Hi, I'm Kelly Yang. And I'm Katie Camelo. And you are listening to StoryKind, our new podcast. Hi, Kate. Kelly, it's good to see you again. Good to see you. Okay, so where are you creatively this week? Well, you know, I was saying that I had that shorter little story that I was working on. And so now what I've done is I've printed that up. It's the second draft of it. And I'll let it sit for a while. um and how long do you let it sit for i let it i i always think of it as marinating i let it marinate um for at least two weeks um because it gives me some objectivity when i come back to it you know yeah you're trying to see it so that will sit and in the meantime i've got another little uh story that i think i'm gonna work on and what about you i'm working up the nerve to send the thing that I've been working on sort of offline, off everything. Even when I think my brain is off, I'm still working on it because a story never really leaves you, never stops haunting you. So I'm getting the nerve to send that off to my agent, which is always very scary. Our question today is, how do we get over writer's block? Kate, do you struggle with writer's block? I, you know, my official position on writer's block is that it, it doesn't exist. There, there are good days and there are bad days and there can be bad days that go on for a long time. But there are so many days when I've sat down thinking this story is never going to work. I don't know how it's going to work. And then all of a sudden the story opens up and, you know, I heard, I heard an adult novelist talking about how he said, I will believe in writer's block when there is a nurse's block. When a nurse wakes up in the morning and, and says, you know what, I just don't, I'm not feeling it today. I can't go in and help save people's lives. And, and I think that, Um, uh, you know, I, I tend to be somebody who works slowly, but is what my friends would call rigid. I just show up. I keep on showing up. I am relentless kind of, and, and what about you? What do you think? That's exactly what you have to be. And it's exactly the way to do it. Right. I mean, I always say progress over perfection. I have to just show up and keep trying. And that's what life is about. It's not just writing. And I love what you said about how sometimes you're just thinking it's not going to work. It's there's no way this is going to work out and you've no way to, you know, get make it make sense. But then miraculously, you might walk somewhere or see something or meet someone and then it just kind of unlocks. And that happened to me a number of times when I been quote unquote blocked I know what people mean when they say writer block I think of it as writer board because when you bored with a story is when you don really know how to continue it because you're not feeling it, right? It's kind of boring to you and it's getting stale. That usually, actually, that usually happens when you over plan, believe it or not, because And, you know, we've had this conversation, but when you over plan, first of all, a story is always moving. So you can't possibly foresee every single thing that's going to happen in a story before you set out to write it. It's just, it's humanly impossible to foresee every single turn. Right? So if you execute 100% according to the plan, 100,000 times percent, sometimes what happens is a part of you gets a little bored because you're not really letting yourself take the creative risks. Right. And you're not letting the story take. Right. Right. Right. And I say that from the outside because it's so different than how I work, but it is there. Because I was just thinking as you were talking, I mean, I don't know about you, but that question shows up all the time. It shows up when I do public events, it shows up in the letters from readers. People are really like worried about writer's block. And part of the reason I think this is so, and it's something that I'm tentative to say this, but there is some kind of magic involved here, right? Absolutely. You and I are both workers. We both believe in doing the work. Something else happens when you show up. And that magic is not always biddable. It doesn't do what you want it to do. Yeah. Yeah. But it's never going to happen if you don't sit down. Absolutely. Exactly. Exactly. It's 100 percent not going to happen if you don't try, even if it's, you know, it might not happen every single time you try, but still have a much higher percentage of getting there if you try. And so, yeah, I think of it as, you know, now I think of it as I love to plan. I am a planner. I believe in planning. But when I get bored with a story, it is because I haven't taken the risks. I haven't, you know, I've sort of tried to over plan everything. And I need to go back to the point in the story where things still felt exciting and let myself take some leaps and go from there. And that's when I usually get unblocked. So that's my way of saying, yes, I do believe in writer's block, but I also believe that we can circumvent it if we give ourselves the permission, the grace to have fun with the story. Yep. I think that it And can I