Discovered Wordsmiths

I talk with Roland about the recent ALLI income survey and we discuss A.I. and ChatGPT.

Ben Monroe is on to talk about his horror book, the Seething. Ben’s got to be a great guy because he likes Weird Al and writes horror. Ben takes a simple thing – family vacation – and turns it on it’s head to create his horror novel.

Then we delve into the roots of horror and classic horror. We share a love of The Shining, but there are plenty of horror authors besides King. This include movies which are its own form of story and way of telling the horror.

https://www.benmonroe.com/

Dark Carnival

Alli author income survey

AI and ChatGPT

today on Discovered Wordsmith, I want to welcome Ben Monroe. Ben, how are you doing today? I’m doing good, Steven. How are you? Good. Nice and sunny getting ready for springtime. A little chilly, but still sunny.

Ben: It’s about the same out here actually.

Stephen: Okay.

And where is out here? Tell us a little bit about you where you live and some of the things you like to do besides writing. There you go.

Ben: So I live in the San Francisco Bay area specifically the East Bay area. I’m just south of Oakland. We’ve been having rains and storms and all kinds of craziness for the last few days.

Last week we got snow up in the hills, which probably isn’t a big deal for you, but for us it’s wow. Snow, right? Yeah. Yeah. We don’t know how to dr. We don’t know how to drive on that, so we just stay outta the mountains. The hills even. Yeah I’m a East Bay nato pretty much. My folks moved to the Bay Area when I was about three years old in the early seventies.

Things I like to do when I’m not writing, regular stuff, hang out with my family. Watch movies, a huge movie buff. I love, in fact, that’s one of the great things about the East Bay here is we have, I think, hundred 80,000 acres of usable open space. So there’s plenty of hiking trails and stuff to, to do, to get outside.

Never hurting for things to do around here.

Stephen: And we beforehand, we were chatting, we found out we both like weird Al. So yes, that’s a good thing. I’m sure somebody doesn’t, but Oh yeah, I, who cares

Ben: what they think,

Stephen: right? Yeah. There, there’s some TV show or something I saw where the one character mentioned Weird Al no one goes, how old are you?

It’s oh, that shouldn’t be loud. That’s just wrong. So what’s I agree. What’s one of the favorite movies you’ve seen recently? Oh, gosh. What

Ben: Neil, I actually haven’t seen a lot in the last few weeks. I saw, oh, you know what? Watched recently? The Quick and the Dead Sam Ramey Western from the early nineties, which I hadn’t seen in years.

And it was great. It was so much fun. Sharon Stone plays the, I’m sorry, the that tough bitten gunslinger who comes back to town to take revenge on, all the wrongs done to her. She was awesome and. It was funny because I was thinking at the time that was like Sam’s first mainstream movie.

I think he had just done the Dark Man movies or something, and then all the Evil Dead and stuff before that, and so this. While as nuts as it was very toned down from your usual Sam Ramey stuff, but you could still see those Sam Ramey trademarks, closing in on a bullet and watching it, tracking as it’s shooting out the gun through Gene Hackman’s head and

Stephen: Nice.

I

Ben: haven’t actually, I

Stephen: think it’s on Amazon Prime now. Okay. Yeah. I haven’t actually seen that one though. I do a lot of the modern westerns. My father was a big Western guy. Nice. Okay. So your book wanna talk a little bit about that? It’s called the Seething. Tell us a little bit about your book and why you wanted to write it.

Ben: So the seating it’s a story about family having a pretty bad vacation. They go to the mountains, they’re sorting some stuff out, they’re one of those familiar transitionary places that a lot of families go through and they’re trying to figure out what they wanna do next and what direction they’re going.

And they go back to stay in the childhood home of Gay Barnes, who’s the dad of the family. His father had passed away mysteriously three years earlier. And while they’re there, over the course of a week, they start coming into contact with the reason why the dad disappeared mysteriously a few years earlier.

So there’s a lake monsters and stuff, and, it’s pretty creepy and scary. Hopefully.

Stephen: It’s not a romance. No,

Ben: no, not at all.

Stephen: Okay. And why’d you wanna write this particular book? So

Ben: go back to the East Bay Hills for a moment. Cause that was actually the genesis of the story. I was hiking around lake Chabot, which is right on the edge of Oakland, Castro Valley, that kinda area a few years ago.

In the middle of one of our big droughts. And. I was hiking around this lake and these little pontoons, where the people can park a boat and get out and fish and do stuff. The boats go up and down as the

drought was noticing. I was enjoying hiking and running around for years. These floats were getting lower and lower and lower until they were basically resting on dry land. The lake had receded so much that they were just sitting there. They weren’t floating, they were sitting, and maybe this is a writer brain thing.

I like to think it’s a writer brain thing. It’s definitely a my brain thing. I started looking at it thing going, wow. And I don’t know why this popped into my head. I read a lot of horror. So I started thinking, wow. If there was a monster in that lake, it’s a lot closer to the surface now as the surface was coming down.

So it, it’d be a lot easier for a monster to get you. And then that kind of started a train of thought of if, let’s say you are a monster, a thing, right? And your habitat, your ecosystem was being eliminated. What would you do to get out? How would you try to survive? And that’s one of the central points of this book is how the thing in the lake is trying to get outta the habitat that it’s been trapped in years.

As things are going And so then it was just an idea that stuck in my head at the time. I was writing a lot of short stories and I kept thinking about that lake and that monster and just kept coming back, see, you have a cat too. Yeah, I do. I kept coming back to that idea and then I started writing it and it just took off from

Stephen: there.

Nice. And we’re gonna talk some more horror later. Do you read a lot of horror? Is that your favorite genre to read? That’s my

Ben: favorite genre. That’s actually, it’s primarily what I read. A little bit of non-fiction here and there, but I have I don’t know, I just, I always fall into it.

Aside from that, I’ve got a few fantasy authors that I enjoy. Most of them are sadly, old dead white guys Tolkin and people like that. CS Lewis I love. And I think those intersections between fantasy and horror, which meant we can talk about later. But mostly for fiction.

I read

Stephen: horror. Are there any books or authors that you can think of that are very similar to the seething?

Ben: When I was pitching the thing a lot of the comparisons that were making were to things like the Shining Stephen King’s, the Shining these jaws just for the sort of the ominous way.

He, although honestly, I read the book a million years ago. I’m more familiar with the film, the way. The water attacks were shot so sinister and strange. While I was writing it it’s actually funny you mentioned how much of a fan your dad was in westerns While I was writing it, I was getting into, Louis was reading his stuff and reading a bunch of John Steinbeck as well, which doesn’t seem.

Really connected, but I was really getting into the way Steinbeck and Lamore describe a setting especially a rural setting. My book is set up in the Sierra Nevadas, like it’s a imaginary version of the area around like Tahoe, Donner Pass, those kind of areas. So up in the mountains.

And so I was really interested in the way they described a setting and made it feel so real in the natural sense. Those things. And honestly lovecraft’s the color outta space was a big influence

Stephen: on it as well. Yeah. No, that was just recently a film that, eh, it was okay. I don’t know if you saw it with Nicholas Cage.

I didn’t.

Ben: It’s, I hate to say it’s on my list to make it sound like I’m gonna see it next week, cuz my list is years long at this point. But it’s right. It’s one of those ones I’ll see, one of these days.

Stephen: Yeah, I, it was all right. They really tried to do something a little better and different than some past Lovecraft movie in interpretations.

Right.

Ben: And the color has been made into a film a few times too, so I’m curious to see what they did with this version.

Stephen: Yeah, it’s got a definitely higher budget than most of the others yeah. So what’s reader feedback been like for this book?

Ben: The book actually doesn’t come out until March 23rd, but there has been some advanced reviews up.

There are, I think there are five reviews on Good Reads at this point from some people that the publisher sent it off to. And it’s all five star reviews, and the reviews are pretty complimentary. Everyone who’s read it seems to like it. I’ve heard back from a few h I’m sorry, horror Writers Association colleagues that I sent early versions to.

And they all really enjoy it. I think an answer to that question and the people who have read it have told me they like it, and I’m hoping they’re telling the truth,

Stephen: so Good. Great. Do you, if you had a choice, we’ve talked movies a little bit movie fans, TV fans nowadays also, if you had a choice would you like to see this turned into a movie or a TV show?

A movie or a TV

Ben: show? If I had my choice I would love a limited event series is what they call ’em now, right? I think it’s the thing, like a three to six episode long show of just that story. I like to think that there’s too much material in there to make one movie out of, that’s because I’m in love with every word that I put in there, right?

And I’m sure a com a competent, screenwriter, and director could, get right to the really important points and get most of the points across, but, I think it would do well as a limited run show. And it has an ensemble cast. There are enough different characters in it, but I think it could be interesting.

It’s, and it’s told from a few different perspectives as the book goes along. So I think it would be interesting, nice to play in that format

Stephen: a little bit. Nice. Now, typically horror, our standalone is this a standalone and if so, what’s your plans for your next book?

Ben: As written, it’s intended to be a standalone.

Yes. What I’ve been doing though with this book and just about every other short story and honestly the book that I’m working on right now I’m creating sort of my own little setting much like love crafted with arkham and dunwich King’s main Dairy castle Rock area. The settings in my stories the main city is Acosta, California.

Which is, Acosta is a Spanish word, meanings on the coast. It’s down on the coast about halfway between Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara is my imagining. And so there are connections between these stories. While none of them are really specifically, sequels to each other or part of a series, any one of ’em could be read in any order.

Stephen: Okay, good. And so we were talking about authors and books. Oh, before I ask that, do you have a website that people could go to and check out all your books? I

Ben: do, yeah, definitely do. Check that out. Really complicated name. It’s ben monroe.com. Got it. Good. And it’ll come right up. Just make sure you spell it right.

If you don’t, who knows where you’ll end up.

Stephen: But you can somebody else trying to swipe your name

Ben: exactly. Some with Monroe with a U. And yeah, you can find links. So I post links to places to buy. All the anthologies that my stories have appeared in, I’ve got about a dozen short stories out over the last couple years.

You’ll have links to, there’ll be link to this webcast probably in, in the next week or so as well. Every appearance I make gets up on media page. If you ever wanted to know, you know a lot about me and watch me ramble on about monsters for hours and hours. That’s the one stop shopping

Stephen: for you.

Got it. Cool. So you mentioned some good horror authors and like The Shining Witches, one of my top three books of all time. So who, what are some of your favorite all-time books, all-time authors.

Ben: Oh gosh so many, so I always, I had to throw out Lovecraft cuz, Lovecraft was really my real introduction to real horror.

As a kid I had watched all the universal monster classics. I was in the Wolfman and, Godzilla not universal, all that stuff. And then I stumbled across a Lovecraft story when I was about, I think eight or nine years old the outsider, which is great.

And that sort of blew my mind. So Lovecraft were, he’s, you’ve seen this kind of problematic today, but he’s still, seminal to me big fan of Stephen King. Love his work. Some other authors more recent oh gosh I guess not really recent. Peter Stra I was getting into a few years ago poppy, is he bright?

Pen name of Billy Martin. I was really read a lot of their stuff back in the early nineties in college. I was obsessed with lost souls Kathy Coachs, the Cipher is great. Recently oh gosh. Grotesque Monster Stories by Lee Murray. It’s a collection of really great short stories, is good.

And not out yet, but they hide by Francesca Maria, another great collection of Monster Stories is coming out in April. I got a chance to read the sneak peek of that, and that’s nice. That’s a lot

Stephen: of fun. Nice. You mentioned king Straub. Did you read what was the book they wrote together?

With Jack The Talisman. Talisman. Talisman,

Ben: yeah. Black House.

Stephen: Oh yeah. Have you read Black House? I haven’t got to that one

Ben: I did a couple years ago. Yeah, it was good. It was good. Interesting. I, it’s fun when those guys, king did it in The Shining and Dr. Sleep and then they did it in Talisman and Black House when they come back to those stories after so many years.

And see how this character has literally, grown up, interesting character

Stephen: studies. Yeah. So that’s cool to hear. It’s on my list. Ha. It’s, that list. Yeah, exactly right. And I mentioned before we started about bookstores. Do you have a local bookstore you like to go to?

Ben: Sadly, no. Okay. I wish I did. There’s there’s Dark Carnival in Berkeley, which is a great story, famous science fiction. Imagine a fiction bookstore which is just far enough out of the way that I don’t get there very often. Sadly, I live in a town that really doesn’t have any bookstores. I’ve gotta go about 20 to 30 minutes out my way in either direction to go.

Got couple half price books in those directions, which I love. It’s a treasure hunt when you go there. Dangerous

Stephen: floor.

Ben: Yeah. And actually I shouldn’t say when I say I don’t have any in town, that I’m like, that’s only because a new bookstore just opened a couple months ago. I think it’s called Books Inc.

And I haven’t had a chance to go there yet. So that’s on my list. My list, we’re gonna use that word. A lot of things to do in the near future is swing by there and check ’em out. Cause it looks like a great bookstore. Nice. I just haven’t had a chance to visit

Stephen: yet. If you stop shoot me an email.

I’d love to hear about it. I can put a link in for it as long as I’ll let you know. As long as they’re good. Which, it’s hard to ruin a good bookstore.

Ben: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Unless it smells weird. I’m pretty much happy at any bookstore, you

Stephen: know, and even then sometimes there’s some charm to that.

There can be. I wanna talk about a few other things. We’re gonna talk about some classic horror and how the storytelling that goes with classic horror. Before we run into that though, if somebody came up to you on the street and said, Hey, Ben, I heard you wrote a book. Why should I get your book and read it?

What would you tell ’em? Because you

Ben: feel sorry for me? No. I it’s a good story. It’s relatable. The characters in this story are pretty much every everyday Joes. They’re just regular people with regular jobs. And then, and this, my, this is actually my favorite kind horror and this is what I think king really does well.

And, go back to Lost Soul, is that book that I love. I think that was really good as well. Regular people. When suddenly they’re confronted by something so out of the ordinary, they just dunno what to do. You’re having a regular life and then you know, a monster shows up. What do you do? And that’s really what the seating is at its core.

It’s regular people having regular problems, and then the monster shows up.

Stephen: Nice. Good. All right. The seating and you mentioned some future books. What have you learned from when you first started writing and the short stories and the anthologies to the book you’re working on now?

What have you learned and what are you doing different?

Ben: The main thing I’ve learned I’ve come back to there’s a couple things, but the main thing is really the difference between a short story and a novel. And obviously one’s short and one’s long, but when when I first started writing a novel seemed overwhelming.

It seemed, oh my God, how do you write a novel? Cause you read a novel. This takes a few days or maybe a week or two, depending on your schedule. And. The idea of writing a novel, I don’t have time to write a novel in a few days. Of course nobody does that, right? But yeah, gotta get yourself in that mindset.

And what really helped me shift a few years ago, I was just outta sorts and I needed to do something to get some exercise, get out, get outside and do something. And so I took up trail running. And, which was a lot of fun, of its own sort of thing. Like I said, I love being outside.

I love being in the mountains and the hills. And so that was fun. And I started thinking a lot about the difference between basically sprints and long distance running. I could go for a short run around the block. That felt pretty good. If I was gonna go for a 5K trail run, that was something I had to build myself up to.

And so that became a metaphor for my writing process as well. Do the little short things. They’re fun, they’re good, they make you feel good, but then focus on that longer goal as well. So the novel became something that I could come back to over time. And when I wrote this evening, that was really how I did it.

I wrote, I think probably. A dozen or more short stories in that same period, and I would just keep coming back to the seething. I follow a lot of open call groups on Facebook and keep an eye out for people who are looking for stories for anthologies, and I’d have an idea if an idea struck me and I couldn’t get it outta my head, I would write that, send it in, go for it, and then go back to the seething and let the seething kind of bubbled along as I was working on these other things.

Okay. Yeah.

Stephen: Nice. So for authors one of the genres I’ve interviewed only a few people in is horror. And there’s probably reasons for that, but it’s one of my favorite genres. And you suggested, Hey, let’s chat a little bit about Classic horror storytelling. Which I was like, yes, please, because partly because I love horror.

I watch horror movies for two months. Around Halloween, I read horrors novels, a friend, and I do a mo a horror movie review podcast. That’s something else I do on the side. So I’m like, yes, let’s talk about classic story time. I’m always, Bringing that up in the podcast about what I see in the right, the movies.

You mentioned all the old Universal and Hammer films and Godzilla and all of that which I’ve read or I’ve watched also, and a lot of classic horror Dracula from over a hundred years ago and some of the classic sci-fi horror from the twenties and thirties. I love that era and stuff.

So what. First of all, why did you choose that as a topic, which I, again, I thought was wonderful. And what have you learned from classic horror novels and stories that you’re bringing in yours, like Lovecraft?

Ben: It’s interesting because if I asked you, I’m gonna interview you for a second.

If I asked you what’s the earliest, what’s the earliest horror story you can think of?

Stephen: There’s Frankenstein and Sure. And recently I’ve been reading vampire from Pari, Uhhuh and Camilla, I read those when I was doing a lot of vampire stuff. But you go all the way back and you got Giles, which is a horse.

There you go. Okay. Yeah,

Ben: See that’s where I’m going. People think Frankenstein, people think Dracula. People don’t think, if I say, what about the Odyssey? The guy curses the gods and the gods curse him back. And it’s not, and you think of the honesty. You think of, oh, there’s, Ady on the boat with this guys and they’re sailing around and having adventures.

They’re sailing around, they’re having an adventures. They land on the island of Cersi who curses again with the cursing, curses his men turn them into pigs and feeds them to the other sailors. That’s whore, yeah. They go a little further. And they end up on the aisle of poly fema, right? This giant who traps them in the cave, gets drunk, eats them live, right?

Eats them. There’s a description of the story where he gets so drunk, he starts vomiting up parts of guys, right? And then to get, then they get ’em back by sharpening this stick, sticking right in the face with it, papa’s eyeball. And then, and that’s gross and sad. And then, and you shoot forward a few, a few hundred or maybe a couple thousand years further, you got things like Beowulf, which again is seen as Yes.

An epic adventure story. The first couple of chapters or stanza or whatever you call ’em in that kind of poem are about who’s essentially Jason Voorhis, in, in another timeline, storming into the hall of Hero. And tearing these vikings limb from limb, and ba finally, Baal finally fights, like rips his arm outta the socket, beats the monster over the head with it.

I think there was actually a scene in one of the Friday 13th movies where a guy is beaten to death with his own arm. And this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now and is actually very much an influence on the next book that I’m writing the one that I’m working on now, which when I’ve gotten further into it, I’m happy to talk more about that.

Is that, the horror story is at the roots of so much fiction. Going back to, I even think, we don’t have records of the old. Story is told around the campfire by the Village Wiseman, back in the Neolithic times. But I guarantee you most of those stories were nobody go outside the circle of light or the demons will get you.

Yes. Now we know those demons are bears and wolves and mountain lions, stone Age people didn’t know what they were. It was that horrible, hairy monster with the fangs that would tear you li from limb if you wandered outside the village. Yeah. Another a great example I’ve.

I think it’s great cause I came up with it. But an example I’ve used, fairly frequently to explain this a little deeper is Look at the story of Red Riding Hood, right? The girl who goes into the woods to visit, her grandmother gets there and her grandmother is basically, been eaten by the monster and the monster’s put on her clothing to trick people into, come on here, I’m a nice old lady and let’s have tea and then, kill you and eat you too.

And that’s essentially the story of the Texas Chainsaw Massa. True, almost down to the identical monster. That’s just, it’s interesting to me how, for a genre that is seen as, ooh, horror why do you wanna read horror? It’s we’ve doing this for thousands of years.

As long as we’ve been people, as long as we’ve been able to tell each other’s stories, we were warning each other not to do

Stephen: certain things. And I just read, oh, and I wish I could remember where I read it a while back that the best that, that the difference between horror and Supernatural is horror happens as a buildup, whereas then the I may have this wrong, but then the supernatural happens afterwards and it’s the horror that really gets us, because it’s those internal fears, those parts of us that we’re afraid of the dark, we’re afraid of what’s hiding under the bed and all that.

And like you said, it’s been going on for centuries. And when people say, Things like that. Oh, why would you wanna read horror? My buddy Reese says, horror is one of the only genres where there’s something for everybody. If you have a romance, you know what romance is? If you have a sci-fi, you pretty much know what sci-fi is, but horror can be.

There can be a romance horror, there can be a romance sci-fi absolutely. Or a horror sci-fi and horror has so many, some people like I don’t really like the slasher movies. I don’t think they’re interesting. But some people think that’s horror and that’s all horror is, but then you get something like Crimson Peak with a lot of rich details and atmosphere, and that’s much more gothic horror i, I think you’re right that we all have that little secret. Fear inside us. And it, we want, why do people ride roller coasters?

Ben: And I think it’s interesting that horror side start for a moment. I like to think horror. I know it’s a genre. It’s a book category, so it’s clearly a genre.

I always like to think of it more as a tone, than a specific genre. If I told you it’s a horror story, that doesn’t tell me anything. If I tell you it’s like again about the seething or Stephen King stuff, it’s a story about everyday people having everyday lives, and then there’s horror added onto that, that’s a little more descriptive.

And so to me, Horror. I like to think of it more like I, I repeating myself as a tone rather than specifically always a genre. And I also think in that regard, it’s really interesting that horror, we call it a genre for now, is the only genre that’s named after an emotion, right? Can you think of, I always dance around romance cause maybe they call ’em love stories too sometimes, and that’s, an emotion as well, but you don’t feel action.

You don’t feel science fiction. You feel horror gets you.

Stephen: Very true. And different people are horrified by different things which is another great. A reason to read it. Cuz again, you can find something, goosebumps will scare some eight to 10 year olds. Really. They gotta keep the lights on, but when we read it, it’s corny and tongue in cheek.

But I know when my kids were little and red goosebumps, man, some of those freaked the kids out, but I w I was different. I read The Shining when I was like 10 but most 10 year olds aren’t reading The Shining because Yeah, exactly. It’s total, but it’s also. Told in a different way.

So horror and then the Walking Dead is completely different from either one of those. So what are some of the classic tropes in horror that you think help, help or hurt horror?

Ben: Oh gosh. I, I think. I think an overreliance on splatter and gore and the really, the in your face stuff doesn’t help.

Everything’s got a moment for it, but I think a good buildup and then something shocking is more effective than just shock. Shock. I’m trying to think off the top of my head. Go back to King for a minute. He had a thing, I think it was in on writing, where he described the, what he calls the three types of horror.

One is horror, which is the existential weirdness going on. He, his example was, it’s when you walk into your house and realize that everything in it has been replaced with an exact duplicate. That’s whoa. What? That’s unsettling. Terror is feeling that clammy hand on your shoulder while you’re looking at your house and.

And then he says, and the third type is gore, which is the eyeballs exploding. It’s the monster behind you biting your head off and squish going everywhere. And I love that, that he says he’ll always try for horror, but if he can’t get there, he’ll shoot for terror. And if that’s not working, he’ll go for gore.

He says, I’m not proud, I just wanna get to the effect. And I think he does tend to hover between horror and terror more often than not. But when he does Gore it’s great. And yeah, that’s the answer to your question. Yeah I think and stuff that works, I love a slow buildup.

Anything I like to describe some horror stories as a chili pepper story. And I, I hope theThing is one of those where, you take a bite of something spicy and it’s ooh. It’s spicy, but by the time you’re like the fifth or sixth bite, you’re like, I can’t take this anymore.

It’s too hot. Put it away. It’s too much. That’s what I really like that buildup that just keeps getting worse and worse until you I can’t take this anymore, but there’s still five chapters left in the book.

Stephen: I can’t put it down.

Ben: Exactly. I gotta finish it. It’s so good, but it’s too hot and right.

Stephen: I had that definite experience when I was younger. I was reading the Amityville Horror. My parents had gone out and I was in the middle of the book and realized it was like 10 o’clock at night pitch black, except for the one light above where I was. Everything else was dark. I did not move until the, my parents came home.

And Oh man, I shouldn’t have said that cuz now I lost my train of thought. What we were talking about. I’m sure it was a good idea. It was a great one. I it would’ve made everything, it would’ve been monumental. You would’ve

Ben: gotten the Pulitzer Prize for tubing and everything, right?

Yeah.

Stephen: Man, know the opportunities pass. Oh, in another world. I got it. So I agree with you on the slow burn Totally. And good horror needs that you can’t. It’s what I said earlier, horror and terror. You said it not horror and supernatural. Yes. It good scary stuff. Needs that horror. It needs that slow buildup.

It can’t exist. When it just starts off jumping out at you. I’ve been in a critique group where somebody was reading their horror, the first couple pages, chapter or whatever of their horror story, and there’s these two guys in there that immediately jump on ’em like no one’s ever go by this it’s horrible because you don’t tell us anything about what’s going on.

You don’t give us that. This character we’ve been following is actually a ghost and blah, blah. And I’m like, hold on. You’re totally wrong. You guys write mystery and action thriller. Totally different than horror. If you start, if you cut out the first two chapters that this guy read and just start with this ghost, nobody will care in the horror genre.

It’ll be horrible. I, in fact, I would tell him he. Said the ghost a little too early, that you should have let it build a more and given us some hints and stuff like the movie, the others with Nicole Kidman, slowly dawns on you that, oh my God, they’re the ghosts. Or 6 cents or something like that.

Spoiler. Yeah, spoil. Hey, if you haven’t seen the others or sixth sense it’s about time. They’re old enough.

Ben: Yeah. Yeah. I was just gonna point out, anybody watch this who hasn’t seen the others? Of course, now, you know the spoiler. Definitely go see it. It was completely eclipsed. It came out the same, almost within months of the sixth sense.

And it just, everyone saw the sixth sense. Nobody saw the others. I don’t, you’re actually the first person I’ve met in years who’s just randomly brought it up. So kudos on you.

Stephen: Me absolutely worth watching. Me and my buddy Reese reviewed the others on our podcast. Oh, nice. And it was fantastic because you’re, go, it’s.

It was done very well that you’re picking up on what’s happening in slow increments. If you’re really paying attention, if you’re not, it’s a total surprise at the end. But you

Ben: asked him earlier what good horror movies I’d seen lately and that comment actually just made me remember one I think it was the Shutter original.

It came out right before Christmas called The Apology. Which was great. It’s not a supernatural horror story. It’s more of a thriller kind of thing. It gets really squishy toward the end. And it’s one of those things where you’re watching it. This is this is basically two people having a conversation for a couple hours.

It’s getting weirder and darker until you figure out what the point, what one character’s point in having this entire conversation is. And then you’re like, oh crap, this is terrible. This is horrible. And then everything just, escalates or deescalate. Goes to hell on a hand basket from there.

That’s, so the apology probably at least on a shutter, if not elsewhere it’s

Stephen: definitely worth watching. Yeah. We, it sounds a little bit like the autopsy of Jane Doe. Yes. Yeah. That’s a slow burn, which is great. And it’s learning things and yeah. And I.

Ben: I think that’s something, going back to your comment about the writers group earlier, I think at least for me, I can’t speak for all horror writers and readers, but that’s something I really like as aficionado is.

Getting into a story, I’m just like, I’m just gonna trust the storytellers and see where this goes. And Jane Doe, autopsy of Jane Doe is a great example of that. It’s just sinister and ominous and things weirder and weirder. And you’re then, when you starting out, what’s actually going on and the supernatural elements come up, it’s really exciting.

It’s thrilling cause it’s just, Okay, here we go. This is where it’s starting to get

Stephen: really cool, right? Yep. All right. Ben it’s been a wonderful conversation. I love talking horror. I don’t get that very often on here. Before we go though, again, your books to the seething, I’ll put links in the show notes to your website.

Do you have any last minute advice you would give to new authors? Oh

Ben: gosh. New authors, so I’ve really only been writing fiction for about four or five years now. My first novel in the Belly of the Beast and other Tales of Catula Wars, actually a collection and novel came out about five years ago, and I had so much fun.

I just kept going and that, to me, that was a log jam breaking moment. I had been wanting to write fiction for so long. I had a lot of stuff in my head that was keeping me from doing it. And so the quick version of all of that distilled into answering your question is don’t sweat rejections.

People are going to not like what you’re writing and you can’t let that, you can’t let that get the best of you. Just keep writing, do it. You’re gonna find your audience if you’re enthusiastic about what you’re writing. You’re gonna find other people who are as well, and the people that reject your stories are just the people that aren’t interested in what you’re specifically saying at that time.

And that might just be, it primarily is based on their own preconceptions. They like something that you, it’s different from what you like. Think about every time you’ve had a conversation with a friend about a movie you really enjoyed and they didn’t like, doesn’t mean that your opinion’s bad. Just means that you like something they didn’t.

Art is the same way, and so just write it just. Sit your ass in the chair and

Stephen: start writing a and there’s so many avenues nowadays to reach people and different audiences and people are wanting more specific things and they enjoy the stuff, not the necessarily big names on the shelves.

