Show Notes:
Today is part one of two where we are talking to Bridget Van der Eyk about her novels. Over the next 2 weeks you will hear about starting to write just little bits and pieces, taking over a decade to finish your first novel, having people hype up the book before it released, taking inspiration for your characters from friends in real life, stepping out of your bubble to promote your book, accepting criticism even though you’re terrified, getting help to make sure your locations are accurate, and hiring out the things you need help with.
Bridget’s Website – Bridget’s Facebook Page – Bridget’s Instagram – Bridget’s TikTok
Bridget Van der Eyk is an up and coming contemporary romance author – “10 Dates” is her debut novel. She lives in country NSW, Australia on a 5-acre property with her husband (Josh), children (Zoe and Max), and dogs (Kevin and Stella).
Apart from being published, her dream for “10 Dates” is to see it be turned into a Netflix mini-series starring Kendall Jenner and Harry Styles.
When Bridget is not working a full-time teaching job or binging Korean zombie shows on Netflix, she is busy writing her next novel. “3000 Words”, the sequel to “10 Dates”, is due to release at the end of 2023.
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Transcript:
Speaker A: Welcome to Freya’s.
Speaker A: Fairy tales.
Speaker A: We believe fairy tales are both stories we enjoyed as children and something that we can achieve ourselves.
Speaker A: Each week, we will talk to authors about their favorite fairy tales when they were kids and their adventure to holding their very own fairy tale in their hands.
Speaker A: At the end of each episode, we will finish off with a fairy tale or short story read as close to the original author’s version as possible.
Speaker A: I am your host.
Speaker A: Freya victoria I’m an audiobook narrator that loves reading fairy tales, novels and bringing stories to life through narration.
Speaker A: I am also fascinated by talking to authors and learning about their why and how for creating their stories.
Speaker A: We have included all of the links for today’s author and our show in the Show Notes.
Speaker B: Be sure to check out our website.
Speaker A: And sign up for our newsletter for the latest on the podcast.
Speaker A: Today is part one of two where we are talking to Bridget Vander Ick about her novels.
Speaker A: Over the next two weeks, you will hear about starting to write just little bits and pieces.
Speaker A: Taking over a decade to finish your first novel.
Speaker A: Having people hype up the book before it released.
Speaker A: Taking inspiration for your characters.
Speaker A: From friends in real life, stepping out of your bubble to promote your book, accepting criticism even though you’re terrified, getting help to make sure your locations are accurate and hiring out the things you need help with.
Speaker A: Ten Dates, the Hollywood Socialite Book One.
Speaker A: How far is Libby willing to go to keep her dirty little Victoria’s secret?
Speaker A: Libby Evans is a Hollywood socialite and heiress to her great grandfather’s film production empire, Privileged Pictures.
Speaker A: Shea and her friends are part of the new Hollywood Brat Pack.
Speaker A: Anita Yates is a former child star, willa Nelson is an aspiring model and Charlie Niven is a hotel heiress and aspiring fashion designer.
Speaker A: At 22, Libby has all the money in the world, a gorgeous oil air boyfriend, and with a Victoria’s Secret Angel contract just within her grasp, her life is perfect.
Speaker A: Unfortunately, Libby’s life takes the wrong turn when she has a little too much to drink at another swanky Hollywood party.
Speaker A: So what happens when Little Miss Perfect wakes up with a pounding hangover and a naked paparazzo, Wentworth Turner in bed with her?
Speaker A: Sounds like a Hollywood scandal if it ever leaks.
Speaker A: Libby is desperate to keep the secret away from the tabloids for the sake of her career and her relationship.
Speaker A: It turns out that Wentworth wants just one thing in exchange for his silence ten Dates.
Speaker B: So the show is Freya’s Fairy Tales, and that is fairy tales in two ways.
Speaker B: Fairy tales are something that we either watched or read or had read to us as kids.
Speaker B: It is also the journey for you to spend weeks, months, years working on your book.
Speaker B: To hold that in your hands is a fairy tale for you.
Speaker B: So I like to start off with what was your favorite fairy tale when you were a kid and did that favorite change as you got older?
Speaker C: My favorite fairy tale when I was a kid was definitely The Little Mermaid, and I feel like it’s continued to stay the favorite throughout my life.
Speaker C: And I am so excited to see the new one.
Speaker C: Haven’t seen it yet, but it’s on my list of things to do now.
Speaker B: The new one, did they simultaneously release that one on digital, or is it just in theaters right now?
