Ramona Ausubel on Getting Unstuck

Kelton is on a record-breaking week — 5,563 words across three chapters — after ditching Scrivener for the freedom of a Google Doc. Krisserin finished two short stories and sent them to beta readers, though she's staying up until 1:30 AM to do it (thanks, Juliet Marillier). Then they're joined by a very special guest: Ramona Ausubel, Krisserin's former PEN Center USA Emerging Voices mentor and beloved teacher of writing.

Ramona is the author of the National Book Foundation Science and Literature Prize-winning novel The Last Animal, a Barnes & Noble monthly pick, and winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Fiction. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, Electric Literature, and The Paris Review. She's taught at Tin House, Bread Loaf, and multiple MFA programs including the Institute of American Indian Arts and Bennington, and she's currently a professor at Colorado State University.

Her new book — Unstuck: 101 Doorways Leading from the Blank Page to the Last Page — is a creative companion for writers at every stage of the process, and it's out now.

In this conversation, Ramona talks about why getting stuck is a feature of writing, not a failure; how she thinks of the whole process as learning to stop and start again with grace; and why a life full of interruptions is actually the substance of the work. She shares practical techniques from the book — the "20-minute doorway," revising thread by thread, and the concept of "structured play" — and what it means to follow a small doorway when you can't see where you're going.
 
Plus: pantsing vs. outlining (Ramona does both, in sequence), how she realized a character needed to die two drafts after the book sold, what it means to be a writer who takes herself both very seriously and completely unseriously, and why the treatment you give your work — not its subject — is what makes it yours.

Follow Ramona Ausubel:
• Website: ramonaausubel.com
• Instagram: @ramonaausubel
• Unstuck: 101 Doorways Leading from the Blank Page to the Last Page — available now wherever books are sold, or order at bookshop.org

Books Recommended by Ramona:
• All Souls by Christine Schutt 
• We the Animals by Justin Torres 
• The Houndling by Xenobe Purvis 
• Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell 

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Music by Golden Hour Oasis Studios

Transcript

Krisserin 0:00

Hello, Kelton. Good morning.

Kelton 0:03

is it, is it a good morning?

Krisserin 0:05

No,

Kelton 0:06

No.

Krisserin 0:07

Um, no. You know, actually I was on my way home from dropping off my kids, which is not my job. Thinking to myself, maybe the world would be better if there were no men in it.

Speaker 0:22

I'm Krisserin Canary. And I'm Kelton Wright. Follow our quest to publish our first novels from first drafts, to query letters through inevitable rejections

Speaker 2 0:30

and hopefully eventual success

Speaker 0:32

from California to

Speaker 2 0:33

Colorado. This is pen pals.

Kelton 0:35

That kind of morning.

Krisserin 0:38

Yeah, also woke up with like, I don't know if in the middle of the night with like a pain in my shoulder.

Kelton 0:45

Chris Hart. I woke up with a pulled back. Are we in our forties?

Krisserin 0:51

That's what I was thinking. I was like, oh no. Am I at the age where I'm just gonna like wake up in pain every day?

Kelton 0:59

Oh, the athletes we once were,

Krisserin 1:02

I know what the fuck, so I've, I had a grumpy morning and, I'm just happy to be here with you. Now, you know,

Kelton 1:10

I'm happy to be here with you.

Krisserin 1:12

listeners, you can't see, but both Kelton and I are matching. Again,

Kelton 1:16

Mm-hmm.

Krisserin 1:17

but we also both got our hair done.

Kelton 1:20

Yeah, we did.

Krisserin 1:21

Beautiful blonde glaze and I have a fuck ass Bob. So,

Kelton 1:25

Yeah, I love it.

Krisserin 1:28

uh, I hated it yesterday. Um, it's a little bit better than that, that I slept on it, but I feel like I look like the evil mushrooms in Mario. Like, it's like very goba shaped.

Kelton 1:40

No, I think it's cute. I like the little flips.

Krisserin 1:44

That is'cause I think I slept on it. Well, so obviously Kelton and I text each other in between episodes and we both had a pretty week, but my productivity ended after I texted you Kelton. So

Kelton 2:00

That adds up.

Krisserin 2:02

Kelton texted me and she wrote, was it like over 4,000 words?

Kelton 2:06

In total this week I wrote 5,563 words, a record breaking week for me in the novel. And it was, it was so, so satisfying. I wrote three chapters and maybe three scenes. I did get a little caught up in formatting and file systems, and I had to extricate myself from Scrivener. I, I, Scrivener was kind of fucking up my, my momentum because I was like, is this a scene or is this a chapter? How do I save this? And I was just like, you know what? We're gonna go to the way that I feel most comfortable writing, which is just a Google doc. And I'll just label each scene as it happens. So there's still on the side of the Google Doc, the like summary outline and I can worry about chapters later. Um,'cause I found it was just such a distracting element for me to be like, well, is this chapter two and chapter three? How many chapters should it have? And I was like, bitch, it doesn't matter. What you are going for is like 80,000 words. So I poured it all over to a Google Doc. And I feel much more comfortable there and had like a much freer time just writing against the outline. So that was fun. And I'll have, you know, I was thinking of you, um, there reached a point when I was writing where I was like, hmm. This outline is missing some things, and so I just wrote them. So the outline structure is still there, but I am switching materials. I am adding new rooms. I'm putting walls where we didn't know there were walls. And so that was great. It was super good. I also said I was going to, did I say I was gonna read two books this week or was that last week?

Krisserin 3:59

You said you were just gonna write two scenes.

Kelton 4:04

No, I said I was gonna read two books. I'm looking at last week's thing.

Krisserin 4:08

Did I'm, I'm looking at this week's thing. I think

Kelton 4:11

yeah, this week's is, uh, inaccurate. I didn't copy over the fact that I said I was gonna read two books. I did say that I brought home the other Valley and the Ministry of Time. I was also reading our guest today a book. But I, I picked up Ministry of Time first because I was like, well, I'm gonna breeze through this one. I was so in love with the first like 30 pages and now I am. Uh, halfway through the book and I am like, where are we going? What is happening? Like, I like the characters, I like hanging out with them, but that does feel like all that is happening is that I'm hanging out with them. And every once in a while you'll get one sentence that's like crazy things gonna happen. And it's like, yeah, when. When and like though I really like the writing, I really like the character development, but, and I know that this is, this is sort of where I was at with the possession of Alba di as, uh, like halfway through the book I was kind of like, what Art Week do wing? And so I am gonna stick with it and keep going because I think the writing is worth it. But it has slowed me down on finishing my two book plan.'cause I keep like begrudgingly picking up this book and being like. Can we, can we have the disaster happen already? Which is such good information for the book I am writing. So yeah, I am like, okay, how am I increasing the stakes throughout this book?'cause my book is kind of like a thriller adventure and I'm like, we need something that is driving this forward.

Krisserin 5:55

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I just was thinking of what, Lauren said in our interview with her. it two weeks ago now, where she was just like, if I don't feel compelled to pick the book back up, then I don't.'cause that's how I feel too. It's really hard for me to force myself to read anything, which is why I have, I really struggle if the books, especially if it's well written, but it's like not catching my attention. It has to be so well written to keep

Kelton 6:23

Yeah.

Krisserin 6:24

forward.

Kelton 6:25

And Ministry of Time has a will. They won't they aspect to it and that really will, you will drag me down into the depths of hell to finish a book for me to find out if they will or won't they,

Krisserin 6:37

But

Kelton 6:38

if they,

Krisserin 6:39

They always do.

Kelton 6:40

I, there's part of me that thinks that in this they won't,

Krisserin 6:44

That would piss me off.

Kelton 6:46

it, it is going to, but I am, I'm stuck in that cycle nonetheless. So. I'm thinking of Kate Flanders, who's also reading this book right now, and I can't wait to see what she thinks about it. I should text her.

Krisserin 6:59

I was gonna say, did you text her to ask how it's

Kelton 7:02

Not yet, not yet. But yeah, it was a hugely productive week for me and I really loved working on the novel and it, it felt like, you know, if I can do 5,500 words in one week, and that was in three sittings, then it's like. I don't know why I couldn't get you a spaghetti draft by the end of the summer.

Krisserin 7:25

I mean, when I wrote. Parasocial, it poured out of me. And I think it's because I had been thinking of it for so long. I had thought about this book for so long that when I finally sat down to write it, I just wrote it in a fugue. So I do think that even though you hadn't been actively working on the book, you had been thinking about it and it's, it's kind of like happening in the background. So that's really exciting.

Kelton 7:50

Yeah.

Krisserin 7:50

It inspired me.

Kelton 7:52

Mm-hmm.

Krisserin 7:54

I sat down and I wrote, I think 4,400 words. I, that's the only writing I did this week though. I wrote the 4,400 words. I finished two short stories. I wrote to the end of two short stories, and then

Kelton 8:08

One of which you sent me,

Krisserin 8:10

I did send it to you,

Kelton 8:11

which I have not read yet, it's been a kind of crazy week.

Krisserin 8:15

Neither has my mom, by the way. was like,

Kelton 8:19

Okay, we're aligned.