The same old. There’s lots of people wanting different. So yeah, I agree. That’s a it’s a new world out there.

Ben: Small press. Andy Horror is thriving right now, so this is a great time to get started.

Stephen: Nice. Great. All right. Ben, wonderful talk and I’ll make sure and let you know when it’s live and I wish you luck on theThing.

Yeah,

Ben: thanks Steven. It was great talk to you.

Stephen: Yeah, it was.

Diane lives in Cleveland and likes to bake, besides her writing career. She has written several books focused on her faith and has another coming soon. In keeping with her baking likes, she also has a recipe book.

Diane is an inspiration as she started writing later in life, and has enjoyed several years of a wonderful career.

https://reformministry.com

Okay. All right. So Diane, welcome to discover word Smiths and I know what type of day you’re having. It’s probably rainy because we live very close to each other. So how are you doing on this rainy day?

Diane: I’m doing great. It’s cozy here and everything’s good, so no complaints.

Great.

Stephen: Good. It’s good to have you on. I’m excited because of the genre you write in. You’re the first time I’ve had anyone with that genre, so it’s great to have the variety which I hope that the people listening enjoy hearing authors from different genres. So before we get into that though tell us a little bit about yourself where you live, some of the things you like to do besides writing.

Diane: Oh, sure. My name, my author name is Diane Erlic, and I had that name for all my life except till last June when I got married for the first time. And so I’m Diane Drought now, but I kept that name for the sake of my books and everything. Yeah, I turned 68 and I got married the first time, so Wow.

Congrats. So I’m happy and we’re having a great time. Nice. But I live, yeah, I live near Cleveland, Ohio, and lived here all my life. Went to school in Cincinnati, got a degree in design, so I have a creative streak. But when we get into talking about the books and everything, that part was very unexpected.

I didn’t expect to write up into, I have six books up on Amazon now. I’m working on a seventh and so we’ll get into that, but I really don’t have any experience with that. What do I do besides writing? I love cooking and baking. Anybody that knows me knows to come over at dinner time or let me know.

Gimme 30 minutes notice. And I’ll have dinner on the table cuz I got enough stuff in the freezer. Beautiful. So we love to entertain. One of my books is on the Gift of Hospitality, which I absolutely love. Otherwise, we’re very active, over 50 people. We both spend plenty of time at the gym and walking and getting together with people.

So that’s in a.

Stephen: Nice. Great. So what’s your favorite dish to cook?

Diane: Oh, gee. I love baking the most. I guess I just had some friends over and I said, come over for we had dinner, but I taught myself how to make tiramisu. Ooh, okay. And It was difficult, but boy, it was good. Nice. The leor that, yeah, the leor the Kahlua that you put in it really carries the flavor and it was really fun to share with people.

That’s one

Stephen: of those that you’re like, oh, I messed it up. I gotta eat all the ones I got time to. Sure. More. Really.

Diane: That’s why we’re at the gym all the time.

Stephen: Yeah. And then they end up tasting better. Okay, I’ve eaten 50 of these things today and I might be feeling the effects.

Diane: Sure. Yeah. When I met my husband, I said, we’re the perfect match.

I love to cook. He loves to eat, so perfect. It

Stephen: works out good. Yeah. Okay tell us about your books in general, but most particularly the newest one, what it’s about and. Why you wanted to write this?

Diane: Oh, okay. Yeah. I’m currently working on my seventh book and I happen to have a little, I don’t know if it carries.

Oh, wow. Proof pulls up. But I have a mockup of the cover if you can see it. Okay. Yeah. And the name of it is called Seeing Heaven from Planet Earth okay. I lost it for a second there. I took a nose, guys. Sorry. So anyway, this this was inspired by blogs. I have a website and a, and monthly blogs.

We’ll get into that in a little bit, but as our connection, you and me is through writer’s group with Dave Van Horn. And so I was at my writer’s group one night and you get to read things and they critique you. It’s very helpful. And Dave just, he’s such a idea person and said, if you have enough of these blog articles, you’ll have another book.

And it was like a light went on. I go, yeah, because it’s a devotional. People in my genre, Christian inspirational Christian growth, love, something that they can ha have read for one day, put it down, and then read something new for the next day. It’s called a devotional and so you have different topic.

And different things that, that just carry them through the week or whatever. However, somebody wants to do it, but this is based on the parables of Jesus. When I started doing my research, there are tons of books out there already written very scholarly about the parables of Jesus.

That’s not what I wanted to. Doing my research, I found that this type of reading writing called simile and called parabolic teaching, it’s this is like that. So when Jesus taught, he said his I, the iconic phrase was, the kingdom of God is so he would use something from everyday. That people could recognize and immediately understand and identify with, and then he would take it to that higher plane of the kingdom of God, and he would just move people than to understand that hidden realm of his father’s kingdom.

So that’s what I attempt to do with these everyday topic. And then I pivot and say then the Bible says this, so this equals, this is like that. And it helps people picture and understand the Bible’s take on a specific topic. So hopefully I’ll be done with this. I’m hoping by this summer, but for sure by fall.

So I’ll have that out on Amazon and ebook.

Stephen: Nice. Nice. And you’ve got several books out and that you said they’re all very similar to this. Why did you choose to write inspirational Christian books?

Diane: Here, I’ll tell you my long story. Okay, great. That’s what we’re here for. I became a Christian in 1983.

My brother explained to me that I could know God personally, that all I had to do was turn to him and. Lord please forgive me in my sins and come into my life and show me the way that you want me to live. And I did that very thing. Jesus is real. His power is real. He’s there. He’s real. He’s alive.

So through the Bible and through P Prayer, God will start to communicate with you in your mind, in your heart, and in your. Things that he has for you or different things that he wants to say to you. It’s very personal. That’s why you hear us being born again. It’s a personal relationship. It’s you and him, together, and that’s how life was always meant to be.

We were never meant to be estranged from God, trying to do it all on our own. So with Heaven’s help, at the time when I became a Christian, then I started to go to church. I started to teach Sunday school and I started to teach junior high Sunday school. The parents wore me, these kids.

A little wild. I don’t know if you can do it, but I did and we had a wonderful time. I started to write a newsletter from my students and I mailed them out every week, and the parents said that the kids would run to the mailbox to get their newsletter. Junior high hopes. As I worked on those, Again the light bulb went on.

Maybe I should do a book. People suggested that I didn’t know at the time that I was touching people that I had a talent for this, but it was a talent that I tripped over and discovered. And so people enjoyed my re writing. I had to learn my craft. If I was gonna write a. I had to learn grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, all that good stuff.

I hadn’t expected to become an author. It was overwhelming at first, but then as I finally just leaned into it, sure enough, I had a book, junior High Hopes, while that was just my training wheels that never got published, but I had to get started some way, right? The book that I wrote and published after that was a book called Transforming the Queen.

Now you probably can’t tell this from my manner and my mannerisms. I’m very, a very happy, upbeat person, but at one time in my life, in my thirties, I was in deep depression. I couldn’t even go to work in the morning. I was living at home. I was one of those bounce back ba baby boomers that came back and lived with their parents.

They were very patient with me. But as I began to pray and read the Bible, and especially with forgiveness issues, and just seeking God to help me in my heart, that heaviness lifted. I came out. Of all that depression and there’s really not a trace of it. Now, of course, that was a lot of years ago. I had to really work at it.

There was a lot of self-determination. I had to decide, that I needed to stand up on my own two feet and have the right path in front of me. But that’s what I did. So this book is actually my. Of logging how I came out of that and the different heart issues and the, and pain and different things that I was experiencing at the time that now I’m perfectly healed from.

So that book, it took me five years to write that. But, and then I did self-publish, so that was my first book.

Stephen: Nice. Good. And how many books did you say you had?

Diane: I have six full paperbacks. The next one that I wrote, I was teaching a Bible study at a church, and our topic for the Bible study was called Take the Limits off of God.

So again, this is another devotional, just different topics that we covered as a group that I had the notes for. And again, eventually I had. To create a book out of it. This is probably one of my most my best selling book because of that devotional style where people again, could, can select a topic, read it for the day, and I’ve actually had five star, I have five star reviews on Amazon for this book, and I’ve received some very kind notes from people over the years thanking me for how touch, how touched they were by this.

The next book that I wrote was to help people. It was to offer something for people’s self-esteem, not necessarily just directed at women, although by this time I was working with women’s groups and again doing some public speaking in that. And so my next book is called Confidence Shall Be Your.

And this is a really good guide to not just trust in yourself and rely on yourself, but rely on God for that godly confidence that being able to look someone in the eye and smile, say your name, introduce yourself, take away all the shyness and the self. You know it, you know the things that would intimidate you for being around other people.

And so this gets you, into society. It gets you moving and helps you to get over those people fears that a lot of people get bound up with. After that, I wrote a really interesting book. It’s called Seeing Behind the. And it’s a book on spiritual deception. Unfortunately there is a dark side to the spirit realm that the Bible describes.

And as a Christian, you became, become very well aware of that reality too. So this is for people to help them stay out of that dark realm that is only deceptive and. Wants to hurt and harm. So this describes this, the spirit of the gift of discernment, discerning of spirits where you can actually understand the different things that are coming at you every day and have a better wisdom to know how to tackle some of the difficulties in life.

The next book that I wrote is called Tabernac. Again, this was totally unexpected, but the Lord started to speak to me through scripture and talk about the the priesthood of all believers that the Bible describes. And so this is a book on prayer, on worship and the term is called ministering to the Lord, where you can actually through praise and worship.

Just spend time just protecting the presence of God. Just extolling God and just having this wonderful prayer prayer closet, prayer time that is so uplifting for you, but also, to pray for other people and events that are going on in society. It’s amazing. I’ll tell you something really fun.

God called me to prayer because I do what’s called intercession and it’s praying deep in the middle of the night. Three in the morning you’ll find me up and God called me to pray the day of the boston Marathon bombing. You remember that? For the Boston Marathon and deep in the middle of the night I was woken up out of a sound sleep, and I heard the word pray come to my mind.

And so I wanted into deep intercession. And then the next day I found out, about that horrible bombing, but only there was two nap sex with bombs and only one went. So by a miracle, only three people were killed. Many injuries, but they survived. And those people got to run that marathon, even with their prosthesis and, all the injuries they got across that finish line.

So that’s prayer, intercession, and the power of it. And then finally during Covid I had been doing writing. Recipes and, writing down my favorite recipes and everything. And I started to assemble some notes on the gift of hospitality. Sure enough here, recipe for sharing.

And this is actually my front door and I, and I have actually pictures. So in 2016, I was 65. Let’s see. No, 60. And I moved from a condo into a freestanding single family home that was twice the size and needed a lot of rehab. So with the help of a friend of mine who does that kind of work, I rehabbed a 2000 square foot home.

Wow. Beginning to end. Roof shutters painting the whole thing. And all for the sake of having a big dining room and a di big living room and a big kitchen so that I can have friends over. So I documented that whole thing. There’s pictures, and then the second half of my book is all my recipes. It was a fun book that I got to write during Covid.

So that’s out on Amazon too, and I’m actually gonna do a revision on that hopefully this year, cuz I’m gonna include a chapter on how I met my husband on an over 50 singles dating site. And how we got together. So those are my books in the, in a Books in a nutshell. I did one little ebook, it’s called How to Write a Book.

I did a seminar for a women’s group one time and wrote a, did a class on how to write a book and kept the notes. I thought, that is a, something that’s widely searched by people and if. If you go to Amazon, you’ll find it and come download it. It’s just a little ebook, but it’s all the experience that I learned and I took away from all my years of writing and self-publishing and I think it’s very helpful for people.

But that’s just a short booklet. It’s the ebook. So that’s great.

Stephen: So you’ve written for several years in several books. What are, I’m gonna jump around a little bit on questions. Sure. What are some things that you’ve learned from that first book to now that you’re doing differently in your

Diane: writing?

Oh, okay. My composition comes a lot easier now. And so mainly It’s the, it’s, I taught myself this summer how to do my own eBooks. It’s probably the software. And and I had employed an editing service on one of the books, but I think I’m just gonna, do my own editing. And then also For this heaven book, I think I’m going to purchase this software called Atticus, where I can actually typeset my own interior of my book.

I’ve already I’ve already hired out someone to do the cover, so I guess my learning experience now is in the software, in the production. It’s a lot easier for me. I understand it. It’s not such a big, black hole of learning. My learning curve, is a little easier now and and I really enjoy the computer and the software part of it too.

So you go from the creative part, the writing and the composing, and then you get into this very practical mode of making sure that your writing is good, that it’s powerful, that your sentences make sense, that they lead to one another, that your paragraph breaks are makes sense. And that you just put out a really good product for your reader.

That’s my goal. Nice.

Stephen: And you’re working on this book to get out soon. Do you have any plans for things after that? Any books after that?

Diane: Yes, I do have a book planned for next year. I haven’t gotten a title yet. Over the years, I have other books that I never published that I have lots of material.

I’m always taking notes and writing things down. Yeah, I think re readers will see another book out of me for next year. Nice. Okay.

Stephen: And the people that have read your books, what type of feedback are you getting from your reader?

Diane: Like I say, I have five star reviews on Amazon.

Right now I don’t really get I just opened a Facebook for my ministry. It’s called Reform Ministry. I haven’t gotten any too many followers yet. Not a whole lot of feedback, but. Like I say, I’m writing these blogs I started last year and I have blogs above on my website. I’ll give you the name of my website Yes.

For viewers. So they can go and follow me on the blogs, but it’s reform ministry.com. R e f o R M I N I S T R y. Dot com. That’s my website. There’s a lot of pages on it. There’s a lot of information. There’s a bible reading schedule if you want that. I talk a little bit about my beliefs and then all the books are posted up there and then these monthly blog articles and they’re all up there, includes a picture and I, I have a tracker on my blog and so I can actually see where people, I wrote it, I wrote all these down.

I wrote all these states and countries Nice. That where people visit me from Now, there’s no place to actually interact on the blog article because of the setup of my website. I’ve been read by people from New York, New Jersey, Iowa, California, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Connecticut, and Utah. And those are just the recent ones.

And then the countries where people have visited me and viewed the pages, Ireland, India, Canada, China, Tanzania, Malawi, Israel, and India. And those are just some of the recent. So it’s really fun for me to go on my tracker every day. I see if people are reading me, how long they’re on there, what pages they view, and from what I can tell, I am getting a lot of readership and that’s my goal right now because I just wanna put out.

Important, good information for people that they can read in their spare time. Nice.

Great.

Stephen: You yourself, do you have any favorite books and authors?

Diane: Right now I’m reading a Man and he’s very famous called, his name is Randy Alcorn, a l c o r n, and he’s written many books I’ve been reading.

Books for a lot of years. The one that I’m in the middle of right now, because it pertained to what I was doing, it’s called Heaven. And he just intricately describes what the Bible says, about heaven. And it’s actually a physical place. We are gonna have physical bodies. We’re going to eat, we’re gonna know people.

It’s gonna be just a carryover from life on Earth, so it’s very exciting. Nice.

Stephen: Okay. I’ll put a link in the show notes to that. Sure. For people. And do you have any favorite local bookstores?

Diane: Right now there’s not too many bookstores in my area. Just I have started looking at the Good Reeds website.

For books that people recommend. And then just the Amazon bookstore is probably my go-to. Okay, that’s

Stephen: fine. And so we jumped around a little bit, covered some of the author topics already. But if somebody came up to you and said, Hey, Diane, I heard you wrote a book inspirational devotionals.

Why should I get your book and read it as opposed to all the other ones out there? What

Diane: would you call? Yeah there’s a lot of. Material out there. I have a lot of different topics. All these books are different topics. So what I tell people and what I have on my website is that you can actually build for yourself.

A library of these books, and if you read them, in the order that I just gave you, you would have a full all encompassing understanding of the Christian life. Everything has been touched on. So if you take ’em as a whole and use them as your own personal library. Then you would have a very well-rounded understanding of what the Bible calls us as Christians.

Nice.

Stephen: Okay. And what would you tell somebody, let’s say they don’t read Christian inspirational, but they wanted to find out what your books are about. What would you tell ’em about why they might wanna read your books if they’re like I don’t care about all that. What would you say to them?

Diane: I would say to them, That’s

Stephen: a tough one.

I’m sorry.

Diane: Yeah, that’s ok. I would say them just try it. I wrote down actually to, I wrote down a little challenge for your viewers, for people Okay. Who have never read. Don’t take my word for it. Don’t even buy my books, I put ’em out there for the world. But here’s the challenge for your readers.

If you just get yourself a Bible, yeah. You can go online, it’s there, or go to a bookstore or maybe dig one up outta your attic, I don’t know, wherever you keep it. Or maybe it’s on the coffee table. Yeah. And it’s always been there and you just have, you have to dust around it every weekend.

I don’t know. They don’t put ‘

Stephen: em in hotels anymore.

Diane: No, I guess not, but it, but every, it’s online. Everything’s online. So go find yourself a Bible, go to the New Testament, because then you can learn about the savior Jesus, and just read, instead of getting overwhelmed. Oh, I’ve never read the Bible.

It’s so hard. I’m not gonna understand it. It’s not hard. Yes, you can understand it and just read a chapter. Those are the big numbers. It’ll say, one, two, whatever. Just read yourself a chapter or a paragraph or a little bit for the day, and then. Just turn to God and say, God, what do you have for me from this?

What do you have for me? And do the Do it for a week, do it for a month. However long it takes you to get in a little bit of a groove, God will start to present himself to you. It’ll be very personal. It’ll be very warm. It’ll be very inviting. He loves you. He wants to communicate to you. And that’s probably him calling me now,

stop this phone. But but just to get back to that, it’ll be very warm, it’ll be personal and you’ll know that you have a friend in heaven who loves you, who wants to help you, who has power to help you. Who wants to help you through your deepest needs. And I just challenge your re your viewers to just try it themselves.

Nice. Great.

Stephen: That kinda made me think, wasn’t there a show several years ago called God Calling that Yeah,

Diane: there’s a book out. Yeah. Called, yeah. God Calling. All

Stephen: right. Diane I think it’s been a great talk. Like I said, you’re the first Christian writer I’ve had on here with Inspirationals in that, so it’s, I love having a variety of authors to show what’s out there.

And I love the fact that you started this not when you were 20, when you were in your sixties already, or late fifties already. And congratulations on being married by the way, so for everybody. So I love that all aspects about you. We do have, we both sit in on Dave’s meetings sometimes and we do have a lot of writers that listen to the show.

So before we go, what advice would you give to some new writers out there?

Diane: Be encouraged that whatever you’re writing, if you’re writing from your heart, then you can make it into a product that people will identify. And want to read because you have a voice to help someone else in whatever experience you’re expressing, you have a voice to help the next guy.

So keep up the good work and just give it a try. Great.

Stephen: Wonderful. Thank you. I appreciate that. It’s been great catching up with you and having you on. I will let you know when this goes live. Thank you.

Diane: Thank you so much.

Cindy Jarrett retired as a school teacher and took up writing. With her partner, she’s written several kids books, which is nice since she taught kids for her hole teaching career. We discuss her books and what it’s like to move to a new career.

Today this is an interesting and special podcast for me. I have Cindy, Jared on and miss Jared. And I can’t call you by your first name. It’s very difficult. She was a teacher when I was in high school at my school. It is nice to see her again. And I’m glad to have her on.

This chair, how are you doing? I’m doing great. So I know you taught, but what are some things you like to do besides writing? I

Cindy: like to go to movies.

Stephen: Ah, you go see it man. This weekend,

Cindy: I went to see, oh gosh, what? I can’t think of the name of it right now. Tom Hanks is in it.

Stephen: Oh a man called Otto.

Cindy: Yes. A man called Otto is wonderful.

Stephen: Yeah. Part of that was filmed on the Keigo Valley Railroad. Cool. Yeah, the whatever train scene there is that was right here, Northeast Ohio.

Cindy: Yeah. It made me laugh and made me cry. So

Stephen: nice. It was a good movie. It did look good. It did look good. So we’re gonna talk about your books.

You have several books out and you have a co-author, and I don’t get a lot of these types. They’re children’s books, picture books. So it’s great to have an author that writes that. So tell us first about your books what they’re about and why you got into writing kids’ books.

Cindy: My co-author is my best friend since the middle of 10th grade in high school, so that’s over 50 years.

We won’t say how many. Okay. But she gets me into all kinds of stuff. She’s got me into cake decorating classes and Tai Chi and. Bow making bows and all kinds of stuff. And she said one day that she would like to write children’s books, but she doesn’t like to do anything on her own. So what I write with her and I said, sure.

Like I always do, I always go along with her

Stephen: ideas. Got it. And I bet there’s some stories from back in the day that we won’t talk about here.

Cindy: Yeah. We were with another friend and Elaine had said that she wanted to write children’s books, but she didn’t have any ideas. And the friend said, why don’t you write about a star, a sea star that wants to be a star in the sky, cuz I’m never gonna write that book.

And Elaine said, oh, that, that sounds like a good idea. But a couple of years went by, we didn’t act on it, and then our friend passed away. And so when we decided that we were actually going to tackle this we thought about her idea. And so that was our first book. We dedicated it to her. That’s how Sammy the Sea Star came about.

Nice. And we, she was a teacher also. She taught elementary and middle school, gifted, gifted student. And I taught at the high school, so she has a lot of imaginative ideas. We draw on our past childhoods and write about things that we thought were cool when we were kids. And I’m, I was a typing teacher, so I’m a good proofreader.

I know my English punctuation rules really well, and so we, we make a good combin.

Stephen: Nice. Okay, so you weren’t like, oh, I’ve always wanted to write and I finally did. It was just kinda something you came upon. Yeah,

Cindy: We just decided to be something that we did after we retired, although I’m still working, but I’m probably going good at the end of this year.

Stephen: Good for you. Okay, so you write kids books and you have an artist and you’ve got How may I out now? For what’s been the feedback, what are people saying when they read the books?

Cindy: Matter of fact I just got a feedback today. My, my aunt had purchased one for one of her nieces and she said that she was home today and they were coloring and her favorite book is Adventures with Grandma.

So she made her own cover to Adventures with Grandma. That’s awesome. She colored her own and there was another lady. That we met when we were in Hartville, and she was so excited to meet that She bought all four of the books and said that she was just so excited to finally meet the authors and that.

Almost everybody that we meet says that the kids really love the stories. So it’s a great feedback.

Stephen: Yeah, I read the Firefly one and it was enjoyable. If my kids were still young, it would’ve been a great one to read to them. It’s not necessarily something I’m gonna pick up myself to read, we, we’ve got it when a kid comes over now.

And you’ve traditionally published these, is that correct?

Cindy: Yes. My, my friend Elaine, she also writes books with another girl. They write books for teachers in the gifted program, and those people pay them a certain sum to write the books, but then they only get 10 cents per book that they sell.

Wow. And so she said she thought that we needed to do our own. We don’t actually publish them ourselves as far as like doing something with getting on the computer using a certain program or something like that. We found a kind of a person that’s an in-between, I guess you could call it.

He helped us find our artists and. He takes our books and puts the pictures and the words together for us on the page, and then he sends them to a publisher or a printer and they print them for us. So he’s. That’s

Stephen: how we did it. Okay. And do you have digital versions or are they all printed versions?

They’re

Cindy: all just printed. We have har soft bound and hardbound books,

Stephen: which for kids books seems to be the most prevalent especially picture books. They’re very difficult to do digitally and make it work. And you mentioned Hartville I know that’s for us a local like a swap and flea market, and they have an indoor stores and stuff.

So what are you doing to market these? Because I’ve, you and I went to the library with Kathy. She has a pop-up bookstore and you mentioned Hartville. With kids books especially, you gotta get ’em in their hands. You gotta be there. So what all are you doing to get the word out and get the books seen by kids?

Cindy: We have a website of course, although we don’t seem to sell a lot of books on the website pretty much if you do your own publishing, you have to get out there and go to craft shows. That’s what we’ve been doing. Going to craft shows and selling the books ourselves. We feel like we make the most profit that way.

Okay. We have gone into classrooms. Done presentations with the kids done art projects with them based on the books, and they’ve really loved it. Nice. So that it’s, that’s pretty much it.

Stephen: Nice. I like the art project. So do you work with kids to draw pictures based on just the words and they think, or are they creating their own stories?

They’re

Cindy: not creating their own stories, but we, with the Sammy the Sea Star, we used paper plates and we cut out different sea star shapes and they could. What shape they wanted and then they decorated their own sea star with nice markers and glitter and all kinds of stuff. And then with the Firefly book They were able to create their own firefly and decorate it the way they wanted

Stephen: As long as you weren’t shooting off fireworks in the classroom.

No, that sounds fun because when you write adult books, You can’t really do that. Adults don’t wanna color their own sea stars, right? It was a totally different environment, much more fun to go do those things. I think

Cindy: we also made a presentation at Southeast High School because the kids in one of the English classes, had to write their own stories and color them.

And then they were going to go over to the elementary school and read their stories to the students. So we did a workshop with them also. How we got into writing and how we go about it it really is best to just write about things that you know about. Although you do have to do some research too.

Stephen: Oh, that. No, that’s interesting because these are kids’ picture books. So what research do you do for a kid’s picture book?

Cindy: Oh, we did all kinds of research on the Firefly book. Fireflies are very interesting and that’s why we, one of our trademarks is since we were teachers, we don’t wanna just give the kids a story.

We want them to get facts. So in the Sammy Des Sea Star book, there are a lot of facts about sea stars, but what has become our tradition in all the books, Is to include a page or two in the back that has additional facts about the animals or the subject matter in the books, websites that the kids can go to if they want to find out more information.

So

Stephen: nice. Yeah. And I love that cuz I kinda have the same thing. I write middle grade and I include words to know in discussion questions. And I’m working on creating a whole study guide. So it’s, the, that thing you just can’t stop working with kids and doing those types of things becomes a part of all of it. Yep. So I can imagine these. Maybe not. If you had a choice, would you like to maybe see these turned into a TV show or a, an animated movie or something like that? We haven’t thought that far. That would be an interesting workshop for even younger kids is to animate the stories and, use some movie maker animation program or something.

That would be a fun workshop, I think. Yeah, it. All right let me know if you ever wanna do it. Cause I’d love to do that. That one with you, with the kids. That would be pretty fun.

Cindy: You probably know a lot more about it than I do but

Stephen: I’m not good with art. I’m not good at drawing. And either that’s

Cindy: why we needed an artist.

Stephen: Yeah, people, yeah. My, my cover, I hired a guy to do my cover cause I’m. Yeah. Stick figures, that’s still the best of my abilities on it. I do stuff with Reese Sampson. He always would do stuff for me withdrawing, oh, that’s interesting. You mentioned a website. What is your website?

It’s

Cindy: called fun Hyphen Dimensions.

Stephen: Dot com.

Cindy: Okay. And all four books are listed there and they could purchase them

Stephen: there. I would make, I’ll make sure and put links in there. Okay. For that. And we were talking about bookstores. We don’t have a whole lot of bookstores real close to here, but I’ll mention Kathy, she’s gonna be on the podcast in a couple weeks.

Kathy Klein is doing books of Go-Go, which is a. Bookstore and you’ve gotten involved with her. Do you, do do you set up and do things with her often or do you, does she just have some of your books?

Cindy: She works at the church that I was secretary at Edinburg Burg, United Church for 15 years.

Okay. And she works in the preschool there. That’s how I know her. Okay. And so the kid watch and the preschool have purchased my books and. That was the first time when you and I were there at the library. That was the first time that I had worked

Stephen: with. Okay. Nice. Yeah. Cheryl O’Connor got a copy of my book and got a picture of it on the intermediate shelf, and I’m like, oh my gosh, it’s on the shelf, yeah. More importantly, it has the little numbers and stuff that kids can check it out. Oh, good. That was the, important thing to see that, that kids could go check it out. So that’s kinda fun. Yeah.

Cindy: We were excited. Yeah. She’s bought a couple of our books too, and we’ve gone out to Southeast and read to.

The kids on to Read Week and done a presentation out there. And then the kids can find the book in the library.

Stephen: I love that. Yes. I think more people should encourage that, especially authors for kids in middle grade and all that. Encourage the libraries, encourage the kids.

They think it’s taking away from their income. But ma’am, when I was in school and I would read a book in the library, I’d go buy the book or buy more by the author and or, wanna keep reading more. That’s how kids do it. You kinda gotta understand that. Yeah. But you’re doing the marketing, you’re going to lots of fairs and trade shows and things like that.

A about how many of these are you going to like per year?

Cindy: That’s a good question. See, my co-author goes to Florida for six months out of the year, and so she does three different sales down in Florida. I do three or four up here after she leaves, and we probably do. Six to eight in the summertime when she’s here.

Stephen: Wow. Yeah. Wow. That’s a lot. And. I asked that because I know a lot of authors listen and a lot of ’em don’t wanna get out and push their book. They feel like a used car salesman. And I think it’s important because people gotta see you and know you, and when you’re there and they see you, they trust you more.

