Why thoughtful, human writing still matters in an AI-obsessed world

Most people dream of writing a book — fewer are willing to sit with the depth, discomfort, and time it truly requires. In this episode, Tonya Kubo and award-winning book coach Candice L. Davis unpack the cultural obsession with rushing: rushing to publish, rushing to create, rushing to get something “out there” before it’s ready.

Together, they explore what’s lost when we try to shortcut the writing process — context, originality, and the true human connection readers crave. Candice shares why literary excellence still matters, how AI can support (but never replace) deep thinking, and why thoughtful books can’t be manufactured on demand.

If you’ve ever felt “behind,” ashamed of your pace, or tempted to publish before you’re ready, this conversation is the permission slip you didn’t know you needed.

Episode Highlights

[02:10] Why rushing books has always been a problem — long before AI

[06:25] What we lose when speed replaces substance

[10:40] Why so many “books” are really blog posts in disguise

[14:55] Where AI genuinely helps — and where it undermines authorship

[20:12] The myth of the urgent publishing deadline

[26:48] How writing communities fuel courage and creativity

[31:30] Letting go of artificial timelines so real work can begin

[44:22] How to know if your writing community is actually helping

[50:40] A message for anyone ashamed of their unfinished book

Why Slowing Down Creates Better Books

Candice explains that thoughtful writing isn’t elitist — it’s generous.

When we slow down long enough to think, question, revise, and refine, we create work that offers readers context, clarity, and true value.

Speed produces noise. Depth produces belonging.

When AI Supports — and When It Derails

AI can assist with accessibility, workflow, and structure, but it cannot replace your ideas.

Using AI to think for you leads to derivative, recycled copy.

Using AI to support your thinking leads to clarity.

The difference is integrity.

How Community Ignites Creativity

Writing isn’t meant to be solitary.

Candice and Tonya discuss how co-writing, workshops, and writing circles keep writers grounded, encouraged, and accountable — something no algorithm can provide.

Meet Our Guest

Candice L. Davis is an award-winning writer and book coach who helps experts move past surface-level content to uncover their deepest, most meaningful ideas. Through private coaching, writer cohorts, and her podcast Nothing But the Words, she guides authors toward creating books with clarity, craft, and lasting impact.

Meet Your Host

Tonya Kubo is a community strategist and marketing consultant known for building digital spaces that feel like chosen family. As host of Find Your Freaks, she brings together unconventional thinkers who know “normal” was never the point — and who believe that belonging is built through honesty and human connection.

Key Quotes

• “Some ideas are bigger than a blog post. That’s why we have books.” — Candice L. Davis
• “If AI is doing the thinking for you, it’s pulling from other people’s ideas.” — Candice L. Davis
• “Your depth is your power. And you have more time than you think.” — Tonya Kubo
• “Once your book is out there, it represents you forever.” — Candice L. Davis

Resources & Mentions

• Nothing But the Words — Candice’s podcast
• CandiceLDavis.com

Support the Show

If Find Your Freaks matters to you, consider buying us a coffee to keep the show ad-free. Every dollar supports production so more weirdos can find their people.

Find Your Freaks merchandise is available through Abilities and Attitudes.

Let’s Stay Freaky

• Facebook Group
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Podcast Hub

What’s Next

Everyone’s in a rush to publish, launch, and “ship it,” but rushing doesn’t create belonging — it creates noise. Next episode, Tonya explores why slowing down isn't a weakness. It’s craft. And craft is care.

[Speaker 1]

Some ideas are bigger than a blog post, thank goodness. That's why we have books, but we see more and more books now that really could have just been a blog post. The problem comes when you want AI to do the thinking and the creating of ideas and the putting together of words for you.

If it's creating the work for you, it is pulling from other people's ideas. I've had multiple coaching clients send me their outline and I immediately know when ChatGPT created that outline. It is not usable, my friend.

Or you can write a bad book really quickly. I'm not sure that's what you want to do. Once that book is out there, it represents you to the world forever.