Speaker C: I think it’s just in theaters right now, and with a newborn, it’s a little bit hard to kind of get the couple of hours I need to go to the theaters and things like that, so I’ll just wait.
Speaker C: I’ll wait for a little bit and try and see it as soon as I can.
Speaker B: So at what age did you kind of start writing anything?
Speaker B: Short stories, whatever it was?
Speaker C: I think I can remember in like, grade five or six.
Speaker C: So I was about ten or eleven when I started writing just little bits and pieces.
Speaker C: And they weren’t anything fantastic or anything like that, but they were just some little stories that I started writing.
Speaker C: And it wasn’t until I think I was like, fresh out of high school, it was like 1819 where I actually sat down and decided, oh, I should actually write something that I’m interested in at the time that was romance and things like that.
Speaker C: So, yeah, it wasn’t until I was probably like 18 or 19 where I started writing romance.
Speaker C: But yeah, I’ve been writing lots of little bits and pieces since I was about ten.
Speaker B: So was it like complete stories or just like parts of stories?
Speaker C: It was a lot of parts of stories.
Speaker C: I think I had probably one or two full stories, but I mean, when I was ten or eleven, that was probably like max, like 1000 or 2000 words, that kind of thing.
Speaker C: And I still have them on my laptop all through high school, where it was just like little bits and pieces that never really got finished, but the ideas were there and jotted them down and things like that.
Speaker C: But, yeah, nothing that ever really got properly finished.
Speaker B: I saw you have two books released, technically, but one of them is like a Halloween version of the other book.
Speaker B: Or do you have other ones under a different name too?
Speaker C: No.
Speaker C: So Ten Dates was my debut that I released last July, and then I thought I’d do something a little bit fun and do a Halloween version of that.
Speaker C: So there’s a chapter in Ten Dates where the female and the male main characters go to a costume party.
Speaker C: And so I kind of took that, rewrote the point of view for that and added it as a bonus chapter and decided to do a whole Halloween type issue.
Speaker C: We don’t celebrate Halloween here in Australia, but I’ve always really loved Halloween, and I know it’s really big in the States.
Speaker B: Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: So when did you start writing?
Speaker B: Ten dates.
Speaker B: And how long did it take you to get your first draft done?
Speaker C: So I started writing, like I said, fresh out of high school.
Speaker C: So I was about 18 years old, and I wrote five chapters and then didn’t touch it again until I was on maternity leave with my daughter.
Speaker C: And that was over a decade later.
Speaker C: Oh, gosh, yeah.
Speaker C: So in Australia, we’ve got amazing maternity leave.
Speaker C: So I had 13 months of maternity leave with my daughter, and I wrote 20 of the 26 chapters while I was on maternity leave and finally finished what was that?
Speaker C: 2021.
Speaker C: So I was well into my 30s by then, so it didn’t take me that long to write it.
Speaker C: But the idea got jotted down.
Speaker C: I started it, and it just kind of got left until I had the time and I guess the dedication to be like, you know what?
Speaker C: No, I’m going to actually finish this.
Speaker C: But that’s the thing.
Speaker C: I’ve spoken to so many independently published authors that are just like, yeah, I started something, but it never really got finished.
Speaker C: And I think it’s a big commitment to kind of sit down and be like, yes, okay, so this needs to get done, especially that first draft, which is sometimes so hard to get all the way through.
Speaker C: So, yeah, it was over a decade before I kind of looked at that again.
Speaker B: So ten years technically, but not ten years of just straight writing.
Speaker C: That’s right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker B: So you type the end, or however you signed off your book, and what did you do kind of next to get it ready to go live?
Speaker C: I think at the time, I was still quite a newbie to the publishing world, so at the time I thought the only way was to get it traditionally published.
Speaker C: So I queried a whole bunch of literary agents, a whole bunch of traditional publishing houses and things like that, for probably about over a year, and nothing really happened.
Speaker C: I thought that I’d try and use social media to kind of build a bit of a following and things like that.
Speaker C: And that’s when I was kind of introduced to this world of independent publishing.
Speaker C: And I wasn’t actually aware that that was even a thing or that it was as easy as it ended up being to actually publish.
Speaker C: I mean, obviously the editing and putting the book together, that’s the hard part.
Speaker C: But the actual publishing on Amazon, so it’s a platform I’m using, was quite straightforward.
