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History and Romance with Eloisa James · WriterCon

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This week on the writer Con podcast. Whether you are writing great literature or
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terrible literature, or genre fiction or poetry, you have got to recognize that
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you're going to write really bad literature most of the time. Welcome to writer
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Con, a gathering place for writers to share their knowledge about writing and the
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writing world. Your hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of
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the Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, Award winning author of
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the want Ln Files book series. Thank you, Jesse Ulrich, and hey
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there writers, thanks for joining us again. Laura is not with us for
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this or the next podcast because she had some other stuffs she had to take
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care of. However, we recorded the interviews in advance, so you will
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get to hear her lovely dulcet tones during the interview, just not on all
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the other stuff. As we're recording this, I am literally about two days
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away from leaving for the writer Con retreat on Wednesday, which this year is
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a Cane Break, which is a luxury resort in Wagner, Oklahoma. It's
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not far from Tulsa. It's not nearly as isolated as it seems, but
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it's isolated enough to give you this glorious environment for doing your best writing work
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while getting instruction and feedback from really cool people like not only me and Laura,
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but also agent Amy Brewer is coming out and USA today best selling romance
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author with more than eighty titles in print. Crief Lauren Smith is like ten
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years ago, she was in my on of one of these retreats just like
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this, and now she's got more than eighty books. Wow. Also getting
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Rachel Bradley there to talk about editing. So I think it's going to be
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a really good time. The only downside, Jesse, is that you're not
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going to be there. That is true. That is true. I apologize
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for all the people going to their treat that I'm not going to be there.
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They wanted to miss you. You, that was the whole thing.
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I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have to go teach youths
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how to be good leaders. Oh yeah, I know, what's Michelle doing?
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Maybe she could come down. I'll tell her the book, Okay,
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I'll tell her. I mean, yeah, absolutely, all right our interview
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today, I don't want to waste too much time because we have one of
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the most best selling superstar authors we've ever had. ELOUISEA. James. She's
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the author of over thirty historical romances, plus a contemporary novel, Lizzie and
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Dante, and a memoir, Paris in Love. What hasn't she done?
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Not much? And along the way she's published over seven I mean she's over
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seven million. Copies of her books have been published in twenty eight languages and
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thirty countries. So there's a lot there to talk about. But first the
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news. We have two news stories today and they're kind of related to one
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another, so be patient. Even though they are both actual new news stories,
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they also both involve AI, which you've probably heard something about lately,
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and Amazon, which we in the book world always hear about. This first
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story, though, is about a new platform that is offering authors unedited AI
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translations. And yeah, I'm talking about translations into foreign languages, which traditionally
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has been a very tough market for even traditionally published authors to crack. But
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talking about self publishing authors almost impossible, although Lauren Smith, who is coming
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to the retreat this weekend, has done it many many times, but most
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people don't. Well, now there's a platform called lean pub laa npub.
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I'll put the urlan show notes. But this is a self publishing platform plus
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an online bookstore that allows writers to write, publish, and sell ebooks from
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their site. They are now offering additionally what they call a Global Author Service
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that will translate any book that's on their platform into eight or thirty one languages.
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You may be thinking, wait, that seems random. Eight or thirty
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one. Well, the price for eight translations is ninety nine bucks up to
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forty thousand words, and plus the authors will receive a quarter of as cent,
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not a whole lot word for sales beyond that, so you know,
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if you earn back what that threshold amount, then you start getting paid more.
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The price raises to two hundred and forty nine dollars for thirty one languages.
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I mean, I'm not even sure I could name thirty one languages,
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but at any rate. That's why it's three or thirty one trans eight or
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thirty one translations. Okay. Authors will still own their translations, and here's
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a good thing, you can sell them anywhere. That allows AI translations to
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be sold, which I think is everywhere now. Although some platforms are only
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circulating AI translations that were generated by them, I can guess your first question
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is the quality of these translations any good? And the answer and this comes
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from lean Pub's own Rep len F he said good enough quote. But part
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of that might be because he calls these translations what he calls prescriptive nonfiction books.
