Andrea Fink is a 2nd grade teacher, and it was a pupil who encouraged her to follow her dreams. Find out how she did just that and learnt to pivot in a pandemic.

Interview with Andrea Fink

Emma Dhesi  00:00

Before we get into today’s show, I want to give a big shout out to Kat Caldwell for supporting the show on Patreon. Kat, your support is so appreciated, and I can’t wait to deliver better content to help you. Right let’s get on with things. So today I am talking to Andrea Fink who lives north of Seattle, Washington in the US with her husband and daughter. Throughout her years of teaching elementary school, she has encouraged her students to follow their dreams. But now she is tackling her own dreams. And finally writing the series she’s been sitting on for a decade. Her first young adult fiction book mask was published in August 2020. And the sequel wave is expected in early 2021. So let’s get on and find out what Andrea has to teach us about writing in a pandemic, and how important it is to be able to pivot. Let’s get listening. Well, welcome, Andrea, thank you so much for joining me today. I’m really thrilled to have you on the show. So good to have you here. Thank you for having me, I’m really excited. Well, I wonder if you could just start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and how you got started writing.

Andrea Fink  02:30

So I am a second grade teacher up in near Seattle, Washington. I loved writing when I was a kid. And I kind of just gave up on it. Because I didn’t think I was creative enough. I didn’t think I was passionate enough. So about Middle School, it’s when everyone kind of everyone else in the class started showing how creative they were. And I’m like, Well, I’m not up to that task. I’m and then I just stuck with the sciences. I love sciences. So you’ll see lots of that in my writing, but it feel creative enough. And when I hit like two years ago, at a student who she wants to she wants to be a teacher when she grows up, she was so excited. And she, like straight up asked me thinking there couldn’t be another answer in the world. Oh, Mrs. Thank you always wanted to be a teacher. And you know, it’s like, oh, do I tell her the truth? Um, and so I, I tell her version of the truth. And I said, Well, when I was in second grade, I wanted to be a writer. And all the kids got like really excited about that answer for some reason. And they’re like, Oh, that must be why you loved reading of the class or why you love talking about books that you’ve read and why you love this and that. And yeah, it probably is. And so I the next summer, I started writing a story that I’ve been thinking of since high school, and it just started flowing. And it felt really good. And I’m like, I want to do this. So I committed to finishing that story. And I just wanted that to be done. Whether I liked it or not. I wanted to finish it. Yeah. When that was done, I published it. And I’m in the editing phase of the second book, and I just love it so much. Wow, well done you that. So you really kind of just ran with it, then you took the idea. And I love the fact that it was your students as well who sort of really inspired you to think, Yeah, why not? I don’t I just try and do this. Maybe that is why I love reading out the stories. So you mentioned in your bio, that this first story that you worked on mask, you’d actually been a sort of described as you’ve been sitting on it for that for a decade. And so could you tell us what that kind of meant for you? Did that mean that that was something you had just had in the back of your head? Or is it something you’d scribbled notes down about even or was it just a kind of vague idea of something? It was all in my head? I’m a big What If’er. So I’m all constantly like in my mind thinking oh well what if this what effect sometimes or like real scenarios like worst case scenarios that might happen, it’s my anxiety always on. And then sometimes it’s just complete fantasy. And so I had this idea of a story about two girls, and one needed to kill the other one. They were twin sisters, one needed to kill the other one. And then it just kept morphing. It’s like, Okay, well, she’s never seen the colour green. And she needs to escape to the side of their kingdom, and all these other things. And then I wanted to know how they got there. So in my mind, I started backtracking, like, what happened before that? What happened before that? How did this world get created. And so eventually, my original idea is now slotted as the third book. And I just go back a few generations.

Emma Dhesi  05:49

So really, the first idea like in high school, I was thinking of, I guess, the third book, I have little little snippets of where I was like, maybe I should start writing this. And I find them on like floppy disks, and little thumb drives from a long time ago. And but now I can look back at those and be like, wow, I really wasn’t a very great writer back in middle and high school. But then I look at see pieces of what I’m using now. back then. So I’ve had this idea for a really long time. And it’s just been morphing the past 10 years.  So that’s really interesting. So did did you feel that then? Because you’ve been having this idea in your head for so long? Because you I am guessing got to know the character. So well over those 10 years? Did you find the actual writing of the first series, quite easy, because it was all there, it was just a question of putting it down on paper.

