[00:13] Rachel: Hey, writers.
[00:14] Emily: Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.
[00:18] Rachel: I'm Rachel.
[00:19] Emily: And I'm Emily.
[00:20] Rachel: And today we have a little fun episode. We're doing some updates about, about us and our lives. Emily and Rachel, updates.
[00:28] Emily: We haven't seen each other that much for the last few months and I haven't been here to talk to all of you, so we figured we'd do a little update. And it's the beginning of the year, so it's the classic time for reflection and looking forward.
[00:43] Rachel: Yeah. Like, what did we do last year? What are we looking at for this year? Where our lives headed, that kind of stuff. I think the biggest elephant in the room was you had a baby. That was a pretty big life change.
[00:57] Emily: I had a baby, and she's adorable. Her name is Bailey and she was born in September. And so I had four months or 16 weeks off, which was awesome. And I just got to hang out with, well, I say I just got to hang out with her. I also ended up revising a book twice, so let's get to that. But mostly I hung out with her. And my husband also had some time off, and so it was really nice. I can't believe she's going to be four months this week.
[01:24] Rachel: Yeah.
[01:24] Emily: In like four days fast. What?
[01:27] Rachel: It's crazy. Yeah. I feel like visually they start to look. She's gone through a little metamorphosis because when newborns are, most newborns are small and tiny. And I know Bailey was really skinny and so was rose at the same. Just tiny. And then they put on some weight and then by the time they're four months, you're like, you look like a baby.
[01:49] Emily: And she's starting to act like a baby. Like, now she's grabbing things and pulling my hair and smiling and doing all the baby fun things. So, yeah, it's been really.
[02:01] Rachel: Cute. I mean, so what's been the change? Like, what's different between pre baby Emily and post baby Emily?
[02:11] Emily: You know, it's funny. It's like everything and nothing.
[02:14] Rachel: Yeah.
[02:15] Emily: It's really hard to, I, I feel like, know she was born the months leading up to her birth. I was like, I can't think. I can't see past September. I was like, I don't. Yeah, like, it's just a black hole, right? And then she was born. In those first two weeks, I was like, nothing like that. Life is gone. Nothing's ever going to be the same. It was just so shocking and just all consuming and you're up all night long. Who even remembers who you were two weeks ago? It's just like this crazy thing, but then you just kind of ease into it, and I feel like in the last month or so, we had a lot of visitors, which makes life look different and makes you feel different. But once all of that kind of settled down and we didn't do anything for the holidays, it was just us. We got into a rhythm and we started to do the things that we used to do.
[03:15] Rachel: Like what? I don't know.
[03:17] Emily: Just like cooking the same things and watching shows and working on my book and talking about things that aren't baby related. We're kind of coming out into this place where it's still our lives and it's us. And she's just in it now.
[03:32] Rachel: Yeah, exactly. I might have said this to you before, but did you have a moment? I remember for us, I think it was about week five where I woke up on a Saturday, and it just felt like it hit me like a truck of, like, weekends don't exist anymore. It's not the same. There is always a life to take care of, not in a criticism way or in a bad way, but I remember waking up that specific weekend being like, there's not a break. Parenthood is all the time. Did you have that moment?
[04:09] Emily: I didn't have that moment. And I think it's because you had that moment and you.
[04:12] Rachel: And I told you about it, and.
[04:13] Emily: So it was, like, constantly in my head. So it was like I had it.
[04:17] Rachel: Like, that contributed to all of your anxiety.
[04:19] Emily: No, I mean, it's true. She's always there, and you're always in a rhythm. And I think my husband and I have had a lot of communication about trying to give each other the time that we need to do the things that we need to do to fill ourselves up. And so that's been really great. But, yeah, she's adorable. The other thing that I will say is she's a really good sleeper, and I know every parent out there is, like, flaring at me right now.
[04:49] Rachel: Yeah, me in particular. I'll fight you for that. You had it not rough.
[04:55] Emily: She's still not.
[04:56] Rachel: She's gotten better in. She had a.
[04:58] Emily: Now she just doesn't go to bed.
[05:00] Rachel: Now she doesn't go to bed. And she's also hit the bad dreams phase, so that's been tough. And it's all developmentally normal. I know that. But now she has a fear of the dark, so that's like, our newest. Here's why Rose isn't sleeping is because there's monsters everywhere. And I'm like, come just. We just got all.
[05:26] Emily: It's. Yeah, that's like, the biggest thing is it's always like, you just never know.
[05:30] Rachel: You never know. Yeah.
[05:31] Emily: You never know what's going to happen tomorrow. So it's fun in a way, because life before was somewhat more predictable. I could plan what next weekend might.
