But what about Second Book? With Jane Baird Warren
Writing is a process, one that requires us as writers to continue learning. Or to start learning, as was the case for author Jane Baird Warren.
Jane took to writing when she was searching for something that could be just for her, at a time in her life when she was a stay-at-home mom with two young kids. Jane fell into unexpected success after placing second in a short story contest, and for a while, felt like she was on top of the world.
But Jane soon found that she didn’t have enough knowledge about writing to improve her work the way she wanted, and made the decision to return to school and get her MFA.
But What About Second Book? With Jane Baird Warren
Listen to learn:
- The importance of continuing to learn about writing
- The value of having a writing community in your genre
- About getting published when you’re completely new to the publishing process
- About breaking the rules in your genre and the obstacles you might face
However, the value Jane found in her MFA program didn’t lie in learning about writing itself.
Here’s a sneak peek of today’s episode…
[06:23] And he gave us all these little samples to read, but I didn't read the samples. I read all the books. I was just ravenous.
[08:47] They shepherd people along to, we don't call them unpublished, we call them pre-published writers. And I love that phrase.
[10:13] I actually think it's a great analogy. It is just like training.
[10:54] I just thought I had an agent. She was going to be my buddy. She was going to help me figure out what to do with this next novel.
[15:07]And right now it's not fun because I'm not there with my story. I am doing that thing that so many people do, that we were talking about earlier, at the beginning of their books.
[17:22] They want you to stay in your lane. How are they going to market this? And the marketing discussions get really difficult when you do something that's a little different.
[23:23] And I knew that there was something there. But the other thing I couldn't let go of was the fact that I needed to figure out what I wasn't doing right.
[30:37] And to assume that just because you got it or you nailed it on one book and it's doing well and being lauded, it doesn't mean the next book can be done the same way.
Links from today’s episode:
How To Be a Goldfish eBook available in Australia, France, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the US
The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCWBI)
Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators and Performers (CANSCAIP)
But What About Second Book, with Jane Baird Warren: The Resilient Writers Radio Show -- Full Episode Transcript
Intro:
Well, hey there, writer. Welcome to The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas, and this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love.
Because—let's face it—the writing life has its ups and downs, and we wanna not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page.
This podcast is for writers who love books, and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who wanna learn and grow in their craft, and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books, and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them, writers who wanna spend more time in that flow state, writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community in this crazy roller coaster ride we call “the writing life.”
We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives, and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, writer, I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.
Rhonda Douglas:
Well, hey there. Welcome back to another episode of the Resilient Writers Radio Show. Really excited to have Jane Baird Warren with us today. So, Jane is a first generation Canadian. She's a writer with an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia, and her writing has been featured on CBC radio and in literary magazines all over North America and in the UK. Her most recent book is How to Be a Goldfish. It's a middle grade book published by Scholastic. It was a finalist for the 2023 Snow Willow Awards and has been shortlisted for the 2024 Northern Lights Manitoba Young Readers Choice Awards. Welcome, Jane. Thanks for being here.
Jane Baird Warren:
Thanks, Rhonda. Great to see you again.
Rhonda:
Yeah, you too. So, I am fascinated by the story of how writers come to be writing. Can you share yours with us?
Jane:
I think I always probably had it in the back of my mind, but the actual story is I was a stay-at-home mom with two young kids with a lot of education under my belt, I was spending my days wiping bums and waxing floors, and I thought, “I've got to find something that's just mine.” And in the Calgary Herald, that's where we were living at the time, there was a short story contest.
So I thought, “I've always wanted to do this.” And I sat down and wrote a story. I didn't know how to do it, I just did it. And it was called Santini Shovel. Mailed it in, and it came in second, to my shock and surprise. The Alberta writing Community, Calgary in particular, Aritha Van Herk, she just kind of swept me up and she said, “look, I'm not teaching next year—I'm on sabbatical—but Fred Wah is in town and he's going to be teaching fiction and creative writing.”
