The Value in Having Your Work Read with Author M.C. Beeler | Episode 1

47m · Cause of Craft: Why We Create · 09 Aug 09:55

In this premiere episode, author M.C. Beeler joins the podcast to discuss what it’s like to dedicate nine years to a project, the benefits of self-publishing, and why it feels so good to have someone read your work. Timestamps and full transcript included below.

Links:

M.C. Beeler’s Website: www.margaretcbeeler.com

M.C. Beeler’s Instagram: @margaretcbeeler

Sacred: Eslura’s Calling: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Signed Copies

The Heart of the Kella Short Story: Amazon

FREE* copy of The Heart of the Kella via M.C. Beeler's Newsletter Subscription

Other works mentioned:

The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Visit www.causeofcraft.com

Follow Jon on Instagram (@jontilton) and follow the show (@causeofcraft).

Topics Covered with Timestamps:

Intro

Working on a Project for 9 Years

Getting Encouragement on Early Drafts

Ben 10 Inspriation

Scenes That Survived Every Draft

The Stories Within Us and The Hero’s Journey

Discovery Writing

Planting Seeds for the Sequels

Connecting a Short Story to Your Novel

Channeling Emotions into Writing

Choosing Self-Publishing

Collaborating with Other Artists

Deciding to Publish

The Value in Having Someone Read Your Book

Where to find M.C. Beeler’s Books

Outro

About M.C. Beeler:

Raised in northern Indiana, Beeler lives in a small city just close enough to be considered part of the Chicago-land area. A student at Marquette University, she is studying business with a concentration in Marketing and Entrepreneurship in hopes to use her skills to not only help herself, but other authors pursue their writing careers.

On the off chance that she isn’t stationed at her writing desk, she can be found glued to whatever Nintendo console she can get her hands on working to sustain her self-proclaimed title of “Pokémon Master.” You might also find her snuggling with her Goldendoodle or hitting the slopes during the winter season (aka her favorite season) either snowboarding or skiing.

Episode transcript: (May contain some errors due to automated AI transcription):

Jon: Welcome to Cause of Craft, I'm your host Jon Tilton. Why do we create? Where do our ideas come from? What does our craft say about us? These are the ideas we explore here on the show, and this week I'm joined by M.C. Beeler, author of Sacred to discuss what it's like to spend nine years on a project, the benefits of self publishing, and why it feels so good to have someone else read your work. Welcome Maggie.

Maggie: Thank you so much for having me.

Jon: Yeah, thanks for coming on. I'm super excited. You must be excited because you have a book out. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Maggie: Yeah, so I'm releasing my first book, next week, it's actually a week from today and today is the recording date so very exciting, i It doesn't feel real quite yet, but I'm sure in a week it will feel real to have a book out I've been, you know, working on it for nine years. So it's finally going to be out there and it's just very exciting.

Jon: Yeah, nine years, that's not like a short amount of time that's a big chunk of your life there. What made you first decide you wanted to write. And this might be a different part of the answer but what kept you working on it for such a long time to see it through to this point.

Maggie: Yeah, so to the question of what made me want to write. Well I feel like, obviously I have the cliche answer that I've always been into writing, but it's actually kind of a funny story so I was on vacation in Florida, and I was 12 So I was kind of, you know, an annoying like preteen whatever, and I was really bored and I kept nagging, my mom about like my boredom, and I wanted some sort of solution so she bought me a notebook and told me, she's like you're creative sit down and write and I was like okay, so I started writing, and at the time I was very into the show, Ben 10, I don't know if you know that show. It was a pretty popular show at the time, and I was very into it so my first draft was to be quite honest, of Ben 10 fan fiction. And it was just very entertaining to write that, and what kept me going over the years is, I think, I sort of realized as I was writing, you know, I shared bits and pieces of what I wrote with my parents and it was very exciting to share something, and hear feedback so I think that sort of feeling really carried me through it is the feeling of like getting some sort of confirmation that what you're doing is like good and worth it and like worthwhile. So I really wanted to like see this project through, though. Over the years, I mean it took me nine years to finish this thing so I wasn't consistently working on it, it was more of like in the back of my head like oh I have this, this book and I kind of want to publish it, but I don't really want to like work on it because it's like a lot of work and I would like, work on it for like a week at a time I like write for like a week straight in, and then I'd put it away for like a month, and then I'd like pull it back out and like, type a couple words and put it away for a while, and it was just this whole like cycle of like working on it and then not working on it and then at a certain point I think I was like, 18, or 17 I was like, I really want to publish this thing, and I want to take the steps to learn how to like publish a book, and I learned and I took the steps, and I finally finished and now it's gonna be out in a week. That answers the question I kind of go long winded there.

Jon: No, it definitely does and I think you answered both parts of it really well in the same kind of the same answer did cover both things and so that's really interesting, you know, both how you got started led into why you kept going. I was, it struck me when you talked about how you put it away and came back to it. Did you find… Have you been able to look back on the times that you were taking it back out to work on it and like what was… was anything particular prompting that or was it more of, oh, I have some extra time I'm going to pull it back out I'm bored, I'm going to pull it back out, or it was it something else that drove you to come back to your manuscript?

Maggie: You know, quite honestly, I don't know I want to say like, I mean, no to get all spiritual on ya, I don't know I feel like I just had something in the back of my head that was like you gotta like do this like this is like something that's really important and will be really important to you and it obviously is it's like kind of my life now, but I don't know I just like, I'd be like sitting around in my room I've like any kind of want to like just work on this thing because like I have it, and like I had shared it with a couple people at the time who told me that it was good and obviously they were lying because it was a first draft and it was really really bad, but their encouragement, kind of like in the back of my head, you know, push me to keep going. And I think that's really important for like people who are like just starting off in the creative industry to really have that like to, like, the confirmation that like what they're doing is worthwhile and like will be worthwhile and I think that's really what like carried me through it, the entire ways that like I had people who were like telling me that what I was doing is worthwhile and what I was doing was good, and that in the back of my head was like, Oh, I'd like me to keep doing this because it's good and it's worthwhile.

Jon: I think anyone who spends that amount of time working on a project like there's something about them that I meant to do this and I think it's funny you mentioned about oh well my friends were lying because it was a first draft. You know, I wouldn't be so sure about that, you know, I've had terrible first drafts, I think, I think most first just are probably terrible for everyone, a lot of house season they are, but there's something that there's something there I think if you have if you're meant to be doing it, and you have some talent, even if you don't know how to bring that talent out of yourself yet. I think people can look at elements of it and you know it requires a friend or family member or someone who has a good eye for seeing incensing what's there behind kind of the mess, and know that there oh there's some

The episode The Value in Having Your Work Read with Author M.C. Beeler | Episode 1 from the podcast Cause of Craft: Why We Create has a duration of 47:35. It was first published 09 Aug 09:55. The cover art and the content belong to their respective owners.