. And that’s—there’s something to be said for that. But I’d rather get to a kind of system where burnout doesn’t happen and I don’t lose momentum in my writing. So that is my goal for the class. See what I can do to create that kind of system for myself. Now we’re going to move on to the interview with my friend Rachel Amphlett—and I introduce her in the episode so I won’t here—but again, this was one of those interviews that was recorded a few months ago, and so she references a few things that are now available, a few books that are now available, and I will link them in the show notes.

Interview

Crys: I am super excited to welcome Rachel Amphlett to the podcast. We met one year ago, almost exactly, at the Business Masterclass that Kristine Katherine Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith run in Vegas. Rachel Amphlett writes crime fiction inspire novels, most notably the Dan tell your espionage novels and the detective Kay Hunter series, as well as a number of standalone crime thrillers.

Having spent thirteen years based in Brisbane, Australia. Rachel recently returned to the UK. She’s a member of International Thriller Writers and the Crime Writers Association and cites her writing influences as Michael Connolly, Lee Child, and Robert Ludlum. Welcome, Rachel.

Rachel: Hello. Thank you so much for having me. Has it gone past that quickly?

Crys: It’s been a whole year, but it also feels like five years—

Rachel: —and sometimes five minutes, depending on what sort of day you’re having.

Crys: You’ve been writing now for quite a while in the grand scheme of things. How many years exactly?

Rachel: Writing and publishing since July 2011. So just doing this thing.

Crys: Yeah. You’re a veteran.

Rachel: Yeah, I am. I can share. I’ve been around forever.

Crys: What were you doing when you started writing the first thing you ended up publishing?

Rachel: The first thing that I ended up publishing was actually a spec-fic short story that got picked up by an Australian journal.

I had moved to Australia in 2005. I previously played in bands and I did go through a phase of, “Oh, maybe I should start another band,” and then realized it was like herding cats and went, “No, no, not doing that anymore.” Been there, done that and still needed a creative outlet. I loved writing at school, and I loved writing during my secondary school years as well for my English exams and things like that, and had dabbled a little bit in the twenties, and the guitar playing.

But yeah. It’s hard to serve more than one creative master. And so the writing took a backseat until about 2009 and I started getting that bug in my fingers. You know, I just got some ideas, but didn’t know what to do with them. I did an online six-week course in creative writing. That just gave me the confidence to have a go. And out of that, I wrote some spec-fic short stories. I sent them off, I placed in some competitions, had a few posted in online journals and things like that. And that led quite nicely into the idea that became my debut novel that I realized was not going to be spec-fic, was a spy thriller, and it was going to be a heck of a lot longer than the short story.

Crys: When you were writing that novel, or when you published it, what was your definition of success then? What was going to tell you that you were successful at this thing? Was that even a thing on your mind at the time?

Rachel: It was to finish it. It was a complete manuscript in my hand, and once I’d done that, the definition of success changed. It was a case of, well, okay, maybe I should try and find an agent or a publisher.

Now, back then in Australia, you could still approach publishers, direct, many of them. And so. I had it edited, must’ve been around about January 2011. February 2011, I started pitching. I had some feedback from a couple of agents in London who liked it, but said, “Look, you still need to do some work here and here. There’s not really a market for a female writer writing spy thriller as at the moment, but good luck.”

I took on board their feedback and didn’t apply to any other agents. Again, I applied to a couple of the Australian publishers and one came back and went, “Well, basically, yes, you can write, but we don’t really want a female Matthew Riley at this time.”

And I was just like, huh.

There’s part of me that if I get pushed back like that, I just see it as an all-encompassing challenge. And that then became my driving force. Okay, what are my options? Completely out of the blue, I got an email from a South Australia mystery writer who said, “Have you thought of publishing it yourself?” I’m like, “Oh, what? No vanity publishing.” She said, “No, no, no, no, no, no. You’re the publisher. You’re completely in charge.” And that really, really fired my imagination as to her. I can do all of this? I don’t have to go to someone? I don’t have to wait to be given permission?

I haven’t looked back. The rest is the rest, as they say, is history.

Crys: A lot’s changed since then.

Rachel: Oh my gosh, yes.

Crys: How has your definition of success changedsince then and now. What is your definition of success now?

Rachel: My definition of success now is freedom, complete and utter freedom.

I’ve been full a full-time writer now for two and a half years. I am my own boss. I don’t take the responsibility lightly. I mean, I make sure I write every day. I feel that the success is defined by—it’s a consolidation of everything that I did working for other people, such as project admin and things like that, that I can now put into my own publishing business.

But the underlying definition for me is that freedom, that no one’s binding my timetable anymore.

Crys: It’s so wonderful. It’s my number one favorite thing about being my own boss.

Rachel: There’s a lot of other things. We all have off days, and sometimes I’m not a very nice employee and sometimes my—it’s like I said at a crime fiction conference earlier in the year in the UK here, and they said, “What’s the worst thing about being a writer?” And I said, “Sometimes my publisher’s a bitch.” And the few people in the audience didn’t realize I’m actually in indie and they went, ”Ooh. Can you say that? Is your publisher here?” My publisher knows.

Crys: I find it really hard a lot of times with the publish, right, repeat, rapid, rapid, rapid release to always stay focused on what actually matters to me. Do you feel that same pressure sometimes, when you are in your down days?

