Episode 094 - Debunking Writing Myths with Kristina Adams
August 24, 2021
Author Kristina Adams examines writing myths and questions the common wisdom of writing and publishing that perhaps shouldn't be so common. She shares her thoughts on what it means to be a productive and successful author, and debunks some of the myths of a writer's life, including the belief that writing is a talent, not a skill; the admonition to write what you know; how writing short stories is easier than writing a novel; and how a writer's life is necessarily a solitary one.
Kristina Adams is the author of fifteen books and too many blog posts to count. She helps writers overcome their creative obstacles on her blog, podcast, and courses, over at THE WRITER’S COOKBOOK. When she’s not writing, she’s inflicting cooking experiments on her boyfriend or playing with her dog, Millie.
"You can't compare your start to someone else's middle. They've got different circumstances in life. If you're going to compare yourself, then compare yourself to yourself, either yesterday or a month ago or a year ago, and look at how much you've grown." —Kristina Adams
Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!
[00:00:00] Matty: Hello, and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast. Today my guest is Kristina Adams. Hey, Kristina, how are you doing?
[00:00:06] Kristina: Hey, I'm great. Thanks. How are you?
[00:00:08] Matty: I'm doing great, thank you. To give our listeners a little bit of background on you, Kristina Adams is the author of 15 books and too many blog posts to count. She helps writers overcome their creative obstacles on her blog, podcast, and courses over at The Writer's Cookbook. When she's not writing, she's inflicting cooking experiments on her boyfriend or playing with her very cute dog, Millie.
[00:00:29] And so I invited Kristina on the podcast to talk about writing myths. And I always enjoy talking with fellow authors, publishers about the common wisdom that's out there that maybe shouldn't be so common. But to lead us into that conversation, Kristina, talk a little bit about what The Writer's Cookbook is and what made you decide to start that up?
[00:00:52] Kristina: So I started The Writer's Cookbook in 2014 after I finished my master's in creative writing. And at the time it was a way for me to ensure that I didn't stop writing and I kept learning after I'd finished, because I enjoyed doing the M.A. so much. I didn't want it to end, but it was inevitable. So I set it up and the name is a combination of the fact that I love writing and I love cooking as you can probably guess from my bio. And I use a lot of cooking analogies as well, and a lot of driving analogies. I compare them to writing a lot, which is another way that the title fits in.
[00:01:24] And it's a place for writers to come and we've got lots of craft stuff. Like the early days were very heavily craft orientated, and then we had more stuff to do with productivity and myths and helping people build a career that they find fulfilling as well as enjoyable and hopefully profitable as well.
[00:01:46] Matty: And what were you seeing among yourself or your fellow writers that made you feel like that was a necessary service that you could offer?
[00:01:57] Kristina: I found that there was some really great stuff out there, but then some of the themes and topics that I wanted to write about just weren't being covered. And when people talked about things like productivity, it felt like very surface level stuff. Like get up earlier in the morning or drink more water, do more exercise.
[00:02:14] That's all very well and good. But if you feel horrible inside, if you're full of self-doubt, if you're depressed, if your support network isn't strong enough, it doesn't make a blind bit of difference. You need to figure out why you're unproductive in the first place to learn how to be productive. So it was kind of a combination of those things.
[00:02:34] Matty: Well, that is a great entree into some of the things we want to talk about. So you have a book that addresses writing myths. Give us a little intro to that, and then we'll dive into a couple of question.
[00:02:48] Kristina: So WRITING MYTHS came about after I got loads of emails from readers about how can I do this? Should I do this? And also conversations I've had with people. And I remember going to a networking event once. It wasn't a writing event, it was for my day job. And I got talking to this guy and he said he was working on a book, and he told me he was doing all this planning and world-building and stuff, and it was epic fantasy.
[00:03:12] And then he was like, but I don't know if I'll ever write it because it seems like a lot of work. Like what, well, why don't you just play in Dungeons and Dragons or something if you like the world building? I don't know, but for me, I found a lot of people want to write a book, but they get stuck with simple questions like, should you write a throwaway book to learn the craft? Do you really need to blog if you find it soul destroying? Doing social media. So we start with the craft questions and then we segue into the publishing and the marketing stuff.
[00:03:47] Matty: This isn't one of the topics we discussed, but I'd love to talk about the throwaway book concept. So what would your advice be to people who are hearing that? Something you'd support or something you would not support? ...
[00:00:06] Kristina: Hey, I'm great. Thanks. How are you?
[00:00:08] Matty: I'm doing great, thank you. To give our listeners a little bit of background on you, Kristina Adams is the author of 15 books and too many blog posts to count. She helps writers overcome their creative obstacles on her blog, podcast, and courses over at The Writer's Cookbook. When she's not writing, she's inflicting cooking experiments on her boyfriend or playing with her very cute dog, Millie.
[00:00:29] And so I invited Kristina on the podcast to talk about writing myths. And I always enjoy talking with fellow authors, publishers about the common wisdom that's out there that maybe shouldn't be so common. But to lead us into that conversation, Kristina, talk a little bit about what The Writer's Cookbook is and what made you decide to start that up?
[00:00:52] Kristina: So I started The Writer's Cookbook in 2014 after I finished my master's in creative writing. And at the time it was a way for me to ensure that I didn't stop writing and I kept learning after I'd finished, because I enjoyed doing the M.A. so much. I didn't want it to end, but it was inevitable. So I set it up and the name is a combination of the fact that I love writing and I love cooking as you can probably guess from my bio. And I use a lot of cooking analogies as well, and a lot of driving analogies. I compare them to writing a lot, which is another way that the title fits in.
[00:01:24] And it's a place for writers to come and we've got lots of craft stuff. Like the early days were very heavily craft orientated, and then we had more stuff to do with productivity and myths and helping people build a career that they find fulfilling as well as enjoyable and hopefully profitable as well.
[00:01:46] Matty: And what were you seeing among yourself or your fellow writers that made you feel like that was a necessary service that you could offer?
[00:01:57] Kristina: I found that there was some really great stuff out there, but then some of the themes and topics that I wanted to write about just weren't being covered. And when people talked about things like productivity, it felt like very surface level stuff. Like get up earlier in the morning or drink more water, do more exercise.
[00:02:14] That's all very well and good. But if you feel horrible inside, if you're full of self-doubt, if you're depressed, if your support network isn't strong enough, it doesn't make a blind bit of difference. You need to figure out why you're unproductive in the first place to learn how to be productive. So it was kind of a combination of those things.
[00:02:34] Matty: Well, that is a great entree into some of the things we want to talk about. So you have a book that addresses writing myths. Give us a little intro to that, and then we'll dive into a couple of question.
[00:02:48] Kristina: So WRITING MYTHS came about after I got loads of emails from readers about how can I do this? Should I do this? And also conversations I've had with people. And I remember going to a networking event once. It wasn't a writing event, it was for my day job. And I got talking to this guy and he said he was working on a book, and he told me he was doing all this planning and world-building and stuff, and it was epic fantasy.
[00:03:12] And then he was like, but I don't know if I'll ever write it because it seems like a lot of work. Like what, well, why don't you just play in Dungeons and Dragons or something if you like the world building? I don't know, but for me, I found a lot of people want to write a book, but they get stuck with simple questions like, should you write a throwaway book to learn the craft? Do you really need to blog if you find it soul destroying? Doing social media. So we start with the craft questions and then we segue into the publishing and the marketing stuff.
[00:03:47] Matty: This isn't one of the topics we discussed, but I'd love to talk about the throwaway book concept. So what would your advice be to people who are hearing that? Something you'd support or something you would not support? ...
click here to read more
[00:04:00] Kristina: I will put my hand up and say, it's not something I've done.
