[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Hello, and welcome to Small Publishing in a Big Universe. I am your host, Lisa Jacob. This month we have live from Lostcon50 from our sponsors, this month from Graveside Press, Bite and Anthology from Graveside Press, Tiny Terrors. This month, a Mortuary for Songs by Elizabeth Gilt.
[00:00:31] Speaker C: This is Brian Buhl for Small Publishing in a Big Universe, live from Lostcon50 and I have with me CJ Barr. Welcome to the podcast. Is this your first Lost con, or how many of you attended?
[00:00:43] Speaker D: This is my first Lost con as a writer. But back in the 90s, I attended a couple of them as a fan go. Once I was a fan, I never realized I would ever be here as an author.
[00:00:55] Speaker C: How's that transition been like? Has it felt like just jubilation all the way or any speed bumps, you know? Tell me about that experience.
[00:01:02] Speaker D: This is kind of funny. I wrote a short story that I felt was publishable, so I sent it in to the first place I wanted to be in, which was an anthology by Marion Zimmer Bradley called Sword and Sorceress, and it was volume 12, and it sold. And it was a piece of flash fiction. And it was the sequel to Cinderella entitled Does the shoe still fit you now? And it turns out it doesn't. Prince Charming's not so charming. And Marian was saying, I don't buy rewritten fairy tales, but this one I had to take. So I did that in my 20s and I didn't sell again until my 40s, so. And that was long fiction. And I always persevered. You're never too old. People succeed in their younger times. People get success later in life. And now I have five novels out.
[00:01:50] Speaker C: I think Tolkien didn't really write Lord of the Rings until he was in his 40s.
[00:01:54] Speaker D: I think you're right.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: And Stephen King, I don't think he reached any kind of success until he was in his 40s.
[00:01:59] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:02:00] Speaker C: So maybe that's the key to success, is just make it to your 40s.
[00:02:03] Speaker D: Possibly. Had I known that. But it's still good because everything I wrote between my first sale and my second sale taught me something and made me grow as a writer.
[00:02:15] Speaker C: The time between your first sale and your second sale had to have been really difficult because you have this moment of elation where you get your first sale. You've got this great idea, first place.
[00:02:24] Speaker D: I sent it to. Who does that?
[00:02:26] Speaker C: Was there anything specifically that you did to help you get through that dry time and something that you can give to other writers that might be going through something similar?
[00:02:34] Speaker D: I wish There was something specific, but to me it was. I just needed to keep trying. And I loved writing. I grew up in a household of readers. From the moment I have my earliest remembrance, both my mother and father always had a book in hand. And then I had a book in hand. And then how I started writing in my teens is I devour a series and going, I want more in this world. So in a way, I guess it was fan fiction back then. I just write just for pleasure for myself. And then eventually that turned into original stories. Back then, nobody read my stuff and it made me happy even though I wasn't sharing it. And the one hit wonder, and all of a sudden I'm not there again. I'm like, you know what? Even those one hit wonders are happy. And as long as I'm doing something that I enjoy, you're gonna get better and better. The advice I would give to blossoming writers is persevere. Keep doing it and eventually you will get through. So many people start a novel and don't even finish it.
[00:03:42] Speaker C: I heard that it's about 90% of people that start don't finish.
[00:03:44] Speaker D: So it's special if you can actually get a first draft. Even if nobody reads it and you turn it into places and they turn you down, you just accomplished something that 90% of other people can't do. So you have to look at the, I think the positives. Stay focused on the positive.
[00:04:01] Speaker C: So you told me a little bit about the Cinderella sequel that you wrote and then you've gotten into writing your own original stuff. Tell us a little bit about the stories you're writing now.
[00:04:10] Speaker D: So I started out writing supernatural suspense and paranormal romance. That's been fun because I like to kill people in unique ways and not get arrested. So I can do it on paper, on paper.
[00:04:23] Speaker C: Context matters.
[00:04:24] Speaker D: Context matters. I don't get to go to jail.