We're wired for connection, but most of us are faking it to fit in. I'm Tanya Kubo and this is Find Your Freaks, the podcast that flips the script and spotlights the quirks you thought you had to keep quiet. Subscribe now and head to findyourfreaks.com for show notes and extras. Because around here, what makes you weird, makes you wonderful. Normal was never the point. We love to talk about community here, how to build it, how to grow it, how to sustain it.

And today we are going to talk about the art of going deep. What does it mean to actually write something that matters? And what do we lose when we try to rush the process?

And so I can't think of a better person to have this conversation with than Candice L. Davis, who is a book coach who helps experts move beyond that surface level knowledge to actually figure out what their deep wisdom is. I would say it's their genius so that they can actually write books that matter.

And she is an award-winning writer herself. So she's just not the person who bosses you around. She actually has done this stuff.

And she's a fellow podcast host. She has nothing but the words. So Candice doesn't just help people get published.

She helps them write world-class books from a place of joy and delight. Candice, with that introduction, we are going to kick it off with the question I love to ask everybody, which is, who are your freaks and why do you love them? Thank you for having me, Tanya.

My freaks are the literary writing community and anyone who cares deeply about great writing and great books and the actual art and craft of writing. So it's like your geeks are my geeks and we're so happy together. Yes, it's about excellence and it's about art and it's about craft and it all comes together in the book.

Yeah, that's such a good question. I always feel like I have to start with saying, putting aside ethical concerns, well, you can't really put us ethical concerns, friend. Like the truth is that we know that AI was developed on other people's copywritten work that they were not compensated for.

The truth is that we know AI is terrible for the environment, right? And yet we all still use AI to some extent. That's the reality of the world, including me.

That's the reality of the world that we live in. I do not use it for writing books, but I do use it for other things in my business sometimes, right? In terms of writing, my question for people who talk about using AI to write their books is why do you want to do that?

Why do you want to do that? Because if you're just trying to get to faster, you are probably going to contribute to the ever-growing pile of terrible books out there in the world. Yes, that is true.

What reasons do they give you? I'm curious. Usually faster.

They have a deadline, they have a conference, they have a whatever coming up and they really want to have their book by that date, but those are usually not my people because these are not people who are super invested in the excellence of their work, right? They're just invested in having a book with their name on it. So I think what people who are interested in excellence really wonder, because I think they sit back and go, why would you do that?

Conversations I have with fellow writers all the time is I can actually write from scratch much faster than I can get AI to produce something that sounds like me. So I'm that person who uses AI to do things like help me figure out how to help my kids with their math homework. That's my number one use.

I don't know what yours is, but I am just curious from your perspective, what are we losing individually or culturally when we devalue depth in favor of speed? That's not specifically an AI question, that's anybody who's rushing a book to market for any reason. And that's been the case since self-publishing became a really big thing with Amazon allowing for Kindle direct publishing, right?

So people have wanted to get books out faster and faster. AI is just now making it even faster than it was. I don't know if you remember all of the write your books in a weekend program that were out, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago.

Everywhere you looked there was a program to write your book in a weekend. This was pre-AI. And the person I saw one of those, I was like, what the heck is happening here?

And then I actually saw the books they were producing. And I was like, oh, I get it. They're not actually books.

No, because most of them, most of those kind of top of funnel, big business card style books, they're like what? 20,000 words max? Or just a few blog posts.

Yeah. There are just a few blog posts. And I've read some 20,000 word books that were great, but these are generally not that cohesive.

No one has thought deeply about it. And what we lose is that we don't really get new ideas. We get recycled, refurbished looks at the same old ideas over and over when people don't take the time to actually do deep thinking that leads to deep writing.

Yeah. And you know what I think we also lose is context. That's the whole thing.

Like when I've sat with agents before, every agent I know, they always ask the question, it's funny is if they're really nice, they'll preface it and say, well, may I be direct? But the question is always some version of why does what you're talking to me about have to be a book? Why can't it just be an article?

Why can't it just be a newsletter? And the answer is usually because this is a concept, this is an idea that somebody needs 60,000 words or more to understand and to apply to their life. And so I just don't see how anything written quickly, whether it's AI or human generated, can accomplish that.

