Decolonizing Fiction Craft with Karen Parker

Welcome to Season 2! Yay!

Today's topic is decolonizing fiction craft, and I'm chatting with the book coach and fiction editor Karen Parker. We cover everything from the hero's journey and remakes to the Iowa Writers' Workshop and how NOT to workshop. Come hang out with us :)

Here's Karen's coaching – if you're ready to start pitching your novel, or you've tried and failed so far in the query trenches, come join their coaching cohort from September:  https://www.karenaparker.com/book-coaching

Here's a piece by Karen on Jane Friedman's blog: https://janefriedman.com/sensitivity-reading-in-speculative-fiction-why-it-matters-more-than-you-think 

Here are some of the links mentioned in the show:

Ben Bacon:  https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64162799

Orly Goldwasser:  https://museum.imj.org.il/en/exhibitions/2016/pharaoh-in-canaan/pdf/alphabet-en.pdf

 Felicia Rose Chavez:  https://www.antiracistworkshop.com/the-antiracist-writing-workshop

 Clarion West: https://www.clarionwest.org/resources/workshop-methods/

Transcript

Hello, and welcome, folks, to The Freelancer. This podcast discusses all things publishing through a social justice lens. My name is Andy Hodges. I'm a cultural anthropologist and fiction writer and editor, and I own a book editing business called The Narrative Craft. Make sure you subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode, and sign up for my fortnightly newsletter in the show notes if you want more regular updates.

And welcome to the very first episode of season two. And today, I have a wonderful guest, the book coach and editor, Karen Parker, who is based in LA, if I'm not mistaken. Is that That is correct. Is that right? Wonderful.

And we are going to be chatting about decolonizing fiction craft. So my first question, just to get things going, is how does colonialism show up in fiction craft and in fiction itself? And can you give some examples? Absolutely. And thank you for having me, Andy.

I'd I'd I'd love being on this podcast already. And we're we're coming in with colonialism. Yeah. We are. Big, bad, scary, evil things.

So how how I answer this question is it's all about it's all about recontextualization. Because as I mentioned in my sixty second book coach series on Instagram and YouTube, the hero's journey is the colonizer's journey, And nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to talk about how at the dawn of humanity, we were oral storytellers, minding our own business, preserving histories, passing down culture from generation to generation, and just being enjoying community. Like, we were fine. We were fine before Columbus showed up.

Okay? But when colonizers rolled up onto the scene, they used the written word to create just laws, create exclusionary canon, and to just promote a story structure like the hero's journey or even, like, similar stories to that to justify exploring other lands and exploiting their people. And so storytelling, as I mentioned in my pen and paper course, is a kind of magic. It is a kind of way to bewitch and beguile people. Yay.

I love that. For evil. And so in in particular with colonialism and in fiction craft, it's more I I would say that it's a very endemic manipulation of politics and of culture and gender and all of these all of these things enmeshed together. And it shows up it shows up still in the way that we're taught how to write how to write stories in school, especially in, in Western schools. Like, we don't talk about Eastern storytelling structure.

We only talk about Aristotelian structure with the, the introduction or the exposition and the climax and the and the resolution. We are only given these things, and we are given a very narrow field of context. But when you decolonize craft, you widen that field and you recontextualize things. That's really cool. And the hero's journey, that's one thing that I've been thinking about, and it's also embedded in, like, cultural anthropology as well.

Like yeah. Which is historically also been incredibly colonizing. And it's, everywhere in spec fic, in fantasy, and science fiction, the Hobbit, etcetera, all kinds of books. So imagine that I've written an a novel, and then I see it's got the hero's journey in it, and I'm like, I don't wanna write that kind of novel, but what what do I do? What advice would you give me?

Right. Yeah. So I've I've just dropped this absolute bombshell of, like, the hero's journey is the colonizer's journey. Therefore, you must be a colonizer. No.

That is that's not what I said. That's not what I said. So first of all, don't panic. If your story fits the mold of the hero's journey, if it just works, if that is the story that you are trying to tell about someone who goes on an adventure and learns something new, has a mentor, explores this other place, I mean, that's that's life. That's that's what happens.

What's get what gets tricky about the hero's journey is that it has been misused or that it has been used to justify so much harm and so much wrong throughout history. So if your if your story does not perpetuate that harm, then I would say you're you're a okay, but it would be still good to think about it. And if if there is a chance that your story fits into a different structure or, you know, fits a different perspective or is talking about things outside of a Western framework, absolutely explore that. There's this amazing story structured chart that I love to cite that's on Reddit. And I think the Redditor's name is too much b h.