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In fact, look at that screenshot that ask you's showing you. Most
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of them relate to computers and computer programming and computer engineering and so forth.
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But you know, Jesse, you like Scotty on Star Trek read technical journals.
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I do, I do, So would you read an AI translated technical
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journal? I mean, I suppose if we are talking about what we think
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AI can do reasonably well, something that isn't a lot of nuance and it's
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more prescriptive and explanatory. I think this would be useful for people. I
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still think somebody's gonna get lost in translation. But you know, again,
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like one of the categories is leadership. I feel like that's going to have
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a lot of terms and whatnot that are not going to translate well, that
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he's not going to know how to translate well between different languages. But who
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knows. Yeah, Well, when epsay is good enough, it sounds like
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you're saying, well, you'll figure it out. Yeah, I mean it's
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not exactly clear. If if they're allowing you to get it translated and then
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to also like do your own reviews of it, that would be a good
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tool. Like if you know, if you're just having someone review it after
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it's already been translated, yeah, that would cost you less. But I
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don't don't think. I don't think that that's what they're going for. Yeah,
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I don't know. I mean maybe the well of that. I don't
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know, but it doesn't seem to be what they're promoting. So the question
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is whether this is good news for writers are bad? You know, when
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we were talking about AI narrated audio books before, of course many people were
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concerned that this is going to displace human audiobook narrators. But the truth is
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some people can't afford human audiobook narrators, and people, even successful people,
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can't always phoney up the money for a foreign translation because that's putting all lot
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of money down for potentially small return. So I could see this being even
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more popular, But I don't know, what do you think good for writers?
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Are bad? I think it's good for writers. I mean, I
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again, we don't like AI things that take away jobs from other people.
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But foreign translations is a whole other market that, like, for example,
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English language writers at certain tiers just don't have the resources to do, so
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this might be a good way of growing your audience. Right, So as
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far, yeah, as far as AI tools go, this one, this
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one's the least offensive we've we've we've spoken of, I feel like, right,
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although if they move beyond computer books and start doing legal thrillers, I
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might have different thoughts. Yeah, can you imagine try? I mean,
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the legal systems overseas aren't even the same, much less the terminal that's true.
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That'd be interesting. Actually, I'm curious abou how I would do that.
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So okay, well I'll say, well, i'll lean pubs just doing
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computer but somebody else will be doing fiction and oh yeah, for sure,
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So you know, okay. News story number two, which is related.
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We recently got a very rare look into book sales at Amazon. This is
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rare because historically Amazon never releases any kind of what they call granular data,
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and they apparently didn't release this either, But Business Insider somehow got a hold
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of this twenty five page confidential document that includes data about Amazon's retail business,
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including their book business, for the first ten months of twenty twenty two.
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And I will tell you now. I will put the link to this report
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in the show notes. However, there's a paywall, so if you don't
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have a subscription to Business Insider, you won't be able to read it,
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which is why Jesse is showing you a screenshot from someplace else, because we
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didn't want a page just to get for a screenshot to show on the podcast,
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right. That makes no sense anyway, So and for that matter,
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Business Insider hasn't made the whole document available, but we have enough to talk
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about. For instance, in the first ten months of twenty twenty two,
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Amazon earned sixteen point nine billion that's with a b billion worldwide from its books
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categories. That's print, ebooks, audiobook. I'm just pointing that out because
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I think people think that the book market, which was what Amazon started with,
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is now a teeny tiny piece of its business. Well, Amazon sells
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everything now basically, but books are still a huge part of their market,
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both here in the United States and abroad. In fact, FYI, from
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this report, we now know that the three largest overseas markets are the UK,
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Germany, and Japan. So if say you were paying somebody to translate
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your books, somebody who maybe gives you a bargain for only three translations,
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pick UK, Germany and Japan. Probably. Other good takeaways from this report
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had to do with the print digital split, you know, print books versus
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digital books for that same period of time. Here are the results according to
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the report, four hundred and fifty six million print books sold and four hundred
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and nineteen digital books. I mean, that's almost neck to nick. If
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that were a presidential election, people would refuse to call it advance. But
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it does show slightly more print books, which is not what most people would
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have expected. You know, I live so much in the world of popular
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fiction where ebooks are clearly dominant, that sometimes I make the mistake of thinking
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that's the whole world. But it's not. People still seem to prefer children's
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books, picture books for instance, and hardcovers and textbooks, and a lot
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of nonfiction fields as well. And so that was in interesting. Two more
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points Japanese manga it seems to be exploding, and and I'm taking this from
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Michael Cater who's done a very good analysis of this information. I'll also post
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notes to that, but he points out that the book Scan reported sales for
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a similar period suggests that Amazon is responsible for selling quote an astonishing seventy seven
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percent of book scan units in quote. Why is that astonishing because we normally
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think of the book scan or book scan the data being point of purchase,
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you know, being primarily bookstores. But if seventy seven percent of those sales
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are going through Amazon, then that is just not true anymore so for starters.
