You Only Go Once (Y.O.G.O.)
Cheryl and Eileen explore different topics around the limited time we have on this earth to create a fully layered life. Because...You Only Go Once!
You Only Go Once (Y.O.G.O.)
Flying High with Words: The Peveto Twins on Editorial Craft and Creative Bonds
Every once in a while, you meet someone who seems to live in perfect harmony with their calling. That's the impression Ariane and Jackie Peveto, the twin forces behind Ground Crew Editorial, leave with you. As curators of the written word, their story arcs from the structured realm of academia to the free-flowing skies of creative literature. In our latest episode, the Peveto's share their experiences editing works that range from New York Times bestsellers to their own enthralling young adult and middle grade novels. Their venture's emblem, a paper airplane, symbolizes the trajectory of stories they meticulously fine-tune, ensuring they soar to their maximum potential.
Reflecting on their upbringing in a military family, Ariane and Jackie recount how the stability they found in Texas and Colorado, peppered with travels to England and Scotland, shaped their worldview and relationship as twins. The childhood snapshot in front of Oxford University not only prefigured their scholarly pursuits but also amplified a shared love for Japan and cultural immersion that resonates through their work. Our conversation explores how these experiences foster a global understanding—a cornerstone in the building blocks of their storytelling and editorial prowess.
Collaboration and companionship are like the twin engines propelling creativity and adventure, a theme echoed in this episode. The sisters illuminate how their bond amplifies their bravery and allows for a spectrum of creativity that is perhaps unattainable in solitude. Additionally, we touch on the importance of fostering creativity without succumbing to burnout, emphasizing the need for writers to find solace and inspiration beyond their workstations. Our talk underscores the importance of sustaining a creative life amidst the pressures of social media and the advent of AI, encouraging writers to cherish the love of storytelling and the delight it brings into the lives of both authors and readers. Join us for an uplifting exploration of what it means to support each other, nurture creativity, and celebrate the joy of shared narratives.
Hi, I'm Jackie Pivoteau. I hope when you look back at your life you're glad you did things that seemed too hard for you to handle, because you only go once. Hi, I'm Ariane Pivoteau. I hope when you look back at your life you will have taken the time to dig deeply into ideas and cultivate a craft, whatever you have a passion for, because you only go once hello friends, welcome to another episode of you only go once.
Speaker 2:I'm here with my wonderful co-host show, cantafio. I'm aileen grimes and you are in for a treat tonight. Uh, here on you only go once, the podcast, where we explore stories around the limited time we have on this earth to create a fully layered life. We're doing this a little bit different tonight because we're so lucky to actually have two guests with us and we'll get to learn a little bit more about their stories as we introduce them. But I will introduce our first guest.
Speaker 2:Ariane Pébateau is a co-founder of Ground Crew Editorial, along with her twin sister, jackie Pébateau. Arianne is a writer and editor who enjoys helping others bring their stories and ideas to life. She started out as a writing tutor and then taught courses in composition and rhetoric for college students, after making the very natural step from there to become an editor. She's had the privilege of working on a wide variety of projects, like one of New York Times bestselling author, dave Asprey's book and a text for Biola University, as well as dozens of independent clients with everything from picture books to memoir, young adult novels to adult sci-fi. Ariane is a frequent presenter at SCBWI Rocky Mountain Chapter Connect events and she was also a faculty speaker for the RMC's Letters and Lines Conference in 2022.
Speaker 2:Her work has been published in several places and Ariane has received awards in short story and poetry from a local writers' guild and was nominated for the Golden Pen Award at the RMC SCBWI 2020 Fall Conference. Currently, arianne is pursuing publication for her YA novels the Words we Know and Love, a Contemporary Fantasy and Still Dreaming Sci-Fi Fantasy Blend. Aside from writing and editing, arianne keeps busy enough as a costume seamstress, baker, cake decorator, scrapbooker, artist and paper aficionado Amazing, I can't wait to dive in. I'm going to let Cheryl now introduce our next guest.
Speaker 3:Thanks, eileen. Hi Ariane, all right, so I get the privilege of introducing Jackie Pivito. She's the other co-founder of Ground Crew Editorial. She and her twin sister have been telling and talking about stories for as long as they can remember.
Speaker 3:Jackie is a passionate writer, editor, artist and enthusiast for anything involving imagination and paper. Her love of story has been cultivated as much by her academic background as it has by travel and a never-ending pile of library books. There are few things Jackie loves more than talking about words. Before becoming a freelance editor, jackie was a university-level tutor for several years and taught ESL. Now she has the privilege of collaborating with writers at all stages of the writing process and writing journey. As a writer and reader, her passion is children's literature, particularly middle grade and young adult, but Jackie always has ears for a well-told story in any genre. She's currently querying a middle grade fantasy novel that features a witch, a highwayman and a talking cat. Jackie is also revising a young adult alternate history of the mid-1800s. Jackie's work has been published in the Garbanzo Literary Journal Tales to Go Yarn and Go Overseas. Jackie, welcome, ariane welcome. We're so thrilled to have you here.
