A graduate of The Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars and the University of Arizona, she studied playwriting with Edward Albee and poetry with Peter Sacks, Carolyn Kizer and Joy Harjo.

You can find out more about Kerrie and find her books at KerrieDroban.com

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TRANSCRIPTION STARTS HERE:

Kat

Welcome back to the show, everybody. Today I have with me a true crime author. I think this is my first one on the show. Kerrie Droban. How are you doing, Kerrie?

Kerrie

I’m really great. Thanks for having me on, Kat.

Kat

Well, thanks for coming on because this is a whole different kind of writing than somebody that I’ve talked to before. But before we get into your latest book, Aurora, tell us a little bit about yourself, where you’re from and yeah, then we’ll go from there.

Kerrie

OK, well, my name is Kerry Droban in and I am a criminal defense attorney and a true crime author. It’s hard to answer the question where I’m from because I actually grew up overseas, but I went to college in New York and Baltimore and then eventually I came out to Arizona. I loved school, kept being in school until I realized that I couldn’t make it a career.

Kat

Well, my daughter has decided she wants to be a lawyer. And I was like, you better really like school.

Kerrie

Yes, I know. I was a nerd. I really loved school.

Kat

Did law come first? Did you want to study law when you were younger?

Kerrie

No, I actually have always been a writer. From the time I was seven years old, I asked my parents for a typewriter because I’m one of those very tactile writers. I really want to be able to feel the keys under my fingers and at the time, of course, computers weren’t around. And so I taught myself how to type, and I would write stories and illustrate them. And I still have them all. But then I went on to study poetry. Poetry really became my thing, and I spent several years writing poetry and studying it and getting MFAs in it, and I really wanted to teach it for a long time. I want to be a creative writing professor, but I could not eat as a poet, so sadly, I abandoned that. And then I wrote a couple of novels, and it was really around, I was really literally the starving artist when I was writing, and that’s the other recession hit. And then I really kind of was up against the wall, like, how am I going to support myself? And so I went to law school, really as a vehicle to kind of give me, this sounds crazy, to give me the time to write. Really crazy, right? Yeah, because being a starving artist was so stressful, and after a while it was so distracting because it was all I ever thought about was how was I going to eat? Where’s my next meal coming from? How am I going to support myself? And it became so distracting. I really couldn’t write very well. So law, seems like a very solid career path. It was one of the few degrees that I got, where I knew there would be light at the end of the tunnel. So I’d actually have a job that I could eat. Actually, ever since, it’s been a vehicle to fund my writing career, which is very backwards, but that’s kind of how it happened.

Kat

Yeah, but I mean, it is kind of like, I think that gives hope to a lot of people. There are a lot of full-time workers who write as well. But I like what you said, it also kind of fuels the writing, not only monetarily, but I’m sure idea wise. You’re out there, you’re a criminal defense attorney. You must see and hear and learn about some crazy things in the world.

Kerrie

Yeah, well, interestingly enough, I did not even have an idea what kind of law I was going to get into. I really just did it very unsystematically. And law school to me was I knew I was good at school, I was a good student and I loved learning and I loved debate, I was on the debate team in college, and I did a lot of acting. And so for me, it was a great vehicle to kind of marry them all. But when I was in law school, I realized that I really liked trial work, because trial work is very similar to telling a story. You have the opportunity to be in front of juries and tell a story and craft it, but of course with the facts. And so it was very challenging for me to have bad facts and be able to make an argument or make a story. So that was really what got me into the trial portion of it. So I wasn’t even thinking of true crime. It wasn’t even on my radar when I first went to law school. And I started as a prosecutor, okay, some people say I was on the good side.

Kat

But then things happen. Like, you know, what happened in Washington State when they put this guy in jail for no reason. So you never know. So when you said that you were writing poetry before and then you had written novels or you had started writing novels, they weren’t true crime in the beginning?

Kerrie

They were not actually crimes in another crazy way. So for anyone listening, there does not have to be a direct route. Yes. I mean, poetry was always my passion, my first love. But then when I became a lawyer, first couple of years as a prosecutor, I really missed writing. And I was so steeped in how to be a lawyer. Law school was very time consuming. My first job as a prosecutor is very time consuming, was always being thrown into trial. And I was invited to a writers group by a neighbor of mine who happened to mention that I like to write, had never written a novel before either. And so I went to this writer’s group and I thought, wow, I think I can do that. And so I started to write my first novel and it was called In the Company of Darkness. And it was a novel about a prosecutor who was investigating a case. And at the time, I was living in a home that had been infested with black widows. And so I started to write a story about a prosecutor investigating somebody who was trying to find a cure for black widow bites. It was a crazy story, but it wound up being a suspense thriller. So I thought, well, that’s what I want to write. That really kind of exciting and it’s kind of weaving in my experience. Everybody says, write what you know. That’s where I started. And it took me a year.

Kat

That’s not bad.

Kerrie

Yeah, I approached writing very much like a job from the very beginning, and that has served me very well because I have never been one to put an excuse on something. It was always a passion was always what I wanted to do. And so I made it a habit. And so I said to myself, there are 365 days in a year. An average book is about 350 pages. So I’m going to get up every day and I’m going to write something. And I had a finite amount of time to write because I had to become a lawyer. So I made it a habit. I started to train myself to get up at 05:00 in the morning, and pretty soon it became 04:00 in the morning.

Kat

Oh my goodness.

Kerrie

And I found my rhythm. And that’s really important to find your rhythm, like what’s going to work for you? And for me, I would write. I would write every day from 4 a.m. To about 7, and then I could be a lawyer. And so at the end of the year, I had a book.

Kat

So when you were writing for those 3 hours, did that include investigating or just sort of writing and throw away? How did that well, I guess eventually, once you’re really awake and you set up, what did those 3 hours encompass for a full-time worker?

Kerrie

Well, when I first started doing it, I really felt like an imposter, because like what in the hell am I doing? I would sit there and sometimes at the end of 3 hours, I would write two sentences and I would get very discouraged. But I didn’t stop. And that was the big thing for me, was do not give up, do not stop, I can do this. And I’d really never written a novel before, but I was a reader and so I really was trying to find my style and find myself. And so it was very, very challenging. And so writing fiction, a lot of it involved research. So you’re right, as I started to write, I realized that I didn’t know what I was writing until I started researching. And some of it, of course, was drawing on personal experience, so I didn’t have to go try to watch or find the case, I knew, stuff like that. But the book kind of took on a life of its own and I wound up having to research a lot more than I had planned. And thank God for the internet, that’s what my research was. I would still sit there. And so when I wasn’t getting ideas, I would research. But no matter what it was, I committed myself to those 3 hours. So I was either going to research for 3 hours or I was going to write two sentences and research whatever it was. And so pretty soon, the more that I had, the more information I had about the subject I was trying to write about, the easier it came to write. But I’m not an outliner, I don’t even know what I’m going to say until I start writing kind of thing.

Kat

But I like how you say you didn’t really give up on those hours, because I think the temptation is to be like, well, I don’t have it in me today. I’m going to go down and make myself some breakfast and take the dog out and maybe I’ll go exercise and maybe I’ll check my, now we have our phone. So it’s just terrible, all the distractions. But you really kept it, like whether or not you were writing, those were your writing hours. Like telling your brain, no, really, that self discipline is amazing, I have to say, but it’s probably good.

Kerrie

Yeah, it was necessary because it was never going to happen otherwise. I would hear a lot of people making excuses and say, I don’t have time. I’ll write when I retire, I’ll write when I’m on vacation. I don’t want to wait. I didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want to give it up because that’s really what I had started doing from a young age and I loved it. It definitely evolved over time. My whole process is a little bit different now, but I still commit to those 3 hours.

Kat

But I do think you already had sort of that background of poetry writing and studying that, so, you knew, it’s like when people say, I’m going to write on vacation. You know, as a writer, whether you’re a poet or not, that’s not going to happen. Because like you said, sometimes you sit down and you realize, oh, I actually need to know, like, how does a black widow bite? Like, does a bite or does it sting? I don’t know. I have to go research that now. So you know that writing isn’t just sitting down and putting words on a page. So yeah, I like how you said, those are the hours. I think our biggest problem these days is readers, is that distraction. But for anyone starting to write, that might be the thing that they need to do, right? Take an hour and you don’t do anything other than sit there.

Kerrie

Yeah, in sometimes, actually, it helped me to write it down in a calendar. I mean, these paper calendars, right? But I would literally schedule it like it was a meeting. And of course it’s 4 in the morning, so you don’t have a lot of distractions at 4 in the morning, but other than you want to go back to sleep. But depending on when a person’s rhythm is, it’s that physical act of writing it down and committing it to paper that makes you keep it, you know, I mean, I’m sure this is I mean, this has happened to me, so maybe it happened to you or you schedule a lunch date with a girlfriend and invariably something else is going to bump it. The lunch date is not that your friend is not as important as other things, but they don’t seem to be as urgent. And so for me, I made it an urgency. So I did not watch that.

Kat

That’s the thing too. As you study habits, and how to change the bad ones that you have. You realize, I’ve read or listened to podcasts and all that. They always say if you put it to the later on in the day, something comes up and it never gets done right. It’s like the gym. You should do it in the morning because you know feel like it later. I can imagine as a lawyer, the last thing you want to do is sit down at 09:00 at night and write. I would assume that you’re spent at that point.

Kerrie

Yeah, and I learned that pretty quickly. My brain is full by the end of the day. I am pretty incoherent. I really knew that I had about 8 hours in me and the law is pretty demanding. And so by the end of 05:00, I roll around. I just wasn’t one of those people that could work late into the night, even if it was preparing for a case. Just didn’t happen. I just knew my best work was going to be before that.

Kat

So your first one was a suspense kind of base, I guess, on what you were experiencing as a new prosecutor, right? And then when did you go into true crime and what is the difference really, for any listener who might not know?

Kerrie

A huge difference. Well, after my first novel, I wrote a second novel and then I was really trying to write, I had written a third novel and I wanted to move up into that level of like, okay, now I need an agent. The first two novels I published with a small press. And then I didn’t have an agent in the third novel, I was shopping for an agent. So I go to writing conferences and I would pitch my third novel. This is probably the precursor to true crime. It’s a pretty disturbing idea. Who knows where this came from? But I was getting the door shut on me a lot. I was sending things out and after a while, this is the other tip I’ll give to your viewers. I kept all of my rejection letters. I had a binder full of rejection letters, like over 300. And the reason I started doing that was not to depress myself, but because I couldn’t remember after a while my query letter here, my proposals here or whatever. And so all I was hearing was my head was being filled with information on the right way to do it. Like, this is what you do, this is the convention, this is, you know so you write your query letter, you send it out, you wait the obligatory six weeks. Maybe they’ll ask for a sample chapter or whatever. So it’s wasting a lot of time. And so it took me like two years of going to writer’s conferences, getting rejected and I was ready to throw in the towel. I was, I was so discouraged. So strangely as I was doing this, I was still a prosecutor. But I was pregnant with my first child, and I did probably the unthinkable because I did not want to be a prosecutor anymore, because I didn’t want to be confined.

Kerrie

I didn’t want to be restricted to a nine to five job. Like, writing was taking more time. I wanted to have flexibility. Really backwards. But I knew that in order to go to writer conferences, in order to do what I really want to do, I needed flexibility. So I’m nine months pregnant, I quit my prosecutor job. My husband at the time was losing his mind, okay? I went out on my own, and I started to do defense work, okay? And my very first criminal defense case out of the gate was a capital case.

Kat

Oh, my god.

Kerrie

Death penalty case. And I happened to be, total serendipity, I happened to be at the right place at the right time. And I had an attorney who said to me, I’m working on a case and I really could use some help. Would you? Cause it was the writing portion. So he wanted me to write the brief for this case or to help him write the brief for this case. And so that’s what launched me into death penalty work and like, representing the worst of the worst and getting into this criminal pathology and really starting to love it and thinking, oh my god, this was the perfect job for me because I got to study the cases. It involved investigation, it involved meeting with these death row inmates, doing interviews. I mean, it was everything that I needed to be able to write true crime. Now, I still didn’t have true crime on my radar at all. So the way that true crime came about was completely by accident, complete fluke. So I should mention that at the time, I was married to an undercover detective. And he was working a task force, okay? So there wasn’t a lot of information that we shared, which is why we are no longer married.

Kat

That’s tough, that’s really tough.

Kerrie

People think, oh, you’re in the perfect deal. You had an undercover detective. You have all this information. No, not like that at all, because we didn’t speak about our work at home or anything. That was our rule. Do not bring work home. So I knew that he was involved in a task force. And the PS to that is actually quite funny later on, but the operatives who are involved in that task force, they wanted to write their story, okay? And they couldn’t write it, while they were still involved in investigation, because it’s a crime to do that. So they approached me and asked me if I would be willing to write their story, under certain circumstances. Now, the story involved the first ever infiltration of the Hells Angels.

Kat

Yes. Oh my gosh!

Kerrie

I know. And so my first reaction was, no.

Kat

I have a child. No.

Kerrie

Yeah. I’m like, no. Hell no. I’m not doing this. And they said, but you’re the perfect person to write it. You can hold our secret. You’re an attorney. I’m like, no, not doing it. And so by the third time and it’s because I was having all this trouble publishing my third novel, by the third time, I said yes. I mean, I could hear the word coming out of my mouth and my brain saying, what’s the matter with you? You know? So I took a tremendous risk, and I said yes. Now, here was the caveat to this. So I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have a mentor. I had never written true crime before. I didn’t have an agent. Like the publisher that I had for my novels certainly wasn’t going to publish this. But it was an extraordinary story. It was the first of its kind. And by the way, if I did get lucky enough to get an agent, there’s nothing in writing, I could have nothing in writing. Okay. So that was my tall order with this book, and there was nothing written on it. So everything that I had to get the story was interviews.

Kat

With just them? Oh, my god.

Kerrie

With operatives who were undercover, who could not be identified. I had to hold their secrets and Hells Angel. Okay. And this operation was still going on. So conceivably, I could have been disbarred, and my writing career over before it even began. That’s what the stakes were when I took this project on.

Kat

Oh, my god.

Kerrie

Yeah. So the way that I did it and keep in mind that I had it kind of railroaded it into my head, this is how you do this. You send a query letter off you wait. I couldn’t do that with this project because nothing could be in writing. So that began this journey of trying to find somebody who had written something similar, and I wanted to find that person’s agent.

Kat

Okay, that’s a good idea.

Kerrie

Yeah. So I read things like Donnie Brasco, Levine’s Book, The White Lie. I mean, all of these things I had to do with undercover investigations and so and that’s what I did. So I found that person’s agent, and instead of writing the letter, I called him up.

Kat

Which is like a no, no.

Kerrie

I mean, I just did. I’m flipping everything on its head. This is also for your listeners. Sometimes you can go out, you can color outside the line. Because there is not one way to do everything. And I had nobody to ask. I mean, there was no one I knew that was a true crime writer. So I called up this agent at lunch, because that’s what lawyers do. We always get people at their desk at lunchtime, you know? And I remember making that phone call, and I could hear the agent. He was eating lunch, and he was eating a sandwich, and I could hear him chewing on the other end. And I said, my name is Kerrie Droban, and I know you’re probably going to find this crazy, but here’s what’s going on, I have a story. And so I pitched the story and I thought, you know, sometimes for me, it’s better to not have practiced something because I wanted it to be natural. And part of me was actually hoping he would…

Kat

He would say no?

Kerrie

I would go back to the operators and say, sorry, I’m the wrong person. Go do this yourself. But the funny reaction was is that the agent actually laughed and he said, I think I can sell your story. So it was nuts. And so I had nothing in writing. I don’t even know how the agent sold the story, honestly, but he still… before anything was written.

Kat

Wow.

Kerrie

Yeah.

Kat

Oh, my gosh.

Kerrie

Yes, it was nuts. That book eventually became Running with the Devil.

Kat

Right, Running with the Devil: the True Story of the ATF’s Infiltration of the Arizona Hells Angel. You can’t use their names. A true crime, how true? How much do you have to stick to the story into only the words that, you know, people have said or things like that? What are the rules, or are there any rules about true crime?

Kerrie

Well, for me, because I have the novel background and the writing background, I’m always looking for the story. And so I approached it the way I would approach a trial case. How am I supposed to tell the story here? But the story has to be true. And the reason it has to be true is I don’t want to be sued.

Kat

Okay. That’s a big one.

Kerrie

Right? So for me, accuracy was extremely important. Because a lot of it was interviews, most of it was interviews. You have to keep in mind some of them are confidential informants, so I couldn’t even use that. So I had the skeleton, the structure of the investigation itself, like the case itself, okay. But I didn’t have a trial because nothing had gone to trial yet. So I didn’t have any testimony, right? And there wasn’t like, books out there. I couldn’t go out and cooberate, the Hells Angels or whatever. So all I had was interviews with these sources, and I had some confidential memorandum that one of the case agent had obtained from me. And so because I was terrified about blowing this big investigation, I actually got involved and I put this information in a vault. And I thought, I can be subpoenaed, if it goes to trial, I’m going to be subpoenaed. This information is really important. So my whole thing is in fact, throughout my whole true crime career has been accuracy is key. The number one, like being a journalist, because I don’t want to be saying something, writing something that is not true and that I cannot back up with a source. But at the same time, like a journalist, I can’t reveal my sources either. So a lot of that I was learning as I was going. And during the writing of this book, the thing that I learned very quickly on, is very instinctual, I think, was get the information fast. As my sources went south. They got cold feet, and so midway through the project, they disappeared. I had all the information that I needed to write the book, and I had to make a decision whether I was going to write the book or not. And so I went ahead and wrote it, not knowing what was going to happen because the investigation had ended. So I had the ending of the investigation, but the prosecution was about to start. So here’s the PS to this, ready? Unbeknownst to me, my ex-husband was working on a piece of that undercover investigation.

Kat

Oh, man.

Kerrie

So as I’m struggling with do I, don’t I, the publisher has decided that they have this brilliant idea that they were going to put the Hells Angels logo, which is the Death’s Head, on the book cover. And it’s a trademarked copyrighted Death’s Head. And it’s on their cuts, it’s on everything that they have. And you can’t just take this and use it in the book world. So I was horrified when I saw the cover, absolutely horrified.

Kat

They hadn’t thought that it would…?

Kerrie

No they hadn’t thought about it. I mean, there’s so many stories with this. And by the way, I do have a writing workshop on my website which is kerriedroban.com.

Kat

I will never be able to do.

Kerrie

I go into a lot of detail on all of my books. Every one of my books has been an interesting backstory, because it is really challenging to navigate this world, not only the subculture of the Hells Angels, but the operatives who didn’t want to be outed. And I couldn’t help them. PS to all of this, while I’m really concerned about keeping everybody’s identities hidden, my ex-husband comes home the night before it’s supposed to be prosecuted, and he says, we’ve been outed in a grand jury indictment, so our last name is outed. And he goes, we have to move. Oh, no. So the terror of all of this is really scary at times. I had no idea what I was doing. I had a family now. I mean, I was just, like, freaking out. So we did we wound up moving, and I had to make a decision whether or not I was going to move forward with this book, with all of the repercussions in it. And I thought, I just spent a couple of years of my life invested in this, and I cannot not do this because I’m a writer first, attorney second. I was throwing it all on the table. And the indictments of the Hells Angels, all 16 of them, got dismissed. So there was no trial.

Kat

Oh, no.

Kerrie

The US. Attorney’s office dismissed the cases, so my book could then it was like almost divine intervention. Like, the book had a license now to go out into the world and these operatives can have their stories told. And I think that’s what really started this whole path of like, being a voice for people that can’t speak or won’t speak. But their stories are so compelling. They need to be told.

Kat

They didn’t even get a trial for their story. They didn’t have anything. Without the book, it would have just disappeared all their years of work. Wow, that’s got to feel pretty good, to have then accepted that job and to be able to tell that story, that would have been lost.

Kerrie

Actually, I felt very privileged to be able to tell that story. The main operative in the case went on to write his own story and has gone on to be able to tell it in the way that he wanted to tell it. Which I think also was really great. Because now you’ve got two versions of the same story and so they really cooperated and kind of dovetailed in with each other and they were told in different ways. So that’s another interesting thing from a writer’s perspective, the same story. It’s kind of like so many writers have written about Kennedy, but each time they write about it, it’s got a new and different perspective to it. I think a lot of people are worried about that sometimes. But can I write a story that is so heavily in the news or heavily profiled? Yes, you can. Because your voice is different.

Kat

Yeah, absolutely. So as you’re doing criminal defense and you are seeing like you’re delving into death penalty work and seeing sort of people in situations that I don’t think a lot of people in the world would be able to handle, very heavy things, and you’re writing very heavy things. How did you come to, I guess, continue on? Was it just love for writing and getting people’s stories out? Because it just seems like a lot of heavy work that you’re trying to do.

Kerrie

Work. Yeah. Honestly, after writing Running with the Devil, I thought I was done. It was so overwhelming. I was exhausted and I was, I think in a really crazy way, like almost traumatized by the whole experience.

Kat

I would be. Yeah.

