About Karen

What’re your favorite tarot cards?

I’m partial to the Moon and the Queen of Wands. They just keep showing up in all my readings, and I’m here for it.

What’re your Sun, Moon, and Rising Signs?

Aquarius Sun, Pisces Moon, and Scorpio Rising. Apparently, I’m known to be quite chill.

What made you become a Secular Buddhist?

Although I learned about Buddhism in middle school, I met a practicing Buddhist during my time at the Fir Acres Writing Workshop the summer before I started my freshman year in high school. Her name was Sharon Marshall, and she was one of my amazing instructors in that two-week program. She showed me tremendous kindness and empathy, and I truly appreciated her presence.

I then got re-acquainted with mindfulness when I graduated from college and tried to tackle my anxiety symptoms. Watching the Steven Universe episode titled “Mindful Education” resonated with me so deeply that I started listening to guided meditations from Headspace. When I couldn’t quite afford the subscriptions anymore, I switched to Insight Timer and continued meditating on my own. I then learn more about Secular Buddhism, what it’s about, and tried to implement its principles in my day-to-day life. I’m not perfect by any means, but I do what I can.

About Writing

How do you deal with Writer’s Block?

When I get stuck, it's usually for one of two reasons. Either I don't have ideas to work with, or the scene I'm currently writing isn't exciting or doesn't make sense plot-wise.

Gathering ideas looks like reading books, watching movies, listening to music, etc. Making sure that the scene I'm writing is exciting or makes sense looks like journaling about it--getting it out of my head and onto something visual and tangible so that I can interact with it.

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Read a lot. Read books that inspire you. Read books outside the usual genre that you read. Read books about the craft of writing and how to get your message across. Start reading books only to abandon them halfway through, and figure out why you abandoned them.

Next, write a lot. Be bold. Be weird. Be experimental. Clichés are fine in rough drafts, but when you revise, dig deep for the thing that only you can write.

Lastly, network a lot. Find other writers and readers to talk about writing and books with. Find your mentors, cheerleaders, and tribes that'll support you and your work. Don't go it alone.

How do you self-publish a book?

There are plenty of resources available online to lead you in the proper direction, but if you’d like to talk about how I specifically self-published The Art of Capturing Phantoms: Definitive Edition, hop on a call with me anytime. I’d be happy to give the deets.

About Book Coaching

Do you have any self-paced courses?

Not yet, but I’m thinking about creating some. Stay tuned!

Why should I hire you as a book coach?

I don’t specifically know why you should hire me as a book coach because I don’t know you very well and can’t gauge your personality through an FAQ webpage. If you happen to be a BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+ writer of speculative fiction like myself, chances are good that I’d be a fit for you as a book coach, in which case you’d fill out my Client Intake Q&A Form for me to properly gauge whether or not we’re a good fit for each other. Otherwise, you can book a free fifteen-minute consultation with me to get your burning questions answered.

Why are your coaching services so expensive?

I price my services in order to meet certain financial and life goals that I’ve set for myself, not to punish the people in the demographics that I work with. It’s not about what I think I’m worth, what I think the market will bear, or any other phrase you might have heard of. It’s simply because that is how much I want to charge for the service.

Also, to permanently relegate systemically oppressed storytellers to the status of “poor” or “lower income” is what I believe to be a failure of the imagination. Although it might acknowledge the systemic oppression happening, it doesn’t acknowledge ways we can combat it ourselves. To compensate that, I plan on offering books, webinars, or even a video library in the future as a paid resource. I also currently set aside at least five percent of my annual earnings toward the “Pay It Forward” Scholarship Fund, which subsidizes the cost of coaching and editing services for my future clients, should they choose to apply for a scholarship award.

Aren’t book coaches and editors the same?

Nope. They’re different. The skill sets for both positions overlap because they both work with words, but where they differ is how much time they interact with the writer.

For an editor, working with a writer is typically a one-time process. The writer hires an editor to polish or evaluate their manuscript, the editor does this according to their training, the editor hands the edited manuscript back, the writer accepts or rejects certain changes, and boom. It’s all well and good.

For a book coach, however, they’re looking at the writer and their writing holistically. It could be that a writer has been working on a story for years, but they can’t quite get past their impostor syndrome. Or, they’re struggling to articulate their story’s vision while juggling raising children and meeting the demands of their job. Or, maybe a writer just can’t quite figure out what they need to level up their writing and get the attention of agents and editors. This is where a book coach can come in and be a knowledgeable professional in their field to help guide them through their roadblocks, not just polish their language overall.

What’s your take on everything that’s going on in the world of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ speculative fiction writers?

As a Secular Buddhist book coach, I help BIPOC and LGBTQ+ speculative fiction writers who are struggling to win the publishing game by showing them how to decolonize their writing practice without sacrificing their identity, values, and style. 

While it's true that these writers are struggling for many reasons due to systemic oppression in academia, publishing, and life in general, I believe that they're really struggling because they're focusing too much on craft and content rather than cultivating meaningful context and centeredness within themselves.

They think that if they assimilate and be like the writers they've studied—if they read another craft book, watch another webinar, take more notes, write a story that checks all the right boxes, say yes when they really want to say no—then they'll become the financially successful storyteller that they've always wanted to be, but I don't think that's true.

At worst, I think that they'll be published, but they won't be happy with who they are or the stories that they write. They won't have decolonized and liberated themselves from their oppressors who want to profit off of their books, but who don't really want to hear what they have to say. They'll become ignorant, numb, judgmental, rigid, alone, and full of rage without understanding why.

At best, however, they will be writers who make informed, mindful choices about their lives and their work due to having a comprehensive understanding of writing's ties to colonialism and how their stories can change the game for the better. They'll come from a more grounded, centered place, and they'll become less likely to be swayed by what's going on around them.

About Editing

What is…

sensitivity reading? proofreading? copyediting? developmental editing? line editing? beta Reading?

I encourage you to visit this page on the Editorial Freelancers’ Association’s website for all your inquiries related to everything editorial. I could spend an inordinate amount of time defining them all one by one, but I think they do a much better job already.

Why are your editing services so expensive?

See above for the answer to the question “Why are your coaching services so expensive?”.