Why Finishing Your Draft Beats Waiting For Inspiration with Kimberly Christenson

About Kim: 

Nothing makes me happier than when someone tells me a book I recommended expands their perspective, brings them joy, or makes them feel less alone.

Aside from being a self-proclaimed bibliotherapist, I’m a mom and wife, book reviewer for Good Things Utah, and one of those people who call their Holland Lop bunnies “part of the family.”

 I graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in English, but apparently that wasn’t enough school nerdery for me, so I’m headed back to get my master’s degree in creative writing.

I’ve practiced my writing skills as producer for the “Arts in Utah” segment on a local radio station, then as a book blurb writer, PR specialist, and audiobook narrator for publisher Covenant Communications, professional namer for Eat My Words, and associate editor for Utah Valley Magazine.

I had the opportunity to turn my passion for writing and journaling into a business, Loom Journals, with my friends. We were acquired by Promptly Journals, where I now create prompted journals and educate people on the power and science behind writing for wellbeing.

I’m working on two novels: A dual timeline women’s fiction based on a tiny village I fell in love with in the English countryside, and a contemporary romance set in a quaint New England bookstore.

Some obsessions: Hiking, BBC dramas, and putting on my pajamas.

I started Talk Wordy to Me in 2016 as a place to build community around reading and writing. So glad you’re here!

Follow Kim HERE:  LINKS

About Victoria:

Hey there, I’m Victoria! As a writer and developmental editor, I specialize in helping busy writers bring their publishing dreams to life without the overwhelm. Your story deserves to shine, let's make magic together. 

Here’s how I can help:
📖 FREE 7 day Writing Reset: Daily support in your inbox for 7 days.
Grab it HERE

📝 Developmental Editing: Get expert feedback that elevates your manuscript, strengthens your story, and polishes your characters.
✍️ 1:1 monthly support: Revitalize your creativity, map out your novel, and unleash your authentic voice.

Your story deserves to shine, and I’m here to make it happen. Let’s turn your writing dreams into a reality!