So for my Fire Chronicles series, which is hopefully going to be seven books, they're a interconnected standalone series and the interconnection is one of the seven archangels. So you can drop in at any time and they're all going to be sort of slightly different. It can be an ending time, past or present. I was camping and I had this weird waking dream. I don't remember my dreams at all. And I have no idea why this popped in my head. But I dreamt of a man chained in a cave with a tide coming in. And that's it. And I'm like, what? And so I was talking to another writer friend. I'm like, hey, this. And he goes, what's his story? That was her question to me. And I said, that's interesting. What is his story? And that's how I came up with Walking Through Fire, which is a Scottish ghost story via treasure hunting romance. And our hero is a ghost who dies. I kill him in the cave with a drowning. It turns out that Simon McKay's family has a treasure that they've been protecting over the centuries. And he didn't even know about it because he was estranged from his family and he was the last to know. So the villain was trying to get it out of him and killed him. And now, 200 years in the future, the ancestor of the villain knows of said treasure and is now hunting it again.
[00:05:56] Speaker C: That's fascinating.
[00:05:57] Speaker D: That's great.
[00:05:58] Speaker C: Tell me a little bit about your process when you're writing. I think when you said as we were coming up that you were a discovery writer through and through.
[00:06:04] Speaker D: Yeah, I'm a pantser. I generally will come up with an idea and when I come up with the idea, I know where to start and I know where to end, but the journey is in discovery. And sometimes I get stuck and I'm like, oh, I didn't really write a middle. Or other times I get a brilliant discovery. I sometimes think pantsing can be fun because I don't know if I would have plotted that. But it can be tricky because there is a lot of times I start reading through my first draft and all of a sudden I realize, where's that 3/4 mark part of the book? So that does happen. But then you just go, okay, I need to add more stuff here.
[00:06:46] Speaker C: So what are the techniques you use for revising?
[00:06:48] Speaker D: Well, yeah, the first thing is I, when I'm getting ready to do the next draft is I do a clean read through and take notes. Like for instance, going, oh, hey, that was a plot loop dropped. I need to figure that out. But if I get really stuck, I go to my writer friends. I really advise, especially new writers. Get your group, whether they're writers or not, because sometimes the readers are the best people to help you brainstorm if you get stuck or not. So I guess that's sort of my.
[00:07:21] Speaker C: You mentioned that you're a musician. Has any of that contributed or influenced the way you write or goes into your stories?
[00:07:29] Speaker D: I definitely think so, yes. Because music is creative. And a piece of music, at least to me, good pieces of music, either tells a story through emotion or just affects you from the beginning to the end of the piece of music. And that's exactly what writing is. So it gives me a technical aspect and a creative aspect. And I think that's exactly what a writer is as well. Because you have to be creative to think through a storyline, but you also have to be technical to achieve it.
[00:08:02] Speaker C: As an editor, as even a music editor, I think that it also takes a certain amount of courage to be able to make the changes to cut things that you happen to like that aren't serving the greater work or to linger on something longer. That may be dissonant, but it does something. Would you say that that has influenced the way you write and the way you edit?
[00:08:21] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. I'm probably one of the few writers who love editing. I actually love editing more than writing at times. Because there's something right there on the page and you go, oh, that's a lot of words. I can make that smoother. Or these three words simply be replaced by one word.
[00:08:38] Speaker C: Because I love collecting writing advice. What's your favorite advice that you like to give to new writers?
[00:08:43] Speaker D: Read, read, read, read. In your genre, out of your genre. Expose yourself to as many styles as you can. I really believe an avid reader can make the best writer because they're exposed to a lot and they can see styles. Surround yourself with good people that you can trust their advice and keep writing. Keep writing. I am not the author. I am today until I hit my 40s. So if you really want to be there, you'll find a way and keep at it.
[00:09:14] Speaker E: Hi, this is Vanessa McLaren. Ray. I'm here at Lostcon 50 and I'm sitting here talking with Casey Cordell.
[00:09:23] Speaker F: Hello.
[00:09:23] Speaker E: So is this your first time at lostcon?
[00:09:25] Speaker F: Yes, it is.
[00:09:26] Speaker E: Oh, awesome. Well, let's start with your books. Tell me about your latest book.
