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The Financial Reality of Writing Dreams
130 Plays1 month ago
In this episode of Pen Pals, Krisserin and Kelton strip away the taboo of talking money in the literary world, tallying up the true cost of chasing publishing dreams. While Krisserin calculates the sobering $25,000 she's invested over thirteen years of classes, workshops, and editing services, Kelton weighs whether to accept a lucrative two-month project that would fatten her bank account but starve her novel of attention. Between tales of $3,000 writing retreats in Guatemala (where you're "hostage at a desk") and $1,800 workshops where esteemed authors might nod approvingly at your prose, they explore whether the path to publication is paved with privilege or accessible to all. The friends trade wisdom on free alternatives while confronting the reality that sometimes your 401K and your novel-in-progress are competing investments. Plus: Krisserin celebrates typing "THE END" on her manuscript, Kelton's color-coded Post-it wall earns her two precious hours of writing time, and they assign each other ambitious but achievable goals while acknowledging that sometimes, the best writing investment is simply time to let your ideas compost.
Get in contact with us at: officialpenpalspod@gmail.com
Music by Golden Hour Oasis Studios
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, Kelton. Hi, Chris Aaron. I have a question for you. oh my gosh, what is it? How do you feel about talking about money? i actually love talking about money, Chris Aaron. Me too, me too.
00:00:13
Speaker
I'm Chris Aaron Canary. And I'm Kelton Wright. Follow our quest to publish our first novels. From first drops to query letters. Through inevitable rejections. And hopefully, eventual success.
Discussing Money in Writing
00:00:23
Speaker
From California Colorado. This is Pen Pals.
00:00:28
Speaker
Honestly, I feel like it's such a taboo. And I don't know. I always used to think it's like, I hate to say it, a white people thing, but a lot of people don't like to talk about money. Yeah, I mean, i I do know plenty of white people who don't want to talk about money too, but I i still remember the day when my money mindset, speaking about it, shifted. And it was a fellow coworker of ours who was leaving the company we worked at together.
00:00:56
Speaker
and I was positioning myself to take over her role. And she told me her salary just as a like, I don't think they're going to give this to you. So you should know how much it pays.
00:01:08
Speaker
And ever since then, i have been more open and more generous and more curious about money. I love that. I think knowing how much people are getting paid or sharing salaries is a huge, huge thing that you can do to help lift up other people.
00:01:25
Speaker
Because oftentimes you'll walk into a situation in the company, it's of their best interest to pay you as little as they possibly can. And if you know what those circumstances are going into it, then you have more leverage, more power to negotiate.
00:01:38
Speaker
So bless that person if they're listening is somewhere in the universe.
Kelton's Writing Journey with Parenting Challenges
00:01:43
Speaker
But yeah, so today we're going to talk about the cost of writing. But before we get into that, let's chat goals.
00:01:50
Speaker
How was your week, Kelton? yeah God. I think that it is really starting to be obvious to me, as it may have been obvious to anyone listening at the beginning of this, that writing a novel with a baby is really hard.
00:02:07
Speaker
I got two hours in. So my goals were four hours and to map out the scenes that I have in post-it form. And I did that. I wrote everything down in post-its.
00:02:20
Speaker
I have it up on the wall. I have a husband who is eyeing it curiously and making me wonder if I should have put it somewhere else. yeah But I got that done and I had two hours in and it was a super productive week.
00:02:35
Speaker
But taking a page from the Chris Aaron Kimmery book of writing, i did think about my novel a lot and spent a lot of time gestating on what order scenes could go in and what scenes I might be missing and what scenes I knew I had to write and just didn't want to.
00:02:57
Speaker
I did see said post-it wall because Kelton sent me a photo of it. And I just want to share with the listeners that even in her organization of her scenes, she had good maybe. And then I forgot what the bottom one was, but I think it was something negative.
00:03:17
Speaker
It was, but it was like maybe not using Um, cause there are, there's a fair amount of like backstory for the main character that I'm not sure if it's important. And so I have a couple of scenes that I wrote about her childhood that I'm like, it's fun that I know this, but I don't know if the reader needs to know this.
00:03:37
Speaker
So those are, those might get down to the bottom level right now. They're all potential, but I did leave ah a whole row um, no.
00:03:48
Speaker
My professor at Harvard right now, Dr. Elizabeth Sharp-Maketa, she talks about compost and how all writing is compost from which other things can grow. So I feel like it's not wasted work if you're writing those backstories and maybe they make it into the book and maybe it's just a line from the backstory that makes into the book that enriches the scene, but it's all good work. And so congrats. I feel like, do you feel good? I feel like you did good work this week.
00:04:17
Speaker
Yeah, I feel okay. I'm happy that I dug a grave for my darlings before I killed them. It'll definitely make it easier on me, but I'm looking forward to doing more writing. I did have a ah chat with Ben about that. i I need him to actually be like, have you done it today?
00:04:35
Speaker
Because I have noticed I am sort of like, I have to do paid work first. And he's like, you're always going to get the paid work done. Like, I think in the service the concept of paying yourself first.
00:04:50
Speaker
In this season of life, that means writing first. I love that. Way to go, Ben. What a great partner.
Chris Aaron's Writing Progress and Revision
00:05:01
Speaker
Such a good one. Boyan won't ask me like, hey, have you written today? But if I tell him I'm writing, leave me alone. He will protect my time if I need it. But he's not going to be like, hey, Chris Aaron, you haven't done your writing today. So good on Ben.