📱 IG: @editsbyvictoria
🌐 LINKS: Victoria Jane Editorial

Transcript

Welcome And Services Overview

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Bookshop Chats, where we cozy up with books, creativity, and embrace the magical, messy process of writing a book. I'm Victoria Jane, a writer, developmental editor, and coach for sensitive busy writers, and I love to support you on your journey of bringing your story to life. So whether you're here for inspiration, behind the scenes peaks of what it what it means to actually write a book or just some bookish conversations, you are definitely in the right place. And if you're looking for more personalized support, I also offer one-to-one writing support sessions to help bring your story to life because sometimes you need a little bit of support digging through the noise that is your brain because same. And if you've got a finished draft, I would love to chat to you about developmental editing. It is my favorite thing. I love supporting authors in bringing their story to life. You can find all of the details in the show notes. So grab a coffee, grab a tea, plug in your headphones, go on a little walk, and let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back to Bookshop Chats. In today's episode, I am chatting with you. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. I'm excited. Me too. I am pumped for this. I feel like this is such a good energy boost. I was feeling very tired this morning. So I'm like, let's talk books and writing. Cause let's speak out over what we love, please. Amazing. Well, um, you are actually one of the I think the first authors I've chatted to that's kind of in the sort of in-between stage. Your book is written, uh, but you're in the querying stage. So I would love maybe first of all, you could tease a little bit about your book that you are querying. Um, you know, just because it's never too early. And I feel like that's always great to build hype. Yes. Thank you. I'd love to talk about it, practice pitching it. So my story is a coming of age story of an of a 34-year-old woman who lives in Oregon and she has two kids, two young kids. She's on the verge of divorce with her husband of 11 years, and she's also losing her faith. She was raised in a high-demand religion, the Mormon religion, and she is deconstructing her faith. And so she's at this really important time in her life, and she's separated from her husband. She's trying to find roots and figure out where to go from there. And she receives a letter, which was written by her grandmother a year before. Her grandmother has since passed away, but this letter comes in the mail saying that she inherited her grandma Effie's farm in Wales. Her grandma Effie is Welsh. And so she inherited her farm. It's a failing sheep farm. And so she's sitting there thinking, why me? What was my grandma thinking? Her grandma's kind of this cheeky, sassy, but really wise lady. And so she thinks, I have to go over there. My kids are with her, you know, soon-to-be ex at their annual family reunion at the lake for a month for Thanksgiving. And so she's like, okay, rather than be home and feel sorry for myself, I'm going to go to Wales to this farm and see what it has to offer me. So she flies over there out of the country, traveling for by herself for the first time. And she goes to this farm and she's thinking, oh, it's going to be this idyllic, quaint little experience, but farm work is hard and she gets messy and dirty and smelly. And she has to go through this series of farm work initiations in order to prove herself to the farm caretaker, which was her grandmother's best friend. And the caretaker's son, Kai, a very sexy Welsh farm boy. You can guess what happens next, you know, like there's always romance in my books. And so uh yeah, then she comes to find herself in Wales through this farm her grandmother gave her, and she connects to the land and rediscovers her grounding and um is able to find a way forward. I so love that. I'm here for those, those kind of stories just bring me so much joy. Um, and I feel like it's really cool going back to that sort of like homeland. Uh, all of my like my mom moved to Canada from England when she was a kid. So it's like there's something like so profound about going back to those like ancestral lands, and you're like, wow, like I feel it. Uh and that's I love that. Oh my gosh. I love that you and I connect on that because it really is like an indescribable, even for writers, feeling to go to that ancestral land. It's metaphysical, like it's more than just a place, right? Like you feel it in your bones. It almost makes you believe in ancestral memory. Like my there's something in my body saying this is familiar and this is home, right? Like it's really magical. And that's where the impetus for this book came from. I was able to travel to Wales and and before that, I wrote about um, you know, I have two books I've written previously. And the first one was when I visited Scotland and the Isle of Sky, and I have ancestry there, and I've always felt called there since I was a little girl before the internet told me I wanted to go there, you know, and so I went there and I had that experience you're talking about, where I went to to these village old villages and this beautiful land, and I'm like, oh, I've got to do something with this. And so I wrote a story about it. So all of my stories have that connection to the past and ancestry um and the way that it informs us in the present. So yeah, that's pretty cool. I love that. Yeah, like it's so true. It's such a deeply felt feeling that it's so hard to put into words. Uh, like I've tried, I feel like that's kind of the inspiration when I started writing. I went to Ireland and I was like, oh my gosh, like there's something here of that, like again, coming of age kind of realization kind of story. And it is it's hard to capture that. But then I feel like if you've been there and you've walked that, you're like, I know what she's talking about. Yes, exactly. Yeah, and I love that we both love Katherine Walsh, the writer who's so oh, she's just the if you haven't read her yet, she's just the wittiest, most beautiful writer. I love her books, they're such a good escape. Have you read others? And but not escape in the sense like it's smart, it's a smart romance. Um, have you