Kerrie

Plus it took a serious toll on my marriage and I really took some time to sort of figure out what’s my next path here. And I was in law, so I couldn’t really switch gears. I already switched gears. So now I’m like, it depends where I’m doing this, I’m in it. And I really still found that work fascinating and, you know, paying the bills. So my ex said to me, don’t be surprised if somebody from a rival gang approaches you and asks you to write their story. And that’s exactly what happened. Yes. Running with the Devil, the Hells Angels launched my career, because the next book that came my way was The Story of the Pagans. And they’re another one of the Big Five outlaw motorcycle gangs. Now I’m in this niche, right? I don’t even ride a motorcycle. I know nothing about motorcycles at this point. And so I’ve now become like I’ve been positioned as this person who has a bird’s-eye view into this subculture, which is crazy. So, yeah. So I wound up writing Prodigal Father, Pagan Son about a, he’s not a kid anymore, but at the time he was a kid, who had grown up in an organized crime family. His father was the head of the Pagans, and he was recruited by his father’s nemesis to murder his father.

Kat

Oh, my god.

Kerrie

Yeah. This is real. It was a crazy, honestly, with the exception of Aurora, I think that book really hit home for me in a lot of ways.

Kat

Sounds crazy.

Kerrie

In his head writing his point of view, and I had to really, really get to know him.

Kat

He’s the one that wanted the book written.

Kerrie

Yeah. He called me up. He was sitting in his car and he said, I have read Running with the Devil, and I want you to write my story. And he lived in Philadelphia. So here I already have these hours, four to seven. So my writing, what I did with writing changed because I used that time to talk to him, and we talked for two years before I flew him out to Arizona. When I can meet him, because I needed to meet him face-to-face, I had to have that, sort of visceral, like, let me meet you so I can write a story. That was an extraordinary experience. It was a very moving experience, I think, for the both of us. We still keep in touch. Very powerful book, and that one launched the next one. So each person out there found, like, they found me. So I wound up writing about the Big Five biker gangs, and then I had positioned myself as sort of a biker expert.

Kat

Yeah, I would assume so after talking. Wow, it’s so interesting to me. Everyone has a story and to think that there wasn’t somebody out there, almost like they felt like there wasn’t somebody willing to write their story. I would assume a lot of us, sort of, that’s like the edge of society. Most of us don’t really understand or know what to do with that. And so that’s so cool that even your husband, your ex-husband, would think that they would call you. But it makes sense. It’s like, here’s somebody who’s not going to judge me or belittle me or push me to the side or think that my story doesn’t matter, because it does matter. That’s just an incredible thing to have happened.

Kerrie

It really was. And I’m very grateful for it every day. I never forget that, that I am a conduit for somebody else’s story, because for whatever reason, they’re either living undercover or they’re under the thumb of a biker gang or they you know, there’s something about what they’re trying to say that they need to be heard. Sometimes it just amazes me that I’m able to do this for them, and it’s really changed a lot of their lives. I mean, it really, truly has. Like this Prodigal Father, Pagan Son. He wound up going to Australia, to tour in Australia. He got foreign rights, and the publisher flew him out there. He’d never been on an airplane before. He’d never been on radio station. Suddenly he was important and somebody that people would hear his story. So I think, really, it’s such a powerful thing to be able to do. That’s why I think writers have just an incredible skill to be able to transform an experience or story, whether it’s fiction or true. In a way it’s very compelling.

Kat

Yeah, that’s amazing. And it’s definitely I mean, there are lots of people out there with stories, so anybody who’s especially into true, but knows how to write the narrative, like you said, storytelling, I think, always helps. But then so you wrote these different motorcycle gang, true crime, true stories. How did Aurora come about?

Kerrie

Yeah, I know. I write the 1% of true crime, right? I’m the 1% of biker gangs. I write the 1% of true crime that most people don’t even touch because it’s too crazy. Like, there’s not any crime. But I had written one regular crime about a bombing in Tucson, and so I had that ability to write in that style as well. There’s trial, and there’s, like, sociopaths I can deal with. And Aurora was complete luck again, because I was looking for an agent, and I was actually trying to pitch a completely different book at the time. And every time you finish a book, you always wonder, is this going to be my last book? Are really going to ever ask me to write another story? Right? And the agent happens to have Aurora come across your desk, and they needed a writer.

Kat

Somebody pitched the story without a writer.

Kerrie

Yes, they pitched it. The crazy thing is, there had been a gag order on the psychiatrist. So for people who don’t know what Aurora is, it’s about the mass shooter, James Holmes, who went into a Colorado movie theater during the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises and slaughtered 12 and critically wounded 72 others, but the story was also about his treating psychiatrist who saw him in the six sessions before he amassed this arsenal and committed outrageous crime. So she had been under a gag order for three years. The judge was a public trial, and the judge said, you cannot talk about this, everything was sealed. And he lifted that gag order. When he lifted it, all the documents were accessible, became public record. They’d never before been released, and the psychiatrist could tell her story. So it’s a very similar kind of thing. She had been silenced and really really wanted to say, this is what happened. This is why I couldn’t stop him. And the whole time that she was gagged, people were attributing things to her. They were demonizing her. They were threatening to kill her because she had not stopped this mass shooter. And so it was a fascinating case, not only because out of two perspectives, so I had everything about James Holmes that she didn’t know, that she couldn’t have known, right? But that was happening simultaneous to her treating him. So Aurora is this incredibly interesting, informative, like, bird’s-eye view into the life cycle of a mass shooter. And it’s never before been accessible. I mean, now we’ve had 37 mass shootings this year, which is really extraordinary. But at the time, in 2012, james Holmes was the first mass shooter to have intentionally survived his killing. He wanted to survive it. So he was a neurosciences doctoral student. He was brilliant. And he was in the university neurosciences program, being mentored with professors in some of the most, like, brilliant minds of the country. And the psychiatrist was also, like, in the top 1% of her profession, studying this. So here you’ve got this perfect storm, okay. And nobody saw it. And she, the psychiatrist, her name is Dr. Fenton, she actually taught a class in mass shooting. So, like, she was the perfect person that was poised to be able to spot this, right? If she could have spot it. And so the whole message behind this is, if you want to know how to spot a killer, read Aurora and find out that you can’t.

Kat

You can’t. That’s kind of heartbreaking.

Kerrie

It’s heartbreaking, but it’s also I mean, so not only do you have James Holmes as the only person to intentionally survive a shooting at the time, but you also have Dr. Lynne Fenton, his treating psychiatrist, who’s never had that before. She’s the only psychiatrist in the history of psychiatrists to have ever been outed publicly. So she had such a burden on her shoulder, so she decided to be the voice for this. And so she put herself at great personal risk to come out of hiding. Her whole life had been destroyed, as many lives were. And that’s part of the book too, which is the ripple effect of trauma. And just as a PS for that, it traumatized me too, as the writer. I mean, that book, beyond any other book, really took a long time for me to recover from it. I mean, I don’t think I ever really will recover from it, but there were scenes in that book where I would just be sobbing as I was writing it, because it’s like the first time that you not only get insight into what this mass shooter had planned, but just the methodology he went, how he amassed his arsenal, the intention behind it. But you also get what happened with the defense lawyers who represented him. So this was very interesting. It was sort of life imitating art, you know, because I had represented so many evil people. And, you know, my job was really to save them. Just like Dr. Fenton’s job, right? To do no harm. I mean, you’re a psychiatrist. You’re wanting to help people. As a defense lawyer, you’re wanting to help people. You’re wanting to see their redemption in people that other people see as monsters. So it was a very interesting sort of like, wow, you know, here’s this woman who I can really relate to, and here are these defense lawyers that I can really relate to. And what happened to them. And many of them, this was a career-ending case for them. They couldn’t go on. And the other really fascinating thing for me as a defense lawyer is we’re not allowed to interview jurors in penalty cases. There are certain rules that are in place for that because, you know, and I think for good reason. I mean, jurors don’t want to be you don’t want to have a chilling effect on your jury. You don’t want to be able to broadcast, hey, this is what happens to them, so that the next capital case that comes around. You have now tainted a pool of jurors. As a writer, I could talk to jurors. And that was very interesting because I had an insight into how these cases impact jurors and it gave me a whole new sensitivity toward it. James Holmes didn’t get the death penalty.

Kat

Is it not in Colorado?

Kerrie

No, they had it in Colorado. But one juror held out. He got life. He got the longest sentence in US. History. He got over 3000 years.

Kat

Was he trying to get the death penalty? Why did he want to stay alive?

Kerrie

He wanted to stay alive because he wanted people to study his brain.

Kat

No way.

Kerrie

He actually produced a notebook that he mailed to the psychiatrist on the night of the shooting. And the notebook, I mean, Dr. Fenton never saw this notebook until recently. But the notebook really outlined his methodical plan to murder. It was fascinating. In the notebook, he has several pages, that just have one word, ‘why’. And the word why gets bigger and bigger and bigger as the pages turn. And I think he was very himself, very troubled and conflicted as to, because he had fantasies of killing people from the time he was a child. So it’s a really disturbing book on a lot of levels, but it’s also really insightful because people always want to I think it’s human nature to want to point a finger at somebody and blame somebody. If you had done XYZ, this wouldn’t have happened because it’s such a senseless, horrific crime and you want to be able to have some kind of vindication. But I think that really what is most helpful in maybe prevention of these, is not mental health, ironically. Because, a lot of these individuals that commit mass shootings do not go to psychiatrists.

Kat

Or they don’t tell them the truth.

Kerrie

They don’t. James Holmes, it was an aberration that he wound up there, and he wound up seeing Dr. Fenton for a completely different reason, wasn’t because he had thoughts of killing people. So mental health is great for the ripple effect, for the people in communities. This is not going to stop in most of these cases, it’s not going to stop a shooter. And so I think what really this book says is it’s pretty impossible to spot a killer. But there are some common denominators. They’re mostly young men between ages of 18 and 24. And if we had more laws, like red flag laws and things where people felt like they could identify a problem without a repercussions. And I think that’s the biggest issue is that people are afraid to come forward and say, hey, I think this person is really trouble. They’re posting things on social media where they’re in my English class and they’re sending me very disturbing essays, and I think we should take a closer look. But the problem now is that a lot of those individuals are afraid to come forward because they don’t want to be wrong.

Kat

Yes. Isn’t that a terrible ripple effect? We don’t want to get involved in other people’s lives because if you’re wrong, there’s a different ripple effect, right? So we just all wait and then like you said, we point the finger. But I think this is a really important book because we all talk about how we need to try to understand something. But this has a perspective of so many different people and what can we do? And what can’t we do? And maybe the change of the conversation, the change that needs to happen, instead of just feel like America sometimes just talks in circles.

Kerrie

Yes. It’s rhetoric, and we don’t need rhetoric, clear cut answers like, what can we actually do about it?

Kat

It’s not just saving their lives, the 12 people or the 72 that got hurt, but his. Like, if you could help somebody not commit that, that is saving their life. He’s going to die in jail.

Kerrie

He himself is tortured by it. Yeah, it’s really interesting. Mass shootings are an epidemic now. And I know people are grasping at straws and they’re having this, but I think you’re right. It is a conversation that needs to continue, and it needs to expand, and it needs to not be so, you know, forgive the pun, but shooting from the hip. You don’t want to just say, this is the catch all to solve the problem, because it’s a very complicated issue. I really applaud Dr. Fenton for the courage to come forward and say, this is what happened to me. This is my story. And I really hope that with this story, this telling, we can continue the conversation.

Kat

Right. Right. I think it’s a very it’s very important also for the American public to understand what people know and what they don’t know. Like, what do jurors know? Because we tend to assume a lot. I mean, it’s terrible that she got death threats. She’s not responsible for another person’s motives or actions. But like you said, we just were trying to find a reason and being able to tell the story. That’s wonderful that the judge allowed her to do that because I wonder how many stories are under gag orders and they can’t say anything and they just have to live in silence.

Kerrie

Yeah, I think many more than we care to really pay attention to. I also applaud the judge in this case for allowing it to be publicized. He also was part of that conversation and changing it and saying, look, we have a chance here. Somebody actually survived this mass shooting to delve into his brain, into his psyche and find out was he an American Psycho or was there something else going on? Here’s Dr. Fenton, who’s in a listening profession, and here she is confronted with what she actually describes as the presence of evil. And so it’s so conflicting for her as somebody who has sworn to do no harm. She’s there to help people. She’s there to really dig deep to find out what’s going on. And she really did go above and beyond to try to get help for him. I mean, she violated HIPAA to find out was this thing that was happening to him something that was recent or was it provoked by something? Was he always this way? She reached out to his mother. I mean, these are things that psychiatrists don’t do, right? She saw a need and just went above and beyond and was completely crucified for it.

Kat

I’m so glad that she gets to tell her story. Not to make it completely different. But I am very, I guess, perturbed by the fact of gag orders. I have a friend in Canada that can’t do it, the royal family. It really perturbs me that they can’t say anything because you have a story, you have your side and you should be allowed to defend yourself. And so I’m glad that she found you and that you could write the story together about Aurora and about her side and then, like, the other side as well. And hopefully others will write their story. I mean, it would be fascinating to hear the judge or the jurors about this case. But now that you have this out, you said it took a while to sort of get through this. It’s impacting you still. Do you think it is your last book or do you think never say that?

Kerrie

No, it’s not my last book. I really believe that a story that is not shared is not heard. And stories are really for other people because they can change lives and so I think it’s that mission and that thing that propels me forward. I love the process of writing, but I do think that the more provocative the subject, something that I really believe in, that I think is going to get to lend a voice to something, is what propels me to continue. So I don’t think that I will ever stop writing because it’s really, truly a passion. I think it’s my heart center, but I really do try to take gaps between them.

Kat

Yes, and recover.

Kerrie

I recover. My children used to be my comic relief. They were such bright spots. They still are very bright spots in my life, but they’re grown. So now I have to find other bright spots.

Kat

Maybe TikTok.

Kerrie

Yeah, I know. So, you know, nature, things that are just the complete opposite of this dark world.

Kat

Yeah. That’s a good point, though, for any writer who is going to write true crime or even fiction crime, like mental health for us will work.

Kerrie

Yes, absolutely. Mindfulness. Mindfulness.

Kat

Yes. So where can people find you mentioned that you have, like, a true crime. Do you have a course or just you have a writing workshop?

Kerrie

Yeah, it’s a writing workshop. It’s on my website, kerriedroban.com. And it’s a nine-week course. You can take it at your own pace, but it’s chock full of information on basically how I did this and the background of it. And there’s a lot of really great tips in there. Sort of goes through the rewards and pitfalls of writing true crime, because I wish that I had had a mentor, to say these things. So I feel like it’s something that I also want to share with other people. Who want to embark on this.

Kat

And if they’re not a lawyer, do you think that that gave you an advantage? If you’re going to write true crime, do you kind of need to know a lawyer?

Kerrie

You know what? You absolutely do not have to be a lawyer. I don’t even think you have to be a journalist. I think you have to be curious, and kind of go for the jugular. Because writing true crime is like a hybrid. You know, you’re getting into the heads of your characters who are real people. So you have to really be good at interviewing and talking to them and not be afraid to approach them. But you definitely can have a lawyer in your back pocket and that’s always helpful.

Kat

And have your course.

Kerrie

Yes, we talk about that in my course.

Kat

And then where can they find Aurora?

Kerrie

Aurora is on Amazon. It’s in every major bookstore. So you can Google my name and you’ll see all the books that come up under my name.

Kat

Well, we will have those links in the show notes and you can find Kerrie on pretty much every social media. And then kerriedroban.com we’ll have in the show notes below, that you guys can click on thank you so much, Kerrie. This is fascinating. True crime is like something I didn’t know much about, but it sounds like a lot of work, but interesting work.

Kerrie

Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.

The post Ep 155 True Crime Writing with Kerrie Droban first appeared on Pencils&Lipstick.

Today my guest is Madeleine Mozley, mother, freelance editor AND author of dystopian sic-fi. Despite being incredibly busy, she is coming out with her second book this month, Blood for Blood. We talk about the pressure of writing quickly in the Indie Author world, science fiction and much more.

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TRANSCRIPTION STARTS HERE:

Kat

Hello, everybody. Welcome to episode 148 of Pencils and Lipstick. I’m Kat Caldwell. Today it is, I think it’s September 9. Yes, because I’m late in recording this. It is a beautiful Friday, early afternoon. We have some sunshine today, it’s wonderful. And it’s September. It is moving fully into September. And this is the time when most of you, no matter where you live, most likely kids are in school, and maybe you have a little bit more of your day organized, let’s say, whether you’re working full time, halftime, whether you’ve decided to become a full time writer. Most likely, if everyone else’s day around you is more organized, your day is as well. So this is the truth for my life at the moment, and in fact, I’m getting a lot more writing done, although, as I constantly say, I would like to be more organized with it. But, you know, here we go. We are stepping back into September 2022, and I am still struggling with the same old things.