00:05:16
Speaker
Good on Ben for for being your disappointed baby daddy.
00:05:24
Speaker
He was there all along. So tell me about your goals. I had a good week. I got up every morning at five. And this morning i actually got to write the end on the first draft of of my book.
00:05:42
Speaker
It's still such a mess, but at least in my mind, I have an idea of what what I want the final scene to be and how I want it to end. So I'm feeling cautiously positive about that. And I know that I have a whole lot of work left to do.
00:05:58
Speaker
i was talking to my mom about it and I was like, okay, we poured the foundation and the frame is up and now we got to put in the insulation into all of the plumbing. Like there's a lot, a lot more to do to get this book into a serviceable draft, but the spaghetti draft is there and I feel good about it.
00:06:17
Speaker
feel good about it. ah I'm so excited. Aaron also sent me a screenshot that said the end with a few words scattered above it that I couldn't complete sentences of. So we also know that this is true and very exciting.
00:06:33
Speaker
It's exciting. It feels good. It's also the second time I've written this book from start to finish. I mean, an even bigger milestone then. The second first draft.
00:06:44
Speaker
You made the road and now you've paced it. I love it. More metaphors. Let's do more analogies.
Financial Investments in Writing
00:06:51
Speaker
Okay. Well, I'm glad. It feels like we're starting the next week off strong. I feel very confident that when we talk about our goals at the end of this episode, we're going to go forth into the following week feeling really good about it. But let's talk money.
00:07:06
Speaker
really excited to talk money. yeah Not just because it's fun to do and it feels a little taboo and naughty, but because i think people should realize if they don't already how expensive it is to try and enter the world of publishing and become a accomplished you know writer yeah so certainly how expensive it can be i feel like if you're you have more talent can be You probably don't spend as much as I have, but I ran the numbers.
00:07:39
Speaker
Let's talk about the things that we can spend money on that are pretty obvious and things that we've talked about in the past. We've both taken classes, right? man Just bringing up my notes of all the things that have cost me money.
00:07:53
Speaker
Money, mental health. time. so yeah, I want to say that I started really investing in my writing probably in 2012 was the first time I started taking classes. So it's been about 13 years of actively trying to make writing my career and get a book published. And in that time, taken nine classes at UCLA extension, two classes at Harvard extension, attended one ah writing retreat.
00:08:25
Speaker
I've paid for two edits of various novels. um I've done at least 10 workshops, entered numerous content, paid for Publishers Market and Scrivener.
00:08:40
Speaker
And so in total, over the last 13 years, I've spent around $25,000. Does that include like a laptop? No.
00:08:51
Speaker
all your journals, the books you've bought, the magazines you've subscribed to. Definitely not. It's like when you start thinking about the cost of writing, there's so many things that you could include in it and do in my taxes.
00:09:05
Speaker
You know? My income very much like if it you, counts. And I was like, well, well, well. You're like this Farm Rio dress. It's very inspirational.
00:09:16
Speaker
Yeah. I did buy it to wear at a writing retreat. So i think that the year I started really financially investing in my writing was 2014. That was the first year that I went to a writing retreat and tried to do something new with my writing.
00:09:32
Speaker
With the wonderful Anne Friedman, hosted a retreat in Guatemala, really where fiction took off for me. haven obviously haven't done anything with fiction since then, but it is where I learned that I could do it.
00:09:45
Speaker
And since then, and may have been on three retreats. I have taken three UCLA extension courses, primarily in screenwriting. I have in odd classes here or there, like $70 to hear Anne Lamott talk about this thing and $400 to listen to Lee Stein talk about this thing.
00:10:06
Speaker
I think I probably spent about two grams because those aren't like intensive workshops and they're a bunk, like a hundred bucks or 300 bucks here or there. over the course of a decade.
Supporting Literary Community
00:10:17
Speaker
And then i did a self-run retreat once where I rented an Airbnb and just like had takeout all week to try and work on an application to a workshop that got rejected.
00:10:29
Speaker
So that didn't really do anything. And then i have spent a lot of money on branding. So since I do a newsletter and have done that type of writing for a long time, I've been making logos and variations of them and branding websites and buying websites and that sort of thing. And I think that's a couple grand in there.
00:10:50
Speaker
And on top of that, I also pay for things like Scrivener. I have right magazine subscriptions. I buy a lot of books. i I get a fair amount of books from the library.
00:11:02
Speaker
If the writer is dead, i get it from the library. If the writer is rich, I get it from the library. If the writer is starting out, I buy the book. I just really, i want people to do that for me. So I'm like, put this in the universe as much as you can now to hope that it comes back to you.
00:11:23
Speaker
So I do include a budget for book buying in my like writer's budget. And then obviously the most expensive thing I spend is time. Absolutely. And we don't get paid for that time.
00:11:34
Speaker
It goes in our personal internal piggy bank, but we don't get paid for it. I will say being a good literary citizen means if you have a friend who has published a book, buy the book, buy your friend's book.
00:11:50
Speaker
You don't have to read it you don't want to. But if someone you know has written a book and gotten it published, Buy the book. You can even go online and order it directly from a small bookstore. Pre-order the book if you can. i mean, that's like the number one thing. If you know they're writing a book and they have a pre-order link, pre-order that book. It makes an enormous difference to the publisher and how much they are willing to like market that book.
00:12:20
Speaker
It's like, what, 25 bucks? You spend that on one lunch? Sometimes when you, especially if you're working out of an office and you have to go buy some gross salad. It's like $25 sandwich in this table.
