The Courageous Chronicle of Hope: From Heart Surgery to Self-Discovery

When my daughter Hope graced the podcast with her presence, her story wasn't just a chronicle of living with a single ventricle heart at 29—it was a profound testament to her strength amid her gender transition. Our conversation unveils the seamless integration of her heart health with her journey of self-discovery, all while providing tangible advice for those who feel the pull of the pen and the thrill of authorship. Hope's insights on her upcoming book light the way for aspiring writers, proving that even with life's hurdles, one's voice and story are paramount.

Flipping through the pages of Hope's past, we're reminded of the days when storytelling was a fledgling passion, cultivated through pen pals and children's magazines. The revelation of a bucket list in college sparked a monumental shift from engineering to writing, a decision that charted the course for my current literary adventures. Sharing these moments isn't just about nostalgia—it's about tracing the delicate threads that weave together to form a writer's identity, culminating in the excitement of discussing her latest book.

For anyone out there who's ever doubted the path of a writer, let this episode serve as a beacon. We'll journey through the landscape of crafting narratives, the role of supportive writing communities, and the reality of financial expectations in the writing world. The serendipity of connecting with a publisher keen on LGBT+ stories is a reminder that sometimes, the stars align in unexpected ways, providing the chance to see one's work in the hands of eager readers. Join us for a heart-to-heart that celebrates the written word and the unwavering spirit of those who dare to write it.

Hope's previous Heart to Heart with Anna Appearances:

Congenital Heart Defects and Gender Identity: https://www.buzzsprout.com/62761/11506572

Celebrating 300 Episodes of “Heart to Heart with Anna"
https://www.buzzsprout.com/62761/8240177

Sports and Extra-Curricular Activities for CHD Survivors
https://www.buzzsprout.com/62761/398939

Surviving a Long Hospital Stay
https://www.buzzsprout.com/62761/398934

Writer's League of Texas Agents and Editor's Conference (2024)
https://writersleague.org/calendar/2024-agents-editors-conference/

Armadillocon (2024)
https://armadillocon.org/d46/

Rattling Good Yarns
https://rattlinggoodyarns.com/

Slug Tribe
http://www.slugtribe.org/

Transcript

H2HwAnna Recording Anna and Hope 2024

Speaker 1 0:00

I find it surprisingly both easy and cathartic to compare fantastical situations to real-world issues that everybody deals with.

Speaker 2 0:16

Welcome to Heart to Heart with Anna. I am Anna Jaworski and your host.

Speaker 3 0:21

I'm also a heart mom to an adult, a cancer and a total heart defect. She was born with a single ventricle heart and she's 29 years old.

Speaker 2 0:30

That's the reason I'm the host of your podcast.

Speaker 3 0:32

So Hope Jaworski was born in Temple, texas, with a single ventricle heart in 1994. You make me feel old.

Speaker 4 0:40

I feel old.

Speaker 2 0:44

She's had three open heart surgeries, including a fontanel revision and a modified maze procedure when she was 17. Today, she and I are going to be discussing her upcoming book and what it's been like for her to realize her dream of becoming a published author and advice that she has for other people to realize their dreams of becoming an author. As many of you know, Hope is my daughter and she's been on my program multiple times, but for those of you who are patrons, this may be your first time to see helping me actually interacting in an interview.

Speaker 1 1:17

Yeah, it's actually in the same place together. We usually have me on my phone and it's just audio only.

Speaker 2 1:23

Right, right, I'm doing something new this year where, when I use StreamYard instead of Zoom, I'm recording the video and I'm going to give my patrons the raw video without any music or promos or anything, so they can just watch the show as if it was happening right before them. Except it will be edited so it won't have all the bloopers.

Speaker 1 1:48

So anyway, the patron will get that.

Speaker 2 1:50

Yeah, you may have heard how, because she's been on my program multiple times and she was even the guest host when we were celebrating my 10th anniversary special. So welcome back to heart to Heart with Anna Hope.

Speaker 1 2:06

Thanks for having me Always fun.

