How to Be a Freelance Writer & More, with Author Gloria L. Huang

GLORIA L. HUANG IS a freelance writer whose fiction has appeared in literary journals, including Michigan Quarterly Review, The Three-Penny Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Massachusetts Review, Fiction Magazine, North American Review, Arts and Letters, and more. Her debut novel, Kaya of the Ocean, has been selected as a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, American Booksellers Association Indies Introduced Selection, and Indie Next Selection. It’s just out from Holiday House. Listen in as we discuss how to be a freelance writer,  and so much more.

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Gloria: Thanks so much. I’m so glad to be here.

Marion: Well, it’s really fun to have you here and really a good time to do this because, as I mentioned in your intro, your fiction has appeared widely in some great reviews and publications. And I haven’t had on a writer who’s a freelancer, who identifies as a freelancer, and yet so many people want to do that.

So, let’s just start with the life of a freelancer. In an interview with you in the Massachusetts Review, you stated that you have been writing stories since you were a child. My audience is writers, many of whom would like to live the writing life but don’t know how.

I was a freelancer for years. I still am to some degree. So, let’s set it up for those writers listening, a working definition, if you will, of the life of a contemporary freelancer. I have relatives who literally, decades into knowing me, do not know what I do for a living. They think I don’t have a job. So, help me. How would you define the job of freelance writer these days?

 Gloria: I guess the way I would define it, and this may not be the official definition or other people’s definition, you know, I’m happy to be corrected. But for me, a freelance writer is someone who kind of writes whatever else is going on in your life, writes for the passion of it.

You know, obviously, the goal is to be published. But for me, it doesn’t necessarily mean, like, that it’s your day job, or that you’re making a life off of it right now. For me, freelance writing is that it’s the thing that drives you. It’s what you do when you have spare time.

It’s kind of what gives you breath and air. And at least that’s what it is for me. So in my mind, I feel like I’ve been a freelance writer, kind of forever, and whatever’s been going on in my life. But officially, kind of after I, you know, studied English literature and did a lot of writing courses, kind of turned to short stories, literary fiction, short stories, and getting those submitted in literary magazines, that was when I really started thinking of myself as a freelance writer.

Marion: Yeah, I get that. I say to people all the time, you have to earn the right to write. In other words, you really just can’t hold your family hostage, quit your job and say, we’re going to live on my income. Well, you know, if you’re writing for literary journals, that’s going to be a very small income.

And yeah, and a desperate place to write from. So,  it’s not that it as you say, you’re fitting it in around the other things you’re doing to make money in many cases, yes?

Gloria: Exactly, exactly.

Marion: So part of the job is to have faith in your own ideas. And this is a really important distinction. I think a lot of people look out over the horizon and think, “Oh, she wrote a book about this. And she did really well. I should do that.” No, it’s your own ideas.

And one of the stories you published in a literary magazine that I just loved, Anonymous Code, published in the Three Penny Review, had a woman suffering from infertility, who has a tumor in her ovary, and she and the tumor build a relationship when the tumor starts to text her.

Okay, so writers get ideas all the time.

And depending on the writer, the support they have, or whatever you tell me, they talk themselves out of pursuing them. It’s too weird. It’s too close to the truth. It’s too what? So you had me at texting tumor. I was all in. But it’s a great place to ask you about having and keeping faith in our own ideas.

How do you do it?

Gloria: Yeah, that is an excellent question. And I think you phrased it beautifully. I think it’s tough because ultimately as writers, we write for the passion and love of writing. But I think many of us would be lying if we didn’t say we also want our stuff read.

So, there is a tendency to be like, but what’s out there? What do people want to hear? What gets sold? But I found at least for myself, the writing that connects most with other people tends to be the writing that was born from a seed of something personal, something that was either happening to me or someone very close that I needed to kind of almost explore through my writing or, you know, starting to sound a little bit like therapy, but kind of get out there and figure out.

And either I’m trying to communicate something to a readership about something of experience, or it’s kind of for myself. It’s like, I’m going through this thing. I need to bleed it out onto the page and see what it becomes, what it becomes. And a lot of people end up connecting with that more in some ways.

So, I think there is something about kind of following through on those ideas that are most meaningful to you. And maybe, maybe for that most scary, because it’s hard to reveal, but that’s what I found for me anyways.

