Episode 112:[Jared Glenn] Detaching from your story

This week, in Episode 112 of the Inspired Writer Collective podcast, Elizabeth sits down with returning guest Jared Glenn for a candid conversation about one of the most overlooked parts of the writing journey: learning to detach from your story.

Elizabeth shares a revealing moment from her own beta reader process when one piece of feedback had her so concerned she went straight to her editor. You'll have to listen to find out what her editor told her, and it might surprise you.

If you're writing anything, you pour so much of yourself into every word, and the thought of putting it out into the world is equal parts exciting and terrifying.

Whether you write fiction, memoir, or anything in between, this episode encourages you to look at your work through a new lens and helps you consider what it means to you to share it with readers.

 Welcome to the Inspired Writer Collective podcast. If you've ever felt the pull to write your truth, to shape the chaos of real life into something meaningful and to share your journey with the world, you're in the right place. We're your hosts, Elizabeth and Stephanie, writers, coaches, and entrepreneurs who believe in you and know how important it is to find a writing community to guide you on your path to self-publishing.

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Join our Embodied Writing Experience where you’ll get a writer’s retreat directly to your inbox on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays each week. This is an invitation to slow down, tune in, and write with embodied intention.   

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Transcript

Elizabeth Wilson 1:19

Welcome back writers to another episode of the Inspired Writer Collective podcast. I'm your host today, Elizabeth, and I am joined by Jared Glenn. Jared has been a guest with us before. If you go back to episode 86, back in September of last year, Stephanie did an interview with him about the writing process, and today we're gonna be talking about detaching from your story. So this is something, Jared, you've been involved with us since. Oh, it was probably around the time we had our virtual first virtual writing retreat in July of last year, and since then you've been showing up to our virtual writing retreats, and we have a weekly writing time that you're a part of and a regular attendee of. And it was during one of these weekly writing times where, I don't remember exactly how it came up, but we started talking about. know that fear that people have when they go to publish their stories? Ooh, I think it was actually when we were talking about the memoir Summit and

Jared Glenn 2:17

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 2:17

are people scared to admit that they're writing a memoir or want to write a

Jared Glenn 2:21

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 2:21

about how people feel so to their story, to the point where they're overly protective of it and have a hard time detaching and letting go from it. And in that moment. I remember you shared some wisdom or advice about how you do that in your process, separating from your fiction writing, and then I immediately said we need to do a podcast episode about that, especially in the lead up to me publishing my memoir this Summer Lonely Girl, because it's such a relevant discussion. Before you hit publish

Jared Glenn 2:53

Okay.

Elizabeth Wilson 2:53

you know, you, you're gonna start to then receive feedback or, or even before you hit publish. If you use beta readers, you're going to get feedback from readers and there is sort of a healthy level of detachment you need to have from your story. So take that and run with it. Where do we wanna go with this?

Jared Glenn 3:11

Well, first of all, thank you for having me back again. I always love talking about writing in general and talking about it with you. Um, yeah, that I didn't realize it was a skill that I had until I encountered plenty of writers who struggled with it. I think maybe one in part because I got my start in theater before writing prose, but also just the. There is a sense of, in particular with memoir, but the stories in general that we become so attached to'em and you, and that's not a bad thing. You have to really care about a story. To write it to completion. You spend so much time with these characters and with these events and with like, you can't mildly kind of enjoy it like in a hobby way. You gotta be inescapably and maniacally attached to a story to write 60, 70, 80,000 words like I have about it. It's natural to feel some sort of connection. To the story story and then that makes it very difficult to put it out into the world where any criticism of the story, then it automatically feels like a criticism of you as a, as a person. And I feel that way about my fiction. I can't even imagine how deep that much run for somebody that's writing a story about their own lives, like somebody writing a memoir. And it's been quite the journey to, to learn how I've become okay with putting a story out there. And one is because there is so much to do or so much about the process of people receiving the story that you have no control over. And that actually to me is the most freeing part of it. Since I don't have any control over it, I don't really need to stress out. I put a story out into the world and how people receive it is how they're going to receive it. And the fact that I don't have any control over it and can do nothing about that makes it a little easier for me to detach. And the other part of it is understanding that people are only receiving your story through the lens of their own story. And for every person that you know, the, the negativity is always louder than the, than the positivity. For anyone out there that might not resonate with this story, it's not about the story. It's about them and who they are when they encounter. The same way someone might deeply resonate with your story because of who they are and where they are in their lives when they consume it. So it's become such a critical step component of the process to be prepared to put a story out into the world and be okay with it, not belonging to you anymore. And the reason why I say I think I got used to it in theater is because. Writing plays, writing. You write a play, you, you give it out into the world. When you sit down in the audience for that first performance, that first read, you realize you have no control over what's happening. It is, it's happening live and in living color, and you can't edit it. You can't do anything about it. It's just going to be whatever the actors make it. And that was great practice for what I ended up experiencing in prose. So I think it's, it's a valuable step to do. It's very difficult to do. I'm not gonna pretend that it's an easy thing to do. But for your own piece, for one's own peace of mind, learning how to let go of a story and allow it to belong to the audience or to the reader who is holding onto it in that moment is a huge step, not just in fiction, but for a memoir in a way of kind of freeing yourself of the, the shackles of the story that you needed to write so badly in the first place. Allow it to do what it needs to do to whoever needs to receive it.

