Latest / WriterCon / Courtroom Chills with Caroline Cleveland

Transcript

Courtroom Chills with Caroline Cleveland · WriterCon

0:00
This week on the writer Con podcast, I would encourage them to network with
0:05
other writers and readers and people in the literary world. Welcome to writer Con,
0:10
a gathering place for writers to share their knowledge about writing and the writing
0:14
world. Your hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of the
0:18
Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, award winning author of the
0:23
want lnd Files book series. Thank you, Jesse Ulrich, and hey,
0:28
they're writers. Thanks for joining us. I feel like we're in the lull
0:33
in the storm today. We've finished the cruise, but the retreat is in
0:37
July, just a little ways ahead of us as we record this. And
0:42
of course the big conference, writer Con itself, is Labor Day weekend.
0:47
But the biggest news for me, of course, is that you can now
0:50
order my new book, which is called Justice for All. It's the eighth
0:55
Daniel Pike novel and he's in a courtroom show down with Kinsey Rivera, the
1:02
attorney from my Splitsville series of novels. So yes, it's another Bernhart Shared
1:07
University Universe. Let me try that again, the BSU, the Bernhardt Shared
1:12
Universe event, that's what it is. Okay, Laura, You're the only
1:17
person present who's read it, so I'm turning to you. Well, i've
1:21
read it, I suppose several times, but you know what I mean.
1:23
Yeah, and I'm sure you can be totally objective completely review it your husband's
1:30
books. Maybe I better not ask you if it's any good, actually,
1:34
but I will ask was there anything that stood out? Stood out or a
1:40
favorite moment. I'm hoping you're going to set up what I actually want to
1:44
say, but a favorite moment. Let me think a favorite moment. It's
1:49
it's it's enjoyable, advanced. Kenzie and Dan go after each other that back
1:59
and forth. It's kind of delicious. It's awful, but it's delicious.
2:04
It's funny to see the two going after each other. But I think for
2:07
me, well good. Maybe the most fun thing about it is that it
2:10
has illustrations in it. That's what I have to tell you. You read
2:15
my mind. Yeah, you don't have to. We don't expect that from
2:21
novels these days, but that has been a lot of fun. Yeah.
2:25
It's said in the comic book industry, and it's about a dispute over a
2:30
particular comic book character. And so I actually commissioned a guy to draw,
2:37
I said, in the nineteen sixties Jack Kirby's style, So he did six
2:42
covers for me for this comic character. I made a King Kaiju kind of
2:47
you know, like Godzilla in a superhero costume. But I mean, that's
2:52
not what the book is about. The book is this courtroom drama. But
2:54
that's what they're fighting over because his characters become worth billions and so we get
3:01
to see them. Yeah, honestly, I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure
3:07
it was okay to mention that. I don't know if you were like hoping
3:08
that you people would get the book and then be like surprise and you would
3:14
spring that on them. So I was a little concerned. I wasn't going
3:16
to give away too much, but I thought maybe if I just said the
3:20
illustrations, that would be okay. Yeah, it was good. Okay,
3:23
Jesse, I'm dragging you into this extended commercialness. You're familiar with shared universes,
3:31
right, You've seen The Avengers. So here's your trivia question, which
3:36
I'm just telling everybody I did not put in any script for this show.
3:39
He was on the phone. It's final jeopardy question for you what writer created
3:46
the first shared universe? No, no, I won't do that song because
3:52
then I'd have to send the MERV Griffins. Yeah, we wanted first writer
3:59
shared universe, or so his descendants claim it then gives you a hint,
4:06
and I think they're right. I have to say, hmm, descendants,
4:11
okay, so not older older than I was originally thinking. All right,
4:15
I feel like I honestly, I feel like I did know this at some
4:17
point, but early twentieth century five four Jules Verne. No, But when
4:26
I was preparing this, I thought that is who is Jules vern doesn't appear
4:31
in more than one book, so that at least links those together. But
4:36
no, I think the real answer here is Edgar Ice Burrows. Oh yeah,
4:42
remember for Tarzan, but also his John Connor on Marris series, which
4:46
actually some people like better than the tars hand books. But Tarzan was the
4:49
big moneymaker. Plus there was Carson of Venus on Venus, and there was
4:55
David Ennis and Pellucidar, which is the underground scar taris the city and the
5:01
center of the earth. And in book sixteen, Tarzan goes down to Polarucidar,
5:06
and they had been to Gridley waves, so all these guys can start
5:10
talking to each other and and pretty soon it is clearly one incredible, crazy
5:16
edgar icebur a shared universe. And you said, according to Descendants, that's
5:23
the name that popped into my head. But I never would have said that
5:27
because I did not realize. I wasn't aware of that, so I didn't
5:30
realize that he had actually brought some of his characters together. Yeah, many,
5:34
No, that's he did it. So honestly, I was thinking Jane
5:38
Austin was the other one I was going through out there because I feel like
5:43
I feel like at some point those books crossed over in like a very small
5:46
way. And he didn't realize at the time all the neighbors, all the
5:48
neighbors that lived together, and I don't think they did, but wouldn't that
5:53
be I'm going to go home and write that right, Yeah, so fun.