Speaker 2 2:08

It is always fun. Since this is a heart podcast, you know we're going to talk about some heart stuff.

Speaker 1 2:13

Of course.

Speaker 2 2:14

And I know you don't like talking about heart stuff, but we'll get it out of the way early, okay. So first of all, I'd like to know how you're doing heart-wise, because I'm sure there are a lot of moms out there and other people who are born with heart defects who would love to know how somebody who's 29 is doing with their heart.

Speaker 1 2:32

Doing pretty well. I think it has actually been two years, unfortunately, since I followed Dr Lam and got a heart checkup. Yes, I know that. Look, it's in the near future between insurance for a while. So you know working on it, but that checkup went very well and I haven't had any forward palpitation theory of arrhythmias, no real issues, hard wise in two years, nothing. I felt the need to go and get checked out.

Speaker 2 3:02

Okay, well, that's good to know. So you've done some other podcasts with me where you've talked more in detail about your heart, and I'll go ahead and put those links in the show notes so that people don't have to listen to it all over again here. It's hard to believe it's been two years since you've been on this program. I guess I have to have you on every year to make sure you can go see your cardiologist there are ways to do it.

Speaker 2 3:30

The last program that you were on was where you were talking about your CHD and your gender identity.

Speaker 1 3:37

That was not long after I came out to everyone in general.

Speaker 2 3:41

Right, so can you tell us if the medications that you've been changing to go through your transition have negatively impacted your heart?

Speaker 1 3:49

There have been no negative impacts. Now I've been doing a quarterly blood draw to check not just hormone levels but vitamin levels as well, and those have all come out clear every time. They've all been in healthy ranges and the hormone medications are doing their thing lowering testosterone levels, increasing estrogen and there have only been good changes.

Speaker 2 4:13

Well, that's good to know and you feel good.

Speaker 1 4:15

Yes, I do. I did make the change before I even started the hormone treatment. Dr Lam changed me from low-dose aspirin as a blood thinner to Eloquist, much stronger, and being on estrogen increases the risk of clotting and stroke, so he wanted to make extra sure that nothing was going to go wrong there.

Speaker 2 4:36

So I know that some people have some problems with Eloquist, but your mean mom was on Eloquist for quite a while and she never had any issues. Okay, good good, it seems like you're not having any issues.

Speaker 1 4:47

I have not been a problem.

Speaker 2 4:49

Okay, well, that's good to know.

Speaker 1 4:51

The problem with Eloquist is the cost. Yes, because they still don't have a generic of it.

Speaker 2 4:56

Right.

Speaker 1 4:57

So we have to shell out a nice big chunk of money for it.

Speaker 2 5:11

But you've already had a stroke once, which puts you more at risk for having a stroke again. Of course, the first stroke that we know of was you were 10 months old and it's when you had your second surgery. So luckily, we don't know of you having any other strokes since then, and I'd like to keep it that way.

Speaker 4 5:20

Right, keep it that way, right yes.

Speaker 2 5:23

Okay, we're done talking about your heart, because I know you don't like doing that, but I do appreciate you bringing us up to speed because, like I said, there are people who listen. There will be some people who are pregnant with babies with heart defects that it would be nice for them to know that someday, when their baby is 29, like my baby is that maybe things will be okay and they won't have seen their doctor for two years and they won't like it but hopefully

Speaker 2 5:48

the baby is okay and not going to be having any serious issues Maybe in danger, more from me than from your heart. Let's talk about the meat of the interview. So we really want to talk about you being a writer and I'm super excited about that. Can you tell my listeners when you first decided you wanted to be a writer?

Speaker 1 6:11

Really hard to say because I have been writing for so, so long. And, for those who don't know, she homeschooled me and my older brother until I was 14, when I started taking the dual credit classes at TFTC. It was basically all homeschool. We had a few classes that were joint homeschool classes.

Speaker 2 6:30

I've made a co-op with some friends. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 6:32

Yes, you obviously were privy to all of my writing exercises growing up and I'm sure you remember my dialogue journals that we kept and I had what were basically fan fiction at the time, with me putting myself into various books that I enjoy reading back then and it just kind of grew and elaborated from there and at some point I want to say I was 11 or 12 when I started writing my own work and book for the first time.

