Female empowerment with Carrie Talick
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Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Carrie shares that her underlying personal theme is finding female empowerment. It’s about discovering that within you is a fire of your own. As a Gen X ‘er growing up in the 70s, Carrie shares how she witnessed just how hard life could be for her single mother.
“My mom and dad divorced when I was young. And so I lived with my mom primarily because back in the seventies, that's kind of how it went. It's like, you saw your dad every other weekend, which is what my situation was.”
As a result, Carrie is a warrior for equal rights and believes that you must find, and then fight with your strength for what you want. No one is going to give you anything. This interview is truly inspiring for all our listeners who may think they do not have much fight left. From aging to being bold and dreaming big, you will feel inspired that anything is possible.
“And it instilled in me because I saw her struggle so hard after that. I remember thinking, ‘I'm always gonna make my own money no matter what.’”
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Melissa: Hi, welcome to The Kindling podcast! Today, we have a wonderful guest, Carrie Talick. She's the author of a new fiction, novel called "Beware the Mermaids." Is that correct? Mermaids?
Carrie: Yep. Mm-hmm
Melissa: And she's our new best friend. She's a true feminist. She has a 25 year career as a copywriter and creative director in advertising, kind of culminating recently with a successful super bowl ad starting Justin Bateman, my other husband.
So we're just thrilled to have her here and we're gonna get into it. Welcome, Carrie.
Carrie: Thank you so much for having me, Amy & Melissa. I'm so happy and proud to be part of the podcast. The Kindling Project is, uh, near and dear to my heart. I think you guys are doing some really wonderful work for women out there.
Amy: Aw, thank you so much. So Carrie one thing that I know I was introduced to you through, uh, your best friend, who is a, a friend of mine, our boys have gone to high school together here in the Detroit area. And so I understand you did grow up in the Midwest.
Carrie: Oh yeah.
Amy: You have these Midwestern values. You are a gen x.
Carrie: Thank God. I love our generation.
Amy: Absolutely. You are a product of the seventies. You grew up in a single parent home.
Carrie: Mm-hmm
Amy: Something else we have in common. And being out in California now, you're in LA. You can probably really see the difference between a Midwesterner and someone from California.
Carrie: Oh! Oh, of course.
Yes. I actually have been here one year longer than my life in Michigan. So I grew up in a Western suburb in Livonia, Farmington Hills area, my mom and dad divorced when I was young. And so I lived with my mom primarily because back in the seventies, that's kind of how it went. It's like you saw your dad on every other weekend, which is what my situation was loved.
My dad, he was great, but he remarried kind of quickly. So have you always felt like it was my mom and I kind of on our own a little bit and she struggled, because in those days, a woman in the seventies, you had a career of nursing, secretar,y or teacher, and so she didn't fit any of those boxes. So I think she struggled to find work on her own.
And then I saw all that growing up, Jenny, my best friend, her mom was the same. She was single as well. And so we saw our mom struggle. We saw the holes in the corduroy pants. We saw the raw hands from working day night. Like it was just rough. And so I grew up and I realized how strong they were after the fact because when you're a kid, you don't really realize it.
But then when you grow up and you look back, it's like they had a rough go. I loved my Midwestern upbringing because it taught me to be honest. It taught me to work really hard. And I honestly think that work ethic is what has propelled my career in advertising in California, not to say they aren't hard workers out there, but it's not the same kind of hard work.
And I think those roots have helped me and that's why we visit twice a year. And it's a huge part of my novel too, that I wrote, they're in it, and so is my mom and the struggles and the hardships they faced and they come out better on the other side of it, because of that inner strength. And that I attribute that to growing up in Michigan.
It was a great, lovely, warm childhood.
Amy: Aw, that warms my heart. I love that.
It's like, oh, cuz I think the two of us, Melissa and I can relate to what, what you're saying. There's so much to be said about our childhood and how that impact and having a strong mom, three of us have very strong moms, moms that, it was tough.
And when you brought that up about the holes in the corduroys, I remember, a thing, we would go to Sears.
Carrie: I did too! I did too.
Amy: Well, because that was the only place to go! Right? No one's ordering a hundred dollars pants from Lulu lemon, those tough skins. I think that's what they were called. They had the double- I mean, how smart was that you had the double-sided knees.
Because the knees were always the first to go, right?
Carrie: Completely. Yes.
Amy: Skins. And that's what we are. We are tough-skinned women. You grew up in an environment that was definitely a female energy. You didn't realize it at the time, but you were growing up in this feminist-type of household, so to speak.
Carrie: Absolutely it was because it wasn't just my mom.
It was her best friend, Judy. It was my aunt Lois, my aunt Maryanne. And what I realized watching then was that whenever they needed support or encouragement, they went to their girlfriends, not their husbands. And not their children, not their families, but they went to their friends and they were all women.
And I think that what happened was they would sit around and drink coffee, and I think they smoked cigarettes back then. They would just sort of get things off their chest and vent and rant and then hug at the end of it. I remember driving home and my mom would be smiling. She'd be like, God, I needed that.
You know, you're right. I grew up in an environment where they had to rely on themselves in an era that did not have their back. I remember my mom specifically when I was 11, we had just bought a new house on her own and my grandfather had to co-sign for it. She was at this great job where she was making great money.
She was working at a printing company and I remember it was all going well until she came home shattered. And I said, what's going on? And she said, I know you don't understand this, but my boss is harassing me and I can't do anything about it. And my sense of justice was just.