Rachel: I’ve never done the rapid release thing. I mean, yes, roughly, or at least compared to our traditional traditionally published compatriots, but compared to a lot of indies, I don’t do rapid release. I have four, three full length novels a year, and they’re typically between 65,000 and 75,000 words each. And that’s a comfortable level for me. Beginning of 2018 or end of 2017—the beginning of 2018 was crazy because I also put out three novellas, and I think I found a perfect balance because doing three novels a year, I’ve had some downtime this year that’s enabled me to actually get a year ahead of schedule and take the pressure off as well.

But just because I’ve got those manuscripts there, it doesn’t mean I’m going to power out one a month. I’ve got them that’s there to buy me some bumps in the schedule for next year. And I feel that by giving myself that space, it’s opening up opportunities to learn more craft. I want to get back into my short stories because since 2009 I haven’t published a short story, and I want to pick up those skills.

There’s so many different skills associated with writing short stories compared with writing novels. For example, I want to leave space so that opportunities come to me that I wouldn’t have necessarily gone out to seek. Just because I’ve got that time on my hands and someone might send me an email and go, “Oh, hey, we’re doing this, would you like to do that?” or “Did you know? So and so is speaking at such and such, somewhere in the world,” and because of this, my definition of success is freedom, and having that space that I’ve created for myself now within the schedule, that’s much healthier for me.

Crys: I totally agree. And with the short stories, we were talking just before this, you’ve got even like time set aside for that when you’re going to do that next year.

Rachel: I think it comes back to that dedication to craft. I went back this year and did some craft courses with mutual friends of ours, just to constantly keep delivering quality stories and have fun at the same time. To learn something. I love learning. I’m a complete sponge. But setting aside that special time next year to do these short stories just enables that complete focus on it for 12 weeks and do nothing else.

I’m kind of thinking along the lines of talking to other writing friends that I need to do a decent length, short story every week for twelve weeks, just to see if I can do it, to get that new habit forming. There was a great piece of writing, or a quote, that I read years ago when I was still writing on my commute into work every day by train into Brisbane. And I used to get on that train every morning, open the laptop and get between 5 and 750 words down before my working day started. And there’s a chap called Jeff Goins, and it was a quote by him that it said, you know, in order to hit a goal, you have to form a habit. And your brain is like any other muscle.

You know, when you first start going to the gym, the first six weeks of hell. It’s like everything hurts. You have to talk yourself into going three times a week to make it worth it. Once your muscles are over that six to eight weeks stretch, it’s second nature. And it was the same with this habit forming of the writing as well.

I hope it’s going to work the same with the short stories. That’s the idea. If I do it every week for twelve weeks, the muscle formation is going to be there. So it’ll be a live test.

Crys: I’m a huge fan of James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits. And the way he phrased that same idea was, “Every choice you make is a vote for the kind of person you want to be.” And I remind myself of that every time I’m resisting, like whether I’m going to eat something I should or shouldn’t, or am I going to spend this block of time that I have free on something productive or on something restful.

And for me this year, I’ve had to put a lot more focus on rest because I’m kind of a workaholic. As a lot of us are. I haven’t been spending that time living, which is why I got into this gig in the first place. And I personally let that go in light of like fears of not have enough money.

Rachel: Yeah. And I think as you say, there’s so many of us very similar like that. I’ve had that sort of turnaround in the last year. When we met up last year at the conference, I realized I don’t need back in the UK for like eight weeks.

Crys: You were a whirlwind.

Rachel: Oh man, last year was crazy, and moving, immigrating back from Australia to the UK took more out of me than I expected.

And I think like you, in retrospect, this past twelve months, since we caught up, has been me reassessing where I want to go, who I want to be with this writing gig going forward. I don’t want to burn out. It comes back to that, the definition of success being freedom and having the fun with it, and in that sense, taking care of ourselves so that we can tick both of those big boxes.

Crys: Now with the short stories, are those also going to be thriller?

Rachel: I think I’m always going to have mystery undertones to them. I go to a few earlier this year and I definitely have mystery ones, but I’ve got one that I’m having so much fun with at the moment that is purely spec-fic, and I’ve gone back and I’ve dug out all the Richard Matheson short stories that I used to read. I love those and all the Stephen King ones. I don’t like horror per se, but I love that spec-fic, Twilight Zone sort of thing that goes on like that—things that are at the fringes.

There was a phrase that I heard when I came back to the UK—we moved down to Dorset—and so you’ve got all these ancient places, and someone was saying, I overheard someone say, “Oh, those are the thin places. Those are the places where it’s not quite reality, and it’s a bit like, whoa.”

And I thought, oh, I really like that phrase. Thin places, and I think it’s those in places that I want to return to with my writing with the spec-fic and just play, just see what happens. So there’s going to be mystery elements and I’ve got a few plans there based on existing characters that I have, but then I’m just going to let my creative child go and have fun making mess. Make mistakes!

Crys: So with this, more of a sense of freedom, do you still see yourself moving forward as branding—your branding right now is hardcore—crime thriller like that?

Rachel: Definitely. Yeah. The branding stays. I mean, that’s taken a long time to build up. I’m very proud of the branding that I’ve got.

I love crime fiction and spy thrillers. That’s my happy zone. Has been since I was a kid reading. That spec-fic stuff, if that comes out, it’s going under a pseudonym because I don’t want to confuse my readers. I will let readers know, because I think I’ve got some readers who would be interested, saying, “Oh, okay, how weird can her brain go?”

But the spec-fic stuff is for me more than anything. It’s for me to just go and have fun. Let off some steam, see what I can do as a writer and see where those adventures might take me.