Krisserin 8:20

mom, when are you, when are you gonna, when are you?

Kelton 8:24

Come on, mom.

Krisserin 8:24

When are you gonna read my story? But I, spent another day revising and refining some of the finer points of that short story. And then I send it to ke, to my beta readers, to my mom, and to Kelton. And I haven't been able to do any writing since then. I. was working until like 1130 last night, so it's been kind of a crazy week for me this week. But I did, I have been reading a lot. I've been, I haven't been getting enough sleep because I get to the end of my day and then I pick up the third book the Seven Waters by Juliette Marlie, and then I stay up until like one 30 in the morning reading because

Kelton 9:02

Yeah, that's the best.

Krisserin 9:04

a third book, so I, I finished the second book. I'm almost done with a third book. I'm just really enjoying it and I hope I can just lux in the world for a little bit longer, at least for

Kelton 9:15

Yeah.

Krisserin 9:15

couple more weeks,

Kelton 9:17

That's so fun.

Krisserin 9:18

Yeah, I love that.

Kelton 9:21

Ugh. I don't know. I can like hear how tired we are though. We're just like, well, we did our writing and then we were exhausted.

Krisserin 9:29

got in the way? Yeah. So listeners, we have quite the treat. This week we are interviewing my mentor, my former Penn Evie mentor and friend Ramona Zobel. She is the author of Celebrated Works of Fiction, including the National bestseller, the Last Animal, which received the National Book Foundation's Science and Literature Prize. Anne was a Barnes and Noble monthly pick. She's the winner of the Penn Center USA literary award for fiction in the VCU Cabbel First Novelist Award. And her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Tenhouse Electric Literature and the Paris Review many others. is a beloved teacher of writing, having taught a Tenhouse bread loaf and several MFA programs, including. The Institute of American Indian Arts, which I will be a candidate starting in the fall and Bennington. She's currently a professor at Colorado State University. Her new book, unstuck 101 Doorways, leading from the blank page to the last page, is a creative companion for writers at every stage of the process, and it comes out. As of this recording or when you're listening to this tomorrow, April 14th, you can either pre-order it today or you can, you can place an order on bookshop.org tomorrow or go to your bookstore of choice. So excited. Here's Ramona. Hello. Welcome Mona to Pen Pals. We're so excited to have you.

Ramona Ausubel 10:56

I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Krisserin 11:00

Of course. I think it's been like 13 years since we've

Ramona Ausubel 11:06

Whoa.

Krisserin 11:06

each other.

Ramona Ausubel 11:07

That's so crazy. That makes sense. Because my kid was like a baby and now he's, I'm, I'm in this like blank boring room because I'm at Colorado State University where my now 14-year-old is competing in the state science fair in like the couple rooms away.

Krisserin 11:23

That is so cool. Yeah. When I was reading your book and you talked about, because I just went through this whole process. My, my daughter Sabine, started middle school this year. So we went through this whole, I was reading about you going through the same process that I just went through, and then you mentioned that you had a, a teen in high school and I was like,

Ramona Ausubel 11:45

It really is. Yeah. It's like this slide that you just like shoot down and then you're like, oh my God, we're at the bottom of the slide. It's totally different now. It's so crazy. Yeah.

Krisserin 11:54

different. And you know, when you were my mentor, you had published, you just published your first book, I believe. No, no one is here except all of us. And

Ramona Ausubel 12:03

Mm-hmm.

Krisserin 12:04

but since then, you've published. Two novels and two additional short story collections. So, so much work has been done, and yet here you've written another book about helping writers get unstuck, which doesn't seem like. A problem you necessarily have. So I am so interested, I mean, the book is incredible. Kelton and I were waxing about it in the intro about how generous it is and how indicative of what a like giving and warm person that you are, that you would write this book and dedicated to your students. I'm so curious how, how the idea came to be to write this book.

Ramona Ausubel 12:41

Oh, well you're like, it's to you, it's for all of us. I, so I, the thing is, over all those books, I have gotten stuck. 4 million times, like I, you, there's like a feeling of you are riding a little wave of energy and then it like breaks and you're back to nothing again, over and over and over. So I've developed all these ways to start again, and I feel like in a way to be a writer is to stop and start again, and stop and start again, and to keep choosing to start again. Even when you feel like you've run out of the information that you have, you've run out of the confidence, whatever it is. It's so easy and it, it just happens. It's a natural part of it. So I started to think about that as like maybe the mission is not get to the end of the book, but get into, into a like comfort with that rhythm of stopping and starting and stopping and starting. And I started keeping track of these things. The first, a book actually began with a talk on revision in a low residency MFA program, and I. It was like, because nobody, I feel like the writers were like, what are you talking about when you talk about revision? What does that even mean? Like, I know it's not spellcheck. What is it though? So I, I, I was just like, well, here's a bunch of things that I do. Here's a bunch of approaches that I have to, to like, sort of like take the thing apart and put it back together again over and over. And then that I kept thinking of more things than that talk grew. And then it, like, pretty soon I had like. 30 or 40 different doorways as I thought of them and felt like, Hmm, I wonder if this is like going in the direction of a book and, and Low. It did.

Krisserin 14:20

I, I just, I really loved it and I. I felt as I was going through it, the way that I naturally was drawn was there were certain things that really spoke to me in the table of contents that I was like, oh, I wanna read that one, and I pick it up and I read it and, and did the same. When this podcast is, it comes out, your book will be available the next day, which is really exciting. Is there a way that you recommend readers use your book? Should they read it from start to finish? Should they pick it up and, and find themselves in whatever speaks to them?

Ramona Ausubel 14:51

No, I love that. I think that's the way it, it works. If you're starting something and you, and you end up starting at the beginning and sort of moving through it, that could conceivably work too. But I really wanted it to be this like huge, the biggest offering that I could make with as many, as many ways back in as I use and could think of at every stage. So whether you're starting a new project. Working your way through that long middle, trying to get some perspective, especially on a longer piece, and then sort of seeing your way through the ending and coming out the other side. I wanted there to be ways in all over. So wherever you are in that kind of like crazy giant mansion of writing something, there's I hope a, a strategy and a doorway and a key that will get you moving again. And it there, yeah, there's no wrong way to do it. It's, it's like you can be in this maze, however you're in this maze.

Kelton 15:43

I feel like that is one of the ways that you help people get unstuck. It's'cause like you could be like the flipper where you're like, I'm just gonna breeze open, see which one lands. But I also like that the other doorway in is the full. Or parts of the book where it's like, if you do know where you are losing momentum, these specific exercises will actually like, kind of help push the train down the track a little bit.'cause I know that like, you know, with other creativity books, I can just be like, I don't know, I don't even know where to start with the book. Um, so that you have kind of two prescriptions of how to go in it, I found very helpful.

Ramona Ausubel 16:17

Oh good. I'm so glad. I think that was one of the, the best parts of writing the book is that I got to organize all of my thoughts and ideas into these four sections. It felt really helpful to me, and I'm starting a new project now, and I'm using the same things again. Like this is my seventh book and I'm still being like. Just begin anywhere. It's okay. You don't know what it is yet. Just making the primordial slush draft, it's like creating energy. Don't, don't be attached. There's no beginning and no end yet. Yeah. It's like, it doesn't, it keeps being, it keeps being hard, but it also means it keeps being a new adventure every time, and new ways to pay attention and find something just like one way forward at a time.

Krisserin 16:59

I feel like as I was reading through how you were describing the book, and even, I wouldn't call them prompts necessarily, but some of the doorways that you were listing, you have this very, and envious in me.'cause I'm not like this, this a feeling of discovery and a lack of preciousness almost with the, like with your words as you're working through a project, I feel like, yeah. Because of where I am, as a writer, time is precious. We have all of these other things that we're working on, and so any momentum that I have that I build towards a project, I'm very protective of it, but it's not what I wanna be. What I wanna be is someone who. spend the time to write, uh, my character from a different POV, like you recommend or, or do an exploration of writing their obituary of all of these little things that would make me understand my characters more. So, know, there is this feeling of, uh, like the, the Alexander Hamilton, why does he write like he's running out of time, but how can you recommend to other writers? A lot of our listeners are in the same stages as we are. There're there are. Starting out, they're writing their first projects, they're trying to get an agent, they're trying to get published to be a little bit more generous with their time and their creativity and get into that mode of discovery.'cause and I'm asking for myself.

Ramona Ausubel 18:24

Yeah, I mean, it makes so much sense. I I, and I have those periods too, where I'm like, I can't, I can't do any, no. Sidetracks just like gotta keep going forward.'cause I'm really on a mission right now. And that is also okay. I guess one of the biggest things that I tell my students is that. You. Your job as you're writing is to also learn your own mind and figure out what works for you. And it's not to say, oh, that person over there seems to get up at 4:00 AM and write for three hours before her kids get up. Probably I should be doing that too. I must be doing it wrong. No, if what you're doing is working, if it's like I write on my lunch break or I'm, or I'm like dictating something in the car, like whatever it is that is working. Keep doing the thing that's working, so don't feel like there's, there's never a like a different, more right way. And I also do feel like there's that sense of inefficiency of doing a little, like taking a break and doing some discovery feels like you're going off off the track and you're gonna be spending time doing something that's not directly contributing to the completion of a project. And I feel like a lot of those little sidetracks end up being. Do you scooting, like putting the gas on, so you're like, yes, you were driving 35 miles an hour down the straight road, but if you go get some lunch, you're gonna be able to drive much faster the next time, the next stretch, or whatever the metaphor is. So to say like the playfulness and the discovery is also really more productive than it might look from the outside.