Speaker 1 7:03

Now I do know a major turning point for me was in college when I was in New York and it was my second year there. I wasn't doing well, had a lot of issues going on there, but at some point I sat down and actually made a bucket list for myself and I looked it all over and I was in school for engineering and I looked over this bucket list of a dozen things and there were three or four things on there about writing, zero about engineering. So I was like you know what I think, I know what I really want to do with my life. So that was a big turning point for me in making a decision to look into that as a profession.

Speaker 2 7:40

It's funny that you say that because, yes, hope was homeschooled with her brother, joey, and I started them at a young age doing different writing activities because writing can be really boring the way it's done in schools a lot of the times. So I wanted to make it interesting. So every single day we had a different writing activity. Since they were very young, they had pen pals that they would write to because that was meaningful writing. We did keep a dialogue journal once a week. I had them writing to magazines once a week and then two of the days were free writing and they could write anything they wanted to. Well, I started this with Joey first. Joey's three years older than Hope, so Joey was seven and he had already been writing for a couple of years. Hope was only four years old and she saw me sitting down with Joey writing and she said but mommy, where's my dialogue journal? I said, oh, I don't have one for you yet, but I can get one for you. I think your very first journal was a Winnie the Pooh head.

Speaker 1 8:42

Yeah, I remember that, I remember that.

Speaker 2 8:46

That was her dialogue journal. Was this Winnie the Pooh head I would model for the children and then she could copy whatever she wanted to, or draw a picture or whatever she wanted. And a lot of times I would introduce vocabulary to them in a written form in your dialogue journal. So I would say, oh, we're going to the zoo this week. And I would point out zoo is Z-O-O. And then she knew that word. What was so funny? Because she had seen me writing with Joey for three years before that. So ever since she can remember, and before that she saw me working with her brother.

Speaker 2 9:21

And when she was four we moved to Florida and we were in a brand new library with new librarians and Joey was picking out some books and Hope was behind me and they had this carousel with early readers. And Hope went over to the carousel and she said mommy, I want to read this book. And I said, oh, honey, that's a chapter book. I don't know if you're ready to read this yet. And she said I think I can read this, mommy. So I said, okay, okay, so she sits down on this bench next to me and she opens it up and starts reading. And I looked at her and I said where did you learn to read? Because I knew I had not taught her those words. And she said oh, mommy, I've always known how to read, so it's not surprising to me that you wanted to become a writer. You always knew how to read. You didn't need me to teach you how to read.

Speaker 3 10:16

Get it yourself.

Speaker 1 10:19

You're a witchcraft.

Segment 2

Speaker 5 10:22

This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. The opinions expressed in the podcast are not those of Hearts Unite the Globe, but of the hosts and guests, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to congenital heart disease or bereavement.

Speaker 3 10:41

Embark on a heartwarming odyssey with Baby Hearts Pressure Gateway to uplifting stories for the chd community, introducing the heart of a heart warrior book series, inspiring those born with heart defects and their loved ones. Discover the heart of a mother the heart of a father and my brother needs an operation. Books celebrating strength, love and familial support. Visit babyheartspresscom and be part of our loving community. Uplifting hearts, one story at a time.

Speaker 4 11:13

You are listening to Heart to Heart with Anna. If you have a question or comment that you would like addressed on our show, please send an email to Anna Jaworski at Anna at hearttoheartwithannacom. That's Anna at hearttoheartwithannacom. Now back to Heart to Heart with Anna.

Speaker 2 11:31

Excited to talk to you about your latest book and before we get to that, I want to know if you've ever been published before.

Speaker 1 11:39

When I was very young, as we said, you had to do a lot of writing exercises and there were various kids' magazines Disney magazine, Highlights for children Highlights.

Speaker 2 11:47

Highlights for children.

Speaker 1 11:48

Thank you, but yeah, we sent in the little reader questions and surveys and I got published, like I said, three times. Joey got published once or twice.