Elizabeth Wilson 6:33

Yeah, and I recall Elizabeth Gilbert talking about this in the ways that people would, would respond to her bestselling memoir, eat, pray, love,

Jared Glenn 6:41

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 6:42

she wrote in some other thing I read of hers. back on that experience and like the long lines of people who would come to like her book signings and want her to sign, you know, their copies. And she had a couple of women reflect to her that, oh, you know, because of what you went through, I was able to get out of my domestically violent, you know, marriage. And, and she's like, what? because her marriage that she leaves in that book. It's not, there's no domestic violence. It's simply like they just were growing apart, going different directions, but she realized that that reader was taking what they needed to, whatever support or justification they needed to, to get out of their difficult situation, putting their own lens, as you described on it, of. Oh yeah, this is exactly what she did. It's, uh, it's relating to my situation and it just gets cloudy as to what's your story, what's my story? Especially if a memoir is written well, where you hope that the reader is simply seeing facets of their own life as they're reading New York experience. And that's, that's so true, Jared, that like you really have to recognize and separate from the fact that once it's in reader's hands. It's, they're not even reading the same story that you

Jared Glenn 7:57

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 7:58

And so like, even as like, I'm rereading my, my manuscript right now after I got back my line and copy edits, but it's my life. So everything that I see as I'm reading it is what's in the story. But I know how I. Read other memoirs and when someone mentions something, I see a flash from my own life. You know, like I sometimes get a visual of something that was similar or a similar emotional beat or moment. Um, and so that's what the reader is going to experience. And I guess it's a good thing that like, hopefully if you've done your job well, they can really just dissolve into the story and become one with the story to where they can't distinguish what's you and what's them

Jared Glenn 8:43

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 8:44

They might not like it because you might have highlighted some things and some themes in their own life that they're not comfortable with or they haven't reconciled with or they don't enjoy about their own experience. yeah, and it's, it's something that I've started, I think the process of detaching from my story as I am in this sort of, I guess probably about two month lead up to publication. I've given, I've already gone through the the beta reader step, which I think is most writers foray into really figuring out how to parcel through some of the feedback and what to take and leave. You get that in an editor dynamic, but I feel like if you've hired a good editor that is compatible with you, there's not a whole lot to really like. Him and Hall over either. Yes. I like that feedback and I'm gonna incorporate that or no, no, that's not the direction of my story. But once I got to like beta reader feedback, it was a little bit more like. I had to get in their heads a little bit more, right? And think like, okay, I'm noticing that this person read the book in small spurts and is largely telling me that they're like not really happy with like how I went about, you know, writing the book. They wanna see more of this here and listed of this here and this here and that there. But overall, I'm seeing a lot of discontent. Meanwhile, I have another reader who read the book twice, and the first time she read it, she read it in like a long seven hour spurt and then a shorter two hour spurt, and she loved all these things about it. And so then it's like you can kind of parcel through, oh, maybe this story just wasn't right for this person at this time, or maybe it brought up something for them that was, was hard or difficult. And so then. As they're trying to articulate what it is they liked or didn't like or how engaged they were with the story, they were really just disconnected

Jared Glenn 10:46

Yep.

Elizabeth Wilson 10:46

that's okay. But it can be tricky at the beta reader feedback stage

Jared Glenn 10:51

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 10:52

where you still have a chance to change things and do something about it. Making that decision as a writer of like, am I gonna make those changes or is this coming from person's personal lens?

Jared Glenn 11:04

Yeah, it's a,

Elizabeth Wilson 11:04

you address like beta reader feedback? How have you dealt with that?

