Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see as a guest.
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Mindy: We are here with Isabel Sterling who is a queer YA author. Her debut was called These Witches Don't Burn. Isabel is also a life coach for writers and the host of the Author Burnout Coach podcast, where she talks weekly about different facets of writer burnout and what we can do about it. So, one of the things that I'm really interested in talking to you about is burnout for sure. Let's start on a positive note, and let's talk a little bit just about writing in general - what you write, why you write what you write, your experience in the industry and how you got into the industry, and the whole publishing journey for you.
Isabel: So, I started writing back in 2012 so I'm at my 10-year of writing anniversary, which is really fun. Writing actually is how I figured out that I was queer. One thing I always love to share is I'm on agent number three, and so many people think you get your agent and then you're done and everything's fine and dandy. And that's very rare these days that somebody stays with an agent forever. Yeah, so I wrote These Witches Don't Burn. I got my first deal in 2017. It took a year on submission. So I signed my first agent. We went out on sub, and then that agent left the industry. So I had to get a new agent, and we actually were able to resub that same book, which is something that can be kind of rare. So it sold almost exactly a year from when it first went out. And then I've been lucky enough to stay with the same publisher since. So I had a sequel come out, This Coven Won't Break. I love writing about magical girls and mystery, and there's always murder. There has to be murder. And then I moved on from witches. I had a vampire book come out in '21, The Coldest Touch. Right now, I'm working on a ghost murder mystery kind of YA.
Mindy: I want to talk a little bit about the number four, because you said it was your fourth book that got you an agent. So I want to talk to you about the first three - where they are and if you have any plans for them, or if they are just part of the journey and you already passed those milestones.
Isabel: The very first book I wrote... At the time, it was exactly what I needed. I loved writing, but I was like, being a writer felt like something that wasn't for me. Like I'm from a small town. I didn't know any writers. I never got to go to bookish things. Like I just, it wasn't part of my worldview. So I wrote my very first book during NaNoWriMo in 2012. I learned how to finish a book, and I learned how to revise a book through that process. I learned about querying, and I queried it. And I learned how to get rejections because I got all of those. I tried one time a couple years after I'd written it to go back and like, maybe there's something here. I can pull some threads and try to redo it. And it just wasn't working. And I think part of it is as you grow as a writer, not only do you grow in your storytelling skills, but you also grow in the types of stories that you want to tell. It's just going to stay in the drawer, and sort of be the thing that taught me that I could be a writer.
And I could sort of feel myself growing each time I wrote... Like my first dual point of view, and that one was also the first book I wrote with a lesbian main character. And this is before I knew I was queer. And I was like, "I don't know why I love this so much, but I love writing it." And I was like, "huh." It took two more books before I figured it out. But yeah, I was like, why do I love writing this? It's so weird. But I'm super straight. I don't know. And I think I've always had a really good mindset around like revision and critiques. So I actually went to music school. I was a composer, and so every week we would get critiqued on our work that we had written. Four years, every week I was getting feedback. So when I became a writer, I was like, oh, this is an old hat, like whatever. It's supposed to get critiqued. That's just the way it works. I realized I was trying to write a book that I thought would get an agent. Screw publishing. I'm just going to focus on what would be the most fun. And that's the book that ended up being These Witches Don't Burn.
Mindy: I also am from a small town. Knew no one. Had no idea how to go about the process of getting published. Had to learn everything. Had to learn the industry. All those things. Like you, you know, I had no one to go to. I had no one to say, "hey, you know, your best friend's uncle's wife is a writer. You can talk to her." No. My best friend uncle's wife is a farmer, and so is everybody else. So I did have four books that I wrote prior to my first one to get published. Interestingly enough, the very first book that I ever finished was The Female of The Species.
Isabel: Oh, wow.
Mindy: Don't be too impressed because that had nothing to do with the version that is published today. It was a completely different thing. Themes and ideas were the same, but absolutely none of the words have anything in common with the one that got published.
Isabel: I think that's common even just like from first draft to final draft. Maybe the first chapter stays the same, but that's about it.
