Writers, take note! Author Kayla Cagan gives insight into her writing process (including the publishing phase), as well as navigating writer's block with really practical ways to overcome it. Guest host, Juliana Finch, and Kayla provide resources and places to start when writing doesn't feel great or accessible

BIO: 

Kayla Cagan (she/her) is the Young Adult Author of PIPER PERISH and ART BOSS from Chronicle Books. PIPER PERISH received universal praise and starred reviews from ALA Booklist, as well as being an Amazon Bestseller, a Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Month, and made the Indie Next Choice list. PIPER PERISH was also picked as a Spirit of Texas High School Reading Program selection and was a nominee for the Overdrive Book Selection. Her second book, ART BOSS, was called “an engaging portrait of the artist as a young woman” by Kirkus Review, and “an automatic pick-up for fans” by Booklist. Both books were selected for Mule Design's Quarantine Book Club series in 2020. Her short plays and monologues have been published by Applause Books and Smith and Kraus. She has also contributed comics and essays to assorted collections, including Girl Crush Zine, Womanthology, and Unite and Take Over: Stories Inspired by the Smiths. She is happily married to screenwriter Josh A. Cagan and they live in California. Instagram at @kayla_cagan_writer

Resources Kayla mentioned:

Jacob Krueger Studio

Loyalty Bookstore

Big Magic Podcast/Magic Lessons

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This is artist soapbox.

Through interviews and original scripted audio fiction.

We deliver stories that speak to your hearts and your minds

Hi Soapboxers, it's Juliana.

I am thrilled to bring you a talk I got to have with my friend, Kayla Cagan.

She is the author of Piper Perish and Art Boss from Chronicle books,

two wonderful young adult books.

But you know what?

Adult adults can read them too, cuz I have, and I love them.

Piper Perish received universal praise and starred reviews from ALA book list

as well as being an Amazon bestseller, Barnes and noble best book of the month.

And it made the indie next choice list.

So basically Kayla is kind of a big deal.

Kayla also has published comics and essays to as sorted collections, including girl

crush scene, Womanthology unite and take over, stories inspired by the Smiths.

She is happily married to screenwriter, Josh Cagan and they live in California.

You can find Kayla on Instagram at, at Kayla underscore Kagan

underscore writer, and that's K a Y L a and Cagan is C a G a N.

We had a wonderful talk about writer's block, really

practical ways to overcome it.

She's gonna give you a ton of resources and places to start

when writing doesn't feel great or accessible, she is just a delight.

And I know you'll have as good a time listening as I did getting to talk to her.

Here's Kayla

Cagan.

So Kayla, I'm so excited.

You're able to join me today on artist soapbox.

Thank you so much for coming on my little podcast.

It's a pleasure.

I am so excited to be here.

This is wonderful.

I'm really happy to do this.

Thank you for

having me for listeners who might not know your work.

Can you tell me a little bit about your novels and other work that you're up

to?

Sure.

So my name's Kayla Cagan and I started off basically in the theater and.

A very long time in the theater in mostly in New York and have

always kind of been writing and mostly doing plays in the theater.

And then kind of slowly started trusting myself the transfer

into trying novel writing.

So on and off, I've been working on novels for a very long time, but I, in

the last few years have published two of them through Chronicle books and.

For young adults.

So they're YA books, but anyone can read them.

I always like to say that because some people feel weird, shame over

reading young, younger material, but they're both about a young artist

named Piper Perish, who is an artist and an emerging kind of artist.

And part of the reason I wrote the books is because I love reading biographies

and memoirs and remembrances of artists.

And I love hearing about their young lives, about how they became who they are.

I really like to see the seeds of who someone became, but I often feel like

there's not a lot of female artists that we get to hear about, like, can

tell you about the young life of Matisse or Picasso, maybe Frida Kahlo, because

she's, you know, a hot number and, and people will like always wanna know

about Frida Kahlo but there's a lot of artists who are out there who aren't.

And I kind of was like, what if there was a young teenage girl Picasso

right now that nobody knew about?

And I started writing.

Kind of this journal of this young girl, and this ended up being a two

book situation and Chronicle books who is known for art and were building

their YA collection at the time

loved it.

