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Baking a Book with Aimee Runyan · WriterCon

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This week on the writer KHN podcast. I love the old chestnut, stop
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at firing, start writing, because the only way to get good at your
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craft is to sit at your rear end in a chair and do it.
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Welcome to writer Khan, a gathering place for writers to share their knowledge about
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writing and the writing world. Your hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist
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and author of the Red Sneaker books on writing, and Renee Gutteridge, best
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selling author of over thirty novels and screenplays. I am joined today as usual
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by our sound engineer, Jesse Ulridge and filling in for Renee, the sensational
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author of Red Rain and six other books, and my wife Laura Bernhardt.
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Laura, thanks for joining us, My pleasure always. We've made it to
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August now, and that means there's less than a month to go before our
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annual writers conference, writer Kahn, which takes place in Gloma City over a
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Labor Day weekend. Laura, I've already asked everybody else available, and we've
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all talked about writer cons. So now I'm going to give you a chance.
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What's your favorite part of writer con A favorite part? I'm going to
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say the energy, the energy is always so good, connecting with other writers,
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getting to learn about the craft, just sharing the vibe with other people
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who share all of the same aspirations and dreams. There's just nothing like it.
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I've always come away recharged and ready to go write like five more books.
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I thought for sure you were going to single out the karaoke night as
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your favorite. I think that's only yours. I think that's your favorite party.
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Are you seeing way better than I do? Not that i'd ever let
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that stop me, Okay, but when you break out the piano and play
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with me, you have spoiled me. I just I want my personal accompanist
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with me. I don't know there's hasn't been a piano here. Funny that
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I just brought Jesse. You're going to be recording. We talked about this
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before. You're recording all the sessions, making audio recordings that are available to
2:13
participants afterwards. You are geared up. I don't even want to think about
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what kind of equipment though. Well, I've been meaning to talk to you
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about that. I need to. I see a double check with the av
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people that I can plug in the way I would like to, and then
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I'm going to rent like six portable recorders for like a week and then just
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get a lot of SD cards and run them all day and then fix it,
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you know, break them up later, consult away. But I think
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you're our ace in the hole. You made that old Billy Collins remote interview
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last year work. That was for me, the highlight of the conference.
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I still have a cord of yours, Jesse, you know, yeah,
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yeah, yeah, obviously I've been in dire need of that chord for the
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past year. That's an elder problem with these events. People to keep running
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off with your stuff, right, it's true demand round for this stuff,
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and not to pay the company and the rental company back. I'll just like
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duct tape them to every device I plug them into. Sorry, you go
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well. Our interview today is with Amy kay Runyan, who is the author
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of a new historical novel just released called A Bakery in Paris from William Morrow.
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She's written many historical novels before this one, including most recently The School
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for German Brides, which came out last year, also Frommorrow. She's been
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honored as a Historical Novel Society Editor's Choice Selection. She's a three time finalist
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for the Colorado book awards, and as you will learn in the interview,
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she is a passionate amateur baker and that has a lot to do with her
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book. We will talk to Amy after the news section segment. Jesse take
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us away, Well, I really like this first news story because it's like
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happy news and good stuff and not handwringing about the random house firing loads of
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people or diminishing book sales or whatever. But this involves our friends at draft
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to Digital, which you've heard us mentioned many times before. They've sponsored this
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podcast and writer Con. They are the single largest aggregator or distributor if you
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will, of ebooks after Amazon of course, but draft to Digital is where
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you go so that you can get your ebooks distributed every place that isn't Amazon.
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I mean, they'll send it to Amazon too, but what about the
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other thirty to forty other places and libraries and whatnot. Draft to Digital can
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help yeah with that. And now they have acquired a company called self pub
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Bookcovers dot com SPBC. You can find their website and for several years now
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that company has been a marketplace for book covers where indie authors or small presses
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or whoever wants to use it and purchase. There's a selection of thousands of
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original, one of a kind cover designs by many totally professional cover designers,
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and now that they're owned by draft to Digital, that company's covers are available
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to draft to Digital clients. Basically, what happens is that cover artists upload
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original, pre made cover designs with recommended fond treatments for the name, of
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the title and whatnot. The artists tag each image with keywords that will reflect
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the types of book, categories, the genres, the themes. You know
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what kind of book this would be suitable for, and I suppose there's no
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guarantee, but it's very possible, and the first place you can search through
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artists portfolios through all these covers by using keywords and categories, so you can
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find what could be the one of a kind, perfect cover image for your
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book, which looks great and totally professional and doesn't cost you anything, so
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it's free and less time consuming. Laura, you've got some experience with covers.
