Kat and Briana: Getting Out of Our Own Way

Rachael: Welcome back to Formative. Today we're joined by Kat Yeh. After a successful career in sports marketing, Kat shifted gears to become a writer of children's books and poetry. She's now the author of beloved titles, like The Way To Be, the Friendship and The Truth About Twinkle Pie. In this episode, she talks to us about those unexpected moments of inspiration, how she's learned to get out of her own way, and which of her characters she’d most like to become. 

Rachael: Hello and welcome. I'm Rachael Gazdick, CEO of New York Edge, and my co-host today is Briana from M.S. 588K. Briana, could you introduce yourself to our listeners? 

Briana: My name's Briana. I am in the sixth grade and my favorite color is navy blue. 

Rachael: And who are we speaking with today?

Briana: Kat Yeh. 

Rachael: Kat, welcome to Formative. 

Kat: Thank you so much for having me. 

Rachael: We're very happy to have you. So, Briana, the mic is yours. What's your first question for Kat?

Briana:  Who inspired you to write children’s books? 

Kat: I always loved reading. Ever since I was a little girl, and I think that… I would like to say that it was one author or another, but I actually think it was my kids. I mean, I tried writing books and I would write them, but I would sort of hide them away. I was at that point where I was afraid to show anyone anything. But when I had my kids and they were little and I was reading to them all the time, I just, um, have you had teachers or, uh, grownups who read to you in your life? 

Briana: Yeah.

Kat: Do you know how that feels just special? It’s really cool. And I think that was what really made me think, oh, I wanna write books that a parent or a grownup or a teacher reads to a kid or that a kid picks up and gets excited about. So I, it sort of stemmed from my relationship and love for my kids.

Briana: Can you tell us about, um, your journey of becoming a published author?

Kat: A lot of people, um, they think there's a magic wand and you suddenly become published or they think it's impossible to get published. And the truth is, it's somewhere in the middle. Like any journey, it really just begins with taking a breath. Well, for me, it began with taking that first breath of being brave enough to show someone my work. Have you ever had something that you're, like, proud of, but you're a little afraid to show someone? 

Briana: Yeah. 

Kat: Yeah. So you can relate to this. For me, I always wanted to be a writer and I had stories and I just, even as a grownup, honestly, I still had that nervousness of, oh, what if it's not good enough? Or, oh, what if no one likes it? And I ended up having to sort of… Sometimes we had to talk to ourselves, right? The way we would talk to our best friends or our little sister or brother. And I had to say, okay, what if you just were brave for a minute? What would it look like if you were brave enough to show someone your work? And what would happen then? And so that's really where the journey began. I decided to become brave enough and I sent out my work to a couple different places and I started getting to know people in publishing. I went to conferences where I could meed and, for me this was a really important part, make friends in publishing.'Cause then you can all support each other, 'cause you know how important friendship is, right? I'm sure you have a close friend group and, and you can be there for each other. So those two things, I think, were the biggest steps to getting published. 

Briana: So what were some challenges you faced along the way? 

Kat: Um, thank you for asking that. Being afraid that what I was doing wasn't good enough. And when I think about how many times it stopped me from doing things, it's funny how so many things can stop you in life, right? There could be a wall in your way or somebody could jump in front of you. But so many times we just end up stopping ourselves and oftentimes we stop ourselves because we're anxious or afraid. And I think my big challenge was saying to myself that what I had to say mattered. I just had to find who wanted to hear it, and I had to talk myself into understanding that it would be very hard to have everyone love everything you ever do or everything you ever write. But if I could just find just some people who truly felt connected, that's what mattered, and that's what would make me feel like what I was doing was fulfilling to me, and special. And so for me, the big challenge was getting over that hump. 

It's so funny. I love these questions you're asking because so many of the things have to do with challenges or journeys that have to do with things you can control. I'm not talking about things like, oh, I had to walk a hundred miles to get to a publisher, you know, or, or something, or I didn't have a typewriter or something like that. It's things that I guess I had to work on myself to overcome. So I was sort of in charge of those things, you know what I mean? 

Briana: Mm-hmm. So what part of the writing process do you enjoy the most? 

Kat: Ooh, I love so much about it. I think that, do you ever just come up with ideas when you're walking around? It's like you see something and maybe a tree looks like a face or a cloud looks like a teddy bear, or just things occur to you all the time. I love the moment, that spark of an idea moment, and scribbling it down. And a lot of times, it's not like I can stop and write a book or write a story right there. I'd have to put it in my phone or a lot of times I send a text to myself. And I love the moment when you look at all these sparks of ideas and all of a sudden realize that one of them can become a story.

I love brainstorming and chasing that story and finding out what it's going to be. 

