(Writing) Advice from your Trans Aunty, Erica Vogel - Episode 49

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This week on the Transcending Humanity Podcast, I sit down with frequent co-host Erica Vogel, affectionately known as "The Trans Aunty" and a soon to be published author. We discuss a range of topics from writing and creativity to navigating the complexities of transgender issues. 

Erica shares her journey as a writer, influenced by a strong family background in writing and her early passion for art and design. She delves into her career path, from studying graphic design to working in digital marketing and product management. The discussion covers Erica's motivation for writing, driven by the many questions she received from friends and acquaintances. She emphasizes the importance of practicing writing, finding one's voice, and embracing vulnerability.

We touch on the challenges of organizing thoughts and maintaining a clear narrative in memoir writing. We highlight the importance of focusing on relevant stories, emotional honesty, and setting achievable word count goals. Erica also offers advice on the writing process, including the significance of using both visual texture and the brain's speech centers for crafting compelling narratives.

The episode also addresses critical transgender issues, such as respectfully handling medical questions and the importance of educating new friends about one's transgender journey. Erica and I discuss strategies for maintaining privacy and dignity, and the need for compassion and understanding in these conversations.

In exploring the publishing landscape, Erica provides insights into traditional publishing, sharing her experiences and the importance of aligning with a publisher that respects the author's vision. The episode concludes with a discussion on political humor, internet culture, and the unexpected moments that bring joy and connection in everyday life.

Erica's Website: https://www.ericavogel.com/
Erica's Substack: https://ericavogel.substack.com/

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Executive Producer and Host: Vanessa Joy: https://linktr.ee/vanesstradiol

Vanesstradiol Podcast - Copyright © 2023-2025 Vanessa Joy

Episode Transcript

Vanessa (00:00):
I can see you're like, like spit on by the ocean.

Erica (00:07):
Oh yeah, you don't want to do that.

Vanessa (00:08):
Now I'll leave this in.
If I'm looking back totranscending humanity, this is
episode 49 or something. I'mVanessa Joy in Australia. I am
joined today by Erica Vithalyour transient T which means it
is it Auntie Auntie,

Erica (00:27):
I mean I say it is probably cuz just the way I grew
up and you know how it's outsidebut I think a lot of people do
say auntie, but I have alwayssaid trans auntie.

Vanessa (00:38):
I think Auntie is cooler. Did you notice I changed
your discord name to the transmountain tea?

Erica (00:43):
Actually, no, I did not.

Vanessa (00:45):
I shouldn't admit that you're the trans Auntie Taryn is
transplant s

Erica (00:50):
she is? For sure. She

Vanessa (00:52):
She certainly is.
reminder to people the views andopinions expressed on this
podcast in YouTube are our ownand not those of our respective
employers or organizations orwhatever. Reminder Patreon we
like meat. Really like money?

(01:14):
Even though my business is doingbetter right now I could still
you know, it'd be nice to havethe show like pay for itself.
That totally that would be myideal, I think so. And you can
do you can put us on Patreon oron through Buzzsprout. And we
have the merch shop, which Ihave the new Kamala Harris shirt

(01:36):
up that I think I bought lastweek. And I've sold one of them.
So, so far the merch shop hassold two things. A beat the
sells, lady. Yeah, it does. Isold one and I system means bad.
And it's one of the Kamalashirts and then I bought a bunch
stuff myself but some anyways.
Today I am joined by the lovelyErica, as I said, Erica is

(02:00):
assumed to be published author.
And so today we are going to betalking about writing. But
Erica, it's been a hot minutesince you've been on the show.
So just introduce yourself gothrough what's up what's new,
all that wonderful. Sure.

Erica (02:16):
Hi, everybody. I haven't seen y'all in a while. I think
it was spring, the last timethat I was able to be on still
doing the same old thing. So youknow, I work in technology. I
have a partner. I'm superfucking trans and queer. And
I've been writing a book. Well,actually, I wrote a book now I'm

(02:39):
in the middle of publishing saidbook. Advice from your trans
auntie.

Vanessa (02:44):
And your trans Auntie is Erica. And Erica is going to
be giving advice today andwriting about being a trans
auntie.

Transcending Humanity (02:52):
Yeah, sure. Something circular logic.

Vanessa (02:55):
Exactly. Erica has sent me a copy of the book, I have
actually just started readingit. I barely have any time to do
anything. So

Transcending Humanity (03:03):
your Wakelin Ms. Let

Vanessa (03:04):
you know I've opened it. And it's on my phone now. So
it's not too long. So I shouldbe able to. But

Erica (03:12):
it's not too long, I think. Yeah, I think what I sent
you is an 89 page Word document.
In print, I we're estimatingabout 160. Because by the time
you typeset and chapters and allthat stuff, and double line
spacing, it really almostdoubles in length. So but
something that I think mostpeople could read and alone a
weekend depending on yournothing's nothing's hard on

(03:36):
there every every. It's reallylet me back up into what the
book is. It is an advice columnin a book. So there are
something like 47 questions thatI've been asked that I give my
sort of perspective on. And eachquestion gets answered in five
to 700 words. So it's super easyto read. You can stop wherever

(03:56):
you want. There's not a plot tofollow. Right. So it's very
consumable,

Vanessa (04:04):
which is definitely especially this day and age with
our we all left the attentionspan of a gnat. So I know, and
especially in the transcommunity, because we're all
fucking neurodivergent andsquirrel. Exactly, exactly.
Yeah, do flex squirrels in DC.
Does he actually

Erica (04:23):
have a black squirrel that lives in our backyard? It's
like one of two that I've seen.
I've also seen an albinosquirrel before but not
affecting the DC area. That waswhen I was in North Carolina.

Vanessa (04:36):
Yeah, the black squirrels came from Ohio. And
it's interesting. They flee.
From what I understand. I mean,rumor has it. It was like a
genetic experiment at Kent StateUniversity. But who who's
looking for that reason? Becausescience, I guess, but Ken is
known as like, the blacksquirrels like kind of an icon
in Ken. I should be a mascot,

Erica (04:57):
I guess. Yeah, I don't know. I just thought That was
like a normal, you know, youknow, divergence of species and
colors. I mean, obviously weknow as girls that sort of being
gray and reddish brown, but whenI saw black when I thought that
was wild, but I wonder who livesin my backyard?

Vanessa (05:15):
Maybe someone listening can explain that to us. Yeah,
but they're mean the black onesare there. Oh, there
cantankerous. Oh, yeah. Likeback when I worked in Kent.
Like, there were, you know, yourgray and brown squirrels and
black squirrels and the blackgirls were always beat the shit
out the other ones. Oh, boy. Wecould see all their stuff. Oh,
yeah. Like black squirrels werewounded with like to hear

(05:38):
missing off of their tails andstuff. That's no good. Okay. So
that was an aside yet no largeand ADHD. So what? What made you
decide to write? Oh, gosh,

Erica (05:55):
so this is all a nice meaty story, right. So I am the
child and grandchild and nieceof people who have written their
whole life, my grandfather on mymother's side. And my uncle on
her side were both collegeprofessors. My grandfather, the

(06:17):
head of an English department atuniversity in Texas, my uncle
was the head of the literatureclassics department, at
Dartmouth University in theNortheast. And, you know, I was
raised, like being taught how towrite, even though it wasn't
something I was reallyinterested in. I didn't get a
choice about that. So I grew updoing book reports in the summer

(06:41):
for my mother, because sheinsisted. And by the time I got
to high school, if people werehaving problems with their
grammar and syntax and writings,the the English teacher would
send them to me, it was helpsort them out if he was too
busy, which was something my momdid, she graded her dad's
College, pair students papers incollege for them, for him. So

(07:03):
it's just kind of this thingthat's always been there. I also
grew up knowing far more thanany teenagers should ever know
about Homer and the Iliad, andChaucer and all those classics,
because that's what my familyleft. Not really me. My plan was
to be an illustrator for Marvel.
So you can see, although writingwasn't really top of mind for

(07:24):
me, but it's a skill that Ihave, right? So throughout my
career, I've always found myselfneeding to, you know, do
presentations and writepresentations and emails. And
for my masters, I had to writelike a thesis thesis. So there
was this sort of process oflearning how to write for
business that I had to unlearn.