00:12:32
Speaker
One juice from era one. By the butt. Okay. Enough of that. um all of that, I mean, it is for you 11 years of money spent. For me, it's 13. So if we were to divide it by year or by month, it doesn't seem like a lot of money, but it is a lot of money.
00:12:47
Speaker
And these classes are not cheap classes. I think that they're very valuable if you can afford to take them and you do not only learn more about writing and enrich your own writing, but you meet people who are like you and build a community of writers around you, which I feel is really important.
00:13:06
Speaker
But think about... access to that community. If you're not going to classes and you're not going to retreats and things of that nature, you're not going to meet the people around you who could be your first readers or people who might blurb your book someday if, God willing, your book gets published. But we talked about this. It's almost like a pay your way in type of model. In order to be a part of a literary community, you'll need to engage in these things. Now, that being said, I do believe that there are things that you can do that don't cost money to build a community. And there are things you can engage with that are free.
00:13:47
Speaker
ah The local library near me has a writer's group, which I found out recently through los Angeles Public Library. That is free and can be attended. There's readings that happen, book clubs at the library, which could be super fun.
00:14:02
Speaker
Anything that has to do with like a public library there's classes at community colleges that are much more affordable.
Monetizing Writing through Newsletters
00:14:09
Speaker
What's fun about them is the diversity of the group of people that you're going to meet doing that.
00:14:13
Speaker
Because I have writer friends that are in their 70s. yeah and that are in their twenty s and people who do jobs like one of the people from my class was a is a retired war correspondent you know like really cool people who all come together for the love of writing and i think that that and itself is priceless but it does cost money to engage in some of those things um but yeah i think Unfortunately, it seems like in order to be a writer, you do have to you do have to cough up some coin.
00:14:52
Speaker
I will say that the kind of writing I do has at least paid me back. So a lot of the investments I have made into the newsletter were paid out within the first two years of writing it.
00:15:03
Speaker
I make about, after costs, I make about $16,000 a year from writing the newsletter, which if you were like, that's your full-time job, I'd be like, oh no.
00:15:15
Speaker
But since it's a joyful activity that I'm doing in the wee hours of the night and the morning and kind of writing by voice note while I'm driving the baby around while he's asleep, it is an amazing amount of money that I get to make from something I love.
00:15:30
Speaker
So I'm really grateful for that. And it has paid off my writing career, you know, excluding the fact that I did get a degree in journalism, just ignoring that everything that college itself cost, which was the foundation of my writing.
00:15:46
Speaker
But, you know, having something that people can pay for rather than waiting until you can publish a book can offset the cost if you create something that, you know, has enough value and a system to get.
00:16:00
Speaker
I think a lot of my success comes from the network that Substance builds, not necessarily from the network I built. If you are paying for your own website, building your own blog and sending out your own email list, you have a much steeper hill to climb to achieve those goals.
00:16:20
Speaker
Whereas the infrastructure that a platform like Substance has built doesn't make it easier to make money, but it means they take money. ah So you are paying to run the form and you're paying Stripe to pay you.
00:16:33
Speaker
ah There's a lot of layers of people being like, and I'll take, and I'll take. And you're like, great. I have noticed since your Substack came out, it wasn't a big subscriber of newsletters until really you started publishing yours, that lot of writers are on Substack and getting paid for weekly content. I know Miranda July has like a whole community now around the book she wrote, All Fours, which makes sense because it's very much about a
00:17:09
Speaker
period in a woman's life that does not get a lot of attention and she wrote brilliantly about it. um But yeah, a lot of people are are paying $5 a month to support their favorite writers that way. And I think, again, if you have a friend who has a pub stack, at least subscribe to it if you can, you know. I mean, I get too many sub stacks to read all of them every week and other newsletters. There's a few other newsletters out there that I love.
00:17:38
Speaker
um And it always opens. And then sometimes that means I open them and then delete them. Because I'm like, I just want to give you that the numbers. Like I want whatever platform you're on to elevate you through whatever algorithm they use.
00:17:53
Speaker
to increase your engagement. And sometimes I just don't have the bandwidth to read it, but I always have the bandwidth to support it because it's a, what is it, like a fraction of a moment longer to open it than to just delete it So again, your literary citizenship is hanging in the balance.
Writing Retreats and Workshops
00:18:11
Speaker
Let's talk about rating retreats because you mentioned that you've done, you did one with Anne Freeman. How much did that cost? That was a long time ago, so it is kind of hard for me to remember. But if I had to ballpark, I would say three grand.
00:18:24
Speaker
I went to Guatemala and I remember that it took me probably six or seven months to save up the money to do it. And it was hosted by Ann Friedman and then a yogi friend of hers.
00:18:39
Speaker
It was their first retreat. i don't think she replicated that exact format ever again. And I still have a lot of friends from that retreat, a lot of very successful writers.
00:18:50
Speaker
I still leave their sub stack. But it's like they're part of my writing community now. And I do know that should I ever need something from one of them, I could reach out. You're like, hey, I've got a book. I need your help.
00:19:03
Speaker
I follow all of Ann Friedman's writing religiously since then. And she has included some of my writing in her newsletter. think that's happened maybe twice, which is just like a huge boon since she has some ungodly amount subscribers to her amazing newsletter.
00:19:17
Speaker
And the next retreat I went to... Let's see if I can remember how a long it took me to care about writing again. i believe the next one was in Nicaragua.