5:57
Yeah, but in the meantime till I write that one. Justice for
6:00
All it's ready now, Yeah, this one's ready now, so go get
6:08
it all right. We are going to interview Caroline Cleveland, who is the
6:14
author of When Cicada's Cry. This is a wonderful thriller. The Advanced Press
6:19
is calling it John Grisham meets Harper Lee, and that's not a very bad
6:25
tagline. I would have to say, we will talk to her about this
6:29
book and much more. But first, the news news story number one shouldn't
6:50
surprise you. Since the whole rest of the world is talking about AI,
6:55
why wouldn't we. But the topic here is that publishers are beginning to add
7:00
contract clauses relating to AI in different ways to their publishing contracts with authors.
7:10
According to Publishers Lunch, which is part of Publishers Weekly, at least three
7:15
of the Big five publishers, specifically Penguin, Random House, and Hashet and
7:19
McMillan, are adding contract languages to prohibit publishers from using this contracted work of
7:29
the author to train AI models, or to sell it or license it to
7:33
someone else to train for AI models. In at least one of these houses,
7:40
this language has to be requested by your agent, which is a good
7:44
reason to have agents, but I'm sure the author could do it themselves.
7:47
In other cases, it's just now part of the boilerplate contract. Random House
7:54
is still reserving the right to use a work your work, specifically to train
7:59
them their own AI tools, like we can do it, but nobody else
8:03
can. I'm not sure that's really better if they're still not paying you an
8:09
additional fee for that, but whatever, that's how it goes. Some of
8:13
these are welcome contractual changes. I mean, we've got to keep pace with
8:16
what's going on out there. But some people and particularly agents, don't want
8:22
to make broad contract changes when there are still so many unknowns about AI.
8:30
You know, authors are worried about AI being used in cover design or editing,
8:35
or translating even or audio narration, and we really don't know where this
8:43
is going yet, so it's hard to know how to address it in a
8:46
contract. Jesse, is this happening too soon? I mean we are.
8:52
It feels like we're barely being beginning to understand what AI can even do.
8:56
No, but I think we know we know enough now now to like protect
9:01
ourselves from the big the issues that we are dealing with right now, which
9:05
is like just the sucking up of all data on the Internet and being fed
9:09
to AIS to teach them things and protecting protecting people's rights as far as like
9:15
what is being fed to these machines and what isn't and so sort of protecting
9:18
that and also like protecting artists from like not having their stuff being thrown into
9:24
you know, an AI thing for like book covers and all that kind of
9:26
stuff, like sort of just like protecting what's being fed to these these large
9:31
language models. That's that's the thing we know at this moment. So like,
9:35
I'm okay adding some of that stuff, but you do, yeah,
9:37
right, you do have to be careful because it might not matter a year
9:39
from now the way you phrased it, so you mentioned the music industry.
9:43
It's kind of interesting to me that, you know, the music industry is
9:48
like putting up a big stop sign I think in the most part saying no
9:52
AI nowhere near us. Whereas a lot of authors, particularly those who aren't
9:58
with big publishers, Now are you using AI to generate audio books or trailers
10:03
or whatever? You know, not to write the books, but cover design
10:07
things like that. Laura, you know this is happening, and you know
10:11
some writers feel strongly about not wanting AI to have any part in their work,
10:16
but well they like it or not, many publishers, including major publishers,
10:22
are now using AI for all those things I listed a minute ago.