Kat

So, I have already organized, outlined-ish, organized-ish, the one half of the historical romance, Dowser’s part, and I am filling in Carmen’s part. And I don’t mean that I’m writing it. I’m writing out the sort of main scene outlines, basically, and really nailing down what they’re wanting at the beginning and what they want in the middle. And then I know how it ends. It’s a romance. It’s historical romance, but romances always end on a happily ever after. HEA right? If you ever see that hashtag with books, it’s usually what that means. So I’m working that out. I don’t know why. I seem to be focusing a lot more on Dowser. He is my favorite character and Stepping Across the Desert. So that might be why. There you go. Answering my own questions. But I’m also focusing on Carmen. I guess maybe Douser is coming to me easier than Carmen, but I have figured out one very important thing, and I won’t tell you what that is, but one important thing for the beginning of the book. And now things are really moving as far as outside the ring. I am continuing to figure that out. And the other day, I took a walk with no music and no podcast and actually ended up writing in my notes on my phone. About 500 words as an idea came to me, and that is both dangerous if you’re walking, depending on where you’re walking. Awesome. I love having a phone nearby, so that I can sort of do that. I clearly slow my pace, as I do that. This is a lot easier if you’re like on an elliptical or treadmill, you might look a little crazy in the gym, like typing ferociously on that tiny little screen. But, I needed to get it out because it was like coming to me as I was cooking. And then I thought, okay, I tried to dictate it out and it didn’t work. I don’t know, y’all, if you know how to dictate in a way that doesn’t feel silly. And, I don’t know, I think with me, like my brain ends up going in a whole different direction. It doesn’t know what it’s doing, so I ended up typing it, anyway. The thing is, the whole point of this, is that things are going well. I’m actually quite excited about how well they are going. Also, when this podcast drops, I start the courses. Now, if you are just now hearing this and you are looking for a course, in order to really get your book done, let’s see what we’re doing, in the story development course. If you are a writer who has written one novel already, sort of have that idea of what it takes to get a novel done, or you are almost done with a novel. This is probably the course for you. We are starting on Monday, today, basically when this drops. But you can always join in because everything is going to be recorded. We are going to really get into the key scenes and the beats to your genre. And we’re going to write up scene cards and we’re going to evaluate our scenes. We’re going to go into writing authentic dialogue, presenting book blurbs, getting into what it takes to get editing done, what editing means. Because it doesn’t necessarily mean what a lot of writers think it means. So that starts Monday. And again, if you are looking for a course and you really want to get into it. Monday the 12th, today the 12th, is more like an intro and giving a little homework so you won’t have missed too much. Plus, you would have the recording. And for beginners, that is starting on Tuesday. So, you can still get into that. And we are going to really get into how to how to think about your book, how to structure the book, going through kind of how I’m plotting things out. It doesn’t mean, of course, that things won’t change as my novel, Outside the Ring, has completely changed, but it helps you structure things, the tools that you might need, the ways to get into a writing habit, learning to get into your characters, learning dialogue, basics, all these things. It’s just kind of the same thing, just on a more, beginner level, I guess. That will be on Tuesdays. And again, Tuesday is sort of the welcoming day. And so if you are a little late and come in the next week, you will have the recording and you won’t have missed too much. So I mentioned something about editing, and it might not be what you think it is. Maybe you think it is exactly what it is. So I was talking to a writer the other day about how to look at her scenes. Now, you can take your entire manuscript and you can look at it, and you can start dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s. But, the more I read about editing and storytelling, and especially the relationships that writers, about 100 years ago, had with their editors, the more I realize we’ve lost this art of editing. And so I’ve really come back to seeing editing, and as I go back and sort of fix, the thing that I’m adding to Outside the Ring is requiring a fix, like an overall fix in the novel. So I have to go scene by scene and see where to put the threads, like taking the needle and sort of threading them together and taking this new thread and making sure it’s going through each of the scenes in order to stitch it up properly at the end. Great metaphor, guys. So, I’m looking at the scenes in a really micro way and then kind of pulling out and looking macro. I was talking to her about that, and she asked me, “what I don’t understand? What are you looking for in these scenes? I know that I need them to meet and I need them to do this certain thing, and I need to tell the reader who he is or who she is.” And I say, “yeah, that’s all great, but there are scenes, especially when you’re a new writer, in which you might like it or you think it’s showing something great, and it’s not that it’s not well written, but it’s not actually needed for the story.” And we had to get into that deeper. So, I thought I would share with you the three main things that I’ve started to look for in a scene. Depending on how you organize your book, this might be smaller than a chapter. So a scene is in one place. If the character changes a scene, the scene has changed. And so we’re going to then look at each scene as the place in which they are. And once they move that place, we’re starting a new scene. Now, the life of this character continues through, and so you’re obviously taking threads from one scene and into another, as you should, like a French braid, right? I’m really in the hair thing today. But, what I’m talking about in a scene is this really, smaller portion, and it might not just be a chapter. So the first thing I look for is emotional change. And this I really learned from C.S. Lakin. I hadn’t really heard it before. Maybe I just hadn’t put it together. But she has a great course on the ten key scenes that your novel needs. And she’s really good at scenes. I took a mini-Mastermind with her. And she’s just amazing at sort of being able to quickly pick out the things in a scene that are great and things that are not so great and things you should toss. And, you know, she’s as brutal as a good editor should be. So, emotional change, a main character in each scene should change in each scene, at least subtly. So their emotions should be moving. And if they’re not moving, that’s a huge red flag. You know, when you read that scene that you’ve written, that you like how it’s written, but, it sort of leaves you in this state of just calm hover. You have that gut instinct that, there’s something wrong, like there isn’t enough tension. There’s nothing really there. It’s beautifully written, yes, great, but there’s something wrong with it. There’s something not great about it. And, the problem, most likely, I’m thinking especially a very specific scene in Coffee Sayings that I ended up cutting when they are having dinner, and she goes in frustrated, and she leaves frustrated. And so, I liked the way that I was, sort of, showing the characters, and I had all these nuances, and describing the area, and she’s not from this richer mentality, and so she’s struggling with that, as well. I could go on and on, and I really like the scene, but when I looked at it, it’s like there’s something wrong with it. The editor who edited that book, said, you don’t need the scene. I got a little offended, as we usually do, and I now know and now understand. I sort of have words, I guess, to go to it. The problem that I knew in my gut, thankfully, I cut the scene, was that the emotion never changed. He went in confused, was left in a state of confusion. She went in frustrated and mad, left in a state of frustration, and anger. And so, they didn’t change at all. So it’s like you’re just reiterating what happened in the last thing with just a bigger scene, and it’s just not needed. This is going to slow down your pacing. This is where some readers will put the book down and not pick it back up, and they won’t know exactly why, right? Because, again, it’s not saying that your writing is bad. They won’t really know why they’ve lost their interest. So I sort of give this example. You take your scene, you sort of cut it. Again, it could be shorter than a chapter. And you look at where they are in the beginning and why, where they are in the middle and why, and their emotional state, and then where they are at the end and why. And if they’re the same, you got to ask yourself like, then what’s the point of having the scene? And if the scene is needed, then you need to change the tension and you need to up the ante and all those wonderful cliches. So, this is kind of like when the detective, or the police person, goes in and gets there, is going to order their lunch, and they’re just thinking about lunch and about life, or their boss or their partner, or whatever, and they’re just sort of in their world, right? Life is okay. Nothing big going on. And then they get up to the counter, and they see that the butcher is on the floor with a knife in their back. And then they go into police mode, and who could have done this? And I will find you. So they’ve gone, even that slight subtle shift on from okay, this is life, no big deal, what am I going to eat for a sandwich? To the chase is afoot, sort of thing. Even that subtle, that is what’s needed. That’s what brings us into the story, right? So go through your scenes and mark the beginning, middle, and end, and then ask yourself, if there isn’t a change, how can you change it? Or how if the scene is necessary? Another big thing that I see, and I don’t do this so much, but I check for these when I’m looking over manuscripts of other writers is point of view shifts. I used to do this a lot because some literary stories do this, but they do it purposely, not accidentally. But your point of view shift in each scene. Each scene typically, until you are really good at your craft and you are ready to defend your decisions, do not do this accidentally. Each scene should be told from the point of view of one person. If you want to tell the same thing from the point of view of many people, there needs to be multiple scenes, within one scene, you cannot hop. Some people call it head hopping from point of view to point of view to point of view. Now, interestingly enough, many European books do this. So, there are other ways of thinking. But, as an American reader, I will say, and I read in three languages and I’ve seen this mostly published at least in the Spanish and French, they do head hop. And it is very jarring when they do it. I can then figure, okay, let it go. And this is how things are going to go. But, it is a little bit jarring. And so, the whole point of sticking with one point of view is so that you don’t jar the reader out of that sort of reading, reverie, that dream-like state of them imagining everything. Because, when you had hop and it suddenly a statement comes from another point of view, it confuses the reader. And they usually have to go back a few lines and reread it, in order to understand who’s talking now, right? I’m sure that you can all think of a book or a time in which you had to step back and say, wait a minute. Who’s talking now? And you don’t want that. You don’t want to take the reader out of that reading reverie, right? So you need to take your scene, highlight from whose point of view it is, and then take your highlighter and see if you start it from somebody else’s point of view, right? So, if the character comes in, and they’re bringing back a book to the library. And they’re talking about the library, and how it smells like old books, and how they love the library and all this. And they leave the library excited for their new book. And then the next line is, Steve hated his job at the library, but, he sure loved it when so-and-so came in every Thursday to get her books. That’s a head hopping, that needs to have some sort of scene break, if you want him to be talking about his favorite part of Thursday. Okay, so then, we take the scene after we do that. And this is just three quick things, or other things, to look for. But, then, the main other thing I look for is forward movement. This is whether the scene is necessary. So, everything should be forcing the character to change, or forcing the plot in a direction that will lead to forcing the character to change. Do you see what the theme is here? Change, right? So, each story needs certain things to happen so that the protagonist develops as their human self, right? They’re solving a problem. Many, many stories are solving sort of an inner human problem, maturing, learning, becoming less of a jerk, becoming more loving, learning what love is, you know, growing up, all these sort of things. So stories where the protagonist never changes end up being flat and boring. So if you’ve gotten feedback that the scene is flat, it’s probably because nothing is changing, not with the character and not with the plot. So as exciting as your plot may be, maybe you plotted a lot and you have this very exciting, aliens and ships and guns and all these things happening and everything’s so exciting. Or as beautiful as your settings are. As beautifully as you’re writing this town, or wherever the protagonist is. If that beautiful setting or that very exciting plot are not forcing the character into this corner in which they are going to be faced with a decision. And they will have to make a decision that will then lead them to the next scene. You might need that scene or it might need to be rewritten. All right, so this is also having to do with pacing and books that go on and on and on. It’s because they have too many scenes in which nothing happens, not in the plot and not with the characters. So you can go back and highlight with a different highlighter what is finding the difficulty for the character, the difficulty that they are facing, and then highlight in a different color their reaction to that difficulty, because they have to have a reaction, right? And you can have a scene in which the difficulty presents itself and their reaction is to purposely blind themselves to it. As long as that decision is going to force them into another scene, that will eventually force them to actually make a real decision, right, and take the blinders off. So, these are the main three things that I look for right now in my scenes. Of course, these are just three of the things. We also have to look for grammar and we have to look at different things. I’m looking at my notes now, and the auto correct really messed some words up there, that’s why I paused. But these three things as we’re looking through the scenes. This is really going to give you a sort of micro view of your scenes and then being able to pull out and see the macro view arc of the novel and making sure that you are taking out the scenes that aren’t doing anything or changing them so that they do something. So that your character does something. So that your point of view is in shifting and so that your scenes that you have are necessary. And this is part of the editing process. This will help you learn to delete things. You have fewer darlings in which you just hold on to them because you just love the scene. Again, I had another scene in Stepping Across the Desert where they’re in the library, and it’s very angsty. He’s going to show her that he loves her. He just can’t stand it anymore and just loved that scene. I loved writing it. I loved reading it. I loved having it. And it basically was just not getting them anywhere, so I had to delete it. So this sort of, when you take scene by scene, it helps give you the courage to delete them or end up changing them, right? So that’s my little tip for you today. We are going to get into an interview right after we talk about this week’s sponsor.

Kat

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Kat

Some people move through this world feeling more like observers than participants. They can be found lying on their backs in the grass, looking up at the sky while people walk all around them. When that same sky starts to fall, they’ll be the ones we follow because they’ve seen this in their daydream. They are the outliers, and they’re who Madeleine writes for. When Madeleine’s not writing, you might find her sipping whisky as she watches the sky over the Sandia Mountains turn pink, probably with her German shepherd husky girl by her side.

Kat

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Pencils and Lipstick. Today I have with me Madeleine Mozley. Hello, Madeleine. How are you doing?

Madeleine

I’m doing well. How are you, Kat?

Kat

Good, and now that I say Mozley, is it a long O?

Madeleine

Mozley. Yes. You got it. You got it.

Kat

I constantly have questions about last names.

Madeleine

I have a funny name. It’s okay.

Kat

Because there’s no extra E. Yes, we can give Mozley. Well, this is your second time on the show, but it’s been a while. You were one of my first participants of my first year when we were a baby podcast. So would you introduce yourself to people in case they are new listeners?

Madeleine

Absolutely, yeah. My name is Madeleine Mozley, and I’m a writer and an editor. I’ve been a professional editor for over a decade. At this point, I lose count. And, yeah, I’ve been writing for a lot longer than that, since I was a kid. But back in 2020, I finally decided to go ahead and release my debut novel, which is First Carrier, it’s a post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi novel. And, yeah, still writing, still editing, doing all that good stuff.

Kat

How was it to release a post-apocalyptic novel in the middle of COVID.

Madeleine

And the first novel?

Kat

And a first novel.

Madeleine

Challenging, yeah, it was a learning curve, for sure. Thankfully, I did a lot of research on book launches, and hopefully, I think I did my homework enough to not totally fall on my face. But it was definitely a learning experience and I took a lot from it. And overall, I guess I had my expectations pretty low. But it went well. Launching in a pandemic for a relatively dark themed book was, well, okay, I guess I’m doing this.

Kat

This is life, right? Well, it had nothing to do with a virus, which is good. I was listening to another person, of course, I can’t remember what the author was, but he had written it years before and it came out and it was about a virus.

Madeleine

Finally his books coming out. Oh my gosh!

Kat

And he’s like this is not good. And interestingly enough, it sold really well for a while and then it just petered out almost like everyone’s like, don’t use the word virus around me.

Madeleine

They’re over it.

Kat

Yes, these are the things we can’t control as artists, right?

Madeleine

True enough.

Kat

So you are coming out with another book. It’s a sequel.

Madeleine

Yes, it’s the second book in the series, so following First Carrier.

Kat

Okay, so it is science fiction. Is that true? More than fantasy. What is the difference between this?

Madeleine

Well, I mean, science fiction and fantasy both fall under this great umbrella of speculative fiction and the way that I like to think of it as they both ask, what if? But they kind of ask it in different ways. And science fiction often warns or tries to warn people about mistakes we might be making now or could be making in the near future that would cause some problems down the line. So that’s part of why post-apocalyptic falls under that subcategory of science fiction.

Kat

Okay, so how much of your book do you use science? Do you get to make it up because it is set so much more in the future? Or do you like to add in things that are like speculative science at the moment?

Madeleine

A little of both. I would say that for my apocalypse scenario that happened before the events in this book, I really have tried to do my homework and talk to some experts about could this happen? Plausibility. I’m not saying it’s going to, and I’m not saying that it’s even highly likely, but could it? And I have some expert friends who are a lot smarter than I am, but have said, yes, that probably could happen, or this definitely could. A lot of it is based on current science that we have or extrapolating how that science probably will advance down the line, but some of it is a little more fantasy. Science fiction is fiction, right? At the end of the day, it’s based on some sort of real science, but at the same time there is some freedom with it. So I would say plausibility is important to me, but it is, at the end of the day, entertainment.

Kat

Right, entertainment. And yours is set in the sense of like, the earth has gotten way too hot. Let me see, I read this two years ago. So it has created conditions that really, really challenge humanity, basically. Right. And it has reduced the population, correct.

Madeleine

Correct. Yeah. So the events that happened are kind of a mystery at this point in the series. It’s been fun writing the second book because I get to continue to show glimpses of what happened that led to the world really getting reshaped this way. And there was a series of events, I think any time in a book that’s post-apocalyptic, where it’s one big thing that happened, boom! And everything was different, isn’t quite as believable to me. I think that apocalypses happens in stages. So I think it might start small. Right. And then another thing happens, and another thing happens, and then it becomes this compounding sort of domino effect. And that’s what happened in my fictional world. But the world that is left over. Yeah. There’s big climate extremes. It’s either going to be really, really hot and you’ll see in the sequel that it can also get pretty cold. And it’s set in my home state of New Mexico, which I’m very familiar with in general, both the geography and the weather. And because we’re in a high desert, we really do have these extremes. We have really hot summers, and we can have really cold winters. So what’s the extreme of that, if you take that to its farthest point, has been really fun to explore and it makes a challenging environment for your characters to survive.

Kat

Yeah. So you already know as a writer what happened in the world. Right. So, right when we first started reading the first book, First Carrier, we’re already in that post-apocalyptic world, and we’re following the characters there. So how did you develop this as a writer? Did you know everything? Like, did you sort of map out what would have happened before because you knew you were going to add it in later or what was your process for knowing all that?

Madeleine

It’s a good question. I mean, the basic components of it I definitely had once I had established, I figured out, oh, this is the story I’m writing. Now, let’s really think about it seriously, because it started more or less with a writing exercise that books can do, and ended up spinning into more. So once I reached a certain point in that first book, I decided, all right, I need to stop for a minute and really think about what’s the world building going to be, and what’s the history of this place.

Kat

You had already started writing. You already had the characters knowing where these guys were going. But you realize for a series, you need to know, like, have more of a foundation, I guess.

Madeleine

Absolutely. Have more of a foundation. And then as the series continues, you do get to make that deeper. Right. But it gets a little more complicated. Of course, you have to keep track of your details and not confuse things. And what did I oh, no, I made a horrible mistake. I’ve got epic giant rolls of butcher paper with complicated multicolored timelines on it, like a serial killer on my wall.

Kat

Because especially, in order to make these references back, you have to know when they sort of happened. Right. I’m sure you can come up with a character’s name on the fly that’s no longer around, but you would then have to reference that person.

Madeleine

Absolutely, yeah. And what color was their hair? And very specific dates. So my history of the world goes back hundreds of years, so you don’t have to get too specific for some bits of that time. But the big dates are important, and knowing what happened in those kind of chunks of time is really important, too.

Kat

Right. Because as a writer, it can take us weeks to months to years to write a book. But a reader can read a book within a few hours, and they’ll have that memory. Right. Oh, you said 100 years, but wait, now you said 30.

Madeleine

Yes.

Kat

So I like your idea of stopping when you were in the middle of the first book, because like you said, a lot of times, we start writing a book or a story, and then it becomes more than what we planned on it being. But if you finish a full book, like, I finished my first book, and now I’m deciding to go back to write a sequel, I’m really constrained by what happened in the first week.

Madeleine

Yes. You kind of pinned yourself in a corner.

Kat

So you are very smart to stop and decide, okay, at least some of this. But I’m always curious about these long series because as I watch Harry Potter with my kids, I’m like, I don’t think she knew that then, though.

Madeleine

I’ve spotted some in Harry Potter, too, that I’m like, but wait, wait a minute here.

Kat

And I think it’s just one of those things of like, okay, maybe she didn’t plan on having an eight book series, and sure, you get fans who will forgive you, but it’s fun to look at it as a writer.

Madeleine

Nobody’s perfect, right?

Kat

Even J. K. Rowling.

Madeleine

Even J. K. Rowling.

Kat

So as you’re writing the second book, did you start writing this before you came out with First Carrier, or did you wait for one project at a time?

Madeleine

What happened when I finished that first really big draft of First Carrier and you’re exhausted, right, after writing this book. The story was still coming to me pretty smoothly. So I think I wrote about 50 pages of this sequel right off the bat. And then, once I started to get more into publishing side of things, the First Carrier kind of took my attention away from that sequel. And then when I released First Carrier in 2020, and then I spent the last year and a half, I guess, really finishing out that second book. And it’s taken a while because life is crazy sometimes.

Kat

And we lived through a pandemic.

Madeleine

Yes, and stuff.

Kat

Because you’re a mom as well. You also edit like you’re continuing to edit. Do you guys still have the magazine that you do?

Madeleine

We don’t do the magazine, but we converted it to a full time editing business. So, yeah, we all have different clients.

Kat

So working is not lowered?

Madeleine

Not really. And as the kids get a little older, a little more independent, that can help. But, yeah, it’s a struggle sometimes for sure, to keep up.

Kat

Yes. Because you and I are both self-published, and we’ve sort of been in that space. You’ve been editing for a while. You’ve been writing for a while. I feel like our writing journeys are a little bit parallel. And so we were talking before about there’s this thing in the indie world. What is it? Like, 20 books to being your first million? What is that catchphrase that they do.

Madeleine

Something that’s outrageous for me to think about.

Kat

Yeah. Tick the boxes. I’m so far away, it’s not even funny. There’s the rapid releasing rate of people releasing a book a month. And I’ve talked to some people. Some people are just really prolific. Maybe we could say I would say maybe science fiction. There’s a lot more detail to it than some other books, possibly romance, where you can just sort of make up a lot on the fly for day-to-day life. There’s so much research to do. But, how do you navigate this world, this indie world, in which people are like, come out with your next book now, yesterday, two years ago.

Madeleine

I am still learning for sure at the beginning of that journey of understanding. But I think that for me, I’ve just had to keep my expectations realistic, which is hard. Like you say, we’re in an industry, when you’re an indie author that the more books you have, the more likely you are to be successful and blah, blah, blah, and speed. I mean, I’d love to be able to put out a book, a quarter, like four books a year. That would be amazing. But right now, with life circumstances, I’m lucky to get one out this year, to be honest. It’s been two years, almost, since my last release. And, like, to what you had said about science fiction, and even fantasy, and these genres that require a lot of in depth world building. And those genres, when people are reading them, they expect, and they want, usually a pretty high word count. So you’re not pumping out a 60,000 70,000-word novel. That’s romance. That might not require as much research or world building. So it does take longer. And I’m also not the fastest writer. I’m just not, especially when you grab, like, your time to write as a mom sometimes. I don’t know about you but for me it’s 11:00 P.M. To 01:00. A.M.

Kat

Yes.

Madeleine

That’s not when I do my best thinking. What time I have. So I don’t know if I have any advice, but my advice would be to do the best that you can. As far as setting expectations for yourself, I think it’s important that you don’t set them so high that it robs you of the joy of what you’re doing.

Kat

That’s a good point.

Madeleine

You really need to keep that in there. And if it’s not there, then why are you doing it? And maybe someday we’ll all be able to put out a book a month. What was that? That was a crazy number.

Kat

It’s insane. And you do have to look at different people’s lives and how they write and what they’re willing to do and how fast they can write. I’m one of those writers that tends to start writing in order to really figure out what I want to write about. I can’t outline until I’ve really written probably 40,000 words, which seems like a lot, and a lot of those aren’t really used later on, so it can be frustrating. But how do you do that? Do you outline or has it changed from First Carrier to Blood for Blood?

Madeleine

I think it does vary a little from project to project, and maybe even necessarily for me, it can vary from stage to stage of that project. We talked about the first book, how I had to stop and kind of do things more intentionally and do a little bit of mapping. But sometimes you do, you’re feeling out the story, right, to see where is the story and what is worth keeping? And there are phases of that for me, too. I know some people are we call them mappers, and then some people are pantsers, by the seat of their pants. So I’d say I do a little bit of both, but I’m always going to map at some point, for sure. I have to definitely go in and map whether that’s with pen and paper, or there’s a really cool tool called plotter, that I’m starting to discover that is really neat. You can keep kind of your Writing Bible there, for your project with all your details and timelines and stuff. So there is a mapping phase, for sure, but I wouldn’t say that it’s super consistent, even per project.

Madeleine

I think it can vary. If I realize I’m lost in the weeds, then, okay, now’s the time to take a step back because this is pointless. I lost.

Kat

Just keep writing words that you know you’re going to cut. Yeah. I’ve really started to look into other people’s way of doing things and just other, I guess, storytelling theories because I don’t think that everyone has the one answer that will help all of us. The one thing that I’m looking into is, scene and scene development, and what I am doing with this one is going back. I’ll read about ten chapters, and then I’ll go back, and it’s honestly not my favorite because I really like the ego side of my brain. It’s like, it’s fine, just keep writing. I like my book, keep writing. But I’m going back and I’m mapping out the scene, like what happens, how things change, where they are, where they’re going and how it transitions. To really sort of have that, more editor eye, I guess, on the book, because I don’t have experience being an editor. So how do you get that editor eye on your own stuff? Because I can imagine it’s not easy. Maybe it’s a little easier for you.

Madeleine

It’s not easy. I don’t think anybody, no matter how much experience you have as an editor, it’s always going to be hard to be objective, like, truly objective, about your work. Usually, I veer on the side of really harsh, for me, when I’m looking at my own writing. With other people, I veer kind of, a little to the other side, but when it’s for me, I see, oh, this is terrible. Why did you do this? What are you doing with your life? So, yeah, I think you’re wise to do that kind of scene-by-scene thing, because there is a big switch that happens between writer brain and editor brain, isn’t there? And it’s not one that we can easily go between. So what I try to do is, really write through quite a bit until, like I said, I’m either lost or I need to kind of go back and check, is this character journey what I think it is? And then I’ll go back with my editor brain on and read through and be pretty critical. But I mean, yeah, nobody’s ever objective about their work, really. That includes editors.

Kat

You still need other people to read it. But what have you learned as an editor to be able to then go see? Because you said the character journey. What is it that you look out for when you’re looking for that?

