Author Intuition, Balancing Passion Projects, and Mental Rest with Aimee Robinson

316 / What does it take to trust your intuition as a writer—and how can you find true joy in the crazy unpredictability of publishing? Amy Robinson shares her path from medical editor to romance novelist  and the power of mental rest for authors.

✨ May Pod-Pal Shout-Out: Two Authors’ Podcast - Wheel of Life with Adrienne Giordano

• Trusting your intuition instead of following all the writing “rules”
• Redefining success and making family a priority
• Learning from (and letting go of) others’ marketing formulas
• Finding joy with passion projects and creative freedom
• The importance of mental rest and slowing down

*Don’t miss the Supporter Episode: What Asian Dramas Teach Writers About Conflict And Emotion. Become a supporter to get all 20+ supporter episodes: 

https://wishidknownforwriters.com/support or https://wishidknownthenpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

• Access to backlist of exclusive supporter episodes
• Shoutout on a future episode

⚡Links:

• ✨ May Pod-Pal Shout-Out: Two Authors’ Podcast - Wheel of Life with Adrienne Giordano
• https://www.aimeerobinsonromance.com/
• Two Authors’ Podcast: https://pod.link/1671876768
• Create Summit: https://createsummit2026.heysummit.com/?ac=ScVPVkA8 (Affiliate Link)
• Sisters in Crime Writers’ Podcast: https://pod.link/1565859080/episode/MDEyNWVjMjctNDRiYS00N2JmLWIzYjMtYWU4MTdjZTY0NmU3
• MBP S7 E3: From Miss Marple to Modern Cozies: A Guide to Amateur Sleuth Mysteries https://www.buzzsprout.com/1311757/episodes/19071210
• Healer, Competency, and the Bodyguard Trope with Aimee Robinson https://www.buzzsprout.com/2435348/episodes/16967375 

Transcript

Cold Open On Writer Intuition

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I wish I had known that, like, hey, girl, you don't need a list. You don't need someone to give you a checklist intuitively. You know what you're looking for. And it's okay, like to trust yourself a little bit more. I remember like some of the like when I was writing my first book, I like remember the moment of all right, they're all happy, but I know they can't stay happy. Something has to break them apart. Like something bad has to happen. I had no idea that it was called Dark Knight of Soul, the Black Moment, or whatever. I had no idea what the words were. I never read Save the Cat, Romancing the Beat, any of that stuff. But I knew you just intuitively know.

Sara 0:45

Welcome to the Wish I'd Know Men podcast. I'm Sarah Rosette.

Jami 0:48

And I'm Jamie Albright. And this week on the show we have Amy Robinson.

Sara 0:53

Yeah, it was a fun episode. It was. We talked about author intuition and taking a break to do a passion project and how important rest is, all those good things. And we had a lot of fun. We laughed a lot too.

Jami 1:08

Yeah. Think we're silly as goose poop. You might want to skip this one. I don't know.

Sara 1:13

No, it's good. There's a ton of good information in it. We talked about learning to trust yourself and finding joy. Yeah, it was really good. Also, we will have when this episode comes out, we will have a supporter episode that it's just me and Amy talking about what we've learned about writing tips and inspiration we've gotten from K-dramas or Asian dramas. Jamie didn't stick around for this one. I don't blame her because you would have not really enjoyed it. Amy is a big K-drama fan too. So we kind of geeked out about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Yeah.

Sara 1:42

So that will be on the feed. If you want to support the show, you can get that and the other 20 plus episodes that are the backlist for the support episodes.

Jami 1:52

Yep, that is really great. I the last thing I need is another addiction in my lobster. So maybe it's better that you don't do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we're gonna do a QA episode. So we're still taking questions through this week. If you have a question or you just have something you want us to talk about, just text us or you can send an email. But text is the easiest, probably, because it's brought in the app.

Sara 2:17

Yeah. And then we this month we're doing it's the May PodPal shout-out with the Two Authors Podcast. So we're listening to their episodes this week and talking about them a little bit. And they're listening to ours and talking about them. And you know, this will go out next week. So you can go back in this feed and find this one. This week they talked to Adrine Giodano, I believe. I hope that's how you say it. She's in Giodano, yeah. She's an author and a book coach. And they talked to her about this wheel of life that she uses to help people get their life in balance. It was a really good one. It was some a lot of the topics that we talk about today, actually. So it'd be a good match for this one. And it's worth it alone just to go listen to them speculate about the possibility of having a Murphy desk. Like instead of a Murphy bed, you have a desk that folds up and is put away at the end of the day. So you stop working.

Jami 3:10

The way their brains work sometimes is is uh fascinating to me.

Sara 3:15

It is the link for that will be in the show notes if y'all want to go check that out, or you can just find on your podcast app.

Jami 3:20

Do that, do that. We talked about it last week, but the create something, you can still, I think, get tickets now that if you didn't listen to it live, you missed the free thing, but you can get tickets and they're not that expensive. It's and gosh, I've I've gotten value out of it. I've heard other people talking about how they got value, how they've gotten value out of it.

Sara 3:44

It's been excellent. I went to a couple of sessions and really got some good tips. Some of it was craft and some of it was like marketing and like how to do things more efficiently. It's just really good. I'm really glad we did it. And I have another session today as we're recording this. We did our session on the first day.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Yeah.

Sara 4:03

Right. Yeah. And we were there for the QA for the chat. And then there's one coming up this afternoon that I'm doing with Jennifer Hilt. We'll be talking about tropes today. As you listen to this, it will have last week. We won't be talking about tropes last week. But anyway, it's very helpful. It's very good. Lots of good information.

Jami 4:20

What I like about it is, you know, we recorded our session, but then the recording is going on, people are asking questions in the chat. So like you can answer in real almost in real time, you know, to what you're saying. And I don't know. I just I thought it was really great. Yeah.

Preorders Reviews And Staying Zen

Sara 4:38

Yeah, I think it's helpful because then if you're trying to do it live, you can't really monitor the chat. And if people have questions, and then if you leave time for questions at the end, sometimes it's not enough time. This has worked out really good. So got anything going on this week? Got any updates? Oh well, I have a few.