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Jesse, were you surprised by the sales numbers for print books versus ebooks?
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No, Because I feel like we've talked about this a lot where there's
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a, uh, there's a growing trend of people wanting to read physical media,
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and there are the group of people like myself who like to read e
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books but own copies of said book. And you know, it's one of
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those things where I think a lot of energy was too lately put in how
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ebooks were popular, but people who liked the ebooks already knew that, and
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we're already reading ebooks, And now I think they're just like recognizing that people
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kind of want both and that's a good thing. Now wait a minute,
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you say you buy, but you read the e book, but then you
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get a print book just so you can put it on the shelf and yes,
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tell people you read it well, because I did read it. I
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just it's easier to read on my kindle. That especially the books I read,
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which are usually long fantasy or sci fi books, are not comfortable to
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read in bed. That's you know, I'm teasing you. But in fact,
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way back when, when I was younger than you, uh and audio
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books were just starting to break out, long unabridged audio books, I would
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listen to those audio books when I commuted to work or on business trips,
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But I too would also buy the print book just sort of remind myself I've
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read that, you know, I've done that one, or maybe just so
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I can press my friends. But I don't think I have any friends who
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are impressed by the books in my house. So that yeah, I'm still
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yeah, I'm still mad that Amazon never thought it was a good idea,
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or they couldn't convince the publishers that like if I buy a hard back cover
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of a book, I should get the ebook for free. Yeah, yeah,
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or vice versa. Yeah, I mean there are you can get the
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audio book and then get them for an extra yeah buck fifty usually at Amazon
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or something like that. Yeah, So, and what do you think about
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this manga explosion? Is this going to be the year it finally takes off
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in the United States. It's one of those things where I think it just
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has two it has it has a name that is going to be too confusing
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to most Americans to really yeah or yeah manga. Yeah, I feel like
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you're just comic books. Would that be a yeah? I think more people
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would understand it. But again, it's one of those things where it's been
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popular for a long time and it's just enough of those people who are super
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into it are now making other things and talking about their love of manga.
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So it's like it's one of those It's one of those growth things where,
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like, you know, it used to be like being a Star Trek and
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Star Wars Nerd was a bad thing, and now all those people are running
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Hollywood different ips, and so now it's cool again. Now it's an extreme
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right, Yeah, So I feel like that's what's happening. Last Pool,
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I saw more than fifty percent of all Americans considered themselves trekkies, and I
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thought, well, that's wow. How it was when I was fourteen.
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No, No, that's not what my childhood was like at all. So,
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yeah, is this just an age thing, because you know, I
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love comic books, I love every kind of books, and I've read manga,
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but it still feels a little strange to me. You know, it's
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not just the art. The storytelling approach is I think different. Yeah,
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I'm specifically thinking about the Superman Nishi series where every episode Superman flies to Japan
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and eats lunch at a different chain sushi restaurant. What a great idea.
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Yeah, that wouldn't happen here in America. No, No, it's I
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think it's good to have different culture storytelling tropes being incorporated into America, like,
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for example, the Three Body Problem, which you talked about a lot.
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Like reading that book, even though I'm reading the English translation, was
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so different from any other sci fi series I have ever read. And that's
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good that that it creates new ideas, it brings new things into the zeitgeist.