read others by her outside of Snowden? Because I have and I wonder read her two, I think she had two holiday ones, I feel like. Um so I read both of those ones, and I think I read a couple of her other ones. I just loved that it took place in in Ireland and that she's an Irish writer because um, again, like that's where my book takes place. So I kind of wanted to see, you know, certain things of like how do you weave in some things like the language, or like how do you make that like sound, like what are certain words that you know characters might use? So I yeah, I really loved it. And it was honestly kind of the inspiration for me to be like, I think my book actually is a romantic comedy and less of this sort of like contemporary women's fiction. So I'm like, I am actually gonna rewrite it, and it's been a lot of work, but so much better, so much better now. I'm actually so happy to hear that because my second novel, I wrote thinking rom-com, but then my true self kind of opposite. I wrote thinking rom com. I want to be funny, but I'm just not that funny. And so I got some feedback actually from an agent who said, I can't tell if this is trying to be rom com or women's fiction. And she's like, You gotta lean in one way or the other. And I'm like, Well, I was trying to be Emily Henry because she's both, but you know, as I needed to refine that. So I I'm taking that advice with my second book and trying to rewrite it, leaning more into the women's fiction element. So it's good to hear that you were able to do that leaning more towards rom-com and and make it work and feel better about it. Because I still have that work ahead of me. Yeah, it's it's a process. And I think it's just one of those things that obviously, especially if you are looking to traditionally publish, then there is that sort of it needs to be a little bit more obvious. Um, so I would love to hear a little bit about like what what made you decide that you wanted to query your novel versus like self-publishing it. Good question. I have always just wanted that traditional experience of having a publisher back me. So, you know, they front the cost of production. You know, they're going to, I don't want that's a big one. Like first and foremost, they front the cost of production. Second of all, listen, there's definitely a place for self-publishing. And I'll probably I've I self-published a little nonfiction ebook. Like there's a place for it. Um, but for me, I just wanted, I guess, the the validation, the gravitas, the you know, credibility of traditionally publishing, because here's someone in the market who sees the readability of my book and they know the industry, and I get their stamp of approval, and I feel like they're able to get me out, get me in front of more readers potentially. So that's why I went that way. But I I know that like even if you go traditional the traditional route, something that a lot of authors have a misconception around is that that publisher is going to take care of everything for you from beginning to end. And I'm like, that's not the case. You are still A, you still have to get your manuscript sparkling clean. You can't feel like, oh, this isn't quite right. You got to work out all the kinks before you query, right? And then because a lot of times you'll get an yeah, you'll have an editor once your agent sells your book to a publisher, but oftentimes they don't, they don't want to do a lot of editing. They just want it to be pretty ready and they want to do line edits, and that's it. So that's where, you know, whatever way you go, you do need a developmental editor, if unless you are one yourself, right? And so you need that. And then um after that, once it's published, I think a lot of authors think, oh, they're gonna do all the marketing for me. From a lot of clients that I've spoken with who have published traditionally, they said no, they left me high and dry, even a big five publisher. And maybe there are exceptions to this rule that I'm not aware of, but and they will they'll help you for a couple weeks, they'll help you get your book out there for sure. But the marketing, either way you go, it's on you. So it's yeah, I think it's helpful to build some level of platform or community. Um, right? Would you agree with that? Yeah, definitely. Um, like chatting with um a variety of authors from uh like small uh publishing houses to some big five and self-publish, it seems to be pretty much there is still that level of of marketing that falls on the author. And I think that's just the nature of social media and the way it's changed. So the I think the biggest difference is obviously a you know, publishing house is going to have the access to get you into more bookstores, right? And that's the big thing that, you know, not to say you can't do that if you self-publish, but it's a lot more work because you're likely doing it yourself. So there is that element, right? So I think it's really like learning how to make your peace with that, because that's often the biggest thing that I find a lot of the authors I talk with, they're like, oh my gosh, like marketing, I hate it, I hate it. I'm like, yeah, it's not always fun, but the reality is that's the world we live in. Um and unfortunately, that's just kind of like part of it. So how can you make it the how can you work with your kind of energy and make it work for you? Is the biggest thing that I'm kind of like leaning into of like, I don't want to do things I don't want to do. Um, to a point, obviously, like, how can I make social media simple, fun, um, light? Uh, are there things I can do in person too? And I think that's a really important thing for a lot of authors that are building a platform is like look outside of just social media because that is rented space. So, what can I do to build like an email list or connect with people in person and all that kind of stuff? I think that's huge. That's really wise. And because you're right, rented space is a good way to say it. At any point, you could lose that following. So building your own email list is huge if you can do that. Also, working with your local libraries to host writing classes, writing groups. I've done some of that and it's so fun. That's where I have found, you know, my own writing clients and things like that, is because that in-person connection is so effective