Story and Horse

Empowering Creativity with Jaye Robin Brown

July 30, 2022 Hilary Adams Season 1 Episode 40
Story and Horse
Empowering Creativity with Jaye Robin Brown
Show Notes Transcript

Empowering Creativity with Jaye Robin Brown

Jaye Robin Brown is an author and horse rider, and she's all about stories and horses! Join us as we discuss her books, writing process and her three equines. She offers ideas about productivity empowering creativity,  and how taking the pressure off your art can help get the ideas flowing. 

Jaye Robin Brown's Bio:
Jaye Robin Brown is the author of the Lambda Literary Finalist, The Meaning of Birds, along with other books for teens. Her first adult novel, Five Months Or Forever, was published in June of 2022. 

Connect with Jaye Robin Brown:
Website: jayerobinbrown.com
Facebook: facebook.com/jayerobinbrown
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jayerobinbrown/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jayerobinbrown

Host Hilary Adams is an award-winning theatre director, coach, equine-partnered facilitator, and founder of Story and Horse. She is all about supporting creative expression and sharing stories with the world.

Connect with Story and Horse
www.storyandhorse.com
Facebook: @storyandhorse
Instagram: @storyandhorse

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Intro:

Welcome to Story and Horse, a podcast where we hear stories from creative lives. Meet new people, hear about their challenges and triumphs, and get inspired to move forward with your creativity. Now, here's your host, Hilary Adams.

Hilary Adams:

Hello, thanks for joining me here on the Story and Horse Podcast. Glad to have you with us on your host Hilary Adams, coach, theater director and founder of Story and Horse where I work with people to help them get their creativity out into the world. I also offer opportunities to work with horses as co-coaches. Here on the podcast. We meet people living creative lives, hear their stories and gather inspiration for our own creativeness. Today we're joined by Jay Robin Brown. Jaye is a writer and writer and an annunciator, also a lover of happy endings and positivity. Hi, Jay. Thanks for joining me.

Jaye Robin Brown:

Thanks for having me. Nice to be here.

Hilary Adams:

So can you start us off by sharing an introduction about who you are. And I know we're going to be talking about riding and riding today. So maybe tell us a little bit about your horses too.

Jaye Robin Brown:

Okay, well, I am Jaye Robin Brown and I am primarily now I am a writer by avocation and my hobby but I treat it more like a job these days just because I love it is riding. But I have also been in my life. I was a jeweler and I was an art teacher. I worked as a mediator until I've found my way to finally writing novel length works and I'm probably best known for my young adult books which were published with Harper teen they are my debut novel was No Place to Fall. Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit is probably my most well known book then The Meaning of Birds. The Key to You and Me came out in 2021 and most recently I have an adult romance called Five Months or Forever that just came out what with a little glitch, it's come out in most places already but there are few storefronts where it is coming out on the seventh which is this week. I have two horses three actually have two on farm they are called Big and Little Man and they fit their names and then I have a third horse who is arriving this week and his name is Bugatti and I would call him medium but the vet who did the vet check said there was nothing medium about that horse so we don't know his barn name yet.

Hilary Adams:

What what types are they what breed are they?

Jaye Robin Brown:

So Little Man is a Morgan and I actually had his mom and I did competitive trail riding and limited distance endurance with her and he is just kind of a pasture floof he loves to go out on trail rides which we do some he likes to do lberty work. He likes to cart around nieces and nephews if given the opportunity, but he absolutely in no way shape or form likes dressage and let me know very clearly that he would like to be replaced in that role. And so big is a Hanoverianwho is who I do dressage with, and he is 18 and a half and has had a few little health bubbles recently. So I have another Hanoverian coming who is six who is going to be my eventual replace, not replacement, because can't replace them, but he'll step into the more active role.

Hilary Adams:

So for people listening, I know we've got people who are horse people, so to speak, like people who had been around a lot of people who love them, but maybe don't know a whole lot about them. Can you tell us a little bit about your horses in terms of the relationship with them and creativity and inspiration?