Marion: I think that’s lovely and generous.

And I appreciate that. And I think between not feeling that our ideas are normal enough and feeling that we have to have everything all figured out before we write, people just stop. And I don’t have everything all figured out in this life at all. But I tend to throw down things that I want to push around and explore and possibly understand a little bit.

So where are you on that sliding scale of understanding the thing before you take it on?

Gloria: That’s a good question. And I was actually giving some thought to that recently, you know, what drives people to write or what drives me to write. And I think you have it exactly right.

That there’s, there’s an element of sometimes you’re creating a world you want to exist in or bringing people to life that you want to know. But sometimes it’s, it’s exploring something you don’t know. And for me, I think my approach to it is kind of a midway approach.

So, usually, I will take something and if it’s not something that’s deeply personal to me, and I don’t know as much about it, I will do kind of the basic research before I begin writing to make sure, you know, like for example, in Kaya, surfing features pretty prominently.

I have surfed before. I would in no way say that I am in any way a competent surfer, but I love watching surfing and I love, you know, the beautiful spectacle of it. So, I kind of dove into that a little bit so I could speak to it a little bit more fluently.

But I think that for me, at least some of the research also comes out while I’m writing. So I’ll have a base understanding, but as I’m getting into it, I’ll think, Oh, wait, I need to know exactly what happens when they’re on the water and how do they get onto the water and I’ll watch videos and that sort of thing.

So it’s before and during the process of writing.

Marion: Oh, I’m so damn grateful to you for talking about research, because I think people also think that writers know everything. And is that not true? I have never, ever had anyone say no to me when I call them up and say, “Can you explain what you do for a living?” Whether it’s been a high energy physicist or, you know, someone commensurate to a surfer, right? Somebody who’s doing something that I want to put into this story. And people love to talk about what they do and explain how they do it. So have you ever had any resistance in your research in any way?

I mean, I just want to encourage people to pick up the phone or walk down to the beach or stop a surfer or whatever. What about your experience?

Gloria: I completely agree. I think people are always flattered about talking, you know, about what they do and what they love.

And I think if they, in my experience, if they know that you’re writing a book, it’s even more exciting because I think there’s a legitimacy to it. Like, oh, I’m imparting knowledge and it will end up somewhere and it will reach someone. So I think that’s exciting for people.

At least for Kaya, a bunch of the research ended up kind of being around Mazu, the Chinese mythological goddess of water.

And for that, I did actually, you know, there was obviously internet research, but I also relied a little bit on reaching out to family members, like my father who first told me about her and learning, you know, family stories. And I feel like kind of spoken word stories that get passed down through generations is a different kind of research.

But I definitely feel like people have always been willing to kind of talk about what they know and what they love.

Marion: Yeah, I think so too. So, Kaya of the Ocean is a debut novel and debut novel is one of those wonderful expressions that speaks so much of promise and joy. And we know there’s a lot of hope behind it, so much aspiration. It’s just a wonder. It’s just one of those lovely, lovely expressions.

We just feel so good about it. So talk to me about knowing you were ready or giving yourself permission or however you would describe the pivot to Kaia of the Ocean, a young adult or middle grade fantasy novel, as it’s referred to, that is your newest publication.

Gloria: Yeah. So the idea was born in the months where the world was kind of emerging from the pandemic. And I was witnessing some children very close to me going through anxiety for the first time. And as someone who also experienced that as a child, I could still remember how terrifying it was, you know, to have this happen for the first time and also to have to worry that there’s something deeply wrong with you.

And I could see that fear and I could see them not understanding. And so a huge kind of driving force behind me writing Kaya at the time was that I wanted to create a book that was a message, kind of a love letter to these children and any children who are going through something, especially those battles you fight kind of deep inside that nobody can see.

There’s all parts of you. And, you know, there are parts that you might see to be weaknesses or that you might not like as much, but they all make up the beautiful, complex, amazing people you are. And the ability to kind of learn to accept your whole self can actually be kind of like a superpower, can make you stronger.

So that was kind of what drove me to write this book. And because of that, I’m so grateful that it’s my debut novel. I think I hear this expression oftentimes, “the book of my heart,”  and I think it’s a beautiful expression, but that’s how I kind of feel about this book.