Oh, we'll link we'll link to it in the show notes. Please. Yeah. Please link to that in the show notes because it's, it's an amazing chart. It has it has the scientific method on it.

It has the Japanese storytelling framework, Kisho Tenketsu, which I had to learn in my my Japanese class when I was writing essays in Japanese of all things. And it also has, a bunch of storytelling structures from Kurt Vonnegut. I think my favorite one is, like, everything is bad. It gets worse and worse and worse. So, yeah, it really depends on the on the story that you want to tell.

Yeah. That that's also something I want a writers to watch out for is that when you're going on your decolonizing journey, you're gonna come up against a lot of, like, oh, some some things or things that make you kinda question, like, what are you what are you doing to uphold these systems? But also, like, there's there's internalized shaming and programming that you ought to kind of cast off while you're doing that too, because that's how colonialism gets to you. It puts you in that box and makes you think that you're a bad person and tries to, like, shove you the other way shove you toward colonialists. And so yeah, that that would be my big thing to not pan not panic and to kind of widen your your horizons and just be mindful and just, you know, like, keep in mind the story that you want to tell at the forefront.

Mhmm. Okay. Yeah. And I guess that writing in community with others is also really helpful Yes. Absolutely.

And doing some of that. Absolutely. Writing is a very solitary activity. You know, even having, like, a monthly call with another writer friend or going to writing conferences, just any anything that can get you outside of your own head for just a little bit is super, super crucial. Okay.

Onto the next question now, and it's another really big question, really difficult question. I like heavy hitters. So we've talked about colonialism. How does capitalism show up in fiction craft and in novels? Yeah.

So capitalism capitalism and colonialism are both buddies. And I know that you and I kind of differ in opinion on, like, the origins of capitalism, like to think that writing is the birthplace of, like, capitalistic tendencies as well as political resistance. So Mhmm. We have, like, through cave paintings, the first evidence of humans, like, writing or proto writing, being in response to them wanting to understand the natural world and its cycles. And there's this article, which I'm probably gonna ask you to put in the show notes again, about Yeah.

Go for it. Amateur archaeologist, named Ben Bacon, who Mhmm. Who discovered through his research on the cave paintings that these markings were meant to maybe record the mating cycles of certain animals. And so really, like, we were in communion with nature from the very beginning, and writing has, you know, those that specific tie to to nature and to to spell craft and to magic and and all of this religious stuff. But fast forward a few thousand years where you start to look at the ancient Egyptians and their hieroglyphs and and sort of the the beginnings of what would become our alphabet, we start to get measurements and taxes and the capitalistic tendency becomes a gateway for people to start thinking, I have more and you have less.

I'm the better king and you're the you're the lesser king. You're the lord. You're you're beneath me. And so there's that concreteness of measurement and a power and, you know, relation to nature with greater or taxes or whatever. And then and then there was there was that article.

I can't I can't quite remember right now. I think it's or or least something or other, but she posited that the Canaanite miners in ancient Egypt invented a more simplified writing system in response to not having access to the level of education that that Egyptian scribes up at the top had. And so, like, in direct contrast to, like, all of the, you know, all of the nobility with their education and the I have more and you have less, the people people at the bottom who are at the lower class were like, no. We gotta gotta simplify this. We gotta make it easier to talk to each other and to communicate with each other.

That's that's kind of my theory. Like, I'd have to talk to an actual anthropologist or a historian to kind of confirm kind of confirm or deny this, but that's what I'm generally talking about with capitalism in, just writing. In terms of fiction craft, that's kind of, I would say that that sort of ties into just the traditional publishing model and how how traditional publishing just likes to buy and sell books that they know that that they know will sell well. Like, I Yeah. I tell people all the time that, like, traditional publishing favors books that are similar enough to what they already have, but different enough to where it's not completely the same.

And to strike that balance is really, really hard. And capitalism just makes it worse because the the canon that we see in all of these, like, traditional imprints, guess guess what the guess who the authors are? They're they're mostly white. They're mostly cisgender. They're mostly heterosexual.

And so it's this recursion or this this feedback loop of, like, you know, we want something similar to what what's already been written, but we we want it to be just different enough. Is it really different, though? But, yeah, that that's kind of a broad overview. Okay. Yeah.

