Estelle Erasmus, WRITING THAT GETS NOTICED: Find Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, Get Published
[0:02]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens, and I am the host of this podcast, Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:08]I am also a newly minted USA Today best-selling author of the novel, Blake,
[0:14]and created a whole community of book lovers around this podcast, a publishing company,
[0:19]reading retreats, a bookstore, and more. Learn more at ZiviMedia.com or follow me on social
[0:25]at Zivi Owens or join the community at ZiviReaders.
[0:31]Estella Razmas is the author of writing that gets noticed. Find your voice,
[0:35]become a better storyteller, and get published.
[0:37]Estella is actually moderating a panel on the ZiviVer's tour for the women's media group.
[0:43]Estella is an award-winning journalist, a professor of writing at New York University,
[0:47]a magazine editor, an in-demand public speaker, and the host of the freelance writing direct
[0:52]podcast. For articles for The New York Times and The Washington Post,
[0:55]have gone globally viral. She has appeared on Good Morning America,
[0:59]and has had her articles discussed on the view. She has also taught,
[1:02]coached, and mentored many writers who have gone on to be widely published.
[1:06]She received a 2023 NYU School of Professional Studies teaching excellence award,
[1:11]a 2023 Zimmy Award naming writing that gets noticed the best book for the writer. Thank you
[1:18]very much. She is also an American Society of Journalists and Authors Award winner,
[1:22]and was a cast member in the inaugural New York City production of the Listen to Your Mother's
[1:27]Storytelling Show. Find her at Estelle S. Erasmus. If you sign up for her newsletter,
[1:33]you can get a free pitching guide, and on social media at Estelle S. Erasmus on TikTok Instagram,
[1:38]XN Threads. Welcome, Estelle. Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read
[1:43]books to discuss writing that gets noticed. Find your voice. Become a better storyteller. Get
[1:47]published. Thanks so much, Zivi. Great to be here. I love that you have a whole section in your
[1:53]book about interviewing and hearing and interviewing you. So you can you can take apart my strategy
[1:57]whatever you need to do. You're the expert here. I think you're an expert in champion because
[2:03]I've listened to enough of your programs to know that. Well, I love how you open up your whole
[2:09]career, your life, your daughter, all of the things that made you into who you are and made you
[2:15]the expert, which of course is one of your strategies for a pitching author is to be, you know,
[2:20]how to present yourself as an expert. Tell listeners about why you wrote this book, why you're the
[2:25]one to write it, and and we'll go into like specific advice. Yeah, I really wanted to distill
[2:31]my three decades of experience in publishing on both sides of the publishing wall as an assigning
[2:37]magazine editor and editor in chief and somebody who's also written for a lot of publications
[2:44]and been teaching at NYU and for writers digest, I'm now contributing editor writers digest.
[2:51]Amazing. And there's so much in the book for anybody who wants to write an essay or wants to be
[2:58]and you even go through the different types of essays that you can do reported pieces and
[3:02]personally, you know, all the things. What's one thing that people who are like out there and they
[3:09]want to be published and they don't know where to start. You know, I love maybe we can start with
[3:15]all of your inspiration ideas because you have a lot of those too of how to get going and how to get
[3:19]the ideas flowing. Yeah, I mean, there are so many scientifically proven reasons why people can
[3:27]generate ideas. And so I cover some of them in my book. I think I cover like 20 of them. And one
[3:34]of the things is if you're struggling to get the words down on the page in the first place,
[3:39]change the format. You know, we're all told like to do times 12 Roman and you know, it's
[3:47]you did on Comic Sam or even hand write it because that tricks the brain into feeling a different
[3:55]way and it lets the ideas flow. It gets us to that state of flow that we're always as writers
[4:01]as you know so well are trying to get to. Other things is, you know, people have always said,
[4:07]oh, I get my best ideas in the shower. Well, there's a reason there's a scientifically proven reason
[4:12]it gets you into the beta wave pattern where you can you're more open to the ideas. And in terms of
[4:19]idea generation, listen to where what your friends are talking about. Listen to those conversations
[4:26]that you kind of can each drop on. Set up Google alerts for topics that you're interesting.