[00:04:03] So a throw away book is when you write something and potentially even publish it under another pen name so that you can learn the ropes of writing and finishing and publishing something.
[00:04:13] Because a lot of the learning actually comes from finishing something. It doesn't come from dipping in and out of different projects. I can't remember when I first heard of this concept, but I kind of wish I'd heard of it before I started, because there is such a steep learning curve that it can be really useful, not necessarily in terms of learning about the paid ropes. You kind of want that to be for a book or a series you actually care about.
[00:04:36] But when you're learning all about marketing and keywords and categories and titles and cover design and editing and plotting and characterization and all these things that go into a book, writing and finishing something can therefore be really beneficial. And if it's a pen name that you're not going to go with long term and one that you kind of have less of an emotional investment in, it can really help you because then you don't get upset if it doesn't work as well as you want, because it's not like the book or the series that you're going to work on.
[00:05:10] Matty: That concept about the throwaway book always makes me a little uncomfortable because I'm always on the bandwagon of, if you're an indy author, there's no reason that you should have a lower standard of excellence for your work than let's say a traditional publisher would. And I even hate to use traditional publisher as the standard of excellence I'm shooting for. I just think there should be a consistent standard of excellence whatever route you're taking. So I would feel uncomfortable advising someone to go about a book saying, like, don’t take it seriously.
[00:05:44] Kristina: If you're not taking it as seriously as you would any other book, why are you doing it in the first place?
[00:05:48] Matty: Right. And I think that maybe my advice would be, and I'd be curious about your opinion on this, is that the first book you put out should be the best book you can possibly put out there. And then years are going to go by, you're going to write a couple of other books. You're going to study the craft, whatever. And you're going to look back and think, oh man, if I were doing that now I would do it differently.
[00:06:09] In that case, I would probably tell people, go ahead and do the best you can now. And then in a couple of years, if you look at it and you're not that happy, then rework it.
[00:06:16] I think the easiest example is that I got a cover that I loved for my first book and I loved it for a while. And then I realized that it wasn't really conveying what I wanted it to convey to my potential readers and I got it updated.
[00:06:29] So, what are your thoughts on that? Like returning to a book that you put out earlier to buff it up to a higher level of standard now that you know more.
[00:06:37] Kristina: It's funny you say that because I'm in the process of redesigning the cover of my first book / series. And I like the covers that I've got now, but the genre that I write in has moved on. There's a lot more competition now and the cover simply doesn't fit anymore. So if I'm treating this like a business, I've got to be practical. And I know some of my current readers don't understand why I'm changing it. It's like, well, you can still keep the cover that you're using. You don't have to update to the new file when I've got it.
[00:07:09] But I also have to keep bringing in new readers because that's how I pay the bills. I've got to be practical about it. And I don't think there's any harm in going back through something you published however many years ago to update it. But also don't spend too long ruminating over how you could fix this character or fix this plot aspect. Cause I know if I wrote my first book now, the plot would be very different because my plotting skills have improved since I published that book. But I was going through it because there's an overlap between that book and the book I'm writing now, and I was like reading through some of the description and stuff and I'm like, oh, that description's really good. Why don't I do that anymore? And it was always refreshing to remind myself, actually, this isn't as bad as I thought it was.
[00:07:51] Matty: That is very therapeutic. And I think that we're programmed to look back and see all the faults, but it's nice to look back and see the things that have drawn readers in and that you can enjoy yourself.
[00:08:02] And I also think another benefit of being an indy publisher is I would say I never go back and read my old books from cover to cover, but every once in a while, I'm in there, like if I was doing a reading and I was pulling an excerpt from it, and every once in a while I'll come across like an awkward phrase or that wasn't quite the right word. And guess what? I can change it! So you know, if I find those things then I'm tweaking whenever I happened upon those occurrences, just in normal course of business.
[00:08:29] Kristina: Yeah, exactly.
[00:08:30] Matty: So another thing that I wanted to ask you that was just triggered by our earlier conversation is, writer myths or wisdom about an M.A. in creative writing or some kind of graduate creative writing course. What did you find that met your expectations and what did you find that didn't meet your expectations that people who are considering that route should be aware of?
[00:08:51] Kristina: I will caveat this by saying that I grew in confidence from studying creative writing. And I developed my speaking skills and I developed as a poet because for my M.A. I studied poetry and screenwriting. But it is very different writing for an M.A. as it is writing for a reader.
[00:09:10] And one of my friends has just graduated from the same M.A. I did, and she said she feels like she's learning to write all over again because it's different expectations. Because you're still writing for an academic audience when you're doing the M.A. You have to dissect every decision you make and justify it in a critical commentary. So I did this but I could have done that, and really weigh up the pros and cons and justify your creative decisions.
[00:09:32] Whereas you don't have to do that when you're writing for readers. And so it feels like the pressure is off because you're not constantly analyzing stuff and making notes of why you've done X and Y and how you think things work.
[00:09:45] And I did my dissertation as a novella. And I have a B.A. in creative writing as well, where the focus was mostly on short stories, a little bit of novels, but mostly short stories. And like I say, it taught me a lot about myself as a person, but I don't think that they prepared me for life as an author or a publisher. And I would probably say to most people you're better off learning business skills and your writing skills on the side than you are doing a creative writing M.A. or B.A.
[00:10:17] I love the people I studied with. I met some of my best friends there. The teachers were great, and they were very supportive, but even when I was doing it, I graduated in 2014, there was a prejudice against self-publishing. And when I did my B.A., that was a prejudice against blogging. Like admittedly, I graduated from that in 2011. So obviously times have moved on a lot since then. But there are still some people who study these things and push for the kind of more academic style of writing, the literary fiction style of writing, and they look down on self-publishing because they want the approval of that gatekeeper, and they don't understand why you wouldn't seek that.
[00:10:57] And they don't understand treating writing like a business. And that's not to say everyone who works as a creative writing tutor or studies it feels that way. I've met a lot of people who don't and who have gone on to publish since I met them. But it is certainly there, and it can follow you and affect your decisions when it comes to your writing as well.
[00:11:22] Matty: That is a nice lead in to one of the first questions we discussed talking about, which was writing is a talent, not a skill. So I'm just going to open it up to you to talk about the writing myth, writing as a talent, not a skill.
[00:11:35] Kristina: This one really winds me up, so it might turn into rant. Like I'm sure you've heard it, like, oh, I could never write a book, I don't have the talent for it. But it is that tortoise and hare myth. Like someone can be further along and have a natural aptitude for something. But if someone puts the work in to you study it, to learn things like story structure and psychology so they understand the characterization and how to write great description and how to market a book and how to do all the financial stuff and the cover design and whatever, that person will become more successful than the person who rests on the fact that they are naturally a good writer. Because that person who is constantly striving to improve will find these things that they didn't know before. They will constantly be open to the fact that the market is changing and evolving, and they must adapt to that, or their sales will nosedive and they've got less of a chance of making a success of it.
[00:12:34] Matty: You had mentioned in that the idea of studying psychology and then earlier you had mentioned the fact that studying business is in many ways a better platform for indy authors than studying creative writing. So I'm going to tie this into the next question, which is write what you know. So if people are writing something other than that very, very immediate personal experience, how does psychology factor into that?
[00:13:02] Kristina: I'm a big fan of studying psychology. My characterization course is based on psychology rather than on character tropes and things. And I think it's because when you really understand cause and effect, then your characters have much more depth. So like if someone is really arrogant, there's probably a reason they're arrogant. If someone is a bully at school, there's a reason they're a bully. I'm juggling at the moment with one of my characters and thinking about her motivations, and should I have it that she is the bully who's bullied at home? Or is it a case of actually she is spoiled and used to getting her way and because the main character stops her from getting what she wants, then that's why she gets the way that she is?
