Mindy: Today’s guest is Abbigail N. Rosewood, whose debut, If I Had Two Lives, follows a young girl from her childhood in a military camp in 1990s Vietnam, where her mother is in hiding as a political dissident, to her adulthood as a lonely and disillusioned immigrant in New York, where she must learn what it means to love and be loved, and to reconfigure home in the aftermath of ruins. Abbigail joined me today to talk about diving deep into your emotions to develop an authentic relationship with your reader.
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Mindy: One of the things that a lot of writers struggle with is inspiration. It can be hard to find at times. I know plenty of people that know that they have a book in them, but they aren't sure what it is. So if you could talk a little bit about inspiration, because I know that it can be a slippery muse to grab a hold of for a lot of people.
Abbigail: I think one of the first place that a writer can go to for inspiration is memories of your own childhood, old memories. The first time you felt a first love or memories of intense emotion. So for example, one of my first taste of acute fear was just waking up, not having my mother there and then she would be after that, she would be gone for nearly five years. Um, and I didn't see her again. So it was my first taste of fear. And then nowadays, you know, people call it like fear of abandonment and things like that. And it was this very primal and overwhelming experience. You know, when my whole being at the time was just kind of reduced to a single desire of like, how do I get to my mother? And like dialing the phone and trying to reach her. And so this experience, that experience taught me a lot about love and desire. And so I think inspiration can come - for me comes from that place of grief and pain. Everyone knows what it's like to be in pain, to grieve and the source of your pain is what makes it compelling to the reader.
Mindy: And you're talking about fear, which of course - you're absolutely right, you used the perfect word. It is primal. That is your reptilian brain that is kicking in. And so often that emotion of fear is also connected to love in a lot of ways. Especially you mentioned first times. So the first time you fall in love, not many people have a first time I fell in love story that ends well. Right? And you usually are remembering it because you've got your heart broken.
Abbigail: Absolutely.
Mindy: Well, you're talking about fear and love and I think those two things can be bound up in one another and loss as well. Obviously you're going to feel a loss connected to love in many ways and yes, we all have those emotions. We all have those points in time in our past that we can point at and share with the author. So can you talk a little bit then about how you tap into those emotions with your fiction?
Abbigail: One of the first thing I do is, you know, trying to go back to those feelings. I think just allowing yourself to feel and to be honest with how you felt. Like for example, you know, I think the feeling of like humiliation and shame is really hard to confront. So when you're trying to tap into those feelings, our tendency is kind of to cover it up. Like for example, honesty actually does complicate things because then you have so many more layers. So emotional honesty is really important in writing. I think.
Mindy: Absolutely. And honest self reflection isn't something that you get very often. A lot of people, um, in readers especially, I think it's interesting talking about these first emotions of fear and also love and loss. Having taken those moments and also allowing for some healthy self reflection that might not always be flattering. That's where you grow, right? That's where you get growth.
Abbigail: Yes, exactly. Well you right, you also can figure out what you actually felt.
Mindy: Yeah. And writing as self reflection is, is I think an incredibly useful tool. And is that something then that you were exploring within yourself when you were working on your book, If I Had Two Lives? Cause I know very often it's like I will write a character that isn't necessarily a a great person, right? Or they'll make bad choices or they'll do things that are quote unquote not within the normal realm of a good choice or a moral choice. And those characters are the ones that I am going to relate to the most. Are you taking those deep dives into your internal self when you're writing, when you're reflecting on things? Did it come from that place within yourself or did you find as you began writing that it was speaking to you perhaps in ways that you weren't anticipating being so personal?
Abbigail: I think it's both. You know, like I didn't anticipate where the story leads me, but I also, I also started to see like why something would have come out a certain way. I think it's always very personal, but also it's a way to kind of ask like what if? You know, what else? And it's a way to invent the answer for myself and to give myself certain emotional conclusions. Um, you know, because if I had to realize it's a fiction novel and so it's always about emotional accuracy. So for example, like I'm trying to capture that feeling of isolation and of loneliness. So I try to find ways to kind of reflect that. So the landscape would be more desolate or usually the character is like alone in a room and the focus is in the details of the room. Just trying to find way to pin down those more, more complex feelings.