(07:45):
In this book. I always knew Ihad some kind of book in me. I
just wasn't sure it was nevercould really find that voice
until I found Erica. Right. AndI was like, oh, that's why
nothing was really coming out.
And then, during the first yearand a half, two years of

(08:06):
transition, I had a bunch ofpeople ask me, you know, just
sort of advice because I'm, I'm52. I know that so surprising to
people. I've been around for along time. I've seen a lot of
stuff. And you'll hear a lotabout that in chapter one of
this book. And someone thatpeople feel, I guess, safe
telling their secrets, too. Ican't tell you how many people
come up to me. And I think thisis also kind of common with

(08:27):
trans people. When other peoplecome to us. They're like, Oh, I
can tell you things. And so I'vealways been the sort of person
that people ask for advice. I'mlike, Well, I don't know, here's
what I think you can do whateverwith it. And so having been on
the speaker circuit for a whilefor trans people, and getting
all these questions from peoplekind of like, heart in their
throat, like, I need to ask youa question. I'm scared to ask.

(08:49):
Right? Like, I'm out as transHow do I go about finding a new
job? What do I need to worryabout stuff like that? So I had,
I had lunch with a friend that Iused to work with last
September, October before theyleft to go visit family in India
for four months. And she said tome, because I was like, I mean,

(09:10):
I really want to write a book.
And she's like, well, you shouldwrite about all the questions
you asked for people. I watchedyou do it a million times really
good at it. I was like, really?
And that is how we wound upwriting this book. So I went
from knowing I needed to writesomething but not having
direction to doing the thingthat I do all the time and

(09:31):
having someone suggest somethingincredibly obvious to me.

Vanessa (09:36):
I mean, it's what it takes a year we have to be beat
over the head with asledgehammer sometimes to be
like, oh, yeah, that's it. Thisis what I should be doing. So
yeah. But good luck. We could wecould ask questions all the
time. You like Yeah, I mean, mejust as like, my little self I
mean, Erica, you you're in frontof people all like, with work

(09:58):
and speaking at stoplights.

Erica (10:00):
Yeah, your people lied to you though.

Vanessa (10:02):
Not in a different way.
Great. lonmark. Can you hear alot more?

Erica (10:07):
I can hear a little bit.
Well, we can. Oh, well.

Vanessa (10:14):
It'll it'll edit that out. So. So you pretty much have
writing in your blood. But am Ihearing some art in your blood
to with the whole Morrowstraighter thing.

Erica (10:24):
So when I was a kid, I was always a creative kid. Very
dramatic. No surprise. And whenI was, I think in elementary
school, my best friend's fordrawing all the time. They love
that. And I was like, Oh, thatseems kind of fun. So I just
started drawing, making my owncartoon characters, and I got

(10:44):
really good at it. And myfavorite thing about school was
art class. Like if there was anart class, I took it in middle
school and high school, I thinkI took like four and a half,
five years of art classes inhigh school, because now you
didn't Well, yeah, I just lovedit. And I had been drawing at a
pretty high level illustrating apretty high level, like comic

(11:06):
books and things like that sinceI was in seventh grade. So I
always thought, like, oh, Ishould go work for Marvel and
draw for them. That's somethingthat I would love. But also in
high school, I had a chance totake a graphic design class,
which was something I'd neverheard of before. And granted,
this is in the 80s, because I'mthat old. So I got really

(11:26):
exposure to how we make ads, howwe make logos. And I thought,
this is really cool. If theillustration thing doesn't work
out. That's what I want to do. Ialso did other things like I
did. I was on I was part of thevideo as part of the AV Club,
audio and video. My dad is a asound engineer, right? So I grew
up in hearing music all the timeand being in recording studios.

(11:50):
And, you know, I know how to runsound. So I know how to do all
of these creative applications,right? So I went to university,
I went to study art, and didn'twork out with illustration,
because I just while I was goodfor me in my circle of friends,
even though I won awards in highschool, I was not that good.
Right. At the time that I wasplanning to go to work for

(12:13):
Marvel, there probably were 30illustrators across the entire
United States working for Marvel30 out of 1000s, right. So that
dream ended really quickly. ButI jumped into photography and
graphic design and really lovedthat. So my whole career until
about 10 years ago, 15 years agowas digital design. So I didn't

(12:34):
know that about you. Yeah. I'vedone tons of logos, websites,
brochure books, quite a fewcoffee table books for people. I
was actually a creative directorof a decor Fabric Company for
Heil, out of Germany, which wasa weird experience. I've
designed tradeshow booths, Idesigned, you know, billboards.
And so yeah, I have like areally kind of creative

(12:56):
background. And writing wasnever a huge feature, then it
was always like, well,

Vanessa (13:01):
I know how to write a lien. That's handy to have.
Yeah. And

Erica (13:05):
so I was able to leverage that. But also, I found
throughout my career that I keptgetting put in front of clients,
because I was the person thatcould speak it to clients and
hear what they wanted and heartheir vision and make it NFS
without necessarily having to dothe work. So pretty quickly
through my career, I stoppedbeing the person doing the
design work, I stopped, startedbeing the person managing it.

(13:26):
And after a set amount of timeand work in the digital world
was like, well, I should justfocus on digital marketing and
product management, which iswhat I do today, and I don't, I
occasionally pull out Photoshopor Illustrator or figma, or
InDesign, or whatever peopleuse, and I can get around and do
exactly what I want. But I don'tdo that for a career. And
frankly, at this point, I wouldhate doing for a career. Pushing

(13:50):
pixels around is not my favoritething. It's

Vanessa (13:53):
my it's what I do for a living photographer. And
actually, while as you weresigning on, I was downloading an
older version of Photoshop is toNeubert version is so bloated,
I've upgraded him. Okay, I havea new CPU, I have a new graphics
card, I have no running 64 gigsof RAM. And it's so bloated and

(14:16):
slow. Nothing works. So Idownload an earlier version and
see how it works.

Erica (14:21):
Yeah, yeah, so I haven't tried the latest version of
Photoshop. And I will do and useLightroom a lot when I need to.
But I recently upgraded to thelatest version of Illustrator
and all of my keystroke commandsdon't work with my Apple Magic
keyboard, it actually causes itto crash. So it's been wild to

(14:42):
be like, Oh, I now have to like,click on things instead of do a
bunch of keystrokes that hadmemorized over 20 years.

Vanessa (14:49):
Oh, I know. Yeah. The keystrokes. It's all about
keystrokes. Like yeah, because Icouldn't survive without them
fast. Yeah, PSAT anyone. That'sthat works in Photoshop. And if
you're struggling and you'vebeen upgraded your computer and
still not get any better, it'snot using that your computer.
It's fucking Photoshop.

Erica (15:11):
Yeah.

Vanessa (15:11):
So anyone at Adobe listening, go look on Reddit and
all the people that are pissedoff right now. Not that you
care.

Erica (15:20):
Yeah. And I've noticed too that since they've gone to
more of an online version, sortof like Microsoft 365 for the
all of their business suite,like it's gotten slower, even
though it's the install waslocal to your computer, that
connection while running. Haveyou processes is causes, like

(15:42):
extra lag? It's a problem.

