Latest / WriterCon / Finding Your Writing Process with Rebecca Hanover
Transcript
- 0:00This week on the writer Con podcast. But I always say the sort of
- 0:06cliched, But I guess cliches are cliches for a reason they're true, which
- 0:10is your journey is totally going to be different from anyone else's. So just
- 0:16throw out all your ideas of, you know, stay in your own lane.
- 0:20Kind of another cliche because everyone's everyone's writing journey looks so different. Welcome
- 0:30to writer Con, the gathering place for writers to share their knowledge about writing
- 0:34and the writing world. Your hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and
- 0:39author of the Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, Award winning
- 0:43author the wantln Files book series The Writers. Greetings from the writer Con crew
- 0:51me and Laura, and are sound engineer Jesse Ulverrich. This is our first
- 0:56episode, I think since Thanksgiving and the spe Steve Very episode. I hope
- 1:03y'all had a great holiday and now you're probably gearing up for the a list
- 1:07holidays yet to come. Laura, did you do anything new this year over
- 1:11the holidays? Anything new over the holidays? No, not really anything?
- 1:18Did some of the same stuff? Did you write every day? I work
- 1:26on a book every day. That's writing my very own. But I was
- 1:30working frantically on book related projects and writing projects, and I was most thankful
- 1:38for a return to full health after a rough year of medical not fun things.
- 1:48Absolutely, Jesse, how about you. Anything distinctive about Thanksgiving other than
- 1:55new felines in the house. I think, yeah, no, just I'd
- 2:00say a standard Thanksgiving. I mean, I guess it was less stressed than
- 2:04past Thanksgiving. I'm still recovering from I think two Thanksgivings ago where my my
- 2:08dad overheated during dinner and like lost, like fainted pretty much and like was
- 2:15not a responsive for a couple of minutes. I had to go to the
- 2:17hospital. He's fine, he was fine, But that was that was terrifying,
- 2:22and I'm still recovering from that. So Thanksgiving is always a little weird
- 2:23for me. Now, Oh well, yeah, that sounds yeah. Determine
- 2:30what caused him to He was having a like a weird medication switch, where
- 2:35like he was on a medication he didn't need to be on anymore, so
- 2:38like his blood pressure dropped precipitously on top of like eating a lot of food
- 2:43and being under a very bright light that my parents in laws have now replaced
- 2:46in their dining room. And so but yeah, that was trying to pick
- 2:52up a full human, adult human being like as dead weight is a terrifying
- 2:55experience. So so every Thanksgiving that doesn't happen is a plus. Wow.
- 3:02Thanks for giving us the proper perspective. Be thankful, all right. Our
- 3:09interview today is with the wonderful Rebecca Hanover. She's the author of The Last
- 3:15Applicant, which was just released in October. It's a twisty, turney,
- 3:22jaw dropping. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you this is full of surprises,
- 3:27thriller debut, debut writing for novels. But she is already a New
- 3:34York Times bestselling author because she wrote the Ya Duology that means two books called
- 3:42the Similars. And get this, She's got an Emmy Award for writing for
- 3:46The Guiding Light. We will be talking lots and lots with a Rebecca,
- 3:52But first the news Jesse take us away. When I sent out the notes
- 4:15that I send to my partner so we're all on the same page, I
- 4:19deliberately gave this story a bland title in the hopes that Jesse wouldn't read it
- 4:26in advance. We'll see if that worked or not. I'm seeing the image
- 4:31now after the PowerPoint, and it's an AI story. You know there's going
- 4:38to be an AI story, but this one is about a Swedish startup company
- 4:43called per. I know you don't want to know that this is spelled not
- 4:46like a cat, but like p I r R Jesse. That's a Swedish
- 4:53word that means a state of excitement. Just stella, all right. This
- 4:59is an app that an AI app that has been trained on wait for it,
- 5:03a gigantic library of smut, yeah, pornography, and it is ready
- 5:11in waiting to help you fantasize with an AI. Here's how it works.
- 5:15You write the first your starl was worse than mine, Jesse. I saw
- 5:20that. You write the first paragraph, and then the AI takes it from
- 5:26there, and then maybe a few paragraphs later. You can choose what happens
- 5:30next and like I guess the spiciest ever, choose your own adventure. Yeah,
- 5:36I'm turning around on this. I'm turning around on this now now you're
- 5:41interested. I like how it involves, like you have to start it.