10:26
Cover design editing even translation into foreign languages. Audio narration, How do you
10:33
feel about that? I've seen so much junk produced by AI that I'm not
10:41
a big fan yet, not for creation. In fact, I've already checked
10:46
the no box as far as cover design, Is it okay if we use
10:50
AI and your cover design? I said no, I haven't seen something that
10:54
leads me to think that AI can really create something super useful. Yet I
11:03
also firmly believe that you need a real human when you are editing. There
11:07
are just so many things that are suggested to me by what's basically early AI,
11:13
which is in a word document. You get those suggestions for things,
11:18
and sometimes it's wrong. I really think we need a human for a lot
11:22
of these a lot of these things to make the best work possible. Right
11:26
there are I don't think we're ready yet there, and people are buying them
11:31
Autocrit, and I know there are others that you know, you pay a
11:35
fee and this computer, meaning an AI, looks at your manuscript and gives
11:41
you feedback. And I'm not passing judgment on the program I mentioned because I've
11:46
never used it, but I do know there are people who love using these
11:52
programs. In Part I think it. I don't know, it's just more
11:56
fun to play with a gadget. But people are doing it right. If
12:01
someone finds some use from that, if it can, if it can help
12:05
you take your manuscript to the next step, I would never discourage someone from
12:11
that. I have a different opinion of editing it. I consider in an
12:18
appropriate use of AI if it's something that an editor could help you do,
12:22
and we're not talking about creation at that point, we're talking about trying to
12:28
tweak what you've made and make it better. And so in that regard,
12:33
if someone's using it to analyze what they've written and maybe get some potentially helpful
12:41
feedback on how to improve it, and they think that it helps them and
12:46
it can maybe get them the next step, that I would be okay with
12:50
that. Well, a lot of interesting issues raised and we don't know all
12:58
the answers, which I guess is why some people are saying, yeah,
13:03
if you actually ask me for a solution, I'm gonna hard pass on trying
13:07
to come up with one of those. I don't have that for you.
13:09
And as far as translation services go, I would worry about that kind of
13:15
the same way I would. I think you need a human actually doing that,
13:20
because there are so many colloquialisms and so many things that we say that
13:26
don't directly translate from one to another. You need a human brain behind that
13:31
to make it really turn out well in my opinion. But what if the
13:35
AI program did the first draft, which was about ninety percent of the work
13:41
or more, and then somebody else came up along and fixed MOBOs. Wouldn't
13:46
that do the cost authors would have to pay to get a foreign translation.
13:52
The person, the human doing it, I would imagine, still have to
13:54
go over it pretty pretty much the entire book. I guess. I think
14:00
you would save time. I don't think would save as much time as people
14:03
think it would because you still have to read. Just like when I added
14:05
an audiobook, right, I still have to re listen to the entire book,
14:09
even if it's been recorded. Just a double check, a double check,
14:13
and I I don't know. I wouldn't trust it. I wouldn't trust
14:18
it. I would still be worried that it had mistranslated too much. And
14:24
if you have a person coming along behind, if they haven't seen the original
14:28
and they're not doing the whole thing, they might not realize where it has
14:31
skewed the intended original writing, and I won't know how to correct it perhaps.
14:43
And as far as audio narration, I don't know. Jesse's spoken to
14:46
this one for sure, that we need that human element. If that's a
14:54
that's a big one. That's a big one. And I am still kind
14:56
of vacillating on where I fall on that. I know sometimes people would argue
15:03
that you don't want to cut the artist out of the equation, and some
15:09
people argue it's too expensive to have to go pay someone. I've been very
15:16
fortunate that I worked with a narrator who was willing to just do a royalty
15:22
share with me, so I didn't have to pay her upfront, and she
15:26
did a great job. I loved working with her. There are some books
15:31
I have, though, that she didn't think she would be the appropriate voice
15:33
for, and so it's do I go out and look for someone else to
15:37
do those books? Do? I don't know. I was looking into it,
15:43
and I just that's a tough one for me. I haven't really come
15:46
down on one side or the other yet. Still early days. YEA.
15:50
Quickly, let's tackle news story number two, which, since we already had
15:54
one on AI, this has got to be about Amazon, right, And
15:58
indeed Amazon is testing what they call book trends data on the product detail pages,
16:06
in other words, those pages where you see books and a lot of
16:11
stuff underneath it. You may have noticed there's some new information on some search
16:17
and book detail pages. Jesse's got a screenshot. But even if you can't
16:22
see that, go on Amazon. You'll find it. There's a box beneath
16:26
the title, and it's got the average star rating. It always has the
16:32
good read statistic, and then an additional statistics showing how many people have bought
16:38
or read your book in the past month, including ebook and audiobook sales.