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It's a positive new way of telling stories. I totally agree with that
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when it's done really well. Yes, I probably just haven't read the definitive
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manga yet. What's the best one. I feel like that's an instant way
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to start an Internet argument. So or at least get people to comment on
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the podcast. Yeah right, listeners, you tell us your favorite boga.
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All right, there you go again in the comments. All right, enough
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of this chatter. Let us talk to Eloisa James Eloise, welcome to the
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podcast. Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure, all
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right. Traditional first question, if you could offer writers one piece of advice,
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what would it be. Whether you are writing great literature or terrible literature,
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or genre fiction or poetry, you have got to recognize that you're going
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to write really bad literature most of the time. That's my advice. My
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advice is its from editing. Yes, right, right, there'll be another
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draft later. What you're saying, rights, yeah, yeah, later.
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But even more than that, eighty percent of the stuff you produce is schlock.
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You're gonna have to learn to cut it. You can't edit that into
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a gem right right, needs to be cut. I think that that's such
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a good point too, because I sometimes I think people think, well,
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I'm just starting. When I get good at it, this will be easy
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and my first drafts will go straight to the press, And I think,
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no, I've written sixty four books now and that has not happened yet.
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So and I know you're well over thirty historical romances, right right, I
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am. Yeah, I've written over thirty historical romances and a contemporary novel and
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a memoir. And believe me, every time I hand in the first draft,
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I think this is brilliant. This time my editor or my agent is
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just going to say, Wow, you've never written so well, and then
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yeah, yeah, out the way it works well, tell us about the
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new one, which I think is Viscount the Love right, tell us about
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Viscount y Come. Is a lot of fun, because when you're writing historical
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romance, you need to find a way at looking at the past that's also
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looking at the present. And I got very interested in dyslexia because one of
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my students, because I'm a Shakespeare professor, one of my students who'd been
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my advisi for two years, was diagnosed at dyslexia, and it never occurred
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to me for why he was such a bad speller. So I ended up
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thinking about dyslexia back back in the day, so to speak, in the
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regency period, and I realized that everyone would simply decide you were stupid.
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That was it. And my student came to me with you know, he'd
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had a tough time not being called stupid so much, because you know,
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Fordham is extremely supportive, but people being frustrated on able to figure out why
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he couldn't, you know, comprehend faster, read faster, why he couldn't
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do these things. And I loved his work. He's really creative. But
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I also didn't I thought it was a problem of organization, maybe adhd you
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know, we go in various directions. I didn't think of dyslexia. So
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I learned really interesting things. For example, did you know that some dyslexic
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people can write in blue ink, but never in black ink? I have
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not heard that before. No, So my heroine, when my heroine gets
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married, she has to sign the you know, the book behind the church.
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She cannot sign it in black ink, so her maid sneaks in a
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bottle of blue ink, and the archbishop's like absolutely not, and her friend
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distracts him and she signs the book in blue ink. Basically, I had
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a heroine whom everyone had decided is an idiot because she cannot read and she
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cannot write, and she's a painter, and the only thing she can paint
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are objects that are good for women to paint, which would be rabbits,
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bunnies, kittens, and flowers. Right, that's who she is, and
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she no, no, I didn't get into rabbits and kittens and flowers.
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And so her sister is enormously talented and able and betrothed to a viscount who
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inherits two very eccentric children, and the sister promptly it looks with someone else,
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and the viscount ends up marrying the woman whom he believes to be stupid,
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and he thinks spends his time painting flowers and rabbits kitten. But I'm
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betting it turns out pretty well at some point, you know, for those
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of you who are writing romance or I think it covers almost any kind of
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fiction. I really think that Jeen de fiction lives or dies on come up.
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And you know, we think of romance always all about falling in love.
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Actually no, I think it's more about come up. And so it's
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about you know, that feeling of like, okay, the bad people got
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theirs and the good people so so yeah, my heroin may be painting flowers,
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but she's the best flower painter in England. And that's funny. This
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is really fascinating. I never thought about a condition like that in the past.
