#135: NY Times Bestselling Author Denise Kiernan on Maintaining High Productivity, Establishing W...

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And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there.

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast. I am your host, Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. You can find detailed show notes for this episode@b2b launcher.com Episode 1:35 and those notes include a summary of our discussion as well as links to resources mentioned during the show. Many writers and copywriters I work with are also aspiring authors. Some are not just aspiring, they're actually author books as well. On the side they they're either working on a novel in their spare time or they have a book idea that love to develop further. And again, sometimes they are actually publishing books on the side, not their main line of work, but certainly something that they treat as a hobby or as a creative outlet. And some writers like Denise Kiernan transition from journalism and commercial writing into actually writing books for a living full time. Denise is the New York Times bestselling author of Girls of Atomic the Untold Story of the Women who Helped win World War II, as well as a number of other books including the Money Book for Freelancers and Signing Their Lives Away the Fame and Misfortune of the Men who Signed the Declaration of Independence, which she co wrote with her husband Joe Dagnese. Denise also has a new book coming out in less than two weeks titled the Last the Epic Story of Love, Loss and American Royalty and the Nation's Largest Home, which I am really excited about. And in this interview she gives us a behind the scenes look into what it's like transitioning from a freelance writer to full time author. And she explains what it's really like to to come up with book ideas, pitch the best ideas, land a book deal, research and write that book for months and deal with things such as far off deadlines, you know, deadlines that are not really there next week. You know, many of us are dealing with deadlines that are pressing next week or two and the project Sinise works in these are often months away. How does she deal with procrastination? How does she deal with negative self talk? How does she deal with creative blocks? It's a fascinating glimpse into the habits, rituals and challenges of a successful author. I hope you enjoy it. Denise, welcome back to the show. So great to have you back.

Thank you so much. Always a pleasure.

It really is. We were just Talking offline about how it's been so long since we talked, but it always feels like it hasn't been that long. It's like we picked up right up where we had left off, doesn't it?

That's right. That's the beauty of doing things like this, is when you connect with people on topics that are important. I think it's so easy to pick those conversations right back up. And you and I have always had, I think, so many similar priorities when it comes to both work and our creative lives and sort of how to make those. How to make those sync up as best we can.

Absolutely, absolutely. So I'm curious about something, because this is something that I find intriguing when I talk to other writers is for you specifically. When did you just know you wanted to write for a living? I'm just curious about.

I'll let you know.

That'd be part two. That'd be part two of the series.

You know, it's interesting because I guess the further along in life you get, you can always look backward and recast the story of your life with so much more insight than you had when you were actually going through it in real time. If I were to do that, if I look back at my childhood even, I've written and written stories and done all of that sort of stuff since I was a kid and, you know, written plays and was always a big journaler. And so writing was always something that was important to me. That said, I don't think I really considered it a viable career. It seemed to me for a lot of my life that, you know, yeah, of course I'll always write or do something, but I better get a job. And it got to the point through, I don't know, a little bit of serendipity and stars aligning or whatever you want to call it in, I would say early in graduate school when I started working for a college newspaper just as something to distract me from my studies. And. And what happened was I noticed I was spending pretty much all of my time in the newsroom, and I wanted to be there. And it was the first time I'd ever kind of made an effort to make writing for other people some sort of priority. So then I thought, well, you know, maybe I should try and get an internship with a real newspaper and see how that feels. I ended up becoming an intern research assistant at the Village Voice in New York City. And the journalist I was working under had one of the most profound effects on my life, probably of anybody I've ever worked with. And there were a lot of great editors there. And I just sor of thought, well, you know, maybe I could get, could get paid for this. And. And then it evolved out from there. Then there's a whole other evolution from journalism into longer, longer form books. So that's a very. How's that for a wordy answer? It was not a straight, it was not a straight path.

It really never is. Right. And I agree with you that, you.

Know, you know, saying all that I still, you know, all that happened like in my early 20s, I mean, so I've still been at this for more. Longer than I'd care to admit. For people who can do basic math.

Now, we don't have to get into the specifics. But you. A big part of your career, if I remember correctly, was as a freelance writer. I mean, I think you were traditionally employed as a writer, but you spent time as a freelancer as well, right?

I spent much more time as a freelancer than I did traditionally employed. I was the majority, I mean the majority of my career, vast majority has been as a freelance writer. Yes.

