130: May Q&A

 

It's our monthly Q&A episode! Topics covered in this episode: 

  • what to include in a query letter 2:33

  • advice for switching POVs mid-chapter 6:36

  • writing workshops for new writers 11:41

  • what I wish I knew before starting my business 13:49

  • how to start back writing when you have 50k words 19:43

  • balancing motherhood and work 24:25

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May q&a

Welcome to your big creative life, a podcast for writers and creatives that helps you live your best big creative life, whatever that means for you. I'm Katie Wolf, a writer, book editor and creator. Join me every week for tips and discussion on writing, mindset up leveling your life and anything and everything that will help you achieve your big creative dreams. Let's get started.

 

Hi, Friends, welcome back to your big creative life. Thanks for being here. I'm recording this episode in a soundproof booth at this co working space, they have like these little cubicles where if you have to take a call, you can do it in these cubicles so that I'm calling it a cubicle. That's not the right word like these little pod things so that if you have to take a call, you don't disrupt everyone. And the background is gray. If you're listening to the episode, you can't see this, but the background is great. And I'm wearing a gray shirt. It's just very gray. It's not the most aesthetically pleasing background, but I am recording this episode the week before it comes out which is shorter than I usually get myself to do podcast episodes.

 

I like to do it few at a time. And I try to be about three to four weeks ahead with my episodes just so that if things are crazy, and life gets crazy, I don't have to rush to put out an episode. I'm a few weeks ahead. But this is our first q&a podcast episode I decided a few weeks ago that we were going to do the last episode of the month as a q&a episode where y'all can submit questions on writing, editing, brainstorming, business, creativity, mindset, personal stuff, just whatever you want. And so this is our first one, which I'm excited about. And if you have a question for the June episode, you can drop your questions in the forum that will be linked in the description of this episode. It's just a little Google forum, you can put your name if you want, or it can be anonymous. So feel free to submit a question and I will address it next month.

 

Okay, and the cutoff time. Yeah, that's why I'm recording this. So the cutoff time will be a week before. So the third Tuesday of the month is when you need to have your question in so then I have a week to record it and make sure it gets all edited and posted and everything. Okay, so we have six questions to talk through today that I am excited to dive into. Okay, first up, what should you include in a query letter, this was one that I got from Instagram. And the basic anatomy of a query letter is as follows. First, you're going to have the opening, which is where you can include some personalization, if you want this isn't totally required, but it can be a helpful thing. So this is where you tell the agent why you are querying them, what made you decide to pick them out of all the agents in existence in the world?

 

Why are you querying them was it because they represent a lot of the type of book that you write, maybe they have some clients who like authors whose work you really admire and feel similar to yours. Do they put a call out that they want a specific type of book and that's exactly what you've written. So just include that that personalization. Then after that, optional bit of personalization is where you're going to give them the stats, you're going to tell them the title of your book, you're going to tell them the genre, how many words it is and give them the the stats of your book, then you're going to go into the pitch or the little hook synopsis of your book. I actually don't even know what to call this because like so many people use different things.

 

But essentially, it's like a one to two paragraph summary, not summary. It's a one to two paragraph, introduction to your book. This is not the place to include a full synopsis of your book. If an agent asks for a synopsis, that's generally like a one to two page summary of your story where you list out everything that happens in a query letter. The query letter itself is pretty short. So it again it really only is one to two paragraphs of you introducing your main character telling us telling the agent what the character is working towards. What's What are the stakes of your book, hinting at the conflict and then thinking about it as like a way to pique the agent's curiosity about the story. You don't tell them everything that happens. You don't have to tell them how it ends, but just tell them what's at stake in your story.

 

What does it deal with? And then after that comes your bio, which is where you can include just a factor to about yourself. If you're active on social media, if you've ever been published before, if you have a degree in something that's relevant to writing or English or something and And this is also the place where you can include some comparable titles. You can also include that up at the top when you do your general information about your book. So when you include the word count the title, the genre, you can also pick one to do comparable titles and put it up there, you can also put it down at the bottom.

