Julia Bartz, THE WRITING RETREAT
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
[0:06]This 30 minute podcast features a new author interviewed by me every single day, 365 days
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[1:03]Julia Barts is the author of the writing retreat, a novel.
[1:07]Julia is a Brooklyn-based writer and practicing therapist.
[1:10]Her fiction writing has appeared in the South Dakota Review in Digest magazine and more.
[1:14]The writing retreat is her first novel.
[1:16]Welcome, Julia.
[1:17]Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books to discuss the writing
[1:21]retreat.
[1:22]Hi.
[1:23]Thank you so much for having me.
[1:24]I'm so excited to be here.
[1:25]Ah, it's my pleasure.
[1:26]Could you please tell us, let your book is about.
[1:28]Yes.
[1:29]So the writing retreat is about a woman named Alex who has pretty much given up on her
[1:34]dreams of becoming a published writer.
[1:37]When she receives the once in a lifetime opportunity to attend a writing retreat that's
[1:41]being put on by her favorite author, the horror novelist, Rosa Valo.
[1:46]So when Alex gets to the retreat, she finds out that not only is it a retreat, it's also
[1:51]a contest.
[1:52]So Rosa is asking all of the attendees to write an entire book from scratch during one
[1:58]month's time.
[1:59]It's a lot at the end of the month.
[2:03]She's going to pick her favorites and give that author a $1 million book deal.
[2:08]So Alex buckles down is working on her book, but soon starts seeing strange things happening
[2:13]around Rosa's potentially haunted estate.
[2:16]And when one of the attendees goes missing, Alex must find out what's really happening
[2:20]at the writing retreat or she may disappear too.
[2:23]Oh, that's such a good pitch.
[2:27]And this idea come from and have you ever tried to write a novel in a month?
[2:31]Yeah, but he asked that because I actually had to go back to my files because I really
[2:36]couldn't remember when exactly I started writing this book had been a long time.
[2:42]And I realized that the very first iteration was actually a nano rhinobook.
[2:46]So nano rhinob is National Novel Writing Month.
[2:49]So it was, man, almost 10 years ago, late 2014, my sister, Andy Bartz and another friend
[2:58]who's a writer, Leah Conan, and I decided to do nano rhinob together.
[3:03]And so I think I was the only one that actually got to the word count for the month.
[3:08]But for anyone who doesn't know, nano rhinob is an annual kind of online community where
[3:13]people attempt to write, I don't think it's an entire book, but it's I think it's like
[3:18]60,000 words or something, something around there.
[3:21]So it's significant.
[3:22]It's a lot of writing and you're supposed to do it every day and kind of cheer each other
[3:26]on.
[3:27]So it felt so apropos that that was the very first version of the story that I hadn't
[3:33]even remembered.
[3:34]Oh my gosh.
[3:35]And do you just dug it up or how did you even, did you know that you had tried it at some
[3:40]point?
[3:41]I literally went through my Google Docs and it was just kind of, you know, like searching
[3:45]for different terms and Alex has been Alex since day one.
[3:50]That was always her name.
[3:52]And it was a different version.
[3:54]It actually grossed a little on sci-fi.
[3:57]So it was kind of a different book, but similarly, Alex had gone through this friend breakup
[4:02]with Ren and kind of fled the city.
[4:05]And she was actually the sleepwalker in the story and was waking up in strange places
[4:10]and having these weird dreams where Rosa was was coming to her in those dreams and communicating
[4:15]with her and Rosa actually turned out to be an alien.
[4:18]So that was a little different.
[4:20]Yeah, a little different.
[4:21]So I went through a lot of pages, but I do remember the idea of setting it at a writing
[4:26]retreat that kind of landed on me.
[4:29]It was a couple years later and I had set the book aside because it wasn't really working.
[4:35]But then when I had this idea of Rosa being this horror novelist, setting it at her
[4:38]state, that's when everything really fell into place.
