Rachel Caine on Balancing A Successful Writing Career and Multiple Day Jobs

Rachel Caine is the New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of more than fifty novels in a diverse range of genres and categories. She has been honored with multiple awards from RT Booklovers Association and the Texas Library Association, and was honored with two spots on the 2012 “Most Favorite Books of UK Schoolchildren” list. More recently in 2017, she began writing thrillers with the huge bestsellers Stillhouse Lake and Killman Creek. In early July of this year, she’ll also be releasing Smoke and Iron, her 4th book in the Great Library Series where she continues the adventures of her unforgettable characters from Ink and Bone, Paper and Fire, and Ash and Quill.

In Rachel’s episode, we discuss how she first fell into storytelling, how her musical background taught her to be in the moment with her writing, and how she met her first editor and then sold her first book. Be sure to pay special attention to the helpful advice on carving out time for your writing around a full-time job from the time management queen herself. We also dive into the details about the inspiration behind her stories that helped establish the urban fantasy genre, how she proactively gets the word out about her novels, advice on navigating the world of conventions, conferences, and school visits to promote your work, and how Rachel and her team packages her different genres to make her series distinct from one another.

Further into our conversation, we discuss how to go about the writing business by taking control of your expectations, the different ways to overcome writing difficult scenes in your story, crafting a plot that interacts naturally with your characters, and advice on how to decide which point of view works best for your story. We also discuss why it’s important to keep the passion with your story alive throughout the entire process.

Happy listening!

Xo,

Yin

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“Writing is unique business in that there is so much of it that you can’t control. You can only control what you do and nothing else.”

-Rachel Caine

“You have to figure out what your expectations are and how you can best apply yourself to the process.”

-Rachel Caine

“You have to learn to balance just like you balance your work and your family life and all that. You’ve got to learn how to balance writing and everything else. If it’s a matter of your health, then I think you have to choose your health.”

-Rachel Caine

“I think we all contain some measure of multitudes and we have to decide, strategically first, what’s best for us and our career at that point but also emotionally what’s best for us because if we’re not getting fulfilled emotionally with it, that’s what readers are going to get out of it. If we’re just doing it for the bucks, they’re going to see it.”

-Rachel Caine

“As far as points of view, you pick the person to whom the story matters the most. That’s my general rule.”

-Rachel Caine

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

How Rachel met her first editor and sold her first book
A look into Rachel’s musical background that taught her how to be in the moment with her writing
Ways you can carve out time for your writing while working a full-time job
The importance of taking care of your health and the tips and tools that can help you stay healthy as a writer
The inspiration behind Rachel Caine and her stories that helped establish the urban fantasy genre
How taking control of your expectations will help you navigate the writing business
How Rachel proactively promotes and gets the word out about her novels
Advice on how to strategically navigate the world of conventions, conferences, and school visits to promote your work
An exciting look at all the projects Rachel is currently working on
How a conversation on Twitter pushed Rachel and Ann Aguirre together to craft the “Honor Among Thieves” series
Ways to overcome writing difficult scenes in your story
How Rachel and her team packages her different genres to make her series distinct from one another
The importance of crafting a plot that interacts naturally with your characters
Rachel’s experience with writing from different points of view and advice on how to decide which point of view works best for your story
The importance of keeping the passion and attraction you have towards your story alive throughout the entire process

Learn More About “Smoke and Iron” (Releases July 3, 2018)

To save the Great Library, the unforgettable characters from Ink and Bone, Paper and Fire, and Ash and Quill put themselves in danger in the next thrilling adventure in the New York Times bestselling series.

The opening moves of a deadly game have begun. Jess Brightwell has put himself in direct peril, with only his wits and skill to aid him in a game of cat and mouse with the Archivist Magister of the Great Library. With the world catching fire, and words printed on paper the spark that lights rebellion, it falls to smugglers, thieves, and scholars to save a library thousands of years in the making…if they can stay alive long enough to outwit their enemies.

Learn More About Rachel Caine

Rachel Caine is the New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of more than fifty novels in a diverse range of genres and categories. She’s been honored with multiple awards from RT Booklovers Association and the Texas Library Association, and was honored with two spots on the 2012 “Most Favorite Books of UK Schoolchildren” list.

She started writing at 14, and wrote steadily (but privately) until the age of 28, when she got her first novel deal for Stormriders (as Roxanne Longstreet). She published several horror novels under that name, and switched to romantic suspense as Roxanne Conrad. In 2003 she launched into the urban fantasy genre under the name Rachel Caine. In 2006, she created the Morganville Vampires series in young adult, and premiered the TLA-listed novel Prince of Shadows in 2015, and the new Great Library series with Ink and Bone in 2016.

In 2017, she began writing thrillers with the smash bestsellers Stillhouse Lake and Killman Creek.

Rachel also has written many short stories in a wide variety of anthologies and collections, and screenplays for both feature film and television. She wrote all scripts for the 2014 production of Morganville, a web series adaptation of her bestselling young adult series (now available streaming on Amazon Prime and Vimeo).

Rachel and her husband R. Cat Conrad live and work in Fort Worth, Texas.