[00:09:30] Speaker F: So I have just released the book number three in my post apocalyptic series and it is technically the fourth book in the series. My series is the post apocalyptic DJ series. It is about a guy who's just trying to live his best life, share the music that he loves, but he keeps having to deal with monsters, bandits, and his grumpy traveling companion. And it is the most fun that you will have in a post apocalyptic wasteland.
[00:09:57] Speaker E: Ah, so it's humor.
[00:09:59] Speaker F: Yes, yes, there's a lot of humor in it, but also a lot of heart, a lot of action monsters, how.
[00:10:04] Speaker E: To survive and keep your sanity in a post apocalyptic world.
[00:10:07] Speaker F: Yeah, you know, just trying to live life while you can. Things are bad, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have fun where you can. Between the running for your life, you.
[00:10:15] Speaker E: Need to get your steps in.
[00:10:16] Speaker F: Yes. Good for your health. Yes.
[00:10:18] Speaker E: So what was the apocalypse?
[00:10:20] Speaker F: So it was actually cascading apocalypses. So three things happened kind of back to back. The first thing that happened was the machine overlords took over.
We haven't fully gotten to that story, so I don't want to say too much because I still have to like write that part it's mentioned. But the second apocalypse was when, okay, this situation's looking pretty bad. Like these machines are trying to take us over. So maybe some scientists got together and was like, maybe we can open up a portal to a different world and escape and like start over. But what actually happened was they opened up a portal and monsters came pouring in. So now you have to deal with monsters. And then a different group of people were like, hey, we have the technology to go underground, so maybe go underground, build civilization under there. But they ran into another monster. So basically three different kind of monsters back to back. And it's hard to recover from that.
[00:11:01] Speaker E: So every time you try to escape, you run into a worse problem.
[00:11:05] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:11:06] Speaker E: You do more than books.
[00:11:07] Speaker F: Yes.
[00:11:08] Speaker E: What else? If people come to your website, what are they going to find?
[00:11:11] Speaker F: The art that I create, I do a lot of different styles, but I like to do colorful skulls, but I also do paper cut art.
[00:11:18] Speaker E: The imagery in your art that I see on your table, it really resonates with what you tell me about the stories and your books. They seem cheerful, upbeat, and yet also a little dark.
[00:11:27] Speaker F: Yes. That actually perfectly summarizes.
[00:11:30] Speaker E: What's your next project?
[00:11:32] Speaker F: So of course we have book five in my series, which I'm very excited about. Some very good things are gonna happen. Very interesting things are gonna happen in book five. But actually I put out a novella recently. It's a free novella that you can get when you go to my website called Destroying a World Eater for Beginners. And I want to expand on that one. That one might take a little bit longer. I think it's going to be a little bit more research. It's a fantasy world, but I want it to be kind of like a globe hopping international fantasy kind of globe hopping international fantasy. So I'm going to have to do a lot more research on other places in the globe. So it's a bit more of a challenge.
[00:12:06] Speaker E: Do sound like a person who will think of a project that will allow them to do research.
[00:12:11] Speaker F: Yes. Good and bad. And fall down this big rabbit hole. And you're like, maybe I didn't need to spend 30 minutes learning about arctic research because that really has nothing to.
[00:12:18] Speaker D: Do with my book.
[00:12:19] Speaker F: But, you know, it's still fun.
[00:12:20] Speaker E: It is, it is. It's a part of life. It's one of the good things in our modern world that you can. You can do that.
[00:12:28] Speaker F: Although I still sometimes think it back to going to the library when we're like, back in the day, of course, and actually flipping through the books. And I still love that part, the visual research of actually having something in front of you. So, I mean, I appreciate how much access we have to things now and how much easier it is, but sometimes nothing beats just going to the library.
[00:12:43] Speaker E: And actually something about the tactile sense.
[00:12:46] Speaker F: Yes. Yeah.
[00:12:47] Speaker E: The difference between reading a digital book and holding a book. Thank you so much for making time to talk with us in the middle of trying to organize your stuff for the last day of Lost Con. So this is Casey Cordell. Check out her website. Find her books, find her stickers, find her art.