She didn't say,” this is what you should do.” She said, “you are going to sign up for that course.” So I did. It was a portfolio course and I submitted probably the two worst portfolios ever seen. My portrait portfolio was astonishingly bad. I still have it. But I got into the course and that sort of made me realise what I didn't know and set me on a learning platform. And Fred was very gracious. I am 99.9% sure Aritha said, “just accept her.” I don't think he intended to. It was just, “you're taking her no matter what she sends in.” And I mean, bless Aritha's heart for doing that.
Rhonda:
Isn’t that great?
Jane: Yes. Writers looking after writers, communities. For me, it's what it's all about.
Rhonda:
Yeah, absolutely. And I know you do a lot of that yourself as well. Okay, so you start writing. I think it's really a moment in a writer's life where they decide, “you know what? I'm a writer now, I'm serious about this.” Was that that time, or did it come a little later?
Jane:
I just kept writing. And because it was long enough ago, and there weren't a plethora of MFA grads around at the time, I was publishing really fast and widely. And I thought, “eh, I've got this licked.” I was quite content with doing what I was doing. But then we moved to the UK, and this was before you could submit by email. It just made it really awkward. The SASEs with the international reply coupons, and you couldn't get international reply coupons.
So I thought, “you know what? I'm just going to write a novel.” And I did. I just did it by feel, and I did it in a genre that I'd read a lot of, which was thriller. I sent it off and I had an agent who said, “come, meet me for lunch.” And this is London, England. I thought, “wow, I'm just really good.” Well, she didn't sign me, obviously. I'm on
Rhonda:
“I’m on fire. Look at me.”
Jane:
Yeah. And then she eventually passed. I made every mistake possible when she asked for the R and Rs, the rewrite and resubmit, and she said, “thank you, but no thank you.” And then I sent it to Amazon and it was like, a top semifinalist. So I really thought I had it then, but I didn’t.
I didn’t have the ability to analyse what I was doing, I didn't have any knowledge. I came out of engineering and kinesiology or phys ed. I was a reader, but I wasn't a writer. So I had to go back to school on this. And I thought, “well, I have to learn. Somebody's got to teach me”. And that's when I signed up for the MFA. I was living in Europe, so I had to fly into BC to do the in-person classes. And I met the most wonderful people.
I mean, I didn't learn about writing. It was essentially for me, just this set of different critique groups with these wonderful people who were reading and listening, and teachers included. But it really sparked something in me. And for somebody who never, ever wanted to do children's writing, it was not my thing—
Rhonda:
Really?
Jane:
Oh, yes. My mother said, “you should write for children.” And I said, “no way.” But I met Glen Huser and he was such a gentle, wonderful soul. But more than that, he just said, “okay, here's a bunch of books that I think are worth reading.” And he gave us all these little samples to read, but I didn't read the samples. I read all the books. I was just ravenous. And I thought, “wow, you can write about anything in kid lit.” I mean absolutely anything. And that's even more true now than the samples that he was sharing with us.
So I thought, “this is really cool. This feeds my desire for narrative.” So to backtrack a little, I'm a big talker, Rhonda, you're going to have to put your hand and say, “stop.” It's great. When I did my first class with Fred Wah—he's a language poet and he's brilliant at it—and I tried to mimic that, and I published poetry by trying to be a language poet and back slashing and breaking words. And it was, I mean, again, successful back then to publish in it. But it wasn't me. I love narratives. So I really had to step away and embrace the fact that I would not be doing something that a person I really admired, Fred, and even Aritha, who pushes the boundaries of general fiction, I think, would not enjoy.
Rhonda:
It's not what they were doing.
Jane:
Yeah, it's not what they were doing. It's not what they would push, follow, but it was what I loved. And so I thought, “I can do what I love in narrative and still write about things that I find are important to me.” And I just started to play. And the kid lit community is really, really, really friendly. For example, I wrote something on, I can't remember what it was. I got totally slammed by somebody who read the book recently, and I honestly think this was a personal thing that wasn't about the book. She said, “I read your book.” I went, “mm-hm,” waiting for, “oh, thank you very much for reading,” waiting, waiting, nothing. She said, “well, it's good that you have a hobby now.”
Rhonda:
What a horrible thing to say!