Speaker 1:Thank you, it's great to be here. I'm really excited to have this chat.
Speaker 3:Yes. So how we all came to know each other was I was out on yet again my favorite space, facebook, in the women's writers group that is out there, and I said, hey, does anybody know editors for a children's book? And Jackie happened to be on there and it was a right place, right time. And Jackie said you, the professionalism, the enthusiasm for the children's book idea that I had, along with the development letter that came afterwards, which was right on point, told me everything I needed to fix and consider and to sit in the seat of the book as though I was a child reading the book, has been instrumental. So that's how we got to know one another.
Speaker 3:And a little bit about Ground Crew Editorial. One of the most charming things about their website is that it's a paper airplane, the logo, which I found just completely awesome just because of all of your references to flying and all that. So I kind of want to start it there. That's my long-winded way of getting to tell us about the concept around the paper airplane and your connection to flight and all the different references to the ground crew items that you list.
Speaker 1:Where to start. One of the things that I guess is important background information. We do come from an Air Force family, so a love of aircraft and other things has kind of been I don't know baked in Definitely, but one of the things that has always struck me as important but little known fact. So for high-performance aircraft it takes about roughly 17 hours of maintenance for every hour of flying. Whoa.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sorry.
Speaker 1:It seems disproportionate, because we really only pay attention to seeing jets in flight doing their thing, but behind the scenes there's a ton of work to make sure that those airplanes can keep flying. And it seemed like a really natural metaphor to describe what editorial work does for writers.
Speaker 1:And writers do so much work that readers never see, especially when you've got that book in your hands and if you're a really fast reader, it can take you just a handful of hours for picture books. It's work on stories, and so we felt pretty strongly about that as a metaphor that we wanted to take on, because it's important work, it's good work and it all has to do with that excellence you're working towards and the craftsmanship of that also that it's not a bad thing that it takes that much time, it's just it's necessary, and but also that kind of that lovely natural separation that we can have all the skills like the, the industry knowledge, the keeping up with what the market expectations are and trends and style guides and all of that technical knowledge, and writers can just do what they're really good at and fly the plane and essentially keep the writing forward, and we can keep up with the tightening down everything and making sure all of those things are good to go.
Speaker 1:So we'd had the idea in our heads for a long time of we've been independent editors for a while, but just last year joined forces and we thought we'd been thinking about this name for a long time, so it just seemed natural that that's what we would go for.
Speaker 2:I love that. I know that fact right now. I just thank you for putting that in my back pocket and I'm gonna tell my son later because he will love it. He's all he's like Mr Engineer himself and so knowing that will be really cool for him. And it's so true. I mean the amount that and, like I'll just you know, talking from the editing side, I am just in awe of the work that happens there.
Speaker 2:And when you I mean you know, when you first, if someone's first exploring writing a book, right, that's not maybe necessarily one of the things that they think about right, like, I can edit it, I'm just going to go through, and you know I'm going to go my second, maybe third, and then we're good to go.
Speaker 2:There's so much that goes into it and having a good editor can truly make or break a book. Right, if you, if you don't come in and have someone really go through, you know, as a voracious reader myself or well, not as much after I've had kids because I feel like I don't have any time but loved reading growing up but, like you see, a book that's poorly edited, it's like this is so much, this is too hard to get through and it just it makes all the difference in the world. So I love, love that metaphor around the ground crew, because it's so true, especially once you've been in the publication space like, oh my god, there's just, there are so many pieces and parts that come into just this one physical object. Or even, you know, if you listen to audiobooks, either way, there's still, there's so much that happens before it gets into the hands of somebody. So you're absolutely right and thank you for editing, because Cheryl knows it is not my strong suit ever at all. I'm like where do periods go? So thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, and another thing too, is, if the editor's doing their job right, the reader isn't thinking about that at all, those mechanics in the background. You're only paying attention to the story, and so I also like that that what we do, because the focus really should be on this is the author's work and this is their story, and you shouldn't have any of those. You're not thinking, wow, mechanic, really, that's making some noise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, but yeah, that's important to us so, um, but yeah, yeah, that's important to us. Yeah, definitely so. You said you, so you joined forces about a year ago together. What sort of was the final? Like yes, this obviously just makes sense. We should be doing this together now. Was there anything that was sort of that catalyst, or just it's been falling into place for so long?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, like it's been a gradual process. But both of us have worked for a lot of places where they kind of tell us how to work and just the nature of freelance editing. A lot of them are agencies but you never get to talk to the authors. So it's just a manuscript arrives, you do the best you can but there's no conversation. So you send it back with an edit and you hope it was useful and you, but you never get to hear and sometimes you can find them out in the wild later and sort of think, oh good, you got it out there. But there's just something so valuable that we found just in the few instances when we would occasionally take on our own and we just thought I love doing this, I love being able to talk to the people I'm working with and helping. That be a more personal experience and making sure they're getting what they need rather than just a flat one size fits all kind of thing based on the requirements and both of us.
