Taking a break from things that feel heavy is essential for our sanity. This is true, especially when we find it hard to cope with everything around us. After a two-year podcast break, Ella Barnard is back with a refreshing stance on podcasting. She sits down with her good friend Alana Terry and answers questions about what happened while she was away. Tune in to know more about Ella’s author journey and how she managed to regain the momentum for podcasting.
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Listen to the podcast here:
When Life Happens: The Journey Through My Podcast Break With Alana Terry
I’m a little bit excited/nervous about this particular thing because, in this episode, I invited Alana Terry, my dear friend, to interview me about my author’s journey and what has been going on for the last couple of years, personally and all those things. I thought talking to a microphone seemed awkward. I’m like, “What do people care about?” I’m not exactly sure but if I ask somebody else to do it like the amazing Alana, she can take care of it for me. I have a goofy or a nervous laugh but it’s going to be fine. Thank you, Alana.
Welcome back to the show. I know you took some time off. How does it feel to be back?
I finished my first interview, and I was nervous. It is like riding a bike because all it requires is for me to be curious about people and books. I miss talking with creative, proactive women and people. I’m very excited.
If I have taken a long time off of riding and get back in, I’m surprised by two things. It’s harder to get started but then I did get my momentum back way faster than I thought.
I have not done as much riding but this feels like I have not taken very many breaks off of writing and then come back. That might be more challenging because writing is not my number one skill.
We are going to talk about writing soon but I want to know more about the show. For people who are brand new to you, tell us the history of the show, your time off, and what got you back in.
I have always loved books. You can start with my writing and my show because the story is the same way. They have been my escape. I have read a ton. I grew up, and it was always like, “You should get a job doing a job that’s secure.” I was always suggested that I should be a teacher or a nurse because you can always find a job as a teacher or a nurse.
Those were defaults for little girls a long time ago. Those were the two careers that I was pushed towards also.
I ended up being a teacher and administrative assistant for a couple of years. It turned out I didn’t like other people telling me what to do, especially when I felt like I was smarter than them.
My husband is the same way. It makes it very hard to be an employee.
With that in mind, I started listening to podcasts while I was at work because I had that flexibility. I was like, “What am I good at? What could I be an entrepreneur about? What can I do?” The things that I’m good at, there isn’t a job. That thing didn’t exist. It took me ten years. I was like, “I wonder if I could do something around books and women because I love women and creative women.” Gradually, I started a Facebook group and a show for writers. I have always been interested in writing. For a long time, I have read a lot of the big writing books like Bird By Bird and On Writing by Stephen King a couple of times.
I have all of these writing books but I never wrote. It has been of interest. When I was like, “Who do I want to help? Who do I feel like I could help the best?” It was creative women and writers around books, specifically because I love books. I started a show because I like talking. I was like, “I have no shame, so I will reach out to people on a show and have conversations with people who are doing it well. I can figure out how to give that help to other people who are starting.” I did that for a while. That’s how we met. It was Melissa Storm or somebody. I have no idea who introduced us but I was like, “Alana, I’m Ella.”
It’s funny how those things we have been in each other’s spheres for several years. I don’t remember how it came about either.
I disappeared for a little bit.
Tell us about that.
At the end of 2019, my husband and I were doing IVF. If anybody has read the other shows, having a baby was my why. When you people talked about, “What’s your why?” That has been my why for a while. In February of 2020, we had a little embryo implanted. In March 2020, I’ve got tested, and there’s no baby. That’s about when I did my last episodes, too.
I remember having you on the Successful Writer Podcast right after lockdown started. We were talking. The whole topic was dealing with stress because of all the pandemic stuff.
That happened the same day I found out that I wasn’t pregnant. My grandmother passed away, and then three weeks later, my grandfather passed away. We expected it because they had been together so long. He’s not going to want to stick around. Everybody knew that once one of them goes, the other will follow after. After that, my mom cut me out of her life. It was her parents who had passed away. She was grieving. The thing that I have never mentioned to anybody publicly is that she’s very narcissistic. I had been in her sphere for my whole life.