Writing features. What type of writing were you?

Oh my gosh, early on, anything they would ask me to. Let's see if I can remember some writing for car magazines. You ever heard of Mercedes Momentum? I hadn't either, no. So there, there are magazines and publications you have. There are so many. And I. Anytime I had a contact anywhere, I would write for them. I did a lot of, I did a lot of journalism for the Village Voice. I stayed there and freelanced there for a. For year several years. Did a lot of sports reporting. That was a big part of my early journalism career. I covered soccer. Covered soccer for many years. So I did a lot of that. I wrote. I remember one summer I got a gig writing, writing ads for some. Oh my God, it was some sort of water. Volvic water. I don't even.

Yes, I remember. They're still around, I think.

Okay. I think so. And so basically these were. You were supposed to write events that were going on in the city at which you might need to bring bottled water. So it was this sort of combination of ad. It was ad writing and you had to incorporate. But it was, it was an advertisement, but it was also sort of calendar events. I've done food reviews. I've done work for higher educational projects. I mean, I could just go on and on. So I mean, early on it's like, do you know enough about, you know, X to write blank for me? Absolutely, I can. Yes, sure. I can. I can Work that into my schedule and you know, then as you become more successful, you can become a little, you know, become a little choosier. And, and that whole time you're always trying to kind of see, set that time aside to do the things that are a little closer to your heart.

I'm curious, what was the inflection point from that type of work to book writing? Can you name one moment we said, okay, maybe then again, looking back, you can identify it as the inflection point.

That's very tricky. One specific point? No, but I can give a couple. So the first I had done, I did educational writing as well. And some of the first small books I did like 30 pages, you know, 30 pages, 40 pages were for educational books for teachers, usually based on math. And I thought I like working on longer form projects. And there were always other longer projects that I personally wanted to do. Then I got a gig. One of my first major books was a ghost writing gig. And that was my first initiation into, you know, long term contract, you know, one to two year time schedule, which is a very different kind of scheduling than, you know, I have a piece due in a month or I have a piece due and you know, two weeks or whatever. And trying to balance time and money doing that. But then after that it wasn't sort of like then I was doing books forever. It was, you know, it was always sort of like a combination of everything. And then the balance started to tilt towards books. But one, I do remember having one conversation with my husband, Joe Joseph Dagnese, who's also a writer. We were talking about how much effort often goes into just pitching your ideas and landing work. And I know that's something that you talk about a lot as well. And we started to really think about return on investment, return on time, investment. And we started to look at how much time it might take to streamline our idea, really hone our ideas for a particular, particular story we wanted to pitch, research the places we wanted to pitch it, then redo the pitch for, if we got past one editor, redo the pitch with that editor for a senior managing editor, and then write the piece and then edit the piece and then get paid. And we, we were like, you know, I could probably do in the same amount of time it's taking me to do all of this, I could probably do a book proposal. And then that would be, and we, and, and, and that would be not just one payment. Ideally that would be money that would come in, you know, money that would come in continually if you have you know, if you're lucky enough to, you know, earn back your advance and make royalties and all that sort of thing. So we just. It was this combination of we both wanted to do longer stuff. We were so hoping to starting to move in that direction, and then just real financial reality that if I'm going to spend my time and efforts as a writer pitching ideas, can't I try and, you know, kind of hone in on ideas that would make for good books and then that investment would ideally bring me more money and also on a certain level, hopefully be more fulfilling? So it was a combination of those kinds of elements in our lives that came together, and then we made that desire known to. We had already both worked with agents in different capacities, and things just started to head more in that direction. So it was both necessity and desire, I guess.

I love the thought process that went into that. It makes perfect sense. And I'm curious about. You could talk to us a little bit about the life of an author. I'm just really curious to see what goes on behind the curtain. You know, you and Joe, your husband, now make a living publishing traditional books, right? Traditionally published books.

Traditionally published books. Traditionally published books.

You write them. And I'm curious what. We can dig a little deeper into some of these elements. But what's that like? Can you give us a glimpse into maybe a typical week or a typical day, if there is such a thing?