Kelton 19:57

It makes it more fun. Probably, if I'm thinking about it as like a road trip analogy, you know, I'm like, if I'm driving straight across the country on the interstate, that's a long haul. But if I'm like, I'm gonna stop at that big ball of yarn, I'm gonna find an old diner. I'm gonna go off that path I just saw and see what's down there. It's like it makes the whole thing more fun.

Ramona Ausubel 20:16

Yes, completely. Exactly. It's, it's way more fun and you discover stuff that actually becomes integral to the story that you couldn't have known, that you didn't know. But once you see it, you're like. Oh, the major scene is at the big ball of yarn. We have like the, that's, that's what it is, is like a, a, a mission of like nostalgia and, and curiosity and kitch and whatever all of that stuff is. It becomes, it weaves its way into the, into the cloth of the piece.

Krisserin 20:45

I love that. And I was also thinking about Kelton when I was reading that section because you would talk about, you know, dictating the book in the car or with the baby on your chest. And I was like, that's Kelton, that's, that's how Kelton's getting her writing done.

Kelton 20:58

it is.

Krisserin 21:00

um.

Ramona Ausubel 21:00

so much respect.

Krisserin 21:03

It is so hard, um, kelton's in the, the early stages of motherhood. She's got a almost 2-year-old, so she's like in it, you know?

Ramona Ausubel 21:12

You are in the thick of it. This is the hardest part. Yep.

Kelton 21:15

hearing, yeah, hearing your momentum through their childhood into their like preteen and teen years is very motivating for me.'cause I'm like, you wrote all those books while you had them, you

Krisserin 21:27

Yeah.

Ramona Ausubel 21:27

Yeah. Well, it's one of the things I think about a lot that we, I feel like I had, when I started writing, I had this idea that. A real writer would be like in her, you know, in her stone house, out on the moss and looking out at the, at the swamps with nothing but time on her hands. And that's what I should be doing. And instead I'm like, oh, I gotta go, it's pickup time. I gotta like finish this paragraph really fast. And then I have to remember to make the doctor's appointment and, and do all the stuff of life. And yes, the stuff of life. Is slows you down. There's like, it's an interruption in a way, but it also is the reason we have anything at all to say because it feels like something and we're in this like incredibly vast, complicated experience. So that's what we're writing At the same time, I mean, so much of being a mom has, has, is, is what's in my work. It's what I'm thinking about and what ends up being the like real substance of the stories. And it sometimes is an interruption, and those things can both be true at the same time.

Kelton 22:36

I do like thinking, uh, when I get really frustrated, I'm like, how would you describe this feeling in writing? How could we capture this feeling for your character?

Ramona Ausubel 22:48

Totally. I know. Exactly. Yeah. That's, that's it. Because that's what, that's what's real is like, there's no. There's no, just like, all I'm feeling is grief. All I'm feeling is, is profound joy. All I'm feeling is the like, pleasure of being with this beautiful baby. It's, you're probably feeling many things at the same time because you're a real complicated person in a complicated life.

Kelton 23:11

Yeah. Hang on honey. Mommy's thinking about words.

Ramona Ausubel 23:15

Exactly. I'll get you your peanut butter sandwich in five minutes.

Krisserin 23:20

Five minutes, you can show me the toy, the Lego that you built in five minutes. in, in your book you talk about the primordial ooze, which I love'cause I I love languishing in the primordial ooze of my writing, we talk a lot about pantsing versus outlining. I'm a pants, Kelton is an outliner and with. Unstuck in the way that you've thought through story. I mean, do you feel like, first of all, are you a panther or an, are you an outliner? And then secondly, do you feel like there are unique challenges that we get stuck in in those different modes?

Ramona Ausubel 24:02

I think I'm kind of a combination of the two because I definitely, I mean, I would say pants are first, but then I. Have a really strong need to make patterns and to look for patterns and to organize. So I, my sort of general, I probably begin with the, like, the endless possibility of nothingness, like, or, or of everythingness that I could go anywhere at any time and I wanna be able to strike out into. Field of my curiosity, which runs like 360 degrees around me, and all the way, you know, up and down and I can go anywhere and there's no wrong way to discover what I'm trying to say and what I, what matters to me here. And then somewhere like after a certain period, usually it's sort of like comes up in the like 75 or 80 page zone of a novel. I need to step back and start to really figure out what this is gonna look like and, and have a little bit more of a map. That then, then having a little map then allows me more of the playful discovery stuff because I feel relaxed, because I know there's something holding this space up. It's not just total, uh, poss like, you know, all possibilities are. Or I could do anything at any time. They could be on Mars, they could be an 1850. Like you do have to start to limit and make some, put some parameters around things. So. Yeah, I think it's a kind of, I feel like I go back and forth and I want both of those. I want to engage both of those parts of myself so that I can be, I can, I can bring all of the ways of thinking to the project. Not limit myself to one or the other, but I definitely can't write an outline at the very beginning because I don't really know what I'm trying to do yet. And I don't know what the secret surprises are gonna be. So to outline would be to sort of like limit myself to the, the small amount that I know at this moment. And it would, and to have that be the, the total contents of the story, which would eliminate so many things that I don't know yet.

Kelton 26:06

That's interesting. Like Chris, and I talk about me being an outliner a lot this season, but what really happened was I did write 30,000 words of this novel. Before I decided to write an outline, and that outline scrapped about 15,000 of those words. And so I spent a lot of time, like in the mush trying to be like, does this, can this, we swoosh this into something that stands up. And then I was like, okay, I, I actually, I have a lot of all my paper mache and I need some like wires to pad it on. And so like I, I, this being my first novel project, I don't really know if I'm an outliner or a pants. Religiously. But I have found that the outlining did help me have some like scaffolding to clinging to.

Ramona Ausubel 26:50

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, and I think that that's that feeling of like, you've got 30,000 words, but wait, what? Hold on. What do we have? What actually is, what's sticking with me? What's sticking together in the, like, sculpture of the thing and realizing that a bunch of those words are not actually, part of it is actually very efficient and normal. It's not, there's no way to do it without that happening. It's, it is like, I feel like we wanna sort of like open our arms wider and wrap our arms around the, the whole process. Rather than just think about the like page one through 300 of the novel that you eventually hope to have. It's not gonna be linear and you're not gonna, you're not gonna, you can't map the way you're gonna get there now for sure.'cause there's just no way. You won't, you will not be successful.

Krisserin 27:38

And I think it robs you of joy if you're just trying to get to the end of finishing the project where there's something about being in the ooze and finding, that's the fun part. Like writing the first draft for me is the most fun part writing the book because that's where you get to be. You get to just do whatever the hell you want and make choices. To like, change your mind and however you want. That's the fun part of writing that. I feel like you are so focused on, productivity and word count, that's, that's when it gets not as much fun, like their vision process is. Scratches a different part of my brain. I guess. I'm curious, well, first of all, I, I would love to know what your map looks like.'cause Kelton and I, like, we have different maps. Like my map is a spider web. And hers is an Excel document. What does

Ramona Ausubel 28:30

Oh, I'll allow, yeah. My map is more like a spiderweb. It's, yeah, it's much more like a spiderweb and it, it, it keeps, I like, I, so sometimes it like wants to do that sort of like narrative arc thing and I wanna be able to have a sense of where things are in the, in the forward movement. But then I also like to map. All the other parts too, like sort of the landscape and where the tension in the landscape is, like the physical spaces and places in the book. And then I wanna be able to map the different characters and where their points of tension are and what, where, where in the story they are at. Their sort of like lowest and highest and the hardest parts for them. And so it's almost like a spider web, but it's like. Five different spiderwebs on top of each other. So then I kind of like overlay them and I can see that there are sort of parts where nothing's really going on, actually. Like there's often somewhere in the middle where I've run out of ideas and I'm just like, try stuff. A bunch of those things don't end up working. Like we're gonna go, all right, we're gonna go to the, to the giant Las Vegas. All you can eat buffet in this. Section, everybody come like get in the car characters. We're gonna try and see what happens in that situation. And maybe it ends up becoming great and really part of the book and maybe it sort of falls apart or is like it just becomes a non thing. And I might see that in the map that it's sort of like everything dips in that part and it's not really contributing anything. Which means that I've the choice to either cut it or totally change it some to something else or have something happen like maybe we need to. The kids need to get in a sword fight with the dungeness crab legs and the dad needs to scream at them and like get kicked out by security. Like something has to happen so that it becomes a real thing.

Krisserin 30:08

when you said Vegas. Are you kidding? Buffet?