[00:13:45] And to me that's much more realistic because usually the bullies are the ones who don't know how to handle the situation they are in, and so they project their anger onto an easy target. And sometimes they are trained to behave in a certain way by the people around them.
[00:14:02] But it's a case of, if you really understand what makes a person who they are, and it's not just even their backstory, it's the influence of the people have. I'm sure you've heard the quote we're a product of the five people we spend the most time. That's the same for our characters as well. So if they're spending lots of time around gossipy co-workers, there's a chance they're probably going to be gossipy as well. And then that can affect their relationships outside of work. Like maybe their partner doesn't like gossipy culture. And so it causes a rift in their relationship.
[00:14:33] And if you really understand the psychology of the character, then it helps you to add more depth to them, and that depth feels then very natural. And it can also help you flesh out your plot because you can just think of, okay, what goes against what this character wants? What goes against that personality and then you can challenge them in that way.
[00:14:55] Matty: I'm guessing that based on that response, you're not advising writers to merely write what they know.
[00:15:00] Kristina: That phrase really jars with me. I remember doing an assignment for it once at school. And I was about eight years old and was already writing fantasy. I don't want to write what I know. I want to write about witches and wizards and warlocks and dragons and things.
[00:15:14] And the problem with write what you know is obviously none of us know any dragons. So what are the people writing epic fantasy doing? What are the people writing sci-fi doing? And for me, write what you know is more about writing the emotions that you know, and if you don't know something, it's not a case of you haven't experienced it so you can't write about it. It's about going away and doing your research.
[00:15:35] For my first book, I'd never been through grief, but one of my main characters was dealing with the loss of her mum and her sister. And so I did a lot of research and I spoke to a lot of people, and I read a lot of articles about what that felt like. And she's actually one of my most popular characters, because I took the time to do that research and to really bring her pain and the kind of bittersweetness of the fact that she wouldn't be in the situation that she's in now, which is much better, if she hadn't gone through the trauma of losing her mum and sister when she and they were very young.
[00:16:07] And so I think the key thing really is if you don't know something to write it, to research it, and that's how you can write what you know, rather than just taking it at face value and just writing about the day you walked to the shops, and nothing happens.
[00:16:22] Matty: I'm trying this concept out a little bit, but I think that one of the keys to a writer being successful conveying things is the ability to take an experience they've had and extend it in a way that encompasses the scenario they want to cover. So I've never been so angry with someone that I killed them. But some of my characters have been so angry with someone that they kill them, but I have been very angry with people. And so that idea that you take a moment of anger and then you extend it to a more extreme version of that emotion that you've experienced yourself.
[00:17:00] And I think that could be true, not just of emotions, but even of physical limitations and things like that, that you need to extrapolate. And it's funny that nobody ever complains about, I've never gotten an email saying, 'How dare you write about someone getting so angry that they kill someone. I bet you've never experienced that.' So build on what you do know in order to put yourself in the mindset of things that you haven't experienced personally.
[00:17:26] So the discussion about sci-fi and fantasy and so on is a great entree to our next topic, which is genre writing doesn't require any skills. I'm just going to let you rant about that one.
[00:17:40] Kristina: I started off studying literary fiction and there was a big push towards literary fiction when I did my B.A. And then when I did my M.A., they were like, why didn't you do genre writing? If you're like a romance / fantasy author, why were you writing lit fic? I'm like, I don't know. Yeah, it was strange. And they have overhauled the course since I took out. I should say that much.
[00:18:05] But there is this weird thing that if you're writing genre fiction, that it's not as challenging, that it's easier, that you don't have to experiment, and you can't do this and you can't do that. But actually genre fiction is harder because, A, you've got all the world building, regardless of whether it's romance or sci-fi, but you've also got to juggle things like reader expectations. And if you're writing something like literary fiction or you're going for kind of award type stuff, you don't need to worry about reader expectations as much as you do with genre fiction. But if you defy reader expectations in your books, your sales will suffer. And that's just a hard fact that I learned the hard way. And I know a lot of other authors have as well. If you have one book that goes against what readers want from that genre, you either have to remarket it or consider either rewriting it or just writing it off because it's never going to be what people want.
[00:19:01] Matty: I always thought it was bizarre that literary fiction was considered a genre unto itself because I can't imagine any story, well, of course I can, you know, more like experimental kind of work or something like that, but a scenario where it doesn't fit into some structure, like coming of age. I think people say literary fiction sometimes as if that's a sufficient definition of what a book is. Whereas I think it's more of a stylistic acknowledgement within the genre that they defacto are writing in. So I would add that to the whole concept of writing myths surrounding genre.
[00:19:39] Kristina: Yeah, I totally agree.
[00:19:41] Matty: So another writing myth is writing short stories is easier than writing a novel. And of course I'm especially interested in this one, having a book on short fiction that addresses the business side but not the craft side. So I'm curious as to your thoughts on that myth.
[00:19:57] Kristina: Yeah. As I said, I started off studying short stories when I did my B.A. And I sometimes enjoy writing them, although I will admit studying them kind of took my love away of them. Cause it was just too much of it. But the thing is when you write a short story, everything has to be really tight. You have one moment in time that you're covering as opposed to weeks, months, or years like a novel can. And so you have to go into minute detail a lot of time. And also you don't have very many words depending on what type of short story you're writing, whether it's a flash reaction of a thousand words or a long short story of up to 20,000 words, each one of those has their own limitations and their own expectations.
[00:20:40] Like if you're writing a flash fiction, in a way it is poetry because it's so short and you've got to be really clever with how you use language to convey everything, and somehow put a plot in a thousand words as well. And that is really challenging. And then you've got a long short story, and the one that always comes to mind as an example, because I studied it both times is James Joyce's THE DEAD, because that's about 19,000, I think. And absolutely nothing happened in that story. And it still admired. I don't like James Joyce. I should say. But if you enjoy it, then to each his own, but studying it was just painful for me.
[00:21:17] Like I say, nothing happens, but it's still 19,000 words and it's kind of an analysis of different types of people and different situations around Christmas, if I remember correctly. And it is hard to go into that much detail. And if you're writing for a modern audience, you do need some form of plot because that's what people expect these days. If you don't have that kind of plot, then you are going into the literary fiction realms. And it is a lot harder to keep the reader engaged and turning the page because you don't have the what happens next, what happens next thing going on in their head, which is kind of what everyone wants these days because everyone is constantly scrolling through their phone or wanting to watch the next episode of their favorite show because it ends on a cliffhanger. And you have to treat writing the same way now, if you want to do it well.
[00:22:07] And that rule is true for short fiction as much as long fiction. But in terms of it being easier, I think it's harder because you have fewer words, so you have to really tighten it and you can't have subplots. You can maybe have one if you're writing something like a novella, but the shorter your word count, the less leeway you have to play and experiment.
[00:22:31] But I would say if you struggle to finish things, short stories can be beneficial because there is only one train of thought and then you can finish it, take the learnings, and apply that to your next project.
[00:22:44] Matty: I like that recommendation because if you have to throw away 10,000 words, it's a lot less painful than if you have to throw away 80,000 or a hundred thousand or a first novel length work. But once you've developed that, then you can always expand it, if you want to, into a novel length work.
[00:23:02] I sometimes get the question when I'm on podcasts or doing interviews about the business-focused short fiction book about what leads me to make a story a short story versus a novel, and the best answer I've been able to come up with is that when I'm thinking of a short story, or when I come up with an idea that becomes a short story, it's usually because I'm thinking of a particular event that I want to write the story around.