Vanessa (15:43):
Yeah, yeah, that's definitely what I'm seeing.
Because I have the subscription.
But you know, I'm paying 60bucks a month. I shouldn't have
to install an old version. Nope.
Just fail to do my work. Youshould not it should be fast and
furious. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, wewere talking about writing now,
weren't we? Yeah. So. So you hadthe idea. The idea was kind of

(16:05):
planted in you, which is anamazing one, because anyone in
the trans community can attestto this. So for our SIS
listeners, we get askedquestions all the time from,
from cisgender people from othertrans people, daylight or
China's? Oh, yeah. Like,sometimes very personal. Yeah,

(16:26):
time is a little bit more. We'reout there. And I suppose
probably make something clearhere. Just because you know, a
trans person, doesn't mean youcan ask them about what's
between their legs, or Amy's,like, if they're on medication.
You don't have to medicallytransition to be trans. There's,

(16:50):
there's no real rules to it.
That is correct. Yeah. So Iwrite about them a lot in the
book, I can imagine. Berespectful, be

Erica (17:00):
respectful. And honestly, my message to all of our SIS
Fred out there is that medicalquestions generally don't need
to be asked. In the same waythat you probably don't reveal
your medical history to peopleyou only kind of know or you
work with or whatever. We don'twant to either. And if you feel
that you need to ask us thatquestion. I think you need to

(17:22):
ask yourself, why do I need toknow that about Erica or
Vanessa? Right? The only peoplewho need to know my medical
history are the people who sharemy bed.

Vanessa (17:32):
And your doctor. And hopefully my document does.
Yeah, hopefully. Yeah, exactly.
My, I mean, everyone knows Ihave a vagina because I've
fallen out all over the place.
But I'm, I'm an exception nor soyeah.

Erica (17:46):
And that I've been open to because you know, kind of in
the process of writing the bookand the work that you and I do,
like we talked about that wegive people advice. It's not a
secret the things that I'vedone. But if you've not, when I
make new friends that are CES, Ihad this happened not too long
ago, where I knew someone kindof we were just kind of get to
know each other. Well, we'vegotten past kind of the

(18:08):
acquaintance face, and I wasdriving somewhere. And she just
launched into all of thesequestions. I was like, Oh, here
we are. You're asking thepersonal questions, and we kind
of know each other. Close towell, but you haven't been on
this journey with me. And Ireally had to think for a
moment. And for me in themoment, I decided to answer her
questions for her education,frankly, that it needed to

(18:30):
happen. But it's weird whensomeone asks you, you know, what
surgeries have you done? That'snot something that new friends
or even regular friends askedpeople? I don't know that it's
sensational, it's salacious, andpeople want to know, but
honestly, it's not gonna affectyour life to now and you're not

(18:50):
gonna have enough information tounderstand what we're really
telling you anyways.

Vanessa (18:56):
Otherwise, what Eric and I trying to say is Google
that shit,

Erica (18:59):
Google it, there's tons of information, tons of great
information and and frankly sayspeople we know more about our
bodily functions than you do andthe language that we use is
going to be way over your head.
I know far more about howhormones work in my system than
almost any sis woman I know.

Vanessa (19:20):
I have sis women asked me about heart my Yep, Jenny.
Jenny was asking me abouthormones. And I'm like, girl
just get all the hormones thatyou can possibly get just stuff
yourself full of estrogen it'sbest thing ever so yeah. So back
to writing Sorry everybody againADHD brain one thing like I I

(19:44):
used to actually write quite abit when I was little. I was
like you're nerdy. Online realplayer like on my chat room fit
like an AOL Red Dragon in Dragonrealms, which was The column
mode or something like that,it's right. So we could
techspace role playing. And so Iwrote all the backstories on my

(20:06):
characters. When I playedWarcraft, they were on the
backstories on my characters,like I didn't research like to
make sure that everything kindof fit the cannon. But my
biggest problem I've they've hadwhen actually comes to sitting
down and actually writing somebilling is I don't go into it
with organization, because I'msuch a stream of consciousness

(20:29):
person, that I just startwriting and kind of hope that
books just gonna come out of myhead. But

Unknown (20:36):
that's not how it works. That is not how it works.
And no,

Vanessa (20:41):
so how did you like?
Yeah, the idea here, but you'regonna read a book? Yeah. How did
you organize your brain to letyou do it? Like, what? What are
your steps?

Erica (20:58):
So for me, I had a couple of things going for me, I am
quite scatterbrained. But when Iget focused, I can like really
get into things. And from mycreative career, I was one of
the most organized graded you'regonna find, not because I am
normally an organized person.
But the way that I worked, Ilove adding tons of visual

(21:19):
texture. You know, like, thiswon't make sense. If you're
probably not finesse or anotherdesigner? Vanessa, my files
would have like 75 layers inthem. Like well organized.
Right? Wow. Yeah. And like tonsof texture, like building up
multiple layers just to get likean effect. That's my favorite
thing. Right? Your computerhated you. Yeah, well, that

(21:40):
yeah, I would certainly wouldn'tuse the laptop like I do today
for that. And. And finally, Ifound myself working for
advertising agencies, inheritingfiles from other people and
needing to organize them becauselike, oh, we this is the app we
ran last year, but we need youto change the date, where the
fuck is the date field in thisfile that I need to find like

(22:01):
it's locked, and I can't get itto do anything, like, so I have
to organize. So that sort ofability to get really invested
in something and just labelthings really helped me now when
I sat down to write. Knowingthat I had that ability to come
to get really invested insomething I really worked to
leverage that up. I knew fromhaving started writing a couple

(22:23):
I probably wrote, three madethree or four attempts to write
a book before I got to this one.
And I know that for meorganization was the problem.
And like you said, you sort ofjust sitting down to write, it
doesn't really come out thatway. Maybe if maybe if I've
after I wrote write my second orthird book, third book, I could
just sit down and write but Idon't think I could do that yet.

(22:47):
So when I sat down to write thisbook, I am because I knew the
format. And I knew what I wantedto happen. So I wrote I wrote a
nonfiction book, not likefiction. So I would handle
fiction differently. So thefirst thing I did was I thought
about, okay, what are all thequestions that I get asked that
are common that I think peopleneed to hear. So I just started

(23:07):
like stream of consciousnessjust in Excel, writing just the
questions, not the answers, justthe questions. And then like,
Okay, this is really messy. CanI organize this somehow? Right?
So I came up, organize thingsinto six chapters that sort of
kind of go together, you'll seein the book that there are six
chapters, and the topics kind ofloosely tied together. But I

(23:29):
could have written 10 chapters,but I would still be writing
that book a year from now if Idid. So it was just that about.
So I think sitting down andwriting down, almost like an
outline form is what works, whatworked for me, I think it works
for a lot of people. I do knowthat if you're a fiction writer,
you start out with like you weretalking about, like character

(23:52):
backgrounds, you have a premise.
And I've heard this techniquewhere you kind of write the end
of the story. And I don't meanlike literally write the end of
the story, but like, where arewe going to be at? And then you
sort of scatter everything tothe winds as you go towards the
front, who I liked. Right? Soyou start with like, here's what
I want to get to. Yeah. And thenyou figure out well, when do I

(24:13):
tell this little story and thatlittle story? And I think when
you think about you don't, youdon't start off writing and you
sit start off organizing in abulleted list or whatever, it
becomes a lot easier totranslate that. And so once I
had that I knew what eachchapter was going to have and
you all the questions, and I hadmore in there than I was that I

(24:35):
used because I just needed tocut it down for length. So I was
planning I already knew that Imight need to chop some things
just also based on like, hey,this one was way better. And it
was longer than that one whichwas like I just too weak on
that. Once I had that, that Iwas able to sit down and
actually write and I think forme, what I did first was write
chapter two, because that wasthe first chapter of really

(24:59):
getting into questions. Andchapter one was like the intro,
it's the shortest chapter in thebooks like 25. It's like 2500
words. So I wanted to write thatone because I didn't know where
to start. And I needed to startstarted writing chapter two so
that I could practice and Irewrote it probably four times

(25:19):
Chapter Two before I didanything else, because I needed
to figure out my voice. I willsay, before I sat down with the
book, I knew I wanted to writesomething probably six months
before that. And so I just satdown and started writing little
articles. I paid attention towhat I was writing on social
media, I paid attention to, youknow, I started a blog, just as

(25:40):
practice. I think we all needpractice writing. Yeah, you
know. And so being thoughtfulabout social media posts really
helped me kind of get into thismodality of writing and learning
how to write again. And for me,it worked because, well, a
social media posts that would bein depth was about the length of
an answer to a question I wantedto get anyways, I haven't

(26:01):
humorous which is really hard todo that in threads.