- 5:44I like this idea. Or you can step in and write some of the
- 5:47story yourself. Anytime you want, or let the AI take over. You
- 5:51can even collaborate with uh with you know, every again every I think on
- 6:02the last two podcasts, I've proposed that we take up some kind of project,
- 6:08and clearly someone needs to take up this one, but it's not going
- 6:14to be us. I'm not even going to propose that we collaborate with Per
- 6:19for a story. But it has caught on with other people. According to
- 6:24the company, they have more than one hundred and fifty thousand users spend on
- 6:28average twenty two minutes longer than I would have expected in a single session with
- 6:34the Sexy Romance novella co writer Ai Per. Gosh, guys, I don't
- 6:43even know where to go first, Jesse, what do you think about this?
- 6:46Man? This episode's definitely going to be rated not for kids, don't
- 6:53I do that? Smut? Yeah, smut mommy. Yeah. Well,
- 6:59honestly, this is it's a funny, fascinating idea for the for the for
- 7:03the proportion of the population that can be stimulated by words alone, Like it's
- 7:09an interesting idea, Like I wish I wish there was a tool like this
- 7:13for just regular stories where you like have to start off and then you can
- 7:16sort of options and maybe it kind of it probably kind of does exist with
- 7:21the sort of chat GPT world. But listen is whatever floats your both as
- 7:26long as you're not bothering other people, like go for it. Will I
- 7:30be trying this maybe as a joke to see what happens, but now now
- 7:35I'm kind of curious. But uh yeah, I mean listen again, as
- 7:41long as you're not breaking a laws, you can have fun with it.
- 7:46I just want you to know that if I pick up your iPhone later today
- 7:49and the app per pops up on the screen, we're gonna have a talk.
- 7:57She was just doing research for the pod, right right right. It's
- 8:00in the name of the podcast, re search, of course. Uh huh.
- 8:03So what are your thoughts on this, Laura. I don't tend to
- 8:09I'm kind of an unusual female reader, and that I don't tend to gravitate
- 8:15toward romance, and I I don't I don't go in for rodica either for
- 8:22the most part. But for the most part on this, oh, I
- 8:28had an audiobook script sent to me once I read, so we had different
- 8:37definitions of heat level, but her idea of PG was not yours, but
- 8:41it was very sweet and kind when I wanted to back out that. But
- 8:46anyway, I you know, you're not fruds and I just think if this
- 8:54makes people happy, and like Jesse said, if you're not harming anyone else,
- 8:58it's okay. Like it. It doesn't bother me that erotica exists.
- 9:03It doesn't bother me that most women like to read romance ever makes you happy
- 9:09if it's not running someone. I just don't want to see anyone harmed or
- 9:13exploited in any way. So let me just make that clear. I'm not
- 9:16saying anything goes. No one should ever be harmed or exploited. But something
- 9:22like this, that you're you're using your own creativity to write a story,
- 9:26I seems okay. Well yeah, I'm is this making me sound really old
- 9:33because I think I'm with Jesse. I think this would be more fun of
- 9:37for weren't all about porn. You know, you were collaborating on a story
- 9:43with a computer. That could be fun. But yeah, I mean well,
- 9:48my question was going to be, just like with with the lawsuits against
- 9:50Chad GBT, like, is this stealing ideas and tropes and plots from erotica
- 9:56novels that already exist and are not getting paid for that? Probably exactly an
- 10:03excellent point. I was going to ask, where did all of this come
- 10:07from? I mean, is it exactly? And if this is coming from
- 10:09something that is exploitative in any way, then I would have to say,
- 10:16yeah, I don't know where they found their smut, but I suspect it
- 10:20wasn't hard to find, given the state of the internet these days. Okay,
- 10:26news story number two. I'll start with the questions Jesse, how many
- 10:31books do you have in your house? Oh? So many? Are hundreds?