And if you really think, people shouldn’t buy your book, then maybe you shouldn’t have written

Cindy: it. Yeah. Really we’re excited about our book, so we love telling people about the stories. Nice. And they always want it autographed, I don’t think they value it more when it’s autographed,

Stephen: Yeah. I’m got a couple coming up that I’m going to be doing and I’m trying to, because right now I just got the one book and a couple prequel stories, so I’m trying to figure out what the, oh, look on my table one. I need to get a few things on there to make it look a little more interesting, especially for kids.

Yeah.

Cindy: We tried to do some crafts. Went along with the books too tried to get the kids to come over and look at ’em.

Stephen: Yes. Yeah I’ve got a floor mat I’m gonna put in front of the table that says this is not a trap door and it looks like a trap door. Cause I write fantasy, so I figured it fit.

And then my original intent was to do the Wizard Fest in Kent. With this first book I wrote, I didn’t. Before the pandemic, and now I’m hoping to maybe get in, but, so I wanna put up a magic candle with a wand so kids can point at it and see if they have magic to light the candle. Oh, that’s cool. Yeah.

Little secret. It’s a remote control that I’ll have in my pocket because, I figure if kids are coming up, their parents are probably coming up, right? So there’s nothing better than the kid lighting the candle with the magic wand and the parents not being able to do it. Kids love that type of stuff. I did when I was a kid, yeah. So that’s my whole, that’s my little shtick that I’m working on. Very good. Very good. So maybe we could, you we’ll be at a show together coming up sometime at Hartville or something this

Cindy: summer. This is not the Hartville flea market I’m talking about. You’re inside. Nowhere outside actually.

Okay. It’s not the Hartville flea market. Okay. It’s a winery that’s there. Oh. And they have a sunflower festival. Nice. Okay. Yeah. And they set up and people can go and pick sunflowers and then come to the show and buy things from

Stephen: the vendors. Nice. Maybe I’ll look into that one and set up for that too.

Yeah. Yeah. Nice. We talked already, we touched on the traditionally versus independently published. You explained. Why Have you thought of looking into publishing it independently and doing it more yourself instead of going through people? No,

Cindy: we haven’t thought about it. Okay. We are not real.

Computer knowledged. I don’t know how that’s not the correct English, but we don’t know a lot about computers. Everything that we try to do on the compu, actually Elaine tries to do most of it cuz I give up in failure. But it takes us a long time to get anything accomplished. So we’re happy to go with this guy.

He’s very good and really helps us out.

Stephen: And I think that’s important too, because a lot of people are like, oh, you should definitely independently publish. And others are like, no, find somebody to, there’s options nowadays, whichever works for you. And I think that’s important.

It, it’s better to write another book. Or to then to spend that time struggling just to make a couple extra pennies on the one book you have that thank you. Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah. And do it and enjoy it. Why not? Stress yourself out.

Cindy: Yep. We have a lot of fun writing

Stephen: them. Yeah, I can see that would be a fun thing is kids’ books.

I’m not, I don’t know. My brain doesn’t quite work at that level. Middle grade seems to be where my brain, I don’t think I matured past that. So maybe that’s the problem.

Cindy: Cause Elaine, top fourth grade, I guess she’s more oriented to that. Audience

Stephen: Yeah. That could be. And I just think I never matured and that’s what worked well.

Cause I know I tried to write, did, let me ask this. Did you, because Elaine got you into it, did you ever try and write like an adult thriller or anything like that? Or you just No, this works for me. No, I didn’t. That’s very important. Yeah. That’s important to two too. Also when you guys are doing. What do you use to write?

Do you use word or longhand or how, what do you do?

Cindy: We, because she’s in Florida and I’m up here, a lot of times we just sh I’ll write something, I’ll send it to her on the computer and then she’ll change some things and send it back to me, and then I’ll change some things and we just go back and forth

Stephen: Okay, nice.

And then you get a artist to match up with the, now do you use the same artist or have you used different artists? We’ve

Cindy: used three different artists. A different one the first and second time, and then the third and fourth book is the same artist. We really liked her, so she did both of those books.

Stephen: Okay. Yeah. Now, Again, my brain doesn’t work that way. How a lot of people say, oh, a kid’s picture book, there’s 50 words in the whole thing. That’s easy. I could write 20 of those a day. What makes it difficult and what’s the process you go through to make sure it is up to, a quality book?

Cindy: As far as the pictures go or the

Stephen: writing? No, the writing. The writing.

Cindy: I tend to first. Write the story. Elaine tells me what she has in her head. We’ve written to ’em together, but the last one is basically a true story about her grandsons. And she told me, we went back and forth about how we were going to do it for a year at least.

And then she finally got things. In her head about how she wanted to do it. So she told me the story and then I sat down on my computer and wrote the story out which she seems to have a hard time. Doing in the very beginning. Okay. And then she likes to take it and really find the exact words that she wants to use because she doesn’t wanna just tell the story.

She wants the kids to feel the story and understand what’s happening. She gets real picky about the wording. Okay. And then I pick it apart as far as the punctuation, the capitalization, and everything else goes until we end up with a product we’re happy with.

Stephen: Nice. Okay. That sounds like a great process though.

Each person using their strengths and it, I don’t know. I can see a lot of people just thinking that it’s super easy to do a kid’s book, but I think it’s super hard because because of the limitations. You can’t use super long words with big structures of sentences. It’s gotta, but it has to be engaging and not plotting and boring.

Because there are some books out there I’ve read with my kids that I’m like, yeah, that we’re not reading that one again.

Cindy: Yeah. We don’t dumb down the language. We like to challenge the kids as far as their reading level goes. would be a good idea for us to do a vocabulary list that the teachers could.

Stephen: Yeah, some words that are in our books you’re not gonna like to hear this. That is something you could do and add it on the website that they could go to download, because then you could add on the website where you’re going to appear and what new books are coming and keep people informed.

It’s that little, go to the website to get this free thing and also check it out so you can come. Go get more books and, Yeah. Keep the ecosystem going. Yeah. Something to think about. If you ever need to do it and you need a little help, shoot me a message. I can help you out with that.

All right. That sounds great. Yeah, because cuz again, I think working with the kids, Is super important rather than, oh my gosh, a competitor, or I’m gonna charge you or anything like that, that’s why I started doing what I do with my books because these kids have a whole life ahead of ’em, and I personally don’t think we do enough in the schools.

To work on storytelling. We do a lot with grammar, we do a lot with spelling. We do a lot with even history of words and things, but we don’t, we read a lot of books, but we don’t always focus on the craft of story itself. And I think that’s something we could do a little bit more of with the schools or, outside of school, after school, writing extra classes up.

That, that’s where my focus is. On things yeah. All right. So before we go and I love talking to you, it’s been great. Do you have any advice for authors out there that are thinking of writing picture books?

Cindy: I guess I would start with write about what you know, but then if you really have a subject that you’re very interested in and you don’t know a lot, then you need to do research on it. Think about selling them yourselves, even though it’s a lot of work, it’s very rewarding. Elaine and I get to hang out together and be friends while we’re selling our books, which is great.

So if you wanna get a co-author it’s a lot of fun. And I guess I would just say to sell your own books and I think that way you get a lot more. Connection with your audience and with the people that are buying the

Stephen: books. Agreed. Especially with kids are just way fun to Yeah. To talk to about the books.

When they get, when they love the stories in the books, they get so excited about it. And that’s, the best thing in the world when they just like, can’t stop talking about whatever the book is. So that’s exciting. Do you have any rabid fans of kids that like, oh, I’ve got your book. I loved it.

Cindy: Oh just the one that I told you today that my aunt said that her niece, that was her favorite book. All of our books have morals too. Not morals, but messages for the kids too, which I think a lot of the kids need to learn today. The Sammy, the C Star book message is you’re special just the way you are.

The Firefly one is Don. Don’t let the worry bug bite you. Stop worrying so much and just believe in yourself and you can do whatever it is that you wanna do. Nice kids need to hear that.

Stephen: So a agreed. We need, I have no problem with video games and stuff, but I think sometimes the, those messages that we got with some of the books are missing.

They, you don’t get that from a YouTube video. So

Cindy: the last book that we did is about Getting out and seeing what you can do to save the earth, basically. Oh, nice. Cause that’s a big topic right now with in the news and everywhere, so in the back, we have a list of things that kids can do to help with protecting the earth.

So Nice. And give them some ideas of things that they can do too. It’s not just an adult thing.

Stephen: What book is that one? What’s that called? That’s called

Cindy: The Old Man in the.

Stephen: Old man in the tree. That one I don’t remember seeing. I probably did, but I remember you just came out in

Cindy: December,

Stephen: Ok. Got it. Alright Ms. Jar, it’s been really great talking to you. I’m glad you took some time and hopefully I’ll see you this summer as I’m getting out in the area. Encourage all authors listening to get out and anybody listening from Southeast or from northeast Ohio. Look us up. Come to some of these festivals and fairs.

Bring your kids, get a book to read. Everybody always says kids have too much screen time. Let’s change that. That’s how you do it. Exactly. I hope you have a great rest of your day and I’ll let you know when this goes live. Okay, thanks. Yeah. We’ll, po stop it. Maybe. Oh, now it’s not stopping.

Failed to stop. What the heck? Oh.

I might have to just refresh it. Okay. Wow. I have never had it do this. You broke everything on my recording today now. Wow. All right. I’m going to hit refresh and see what it does.

Today I’m talk in with Cathy Klein. Cathy started an independent bookstore that is a popup. Meaning, she travels to various places and sets up to sell books. She was on recently to talk with us about new books coming out and she should be on again soon.

We talk about what books she likes and how she chooses books to be in the store. This is interesting, because she is usually limited in space and doesn’t want books that will sit without selling.

https://booksagogostore.com/

So today I’m excited. I have a friend of mine, Kathy Klein, on the on discovered word Smiths. I’ve known Kathy for a decade ish, decade and a half, something like that. Our girls were in Girl Scouts. We were both Girl Scout leaders.

Kathy, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? Thank you. I’m doing good. Thanks. And it’s a nice warm day here in Ohio, so Yeah,

Cathy: surprisingly for February.

Stephen: Yeah, that worries me. I wonder what March is gonna be like, exactly. All right, so this is going to be an interesting discussion and podcast because.

I’m not talking to Kathy about a book she’s written. I’m talking to her about an endeavor she’s involved in where she has started a pop-up bookstore. And I think that is something I’m very excited about. Cause I always ask the authors, do you have a favorite bookstore? And I try and push people in the libraries and push people to bookstores, support them.

Don’t just order Amazon, don’t just go to the chain, go find the local and that’s exactly what you are. But instead of saying, Hey, this is my relocation. Come visit me. You’re like, Hey, I’m gonna be all over and I’ll probably be close to you. So where did this idea come from and why did you wanna do.

Cathy: It actually came from another pod, a podcast that I listened to and they had a guest on there from North Carolina and she had a papa bookstore called Shelves.

And I started following her on social media and looking at what she did, and I thought, you know what? I can do that. And I always wanted to get back into the book business cause I used to manage border. Store and before that Walden books, when that was still a thing in malls, my

Stephen: gosh. I probably ran in you at some point.

Oh yeah.

Cathy: Oh yeah. Cause I was at Walden Books, I don’t know, for a number of years. And then I opened the Borders bookstore that was local, more, most local to us in Kga Falls. Until I had my oldest daughter and I always wanted to go back to it. And now that my, both of my daughters are in college, I thought this is a good time to get back into the book business.

So when I heard about the popup idea, I’m like, that’s something I’d never thought of, but I can do that.

Stephen: So I love that. Yeah. A large part of what I do is I. I work with kids and parents showing them that, hey the future is not the fifties. Getting outta school and getting a easy job while you pay for college and then getting a job at a company that will eventually give you the gold watch, it doesn’t exist there.

There’s too much turmoil and things changing and the telling our kids that, Hey, there’s gonna be a job for you. Is lying at times. And I encourage people to look into avenues. I’m not saying go do something and that’s your full-time career, but something you could do on the side. So how full-time is this for you?

Cathy: It’s actually ending up being more than I anticipated, but it’s a new business I have to spend my time, I teach preschool as well, so that’s my more of a full-time job than this. But this takes up just as much time. At home, getting everything prepared and advertising, and learning social media and algorithms and how to get my name out there, that’s a whole new ballgame for me.

So it’s taking up a lot of time, but I have fun doing it, so it’s not working.

Stephen: Exactly. Yes. I love that you just said absolutely everything. I’ve preached to others in that a lot of new authors are told that you’re running a business. You may write a book, but you have to run the business. If you don’t wanna run the business, then either you’re doing this as a hobby or you’re going to spend a lot of money hiring someone to do it.

So when you say get prepared and that, give us an idea of some of the things you’re doing. I know some of the things you’re doing, but the listeners, what they wanna hear from.

Cathy: So when I started, I just started contacting local businesses and asking if I could come to their business and set up to sell books.

And most everybody was very welcoming and were like, yes, you can. You let us know when you wanna come. And I would set up and I would advertise for them. They advertise for me and people know that they can find me to purchase books. And I carry mostly new. Then I was wondering, and I’m still working it out, so it’s all a work in progress, is moving from space to space, the best idea, or should I focus on a couple of businesses?

So Holiday’s, winery, that’s local to us, they contacted me and said, would you like to come once a month and start a book group for us? So I’m like, yes, that would be great. And then Lost Trail in Canton has also done the same thing. So now I’m at Holiday’s, winery and Lost Trail Winery and Vineyard in Canton once a month doing a pop-up book sale and once a month doing book clubs.

So now I. Kind of permanent spots where people know for sure I will be. And then I also wanna be available at other times. So I offer porch pickup. If you have a book you want me to order, I’ll order it. I’ll I say I book dash it to you. So I’ll bring it to you. You can come to my porch and pick it up.

I will have it available at a popup. So there’s all different avenues that I can get books to. And we don’t have anything locally to sell,

Stephen: Books right here. So lemme set that picture for people that don’t know where we live. Cuz we live in the same small town. Yes. We used to only have one traffic light.

We do not have a post office. And I think there are still more cows in the town than there are people. So that, that, that’s the mood. Yeah. I lived in California and they said, oh, there’s a. Grocery store, but it’s way out of the way. And I’m like, okay I don’t have the money. Tell me where it’s at.

I’ll go to it. It was literally 1.2 miles away. Oh my. And nobody went. It was too far. Our closest is eight miles away. Exactly,

Cathy: exactly. And for us, the closest bookstore, if you don’t, if you wanna go to an indie bookstore, you have to go more into Cleveland for New. There is a great use bookstore in Kent last exit, and I love them.

To have an indie bookstore, you have to go more Akron or Cleveland, which is a pretty good drive for us.

Stephen: Yeah, so I, there’s just so many parts of this that I love, and I love things you’re doing in the market and thinking about that, trying to think outside the box and pushing it, and you realize that they are, it’s a new business and all of that, right?

So what’s your success been like? You don’t have to give us numbers, but have people been receptive? Are they coming back? Are you like knowing you can set up and sell?

Cathy: Yes. Yeah, so it’s been very successful so far. In my eyes, have I made a profit yet? No, but you have to put in, to get outta Other than that, I’m happy with how things are going.

People have come back. I’ve had return customers. I offer a loyalty card, so I’ve seen those coming back to get punches. So I know, even if I’m not remembering you. Exactly. I know you’ve been here because you’re bringing your loyalty card back, which is great, and. People have been very receptive business for the most part.

Business owners have been extremely receptive. I’ve been invited back everywhere that I’ve been so far and I’m actually think starting to think about that. The last couple months I’ve tried just staying at the two wineries that I mentioned and it’s been great. However, what if people don’t wanna go to a winery?

Maybe I should think about going to some of these other small businesses. Again. There was an ice cream shop in town that was great for me in different places like that.

Stephen: Yeah. And you not only are running the business, but you’re a reader, so I know you, you make a lot of comments on good reads, and you’ve mentioned a lot of books that you have read.

Oh, So what, how do you choose the books? I assume it’s not just what you enjoy,

Cathy: right, unfortunately, probably more of that than not. But I do have other people that I go to and say, What do you suggest for the horror genre? Because it’s just not my thing. You probably, I have a ton of Stephen King behind me because when I was a kid, I started on Stephen King and I loved it.

Awesome. As we grow and our tastes change, my reading style tastes have also changed. And I’ve not, Focused on the horror genre as much as I used to. So I have people that I know that do read it and so I’ll ask for their suggestions or if they have children that are in middle grade or young adult age range.

I’m not reading those. So what’s the most popular thing right now? And I’ll get other people’s advice on what to get. For those things. Plus, I am a big listener of podcasts, so I’m always listening for new authors, local authors anything that podcasters are talking about that are more, maybe not necessarily New York Times bestseller list titles, but things that they know that everybody enjoys reading just because they have read it, their followers have read it and recommended, as a matter of fact Brendan Slum wrote The Violin Conspiracy, and I heard about that book on a podcast.

I read it and I loved it. And so I had chosen that for our first book club title in February at Holidays Winery. And so many people had told me, I would’ve never picked that book up if you didn’t tell me about it. And they ended up loving. Almost as much as I did for the most part. I think they all really enjoyed it.

And so hearing about these books and he, I actually heard him on a podcast not too long ago and his paperback just came out and that’s what I had purchased for our book group. But as far as his hard cover, he did not have terrific sales. He wasn’t that New York Times bestselling author, I don’t believe for the hard cover that could have that.

I could be wrong on that. But now people are, Discovering him and his book. I had a hard time getting enough copies for everybody because my distributor just kept running out. He’s I like to get different ideas from all different places.

Stephen: And you do have a big variety. I know you set up like a Christmas time at the school.

They always have a craft fair, which a lot of places do in schools do. And you also coordinated with the library for an author event, which I went to and several others. And a teacher that I had in high school was there and she’s was on my podcast. I interviewed her last week. She’ll be on soon. You’re, I, the attitude I see is it’s not just me and everybody else is, stay away.

You’re really embracing the whole environment and culture and everything around books, but also reaching out to hey, the schools and hey, other authors and the library and so many things. What are some things that haven’t worked for you? Have you tried anything that was like, okay, that’s just not working?

Cathy: Not really. I’ve had good reception at most places and I think it’s just a matter of. People discovering me and the things that I’m trying to do in the community, because I had that idea for the author event because I love going to author events, but I go to Cleveland, which you know, I’m fine with doing because I wanna meet these people.

I wanna get their autograph and. Hear them talk about their writing process and their books. And so I love doing that, but not everybody can do that. And I thought, wouldn’t it be great if we can start doing that in our community and having authors and my family was like, mom, you’re just getting started.

Why don’t you just wait? Instead of, you just started having these pop-up book sales and you’re gonna plan an author event. And I’m like, you know what? I’ve got the idea now, so I’m gonna run with it and if it works out, I can do more of. And, I think that it went fairly well. We didn’t have a turnout like they do in Cleveland, but we’re a very small area.

So I think that once our, in my presence is more well known and people know that these things are more available locally, that it could become, something that people look forward to in our.

Stephen: Absolutely. And they all gotta grow. And I like that instead of oh, we tried it once at the library, it didn’t work, so forget it.

You can’t have that attitude. Because not every author has a successful book till they’re fourth, they’re eighth, they’re 12th. Yeah. Sometimes, sure. So the same thing with running other items for business. Now I forgot where I was going. What question? You say all this stuff and I’m like that’s like the rule book of running a new small business.

Everything you’re saying is Yes. What you know you should be doing. I keep thinking of all these things and then I think of something else and my brain goes, frizzled. So do you have any upcoming events besides the winery and all that? Are you looking at now spring, are you looking for beach reads?

What changes as you do these throughout the. Yeah,

Cathy: so I, I get people that give me suggestions on different things and then other ideas will pop into my head. So for Valentine’s Day, a friend of mine had said, why don’t you do blind date with the book? So I had wrapped up books and people that came to popups, or if they saw it online, they could.

Pick out a book that, and I just, as if you’re not familiar, you just give a short description, but they don’t know the title, they don’t know the author. They’re just taking that chance on the blind date. And so that worked out well. And then in March, I thought March is St. Patrick’s Day, so I’ll have a Lucky Day sale.

So if people visit me, they can pick a coin out of the bin and it’ll say, 30% off your entire order. Or a tote bag for. If you spend this much money, you get a free tote bag, things like that. So I’m trying to offer people different discounts because I know that books can be expensive.

So however, if you think about it too, when you’re buying a book, even if you’re paying full price, if it’s a trade paperback, let’s say those are around $17. It might take you 17 hours to read it. Maybe it’ll only take you eight hours to read it. Regardless. That’s only a dollar or $2 per hour for your entertainment where you’re paying how much money to go see a movie these days.

I have no idea. Even anymore $12 or whatever it is locally, which is a lot. Yeah. To me, but obviously inflation is everywhere, so I think I get a lot more bang from my buck in the entertainment of reading a book.

Stephen: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Cathy: But yeah we’ll, and as far as bee treats, I think that’s a great idea and different, different thing, promotions and things like that to get people interested in realizing what is out there

Stephen: too.

Yeah. Absolutely. Do you have any particular books that you mentioned the one you found, but do you have any particular books coming up that you’re looking forward to?

Cathy: Yeah, actually the Girl in His Shadow by Audrey Blake, I have. Not read any of hers. It’s actually two women that write together and they put the name Audrey Blake together and we’re doing this one for book club for March at both wineries.

So I’m really looking forward to that. It’s not it is historical fiction, which I do read, but it’s a little bit different. So I’m looking forward to getting into that. And it’s an author I haven’t read before, so I always love doing that. Reading something by somebody that I hadn’t read.

Stephen: Nice. Okay, great.

All right is there something else that I haven’t asked about doing this? Oh, there, that’s what I was going to ask you. You say you have a distributor so you’ve have somebody that I mean any other bookstore, that they have a warehouse and you tell ’em what you want and they deliver ’em to you.

Okay. And that’s how you get what you want. What do you do? If you buy five of a book and only one of them sells, and you know it’s a year and a half later, what do you do with that? Yeah,

Cathy: yeah. So I haven’t, obviously I’ve only been in business about six months I can return them if I would like.

But I have to pay them to send them back. I have to ship them on my cost, and I have to pay a 10% penalty for returning them. So to me, that’s not worth it. I’m just going to keep the books and run my own sale. I would rather just recoup the money that I paid for it than paying them more money. To take the book back they’ll just say all items and you never know. I was actually thinking about that just the other day. If I have titles maybe that I’ve had for a while that aren’t selling, if I put them away and then bring ’em back out, say in the summertime, people aren’t used to seeing them, it could be something new to them.

You never know.

Stephen: Exactly. Or hang onto it. And a year later you find out they’re turning it into a movie. So hey, get the cover before you get the MO movie cover.

Cathy: Exactly. And then I just went to Cleveland a couple weekends ago to see Marie Benedict. I like her a lot. She writes historical fiction about strong female characters that aren’t as well known in history.

And we’re doing Lady Clementine this month for one of the book. Which she writes, and then I saw that she was coming she has a new book out, the Mitford Fair, so I got in a few copies of that. I brought it with me. She signed them. She was more than happy to hear about the bookstore and to sign those so that, that’s a little bit something extra if I can give to customers that maybe they weren’t able to see.

You know her or go to visit, then they can still get an autographed copy of a book. And same with Celestine in the fall. I met her in Cleveland and she said, I will absolutely. And she signed every book I brought for her and they all sold. Cause people were like, I love this author. And they wanted to have an autograph book.

Stephen: That’s awesome. I love that. When you texted me about the whole idea and what you were doing. Yeah. I was like that. I love this. This is so perfect. I wish with it, it’s the answer to bookstores closing down. We can’t afford the rent on this whole big building. But you know this.

Yes, it’s a little smaller, but people can still order through you. Yeah. And if you should build and, yeah. That’s what it is there anything,

Cathy: lots of people were ordering through Christmas books that I wouldn’t have fought to carry and, but they wanted them as gifts. I said, just give me a few minutes.

I would look it up. Yes, I can get it. I can have it. And usually I can have it within a week, if not within a couple days.

Stephen: Nice. And. I’ve always encouraged that because people are like, oh, I’ll just order it on Amazon. It still takes a day or so and Right. You’re help with you, you’re helping someone local a small business rather than Amazon doesn’t need our money anymore.

Yeah. Always encouraging that. And I do love that you’re working with the library and doing things with that. Yes. And by the way, the writer’s fest over the weekend wet fairly well. Oh, yes. Oh, good. Yeah. I’m hoping they do it again next year. And I told ’em, I, here’s my card.

Gimme a call when there’s other events going on because at Christmas, I know the black Friday, the library, they were doing readings for kids and stuff. And I’m like, I’d love to do that. You doesn’t have to be my book. I, other kids Christmas stuff that’s. Hopefully we’ll start bumping in each over the place.

Cathy: Yes. I was supposed to be at the Writer’s Fest, but my youngest daughter had bowling tournament, so I was in Indianapolis over the weekend. So I said I can definitely give you some information on local authors

Stephen: yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I appreciate it. Yeah. Alright, any last comments about running a bookstore?

Cathy: It’s a lot of fun. It’s hard, but it’s a lot of fun at the same time, and I’m glad I’m doing it. Nice. That’s the short of

Stephen: it. I’ve said before I started writing, I said, authors are way cooler than actors because actors are a little separated and not standoffish necessarily, but they’re just separated from.

People, but most authors could walk down the street and they’re not getting mopped. Even though the people that know ’em may go, all over ’em and like crazy and stuff. And authors are much more willing to, let me tell you, and let me give you a hint. Oh yeah. I’ll sign that. Or, things like that.

Yeah. Exactly. I love that about that. I love that you’re doing this to help local authors help, big name authors too. That’s wonderful. Yeah. Thank you, Kathy. I appreciate you being on.

Cathy: Thank you.

READERS: Abby is a professional writer (after being a lawyer for years) with over 35 books to her name (and multiple pen names). She also is currently the author in residence at the Cuyahoga Public Library.

Abby talks about learning to write and the mistakes she’s made. She didn’t start writing cozy mysteries, but tried her hand at other genres. She discovered her own voice and what worked for her.

WRITERS: Abby has experience writing many books, and we discuss finishing your book. Her experience allows her to offer some great advice.

https://www.macsbacks.com/

Today on Discovered Wordsmiths, we have a Abby Vandiver, right? I got it. . And she’s gonna be talking to us about her large selection of mystery books.

Abby, how are you doing today? I’m great.

Abby: Thank you. How are you? Thank you for

Stephen: having me. It’s great to have you on. Abby and I were at an event together at the library locally, and Abby was the long-term writer there. Much more so than the rest of us had been doing this more professionally longer, and we were all in awe.

But it was a great couple hours fun time. So I asked her if she’d like to be on, cuz I thought everybody’d love to hear about her. But for before we get into the writing and the reading tell us a little bit about yourself and what you like to do besides writing.

Abby: Thank you so much for having me.

It’s such an honor to be here and be on your podcast. I’m so excited about it. So about me, I don’t know. I just told someone the other day because Abby is a pen name, and I hadn’t been writing for a little for a few months. I don’t know, I’m just unmotivated. I’m not stuck or have a block.

I don’t like when people say, oh, I’m just blocked. I just haven’t been motivated. I’ve been doing other things. And she goes, oh, but Abby, you love to write. And I said, that’s because you only know Abby. You know the real me. I have other interests. And those other interests are just sitting on the couch doing nothing but watching like HGTV all day.

I will do the Food Network all day and I will do the Hallmark Channel. So usually if I put it on any of those three channels I don’t change the channel and I just sit there all day. I love movies. Before the pan pandemic turned the world upside down, I would just go to the movies all by myself and sit there and I would be so happy.

And lately I’ve also been hanging out in the real estate world and doing a little real estate invest. And it’s it couples with my hg t v love, so those are things other than writing, which I really enjoy. So I not only write, but I teach writing as well. Those are the other things that I like to do and spend time with my grandchildren.

Stephen: Nice. Well, I can picture you with overalls in a tool. Fixing up a house, but that kinda, I can picture mis, you get this house, you go to fix it up and you find a dead body. That sounds like the next mystery book, doesn’t it? ?

Abby: Yes, it does. It really does. And that may be

Stephen: an idea for me.

Yeah, there you go. I’d love to read that. That’d be great. But you have to make sure the character is you in the overalls and tool belt. Cause I think that would really be great. Yeah.

Abby: When I write because my cozy mysteries always, I write them in first person. So actually they are me. When I’m writing it, I always feel like, I’m speaking me.

Okay. So you’ll never find one of my characters who eats onions because I don’t like onions or they won’t do things that I don’t, won’t do, and they’re always reluctant. I write cozy mysteries and I might be getting ahead of myself with your questions. That’s true. I write cozy mysteries and they’re amateur.

And usually in cozy mysteries, they’re all gung-ho. They’re ready to solve this case. Every one of my amateur slews are reluctant because who actually wants to go chasing after a killer? In real life I would never do that. I used to be a lawyer, and sometimes I may have represented killers but I would sit, I wouldn’t ask.