 

And when you are thinking of comparable titles, you want to keep it to the last like few years or so pick books that are that would have a similar audience to your book, like where readers of these books would also be interested in my book. And then you want to close with a thanks. Thanks for considering this. Thanks for your consideration, I look forward to hearing from you something like that. So think about it that way, the personalization, the general info about the book, including comps, if you want to put them up there, the pitch, or kind of I don't want to call it summary, the pitch look of your book, the bio, also can include comparable titles down here, instead of up at the top if you want.

 

And then the things that's that's like the essential anatomy of a query letter and how to structure it. I have a few episodes that you could check out that are on querying specifically. And something that I have heard agents say is don't try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to the query letter like this is a proven format. This is a format that works. Don't stray too far from it, don't try to show off your creativity in your letter. It's just to introduce your book to the agent and to get them interested in reading more. That's really what it is.

 

Okay, question number two. Any advice for switching between point of views within the same chapter? Yes, I'm gonna give you two things to think about with this, I'm assuming that this person is writing in something like first person or third person limited, which is where when we are in the perspective of one character, we're not jumping around to different characters heads, we are only with that character, we're in their head we're seeing through their eyes, so we can't see things that they can't see. You can switch back and forth. But when we're in one character character's perspective, we're only seeing their perspective. Now third person omniscient is a little bit different, where you can move around in a scene to different heads of different characters. There's an unnamed narrator who's watching things and can tell us what's happening.

 

But so I guess, maybe this person is talking about an audition too, but I suspect, I suspect they're talking about limited. And the answer is similar. For both honestly, the two things that I want to bring your attention to with switching between point point of views is number one, make sure you're doing it at natural transition points. A lot of times this happens at a chapter level. So you'll have Chapter One is from the point of view of one character, chapter two is from a point of view of another character, etcetera. But you don't have to stick to chapter level you can switch point of views mid chapter. But when I say transition point, it works best if you do it at a scene level.

 

So you have one scene from one character's perspective than the other scene. That's marked either with physical spacing in the book, some kind of bread line break, just something to mark that transition, and then we go into another character's point of view. Now if you are in limited the limited perspective where where we are only seeing from one character's perspective while we're in their POV you what was I gonna say? When we're in their perspective, y'all, I just lost my train of thought completely. Let me see if I can circle back to that in a second. But the other thing to consider is just, is there a reason to be in that characters perspective?

 

 So when you switch either, like, well, this is particularly true when you're switching at the scene level? Is there a reason for us to jump into another character's point of view? Is there something that this character knows that the other character knows that the reader needs to see that the reader needs to know? Is there an important moment happening and we want to be in this particular person's point of view to see it through their eyes? Really be thinking about why you are switching points of views. And this is particularly important if you have multiple main characters in your story -- if you were writing a book that has five main characters, it's kind of an ensemble group story. Each and every chapter is from one of those five characters point of view, and you switch, you really have to do some deliberate work to think about, okay, I know that I've got this scene coming up this important moment that happens in the plot.

 

 And then you have to make a decision about whose point of view you want that to be written through, Which character do you want to us to be in the head of in that moment to see it. So the more characters you have, the more I don't want to say complicated. But the more intentional and deliberate, you're going to have to be about deciding which character to follow through that. And what I was going to say with omniscient if you are writings, like third person omniscient, where again, we can jump into the heads of multiple people. There's an unnamed narrator who is telling us about different things.

 

Even though you can jump more frequently in third person omniscient, then third person limited, I think the same thing is still true that you want to do it at a transition point, you want to have a clear break as to when you are jumping to the perspective of different character, because otherwise, it's going to feel jarring, it's going to feel like we're hopping heads, it's going to feel hard for the reader to catch up and get their bearings, if every few lines you are switching to different character, and you do that for the entire book. So I still think there's a lot of thinking through that you have to do with omniscient point of view, to think through which which character you want to be in the head of. So those are the biggest things that I would say is, is transition points, and then also be intentional about whose perspective we need to be in.

 

Um, all right, next question. Is there a writing workshop for new writers you recommend? Yes, so I'll put a plug in here for my workshops, I have a character's training that's like an hour long recorded workshop that I did that you can get access to. And then I also have a full online course called idea to book that takes you through all the way from idea to fully written edited book. And both of those are available at the link in my just in the description of this episode. I also have a training on editing your draft two, that will be helpful down the road. But don't worry about editing your draft yet, if you have yet to start writing your book. Or if you're early in the process of writing your book, you can always purchase that training later if you want. So I'll put a plug in for those that you can check out.