Speaker 2 11:55

Joey got published in Boys Life.

Speaker 1 11:58

That's right.

Speaker 2 11:58

Twice I want to say. And yeah, he got published a couple of times as well and you were in library literary festivals.

Speaker 1 12:05

Oh yeah, there is short story competitions, short story contest I did a lot of them yeah so, but it was good, it was fun, I crucified it and then, of course, growing up, life got in the way, didn't have as much opportunity to do those oh, wait a minute.

Speaker 1 12:18

You have to tell about what you wrote when you were six or seven ray joe danger oh gosh, no, because joey and I were so into Pokemon and then Digimon and so, yes, it was when we were in Florida, so I must have been five or six, even. Oh, okay, because I think we had just moved to Florida when we went to. What was that little bookstore?

Speaker 2 12:40

Oh, miss Anne's bookstore. Yes, we went to a little indie bookstore.

Speaker 1 12:44

And Joey and I found a Pokedex book. So, for those of you familiar with Pokemon, this had the classic 150 Pokemon in it and all the information on them. But that was like the first thing Joey and I had with Pokemon in it and we loved it. And then when we were allowed to watch Sunday morning cartoons, digimon was playing all the time, yeah. And so Joey and I came up with Rageomon and I don't know where the name came from.

Speaker 2 13:13

It was two syllables that sounded good to a five-year-old so and dad illustrated it and that was a lot of fun and I even had it for sale in my bookstore for a little while, because I thought you know when I had a baby with a heart defect, because I thought you know when I had a baby with a heart defect, I would have loved to have seen a six-year-old creative short story book. I thought it would have been a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 13:34

Yeah, so there was Ranger Danger. There was that. That was my first publication. First publication and then various things, and then much, much more recently, I wrote a piece for the Heart of the Heart Warrior Dang. How I don't like being called a heart warrior.

Speaker 2 13:49

Which is the most ironic part of it. Yeah, I said help, I want to put together a book called the Heart of a Heart Warrior and I want you to write for it. And she said, no, and I don't like to talk about my heart to fast. And I said well, you don't have to talk about your heart to fast, I don't like to call myself a heart warrior, yeah, unless of a heart warrior.

Speaker 1 14:04

Yeah, that's what we made the essay about and apparently several people like it. They understand that sentiment, so it was definitely worth putting out there.

Speaker 2 14:12

It is the number one essay that I have received feedback on.

Speaker 1 14:16

Oh, and more people have told me that they also don't like to be called a heart warrior, Although, to be fair, I've only heard that term warrior within the last three, maybe 15, 15 years.

Speaker 2 14:31

Yeah, 10 or 15 years or so. I don't think any people born with heart defects made that up, but I think a lot of them have kind of embraced it, because they had to fight so hard. I feel like for you you definitely fought hard with your last surgery. That Fontan revision was hard and I think that helped you to understand what I saw you fight through before.

Speaker 1 14:56

Definitely.

Speaker 2 14:57

That you didn't remember, Friends just read it.

Speaker 1 15:01

Just read it. For me, it's part of it of just not wanting to dwell on it.

Speaker 2 15:04

That's a really important thing to remember and something that other people who were born with heart defects have said to me CHDers CHDers have said is that they didn't really have the words to put to why they didn't like being called a heart warrior until they read your essay. And then they said to you somebody else gets it. This is not how I want to be identified.

Speaker 1 15:29

I'm Glad I was able to speak to some people that way.

Speaker 2 15:31

But friends people have also told me that they do like the term heart warrior.

Speaker 1 15:35

So you know what which they age their own.

Speaker 2 15:37

Exactly. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. So, yes, this is the Kickstarter version of the Heart of a Heart Warrior. She's in volume one that is available on baby hearts presscom, so if you want to see her nonfiction writing.

Speaker 1 15:52

But it is a dash of fiction.

Speaker 2 15:55

There is a fiction she likes to write and try yes.

Speaker 1 15:59

Being a heart warrior with being a warrior, and Dungeon and dragon that my friends and I play together.

Speaker 2 16:06

Right, so you couldn't stay away from the fiction.