[00:23:30] And then the motivations, the more subtle themes, evolve as I'm working on that. Whereas when I'm writing a novel, I come up with the themes and then the story and the actions kind of form around that. Does that seem like a common approach to you? Or what else have you heard in terms of how people decide what is a short story and what is a novel?
[00:23:54] Kristina: Do you know, I haven't spoken to that many short story writers these days. I mostly speak to novelists. But the majority of the novelists I speak to do you start with a plot. I'm the opposite. I start with the character, and so I do a lot of my friends, but a lot of our podcast listeners start with the plot, and I think that's where it is. And if you look at the plot and see how much depth it has, that can be a really good indicator of whether or not it's going to end up as a short story or a novel. Because, like you say, if it focuses around one event, then it's probably going to be a short story and it's probably not going to be any more than 10,000 words.
[00:24:28] It might be a little bit longer, but the chances are, you want to get in late and get out early so that you don't feel like you're dragging it on for the sake of padding out the word count. Because the beauty of short fiction is that it is short. It's not necessarily padded out for the sake of KU page reads or charging a little bit more.
[00:24:48] Matty: Yeah. I like that approach, that makes sense to me. I'm going to borrow that next time somebody asks me a question about that.
[00:24:55] So here's one that we can both rant about that is another writing myth, and that is you can do it alone. So I'm going to let you start on this rant.
[00:25:05] Kristina: I mean, it's that whole mindset of writing being a solitary activity. And the actual art of sitting in front of a computer and typing is the solitary part. But what do you do when you're stuck, if you're doing it on your own? What do you do? Who do you turn to? If you haven't got that support network in place, then you're going to be stuck for a really long time. But if you've got people who can help you, whether that's a critique group, a Facebook group, or just a really supportive reader or writer friend, and I do emphasize that they are a reader or a writer, because otherwise they'd probably stare at you blankly and just let you talk at them rather than help you solve something, it's really, really effective.
[00:25:40] I remember when I was working on my first fantasy book, THE GHOST'S CALL. I had a moment where I was just panicking. I can't do this. I hate the world's building. I don't know why I'm trying to write a fantasy book. And I nearly stopped writing it. My friend sat me down and she was like, no, you're going to finish this. We've got this. What do we need to know? And she kept saying 'we,' and that was just really, it meant a lot to me because it was like, okay, I'm calm, I'm calm, she's got my back.
[00:26:07] And so I do have her, and I have my editor and one of my beta readers, and they're really good for troubleshooting different things. And that makes a massive difference because then by the time they actually read the book, I've fixed a bunch of the issues that otherwise they would have picked up while reading, and that would've meant the book took longer to edit and release because there was so much wrong with it. And having those people around you to do the editing, the beta reading, the cover design, it really allows you to get out of your own head and see these problems and fix them before they arise.
[00:26:47] Matty: Yeah. I totally agree with that idea of having people that you can bounce ideas off of. And I have even found that if you have that group of people, sometimes you don't even need to tap into them because I've had the experience of, if I'm really stuck on something, I write an email to my two primary co-author sounding boards. And oftentimes by the time I've written the email, I've figured it out. I can just send them a thank you saying, 'thank you for being the potential recipient of this email I never had to send.' But just that idea of having people to bounce ideas off of is a great one.
[00:27:23] And I really like that your friend used 'we' there. There was just an episode that came out pretty recently. It's Episode 88, HOW TO RECEIVE AND GIVE CRITIQUE WITH TIFFANY YATES MARTIN. And we had exchanged some ideas for how to receive and give critique, but I really liked that. It really makes you feel like that person has a stake in the game.
[00:27:42] Kristina: Yeah. And the thing is like she is mega supportive. She's my podcast cohost. And I help her with her stuff as well. And it helps because I'm kind of teaching her the ropes of publishing as we do the podcast. And then she finishes her M.A. and then starts working on her first book. But also, she is providing that help to me of keeping me calm. And also, like you say, just being a sounding board. And having those sounding boards is unbelievably helpful, particularly when they understand your genre. And I think that is the key is that they need to understand what you're writing on some level, because if you're writing horror and they only read romance, they're probably not going to understand what you're trying to achieve.
[00:28:26] Matty: They'll suggest that you take out all the bloody parts.
[00:28:31] I think that's a great summary of on the creative side about how you do not have to go it alone. A lot of this conversation is why I prefer saying indy publishing rather than self-publishing, because I don't like that idea that you have to do it yourself. And when I talk about it, I'm usually talking in terms of the business side, the publishing voyage. So the idea that however long ago, 10 years ago, probably longer than that, it might've been okay for a brief period of time to do your cover in PowerPoint, but it really isn't anymore.
[00:29:04] And that there are people who study this. There are graphic designers. If you're going to put it out a product and getting back to the earlier conversation about how we shouldn't have different standards between indy and traditional publishing, if you're going to put out a book that meets the high standard that all those paths should meet, then you really need a professional who understands the tropes, who understands how to place elements on a page. That same holds true, I think, with editing. Those are the two things that I really think you can't do yourself. If you're an indy publisher, then you're a businessperson as well as a creator and you need to engage other professionals to help you do that.
[00:29:45] Kristina: Yeah. My accountant came up with quite a good analogy when I was talking to him about outsourcing my new covers. And he said, for the time it will take you, consider how much money you could earn doing something else, how much it's going to cost you. I phrase that terribly, but hopefully you get the concept. Like if it's going to be cheaper and quicker for someone else to do it and potentially less stressful for you, give it to someone else to do.
[00:30:10] Matty: Yeah. And you'll probably have a good idea of how to tie this into writing myths, but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to talk about productivity a bit with you as well. And this is a nice segue because I just, and I mean, just like yesterday, found someone to help me with the transcripts for the podcast. And this is something that longtime listeners will groan when they hear me mention the transcript, because whenever I mention the transcript, I always mentioned it as the thing that I just would love to offload. But I found that I had a lot of followers who were reading the transcript rather than listening to the podcast.
[00:30:43] And so that was one of those things that I'm like, this is so mechanical and there are people who are going to be better and faster at this than I am. And exactly what you're saying, if I was spending, I don't know, three hours a week or maybe more on refining the transcript, then I should really be spending three hours writing my next novel.
[00:31:03] I don't know if you can tie it into the whole writing myths concept, but what are some other topics around productivity that you would advise people to do or steer away from?
[00:31:13] Kristina: Trying to sit down and just write in large chunks if you're not used to writing in large chunks. I always say to people, if you don't have a lot of time to write, it doesn't matter. If you do have a lot of time to write, reduce it down. And sometimes maybe that will be starting at five minutes a day. But regardless of how much free time you've got, if you're not used to sitting down to write, you want to start off with smaller goals and build yourself up to being able to write more and more.
[00:31:40] Cause if I say I can write 14,000 words of a book in a day, that sounds great, but that took 10, 15 years of practice to get to that point. It's not a case of, I could do that out of nowhere. And when I was working on, I want to say my 13th book, but I've lost count, I drafted that really quickly, but that was because I just spent the last few months purely writing and not doing anything else. And when I first started those kind of few months of writing, it was really hard to write even 500 words a day because I was so out of practice. And then two months later I was writing 5,000 words a day and it's because I built up those muscles.
[00:32:17] And the more you build up those muscles, the stronger they get. But you need to actually take the time to build them up first, not feel disheartened because you couldn't hit the word count that you wanted, which was like 5,000 words when you haven't written a word in a year. You know, you have to ease yourself and gradually the same as you would if you hadn't been to the gym in a year and you'll probably have to lift smaller weights.