Speaker 1:You'll find every editor has a totally different preference for how they work and what they enjoy doing, but I think it comes from our tutoring teaching background. But I personally really love that interaction with writers, and writing can be so lonely. A lot of writers don't have communities that they belong to, they don't have critique partners, or they've tried partners, but they didn't work out for some reason. So I feel like that relationship being I mean even just cheering somebody on through the writing process that's it's very personal, and so we we wanted to create something that would allow us to offer that more personal relationship and support. Especially, I mean, you can meet a lot of people online like, yeah, and that's been brilliant.
Speaker 1:But having our own kind of striking out on our own to allows us to to build our processes the way we like and to give authors that opportunity. And some some don't need it as much and we leave that up to them. But if they want to have a conversation, if they need somebody they just can depend on like hey, I have a question, we want to. That up to them. But if they want to have a conversation, if they need somebody that just can depend on like hey, I have a question we want to be there for them. So that's important to us and that was a pretty big factor in deciding to start our own firm.
Speaker 1:But I think, like Arianne was saying, I think it comes back to our tutoring background. When we started, both of us were peer tutors, so we were still students at the time. So I think it kind of has that. Well, we're writers too, but we're editors, and so I feel like this is just another evolution of that same job of like. I know exactly what you're talking about because I've been there. The dark night of the manuscript. Things don't seem to be making sense and I really love being able to share that as much as possible with writers who may not have that anywhere else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Go on, Cheryl.
Speaker 3:No, I was just going to say, and I so appreciate, so I've worked with Jackie, so I so appreciated your authenticity and I feel like the both of you have that genuine authenticity. Number one, just in general, for the love of books and number two for really understanding the audiences, because sometimes, you know, I won't speak for all writers but sometimes for me. Like I'm thinking like okay, this is where I want this to go, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you, there are times, every once in a while, where you leave the audience behind and you are there as editors to kind of bring us back and go remember who you're writing for.
Speaker 3:And it's like oh yeah, and it's. And it could be like one simple question that you've brought up where you're like aha, and then you go and it's like, okay, well, that made more sense and it makes for such a better story. I think I have so many questions because you had brought up how flight is in your family or you know, airplanes and things like that are in your family. Did you guys have the opportunity? Was it military background or was it commercial background that your family has? And, you know, did you travel different places? We've talked to a couple of people that are like, oh well, you know, like our parents always had the travel bug, so we just, you know, got on planes and went. Was that your lifestyle? Like, did you have a favorite place you traveled? Was that your?
Speaker 1:lifestyle, Like did you have a favorite place you traveled? I know I'm asking a ton of like fire fired off questions, so feel free to answer any one of those. Well, our dad was Air Force, okay, but unlike some Air Force families, our dad's tours were very tame and he tried to keep it that way. We didn't end up anywhere exotic, okay, okay, most part. We managed to be in texas, uh, colorado, a few times um between different assignments.
Speaker 1:Um, we ended up in mobile alabama for a little while, okay, but mainly just texas and colorado. But um, outside of that not not being forced to move places, but um, our, our parents um have had given us the opportunity to travel a few times as a family when we were growing up, so that that has been um a great joy. Some memories for that. We were able to um go to England and Scotland Um that's the family. Scotland's my dream. I highly recommend Okay, Anywhere anywhere, anywhere, okay.
Speaker 1:Um, but we, we both love the rain. So like, if you go in the summer, be prepared it will rain almost every day.
Speaker 1:But if you like that's glorious, yeah, but um, but yeah it was. It was an interesting um kind of seed that was planted early on. Um, uh, we were able to go a couple times and on one of those trips, um, we ended up going through oxford and, um, that's just kind of a I don't know. We, our, our dad was always like, go stand in front of this and I'll get your picture. You know that kind of thing. But, um, we happened to be passing by the Oxford university admissions office and our dad was like, oh, just stand over there, I'll get your picture. You know, someday you'll go here, and at the time it really did seem like a really far off dream, like, oh, I would never do that, and everything. And years later we ended up both of us were accepted as visiting scholars to be in Oxford, and so that that's always been kind of a lovely bookend that we visited and it was like, oh, haha, it was just a joke at the time.
Speaker 1:And it was just sort of like, how cool would that be? And then, yeah, yeah, one semester it happened, yeah that's awesome.
Speaker 1:we've, uh, really been blessed to be able to travel and um, so, uh, we ended up, um, attending oxford for um, just a term, a term there as scholars lived, so lived in england for a time and then, um, both of us have always had a love for Japan, and so that ended up being another place that we were able to travel and live for a time as well. But the two of us, just on our own, decided we would do that. That was our first like international, on our own trip. Yeah, so I've always loved traveling and getting to. It really has been a blessing to be able to really live in other places.
Speaker 1:You get a real good feel for it when you're there and figuring out where, to you know, get your groceries, that kind of just knowing a place.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. My son really wants to go to Japan. He's very into anime right now, so that's like he's like and Godzilla Like that's. Those are his two big things. He's like I have to go to Japan to do that, and he wants to eat some ramen and he loves sushi. So I'm like, well, I guess this is just going to have to be on our list now.
Speaker 1:Well, I also highly recommend, and food is very cheap, so you can have as much sushi as you want.