I never asked, are you the killer ?

Stephen: Didn’t, don’t ask questions. You don’t want the answer to that. Exactly, . All right, so we’re going to talk about where wild peaches grow and you have a big picture behind you. I

Abby: do. I still have a big picture. Let’s see. Can you see it? Yeah. That’s awesome. But I also have the book.

Stephen: Great. So give us a little bit about what this book is about. So

Abby: this one is actually not a mystery. I’ve written 35 books and I think this is the only one that really, there are some aspects of mystery, but it’s a women’s fiction. And it takes place in Naches, Mississippi and a little of Chicago as well.

And it’s about two estranged sisters that had to come together when their father died. Now, when I was originally writing this story, I did put a murder in it because I put murder in every book and my agent. Don’t kill anybody in this book. And I said, oh my gosh, how do you write a book and you don’t kill someone?

I really struggled with this book. It took me like four months to write. I can write a book in about 21 days in about three weeks, but not this one. Cuz I go, oh my God, is there a story there if no one’s murdered? But I did. I did have someone die , but they were not. ,

Stephen: so Nice. I love that you say that, how do you write a story like that?

Because I was originally trying to write thriller type books, Uhhuh , and I was working with an author helping me a bit, a couple authors actually. And I really kinda came to the light bulb conclusion. It’s wait a second. I write middle grade fiction. That’s what this is. That’s why I’m struggling so hard to write a, an adult thriller cuz that’s not where my brain is.

And I’m like, what do you mean? I don’t think I could write a story with a murder in it. Not like that. So I love how. Different authors, how your brain works and how you fall into the genre. You’re good at writing.

Abby: So let me tell you a little secret though about thrillers.

I guess it’s not a secret. The difference in a thriller and a mystery is in the mystery. If it’s a murder mystery, the dead body shows up, someone dies, and for a cozy mystery, it just shows up. The murder happens off scene. But in a regular murder tracy Clark’s hide or something like that.

The murder can happen right there in the book, but, and so you spend the rest of the book trying to figure out who done it right. But in a thriller, no one has to die because the thriller What makes it a thriller is that you’re trying to stop the crime from happening. So the entire book is written about whatever they do to stop the murder.

So no one really has to die, although a lot of times, I guess you kill the bad guys off with, The guns and everything, but,

Stephen: And then I always think of shows like 24 with Key for Sutherland, where it has good elements of both. There’s a mystery as to what’s going on and who’s doing what, even if it’s not really a mystery, but it’s a high action thriller story.

There’s a lot of crossroad behind between those, but you don’t see Jessica Fletcher running around with machine guns and explosions, so you gotta

Abby: Exactly. And that was me because I tried, I have this book too. I tried, so this was my first book. It’s called in the beginning. That’s a

Stephen: great name for a first book,

Abby: that shows, I always tell this story that shows what a terrible old writer I was not necessarily writer, but poor concept I had of the writing industry.

Because if you Googled in the beginning, you would not get Abby Vandiver, right? You would get God. So I’m competing against God in my title. I’m not gonna get very

Stephen: far right . No, that’s not the best way to start. Cuz it seems your whole career is just gonna go down from there, .

Abby: Exactly.

In this book I wrote it, it’s about, it’s alternative history, alternate history. Mystery sci-fi kind of book. And and so people, when I wrote it, compared it to Dan Brown’s book the first one that he had came out. What was that first one? Angels and Demons?

Stephen: No, that’s the second one. That’s the second one.

The Da Vinci Code. Yeah,

Abby: da Vinci Co. So people compared it to that. They go, it has a damn brownish vibe to it. But the only thing was there was not apparel around every corner. People weren’t dying and, falling off of bridges or whatever happened in that one, running around Vatican, whatever they did, I don’t know.

Vatican might have been the second one, but, you not a lot of action. And so people complain about that. So I said I can do that, I can do that. I can write some action. So I did the next book. It’s. irrefutable proof and I had someone die in there and get killed. And I tried to put a gun scene, I think in that one.

And then the third book I did, I tried to go a little bit further incarnate. it’s called. And then finally I just threw up my hands. I go, I can’t write this. Like with you’re saying I can’t do a thriller. This is who I am. And I couldn’t do, I didn’t know who I was at the time. I just knew I couldn’t do that.

I couldn’t put the violence on the page. I couldn’t, I don’t curse in real life, swear. So I just couldn’t put them in my book and I thought, I need something different. Came around cozy mysteries. Nice. Hey, I can do that. Yeah, . So that’s why I changed. So there’s all, there were only three books in this series.

It was self-published. And it did well for me and got my name out there and people enjoyed it, but I didn’t know how to write. It’s just a lot of things that don’t move the story forward that I thought, oh, this is so cute. I’m gonna put this in here, and put this scene. Oh, I love it. And it had nothing to do with anything, it’s things that should have been delete,

Stephen: delete. So I realized one of my early writings, and then I got back from the editor. and it, there was more red and like 20 pages of comments, , oh God. And I’m I, and that was like an eyeopener. It was like, wow. So I basically remember a story where there’s no conflict, nothing bad is happening, and you wonder why they’re suddenly ramping up for this epic like meetup at the end.

And I’m like, I get it now. , and I, I. Run into a few authors at conferences and stuff where they talk about conflict in that, and the author goes, oh, but I don’t like that. I just like my characters to have a good life. And it’s I’m always wondering so you don’t sell many books, do you?

Because nobody cares to read that.

Abby: So I, as I said, I teach classes, so I teach that conflict has to. In every book and on every page on every line, even the first line. But I think what people don’t understand is conflict doesn’t mean, it’s a sword fight, or a car chase or someone’s shooting conflict is just tension.

So I always use example in one of my books it’s called love, hope, and Marriage Tropes. And the first line is there was going to be a wedding at the funeral. So that’s conflict right there, because those are like two, opposite things. A funeral home, you, that’s where dead people are.

Marriages where people say, oh, and your life is just starting. So you can ease conflict into things just by, putting an obstacle in the way of your protagonist. And it can be nothing but it’s raining outside and they need to go out, and they don’t have an umbrella. It’s just different things.

So conflict is important and it doesn’t matter if you write children’s. Or thrillers or a memoir, you need to show

Stephen: conflict, agreed. That’s important. Yep. So you mentioned Dan Brown. Can you think of any other authors or books that are similar to where the Wild Peaches grow or your other books?

So

Abby: I wanted it to . I wanted to write like Celeste Inc. Little Fires Everywhere. Yeah. So she wrote a story about kids that were in school and their mother and their babysitter. No, you wouldn’t. There’s no car chasers. There’s fire at the beginning and at the end, but and she just took like everyday.

but it was a page turner. I found myself just couldn’t wait to get, so I wanted to do that. I based it off of that, but also I think it Brit Bennetts the vanishing half, that as well. I did write a book previously about that along with my good friend Catherine Dion it’s called, it’s a self-published book and it’s called At the End of the Line.

So that’s , but I wanted to do that and I learned to write Omni mission so that I could put that in the book. But I don’t know if it’s like anything. I honestly, I’ll tell you the truth. So I’m really getting really good reviews on this book and people say it’s a beautiful story, beautiful writing, and I can’t, for the life of me remember what’s in that book.

I dunno what I wrote, . And I keep think saying, I’m gonna read it so I can write another book like that. I go, wow I must have did a really good job. I wish I knew what it said, , so I kinda remember the story, but the things that they make mention of I don’t remember those things in detail.

That’s because I never go back to read my story.

Stephen: I totally get that. And I often wondered, cuz you always get the authors, people are saying, on this book you wrote 32 years ago, this particular character was doing this particular thing. And they’re like, I have no idea because I don’t remember what happened

And I’m like, how could you not remember what happened in that book? You wrote it, but man, it’s true. You get done writing it and it just like seeps outta your brain. It’s been so soaked up like a sponge in you that you just want to get it all out and you forget. Exactly. Yeah. It’s crazy. Forget,

Abby: and I forget quickly.

I remember once when a game of cones came out. It was right when it came out. And I was on a panel and the moderator said I’m gonna go around the, it was a Zoom panel. I’m gonna go around and, tell me about your book. And I thought, oh my God. So I took the book and I put it down low so I couldn’t see it.

And I read the back of it so I could see what the book was about so I could explain it because I had the faintest idea. What is this book about?

Stephen: Did I write this one? When did that, when did I write this one? .

Abby: That’s funny you said that because one time someone wrote to me and said, I love this line from your book.

And they wrote it and what they loved and they said, that was just such a good line. And I thought it is a good line, but I didn’t write that and I, so I was all set to write her back and say that she was mis. It must have been another book that she read and then I said, maybe I said something similar and I should find it so that I can tell her what it is.

And I had actually written that

Linee,

then you worry, can I ever do that again?

Stephen: Yeah. But it’s okay cuz you don’t really remember what you wrote before. Yeah. So if you had a choice, Abby, would you prefer to turn this book or your other books into movies or a TV show? So where

Abby: Wild Peaches grow, I would turn into a movie and wear a daily inside scoop.

A game of cones and a killer Sunday. I think they should be TV shows on Hallmark if anyone’s listening because they hallmark’s mystery is called. What is it called now? I forgot. They’re, they have a mystery channel. Yes. Yes. Mysteries and movies or something like that. Yeah. It should be on there.

So Hallmark, if you’re listening,

Stephen: No. Yeah, they the and they seem to have. A lot of those, except at Christmas. Christmas is all the Romcom stuff. All the romcom, yeah. Other than that, you get, what’s her name? Tea Garden or whatever. That’s always on there.

Abby: Oh, so you watched the Hallmark Channel

Stephen: too, huh?

My parents watched Hallmark Channel and I catch a bit of it here and there.

Abby: I’m gonna have to come on and hang out with them. They seem like cool people.

Stephen: Yeah, my, my father was always big on the Hallmark Christmas stuff and he would start in like September and it finally got to the point I’m like, I had to stop ’em because it got to be like end of October.

He is oh, I’m sick of Christmas movies. It’s not even Christmas yet. You keep watching the same ones over and over. Maybe we should adjust this behavior .

Abby: That’s funny.

Stephen: I’m sick of Chris . Yeah. Yeah. Cause he would start like in July watching them when they would come on and then hit it just like

Abby: Christmas in July.

Yes, of

Stephen: course. So Abby, do you have a website? I.

Abby: What, what’s that? It doesn’t matter what you put in Abby Vandiver or Abby Collette. It’ll take you there. Okay.

Stephen: We’ll have to find that. Yeah, but you can find

Abby: me on IG and Twitter. Instagram. Twitter. I’m on Facebook. I don’t visit as, as often but I’m there.

Stephen: Okay. You really just said, I’m on an ig. I lo . You’re hitting it with the young kids there, aren’t you? .

Abby: That’s because I had to have a young kid show me how to work it. Yeah. , I had to enlist my grandson because I couldn’t do it. He was 13 at the time, and I was complaining to him. I was like, I need to learn how to do this because people are getting on this.

And he says, Grammy, I’ll show you. I go, no, because it’s complicated. Grammy, you do this and this, and I’m like, what? Cut off? So yes, he was, he’s 17 now, but he was 13 at the time. He taught me. Nice.

Stephen: Nice. Yes. Alright. Abby, what are some of your favorite books and authors that you like to read?

Abby: Yeah, so I’m not good. That’s not a good

Stephen: question for you, . Okay. We’ll move on. . We know your own books aren’t your favorites. ? No. No. . Do you have any bookstores you’d like to go?

Abby: Yes. So Max backs books on Coventry? Yep. Yep. Is a great bookstore. I love them. And Logan Berry on Larmer, those are my two favorites.

Now Apple Tree Books is close to me. It’s just down the road and every. And I love it too. And every nano Remo, November, nano Remo comes up I’d sit in the window there for them and we type the drum business in. But Max Beck is so good to me and Logan Berry, they’re so good to me. And they’re just quaint little bookstores, just that you can go in and just wander about and read the titles and look at books.

And my books are. Too.

Stephen: So they’re very supportive of local authors. Max Books has a page on their website with a lot of local indie authors, and Logan Berry does an author thing each summer. They four weekends. The author Alley yeah,

Abby: They expanded it when I first started doing it.

It was just the one weekend, but now they’ve expanded and I go every year. I love that author Alley. It’s called.

Stephen: Yeah I’m go but we’ll probably be on different weekends cuz I’m going to the kids and children’s fiction week you’ll

Abby: be there. My friend Molly Perry, she writes children’s books and she has great children’s books out.

So yes, so I’ll probably come cuz I always come to support Molly, so I will see you there.

Stephen: Nice. I’ll look her up and maybe I’ll get her on the podcast. That’d be great. Oh yeah, she’ll love that. Yes. All right, so Abby, I wanna talk some other stuff, but before we do, If someone came up and said, I didn’t know you wrote books, and I saw this one where the Wild Peaches grow, why should I get that book and read it?

What would you tell ’em? Oh, because it’s good.

Abby: Okay. , that’s all I would need to say. It’s so good. I don’t know. People have said it’s a tear jerker. I, and people have said, I think this is true because I write about family in all my books, that it’s, it’s relatable. And I think that’s what’s important when you’re writing a book that people can see themselves in it or see situations that they know about and the people that they know.

So I, I do think that’s true about all my books, but in where Wild Peaches Grows grow I. It shows it even more. It shows the dynamics of two sisters and what they have to deal with and the death of a father, and when they reconcile about all the things that. Have transpired since the last time they’ve seen each other and the reason that they’ve not seen each other.

And every book I write there is an elderly person because I love elderly people. But they’re the ones with the wisdom, right? They have been through life. They know what’s going on, whether they were a cool person or a nerd person during their lifetime. Some people say, oh, you don’t know about my kind of people, young people, or We don’t do things like that.

Oh, they’ve seen everyth. . And so I try to put an old person in there because that’s where the wisdom comes from. And in every story, you have to have a moral or lesson in a book. And that’s usually where it comes from. So I’ve got a feisty old lady in there who don’t take no mess.

and I think that, it’s a book. People have told me it’s a book that after you close it, you sit down and you think about it when you know, after you’re finished reading, you. About the things. And so I like that. I think my first book in the beginning was like that too. It’s a thought provoking book, and I think that’s why you would enjoy where Wild

Stephen: Peaches grow.

Nice. Great. So let me ask you this. Wild Peaches isn’t your first book. You said you’ve written over what, 30, you’ve written 35 or so? Yeah that’s not, a month or two of writing. That’s a couple years. So you’ve. Experience that a lot of authors I talk to don’t. So what are some things you’ve learned from that first book in the beginning to what you’ve written now?

Abby: Oh, I’ve learned so much. Especially how to name your book . I don’t think I’ve ever

Stephen: love that, but I figured I’d let you do it. ,

Abby: yeah, I named that one and I think I named where Wild Peaches grow. And in between that my friend Catherine has named all the books. And maybe Game of Cones. Berkeley came up with that.

Penguin actually came up with that, but I knew better than that. I’ve learned so much about the craft of writing. storyteller Storytelling now. So before I started writing, I was a lawyer, so I knew how to set up an audience and deliver a line or two to them to keep them interested and to get them on my side.

And that’s what you wanna do when you write a book. You want, even if you don’t have, characters that are likable. People always say you have to have likable characters. , you don’t as long as you present them. Just like when I was an attorney, a criminal attorney I had defendants that may or may not be guilty.

I had to present them well. But I, but things like pacing and flow and things like that, I had to learn. And a lot of times, so now I help people write and a lot of times I think that’s what people have a problem with. It’s pacing and flowing, but mostly it’s how to tell a. So I think that I don’t think that I have a problem with that or with dialogue, but putting the story together to make people not skim through it, like information dumps and things like that.

I think those are the things that I learned how to keep the story moving forward and that’s so important. And so something that I from teaching, I see a lot of people are unable to do as they move that story. To move their story forward and then they get stuck, so I have little secrets that I tell ’em.

It’s not secrets cuz I tell everybody how not to get stuck, how to get started, how to write a book in a month, and you

Stephen: can do it. Nice. Yeah. And I like the part you said about moving story forward, cuz that’s a skill you definitely have to learn. Most writers have read their whole lives or they read heavily and it’s so easy.

It’s like a magic trick. It’s oh that looked easy. I could do that. And then you really can’t, just cuz you can read a book doesn’t mean you can. , but you can learn the skill. It’s something you can get more of and get better at. And that part of moving things forward and being not kill your darlings, not so close to every little word you write.

And being able to pull things out and move things or change things to make, because it’s the story that matters, not that you wrote the story. I think that’s the concept. I’ve learned myself a bit, still learning I should. .

Abby: Yeah, I’m still learning too. I would whatev, whenever I start a class out, that’s one of the first, I always do a power reporting presentation.

That’s one of the first slides that I have is writing is hard. Writing is hard. It’s just that, people always come in and tell, come to me and say I wanna write a book. People tell, always tell me, when I tell ’em about something, about myself or whatever, that I should write a book.

And I tell him, writing his heart, it’s just not you. Doing Open right. Sitting down. Although I tell people, just sit down and start writing your thoughts. But there is so much more to the craft. And when I first started and I wrote in the beginning and people were telling me what was wrong with it, I thought, who knew?

There were rules to writing. I just thought you could sit down and do it. But there are rules to writing that you have to stick to. I have people that come to me. . I’m not sticking to the rules. I’m gonna come up with something new that’s never been done. That won’t happen cuz there’s nothing new under the Sun Bible said it very well.

They’re even rewriting Shakespeare and rewriting Jane Austin. It’s just the spin that you give on it, but there’s no subject or idea you can come up with that someone else hasn’t already written a book.

Stephen: And even, JK Rowling, she wrote about wizards. She wrote about magic.

She wrote about a school of magic. She wasn’t the first one. It just really clicked with people and was done in a way that people really enjoyed and could relate to. She had a hook. Yeah. That’s what you have to do. Gotta have a hook. Definitely. And cozy mysteries, you’re not the only cozy mystery writer out there, but there are people out there that will read a certain cozy mystery and go, yeah, I really don’t care for this.

But then read yours and go, yeah, I get it. This clicks. Every author,

Abby: that’s exactly what happens all the time. Yep. There, read my book and go, yeah,

Stephen: wonderful . Every author gets that, great. You don’t like my books. Go find one you like. And somebody else does like it. And I think other authors need to remember that sometimes it’s hard.

It’s very hard.

Abby: Yes, it’s very hard. You just have to take your time and, follow the rules and and finish your.

Stephen: So you do teaching also, and that’s another interesting aspect because you write cozy mysteries mostly in your genre, but people taking your class don’t necessarily have to write cozy mysteries.

How do you handle people that are wondering what to do in a certain genre that you don’t write in? How do you handle that?

Abby: It’s true. I, most places I go, people don’t even know what cozy mysteries. But basically there is a narrative arc that all books have to follow. So that’s what I teach.

You have to be able to create characters. And characters are universal. They’re in every genre and you have to make them authentic and believable. And no matter what you’re writing there’s a technique to that. You have to have authentic dialogue. So there’s an art to that. I teach that. I teach about the narrative arc, so where.

Do certain things in the book, where the exposition and then the climax of the book, and then the falling action and resolution. Those are all things. that are necessary. The story question I teach about, when you write a book, you should have a question. Each genre may have a different question that you have to answer by the end of the book but it still has to have a story question.

For example, my book I write murder mysteries. So the question is will the killer get. . So you answer that, yes or no? Of course you’re gonna say yes cuz you don’t want a cliffhanger. But yes, the killer gets caught at the end of the book. So the entire time I write the book, I have to be moving toward that ending that I decide to answer my story question.

If it’s a thriller, will, will the government of the F be able to thwart the president’s murder? If they’re. Shoot the president or whatever they’re trying to do some governmental agency, try to blow it up or whatever. Then if you say yes, they will thwart that, activity.

Your entire book has to be moving toward that question. So that’s for, that’s universal. That’s in every book that you have to answer your Your story question. So that’s what I teach, like the bones of the questions, how to write your story in scenes and whatever you feel you’re seen up with then that’s what makes it different from everyone else.

But underneath the foundation, it’s just like a house. , you got a foundation on a house, your house may look different when you get through cuz you painted it or you put, an attached garage instead of a detached garage. But it’s all the same with the foundation, right?

Stephen: Oh absolutely. And I think that’s important for authors to realize and I think that’s what makes everyone’s voice so unique.

Cuz we are all using the same building blocks, same structures with that. Yeah. All right. So Abby before we go, it’s been really great talking to you again. I’m sure we’ll run into each other. Yes. But do you have any other last minute advice for authors?

Abby: Finish your book, . That is so important to finish your book.

You should know before you sit down to write it. You should know what you’re ending. because I tell everyone, it’s just like the g p s, on, on your phone or in your car. If you’re trying to get somewhere, you can’t get there if you don’t put in your destination, right? So finish your book, know your ending.

That’s always my advice because you can fix it later, if it’s not quite what you want, but you can’t fix something that doesn’t exist that isn’t. So that’s always my advice.

Stephen: Nice. Great. All right. Abby, thank you for taking the time, talking to us about your book and I hope we run into each other sometime this summer or next event somewhere.

Oh,

Abby: I’m certain we will. Thank you so much for having me. I really have fun and I appreciate it. Thank you.

READERS: DC Gomez is a bestselling author, so there’s a lot to discuss. She tells us about her latest book series – the Intern Diaries – and we talk about her other top books. If you’d like to see her, she has many upcoming events displayed on her website.

WRITERS: For the writers, we talk about choosing the write as a hobby or career. You don’t have to be a full time writer or you fail. She brings a unique perspective because she has been a bestselling author.

https://dcgomez-author.com

So this morning I have as a guest, a wonderful wall of books and their owner DC Gomez. So DC Good morning. How are you?

DC: Good morning, darling. I’m wonderful. How are you doing today?

Stephen: I am doing great. And it’s not actually morning for you, is it?

DC: No, it’s still very morning. I’m actually in East Texas.

Stephen: Yes. Ok. Okay. Okay. I had you in the wrong spot in my head. Why don’t we do that? Tell everybody a little bit about you, some things you like to do besides writing where you live and whatever. I am

DC: a USA Today bestselling author. I’m an award-winning author, which is fun.

I’m also a podcaster, so I’m so excited to be here. She’s connecting cuz it’s hard to be on the other side of the microphone. I was like, oh, what am I doing? This doesn’t happen often. I am in east Texas. So for everybody who’s wondering, the weather yesterday was 32. Today’s supposed to be 80. So living the Texas dream, what can I say?

It sounds like Ohio. . Thank you. It’s this weather that goes up and down. You’re going? I think I’m good. I think I’m good. We’ll take it from there. So I do multiple genres, which is interesting for most people because I go from urban fantasy to lit to straight children’s books and devotional.

So I do a little bit of everyth. And one of the things that I enjoy to do, I’m a reader, obviously, in the background, so I’m a huge avid reader, but I also enjoyed when I have free time. So today, this Sunday, as soon as we’re done, I’m gonna go food shopping so I can cook. So that’s kinda nice, some things that I do.

Stephen: Nice. Okay. Now I gotta jump on something real quick that you brought up. You write in mul multiple genres and just about everybody’s advice is don’t do that. Stick with one genre, do different pen names, but you have done it. And not only that, you’ve been on a USA bestseller list, so let’s even before we even talk about everything else, Why did you choose to do that and do you find all the different genres about as successful or is there one you’re more focused on?

DC: One of the things that I can be honest with myself and the world is I probably don’t have the bandwidth to handle multiple pens. I just the nature of what it is, I just don’t. I will look to be able to, I think I was multi managing multiple Facebook page and became very real that I was like, I couldn’t do this for multiple pendings.

Like I could not handle the switching back and forth. So it became very obvious to me that I needed to make a decision. So why do people want you to have only one pen name? Let’s be honest. It’s easier to market. Your readers can stay. If you pick urban fantasy, this is what you’re gonna do. And then everybody can jump in the urban fantasy bandwagon, it’s kinda easy.

The difference comes in when you have multiple genres is you stop branding to a genre, but you do to a brand. So what people can expect from DC, and this is what I tell ’em, is you’re gonna get tons of quirky characters. You don’t like quirky characters. I am not your girl cuz this is what you’re gonna get.

You’re gonna get tons of action, you’re gonna get some shenanigans and ventures, and one of the things you’re probably gonna get is faith to black. So you’re not gonna get a lot of exclusive sex from me. You’re not gonna get tons of horrible languages not because I don’t use them, but because that’s just not the brand.

Since I do write children’s books, the topics tend to vary. So you will know what a Charlie book is, my children’s series compared to a cat lady book. So it goes from there. But the brand is very much, it’s gonna be, humor is gonna be full of action’s, gonna have quirky charact. And somewhere underneath is gonna have the message.

So that’s kind what I focus on, just because switching from brand genre to genre just became something I couldn’t handle it. I have friends that have multiple, and I’m like, whew, you’re my hero. I can’t .

Stephen: I I love that and I think I’m going to have to Ruminate on that for a while myself, because I have, when I first started, especially, I pushed back and basically, oh, you’re a newbie, so nobody wants to listen to you.

But I was like, but that’s not how I read. I said, I’ve got I read the Suki Stack House, which are the romance paranormal stuff, which guys usually don’t read. I love them. But I turned around then and went and Ra read Dean Koontz and I read I. Yo young adult books when they are interesting.

So I I have Asamov, I got done Reading Foundation and went right into something completely different. So I’ve always been like, but that’s how I read that. So it doesn’t make sense that I should only write , and people are like, oh no. Write just one genre. That’s all you do. . I’m like, but other people do it well, yeah, but that’s Stephen King and he’s his own brand.

I think that’s really it. You said characters, so people like your writing and your characters. The genre is not as important. They like what? The way you write and I think sometimes. There are lots of readers, there are lots of authors that do that across multiple genres. So think what, every time I get some advice, I always think that’s good advice, but it may not be always true.

Stay true to yourself if it doesn’t feel right. Then stay true to what feels right for you, and that seems to have guided me better than just following advice. .

DC: That’s probably the best way, is be authentic to you and what feels right, because you can canvas everybody and everybody’s gonna give you million advice.

If it doesn’t make sense to you, it’s not gonna work. You’re not gonna make it work, it’s not going to feel right. You’re gonna be fighting yourself a lot, right? One of the things that you have to be aware is if you’re going to go brand and mixing your genres, it’s gonna take longer. So whatever is, be very aware what success means to you.

Because achieving it, it’ll take a lot longer because yes, people are going to have to get used to you switching gears and they’re gonna have to get used to it. But readers will follow and I think along with that though, cuz I write middle grade I think if there’s any demographic of readers, middle grade, don’t care about genres so much as they do what they like and they read the ones that read tons and yes if they read Percy Jackson and Love Jackson Rodin comes out with something else, they’re like, oh, Rick Rodin has a book and it’s the author and the brand at that point.

Stephen: And I think maybe that’s it. A lot of the advice you get is adult writing adult books. I don’t think that applies most of the time in the middle grade realm, and I think that’s something I have to always keep in mind. , for any middle grade writers and readers? I

DC: think for writers as a whole, one of the things we have to be very much aware is that it is easier to become successful if you stick to a very niche.

That’s just the nature of what it is. People can find you. You can target that entire demographic faster. That’s not how you write. You’re just making yourself hate what you do. And this is supposed to be fun and enjoyable. So if it doesn’t fit, I’ll say don’t do it. Find something that resonates with you and makes you feel happy

Stephen: inside.

Yeah I agree. I think I’ve come to terms with, I, if I was on my deathbed, I think I’d regret more. Not writing all the things I wanna write, then I would, oh, I should have written one genre. I so I go, that works for me. So before we go off too far in a tangent, cuz we could probably go on for this forever, we wanna focus on your book a little bit.

It is, the new one is Plague Unleashed. So tell us a little bit about that and tell us about touch. Your other books a bit, cuz now I’m interested in all the genres you got.

DC: I think I need to probably do some clarifications. We’re definitely promoting play cuz it has a new branding, it has a new cover.

The whole So plague is book two and the Intern Diaries. So the intern diaries is five novels, three novels. And it’s based on the four Horse Mental APOs and Plague is probably one of my favorite ones because it’s just straight, wild. There’s zombies running around in Texarkana, so for anybody who’s been in East Texas, we’re like itty bitty town in the middle of nowhere, but everybody crosses us.

It’s fun. And you had typical, cuz I wanted, this is obviously before the pandemic, so you’re looking at 18 time. And the question one is, what if God forbid, Pessin had, and we’re talking horsemans, of course, a plague that won lose that didn’t meant to happen and is turning people into zombies, right?

So this is a question that I wanted to play with the intern Diaries is one Horsemans that’s introduced in one Supernatural Bean at a time. So by the time you get to Book five is Oh hell breaks loose. With plague. It was you got isis, ISIS is death’s new intern and death has a rule. You can’t kill people.