and it fills me up in a way that social media doesn't always. And so I think it's important to fill your well as an author. And basically, as an author today, whatever route you go, traditional or self-pub, you have to be an authorpreneur. Like you have to be an entrepreneur. And so this is part of it. It's like how can you um gather your people and find your people? Some of them are on social media, but some of them are, you know, in your community, and that's where you can have real effect. And one nice thing about social media though is that it's moving away from the fact that it used to be that you have to post every single day stories and feed all the time, the more the better. It's moving away from that and more into quality over quantity, which I love. Like you can start an Instagram account tomorrow, and your reel could get more views than any of mine ever have, having been on social media for 10 years, right? And so it's anybody's game. It doesn't matter like when you're starting, where you're starting. What matters is your content and really speaking to your people. And if we're talking to authors, your reader, your ideal reader, like speaking to them. And and I actually I love following Rose Cliff Literary. They're just like a nice no BS approach to publishing. And they talk about what they look for when they're looking at author platforms, and they love to see just people being themselves, yeah, and uh not only talking about writing and talking to writers, but showing your real life, like just like the simple everyday cup of coffee, it's a hard day type of stuff. You know, I think you do a good job of that. It's just like show yourself, not just the writer self. Um, don't be afraid to be you. Um, and also for me, like moving away from talking about it like I'm creating content, reframing it to I'm serving people, I'm trying to offer value, you know. So that helps me a little bit too when I feel the uh fatigue that comes from showing up online consistently. Truth. I feel like that's such a great reframe of like it's serving people and it's like it's part of our gifts, right? Like I feel like we're here to like help others create magic um and hopefully inspire them to take that action um in in their own writing because uh it's just it's it's so interesting to see, and you maybe you have had a similar journey of just like how how long we hold ourselves back to take that leap to start that book, uh, because you know, list however many excuses. I know you were chatting about um like a course that you were teaching about about that. Um and I'd love to hear a little bit more insight about like how I know you work with with writers, of like how you help them kind of like overcome some of those like pretty common fears or sort of blocks that they they might struggle with. Yeah, that's a great question. So some of the things I hear most commonly when I ask people why they haven't written their book yet, the top one by far is I just don't have time, which actually I understand, but it's also a false pretense because we all have the same amount of time. It's just about what you prioritize, right? So I don't have enough time, is number one. Number two, and and along with that, I think sometimes as writers, we think in order to have writing time, it needs to look like being alone in a cottage by the sea by myself for a month to write a book. You're just like, no, that's not real, especially for us mothers. Like that's just so ridiculous. So it is learning to find your own writing rhythm, much like you were saying, show up online in a way that works for you, not the other way around. Show up in your writing life in a way that's catered to you, not some pretense that you think it has to look like. So there's always a way to fit it in, whether it's voice memos on your phone here and there or just jotting things down in your notes. Maybe it is getting away for a weekend so you can really go deep, or it's reaching a certain word count. For some people, that works a daily or weekly word count. It looks different, there's no one right way. You've just got to find what works for you. So yeah, people say, I don't have enough time. People say, I don't think anyone will care about my story, or I have imposter syndrome. I'm not a writer. Who I'm a bad writer, actually. Who am I to think I can write a book? Um, those are those are some really common ones and and people get stuck. Um but all of all of these excuses are are quite boring, to be honest, and they're pretty predictable. But what's not boring is your story. You probably have a really interesting story, I think every human does. And the only difference between, you know, published authors and those who are wannabe authors is finishing. You just have to finish it. And the reason, the real reason we don't finish our books is because writing can be hard. It can be really joyful and playful and fulfilling, but it can also be really hard. And so once you recognize I am going to get stuck and I am going to hit some hard points in this process, but I'm going to push through them anyway and write crap sometimes and just get it on the page and keep going. Uh, even if I'm just dragging myself through the mud, like as long as you can just keep going, you'll finish. And and and it's just getting that draft down, letting it be messy, not being perfectionist about it, not self-editing all along the way. And then once you have that first messy, messy draft, then you can go and revise and make the magic. So, so yeah, I think that's um that's what I tell these writers. Um, and the second thing I tell them is about writer's block and resistance, because that's what these excuses are, right? It's writer's block resistance, and we all say, I just get stuck. It's part of the process. But here's the thing I've learned about writer's block is that it's it's a construct. It's actually it actually truly was invented by this poet who talked about getting stuck and talked about how inspiration is fickle and it comes and goes, and you have to catch it in order to make work that's worthy. And then writers, poets started adopting that language, and then all writers started adopting that language and all creators. But really, it's not true. You can't sit around and wait for inspiration. 99% of the time, I don't feel particularly inspired, I just do the work.

