Story Magic

127 - Using magic as a metaphor for mental health with Ruth McKell

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Today, Emily & Rachel talk about magic as a metaphor for mental health with guest Ruth McKell.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

  • using writing as catharsis
  • incorporating mental health themes into your magic
  • including mental health representation intentionally
  • practical tips for developing magic through real-world observation

Read HONEY IN HER VEINS by Ruth McKell: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/239680531-honey-in-her-veins

Ready to make readers so in love with your characters they can’t stop biting their nails in anticipation?  Grab The Magic of Character Arcs free email course: https://www.goldenmayediting.com/arcsmagic

Join Tenacious Writing! With the perfect combo of craft, mindset, and community resources, you will build a writing life that feels sustainable, fulfilling, and fun—without any prescriptions or rules. Learn more: https://www.tenaciouswriting.com/

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Join us on April 18th and 19th for Character Development Decoded! In this two-day LIVE virtual workshop, we'll teach you how to develop your character's life before page one and then teach you how to show it your story (without flashbacks!). Breathe life into your characters and bring their humanity to the page. All you have to do is register at https://goldenmayediting.com/character! See you there!

Ruth McKell:

Hey, writers.

Rachel:

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

Emily:

I'm Emily.

Rachel:

And I'm Rachel.

Emily:

And today we are talking about using magic as a metaphor for mental health with special guest Ruth McKell. Hi, Mikel.

Ruth McKell:

Hi.

Emily:

Hi. Welcome. We're so excited to have you.

Ruth McKell:

I'm so excited to be here.

Emily:

Yeah, it's going to be. I'm really excited to talk about this because I know that you do this in all of your books, or most of them, at least, that I've read. And so I'm really excited to talk about how you do this and why you do this and all that. But first and foremost, for folks who don't know who Mikhail is, Ruth McKell is the author of the upcoming fantasy romance. Do you call it a fantasy romance?

Ruth McKell:

That's what I. It kind of sits on like a genre of Crossroads, so I've heard it described as a Romanasy or contemporary fantasy.

Emily:

Yeah, yeah, it's wonderful. It's the perfect kind of genre blend that I love. And it's called Honey in Her Veins, which comes out on April 7th. So if you're listening to this episode in the future, it's already been out for two days, which is amazing. Go buy it. And Mikael is also a member of our tenacious writing community, so she's a great friend of ours. Um, Mikel, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and about Honey?

Ruth McKell:

Yeah, absolutely. Um, I started writing. Well, okay, I'll tell you about me. I guess I instantly go blank. Who am I? Um, so I'm living in Utah right now with my husband and son and very much grew up in the mountains kind of person. We've moved around quite a bit. And it was during one of these moves that I realized that I really missed reading. You know, like, when you hit that point when you're like, I've been to college, I have kids. Covid has now struck, and I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I remember hitting that point and just really missing reading. And about a month after picking up fiction again, after being burned out of a lot of nonfiction with my degree, I started really missing writing. And I came back to it in 2021, and that was the summer that I wrote the first seed of what was going to be Honey in Her Veins, though it looks absolutely nothing like it did. Like, not genre wise characters have the same names and the same personalities, and that is the only similarity. Everything else possible that could change about that story and the structure of it changed, but I. It also changed how I was writing as a writer, and it kind of taught me how to write again and led into a lot of what we wanted to talk today about the mental health. And so, yeah, I got lost a little bit there in the descriptions. But honey itself, as the book, it's a contemporary fantasy. It's a cottagecore fantasy about a magical beekeeper with volatile magic and the death touch man who broke her heart coming back together on a mythical quest to find the healing honey needed to save her father in the foothills of Southern Pennsylvania. And it is very yearney, very. A little sad, a little, very sexy and very fun. And it's. It's been the book of my heart for a lot of years, and I can't believe that I actually get to share it in like two seconds.

Emily:

Two seconds. It's so soon.

Ruth McKell:

Yeah.

Emily:

I love Honey. It hits all the right boxes for me in terms of, like, a unique fantasy with like, this immersive world. But I think the thing that I love the most about it is the way that you raise awareness for it and sort of talk about in, you know, theoretical ways, metaphorical ways, mental health issues and mental health awareness in this story and in your. So I, you know, I did a little research on you to like, figure out what your actual bio was, you know, because I'm like, you're my friend. I'm just gonna come on here, be like, Mikael, it's Miguel. But in your bio, I thought it was really interesting how you said your. Your bio says that you're passionate about channeling your passion for mental health awareness into magic touched worlds on the page. And I didn't realize that that was something that was like, going to be core to sort of your brand and your storytelling. Like, I knew it was very important to you for this specific book, but

Ruth McKell:

then I got to read a little

Emily:

bit of your next book and realize that it touches on mental health issues too. Different ones. And so, you know, seeing that in your bio, I'm just so curious. Can you tell us, like, why this is so important to you, why you think fiction is a place where we can explore these things in a magical way? Like. Like, why this? Why this as a focus for the stories that you're telling?