So if all the horsemens, you’ll find out the only one not killing humanity’s death. Imagine that. So ISIS is been tasked with figuring out what happened with humans. Don’t kill them because if you kill them, the, their souls are lost and death is gonna get mad. And when you do it, you better hurry up because 20,000 people are coming into Texana.

She’s no pressure whatsoever. None. So you have ISIS running around town with her guardian who happens to be a 5,000 year old talking cat. A boy. Genius is going through that 1112 age of Angst because nobody understands them, so he’s angry. You have an entire community trying to figure it out.

People just keep appearing walking around and trying to eat each other, and ISIS is trying to knock them out and put them somewhere until they can find a cure. Does not wanna help. I said, we talk quirky. There’s tons of quirk, there’s tons of madness, and all these people are just running around going, what is going on?

So yes. Nice.

Stephen: Super fun. And you said quirky characters, which, that’s always intriguing to me. That’s some of my favorite type of reading. When we, that I also find it interesting you’ve got, The Christian based four men of the apocalypse, or four writers of the apocalypse, but you mix in ISIS from Egypt, mythology and combine a little bit there.

So

DC: ISIS is her, she’s actually a 24 year old. Form. And her parents did name her after goddess of the apocalypse, the goddess of Egyptian. So you do get a little bit of that. If you read Constantine’s story origin, you find out that he is from Egypt. So there is this whole Egyptian mythology touch in there that you tend to be like what is going on?

And I think the reality when it comes to us in our. We’re influenced by everything. know? So sticking to one genre tends to kind of, oh, one theme puts you very much into a small box. When you let yourselves just play with everything you know, you’d be surprised how much more fun you have.

So with this story is politic, a little bit of Egyptian, a little bit of Roman Catholicism, since we’re playing with a lot of that put Christianity in there, put all these little pieces, and you tend to find humanity. And I think that’s the beautiful thing about. We’re all a mixture of everything, so when you put it in a book, you going.

God, this is going to turn interesting and bad. Cause I’m also sending this in the Bible belt. So it’s like you have zombies in the Bible Belt. .

Stephen: I must say now I’m a little upset with you because that to read list that I told you about that I have, there’s now five more books that are getting added to that.

So thank you much for adding to my time. I love that. So if someone. A lot of times people are like what ki what’s it like? Is there another book or author that you would say you are writing or your books? These books are similar to

DC: if you like, urban fantasy, cuz this is a catch with it.

You have to enjoy the madness that comes with it. It is first person, so I have to give people that disclaimer. If you don’t like first person books, ISIS’s story is gonna drive you insane because it’s in her head and through her eyes. So if you enjoy temperature, the dressed in files is what you’re gonna get.

Or if you. Kim Harrison, the Halls, because it’s straight urban fantasy, it is definitely appropriate for a young adult just because the language unlike Kimson, and Jim doesn’t have a lot of the whole sexual it’s not meant to be that adult base. It does faith to black if she ever, I don’t think ISIS having kisses anybody in this series and put it in this perspective.

So you do have a series that. Applicable for anybody in like high school all the way up and up, but is very much madness and shenanigans all through it. Come on, you got a talking cat. How much more can you have? Who had more money than God? So Constantine is just ugh, attitude to the core.

You have ISIS who’s just trying to figure it out. What did I sign up for? So this is book two and it’s eight months after she signed up being a death intern. And at this point in time is when she finally realize. The horseman are real. She has no clue. Like for the longest time, Constantine’s like, girl, please, what don’t you go to church?

She’s what is that supposed to mean? You know that book relations, the horseman’s don’t, girl, don’t you read? And that attitude that comes with him, he’s oh my God. And she’s is this the apocalypse? He’s oh God, no. No. Nice. So when you’re introducing these things that we hear a lot.

and honestly put a person in there who has no clue. You just have a blast. You go crazy.

Stephen: It’s so much fun. Nice. Cool. Alright, so what type of feedback are you getting? Cuz you said this is book two, so some people have read book when I’m assuming book two. What type of feedback are what? What’s people saying?

DC: Here’s DuPont. I thought it was amazing. When I have people go in, they love Constantine. I was like, he’s such an angry little cat. It is one of those series that I think to some extent, like many of us, it’s very kind of cult bubbling. You’re either gonna love it or you’re gonna be like, There is too much pop culture references in this book.

There is too much shenanigans, so the readers might reader us truly enjoy the series. And so when we wrapped up the series, I had a lot of people like, I’m gonna miss them. So we all fell into this bubble of oh my God, what are we gonna do now? So the. World has become Reaper’s world. So it’s a whole universe that has every other size story kind.

One of the things that I did, you were talking about writing in genres. My urban fantasy all takes place in the same universe primarily. Cuz I didn’t wanna have to develop a whole magical system for every single story. I was like, no, my mind cannot process that much. He was like, how about we just stick you?

So all the urban Fanta all stays place, not to mention. Then I get to play with my characters. I get to have ISIS popping up somewhere. I get to have art show up, Constantine, get rules, the universe so he can send messages to everybody. So my linchpin in this universe is Constantine. He’s been around for 5,000 years.

So he knows everyone and everyone knows him. So anytime you wanna make a connection to all the books, just bring up Constantine. They’re like, oh, that, oh yeah, Constantine, that cat. So it’s super.

Stephen: So every time you’re talking, you’re telling me about this cat and all it. I keep picturing Alison Wonderlands, Cheshire or Cat with that attitude.

I just picture him in my head with what you’re telling me.

DC: A little bit more evil . Okay. And a lot more serious .

Stephen: Got it. Okay. I that’s good. That’s good. But if people are re if they’re focused on that character and that sticks with. You couldn’t ask for anything more because they they wanna see what happens.

DC: It’s one of those things that happened by accidents. So I have a reader’s man that is free. So the origins of Constantine for anybody’s looking to see what does she write? It’s a free novella. You can pick it up anywhere. And I honestly asked one of my first beta readers, I was like, Hey, I need to do a free magnet.

What should I do? And he’s you’re Constantine. And I’m like, the cat you what? Like we gonna talk about the cat. He’s yes, do the cat. I. . Okay. So I had to go back and sit, like seriously, go back and go in. I know you’re 5,000 years old. Where are you in history? Where do I put you? So Constantine goes back to the very first empire in Egypt.

So we going to Memphis all the way. And then because I have this obsession with Egyptian mythology, so who do we have to introduce? Bud ABIs. Cause he is like my favorite. So you get to find out who death is. According to the series, you get to meet a very cranky. Who hates what he does and this really bubble of fur that happens to be Constantine.

Cuz everybody’s was he a prince? Was he a man? I was like, no, he’s always been a cat. Like he’s always been a cat. He just happens to have to be a cat now with a lot of money and a lot of power. So there’s a difference. But Constantine has always been a cat. When I wrote it, I tell my brothers like, this is an underdog story.

He’s for about two pages . That was about it. Yeah. And that I love that. I haven’t written as much as you have, but I love discovering that when your characters like grow on their own and suddenly you’re like, okay, I gotta go change my outline. I gotta change the dialogue at the beginning cuz it doesn’t fit the real character that’s emerging.

Stephen: And that’s one of the great Lego fun parts of writing, okay.

DC: Yes, absolutely. And Constantine did that. I think that story, I had a whole outline of what I wanted and midway through it went sideways and I’m like, this is not what I’m writing. This is. What is going on? And I’m sending messages to my editor like, this cat hates me, like this, hate, I dunno what to do.

So I literally wrote this as I kept rewriting this outline cuz it was not working. I was like, Constantine is one way. And I thought it had some other way and it’s just we’re just gonna go with it.

Stephen: Yeah, and that’s exactly what we were talking about earlier. Just go with what feels right. Go with your gut.

I love that. So if you had a choice this series of books, would you rather turn it into movies or a TV show? That’s

DC: such a hard question, and I keep going back and forth. Which one would I prefer? I will love to see a series because you can go in so much depth with these characters. You can truly bring their personality to life at the same time.

A movie would be fun because there’s five books. You can do a five bam, knock it out. But a series will give you a whole bunch of depth and you can play with all of them. You can explore. All these different craziness that goes behind the scenes and normally you wouldn’t have enough time to do in

Stephen: a movie.

And I love asking that question because things are so different than they used to be with movies and tv. A lot of times the people read the books would say, I’m not even gonna bother with the movie because it’s not gonna be good. , but that’s not always true anymore. They’re starting to understand if you really capture the essence and of the book and even get the author involved before it was always like, okay, we paid you go away.

We’ll do whatever we want. And then it flops and they’re like we don’t know why it did, and that’s not the case anymore. But then the TV shows have evolved instead of oh, we have to do a TV show that’s 24 episodes from September to May. It’s eh, we can do eight episodes and schedule it and put it out at the ideal time for.

And really delve into the characters. And really, so it’s such an interesting question. In today’s world, 20 years ago, it would’ve been completely different.

DC: Absolutely. It changes the way we

Stephen: see everything. Yeah. I love it. And it, it allows the choice of what would work best. It, what would do, would it work best as a two hour or three hour movie now and get all that action and all that.

Or is it best as these characters that build up and we grow over time? Stranger. Would not have been successful as a movie in the theater, probably would’ve flopped big time as my opinion. So yeah, I love the answer. I love talking about that with all the authors. Do you have a website that people can go to and check out all your information?

I

DC: do. You can check out dc goman author.com. I’m not very creative of my name, so I’m like, listen, it’s hard enough to find me. Let’s just stick to that. DC Gomez author seems to work

Stephen: as a web guy. You don’t wanna be creative with your web name. I do your main name. Nobody will find you and it’s pointless.

They wanna be able to find you. So stick with this basic as you, you can still get as long as no one else has your name, . So this is it. What are you working on for your next book?

DC: Right now I have two different books that I’m playing with. Trying to decide which one is gonna come first. I’m working on a trilogy, so the last book in the trilogy is getting ready to Come out, which is the order of the assassin series.

It’s a spinoff of the intern, so one of our characters, cup Inia, which turn assassin now up is to figured out trying to clean up who actually betrayed the odor. So he moves to Salem. So I signed notice, I promised my mother I was gonna do a book in Salem. Lo and behold, there has to be a book in Salem.

So this is it. So I’m trying to figure out do I join, jump into book three deployed and actually bring it all together. I go into Cat Ladies, I dunno. I have options and I’m kinda, I’m doing an exploratory year figuring it out, what’s next for me. So

Stephen: yes. Nice. Funny you say that I seem to keep coming around the Salem cause I wrote a short story for my kids that involved Salem Witches.

In modern day. And then about a year after that, I went with a group of authors to Salem and we wrote a group of short stories that we released as an anthology. So I got to visit all the places that I had only seen on Google Maps from my original story. And then I found, and you may even be part of this, there’s a gathering of which authors coming up in Salem this year and next year.

They already have it planned for next year. It’s 55 authors and stuff. I’m like, okay, I guess I need to go back to Salem just to meet all these authors and see what’s up with that. So it just keeps coming back. It seems

DC: It’s such a fun town. I recommend it. I love it. So yes it’s very much a okay, who are some of your favorite books and authors that you like to read? .

That’s such a hard one. Can you tell them I addicted?

Stephen: I was laughing thinking of that. Yeah.

DC: I am definitely in love with urban fantasy. So Kim Harrison, when it comes to Urban Fantas is one of my tops. You talk about Charlene Harris, I love her stuff as well, but I also read a lot of middle school as well as young adults.

So things that I’m waiting for patiently saying loosely, is the last book in the keepers of the Last City. So it’s a middle grade series. I’m in love with this. I’m just wanting, let’s wrap it out. Like I don’t have enough patience to wait. And I also love Rick Gordon and I like Rick Gordon insets, like I love the books that he’s pushing out.

Yeah, I love a lot of this stuff and I’m a huge fan of a lot of my indie friends who have amazing books. So favorite books is usually one of my reading now. Cause other than that, I’m like, there’s

Stephen: so many so what’s the one book you’ve read two or three times in your life? Gone back to.

DC: Probably the Alchemist, believe it or not, this is probably the book that has changed the way I see and the idea of dreams coming true.

And that is a very short book. It’s over 20 years old. It still has that touches my soul every time I read it. And probably You still there with me?

Stephen: No. Oh. You there? I’m

DC: here. Are you? Hello, are you there? I can see you.

Can you see me? Hello? Hello? Can you see me? Steven? Can you see me? Hello? Oh. Hello?

No.

Stephen: Go have it. Yeah, we were froze. So sorry. You were talking about the Alchemist and how much you liked it. I think we caught most of that. Awesome for that. So if not maybe when we meet sometime. I will say though, I love what you said about magic. because I noticed we one of those things that things happen in your books that you don’t think about and plan, I realized a lot of my stories are essentially showing kids there’s magic in the world and there’s magic all around you and you can bring out the magic.

That kind of is the overall theme of everything I’ve been writing without thinking about it. I love what you said about magic, that’s great. In your town, do you have a favorite bookstore that you like to go? I

DC: have a very small town, which is hard. So basically you can either go to Books a million or you can go to the library.

So I tend to spend a lot of time at Books A Million, which is fun, to the point that I think the people know me by name. So this is where I spend my time. Just even when I wanna write or pick up a book, I tend to go to books A Million cuz that’s what we have

Stephen: here. What’s there? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. All right. We have a little bit of a author discussion, but before we do that, if someone came up to you on your, on the street and said, Hey, I heard you wrote some books I was looking at these new, this new series you got, why should I get your book and read it? What would you tell ’em?

DC: Ideally it will be, comes back to, do you like to be entertained? Do you wanna escape from life for a little bit of while and enjoy some characters that are having a blast trying to figure it out their own lives? Usually I write for people to engage, entertain, and just of get lost in a book.

That’s usually the essence of why I write. So if they enjoy fantasy, you enjoy characters or you enjoy, just to have really fun read, pick up a book, you’re never gonna go wrong with the.

Stephen: Agreed. Agreed. And if it really doesn’t click with you, put it down, go find another one. Give it to somebody that would like it pass it on.

Okay. So before we talk about our discussion, we’re gonna talk about writing as a career versus a hobby and how to choose and whether you should choose and all that. where are some places that you’re going to be over the next couple months? Any visits, anywhere or any conferences?

DC: I have a really packed schedule, so I’m confirming things as we go.

I’m going to be doing, I’m gonna be in Jackson and Florida, Jacksonville, Florida in March for the Facebooks convention. I’m going to be in Savannah in July, which I’m exciting. We’re gonna do Tyler beginning of April. So I have a whole bunch of events that we’re literally locking into. To make sure we get them all in.

So it’s exciting. It should

Stephen: be a really funny year. And you’ve got a calendar, I think, on your website, correct? Yes.

DC: That’s the one thing that’s getting updated this week now that we’re confirming a locking an

Stephen: event. Yes. Great. Okay, so you brought up the topic of writers choosing to write as a career or as a hobby, which I think is a good topic because you have been on u s a bestselling list, so you’re a bigger writer than most of the people I talk to, and I think that’s wonderful.

Where does that choosing come in? Where can you say, I wanna be full-time? If you’re just starting what advice do you have? What thoughts do you have on that?

DC: One of the biggest things I think people have to realize is it is okay not to be a full-time author. It is okay not to make this a business.

because if you decided to make it a business, you have to treat it like a business, good, bad, or indifferent, and it’s really hard because as creative, when I think of writing, think about it in three parts. You have the arts, which where the stories come into play, you have the craft making this into a book, and then you have the business of where it comes into selling it and be able to be remarkable.

And thinking about promotions and thinking about reaching your audience, a lot of the times that we see is we have a lot of. . We’re trying to figure out, do I do this? Do I not do this? And we’re putting in hobby money and expecting business results. So one of the things I, one of my TikTok partners says that the best.

I was like, never thought about it that way. And one of the things that is really hard, and she, Jamie Dolphin, who’s an amazing author, says, and a lot of the times we turn into writing because we love it. It is our passion and escape. Then we turn into money, we monetize. , then we find ourselves burning out because we have nothing to escape or every day cause the things that we were doing for fun and we’re doing it for work.

So it is being very honest with ourselves and saying, what is your definition of success? Would you be happy with five, 10 people reading your book if you won more than that? What are you willing to do for it? Are you willing to mark it? Are you willing to learn? Are you willing to take classes? Are you gonna do ads?

What are you going to do to get you to be. Not saying competitive, cuz I don’t think authors compete while there is 8 million books out there. So you’re competing for eyeballs. You can make a really good community. You can have a really solid tribe, both of authors and readers who love your books. without feeling that competitor, without feeling salesy.

I think that’s the issue. A lot of authors feel like, I don’t wanna think of this as a business because I don’t feel like I’m selling. I don’t wanna be that used card salesman. You don’t have to do that, but you do have to decide. Business is a business, are you going to be trying to be marketable?

Which means you have to think about sales. You have to think. , is your website up today? Is your Amazon page, are you gonna go wide? Are you gonna go Kindle Unlimited? There’s a lot of those discussions that you have to be able to do. And here’s the part that is hard for a lot of people. I do a lot of coaching from sparring authors, is writing is a very selfish kind of profession.

Nobody can do it with you is literally just you sitting in front of a. Here’s the problem. Most people don’t take vitamin seriously, so most of your family is I can’t go out cuz I’m gonna ride. They’re like, what do you mean you can’t go out? What are you doing? Or even more I need five hours to work.

You’re home. Why can’t you do the laundry? Why can’t you clean? Why didn’t you cook? Why you not taking care of the kids somehow? This is the only profession that we have that people downplayed. I was like, you’d be OK if I went to McDonald’s for 10. But I can’t sit here, write for 10 hours. Were you home?

Why didn’t you do these things? I’m like, but you think these ads are gonna happen magically,

Stephen: or with that it’s like you spent, last year you wrote a book and put it out and we’re not living in a million dollar home. So it obviously isn’t worth it. And I always think, but wait a minute, I know people that go to a job year after year, and they struggle to keep up with bills.

what’s the difference? At least this is an enjoyable, and I think people also, like you said, if you have a good career and job, you can do this as a side thing. And it doesn’t have to be a full-time, a hundred thousand dollars a year to be a successful career and make you happy. I got a friend that a couple years ago, changed careers to drive truck and so he leaves usually Sunday afternoon and comes back Friday.

and he has every evening with three or four hours, he just sits in his truck watching tv. And I think, dude, if you would write for one of those hours, you would get a book every couple months done. Because you have five days a week, nobody bugging you and you have to be off the road. You can’t be doing something else.

Yep. It’s just, I think, again, like we said earlier, people hear the advice and or they feel like they gotta be a full-time author, they have to make a hundred thousand or they, but think about it, if you just sold one or two books a month and you had enough money to pay for scripter to pay for the advertising, now it’s a fun hobby and.

Enjoy your life with doing it. And sometimes it is more fun than other stuff. , it’s one of

DC: those things, it’s a lot of the getting the pressure of ourselves and giving ourselves grace to be in this space and to know, okay, what are you willing to do? Like, why is it a business for me and not somebody else?

A lot of it’s probably, cuz my mind works a little different I’m very much into, I like having the swags that goes with it. I like having the book box that goes with it. I’m now open up an Etsy. So I have an Etsy shop that you can buy a merchandise for that you have. Nice. That’s something that I enjoy the control, I enjoy the disability.

I enjoy running a small business, but I also realize my time is very limited. So a lot of the people in my life, I’m going, when do we see you? I was like, Oh, be this event. Do you wanna come and visit? They’re like, no, it was, we’ll have

Stephen: dinner . Be careful with that. Cause I invited my cousin mentioned, Hey, I’m gonna be at the library at this author event.

You guys all stop in. They took it to mean he needs support, so let’s go and hang out with him for three hours and sit there. And I wanted to talk to the other authors and and they like monopolize my time. Which I was happy, they were so willing to support me, but it was like, great, you’re here.

You, you made me feel good. You bought a book so I could sign it. Great. Go away . I’ll you later.

DC: There’s them.

Stephen: I also work a lot with kids, and this falls along that lines. I think we need to do a little more storytelling in school, having kids learn it more. Practice it more because writing can be a.

Career, a side hustle something they can do their whole lives and be happy about it. There’s a lot of people that have a 40 year career as a lawyer, and then you, they say, oh yeah I’ve published eight books also. What it’s because it’s a fun hobby. It allows me to relax and enjoy the fantasy or whatever it is.

And so I think kids need to realize that they can do this right from the start, from an early. because honestly the best way to learn to write is to write more and be honest about your writing.

DC: It’s one of the things that gives them a creative outlet that is very healthy, that is very balanced, and then they can express themselves.

A lot of the things that comes with middle grade as well as sand adult books is it comes with so much energy and they have so many emotions and so much. And we’re better to express it than a kid at that age. And sometimes the hardest part for them is writing the, finding the right words to say everything they want.

But once they find themselves into a book and they start writing is amazing. The things that they can come up with and how well they do it, which I’m always blown

Stephen: away. Yes. Yeah. Kids because they, they haven’t been told you have to do this or you have to do that. And I’ve talked to a few teachers, worked with a few groups of kids and I’m like, look, we’re gonna work on story.

We’re going to write and stuff. I don’t care what you misspell, I don’t care what the grammar is. That’s all stuff we can fix. And that’s stuff you’re gonna be learning in school anyway. What we want now is to worry about your story and making it alive and vibrant and exciting for people to read. And that’s where I like to focus.

Okay. Let me ask you this. What would you say going the other way we’ve talked about it doesn’t have to be a full-time career, it can be a fun hobby. What would you tell people that say I do wanna write, I wanna make it a career. I want to become a USA bestseller. I want to be able to have enough money to quit my job.

What advice and would you tell.

DC: This is the part that they have to make some really important decisions at the beginning is a, do you have a budget? And how much are you willing to expend? You know what I mean? That’s one of the things. I was on a panel last week and one of the authors says, most authors who writing don’t make $4,500 a year.

And I was like, woo, that’s such a scary thought. But are you gonna go traditional? Do you wanna have a publisher take care of everything or you gonna go Indy? And if you go in Indy, you have to realize you gotta pay for everything. So you have to have the money up. So the decisions is, if you’re trying to make it a business, is making sure you understand what does that success means?

What are you trying to achieve every year? What is your mark? Are you aiming to have? How many new readers are you working on a newsletter? How are you gonna bring people into your works every single time? And I think that’s the hardest part about it, is. Because we’re living in a world that it doesn’t magically happen.

It’s the interesting part. Back in the days, people fell in love with the books. Then they met the author. Now is the other way around. They wanna get to know you. Are you coming up authentic to them? Are you connecting with them and then are you selling them? There is a whole science to the art of selling that sometimes we take for granted.

So sometimes if you’re trying to make that business decisions, you have to. It’s gonna take you a few years. It’s not gonna happen like every business in this country, but also what is, what does success means to you? You have to know that from the beginning. I hear a lot of people like, I’ll be happy if I sell one book.

I was like, so if I buy you a book, will you be happy? That’s not what I meant. What exactly did you mean? That like you have to be specific in order to achieve these work because it’s not, you’re just aiming at pie dreams. You’re aiming for all these things. You have to be able to say, this is what I want, and work towards that.

Stephen: And be honest with what you want, like you just said. And realistic because, and I think a lot of the new authors still have that fantasy in their head of, oh, if I write a book and get it out there, it’ll be world famous and everyone will love it. And I’ve learned, and I laugh now because I thought this way a little bit.

But you say, so who is your book for? Oh, it’s for every. . All right. You obviously are new because no author that’s been writing for a while ever says it’s for everybody cuz they understand it’s really not. So you need to be realistic about it. And I also tell people that they need to worry more about the fun of writing than worrying about.

Cuz I I’ve seen authors. At these conventions asking panels of authors and stuff, it’s do you recommend we publish on this? Do you say we should advertise with this? And when you talk to them, they’re like, oh yeah, I haven’t even started my book yet. Why are you worried about how you’re gonna publish yet if you haven’t even do you, did you outline it?

Do you know who your characters are? Because that’s way more important right now than what you’re go the publishing. You can actually screw that up several times in different ways and still be successful and figure it out. But you screw the writing up and you’re not, and it doesn’t matter what you do with the publishing.

So that, that’s what I’ve tried to get others to understand and again, My problem is I am not a, oh look, I’ve got 20 books out. I’ve been on the s USA bestselling list. I’ve been on u s A today, whatever. And on Oprah I am not that person. So it’s hard for me to say, this is what you should do and for people to listen.

So I love when , I’m talking to a, an author that is a full-time author and has been on that and is saying the same thing. There you go, folks. Listen to DC.

DC: It becomes a very understanding of who you are and what you want. What we see a lot, and I know I have a lot of my peers who also saying it is sometimes our dreams don’t match the amount of work we wanna put into it because it’s going to take work.

Whether you decided to do a Kickstarter or you’re gonna do a book funnel campaign, whatever you are going to do, it takes work. And it takes having cast skin. Everybody’s not gonna like your books, but here’s the reality. Do we, like every book we read, we don’t. We don’t like every genre we read.

What makes us think that everybody’s going to like it, but it’s also understanding who is our audience. You said it really well. Who do you want to read your books? Who are you targeting for? I know very well that my target audience is usually gonna be females between the age agents of 25 to about 45, who enjoy urban fantasy, who enjoy working characters, can it be broader than that? Absolutely. But usually that’s what you’re looking for. Who does that demographic? Why? Because it’s going to help if you’re going to be running ads, it’s going to help you if you’re going to be marketing at different organizations, but you have to be very comfortable.

Everybody’s not gonna like him, right? , everybody’s not gonna be your tribe. And what is it that success means

Stephen: to you? Yeah, and I think when you, when people are like, oh, but I feel slimy if I advertise and I’m pushing it, and maybe it’s because you haven’t defined who you’re talking to about your book.

Maybe it’s cuz you really do feel like that used car salesman that no matter who comes in, I’m gonna sell ’em this car. And if you feel that way, maybe you need to define, because if you write a picture, and it’s a great picture book for five year olds or seven year olds, whatever.

If you are talking to a five or seven year old, you’re like, oh, look at the bunny. And oh look, he’s got a sad face and you don’t have a problem pushing it and selling it cuz you’re not in that sales mode. You’re talking about the book. , but if you got a 12 year old, you’re going to have to really push it to get a 12 year old to buy a picture book.

And maybe that’s the mindset to think of that if you have the right demographics and the right tribe, you’re not selling it so much as sharing it with them and you’re doing those readers a disservice. If your book is really good and they really would enjoy it, it’s a disservice not to get them to read it and understand.

Different mindset. I think

DC: once you change the way you’re looking at the marketing side or the business side or the process that we have, it changes how you treat it. Because here’s the thing is nobody ever complains with McDonald’s. Put Onion app, right? Nobody ever complains when Hobby Lobby sends you an email about their sales.

Then why? As creators we get upset. It’s oh my God, I can’t send a newsletter saying that I have a sale. I get emails every day from coach. I’m never mad when they tell me to have a person sale. I’m never upset about it. Why? Cause I’m expecting you to sell me things, right? So we change the way. As a writer, people expect you to send them words. We write for a living. Why are we mad when we send a newsletter telling them of our days? So you right, change your mindset, change the way you’re looking at it, and then understand and be very comfortable with, are you willing to do the work. If you’re not, then stay as a hobby and enjoy it.

At the end of the day, I don’t think we should be suffering authors. You should be fun

Stephen: and enjoyable and I would honestly bet if somebody said, oh, I just wanna do this as a hobby. I am going to publish it and put it on Kindle. I’m gonna do this. They’re more interested in making sure the book is fun and they enjoy writing it and all of that.

I bet they would do way more success in sales and all that than somebody that’s only focused on getting done so they can sell it and make money. That relaxed attitude comes through in the book, comes through in the sales that you do and talking to people and all that. It, again, a mindset thing, I believe.

Absolutely.

DC: Totally agree with you. Yes.

Stephen: Alright. So DC I appreciate you taking so much time talking to me today. It’s been great fun. Hopefully maybe I can catch up with you at a con or something somewhere. Sure. Before we go I asked you about what would you tell people to read your book?

What would you, what would be some last minute advice you would give new authors truly

DC: to enjoy the writing process, to understand who they. To be authentic with themselves and to give themselves the grace to learn and be new at this job. And if you treat it as you’re new every day you are gonna learn something.

And every day you’re gonna enjoy

Stephen: it more and more. Nice. Great. Love it. All right. Thank you for being on and talking with us today. And I will let you know when this goes live and we hope to see some more good stuff from you.

DC: Oh, thank you so much. It’s such a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Have an amazing day.

READERS: Stephanie lives in Wales and shares her horror novel with us. She talks about reading horror and how she likes the build up to the horrific parts. She has only been publishing for about eight years, but feels her folk horror story Reborn is great horror and is a sequel to The Five Turns to the Wheel.

AUTHORS: We talk about rejection and how authors can deal with it. Everyone deals with rejection, and even authors that have written more than one book get rejected.

stephanieellis.org

Find Roland at https://indestructibleauthor.com

Our topics today are:

All right, so today on Discovered Wordsmiths, I want to welcome Stephanie Ellis. Good morning or afternoon, Stephanie.