[4:32]And that's the things that be that before I started researching the book, I had talked to a lot of
[4:37]authors for articles I wrote from the New York Times, Washington Post, and a lot of parenting pieces
[4:42]as well. And a lot of authors said to me, when I start a book, I set up a Google alert for any of
[4:50]the ideas in the book that I'm covering. And a, it might get information to me that I need like
[4:57]a new study or a new survey. B, it starts me thinking of different ways of looking at material.
[5:05]And as writers, that's what we're looking. We're trying to have curious minds because curious
[5:10]minds will let the information in and we'll be able to continue our creative work.
[5:16]Wow. So I'm important. And I just loved it. I feel like I'm not usually the lack of ideas,
[5:22]but maybe good ideas or you know, one thing you said, which I hadn't thought of is how repetitive
[5:28]motions help you come up with ideas. Like even something simple is folding the laundry. Sometimes I
[5:32]feel bad with I'm doing something else. You know, and even when you said like your brain has to take
[5:37]a break last night, I watched the Oscars and I'm like, I should be writing my next novel, but I
[5:41]really just want to watch this. I really just want to watch it. I have to like give myself a break.
[5:46]So how do you know when to push and when to take the breaks? Yeah, I, I talked about in the book that,
[5:51]you know, watching bad reality television. First of all, you're thinking my problems can't be as bad
[5:57]as that. I think it's our brain is always working. So for the people who say, Oh, I have to write
[6:04]350 words every day because 350 words a day is a book a year. I mean, look, I'm a mom,
[6:12]you're a mom, you know, it's just impossible. It's so hard to do that. I'm what I call and what I
[6:19]learned from Anne Hood, who was a guest on my program freelance writing director, you've been a guest
[6:24]and Anne said she's a volcano writer, which is it bubbles up. And then she writes and I find
[6:31]like that too. So don't put a certain construct on yourself that you have to do things a certain way.
[6:38]Find different ways. I started my career at Woman's World Magazine, where I had seven deadlines a
[6:44]week. You know, I was writing. I didn't have, we didn't have iPhones. But you know, I was writing
[6:50]on scraps of paper. I was, and what I learned as a mom when my daughter was little, I would be on
[6:55]the pickup line and I would write a mind, you know, in the notes app of like, you know, the phone,
[7:00]I mean, even before the iPhone, you know, the first smartphone. And so just don't let anything
[7:06]constrain you because your ideas are valid. You're going to find out, learn how to pivot. I mean,
[7:13]I pivoted so much my career, right? I mean, I started in print and then print started dying and I
[7:19]went to online. And then I dealt with infertility. And I learned about blogging through listen to
[7:25]your mother and the bloggers with the first ones was social media. Nobody else was doing social media,
[7:30]but the bloggers and so on so on. And now we have TikTok, although I think the government's
[7:35]can take it away, but that's all. But on your mailing list, keep your, you know, I kept both
[7:42]Mailchimp and substacks. So, you know, keep everything because you just don't know and you
[7:48]need the things that you have. Look, you've created so much Zibi. I mean, you're amazing. I've
[7:53]known you for several years now and you've just created an empire and we're going to talk more
[8:00]about that for women's media group. But, you know, it's just keeping everything in motion and
[8:06]being open and setting up those Google alerts back to the Google alerts is a great way to just
[8:12]keep expanding your mind. And also, I talk in the book about doing mining your life for ideas,
[8:18]so like I'm mapping template. You know, and one of the things I do when I have my class and
[8:23]while you were right is that I just are coaching is I say, look, write down everything who you are.
[8:29]I'm a mom of four. I've created a publishing. I'm pretending. I'm going to create an
[8:35]do it all day. I'll be you. You be me. I could use a break for myself.
[8:39]Wonderful. I have a viral article that just came out and dug about my, you know, about my
[8:44]marriage. So, you can write down all those things and you start seeing where your areas of resonance
[8:54]and passion is. And then you connect it to what's going on in the news. You look and you see,
[9:01]okay, let's say, and this isn't you, but let's say I'm obsessed with bowling, right?