[4:41]Interesting.
[4:43]Well, I like how you set it up, even just with like the competition among writing friends
[4:48]right from the start and also feeling like someone like Ursula was really going to make
[4:52]it big versus Ren versus like, how do you know among your group of friends who's going
[4:58]to make it?
[4:59]I mean, it's such a crapshoot and yet there can be predictions and I don't know.
[5:04]Yeah, it's always a question and people, their writing journey or publishing journey can
[5:10]be on a very different timeline.
[5:12]I think if people keep at it for years and years, eventually you get to that point,
[5:18]but you never know when that will happen.
[5:20]And have you gone to a writing retreat?
[5:22]I actually have not.
[5:24]What?
[5:25]Even after this came out, have you been invited?
[5:27]You have to or anything or no, maybe that's embarrassing that I haven't been invited yet.
[5:32]But yeah, that's I think that's one of the reasons that I set it at a writing retreat
[5:37]because I always kind of had this fantasy of what a writing retreat would be like and
[5:42]how it would be just so incredible to be able to focus on that and your writing and then
[5:48]also be in this community of writers because writing is so solitary that it can get a little
[5:55]lonely sometimes.
[5:56]So it is really nice to have people around you and I have many friends who are writers
[6:01]but to have that kind of concentrated time where all you have to do is write and you're surrounded
[6:05]by other people who are doing the same thing that always seems so fun to me.
[6:10]But it's a little, it's hard to do sometimes, you know, the writing retreats that are funded
[6:16]are extremely hard to get into and ones where you have to pay, you know, it can be kind
[6:22]of financially difficult.
[6:23]And if you're working in a full time job, which I used to, it can also be hard to take
[6:27]the time off.
[6:28]So I think it was fun for me to just kind of allow myself to dream up like what would
[6:33]my ideal writing retreat be like, of course, in the book it goes off the rails a bit.
[6:39]Okay, well, we do these retreats like called Zippy retreats or whatever we're doing them
[6:43]quarterly.
[6:44]So you have to come and be one of the people and then it will be its own like writing
[6:50]retreat.
[6:51]You can teach like a writing thing if you want or something.
[6:53]I don't know if you want.
[6:54]Yeah, no, I would love that.
[6:56]That sounds great.
[6:57]Okay.
[6:58]Okay.
[6:59]I'm going to do it.
[7:01]We have a book coming up by Swan Huntley about like ghost writing and the writer relationship
[7:07]and we could do a whole writing thing around that.
[7:10]Okay.
[7:11]Okay.
[7:12]I'll be in touch.
[7:13]That'll be fun.
[7:14]But see, now you'll be invited.
[7:15]And yeah, that'll be great.
[7:17]I think people will be excited.
[7:19]Okay.
[7:20]So you started it in an RIMO, you've gone through multiple versions.
[7:23]What is it about this topic that or which part of this has sort of grabbed your consciousness
[7:29]that you couldn't let it go?
[7:30]Yeah.
[7:31]So I think the piece of it that I couldn't let go of was the kind of this challenge that
[7:39]I was going through at the time of feeling very frustrated as a writer.
[7:44]I said a moment ago that, you know, I think if people keep at it, you'll eventually
[7:48]get there.
[7:49]But I had actually written two books before this that I tried to get published that did
[7:53]not work out.
[7:55]The first one I wasn't able to get in Egypt.
[7:56]The second one I did have in Egypt and we worked together closely for quite some time.
[8:02]And then she decided to part ways with me, which I have found out is very common.
[8:06]Like it happens all the time.
[8:08]But for me, it was devastating because I felt just completely back and square one.
[8:13]And so during that time, I was actually switching careers into becoming a therapist because
[8:20]I was like, I don't know if this writing thing is going to work out.
[8:24]So I had had a day job, but I had always focused on the writing.
[8:27]So at that point, I had to kind of figure out something else that I would feel passionate
[8:32]about.