And so I started working with them and we published this books and

they're written as journals from this young artist's point of view.

There's lots of illustrations in them because it's supposed to be like an artist

sketchbook in what she's going through.

And the one thing I really wanted was like, let's find out by the

end of these books, that she's actually still a really good artist.

She's not like a bad artist this whole time.

We've got to grade, you know?

And so one day, you know, who might be fun to write, like who is Piper when she's 50?

Is she winning at Guggenheim or McArthur genius because of her work

or is she still kind of plotting along but magnificent in what she.

Yeah.

One of the things I loved about Piper is that it was really cool to see

in a book, a little bit of my own experience reflected as a teenage artist.

I mean, I'm not a visual artist, but this certainty that she

has, that she is an artist.

Like there's never.

She knows exactly where she wants to go and maybe not how she's gonna get

there, but this like identity of herself as an artist just formed so early.

And I definitely felt that too.

And I think a lot of artists do when we're kids, you know, like, oh, once

you realize this is a thing you can do.

Yeah.

So here's, here's what I wanna do.

Did you have that sense as a kid too?

Let you really wanted to write.

I had the sense that I really wanted to be in the theater.

And I really wanted to direct from a very young age.

I didn't think of it as like an ego thing.

I was just like, I know how to look at a story or a play and make it happen.

which maybe was a little bit of ego, but I wanted to be a director and a playwright.

And always did I dabbled in acting a little because of the program

I went to in college, you kind of had to do all parts of the theater.

So it did tech as well.

And acting definitely was on my, for.

For sure, but it just kept reinforcing how much I liked writing because every

time I had to go on stages as an actress, I would look at the script and wanna

tear it apart and like keep working.

And I mean Chekhov and Shakespeare, which is like hilarious well,

I have some notes for you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, let's try this again.

Arthur Miller, you know, but that's like comes with that great 16 year

old, 17, 18, 20 year old confidence.

And you know, nobody's told you, you can't yet, if you're lucky.

and I had a pretty supportive family.

My mom was a ceramicist and I grew up with a lot of friends

in like my high school and middle school, which was magnet.

Like I had a lot of artist, friends and theater friends.

And so I always felt like this was a possibility to live this kind of life.

Not easy for sure.

, but I'm glad to hear that you connect with Piper because some people have said

like, she's so ambitious, it's arrogant,

she's not paying attention to the other things in her life.

But I do think when you have a particular drive or passion, when you're younger,

whether it's sports or art or politics now, or foreign languages, you know,

whatever it is, I think when you are young and set your eye on that,

sometimes people can say, Aren't you selfish, you know, aren't you, who

are you to wanna pursue this thing?

And I didn't want her to back away from that.

I didn't want her to have the knowledge yet that she had to feel

guilty about pursuing her art love.

So that was love, you know?

Yeah.

But yeah, I kind of always knew theater and I kind of knew writing.

I loved reading books, but I never thought I could write a novel when I was younger.

I kind of thought I can write plays and I understood plays and

I understood plays' structure.

Immediately, but like novels are a different beast.

So it took me a long time.

And that can feel a little strange when like you have friends who are doing that

work that you're interested in 10 years before you are, you know, so like in

a way they provide a roadmap and they give you a lot of advice and suggestions

and feedback and, and then the other way you can feel like I'm so behind.

but I don't know if I had been 18 when I started trying to write novels,

I might not have felt that way.

I might have been like, no, I'm perfect.

And my books are awesome.

you know, which would've been

great.

Is there a way that the process of playwriting and novel writing, when you

approach the page, like to sit down for a day of work, is there a way that you've

noticed that that process feels different?

Or is it similar

a hundred percent?

I mean, My husband's a screenwriter and he studied playwriting as well.

He and I have both talked about like, it's almost math, you know, with plays.

It's, it's very dialogue based.

Everything is visual.

You want characters to sound the way the audience to receive them in novels,

you go inside the character in a way, but when you write for a play, the actor

gets to do a lot of that work for you.

If they're a good actor and a good director who's or you know, who

understand the play you're writing.