Speaker 2:Perfect, that sounds good and I'm in, I'll do it too. I'll eat all of that stuff too. So, um, yeah, that's incredible. Um, so how much of all of this have you been together and how much have you done, things apart? I'm just curious on the on the twin thing, right, like, what does that? What does that? What does that look like for you? And, look, I have a sister and we live about four blocks away from each other. So it's, we spent a little bit of time in different places, but really, and we have four brothers, so there's just so many of us. But you know, it was. It's also amazingly wonderful to have her right around the corner and be so close to her. So I not making fun of in any way, shape or form, the bond that exists, um, just purely curious well, we, we've pretty much we've done most things together.
Speaker 1:Um, as you might have guessed, we're very similar. Um, we have a lot of interests in common. Um, I think in college and things we were a little bit more apart, but as far as the things we kept coming back to and I don't know, everything just seems better when ariana's around. And I think a lot of the reasons we've done a lot of the things we have is because we've kind of like I don't know whose idea it was to start, but you know, one of us will have it, the other one keeps it going, you know like you know and whose idea it really was.
Speaker 1:But, um, I know I felt really blessed to to have our end through many of these things. Um, I don't know if I would have been brave enough just on my own. Um, especially like our, our japan experience first, I don't know if I would have gone by myself.
Speaker 1:But yeah, jumping into the unknown with somebody you know is easier, so I definitely feel like that's been something I'm very thankful for, that I've been able to do a lot of things that even my younger I don't know younger self would have been surprised, but it's. It's always nice to have a traveling companion, so sure.
Speaker 2:In more ways, definitely. Well, I mean, and that's, I think we don't. We don't talk enough about that in my opinion. You know, it's always the like I'm the solopreneur or I made it to the top of this and I'm a CEO and whatnot, but I'm like the actual I mean Cheryl and I do this podcast together, right, that's, it's so much fun to be able to do that and, like you said, to be brave, she makes me brave enough to do this.
Speaker 2:We feed back and forth on that and I just I think that the connection and relationships that we build with other people can be driving forces to us doing really great things. And I don't think it ha, it doesn't have to be this just I, I was the only one who made it to the top, um, kind of thing. I just I think that that that story is really wonderful and needs to be celebrated more. So I I love that hearing that and that it's been so encouraging for both of you to keep going and trying new things and doing this stuff, like we can make each other braver and we can keep pulling each other up. So I just want to thank you for sharing that, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I've, especially with this business that we've launched together. There's so much that I've continually been reminded. If I was trying to build this myself, it would be almost impossible. So there's just so much to be done and I think naturally there are strengths between us that we kind of gravitate towards different things where it's like okay, I'll tackle that if you tackle this. There's something really freeing in that. Where it's like this is not all on me, and we've always helped each other with work anyway.
Speaker 1:I guess that was another reason we decided to start working together, because just especially editorial work, a lot of it is just working through the story yourself first, and it's just valuable to have somebody else who thinks very similarly, to be like okay, here's what I think I'm seeing. Is there a better way that I could say this or express this or you know what I'm saying A lot of that kind of thing before I have to, you know, share it with somebody else. And so it's just been invaluable and we thought, well, we're doing this anyway, and now we can just officially give that to our clients also, or just officially say, hey, when you work with one of us, you're really working with both of us in some shape yeah, not not always in the finished version, the letters or anything like that, but we're always helping each other with each other's clients because we just want to do the best we can, and sometimes you need extra brain. You just need someone else to talk to.
Speaker 3:And I'm sure you've experienced that yourself. Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, there are times where I get something stuck in my head and I'll text Eileen and I'll say what do you think about this concept? And she'll give me a different perspective, or she'll give me the oh, were you thinking this? And I'm like she's in my head.
Speaker 3:I'm good, but she actually has the words for them, which is great. So, yeah, I've seen that, I've seen it with. So, when we had Jim and Steve Genzano on as our guests, they're twin brothers and they're, you know, as the listeners know, they're twin brothers and, um, they're, you know, as, as the listeners know, they're also my cousins. So, um, I remember when they were younger they had like their own language. They, um, you know, they were each other's best friends and, um, they also have the writing bug. So, um, uh, jim in itself has written five books.
Speaker 3:I think he's on book six of a mid-year middle-child fantasy series, and Stephen is working on his own book. He's more of an artist, so he's done a lot of the book covers and stuff like that. So they just work really well together. I know that there are times when I get together with my sister and I can just tell by either a single word, or when I see her face, I kind of know exactly what she's thinking and I know I'm impossible not to of know exactly what she's thinking and I know like I'm impossible not to read because my face talks for itself. So we've, so Eileen and I worked with somebody where they would ask me a question. They would ask a question to the two of us and stare at me because they knew my face would give it away.