Speaker C: And I spoke to an indie author that I had been talking to and asking questions and things while I was going through this journey, and she said that the reason she independently published was that she wanted to retain full creative control of what the final product looked like.
Speaker C: And I never really looked at it like that.
Speaker C: But then when I was putting it all together, I was like, that actually sounds so appealing.
Speaker C: Like, the idea of someone coming in and changing the story or it coming out with a cover that I wasn’t 100% happy with kind of freaked me out a little bit.
Speaker C: And I was like, you know what?
Speaker C: I reckon I can do this myself.
Speaker C: And then the product that I have at the end, I know that I’ll be 100% happy with, and that’s what I want it to look like.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: So were you querying with the first draft, or had you done some editing on it before you did that?
Speaker C: Unfortunately, I queried with the first draft.
Speaker B: And when I look back at it.
Speaker C: The first draft is always really rough.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker C: So I probably should have refined it a little bit.
Speaker C: I was such a newbie to everything, and I was like, I’ve got this first draft.
Speaker C: I should just get it out because it takes forever.
Speaker C: Like, traditionally publishing takes so long to even get anyone, and the wait times between you can expect to hear from us in six to twelve months.
Speaker C: And I’m like, oh, okay, so we’ve got massive wait times and things like that.
Speaker C: But yeah, the first draft was really rough, so I’m not really surprised that I didn’t hear back positively from anybody.
Speaker B: So I’m currently working me and my husband are both working on our first novels, and I’m like, now he can do whatever he wants to.
Speaker B: And I tell him that all the time.
Speaker B: I’m like, you’re welcome to go through the querying process if you want to.
Speaker B: I’m like, I don’t want to spend all that time.
Speaker B: And also, I don’t think I could handle all the rejection.
Speaker B: No thanks.
Speaker B: But also the control.
Speaker B: And I’m like, I don’t have any idea.
Speaker B: Like, there are certain word count expectations for different genres or whatever.
Speaker B: And I’m like, I don’t want to have to worry about that.
Speaker B: If I think that if my fantasy book is going to be 200,000 words, it’s going to be 200,000 words.
Speaker B: And that’s who cares, isn’t it?
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: You’ll find your readers.
Speaker B: Like, some people aren’t going to pick it up because it’s too big.
Speaker B: And some people will be like, well, the other one that I read was 400,000 words.
Speaker C: It’s so nice to just when you independently publish, to just be able to put out something that exactly the way that you want it to be.
Speaker B: And you’ll find assuming you put out a you’re not putting your first draft out into the world for people, assuming you don’t write the worst book in the entire world, you will find readers who want to read and love your stories.
Speaker B: So not everybody loves every genre or every storyline or every trope or whatever the case may be, but you’ll find your people.
Speaker C: That’s right.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker C: And social media is so good for that.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker B: So you said last year you published, and once you got it up and ready and available for people to buy, what did you do to promote it in the first early days?
Speaker C: So before I even published it, I just reached out to people personally on Instagram that I had connected with in the bookstagram community.
Speaker C: So I think the first feedback that I actually got on the manuscript was, I think January of the year that I actually published.
Speaker C: So I was getting people to kind of try and hype up the book before it was actually published in July.
Speaker C: And then it’s just been nonstop trying to get, I guess, more visibility on the actual book and to make people aware that it’s actually there.
Speaker C: So reaching out to people, providing complimentary copies that they’re willing to read and review and things like that, that’s really what I’ve been mainly doing, reaching out to people that are happy to hype up the book and things like that.
Speaker C: And the feedback has been really positive.
Speaker C: Obviously, I haven’t sold a million copies, but as an indie author, I feel like that would be one in a million.
Speaker C: It’d be amazing to do, but I’m just happy for the number of people all over the world that I’ve been able to talk to that have said, really enjoyed your book and things like that.
Speaker C: And that to me, is success in itself.
Speaker C: I’m really happy with that.
Speaker C: And yeah, it’s just an ongoing thing being an indie author.
Speaker C: And I think that’s probably a misconception a lot of people don’t have, where I don’t have a big marketing team behind me.
Speaker C: Any kind of promotion I want to do, it’s got to be me pushing it.
Speaker C: It’s got to be me reaching out and making those contacts and connections.
Speaker C: So, yeah, it’s nonstop.
Speaker C: But then at the same time, you got to think about, cool, now I’ve got this first book out, got to get the next one out so I’ll seem more accessible as an author and things like that.
Speaker C: So, yeah, it’s an ongoing thing.