Madeleine

For a character journey, specifically, my main thing, with characters in general, is that every character must have a ‘must’. So what must they do? Something that drives them, that is a compulsion, this is their journey. This is what they’re doing. And that ‘must’ can change or shift a little bit throughout the book. But generally characters have something that drives them. We all do, right? And the other factor with characters, I don’t know, there’s a lot to it because there’s just so much psychology there, is creating these really well-rounded characters, that feel like people. People are complicated and messy, and we’re even inconsistent sometimes in our behavior. And that’s hard to write, because we want to write characters that kind of are more straightforward, on the page sometimes, because I think we feel that’s easier for people to take in and relate to. But really, characters can be pretty complicated. So really letting yourself go to that depth of thought for your characters, of you had said when you’re in a scene, okay, what’s happening in the scene? What’s happened with this character? They’ve probably made a new discovery in that scene or changed their mind about something, or they’ve faced a new obstacle. So what has happened in that scene? I think that’s a great exercise. And by the end, every character should have changed, somehow. That can be minor change, it can be major change. But we are all learning and growing as our own characters in life. And I think characters do the same thing. They will change. And if they haven’t changed, then they probably haven’t had a great adventure to begin with.

Kat

You might not be able to do a spin-off on them because nobody will care.

Madeleine

True enough.

Kat

I think psychology probably came into effect in your books quite a bit because of the post-apocalyptic. People are in survival mode, right? And people act differently in survival mode. So did you do any sort of research or do you have any history in that of like, what would people react? Because you can’t just take all basis off of my neighbor because you might live through an apocalypse, I don’t think.

Madeleine

I don’t know what it counts for so much. I do have a degree in psychology, and I have a degree in creative writing, too. And they kind of work nicely together, don’t they? But psychology, as far as the psychology of the human mind or behavior in an apocalypse, you really do revert to more basic needs, right? We have this hierarchy of needs, as psychologists like to refer to it, where you’ve got all this basic stuff at the bottom of the pyramid, like food, water, shelter, and safety. And before you can climb up to the top of the pyramid, where you have something grand, like self-actualization or purpose or whatever you want to call it, you have to meet these bottom needs. And so in this post-apocalyptic environment, or any challenging, harsh world that you’re creating as a writer, those needs kind of have to be addressed first. And if it’s really challenging yeah, that’s going to be what, at least part of your story is about. And that’s certainly the case with this series.

Kat

Yeah, it’s definitely something to think of, because there are some movies that books that you can forgive. Like I just watched Reminiscence. I was on the plane, and it’s entertaining. What is it again? I can’t remember. It’s Hugh Jackman, of course. It’s nice to watch, but there are definitely like, if I was going to edit or coach that book, I’d be like, I need to know how they’re surviving. There’s probably cholera all over this water. Why is she in a satin dress? So there is definitely that balance. As you said, we are writing fiction, but if you’re going to write 120,000-word novel. Most likely some readers are going to be like, why are they singing in the jazz club where’s all the mold?

Madeleine

That’s great. Indeed. Yeah. Believability is important. And if you look at the very basic environment that we even have in this world today, in countries that aren’t first world, their lives day to day. We had been talking earlier, before the podcast, their lives look very different than ours. And maybe as writers, we can sometimes slip into that trap of describing more fantasy or more of what we’re used to seeing during our day-to-day, instead of what would these characters actually be going through.

Kat

Right. Which is a good reason to then look for beta readers or readers who will sort of look through that. I guess now we have alpha readers. Everything’s always changing now with social media. Sometimes I feel really out of it. Do you use beta readers, or what is your process to making sure that your storyline is believable, but entertaining and is consistently red-headed or brown-headed or whatever?

Madeleine

Right. Beta readers, I think, are fantastic to bring in pretty early on in the process. Ideally, right after you finish that first draft, Blood for Blood, the second book in the series, didn’t have the luxury of doing that, just because I had so many other things going on and I was just kind of powering through. When I had the time to get it done, I got it done. And now at this point and before, I had my editor, who is not me, my editor read really closely and he’s passionate about the story, which I think is super important in an editor. They’re not just a machine to pump your story through to check the typos. Right? They’re your advocate and they really do enjoy what they’re reading. I think one of the best compliments an editor can give is I had to slow down reading to make myself edit. Like, I just wanted to keep reading. And I think that’s the kind of editor we should all try to get. So he’s a big, I wouldn’t want to say barrier, but a big stopping point for me to check that sanity, for sure. Even if he’s just doing a line edit, he’ll still say some things like, well, this really worked, this reveal of the villain worked for me, or just needs a little tweaking. So that’s been a big help.

Kat

Can I interrupt you there for just a second? Whether that’s an editor or whether that’s, I guess, more of a trusted beta reader. Somebody who can be pretty honest with you on how your story is working. How much do you take. Especially as a new writer. And I know you have experience that maybe new writers don’t. But sifting through the opinion of what sort of they want to have happen in the story versus really the storytelling opinion of it. You know what I mean? Like what actually works for storytelling, in order to sell your book, versus what they, as a reader, want to have happen. Do you have any advice for how writers can navigate that?

Madeleine

I think it’s great when you do have the time, and I hope that people do make the time, to have a larger group of beta readers. So have a dozen beta readers, if you can, and you’ll see the comments that are the most common among them. So that’s generally the ones that I pay more attention to, will be, okay, eight out of ten people said they didn’t understand what was happening here. That’s a pretty good clue. Back when I used to do workshops in college and you would bring your short story or whatever it was, to the group, and there would be 25 other people who read it, and they tear it up and down. And what do you take from that? Who do I listen to? Are they all right? And I’m a terrible writer. I think that the things that everybody says unanimously are important to take note of, and then anything that someone says that challenges you in one way or another, maybe they say they don’t like your main character. Okay, so then you take that piece of advice and go back and read it again. And if you really love your main character, you toss that bit of advice out, whatever advice that is. I don’t think that’s advice, but that opinion out and maybe it’s more confirming. Right? It affirms, you know what? No, I have thought about it, and I do like what this character is doing. So I think either way, it can be constructive for you, whether you get really good feedback that is beneficial or some pretty crummy things that people say. I think you’ve got to run it through your personal storyteller filter and see what is worth keeping here and what’s throwing away. And I think that does take practice and it’s not an easy process to go through with it.

Kat

No, it’s really not. And I think it’s great if you can find an editor like you have found who you trust, who you can sort of maybe even bounce back and forth on what they liked or what they didn’t like or why. And that’s quite a journey in itself just to find an editor like that.

Madeleine

It is.

Kat

I’m glad that you found one, because I have worked with quite a few people, and I myself have found one, where you get to the end of their comments and you’re like, oh, you don’t like my book.

Madeleine

That’s awkward.

Kat

Yeah. I really think that this has become personal. So you would recommend, if life allows, to get beta readers. And I think we’ve talked about this before where we get that urgency. And I think every time I have you come in to talk with my group or something or on the podcast, you always say, like, I know we all want to get our book out there, but that urgency could really diminish your sales just because you’re doing it too early. So if you can get good feedback on your book, that will maybe, possibly help you not get that bad review or several bad reviews. Right?

Madeleine

Right. And it’s another thing. We had talked about frequency. If people are trying to put out a book, they feel this time pressure to put out a book every three months, or even every six months. That is not a lot of time, especially as a newer writer, to write a novel, that’s really well written, and get it edited and revise it and publicize it, and all the things it’s just not, I don’t know. It’s unfathomable for me how quickly some people publish. But definitely take your time, especially if you’re newer to publishing, or newer to the writing world. Take your time to do it well. So I think if you’ve been writing a book for a couple of years, and you’ve had it through professional hands and you’ve revised, revised, revised, you might not need a giant slew of beta readers. But if you are really motivated to do that condensed publishing schedule, do your best to set aside at least a couple of weeks for people to read it and give you that feedback. That would be my advice. It’s not how I necessarily operate because I don’t work that fast. But if you do work that fast, try to build some of that kind of sanity checking into your process, if you can.

Kat

Yes. I mean, I’m still trying to figure out this puzzle of rapid releasing, because, you’re still beholding to other people. Like, very few people can write a book, edit their own book, and publish their own book, and it be a very good book.

Madeleine

Yes. That’s the key at the end there.

Kat

And you continue to have those fans. I know some people do it and they do have their fans, but anyway, maybe not

Madeleine

We’re not opinionated about this at all.

Kat

I’m just so confused about it. Wow. Maybe they have an editor that’s just waiting for them, I guess. I don’t know. So the editing process of a book. We talked about this in my group, because yesterday someone goes, does anybody hate editing as much as I do? And everyone raised their hand except for one person, who says that she loves editing. For a book, especially because you have a series, you’re probably coming out with one, maybe two more. I mean, these are longer books, too. So you’re really looking at like, how many? At least half a million words by the end of this series.

Madeleine

That’s crazy.

Kat

How is the editing and revision for you is your first draft or whatever? We consider it’s funny that we call it a first draft. Because, I don’t know how many times we go back before we’re like, oh, the draft is done. What is that editing process for you? Is there a lot of work to do? Is there a lot of revision? Or do you try to get through your first draft, like, overlapping, kind of going back as you go?

Madeleine

I think there’s definitely overlap there for me. Or I’ll reach a point in the story where I’m like, well, I kind of want to change this up, so let’s go back ten scenes ago and make that line up better now. I’ll definitely do that. I am not the type. And really, I don’t know many novel writers who are, who can just go through an entire draft without revising it all, without touching it, again. Just don’t look back. I can’t really do that. I think it’s a challenge. I would like to, because I think you can get more words to play with. You can’t really move the puzzle pieces around if you don’t have the pieces on the board, right? But for me, it’s an iterative thing. It’ll all go back and revise, or I’ll reread the scene, or if I’m not feeling, like, very creative in writing, that’s when I’ll turn to my editor brain, and I’ll be like, well, I can at least go revise this first scene and feel good about that day, that I didn’t waste that day. So mine is definitely a mix. I don’t do really orderly fashion, and at one point, I think for me, I reach a point with the manuscript where it’s all done, the end is written at the bottom, and I don’t know what else to do with it. Maybe I think, you know what? There could be something wrong here, but I’m stuck. I’m brain dead about it, and I’m not objective. So that’s, for me, the time when that goes to my editor, please help me. Help me see what I don’t see. And then that usually kicks off a little bit more, renewed creativity, that can be helpful. But I don’t know about you, but when you reach toward the end of that publishing or the writing journey to where you’re publishing that book, is it kind of like you just want it out?

Kat

Yeah.

Madeleine

You just want it gone.

Kat

Yes.

Madeleine

I joked with my friend who said, remember when you were getting married? And when I was getting married, and we weren’t really into the wedding stuff, the wedding planning, the wedding. We just wanted to be married to this person that we loved. I just want to be married. And I’m at that point with the book, like, I don’t care. I just want to be married.

Kat

Yes, I know. It’s interesting how long it takes to get there. That’s what I think can be really frustrating to writers. I do like your plan of, like, you have the draft as much as you can see it, but you don’t have that mentality of like, oh, and in three weeks, I’m publishing this book. It’s more like, help me see if there’s anything. Because I do think that a lot of our issue, as indie writers, is mindset. It’s like, just because you hit the end, because, way back when I finished my first one in 2017. I did have that, like, I want this out now. I’m done with it. But if we could switch that a little bit and like, okay, how about I take a break and you help me figure out what’s wrong with this storytelling. And thank goodness I did that because, I say this all the time. They told me to cut 40,000 words because it was a 120,000-word historical romance.

Madeleine

Epic romance.

Kat

She’s like, no, this is not going to work, anyway. So I do like that advice, too. It’s just like cutting that mindset a little bit. You’re not done yet, right? You’ll probably have to go revise it. And like you said, it will reinvigorate your creativity, which we want, right? Because once you publish your book, you do want it to be the best that you could have done in the moment that you’re living.

Madeleine

That’s a good note. I think it needs to be the very best of your capabilities at that time. The challenging thing, we call it the Writer’s Curse, is you’ll finish a project and it’s done and out there, and you learned so much by doing that project that now you see all the flaws and what you once thought was pretty good. Right?

Kat

Right.

Madeleine

So it’s a constant state of learning. And I think that can also trap people into this mindset that, I can never publish because it’s never going to be good enough. It’s never going to be done. And there is a story of this guy who wrote a very famous short story. I’m struggling. The Things They Carried, by this time, this short story is really well known, decades old, famous and beloved. And he’s going up, this old man, to read the story from the podium, and he has a paper printout of it, and he’s editing it as he’s going up. And we’re all going to do that. We want to do that. At some point, you just have to decide, I’m done. This is good, this is great. For my abilities right now, I’m happy and content with this. Am I going to learn more from this and probably want to tweak things when I’m 70 and going up to the podium? Probably. But I’m still going to have the courage to press publish today. And that can be challenging. So not too soon. But also you got to do it eventually, right?

Kat

Right. That is true. It is that balancing act there. So as you get ready for Blood for Blood to come out, you’ve gone through the editing, it’s all done. You’re not going to touch it anymore, right?

Madeleine

No, I’m in the final read through, checking, like, doing my own proofread before it goes to somebody else to proof.

Kat

I thought about doing my own audiobook, and I kept doing that too, where I kept editing and reediting and reediting. I was like, I better not read this anymore. Because there is such a thing as too much editing. Right? So you are doing the tweaking, which isn’t that bad. Like all the big work has happened. Right? You’re happy with the story, with the characters, with the development. Do you have a cover yet?

Madeleine

I have a draft cover, so we’re still working on the type setting and kind of some fades and stuff. But yeah, we have the cover art and layout and all that stuff.

Kat

Awesome. So it comes out, you’re shooting for October. Is it going to be wide or how do you publish?

Madeleine

Well, with First Carrier, I did have an audiobook. I won’t with Blood for Blood, but with first carrier, I had three different formats. I had audiobook, ebook, and then the paperback. The paperback was wide. And the ebook I did with Amazon through KDP, where it’s just with Amazon, and then the audiobook was through Findaway Voices, and you can get that wide. They distribute wherever you want. So a mix, because I’m of the mindset, both in publishing and in life, investments, whatever you want to call it, of not all of my eggs in one basket. I think that some people have a lot of great success with putting all their eggs in one basket. We all know what I’m talking about, Amazon. But that’s just not quite my style. I think they’re really great and they’re really easy to work with from a publishing perspective. But I also like to go wide and I like people to be able to find it in other areas, especially a paperback that you can get through a local bookstore or whatnot is always really cool.

Kat

Right. And I think science fiction, a lot of people still like to have those books.

Madeleine

I’ve discovered, at least with my current audience, when I did a lot of polling and I looked at the sales from the first book, that they like paper for sure. Yeah, that’s how I’m wired, too. So I can relate a lot, but yeah, interesting to learn.

Kat

Yeah. What made you make the decision to not do audio this time?

Madeleine

I think this time, for me, it was going to be too much, to get this book out on time. And I want to get it out for my readers as well, the ones that have been waiting for two years. I know that as a reader, that’s a lot to ask. I don’t want to make them wait longer for something that just not as popular for my readers yet, of a format, it was very small compared, to kind of audiobook and then ebook, and then paperback was the most popular. So I’m really leaning into the paperback thing and have some cool stuff coming for them, that I think they’ll like. But yeah, that’s the main reason why I’ve also looked into narrating your own. I don’t have the time. As we’ve talked about, time is hard and it’s also really challenging. You have to be an actor.

Kat

Voices. You have to make voices and you have to remember what voice you made. I don’t know how many times I’m reading to my kids and they’re like you just changed the voice. I was like, wow.

Madeleine

Well, that’s your opinion.

Kat

But I like how you made that business decision because as indie authors, it’s half business, right? We have to look at those numbers, we have to poll people, we have to find who our readers are, where they are, and what format they want. And I think it’s a wise decision to have made that time investment to figure that out. And because it’s also going to be a money investment to make an audiobook, and if it’s not going to give you a return yet, and then you can use that money for other fun paperbacks.

Madeleine

Yeah, that’s kind of the goal this time is to invest. Since I see them really loving that side of things. Well, cool, let’s play with that side of things more and meet their needs. Not just what I want to do necessarily, but what do they want from me, and how can I bless them? It should be top priority, I think, as a writer and as, like you say, a marketer, a lot of it is business.

Kat

Yeah, we shouldn’t do things just because that’s what the big publishers do, right? They come up with all the formats. So on the business end, I was part of your launch team in 2020, which was fun, and you put in a lot of work into that. And what have you changed or what have you decided to keep for the launch team? For Blood for Blood?

Madeleine

Well, I’m changing the format up a little bit as far as the main place that we would interface with each other. I used Facebook, and I don’t love social media in general, and I don’t really like Facebook very much. And I know a lot of people are starting to move away from it. So I’m looking into alternative ways for us to interact and not just be email or something like that. So I’m looking into Discord, which is a really cool group based kind of social media thing that a lot of gamers use and other people use it too, to try that out and see how it goes. But my goal is definitely to keep it a pretty tight, small launch team because I think it can be sometimes more effective than 50 people who aren’t really engaged. I think it’s better to have a more engaged, tighter knit group. It’s all learning. That’s why I’m changing things up this time, because it’s only my second time doing this. So it’s a process, yeah, for sure.

Kat

But you found it beneficial enough to do it again, to have a look.

Madeleine

I think so. I think so. And I don’t have much to compare it by, because I didn’t release a book without one before. But I think the launch is such an important period of time, especially that first month or so of your book, and there’s a bunch of different ways to strategize. You can go for a bunch of sales right away to try to hit best seller numbers on Amazon, or you can do pre-order strategy and get orders over time. And yeah, there’s a bunch of different ways to go about it. So I’m trying to test things out and see what works for me and what’s effective, to just get the word out there about the book. And I think launch teams are a great way to do that, at least part of the picture, for sure.

Kat

Right. So for your book, because it’s a series, do they have to have read the First Carrier, to understand Blood for Blood?

Madeleine

I mean, yes, but my solution to that is if you haven’t read First Carrier, but you’re really interested in the series and getting in on it and doing this launch team. I’m going to provide a synopsis for First Carrier for them. So it’s just a couple of pages of this is what happened in the story and this is who the characters are. So they might not get as much depth, of course, from a sequel as they would have otherwise, but at least they know what’s going on, who people are that’s always important.

Kat

Because really you want your launch team to have read the book, correct?

Madeleine

Ideally, ideally.

Kat

Because they’re going to then be pushing the book and telling people about it, because they are a fan of the book, they will have liked the book. Right? And then you provide them, with are you going to do social media or like swipe copy, or how do you do it, or how are you going to do it this time?

Madeleine

For like, the book distribution?

Kat

Yeah, for them to talk about it, I guess.

Madeleine

I think there’s a bunch of different ways. One thing that I like to do last time was really ask launch team members, what are you passionate about and what’s your gift, what are your unique circumstances? So if somebody is a member of a book club, maybe that’s kind of their task, right? To see if their book club will read the book and talk to others about it. If somebody is on a podcast, as a podcast, maybe they can spread the word about it that way. And some people have really grand social media followings. I don’t, it’s not my jam. And they can leverage that for that purpose. So I think it’s kind of an individualized thing, but definitely the goal is word of mouth. For me, at the end of the day, I think that the best way to find new books, and the way that I find new books is by asking my reader friends, what are you reading right now? What’s the best thing you read in the last month, in the last six months? And that’s how I often pick my next book. So that’s the most important thing to me. And it’s definitely a grassroots approach because it is slower and it’s a little slower than paying for a lot of advertisements or throwing money at a problem, I guess.

Madeleine

But I think that it has higher dividends in the end, or it can. And that way you do get people who are legitimately passionate. They’re not just, I don’t know, strangers who kind of share it on social media for the heck of it.

Kat

Yes, and as a new writer, somebody who is constrained by a budget, as most of us are, it can help you find those beta readers, too. Right? The people who become sort of your super fans and for your third or fourth or whatever comes down the line, maybe they’re willing to read it even ahead of launch.

Madeleine

Definitely. And I think your mailing list, if you have an email list going, that’s crucial. And that’s a really great place to start for things like beta readers, because beta readers shouldn’t be your mom or your sibling or your best friend, necessarily, although those opinions can be great, and especially if they are for the purpose of lifting you up and encouraging you. We need that sometimes, but also to get the more objective criticism. I think it’s important to go to people who are passionate about your work, because they’re on your mailing list, but will also be more upfront with you about issues that they had or questions that they had in the manuscript.

Kat

Yeah, absolutely. So how can people find you and get on your mailing list and possibly be part of your launch team or part of whatever is coming, all the surprises that are coming with the paperback and all that.

Madeleine

Yeah, the best place is to go to my website, madeleinemozley.com, and you can sign up for my mailing list there. There’s a link at the top of the very home page. There are links on the side. And by doing that, you’ll also get a collection of free short stories. The events in those short stories take place before the events of First Carrier, which is the first book in the series. So it’s kind of fun, and you get those free short stories, and then you’ll also be hooked up to where you get my, I send out about one email a month, not a whole lot during this launch period. There will be a few more lots of exciting things coming, though. I mean, other things that they can be involved in. Giveaways, all that fun stuff that comes with the book launch. So it’s a great time to really get engaged and you’ll also get emails about the launch team if that’s something you want to sign up for, to apply for.

Kat

Yeah, absolutely. So we will have the links in the show notes and I am excited to see this book come out. Thank you so much for coming and telling us about it.

Madeleine

Thank you for having me on again. It’s always so much fun talking.

The post Ep 148 Continuing the Series with Madeleine Mozley first appeared on Pencils&Lipstick.

But Alessandra doesn’t keep her success to herself. She also wants to help other authors acheive what she’s been able to acheive, a passion that has led her to create INKERSCON, an annual conference where both experts in publishing and marketing as well as author gather to learn and network with each other. This year’s INKERSCON is in June in Dallas, TX and will be sold virtually as well.

Looking to join the Story Clarity Workshop? Click here. 

Transcript starts here.