Amy: Ugh, on fire?
Carrie: On fire.
Amy: Right?
Carrie: And I said, "mom, what do you mean?
You have to fight! You can fight! You always fight!" You know, that kind of thing. And she said, "I can't this time." And I came to learn when I grew older that it was a quid pro quo, sexual harassment. So he said,"if you give it up, you can stay employed" and she refused and she lost the job. And back then, this was 1981.
So there was no laws in the books to protect her at that point, none, there were no sexual harassment laws in the books,
Amy: Right.
Carrie: It put our entire life in jeopardy.
Amy: And as terrible as that is, she had the strength to say, no.
Carrie: Oh, yeah.
Amy: And God, there's decades of women- and I'm sure even today, who feel that "no" not an option.
Carrie: Yeah. And it instilled in me, because I saw her struggle so hard after that. I remember thinking, "I'm always gonna make my own money no matter what." And I swear to God that might be the ticket, the message for all young girls and women who might be wondering, "Oh, well I'll just get married and take care of the kids and that's my job." And that is a wonderful job. I am not slamming that at all. But for me personally, having financial independence was the beginning of knowing who I was.
Amy: Yes! I love that. I love that you're sending that message right now and right away, because that is something that I told anyone that'll listen, women, especially in a therapeutic setting.
It's great that you are gonna combine money or do this and that, but have your own bank and have your own bank account.
Melissa: Right. And your own credit score. And your own credit card.
Amy: And that is your money.
Carrie: It also becomes a little bit part of your identity, right? So yes, you have your own account. And my husband and I have our joint account where we pay all the electric bills and the mortgage.
And then I have my own account where I can buy my Lulu lemons. Back then I was talking about, I said, listen, if I buy you a birthday present, I don't want you to know how much I spent, you know, and that's how I couch it. But in reality, it's because it's mine. I earned it.
Amy: Mm-hmm
Carrie: And I will put into our fund of course, but it's also an identity marker for me. It's like, that's what I did. I did that.
Amy: Yes. And also it's to me, I don't wanna go into quote unquote, ask permission to spend money. If I want something, I'm gonna go buy it. That is just the bottom line. I'm gonna have my own money. That's gotta be a gen X thing. I mean, we must have landed there because of our moms, because look at your mom, your mom didn't have that option. She lost her job. And so financially you said it, it took you all into a tailspin, essentially. So then what?
Carrie: We almost lost our house and then my grandfather loaned us the money to make up the mortgage in arrears. And my mom found another job, thank God. This job did not pay as much. So you could feel the money tightening, but it didn't matter. I started working at the mall. I was 15, I think, and I was working at the pretzel Pedler or something like that. I started buying my own jeans and I was very proud of that. I saw her struggling. I mean, there are months when it was, "well, we get the phone or the electric bill. What do you wanna pay?" Just in that lean couple of years, but then things got better, but ironically, I- this is gonna take a dark turn here. My mother ended up remarrying. And I think, I thought it was a good thing at the time, because she was lonely. She was, at that time, she was 42 I think. And it was her last chance at love or so she thought, and she ended up marrying a man who abused her.
Amy: Oh no.
Melissa: Ugh
Carrie: It was just not good for me to see it. I hated him. And I hated her for putting us through that.
Amy: Oh, my gosh.
Carrie: Yeah. And then he was on the unemployment line a lot. He was an iron worker, some macho shit job, like, sorry, I don't mean to say that! Iron workers are wonderful. Just this guy wasn't. He- he was definitely, uh, "I'm the man" and" I've got the money" and "give me access to your accounts."
And she did. And he eventually cheated on her, took our savings that she had built up after those lean years and left. And so we were evicted.
Melissa: Oh, Carrie, that's heartbreaking!
Carrie: It was rough! It was rough. Woof God it was rough.
Melissa: That is really, really rough. You were forged in the fires, right?
Carrie: Even then, even then when she, we were losing the house and I was, you know, a 15 year old girl crying, she managed to handle it all.
She's just like, "we're gonna be all right. Just trust me." And we were, we were fine. I never saw her cry. She sort of kept the stiff upper lip in that regard, but then she'd turn around and be so affectionate and say, "see baby girl, we're gonna make it happen!" And that kind of thing. So, yeah, it was huge for me to see her save us.
So that was a terrible dude, but my dad was a wonderful father. I was really lucky in that respect. Like he was there for us too. I mean, he always paid child support on time, which she desperately needed. He'd help in different ways. Like if I needed a bicycle, he'd buy the bicycle kind of thing. So he was wonderful in that respect.
So it's not a male bashing thing. It was just that one particular man that kind of ruined our life after she had put it so diligently back together. You're right. I forged in that terrible fire, but it made me strong. I saw her live through it and her strength was incredible.
Amy: That's the retrospective now looking back.
Carrie: Yeah.
Amy: Is that we can survive storms and fires and we do, and it becomes part of our story. If we heal, if we get a good therapist then we can work through it, you know, we don't wanna keep that trauma with us forever. The thing about your mom too, was that he probably appeared in sheep's clothing, but was this "wolf." Back then, there wasn't that knowledge, that information on what emotional and physical or sexual abuse looked like.
We didn't have the laws in place for what a personal protection order looked like or-or things like that. You know, unfortunately it took some pretty intense cases for these kinds of things to get on the books. So your mom was probably doing the best she could at the time. And she meets this "wonderful guy" who's got this solid union job.
Carrie: Yep.