16:45
Amazon says, and here I'm quoting. This information is updated daily and accounts
16:52
for customer engagement across all of the book's formats. Book trends data is not
16:56
a sales report. It is meant to give an indication of customer engagement,
17:02
and the numbers you see in your sales report will not be comparable, which
17:07
is sort of like saying we're throwing numbers out but don't take them seriously or
17:11
something. I don't know, Jesse, what does that mean? What does
17:15
any of this mean? I think they're just trying to give you an indication
17:18
that sort of like in sort of the book talk fashion, that there are
17:22
other people reading or thinking about this book. And like, you know,
17:26
if you're like, if you're trying to side between two books and you see,
17:30
like, for example, that three hundred and ninety four thousand people click
17:33
to want to read on good Reads, I'm like, that's a goodly amount
17:36
of people. So maybe I'll check that out, right, But if I
17:40
see like only you know, three thousand people want to read, I'm like,
17:47
that's right enough, just adding to the information you're given about how popular
17:52
or interesting a book is. So right, Laura As I'm sure you know
17:59
some author have expressed anger or frustration because they considered this sales data. You
18:07
know, how well is my book doing to be private and now it's being
18:11
made completely public by Amazon? Are you okay with this? It's a little
18:21
you know, you can kind of scroll down to like rank, category,
18:26
rank and kind of gauge where it's at. But like Jesse was saying,
18:29
if this is going to sway somebody from one to another, is this just
18:34
another way of promoting books that are already getting plenty of love. What if
18:40
you were leaning towards the book that was just more recently released, it hadn't
18:45
quite picked up the steam yet, and it steered you away from that book
18:48
because you didn't see that there was enough engagement yet. I think when we're
18:53
starting I think when new authors are starting out, it's tough enough to get
19:00
that initial traction built and moving without putting huge amounts of marketing money behind behind
19:08
it. That's my concern here is that somebody will look at that and think,
19:15
well, if it doesn't have nine hundred thousand people already interested in reading
19:21
it, much must not be worth it. But it could be. It
19:25
could be a great read that you're missing out on. Do you think people
19:27
would look at that? I mean, I know people shop on stars and
19:32
they shop on price, but a ranking. I mean, the rankings have
19:37
always been there, and I don't really think that's what people base buying decisions
19:42
on. But I could be wrong. I mean, if we did,
19:45
we'd all be reading James Parrison books, right, and you would be happy
19:49
about that. I'd be so unhappy. All right, Enough of that,
19:55
Jesse, cue up some music. Let's talk to Caroline Cleveland. Caroline,
20:07
welcome to the podcast. Thank you, happy to be here. You can't
20:11
see it, but I'm wagging. Okay, traditional first question, If you
20:18
could offer writers one piece of advice, what would it be. I would
20:23
encourage them to network with other writers and readers and people in the literary world,
20:29
because I work as a lawyer in my day job, and I have
20:33
a lot of friends in context there by my thirty years protest in law,
20:36
but it doesn't always translate. It's a whole different world, and you need
20:41
people, and there's just so much you don't know. So I would encourage
20:44
them to get to know that community so that they have a network and a
20:48
tribe. That's great advice, of course, I would say that because that's
20:52
what writer con has gotten of all about. Hey, well, that's exactly
20:55
what we need. Yeah, great, and tell us about when Cicicida's Well.
21:00
Wincicata's Cry is a Southern legal thriller. It's set in Walterboro, South
21:04
Carolina, which is where I happen to grow up, and nearby Edistoe Beach.
21:08
It takes place in twenty seventeen and in the aftermath of the Mother Emmanual
21:15
Church massacre, which was just down the street from my house and the Walter
21:19
Scott shooting was police shooting of an unarmed black suspect. So our little community,
21:26
racial tensions were high and it was a tough time. And so against
21:30
that backdrop that my book opens sounds suspense, forty secret. Wow, that
21:37
sounds very powerful. I'm ready, I'm adding that to my tvrst you get.