[8:33]And so it was in the midst of a career change.
[8:35]I was in grad school.
[8:37]And after the second book didn't work out, I really wasn't sure if I was going to keep
[8:41]going with it or if I was going to step away from the writing maybe forever.
[8:48]And I decided that, again, something about this story, it felt like it would be extremely
[8:53]cathartic to write it.
[8:56]And I also decided to use it almost as an exercise of exploring my psyche since I was learning
[9:03]to become a therapist.
[9:04]I was doing a lot of self-diagnosing and those really dark places, the unconscious, the
[9:10]things that I'm not always aware of that are there.
[9:13]And particularly shadow parts, which I was very interested in, which are parts of us that
[9:18]we repress usually when we're young because we're told that they're not acceptable.
[9:24]So for women and girls, that can have a lot to do with anger, rage, shame, sexuality.
[9:30]So those were all things that I was interested in and thought that if I did write this
[9:36]book, I could use it almost as an exercise for myself and really also write it without
[9:43]focusing on the outcome.
[9:44]You know, I was just going to get published because I knew if I did that, I just wouldn't
[9:48]be able to write it.
[9:50]So what did you learn after doing a deep dive into the dark side of Julia?
[9:55]It was really fun, honestly.
[10:00]There's, I don't want to spoil anything,
[10:02]but there may be one or more psychopaths in the book.
[10:06]And that in particular felt really kind of fun
[10:09]and interesting to explore because psychopathic women
[10:13]are like the opposite of how we usually feel,
[10:17]women have to be caretakers or be polite or put themselves
[10:24]last and psychopaths are the opposite.
[10:27]Like they're so self-interested
[10:28]and they don't really care about other people,
[10:31]those like items of people that they can manipulate.
[10:34]So it was fun and enjoyable.
[10:37]And I really encourage people on clients
[10:41]that I see your friends or whoever to tap into
[10:45]those parts of us that we are a little bit scared of
[10:47]because it doesn't mean that we're going to do anything bad.
[10:50]But just being aware of it can really
[10:53]teach us a lot about ourselves.
[10:54]Very true.
[10:56]OK, psychopathic women,
[10:58]maybe I'm not inviting you to this retreat.
[11:00]I don't know.
[11:01]Maybe this is a formal mistake.
[11:04]Tell me about your first two books, but where they have been.
[11:07]Thank you for asking.
[11:08]Yeah, the first book was a novel in stories
[11:12]because I didn't have the confidence
[11:14]that I could write a full book.
[11:15]So I was trying to kind of trick myself into writing a full
[11:18]length book.
[11:18]So it was a novel in stories about three different women
[11:21]who disappear on purpose and exploring the idea of that.
[11:26]The stories were told by other characters who are close to them.
[11:30]So you kind of find out solely like what what's going on
[11:32]with each of them and where they went and why.
[11:36]So I had a lot of fun writing that.
[11:38]And then the second one, funnily enough,
[11:40]or depressingly enough, was actually a near future novel
[11:44]in which Roe v. Wade has been overturned.
[11:46]No way.
[11:47]Yeah.
[11:49]And I wrote it, I think it was 2016, 2017.
[11:52]Maybe it's time to pull that one out.
[11:54]I know.
[11:56]That was, yeah, very scary.
[11:59]I did not think that that would actually happen anytime soon.
[12:03]And in the book, there's a group of women
[12:05]that call themselves femfury.
[12:07]And it's kind of this new age like right girl punk rock
[12:11]movement that goes up against those in charge of this decision.
[12:17]Well, wait, so tell me after you parted ways with the agent
[12:20]and you wrote this draft, how did you get your agent this time?
[12:24]And tell me about, so like publication, it must have felt
[12:27]really great after all them.
[12:29]It did.
[12:30]Yeah, with this book, another thing that I also
[12:32]focused on with this book was the plot.
[12:36]Like I love horror, I love thrillers.
