how it feels to finish a BOOK 📖 how to navigate editing and publishing w/@annasanthology

hey R besties welcome back to the riding with an new podcast where we talk about all things writing in today's episode I'm so excited to have a guest the first guest of 2024 we have Anna's Anthology um she is an amazing writer and um she's welln on her Instagram as an's Anthology and we're going to talk a lot about her project project cak so did you want to introduce introduce yourself Anna uh hi everyone so as Anna already said before I run a platform on Anna's Anthology um for now it's only Instagram I don't know I'll expand maybe later we'll see um I'm a pre-med student and a writer and an aspiring author oh that's so awesome yes I've always wanted to have you on your podcast had sorry have you on my podcast you should start a podcast um did we talk about that you should start a podcast I think you might start a in your uh a YouTube channel right right I was thinking about about it and I don't want to start it until I'm like prepared for sure but yeah I'm really excited to be on here I did some like major stocking of your channel before I watched like so many videos and everything is formatted like so well if I ran like my own YouTube channel I would want to run it the way you do like it's just yeah that's sweet I'm nervous I'm the one nervous here um but yeah I'm really excited to talk about especially your new project project cak and how you literally like basically about to finish it so I think I wanted to title this sort of podcast episode how it feels to finish a book or like that sort of what did you describe it as I keep forgetting that sort of mellow no not mellow limbo State the limbo state of like finishing a book and then getting to a time where you basically are about to self-publish or traditional publish or go down that sort of route where you basically share your book to the world so firstly let's talk about project cak and maybe if you have some sort of pitch some sort of like tropes themes um about the book that you want to share with our listeners take it away okay so basically it's like a bong's Ramon and when people say when people like hear about that they're like what do you mean it's a bong's Ramon what does that even mean um it's basically a coming to AG story uh but instead of it being focused on teenagers and like the ya genre it's more na so my characters are all in their 20s um and I guess like a one sent liner about it is that it's about a man finding himself through his like grief and past errors um and kind of healing uh because he meets people that are not like him it is a contemporary literary fiction novel I always mess up that sentence when they say it and I did that time let's go um and it's also dual POV so it it's not only focused on like the main primary character cuz what's her story because you say how he finds himself a boy like a guy finding himself does she also find herself is that the sort of story I guess um in some ways yes so basically the two characters that have like their narrations focused on themselves aren't exactly like opposites but they aren't foils of each other fully either um so it's just kind of like them and their differences in humanity coming to light um but for her I guess the primary like growth or Arc that we see with her is uh um with regard to her career and the way she like feels and expresses her own emotions um because for my main character who's followed throughout this and who the like cak is focused on um his entire thing is that he internalizes everything and doesn't externalize any of his emotions and that causes like that's his fatal flaw if you will um and then for her it's kind of the opposite of she's like very expressive outwardly and she's like this very positive person but then on the inside she's like she doesn't know how to internalize it and kind of turn it into something special that she can use in her career she's a writer so this is this is all coming full circle I did not know that that's awesome I love stories and like movies about writers ah so cool that's really great because I love character-driven stories and since it's a dual POV I think that's such a great way to get into the character's head and really drive the message of the story um you also talked about your writing and how that really does impact your story kind of can I kind of yeah ask you about your writing style and what you kind of view it as and um how you approach writing the story through a particular type of Pros um so I've actually been taking creative writing minor courses this semester for the first time so I signed up for my minor like during the summer I was like yes I want to do something other than medicine on the side it would be really fun um and I've been getting like the same type of feedback where I'm told two things I'm told one is that people confuse my works with like magical realism because I love my metaphors I love my like purple Pros I guess I don't try to you know overbear it to the audience because I feel like if you make everything you know quotable and not necessarily good um but at the same time I really do love using like language eloquently I don't know how to explain it right yeah for sure so I'm told that like uh a lot of people are like does this have any Fantastical elements to it I'm like no this is like just reality I'm I'm making Bland stuff not Bland that's so cool no yeah I think that's a really interesting writing style because again a lot of contemporary stories at least that I've read are quite yeah Bland as you say but through your writing I can definitely see how your story can become something that's like you know different um and how that really does reflect in your