Ruth McKell:

Yeah. I feel like I can come by this from two directions. I could start with kind of my personal experience with Honey because it kind of snuck up on me or kind of what it's become since then. Do you have a preference?

Emily:

Do. Do it in order. Do the first and then the second.

Ruth McKell:

Okay, so like I was saying before, when I came to this story, I was kind of at a point in my life where I, I, I was missing writing, and I was picking it up again after years, and it was really bad. Like, I was so rusty and everything I wrote was trash and I loved it and it was so fun. But also it was, it was like, okay, I want to write again. I don't know what I want to write. And I was trying to write to the market, which, you know, is pretty soul sucking. And I was lost. I couldn't stick with any idea. I didn't love anything. I knew I wanted to be doing this. And I was personally going through a really rough patch for a lot of reasons. I was passing through, like, both some physical health, some mental health things. I was in a very, like, more geographically isolated place from, like, family and friends than I'd been before. And I was a young mom. Post Covid, was not yet diagnosed with OCD or anxiety, had not yet gone back to therapy. And there was a lot that was bubbling up inside me, and I began to really feel like my own mind and my own brain were my enemy. And they felt like this monster in my head that made everything very heavy and made everything very hard. And I felt like something was wrong with me. And I remember, and I'd been resisting therapy for a long time. Like, I knew, but I, I didn't want to, and I didn't. It felt like saying, something is wrong. If I have to go, then something is wrong. And I remember one day when I was. I was starting to experience panic attacks. And I remember one day sitting down kind of as one was building and bubbling, and I just started writing what was going on in my head and started writing. Instead of writing like the story that I'd been working on, I just started writing. And what I wrote down actually is a line that is still in the book where I wrote down, I feel like something's wrong with me, but I don't know how to fix it. I don't even know how to start. And something shifted in my brain where I realized I'm like, I. I need to write about a character who feels like their own mind is working against them. And even though honey, like the plot wise has changed so much since that moment, that was the moment that something like, shifted in my brain that I didn't want to just be seeking out. Like, what are some fun. I love writing fun tropes. They're awesome. But I wanted to be using writing as a tool for my own healing. And I, I, and I didn't even necessarily have the words for that at the time, but I just realized, like, whatever just happened, I need to do it again, and I want to do it again. And it took me down a path of following this story about a man who has a literal monster. I call him his depression monster. Literal monster in his brain that is speaking to him, that is seeming, who points his. The monster's moral compass is completely centered around what it thinks is good for Arthur, not which Arthur acknowledges in the story. He's like, that's a terrible moral compass, your moral compass. But it was really interesting because that was in 2021, it's 2026. And in the first few iterations, once the monster came to be, which took a bit of time in the story for it to manifest in that strong of a way, but once the monst to be, the story ended in a very different way than it did now because I, I remember being like, well, yes, we have to vanquish this horrible thing. And at the same time that I was starting to realize that all these things that were happening in my brain were not a reflection of something bad. They were a reflection of something in me trying to protect myself that I wasn't aware of or educated on or, or compassionate towards either. You know, I was very unkind to my own brain, and it was, it was unkind back to me. And as I healed, I realized I wanted to do something different with the story. And I say healed, but I think we're always in a constant state of healing. You know, we go back to these touch point points of pain, but with bigger tools that help us, you know, return to the person that we're trying to be. But as I, I was changing and gaining those tools, I realized that the story needed to change and that vanquishing the monster in the end was a more on the surface type of story that actually I, I didn't think was going to serve this concept of self love and self acceptance and coming to a place of befriending those darker parts of you that you wish were not a part of you at all, but they are. And there's something that you're not gonna vanquish. You're not gonna, you're not gonna take an anxiety pill and then everything's just gone. They might help, but you're not gonna like, take a yoga class, you're not gonna take therapy and everything be gone. But it will be better. Like, it will help, but you have to Befriend that part of you that you wish you could just get rid of. And that shifted. Specifically, I realized this is a different kind of book than what I thought. I wanted to write that. I wanted to write a story that, at its core, it has a big romance, it has magic, it has all these things. But at its core of the story is Arthur and his monster and their relationship.

Rachel:

I love that. This is, like, a poor comparison, but have you ever seen the horror movie the Babadook?

Ruth McKell:

No, I haven't, actually. Okay.

