Episode 115: [Heather Bryant] Letting go after publishing your work

Elizabeth Wilson chats with author, Heather Bryant, about her experience publishing & marketing her book My Transparent during the pandemic. It’ll help you remember all of the creative ways you can use to get your book in the hands of readers. 

 Welcome to the Inspired Writer Collective podcast. If you've ever felt the pull to write your truth, to shape the chaos of real life into something meaningful and to share your journey with the world, you're in the right place. We're your hosts, Elizabeth and Stephanie, writers, coaches, and entrepreneurs who believe in you and know how important it is to find a writing community to guide you on your path to self-publishing.

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Transcript

Elizabeth Wilson 1:19

Welcome back writers to another episode of the Inspired Writer Collective podcast. I'm your host Elizabeth, and I'm joined today by Heather Bryant, who is the published author of a book called My Transparent, and this book came out right on the heels of the pandemic in May of 2020. So today we're gonna be talking about how that impacted. Heather's publication process and marketing of the book, and now she's working on another book, so she'll be sharing about how that process is similar and different from the previous one. So welcome, Heather. We're so excited to have you join us today.

Heather Bryant 1:54

Thank you for having me.

Elizabeth Wilson 1:57

So tell me a little bit about what that was like. Like we work so hard as writers to get our books out there, and, and I, I know you traditionally published, so you had that publication date probably set a long period of time ahead of time. Right. And then the pandemic happens. Lockdowns happen, and you know that book is supposed to come out. What, what, what was that like?

Heather Bryant 2:22

Um. Yeah, it was definitely an adventure. I remember contacting my publisher to ask if they wanted to postpone the publication date. I had been working with my editor all the way through the process. Um, he had. He knew it was my first book, so he wanted to see chapters as I was going and he would have suggestions for how to shift my voice or um, ways that sort of, he also envisioned the book to develop. When this big bomb dropped and the pandemic was happening, I thought, well, they'll definitely wanna push it back. Um,'cause I knew the date was May and I thought the whole world was focused on this global pandemic and I just thought they'd wanna change it. But he said, no, no, we're going forward. And so I very distinctly remember I was living in New York City and uh, know, when the box of the books came to my door everyone was. Still, um, pretty much on lockdown. And so, there I was with my brand new book and, the box arrived and I got to open it up, which was very exciting still. but it very much felt like it was happening inside a little capsule or cocoon. Like this book was coming out people were hearing about it, but. I was very much still in this sort of pandemic experience and so, um, it definitely shifted my vision.'cause originally, um, I had planned to visit every town where, where I had interviewed someone for the book. And I thought that would shape the book tour was going around the country visiting every single town. And instead, I got to have this. cool launch on Zoom. I, at the time, I was teaching a writing workshop Shakespeare and Company Bookstore in New York, and, the bookstore hosted the launch, um, virtually, And the cool thing about that was that, uh, people got to come from all over the world. So I had people, from London, from, um, different countries who would never have been able to make it to New York for the launch. Um, that got to be there. And it was a big lunch, like 130 people or so, which, you know, talking to a friend whose novel just came out. Um, you know, it's tricky getting people to come to the live events. So, that was really cool to have this huge group of people on there and there was a lot of great energy. Um, but it, it did shift the whole experience. I mean, especially that Zoom launch. You know, I remember I had friends who came over. And helped me with my background and preparing, and there was all this stuff about the virtual component, like I set up this, um, bookcase behind me with the books on it, and we did this whole virtual stage upstairs in my place. there was just a lot of kind of focus on that, and then the excitement of the launch itself. And then when the launch ended, suddenly, you know, I closed my laptop and everyone was gone and it was very funny. Because a friend called me right after, like, how do you feel? You

Elizabeth Wilson 5:56

Yeah,

Heather Bryant 5:57

it was very surreal to have it all happening in that virtual space. So that was kind of the, yeah, the initial push of it. Um, but it

Elizabeth Wilson 6:05

it's so funny to like.

Heather Bryant 6:07

vision.