[9:06]And maybe some celebrity just came out and they said, oh my god, my best, you know, I created
[9:12]the idea for my Oscar winning movie when I was bowling. There you go. You have a timely hook
[9:19]now that you can tie in to whatever it is that you want to write about about bowling. And I did
[9:26]that when I was obsessed with Penny Marshall who was Laverne at Laverne at Shirley. I went
[9:33]both busty and she, but she had a lot of hotspot. And I was, I was nerdy. I had my nose in a book.
[9:40]I was singing in the hallways. I was not popular because I was just my own kind of
[9:47]airy, very person. And I just looked up to her. So, I write about it when she died. But, you
[9:53]know, with a celebrity time, you have to be right there on the wave. And I missed it. I missed
[9:58]the boat. That was two.
[10:00]2018, she died. I set up a Google alert for anything having to do with the penny marshal.
[10:06]I was like, what, you know, anything. She was the first $100 million movie director. She did big.
[10:12]She did a league of their own. And all of a sudden, in 2021, I received notification on my
[10:19]Google alert that a league of their own, the series was coming to Amazon Prime. And I said,
[10:28]that's it. That is my timely peg. I framed my pitch to the editor of the Apple ARP, the Apple
[10:39]60 million circulation. And I sent it to her and she said, yes, you know, just make sure that in
[10:45]your essay you have this then the other and scenarios I already had that because I originally
[10:49]essay. And it got in. So four years after she died. Well, I thought you were going to say we
[10:56]need Google alerts for everybody who dies and tried to make it all timely. I'm like, that is,
[11:01]I'm like, that is dark, Estelle. That is like, dark. And I wouldn't recommend that, but I wouldn't
[11:07]recommend that because like people said to me, oh, I hadn't, I had an incident where I met Tony Bennett.
[11:14]And I said, did you pitch when he died? And they're like, no, because I hadn't written it up. I'm like,
[11:20]write it up. You know, that one, you could have written up and had ready. Now, not everyone is
[11:26]walking around dealing with celebrities, right? So it's going to be very rare that somebody's
[11:30]going to have that. But you know, if you've had life experiences, have them ready to go and then
[11:37]see what they connect with. This is when I took one a writing class like years and years ago,
[11:42]I was surprised by Sushi Piero. You know, you must know too. Anyway, that's one of the things she
[11:47]said in the beginning is like find your timely thing, like people are only going to pay attention
[11:51]if it's timely. Tell everyone you're pitching. It's timely. You know, so I still sometimes do that.
[11:56]I did that like last week about International Women's Day. And I kind of chuckled to myself
[12:00]because I'm still using what she taught me. Like I have a timely thing about International Women's
[12:05]Day, you know, you have to use it. Absolutely. And so I have a funny story about Sue. I was the
[12:11]senior editor at American Women magazine. And I was looking for an end of the book, Funny Story
[12:18]about Barbie. Barbie. And somebody, and I was reaching out and somebody said, Sue,
[12:25]Shapiro loves Barbie. And I'm like, who is this writer? And we got a contact and I
[12:31]fired her to write a funny piece about to find that piece. I have to look for it.
[12:35]Oh my gosh. Tell me about your advice about writing your own six word memoir.
[12:40]I do that. I teach a micromemore course. And I get people to hone down who they are in six words.
[12:51]It's kind of like a thinking process. It gets you to identify what's important to you.
[12:58]And so, you know, it's really interesting. Like I think I said, midlife mom finds self
[13:04]in writing editing or something like that or in motherhood. I don't remember what I said, but I said
[13:08]something is six words. And so it's an exercise that starts people, especially to like in a
[13:14]right, micro memoir, which is, you know, like tiny love stories in the New York Times. It's 100 words
[13:20]or less. And it really is a full story. It's a story from the past because it's micro memoir.
[13:28]It's not necessarily flash. And so it takes a stir from the past and it has a narrative arc,
[13:35]a beginning, a middle, an end. It's not just a fragment. It's not just a poem. It's an actual story.
[13:43]And so starting with the four five of the six words, I mean, I think the most famous one was,
[13:50]oh my gosh, who is it? It was the one that, you know, baby shoes on worn,
[13:55]Hemingway, Hemingway wrote it. Yeah. And so in that those six words, it's like a story of the lost baby.