- 10:37Oh yeah, I'm seeing about twelve over your shoulder right now. Yeah,
- 10:41well, these are new shelves in my office. I have so much
- 10:43stuff. But like I can take a picture for our listeners if they want
- 10:48to see our library that is also our dining room, to see how many
- 10:50books we have, which is many? Okay, now, Laura, within
- 10:56five how many books do we have in our house? A thousands? Not
- 11:01going over. We're so over one thousand. I think they can see a
- 11:07thousand behind you. And maybe we've got all as well with me. And
- 11:11that's just one room. That's not even the room with the most books in
- 11:16it. But anyway, there's something shelves, and yeah, there's a point
- 11:22sort of that I'm asking this because you gov and that's a website. I'll
- 11:26put links in the show notes. Polled more than twenty nine thousand Americans about
- 11:33their book owning proclivities. You will be pleased to know that at eighty five
- 11:39percent of Americans polled said they owned at least one physical book. That doesn't
- 11:48mean their collections are huge. One in five or twenty percent say they own
- 11:52between one and ten books, fourteen percent go up to twenty five books,
- 11:58thirteen we'll go up to fifty. But overall, including e books, at
- 12:07least sixty nine percent of all Americans own one hundred books or fewer. Although
- 12:15I have to qualify that by pointing out that six percent apparently don't know how
- 12:18many they own. And I don't mean, like Laura guessing how many thousands.
- 12:26I think it's more like they don't know if it's three or four.
- 12:30But anyway, another twenty five percent own at least one hundred books, four
- 12:33percent are between five hundred and one thousand, and only three percent own more
- 12:39than one thousand volumes. Laura, I think you and I are in the
- 12:43one percent. I always wanted to be in the one percent, but a
- 12:46different percent. As a child, I owned more than the majority of most
- 12:54Americans. I think Christmas and birthdays, all I ever asked for was gifts
- 12:58of books, and I have quite a library even as a child. So
- 13:03this is a little bit astounding to me. This sounding to me. That's
- 13:07interesting because one of the things this pull pointed out that the numbers don't really
- 13:11vary between people who do have children and people who don't. Like I would
- 13:16have thought anybody with children, you go out and buy a bunch of board
- 13:20books to read at bedtime, right, But apparently that's not really a factor.
- 13:24Here here's the question, like, when they asked this question to those
- 13:30people, did did they make sure to ask them like children's books count,
- 13:33because I think I would think a lot of parents would one either get rid
- 13:37of those very quickly or give them to another friend who just had kids or
- 13:39whatever, or not even consider them real books at least that's somebody without kids,
- 13:45Like that's something that would pop up in my head. It's like I
- 13:46wouldn't consider those to be actual books so well physical books, because each of
- 13:54my books growing up, I mean, they all had their own little collections
- 14:00go people. Yeah, people are people are lying because I know every parent
- 14:03has those passes books they do. Even if you don't want them, you're
- 14:07you're you're giving them at some point. So the flaw with any poll,
- 14:11of course, is that people don't always say the truth. They say what
- 14:18they wish were the truth. But if people were going to fib on this
- 14:22pole, they'd act like they had more books, don't you think, rather
- 14:24than fewer. And yet we wo, I would the majority of the people
- 14:31saying they have one hundred books or fewer. Again, and you're eighty five
- 14:37percent said they owned at least one physical book. Fifteen percent of people don't
- 14:41own one book, not even not even not even the Bible, Like it
- 14:46just blows my mind, not even a textbook from school or any I think
- 14:52a book was home. I think a lot of people are forgetting the ones
- 14:56that are in their atticts or in closet somewhere. Could be Okay, we've
- 15:01run this stry, So I'm taking us back to the porn story because that
- 15:03was way more interesting. Here is something I didn't tell you about the company
- 15:09per It was founded by two people, both women, possibly not what you
- 15:16suspected. Here's a quote from one of them, whose name is Beatrice Bushati.
- 15:22Remember that these people are Swedish, but I will translate. She said
- 15:28quote. We are female founded, we have a female perspective, but the
- 15:31app is for everyone. We want to create a playground for fantasies. We
- 15:37want people to have fun and to fantasize, because we also believe in what
- 15:41that could do with people. You know, at first I thought that was
- 15:46kind of what you were saying, Laura, and then I'm because we also
- 15:50believe in what that could do with people fantasizing with an ai. I'm not
- 15:56sure what she's talking about at that point. Can somebody explain that to me?