Amy: He comes in and it turns out he's just a really awful person, you know? And she, she just didn't know it. How long after that, you know, because by then you're 15.
Carrie: I can't remember exactly how long, but I think it was a little over two years that they were together and married for one and a couple months, and then he had cheated on her and she kicked him out of the house.
She'd scream at him. She wasn't afraid until he hit her. And then she was dumbfounded by it. A couple weeks later, he wanted to come back and get his clothes. So he notified her, and then he pulled up in our car with a woman in the- in the-in the passenger seat. He stormed in the house to get his stuff. And she walked out with baseball bat and she broke both of his headlights, which is great.
Amy: Oh, my god!
Carrie: And the woman starts screaming and he comes rushing out and he's like, "what are you doing? What are you doing?" And she's like," stay away!" And so he got in the car and rolled away. She sat on the porch at the baseball bat. I loved it, but I was terrified at the same time.
Amy: I bet!
Carrie: A cop comes rolling up because someone called "disturbing the peace" kind of thing.
And he knew her because this cop had been at my house late night when she was beaten by him. So he just said, Nancy, you doing okay? She goes, I am now. And he never, ever came back.
Amy: That's a miracle right there.
Carrie: I know
Amy: He went on to his next-
Carrie: His next victim.
Amy: Yeah.
Melissa: Yeah.
Amy: Don't you love how the cop was?
Carrie: Yeah.
Amy: "Okay. Oh yeah, I'm fine. I'm just sitting here with a bat on my front porch. Just keep driving by officer," like come on.
Carrie: Exactly right!
Melissa: Nothing to see here!
Amy: Exactly. Like the police is like, I don't know what to do again. This is before-
Carrie: Yeah.
Amy: You know, Nicole Brown Simpson. This is before-
Carrie: Yes.
Amy: These domestic violence laws.
Your mom is just sitting there like such a badass, holy cow! No wonder you are as strong and brave and a feminist and about female empowerment because this strength has to come from within.
Carrie: And you know, it's so funny because I know rush Luba used the word "FemiNazi," he's- it's such a terrible phrase for what the fight really is.
Cuz the fight is not about women, hating men. The fight is about women asking for equality. We just wanna be in the game.
Melissa: Right.
Carrie: You know, and, and I think that I have always felt that way. I've always felt strong, probably a little mouthy and opinionated, but I deserve the opinion and I want the right to say it.
Amy: Yeah.
Carrie: And that's what feminism is to me.
Amy: Right.
Carrie: If I have a brain smart enough to think of an opinion, I should be able to say it
Amy: mm-hmm .
Carrie: And in many, many places in the eighties, that really wasn't the case. And then I work in advertising and it's pretty much a male-dominated industry, to the point where they created a 3% conference, because they said 3% of the creative directors out there are women, 97% are men.
I applaud that someone noticed, you know, but at the same time, I've learned how to maneuver within the advertising industry and still speak my mind and still be who I am now. Uh, when I was in my twenties, it was much harder. I think.
Melissa: A lot of it is about. I have a small agency. The reason I have a agency is I cannot only be the creative director of the agency, but I can make all the other rules and I can bring the people I want to the table and to the project and have some say over the client, I a hundred percent get it.
It's still, as far as we've come, it's still an uphill climb, every industry. And you would think creative industries would be, you know, maybe a little bit more advanced, a little bit more liberal, but I'm not sure I've seen that.
Carrie: And I'm with you on that. I'm lucky enough to work at my agency now. And they do do very hard to strive for equality in the workplace.
Not just female/male percentages, but also, uh, diversity. They're really in tune with it and I'm proud to work there. I- I really am. I think that I felt more, um, valued there than at most agencies I've worked at. So I think you're right. If you can- if you can create your own little piece of ad-heaven like you are Melissa, I think that's fantastic. But if you can't and you work within it, it's important to find the right place where you feel valued and heard and seen.
Melissa: Yeah.
Carrie: I do feel that way there. So I'm very grateful.
Melissa: That's reassuring to hear.
Carrie: Change is slow. It's coming.
Melissa: Well, you're an excellent storyteller. I mean, obviously copywriter and storyteller commercially, but I think one of the reasons we have you here is to talk about the story you told in your novel. So, do you wanna pivot a little bit to how that came about?
Carrie: Yeah. So you asked me a great question in one of the emails you sent: "when did this project begin to Kindle for you?"
Melissa: Mm-hmm
Carrie: And I will have to say, so my mother strong and- she was my whole life, she died when I was 21 and it was after cancer. She had cancer for a year and then she died.
And I remember I was working in advertising. I had graduated college and I was hanging out with these friends that I love and still adore to this day. And I remember we were all talking about what we wanted to do, how we wanted to make our mark, right? That-that's what it used to be about. Right. Education was, "how are you gonna make your mark? what are you gonna do?" Um, and I love that. And so we'd all go around the table, and one guy said he wanted own his own business. Another one said he wanted to own his own agency. And I said, "I think I wanna write a book." And one of my friends says, "oh, wait to think small!" I think she's just like, "Jesus, that's a huge dream."
Amy: Mm-hmm .
Carrie: And I said, "I know, but I think I can do it!" And she's like, "well, good luck. It's a lot of work." And she was right. It was, it didn't knock me back at all. In fact that weirdly negative incentive worked on me. So I knew I wanted to write something, and what was really driving the passion was my mother was the super vibrant person.