Mindy: What other places do you use to look at for inspiration other than your memories?
Abbigail: I read a lot of books. Um, so I think other authors always inspire me. You always end up writing what you read too. So you know, I think being aware of like what genre do you love to read, what, who are your favorite authors? And usually you are an accumulation, like your own writing is an accumulation of all the things that you have read and loved.
Mindy: Reading is very much... It's why I'm a writer.
Abbigail: Yes, exactly. Me too. I think that's the difference between somebody who, who just says that they want to write and then somebody who actually is a writer is the reading. Because somebody who is a writer just reads all the time. It's very important. Um, so that's where I get my inspiration now. So I love art house films. They are little bit different than, you know, the, the more blockbuster like Hollywood movies. So I try to seek out really strange firms that like nobody ever, ever seen. Um, and those, uh, can be more surprising, um, plot wise and imagery and feeling. So yeah, I tend to watch like art house films for inspiration too as well. I actually have a section on my website that I put up, like all my favorite films. Autumn Sonata by Ingmar Bergman. It's a very old. It's 1978. So he's, he's obviously more well known, but that film is almost completely dialogue driven. So it's very good for writers and I watch it with the subtitles on so that I can read. I watch all films with subtitles on so that I can, I can read like how the actual writing is written.
Mindy: You know, that is a great tip actually. I know a lot of writers that do that. They watch with subtitles on. Yeah, because you're interacting with it in a different way that then it's not all audio input. You're also, you're also reading the words and it actually engages your brain in a different way.
Abbigail: I think that's fascinating. Yeah. I think it's a really good way to learn about writing as well.
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Mindy: So If I Had Two Lives is your debut novel and you are here to talk to my audience, which is mostly comprised of aspiring writers, about three things you need to know before writing a novel. So I'm sure that they would love to hear.
Abbigail: Knowing which genre your work might belong. Just be a good literary citizen, like knowing who you are in conversation with. Many people don't really know what the difference is between genre fiction and literary fiction. Be ready to examine you know, your pain and grief. Um, I don't think that anything should be too painful to write about. Like the thing that is most painful to you is exactly is the exact thing that is most compelling.
Mindy: I love what you're saying about being a good literary citizen because, and this kind of came up earlier, you're talking about being a reader before you were a writer. And I can tell you so many times that I have been on tour or teaching or interacting with people that want to be writers. And sometimes I ask, well, what do you read? Who would you like to read? Who is your favorite author? And these people that are presenting themselves as aspiring writers are like, Oh, I don't read that much. And there is this kind of feeling that, and I could be inferring from the tone, but often when I meet these people, there is this idea that they have a story inside of them that is so original and so fantastic that reading is going to pollute their inner workings. Or that they don't feel like anything that has been written is worthy of them to read because they have something better to bring the public. And that's just simply not true. There are only so many storylines, everything has been done. All we're doing is bringing our own experiences and our own twist to it. So being a good literary citizen to just beyond labeling yourself as a writer, you have to be a reader if you're not a reader. And if you're not out there experiencing the art form as a consumer and you just want to be the artist, that is a dead end.
Abbigail: Yeah, I agree. I think, I think that's probably a little bit arrogant or not a lot of arrogant, if not. Just to assume that like you know that nobody else has anything to teach you. It's just not a good place to start. So reading a lot is essential for sure.
Mindy: You also mentioned being willing to dive deep and ask yourself those hard questions and re-experience of your own pain. That is very, very apt and very true. If you want to touch someone, like if you want to reach out and ask the stranger, someone you will never meet to read your words and make themselves vulnerable to you emotionally to allow you to touch them and make them feel pain and make them feel grief or loss or happiness, all of these things. But you also have to be opening yourself up and putting your pain, your loss, also your happiness and your redemption - if those are part of your story- into it. You have to have that personal touch in there. You don't necessarily have to be telling them about your life. It's not a biography, but you're pulling your own pain in there for them to access.
