Ink Slinger's Spotlight: Jeanna Kadlec
Writerly wisdom from Jeanna Kadlec
Hey there! Thanks for reading the Metaphysical Author’s Confidential. This newsletter is for fellow mystics who want to write, publish, or market their magical books. I hope you find it useful. If you like this newsletter, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
In this series, I’m interviewing mystical authors about their writing practices. Jeanna Kadlec is one of my favorite people. Brilliant, thoughtful, and hilarious - plus dazzlingly talented at writing and astrology - what’s not to love? She is the author of Heretic and my favorite Substack: Astrology for Writers. Check out her answers to my nosy questions:
1. When did you first realize you wanted to write?
Once I knew that there was a person behind the books I loved to read. Around the time I was six was when I started articulating that I wanted to be a writer, but it took a very, very long time before I really understood what that meant. I come from a very working class family where lots of folks don’t have college degrees and are not creative professionals. We also didn’t know anyone who was an artist or writer for a living, and my parents flat out told me that writing was nice but I had to have a real job with health insurance that would pay.
There was a long, winding road between the stories I wrote in childhood and adolescence to my starting to publish at major outlets in my early 30s to my first book. When you have to learn about an industry from scratch, and build connections from scratch, when you didn’t go to the “right” schools (*cough* NYU in the early 2000s *cough*) and so didn’t “come up with” the new literati and big media names, when you didn’t get fancy internships because you had to work at a 24/7 diner off the interstate in summers in order to save money for the next school year, then it’s a much longer, more arduous process, with a lot more trial and error. Part of breaking into publishing is learning about how it’s a business, and that it’s not some kind of humanitarian meritocracy that rewards you solely based on talent. A lot of people get stuck on the Sleeping Beauty-type briar thorns guarding the publishing gate, distraught that their English teacher telling them they could publish a book one day wasn’t enough. It’s really important to hack your way through those!
The best writers I know aren’t necessarily the most “talented” (what does that even mean); they’re the most stubborn and self-assured.
2. Do you view writing as a kind of spiritual practice?
Yes! This is the foundational belief underneath my newsletter, and also underneath every writing container I run (including The Grove, which I do with my wife Meg Jones Wall 3am.tarot — we’re opening up a new 6-month session later this summer, so stay tuned).
I believe that Creativity is a spirit we are all in relationship with. I believe that human beings collaborate with Creativity every day, whether we’re doing our hair and getting dressed or are taking photos of our neighborhood. Writing is a way to communicate with that which is within us and also with that which we cannot see, that there are spirits moving through Story in ways that we can’t begin to imagine. Writing as a practice — whether story-making or journaling! — can bring us into deeper awareness of the world around us, that which is material and that which is unseen.
3. You have a Substack devoted to astrology for writers. How can astrology help writers?
Astrology, like writing, is a mindfulness practice. To me, observing the stars and planets is a form of animistic devotion that brings me into right relationship with the world. And being in right relationship with yourself, others, and the world around you is, I believe, the foundation of a sustainable writing practice.
Astrology helps to slow me down. It offers practical advice as to how I might best set my expectations for my creative work every day outside of the general internalized-capitalism, must-always-be-making.
There are the practical bits, of course, like using Mercury Rx for revisions or doing admin instead of writing a really vulnerable scene on a day with tough aspects, but in a very general sense, astrology brings me deeper into relationship with myself, which ultimately improves the quality of both my writing and my life.
4. What does your writing schedule look like?
It varies by the week and by the project, and also by where I am in the project. Technically, I write almost every day, but that could be journaling or notetaking or working on the newsletter (I send two newsletters a week). When I’m in the middle of drafting a book-length project, sitting down at my desk first thing every day is a must, and I like to get 2K out at least in a good session. I currently have ambitious word count goals for the month that I have not met, so this is a good kick in the pants to get back to it.
It bears noting that I am self-employed and work from home. Having the freedom to set my own schedule and variety within that schedule keeps me sane. (I have an Aries 3rd house, which probably explains some of that.)