Rachel:

It's very scary. I don't like horror movies. I'm not like, a scare. I don't want to be scared. But I watched this movie, and I'm going to spoil it now because it's important. Sorry, but. But if you've never seen the Babadook, like, this monster is terrify, and it's. It, you know, it's a creature, and at the end of the movie, they don't kill it. They, like, chain it up in the basement, and then they end up, like, feeding it and kind of taking care of it. And it. And, like, this movie is terrifying, and it centers around, like, a mother and a son, and the Babadook haunts the son, and they don't get rid of it, and they, like, keep it. And. And, like, I have never forgotten about this movie, and I've never forgotten about, like, how terrifying it was, but it's a very similar metaphor of, like, you don't vanquish these things and, like, approaching. Approaching a mental health struggle, as if you're broken and you need to be fixed and it needs to be eliminated so that you can move on and finally be happy. Like, never ends up making your life better. It doesn't. So you have to learn how to manage it and move through it and continue life with it. And I really appreciated that about the Babadook movie, which I can't believe. I'm talking about the Babadook now on the podcast, and I know it's a slight comparison to Honey, but I just think that that's, as you've said, is part of the healing journey. And once I think you get to a place where you can accept that part of you and, like, love that part of you and be kind to that part of you, that's when the real healing comes. And that's similar to why we don't say that you can get rid of perfectionism and why we don't say that your inner critic voices are something you get over and you move on from, like, you don't you just learn how to love those parts of you and then they're not as loud, and suddenly it's easier to live with them?

Ruth McKell:

Yeah, absolutely.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

I love that.

Emily:

The thing that struck me because, you know, when I was thinking about this episode and thinking about what we would talk about, I was thinking a lot about, you know, the importance of seeing, like, the awareness part of it. Right? The, like, seeing these things depicted in fiction in a way that, you know, you can process yourself in as a reader, all of that. But I feel like there's something really powerful in what you're saying or the story that you've told about how writing Arthur's story, like, helped you. It was, like, part of your healing process. Obviously, fiction, you know, writing a novel is not gonna heal you the way that, like, we need therapy. We need all the other things, but it's so powerful.

Ruth McKell:

Yeah, like, therapy is therapy, but writing is a big secondary arm. At least it is for me.

Emily:

Yeah. And I think that that is something, you know, we talk a lot about how. Yes, we write to be published. Right. Because we want people to read our stories, whatever that path looks like most of us, you know, there are some people who don't, but I do think there's. There's that important piece of, like, we put ourselves into our stories, and to lean into that, to, like, look at that, to not sort of ignore that can be a very powerful healing, you know, method. And so I'm curious, like, was there something. Because there's. There's a scenario, right, A situation in which somebody similar to you at that point in time could write a story about, you know, a contemporary story about somebody who's struggling with those similar types of mental health issues. But you chose to sort of, you know, this fantasy route of. Of building that mental health metaphor and that exploration into a magical part of this story. Can you talk about, like, I'm sure that wasn't, like, a. An intentional choice, you know, that you were like, I'm gonna make this magical for some specific reason, but do you think that there was a power in that? Like, can you tell us a little bit more about the. The process of deciding to do that? And I know for future stories, you're Some. You're planning to do similar things. And so can you kind of tell us about why that is helpful?

Ruth McKell:

Yes, I think the very first thing is we have this inner resistance to certain things in our brains, and it. It makes sense. Right. Like, we're hardwired to protect ourselves, to not go there, depending on how you're raised in different family cultures. Maybe you are or are not willing to look at certain emotions, such as shame or anger or sadness. Maybe you do or don't permit yourself to cry. Maybe you do or don't permit yourself to think about traumatic events or, you know, there's. We have all these walls in our brain, and I think we have walls we're aware of, and we have walls that we're not aware of. And similarly to, like, when you. I start a project, there are some projects that I'm like, oh, that's gonna be a grief. But they're all grief books for me. I don't know why I gravitate to it, but I do. But, like, I'll be like, oh, I know I'm gonna have to deal with this issue when I write this book. And that's. That's good. Like, I. I want to, you know, but there's always things that come up that I'm like, oh, I didn't know this was gonna poke the bear this way. Like, there's walls that break down when we have the safety of something fictional. And I think magic gives us another layer of fiction, because it's not just like, if you're writing about someone who has some similarities to you, but they live in, like, contemporary New York City or something like that. That's. For me, that's too close. I can move there. That could be. But when there's magic, it's this layer of safety, I feel, that allows our brains to explore and talk to ourselves in a way that we just won't talk to ourselves outside fiction. At least for me, that's really been the experience that, honestly, for someone who has a lot of words inside them, like hundreds and thousands of words across multiple books, I feel like I have a hard time with precision of language for myself, which is why it takes me a whole book to say what I'm saying.