Abbigail: Yes. Yes, exactly. I mean it's, you know, the book a relationship between you and a reader. To me, I feel like it's a lot like, you know how friendships, the bonds and friendship becomes stronger because you have been willing to become vulnerable, to risk something. So taking risks in writing is important. You are taking a risk of looking foolish or looking weak or, of seeming... Coming off like a psychopath or any of those things. Risking a lot of judgment, in order to, to be a good friend or to make, to make friendships. And I think it's the same in writing because it's a conversation with the reader.
Mindy: Yeah, absolutely. It's a conversation and it's a relationship. You are asking them to emotionally engage with you and so you have to give them something. If you don't, then you're withholding within the relationship. I can particularly relate to the fear of having someone think that perhaps you might be a psychopath, in my own writing. Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, it's a concern, but I'm honest in my books. I've put it all out there and if people are scared to meet me, that's perfectly fine.
Abbigail: You know, the writer typically has multiple selves because you dive into the characters, but also, you know, there's like a writing, a writing self and like there's like the human self and I think my writing self is particularly cruel. And more willing to like slaughter the characters, more willing to take risks and make them go through things. So to allow them decisions that I myself wouldn't exactly make.
Mindy: Personally I've had the question put to me so many times. Is it difficult for you to hurt your characters? Is it hard for you to put them through all these things you put them through in? The answer is no, because suffering is interesting. I mean, no one wants to read a book where everything's fine and no one ever has anything bad happen to them that's not a plot.
Abbigail: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And people who suffer are also interesting. When somebody is telling you a story we want to hear about issues. That's like the entire human experience, is our troubles.
Mindy: Absolutely. Our troubles. That's the best way to put it because it's why dystopian was so big like 10 years ago and utopias aren't because nothing interesting happens in a utopia.
Abbigail: Who would want to read about a character that have had everything in their life figured out and was just a total Zenmaster? Well that's nonfiction.
Mindy: That's a self help book.
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Mindy: Let's talk about the actual publication process. It can be so difficult. A lot of my listeners I know struggle with those steps. Like once you've gotten to the point where you're opening yourself up emotionally, you're taking those steps, you're accessing yourself and you have written the book. Talk about your publication journey and the steps that you took and how you arrived, where you are with your debut, If I Had Two Lives.
Abbigail: I just Googled a lot of query letters and I copied and I made up a document of like, you know, just 20 different letters online. And just seeing like how to best summarize and put forth my work. I also went to a writing conference at the New School and they had this thing called agent and author speed dating. You can pitch your work with like few agents there. So I did that and that's actually where I met my agent. I think she was paired up with a different author and, but then her author didn't show up, so I just kind of swooped in and started talking. So it was kind of awkward. But then, you know, everything was fine. So later on I went home and sent her my work and I worked on the query letters for months. It's only one page, but I scrutinize it, you know? I had friends who read it and gave me feedback. I sent out my query letter to as many agents as I could find.
Abbigail: And I read a little bit on their bio, what they're looking for so that I can personalize each letter. So that's the querying process. I mean, that alone can like, can take forever to go through. But then the next step is, you know, obviously waiting for representation, an offer of representation, and then signing with the agent for my book. I did some edits with her and then the book went on to first round submission and it got all rejections back and then I took a month off, like not looking at it again, not doing anything with it. And then after that I went back in to do more edits based on all the feedback that we got from the editors. After that, she went on submission for the second time and that's where, that's when I got an offer from a publisher.
Mindy: So you specifically, you met your agent at a conference. That can be really intimidating for a lot of people. Like it sounds like you saw an opportunity and you put yourself out there and that takes a lot of courage and I know that that courage can be kind of alien to some aspiring writers. It takes a lot for them to even show up at a conference, let alone sit down in front of an agent, especially if it wasn't their slot. And you just saw an opportunity and jumped. So can you talk about that and then talk about like how you felt emotionally jumping in there and what that conference experience was like?
Abbigail: I of course I was terrified. I'd never done anything like that. And you know, I'm a pretty shy person. I went to the conference like with paragraph memorized and I know that I'm going to sound kind of robotic through some of it, but it just, once you start pitching enough times then it will, it will come more naturally. But I, I came prepared essentially. So I think I was quite prepared but I was very nervous and, I mean to this day I'm still quite nervous when people ask me what my book is about so I don't think that ever really goes away.