Jaye Robin Brown:

Sure. So, um, gosh, I'm gonna sound kind of weird but I I've been writing since I was little from when I was a tiny little girl and my mom tells a story that I would point at horses as we drove by and I was a little confused because I would say bow bow. But they were great and they supported this thing even though neither of my parents were worse people and at five I got my first lessons at a little local stable. I'm just one of those people that got bit by the bug and it's never let me go and I'm in my 50s now and it's still here, I tried to get out of it, and I couldn't I keep coming back. And I honestly, for me my relationship with horses at it's, it's just like, it's where I feel the most settled, the most present, you cannot lie to horses, horses are going to pick up on your every emotion, you have to come to them authentically, genuinely kindly. If you want a relationship with you, and then if they deem to give you that, because honestly, they could kill you if they want it to. I mean, they're enormous. And if they decided, ah, you know, it, could it I mean, I haven't heard of very many horses that would actually do that, because they tend to kind of go along for the ride, often, even in horrible situations. But I don't know, there's just something really magical about being gifted that kind of relationship with a horse. There was a book of essays that came out and I and I think it's, it's called horse girl. And it came out I think, last year, and unfortunately, I don't it's a it's an anthology of short stories. And I just remember some of the stories and they're making me cry, because it was other writers talking about their relationships with horses and what it meant to them. And I think as a woman, sometimes in life and in navigating the human world, we don't always feel our power is not really the right word. Because I think sometimes that can have a negative connotation when dealing with animals. But there's something some fullness of being that doesn't get recognized always for women out in the in the broader world, that when you can have that relationship with a horse, it amplifies that sense of it just, I keep coming back to the word power, and I don't and power can be abused. So I just, I'm not finding out I'm a writer, and I can't find the right word, there you go. But hopefully, somebody out there will find it and send it into the show notes. Because it's just like, it's, um, it's a completeness of fullness. And I don't know, I just love it. I mean, every day, I go to the barn, and I clean my barn. And some people are like, Oh, you have to clean your barn every day. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I love it. A it's when I listen to podcasts. And be it's when my horses like, come over and just hang out next to me and poke me with their nose. And like, I'm not asking for anything from them. They're not asking for anything from me, and we just hang out. And it's awesome.

Hilary Adams:

Thank you for that. Yeah. Do you find that? Well, let's talk a little bit about your writing your writing writing process, because what I was going to ask is, is related to that just in terms of whether being with the horses helped clear the wave or inspiration or helps you get in the mindset for being present for the writing that can you tell us to share a little bit about your writing writing process?

Jaye Robin Brown:

Yeah, um, I you know, I think a writing process is something that often times for me is story specific. And it's changed a little bit over the years. But I, for me, in my writing process, I need a lot of time to like be in my head and like, often I will start with a character or a situation or just a desire. Okay, so with Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit , I heard a radio program about the extreme wealth of radio pastors. And I remember thinking, Gosh, what if one of those guys had a queer daughter? And what if she had faith, but was faced with this sort of negativity that sometimes comes with organized religion and so out of that Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit was born and I had to live with that story in my head for a little while before I could start getting it on paper. And I think again, it's like back to sort of the thing of the horses is it's like when I'm trying to when a story is starting to gel in my head like, I have to be really They're with it and be open when the little missives come in, that I can grab on to and say, Oh, yes, that's it. And it's the same thing when you're dealing with really any kind of animal, like if you're open to what they're trying to tell you, and not like in human language, but in their language, like, you can kind of have communication. And so I think that, yes, that openness, that stillness, that being present is also important for stories. And I know like, an Elizabeth Gilbert's book, Big Magic, I don't know if you ever read that, but it's a story about creativity. And she talks about, like, being receptive, when that news comes and brings you a story that, you know, it's our job as a writer, or I guess any good apply to any creative, you know, process is that you have to be ready to grab on to the idea and do something with it. And if you're not listening, you might miss it. You know, if you're thinking about, Oh, my gosh, I gotta put the clothes in the dryer. And, you know, I've got to appointment here and there, you know. So you do have to clear that time for creativity, and also the emotional part of it, which is like, you have to kind of let your own emotion go with horses, it's easy to like, you know, if something's not going right, and training, or you're writing and you're trying to achieve a certain movement, and it's not happening, and you get frustrated or irritated either with yourself or with the horse, or it's, that just makes things worse. And I think sometimes in writing, if we try to force an emotion into a scene, and it's not just flowing, mean, sometimes you can fudge it, but it's those scenes that you write where you have just real emotional flow that I think, read the most authentically to readers.