Kat (00:14)

Welcome to the Pencils and Lipstick Podcast, a weekly podcast for writers.

Kat (00:20)

Grab a cup of coffee. Perhaps some paper and pen, and enjoy an interview with an author, a chat with a writing tool creator, perhaps a conversation with an editor or other publishing experts, as well as Cat thoughts on writing and her own creative journey.

Kat (00:36)

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry. Well, hopefully not actually cry, but you will probably learn something. And I hope you’ll be inspired to write because as I always say, you have a story. You should write it down. This is Pencils and Lipstick. Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 125 of the Pencils and Lipstick Podcast. I was going to say October. It is April 3. Yes, it is April 3. It’s not. It’s April 2. Oh, my gosh. Welcome, everyone, to the Pencils and Lipstick Pockets. It’s April 2, 2022. And we are on episode 125. Well, that was a wonky start to the show, but that’s all right. Today I have an amazing guest. You are going to absolutely love listening to her. Her name is Alessandra Tory. Yes. She is a romance writer and a romantic suspense writer. She knows a ton of stuff about indie publishing and traditionally publishing. And she has this great thing called Inkers Con pretty much every year, which I was really interested in because I find that to be, like, so amazingly, a lot of work to put together this conference. But I attended last year because, funny story, I found this ticket in my box, which then I later found the payment on my bill.

Kat (02:12)

So it wasn’t a gift. It was me. I had bought it probably on a whim, but I actually had a really good time attending. She has amazing speakers, lots of authors, but lots of people also who understand marketing and business. And that’s what we need as authors, right? Especially in the authors. And this year she gets to do it live again. So we talk about her writing journey, about her anchors Con journey, and about all the things in between. If you don’t follow Alessandra already, you really should. She’s been around since 2012, and she’s kind of in that group of indie writers who really got in on the ground floor of indie writing. And so in indie publishing, so they really understand the world. They’ve seen what has changed. So I think they have a really good bird’s eye view of what to go all in on and what might change in the near future. But I also love just how willing she is to learn new things. And we talk about that as well. You should head on over to her website and you should follow her, of course. Links are in the show notes.

Kat (03:25)

Her name is Alessandra Torre. It’s T-O-R-R-E. Even if you don’t read romance, she has a lot of really good advice for authors. I enjoy her good reads webinars that she does every once in a while. I don’t know how often she doesn’t, but that is definitely something to keep an eye out on. She’s really good on good reads and on how authors can utilize good reads and use it, like to the biggest benefit of selling books, which is what we all want to do. Correct? This past week, I have been working a lot on my stories. Like I told you last week, going back to really the heart of the stories, the heart of the characters. And amazingly enough, I had the opportunity to talk to a new writer who just sort of came and asked me, how do you have this idea for this person? What do I do with it? How do you go from idea and like scribbles to an actual book? And so it was really fun to be able to sit down with her, and we didn’t have tons of time, but to say, okay, you have this person. But what I would really recommend is going back to the very beginning of it.

Kat (04:43)

So what is it that you sort of want to talk about with this book? And she said, well, I kind of want to use some of my experience and some of my friends experience to say, like, what if all of the romance, Fumbles and Stumbles actually brought me to the point that she’s talking in her character’s voice of finally finding love in myself and being okay by myself? And I said, well, that’s awesome. You already have your wedding, right? And so we went through that’s a really great premise. I think that that makes an amazing book, if not series. And a lot of women would like to read that because you’re kind of going to go along the ride with this woman who is going to experience a lot of things. She’s going to go on dates. Her friends are going to go on dates. I hadn’t thought about it at the time. It kind of like Sex in the City, but really looking for yourself and seeing all these funny stories. And she is a Metropolis woman, modern woman. So she has all these stories compared to my boy and suburban mom life, friends getting together and finding true love.

Kat (05:56)

And then some of them divorcing. And she’s sort of on the sidelines and she’s like, I would love to put all these into a book. And I said, that’s awesome. But then I told her, what you really need to do, what I would recommend you do, which not everybody does, and I completely recognize that. But this is what has helped me with this new novel that I’m writing. And some of my short stories that I went back to you is sitting down and really looking at that character and finding the moment that has really defined their misbelief or their view of the world that has gone on to dictate how they respond to things in the world because the misbelief that we have. I am not enough. I am not cute enough. I don’t fit into the society mold. Even my parents didn’t think I was enough. I don’t think that I’m the marrying type or I am the type that a man will settle down with whatever she decides. Her misbelief is we don’t go around our lives psychoanalyzing ourselves and bringing that to the forefront. I did read a book recently where I think the writer had the idea correct.

Kat (07:18)

But like most of us, we have these ideas and sometimes we pull it off and sometimes we don’t. But I think one of the things that we do as we’re starting off writing, or maybe if we’re just not feeling the story, maybe that’s when it happens. Because her character would constantly talk about her misbelief, of how she recognized that because of her mom’s early onset Alzheimer’s, she had an issue with trusting people. She didn’t want to get too close because you could lose this person very early on and they could quite literally lose their minds and forget you. But in the book, in the story, she’s recognizing this within herself but then refusing to do anything about it. And that’s what I think is a little bit you have to really play with that delicately because we might recognize some of our misbeliefs, but there has to be a reason why we’re not facing them in that moment of recognition, especially in a book, because a book has an ending, whereas our lives don’t. So the reader is going to expect that when a character comes up against this wall or let’s say this mirror that shines back their misbelief in them and they’re kind of having this AHA moment, there has to be a reason for them to not grow from that the way that you can do it.

Kat (08:51)

Because if you want the idea of the story to say that actually your main character didn’t grow is you’re going to have to have another character shine a light on the main character’s misbelief and then have the main character behave in the same way and shun that and turn away from the opportunity to look themselves in the mirror. But if you have a main character looking at themselves in the mirror and looking at their misbelief, it’s really hard to swallow for a reader that they’re not going to face up to that because, again, a book is finite and we expect this to sort of be a condensed version of life, of human life. And maybe you can get away with it once, but you certainly can’t get away with it four times. It’s not that it wasn’t a good enough book to read, but it didn’t make it. Therefore, then to the list of you have to read this book on my list. Okay. Of course, that has to do with a lot of things, but I think the characters that really stick with us are those characters that either face their misbeliefs in the mirror or when the mirror is held up to them by another character, they close their eyes and say no Booboo and run away with their hands over their ears.

Kat (10:14)

There is actually a really good book, Trinity. It’s about Northern Ireland. And one of the characters, the sister. Oh, man, you’re rooting for that sister to get out of her misbelief. They grew up very Catholic, so her misbelief is that sex is scary and it’s dirty and she doesn’t want anything to do with it. And her husband loves her and so he’s willing to not do anything with her. And now she’s so close at the end to changing her misbelief. And then in the story, she doesn’t. But the mirror is held up by her brother and she refuses to look herself in the eye. So it is possible to do that and it’s possible to do it well, that book has stayed with me for a long time, and it’s really on my book of must reads, but it’s almost like the other character has to do it. So I’m talking with her about this, about their misbelief. And then what I think is probably the greatest thing ever is writing out where that misbelief came from. And to me, it took a couple of times and I wrote a couple of different scenes, and it was so much fun to do that.

Kat (11:36)

I’m surprised in myself that it didn’t feel like a waste of time because I really like to move on with my books. Oh, look at all the things. Look how far I’m going. But I think that I really realized that I needed to go back. And now I have all of these scenes written out that are really fun. They really dig into this family that he comes from. And I was thinking the other day, these are going to be great extras to give out to people. I’m really excited about it. And that’s interesting because if you’re in this world, you hear for your newsletter give out deleted scene all this. And I’m like, I don’t have like full deleted scenes. I have like half a deleted scene, lots of half a deleted scene, or like a fully rewritten scene. Why would I give the scene that before it was rewritten? But I think things are clicking in my head of like, okay, this is like a deleted scene, like a scene that helps me as a writer but didn’t make it into the book and kind of was never going to make it in the book.

Kat (12:44)

Now I was listening to the I think it’s called I Wish I Had Known Then writing podcast. I’ll put the link in the show notes if you want to check it out. They were talking about characters. I think this is a little bit older show and they sound like they do what I had done previously and that they write to get to know their character. And that’s fine if it gets to that point. And one of my issues with this new book is that it wasn’t getting to that point. I wasn’t finding that character. I didn’t understand him. And so 40,000 words in if you don’t understand your character, you really should go back. And so what I told my friend is I would just recommend that you do it from the beginning, especially because she’s a full time worker, has a whole other job, and probably doesn’t want to spend three years writing a book. So we will continue to see how that is working for me. I do not guarantee that I won’t change my mind at some point in the future or for a different book. So if you are stumped a bit on your character, on your plot, on the story itself, it’s kind of falling flat.

Kat (14:08)

I am going to have a workshop on Saturday, April 30. It’s going to be virtual. I think you should come in and see what this method is in detail that I’ve been doing. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. We’re going to have time to write, and I’m thinking about doing this quite often throughout the year. It will help me. It will help others. I really want to be able to articulate this better to people in a shorter amount of time. So I’m going to be presenting it a lot, and you might as well be there to help your story along. If you don’t have a story yet, that’s fine. You can start from the beginning and you don’t have to go back. You can come in with an idea of a person and just go from there and build it and then go home and write. So if you want to, you can sign up. The link is below. As a Patreon member, if you are a sponsor of the show, from $$3 to $5 to $10, I don’t even know anymore what’s on there, but it starts pretty low. You will find a discount code.

Kat (15:16)

I think it’s 50% off. So it’s up to you if you want to become a Patreon supporter and you can do it for one month just to get your discount pretty much. But come on, find out how. I have, you know, put this method to the test and I’ve really enjoyed it. I think it’ll be well worth 2 hours of your Saturday. And don’t worry if you can’t make it April, I will have another one, probably end of May, early June. So other than that, I’ve been focusing a lot on marketing and getting my other books out there. I want to keep drumming up some support for the other books because I do plan on writing the second book to Stepping across the Desert. I had no plan to make that a series whatsoever, but I really want to write Philip Dosa’s story that is Kristoff’s friend. So I pretty much have the background on that one right now. And I’m excited to start writing the story. And I think I could get it done this summer. So really I have to work on Tread story first. And then I’ll go to Dosage Story. And so that is the plan.

Kat (16:37)

I’ve been listening a lot to sell more books. The podcast. I think that’s Brian Towan’s podcast and the self publishing formula contest with Mark Dawson. I have just done a lot of newsletter swaps. So book funnel, story origin, book promotions, both sales and some giveaways. And I’m probably going to run some ads. I don’t know, I’m thinking about it. I’m digging into that a little bit more. As far as the writing community goes, we had Ross McMeekin in the group just recently. We are going to do workshops these coming months. We’re going to have an Instagram and brand expert because as authors, we need to know how to do how to use Instagram and to use Instagram well, we really need to understand how to build a brand and see ourselves as a brand. So that’s what we’re going to do. I am going to bring in a Pinterest expert specialist medicine is going to do a workshop with us on scenes. J Thorn is coming in in the fall to do a workshop with us. We have a lot of really great people. And then I’m sort of waiting on some concrete yeses, from other people.

Kat (18:02)

But we also have marketing every single Friday. We have brainstorming on the third Friday of every month. And as part of the creative writing community, you have full access to the creative writing sessions membership. So we have 80 hours of Sprints and co writing. Somebody told me the other day, I think I told you all that Sprints has a bad idea, like bad shadow to that word. So they are co writing sessions, however you want to say it. We get together, we set the timer, we write. We can see each other’s screens on Zoom, but we’re pretty much just writing. And we have about 40 hours a month. Yes, it’s a little insane, but we’re getting a lot done. So that is something that you need. If you need to get some writing done, you should sign up and Sprint with us. You get one week free. You can try it out and you can cancel before the week is up and say, no, I don’t like it, or yes, give me more, please. And we will be switching the schedule a little bit for the summer, probably adding a few more hours. And into the fall we’re going to add some evening hours.

Kat (19:21)

So we’re going to try to accommodate lots of people. If you want to get a hold of me, you can find me mostly on Instagram at Catcalldell, Author, Facebook at Catcalldellautor. I’m also trying to be on LinkedIn. More Pinterest, more Goodreads. You can find me everywhere. You can find my newsletter below. I have a writer’s newsletter and a Reader’s newsletter and you can head on over to Patreon. Compencilsic. If you want to become a sponsor of the show, you will get a shout out on the show, even with your book. If you are a writer, I will shout out the name of your book as well. And like I said, you get discounts to the workshops. If you are a sponsor of the show, a patron of the show and the patrons definitely help with the payment of the editing and the putting together of the podcast. But without further Ado and I do have to remind you to subscribe and like the show and share it with all the people that you know and love and who will love listening to the show. Links are below in the show Notes and without further Ado Here’s Alessandra Tory Alexandra Tory is the New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal best selling author.

Kat (20:47)

She’s written over 23 novels, and she also writes in romance and suspense as AR Tory. Her first book, Blindfolded Innocence, was a breakout romance hit, rising to the top of the ebook charts on Amazon, where it attracted the interest of major publishing houses. Less than twelve months later, Tory signed a second figure print deal, this time with Red Hook Hatched for the Deanna Mad and Searnetic suspense trilogy. So she is both traditionally and indie published, which we talked about in the interview. But what makes Alessandra Tory Richard is that she not only has success as a writer, but as someone who helps authors become successful. She has an author community on Facebook with over 200 members, and she’s also the founder of Inkerscon, an annual authors conference as a self publishing advocate Alexander universities and conventions and author groups. And today she is speaking to us at the Pencils and Lipstick podcast. So we go through her journey becoming a writer, how she got into it, her different genres that she writes, and how she got into becoming the founder of Inkerscon, the writers conference. I think you’re really going to enjoy this show. Hello, everyone.

Kat (22:17)

Welcome to another episode of the Pencils and Lipstick Podcast. I’m excited to have with me today, Alessandra Tory. Hello, Alexandra. How are you doing?

Alessandra (22:25)

I’m fantastic. Thank you so much for having me on.

Kat (22:27)

I’m excited to have you on. You are romance writer. You’re very successful in the field. So I’m excited to hear about your writing experience and a little thing you call Inkerscon, which is not little at all. But we’ll get to that in a little bit. But before we start, could you tell people a little bit just where you’re from and then we’ll get into your story?

Alessandra (22:50)

Absolutely. So I’m a Florida girl. I live inKey West, Florida, which is a small island, the very, very Southern tip of Florida. And I write, as you said, romance. I also write suspense under AR Tory. So I have two pin names, and I am both traditionally and self published. I used to always say that my biggest success was through self publishing. Even though I had multiple traditional publishing contracts, I’ve hit the New York Times with seven times all the self published titles. So that’s really My Heart and My Love. But I really can’t say that anymore because my recent traditional publish books have taken off. But I will say that I’m an Indian heart.

Kat (23:34)

As we’re talking about before. I think most authors straddle that sense. Like, we want a little published. We want to have the freedom of indie published. But it’s great to have that acknowledgement of traditionally published, too, because it still carries that weight. It does really think your book is good.

Alessandra (23:53)

I got into the business in 2012. That was when I published my book. And then indie publishing really had the stigma. And that stigma is still in certain circles you still have especially, like, strangers who know nothing about our industry will be like, oh, are you going to get a publisher one day? And they don’t realize that we can do it just as well or better on our own. But definitely 2012. There is that stigma. And I think as you and I were chatting beforehand, it’s always kind of a grassy, greener thing. Like, even if you’re rocking and rolling and doing awesome and you’re publishing, a lot of us are still you need to know your options. Right? So you’re always kind of just paying attention to the other side of the fence in the same traditional. I have a lot of traditionally published authors that are asking me about self publishing and that are making that transition to self publishing or becoming hybrid, which I love to see.

Kat (24:45)

Oh, that’s interesting. So you started ten years ago now?

Alessandra (24:49)

Yes.

Kat (24:50)

Wow. Okay. How did you start? What did you start? In romance or in suspense?

Alessandra (24:57)

Yes. So I started the summer of 2012. I had lost my job. I was in between jobs. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, and I was lucky. The job I worked for, that company sold. My husband was one of the owners of the company, so we had some money where I could do whatever I wanted to do. So I was trying to figure out, like, gosh, what have I always wanted to do in life? And writing was not what came to mind at all. I was thinking, oh, maybe I’ll go to law school. I don’t know why I think I watched Legally Blonde at one point and thought, like, law school, but I was not thinking writing at all because I didn’t think that I had any skill. Why would I think that I had skill writing? But I love to read, and I read nonstop. And my mom actually started to write a book with a co author. So I approached her. She was writing a book, and she was telling me about self publishing, and she was sending me some of her books on writing.

Alessandra (25:54)

And I realized that there was this entire industry where someone could write a book and publish it on their own, and no one would ever have to know about it, and you wouldn’t have to send it off to New York and get rejection letters for three years. And I thought, I’m not doing anything right now. I read where El James was making, like, a million dollars a day. And I was like, you know, if I got 1% of that, I’d be like, set. So I thought, Why not? I’ll just write a book. I won’t tell a soul about it. I didn’t tell anyone, but my husband and I’ll just put it online. I’ll just see what happens. And that was what I did. I wrote a book. I wrote it. I read it twice. Sounded pretty good to me. I mean, in retrospect, it was horribly written and riddled with typos. But I thought, sounds good. I made my own cover. I stuck it on Kindle, and then I just kind of sat back and watched, and it did okay. So it was a sexy romance novel. That was another reason why I could not tell a soul about this book, because I know what I was thinking.

Alessandra (26:56)

I was thinking, oh, El James is definitely, like, dungeon it up in her house. And now I’m a total hypocrite because I’m writing all this sexy stuff. So I’m thinking people are going to think I’m doing all this stuff in my own life. So it was like, can’t tell anybody. And I was getting to the point where I was making, like, $20 a day on this book. And I thought, maybe, like, $1015 a day. But I thought if I wrote $10 and I was making ten or $15 a day, like, I wouldn’t have to go back to work. It could just be my job. I was making $38,000 a year in my job prior to that. And I was like, you know, maybe this could be a career for me. So I started thinking about a second book. And three months into my first book, we were about to leave town. And I’m sorry, I think you asked me a quick question.

Kat (27:47)

No, I love this. Go ahead.

Alessandra (27:49)

But we’re about to leave town for the weekend. And I said, I was looking at my book, this page on Amazon, which looks exactly the same. Ten years later, I haven’t changed the thing. I’m looking at my book page on Amazon, and I was like, I think I’ll write another book description. Like, I’ll just write a fresh description. So I jotted down a fresh book description. I didn’t even save the prior one. I just re uploaded it in Kendall. And we got in the car, and we drove to Memphis, which was like 7 hours away at the time as a new author, as many of you listening will know you like, obsessively check your sales rank and purchases. And so the minute we got to WiFi, this was back when I didn’t have, like, a cell phone WiFi. I checked my sales and I had had 100 sales in a six hour drive. And I was like, that’s crazy. Like there must be a glitch or something. I don’t know. So I went to dinner and came back and I had had 100 more sales when we were at dinner. And the next day I had like 600 sales the next day.

Alessandra (28:52)

And then all of a sudden I had 1000 sales a day. And then I started ranking in the top Amazon top 100. And I was having 20, 00, 30, 00 sales a day. And it was all because I changed that book description. And that is a lesson that I have carried with me for the past ten years is I didn’t realize how many people were clicking on my book page because I had a very provocative cover. I didn’t realize how many people were clicking on that book page. And the reviews were strong. I had good reviews, but that description was the missing piece. And it wasn’t when I fixed that, then my conversion went through the roof. And that really launched my entire career because at that point in time, then agents were calling me and it’s totally worth it. Yeah. I got a publishing deal. And then suddenly I had a six figure publishing deal in an agent and a publisher. And it was like, oh, I guess this is my new job with my family at this point because my life had suddenly, literally in the course of just two months, changed completely.

Kat (29:53)

Wow. Okay. So did they pick up that book or were they looking to pick up you writing a new one?

Alessandra (30:00)

So back in 2012, when indie books were going crazy, publishers didn’t really know what to do with us.

Kat (30:05)

Right.

Alessandra (30:06)

And they thought like, oh, if these Podunk authors who don’t know anything about anything, which granted, I did not know anything about anything. But there were a lot of really smart self published authors out there. But I was not one of them at that time. They were like, if they could get 50,000 sales, imagine what we could do with our system. So they were grabbing books that were hitting and doing well on Amazon, and then they’re offering these big six figure book deals, and then they were going to launch them in paperback and expecting them to take off. And they only did that for like a year and a half before they were just losing massive amounts of money.

 (30:45)

Okay.

Alessandra (30:45)

Because those books weren’t really converting. By the time we went through the traditional publishing cycle of six months or whatever, it was like people had already moved on to other titles. And so it wasn’t. So they bought that first book, which is blindfolded in a sense, in a two book deal. So they bought that in the sequel, which I hadn’t even planned on writing a sequel at that time. But suddenly it ended up being a trilogy. But I wasn’t planning on it being a sequel. And then with my third book, I did the same thing, the Girl in 60. I self published it and then six to nine months after it was out and it really didn’t even do that great. My agent was like, let’s pitch it. And we ended up selling that to hashet. But nowadays they won’t do that. They want new and I have a lot of authors come to me and they’re like, oh, this book has great reviews. It just hasn’t gotten visibility. I want to try to pitch it traditionally and they really aren’t interested in that and especially if it did not do well. Very rarely I do see them buy pre published books, but now it’s an oddity.