Mindy: I love what you're saying about going back to one of your old books and being like, it doesn't fit in trad. There's a lot of reasons why this doesn't work, and I'm going to do it myself. So I just did this too. I think it would have been the second book, it might have been the third one, that I wrote. It was the very first time I tried to write YA. I had a wonderful time doing it. That book is so important to me, and it's a huge part of my writer identity in a lot of ways. I always say it's like if John Hughes directed an episode of the X-Files. There's no way that I could ever publish this book under my real name. I do write under a pen name. I've talked about this on the podcast before. I don't share my pen name because it would screw my branding so hard. But I just published that book, that urban fantasy, two days ago. I have made at this point in time, $4.08. And you're right. It's so lovely when you're not focusing on "what will my editor buy? What will my agent like? What fits the market?" And I'm glad it's there, and I'm working on the sequel now. And hey, we'll just keep going.
Isabel: It's funny too, you bring up pen names. Isabel Sterling is not my real name. My real name is Sam Adams. It's a beer. I was never going to be able to have Sam Adams dot com. So for me, when I did a pen name for indie, it's still me.
Mindy: One other thing I wanted to touch on about that you mentioned earlier was that you've been through three agents. So...
Isabel: Yes.
Mindy: I'm a little bit of an anomaly in that I am still with my very first agent. It's extremely rare. Adriann Ranta Zurhellen, she is currently with Folio Literary, is my agent. But she's been my agent for 12 years now, almost 13 years. I had been querying for 10 years - five books, 10 years - trying to get published, and I was working in a high school library. I made about $14,000 a year. I was barely making it. I watched the documentary all about the fact we may run out of water someday. I wrote Not a Drop to Drink, and dystopians were right on the curve of going out. But they were still in, and I queried. And for the first time, I actually had a lot of interest, and I ended up with two phone calls with two agents. One of them was Adriann. She only had one sale at the time. And then the other agent that I had a conversation with was a big name agent. She had sold 30 books that month. But she moved in the romance world, and that was where she was situated. And she really wanted my book to have a happy ending. And then I talked to Adriann, and Adriann was like, "I love that you kill the love interest." And then we had a long conversation about Dostoevsky. And I was just like, okay, so Adriann is the one that fits me as a writer and fits me for a career. She only has one sale, and she's with a really tiny agency. Then I have this mover and shaker that really wants it, but wants to change my tone and how I write. And I went with Adriann. It was the right choice anyway, even if she had remained in a small agency. So I don't know. I think you just, you have to go with the fit.
Isabel: Part of it for me, having switched so many times, is one, my needs have changed. Like I have changed as a writer in a lot of ways. So my first agent, she switched to like book scouting or something. So she left, and so I queried this new project signing with Kathleen Rushall, who is at Andrea Brown. We were together for... It was a number of years. So she was like perfect for me as a debut. She's exactly who I needed. And now I needed somebody a little bit different for where I wanted to go next. I think there are so many people who like, "Oh, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings." And we still have those four books together. She's still the agent for those. We still talk every few months when we're talking about royalties or foreign stuff. We still have a great relationship. It's just that period of our time together is just over.
Mindy: And it's a business, and you got to remember that. I mean, I love what I do. And like I said earlier, I published something underneath a pen name just because I love it and I want to see it out there. And it's probably not going to make any money so that one is more of a sentimental decision. But when it comes to the business side of writing underneath my real name and the stuff that actually drives a career and how I make a living - yeah, those are business decisions. There are a lot of books that I would like to write that are just sitting because it's not their time right now according to the market and things that are trending. It's like that one is not going to go right now. This is going to sit. This is going to wait. You got to balance your art and your, your, I guess, checkbook.
Isabel: Yeah, I think part of it too is like when you are in it for a career, you understand that it's a long game and that publishing has cycles. So when I was first writing, everybody was like, "Don't you dare write vampires. Vampires won't sell." Now they're huge again. And you're like, eventually what I wanted to do would come back.
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Mindy: So I want to talk about burnout. I had an intimate experience with burnout this summer. I had never experienced it before, and I ended up in a situation where I had to write the vast majority of a book, probably I'm going to say 65-70,000 words in about three weeks. And I did it to myself, and it was my own fault. And that's where I ended up, and I had to do it. And I did it, and I've done that before, and I don't recommend it for anyone. It is not healthy, spiritually, physically, emotionally, creatively, psychically, sexually, like this is not a good idea, right? But I did it. So a couple of things came from that. Number one. I know that I can, and that is bad. Because I'll probably do it again. Number two. I was kind of non-functioning after that. That book was due September 15th. It's currently November 17th, and I just now started giving a shit about anything in the writing world again. And by that, I mean actually trying as far as being present on social media, being a literary citizen, reading even. I was just... I would love for you to talk a little bit about burnout because that was a new experience for me, and I really hated it.