unknown 20:00

Yeah.

Comparison Traps And Voice

Readers Want The How

Query Strategy And Resilience

Hybrid And Vanity Publishing

Where To Follow And Closing

SPEAKER_01 20:00

So so overcoming that that idea of oh, I just wait till I feel inspired and then I write, you're never gonna get the thing done, or at least I wouldn't. So um yeah, and and the third thing I say is just writer's block happens when you're not connected deeply enough to your story. And so I help writers get reconnected to their story. And for me, that looks like going to your manuscript every day, pretty much. Um, and even if it's just reading a paragraph and thinking about it, or you know, writing one paragraph or writing for four hours, however, however it goes, as long as you're having that touch point with your story every day, it recruits your subconscious to be thinking about it. And then you're it's like hiring an assistant when you bring your subconscious into the process, because then you're going to get that inspiration, those little bits of inspiration throughout the day, and you're in your story, you're immersed in it. Whereas if you're disconnected from it, of course you feel blocked because you don't even know what you're dealing with, you're not in the world of it. Does that make sense? It's kind of just like an you know, immersing yourself in the story is the way around feeling stuck and writers. Yeah, definitely. I feel like that's so it's so interesting because I've kind of, you know, let this draft kind of sit for a bit. And there's that like real resistance of like, oh, like I want to get back into it, but the fear of the like all of the stories kind of like come up of just, you know, I my writing's not gonna be good, like all of that, and I can see it and I know that it's happening. Um, but it is so interesting of those simple things of just like you just need to start that staff, like just start doing it. And I know that it can be so easy to fall into that comparison when you're reading such amazing stories, but like you don't know what draft that is. Number one, like how many rounds of editing did they have to do to get to that version? And I guarantee you, they, you know, even the best-selling authors are like, I pretty much probably think this book is crap, but it's it is what it is. Like, there's no way around that. I think that's one thing that I've really learned is that you can't really get rid of imposter syndrome. It's just kind of there. It's just you just need to learn how to tell it to like, okay, we're sitting in the backseat, you're not allowed to drive the car today, guys. Yes, I love that. I love that perspective because it's true. We keep thinking we have to, we have to kill the fear, we have to kill the resistance, we have to kill the imposter syndrome. No, you can't. Like it's we have this vision in our heads of the Beyoncés of the world who, oh, they don't lack confidence, they don't have self-doubt, like they just go out and get it, and they battle with the same stuff we do. Every human does, they just push forward anyway, and like you said, consign it to the back seat and say, I know you're here. All right, fine, I guess you're coming on this road trip, but I'm making the decisions here. So I love that. It's great advice. Definitely, and I think it's it's good to remember that, like, I know, like you you touched on of that fact of like, oh, like, is anyone gonna want to read my book or it's been done before? And I think the reality is, yes, it probably has been done, but like never by you, right? And there's a reason why trope marketing is like having a moment, right? Like people like to predictability, uh, we like consistency. That's why we read a particular genre because we kind of know what's gonna happen roughly. Obviously, there's gonna be some twists and it's gonna like be different depending on the author, but there is that sort of, you know, just it it makes our brain, I think, as humans, feel safe, kind of knowing some level of what's gonna happen. So I think that's good. That's okay. Um, but how you view the world and your characters and the way that you write that story is gonna be different. And I that's what readers fall in love with, right? So yeah, it's it's it's hard though, because it can there's a lot of noise sometimes. So you really gotta be mindful of how to turn it off. Totally, and just push through it and find your find your voice for sure. But I love what you said about yeah, it probably has been done in some way. I was talking actually right before this to someone I'm helping with her novel, and she's telling me about the love interest in her book because there's a strong romance plot in it, which we love. Um, and it sounded a lot like uh Mr. Darcy but a warlock, because her book has witches and warlocks in. And I told her that. I said, Oh my gosh, it's like Mr. Darcy but a warlock. She's like, Yes, and we were talking about that, how there's a reason that trope, the Mr. Darcy trope, has worked for hundreds of years, right? And so these to your point, the tropes are great. I wouldn't worry about something being like something else. In fact, I think that's to your benefit, especially if you're trying to get an agent, because they want to see a comparable, they want to see a success story of that kind of story. But what's unique about your story is like you said, Victoria, like you're the only one telling this through your lens. And readers want to see the how. That's what intrigues them. It's not just the what, because they already know the what on the back cover of the book. They can read what's going to happen, more or less, right? They just want to read about how it happens. Just like us as humans, we all know, like we all wake up, we breathe, we eat, we die, right? Like we know the story of humanity, but we are so