[00:32:39] Matty: I think that comparisonitis is almost a writing myth because if you've listened to the podcasts or read the books about writing, wherever you're getting your information from, you're going to see those stats, like how many thousands of words a day somebody can write. And especially on social media, keep in mind that they're probably either bragging or they're mentioning their top performing day of their entire career and acting like they do that every day.
[00:33:08] And I think that one of those writing myths is hearing these things, you know, if you hear that Stephen King gets up at five in the morning and writes through the morning, then you're going to want to do that, right? You figure, if I write like Stephen King, I'm going to become like Stephen King. But you really have to understand where your skills and your preferences lie. And so I think that the most common how to get words on the page out there is to write every day. And that just doesn't work for me.
[00:33:39] Like I'm definitely a nothing, nothing, nothing, 4,000 words kind of person. And I'll even say that I'm being one of those people that's exaggerating when I say 4,000 words, because I do that occasionally, but not regularly. And yet every, at least every year I get a book out.
[00:33:56] Are there other examples you can think of where comparisonitis has become like a writing myth?
[00:34:03] Kristina: Yeah. I think the thing I've noticed the most is when people who are just starting out compare themselves to people who are making 5, 6, 7 figures a year from their books and going, why on I'm making this much money. Cause you don't have like 50 books out. That's why.
[00:34:18] Comparisonitis is a horrible disease. And it does eat away at you. And I've had conversations with people who don't even write in the same genre as me and who are comparing their success to mine. And then wondering why they're not doing as well. And it's because they're completely different genres with completely different target audiences.
[00:34:35] And that matters. You can't compare your start to someone else's middle. And that's where comparisonitis really stems from is you're not comparing someone to the same position that you are in. And even if you are, then that person has probably got a different setup to you. They've got different circumstances in life. They've got different commitments, they've got different skills, they've got different weaknesses, they've got different attitudes and all of these things play into your ability to fail or succeed as an author and publisher.
[00:35:09] Matty: Do you have any advice for people, if you're hearing them say things like, oh, I understand so-and-so writes 10,000 words a day. How come I can't do that? But they're clearly looking for some sort of measuring stick against which they can measure their own progress. Do you have any suggestions for an alternative to that comparison approach?
[00:35:28] Kristina: I think if you're going to compare yourself, then compare yourself to yourself, either yesterday or a month ago or a year ago and look at how much you've grown in that regard, rather than looking at what someone else is doing. Look at how you've changed and what you've learned and what you do better now than you did in the past. And that can be a good way to motivate yourself and find things that you need to improve on. And it's also reassuring that you are on the right path and that you have grown, and you've done the right thing.
[00:36:04] Matty: Yeah. And that idea that you also need to look back at the day before or the month before or the year before in the context of what you knew and the environment at the time. And I love that advice to be looking at your own progression, but also to be kind to yourself in terms of not beating yourself up for something you did a year ago that made sense at the time but wouldn't make sense now if you were making the decision, or maybe wouldn't have made sense at the time with 20/20 hindsight, but be kind to yourself in that comparison when you do it against yourself.
[00:36:40] Kristina: Yeah, because you never know what situation you're going to be in a year from now and how future you is going to feel about past you. You just got to do the best that you can possibly do. Like we said, at the start. Yeah.
[00:36:51] Matty: Well, Kristina, this has been so great. please let the listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and all your work online.
[00:36:58] Kristina: Yeah, so you can check out my books at KristinaAdamsAuthor.com or you can find The Writer's Cookbook along with our podcast, THE WRITER'S MINDSET, at WritersCookbook.com. We've also got a Facebook group, which you can get the link to from the Writer's Cookbook as well.
[00:37:14] Matty: Great. Thank you so much.
[00:04:03] So a throw away book is when you write something and potentially even publish it under another pen name so that you can learn the ropes of writing and finishing and publishing something.
[00:04:13] Because a lot of the learning actually comes from finishing something. It doesn't come from dipping in and out of different projects. I can't remember when I first heard of this concept, but I kind of wish I'd heard of it before I started, because there is such a steep learning curve that it can be really useful, not necessarily in terms of learning about the paid ropes. You kind of want that to be for a book or a series you actually care about.
[00:04:36] But when you're learning all about marketing and keywords and categories and titles and cover design and editing and plotting and characterization and all these things that go into a book, writing and finishing something can therefore be really beneficial. And if it's a pen name that you're not going to go with long term and one that you kind of have less of an emotional investment in, it can really help you because then you don't get upset if it doesn't work as well as you want, because it's not like the book or the series that you're going to work on.
[00:05:10] Matty: That concept about the throwaway book always makes me a little uncomfortable because I'm always on the bandwagon of, if you're an indy author, there's no reason that you should have a lower standard of excellence for your work than let's say a traditional publisher would. And I even hate to use traditional publisher as the standard of excellence I'm shooting for. I just think there should be a consistent standard of excellence whatever route you're taking. So I would feel uncomfortable advising someone to go about a book saying, like, don’t take it seriously.
[00:05:44] Kristina: If you're not taking it as seriously as you would any other book, why are you doing it in the first place?
[00:05:48] Matty: Right. And I think that maybe my advice would be, and I'd be curious about your opinion on this, is that the first book you put out should be the best book you can possibly put out there. And then years are going to go by, you're going to write a couple of other books. You're going to study the craft, whatever. And you're going to look back and think, oh man, if I were doing that now I would do it differently.
[00:06:09] In that case, I would probably tell people, go ahead and do the best you can now. And then in a couple of years, if you look at it and you're not that happy, then rework it.
[00:06:16] I think the easiest example is that I got a cover that I loved for my first book and I loved it for a while. And then I realized that it wasn't really conveying what I wanted it to convey to my potential readers and I got it updated.
[00:06:29] So, what are your thoughts on that? Like returning to a book that you put out earlier to buff it up to a higher level of standard now that you know more.
[00:06:37] Kristina: It's funny you say that because I'm in the process of redesigning the cover of my first book / series. And I like the covers that I've got now, but the genre that I write in has moved on. There's a lot more competition now and the cover simply doesn't fit anymore. So if I'm treating this like a business, I've got to be practical. And I know some of my current readers don't understand why I'm changing it. It's like, well, you can still keep the cover that you're using. You don't have to update to the new file when I've got it.
[00:07:09] But I also have to keep bringing in new readers because that's how I pay the bills. I've got to be practical about it. And I don't think there's any harm in going back through something you published however many years ago to update it. But also don't spend too long ruminating over how you could fix this character or fix this plot aspect. Cause I know if I wrote my first book now, the plot would be very different because my plotting skills have improved since I published that book. But I was going through it because there's an overlap between that book and the book I'm writing now, and I was like reading through some of the description and stuff and I'm like, oh, that description's really good. Why don't I do that anymore? And it was always refreshing to remind myself, actually, this isn't as bad as I thought it was.
[00:07:51] Matty: That is very therapeutic. And I think that we're programmed to look back and see all the faults, but it's nice to look back and see the things that have drawn readers in and that you can enjoy yourself.
[00:08:02] And I also think another benefit of being an indy publisher is I would say I never go back and read my old books from cover to cover, but every once in a while, I'm in there, like if I was doing a reading and I was pulling an excerpt from it, and every once in a while I'll come across like an awkward phrase or that wasn't quite the right word. And guess what? I can change it! So you know, if I find those things then I'm tweaking whenever I happened upon those occurrences, just in normal course of business.
[00:08:29] Kristina: Yeah, exactly.
