Story Magic

109 - Return from hiatus

• Golden May

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Today, Emily & Rachel talk about what happened during the time we've been on hiatus!

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Rachel: https://www.instagram.com/bookcoachrachel/

Emily: https://www.instagram.com/ebgoldenbooks/

Emily:

Foreign. Hey, writers. Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.

Rachel:

I'm Rachel.

Emily:

And I'm Emily.

Rachel:

And today we're catching up after a long break from the podcast. Hello again. Hello, friends. It's been a while. Who are we?

Emily:

Longer than we anticipated.

Rachel:

Yeah, this is the longest. We were like, let's just take a break for a couple weeks. Four months later.

Emily:

It's not been that long, has it?

Rachel:

June, June, July, August, September. October.

Emily:

Oh, my gosh, it's October.

Rachel:

Yeah, our last. We released our last episode in June. We are recording this at the beginning of October. So it's been quite a while.

Emily:

Well, hello, friends. This is probably gonna be a thing, though, because kids and summers, it's a thing.

Rachel:

Yeah. This is our lives. These are our vibes. We just like, life gets busy. And this is one of those. We love our podcast. We love doing this, but this is definitely like a rubber ball that we can let drop and it will be fine. Well, we have more important things to do.

Emily:

More other glass balls.

Rachel:

Other glass balls that we cannot drop. Yeah. So summer happy.

Emily:

How the heck you been?

Rachel:

Fine, I guess. Finally, it was a whirlwind of a summer, so we both had books come out, but over the summer, I was like, revising and editing and we bought a house and my. We moved, like, school districts. And then I. My daughter started kindergarten, and the same week that we moved into our new house was also the same week that she started kindergarten, and also the same week that she's turned five. And also the same week that my parents came to visit. So it was a lot going on at one time. And then immediately after that, I had to, like, finish revising and line editing and copy editing a book so that I could put it on Amazon to sell it. And like, here we are. So then a book came out.

Emily:

Chaos. Your book came out.

Rachel:

My third book came out.

Emily:

Yeah, tell me about it.

Rachel:

Let's talk about you first. How was your summer?

Emily:

Like, I never want to talk about this book again.

Rachel:

I know. I adore this book and I'm very proud of it, but teasing you, this is going to be a long, long tangent, so why don't we circle back to how your summer was?

Emily:

What summer? I don't even remember it. Wow. Yeah. We had so many visitors. So we live in the middle of nowhere and our family is so amazing and generous in coming to visit us this year. My daughter is. She just turned two and we were like, we're just not. We're not flying. It takes three planes to get, like, anywhere. It's just. It's so much. And so we asked everybody to come here, and they all graciously were like, yes. And then they all were like, we're coming at the same time. So we just had, like two months of back to back visitors. I think our first visitors came the first week of June, and my parents didn't leave until the first week of August. So it was just like back to back to back. And I was working on my new project, Project Storm, and I revised it like, three different times over the summer in and amongst while that was all happening. And we're just really busy in the summer. We camp a lot. We do a lot of outdoor things. I was training for a half marathon because I'm crazy, like, and it was actually going really well until my last long training run when I twisted my ankle real bad. So I didn't actually run the race, but I did run 12 miles.

Rachel:

So basically there.

Emily:

Yeah, it was so disappointing. Oh. But, yeah, and then. Then my book came out. The second book, the sequel to behind the Crimson Curtain, came out in early September.

Rachel:

Nope, in late August is when it came out.

Emily:

Was that really? Yes, the 25th, guys, I'm telling you, I don't remember. Yeah, so that came out late August. And yeah, it's just been. It's just been crazy.

Rachel:

Yeah. Just like, one thing to another. We were joking about this and then joking about how we were gonna joke about it on the podcast, but we, like, are always like, oh, just when. If we can just get through this week, you know, next week will be better and fine. And that's just a perpetual cycle is we get through a week and then it's the next week. And then we're like, if we could just get through this week, the next week.

Emily:

This is Tuesday, last Tuesday. So this Tuesday, we have lots of meetings. Last Tuesday, we were supposed to have lots of meetings. And my daughter was sick, of course. And so then I texted you. I was like, well, someday time will slow down. And you're like, yep, sure. Sure it will.

Rachel:

Sure. That is the lie that I tell myself every day to just get through the day.

Emily:

I feel like that's like my next. I feel like hustle culture, like, untangling from hustle culture has been this, like, this journey of phases where it's like letting go of one of one lie and then another and then another. There's just so many lies baked into hustle culture. I feel like this is. This is the lie. I will probably Spend the next year on Tank. Like, I just, like, feel it, you know, this, like, idea. That's this hope that, oh, we're gonna. We're gonna be able to do all the things. It's like. No, you gotta. You gotta. You gotta decide. My phone's ringing. Okay.

Rachel:

Is it a lie or is it a coping mechanism? Because it kind of feels like a coping mechanism to me right now.

Emily:

Yeah, well, it's hard because it's like, we want to do all the things, you know, I want to do all the things.

Rachel:

I don't.

Emily:

You don't want to do all the things. Maybe we have different experiences.

Rachel:

I'm tired. Maybe we do. I don't want to do any of the things I'm done with the things.

Emily:

I am.

Rachel:

The things are forced upon me.

Emily:

Maybe we need to decide which things we don't want to do. I can.

Rachel:

Well, that's. I feel like that's what the summer was for me.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Is like, I am not going to do the things that I don't want to do. Not in like a. Like a principle kind of way. But everything is too busy, and right now I don't want to do the podcast, so I'm not going to do the podcast. And that's like a combination of bandwidth and desire. But then now that we're recording again, I'm like, oh, no, I'd love to do the podcast. This would be great. But I don't know, maybe in three months I won't want to do it. We'll take it on a break. We need to take a break.