Jane:
I posted this on Twitter, and bless his cotton socks, lovely Eric Walters, who is a Canadian icon in children's literature, published 120 books with tons in the pipes, is also a generous kind gentleman. He reached out and he wrote me this lovely message, and we've talked back and forth since, and this is why I like kid lit. They put their arms around you, they're cuddly. We have set organisations that just gently shepherd. You can't see me on audio folks, but my arms are just swinging wildly. They shepherd people along, we don't call them unpublished, we call them pre-published writers. And I love that phrase.
Rhonda:
Oh I love that.
Jane:
Isn't that great? CANSCAIP and SCBWI are both full of a lot of pre-published writers who are there to learn. And everybody, like Aritha was doing for me, is reaching down and saying, “I got you.” And that's what you were doing with us in First Book Finish and in The Writer’s Flow Studio. Yeah, that was brilliant.
And I needed that so badly because I'm sitting out here in the boonies of Quebec. At the time, I had no writing community, and—it's not really boonies, it's quite civilised. But there were no other writers that I knew, and I thought if I was meeting twice a week with people on the computer, and it was the silliest thing, I kept saying, “what am I doing? I'm putting my headphones in and I'm writing and nobody's talking to each other, but I feel like I have a writing family.” And it was—
Rhonda:
Yeah, absolutely. There’s something about knowing that other writers are also dedicating themselves to writing at the same time you are—I shouldn't use this analogy because I don't go to the gym, but it's sort of like your personal trainer is waiting for you. You wouldn't let them down, or a friend is going to meet you and you wouldn't let them down, but you might skip it if it was just you.
Jane:
I actually think it's a great analogy. It is just like training.
Rhonda:
So, tell me about How To Be a Goldfish. How did that come about? When did it start? Tell me the process of finishing it and getting it out into the world.
Jane:
Well, it was an absolutely wonderful and incredibly painful process. I'd written another book, and I got an agent, a big New York agency, and I was so excited, even though intellectually I knew it still might not sell. And it was an agency that does 20 tries and you're out. In the middle of this, I tried writing the second book, which eventually became Goldfish, but I mean, please, if you're listening, don't do what I did.
Don't be stupid like me. I just thought I had an agent. She was going to be my buddy. She was going to help me figure out what to do with this next novel. So, I was sending her chapters along the way, and I was hearing back from her, and she was sharing the work with other agents at this big agency. And finally she just didn't respond quite as much as she was before.
I thought, “oh, this isn't going well.” I just wrote her one day. Jeff said to call her—that's my partner—and I said, “I'm really bad on the phone. I don't think on my feet. I feel very much pressure.” So I wrote her a note and I said, “I have this gut feeling that you're not as in love with this concept as I am. Maybe we should part ways.” And she wrote back, and she did not fight for me, Rhonda. She did not say, “no, no, I want you.” Well, I knew it was coming, but I set myself up to fail with that by not really paying attention. I know some agents will do that. She wasn't like that. She’s a lawyer by trade.
Rhonda:
I Think it's a good conversation to have at the start. “What kind of agent are you? What do you want from me?”
Jane:
She was a junior agent, which was okay because she was attached. She's actually lovely, and I still write to her periodically. She was attached to the big children's agent, Hunter Agency. I just figured that I was getting the expertise I didn't even have the knowledge to ask the questions of. So back to Goldfish, I kept writing and I kept looking at it.
I totally lost confidence in myself. I kept playing and playing. I mean, I wrote it in first person. I wrote it in second person. I eventually wrote it, one character was first person, one was second person. I had a writing coach just because I was panicked about and lacking confidence. Her name is—she’s gonna kill me—Julie, and she's lovely. I went with a recommended group, but I still, I dunno. I eventually reached out to two writers, both Americans, both living in Europe, who had books published whom I trusted with my whole heart.
And they both wrote back. One wrote back and said, “send it to my agent.” And the other one went back and said, “just shut up and send it.” And I did. My confidence was in the toilet. Literally in the toilet. But this said, “okay, I'm going to do it.” And whereas the first agent took me, I think 70 mailings to get an agent, 70 submissions. This one, it was six weeks from the first query to, “yeah, we're going to sign you.”