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I think this might make life easier for small presses and self publishers.
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Absolutely absolutely. As soon as I saw this announcement, I hopped over to
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take a look at the page and let's be honest, not having a really
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nice, appropriate and professional cover is just probably the one surefire way to take
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your book, and so having another tool right there with draft to digital.
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First of all, the fact that they have folded them into the company tells
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me that they think highly of them, So that's great. I think anybody
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who is looking for a new cover is going to find this just to be
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super useful and keeping your bottom line during production low those initial upfront costs,
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keeping those low going to help with the success of the book. Maybe that's
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some money you can put into marketing, getting more books out there, and
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it just seems like a win win. I'm excited about it. Yeah,
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it's a great I mean, you may not find the cover you need or
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so guarantee, but then again you might because of really nice covers and knowing
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that those covers are going to be unique to yours. I have actually seen
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some covers come out that utilize the same artwork and on different books, and
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that you definitely don't want that. So something like this here way better.
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Right once you've grabbed it, it's gone okay. News story number two,
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which is also a much happier, more pete story than most of the author
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profiles we've had. I'm not talking about the interview guests, but stories about,
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you know, the various mystery writer murder moms, or the woman who
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co wrote a book on grief with her kids before being arrested for murdering her
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husband. But this one is better. This comes from New York Times feature
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piece about Laura Love Harden. The headline of the article was, if I
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remember correctly, as something like from pet cemetery owner to identity thief to best
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selling ghostwriter and she's also an agent. Laura Love Harden. She's got a
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new memoir coming out called The Many Lives of Mama Love, Love being her
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middle name, and it's a fascinating story. I mean, she took a
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cataclismic nosedive, but before then she owned a pet cemetery. Then she got
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hooked on heroin, which started a descent into crime. She's stole a checkbook
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and credit cards and gift cards. She broke into people's homes to steal painkillers,
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and while they're pirate at their WiFi while gambling online and smoking heroin,
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using other people social security numbers to apply for Amazon card so that she then
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used at least in one instance, to buy books on parenting. Well,
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she's come around, because she's now a literary agent and a ghostwriter who's collaborated
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on many best selling books, including ones by Get This, Archbishop Tutu,
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and The Dolly Lama. Laura, I know you haven't had a chance to
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read the book yet because as we record this it's a few days from release.
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But what's the takeaway you see in this story? This is incredible.
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I mean, the way that she managed to turn things around. I suspect
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it's just going to be an inspirational story to really remind us all it doesn't
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matter, It doesn't matter what we've done before, even when we've hit rock
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bottom, you can always come back. You can always come back and be
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successful. Don't give up, keep moving forward. I'm really excited to see
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this. I'm just a little bit incredulous. But isn't this what we tell
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our aspiring writers. Don't give up, don't give up, You've got to
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keep after it. And how nice that this story has a happy ending.
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Yeah, and that's what we tell people who developed these personal problems too.
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Quit brush yourself off, get back to work right And definitely that's what she's
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done so well. Jesse, you gotta admit this is a better, are
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a happier story than the murder moms. I mean, we don't know if
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she did or did not commit any murders, but she at least did turn
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herself around, and like almost the industriousness of some of her crimes, like
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you could sort of see the glimpse of the future productive person in there.
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Yeah, stealing your identities and their WiFi in their own homes, like that's
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ball. And apparently he became the shot color at the jail house where she
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spent several months, So yeah, there was potential. She's had dinner with
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Oprah for Pete's sake, So take that. James Parson, I knew you'd
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get in the James Patterson jab at some point. He's the one you want
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buying bars. I know. All right, Jesse, queue up the music.