[00:13:03] Speaker C: This is Brian Buell for Small publishing in a big universe. And this is live from Lostcon 50. And I have with me.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Marla White.
[00:13:11] Speaker C: Has this been your first Lost Con, or have you been to many others before?
[00:13:14] Speaker A: This is my first convention period.
[00:13:16] Speaker D: So, yeah.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: First time Lost Con virgin, I guess.
[00:13:19] Speaker C: So your first convention, how has that experience been for you?
[00:13:23] Speaker A: I wasn't really sure what to expect of it. I knew it wasn't going to be, you know, San Diego or anything like that, but I was really charmed by all the different vendors here. Like, I wasn't expecting the Pendragon people with the costumes and the jewelry people. So it's a bit of hoot. It's been great.
[00:13:37] Speaker C: Have you had opportunity to attend many of the panels at all?
[00:13:40] Speaker A: I only got to go to one, to the marketing one yesterday and learned a lot of great stuff. I wish I could have gone to more of the story ones, but it is a little hard to find the time.
[00:13:48] Speaker C: Let's talk about your books.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: I write in a couple of different genres, so obviously the one that brought me here was the more fantasy thing that I write about. It is all about Gabriel in the three books, trying to figure out what he needs to do to get back and his boss's graces to get back into heaven.
[00:14:02] Speaker C: Tell me a little about what your writing process was like. Do you tend to plan out well in dance or are you more of a discovery writer?
[00:14:08] Speaker A: Good question. As far as inspirations go, that sort of got me thinking of about it. He had an angel there. So as far as, like, my writing Process goes. I tend to like to outline things and know where I'm going and then halfway through things will go awry. And then it's sort of a discovery thing. But I like to know where it's going to end. I'm always fascinated by panthers because my other half of my brain writes mysteries. With these books, it got to be more of a discovery. I kind of knew what I wanted Gabriel to be doing in the first book. But as the books go on, more of the other archangels make appearances. So Michael comes in, he's a pain in the ass. Lucifer, of course, has to make an appearance who you think is a pain in the ass, but. Oh, sorry. But he's maybe a little bit blamed for things that aren't particularly his fault. So I guess it's a plot, sir.
[00:14:56] Speaker C: So a series that you're writing and you have a strong plotting tendency, did you plot out the whole series in advance or has this been something that you have worked out as you've gone along?
[00:15:07] Speaker A: I got to the end of angel by the Tower and went, well, now what do we do? Because the major character goes missing and poor Gabriel's left there alone. And I was like, well, now we gotta finish that. Just leave him hanging. So then the second one and third ones kind of came all one big long, let's do this, knowing this is second and this is third and this is how it's going to end. So it was a little bit of all of those mystery books. I write all sort series and a lot of it is you just kind of fall in love with characters and then you can't, like say goodbye.
[00:15:37] Speaker C: What does your drafting process look like?
[00:15:38] Speaker A: I definitely keep the idea of a structure of a screenplay in mind when I'm trying to do the outline of a book. I want to have something happen at midpoint that changes the direction of the story of the characters, whatever they're doing. I want to have the inciting incident needs to be something early on, big so that the reader knows what's gonna happen.
[00:15:54] Speaker C: There's a classic three act structure.
[00:15:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Basically that's the way I think of these things. But there was a writer that I believe his name is Brian Wright, but I could be getting that wrong. He did a thing at Sundance, the lab, and said that the writer's responsibility for a screenplay, and I feel like it's the same for a book, is to let the audience know when they get to go home. Meaning that, you know, pretty quickly. Like Jaws is his example, you know, pretty quickly in, okay, Shark is going to meet Sheriff One is going to walk away. Now I can just relax and enjoy the rest of this thing and watch it kind of unspool in front of me. So I try and do that in the books. Make it super clear in the beginning this is the inciting incident. Now you just have to watch and see how they figure this out. Important sort of all hope is lost moment at the three quarter mark is a big one for me as well that you need to get readers.