- 16:00It's probably a translation maybe, or perhaps they're thinking, how this could
- 16:07you know? So, even though I said I don't read a lot of
- 16:11romance and no erotica intentionally, I do have one author whose books I like,
- 16:18and they would probably be they would be classified as a paranormal romance.
- 16:23And you know, when you start reading those and you're getting into it,
- 16:30maybe those those fantasies can help you connect in different ways with your partner than
- 16:37what you might not have done. It'll give you some ideas and some things
- 16:41that you can try. You can keep it fresh. Maybe it can improve
- 16:45relationships and keep intimacy strong, just because you too some different thoughts and ideas.
- 16:53On that positive note, I think we should although you can never get
- 16:59as much. But still, let's wrap this up. Jesse, cue up
- 17:03the music. Let's talk to Rebecca Hanover. So welcome to the podcast.
- 17:15Thanks so much for having me. You bet okay, traditional first question,
- 17:19if you could offer writers one piece of advice, what would it be?
- 17:26Such a such a loaded question, but but I always say the sort of
- 17:36cliched. But I guess cliches are cliches for a reason they're true, which
- 17:41is your journey is totally going to be different from anyone else's, So just
- 17:45throw out all your ideas of, you know, stay in your own lane.
- 17:49Kind of another cliche, because everyone's everyone's writing journey looks so different and
- 17:57you can only you know, you can only write the stories that you can
- 18:00write and that are right to you. So I will. I'll throw in
- 18:04a third one, eyes on your own eyes on your own paper. But
- 18:08I have to tell myself. I tell myself these all the time. So
- 18:12yeah, I think that's so important because you could really lose especially. I
- 18:17love that because it's so difficult not to compare. You look out and you
- 18:22see other people doing different things, which we immediately relate to better things.
- 18:27And it's exactly, particularly in the publishing world today, so much is changing
- 18:33so fast. Imitation is not the way to get ahead. I feel,
- 18:40right, that's that's true. I mean when you think about you know,
- 18:44so many successful authors there, they really have done what felt right to them,
- 18:49and you know all those like, oh this is what's hot right now,
- 18:52you know who knows. I mean, there's there's truth to that,
- 18:56sure, but that changes so fast. And if you're if you're just chasing
- 19:00trends, it's never gonna It might work out, but it might not at
- 19:04all, and then you might miss writing the thing that was going to be
- 19:07really great, you know. So I just think, especially with social media,
- 19:12like it's just impossible to no one can cope with the amount of compare.
- 19:19You know, if you're comparing to every post you see, you're still
- 19:22mad. You'll just go go mad. So right, no one gets everything
- 19:27is something I had to tell myself another when I realized that although my books
- 19:33were selling, I was probably not going to be the next Falkner. Right,
- 19:38no one gets everything. Be glad for what you got. Right,
- 19:44could not agree. And I've been to funtnerself. I'm actually from the like
- 19:48didn't he write on the wall, because he was written on the walls in
- 19:53his office. He had some struggles. I'm sure, I mean, you
- 20:00know, I'm sure it wasn't all that easy and he probably didn't have it
- 20:03all so right, I could not agree, could not agree more. All
- 20:07right, great opening. Now tell us about your new book, The Last
- 20:10Applicant. Yes, yeah, so it is a domestic suspense slash psychological thriller,
- 20:17however you want to describe it. And it came Yeah, thrilling suspense,
- 20:23well hopefully a little a little scary. I've been told it's, you
- 20:27know, not the type of thing to scare you out of your mind,
- 20:30but hopefully keep you up late reading and then kind of disturb you a little
- 20:34bit. And yeah, so it came out last week of October, and
- 20:41it's so it is my adult adult debut. I do have a young adult
- 20:45series that came out called The Similars that came out about five years ago,
- 20:48which is why you're a New York Times best selling author. Right, Yes,
- 20:53exactly. That was from from that do all not a bad title to
- 20:56already have when you make your debut. Oh my gosh, well that was
- 21:03yeah such a Yeah, that series was kind of I mean, it was
- 21:10many years in the making and yeah, so so proud of that and also
- 21:15just all all the readers that I connected with over that series. How did
- 21:19this compare? Like we were just saying, you're already established as a New
- 21:22York Times bestselling author from that that work. Now this is your debut as
- 21:29an as an adult thriller. You think you'll keep going in both genres one
- 21:33or the other. How did how did? How do you feel about it?