character voice voice so do you maybe also as another question how does your writing kind of differ from characters like character voice like how how does it feel getting cuz I remember you actually saying about um it's hard to get into the female main character's head maybe did you oh yes I had that okay so I had this problem where for some reason I can enter one of my narrators head like really easily and it's because of that idea that I like my internal monologues and that like flowery language takes place there I guess um and so when I enter his head it's easy because that's the way he thinks it's just all internal like over philosophizing type of like overthinking every situation but then when I enter her head it's kind of like I guess what she is combating with she's just like oh I feel an emotion and that's it it doesn't like go deeper than that for a lot of the book so a lot of her like her narration is more focused on plot rather than her character which is why I feel like it's difficult to describe from her first person oh that's really cool that was really fun getting to know more about project seak um but I also did want to ask as like the second sort of question of this podcast kind of how does it feel about being basically at the end of finishing this huge project and like you're literally like nearly you said you're at 60k at the moment but you think you might be writing a bit more so like how does it feel like finally from the start of the story kind of coming and at the end how does that I feel like the characters are definitely more developed and more flushed out like if I were to go to the beginning right now I know I would be like I need to rewrite half of this because they don't do this um in my current like mentality they're very different than what they were when I first started um so I guess I kind of grew with them my writing style has definitely like grown with them as well uh the way that I piece everything together but also I'm entering the stage where I'm like so excited about the prospect of ending this and like I don't know going on to editing um and shaping this into what it's meant to be that I'm just like I need to finish this and so I keep on writing so many words like over 1,000 words a day and I don't know how I'm doing it but I'm doing it I'm trying to finish this by the fifth and that's like one of my goals close you can do it oh my gosh so how long do you think the book's going to be around 70 maybe is that too much so that's the word count that I'm currently like looking at but I swear every time I say oh it's going to be 50 nope it's now 60 and then I feel like the same thing's GNA happen again um but yeah when I was like writing at the start I was like 50k words is so much like there's no way I'm ever gonna write something that long and now he so it's kind of funny yeah I I think I kind of I understand maybe why maybe it's because like you don't feel like you finished with the characters and the story has not yet finished so like it's interesting to kind of yeah sort of have a goal but like you don't really know until you actually write the book um and actually see the story develop when you know when to stop and I think like as soon as you write the end hopefully you'll feel like like this is the story in its hilarity that I need to tell and I liked also how you were talking about your excitement for editing editing is so cool cuz I'm currently yeah editing ghost side um it's definitely really interesting and I wonder how you're going to like kind of explore it because I feel like there's two different types of writers when they go into editing it's either like they have a skeleton draft like how I did and I'm just like adding the flesh to it and kind of like adding words basically but there might be other writers who basically have like a whole flesh story and then they're kind of like picking out pieces where they're taking words from it so it can be like a mix of both but do you maybe have like a sort of idea about how you're going to find editing and just kind of like how your process like what's your process as soon as you finish the book you going to like take some space back or go straight into it what's what's the vibe I think I'm definitely going to step back for a little bit I'm very happy with the way that I have like constructed my prologue so far that is one thing that I changed earlier in my draft okay and I was like and I was like okay well I don't think I need to edit this much but um for that specific section but I'm definitely going to be editing part one of the novel like probably in January I don't think I want to step away from it for too long because I want the idea of who my characters are at the end to kind of remain for when I edit the beginning um sure yeah and the novel has five parts originally I had four but I wanted to end on a certain character's POV so I had to add an second like another part in between um because I basically realized like the ending would not makees sense if I Didn't Do It um and each of the five parts has five chapters so part one is kind of the first chunk that I'll be editing I think I'm going to work in chunks um as for like adding or subtracting I have no idea I yeah I think in some parts the work count is definitely going to decrease because I have this thing where again I like my heavy like verbose language and I feel like I want to cut it in some parts um but then in others I think G to have to elaborate more so it just depends we'll see how it goes I don't know if I'm going to hate it or not no it's interesting editing is a really cool process I think it's the most fun part of it is seeing your story come together and as you said about like finding its potential