Crys: And your partner’s a writer as well?

Rachel: Yep. Nick. he writes under the name Nick Adams and he’s writing space opera and he was the one to encourage me to start writing my first novel. I was just going on and on and on about this story that I had for a novel. And he turned up one day and just bought me a laptop and went, “For goodness sake, just write the thing. Stop telling me about it. Just write the book.” He’s really good. I mean, all the time I was working full time and writing, it’s like you come home from work and that’s when you start doing all the business and marketing stuff and catch up with emails and social media and, and la la la. Nick always made sure there was a glass of wine in my hand when I walked through the door and food on the table and he did that for so long, bless him.

So three years ago when we’re still living in Australia, I walked out onto our front deck, I lived in Brisbane, and when he got home from work one day, he said to me, “I’ve got this idea for a scifi novel.” And I said, “Well, don’t look at me. I don’t know the genre.” I said, “I’m going to give you the advice you gave me. Go and read the damn thing.”

So he bought another laptop and, three years ago, started writing his first book just into the dark, no writing training, nothing. It’s just for the love of the genre, because he’s like me with the crime fiction. He’s had that since he was a teenager. He knows that genre inside out, and his second book came out at the beginning of November 2019.

The third one’s coming out in April 2020 and he’s built this amazing world. He’s already saying, “Huh, I’ve got this really interesting character over there in that galaxy. I want to know how he got into that job that he’s got.” And he’s already planning the spin off series. So, yeah. You know, even more freedom if we can get to the point with his writing career so that he can get the same sort of freedom that I’ve got writing. We can live anywhere in the world.

Crys: Do you ever think that you might guys might co-write something together or would that be like—

Rachel: I think that would be two worlds trying to collide. We have such different writing styles that it’s good, though, because he’s been around the eight years I’ve been doing this. And it’s been so many times that I’ve bounced ideas off him, especially with my spy thrillers, my Dan Taylor thrillers, where I have a male protagonist. Nick’s been great, that I can just say, “Would a bloke do this in this situation?” We’ve played out fight scenes in the living room and stuff like that. So I can say, “Look, this is how I’ve written it, and Nick’s gone, “No, a bloke wouldn’t do that. He’d do this instead.”

It’s brilliant. And it seems like we can run blurbs back and forth, covers, blurbs, and stuff like that and say, “Oh, I’m not so sure about this.”

So it’s that teamwork is there with things like that, but I don’t see us co-writing. But never say never! Stranger things have happened.

Crys: You could always put a mystery in his world. There you go.

Rachel: I think I do enough of that anyway. He’s often seen scratching his head when it comes to me.

Crys: So one of the things I love about your kind of production goals, you do three full novels a year, and you are a hundred percent wide and have been from the beginning. I mean, when you started there wasn’t KU, right?

Rachel: No, that’s right. It’s like really bizarre because when I started it was Smashwords or nothing. When KU came around, what, 2014 something like that? 2015?I did try putting books in there and, honestly, I actually told them I wanted out. I got out early and that was when everyone else was making a mint. It’s the business sense part of me that—I don’t like putting all my eggs in one basket. I wouldn’t say I’m risk adverse, but there’s risk adverse and there’s cutting off all your choices. And at the moment, I’ve sold books this year in Madagascar, Ivory Coast, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Mauritius—I’m already planning the book tour!

For a travel junkie like me to see that… And these aren’t even translations. These are people buying the books as they are from places like Google Play or Rakuten shops online as part of the Kobo ecosphere. That really excites me, and I love getting emails from people from around the world.

You know, because I’m interested in where they are, what they’re doing, where they live. I’ve got two passports. I’m not afraid to use them.

Crys: I’m working on that for my kid. Don’t know if I’ll ever have the two passports.At least the U S has a pretty strong one.

Rachel: Yeah, exactly. It was the being wide. And a lot of people don’t realize this, I broke out in Canada first, on Kobo. I’ve never really broken out, per se, on Amazon. Yes, it’s a chunk of the royalties that come in, but it’s not the be all and end all. If Amazon went skywards tomorrow, I’ve still got a writing business and I’ve still got a solid writing business. It’s not a case of, I’ll be scrambling around to pay the rent this month.

Being wide has given me a really good cushion in case in case any other retailers go down, There’s always a backup. You always have a plan B, C, and D.

Crys: That feeds into that sense of freedom.

Rachel: It does. Yeah, absolutely right. It is not being hemmed in by one set of rules. I’m really not very good with rules at all.

Crys: Going with that—not being good with rules—how do you play with that in your writing? Because crime thriller tends to have a fairly consistent expectation of certain things that do happen in the book. How do you play with that, because rules don’t fit you?

Rachel: Yeah, that’s a, that’s a good question. I think it’s because I think it’s in the genes. It’s crime fiction malarkey now. I mean, my twentieth book comes out in March 202, and I live and breathe this stuff. What has changed is—my first few books, I did a lot more plotting ahead, and I’ve noticed that the more I do this, and especially in the last two or three years, I’m letting go of the planning stages a bit more and trusting my characters.

Now, when I first get an idea for story, I’ll see a scene as if I’m remembering a film that I’ve watched. I will see the entire scene. I know which characters in there and what’s going on. And that may grow in my mind to the first four or five scenes, and I’ll just put some bullet points down and then I’m off. The best part for me and the freedom in that writing comes when I’ve got those scenes out of the way, and my detectives and my spies go off and they’re investigating.