Speaker 3:And it used to annoy me because I'm like I don't have to be one of the talks all the time and the person said, well, you don't have to talk because of you know the face. And I was like, no, I get that. But there is something to be said about having a connection, that where you elevate one another, and I've seen that too with just some of the things that you shared with me, jackie, around some authors that I should kind of pay attention to, and somehow I wound up down the rabbit hole of the Fan Brothers, and they've written things like the Night Gardener and it Fell from the Sky and some of the other things that they've done, and their stuff is exquisite. And you see that and you think, yeah, that's like a unicorn collaboration almost. And I kind of feel like I have that with Eileen, in that we have a unicorn collaboration and I'm sure that's how you feel as well.
Speaker 3:Is that you're just lucky? That or not just lucky? You are lucky that you have this collaboration also, somebody that kind of gets you. So it's all lovely, it's all lovely. I had a question and then I just went off on a tangent, so that's cool.
Speaker 2:You'll come back sometime. I will, I'll come back. I am orbiting and spiraling because I have a thousand questions and they just all went away.
Speaker 3:So, eileen, if you have anything, that would be awesome.
Speaker 2:Oh, great, yes, definitely, yeah. Thank you, then.
Speaker 3:This is the part where I throw her off the bridge, that's good.
Speaker 2:No, that's totally fine I'm so. I always like to hear a little bit of a horror story, maybe what's been one of the most difficult experiences you've had while doing this editing work.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess the one right off the top of my head is from when I first got started. I turned back and added that was so bad that the person the client actually asked if I would accept a lower rate.
Speaker 3:You should specify.
Speaker 1:That was your very first job my very first job. Yes, I'm sure, and there were a lot of things I did not know about editing uh pdfs so it was a steep learning curve and on the whole, I think she was very gracious with me, but it was um, I think. I don't know, just, do you have any? There's been some interesting manuscripts, um, yeah, out there.
Speaker 2:um, I don't doubt it, there's got to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say mine would be, I guess, a fairly early on experience. I think it was my first independent client that I had through another firm and it turned out that this author had been. He had rejected about 15 to 20 editors before me. I did not know that at the time, and he had created a test for the editors, which another thing that I was brand new. I didn't know that that wasn't really kind of a red flag?
Speaker 2:Yeah right, but I did not know at the time.
Speaker 1:And so it was. He had the kind of the answer key and it turned out that, uh, so I I did his test and I turned it back in and he said thanks for playing, you've failed like all the others. And um, I was just curious because I was new, so I asked him, like you know basically what did Right you know, I'd like to know.
Speaker 1:And so he let me know what I had missed. And it turned out that his answer key was actually wrong. Oh, and so, so all these other editors I think had had also, you know, had probably passed, but didn't bring it up, didn't ask, and so I was just thinking, oh well, I should just, you know, let him know. So I gave him the grammatical explanation for, like, this is why this is actually correct, and I just thought, you know, that would be the end of it, you know? Thanks, thanks so much. Anyway, we'll part ways. And he wrote me back and said great, I'd like to hire you. Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:And he wrote me back and said great, I'd like to hire you.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow I had not expected that result at all. That was that and um, and so it ended up being a really interesting project um so not I wouldn't say a horror story, but uh, one of those like uh learning learning experiences that he ended up being a really interesting client.
Speaker 1:Um, uh, we kind of had a uh, an interesting blend of developmental editing, which is that big picture like the story work, kind of editorial work, and as well as copy editing, which was another thing. At the time, I thought you could do both of those at the same time, and now that I'm an established editor, it's like absolutely not Do not do those at the same time, but he was a very. He'd been working on this book for about 20 years and it definitely showed it was really overworked.
Speaker 1:I was the only. I was the only, I was the second person to read it, so that felt special in its own way. But I don't think he was actually ready for it to be published. He, he would continually send me emails about word choice. So for about a month or so after the project ended I'd get emails from him and he'd be like oh, I just haven't been able to sleep In this sentence sentence, do you think I should use meandered or wandered right, that level of like, yeah, turning over very small choices. So I, I think I think for both of us that was a I don't know if every editor has one pretty early on that's bad, like never doing that again but learned a lot.
Speaker 2:We like yeah, we like to call that character building um a lot of character so why children's lit?
Speaker 3:hmm?
Speaker 1:that's a good question, I feel like for a long time I resisted the label, but it just sort of made sense over time because it was always what I was writing and reading.
Speaker 1:And even after we got too old for like, we kind of skipped young adult, which is sort of funny, Like when we were the right age for young adult.
Speaker 1:We just skipped right into adult and read all of those things and then only later came back and found there's a lot of great stuff down in kidlit. They have more fun, they're more imaginative, and all the books that I have reread were all kidlit, and so it just sort of made sense over time and we just happened to make a connection, actually through our dad, Someone at his work, his commander at the time. His wife was an SCBWI member, and they just got to talking and our dad was, like you should meet and it was kind of like this is kind of odd, Like okay, and we sat down with her one day and she just told us all about the organization and it suddenly felt like a real thing, Like, oh, people do this. This is a specialty and, um, it was, it was we had. We had been a part of other writer communities um and not really felt like we fit.
Speaker 1:Um, uh, been to different conferences and and workshops and things like that and and you kind of uh, when you tell people that you write for kids, you often get the, the pat on the head like, oh, it's adorable and it's so easy, right, right, yeah, anyone who's written one will tell you that's not true, definitely it's not easy no, but we're. We were very thankful to get connected with SCBWI, which is a mouthful of an acronym.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, Alphabet soup.