Jami 4:54

It's getting towards launch time, isn't it? So you have a lot. It is. I put my book up on NetGalley on the 28th. What was that, Wednesday? And I have like 80 people who I've approved to read and review it. 63 that I did not approve because you know you it's really important when you're when you're on there to pick the right people. So that was good. I got my first review. It was she she was a librarian. She 100% recommended it to libraries. The first sentence is something like, You need this in your book, your summer book bag. Three stars. And the three stars was a gut punch. Now I had heard. But now you know the reality. I had been warned and did did I prepare myself? No, I did not. So yeah, that you know, and everyone though is saying, like, three stars is a solid review on NetGalley, but it was hard. I mean, it was hard, but it was good because the next day I got a five-star from a book talker. But it was good that I got that because it was a reminder that I just writing this book is the win. That's the win. I wrote a book, I wrote the book to honor my sister, and I did in writing it, wrote did the second hardest thing I've ever done. The first being watching my sister die, the second writing about it. That's the win. And I just need to remember that. And, you know, also after I got the five-star last night, it just was such a reminder again that, you know, reviews are just opinions, they're just people's opinions. And I have worked uh really hard over the last, you know, I don't know, 10 years to really not let people's opinions of me bother me. Like that's their business, it isn't mine. And the same is true of reviews. That's just, you know, you could get a good one today and a bad one tomorrow, a bad one tomorrow and a good one, or just a mediocre one, you know. And so I think that, you know, everyone has permission to remind me. I just said that, but it when I crash out at some point, I'm sure I will. But yeah, that that happened. I put the book on Goodreads giveaway. It went live on the 29th. As of right now, I think I have like 3,000 entries. And the most yeah, the most I've ever had was like 1,789, 1,800, you know. And I have 2,945 now. And that is that was like the 1,789 were over two weeks, a little over two weeks. This has been a couple of days. So yeah, very, very glad about that. That's very happy about that. Right now on Goodreads, because of that five-star review last night. The book has a five-star review rating because that's the only one that's been, you know, that's come. And I really want to take a picture because that never happens on Goodreads.

Sara 8:24

For posterity, just take a picture for posterity right now.

Jami 8:27

Yeah, I'm just gonna for posterity's sake, I'm gonna remove the one rating, one review kind of thing and just take a picture. But yeah, so that's that's it. I I bit the book is live, it's uh pre-order is up, and I had to do that to get to do the contract with my narrator, you know, to get that started. So I was gonna put it on pre-order on Monday, and so I ended up doing it on Thursday night. So it's up, and I'm about to I think start running. So I think I don't know. I think I had as of last night, like five pre-orders. I'd put it up yesterday afternoon, which totally happy with that. I'm telling y'all, I'm trying to be as very zen about it.

Sara 9:13

You're trying to be very zen.

Jami 9:15

I am not good at it. Yeah, five pre-orders. I am not good at that, but you know, I don't want to go back. I miss, you know, I still miss all the success and all, you know, selling books all the time.

Sara 9:30

I mean, you wouldn't. I mean, exactly.

Jami 9:32

It's a great feeling. Yeah. It's a fantastic feeling. What I don't miss is all the anxiety that came with that, and I don't want to go back to that. There's no reason to do that. And if if the lot if any I've learned anything over the last four years, it is that there are things way more important than my book sales or yeah, you know, my ads or anything like that. So I'm trying to stay very calm and zen, and the right people will find this book, and hopefully the wrong people won't. I've tried really hard to structure the blurb and the everything else to repel the wrong people.

Sara 10:09

Well, I think that this is a good intro to go with this episode today because Amy does talk about realizing that it's not what other people are doing should not impact her and how she has kind of let that go and she's doing her own thing. And it's really hard to separate ourselves from our books. I know that when somebody gives a bad review to my book or they just have something they didn't enjoy and they take the time to email me and let me know, you know, it's like it is like a gut punch, you know. So it's really hard to separate that out because it's so close to us.

Jami 10:45

Also, I have a prohibitive conscience. So, you know, anytime anybody says my name with the slightest little bit of force or anything like that, I'm like, oh crap, what have I done wrong? So, you know, getting a review, a bad review makes me immediately go, Oh, I messed up. But that's not what I did.

Sara 11:03

On the the review thing though, I wanted to say I had not heard this, but I was listening to a podcast today and somebody was talking about Netflix. And remember, they used to have the rating that you could do and they got rid of it. And they said, and I don't know if this is this person's speculation or if this is really true, but they said that they got rid of it because people wouldn't want to rate, like, say they're watching something that would be considered trashy TV. Yeah, they wouldn't want it to be known that they rated that five stars and watched that instead of like the classic, you know, Schindler's List. That's really what they enjoyed. But they wouldn't want to show that to the world and and that they would rate maybe not watch Schindler's List, but rate it higher because that's more kind of like having the best-selling nonfiction book on your coffee table, but never reading it.

Jami 11:52

Yes, exactly.

Sara 11:53

And I was like, that is interesting. I haven't thought about that. But reviews are different because people are usually for books, they're usually writing their review and writing their thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Yeah.

Sara 12:02

But it is just a system that it's also personalized. Two people can read your book and say, that was so good. And one person will rate it five, another person will rate it three. Yeah. And somebody else will be like, that was so good. One star. They mess up.

Jami 12:20

Yeah, I mess up. That's true. That's true too. Well, I yeah, I think that I'm gonna use the pool quote. I'm gonna quote having it in your summer book bag. That that's a great quote. So yeah, I mean, again, again, it is not a reflection. I've won I've already won. Everything else you have.

Sara 12:41

I mean, if you think back to how you felt a year ago when you were thinking, well, even when you first thought about writing this, you were like, Ah, I just don't know if I can you didn't really even know if you could write again, write another book, if you even wanted to.

Jami 12:55

Right.

Sara 12:56

You know, so I mean, that's quite a change.

Jami 12:59

Yeah. So it even if the book is a three-star book, I never thought I'd write a three-star book again. Like, I I honestly did not know. So that is where I'm trying to keep my head. I I know me and I know I will fluctuate, but if you hear me whining, you're you all have permission to remind me that I said this.

Sara 13:19

We'll cross stitch it and frame it on the wall. Yeah, yeah.

Jami 13:23

What about you? What's going on with you?

AI Dictation Cleanup And Podcast Updates

Sara 13:25

This week has kind of been kind of busy with the summit we did with Monica doing that, and then I have the one coming up with Jennifer Hilt, and then I've had a couple of podcasts come out this week, and then we record a couple podcasts because I'm going out of town next week, so we're working ahead. I've also been doing some writing. Yeah, nothing exciting about that. Just well, I did use I was going in doing dictation, and then I was going in and using AI to clean it up, you know, to do the punctuation and stuff. And so I went into Claude and I said, Hey, I keep doing this over and over again. Can you create an agent or something that will do this for me? And I said, I want it to correct the spelling and punctuation, not change my words at all, no changes to what I'm saying. And if something is unclear, just mark it as unclear and leave it as it is, as best you can. And it said, sure. And it created this little thing. It's got a text box at the top where I can paste the text in, and then it's got a text box, text box at the bottom where the output comes out, and it's working. And I was like, look at me. I created an agent. Look at you, Smarty.

Jami 14:35

Yeah.

Sara 14:36

Well, not me. Yeah, I know.

unknown 14:39

Yeah.

Sara 14:39

But anyway, so that was pretty helpful and cool. That's about the coolest thing about my writing this week. I'll tell you about the two podcasts that are out this week. The Sisters in Crime Writers Podcast is out. And that is a deep dive that I did with them about my writing habits and mysteries. And if you're interested in that, they have my podcast is out this week. I'll put a link to the show notes in the show notes for it. But they have a long backlist, interviews with all kinds of authors who write all kinds of mysteries and thrillers. Then I'm trying to do my mystery books podcast monthly, trying to do one a month because I figure that's probably good. Instead of doing, you know, seven all at once and releasing them over seven weeks. If I do seven and spread it out, you know, that's half a year. So the one that came out last month, it's a guide to amateur sleuth mysteries. So this is a podcast for readers. And uh it's it I list some of my favorite amateur sleuths and some of the things about the genre. And then I mentioned the trope book because I talk about amateur sleuth stuff in there. So if you're interested in amateur sleuth and kind of want to dig into that, I'll put that link in the show notes. And oh, I said I would also put in the link for when Amy, our guest today, was on my K-drama podcast because we talk a lot about story and structure and character and writing and craft on that podcast as well, because it kind of lends itself to it. K-dramas are pretty similar to books and the way they're structured, you know, like long-form content. I think that is all the links that are in the show notes.