I love it when my detectives are interviewing people because I’ve got no idea what those characters are going to say. I can have my detective walk into a fast food restaurant and go, I need to see your security cameras because blah, and I’ve got no idea what that fast food restaurant manager is going to say to my detective or what they’re going to see on those CCTV cameras.

And that’s that sense of freedom is to just go with it. Just go and find out what happened.

Crys: That actually sounds kind of terrifying to me at this point.

Rachel: It was for a long, long time. Yeah, it really was. But I think because of having the habit of writing every day, there’s not many days I don’t write, and it’s usually if I’m snowed under with a bit of editing and stuff like that, or just, you know, coming up to a new release.

But when I write every day, I think that is building on, I want to say confidence, that feels like the wrong word, doesn’t it? Because you still have those insecurities like, “Oh my gosh, I’m bringing out a new book into the world.” You know? Is anyone gonna like it? What are people are going to think?

Crys: I think trust mightbe a better word.

Rachel: Yes! Just having that trust in everything I’ve done before and just trusting my characters. It’s a little scary when you’re dealing with new characters.

Crys: That makes a lot of sense because you do have a comfort level in the genre of, you kind of know your beginning, ending, and general arc. And you know your character, so you at least know how—

Rachel: Yeah, at the end of the day with a detective novel, the bad guy has to get it at the end somehow. As long as you get to that point all is well with the world at the end of the story.

Crys: Your longest series is your Detective Kay Hunter series?

Rachel: Can you believe that’s been going three years now?

Crys: You’ve just published book seven or book eight?

Rachel: Book eight came out in October. Book nine goes into the audio book studio in January. That’ll be out in the summer 2020.

Crys: And how does that feel, writing a long series and being with the character that long? Have you started to get a little weary or is it just, because you’ve spaced it out, it’s still just exciting?

Rachel: It could be that they’re spaced out, but I have so many ideas that come into my head from reading news articles and stuff like that. You’ll see a, a comment or something like that and go, huh. Well, I wonder if that happened, what would happen there or how would that character react?

And honestly, I like hanging around with those characters. I like the humor between them. I like the way they’ve grown. I’m interested in finding out where they go next with their careers. And I like the fact that it is not just about, in this instance, Kay Hunter, it’s not about one character. I always wanted to make it like, cause I love stuff like NCIS and things like that where you’re invested in a team, and because I have a team, but you know, just one character carries the series name. I’ve got that entire team to play with and watch and see how they grow.

And the later books, even more so. I’m bringing out more and more scenes for individual characters within the team, because I just think that makes us so much more interesting dynamics.

Crys: So much depth.

Rachel: Yeah, absolutely.

Crys: Creating series like that,

Rachel: That’s what I’m trying to do in my new series that begins in March 2020. It’s a new set of characters, which again, has been terrifying because it’s like that whole world building thing and that level of trust—it hasn’t been there, but I’m writing the first three books in a row, just to really embed myself into that series as I have with the other series that I’ve got.

And you know what? It’s worked. I’ve got to book three now, and I’m only about 20,000 words in, but I’m having so much fun with them because that element of trust is now there. So we are writing into the dark all the way.

Crys: Yeah. I’m not there yet. I am playing around with writing, with dim headlights. I’m not quite in the dark yet.

Rachel: Headlights dimmed-ish is just fine.

Crys: I’ve got my four or five scenes ahead that I kind of know what’s happening.

Rachel: That’s it. That’s what you need. That’s often what I’ll do, and there’ll just be bullet points just to show me the way, but anything beyond that haven’t got a clue.

Crys: I like that. I’m liking that freedom and that play in that level of unknowing.

Rachel: Yeah. Highly recommend it. Give it a go.

Crys: So for our listeners, you said you had a book recommendation.

Rachel: Yeah. This is one that I read a couple of years ago, and it’s one that I returned to, and it’s going back to Jeff Goins who I read that quote on his blog about a habit, form a habit to get to a goal. And he’s got a fantastic little book out called Real Artists Don’t Starve. And it’s really about valuing yourself as a creative, no matter what you do, whether you’re a writer or a sculptor or watercolor artist or photographer, but just having that respect for yourself and for what you’re doing and not giving away your work for free.

You know, at the end of the day, what you’re doing is worth something to someone. It’s a great book for those days when you’re feeling a little bit punched around by life in general and a bit down about the creative stuff and the business side of the creative stuff.

Go and pick up Real Artists Don’t Starve. It’ll put a smile on your face.

Crys: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining me today.

Rachel: Thank you for having me.

Intro

In my weekly update, I’m making good progress with a cozy mystery, which I’m extremely excited about. I’ve been spending loads of time researching herbal magic as my character is a green witch—I was going to say entirely too much time, but I don’t think that’s true. It does slow my writing down a little, but it’s enjoyable and it doesn’t stop my writing and it adds to the story.

Yesterday felt like a particularly slow day. I’d taken a few days off and that back to the computer that first day is always a little more difficult. I was writing in 20 minutes sprints with some friends when I normally do 10 minute sprints. And then with the research, I was getting lower word counts than normal for me. But at the end of the day, I was surprised to find that I had just under 2000 words with about two hours, a little less than, of butt in chair, hands on keyboard time. All I needed was 88 more words to hit 2000, but I’m not a night person and it was past nine o’clock in the evening, which meant I was an absolute pumpkin.

I want to move on to the interview, with my dear friend J Thorn, but I wanted to note that J mentions a couple of upcoming projects. We recorded this a few months ago and those projects, an amazing podcast called Writers, Ink with JD Barker and his book on story craft with his partner Zach Bohannon, which is called Three Story Method, both of which are live now.

