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 a a guest. If you have specific questions feel free to post them on the page and I will answer them on the podcast.
This summer I'm adding a co-host, fellow author Kate Karyus Quinn. We'll be doing a series that focuses on hybrid and indie authors. If you're thinking of going the Self Pub route we've got authors who found success with six figure sales, as well as authors who are just starting out on the road to indie publishing. Learn from them. Learn with us.
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Kate: It is week five million three of pandemic time. You are started to go back out in the world. In New York in my section of New York, New York is It's not like one big lump though it's each area is depending on their numbers. We wear masks everywhere. Masks in the grocery store and everywhere else.
Mindy: My biggest thing with the Masks, so I'm in Ohio and we're recording this right after Memorial Day weekend. So we just lifted the stand home order.
Kate: It's terrible. The other thing that terrible is, um, stress. I was talking to my mom the other day and she was like Your sister and I were talking and, you know, we've both gained weight from this pandemic, and she's like, I think it's the stress she's like, you know, stress can cause you to gain weight. I was like, I think it's the eating more mom. She probably is moving less. I've gained weight, and I know it's just I've been snacking more and who cares? I wake up that morning and I'm like, should I wear the sweatshirt from the last two days and I throw it on again, I'm like, huh? What? It Doesn't matter.
Mindy: I have been working out more, actually, just because break up as you know, you go when you go through a break up, it's just like your you go through some sort of change, for better or for worse. But that certainly has helped with anxiety and with stress as well as my recent discovery of CBD oil.
Kate: I tried CBD before for sleeping cause you know, I have horrible sleep problems. I had previously tried it for sleep. I don't know. I didn't notice that it was having a huge effect, but it's so hard to sometimes gauge it, and so I kind of taking it for a while. So What has your experience Been?
Mindy: Full disclosure. The company that sent me some is called Jupiter and they are one of the sponsors of the podcast. And they were like, Hey, you know, we can send you a sample, you try it out and see what you think. And I was like Sure I mean, why not? Right? Yeah, I used it. It has, like, something like 0.3 I'd have to check the bottle, but it's super, super low. It's less than 0% THC. So, about halfway through the day I tried to dial out on my phone using the calculator app and, um, you know, it didn't work, right? And so I was staring at my phone like, Why the hell is my phone not working? And I kept hitting equals like trying to make a call. Interestingly enough, I have ah, BPPV. I have, ah, vertigo. It's positional Vertigo, I believe, is what caused it. Because my vertigo had kicked in that day.
Kate: And that started when you were traveling a lot, right?
Mindy: Yeah, it started. I had my very, very first tour in 2013 is when I got it. And basically, once you have vertigo, you're, like always susceptible.
Kate: So you feel dizzy and you think your calculator is your phone?
Mindy: That's part of it. Yeah, it's under the Wikipedia entry symptoms: using calculator to dial out. Oh, uh, here's the thing. It's also the weirdest ass thing in the world. And when you try to explain to people, they think you're crazy. Basically, there's an amount of liquid in your inner ear in your head that more or less works like the liquid inside of a level, and that's how you keep your position all the time. That's how you know where your feet are in regards to the floor and like that's how you keep your balance, is that there's literally liquid in your head that works as a level. And if there's anybody listening to this that's like a medical professional shaking your head, I am paraphrasing widely. And they are basically these little crystals that grow inside of your head and sometimes like a crystal, It's like a big cave up there, and a crystal will fall into the liquid, and it basically screws you up in a major way because you can't balance and your level just doesn't work.
Kate: Does this usually happen to most people like this is a very random thing for the crystal to fall?
Mindy: It's a random, weird ass thing, and it can happen. It could happen for multiple reasons. Two reasons Why it happened to me was because I was flying and I had a Sinus infection. So it was a mix of upper respiratory infection and liquid in my head and then up and down and flying so much, and I just ended up just completely fucked up.
Kate: Does this happen to women more than men? Are women more susceptible? I don't know. I don't I I've never heard of a dude with this, but I feel like I have no, like several different women who have had it, I just It sounds like something that, like women, would have been like, locked up foreign like in an asylum.