Speaker 1 16:08

Nope.

Speaker 4 16:08

And that's okay.

Speaker 1 16:10

In my DNA.

Speaker 2 16:11

And this is what she wants to do with her life is to be a fiction writer. She'll succumb to writing nonfiction with her mother, twist her arm and otherwise she is a fiction writer.

Speaker 1 16:22

I find it surprisingly both easy and cathartic to compare fantastical situations to real world issues that everybody deals with.

Speaker 2 16:33

Yeah.

Speaker 1 16:33

And it works for me in a way that writing nonfiction doesn't.

Speaker 2 16:37

So let's talk about this new book. Okay, how did you come up with the concept? What is it? Because we have now 25 beta readers, which is amazing. That's super exciting.

Speaker 1 16:48

It is so. The very first piece that I ever wrote for what is now the world of Ravel is what we're calling the series was when we were on vacation in Hawaii, which was the end of 2017. And it was there. We went to see the volcano.

Speaker 1 17:06

We saw the volcano out from the distance, it was nighttime so we could see some of the glow from it and the smoke rising and it was beautiful and it inspired me. Unfortunately, the funny thing is the very first piece of it that I wrote and the whole inspiration that started me on the series now has become a spoiler that was going to be revealed in book three or four, so I can't really share yet exactly what that first piece was.

Speaker 1 17:38

Okay, but it took a couple of years to really spiral into what I have now, and this is one of the funny things. The first scene that I wrote became chapter one and it stayed pretty much the same and that's with the character of Lurie, and I came up with her character first. The book alternates chapters, so one chapter will be told from Lurie's perspective and then the next chapter will be told from the other main character, virgil's perspective. Virgil is a non-magical person at a school for magicians and I came up with that concept and immediately saw huge main character potential. But I already had the character of Lurie and I loved her, so I decided to have that alternating between them, have them both tell the story, and it opens a lot of possibilities. Sometimes it's subtle. There are little bits and pieces here where they'll talk about the same person and they have different viewpoints. They see the same people differently and you can see how that person behaves around different groups.

Speaker 2 18:36

So I see a huge influence from Animorphs here Of course, my kids were both huge Animorphs fans and, for those of you who have not read Animorphs, I did read a lot of the books that my children read, and Animorphs is a series of books that are told from a number of characters, different perspectives, but it's not usually a chapter at a time.

Speaker 1 18:58

It's a team of six. It's a whole book. Each book is one character and there are six members of the team, so they cycled through who's telling the story for each book?

Speaker 2 19:08

right. So I definitely saw that influence. There's a harry potter influence.

Speaker 1 19:12

Yes, I've actually seen magic bit of game of thrones, but you wouldn't really be familiar with that, but where there's some of the political schemes and such but owen kofor for sure.

Speaker 2 19:21

Oh yes, yeah, it's kind of cool as I'm reading through, I'm thinking we read this with that book together and I can see this teeny tiny touch or influence from a lot of your favorite authors, I didn't think of this until just now, but you said it over in Colfer, so I wonder if there's a little bit of Butler in Virgil.

Speaker 1 19:39

Yeah, being like a very physically oriented fighter, smart character, but a fighter dealing with all of the magic.

Speaker 2 19:45

Who's also very smart and is often underestimated.

Speaker 1 19:50

Yes, and often the voice of reason. Yeah, when Butler's hog farm is down from being too much of a genius.

Segment 3

Speaker 2 19:56

Yeah, yeah, I love it, I love it.

Speaker 4 20:03

Heart to Heart with Anna is a presentation of Hearts Unite the Globe and is part of the Hug Podcast Network. Hearts Unite the Globe is a nonprofit organization devoted to providing resources to the congenital heart defect community to uplift, empower and enrich the lives of our community members to the CHD community. Please visit our website at wwwcongenitalheartdefectscom for information about CHD, the hospitals that treat children with CHD, summer camps for CHD survivors and much, much more.

Speaker 2 20:36

I spoke to a lot of people who want to be writers or who are writers, and I'm wondering what advice you would give to other people who also want to be a writer but they're afraid that there's no money in it and they're afraid that this is just not a viable future for them.