Jared Glenn 11:08

yeah, I mean, it's one of my favorite stages because it's that first attempt to put it out in the world. And you know, my editor is great, Megan McLean. She's incredible in the sense that. She has a very strong sense of what I'm trying to accomplish, and that's the difference between an editor and a and any alpha or beta reader. So my editor knows what I'm trying to accomplish and how I'd like to get there, and she helps guide me to that point. The beta readers have no clue necessarily what I'm trying to accomplish from a thematic or internal standpoint. They're just telling whether they like or dislike the story. And. It's very valuable to me to get that kind of raw feed, that kind of raw feedback. And I curate some of the, the beta relationships that I have, and then others are complete strangers with varying levels of distance from me and the story. Um, reading memoir is so different than reading fiction, but they do have one thing in common and that. People are going to try to presume that whatever you're writing about is driven from your own life. Um, even if it's, even if it's fiction. I write romance novels and I've lost count of the number of times people presume that I'm writing. Based on my own personal experiences, I am not, this is, I'm making this stuff up. Um, it's certainly things that there are, you know, sprinkles of things, but not because I'm trying to be coy or cryptic because sometimes it's just an easier thing to decision to make. I'll put a 79 Nova in the book, not because to wholesome significance to me, but because I needed to choose a car and the guy that lived across the street had a 79 over. It was a very, sometimes it's just that, that basic, it's not that that full of intent, but regarding. How I incorporate beta reader feedback is I'm also making sure with the help of my editor, that I am constantly mindful of what I'm trying to accomplish. And that sometimes reading, hearing, reading, you know, receiving the feedback from a beta reader has to always be put through that filter of, does this feedback get me closer to the goal of what I'm trying to accomplish? Because if you're not careful, you're gonna start trying to edit your book to please this one reader. That, you know, to try to please the one star or two star so they can turn it into a five star when that's not the goal and should never be the goal of any of your work. Does this stay true to my vision, to what it is that I want to do? And you kind of gotta, and I know I say this and it's gonna sound a lot easier said than done. You gotta kind of be okay with being dislike.

Elizabeth Wilson 13:33

Mm-hmm.

Jared Glenn 13:34

it's not that somebody just, there's never between somebody giving you feedback that's helping you improve the book. It's the book just not being for somebody, as you said. And memoir is even more sensitive to that because it's so particular about a person's life that. Depending on how I love reading memoirs about people, I have nothing in common with because I like hear reading about lives that I don't, that I don't connect with. I'm looking forward to your memoir because of how different we're as human beings. Where I'm like, man, I can't wait to to check this out. But some people are seeking out memoirs for books that they relate to directly. They're looking for messages that might not be, am I a great, could I be a great beta reader as an objective observer? Possibly. But if I was looking for a book. That was like, oh, I want something that's like my own life. This was disappointing. Well, what was I expecting? We're not, we're not that alike. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be seeking that out. So you have to divorce you, what you're trying to intend for your book from what this reader might be seeking from your book. And that's, those are two very different and often very hard things to distinguish from one another. So incorporating the feedback, you have to be very sensitive around picking and choosing without, like, don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Be picky and choosy about not just what they're saying, but who is saying it and where it might be coming from. That's where if you do surveys at the end, it's so important, which questions you ask that aren't just about the book, but about the person, about the, when were you most likely to read this book? Did you read this book in long bouts or in

Elizabeth Wilson 15:03

Mm-hmm.

Jared Glenn 15:03

short spurts? At what moment did you, were you hooked? At what moment? Where you turned, where you turned off? That can be as, as, uh, gleaning. As just whether they enjoyed the book or didn't enjoy the book because the why matters and you don't wanna get Cooch too caught up in the the, oh no, they weren't a huge fan of the book. If you haven't dug into the why, they weren't a huge fan of the book, it should matter to you why they didn't, why they weren't huge. I haven't one-on-ones with my beta reader, most of my beta readers for my work because I want to get into those conversations and get that honest feedback, but I also need context for why they feel the way that they feel. It's not enough to say, Hey, I didn't really love this chapter. Well, why not? What is it about it? And a lot of the time, sometimes there's stuff I can do to tweak it, but a lot of the time it's a personal discomfort with what it is that they're reading. I write romance novels. There are spicy scenes in them. Occasionally a person who's not resonating with spicy scene just'cause they're not comfortable reading about sexual intimacy, not because there's something wrong with the scene itself, but their own personal relationship to the scene. You, it's gonna be hard to parse through what means what, but it is very important in the process and to build that fixed skin now. Because once it's out in the world, there are gonna be plenty of people who are not gonna like it and you're not gonna have the chance to find out the why or how. And it's, it helps you learn what you're, and really reconnect with what you're doing this for. And it's not necessarily for every single person to, to enjoy your book. It's to make sure that you've written something that reaches the people that it's supposed to.