So when you approach them, we both are very character driven when we write.

And so both of us will kind of always get a major character before

we necessarily know what the story is or the, we may have an idea,

you know, and that's something that

in the DNA that they share.

Like, for me, it's both, they're almost always very heavily character driven.

I like female protagonists.

Younger protagonists for the most part.

I'm dabbling in older characters these days.

And I think also with playwriting, you know, there's a sense that most plays

shouldn't be over 90 pages and that's max.

So

you've got this like time limit.

Yeah.

That you're working

with novels are anywhere 300 to 500 pages.

So it's like, it's not sprinting to a marathon, but it's more like

a half marathon to a marathon.

it's like gotta be able to go for the, the long run and also pace yourself

that shares that in both of those, um, playwriting, you can feel like you've

achieved something sooner, but you're also gonna have to rewrite it just as much.

So well,

speaking of process, let's get into, like,

my series is talking all about.

Those times when we're not writing as much and maybe we've

just finished a big project.

And so there's, there's a little bit of a downtime between creative works.

Tell me about a time when, like, I don't know if you call it writer's block or if

you call it a lull or a space or something else, but when you have that thing that

happens when you're not making as much.

What does that like for you?

What does that feel like?

So for a

long time, I didn't say this about anyone else, but for myself, I

didn't really believe in writer's block.

I was just like you either writing or not, but that doesn't mean you're blocked from

writing when you're not writing because you're living and every experience can

become like it's Nora Ephron who says everything is copy and I'm like, well,

yeah, you know, you gotta be careful, but at the same time, stories are everywhere.

And if you're alive and you're, and you're thinking, and living as

a writer, Things are still in kind of stimulating your brain to keep

writing, but last summer, 2021.

So yeah, last summer, 2021.

I, or maybe it was late 2020.

I had turned in a project, a novel that I had been working on

and I suddenly had this feeling.

I had turned it into my agent and I had had this feeling that I wasn't

sure what I was gonna write next.

And.

I was nervous about it.

Usually the first week that I turn in a project after I've turned it

in that first week, I feel great.

I almost feel like I'm on staycation.

You know, like I'm like, oh, whew.

I am done.

I am magnificent.

I will never have to rewrite again, which is always BS.

You know, you always have to do more.

And I am no exception at all to that.

So the first week I'm usually good.

And by the middle of the second week I get itchy.

I'm like, I gotta do something I gotta write.

So this came up and I started struggling bad for maybe the first in my life

where was like, I don't know what I do.

I wanna do.

I don't know if this thing is gonna sell.

I don't know how to go forward.

And not only was all of that happening because it felt like a first time to me.

I really didn't know if that was the end.

I was kind of.

Oh, my God.

I don't know if I'm getting out of this space of not being able

to create something again, this went on for almost eight weeks.

And so I have a text thread.

I highly believe in having creative text thread, friends, and I was

reaching out to them, not in the beginning, but by about midway through

when it was feeling really bad.

And I was like, I don't know how I'm gonna get through.

I don't think I'm ever gonna have an idea.

Again, I don't trust myself to have an idea again.

And I don't know if my agent trusts me to have an idea again,

like I don't know what to do.

And all of them kept.

You just turn something in rest, rest your brain.

This is not about productivity.

This is about creativity.

Okay.

Well, that's easy here said than done because right.

Cause it still feels bad it still feels bad.

And it's not solving the issue at hand, which is, will I create something again?

The other part of it being, I got real caught up and heard the messaging that

was happening during the pandemic, which.

You know, Shakespeare wrote King Lear during the plague, like, OK.

So I don't think I'm gonna write King Lear or maybe king beer, hand me a beer

and we'll talk, but there's nothing that I'm gonna achieve like that.

But in my head, I was like, I do have free time right now.

I do have this and I'm not sick and I'm not in first responder.

So I have no excuse.

And that's a humongous guilt to put on yourself to produce something.

It doesn't make any sense if somebody else said that to me, I'd be like, yeah, that.

That's not what you do.

right.

Yeah.

It's the pressure that we put on ourselves compared to what we would say too.

An artist friend of ours.