Speaker C: It keeps going and going and going.
Speaker C: Never stops.
Speaker B: Right?
Speaker B: I feel like you go through a little bit of the same thing with Narrating.
Speaker B: There’s a little bit of like when I started, I didn’t do any coaching or anything like that.
Speaker B: I just jumped in.
Speaker B: I do not recommend and I tell people this anytime they ask, well, how did you get started?
Speaker B: I’m like, I don’t recommend my way to anybody.
Speaker B: I’m like, it was a terrible way to get started.
Speaker B: I quite literally was scrolling through TikTok and was like, we’re going to look and see if we can find any work from home, stuff that I can do on the side.
Speaker B: And so I search TikTok, work from home jobs.
Speaker B: I’m like, May as well.
Speaker B: And so I do that.
Speaker B: Come across very clickbaity.
Speaker B: Make $1,000 an hour.
Speaker B: Narrating Audiobooks and this was in August of 2021.
Speaker B: And so I come across this and I’m like, okay, well, that sounds very clickbaity.
Speaker B: Like, every other work from home ad sounds clickbaity.
Speaker B: So I’m like, we’re going to search for actual audiobook narrators now search audiobook narrator.
Speaker B: Sure enough, here’s a couple of different narrators who had just done like, here’s how to get started video.
Speaker C: Sure.
Speaker B: And so it’s not $1,000 an hour unless you’re some big, huge famous person already.
Speaker C: Wouldn’t that be great, right?
Speaker B: I know, but I’m like, everybody would be doing it, clearly, if everybody was making that.
Speaker B: So I searched that and literally this was in August.
Speaker B: By September, I had my booth set up.
Speaker B: I had my microphone already.
Speaker B: I had my computer software set up and good to go.
Speaker B: So I’m like when I’m like I jumped in with 2ft.
Speaker B: I’m like, I don’t need training or anything.
Speaker B: I’m just going to jump in and start auditioning.
Speaker B: And very quickly, I started landing books.
Speaker B: At the beginning, it was all these really low paid nonfiction books, but I was like, hey, if I’m landing the jobs and I stayed booked up the whole time, I’m like, if I’m landing these jobs, I’m going to take all the money I make and immediately upgrade my equipment and all of that.
Speaker C: Yeah, of course.
Speaker B: And so that’s what I did for the first little while.
Speaker B: I took every single cent that I made.
Speaker B: I made like, $1,200 in the first, like, two or three months.
Speaker B: And I took that and I completely upgraded my equipment.
Speaker B: And then I started doing more, like royalty share and fiction and still had no idea what I was doing, narrating wise.
Speaker B: I’m like, I’ve learned how to produce a book and get it up to spec so that it gets through quality.
Speaker B: But I’m like I sound awful still.
Speaker B: It wasn’t until like, early last year I started a fiction podcast in October.
Speaker B: So September I start narrating.
Speaker B: October I start a daily fiction podcast like Classic Novel Audiobooks.
Speaker B: And then right after that in January, is when I landed my first fiction royalty share paid.
Speaker B: I’m getting paid essentially to produce and make narrate this book.
Speaker B: And I’m like, yeah.
Speaker B: So January I started that.
Speaker B: And I’m like, I listened through audiobooks.
Speaker B: And I’m like, really?
Speaker B: I got good in July.
Speaker B: It was almost a full year after I had started.
Speaker B: I’m like, okay, now I sound like a narrator.
Speaker B: And I look at reviews and I’ll get reviews on first books that I did.
Speaker B: And I’m like, they’re like, bad reviews.
Speaker B: The narrator is awful.
Speaker B: And I’m like, fair.
Speaker B: And now I get reviews on books I do now.
Speaker B: And they’re like, oh my God.
Speaker B: In fact, I just got a comment from a listener yesterday.
Speaker B: And she’s like, you are the voice of Sophie.
Speaker B: You nail the character perfectly.
Speaker B: And I’m like, fantastic, I’ve made it.
Speaker B: So I’m like, hoping that with writing, that when I release this first book that I get on the good side, and I don’t have to deal with the negative at all.
Speaker B: But, like, with you, I’ve been writing somewhat since I was a kid, so it’s like, hopefully.
Speaker B: But I also know, as I’ve talked to many authors, this podcast has been going for over a year now.
Speaker B: Talked to many authors who are all like, do not publish your first draft.
Speaker C: Yeah, no, don’t show anyone your first draft.