and shape it how it's supposed to be shaped um and that's exactly what editing is and hopefully yeah I mean I'd love to be a beta reader if you ever want to take up any beta readers of people to read your book people's like um sort of feed Fe back is so important that's what I've learned through like having like an editor on board kind of like going through my work so I really encourage yeah you should just have fun I reckon you're going to really enjoy it since you really love your writing pros and like different sorts of yeah um your stories so that's really cool um the next question I kind of want to ask about is kind of your genre of project cak and kind of How It's not really it's like very unique and Niche like um and how kind of it's a bit different from like for example I don't know like streamline fantasy um and you're kind of describing to me about how you're not really afraid but you're just kind of like interested to see how the story works with the audience where there's not like you know there's du dual POV between a f f main female main character and a male main character and how people might I guess expect like a romance to bloom and how the characters are in such like close relationship and how it doesn't and how that says exactly kind of what you want to say about the story so I was kind of interested about yeah kind of like how you view the niches and the sort of yeah the very specificness of your story and how that doesn't align with a lot of different tropes or a lot of different genres um in the market so yeah I think when I first started my account out I had absolutely zero expectations going in I was like what just see where this goes because originally I did not think that this work was like really marketable I wanted to self-publish it for like two reasons um because it was close to my heart and because I didn't think that it fit onto shelves like it wasn't what I was reading really often um and I think that it was actually refreshing for people to see something that wasn't just like the same exact kind of fantasy we were seeing popular WR so I really I don't know I'm really grateful that I it did find its audience yeah I want to see where it goes from there yeah yeah a no yeah I think a lot of people are going to really adore this story because it's so unique and even just like you're describing it at the start of this episode I'm so excited for the story and I love like my favorite thing is like character-driven stories and that's why I was kind of describing when we met earlier about how kind of like the same sort of writer in a sense because I love contemporary writing like all my projects like gide like project prison like um project I first met you in the graveyard they're like contemporary stories that aren't necessarily like you know post-apocalyptic of like big fantasy stories they're kind of just like stories about characters really in their life um so that's why I really adore your writing and I can't wait to see where project cak really goes um so ah I'm just so excited um so that's really interesting to see um yeah kind of how you view that I definitely think there is a place for it in the market um so I guess the question is do you think you would want to traditionally publish or self-publish or what's the vibe because I feel like a lot of people would want to know um listening to the podcast so just curious um so right now I'm leaning towards traditional publishing but I think it's once I'm in the throws of quering we'll see how that goes I think like everyone says that they're like there's potential but I don't know where we go so that's that's kind of like my um yeah my idea at this point but I definitely know that in order to be put on shelves in the traditional sense there's going to be a lot of things that will meet this novel in 2024 with like editing and yeah hopefully an agent I don't know uh yeah all the that whole process I guess and we were talking about before the episode kind of how many walls there are that writers need a hit and basically break through to actually get to the point where the book is on the shelf and for some people it's really easy and it's a streamline process for others it's literally taken years um and yeah how the publishing process is so like it's not known like we don't really know what the heck we're doing like when I started querying what the heck was that like I literally don't even want to think about it to be honest and it's just like that sort of confusion when you're you know going into something like traditional publishing which is so weird and there's just like the emails the sort of like query letters the making sure you have a good synopsis a onepage summary all these silly stuff not to even mention what comes after that with even once you got an agent you have to actually edit the book with them and then you're going to have to submit it like what the heck doesn't end and then like you don't even know like even if you have an agent you don't even know what's going to get picked up even if it gets picked up who knows if people will even you know it's it's insane and I think I mean it's really difficult to say I think there's definitely such potential for new Nisha you know books to be picked up um so I'm so excited for your process and to see where that ends and um how your querying will go um yeah but that's still kind of down the line you still need to edit the book and kind of really work with it but even then I really think it could be cool if you can query it cuz a lot of people even query the book before it's done sort of things so that's really something I feel like should be explored more in the writing Community um and I mean you watch my crean Vlog which was yese