Mindy: Like, the crystals in my head fell into my brain water Yeah, no, it's It's true. Um, actually, I know quite a few other female authors that that suffer from it. Mindee Arnett, who is an Ohio author, she writes sci fi and fantasy. She has really bad vertigo. It is partly yes, you get dizzy and things like that. You can't stand up or sit down too quickly, so you know you can fall down. That's the really obvious part. But there's also just mild confusion, like a long time like brain fog and and you have a hard time like being present. It’s really weird, and it's not enjoyable at all. And so when I did in fact use my calculator to dial out unsuccessfully on my phone, I do think it was the vertigo and not the CBD, because I was like, I blamed this CBD. And then that night when I went to bed, when I rolled over and I rolled over on my left side, which is the year that I have problems with, I felt that woooooo, you know, when I was like Oh, my Vertigo is back.
I waited, and there's all these different things you can do. There's something called the Epley maneuver that you can do to yourself at home that will help. After all, you know, you, you perform it so many times. And so I did that and it took care of the vertigo for the time. And then I started, I picked up the CBD again, and I never had that brain fog or confusion again and I did notice I will say this, that I sleep better. Um, the biggest thing for me has been like motivation and focus is definitely there, but inflammation. So it's like I'm 41. And when I've been sitting for too long, like in front of a laptop or whatever, and I get up to move its so bad. I'm bent over. My legs don't go like forward. They kind of totter side to side like it is really bad. CBD has helped with that.
Mindy: Let's bring in LC Barlow. Her name's Lindsey, where she's going to talk to us about being a self pub author, that then, went over to the traditional side.
Kate: That's always so interesting to hear about the different journeys and how everybody gets to where they're going.
Mindy: Thank you for being here. Basically. You know, I decided to do a whole podcast series this summer for people that were involved in Indy Pub and when you came on to the Blog and you have this wonderful story about your success with self publishing that then translated into a trad career, I was like, Oh my gosh, this will be a great person to have here on the podcast to talk about both experiences and also the transitions. So if you just want to start out by talking about how you got started with self pub and then just the career trajectory. That would be great.
LC: When I was just starting out, I had been doing creative writing for a fairly long time, and I was coming up on the end of my first master's degree, which was in English. I had a really want to try to write a book, and I wasn't exactly sure how to go about it. But I was like I spent, I've put so much effort into so many other things I would really like to try. Well, I had gone online and I had read, um, advice about publishing, which was not very good advice, which was basically, it's impossible to break into the publishing industry, so you shouldn't even try.
Kate: So that is terrible advice. Where did you get that?
LC: Everywhere. The other piece of advice was, If you do want to write a book, you should write nonfiction because it's more likely to sell I. If you do end up writing, don't write what you want to write, right?
Mindy: So wait, What year was this?
LC: This was 2000 and 12.
Mindy: I’m asking because I mean Kate and I both, we debuted in 2013. So we would have been looking around. Um, I mean, at that time, the YA boom was happening. Well, so I get it. I mean, it could be a little different. I'm not sure what everything that was going on in other markets at the time, but, I mean, in General. Yes, Trad Pub is hard to break into. It is not impossible
Kate: I don't really think those like there are sources out there that, I feel like if you're not confident and if you are on the fence that it can feel discouraging. Agent blogs were huge at that time. Like every single agent seemed to have a blog. And I remember reading a lot of them that were like, What is special about your story? Why do you need to tell this story? What makes this book you know, something that people should read? I guess I have like enough self confidence or, I don't know, like, stubbornness to be like my book is good and I'm gonna push It out there anyway, or whatever. But it is just so I could see, like that sort of advice being discouraging starting out. Agents are trying to like impress upon people that it is difficult cause I think they see so many people who are just sitting down and throwing words on a page and being like TA DA! My masterpiece!