[12:39]So I wanted to make this book as suspenseful and kind of
[12:43]like page turning as possible.
[12:45]And I think that really helped me.
[12:47]So when I completed the book, I'd had some friends
[12:51]read it, I went back and edited.
[12:53]And then I remember I was going to Santa Fe with a friend.
[12:57]I guess it was about two years ago now.
[13:00]And I remember sending out my first batch of agent queries.
[13:04]So what you do is you send an email out to people.
[13:08]There's kind of a format where you share what your book is
[13:10]about and who you are.
[13:11]Before I sent those out before getting on the plane
[13:14]and over that trip, one person reached out to me.
[13:18]And we met up when I was back in New York.
[13:21]And she was wonderful.
[13:23]But that led to me letting the other agents know that she
[13:26]made an offer.
[13:27]And so a couple other people wanted to speak with me as well.
[13:30]And at the end of the day, I ended up
[13:32]going with Alexandra Machinaist who is incredible.
[13:36]And she's actually my sister's agent as well.
[13:39]So that was kind of a funny, nice thing that happened.
[13:42]And she's been great.
[13:44]Like I couldn't ask for a better agent.
[13:46]Wow.
[13:47]And then what about selling the book to publishers and all that?
[13:50]Yeah, that process was fairly quick and smooth as well.
[13:54]We had a couple offers.
[13:55]So I spoke with a few editors.
[13:58]And I decided to go with Emily Bestler,
[14:02]Adria, a Simon and Schuster, because I mean,
[14:05]she's just a very cool person.
[14:07]But also, I felt that some other people
[14:10]were hesitating a little bit on the violence in the book.
[14:15]And Emily was just completely like, yes, let's do it.
[14:18]I'm all for it.
[14:19]She fully supported everything crazy that happens in the book.
[14:23]And so I felt like she was definitely
[14:25]the right person to work with.
[14:27]Fellow Dark Side Shadow Sister.
[14:32]It was editor for you too.
[14:34]So that felt like, OK, she knows how to edit dark books.
[14:38]Yeah.
[14:39]And what is it like having another writer in the family?
[14:43]Like, tell me about that whole dynamic.
[14:46]Yeah, Andy and I have always been writers from childhood.
[14:50]We would write stories together.
[14:52]We would write stories on our own.
[14:54]And she became a journalist, a magazine journalist,
[14:58]and a travel journalist, and at a certain point
[15:01]wrote her first book.
[15:04]And so that was a couple of years, kind of think
[15:08]what year that was.
[15:09]I think it was 2018 when she got the offer.
[15:11]So she was a head of me by a couple of years.
[15:14]So that was actually really helpful
[15:16]because I kind of saw her process going through the different
[15:19]publishing stages.
[15:21]And she has been extremely helpful for me during this time, too.
[15:24]Like, I can always call her a text
[15:27]or with any questions or issues that I'm having.
[15:29]And she knows exactly what to do.
[15:33]That's really convenient.
[15:36]Built-in support network, that's good.
[15:38]What types of books do you like to read?
[15:40]Are you drawn to dark fiction as well?
[15:43]Yes, I love thrillers.
[15:46]I love horror.
[15:47]I love anything that just keeps me invested
[15:50]and trying to figure out what's going on.
[15:52]And that's been, for a long time, I would say early influences
[15:57]were Shirley Jackson.
[16:00]Of course, Stephen King, Margaret Atwood.
[16:03]I guess also people who were able to combine very intriguing
[16:07]stories with characters that you really cared about.
[16:11]What's the latest great horror or thriller you've read?
[16:15]Oh, I'm currently reading The Spite House by Johnny Compton.
[16:19]And it's fantastic.
[16:21]Yeah, I haven't even heard of what Spite houses were,
[16:24]but it's such an interesting concept.
[16:25]There are basically houses that people
[16:27]build to piss other people off.
[16:33]So they're like, this house in the book
[16:35]is up on a hill overlooking other buildings,
[16:38]including an orphanage.