[05:43] Rachel: Look like, and you did all the time. That was going to be. My next question is, like, how does it feel now that you.
[05:50] Emily: That I can't plan anything?
[05:51] Rachel: Plan anything.
[05:56] Emily: You know, it's been good, I think, for me. Yeah, it's been good. And I'm just learning how to live in a different way. And it's good. I don't know how else to explain it. It's good for me. It's good for how I move through the world. I started a substac.
[06:18] Rachel: Yeah.
[06:19] Emily: As an author. And I wrote something about this a couple of weeks ago. Just like how having a kid has made me live way more in the present than I ever have before. And just to appreciate the present more, because you just don't know what's going to happen in 15 minutes, let alone tomorrow or next. And I just really like it. It's really been nice to be just rooted in that way.
[06:45] Rachel: That's good. Yeah.
[06:46] Emily: What about you? How have you been for the last four months?
[06:49] Rachel: Oh, man, fine. That's it? Fine, period. No, it's been good. It's been good because you were out, which was very friends of the podcast. It's very important to us as a golden may company to take care of employees, which include. So, like, it was important to have that time off. And it was also important to me to keep the business afloat while you work on. You picked bug. Thank you. But a lot of like that, that was what it was. That was the last four months of like, okay, I guess there's like three main prongs in my life. There is the business, there is the book, and there is the family. And most of the time that's Rose. And I think Will and my husband and I are trying to get better of us, too. I can't remember I told you this, but we drove to Phoenix, which you knew. We did a road trip from Colorado, where we lived, to Phoenix to see my parents for Christmas. And people were like, that's crazy, 12 hours in a car. Why wouldn't you just fly? It's like a two hour flight. But it was honestly the best thing ever to have, like, 6 hours over two days. So it's twelve total hours in a car where it was just like me and will talking. Because it's so hard when life is busy and you both have projects and you're both creative people and you have a child and you have all these big dreams and it's easy to put that on the back burner because you're so worried about a kid, you're so worried about book, you're so worried about business. So it was really nice. I felt like we reconnected. Not that we hadn't been connected, but it was like.
[08:31] Emily: No, totally.
[08:32] Rachel: We were in forced to be together for 12 hours, two times to just hang out because Rose did so good in the car. She's fantastic in her car seat. So she's just hanging out in the backseat and we're just chatting.
[08:46] Emily: That's awesome.
[08:47] Rachel: Yeah. Anyway, it was like my fall was book and business. Meanwhile, parenthood. But those were kind of.
[08:57] Emily: Yeah, that doesn't end.
[08:58] Rachel: That doesn't end as we're present.
[09:02] Emily: Yeah.
[09:05] Rachel: I know. We both had book stuff. Tell me about your book stuff.
[09:11] Emily: We did. So I sold my book.
[09:15] Rachel: Yeah.
[09:15] Emily: Four days after Bailey was born.
[09:17] Rachel: Yay. It's so exciting.
[09:20] Emily: It is really exciting.
[09:21] Rachel: Yeah.
[09:21] Emily: I sold behind the Crimson curtain, which is a fantasy. It's like an epic fantasy romance to 47 north, which is an imprint of Amazon Publishing. Amazon has its own publishing arm. And it's been awesome. It's been really awesome. It was chaos ever so online because I got the email from my agent that 47 north wanted to buy it while I was in the pediatrician's office.
[09:55] Rachel: For Bailey's two day whatever fresh her first checkup.
[10:01] Emily: And we left that visit with the jaundice.
[10:04] Rachel: Yeah, she had really bad jaundice.
[10:07] Emily: So we had to basically go straight to the NICU and she's totally fine. She was fine. Everyone knew she would be fine. But it was really bad, so we had to act on it and we were there for like 48 hours and it was like chaos nicu stuff. And meanwhile in my phone is like these emails, like, are you going to.
[10:24] Rachel: Can we make with this editor?
[10:26] Emily: They want to talk to you. And I'm like, this is so not priority right now. Which is just such a weird feeling because that's one of the only things that could eclipse something that big happening in my life. And it just put into perspective, like, books are books.
[10:42] Rachel: Yeah, right. Who is it that says Tiffany Grimes?
[10:47] Emily: Tiffany Grimes.
[10:48] Rachel: Tiffany Grimes from virgin design and editorial is such a great friend of ours and I love her to death. And she tells me this a lot of, like, there are no emergencies in publishing. Yeah, there are emergencies in life publishing. There are rarely, if ever, emergencies. So it's okay to take a step back and be like, you know what? This email can wait. This book, it can wait a couple of days. It's fine. It is not an.