I could talk about this for hours, like, how capitalism shows up in traditional publishing. Things get cycled on repeat. Like, also, the film industry, I think, is quite similar in this respect. You know, we've got a new Superman film out right now. These are things that will bring in crowds that you have the things like the celebrity author tendency.

If you already have a massive audience, then it's much easier to get a book out. And I think my impression is that the broad approach in trad pub is a kind of scattergun or lottery approach. Like Mhmm. So they'll they'll try and cover all lot lots of different bases, and they probably won't make much money on most of those books. Some of them will turn a small profit, but just now and again, there'll be an author that makes loads and loads of money for them.

And that's where that's where they make their money, I think. So And just to just to riff on what you're going off of the, both the film industry and the publishing industry with regard to, like, the scatter cut approach. I am this is my hot take right now. I'm sorry. But like I'm tired of superhero movies.

I'm just tired of a how many Spider Man movies have been made in the last two decades? I I mean, apart from apart from Spider Man Into the Into the Spider Verse of that whole series, like, I'm okay with that because I like Miles Morales. I like a black, Afro Latino Spider Man. And I like the diversity that is included in that. Like, that is a new direction that I welcome, but it is still a Spider Man movie.

And then also in traditional publishing, my specialty is speculative fiction and speculative fiction written from BIPOC and LGBTQ perspectives. And one of the things I'm noticing in in traditional publishing right now is that there is a huge sort of, like, wave of not not romantic y. Like, some of y'all were thinking romantic y, and I was gonna say that, but I wasn't. I was gonna say I was gonna say mythological retellings. Like Yeah.

Mythological retellings on the You side and on the adult side. And I think that's cool, and it's been done before. Like, we I think, like, Madeline Miller's Cersei or Kirky broke that, like, broke that open and, like, just push the door open and let all of that kind of work kinda come in because it was such a huge blockbuster. But now my worry is that, there are gonna be authors out there who are gonna be, like, racing to be the next or be the first person to, like, talk about this god or be the person that talks about this certain culture. And I'm I'm worried that there's going to be like, this wave is sort of, like, feeding on itself through possible tokenization even though I'm all for diversity and, like, looking at, like, new perspectives.

But I'm worried that it's going to start being, like, you know, every publisher is gonna start wanting to look at look at their backlist and see if they have their own forged by blood or children of blood and bone title or their own sort of Egyptian god title. And it's just gonna be, like, we're gonna see that same but differentness again. And Yeah. I am a little worried about that, but I'm like, I do wanna hear more perspectives. But, yeah, that's a trend that I am a little bit worried about, and capitalism is definitely fueling it.

Okay. So is there is there anything positive that you see happening in traditional, like, big five publishing at the moment? I think well, my my first instinct is there's not a lot there's not a lot in the traditional publishing space that it looks to be positive right now. You have, like I mean, I but I would say though to not give up hope for this industry because we did see the needle move a little bit with the Black Lives Matter movement and the publishing paid me. But I feel like that needle has since moved back to where it was in the wake of like the twenty twenty four presidential election.

And I'm also speaking for the, you know, The US publishing industry. I don't know what it's like over there in in The UK, but I'm sure that, you know, with Simon and Schuster, the big five or the big four or whoever they are now, if they all haven't bought each other out by this point, I I believe that their their decisions have had ripple effects across, you know, the whole English speaking or however, you know, that publishing landscape. And Yep. Also traditional publishing offers writer support and networking that Yeah. People get right away with independently publishing.

And and I think that's only because the system is currently set up what set up that way. If there were more, you know, traditional publishing houses and the power was, like, broken up just a little bit, I think we would all be cool. But because the power is so concentrated in in New York and with, you know, these these handful of publishing companies with their imprints, it just gets it it gets a little bit too big. So I would say that, again, if you're pursuing traditional publishing or, you know, you're you're hearing this and you're like, I I wanna be complicit in the system. That's cool.

But that is still that's still an available option for you if you wanna do that. Like, I don't wanna be the one to tell you, like, don't do this or don't do that. Like, it's your life. It's your life. It's your book.

You get to decide where, where you want its home to be. And I think that underneath, you know, deciding where you want that where you want your book to land, you know, also move the needle with enough pressure. You could be strategic about it and talk about these things. Help other writers. Like, once you've crossed that once you've crossed that door and, you know, you're in the room where it happens, tell other people what happens in the room where it happens.

It's it's almost like you're making your own little whisper network. Yeah. This reminds me of one of the main, like, themes that I took from your pen and paper course, which is on decolonizing fiction craft Yes. Yeah. About finding the finding the middle ground Yes.