fascinated by each other because of the how. How do they live their lives? How do they eat? How do they do these things, right? And so it's the same with these stories that we write. They're reflections of humanity, and we're fascinated by them because we want to see how they do the thing we're doing, the life thing, right? And so, yeah, there's I think I hope that helps people feel less like, oh, do I have a good idea? You really just have to go with it and run with it and tell it in your own way. Um, because, and I was listening to this really excellent podcast episode from Akimbo with Seth Godin, and it's called uh There's No Such Thing as Writer's Block. It is so good. I highly recommend it. And he talks about how um let's see if I can find my train of thought. He talks about how um what were we just saying? It was so good. Uh yeah, like just talking about like I guess that writer's the writer's block, the story that your story is like matters and all of that sort of like fun, fun magical stuff. Yes, it's been that well, yeah. I'll just leave I can't find the exact thought, but I'll just let him say it. I recommend that podcast because yeah, the writer's block thing. Oh, I know what he said. He said you just have to make an incredible amount of mistakes and you just have to write a lot of stuff. That's how you close the gap between where you are and where you want to be in your writing. So just gotta do the thing. Just keep writing, you'll get there. So true, so true. Uh, I'd love to hear a little bit about the querying process. Like, how has that been? And how have you like what are some things that maybe you've done to prepare yourself for this? Because it it can be a process and it can't, it's not always quick. So I think that's sometimes the hard part. Um, and there is rejection involved. So uh yeah, I'd love to hear a little bit about like how you navigate that and stay inspired to keep keep going. Yeah. So to be transparent, this is my third time querying a novel. I've written three novels and this is my this is my third. So the first one I queried and got a lot of full manuscript requests, which is, you know, a sign that you're on the right track, you're getting closer. I got a lot of positive feedback. Um, but in the end, this agent who had found me online and said, Oh, I really connect with your voice. I'm invested in your journey. Send me your manuscript when it's ready. And I did, she advised me, I got a small press offer for that book to get it published, but I decided to decline it because this New York agent said, I think you can do better. You're going to have a long career as an author. I would, I would set your sights higher. And, you know, I could have listened, not listened to her advice, and that could have been a great path. But I decided to listen to that and write my next book. So I wrote my next book, and it's this one I was telling you about that tried to be a rom-com, but really I'm a women's fiction writer. And so um, that one I queried that same agent and it just a small handful of others, and again, got responses. But this agent had her intern read it and she read it, and she said, Well, I think it's it's straddling that line. I want you to lean in, but you're closer. And so then I pulled it from the market. There were people who were requesting the full manuscript, and I said, Actually, never mind, I'm not ready. I want to fix this book. So then I shelved that. Now I went to grad school and I I wrote my, I just wanted more help. And so I I ended up getting that. And I wrote this book over the past couple of years, and this is the one I'm querying. So, so I have a list of agents in an Excel sheet. That's how I do it. I you have to research each agent, right? And I have these columns that have their name, how I how I submit to them, and then any notes about them, personal notes, because you need to personalize your query, right? So it's like I listened to her podcast and she said she's looking for women's fiction with complex female characters. So I make these notes so it's easier for me once I go with my query in hand to personalize and pitch to these agents. So that's kind of my step one. And then I divide my agents into A list and B list. So I have the ones that I really, really would love to work with and others that may or may not be a fit, but I still would be thrilled to work with them. So I start by sending out to my B list agents and then wait and see if I get some feedback and see how it goes, see how the responses are going. So that if I want to implement any feedback or if I keep, if I want to keep tweaking things, I can before I've pitched to my top agents. Right. So right now I'm about 18 agents in. I think I've gotten maybe four rejections. I'll I'll just tell you fully like I I in my previous two books, I was getting way more responses. And I'm talking to authors in the industry, and they're like, yeah, it's just kind of how it is now. It's not to discourage, but it's it's hard. It's hard to be seen through this flash pile, right? And so I think that's part of it. I think my book may be more niche. Um, and so, but I'm only 18 in, and my goal is to get to 100. I want to query 100, which is a totally reasonable request because it's a numbers game. Like the chances that my book, A, that people see my email in the first place, and second of all, that they everything fits, because agents only take a handful of new uh authors every year. So you just gotta go in being aware of the odds and the numbers, but also knowing that many, many authors break through the slush pile and get picked up this way. So it's absolutely worth going through the process. So I'm I'm in a good spot because I'm not um devastated by rejections. I see them as a step closer to my goal. So I know my agents out there, I'm just waiting to find her. So I've kind