Marion: Well, you’re right to do so. The most recent statistics are that an estimated 31.9% of teens suffer from anxiety disorder. And I was just so, I mean, I don’t know you, but I was just so proud of you that you took it on because we are rooting for this 13-year-old heroine whose extreme anxiety is one of the main characters and we’re rooting for her to move beyond that anxiety.

But, you know, people need to see themselves in books. And so, I just wanted to back up for a second and ask you, when you were growing up, did you see yourself on the bookshelves? Did you see yourself in the library? This really speaks to kids who have anxiety seeing themselves.

What was your experience with that when you were first reading?

Gloria: Yeah, thank you for asking that. This is a question that means a lot to me because I do think that this was a formative thing that shaped me into my love of writing. When I was a child, I was a voracious reader.

I read everything I could get my hands on.

But you’re absolutely right. Back then, there were very few characters I found that looked like me or anyone from my family or background. And it could be pretty painful. I think, again, as a child who was kind of prone to anxiety and who turned to books and these literary worlds for comfort, it was hard to not see parts of myself reflected back.

So I think that as I grew and, you know, wanted to be this writer, thankfully, there’s more diversity in terms of voices now in the literary world. But I really wanted to add to that. I really wanted to make sure that there was, you know, more diverse voices, more stories, more places that kids could look for comfort or, you know, for reassurance and actually see themselves reflected back at them.

Marion: Yeah, it’s so important. And it’s so worrisome.

And we’ll get to that in a minute about what’s going on in the library shelves. But along with Kaya and her anxiety, you take on in this beautiful book, culture, assimilation, the anxiety that we’ve mentioned, and family history to mention just some of the main themes.

And in that interview, in the Massachusetts Review I referenced earlier, you state that water shows up as a supporting character in many of your stories. It was sort of a funny aha moment in that you were like, huh, just realized that. Hmm, got to think about that.

Yeah, I’ll be thinking about that. And then comes this book. And I was like, yeah, look what you did.

So the water is not merely a supporting character, but the water is a deep, unsettling phobia of hers. So talk to me about this water recognition. You know, did you finally just say, “Huh, did that interview that came up, I better do something with this?”

Or is this just part of this? I’m not really sure why this water thing, but it keeps coming up.

Gloria: I think it’s a little bit more the latter. And I actually, after that interview, I did spend some time trying to parse through why I’m so obsessed with the ocean. But to be honest, Kaya, I had mentioned, you know, the world is emerging from the pandemic.

I do remember actually, I first thought of the idea of Kaya when I was alone on a beach and it was nighttime and I was listening and seeing as much of the ocean as I could. And I was just kind of in awe at this powerful entity. And I think the best way I can explain it is it’s such an amazing metaphor, I guess, for so many things kind of in the human existence.

It can be so powerful, but it’s so changeable. There’s so much unknown about it, but it’s a source of comfort. You know, it changes constantly. Like sometimes we go to the ocean and it’s soothing and reassuring, but sometimes it’s obviously a danger and a threat and there’s just so much we don’t know about it.

It is hard for me even now to kind of figure out why I’m so obsessed with it, but it does show up in a lot of my writing. And I thought it was kind of the perfect vehicle in some ways for my story with Kaya. To be fair, I actually know people who have water phobias and that’s obviously a different form of anxiety, but I thought as a metaphor, it worked really well.

Plus I got to write about the water again, which is clearly a favorite of mine.

Marion: Yeah, you did. And the cover is beautiful, and the water is so important to the tale. And as I said, it’s one of those themes that you take on among culture and assimilation and anxiety and water and family history.

And I think that those thematic choices are an interesting topic in themselves. You know, when a writer sets out to write something, the question of the writers that are listening, I think for that writer, you know, is did you make a list? Did you say to yourself, these are the things in the world that trouble me?

Did you draw entirely from those things inside you that you want to understand? I mean, we’ve touched on this in the beginning of this interview, but you know, sometimes people, as I referred to earlier, are looking out at the other books that are doing well.

And I always say to people, no, no, don’t do that. You know, what interests you, or at least what might we be talking about in a few years? Get your finger on the pulse of what’s going on. So what about you? Do you make a list? Did you say, these are the six things I want to cover here, or did one naturally lead to the other?