It almost never accomplishes that. And don't even mail me, email me or message me with the exceptions. Because to me, the exceptions just prove the rule, right?

Like you have someone who has written hundreds of articles on a topic and they write their book, quote unquote, quickly or more quickly than the average person. They've already done the work. They've done the deep thinking and they've done all of that.

So of course it's a, not of course, but it may be a faster process for them, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Some ideas are bigger than a blog post. Thank goodness. That's why we have books.

But we see more and more books now that really could have just been a blog post. Yeah. And honestly, I would rather just read the blog post.

As would I, friend. Save me the time. Save me the time.

So I'm going to show one more, I'm going to call it argument in favor of AI that I hear a lot is accessibility. When I was in book marketing, for instance, I worked with a lot of authors that were dyslexic, had learning disabilities, and they would have to invest heavily in having their books edited at a level that was more than their publisher could even handle. And it's these individuals who are like, Oh, writing is such a pain.

AI helps me overcome that. So what would you say to the person who says, Oh, all this deep writing you're talking about, Candice, it's so elitist. Like we need greater accessibility in the market.

So I am here for greater accessibility. I'm here for more people being published because the history of publishing is that white men get the book deals and everybody else gets the leftovers, right? That has been decades of the publishing industry.

What I love about independent publishing, self-publishing is that it doesn't matter who you are. If you can get access to a writing device and an internet connection, you can get your ideas out to the world in the book. I am here for all of that.

I think there are certain kinds of AI. Like I have a client who uses AI to read her content back to her because she does have vision problems and she does have a certain form of dyslexia. So instead of her reading it, she has AI read it back to her.

I think that's wonderful. The problem comes when you want AI to do the thinking and the creating of ideas and the putting together of words for you. That is where the problem comes.

There are lots of ways you can use AI. You can use AI to transcribe your thoughts so that you're not typing. You're just speaking to a machine.

You can use AI to ask you the questions that you want to answer in your book. Lots of ways. I have no issues with let's make this publishing process more accessible for everyone.

I think it should be. But if it's creating the work for you, it is pulling from other people's ideas. That's the big thing, right?

And it's a race to the middle, right? Because it's pulling from the best and it's pulling from the worst. And there's way more of the worst available on the internet.

I just want to stop there and be like, okay, episode over. Because it's what I tell people, right? It's garbage in, garbage out.

And when people, because people will complain to me, like I've bought these prompts and everything, and I'm just not getting good stuff back. And I'm like, because all AI can do is take what you give it and take what else exists on the internet. And most of what's on the internet is bad.

Correct. Correct. How it is.

I've had multiple clients, coaching clients, send me their outline. And I immediately know when ChatGPT created that outline. And it is not usable, my friend.

It is not usable. I immediately know. Like without even reading deeply, just a quick glance, it always creates them in the exact same style, which is not a style that any human would use to create an outline.

It's just not good. So I'm curious, because I imagine 10 years ago, you probably could easily find your people. Because us writing geeks, we love to hang out with each other.

Yeah. What's it like finding them now? Is it harder?

It's interesting. So I can find my people on a social level, still pretty easily. Like I could get on my Facebook profile right now and find friends who care deeply about their writing.

Whether they're publishing books right now or not, they're actively engaged in it. They care deeply about the words that they're putting on the page. That is no problem.

The clients are a different story. Because many of my clients are coaches, speakers, and entrepreneurs. And they do feel a pressure to get their book out quickly.

Their colleagues are getting their books out quickly. They want to apply for a certain speaking gig that they've not been able to get in the past. And they know if they can just get their book out, they can get that speaking gig next year.

So on the professional side and clients, it is a little bit harder because I do have to deal with the reality of the time pressure my clients are under. Is the time pressure real or is it perceived, do you think? Oh, it's totally created by them.

It is totally created by them. Occasionally, it will be a person who has a traditional book deal already. And they just need support in getting it done.

That time pressure is real. Because that deadline- Yes. That is a real deadline that the rest of their advance payment is dependent upon.