LC: Later on, I did end up hearing stories about people that, for instance, it was 11 years after their MFA that they finally got a publication which I mean is possible right? It all the depends on the person, the process, the genre. That was the advice that I had read at the time. And so I thought, Well, I wanted to do creative writing. I want to write a book. So I'm gonna go ahead and do it anyway. And I wrote it and I didn't really read through it, which I'm sure is making a lot of people roll their eyes right now, not without reason. I went ahead and just without really going back over. And I put it on Amazon and I ended up putting it on Smashwords, and that is the reason--
Kate: Can I interrupt? What was your reason That you didn't want to read through it again?
LC: One of the reasons why was that, Hugh Howey had just come out with Wool pretty recently, by which he would. He had self published Wool, and then he had used his readers comments to revise it. And so I thought, You know, it doesn't have to be perfect if it's going to be in a process, so I'll put it up and then I'll read people's responses and I'll revise it. And that was the plan going in. And I put it up on Amazon and on Smashwords. And in the beginning, the main comment was that people didn't really like the cover because I had just found some stock images. While this was occurring, I read up on Book Bub was heralded as, like, the best way to advertise for your book. And the way that you do this is first, you have to get around 25 4 to 5 star reviews of of the book before they'll even look at it. And then it also needs to be pretty good quality. Well, I was trying to get reviews. I went ahead and I contacted Book Fly design and Book Fly design created a really wonderful cover for Pivot and it was fantastic. And they themselves said, Hey, you know, why don't you submit your book for awards? While that was going on, I did GoodReads giveaways, and I did quite a few. They used to be free. Now Amazon owns GoodReads, and they charged somewhere around 100 or more dollars per giveaway. Um, but it used to be free, and I did quite a few - 25 to 30 - book giveaways to get to that 25 review area, so I could submit to Book Bub. Snd I did get a Book Bub.
I was submitting my book to awards and the day that the BookBub Ad ran, which it's ah, if you don't know what that is, it's a sort of email newsletter that goes out with lists of books that are e books that are running at about a dollar... It's either free to like 2.99. So the day that it came out, I got about 12,000 downloads because I had made my book free. And then over the next several days, it ended up being around 35,000 downloads.
Kate: Oh yeah, that’s a ton.
LC: Within that week, I got a response from the awards that I had submitted Pivot to, one of which was the Bram Stoker Awards. And it was on the preliminary ballot for the 2014 Bram Stoker awards. And I was like, I don't really know much about the World Horror Association or World Horror Convention, at that time, that's what it was called before Stoker Con and World Horror split into their separate conventions. So I was like, You know, I'm gonna go check this out. I think it would be really interesting. So I went to Portland, Oregon in 2014 to go to my first World Horror Convention. Fortunately, one of the very first people that I ended up meeting and speaking with was Dallas Mray, or he wrote under Jack Ketchum. He has, unfortunately passed away, and he invited me and another person over to the bar for a drink.
So I went over there and I let him know about my book. Later on, I was walking around and an entertainment lawyer, stopped me and he said, Hey, you know what? Why don't you send your book to me? I was like, OK, I will definitely do that. Um, and I ended up meeting him again later on that weekend at a book release party for Josh Malerman’s Bird Box. The next day I mean, I had one sent to him, he read over it, and it was a mess. Like I said, I had never gone over it, which I was really regretting by the time he put his eyes on it.
He brought in an entertainment manager. Ah, wonderful, wonderful guy named Ryan. They took a look at it and they were like, In general, whenever you have a manuscript, you need to revise it about three times before an agent, three times with an agent, and three times with a publisher. Smaller and smaller revisions each time. And they said, with your book, it's going to take about four revisions before we can send it to an agent and I said, That's fine. I will do the work. It took me about six months, but I really, really revised that manuscript and it took me about 2.5 revisions. And I credit that to my work ethic. And they were like, OK, this is good. You know, uh, this could be sent off to agents.
Over the course of a year, they ended up sending it to four different agents. The 4th one picked it up. The 1st one took a look at it and she said, You know, this is really great. She saw promise. But she said, You know, I'm looking more for literary horror. Literary Horror can be advertised as both horror as well as lit, right? Not just one. It has to do with marketing. She really liked it though, and she had an agent friend of hers, so she recommended it to her, and within 24 hours, the second agent had read it. The first wait time was three months. The second wait time was 24 hours. And that's the difference between being in a slush pile and having a recommendation. The second agent reads and she goes, You know, this is this is just two notches off of what I normally represent, she said. I normally represent dark fantasy, and this is more horror than dark fantasy.