Vanessa (26:06):
Or

Erica (26:08):
in a blog, it's easier because you can just write as
long as you want. So I thinkthere's a there's a part of
like, what's my premise? How doI organize first? And do I need
to just practice writing likethrowaway pieces, short stories,
essays, just to kind of get yourrhythm down. And there's,
there's a lot to I think, thepractice of writing that has to

(26:30):
happen before you can write abook, I think that's something
that most people don't reallythink of you is sort of like,
you wouldn't run a marathon onyour first day of running, you
would run a mile.

Vanessa (26:45):
And maybe, right have to warm yourself up. You're
stretching your muscles. Yeah.

Erica (26:51):
So that's what I would recommend to people that
organization, if a no, no raiseorganizations, that easy to
everybody, but it's probably theeasiest place to start with.
Because you, you, you gaveyourself you build a structure
of here's what I want to say,without having to write what I
want to say yeah. And thenfinding little ways to practice
writing, helps you figure outthe ebb and flow like for me, I

(27:13):
need to write something. I don'tI know, like if I were to write
something for a blog orwhatever. I know that I want to
write a question of wish Iconsider for while looking for a
job as someone who's trans. AndI would just sort of let that
tumble around in the back of mybrain for a day or two. And then

(27:34):
it would sit down to write and Iwouldn't worry about anything, I
would just stream of consciousthat shit out. Right? Just like
not worried about grammar orspelling or whether the
sentences make sense. I'm justunloading what's in my brain

Vanessa (27:47):
get the information on paper, just get it on paper.
Don't

Erica (27:49):
worry about it. Don't judge. Yeah. Then the next day,
because I'm really big on like,I need a 24 hour break so that
my brain can work in thebackground. And then I come
through and I'm like, Okay, thispoint was good. That point was
good. I walk around, like,what's the order of what I
wanted to say, again, I'm notreally judging what I wrote.
Right? So I'm like, Oh, thispoint was really good. And that

(28:10):
makes sense. It's the firstpoint. So I reorganize what I
write. And then if I'm stillfeeling fresh with that topic, I
will sit down and just literallyrewrite each sentence all the
way through because I've done acouple of rough drafts by that
point. I once I've done that,then I usually walk away for 24
hours more smart, and come back,and then I'll take a look at

(28:34):
draft good sentence structure.
Is my grammar. Okay? Is thespelling good? Does it read and
make I'll read it out loud sothat I can hear it? And that's
kind of the process. So Ihonestly write everything three
times. Before I'm like, This isgood.

Vanessa (28:51):
That's fine. That's where we've given some good
advice here.

Erica (28:56):
Yeah, I think that's where people get hung up they
get if you're a person whostudied a ton of grammar and,
um, was really rusty. So it tookme a while to learn if you have
all those rules of, you know,what to do exactly when and when
is a colon or an Oxford comma orall that bullshit like, that
stuff just flows out of you. ButI think most of us we ever
practice that. And if you justwrite without judgment and

(29:19):
understand like, I'm not judgingwhat I wrote, I'm just
unburdening my brain on thistopic and seeing if I have
something worth taking forward,I think people want to get it
right on that first cut. And I'mnot sure today after a year of
writing like this, that I couldstill I could get that in one
cup.

Vanessa (29:37):
It's, it's, it's practice just with as you said,
you have to practice writing.
Just like anything else. Andthat is amazing advice for me
because I'm in a mindset where Ineed to write it and have it
right the first time. No, yeah.
And good advice is to get it allout there. And then go from

(30:00):
there. We're kind of from there.
Because then you have all ofyour things and you can organize
it, then you can startcondensing. Yeah, the end, I

Erica (30:08):
think what that helps people do is just sit down and
write. And sometimes I don'tknow how to start a prompt. So
I'll just be like, I know, Iwill literally start typing. I
don't know what I need to writehere. But I'm about to write
about looking for a job as atrans person. And I probably
want to make these points.
Within 10 seconds. I'm off tothe races, right? I will just
literally write nonsense andtell my brains like, oh, okay,

(30:30):
we are doing this right now.
And, again, like, I think yougot to not judge that. And if
you focus on spelling andgrammar, whether it makes sense
for me, I don't know that foryou. That destroys my flow. Soon
as I start to be like, Oh, Ididn't spell that right. I've
lost what I was gonna say. And Ihave to get restarted. I would

(30:52):
rather power through 500 wordsthat look like crap. But I got
everything out. Then stop andedit things not always like
that. That's how I am in thisyou're struggling with that
part. Don't stop just writeworry about how it looks or how
it sounds later on. Just gettingyour ideas out there.

Vanessa (31:14):
Think you shed that's what they use for me. Yeah, no,
that's that's the consistentthat what I do, like, but it's,
you kind of need to programreprogram yourself to do that.
It's a hand. Exactly. Don'toverthink it. Yeah, I'd like the
simple to put it in

Erica (31:33):
even more in your context, right? Because I know
right now you're in the placewith your photography, where
you're shooting regularly, Ifeel like I see a post from you
like everyday at someone's houseor whatever, pretty often. So
your muscle memory of thatcamera is pretty much on point,
you know, having donephotography as well, like, the
more you use the camera, thequicker I can focus and get F
stop. Right? And the you know,the view the aperture within a

(31:56):
couple seconds at first. No.
Right? And it's it's sort ofthat's that's what I'm
describing is that process toget to muscle memory takes time.
Even if it's something you'vedone in the past, you need to
remember how to do it. And soyour first few forays need to be
without judgment and just takingyour time and you're not like

(32:16):
with a photo you're not worriedabout whether the photo is good.
You're trying to make sure can Iuse my camera correctly? Again?

Vanessa (32:25):
It's Ken reminds me of like learning to drive where
Yeah, because there's so muchmuscle memory involved with
that. Like if you think back towhen you learn to drive, you
were terrified you wereoverthinking everything, every
little thing. And now we've gotto fall asleep at the wheel
sometimes because it's we're sojust chill

Erica (32:42):
about it. I remember being terrified when I was
driving down like the highwaywas less terrifying to me than
like a little side road right?
Where someone was gonna bedriving right past my car. And
that gave me the the most terroruntil I got used to that and
writing a book is, is just notsomething we pick up and do must
we've written a bunch of books,unless it's our job. And it's, I

(33:03):
would say today, it's still notmy job, it's something that I am
hoping becomes a job. I am notgood enough yet for it to be my
full time job. I am still it'slike going to college, I am
still learning how I write. Andthat's an important thing to
remember. For those of you thatwant to write, there is how
other people write. But there'sthen how do you write and what's

(33:25):
your process and what your soundis and what your voice is, if
you have books that reallyresonate with you pay attention
to those, but you have to findyour own thing. And sometimes it
helps to mimic others to kind ofget the process going. But then
you need to find your voice. Soin that, that when I wrote that
second chapter four or five,probably honestly, six times

(33:46):
mostly what I was looking forwas what is my what sounds like
me if I said it out loud, butwouldn't be obnoxious to read.

