Feeling a little trapped?
Staying safe has meant locking ourselves away from the world. But maybe our cages are cocoons.
From publishing new books to learning new skills, in this episode of A Book and A Dream, Megan O'Russell explores the transformations to carry with us as we break back out into the world.
Feeling a little trapped?
Staying safe has meant locking ourselves away from the world. But maybe our cages are cocoons.
From publishing new books to learning new skills, in this episode of A Book and A Dream, Megan O'Russell explores the transformations to carry with us as we break back out into the world.
Megan: [00:00:00] When we finally get to emerge from these crazy, homebound cocoons with our sourdough starters and our language owl-thing app...programs, what do you want to bring out into the world with you?
Announcement: [00:00:16] Welcome to A Book and A Dream with Megan O'Russell: an author's adventure in writing, reading, and being an epic fangirl.
Megan: [00:00:26] Hello, my name is Megan O'Russell, and welcome to Episode 59 of A Book and A Dream. Have you been making bread, shearing your own sheep, learning a new language on an app? What has your pandemic activity been?
Megan: [00:00:43] You see, the way I see it, we've all sort of been crammed into little cocoons by the pandemic. We are all shoved into these little boxes. And whether we like it or not, we are transforming. This has taken too long. There's no way we're coming out on the other side of this the exact same person we want in. So how do we look at our cocoons? And you know what? If you're listening to this and you're like, "I haven't made bread, I haven't learned another language, I have barely maintained my sanity or maybe not maintained my sanity and stayed alive." You know what? That is also winning.
Megan: [00:01:19] If you're...if your cocoon is just, like, survival land, you're still doing a great job. Don't let anyone tell you anything different.
Megan: [00:01:26] So, the reason I started thinking about this is because I was lucky enough to get my first dose of the COVID vaccine, which is sort of the first time I've been able to see that there will be a world after all this. I will be coming out on the other side of this. So that's great. But it made me realize that I'm not going to be who I was when I went into this going out of it. And it also just so happened to line up with some fun news from my literary agent. So that's cool.
Megan: [00:01:55] So, I made a list of how things are going to be different for me. And these are, like, the overall general things, not deep-seated, me as a human being, contributing to world and society like glossary things. So since I dove into isolation in March, I've released six books. It's a lot of books. I mean, I have twenty-one books out. But when you look at like percentages, six is a lot to add.
Megan: [00:02:24] I got two cats, I've had blue hair, and as of the day that I'm recording this, I now have a book on submission to some really big literary houses with my agent.
Megan: [00:02:37] So that's super exciting. It's basically like auditioning for Broadway, but I'm not actually needed to be there. So, I'm auditioning for Broadway, but I'm wrapped in like a TARDIS blanket in my living room, hanging out, which, in one way, is super weird, because it doesn't feel like something that big should be happening when I'm not, like, actively participating. But on the other hand, it's great because no one's expecting me to wear heels. So that's a super fun experience.
Megan: [00:03:09] And I hadn't really done this kind of submission thing with my agent before this. So this is the first time that I'm, like, out there with the big kids. And I have more books in my catalog. And I have two cats that like to bite my feet and my microphone while I'm recording podcasts. So things are very different for me, even just on the cursory level.
Megan: [00:03:28] And then you look at how the world is going to be different, and there are like the big, deep, dark ways that the world's going to be different because we're never really going to be able to go back to the way things were. It's like Ragtime: we can never go back to before. But again, on just, like, the surface of the little things that are going to be different, in the submissions that my agent is putting out for me, one of the places he's submitting is Simon and Schuster.
Megan: [00:03:56] Well, Simon and Schuster was just acquired by Penguin Random House. So they're merging. So since the pandemic began, all of those agents, all of those writers, all of those editors, and, like, cover designers and secretaries, and, like, all these other people...their whole literary world is merging and changing because that's huge.
Megan: [00:04:19] That's, like, massive.
Megan: [00:04:21] That's a publishing giant. It's like the blob. It's just eating everything. And that's going to reshape the world of indie publishing, because a lot of authors who have normally stayed with traditional publishing only are going to start exploring indie options because there's only a few big players left in the publishing game. And so people are going to branch out into indie because there's not going to be as many choices for submissions.
Megan: [00:04:48] And books are going to come out slower because why would publishers want to compete with their own titles? So it's going to be a really different world soon because of this merger that happened while we were all hidden away. And on the other side of my life, on the theater side of my life, which, you know, has been the industry has been completely torn apart...everything's going to be different.
Megan: [00:05:09] Broadway's not going to be able to do the huge kind of musicals that they're used to. They're going to have to do things that aren't going to take full houses in order to recoup the costs. Some things are never going to reopen. A lot of theaters, like regional theaters, have already gone belly up. One turned into a warehouse already, Blue Man Group in Orlando have already announced that they are not reopening. Some of their other sites will, but not Orlando. A lot of regional theaters will close down forever.
Megan: [00:05:36] A lot of actors who are pushed out of their careers are not going to go back. Maybe because they feel like there's not room for them, because with fewer theaters, the competition is going to be fiercer, or because they found a normal job that makes them happy and they've decided that security is where they want to be, which that is a totally legitimate choice. And if you're retiring from theater, don't let anyone tell you that you're giving up your dream. And "how could you abandon what you've wanted your whole life?" Priorities can change. If you want health insurance and a nine-to-five where you know how much you're getting paid all year. Good for you. There is absolutely no shame in that.