Yeah.

Totally different.

Oh yeah.

Oh, a hundred percent.

Cause you know, you can talk the, talk to your friends and then when

you have to walk the walk yourself, you're like, oh, you know what?

This is hard.

this is really hard to be.

So I would journal.

I took a lot of walks during that I cried.

I literally was grasping at ideas.

Like maybe I could write about this.

I could write about this.

These were things literally I could hear myself saying them and being like,

you're never gonna write about that.

You don't care about it.

You know, and I always ask people, like when I taught writing workshops and, and

do trainings, I always ask people when they say like, well, I wanna write a

book and I always say, okay, what about?

And they're like, well, I don't know.

I always think once you have your why, like, I know why I wanna write this and

then I know, you know, I wanna tackle it, but I don't know how to write.

That's fine.

We can work with why, but if you don't have any idea and you're

just like, I wanna do this.

Like, it's like me telling you, I wanna write a song.

What do you wanna write a song?

I don't know.

right.

It's not helpful, right?

Yeah.

So what kind of music do you like?

Like where's the starting, point's gotta be something I

he's, yeah.

it's really hard, you know?

You're like, what genre do you like to read?

I don't read.

Okay.

All right.

That's

an

interesting flip side too.

I think common problem that maybe you have also experienced where we,

we work in art forms that people think are easier than they are.

Oh my gosh.

To do.

And like, ideally if you're doing it.

It does seem easy because the reading of it is an easy experience or the

listening to it is an easy experience.

Right.

But it makes, it makes everybody think that they can write a novel, which,

you know, maybe, maybe they can, but they still have to actually do it.

yeah.

And I will say,

I think everyone can write a novel, can you

publish a novel is a different.

Situation and publishing and writing are different, even though writers to make

a living, edit, need to be published.

That's where visibility comes in.

And that's where it also looks like ease.

And I've had wonderful friends who don't think it's easy and who understand

that who are not novelist at all.

But I have some very well meaning people in my life who will say things like,

well, how many books do you have out now?

You should have three or four or.

Okay here.

My last book didn't come out that long ago.

Like y'all, it takes a long time and it's not all on my end.

Like publishing takes a long time entertainment.

Yeah.

Time the pandemic has set everything back.

Yeah.

And talk a little bit about that process of the creative process of like.

Writing the novel and drafting it.

And then, then there's edits.

What is the timeline from when you're sitting down and getting your, let's

say, when you finish your first draft to when the book actually comes up.

Okay.

So for everyone, it might be a little bit different and it also

depends if you already have a contract and you're on deadline for a book, because

if you're on contract and deadline, and even though deadlines can usually

be pushed a little bit, and there's a little navigation room that helps most

writers, most writers need boundaries and.

It's just helps us feel like we are trusted to do this thing, and we

can't have so much room for self doubt and fear and we just have

to kind of tackle it and then make it messy and then make it better.

But I'll give you an example of what I know, which was for me, I'm

a slow writer and I'm a slow reader.

I'm not somebody who can work eight hours a day at a desk.

I can work two to four hours.

well, and that's by four hours, I'm kind of tanked mm-hmm creatively.

So with my first book, I wrote it time to myself and I wrote 30 minutes a day and it

took me a year to just write that draft.

And during that time I had a writing group.

So every week we meet and we would exchange pages and we had very select

questions that we would ask each other.

And this was pre.

And, and so I would say, like, I need to know about the pacing this

in these pages, or what do you think about the character development here?

Or do you believe this blah, blah, blah.

So between notes I'd get from them rewriting some things as I went along

and then plowing through to keep writing this draft, it took about a

year and a half for me to draft it.

And at that point I didn't have an agent.

So then I had to query with it, meaning, send out letters to find an agent

because that's the only way editors that the traditional publishers will

look at it that took about a month.

And I did, I got really lucky.

I found an agent I really liked, and she liked my work.

And so she gave me some feedback.

I had another two or three months that I need to work on notes from her

before we could send it out to editors.

Then the editors.

Was very lucky.

And I, I had several offers on the book and so I had to go through a,

a very fun and exciting thing of talking to a bunch of editors to

see who was the best fit for me.