[11:18] Emily: Put. It was nice because it put everything in perspective. Right. This is the balance, right. Moving forward in life from here on out. And that helped me, I think, get on the right foot. I was really determined. I pushed really hard before I went on submission because I went on submission, obviously, right, when Bailey was.
[11:38] Rachel: Yeah.
[11:39] Emily: And so I pushed really hard to get my book done for submission and ready for submission before she was born, and I pushed too hard, I think. And just sort of, like, last summer when I was pregnant and working on the book and everything, it's just, like, such a blur because I pushed so hard, and I don't think I needed to push that hard. And so when I was going into this new phase of, like, okay, now we're on a publishing schedule, right. Like, someone else is telling you when things are due.
[12:08] Rachel: Right.
[12:08] Emily: Which is a whole different way to be in the publishing space, I think. And so suddenly, I had deadlines, and they were pretty quick.
[12:19] Rachel: Yeah.
[12:20] Emily: And so I basically had to do two revisions on my maternity leave, and I was determined to not. I was like, I don't want to regret not taking this time with my child. I don't want to regret rushing my book, either. And so I just really was like, okay, Emily, we got to figure out a way to do this. It's sustainable, and we got to buckle down and really interrogate all of the decisions that we're making. And so it was a unique challenge for me, and I'm really proud of how I handled it, and I'm really proud of the book and grateful for my maternity leave and all the time I had with Bailey. And, yeah, I'm just really excited. It comes out in September, I think. It's not 100% in stone yet. Yeah. Fall of 2024 is when the book will come out, and I got to write the second one this year.
[13:16] Rachel: Yay.
[13:17] Emily: So, yeah, that's my book update. But what about you?
[13:21] Rachel: I had a passion project that I started in July last year, and I wrote the first two, or in the two months from July to September, I wrote a first draft that was, like, 100,000 words, but I can't stop. It's hyper focus. It's, like, the momentum, the vibe, but.
[13:50] Emily: It'S been a long time since you found that or had that. And so I feel like where you were last January and where you were this summer, that was a huge transformation that I saw in you that was super exciting.
[14:03] Rachel: Yeah. And we just recorded an episode and it's going to come out before this one about goals and whether or not you should yourself. So in the goals one, though, we talked about, which would be episode 46. We talked about how this time last year was like, can I even figure out how to write two days a week? And then like six months later, I wrote 100,000 word manuscript in two.
[14:32] Emily: Amazing.
[14:33] Rachel: And part of it was like, I think I had found my groove. Another part of it was around the same time Rose went to full time daycare, which was massive, massive unlock on me of the time that I had. Because before that, she was only a couple days a week at daycare. That freed up a lot of brain space. And I don't think I've told this to you yet, but after you have a baby, you have that brain fog. It takes so much literal brain space to create a baby and then to take care of a baby afterwards. Like, brain chemistry wise, your brain is different. I don't think my brain got back to pre rachel brain until last. Can I distinctly feel like I had a shift where I was, like, my brain feels sharper, my memory is coming back. It feels a lot more like the me before I had a baby. And it took over two years. That was like two and a half years. Rose was almost three. Where the physical healing of returning to your pre baby body. And I'm not talking about body weight, I'm talking about brain capacity.
[15:46] Emily: Yeah.
[15:47] Rachel: I felt like I kind of was getting there last summer.
[15:52] Emily: Yeah, that's huge. I mean, that's like a massive. In a lot of ways, life phased shift. Yeah.
[15:59] Rachel: So body was different, brain was different. I was figuring out what makes me happy. And also this project was one that just lit a fire in me of passion. Yeah. So I love the project. So I wrote the first draft, gave it some time, edited it to create a second draft, sent that to beta readers, finished a third draft after beta reader feedback, and sent that to an editor for line edits. And I just got line edits back last week. So now we're in January. I'll be doing line edits on it, doing another small draft changes, but another draft for, like, line edits, copy editing, proofreading, and then hopefully self publishing the book in April. Yeah. And I'm very excited. And I say the date being like, I'm so flexible. I'm attaching zero worth to that date. If I need to move it back, we'll move it back. But April, right, currently is the planned self published date. I've got a book blurb, which is super fun, that is also on my substac if you want to go read it. But I love this project. It's, like, inspired by a manga that I'm obsessed with called Yona of the dawn. And it's a why choose? Which is reverse harem mafia romance. So it just was, like, a little niche genre that I'm really enjoying right now. It's so good.
[17:37] Emily: I've read, like, an early draft and it was already so clean. Like, it's so clear. It just poured into you, which is so exciting.