So they sent it to a third agent who passed on it, and then the fourth agent picked it up, and that was a wonderful, wonderful agent that I have, Jonathan Lyons. So that's how I got into the industry. After he took a look at the manuscript, he said, This really needs to be split into two books, and I had already foreseen it as a trilogy. But I had already done so much work on it. I was like, I want to try to not split it. And so he went ahead and he sent it off to publishers. And all the publishers who responded said, This needs to be split into two books, so I split it into two books and that took about a year. I split it up, and then I built the first section up. That went out again to publishers while I was building the second section of the second book. And that one was finished by the time I got my book deal, which was in May, I believe 2018.
And so I had two of the three books created, and that's why I was able to get a three book deal for the trilogy with that publisher, which was Robert Pearson. And he works with California Cold Blood Books, which is an imprint of Rare Bird Books. By that time, I felt also a lot more confident in being able to create that third book, especially on a time schedule, because I had been able To work and work and work on that first and second book. And most people will tell you that the second book is more difficult to write than the 1st one And that was certainly true for me. Ah, I had written the 1st one through trial and error with very little understanding of plot. I wrote about 1000 single spaced pages to produce a 250 page, single spaced book. It was trial and error and the second book, Fortunately I had started my MFA right before I got that contract. Nancy Holder Ah, wonderful professor and writer. She talked about two craft books that she uses for every single novel she writes. I took a look at those books and I was able to use them to write my second novel, and I felt far more confident going forward, figuring out what I should do when I get stuck. Oh, I should say, By the time I got an agent, I had had a second BookBub ad and that got me another 30,000 downloads. So by the time the book was pulled because I got the book deal, I had around 65 to 70,000 downloads of the book.
Kate: And how many reviews did you have on the book?
LC: At that point, about 150 reviews on Amazon and will say, I'm going to guess around 30 on Barnes and Noble, and I'm not sure about everywhere else.
Kate: The book was free the whole time, so it wasn't something that you were getting income on?
LC: Correct. But I've gone back and forth about whether I should have ever charged anything for it. I think I would not have Had as wide of a reader base if I had charged just because, primarily the genre. I think my ultimate goal was to try to break into traditional publishing and so wider reader base is what I was going for. A bigger platform, I guess.
Kate: So do you feel like all those download numbers were helpful to you in securing an agent on and a publishing deal?
LC: I think if you can demonstrate any sort of platform like that, yes, and I do think that that helps me get noticed. But then what kept their interest was my ability to really revise.
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Mindy: So you talked about going to what's now Stoker Con and those connections that you made there. I'm always telling people that publishing is just like any other industry, but I think even more so in the It's networking, networking, networking, being around people and meeting people. And then your circle is expanding. I feel like that connection for you seemed pretty critical.
LC: I have done the query process before. This is a long, long time ago. For something else, my recommendation is to go to a convention. Anne Rice a well known horror writer, that’s how she got her agent was She signed up for a workshop at a convention in California, and I believe, the person who led that workshop. They kept in touch, and she eventually brought her to her agent.
When I went there, it was definitely that personal connection. Um, and you know, it doesn't have to feel like work, you know, Just go to the bar after you know the day is over and then talk with authors. Most authors know what it's like to be just be starting out, and they want to give you a hand up. Um, most authors are not mean. They're there to make friends. I have people I still speak with that I met in Portland in 2014 and we talk, you know, weekly. Those people who are at conventions they’re not just giving, I guess lip service to the idea of publishing. They are buying a ticket and paying money for a hotel to be there. They want to be there and they've already proven it. And you will meet lawyers, agents, managers, editors, publishers and other authors and other authors are willing to take a look at your work.
Mindy: I think that's definitely true. I mean, I know obviously Kate and I know each other from being authors, but it is very true that at any writers convention or anything, like a lot of us do spend a lot of time hanging out in the bar. Not gonna lie.