And it happened really fast. So I had apparently learned, and my confidence went up, but it doesn't stay up. If anybody's listening out there and they're coming and going, I'm back in the toilet again thinking my confidence is really, really low, and I'm struggling. But I'm also thinking, “okay, I'm channelling my inner Rhonda, she’s in my ear going, okay, you can do this.”
Because I've had to admit, I don't think like other people, and I've let the way that I know that I process information, which is different than a lot of people, be, “okay, you can be kind to yourself, you have to be able recognise this and go forward.” That was a big step. And I have to thank you very much for that because that did not come easily.
Anyway, so I wrote it. It went out really fast. But of course, COVID hit. Everything slowed down, but not my writing. I just love the excuse to be alone in my office. And I get up at the crack of dawn, I'm like the movie Frozen: the sun's awake, so I'm awake, and poof! Up I go, coffee in hand. And when I take your advice and don't do any social media or any emails or anything in advance, I just sit and I write and I write and I write.
Sometimes my stomach tells me, “look, you got to eat. It's 11 o’clock.” And it's wonderful. But that happens when I'm in love with my characters and what they're doing. And when that happens, I go to bed thinking, “what's she going to do tomorrow?”
Rhonda:
That's so fun.
Jane:
It is fun. And right now it's not fun because I'm not there with my story. I am doing that thing that so many people do, that we were talking about earlier, at the beginning of their books. My character has too many things going on in her head, and too many possible directions it could go. I have three novels in my beginning where I only need to pick one, and I'm really having a hard time letting go. When I can do that, I know my life will be nicer because, because I’ll be nicer because I'll have a story I can escape into and my poor husband won't have to hear me kvetch and moan all the time.
Rhonda:
Right. And the current work, is it also middle grade?
Jane:
So, with you and your help at First book finish, I did a total deep dive and totally reconceived the novel that I got the first agent with. It's completely different. And it's the one that, when Gail Anderson Dargatz was mentoring me, she said, “you got three novels in here. Pick one, just do one.” I said, “okay.” And I had a ball doing it. And it's funny, I sat down and re-read it just this week, and I thought, “I love this sucker. It's great.” But I broke a few too many rules.
Rhonda:
Oh, good.
Jane:
Well, yes and no. So here you go folks. My agent does not love it. She said, “you know what? I think we should sort of stay in our lane, and we should just continue doing middle grade.” And I thought, “I have all these stories in my head.” I mean, I talked to—for those of you listening—I have applied for a grant to do a literary nonfiction, not a memoir. It's basically my sister's story.
And the first thing I did when I did the grant was write Rhonda and say, “okay, if I get this grant, I'd like to hire you to help me collect my messy thoughts after the first draft and find my way forward.” So that's in the pipeline waiting for February to see whether that's a go. I could not let this YA thriller go. So I just went online and researched places that would accept submissions from un-agented writers and sent it out.
Rhonda:
You’re sending it out.
Jane:
I've sent it out. I have requests for fulls. I've had one request for full that's been rejected. Some of them are still out flying around. I don't know what I'll do if nobody takes it. I know what the problem is, but that's the children's literature pond. They want you to stay in your lane. How are they going to market this? And the marketing discussions get really difficult when you do something that's a little different.
Rhonda:
I'm not sure if that's just children's literature. I think that's swimming in the pool of being an un-agented writer, which automatically makes you in that commercial space and it's about, “how do we sell the next thing?” And we sell the next thing by saying, “hey, she did this other great thing.”
Jane:
You had a program, I think it was a blog with Elisabeth Mariaffi, and that really resonated with me where she was saying the same thing. Is that the right name? Mariaffi?
Rhonda:
Yeah. Elisabeth de Mariaffi.
Jane:
De Mariaffi, I apologise if you are listening. And it really struck me because she'd written some short stories and her agent, same agency as me, suggested that, “this is great, but maybe you should continue to do this.” At least that's what I got out of it. And when I had my conversation with my agent, I thought, “okay, I get it.” I'm not being a good client, but I love her to bits. I mean, she's fantastic.
Rhonda:
You're not being easily marketable. Who else was? I was talking to Michael Blouin, as well, and the same thing. He sort of has an agreement with his agent that every now and again, he goes off and does something wild and completely unsellable except at a small literary press. He just goes and does them. And why not? I mean, you will write other middle grade work. You like writing for middle grades.