[17:43] Rachel: It did. It just came out of me, so I've loved it. I feel like it's even way stronger than the one that you read now. So I'm super proud of it too. I can't wait to all the things that happen. Yeah, I know.
[17:55] Emily: It's always so funny when you have writing partners and you're like, you read this other draft, but it's so much stronger now. That's how I feel about behind the Crimson curtain. Because you read the one that I went on, that I put on to agents, and I did so many edits with my agent this summer, and then I did more edits with my editors. And so, yeah, it's so different now, too.
[18:15] Rachel: Yeah, I can't wait to read that. I'm always like, send it to me. I'll read all of the drafts.
[18:20] Emily: Read all of them. Big year for us and books it is.
[18:28] Rachel: It's going to be a super big year for us and books, which is really cool because simultaneously of life, existence, stepping forward every day, existing for another day. We've had business and then we've also had books. So it's really cool to see the different us of, like, 2018, 2019 when we started this. And here we are now.
[18:54] Emily: 2020 shifts we've gone through. You guys pretty crazy for different people.
[19:01] Rachel: We've grown up not even like we were babies when we met, but I'm like, I've grown up so much. I'm an adult. I'm 30 now. Wow. It's so crazy.
[19:11] Emily: I'm so wise, you guys.
[19:12] Rachel: So wise. Just, like, listen to my podcast and how wise I am.
[19:21] Emily: That should be our tagline.
[19:25] Rachel: Listen to how smart we are and how awesome we are. And look at this podcast we have. Wow. Brilliance. Just every time we record.
[19:36] Emily: Oh, man.
[19:37] Rachel: So speaking of the podcast. Yeah.
[19:40] Emily: We had some massive business wins this year. This was a huge year for us. I feel like this is the year we found our groove.
[19:48] Rachel: Yeah, I do, too. I think 23 23 was great for golden may in finding our groove and setting us up for this year and.
[19:57] Emily: Future years because we really leaned into what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it, and it made all the difference.
[20:05] Rachel: Yeah. So a couple big wins, we launched tenacious writing, which is our. Can you hear Loki?
[20:16] Emily: Oh, yeah. Love him.
[20:17] Rachel: Oh, my God. This is my dog. He's an alaskan Malimu. And now all of a sudden he's upset at me. I think he saw something out the window. We're going to keep going because we embrace imperfection here. Unless I have to pause, and then we'll pause. Okay, I'm going to pause our recording. Give me a second.
[20:37] Emily: We'll pick up.
[20:39] Rachel: Okay. Sorry about that. We're back.
[20:41] Emily: No worries.
[20:42] Rachel: So we were talking about business wins. In 2023, we started tenacious writing, which is our flagship writing program. We've grown that to just an amazing group of people. Yeah, it's such a cool program. So ten out of ten. Go look at it as always.
[21:03] Emily: Mostly because everyone in it is cooler than we are.
[21:06] Rachel: Yeah.
[21:06] Emily: And that's like saying something.
[21:08] Rachel: I know, right? We're just so brilliant, but everyone else is so much better. So it's a great group of people.
[21:14] Emily: But seriously, guys, it's so much fun. We do, like weekly write togethers. We offer regular coaching calls, master classes. We have had a lot of really cool guests come this year and teach classes on writing craft and writing mindset. We've done workshops on character development and line writing, and we give personalized feedback to members. It's the place to be if you want to level up as a writer. I level up regularly just by interacting with our members because people ask great questions. We have study groups where we study excerpts from books together and we get really nerdy and into the nitty gritty and just, even the coaching calls, just like walking folks through what they're struggling with gives me ideas for what I'm struggling with and what my clients are struggling with. And it keeps me on my toes and it's like the best thing ever because it's just like school that is fun, but that I want to go to all the time.
[22:17] Rachel: Yeah.
[22:17] Emily: If you are, like in school without any deadline.
[22:21] Rachel: Exactly. You love learning and you love just growing skills. I mean, not in a boring way, but in a fun way. If you're like that learner at heart type of personality, this is for you. And I'm really proud, personally, of how much effort and content we poured into this program and how we've developed it to be this type of lifelong or just like, be part of it. You're in it. You've got the resources. We're continually developing it. I think we did so much to grow everything in that program, and we've just got so many more ideas for this year and next year, and it's really cool.
[23:07] Emily: Yeah. So if you are not already hanging out with us, definitely come check it out. And if you have any questions, please email us, because we would love to keep growing our fantastic community.
[23:18] Rachel: Yes.
[23:19] Emily: We also launched this podcast like, a.