Elizabeth Wilson 6:08

Think back to a time where we didn't know how to set up our backgrounds, right? Where that was like a new thing where you're like, how does anyone do this? Where Zoom was not second nature to everyone, you know? Because it really developed, you know, through the pandemic. And I think, I love this story because I think it just highlights that like, there's so much love and energy and creativity we, we put into our books, but at some point like. You just don't have control. Right? Like it, what's gonna happen is gonna happen once you like click publish and it's out in the world. And I, I know I feel a lot of pressure get as I'm getting ready to publish to like. Curate the event and, and, and, and try to make the most of the presale window. And, and what kind of promotions am I gonna do and what kind of marketing am I, am I gonna do? And it's just a nice, like, reminder, Heather, that like, at the end of the day, there's a, there's so much that's out of our control and you just have to go with it. I love that you've been able to. Really find a bright side of it that, you know, more people from other places got to join in with you. I've debated about whether I was going to include any kind of virtual launch in addition to the one I'm doing in our small town, but I, I don't know. What did, like I, when you had your virtual launch of it, did you read parts of the book? Like what did you, how did you entertain when you're not able to just like, work the room and, and mingle?

Heather Bryant 7:42

That's a great question. Yeah, I, it's interesting. I reached out to a good friend of mine, um, Bethany Heus, who runs the writing barn in Austin, Texas, and asked if she would be the mc of the launch. And that helped a lot just because I had parts of the book picked out to read, but in a way she kind of. Then drew the questions from the audience and filtered those and picked out the ones that she thought would be the most interesting. And, and she really led the conversation then, and I think that helped a lot to just have someone be a part of it, someone be in conversation with me, who I really admire as a writer who had been with me through parts of my writing process, who could also, um, really engage with the audience and see what was going on in the chat and all these things while I, so I could just really focus on sharing the story of the book and sharing, know, little pieces of the, of the story itself.

Elizabeth Wilson 8:55

I think yeah, that's genius. So that you don't have to be, you know, that person, the spotlight can be on you, but you're not also having to run everything in the background. That makes a lot of sense.

Heather Bryant 9:05

Also a lovely woman from Shakespeare and Company, uh, Francoise, who I'd known through, um, teaching a course. She also was hosting on behalf of the bookstore. So it ended up being kind of. double host. So she was really just introducing and then sharing where the book could be found. And then Bethany was, very much the mc and then, and then that just freed me up so I could focus on just engaging around the book and, and the, and the story behind that.

Elizabeth Wilson 9:35

Yeah, and like you said, that's such a great turnout.'cause it can be really difficult when you have like a finite time for people to show up whether they're actually gonna show up in that moment or not. Um, of course this is gonna look different than any future book because you're hopefully not going to be working under, you know, pandemic type conditions. But what, how, in the aftermath of the book, uh, once it was out there, what kind of feedback did you receive or did you seek out, or were you the kind of author that, like you put it out there, you do the marketing you needed to do, but ultimately like. Didn't look at reviews, didn't bother with with that stuff. Tried to protect your creativity from that feedback, what did that look like for you?

Heather Bryant 10:22

Yeah. I love that, um, that idea too because I, I think it is really important to protect your creativity and, even just in talking to a friend who recently put out a novel, like we talked about how the part of putting the book out is so extroverted, and as writers we're often very introverted. And so it's this pro, and you often also feel like you have to kind of. Sell something almost like you're like a vacuum salesman and you have to go door to door and be like, look at this neat thing. You know? And that's so counterintuitive to the creative process, you know, it's just such a different part of the brain. and so. really is, I think, important to protect yourself. So one thing I did, I didn't read any of the online reviews. I read like the sort of vetted reviews, like I had a review I really liked in Kirks reviews and. Um, so I read those, but the ones that were just like random people posting online, you know, I had a best friend who would kind of look at them and see if there was anything I really needed to know something that I would need to respond to. but I often find, especially if someone posted something like I had, so someone posted something on my Google books that was just kind of like an. A rant of some kind and ended up being removed'cause it was sort of like this ridiculous thing. And ultimately, you know, I decided not to respond to anything that was gonna just not be, um, sort of, not really reflect the positivity that I was trying to come from. Because I often find those online conversations like the tones, like if the author responds, can sound a little bit like defensive. And it's like you don't need to respond to the haters or anyone you know who's not really supporting your vision. Um,

Elizabeth Wilson 12:20

I mean, you were writing about a controversial topic, you know, or you were writing about the, the impact that it has at when a parent comes out as transgender and begins transitioning. So I would imagine even just the content of the book alone, regardless of quality of writing and anything could, you know, just attract the trolls simply because of the title and subject matter of the book.