Jane:
So, the YA thriller is out being considered, and the one that I'm struggling with now, separating the different themes—which I really want to address—that's middle grade or upper middle grade.
Rhonda:
And what is it that you like about writing for middle grades?
Jane:
I wonder if it's because I was such a weird kid that didn't know how to behave or act, or resolve my own situations, that I get to be an adult who looks back and says, “oh, maybe this is how I should have handled it.” And I find that with Goldfish, the kids that I wrote are—especially Lizzie, she's this young girl who has basically the same background as me in that she's got a teeny tiny family and would like to have a huge family.
And there's some things about her that are very much me, but she's so much nicer and so much more savvy and so much more communicative than me. I guess that's it. I'm working through things and finding ways to help kids cope. My latest thing is trying to figure out… So many kids' books for middle grade, and not so much YA, but mostly upper middle grade.
Everybody's got a best friend that they trust and they tell everything to and they do everything with, and they're the protagonist and the strong supporting character. But what about those kids who can't find that? There's got to be a ton of kids growing up that have no ability to trust enough to make a best friend that they tell everything to. They’re isolated.
Rhonda:
And they turn to books for their company.
Jane:
Which is kind of an overused trope, I think, in middle grade. I would like to be able to write that character. But then when I get into it, I think, “okay, that's a little bit too close to me and I don't know how to resolve it because I didn't resolve it as a kid.”
So then I have to step back and make that character somebody completely different with a whole new slew of experiences. That's where I am now, and it's very freeing. This character is not suffering through the same things I am. She's got her own path. So I think I'm close, Rhonda, I'm just sure I'm close enough.
Rhonda:
Any day now it'll just crack wide open. I love that feeling of being in love with your characters. The way you talk about Lizzie, it's hilarious. At one level, they're not real people, we made them up. But they're so real. They're so real for us and hopefully for our readers. Hopefully we get that translated to the page.
Jane:
That's definitely true as a reader. I remember reading, oh, she's an Australian writer. She wrote Isobars, but this was her novel. I can't remember her name. And in the novel, she had a character, I think he was a photographer. I think his name was David. He wasn't even the main character. But I remember distinctly, closing the last page of the book and starting to cry because I knew that this was a standalone and I would never see David again. And David was so kind, and I was just pouring tears and I thought, “this is nuts. What's the matter with me?”
Rhonda:
Yeah, that's me as a reader, too.
Jane:
But I need to love my characters or dislike them. I mean, I’m really big on developing supporting characters and having them find their own voices and stories because that's who is often nudging my character forward or pushing them backwards or causing them conflict. I have to understand them really well. Bloody backstory just gets in my way so much. And then I get off on tangents and then I think, “wait a minute, that's not the theme I was going to write about, but that's okay.”
Rhonda:
Oops. That's okay. So Jane, I wanted to ask you, you joined First Book Finish. What was going on for you before you joined First Book Finish that made you think, “I've got an MFA, I've been writing for a while now, I think I'd like to join a formal program like First Book Finish?”
Jane:
So before I did First Book Finish, I did the writing thing, whose name escapes me, the one where you sit down and write together that you host.
Rhonda:
Writer's Flow Studio.
Jane:
I did Writer’s Flow Studio. I needed community. And through Writer's Flow Studio, I learned about First Book Finish. And Goldfish had been accepted, it hadn't been edited yet. That process had to wait about eight months for the editing to happen. And then that happened really fast. And oh my God, it was glorious. I love editing. It's just the most wonderful experience when you have a good editor.
Rhonda:
It's so fun.
Jane:
But then I thought, “okay, I have all these things in my head I want to write,” but I could not let go of the book that had got me my first agent. And I knew that there was something there. But the other thing I couldn't let go of was the fact that I needed to figure out what I wasn't doing right. What was I missing when I was writing this book that didn't make it sell? And reading the comments from the editors at different publishing houses that my agent eventually fed back to me, I thought, “okay, what can I take from that? What can I learn? How can I grow?” But I was simultaneously feeling a bit of a failure when I approached that manuscript because it didn't sell. And I thought, “okay, I need support.”