Ramona Ausubel 30:12

It's right. It's like the high value thing

Krisserin 30:14

into anaphylactic shock because they

Ramona Ausubel 30:16

there. Yes,

Krisserin 30:17

allergy? Like what's happening at the All you can Eat Buffet?

Ramona Ausubel 30:21

exactly

Krisserin 30:22

a scene though.

Ramona Ausubel 30:23

right. A good place for something has gotta happen. Yeah.

Krisserin 30:27

gotta happen. I love that. Um, well, the question I wanted to ask was, we write the book, we've revised it and we've edited it and we get stuck. The, the query trenches. And you know, I'm, we're both kind of like, Kelton and I are in this place, in the, in the waiting place. I don't know if you've read oh, the Places You'll Go By Dr. Seuss. We're

Ramona Ausubel 30:49

Mm-hmm.

Krisserin 30:49

waiting place, the worst place. And. Sometimes, and I've had this happen with other projects, it's like you get, you work so hard on a project and you feel like this is it. This is as far as I can humanly take it by myself. And then you send it out into the world and the world comes back and says, this needs more work. How do you get unstuck from that? For me, I'm very much like my brain has said no more.

Ramona Ausubel 31:16

Mm-hmm.

Krisserin 31:17

Is there a way that you can recommend to like reignite the motivation to go back to projects that in your heart are done but probably need more work?

Ramona Ausubel 31:29

Yeah. That stage is so hard because you've lived with it and in it for so long, and it almost is like it's. Joined with you, like you're sort of like, just like this one unit together and it's hard to both separate it out and then reimagine it to be like, it's not actually merged with me. I can, I can externalize it again and take a new approach and be willing to take it apart and put it back together in a bigger way. But I mean, I really do think that taking a break can be necessary and useful to say I'm not, my heart's not in it right now. I need to work on something else. For three months or six months or whatever it is, and just like fall in love with another world. And then when I, when I've sort of like got to a stuck place with that, then maybe this other one that's so familiar will feel like kind of like an old buddy that you can be like, oh, but you, I kind of actually understand. Let's try it and see what we can figure out. I also think that there's a feeling of. Not wanting to break something that you feel like you kind of have. It's like it's, it's a machine that's working and it feels scary to take it apart at that stage, but you're not actually taking apart the thing you have. You're always starting a new document. Nothing is gonna be lost that you had before. And the job is sometimes I tell myself, really, let's just pretend to try a new tech. Let's just, just imagine for three weeks we're just gonna like. Play around in there and see what happens. But it's not real. It's not what we're like, there's no commitment here. We're just gonna pretend, see what happens. And it actually is so freeing. I, that timeline also is super helpful for me, saying to myself, I'm gonna try this thing for one week or two weeks or a month. I'm gonna rewrite the point of view. I'm just gonna do that for this period and it's not gonna last forever. I'm not diving into the endlessness of this. I'm just gonna like run this experiment and see how it feels at the end. It either works or it doesn't work. I used to have a teacher who would say, you need a, you need a, you need to look at this narrative tension. It's gonna cost you two weeks. It is gonna cost you five hours, whatever it was. And it was like,

Krisserin 33:37

I

Ramona Ausubel 33:37

something real I know. It was great. It was kind of amazing of like, oh, you're right, it's finite. It's gonna cost me five hours. I spent five hours doing stupid things all the time, so I'm gonna spend five hours trying this. Then you have something that you're like, you've tried. And a lot of times it feels like it. It comes back to life. To life. Once you, once you've like allowed yourself to dive back in and it becomes fun again and less scary again. And usually for me, I'm like, oh yeah, this is gonna be better. This can totally be better her.

Kelton 34:09

You scratched such a deep part of my brain by saying, pretend to write something new. Not even like it's you leaving the old document alone. You are literally pretending to write something new, which makes me like, come, coming back to your primordial slush of writing, like the pretend element, I think makes me feel very safe in writing, where I'm like, there's no stakes, there's no querying, there's no agents, there's no selling it. They're just like, I'm playing. Pretend. And when I play, pretend I don't want anyone else involved. You know, I'm like, get outta here, you're gonna get the characters wrong. so I, that really why you just like, uh, you, you've entered my, like, my personal canon of writing advice.

Ramona Ausubel 34:51

Yay. That one has worked for me over and over. It's kind of in the same camp as the, as the 20 minute doorway. That's, but that's 20. Stay in the chair. 20 minutes longer than you plan to, so Right. When you get to the point where you're like, I can't do anymore. I gotta stop. I'm gonna go eat a sandwich, I gotta take a shower, I gotta scrub the toilet. Anything but this set a timer and stay 20 minutes because it's sort of like. Non-time. Time. It feels like that pretend time where you're safe. You're not officially on the clock. You can just like do stuff and write sentences. Sometimes I'll write a thousand words in that last 20 minutes where it took me like the whole two hours before to write 300 words and I was suffering over it. Now it's just like. I'm in the like imaginary space. It's like being on a flight where you're like, if I get stuck I can get so much done in this five hours and it's like a bonus because it doesn't count. It's not, nobody's keeping track of it. That is, yeah, exactly. Yeah. You can like, it's like this little secret bubble of like, who knows what happens in that 20 minutes when I'm pretending that I'm writing something. Yeah.

Krisserin 35:55

Love that.

Ramona Ausubel 35:55

So fun.

Krisserin 35:56

magic.

Ramona Ausubel 35:58

That's it. Yeah.

Krisserin 36:00

I love. You spoke about your teachers. I, I'm curious, I'm sure a lot of these doorways you found yourself. Which doorways did your teacher show you? The ones that, which are the ones that stuck with you the most?

Ramona Ausubel 36:13

That's a good question. I think a lot of, I'm trying to see if there's, well, the de familiarizing, the familiar, that was sparked by another writer, Matthew Gavin Frank, who wasn't a teacher of mine, but came to give my students a lecture and I, and I thought about his approach to research a lot. A lot of them come from other people. The, the writing the islands is Matt Bell comes from his book, refused to be Done, which is so good, so helpful. Such a good book on writing a novel. But the ones that come from my teachers, I think are the number 28, which is against the magnum opus that I think is really derived from my teacher, Michelle Lale, who was my MFA, just like fairy godmother. And I love her so much and she was so profoundly, deeply, deeply instructive to my way of writing that you to, to. Sort of that like non preciousness of like turn down the volume on the eventual mattering of this thing. It's not about what it does in the marketplace. It's not about being praised by somebody. Just do the work and do the work that you wanna do right now in, in the most honest way that you can, that it doesn't have to be the project. Write a short story because you feel like writing a short story. Know that it will also lead to another thing that you can't yet imagine. Maybe a, like a novel idea stems out of it, or maybe it's just that place that you can rest for a little while in between drafts of a novel when you really need a break, but stopping writing feels like it will be either like lonely and you'll miss it, or just unproductive because you'll sort of get out of that writer brain. She also. I had, I turned in a story, my second story of my MFA program. My first story in the workshop was like very bad. A very, like, really rough. I came out like I was crying. It was intense. It was really a hard workshop. And so the next one I was like, I don't wanna do that again. I have to write a new thing and it has to be really good. So I wrote this story and I, but it's about this, uh, girl in high school who gets pregnant and believes she's gonna give birth to any number of strange animals. And right before I turned it in, I was like, oh my God, what if somebody's already written this story? I don't. I was a poet before. I like haven't read that much short fiction. I'm totally copying somebody without realizing it. So I wrote Michelle an email and was like, oh my God, am I like, what should I do? I felt like it was, she was gonna be like, um, yeah. Somebody has kind of written a story about it. A young man and a slave going down the Mississippi on a raft like you, you Rob probably should avoid that, but she said. That is sweet and, and neurotic. And I recognize that as a pattern writers have and is the treatment not the subject. So the, the way you personally come at it from your experience and in your voice is the thing. So don't, don't just put aside all of that, like external like, well, that it should be this and then. Here we have James, my personal Everett, which is exactly a retelling of Huckleberry Finn, but from a different perspective. And it is a profound and incredible book that exists that matters because it's in conversation. So I guess just to like, yeah, like coming at the her, what she taught me was so much sort of like the, the, the way to be in my chair as a writer and the way to, to. Take myself both very seriously and very unserious at the same time. And between those two things, kind of going back and forth between those two things, I can always keep moving forward.

Kelton 39:58

It's funny, the writing that we culturally are like, well, of course there should be another adaptation of that. Like we should have. At least a hundred more pride and prejudices. We should do every single Shakespeare at least once a year by someone. And then it's like, sometimes we get so caught up with like, oh well, is this like the exact same story someone published in 2023? And you're like,

Ramona Ausubel 40:21

Yes.

Kelton 40:21

never gonna be the exact same story.

Ramona Ausubel 40:25

I know. Isn't that weird?

Kelton 40:26

we, yeah, where we allow ourselves to play with a narrative and, and where we're like, well this one needs to be original'cause it's mine.

Ramona Ausubel 40:34

Yeah, totally. I know it is. So yeah, there's like a, if I, if you're gonna retell Shakespeare, you're like a serious and intelligent person, but if you're gonna. Have like brush up against a novel that was published last year, you're gonna be like, oh, whoa, whoa, you're nothing original and we saw you. And truthfully, nobody's gonna say that, or care is the truth, but they're like, those are the voices.

