Episode 35 - Beware the Giant Mechanical Spiders! - Reevaluation: The Anniversary Episode We Make Books Podcast

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between!
Can you believe that it’s already been a year since we dropped our first episode, because we sure can’t!  A whole trip around the Sun and what a long, strange trip it’s been.  There’s nothing quite like an anniversary to make you look back on what you’ve done and think about what you maybe could have done differently so in this episode, we decided to talk about retrospection and reevaluation.  Taking a step back to reassess your work is a really, really hard thing to do.  It requires you to put aside strong feelings and possibly favoritism that you might not realize you have toward parts of your writing.  But here’s the thing: sometimes those parts are important to you, aren’t important to the story and maybe even aren’t good for it.  It’s not always fun, and it’s certainly not easy, but reevaluating what you’ve written is a crucial part of the process and the best way to stomp out those pesky Giant Mechanical Spiders (listen to the episode and we promise that will make sense).
We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.
We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and a comprehensive description the largest mechanical spider you encountered and a detailed description of how you vanquished it.
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Episode 35: Reevaluation Anniversary Episode
transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)
 
[0:00]
 
R: Welcome back to another episode of the We Make Books a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between. I’m Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as R.J. Theodore.
 
K: And I’m Kaelyn Considine, I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press!
 
R: And—
 
K: This is a big deal! This episode.
 
R: Kaelyn, it’s our anniversary!
 
K: What did you get me?
 
R: Beer. You’re drinking it.
 
K: Yeah, no that’s—Great. Yes, I am drinking a beer. Um, technically it’s the paper episode—technically it’s the paper anniversary.
 
R: So the label on your beer.
 
K: Oh, okay. That works. I was—
 
R: Which, actually, I did not buy you. I lied. I’m sorry. I bought you the socks you’re wearing, though.
 
K: That’s a good point, yeah.
 
R: On our anniversary episode we are wearing matching socks!
 
K: Yes! I was gonna get you a book for the anniversary.
 
R, touched: Were you really?
 
K: Paper anniversary. You know, that sounds like a good one. There may or may not be something in the mail for you. Right now.
 
R: Which book?
 
K: I can’t tell you, it’d ruin the surprise and surprise is, of course, that keeps our relationship alive.
 
[both laugh]
 
R: I thought it was the mechanical spiders that kept our relationship alive.
 
K: Okay, first of all! You know how I feel about the mechanical spiders!
 
R: And everyone else is about to.
 
 K: And everyone else is about to, so I apologize in advance. Yeah, so it’s been a year! That’s crazy.
 
R: Um. I like it.
 
K: I like it, too! Just think about a year ago, I came up to visit you for the first time. I met your various animals, there were other animals—
 
R: —and family members, yep.
 
K: Family members! There were other animals out in the pond.
 
R: Did we barbecue the very first time? I feel like maybe not the first time.
 
K: We didn’t go to barbecue, but we cooked out the first time.
 
R: Oh,