Hilary Adams:

That's what reminded me of what my trainer says a lot where she says, you know, ride the horse that you're with right now

Jaye Robin Brown:

Yeah, for sure. And I think there's also something to be said for like, knowing when to quit, because sometimes we get into these like, human spirals, and whether it's a horse or sitting down in front of a manuscript, you know, What is that expression? Don't beat a dead horse. I mean, that's horrible in this context, but I mean, you know, if you're having a bad ride, like, and you're just not able to get yourself there, and then moment, okay, like, end on a good note, get off, quit, start again. And the same goes for when you're working on a scene and you reach writer's block. And it's like, I actually was listening to someone else on your podcast this morning, while I was cleaning the barn, and they said, it was someone who does short films. And they said, like, you know, if you have writer's block, it's because something's not right, your story's not figured out. And I've found that that's really true for me with my writing, if I just get to a place where I cannot go forward. I need to just get away, like, close the computer, step up, walk away, think about that process. And then, you know, take four or five steps backwards, usually, and the same can be said for working with horses in training. Like, if you push beyond a place, that's okay. Sometimes you might have to like, pedal backwards a little bit. Yeah,

Hilary Adams:

did your characters sometimes surprise you?

Jaye Robin Brown:

Did my characters surprise me? Yeah, I tend to be more of a pantser than a plotter meaning that I will have I usually start with character and setting. And then I kind of know my end point, I know where I'm going. And I will often be able to write like the first 20 or 30,000 words of a story, a first draft is pantsing it and then that's when I get stuck because I don't really know my or my story is fully going. And so I've figured out that I can either spend a long time stuck there, or I can go back to the beginning and do some sort of shadowy outline and get a better idea of my plot at that point. Because by then I know my characters a little bit better. And yes, sometimes it surprises me sometimes the story I think I'm setting out to write ends up being something different. Which is cool, you know? Like that's one of the neat things about like Actually, to me, because I think we all have creativity. It's just whether or not where it's how do we apply it. I mean, some people work in very creative ways, like writer, painter, musician, like the typical, like what you think of when you think of slap, you know, quote unquote, a creative. But I think that there are ways to be creative in absolutely every field and walk of life. You don't have to be some, you know, artists, musician, writer to be creative.

Hilary Adams:

And you were saying that you started as you were doing jewelry, you were a jeweler?

Jaye Robin Brown:

Yeah, I yeah, I just, I was doing sterling silver jewelry with some, you know, gemstones and moved into doing some gold work and was doing arts and crafts fairs and selling wholesale to galleries and had belonged to a couple of different guilds and thought it was awesome. And I started having some tennis elbow issues. And then 9/11 happened and sort of sucked the wind out of retail for a little while. And I it was hard for me to make a living. And I was sort of like living very, very paycheck to paycheck. And I decided to kind of take a few steps back. And then I started teaching and loved it. And so I ended up getting a master's degree and teaching art for a number of years. And that's how I ended up writing my first young adult novel I had always written, I had never written anything novel length. And it was kind of one of those things that in school and like my English teachers were always really complimentary. And I would write letters to people, and they would comment on how much they liked my writing. And so I received a lot of praise for it as a young person, but I never really, I don't have a creative writing degree, I didn't really know that was any kind of career path. And when I started working with these young people, I and I was reading some of the middle grade novels and young adult novels that were in the school library. And I was like, oh, okay, maybe I would like to do this. So that's kind of how it started. And it just went from there. And yeah.

Hilary Adams:

So you were writing when you were younger?