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I mean, if it's not new, it's just that we're learning new
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ways to acknowledge and assist with it. And that's that's a brilliant idea you've
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had. I love that. And I also like how you're kind of bringing
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in the women's issues to your historical fiction. That sounds fascinating. I don't
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have to read that. But but this is part of a series, right,
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Accidental Brides? Do I need to start with the first one? It
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is the first. Oh, it's going to start a new series. Fantastic,
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perfect, perfect starting point for me. Then I love it. But
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you have several series, don't you. I do. I have many series.
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So I have The Wilds, which is about a kind of crazy family
23:04
living on the edge of a bog with thirteen children. That's an extremely popular
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one set in the Georgian periods that were thinking about wigs rather than you know,
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pretty dresses Burgis in style. And I have another one called Desperate Duchesses,
23:18
which is also very popular, really set around chess games and because the
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Georgian period was much more racy than the regency period, and so a lot
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of people were living separately from their husbands. So Desperate Duchesses is about deastes
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who are not living with their husbands. Whoah, it was fun to write
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that sparks some ideas, they're interesting, It's fascinating you participated in Kindlevella.
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The kind of program is that? Right? How did that go for you?
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Did you enjoy that experience or I did? And for those of you
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who don't know, kindle Vella is a serialization platform on the Amazon in the
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Amazon world. And the thing about having such a long career, and I'm
24:04
sure William with your sixty four if I got that right, sixty four books,
24:08
you know you have to keep challenging yourself. I mean, you know,
24:14
something like this is not going to come along every minute. So with
24:18
the serialization platform, it's been fabulous for me. I have a something called
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The Seduction, which is the season season one, two, three, four
24:26
in The Seduction to Dances and a Duke is the first one. But what
24:33
it really taught me was how to write an episode so that someone will buy
24:37
the next because the point of serialization is that they don't have to buy the
24:41
next they don't have to continue. So how do you end a chapter in
24:45
such a way that the person either puts down their money for another one or
24:51
doesn't put the book down. It's like, wait, I've got to read
24:53
one more chapter. That's what you're always going for with John Picture, I've
24:56
got to read one more. I've got to read one more. So I
25:00
ended up doing a lot of research on Dickens, because, of course Dickens
25:03
is a famous serializer, and there are wonderful letters in which he's writing to
25:10
you know, various authors and saying, if something doesn't happen this book,
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I'm pulling your serialization because something has to happen in every chapter. So I
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learned a lot, and I think I'm i brought that forward into the new
25:23
Accidental Duchesses. They're a little different. Well, I think you've got a
25:29
good formula down, or a good system down, because your books have been
25:33
praised by just pretty much everyone, like every review periodical. Julia Quinn,
25:40
author of the Bridgerton series. I mean that has to feel good, right.
25:44
You talked about how you send in your first draft and it maybe doesn't
25:48
get the response. You won't at first, but to get those kinds of
25:52
reviews that has to be wonderful. Well, the reason why I answered that
25:56
first question is because I've learned over the year, is you you have to
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acknowledge the work, right. You just have to accept there's going to be
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a lot of work if you want those reviews, and frankly, if you
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want the sales, I love it. I think that's just fantastic advice.
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You have one of the most interesting author biographies I've had the pleasure to read
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since we did started doing this podcast. Let me see if I've got all
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this straight. If I'm reading this correctly, You've got degrees from Harvard,
26:29
Yale, and Oxford. Would that be correct? That's like the trifecta of
26:33
higher education? Is I know you must have liked school a lot. I
26:41
did. I mean, I like, I recognize hard work, and if
26:48
if I can see where I'm going, I just do it. Mm hmmm,
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that's good. Well it turned out that waspful. Yeah, it turned
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out well. As you just mentioned, you're a Shakespearean scholar, professor.
26:57
Where do you teach and scholar? I'm sure too. We're Florida University Yeah,
27:03
which is in New York City. Yeah, where I think you live
27:07
some of the time. But as you I don't remember if you mentioned it
27:11
since we started the interview, but you're in Florence right now, right,
27:14
so you live in Italy part of the time. What's that during the summer
27:18
maybe? Or how's that work? Exactly? My husband's Italian, So we
27:22
have a house in Florence. And actually my daughter moved here after college,
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so she's here. Oh sweet, mom and dad have a place in Florence.