Isabel: The way we talk about how we're showing up to our writing is hugely impactful of whether or not we burn out. There's a difference between being exhausted and being burnt out. You talked a little bit about how it sorta - it was your own fault that you had to write it this fast. I'm sure that does not feel good.
Mindy: I do write quickly, and I do tend to perform well under stress and I do well under stress. And I know these things about myself. When I say I did this to myself, I totally did. I'm sure that there are different avenues that I could have taken. In order to stay alive, I have five or six irons in the fire at all times. Obviously, I write underneath my real name. I have a pen name that is pretty involved, and I co-write with other authors. I have projects that are passion projects that may never go anywhere, but that I co-author with a buddy of mine. And then I also have an editorial business that I run myself. I have the blog and the podcast, which take up quite a bit of time. I also am hired out with a non-fiction book coaching editorial business underneath a different name yet that I work with. I had taken on too much editorial work both underneath my own shingle and then being hired out as a contractor with another company and I was being paid well. The editorial business pays well, and I needed money, right? Writing can pay well, but it also pays sporadically. And it's something that you can kindof put back. I don't think of it as my nine to five. My nine to five is keeping my little irons hot and burning, and then my big iron is something I just have to return to every now and turn it over.
And so, I left that big iron alone for too long while I was monitoring all my little ones and trying to keep them right where they needed to be. Just putting my efforts, not necessarily in the wrong places - just not distributing them evenly. The other thing is I had 25,000 words on this book already done. I don't know how long the book's going to be. I don't know what's going to happen in the book. And when I started actually getting into it, it was a lot longer than I thought it was going to be. It's really dark. I mean, I write dark, and this one is dark. It's a tough one. I don't want to return to this today. I don't want to go back into this world because my main character is depressed, and I'm in her head, right? And it's not a good place to be. I didn't really want to go back in there that often. And then I ended up having to completely like full immersion dive in for three weeks, and it was not healthy. I have edits due on that book January 9th, and I haven't even fully read my edit letter yet. I don't know if I want to go back in there right now.
Isabel: This is why I have a whole podcast on author burnout because it's so many facets. But I see a lot of what's kind of in play here, with what happened this summer, is when you try to write a book or do really do anything when you're fueling yourself with shame and pressure and I shouldn't have done this to myself, that is purely a recipe for burnout. Shame is always going to sap your energy. So like writing a book takes a lot of energy. And if you're shaming yourself to the page, it's like 10 X is hard. Say, you decide like, "hey, book's due in three weeks, and I really do want to get it done" and it's not a "I fucked up. I should have done this sooner. I didn't manage my irons properly." This is where we are, and I'm committed to getting it done because it's important to me to hit this deadline. You will still be exhausted when you're done, but you're not going to have like the two months like I can't function after. And so I'm in a similar place with my '24 release. So I am going to be getting edits on... I think December 8th or something, and then I have four weeks to edit because we have to get to copy edits by middle of March to keep that season. And so I could be like, "I fucked up. This is my own fault." That narrative is very normal in publishing. Am I willing to do it from a place of I want to and not I have to or else I am a loser and my book is going to get pushed.
Mindy: I wish that I was able to make healthier decisions for myself. I am a person that does not have a spouse. I don't have a significant other. So if I get pushed back a year, I won't make it. I will add to that that I could have asked for an extension. I chose not to. This is where Gaelic pride comes in. This is where I'm Irish, and I'm like, "I got a deadline and I'm going to hit it and no one's going to stop me. And I've never missed a deadline before." And it's a point of pride. So I very well could have said, "Hey, guys, I need another month." And they would have given it to me.