Newsletter Deal And Show Booking

Jami 16:12

All right. Well, that's good. Two things I wanted to say. One, if you've contacted us about being on the podcast and we said, yeah, we want you, but you haven't heard from Adriel, that's because we are booked. We are booked up. So she's gonna start sending out invitations in July. So we haven't forgotten about you, but we we're just we're just booked, which we're grateful for. Yeah, and we're glad. Yeah, exactly. And then two, the book my book is on pre-order now, if you're interested. However, if you're on my newsletter, there will be a link to get that book a week early for a very discounted price, three dollars less. Then I'm gonna sell it for my, but only if you're on my newsletter can you get the link. So you can go to my website if you're interested. If you're not interested, you know, I don't care. As we've discussed, anyway, you're not my audience. So yeah, but yeah, that's it.

Sara 17:10

Okay, good. All right. Well, should we get on with the episode?

Jami 17:14

This it's a long episode and this is a long intro, so get a snack.

Amy Robinson From EMS To Romance

Sara 17:20

All right, here's Amy. Today we are really excited to have Amy Robinson here. Hi, Amy, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Hi, I'm great. Happy to be here and chat with you guys.

Sara 17:29

We're very excited you're here. Amy Robinson used to drive ambulances and write for medical publications, but instead thought it better to lie for a living, as many of us do. Years later, she's entrenched herself in a choice and couldn't dig herself out of it, even if she tried, even if those dangling modifiers continue to get her every single time. After publishing many romance novels, two things remain true. She'll never miss an opportunity to give a voice to the characters in her head. And she still has very specific preferences when it comes to a good, dry martini. She lives in New Jersey with her family and a shepherd rescue who doesn't know what personal space is.

Jami 18:06

I've got one of those too. Oh, we not a shepherd. Oh gosh. Well, tell us how did you get into writing, Amy?

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Well, I will say I've always been a words person. I can't say I always knew I was gonna be an author, but um words always came easier to me than numbers and like math and science and everything like that. So I had started off on the journalism track. I was a journalist for a while for trade publications, medical editing later on, and medical writing. And then it just was like, you know, I just needed a change. And I uh I knew I always wanted to work in writing in some capacity, but man, journalism just wasn't it for me. And it took like a really long time to realize like, I think I'm the problem. Like, I don't think it's actually all these different, you know, publications or media that I work for. I think this is just not a good fit. So I left that for a while, took an office job for nine years, had my family, loved working there, and then and then COVID hit. And during right before COVID, I was planning a family reunion for my husband's side of the family. And I had decided to do a genealogy project for his from one of his one of his relatives that I found was really interesting. And I had planned this whole family reunion. We were gonna get a big house down the Jersey shore, we're gonna have people come from all over, and COVID killed it. So I was sat, I was flustered, and I I was sitting with like all this information that I had done for this project on my my husband's family. And I'm like, what do what do I what do I do with it? I can't just like like I because I was gonna do this big presentation and it was gonna be like you know, I had like a thing. I had a point of thing.

Sara 20:02

You could just abandon it, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:03

I could, no, no, and then put too much work in.

Sara 20:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

You know, I I am I am stubborn. I'm stubborn. So I remember that a while back my uncle had done some genealogy research on my family, and he had he had written it, told that, told a narrative of it, had it published with like shelved with the Library of Congress, like as an official genealogy record. And I'm like, what if I kind of took what I'd learned and maybe wrote a book about it? But because I am not an academic, in no way am I an academic, I love reading romance novels. So why don't I see if I if there's something here that I can tell a story out of that felt like I wasn't giving up on what I had learned, but also making something really fun and enjoyable. And that was it turned into my first book, which was a time travel romance, and it was kind of like the main character goes back in time to like solve this mystery of her ancestors' untimely death. It wasn't really a mystery, but it was just like the starting off point for how can I tell an adventure story that had that was deeply rooted in romance where she goes back in time, she meets this wounded warrior, she does all the things, you know. And it just, I loved it. I loved it, and it just that was that was it. I'm like, I think I want to do this now. I think this is what I'm gonna, this is like this felt like a very comfortable outlet for me to you use my brain in a way that I loved and um where I didn't have to where it was just something that I could control and and yeah, the rest is kind of history there.

Sara 21:48

Did that become a series? Yes, a series you start.

Success As Flexibility And Family

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Yeah, so my first book was called Charmed by the Past, and that became a trilogy, time travel romance trilogy. And it was the first the first books that I wrote. And I actually the one with when I published the third book in that trilogy, that was when I left my day job. And I became a full-time writer after that. And it was, you know, for all the ups and downs, it was still the best decision I've ever made. And yeah, I've just been writing ever since.

Sara 22:26

This is a good point to ask our next question, which is what is your definition of success?

SPEAKER_00 22:32

For for a long time, and I'm still gonna this is still up there, making sure your my bills are paid. You know, that's like a big one. That's a big one. You can't ignore it. But for me, I wanted to have more flexibility so I could see my family, see my kids. I had two kids at the time. I have two kids, and at the time where I was working, man, the commutes were long. It was, and I'm in New Jersey, so the traffic is like horrendous. There's tons of people in this state. And it's a very small state, too. It's a very small state, but like, yeah. So I always have an hour commutes each way, and there were so many times I just like, you know, if there's a doctor's appointment, it or if like I'm stuck, I can't get there. It was so stressful. And after a while, I my husband and I sat down and we're like, what are we doing? Like, what are we doing? Like, we're working so hard, we're out, we're away from them more than we're near them. And it was just it was like a decision we made where hey, even if we need to live on less, like we're gonna choose this, we're gonna choose to live on less if we need to, so that we can be a family. And I could actually put them on a school bus. Like that was crazy to put them on a school bus, like not be in after before care, after care for like, you know, 11 hours a day or whatever.

Jami 24:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

So that was the impetus that was like, okay, how can I write full time? How can I do this? How can I make this a good fit for our family? And and that was that was that was the thing that was the driving motive motivator. But yeah, like making sure all of our bills are covered. And that's that, yeah, that that would that would be a marker for me for sure.

unknown 24:24

Yeah.

Jami 24:25

Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, I mean, time with your kids, you're not gonna get back.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

I mean, I had them. I won them.

unknown 24:33

Exactly.

Jami 24:35

Might as well spend time with them. Might as well do life together, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Yeah, I threw away the receipt. I can't say that. Like, they're here. Yeah.