[00:08:30] Matty: So another thing that I wanted to ask you that was just triggered by our earlier conversation is, writer myths or wisdom about an M.A. in creative writing or some kind of graduate creative writing course. What did you find that met your expectations and what did you find that didn't meet your expectations that people who are considering that route should be aware of?
[00:08:51] Kristina: I will caveat this by saying that I grew in confidence from studying creative writing. And I developed my speaking skills and I developed as a poet because for my M.A. I studied poetry and screenwriting. But it is very different writing for an M.A. as it is writing for a reader.
[00:09:10] And one of my friends has just graduated from the same M.A. I did, and she said she feels like she's learning to write all over again because it's different expectations. Because you're still writing for an academic audience when you're doing the M.A. You have to dissect every decision you make and justify it in a critical commentary. So I did this but I could have done that, and really weigh up the pros and cons and justify your creative decisions.
[00:09:32] Whereas you don't have to do that when you're writing for readers. And so it feels like the pressure is off because you're not constantly analyzing stuff and making notes of why you've done X and Y and how you think things work.
[00:09:45] And I did my dissertation as a novella. And I have a B.A. in creative writing as well, where the focus was mostly on short stories, a little bit of novels, but mostly short stories. And like I say, it taught me a lot about myself as a person, but I don't think that they prepared me for life as an author or a publisher. And I would probably say to most people you're better off learning business skills and your writing skills on the side than you are doing a creative writing M.A. or B.A.
[00:10:17] I love the people I studied with. I met some of my best friends there. The teachers were great, and they were very supportive, but even when I was doing it, I graduated in 2014, there was a prejudice against self-publishing. And when I did my B.A., that was a prejudice against blogging. Like admittedly, I graduated from that in 2011. So obviously times have moved on a lot since then. But there are still some people who study these things and push for the kind of more academic style of writing, the literary fiction style of writing, and they look down on self-publishing because they want the approval of that gatekeeper, and they don't understand why you wouldn't seek that.
[00:10:57] And they don't understand treating writing like a business. And that's not to say everyone who works as a creative writing tutor or studies it feels that way. I've met a lot of people who don't and who have gone on to publish since I met them. But it is certainly there, and it can follow you and affect your decisions when it comes to your writing as well.
[00:11:22] Matty: That is a nice lead in to one of the first questions we discussed talking about, which was writing is a talent, not a skill. So I'm just going to open it up to you to talk about the writing myth, writing as a talent, not a skill.
[00:11:35] Kristina: This one really winds me up, so it might turn into rant. Like I'm sure you've heard it, like, oh, I could never write a book, I don't have the talent for it. But it is that tortoise and hare myth. Like someone can be further along and have a natural aptitude for something. But if someone puts the work in to you study it, to learn things like story structure and psychology so they understand the characterization and how to write great description and how to market a book and how to do all the financial stuff and the cover design and whatever, that person will become more successful than the person who rests on the fact that they are naturally a good writer. Because that person who is constantly striving to improve will find these things that they didn't know before. They will constantly be open to the fact that the market is changing and evolving, and they must adapt to that, or their sales will nosedive and they've got less of a chance of making a success of it.
[00:12:34] Matty: You had mentioned in that the idea of studying psychology and then earlier you had mentioned the fact that studying business is in many ways a better platform for indy authors than studying creative writing. So I'm going to tie this into the next question, which is write what you know. So if people are writing something other than that very, very immediate personal experience, how does psychology factor into that?
[00:13:02] Kristina: I'm a big fan of studying psychology. My characterization course is based on psychology rather than on character tropes and things. And I think it's because when you really understand cause and effect, then your characters have much more depth. So like if someone is really arrogant, there's probably a reason they're arrogant. If someone is a bully at school, there's a reason they're a bully. I'm juggling at the moment with one of my characters and thinking about her motivations, and should I have it that she is the bully who's bullied at home? Or is it a case of actually she is spoiled and used to getting her way and because the main character stops her from getting what she wants, then that's why she gets the way that she is?
[00:13:45] And to me that's much more realistic because usually the bullies are the ones who don't know how to handle the situation they are in, and so they project their anger onto an easy target. And sometimes they are trained to behave in a certain way by the people around them.
[00:14:02] But it's a case of, if you really understand what makes a person who they are, and it's not just even their backstory, it's the influence of the people have. I'm sure you've heard the quote we're a product of the five people we spend the most time. That's the same for our characters as well. So if they're spending lots of time around gossipy co-workers, there's a chance they're probably going to be gossipy as well. And then that can affect their relationships outside of work. Like maybe their partner doesn't like gossipy culture. And so it causes a rift in their relationship.
[00:14:33] And if you really understand the psychology of the character, then it helps you to add more depth to them, and that depth feels then very natural. And it can also help you flesh out your plot because you can just think of, okay, what goes against what this character wants? What goes against that personality and then you can challenge them in that way.
[00:14:55] Matty: I'm guessing that based on that response, you're not advising writers to merely write what they know.
[00:15:00] Kristina: That phrase really jars with me. I remember doing an assignment for it once at school. And I was about eight years old and was already writing fantasy. I don't want to write what I know. I want to write about witches and wizards and warlocks and dragons and things.
[00:15:14] And the problem with write what you know is obviously none of us know any dragons. So what are the people writing epic fantasy doing? What are the people writing sci-fi doing? And for me, write what you know is more about writing the emotions that you know, and if you don't know something, it's not a case of you haven't experienced it so you can't write about it. It's about going away and doing your research.
[00:15:35] For my first book, I'd never been through grief, but one of my main characters was dealing with the loss of her mum and her sister. And so I did a lot of research and I spoke to a lot of people, and I read a lot of articles about what that felt like. And she's actually one of my most popular characters, because I took the time to do that research and to really bring her pain and the kind of bittersweetness of the fact that she wouldn't be in the situation that she's in now, which is much better, if she hadn't gone through the trauma of losing her mum and sister when she and they were very young.
[00:16:07] And so I think the key thing really is if you don't know something to write it, to research it, and that's how you can write what you know, rather than just taking it at face value and just writing about the day you walked to the shops, and nothing happens.
[00:16:22] Matty: I'm trying this concept out a little bit, but I think that one of the keys to a writer being successful conveying things is the ability to take an experience they've had and extend it in a way that encompasses the scenario they want to cover. So I've never been so angry with someone that I killed them. But some of my characters have been so angry with someone that they kill them, but I have been very angry with people. And so that idea that you take a moment of anger and then you extend it to a more extreme version of that emotion that you've experienced yourself.
[00:17:00] And I think that could be true, not just of emotions, but even of physical limitations and things like that, that you need to extrapolate. And it's funny that nobody ever complains about, I've never gotten an email saying, 'How dare you write about someone getting so angry that they kill someone. I bet you've never experienced that.' So build on what you do know in order to put yourself in the mindset of things that you haven't experienced personally.
[00:17:26] So the discussion about sci-fi and fantasy and so on is a great entree to our next topic, which is genre writing doesn't require any skills. I'm just going to let you rant about that one.
[00:17:40] Kristina: I started off studying literary fiction and there was a big push towards literary fiction when I did my B.A. And then when I did my M.A., they were like, why didn't you do genre writing? If you're like a romance / fantasy author, why were you writing lit fic? I'm like, I don't know. Yeah, it was strange. And they have overhauled the course since I took out. I should say that much.