 

If you are looking for workshops on a particular subject, like you really want to workshop around a certain subject, I would check out local literary centers near you, I know that not everyone has a literary center or writing center in their city. So this might not be an option for everyone. But if you do, definitely check those out. Like I used to live in Nashville and The Porch is a fantastic place. And they had all kinds of workshops that were in person. And online. Some of them were like multi week things. Some of them were just three hours on a Saturday. And really knowledgeable instructors, you could learn a lot on a lot of different things. So So look into something like that. You can also check out I believe that places like Writer's Digest have some webinars that you can purchase.

 

So I guess it kind of depends on what you're looking for. If you're just looking for a workshop, like a one to three hour type of thing. I almost think it's best to pick a workshop about something specific. Because if you're hoping for a workshop that teaches you everything you need to know about writing a book in like 45 minutes, it's going to be hard to find that you might be better off doing like an online course that has different modules and multiple trainings and things so that you can really get a lot of information on that.

 

Next question. What do you wish you knew before starting your business? This is such a good question. Oh, man, okay, one of the things that I really wish I was aware of, is how important it is to maintain some distance between I'll just speak for myself how important it is for me to maintain some distance between myself and my business. And I learned this lesson eventually. But it did take a little while because in the beginning, and if I'm not careful still today, it can be very easy to get so caught up in consumed in thinking about the business, thinking about courses, I want to plan workshops, I want to host, the types of clients I want to work with thinking about existing clients, editing clients, coaching clients, their projects that are going on thinking about social media, thinking about my revenue, how much am I going to be making this month like all of these things can be so consuming, and it can be very easy to let that bleed over into my personal life like my life with my family, my life.

 

Life with my daughter, with my husband, with friends, with my family like just life outside of work, it can be so easy to let my mind think over things that are related to the business and related to work in like outside of work hours. Because it's harder when you work for yourself. Or it's harder when you have a business because there isn't that clear cut off that clear designation, I do have personal boundaries where like, I won't check email after certain time, I try not to check email on weekends, stuff like that. But you know, I'm on social media a lot more than I should be. And so I will see things or get ideas or respond to DMS or whatever. And I don't know, it just can be really hard to maintain that distance and those boundaries.

 

So that's something that I wish I would have known from the beginning because I think it would have saved me a little bit of that adjusting period, especially once I went full time in this business, and I quit my day job because that was a that was a in some ways, it was a very easy and natural adjustment. But it did. The business did take up a lot of brain space. And I wish I would have been more aware of that. And the other thing that I I have two more things that I want to share.

 

One is I wish I would have gotten help sooner. I have an assistant who helps me. And she's amazing. She's, yeah, she's phenomenal. And I have her for 20 hours a month. It's not even like a huge thing. It's not like she's working 40 hours a week for me. But it has been such a relief to have someone to delegate things to and just say hey, can you look into this for me? Can you update this for me, she helps with the podcast, she helps with social media, like repurposing stuff... I create the content, but it's just so helpful. And I I wish I would have done that sooner, I was a little bit stressed. Actually, I was gonna say I was stressed about the cost. But that's not even it, it was more like, well, I can do all this stuff. I've been doing it from the beginning. Like, I'll just, it's fine, I'll just do it all myself.

 

And that mentality caused me a lot of stress. And I wish I would have just gotten help sooner. It's been it's money well spent, it's definitely been worth it for myself, for my sanity for the business, everything. And the other thing that I wish I knew is the importance of trusting my intuition about things related to the business. There have been a couple of clients that I have worked with, where when they reached out to me or when we got on a call, something felt off, and they didn't quite feel like the best fit. But I ignored that intuitive hint and was like, well, they want to hire me like they want help with their book or they want help editing or whatever. And there turned out to be an issue down the road. And this has only happened a few times, like I've been so fortunate with the clients that I've worked with where 99% of them have been amazing. But there were a few where I saw some things initially, and I didn't listen to that voice. So I wish I would have just trusted my intuition, I actually had to cut ties with a coaching client, like stop working with her.