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Let's talk to Amy Runyan. Amy. Welcome to the podcast. Hi,
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thank you for having me. It's our pleasure, believe me. Okay,
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we have a traditional first question. If you could offer writers one piece
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of advice, what would it be? Okay? I love the old chestnut.
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Stop aspiring, start writing, because the only way to get good at
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your craft is to sit at your rear end in a chair and do it.
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You know, I spent so long dreaming about what it would be like
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to be an author and to spend my days, you know, making stories
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and weaving make believe, you know, all by myself and getting paid to
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do it for a living. And I would be a lot further along in
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my career by now if i'd, you know, stop listening to the voice
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of reason and started writing a lot younger. The voice of reasons never going
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to take you to a writing career, is it. No, it's not.
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It's not. And that's fine, That's perfectly fine. So I think
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that's a great you know. I used to phrase that first question is if
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you could offer to aspiring writers or writers, and and I just thought,
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now we're all writers, forget it. Yeah, stop aspiring, start writing,
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right, Hey, congratulations on the publication of your new novel, which
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will have just been out a few days when this podcast is released. It's
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a bakery in Paris, right, yeah, absolutely, tell us about that.
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Well, it's a dual narrative. Half of it is the story of
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Nizette, who is a privilege young lady living in Paris in the eighteen seventies,
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and for those of you who are not well versed in French history,
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that was a really tumultuous time. You had the seige of Paris from the
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Germans, the first of three times, when you know, Germany invaded you
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know, France and got all the way to Paris basically, and following the
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defeat, you know, basically, the emperor was displaced and the army was
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quelled for quite some time, and the people of Paris organized their own government,
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known as the Paris Commune, and unfortunately it was put down about two
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months, so they the common people of Paris, got to rule themselves for
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about two months and it ended very badly, but it was a fascinating and
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very interesting time in Parisian history. And the second timeline, if we have
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our hero in machine, and it's in the days following World War two,
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so nineteen forty six, in the earliest days of the aftermath, and her
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father died in the early days of the war, and her mother's missing,
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and she's nineteen years old and charged with raising her two younger sisters without much
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help. And so you know, a lot of our agency has been taken
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away and she hasked to figure out a way to carve a life for herself
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and to provide for her sisters at a very young age. And the connection
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between the two stories is the bakery, right is the bakery. Yes,
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they find their their path in life through the same little green bakery in the
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heart of Momato, which is a small little region of Paris. It used
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to be basically a separate village from Paris, and it was. They are
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related. They are a great granddaughter, a great grandmother, great granddaughter,
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and so you know, it's not the whole I would definitely want to avoid
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the trope of her finding some treasure of her grandmothers that leads to great grandmothers
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that leads her to a deeper understanding of herself. But there is a hint
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of that in that they both find their path in life through the simple little
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green bakery. Okay, so now I have one critical question that I can
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almost guarantee you were not expecting. So I have one daughter who loves Emily
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in Paris and another who loves the Great British Baking Show. So who's going
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to love this book more, Katie or Madeline. Oh that's a great question.
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I actually haven't seen Emily in Paris, but I am a massive fan
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of The Great British Bake Off, So you know, I think this might
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sit better with the baking show door that just because just because I mean,
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it's you know there, it doesn't have the high fashion I'm I'm guessing Emily
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and in Paris is a little bit to do with the fashion industry, and
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this is kind of the opposite of that. It's like Paris at its low
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moments. You know, it's not the rise of Christian Dior and all that
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stuff, which is fabulous, which is fabulous, but you know, it
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really does have to do with the inner workings of a Parisian bakery, which
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is kind of a special special place. But you know, I'm you know,
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I'm I love like missus Harris goes to Paris as much as I love
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The Great Baking bake Off. So I think it really will appeal because there's
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a lot of Paris in this book, a lot of Paris, so you
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know, it could be something that they'll both love. I hope that sounds
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that sounds fantastic, So, oh, thank you. Both Both of your
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novels feature are kind of unsung women heroes correct, don't you think? Yeah,
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absolutely, yes, that's what we find most compelling about these characters.