And she wanted to travel all these places and never got to, and she wanted to do all these things and couldn't, she was hampered by having me, although she, you know, I know she loved me and thinks I was the greatest thing that happened to her, but it really limited the rest of her. And so I knew I wanted to find a place for all of this love.
I had to put it somewhere and I wanted to tell her story and possibly give her an ending different than the one she got. One that she deserved. It took me a long time to get there, but I ended up meeting this woman. Her name is Tina, who was 62 years old at the time. And she told me about how she and her girlfriends bought a sailboat of their own. And I thought,"whoa, tell me more. What do you mean? You bought a sailboat?" And she goes, "well, ironically, I looked it up. Most marinas are 99% boat owners are men." So she goes, "so we were an anomaly." And they called themselves "the dynamite girls," which is fantastic. So we talked further and suddenly I had this spark of an idea.
I'm like, "Ooh, what if I took all the characteristics of my mom and her personality, gave her best friends, and set her on a voyage of her own, via a sailboat?" and so I had the spark for the idea, and then all the things, all the scenes came flooding in, it was like watching a super fast plant grow, right?
It was like, "oh my God! And you can add this branch! And this branch! And this leaf!" And it was so fun to have it all come together. So I had this idea for this character, Nancy. And I knew that she had to suffer some- some major challenges. And so she- the cool thing about this story is that she doesn't know she needs to be fixed until everything falls apart.
And that, I think, is what happens to a lot of women. And not that women need to be fixed. I think that that's wrongly stating it. Nancy doesn't realize anything's missing until it's shoved in her face that everything's sort of a facade. Now in most women's lives, their children, they become empty nesters and that's the big drama of their life.
And I understand that, but in her case, I needed to be more dramatic because it's a novel, it's a story, but also, I needed her to wake up and sometimes that takes a jolt. And so her- the jolt is her husband of 36 years cheats on her very publicly. And it's the humiliation she can't take. She has inklings that he's cheated before.
So then it's sort of a reckoning with herself of how much she's willing to take. And she doesn't even realize it until they have it out. And this isn't the first 10 pages of the book. So I'm not giving much away. What I really wanted to go for in the theme of this novel is that women choose love and family and children.
They walk into it gleefully. I did, but as a result, sometimes, they become a little diminished. They become a little invisible. Husbands get to have careers and families, full careers, like CEOs. It's a rare thing for a woman to do that because they choose, I mean, life is all about choices. They choose see their kids at soccer and to show up at every play and to help them with homework.
And I think that there is glory in that. Trust me, I get it. There's also something that you give up. And part of that is yourself. And for Nancy, my main character, she doesn't even know what she likes to eat. Let alone listen to, let alone how to live a life on her own. So I wanted to give her all of those challenges at once.
And then I wanted to give her some allies. In the form of her best friends, and a pitcher of margaritas, and a cat named Suzanne. So- *laughing* so I gave her all those and having them all, like learning how to become yourself after taking care of everyone else for so long is the main theme of it. And then of course her husband comes in and tries to destroy everything because he can't live without her either, but that's where she really figures out what she's made of.
And I think that that reminder that we all have a fire in us that just yearns to do something more. It doesn't have to be a novel. It could be sailing lessons like Nancy took, it could be playing around a golf. It could be learning to play guitar. It could be becoming a soccer coach. It could be anything that you wanna do.
And I think that I wrote this novel so that I could give her that, my mom, but I also wanted to share that message with other women, young and old, that it's never too late to reinvent yourself and to choose you.
Melissa: And in the process, you realized your, you know, in your early twenties, your passion was to write the book. Nancy got her kindling project, if you will, and then you got yours by telling her story.
Carrie: It was a magic, magic thing that happened there too. And it was so funny because when the idea hit me, I knew it was right. Like I had fumbled around with a couple of other novels. I actually started another novel in 2008 and it started a male protagonist and I never finished it.
I got to 112 pages and I couldn't figure out what the thread was, what I was trying to say. And I think that for me, writing a novel, the reason I do it is because I'm trying to say something, whatever that thing is. And I wanna say it well. I wanna say it in a way that people can relate to it. The spark of my mother's strength combined with this next loop of this story, about these women in a sailboat made it happen.
And it in turn, I was able to make my dream come true too. It was an amazing thing.
Melissa: As you tell the story, the idea sort of came to you. They came to you kind of naturally and organically, and they, you know, like that image of the tree growing that you said it just came, and it came, and it came, and it grew, but were there people? Were there other things that, you know, other kind of kindling that-that fed your fire that got you through the process that you would share?
Carrie: I was in college when my mom died, and this is a very short story, but it's an important one. So in high school, I was a writer. I wrote for the high school newspaper, opinion section of course. I wrote for the yearbook. I always wrote notes to my friends and Jenny Pedo can attest to this how funny those notes were.
And I always knew I loved writing. I just didn't know what form to do it in. I had this amazing teacher, her name was Dr. Mickey Scarvy, in Clarenceville high school. And she, I remember going to her while I was in college and I was in architecture classes, because for lack of knowing what the hell I wanted to do.
So I brought in these little drawings that I had made, right. To show her, to impress her. Right. I wanted to impress my teacher who loved me. And she looked at the drawing. She's like, "nice, but you're a writer. What are you doing?"
Amy: I love that.