Speaker 1:But the people in it are really great and it's an organization that's pretty focused on education. So it's writers wanting to get better at their craft and especially learning the industry. So a lot of our experience as writers has been we've loved being a part of that community and learning that, as well as being editors. Because it seemed like a pretty natural fit, I spend all my time here reading these books, keeping up with the industry, working on my own kid lit.
Speaker 1:So I think what I love the most about kid lit is that there's still place for things like wonder and curiosity and finding out and asking questions, like a lot of those things that I feel I'm a little sad about, because YA, right now does seem to feel like oh you've got that figured out already, you know, but I feel like there's still, there should still always be a place for books where you can just explore some of those things, and things there still can be light and fun, and I I would argue that's why a lot of people read down.
Speaker 1:um a lot of adults love middle grade and young adult and picture books too, because I think there's still a strong desire. I don't think a lot of people grow out of it, you know like why should you grow out of wonder and delight and all of those other things? So for me it seemed like a natural fit to work on that in my own writing, but also to work with other kidlit authors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that I actually just started reading my kids. I used to read I loved Madeline O'L that I actually just started reading my kids. Um, I used to read, I loved Madeline O'Lingle. So I started reading A Wrinkle in Time to them recently and both of them are into it, right. I'm like there's like time travel, like there's all this, like yeah, are they?
Speaker 2:like oh, cool right yeah, so, yeah so, and like even like now getting to kind of re-experience that with them and stuff, like it's, it's definitely, yeah, it's just it's a lot of fun and I, I mean, I certainly for me it was this like space of possibility, right. Growing up, like what and I was one of like I said I was one of six, so like we didn't travel a ton but it's like what else is, what else exists in this world, what else is possible or even impossible that becomes possible? Right, I think that that part of you know the, the YA or children's lit, like that's the stuff that is so incredible and like why does it have to disappear once we get into the adult novels? Like I just, you know, I just I think it's such a special place to be and it's really been fun for me to kind of revisit that again. So you're totally right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's one of the reasons why I fell in love with the Little Prince. So, fun fact, when I was in high school, I took French and they the teacher actually taught us how to read and comprehend French by using the little prints. And you know, the little prints talked about, you know, drawing a picture, and it just looked like like adults kind of lost their sense of wonder because it would look like a line and then a big lump and then another line, and it was no, that's a snake that swallowed an elephant or something like that, you know. And yeah, those were the things that I loved about that, because I was like, oh yeah, that's right, that's, that's a lot of fun, that's a lot of. It's a different perspective. Um mo Willems talked about. I have one like his. My favorite book of his is Leonardo the Terrible Monster and what he learned is that kids are very specific. So he showed one monster that like showed like a lot of teeth and he said something like it has like several hundred teeth.
Speaker 2:And then he put 1,642 teeth. That's it. Just to be clear. I've seen it, I've read it multiple times. My children read it.
Speaker 3:Yes, but there's a little asterisk that says not all teeth shown, because you'd have that one kid that was counting. So just to be able to understand that, you actually introduced me to Julie Donaldson and she's written several books, like the Stickman and things like that, where it just puts a different spin on the what-ifs and really stretching the imagination and then creating something that's a human connection. I think all of that is lovely and I love that you know the both of you focused on never wanting to lose that sense of wonder, because I think that's so important Were either of your parents storytellers at all? Like what made you kind of go into literature to begin with, like children's that I totally get, um, but I always like to know like how people got started down the path of becoming, uh, creatives well, we always had stories in some form or the other.
Speaker 1:Um, our dad being a doctor, um, he had different kinds of stories at dinner table, but we were homeschooled, start with by our mom and we always had books.
Speaker 1:Um, we read books at lunch and we read books together, um out loud, as part of our curriculum, a pretty, I don't know exciting regular field trip to the library and we could get as many books as we could hold and each yeah, and just um, you know, feel like you're really making out like a band, you know, just like they're really gonna let me take all these books home with me and uh, so we always had always had books, always had stories and, um, just I don't know, seemed like a natural thing.
Speaker 1:I don't actually remember when I started writing it. Just, you remember your first story it was on copy paper, I know it was, but our mom kept all of those things and I remember she gave us our first notebooks and that was a big deal and she wanted us to read to her what we wrote. So later on we transitioned to out of homeschooling, but even on our drives, if we had a new chapter I'm sure it was only like 100 words, but you know, a new chapter she'd ask us to like oh, you could read it on the way to school or on the way back and things like that.
Speaker 1:So I'm sure it was the most hilarious hilariously boring, but yeah, but that it just felt very normal to be telling stories, writing them down and and to share them too.
Speaker 1:I'm I'm grateful for that, because both of us were terribly shy growing up and just having that first experience of like our mom letting us like you should do this, and just having that first experience of like our mom letting us, like you should do this. And not that that made it easier or any easier now, but I I'm glad that she did that. Um, just so that you know writing is something you share. People should read it, not just you. So sure, glad to have that early on, even if I'm sure it was terrible, terrible I doubt it was exceptionally terrible, I don't know right my.