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You know, they're women that you know, I think that because a lot
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of our history is told through the lens of Victorian historiography, which is the
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writing of history, and they make women out to be a little bit more
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passive than they are, or they write them out ofhistory entirely. And so
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I just find it fascinating to find that, you know, it wasn't that
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women wielded a fair amount of influence. They might not have been, you
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know, holding political office or you know, directly in charge, but they
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were. They wielded a lot of influence, and it wasn't just parlor politics.
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And so delving into those different stories throughout the course of my career has
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been you know, fascinated. My tagline is celebrating histories unsung heroines, and
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that's you know, what I always hope to set out to do. I
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love that. I can tell I'm going to love this book already. Oh
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thank you. You You mentioned that we of the two different timelines going in
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this book. Could you share with us why you decided to choose that format?
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Well, you know, I the gentleman I was dating at the time,
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and this is early twenty twenty, and I was looking for different book
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ideas after Across the Winding River, which was my fifth book. Yeah,
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that sounds about right. And I and I was dating a historian and he
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said, Amy, you really should consider writing about the Paris Commune since you're
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looking for ideas and the Paris Commune eighteen seventies. You know, one of
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the trickiest parts about selling historical fiction is that it needs to be a familiar
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enough time period that people are interested in it. And so I thought tying
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it in with the post war would be something new and fresh because it's familiar
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enough that people are going to be interested in it. But it's not the
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whole You know this, you know, the French spy narrative in World War
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Two has been done so much. I just did not want to jump back
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into that. But I liked that, you know, we have one timeline
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where we're going directly through a conflict with the siege of Paris and the Paris
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Commune and the aftermath of the Commune, which was awful, and then the
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aftermath and Paris rebuilding itself, and we see that those that's how their stories
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are parallel, and that these are periods where Paris was really redefining and restructuring
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itself. And after eighteen seventy we had lap the beautiful period with the eighteen
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eighties, which is where Paris was the center of the universe. It really
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was the cultural, artistic, musical world centered around Paris, and it was
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because of how well it rebuilt, and whereas I don't think Paris really recaptured
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that same sphere of influence after World War Two, it did rebuild really successfully,
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but it was painful. And you know, me being a staunch pacifist,
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I liked showing the rebuilding and you know, the price that they paid
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for going to war in the first place. Yeah, I really appreciate that.
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To be completely honest, I have just a little bit of historical war
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fiction fatigue. I agree with you that that's been done quite a bit.
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Yeah, and you know, I've done three World War One warld. I
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did one World War one book and three World War two books. But I
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tried to find, you know, some elements of it that were different,
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like the Russian female fighter pilots hadn't been done. Kate Quinn and I were
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basically writing our Night Witches books at the same time. So, but so
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it was pretty newish brown. You know, in Girls on the Line we
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have the female telephone operators, the Hello girls from World War One that really
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hadn't been done before. That's been done a couple of times since. And
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then you know, you know, school for German brides with the Nazi bride
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schools, And that was tricky because you're writing from inside the lions then and
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trying to make you know, human characters out of monsters. But you have
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to make them human or nobody. I mean, it's the mustache twirling villains
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if you don't. So that was hard. That was very hard. That
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sounds brilliant though you found some really unique ways to approach those stories that well,
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you know, oh thank you. But I think that's a key to
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success in the writing genre is finding stuff that's familiar because people The reason why
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editors are buying World War two fiction and World War One to a slightly lesser
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degree handover fist is because people were reading it. It's a huge audience.
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Yeah, there's a big audience. I think people are burning out and I
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think that we are looking for the next big thing and who knows what that
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will be. But we're kind of you know, it's like any market.
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It's like the real estate market, what have you. It goes through ebbs
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and flows, and we're in a weird kind of transit transition period. And
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it's fine, you just whether the storm, you just whether the storm,
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but finding you know, little story, finding elements of story that are just
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different enough to stand out in a crowd and market. It's that's one of
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the keys of success. But I mean it's to come up with something that's
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new and different. But you know, that's why I thought, you know,
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including the post war timeline with the Bake Green Paris would allow me to
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write about the Paris Commune, which was, you know, might have been
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a harder cell all by its all by itself. So I really would have,
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you know, it would have been great to to delve one hundred thousand
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words into the bake, you know, to leave that story. But I
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think that machine's story really did help elevate it. So it worked out well.