Mindy: You get better at pitching yourself and wearing that salesman cap. You were talking earlier about putting on your writer cap and you know, my personality as a writer is one thing. My personality of who I am in the daily world is another. Uh, and the same is true. You have to be able to switch out your writer cap with your marketing cap and you were talking about the query letter and how difficult that is to write. It is. And one of the reasons why is because it's a piece of marketing. You're not writing the letter as a literary author, you're writing it as a marketer and that can be a really awkward place for a lot of writers to come from.
Abbigail: It is, it is cause you have to all of a sudden you have to sound like you fully believe in yourself. But it's just so hard to do. You know, it takes practice and you can take your time writing the query letter and making it. Mine went through like 10 drafts or something like that. Probably more.
Mindy: And how many queries did you send out, do you know?
Abbigail: I probably sent out like over 50. I know at least at least over 50. A lot of agents never even got back to me. Or some just got back to me four months after I queried, which at that point I already had signed with an agent. It just, it's just a really long drawn out process of waiting.
Mindy: And it does wear down that confidence. But you have to wear it even if you're not feeling confident. When you do that pitch, when you sit down in front of an agent, you do have to have that confidence on you. Even if you're faking it, you, you still have to dig deep and see if you've got that in you somewhere.
Abbigail: And it's okay to be rejected obviously. You know, sometimes it can be a good thing if the agent or the editor reject you, because like if you end up with the wrong person it can be a really bad journey.
Mindy: Speaking of rejection, you said your entire first round of sending out the actual novel to editors met with rejections. So how does that, I always think it's interesting to talk about that particular stage of rejection versus the query stage of rejection because with query they're just like, you know what? It's not my thing. I'm not really interested in it, but at the level of being rejected by the full manuscript, they're actually rejecting your writing. If you could talk a little bit about that, just that experience of rejection of the actual book. I think it's super helpful for people that have experienced that to see that you, you know, it only takes one.
Abbigail: Yes. It was nauseating. Honestly, it was my first book. I thought it was like the end of the world. I thought, I thought that it was never going to get accepted anywhere. You know? I would burst out in tears randomly in public, like walking down the street and all of a sudden it would come. And I was just in such a bad place because I thought I put everything I could into the book and I was just thinking like if they don't want this, there's nothing else that I could offer that they would want. Just a feeling of despair. So you have to kind of wait for that to pass and to calm down before you could go back and, and really try to work on it and address the issues that came up in the editor's notes. It was horrendous.
Mindy: Horrendous is the right word. It's incredibly painful.
Abbigail: Artists make art because in many ways, because we want to be understood too. Um, and I think it just more confirmation that nobody understands and so that's a really painful feeling. But yeah, it only takes one person to get it.
Mindy: I think the other thing that is important for people to realize is that you get that one and that's fantastic and it's a beautiful feeling, but you also, you still have to keep working. So you have managed to get that first book out there and immediately you have to ask yourself, okay, what next?
Abbigail: It doesn't end. And the rejections don't end either. I thought that after I put out my novel, like if I write short stories or an essay, I would have an easier time like placing them in newspapers or journals, anything like that. Nope, still rejections. Still difficult as ever. Going back to three things to know before writing a novel. I would add that one of them is to know that the life that you've chosen is a life of rejection and you have to be okay with that.
Mindy: Yes, absolutely. Because rejections never stop. You're going to get bad reviews. You will, no matter what. And bad reviews are a rejection, you know?
Abbigail: And then even after having, you know, sold a book, you can't really just like wash your hands of responsibility. It's like you have to help with promotion and you have to be able to talk about the book in an intelligent way and honest way. So it just continues. I think it's interesting like the authors that choose to publish anonymously. In a way, it takes great confidence to publish anonymously too because it just saying like, Oh, you know, my work can just stand on its own without any, without me having to be attached to it or to have to present it or market in a certain way. Um, I certainly don't have that kind of kind of confidence. So I feel like anything I have to do, everything I can put into a book to succeed.
Mindy: All right, so last thing. Why don't you tell us where listeners can find you online on social media and where they can find your book?
Abbigail: Facebook, I have an author Page and I update, just like new new writing and events and whatnot. And then I also have an Instagram, so that's where you can find me.