Speaker B: I did show a couple of authors that I’ve narrated for just the first chapter before I had done any editing on it at all.
Speaker B: And the only feedback was like, I had some really long sentences, like, 40.
Speaker C: I do that.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker B: And then there’s no paragraphs.
Speaker B: It was all just like, giant chunks text.
Speaker B: And one of the authors was like, this reads really difficultly because it’s not, like, broken up.
Speaker B: And then I pop it into an editing software and it’s like, do you know you have 40 plus word sentences?
Speaker B: And I’m like, no, I wasn’t counting.
Speaker B: I put commas in there.
Speaker C: That’s what I did, too.
Speaker C: It’s like, Comma, comma, comma, comma.
Speaker C: I’m like, wow, this is a really long sentence.
Speaker C: That’s my thing, too.
Speaker B: I remember from school, though, it was like, if it was all one thought, it should be one sentence.
Speaker B: I think I remember that from school, so I felt like it was all one thought, but then I’m like, reading through and I’m like, okay, really?
Speaker B: We could break this up into a couple, three, four, five sentences.
Speaker B: So you got it out there.
Speaker B: Now, how many other podcasts have you done?
Speaker B: Because you reached out to me?
Speaker B: Obviously.
Speaker C: It’S been a handful of them.
Speaker C: I think we’d be closing in on somewhere between five to ten, so I just like, reaching out to people.
Speaker C: Most of the podcasts are US ones, so it’s always really fun to talk to people from the US.
Speaker C: I haven’t been on any Australian ones, but I haven’t really found many book podcasts that are Australian based.
Speaker C: So, yeah, most of them I do.
Speaker C: I talk to people from the US.
Speaker C: And it’s just really nice to connect with people that love books and other authors and things like that from different parts of the yeah, I think A.
Speaker B: K Mulford just moved to Australia.
Speaker B: I think she has a podcast that I would assume is book related since she’s an author.
Speaker B: She’s the one that I had to redo the interview with because it didn’t record.
Speaker B: She was in New Zealand at the time.
Speaker B: It was like, right before she moved.
Speaker B: She was still in New Zealand, but in the midst of packing and all of that stuff.
Speaker B: Okay, now this was more than ten years ago at this time, but where did the idea for the book come from?
Speaker C: So the characters I created for Ten Dates really drove the story and really inspired what the story ended up becoming.
Speaker C: So Libby Wentworth, the Brat Pack every character in there was inspired by somebody from my real life, most of them people I went to high school with.
Speaker C: So I went to an all girls private high school.
Speaker C: So there were plenty of interesting characters that I went to high school with that I drew on to create these.
Speaker C: Obviously, you know, I had to embellish a lot.
Speaker C: I wasn’t a Hollywood socialite and I didn’t have a big fabulous life.
Speaker B: You mean you were not serena in whatever the name of the show?
Speaker B: Yeah, I was like the name of the show just like, went boop.
Speaker C: But that was another big inspiration that I had because when I started developing these characters, this was circa 2007, and the Gossip Girl TV series was my gem.
Speaker C: That was what I lived my life for.
Speaker C: But I thought I’d do something a bit different.
Speaker C: Didn’t want to do the whole New York socialite scene, so I thought, let’s make it Hollywood, where things are fabulous, things are out of this world crazy.
Speaker C: Nobody lives their life like know, we it’s entertaining.
Speaker C: And that’s what I hoped for with the book, that people would at least be entertained by it.
Speaker C: But yeah, that’s kind of where it originated from.
Speaker C: It was really the characters that kind of drove the story.
Speaker C: And I’m a big romance novel buff, so it made sense that the end product ended up being a love story of sorts.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker B: So you said you are now working on the second book.
Speaker B: Is this a series or is it a totally different thing going on with this second book you’re working on?
Speaker C: So the second book is so it’s going to be part of a series.
Speaker C: I’m planning one more book after this sequel that I’m writing.
Speaker C: So it’ll be a three part romance series.
Speaker C: And essentially we are following the life of the Hollywood socialite, the female main character, Libby Evans.
Speaker C: So in ten dates, we’re following her story and we continue that into the sequel.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker C: Which I’m hoping to have out by the end of the year.
Speaker C: But we’re in editing at this point, and editing does take forever if you want to get it done properly and you want I’m a perfectionist, so I want the final product to be absolutely perfect.
Speaker C: I don’t want anyone to post on my goodreads.
Speaker C: Oh, the grammar was awful in this.