Heather Bryant 12:43

Exactly. Well, and that was the main thing. I actually just recently heard from librarian in Ohio that. The book was being used as part of a campaign to try to defund the library saying, look with their, you know, look at the material that's being given to our kids. And the other hand, you know, my cousin had found the book in her library and her daughter was so excited to see this book that was someone in her family had written in their library. and in a way, when I found out about that campaign in Ohio, which ultimately the campaign didn't work, the library is still going strong. There's still, you know,

Elizabeth Wilson 13:20

I'm sure it wasn't filed in the kids section.

Heather Bryant 13:23

Yeah. That's the thing. So that's exactly, yeah. So it's just, um, it was actually kind of interesting to see that it had, you know, gotten out there enough for people to. um, to be noticing it. And so in a way, I think any kind of response still like, the book is gonna find the right readers wherever it goes. And, you know, I think, um, in that process, the initial process of it being out in the world like. I did get to hear from a lot of different people, like some of who hadn't known my whole family story, who were very interested in that and. Reconnected with my old, my high school who invited me to come speak during the pandemic the book in a whole series of, you know, series on authors. And so there were also really cool connections that came from it being out in the world and like people who wanted to reconnect around the story and, then people who wanted community themselves who had had the same experience who. know, found the book and it gave them a whole new perspective on their own experience. And I also, you know, the people who I had interviewed over the course of the book had shared, shared much later how much it meant to them to have their story. I heard and recognized and given a voice, and so that, in a way that meant so much to me, that

Elizabeth Wilson 15:03

Yeah.

Heather Bryant 15:03

much more recently, maybe in the past year. I heard that from the people I'd interviewed, and to me they were doing a service for me. They were giving me, you know, sharing their stories, and I didn't realize that it was also, something that meant a lot to them. And in a way that almost meant more to me than. The

Elizabeth Wilson 15:23

Than the readers.

Heather Bryant 15:24

you know,

Elizabeth Wilson 15:25

Yeah.

Heather Bryant 15:26

readers, it was like, oh yeah, it was, it was just really about these stories being, you know, given a voice.

Elizabeth Wilson 15:33

Well, and that speaks to, for anyone out there who has a story they wanna share, but doesn't feel like they either want to or have the skill or want to develop the skill to write it themselves, that even using a ghost writer. Can give them the same or a similar sense of pride in, in feeling like their story is heard and sharing their story, even if they're not the ones writing the words down. Just like how those people that you interviewed for the book got to have their story shared through your words, and I think that's really cool. What is your current project and are you. Using the same like agent and publisher, same genre. Have you switched things up? What does that look like?

Heather Bryant 16:20

Yeah, it's been an interesting process after this book because before my transparent, I had been working on a memoir, a straight memoir, my own experience, um, growing up in a family with a parent who came out as transgender. And it was very much like the straight story of my family. And when this book came along, I was like, I'm keeping those separate. I'm not gonna. Bring them together. But in many ways, as I was writing, they came together. so after it's been a process of seeing where that other story lands now that I've told this one. And so I am a draft away from finishing that one. And, uh, and with, with my transparent. It came in a more, a less traditional way, even though I went with a traditional publisher because the publisher themselves had wanted to do this kind of book. And so they had approached this group that I had volunteered with for years. Um, a group called Collage for Kids with LGBTQ plus parents, and they that. Group then approached me and said, Hey, we think you would be a good fit for this project. This publisher wants to do this kind of book. And then, um, it came up through that. And so the editor and I worked directly together.

Elizabeth Wilson 17:46

Hmm.

Heather Bryant 17:48

knew this was a project they were interested in, and so I put together the proposal. He gave me like the format for the proposal, and then he brought it to the editorial team. And so in a way, I bypassed the agent step.

Elizabeth Wilson 18:01

Sure.

Heather Bryant 18:02

the time I felt like I had gamed the system and I was like, Ooh, I snuck by the gatekeeper.

Elizabeth Wilson 18:09

have to do that tedious step. Right.

Heather Bryant 18:11

yeah, going in the back door. actually now I see the real value of having an agent you to kind of guide you as you go. And, know, um, I had another friend who put out a memoir. With a big five publisher and agent and all the things, and still had to do a lot of her own, um, marketing and developing, you know, so she did so much work along the way, and I think. There, there is this sort of phenomenon of kind of like the book that's chosen in the given season and like it's sort of almost like luck of the draw, the one that's chosen and that's kind of given the big platform off, you know, often by a celebrity or like by,

Elizabeth Wilson 18:59

Yes.