With in traditional publishing. So could you explain that just in a sentence or two? Yeah. So the middle ground for all you Buddhists out there, if you caught that, I'm a secular Buddhist. And so I try to bring a secular Buddhist approach to writing and decolonization and just, like, hopefully kind of have that, like, triple Venn diagram going.

And what I love about the middle path is that it doesn't tell you necessarily what to do or what not to do. It says, like, here are some things that might keep you balanced. Like, if you want to leverage the power of a traditional publishing market while also helping out your community, you can do that. And and if you want to self publish one book and traditional publish and traditionally publish another, you can do that. And you don't have to feel caught in one or the other or binary thinking that both traditional publishing wants you to think is like, you know, my way or the highway.

And also what colonialism wants you to think that, you know, because, like, if you're complicit in this, if you're the system, then something must be wrong with you. No. You're just playing the game. Yeah. And it's it's okay to play the game.

It's Yeah. Be fine to, to see what works for you and what doesn't. Like, I I have a self published short story collection, and I love the fact that I did that because for me, it reminds me that, like, I can do this on my own. But for this other novel that I'm working on, which is my MFA thesis that I'm querying, that one I know definitively has a larger audience because I'm pitching it a certain way. So it's really it's really just trying to maintain your spiritual center or your political center or your center of gravity, I think.

That wasn't one sentence. I'm sorry. But I think that explains. That yeah. No.

That is super wise. And as a non secular Buddhist, I totally approve. Okay. So we've touched a little bit on tips. If there were a few tips that you'd give to, a BIPOC or Quiltbag Plus Mhmm.

Writer trying to get published traditionally, what would they be? So And I'm listening. Yeah. Asking for a friend. Asking for a friend.

So I have I have two answers to this. My big three, if you you just want them, is to read read a lot, write a lot, talk a lot. Read from other perspectives. Read until you can't read no more. Read until, you know, read past when they start banning entire books, which they are which they are already doing.

Yeah. Write a lot, write in your journal. Write, and and don't necessarily think that with writing, you are limited to just pen and paper or fingers to keyboard. You can, you know, orally dictate something, whatever writing means to you, be in the act of creation, and then talk a lot, be in community. Yeah.

You know, be on forums, volunteer or join a couple of organizations so that you can attend a webinar and ask those questions to those industry professionals. Maybe even join an MFA program where you make writer friends potentially for life. And if you don't wanna join an MFA program, there are there are people out there. Like, you're not alone in this. And then the second version or the second answer I have is for the the Buddhists out there or for those who who might be more interested in in Buddhist philosophy, have I've kind of just taken I've kind of taken a bit of Buddhism and kind of put it into seven things that I believe are needed to create a sustainable firm but flexible writing practice, which is also which and each of those seven things I feel like can be seen in in Buddhism as well.

And so those seven things which I talked about on my on my podcast, the immovable wisdom writing podcast, are curiosity, consciousness, compassion, candor, creativity, community, and calm. Basically, be curious, be self aware. Don't be numb. Be compassionate with other writers. Be candid.

Don't hold back. As I tell my and my, coaching clients, go ham. Like, don't Yeah. That's a big one. Yeah.

That's a big one. Creativity, meaning, you know, be be flexible but firm. Like, understand what your your boundaries are, what your yeses and noes are, and don't feel like you have to be just one thing. Don't be super rigid. Be in community.

Like, there's a reason why Buddhist monks all gather in Sangha in community because you need a practice like this. You need to be around other people. And then calm just being, you know, once you have all of those pieces in place, just stay centered and focused and not give in to aversions like greed or hatred or anything that throws you off course. I don't know the order that you would put those seven things in, but those are the seven things that I know of. Okay.

That might be a different order for everyone. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So we've touched a little bit on MFA programs, and they are linked to academia, which is also this kind of big scary system that has historically been involved in Oh, yeah. Colonialism and and capitalism. All what what I think all of that means is that you might potentially, as a as a BIPOC or Quiltback Plus writer, pick the wrong MFA program. And if you did, it might there might be some oppressive practices.

You might have problems. There could be I don't know, I've I've seen things like ritual shaming in academic contexts and things like that. What are your thoughts on this? Are there any, any liberatory ways of organizing an MFA or a fiction writer's workshop? Absolutely.