If there is such a thing as a good question. And often there. Often there is. I find that the life goes in cycles. So you might have a. If you're in a heavy research slash writing cycle or heavy research cycle, you might be in and out of town going to various, you know, because I do a lot of nonfiction, so I might need to travel to various archives, you know, home. And then when you're on tour, of course, once you start ramping up for a book to be published, which is where I'm at now, my book's coming out in September. Later this month on the 26th, you start to have a lot more administrative responsibilities related to that launch. And then you have a lot of time responsibilities related to interviews, lovely interviews like the one I'm doing now, and a variety of interviews with blogs and magazines and newspapers and radio. And then you actually have the physical schedule demands of just being on the road. So that kind of upends your life a little. But for the most part, a lot of time is spent alone in your office, which I'm fine with. And I think it's. I think it's one of those things that when people are. When people talk to me about writing and wanting to or thinking they might want to, one of the things I always ask them to consider is, you know, what kind of life do they want? What kind of lifestyle do they want? Because I get, you know, I get up early, I go downstairs, I have my coffee, and I usually sit with a journal or a schedule and think about what I want to do that day and if there is writing to be done, serious writing to be done. Because like I said, sometimes you're in research phase, sometimes you're in promotion phase, sometimes you're in writing phase. Writing gets done in the morning. For me, that is, it has to. I like it to get done before my brain starts to be clogged with too many other little things that have to be done. You know, whether it's a phone call I have to make or grocery shopping or, you know, I haven't weeded my garden, you know, whatever. I like to get my writing done as early in the morning as possible. We can talk more about, like, specific. Specific productivity techniques if you want. But I mean, basically, I'm at home. You know, I'll go out and exercise at some point, but I'm at home till I start pretty early. I usually shift to administrative stuff later in the day and, you know, try and see people late afternoon and evening because it's important to maintain human contact.

Yeah, yeah. You don't want to be a total hero. No, but that's interesting. And that's, you know, it's funny. It mirrors much of what I do. I like to do my creative work and writing work early in the morning and then just administrative stuff later in the day. When I have the energy for that, I have my best energy for the work that really matters. It sounds like you found the same flow as well.

I've talked to a lot of most people, people I know who write for a living, do a lot of their best writing in the morning. And I don't know if it's for the same reasons I do, but for me, it's also, I think, for me, it's sort of my way of, you know, saying, this is my priority. This is the one thing I am going to get done today no matter what. And even if it's just, you know, no matter how much it is, I am always in a better mood the rest of the day if I've gotten some writing done in the morning. So there's that kind of feeling, the effect it has sort of on my State of mind and sort of how I'm affirming through my actions that writing is important to me. And also, it just. I find, especially with the Internet, that it is. It is just very, very, very easy to get sucked in, distracted, go down the rabbit hole of the web, and so much information comes at you so fast that I just think it gets in the way of my writing thought processes.

Well, I definitely want to come back to productivity and ask you some very specific questions about focused during a day, but I kind of want to shift gears, just temporarily, because your last book, Grylls Atomic City, was. Was a huge hit. It was a New York Times bestseller. Louisiana Times bestseller. One Amazon top 100 best books of 2013. You're on national TV. Here I am. I'm turning a TV on. You're on Jon Stewart. I mean, that is crazy.

It is crazy. It's totally crazy.

Did you know, I mean, did you know going into it that, okay, this one's a winner, this one's gonna be, like, big time?

Oh, my God. Of course not. If I knew that if anybody had that recipe, boy, then that's the book we'd sell and we'd never have to, you know, lift a finger ever, ever again in our lives. But, no, there's so many. I don't know. I believed in the book, and I liked the book, but I mean, honestly, it's. I had no idea. I had no idea. I was. I was hopeful that it would be well received. I never thought it would be a bestseller, and I certainly never thought it would be a bestseller on the level that it. That it was. So. And I still travel. That came out in 2013, and I still travel for speaking engagements related to that book. It's. You know, I have. And the tricky thing is, as a writer, you look at successes like that. I mean, you know, honestly, Joe and I have always just been happy to be able to make a living doing something we really, really love. And that's great. And you want to do better and you want to, you know, have more success and sort of move your career along. But, you know, it never was one of those things, like, if I'm not a best seller, then, you know, I'm not doing this. It was. That was always, wow, if that happened, that would be awesome. But, you know, I'm just glad I can. I can do this and keep a roof over my head. So then what happens is when something as just nutty and crazy as that kind of success happens, then you. You try and reverse and you fight the urge to reverse engineer it. Right. So what made this work? You know, and there are, you know, certain things you can control. Like you want to be have, you know, have real passion for your idea and have a good team of editors and representatives behind you and have something that you're going to be able to be enthusiastic about throughout, you know, the writing and researching and promotion of the. Of the product. And, you know, make. Do your own, you know, do your own thing to promote it as much as you can. I mean, certain things you can control, but there's so much you can't. There's so much you can't control. I mean, a huge. I'm trying to think of an example, a huge news event, like a major news event when your book is publishing and you're not going to get any radio, you're not going to get any newspaper. You know what I mean? It's like so many things can happen that are beyond your control. So you just have to try and focus on what is within your control. But, yeah, I have no idea. I have no idea. Except for those things. I guess that's kind of an idea.