00:19:29
Speaker
I will say, if I'm going to go away to write something, i personally like to be warm. when you are looking for a retreat, there are a lot of options and you kind of need to know where you will do your best writing.
00:19:45
Speaker
And I do my best writing when I am warm, because if I am cold, I am constantly making beverage. But something I'll get to know myself.
00:19:57
Speaker
And I'm like, if I'm cold at all, I am brewing something. i am not writing. So I like to travel to places that I can be in tank top and not think about it.
00:20:08
Speaker
Can't be too hot. Can't be too balmy. Because then you're too lazy to write. But there's some things I think about when I'm doing a retreat. It's like, where do i want to go on vacation and also get stuff done?
00:20:21
Speaker
Occasionally it helps for me to go somewhere that I think will emulate the scenery of my writing. So the self retreat I went on. I went somewhere in LA and that story is based in LA.
00:20:34
Speaker
So I wanted to be like, I wanted to hear the sounds of the PCH. I wanted to hear the waves. I wanted to like have like kind of an exhaust sound in the background at near all times.
00:20:45
Speaker
And that was helpful to me. And at the second retreat at Nicaragua, when I went through was through Trust and Travel. where it's like you take a couple classes each day in different styles of writing and then it's mostly free write.
00:20:59
Speaker
So it's not, you're not critiquing. It's not workshopping. It's kind of like, let's talk about this style of writing and do an exercise. Take a break. Come back. We'll have this person host an informational session. You learn a little about something you don't do and then take a break.
00:21:15
Speaker
And I love that kind of, I love that kind of writing because ah you're there to make friends. It is very different than a workshop. Very, very different. And you share like one piece at the end of the week and everyone goes, oh my God, I lost it.
00:21:29
Speaker
So you're like, oh, what a joy. going get on a plane feeling good about night myself. um So that is my retreat experience. And I would say three to five grand for every single one that I did.
00:21:44
Speaker
That's incredible. I was going to ask you about the retreats and if there was a certain type of structure or if it was all of these writers going to some beautiful location and just writing for a certain amount of days. But it sounds like the one in Nicaragua was more structured, perhaps, than the one that you went to in Guatemala.
00:22:02
Speaker
No, it was very similar, honestly. They both had included yoga. There's like an element of retreats that seems to always be like, this is the writing and this is the movement. And that is an element of retreat I personally really love because it gets you out of your head.
00:22:18
Speaker
intentionally for a little bit. It gets your hands planted on the ground. So you can't be like, why am I not writing? It's like, because you can't be writing. And so both of them were centered around, we do some meditation.
00:22:29
Speaker
we did some yoga. Actually, that Guatemala retreat is where I first heard about Headspace, where you and I matt Lovely. Thank you, Ann Friedman for that.
00:22:41
Speaker
I've never been on retreat somewhere really fantastic. I've gone only to Tin House, which is in Portland and it's in July. So it's not actually the loveliest of places to be because it's kind of humid up there. But the nice thing about Portland, at least from my experience, is they don't have like the horrible mosquitoes that live in a LA so much.
00:23:02
Speaker
i don't know why. it's kind of nice to be outside. um But yeah, so Tin House, I actually applied for it again this year because I'm going to be in Portland in July anyway. So I figured it why not? And what's cool about it is you, it is a workshop, but it also has lectures. So you apply under a specific genre, whether it's fiction or poetry or nonfiction, and you select within your genre one to three instructors that you would like to work with. And these are very accomplished writers.
00:23:36
Speaker
When I was at Tin House, Cure and Russell was there. Amy Bender was there. it was really, really remarkable. And you get to work with them for a whole week,
00:23:46
Speaker
It is a workshop, so you are presenting materials ahead of time and reading other people's materials and giving feedback. That's very standard to how a normal workshop would operate. But then there are craft lectures throughout the week that I believe if you are in the Portland area, you can audit or like pay to go and attend.
00:24:04
Speaker
And i saw some incredible lectures. Tony Doerr, who wrote All that You Cannot See, spoke and lectured at Tin House while I was there. So did Dorothy Allison. They do do a really great job of bringing incredible writers to read college in Portland and creating an atmosphere that feels very exciting and inspiring. And then at the end of every evening, there's a reading and usually there are three authors who are doing the reading in this big outdoor auditorium. So great. see in dorms, they're very much college dorms. They're kind of gross and small and cramped, but
00:24:38
Speaker
It's fun to kind of relive those days. And that I just looked at the cost of that workshop. It's $1,800 and includes, you know, everything you would need and including meals. So that's nice.
00:24:50
Speaker
That's a little, that was kind of a little bit harder. You have like go out of your way to make friends in your workshop and find other people because it's a lot of people. There's a lot of people at the workshops.
00:25:03
Speaker
Um, that's a great question because I want to say, if I were to look it up on the site, there's probably four to five instructors per genre. And then in each of those workshops, there's like probably like 10 to 12 people.
00:25:17
Speaker
So yeah, four genres or three to four genres times five times 10. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of people. Each retreat I went on was probably about 16 people total.
00:25:29
Speaker
You were intimate right from the beginning and you came for a luxury vacation and writing. So all your food is included in like a beautiful hotel. um So it's like it's a it's a bougie experience.
00:25:43
Speaker
It's one where you do not meet Amy Bender unless you go to a retreat that Amy Bender happens to be hosting. Alternatively, Red Lope, which is the writer's workshop, writer's re retreat, is I believe a whole 10 days and it's in Vermont.