[00:16:39] Speaker C: I think there's an implication in what you're saying basically about spoilers, that the person consuming the story can actually relax and enjoy it more. When they know what's coming, when they.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Know what the ultimate showdown is going to be. I don't want them to know how it's going to end. I teach at UCLA Extension. I teach story analysis. And one of the things I want to talk about is that just because you know how a script is going to end, it doesn't make it a bad script. Titanic, you knew the boat was going to sink, right? It was the journey getting there that made that a fun thing. So like at the end of angel books or any rom com or any superhero movie, you always know the end, really. Except for Avengers. Thanks guys. But other than that, you know that they're not going to die. So it's in my books. I don't feel like even in the mysteries, I don't feel like it's a great mystery of how they're going to end. But I like to put lots of twists and turns along the way, unpredictable moments in it that you're like, oh.
[00:17:31] Speaker C: There'S another way to put it. Then you're setting up promises and then there's an expectation for those promises to be met. So you should know what promises you're making. Or at least you should make an effort to make those promises early so.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: That yeah, you can make those promises and then you can break those promises and you can make another promises. I mean, the audience doesn't have to be right or reader. They can think they know where it's going to go and then you prove them wrong and take it a different direction. That's fun too. As long as they're not wandering around going, what the hell is this about?
[00:17:58] Speaker D: I don't get it.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: That's the thing that will make a poor reading thing, I think.
[00:18:02] Speaker C: What is your favorite advice that you might give to an upcoming writer?
[00:18:06] Speaker A: There's a short version for the edited version. I can tell the longer one if it gets better. But write every day, even if it's for 10 minutes, even whatever, write every day. It is a muscle you have to grow. Just like going to the gym. If you don't go, you don't get it.
[00:18:18] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
This is Brian Buell, guest hosting on Small Publishing in a Big Universe, live from Lostcon50 and I have with me Mark London Williams. So Mark, as I understand it, you have a book that's out very, very.
[00:18:31] Speaker G: Recently, actually this weekend. It's sort of emerging in its various, you know, literary formats. It's a digital book this weekend and will be a tangible actual book this next few days. But after Lost Con ends. So it's coming out in somewhat edited and polished up form, being reissued by Gradeside Press. And in it, the titular character, Max, is an escapee from a boy's home where he's sort of on the spectrum and his parents felt they couldn't deal with him for various reasons we discover. And he kind of sees this general ambient collapse coming.
He sees how grown ups, so called are mismanaging the world. Something is becoming more acutely obvious as we are recording this very podcast. And he knows a collapse of some sort, an unravelment is inevitable. And he builds this go kart on which he escapes the boys home and he picks up this young girl, they're about 12, 13, Aurora Bonsall. And Aurora is the one who narrates because Max doesn't. He's a man of few words. So she kind of narrates their journey after he rescues her during a moment where parts of her family who had been dead moments before are starting to reanimate because it's zombie apocalypse. And in this case what reanimates them are nanoparticles, nanobots in everybody's bloodstreams. It was kind of a medical technique that was used for cosmetic enhancement that gets out of hand and suddenly the nanobots are off on their own, replicating and reanimating people who normally would be dead or dying. And because they do that so fast, their appetites become voracious. So these zombies do not restrict themselves to brains, but kind of anything they can chomp on.
[00:20:09] Speaker C: Hard to see zombieism as a cosmetic upgrade.
[00:20:12] Speaker G: Well, it depends how dystopian the world gets.
[00:20:14] Speaker C: Perhaps that's true.
[00:20:15] Speaker G: But yes, I think that's part of what Max sees is what were any of them thinking in the first place to have done this?
[00:20:22] Speaker C: Tell me a little bit about your writing process for this. What was maybe a little bit of like inspiration? Are you more of a right by the seat of your pants or more of a plotter.