Well, I don't know. You did an amazing job with that. It's a fantastic book.

Thank you very much.

You're right. It's important to focus on doing your best work and just putting it out there and maybe just having just kind of checking your expectations a little bit. Because the moment you start setting those unfair expectations, and I'm sure, you know, there's got to be, maybe not you I would struggle with, if I had that kind of success with a book, now I'm writing another one. And that's kind of the new normal, right?

That's like, oh, yeah, yeah. Now you look, now you. It's like, oh, if you don't, you know, if you don't make the list, then you're a big loser, you know, but it's. You can't think of it. You can't think of it that way because you have. You have no idea. But yeah, you do feel. That's a very. That's a very common. Like the first book after a bestseller. You know, a lot of people talk about this. You feel this incredible pressure to do as well or, God forbid, better than this last freakishly wonderful thing that happened to you. And I think one of the biggest issues is when you spend too much time, it's like I said, you put your positive energy into what you can control. A topic that speaks to you, whether it's fiction or nonfiction or prescriptive or B2B or whatever, put your energy into what you can control. But if you spend too much time worrying about what is things that are beyond your control for the most part, you also kind of take yourself out of the creative process. I mean, how is my time better spent? Is it better spent, you know, fretting over that sort of thing or is it better spent working on the proposal for my next book? I would argue it's better spent working on the proposal for my next book. And you sort of stay in, stay in action, you know, sort of stay in forward motion that way instead of just ruminating about, you know, something that may or may not go the way you want it to.

So I'd like to go back, if you don't mind, to some of the stuff we're talking about earlier and get more specific, specifically productivity. I'm curious how you've managed to stay focused in discipline when so many of your deadlines are like months away.

Right?

It's like, oh, well, you know, I could do that later. How do you, how do you do that? Because most of us, and I think many of the listeners in the show have shorter term deadlines, right. We're working on projects that are due in a month or next week. So you have that built in constraint that you can see right there in front of you. So I'm curious, just by your laugh, I can tell this is going to be interesting.

Well, I mean, I can do that later is a phrase I say quite often, probably more often than I should. But you know, joking aside, one of the, and I, you know, I am a huge GTD fan, I'm a big David Allen fan.

GTD for people who don't know getting.

Things done, which is a. The book is 20 or 25 years old now and GTD is shorthand for people who are into this particular approach. And there's a system, but I mean you can take or leave different aspects of the system, but one of the things that I take away from it, he kind of looks at their sort of ground level obligations and then there's sort of like high altitude kind of vision obligations and chunking things down is another phrase which may or may not be a GTD phrase. But even when you have long, when you have long projects to work on, breaking them down into digestible segments is very important to me. It helps me know, even if I don't end up doing them in the order that I thought I would, it helps me know where I'm going. I will often write out A date, Even if I'm 12 months out, I will often write out a week by week kind of goal benchmark. Sort of like if we are about here, you know, at this particular date, then I'm on track to do X, Y and Z. And the thing is that is going to, when you're dealing with a project that long, that's going to absolutely change. But the having that, having that roadmap laid out there, even if you end up, you know, rerouting, rerouting like you're like your GPS says, rerouting, even if you end up rerouting a million times, just having a map about like, okay, if this needs to be turned in, you know, a year from now, where do I want to be? Nine months from now, where do I want to be? Six months from now, where do I want to be? Oh, I'm going on vacation there. Okay, well, I better think about this and then breaking things. One of the things I've always liked about David Allen is he points out that a lot of times we look at things that we consider to be tasks and they're not tasks, they're projects.

Yes, that's key.