Elizabeth Wilson 16:36

Yeah, absolutely. I, um, it, it was, it was an interesting process for me and again, this was my first time going through it, but I had heard the. Ice about, especially with beta readers because they are not typically writers and most of mine, um, one of the four is writing in the fiction genre, but otherwise they are not writers. Um, so I knew that I was looking for like, trends in their feedback, right? So if several people are highlighting an issue with something. Or like noting a particularly slow pacing or not understanding a certain dynamic or a, a theme is coming up as like not really resonating with people then I know to look at, at those sort of things. But I do have a small group, so then it's like, okay, let me consider each of these things. And I remember shooting off a text to my line and copy editor who had the manuscript at the same time because one of the comments I got back. If it were true would be something that like I would absolutely want to shore up and fix and, and this beta reader was highlighting that she felt like when I introduced like the new love story that comes in sort of middle of the book, that she felt like the focus of the story shifted onto that person and away from. Me as the main

Jared Glenn 17:58

Hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 17:59

going through divorce, reconciling with, you know, how I'm trying to rebuild my life. And so if that were true, and if that was something that others were seeing too, it was absolutely something I would wanna fix, right? Like, I wanna make sure that I have an inadvertently put a spotlight on a supporting character where the really, the focus needs to ultimately stay on. Me as the main character and how I'm growing and developing through this lens and through this relationship, um, as sort of the platform that I'm experiencing growth and recognizing my flaws and trying to do things differently this time around. so I shot off a text to my editor at the time and I was like, Hey, here's what I'm getting back as feedback. Please, like, look into this. If you notice this as you go through, let me know. Because it would be something I'd wanna fix. Um, and she was like, okay, well I've already read it through once and I didn't notice that at all. But you know, on my other read throughs through it, I'll definitely check. And then later she got back to me and she was like. No, it's amazing. Like these are the parts of the book where I feel like you do such a good job of, of highlighting how this relationship is bringing up stuff that's making you think of your past relationship and how you're then having to deal and process that past situation. Recognizing it that like, even though it's this new dynamic that's triggering this, it belongs in the past and you're making sure that you're not attributing it to this new person. And so, yeah, I, it, it's interesting because I went into this beta reader phase thinking that I would glean more information about edits that I needed to make than I did. essentially not opted to change anything about the book based off of my beta reader feedback.

Jared Glenn 19:50

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 19:52

But what has been so helpful for me in going through this step and why I would still encourage everyone to do this step is it has helped open my eyes to the wide range of experiences that people could have with this book. I think that not only did that force me like you indicated Jared earlier, to like feel more confident and more grounded and like. Okay, you feel that way, but this is the story that I wanna tell and I fully, wholeheartedly believe in this story. And if it's not for you, it's not for you. And that's okay. So I feel more strongly confident in my story and how I've chosen to tell it because of the beta reader feedback. it's helped me sort of, I think, prepare in a way some of the, you know. Broad, you know, feedback I could receive the book is published.