But for the people who are self-publishing, publishing independently, it's made up in their heads. And they're convinced like, if I don't do it by next year, I'm going to miss out on the speaking engagement. Or you can write a bad book really quickly and take that with you to the speaking engagement.

I'm not sure that's what you want to do. Once that book is out there, it represents you to the world forever. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a good thing. That's a good thing.

Yeah. It's funny because I remember early in book marketing, I had somebody who came to me and she had been trying to get a traditional deal. And because I learned very early on, and you know why I learned this, to always ask them why they were choosing independent publishing over traditional publishing.

Because you could find out a lot about the quality of the book based on the answer. And her answer was, her manuscript was 180,000 words. And every agent she talked to, and it was prescriptive nonfiction.

Because it's George RR Martin and it's a whole world of fantasy. Like three books. Yeah.

She gets a pass on that one. And her whole thing was, every agent I've shopped it to says that no publisher will buy 180,000 word manuscript. And I spent too much time writing it.

I'm not cutting it. Wow. And I'm like, oh, we cannot work together.

No, absolutely not. Because no reader wants that either. So that's why the publishers don't want.

It's a Mark Twain quote. I didn't have time to write you a short letter. So I wrote you a long one.

[Speaker 2]

That's right.

[Speaker 1]

Yes, absolutely. So since I have you here, one of the things I wanted to talk a little bit about is writing as a community. Because I've had a couple of authors already on the show.

And it's funny is they've talked a lot about how they thought that writing in their genre would be more competitive than it was. But I remember when I went to my very first writer's conference, I was shocked to find out how much collaboration went into professional writing. And I'm a former journalist.

So I was used to collaboratively writing in a newsroom. But that's because I had a daily deadline. I think we all buy into this myth of watching movies of the writer in the secluded mountainside who just does everything siloed by themselves.

Do you find that you have to help people unlearn that myth? Or by the time that they find you have they already realized that they need writing community? I think it's so interesting because people are different.

My husband is also a writer. And I am his writing community for the most part. Like we talk story, we were just in the kitchen, he was making coffee, and we were talking about a script he's working on right now.

But he doesn't really participate in a larger writing community. He goes into his hole, and he writes in his hole a lot. But with scripts, he's going to get feedback anyway, at the next level of script before it goes to production, right?

So he knows that feedback is coming, whether he wants it or not. Because someone's spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make this film. So for authors of books, it tends to be different.

We don't have that community. And it's always sad to me when people think they're going to get it from their publishing company. You're not.

Even if you get a traditional book deal, you're not. I came up as a young writer, young, I was in my 30s, in the LA writing community. It's young, my daughter's 34 now.

So in the LA writing community, and I was in workshops with absolutely brilliant writers and mentors. My colleagues were brilliant, my mentors were brilliant. And what I noticed was my mentors, some of whom had their books been made into movies, they'd won huge literary prizes.

They also were all in workshops. They also were getting the support of other writers. They were not feeling like I can't share my work with Janet because she's going to tell Mary and then Mary, no, it was none of this, they're going to copy my idea stuff.

It was supporting each other through the writing process and helping each other really make that work the best it can be. And for me, that's the height of a writing community. Now, do you host communities for writers at this stage?

I do. So I just closed one cohort. Oh, I just closed one cohort yesterday.

That was such a hard call. It was such a hard call. Oh my goodness.

And one of the girls said, I didn't realize how lonely writing my book could be. I don't know what I'm going to do without this group. And I said, you can join the next cohort because I'll be starting another one, a specific writers workshop.

So I do the group thing. Some of my clients are not into group. They want just to get it done, right?

Their time is really tight. They're running a business. They've got parents to take care of or kids to take care of or both, and they just don't have space for the group.

But other people understand and really value the community aspect of it. Have you seen people who, for whatever reason, the community tends to ignite their writing? Oh my gosh.

Yeah, me. Right? Like they're doing so much, like they're writing so much more now that they're in a group than they ever could have done by themselves.

Including myself. So when you have to show up every two weeks with a new section to share with your group, you are much more likely, especially when you've invested some of your good money in that group. And when you care about the opinions of the people in that group, you are much more likely to show up.