Krisserin 40:55

It's funny because you know, when you go through the query process, you have to provide comps. You have to say, my book is similar to these books, which is a way to signal, obviously, to the publisher and to the, uh, that this is a marketable idea. But in the same vein, sometimes when I tell. ask me like, what's your book about? Which is the worst question ever, and you have to sit there and describe it. They'd be like, oh yeah, it's kind of like this. Then I'm like, no, it's not. Don't say that. I hate that.

Ramona Ausubel 41:25

I know I hate that too. Or they'll be like, is it like that movie? I'm like. No, it's not like that movie. Yeah, I know. Like it's unique in the world. Nobody's ever done this before. Okay.

Krisserin 41:37

That's right. I'm the first and the only. Oh, oh man. So I'm, we asked about your teachers. I'm curious if there are doorways that you as a teacher have discovered with your students, that

Ramona Ausubel 41:52

Oh, so many, so many of them. I feel like all of them are, I've named them and like crystallized them as a teacher. I probably wouldn't have, I'm sure I would've been using them in some way because I really do use them and they really do come outta my work. But I might not have even identified this as like, this is the pattern and this is how I'm using it. Because I teach, I'm noticing it in real time. As I'm doing it, I'm like, oh, this is how I'm getting through this right now. I see that and then I say it to somebody and then it becomes like a thing. So. Yeah, I feel like I've become such a better writer by being a teacher because I'm so much more attentive to process and to other people's processes being involved in other writers' processes. So, so useful. Like it's, it feels like a privilege, but also it's just very technically useful.'cause everybody does things differently, so I'm learning from them all the time. But I noticed like the, there's one doorway that when I was revising the last animal, which is my latest novel. That, that I did this thing of doing one chapter for two weeks that I would like set myself a date with that chapter. And the first week I just wrote into it. So anything that I now understood needed to be there or wanted to be there, or I wanted to play around with that first week, I was just like writing into it, no editing, no changing things. And then the second week I would read it again on Monday and revise it, make it, make it, sort of bring it up to the level of a second draft. And it was so, so much fun.'cause I felt like I knew exactly what I was there to do. It was, I didn't have to think about all the other chapters at that point. I was just like, in this thing with this one chapter and I had like the two weeks. So I was, I, there was the scaffolding around me, but I had room to do the playing and the kind of, the kind of like, you know, prefrontal cortex thinking, pattern making part two. I was working with a class of novelists that they just happened to be that all the MFAs here were novelists that year. So I, we were talking about that all the time, and it was so nice to be like, Ooh, I just, I'm trying this thing. What are you guys trying right now? And to share that and name it that way.

Krisserin 43:59

That's so interesting. So do you work on your, your projects, like on a chapter by chapter basis? So you'll write the first chapter, first draft of the chapter, and then revise it immediately into kind of No. Okay.

Ramona Ausubel 44:12

No, no, it's a first full draft or half draft, whatever. However much like however densely, the dense, the weave of the draft is depends, but I like all the way through beginning to end. Without looking up. That's the, that's the first part. Maybe I do that sort of rough outline in the like third of the way through phase, so I can see my way forward. But that's as much planning as I would ever do. And then in the next draft, I come back and it's more like that. That sort of controlled system. But I also love to revise by going thread by thread. So taking whatever stretch of time, maybe it's also a week or two weeks, and paying attention only to one character. So I'm just watching what is, what is every, read, every scene, how is this character, are there, are there moments where she's just like saying the same things you said before and is like hitting the same note? Are there, is her like sort of like lines of tension interesting enough? Is there enough going on? Does she have enough to do and paying, letting everything else go, but paying attention only to that, or paying attention only to setting or only to like the texture of the sentences. Are the sentences themselves like doing enough? Is there enough in the imagery? So the, I guess part of it is that I am not good at paying attention to a lot of things at once. I, I think I have like a, like a DH, D brain and it's just like too much. I can get distracted and doubt myself if I have too much, too much I'm thinking about. So the more I can be like, okay, one chapter, two weeks, or pay attention just to Vera, just follow Vera, see what's going on with her and really work on her. The stronger the work is and the more kind of in it I am, because the less self-doubt is getting in the way.

Krisserin 45:50

It's like structured play.

Ramona Ausubel 45:52

Yeah. Yes. Exactly. Totally. Yeah. I think that probably could sum up, like everything I do, structured play is like that's, that's what it is. So everything in Unstuck is some version of that.

Kelton 46:04

Following one character at a time, I think is such a great idea too, to be like, what are they doing here? What are they feeling? You know, even if they're peripheral, it's like if they're peripheral, they're in there for a reason still. And so to

Ramona Ausubel 46:15

Yeah.

Kelton 46:16

there's a, an arc that they're following and attention that they're drawn to, that made me just, I was just like lost in my head thinking about what am my characters? And I was like, what is he doing?

Ramona Ausubel 46:26

I had a character in the last animal that, that's about this, the a woman and her two daughters who end up in this like genetics project to, to bring back the wooly mammoth. And for a lot of drafts it was a mom and dad and the two kids, and the dad was just like. A lump, like he was just like, like, like a thing attached to the mom's shoulder and was like a thing that was like traveling along with them, but really had nothing, no purpose. And there was a moment, way far in, it was like after I'd sold the book, it was in the last like probably two drafts. I was like. He needs to be dead. The dad needs to be dead. His whole purpose is to be in absence. He was like a non thing, but he needed to be even more of a non thing in a way that like electrified everything and, and like brought this like huge sense of gravity and grief to the whole situation, which is really a book about like grief in many different ways. And that completely changed the story and it like all of a sudden it just like sunk. It's like a novel now. And it came into focus. I kind of knew that like something, I was like, what is it? I can't solve it. I kept like giving him more stuff to do and he was still just like, Oop. I'm like, okay, I have to kill you. Sorry.

Kelton 47:39

This is the Disney Writer's Room. You're

Krisserin 47:41

Yeah.

Kelton 47:41

oh, one of these has to be dead.

Ramona Ausubel 47:43

Which parent? Both parents. One parent's gotta be one.

Kelton 47:45

Yeah.

Krisserin 47:46

I find writing parents is particularly hard. Because you've gotta have their relationship with each

Ramona Ausubel 47:53

Mm-hmm.

Krisserin 47:54

individual relationships with them, and then the character's collective relationship with them and give them full, like, yeah, I definitely, I killed, I killed a, a parent in one of my books, but like, it was a, a big deal that they

Ramona Ausubel 48:08

Yeah. Yes.

Krisserin 48:09

thing

Ramona Ausubel 48:10

hard.

Krisserin 48:11

Yeah.

Ramona Ausubel 48:12

Especially,

Kelton 48:12

dies in the first sentence.

Ramona Ausubel 48:15

whoa. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a really powerful narrative. Move, and it's hard as a parent to do that. You're like, this is the only thing that I like, need to not happen in the one of like the top things that needs to not ever happen in the world. I'm gonna make it happen in the story. I'm sorry, everybody. Yeah.

Krisserin 48:32

That A, a child dying and a dog dying, the dog

Ramona Ausubel 48:36

Mm-hmm.

Krisserin 48:37

that's the hardest thing for me.

Ramona Ausubel 48:39

There, there's that name of the, you know, like the guy Sunglasses is holding up the protest sign and there's one that says, I'm not watching the movie if the dog dies. And I feel that. I'm like, just don't even, don't even,

Krisserin 48:51

Have we, haven't we seen enough Keanu Reeves movies? Like, we know what happens when the dog is killed.

Ramona Ausubel 48:56

boy. No. No.

Krisserin 48:59

Uh, one of my favorite doorways that you have in the book is do something for someone. The Do something for someone doorway. I mean, your book is just. Overwhelmingly generous, and I think that this is one that Kelton and I talk about a lot of being a good literary citizen, and I just love this idea of write five generous reviews of books that you loved or offer to, read a draft for somebody. What are your favorite ways of being a good literary citizen? What are the things that you like to do when you need to pull yourself up out of your writing? And I mean, besides being an incredibly generous teacher and having all of these students that you help all the time.

Ramona Ausubel 49:41

I love that question. I really, I love the offering to read something. That one is, feels so good to kind of come up out of the blue and be like, I'm available for something. If you're ready. Everyone, even if it's just like, can you just read the scene? I don't need to. Whatever's actually like genuinely useful. Don't give me stuff you're not ready to have somebody. See. Um, and I also like the. Celebrate somebody's some good thing that somebody else is doing. So go to somebody's reading or write nice things on the internet about their book or just like send them a present a little something for their, whether it's like publication or you finished a draft or I'm just proud of you for staying in it. Something like that feels direct and real. Those are my favorites. I'm not good at social media, so I'm not a good literary citizen in that way. And I always feel a sense of like guilt and that I'm missing, that I should be, that I should be posting about everybody else's books all the time. And I mean to, and I read them, but I just, I'm not good at it and that, yeah. So, but I'm trying to like. Focus on. It's so hard and I always worry that I'm gonna miss one and that it, that that person's gonna feel, it just feels fraught and that slows me down. So then instead of that becoming a way to feel better and feel more connected, it makes me feel more disconnected.'cause I feel like I'm messing it up and I'm gonna like accidentally hurt somebody by trying to be nice. So instead of worrying about that and being like, I'm gonna start doing that more, I just do the other things that I genuinely like to do and that really do feel good and that feel like is a thing that I truly have to offer and focus on that for now. And there might come a point where I'm like, I can now I'm ready to try to do the posting books on my Instagram page or whatever. If that happens, great. I'll be, I'll be, I'll welcome that version of me if she shows up. But right now it just doesn't feel true and it feels like it will make the whole thing feel like more prickly, which I don't want.