Speaker C: The spelling was terrible.
Speaker C: It’s like my worst nightmare.
Speaker C: So I want to have everything perfect, which is why, tentatively, end of the year, but we’ll have to see how much time I can dedicate to it with a toddler and a newborn.
Speaker C: So we’re a bit pressed for time in this house, but we’re going to try our hardest.
Speaker B: Now, realistically, even trad pub books have issues.
Speaker B: Yeah, that’s exactly right.
Speaker B: I feel like you have to settle on, like, a happy medium.
Speaker B: It’s as good as I think it’s going to possibly get.
Speaker B: But because you are self publishing, you can go in and fix things if people point them out later.
Speaker C: That’s right.
Speaker C: Yes, that is true.
Speaker C: It’s just the perfectionist in me where I want everything to be absolutely perfect, and sometimes that is completely unrealistic, but we’re going to strive for it anyway.
Speaker B: My perfectionist side is like, well, it was perfect the first time.
Speaker B: Yeah, that’s true.
Speaker C: That’s a good way to look at it.
Speaker B: But then you have 40 plus word sentences, so clearly there’s an issue somewhere.
Speaker B: So how did you have your cover made?
Speaker B: Did you do that?
Speaker C: So I love to draw.
Speaker C: I am rubbish at it, though.
Speaker C: So I did reach out to a couple of different illustrators on Instagram to try and bring the characters to life.
Speaker C: I knew exactly how I wanted the COVID to look.
Speaker C: So it was, I guess, trying to find someone that could bring my image in my head and my awful, awful descriptions that I gave them to life.
Speaker C: So, yeah, I worked with her name is Keeks.
Speaker C: She’s got an instagram.
Speaker C: She did the COVID for me, and I’ve had some really great feedback on.
Speaker C: Really, really liked the idea, though.
Speaker C: As time went on and I started reading more contemporary, you know, your Allie Hazelwood, Sir Bailey’s and things like that, I really started to fall in love with the animated characters that people are illustrating and having on the COVID of their books.
Speaker C: So while I did love the original cover, I thought maybe we’ll try something different just to kind of see.
Speaker C: Like I was saying, being an indie author, it’s nonstop marketing, trying to make your book more appealing to people and things like that.
Speaker C: So I was like, cool if maybe we try a different kind of COVID that kind of fits in with what contemporary romance covers kind of look like now, we might grab some more readers and things like that.
Speaker C: So I’ve got a new cover coming out on July 1, so that’ll be the one year anniversary of ten dates being published.
Speaker C: And that one’s really drawing on the animated illustrated covers and kind of just taking what Libby and Wentworth looked like and going from that original cover of them being the back view to seeing what their faces would look like and things like that.
Speaker C: So I’ve been working with another illustrator on Instagram for that.
Speaker C: But it was really nice to be able to support some of the, I guess, lesser well known illustrators who are trying to get their work out and things like that.
Speaker C: That’s been really nice.
Speaker C: But, yeah, I designed the COVID entirely for both of them.
Speaker C: But it’s just yeah, I needed that illustrator to be able to draw for me because if I had tried to do it, it would have been terrible.
Speaker B: I need to do a video of the transition from not this podcast.
Speaker B: I made this podcast, Cover Art in Canva, but my daily fiction podcast I had Same As You Picture in my head of what I wanted it to look like.
Speaker B: And so my husband is an artist.
Speaker B: I am, not at all.
Speaker B: But I drew for him stick figures.
Speaker B: I’m like, this is what I’m thinking.
Speaker B: And then he made it look good.
Speaker B: And then we paid someone because he hand draws.
Speaker B: So he hand drew it, and then I digitized it on an iPad.
Speaker B: And that’s what we ran with for the first eight months, I think.
Speaker B: And then we paid someone on fiver to take it and professionalize it so it looks same logo, looks way different than my original drawing, but took the same exact logo that my husband had done and just made it more polished looking, less hand drawn looking.
Speaker B: I need to do, like, a transition video where you see here’s the original all the way up to what it is now.
Speaker B: I’d love to see that it’s not good.
Speaker B: I have it saved because I drew it on my iPad.
Speaker B: So I still have the screenshot of the awful drawing that I did.
Speaker B: But, yeah, I should do that.
Speaker B: People be like, oh, dear God, that’s amazing though.
Speaker C: See, I didn’t do any of that.
Speaker C: Mine was just using a whole bunch of words and being like, cool.