Interview 

Crys: I would like to welcome my dear friend and mentor, J. Thorn, to the podcast today. 

J: Great, Crys. How are you?

Crys: Pretty good. For those of you who aren’t familiar with J., he is the author of many post-apocalyptic novels and podcasts as well. 

J: That’s true, yeah. 

Crys: With three that you’re currently doing every week. 

J: Yes. And one more on the way. Fairly soon. 

Crys: Ooh, exciting. Currently, it’s The Career Author, The Writers Well, and The Author Life. The Author Life is also connected to your blog and your mastermind, which I am a happy member of. 

J: Yes. 

Crys: With your partner, Zach Bohannon. You’ve got a book on craft and everything story called Three Story Method that will be out in this coming year.

J: Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. I love creating stuff. 

Crys: You have been in the writing life for quite a while now. 

J: Yeah. Depending on when you start the clock. I started dabbling in my first long form writing in around 2007, 2008 and published, I think, around 2009 was the first thing I self published.

Crys: So a decade in. 

J: Yes. 

Crys: So when you published your first book, where were you in your life? 

J: Ah, let’s see. 10 years ago, so I had a, I had a day job. I was in education, have a wife, two kids, a mortgage. My kids would have been about seven and five or six and four about that time, so they were still demanding quite a bit of attention.

They’re teenagers now, so they require a different kind of attention, but not the kind that makes me have to sit on the floor with them and play, which I miss, but I don’t have to do that anymore. And I was, you know, being an educator. I think it’s not like having a bank teller’s job or it’s not like clocking in and clocking out in shift work in that you take a lot of work home with you, and you take a lot of emotional trauma home with you when, especially when you’re dealing with young kids. They almost become your kids.

You know, it’s a parenting process in a way. And so it makes it really difficult I think for teachers and educators in general to do anything but that, because you’re just so emotionally spent by the time you get home, not to mention physically exhausted. So I think for me writing was, has always been, an outlet.

And it was something that I knew I should be doing. I felt this compulsion to do it. So even though I would be exhausted and, you know, I’d help my wife get the kids to bed and you know, finish up cleaning up the dishes and then I wanted to go to sleep, or I wanted to turn on the TV, but I would force myself to sit in the chair and work on the marketing and the the email list building and that sort of thing. And then the next morning I would get up an hour to two hours before the rest of the family and try and get my words in for the day. I did that for years. 

Crys: Yeah, that was a lot going on.So when you were in kind of a long-term overload, what was your definition of success at that point in your career?

J: I don’t, I don’t even know if I was thinking about success at that point. I felt like I was so green, and I was, I was so at the beginning of the journey that I was just trying to keep myself in it. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I was reading a ton of books and I was listening to a ton of podcasts and reading blogs, especially in the independent publishing world.

You know, Joe Konrath’s blog was just a gold mine. He was a guy who had dozens of books, traditionally published, kind of crossed over into indie publishing and was documenting that on his blog. And I remember that being incredibly helpful. Konrath was one. Scott Nicholson was another one who at the time was doing a lot for writers, and I was just trying to keep my head above water.

So I think for me, success was as simple as just not giving up. 

Crys: And a lot’s changed since then. We’ve talked about success quite a bit, and I know that you have a much clearer definition of what success means to you now, when before it was just to feed your creative side, it sounds like. 

J: Yeah, you develop your own metrics as you go along. At least I think you should. I think if you let other people define success for you, that’s a very dangerous place to be. And I don’t think I’ve ever been there. Luckily, I’m quite a minimalist and essential just by nature. I don’t require a lot of anything really in my life. I have a few guitars, and when I was a teenager, I bought a lot of music. So I have a CD collection, but that’s sort of by default. I didn’t collect the CDs to collect them. I collected them because I liked the music, which I think is different than being a collector these days. So I don’t require much. 

For me, what’s really important is freedom and that’s how I define success. 

Do I have agency over my life? I can’t say that I do in all aspects. There are certain parts of my life I just continue to work on. And I think that’s the case for as long as you live. But for me now, success is being able to decide what I do from the time I get up until the time I go to bed. And not in a hedonistic sort of way. Not, you know, that I want to be laying on a beach on an Island all the time. Or that I want to be jetting around with rock stars and partying. Not that sort of freedom, but just the freedom to be able to decide what I’m going to do with my time and then have that time, fund my lifestyle, and take care of my family.

So for me, success is all about finding that level of independence. I’m not quite exactly where I want to be yet. I want to be in a place where I don’t have to worry as much about that. But then again, I talked to other people who are a little further down the road from me on the journey, and they say that feeling kind of never goes away.

You could have a blockbuster movie that’s optioned and turned into a Hollywood film. And you worry that the next thing you write isn’t going to be as good. So it might not ever go away. But I think for me, I would like to be able to not have to worry so much about some of the financial aspects of being an independent creative.

Because as you know, Crys, when you’re an independent creative, there is no salary. There’s no 401k. There’s no safety net. You’re kinda on your own. 

Crys: Yeah, absolutely. I know you’ve gotten into financial independence and, and the FIRE kind of stuff lately because of that, which is, I think, a really smart move for any kind of creative to do  when freedom is your goal. 

Crys: Yes, that’s true. And I wish FIRE, which stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. I wish that had been more of a prevalent thing when I was in my twenties and thirties as opposed to finding it in my late forties, because the magic in that, whether you think FIRE or FIS is a worthy aspiration or not, it’s all about saving and compound interest.