Heather Bryant 19:00

Or the one book that they get really attached to, like I heard, while back, I think I had heard, um, Curtis Sittenfeld talk about when prep came out, her first book ever and how that it, they somehow, the just the team latched onto this book and the branding and everything and it was suddenly like this focus of the, that season. And there is a lot of luck involved, but I do think with this one I am gonna go. with that root of, querying agents and seeing where that leads. Um, though I have a friend right now who is. Her second book is coming out as a historical fiction and she's opted to self-publish,

Elizabeth Wilson 19:40

Mm-hmm.

Heather Bryant 19:41

Because she really wants it to come out this year. It's a historically con significant year connected to her book, and she's just like, doesn't wanna wait for that long process. It's a long process of waiting when with the agent and then the editor, and then it's put on the schedule and it's a longer process. So I think the cool thing these days is that there is so many ways. To go about it. And you know, there's not just one route. So even though this time I think I wanna try going the agent route, I think either way it's, you know, it's a lot of work that you have to put into it. Um, you know, there's no magic bullet in getting that agent or in getting that particular editor or something. Um. I heard, I had heard someone else, um, talk about how it's really about like seeing yourself first.'cause there's so much of that feeling of like looking for an agent of wanting to be seen or wanting to be recognized. And she talked about how important it is to really see yourself first and that that is actually the first step to having someone else recognize your work.

Elizabeth Wilson 20:58

I, I love that you've highlighted that even with traditional publishing, there's so much marketing that's still left up to the author, especially if you're a first time author. And, and even if you're not, if you, you're switching genres or like you said, your, your book was just not the one that was picked for the. Publisher to really push that season. You're coming out the same time as some other big book book that they're, you know, focusing most of their marketing dollars on. Like, that's just the nature of the business. And I, I think too many writers force themselves to go down the querying and traditional publishing submission route because they think they'll be able to avoid the marketing and. It's just not, it's just not true. You're going to have to do the marketing anyways. And I know, like you said, like that's the most extroverted part of the process and it's the part that so many writers. Cringe about it doesn't, it doesn't feel great. Now, we had some great insight that was shared during our memoir summit back in March, and those, um, sessions are recorded if anyone listening miss that and wants to go check those out. But you know, it, it can be really tough to sit there and market feel like you're, you're trying to sell someone your story, right? Oh, look at my story. It's so great. Don't you wanna read it? But. You gotta get like a couple layers underneath that. Like there are people who already are out there in the world that have some of those shared experiences. So it's just simply a matter of like finding those people and giving them what they're craving, which is to feel seen and to, to get to read a story that they can resonate with, that feel similar to theirs, that, you know, helps them think of things in a different way or, um, just helps them know they're not alone and you know, that. We can get a little layer underneath the, you know, just by my book level of marketing, but it's scary no matter what route you go. Is your writing process different for this second pure memoir, especially since you're not in the last book? You got to use a lot of like interviews and things as far as content.