LC: I don't think I had ever had so much to drink.
Mindy: We're pretty good at drinking only at social occasions where Kate is there to clean me up afterwards because it's been her job. Kate has the dubious record of being the only woman that has ever taken my pants off. Actually, I personally find that authorial world to be pretty welcoming. I even in bumping elbows with some bigger names and running into people, I have never really felt any cold shoulders or anything like that or met anybody that clearly felt that they were too important to speak to me or anyone else.
LC: I just know that World horror and Stoker Con were very welcoming.
Kate: Most people, though, those conventions are also like If you're a super introvert, the idea of going into a convention by yourself is a nightmare. They're also very, very pricey. Um and so I never did any conventions or anything like that before I was published. And I only done them since I was published as, like a speaker, something so that, you know, I was getting something comped, usually the convention comped and, you know, maybe my room as well or travel or whatever, because they are expensive. And because I am a little bit of an introvert, I have a really hard time going to a place where I don't know anyone and to, like, walk into a room like that is like, it's really scary for me. So I only go if I have Mindy and or Demetria. We probably look like kind of cliquey. Sometimes I am afraid to go out and, ah, like I'm not the person who is gonna be like, Hey, everybody! I’m Kate!
LC: My first convention, I almost turned back before even got on the plane. My best friend was dropping me off and I was like, I'm scared and he was like, Oh, it'll be okay. It can be scary. But so can so many things in life that you're not used To. And one of the reasons why it's a scary is you're just not used to it yet. Um, I will say, fortunately, like I teach at a community college and being in front of 30 students day in and day out has slowly and surely, uh, gotten rid of a lot of that public speaking anxiety. Fortunately, and it's scary, but it's also it can be miraculous, I would say. Make sure you weigh both parts equally.
Kate: So for people out there who are listening to this. And they are, you know, considering their strategies for publishing, would you say, do what I did, or would you say, like this was something that worked for me. It's not gonna work for everyone. It was kind of a lot of lucky pieces that sort of fell into place because you see a ton of free books out there on Amazon I think it's become a lot more difficult also, to get a Book Bub. What would you say, to Other people who are at the spot, place where you were when you were first reading advice that it's too hard to get published. Don't even try?
LC: My advice is to throw everything at it. It doesn't have to be like just one route or two routes. I would say Do every single thing you can at all times. And the other thing is that which I didn't realize until after I got the book deal - was that being a writer and publishing? It's a lifestyle. It is not a part time job. It's not a full time job. It is all the time it was 24/7 and if you are naturally inclined to do that, I feel like you will eventually break in. Its what will also ensure that once you break and you'll get somewhere because breaking in isn't all of it, right after you break in there is the next book after, I mean you have to advertise its It's crazy. There's so much to do, other so many working parts. And if breaking in is intimidating the rest of it's going to be just as intimidating for you.
I don't know if I could, if I should say, like, go my route because I didn't even really, really pick a route. I just threw everything at it. You know, I went to conventions where I submitted my book for awards. I made my book free. I tried to get as many ads as possible. I tried to get a good book cover. It was just me, sort of like trying to hit everything. Uh, not choosing one route. There were many things that I couldn't have controlled, but everything that I could control, I did my best. For my M F A project. I interviewed 12 successful self published authors, including, Andy Weir, Christopher Paolini, David Children, Michael Sullivan, etcetera. One of them, um, I think it was Michael Sullivan said, Most people think that when they get that book deal, they're done like the publisher will handle it. The publishers not gonna take care of things. You're gonna have to contact the library. A lot of the success is up to you, and so once again, it's not a part time or full time job. It's a lifestyle it and it's because you love it, right? If you didn't love it, I don't know how you would do it.
Kate: Yeah, don't do this If there's something else that you could do. So when you say life style, you're not saying quit your day job. More, would you say of the mindset? Because I mean writing takes a long time, if any time ever to become something that's stable and where it's an income that you can really count on.