Oh my God.

It took me a long time to figure that out.

There are a couple things that just have always, that always stay with me. And that is one of them is this task or is this a project? And if it's a project, even if it sounds stupid to have this thing, whatever it is, be a project, because it seems like something you should just be able to dash off. If you can't just dash it off, then it's not, then it's not a task. You know, I'm a big believer in the two minute, in the two minute rule because it would be lovely if you could just kind of, you know, go off on your own. And people, I think, think this about writers sometimes that you're just, you know, locked away and the world doesn't intrude and you just do your work. And of course that's, you know, that's not the way it goes. You know, there's, you know, there's a leak on your porch. There's, you know, family members get sick, you know, a million emails come in the door. There's, you know, so many things come up that having that map there is really important to me. And having, breaking down long term projects because it is harder than if your deadline's in a week, your deadline's in a week and you just go at it. But you know, keeping that, keeping track of that and I do that a lot on. I do that a lot on paper. I do a lot of stuff on paper. And I will often get sheets of paper or whiteboards. I keep, I keep big whiteboards in my office and so that I can just kind of look at a big whiteboard and just kind of look at what the next, you know, maybe what the next six months looks like and you know, where I think I want things to go. And like I said, it'll, it'll change. But starting with some sort of, some sort of breakdown helps me anyway.

So it sounds like you have a really good handle on big picture and then more of a granular view as well. Right. So you're always looking at where you are kind of in the grand scheme of things. But then, okay, what about this week? I got milestones that you're constantly adjusting.

Sure.

Right. And then you're looking.

Constantly adjusting, constantly adjusting.

And then you got the day right. So you talked earlier about how first thing in the morning you have your coffee and you figure, okay, what am I going to work on today? I'm assuming that's based on where you are right now with your weekly benchmarks.

Yes. Or ideally, actually, that morning time will just be a reviewing of whatever I thought about the night before. I'm not great at this, but I do when I have a particularly busy schedule, I really like when at the end of the day, sitting with a glass of wine or whatever, I'm like, okay, what do I really want to get done tomorrow? And then tomorrow morning is just, let's review what I thought about last night instead of a bunch of decision making about what is prioritized. So I do like that end of the day kind of where am I at and where do I need to go tomorrow? Sort of review. And that's something I wish I did more often than I do because a lot of times the end of the day hits and you're like, I'm done. I don't want to think about this stuff anymore.

Wine 30, baby.

Yeah, it's wine 30. It's happy hour somewhere. So. But all of these things I think speak to what makes any good. Well, first of all, that we talked about adjusting. Adjusting. You mentioned adjusting. Adjusting so important. I think sometimes it's easy. I can feel frustrated because I didn't stick to a particular plan that I laid out. And it's like, well, big deal that's going to happen. You know what I mean? It's like, just adjust, move on, Learn if you can manage your expectations, if you can you know, maybe I thought I could do. I do this all the time. I always think I can get. I overestimate what I. This is. What's. This is another one of my favorite things that so many people have said. We tend to overestimate how much we can get done in a long period of time and underestimate how much we can get done in a short period of time. And I am often find when I have like a spare, you know, some sort of weird spare, 10 or 15 minutes sitting somewhere, you know, waiting for, you know, to have my teeth cleaned or, you know, whatever, that I can actually get a lot done. And then, you know, but if I'm looking at, like, what do I want to do in the next month? You know, it's. Sometimes I'll go back and I go, that's a ridiculous level of expectations. Are you insane? So I think the adjusting part that you mentioned is really important because you've got to try and be sort of nice to yourself. And, you know, it's all. It's all an effort. But the engaging. I think the key for me has become whatever system you use to manage your time or manage your day, engaging with that system on a regular basis is so important. The familiarity with whatever, you know, if your thing is digital tasks, you know, if you like things or you like todoist or you like, you know, you like Evernote or you like whatever you like, or workflowy, or if you want to do everything on paper or if you want to do some sort of combination of these things, it's all fine. I don't think anyone is necessarily any better than any other. It's, are you going to use it? Does it work for you? Does it work for your lifestyle? Because if you pay attention to it and you're engaging with it, then you don't lose track of what's going on in your life.

And I'm curious, in terms of your flow throughout your day, do you actually schedule some of these tasks by hour? For instance, 8 to 10, I'm going to write 10 to 1030, I'm going to take a break. Or do you just say, okay, write in the morning and then do these things in the afternoon?