Kelton 51:39

Well, I think the most generous thing you did for me in this book is talk about writer math. Writer math is something I talk to Chris Aaron about all the time. It's like how I motivate myself through anything. And seeing it in your book made me feel so validated. Just the element of being like, okay, if I write this many words and this many weeks, it will amount to this many pages on these days, and by then I will feel amazing.

Ramona Ausubel 52:04

Yes,

Kelton 52:04

wanted

Ramona Ausubel 52:05

it really works.

Kelton 52:06

yeah. And what kind of writer math are you using right now?

Ramona Ausubel 52:11

Right now I'm trying to start a totally brand new thing and I've got a lot of stuff for unstuck going on, so I'm trying to be aware that I don't have as much time as I might at an at another moment. So instead of being too ambitious, I'm going for like a, like a 500 words a day practice, weekdays only. And sometimes it's maybe not even gonna hit that. I wanna open the document every day and I wanna aim for 500 words, but if it's just, if I just add a sentence that's okay. Right now I'm kind of, my goal for this is to have something that's kind of starting to come alive. By the time school starts in August so that I've got something to work on next academic year. I don't need to finish anything right now. I've got a novel out with my agent right now. So it's, it'll be like, we'll, we'll, I don't need to be in the like ultra productive place, but I still really wanna be in a relationship with the work. So that's my, that's my writer math right now. It's just like, it's mostly like. Visit it at its house every day and 500 words might happen, but they also might not.

Krisserin 53:18

I'm definitely more of the school of spending the time and kelton's more of the school of, let's have a word count goal.

Ramona Ausubel 53:23

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It changes for me. It goes back and forth. That's good. That's why it's good that your friends and podcast buddies. Yeah.

Krisserin 53:33

yes. We're, we call each other accountability buddies. We keep each other

Ramona Ausubel 53:36

Oh, that's so good.

Krisserin 53:38

That's one of your, your doorways is getting a writing

Ramona Ausubel 53:41

Yeah.

Krisserin 53:42

each

Ramona Ausubel 53:42

Yep.

Krisserin 53:43

and it really does help. It helps a lot. What's your, what's your favorite doorway your book?

Ramona Ausubel 53:49

I think the one I use the very most is the what ifs. So this is when I get stuck or when I don't know anything about the beginning of something to set the document aside, open a new document. So for every story or novel that I'm working on, I have the, the thing itself, or maybe it's broken into chapters, and then I have a cuts document where I can put anything that I think is not gonna stay, but can feel like it's. Just going to like a nice hotel instead of getting killed. And then I have a what if document and the what if document ranges far and wide. So if I'm stuck, I will stop, put the thing away, open that and write 25. What ifs. And these can be possibilities that go in absolutely any direction. So they could be like, things to do with things. So what if, what if we have the, the, we're in the, the buffet and the crab legs are being used as swords. That is a, like, that feels like an opening in the, that has to do with character, but also has to do with the objects. It could be things with settings. What if we move this to 1998 at the mall in Santa Fe where I grew up? What if this is. Super condensed. So rather than taking place over the whole summer, what if we smush it down to three days? What if the mom has some kind of illness? What if the dad just won the lottery? What if like, like it could be every different possible direction. I, there's no, I'm not choosing anything. So it's totally nonlinear. And at the end of the 25. I have never not come up with something that feels like it's the next Yes. And I'm just looking for the next, yes. I don't need, I'm not solving the whole story right now. I'm just finding the next thing that feels like, ooh, there's definitely something in that crab leg scene. Okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna start there and that's all I need to know right now is I, I'm just gonna like go to where that heat is and the reason that I like it, aside from just being. Really fun'cause it's a list and so it's like, so there's no pressure on it. It's kind of like that, pretend again, it was like this, I'm, I'm taking it away from the writing itself and moving it into the land of all possibilities, but also. The, I write a lot of them. The 25 is helpful.'cause if I do only five, it's usually kind of the more obvious top of the head ideas. And if I go past those, that's where the good stuff often is, where I'm like, like digging a little deeper and coming up with things that feel like more unexpected or weirder. Yeah. It, it just, it's never truly, it has never failed me. It's so, it's so helpful and I never delete them. So that document. It can get very long For the last animal, I think the novel's like 250 pages and the what if document is like 50 pages. It's a like a lot of time spent in that mode. And I sometimes go back and reread things that I put there before and find something that like, you know, day three me thought of that I didn't know I was gonna use. But then I do later. There's also, it's a kind of a nice. It's nice to look. It's like an archeological document.'cause you could look back and be like, wow. At one point I thought this story was gonna involve like the underground tunnels of the zoo. I had totally forgotten that that was one of the things that I might do, and I am super not doing that.

Krisserin 56:54

I'm gonna add that to my list of goals for the week. I'm gonna do my what if document it. It really, there is so much focused on discovery. Discovery is a huge part of these doorways and figuring out what's next. And as I was reading, the beginning of the book, I felt like, oh, this is very much in line with improv rules, but

Ramona Ausubel 57:14

Mm-hmm.

Krisserin 57:15

and then I saw that you had a chapter. Specifically about learning lessons from improv, so I I absolutely love that idea. You know, I, I figure we probably should have opened this episode with this question, but I would love for you to share with our listeners kind of your path to becoming a writer. I know you attended the U-C-I-M-F-A program, which is an incredible program, but when did you know, when, when you were young that you wanted to become a writer and how did that first, come to you, and how did you find your agent?

Ramona Ausubel 57:46

yeah, of course. I, I have a, a lot of writers in my family, so I sort of knew that that's one of the things that a person could be. We don't have any. Like practical jobs and my, now one of my cousins is a doctor, but there's like some professors, but everybody was an artist basically. So I, I think, I thought that's what grownups did, which is not, not, I know, I'm like, I'm really glad that I didn't think like I should be an accountant. It was great. But so I wrote,

Krisserin 58:15

what Kelton was like. I'm gonna make money. I'm gonna be in in finance when I grow up. That was her.

Ramona Ausubel 58:22

which is also.

Kelton 58:23

of that.

Ramona Ausubel 58:23

Yeah, but it can't, I mean, making, it turns out we all have to also have jobs. Even the writers, the writers who are successful as writers also have jobs. So that's, that I didn't realize, like I didn't understand how that whole picture was gonna come together. And it could have, it could have been a lot of different things. But for the writing part, I, I was also a really shy kid and I, I found that writing was a way to communicate with the world, honestly. And that where I actually got like seen and heard. Which I didn't know how to do out loud with my regular voice, and that was really helpful. So it was between those things. And I wrote, I wrote poetry, seriously. You know, I was a teenager, but seriously as a teenager in high school and in college. And then I got this idea for a novel, which I ended up being my first two books, but I thought it was one book, which was the, the, my two grandmother's sort of views of the 20th century on the one on my dad's side. Poor Jews like, like living in tiny villages and surviving various pogroms and wars by eating tree bark and you know, really like really dark. And on the other side, my mom's side is like sort of fallen American aristocracy, like once extremely connected, rich, like wings of museums named after relatives. You know, all of the stuff. The money. They, they were art. That's where the, a lot of the artists were. So the money went down and down until it got to, my generation we're like, we don't need more money, but we still wanna make art. So I thought that that would be the first, that that would be one novel. And I started it while I was working as a personal assistant. It was a terrible job. And I took Fridays off so that I could write. I was working on this novel. I was like, you know, plugging away, but I. Came to the realization that I really didn't know what I was doing. I'd only written poetry before, so I was like, you know, used to this much text and now it's like. This endless feeling idea and the story was really, really too big. So I decided I need to apply to graduate school, and I did, and I had just enough pages basically for the application that were okay. And fortunately I got in. So, but when I got there, I, I, all of these people around the table were really, really. They were really good, like, like first stories. I was like, oh my God, I'm in, I'm in like way over my head. I'm not at this level at all and I need to like, I have so much to learn. So I put the novel away and decided I would just write short fiction for the beginning and like teach myself to write prose and, and learn as much as I could. So I wrote short stories for the two years of workshop, and at the, at the, the last quarter of the second year, I felt like I kind of was like, maybe I'm brave enough to try to write a novel now, and at figuring that I'd never be more supported than I was there. So I picked up, um, the novel. I decided in half and started with my dad's side. And I, that was my first writer math where I was like, uh, let's say a novel is 250 pages long. If I write 10 pages a day for five weeks. I will have that number of pages and I can say that I've written a draft of a novel and I just need to know that that road is there and that it's possible to reach the end of it. And I did that. I wrote 10 pages a day in the Newport Beach Library and just like, I just kept going and I didn't know what the story was going to look like. I didn't have an outline. I didn't, I had like some details from my family, but mostly I was just like discovering stuff.