Speaker C: Can you put the female character like this?
Speaker C: And I kind of wanted to look like this.
Speaker C: Here’s an inspiration picture.
Speaker C: And here’s another inspiration picture.
Speaker B: Yeah, inspiration ones are good too.
Speaker C: It was a mess.
Speaker C: And I have no idea how my two illustrators came up with the amazing things they did, but I was like, oh, kind of like this, but kind of like that.
Speaker C: And here like, this photo here that I found on the Internet.
Speaker C: And this one and this and this.
Speaker C: It was a mess, but they did such an amazing job.
Speaker B: When we were designing the booth that I’m in now, I had in my head.
Speaker B: So originally, I worked out of my closet.
Speaker B: I’ve only been in this booth since this week.
Speaker B: Well, I talked to you because I had to reschedule to get this booth set up.
Speaker B: But for the designing it, originally, I was like, oh.
Speaker B: In my head, I was like, oh, it’ll be fine.
Speaker B: Well, for like, a year and a half, I was like, we’ll just build a new booth whenever we move in, like, five years.
Speaker B: And then I’m like, screw this.
Speaker B: I can’t stand up in my recording booth.
Speaker B: It’s driving me crazy, and it’s hot.
Speaker B: So in my head, I’m planning out where the door is going to be and the size that I want it to be.
Speaker B: I’m taking out a tape measure and measuring the room to see what size would fit and all these things.
Speaker B: And then my husband’s like, oh, yeah, we should have my engineer father help us design it.
Speaker B: And I’m like, that’s cool.
Speaker B: You and your dad can design this thing.
Speaker B: Whatever.
Speaker B: We get there.
Speaker B: We visit them, like, twice a year.
Speaker C: They.
Speaker B: Live like 9 hours from us, and we’re at their house and father in law pulls out his laptop and he starts designing it.
Speaker B: My husband’s kind of staring at him, making no comments whatsoever.
Speaker B: And I’m like, hey, I want to watch this.
Speaker B: I’ve never seen someone design something that’s cool.
Speaker B: And then he starts to do stuff and I’m like, why are you doing it like that?
Speaker B: Well, I didn’t think about a large part of the issue was they had been at our house a few months prior and I had completely rearranged everything in my office since they’ve been here.
Speaker B: So he’s designing it, thinking it still looks like it did.
Speaker B: And I’m like, no, the door can’t be there because there’s something in the way.
Speaker B: Yeah, the door has to be here.
Speaker B: And then he’s like trying to make it open one way.
Speaker B: And I’m like, it can’t open that way.
Speaker B: It’s not going to work.
Speaker B: I’m not going to be able to get in there.
Speaker B: This whole thing of like, I should have drawn it on a piece of paper and been like, here’s what’s in my head.
Speaker B: And now it works great.
Speaker C: It’s up.
Speaker B: It’s good.
Speaker B: It looks amazing.
Speaker B: Me and my daughter did she became a pro at putting the little velcro we used like velcro squares to hold all the little foam things up.
Speaker B: And she was a pro it I cut them, she stuck them, and then I put them on the wall where they needed to be.
Speaker C: She’s eight.
Speaker C: She’s eight.
Speaker B: She tried to help cutting the velcro, but the sticky stuff on it kept making the scissors sticky.
Speaker B: And then I had to do all the lights have these sticky hooks that hook them on the wall and getting the backing off the sticky was a nightmare, so I had to do all that.
Speaker C: But yeah, team works amazing though.
Speaker B: It looks really good.
Speaker B: Oh, it’s so nice.
Speaker B: And I have an air conditioner at my feet that I can turn on between chapters while I’m narrating now.
Speaker B: Whereas before it’d be like, open the closet door and hope the air wafts in.
Speaker C: Yeah, because you guys are starting to get warm there now.
Speaker B: It is I don’t know what it is today.
Speaker B: 70, 80 outside, but we have well, you similar humidity is insane here.
Speaker B: Yeah, I’m in Texas.
Speaker B: It’s not comfortable.
Speaker B: I can’t imagine it would be.
Speaker B: Yeah, so it’s like you just deal with it.
Speaker B: But also I was like, I would like some kind of air coming into my booth, even if it’s I could have paid like three times the price and had a silent air conditioner.
Speaker C: Yeah, I was going to say because yeah, the air conditioner would definitely be loud.
Speaker B: Yeah, but it was like the silent unit was like three times the price and then we would have to pay someone to put it in.