Emily:

Yeah.

Ruth McKell:

And to be willing to say or acknowledge. And sometimes the feelings that I think we need to experience are more than just a sentence we need to say to a therapist. They're a feeling that you only get through a character arc. They're a feeling recognition of pain or desire or something that. That needs to be felt in your heart that you can only get through the experience of an actual story. It's not just a bullet point. It's a. It's a whole thing. And magic, like, crafting mental health into the magic, I think helps us approach it in a way that is very. Feels safer for us than it does in other ways. I can give an example that's not honey. That I thought was really interesting about this that I read last year. I don't know if you. Have you heard of the book Shark Heart?

Rachel:

No.

Ruth McKell:

Super weird, super awesome. It's a story about a married couple and the man gets diagnosed with a mutation that turns him into a great white shark. And you learn as you read throughout the book, spoilers here that this is normalized. Everything else about our world is normal. It's, it's contemporary world, except that in this contemporary, speculative version of our world, people are sometimes diagnosed with mutations that will turn them into this or that animal. And it's a slow, hard, painful process that you can't stop. You have to adapt to. And the book really focuses on the caretakers and caregivers also impacted by that transformation. That change. Watching the person you love change. Before you. And I read this book, not really understanding or expecting how much it was going to talk about it felt like reading a book on the grief of, like, chronic illness or cancer or. I had a grandmother, my granny recently passed away from Alzheimer's. And that idea of watching your person who you love so much change and not being able to do anything about it. And it would have been an incredibly heavy, hard to read book without that magical element. It would have just been like a really heavy, like, medical book. But this element of magic. We were talking about birds, we were talking about.

Emily:

What was it?

Ruth McKell:

Was it a Komodo dragon? Komodo dragons. We were talking about this great white shark. And like, our brains can't compute that. We're like, well, that's not real. And so it's allowed for the safety of being able to go in and talk about the grief and the guilt of, like, resentment or frustration or like sorrow, all these really big feelings. It created the safe place, at least for me as a reader, to go to these places that otherwise I don't generally read a lot of books that touch on those themes. It's, it's, it's heavy, you know, but it took such a heavy thing and made it not only digestible, but interesting and humorous and incredibly human. And that's what I think we have power to do with magic and like magical elements, speculative elements, is take things that are hard to process and repaint them in a way that we can approach.

Emily:

What a fascinating premise.

Ruth McKell:

I know.

Emily:

I need to go pick that up. That is so interesting. Um, gosh, that's so cool. Okay. I'm like, totally sold on this. I think it's such a fascinating way to look at, like, the parts of yourself that you're putting into a story and why you're putting them there and, like, how to explore it. I'm curious when you start a new project, and I know you have, like, a thousand projects on the back burner, and so I know you. I know you have a lot of experience with the. Those initial stages of, like, figuring out what a story might be. Do you have a process for how you externalize or, you know, take those issues and bring them into magical metaphor? Like, is there a way that you think about that? Does it pop into your head fully formed? Just like, I'm thinking of listeners who are listening in going, oh, that sounds so cool. But, like, how do you come up with an idea like that?

Ruth McKell:

You know, how do I do it? Yeah, yeah.

Emily:

And maybe you don't have a good answer. That's a hard question to ask. But I'm just curious if you. If you have any advice for someone who might be thinking about this.

Ruth McKell:

Well, I feel like it definitely, for me at least, doesn't happen, like, all at once. It's not like I go, oh, you know what I'm gonna write about X, Y, Z. And this is the personal part that's gonna go into it.

Emily:

That's.

Ruth McKell:

That would be lucky. But more often, it's like little drops in a bucket, you know, or like little pieces that slowly come together. I'll be like, well, I like this concept, but I know I've learned this about myself that I cannot write. I cannot sit down and write a book until I know what personal hook I have in that story. I've tried, and I just burn out at like, 20 or 30k. I get bored like a. Maybe I'm a little selfish with it, but I'm like, I want my own catharsis in this wreckage experience. And even it doesn't have to be big. Like, there are some that I have that I'm like, I don't know yet what mental health thing is going to come out in this one. But, like, I have a book that's a lot about environmental grief and rage and my feelings about that. And I'm like, okay, I can tell that's going to stir something. That's a really big hook for me when I write that book. That's going to bring out a lot for me in a different angle than these other things have brought out. But I. I know that I have to have something. I have to. It might change and grow, but I have to know, like, in this book, we're dealing with this issue. But I do think something that helps is what we were talking about, like magic as a metaphor for mental health. Right. I think I have a habit of thinking about life in a kind of a metaphorical way in that I like thinking about the connections between things and the way we are like other things. So like the way we are like other creatures in the world, the way we are similar, the way we are different, the way we experience different things in the world. And I think when you shift your mind from like, oh, I'm going to find the perfect metaphor for this from being like in the moment of like, oh, what is something that just does this, that sounds good, but you change it to a way of thinking, of saying, how am I similar to the more than human world, everything around me? It's, it's more than just like a. I need this metaphor in the moment while I'm writing. It's almost like a way of looking at the world, you know, where I start to see things in me.