Carrie: Stopped me in my tracks. And I'm like, "oh my God." So I went back to school and I stayed in architecture for a little bit longer until I realized that I was a little bit more creative and gravity didn't like my designs. And then I went into debate class and I loved it. Turned out I loved it. So I took her at her word and I found this advertising class and it led me into copywriting. And I started, my first job was at Campbell EWALD in Warren, working on the Chevy Account, and then the rest is sort of history, but Scarvy was the first mentor, I would say. She really did not pull punches. She gave it to you straight. And I love that about her. Um, and if not for her, I would probably be drawing your next seven elevens.
Melissa: Thank the universe for teachers, because I feel like so many of us have a story about a teacher.
Amy: Mm-hmm
Carrie: I agree. I think teachers are so powerful, especially if they're honest with their kids, because kids can take it.
And I think that her absolute honesty with me, probably put me in the path that I am. So along the way, yes, I have another mentor and it was a man. It was my, one of my favorite bosses in advertising, his name's Ed. And he helped me learn how to write radio and radio, as you know, is like theater of the mind.
So he's like "stop telling everything! Show it!" And, and said, "what do you mean?" He goes, "describe it so that I can see it." I'm like, "oh my God genius." He helped with my sense of humor too. So he was another huge mentor for me. And then finally, I would have to say the last two are my book coach who helped me finish my first novel.
Her best advice to me was, stop deleting things. Just put 'em in a file. Don't delete anything else. Just keep it in a file so you can- and no kidding, I would revert back to that file and I used 80% of what I would've originally deleted. So that was good. And then the fourth one is the guy that I married, man!
He's a feminist too! He had a strong mom. His mother was the first female engineering graduate of Michigan state university.
Amy: That's amazing.
Carrie: And so he believed in strong women too. And, um, he said, "you've gotta do this. That's all there is to it. I can't stop with a self doubt. I'm gonna be your cheerleader."
And he was all the way to the very end of me typing the words, the end.
Amy: You had a handful of kindling. Just, in your little fire pit!
Yes. It's important too because I don't think anybody works in a vacuum. Nobody, nobody. So it's who you count on, rely on turn to, listen to. That helped me personally.
Melissa: I think it's always there in our environment and sometimes people will say, "well, nobody supports me" or "I don't have time" or "I don't have enough money" and there's lots and lots of excuses, but I think when you open up to it, it's there for everybody.
Carrie: I completely agree. I wrote a postcard to my dad once when I was 11, and I tried to be funny in it and he- I got back and he instantly said, he goes, "I loved your postcards." Even that tiny little bit.
Melissa: Right.
Carrie: Right. All those little pebbles that build a mountain of confidence. And I think that you're right. When you look for it, when you're open to shutting down the critic in your head
Melissa: mm-hmm.
Carrie: And opening up to the positivity that people are trying to give you, you'll hear it.
Melissa: Mm-hmm.
Carrie: It's out there. I believe in building people up, not breaking people down. I think it's easy to break people down, but building people up is true power I think, you know?
Amy: Yes. And- and that's something that I'll tell my, you know, yoga students when I'm teaching 'em that "no one is gonna judge you more than you're gonna judge yourself."
You know, I'm not even going there. You're your own worst critic to begin with, you know. And one thing that I think that Melissa and I are learning through this journey of creating this community for women, is that sometimes we have to get out of our own way too, because even our own insecurities or our own, whatever.
Melissa: Yeah. That-that monkey mind, the voice just, will not stop.
Carrie: I learned a tactic on my book coach, too. She was great. She said, "what does your critic look like?" Cause I-I have a critic and a coach, and the critic has a megaphone and she goes, "what does your critic look like?" I said, "I don't know. He's just the voice."
And she goes, "interesting that you said "he" and I said, "yeah." And she goes, "well, why don't you give him a persona? What does he look like?" And I came up with this idea to make him look like a gargoyle! And it helped because I know what he looks like now. I know what he looks like with that big frown on his face when he talks shit at me.
And so all I do is say "shut it!"
Melissa: Oh, that's oh, that's the takeaway today! That is such good advice.
Carrie: If you can visualize the critic and then just say, "I see you," shout it.
Melissa: "You're outta here!"
yeah.
Carrie: And then I have this other gentle voice in my head and I call that the coach, because the coach can say things that are negative, but in a very positive, encouraging way.
So I remember I was writing this one passive paragraph and I didn't like it. And I knew I didn't like it, but I had to get to this point of the story. Right? I remember thinking, "ah, it's fine for now." And the coach came in and said, "no, it's not." uh, just gentle. And she goes, "no, it's not. You can do better. You know you can. Try a little harder. Just go back, take a break, take- go for a walk, but take a break and come back and do it right." And that's the coach. So the coach I love and I'm like, "Ooh, gimme more advice! Gimme more nuggets!" You know, so the coach is alive and well, but the, the critic I have solved him for the most part, although I still get imposter syndrome and I still feel like a fraud, a lot that I think goes with the territory sometimes just with who I am, I'm a writer and a creative person.
So I think we always tend to feel like a little bit like we don't belong, but I try to quiet that. And the critic is definitely quieter than it used to be. His megaphone is clicked off.
Amy: Thank you so much for being vulnerable about your creative and really exposing yourself just now.
Carrie: The truth is, I did get an agent and I traditionally published my novel.
I mean, that fact alone is like climbing Everest for me, but it's funny, I'm working on the second novel now. And just to speak a bit about how past performance not have an effect on future performance. I have all the same doubts I had before I wrote my first novel. I still have the same struggles. It's not daily, but it's often enough to make me doubt to make me stop.