[23:21] Rachel: Year ago, which is February. Yeah. Because remember, it probably was. We're recording this today. Exactly. We're recording this on January 5 and this same time last year in 2023, I was at your home. Yes, you're at my house. And we planned where we were like, let's just do the podcast. We made our intro music in one weekend. We set it all up and we're like, okay, I guess we're doing a podcast.
[23:48] Emily: And we had so much fun, you guys. When I went on maternity leave, we had so many episodes just like, as a backlog, because we just couldn't stop recording them. It was fun. Yeah. It's been so fun to do this podcast and hear from you guys about what episodes have spoken to you and how you're feeling about them. We love hearing about your thoughts about the podcast, and we love getting reviews.
[24:17] Rachel: Yes.
[24:18] Emily: So if you haven't left us a review yet, please do. We would love to hear what you think. And every review helps us reach more writers. And that is our goal in this business, is to reach as many writers as we can and inspire them to build sustainable, fulfilling writing. Please, please leave a review.
[24:39] Rachel: And it's really easy.
[24:40] Emily: Not beyond begging.
[24:43] Rachel: It's really easy. If you're on Apple podcasts, you literally just go to our show page and scroll down and you can leave, like a star rating or write a review. It takes like two minutes, tops. Super easy. And it's awesome for us. We love all the feedback. And like Emily said, it helps us reach more writers, which is amazing. And this is currently right now, episode 48. I know. And besides our little break over Christmas, we released an episode every week since last February, which is awesome.
[25:21] Emily: Without any hustle, you guys.
[25:22] Rachel: Without any hustle. Yeah.
[25:25] Emily: Super proud of that. I feel like that is what I'm most proud about is how not stressful it's been.
[25:29] Rachel: Yeah, it's just been fun. It's been a fun project and I love seeing how much we've gotten out of it. Yeah, it's good for the business, but it also has been super fun for us and super fun for the guests we've had. Come on. And like the questions that we get in our email, which, by the way, we haven't had any for a while. But if you have a question that you want us to cover on the podcast, send us an email at [email protected] with your question and put in the subject line podcast question and we'll tackle it on the podcast. So yeah, it's been really fun and it's been really successful and we can't wait to see how it grows this year.
[26:14] Emily: Yeah, it's fun. We just show up and talk about whatever we feel like talking about, you guys. There's like very little planning. It's great.
[26:20] Rachel: I know. It's like very little planning in the most authentic and genuine way where things happen. It just works. It's been great. Yeah, really chill. And we also did lots of workshops this last year. We did multiple, multiple workshops in TW. But for our big list for everybody, we did our scene structure workshop, which was so much fun. So much learning happened during that scene structure workshop. And we also did our reclaim the.
[26:52] Emily: Magic workshop, which was we watched people change before our eyes. It was crazy. We're still getting emails and messages about how impactful that was. So we're going to do it again.
[27:02] Rachel: We're going to do it again. We're going to do it again.
[27:04] Emily: We're going to do reclaim the magic again. And we're going to do some more of those multi day workshops like the scene structure one this year. We have so many fun plans for stuff that we're going to do and things we're going to offer for free and for pay. We're going to do personalized feedback opportunities, lots of stuff. And so if you want to be in the loop, definitely get on our email list. If you're not on it already, which is you can just go to goldenmayediting.com, subscribe. We'll put that in the show notes and just super quick, 30 seconds, get on our email list. And it's a pretty fun newsletter. Not going to lie. Tons of, we send love notes all the time with tidbits on how you can have a joyful writing life and also lots of craft tips and nerdy stuff in there as well.
[28:00] Rachel: Yeah. So we're looking at doing reclaim the magic, probably sooner rather than later. So get on our list so that you can enroll in that. It's going to be another free event, which was amazing. We had over 300 people sign up last year, which was so cool. So make sure you're on our email list so you can get all the notifications for that and sign up. Yeah.
[28:24] Emily: And it's a week of events, totally free events to help you reclaim the joy of writing. So if you're feeling stuck or writing hasn't been as fun as it used to be for you, definitely come join us for that.
[28:39] Rachel: Yes. And then on other notes, we're booking up our one on one coaching. That's kind of like the we have different prongs of our business, one prong being one on one coaching and another prong being like tenacious writing. And they go hand in hand. So I guess they're not entirely separate prongs. But anyway, we still do one on one coaching. We're still doing it this year. If you are interested at all. We are booking up basically the rest of our 2024 year. So if you are thinking about it or you just want to talk to us about what is one on one coaching, like what will it do for me? How will it help me? You've got to book a free call as soon as possible because our spots go so fast for basically our whole year. So I'm going to put another link in the show notes to that. Our one on one coaching program is also called story magic. Story magic. One on one coaching. And I'll put a link there so you can just tap it and sign up for a discovery call. A free call. They're just like, hey, come hang out with us for 30 minutes. Let's just talk. They're so low pressure. You're not at all like, it's like coffee.