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And the good news is that that lovely historian that helped pitch that idea
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I married him a year later. So yeah, the end of the story.
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Yeah, and I mean a great piece of advice all historical fiction authors.
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Having a live in historian is aces late and tell you it's really help.
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I would bet so. So enough about war, because I think the
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next best thing should be baking. So let's talk, yes, And that
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is something very unique about your book, right, I love too. So
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you know my paper parts are going to be the recipes. I put recipes
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in the back of my Daniel Pike novels. The character also coincidentally likes to
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cook, although I think yours are I mean, you're baking, right,
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and I think you're using the recipes as another way of connecting with the readers.
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Am I right about that? Oh? Absolutely absolutely? And the thing
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was, I mean I mentioned various recipes, various recipes throughout the book,
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obviously because Michelen's in baking school and Lozette is starting up a bakery from scratch.
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Hah all puns intended. And you know I wanted to because Michelein struggles
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with it more than the Zette and her finding. You know, she does
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find her grandmother's recipe, and she finds it's a it's a little talisman of
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good luck because her grandmother really had great grandmother had to start from the bottom
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up two. But she she had the advantage of learning at their family at
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the at the hip of her family chef. But you know, I took
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I put the recipes in at the very end. I very carefully chose the
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recipes that had some meaning and I, you know, I they were original
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tagim recipes. So for those of you who read the book, don't try
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to follow the recipes as they are because they are archaic recipes. Like they
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say, put it in a hot of and what the heck is a hot
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of it? By the way, that's about four hundred and fifty degrees.
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But you know, you can find you know, more scientific, modern recipes
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that are easier to follow. And I'll be doing a baking series on my
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social media's once or twice a week, yeah, starting Tuesday, Starting on
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launch day, I'll be sharing my chocolate cheesecake recipe and I'll do a short
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reel introducing the recipe on my social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, maybe Twitter
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or x whatever they're calling a navigate and then I'll be directing everybody. I'll
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post their ingredients, but then post to send everybody to my log for the
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full for the full directions, because doing a full produced baking video would require
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a peraction crew and a lot more time than I have. But I figured
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the cut the you know, the little introductory reels and then sending everybody for
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printable instructions on my website is far more useful. And some of the recipes
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are direct from the book, like the French sables will be one of the
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first ones. There's rose rose pedal jam. It's a it's a little bit
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of an homage to like water for chocolate, because you know, it's it's
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a very romantic recipe toward the end of the book that she gives us an
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apology, and so I share a lot of those recipes, and some of
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them are very traditional, like the sable laputi croissants and that sort of thing.
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But then some of them are a little bit you know, my cheesecake,
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which is definitely not in the book, and the rose the rose petal
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jam, which is definitely something unique. So yeah, it's a fun project.
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Yeah sounds great. How did you handle all the research for this book?
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You did? Did your husband helpful? What did he? I mean
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that I'm trying to take all of this in and it just sounds like an
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enormous project. Yeah it was, and I did write a lot of this
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before the world opened back up again for international travel. I got to go
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to Paris last summer in twenty twenty two, and I got to see all
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the places from the book, including the bakery, because I lived on Google
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Maps and I found the perfect bakery to mold on in Mamarch. But and
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it was green, and so I made my bakery green, but a darker
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shade, and because it was more of a pale green. And I went
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and I checked hours like eighteen million times, and I go and the places
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boarded up and had permanently closed just a few weeks before I showed up,
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So I didn't get to go into the bakery and order and look around and
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you know, tell the owner like, I'm basing a book on your on
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your b on your bakery. But but sadly it was boarded up. I
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didn't see it for sales sign because it's probably just as well, because I
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do not need to own a bakery in Paris right now. But if you
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know, the top floor where everybody would have lived in both of the timelines,
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is now an airbnb, so you could actually stay there. I did
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not have the opportunity to do that, but I'd love to. So anyway,
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a lot of the research was done online. There's a couple like A
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great secondary resource was Massacre by James Merriman, and I read that aloud to
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my husband on a road trip. And that's what we do. We do,
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take crazy long road trips and I read long historical books allowed to him,
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and that's how we have fun. And but I, you know,
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I do. Yeah, I did a lot of research, I think,
27:49
you know, honestly, I knew a lot about the World War two period,
27:52
and because it was the period after, I didn't have to worry about
27:56
specific timelines for things like you know, battle and that sort of thing,
28:00
so I had some leeway there. It really is a human story. But
28:03
I I researched online, like through the Red Cross, how people managed to
28:08
go about searching for lost family members after the war and some of the legalities
28:12
there. But they're great resources online for that. But that was you know,
28:17
for German Brides and for a bakery in Paris. Both of them were
28:21
written in less than ideal conditions. I mean a baker in Paris or German
28:25
Brides. Rather, I was at home homeschooling my two kids as a newly
28:27
single mom. Yeah, it was. It was a lot, and I
28:32
was writing it in three hundred words stretches in the middle of the night.