But also there's a shared creativity that happens even sometimes when we just get on a co-writing call on Zoom and write together. I was laying on the couch on Monday, exhausted, and my friend texted me and said, hey, you want to co-write? And I was like, oh, I'm too tired.

And then I got on with her, and I wrote for two hours. It was great. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. That is amazing.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah. It's surprising. Now in your groups, have you ever...

I'm just curious if there's like a story of somebody who came in just feeling like they were running out of time. Because I think a lot of us get that feeling. We feel like we're too old.

We feel like we're too this, too that. And then was able to make that shift to stop rushing. I'm just curious what you saw change in them and in their writing.

Typically what I see for the people who are rushed and realize, wait, I'm not... It has to happen that they realize they're not going to make the deadline they had in their heads. And once they accept, they're not going to be able to publish on their grandma's birthday.

They're not going to be able to... I'm not kidding. I've had that.

They're not going to be able to launch on their anniversary of when they started their business. And that artificial deadline goes away. Then they realize they can slow down.

And when they slow down, they stop overthinking. The overthinking is what keeps them stuck. And I've got to hurry up and write this.

Once they slow down, they stop overthinking. But I have one woman in my group who has been in my groups for three years now, has written four or five books, and she's in her 60s. She's going to be retiring from her job soon.

It's too late in terms of time, time, like your lifetime. No, I see people showing up and writing, but it's too late in terms of that deadline could actually be a great thing for you because it can set you to actually do the work and not be so rushed. Yeah, and actually spend time in the chapters that need development.

That's what I learned when I got into a writing community earlier this year is that, yeah, as a former journalist, I can write fast. But back to our earlier point, nobody wants a book that was written that fast. And sometimes, I don't know if you've had this experience, maybe I'm the only person on the planet, but sometimes I have to write 8,000 words to get to a good 500.

Of course, I've had that experience. Absolutely. You get all the way to the end and you're like, oh, that paragraph's usable.

And everybody has their own process, right? So for some people, and you have to know yourself because otherwise it's easy to fool yourself into thinking you're making progress and you're not. For some people, it's, I'm going to rewrite this chapter three times before I move to the next one because I need it to be decent before I move on.

For other people, they'll get caught up in that rewriting cycle because they'll never move on to the next chapter. So they just have to leave it as a rough draft, move on to the other one, and come back and do the editing at the end. You just have to know yourself.

Yeah, and there's parts where I just have to write more words. Placeholders all through the manuscript. More words go here.

Yes. Without a doubt. Or, you know, I'll write it all and I'll highlight a paragraph.

I'll be like, I hate every bit of this, but I'm moving on. Because I just want to, I want to remind myself when I come back to it and go, oh my gosh, that's absolutely terrible. I want to remind myself, I knew it was drivel when I wrote it.

I never thought that was good. I was not deluding myself. I will say like I, for my own work, I tend to be the rewrite, rewrite, move on person.

That serves me well. But I'm rewriting to, I'm writing rough and then I'm rewriting the whole thing and then rewriting the whole chapter again. My husband is, he's not putting the words down unless he thinks they're right.

So he doesn't have to do a lot of rewriting on the back end. Just different processes. There's no right or wrong.

Yeah. It sounds like, I have a friend who does this, like she writes her books in her head. And so she talks about, everybody thinks I'm a fast writer.

She's, I'm not actually that fast. It's that I don't sit down at my computer until I've got 10,000 words I can just spout off really quick. Oh, I love that.

Edward P. Jones, who won some big prize for The Known World, his novel that came out, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago, worked at the post office when he was writing. And he talks about how when he sat down to write the book, it only took him a few weeks, a few months, because he'd already written the whole thing in his head at his very boring post office job.

So I love that. I think that's fantastic when people can hold that whole story in their heads. Yeah.

I could probably hold 2,000 words in my head at this age. That's more than most, friend.

[Speaker 2]

That's more than most.

[Speaker 1]

I don't think I can hold much more. So because you're a book coach, I'm hoping that you are willing to give a little bit of advice. Sure.