[14:04]And so people struggle with it a little bit, but it does help encapsulate their ideas.
[14:10]What would you do, Zippy? Oh, for six words. Oh, my gosh, tired, traveler tries podcast with expert,
[14:20]with expert, podcast, entree way to empire. Long finds podcasts, entryway to publishing empire.
[14:33]Oh, okay. Okay. Well, anyway, okay. I like it. So it's one thing when we have the ideas,
[14:42]right? And we are narrowing down our voice based on who we are. But the writing itself,
[14:47]I feel like people struggle with this. How do you make sure your writing is clear,
[14:53]is a tension, not attention getting, but how do you differentiate yourself from the eight
[14:56]bazillion other writers out there who are also pitching that day or once you have the article,
[15:02]what is your advice on making it the best it can be? Yeah. So here's one of my things.
[15:07]I'll talk about pitching first and then I'll talk about essays. So when you're pitching,
[15:11]even if you're pitching an essay, sometimes the editor won't read the whole essay. They want to
[15:16]be enticed, right? So I say something in my book called Right to the Reader, which is taking that
[15:24]first paragraph of whatever you've written, which supposedly is going to be a wonderful scenario
[15:30]with an anecdote with something happening that's going to entice the reader into the story and use
[15:37]that and show the editor that this is, you know, I have an essay about here is the first paragraph
[15:46]or here is in a substantial part of it. And you don't get a lot, but you get the first paragraph,
[15:53]and they will see a couple of things. They'll see how you execute because with editors, as
[15:58]you know, in an essay, it's all of that execution. And it's something that your voice is going to
[16:04]be important, which is an essay because that is who you are on the page. Within an article,
[16:11]it often has to be journalistic, but I also talked to my students about how to show their voice in
[16:18]the page. You have to insert yourself into the story somehow, and you can do that in a subtle
[16:23]way. Otherwise, you're just reporting on something. And I'll give an example for my own life.
[16:30]When I pitched the editor of The Times for how to bully for your child back in 2019,
[16:36]I framed it around a story about my daughter and an incident where she was bullied.
[16:42]Because I framed it around that and then I went into the journalistic elements and the interviews
[16:48]and all the service examples, which is service journalism, which is most of what's out there
[16:55]today, which is ways to improve your life and your situation. Because I put myself in the story,
[17:02]that way, or I put my daughter in the story, that's why Good Morning America, which I know
[17:07]your regular one, you know, had asked me to come on the show because it wasn't just me reporting
[17:13]on everybody else. It was something. And the reason I wanted to write this is because I was
[17:18]a mom, because it was important to me. And when I was interviewed for the well newsletter,
[17:24]I was like the only person interviewed, I think, after the story went viral. I talked about
[17:30]when I was younger, I was bullied. And I went to The Gimes Councilor, and so much time,
[17:39]I was sitting by myself in The Gimes Councilor's office having lunch. And she said that,
[17:47]you know, you have to look at it as if it's a free country. You have to let people, you know,
[17:54]people can say something, but you have to show that you're your own person. You have to stand up,
[18:03]but you can't be angry about it. You can't be mean about it because then you are the bad one.
[18:10]And so I learned something about roleplaying in that situation that I did with The Gimes Councilor.
[18:17]And later on, I was able to use that when my daughter was in a situation where she was bullied.
[18:23]And I felt it's important for me to write about it because it's been such a big part of my life.
[18:29]And it was something that I wanted to teach my daughter and make her kind of able to handle it.
[18:35]Because bullying happens our whole lives. It happens in college. It happens in adulthood.
[18:40]It's not, it doesn't go away. So if you learn ways to handle it and look at it, you know,
[18:46]I mean, I'm sure you've seen this. The trolls come out when you're on, you know, when you write an article,
[18:52]they, it's going to happen. But you have to think of it this way. If you're in Central Park or in
[18:58]Times Square, and somebody comes up to you and says, you're an idiot, you're a bad mom, you're
[19:03]the guy, they don't know who you are. They're not in your life. So you really kind of have to have
[19:10]that, that journalistic shield in a way. And then you have to use that in your regular life.