Krisserin 1:01:56

the library of MacArthur

Ramona Ausubel 1:01:58

Yes, yes. Yep. Yep.

Krisserin 1:01:59

ocean? That

Ramona Ausubel 1:02:00

Yep.

Krisserin 1:02:01

middle school, high school

Ramona Ausubel 1:02:02

Really?

Krisserin 1:02:03

the time.

Ramona Ausubel 1:02:04

It's such a good library. Oh, I love that. Yeah, I know. It was such a, it was such a lucky place to get to write. It was great. And then I'd go to what, what is that fancy grocery store next door? I don't remember, but I would like go like, yeah, I would like go, I think it's Bristol Farms. I would go, like, I could only afford to get like a string cheese and an apple, but I go over there and get a snack. Yeah, so then I had that, that novel thing, but it was so crazy. It was like characters disappeared halfway through, or appeared halfway through as if they'd always been there. Tenses were, it was like really, really wild. So I revised that for my, during my third year. I kept, you know, I, like a couple of teachers read it. I revised and revised. And, and at the end of that, when I finished the MFA, one of my stories got published in one Story and I got a lot of notes from agents. And so I was, they were like, do you have a novel? That's the question that story writers get asked. And I had to say, yes, I do, I do, I have a novel, but it really wasn't ready. So I sent it out before it was ready and got all the rejections slowly. They just, like, over the months, they kept filtering in and finally I got a rejection from, I, I some at some point checked in with teachers and one of my teachers was like, let me send it to somebody at, at a, at a Gray Wolf, which is an amazing small press. That editor was the last person who was reading and she wrote me after a few months to say, I'm not gonna buy this book. But I think you have something here and I think you need to consider the approach you're taking. I think you need to think about the point of view. I think you need to think about some of these like big questions. And it, she was so right. So I dove back in in a really different way and revised it a bunch more. And then I got one more note from that, one story from an editor who was at Riverhead, who was like, I'm, I just wanna be on the list for whatever. Like when you have an agent and they're submitting, I want. To be on that list. And I was like, Ooh, I'm coming to New York to visit my grandma. Could I like take you out for a glass of wine and talk about that? And she said yes. So we kind of got to be friends. And then I asked her if she had an agent. I sent her my whole story collection. Not the novel.'cause I understood that it wasn't ready. And I asked her if she could think of an agent that felt like the right person just for the stories. And she was like, yes, definitely. I'm sending it to PJ Mark right now. So that he read it over the course of a week and was like, I'm, I just trust you from these stories. I trust you and I, I'm love that you're revising that book until you're really ready and I'm willing to like sign you on and send me the manuscript when you're done. So it was like. So many little, like by following those doorways, again, those are, those, like one little doorway leads to the next little doorway. And even though along the way a lot of doors are getting closed, as long as there's like one way to keep moving forward, it keeps moving forward. So, um, after I spent, like, I didn't have a job for a few months and I spent 12 hours a day revising that novel, I was like, so in it, it felt like the sentences were my own blood. When I sent it to him, he loved it and he sold it in like three days to that editor who had written me originally. So it was like sub to sweet and wonderful story. I know, I know. Yeah, it was great. Yeah, and she ended up leaving Riverhead after a little while. She's an agent now. We're still really good friends, but I've been with the same editor who I got passed to, sits for all, all five of my books of fiction. Yeah, it feels like it. Yes, I have a lot of ground under me now. I have a lot of like, I've like built up a career and I have some trust from the publishing world, but I'm not a super bestseller and every book is starting over. Every book is like, I don't know if this will work. I don't know if it will sell. I don't know what will happen. And that is. Hard, but it's also okay because it means that I'm gonna keep really trying. I'm never gonna become complacent.'cause you just don't get to in this industry unless you become like the kind of bestseller where they just know they're gonna make money because your name is on the cover. Otherwise, everybody's kind of in the same boat and, and that's okay.

Krisserin 1:06:24

Well, you've written beautiful books. They are just gorgeous.

Ramona Ausubel 1:06:28

Thank you.

Krisserin 1:06:29

Last question before we, we say goodbye,

Ramona Ausubel 1:06:31

Yeah.

Krisserin 1:06:32

always like to ask, what are the three books that kind of always stay with you? And they could, and if it's hard to think of those, it could just be what's on your nights down right now. But we like to know kind of what are, what are your top three?

Ramona Ausubel 1:06:45

Hmm. That is a good and hard question. Christine Scott was one of my teachers. She was a visiting writer and her work is. Like the sentences are dense and incredible and I feel like it's like the strongest version of the drug, which I, I love her work. I think her the, my favorite. I love her short stories, but there's a book, a novel called All Souls. Pretty sure it's called All Souls. That takes place at a prep school in, in New York and is just a really spectacular novel. So those ones are, are definitely in the, like if I need to like return to the real thing, I go there. I loved the We the Animals by Justin Torres is another one that I come back to and it feels like it keeps being a new book every time I revisit it. Um, I don't know. I mean there like the, there, yeah, it's hard after that. I feel like it depends on what I'm working on right. At the time I'm reading. A book called The Hounding by ZI think Enobi Phillips is her name. And it's uh, about this three sisters who I believe are gonna turn into dogs over, but it takes place in like long ago England out in the, like in the like wilderness. And it is, it's really cool and really good. And it feels like it's both like accurate historical fiction and. Crazy. Like fantastical, but like fantastical in a way that really teaches you something about the real world. I love that. That's, that's always, I always want to read that.

Krisserin 1:08:21

Reminds me.

Kelton 1:08:22

my alley.

Krisserin 1:08:22

It sounds very Karen Russell St. Lucy's

Ramona Ausubel 1:08:25

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Krisserin 1:08:27

I

Ramona Ausubel 1:08:27

Yeah. Yeah.

Krisserin 1:08:29

Uh, well, I could, I feel like we could talk forever. It was so great having you on the podcast, Mona. Where can people find your work? Where can they buy unstuck? Let the people know how to follow you.

Ramona Ausubel 1:08:42

That should be available all over in all the online and in-person retailers. If they don't have it at your local indie, you can order it. And you can find me on Instagram at at Ramona Obel, all one word. And. My website is my name too, so you can find me there and I've got an email address on there that if you wanna say, Hey, I'll, I'll totally answer you back.

Krisserin 1:09:03

Amazing. Well, thank you again. Everyone, please go out and buy Unstuck 101 doorways leading from the blank page to the last page. And Mona, thank you so much for coming on the pod.

Ramona Ausubel 1:09:13

It was such a joy. Thank you both. Thank you for reading so well and having such great questions. I can't wait to see what you write.

Kelton 1:09:20

you know, I know I said I wasn't gonna accomplish anything this following week, but now I feel like I want to. So, thanks Ramona.

Krisserin 1:09:29

I really love everyone should go and pick up a copy of this book because I, I didn't get a chance to read the whole thing. But the small snippets that I did read, I was very inspired. I was very inspired. Did you notice that she has a, a blurb from Karen Russell? I almost died.

Kelton 1:09:48

My God.

Krisserin 1:09:48

I think like Pam Houston also wrote something like, I felt inspired to use these as writing prompts. And there's just so much in there. It's such a generous book. It is so filled with kindness and, and love and attention for writers, and I just feel like, it feels like a hug. Everyone

Kelton 1:10:07

It's just a really easy to use, you know, it's like you can literally just like flip it open and be like, okay, this is my assignment for the day. And she, she, the prompts are so well guided.

Krisserin 1:10:18

Mm-hmm.

Kelton 1:10:19

what I liked about it, is it's like I oftentimes when I approach those prompt books, it's just like, describe the middle school cafeteria where you ate. And it's like, that doesn't like really help me accomplish anything with the writing I need to be doing be, whereas this book is very helpful in like what I'm actually working on.

Krisserin 1:10:40

I like the one that's like, write it from a different POV. Write your main characters obituary. There's a lot of really cool things in there. And then outside of the, I mean, it's not really a writing prompt book. It's more of like a thinking prompt book. I feel like it's asking you to be more permissive and, generous with yourself and how you're approaching problems that you're facing in your writing, but it's even outside of writing things like, do something for someone else or, you know, be kind to yourself. I just, I really, it's just very indicative of the type of person that Mona is that she would write this book to just have writers, you know, feel more, at peace and in love with their work in themselves. So everyone go buy it, not

Kelton 1:11:25

That's,

Krisserin 1:11:26

everyone

Kelton 1:11:26

that's, that's your goal for the week, everybody. Now we gotta think about what ours are.

Krisserin 1:11:32

Yeah.

Kelton 1:11:32

Okay. Chris, do you have goals for the week ahead?

Krisserin 1:11:38

well, I do feel like I have neglected a bit. The book that I am working on the middle school love story. So I do want to try, I mean, I did write twice last week.

Kelton 1:11:50

Mm-hmm.