Jaye Robin Brown:

Yeah, I was writing. You know, like, I wrote a lot of like angsty poetry and in journal entries, and an occasional short story. And I mean, I had some poetry published in various little publications. And then, in college, I did a column for this alternative newspaper on our campus. And then I ended up writing. For one of the small towns I lived in, I wrote a weekly column for our local humane society in this small town newspaper. And, you know, they were sort of anecdotal and storytelling about the animals that were available. And just kind of as a result of that, what happened was people would drive out to my house and dump animals at my house, because then they should take care of them for us. And so, yeah, so it just kind of writing was always there. And I just decided I was gonna write a novel. And the first thing I wrote was a middle grade novel about a dog whose owner dies and he gets a sense this horrible story. He he gets sold by the deceased owners, adult daughter to the neighbor who is a dog has a dog fighting ring, and he's to be used as a bait dog. And he he escapes with a couple of his buddies with the help of this cat. And yeah, and I wrote a first draft. I promptly sent it out to two publishers, no editing, no be read. I promptly got two rejections and but that was it I was kind of hooked and nothing I mean, that story is like in the in the shelf, but I think it was my seventh full length manuscript that finally was the one and yeah, a lot of hard work trial and error, some classes and reading a lot of blog posts, listening to podcasts and,

Hilary Adams:

and you you got them published through a more traditional method.

Jaye Robin Brown:

Yeah, and that's what's interesting. I mean, this is sort of a little bit of the creative story is that so my first my four young adult novels are all published through HarperTeen. And that was awesome. And validating, and very, very cool. But with COVID, I was feeling a little, just, I don't know, I'm not unhappy. I mean, I was happy. But I'm kind of, I'm no longer I was working in high school when I was writing books for teens. And so I felt very attached to that. And connected to that age group and kind of had some awareness of like, what was going on what they were dealing with just how things like the news and technology and everything was affecting them on a day to day basis, and was starting to feel a little bit more sort of removed from that. And also that I had, at that point, I felt like I had like said, what I wanted to say in my team books. And so I decided I am going to write an adult romance. And for fun, and deciding it and doing it are two other things, there's being creative, and then there's being productive, and those are not at all the same thing. But if you want to make a go of it, you do have to have both. And I wouldn't even say totally equal measure, I would say productive needs to be a little bit of a fuller measure than just your creativity. But I finally got sort of a spark, we had gone to a trip to the beach. And I got an idea for these two characters, I had found the setting because I really loved this little beach town that we had been. And I came back from that trip and wrote the first draft of this novel very quickly. Well, at the same time, during the sort of the more Meteor part of the lockdown for COVID. I started listening to a lot of podcasts about self publishing. And I thought, wow, this is really cool. And I there was the ego part of me that had been traditionally published that was like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't want to like lose my credibility by being self published. But then the whole self publishing world has really changed since it first started. So anyway, this adult novel is self published, I but I did the same things that I would have with traditional publishing, I had BETA readers who read for me first, I rewrote several times on my own. I hired a developmental editor who had worked for Harlequin in the past, and we work together on the book. And then I hired a copy editor. And I hired a cover designer. And so I tried to kind of create the same sort of feel that you would have with the traditionally published books. And it's been fun. And is it going to be as it's still very early in the process? So I don't know. I don't know if it's some if it's like a one off like I wanted to try that. And so now I've tried it and I'm gonna go back to trying to get traditionally published again, or is it something that I'm going to kind of turn into a more hybrid career as I go forward? That's that's to be determined.

Hilary Adams:

have you incorporated horses into your novels?

Jaye Robin Brown:

Yes, my fourth why a novel is called The Key to You and Me and it is my desire to put a horse girl in a story and it is set. We live in the foothills of North Carolina and a very horsey area. And the story is about the young woman who is the daughter of her mother was a writer through her college years, but her grandmother was a professional writer, and her grandmother lives in this horsey area in North Carolina. The girl her name is Piper she lives in Massachusetts with her parents and her trainer there has a health issue and she's not going to be able to ride so her grandmother convinces her to come to North Carolina for the summer and ride with a former Olympian that is a friend of hers be a working student. And while there she meets another young woman who is local to this, this small community and there's a little bit of animosity among the locals in the was people. And so it's just, it's a sweet summer story about a horse girl and a local girl and kind of self discovery and fun, though, I had to be really careful about making the horse stuff generic, so that it is okay for every reader. Because as probably you know, as a horse person, we can talk ad nauseam about our horses, our training, other training techniques, tak veterinary care, I mean, we can go on and on and on. So, you know, I would send this to my my then editor, and it'd be like, I don't know what this says, can you make like this understandable for the regular person? And so that was an instance of like, okay, I have to be careful, I have to dial it down like several several notches.