28:36
Yeah. It was a bakery in Paris. You know, it was a
28:37
little bit calmer period. Not to say everything was back to normal, but
28:42
it was, you know, it was a little bit less chaotic. So
28:45
it felt great, but it was not ideal circumstances for getting to do a
28:49
lot of on the grand research. Whereas for my next book, I got
28:53
to spend a week in Paris doing archival research and it felt like such a
28:59
treat. So, well, you were kind of starting to touch on this,
29:03
and I'm curious, so what does your what does your writing day look
29:07
like now? So previously it sounds like it was a writing night. And
29:11
let me just say, I've been there, and so I completely understand writing
29:14
and fits in verse, and I understand how frustrating that can be. But
29:18
is that very different for you now? And you still have set So do
29:23
you have like a set writing schedule or do you just write whenever you can?
29:29
Well, you know, it's a vote both of my children. I
29:32
mean, of course we're in summer break now, but and we're going to
29:33
be going on books tour and traveling. So let's just you know, normal,
29:37
the normal. My normal writing period during the school year is it really
29:41
well defined because my children are both full time in school, which is lovely,
29:47
and there too, it's gorgeous. It's gorgeous. You don't appreciate the
29:52
school system so much until you don't have it. And so, yeah,
29:56
they're they're in school full time. They get on the bus at like seven
30:00
to fifteen in the morning, something crazy, and so I basically curl up
30:03
in my recliner and start writing immediately as soon as they get off to school.
30:08
And I kind of have evolved to be and sometimes I start writing before
30:11
they get up because the piece and quiet of the house. I'll wake up
30:15
at five and start writing and get in a thousand words before the house has
30:18
woken up. And you know, that five to seven am period is magic.
30:22
It really is for me, and for other people it might be you
30:26
know, noon to two or midnight to two am, and that was not
30:32
my time, but I evolved to be able to do it during a lockdown.
30:36
I'd sleep till nine am and then we'd start homeschooling, but it was
30:41
just, you know, because my son is a pretty early riser. There
30:44
was no way I could have done morning writing when he was not in school.
30:48
So yeah, it's you know, it's I think the key is that
30:52
is evolved from the time I started. I wrote it. My first two
30:56
books. I wrote him in the lobby of the local rec center because my
31:02
son was in preschool and my daughter was not old enough to be in preschool,
31:06
so I'd take her to the gym daycare for two hours and instead of
31:10
going to work out like I probably should have done, I sat in the
31:12
lobby with my laptop and wrote for two hours of cheap childcare. And yeah,
31:18
yeah, I love that because that helps me. I feel better hearing
31:22
someone else you just has has evolved to learn to just write whenever you can
31:27
fit that time in, and when you get big chunks, you just take
31:30
advantage of it exactly. So that, yeah, that really started, you
31:33
know, when my kids started, you know, being in school full time.
31:37
That was around girls on the line, We'll say the first two they
31:40
were babies, because I started writing my first book when my daughter was like
31:42
four months old. Oh wow. So yeah, and you have to yeah,
31:48
you have to adapt as they as they transition through different stages, you
31:52
have to adapt and just work around that completely sense exactly. So listening to
31:56
you talk, I would get that you are probably a planner, But how
32:05
would you answer that? Are you a planner? Are you a pancer?