Rachel:

I'll.

Ruth McKell:

I think about like, okay, I need to like back away from social media. You're like, I'm hibernating. Like I'm, I'm, I'm going into torpor, I'm doing something else. Or you see how someone else reacts to something and you're like, you know what this reminds me of? Like an animal species or a plant species or some, something else in the world. This feels very like vague and I'm trying to find like a good example of this. But I, I think when you start to try and draw connections like we are in period of time, that feels very divisive. Just full stop. It just, it just does. There's a lot of feeling very, I don't know, angry, impatient, frustrated, burnt out, othered on a separate team. And I feel like it can be really healing to try to see yourself as similar to and belonging to. And if you can't find that with other people, if you can, that's wonderful. And if you can't, then you can turn to the natural world, or you can turn to science, or you can turn to all these things. Because in my head, like magic is used for a lot of different purposes in literature. Sometimes it's used as an expression of power. But I think a lot of the times magic is an expression of what we don't understand. Because if we do understand it, we call it science. You know, if we know how to do this, plus this, we put them together, they make a flame. Science. If someone Snaps their fingers and makes a flame. That's magic. But if we, like, a lot. In fact, I think a lot of the things that we are so fascinated with magic and fiction, and I'm like, we're surrounded by magic. We just call it science, we call it chemistry, we call it all these things. We're fascinated by alchemy. I'm like, but we're surrounded by that literally in our real world. And understanding, like, bridging the gap between I don't understand this to. I understand this. That gap is pretty small, actually. And I think it makes a difference in how we categorize things, but it also is how I think we process our mental health. So, like, if you don't understand how. Well, we were just talking about chemistry, I can't even get thinking of an actual example because chemistry was a very long time ago for me. But, you know, you'll, like, take this prop thing, this thing, you add them together and it flashes purple or whatever. If you saw that as a magic trick and someone just did it, you'd be like, wow, I don't get it. That's amazing. If someone explained to you, oh, it's, you know, this element and this element make this. There's a reason for it that happens in our brains where we go, why am I reacting this way? Why am I feeling this way? What is wrong with me? So many things were answered for me personally when I learned that I had ocd because I. I was like, no. People had even asked, like, do you have. I'm like, no, I don't. Because I. My house is a mess, therefore, I cannot have ocd. I didn't understand that. It can manifest in so many different ways. And when it clicked, like, oh, all these things and the way my brain is doing them, processing them, this is the reason. It was like, that moment of someone saying these two elements together flash purple. The distance between understanding and not understanding, shifting from, like, this, like, magical other to this known as much as we can know. It, I think, is. It feels ungraspable. It feels like I'm never gonna have answers to this, even when it's really close by. And I think when we can't find it in real life, looking for in our stories is really helpful. I don't know if that's making sense. I feel like that came out in a very garbled way, but making sense for sure.

Rachel:

So you've mentioned one of the things that I keep thinking about, and I don't know you, Mikel, as well as Emily does, but One thing that I've observed from talking to you is that it feels. I feel like you're so in tune to your emotions and it feels like you have a really high emotional intelligence because you're able to name a lot of emotions and understand how those emotions flow through us. And, and from what I've heard so far about your journey, you had mentioned how when you started, honey, you hadn't yet gone back to therapy or you hadn't yet undergone this personal metamorphosis to understand what was going on inside your body and inside your brain. And through writing it, it sounds like you've had to. They're very interconnected journeys. But you had a journey understanding what was going on in your body, and then you had a journey applying that to. On the page.

Ruth McKell:

Yeah. What.

Rachel:

What was that like for you? And then I also was thinking a lot about, like, your ideal reader, probably as a. As someone like you or, or a past version of you. And what was, what was it like? Do you feel like you've been able to write this story and get closer to exactly what you wanted this book to be about because of what you learned throughout your personal journey as well?