Heather Bryant 23:11

That's a great, yeah, that's a great question. Um, and I, yeah, and I have another thought too on the marketing side of things.'cause something interesting came up my transparent as well. But, um, in terms of the writing process. I had had a very clear outline when I was working on my transparent, since it was more of a straight nonfiction And so I, you know, once I had the interviews and everything and then my own story, it all kind of fused together. And I think, um, with my current project, it's a bit more challenging because I don't have the same. Structure figured out in advance. I'm kind of feeling out the structure in many ways and, and so, and then working with memory, um, yeah, it's just been a very interesting process.'cause there are things that I had written that I thought were absolutely belonged in the book. And then when I was going through again, I realized, oh, that whole section, that whole thread does not belong in the book. And. You know, I heard, um, the memoir writer Nick Flynn speak about how. You'll follow this one train as you're writing and be like, I'm on the train. You're going in that direction and then suddenly realize, wait a minute, no. Like I have to go back. But each time you, you have to trust that, whatever, even if you're taking a detour off the track of the story, like. It's still feeding the story. Like I feel like it's almost like this iceberg thing of like the tiny part that's on the top is what the readers are gonna see, but everything else is gonna inform that. So that's what I realized. I definitely have written a lot more than we'll go into it. And it's been a lot more of feeling in the dark, whereas before I felt like, okay, I know how this is going. I know how it's structured well. And I also realized that I enjoyed interviewing people. So like I have tried to incorporate some of that, even though it's just my own story of doing many interviews here or there of different people who are involved in the story. Um, I've been interviewing, you know, just. Different people who might know angles of the story, that would kind of shift my ideas. Um, and then, oh, back to the marketing piece. Um, one lucky coincidence at the time when my transparent came out was one of my students at Shakespeare and Company worked in PR and at a pretty high level PR company in New York. And she just decided she was gonna hire this guy out of college to promote my book. And I thought, okay, now I've found the answer to marketing like this. Really generous student of mine believed in the story and wanted to promote it. And this very talented young, you know, aspiring pr. Guy took on the project, but it was still very challenging. And so in a way it helped because he was on the front lines of a lot of,'cause there's a lot of rejection involved in any kind of putting your writing out into the world or, and putting, you know, trying to get your story into different media outlets like he tried. possible contact at the Ellen Show. You know, he tried like every, you know, he was just trying everything at the time too. I was taking a playwriting class and I happened to be in there with someone who was on a TV show and I thought, oh my gosh, here's a contact. But still, there's so many other factors, like I said before, and it's really just about not taking it personally and you know, and that's what I realized, even back when. I worked for a while for an online journal as their nonfiction editor reading creative nonfiction reading memoir, there was so many beautiful pieces that we couldn't include and it was never personal, you know, and sometimes people would message me on Facebook like, I have this or this, or you know, and really it, any kind of rejection is just kind of guiding you, I think, in the right direction. It's. Like it's more about having the conversation of rejection that will then lead you to the right place as opposed to thinking of rejection as like, don't want your story. It's more about like really finding the right outlet.

Elizabeth Wilson 27:48

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I, I definitely have to push myself, you know, to, to find different ways to think about putting the book out and, and then sometimes I get nervous or I hesitate, but then I just get a moment of courage and do it anyways. Like. For example, since I'm getting ready to send the book out to ARC Readers, I had reached out to like two famous people to see if they wanted to be ARC readers. And of course they have not responded and that's totally fine. But the thing is like you don't get a yes unless you ask. So like, these people are not gonna find me and ask to read my book and promote my book. Um, but I just really believed that they would resonate with the story based off of what I know of them. And so I figured. Might as well ask, might as well ask. And I think that's sometimes the approach you have to take, you know, with all those, you know, different media outlets, if you're like, searching for, you know, spots in magazines or being featured on, um, news broadcast or anything like that, um, you've gotta just try, right? You won't know until you try.

Heather Bryant 29:01

Exactly. Yeah. And I also found that when, in trying lesson I learned,'cause I reached out to a few, um, famous people in the course of putting the book together to see if they knew people I could interview or something. Um, and I did find that I got the most responses when I kept my re my outreach really short and sweet.'cause I, I looked back at a few of the emails I'd sent that were like. You know, 30 pages, not 30 pages, but they were way too long.

Elizabeth Wilson 29:31

Mm-hmm.

Heather Bryant 29:31

And I was like, oh, know, and like a long lead into what I was saying, but you know, really keeping it short and sweet, really keeping it, you know. the value and service you can bring to them and like what, you know, really focusing more on like how you might be able to contribute for something that they're doing or something. And really knowing who they are. Like I did a, met a pitch session recently at a writer's day. Um, where you could pitch different agents, and I had researched every agent except for one, and it turns out the only genre she doesn't do is memoir. So as soon as I talking, she like, her eyes glazed over and I realized, oh, yes. It's very important to do your homework on who you're reaching out to, what's important to them, you know, what they're excited about and sort of from their perspective.

Elizabeth Wilson 30:26

I love that. So since most of our conversation today has been on the post publication, the launching the marketing, as we wrap up our session today, what would you say was something that you feel like you did with your first book that you would deem as a success? As far as like the marketing or the outreach of the book?