How are you? I’m fine.

Stephanie: It’s actually good evening now. It’s nearly six o’clock and it’s if I open the curtains, it’d be dark outside and it’s very cold. I think it’s about five degrees

Stephen: and going. Okay. Yeah. So why don’t you tell everybody a little bit about yourself, where you live because of the big time difference and what you like to do besides.

Stephanie: Okay I’m currently living in Rexton in North Wales with my family. We did live in the south of England for about 30 odd years and then came back up to this area because I’ve got family in Shopha just over the border. My husband’s Welsh and we are trying to find a place to, to live after Covid d cuz that made us ch rethink our lives basically.

So we found a place in Rexton, which is gathering a little bit of. On the viewing platforms because of a certain football team which we can hear when they’re at home because they’re 10 minutes that way. So if they’re if it’s their plane at home, open the windows and you can hear everybody.

It’s a lovely part of the world, a lot of countryside around to do a lot of walking. And we can visit elderly parents as well quite easily. So when I’m not writing, I read and I. And I read . But I do walk. I do walk. I like forests. My husband likes hill climbing and mountains. Yes. And I think we’re in the right part of the world to combine the two.

I go to the gym, so I get up from a desk or get up from a chair and put a book down. That’s important. . Yeah, and I try and do some drawing, which I used to do a lot of, but I let that go. But I’ve tried to pick it up again recently and my one ambition is to learn old English. I’ve got a book, I keep starting it.

I get about six chapters. and then something else happens and I leave it for months, then I have to go back to the beginning. I’ve done the same chapters several times now, . Wow,

Stephen: interesting. Wow. There, there’s several things. First of all, I wanna make sure I’m clear when you say football, it’s not American football.

It is the

Stephanie: original British football. The round shape or not? What looks like rugby to us. Your football looks like rugby to us. Rugby shoulder pads, . And Rex, I believe my son was really big in the Crypted community. And I think Rexo has a history of the forest there being a big UFO sighting At one point, I think I, I haven’t years ago, maybe I’m wrong.

Stephen: I

Stephanie: haven’t heard that, but I have joined a local writer’s group and one of the writers there is publishing a book about Rex some and the little quirky tales associated with it. So I will ask him

Stephen: about that. Yeah, that’d be cool. I think that’s it. I could be wrong. My son was much more into it. . Alright.

So why did you wanna write to get started writing and get a book out and all?

Stephanie: Writing was never something that I’d considered growing up. I was of the generation where you were told you had to have a career and you do your A levels, you go to college, you do various things. The creative arts didn’t get a looking, but after having kids, then a bit of a career break, I went back to work, but I got my job as a part-time librarian in a junior school, and then I moved up to senior school and I started to.

What was in the libraries there and I was thinking, I can do this. And when you’re in a secondary school, because that is your 1116 year olds, it can go up to 18. You were getting in the more adult fiction as well. You would introduce them to adult fiction at that level. And I was reading it. I thought, yeah, I’d quite like to have a go at this.

I started to write, It was initially versed as well in my day job as a techn author tech. Three years ago, I would write verse just to poke fun at people quietly, I should say . But on the story side, I found I enjoyed it and I wanted to continue it now, and. When I say I need to read each day, or reading is part of my life, writing has become the same.

I have to keep doing it. I dunno whether you are the same. You have, there’s this urge you haven’t picked up a book and you need to read. Yeah, you haven’t picked up your pen. You need to write.

Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. And I do get the draggy part. It’s ugh, I don’t know if I feel like writing or I don’t whatever.

But then you sit down and suddenly it’s oh, look, I got 1500 words, . It’s just you get so into it. A part like you said, a part of you. I agree. Yeah. I will say that when I, the writing the publishing side, that only happened about eight years ago. I’m 58 now. I’ll be 59 this year. I don’t make any secret of that.

Stephanie: And the lines on my face will give it away. . But I know that a lot of writers out there sometimes think they’re a bit too old or they’ve left it too late to write and to do this sort of thing. And I’m, I just keep mentioning my age cause I’ll say no it’s never too late. Just cuz everybody else’s profile picture looks as though they’re in their twenties or when you get to my age, you look about 10 show your face just

Stephen: right . Yeah. If it makes you feel any better, you go look back at some past episodes. I’ve got all age. I know I had one man who was a lawyer his whole career, and then at 74 he decided to write a book. There’s plenty of people on the podcast that are 50 and above probably even more so than below 50.

So that is good to hear. Yes. And I’ve their numbers . So you’ve only been publishing for eight years, but you’re still. Newish. And what’s your current book that we’re gonna talk about? Tell us what it’s called and a little bit about it. Okay.

Stephanie: It is reborn, it is a folk horror sort slash dark fantasy, and it’s the sequel to the five Turns to the Wheel.

Both of these were published by Bridget Scape Press, and although it is a sequel, I would say I’ve written it in such a way that it is a standalone. So as you read through it you are fed the little bits of information you need to follow the thread of this particular story. Before I talk about reborn itself, I’ll set the scene a little bit because it is very much a world I’ve created.

So it’s a little corner of rural England that I’ve named the. And there are six villages there. You’ve got a village in the center and the other five around them. So it’s like a wheel. And alongside this very rural little area of England, you’ve got a supernatural world called Umbra. It’s under the rule of somebody called Quail who is the son of Mother Nature.

Now, these people in this supernatural world, which I, it is just outta sight, just beyond the value. You can’t quite see them, but they can come into the real world and. For this world to survive, they need the blood sacrifice of the people in the world. And the contract is that if they sacrifice, then the brothers survive and the villages prosper.

So it’s supposed to be a two-way thing. In the five turns of the wheel, you had the main character, Megan, who is also main character reborn, and she was one of the villages who wanted to put a stop to the rituals that happened there. And. She did this, but there’s one bit I’ve forgotten here, . There are three characters in Umbra, Tommy, Betty, and Fiddler, who are the sort of bridge between the worlds.

They come out into the villages and they lead the rituals, and I’ve set them up as a sort of parody of a mama’s troop. The little groups that would go round the villages performing plays over the centuries. And so you’ve got Tommy, who’s the master of ceremonies, you got Fiddler who does the music, and then Betty is the comedic character who dresses up as a woman.

Supposed to be comedic, but mine is a bit of a monster. Anyway, she stops all these rituals, but when she thinks she stopped it all, the mother Nature sends her into Umbra to lessen the cruelty of the people who live there. So she’s put in charge of everybody, but in doing so she’s made a rod for her own back.

She is tormented by Tommy, Betty and Fiddler are there. They don’t want to be there with her doing this. She says cuz Tommy is actually Megan’s real dad. And then who she thought she had destroyed. She’d destroyed the body, but she hadn’t destroyed his spirit. And so he has actually sort of implanted himself inside her mind a bit.

And she is stuck with his voice. She’s stuck in this world with all these creatures that she doesn’t wanna be a part of, cuz of their cruelty and what have they, what they’ve done to her life before. So at the start of reborn, she’s in a. She’s miserable, she’s haunted by this parasite in her mind as you’ve got Tommy, Betty, and Fiddler, who are equally feeling, ugh, because they are weakening.

They haven’t had any blood sacrifices or anything like that. So the story of reborn is Tommy, Betty and Fiddler Sneak out of Umbra. They want to seek their mother’s forgiveness and be allowed to hunt and to have the blood sacrifices against her. They go off to, to find. Megan too. She leaves this world to seek the mother because she’s been told that the mother can free her from Wales’s voice and can restore her husband live.

So she goes off on a quest. It is very much a quest sort of book. And then there was a third thread, and this is a new introduction. The mother had, her husband was the horned god suno, and centuries before he had. Banished cuz he overstepped the mark bit. The mother is in charge here, I will say

So he’d overstep the mark, but he is allowed to return. So it’s his return. So you’ve got three strands. You’ve got Megan on her journey, you’ve got Tommy, Betty, and Fiddler on theirs, and then you’ve got Suno on his and they’re all converging to the one place to face the mother, gain her forgiveness and to be reborn in various.

Whether they achieve that aim, whether Meghan frees herself, whether the three regain their strength, whether the horn God has allowed his position at her side. Again, whether it all starts again, you won’t know unless you read it, but that’s basically the story. But underlying that is a, a. Fourth strand, but it’s about the character Betty, because when I was writing these characters in the five turns of the wheel, I really enjoyed them.

They are monstrous. They’re grotesque, but they’re such great fun. But Betty being this animalistic creature, I wanted to see where he came from. What made him like his, or why did the mother make him like he was? And so you, throughout you find out what his real name. Why his behavior is like, is why he does what he does.

And so basically that’s the story. So it’s very much a quest with some rituals in there. Not as much as five turns, but the rituals at the end of rebirth or whoever achieves it or whoever gets that far.

Stephen: Nice. Okay. So you said it’s a folk horror, it sounds very fantasy ish, like Epic quest but it doesn’t sound like a middle grade or young adult necessarily.

did considering you said you’re a librarian for kids why’d you choose to write in horror genre?

Stephanie: I was a librarian for kids. I like to read very widely, and when I first started writing it was via short stories and flash fiction and that. It tended towards the dark side, and when I found a submission call for a, i, it was a horror anthology, and they wanted them on the theme of potatoes.

And I’ve written a story called Death is Not a Potato, and I sent it in. I thought it was dark. I’d never done a horror story before. And they said, no, it’s not quite what we want. . It was set in the siege of Latin grad and there was death and rats and things, but it wasn’t quite what they wanted. I still like the story by the way.

It’s not been published yet, but she said this was Teresa Darwin at night Watch Press at the time, and she said, send other stories for other calls in future. And I did. And she started publishing them and I found I enjoyed them so much. The horror side is where I write. When I read widely.

I do read horror but I also read a lot of dark fiction as in. Yeah. Classics. But the darker side I I grew up loving Dickens and then I went through a Russian face , and they’re very grim with old classics and so I’ve read all that. I was never one for the lighthearted or the overtly lighthearted I would say.

So it’s always been the horror that’s called to me, though I do try other genres, but with the darkness in. I can’t quite write light stuff. People occasionally say, can you write us a story with a happy ending or hopeful ending? And I’m there and I’m, I like, I just can’t some, something always goes amiss.

And in, in this children’s, in the school libraries, there’s a lot of There was light fiction there, but when I left, I was actually starting a horror shelf. They didn’t really have too much horror in there, so I created a horror section and I was building that up quite nicely with the indie as well, because you find.

A lot of librarians when they get books in for kids, they’ll be sent box of book boxes of books from various people like Scholastic and things, and they’ll buy them and just put them on the shelves. And I thought, no, I love buying books. I want the kids to choose the books themselves. So they tell me what they wanted.

I’d have a look and see what I think is Ginger. That’s the horror. It’s a brilliant website and it has they do young adult. Fiction on there. So I’ll be seeing what was there and what I’d like to read , so that I’d spend the school budget or that was given the library for these books and build it up that way so you got something more personal.

So I would get all thoughts in just because you read. Kids’ fiction, you don’t have to write children’s fiction. I do there’s a lot of really good young adult stuff out there. Not necessarily horror, but more day-to-day realistic stuff. Stuff that where they focus on issues that kids face today.

Whether it’s race or gender or anything. Like that. So there’s a lot of really good writing out there, but I’m, as I say, I’m not your light fiction and I’m not quite a children’s picture book writer. I’d like to have a go, but it would probably be subverted .

Stephen: Got it. I love that though, because you discovered what you write and enjoy writing.

I know a lot of authors think, oh, I read this particular genre, so I should write that, and they fall into the tramp of forcing themselves to do and it doesn’t come out right and it doesn’t feel good. I was lucky enough a local author friend of mine and a couple authors actually I talked to, helped me realize I wasn’t an adult writer.

I wasn’t a thriller writer. I was a kid’s fantasy writer, and once that clicked with me, the writing became so much easier. So I think that’s an important lesson for any authors listening. Sometimes what don’t force your writing. Be honest and write and see what it is. Yeah, sometimes that’s much better.

Stephanie: Yeah, I would say write what you enjoy. And I do remember writing a bit of five turns and it was leading up to the end. And these creatures I created were rampaging around the countryside and destroying everything. And I can remember actually sitting there with a grin on. And I thought it just shows that you’re really enjoying it.

Although I was enjoying it so much that it was going to end in a certain way that I suddenly realized I didn’t want it to, because otherwise there’d be no more five turns books. So I slammed the brakes on, but that was one of the few books a few stories, you just sit there and if you’re smiling as you’re writing, you know that you know it’s working for.

hate, I’d hate to be forcing myself, .

Stephen: Yeah. And you said you’re published through Bridgets Gate Press, which I’ve had several authors on for. Yeah. So is your book available wide that people can get it in? Pretty much all the stores?

Stephanie: It’s on Amazon at the moment. I know Bridgets Gate they’re relatively new press and they’re starting to get their books out into stores, I believe this year.

That’s their reign. They’ve been going for. A year in a bit. I know that books can be got from Barnes and Noble and all sorts of places online, so I’m not sure about the store side of it over there, but there is something they are building up at the moment.

Stephen: But it’s available in the online stores?

Yeah.

Staphanie: Yeah. And it’ll have all the links in the places actually on their website, which is bridgets gate press.com. So if people go there, they’ll find all their books. I would say they, they are a very good press and they’ve been putting out some really good work lately that I’ve enjoyed reading, cause I’ve been formatting some of the

Stephen: books.

nice. Ok. I guess you have a . Nice. Good. That’s always fun. Do you have a website yourself?

Stephanie: I do. It’s stephanie ellis.org. It’s all no spaces in there.

Stephen: Okay. That’s good to know. And the book what is the feedback you’re getting from reader?

Stephanie: They’ve enjoyed it. Most of them have read five turns.

One or two have read it. I looked at one on net galley. I try not to read reviews too much. Occasionally I would’ve a look and there was one who said that they, this, they hadn’t read five turns, but they’d read this one, and they were able to make sense of it and they really enjoyed it. People seem to like the world I’ve created and I like that world I’ve created and I keep expanding it.

So I’m actually gonna, I’m at, I have started a third one. I’ve only done about half the first chapter, but I’m going back there and I’m gonna spread it out a bit more across the country and bringing a few more rituals and have a bit of fun with it.

Nice.

Stephen: Okay, great. And if you were given a choice.

Someone asked you, would you rather turn your books these two particular into a movie or a TV show?

Stephanie: For these, I would love to see them as movies. I think there’s enough in them for you to just sit. And watch on a big screen. I think folk horror is very good on the big screen. Yeah, it is very atmospheric and it can just pull you in.

So yeah movie for mine for those. Anyway, I did put some, do a little collection, short stories set in the same world. They could be a TV series, so I can have

Stephen: both. There you go. Thank you. Either one, right? Yeah. And you mentioned a third book. So what are your plans for your next book? This

Stephanie: one. I would love it to finish it this year.

I dunno whether I would considering everything else I’ve got to do, but we had some snow recently and it was really cold and the ice surrounding it was a skating rink. When you down south in England, you don’t get much snow. Go into Wales and it all comes back. So I’m getting used to the cold weather again.

But I thought I would really like to write a book that’s set in the deep mid-winter, bring in some old Yu traditions. There’s the tradition of Mother’s Night as well at the start. So I’m going to set a story when it’s cold, when it’s Yule, and when the three certain characters come back and.

They just decide to have Christmas their way . How that would be, I don’t, I dunno, what’ll appear I don’t know, let’s just say the snow might not be very white for very long .

Stephen: Okay, got it. I, that’s more of a krampus type Christmas story.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. I just thought it’d be one to have fun with at that time of year.

Stephen: It’s an old tradition that we don’t really do anymore, but people used to tell ghost stories on Christmas Eve. They’d sit around the campfire and tell ghost stories. Yeah. And that was an old tradition. I have a whole stack of Victorian ghost story books set at Christmas time, and it’s just something that people don’t think about.

But I, man, when it just, one day I. Oh my gosh. Dickens Scrooge is a Christmas Carol. It’s a ghost story. It just never clicked in my mind to frame it as a ghost story, even though it absolutely is a ghost story. And I became fascinated with that idea of the ghost story at Christmas, and I think that’s a great thing to do.

Steaphanie: They still do it on the B BBC over here. Or at Christmas they’ll put out a ghost store and it’s usually an Mr. James or something like that. And I like that because it takes you away from all the material or the commercialization of the season and it brings you back. Into that sense of, oh, it’s cold out there, it’s a bit wintry, and it makes you feel, yeah, it is Christmas.

It’s just this strange little link. It just seems and I think they actually have been putting that out on a podcast cuz I ran across one. where every December 24th, it’s a new ghost story, Christmas ghost story. Yeah. You, like you said, Mr. James or some of the other ones that are already out there.

Stephen: It’s not a new story. So yeah, I think that’s cool that they do that. So Stephanie what are some of your favorite books and authors? How

Stephanie: long you got ? My favorite book, I would say my favorite book is Something Wicked This Way comes by Ray Bradbury. Ray Bradbury, his language, it’s poetic, it’s dark, and it is just perfect writing.

He is somebody I would love to have written but I never. So I like his works. I like Shirley Jackson. I’ve got a collection of hers. Of course. It’s very good writer. Grady Hendrix. There’s a horror writer cause he blends in humor. He’s brilliant. I called him a Chilean last. Last year and actually met him and I didn’t know what to say, so it was but he’s brilliant.

He is you he’ll talk and his presentations, he’s wonderful. On the sort of indie scene, there’s a couple of writers I really like POI Hall. He does folk horror. He’s done a western recently. . And then there’s TC Park and she does thrillers and she’s done horror as well. She’s her recent book.

Hummingbird is very good. And I would say people often look down on the indie, indie writers or self-published writers. These two have been published with small press and also I know that Nat TC Parker self-published, but the quality of their writing and the presentation is so if you find a small press, if you find someone self-published, don’t look down on them just because they’re not one of the big five or however many there are these days.

Give them a chance. Yeah. Occasionally you find something that shouldn’t have been published because it’s just someone taking the mickey a little bit. I think I’ve found a reprint of, I think it was a Conan Doyle story or something. I was looking for it for the school library and I didn’t really see who published.

And it came through and it was all double spaced and the font was awful. And then I looked and it was create space back in the day and I thought, I can’t justify that for a formal setting. I’m not in the library anymore. I’m working I’m writing full-time or trying to, so I’m working from home since we moved.

but I am a little bit wary, but I do like to buy and read Indie where I can. Nice. And I’ve got hundreds of books, yeah.

Stephen: Yeah. Who doesn’t? . Have you read the Halloween Tree? Yes.

Steaphanie: I actually bought that in for the school library just before I left. Nice. Good. And I really enjoyed that. And as I say, he’s got a very poet.

Way of speaking. I got dandy lime wine. I brought that about a year ago. I hadn’t read it before. And people kept talking about it. Yeah, and it’s the same in there. It’s the way he uses language. It’s just, I dunno, the imagery, it’s just brilliant.

Stephen: Yeah, I’ve talked about Halloween Tree on my website recommending it because it’s lesser known, but it’s a great book for kids because like you said, one the way he writes in his use of language is different.

So I think that’s good because the kids have to maybe work a little harder to read it and understand it. So it’s not a bad thing. And yeah, there’s,

Stephanie: sorry. I was just gonna say there’s a sort of magical element to it as well. Yes. That feeds.

Stephen: Yeah. And the whole history of Halloween that he weaves into there with this kind of adventure mystery type story yeah, I thought was good.

I, it was something I was trying to push and recommend for other librarians to put into their schools for kids. Yeah. That’s great. I love that. So do you, now that you’ve moved and have so many books, this is important. Have you found a local bookstore that you like to.

Stephanie: At the minute, there’s only Waterstones.

I haven’t found any other little bookshops in Reham. If anyone from Reham who listens to this, let me know. , you’ve got your usual shelves in the charity shops and I’ve made sure that I’ve joined the library. So I’m back in there as well, but at the minute it’s Waterstones cuz the one that I used to go to in South Hampton had a cafe with it.

And I used to love going in there, buying a book and having a drink. And that was my treat for myself, . Nice. I would love a place in Rexton to have a little cafe in bookshop together, but I haven’t found anything like that. So at the minute it is only Waterstones. .

Stephen: Yeah. Maybe you’ll find one in the next town over sometime.

That’d be good. Yeah. Okay. So before we talk about some author stuff let me ask you one more question about your writing and your book. You’re new to the town, so I could imagine somebody saying, Hey Stephanie, I heard you wrote a book. Why should I get your book and read it? What would you tell ’em?

Stephanie: Ah, I was trying to work out the answer to that before. I would just say to give something different, a go don’t stay. The familiar all the time. What I write is a little bit different, but it’s fun. So I would say if you haven’t really read horror, folk horror is a good way to go because it brings in the familiar, the sort of environment that people are aware of and then introduces all these other little elements.

But they might be a bit creepy, but they’re fun at the same time. And that’s the way I. This particular sort of section of my horror ride in the folk horror as a way to explore the countryside, get a taste of the English countryside the traditions, and just have a bit of fun with some rather grotesque characters.

Stephen: That’s great. I love that. Thank you. Thanks for sharing that and your book. It sounds great. I’ll make sure we have links in the show notes to everything. So let’s move on to some author stuff. Always exciting to move to that aspect. You’ve written, you said you’ve been published about eight years.

You’ve written a little more longer than that. So what are some things you’ve learned between in that time that you’re doing different now or that’s good advice to pass on to others?

Stephanie: One of the things I’ve learned, and it’s something I’ve referenced a couple times recently, When you get, you have beta readers, I believe you say beta readers over there.

Yeah. Yeah. So beta readers, I didn’t really start off with those. I just plowed my own way on. But then as I got to know people and other writers, they would offer to read some of my work, and it became a bit of an exchange and that helped, it pointed out things. But when I joined a group where we do a sort of rotational critique, , there were a number of writers reading my work and then offering feedback.

And I remember one story that I’d really enjoyed writing and I really had a lot of faith in. I thought it was quite a strong story. And there were a few people commenting on it, and I think it might have been about four people. And they all had different ideas. They were saying, you should do this, you should do that, you should do the other.

And by the, when I’d read all those comments, I thought this dance has over my. They’ve pulled it to breezes. It’s not going anywhere, but I liked it. So I sent it away and flame, it’s the flame tree press and they accepted it. And I think that was pretty much my first pro sale or one of my first pro sales.

So I think the thing I’ve learned is you need people to read your work before you send it. It does help in terms of. , but don’t let too many read your work because otherwise you lose confidence in your writing. You lose sight of your story. So it depends how strongly you feel about your story. But to keep that self-belief, I would say keep to your own, stick to your guns if you really like it.

Don’t worry too much about what others say. And I’ll also say, when it comes to other people reading my. The short stories I used to get a lot of people reading and looking at it these days, I don’t bother so much. If somebody says they want to read it, I’ll send it to them and I’ll come back and comment on it.

But I think you get to a certain point with shorts that after a while, you know whether it’s any good or not. You’ve learned a lot. and then it gives you the confidence to send it out. You might get rejected. I still get rejected as we’ll talk about it in a bit. . Yeah, we’re talking about that.

That’s a yeah. But yeah, so that’s one of the main things I’ve learned. I still try and find someone to read the novels or the longer work because you can have little plot holes that you’re not aware of. You can be too close. So for a bigger piece of work, I am more inclined to ask somebody if they would kindly be to read and just give me a sense of the story.

As when it comes to critiquing. Yeah, just be careful how many you invite to look at your work, .

Stephen: Got it. So when you’re writing, what software and services do you like to use?

Stephanie: I write in Word. If I’m self-publishing, I will pull that into something called Scribers, which is a free, I’m very much about freebies, by the way.

This is open source software, desktop publishing software, which is, which offers you all the things that Adobe’s in design does. Basical. , there are things, obviously it won’t do, but it will allow you to produce a quite a good quality PDF file. I use Collibra to produce UBS convert books into different formats.

And so that’s very much what I use. I know Bridget’s Gate, they provide editorials that they get the editors in and the formats and the covers for the books. But when it comes to self-publishing, yeah, I use Word to create the document for upload to Kindle Collibra to. Do the eub and as I say, scribe us to do the pdf Oh.

And something called gimp for unfortunate name for a cover graphics and things. And I go to Pixel Bay or Unsplash for free, copyright free images. So that is in a nutshell how to do a book on no

Stephen: budgets. got it. And Gimp has the lin. Moniker of naming where GIMP stands for Gimp Image Manipulation program, I believe.

Yeah. Typical pre open source software. Naming convention. Yeah. Yeah. And what are you doing to market your books? I know you go through Bridget’s Gate Press and obviously you do podcasts. What else are you doing in the market?

Stephanie: I would say that Bridges Gate Press, they have been brilliant cuz they’ve hired a publicist and he finds all sorts of contact.

But what they’ve also said is that we don’t have to necessarily stick to the work we’ve have published through them. We can also reference our other work. So I’ve been able to bring in a few other things that I’ve done but apart from that, I’ll go to social media, which I’m rubbish at. should improve.

I am found over at Hory. There’s a website called hory.com, which hosts submission calls on behalf of publishers. And it does all sorts of things there. And what I do every week on a Friday, I create indie bookshelf releases, posts. So if you’ve got something, it’s called Hory, but it can be speculative fiction.

It can be younger it could be work aimed at younger folk as well. And I’ll put up books on the shelves for. If you’ve got a book cover and a link, I’ll put it up. So you’ve got January’s books that have been out. I’ve got February’s books up. I’ve even got books up through to maybe July, possibly.

But it gives you a bit of free promo. So somebody clicks on that post, they’ll just see rows of book covers and they can just click on it and go to find out for information or a pre-order link or something like that. So there’s little things like that. I do for my own work, but I also do for other authors.

And I think if you share other people’s work, they will also help you share yours. People say writing is a lonely business or an isolated business. It can be. But if you build up a network, you’ll find that if you put in the time and the effort to help others, then they will help you to Nice. All right.

Stephen: So our topic of discussion to get to that, that you suggested was rejection. And there were two aspects of this that I thought of. That one, the obvious one people think of is, oh, I submitted my book to a publisher and they rejected it, or I submitted my short story for this anthology and they rejected it.

But the other aspect of it is two you mentioned is just having people read it and not like it, not enjoy it, say bad things, one star reviews and that thing. I think those two things together cripple a lot of authors. They’re afraid to do anything, tell us why you wanted to talk about rejection and some of your experience with rejection.

Stephanie: I think I wanted to talk about rejection because I want people to see that I am the same as anybody else. I still think of myself as a new writer, although I’ve achieved a certain amount now, but, I’m still writing and I’m still getting rejected for short stories and various other things. But there’s one thing I noticed when I look at other writers, whose careers have developed in parallel, a number of them will share their rejection stories, but there are some who don’t.

And you look at them and you get this distorted view and you keep thinking they’re successful all the time. How did they manage it? And you start to judge yourself and you compare yourself to them and you. , you must be lacking in some way. But so the first thing is that I’ve learned is that not all writers actually tell, talk about their rejections, but I decided that I would be quite open with mine.

Not necessarily saying what I was rejected from all the time, but just to show that I’m like anybody else that I can, yeah, I can get a book out, but I’ll still get her a short story rejection, which I actually. It was either this morning or yesterday. So there is that. But I think because writing is such a long-term career, if you want to write and if you want to get your work out there, you are gonna have to face rejection day, not day in, day out, cuz that would be dire on a very regular basis.

And if you are not prepared for that, then you are going to. Your mental health will it’ll damage your confidence, it’ll damage your self-esteem, and you can go into a downward spiral and that will affect your writing. So you’ve got to look at it a little bit dispassionately and learn a little bit about the publishing industry and talking about short stories.

I remember looking up a website a while ago, and I’ve got note here. It’s Aaron Ruel. He’s got a blog site called rejector nancy.com. and he did a post a while ago. And it did a breakdown of acceptance percentages for some magazines. So I think it was Apex Magazine was not 0.35% acceptance rate, where Pseudopod was 3.33.

This was back in 2017. So immediately you learn that acceptance rates are very low. So yeah, you got rejected, but they’re not gonna accept lots and lots of people. Then it may be that what you’ve written for a submission call might have had thousands of. Stories sent in. I believe lockdown actually contributed to this.

During Covid, everybody started to write, so when I sent a story into Samantha calls, the editors were saying, oh, we’ve got a thousand submissions. So again, your chances are going to be reduced somewhat. So there are those things that are part of the practicalities of it, and if you learn that tempers it a little bit, you.

I’ve got a chance, but with all this against me, I can’t necessarily expect it. So if you learn that little aspect of it. And then there’s also the fact that when you send a story in, if it’s for an anthology, it may be that they’ve already taken on a story similar to yours. Or it may be that they’ve chosen several stories and yours doesn’t quite fit what they’ve chosen so far.

It may be the same with a, a novel or a novella. They might have decided on a certain theme, but yours doesn’t quite fit. It might be perfect in terms of writing, but it doesn’t actually quite fit what they’ve asked for. So again, when you learn that, that can still keep you. Going along keep you sane, basically, right?