Krisserin 1:11:50

wanna try and write three times again this week. I do want to dedicate and focus the energy on the book, but I'm excited to hear your thoughts on my story.

Kelton 1:12:02

Yeah, that's part of my goals for the week ahead is I'm going to set aside some time to reread your story. Yeah.

Krisserin 1:12:08

I can't wait and get my mom's feedback on it as well. I really like the ending. Um, like I said, it, of just, instead of feeling the pressure to it about something, I was just like, let me just make it fun. Like, how would I want this story to end? And that's what I wrote, and I, I was really kind of giddy by how it turned out. but. I think that if I do get any feedback I'll go back to that short story, but that's my goal is I wanna write three times this week, and get some more sleep, which might be hard. Alright, Kelton, what you are, you and I are kind of in the same boat. We've got our family in town, we got all this stuff going on. What are your plans?

Kelton 1:12:54

My plan is to read your short story. I would also like to finish my library books, and I would like to write, another 3000 words. I think this week I'll lower my expectations a little bit, but I think that with the momentum, I feel 3000 is not impossible. And I already wrote the newsletter for this week, so that means on Saturday my writing time can be for the book.

Krisserin 1:13:24

Wait a minute. was it like a week ago or two weeks ago? You said you weren't gonna give yourself word count goals, so what changed?

Kelton 1:13:32

I, I just don't really know how else to make a. For this week. I mean, maybe it's like two more scenes or something. Uh, but I. I also like the idea of, you know how people say that you shouldn't stop at the end of like a, chapter when you're writing that, it's like you should stop midway so that when you come back you have the momentum, you know what you're doing and it's easier to get started. When I wrote to scenes, I was kind of like, well, I have time for a third scene. And I felt myself dragging my feet a little. So I, I just, I'm trying, I'm trying it again now that there's like momentum behind it and maybe it won't work, maybe it will. It's still my fantasy method of working that I work toward a word count. The part that clicks the most in my brain and makes me feel like I accomplish the most. Like when you were saying earlier that. You only wrote once this week, but you wrote 4,400 words. I would not in any way be disappointed that that was only one time. I'd be like. I wrote 4,400 words. That's a lot. You know that, that's like a huge chunk of a book that's a whole 16th of a book. And so I, I like, I like that number more because for me, sitting down to write three times, I know I can blunder my way through sitting down three times and not really accomplish anything. Whereas 3000 words for me there's an action goal there.

Krisserin 1:15:12

I can see where you're coming from. am the opposite, that advice doesn't help me. That kinda like right in to the middle of the scene. I, my brain needs completion. It needs to come to the end, even if I'm not, happy with. How flushed out the scene is I wanna get to the end of the scene.'cause I like that feeling of completion. For me, scenes feel very C like C like every kind of scene starts a new circle. For me it's kind of this rhythmic feeling that I get when I'm writing. And so I wanna come to the end I don't know if you've seen the, what's it called? Artemis too, and how it's traveling around the world and it gets slingshot around the moon. That's kind of how my scenes feel is like I'm kind of circling and then I finish scene and it slingshots me into the next scene.

Kelton 1:16:04

I see

Krisserin 1:16:05

I like, I like completing things, which is why when I sat down, I, I don't even know how long I wrote for. It was on the weekend. Whenever you texted me, was that Saturday?

Kelton 1:16:15

something like that. Yeah.

Krisserin 1:16:17

Yeah. I sat down and I just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote until I finished, then I could get up and, and go away. But I didn't do it with like a, a word count goal in mind. I just felt compelled to finish more

Kelton 1:16:32

I feel like I am trying to get off at the top of the Ferris wheel so that when I get back on it, just gravity helps me start writing again.

Krisserin 1:16:43

Yeah, I can understand that too.

Kelton 1:16:45

I don't know if it really works for me. You know, like all of this novel writing is novel. But I, you know, I don't know what helps me finish a book. So everything in this era is me just trying stuff to see what it works. And of course, I'm inclined to do the things that sound attractive to me. You know, that was why I talked about the writer math in this episode. I just like, loved that. Because it's it that like works with my brain. Like I can't even tell you how much of my personal journal is just math. It's like really weird when you flip through it and there's so many sections that are just numbers.

Krisserin 1:17:20

You're such a Capricorn.

Kelton 1:17:22

Yeah. Yes, yes. Like it's so hilarious. What a deep seated Capricorn I am.

Krisserin 1:17:33

There is actually a chapter in Ramona's book about, needing to be kinder than necessary, especially to yourself. And thing for her was, and we've talked about this, is the time spent. seat is so important because one thing is true. You're not gonna write a book if you don't make the time to sit down and do it, which is why for me, saying three days a week is forcing myself to spend the time.'cause once I'm there, even if I'm not super productive, at least I'm like looking at it and tinkering with it. And it is spending the time. And I do feel like with your experience with your book, that time is not wasted. It kind of adds up and it builds momentum and helps with these outbursts of productivity. But I, what I, here's what I think, this is my opinion on how you write a book. I feel like writing a novel is like raising a, a baby like zero to. Six months, meaning sometimes there's like one thing that is a miracle. It's like that one or the one pacifier or the one song, and it works like a charm and it saves your life for like two weeks and then doesn't work anymore and you gotta find something else. I feel like it's a constant troubleshooting problem solving. Something works now, but then it doesn't work anymore, and you've gotta pivot and you've gotta figure out how to get back to that productivity or figure out how to make it work again. I think that there's no, one thing, I think it's constantly changing and it's just part of, being. with a million other responsibilities is you

Kelton 1:19:22

Yeah.

Krisserin 1:19:23

paddling and navigating what comes at you. And sometimes you'll find a thing that's a miracle and then sometimes it just won't work anymore.

Kelton 1:19:31

For me, I feel like having a word count or having set scenes you have to write is sort of like having a training plan. Like I can go run three times a week, but if I do the same run every single time, I'm never gonna get ready for the like trail marathon. You know?

Krisserin 1:19:49

Mm-hmm.

Kelton 1:19:50

I need to set goals within those times in order for me to. Progress. And so that's like, I feel you on, it has to be time and seat first. You have to like get on your running shoes and get outside. But then I need a restraint beyond that to work toward or I'll, I'll just start meandering, you know? And so I like, I need that training plan.'Cause it motivates me and I don't know what the right motivations are. And what the right training plan is. That's sort of the problem. I'm like, while we've established now, like I have my time on my calendar, when I show up, I know that I need to do this. I know what the end goal is, but I'm still looking at like what helps me get stronger.

Krisserin 1:20:37

Yeah. It's almost like you need a coach.

Kelton 1:20:39

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's what you are.

Krisserin 1:20:42

I thought I was gonna say, I was gonna say like, the, the thing that motivates me is meeting you once a week to tell you whether I got my shit done or not.

Kelton 1:20:51

Mm-hmm.

Krisserin 1:20:52

also getting texts from you saying, I got my shit done. Did you get your shit done?

Kelton 1:20:56

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And everybody we talk to, I'm like, oh, a lot of people are getting shit done.

Krisserin 1:21:03

A lot of people are getting so

Kelton 1:21:05

A lot of people are getting so much shit done. And I'm like, girl, you can get shit done too. I saw, uh, reel the other day of a girl who found a lost black kitten on a trail, and I just was like, S. Seething with envy, and I just had to tell myself, I was like seeing other people achieve your dreams means that your dreams are achievable. Seeing other people achieve your dreams means your dreams are achievable. So I was just like, calm down. It will happen for you.

Krisserin 1:21:39

I love the comments of those things on TikTok, where it's like, happy for you, I guess. Congrats.

Kelton 1:21:47

Wow. Nice. Thanks. Cool. Glad to see this. Good for you. What trail was it?

Krisserin 1:21:52

Well, again. Listeners. Dear listeners, if you do not have an accountability buddy, we are happy to be that for you. Please email us at official pen pals pod@gmail.com and let us know how your writing's going, and what your goals are, and what you're struggling with and how you're stuck. And we would love to, help you out. And if you do, maybe we'll even send you a copy of Unstuck, because guess what? I got one. I got one. It's gonna arrive on Tuesday. And I would happily send it out to someone who needs it.'Cause now I've got two copies, but we love to hear from you. It makes our day, if you have not yet subscribed to the pod, please do so. It really helps with our numbers. Leave us a review. That was one thing that was in unstuck. Leave a generous review of five books that you've read. Why not leave a generous review of your favorite writing podcast? We would love, it would make our entire week to read some nice words from our listeners, you know, where to follow us. I'm at Chris on TikTok Kelton at Kelton Kin on Instagram, and Kelton writes on TikTok shangri logs.substack.com. And I guess you could subscribe to my substack, even though I only never post anything there@chris.substack.com. We also have a substack for pen pals. I'm actually gonna be posting, I am going to post, that's one of my goals. Write it down. I'm gonna post our book list on Saturday. So if you're listening to this, it's on our substack. We have a whole little fun writeup about our, the books that have influenced us as writers. And all. I got. Kelton. That's all I got.

Kelton 1:23:25

Happy writing everybody.

Krisserin 1:23:26

Happy writing.