32:07
How do you prefer to write? Because somebody surprised me recently and at least
32:13
purported to be a pancer when I would have guessed otherwise. What about you?
32:16
You know, I am an aspiring you know. I like to think
32:20
of it as explorers and mappers instead of plotter and pancer, because okay,
32:25
whether you're gonna, you know, do a road trip and just drive where
32:29
the wind takes you, or you're going to have a map and a route.
32:31
And I aspire to be more of a mapper. Me. I've had
32:36
projects that kind of bit me on the rear when I didn't map things out
32:38
well enough, and there is such joy and organic discovery. I don't want
32:43
to have so much mapped out. You can't. I think it's really hard
32:45
to map out, you know, every little subplot and everything. Like in
32:51
the School for German Brides, I had a character that came out of chapter
32:54
four. I had no idea that she was going to be like the most
32:58
interesting character in the whole book, and she was, and she was not
33:00
planned on at all. And so I like to leave room for organic discovery.
33:07
But the more I get into this, the more of a game plan
33:09
I like to have. I wrote recently my first contemporary book without enough of
33:16
a game plan in mind, and I had, you know, I had
33:20
some elements of it really firmly in my head, and I knew who the
33:22
characters were, but I didn't have enough the structure in my head because and
33:27
partially because it was probably my first you know, flora into a full length
33:30
contemporary work, and I thought it made the whole process much harder. So
33:36
I actually start outlining more and more the further I get into this job.
33:40
Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense, And I hear what you're
33:44
saying. I start with an outline, but I definitely leave room for that
33:47
discovery, and if something comes to me, I just I just will modify
33:52
the outline and keep moving with it. So, yeah, it's like constricted
33:57
by it at all that the pier it's more like guidelines. Yeah, exactly,
34:01
And for the exact reasons that you mentioned you'll be surprised by what you'll
34:07
think of when you're actually working through it. But on the other hand,
34:10
if you start without a clear idea of where you're headed, I think it
34:15
just turns into more work. You can definitely get to the result, but
34:17
way more work is required of it. That's what I've found to be true.
34:22
So yeah, it makes the editing. And because I believe in forward
34:24
momentum, that's been kind of my moo from the beginning, is like you
34:29
just you don't go back and revise, You don't go you know, you
34:31
don't. You try not to stop to do actual research unless you feel like
34:35
you're going to really write yourself in a corner. If you don't get something
34:37
right, you know, you try to concern. Like for a great example
34:40
from my first book, I shared it writing and one of the characters as
34:44
a baker and so, and I love writing that character, but I'm like,
34:50
oh goodness, what were the licensing requirements for bakers in Quebec in the
34:53
sixteen in the sixteen hundreds, Because it was a big deal, it was
34:58
a very big deal, and so you know, I took twenty minutes out
35:01
of my writing day, which is pretty precious back then, especially because I
35:04
wrote during that time and I googled it and did my research there because I
35:09
didn't want to write something that I would have had to completely change like her,
35:15
you know, change their career entirely if it simply wouldn't have been possible.
35:19
And you know, and that becomes more and more true when you're dealing
35:22
with more familiar periods in history like World War One and World War Two,
35:24
where there are you know, legitimate armshare historians who know you know who you
35:29
know, practically have every battle memorize, and they'll know if you get details
35:32
wrong. Yes they will, I'm gladly tell you about it. Yeah,
35:37
and they do, they do. So I think, you know, I
35:38
feel like and forward momentum is really important, so I try not to stop
35:43
unless I feel like it's going to create more work. But you know,
35:45
and but that comes to at a price. And like I shifted a timeline
35:50
in the school for German Brides, and I moved it a year earlier,
35:52
and so I made references to a ward that hadn't started yet, and I
35:55
had to go back and clean all that up, and of course I didn't
35:59
catch all of them. So the copy editor bless her Heart, came through
36:01
and cleaned a lot of that up. Sounds just absolutely fascinating to me.