And that was great.

Awesome.

And then, yeah, that was super awesome.

And then, so I learned a lot about publishing after this.

So I, I went with an editor.

I liked in a publisher I liked, which was Chronicle.

And then it took another two years to get the book out because.

Of their scheduling because of marketing because of the artwork that need to be

done because of the printing process, because of the publicity process.

So these are things that suddenly aren't about the writing.

And during that time, they give you a new deadline of saying, okay, so your

editor's going to send you a letter.

You're gonna get your work looked at and you're gonna have to fix some things.

Okay.

And rewrite, you know?

And so I, and I did, I had substantial rewrites I had to do, which was fine.

I was very excited about it.

During that time, the other part of the process is happening.

Their marketing team is gearing up.

They're planning, launches for the book.

They're, you know, they're doing their site of what they do in publishing.

So all in all the first book it took.

I'm trying to think of the timeline.

No, we went out 2014, sold in 2015, came out in 2017.

and that's the other thing.

It takes a long time for books to come out.

Just like when people say, why does that TV show or movie take so long?

Why is it in process so long?

Why does that album take forever?

It's like, there's a lot of elements to it.

A lot of it, the artist doesn't control.

Yeah.

And I think in some ways, for me, that's helpful as an artist.

by the time a thing is recorded and the rest of the process has to happen.

So maybe by the time your stuff is in the hands of your publishing company

and they're doing their side of it, you kind of have to like move on to the

next thing that you wanna be making.

Yeah.

And, and I think it, that part of the process helps me to not be too attached.

To the thing that is ultimately gonna come out, obviously when the

album is coming out, I'm excited.

I wanna hype it.

You know, I want to go on tour and that's a whole other thing is planning that part.

But in terms of actually songwriting, you know, I need to

already be writing my next songs.

And I assume it's the same with, with your process.

You need to already be moving onto your next story.

Absolutely.

And that's when it sucks when you.

That kind of brain fart or writer's block when you're like, oh God, if

I was working on something else, I wouldn't be worried about my project.

I just turned in or, you know, series of relief that you're like, whew, now it's in

their hands and whatever they do, they do.

And I can't do anymore.

And if you're like great, now I can finally work on that on play.

I've been wanting to, or that book I wanna do.

That's awesome.

, but if you don't have that at the ready, it's a little painful.

Or if you're like, oh no, I, because of the deal I did with Chronicle,

I had a, it was a two book deal.

So I had to start my next right away and I wasn't sure what it was gonna be.

And then they wanted a sequel to the first book and I had not planned for

sequel so it did give me a lot to like concentrate on which I was thankful for.

And I was happy to be this equal.

But I was surprised.

And so that distracted me a little bit, probably from having a, another,

or our first bout of writer's block.

But, um, yeah, I love the ability to go.

Okay.

That's over, give yourself a little bit over maybe a week break and then start

on something new when you're, when you're

able.

Yeah.

I heard you mention that you had a writer's group that you worked

with and you've got this text thread of writer support buddies.

I think that's a great idea to have just other artists who turn

to who understand the process and understand what's going on.

What are some other ways that you think that you started to come out of

that period of block and what helps?

What helped you?

The

thread helps in the writer's group helped, honestly, I I'm

kind of a geek and nerd in this way.

Like if there's a seminar of a writer, I like, or she, she, or he,

or they are doing a book interview somewhere because they're promoting

their own books or whatever.

I watched a lot of them online.

Like especially last year when I was in my writer's block, part of me, it

was a desperate grab to like, maybe they'll inspire me to keep going.

maybe through the magic words that will rekindle my love affair with trying

to make things, but like, there's a great bookstore out of DC, which I've

never been to, but it's called loyalty bookstore and they host book events all

the time that are online and streaming.

You don't have to purchase anything.

I usually buy the author's book because it, it also helps the bookstore, but

like, I would watch those for inspiration.

I would watch YouTube.

I there's a studio called Jacob Kruger studio in New York.

They are screenwriting studio, but they also do other kind of writing stuff.