Vanessa (33:57):
Write because of balance. Yeah,

Erica (33:59):
because I repeat myself.
Write what I taught. That's whatI'm waiting to see. Like when
does Vanessa's eyes open up likeshe gets it? So I'll keep
repeating things, but I cannotwrite that way. So I had to
learn how to think of well, howdoes Erica sound? And what would
I wanted people to read this Bbook and be like, Well, that's
exactly what she would say. Butin a more condensed form because
it's it's words on a page. Andthat took me a while to find.

Vanessa (34:25):
That's yeah. Because I do like to write how I taught
but obviously I can't put in ina like in a whatever all my
filler words it becomes

Erica (34:36):
obnoxious. That's the thing that really caught me it
becomes obnoxious to read fillerwords. And there are books that
I read today fiction books arewhere we're reading people's
conversations. And there mightbe one filler word in there like
but if they were the real amountof filler words in there, it
would be really obnoxious tohave to read that and so
stripping that stuff out isthat's what I had to figure out

(34:56):
how to do how to word economy isa big deal and right And

Vanessa (35:02):
then that's, that's kind of like where speeches come
from then to your, you're tryingto get your voice out there and
then say it aloud. But, and it'shard. It really is.

Erica (35:16):
One other trick that I tried at first, I don't do it
anymore. If I was really suck atwhat it is that I would just
turn on my phone and talk aboutthe topic I wanted to write.
Right? And then I would takethat and be like, Okay, I will,
I would listen to it. And then Iwould type out a more condensed
version. And that that reallydid went a long way for me to

(35:37):
find what my voice sounded likefrom speech to book. So that's
another technique is try justaudio, recording it and then
rewriting it.

Vanessa (35:47):
And in because it's also using a different function
in your brain to where you'reusing your speech centers
instead of reptile centers whenyou're writing totally soon,
because somebody like, it's veryfact like conversations in
general, like you can have aconversation on the phone with
somebody and you just both justem around and memoranda and
Yammer and, and, but like if yousit down to try to write a phone

(36:12):
conversation, that's completedifferent things. So Eric is
saying, like, say it out loud,and then kind of go from there.
So

Erica (36:21):
yeah, it's a great technique. And and, and if I
was, when I there's a few placesin the book, where don't i don't
really relay a conversation in asort of free, give a truncated
recounted version of that. And Iactually just recorded what I
remembered, because it's reallydifficult to think about, like,
if I was to write out atranscript of what you and I
just said, I wouldn't even knowwhere to start with that. And it

(36:44):
would sound so it wouldn't soundlike two people actually
talking.

Vanessa (36:51):
So once you're into the nitty gritty of it, did you find
the period where the flowstarted coming out a bit more
steady? Yeah,

Erica (37:00):
it was hard. At first I wrote. It took me the longest
time. At the halfway, it took meabout six months to write the
book, I wrote a third of thebook in three months, and the
other two thirds and threemonths. So like, there is a flow
that happens. And for me, Idon't know how other people

(37:21):
operate. I am a, I like to buildhabits buy in the smallest ways
possible. I find that's how I'msuccessful. So I would sit down
and write for 10 minutes. Ifthat's all I had that day, right
for 10 minutes. That's a couplesentences, right? It doesn't
sound like progress. Buteventually that 10 minutes
becomes 2030, you kind of getinto that process for me, making

(37:42):
time every day after I finishwork. But before I was tired, or
if I had a break at lunch orsomething to just write for a
little bit or to think aboutsomething and organize. That's
when the flow happens, becausethen I can just sit down and go,
right? If so, like you don'thave to, there's a thing now
that I've, I'm sort of on theauthor sides of threads, people

(38:04):
out there reporting out theirword count daily, and if you're
a new author, ignore thatbullshit.

Vanessa (38:09):
Bad, which I mean, not here's, here's why, like our
friend,

Erica (38:13):
Sam Smith, a tanto, who was supposed to be on with us
today, but but wasn't able to. Iwatch her word count. I think
she reports on that most acouple of days. And like, she's
working on her second book, andshe has ripped through that book
and a couple of months now withme, if I was a new writer and
seeing like she wrote 45,000words, in a couple of weeks, I'd
be like, I'm done. I can't dothat. Right? So ignore what

(38:37):
other people are doing when ifyou hear about that stuff, I
know it's fun to track, but it'shonestly gonna give you anxiety
until you have that habit. Andgranted, my book is about 35,000
words, Sam Tenos. Books are waylonger than that. And they're
fiction, right? So I also setlike a limit, I do like 30,000
words, probably 80 pages,probably 160 in print, that's

(38:59):
pretty good for what I'm tryingto achieve. I was not trying to
write a tome. And eventuallyafter I got that flow going, I
started being like, well, thisdoesn't really fit. It's a good
topic. But maybe that's booktoo. Or maybe that's a blog post
because it's just not workinghere. I was not afraid to cut
stuff out. Nor was I afraid tosay this chapter needs to be
5000 to 7500 words.

Vanessa (39:22):
And that gives you some constraints to work with and to

Erica (39:25):
totally, especially if it's done fiction. People's
tolerance for nonfiction is notas much as a fiction book that
typically not as engagingdepending on your topic,
especially if you're writing amemoir for God's sakes, oh my
goodness, like word economy isgoing to be important because
you just cannot recount everyimportant thing that's happened
in your life. And if you set outto do that, you're going to come
up with something like war andpeace. Yeah,

Vanessa (39:47):
that's what I'm going to be doing is a memoir. And
that's so if it's go ahead,sorry. Now's the keeper soup.
Keep it simple, stupid.

Erica (39:58):
There's yes very much. So there's a lot of memoirs out
there for trans people, I thinkit's a great thing for us to
write about. It helps people whoare sort of trying to figure
themselves out. It helps peoplekind of new to the path. It
helps our SIS friends, family,co workers to read our memoirs,
I love transmitted warrants,I've read quite a few. I think

(40:20):
my advice for those of you thatwant to write a memoir is to
think about, you can't tell yourwhole life story. You just
you're not going to holdpeople's attention. So like,
obviously, I'd assume you'dwrite about being trans. But so
what were the I'm actually not?
Oh, okay, cool.

Vanessa (40:36):
So if he's not writing about that, it'll be in there.
But So figure out

Erica (40:42):
what's the message in your life that you want people
to read, and just go find thethings that connect to that not
everything. Like, if somethinghappened at five years old that
you recall, fits into thatmessage? Great. If the things
that happened from five to 10,don't leave them out. You're
just writing stuff that'sfiller, it won't move the story

(41:04):
forward. Figure out what youwant to tell in that bit more.

Vanessa (41:08):
You don't want to lose the audience. Yeah. Plus, it's
just

Erica (41:11):
it's it's impossible to write all that stuff and keep it
interesting. When I say myfavorite memoirs, they do a
really good job of being like, amemoir is a bunch of stories
connected together by whateverthe central theme is, right? So
it's like, oh, here's somethingthat happened to me when I was
seven that I remembered, right?
Here's something that thathappened to me at 10 that I

(41:33):
remembered that kind of fits inwith that. Here's something that
happened as a teenager. Here'ssomething that happened later.
Like things that fit within thepremise, not everything, and
they'll or cut down on what youhave to write. Dig for memoirs,
where people kind of lose thethread is that it's a story made
up of a bunch of little stories.

(41:55):
So when you want to sit down tostart writing that, pick it pick
a thing that fits within yourthread and just write that one
little story, whether it's onepage or 10 pages, and see if
that works.

Vanessa (42:05):
Yeah, that is good.
Yeah, I'm like, I've alreadydone kind of like a draft, a
memoir. I don't know if I eversent it to you. I wrote it now.
Right after I came out, I'llsend it to you. Okay. It's about
my family and family business.
Oh, yeah. I

Erica (42:24):
didn't know that. Y'all had affiliate business? I know
nothing about it.