watching that it was it wasn't it revealed like the reality of it where on writr we see like oh I'm like 13 and I published the year Times bestseller in two seconds and then but we don't see how many books are out there where yeah they've hit those walls like yeah yeah M because it is really hard like I even just think of like basically all authors who were published traditionally like they must have really had to work hard but that's not saying that self-published authors don't also work hard it's just like publishing a book in general what's up with that why is it so hard like both routes are so incredible unique and different in their like pros and cons because with self-publishing you have to wear like every single hat you have to be the editor you have to find people to design your cover you have to like Market it yourself you don't have this whole team backing you but then with traditional publishing at the same time it's like I don't even know how much control over a cover I will have if that happens or like what are royalties I don't know I'm just a girl what that I'm just a girl I'm just a Teen um no I I understand it's such a silly like I remember just like the thing I can describe about like self- I don't know any sort of publishing is just like it's such a silly process and it's just so confusing especially like without having a lot of yeah sort of um experience it's just what am I doing and I hope I'm doing the right thing sort of vibe so I very mystified like very mystified and you I guess even I talk to people currently I think I discussed this before when we met um but I talk to people currently who have like agents and they go through rounds of submission and then they aren't like their works are not as well received as they would have thought even after Ag and it's like you you you get past wall one and you're like okay this is going great this is fantastic and then you get past editing which is like I don't know thick giant brick wall and then you continue and then it's still all these obstacles that are in your way so I'm excited but also daunted by the process of how all of that is going to go because yeah uh as we were talking about with how my work and your work are not necessarily traditional in a sense and also I think I never elaborated on the question about um the main couple being like or the main two characters being a couple or like the romance kind of evolving between them I think with that also in mind it's kind of like how do you advertise this and how blurb and Pitch it in a sense that builds Intrigue to the right people so yeah exactly cuz I mean when you think of like just like smut now and how like that's like I'll buy it like that's like that sort of instant credit take my money credit C no seriously I remember working at a bookstore cuz I worked at a bookstore for like two years and I remember like these girls and it's like those sorts of girls and they just like had this huge like Colleen Hoover and they went oh no and I'm like okay okay I'm exposing my opinions on what I think about Colleen Hoover and I'm kidding I feel like everybody has the same opinion have you read any of her stuff I'm curious um so I haven't but I feel like the reviews on YouTube where people are laughing at things were enough for me so I personally did not read anything but I'm kind of glad I didn't give her money before the controversy happens with her so interesting it's like you don't really know what to do um but anyways yeah about that sort of instant selling and how everything is numbers and how like you're basically appealing for the the the the people above that sort of stuff and I remember talking to another friend and she was saying how she wants to write a book that is sort of I don't know for intelligent Minds in a sense um sort of thing and like you're writing your sort of story The Motif and I think that's really the core of like literary fiction so like finding an audience who actually will understand it and actually not need you know a smut scene every single second page like that's also something that's really hard now um and it's just like again with traditional publishing like what if maybe someone wants to impose that or like your agents like we got to really add this Trope it's just kind of like no this story is how it's meant to be told sort of thing so it's really just finding a good Agent um and having that experience but I've not done that yet so I don't really know and again like about like how cuz you said it's like very individualized the two different routs but it's also extremely individualized the um things that happen to each writer and like their process and like actually what happened and how they got found like there's some writers who get found by just like posting a like a Pinterest page of the project or like they get found like on the street or like they knew someone like someone's writing for like 20 years and yeah I need an agent please no seriously please please um so it's kind of like wow such an interesting but I think we're done with talking about traditional and self-publishing right now um and then the last question I really do want to ask is your vision for your book um the dreams for your novel and sort of like your career as a writer and down the road like where do you want this story to be what do you want this story to tell what sort of audience do you want reading this book and like yeah what sort of vision you really have for your author dreams or even just like about your Instagram and about like your I don't know future as like yeah studying medicine I just want to kind of ask about your future and kind of like what your hopes are let's add something positive about this yeah because we're kind of