Absolutely. For one, all of you need to read Felicia Rose Chavez's The Anti Racist Writing Workshop because it answers those questions. And it Going in the show notes. Yeah. Going in the show it's like, your show notes are gonna be stuffed and, But Great book.

Yeah. Absolutely phenomenal book. I wish I could give it, like, six out of five stars because Felicia Rose Chavez just breaks down her time in the University of Iowa's MFA program, her experience with it as a Latina writer. And Yeah. Also gives resources and exercises and, like, I think whole syllabi just to, just to show a different way a writing class can be run.

And the big thing also on a technical level with writing workshops is that the traditional method forces you to sit in silence while others are talking about your work. And that can be incredibly traumatizing for a writer of color or an LGBTQ plus writer, especially when you're writing about things that are not of the dominant paradigm or the dominant culture within that, you know, little classroom bubble. And you can't advocate for yourself or you can't talk about these things. And the the idea behind sitting in silence during the workshop or that tradition comes from this sort of like, I mean, there are some there there might be some benefit to it if you know, like, you're you're quick to react or quick to, like, you know, like, jump up and and say something, and and you don't have that active listening and you're a little too, you know, you're a little too spicy at the moment. But in general, I found it to be a really, really oppressive practice to use that model.

And so, Clarion West's website has much more equitable models. I have facilitated a workshop based on the conversation interview model, and I have been workshopped in the conversation interview model, which was developed by Nalo Hopkinson. And that model, I really like because it sort of simulates what you would it sort of simulates being a kind of like being a writer at a panel and you get questions and you Yeah. Answer those questions. And in answering those questions and verbalizing things, I'm able to understand like, oh, it could take that story in a different direction than I thought I would or like, oh, you noticed that.

Yes. Like, there's there's a conversation. There's the sense of, like, I I own this work, but I also understand that certain things might not be coming across the way that I intend. And there's just that shared mutual understanding rather than, like, you know, the traditional way where you're kinda like a frog on a table being dissected for everybody. It's just it's Yeah.

So much it's so much better. So of those two things, the Clarion West website and, Felicia Rose's Rose Chavez's book. Yeah. That's like critique in I don't know. Maybe in the worst sense of the word, but if you're a new author, especially, I think lots of new authors struggle with confidence when talking about their writing projects and being able to have this kind of this supportive environment where you're basically being interviewed about your book.

Yes. That that I think that that could be incredibly empowering for overcoming those confidence blocks and just feeling comfortable talking about your story and your story world so that you feel kinda more at ease. And all of these processes, which I've experienced firsthand, you gradually hold back less Yes. When you feel much more comfortable and confident talking about these things. Mhmm.

Absolutely. Okay. So to finish off, we've talked about well, we've opened loads of really big important topics, and open and open a few cans of worms. Yes. Pandora's boxes, all the things.

Exactly. We've and and you've said that one option is going away and doing an MFA program, some or some kind of writer's workshop, but you also have a coaching program which covers loads of these points. I do. Yeah. So I wondered if you could just talk a little bit about that Yeah.

For a few minutes. So Yeah. It is as as of when this will be recorded. It's currently in its pilot state, so it's doing some a bit of research. But I will eventually call it in the future the immovable wisdom book coaching program.

And Yay. Basically the the big three things, because I'm a fan of threes, the big three things of the coaching program are are that it helps you plan your novel, polish your novel, and pitch your novel. So the pencil and erasure course is based on the blueprint for your novel framework by Jenny Nash. I'm an author accelerator certified book coach, and that is the method that we use. It is a 14 step blueprint with an optional 15 step for world building, which is great for speculative fiction writers who I work with.

And I've found that the blueprint really helps you it saves you from having to write draft after draft after draft and getting lost in the weeds. And Oh, yeah. It helps you it it basically helps you create your story Bible without you creating, like, a world building Bible that you also get lost in. It helps you narrow your point down. It helps you make jacket copy, and it really helps you stay grounded when you get lost in the writing process.

Like, instead of, like, writing a huge, huge novel and then having to wrangle it into submission when you're revising, you just have to Which is so, so common. Yeah. Yeah. Which is super When you authors yeah. Yeah.

It it it happened with me, and it's not gonna happen as frequently because now I have this method. So that is something that I teach in the pencil eraser course, which is from January to March. And then the pen and paper course, which just finished, is is about polishing your novel or polishing your novel in a decolonial way because I think that so many writers make the same mistakes over and over again because they they haven't been taught the proper context. They've just had Western storytelling tradition thrust upon them. They don't understand that they might gravitate towards certain stories because of, you know, history that was never explained to them.