Vanessa (42:29):
It's kind of like I was the the What's that?

Erica (42:36):
She like the chief operating officers. I

Vanessa (42:39):
was the everything so I was I was everything. I Senior
VP is what my official titlewas. changer for resumes. Who's
the younger Royal Thai?

Transcending Humanity (42:51):
What's his name? William. No, not

Vanessa (42:53):
Well, yeah. Very hairy.
Like how he wrote the book, thespare. And my situation while
definitely not on that level,was kind of similar. A lot of my

Erica (43:05):
family business, like is the heir apparent. I was the
backup. The backup, like thisbear. Exactly.

Vanessa (43:14):
So. But yeah, like I've been like unpacking trauma and
stuff like that through therapy.
And I wrote these this like,kind of like, it's like a three
part memoir. Separate betweenlike, like, 13 year chunks or
something. But I kind of wantedto use that as like a basic

(43:36):
guiding point. And then expandon the things that need to be
expanded on, and maybe not onthe things that doubt. So

Erica (43:49):
exactly. Everything doesn't belong in the book. And
well, yeah, I don't want you tobe ruthless with yourself. I
want you to be ruthless withyour stories. If they don't tie
it to the central theme you wantto tell. Save them, they can be
for something out, find thestories that and try to describe
that moment. Like it's not justlike, hey, when I was eight, my

(44:12):
parents divorced, and I moved toFlorida. That's not a story. The
story there is my parentsdivorced, when I was actually
forced much sooner that and wemoved to Florida with my dad and
my mom disappeared for fouryears. And so we were living on
some family's property, and alittle white house. And, you

(44:33):
know, and I can, you know,describe the house to and then
sort of like, well, what'simportant about you being there?
Well, I had to figure out how itwas like to live without a mom
in my in the picture for a whileand I just started a new school.
And I made friends that I hadproblems with and like you could
very quickly tell a little storyabout that. Right? But like the

(44:56):
thing that happened at 10 on thesoccer fields, when we didn't
win In the game, if it doesn'treally bind to the central
premise is a waste is wastedwriting,

Vanessa (45:06):
if anything, use it possibly as an anecdote, but

Erica (45:09):
yeah, and, and when you read, I know that you're just
beginning to read the book, whenyou read the book, I kept things
pretty high level, like, even,because I'm doing things in five
to 700 word prompts, I can'ttell a lengthy story, I just
can't. So I kind of give thehigh points. But then I use that
to be like, here's, this issomething you should think about

(45:30):
based on experience that I had.
And here's a recommendation. SoI don't tell you what to do, I
really leave you with, here'ssomething to think about. And
then you make your own decision,the point of this book is
helping you make betterdecisions for yourself, not me
telling you because that's not ajob that I want. So in your
memoir, you got a, I listened toyou tell stories before. And so

(45:51):
you can tell a story, you couldliterally think of a story that
you want to tell for thatmemoir, and say it out loud, to
someone that you trust to justhear it, and take their feedback
and be like will be cool. And Ithink the thing that's important
to convey to people is they needsomething to hang on to,
especially if it's a story thatneeds to feel real to them. So
describe the scene set the stageand whatever makes sense.

Vanessa (46:15):
I know thank you. Shit.
Yeah, cuz like I was my planthat I had in my head was to
like, start at the beginning andjust go from there. And
organize. Yeah, now I'm like,Okay, you all have to know focus
on the big stories, the wildmoons that when I tell people

(46:36):
the story their jaw hadsuffered, or yes, and just do
those.

Erica (46:41):
Yeah, I'm in my book. My stories don't go in sequential
order. They are literally tryingto help make a point. One of my
favorite memoirs is BillyPorter's memoir, unprotected,
and he starts off with what'sgoing on in his life. And he
writes this during COVID. Andlike just being civil angry at

(47:02):
Trump. And so the this book isreally like, kind of being this
unhinged place about what'sgoing on with COVID and Trump
and trying to protect him andhis family and his job, while
occasionally reaching back totell you about the first time he
sung in front of his church. Butthen the next day, he might be
his first Broadway gig, and thenhe might come back to something

(47:22):
that happened as a 12. Becauseit wasn't about the
chronological order. It was,what's the point I need to make
next and what's the story and Ihave my life that props that
point up, don't worry aboutchronology. Worry about. What's
the main point that I want tomake in this chapter or this
section? And what story do Ihave that props that up?

Vanessa (47:42):
You just blew my fucking mind. Yeah, like,

Erica (47:45):
don't worry about sequence. The old time sequence
matters is in fiction. Yeah.

Vanessa (47:50):
Fuck. And now I think about it. Like I remember
reading like, like comedy. More.
So this is one guy I forget. Hisname is like this absolute
fucking pig. There's a movieabout it. Like where he shit
himself in a hotel lobby orsomething like that. But I was
reading his books, and they werefucking hilarious. And they are
a guide for really cared for howmen should not act. Yeah, His

(48:14):
stories were not in sequentialorder now, and it was. Yeah.

Erica (48:22):
Yeah, let's see. There are no, maybe I'm not well
educated on this, enough enoughto tell you. But I firmly
believe that there are no ruleswhen it comes to writing outside
of readability. These, there'sno rules, break them. Tell the
story you want to tell throw outconvention, throw out sequence

(48:42):
if you need to describe thestory in lush detail, and then
the next one, and brushstrokes.
Right, the way that makes sense.
See, what's important is is thatwhen people read it, they're
like, I get the NASA that soundslike what she would say this
sounds like her life, we writepoori it's a love affair. It's

(49:03):
effectively a love affair,because you're gonna write this
thing for a while. And then yougot to do the unimaginable.
You're gonna have to turn itover to someone to judge and
decide what should happen withit. Yeah.

Vanessa (49:17):
And when that shuts out of your control, yeah. And then
all of your bra, everything thatyou've poured into this work
that you've done, and then theytake you they take it, they may
start beating you over the headwith it. So it's I mean, it can

(49:39):
be brutal.

Erica (49:41):
And I think for me, having spent so much I'd love to
tell stories of but we're afamily of storytellers, right we
like when if you you know ifyou're ever in the DC area you
hang out with my wife and Iyou're going to be we're going
to be competing to tell you astory we love to. So I have
practice. I have practice inwriting but I I had to have
faith in what I was doing andwhy I was doing it as the

(50:04):
driving force, and what I had tokeep going back to as well,
people keep asking for this fromme. Right? And and, like I said,
it becomes this kind of loveaffair. It's, it's, it's like
giving birth, it's laborious,it's a lot of work. And then you
have to, like, let it go so thatpeople can edit it. Right, which

(50:26):
can be really rough. So I woulddefinitely say if you're
thinking about writing a book,you got to work on your self
criticism, because A, you needto be honest with yourself in
your writing, like, huh, thisdoesn't sound right, what should
I change and be someone else isgoing to have to edit that
because you're probably not goodenough to edit your own book.

(50:48):
Right, then, and then you haveto do the phase that I'm in, I
have to come and beg all myfriends like Vanessa and be
like, can you read my book andgive me a review? Because I need
that for marketing?

Vanessa (50:57):
Anything?

Erica (50:57):
No one has read this book yet? Well, maybe 20 people have
read it now. Right? So you haveto use sort of constantly
putting this incrediblyvulnerable part of yourself out
there, whether you're writingfiction, or nonfiction, or
writing about someone else, it'sstill coming from you. Right? So
get, I think you have to embracethat vulnerability. And the more

(51:19):
you embrace that vulnerability,the better your writing gets
people, that's what they connectwith. Be.