[16:40]So it's, yeah, every time you look up at the sky,
[16:42]this really ugly house is looking down on you.
[16:46]So it's such a brilliant concept.
[16:48]And of course, in the book, it's haunted.
[16:50]So what are you working on for your next book?
[16:52]So I'm deep into my next book.
[16:55]I'm feeling very excited about it.
[16:57]And I'm not sharing too much yet,
[17:00]but I would say that if you like the writing retreat,
[17:03]you'll probably like this book as well.
[17:05]And it kind of focuses around the idea
[17:08]of how affected we are by our community
[17:10]and the people around us,
[17:12]sometimes to a horrifying degree or a fine degree.
[17:15]Okay, interesting.
[17:19]What do your parents make of all this?
[17:21]What do they make of you and your sister?
[17:22]And what's it like, it like a family gathering?
[17:28]Yeah, that's such a good question.
[17:29]They are both in the Midwest.
[17:32]And yeah, Andy and I see them, you know,
[17:35]at different points during the year.
[17:37]And they're very proud.
[17:39]It's funny because my mom is a huge reader.
[17:42]And she was one that really encouraged Andy and I
[17:44]to read a lot as children too.
[17:46]But she is, she's all about it.
[17:48]She loves all of our books and is very supportive.
[17:51]My dad is also very supportive,
[17:52]although he's not a huge reader
[17:54]and definitely not a reader of kind of horror
[17:57]and thriller books.
[17:58]And so I think he's a little like,
[18:01]doesn't know where this all came from.
[18:02]Yeah, but it is funny.
[18:06]Yeah, certain family members, I say,
[18:07]like, I'm not sure if you need to read this.
[18:09]I mean, they're warning, they're sex and violence.
[18:13]So just so you know.
[18:14]Wow, that's funny.
[18:16]And I'll just trade your,
[18:18]trade your books around the table
[18:20]and freak each other out.
[18:21]It's great.
[18:22]Yeah.
[18:23]The point I do get emails from family members
[18:26]who sometimes I'm a little surprised even
[18:29]by the family members who have read the books
[18:31]and enjoyed them.
[18:32]So that's, that's a nice thing too.
[18:34]That is a nice thing.
[18:35]And what do you do when you're not writing?
[18:39]So I am a therapist and a creative coach as well.
[18:43]So yeah, it's kind of nice
[18:45]that I can make my own schedule and see clients
[18:48]like where I want to.
[18:49]And yeah, I love being a therapist.
[18:52]And the creative coaching is a little bit newer,
[18:55]but kind of the perfect marriage
[18:57]of the therapy and the writing background.
[19:00]So the coaching is more about helping people
[19:02]bring their works into the world
[19:04]or if they're having like certain challenges
[19:05]that are coming up for them creatively,
[19:07]I can help them with that.
[19:09]So less like manuscript,
[19:11]less in the manuscript and more in your head.
[19:13]Exactly.
[19:14]Yes, yeah, I don't edit,
[19:16]but I am here to talk about anything
[19:21]because yeah, it can be frustrating
[19:25]to go back to that word, you know,
[19:26]and challenging at really any stage
[19:29]of the writing or publishing process,
[19:31]there can be things coming up.
[19:32]So some people appreciate having someone
[19:35]to talk to about it.
[19:36]Do you help with people getting bad reviews
[19:39]and how did cope with that feeling?
[19:41]Oh my goodness.
[19:42]I had lots of ideas for clients,
[19:45]but that is something that I talk about
[19:48]with writer friends who are going through that.
[19:51]And myself included because yeah,
[19:52]if you go to my Goodreads,
[19:53]you will see a lot of good reviews and a lot of bad reviews.
[19:57]And it is a practice to not.