Speaker B: And I’m like, I would rather just have something that is a third of the cost.
Speaker B: I can install it literally myself if need be.
Speaker B: I have a husband who does help with things, though, so he did it.
Speaker B: So I’m not allowed to touch tools because on Monday I bruised the bone on my finger with a screwdriver.
Speaker B: I was trying to be an adult.
Speaker A: And remove all the staples from the.
Speaker B: Walls in the closet I was in.
Speaker B: And now I’m not allowed to touch tools because I bruised my bone.
Speaker C: No, my husband’s a bit like that with the tools, too.
Speaker C: He doesn’t really like me touching them either.
Speaker B: He’s just like, how?
Speaker B: And I’m like, I don’t know.
Speaker B: Clearly, that was not the aim, but we’ll just let the next owners deal with it now because I’m not allowed to touch the tools.
Speaker A: Bridget liked The Little Mermaid growing up and still today The Little Mermaid, also known in English as The Little Sea Maid, is a literary fairy tale written by the Danish author Hans Christian Anderson.
Speaker A: First published in 1837 as part of a collection of fairy tales for children, hans Christian Anderson was a Danish author.
Speaker A: Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues novels and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales.
Speaker A: Anderson’s fairy tales, consisting of 156 stories across nine volumes, have been translated into more than 125 languages.
Speaker A: They have become culturally embedded in the West’s collective consciousness, readily accessible to children, but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well.
Speaker A: His most famous fairy tales include the Emperor’s New Clothes, the Little Mermaid, The Nightingale, The Steadfast, Tin Soldier, The Red Shoes, The Princess and the Pea, The Snow Queen, The Ugly Duckling, The Little Match Girl and Thumbelina.
Speaker A: His stories have inspired ballets plays and animated and live action films.
Speaker A: Today we’ll be reading The Real Princess by Hans Christian Anderson.
Speaker A: Don’t forget we’re reading Les Morte de Arthur, the Story of King Arthur and the Snowball Knights of the Roundtable on our Patreon.
Speaker A: You can find the link in the show notes.
Speaker A: The Real Princess there was once a prince who wished to marry a princess, but then she must be a real princess.
Speaker A: He traveled all over the world in hopes of finding such a lady, but there was always something wrong.
Speaker A: Princesses he found in plenty.
Speaker A: But whether they were real princesses, it was impossible for him to decide, for now one thing, now another seemed to him not quite right about the ladies.
Speaker A: At last he returned to his palace, quite cast down because he wished so much to have a real princess for his wife.
Speaker A: One evening, a fearful tempest arose.
Speaker A: It thundered and lightened, and the rain poured down from the sky in torrents.
Speaker A: Besides, it was as dark as pitch.
Speaker A: All at once there was heard of violent knocking at the door, and the old king, the prince’s father, went out himself to open it.
Speaker A: It was a princess who was standing outside the door.
Speaker A: What with the rain and the wind.
Speaker A: She was in a sad condition.
Speaker A: The water trickled down from her hair and her clothes clung to her body.
Speaker A: She said she was a real princess.
Speaker A: We shall soon see that, thought the old Queen Mother.
Speaker A: However, she said not a word of what she was going to do, but went quietly into the bedroom, took all the bed clothes off the bed and put three little peas on the bedstead.
Speaker A: She then laid 20 mattresses, one upon another over the three peas and put 20 feather beds over the mattresses upon this bed.
Speaker A: The Princess was to pass the night.
Speaker A: The next morning she was asked how she had slept.
Speaker A: Very badly indeed.
Speaker A: She replied.
Speaker A: I’ve scarcely closed my eyes the whole night through.
Speaker A: I do not know what was in my bed, but I had something hard under me and am all over black and blue.
Speaker A: It has hurt me so much.
Speaker A: That was plain that the lady must be a real princess, since she had been able to feel the three little peas through the 20 mattresses and 20 feather beds.
Speaker A: None but a real princess could have had such a delicate sense of feeling.
Speaker A: The Prince accordingly, made her his wife, being now convinced that he had found a real princess.
Speaker A: The three peas were, however, put into the Cabinet of Curiosities, where they are still to be seen, provided they are not lost.
Speaker A: Wasn’t this a lady of real delicacy?
Speaker A: Thank you for joining Freya’s fairy tales.
Speaker A: Be sure to come back next week for the conclusion of Bridget’s journey to holding her own fairy tale in her hands and to hear another of her favorite fairy tales.