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We didn't do that. How did we miss out on that? Laura?
27:37
It just slipped my mind. Maybe Disney World, but no, Florence
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really smokes. Well. Okay, so and how did you segue? I'm
27:47
going to assume you taught first, but somehow you made this movement from Shakespearean
27:52
professor to best selling author of historical romances. How did that happen? Well,
28:00
my husband is Italian, which means he didn't. He was rather shocked
28:06
by my student loans. And of course now now thirty thousand dollars in student
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loans is nothing. Unfortunately, my students often have far more. But back
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then when we graduated, we've both got our phg A Yale, and it
28:21
was a tremendous amount of money. So we had one baby, and Alessandro
28:25
felt frually and responsibly that we couldn't have another baby because we had too much
28:30
loans. But I had grown up the daughter of a poet Robert Bly and
28:34
a writer, Kara Bly, and when they wanted to do something, they
28:38
simply wrote to HarperCollins, which is very ironic because they have been my publisher
28:44
now for thirty years, and ask for in advance. And this is something
28:48
that my sister and I have agreed over the years, was you know,
28:52
it had a profound effect on us as kids. You know, they would
28:55
ask for in advance and then my dad would go to Norway for a year,
28:57
or we'd go to Paris for a year. We'd go live in London
29:00
for a year, and we go live in California, which frankly was like
29:03
a foreign country if you're growing up at a farm in Minnesota. So so
29:07
I decided, fine, I don't want to have one child. I grew
29:11
up with six in the household. I have to pay off these student loans,
29:15
and that means I have to write something. And I love, you
29:18
know, reading romance, and I tried writing a mystery, which I also
29:22
love to read, and I just couldn't get into the murder's point of view.
29:27
So I tried a romance and it went up for auction, you know,
29:33
with publishers, and it came in a couple of three thousand dollars over
29:38
my student loans. But for that I had to write three books nice.
29:42
And then I discovered I loved having an academic side where you know, the
29:47
book is every you know inch of it is going to be hauled over by
29:51
other academics and argued about. And having a romance where people simply write you
29:55
and say I love this or I didn't love it, and here's why,
29:57
you know, so it is. It's been a great balance in my life.
30:00
I'm very grateful. Now you brought this up, so I assume that
30:04
this is okay. Your father is Robert Bligh, one of the most successful
30:10
and famous poets in American literature late past a few years ago. But National
30:15
Book Award winner. Have you ever been tempted to write poetry? No,
30:22
No, leave that to dad. I spent my entire childhood with his dad
30:30
at dinner every night, going here's what I wrote, or but I mean
30:33
he would go through phases, so he would recite yea, it's at dinner.
30:37
And also, interestingly, I have a lot of memories of him reciting
30:41
King Lear, which makes it little I became a Shakespeare. But I have
30:47
to share something funny that just happened, which is that Taylor Swift has been
30:53
co writing songs and she just a co written song was just released, said
30:59
Robert Reply on your bedside table, and I was like, oh, I
31:04
love this Swift song. Yeah, he made it swift Land. That's terrific.
31:12
You wrote an op ed piece for the New York Times defending romance romantic
31:18
fiction. How did that come about? Well, actually they contacted me and
31:25
said, it's going to be Valentine's Day, can you please write something about
31:29
broad at rippers? And I said, I can write something about why you
31:30
shouldn't call them. Ye. So yeah, I've done a lot of defending
31:37
romance. I mean, I honestly feel that the same percentage of romance is
31:44
good as literary fiction. And believe me, poetry. I mean, I
31:48
grew up. One of my jobs as a kid was reading aloud to my
31:52
dad his letters, and then I would type the responses. So in my
31:56
adult life. I've had a lot of people come up to me after talks
31:59
after out and say I have one of your letters, and they would say
32:01
things like, you know, dear Bob, you know your poetry really isn't
32:07
good. You should concentrate on, you know, working in a thing.