Andrea Fink  06:45

I knew the destination. That’s that was like the really good part, I knew the destination. I kind of knew how I was getting there. Um, I didn’t really plot out every single detail for each book. And I also kind of stole from other books while I was writing the first one because it was my first book and I had very limited ideas on what I was going to do with it. And I’m like, Oh, this would go really good here. So the entire progression has morphed over time. But when I but it did come pretty easily. I knew about it. I was I’ve been excited about it for a long time. So I was motivated to sit down and write. Because I really wanted to tell this story. Because I remember like going to my sister and saying, Oh my gosh, I have this really good story idea. And then just rambling. Like, okay, sure. Yeah, that’s sure. But then you actually get it down on paper, and she can read it and know what I mean. So I wanted to tell this story really badly at this point. It was received, which is great.

Emma Dhesi  07:51

Now you write YA fantasy is that the right genre. So yeah, I’m interested. I actually I don’t read in a fantasy or kind of sci fi or any of the kind of otherworldly genres. So I’m always fascinated by how people world build from someone who you know, I write very much in the domestic sphere. So it’s all very familiar to me. How did you come up? How did you start world building for your stories was Did you have a kind of a process for it? Or does it come willy nilly, as we say, in the UK?

Andrea Fink  08:27

It’s the one thing it’s, um, it was that original idea and then building, how would that come to be? And any idea I would have, it was a lot of inspiration from what I saw. And like, if this idea had been living in the back of my head, it camped out back there it has, it has its own room with its own buckler just sitting back there. And so just anything I could see and think, wow, that would really incorporate Well, um, you take a trip somewhere, and you’re like, oh, that building is so cool. What if, like, the palace would look something like that. Or you see this mountain range, and you think, Oh, my gosh, this has it’s so mysterious. And it’s so like, overwhelming that this has to be part of this landscape. And I live in a place where I do get a lot of inspiration from nature. The Northwest has a mountain range on one side and water on the other side. And we have long nights and winters and we have long days and summers. So I have the world is built around these four regions, the seas, the mountains, the light region and the dark region. So I get a lot of inspiration from where I am here and travel and you see other things when I was writing the first book, my mom blessed us with a trip to Iceland and I don’t know if you’ve ever been but it is amazing. just the sheer beauty of nature out there and just being able to pick up like you drive by this little rock formation along the water and you think, Oh my gosh, that is perfect. I love this, I want to take that. So I’m just kind of stealing from everywhere, all the things that I like, because I wanted this world to be something that I liked to be something that at least I would enjoy, because I didn’t know if anyone else would enjoy it. So I wanted to make it for myself, and then see if other people responded.

Emma Dhesi  10:28

And just kind of on a practical note, did you do that? You know, a common thing to do is keep a world building Bible, I think they call it? So did you do something like that? Where you have a file where it just kind of helps you keep track of the different landscapes and the different names of places? And and the types of beings that are maybe in your world?

Andrea Fink  10:49

I do not. So I probably should, because barring the second book, there has been a lot of Control F in my first document, I define certain things like what colour was that what, I need a little bit more detail on that. So I can describe it again in a different way. But now I don’t have a world building model. It hasn’t been so ingrained in my head at this point, that I could tell you almost anything about my world, just off the top of my head. Um, but yes, I probably should make my world building Bible pretty soon. So at least I can stay consistent once I get to like before their fifth books.

Emma Dhesi  11:25

So do you have plans for that? Do you want the series to expand?

Andrea Fink  11:27

Yes, as long as that I have solid plans for the first three and then a series of short stories. I’m about the world. And then I have a spin off series. But I also have ideas for other things I could do in this world. So I’m deciding where I want to go after that. But I should probably write finished the second book first. Because lots of ideas.

Emma Dhesi  11:49

That’s great. Now, I know you’ve mentioned just before that you are an elementary teacher, and and I think you also have a toddler. Is that right?