of stopped querying um because I'm busy with other things and working with clients, but I I will continue to send out. I'm just trying to decide now if I want to continue to send now that we're closer to um the holiday breaks because agency start to close down. So I'll probably send another little wave and then I'll pause until after the holidays because January is a great time to query. So that's kind of where I am. I love that. I love that. I think that's such a great way of looking at it. And I mean, a number of the authors I've chatted with that have got um like Trad publishing, it's been like it's like you said, it is a numbers game. It's a big business. So the reality is, is they need to find you need to find the right one that has the ability to sell it to the publisher, right? And it has nothing to do with your writing. Uh I like typically if you're, you know, putting the time and the effort and like listening to feedback and all of that sort of stuff, it's just about finding that right person. And that can be frustrating because sometimes it can take longer than you want it to. But I think it's just trusting that process is a big part of like you just need to trust, you're like, it's gonna happen. It just might not be when I want it to happen, but it's going to happen. Yes, you gotta, you gotta believe that in order to keep going for sure. So I have a question for you, Victoria. Have you are you very familiar with hybrid publishing where you pay? Okay, so I'm not ultra familiar with it, but I have seen, I've just heard more about it lately where you share the cost or you might front the cost of production or share it with the hybrid publisher, and then you maintain most of the royalties, but they take a much smaller cut than a trad publisher would take. Have you have you worked with any authors who've done hybrid publishing, or do you have any input on that? I don't know a lot about it, so I just wondered. Uh yeah, that one has been that I feel like that's a hot topic in like the author world of like, you know, you don't typically want to pay for that kind of stuff. I haven't looked into it like a ton. I do know, like, offhand of like acquaintances who have, that's what they've opted to do. Um, I don't know if it's good or bad in terms of obviously if you're self-publishing, you're fronting all of the costs, but then you own everything. So there is no royalty. So I don't know if there is like if it is a better option for that. I've found most of the authors I work with um or have connected with have either gone trad or self or they've self-published and then got an agent after. Um, so yeah, you know, that seems to be kind of the the way. Um, I feel like that just if you're gonna pay anyway, I'd rather retain ownership completely. So I don't know. I've I've heard some not so great things about some of those, but then I've also heard it's been good. So I don't know. I haven't really looked too much into it either. Yeah. Um, but it's worth looking at it to see. I just I think it's kind of emerging too, because I think there's a lot of these companies that I would be worried about getting taken taken advantage of and it being a money grab. Sorry, I just feel that way. But maybe there are some companies that are more reputable and have those connections and can can genuinely help you beyond what you could do yourself. I just I don't know about them yet. So if they're in there, I want to hear about them. Yeah, definitely. No, I've I've definitely heard a lot of like kind of like stay away from the vanity publishers kind of yeah. So uh that's sort of where I've I've kind of like like I'll either self or trad and we'll see where that goes or what will happen. So I love that. Well, it's been so lovely chatting with you. Um, I would love for you to share how people can follow along your writing journey and obviously get in touch with you and you know connect with all of the wisdom that you have to share, because I feel like you've got so much writing wisdom. Oh, thank you. It's been so fun to talk to you. So I'm mostly on Instagram at talkwordy to me. And I also am on Substack, although a little less. So I do have a Substack publication called Wayword, um, W-A-Y-W-R-D. Um, and yeah, and I have a website, talkingworty.com, and I I share a newsletter from there as well. So I would love to connect with authors and writers. Amazing. Well, everything will be linked in the show notes, so it will be super easy for people to click through and find you and obviously follow along on the query journey, because that's always exciting. Um, but yeah, I feel like I learned so much. It was such a fun time to like meet in real life, I say in air quotes, because it's sort of real life, but like it's always cool to like see the face behind the Instagram. So I feel the same. It's it was so fun to talk to you. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. And if you really loved this author, I highly encourage you to go check out their links and comment and share their work because let's be real, as an indie author, all that stuff makes such a difference. And if you're feeling a little stuck on your draft and just want some gentle accountability, check out my one-to-one offers that are linked in the show notes as well. I'd love to support you with your writing or editing journey. And if that's not quite where you're at, I've also put together a really amazing free resource to help with taking your writing to the next level because there are so many amazing resources available without needing to spend a ton of money or get that MFA or all of the things that you may think that you need in order to write a book. Until next time, keep writing your way and trust yourself enough to tell your story. Because I promise if it's coming to you, there's a reason and someone needs to hear it.