We never had that separation for a while. At the same time, my husband, who was very conservative, wouldn’t wear a mask. I kept asking him, “Can you please wear one? I had a bunch of people die. It would make me feel safer for you to wear a mask, and you wouldn’t.” My whole life fell apart because I realized I didn’t have a baby. It wasn’t happening. We didn’t know when because it was the pandemic. That’s where we are doing IVF at a hospital. It was like, “You can’t come in.”
You didn’t even have the chance to decide to pursue more IVF.
Not at that point because it was so new. My whole life was upside down.
It is all of the big chunks of the important relationships, too. When lockdown started, I was talking to my grandma. We were talking about what a bizarre time it was. This isn’t within week one. We are like, “Is this the apocalypse?” We talked, and then a couple of days later, I called her back, and things felt a little more settled. I told her, “It’s strange how much you can get used to or decide to survive when your family is okay.” In your case, you are going through 2020 and the IVF turmoil. You had a strain in your close family relationships, too. That’s more than anybody can shoulder.
You go into a blossoming stage when you realize your outer pressures aren’t there anymore.
COVID was way down on the list. It made everything harder but it wasn’t the main thing.
It brings to things like your mom was stressed because of COVID, which led to things or if the mask issue led to strains in the marriage.
It is not being able to go to a coffee shop to be by myself for a minute. I know that exercise helps when I do it but not being able to go to a gym.
Did your husband’s job change?
That increased the stress because his job was in the cleaning business. There’s more demand and exposure. That was an added stress. It has taken me up until a few months. My husband’s father passed away in October 2020, while we are in the middle of this. That created a life change because his father had a farm. My husband has to manage now that farm on top of it, which I only mentioned because I have Seasonal Affective Disorder. I struggle. We are in this tiny town, which is very cold and dark.
You are talking to an Alaskan. Alaska in May is gorgeous. Come up and visit.
I would be happy to visit but I’m never moving to Alaska. We knew that we needed to do something different if I wasn’t going to maintain my health because I’ve got depressed. I’m like, “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life depressed.”
I only have a peripheral understanding but IVF was messing with your hormones. That’s on top of all of that.
I have a friend who was a nurse who’s like, “Those take a little while to move through your system.” There was a lot of struggle. The thing with my husband’s dad passing away ended up that we are not going to stay married, which means that the IVF isn’t going to happen. I’m not doing IVF. That’s why it’s taken me so long. I’m like, “That was my why.” I had to come up with another why of like, “What’s my why now? What do I look forward to in my life? What do I work for? What’s my purpose?”
Are you still on that journey or have you started to narrow it down now?
I have some things that got me through a little bit. I’m still on the journey. At the same time, it’s happening since I’m not talking to my mom. I can talk about stuff I wouldn’t have ever talked about because I didn’t want her to be upset. I’m like, “We are not talking.”
How many of us have a memoir in us that it’s not going to get published until somebody passes away?
She will never read my blog. I’m like, “I can say whatever I want to.” There’s a little bit of freedom that’s coming that I’m not used to yet. I don’t know what I’m going to want to do when I have this freedom of not worrying about offending my mom. I want to help women and writers I did before but I can be a little bit more confident about it.
When you were talking about the freedom from not having some constraints from your mom, it sounds like in a lot of areas, there is this sense of you not having the constraints of acting like the daughter you were supposed to have. You thought you act like you don’t have the constraints of acting the way you thought you were supposed to act. It does seem like a blossoming stage where some of the outer pressures are not there anymore. That stinks. There’s a mourning period to go through, and it sounds like you have been going through that for years. I can see that being one of the cool outcomes is not having all of those constraints.
I’m pretty excited about it. I journal. The energy I want to bring the world is a hug. Whatever I bring to the audience or anybody that I interact with, that’s the energy that I want to be unashamed.
You explained how you’ve got to be working with authors because you love reading about writing. Talk to me about the woman side of it because that has always been at the core of the author services you provide. Was that something you always knew? Was it going to be woman-focused? How did that come up?