Vanessa (51:25):
You have to learn to remember that, you know, it's
especially like if you have toset a publisher, and they want
to make money off of it, too. Sotheir words under this is what
we think will be the make themost success, you know, now,
they may not always be right.
And I mean, you see that in thefilm industry constantly. It's

(51:48):
an amazing script, and then itgets ripped up. But yeah,

Erica (51:54):
so let's talk about that for a little bit. Yeah. Because
I think people need to be awareof this if you you know, because
as you get, once you, I thinkonce you get past the halfway
point, you're like, Oh, I'm,I've learned how to do this.
Right, and you start thinkingabout the end stage, you get to
get there. But then you got toget in front of a publisher, and
I was gonna wait till I wasdone. Now my wife has. She's,

(52:16):
she's a retired academic. Nowshe works in the private sector,
but she has two books out there.
And she's like, You do not wantto wait, because of the
publisher wants to change whatyou're writing, then you've
wasted a bunch of

Vanessa (52:26):
time. Yeah, yeah. So once

Erica (52:28):
you handle us six months, once you have a couple of
chapters, start looking intopublishers, there's really three
ways to go. There is what wethink of as traditional
publishing, where they do allthe work for you. Right, you
give them a managed manuscript.
And, but you also make the leastper book on that, but then you
fork over, no money, right?

(52:51):
These are like the penguinpublishing house types place. So
the thing that's difficult aboutthat is in order, you have to
have something amazing to gettheir attention. And if you
don't have a literary agent,it's going to be even harder.
And you're not going to haveliterary agent until you have a
book published or unless you'refamous already, which I don't
have. So I didn't either Isubmitted to like one or two

(53:12):
publishers, but never heardanything back. Then I looked at
self publishing, which everybodycan do self publishing, but it
is the most work because you doeverything and you pay for
everything. So you got to editit or hire an editor, you got to
design the cover or hire someonewho's on a cover, and you got to
pay all the printing costs andset all that stuff up. So if you
were not a very organizedperson, this be a great place to

(53:34):
have when Sam's up to be back onbecause that's what she did. And
then there's the third version,which I did, which is called
hybrid publishing, what you dois you basically hire someone to
be your publisher, they do someof the work, you do some of the
work. So I actually wound up sothe cover of my book that that
when threads recently, the firstcouple of versions they did they

(53:55):
just weren't working for me. SoI was like, Wait, look, I was
the designer, let me just and Ibanged out, like six versions
over two days. And they love thefirst one that I did. And as a
great have your designer makethis into reality. And they made
like a couple tiny changes. Sothat's not something I would
have with a traditionalpublisher. And if I was a self

(54:15):
publisher, I would have to dothat myself, which is not not
easy. So hybrid publishing givesme the only thing that publisher
has rights to is the manuscriptthat they printed in book
format. So I could if I'm nothappy with them, I can take this
go to another publisher, havethem reprint the same book. And
I own everything, right. Theonly thing I don't own is like

(54:37):
this version in print. Yeah, soit gives me the most control.
But it does mean you have tohave some expendable cash to do
that. Right? Because you'rehiring a firm to do it for you.
I happen to be in that position.
But it also means that I'm goingto make not as much as I will
put self publishing but I'llmake a couple dollars per book
that I sell, which is better.

(54:59):
Yeah. Which is better thanUnlike traditional publishing,
because they're gonna sell thatstuff in volume, but you might
get like $1 per book, whichsounds crazy, but when you sell
a million of them,

Vanessa (55:08):
it adds up, click alright. So, right. So you

Erica (55:11):
need to look into publishing. Once you feel like
you, you're underway, and youknow what you're doing, you know
where you're going send them thesample, I would say find someone
who feels like a partner. Thisis your vision, you've invested
tons and to get into where youare. I went, I found a queer
publisher. Because I'm doing aqueer book on transactional,
probably smart, and I loved herwe connected instantly. And what

(55:35):
I wanted was someone who got myvision and wanted to bring it
about not someone who's like, Ican make money off your book,
she will make money off my book.
That's not her motivation.

Vanessa (55:46):
Yeah, the money is that that's when you know, you're
working with the right personwhen you have the money. Isn't
the primary focus, you know, weall have to make an income.
Yeah, yeah. We live in. Yeah.
But when there's some passioninvolved with the two that
really, really helped slay him,you know, when you're working

(56:07):
with someone that loves whatthey do, he hadn't read it and
just go through the motions.
That's how I tried to sell myphotography. Yeah, look, I note
like, I proud of what I do heresoon.

Erica (56:21):
Well, and you you have something that I think I think
you particularly but I thinkalso trans people, people who've
gone through transition, whetherit's social or medical or and or
legal, right, but you as a as acreative, right? You know, what
it takes to bring about ourprojects, you know, that things
look messy, and the beginningand they get better, the longer
you work on them. In transition,things are messy in the

(56:44):
beginning, and it gets betterthe longer we do it is a long
haul it is a fucking marathonthree plus. At a minimum, you
remember I first six monthsshit, cuz they're a fever dream,
and I must have been the mostannoying person on the planet in
seat. I love with all you newtrans people, please know that
it gets better and it gets a lotless chaotic.

Vanessa (57:07):
It's a learning curve, just like anything else. Yeah.

Erica (57:10):
So I think the skills that we use in transition in
researching medical procedures,and dealing with the
administrivia of like, medicalforms, and insurance, all of
that accuracy enables us in ourwriting, because it requires
stick to itiveness andorganization and like pushing
through barriers and gettingshit done. And talking to people

(57:31):
and writing a book is notactually all that different. And
when you have a creativeendeavor, like Vanessa, you know
what it's like to sort of bringforth something creative from
yourself. Just because it'swords doesn't mean it's all that
different than knowing the youraperture and F stop for your
camera.

Vanessa (57:48):
Yeah, exactly. It's all it's all. all flows together in
the end. So yeah,

Erica (57:56):
I think the final thing that has to happen is, frankly,
you gotta believe in yourself.
It is. It is, there's so muchwork. I'm not trying to dissuade
people, please understand. Butlike, in order to pour something
out of yourself like this, youhave to believe that you have
something to say that we willwant to hear. And you have to be
willing to like come back tothat well, because you're gonna
have days where you're like, mywriting is shit. I don't know

(58:18):
what I want to write about. Ican't write anything. This
sounds like garbage. I can tellyou the panic, I was so happy
with what I wrote halfwaythrough. And then what I had
finished with I was like, Oh,this is amazing. And 24 hours
after I turned that into themanuscript, I was in like, I am
the worst writer and I am shouldnot have wasted six months. But

(58:38):
I should have done this andlike, now that we're in this
process of my cause it's greatagain, right? So you gotta be
ready to kind of ride thoseemotional roller coasters, but
you got to you got to commit.

Vanessa (58:52):
And be sure you have a therapist, and then walk with
you through all that shit. HowYes,

Erica (58:57):
have someone to vent to talk to your therapist, your
partner, your friend, someoneyou trust to bounce ideas off of
other writers don't compareyourself to other people. This
is your story, not theirs.

Vanessa (59:11):
Well, Erica, you just I know you just helped me a lot.
And I'm hoping a lot of peopleare 90 listeners. I'm sure
there's some people within therethat are that have also had the
idea for it. But I think wealways join us. Yeah, yeah, we

(59:31):
do. We do. I mean, humans are wewe love history. In one way,
shape, or form. Yeah. And, andlike, stories everywhere true
and fiction. And if it's in you,let it out. But I think the
message here is try not tooverthink it and let it flow.

Erica (59:57):
Small small bites Ed Then the small bites become bigger
bites.

Vanessa (01:00:03):
Do you want to do the Cards Against Humanity game?

Erica (01:00:07):
The I'm sorry, is that something you're doing on the
podcast now? I'm aware of thegame but not

Vanessa (01:00:12):
yet. It's something so it's up to you whether or not
you want to

Erica (01:00:17):
steal it. I love that game so I don't think I've ever
played it with you or on apodcast.