Ruth McKell:

Okay. Well, thank you. First of all, I almost feel like. Like I feel like progressing in understanding ourselves and accepting ourselves feels less like the metamorphosis of like a butterfly, where it's like this one time event and more like the molting of a snakeskin where, like, we're gonna do this a lot of times, like we're gonna outgrow this a lot of times. Or like a hermit crab searching for a new shell, where you're like, okay, this one fits for now. We're not done. Like, we're always going to be working for the next thing. But I feel like they do feel very interconnected to me, to be very, like, open and vulnerable for a second. I've been re. I listen to my audiobook, I have an early copy to it, and then I listen to it again. I'm listening to it again, and I might do it again. I feel like I am grieving, letting the story go right now because it has been my constant companion walking through some really big life changes. And there's a lot that I haven't like, mentioned here, but a lot has happened for me in the last five years. And this, this has been my emotional support story. Yeah. And I love these characters in my head. They are so real, and I'm so sad that they're actually fictional because I just, I just want to scoop them Up. But I. I'm trying to remember. There was a question that of yours that I wanted to answer. My ideal reader, I feel like in this story, I would hope that it's someone who's a deep feeler or who wants to better feel their feelings safely. Someone who really struggles with feelings of not being enough or not being right. Someone who wants to feel seen and loved and like they're just okay. I feel like there'll be people who don't like this book, and I already know that. I've seen it, because it's hard not to look at reviews. And there are people who love this book and people who don't love this book, and that's great. That's fine. That's how it's supposed to be. But the people who will love it and the people I really want it to reach are those readers, I think, who need someone to say, you're okay and you're going in the right direction and there's nothing wrong with you and you are right as you are, and this is hard, but you can do it. Like, they. They need gentleness. And that's what I really hope this book gives people, is a little bit of space and a little bit of gentleness and a loving kiss on the forehead that says, it's not always going to be like this. It is going to get better, it is going to improve, and you're going to look back on this and feel stronger and softer for it.

Emily:

Yeah.

Ruth McKell:

Yeah.

Emily:

Oh, that's beautiful.

Rachel:

And it's. You know, it sounds like that's been it to me. The writing experience has been very much like, as you peel back the layers, as you write more versions of the story, as you discover what you want to say, it's kind of been there the whole time, but you don't know that. You, like, you can't touch that until you've written draft after draft. And it sounds like that's been your experience as well.

Ruth McKell:

Yeah. Well, what we were saying earlier, where it feels. I feel like there are things that we don't know how to say to ourselves. I feel like that's what happens. You get to, like, draft three, and you're like, I didn't even realize I was doing this. Oh, wow. How great for me, like, we're talking to ourselves on a very, like, subconscious level. You know what I mean? That's why I think some of the work can be done in, like, oh, I'm gonna fold this into the mental health element in the magic here. I'm gonna do this but there's also, like, subconscious stuff that is going to surprise you. And that's good, that something in you that wants to speak that is being given a voice in your story.

Emily:

Yeah, I keep. As you've been talking, I've been struck a lot by, like, how intentional you are about exploring the connections. Right. Going deeper, not looking away, like, allowing yourself to. To let your subconscious out on the page. Right. But then, like, face it and, like, look at what that is there. And I'm wondering if. If we. If it's important, right, to kind of say that while we are exploring these things on the page and allowing it to come out in that way, that organic way and, like, expressing ourselves. Right. And figuring out what's actually there, that it's important to actually look at that and start to interrogate it and start to ask what it is that we're trying to say. Right. Because I wonder if there. I guess, you know, the point I'm trying to get to is I wonder if there's a risk in exploring these questions in a way that's going to reach readers. Right. Exploring mental health in this metaphorical way in a way that you intend to share with people. Right. Who might also struggle with those issues, that we owe it to ourselves and to them to also be intentional about it. Right. Like, are there risks of doing this where we don't dig deep enough to figure out exactly what we're trying to say? Does that question make sense? I feel like I'm, like, going, maybe. I just. Is there a risk in doing this and, like, saying something you don't intend to say? Right. And, like, having a harmful impact?

Ruth McKell:

I think. I mean, there's always the risk of being misunderstood, and that's really scary. And the risk of missing something. I think readers forget that we're very human, and we are. We're trying. And there will likely always be people who misunderstand something we need to say. I think we have safeguards that can help us. You know, sensitivity readers, for example, beta readers, having editors, like, going over it more than once. But I think our job. You know, how lots of people say that they read to escape, And I think that's a very valid thing. I. I've realized, though, that I don't connect with it very much and that I find myself more often craving to read for connection, that I want to feel something deeply and to feel connected when I read. And sometimes it's because I resonate with, like, oh, that's like me. And sometimes it's, oh, that's not like me, but it has brought me closer to understanding this person's experience, and I still feel connected. And I think if we approach our stories with that goal of, I. I want to bridge something with this story. Because you are not the only creator of your book. When you write a story, you. I feel like it's like extending a hand to the reader, but they fill in all the gaps. For all those hundreds of words, there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands more that are unspoken but filled in by the reader. They're the one who visualizes what you describe. They're the ones who insert their own personal experience between the lines. And you can't control that, so you can't control them doing it in a way that might not be good for them. Maybe it is making them confront something they don't want to confront, or maybe they're. They don't have an experience that they just don't connect with that story, but it's an invitation, and they. For the right readers, like, those who are going to connect with it, they finish the story in their head. We just start it on the page, Right. Like, but they. They complete it. It's a joint effort between author and reader. And I think, being intentional, of course, I think we should always try to be intentional about our stories and. And also give ourselves grace for being incredibly human and for always growing. And there are some things that we're like, I feel really good about this. And then down the line, we're like, I've learned more. But we can only ever give ourselves permission to do as well as where we are at any given moment. You know, like, if you learn better, you do better. And if you look back and you're like, oh, I wish I'd done this a little bit stronger, it's like, well, you can't change it, but you can do the next one stronger. And so, like, a combination of being very intentional and giving your past self so much grace, extending that same grace to others, I think is kind of all that's in our control.

Emily:

Yeah. No, I think that's a beautiful answer. And it's also, I'm hearing, like, leaning into the truth. Right. Leaning into what you're. Even if you can't articulate it, right. Even if it's, you know, feels vague and hazy to you, like, leaning into what feels true. Mm. And what feels right is like, that's the connection piece. Right. You're leaning into, like, the thing you want to express to somebody else and, like, allowing that to be true. Right. Whatever it ends up.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Ruth McKell:

Because it's not gonna be true for everybody. That's not gonna be everyone's experience. But if you've had an experience, you've had an emotional experience, you've felt something, someone else has felt that same thing.

Emily:

Like, we're.

Ruth McKell:

We're not isolated. And everything that we think is like, I'm the only one who's ever gone through this. We're so wrong. There are many, many people who have not only felt that same thing, but have also thought, I am the only person who has gone through this. Therefore, X, Y, Z about myself, therefore something's wrong with me, or something's weird about me, or I'm, you know, like, writing your story. You're not going to bridge that gap with everyone because not everyone has been through something like that. But you're always going to find someone and many someones who see that and go, oh, my gosh, that feels so good to read. I've never read that in a book before. Or I. I feel seen by this story. This story is comforting for me because I feel like it's seeing me and it's reminding me that I'm not alone in this.

Emily:

Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. Oh, this has been amazing. Okay, final question.

Ruth McKell:

Okay.

Emily:

That I have. But so for any listeners who are thinking about doing this, right, maybe they're already realizing that they're through this conversation, maybe realizing that they're exploring something. Right. Something with themselves on the page. Do you have any advice for the. For folks who are doing this?

Ruth McKell:

Okay, very practical advice is to go further back than where your story is and spend time with the things that have not only hurt your character, but are still hurting them. I saw some advice, it was this weekend, I think, and I really loved it. It was talking about how the trauma is not the thing that helps us get to know our character. It's the coping mechanisms that they are still using after that trauma. It's not just like this happened to me, but it's what am I doing to avoid it happening again or avoid facing it? I think considering those wounds and the ghost that is haunting your character and letting a piece of yourself leak into that is a good starting place. You don't have to rip the band aids off all your wounds. I think there are things in us that are not ready to be written. Like, you don't have to write something that you are not ready to share. And I think allowing yourself. There are things that I'm like, I'm not ready for that. But there. I remember saying that years ago, about things that are now in Honey. And we need to give ourselves time. But when you see something that you're like, this feels ready. I need to sort through this on the page. Give a piece of it to one of your characters, let it hurt them, and spend time with them, both in the draft and in writing outside your draft, even, like, you can write as your character to yourself. Think about them. Let them be this shield between you and the big, scary, hard thing that's hard to face. If it's hard to think about, like, this thing in me, you can think about, like, well, how. How does my character experience this? Because you start talking to your own self, your inner self, too, and it's going to come out in real ways. You don't have to do everything, like, perfect to communicate to your readers the first round. All you have to do is put something real in yourself, in your characters, and let yourself go there just a little bit. And that. That's where I would start.

Emily:

I love it. Anything else?

Rachel:

Rachel, there's one thing that you said earlier, which I want to call back to here as we're talking about, like, practical tips and advice, which is that when you were talking about chemistry and magic and magic being just a part of the world that we don't understand, it sounds to me like if a. If a reader is considering how to incorporate these things together, the question they can ask of themselves is, I want to insert this hard thing into the story. I'm considering there being a metaphor. So how can I weave it into this part of the world that we don't understand by science? And what magic results through that? I mean, magic can be anything. Like, it could be elemental. It can be psychic. Like, there's so many different ways to explore what magic actually means, but a process through which to bring magic about in the story is, like, what is that part of their life that they can't explain? And how do we. How can we weave in the metaphor into that? Does that sound right? Is that. Would you agree?