Jami 24:46

And you know what's if if these last you know, three, four years have taught me anything, it is that you know, time is the one thing you cannot get back. Yeah, that is everything else is negotiable, but time you cannot get back. And yeah, I mean, I I completely get it. My my kids used to say, because I stayed home too. I I didn't write because I didn't even know I could until later. But you know, I did all kinds of part-time at-home jobs kind of thing. But you know, they used to say we've never been to Disney. I'm like, yeah, and you've never been to daycare either. So, you know, there you go. It's a trade-off. There you go. Not that there's anything wrong with daycare, but I just say it. Uh, that's that's a trade-off. You make you make decisions.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Jamie, we just got back from Disney. It's literally the world. Because we never would have been able to do this trip if I had still had my day job because of the time off. The scheduling. The scheduling was a nightmare because the yeah. So we were like, my husband and I were like, let's just plan this trip because we can do it now. Like, let's do it. So we literally just got back. We went like first week in first week this month, and we literally just got back. So it's so funny you say that.

Jami 26:03

That's so fun. My kids are jealous listening, and they're adults and they're listening to this. That's funny. Well, what do you wish you'd known about riding in craft?

Craft Without Checklists Or Rules

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Okay. I wish that I would have just trusted my intuition a little bit more. So I I love a list. Give me a list. Give me a list, give me directions, give me step by step how to do this, and I will follow it. And I did that a lot. So, with my first book, when I decided, hey, I want to write, I'm gonna turn all my notes, I want to turn all this stuff into a time travel romance. I've never written a book before. How do I do that? So I did, I can't like looking back on it, it's like, who does this? So, what I did was my I was a big fan of time travel romance, and my my favorite author in that genre is was at the time was her name's Jessie Gage. And I said, Well, I'm just gonna send her a message on Facebook and say, I love your books, big fan. How do I write one? How do I write a book? Would you believe she got back to me? And not only that, she's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Oh, that's great.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

We developed a friend, like it turned into this wonderful conversation. She sent me like her brainstorming documents, like how she does, how she outlines her like short-term, you know, short, short-term goal, long-term goal, goal motivation, conflict, like her whole out how she does it. We developed a friendship. She read, you know, some of my early drafts, the future books. I read hers. I got to meet her when she came to New York City to visit. And it turned, but in in no world does that work where like you can just don't. Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that. And then I've always like since then, I'm like, I still have this like urge to follow a list, even when I realize that the lists don't entirely work for me. Like, are you guys outliners at all? Or do you can't? Yeah. There is, but I'm not.

Sara 28:10

Rough lists. Like I have a list in my head. Like as I go forward, I'm like, okay, this has to happen. This has to happen. But it's not like a document that's clean and neat and that I can go, oh, now I'm at point A7 or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

I just see I'm I kind of in between you two, I would say, in terms of how like I like I like having what is it? What was it called? Like points on a map. Like these are the big things that I know need to happen. And I have no idea how they're gonna get there in in between, but I'll figure that out as I go. But there's still this like innate part of me that feels like I'm supposed to be following a list. Even when Theodora Taylor came out with her universal fantasy book, I was like, great, seven figures. It's a list. It's yes, yes, yes. Thank you. It's a list. And I I made a document. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna have this butter moment, this butter moment, this butter moment. And intuitively, I just like abandoned it and just started writing the book again. And then the same thing when Jennifer Lynn Barnes did her like psychology of fiction, where she had all these, I'm like, great, another list to follow. And again, I did it, but I like kind of abandoned it halfway through and just I knew how to tell a story because I had read so much. And I think you know, writers start out as readers, I feel most of us do. And I wish I had known that, like, hey, girl, you don't need a list, you don't need someone to give you a checklist intuitively. You know what you're looking for, and it's okay, like to trust yourself a little bit more. I remember like some of the like when I was writing my first book, I like remember the moment of all right, they're all happy, but I know they can't stay happy. Something has to break them apart, like something bad has to happen. I had no idea that it was called Dark Knight of Soul, the Black Moment, whatever. I had no idea what the words were. I never read Save the Cat, Romancing the Beat, any of that stuff, but I knew you just intuitively know you've read enough, you know how it has to flow. So I think I probably would have liked to trust my intuition more.

Jami 30:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

That I that I knew what I was looking for. Like I knew what I would want out of that story.

Jami 30:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

But it was still funny.

Jami 30:28

You were the reader, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Yeah, if you were the reader, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jami 30:31

Yeah. I you know, on my phone, my screensaver on my phone is uh I've said this before, but I'm gonna say it again because there's some people that may not have heard it. But it's a quote by Ray Bradbury and it says, Your intu intuition knows what to write, so get out of its way.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

So that's great.

Jami 30:46

Or get out of the way, yeah. Yeah, so and it's so true. You if you just dial into that, you do know what to write. We make it harder than it needs to be. I mean, really, don't get me wrong, it's hard, you know. It's hard, it's very hard, but you still your intuition knows, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Yeah, it's it's just like trusting yourself. But I will say, when I was a new writer, learning to trust myself was the skill that I had to figure out how to do over the years. You know, I couldn't I couldn't say like it's it's easy for me to say like, oh, just trust yourself. I mean, you know what you're reading, but like I did in the beginning, you don't you don't know, especially if you're used to, you know, following directions or if you're used to writing, I don't know, like if you come from a writing background and you're writing like technical documents, or if you're used to certain procedures in your writing, it's easier said than done for sure, but I would have I would have loved to have been it, I think it would have made the pro made a little bit less friction in the writing process. Like yeah.

Sara 31:54

One thing that's really helped me is Becca Steim talks about certainty and how certain strengths seek certainty. That's one thing that I've realized that it slows me down because I'm like, I'm not sure where I'm going. But she said, go ahead and push into that and go ahead and write it, even if you're not 100% sure. And I feel like it's like pushing into the dark, like I feeling around you, like when you get up in the middle of the night and you kind of know where everything is, but you're hoping you don't run into the furniture. It kind of feels like that. But it always turns out, like it always comes, the words come as I go in this the story. So yeah, the intuition is it's it's a process to learn to do that, right?

Jami 32:35

I've also gotten myself in trouble about following my intuition. Let's let's not it's not all 100% positive, right?

unknown 32:43

Exactly.

Sara 32:45

What about marketing? What do you wish you'd known about marketing?

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Oh man, I would say that it is how do I say this? Okay, it is none of my business how somebody else runs their business.