So I have to look to my people to say, "Hey, is this real? Did I do this? Did I forget how?" and I have this little cadre of friends and family that just say, "listen, you gotta get outside your head. You have to go back to this because you've done this already. You know how to do it." And so I-I hear it. And some of it just pinks off me, like little pellets and then other things sink in and I'm like, "okay, I did do this. It's actually out," you know, "it's a physical book at bookstores. I did that. That's a huge thing." And then gently I can go back into it. It's not an argument that I have with myself anymore, like the first novel I'm like, this is gonna go nowhere. You're gonna, self-publish not that there's anything wrong with self-publishing in fact, if you self-publish, you can probably make more money than I did, but I had a view to traditional publishing that I really wanted. There were so many points in which I almost gave up and I didn't, and I live by a couple of mottos, one is Winston Churchill: "Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever give up."
And another one is, "if you cry or laugh, while you write it, the reader will cry or laugh when they read it." And so that's what I try to get at, is, I wanna add heart to everything I write, because I believe that feeling and connection is the best thing human beings can go through.
Amy: Oh gosh. It can resonate with everything that you've just shared.
And it's such a journey just to get to where you are and just to be vulnerable with us about even having a successful, best-selling book, you still have those insecurities. It's almost as if, "okay. I have to lose a hundred pounds, and then I lose the hundred pounds, but I still see myself a hundred pounds heavier."
Everything that you're describing, it reminds me that this is such an inside job with us.
Carrie: Isn't that the truth. It is totally an inside job. It takes a lot of time, and instead of waking up one day and saying, I'm gonna lose a hundred pounds where I'm gonna write a novel, I think of it more like waves, like the tide, right?
Like, every day the tide comes in, makes that sand a little softer and makes everything more approachable, and just like writing a novel, every day I write a little bit and I go a little further. It washes over you and sort of washes the self-doubt away. Every page that I add to my pile washes the self-doubt way a little bit more.
And I think that can be the case for almost any goal. You said, if you wanna learn guitar, that C chord is tough, but if you do it every day, it gets a little easier, a little easier, you know, and that's the only way I can make it through. It's never overnight. It's never a snap. Wow. Everything's different. It's always, "put in a little bit of self love and a little bit of work and you'll get there."
Melissa: It makes me think of- I'm sure you know her well, but I think of Anne Lamott and her Bird by Bird book.
Carrie: Bird by bird is one of my favorites!
Melissa: That's mine too! And I'm not a writer, but just the idea of just one bird at a time. Bird by bird. That's how you write the book report.
Carrie: Yes! I love that passage when she's talking about how her kid brother had this huge report due, right, on birds.
And he is just like, freaked out at the table. And then his dad's just like, "just take bird by bird, buddy. "
Melissa: Yeah! I say that for myself all the time and I'm not a writer, but I'm a designer. I'm a mom. I'm alot of things, and it's just one bird at a time for all of us, right?
Carrie: Yeah.
Melissa: That's just such a great story and such a great title of a book.
And it's exactly what you're describing. That-that's how we do everything. I mean, that's how we get through every day too, right?
Carrie: Yes. That is how we get through every day. And you know, Jenny and I talk a lot about the challenge- the daily challenges, sometimes it's hard, and you know, people ask me, other people have asked me if I write every day.
The truth is, I write every day, but not necessarily on the book. I write every day in advertising. I write every day in emails. Those don't really count.
Melissa: Yeah. I mean, I write some checks!
*Laughing*
Carrie: Right! Right. Well, I write on the chalkboard about a calendar.
Melissa: Exactly.
It is that writing? But the truth is you have to give yourself a little bit of a break too, and I think that's okay.
And Jenny and I believe in taking care of ourselves. If I am in a terrible state of mind to force myself in front of a computer to work on a novel that I love is going to reinforce a negative reaction.
I don't know if it's cuz we're creative people and maybe we just march to like, uh,-a whole different drum, but all of that advice of like, "just get up every day at five in the morning and do the exercise" and "just write the 10 pages" and you know, "just paint the painting every week"
None of that has ever really worked for me. My immediate, like visceral reaction to that is "I'm not doing that." It also has to be within your own natural rhythm, which might be in my case, I paint a couple paintings every six years, but that's how it's going.
Carrie: But that's good. I've read all those- all that stuff too, where it says, "you should write every day, you should set a regimen, you should do-" and I'm like, "no, because if I do that, it's gonna feel like work, and I already have a job."
Melissa: Even with work, I've had an agency for 12 years now and I'm in this mode of like, scaling and growing. And so I'm joining these business masterminds and I'm reading these business books and there's all kinds of advice, like "get up an hour early and-
Amy: Run five miles!"
Melissa: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if that works. I don't-I mean, it does- it must work. Right. It's very, very common advice. And-
Carrie: I think that works for people who have staff
Melissa: Right.
Carrie: I mean, I think that if I had someone to wash my dishes and do my grocery shopping and get my car washed and take my kids to practice, then yeah, I could sit around for an extra hour take and make my business the thing.
Melissa: Yeah. But Amy and I are here to tell you, we get the podcast done by the skin of our teeth. Sometimes barely dressed, barely showered. We're just doing it when we can do it. And I think that's another important thing to say is, you know, if, if you have an inkling or you have a itch and you're listening to that inner voice, it doesn't have to be perfect.
It doesn't have to be every day. It can take 25 years. Like just start, start somewhere.
Carrie: You bring up something interesting about "perfect." Striving for perfection is the killer of dreams. I think that being okay with having a first draft in my- in my little world be terrible, is exactly the only way forward.