And so I'm I'm biased. Like, the pen and paper course is my favorite because it's it's really the heart of It's amazing. I really, really Thank you. I I was involved in the pilot phase Yeah. And I loved it.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank thank you. And, yeah, it was this is it's it's super dense, and it it it kinda just talks about the things that I wished had been talked about in my MFA programs, in my under undergraduate programs. It's it's it's what I want people to know.

And then the the pen and paper courses also from May to July. And the quilting course is it's it's the picture novel course. So I talk about traditional publishing. I talk about literary agents, how to build a literary life, and the business side of things. Might not get too much into decoloniality, but that's really, like, you know, final level hard boss.

Like, we'll be talk we'll be looking at your log line and your query letter and your synopsis, and I'm just gonna put on my I'm gonna put on my hat and be like, you know, you're about to step into this ring. And it's gonna be hard, but this is this is the kind of work that you'll be doing to to prepare for that life. And so that course is actually coming up. It'll be from, September to November. And that's that's in your that is a year long program.

Awesome. Yeah. And I had a look at the program as well. You're gonna be working with Jane Friedman's book. Is it called the business of being a writer?

Is that right? That is that is right. And I read the first edition a long time ago, and it kind of, like, went in one ear out the other. But Yeah. The second edition was just published, I think, in April, and it's it's really, really Oh.

It's so Okay. It's it is it's chock full of detail and experience, and I'm going to be kind of referencing that for the Quill and Ink course because, like, Jane Friedman has been in the industry for a long time and knows what she's talking about. So that's gonna be kind of like our anchor text. Again, Quill and Ink is more the the advocate and the pitch side. This is the, you know, this is this is the course where you learn how to take the punch.

I hate that. Oh, it sounds like violent, but it's a it's a tough world out there, the traditional publishing world. It is. Yeah. I mean, self publishing is as well, but it's a different different game.

Different game. Yeah. Yeah. Good. I I mean, yeah.

And for myself, once upon a time, I thought, oh, I might give self publishing a go. And then I thought, not really into that kind of marketing and wearing all of those different hats. Mhmm. And then I realized, well, actually, for traditional publishing, it's just a different kind of marketing, the whole pitch system. I'm sorry.

Yeah. And you still wear hats. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think it is Just How many hats do you wanna wear? Yes. Yep. And more and more these days as well.

Mhmm. Yeah. A lot of books don't have a a big marketing budget, and you can end up doing loads of that yourself. So okay. Do you have any final messages as we wrap up this wonderful episode for our listeners?

Thank you again for for having me. I love talking about this stuff. Like, I eat and live and breathe this stuff. And for those who wanna keep in touch, please do visit me at karenaparker.com. I have a blog, which is also a newsletter if you wanna subscribe to it and have it land in your email inbox.

I also have a few videos on YouTube and Instagram. The current series that I'm working on is a sixty second book coach. So if you wanna do like a little little preview or snippets of like, what I talk about in my coaching courses or just potential future workshops, that would be a good place to start. They're only sixty seconds long. And I also have a podcast that, I am trying to get up off the ground.

It is the Immovable Wisdom Writing podcast, which just launched on August 1. And I will try and have the next episode up soon. But that but that podcast is this is where I talk more about, the Buddhist side of things and how Buddhism and the the stuff that I mentioned before with, like, curiosity and candor and creativity and and calm, how I fit those pieces together with a writing practice. Because that was another thing that I've discovered in being an entrepreneur. As I was I was articulating my my perspective, I was realizing that, like, some people might not be ready for book coaching or editing because they don't have they don't have the right practices in place to be centered and calm and and and recontextualized.

And so that that podcast, I hope, will serve as, like, a, you know, if you're not ready for this huge undertaking, like, get get right with yourself first. And I'm also thinking of, doing a mentorship, but that's that's, like, also that's way of the future. So just those just those things to start if you wanna keep in touch. Okay. Alright.

And Karen will be back in two episodes time where we'll be discussing other things. We'll be talking all about our own writing projects and editing work and how how it all fits together, what it's like being a editor who also writes. Indeed. So yeah. So thank you, folks, for listening.

Don't forget to take a look at the show notes. And this week, there will be a lot of stuff in those show notes. Loads of useful links. If you wanna keep in touch, sign up for my newsletter. Otherwise, I would really appreciate it if you could subscribe to this podcast and rate and review it.

And that's it for this week. Until next time.