00:25:58
Speaker
in the middle of Vermont. So getting there can be a trial because you got to fly into somewhere and you got to rent a car, you got to drive. um That's $4,000. So that's like, if you get into bread loaf, then you're you're in great company.
00:26:15
Speaker
who so i mean, it speaks to what kind of writing you're doing because I've never even heard of bread loaf. I'm like, that's what I call it when my cat sits down with all his paws in.
00:26:28
Speaker
It's at Middlebury College where Bennington is. So it is the, you know, the heart of the literary community and a lot of my very accomplished friends, people that I met through my fellowship and at Tin House attended Bread Loaf and even Tisha Bread Loaf. And I'm like, okay, it's an aspiration for me.
00:26:50
Speaker
Yeah, I have a list retreats and workshops that I want to apply to next fall when the child will be two and changed.
00:27:00
Speaker
And then hoping I can, I can read him or someone else. There's a couple actually in New Mexico that I'm looking at because I can drive there. This is the first time when I'm looking at going somewhere for my writing where I actually don't want to feel like I'm on vacation. I want it to feel like I have to buckle down and do some serious work.
00:27:19
Speaker
That is the type of workshop I'm looking at. And I don't thrive in the desert. I think New Mexico is beautiful. i have family there. we go there semi-hoffin.
00:27:31
Speaker
um But I don't really like being there. It makes me uneasy. and There's something deep in my biology that is like, you need to be by more water. I'm the complete opposite. I get out into the desert. I'm like, this is where my spirit doesn't But i grew up in the desert, so it's a the the fondest memories of my childhood were formed walking across the desert by myself until the sun came down.
00:27:59
Speaker
I love it there. I really want to go to New Mexico and actually part of my book is set in New Mexico, so I should go and see it for myself. Yeah, I would meet you there. Let's talk about smaller workshops. And then I want to talk about editing services.
00:28:13
Speaker
I have done, I think at least 10, I was trying to, in my mind, a lot of went blocked out because they were so bad that I wanted to forget that I had actually participated in them. And I was looking back in my inbox to try and find the costs of these things. And they really have changed actually in the, you know, however many years I've been attending them. They're all around $400 to $500.
00:28:37
Speaker
It is a private workshop that includes probably... no more than 12 people. The ones that I have done most recently were like four to six people.
00:28:49
Speaker
And you are submitting around 20 pages every other week and reading two to three submissions of 20 pages from your colleagues every other week. And because of the level of workshop that I was in and the relationships that I had with the other writers and the expectations, it was heavy reading. You know, it was like,
00:29:10
Speaker
very close line edits, very thoughtful notes about the work. And because I'd been working with these people for a long time, I had a broader understanding of the larger project they were working on. So it was real work, not only to produce and polish pages to submit to the workshop, but to read and be a good workshop partner to the people in the workshop itself. um And I think the more serious the workshop, the better the quality of notes you're going to get back because the ones that I've done that are a little bit looser, that had fewer pages, had more people. I just always felt unsatisfied when I walked away from them. Where do you find these?
00:29:50
Speaker
A couple of different places. Chris Daly here in Los Angeles used to host a writer's workshop, Los Angeles, and her and other writers in l LA would have workshops in their home. This was way before COVID, before things were done online.
00:30:05
Speaker
I found workshops through instructors that I met at UCLA Extension, a couple of those. And I'm trying to think if there were other places. i think a lot of them came through just like knowing what was going on in Los Angeles in the literary community.
Online Workshops and Editing Services
00:30:19
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:30:19
Speaker
And that, again, is why going to readings at you know Skylight Books or Romans or you know when authors are coming into town and listening to them and even going up and asking them questions at the end, not being shy, being that kid who's looking for friends on the playground.
00:30:36
Speaker
You know, I think being a little bit brave when it comes to those things can really help in the long run. Also, UCLA Extension does like a weekend seminar that you could take, which is pretty cool every once in a while. So it'll be like Saturday and Sunday for couple of hours with one instructor.
00:30:54
Speaker
And you can meet a lot of people doing that, too. So. Now, now there are a lot of online workshops that you can attend because everything's done via zoom and all of these lovely video conferencing services. So there's a lot more access to workshops now than there ever were before. i kind of miss like sitting around a room and eating snacks and maybe having a cheeky glass of wine. I don't drink anymore, but, or like a cup of tea and chatting books. But yeah, I think if you can do it, it's definitely worthwhile.
00:31:28
Speaker
I look forward to joining some of the book clubs at my library and because I know that they have writers come through and talk and they're, They're not always huge riders. This is a very small town middle of nowhere.
00:31:41
Speaker
So, you know, we're not, we're not getting the grapes out here very frequently, but sometimes they'll show up to online session. My only problem right now is they're typically right in the middle of bedtime.
00:31:52
Speaker
Since I'm like we mentioned before his cow, I am a huge participant in bedtime and that has not yet transferred over to Ben as a parenting responsibility.
00:32:04
Speaker
So it's on my list of things to do. But I want to hear about editing services. I haven't used one yet. I'm not far enough along in this novel project to need one. So tell me, we where do you find that? And what is the cost of that?
00:32:20
Speaker
So I have done twice, once with my instructor from UCLA Extension who I've worked with quite a bit. And then another one, i actually got through a referral from someone that I met at a UCLA Extension class.
00:32:34
Speaker
A lot of its writers, even published writers, again, if you there's an author that you like, go and find their website. And a lot of times, sometimes they actually offer these services themselves, which is pretty cool.