Kat (31:50)

Yeah, things have changed quite a bit. I think you along with a couple of other people who really hit in 20, 11, 20, 12. It was an amazing thing to have this Kindle where I mean, I was having I had babies in a rocking chair. I would have my Kindle and I would finish a book and I could go on to the next one because I had Unlimited. And so it was like a great moment for readers and for writers, I think. But then the industry has caught up on some things. So did you end up going back because you said you had Typos? Did you go back and fix those? But is it pretty much the same book as before?

Alessandra (32:32)

Yes. So some of my early reviews, I got dinged a few with one and two star reviews that were saying I needed editing at that point in time. I had earned enough where I knew I was going to get four $500, like at my next payment. So I did hire an editor and I didn’t know what I was doing. So it turned out I hired the equivalent of a proof reader, I think. But she did a very basic edit, caught five or six typos, but it still hadn’t been professionally edited or developmental edit or anything like that. So then when Harlequin bought the book, they did a professional edit, but they were really rushing it to books. And I was a brand new author. I’d never worked with an editor before. So looking back, it wasn’t a deep edit, but I don’t know if it wasn’t because of time frame or because of my own lack of knowledge at that point in time. It is hard for me to read that book now because I feel like it is amateurishly written and it’s that book that when people are like, oh, I started reading blindfolds in a sense.

Alessandra (33:40)

I’m like, oh, okay. I would love to one day get the rights back, set book and rewrite it because I think the story is amazing. But if anyone listening has read that book, I’m sorry. And I read it with a crane of salt. Yeah.

Kat (34:05)

Well, that’s one of the things about having an art that is out in the world because you grow and you learn more. And it’s one of those things where a lot of people are kind of like, I don’t know. Desiree Holt actually told me that she went back and completely rewrote her first book because she was like, I had to. I had to go back and fix it.

Alessandra (34:30)

Okay. I’ve done it on multiple backlist titles. Now, all of my indie books I feel proud of and I’m happy with, but all of the ones that I was starting to be like, cringey on when people mentioned they read them. Like, that’s my sign. Like, I need to take them off. I need to rewrite them. And my writing has changed in some ways, in some ways not a great thing. I was on a private author chat the other day and we were talking about how when we go back and read our first stuff, it was so raw. Like, raw was the word three of us used. Like, we weren’t afraid. We would write really bold stuff. And I think with society and everything else we’ve gotten so worried about offending in 2012. Like, a hero would grab the hero in and shove her against the wall and she’d be like, no. I’d be like, yes. And now it’s like, Are you sure I can touch you? And she’s like, yes. And he’s like, I need that verbal consent. It’s a different environment, but we write differently and I think we are. I’m worried that my work is the more muted or diluted over time.

Kat (35:48)

I think in almost every genre that’s happened because I was talking with some other women’s fiction, and it’s that straight. All the questions are coming up as you’re writing, am I allowed to add this character? Are they allowed to do that? And what’s interesting to me as a reader, because I’m trying to think of the names of the books, but the best romance books are from the 70s and 80s. It’s all just steamy and just heart pounding. And I actually found one of them and saw a review of, I think, a younger millennial or maybe even younger, whatever that generation is. And they were just appalled and they were calling things up that I hadn’t even thought of. I didn’t thought to be offended by it. So it is a hard balance. But I don’t know. I don’t know how we would change that, honestly, because you still want to sell your books and the readers are the readers. So do you find writing suspense? You get to be a little bit different in your writing and pull out different themes.

Alessandra (36:58)

Yeah. So what’s interesting is when I sat down to write my first book. I wrote a romance, and I really wasn’t expecting to ever be a romance writer because I’d never read romance, and that was part of my problem. Early on, I actually feel it’s a good thing because I ended up writing very non formulaic and kind of out of the box romance. It wasn’t intentional. It’s because I didn’t read romance, and so I didn’t know how romance stories were supposed to be told. That is not what I would suggest. My big advice is often like, if you’re not a reader, that can be a problem and reading your genre. I always read suspense. That was really what I wanted to write in. But when my first book was a hit, and then I had a publishing deal, and then I had to write that sequel, and then all of a sudden I had tens of thousands of readers that were romance readers, which is why I have 22 romance novels for myself. But suspense is really it was like if I could get to the point where I was financially independent enough, where I could just write what want to write.

Alessandra (38:05)

And that was really what I wanted. And there’s so much more freedom in writing suspense because I can make the main character the bad guy okay, and I can kill off my main character, and who knows what the ending could be. It could be whatever I want it to be. Maybe the bad guy wins, maybe the bad guy doesn’t. But in romance, you really have to have certain elements if you want to be successful and if you want to have readers that are satisfied. And when you have that guaranteed ending, it can cause the route there to become very challenging, to keep it creative and to keep it so I really enjoyed the transition. I haven’t written a romance novel now in two years, but I will go back to it because I have grown to love romance, but I prefer writing suspense. I can’t remember what your question was.

Kat (39:00)

Just the difference of writing it. And was it difficult to start writing suspense because not always just because we read a genre is it easy. I don’t write it because it kind of freaks me out because you have to have so many elements. The reader needs to know that you’re not hiding things, but they also don’t want it to be obvious. It seems very complicated to me.

Alessandra (39:27)

It is. A lot of my romance novels have suspense in them just because when I would get bored, I would start killing off people. I was like, wooden doubt, throw a dead body into the room. So I had a lot of books there. My suspense plots have gotten progressively more intricate and complex. Okay. And I think if I had tried to write The Good Lie as a serial killer, almost police procedural, but it’s a psychological thriller. If I had tried to write that as my first suspense. I don’t think there’s any way I could have done it because there were so many moving pieces, but I’ve been able to ease into it. And as I’ve gone, it’s gotten progressively easier and I feel more confident in taking on different things. I don’t have the romance to fall back on. So in romance novels, that’s a tool you can use in a lot of things. Sex is a tool I can use in a lot of different ways. I can use it to add intimacy or to cause a couple to grow stronger. I can cause it to add problems, but there’s a lot of emotions that can be expressed anger, sadness with sex and a breakup sex when you take all that out.

Alessandra (40:49)

One of the most intimidating things for me was when I read The Ghost Writer, which was a women’s fiction psychological suspense, and it had a man and a woman and they were just friends. There was absolutely no romantic element, but they had to slowly become friends and trust each other. That was so hard for me to write because I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t know how to authentically grow a friendship between opposing sex of differing ages and do it in a valid way without showing that intimacy physically as they would get closer. But it happened, and apparently I did it fine. But that was one of the most intimidating things for me when I look back at all of my novels.

Kat (41:34)

Right. I think that’s really interesting because I’ve talked to a lot of writers and myself included. It sounds like you’ve written a few books and you come up against another story that you feel like you should know how to write, but all of a sudden you’re finding yourself learning a whole different way of writing. And I think that’s important to understand that you’re not alone as a writer. Like, sometimes you get a story and it stumps you for a while. Like, how am I going to get these people to do what I expect them to do and to learn a new, I guess, sort of skill in the writing maybe. Like, how do they do this in that genre? Which again, goes back to your advice, pick up a book in the genre and maybe read it more analytically, I guess, or see what you like about it. But it is interesting to think just because you’ve written even 22 books, if you pick up a new genre, it’s still going to be a new challenge, right?

Alessandra (42:32)

Absolutely. And I think they’re all like tools in our tool belt, and so it’s figuring out how to use those. And even if you are switching genres or whatever else, the story elements are the same. It’s just trying to figure out how you’re going to communicate that. And I do what you just said a lot of times if I’m stuck with that and I asked my readers I need some great stories that have a fantastic platonic relationship between a man and a woman and you’ll get suggestions. And then I read those and like you said, read them in an analytical fashion. And I’ll stop at 25% in and go, okay, do I feel like they’re close right now? No. And then why not? What is it that has indicated and what percentage of the scenes are happening between them? And are those mostly dialogue scenes or am I in one person’s point of view? And that’s another thing that you just learned with time of point of views and when to use differing point of views. I write majority of my stories and this is also not normal. But I write my main character in first person and then I write all my other characters in third person.

Alessandra (43:47)

And I did that early on. I did that with male point of views because I just didn’t know how to write from a first person mail point of view. And when I tried to, it was like I would get tied up and not mentally. Like I was like, gosh, why can’t I write this scene? This should be a simple scene. And I was like, okay, it’s because I don’t know how he’s thinking and I just don’t know how to talk in his voice. And it was just so much easier for me to write him in third person and I’d rather write him in third person. Well or okay, rather than write him poorly in first person. And that’s a crutch. I still lean on a lot.

Kat (44:21)

I like that. That’s an interesting way to write. I was thinking the other day of like, I went back to some books that I love as a reader just for enjoyment. I never, I guess, pay attention to the point of view, first person, third birth. Once it sucks you in, you read it back to don’t pay attention.

Alessandra (44:42)

That’s the thing stands out when it’s bad. Exactly.

Kat (44:47)

So that’s an interesting way to do it. I’ll have to see if I’ve read anything else. Not analytically clearly. I just allow myself to be affected. What I do want to talk to you about is you have quite a bit of success from the books. I’ve also seen that you have one in a movie. So that is pretty amazing. On Passion flicks.

Alessandra (45:08)

Yes. Hollywood Dart was produced in Cosh, I think like four years ago. Yes. By Passion flicks, which is a studio that only produces book adaptation, romance book adaptation.

Kat (45:20)

That’s really cool. Yeah, that’s really cool. So you have found quite a bit of success as a writer and yet you still have a passion to help writers find success, which I think is pretty amazing because a lot of times, I mean, for whatever reason, people don’t always do that. They’ll stick to their writing or whatever, who knows the reasons? But what are your reasons for wanting to also continue to help writers. You have a newsletter, you give out advice, you give out freebies, you have a conference. What is it that drives you to want to continue to help authors find that same success you have?

Alessandra (45:59)

So I started working with authors. I don’t really work with authors for the most part. I try to offer as many resources as possible. And as soon as you start to find success. Well, there were two factors. As soon as you start to find a lot of success, you start getting emails from authors and they’re asking, you know, for advice and they’re asking how you became successful and they’re asking that sort of thing. And I would put so much time into responding to these. And the problem is you’re responding to one person who may or may not take your advice that may or may not fit them. But I’m still not doing a great job, really the answering their question. What I needed to do to answer their question was spend like 6 hours talking through things. So there was that aspect of things. The other aspect was when I started in 2012, there was very few resources available and maybe they were there and I just didn’t know how to find them. But there weren’t the Facebook groups. There are now, there weren’t the YouTube videos. There are. Because self publishing was so new and traditional authors aren’t out there.

Alessandra (47:07)

You might be able to find things on craft, but as far as marketing and publishing books, there just wasn’t that information out there. So much of my early career was really performed by me. Like running in one direction until I hit a wall and then I would turn and run another direction. I was completely blind and I didn’t know what was working and what wasn’t working. And it was one of those things. It was like if I ever figured this out, like I want to help other authors with that also just a very lonely business. And it’s fun to be part of an author community to talk about authors. So with all of those things, when I first started with courses and it was like I created a course how to Write Your First Book. And that was really just because it was me putting everything I knew down on video and on the computer as deeply as I could. So if someone reached out to me instead of me just writing back a few paragraphs, I could have something that they can work through. And then it moved into and I started a Facebook group.

Alessandra (48:14)

And the Facebook group, which is Alexander Tory Inkers, is one of the joys of my life. Thankfully, it has avoided drama and it has avoided job negativity. Yes, but it’s just great. And everyone in that group knows there are so many people in that group that knows so much more than me. But it allows. Just searching the group or watching the threads can really teach someone, but it’s basically a group of people ask questions and people respond with feedback and answers. But it really gave back to me a lot because I do get burnt out on writing. So it’s nice be able to divide my time. I get as much out of it as I get into it, if not more. So it’s nice to be able to kind of switch to a different part of my brain. It also challenges me to learn more because I can’t talk about things intelligently unless I know them. And so I have to learn pretty much continually. And it’s really easy as authors for us to stop learning and just focus on our deadline and our real life and everything else. So it’s been for me a nice sanity maintainer because it does help me balance my life.

Alessandra (49:22)

And I’ve met just the coolest people.

Kat (49:26)

Right.

Alessandra (49:26)

But I normally wouldn’t have an opportunity I normally wouldn’t have an opportunity to talk to someone like you. So it’s been great in that regard.

Kat (49:33)

Yes, absolutely. I think you touch on something so important, too. Like, you keep learning because this industry is changing so quickly. Keep up with it.

Alessandra (49:45)

Yeah. A year ago, I would not be taking a class on TikTok ads. I wouldn’t be. And there’s so many things I still don’t know. I mean, I just learned about deep point of view, which I might have been using it without knowing it, but I just learned that phrase and about it in the last two years. So there’s so much. And now when I read a book that’s not deep point of view, I’m like, oh, my gosh, I can’t believe this author is not writing deep point of view. I was reading a John Grisham book and I was picking him apart. Like you said, it’s continual. It can be really overwhelming, actually, for a lot of new authors. That’s one of the bad things. But you really just got to do the best you can. And so many new authors are like, I’ll never catch up. I’ll never do this. It’s like we didn’t have any of this. You are already so far ahead of so many other authors because there are a lot of authors that really have no idea even what they don’t know. I mean, just if you know what you don’t know, you’re already a step ahead.

Kat (50:47)

True. I mean, there’s pros and cons to starting now and starting then, but now you have access. I remember looking for I would come back on and off between the babies and looking for Editors. Like, it was pretty much ridersdydress.com.

Alessandra (51:03)

Not Craigslist, but basically Craigslist asking if somebody was an editor. And it was like, first one I found, I used because I didn’t have an option and you didn’t know.

Kat (51:15)

And now there’s like seven types of Editors and you’re like, oh, I did not know that. It’s good. It’s good that we have people who are willing to teach us and to keep up with us. Honestly, I don’t think we can all keep up with everything. That’s why there are specific people that I follow. You’re great at Good Reads and you have great ideas in your newsletters. And I just think as authors, it’s really important to find those people and follow them. Because you can’t keep up with everything. No, but how did you come up with the idea of Inkers Con? And it sounds like a crazy endeavor to put together a live writing conference. That sounds like a lot of work.

Alessandra (51:55)

Yeah. Anchors. So if you’re listening. Inkers Con is an annual writing conference. Now we’ve expanded and we have different free events, webinars and things like that year round. But the gist of Inkers Connor is the annual authors conference available in person in Dallas or online. And I was creating my online courses, and so I have them in writing, marketing, and publishing. And it was really me realizing how little I actually knew. There were so many areas that I just didn’t know a lot. And I could make a video about maybe, I don’t know, Facebook ads, but really, I’m not the best person to teach that. Like, the best person to teach that is the Facebook ads expert who I love, Mallory Cooper, but there’s a ton of them out there. Yeah, she’s fantastic. So it was really like, okay, that is sort of like if I got all of the smartest people together and had them each speak on their topic and it was not going to be an in person conference. It was going to be had them each to go on their topic and we were to record them professionally, and then I could put together, like a course of all of these people kind of the thought.

Alessandra (53:07)

So then I was looking at the logistics of flying everybody into the same place so we could be consistent with the video and everything else. And then it was like, it seems crazy to have all these awesome people together and not let readers or not let authors be there also. So I talked to my sister, who’s our conference head, and we were like, what do we think about just doing a conference? But we wanted to also have the online component. Okay. And she was like, let’s do it. And so that was basically how the live conference is really just it’s a byproduct of putting it together for a digital event. And at the time this is back in 2019, you had, like, Summits, which were very sales driven and just different. I don’t know. It’s just a slightly different feel. And you had in person conferences, but you didn’t have something that was both nowadays because of COVID. Like, so many conferences are going virtual. But back in 2019, when we launched, nobody was doing it. It was like we were the only one out there in that sea, which really gave us a leg up when Covet happened because we had everything already in place for the day.

Alessandra (54:17)

So we have the Live conference, which is in Dallas, and we have four main focuses, marketing, business, advertising, and writing 24 classes. And then we film everything happening, not the social events, but everything by a team of videographers and then package it. And then we launch it for the Digital attendees three weeks later or I’m sorry, it’s not three weeks later. It’s like five or six weeks later for the Digital attendees. And then we have three weeks of digital events that are happening as part of that digital. And I think you’ve attended the Digital conference in the past, and then they have access for six years. We used to do it for a year, and then attendees were like, my access is expiring. Can I have it for longer? All right, three years. And it was like, why are we limited to three years? We’ll do six, and probably eventually we’ll just do ten or 20 years. But I don’t know where the world is going to be in six years.

Kat (55:15)

Yeah. At some point they just need to go to the new one because.

Alessandra (55:20)

Crash classes are forever. Pretty much marketing, advertising, yes.

Kat (55:27)

So is it mostly for romance writers or is it a wide audience?

Alessandra (55:31)

No, it’s wide. And that was really important to me in the beginning because I am romance in suspense, and we already had a ton of fantastic romance conferences, and there are a ton of fantastic. But I wanted to also I know how we market our books in the romance world and all of the bubbles that I’m in with other authors of romance. But I want to know about someone who’s killing it in urban fantasy and what they’re trying because it’s like two different worlds. And we don’t really talk to each other. We don’t share Facebook groups. Typically, we don’t share marketing. So I really wanted to learn from the other industries, both their secrets in craft and the way that they construct stories, but also really in their marketing, what they’re doing and to kind of open up those lines of communication. So it’s all adult fiction. We don’t have children’s books. We don’t do middle grades, though I’m sure a middle grade person would do it. And we do have some traditionally published authors who attend, but we’re really built for indie authors.

Kat (56:33)

Yeah. So what would then be the difference between attending Live? I don’t know. I’m sure it gives it especially coming out of College. It’d be nice to see people’s faces. Yeah.

Alessandra (56:44)

But what are the benefits of one versus the live? You always get digital access, so if you’re live, you don’t have to choose between the two. You get both. But live is more expensive. You have to go to Dallas. Live is great if you’re ready to kind of rejoin and you feel comfortable interacting with other people in the post covert situation, but it’s great. And Jamie Albright, who’s an author friend of mine, she was staying on Clubhouse the other day. She’s like, when she signed up for a lot of digital things and she just never watches the classes. She’s like, I’ll sign up, I have good intentions, but I don’t do it. She’s like, I need to be there. I need to have my butt in a seat. I need it, or else I’m not going to watch it. And so she’s like, she is only doing in person from now on. Like, she made a decision. So there are some people like that. The other thing which digital conferences were lacking for a long time was that chatting in the hall in between the classes, grabbing when you’re in line to get coffee, talking to the author behind you, the chance to meet in person with Amazon reps or book club reps or that sort of thing.

Alessandra (57:54)

So all of those aspects are typically better at a live conference right now. That being said, one of our most popular parts of the digital conference is roundtables, which is any attendee can start a live video discussion your options, whether you want to turn on your camera on a certain topic. And we had almost 100 of them last year. Over 40 were videotaped so that other people could watch the replays later on, but they could be on anything, whether it’s like urban fantasy characters or, I don’t know, list segments or whatever. So that interaction. Some people join the digital conference and all they did was sit in round tables for 8 hours a day for those three weeks. It was insane. I was amazed at how much activity there was in those round tables. And we are doing those round tables at the live event. But that sort of interaction is why most authors who do go to live conferences, like the live event, because they want that meet and greet and that interaction. But there are a lot of authors like me, truly, honestly, if I could never leave my house, I would never leave my house.

Alessandra (59:01)

I love being at home and I do not like traveling. So I go to Anchors, obviously, because I need to be there and because it is one of the greatest weeks of my entire year, every year. But if I was just an author and I had the option of staying at home versus traveling. And granted, I have a family and a lot of obligations that I should be in town for. But the digital access is a lot easier for, especially if you’re in New Zealand.

Kat (59:33)

Yeah. And I have to say, like your digital conference last year, and I attended a lot during it. I’m curious about how people would set it up, but yours was really amazing because of the round tables, which I hadn’t seen. Maybe somebody else did it, but I personally hadn’t seen it because it really gave you the feeling that you were there with someone and that you weren’t alone because otherwise you’re on Zoom for a lot of conferences and you’re just listening and your mind wanders. But taking like, Mel Cooper’s, she did book Blurb last year. And then, like, going to around talking about it really fixing people remember things that you don’t remember, just people. And it’s a good collaboration tool. So when you’re swapping newsletters or books or whatever blog posts, whatever people do in all their different genres, it’s a great way to make contact with those authors. So you guys did a really great job. So if anyone either can’t attend or for covert or whatever, it really is a different digital conference than most of them.

Alessandra (01:00:47)

I really appreciate you saying that. Thank you. And we still have growing pain. So last year’s, first year, we opened round tables to unlimited size. It used to be where we’re limited 20 the prior year. And on day one of Roundtables, they launched and they immediately filled out, which is the same thing that was happening here for. And someone was like, why can’t we just have them? What is the reason to limit it to 20 people? And the beauty of us, like, our small team is we like, let’s have a discussion. And it was like, you know what? We’ll open it up and let’s see how it goes. And it was great that we did because the logistics, I mean, people were getting so frustrated. It was like a lottery. Like, if you weren’t there when a round Hill was posted, you didn’t get a seat. And people were grabbing seats. Even if they couldn’t get in, we weren’t sure if they’d be able to make it. And it’s just wild. And next year, next year, we’ll have a more seamless Zoom process, too. Sure.

Kat (01:01:46)

We all learn, right. But your team is very responsive. You guys never seem stressed. I don’t know if you’re aware.