Andrea Fink  12:00

I do. Yeah.

Emma Dhesi  12:01

So you’ve got a lot going on in life with working I know toddlers, well, they are a handful. So how do you find? How do you manage to balance everything so that you get enough time for your children, enough time for your husband, for work friends, and then also leave room for the passion in your life for your writing.

Andrea Fink  12:23

So when I decided to start writing, I talked with my husband and he agreed that it would be a good idea for me to follow this and to do this. And so I actually went part time at my job, I found a wonderful co teacher. And I got to do mornings teaching and then afternoons writing before I picked up my daughter from daycare. And it was a really great plan. It worked out really well. Just like all great plans that started in 2019, they kind of ended in 2020. So a good chunk of the writing got done during those afternoon slots. I wasn’t as I didn’t have as good a routine as I should have, I had this great opportunity. And I wasn’t taking as much advantage of it as I should I ended up doing laundry and making dinner and all those things that you do with toddlers out of the house. So when when quarantine hit is kind of where I made that routine because I needed to make a routine if I was going to be stuck at home all day. And so naptime and bedtime became really important for writing I would, the moment my daughter went down for a nap, even if she wasn’t asleep. And even if she was still crying, or my Chromebook would open and I would go straight to the document because I, I knew I didn’t have a lot of time. And that kind of time crunch and having that in my schedule every day, I knew I was gonna write at that time, I knew that I wouldn’t have much time to write. So I was I got really good at this, fitting it all in there. And then after bedtime, my husband and I would like watch one or two episodes and something and then he gets to go play video games downstairs, which he loves doing. So he was he was okay with this. And I would just sit and write as long as I could. Sometimes it was till nine o’clock and then I’d burn out. And then sometimes it was like a midnight 1am writing session because inspiration finally struck me. And it happened to strike me at 11 o’clock at night.

Emma Dhesi  14:31

I think that’s great, though. I think that really emphasises the importance of being adaptable and flexible. And I think a lot of writers and maybe I’m being unfair, but I think particularly when you first start out there’s an idea that you’ve got to be in a certain place, you’ve got to have a desk if he’s either got to be quiet or you’ve got to have the right ambient music and you’ve got to have two hours free with an actual fact I think in this day and age and how busy we all are you.

Andrea Fink  14:59

You actually have to be adaptable and something like a pandemic, yeah, can just kick you off course. And so Okay, I’ve got to find a plan B here and make it work for me. So I think that’s a really kind of useful message for anybody listening. If they’re feeling that they just don’t have the time, it often comes down to making that time for yourself is something that you love doing so much.

Emma Dhesi  15:21

So I’m really glad that you shared that with us. And so when you did find those, we refigure your schedule, and you had those two writing slots. What was your aim for those slots? Was it just to fill that time in some way? Or did you have a word count that you wanted, or perhaps a scene or chapter that you wanted to write to each session,

Andrea Fink  15:43

there were some months that I chose as word count months, and those were the months where I had to do a certain number of words in a certain session. But if I found that if I did that constantly, again, I would burn out really quickly. And I just couldn’t, it wasn’t sustainable for me. So there were some months that I chose is okay, I’m getting words on paper. That’s, that’s my goal. And there’s other months where I just okay, whatever I can get out, I’ll get out. And one of the big things for those wordcount months was that I did not have to work on the section I was working on. If it wasn’t coming to me what I was working on, right, then I would jump to a future seeing that I had daydreamed in the shower the day before, or something that I really had solidly down and was excited about because I wanted my writing to sound like I was excited about it. I wanted to convey how excited I was about the story. And if there was a section, I was like, I’m not excited about this right now. I would I would put it on the backburner and work on something else. Because I did have that limited time. And I wanted to work on stuff that I was excited about during that time, because it was time for me.  as a as a mom, you don’t get a lot of time, outside of that time and bedtime for stuff for you. So as long as it was my time, and I was doing it for me, I was excited about it, that it was a value to me. And I wanted to make sure that my time was still a value. Yeah, I think that’s worth remembering isn’t that we get caught up in there in the craft of it. And then the word counts and having to get this project finished. And then we want to get it published. But it can be easy to forget that this is a passion project in the beginning. And it is something that we enjoy doing. And it can be easy to let them the fun and the Curiosity slip away and kind of be functional about it.