[29:50] Emily: Come have coffee with us. Or tea or whatever you drink. Your hot beverage of choice.
[29:54] Rachel: My flavored water with my caffeine drink. I don't drink coffee, but my parenting hack is like crystal light with caffeine. That's what I put into my water.
[30:08] Emily: You want to gag.
[30:09] Rachel: It's the only thing that I get. It's like, oh, I'm so tired.
[30:14] Emily: Dark black coffee probably makes me want to gag.
[30:17] Rachel: Yeah, it does. I'm just going to my flavored water with caffeine.
[30:25] Emily: So anyway, we had a fantastic year. We are looking at another fantastic year. Come hang out with us on our email list in tenacious writing. Leave us a review. Just come party. We're here for the joyful writing lives. Can I throw you a curveball question to.
[30:47] Rachel: Yeah, of course.
[30:48] Emily: Close this out. What is one of your biggest takeaways from this year?
[30:52] Rachel: Okay. I've been thinking about this a lot, and I hope it's not like a hot take that undermines all of our work.
[31:03] Emily: Well, that would make it a hot take.
[31:04] Rachel: I know. Okay, so here's my 2023. I feel like what ended up being really resonant for me in 2023? You and I. So personal. I'm going to say something personal, and then I'm going to apply it to business, too. We spent so much time learning craft, and we talk a lot about craft, and it's a set of expectations and guidelines and there's no prescriptions and rules and whatever. I feel like I spent so many years learning craft that felt very much like I had to apply craft. And then 2023 for me was like the year of applying craft however the hell I wanted. And throwing out the rulebook, who cares? Yes. Thank you. I would not have been able to do that had I not learned craft. But 2023 for me was very much like, who cares about crafts? And first drafts? That's a revisions thing. I went so hard into. I trust my innate knowledge that I will figure this out on the back end. And then secondary to that, it does not have to be perfect. I feel like I was in a phase for a while. That craft was a strive for me towards perfection of like, if you follow craft, it will be perfect. And every time I tried to deviate from it, it was like, lessening how good a book was or how good a story was. And with this passion project that I was talking about, it's called blood in the water. So I'm just going to call it blood in the water with blood in the water. I wrote a book that made me so immensely happy. And I know it's not perfect craft, but I know it has all of my knowledge backed up into it. So that was my biggest takeaway of, like, I want to teach the craft to people so that they can decide maybe I don't want to do it this way or maybe I want to do it this other way and throwing kind of like disregarding craft. In the latter half of last year, I was like, who cares? Who cares about craft? But at the same, that's why it doesn't undermine our work. But that's my hot take, is like, I stopped caring about craft and I just wrote a book.
[33:20] Emily: I feel like, that's like a level up, though, because the whole state, and I know you know this, I'm going to reiterate this for folks, right. The whole idea of craft is it's just reader expectations. Like what a reader is expecting to feel when they sit down to read a story, right. Because we have a general idea of the ups and downs and the emotional impact of what a story should feel like, or it usually feels like for us. And then if you decide to go throw that out the window and make them feel something different, like something surprising, something, or you just decide you don't care about them feeling that way if you're making that from an educated place. Right. Of, like, I understand that I'm not following the craft right now and I don't care for XYZ reason and because I'm having fun is a reason.
[34:03] Rachel: Yes.
[34:04] Emily: Right. Who cares? Let me give you helpful. It's helpful to understand what readers are expecting and how they're feeling when they read your work. But yeah, it can also be a detriment when you are being strangled by it.
[34:20] Rachel: Yeah.
[34:21] Emily: In my bones.