Jami 33:00

No, girl, preach.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

And I only can say that after trying everything under the sun. And I'm not just talking like, oh, I try this for for a month, I try this for two months or whatever. Every you know, widely known marketing tactic in the self-publishing space, I'll say, I have tried for each one for like a solid year at a time.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

And on different series, different books, different starters. And the thing that always I kept chasing is those perfect little screenshots in those writer groups that have the numbers in them. And the numbers like have a lot of zeros at the end, and they have you know, and man, you know, I realized that I don't have all of the numbers in that equation. All right. Yeah, they're they're present, you know, and and like I I'm happy to have my pom-poms and cheer on other people. I love seeing authors like get success, but I don't have all the numbers in the equation that they are presenting. They only show me what's on the other end of the equal sign. I don't know how their brain is wired, I don't know what their daily schedule is like. I don't know if they're care providers for a parent, a child, a dog, or whatever. I don't know if they are how many words they can write a day, how many days they have, they do it full-time. There's so many things. I don't know if they're what they're how much they spend on average. That's it. That's the warm Jamie. You know, I don't know. There's so many things I don't know. And I was for so long, I was just seeing these numbers of um like what's possible. And when you're new, you're like, yeah, because you if you can see it, you can dream it kind of thing. Right, right. And there was hope that's like, hey, you know, this can be really a wonderful career if I can if I can get things right. And man, you can you can drive yourself crazy trying to live off of someone else's formula. Like it was just hard. So I'm at the I I went through like a period of kind of like reflection. So there was a podcast with Amy Award on spa girls, and she talked about how she was launching launching a brand new pen name. She was a paranormal romance author for a lot of years under another pen name. She was launching a new pen name of contemporary sports romance, and she writes like plus size romance where the heroines are plus size, writing a brand new pen name, and she was talking about her experience of launching it with with the Spy Girls, and it just blew up in the in the best way. Okay, best way. And the hosts were, and they're like, I love listening to them as well. Like they're wonderful women to listen to, and I learned so much from them. And they were saying, Well, you learned so much from your your 10 years of publishing under your paranormal romance name. Like you had like a wealth of experience and knowledge and resources, and you were an excellent writer. And I've never heard anyone else say this, and I'm so happy that Amy Award said this. She said, Essentially, I'm paraphrasing, you guys are so kind. Thank you for saying it. But there was an element of luck and timing that happened here. I could never have predicted that literally the same month, I think it was down to like the same week or two that she launched her football romance was the same week that Travis, Kelsey, and Taylor Swift announced they were dating. And, you know, the the drive for sports romance at the time shot up. She hit it. And I was so appreciative of hearing someone say, Yeah, I worked really hard. I worked hard at writing, I worked hard at marketing, I did all the things I could never in a million years have predicted that this was gonna hit at the same time. And when I heard her say that, uh it was it was such like a mindset shift. It really was, because this is an entertainment industry and it is fickle. Yeah, you can you can do you can do everything right. You can do so much right, like buy the book, you know, a list. I love my lists. Uh you can do everything right. And I mean, I just think about all the writers who were. I've heard so many stories. Um, maybe you guys have heard similar stories where they had a you know dystopian novel uh coming out uh like the second week in March 2020, you know, or they had some sort of like human plague kind of thing happening, and the timing was like awful, and you just you can't know those things, and it it in no way diminishes the work that you've done, like it in no way diminishes any of that. But once I realized, like, man, I can do everything right, I can write the best story that I'm so proud of that hits all the marketing beats. I can do, you know, I can have spot-on ads, I can have brilliant marketing company, I could, I could hire so many like a social media manager to run everything, I can do all the things, and there's still an element that's out of my control. Man, when that when that like sank in for me, it's like, you know, I'm just gonna tell the stories I want to write, do my best, you know, do all the things, but you know, there's if there is an element that I can't control here, then you know, I rem it reminded me of like, hey, why did I start writing telling stories in the first place? Because I had a story I wanted to tell.

Jami 39:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

And I'm just gonna, I'm gonna keep that in mind as I move forward. Because there's stuff that you can't control. And it was so, man, it it totally changed changed how I thought about everything, how I moved through my my business day by day. And it also like so there, you know, people push hard work, like this phrase hard work. And and I, this is gonna sound like I'm an idiot, and I promise I'm not totally, but I don't know what that means. Because is it mean a certain number of chapters a day, certain number of words a day? Is it a certain number of hours? Are you spending like half of your day writing and then half of your day marketing? And that means you're working hard. I don't know what it means. I was like spiraling with it, and I'm like, man, Amy Award was totally genuine when she was making these comments, and it's like, yeah, I'm just gonna write my books. And if I see that books are taking off, then my marketing efforts will amplify that. Sure. But just you know, staying in my comfort zone of writing the stories I wanted to tell and and trusting a little bit that, like, hey, you you can't predict everything. There's there's some elements that are out of your control. It it really was a game changer for me.

Sara 40:18

Gives you a lot of freedom in a way, right? Just to kind of, like you said, lean into what's working and focus on that and write the stories you want. I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Yeah, and I've been so much happier because of it. Like it's it's definitely improved the amount of joy I experience in this career because it can be a grind, it can be very solitary. You know, you you're man, it's got high highs, but it feels like it has really low lows also. And so any place that I can find joy and like it that enforces it, amplifies it, it was like, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna live here now.

Unhelpful Advice Sprints And Series

Jami 40:58

I'm just gonna live in this. It's a really good place to live. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, what's the most unhelpful advice you've ever gotten? Unhelpful advice.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Oh, okay. I have um I'm going through like you could come up with one. Rollodex was rolling, yeah. Yes, yes, I was gonna say Rollodex, but I'm like, do people know what Rolodexes are anymore? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

We do.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

I mean, there's a lot of it out there, you know. The the big like the big ones of Becca Sim, who I adore so much. I adore she talks about anytime you hear the word just, like just write for 15 minutes or just do this. It's implying a skill set that someone else has that maybe you don't. I had tried writing sprints really a lot. I I writing sprints are not for me. I'm very high focused. So like I love a good long stretch of time, I'm talking hours, uh, for me to really get up to steam. And every time I tried these like writing sprints of like 15, 20, 25 minutes, I hated myself. I hated the 10 words I managed to get on the page. I hated everything about the experience, and I hate and like everyone that I was sprinting with is like, I got 1100 words, and I'm like, great, I got 10. And I'm gonna delete them. Learning that, you know, Becca says, question the premise, but also it's okay to realize when what someone something is working for someone else, you don't need to jump on that if it really feels wrong to you. Sure, it's okay to try, but but that's like the big one. The the nitpicky piece of advice that I got a lot that was totally unhelpful. Oh, I got this from so many people. Like it's not even like at least half a dozen people or more over the years had very strong opinions and talked to me about series length, how many books it should be in a series. So you should have one book, you should start with one book, but you should just keep writing book ones over and over again because you want to see if it's gonna hit. But you can't just make money on one book, so you have to have another book because you need someone to go there. But who's just gonna read two books? Duologies are not that big. You need a trilogy. Trilogies are the sweet spot. It's readers like it, it's nice and short, but you're not gonna get enough money from the read-through. So four books is good. Four is good to make a number, but four is a very superstitious number in a lot of cultures. Like there are entire cultures that won't go anywhere near things that are divisible by four. So that's out. Five is a good number, five is excellent, but it's not quite long enough to support your career. You want one of those big, meaty eight, 10 book series that, but you can't sell them on Amazon. You need to sell them on Kobo and you need to sell them on your Shopify store, you need to sell them everywhere. Oh, it was so exhausting. I'm not saying the advice was garbage. It works for everyone. You know, everything, everyone has their own thing. But what you're just like, hey, I have an idea. For a book. And then it spirals into how many books is it going to be? Have you thought about how many characters you're going to have? You can't just do one, two, or three or seven or ten. You know, you need to have an anger series that's got 15 books, that this is going to be your IP, your breadwinner for the rest of your career, that you can do spin-off series of for the rest of your writing years. It was so silly and exhausting. And I'm not like I'm obviously cracking jokes here. I'm making light of it. And it's not like a main worry that I think a lot of authors have. But it was one of these things that just was like everyone I talked to had a different idea of what the ideal series length was for them. And they all had different reasons. And, you know, there are people who, hey, I finish a book. If I don't see it's hitting after two books, I'm done. I move on. And other people are like, no, you need to wait at least three to five books before you see if that series is getting going. And then you make your decision. So it was in the end, I walked away. I'm going to write what I want to write and see how the length plays out, see how much time I want to commit to a series. Because one of the things right now is I kind of am in the process a little bit of writing a few book ones because I wrote a standalone and now I'm starting a new project. And writing book one after book one can be very like cerebral. You're creating a brand new world over and over again. And I kind of just want to sit in like an established world for a bit. I don't know how how long are your series? Like what lengths are your series? What are your what's your ideal spot?