Emma Dhesi  17:32

So it’s nice that you recognise that in yourself. Is it okay? No, I can vary my writing what I need to write because it’s fun, I want to enjoy it. And I’ve got to remember that lesson. It took me a long time to get to that point to remember that point. And it was Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Big Magic that really kind of pointed that out to me that this is this is a lifelong journey. So it’s really important to enjoy it otherwise, yeah, as you say, you’ll get that burnout. And then that’s no good to anybody. So you’ve written the first draft to the sequel of Mask, and the sequel is called a wave. Congratulations on finishing your first draft, that must feel really good. And you’ve mentioned that to the next step is to find your beta readers. And so do you already have some beta readers lined up from when you released Mask? Or are you starting to search again? And how did you find your beta readers?

Andrea Fink  18:32

Oh, my beta readers, they. Because during the first one, it was just a little passion project. Um, I had my sister, and two really good friends who lived together. And then a former coworker, who is very into the fantasy genre. So those are kind of like a really solid, a sister acts as my cheerleader, because she never, she never has any criticism, but she always likes to point out what she likes. So that’s really good for me, because I, I need a little bit of positive encouragement as I’m going on, I think does. Because I don’t have much for myself. So getting that from external sources is very useful. And then my two friends, Jackie and Julie, they get to read it and then talk about it together, which is really great. Because they’re all they’re like their own little book club because they live together anyway.

Emma Dhesi  19:29

So that’s without you there.

Andrea Fink  19:31

Yes, without me there exactly. And then they can they just type their feedback on the document and we’ll be like, Oh, I totally agree with that. You definitely need to tell us more about this or this doesn’t make sense for this character. And then Raven, who is my force, she, she’s very into the craft she really likes to point out Well, this the way this is worded, or you never described this earlier, you should probably do this early. So people have the image in their mind. So I, I have this wonderful collection of people from different parts of my life all filling these different roles in beta reading. But not a lot of people have that many people who are willing to read the first chapter of something that they’re writing. But I mean, I hadn’t talked to Raven and probably in person, and probably five years or so. But she was still willing to do this for me.

Emma Dhesi  20:27

So did you do a shout out on social media or something to see, would anybody be willing to read this for me? Or did you know that she was an avid reader, and you reached out to her,

Andrea Fink  20:37

I knew she was an avid reader, I knew she was a she’s one of those really creative people who always been kind of made me feel bad about not being very creative, because she’s very artsy. And she makes all these crafts. And she’s a really good writer, and she has all these great skills. So I just knew I wanted to reach out to her. She also. So where we used to work, the closed, or the pandemic, so I was like, well, she might have time on her hands. So I wanted, I also offered her compensation because I knew that I didn’t want to work waste the time that she now had. Because when time is so valuable, even if you’re not working, and I wanted to make sure that she thing in return for it. Yeah, was unthinkable.

Emma Dhesi  21:24

So then it sort of it sort of professionalised the relationship a little bit, she won’t feel so bad. But if she does have some constructive criticism for the book, and you know that it’s coming from a good place, and that she’s taking her role seriously, as a, as a reader. So that’s really great. I love the fact that, yeah, you’ve got your cheerleader there, and your sister who is not going to point out the bad stuff, but will point out the good stuff. And then you’ve got your little mini book club there who act as just as a normal reader might, and who isn’t a book club, and then the friend is able to offer that more kind of crashed, constructive criticism. That’s a really nice mix to have. And you’re right, I don’t think many of us do have that nice, nice a bunch of mixed media is game. And so I was looking at your Facebook page. And I’ll link to that in the show notes as well. So people can go and check you out. But I was really interested in your the AMA that you organised the launch of mass, which was your Ask Me Anything session that you did the launch? So why did you decide to do that? And how did you go about organising it? And was it did it work out with did it do what you wanted it to do?