- 21:37Yeah? Great, great question. I'm definitely going to keep going in
- 21:40the thriller genre. I'm working on a second one right now, so unrelated,
- 21:45just another standalone. I I mean, I love ya so much also,
- 21:52and you know it's kind of my first love, so I absolutely hope
- 21:56to still write ya one day, but I do. I am a mom
- 21:59of three kids. They're twelve nine, twelve nine, and four, so
- 22:03there's a limit to I mean, we all have a limit how much we
- 22:07can do at one time, So I can kind of only focus on a
- 22:11book at a time, so we'll see. But to answer the first part
- 22:14of your question, I think it didn't feel like a debut in the same
- 22:19way that my Ya books did in the best way, because I was much
- 22:23more calm about it, like much more so. That was really nice,
- 22:30Like I knew the drill, I knew what the launch day would kind of
- 22:33feel like and be like. And it's just managing your expectations is so much
- 22:37easier when you when you know what you kind of know what to expect absolutely,
- 22:44And speaking of your previous writing, you knew you weren't going to get
- 22:47out of this interview without that. Not only have you previously written for the
- 22:55TV drama The Guiding Light, you won an Emmy for it. Right,
- 23:00how did that happen? Oh my gosh, Well, I lived in I
- 23:06had moved to New York City after college. This was so in my twenties.
- 23:11I you know, I was living in a six floor walk up where
- 23:15you dragged your laundry up the stairs, and I think my roommate and I
- 23:18like sort of split a one bedroom. I don't even I kind of repressed
- 23:22it, but I mean it was they were wonderful, wonderful years, but
- 23:26it was you know, the struggle of like we're going to be struggling artists
- 23:29or whatever. So really long story shark, I ended up being getting the
- 23:33wonderful opportunity to be an intern on the show and then a writer's assistant,
- 23:37which was like the greatest at the time, felt like the greatest thing that
- 23:41could ever happen to me. I mean, Guiding Light was the most magical
- 23:45place because we would film right on forty we started off. When I started
- 23:48off, it was on forty fourth Street and we would shoot right upstairs from
- 23:52where you know, the production office was. So everything was happening like and
- 23:56I had been a theater, a theater in English majors. It felt like
- 24:00it felt like a play. It felt like being you know, a part
- 24:03of yeah yeah, yeah, putting on a play every day. Right,
- 24:07it was like the Gangs all year, we're gonna you know. So it
- 24:11was just like the minute I walked in there as an intern, I was
- 24:15like, how can I stay here? I just this is amazing. So
- 24:18I was really lucky. So I started as the assistant. I started writing
- 24:22scripts, and I had a couple of mentors who were some of the established
- 24:26writers, and they were incredible and they were so talented. I mean,
- 24:30the thing about soaps, as you know, there's a new show every day
- 24:34of you know, every weekday. So that's five hours of material. If
- 24:38you think about a streaming show, it's like it might be ten hours of
- 24:41material for the whole the whole season. That's it, you know, so
- 24:45you know, you everyone is working that much harder with you know, limited
- 24:51budget, limited time to make something really truly great. And so honestly,
- 24:56I mean, this is why soap actors can go on set and do take
- 25:00because they know the lines. They have it down. They're not going to
- 25:03screw up. Everyone's like time is on, you know, on the line.
- 25:06So it was the most amazing place to learn. And I got to
- 25:10I would get to write once I became a writer. I got to write
- 25:12like a script per week, which was is kind of unheard of otherwise.
- 25:17So it was it was a dream. It was truly a dream. Well,
- 25:22may I ask why you left? What a fabulous Oh I never would
- 25:29have left, but all the soaps went off the air pretty much except for
- 25:32whatever. I think there's one or two left. So yeah, in two
- 25:33thousand and nine, it ended. Yeah, we would all we would all
- 25:40still be there. Don't believe me something, you know, we just I
- 25:45think we just missed the opportunity for that. It's okay, time book.