Sara 45:37

Well, I think that's the long series. Yeah, I think it depends on genre because mystery readers, they love that episodic, you know, this can go on for 20 books, but that's a lot to take on as an author, you know, especially in the beginning when you're thinking, oh, I'm gonna write 20 books in this series, maybe that's a lot. But for me, my series tend to end up like six to seven books, is what they've been in the past. You know, that I feel like that's a good place for me. I'm trying a trilogy though, so we'll see how that goes. Yeah.

Jami 46:10

I have five books in one series and two books in another. So, you know, and then I and I just wrote a standalone. So, you know, who knows? I've stolen very little, very few rules.

SPEAKER_00 46:22

Yeah, like think for the people it matters to, it's important, it makes them feel good. It's work for them. Yeah, exactly.

Jami 46:30

Yeah, um, and we all because this business is so out of our control, we want to feel like there is something in our control, and that's one of the things you can kind of control. So I get it. I get why people say it, but yeah, it's true.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

Yeah, and and I know like I'm also I'm a completionist, so I have to finish the series I'm writing. Oh, yeah. Even if like the numbers are telling me, oh, after book four, they're kind of falling off and it's not as I'm very future focused. So I know, and I've also been burned by so many like beloved authors who like they stop writing in the middle of a series, and I'm like, uh, I know that hey, even if this series is losing steam right now, I'm gonna finish it. I'm gonna finish it because if I don't know, like Ann Hathaway is photographed on a beach tomorrow reading one of my books, and I have to revisit this series that I stopped writing three years ago, yeah. Uh I won't be able to get back into the into the series.

Sara 47:38

That's not gonna happen, right?

SPEAKER_00 47:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't even remember these characters. I don't even think I like these characters anymore. Like, who the heck knows? Exactly.

Sara 47:45

Exactly. Yeah, Jamie and I have talked about this. Like, once we finish a even a book, once we finish a book, those that's done. Those characters, even though it's a series, like they're dead to us.

Jami 47:56

I agree. Like, I feel like my life has several before before and after moments. So before my sister's death, yes, I was I was a completionist. Like I was all on that bandwagon. Like, you need to finish a series, like I because you never know what'll happen in the future.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

Yeah.

Jami 48:16

But I was two books into this this series that the the series that has two books, and then my sister died. And now I I don't know that I can go back and write that series. Like I am a different person now. Right. There are things that are different. I don't know that I can do that. I might at some point, but but I've given myself the grace to go, you know what? Two books is two books. And and it it's not like I left anybody really hanging. It was a little hanging, because you know how you do when you're setting up another book, but it's nothing major, and I don't really owe anybody anything. So right.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

And it's not like George Martin, where he's like that last book of Game of Thrones, and he ain't gonna write that thing.

Jami 49:02

Yeah, exactly. So just to give some people like I do agree with you, but yeah, but there are extenuating circumstances sometimes. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

Yeah, and there are people too where it's like, hey, I'm in this for the money, and this is a business, it needs to be profitable. I wrote two books in this series, it's not hitting, I'm moving on, and that's perfectly valid, and like everyone has their own circumstances, and you know, there's only you can say what's right for you. Again, this is also going back to like the marketing talk, the ad talk. It's like if if you need to only you know your own equation, you know, you know how much you have to give to a project, you know what you're willing to risk, and you know what you hope to have on the other side of that equal sign.

Writing The Hanukkah Hoax For Joy

Sara 49:49

Nobody else can tell you that. Well, I want to go back to when you were talking about the freedom and the joy of writing, you know, kind of releasing some of those. I must do these things, I'm going to do this thing I want to do. And you have a holiday book that I think that does that kind of fall into that category that you wrote it because you wanted to?

SPEAKER_00 50:08

Yeah. Yeah. Tell us about that. That was sure. So I wrote it, came out last October. It's called The Hanukkah Hoax. It it was truly a passion project for me. And I knew that going in. I had my expectations set, you know. I had just gotten out of a long series. I wrote a paranormal romance series that was eight books. And I was when I'm when I was writing that series, that it was at a pace that was not uncomfortably aggressive, but it was a productive pace. I worked to deadline, I worked to pre-order dates, like it, I was at a, you know, I built in time for vacations and whatnot, but I was moving. I was moving. And then I finished this series. I'm like, man, I don't have anything immediately that I need to do. Like, no, I tied everything up. There was no characters waiting for me. I didn't have, I hadn't promised anything that I needed to deliver on. And I'm like, rather than start a new series, I really think I just want to tell a story that's not like on brand necessarily. And I don't even know what like that. I don't have like my brand is me, it's my author voice. It's like, it's just me. That that's it. I don't have, you know, I I do write in different genres because that's how my brain worked, different sub-genres of romance, because that's what's comfortable for me. But I just I wanted to have a little bit of a passion project where there was no no pressure, no, no pressure, no one waiting on anything. And this particular project was I was so excited to tell because I got to tell the story of a woman who she's a Jewish woman, but she's not like she is more she's more secular. She is just like any other heroine in a holiday winter winter, northeastern winter, you know, snow winter kind of holiday romance novel. She just happens to be Jewish, she happens to celebrate Hanukkah. It wasn't the the onus of her identity, which sometimes when you are reading or writing about groups of people that are not as well represented in fiction, sometimes you there can be a risk of like, oh, the character has to explain why she is the way she is. Why does she exist? Let's ask her all the questions about why you do what you do. And it can be really exhausting. And it's like, can't she just fall in love? Like, she's just a person like anyone else. And and this was the project where I just let myself just dream a little bit. Yeah, it was a fake dating romance, holiday romantic comedy. I really got to lean into the comedy here, which was so fun for me because I love I love the snark and sass and like a little bit of that dark humor. Um, just from my background, when I did EMS, you kind of get a lot of dark humor, gallows humor, pick pick up on that. It's not like it's still all completely appropriate for a romantic comedy, but it I just got to lean into that a little bit more. And I it's so it's a fake dating romance with where she has to enter into an arrangement with a Scottish rugby player who as one does. As one does, right? Like, come on. Totally. And I because like you're you very rarely see and ever, like ever, exactly zero times do you see like a Jewish girl get a Scottish rugby player? Like that's not happening. And and he has like a giant 230-pound mastiff dog who's going with that.