Jared Glenn 20:52

Yeah, it's. It's such an interesting, I I love hearing you talk about the memoir process because of how different it is from my, from the, what I do, and it always reminds me all the reasons why I'll never write. Well, like we never write a memoir, um, because I love them, but I'm like, this is the kind of thing like when you receiving feedback about how things go. On the one hand, I'm used to like the peril of like, they have to change something, and I have so many options for what I can change. I have so many things I can do that might impact other things, but when I'm operating under the, the confines of real life, there isn't, there are only so many things I can change the way I tell it. I can change the order in which I tell it, but there's not really as much you can do to impact. You can't change the real event that happened then it's no longer a memoir, then it's, then it turns into just straight up fiction. As it is. So it's very interesting how to, to view the, view your own story through that lens. And also we, we as, as a people, and it's, this is not a, this is just a human thing, not a knock on this, but like, we're so naturally, uh, assessing and judgment and judging each other on a regular basis and writing about our own lives. Invite so much more of that. Than writing fiction to the point where people read fiction, trying to glean more about the author's real life and, and make those connections rather than just take the story for what it is. And some of that is just gonna be people that are seeking out a story that they can judge or, or assess. Or admonish or lawed or connect to, and all these options. Some people from people you know, some from people you'll never meet. These are the beautifully uncontrollable aspects of putting a piece of art into the world and the level of comfort you have to have when you're doing it. But that's what part of what makes that the beta reader segment of the process so valuable is you're not just learning what people think about your book. You're learning what it's going to take to let it go. And, and let the world have it. Let the world have this very real piece of you and even the, the process of they're reading this story for the first time. You, I imagine, have to be in a very different place with that story to reach a point where you've written an entire book about it. So people will be talking to you about this as a present struggle, when it might likely already be a past struggle that you already reconciled and have processed and moved forward in a different place. Your life with, but people are gonna be talking, treating you almost in a, uh, kind of a, a diagnosable kind of way where they're trying to help you, uh, better understand or, or process and you're like, no, I'm good. That's how I was able to get a whole story out, out of this. I can't, it is hard to write about a story that you're still living. It's hard to write, uh, uh, objectively about something that you're still impacting you in a very real, very real way. Not that this can't be done, but it's very hard. So I think you're learning as much about you as you are about the thing that you've created and how people relate to it. So some of the information you're gonna get from the beta reader step is much about, okay, this is how I need to, what I need to do for myself to bring me peace of mind, to allow this to go out into the world. Because once you hit publish, that wave of emotions is, is inevitable. And they're not all gonna be, you know, sunshine and rainbows. Some of it's gonna be real. Oh no, people are reading it. And how long is it gonna take them to get to that part or that scene, or this thing that I'm worried somebody's gonna judge me for that I live through. How is it gonna, my substack is nonfiction. And even when I write about intimacy, I think the same thing. I'm like, Ooh, I'm writing about something that really happened. And somebody's gonna read that and be like, damn, that's like, that's who Jared is.'cause they're gonna try to siphon you into this small. The lens of who you are and make this one event, everything that that is your being. So it's such a very interesting part of learning, not just to let go of the story that you created, but how you see yourself in that story is something you also get to. Kind of free yourself up and, and define yourself in like for yourself otherwise. One of my favorite quotes about owe you Lord about the, and I'm paraphrasing, but about the, if you don't, if you let people define you for you, then you'll be eaten up by their expectations for you, um, and eaten alive. And it's a very, it's something I remind myself of often about charting my own path and making sure I'm telling the story that I want to tell and connected to my intention. And I think it's even more relevant in memoir because. People are opening it up, knowing it's a real story, knowing it's about the person that they're reading about it, like reading it from, and looking for, in some cases, looking for ways to either gain insight from this or, or live in judgment of this. And the fact that you have no control over which one it is, is something that is a learned habit of how to reconcile and not take it as a personal afront to who you are, who Elizabeth is as a person, because they don't have access to you as a person. They have access to this book.

Elizabeth Wilson 25:46

Right, and it's something I try to remind memoir writers about because there is a lot of trepidation, especially when you first start doing your memoir Pro. And you're writing the, that initial draft or your first set of revisions And at this point, I mean, I'm three and a half years into this, so Sure. At some point I was a little bit nervous about how the world might judge my abortion story'cause I got pregnant in high school and had an abortion and. At this point, I don't, I don't care.

Jared Glenn 26:15

Yeah.

Elizabeth Wilson 26:16

disconnected. It's an important like narrative plot point because it kind, there's a lot of comparing and contrasting between, um, the pregnancy with my daughter versus that initial one. And,

Jared Glenn 26:27

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 26:28

so it's relevant for the story, but like otherwise, I no longer hold attachments to it or fear judgment like I did when I was living through it or when I was writing about it initially for this. Book

Jared Glenn 26:38

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 27:03

so like I'm already in, in book two somewhere.

Jared Glenn 27:06

Oh.

Elizabeth Wilson 27:06

near the end of it yet. I don't know how how it turns out, but I know I'm into the next storyline already. And I, while I still recognize the woman I wrote about in this story, I absolutely am not her anymore. There's so many ways in which I've changed and developed and. My relationships with different people who feature in the book have shifted and changed to where the depiction of those relationships that's in the memoir is not an accurate depiction of those relationships today. so luckily enough has changed that just naturally. I don't feel like criticism of my choices that I made, that I talk about in the book would. on me as the person I am today. Um, and I think it's good if, if we as memoir writers can, can get to that point. And I think it almost then probably puts us in a similar category with you guys that write fiction by that point. Because it's simply a story and there's a character insurer. That character is me and I pulled from lived experience. But like there's a disconnect that I think would be similar to, to. Uh, the love you have for the characters that you create and, and put into your fiction book. And sure there's an attachment there because it's your story and, and you know these people most intimately'cause you created them or I know this person most intimately'cause I was her.

Jared Glenn 28:36

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 28:36

But there's still that same like level A thing, I think a similar level of detachment of like, but that's not me, that's not today. Me at least.