32:09
And then it says ps and it says, I'm Mary Blith, but I
32:13
thought your poetry was good because I would try to mitigate what right I was
32:20
seven. So you know, I've I've struggled with that a little bit.
32:24
I write literary fiction, but I also write like supernatural suspense and kind of
32:30
like I feel like one is serious and one is not so serious. And
32:34
I've struggled with that. And Catherine Senter told me at one point, don't
32:39
don't dismiss what you're calling not serious fiction, because everything is important to the
32:46
reader who picks it up and reads it. It gives that reader exactly what
32:51
they need. And I have quite a few friends who write romance, and
32:54
I think some of it. We just tend to get a little defensive about
32:59
that if we're not writing like the next great American novel. But when we
33:02
get that feedback from our fans, that tell us how much difference it made
33:08
for them, or how it was it got them through a rough period.
33:12
I think it makes all the difference. All literature, all fiction has a
33:17
place and is important. So I'm glad that you stepped up and we're able
33:22
to write that. Glad you're the opportunity. Thank you. I think you
33:27
should celebrate both. I don't think you should accept shame as a reason for
33:32
denigrating your own fiction. I agree. I like the reminder. I remind
33:39
myself, right, don't say I just write. No, I do this.
33:44
It's a good thing. I'm proud of it. That's right. And
33:47
I'm good at this. That's another one. I'm good at this. What
33:54
does a typical writing day look like for you? Do you have a very
33:59
set process? Are a little more open. I'm in Italy right now,
34:04
so that means that I write in the gazebo in the garden, which is
34:07
nice. So I got very early in the morning and I write until it
34:12
gets too hot. I have one of those fans that will spew air at
34:15
me, so I can stay at you know, wet air. I could
34:19
see up a little longer than I would but I write in the morning and
34:22
I write in twenty five minute writing sprints, and I often write with friends.
34:25
So I read at some point a few years ago that twenty five minutes
34:30
is the perfect concentration time, and it does seem to work for me.
34:34
So we turn off our computers and our sound and leave the zoom on twenty
34:39
five minutes of writing, turn it all back on, discuss where you are,
34:44
see if anyone had any problems. I highly recommend it for anyone,
34:49
no matter what thing. Stage. Writing in a group it sounds like yes.
34:54
With other writing friends, well, but you turn the sound and the
35:00
computer off, so you have twenty five minutes working on yours. But then
35:02
you come back and you have five minutes of just like wow, this you
35:07
know. For one of the people I'm writing with right now is writing a
35:12
murder mystery set at the turn of the century in New York City with a
35:16
lot of embalmed babies. It's very far away from accidental duchesses. But that
35:22
doesn't matter because when you're discussing, I don't know how to make this character
35:24
work? Or does this sound boring to you? That's something that would probably
35:29
be my second piece of advice. We often write boring, boring fiction,
35:37
and we have to catch that. And it's I think people shelter themselves from
35:42
that realization because they're like, well, if I'm boring, I have to
35:45
quit. No, we're all boring. I mean, you know, Hemingway
35:47
is incredibly boring. He just learned how to hone it down Dickens. I
35:52
mean, I've been studying Dickens a lot. He can just go on and
35:54
on. If I was editing Goriokins, I would totally splice him out.
35:57
But but if you look at the notes, you can see him pulling in
36:04
like between the serialized version and the novelized version, because often I think sometimes
36:09
some of the cliffhangers weren't necessary anymore once it goes to the novel for him,
36:14
right exactly. But he also he did everything in notes, So he
36:19
wrote out a chapter and then what's going to be in it? And you
36:21
can see him like, I can't remember which one it is. I think
36:24
it's bleak counselor was going to be an adulterous relationship, And you know he
36:29
got half with you, and he's like, I just don't need that.
36:30
Pull it back. That is going to be one thing too many interesting.
36:35
Yeah, So how much how much planning do you do before you launch into
36:38
a novel? Are you a panther or are you a planner? Do you
36:42
do you have a pretty good outline in place or do you just have an
36:45
idea and just start writing and go for it. It depends, as I've
36:50
as I've written more books, I tend to be more of a planner.