 

Because of some things that were going on, I didn't feel comfortable supporting her anymore. And so it caused me a lot more headache, than if I would have just listened to that voice. And been a little bit more discerning about about clients. Because I don't want to work with everyone, I can't help everyone. There are some people that reach out to me who want a type of service that I just don't offer, who want access to me in a way that I just don't have bandwidth for so I have to trust myself to set those boundaries and make those decisions and trust that it's in the best interest of the business.

 

And it frees me up to then work with clients who I'm a really good fit for, and I really enjoy working with and all of that.  And also I've gotten intuitive hints about like things like offerings and just Yeah, I think it's really important to listen to yourself if you work for yourself or like have a business that you need to trust your intuition, which can be scary, because you're on your own. You don't have other people to turn to. But yeah, that that those intuitive little hints that I've gotten, I've learned to pay more attention to those. Um, all right, I got two more.

 

Next question. I have 50,000 words and stopped writing two months ago. How should I start back? So first of all, I just want to say this is amazing that you have 50,000 words that is like, I mean, depending on how long you want your book to be. That's half of a novel. That's amazing. So I want to celebrate you, and I hope you can celebrate yourself too. And two months ago, for me is really not that long of a time to where you need to do something different and extra. If it had been two years or 10 years since you had worked on your book, then my answer might be slightly different. And they might tell you to go back and read what you had written or something. But because it's only been two months, I'm not going to tell you to do that you can reread it if you want, if you feel like you need to.

 

But the caution that I'll give you with that is it can be very easy to look at things that you want to change, and to get caught up in editing and revision before you finish the draft. And if you know me, you know that the way I teach writing, the way that I talk about writing is I think it's best to focus on getting the first draft out before you go back to edit. Not everyone follows that. And if you don't want to follow, that's good. That's that is completely fine and valid, you can edit as you go, nothing wrong with that. But the way that I prefer to teach writing, the way that I write etc, is just to focus on getting the draft out. So that's why I would say if you are going to go back and reread it, you can do that. But try not to edit try not to work on on revising things. Okay.

 

What I talked about with starting your book is something called an entry point, which is some for some people, that's going to be page one, chapter one, the very first scene of the book, that is where they're going to start writing because they know what's going to happen, they have an idea for the opening scene of the book. So they're gonna sit down on the first day that they're writing blank Word doc, and start writing that very first scene page, one of their book. And that's their entry point their way into the story. Some people, they're not exactly sure where the book is going to open yet. And so for them, the entry point entry point might be, they think it's like five to 10% in through the book. And it's a scene where something big happens, or the inciting incident or two characters meet or something, they just have an idea about it.

 

And it feels more accessible to them to start at that scene that they really know. Or maybe a scene that they're really excited to write. So that is going to be where they start writing once they're, they're ready to begin their book. And that's their entry point. So I would, I would try a similar approach for you, if you are 50,000 words in, and it feels daunting to pick up right where you left off at that 50,000 word mark. If that's not your entry point, that's okay. You don't have to write in order for you, maybe you get an idea of the climax of the book. So it's gonna happen a ways down the road, you're not there yet, but you know what is going to happen. And it feels like that could be your entry point back into the story, then start there.

 

The other thing I'll mention is just from a brainstorming and outlining perspective, if I'm not sure why you stopped, and you don't have to have a good reason for stopping, sometimes we just stop and it's fine. But if you stopped it 50,000 words, because you weren't sure what's what, like happens in the rest of the book, then it might be worth doing some outlining some brainstorming to just think through, okay, the second half of my book, or the last two thirds of my book, or whatever it ends up being, what do I want to happen and just get some ideas down on paper. And oh, and one other thing I'll mention to that is, if that wasn't enough, is to you can always just block out the scene where you want to start if it feels daunting to get back into it. And you do want to pick up right where you left off.

 

So you're like, Okay, this is where it ended, I know this scene has to finish this way or like, this is what comes right after it. Just block it out, write some bullet points. That's a little bit easier and less daunting to go into it that way as opposed to like sitting down and writing, if that feels overwhelming. But otherwise, yeah, it really, again two months for me is not, I've put projects down for way longer than that. So I think you're you're still in a good place where like, I wouldn't, I wouldn't take it as a bad sign. I wouldn't worry about losing access to something. If you haven't written in two months, like don't stress, find your entry point. Whatever you can do to take the pressure off and yeah, and continue celebrating your progress because 50,000 words really is awesome.