Speaker 2:So I, I also have a book, but I recently my and I think, having my kids see this, that they, they want to write books now, and so, um, my son and I have been editing and creating a godzilla book. Of course, um, well, because there's also there's not not actually that many Godzilla books compared to a lot of the other, like you know, superheroes and different things like that there's not as many. So, anyway, we've been writing and it's so much fun to like listen and see how his brain works and like see the progression of a story for him and like I, just I, I am in awe of that. So I doubt, well, I mean, maybe your mom did, I doubt it, but it's incredible to just watch that over time, to see that develop, to see the understanding of what a story is develop over time and and how that works for a child. So I, you know, I, as a mom with a child who's now writing actually both of them are writing stories my daughters are hilarious and, yeah, she's making comic books, but anyway, it's just so fun. It's so fun to watch and observe and to like nurture that and she was obviously nurturing that within both of you as well and the sharing of it.
Speaker 2:That's one thing I'm super curious about. How do you obviously you know you're saying you're shy how do you both now kind of approach like with a business, right? A big part of that is marketing yourself. It is putting yourself out there. How have you found that part of being entrepreneurs to be? I'll be honest, I hate marketing. I don't enjoy it. Cheryl does our social media. I love having conversations with people. I like this is great for me, so much fun and like when my my energy goes up when I get to talk to other amazing humans. So, just purely out of curiosity, what is that? How has that been for you in putting yourself out there with writing as well as with your business?
Speaker 1:And one word that well, not even a word, but a concept that's been really helpful for the two of us is the idea of hospitality. That's something that I think another part of our growing up has. We're originally from the South, which is, you know, there's a pretty strong hospitality core there, but something instilled in us growing up. But also, just as people, and I find that instead of focusing more on that like you say, the promotional side I also am not wired for marketing and other things but the idea of being able to meet a need for someone else or make them more comfortable, less uncertain, anything like that, I I find that so much like I'll jump at the chance to do that and having that sense of extending that to another person, making them feel more comfortable, making them feel and especially with writing more assured in what they're doing.
Speaker 1:Because writers I mean it's like if you're, you create mostly alone and no idea. It's like is this good, is this interesting, is it fun? Am I doing, you know, am I going the right direction? And all of those kinds of things. If I can, if I can meet somebody where they are, help them there, then then focus isn't on me, it's on them, and that approach has helped me even with our marketing. I don't say we're great at marketing.
Speaker 1:But thinking of it more of like is there a way that I can solve a problem for someone? Is there a way that I can answer a question? I can do that all day. As far as the salesy pitching yourself, you know kind of the wheeler dealer side, I don't have that chip. But as far as supporting someone, answering questions, helping any of those things, that doesn't feel like work. We've talked about this in our own writing as well, because I feel like the same thing extends to a book and I think it's kind of one of the bedrocks of how we have our business is that writing is a kind of hospitality in itself, that you're inviting a reader into your world, into your space, and you want them to know basics where to sit. These rooms are fine, this food is edible, drink this, have tea right we can have a great conversation.
Speaker 1:come, stay, stay, yeah, right in time, and we'll. We'll get to know each other, and I think, thinking of it that way, um has been helpful for me as well, because it feels less like this is a book that I have written and I have great ideas. It's just more like come to my house and we'll have tea, I'll make scones, I'll cook something. That feels a lot more approachable and especially for a certain type of reader that you want to invite in.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking of them.
Speaker 1:What do they need? In this book or in this scene I think that helps me think of it that way, rather than what do I want to do. Or in this scene I think that helps me think of it that way, rather than what do I want to do. And then you have a house where people bump into furniture all the time and can't find the light switch, and they don't know where the bathroom is. So, anyway, that might be a mixed metaphor, but that's kind of how we approach things.
Speaker 2:No, it makes sense and that I mean that's Cheryl and I kind of talk about this too, and it's like it's always going back to the, to the why part, and that was something I had talked, we had talked about when I was putting my book out there and even when she was, and even for this podcast, right, it's like what's the why? Why am I doing this? Why am I getting this out there? What is it that I'm hoping to accomplish? This, or what am I hoping that I accomplished by having this out in the world? And I think, knowing that, for both of you, you obviously have a clear understanding of what that is, and so, when you create messaging, it goes around all of that, you know, for us, this is we're hoping to inspire others by the stories that we get to share, that we get to meet these amazing people and share these stories and, um, there's something amazing knowing that that can inspire somebody else to to start really living fully.
Speaker 2:And so the why really truly matters, and it sounds like you're pretty grounded in that. So, um, that's incredible, um, coming from one introvert to another. So, um, two, so two, all four of us are yes, right, um, so we're.
Speaker 2:I mean, these times I don't know, it goes by fast every time we do interviews and I just don't even know how the time passes. And I really could talk for hours. But one of our last questions that we ask is about the concept that brought us here today. Around this is happening right. So these are things that are on your heart, that maybe it's the growth of your business, the direction that you're going, maybe it's that you need to rest more. But just you know, are there any things that you can think of that you just feel so strongly about and are excited to be bringing into this world or moving towards in this world, that you wanted to share with everybody?