36:53
But I can pants if I know where I'm going, and that generally because
36:59
I'm writing Roman. So that'll be the moment when the reader looks up from
37:01
her book and says, Wow, this relationship is never going to survive.
37:06
If I know where that is, I can right to it and after it.
37:09
If I don't know where it is, I need to set up things
37:13
much more closely. Okay, Well, one last question then, Eluisa,
37:19
what are you working on now or what could we expect from you next?
37:22
Well, so you know, the Viscount Viscount in Love comes out at the
37:28
end of July, and I have just turned in the next book, which
37:31
is called Hardly a Gentleman, and I received an email yesterday from my editor
37:36
saying she loves it. So yeah, it's one of those Yeah, that's
37:45
it's a lot of fun. I'm loving The Accidental Accidental Brides is fun because
37:50
these are women who didn't plan to marry for whatever reason, end up accidentally
37:54
married, accidentally married to the viscount, for example. And I'll just add
38:00
I had a lot of fun with that book because when my kids were little,
38:05
my daughter was writing really violent suspense stories. Laura kind of like yours.
38:13
Maybe I don't know, maybe, so I stole some of her stories,
38:16
like she's got this man who had these withered heads up on the windowsill
38:21
and he would run his fingers through their rustling hair. Oh wow, is
38:25
what the very proper lady finds when she goes to visit the Viscount's new wards.
38:31
And she says, oh, I can't do it. I'm out of
38:35
here. I'm looking at someone else. And my heroine is like, interesting,
38:40
interesting, I love that you borrowed that. That's interesting. We have
38:45
some students, some children who are creative and artistic and just visiting back and
38:52
forth. We sometimes borrow ideas from each other or can take something and gain
38:57
inspiration from it. I love it. Yeah, I've done that a lot.
39:00
I wrote a contemporary novel as Mary BLI called Lizzie and Dante, and
39:06
every chapter that is that is from the point of view of a young girl
39:10
has one of the quotes that my daughter had pasted on her door. Oh,
39:15
that young girl really is based on her. So I think we're very
39:17
lucky. Yeah, because it keeps you yes, in perspective, fresh perspective,
39:24
every it just keeps it coming. Yes, and Aras have had to
39:29
put up with a lot, but they've never had to listen you read King
39:31
Lear at dinner. So thanks so much for me. We need to get
39:38
you back so we can talk more about Shakespeare and Victorian literature. For now,
39:45
thanks for being on the podcast. Just a few parting words. Since
39:59
there were treat is about to begin, I'll skip that and move ahead to
40:02
the big annual of end of the year, the Writer coun Conference in Oklahoma
40:07
City at the Renaissance Waterford Fabulous Hotel over Labor Day weekend, which this year
40:14
is August thirtieth to September two. And what a conference. More than seventy
40:20
speakers, more than ninety sessions, five tracks of programming throughout most of the
40:25
day. Even Baxter is excited about it, and he's not even going to
40:30
get to go. Can you hear that? He is a very excited dog.
40:32
We got authors, agents, publishers, book marketing experts. They're taking
40:37
pitches. We have expanded the contest to thirteen categories, covering both published and
40:45
unpublished work. Winners get medals, cash prizes, You might meet the agent
40:52
you want, You might make a fringe you're going to keep for the rest
40:54
of your writing life. And as I've probably said before to me, that
41:00
is the best part of writer car Con, hanging out with people who have
41:05
the same priorities and interests and goals that you do. Let me also remind
41:09
you that writer Con has its own magazine, and you don't want to miss
41:14
the next issue. I can say that with authority because I just proofread it
41:17
this morning and it's got some wonderful articles on breaking issues. To subscribe,
41:24
go to substack and search for writer Con and you'll see two options. You
41:30
can get a free subscription, which will give you the free newsletter every other
41:35
week or so, which has lots of information about breaking news and opportunities for
41:40
agents or publishing and whatnot. Or you can go paid subscription just a few
41:46
dollars more and get writer Con magazine eight times a year, and you will
41:51
be so glad you did all right. Until next time, keep writing and
41:58
remember you cannot fail if you refuse to quit. See you next m