Gloria: I would say for me, it was very much the latter. And that’s not to say kind of in terms of the craft of writing, I will do kind of very loose chapter outlines. And, you know, I mean like three bullets per chapter and then before I start writing, so I have a loose structure.

So in terms of plot, I do a little bit of planning, but in terms of the issues that come about or the emotions or the dynamics, that actually comes very naturally. So a lot of what you see in Kaya actually wasn’t there in the original versions. I think Anne actually came about later, her cousin, who she has a lot of the friction with.

You know, the relationship with Tayo changed a lot, the relationship with her mom changed a lot. Some of the scenes, I think there’s a scene where there’s, you know, a miniature microaggression with somebody that was like revised and revised initially.

It was something different. Some of the flashbacks were larger. So a lot of that changes just in the natural evolution of the book. So I come up with kind of an idea and then a lot of those make their way into it.

Marion: Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. And I just know that there’s a lot of belief in the mystical experience that is writing.

And there’s definitely a mystical aspect.

I mean, the annotation of what we have on us is fascinating to me, that it comes up as we’re writing, that it’s drawn from many places, conscious and subconscious. But it’s also a practical art, science, and skill that takes structure. And so, if you would, if we could just dive back into that short, bulleted outline that you put down, are you doing it on a big old cardboard and putting it up on your wall?

Are you using index cards? Are you doing it on a piece of paper? Give the people listening a little bit of a gift of try it this way. Because I think they get really… People talk to me about these software packages they buy. And I’m like, no, no, no, because I don’t know.

Really? So what about you?

What can you offer these people?

Gloria: Yeah. I feel like I’m much more kind of a pen and paper at heart. I think part of it is, I love stationery. I’ve never met a stationery store I didn’t love. So I think that part of it is an excuse just to buy beautiful notebooks and pens.

But my process is, I would say, first, with Kaia, it was a little different. Because I, as I said, I had this idea kind of on a vision and it was almost like possessed with it. I needed to write about it.

For a lot of my other stories, the first thing I do is I have this notebook and I will write different ideas on different pages, like an idea per page.

And I almost do like a word cloud, you know, almost word association. I start just writing down things that it made me think about that might end up in that book. And then I let that kind of sit for maybe a few days. And then when I find that there’s one story I keep coming back to more and more, I develop that one.

And the way I do that is I first will write almost a pitch, like a one paragraph summary, if I was going to pitch this to someone, so that that kind of pulls together the whole story for me. Then I will do a very brief outline of the characters and the timeline, and this is still all in my notebook.

And then I do a very, very loose chapter outline, still in my notebook, you know, as I said, maybe three bullets per chapter, very, very loose. And then I start writing. And at that point, I find that I diverge quite quickly from the outline. I will end up kind of writing on these different tangents, so it would be different subplots that’s when they all come in.

And at that point, I kind of move more to the computer. So any additional ideas, any additional points, I’ll start putting as bullets under what I’m writing and I use the pen and paper less at that point.

Marion: I love all of that.

It’s so helpful, but I particularly love that you pitch it to yourself first.

If you can’t pitch it to yourself, you can’t write it. And while I absolutely respect those people who write and write and write and then find the story, I get that. But I think if you can pitch it to yourself first, you can write it.

It’s the prow of the ship and you need it, right? So that’s golden. That’s going to go on an embroidery pillow or something, you know, “Pitch it to yourself first.”

Gloria: I just really love that.

Marion: I like that.

Gloria: Yeah, it’s nice, right?

Marion: Well, as we’re having this conversation, the news has just broken that Disney will remove all references to a character’s gender identity in an upcoming February eight-part show called Win or Lose. It’s a transgender storyline and I’m not going to ask you to answer or comment for Disney’s decision, but I think it’s a good reminder of the environment we live and write and publish in.

So the young adult market is a fascinating one. It’s vibrant. It is literally vibrating with the issues of being someone on the road to self-discovery. And it’s a marketplace where books sell really well. But it’s also under astonishing scrutiny because of some people’s perceptions that we’re influencing kids to become something that they’re not.