I started my first little itty bitty courses. All of my customers were women. I had 2 guys out of 20, and one of them was gay. I connect better with women. Personally, I like empowering women more than I like empowerment because, generally speaking, in my experience, women are more hesitant to put themselves first, take risks and put themselves out there. It’s harder to market to women because they are less likely to spend money on themselves.
One of the things I want to do is help women feel more empowered and be able to make money doing what they enjoy, which also then impacts everybody in their life. Like if they have kids, watching their mom, successfully have her business at home while she’s making money, doing things, and prioritizing herself. For any sons they have, that’s the thing that I want them to learn to look for in a woman. For any daughter they have, they get to be like, “I can do that.”
I heard a super cute story in the documentary about LulaRoe. They are talking to the attorney who brought some big class-action lawsuit against this leggings company. She had this little five-year-old daughter and introduced her daughter to a male attorney. The daughter giggled. It’s like, “Only moms can be lawyers.” It was very cute. It is very different from even when you and I were growing up.
Especially now, where you have self-publishing, specifically with writers, you don’t have to go through all the gatekeepers. If any woman does make a choice and commitment, they can do it. The restrictions and obstacles are overcomeable. It also connects with women better. I was not against dudes but then I decided, “I’m better at it.” The challenges that women have in their mindset around it are different than the challenges that men have in their mindset. I was like, “I want to coach. I don’t want to have to come up with two different courses. I want to do it for the ladies.”
Women empowerment is important because women are more hesitant to put themselves first and take risks to put themselves out there.
I’m the same. I love talking about the mindset things I love, empowering authors. If we are to stay on the topic of women authors, what would you say are the top few mindset obstacles you see most often?
The real challenge many women face is they wonder if what they create is good enough for anybody else to want to read it and how to market it. That’s a huge barrier to not just putting out in the world but then marketing and saying, “Not only am I putting it but now I’m going to spend money saying that it’s good enough.”
As women, our self-worth is tied to external things more so than internal things. It’s harder for women not to have a terrible day when they get that bad review or not to want to give up when one person or the beta reader says, “I didn’t like this.” From day one or at least from puberty on, so much of your self-worth is how other people accept and perceive you. That makes it more vulnerable, and it feels dangerous for women to put their stuff out there.
I remember one of the guys I interviewed. He was a lovely gentleman. He is like, “I wrote the book, published it, and never even had anybody read it but it was the best book ever.” As I was listening to him, I was like, “Have I ever in my life created something and then said, ‘This is the best thing ever?’” If I had kids, I would be like, “These are the best things ever.” Beyond anything I have myself, I’m like, “I can’t think of anything. This could not be any better. It’s perfect the way it is. You all should love it.”
It was such a contrast between the way I think. A lot of women interact with this stuff. Here’s the thing. A lot of women’s stuff is good because we spend so much time thinking about it and effort trying to make it the best we can. It ends up being good and probably better than you would ever think. You are like, “It’s okay.” No, it’s great.
It’s like when you are eighteen-year-old and think that you are fat and ugly, you look at pictures of yourself and like, “You are not fat and ugly.” We are always our own worst critics. One thing that I love about in terms of mindset, marketing, and this gender side of things is, for a little bit, the message to women was, “Let me teach you how to have male confidence and masculine marketing ability. Let me teach you how to author like a boss, and that boss is the 50-year-old guy in a suit and tie.”
What I love is that over the last several years, there seems to be a switch in terms of, “Let’s teach people who are interested in promoting their work from a more feminine side of things with a more feminine energy.” I want to pick your brain, both from the writing and marketing sides. What does the typical woman bring to the table if she’s writing from the feminine energy? It’s also the same question for the marketing side.
One thing that I also did in those years that I disappeared from the show is that I started writing mostly because I had created this amazing course and had trouble getting people to buy it because I had not been a writer. I just talked to a bunch of writers. I was like, “I will do it myself.” In case anybody didn’t know, I have written a lot of short story romances under a pen name. I support myself in this apartment and am able to move wherever I want off of the books that I have published using my system. It’s bringing the feminine to the writing.