[20:00]really take it personally. Yeah, it's hard. It is. Yeah, and I think writers are usually very
[20:06]sensitive people, so it can be, you know, it can be a little hurtful if someone takes you
[20:11]on Instagram or something. And I do kind of stay away from Goodreads now after the bad reviews
[20:17]started coming in, which is what people, most authors will tell you to do that. But you know,
[20:23]I see, I see them here and there. And ultimately, people are totally, you know, welcome to their
[20:29]opinion. And, you know, my book is out there. So, of course, you can have any feedback or
[20:33]reaction that you want. But I don't always need to see it. Do you feel that people who get, you know,
[20:39]quote unquote, writers block or just are blocked so creatively? And is there something? Is there
[20:47]something that is a shared thing among that issue? Like, where is that coming from?
[20:54]Yeah, that's that is something I talk about with people a lot because as in therapy,
[21:00]like, resistance comes up. So, there's something that's stopping you from doing what you want
[21:05]to do, which is writing a book or a story or whatever. And there are definitely themes around
[21:11]that. And I think the most common ones are either self criticism or fear of what other people
[21:19]will think. When I started the memoir, the like 8 million version that ended up becoming my memoir,
[21:26]I put in like all caps and bold at the top. No one will read this, but you
[21:32]I literally like couldn't start until I had that. And then I was like, okay, fine. I'll, I'll trick myself
[21:37]into writing. I just got goosebumps. Yeah, I think that's such a good idea. Even for fiction too,
[21:43]just like telling yourself that no Rita, just do whatever you want. But especially for memoirs,
[21:48]like I have such respect for memoir writers because I think that, yeah, that can be an opportunity
[21:55]for even more fears to come up. Yeah, well, maybe you're welcome to steal my my idea here for your
[22:03]clients that even having like a second document where you're like, this is the one no one's going to
[22:07]see. That's the one and ended up being, you know, a whole book. So, yeah, this is your job. But, you
[22:16]know, it's helpful because with the new book that I'm writing, like, I haven't written a first draft
[22:21]of something new in so long. So as I'm writing, I'm just like, I'm a such a terrible writer.
[22:29]Also, like, this is like so bad. But I have to remind myself that, you know, this is just how it is
[22:35]on the first draft. It's just like, you can allow it to be as bad as you want it to be. And that's a
[22:40]good reminder. Like, no one's going to see this first draft except for me. So I need to just let myself
[22:44]write it. Yeah, as long as you have something down there, you can make it much better.
[22:52]But yes, very common. It's so easy for us to get in our own ways, not just in writing, but in
[22:57]so many things, but particularly where we're just trying to be creative. And I don't know, try
[23:02]something new and do it alone with even the page, you know, it was like a perfect recipe for
[23:11]anxiety, really, you know, but anyway. Yeah, take what's in your brain and then show it to the entire
[23:18]world. Okay, go. Good luck. It's so true. Yeah. And that's why I think it's really important to
[23:27]have a community around you of, you know, people that you're close to who love you no matter what,
[23:32]but then also people who are doing the same thing that you're doing. You got it. Like, I think
[23:37]the most helpful thing for me has been having Andy and like other friends who have been through this
[23:42]and know how strange and, you know, it feels very exposed. It feels very vulnerable. So it's good to
[23:51]just have people you can talk to about that. Yeah, for sure. It's so true. Well, maybe you'll meet
[23:57]more friends at our writing retreat. There you go. Well, thank you so much, Julia, for coming on
[24:05]mom's time to read books. Thank you for your book. And for sharing all of this great information.
[24:11]And yeah, I will look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you so much. I had such a good time.
[24:17]Oh, good. I'm so glad. Okay. Have a great day. Thanks, YouTube. Bye. Bye.
[24:23]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms. Don't have time to read books. Don't forget to
[24:27]follow me on Instagram at ZB Owens and at moms. Don't have time to read books. Also sign up for my
[24:32]newsletter at ZB Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom
[24:38]every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact, texture sound for the sound editing.
[24:42]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and now,
[24:46]check out your music.