Jared Glenn 28:45

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think it's, in that sense, it might be even more difficult in fiction because. In memoir, you, you know, it's you, but that's not you In the present, in fiction. You're constantly having to, to make sure people are aware that that's not you at all. Like that's a, like, like there's no version of me that, at least in my style of writing, some fiction writers are self insert writers. I am, most certainly not. It's, um, it's, I enjoy creating things from scratch. And for people who aren't creators by nature or by trade, it's hard to imagine that you could just make. Things up out of nowhere like that, these worlds of the Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potters or whatever, just come out of people and it's like, yeah, if you sit with your brain long enough, it can do some wild things about what it can make up. So I love that it is completely made up. And one of the more frustrating things for people who are readers of my work and are not, you know, I, I talk about this stuff with fellow writers, but when it comes to, with readers. I don't discuss a lot of themes or, or symbolism or metaphor or anything about my work because of where those questions tend to come from, and most of the time there is no, I have themes for myself about the book that I read, but that's not the same as what somebody else might, the message somebody else might glean. From that, from that story. So I'm, I'm not a big fan of like post TV show podcast where the creator sits down and tells you everything that they were thinking and every single step of like, no, I think there's a beauty in having no damn idea what I was thinking. Think for yourself, what did you get from it?'cause that's right,

Elizabeth Wilson 30:20

songs and song lyrics. I always

Jared Glenn 30:22

yeah.

Elizabeth Wilson 30:22

like, this song was so meaningful to me. What did you mean by this?

Jared Glenn 30:26

Yeah. And I'm like, I don't wanna tell you.

Elizabeth Wilson 30:27

it other than a

Jared Glenn 30:28

Mm-hmm. Yep. And I'm like, I don't wanna tell you because I want it to mean whatever it's supposed to mean for you and venture out into that uncharted wilderness and find your own meaning for it. You don't have to hear it from me for it to have meaning. And it doesn't need to be right. It doesn't need to be like, oh, I, I was thinking the exact same thing Jared was thinking when he wrote it. No, you don't need to know what I was thinking. You just need to know what you're thinking when you, when you read it.

Elizabeth Wilson 30:51

Mm-hmm.

Jared Glenn 30:51

I think that's also part of how I'm able to detach from it, is that I don't keep myself tethered to it. Afterward by making sure that every person needs to understand exactly what I was thinking and exactly what I was trying to do. I'm going to be misunderstood. I'm okay with, I'm already, as an artist, already misunderstood. I'm a straight, black, masculine presenting romance author. I'm coming in from a very distinct place of most people are not gonna get what it is that I'm trying to. What it is that I'm trying to do or where I'm coming from.'cause there ain't many people like me in that, in that space. Especially writing like poetic realism with spicy in spicy intimacy and and dominant female characters or like strong, strong female characters, then they realize it's like what this guy wrote the book. Yeah, I understand that most people aren't gonna understand what I'm doing from Gem Street. So I got very comfortable in that, in that space. And I think in general we struggle societally because we're so much more. So much more seen than we've ever been that we really struggle with people not getting us. And I think one of the, the coolest things about being artists is I don't need people to get me. I'm cool with not being gotten because I don't think anybody's got me since middle school. Like,

Elizabeth Wilson 32:00

I was about to say, I feel like that's my lifelong struggle is feeling like no one understands me.

Jared Glenn 32:04

yeah,

Elizabeth Wilson 32:04

there's a little bit of like, of course, I, I almost can guarantee you're not gonna understand

Jared Glenn 32:09

yeah. It's just another step. It's another step on a process. I've been living for 42 years, just like, trust me, a lot of us ended up with a pen in our hands'cause nobody else could really understand who we were, and this is how we decided to discover it. That shouldn't change for me now. I mean, I'm not, I'm not on a quest to be understood. I like for people to read my work, but I don't need you to get me.

Elizabeth Wilson 32:29

Yeah, I think on some level this book, at least at some point in the writing process, was my attempt to sort of explain right and try to be understood, and certainly in regards to my young daughter. at some point when she's older, she can read this book and understand some of the decisions that were made in her life that it impacted her. So there is some level of like, yes, I hope some people understand more, but that's largely limited to the people that actually know me and actually lived some of these situations with me. So they can see, compare where I was coming from based off of what I've put into this book versus what they remember and their impressions. so it's, it's not, you know, at a reader level, it's not a, you know, something that I need them to understand'cause they're just gonna view it through their own life. But I'm curious, having not published anything yet, other than a short story, you hit publish, and do you, do you look at reviews? How do you either, how do you protect yourself from potentially reading a negative review that you ruminate on,

Jared Glenn 33:28

Hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 33:29

our brains are, or. avoid it or do you have someone else filter it through you and only send you the positive ones so you can post them on social media and continue to market yourself? How, how do you approach all of that?

Jared Glenn 33:41

Uh, I don't read reviews. I don't, I don't check them. I, I mean, I don't even check book sales. I know how much I know what the book has done because I get a direct deposit every, every month. But I don't know how much it's gonna be for. I just get it. Um, I've, I think maybe because, again, because I made my bones in New York City Theater, I'm, I'm tough as nails when it comes to. To recipient feedback. I don't check, not because I'm trying to protect myself, but because, and I mean this in the nicest way possible. I don't care. And I know that sounds like a bit like a bad, like a, like a, like a four letter word to, to people to say, you don't care.