For me, I’m writing romance. I have a few books out under another pen name with paranormal women’s fiction. Both of those are very feminine genres in a new way. Paranormal women’s fiction is an urban fantasy for people but the main character is a 40-year-old woman or above. She’s a little bit older. It is very fun. In writing, it’s focused on relationships a lot. In romance, it’s a romantic relationship. In women’s fiction, it’s a relationship with women friends.
We see people well. Since we are connecting with people often, we can see their needs because I’m used to helping people too often. One of my favorite things is writing the story to be a woman’s fantasy. I write strong women. The first fiction I ever wrote and published was based on my own as I had gone on a bad date.
We met online, and we were meeting at a Starbucks. He was there ahead of me. I walked up, and I was like, “I’m going to go in and get a drink, and then I will be back out.” He was outside. I went in, got a drink, and walked back out. He had left. He was driving away in his truck like a sailor. He was like, “Adios,” and drove away without a word.
How old were you at the time?
I’m 27. It was awful. I was like, “How am I going to come up with a story? I will rewrite how it could have gone.” I rewrote it where the guy drives off as he did but there was another guy who watched the whole thing and was like, “I will swoop in.” He swoops in to save the day but the woman also becomes empowered throughout the story. I want her to be like, “I am good enough.” That’s what’s I’m making, empowering women. When I come to the stories, that’s what I like to do. I like to have the women who read them and the way I write them to be in a way that’s empowering. That’s purposeful and part of why I like to do it.
On the marketing side, it’s not crushing it. The energy that you can bring to it is instead of trying to sell, bring an energy to it like, “This pizza is delicious. Have you had? You should because it’s yummy.” It’s a very different energy to a lot of marketing. A lot of sales and marketing that we have been exposed to is people trying to convince us to buy something that we don’t want or that we are failing in something we do.
When women commit, they can do it. There are no restrictions, and the obstacles become overcomeable.
When I was younger, nobody was doing their eyebrows. We might shape them a little bit but there was no eyebrow. That did not exist. Maybe for models or something but I didn’t. Now somebody told us that our eyebrows are not good enough as they are, and all these women are buying eyebrow stuff to fix this thing that’s wrong with them that is not wrong with them.
You don’t even notice. I was in South Korea several years ago, and someone was telling me about this surgery that women love to get because some eyelids have two creases, and some, only have one crease. One of them is supposedly pretty, and another isn’t. I would never think to look at a woman and count how many creases are in her eyelids. It’s the same thing. Somebody told some woman at some point, “This is how you can be more attractive.” Have you read from Dr. Seuss, the one where the little creatures keep wanting to either get stars on their tummies? The charlatan tells them that one is better and one isn’t.
That’s marketing that is not very feminine because we fall prey to it. As an individual, I would never ever in one million years go to one of my friends and be like, “Your eyebrows need some help.” I would be like, “You are beautiful the way you are.” Much more feminine energy is to uplift the women around us than not. Women criticize other women because they are insecure because of all of the stuff that comes at us all the time, telling us that we don’t look good enough and are not good enough.
In marketing, especially in this industry, it’s not like people read one book, and that’s the only book they are going to read. It’s not like, “I’m buying a dishwasher. This is the one dishwasher. Let me see which dishwasher is the one that I need to buy for ten years.” People read a lot of books. The way we get to market to people, I can be like, “You should read Alana’s book because my book is not done yet. It takes me a lot longer to write my book than it does for you to read her book.”
We can be very generous with everything. That’s very feminine. I am not in competition with any other authors. I like to promote their stuff. Most women authors that I know are also fine promoting my stuff. We are like, “Let’s all promote each other because it’s a very abundant marketplace. The readers are very generous.” That is also very feminine.
Looking forward to 2022 as we are wrapping up, what’s your picture of you being your most inspired and empowered you?
I’m not dialing back my writing, although I have switched primarily to only co-writing because it turns out I’m a very slow writer, and there are some things about the writing that I’m not as good at descriptions. By not as good, I mean I don’t do it. I’m like, “There’s a house. They went into it.” I’m awful at that, and my co-writer is excellent at it. We are very complimentary.