That's a very good question. And the answer is yes and no. I find that when I have a lot of writing to do, when I have a lot of writing to do, and you're sort of like, okay, what's my task today? Sit down and write. I actually like to bring in. Yet I have this sort of like, hybrid Productivity thing that's a little bit gtd. I have a bullet journal. I use Evernote and I also, I was doing something that today they call the pomodoro technique, but I was doing it before there were tomatoes involved.

Yes.

So I was doing that years ago.

And so you should have packaged it.

I know, I know. With a good old, good old egg timer. And I got it from a musician friend of mine. Same. Very similar, now that I look back, very similar thing. When she was preparing for a performance, she would have days where she pretty much needed to practice almost all day. Very similar to when I am really coming up on a major book deadline and I need to write all day, but you need to break it up. So instead of setting yourself this task of oh my God, I have to write for 6 hours today or whatever, doing the, you know, depending on how, what your mood is. Doing the, you know, 30 minutes on, five minutes off. I've done 50 minutes on 10 minutes off. And just getting up from your desk and going up and down the stairs, doing some dishes, folding laundry, not usually not sending emails because that'll distract me too much. But again, that goes back to how much you can accomplish in short, short amounts of time. I'm always amazed how much I can get done that is non work related in those little five to ten minute, little five to ten minute breaks. Or sometimes they're just dancing breaks. Sometimes I just put on my headphones and just, just dance to just kind of, you know, sit at a desk all day. You kind of got to get up and move every once in a while. So I really, really like the. When I have large stretches of writing to do, I do like to break it down. And sometimes I do either write down a schedule for the day, I like that. Or I will also just do daily, if you want to call it maybe habit tracking or just sort of time tracking because it's very interesting. Like they talk to people who, people who want to lose weight. They always say the first thing you should do is keep a food log.

Write it down.

Yes, write it down. Keep a food log. So if you're really interested where your time is going, write it down. And now they have all these things that you can actually, you know, they have these software programs you can hook up to your computer and they can tell you where all your online time is going. Boy, is that a reality. Little reality smack. But yeah, I'll have a page sometimes in my journal when I have a lot to get done and it will be like, what time did I Get up. What did I do? Gosh, it took me that long to get to my desk. I guess it did. Okay. It took me that long to get to my desk. And I spent this much time. I spent that much time on email. Oh, my God. You know what I mean? And it's true. You put it down and you put it in front of your face, and it has an entirely different weight. And sometimes I will do both. I will do a schedule, like what I would call my schedule of intention. This is what I would like to do today. And then right next to it, on the same page, I'll just put down what I did do. And I try to do it without judging myself, because sometimes it's just. I just try and look at it as sort of information gathering, looking at myself like a strange little science experiment, you know, and monitoring how I operate.

Yeah, it's funny, just recently I've started to. Because I beat myself up a lot. And it's like, oh, I didn't get enough done. And just recently, the past week or so, I started making lists at the end of the day of all the things that I got done. Because many of them weren't just on my to do list. There were some other things that kind of came up.

Yeah.

I'll tell you what, that's making me feel a heck of a lot better.

Yes. Are you one of those people who will like. Because if I did something that wasn't on my to do list, will you write it down even though you've already done it, just so you can cross it off?

I never, ever do that. What's the point?

I do it just so I know that I could. So I can see that I did it.

I'm kidding. Of course I do that, silly.

Oh, you do? Okay, great. Okay. Yes. I love it. But you have to, because there is so many times when I think to myself, oh, my gosh, where did my day go? What did I do today? I'm exhausted. I feel like I did a million things today. What did I do? And keeping track of that sort of stuff, I think helps me plan better going forward. Because the more you sort of study how much you get done and when you get it done and what your sort of your work energy is, you know, and what times of day you write are better for writing or what times of day are better for exercising or what times a day or better for phone calls, you know, you sort of keep track of how your. How your days go, especially when you have these freelance days. Right. We have these big Amorphous days, you know, it's not. You have to clock in and, you know, my boss says there's a meeting at 10. And it's not that you don't have meetings and things, but there's a level of flexibility to the days and the weeks and the months that can get very, very soupy, you know, and it's, I think, keeping track of what you do. And even if the only thing on your schedule, your to do schedule is I need to write blank. Write it down on your schedule or, you know, or put something else on. Maybe sometimes I'll look at that and I'll go, you know what? There should be something else on this schedule to take, you know, take time away from that, spread my brain in a different direction.