00:32:49
Speaker
But, um you know, I found their information online and they list out their pricing and the cost of them. One of them was $6 per page for intensive line edits up to $800 for a full manuscript.
00:33:02
Speaker
Another one, I did like a very full manuscript edit with a book of notes and like not just line page suggestions but overall structural notes and storyline thoughts and really really intense help which was ah remarkable investment because you don't really get that type of feedback on a novel when you're working on it that was a little over three thousand dollars um Outside of that, one thing that I did do, and I have and as a dream in my head, there is an author that I love named Jacqueline Carey, who is great online, by the way, if you want to follow her on TikTok. She wrote a book called Kashil's Dart, which is a the first book in a trilogy of books. She's a remarkable fantasy writer.
00:33:47
Speaker
And her storylines are so intricate and, you know, so well thought out. And in her acknowledgements, again, read the acknowledgements of your favorite authors.
00:34:01
Speaker
She mentioned her editor. And so I went online and I looked up her editor. And guess what? You can contact her editor. via her website and request editing services. So these things exist in the world. And you could have your book looked at by your favorite writer's editor if you have the money to do it. That's the big thing. If you have the money saved to do it, because it is not a small amount of money. I feel like we're cavalierly talking about $25,000, $3,000 here, there. whole family vacation.
00:34:34
Speaker
lot of money family vacation Yeah, and every time I spent that money, it's been one, before I had a family, and two, I saved up money for those types of things for a while.
00:34:49
Speaker
Like, it's like you, when I hear you say that it's like $3,000 to have your book line edited with like structural formatting, the next thing that happens in my head is like, okay, in my savings account, I need to add an additional bucket that is for this book.
Balancing Work and Writing
00:35:05
Speaker
And it's like, maybe I put... email like $10 here. Maybe I just do like the roundup after like a big bill, like whatever I'm putting into that to start saving money for it now.
00:35:17
Speaker
So that when I finish this book, I'm not like, I want it edited. Who's going to give me a few grand? um so it's like you save for what you want. You know, number one thing I'd really like right now is a new fireplace. Someone else could be up to code, but the book would be close second.
00:35:36
Speaker
So piling it away. But that kind of brings me to a question I wanted to talk to you about, which is like the real money is the balance of us working on this versus our jobs.
00:35:47
Speaker
and i Um, I got an email this week from a client I've worked with in the past who is, he's, they're my most lucrative clients. Um, they only reach out to me maybe once a year. And when they do, it is for a project that will pay my bills for like eight months.
00:36:06
Speaker
And they were like, do you want to dedicate all of your time in March and April to a project? And I'm grappling with the reality of saying yes to that.
00:36:18
Speaker
You have to. How do you say no to that? Well, I mean, i am. and we are paying the barest of our bills. But this is a commitment that I would have to pay childcare for.
00:36:31
Speaker
So it's like, I need to organize like a number of other things. If they were willing to work within the freelance hours I have available, and mean that would be different. But that isn't what they requested. They requested kind of like a full suite.
00:36:46
Speaker
And so I would be not only working on them, nine to five that I would have my other corniants that I have to work from like once the baby's in bed from like seven 11.
00:36:57
Speaker
And it would be a cash cow for us and enormously helpful, but I would end the two months feeling exhausted, depleted, wouldn't have worked on my novel at all. My newsletter would suffer that I'm trying to like build out right now and and then would lose his mind. I'm in the throes of negotiating with them right now to see if I take on this project. I do need like some flexibility in it and I need to know how Demandine McCartney would want to be in this scenario because like I ah can't get around having a baby. And so there's just some things I can't do, like be there in person.
00:37:34
Speaker
So, you know, that but that's like this is the season that I was like, this is when I'm working on my novel. And I'm a freelancer. Clients come and go all the time. And, you know, if I say no to them right now, that doesn't mean I'll never work with them again.
00:37:49
Speaker
But it does mean i probably won't get to work with them for at least another year. And that's scary. I have to look at my bank account, but I also have to look at my life.
00:38:01
Speaker
You know, it's like I want to build the life for myself that I want. And sometimes that means that I don't get to make a lot of money. I was looking at ah former colleague of ours who has just a really big L.A. job now.
00:38:17
Speaker
Like the kind of job where you're like, I know minimum that that pays 400 grand a year. And that was the trajectory that I was on when I was in LA. I was, you know, rising up to like chief content officer and I would have had crazy hours and a crazy salary. And i left that life behind.
00:38:39
Speaker
I don't make that kind of money now, but I i don't work those kind of hours now. I get to spend most of my day with my baby, working on a couple of clients who trust me to like work at odd hours and always hit my deadlines.
00:38:54
Speaker
And it's just like, do I want to be a writer or do I want to keep dedicating my time to the grind? And I don't know the answer that. I want to do both is the real answer.
00:39:05
Speaker
I want to bathe in cash and write my book. but alja mc dock I want to be in my coins, you know, just water flying and coins.
00:39:16
Speaker
Part of me wants to tell you that you can have it all because that's what we were told, right? Back in the day, in the ah prime of the 2010s, when techno-optimism was at its prime, we were told we could have it all. Hashtag girl boss.
00:39:33
Speaker
That's right.
Gender Challenges in the Workplace
00:39:34
Speaker
And, you know, i really believed that. I really, truly believed that if I just, like, worked hard and... continue to be ambitious, that my career would sail and I would hit all of the milestones that I wanted and all of my goals and be able to do all the things that I wanted to do.