I like doing the feeling stuff because I’m like, “Look at how people.” I liked that part, and she doesn’t like that part. We are very complimentary. It allows us to produce more because there are two of us. In 2022, my inspired best self will be reconnecting with the people I have disappeared from for years because my healing strategy is a hermit. I’m like, “How are you doing?” “Nothing.” My coping strategy is being a hermit. I’ve got on TikTok as many people did. I kept on coming up with adult women with ADHD. I was like, “That sounds like me.” I went and got tested for ADHD. I have it.
How did they test you for that? Is it this questionnaire?
The initial thing was a questionnaire. That didn’t say I had it but it was like, “I think I do.” They have a little laptop. They put me in a room and got me a headband. There’s a camera on a wall. They can see if I’m moving. The headband says if I’m moving that much. They gave me an exercise where there were blue and red circles and squares. There was a blue circle, and then I clicked a button every time it repeated for twenty minutes.
Since the thing is measuring if I’m moving and how many I’m getting correctly and wrong, by the end of twenty minutes, I was not able to focus. I have no idea what the last one was. It was very interesting. I’ve got some meds that have made a huge life-changing difference. If you have something mental, see somebody, and maybe there’s medication. I’m pro in that. I’m not like, “Let me figure out how to do it on my own.” If you need help, get the help. I have only been on the meds for three weeks.
Even revitalizing the show is a result of that, would you say?
Yes. I have been thinking about it for months. I wish I could but I don’t have the capacity. That’s amazing. It’s being able to put that energy into revitalizing the show, taking that confidence I have been gaining, the freedom or the blossom you talked about, and exploring who I might be able to be. It shows up in the world in a way that can positively impact people’s lives, especially women writers who wanted to make a living with their writing and have their world transformed. I want to help more people while enjoying life myself.
You can be a Book Doula, helping other women bring life, a sense of empowerment, and get their dream out of becoming a writer.
Before, I was scared to be too successful. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my mom cut me off when I started making money with my books. My mom wrote a book, a memoir. She shopped it around. She had been trying to get it to be successful, and it never was. I was successful, not with a memoir but with writing. It’s something that she always considered herself very good at. As soon as I started making money, she was like, “I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” I don’t think that’s a coincidence because all of a sudden, I’m doing better than her in this one thing in her mind. I don’t care. I want her book to be successful.
A woman’s output comes out great because they spend so much time thinking about it and so much effort trying to make it the best they can.
The mindset that impacts women is the fear of making money because, for so long, that wasn’t part of what women were expected or hopeful of doing. It could lead to issues in the marriage or with the parents. Not to pick fresh wounds but I could even imagine if you still had the hope any day now, “I might get my miracle baby. I need to save space in my world to bring that baby in.” I could see even that being a way that you were saving some of your energy, whereas now, you don’t need to save energy for that. You can go all-in with the business and writing, and make an even bigger splash.
When I first started this, I liked organizing events for women. I used to do these crafty little parties at my house. I used to do this with cookies and cards. I invited twelve women over. I would be like, “Bring cookies, and we will make Christmas cards for fun.” I wanted to organize writing retreats for women because I like organizing events. That would be fun.
Hit me up because I have been thinking of doing the same but it’s not with you. I need a co-author or co-conspirator because that has been on my radar, too.
My focus was my baby but then COVID hit. In 2022, that would be fun.
I am sorry for everything you have gone through in the past couple of years. That’s a lot that you have had on your plate. I’m glad to see you back but I hope you don’t feel any sense of embarrassment or regret for taking the time off you did.
That’s why I asked you because you are a special person. Everybody knows there are people who you can come back to wherever you are at and be like, “I’m sorry.”
There’s not even anything to be sorry for, is what I hope you eventually can see.
I’m trying to be very gentle with myself. That’s part of the process.
Going back to coaching women and allowing the feminine side, that’s part of it. For a long time, anything about productivity was working hard, waking up earlier, pushing yourself more, and setting bigger goals. For some people, that can work but for people like you and me, that energy doesn’t do anything for us. Even you being an example of someone gentle with yourself will be so helpful for women who might still be stuck in a productivity spacing. We have given a couple of disclaimers. I want to give one more. There’s a place for the masculine energy but I also love that we are able to bring more mainstream the feminine side of it.