And every Thursday they host a free, happy hour online where you join a bunch

of writers and they give you writing prompts and you do it for an hour.

And I did that a couple of times and it was actually really fun.

You don't have to be ready.

Sounds so fun.

Yeah, it's super.

I highly recommended it.

I have nothing to do with it.

I don't make a commission or anything like that on it, but I, the person who

leads that studio, his name's Jacob Kruger, he also has a YouTube podcast.

And a lot of it does have to do specifically with screenwriting,

but there are nuggets that ring true for other genres and art

forms in different writing styles..

So I get a lot from that and I read a lot because reading is to me,

the other hand in writing, like you have to be constantly seeing how

things are done and I love reading.

So like you knows, win-win I also tried very hard to keep.

Other art forms in my life.

Like I'd watch movies I'm during the pandemic.

I, I have a membership that got rolled over because of the pandemic too, a

museum here once a month on Monday nights, they would do a membership night and

they'd let like 10 people in at a time.

So on Monday nights, when I felt like it was safer during the pandemic, I would go

to the museum and just walk and look at anything that could kind of take me out

of the daily news and the daily grind.

Being scared of my writer's block.

I walked a lot and I listened to a lot of podcasts and I love the podcast I

listened to because weirdly I started to feel like, oh, these are my friends.

like, oh yeah, totally.

You know, they give me the best advice.

And they, some of them do and some of them I'm always like, I don't think so, but,

oh, well I'm not gonna be on your show.

So who cares?

There are moments of struggle for sure.

You know, and because I don't necessarily wanna air when I'm

having a hard time on social media.

Not because I think everyone has to have like a perfect profile or

be super happy, but I sometimes don't need unsolicited advice.

I'm sure you've had that happen to you too.

And I didn't need kind of anyone else giving me a pity party.

Like it was a pity party for one in a way.

So it was like, I wanna hear everything and I wanna, I want everything

to come towards me, but I don't wanna like, be vulnerable enough

to just tell everyone this sucks.

And now I have to hear everyone feel sorry for me.

Does that make sense?

Totally.

Absolutely.

And I think just disconnecting from social media during a time.

Like that is a great idea anyway.

Yeah.

As much as you can.

Yeah.

Because there's also the other part of it, which is everybody is posting

about their work and all the stuff that they're doing, which normally I'm.

All of my friend's biggest cheerleader.

Right.

But if I'm really in a stuck place and I see all that stuff, I'm like, oh

gosh, like it just makes me feel worse that I'm not making stuff sometimes.

And you know, I think it's totally okay to be like, I am not looking at this.

I'm not gonna look at the news.

I'm gonna go.

Outside and touch grass as the kids say oh yeah.

Walk around outside.

Yeah, that's a really nice thing.

There were a couple of days this year where I took like a 45 minute

drive and went to the beach.

I'm not a big beach person, but I was like, I need to see the water.

I need to maybe get my feet in the sand and just disconnect and not then report

on Instagram that I went to the beach.

like, you know, and the, I will say the other thing is just this week.

I saw a friend in real life and another friend read over our manuscript.

I'm working on right now.

When I saw my friend in real life, she had read part of the

manuscript I'm working on right now.

And she is an actress and a producer and, and she's not a writer

really, but she's very good at.

Examining work.

She's got a great critical eye.

And she was like, you know, there were a couple scenes where I

thought the tension could be higher.

And, and she gave me a couple suggestions and I felt myself instead of being

defensive at all, I was like, oh yeah, like I wanted to give her a high five.

Like I was like, I was like, yes.

And then this could happen.

And, and yeah, and that, and realized just how much the pandemic had.

Not only made me feel isolated, but like that's where I thrive when it's a group

of other creators and we're bouncing stuff off each other, and it's not about

ownership and it's not about will this help itself was genuinely getting excited

about me taking the work seriously, you know, and finding the points where it

could be sharper or funnier or whatever.

And I thought so relieved.

And then when a friend of mine looked over and gave me some.

She and I talked and I was like, this is exactly what I needed.

This is what I have missed during the pandemic.

Cuz I used to meet with friends in, at the library or the coffee shop or

one of us would go to each other's homes and we would hash out ideas and

brainstorm and laugh and commiserate.