Rhonda:
It stings a bit, doesn't it?
Jane:
It stings a lot. It stings an awful lot. But I'm pretty good at self-preservation. It's not that I don't beat myself up, but I am bloody stubborn and I wanted to get it right, to get a product that I thought, “this is it. This is what I'm proud of.” I knew I needed to have something and I didn't have a community here. So I thought of First Book Finish. I loved the way you'd approach The Writer's Flow Studio and what was available and the resources we could get.
I remember, too, because in First Book Finish, there were things that you would put on to get people to sit down and write, essentially to give them the writing discipline. And I remember going, “Rhonda, I have discipline. I'm up every morning writing.” And there were things in there that I thought, “oh geez, I don't do that.” Or, “oh geez, this is going to help.” These are not conscious things.
It was things I finally forced myself to listen to. I think I can be such a doofus sometimes that I refuse the gentle, self-reflective, be-supportive-to-yourself kind of stuff. I have this real practical—I started off in engineering at university, I got this real practical side. And I thought, I don't need this touchy feely stuff, but I really, really, really need the touchy feely stuff. Somebody has to look after my soul because I don't, so that was delightful. I'm stubborn, but I'm not good at self-love, so. That and deadlines.
Rhonda:
So you needed a container that was community and support, as you were writing. You were able to do the writing, but…
Jane:
Oh, yeah. You just said in 20 words what I spent three minutes trying to say, so well done. There's the poet.
Rhonda:
No, that's what I've done too over the years. I've worked with different writers. Even the MFA did that for me. The sort of deadlines feedback, it's a container for growth, right? That on my own, I can do my best. I read all the books. My favourite way to procrastinate is to read the next writing craft book. But sometimes you need something that has deadlines, accountability, someone will show up. Remind me where you got to with First Book Finish at the end? When you finished it, where were you?
Jane:
I was finished. I had a draft.
Rhonda:
You were done. Are you happy with it?
Jane:
I had a new first draft. I was, I let it sit. I did the right thing. I found Beta readers. I had, well, my favourite beta reader is your former editor, Barb. She was in my first fiction class at University of Calgary with Fred Wah. That's where we met. And we've kept in touch ever since. And so Taste of Hunger, I've read every version of that since she started. And I fell in love with that book from the very, very beginning. And I still love it. And I think it's wonderful. Suzette Mayr was also in that class, so that was quite a cohort.
Rhonda:
What a gift of a beta reader. She's amazing. She can see the heart of a story in a heartbeat.
Jane:
So her response was, “this is your breakout novel.” And I was chuffed. I mean, there were things that had to change, but I was chuffed that she got it. But she is not a children's writer. She writes fiction. So what she got was the pacing that brought an adult into the novel.
And I know that I'm not supposed to do that. I'm supposed to stay in that first person or that third person from that point of view. That's what YA does. But I didn't do that, and I didn't do it on purpose because I have this crazy, aspirational goal, and belief, that you can write children's novels that an adult can happily read.
Rhonda:
Oh my god, yes. I think especially in YA. I've got a friend who—hi Alex, waving at Alex, he's probably not even listening to this. He's a grown man and he's one of the fathers of my nieces. And I went to his house for the first time, looked at the bookshelf, as I do, and it's YA, it's all YA. And I'm like, “Alex!” He's like a 50 year old man. Anyway, he loves it.
Jane:
And it can be on serious topics. I would recommend to anybody who thinks that children's literature is less or can't do things, not just the topics it covers, but if you read Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri, it is a brilliant piece of literature. I felt very subversive when I suggested it to my book club that doesn't do kid lit, and they're doing it. And I thought, “well, this is going to be fun.”
It's stunning. It's an absolutely stunning book, and I defy anyone to read that and go, “oh, that's kid lit, really?” So, my aspirational thing is, once upon a time, I read Steinbeck in one of those writing books that we all read at university, and Steinbeck said, “I write books that anybody can pick up and read. It's just for the story.”