00:39:53
Speaker
And it took me getting pregnant at a startup that I was working at. where I had been told, yes, you're in line for this position. going to own this work. You're a badass. We love the work you're doing. It's all yours.
00:40:07
Speaker
And then a month before I went on maternity leave, I was told, we're going to hire someone for that role that we had promised you you were going to have, and they're going to be your boss. And then I came back from maternity leave and they said, you're really not showing a lot of ambition or drive or initiative. And I'm like leaking breast milk. What are you talking about? And but for here and then I, when I watched all of these little shithead boys leap over me in their careers and get titles that it would take me years to catch up to. and I was, that's when I kind of got to the point where I was like,
00:40:46
Speaker
fuck this rat race. This is bullshit because I know I was good at my job. I was literally doing as good a job as I was doing before I had the baby while taking care of the baby and pumping multiple times a day and doing all of that and hiding in conference rooms with my tits
Finding Fulfillment in Writing
00:41:05
Speaker
out. you but So part of me, when you're telling me like, I've got this job that's coming and I'm supposed to be working on my novel.
00:41:12
Speaker
I want to tell you, yes, Kelton, you can do all of that. And you'll be fine. But I know it's not true. And my counsel to you, because I find myself like wanting to give you advice in this situation, is if you could figure out a way to negotiate a structure of this contract agreement that works within your life,
00:41:33
Speaker
and still gives you the time and the space and the breath to do the things that are important to you, then you should do it. And it might just be setting boundaries with that client and saying like, this is all I got, take it or leave it and being okay if they leave it.
00:41:46
Speaker
But um all the things that you mentioned that will so suffer, will suffer. And you'll be exhausted mentally, spiritually, physically exhausted.
00:41:57
Speaker
I mean, like that is the balance of, a you know, a freelancer. Freelance is like the weather. Like you kind of know what seasons are going to bring, but you have no way to anticipate. Even when you have retainer clients, they can just let you go like a job.
00:42:11
Speaker
And so you are just kind of always out there being like, should bring an umbrella? Should I wear my muck boot? Do I need a jacket today? We doing. Yeah. I mean, mentioned our former colleague who is probably making four hundred k I think about that all the time. When you look at jobs on LinkedIn or whatever, you're like, oh, the salary is really good. And then you're like, oh, they're going to expect a way that I think about it is they're going expect a lot of me for that amount of money.
00:42:38
Speaker
And I don't know if I want to give it to them. It's tough because I see exactly what you're saying, where how much they would need of me, but also what my future investments would be.
00:42:49
Speaker
I'm like, think of your 401k. Someone else would be paying for your health insurance. Like all these like beautiful things about money that I hate dealing with as a freelancer. Like why, you know, it's tough not to be like, that I am behind.
00:43:06
Speaker
But then that person is also a writer. And I'm like, I mean, they have an incredible work ethics. They also like me succeeding at writing.
00:43:16
Speaker
But I can at least see out there that I'm doing my newsletter and I'm putting things out and I'm proud of it. And I'm more defined myself being always a writer than I ever before. And that is a joyful thing to feel in my personhood.
00:43:32
Speaker
Like it just makes me happy to be living who I am supposed to be even if it means that I'm like, oh, I don't know how we're going to pay the plumber. Like, I'll figure it out.
Financial Security vs. Writing Passion
00:43:44
Speaker
Let me ask you, is that person, don't know we're really talking about this person that we both know, but I don't know who you're talking about yet. Is that person a mother to a less than one year old?
00:43:57
Speaker
I'll just say that they have they have a yeah unique challenge in their life, but they are not a mother. The only reason I ask is this. and When I think back to the time when I just told you about where I was working at that startup and I was driving into work every day and pumping every day and leaving my child at home, thankfully, blessedly with her grandparents.
00:44:21
Speaker
And I try to remember what my baby was like in that moment of their lives, their short babyhood. And I can't remember a lot of it because I spent most of it in an office.
00:44:35
Speaker
And I don't think it can be understated, the fact that the time that woods will be this small cannot be lived through again.
00:44:46
Speaker
So that is a huge and important thing that I don't need to tell you to consider because I'm sure you are. But it is also part of mental calculation whether or not you make these decisions where, you know, alternatively, my husband just spoke to an accountant and he was like, yeah, you both need $750,000 in your 401ks time you're 43. If you want to retire 60, we looked at other like, oh, we're fucked. Yeah, mean...
00:45:10
Speaker
if you want to retire at sixty or looked at each other like ah work fuck yeah i mean Ben and I listen to Rummy Safi's podcast, Money for Couples, just to often make ourselves feel better.
00:45:25
Speaker
But at the end of the day, we still have, we just have nowhere near the amount of money you would need to retire. Nowhere near. Nowhere. And also, I have very low confidence that Social Security will even exist by the time we're ready to retire, considering how things are going. Yeah.
00:45:42
Speaker
Yeah. in money Yeah. ah Yeah. I mean, it's stressful. The cost of writing, the cost of living, cost of everything complicated.
00:45:57
Speaker
it's so complex. And there is a path in writing. That is free. You can only go to the library. You can pay for any newsletters and just read the free ones. You cannot go to workshops. You can go to events at the library instead. You can launch a newsletter and build relationships with people that way instead of meeting them through an MFA or something like that. You can make money from your writing.
00:46:28
Speaker
by pitching places, by having a paid edition of your newsletter, by doing kind of like grunt copy work for brands that you love, or even in industries that you really love and brands you've never, ever heard of.