21:44
That's all good. So you touched a little bit on what inspired it
21:48
sounds like you were pulling ideas from events that were happening there. How did
21:55
this how did it all come together? How'd you pull together the idea of
21:57
the book, And did it just kind of hit you you had this great
22:02
idea or was it something that just stated over time? This one came in
22:07
waves, if you will. The idea of a lawyer working a case with
22:12
no idea at all, that it was connected to something older than he was
22:17
and kind of in the dark about that connection came to me a long time
22:22
ago, and I really wanted I wanted a male and a female protagonist,
22:25
because I've noticed what like that with my husband. We'll trade books with most
22:30
women. It just I don't want to make a stereotype, but I find
22:33
more often female readers are more willing to step into the skin of a male
22:37
protagonist than sometimes the other way around. So I wanted both. I wanted
22:41
everybody to have something in this story so connect to it. That's great,
22:47
that's right. So I had my two protagonists, and that was in my
22:49
head for a long time, just trying to play it with how old case
22:52
might come in. And I had always had some racial component in that there
22:56
was a black defendant and a white vic, but that was not really the
23:02
main jet thrust of my story. And then all of a sudden, the
23:07
world just came down here around us. I mean that night that that guy
23:11
killed those nine people in a Bible study that was rock your world kind of
23:17
stuff, and IgE it was, I mean, it's three blocks from my
23:22
house. It's just so heartily that could happen anywhere, much less where you
23:26
live. And the two cases that in the police shooting came to trial the
23:30
same week in December, and the hate crime was tried as a federal hate
23:37
hate crime and was in the federal court. Right across the street in our
23:41
state court was the murder case at the police officer. So I mean we
23:45
had CNN and box trucks, and I mean it was just you couldn't look
23:51
away. I lived near both events, I practiced in both those courts.
23:56
I knew the lawyers trying the case. I knew the just try in the
24:00
case. I knew I knew that I had used the expert before who was
24:03
the guy who evaluated the killer to make sure he was legally competent mentally competent
24:10
to stand trial. And so it was just there was no getting away from
24:14
this. And as I'm writing my story, and all of a sudden it
24:18
daunts me. If they're in twenty seventeen, they are going to be affected
24:22
by this. There's no way that that doesn't change the story. And then
24:26
the story started changing my mind. And all I ever set out to do
24:33
was to write a twisty, clever mystery. I had no grand design of
24:37
writing a socially conscious or a socially important novel. But somewhere along the way,
24:47
my characters realized they had something more thought provoking to say, and I
24:51
just kind of rolled with it. I'm sure, I hope I did a
24:52
good job with I'm sure if I didn't all hear from it. There are
24:56
not many, not many subjects you can pick that invoke the kind of a
25:00
strong and raw emotion that raised us. I've tried to be sensitive and above
25:04
all, I've tried to be respectful. Judging from the reviews I've seen,
25:08
you did it very well. Thank you very good. So clearly your personal
25:14
experiences influenced this book. So I know when I'm writing and I draw from
25:22
real life experiences, I fictionalize pretty heavily. Can you tell me did you
25:29
feel the need to do that as well? Or did you find that it
25:32
was you were using more of things that actually did happen to you and just
25:37
applying them to the book. So I took obviously, I talk about the
25:41
events, and I talk about the social setting, what's going on, and
25:45
Walterborough is a real place, but my story is completely fiction. That the
25:49
church, that this happens in this fiction, the investigations that are going on,
25:53
and now I'm sure the people are going to say this was really the
25:56
murder murder, but it has thing in the world to do with the murder
25:59
because it's in the same courtroom. It's twenty seventeen, the Murdaal's were logs
26:03
that it's gone from the solicitor's office, and alex and ma And hasn't had
26:07
his inglorious fall so it has nothing to do with it. But I just
26:14
happened to grow up in that same little town. Sure, your bio says
26:18
you not only grew up in that little town, but you grew up reading.
26:22
I got the Christie and Stephen King, which are not exactly similar.
26:27
Are there elements of both in this book? I love all kinds of books.
26:33
I mean, like I said, I started on Old Yeller and kind
26:37
of went on down the line. So there aren't many genres. I don't
26:41
read any science fiction or fantasy. But other than that, I just about
26:47
everything has something in it by love. I have a special affinity for Southern
26:52
fiction. I love Flannery O'Connor and Grisham. I think paints southern, small
27:00
town Southerner just truly a gift. Sometimes I think he stumbled over my high
27:06
school year book and they're all in it. Huh, all the criminals.