I think you have to allow yourself to be terrible or just okay at something at first, because I think that you have to read this perfect state where it's sellable your first time out at anything. You're setting yourself up for failure and disappointment. I think it's okay to not be perfect at everything.
I think it's okay to always strive to want more. And I think that what's so brilliant about your podcast is it helps women understand that all it takes is a little bit of fire. It takes your little bit of passion for crocheting. Or flower arrangement, making beer, whatever it is.
Melissa: Yep. Whatever it is. And-and it can be big!
I mean, it can be scaling your $1 million business to $10 million or it could be designing a hat. It really doesn't matter. You know, it's about starting, you know, it's about acknowledging and listening and just, you know, fanning that fire just a little bit.
Carrie: And having the right people in your corner can help so much because when you wanna give up and trust me, there were at least a million times I wanted to give up on that novel, to have just, a gentle nudge say, "don't do it. Keep going." You know? "Don't- just- keep going. You can do it." And I think that, that's why this particular podcast to me is so important is that I think it can help women who never thought they had time, energy, for any of this, might spark to it and be like, "Hey, I have something."
Melissa: Yeah.
Carrie: You know?
Melissa: That's our goal, right Amy?
Amy: It-It is really love that you talked about the- the perfectionism and, because what I think is a challenge for us, this intersection is that we are more at the top. Well, we are at the top of our profession, so we do have 25-30 years in- in our business, in our craft. And so we're used to being at a higher level and we don't have high-level skills as a podcasters.
We're- we're not podcasters, we're not technology people. So trying to put something together, literally with some scotch tape and a little bit of glue and we have to be okay with it, just being the way that it is right now, because we also have families and full-time jobs, I'm in a doctoral program. She has 10 other businesses, you know, there's just all these other things. And it's like, good gracious! You know?
Carrie: You're living by example. Right? So this was something you wanted to do and look, you're doing it.
Amy: Right.
Carrie: You you're doing it! It's so much better to say "I'm doing this" than "I want to do this."
Amy: Right.
Carrie: It's fact that transition is one step one, baby step.
Amy: Yeah.
Carrie: From, "I want to do this" to, "I am doing this!"
Amy: Yes.
Carrie: And that's, what's so cool about it.
Amy: Oh! Gosh. Thank you so much for saying that because that's something that I work on with my clients is that we have to act as if. We have to act as if-I have to act as if I have my PhD. I have to act as if we have a very successful podcast, a very successful business. You have to act as if you are a very successful author, you know, an artist and, and we don't, we can't go, "oh, well, it'd be so great. If I could-" No! "I am enough. I am successful. I am all of these things." We have to speak as if it's already happening
Carrie: And it's a subtle difference, right? So when I was in the midst of writing this novel, I have this dear friend, Kathy Hathenstall, she's also an author and Kathy said, "so what's-what's going on with the novel?"
I'm like, "well, I'm trying to write this- this story." She's like, "you're not trying, you are writing." I'm like, "Ooh!" Different, slightly different pivot, but incredibly important. She goes, "I never wanna hear you say you're trying to write a novel again. You're writing it."
Amy: Yep.
Carrie: I'm like, "okay,"
Amy: You got that right. That's another thing," tried to" is "lied to." This woman probably years ago, "when you say you're trying, you're lying." "Oh, I'm trying to train for a marathon." No, that's bullshit. "I'm actually not nor do I ever want to."
Carrie: Yes, exactly.
Amy: That's where I get into the whole thing about speaking our truth. Speaking with intention.
I don't wanna use the word "try." I don't wanna use the word "could" and I don't wanna use the word "should." "I am." "I will." And "I have," you know, we have to be very affirmative. We have to be intentional with our words, um, that's gonna be my first Ted Talk.
Carrie: I love that. Intense is everything because ideas are really fragile and they only grow stronger when they're spoken and believed in over time, after time, after time.
Right. And that's what you're talking about. "Try" does not exist in dreaming. Dreaming is "I'm dreaming" or "I'm doing."
Amy: mm-hmm.
Carrie: And so when you try, it means it's some sort of failed half-idea that you haven't fully committed to. And I think intention is everything. Everything.
Amy: Yes! Yes. And when people say they are trying, they've convinced themselves that they are and I'll say, "okay, well, what does that mean? How are you trying?" "Well, uh, I don't know." They don't- they're not. It's-it's-it's just a facade. It's just smoke and mirrors. So, Carrie, what would you say? Because I know we have so many women in our group that want to write, that have this kindling project within them that want to write. And they're like, "oh no, I don't have- oh, no, I'm not right-"
No. What would you say to them?
Carrie: I would say, listen, if you've got something to say, figure out how to say it. I would say the hardest part is staring at a blank page. But, you don't always have to start at the beginning. You can start somewhere in the middle with the thing you wanna say the most and write that down first.
Amy: I like that.
Carrie: And then you can add to the beginning, you can add to the end, you can add to the middle, but if you really wanna write, figure out what you really wanna say first. Writing is mostly thinking, and then it's transcribing down on paper. I hear a lot of this. I've had a lot of people come up to me say, "oh, I have this idea for a memoir."
"I think that's great. What's the crux, the memoir?" "Well, I just had so many things- terrible things happen to me." I'm like, "okay, but how does that affect you?" Because if you're writing a novel, it's the story. It's the arc of one person's change over time. She started here. All these things happened to her. She wound up changed here. In a memoir, it's essentially the same thing.
Melissa: Right.