And it threatens to build in this time of book banning. So, talk to those who are listening, who have their own stories, not yet published, still being written of anxiety, race, discrimination, culture, gender, or any of the topics that seem to be getting singled out for banning and help them a bit.

Should they write into this space they know is under scrutiny?

Gloria: Yeah, that is such an important question and one that is close to my heart and I feel strongly about. I believe very much, as I said, you know, in writing what’s important to you and still trying to get those stories out in the world, that’s definitely what I’m going to be doing.

I hope with all my heart that there will be an audience for it, that booksellers will continue kind of fighting the good fight to let them into the bookstores, that the decision makers will understand that for children, as we were just talking about, they search for comfort in books, and they search to find reflections of themselves.

And it is so, so painful when they can’t. And I grieve for the idea that some of those sources of comfort will be taken away from the kids who need it the most.

And you know, I think you hit it exactly on the head when you talked about young adult writing for this point of time where children are kind of in a change of identity, they’re discovering who they are, it’s kind of like a coming of age moment.

And I feel that very much with middle grade as well. You know, there’s so much excitement, there’s so much promise, but there’s so much that’s terrifying and scary and new, you know, not just encountering things like anxiety, but there’s also self doubt, there’s insecurity.

And they really rely on books to show just a diversity of like different stories and different voices and different people going through the same things and, and how they resolve it, you know, the people who are there for them, the messaging that can be there for them.

And I think with middle grade, there’s also the additional issue that you’re writing for a readership that aren’t necessarily the decision makers. Yeah, the people who are making the decisions are the parents and the booksellers and the teachers and there’s a bit of a leap of faith and hope that they find your book worthy to kind of connect with the children.

But it is hard sometimes to try and write for someone who hopefully is not on social media, so won’t be exposed to kind of the marketing, won’t be able to make those decisions for themselves. And I just, I hope that people remember how important books can be for anybody, but especially children and teens who are trying to discover who they are and might be going through something and turn to books for solace.

Marion: Oh, it’s a beautiful answer. And it begs the question, as we wrap this up, since Kaya of the Ocean is about facing who we really are, what did you learn about yourself while writing it?

Gloria: Oh, that is such a great question.

When I was writing it, I guess I learned two things. You know, one thing that I learned, which was a bit more craft based, which is just how important it is for me personally, when I hit writer’s blocks to kind of just keep pushing through.

Sometimes I take a break and I kind of try and fill the creative well and, you know, read other books and watch shows or movies, hopefully in the same genre. And then when I go back to just almost write a bridge to the next flow and just to remind myself not to give up and that I can always go back and revise it, you know, and that’s something that I’d done with other books.

But I think with Kaya, because there’s so much that was personal about it, it was sometimes harder. I think writers are inherently perfectionist and we want every word to come out perfectly. We want every paragraph to come out perfectly. And especially when it’s meaningful to us, it was a big learning thing for me to realize, okay, I can write through this, I can come back to it and it will kind of grow that way.

Then I think the personal part that I learned from it was just, as I said, anxiety was something that I had struggled with as a child, as well. And kind of seeing children I care about struggle through it and remembering myself struggle through it. I was almost living these parallel lives while writing it.

It was almost like speaking to these children but also speaking to my past self. And there was something deeply emotional about that, but also kind of deeply peaceful that I was able to kind of close out for myself, for my younger self.

Marion: I’m so glad. And you’re going to do that for so many who read this book. Thank you so much. Thank you for the book. Thank you for the time. And thank you for the courage to move into this market and produce this really wondrous story for all of us. I’m deeply, deeply delighted to meet you and promote this book.

Thank you so much, Gloria.

Gloria: Thank you so much. It’s been great.

Marion: The author is Gloria Huang. See more on her at Gloria Lai Huang dot com. The book is Kaya of the Ocean, just out from Holiday House. Get it wherever books are sold. I’m Marian Roach-Smith. You’ve been listening to QWERTY. QWERTY is produced by Overit Studios in Albany, New York.

Reach them at Overit Studios dot com. Our producer is Jacquelin Mignot. Our assistant is Lorna Bailey. Want more on the art and work of writing? Visit Marion Roach dot com, the home of The Memoir Project, where writers get their needs met through online classes in how to write memoir.

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