27:14
There were no cell phones back then. There's no evidence of anything you mentioned
27:21
practicing law. You couldn't tell it to look at you. But your bio
27:26
says you've been practicing law for thirty years. And I didn't go straight through
27:30
school, so I'm an old woman. But thank you for your comment.
27:33
Well, Okay, so what has caused you to turn to writing? Now?
27:40
You know, I've been playing with it. I guess it's somewhere around
27:44
two fourteen when I first just you know, it dawns on me. I
27:47
work with a lot of law enforcement clients and a lot of cities and counties,
27:51
public entities. I get to see a whole kind of stuff. And
27:56
I don't think I could have written in my thirties the kind of books I
27:59
can write now. I didn't have the life experience. You don't. You
28:02
just see what goes on in the paper. You don't see what's in the
28:03
back room that made it happen. And I started thinking I've got some stories
28:07
to tell too. So and I think it was twenty fourteen, I said,
28:11
I can write a novel. I know I can't. I sat down,
28:14
I started typing, finished up my novel, got a doll done,
28:17
and read over it and crap, I couldn't write a novel after all.
28:18
It stunk up. That was my that was my path as well. First,
28:26
first, my first experience, I said, maybe I need to go
28:30
to a little class or something writer car or something. I need help.
28:33
So I did, and I slowly got better and then I wrote and finished
28:38
a novel, and that novel landed me an agent, but not a publisher.
28:44
So then we sent it to this publisher and they liked it very much,
28:48
but they didn't I guess they're looking at my lifetrack and they're saying,
28:51
you know, we want to make sure you're not going to just we're going
28:52
to waste our time and you're only going to do one book and not be
28:55
interested anymore. So they said, can you show us something you're working on?
28:59
And I had not yet finished the Cicada book and has sent it and
29:02
Marley called me back. My agent, Marley Ross Russolf. Wonderful, wonderful
29:07
girl woman, she said. She starts talking, we sold the book,
29:10
and I'm listening to her and I'm listening, Wait, Marley, you're talking
29:12
about the wrong book. That book's not written. It's not written. And
29:15
she says, well, congratulations, you got four months. Oh boy,
29:22
oh boy. Okay, so you're so we have quite a few aspiring writers
29:26
in our audience. So while we're talking about your path to publication, let's
29:30
see you told us how you got started. This was back in twenty fourteen.
29:34
And then would just thank you exactly exactly. That's that was the start
29:40
of of your journey. How long was it then? How long did it
29:45
take you to my first book? Yeah? My first book will be published
29:49
next week, so you can do the math it's been doing. What is
29:52
there? You go, yes, okay, I think that's not uncommon.
29:56
And did you do the traditional you you finished up? Did you start sending
30:00
query letters? Or how did you find your agent? At a conference?
30:06
A small conference? Marlee she has an office or an agency in New York,
30:10
and she also has a home in Beeverort, South Carolina. And in
30:12
fact, she was one of the founders of the Pat Conroy Literary Center that
30:17
there, and that's such a great resource. You know, we don't live
30:21
near New York. We don't have the kind of big conferences and things that
30:23
the people have there. And anyway, I went to a conference. There
30:26
was a three day thing. They took over an old historic inn and we
30:30
just they it was like a locked room kind of mystery. So we all
30:33
kind of ready to other's books or read excerpts of our books and got to
30:37
know each other. And Marley was one of the agents there, and Marlee
30:41
she didn't really seem interested in my book. That one was a psychological thriller,
30:45
and I didn't think she liked it, and she and I hid it
30:48
off so well. I thought, rather than blow up a baby relationship,
30:55
I'd rather keep her as a mentor, so I didn't ask her to represent
30:59
me, instead of ask her if she could hook me up with a really
31:02
good professional editor. And that editor turned out to be Claire walk Tell,
31:07
who is now my editor at Union Square. After she had looked at my
31:11
first book, she took a job. And God has a plan. We
31:14
just don't get a no way on the front end. That is unique.
31:18
I have not heard. I have not heard that exact path. That's very
31:22
very unique, fun, too crazy, smart, insanely talented, fabulous,
31:29
wonderful women had not just stumbled over me and taken noticed my writing and taken
31:36
an interest in me, I would still have a box of stuff nobody's ever
31:40
read. So I'm very grateful. That's great and the power of conferences,
31:45
right, little girl knows you so much. Yeah, so what does your
31:51
typical writing day look like? How do you find writing time? You just
31:55
said, yeah, yeah, how do you do that? And I understand
32:00
I also continue to work as well, so I get it. But how
32:06
do you make writing time. You just have to be a good manager of
32:12
it, because you know there are days it's slower and maybe I can pop
32:15
that thumb drive in there and work on a little bit when I've expected to
32:17
be here. If I work a lot of weekends, but when I get
32:22
a weekend off, that's generally the better time because I can lock myself in.