Well, it's. I love the. The fact that you. I mean, you. You just do your best. I. What I sense from this discussion is you don't beat yourself up. You know, it's. You do your best, you stay organized, you keep an eye on the prize. You realize that, you know, you have to focus on what you can control right now, because that's really all we have.

That's the aim. I'm not saying I'm great at it, but yes, sure, I'll be my. Beat myself up the way I think probably the way most of us who have any kind of, you know, any kind of drive sort of do, but reminding, at least, you know, reminding myself. That's not helpful. That's not helpful. Just look at it as information. You're gathering, information maybe you needed. Maybe today was the day you needed to not get a lot done. Maybe there are things. Trust. There are things percolating in your subconscious that may, you know, pop out when you need them. So, yeah, you know, do your best and get up the next day and see what happens.

Well, I'm curious about. I want to ask you one more thing. Then I want to talk about your upcoming book, and that is that many of us have situations like this, but yours is interesting because both you and your husband Joe work together, both authors. And I assume both of you work at home, right? He works his home as well.

We share the same office.

Okay, so that's interesting and I'm curious.

Oh, yeah. Most people think it's insane. It's actually. It's actually fine. I don't know what works for us, but we can sit in the same. We can sit in the same room and work and not speak to each other at all. Sometimes, actually, if we're in the middle of the Very intense work, and something pops into our mind. I mean, I will. We might email each other, and he's literally like eight feet away. I think from a. I think from a. From a writing standpoint, we both. I will. I will speak. I will. I will put words in his mouth. We both are thankful to be married to another writer because we're both each other's first editor, and we are very. It's important. I think it's important in life to have as a writer, no matter what kind of writing you do or any kind of kind of person who works for themselves, you need those sort of trusted friends who, you know, give you feedback and tell you what they think. But you want those. You want to choose those people very, very carefully because. Because there are, you know, there are folks out there who aren't good for. Aren't good for you, and there are people who are. So you want people who are going to be lovingly honest and want the best for you, and that is their intent. So that is good. Sometimes, like, if I'm feeling particularly flighty or unfocused, if I look over at Joe and he's just working away and just having the greatest workday ever, I'm either inspired to work more intently or I silently loathe him for a while and just get sort of, why is he focused? And I'm not sure the feeling's mutual. Interesting. I think the biggest challenge is that when we, quote, unquote, quit working, we have a tendency to keep talking about writing and publishing and what we did today, and because we do the same thing. So that can kind of make work creep into the rest of your day. So that's something we try and stay aware of.

You just try to be mindful of it and catch yourself.

You need balance, you know, you need balance.

Yeah. Which is another. People who work together. Right. Small business, husband and wife. And. And it's the same problem. It's you at night. You even go on date night and you talk about exactly the job.

Yep, that's right.

Business. So tell me about your upcoming book, the Last Castle. I'm really excited about this one. And I'll tell you why. I've always been fascinated by the Bilt Morehouse and the story behind that in the Vanderbilts. And I went to. To Asheville and saw the biltmore estate about 20 years ago, and I just went for the first time. I don't know why it took me so long this summer. And I took my family. They loved it. And then somewhere in that process I saw that you had that book coming out, and I thought, oh, man, this is. This is wonderful. The timing is great. So tell us about the book, how it came about, and. Yeah, yeah. So go ahead.