Megan: [00:06:10] It can be a bitter pill to swallow that the artistic industries―publishing, theater...basically, everything with the arts, because underfunding is a massive issue, but anyway―it can be a bitter pill to swallow that we're not going to get to step back into our lives as they were. And that doesn't just go for the arts. A lot of other industries have tightened their belts. Work from home is probably going to stay in place for a lot of people. Kids are going to have ongoing weird issues because they're going to think that people should stay six feet away at all times. Everything's going to be weird, everything's going to be different.
Megan: [00:06:43] But once we take that and accept it, there are some choices we have to make. Like, who do we want to emerge from our cocoon as? What do we want to bring back into this changed world?
Megan: [00:06:55] Now, once again, staying on the fluffy level―not going into: appreciating every day and not turning down invitations because we don't like to see people, we should take advantage of actually being able to be in the same room as people, even though we're really introverts, even though everyone thinks we're extroverts and really we just want to hide with the pets in the corner―like, not getting into that. Like staying on the fluffy level. Who do we want to be when we go back into that world? And again, if you just want to be alive and have kept your miniature humans alive, that is absolutely legitimate. Being like, "I dragged two kids into this. I'm draggin' two kids out of it." Good for you. Anyone with miniature humans, you're winning at life. If everyone is, like, fed and clean―maybe not even completely clean, just like not too stinky―you are doing such a good job.
Megan: [00:07:48] So what do I want to bring back out into the world with me? I mean, for one, I want to keep publishing. I have sort of slowed down my schedule to a less manic publishing schedule. I did six books in a year's time instead of, you know, ten, which...six still sounds insane, but I slept. I did the sleeping thing. So improvement. Good for me.
Megan: [00:08:15] I want to keep pushing for bigger publishing contracts because I love being an indie. I love the freedom. But there are certain audiences that it's really hard to reach if you don't have the support of a major, traditional publisher. There's...there's just so much that I can do on my own. And there are things that if you have a team, teams can accomplish because teams are fancy. So I want to start looking more into that now that I have my baseline of, like, all of my backlist is out. I have these complete series. I have audio. I want to start going more in that direction just because I feel like I'm at the point that I could be an indie and still pursue trad(itional publishing), where before I was just barely keeping my head above water with getting my books out. So that's nice.
Megan: [00:09:03] I also know that I was super lucky to get to perform in two different shows during the pandemic. It was handled in a very safe way. Great pandemic safety things. It was...they changed the air conditioning to do things with germs, I don't know, but it was very scientific and fancy. Who's to say? But I do know that I want to be a part of theater's reopening, even though things are not going to be what they were. Salaries won't be what they were. It's not going to be as fancy. There are going to be budget cuts while people try to recoup, and smaller casts and la-dee-la. I know that I want to be a part of it, even though it is going to be hard trying to get everything going again. I, I do know that I love theater and I will take the hardship in order to make sure that things come back. So I definitely want to be a part of that.
Megan: [00:09:52] I also know that I want to prioritize things like sleep and, you know, not dying, and sleep. So there are things that I know I want to do. And again, going and hanging out with friends and not just talking to their pet in the corner, because I should savor human interaction 'cause friends are nice and I like them.
Megan: [00:10:15] So there are things that I definitely want to do and I would encourage you now, which we are not, we are not out of this. We are not out of this. But the end is coming closer to being within sight. There's like a sign that says "light in three hundred yards." So, you know, eventually we're going to get to see the light in the distance. So keep keep hanging on.
Megan: [00:10:37] But take a moment and think of what do you want to bring back out into the world with you when we finally get to emerge from these crazy, homebound cocoons with our sourdough starters and our language owl-thing app...programs, what do you want to bring out into the world with you?
Megan: [00:10:58] Because this is...a horrible opportunity we've been granted where we have been forced to step back and have perspective that hopefully we will never, ever have again. Never. Precedented times only from now on. Never unprecedented. I want thoroughly precedented. So hopefully we'll never have this opportunity again, so we might as well use it.
Megan: [00:11:23] What do you want to contribute to your industry, to your family? Who do you want to be? Have you always been a fashionista and you've realized that you don't actually need to do makeup to be happy? Or have you realized that doing makeup every day really brings you joy? Are you going to start tutoring? Are you going to sing more? Are you going to, I don't know, do picnics every week because you've decided that joy in nature is necessary even if you're not trapped inside or in a park six feet away from each other because, you know, there are no other choices in the world.
Megan: [00:11:54] What is it that you want to bring out? Because the world's going to be different. And if we're going to be forced to be different, too, we can at least choose some of the changes that are being inflicted upon us, because there is no bright side to this. There's never going to be a bright side to this, but at least we can pick the little handholds that are available to us to drag ourselves back out of this darkness.
Megan: [00:12:26] So, choose what you want to bring with you, put them in your backpack, and then when we finally find the light at the end of this tunnel, then you will know what you want to carry with you and what you can shove back under the couch with all the candy wrappers you've been hiding.
Megan: [00:12:44] In the meantime, I will see you again next week. Stay safe. Buh-bye.