[34:22] Rachel: Let me give you like a little example. So I finished blood in the water. I did the first revisions, and I sent it out to beta readers. And I had amazing beta readers. I am so grateful for all their feedback. But I did send it to some members of our community, and it was so helpful to, like, we had a shared knew. They knew me, I knew them, like, the level of trust that I had with these beta readers this time around. It was a fantastic experience. So another little props toward tenacious writing is you build those relationships and feedback feels less scary. But at the same time, I also had tons of inner pressure of I'm a book coach, I'm a host of this community. It's got to read a certain way. And some of the feedback that I got back was like, I'm not seeing huge consequences for her poor decisions. And I'm like, I know, like, on purpose, but they're there. The huge consequences are there. So there was part of me that was like, okay, that's a craft thing, really. I intentionally chose how my main character was going to feel the consequences of her decisions. And I also know the reader expectations for the genre that I'm writing in. And it is not like it's different. Exactly. So it was interesting for me to go through this period of, like, I'm getting feedback that is craft related because I teach craft and at the same time, inside being like, that's so helpful to me. And also, I'm going to ignore that because that's what I wanted. That's what I'm aiming for with this draft. So that was a big takeaway for me. And what I hope to instill in my clients in kind of the lighter half of the year is with a lot of my EB and flow of coaching. And in this year in particular, I worked with the same set of clients basically all year, which was amazing.
[36:13] Emily: So cool.
[36:14] Rachel: We got so deep into all of our work. So basically, in the first six months of their program, we learned craft. And in the second six halves of their programs, I was like, craft doesn't matter. Let's not do the craft anymore. So it was such a cool thing for me to try and impart the same thing to them of, now we know not quotes, but the quotes, the rules, the expectations. Now we know the lessons. So how are we going to choose to apply the lessons?
[36:44] Emily: Do you want to apply it to apply them?
[36:46] Rachel: Yeah. So that was my takeaway of, how can I teach people how to apply the lessons? How did I teach that to myself? How did I decide and stand firm and the decisions that I made for a specific draft, and how do I still take that feedback, though? Because maybe next time I want to blow up the consequences and go in a different direction. So anyway, what about you? Let me turn it right back around you before we wrap up.
[37:10] Emily: Yeah. Before I answer, just to add to that, go listen to the previous episode where we rant about the word should, because I think this is a great place for that. Right. People who are really deep in craft learning oftentimes feel like I should write my story x way. And it's like, well, why? Who's telling you that? Okay, the craft books. But do you want to do it that way? What could you do differently? Right. I think that applies there, too. In writing is like, we're often led by these, like, oh, well, my act to break should look like this, or my character arc should look like this, or my midpoint should act like this, or should be at 50%.
[37:46] Rachel: It doesn't have to be. Do what you want.
[37:49] Emily: Yeah. So there's a lot of shoulds that creep in because we want to lean on the craft to give us the answers to write a book that people are going to like, and it's like, no. Yeah, that's what the craft says. But what do you, in your book, actually need? That's brilliant. I love it. Gosh. What is my biggest takeaway? I think my biggest takeaway that I think I learned I learned it this summer, but I didn't actually do it until this fall is like, and I wrote about this on substac as well. This idea that for a really long time, I'm a very ambitious person. I've always been an ambitious person. I just have big dreams and I get excited about them and I full force go forward like a bull. And in the past, I've tended to really be like a goalpost, a goalpost kind of person, where it's like, okay, I got the next deadline. I got the next project, I got the next thing I'm trying to complete. And I have found that by doing that, I've often pushed off rest and pushed off joy and indulgence because things weren't finished. And this was like, to give you an example, the biggest place that showed up was when I went on my trip to Wyoming this summer. I had, like, a ten day trip with my family, which we never do. My family does not do destination vacations. We all met in Wyoming and we were there for, like, ten days. And I was working on my book. I was also pregnant and I had really high anxiety with my pregnancy. But all as context. But that doesn't erase the fact that when I was working on prepping my book for submission, I, for some reason, set this goal that I needed to have the first pass of it done before I went to Wyoming. And it was like this pressure of, if it's not done, then I won't be able to enjoy, like, because I didn't finish the, like, I had just this addiction to finishing things, and if something wasn't finished, I couldn't. And maybe that's the anxiety. I don't know, like, clinging to something and safety. But it just felt like I'm not going to be able to relax and enjoy this vacation. I'm going to have to work on vacation, or if I don't work, I'm going to be worried about it the whole time, that kind of narrative. And when I had Bailey, all of a sudden it was like, okay, if you're not living right now, you're going to miss it. My mom was here for ten days. Bailey was. She came when Bailey was six weeks old and she was here for ten days. And it was amazing. But I was like, so, like, the six week Mark, you're tired. I mean, you had the five week.
[40:29] Rachel: Yeah. You just hit a level of exhaustion.
[40:33] Emily: I was sitting, I was feeding Bailey, and I had a lot of breastfeeding issues at the beginning, and so I was, like, having issues again. And my mom walked in and I just burst into tears and I just was like, take my. I'm so just depleted. And also, at that point, I knew I had writing deadlines and stuff and so I was just so exhausted. And my trip with my mom was great and she spent so much time with Bailey, which was good for her, but in ten days, a baby changes so much. And I just remember she left and I was, like, holding Bailey and I was like, who are you?