So it's the Last Castle, and it is nonfiction. It is narrative nonfiction. It is the true story behind Biltmore House here in Asheville, North Carolina. It is. And a lot of people in other parts of the country and other parts of the world for that matter, don't realize that it is the largest house ever in the United States of America. There was never. Nothing has ever come close in the United States. But it's more than that. To me, it was a really interesting way. The house itself, it's almost like a biography of a house and these lives that sort of moved through it. It was a really interesting way to examine the Gilded Age, which is always so fun and exciting to. To look at and imagine what that might have been like to live at that time with that kind of access to that kind of money. But when the Gilded Age really started to fall apart and we started to move more into the Progressive Era and Arts and Crafts movement really caught on. And so much of that is embodied in the story of the people who lived and worked at Biltmore House and in Asheville. And George and Edith Vanderbilt and their daughter Cornelia are just a wonderful, fascinating vehicle for examining a really interesting time. So in a way, it's sort of like, I tell people it's like Downton Abbey, but it's true. And it's like it's Appalachian Abbey or Downton Appy or something, Right? Because it takes place here in Southern Appy. But, you know, it's very similar. I was also kind of. I was very moved, I always have been, about their philanthropic endeavors. There's a tremendous amount of work that they did in the community, and not just kind of, yeah, here's a check. But real sort of interaction with people at a time when, frankly, you know, the 400, as they used to call them, wouldn't necessarily be sort of, you know, going out into the community to actually do the work they might donate, but, you know, to actually go do work in the community was very different. And so many. So many historic figures just pass through those doors. I mean, presidents and, you know, presidents and lords. Lords and ladies and environmentalists. And it's, you know, the birth of really, you know, the birth of the modern American forestry movement that goes back to Biltmore House. And so it's just this amazing, amazing lens through which to examine the you know, end of the 19th and early 20th century. There's all sorts of really just all sorts of fun stuff in there. And I had a blast researching it and writing it. So I'm really, really excited about it.

Well, and so am I. I can honestly say that I've pre ordered my copy from your favorite bookstore, Malaprops. Yeah, Malaprops in Asheville, while I was there. So I bought a copy for each of my parents and one for myself. And I know it's coming out, what, September 26th?

6Th. September 26th.

Yes, you can always pre order it. There's some options. Maybe I shouldn't say this, but where you can get an autograph copy from Denise. Is that still an option? Denise?

That will. If you want. By the. Yes, you can. If you want an autographed copy from me. At this point, as we get close to to publishing date, you call Malaprops and call them or order online and you tell them I would like an autographed copy and this is how I would like it inscribed. We had a wonderful indie bookstore promotion going on throughout the summer that actually just ended end of August where people, if they pre ordered in time, could get limited edition signed first editions and be guaranteed first editions. So at this point, either come see me on tour, it's a pretty big tour that is on my website and at all these locations I will sign books and. Or anytime with any of my books. Girls of Atomic City or the Signer Books, whatever you can always call Malaprops. You can order a hardcover or paperback depending on. I mean right now Last Castle is only in hardcover, but you can at all these locations I will sign books and. Or anytime with any of my books, Girls of Atomic City or the Signer Books, whatever you can always call Malaprops, you can order. You can order a hardcover or paperback depending on. I mean right now Last Castle is only in hardcover, but you can order a variety of my books in hardcover or paperback. Tell them how you want it inscribed. They have me come into the store and I sign it and they ship it out and ship order variety of my books in hardcover or paperback. Tell them how you want it inscribed. They have it out signed. They can even gift wrap it for you. They're wonderful. It's wonderful. I feel very fortunate to have this kind of relationship with have me come into the store and I sign it and they ship it out and ship it out signed. They can even gift wrap it for you. They're wonderful. It's wonderful. I feel very fortunate to have this kind of relationship with relationship with my local bookstore.

Yeah, fantastic. I was just there this summer. Just a really, really cool local bookstore.

Relationship with my local bookstore.

Yeah, fantastic. Was just there this summer. Just a really, really cool local bookstore. And it was packed, which is great to see. You know, a local business, especially a bookstore which are been in. Right. Generally speaking, the big box store. So we'll make sure to link to Malaprops, link to your website and other than your website, working listeners learn more about you, kind of keep up with the tour, what you're up to, all that good stuff.

The website is great. And the website also has links to Twitter. Twitter is Denise Kiernan, Instagram is Iamdenice Kiernan, and Facebook is Denise Kiernanauthor. And those, I would say Instagram, Twitter and Facebook are the three places that I'm most active and all those places can be reached through my website. And I do my best, I try not to use. Speaking of productivity, I try not to spend too much time on social media, but I definitely, when I'm on tour, I'll take pictures of where I am and bookstore crowds and fun people that I meet along the way and usually food, there's usually food in there somewhere.

Well, Denise, thank you so much for coming on. It was wonderful just to kind of peek behind the curtain, see what goes on in the in the lab, so to speak. Always enjoy talking with you and I appreciate you coming.

Coming on you as well. Thank you so much. The High Income Business Writing Podcast is.

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