Elizabeth Wilson 34:17

writer is

Jared Glenn 34:18

Yeah, it is done. I'm like, I've, I've moved, I've moved on. I write the story so that I can then write the next story. By the time somebody is, is judging, assessing this one, I promise you I'm 30,000 words deep. Into the next one. I'm not looking for, I, you have, I have alpha readers, beta readers, and an editor to help me figure out how to do something to a story. Whether somebody likes it or not is one thing, but a lot of people try to become prescriptive in what they're in, in what they, in, how they assess your work and say, well, you should do this, you should do that. I have people for that. I don't go, so the only thing I'd be getting from a review is whether somebody liked it or not, and since I'm not writing it for that particular person. If they have five, if it's five stars. Excellent. Thank you. I appreciate it. If it's one star, cool. Much respect. Thanks for taking the time. But neither of them is impacting what I'm doing, what I'm decided to do next, or how I'm going to approach it. But I also don't treat it as, um, I think reviews might matter more for people. Who are, their goal is to be a commercial success with their writing. That's not something that I'm, that I'm concerned about. I'm thankful that I've made money for my writing, but it's not the goal. The goal of my, of me writing a story is to finish the story. And once it's gotten, once it's gone out, that goal is done. I've moved on to the next goal is to write the next story. So I know it can count, it might sound snooty or, or like offputting or whatever, but I think there's an incredible amount of power in not caring. About what most people walk around all day and they're like, oh, they take pride in not caring what people think, but if a writer says they don't care what people think, it's like, what do you mean you don't care? World reviews. Because they want, they want you to care about their opinion. I appreciate that people have it. I appreciate that people read the book. It does not impact how I move through the world with my next, with my next story, and people can feel about that however they want to. I feel the same way about that feeling as I do about the, the review. Of the book, I've done what I needed to do to put the best possible product that I can out there for that moment in my life. My goal is for my first book to be my worst book. And I'm gonna keep writing until I can't hold up, can't hold up a pen anymore, and hopefully the last thing I write will be the best thing that I write. But I grow and develop and change just like any any person does. I wrote my first book three years ago. It does not benefit me to look back and be like, oh, let me check out these reviews on people had on something that I wrote. And when I was in a place that I don't even remember who I was. At the time I'm gonna, I don't even read my book after like trying to find excerpts and stuff like that. I don't even read it after it's published. They're both behind me on the shelf and I haven't opened them. I haven't opened them since they were published,'cause I've moved on to the next,

Elizabeth Wilson 36:50

Is

Jared Glenn 36:50

to the next thing.

Elizabeth Wilson 36:51

do much marketing after publication? Because

Jared Glenn 36:54

Hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 36:54

that's not the focus. Because I feel like those are the kinds of things that people who wanna market their book then, even if they don't care about how, like they are open to however a reader's going to receive it, they still want their book read and so they're

Jared Glenn 37:06

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 37:06

it. So it will be read. But do you just not, is that just not a priority?

Jared Glenn 37:12

It's something that I do for the sake of making sure that my goal is for it to be read, not for it to be liked. So it is something that I, I search for, but I'm usually picking those things up along the way of writing it. So. I'll be going through my developmental letters and I'll catch a moment where I'm like, Ooh, this is a good, this is a good excerpt. This is a good thing to post. This is a good thing to put on a bookmark. I don't finish the book and then go back and look at it when I'm, I'm finished and I hit published. I am done. This book is not getting cracked open unless there's a, a, a reading event, a state, like a reading that I have to do.

Elizabeth Wilson 37:42

Mm-hmm.

Jared Glenn 37:42

even then, I'm not reading past the first, past the first two chapters. Um, but the more I live in that space, the harder it's gonna be for me to move on. And write and, and write the next thing. If I was struggling that deeply with what I've just put out into the world and I probably wasn't ready to be put out into the world. In the first place. That's just me personally. So once I'm at, once I reach a point, you know, you, you spend so much time with the story, then when you hit published, it really has more of an energy of good guy get this thing, this thing away from me. I'm tired of looking at it. And that for me is literal. Like, I don't want to keep looking at it. I've been living with these characters. I was with Chris and Sonata from Wilson son for like a solid 14 months and you know how, how fast, how fast I write and how much I write, that's a lot of time for me to spend. With characters, two full drafts, developmental edits and, and beta feedback and all this stuff. I am tired of Chris Ensenada. I'm moving on. So for me, the hitting publish is as much an act of freeing myself from this story. Looking back on reviews and feedback and all that kind of stuff is stuff that I, that takes me back to that place, and I don't wanna be in that place. I wanna be in the next place.