[19:17]And I hope I'm explaining that. I mean, if everyone could look into the essay, they could see a lot
[19:22]of what I was talking about. What was the worst time you were bullied? Oh, um, let's see. I would
[19:30]have to say that I never felt like the cool kid because I'm not a cool person. You know,
[19:38]I always wore my heart on my sleeve. I'd walk around singing. And so I never fit in. You know,
[19:44]of course, you know, all those people are now like my Facebook friends and follow a long one
[19:49]picture. But it's okay. You know, the best, what did they say? The best revenge is doing well,
[19:56]you know, and being happy and having a happy life and being surrounded.
[20:00]I'm going to buy love and buy good people.
[20:03]And I'm a big advocate of that.
[20:05]And that's why I support my students.
[20:08]And I'm inspiring to them.
[20:10]And I want to be a source of inspiration,
[20:12]which is a big reason that your original question, Zibi,
[20:15]is why I wrote the book.
[20:18]I really want to inspire people.
[20:20]I want them to feel with a short bites
[20:22]that I give on my stall's edge throughout
[20:25]that they can do this and they can make it happen.
[20:28]As long as they build their craft and learn how to get
[20:35]notice, get attention for their work.
[20:38]Well, another thing related to childhood experience
[20:42]or whatever is you write about how to deal with writing
[20:45]about actual people and not burning the bridges that you have.
[20:47]And how do you carefully document things
[20:53]when you have to deal with those relationships on going?
[20:55]What is your advice there?
[20:57]It's really hard because you have to reveal,
[21:02]but you also conceal.
[21:04]So you don't let every single thing out there.
[21:08]And I had talked to Kelly McMaster's in my program.
[21:11]My book was on your program and one of your reading books,
[21:17]the book for your book club.
[21:18]And she had said that there were a lot of things
[21:23]that she didn't have to reveal.
[21:25]She revealed what was important for her story.
[21:29]And I felt the same way.
[21:31]So you're not going to find every single Iota
[21:34]of what happened with the situation,
[21:37]but you're going to find the gist of what is important.
[21:41]And I'm a big believer.
[21:43]And I know Sue says this too,
[21:44]not to trash anyone more than that you're
[21:47]trashing yourself.
[21:49]So let's talk to show your vulnerability on the page.
[21:52]And to me, it's the mark of an amateur writer
[21:55]when they're just rashing someone over and over
[21:58]and saying how bad the person is.
[22:00]But they're not taking any, it's a relationship usually
[22:04]unless it's somebody in a power differential.
[22:07]So I would say when you're revealing something,
[22:10]you have to think about whatever it is
[22:13]you unleashed on the world being prepared
[22:18]for it to be unleashed back on you.
[22:21]So when I started out writing about my daughter,
[22:25]I was never like, do you know,
[22:27]do you just want those bloggers that would run?
[22:29]You know, my kids are driving me crazy.
[22:31]I hate them.
[22:32]I hate them.
[22:33]I know so sad.
[22:34]Do you use that as a hook and write an article about it?
[22:37]I did not.
[22:39]I didn't know her.
[22:40]I know a lot of people did.
[22:41]I know a lot of people did write about it
[22:43]because it was, it was, it was, it was work.
[22:46]It was sad.
[22:47]It was so sad.
[22:48]I'm very sad that she dealt with depression,
[22:50]but she was also open about depression.
[22:53]It was one of the first ones that opened the door
[22:56]because back before then it was very sanitized.
[22:59]So there's a reason, you know,
[23:01]bloggers kind of opened the door,
[23:03]but I never said my kids sucks.
[23:06]And when I wrote for The Washington Post,
[23:08]my child was out of control,
[23:10]that's what I'll do to fix it.
[23:12]I put the onus on me, right?
[23:14]She is having rage.
[23:16]She's having a tantrum because she saw me having road rage
[23:19]when a mom cut in front of me and carpool.
[23:22]You know, or she's eating too much sugar
[23:25]because I'm a chocolate look.
[23:27]And so I did never wanted to be,
[23:29]that we're saying at some point,
[23:31]kids are gonna sue their parents
[23:33]for the things that they read about them.