Alessandra (01:01:58)

It was easy. Yeah, everything’s working.

Kat (01:02:01)

That’s why I think you guys are amazing for even doing it. We will definitely have links in the show. Notes for Anchors Con this year. It’s June 3 through the fifth, correct?

Alessandra (01:02:12)

Yes. The live events, the third through the fifth in Dallas Plano, Texas, which is a suburb of Dallas. And then digital launches like the middle of July, July 16, I think something.

Kat (01:02:23)

Okay, well, we’ll have a link to that for everyone to find information about it. But where can people find you? Where do you hang out? Mostly it sounds like you have a Facebook group. Where can they find you? And all the things that you have to offer.

Alessandra (01:02:35)

All of the stuff. Yes. Alexander Inquiries is the Facebook group. I’d love to have you join there. I think we have, like, over 20,000 authors as part of that group. And then if you’re interested in getting my emails, it’s Alessantretory Inc. In k.com, and there will be, like, a subscribe button that pops up somewhere but if you sign up there you can get the hopefully helpful stuff that I sent out.

Kat (01:03:02)

Very helpful stuff. Very helpful stuff. And you can find Alessandra Tory’s books and AR Tory, right.

Alessandra (01:03:09)

That is your suspect. Yeah.

Kat (01:03:12)

All of the platforms.

Alessandra (01:03:14)

Yes. Most of my books are in Ku my is Amazon publishing so most of my stuff in Ku but I also have stuff wide in both genres. So if you’re wide or Ku, I got you covered.

Kat (01:03:29)

Yes. And she has over 20 books.

Alessandra (01:03:31)

Just don’t read.

Kat (01:03:35)

Until she can get it back.

Alessandra (01:03:37)

If you’re an author and you’re interested, the ghost writer is my best book for authors. The author is the main character and so yeah, authors like the ghost rider.

Kat (01:03:46)

Oh, good. I’ll have that in the show notes as well. Thank you so much, Alessandra for coming and I really enjoyed talking with you.

Alessandra (01:03:52)

I had a great time. Thank you so much for having me.

Kat (01:04:09)

Hey, you’re still listening since you are could you do me a favor and head over to the app that you’re listening to this episode on and hit the subscribe button and then rate and review the show. It would really help the pencils Olympic podcast get out into the world and if you’re enjoying the podcast, well then there might be more people out there who would enjoy it as well. If you want to find out more about me, you can head over to catcaldwell.com. I have my story over there. My books, my interactive journals, my one on one coaching information and information on my creative writing community membership group. If you’re looking to write a book or you are a writer and you just want to find out more about how to write, how to publish, how to format, how to market and all the things that go into being an author these days. Check out the membership group. There is a 14 three day trial that you can try it out. Get into the masterminds find out all the goodies that we are talking about in the group. I would love to see you there.

The post Ep 125 Romance Powerhouse Alessandra Torre first appeared on Pencils&Lipstick.

Kat (00:14)

Welcome to the Pencils and Lipstick Podcast.

Kat (00:16)

A weekly podcast for writers.

Kat (00:20)

Grab a cup of coffee.

Kat (00:21)

Perhaps some paper and pen.

Kat (00:23)

And enjoy an interview with an author.

Kat (00:25)

A chat with a writing tool creator, perhaps a conversation with an editor or other publishing experts, as well as cat’s thoughts on writing and her own creative journey. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry.

Kat (00:38)

Well, hopefully not actually cry, but you will probably learn something.

Kat (00:43)

And I hope you’ll be inspired to write because as I always say, you have a story.

Kat (00:48)

You should write it down. This is Pencils and Lipstick.

Kat (00:56)

All right, everyone, we are back for another episode of the Pencils and Lipstick Podcast. I’m very excited for our guests today. Really excited. We’re going to talk about so many things, so I’m going to have her introduce herself. Hello. How are you doing?

Gail (01:08)

Hi, everybody. I’m Gail Carragher. I’m an author. Yeah, I guess it’s why I’m here. I write a lot of stuff. I’ve been writing fiction for twelve years now, and about ten of those. It’s been my full time job. I come out of academia. I know it’s great. It’s very unexpected. I did not ever anticipate or even really want to become a full time writer, but maybe we’ll talk about that.

Gail (01:33)

Yeah.

Gail (01:34)

I write science fiction, fantasy, romance and Young Adult, which I tend to just label as commercial genre fiction. And I have written one nonfiction book, which is for authors, which is called The Heroines Journey, which is basically a rebuttal to Justice Campbell’s hero with 1000 faces.

Kat (01:52)

Yes. And we are definitely going to talk about The Heroines Journey because I keep talking to people about this because as we talked on the show about getting better at our writing. This is definitely a book that can help us do that. But first, we want to talk about all the different things that you write, because first of all, how did you become a novelist? Because in your bio, you said that you were studying.

Gail (02:20)

Yeah.

Kat (02:20)

You out there with a brush in the desert or something.

Gail (02:23)

Yeah. Straight up. Yes, I have a laboratory, but I went to the lab pretty early, but I do work in field labs, which means we go out into the field and we’re Jason’s to the field. And so I have gone and looked at a ceramic pot and excavated it with a brush. Yes, that image in your head. You can imagine me doing it. That’s amazing. Okay.

Kat (02:43)

So that is what you went to school for.

Gail (02:45)

That’s what I went to school. Yes. I have two Masters degrees, one is an MS and an MA, both in archeology or archaeology, tangential fields. And I was two years out from my PhD when I stopped and became a full time writer instead. And I love it. I love both my careers. Still miss archaeology occasionally. Yeah. It was a hard decision to make, but I think we should all be so lucky as to get to pick between two careers that we genuinely love and are passionately about. So I don’t have any regrets, even as I miss it occasionally.

Gail (03:18)

Yeah. That’s my former identity, your former life.

Kat (03:22)

So were you just writing for fun while going out and digging? Like, between digs?

Gail (03:27)

Yeah. I’ve always written fiction. I wrote fiction for as long as I can remember, including when my mom would read me things when I was a kid. If I didn’t like the ending, I would like, make up a new ending for it, which should tell you something. If it didn’t end happily, I was going to make it end happily. I was like, you should have known. But yeah. So I’ve always written. But I also grew up kind of in a sort of hippy Dippy, communal kind of unincorporated small town and surrounded by poets and other artists.

Gail (03:56)

And I was like, Well, that’s not a smart life choice. So I was like, I’m never going to do that. Nothing to do with the creative endeavor. So I was like, Right, academia very lucrative.

Gail (04:07)

But yeah, as one does.

Gail (04:09)

They go and become an archaeologist as you do. But I’ve also always really been passionate about history. And I just love the idea of touching history. And I’m also a ceramicist by training. And so I probably have those two together. And my field of study and expertise is in ceramic analysis. Okay. Which basically meant I got to go lots of different places all around the world whenever they had something that was like tangential to my expertise, which happens to be a kiln transition technology. So when sites find something they think might be a kiln or whatever.

Gail (04:41)

I used to be one of the people that you think of to call in.

Kat (04:45)

Well, that’s smart if you like traveling, that’s a smart way to go.

Gail (04:48)

Yeah. I always say the thing I thought I would miss would be traveling. But I actually travel more as a writer than I ever did as an archaeologist. I would just stay longer in places when I was an archeologist.

Kat (05:01)

Right.

Gail (05:01)

And you choose, right. Well, sort of. I definitely pick and choose now for where I travel. I’ll get a couple of offers for an international event or something, and I’ll be like, shall we go to Poland or France this year? That kind of thing.

Kat (05:21)

That’s awesome. So in 2009, you wrote your first one that’s, like a published. Is that technically a fantasy? That’s my question is there all these giant genres, and then there’s smaller genre.

Gail (05:40)

I genuinely am one of those weirdos who did in everything but the kitchen sink book. I seriously thought it would never sell. So I’ve been in and out of fandom my whole life as well. I always went to scifi cons and stuff like that. So I kind of knew a lot about the book industry and how it worked in marketing and all that sort of thing and so when I wrote Solace, it was just like an itch I needed to scratch and get it over with. And I really thought nobody would want to buy it from me out of traditional publishing because it is everything that the kitchen thinks.

Gail (06:11)

Technically, it’s a comedy of manners, romance, chassis. But it is steampunk. But it was written like, very early on, in second ways steampunk. So my house actually acquired it without really knowing what Steampunk was, which is basically retrofuturism, which is an all history kind of thing. And then my stuff is very funny, usually, especially the first couple of series. Yeah. So it’s just, like, a little bit there’s a bit of a mystery. It’s just a little bit of everything.

Gail (06:42)

Yeah.

Gail (06:42)

It’s urban fantasy. There’s a bunch of stuff I love, just, like, thrown into this thing. And I was like, It’ll work or it won’t. And I just wrote it to amuse myself. And then I was trying to practice discipline and nonprofitness discipline as a writer, which is finish this thing and send it out into the world and then write a new thing rather than just keep trying to perfect the first couple of chapters of that one thing, which I know is a habit so many authors fall into.

Gail (07:09)

And so I wrote it, and I just sent it out, and I immediately got an offer on it. That is amazing. That’s insane. That’s not the offer we ended up picking, but it just goes to show that, like, and this is the thing I always tell people when they’re thinking about publishing and traditional is it really is like, Editors are like, oh, this will sell. There is a commercial eye on these sorts of things. And definitely the first editor was like, we’re not sure what this is, but it will sell.

Gail (07:36)

And then Orbit, who is my publisher that ends up purchasing the series or the first book and then a series from me off of the back of that book. They were like, we don’t know, but we think it will sell. So it made us laugh. Let’s do this thing. And they were very confused. And they remain mostly confused about me, my style and my career as a business. The publishing business is like, we don’t get Gail. Like, every time they send me a royalty report, they still make royalties on that first book, which twelve years on is quite unusual for anyone who knows the book industry.

Gail (08:12)

They’re like, Why are we still writing you royalty checks? I don’t understand anything about this.

Gail (08:18)

It just kind of shows, like, how strange the publishing industry is right now with Indy in 2009, that was still like, indie was still kind of.

Gail (08:28)

Like, didn’t really exist, actually.

Kat (08:30)

Or it was looked down upon.

Gail (08:32)

It was definitely looked down upon. It was not considered a viable option. I looked down upon it the self publishing dirty word. But I have to say, I at the gate from a career perspective, already was like it was clear that I could go Indian hybrid. One of the first signs was that my book now Orbit was relatively young when they acquired me. But Sola sold better in ebook than any other book that they had, which at the time was 25%. Which of my sales were ebook sales, which was a huge thing.

Gail (09:07)

Again, they were like, we don’t understand what’s going on here. And I think for me at that point, it was because the romance reader base had got a hold of me and jumped on that book, and they were early adopters of ebooks. And so they were already like, pretty voracious within the ebook arena, even in 2009. Yeah.

Kat (09:28)

I mean, the romance authors and readers, I guess, conjoinedly whether they didn’t know they were working. But that is around the time I lived in Europe, so I had a Kindle. So obviously all I was reading was e book, and I think they were one of the first that genre to have podcasts. They were the first to have the way that I would say.

Gail (09:48)

Technically speaking, I think scifi fantasy were the first podcasted, fiction and horror.

Kat (09:54)

Okay, that makes sense because they’re more techy than that.

Gail (09:58)

Yeah. But less future speaking, much slower adopters like technology is the scifi fantasy arena. Weirdly, much slower adopters of new or tech in terms of, like, distribution models and capitalizing, self publishing and stuff like that. But they were some of the very first fiction, at least in the United States that I know about. That went to podcast, chapter by chapter away. Interesting, romance, I think, adopted Ereaders first for a number of reasons, primarily because romance readers are incredibly voracious. They read more and faster than I think any other commercial genre.

Gail (10:32)

And so they were like, we don’t need to collect the physical books. That reader base is not one that is into the itemized collector objects, which again, scifi fantasy is.

Kat (10:43)

Yeah, that’s true.

Gail (10:45)

I think there are genres that really like the art of the physical book. Sci-fi and fantasy are in that they like the art of it. Romance is not suspense, and mystery is not. And so those categories transition to e reader faster. I also think romance readers really liked people on public transport, not being able to see what they were reading right there’s. The embarrassment of those covers and that stereotype of being associated with reading those books, which I hope we’re getting over now, but was definitely the key early on.

Gail (11:17)

And that’s why I think romance readers were early. They didn’t have to have Bodice rippers on there. They could just have on a Kindle.

Kat (11:26)

Yes. And what’s so funny about the covers that romance used to have? We’re getting off topic. But the covers that they used to have is there are some romance writers that understand their history. They understand literature. They have a well developed story. You can learn amazing things like through these stories, and people will snub their nose at them because of the cover is frustrating.

Gail (11:51)

It’s so true. And honestly, especially now, especially modern romance, which has really changed, like the scope of breadth, representation. Everything about modern romance is so forward thinking, and a lot of that has to do with having been like the forerunners, technologically speaking and very savvy businesswomen in particular, within the romance genre. One of the things that I always challenge people is I think humor is one of the hardest things to write, and a good sex scene is one of the hardest things to write. And I don’t think you can write a good sex scene.

Gail (12:21)

If you haven’t read some romance, they just do it better than anybody else. I’m sorry, this is true.

Kat (12:29)

This is true. So if you are a writer who’s trying to write something that you don’t read in general, but romance don’t do that.

Gail (12:37)

I have to say a lot of, like, mystery writers, literary writers or memoirist whatever will have sex scenes or emotional resonance intimacy scenes in their stuff. And if they haven’t done a little bit of legwork and read some of the best romances, it’s going to be winci. It’s going to make your readers cringe. And I don’t know about you, but that’s the last thing I want to do.

Kat (13:01)

It’s so true. So do you consider yourself a romance writer or do you consider yourself top more fantasy theme?

Gail (13:09)

This is very interesting because I’ve waived over twelve years. So I went through a phase where I was like, I really want to own romance and writing romance because a lot of my books are on what I would call like a romance chassis, like, the beats are very much like a romance in terms of when intimacy levels hit and stuff like that. But I’m learning more and more that my reader base is not a lot. I have quite a few romance readers, but most of them wouldn’t identify primarily as romance readers.

Gail (13:36)

And so in a strange way, I haven’t really earned the romance writer moniker because my readers don’t see me that way. And I am kind of very much in an intimate back and forth with my reader base. So I think I don’t get to have that. I think some of my books are romances without question, and nobody would challenge me on that. But one of the examples they gave us, there was a point where I was like, I would really like to try to write straight up small town contemporary romance, and I started to write it, and it became an urban fantasy.

Gail (14:10)

It became paranormal romance. I was like, oh, I cannot, like, there must be fantastical elements in my stuff. I can’t leave that. So because it’s what I read. It’s what I grew up on. It’s the fandom that I interfaced with primarily. I think if you forced me to pick a genre, it would be science fiction and fantasy. But I think I mostly just behave kind of like a Ya author in that. There’s this category that I play in that really mostly kind of encompasses all of these tropes that are endemic to both science fiction, fantasy and romance, and even a little bit of, like, cozy mysteries and stuff like that.

Gail (14:47)

I’ll pick up and use them if I feel like they serve the story. And I’m at the point in my career where I don’t really need to care about niche into any specific subgenres. And frankly, I never really did because I debuted into Trad. I did really well in trade, and I did really well with an uncategorizeable book that to this day, people are like, what is Solace? And I’m like, I don’t know, read it. And you tell me you tell me.

Kat (15:13)

Which breaks some of the rules that everyone tries to tell many writers. Right. I think on Amazon right now you’re under Gas lamp fantasy.

Gail (15:22)

That’s a good category. I get steampunk a lot, which I think the steampunk if you want me to subgenre. And those books are steampunk, but they’re very light hearted. They’re not very hard. Sci-fi is steampunk. They’re on the sort of fantasy end of steampunk. Right.

Kat (15:45)

I think one of the reasons that you probably got picked up really quickly is you have a really unique voice, and I think you own your voice, your writing voice very well. When you start reading your books, you are, like, sucked in right away to what is going on. You can see it and you’re very funny. You’re very witty, like, sarcastic the woman. Well, I’m reading it now because you have other main characters, obviously, but you can hear the main characters voice very quickly.

Gail (16:18)

I get that a lot, and I would call it sort of breezy, witty kind of. That stuff is very Victoriana, like I use purple pros. I break third wall, fourth wall. Occasionally I head hop. Even in that first book, there’s a lot of stuff I do in those earlier books in particular. And in that universe in which there are 21 books at this juncture, where I very much have informed by Victorian stuff by Gaskell to a certain extent, Austin Dickens in particular, also sort of late Victorian and in the 1920s PG Woodhouse.

Gail (16:52)

So that style of writing very much informs it because I really love those kinds of books. I grew up on them listening to audiobooks, so that’s the voice kind of in my head. And I sort of coincidentally, early on in my career, it became very clear that that’s what people like for me, but also that’s like, for example, my publisher wrote the backcover copy for Solace and then asked me to write the back cover copy for Solace as well. And this was way back in the old days, and Orbit was very young, so they had a lot more communication with me as an author.

Gail (17:30)

And also, like I said, they picked up this weird book, and they have no idea what it is. So I had unprecedented influence over things that cover and cover copy. And so we were back and forth thinking about which one was better. And I’m also not very precious about my stuff. So I’m like, if you think yours is better, go with yours. I don’t really care. But we put it up to the boat just on my life Journal back in the live Journal days. Like, which cover copy do you like better?

Gail (17:53)

We don’t know what to do. And it was almost 50 50. But most of the target demographic or what I believed at the time was going to be my target demographic, which was women readers. This is very simple demos in Western day. Okay. They liked the copy that I had written. Okay. And so to this day, I’ve written my own backcover copy for my publisher. They were just like, fine, we don’t have to pay you. You just write your own freaking copy. And I was like, fine.

Gail (18:21)

But they gave me the skill set to transition to being hybrid and being a self published author because I learned how to write my own cover copy really early on. And I do it kind of as I’m writing the book, the cover copy kind of slowly materializes as I’m writing the book. And that’s to say that that cover copy is also very much in my voice, but in copy version of my voice. And that was a training mechanism for me. So my tweets are in my voice, like my blog posts are in my voice.

Gail (18:48)

It just carries over. And partly that’s because it’s me. You’re listening to me. It’s a little bit how I talk, but also, I don’t know, it just became this very kind of comfortable fear for me to write in. And also it means because I have this very clear voice that the wrong readers get turned off real fast. And I want that. And I think most authors should learn to love that I have a blog post or a saying which basically is you should learn to love your one star reviews because they are telling both you and the world that they’re the wrong reader for your book, and you can learn why.

Gail (19:27)

And then you don’t target those people, right? You want to turn off the wrong readers with your cover art and your copy almost as much as you want to turn on the right readers. That’s what kind of the marketing side of this business is all about. And I got early lessons in how to do that. And one of the lessons I got was how to transmit my voice in such a way that makes it so that the readers I don’t want don’t follow me on social media, they don’t interface with me, they don’t join my group, and then they don’t read my stuff and that’s good.

Kat (20:01)

I don’t want that. Yes.

Gail (20:03)

Exactly. Because you’ll waste your time trying to get people to buy your book who aren’t going to buy your book or they’ll buy it and then they’ll hate it and then they’ll hate it and then they get mad at you or like.

Gail (20:14)

Miss advertising to them. Or what have you that’s a really interesting idea.

Kat (20:20)

Though, what I think a lot of readers should take away is to accept their voice how it is and to start being fully themselves on their blogs, on their social media, in their books and to just go with it.

Gail (20:35)

Yes. Lean into it. Not to use a catchy phrase.

Kat (20:41)

Instead of being generic. I think for some reason we always want 80% of the people to like our book. We might expect that not everyone will like it, but we want, like, 80 90%, and that’s just not going to happen.

Gail (20:53)

It’s not going to happen. I think writers cultivating a code switch between their writers and their reader name is really healthy. But you as a reader, don’t like everything you read and everything you write. I as a reader don’t like stuff. My friends, like my best friends who are writers, right? I don’t read so and so stuff like, I love them. I don’t like their stuff. I’m not their reader. That’s not me. We are very picky. Writers can be more picky than anybody else. You have to expect that readers are exactly the same way.

Gail (21:29)

And the way I put it is like, I get that people love Stephen King. I cannot read Stephen King. I cannot stand Stephen King. I agree with you. But that’s me. There’s nothing wrong with Stephen King’s writing, not his audience. Clearly right. Like the greatest writers of the world, right? Yes. Or the Jack Rachel books or something. I just don’t read books like that. I don’t like them. I’m not interested in them. It’s not going to work for everybody. And so we, as writers, have to accept that similarly, they’re not going to work for everybody.

Kat (22:03)

In fact, we shouldn’t. And we don’t want to. Or at least that’s my attitude. Yes.

Gail (22:08)

And so leaning into the voice of how you want to write, how you want your books to be. You’re pretty unique in that it got picked up and it’s pretty quickly and all that. So that is unique. But I do think that readers are always looking for what is authentic, and they can tell right away. They might not be able to say it in so many words that they might not want to use an author not being authentic. But when you don’t like a book, it’s kind of like there’s something off about this book.

Kat (22:37)

Maybe it’s that they can feel that this writer isn’t being fully or fully using their voice. They’re not fully developed in that writing skill yet.