Speaker 1:I guess in terms of our business, I would be excited if we were able to create a space for writers that they felt like they could grow and have good conversations about what they're working on. Mainly, I know that some of those spaces do exist but they're hard to find and I guess coming in edit as editors just feeling like maybe facilitating a space like that and bringing people who ordinarily wouldn't know each other into um a room, I guess as far as um someday we hope to have a space where writers we've worked with before would feel comfortable talking to other people we've worked with, even if they don't work on the same things. But I just feel like from the clients we've found so far like you, cheryl and others that it's just been amazing to find so many people who are exactly the kind of writers we want to work with. They care about what they do, they want to grow, they want to do the best they can and they want to keep writing. And it would just be amazing if we could create a space where more of those writers could find each other and talk about what they do and get encouraged.
Speaker 1:And if I can kind of tag along onto that one thing that's really hard about being a writer right now is that marketing side of things. There's so much pressure to be. You know you have to be a marketer and you have to be a public speaker and you have to have I mean just the sheer amount of output that you have to have for social media and I mean there's it seems like there's a new platform every couple of months. You need to be here and you need to be doing this other thing. You need to be networking. You need to be doing this other thing.
Speaker 3:You need to be networking you need to be connecting and and also write a book, right?
Speaker 1:no, in all of that, write a book and, you know, get all your actual creative work done and, um, the at least for the two of us, um, just our perspective on being writers ourselves and, you know, know, feeling that pressure as well. Part of what we would like to do is just to, if, if, possible, to start a conversation about what it could be like differently, I feel, like people who are creative writers I mean, that's kind of our wheelhouse in particular but creatives generally. I'm just hearing about burnout everywhere. Artists is trying to keep up with algorithms and now AI, art and writers. You know, obviously AI generated work is everywhere now and kind of that pressure to create things. It's hard, but it's something that I think is very essential to people. If you write, you write because you love it.
Speaker 1:You don't write because, I mean, I'm speaking for this audience here, you write because you love it and you write because you have a story you want to tell, and all those other pressures can crowd that out and take away the fun of it, the play of it and the delight that wonder that we were talking about before, and so we, in our own small way and I do know that it will be a very small way we'd like to encourage just a, you know, more of that sustainable, creative living, because you just burn out if you have to create all the time.
Speaker 1:But being a writer means resting, and being a writer means reading other things and enjoying things and just incorporating all that and trying new things and trying new things and doing all that. But when you're under all that pressure to create content and network and all that stuff, you can forget why you're really doing it in first place. And so that's a big part for us too, is we want to try to, at least in our own space. You know it's like we can't change social media algorithms, we can't do anything like that. But creating a space where that creative living is important, that getting back to the basics, essentially like why do you love this story? Let's talk about the story, giving yourself time to work on it and taking that pressure off for it to be perfect and marketable and profitable and all those things.
Speaker 1:Just to get back to that, why are you doing this in the first place and why do you tell stories? And so we're pretty big on like the why. Like, what are your goals? What does success mean? And it doesn't always mean selling books. Well, I guess a short version of that is in our definition. Success would be for writers. We work with that.
Speaker 1:There are writers who keep writing, whether they share their books with us later or not, or if they have the tools that they need to keep going. Just that they have that creative longevity, that it's something that they continue to enjoy and the freedom to play. Yeah, yeah, so really long answer to that.
Speaker 2:I love it. No, it's that I love it.
Speaker 3:No, love it, wonderful, love it so we're going to help, uh, our fellow introverts here out a bit um. Jackie and arianne, how can people connect with you? And ground control?
Speaker 1:editorial well, we are on um facebook. We have the same name, ground Crew Auditorial and I'd say that's one of the best places. We do have a newsletter and blog that you can sign up for via our website blog post every other week and a monthly newsletter, and we love mail, so we always encourage people.
Speaker 1:If you have thoughts about the blog or even topics that you'd like to see us cover on the blog, we always love to hear that. And we are on LinkedIn, but that's more of the business side. So as far as the conversation, the community, it's a little more lively on Facebook.
Speaker 2:This has been incredible and I just I can. I mean, I'm not even working with you I know Cheryl is but I can completely see people being and wanting to approach you for the warmth that you have, for the just welcoming presence you both have in sharing something that can feel really difficult and intimate when and vulnerable in that which is writing right. I know that there are a lot of people that struggle with like, oh my God, who's going to be the first person to read this? And I could definitely see wanting to approach both of you with just such a an empathetic and kind and welcoming the people that you are. I just I think people are going to be lucky to be able to work with you. So it's been an absolute pleasure having the opportunity to talk with both of you. I'm going to thank our listeners tonight for coming in for another episode of you Only Go Once On behalf of my fantastic, amazing, wonderful, loving co-host, cheryl Cantafio, and myself, eileen Grimes, thank you for being here and we will see you all next time. Take care Bye.