22:38

Oh, AMA is on Reddit all the time. So I’m very familiar with AMAs. So I wanted to do that, because I couldn’t have a book launch party. My cousin is an author, and I’ve seen her have all these book launch parties and like, oh, they’re so cute. And she has like so many people. And she ends up with like 20 people leaving that her house with their book in their hands. I’m like, Oh, that’s so great. I want to do that. And then you can’t have parties anymore. So, um, I decided to do an AMA because a lot of people in my life, I was kind of keeping this pretty secret. For a while I didn’t want a lot of people knowing in case I failed, you know that that constant struggle of Oh, this is just going to be terrible. And it’s going to be a one time thing. And so I kind of wanted it as like almost my coming out as an author party. And I didn’t get the full party. So I wanted a way for people to ask questions about this separate aspect of my life that I hadn’t really revealed to a lot of people. And so family could come in and ask questions about writing or about what I’ve been doing for the past year and a half.

Andrea Fink  23:50

People who have been interested in the book can come ask about the book. And it’s kind of this great mesh of questions that I got from people I knew from my life in science and people I knew from family and people I just met on Instagram. So it was a really, really great conglomeration and people were able to send in questions early, in case they weren’t able to be there, then they were able to watch the video later. And then if people popped in that moment, I’d be able to respond in time. pretty great. I had almost like a full hour of questions, which was really great, also really hard on my voice. And also hard on my cheeks because I was on video the whole time. So I felt like I needed to smile and excited so I was genuinely smiling as well. And then of course, in the back of my mind, I had my mom’s voice going don’t look out the window, because that’s what I do when I’m thinking and you can see half of the video is me looking out into the window.

Emma Dhesi  24:49

And the questions you’ve got with the with the with the good questions that it makes you think about things about your story in a different way. Did it inform the second book even

Andrea Fink  25:00

Um, I already had the plan for the second book, but it was that they were pretty good questions just to kind of give myself a better identity as an author. Because I had not again, I have an Instagram that’s separate from my family Instagram for my author stuff I have as like, I don’t want to hound my family with my writing, I want to have a separate community for that everything separate. But getting these questions from my family about being an author. And kind of my inspiration and stuff like that. got me thinking about my thinking a little bit of metacognition

Emma Dhesi  25:39

right.

Andrea Fink  25:40

A little bit of metacognition about my process, and everything like that. And I never really thought about it before. So it was really useful to start thinking about myself as an author. That was to do it, because it was my publishing day. So perfect timing, finally, an author on the day I literally become a self published author.

Emma Dhesi  25:59

And would you do it again? I mean, it was it sounds like it was a big success. Now that everyone knows you’re a writer, and you release that first book, did it feel that it was a really good way of just getting the word out about your new release? Would you do it again? Do you think?

Andrea Fink  26:14

I would probably do it again? Yes. Probably not an entire hour, probably a shorter and a session. But I, I would, I would do it again. Now, play now that I have more people following me on Instagram and Facebook, it would probably reach a larger audience. And I know that a lot of other writers are following me. So especially a lot of independent authors, so being able to share that with them. And then they would have their own versions of the questions that were being asked, kind of like you have these questions for new authors. It’s going to come from a different perspective and make me think about a different aspect of my author life. Mm hmm. That’s a great idea. I’ve never thought about do I think I’m gonna launch that idea for myself. My, my next release.

Emma Dhesi  27:03

Now, you mentioned kind of inspiration just before and I wondered, and who, which waiters, which authors have inspired you and also kind of which, and perhaps which craft books have been good inspiration for you as well. But maybe we could start with your favourite authors who’s inspired you?

27:22

I am actually, if you read the book, you might see it that I’m a huge history buff. So I don’t read too much fantasy, like I will read some of the major series, I’ll read a lot of ya series. I like reading what’s popular, I know it’s a probably a bad thing to say I like reading what’s popular. I love going with the flow. I know I love knowing what everyone else knows. But just I’m not a huge fan of her as a person. But as an author, JK Rowling is, like, held to a very, she’s kind of up there for me, because in my generation that grew up with Harry Potter and grew up with the wizarding world, you can ask anyone who is my age? What is your Harry Potter house? What’s your Hogwarts house? They’ll have an answer for you. Or they’ll know what you’re talking about. I don’t think there’s any other thing on the planet earth, where you can ask an entire generation of people something and they’ll know what you’re talking about. Except for maybe what’s the weather today. So just how ingrained in the culture her world has become, is really fun for me because people mentally live there. Some people are just like, they’re all the time they identify themselves. I identify myself as this Lutheran. And it’s just like, and people know what that means. having that ability to have your world be so well known, and have like, I would love if the four regions became like, like the Hogwarts houses and everyone would have their own.