It’s simple math, and with compound interest, the earlier you start, the more it works in your favor. So there’s nothing I can do about the years I wasn’t contributing to my savings the way I should have been, but I think it’s an exciting time for millennials or for people who are in their twenties and thirties and have a longer runway than I do towards that retirement age.

Because if you start putting away some money now and do it in a wise way, it can have tremendous positive impacts down the road. 

Crys: Absolutely. So I know that you are a creative in more ways than one. You are also a musician, even if you don’t practice or participate in that as much as you used to. Did you ever feel like you had to choose between your creative urges in the different paths, and what led you to be more focused on writing the music per se? 

J: I would like to say no, that you don’t have to choose, but I did. Other people’s experience might be different, but I was getting to a point where there’s only, there’s only so many minutes in the day and there’s only so many hours in the week.

I hate the busy as a badge mentality. I’ve never bought into that. We all have 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That’s what we all have. So what we have to do is, we have to decide what our priority is and we have to make decisions based on what we feel is most important to us. And I was at a moment in my life, I don’t know, this is probably going on, three, four years ago, something like that. It’s the last time I was in a band. I had this moment where I was still working full time and the writing business was picking up and the band… Band commitments are… they are a commitment. We were practicing maybe three hours a week on one night, and then we would try and have a show or a performance at least two or three times a month.

So I kind of got to a point where I just didn’t physically have the minutes to fit all of that in. It just wasn’t logically possible. It wasn’t necessarily a shortage of creative juice or anything like that. It wasn’t as though the band was stealing money, the creative energy from my writing, it was simply a matter of logistics.

And then when I looked at it, I realized that, and I think, most musicians would agree with me, the path to making money as a musician in this day and age is extremely difficult. It’s not easy in publishing, but I think it’s even more difficult in music. And so I think when I looked at what the potential was and what, and also sort of what my skill set was. I’m not even an average guitar player. I’m not even an average singer. I happen to be in a band with guys who are way better than me. But I like to think I’m a pretty good writer and I had to be realistic with myself and say, okay, one of these is probably more like a hobby, you know. As much as it pains me, because I think being in a band is a lot easier than being a writer.

You can kinda just show up and you play and you have fun and that’s it. And sometimes you record that. I think writing is a lot more “work” than being in a band. Depending on the situation, but I just… yeah. You have to have that moment where you realize, okay, what am I really good at? And you have to be honest with yourself. Not what you want to do, but what do you think you can do? What has the most potential? And I think for me it became clear that that writing was really where I had the most potential in a form of a creative output. 

Crys: That’s interesting that you say that being in a band is “easier,” at least it was a little bit for you. Because I know that you’re huge on collaborations, and a band is a huge collaboration. Do you think that that experience is why you have been so active in pursuing collaborations as a writer? 

J: I think so. It probably has been. I’ve fought collaboration my entire life and, and I still do too, to a degree. I like to think of myself as a lone wolf, which is such a fantasy. I like to think like that I’m in complete control of my own destiny and that I’m the one that’s gonna make things happen for myself. And no one else is gonna do it for me. And to a certain degree, that’s true.

But I also have come to realize, especially over the past 10 years, that it’s almost impossible to do anything like that by yourself and, and whether the collaboration is a creative collaboration with a partner, whether it means you simply have a freelance team that works on your behalf— that’s collaboration.

There are so many different types of collaboration, but you’re right, there are very few, at least there were in my life, very few musical opportunities that did not involve other people. And when you’re in a band, you have to learn how to compromise. You have to learn when to lead. You have to learn when to follow. And it’s contextual. It’s never the same thing twice. Then you add in the personal dynamics of being in a band. When you’re in a band, we all joke about band drama. There’s always band drama. So and so doesn’t like this person or doesn’t like this person, doesn’t like this person.

And I just watched the new Netflix documentary, Nasty Cherry, which is so entertaining. It’s sort of like a, a Big Brother, Real World, making the band kind of show. But like all the drama that was in it was just so—I could still relate to it, you know? And I think you have to learn how to deal with that.

If you can, that skillset, whether it’s in a band or in a corporate setting, or if you are in a group of people with a like minded passion, you learn that skill set and it transfers across everything. So it’s not a direct correlation. Songwriting is not the same as writing a story or long form storytelling, but I think the collaborative nature and the skills you develop and learning how to work with other people are skills you can use in all aspects of your life.

Crys: That makes a lot of sense. I’ve done quite a few of collaborations myself on my pen name, and I’m slowly working on one with my dear friend Tami Veldura for an epic space opera. Sie’s an amazing world builder and I’m a very fast drafter, so we’re hoping that it’s going to be a really good match.

I guess my only correlation would be, when I was a programmer, when we would code pair, and even then I was not super excited about that, because I’m the same as you. Like I like being lone wolfish, but I also desire that connection and that community, and I get a lot of energy out of being around people who have that same mindset.

J: Yes. 

Crys: And the mastermind that you’ve started, that I’ve been a part of from the beginning, has been a really good, different element of that same kind of energy. One of the things I like, and you and I talked about this quite a bit before you started it, it’s something you’ve continued to consider as you’ve been iterating over, as we’re close to completing the second round and you’re going into your third, is the group is different genres. It’s different skill levels. And there’s a lot of energy because of the gaps between it that, I think. 

J: Yeah. 

Crys: And you’ve been a member of masterminds before. How did you get started in being part of masterminds? 