Isabel: So I'm in that boat now where my spouse developed epilepsy as a 30 year old. I am the only income earner, and I don't have a day job. We have to pay out of pocket for insurance. So I totally get like, oh, fuck, what do we do? At the same time, you can say, I'm not missing this fucking deadline because I need to eat. But you can do that without shame. You can do that without being like, I've screwed up. I messed up. And it's not easy. I'm not saying like you... Those thoughts are still going to come. Your brain is still going to go like, here's all the reasons why I screwed up because that's how we're socialized. We're socialized. We always look for all of the reasons that we are wrong. There's so much perfectionism, in books in particular, because we have so much revision that we do, yet we still put so much pressure on early drafts to be perfect. As if that's possible. And for me, like when I did bump the book, we were early in having our foster kid. And also, the biggest thing was I needed to scrap the entire idea and figure it out because it wasn't working. And then my editor left, and then it took like six months to get a new editor. So nobody was waiting for this book. I didn't have a deadline. But now I'm like, I'm going to be doing these revisions over the course of like three-ish months, and it's going to be hard because we don't have daycare. We have a two and a half year old, but I'm willing to do it because I'm like, "we need to pay for this roof because all our shit's leaking." But I'm not going to be like, "well, I should have done this and I should have done that." Like, no, this is where we are. I can have so much love and compassion, which took a long time to get to, for the version of me who was trying to figure out how to be a mom with like two hours notice as a foster parent and you're just like, figure it out. Of course, I struggled. And now it's still going to be hard, but I'm willing to do it. And I know that I'm choosing it because I want to pay for the roof, not because if I don't, I'm an asshole.
Mindy: Definitely what I turned in for my first draft was nowhere near to perfect. Ben was like, "I know you had concerns about this one. I know that you were worried about it." I had also just weaned entirely off of my own depression medication at the time. And so like everything was a little fuzzy in my head, and he was like, "You did way better than you think you did." And so, I think that that is something that we should carry within ourselves too, is that we are our own worst critics all the time. You have to give yourself a little bit more grace. And I'm really good at telling other people you're doing fine. You're doing great. It's going to be okay. You can't be the best at everything. In fact, you don't even have to be the best at any one thing. Just show up, and do the best you can at everything you try. And hopefully you'll be able to, at the end of the day, always go to bed tired.
Isabel: One of the things I teach clients is setting a minimum enoughness measure. The minimum amount of something you can do and be like, I at least showed up for that. So like on a day when you have a bunch of shit lined up, you don't even plan to write 2K. Like maybe you plan to write 500. And if you write more, hell yes. But at least you're not setting yourself up for something that's going to be so hard. Because if your brain thinks it's hard, your brain doesn't want to do it. Your brain is designed to not do hard things.
Mindy: So why don't you tell listeners specifically what the name of your podcast is so that people can find you and find your podcast. And also just talking about being a life coach for writers, because obviously... Obviously, you know what you're talking about. What are the kinds of services you offer for that?
Isabel: So I run the Author Burnout Coach podcast. It drops every Tuesday. I just released recently - how do you answer all those awkward questions at family dinners about like, how's your book going and can I have a free copy? Also by the time this comes out, I think I'll also have my episode out about setting boundaries with the toxic people who ask those kinds of questions. And how do you keep proper boundaries so that you're not just feeling miserable. But yeah, so I work with both new writers, and with new writers I do a lot of some of the basic storytelling skills because I am also a book coach. And then we do a lot of just how do you get to the page, overcoming the perfectionism, like that kind of stuff. And then with the published authors, it's all really like, you don't need my help in your book. You know what the hell you're doing. It's the perfectionism. It's the burnout. It's the, you know, I'm afraid to say no to shit because I think that I'm going to lose opportunities, and then I'll never get them again. And then you take on too much stuff, and then you're burnt out. How do you make decisions about your career that you feel really good about? You're not just trying to constantly please everybody else to your own detriment. So sort of more of that kind of like being both a storyteller and an entrepreneur as a writer. But all that stuff's at my website, Isabel Sterling dot com, so they can see all of the different services I offer. And then yeah, the podcasts, they're typically pretty short. They're like 15 to 30 minutes typically. And each one is a very targeted, like here's a cause of burnout, and here's how you can work on dealing with it in your own life.
Mindy: Last thing, why don't you let listeners know where they can find your books and you online as an author.
Isabel: Yeah. So I am online. I actually recently deleted my Twitter because I haven't been on it really since 2020 and I'm just like, I'm done. So find me on Instagram, isa underscore sterling. And then my books are wherever books are sold. They're available in English and Spanish and Russian and Polish. If you're going to pick up any of my books, I would recommend starting with The Coldest Touch if you love vampires. It is about a girl named Elise who whenever she touches someone, she sees how they're going to die. And she meets a vampire who is there to recruit her to join a mysterious organization. But then a teacher is on the block to get murdered, and they have to try to stop it.
Mindy: Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.