And that has been part of it that I don't think I realized how much

that felt taken away from me.

So when you're dealing with writer's block, just going back

to that, it's like, oh, you feel extra alone and extra isolated.

Especially everyone online is showing their daily achievements

of their work or their song or their latest album or their newest

painting or their biggest book deal.

It's like, oh my God, I'm only seeing achievements.

I don't know.

I need to talk to people who are in the struggle.

and it was really great.

And a great reminder to me, like no wonder, this has felt a little harder

than usual lately, which sounds really naive, but I thought I'd be a person

who's like, I don't think I was gonna like struggle as much on a day to day through

the pandemic with my creativity as I did.

Yeah, I think it hit me later than it hit some other people.

And so there was a point in time when I was like, oh yeah, I think I've gotten

through this unscathed, you know, and then it was like winter 20, 20.

It really slammed into me.

Oh, record scratch.

They're like, yeah, it was really, I had definitely had my ups and downs during

the pandemic as a whole and a, and in general because the state of the world

and the, and how much misery there.

However on a personal creative level, I was like, I'm doing, I

get to go to my, sit at my desk every day and do what I want to do.

I can't complain mm-hmm until I can complain.

And I was like, oh no, this is hard to, and I'm alone.

And I heard on this other podcast called big magic, which is very woo woo.

But there is some good stuff in there, Liz Gilberts.

Yes.

Brene Brown was being interviewed and she was talking about the, about writing.

And she said, we were never, she's like, you can collaborate.

We were never meant to create a loan.

And that, and I listened to that probably five or six years ago at

this point, maybe four years ago.

I'm not sure, but I have, that has stuck with me and I'm like, Oh, and

maybe that's from my theater background or whatever, but I'm like, right.

I do better when I'm inspired by other people.

When I collaborate with other people, when it's not just me trying to form

an world, build on my own , which is why I love working with an editor.

It's why I love working.

Alongside other writers when we're all doing stuff.

And there's a moment when we all turn and like, can I toss out an idea

and hear are your feedback on it?

And nobody makes fun of you and nobody gives you guff and nobody says, you know,

I would've changed the entire third act.

Yeah.

And there are ideas that you just wouldn't come up with unless you

were playing off of something.

Someone else throws out too.

Yeah.

So you hear an idea across the room and you're like, oh,

and that gives me this idea.

Mm-hmm exactly, exactly.

The community

aspect is so important.

And I, and it's nice that that's starting to come back and it's nice

that there's some virtual options that have sort of happened in the

meantime.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I feel like I know people have started zoom rooms where, and I was a part

of one for about half a year where writers would meet from all over the

country, but there were five of us.

So it wasn't a huge, overwhelming amount to manage.

But we would all just we'd log on.

We'd talk for about 10 minutes talk shop, and then we'd write.

And basically it was an accountability tool to just make sure we were all at

our desk and not like cleaning house or procrastinating in some other way.

And that was helpful too.

And that felt a little bit like community, you know, it was like, well, it's not

perfect, but it's a good substitute.

I love that.

Well, Kayla, we're gonna put all of the stuff that you recommended

and mentioned in the show notes.

So for listeners who are curious about those book events and the

other awesome resources you talked about, we're gonna have those in the

show notes, and I'm so grateful that you had time to talk to me today.

And I know that people are going to find you.

Relatable and love to hear about your process and for anybody who's

stuck on their work in progress.

Maybe this will be the podcast that they're listening to on their walk before

they go back to try to get at it again.

Well, it's a pleasure talking to you about this, and I

hope that my weirdness during the pandemic, I'm trying to create stuff.

It helps other people's weirdness during the pandemic trying to create stuff.

And I hope.

We'll find their ways through it too.

It's what it's all about.

We're all helping each other with our weirdness oh, for

sure.

For sure.

Established in 2017 artist soapbox is a podcast production

studio based in North Carolina.

Artist soapbox produces original scripted audio fiction and an ongoing interview

podcast about the creative process.

We cultivate aspiring audio Dramatists and producers, and we partner with

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