say one more thing about that Often when I am stuck I will ask myself two questions Is it because you afraid Or is it because you lazy And both of those almost always the answer is yes I don't want to keep on going because I'm afraid or I don't want to keep on going because I want to go and tell another story that's going to be easy. So that's just being a big one. Oh, my God. I want to talk about that for just one more second, which is just the self-awareness to recognize that we're being lazy. Because you know what? It's so daunting to recognize that. But it is. It is something that, you know, when you really look yourself hard in the eye, it's like, yeah, I'm scared to explore this because I haven't planned it out. So I'm going to have to do more work and I'm kind of getting tired. Yeah, that's right. No. And it's like and so it is the whole wide scope of feelings. And that's one of the things that I love about this, this job, and I'm going to put job in quotes, because it just feels like such a wonder to be able to do it is that thing of like, everything that is applicable to writing is applicable to life, you know, 100%. I've had my mom has been struggling with her health. And there have been days where she's like, nothing's working. I'm taking the pills, it's not working. And I still feel miserable. And I find myself and I know she must think I'm just like a broken record by now because I find myself telling her, mom, do you know the number of books where things weren't working until one day they started working? And I've been telling her that and I know I'm using like fiction to try to convince her. But it has, it has changed my worldview and it's given me this framework to look at life. Right. And me too, which is part of the reason that, again, that we're here having these talks is to let people know that, let students know that, let teachers and librarians know that. It's a story. It can change your life in all kinds of ways. Is there a funny question? Yes. I was going to say, today's funny question for you, Kate, is do you have, do you actually have a pet pig, which by the way, your pet pig has endlessly entertained my family. And if so, do you also let it eat at the table? Yeah, no, I do not have a pig. And I wouldn't mind having a pig, you know, but I think it would be a daunting process here in the city. So instead I have, as previously discussed, Frankie, who doesn't sit at the table and eat, the dog doesn't, but he's kind of, you know, got his arms draped over my legs as I eat. So yeah. God what would it be like to be Kate DiCamillo dog I bet he has just the best life He thinks he all that in a bag of chips Frankie does He not really thinking about me He thinking about himself He thinking I look good. I think that's great. Of course, we always want to wrap up with a quick story about our favorite teacher and librarian and also encourage you guys to write to us with your favorite teacher and librarian stories. And I'm going to start with Mrs. Smith in fourth grade. I was very intimidated going into Mrs. Smith's class because I heard she was hard. I heard she was a tough grader. But she did this one thing which totally changed my life, which was she let us free write in a notebook that she promised she would not ever look at for an hour after lunch every single day. And I tell you, that was that was the year I became a writer. Mrs. Smith, have you found her? I have found her and she gave me a letter which they gave to me when I went to speak at my old elementary school. But when I moved, I don't remember where I put it. It was in an envelope and I was going to open it when I finished the book when I was writing. But then I don't know where it is. I mean, I know I didn't lose it. It's definitely somewhere. It's probably in one of the boxes in the garage. I want to pause for just a second before I tell my story to say it's astonishing how one small thing can change the course of somebody's life. Yeah. You know, so thank you, Mrs. Smith. And thank you, me, second grade, Mrs. Boyette, who read aloud every day after lunch, novel after novel after novel. And I was a kid who got read to at home. My mom took me to the library. She bought me books. and I could not wait every day to hear Mrs. Boyette read. And I think so often about the kids who aren't getting it anyplace else and all the teachers who are giving that great gift to them of reading aloud. So. I cannot agree more. That is just, it's just such a magic, Right. And you just calm down and the whole world disappears and it's just you and the story. And there's nothing like it. Yeah, there's nothing like it. So a big thank you. Yes. And if you have an amazing teacher or librarian that you know, someone in your life that you want us to give a shout out to, please email us your stories. We are at Kelly Yang author at Gmail dot com. And if you have a question for us about our writing process, we're both very different writers. work very differently or a silly question for me and Kate, we are happy to answer it. And with that, we will see you guys next week. Bye Kelly. Bye everybody. See you next week. See you next week.