Hilary Adams:

Exactly. Do you have creatively themed story? And you told us several, but do you have another creative themed story that you would like to share?

Jaye Robin Brown:

Well, I would just say, I would just go back to that sort of idea of like, productivity versus creativity. And I think that sometimes for people when, you know, you'll hear people say, Oh, you're so creative. And they think that it just comes like this, like fountain out of your body and just magically appears on the page or the canvas or, you know, through your guitar strings, whatever. But it doesn't work that way. It's like it, you know, you have to be receptive, as we've talked about, for when the inspiration comes. But then you have to do something with that inspiration. And, you know, as a writer, you often often hear the phrase, you know, but in chair, and it's true, and I, you know, I can, I used to be really, really disciplined I would get when I was teaching, I would get up every morning at five o'clock in the morning, right for an hour before I would get ready for school. And that consistency would really net results. Now that I'm not teaching anymore, I tend to be more of a, I write more in spurts. Like, I'll, it takes me a while to kind of get up and get into a story. And once I'm into a story, I'm good, and I can go. But if I step away for any bit of time at all, it's really hard to get back. So I would say to not forget that as a creative person that is just not going to magically happen that you have to have some kind of like self discipline that works for you. And so for me, sometimes that will be like, if it's been a while since I've written, I say, Okay, you have to write a paragraph today. That's it, if you write a paragraph, you are winning. And oftentimes, if you sit down and write a paragraph, you'll go further than that. And then suddenly, you're back in the flow, and it makes it easier to stick with that productivity. Another method is just like, I'm going to, I'm going to time it like a writing sprint, and even to do it with a friend and like you're texting each other and say, okay, set her timer for 20 minutes. And then it becomes like a competition, like, Okay, how many words did you write? And how many words did you write and so whatever little tricks you need to have the productivity piece, as well as the creativity piece is going to help you like, achieve some sort of like, finished piece. Then the other side of that, and I read this in a book somewhere, a long time ago, and it was really helpful for me because I was in a period of time where I was not really, I was not making art, I was not really writing, I was just kind of working a job and feeling like who am I? What am I what am I doing, and it was a book that I read. And the quote was, you don't have to, you don't have to be making art to have the soul of an artist. And I think about that all the time. Because I think sometimes there's this guilt, it's like, oh my gosh, I'm not like I don't have any, like physical manifestation of this thing inside of me. So therefore, you know, I'm faking it. I'm not really an artist. I'm not really a creative. Well, I'm here to tell you that that is BS. If you think that you are creative, you are a creative whether or not you're actually making anything in the moment. You just haven't found that productivity key. So yeah,

Hilary Adams:

I love that. Thank you.

Jaye Robin Brown:

And I'll go back to the big magic book is there's an other quote, and that is she talks about that it's not fair to your art your craft, to make it have to support you before it's ready. Which is another piece of that puzzle. It's like, yeah, sometimes, you know, we have to do the not as fun stuff in order to be able to get to that creative part of ourselves. But also to say that, you know, it doesn't like I have a really horrible, it's not horrible. It's who I am, like, I always end up like, picking up things like the making of the jewelry, and with the writing, like I find ways to monetize my creativity, and you don't have to. And I really love photography. And that is one thing that I have, you know, now I just take photographs, because they're fun. And I don't know if they're good, they're bad. They're in between, but I love to take photographs. And for me now that's like, my little bit of creativity that there's no pressure riding on. And so yeah, it's okay to have that, too.