Speaker 1 20:53

Well, a couple of points to touch on there To begin with, if you do want to write and this is advice I've heard from a lot of authors I've been to book signings and talked to some authors I've done. Was it Armadillo Cohen? We were about to speak with an editor and that was a publisher.

Speaker 2 21:10

That was the Writers League of Texas. Agents and editors, thank you.

Speaker 1 21:15

Yes, so I've spoken with a lot of people in the industry and they all give this advice and it seems repetitive after a while, but it's just because it is really good advice write as much as you can, even if you think it's not good, even if you look back on it a month later and go why did I write this? Just getting words on paper, just building up the habit, makes your writing better. One of the best things I ever did was a fan fiction that I started when I was 15. And I wrote it for two years.

Speaker 1 21:46

It was Naruto fan fiction and you could see it got to almost 40 chapters and you could see from chapter one to chapter 40, there was huge improvement in my writing and every aspect of it. And it was also around that same time I started going to Slug Tribe and Slug Tribe was a writer's group in Austin that I went to twice a month and you would bring a chapter or two or a short story that you're working on and get feedback. And they also helped me so much with developing my work, developing my craft, and those were the two main things, the avenues that I had there for just writing over and over getting feedback sometimes harsh feedback with fan fiction, because people on the internet don't need to have a filter, and also harsh feedback from flipchart, because they're like hey, you're here to learn.

Speaker 2 22:33

Doing in-person writing groups is really helpful, and now you're with an in-person writing group at Barnes, noble and Harkin High.

Speaker 1 22:41

Yes, I am, and I've gotten a little bit of good feedback there, and the lady who runs it has given me some very good insight into how to market myself, how to run a blog and a website and have a good. What's the word I'm looking for? A good foundation Internet presence yes, and a fan list yes, thank you. Internet presence Internet presence yes, and a Fan list yes, thank you Fan base yeah, we need. Building a fan base.

Speaker 2 23:05

Yeah, we need to build a fan base Is what she's been helping me look at how to do properly.

Speaker 1 23:10

Yeah, that's really essential for writers, because these days it is yes.

Speaker 2 23:14

Well, you won't make any money if nobody knows you exist this exactly, exactly, yeah, kind of important.

Speaker 1 23:21

You have to make a lot of noise. So now, the other point I was going to make is don't worry about the money, because most writers don't even make significant break until the third or fourth book and don't even become sustainable till after that. So you have to be writing because you want to write and because you want to get your story out there and I've actually.

Speaker 2 23:37

You can't expect six or seven.

Speaker 1 23:39

Yeah, yep, can't expect to be like Stephen King, and was it the first one or two books? That he was able to sustain himself off of.

Speaker 2 23:49

It took him a while. Carrie was his first book, but he really didn't crash because he got rejected over and over Now. Mind you, he helped to create the genre of horror that we have.

Speaker 1 24:01

He didn't. He was trying to break into it in a whole new way.

Speaker 2 24:04

Well, I think before that did horror and there were other people who did horror, but I was gonna say, I think hp, lovecraft yeah, hp lovecraft was one of the better known horror authors before him and it was very different.

Speaker 1 24:17

If you've never read any of lovecraft's work, it's very existential horror. One of the biggest repeating themes is that humans are so insignificant in the face of the universe. He brings his characters and his readers face to face with that repeatedly and it gives you this very unsettling feeling. When he does it, it's well done, but it's a different sort of horror than what Stephen King does.

Speaker 2 24:38

I got an anthology of his work once, Goodness I didn't even know that you had read.

Speaker 1 24:40

I got an anthology of his work once.

Speaker 2 24:42

Goodness, I didn't even know that. See, that was after homeschooling. Yes, so that's what was the reading I read to you.

Speaker 1 24:47

No, actually it was when dad and I went to a writer's convention together.

Speaker 2 24:52

That was ArmadilloCon.

Speaker 1 24:53

That was ArmadilloCon. That was ArmadilloCon. That makes sense.