But the more you bring to the book, the more background education, intelligence, whatever, you should be able to get more out of it. Because I'm writing it on different levels. So I'm thinking, “I don't want to sound snooty about this, and I don't think I'm necessarily reaching it, but I'm saying that it's my aspiration to write something that a kid can enjoy, but also an adult.” And I initially got incredible feedback from adults and then I panicked—but does that mean kids won't read it? But then the Manitoba and the Saskatchewan Reader's Choice Awards, the Children's Choice Awards, when they became finalists in both, I thought, okay, so maybe kids do like it.
Rhonda:
The kids are liking it.
Jane:
A couple of teachers have shared, “oh, somebody did your book for a book club presentation.” And I saw the trifold all this stuff, and I got an interview from a little Ottawa gal, I think she's 11 or 12, where she did it for a class presentation. And so they're enjoying it. And that's what I wrote for, but I also want it to be able to reach further. So yeah, I’m reaching into the YA. So we'll see what happens with that.
Rhonda:
Oh, I love that. Oh good. Well thanks so much for this, Jane. I'm really excited to be talking to you. I feel like your story is that up and down like, “oh, look at me. I'm doing so well. Oops. Okay, let me regroup. Let me learn.” Like, “oh, I'm doing okay. The book is out. Oh, now I got this other book.” It feels to me like that that's just the writing journey and to expect anything else, I think is opening ourselves up for constant disappointment.
Jane:
And to assume that just because you got it or you nailed it on one book and it's doing well and being lauded, it doesn't mean the next book can be done the same way. It requires a different approach, maybe, or you've learned something, but what you've learned is not really applicable. You need to learn a new skill, and I know I need to learn a hugely new skill to write this literary nonfiction, and that terrifies the heck out of me. But that's okay.
Rhonda:
That's okay. I think of writing as a process of continual growth and learning. And that's the fun part. And that's what's going to keep us going over the long run, I think is just embracing it as this lifelong learning process, and we're just constantly engaged in something new. It's good for the brain.
Jane:
Yes. Beautiful. And a slight warning is, avoid looking at all these how-to books as the holy grail, whether it's Save the Cat or, I mean, I personally think everything from the hero's journey to the three act structure all have such similarities that we can smush 'em all together. But yeah, once you just follow the rules, you don't have any kind of imagination, you don't have any surprises. Just relax a little bit.
Okay, I'll stop talking. You're trying to end this. But I believe that I really, really wanted to plan because I spent so much time pantsing and wasting things, so I planned. But when I did that, my character was flat, which is what the first book taught me, that the agent was subbing—they didn't identify with the character because I was following a plan and the character had a job to do and she did it.
But when I let go and I let my inner pantser take my character and let her become a live person, she started making decisions that I'd never even thought she would make, and doing things I never expected her to do. And that's when things come alive. So, I think you've got to be a little bit of both and not worry about—
Rhonda:
I think you have to be a little bit of both too. The thing about the guidebooks, and God knows I've read every day on one of them because it's fun. It's how I procrastinate. We all do that, but they're just guides. You take something here and you take something there and it's not a Bible.
I had someone in First book Finish the other day say that she finished her first draft, she's working on revising it. And she said, and then I read Save the Cat. And I thought, “now I've got to go back and make sure that I've got all the like, “no, no, you don't. It's fine.” Anyway, we do these things. We get all up in our heads. That's the hardest part. So Jane, thanks so much for this today. It's been so lovely reconnecting with you and having a chance to talk about the writing process with you. Thanks for being here.
Jane:
Thank you. And you may see me back in First Book Finish. I need to get back and somebody needs to be my community when I'm writing this next one. So, there you go.
Rhonda:
You are more than welcome. I’d love to see you there.
Jane:
Thanks Rhonda, I appreciate it.
Rhonda:
Alright, talk soon.
Jane:
Okay, bye.
Outro:
Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of the Resilient Writers Radio Show. While you're here, I would really appreciate it if you'd consider leaving a rating and review of the show. You can do that in whatever app you're using to listen to the show right now, and it just takes a few minutes. Your ratings and reviews tell the podcast algorithm gods that “yes, this is a great show. Definitely recommend it to other writers.” And that will help us reach new listeners who might need a boost in their writing lives today as well. So please take a moment and leave a review. I'd really appreciate it, and I promise to read every single one. Thank you so much.