You learn it’s not all about you and your writing. Some people do get rejected by not following submission guidelines. I was over at Hory, I was their co-editor for a Trembling with Fear, which is their weekly flash scene and it’s flash fiction. And we will get people sending in stories of 5,000 words plus or a novella That’s automatic rejection again, so learn what the acceptance rates are or be aware of them, I would say, so that tempers things a little bit.

Make sure that you followed all the guidelines and then that will keep you same, but you do have to keep at ease. It’s not going to be. An immediate success. Some people are lucky. They might strike lucky first off but for most of us, it is a long slog and you’ll suddenly get an acceptance, and then you’re down in the pits again of the right of

Stephen: depression.

And I think some of the problem authors do to themselves because I know and this is a common thing, I’ve gone through it. I’m sure you may have, and lots of people do that. You write that book, you spend so much time in life and pour into that one book, and then you’re like, oh I’m, this is the best thing ever because you’re very close to it.

It’s hard to tell and I just, everyone’s gonna love it and I. Now I can chuckle a little bit. When you have the author, when I talk to ’em, I’m like, so who’s this book for? Oh, it’s for everybody. Never True. And every time I hear that, I know they’re new and don’t have a whole lot of experience. I’m not saying they’re bad and wrong, it’s just the thinking.

Yeah. You have at the beginning and the, like you said, when you get rejected, it’s not oh my God, your writing sucks. Your writing might suck. But that’s a whole nother problem. . But it like you. When you’re so close to your book, you think everybody should read it and everybody’s gonna love it.

And then when you get that one no, people are like, oh, this isn’t horrible. There’s thousands of places to submit to. There’s thousands of readers. But I joke and I’ve told other people, a friend of mine has done military sci-fi, has 33 years, 35 years of military sci-fi that he’s written. His books have space ships that are shooting at each other, unlike every.

And he got a one star review that said this wasn’t a romance book. I hated it. No, it wasn’t a romance book. It didn’t look like a romance book. So that’s rejection, but that’s not his fault necessarily. And I think everybody takes that way too personal, which I understand why. But we’ve gotta, like you said, remove ourselves from that.

If we were the publisher editor, we didn’t write any of the books, we would say, oh, that. Goes to this place and that one goes to this place. But when you don’t know that you submit to all of ’em, if it’s not the right one, they’re gonna reject you. And again, keep going because somebody’s going to like it somewhere for something.

You gotta look at

Stephanie: it. Yeah. You were just talking about one star reviews and things, and I I know when you read one, I’ve had the occasion one . I’ve even had a dnf, believe it or not, . Yeah. Believe it. You take it to heart and then you have remember yourself as a reader and the books that you don’t like, right?

And I’ve never got past the first page of James Joyce’s Ulysses. And there’s other books that people rave at their classics and no, I don’t like them. And so if you remember how subjective you are as a reader, you can remember that other people are the same. When they come to read your book, at least they’ve given you a chance.

At least they’ve had a. . And it may be that the same person might reread the book or the short story on another day and have a totally different opinion, right? It’s human nature. There’s stories that I’ve read, first off, and I think, no, I’m not too keen on that. and then some months down the line I’ll read again and say, oh yeah, this is really good.

So it, it depends. You’ve just got to remember the subjectivity of it.

Stephen: A and there’s, like you said, there’s a lot of books that people love and and fantasy, which is my main genre of reading or horror, which is my other main genre. And I’m like, yeah, I can’t really stand it. I don’t like the author.

I don’t like their writing. I don’t like, A classic example for me, which by the way, you were talking about school librarian for 11 year olds and reading the when I was 11, I’d already read the Shining by Stephen King and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy . I a lot of us that loved to read started early and read way outside of our age group, but I ha I, when I read Lord of the Rings, I got done with it and I’m like, I must have missed something because I did not enjoy.

And so at some point in the future, I read it a second time and I’m like, Nope. Still didn’t really care for it. Fellowship of the Rings I like, but Return of the King, the third book, I’ve read it three times now. I still cannot tell you what happens in that book. Now. There’s millions of people that love talking and think he’s the greatest and have read the books to tat.

I’ll probably never touch him again in my life because I really didn’t enjoy him. But that’s I don’t think he’d be too bothered by my one person rejecting his book, what, as popular as his stuff is. But the point is that one person isn’t your whole reading audience. Find out why they didn’t like it, what they normally read, and don’t target that type of person.

Make sure you know that’s not the type of person you want. Learn from it is what I. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie: You talk about books. I, with Dickens I read a lot of Dickens early on. I had his Christmas books given me for Christmas when I was about 11, and then I started reading all his books and I read PWI papers back then and everyone had said, oh, it’s this funny book.

And I read it and I thought, nah. And then I’ve read it. I dunno, it must be about 10 years ago now. I remember chuckling away all through it because I finally understood. I think I read. Of what you were supposed to read. People encourage you to read the classics at the wrong age but then you come back to it later and.

It’s good. I will say I’m never gonna reread Ernest Hemingway’s the Old Man in the Sea again, because I had to study that at school for two years, which on a little novella is terrible. It is Ug , so I will never look at that again. But other books I’ll probably give another try. ,

Stephen: A good example to me is the old TV show.

Maybe you’ve seen the Archie Bunk. TV show that we had here in America. It’s from the seventies. He was a racist, a bigot, opinionated. But it was a comedy and we were supposed to be laughing at him. And I know a lot of people, oh, I love Archie Bunker, but when I watched it as a kid, I didn’t get it.

But when I watched it as a young adult suddenly clicked and I got it. And I understood they were pointing out the problems in society by using Archie Bunker, and I got it more. . I rejected it the first time and then after that I enjoyed it. So sometimes it does take more than one. Of course, if you’re ascending to a publisher, you don’t get a second chance

Which is a whole nother point. I feel unfortunate that so many people then concentrate on that first, like five pages. That has to be so super and blockbuster and action oriented. Get the conflict out and the mood and all of that in those first five pages, or it’s not gonna see the light of day.

And I find that unfortunate because some of my favorite books have a slow burn, a slow build for the first 50, 75 pages before the action really kicks in. But they’re such good books. We tend to, oh, it’s gotta be, we gotta see the dead body on page. And that for horror, I think for horror, that doesn’t work so well.

It ruins the horror a lot of time. Yeah.

Steaphanie: I like a slow build. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. But I picked up comic McCarthy’s new on the passenger from the library yesterday and it’s, you’ve gotta read it in a week cause it’s only allowed, you’re only allowed it for a week. And I started reading it and I’m struggling.

I’m about halfway through and there’s a lot of quantum physics in there. There’s no explanation of the

Stephen: What’s the name of it? I need to get this book. It’s the Passenger . Ok, I got it. I love the Road and Blood Meridian. I’ve read those. All the pretty horses didn’t quite do it for me, but I saw the passenger and it was, the blurb sort of portrayed it as a thriller almost.

Steaphanie: I started reading and the first bit of writing is. Hallucination episode that a girl is having pretty much, and that’s all in italics. And that breaks up throughout the story. And I’m trying to see where it’s going, and I’m not quite with it yet, but I was thinking if that was one of my , I’m not there. But if that was me writing and sending into a publisher have been rejected because it’s right.

It’s not there on the page. But then again, if you’ve made your name and you’re that, They’ll give you the chance to build up to this point. And I did go to Good Reads and see what people said, and some was were raving about it and how brilliant. And I was thinking, yeah. And then there were others who were struggling a little bit like me.

I’m not stupid. I’ve got a certain amount of scientific background, but the level of science in there and what he would veer off into, I was thinking, oh no.

Stephen: The, that’s a super good point on a couple levels. So you mentioned the road. There’s a book that if it had not been Cormack, McCarthy would not have got published.

That I could not send that book written the way it is into a publisher and get it published. They would want to edit the heck out of it. Capital letters and punctuation. Because that book totally blows the convent. and I know a lot of authors that say, oh, I wanna write my art. I wanna do what I wanna do.

That’s fine. And that’s what Indie self-publishing is great for. But then don’t turn around and say I don’t know why no one’s buying my book. It’s revolutionary. You gotta be on a level of people know your name and trust your name before you can hit ’em upside the head with something that’s revolutionary and blows ’em outta the water.

I know I have a author friend who wrote something. His quote to me was, yeah, I didn’t get an editor cuz I don’t think any editor would quite understand what I’m trying to do and and it’s the first book he ever r wrote and it didn’t go anywhere. So that to me said, yeah, that’s not the time to do it.

Once you have the experience, maybe. So maybe the rejection is because you were trying to be too crazy and revolutionary, you need to get something to get your name out there first.

Stephanie: Yeah. Publishers they, and I’m trying to get an agent for something I’ve written cuz I thought it’s slightly different.

It’s dark historical fiction. And at the minute the rejections are all coming in, but I know that they will only, and it is the same with some of the small presses and the publishers, they will only take you on if they can think. They can build up a platform for you if they’ve if there’s more to you.

So I think they’d want to get you known in your work accepted before they take on a more experimental

Stephen: idea. Or at the least. Because the world of hybrid publishing is a little more prevalent now, and I don’t, a lot of times an agent publisher won’t reject you because you wanna do that. You can have in your contract I’ll give you this book, or I’ll have three books in this series that’s yours.

but I have this other thing I’m working on. I’m keeping that myself and publishing it. And a lot of times now, not always check, but that’s a little more acceptable than it was even five years ago. They understand that this is what you’re promising, but this experimental one, and if it does do well, they might turn around and say, Hey, we wanna publish that.

Let’s come to some agreement. Write something else like that and we will publish it. You I think with the right mindset, you got the best of everything, the best of both worlds in the publishing. You can choose to do anything you want. Indie, just understand if nobody’s buying it, it’s not necessarily rejecting you, maybe it’s just not right for today’s world at this time.

Stephanie: Yeah. And there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of competition out there, so they might not have found you either.

Stephen: True. People not finding you doesn’t mean rejection necessarily. Yeah. That’s part of our job is making sure we get found . It’s not the reader’s job to find you, it’s your job to be found, I think.

Yeah.

Stephanie: Yeah. That’s the other thing with marketing. Cause of push your work out there and then I, it is a very, I dunno whether it’s a British thing, but you don’t want to put yourself, push yourself in people’s faces too much. But if you don’t do that, they’re not gonna see you work.

Stephen: I would agree that does sound a little more British, but it.

Sounds a lot like introverted authors in America, . Cause I know a lot of authors with that same type of thinking, and I have many a time, especially as I’m watching Dr. Who or something, then I’m like, man, I should have been British. I was born in the wrong country. . But if you want to, you can be an author all you want.

and have your friends and family read it and have your books published by yourself. If you’re not wanting to have huge following and hundreds and thousands of people reading it, great, fine. But you can’t not get yourself out there. And then also say nobody reads me. It’s one or the other.

You gotta do something to get yourself out there and you will have people. No there’s a seven point something billion people, so you’re not gonna have 7 billion people like your book, but all you need is that couple hundred, couple thousand that do. That’s just gotta find them.

Stephanie: Yeah I was gonna say that’s how, or being a, being an author I think has changed in recent times.

In the past, if you were published, all the marketing and everything else fell on the people who are publishing you. But now, even if you are part of a publish, Even the main, you know the bigger names, you have to do a lot more promo yourself. Yeah. Whereas really, as you say, we’d rather be hiding in a corner of the house with our books and ignoring the rest of the

Stephen: world,

Okay. I love the discussion. Nobody has wanted to talk about rejection. So that was a great topic choice, Stephanie. Thank you. Before we go though do you have any last minute advice for authors that you would offer? Do it. Don’t wait around thinking, oh, maybe I’ll do it one day.

Stephanie: If you’ve got, I know it is hard and that life gets in the way a lot, but I was writing on a corner of the sofa in the front room and learning to tune everything else out around me. So to get on and do it, but I would say if you’re going to write, read. Read, widely read in your genre. I do know some writers who don’t actually read that much and they don’t read the books and the genre that they want to write.

So familiarize yourself with that. And if you can build up relationships with other writers, whether it’s online you might get to meet them in real life. I’ve been lucky with a few and they’ve become really good friends and they will form your support network as you go. So you can offload to them in private and have a little rant about acceptances and rejections and everything else and what somebody might have said online.

So you’ve got, you build up this little private world as well, and you don’t feel so isolated. So build up your network. Read widely, enjoy your writing, and don’t do it before it’s too late. or do it. I agree. I

Stephen: could say. Yep. It’s never too late until it is. But you can do it now. I agree.

I love that. All right. Stephanie, thank you for being on. It was great talking to you. I appreciate all the great advice you gave and your book sounds wonderful. I wish you luck.

Stephanie: Oh, thank you very much for having me. It’s been fun. Great.

Yoshio is a 16 year old author. He hasn’t written just one book, he’s written two! We discuss his writing and how he took advantage of a family vacation to get the book done.

Due to his age, there were some problems publishing. He tells us about those problems and some of the things he did to help overcome it.

In this episode:

https://yoshio-daggett.yolasite.com/

http://riverrunbookstore.com/

Whalebone Theater

Bandit Queens

I Have Some Questions for You

Hell Bent

Dark is Rising

Skullduggery Pleasant

Today I’m very excited for today’s episode of Discover Wordsmith.

I have Yoshi with me and Yoshi is 16. Yoshi, how you doing

Yoshio: today? I’m good. I’m good. How are you?

Stephen: I’m well. I’m doing really great now, talking to you. I love talking to kids that are doing things like this. Awesome. I encourage that. Before we roll about your book, tell us a little bit about you and what you like to do.

I’m going to guess you go to school though, that may not be something you like . What else do you like to do?

Yoshio: Yeah, I do go to school. It’s school. I love traveling. whole family loves traveling, so we always go on trips and all sorts of. I love hiking, swimming reading of course.

Yeah, all fun stuff.

Stephen: Cool. We’ll talk about some of your favorite books later on. But you’re on the podcast because you’re 16 and you’ve written two books and got them published and I think that’s fantastic and it. Right there. I get a lot of people that tell me, oh, kids can’t do this. You know what, we’ve got proof right here

And there are a few others I’ve known also. So I’m excited to find out about what you’ve done. Why did you wanna start writing? You said you did your first book at 15, so what made you jump into this and wanna start?

Yoshio: Yeah, so back in like fifth grade, my teacher had us do these fun like writing exercises where we got to get a prompt and then write a little short story for that.

And I just found that so fun. And after a while of doing that, I’m like hey, why don’t I just do it on my own time? Because it, I enjoyed it. So I started writing short stories and printing them out and bringing ’em to school and having my friends read ’em back in fifth. and I’m from there.

I just kept writing more and more until finally I’m like hey, might as well write a full length book. So

Stephen: Nice. So you realize that’s pretty much how Stephen King started, right? really doing his thing. Yeah, I didn’t know that. Writing stories for his friends. Then he did the school newspaper and threw in his own stories.

Cool. Yeah. So I love that you got excited about that , and you enjoyed writing. You said you’ve written short stories. About how many have you written?

Yoshio: Oh maybe 15, 16. They’re super, like short stories just to entertain my friends and I did write one full length book in sixth grade that was maybe like 80,000 words, but I never ended up publishing.

Yeah, but you still have it, right? I do. I

Stephen: do. Th those are called trunk novels. You stick ’em in your trunk and you leave ’em for, for years. Yeah. So just remember that when you talk to other authors that your trunk . All right, so this book we’re gonna talk about is Eight Wonder tell us a little bit about this.

Yeah.

Yoshio: So it’s a middle grade like adventure fiction kind of thing. And so it’s about these eight kids who are all cousins and they go on a big backpacking trip together, and they get lost in the woods. And so basically the story follows them just learning how to survive building shelter, that kind of thing.

And yeah it’s a fun, fun adventure. Okay.

Stephen: And your what was the title of your first book?

Yoshio: My first book was called the C Myth.

Stephen: Okay. Yeah. And are they both like middle grade?

Yoshio: Yeah. The C Myth was probably middle grade between middle grade and young adult probably. Yeah. Okay.

Stephen: Which fits because they say, write what you know, that kinda fits what you know, right?

Now, is fantasy your favorite genre to read?

Yoshio: I would say probably I love fantasy, but I’ve gotta go with science fiction. For me that’s what I primarily read. Yeah.

Stephen: Okay. Who are some of your favorite science fiction author?

Yoshio: Ooh. I love Neil Schusterman, James Dashner, Suzanne Collins.

Those are really good authors. I love their books.

Stephen: Nice. What’s your favorite book of all time?

Yoshio: That’s such a hard question. . I don’t know. One of my favorites is Dry by Neil Schusterman, and it’s like a sci-fi. survival novel. That one was really good.

Stephen: Nice. Okay. And have your friends read these books?

Yoshio: The ones that, that I published or the ones that Yeah they have.

Stephen: Okay. Where have, where is this available that people can check it out?

Yoshio: They’re on Amazon, barnes and noble.com, all sorts of bookshops online. They’re in libraries, all the El Dorado County libraries and a few in other places.

Yeah, all over the

Stephen: place. Nice. Nice. And we’ll talk more about the publishing on the second half with authors. Cool. Why did you choose to write this particular story? You said you’ve written some short stories. So why did you choose to write this particular story as a novel?

Yoshio: So originally it wasn’t going to be published like for everybody because I had a knack for writing and I actually wrote my second book before this one ate wander.

But I was going on a big year-long trip with my family and I have seven, or I have six cousins. That we’re really close to. And so I was like, hey, as a going away gift, I might as well write them something cuz that’s something I’m good at. So I I wrote them up the story and I originally published it just for to print it so I could ship it over to them.

And so they got it and read it and those things were filled with typos cuz it was just for them at first. But then the words started getting around and people started buying ’em and reading ’em and contacting me and they’re like, Hey, this was really good. I’m like, oh, I didn’t know you were gonna read it.

I thought it was only for my thought only my cousins were gonna read it at first. And but after that I’m like I need to polish it up if other people are gonna be reading. So I did that and and yeah that’s how it got, how it is

Stephen: today. Oh, Oh, okay. I gotta ask, you said a year long trip

What was that all not many people I know take a year long trip. What was that for? Yeah, it was

Yoshio: really special. My my family took a year long RV trip to tour the United. And it was a blast. We’re home now, but we spent basically an entire school year just touring around and yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Stephen: Nice. Did you do remote schooling? I would assume I did. Yeah. What did you think of that compared to going to school?

Yoshio: I missed the social aspect for sure, but it was actually really nice because it gave me so much more time to write and just spend time with my family and such, so it was good.

Stephen: Nice. Okay. All right. And is that when you wrote this current eight Wander book?

Yoshio: I actually wrote it right before. Before we left. Yeah. And then I published it when we were on the road, okay. Yeah,

Stephen: you did say that. I’m sorry. That’s all right. So now that you’ve had people reading this book, if somebody said, Hey we’d like to turn this into a movie or TV show, which one would you prefer?

Yoshio: I would’ve to say movie because I don’t know, just census aim towards a younger audience. It’s young, that age doesn’t really invest in TV shows as much as like teenagers or adults. Just cuz I don’t know, shorter attention spans. I think it’d be a really fun movie and it’s it’s short enough that it feels stretched out if it were a TV series.

So I think a movie would fit best. Okay,

Stephen: so these are one shots. They’re not a series of stories.

Yoshio: They are, I’m actually working on a sequel right now, but as of now, it’s just the first one.

Stephen: Okay. So it’s the first one. Yeah. But the two that you have published aren’t in series? Yeah. Okay. All right. And do you have a website?

Yoshio: I do. I do. What’s that? I think it’s yoshi dot dagit yola site.com.

Stephen: Okay. Yeah. We’ll try and look it up and get a link in there. Did you put that up? I did. Yourself, I did. Yeah. So did you get to do it as part of a school project or did you just

Yoshio: do it ? I just did it just cuz it never, that kind of thing.

Never really came up in school. And I’m like I’ll just do it myself. Yeah.

Stephen: Okay. So how do you balance doing school, all your other activities and writing?

Yoshio: Yeah, prioritizing that kind of stuff is really hard. Obviously school is a big priority, but writing is is also big. So what I try and do is have a schedule where when it’s structured, it’s easier to fit everything in you.

and so I try and get school out of the way first and then . That way I can take as much time as I want writing, nice. Okay. And you mentioned a sequel. What’s that going to be about?

Yeah, so the sequel is gonna follow the same cousins, but this time they get lost out at sea instead of in a forest, which is where the first one takes place.

And That’s what the second one will be like.

Stephen: Okay. Wonderful. we talked a little bit about your favorite books and authors. Do you have a local bookstore that you like to go to? I

Yoshio: do. I do. We have a used bookstore down on our main Street and it is called The Booker. And it’s just, it’s a great.

Stephen: Nice. And where actu where exactly do you live? I live in Placerville. Not your address, but like general

Yoshio: that Yeah. I live in this little town called Placerville in California. Know that?

Stephen: Yeah, I lived in Escondido down southern California. Oh, no way. No way. Cool. Yeah. Nice. All right, so here’s the tough one for you.

Before we talk some author stuff, . I’m sure a lot of kids at school, teachers, maybe other parents come up to you and they say, so you wrote a book. Why should I get your book and read it? What would you tell ’em?

Yoshio: It’s just, it’s a fun adventure I’ve had parents and teachers tell me that their kids loved.

and it’s, it has little bits here and there that are handy when it comes to outdoor survival and it’s just a fun story I think. Yeah, it’s fun for me. Nice.

Stephen: Okay, great. Wonderful. I love when kids do things above and beyond little more out of the norm, so you should be applauded for that.

Very nice. All right, so let’s talk some author stuff. This is of great interest to me. A lot of fun things here that we’ve wanna delve into. So before we get started on some of the topic of publishing when you’re not an quote unquote adult. Yeah. You’ve written a bunch of short stories, which I think is more wonderful than you believe, because.

One of the things I’ve found in talking with others is that writing and writing and gaining that experience is way more important than some people realize. A lot of people write one book and then they spend five years trying to publish get it published and out there. And they miss the experience of writing more.

And you’ve written, you said about 15 short stories, and now two books you’re working on your third and you have a trunk novel also . Yeah. So do you feel that you’ve learned and grown and changed with your experience writing since the first one you wrote?

Yoshio: Absolutely. For sure. In fact, if I pull a the dusty binder out of the back of my closet for the trunk novel, Just looking at the words that I used and the type of the flow that the writing follows.

It’s just a huge difference and I’m, even though it’s not going anywhere, I’m super glad I wrote it because it gave me all that experience and yeah, definitely a huge.

Stephen: So you said you wrote your first story back in fifth grade. Has your fifth grade teacher read the newest stuff you’ve

Yoshio: written?

She has. She has. I actually did an assign, not an assignment, assigning and talk at my old school. So yeah.

Stephen: How exciting, fun was that? Have all the younger kids coming up to you? It was so much fun. I still have. My brother goes there. So I still have kids coming up to me when I go to see my brother there asking, oh, when’s this, when’s the second eight wonder gonna come out?

Yoshio: And that’s just, that makes me very happy. nice.

Stephen: I’m going to guess, I’m going to tell me if I’m wrong, but I’m going to say that having the kids, the teacher’s, parents coming up to you and saying, wow, this is really good. Keeps you going, keeps you wanting to do more. For

Yoshio: sure. A hundred percent.

That’s. , one of the best parts of writing is the feedback and just seeing the people who read and enjoyed this story, it makes it worth it for sure. It’s a lot of fun.

Stephen: Cool. So what software do you use to write? I’m going to assume you do it digitally with a

Yoshio: computer or something, . I do. I use I use Word.

I like to keep it simple word is my go-to writing tool. .

Stephen: Okay, so this leads into our bigger topic of discussion, which I think a lot of people may be interested in. You’re 16, you’ve published, that’s difficult because of your age, because services want you to be older. And so what are some, how did you publish and what are some of the trials and tribulations you’ve had to overcome because of your age?

Yoshio: Yeah. My first two books I published I self-published and I went through a program called K D P. At first I’m sure you know what it is but it’s a self-publishing company and it’s really handy. It’s really nice. But one of the problems I faced was for like banking account details, they don’t allow minors to set up their banking.

To take out that money. So I had to go around that and figure stuff out for that. Alright,

Stephen: We won’t go in the details if it starts. Sound a little shady here. But your parents are involved and encourage all of this for you.

Yoshio: Yeah, for sure. They are a huge huge part.

My writing and I couldn’t do it without ’em, for sure.

Stephen: Nice. And you said you also have set up through Barnes and Noble and a few other places that you published. So you, you’re published wide? am. Do you put in your profile that you’re 16 or are you avoiding that and just putting the books out there?

I

Yoshio: I say that I’m a teen author so I don’t have to like, update it all the time. . But yeah I say that I’m a teen author on

Stephen: the books. Okay. And you don’t need to give us details, but you’ve worked out things with a bank account I’m going to assume got your parents involved. Are there any other things you’ve run into because of your age that you think would not have been difficult if you were.

Yoshio: So I have a publishing company called Precipice Publishing, and when I was setting that up it’s hard for a minor to do that kind of thing. And my parents helped me and it’s all sorted out. But that was something that was a bit difficult to sort.

Stephen: Okay. So in, in a couple years when you’re 18 and you’re legally allowed to have the bank account and do the Amazon account and all of that are you gonna switch things over at that point? Or did you set things up to keep ’em the way they are now?

Yoshio: Yeah, I’ll prob, I’ll probably switch things over just cuz it’ll make things simpler.

Okay.

Stephen: Have, did you think that, oh man, I’m getting experience writing. I’ve got experience writing novels and published novels that’s going to help me later in life. Or were you just writing cuz you enjoyed it?

Yoshio: At first I was writing cuz I was, I enjoyed it for sure and I still am. But looking at future opportunities, I think writing is.

A great asset to have whichever field of work you go into or whatever whatever you do. Really writing is a big part of everything. So I would agree. I think it’s a handy skill.

Stephen: Yeah I would agree with that. And as we were talking about, you wrote a bunch of short stories, so you’ve got a lot of experience writing.

You’re getting even more so if you write this third book, maybe even a fourth. Before you’re 18 or about the time you’re graduating, you, you’ll have more experience than most adults that are out there writing . And I truly believe that experience is super helpful to publish more or make a choice as to what direction you want to go.

Do you feel that you’re preparing yourself for a writing career or, Some other plans that this’ll just tie into.

Yoshio: Yeah, so writing right now is like what I’m like a job basically, but what I’m aiming to do, In the future is become a nurse anesthetist. And writing will be like a side thing that I do, like publish books.

But if it becomes successful enough that I can make a career off of that, then that would be the dream. That would be that would I you, have you ever heard of Michael Criton? I have

Big fan.

Stephen: He used to be in the medical field in his first book under some pseudonym was about some patients and being a, in the medical profession.

So you, you’ve got someone good ahead of you there, . Awesome. So I take it you have plans to go to college or nursing school or something like that? And I like how you. Say, you might keep this as a side thing, which I also think is important because in today’s world, I know you’re still in high school, you may have heard of this, but there’s a lot of turmoil in the job market at times, and a lot of of people don’t have jobs.

My mother was a nurse for 45 years. cool. She worked at the same hospital her whole life. But that just really doesn’t happen anymore. I think having this skill of writing as a backup, Is important and especially cuz you’ve already published a couple books. So when you’re 18 or 22 ish and you’re just graduating you, you have four or five books every month.

Could be generating some income, making your life a little more stable because you don’t have to worry so much. Have you thought about that or was it something that you came upon? Oh, I guess so afterwards. . .

Yoshio: Yeah. Yeah. That’s. Definitely an important part, the whole financial side of that. And then plus I get to say I am an author and get to experience being an author.

And writing is always fun. So there’s the financial side and then there’s, oh, I get to keep writing side of it. Which is good.

Stephen: I love the fact that you said that you wanna be one thing, but writing also, , you’re still a writer, you’re still an author. You can do it on top of the other stuff you’re doing.

You can do it while you’re in college and you continue. Nice. So let me just ask, did you write all this stuff and then tell your parents you wanted to publish or did you tell ’em at the beginning you had a goal? What was their reaction? What’d they say? .

Yoshio: So the first book that I told you a little bit about called the C Smith I intended to publish it in the.

Just because I’d written so many short stories and I wanted to write a real book to put out into the world and for other people to read. So they always knew that I was interested in publishing but never really became serious until I finished ate wander and things. Opportunities started popping up and I’m like hey this is a big thing.

This is.

Stephen: Nice. So what opportunities popped up going to your old school for book signings? One, I assume? What other things have come about that you didn’t expect?

Yoshio: Yeah, I didn’t expect just being able to do the book signings and talks. I’ve done ’em at a couple of places. And those were really fun.

Getting ’em in the library. That was that was really exciting. And just this kind of thing, being on podcasts and getting to talk to awesome people like you is it’s the great part that I didn’t really expect going into the field. Nice.

Stephen: So what are, besides doing podcasts, what other things are you doing to market the.