Ruth McKell:

Yeah. And I think, like, going back to that relationship story of, like, how things are connected, how we see. Okay, like, I can use an example. In Honey, there's a lot of moments of feeling claustrophobic because Arthur's monster can take him over and he can puppet him, use his body.

Emily:

Yeah.

Ruth McKell:

Put him inside where he can't move. And that feeling of claustrophobia, it's serving a deeper purpose. It's serving this purpose of feeling powerless and out of control. And throughout the book, you have a lot of feelings and Symbols about being trapped in ice, being preserved in amber, being stuck, being buried alive. Like, all these things that evoke that same claustrophobic. I can't move. I can't change this. I can't do anything feeling. And I think, like, on a practical level, if you're like, I want to weave this into my magic, but I'm not sure how. I think, considering how it. Whatever it is that you want to involve, like, consider how it feels in your body. Consider where you feel it. Do you feel it in your chest? Do you feel in your head, your hands? Like, what is it that you are experiencing? Do you see any echoes of that in the natural world? Do you see any echoes of that in. In other areas of science? Like, how can what you experience, this tiny aspect of what you experience, can you see it anywhere else? And I feel like once you start doing. Starts bridging out this web of like, oh, I could pull on this thing as this allegory I could use. This thing is reflective. This external piece. I'm using my hands, and no one can see me using my hands. This external element has an internal purpose. And I think this is also why I recommend, like, starting with your character's wound and the ghosts that still haunt them is. I think when we choose external scenes that are purposefully drawn from a character's wounds, then it's. It's much easier for me than if I use, like. I personally don't, like, use, like, Save the Cat or what's the other one? There's so many. Because I just. I'm like, why. Why am I doing this? I don't understand. I have to start with the psychology of my character of, like, what has to happen next? Like, why does this need to happen? And when you choose external pieces that have a direct internal link, then I feel like the character arc naturally grows with your story, or you grow a story that fits the character arc where it's all drawing back to that wound. It's all drawing back to the connection of this thing going on in the character is also going on in the world or this thing that they're not facing is to going. Creating issues like them not facing it is hurting the plot. And that's the point where you can create this internal and external, like, resonance between the two. Does that make sense?

Rachel:

Yeah, definitely.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

And I think that's. That's pretty actionable to. To explore and to have people start to take a look at this is it. It also takes time. I mean, you said that earlier, like, this was not something that you had in your very first draft or vision of what this story ended up becoming. It.

Ruth McKell:

Not at all.

Rachel:

It takes growth.

Emily:

It.

Ruth McKell:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Yeah. So I think that's really validating because the. If I had, you know, a nickel for every time I heard someone lament that it's not where they wanted to be, I would be a very rich person. But that's, like, how it works. That's how it works. It takes a lot of time and thought and reworking to get it to that spot.

Emily:

Yeah. And I love this idea of starting with the emotions, like, whatever the struggle is that you want to, you know, put into metaphor on the page, like, how does it make you feel? And then figuring out how to make that feeling into a metaphor. I feel like that's a really actionable way to start. Oh, this has been amazing. Thank you so much. Mikhail, can you tell people where they can find you and where they can find Honey in her veins?

Ruth McKell:

Yes, you can find me on instagram @ruth mckellbooks. And, well, you said when this comes out, Honey will already be out. So you can. You can buy it wherever you get your books. We're all over. We're all over, so.

Emily:

And there's an incredible audiobook, so if that's how you get your books, you should definitely go check the audiobook out.

Ruth McKell:

I'm, like, probably gonna read it at least one and a half more times, which I did not think. I thought. I was so done with reading this story, I didn't want to look at it anymore. But just after I read it, like, a hundred times and then I got the audiobook, and I'm like, I'm so seduced by the narrators. We'll do this.

Emily:

It's so surreal. Like, I know. Bringing your characters to life, it's the. That was my favorite part of Crimson coming out was the audiobook. Just being like, oh, my God.

Ruth McKell:

It's like helping me cope with letting go. I think it's. It's. It's passing the torch away.

Emily:

It's out there. Yeah. Yeah. They're alive in someone else's voice. It's amazing. I know. Well, everybody go get Honey in her veins by Ruth McKell. Thank you so much, Mikel, for being here. This was. This was a really good conversation. This was awesome.

Ruth McKell:

Thanks so much.

Rachel:

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.

Emily:

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.

Rachel:

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

Emily:

Bye.