[41:12] Rachel: Yeah.
[41:13] Emily: And it just was this moment of like, okay, this stops now, right? Like, this stops now. We're not going to do this anymore. And so I was like, okay, we have to have a different relationship with how this deadline is going to go. We are not going to miss anything. And obviously you miss moments. You zone out. It's not a perfect thing. And I haven't been perfect about it since then, but I just have had this new need to be in my life and not just, like, looking at the future. So that's been my big takeaway and I'm proud of how it went. I learned to ask for help and how to use the time that I did have and not be worried about it. Let go of some of that and how to push deadlines. I push both my deadlines, you guys. So I argued from the get go with the contractual, when I was going through with my agent what my contract was going to look like. We push dates. Like, we push hard. We push dates until I had something that I was comfortable with and then I still push dates. When I was actually in the edits, I pushed both my dates. So I'm in a trad situation and you can still push those things. Don't tell anyone. No, I'm just kidding. I will shout it. I will shout it. You can push stuff, right? There are no emergencies in publishing. And so, yeah, asking for what I need so that I can be in the present and be there for her has been a big change in me. I think over the last year, Wyoming was a wake up call.
[42:48] Rachel: That's good. And I'm proud of you for everything. But I'm also really proud of you for pushing those dates because I remember you telling them to me and I remember us having a brief conversation of like, are you sure? And then I could feel your stress about it. I could feel like, well, it's hard.
[43:06] Emily: It's hard when you have someone being like, hey, I'm going to give you x amount of money for your book and here are the dates I want you to meet. And you're like, well, that's not going to work for me. And then it's a human thing of, like, how hard do I push? And I just kept pushing. And if deadlines aren't going to work out in the future, then they won't work out in the future. I don't know what's going to happen between now and then. And so I did my best to meet the deadlines, but I wasn't like, I'm not willing to give up the president anymore. Before, it was me and my husband. We don't change that much in ten days.
[43:41] Rachel: Yeah, David will go on a ten day run. David will just run for ten days and fine. David is like, equilibrium, always.
[43:53] Emily: We literally, on New Year's, we are hanging out with our neighbors who also have kids, and the dad is also an ultra runner. And he was talking about how some of their friends, they went on to Costa Rica for, like, a ten day vacation. He was like, that's not my idea of fun. I would just go on a hike, run backpack thing for ten days. And David was like, I would do that. And I was like, you too? Don't you dare.
[44:18] Rachel: You're not teaming up on this. Stop it.
[44:21] Emily: Anyway tangent. So, yeah, that's where I'm at. And that's like, my goal for this year is to not let myself fall into those pitfalls. Because it's easy.
[44:32] Rachel: I love that. It is easy, especially when you're excited.
[44:35] Emily: About something and you're into the project.
[44:38] Rachel: Yeah, that's awesome. I'm really proud of you for that. And I think all of the work that you've done over the last year, four years of mindset stuff, is paying off, because if you hadn't have done all that work, I don't know that you would be in this position or in this mental position, not like, position of the book, but this position of saying, this is what I want, and I'm going to do the most that I can to make this happen.
[45:01] Emily: Yeah, and same to you, too. And I was going to say this earlier, but I want to be clear to listeners, when I was celebrating Rachel writing, what is it, 100,000 words in, like, six weeks, like something insane.
[45:12] Rachel: I was a solid two months. That's eight weeks.
[45:15] Emily: Okay, eight weeks.
[45:16] Rachel: Let's be fair.
[45:18] Emily: What I am celebrating in that moment is you working through those walls to open up that part of yourself again and getting through the mindset shifts you had to go through to get there. I mean, you didn't write for a couple of years and there was a lot going on, and that is a massive. We've both grown so much.
[45:37] Rachel: We've both grown. Oh, my God.
[45:38] Emily: We have to see my face listener. So mindset work is everything. It unlocks everything. It makes everything possible. It does. So come to reclaim the magic. Come to reclaim the magic. Whenever we decide to handle it, when.
[45:53] Rachel: We do it, when it's on the calendar soon. So be on our email list. So, you know, awesome. This was really fun.
[46:00] Emily: It was.
[46:01] Rachel: Remember when we were like, let's just record a really quick update. Yeah.
[46:06] Emily: I got to go feed a baby, you guys. All right? Emily will figure these outro texts, you guys all right? 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.
[46:25] Rachel: Sign up now to get our free email course. The magic of character arcs. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.
[46:34] Emily: Link in the show notes. We'll see you there. Bye bye. Our.