36:08
This has been a really informative interview. One last question, Amy, Sure,
36:14
what's next? I hear you might have another book on the horizon.
36:17
Yes, so I have a book coming out February thirteen of twenty twenty four
36:22
called The Memory of Lavender and Sage, And whereas a bakery in Paris is
36:27
my love letter to Paris, the Memory of Lavender and Sage is my love
36:31
letter to Provence, which is where I lived in France when I was a
36:34
student. And it's a story about a woman who's reconnecting with her family roots
36:39
and trying to save a small village that her mother loved so much from you
36:45
know, following by the wayside, like so many French villages are, and
36:50
it's it's contemporary, and it was a work labor, a lot of labor
36:53
and a lot of love. And I'm really pleased with how it turned out.
36:58
So I'll be you'll be hearing more about it on my social channels starting
37:00
in September, after Baker in Paris has had the chance to get some spotlight,
37:06
and my next historical project hopefully coming out later in twenty twenty four,
37:09
though I don't have a publication date yet. It's called Mademoiselle Fell, and
37:14
it's a story of Claire he Fell, the daughter of the famous architect Gustavi
37:17
Fell, who took over as her father's assistant at the age of fourteen when
37:22
her mother died and basically became his help meet and lived with him at his
37:25
insistence for the rest of his life because he needed her as his right hand
37:30
woman, and she married his next in line adult Sad was his next in
37:37
line to take over the company. And it's a family drama and of course
37:43
a lot of a lot of its centers around the building of the Eiffel Tower,
37:45
which is really his big swan song, song of a project. And
37:50
you know, Amy, my last book was set in Florence, which isn't
37:53
that far from France. I think we should all probably be going on research
37:59
trips together, oh for sure, for sure. And that's been such a
38:04
joy since the world open back up a little. I've gotten to go to
38:07
Europe twice and I had been it had been like twelve years since my previous
38:12
trip. So yeah, it's you know, something that I think There's nothing
38:16
that compares to the power of a research trip for making fiction come to life.
38:22
And I'm so fortunate, so thankful that I've had the chance to travel
38:25
for my next few projects. It's just been incredible. Well, this has
38:30
been an incredible interview, Amy, And thank you so much for being on
38:34
the podcast. Oh, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
38:40
Parting words, Laura, is Red Brain still on sale? Oh?
38:50
You know what? It is on sale but just as much. It's on
38:53
sale, but you mean on sale sale. It's ninety nine cents, but
38:58
I don't think it will be by the time the podcast is out. I
39:00
didn't even sail that way. I'm not helping, trying to give you a
39:05
chance to plug your book, Lar, go for it. Red Rain is
39:08
available. Red Rain is a is an uplifting but poignant novel about persevering through
39:16
the hard things that life throws at us. It's a story of empowering women
39:20
and a story of friendship and coming through no matter no matter what we have
39:27
to face. And it is available everywhere and anywhere that you might like to
39:30
buy books. And it's a terrific novel too. And while I've got you
39:35
on the hook Lar. You know, I always do this in plug for
39:37
writer Con. So let's give the listeners a break from me. You tell
39:43
them what's going to be happening at Wryter Con. Writer Con is an excellent
39:49
conference that has it's designed to be of help to absolutely everyone at any level.
39:54
We have craft sessions for people who maybe are just starting their writing journey.
40:00
We have how to publish sessions for people who need that. We have
40:04
marketing sessions for people who need to know how to get those important sales.
40:09
And it's at there's me so many people there that you can connect with and
40:14
network with, and it's just so important as authors that we have those people
40:17
that we can lean on and rely on and vent to and share ideas with
40:22
it. It's going to be so much fun, absolutely, And that's September
40:28
one through four, this Labor Day weekend in Oklahoma City, So start making
40:31
your plans now. And Readercon and reader Con don't forget reader com do and
40:37
yeah, the readers, everybody can come to anybody who loves books. That's
40:44
on Monday. If you want more information, visit the website that's writercon dot
40:50
com. All right, everybody, hang in there, keep writing, until
40:57
next time. Remember you can not fail if you use to quit get next time.