[00:20:31] Speaker G: What happens is I'm in the process of a book. I have an idea. Usually it's a title or a character that comes to me first. And then I think of a setting and then I'll make notes as opposed to an outline. And then from the notes, they'll embolden me enough to actually think I know what I'm doing. And so I'll just start a draft. And then, you know, when you get to a sludgy part of a draft where you're not making as much progress, I might stop and make notes or even use different techniques. Like sometimes just getting away from a keyboard and writing in longhand in a notebook like this. If I'm going to do dialogue or this doesn't have to go in the file, I tell myself this scene can go anywhere. And so sometimes I use those techniques while I'm writing to limber myself up. That's in general now for Max in particular. I'd been a writer of kid lit before that. I had a time travel series, Danger Boy, about a young fellow unstuck in time. And these books came out sort of in the aughts, the early 21st century. My titular character, Eli Sands, because of a science lab, this is sort of maybe the influence of reading a lot of comics as I was growing up. There's a lab experiment that goes wrong. His parents are theoretical physicists. He becomes unstuck in time. And to use Kurt Vonnegut's great phrase, and then as being unstuck in time, he is looked upon by intelligence agencies as a possible asset in that near future of what was. I'm writing from the aughts turn of the century, and I'm looking ahead to 2019, 2020, 2021, which is now in our rear view mirror. There was climate collapse, there was a pandemic, and there was an authoritarian government in the us And I wish I could have been wrong about at least one of those things.
[00:21:57] Speaker C: Oh my goodness.
When you find it yourself that you are a writer that has this prescient ability, I just urge you to use your powers for good.
[00:22:08] Speaker G: It's a good one.
We just had to rag a walk by and agree with that. So it kind of depends almost on the format. As far as published prose, though it's definitely been middle grade and early YA stuff as far as how one affects the other. I actually maybe took me a while to know this about myself, but I kind of like the tightness and precision of journalism because in the column, you have to kind of say something and then say it sort of quickly. Because especially if you have like five or six items in a 15002000 word column quoting people who made a film or just won an award show that you've been at or whatever, you interviewed them. So there's this kind of precision and crispness that journalism demands. And I port that over sort of the structure of my writing. My prose especially. I find the way I construct chapters and get in and out of a chapter, I find that the column writing has really helped with that. Conversely, being a storyteller, I find that that really helps shape the content of the columns as far as what story you want to tell. And even being able to start with someone's quote, then you're going to wander, but you know you're going to come back to it at the end. You already have a sense of how that's going to. Speaking of confluences and thinking more aquatic terms, how that might sort of all come back and make sense. Even though it seems like you're going in different directions initially, you can kind of bring it in for a landing. And that's where the fiction writing, I think really helped the journalism.
[00:23:25] Speaker C: I collect writing advice from different authors and so what is your favorite advice to give to a new writer?
[00:23:31] Speaker G: Man, I don't know if I have favorite because it's always a physician heal thyself aspect, any sort of writing advice. It's really to not despair because there's so little support really for any kind of a creative life in this culture where everything is mercantile and where the only way it's even judged successfully is if you're making lots of money, money at all times at this thing that is your passion. And sometimes one can get lucky and do that with one's creative passion. And a lot of times you just have to have a strategy for keeping yourself afloat while you still pursue that passion. What you have to be able to do, because it's a long haul, it's not like being an influencer. It's not like you know you're going to edit down to three minutes of you being an interesting personality and upload it and wait for the likes and the hits and the influencer contracts from product placement people. To be a storyteller, especially in long form formats like novels, you have to have a lot of patience with yourself and with the path ahead of you and around you because of just the state of the world being so shaky. It's another reason to try and not despair. Even though the world is really lending itself to that at the moment, only because you have to kind of stay functional and present for yourself in any case. But even more so if you want to have the reserves, be a bard. Be a chronicler of these times that we're in in whatever fashion you are doing it.
[00:24:49] Speaker C: This has been Small Publishing in a Big Universe live from lost con 50.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Thanks again to our guests. We plan on publishing another episode soon. Part two of Live from Lostcone 50. If you want to know more about small publishing in a big universe, visit our
[email protected] and subscribe to our newsletter. Send us your feedback by using the Contact Us link or like us on Facebook @SPBUpodcast. To find out more about the books and other products featured during this episode, please visit the SPBU
[email protected] this podcast was recorded and edited by yours truly, Lisa Jacob. Executive Producer is Steven Radecki. Theme and ad music is provided by Melody Loops. Enhanced transcription services are provided by Lisa Jacob. This month's episode was sponsored by Water Dragon Publishing and Graveside Press. You can listen to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and most of your favorite podcast services. Thank you very much for listening and talk to you soon.