Briana: Yeah, that's good. 

Kat: Briana, I wanted to ask you, are you a writer or an artist? 'Cause you're asking very insightful questions. 

Briana: Well, I don't, like, like to write that much. 

Kat: Mm-hmm. It's hard, right, yeah. 

Briana: But I like, I like making stories.

Kat: Oh, that's so interesting. A lot of people think writers are people who love to write. The truth is writers are people who think writing is so, so hard so much of the time. Isn't that funny? And uh, and sometimes I will admit, sometimes it feels easy, but a lot of times it just feels really hard. I love that you love coming up with stories.

Briana: Thank you. Um, also, how do you come up with the ideas for your books? 

Kat: Um, I find there are so many ideas just out there in the world if you're open to them, and it can be something you see out there. It can be art, it can even be a movie or a TV show. It could be a feeling. A lot of times stories come out of a feeling, like my second novel is called The Way to Be, and it's about a 12-year-old girl who suddenly loses her friend group. And that started from a memory of a feeling. I was remembering when I was 14 actually, and I went to ninth grade and the size of our class doubled and suddenly there were over a hundred kids, and my friends and I drifted apart. And I was thinking about that feeling and the memory of that sort of led me to creating this novel. But I mean that's just an example of a feeling. It could really be anything. Sometimes something funny just occurs to me and I scribble it down or I text it to myself. And then later on, I like to kind of scroll through all the different ideas and see what jumps out at me and kind of shouts, write me, do something with me.

Briana: Was it ever hard trying to, like, get ideas to write a book? Like, if you have ideas but then it's hard to make up more to write the whole book. 

Kat: Mm. So it really is, this is a real thing. Even this morning I'm working on another novel, another middle grade novel. And I found myself suddenly thinking, oh no, I'm feeling like I might get stuck or, uh oh, I feel like everything I'm writing just doesn't sound right. And for me, this is another thing that is something that comes from me. It's not something from the outside. I was stopping myself from writing because I was suddenly worried that I wasn't gonna finish my book. I was worried, maybe I don't have enough ideas to finish this. What if the writing just gets bad and I've worked on hundreds of pages of this book and now at the very end, I'm not gonna know how to finish it. 

And I actually talked to my son who is interested in making movies and films, and we had a great talk about getting stuck. And he was saying, you know, mom, when I get stuck, I remind myself that when I'm stuck, all I'm thinking about is how stuck I am. But if I start thinking about, well, why don't I just try? What if I just finish this and see what happens? And, um, it was very, very great to hear my son giving me advice that I probably gave to him before. But it, I guess it's also a reminder that the things that we would say to someone we love, whether it's our son or our friend, or our sibling, a brother or sister, are things that we can say to ourselves, especially during hard times.

Briana: What's one piece of advice you'd give to a young writer who is just starting out. 

Kat: I would say write what you love, write what you're interested in, write whatever you feel, and don't worry about what anyone else thinks. Be so, so, so, so yourself, even if that self is silly or goofy or whatever it is. Just be that because you are the only person in the world who's exactly you and no one else will ever write the way that you write when you are completely 100% yourself.

And I find, remember I was talking before about those times when I was like worried or stuck? 

Briana: Yeah.

Kat: Those are the times I'm worried, what if somebody else doesn't like it? Or what if someone thinks this is silly or, or dumb? Um. I'm stopping myself from being myself and the times that I just ignore that voice and just write no matter what, because even if it's messy, you can always clean that up later. You know, we can always fix your writing, but just write anything, no matter how silly you think your ideas are, no matter how wacky, just write them down. It's something I still have to remind myself, but it's definitely what makes the difference

Briana: In You’re Lovable to Me…

Kat: Mm-hmm. 

Briana: You share a heartfelt message about love. Can you talk about why this theme is important to you, especially for young readers? 

Kat: Oh, I love that book. That was my very first book. It's such a simple story, but I, here's a little secret about me. Most of my books are pretty emotional, and I would say that I cry 99% of the time when I've hit a certain point in my books. I just burst into tears because I feel filled with emotion and I just can't hold it in anymore. And when I was writing that first book, it's such a simple story about a mama bunny and all these little baby bunnies who have had every feeling in the world, and they've been naughty and they've been stressed, and they've been angry and they've been sad and they've been mad, but in the end, they're just lovable.

And the truth is, we all go through so many things in a day. We have hard days, we have easy days. We have tough days. We have days where we're angry or we're sad, or we don't wanna speak, but we're still who we are and we're still enough and worthy of love, and the way we feel is just the way we feel and feelings, they come and go. But you at your core will always be your lovable self, and it's something that I just truly, truly believe. And if I could put it in a sweet rhyming, lovely picture book, uh, that was my joy to be able to do that. 