[00:18:05] But there is this weird thing that if you're writing genre fiction, that it's not as challenging, that it's easier, that you don't have to experiment, and you can't do this and you can't do that. But actually genre fiction is harder because, A, you've got all the world building, regardless of whether it's romance or sci-fi, but you've also got to juggle things like reader expectations. And if you're writing something like literary fiction or you're going for kind of award type stuff, you don't need to worry about reader expectations as much as you do with genre fiction. But if you defy reader expectations in your books, your sales will suffer. And that's just a hard fact that I learned the hard way. And I know a lot of other authors have as well. If you have one book that goes against what readers want from that genre, you either have to remarket it or consider either rewriting it or just writing it off because it's never going to be what people want.
[00:19:01] Matty: I always thought it was bizarre that literary fiction was considered a genre unto itself because I can't imagine any story, well, of course I can, you know, more like experimental kind of work or something like that, but a scenario where it doesn't fit into some structure, like coming of age. I think people say literary fiction sometimes as if that's a sufficient definition of what a book is. Whereas I think it's more of a stylistic acknowledgement within the genre that they defacto are writing in. So I would add that to the whole concept of writing myths surrounding genre.
[00:19:39] Kristina: Yeah, I totally agree.
[00:19:41] Matty: So another writing myth is writing short stories is easier than writing a novel. And of course I'm especially interested in this one, having a book on short fiction that addresses the business side but not the craft side. So I'm curious as to your thoughts on that myth.
[00:19:57] Kristina: Yeah. As I said, I started off studying short stories when I did my B.A. And I sometimes enjoy writing them, although I will admit studying them kind of took my love away of them. Cause it was just too much of it. But the thing is when you write a short story, everything has to be really tight. You have one moment in time that you're covering as opposed to weeks, months, or years like a novel can. And so you have to go into minute detail a lot of time. And also you don't have very many words depending on what type of short story you're writing, whether it's a flash reaction of a thousand words or a long short story of up to 20,000 words, each one of those has their own limitations and their own expectations.
[00:20:40] Like if you're writing a flash fiction, in a way it is poetry because it's so short and you've got to be really clever with how you use language to convey everything, and somehow put a plot in a thousand words as well. And that is really challenging. And then you've got a long short story, and the one that always comes to mind as an example, because I studied it both times is James Joyce's THE DEAD, because that's about 19,000, I think. And absolutely nothing happened in that story. And it still admired. I don't like James Joyce. I should say. But if you enjoy it, then to each his own, but studying it was just painful for me.
[00:21:17] Like I say, nothing happens, but it's still 19,000 words and it's kind of an analysis of different types of people and different situations around Christmas, if I remember correctly. And it is hard to go into that much detail. And if you're writing for a modern audience, you do need some form of plot because that's what people expect these days. If you don't have that kind of plot, then you are going into the literary fiction realms. And it is a lot harder to keep the reader engaged and turning the page because you don't have the what happens next, what happens next thing going on in their head, which is kind of what everyone wants these days because everyone is constantly scrolling through their phone or wanting to watch the next episode of their favorite show because it ends on a cliffhanger. And you have to treat writing the same way now, if you want to do it well.
[00:22:07] And that rule is true for short fiction as much as long fiction. But in terms of it being easier, I think it's harder because you have fewer words, so you have to really tighten it and you can't have subplots. You can maybe have one if you're writing something like a novella, but the shorter your word count, the less leeway you have to play and experiment.
[00:22:31] But I would say if you struggle to finish things, short stories can be beneficial because there is only one train of thought and then you can finish it, take the learnings, and apply that to your next project.
[00:22:44] Matty: I like that recommendation because if you have to throw away 10,000 words, it's a lot less painful than if you have to throw away 80,000 or a hundred thousand or a first novel length work. But once you've developed that, then you can always expand it, if you want to, into a novel length work.
[00:23:02] I sometimes get the question when I'm on podcasts or doing interviews about the business-focused short fiction book about what leads me to make a story a short story versus a novel, and the best answer I've been able to come up with is that when I'm thinking of a short story, or when I come up with an idea that becomes a short story, it's usually because I'm thinking of a particular event that I want to write the story around.
[00:23:30] And then the motivations, the more subtle themes, evolve as I'm working on that. Whereas when I'm writing a novel, I come up with the themes and then the story and the actions kind of form around that. Does that seem like a common approach to you? Or what else have you heard in terms of how people decide what is a short story and what is a novel?
[00:23:54] Kristina: Do you know, I haven't spoken to that many short story writers these days. I mostly speak to novelists. But the majority of the novelists I speak to do you start with a plot. I'm the opposite. I start with the character, and so I do a lot of my friends, but a lot of our podcast listeners start with the plot, and I think that's where it is. And if you look at the plot and see how much depth it has, that can be a really good indicator of whether or not it's going to end up as a short story or a novel. Because, like you say, if it focuses around one event, then it's probably going to be a short story and it's probably not going to be any more than 10,000 words.
[00:24:28] It might be a little bit longer, but the chances are, you want to get in late and get out early so that you don't feel like you're dragging it on for the sake of padding out the word count. Because the beauty of short fiction is that it is short. It's not necessarily padded out for the sake of KU page reads or charging a little bit more.
[00:24:48] Matty: Yeah. I like that approach, that makes sense to me. I'm going to borrow that next time somebody asks me a question about that.
[00:24:55] So here's one that we can both rant about that is another writing myth, and that is you can do it alone. So I'm going to let you start on this rant.
[00:25:05] Kristina: I mean, it's that whole mindset of writing being a solitary activity. And the actual art of sitting in front of a computer and typing is the solitary part. But what do you do when you're stuck, if you're doing it on your own? What do you do? Who do you turn to? If you haven't got that support network in place, then you're going to be stuck for a really long time. But if you've got people who can help you, whether that's a critique group, a Facebook group, or just a really supportive reader or writer friend, and I do emphasize that they are a reader or a writer, because otherwise they'd probably stare at you blankly and just let you talk at them rather than help you solve something, it's really, really effective.
[00:25:40] I remember when I was working on my first fantasy book, THE GHOST'S CALL. I had a moment where I was just panicking. I can't do this. I hate the world's building. I don't know why I'm trying to write a fantasy book. And I nearly stopped writing it. My friend sat me down and she was like, no, you're going to finish this. We've got this. What do we need to know? And she kept saying 'we,' and that was just really, it meant a lot to me because it was like, okay, I'm calm, I'm calm, she's got my back.
[00:26:07] And so I do have her, and I have my editor and one of my beta readers, and they're really good for troubleshooting different things. And that makes a massive difference because then by the time they actually read the book, I've fixed a bunch of the issues that otherwise they would have picked up while reading, and that would've meant the book took longer to edit and release because there was so much wrong with it. And having those people around you to do the editing, the beta reading, the cover design, it really allows you to get out of your own head and see these problems and fix them before they arise.
[00:26:47] Matty: Yeah. I totally agree with that idea of having people that you can bounce ideas off of. And I have even found that if you have that group of people, sometimes you don't even need to tap into them because I've had the experience of, if I'm really stuck on something, I write an email to my two primary co-author sounding boards. And oftentimes by the time I've written the email, I've figured it out. I can just send them a thank you saying, 'thank you for being the potential recipient of this email I never had to send.' But just that idea of having people to bounce ideas off of is a great one.
[00:27:23] And I really like that your friend used 'we' there. There was just an episode that came out pretty recently. It's Episode 88, HOW TO RECEIVE AND GIVE CRITIQUE WITH TIFFANY YATES MARTIN. And we had exchanged some ideas for how to receive and give critique, but I really liked that. It really makes you feel like that person has a stake in the game.