Emily:

Probably. It's Christmas time. Just prepare, you guys. We'll probably go.

Rachel:

Yeah, I'll take a break.

Emily:

Go Mia. Yeah. No, and I feel like we. We handled that really well this summer because we had planned to do several different workshops in, like, August and September, and I think it was like, July. And we sat down like, this. This can't happen. We can't do all these things.

Rachel:

Right.

Emily:

So we just moved them and it's fine. You know, it's all great. It's all good. Move it.

Rachel:

Yeah. I mean, and then also at the same time, we did a free class. We did a paid class, we did a workshop. We did another paid class, and we will be doing another workshop in a month from now. So we still did a lot of things.

Emily:

We did. Well, some of them have happened already because we were like, we're gonna do all those things this September when we have time, and then thought we would have time. You know, we made it work.

Rachel:

We Made it work. And now we're back to October, and we're like, how do we have so many things that we have to do?

Emily:

I know. We punted everything. Doctor.

Rachel:

And now here it is. We have to pay the piper and do the things.

Emily:

It'S never ending. But time is not gonna stretch or change for us, and we're always gonna have things we want to do or feel like we have to do. And I feel like it's really just a matter. And I feel like this is kind of maybe the takeaways. Like, you just gotta be willing to, like, sit and reckon with what is on your plate and what you have the time to do, what you want to do, what you have to do, and, like, reprioritize. And I feel like we're getting better at that. Yeah. But it's hard.

Rachel:

It's hard. It's. Every day is an experiment and learning something new about how I want to be and live and how much time and energy I have to do things. Oh, that was another thing that my summer was. I had, like, wild health problems all summer long.

Emily:

Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel:

And we finally got that figured out. And maybe not figured out leveled. We've leveled out. But, yeah. I like the. The chronic illness and, like, the continued exhaustion and fatigue, like, makes a difference. So my point is, is that there's always something, and then you have to just adapt and choose and then reprioritize, like, constantly.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Emily:

Which takes energy, but it's worth it.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Emily:

So that was, like, that's how we are.

Rachel:

Yeah. That was our little break. Our little break.

Emily:

How are you guys? Yeah, let us know.

Rachel:

How are you doing? How's your summer? We were. But, you know, all of this, like, we have been really active in tenacious writing still. Yeah. So shameless.

Emily:

Plug.

Rachel:

If you're like, I want more. Emily and Rachel and I don't like when they take hiatuses. Join our community because you can always find us there, and that's where we hang out, even if we're not.

Emily:

That's another thing we did all summer, is hang out with those folks.

Rachel:

Yes. But that's.

Emily:

That's the best because that. I feel like Tanisha's writing is a constant reminder of, like, everybody else is dealing with this stuff, too. And, like, watching everybody else reprioritize in there always reminds me of how important it is. And, like, you know, that everyone is worthy of doing that.

Rachel:

Yeah. I like seeing, like, the more seasoned parents that are like, my summertime's crazy because the kids are at home, but we're going to the library and they're going to read books while I write for an hour. And that's what's going to happen. I'm like, I admire you.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

I want to be like you or the. The parents who are like, I'm sending my kid to summer camp and then I'm going to write for three weeks straight. I'm like, cool. I want to be you. You know, like, it's like. It's like, interesting to see each different phase of the writing journey for, like, different phases of parenting and different phases of life. And everybody is doing this, not just us, you know, everybody is changing and adapting to life circumstances.

Emily:

Yeah, we're gonna. We're. We're adapting to the elementary school rhythm where you just are never. Your child never goes to school.

Rachel:

Yeah. So you were saying how, like, last week, Bailey was sick on Tuesday, so we moved a bunch of stuff to today. But then this week, Rose has no school Thursday, Friday, or Monday. So there's like a three week, three day week this week.

Emily:

I didn't have school last Friday, and.

Rachel:

She didn't have school last Friday, the Monday before or the Monday before that. So then there was no school that Monday. Then the following Friday, no school. And then this week, there's no school Thursday, Friday. And then next week, there's no school Monday. And that's not even fall break. Those are just teacher days. So then in. In October or in the November. Oh, there's no school on Halloween. What? Why? There's no. So like, Friday, the Halloween, there's no school. Like, what are we. Why.

Emily:

What are we doing?

Rachel:

And then. Then the f. Following week. No, that's this week. Okay, I was about to lose my mind. The. Then in November, on the 14th, there's no school. And then there's no school the whole week of Thanksgiving. And that's our fall breaks.

Emily:

Just don't go to school anymore, I guess.

Rachel:

So in, like, the next eight weeks, there's only, like, two weeks that are full school.

Emily:

That is so why.

Rachel:

Teachers can't seriously need that much training. No, I. I need to be very clear. I really respect teachers, and they can take all the days off that they want. That's fine. I support teachers and this is okay. But scheduling wise, this is a challenge. When am I gonna do my job?

Emily:

Oh, the world is not kind to parents. It just isn't.

Rachel:

No.

Emily:

At least in America. Yeah.

Rachel:

Here. Absolutely not.

Emily:

No. All right, well, that's. That's update. So we have some really fun interviews that we punted to October. That you guys will all get to listen to soon. And so that's going to be really fun. So look forward to that. We also got our tenacious writing members just submitted a bunch of really awesome topics. So we're going to have some really good, really fun, informative episodes coming up. So stay tuned.

Rachel:

Stay tuned. We'll talk to you soon. Sooner than previously, for as long as.

Emily:

We can handle it. Exactly. If you want to build a successful, fulfilling and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.

Rachel:

Sign up now to get our free email course, the Magic of Character Arcs. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.

Emily:

Link in the show notes. We'll see you there.

Rachel:

Bye.

Emily:

Bye. Bye.