Briana: If you can be any character from one of your books, who would it be and why? 

Kat: Interesting! Cause my books range from picture books with characters who are hedgehogs and animals looking for adventure to novels where the characters are your age and looking to have adventure and figure things out in the world. I think that I would like to be, I would probably like to be a character whose name is Beatrix and she is a 12-year-old. Well, I'm saying this probably because she's a little bit like me, but she has these, this kind of crazy adventure as she's figuring out who her friends are and it's unexpected and she makes really, really unexpected friends and, and she gets involved with music and art and it's a little bit like me. I think I was the starting point for the idea of her, but then I took her to a place of what if somebody who was a little bit like me suddenly was put in this position to have these adventures, what would happen? Part of it is she, um helps a friend of hers, who is obsessed with mazes and labyrinths, break into this labyrinth nobody has been in in 50 years that's hidden away on the estate of an eccentric billionaire. And there's this huge kind of amazing adventure. And I, and I love thinking of that even though there's scary parts to it. I just love the whole adventure she goes through. 

Do you have a character from a book that you would wanna be?

Briana: It's kind of silly, but, um…

Kat: Silly is good.  

Briana: There's this rabbit…it's like she was like shy to like…Like, she had friends.

Kat: Mm-hmm. 

Briana: But she was the only one who was shy. And at the end of the story, I forgot who it was, but I think it was like one of the rabbit's friends, they had a whole conversation and she like overcame her fear. I think I would want to be that rabbit because sometimes I'm a little bit shy, but then somebody can probably talk me out of like my fears.

Kat: Wow, I love that. And it's so interesting, isn't it, when I think that's something that books and stories that we relate to do, is they show us possibilities that we can put on ourselves, possibilities that we can try on the way we try on hats or shoes. Like what if, what if I was like that rabbit, you know? And went on this adventure. What would it look like to feel this way? Or, or what I was saying, what if I went on an adventure in an ancient maze? What would that be like? And in a way, books are like, they’re like a chance to pretend and try on being different versions of yourself to see what it feels like. Don't you think? It just changes what a library is to you. It suddenly becomes this place where every adventure possible is just waiting for you to jump in, right? 

Briana: What do you hope your readers remember most after reading your books? 

Kat: I hope they remember that they love reading. When I find a book that I love and I finish it, I get so excited, especially if it's a book I'd never heard of before. Because what it tells me is that, oh my gosh, this means there are other amazing things out, other amazing books that I haven't heard of. There are other possi- I feel that way about friends too. Like when I meet a new friend. I think, oh my gosh, that means there are other awesome people out there I haven't met. It sounds silly, but that's the feeling I get. I'm like, oh, there's more. If this exists, there's more out there. 

And uh, that's what I hope. I hope that if someone finishes reading my book, that it makes them excited that there are other books out there and that they wanna read more and more and more and more.

Briana: Thank you. 

Rachael: So I have one last question for you. If you could go back and speak to yourself at 11 years old, knowing what you know now, what would you say? 

Kat: Hmm. You know what's funny is that I do this meditation, I do this breathing and meditation, and something that started happening to me is that when I meditate, I start thinking about my younger self and visualizing me. And there's this photograph where I think I was around your age. I might have been 10. And I'm with my bicycle and I, for some reason when I've been meditating, I've been thinking about that. And I had this great bicycle with like a sparkly purple seat and a basket with flowers. And I look really, really serious.

And I've been thinking about her, me, a lot when I meditate and,  what happens is I just send her all this love. And all I can think is it's gonna be great. You are doing great and it's all gonna be good, I promise. Guess what? We become a published author…And all those things, it's all gonna work out. And it's so, it's funny that you asked, I didn't know you were gonna ask that, but it's… I've been thinking about this so much. 

I've also been thinking about future me. And sometimes I reach out to her and I think, hey, 98-year-old weightlifting grandma who runs races and climbs mountains, how are you doing out there? And I, I send her love and energy. So I think I would just send love and energy and promise. It's all good. It all works out. It's gonna be great. You are great. 

Rachael: I love that so much. Thank you. This has been such a pleasure. 

Kat: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me so much. Briana, I loved all your questions and really loved talking with you. 

Briana: Thank you.

CREDITS

Thanks for listening to Formative, a production of New York Edge. I’m your host, Rachael Gazdick. Our production partner for this series is CitizenRacecar. This episode was produced by Hajar Eldaas, post-production by Alex Brouwer, original music by Garrett Tiedemann. Thanks to the whole team at New York Edge for making this series possible. Never miss an episode by subscribing to the series at newyorkedge.org/formative or wherever you get your podcasts.