Vanessa (01:00:22):
It's like I got the idea from like less last week I
had Nikki the death doula on andshe does says yes cards at the
end of her podcast. And likecards, what cards I have. And I
looked over to my left, and Isaw this my old box, like the
original Cards Against Humanity,or some like, what if we, like,

(01:00:46):
when Jess hosts a show? Theylike to do an icebreaker? Oh,
it's so this is like an aftericebreaker. They're totally like
a cooldown, where we each justwe pick a black card and then we
just come up with an answer forsoccer can be the word. So okay.
I'm just doing a little bit of ashuffle. So around where in the

(01:01:10):
deck Do you want me up there?
Right here,

Erica (01:01:13):
right there. Yep. Okay.

Vanessa (01:01:16):
All right. So that's your current. Cool, and I'm just
gonna grab one at random. Thisis my card. So for you daddy's
why his family tree

Erica (01:01:33):
okay. Do I answer now?
Are you go first with yours?

Vanessa (01:01:38):
Then you can answer now. I haven't really solidified
roles.

Erica (01:01:42):
Daddy, why is Mommy crying? Because her baby boys
already dress and looksfantastic.

Vanessa (01:01:53):
So, yeah, okay, yeah.
Yeah, I've read Daddy and Icringed, you know?

Erica (01:02:02):
Well, it could be daddy.
Where's mommy crying cuz sheneeds a bad

Vanessa (01:02:07):
mood. Yeah. Okay, and for me. I know not to do this
just saw this upsetting video.
please retweet. Hashtag stop Ineed to fucking zaniolo for this
hashtag stop.

Erica (01:02:30):
Potato porn.

Vanessa (01:02:31):
Yes. Think actually, this the funny thing is right
before you said that my brainwas the mashed potatoes. So stop
mashed potatoes. Porn. Yeah.

Erica (01:02:42):
That probably is out there. FRANKEL I'm

Vanessa (01:02:44):
sure it's at rule 34 If you ever looked at rule 34 No,
it's Do you know what it is? No,

Erica (01:02:51):
I have an idea what it might be. So I'm hilarious. If
it exists, there's

Vanessa (01:02:55):
porn of it. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, there's, there's a websitebehind. It's pretty much
guaranteed way to ruin yourchildhood. Like anything you can
think of like, it's most likelygoing to be evident there. Hi.
Oh, yeah. So Miss Frizzlefucking Groucho Marx or
something? Go on. It's gonna be

Erica (01:03:17):
Yeah, well, especially in this day and age of AI generated
images, CBD. I

Vanessa (01:03:22):
don't even think about that. Yeah, like, back when I
used to hop on there. In thehorny days to be for estrogen
days back when I actually gotthat. Like, it was just the
amount of things you found, butit was all hand drawn art. So
none of it was really fuckinggood too. Yeah. So and most of

(01:03:44):
it was chicks with dicks.
Almost. Always less. Tons ofthat. Yeah, yes. Exactly. So a
lot of eggs out there. A lot ofchicks out there.

Erica (01:03:53):
Yeah, it was the hate out there's people over identifying
with that. And having some shameabout it.

Vanessa (01:04:01):
That's, you know, an accusation is an omission.

Erica (01:04:06):
I really hope that when you guys I can join you next
week because I'm going onvacation. But I really hope
we're throwing this out therewhen you guys are talking about
the state of affairs and votingyou don't forget to mention
Grindr at the RNC crashed.

Vanessa (01:04:19):
We really didn't know about this. Now

Erica (01:04:21):
during the Republican National Convention. A grinder
at the side of the Conventionhad so much traffic. No one in
the rest of the country coulduse it.

Vanessa (01:04:31):
You why eight analys you

Erica (01:04:33):
something about that? Oh, go look that up. Yeah. Holy,
because that tells you a lotabout what's going on dias. For
those

Vanessa (01:04:41):
not in the know Grindr is to gay dating app. So

Erica (01:04:46):
all of your favorite people on the Republican side of
the fence. We're busy using thatapp at the kitchen.

Vanessa (01:04:52):
IE, you see it under the damn time. So I did not know
that. That's fascinating. Thankyou for that. It's wild. Yeah,
printers wild in general andMikey best he tells me stories
about I'm like this soundsexhausting

Erica (01:05:06):
same Yeah,

Vanessa (01:05:07):
no thanks ya know now I'm happy with where I am now.
So Erica, do you have anyclosing thoughts?

Erica (01:05:17):
Write your books people skirt random practice, have fun
with it, break it down to smallbites have a good time. Also go
read my book when it comes upmaybe in December as soon as I
have a data let you know. Formore information on that go to
my website Erica Vogel e r i cavogel.com. You build everything

(01:05:38):
you need too much stuff.
Probably too much, Erica.

Vanessa (01:05:40):
There's no such thing.
So Well, I hope so. I just loveyour name. Anyways, Erica
voltages flows while Yeah,

Erica (01:05:48):
I tell the story of how to put my name in the book. You
will apply to cast? I did. Yeah.
You'll find it in chapter two. Ithink that's

Vanessa (01:05:57):
a big part of trans experiences. You get to name
yourself or not name yourself.
It's up to you. Like there'sit's perfectly valid to Ian
Thomas Malone. And all the othertrans people that didn't choose
your names that are coming to mybrain right now.

Erica (01:06:10):
Yeah. So what's hilarious about that, so I'm not going to
tell it because you're gonna goread it soon. And for those of
you out there listening, you'regonna you weren't gonna buy my
book?

Vanessa (01:06:18):
Yes, you are.

Erica (01:06:19):
One of the things I did was ask my mom, cuz she told me.
I don't know, 20 years ago, whatmy name would have been if I
had, you know, been born femalelike I actually am. And I forgot
what the name is. So in theprocess of like, figuring out
the name that I wanted to go by,I was like, hey, what were you
going to call me? The name shetold me I was in no way prepared

(01:06:40):
for. And I thought she waspulling my leg so I laughed in
her face and really hurt herfeelings because it's a wild
name. You have to read the bookto find out.

Vanessa (01:06:54):
Read the book. Find out when you

Erica (01:06:56):
when you read that Erica, I'm Eric. Vanessa. You're gonna
text me and be like, holy shit.

Vanessa (01:07:02):
I'm excited. Yeah. Once I finally get she's fucking
read. So. Okay. Erica, thank youfor hopping on, and especially
with our little restructuringhere this week. So and what Eric
was talking about next week,next week, my goal is to do a
live episode next week isepisode 50. I'm hoping to do it

(01:07:23):
live. I tried doing it live onbefore it failed miserably, but
no more I thought about it. Myguest was in the mountains in
Britain in British Columbia. Soher connection probably wasn't
the greatest. So I'm hoping tohave some familiar faces. I
think Chloe is coming. And wherehe and Landon Reid, and I think

(01:07:46):
Nicky Smith is coming back andZach. Oh, Zach. Yeah, Zach is
gonna be there. So he's gonna bethe the the old school THP
person so that right? But yeah,we'll see what comes up and I
hope it works. And we're justgonna be telling the politics so

Erica (01:08:01):
tell everybody be at home. You live there nice stable
connections.

Vanessa (01:08:05):
That's what I told like, I'm like, you have to have
headphones that are being wired.
You need to have good internetand yeah, so. And of course when
I have a power outage orsomething, probably no rush. I

Transcending Humanity (01:08:15):
hope not.
Good. Right. Okay,

Vanessa (01:08:18):
thank you everyone for listening to transcending
humanity. Thank you again,Erica, for joining me this week,
and see you next time.

Erica (01:08:27):
See you guys later.
Thanks for having me on Vanessa.
Appreciate you