Jami 54:01

I didn't know where you were going. I was a little worried.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

Editing, editing.

Jami 54:12

No, that's say it in.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

A dog, that's what I was trying to say. He's a giant dog, 230-pound dog, who like loves her and hates him. There's just like that big animal sidekick, companion thing. And I just get to write all the humor. And I, but still having like those, like just like the cozy winter holiday vibes. Like she is still like she sells Christmas for a living. All right. She's she runs a candy shop. She runs candy shop. Christmas is her is her her holiday for money. And her her she has to get out of the out of the black or out of the red, black. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. And it was just so fun. It was, it was like so rewarding. Because I feel like, man, every now and then, like when you have the opportunity to write a passion project, like and you're not putting pressure on yourself. And you have, and like also you set like the right expectations if you are doing this as a business. So if you're writing as a hobbyist, do you do you? But it was really freeing to go into this project with the right expectations and the excitement to tell a story that you maybe don't see on the shelves so much because there is not as much representation, to just lean into all the funny, all the you know size puns, Jamie.

unknown 55:38

Whatever.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

Yeah, it was it was a blast. And it's not like any of my other books in the in a sense, like it's not supernatural, there's no magic in it. And I was worried initially, like, I've only ever written books with magic. Is this gonna be like weird? Are they not gonna and then I'm like, you know, I just gotta write this for me. This one book has to be for me right now. I'm in a point where I'm not committed in any sort of contracts or series, so I'm just gonna do my thing. And I loved it, it was so wonderful. I got to do it, I have to tell you, so that book I did my first in-store book signing for. I'd never done a book signing before. It was so great. It is a bookstore in central Jersey called Charmed and Bound, and it was the it was New Jersey's, it was central New Jersey's first romance-only bookstore. And so I was their first signing author because they had just opened up like the month before, earlier in the month, and it was it was so awesome. I have like you know, zero regrets for going particular, you know, you know, going off the rails a little bit. Side quest, yeah. Yes, yes. Thank you. That's what I was trying to say. Yeah, it was highly recommend.

Genre Blending And Fish Out Water

Jami 56:45

So speaking of side quest, but like you, so your book, so time travel with paranormal, which really time travel is paranormal. Yeah, you're only getting there one way, uh and getting back if you get back. But tell us about like what was your what was behind the decision to kind of blend the genres like sure.

SPEAKER_00 57:06

So I have two two full series. First was a time travel romance, the second one was a paranormal romance, and a long time I was a very new writer at the time, and I I really was like, I want to write paranormal, but I wrote time travel. Is that gonna mess people up? Are people gonna like, no, you gotta stay in your lane, you gotta do, you know? And then I I'm like, I didn't at the time I wasn't like, you know, I have readers who I loved who were who were wonderfully supportive, but it's not like I was calling over or something where it's yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you go write crime fiction now or whatever. And it's like I, you know, I was still new in my industry. So like, well then if I'm ever gonna have a time to play around, this is gonna be it, where there's low risk, and I can kind of tell some fun stories. And specifically, Jamie to your question when it came to like the magical elements, the supernatural elements.

SPEAKER_01 58:05

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 58:05

I my my first my first literature love, my my favorite kind of trope niche of all time is a fish out of water trope where the heroine has to rely on she's she's in some sort of circumstance that's brand new to her, and she has to rely on the hero to navigate and get her out of it. And you know, that I will eat that up. I I will order a dozen of them. I want the subscription box, I will be there forever. That is like what got me into like those kinds of stories. I just love those, the fish out of water story so much. And so I was I was a fan of those two genres. Like I just was a fan, you know. You start, you know, you you that's I think that's kind of normal. Like, yeah, you write what you like to read. You write what you like to read. Yeah, yeah. And I just I I started there because it was what I enjoyed so much, and it was like it also made it made those specific subgenres make it so easy to add tension. Like you have built-in tension, you don't, it's not character-driven so much as hey, the the main character is in a setting that is unfamiliar to them. How are they going to navigate this? Who are they going to rely on to get them through? Are they going to rely on themselves? Are they going to have to, how are they going to navigate? It's, it's like, it's built, it's like set and forget in terms of, hey, how can I jump off a story? And it was really, I think like for newer writers, if they're ever interested in kind of like that speculative side of those sub-genres, it it's fun to play in because it it starts the because the conflict is not character driven initially. It's it's plot driven. It's from the, you know, the element of time travel or the element of like, hey, I just realized they're like fallen angels are real and I'm stuck in this battle. Like I had the wrong place, wrong time, and now these demons are after me. And like, what's going on? I was just buying groceries a minute ago, you know? Yeah. There's a whole world I didn't know about. It makes it so like there's like a jumping off point. You don't have to think about the initial conflict. That's already inherent in the genre expectations, and it makes it fun to like imagine, okay, well then how is this story gonna play out? I don't have to worry about the impetus, I don't have to worry about the inciting incident so much, other than like how I'm going to arrange it. I know it's gonna happen. And then it's it's almost like a roller coaster, like you're you're up the hill already, and now you can just kind of like lean into how the story is gonna unfold naturally, and it's really fun. I I just love those those genres.

Mental Rest And Slowing Down

Sara 1:00:52

That makes me think of we had emailed back and forth about this. One thing you wanted to talk about was mental rest, what to do. Is was that what your holiday book was? Was that a mental break for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:02

The holiday book that was definitely part of the mental reset for sure. And like I said, I was at a point where everything was wrapped up, so I felt comfortable with just playing. Yeah. Um, I wouldn't have felt comfortable if I still had some open-ended uh things. It was literally a, you know, things happened at the right time. Like all the things kind of had to come together. And and even now, you know, Holly books have been out for you know since October. And I'm I'm working on a new project and it's it's still really freeing because I am choosing to work a little bit slower. It's freeing, but it's scary, you know, because we're so wired for productivity. Like we're so I don't know if it's like an American thing. I don't know if other cultures have this. I don't think they are as crazy as we are, but if you're not you're not moving, you're you're losing, you know? Like why why are you just what do you mean you just you know spent like an hour and a half watching a K drama? You should be writing. Like, what are you doing? So it's it's very strange. It's strange. It's definitely the opposite of a lot of the I'm not gonna say advice, but I feel like you just it for me, I needed to to reset a little bit, kind of figure out where I wanted to go without the pressure. And I'm writing a new a new series right now, and it's great to just dream a little. And I but it's here's the thing though. I I'm a former journalist, I write to a deadline. I write to a deadline, and it's I I'm doing all the things that Becca Stein tells you not, tells like would tell someone with my strength specifically not to do. And it's definitely taking longer. I don't have deadlines because right now this the nature of my life requires me to be flexible. So I'm choosing to not set editor deadlines and cover deadlines and all that stuff. But man, it's hard, it's so hard. It's taking me so much longer, but I'm not saying it's a it's a bad thing. And I feel like you have to. But it's nice to kind of learn how to balance what it feels like to work in a state of rest with that and learning how to temper the frustration of I should be doing more, but do I have to be right now? And I also recognize I'm coming from a a privileged place where I'm able to take this rest.