- 25:57Then you went on and you wrote this, Okay, I want to come
- 26:00back and talk about and the different genres because I also write in different genres.
- 26:07I'm always kind of happy when I stumble across someone else who's doing that,
- 26:11because that isn't necessarily what anyone would ever advise us to do. Right,
- 26:17that's actually hya you're moving into adult thriller. How did those happen for
- 26:22you? That's a great, great question. I know it's it's interesting because
- 26:29now you're right, I keep thinking about YA and adult but when you throw
- 26:33in the TV writing, it's it's a lot of different skill set over quite
- 26:37a period of time. But I know what you mean. I have definitely,
- 26:42you know, mix things up. I think to me, it's all
- 26:49kind of the same. It's almost like if you're into tennis, can you
- 26:53switch to pickleball? Like? Yeah, why not? You know so?
- 26:59I don't from a I mean there's different thing. Of course, there's different
- 27:03skills and different structures and things about each one. But at Guiding Light,
- 27:07I learned to outline and have a really solid foundation. So I mean,
- 27:12I still use save the Cat. I think it's universal across across mediums.
- 27:18And I'm a huge plotter, which maybe I'll save you from asking, I'm
- 27:22a huge platter. I don't write anything, not always always, it's always
- 27:26asked, so that really and then the character work and on a soap opera,
- 27:30the character work is gold. I mean that's really it doesn't work if
- 27:34these long running characters you have to feel like they live in your live in
- 27:40your TV and they live in your home, right, So yeah, I
- 27:44mean it what the switching to adult was not really strategic so much as I
- 27:48had this idea for the last applicant that I really wanted to explore. But
- 27:55you know, honestly, so many YA authors specifically are writing for adult now
- 28:00as well. I think there's a little bit of I think people are actually
- 28:03being advised to be to diversify a bit. So no, I'm not going
- 28:07to turn around though and write and now write like historical fiction like I'm gonna
- 28:12say with it. You mentioned before that you just really enjoy YA and then
- 28:19you had this great idea. I mean, I'm I think we're of the
- 28:22same mind here. I think a good story is a good story. And
- 28:26you talked about writing what you are compelled to write, what you're moved to
- 28:32write, the stories that only you can. I mean, I write women's
- 28:33fiction and I write supernatural suspense. Again, like you, I don't plan
- 28:38to go write in every other single genre, but the ones that I like
- 28:41writing in, I really enjoy. That's what I love reading, That's what
- 28:45I like writing. Same. And yeah, I probably have read, you
- 28:49know, hundreds of thrillers as well as you know, many many of the
- 28:56YA books out there. So yes, those are so I mean to me,
- 28:59they're both various escapist. One is more really escapist, like we're all
- 29:03channeling our inner you know, fourteen year old when we ready, and a
- 29:07lot of it's like those of us who grew up on like Hunger Games and
- 29:11Divergent and you know, Twilight, like there's there's a real escapism, wish
- 29:15fulfillment like all that kind of stuff. With thrillers, you it's still completely
- 29:22an escape. I mean, you know you you're reading, but it's you
- 29:26know, usually the protagonist to someone who's a you know, close to your
- 29:30own age, so you can kind of really get in their shoes, but
- 29:33again, the heart of it is similar to me. Do you think those
- 29:37YA readers will mature and follow you into thrillers? Because I know I get
- 29:45some crossover. I have a little ben diagram of my readers. I only
- 29:48read one other, but I've got some that are that's amazing that you have
- 29:52that you have that data. I yes, I mean I so it's that's
- 29:59super interesting. I'll have to talk to you sometimes about how you put that
- 30:02data together. So it's really because I don't know, the truth is,
- 30:07I don't know who. Like I have some wonderful folks, you know,
- 30:11who show up on Instagram and message me your different things, But I don't
- 30:15know how old they are. I mean, you know, and I'm not
- 30:15going to are you are you fifteen? Right? So some but a couple
- 30:22of them have showed up on good Like a couple of them showed up on
- 30:25Goodreads, like a year before this book came out to be like I can't
- 30:27wait for another Rebecca Handover book, And I was thinking, I hope this
- 30:30person's not twelve, because this new book, this new book is like edgy,
- 30:36right, But I don't think they were. I mean, they might
- 30:38have been a thirty five year old woman who just likes Ya because so many
- 30:42of us do, so many of us, you know, So definitely there's
- 30:45crossover. I haven't run the analytics. Yeah, I mean, is that
- 30:49your worst worry? I'm astounded. And this does show my age, how
- 30:55you know, the new adult and the new wave of young adult, the
- 30:59fourth wing and whatnot is really very profane. This generation of readers does not
- 31:04seem to care about language. Profane language. I guess right now, you're
- 31:12right, I probably shouldn't be. Also, it's very clear if you read
- 31:18the description, you know, I think people will know what they're getting into.