 

Okay, let me make sure. I think we just have one more question. Yes. Okay. Okay, I always hear how Oh wait. I just realized I have two separate documents that one is from the novel Jimster group. Okay. The question is, how are you balancing motherhood and working? I don't have kids yet, but it's something I'm anxious I'm anxious about and we'd love to hear your experience. Thanks. This is something that is ongoing for me. But what really helps for me is that Audrey is in daycare right now she goes to daycare from like 830 to about five, Monday through Friday.

 

So it is my I have very clear distinction between work and home life because of that, where I can clock into work. I mean, I'm not actually clocking in but you know, start work. And I don't have to worry about balancing that balancing work with taking care of her like I did in those first few months when I was back to work after having her which was incredibly difficult. So for me, the having those boundaries. And that distinction of like these times, really, really helps. Because it is difficult to transition. So so much back and forth during the day between those two things. And the other thing I'm really trying to do is to not work on the weekends, I got into this habit when she was home the first few months because I had to I had to catch up on editing projects, because I didn't have as much bandwidth and time during the week because my husband and I were switching off on watching her. And so I would have to work on weekends to catch up on projects and everything. So now I try to be deliberate and intentional. When I'm home when I'm spending time with her. I'm present and focused. And that's what I'm concerned with, and then just not worry about work stuff. And it goes back to my answer for that question that someone had about what I wish I knew before I started my business and the boundaries between work and home life. It it's yeah, it still can be easy to lead, like work in business occupy my brain space. And I'm trying to get better about just like setting it aside and not thinking about it.

 

So that when I'm home with her or without, or whatever I'm doing that I'm fully present and not like, Yeah, I'm here physically, but I'm actually thinking about this video that I want to create or wondering about my revenue for the month of July coming up and how much my bill like, I'm not, I don't want to be doing that I want to be present. And the other thing that really helps, is just having a supportive partner, like having a partner who is an actual partner, and that I can share the responsibilities with both of us are, have been from the beginning, like committed to, yes, spending time together as a family, which is really important, but also having time for ourselves. So I will be watching Audrey, when Sam goes to play volleyball on Sundays for a little bit, I mean, or he'll be watching Audrey while I go to a workout class or get coffee with a friend or something.

 

So that that helps. And spending time with her. But also like, I think it's just important to have an equal partner in the sense that the division of responsibilities is equal. And it's not all on me to do all of the mental load that comes with running a home and like being a parent. Because there are a lot of little things that you have to keep track of when you have a baby. And it shouldn't all be on one person. It needs to be something that's split equally.

 

So yeah, that's, that's what I'll say. I really think this is this transition of like having her in daycare has been so much better than I expected. Yes, it's hard to drop off still sometimes. But it's the absolute best thing for me as a person for me as a business owner, for me as a mom, like I just yeah, it's what's best for all of us. And so that balancing act really hasn't been as difficult as they feared because of that. And, yeah, it I've talked about this a little bit before where when I was really wrestling with the decision on if I wanted to have kids or not. One of the things I was very anxious over is not I didn't want to have all of my time consumed with being a mom and working a nine to five and having nothing else like it was taking care of a kid or multiple kids working a nine to five that I didn't love and then that was it. Like I had no energy or space for anything else in my life. I didn't want that to happen.

 

 And, yes, working for myself makes this a little bit easier. But I still think it would be the case even if I were working a nine to five that having space for other things for writing time for working out for going on walks for doing things without her and then also doing things with her and as a family of course also like balancing all these components, all these things that bring me joy is really would be really important if I were still working at 9 to 5. So those are my thoughts. You know, she's also seven months now. So it's not like we have like, extracurricular activities or like homework that she has to do in the coming years, it might be a little more difficult or maybe not. I don't know. We'll just see. We'll see how that goes. How that transition is. So all right.

 

Well, thank you for sticking with me for our first q&a episode. Yeah, this was a little longer, but I wanted to get through all those questions, because I thought they were really good. And again, if you have a question that you want to submit for the June episode, you can do so by the third Tuesday of the month, and the episode will come out on the fourth Tuesday of the month. And the link to some of your question is in the description of that episode. You can put your name if you want, or you can leave it off and it can just be anonymous. Alright, I will catch you all later. Thanks for listening. more content. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you next week.

Katie Wolf