J: Well, I think because I had a career as an educator and I’ve a master’s degree in education, I spent a lot of time studying educational theory and, and modalities of learning. I’ve known since I started my career in the early nineties that that idea of collaboration is a great way to learn. And for a lot of people, it’s the best way to learn. I always incorporated some element of collaboration in all of my teaching assignments over the years.

I think for me it was simply a matter of tweaking what has been proven to work for me over years and years and years and just implementing that into a different space where I didn’t see a lot of that happening. I think if anyone pays attention to, especially the independent publishing circles, you’ll see a ton of things like webinars and online courses and big events.

And those things are all great and they’re really valuable. And I’ve learned a lot from them. But I also know that it’s the things that don’t scale that are the best for the people who attend them, which is opposite for the person who’s creating them. For the person who’s creating the support materials or the educational materials, it’s best to scale, but that’s not what’s in the best interest of the person who’s attending them.

That’s where the rub is. And I think that’s why. I like to think my program is different because I’ve said a number of times, the mastermind model doesn’t scale. It’s 12 people. It’s me on a call with those 12 people from week to week, you know? Yeah. I could do several sessions, but II can’t do a hundred of them.

And I wouldn’t. The mastermind model was something that not only did I teach, but when I started getting into the publishing industry, it’s what I sought out. I joined several masterminds over the years because I knew firsthand as an educator how effective they were.

At the bottom end of that learning curve, I was like, well, if I can get into a mastermind with other people, that it’s going to help me. And your point about the diversity of experience is something that I really wrestled with when I started mapping out what this experience might look like, because you can kind of, there’s kind of two branches. There’s two paths you can take, and they’re somewhat exclusive. They’re somewhat mutually exclusive. You can have a mastermind group or a gathering of people who are very tightly niched. They are within the same circles. They’re writing the same genre. They have about the same amount of experience.

And there’s some power in that. There’s a shorthand that develops, and then you almost get a “scene” where you get people helping out each other, but I think there’s a ceiling on that, which is why I went the other route. The other route was I want to get as many diverse opinions and experiences in the group as I can, which means, as you know, Crys, there are people in there who’ve never published. There are people in there who have published dozens of books and are full time writers like yourself. There are people who are writing fiction, people who are writing nonfiction, people who are younger, people who are older. Living in all different parts of the country, in the world. And it’s all of that diversity that I think is the strength and the glue that holds the group together.

And you called it an energy. I think that’s a nice way of putting it. We have situations where people bring their own life experience and they don’t realize how valuable it is to, to other people who don’t have it. And when you get into the mastermind, that’s where that fertile ground is to create those types of connections.

Crys: Yeah, absolutely. And each of the people, even if they were only in for one session, each of those people has become a friend of mine now, because of the time we’ve spent being really open and honest about our fears, our problems, and our hopes. 

J: And I think too, that’s a, that’s a little harder to pull off when your group is very homogenous, because everyone’s worried about where they are in the strata, you know, where are you in the hierarchy?

If you’re all very similar, but if you’re coming from very different backgrounds and experiences, I think people are much more vulnerable. They don’t feel that comparisonitis as much. 

Crys: That makes a lot of sense. I’m also in a small group of my pen name’s genre, and I can see that playing out on a small scale, because there’s not many of us, but it’s still, yeah. I can definitely see where that’s caused some tensions between different people at different points. 

I asked you to share something, whether a craft tip or business tip or a book recommendation with the listeners. So what do you have for them? 

J: Well, I think as I look back over many of the books that I’ve read this calendar year, and one of one of them that has probably been the most significant for me. It validated a lot of what I knew. And it also taught me a lot of things, filled in a lot of gaps for me. And that’s the book recommendation I’m going to make, which is Atomic Habits by James Cleary. It’s one of those very simple concepts in that the premise of the book is that you don’t get motivated and then create, you create, which then keeps you motivated. That’s a paradigm shift for a lot of people. A lot of people, especially writers, like to think that they have to create some sort of magic so that when they sit down on the chair, the muse will then sprinkle story dust on themand they will get inspired and they’ll write great words. 

But the truth is you’ve got to write shitty words, and then then they become great, and then you become more inspired and motivated as you go. It’s the other way around. And I think that in Atomic Habits that was really drilled home to me. 

One of the reasons why I think it might be my book recommendation of the year is not only is it the content, but I’ve read a ton of self-help and writing books and craft books over the years, and Atomic Habits is one of the most well-written nonfiction books I’ve ever read. It’s succinct and clear and logical. It’s an easy read. You can sit down and read it and in one sitting. It’s fantastic. 

Crys: Yeah, I’m a huge fan of that as well. And you’re right. That was a mind shift for me.

I had a rule for myself—because my depression, when it flares up, it keeps me from moving forward a lot of times because of all those negative voices in my head—and so I had a rule, that’s “just one thing.” Just do one thing. Chances are you’ll probably do more, but if you do just one thing, then you’ve succeeded today.

He puts it in much clearer words and better science about why that works. It was a mindset shift for me to hear it in his words and be like, oh, that’s why just one thing works. Like, I don’t have to fuss at myself that I’m not motivated… and then force myself to do one thing.

Everybody does that, no matter how difficult or minor it is, everyone does that. So you have to do just one thing and then you do another thing and then you start being excited to do more things. 

J: Part of Atomic Habits that I think is really powerful is it kind of goes against the grain, although less so now, but it’s really prioritizing systems and habits over goals. He goes into great detail as to why goal setting alone is detrimental to your goals. You need to have some direction as to where you’re going, but you don’t accomplish the goals by setting the marker. The way you accomplish the goals is you create the systems and the habits that will by default get you there.