[23:35]And I do believe that could be happening
[23:37]because that was the kids,
[23:38]they were from the early bloggers.
[23:40]That was like 2006, you know, beyond.
[23:43]It is a possibility, but I always made sure
[23:46]to not write, you know, my daughters to jerk.
[23:49]And I made sure, you know, I wrote about my dad,
[23:52]you know, singing my dad back to me.
[23:54]He is Alzheimer's.
[23:55]He's very far gone now.
[23:56]It's not that singing is even gonna bring him back at all,
[24:00]which is very sad.
[24:02]But I'm glad that I wrote that testament to him
[24:06]because he's such an important part of my life.
[24:09]And he was such a great dad, you know, he's gone now
[24:13]even though he's alive, he's gone now.
[24:16]but I will always have that homage that I wrote to him
[24:20]and to our relationship.
[24:22]And to me, you know, that's what being a writer is,
[24:25]that being able to tell our stories
[24:29]and to touch other people with our stories.
[24:32]And I want that for my students
[24:33]and I want to keep that doing that for myself.
[24:36]I have so many stories to tell.
[24:39]I was the dating diva and, you know,
[24:41]and going through dating and how I met my husband
[24:46]and, you know, not of my tribe and all these things.
[24:49]So I have more stories to tell and so do my students.
[24:53]And I know you have a ton of stories to tell.
[24:55]It's just a wonderful seeing them all come to life.
[24:59]And I love your novel.
[25:01]Oh, thank you.
[25:02]Thank you.
[25:03]Actually, that was so poignant
[25:05]what you just said about your dad.
[25:06]I don't know, touched my heartstrings.
[25:08]I have to go read that essay.
[25:09]I didn't read it.
[25:10]I'm so sorry.
[25:11]I know I just spent the weekend with my mom
[25:12]at this writing conference.
[25:13]And I feel like I have to write about it
[25:15]before I forget, you know, because I'm not,
[25:17]I'm already forgetting because I'm so bad anyway.
[25:20]But I don't know.
[25:21]I did notice, by the way, in your, in your book,
[25:24]I, you were talking about how you wrote about your daughter
[25:26]and out of control and then how she still had a control
[25:29]and then you're like, and now she's teenager.
[25:31]So I don't write about her anymore.
[25:32]And I was like, oh, that's the conversation I want to hear.
[25:35]I actually did write about her.
[25:37]So that was what I wanted to write for a long time.
[25:41]And I haven't really written about her.
[25:42]Like I wrote a toxic friend, toxic twin friend story
[25:47]for good housekeeping a couple of, like maybe two years ago.
[25:52]But I started framing it with her in it.
[25:55]She didn't want to be in it at all.
[25:56]I took her out of it completely.
[25:57]It was the strictly kind of fun,
[25:59]tongue-in-cheek journalistic.
[26:01]However, there's something that I wanted to write about
[26:04]for years and didn't have the courage.
[26:06]I'm hearing impaired.
[26:08]I've been wearing hearing aids since like decades ago.
[26:11]And it's genetic.
[26:13]My mom has it.
[26:14]My grandfather has it.
[26:16]And parenting a teenager, when you're hearing impaired,
[26:21]I mean, you get the snore.
[26:23]You know, teenagers can be snarky.
[26:26]It's part of their process of separating from us
[26:29]and becoming their own person.
[26:31]And I understand that.
[26:33]But I wanted to write about it because I finally found
[26:37]the courage in myself to do it,
[26:39]to not feel that I was gonna be ashamed or feel old
[26:43]and, you know, left behind or anything like that.
[26:46]So I did my research and I pitched it to Shondellan,
[26:51]which sadly is not taking personal assays anymore,
[26:55]which is such a loss.
[26:57]And the editor who had done my editor-in-call series at NYU,
[27:02]which I created, accepted it and said, yeah, you know,
[27:06]this is I've never seen this written about
[27:08]in terms of parenting.
[27:10]And so I wrote about it,
[27:12]but my 14-year-old daughter bedded every single word.