[00:27:42] Kristina: Yeah. And the thing is like she is mega supportive. She's my podcast cohost. And I help her with her stuff as well. And it helps because I'm kind of teaching her the ropes of publishing as we do the podcast. And then she finishes her M.A. and then starts working on her first book. But also, she is providing that help to me of keeping me calm. And also, like you say, just being a sounding board. And having those sounding boards is unbelievably helpful, particularly when they understand your genre. And I think that is the key is that they need to understand what you're writing on some level, because if you're writing horror and they only read romance, they're probably not going to understand what you're trying to achieve.
[00:28:26] Matty: They'll suggest that you take out all the bloody parts.
[00:28:31] I think that's a great summary of on the creative side about how you do not have to go it alone. A lot of this conversation is why I prefer saying indy publishing rather than self-publishing, because I don't like that idea that you have to do it yourself. And when I talk about it, I'm usually talking in terms of the business side, the publishing voyage. So the idea that however long ago, 10 years ago, probably longer than that, it might've been okay for a brief period of time to do your cover in PowerPoint, but it really isn't anymore.
[00:29:04] And that there are people who study this. There are graphic designers. If you're going to put it out a product and getting back to the earlier conversation about how we shouldn't have different standards between indy and traditional publishing, if you're going to put out a book that meets the high standard that all those paths should meet, then you really need a professional who understands the tropes, who understands how to place elements on a page. That same holds true, I think, with editing. Those are the two things that I really think you can't do yourself. If you're an indy publisher, then you're a businessperson as well as a creator and you need to engage other professionals to help you do that.
[00:29:45] Kristina: Yeah. My accountant came up with quite a good analogy when I was talking to him about outsourcing my new covers. And he said, for the time it will take you, consider how much money you could earn doing something else, how much it's going to cost you. I phrase that terribly, but hopefully you get the concept. Like if it's going to be cheaper and quicker for someone else to do it and potentially less stressful for you, give it to someone else to do.
[00:30:10] Matty: Yeah. And you'll probably have a good idea of how to tie this into writing myths, but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to talk about productivity a bit with you as well. And this is a nice segue because I just, and I mean, just like yesterday, found someone to help me with the transcripts for the podcast. And this is something that longtime listeners will groan when they hear me mention the transcript, because whenever I mention the transcript, I always mentioned it as the thing that I just would love to offload. But I found that I had a lot of followers who were reading the transcript rather than listening to the podcast.
[00:30:43] And so that was one of those things that I'm like, this is so mechanical and there are people who are going to be better and faster at this than I am. And exactly what you're saying, if I was spending, I don't know, three hours a week or maybe more on refining the transcript, then I should really be spending three hours writing my next novel.
[00:31:03] I don't know if you can tie it into the whole writing myths concept, but what are some other topics around productivity that you would advise people to do or steer away from?
[00:31:13] Kristina: Trying to sit down and just write in large chunks if you're not used to writing in large chunks. I always say to people, if you don't have a lot of time to write, it doesn't matter. If you do have a lot of time to write, reduce it down. And sometimes maybe that will be starting at five minutes a day. But regardless of how much free time you've got, if you're not used to sitting down to write, you want to start off with smaller goals and build yourself up to being able to write more and more.
[00:31:40] Cause if I say I can write 14,000 words of a book in a day, that sounds great, but that took 10, 15 years of practice to get to that point. It's not a case of, I could do that out of nowhere. And when I was working on, I want to say my 13th book, but I've lost count, I drafted that really quickly, but that was because I just spent the last few months purely writing and not doing anything else. And when I first started those kind of few months of writing, it was really hard to write even 500 words a day because I was so out of practice. And then two months later I was writing 5,000 words a day and it's because I built up those muscles.
[00:32:17] And the more you build up those muscles, the stronger they get. But you need to actually take the time to build them up first, not feel disheartened because you couldn't hit the word count that you wanted, which was like 5,000 words when you haven't written a word in a year. You know, you have to ease yourself and gradually the same as you would if you hadn't been to the gym in a year and you'll probably have to lift smaller weights.
[00:32:39] Matty: I think that comparisonitis is almost a writing myth because if you've listened to the podcasts or read the books about writing, wherever you're getting your information from, you're going to see those stats, like how many thousands of words a day somebody can write. And especially on social media, keep in mind that they're probably either bragging or they're mentioning their top performing day of their entire career and acting like they do that every day.
[00:33:08] And I think that one of those writing myths is hearing these things, you know, if you hear that Stephen King gets up at five in the morning and writes through the morning, then you're going to want to do that, right? You figure, if I write like Stephen King, I'm going to become like Stephen King. But you really have to understand where your skills and your preferences lie. And so I think that the most common how to get words on the page out there is to write every day. And that just doesn't work for me.
[00:33:39] Like I'm definitely a nothing, nothing, nothing, 4,000 words kind of person. And I'll even say that I'm being one of those people that's exaggerating when I say 4,000 words, because I do that occasionally, but not regularly. And yet every, at least every year I get a book out.
[00:33:56] Are there other examples you can think of where comparisonitis has become like a writing myth?
[00:34:03] Kristina: Yeah. I think the thing I've noticed the most is when people who are just starting out compare themselves to people who are making 5, 6, 7 figures a year from their books and going, why on I'm making this much money. Cause you don't have like 50 books out. That's why.
[00:34:18] Comparisonitis is a horrible disease. And it does eat away at you. And I've had conversations with people who don't even write in the same genre as me and who are comparing their success to mine. And then wondering why they're not doing as well. And it's because they're completely different genres with completely different target audiences.
[00:34:35] And that matters. You can't compare your start to someone else's middle. And that's where comparisonitis really stems from is you're not comparing someone to the same position that you are in. And even if you are, then that person has probably got a different setup to you. They've got different circumstances in life. They've got different commitments, they've got different skills, they've got different weaknesses, they've got different attitudes and all of these things play into your ability to fail or succeed as an author and publisher.
[00:35:09] Matty: Do you have any advice for people, if you're hearing them say things like, oh, I understand so-and-so writes 10,000 words a day. How come I can't do that? But they're clearly looking for some sort of measuring stick against which they can measure their own progress. Do you have any suggestions for an alternative to that comparison approach?
[00:35:28] Kristina: I think if you're going to compare yourself, then compare yourself to yourself, either yesterday or a month ago or a year ago and look at how much you've grown in that regard, rather than looking at what someone else is doing. Look at how you've changed and what you've learned and what you do better now than you did in the past. And that can be a good way to motivate yourself and find things that you need to improve on. And it's also reassuring that you are on the right path and that you have grown, and you've done the right thing.
[00:36:04] Matty: Yeah. And that idea that you also need to look back at the day before or the month before or the year before in the context of what you knew and the environment at the time. And I love that advice to be looking at your own progression, but also to be kind to yourself in terms of not beating yourself up for something you did a year ago that made sense at the time but wouldn't make sense now if you were making the decision, or maybe wouldn't have made sense at the time with 20/20 hindsight, but be kind to yourself in that comparison when you do it against yourself.
[00:36:40] Kristina: Yeah, because you never know what situation you're going to be in a year from now and how future you is going to feel about past you. You just got to do the best that you can possibly do. Like we said, at the start. Yeah.
[00:36:51] Matty: Well, Kristina, this has been so great. please let the listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and all your work online.
[00:36:58] Kristina: Yeah, so you can check out my books at KristinaAdamsAuthor.com or you can find The Writer's Cookbook along with our podcast, THE WRITER'S MINDSET, at WritersCookbook.com. We've also got a Facebook group, which you can get the link to from the Writer's Cookbook as well.
[00:37:14] Matty: Great. Thank you so much.
Links
From personal update:
Matty on Sacha Black's The Rebel Author Podcast: Episode 099 How to Write and Sell Short Fiction with Matty Dalrymple
What did you think of this episode? Leave a comment and let us know!