He goes into great detail on how to do that. That’s been another profound shift for me. I mean, even up until 15 years ago in the classroom, I would have students setting goals, but I didn’t ever sort of create the systems for them, that they could reach them.

And I see that now. I see it so clearly. I wonder why I didn’t see it so many years earlier. But it’s a revelation and I think once you realize that, you also take some of the pressure off. You know, the example that Zach and I always use on The Career Author podcast is we say, yif you set a goal to write 2000 words a day and you write 1,974, you’ve technically failed. But have you? And is that the mindset you want to have?

Do you want to have come that close to 2000 words and think of yourself as a failure? I don’t think so. It’s a very siloed example, but I think it’s one worth considering and you’d be better off instead of saying, “I want to get 2000 words a day,” you say, “Okay, every day at 7:00 AM till 7:20 AM I’m going to sit in this chair and I’m going to do nothing but type.”

And if I type 5 words or 50 words or 500 words, that’s all I’m going to do. And I’m going to do that every single day. There’s where I think you then start to turn those habits into something real and build that life of freedom that you want. 

Crys: Well, thank you so much for sharing with me today, and I will have links to everything we’ve mentioned in this conversation in the show notes.

Hello, friends! I’m your host, Crys Cain, coming to you from beautiful Costa Rica. I don’t mention that to make you jealous. I actually need to apologize for the birds. I’m recording this early in the morning so that I can avoid traffic sounds, but the birds are loud pretty much all day. If I wait until night, I run into frog noises. Hopefully the ambiance will be pleasant rather than annoying.

Okay! I’ve been planning this podcast for a while and I originally wanted to focus on non-traditional measurements of success, particularly in publishing. I’m a six-figure author, though all my books are under super secret pen names, and I’ve followed the book-a-month or more model for almost three years. Earning a lot of money is great, I’m not going to lie, but it turns into a rat race. There’s always a push to write more, more, more, publish faster. And I hit a point where that just became bullshit. Sorry, you’re going to hear me swear a lot. I have the mouth of a sailor, though I’m learning to tone it down as my three year old has become a parrot.

But success isn’t what’s on everyone’s minds right now. It’s definitely not what’s on mine. COVID-19 is turning our world into a pre-apocalyptic backstory and I’m separating from my husband of eleven years. 

Writing is hard right now. Publishing is unsteady. But I still have to put food on the table and pay my rent. And this won’t be the last time that adversity strikes. Not for me, and not for you. Every challenge we face is an opportunity to reevaluate and shift our mindset. Whether it’s a break up, the death of a loved one, job loss, a new baby, health issues or a global calamity (all things I personally have faced in the last three years), they each force a shift in how we look at our lives. I encourage you to look at these challenges as opportunities instead of setbacks.

I still want to talk about success, but the root of even that idea is that I want to talk about freedom. The freedom that escaping into our writing provides our minds. The freedom that earning $500 a month from your writing gives your family. The freedom that making a full time living from your creative endeavors gives you from worry, stress, and the sense that your best life is still waiting for you.

In light of the global crisis, where many of us have been forced to change how we live our lives, a lot of people are re-examining values they’ve taken for granted. Does your job really matter if it means you might catch a disease that kills you or those dear to you? How many different meals can you make out of the same five ingredients to avoid going to the store? How much stuff do you really need to buy? (And seriously, folks, we don’t need that much toilet paper. Look up DIY bidets. Or order one on Amazon.) 

That might sound silly, but those are all expressions of freedom. You don’t need to be locked into anyone’s idea of necessary. You don’t need toilet paper. You don’t need to make a completely different dinner every night. And you don’t need that job that sucks the life out of you.

And let me take a moment to recognize those people who are continuing to put themselves at risk to fulfil necessary functions. The healthcare workers, the sanitation works, the grocery store workers, firefighters, cops, janitors, and thousands of others I’m probably not aware of. They are fighting the current situation on a level I can only imagine.

It may seem a bit woo woo or cliche to suggest that one of the best ways you can thank them for their sacrifice is to make the most of this time for yourself, but I’m going to say it anyway. And if you’re listening to this months or years from now, which is March 2020, and you’re going through a completely different hard time, consider how you’re going to honor the people supporting you.

You get one chance at this life. If something inside you has been crying out to be creative, to live a creative life, and “life” has been holding you back… please evaluate your priorities now. We all deserve freedom. We need to model freedom for our children. Take a chance on yourself. Write that book. Publish it. And then keep going. Write your way to freedom. Whatever that means for you. 

I tend to respond to stress by what Brene Brown calls “over functioning.” Which means that it’s easy for me to double down and level up under stress. If you’re like me, right now is a great time to focus on this. Or make five dozen loaves of sourdough. Whatever floats your boat. If you’re not that kind of person, don’t be hard on yourself, but I still encourage you to consider what changes you want to make once life gets around to some semblance of normal.

I’ll be interviewing other authors about topics like fear, success, and working through hard times—all the things that keep us locked into external expectations and well-beaten paths. My path won’t be the same as yours, and neither will my end goal. That’s how it should be.

This is just a short intro episode, but I’ll be back soon. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you. Tell me: what is your definition of freedom? You can leave your comment at http://www.writeawaypodcast.com If you’d like to support this podcast, you can do so at https://ko-fi.com/cryscain. Until next time, write away.