32:25
I don't have to All those pesky, baying clients aren't bothering me.
32:30
But it's nice to be needed. I'm just teasing. They know that I
32:35
love them. Most of my clients have been my clients for twenty years,
32:37
and I have become friends and confidants and comrades, and we've been in a
32:44
lot of trenches together and had a lot of had a lot of experiences.
32:47
I really welcome their calls. It's fantastic. What's your process like? Are
32:52
you a are you a planner? Are you a pantherer? How do you
32:57
like to work on a novel? Best analogy I can have is back when
33:02
you know we have these big paper maps, I put it and I'm going
33:07
to leave Charleston and I'm going to go to somewhere in Tennessee and i'd stick
33:12
my pens. But I don't know how I'm going yet. That's kind of
33:15
it. I know where the book starts, I know what the premise is,
33:17
I know how it ends. But whether I'm going to take back roads
33:22
or interstates or stop somewhere and hop on a bus, I don't know.
33:25
I just got that part. That part I just looked. Okay, that's
33:31
all right. Now. Some of the pr I read for this book said
33:37
that it and here I'm quoting introduces Attorney Zach Standler. Does that mean we
33:43
can expect to see Zach again in the future. I'm going to write Zach
33:46
again the future of enough people buy this book, that might let me write
33:50
that published that second one. Get out there and buy coffee on sale Tuesday,
33:55
I think, And that reminds me. I want to tell our audience,
34:00
as you were talking about book being published tuesday or next week, everybody
34:04
listening to this it's on sale now by the time you're listening to this interview,
34:07
So you can go get and Cicada's cry immediately and you should. Okay,
34:13
one last question, Caroline, what are you working on next? You
34:16
said maybe Zach, maybe not, So what's gonna what are you working on
34:21
now? I should say I have two things that I'm working on now.
34:23
One is another psychological thriller. I know where it's going, but I'm having
34:29
a hard time getting the voice right. You know, when you're dealing with
34:34
something that's well, it just is harder. And I actually am already working
34:38
on what might be a sequel to to Zag and Addie, a little bit
34:44
different kind of book, the more less mystery and more the action. Maybe
34:53
I'm trying to suggest a word, but it wouldn't action. Okay, blowing
35:01
step up, Well you get that. When done, you need to come
35:05
back on the podcast. Okay, I can't wait. All right, Thanks
35:08
for joining us, Caroline, appreciate, thank you for having me. Good
35:12
Bye. Just a few parting words. Laura tell us all about the forthcoming
35:30
writer con retreat. I'm so looking forward to this. I'm so ready.
35:37
I'm ready to get away, get out of town and go relax in a
35:45
spa resort. There's what three hundred acres and we're going to have this place
35:49
all to ourselves. We've got rooms, we've got cottages, the spas.
35:54
There people who enjoy golfing. There's golf is hiking, there's a pool.
36:01
Oh wait, we're going to be writing too, aren't we. Yeah,
36:05
that's right. Going on. Well, I keep pulling up the cane brake
36:14
and drooling over it when I get a little bit stressed out at work because
36:17
I keep thinking, Okay, not too much longer now, and we'll go
36:21
relax. I do need to get away and relax. But meanwhile, while
36:23
we're relaxing, Bill and I will be there for you. We'll come together,
36:28
we'll talk about whatever you need to work on with your writing. Whoever
36:32
comes you are going to get to choose what it is that we talk about
36:36
every day. You're also going to get daily probably feedback on your manuscripts.
36:43
You're going to bring what you're working on and we're going to sit down and
36:45
work on it with you. This is something that you just can't put a
36:51
price on. Honestly, this kind of feedback is absolutely invaluable, and it's
36:54
the way to really take your novel to the next level. Yeah, not
37:00
to brag, well this is totally bragging, but we have had a lot
37:05
of people come out of these retreats and publish their work with serious publishers later
37:10
on. So come join us, because we would love to work with you
37:15
all right until next time. Hey, writers, keep writing and remember you
37:23
cannot fail if you refuse to quit. See you next time.