Hilary Adams:

I do have to ask because you're a storyteller. So when you take photographs, do you? Are there stories in them for you? Or is that some is it something entirely different?

Jaye Robin Brown:

No, I think their stories I mean, even if I'm not taking photograph of people, like just like, you know, something else see in nature, the woods are an expression of an animal or yeah, there's always a story for it. Yes, very much. So very, like visual. And when I'm writing, I see what I'm writing. And yes, I think I think that having that either in your imagination or in a photograph, I took a took a course one time that was all about like, photography, and writing and using photographs as a jumping off point for storytelling, which was fun. And that was just for fun. So

Hilary Adams:

yeah, just for fun. In quotes.

Jaye Robin Brown:

yeah.

Hilary Adams:

It's so important to play. To allow yourself. Yeah, yeah. If people want to reach you and find your products, how can they do that?

Jaye Robin Brown:

So my, to reach me, I have a website, it's m j, j, ye, Robin, r o bi, n, brown, v, r o w n.com. And that's all together. And there are links to all the books on that website. Um, you could also like search my name Jaye Robin Brown, and find it at like, all my books should be your favorite retailers, whoever they may be. And I have gone wide with my independent book so that I'm not hostage to just one retailer.

Hilary Adams:

All those links will be in the show notes. And I have to ask, because I always ask writers this, if they don't have hard copies. So when you got your box of books for the first time, and you got to open up and hold one of your books, what was that like?

Jaye Robin Brown:

Well, it was amazing. I, I vividly remember. So my first book, I was still teaching school, I got home that day on a video somewhere. And I'm like, in a coat. So it was cold out. When did that book that book came out in December of 2014, I believe. And so I think I must have gotten the copies, probably in November. And I didn't even wait to get the box inside the box was sitting sort of at the driveway. I put it up on the hood of my car and just like ripped into it. I didn't even like get a box cutter. You know, I just kind of like cannibalize the box to get into it. And yeah, it was it was amazing. And then just you like you first look at it and you're like, oh my gosh, this is like a physical manifestation of this story that came out of my head. And that's pretty cool. Like, okay, this thing was in my head. And but then you take it a bit further you look at the cover, and it's like, you know, is it glossy? Is it matte and then you look at the back and the spine and notice all the little details and then for me, I take the cover off because I want to see what the naked book looks like and if they did any little cool, like foil imprint or anything and yeah, so it's awesome. And then you know just kind of flip through and feel the pages and you know, smell the book because that's a beautiful smell to is the smell of a new book. So yeah, it's very, very, very fulfilling.

Hilary Adams:

Thank you, thank you for sharing that. I just love those stories. And I love the fact you just ripped into the box.

Jaye Robin Brown:

Couldn't wait. Had to see it right now. So that story, that book was interesting because I was teaching at this little bitty Mountain High School. And the book is about a, it's kind of set there where where I was teaching with fictionalized names and, but sort of my love song to you know, these mountain kids and mountain music and my students helped me title it in May, my I had a horrible title, and I'm not going to titles. But my editor sent me a list of titles. And I narrowed it down to two that were in her list, and I quizzed my kids. I was like, which one would you read? And so they ultimately were the ones who decided on the final title. And so I, when I took it in, you know, I think I had it set up on my desk for a little while. And I think the librarian had one on her desk for a little while. And yeah, it's pretty cool.

Hilary Adams:

And tell us the title again,

Jaye Robin Brown:

that one is called No Place to Fall.

Hilary Adams:

Yeah, it's been a real joy talking to you. I really appreciate it.

Jaye Robin Brown:

You too. Thanks for having me. And I really enjoy your podcast. I've been listening and yeah, people should go back and listen to back issues because there's like a wonderful wealth of inspiration.

Hilary Adams:

thank you very much. I love my guests. And I deeply inspired by them too. So I appreciate that. If anybody wants to reach me, you can reach me at story and horse.com at Facebook and Instagram at Story and Horse. And, and just information all the links will be in the show notes. So thank you again, Jaye. Really appreciate it and give all of your horses Big hugs for me.

Jaye Robin Brown:

I'll do that.

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