Emma Dhesi  29:10

Um, what about craft wise which and sort of teachers or mentors have you kind of read or reached out to to get inspiration for your, for your writing life?

Andrea Fink  29:20

I’ve never read a craft book. But I do follow a lot of self published authors on Instagram and just following their process and watching what they do because the community there is really good. It has so many self published authors who are more than happy to help others and so I’ve actually direct message some of them and there’s they’re willing to give me feedback or what to expect. I had one who no one my my proof copy was if my proof copy was going to come in before the release date, and I was panicking. So I just messaged her, and she’s like, Oh, well, mine came in this many days, and I had to ship all the way to Hawaii. So don’t worry too much about it. You might need a push back your launch, but just just wait and see when it ships. And so like just getting someone who knew what was going on, and the sets in the publishing process and who knew the struggles in writing. And when I can post something about while I got this many words done, and there’s still someone there to congratulate you. It’s really nice. So having that community, I think is probably better than any craft book I can find and manage to read in my limited time.

Emma Dhesi  30:37

Well that’s great, no, it’s lovely. I think community is so important. And it’s and it’s not always easy to find, I think, particularly in parison, to find a good writing community that is and supportive and encouraging of one another. And so yeah, the next best thing I think is your right is that online community where friendships are made, that would never otherwise have meant but across the internet, we can we can do that we can forge those connections. And so I wondered if you could, I’m just conscious of time as they were, we’ve been chatting away. But I wondered what advice you might have for anybody who is where you were kind of 18 months ago, just starting out thinking about?

Andrea Fink  31:19

Okay, I’m going to do this pushing past all the kind of imposter syndrome and feelings of doubt, what would your words of wisdom be for them now, the first person you’re going to need to impress yourself. So write something that you want to read. Because even if no one else ends up reading it, you’ve written something that you like. And don’t try to, I mean, follow the rules. But Don’t try too hard to adhere to them. If it doesn’t feel right for you. If you want your story to be a certain way, you have every permission to do it, I am giving you permission to do it, however you want to do it. Because it’s your book, it is your book, you don’t need to be writing 3000 words a day, you don’t need to do it the way that someone else tells you to do it. It is your book, you do it how you want to do it and write the story you want to read.

Emma Dhesi  32:13

Excellent words. Excellent words there. I couldn’t agree more. So Andrea, where can people find you online if they want to connect with you?

Andrea Fink  32:21

So I am most active on Instagram. So it’s Andrea as an author with a period in between all of them. Yeah, I do post updates on Facebook under Andrea Fink author. And but those are not as frequent. So if you if you really want to get in contact with me, if you want to see what I’m up to on a weekly basis, Instagram is going to be where you find me. Questions about the book. I actually love getting those. So message me and I’ll give you secrets about Book Two. If you’ve read book one and you want to know more, we’ll talk to you.

Emma Dhesi  32:54

Where can we listeners find your book?

Andrea Fink  32:57

I have it is on Amazon and is on all major booksellers online. There’s on every Amazon that I’m allowed to send it to. So if you’re in the Netherlands, I have it there. If you’re in the UK, I have it there. If you’re in India, I have it there. So I have I just wanted it to be as widely dispersed as possible. And if you want the ebook, it is only available on Kindle.

Emma Dhesi  33:23

Right. Okay, fantastic. Well, that’s lovely. Andrea, thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed talking to you today.

Andrea Fink  33:31

Thank you. This is a lot less nerve wracking than I thought it was my first podcast interview.

Emma Dhesi  33:34

Oh, congratulations.

Andrea Fink  33:37

Well, you made it very easy. So thank you.

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