Mindy: My fifth and sixth books came out, I think in 2017 I had two books come out, and that was when I hit a point where I was able to say, OK, I'm going to quit my job and do this full time. But it wasn't necessarily because of the fact that I was financially able to do it. There are a lot of, there were a lot of elements, and part of it was that I still had my position at the school where I work, but the duties had changed and I wasn't going to be in the library as much. They were, they had moved me around. I Was gonna be in classrooms. No, I'm not gonna do that because I think I am well known enough now that I can get a school visit that will pay me more for one day than I make in two weeks off of my paycheck at the school.
However, the difference then becomes I'm giving up benefits. I don't have retirement. I don't have insurance. I don't have... and I still like, I don't even now I have insurance, but I pay for it. So that's the kind of thing where you God, you just You just have to take every single thing into account because you just never know. You never know how much money you're going to make. And I have had the experience, like trying to get a loan where it's like, you know, we need to see your tax returns for the past three years and an estimate of you know how much you will make in the coming three. And I'm like, Yeah, I have no idea. What do you mean? Like no, literally. Guys like I could make zero this year. I could make 100,000 this year. I don't know. I literally don't know.
Kate: Banks Love that. I don't know. It's like I don't know how much money I'll make. Banks are like, Oh, perfect. That’s what we love to hear.
Mindy: They’ll give you so many free houses. Yeah, I have had so many loan officers sit across from me in the desk and and literally Ask me, how do you live like this? I’m a farmer's daughter I grew up with - We hope it rains so that you can have shoes. So it's like,I'm used to this.
LC: I meant lifestyle, more like in terms of If you have a child, you are not going to say From 8 to 5, I worked with that child. And then from this point to this point, I went made dinner. And this point of this way, right? No. A child is 24/7 A child is a lifestyle choice and writing is the same thing. It’s a Way of living.
Mindy: It's a presence, a constant presence.
LC: Yes, and then. Also in terms of, you know, jobs. There was a horror writer, Brian Keane, actually, and he you know, he had a day job, which was a part time job, I believe, with the post office, and he had benefits with it, but he was making good money with his writing. So he decided to quit. And very shortly after that, he had a heart attack and because he had no health insurance -- And he gives a warning to, like all writers about this -- he lost all of his savings. Um, and he said, Whatever you do, keep a job, don't lose your health insurance because you could lose everything, because, I mean, if you live in the United States, that's that's the way it is. Um, and so, but also I think, like, for me, teaching gives me a social aspect to balance out the intense private aspect of writing. You're just sitting in a room. It doesn't matter how nice the room is. It could be a mansion, or it could be a shed. But you're going to see the same four walls every single day. And if you don't get out and socialize, it can drive you crazy. I mean, it's very much The Shining with all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, right?
Kate: Everyone's life right now in The Shining. I think that's
Mindy: I think that's a great point, though. because when? All right, so we're recording this on May 26. Some states, they're starting to emerge from the COVID quarantine. And I can tell you the as someone who's, you know, been out moving through the world with a mask on and everyone is you know, that's the point of conversation is the epidemic And people were like, Well, how are you coping? And I'm like, Dude, my life's exactly the same as it was before the world ending. The world actually ended and my life did not change one bit. And that was really interesting observation for me.
I do, I like what you're saying about the sociability aspect because it is important. I started substituting pretty regularly this year because of the fact that, I mean, I was just home and and, you know, it's the nature of the beast. I'm in front of a screen so much like that's all I do. You can really dabble with some dark thoughts when you aren't getting out there and you’re not interacting. Kate and Demitria, we talk every day pretty much at this point, usually on Slack, but it's like there are days when That's my only interaction with adults. And I had a moment last fall. Ah, when I started, when I decided I was going to start substituting because, um, I went I work out, like, usually two, three times a week, and I don't go to the gym until, like, five oclock. And I went into the gym. You know, I've been up since, like, 8:30, 9 someone said hi to me and I said, hi back. And my voice was like horse and they're like, Are you OK? You getting sick? And I'm like, No, it's just that this is the first time I've spoken today. And so it was like my throat, my voice, my brain. Everything was like, Wait, how do you do this, right?