Yoshio: Yeah, so I do social media, I do the talks and signings obviously the podcast. And yeah that’s pretty much what I’m doing to market.

Stephen: So it’s all hands-on. Go see people because Yeah. Being 16 again. Trying to run ads without the bank account, without that’s probably if not extremely difficult.

It possibly completely a no-go for right now.

Yoshio: Yeah. Yeah. It’s good though cuz I like being engaged with people and so it works.

Stephen: Good. Good. I love your attitude about it. It is what it is, so do what you can, right? Yeah. All right. So Yoshi I love talking to you about this.

In fact, I’d love to have you on again before you graduate school to see how things have changed. So let’s keep that in mind. Awesome. What advice would you give to other young people, teenagers pre-teens about writing that are out there listening to this?

Yoshio: I’d just say start it do it There’s not an age limit for creativity. You can write when you’re young, when you’re old, when you’re middle-aged it doesn’t matter. It’s just getting the pen on paper and the words on the computer. And just starting that whole process, that’s the most important thing, and it’ll take you from there.

Trust me.

Stephen: Nice. That’s awesome advice. I’m gonna make that a clip to play for some young people. Awesome. Uh, And I did have a 10 year old on here that wrote a picture book. Wow. You’re 16. And I have had a guy that 74 retired lawyer that wrote his first book at 74. So huge age range of people writing.

Yeah. So you’ve got a great start to it, a great jump, . Cool. All right. Yoho, I appreciate you taking some time after school today and getting on and chatting with us. Anything else you wanna say about your book or about being an author before we go?

Yoshio: Just keep writing and reading and yeah, that’s it.

Stephen: Okay, great. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Troy reads a chapter of his book “Teaching Moments”.

Troy is back and this time we are talking about Plottr. If you don’t know Plottr, its author software to help plan out and plot your story before you start writing. We discuss the benefits of using it and why the company has created the functions they have. He also tells a bit about what to expect.

Plottr – Plan Your Books Like a Pro

Stephen: All right, so let’s move on for some author focused stuff. And we’re gonna talk about plotter, the software tool and what you do there and all that.

But before we do that for the authors listening, what tool, what have you learned, and you hinted at this a little bit last term, but what have you learned writing these books for the last 15 ish years? And what do you do different now than you did?

Troy: Oh my goodness. So when I first started out there, there’s a couple things that I did when I first started out that I have completely and totally flipped.

And the first one was that I just used word because when I first started writing, when I was a teenager I used a typewriter and even when I was younger, so I learned to type when I was like eight, my grandpa gave me an old royal, and then I used an IBM Electric for my first novels in college.

Ok, nice. So some of you are gonna have to go look that up. That’s okay. It was before Google. Even though Google knows about it. But anyway, so when I first started out, I was just using, in fact, I was using Word perfect when I first used that. Wow. You could use tags in there. You could use tags in there.

Oh my goodness. And some of my novels that I first wrote in college, the last time I saw them, they were on three and a half inch floppy disc in Word Perfect Five. Now, as far as I know, you can never convert that. And that’s where I want those books to remain. I’m eternally grateful that no one ever picked those up.

They were horrible. But that’s part of the writing process. You write horrible books first and then you write good ones. But anyway, so when I, but when I first started doing it full-time, I was writing in Word a lot. And part of the reason was that I, in my day job, I did a lot of technical writing and I wrote in Word as well.

And so it was a very familiar program. It was very easy for me to transition to. But that did cause me issues because my brain would be confused when I opened a word about what I was doing. Are we working or are we writing fiction ? And so it would take my brain a while to figure that out. So shortly after I started to write full-time, I got Scribner.

I switched to Scribner for writing. And the reason that was a game changer for me were a couple different reasons. First of all, there were some powerful tools in Scribner that I could use to stay focused, to keep myself better focused. And on top of that, it was something different than Word.

So I would open Scribner. My brain would like, oh, we’re writing fiction. Okay. And it would, it caused a shift, right? So that was, that’s one of the things that I changed when I first started writing too. I was very much a discovery writer. I would just have an idea and I would sit down and write it.

And that didn’t always go super well. And sometimes the second draft was a grueling. Process. Just a terrible process to be honest with you. And it was because you, if when you started with just an idea, you’d let yourself go wherever. Sometimes that’s really cool, but sometimes you end up in a place where you’re like, how in the world did I get here?

And this is no longer a story, so you have to back up and figure things out and move forward. So I was writing I the second book in my first trilogy that was actually commercially successful. And I I was like, you know what? If I knew the ending, I was about two-thirds of the way through. And I’m like, if I knew the ending of this book, it’d be much easier and faster to finish writing it.

Huh, okay. So I actually outlined the last third of the book, and this is like I was an English guy and a story structure guy, so it’s not like I didn’t know how to outline. I just didn’t but I, so I outlined the last part of it and sure enough, man, that process was easier and it was faster, and I thought, Man, maybe there’s something to this.

So my next book, of course, I started with an idea and only about a third of the way through it, I was like, you know what if I knew the end of this familiar story, right? . So then I planned out the rest of it. And so my next book I tried, I’m like, okay, I’m just gonna plan the book. Let’s see what happens.

And man, my writing process was much faster. My first draft was better, my revisions went faster, everything about it went faster. And I was like, huh, okay, maybe there’s something to this planning thing. And so I started to find different ways to plan things and I started with like whiteboards and court boards and all that kinda stuff.

And eventually, which is a long way around to say, eventually I found plotter and was like, okay, this is a game changer for me because now I can clean my office, make my wife happy. And but also this is just a much more powerful way to do the things I was trying to do in other ways. It just gave me the right tool to do that right.

And make it happen easier.

Stephen: And we’ve had similar journeys in that regard. I think everybody just starts off with, oh, I have a blank page. Let me start writing. And I still talk to a lot of authors that use Word, but you, very quickly, when I started using Word, I was like, oh, you know what?

This makes more sense later. It’s how do I move that? Oh, copy it and paste. And it became a nightmare now where it was that. And so I looked around, discovered Scribner, like you and the corkboard and moving things around and just all, it made a lot more sense to me. And I’ve tried to talk to other writers that have you really given it a chance?

Cuz they’re like, oh, it has too much. I don’t know what to do. I’m like, don’t worry about it. Just start writing. Word has a million things that nobody ever uses, but nobody seemed concerned about that. So I it’s a me it’s a mindset. Yep. And like you. Then after I’d written some stuff and I started getting feedback from editor and readers and that I started growing and realizing, yeah, I missed this plot point, or oh man, my book two of what I’m working on right now, I had this major thing where they went to this town and they were looking for this house, and oh, they found it, they got point to it, and I read it.

I rewrote it. I, and had others read it. It wasn’t until this recent drafting rewrite that I’m redoing most of it, that I said, wait a second, this is the son of the guy. He would know where the house is. Nobody picked up on that. So I’ve learned a little bit of outlining goes a long way, and that’s where plotter comes in.

I remember Jay, one of his conferences or something that I went to is the first time I heard about plotter and correct me and say whatever to defend or whatever. I think I wouldn’t have appreciated plotter without already have written some things and tried to outline and understood what good an outline would do.

Because the first time I looked at plotter, I was still really new. And I’m like I have no idea. And I put it aside, even though I had a license for a couple years before I, I used it, now I use it and I’m like, okay, this makes sense. Story beats and the structure and I can choose different structures to put the book in what fits and all that.

So for the newbies, tell us a little bit about what plotter is, what it does, and what it can do for them.

Troy: So I’ll start with the simple act of plotting because there are some people that still wanna be that discovery writer, right? Yes. They wanna, okay, that’s fine. Because what you’re writing, when you write what you’re calling your first draft is not a first draft.

It is a zero draft, it is an outline draft. And you usually, if you’re a, if you’re. Aspiring to make your writing better. You plot later, you look at the draft that you’ve written and you go, okay, now what do I have? And then you can tear that apart and look at it if you analyze it correctly and go, okay, where are my story beats?

Where are all those things? And you do that before you write the next draft. That’s the most important thing, right? Is because that speeds up your draft, your second drafting process and makes it easier cuz you’ve told yourself the story, but you’ve written a 60,000 word outline, essentially. Okay. And that’s okay.

It’s actually okay. It’s all right to be a discovery writer. People are like, you’re such a plotter. And I’m like, yeah. But I also acknowledge that there are other paths that you can follow. Ok.

Stephen: Dif people’s brains work differently. Yeah. Things really do click

Troy: differently. Yeah. People, and here’s the other thing.

Okay. New writers, just, let’s just get this outta the way. You’re gonna write horrible first drafts forever. I just wrote a first draft in November. I did nano with a whole bunch of people for, it was a lot of fun. And what did I get out that November exercise? A horrible first draft that I now need to revise.

Just finished book number 31 weeks ago. What I have, what am I working, what was working on just I on this podcast, revising that because it was a horrible first draft. You’re gonna write horrible first drafts. Be okay with it. Doesn’t matter. Everybody’s the same. Doesn’t matter how many books you’ve written you, you’re gonna write a horrible first draft end of story over with.

Okay? But the process of outlining itself doesn’t have to be this huge structured thing. So when you’re first starting out, I tell people, start with know five things about your book. Start by knowing five things. Now if you’re writing mysteries, you wanna know who did it, how they did it, how they get caught, and who catches them.

Okay? Pretty simple, right? The reason you wanna know those things is so you can drop some clues along the way. Yes. Right. Lead your reader towards that conclusion. Not clues that make it obvious, but that lead your reader towards that conclusion. But for different genres, there are other things that you should know.

Romance, who’s the love interest? Who is the secondary love interest? Because in a romance, actually the lead romance person is the hero. The secondary love interest is the antagonist. And that’s where the conflict comes from. Okay. Different structure, different genre, different story, idea study, story structure.

When you’re new, this does not mean go to college. In fact nevermind. We won’t talk about that. That’s a whole other

Stephen: conversation.

Troy: Yeah, that’s a whole other podcast. We can come back and do that later. We won’t do it right now. Except to say that there are tons of ways to study story structure. And what I mean by study it is to look at different types of story structures, see which one resonates with you, whether that save the cat story, grid story circles like Jay Thorne that uses the different things like that.

Look at things and look which one resonates with you. Then take your favorite story that you really love and tear it apart and put it on some kind of a plot line, or somehow analyze it and see why it works. Now what that translates to is then you write first drafts that have better structure because you have an innate understanding of story structure.

So even as a brand new writer, what you’ll find is the longer you write, the more you understand story structure. The more, more you become a spoiler at the movie and you need to keep your mouth shut if you wanna stay married. . Yes. And that’s just cause you know what’s gonna happen. Now that doesn’t, for me, that doesn’t take the enjoyment outta the entertainment.

I still wanna see where it’s going and how they’re gonna get there. But I glass onion, man, I had it pegged. I was like, she’s gonna die. Did I say that out loud? No, because my wife was four feet away and she has heavy objects nearby that she could chuck at my head. . So no. But so understand story structure.

Okay, but, and then for Potter, what plotter is it’s a visual tool similar to like note cards on a on a court board. That, but more powerful electronic with tags, ways you can tag them, ways you can filter them, ways you can add more content to them. But don’t start with all of those things. Just start by writing some summaries of what you think you’re gonna write in those steam cards.

And just put all of your ideas in whatever order down on a plot line. Now you’ll see in plotter there are different plot lines down the left-hand side and across the top are chat. You can set it up as being chapters or beats or whatever structure you happen to write in. There are times when I will start something and I will start, like I’m starting a series.

I’ll start with what I call an idea book. And the idea book is just me dumping all of those ideas onto a plotter type plot line, right? And it doesn’t matter what order they’re in. Doesn’t matter if they’re even good ideas or bad ideas. Cause I can sort them later. I just write all of them. And then I can sort through those ideas and determine, is this a problem, that there’s a solution for you?

Is it a conflict? Is this something that needs to happen in the story? Is this one of my ideas that maybe it was late in the afternoon and I’d hit the bottle a little too hard before I was doing this, and it’s just terrible and I need to get rid of it, right? But you just write all those ideas down. So when you’re first starting out, just be free with your ideas.

Allow your creativity to roam. When you get into plotter, there are things you can do. There’s the timeline section where you can do those little note cards, right? There’s an outline

Stephen: section, which I love and that’s super important for me.

Troy: Super important, and especially when you start adding story structure, okay?

But before you even get to story structure ideas, just get your ideas or take the draft that you’ve written as a new writer. You wrote this first draft. You have no idea what it is, and pull it apart scene by scene, and put it on those plot lines and see what it looks like. Because what you’re gonna do with story structure is you’re going to check your work.

So being a full-time writer is like giving yourself English homework every day for the rest of your life, okay? And much like your English homework, you’re going to go back and check your work at some point. And so that’s one of the things that Potter enables you to do, is go back and check with a story structure and see, how did I do?

Does this line up? Do I have an inciting incident? Is there a midpoint to this book? What is it? Does the midpoint come at 75% of the way through the book? Probably a problem is my inciting incident happened way too late. If you’re a new writer, probably you can probably take the first two chapters that you wrote and delete them, and that’ll be a great place to start in editing your draft.

But, and not always. So don’t do that. Just willing. Don’t nobody just right now, go to Word or wherever you’re using and just delete your, no, don’t do that, but . But anyway the point is that what you’re doing is you’re getting yourself distance from your work and looking at it objectively. What do I have?

And then checking my work.

Stephen: And that can be really difficult in and of itself. It’s especially a challenge.

Troy: And so part of this is if you summarize it like you do those summaries, like I’m talking about, you allow yourself distance. You’re not reading the story, you’re reading a summary of what you wrote that day and be honest about what you actually wrote that day.

Be honest with yourself. Don’t try to impress anybody with those scene cards cause we’re never gonna see ’em and we don’t care . So just be honest with yourself about those scene cards and what you’ve actually written and it can enable you to really take a look at your work in a different way. But the other aspect of plotter that’s really important is the notes, characters and settings sections, because the notes section is awesome for research.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a nerd and I do lots of research for my. Sometimes a little too much that I know way too much about how Strict Nine Works or how to actually successfully slit someone’s throat without making a whole lot of noise. Because it’s a very noisy way to kill. Anyway all of that set aside.

Okay, so I put a lot of my research in the notes section so I can refer to it easily, but the characters and settings section not only allows you to capture the information about your characters from this book, but to capture them from an entire series. So you wrote that book back in book One back three years ago, and now you’re in book three and you realize that Susie, who was in Book one should now make a reappear, but you can’t remember what Suzy looks like.

So you go back and you read Book one and then you lament that you ever published it because your writing has approved so much in five years that you are horrified and. But you start to go down this rabbit hole of reading that book and you come out of it and you still don’t know what color Suzy’s eyes were, but you’re in a really bad mood.

So instead, if you have those facts in a series Bible and Potter is one of, I would just say one of the mo, the easiest and best tools to contain that information in, because it’s all in one place. It’s very succinct and you can change it from book to book. There’s all kinds of tips and tricks that you can do with that series Bible.

But having a series Bible is invaluable. I know writers that have written a whole series, then they have some fan that’s a super fan that goes back and actually creates a series Bible for them of the entire series because they can’t write the next book until they reconcile all those different facts and settings and people.

And so if you can keep track of that along the way. It’s going to save you a lot of trouble, time, and trouble. It’s going to save you research, and it’s also just gonna help you to be a better, more organized writer. So what potter’s really about when you boil it down is efficiency. This is the most efficient way to plan your books and to keep track of your characters over a series and to do those things.

It’s about efficiency and effectiveness, really what it’s about.

Stephen: And going along with what you said the plotter, Scribner, any of these tools, I would say to get the most out of it and understand it, you would have to have some writing under your belt. I think a mistake a lot of writers make is they’ll go to conferences, listen to podcasts, and yo know, I’m a beginning writer and I wanna know it all.

And they listen to every podcast, read every magazine in book. I’m like many. I have way too many writing books that I’ve not even read more than a quarter of the way in But to really grasp what it can do for you, you gotta have that experience under your belt already writing some short stories.

In a book or two, even if you just put ’em aside, will help you understand these tools to make your writing even more effective and better. I found that with Plotter, personally using it, the first couple times I used it, I’m like, I don’t know what I’m putting where. And it’s eh, whatever.

Troy: Yeah. And it does help to have some of the experience, and this is also what I call tool procrastination. There are different things that writers do to actually avoid the act of actual writing. Like I’m a writer. What have you written lately? Not much, but I’ve been doing a lot of research on tools and how to write, and I’ve read a lot of books in my genre.

None of those are bad. But you need to be writing like the whole idea is to be writing at a regular time. You need to develop writing habits. Super important. If books and tools start to invade on that time, you need to stop the madness, right? And just don’t do it. So tools, what I say is, first of all, keep things simple.

Kinda like word and script, like you were talking about there, there are tons and tons of features, right? Just because an advanced feature is there, doesn’t mean you have to use it. Doesn’t even mean I have to know how to use it, right? I don’t use the tools in Scribner nearly as much as I used to.

Since I have plotter, I use Scribner in a completely different way than I used to, right? And I don’t use hardly any of those advanced tools, and it didn’t cause me to delete Scribner from my computer, not buy the new version. What it did instead. It enabled me to go, okay, I know that this is here and if I need it, it’s, but most of the time I’m just going to stay in this area right here.

Same thing with plotter. First of all, keep it simple. There’s all kinds of tutorials out there, but one of the first things you can do is just get into it watch the basics tutorial. We have a weekly training and we walk through how the program works, right? Show up at that weekly training.

Learn how the program works at the very basic level, and then go from there. Start simple, keep it easy, and be writing. Don’t be using your tools and your craft books and your studying of story structure to keep you from actually doing the active writing.

Stephen: L learn as you go seems to be a very good method for just about everybody.

Not I know someone will say that didn’t work for me. But it, it’s definitely worked for me and most of the people I talked to use the tool and use what you know about it. If you don’t use everything, don’t stress out and don’t take your time to, oh, I gotta go figure this out and learn this.

If you don’t need it and it’s not helping you right, then you’ll learn it later. You’ll pick it up. Just keep using what you know and works for you at the moment that, oh yeah, that’s worked for me amazingly well.

Troy: Yeah, we have tags in plotter, which, and I’ve seen people, like I saw this gal and she literally had probably 20 categories of tags and you just kept scrolling through all the different tags she has in plotter.

Generally speaking of most of my books, I use six tags. And that’s just because that’s the way I work with the software and the way it works for my mentality and my books. Can you use lots more? Yeah. Can you not use them at all? Yep. You can do that too. Whatever way that you, what that works for you.

And sometimes that massive amount of freedom, and I have all this choice can become overwhelming. So I tell people what you can do is you look at someone whose process you’d right? Friend of yours, whatever. Follow that process. And then you’re going to have a moment that I call the and then moment and people will be like, can I copy your writing process thing?

I’ll tell ’em about my process. They go, can I copy that? I’m like, sure. Because I also know you’re not going to copy that. It’s not going to work for you long term. You’re gonna copy it short term. You’re gonna have your and then moment, and you’re going to adapt my writing process to your writing process by adding the things that work for.

So don’t worry about what someone else is doing, all the different features that you see in there. Just find your process and what writes for you. And again, this is a part of your writing process. This is a writing tool. It’s designed to get you writing and get you finishing that first draft. It’s not about creating the perfect outline in the perfect plot.

It’s about writing that book and getting it out into the world. Yes,

Stephen: and that’s what we gotta remember. The end result is the book. And the book needs to be entertainment. Enjoy. For fiction, entertainment, enjoyable, written well. And it doesn’t matter if you’re using Word or Scribner or you’re writing it long hand.

People, like you said, used to type out a typewriter and have to change whole pages. You need to be able to use the tools effectively to come up with a good story, not depending on the tools to create that good story. You can do it in any way. The tools are. For you to use to make things easier for the writing.

And people shouldn’t be able to tell, oh, they used the Save the cat plot line in plotter when they did this. . They shouldn’t be able to tell that.

Troy: Yeah, no. If they can, you made a mistake. Yes. Because the story now, and this is accepting with the exception of other writers who study story structure and may come to your story and just automatically realize what’s going on.

Oh, that’s a midpoint. No, but most people are not gonna do that. What readers will tell you when you do something wrong in your story is, there’s something wrong here. This does not work. They will not be able to tell you most of the time why it does not work. And this is the purpose of developmental editors and other people that look at your work before it goes out into the world, is they can tell you why.

The reader can’t tell you why. The reader just goes, I’d like that book until chapter four, and then something went wrong. That’s so it, it is important to understand that like those story structures are there as a guideline. People will go, oh, my inciting instance is supposed to happen at 12.5%.

I have 72,000 words in my book, and they start doing math. No, stop the madness. If you’re close, you are good, right? If you’re somewhere, you have a 70,000 word book and you’re somewhere between eight and 12,000 words, when you’re inciting, instant happens, good to go relax. This is a story. Let it happen. So don’t get caught up on the story structure to such a point that it takes the creativity and the joy out of your story and turns it into a formula.

Yes. That’s why we don’t use X Excel. We aren’t dealing with formulas. We’re dealing. You say

Stephen: that, but I knew somebody in a business situation that used Excel to write their correspondence notes to people. They’d write in one cell, print it out, and it would print 63 pages of blank pages, and they’d take the one that got printed on to send it and put the rest back in the thing.

So yes,

Troy: Uhhuh , I’ve seen people do that. I’ve seen people plan books in, in Excel too. And so now this is, if you use that, don’t worry. Like I’m not dissing on you or anything because there are methods at work in Excel, right? What I mean is by that, more than that is you’re not doing math, you’re not doing formulas like that.

If you are a general word count in the range, you’re good. It’s let’s think about the story and what’s happening there as well. Because the reason we love stories as people is because they’re different, because they’re entertaining, because they take us to a different place. Because you do things differently in your unique voice.

So don’t get hung up. Don’t just relax. Relax. Yep. This is fun. Primarily. This is

Stephen: fun. Don’t let the tools control you. Yeah. Which is another reason to use ’em when you have a little bit of experience writing so you feel more comfortable. Troy, coming up what are some things that are, that you can share with us that are coming up with plotter that may be of interest to people?

So

Troy: there’s actually some really cool features coming up. So we just released cha characters by book, which is a really cool feature that allows you to modify your characters as they move through a series. But we do have some more advanced world building is one of the things I’m really excited about in that we have notes, characters, and settings, but we’re gonna add more to that where you can add, if you’re writing a fantasy, you can add objects and you can, because it enables you to develop the software, enables you to develop those relationships between those and a character and that type of thing.

Or if you have a magic system, there’ll be more, an easier way for you to encompass that as part of your plotter notes that you can refer to on a regular basis. One of the other ones that’s really cool is we have a chronological timeline thing coming that’s so for historical writers, you can have one timeline that’s this is the order that things actually happened in history.

And then here is your story so that you can refer to those two things. It’s been something that’s been on our radar for a while. Historical writers and even even for me, some of my books, like there’s a definite timeline. Like it’s not historical, but there’s a definite timeline that I can see the value of creating a chronological timeline of what actually happens in real time.

And then if you’re having flashbacks and stuff, what actually happens in your story? And tying those two things together and making sure that they match up. So that’s one of the things I’m most excited about. There’s other little fixes coming up. We have actually have an act structure that allows you, instead of just having the chapters across the top, you can have acts and scenes within the chapters and things like that.

And that’s another thing, like I’ve seen the beta of that. It’s coming out of beta very soon, and it’s super cool and it’s gonna be super useful.

Stephen: Wow. Cool. I love the chronological timeline thing cause I had this idea for a story that, to, that when you’re reading the story it didn’t happen chronologically.

It was like snippets of time. But the main character. It what showed his progression to the dark side, essentially anger and all that. But they didn’t happen in chronologic order. So I was trying to wrap my head around how to accomplish that and not miss things and make it oh, look at the, all the plot holes,

Yeah. And I think it was way beyond my skill, but I loved the concept of doing that well.

Troy: Yeah. And it you know what, it’s interesting you said that like it was way beyond your skill, but perhaps with the proper tools and as you’ve developed your skill further, that story can become a reality. Like teaching moments is a story I had an idea for really a long time ago, but I really didn’t have the ability to write a dual plot story and have it work super well until.

I had the right tools and the right experience to do that. And so the, you make an absolutely great point there in accidentally in talking about the chronological timeline, about the right tools and the right skill level to pull something off. And sometimes having that tool is that’s all the extra spark that you need.

You’ve already got the ability well enough by now, but you go, man if I had that, it would make it that much easier. And sometimes that little thing is all that you need.

Stephen: I like that. And I do that you use the tools you’re talking about. And I think most of the. Author tool services out there, they do use it.

That’s not true everywhere about everything. I’ve been in the computer and tech world a long time and talked to people that it’s you developed this and you’re trying to sell it, but it’s not running on your computer right there, . It’s yeah. So I love that.

Most

Troy: of our developers are writers. Most of our customer service people are also writers our support people. So like most of the people in the company are either writers or aspiring writers. And and the first one to create the product was Cameron Sutter, who created it for his own writing.

That was the purpose of the software. And then as he showed it to people, and I was one of those people that, one of the first people to see it, like out in the. And went, whoa. Hey, wait a minute. That is a game changer. And it, of course it has developed a ton since that initial time. The first time I downloaded it in 2017 and nobody knew what plotter was.

To now is a huge difference in the different features that we have, but most of those features came about from writers who went to our website and said, Hey, you know what would be great if this was in plotter and it did this? And we went, huh, you know what? You’re right. And so we we added that to our roadmap and stuff like that.

Nice. So you can go suggest features, vote on things in the roadmap and that you think would be a great thing to have in plotter. But the primary point is this is a software created by writers for writers. We know what you’re going through, we know what you want. And sometimes I can see an idea and I go I might never use that feature, but I can see the value that would have for other writers.

And that’s what that’s. One of the ways that we’re able to do things that other software doesn’t always do because we really are listening to our users and what they

Stephen: need. Great. I like that too. I know I’ve been in communication with Dave Chessen about Publisher Rocket at times and gotten direct feedback from him on some suggestions and problems and things.

So I love that you guys are like that. I think there are a few companies out there that aren’t like that and those are okay. Good software. But it’s nice to have companies that understand and are down in the trenches, so to say.

Troy: Exactly. Dave Justin’s a great example.

Atticus is a great example. Like that software is being shaped by writers and editors who are using it and saying, Hey Dave, hey team, these are some things that would be great if you could incorporate this into your software. And their team is going, you know what? You’re right. This is something we could definitely do.

Stephen: And that’s another software that has had a lot of changes since it came out too. Yeah. Troy, I told you, oh, it’d be about 15 to 20 minutes each half, and here we are, an hour and 10 minutes into it, . So we’ve got a great conversation. It’s been really fun talking to you.

Hopefully I’ll run India at a conference somewhere and we could share that beer and enjoy some stories. You

Troy: betcha. Sounds fantastic,

Stephen: man. Before I let you go could you give some advice to the new writers out there besides all the great advice we’ve already discussed, do you have any like last minute advice you could give them?

Troy: My primary advice to you is just find your own path. Be who you are. There are people that will be hobbyist writers forever, and there’s nothing wrong with that. And there are people that will be publishing giants eventually, and there’s nothing wrong with that. And there’s nothing wrong with having the aspiration for each.

Find your own path and your own. There’s so many ways you can go with writing today but just stay true to yourself. Writing for a living is one of the most amazing and most awful jobs you will ever have, and both are true at the exact same time. And so I just wanna tell you have fun. That’s what this whole thing is about, is have fun and find your own way.

And if you become that publishing mogul, or even if you just write a first draft, come and see me at a conference or something like that, I’d love to talk to you about it.

Stephen: So speaking of I said I’d let you go, but hold on. Are there any conferences or conventions or anywhere that you or some other plotter team will be that people could come up and meet you and learn more and check things out?

Troy: So I’ll be at, actually be at l t e in Utah next week. But, and I go to that conference almost every year, but next year I may not. I’ve been invited to a conference in New Orleans at exactly the same time, which is really interesting. But we’re at a lot of different conferences. We’re a lot of online conferences, a lot of other conferences.

We’ll be, definitely be at 20 books every year. We’re at 20 books to 5K in Vegas. One of my favorite conferences of all time Go every single year. You’ll see somebody from Plotter, maybe me at n if you’re part of that organization. And we’re at all kinds of different conferences and we’re planning to be at more as much as we possibly.

Stephen: Okay, great. We’ll look for you. I’ll see about what’s coming up and put a few links in the show notes for people if they wanna check it out and link to the website so they can check out plotter. Definitely get that. Yep. Plotter

Troy: plotter.com. Plotter without an E and that’ll get to there.

Or Google us, you’ll find our YouTube channel. Our, we have a Facebook group that’s super active and we can answer all kinds of your questions. You can find us in all kinds of places we’re not hiding at all. Great. All right, Troy. I appreciate you taking so much time and chatting with me today.

Stephen: You have a great rest of your day.

Troy: You betcha. Thank you. Have a wonderful day.