Carrie: It's just about yourself. So if you're gonna write a memoir, tell me why you think it's important and what-what happened to you and what changed for you? Don't just tell me things happened because that's just plot.
Melissa: And I hate that! When I get through a novel or a TV show where the character starts out here and you get through the whole story and the end scene is, they're just right where they started.
Like, that's the worst story! It happens more often than not in creativity. Where,
Carrie: Yeah.
Melissa: What is the message here? Is this like, "we're doomed"?
Carrie: You know, or something even as pointless as, "well this is just how things go." No, no, that's not- that's not a story with telling, I think that, when it comes to memoir- because I know a lot of women wanna write, you know, what's happened with their families or their mothers or their children.
If you're gonna enlighten me about something you learned along the way, I'm all over it! I'll listen to that.
Melissa: Right.
Carrie: But if you just wanna tell me things that happened without consequence to you,
Melissa: Right.
Carrie: Or your emotions or yourself, I don't get it. So that's one thing I like to say about writing, but the other thing about writing is don't delete anything as my book cooks.
Melissa: Okay. Number one: don't delete anything.
Carrie: Just keep going. Your first draft is allowed to be terrible. Just write it. Just write it!
Melissa: Right. Get something down. See, Amy has to tell that to me all the time.
Carrie: Get something on paper so you can revise it! Because writing is truly revising. That's really what it is. All the beauty, all the sharp angles, all the shiny stuff comes out in revising, because you'll reread your own stuff.
And at first you'll be like, "it's good. It's good. Yeah. I like it." And then you'll wait two weeks and you'll read it again and be like, "oh Jesus Christ. I need to change that." You know what I mean? The- the point is if you really wanna write, get it down on paper, even if it's a little bit a day, a paragraph a day. If you write a page a day, you'll be done with a novel in 300 days.
But I don't really prescribe to that. I really subscribe to the feeling that, if you have something to say, start writing it right when it comes to you, when you feel it. Habits are good. So if you write at a particularly good time every day, like if 11:00 AM works for you, carve that out every day. Even if you sit in front of your computer and do nothing carve out the time, make that commitment to yourself. That's what I would say.
Amy: That's really good because look, it takes discipline. You don't just write a book because it's a great idea. No, you have to sit your ass down, and you have to be consistent, and you have to be disciplined, and you have to have time management. And all of those behind the- the scene things are very, very important.
Carrie: And for me, I mean, you guys both know this. You- you have full-time jobs, you have full-time families. I have a full-time husband. I love him, but you know, he comes out randomly and starts talking to me. Really, it's a commitment to your dream. It's a commitment to what you want to put out there in the world.
And when you commit to yourself and your goals, things will happen. It takes perseverance. It truly, it does. At the end of three years, you'll either have a stack of writing that needs to be revised, or you'll have nothing if you keep "trying" to do it. Also, women are different. The energy's different with women. With men, there's always- it's always goal-oriented conversations, so to speak, right? "What are we gonna have dinner tonight?" "What do you plan on doing for your book this week?" That kind of stuff, right? Um, with women, it's more like,
Melissa: "How do you feel?"
Carrie: Feeling, yeah. "I'm having this feeling about this stuff and I wonder where it's coming from." And I don't need an answer. I just need to be like, "girl, I get it." You know.
Amy: Just listen that- this is what I'll tell my husband. I'll say," you know what? This is a conversation, I don't need a solution. I don't need a PowerPoint. I need you just to listen. That's all I need you to do. And then I'm gonna walk away. You wanna- I don't want you to say anything.
I don't want you to talk. I don't even really want you to look at me, but just put on your freaking listening ears. That's all!"
Carrie: Yeah, listen, there's a lot of writing advice out there as you guys know, but I can tell you, I have a little list of things that work for me that I always harken back to that I look to when I'm uninspired or feel stuck. This advice that I turn to every time I think would help most writers and I'd be happy to share my experience. I'd be happy to share it all.
Melissa: Ah, we welcome that. Thank you so much! Thank you for coming and sharing all these tips and stories. You obviously- you're just a great storyteller.
Carrie: I was just gonna say, I'm really inspired by your podcast. I love the idea. I love the thinking behind it. I think we need more of these for women, and I love that you guys are going down this path.
I think it's wonderful.
Melissa: Thank you.
Amy: Thank you. So, we need that. We need that encouragement, because it can go -
Melissa: We do!
Amy: We're excited and we know we're just- we're following this. We're lighting our kindling by doing this.
Melissa: Yeah. Amy said that she tells her yoga class that, you know, "you're your own worst critic," but I'm actually her yoga class.
*Laughing*
Amy: There you go. That's just the front for it.
Melissa: Yeah. that- that's code for Melissa.
*laughing*
Carrie: *Laughing* I love that. I just wanna say thank you. I really think it's important. And I think you're doing great work here.
Amy: Well, thank you so much.
Melissa: You know, and I always say like, we're creating the space, and if the space is the podcast and that works great. And if the space is the online community, that's great. And then if the space is just- ends up being a book club that we host at the library- it's the intention, like you said. We really kind of just set out with the intention of "we're gonna create a space for women to find fuel for that fire."
Amy: Yeah.
Carrie: I love it. Oh, girls, it was so nice meeting you! And I'm so honored to be part of this!
Amy: Oh, thank you Carrie! It was so great to meet you. Give our best to your husband.
Carrie: *Laughing*
Amy: All right take care!
Carrie: Thanks guys!
Melissa: Bye!
Amy: Bye bye!