I am getting things done. There’s a place for that. These last years, allowing myself to feel the feelings was powerful in a way that I didn’t realize it could be. Krispy Kreme is the thing that got me through. I moved here to Meridian, and there’s a Krispy Kreme. I gained weight like many people during COVID. The thing that I needed to feel good sometimes was a dozen donuts. I wouldn’t even get them.
I saw something where it was like, “If that’s the thing that helped you, keep going,” because many women have so much shame around eating and weight. Whatever the thing is that helps you, you don’t have to be ashamed. I don’t have to be ashamed of whatever the thing is that kept me going. I’m still here. I’m coming back. If what I needed to do was gained 20 pounds in Krispy Kreme donuts, that’s what it was. It worked because I’m here and getting better.
I went for early adulthood, not gaining too much after pregnancies, a couple of life stresses, and then COVID. The way I look at it is I look at the scale, and my body did exactly what it was meant to do. Stuff was falling off the shelves, and people were worried about the supply chain. Even after the lockdown, there’s concern about the supply chain. People didn’t starve but at the time lockdown started, my body did not know that I wasn’t in danger of starving. We put that in the right places because we were built to survive a famine. That’s how I treat COVID. It’s like, “Thank you. My body did what it was designed to do at that point in history.”
For me, the food eating was more of dopamine or a happy rush mentally to my head but that was what it was supposed to do. Those Krispy Kreme were supposed to make me feel better, and they did. Now I don’t need them as often. I still love them because they are Krispy Kremes. I want them. I’m preachy.
It’s encouraging, and hopefully, is encouraging for your readers, too.
Thank you so much for helping with this. I have no idea if anybody is even going to like and be interested in my story but I also didn’t want to pop back up without sharing. The future episode will be on similar topics of my writing, marketing and mindset. Hopefully, we will all have a good enjoyable time in 2022.
You are your own worst critic.
Let me throw in one more thing that you reminded me of. I’m not sure if people want to know the behind-the-scenes, especially when talking about marketing from a more feminine side. It’s also about connecting with people. I remember I picked up a non-fiction book. The information was good but I didn’t feel there was no personality behind it. An AI could have written it and given me that information. Much of how we resonate with people is by these connections. If you and I had only gone on here to talk about setting up your Facebook ads, we could have given people information but not the connection.
Maybe someone is going through IVF, and it’s like, “I’m never going to share them with my readers.” You don’t have to but to the point that you are comfortable, you can show them your personality and not have it come across. As little girls and women, we are taught, “Don’t put yourself out there. Don’t take up too much space.” We are like, “Nobody wants to hear my story,” but they do because that’s how they make that connection to you.
You talk about wanting to give the world a hug, and they are not going to know what that hug means until they know who you are. I’m glad that you shared so much. I’m happy to reconnect with you because it has been a little bit. It’s fun to share our journeys. Everybody has gone through some hard stuff and looking at you a lot more than others. A virtual hug that we are already for means so much more than it did the last time you and I talked.
Thank you for doing this because I’m like, “How much are people interested?” I don’t know because we are taught certain things but I don’t want to do it the way that I was taught all the time. I’m like, “Alana will guide this well.” To anybody who’s reading, thank you. I hope our 2022 is easier and better. Big hugs to everybody for 2022 because we all could use one. Hugs. Happy authoring.
Important Links:
- Alana Terry
- Bird By Bird
- On Writing
- Successful Writer Podcast – Author Chat with Ella Barnard Past Episode
- Book Doula
About Alana Terry
Alana Terry is a USA Today bestselling author who writes Christian suspense that inspires the soul. Her novels have won awards from Women of Faith, Book Club Network, Grace Awards, Readers’ Favorite, and more.
Alana’s novels are known for encouraging Christian readers, raising tough questions, and presenting the gospel without being preachy.
(She has also been accused of making her readers stay up way too late.)
In addition to writing fiction, Alana co-hosts the Praying Christian Women Podcast and teaches book-marketing courses for authors at the Successful Writer Academy.