[27:17]She read it, she looked at it,
[27:20]and she said like one thing she changed, she's like,
[27:23]and I said, okay, but she really was a big part of the process.
[27:30]So I feel very supported.
[27:33]And I don't think I'm gonna be writing about her anymore
[27:35]because that was like my one thing
[27:37]that I needed to get out there,
[27:39]but I don't think I will.
[27:41]I mean, you know, you never know.
[27:43]She may come to me and say, hey mom, write about me.
[27:46]And actually, she and Tarn herself is a beautiful writer,
[27:49]which is just such a surprise,
[27:52]because she wants to be a doctor.
[27:55]Okay, as we wrap up, not only do you have all this advice
[27:59]for writers, but now you've written the book about writing.
[28:02]So on the book side of life,
[28:04]what advice do you have for authors
[28:07]of nonfiction books like yours that we might not have known?
[28:11]I think that perhaps is so important.
[28:13]So take a class, you know,
[28:15]take a class at the School of Professional Studies
[28:18]where I teach at NYU, take a semi class,
[28:21]take a class for writers digest,
[28:23]where I also teach, find a teacher
[28:25]that you wanna do some one-on-one coaching with.
[28:28]I think it's very important to learn how,
[28:31]if you're gonna write above a book
[28:33]is a different structure than a short piece
[28:37]because it takes a lot more energy as you know.
[28:41]And it takes really being able to structure it
[28:45]in the right way.
[28:47]And so on my podcast,
[28:48]freelance writing direct,
[28:50]I get a lot of actionable advice from the writers
[28:53]on how they are structuring their books.
[28:56]There's the shit no one tells you about writing.
[28:58]There's your podcast, which is fabulous.
[29:01]There's so many other places.
[29:02]Let's talk about more.
[29:03]There's so many other places
[29:05]where you can find this very valuable information.
[29:10]And I also think I'm a big believer
[29:13]and you've seen in my book survey
[29:14]that no one defines your reality, but you.
[29:19]I have been told you can't have a kid in your 40s, right?
[29:22]Like you shouldn't have a kid in your 40s,
[29:24]shouldn't get married in your 40s.
[29:26]You can, you have better chance of being, you know,
[29:29]having a terrorist attack you than like finding someone
[29:32]in your 40s.
[29:33]I've been told you can't teach on the college level
[29:36]if you don't have an MFA.
[29:38]I've been to, and what I was taught,
[29:40]don't go up to David Pecker and talk to him about his empire
[29:44]that he created a Sheffield Apache back in the 90s.
[29:47]And to everyone, I said, you know what?
[29:51]You can tell me what you think my reality should be
[29:56]but I'm gonna define my reality and nobody else.
[30:00]And so if you want to write that book, write that book, put your energy towards it.
[30:05]I'm a big believer, as you know, from the book in energy, right, where we put our intention,
[30:09]where we put our focus, that's where our energy goes and our creative energy.
[30:15]And I think learning your craft, learning your skill and making sure that you're being open
[30:23]to the universe. I know this sounds very like hot pie in the sky, but
[30:29]the universe sometimes will direct you. Like a lot of writers say when they're writing,
[30:33]my character took over. Like maybe Pippa took over while you were writing blank and maybe
[30:39]wanted to write about her friend, but Pippa was taking over. Well, that really does happen.
[30:45]And what it is, is, you know, our own intuition, our own creative energies that kind of
[30:53]confluence between, you know, what we don't understand. There's more to have in an earth to
[30:59]ratio than meets the eyes. I really do believe that. So I believe being open to your own inspiration
[31:07]surrounding yourself with people that support and accept you is so important. You know, because
[31:16]again, you know, there's something like a highway lifts all over.
[31:21]I know I say that a lot of these days.
[31:24]Yeah, you want to be around those people. And you know the difference when you're not,
[31:32]because it drags your energy down and holds you back. And here's my writing advice and my
[31:39]life advice from three decades of publishing. Don't let anybody hold you back.
[31:44]I love that. So thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.
[31:49]Thank you, Saby.
[31:52]Thanks for listening to momstone have time to read books. If you love it, please leave a review
[31:56]and follow us on social at Saby Owens and at Saby Readers.