5. What were your biggest lessons from working with a big 5 publisher?
I think it’s easy to look at publishing from the outside in and assume that the Big 5 are the “best” or “most serious,” or that the Big 5 is where the best books go. None of that is true. The Big 5 are the most commercial publishers. They are not going to be as open to experimental work, or to niche occult work.
The biggest and most consistent lesson I’ve learned, from my own experience and also that of my writer friends, is that it’s more important for your book to be with an editor and publishing team who BELIEVE in it, who are passionate about getting it into the world, than it is to be at a “big” publisher.
I would also add that Heretic wasn’t a Big 5 book to begin with! It was bought at auction by my editor Jenny Xu at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. About six months after my contract was inked, Harper bought HMH for $300 million cash, which meant buying out all the book contracts. And so I was at a Big 5… but they weren’t exactly putting effort into my book, if that makes sense. To wit: after only two and a half years after publication, it went out of print, and it’s been a months-long process for my agent, independent booksellers, and I to make a case for a paperback reissue (which will come out this fall! Pre-order from my local bookstore Astoria Bookshop so that I can sign and personalize it for you!).
6. What are your favorite writing rituals?
Leaving my house to write in the afternoon. I initially learned to leave my house to go write at a coffee shop as a teenager; being in a home with domestic violence and other abuses and tensions simply was not a conducive environment to the vulnerable practice that is writing. And even after I was in much safer environments (e.g. being away at college), the habit stuck. Leaving the house to write at a coffee shop is just ingrained in me as a signal that “okay, we’re working now.” And so what I call “changing environments” is my most long-term writing routine. But also: see that Aries 3rd house and the desire for variety and movement in the everyday!
7. Do you run an astrology chart for your books?
Not until I have a pub date. I like using the pub date itself (which I always set at 9am Eastern day-of, for when the first bookstores open), because I never have any control over it, and yet it inevitably reflects the book itself. Rather like the birth chart of a child.
I think that’s something many folks don’t know — that traditionally published authors do not control our pub dates. At least in the Big 5, we don’t. But given that I’m an astrologer, and that I offer electional services, so many of my readers and clients were very confused about why I “chose” a Scorpio eclipse for Heretic’s release date. Trust, I would not have picked an eclipse if I had any say!
But: a book about spiritual death and resurrection coming out on an eclipse? A book about leaving the church and coming out as queer and embracing that which is forgotten, abject, and marginalized being a Scorpio sun/moon/rising AND Venus? Honestly, it checks out!
8. Rejection is a big, but hard part of the publishing industry. What is your advice - both practical and magical - for handling rejection?
The first year that I was seriously freelancing, I set a goal of getting 100 rejections from major media outlets. Not 100 acceptances: rejections. I knew that media and publishing is ultimately a numbers game. A rejection isn’t a failing grade, and often has nothing to do with me personally. Setting that goal — which I exceeded! with a surprising number of acceptances! — REALLY helped me to rip the band-aid off that particular wound and build more resilience.
My practical advice for handling rejection is to look at the feelings underneath the disappointment. Because you get to be disappointed that a book or project didn’t get accepted to, say, your top choice. That is such a normal, human emotion. But if the negative feelings around rejection are pervasive, really setting in and starting to rot, then that is an indicator that more therapeutic work, perhaps, is needed around that core sense of self.
Also: writers write alone, but we don’t have to be alone in our process. My writers’ group, and having writer friends, has been such a source of emotional support and resilience. It’s so much easier to rebound back after rejection when you can just bitch about it with people who get it, and who remind you that what you’re doing is good and important and that you’ll get the next one.
9. What are you currently working on?
At the moment, the paperback reissue of Heretic, a yet-to-be-announced nonfiction title, and a novel WIP are all competing for my attention. There are not enough hours in the day.
Links:
Check out these amazing offerings from Jeanna:
Creativity Through the Houses (with Maeg Keane) and How to Write a Book Proposal (an independent study for nonfiction writers).
Great article. Thank you 😊