Gail (22:48)

Yeah. And my voice has changed and evolved over the years, bound to but I also think the kind of dirty secret of the craft side of writing, which I don’t love talking about all that much because I think everybody approaches and actually conducts themselves and does writing differently is that it’s your voice and readers will unless they’re also writers are never going to be able to identify that to you. But it’s your voice that gives you your career. Like when I get an email from a new fan who basically says I will read anything you write, what they are saying is your voice resonates with something deep inside of me.

Gail (23:30)

That’s a career. Enough of those is a career because they are going to follow you if you want to experiment with a new genre, that sort of a thing, right. And there are always also going to be readers who are like, when I started writing ya, I got a number of emails which are very nice because I’m very nice readers. They’re all very like key swilling, polite readers as they roll. And they were all like, you know, I just don’t read why I’m so sorry, but I’ll pick up the next one that’s for adults.

Gail (23:57)

And I’ve just been like, you know, I’m going to say you should give it a try anyway because it’s still my voice, but it’s alright. And then countless times somebody has been written to me three or four years later. I don’t know why I waited so long to reach your Sci-Fi. I usually don’t like Sci-Fi, but I read this one and it’s still just as good as your other stuff or whatever. That’s because it’s my voice. What you’re responding to is my voice.

Kat (24:21)

Yeah, that’s why you can have the different genres, which is another rule that you’ve broken. You know, we’ll just add this to your list because so many people say, stop writing in separate genres. I don’t know how many times people told this to me, and I just like, I just want to walk away. How can I say this? I don’t want to just write one thing. I want to write what I want to write. And so you have cross genres. And I think you have the key there is to write in your voice and people will follow you.

Gail (24:54)

I did establish an ecosystem of trust really early on, though, because what I did was write five books relatively quickly for a traditional author in one genre with like, as a concise series that’s finished and finished. Well, one of my strengths as a writer is ending things. I love writing the ends of books, and I love writing the last books and series. I feel like that shows that love of it. I love the tidy bow. I like finishing things up. I think life doesn’t work that way and I’m writing fantasy, so I love that I still always get people being like, Why won’t there be more?

Gail (25:28)

But you want that like you want to leave the party when you’re still enjoying it. Right. But then I switched to Ya, but in the same universe and in the same tonality kind of with the same kind of, like tropes and approaches and stuff like that back the same backbone. And then I wrote a spin off from that first series. So I have, like, a consistent, solid number of books that are all series that are all linked together and that are all in the same world.

Gail (25:56)

That kind of really managed reader expectations. And there’s a lot of meat. And that gave trust to, like, my readers were like, oh, Gail does these sorts of things. She gives us happiness and comfort. She finishes her series. She does all of these things. And so now that really they will cut me a lot of slack with experimentation. Kind of my reader base will because they trust me because I’ve done proof of concept basically.

Kat (26:22)

That makes sense, though.

Gail (26:24)

But that just means when people come to me advice about starting out and wanting to genre hop, I always say, sure, but I would still recommend obeying the business rules of the genre first. So if you’re going to write a cozy mystery series, write a cozy mystery series, write at least three books in that series so that people know you can do that and you obey those rules of those kind of series worlds and how coding mysteries work or whatever. And then you can try contemporary romance or what have you.

Gail (27:00)

And that way, the readers are just a little bit more familiar with you and your voice and kind of willing to follow you. But you will always have retention issues. I absolutely have retention issues. In other words, you’re always going to have readers who are like, no, I only read Gale’s adult stuff, and there’s nothing I can do to persuade them to try anything else. But any time I write an adult steampunk book.

Kat (27:25)

So definitely build up your trust with the readers. I mean, that’s always a good thing. And I like how you say you like endings.

Gail (27:33)

I do.

Kat (27:34)

I find endings very difficult.

Gail (27:37)

I’m so sorry, but they are.

Kat (27:40)

I find them difficult in some places. Sometimes I know exactly where they’re going, but it’s funny because endings have come up in quite a few different writing groups that I’m part of. And we’re always talking about endings. So you have a non fiction book called The Heroines Journey that we’ve sort of hinted at. Do you think that your love of endings is because you understand how to storytell that you’re not just a writer because we’re all writers. We have this talent. We want to write. We have a story, right.

Kat (28:08)

But we don’t always know how to storytell. There’s, a difference. So let’s talk a little bit about what is narrative structure. Why did you write the Heroine journey? What is storytelling? How does it help us?

Gail (28:23)

Narrative structure can be talked about in lots of different ways, kind of like the beats sheets, that sort of principle. I think I believe it came out of the romance community, but also suspense and mysteries also have these sort of beats. It’s this sort of underlying pattern to narrative that’s very endemic to specifically different genres. So I’m going to put aside both memoirs and literary fiction because one of the hallmarks of both of those two is they tend to play with narrative. But when you’re writing in one of the commercial genres, so if you’re writing in horror, mystery, crime thriller, suspense, science fiction, fantasy, ya, which uses all of these things and romance, of course, there’s a certain structure which you might not necessarily be able to identify as a reader.

Gail (29:15)

But it is what in a way defines that genre. So tropes and narrative archetypes, those certain kinds of characters and certain kinds of situations and settings are kind of the surfaceness of this. But there’s also, like theming and messaging and this sort of general set of expectations. The different genres set up. And Campbell talks about one of these, which is the hero’s journey, and another one is the heroines journey. So Campbell’s hero’s journey is like with patterns of withdrawal and return, like moving into liminal spaces, quest narratives, general sort of solitary action, fighting the enemy, success and then return.

Gail (29:56)

I mean, these are patterns that you can think about for movies or anything that you consume, really. And so the heroine journey is just another one of these. It happens to be a chassis or a foundation that I really gravitate towards and have read, partly because I love a happy ending. That’s one of the hallmarks of a heroine journey is sort of unity and cohesion as part of a happy ending. And so I studied it when I was studying classical archeology and adjacent in undergraduate. And I was like, Why doesn’t anybody talk about this?

Gail (30:29)

I thought everyone kind of knew about it much in the same way that I assume everyone knows the hero’s journey. And then the more I did, like teaching and events and went to conventions and stuff like that, the more I realized that most of my day I was like, okay, I was just waiting for somebody to do a PhD thesis on it and then turn it into a bucket. Nobody ever did. There’s more in Murdoch, I should say, has a heroine’s journey and also Jung in self journey psychological approach, which I just wanted a beats layout and, like, a basic definition for writers.

Speaker 2 (31:03)

Okay. I guess I have to write that

Kat (31:05)

So you wrote it.

Kat (31:06)

Yeah. I think we were talking about before, like writers. And I’ve talked about it with several people. They’re not always trained on how to write it’s kind of like so many guitarists and a lot of artists. They just pick up their art, their tools and they teach themselves and they might take a few classes or whatever. But like you said, not a lot of people talk about the heroines journey. I hadn’t even heard about specific the hero’s journey until maybe five years ago because I hadn’t thought it out.

Gail (31:34)

So that’s really some of it. We don’t really seek it out unless we’re looking to study it. But then it took forever to find the heroines journey, because not every story follows the hero’s journey.

Gail (31:46)

Not everybody works heroes. To be fair, not everybody fits heroines either. There’s, like, four act structure. There’s very interesting, like storytelling structures, particularly coming out of Asia right now on the hollow waves, like Korean dramas and things like that. So there’s tons of different story structures out there for you to access. Hero and heroin. Just happened to be two. And I should say that the hero doesn’t have to be biologically. Male hero doesn’t have to be biologically. It’s just the way we speak about the two journeys. They just have to be very common, particularly in Western media and particularly in the commercial genre fiction, the ones that I named earlier.

Gail (32:24)

And that has to do with the fact that those genres have Gothic literary roots in the Gothic literary movement of the Victorian era. Okay, yeah. So that’s very much informed, like some sort of feedback loop. I go into all of this in the book.

Kat (32:39)

In the book. So why do you think it is that even understanding a lot of these different genres, having that curiosity, as a writer, to understand the narrative structures of different cultures of the hero and the heroine, you have four acts, all these things. If you get onto plotter or you start going down that hall and you’ll be inundated with all these things, why do you think they should understand where they’re going in their story or understand that structure?

Gail (33:10)

I think if you have a basic understanding of some of these structures, it’s most helpful for writers because it allows us to get out of writer’s block, like first and foremost. But also, it allows us to control our readers experience and avoid the dreaded reader betrayal. So reader betrayal. We’ve all experienced it. I know if you’ve read a book, you’ve experienced it. It is that urge to scream and throw a book across the room. The book has betrayed you nine times out of ten. As a reader, we’re just like, I have no idea why, but I’m so mad about it.

Gail (33:45)

Usually that is a core foundational reader betrayal. And it can be as simple as the reader picked it up, thinking it was a hero’s journey. You as the writer wrote, it like it was a hero’s journey. And then slowly it turned into a heroine’s journey or vice versa. So you did something like establish a hero woman’s journey all about connection, family building, networking, adventure with others. Adventure in order to build a family together, and then you killed your main character. Your reading is going to be so mad at you and so if you are writing in order to get the creative beast out of you and you’re writing to entertain yourself and you’re writing just to get this out on the page.

Gail (34:25)

That’s one thing. But if you’re writing with the intent to publish, that means you want other people to read it, which means you want other people to enjoy it. And suddenly you’re in a sphere where, yes, I think you do have to take their wants and desires into account. Otherwise, you’re just going to make them mad. So knowing these chassis knows what the expectations are. It knows what readers of your genre at core really want from the basics of their narrative. So you then can manipulate that and the prizes into ascending.

Gail (35:01)

You can work yourself out of writers blocks if you’re like, oh, I’m on a heroine’s journey. I need to throw a new character into this. I’m on a hero’s journey. Something should probably float this juncture, right? Yeah, exactly. Those are basic toolkits, depending on which journey you’re on and all of that allow you to control the Reader’s suspension of disbelief, especially if you’re writing commercial genre. You want to bring them into your world and support them, and you want them to trust you to tell them a satisfying story.

Gail (35:32)

This is the thing. It’s almost all writers do know them. They’ve just never learned how to consciously articulate them. Like all of us. When we sit down to write an adventure story or a suspense thriller or a mystery or whatever, we know what that means. It’s a mystery. We know. Basically, you have to drop clues. You’re going to have a body like the body that’s going to appear in the first chapter. Like, all of these things, right. We kind of have most of them, but being able to articulate a little bit more about them really just helps you have a much stronger toolkit to provide not just a story, but a story that is very satisfying to read.

Gail (36:14)

And that’s why I think it’s kind of important to understand.

Kat (36:19)

The reason that you like the endings is because you understand the tropes that you’re using. The beats that you’re using. You understand what needs to come and go. It probably doesn’t hurt as much to cut because you’ll go back and say, oh, actually, I went off.

Gail (36:33)

I love editing you’re. So right. My favorite thing is cutting stuff out of the box. I love the red pen. I’m such a weirdo.

Kat (36:41)

Have you always been like that, though, or has it been a developed?

Gail (36:44)

Yeah. I like to say I’m some sort of psychological cutter, like bleeding. I like to bleed on the page. I used to print my stuff out and get as much red pen on that page as humanly possible. I’m a perfectionist as well. I sort of tied into that. But, yeah, I never thought about that as being linked to my love of ending. You’re totally right. I’m also one of those people who’s like, if the dessert is good, nobody remembers if you messed up any other store.

Kat (37:09)

That’s so true. Yeah. You have to nail the ending. There’s nothing worse than getting to the end of the book and wanting to throw it across the room, burn it, stab it a few more times.

Gail (37:21)

Stick the landing.

Kat (37:22)

You’ll never pick up that author’s book again.

Kat (37:25)

I have a few of those I can just to remind me

Gail (37:29)

that’s the thing about the reader betrayal thing, that reader screaming urge to throw a book across the room, those people will never read you like, you’ve lost them. And that’s another ties back to what we started with, which is one of the reasons a strong Author voice can actually work in your favor is you want to lose those readers before they scream and throw your book across the room, right? You want them to not even pick up the book?

Kat (37:54)

Yes, this is true. I have to tell anyone who’s listening. This is a really interesting book, even if you’re not a writer because you’ll start understanding movies and even say, like, the fans of pop culture, you’ll understand sort of this Western storytelling way that we’re doing things like I was telling my kids the other day like, oh, yeah. This is going to happen in this movie because of this. And they were like, what? And then they were like, shut up.

Gail (38:22)

How do you, .

Kat (38:25)

You can do, like magic tricks if you want to. You really understand. I think this is key to a lot of especially young writers. And I say young in the sense, like, whatever age you are, you’re newer, right?

Gail (38:40)

Yeah.

Kat (38:41)

And you want to get your book out there and sometimes it gets out there and you think it’s really great. And the feedback is like, either really lukewarm, like, there’s nothing that’s almost worse than a one side, like, nobody because there’s something missing or, like you said, that writer’s block where you’re spending two years on a book because you’re like, something is not going right. Or it just keeps rambling forever. And I don’t know how to wrap this up.

Gail (39:07)

I had a bunch of people write to me after this book came out to be like, oh, my God. I’ve been blocked for two years because I thought I was writing a hero’s journey, and I kept trying to force it to be that. And the story is actually a heroine’s journey. And now I know exactly how I’m supposed to have this thing.

Kat (39:21)

Yes.

Gail (39:24)

Well, now I have proof that it does happen. That’s what I hoped when I wrote it would go out and tell people that way. But, yeah, my most exciting thing is people are like, hero heroine. And I’m like, oh, well, let’s talk about that. Could be what could be because that’s the other thing. It’s not everything we do love black and white as humans. But unfortunately, they don’t always comfortably fit into one spot or the other. So I also go into, like, what happens when a hero archetype is in a heroin’s journey and what happens with genres that kind of combine the two.

Kat (39:57)

But I think that you can push the limits of something better if you really understand what you’re doing. Not if you’re just like,

Gail (40:05)

absolutely.

Kat (40:06)

My story is so unique. No, it’s just a mess.

Gail (40:10)

It’s one of those where once you know the rules, then you get to break them. Right?

Kat (40:15)

Yes. And for anyone who doesn’t like reading nonfiction, because we all are fiction readers, this is written very much in your voice. It’s very funny. It’s very entertaining.

Gail (40:28)

Thank you. I went through a process with this book where my agent and I talked about whether to sell it to a traditional academic press or whatever, because I do think it is important enough to get that. But I ended up deciding not to go that route, partly because I wanted to write it in an incredibly accessible way. I really wanted people to just enjoy reading non fiction and having come out of academia as we previously talked about. One of the things I find most frustrating about academic papers is like, in order to be taken seriously, they have to be written very dry.

Gail (41:02)

And to me, that reads as boring and therefore bad. I don’t like to be bored when I’m reading things. That’s the big sin. That’s another thing, which I think probably comes across in this book as well, which is, I believe that writers of fiction are entertainers. That’s the categories we tend to fall in when you’re looking at market data and demographics and stuff. And so the biggest sin, the ultimate sin. I was like, you alluded to this when you write something that releases to crickets is what that’s telling you is that it’s just boring.

Gail (41:35)

And I would rather be awful.

Kat (41:39)

Yes, you need a reaction more than anything.

Gail (41:41)

Yeah. And if something is too messy and you don’t understand these chassis well enough and that’s coming across your readers, then they might just put it down on for them. Yeah.

Kat (41:51)

There’s nothing worse than getting on that never finish list on Goodreads.

Kat (41:57)

It would be terrible.

Kat (42:00)

I don’t think we’re taught a lot of this in high school. Unless you go get your MFA. You don’t always understand, like, Archetype and beat and POV and plot. And then there’s nothing worse than being that writer, that sort of newish writer in a group that’s like, what are we talking about?

Gail (42:19)

You’re alluding to the fact that I have a little semantic at the beginning where I’m basically like to find my terms. You want to use them, you know what I mean by them. And probably that’s because a lot of these literary terms, like Archetype or what have you have multiple definitions as well? So I was just like, this is what I mean when I say story theme. Okay.

Kat (42:37)

Absolutely. I will have the link in the show notes. Obviously, I really think that this is something that every writer should have on their shelf. It’s very easy to read, and then it’s easy to go back and sort of just review it. I don’t know. And I think even people who are not plotters the Pantsers out there that are very defensive about being Pantsers, it will still help you keep on track, especially.

Gail (43:03)

Yeah. And there’s a whole section at the end. So I laid it out because I come from teaching. I laid it out in such a way so you can use a table of contents just to jump to the section that’s most relevant to you as well. I hope. And the ending section is basically how to write like a heroine, and you can read that as a Panther and just be like, okay, you believe you’re writing a heroine’s journey, which some of you probably are. You can go into that section and be like, that’s what I need to do with that side character.

Gail (43:31)

So it can actually be a tool for you to just flip to. If you’re panting and you hit up against a roadblock of some kind, you can just flip to that little section and just like, read little bits, and it might help jumpstart and get things for Panthers. Although I have to say I am not a Panthers, so I try to help as much as I can, but I don’t understand how your mysterious mind works.

Kat (43:57)

I think they’re in that Lane where they could end up being those who take a really long time. And if they have an idea of getting more books out quicker than at least understanding that structure. And if they’re writing a heroine journey and who knows, this will probably give them hints onto other narrative structures, they’ll go find it and it will help them go faster if that’s needed.

Gail (44:22)

That’s what you want to help each other. Some of my best friends are fantastic, and we’ll have conversations occasionally, but I will say that I don’t have you the Panthers because I feel like one of the things that fathers tend to have to do is a lot more rewriting than those of us who are big outliners. But maybe that also kind of ties into what we said about how I love endings and how I love editing. Also, a lot of my pantser friends just hate editing, and I think that’s just because they face up to a lot more of it.

Kat (44:56)

There are probably people on both sides listening to this and being like, no, I will defend this with all my life.

Gail (45:03)

So honestly, though, speaking from twelve years of the future and strict outliner, who has become a much less strict outliner that’s the other thing is the more you write and the more you do it, the more you’re author things like these beats and chats and they just become an organic part of you, which makes them an organic part of your voice. And you start to instinctively learn how to lay them down and when they should be dropped or how to edit so that you self correct for the pacing issues and stuff like that that many newer authors have.

Gail (45:37)

So it does get easier in that regard. And also, if you’re a painter, you may become a little bit more of an outliner. And if you’re an outliner or a plotter, you might become a little bit more of a Panther as time goes on. So don’t faint your camp too hard because you might end up doing it. This is true.

Kat (45:55)

And I think what you’re saying is just keep writing.

Gail (45:58)

Keep writing. Absolutely. It’s the best thing you do. Yes.

Kat (46:02)

I was once told by a writer, I will never forget it. And it’s funny to me now. It’s like just write your next book. And I was like, easy for you to say. Then I looked at his backlog and I was like, you only have 35 books. Yes, it is easy for him to say because he took it its own advice.

Gail (46:22)

Yeah. That is if I had the one biggest piece of advice and this is speaking because I’m a perfectionist, I think it is stopped. Move on to the next one. Right. Something different, which I know is the thing that you’re not told to do. But until you know if what you’ve written is going to stick and people are going to enjoy it, try something new. Because one of the life lessons that I had to learn was that that voice that you complimented me on. Thank you. It wasn’t suited to what I initially wanted to write.

Gail (46:49)

I really wanted to write, like high fantasy and epic fantasy and stuff like that. Turns out, at least back then, I didn’t have the chops to translate that kind of breezy, witty bantering to epic fantasy. It just didn’t work, and I tended to overwork things and it was terrible. But I spent years writing that and it just didn’t suit me or my style. And that’s just like I had to try writing others. In my case, it was in short stories as well. Now we don’t really have that luxury.

Gail (47:24)

But the short stories that people would buy from me early on were always funny.

Kat (47:33)

Got to listen, especially if you want to be a full time. I mean, in the end, there are like, these pathways that we are destined to go down.

Gail (47:42)

I guess so. I’m still startled twelve years in. I’m still startled to be here talking to you.

Gail (47:48)

Well, if you want to find Gail, you just go to Gailcarriger.Com. But I’ll put the links in the show notes. And it is very true that your blog and your whole website is still in your voice, and it’s very entertaining.

Gail (48:02)

There’s also on my blog. There’s a tab for, like, resources and stuff like that. And there’s a whole thing there, which basically has resources, posts that I’ve written for newer writers and more established writers in terms of just basic stuff of toolkits, like how I write physically, like what devices I use and all those things, but also just quick tips and trips. So there is a little section where I talk about, but hopefully there’s over a decade of advice there.

Kat (48:30)

So we definitely need to go there.

Gail (48:32)

Yeah, that blog has been going all along.

Kat (48:34)

That’s excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been great chatting with you.

Gail (48:39)

Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a lot of fun.

Kat (48:55)

Hey, you’re still listening since you are. Could you do me a favor and head over to the app that you’re listening to this episode on and hit the subscribe button and then rate and review the show? It would really help the Pencil Lipstick podcast get out into the world. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, well, then there might be more people out there who would enjoy it as well. If you want to find out more about me, you can head over to catcallbl. Com. I have my story over there.

Kat (49:24)

My books, my interactive journals, my one on one coaching information and information on my creative writing community membership group. If you’re looking to write a book or you are a writer and you just want to find out more about how to write, how to publish, how to format, how to market, and all the things that go into being an author these days, check out the membership group. There is a 14, three day trial that you can try it out. Get into the masterminds. Find out all the goodies that we are talking about in the group.

Kat (49:59)

I would love to see you there.

Kat (50:01)

Bye you.

The post From Brush to Pen with Gail Carriger first appeared on Pencils&Lipstick.

The post Episode #31 first appeared on Pencils&Lipstick.