Kate: When I was a little little kid, I wanted to be a writer as early as like, second grade. But then, like around middle school, I got into theater and I actually went more to theatre. And that's why I went to undergrad for theater because I was like, I like to, the fact that it was collaborative and that it was social and I was like, I don't think I want to do something where I'm stuck in a room by myself all day and, you know, after theater, I went to film school and I didn't start writing seriously until my husband and I were living in Tennessee. I didn't know anyone there. I had no friends, and I had a newborn baby, and I was essentially stuck in my house alone with no one. And I was like Well, shit, I got what I wanted. I have a writer's lifestyle so I might as well start writing.
LC: When something happens that forces you to be still when you aren't allowed, and this is like when restrictions force you to be creative. One of my professors would always talk about how sometimes the complete lack of restrictions in, for instance, writing poetry, um, can make it more difficult to write a poem versus, You know, if you have a certain restriction for the stanza or something, then then it becomes more creative. So it's interesting sometimes how restrictions in our daily lives end up forcing us to to write finally, or to be more creative in some way.
Mindy: You were talking about just the lifestyle of being a writer and how it's a constant, Um, even if you're working full time or part time, whatever your hobbies are, it's very, uh, and I say that now, as a full time writer, I'm not necessarily going to be working on writing things all day today because I mean, it's effing hot outside. I will go outside and I will do, I try to get up and run every morning, and I work out either at home or at the gym every night and then between those times like those are My, those are my flags like these are- This is when you get up and this is right before you eat. Everything in between, that is my call. So, and everything after that is my call, and that's cool. It’s really freeing. But you also hit a point where it's like you absolutely must, no excuses, you have to be a self starter. If you aren’t a self starter, If you need a cheerleader, if you need a team, you can't do this.
LC: Oh my gosh, that is so true. Yes.
Mindy: I have like this really old house. I have a pond. I have four acres. I garden. I will do flowers all the time. I am constantly moving from the time I get up in the morning until I go to bed. I am doing something and that's just to keep shit from collapsing. Honestly. And it’s at a point where it’s like, I literally don't know how to relax. And it's probably not my best attribute, but man I get shit done.
LC: Right before I started writing, I had taken two pills of a type of antibiotic that ultimately made my tendon swell to the point that my hands went numb and my feet went numb and I had to get to the doctor and she had to do a blood test to see if I was losing like muscle mass due to this cause. If so, I needed to be hospitalized. Um, it took me seven months to recover, and but it forced me to be still, so my muscles wouldn't hurt, in a way that I had never before been forced to be still before, like, I would run every day. But being forced to, like That's, that was the extra push, I think to write a novel.
Kate: It makes you wonder how many novels are gonna come out of this pandemic.
Mindy: Novels. Babies. Divorces. That's that's what we're going to see.
LC: At the same time, there are still people who aren't gonna be able to make themselves do it. Because I'm sure both of you guys know any time you're out in company and people find out you're writer. Oh, I always wanted to write a book.
Kate: Yeah.
Mindy: Okay, cool. Do it. The one advice question I get all the time and it's it's not meant to be a shitty answer, but it's actually the answer. People say how do you write a book? And I say, You sit your ass down and you do it.
LC: Most people starting out, I should say, don’t think you can build Rome in a day and it's like, No, don't be disappointed if you don't get it written the first month. That's perfectly acceptable.
Mindy: I mean, I draft quickly now, but I certainly didn't when I began. It’s exactly like any other muscle. You have to build it over time.
LC: Most people, it takes them about a year. I would say to create their first novel. And then other people like, for instance, Cold Mountain. That author worked on that book for 10 years, writing that book alone.
Mindy: I should probably mention for listeners that Lindsay's books are published under the name LC Barlow. And do you want To as a last thing, Let everyone know where they can find you online. Your social media, and where they can find your books?
LC: Yeah, you can find me on lcbarlow.org I'm on Twitter as Elsie Barlow Author and Instagram under the same name LC Barlow Author. I'm also on Quora under Lindsey Barlow and You can Find My Books, Pivot is just coming out this year and then Peak is coming out next year. You can find them on Amazon. Barnes and Noble at Wal Mart and Target.
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.