Elizabeth Wilson 38:51

No, that definitely makes sense. I mean, I have a sense that I'll have to. I, I'm not quite at that place where I plan to just publish the book and then start on the next thing. For one, like I said, I'm still living it, so I can't really start writing it yet. also there is some level of marketing that I've, I've put so much heart and time, like I said, three and a half years into this book, that I wanna do a good service of marketing it. And as a memoir writer, it is helpful in my mind to use other people's accolades over me. Simply saying, this is a fabulous book about my life, and I think you should read it. Um, I, I, it is just made me think about, you know, what ways I may want to sort of protect myself from feedback that is not helpful and that I know myself to sort of ruminate on if I were exposed to it. But I'll have

Jared Glenn 39:40

And that's more,

Elizabeth Wilson 39:40

navigate that space as it comes.

Jared Glenn 39:42

yeah. And that's more of, of right under the, the department of learning more about yourself through the process. And that's, I think, one thing that stood out to me so much from publishing my second book from my first one was I really got to know me. And what I needed, how I needed to approach that section of the process, and then what was gonna be most healthy from my, uh, relationship to having the book out. So my, my second release was very different than my first, I realized that I love talking about the book as far as writing scenes and like describing more in depth of what's, what's happening in the book. But I don't wanna talk about deep themes and, and, and, and metaphor and stuff like that because that stuff is personal. To me, but I love hearing what other people think it is. Um, and so I, I learning myself from the first one when I was just kind of going in blind, I didn't know anyone who had published a book personally except for my friend Amber Ray, and she published a memoir. So then it was, so I didn't know anyone personally that could talk to me about this experience. And I, I had never done that. I had made written fiction for a live performance, but that had been filmed, but that had been done already. So I, that first one was really a learning experience to assess. Oh, some of it didn't feel great and it was'cause I was exposing myself to things that weren't like the first book. I was glancing at the, at the the marketplace thing to see how many copies we're selling and I was like, this is not helping me. This is not, because automatically for the second one, I'm like, well, what if it's not as good as the first one? What if it doesn't sell as many as the first one? Was it? What if it isn't reviewed as strongly? What if it's too different? What if people are looking for something like the first one and the second one is nothing like that. That the more I start thinking about this book is being written by one person, this is not a community event. I'm not inviting a whole bunch of people to help me write. I'm not crowdsourcing a novel. So as much as everybody wants to have community and and feedback around, I'm like, yeah, but the actual creation process, it's got to be me and me alone until it's time for an editor, an editor, and data feedback and all that. And I had to remind myself like, this is what I need. I need to be in isolation. When it's time to, to hit publish and remind myself that like I created this by myself with the help of very supportive and select people, this is not a crowdsourced story. It's very important that I stay connected to not letting those people who might have some issue with the last story impact the way that I write the next story. Because one thing I do know about me is the more people that get involved in my process, the worse my writing is gonna be.

Elizabeth Wilson 42:09

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And it, that relationship that we curate with, especially our editors, is so special and. Yeah, it's not everyone that gets to get to that level of say or feedback in

Jared Glenn 42:26

Mm

Elizabeth Wilson 42:27

you know, that we would really take, you know, to heart that deeply. So

Jared Glenn 42:31

mm.

Elizabeth Wilson 42:32

think that's a beautiful point to make as we wrap up this episode. So writers, whether you've got a book out there or you're thinking about putting a book out there. know that regardless of what that looks like on the end with the marketing or with whether you read reviews or don't read reviews, there is certainly healthy level of detachment you need to have from your story. Um, whether that's you recognize that you're no longer in that place anymore because you're writing memoir, or you've found a way to detach yourself from your fiction writing, it's so healthy to make sure that that's in place. Before you hit publish so that you're ready for the reviews to be what they are and recognize, like you said Jared, uh, early on in this episode, that the reader is going to read this your work through their own lens. And so their interpretation in their review is largely through that specifically, and it's not a commentary on. Your quality of writing necessarily, or whether your themes were good, just simply whether something resonated or not, and we're not trying to write a singular book for everyone. Even the Bible's not for everyone. So,

Jared Glenn 43:48

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 43:49

it's one of the bestselling books of all time. So, you know, it's still not for everyone.

Jared Glenn 43:53

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 43:54

we can't expect our, our books to be for everyone. And the beauty is that means your book gets to be the favorite of someone because it's not for everyone.

Jared Glenn 44:04

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 44:05

leave you guys with that thought today, and

Jared Glenn 44:06

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 44:07

for being here for another episode.

Jared Glenn 44:09

Thank you so much.

Elizabeth Wilson 44:13

Okay.