- 31:22So but yes, I think I think there's definitely been some some folks
- 31:26who have followed me over to this new space, which is lovely and so
- 31:32appreciate. Well, I think you touched on this. But what's coming next?
- 31:36Are we going to do more Ya? Or is the last applicant the
- 31:40first of something? Or where are we going next? Yeah? So it
- 31:45is the first, you know, of course, of adult thriller for me.
- 31:48But I am working on Slash finishing up a second one. It's unrelated,
- 31:53So just another standalone thriller with another female protagonists who's got a new set
- 32:00of problems and and then we'll see I mean, I I really would love
- 32:07to kind of continue on, you know, on this trajectory and and right
- 32:10write even more of these and then you know, the YA is always there.
- 32:14I think for me, it'll need to kind of be the right idea
- 32:17at the right time for the YA. But have you considered a serious character?
- 32:23Seems to be what the publishers want these days, some characters that can
- 32:29repeat from what puts to the next right right, that's not on your horizon.
- 32:32I'm getting the impression. No, no, but you've you've You've piqued
- 32:37my interest for sure, so maybe, but not the name. Thank you
- 32:42the acknowledgements. I will in like four years when I come out with that,
- 32:47I will, I will. Sounds great. Uh, well, this
- 32:52has been a blast, Rebecca. Thank you so much for being and uh
- 32:57I hope we can have you on again. Yes when that next this book
- 33:00comes out? Okay, yes, I would love it, And thank you
- 33:02so much. Good Bett, Thanks so much. Laura. You have a
- 33:15book that's just perfect for Christmas, don't you. I do. It's called
- 33:20Christmas Spirit. It's set in New Orleans. It is filled with whispering ghosts,
- 33:27from Christmas, past, present, and maybe even future. And it
- 33:30is currently on sale for ninety nine cents. Why, I well, will
- 33:36not get much better than that, I hope ever, because you should be
- 33:40compensated much more. But it's Christmas, so it's Christmas. Merry Christmas.
- 33:45And I see Jesse's put up the slide of an anthology called Christmas Tapestry,
- 33:52which I put together. I've got a story in it, and so do
- 33:55many of my writing talented friends, writing talent as opposed to my writing untalented
- 34:01friends. You know what I mean, my talented writer friends is what I
- 34:05was going for. And the reason we call it a tapestry is because it
- 34:09didn't just lock into one genre. You know, it's not all mystery or
- 34:15a man's or inspirational. It's a little bit of everything from people who do
- 34:20it well, using the series characters from their novels in a Christmas short story,
- 34:27in many cases, the first short story these characters have ever appeared in.
- 34:30So I you know, Christmas or not. I thought this was a
- 34:35terrific opportunity. And the writer Con magazine also has holiday issue coming out.
- 34:39Jesse's got that up there too. Laura tell us what all is in this
- 34:44wonderful issue. Like every issue, it is packed with inspiration and information for
- 34:51aspiring authors everywhere, But this time it is like a warm cup of cocoa
- 34:57and packed with holiday themes, advice, words of wisdom from some excellent writers.
- 35:04We have how to market your work during the holiday season. We have
- 35:07an interview with Santa Claus. We have so much stuff I can't even think
- 35:14of it all right now, But it's a terrific issue. It's so good
- 35:19humor from Barry Friedman, giftless for writers from Renee, and so much more.
- 35:25All right, until next time, keep writing and remember you cannot fail
- 35:32if you refuse to quit. See you next time.