Intro

A friend recently asked me to read over a first draft for them. I’m always struck with anxiety and vulnerability in these situations. When someone invites you in to respond to their work, especially in an early, nascent stage, they’re placing a massive amount of trust on your shoulders. I might overthink it a little, but I feel very strongly about what kinds of responses ought to be given when you’re not a paid editor. Well, even as a paid editor, but that’s a whole other thing.

I almost always ask what kind of response the author is looking for. Because if they’re asking, “Does this make sense? Do my ideas connect well?” And my response is, “Your prose is clunky,” that’s neither helpful nor kind. If I don’t ask, I will tell the author what kind of response I am willing to give, which is always a reader response. I will do my best to recreate my reader experience for you. That kind of response isn’t very vulnerable for me. I state upfront that it’s just opinion, and they are willing to take it or leave it. I note things that are awesome, that bore me (I get distracted from the story or put it down), that confuse me, or that I don’t believe. I’ll link to a guide on that in the shownotes.

But the kind of response my friend asked me for was the deeper kind. I was worried about inadvertently stomping on the raw emotions that my friend was trying to convey in their piece or that I would discourage them from continuing. I couldn’t control how my words would be perceived.

That’s a raw spot for me right now. Anyone who has gone through a breakup knows that at the end, it’s nearly impossible for you to get your partner to understand what you mean. I have wrestled with being misunderstood a lot recently. I was so tempted to give a quick and kind of generic response because I was afraid of challenging my friend and pushing them and being perceived as bossy, trying to push their words in a direction they didn’t intend, or any number of interpretations I couldn’t anticipate.

Thankfully, I know this friend has some really tough skin, and that emboldened me to practice digging into my realness and vulnerability and say the things I was scared to say. They said thank you, and I may never know how my response was interpreted. I felt a little exhausted by all the mental hoops my brain put me through, trying to craft my simple but true response, but confident that I didn’t hold back, while using my words kindly and strongly. Vulnerability is a skill, and like all skills it has to be practiced.

Vulnerability is going to be a bit of a theme today. I’ve watched Malorie Cooper practice vulnerability very publicly over the last year as she’s come to understand herself as trans and share her story online. It was a wonderful talk and I hope you enjoy it.

Interview

Crys: I am happy to welcome my friend Malorie Cooper to the podcast. Malorie is also known as MD Cooper and is really known in indie circles for the book Help, My Facebook Ads Suck, and most of her books are in the Aeon 14 world, which is mostly sci-fi, but as she has said multiple times, you can write just about any genre in an 14, and she’s built it that way to satisfy her creative needs, correct?

Malorie: I did, yeah. Thanks for having me on.

Crys: Absolutely. I’m excited. I told you before we started that I wanted to read this quote from your book, which I didn’t know existed until you mentioned it. yesterday. The book that you wrote as Malorie Cooper is called How leggings Changed My Life. And I highlighted this quote because I thought it was so good for...