like Meandering around like what are we doing with our lives what are we doing okay so there's a that's a loaded question but I guess it's really good because it's it's like the start of a new year so goal setting let's go sure perfect um I think I want to Circle back to the fact that I was talking about one other tip that I was like receiving throughout my creative writing classes and that was the fact that every time that I write I seem to start a paragraph in such like an ambiguous way and then I connect everything down and this also relates to the whole like publishing and whether my work has a place um it's because I really want to advertise to readers who will sit there and like analyze those little pieces and that little funnel down and kind of like I don't know readers who like that sense of completeness in a novel and like cycling back to all these little points in it um so I guess I don't want to be like oh I want analytical readers but like yeah that's that's what I'm going for and with our short attention fans with my short attention span yeah okay I I I literally have not written anything since the summer and now I'm writing like over a thousand words a day so I I don't know what my attention fan is anymore it's fried on but I guess that's kind of what I'm looking for in my audience um and then also I advertise this book to like 18 to 25 year olds but it I guess younger people can read it as well since it it does contain some sensitive content but not to the point where I feel like younger demographic could not like tackle it um I try to approach everything with like research and you know try to handle the topics in the best way possible so that's like another aspect of it so if your parents let you read it and you're under 18 good good for you that's what I like to say um but uh as for medicine I have been shadowing n surgery this year so that has been really wonderful I feel like I have discovered through both the difficulties and like the success stories that I have seen with so many different patients and patient cases I've kind of discovered for myself like what I meant to do um so yeah if I don't know if I introduced that fact about myself I just said that I was a Premed student um I'm in the US so our medical system works really weirdly we have to complete a bachelor's degree before we can go into medicine um but basically I kind of discovered this year like why I want to do what I want to do and like why I want to do surgery in specific not just like become a physician um and a lot of that has been through shadowing so I hope to kind of evolve that in 2024 Shadow more Specialties kind of like see the ins and outs of the fields I don't know if I'm publishing in 2024 we'll see how that goes but um maybe 2025 but it yeah it's all these kind of like all the excitement and all the daunting prospects are kind of all coming together and like things are happening I guess yeah I mean you're the like we the age we're like 19 so it's kind of like the we're on the cusp sort of yes and we're just starting to do everything really so that's really refreshing to kind of hear your sort of goals like not even like yeah you have such good amazing writing goals and this amazing project but also you have like this whole other part of your life which you're so passionate about so I'm really excited to see how you go um I can definitely relate I'm in law school so it's kind of like I'm also in that bachelor's sort of yeah that sort of system so it's kind of just like getting there and kind of trudging along um and hopefully making a lot of progress so I am so excited for your future and for everything like that um and thank you so much for being on the podcast I think we're going to like probably end there but it was so fun to get to know about project cak and your writing and your thoughts about traditional publishing and Publishing and just kind of like hopefully demystifying the process a little bit to the audience just kind of yeah about our thoughts and how especially you feel about that sort of weird limbo stage about finishing a book and then being about to like start editing and making this book something that can be published in the future so I had so much fun did you have any last thoughts anything else you want to talk to the audience or just yeah um so when I was like looking into this channel before um I came on the podcast I like realized that you were doing laws well and I think that seemed that side of things where somebody has these two career Pathways is really interesting because that's like another thing that I kind of promote on my channel hey guys I don't just do writing but I don't really talk about the medical stuff often so that's fun um and yeah thank you so much for letting me like talk my stuff on here um course also this is kind of like my voice debut that's yeah yes welcome my voice is not anywhere on the internet well now it is like kind of permanently but that's fun oh that's so good but yeah thank you so much for being on the podcast and I'm just so excited for project seak and for everything that's going to happen in 2024 I wish all the audience all the listeners a best a good 2024 and for their writing goals to come true but yeah we'll probably end the episode here and thank you all for listening in bye everyone oh y that was so cool um that if you're going to go oh no I won't say a I won't tell you how I'm going to drive my mind like a line picking up the wi people housing tired clothes

Channel: ana neu

Views: 6,049

Keywords: reading, reader, author, book, books, readingvlog, writingvlog, authortube, booktube, bookhaul, novel

Id: kVrvAFtK1CM

Length: 30min 6sec (1806 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 03 2024