All right. So the first thing, because we're going to put all the information for your podcast, because I've listened to your podcast. I know it has great advice.

We'll put your website, we'll put your socials. I know Instagram's a good one for you. For sure.

But I know that there is somebody listening who is going, okay, I'm in a writing community, but I don't know if I'm in a good one or a bad one. Like it doesn't feel right, but is it a me problem? Is it a them problem?

What are some questions I could ask myself to figure out whether I'm in the right writing community for me? I do think the first thing that you said about not feeling right is a big one. I do think you have to feel comfortable with the people in order, especially if they're giving you feedback, in order for you to be able to take that feedback seriously, you have to be comfortable with the people and you have to respect that they have the ability to give you the feedback that you need, because not everyone does, right?

It's something you have to learn how to do. It's not something everyone can do. I think if you're paying money to be in that community, you really should be able to go based on that feeling of how do I feel about this?

And are they taking you seriously? I was in a workshop once with wonderful people, brilliant people, and one person who almost made me quit the workshop. What was it about them?

Oh, she was entirely self-centered. The world revolved around her. She didn't care about anyone's feedback except for the mentor we were paying.

And she also did not give us any helpful feedback. So she was distracting. We went to dinner once.

We all went to the opera. And before the opera, we went to dinner and there was shared bread and butter on the table. And she stuck her finger in the butter, licked the butter off her finger, and stuck her finger back in the butter and did it again.

If that doesn't tell you enough about this person, I don't know what could. So yeah, make sure you respect their ability. They respect your ability and feedback.

And listen, they may be brilliant people, but you may just not vibe. If you don't vibe, that's okay. Yeah.

It reminds me, I was in one of my first groups and there was a woman who shared, she was writing a marriage book. And the facilitator, we were in a small group mastermind and she like pulled her aside and she said, I'm going to have to get you into a different group because everything that you are talking about, my marriage is currently the opposite. And I can't hear what you're saying.

I can't be positive. And so you need to be in a group with somebody who can work with that. And I was fascinated, right?

Because she could have stuck it out and said, I want this person's money.

[Speaker 2]

Right?

[Speaker 1]

But she was like, no, I'm not going to be able to give you good insight. So why don't you just go find a different group that will. Which I think is brilliant.

But sometimes you have to make that decision for yourself too, right? To decide this isn't for me and that's okay. All right.

So if you're in a space and you're like, okay, this isn't for me, what are some things you can do to find the right group? Like proactively? First, I would say, talk to other writers that you know, and see if anyone who you already have a good relationship with is in a group or has been in a group and can make a referral to you.

Take writing classes in your local community or online. Both workshops that I was in for the longest time in Southern California were from classes that I took. So I took a class with a teacher and then they invited me to apply to their workshop.

This was many years ago before people were really taking classes online. So now you can do that online too, right? It doesn't have to be down at the local community college or the extension program, which is what I did.

But, you know, get to know like quote unquote instructors. They may be coaches. They may be mentors.

They may be authors who are hosting workshops. Maybe before you give them money, get to know what they're about. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, really what you're saying is do your homework. Do your homework.

Yeah, for sure. I read this woman. I was paying her a lot of money.

I read her novel. I went to her signing. I went and took a class from her.

Like I did all these things before I invested. Yeah. So I hear do your homework.

First of all, know yourself. You got to figure out who you are, what you need, what you want and what kind of environment is going to get you that. Yep.

Then do your homework so that you're finding the right fit. I imagine there's a little bit of trust in your gut. It doesn't feel right.

Like you said, just don't because there's something. Yes, that's a huge factor. That's a huge factor for me.

If you don't have a vibe with those people, it's fine. Go somewhere else. There are plenty of workshops available.

So before we get to our final segment, which is our freak flags fly, I'm curious for the listener who's been trying to write the book and is just feeling ashamed, embarrassed because they just haven't been able to finish fast enough. What would you say to them? I would say welcome to being a human being because the vast majority of us who love writing have books that we have left unfinished, that we have left half done.

I want to finish this. But I'm like, it happens. That's just what it is.