Speaker 2 24:56

Well, I think you're right.

Speaker 1 24:57

I think joining groups of writers, being in company with other writers, is really helpful Getting feedback and also you get to see what they write and you get to hear their feedback. I saw a bunch of other people present and get feedback and critique and bring the story back, improve. It's another great way to learn. You don't see how other people improve too.

Speaker 2 25:18

Absolutely so. What's?

Speaker 1 25:22

the most exciting thing you have going on with writing. Right now I'm starting book two. Book one is 99% finished, so now I can finally put that down for a minute and waiting on the beta reader. So I've got a month there before I need to take any kind of action and waiting on what the publisher who is interested has to say. For the meantime, book two get to finally work on that and I've been fleshing it out in my mind as I finished book one. I was wrapping it up and I was really wanting to get to book two and the more it was delayed the more I'm like. But I know what it's going to be now and now I can finally get to it. So that is definitely the most exciting thing.

Speaker 2 26:02

Okay, so you said a magical word that a lot of people would be on the edge of their seat. Publisher.

Speaker 3 26:07

How did you find a?

Speaker 2 26:08

publisher, and a lot of people who have written books want a publisher, but that seems to be something that's stopping them. Yeah, so can you give some advice on that?

Speaker 1 26:21

Not in this particular instance, because I got lucky, and it was thanks to you, because you met Mr Henville at a Publishing conference Conference Publishing conference and his publishing company works with LGBT plus writers and their works.

Speaker 1 26:39

As soon as he heard that mom's daughter is trans, he was immediately interested, and when he heard that the story I'm writing is set in a world that is more friendly than most places in this world to queer individuals, he was also interested in that. We messaged back and forth a little bit and he saw the first three chapters over a year ago a little bit and he saw the first three chapters over a year ago and then he wanted to wait until I had it finished before he read the entire thing. So I sent him the edited, updated first three chapters and he shared with his team and they like it, and so now they are going over all of it together. I am waiting to hear their verdict.

Speaker 2 27:19

That's very, very exciting. And this is not just a two book project.

Speaker 1 27:24

This is actually a six or maybe seven, Six to seven we are not sure yet, because the more I look at it the more I feel there might be a need for one more book to establish the villains in particular. Part of it is that otherwise there'd be a two to three year gap for the main character and to skip over certain important developments in their lives that way felt problematic for the reader. But also the villains do not quite have enough presence yet, so I need more time to make them a understood threat. We know that they're there, but with an extra book I can really give the villains more focus. Have you understand who they are as people and why they ended up where they are now and why they're doing this?

Speaker 2 28:11

So you did the point of view of Virgil and Lurie for the first book. Might the villains have their own book.

Speaker 1 28:17

That would probably start in book three or four, because I have a lot of this thought out already and I know what will happen in the last chapter of book four, and it's going to be the villain's perspective.

Speaker 2 28:30

Oh, okay, so it'll be a book again that has divergent perspectives. It won't be just like the Animorphs, where it was entirely one person's perspective and in fact, I'm not sure if you ever read all of Rick Riordan's books.

Speaker 1 28:45

I know we read the first, perfect. Jackson and the Olympian books together and then later he wrote the Heroes of Olympus and that series had that with alternating character perspective for each chapter. So I probably picked it up from that too, not just.

Speaker 2 28:59

Animorphs. There are so many different authors who have influenced you, which is cool. I mean. It shows that that's another thing to be a good writer.

Speaker 1 29:07

You have to be a good reader, you have to be a prolific reader. Go, look at everything, even one that you wouldn't normally look at, that you wouldn't normally read, and sometimes you're never going to go back to those books and you're never going to get back the time that you spent reading them. But go ahead, branch out.

Speaker 2 29:24

Because your mother said you have to read them.

Speaker 1 29:27

No, no, no, this wasn't even for me. This is other stuff. But no, this is other books that I was recommended and I don't know why they recommended it to me.

Speaker 2 29:36

Okay.

Speaker 1 29:37

But you know, check them out.