00:46:42
Speaker
There are ways to make it make money. And like I said earlier, like I pretty much paid for my whole writing career with four years of the newsletter under my belt, excluding college.
00:46:54
Speaker
And so it it can be done. So don't be discouraged, but do make a little bucket in your bank account. It's like, this is for my dreams.
00:47:05
Speaker
um Because eventually ah something will come up that you want to invest in yourself. And you want to invest in the thing that you have a passion in. And it is amazing to be able to do that.
00:47:18
Speaker
I think having an understanding of how much these things cost so that when you are presented with the opportunity, it doesn't feel like it's just completely impossible. Putting a little bit aside, if you're able to, to invest in your dreams, I think...
00:47:34
Speaker
is worthwhile there are ways to do things that cost less money and also a lot of these programs offer scholarships and and things like that so the those are things to look into because there is a movement around the writing community that is trying to help people who don't have the finances to be able to afford to do these things 10 miles has scholarships and they have a lot of scholarships now actually they have like a debut over 40 i know that's us they have a ton of things that are available so looking at those and not despairing when you see the price tag, I think it just takes a little bit longer. It's a little bit harder.
00:48:10
Speaker
Obviously everything is easier with money, but I think the one shining, i don't know if this is like a positive thing. i think it's a positive thing. My teacher used to roll his eyes at me when was like, I want to be in the like 40 under 40, which is such bullshit. Cause the only people who get on those lists are like insanely talented or insanely connected. Right.
00:48:29
Speaker
Um, is that, There are tons of writers who publish their first novels after retirement or in their 60s. In my my class at Harvard, we had read a couple short stories by this woman named Leslie Banneton. And they're remarkable stories. and She is an incredible writer. And I was so struck by how good her short stories were and come to find out that she published them After she retired and she had taken classes at the Harvard Extension Program and had been in the same class that I'm in currently with the same instructor. And she's like, yeah, I never thought that I would be here. But here I am retired and I'm publishing my second short story collection. So imagine she's probably as good of a writer as she is because she's been doing it all this time.
00:49:20
Speaker
That is like that makes me feel encouraged. That gives me hope that. All the work that we're doing right now is just compost for the future.
Setting Writing Goals for the Week
00:49:30
Speaker
Exactly.
00:49:31
Speaker
And composting is free. And good for the environment. Kelton, tell me about your goals for this week. Because I know you were so thrilled with how you did last week. I didn't think about what I wanted my goals to be this week. Will you give me some?
00:49:45
Speaker
You want me to give you goals? Yeah, I would like you to give me my goals. wo I'm putting my trust in Chris Aaron. All right.
00:49:56
Speaker
Well, I do think since you tried to do four hours and you did two, that this week you should try for three, three hours of writing. Okay. Okay.
00:50:07
Speaker
I think you can do a thousand words. Yep. Yep. And again, either go somewhere or have Ben take the baby somewhere at least once next week.
00:50:18
Speaker
Three hours, a thousand words. Ben takes the baby. Done. What are your goals? You give me my goals. I like this game. Well, let's talk a little about your past goals. So you got to the ending.
00:50:33
Speaker
um i imagine that there now is a lot of flow and editing stuff that you need to work on what is an approach you like to take to that are you kind of like i'll read through one chapter and see how it goes or do you like piecemeal are you kind of like i know this scene i know this scene i will probably because it's fun and it feels like an accomplishment i will probably print the entire first draft and read through it, make notes and put tags and flags and sticky notes in there and start thinking through what I want to fix.
00:51:14
Speaker
I usually get distracted while I'm doing that because i'll start finding things and wanting to fix them right away. But I think a good next step is printing out the entire manuscript and reading it like a real book.
00:51:26
Speaker
And it's just shy of 80,000 words, which is what I wanted. I wanted to be No longer than 80,000 words. I like that. Okay, well, then the goal is printing, which is very easy.
00:51:38
Speaker
um And the real goal is read the book and don't get distracted. um You can leave your notes, but I want you to read your book. The whole thing in a week. Okay.
00:51:49
Speaker
Yeah. um can do that. Yeah, I can do that. I think I make you read the book. that it will prevent you from getting too nitpicky in your edits because you will be on a time crunch to just read it.
00:52:04
Speaker
That means I'm not going to write it all next week.
00:52:09
Speaker
The next step is you need to see this book as a whole thing rather than like knees and toes and fingers. Like it's a whole body. I'm like, does it function as a moving thing? Like, can it curl its finger?
00:52:25
Speaker
got like a nose growing out of its forehead that's fine can i mean like we will deal with that nose later like can it walk around would you say hi to it if you saw it on the street i will do that and maybe if i feel the issue to write i'll work on a short story or something yeah or do you have any like applications you're working on i entered my novel in a contest as being judged by RO Quan.
00:52:52
Speaker
So that'll be to see. I don't expect anything to happen to it. I'm not applying to anything right now. So there's nothing... but yeah you know, well in the hop that I need to focus on. So yes, I will read my book.
00:53:05
Speaker
Yeah. We got our goals. Thank you so much for listening, pen pals. Please subscribe and rate where you listen. It makes a huge difference in discoverability and for us to keep doing this thing that we are not paid to do, but just fulfills us and hopefully fulfills our novels full of words.
00:53:24
Speaker
We'll see you here next week. Where can the people find us, Darren? Officialpenpalspod at gmail.com. Shoot us a note. We'd love to hear from you. All right. Good luck and good writing.