But if you feel stuck, get support in some way, shape or form, whether that's a book coach, a class, a course, a local community college course. There's nothing wrong with getting in the car. Everything doesn't have to be online.

There's nothing wrong with getting in the car and going down. And pretty much every major city and lots of small towns have free writing groups that you can join. Check your library somewhere where you can get some support to help you get back into the process and keep going.

But there's no need for shame or embarrassment because it's the most normal thing. Yeah, I think it's just like in business, right? It's like most overnight successes were 10 to 20 years in the making.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like books are the same way.

And I get caught in that trap too. I don't want to talk about the fact that I'm writing a book because what if I'm still writing this book two years from now? And it's been, I'm still writing the book two years.

[Speaker 2]

Exactly what it is. Yes.

[Speaker 1]

And I'll be writing mine with you at the same time. Yay! I love having company.

We'll have to hang out. Yes. All right.

So before we let you go, it's time for a quick round, which I said is Freak Flags Fly. Five fast questions, no wrong answers, just whatever comes to mind. Are you ready?

All right. So finish this sentence. You are my kind of freak if.

If you love books more than you love almost any other kind of media. Oh, I like that. I thought you were going to say people, but I like how you went there.

I love people. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Introverts unite. What is something you love that your friends just don't get?

Oh, probably I'm very elitist about the types of books that I read. Like I am a book snob. So there are certain literary and typically dark books that I read that my friends would not touch.

And what community would you infiltrate just to understand it better? Oh, I almost went political on you, Tanya. I was like...

You would not be our first guest to go political on me. This is terrible because it hurts my heart to even say that this exists, but the young black male manosphere would be what I would infiltrate. I don't understand you.

I don't know what, who hurt you, how you started to think this way, but I would like need to be one of them. I'd need to be dressed as one of them so I could understand. It stresses me out every day that they even exist.

And so that would be what I would infiltrate to understand better. Yeah. I love that question really because it just speaks to curiosity.

I want to save them actually so I can save the rest of us. I want to know them so I can divert them and get them on a better path. Yeah.

Okay. So this one will be a little bit lighter. What tool, ritual, or practice helps you stay connected to your people?

That's a good one. Probably, it's painful to leave the house, but actually showing up for book events helps me stay. Because the nerds that will come up for a book event, not like a celebrity book signing, but for a real book, for a real book, like deeply written, deeply thought through book, going out to those events, that helps me stay connected to my people.

Okay. And who is someone doing freakishly good work who deserves a bigger stage? Oh, golly day, golly day.

Ooh. See, the people that I'm going to name already have a big stage. Oh no, she has a big stage.

I was looking at her book next to me. I was like, no, she already has a big stage. Someone doing freakishly good work.

This is a hard one. This is a hard one. Maybe it's a great book he read that hardly anybody knows about.

I will say this. Jessamyn Ward has a book called Sing Unburied Thing. It won a huge award, but no one I know has read it.

It won a freaking national book award, but I don't know anyone who has read it. And it is brilliant. I find all of her writing brilliant.

Well, thank you for showing me because I totally massacred that spelling in my notes. Yeah, you would, because it's hard for me to say it. Every time I say it, and I say it a lot, it's hard for Sing Unburied, like not buried in the ground.

Sing is the title of the book, but I don't think, I don't think she gets enough credit. I don't find anyone who knows her work. Thank you for that.

I'm going to have to pick that up. Candice, I am so grateful that you came today to talk to us about the importance of really having pride in your work, because that's really, whether you're a writer or not, it's about having pride in your work and honoring the pace at which you are going, no matter how slow that is and no matter how fast everybody is around you. And so for listeners, I would just say, if you've been ever made to feel like your pace is too slow or your words are too much, I hope you will hear Candice's deep message, which is simply that your depth is your power, you have more time than you think you do, and just say or write the thing.

Thank you, Tanya, for having me. That's it for this episode of Find Your Freaks. To help more weirdos find their way here, subscribe, rate, and leave a review.

And if you're craving connection, join the Freak Show at findyourfreaks.com. What makes you weird makes you wonderful. Normal was never the point.