Heather Bryant 30:50

That's a great question. I mean, I think, I do think that initial, the Zoom launch, it might have just been the luck of the pandemic and the fact that Zoom was such a novelty at the time. You know, I think now. There's a li there can be a little bit of zoom fatigue with some of the, and we'll, and at the same time, some of the, um, places that do hybrid events where they have live and on Zoom, they've found a way to kind of stream things. So it's more like, almost like you're watching a TV show. So there's so many different variations on the hybrid, but I do think that initial sort of Zoom launch was a really big success just for the sheer number of people. That, um, were drawn to the event. I would say that, um, was definitely one of the big successes in the course of, in the course of the launch. Um, then, like you were saying at the start, I think being flexible to whatever is happening. Like once I realized that they weren't gonna shift the date and that the whole world was focused on this global Pandemic, I, you know, got a chance to kind of shift and think about like how to focus it differently or how to do it differently. And so I think really keeping that in mind to be flexible, um, to, and also, um, know, connecting with your community and connecting with the people who have. Supported you in your writing process. Um,'cause I think that was another piece of the success of that launch was connecting, um, with my friend Bethany and, really looking to the people who have been your cheerleaders along the way and. Um, not thinking you have to do it alone because really you do have a big community behind you that's been there as you've been working on this. And so thinking of celebrating it together.'cause those are the sort of relationships that ultimately matter and that will get you through, you know, no matter what happens as the book is launched.

Elizabeth Wilson 33:00

I love that. Yeah. It, uh, it does come back to community. The community that you've built around your writing practice, whether that's fellow writers or other people that you've networked with. I'm sure the people that you've interviewed were interested in sharing that. Book more broadly and everything. So I love those insights. So thank you, Heather, for being here with us today. Writers. If you're interested in connecting with Heather, we'll have all of her social media contacts in the show notes as well as the information about her first published book, um, so you can connect with her there. So thank you Heather, for being here.

Heather Bryant 33:34

Thank you for having me. Oh, I had one more thought actually.

Elizabeth Wilson 33:38

ahead.

Heather Bryant 33:39

Um, wait, now I forgot what was, um, what was that? Oh, one thing I do wish I'd done

Elizabeth Wilson 33:49

Ooh. Yeah. Great.

Heather Bryant 33:50

Of, um, in the course of launching the book, you know, the publisher had given me a bunch of free copies and I was like holding onto them for like, don't know what I thought I was gonna do, like send them to famous people. I don't know. And I like. I of wish in a way that I'd given copies to everyone who'd been involved with the book process. just as kind of gifts. I think there is something about like giving your book away for free and like I had a friend when her novel was coming out, she wrote to me and said she wanted to send me a copy. And that was such a cool surprise. And even though, you know, there's expense involved in that, like I think. It's not about the money, it's really about like getting the word out. So I think sort of sending out freebies or having things where you send it as a gift to some people who've been really supportive in the process is a good strategy, for,

Elizabeth Wilson 34:49

that's more common with indie published authors, but like that seems to be the norm. It was certainly what I was told. But my book Coach Hannah, you know, as far as like I, if I have ARC readers or people who have given me their time and I've not paid for their services, you know, so this is outside of my like professional editor, outside of my professional cover designer, you know, that sort of thing. People who have read the book and are go for the point of reading it in advance to offer reviews for promotional purposes and things like, I have a whole list of people that I'm sending, you know, uh. A free copy of the book too, as like you said, as a thank you. Because when you're indie publishing, like you're absorbing all the cost of everything. And when people are giving you their time for free and you're not having to pay for say, like beta readers or ARC readers, like that's a huge benefit and. So sure I lose, it costs me a little bit of money to like print the book, but for the exchange of their feedback at Pivotal points in the writing process or here in the like presale launch period. It's, it's minimal cost for the services that they provide. And I, I think that's great to be able to use that to cultivate those relationships. Especially if you ever plan to publish, you know, additional books. Because if you can find quality beta readers, quality arc readers, like those are people you want to be a part of your team forever.

Heather Bryant 36:15

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I had one more thought too about another topic we talked about earlier. I don't know if, um, which is that, you know, the publisher did approach me to say that they would be willing to do another book like this. Editor was really excited about the book and wanted to do another one. you know, as I was shifting to another project, I realized like I didn't wanna do the same book again. It was almost like they wanted the same book all over again.

Elizabeth Wilson 36:44

Hmm

Heather Bryant 36:45

And I was like, you know, I wanna go in another direction, a more creative direction. I think that is always the sort of quest of the creative person of like, you don't wanna do what you know you can do. You wanna do the thing that you, you aren't sure you can do.

Elizabeth Wilson 37:02

Yeah.

Heather Bryant 37:02

in a way, like now that I did that book, I didn't wanna just reinvent the wheel, do the same thing again, and I wanted to kind of challenge myself to do something that I don't know if I can do.

Elizabeth Wilson 37:12

I love that. I love that. Well, thank you Heather for being here with us and happy writing everyone.

Heather Bryant 37:19

Yeah, happy writing.