Sara 1:03:36

Not everyone is able to do that, but sometimes if you're if you feel like you don't take the rest, then you're forced to do it. Yes, I was just gonna say that.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:47

That is, yeah. Yeah. And it's for me to like consciously take this, take a rest a little bit. I feel like everyone needs a rest day, even when you're going, if you're like even going to the gym, you know, five days, you know, seven days a week, you still need a rest. And what I've really been sitting with is this idea of like Becca Syme has been talking about like the four predictors of success in the author industry. It's like hard work, talent, or skill, luck, and timing. And when you realize that those last two, they're out of your control. I'm still gonna write the best book I can write. And who knows what's gonna happen 10 years from now? Who knows what's gonna happen? And just realizing, like, hey, I don't have to be on this hamster wheel right now. Again, it's different if I was in the middle of a series or if I was, you know, had commitments or contracts or something like that. But it is if if someone is able to build in a passion project into their schedule and work at a slower pace, even just for a little bit, it it's kind of like the, you know, your your rest day for workouts is a rest day for your for your mind and not having those deadlines and learning how to work at a slower pace. It has done a lot for me. I go on walks a lot, I listen to lots of podcasts. You're you guys is one of them. Like, I've I've stepped back from a lot of the heavier marketing podcasts and started picking up more podcasts on just straight writing and craft from all like any writer, like writers from the traditionally published, like all over, and just listening on YouTube, listening to other talks about writers. And then when you hear, like, you know, traditional publishing is a is a different career path for sure. But man, when you hear how long it takes a traditional published author to write, it's like, hey, you know, uh, me taking a like a few weeks off here is not bad. It's not bad at all. So, in line with that, Brandon Sanderson, he had done, he teaches a class at the university out in Utah. Oh, it's the big one. What's it called? Brigham Young? I think so. Yeah, I think this is like a class on writing in science fiction and fantasy. And this past year. They filmed it and they put it up on his channel. And the last at the end of the the class, he gave his final thoughts. One of the lines he said, and I'm gonna I'm gonna paraphrase because I don't remember it exactly, but it was essentially if you're writing a book, you are an author and I consider you a colleague. And that impression, you know, whatever you you think about him is you know, that's not the but the impression that I was left with is there's no it's not a race, even though sometimes it might feel like a race, and we're all still in this, like we're all still in a very fickle entertainment industry. And we are just colleagues, like because you know, one like one of the one of the phrases that again, you know how like I went on my gripe about I don't know what hard work means because I'm yeah an idiot that way. I also uh there's another phrase that indie authors tend to use more than traditionally published authors, I've heard, is like baby author, the phrase baby author. And that's another one that I don't know what it means. Is it an age thing? You are physically younger than someone else. Is it a you don't earn as much as someone else? You haven't been publishing as much. Is it someone who who hits like with their debut, they hit the lists? Are they a baby? Because they've only had one book, but they're bringing in big books. I don't know what that means. And I think at the end of the day, we're all just writers, we're all just colleagues, we're in the same industry, and it's good. It you know, I'm very happy to like hold my pom-poms, cheer on whoever is having the success because this is a hard freaking business. It is so hard. And the ones who who keep writing, the ones who stick around, who keep writing, those are the ones I love learning from. The ones who are still doing it, still here. I love learning from them. And slowing down's been nice. Slowing down has been nice. And I'm getting to the point now where I'm like, okay, you know, I'm feeling like, you know, when you feel like, all right, I've had enough rest.

Sara 1:08:02

You're ready to get back at it.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:03

I'm almost approaching that that point, but I think it's important. At least it was important for me. Yeah, it was important for me. And I get to see this is unrelated to that, but a lot of these principles that have kind of helped me through this were like things that Becca Sime has taught and her Clifton Strengths coaching. And I get to meet her for the first time this summer. Have you guys ever met her?

Jami 1:08:24

Yeah, yeah. You have. I get to we're like this, we're like this with Becca. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:31

So she was our first guest.

Jami 1:08:33

She was our first, she's the reason this podcast even exists. Yeah. Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:37

I love that. So she she had a Kickstarter recently, and I I backed it because I'm I'm a very selfish human and I wanted to meet her. And um, one of the tiers was to have her come to where you live and do a pop-up event there. So she's coming to Jersey in August, and I am so excited. I'm gonna try to not like jump on her head and like hug her.

Sara 1:08:59

You're gonna have so much fun. It's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:02

Um, yeah, it's like me, you know, it's like meeting meeting an idol or something like that. Um, gonna try to like, yeah, oh, that'll be fun. It'll be great.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:12

It'll be great.

Jami 1:09:14

Well, we love this has been so great. We love to ask all our guests, what do you think the best thing you've done to set yourself up for success has been?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:22

For me, I will say that this is directly related to my editorial background because I was an editor and writer in a lot of capacities for a lot of years. But I my brain is very detail-oriented. And whenever I write a book or do any sort of project, that thing is buttoned up height before I abandon it completely and never look at it again. So, meaning I have all of my links are quadruple checked or whatever. Like my links go to things that will never change. My reader magnets and my bonus epilogues and all of that stuff is it everything is in a very tight loop so that I can abandon it and know that if someone picks this up five years later, it's still good to go. Like it still is tight, and I don't have to think of like, oh, you know, I never wrote a I never did a reader magnet for that for that book. I always write a bonus epilogue for my books. It's just another little quick scene, usually something fun and snarky, and I tease it at the end. At the end, my back matter, I have like, you know, here's the next book, and then here's a fun scene, and thank you for leaving a review. And I just make sure it's complete. And then it sometimes it takes a little more work in the minute. It's like, oh, I really don't want to write another scene. I'm done with these people, I'm done with these people. But you know, just I push through for a little bit just so that I know, hey, that thing is set, and that's gonna bring me in readers on its own when I when my brain has moved on to like to you know the next series. And it yeah, yeah, even if you don't want to, like in the moment, it's like it's like kind of eating your vegetables sometimes. You know, it's like oh, yeah, do it, but it'll yeah, future me will thank me.

Where To Find Amy And Goodbye

unknown 1:11:14

Yeah.

Sara 1:11:15

Well, this has been so fun. Tell everyone where they can find out about you and your books and all your stuff you've got online.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:21

Sure. The best place to find me is at my website, Amy Robinson Romance, and you can sign up for my newsletter there. I do send that out regularly. The social media media, I am there, but I am less active there than I am on my newsletter, especially when I'm currently in the middle of a project. If I'm writing, I tend to put my focus on that. So yeah, sign up and all my books are available at all retailers. I'm a wide author, so you can get them anywhere.

Sara 1:11:48

Okay, great. Good. Yeah, we will have all those links in the show notes. Thanks for listening today. If you've gotten value from the podcast and like to send some value back our way, you can support us at wish I'd known for writers.comslash support. And don't forget to check out the two authors podcast this week as well. And we will see everybody next week. Bye everyone. Bye. Bye.