Speaker 2 29:39

So when I was homeschooling, hope and Joey, I decided that I didn't want to read just the typical books that you read when you're in school, because some of them are good but some of them are not so great, so, of course, I shared all the ones I loved. Howl's Wonderland and Wizard of Oz she has. So many. The whole Narnia series, but I started sharing all Newbery Award winning books and there's a reason. Books win a Newbery Award and I would love to see one of your books win a.

Speaker 1 30:12

Newbery Award one day?

Speaker 2 30:14

That would be amazing. But those books are books that have.

Speaker 1 30:18

I feel like I'm the wrong genre for that.

Speaker 2 30:20

Well, but you just never know. They have all different kinds of genres. It has to be for children. And you are, you're writing a young adult a young adult book.

Speaker 1 30:28

The later ones are going to get more gruesome.

Speaker 2 30:32

Kind of like Harry Potter.

Speaker 1 30:33

Yes.

Speaker 2 30:33

There we go again, kind of like Animorphs tier, where they walk limbs at some points and alien healing technology saved them. I'm sorry if any of you haven't finished all this very soon.

Speaker 5 30:47

Just spoiler alert. Didn't name anyone.

Speaker 1 30:51

But yes, there is kind of that trend of book series aimed at younger audiences, sort of mature with the audience and it gets darker and heavier subject matter. Well, we know that death is part of mature with the audience and it gets darker and heavier subject matter.

Speaker 2 31:02

Well, we know that death is part of life, and especially what we've dealt with dealing with heart defects and having so many friends Never been able to not be aware of that.

Speaker 2 31:14

Yeah, you're definitely aware of that, but I'm super excited about your new projects. Congratulations on your new book, thank you. Thank you to all of you who have offered to be beta readers, and we're done now we have 25, so we have plenty of beta readers, but we're super excited to see the feedback that we get from everybody later this month and how help is going to work that in. But while you guys are working on your surveys for the first book, she'll be working on book two and hopefully also contributing ideas for three, four, five, six and possibly even seven.

Speaker 2 31:50

I'm eager to hear what Mr Hensel has to say. Any of you are interested in checking out?

Speaker 1 31:57

Rattling Good Yarn. Rattling Good Yarn, it's a publishing company and he has a variety of books. Oh yeah, limit himself, it's great no, there's not fiction.

Speaker 2 32:07

There's fiction, I think there's mystery. I want to say a couple autobiographies there are some memoirs. Yeah, it's a little bit of everything, but thank you so much for coming on the program today thank you so much for having me and for letting me talk about this. Well, it's been a lot of fun, I know.

Speaker 1 32:23

I know.

Speaker 2 32:24

Well, friends, that does conclude this episode of Heart to Heart with Anna. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found this program helpful and if you have any questions about the show, please feel free to send me a note on the website that's heartunitetheglobecom, and I'll put a link in the show notes to the shows that Hope has been on before, and I'll even put a link to Rattling Good Yarn.

Speaker 1 32:47

So, ian, if you're listening to this program, we're going to put a link to your oh, and I am putting my website together finally, which is mainly going to be a blog, to share thoughts and progress on my work, and I plan to have a short story once a month to post on there. So if you're interested in seeing my style of writing, come take a look. When I get that done, I'll give you a link for it.

Speaker 2 33:10

Okay, we think it's going to be Ink and.

Speaker 1 33:12

Ink and Imagination is the working title for this blog.

Speaker 2 33:16

And there's little hyphens between the words Ink hyphen.

Speaker 1 33:19

We'll give you the. We'll give you the you're right.

Speaker 2 33:20

Antithetonimaginationcom. So yes, I will definitely put a link in. So if you're on your exercise bike or you're power walking or driving the kids to school, you get a chance to just click in the show notes and that will be there for you. So thanks for listening today. My friends, have a great week.

Speaker 4 33:43

And remember my friends, do I not? Thank you again for joining us this week. We hope you have become inspired and empowered to become an advocate for the congenital heart community. Heart to Heart with Anna, with your host, anna Jaworski, can be heard at any time, wherever you get your podcasts. A new episode is released every Tuesday from noon eastern time.