Latest / Reality Writes / A Death In The Dark—A New Mystery Plotted on a Road Trip

Transcript

A Death In The Dark—A New Mystery Plotted on a Road Trip · Reality Writes

0:05
Ellie Alexander: Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Reality Writes.
0:10
Ellie Alexander: I am author Ellie Alexander, and this is the podcast where we talk about all things writer-ish, bookish, and whatever else is on our mind.
0:17
Ellie Alexander: And I'm here with the Tech Guy.
0:19
Tech Guy: Hello, hello.
0:20
Tech Guy: How's it going today?
0:23
Ellie Alexander: It's pretty good.
0:24
Ellie Alexander: How about you?
0:25
Tech Guy: Good, good.
0:26
Tech Guy: Uh yeah, it's good, it's going well.
0:30
Tech Guy: Good, well, I don't know.
0:32
Tech Guy: You know.
0:33
Ellie Alexander: You know, the world is upside down right now.
0:35
Tech Guy: So I will say, just quick aside, because that's what I'm known for on uh Reality Writes.
0:42
Tech Guy: Um I don't like it when somebody asks me how I'm doing and I say good, and then I ask them how they're doing, and they say, I'm doing well.
0:51
Tech Guy: And they say it in that tone, right?
0:53
Tech Guy: They give you that tone that I know well is the more appropriate answer.
1:00
Tech Guy: I don't care.
1:01
Tech Guy: I'm doing good.
1:05
Tech Guy: How's that?
1:06
Ellie Alexander: It's bringing back flashbacks to when my dad would correct me for saying, with whom, with whom are you having like the air?
1:13
Ellie Alexander: I know.
1:13
Tech Guy: Yeah.
1:14
Tech Guy: No, this is, I mean, I guess this is a a podcast about writing, uh, in part, right?
1:20
Ellie Alexander: So maybe I should start saying well, but no, I don't think you should because um this comes up a lot in my writing, especially if if I'm writing dialogue.
1:29
Ellie Alexander: And I think we've touched on this before, but like characters talk the way that we talk in the real world.
1:34
Ellie Alexander: So it doesn't like grammar doesn't always translate, especially in dialogue.
1:40
Tech Guy: Uh that makes sense.
1:41
Tech Guy: Yeah.
1:41
Tech Guy: And I agree.
1:42
Tech Guy: Um, so for the darlings out there, are you doing good?
1:46
Tech Guy: Are you doing well?
1:48
Ellie Alexander: Or both.
1:49
Tech Guy: How are you doing?
1:50
Tech Guy: Let us know.
1:52
Ellie Alexander: A bit of both, you know.
1:53
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
1:54
Ellie Alexander: It's all good.
1:54
Tech Guy: Actually, before we get into today's topic, um, I just want to remind everyone to please share reality rights with a friend or uh family member and anyone that you know that is into reading, writing, or just wants to come and hear Ellie talk and maybe get some words of wisdom or not wisdom from the Tech Guy.
2:15
Tech Guy: Uh so much love from you.
2:16
Tech Guy: Okay.
2:17
Ellie Alexander: All right.
2:17
Ellie Alexander: You're you're you're the one doling out wisdom.
2:20
Ellie Alexander: Awesome.
2:20
Ellie Alexander: Good.
2:20
Ellie Alexander: I've got a lot of questions today, then.
2:22
Ellie Alexander: Bring it on.
2:24
Tech Guy: And if you would be so kind, please leave us a rating.
2:27
Tech Guy: Uh, it really does help.
2:28
Tech Guy: It helps uh with discovery of the podcast for other listeners.
2:32
Tech Guy: And we just want to spread the writerish and bookish love.
2:35
Tech Guy: Um, new feature alert, though.
2:38
Tech Guy: If you're listening to this podcast on your favorite podcasting platform, be sure to head down to the show notes after this and click uh send us a message.
2:48
Tech Guy: There's a new way to get in touch with us.
2:50
Tech Guy: And uh you can drop us a question, a comment, tell us how much you love the show, tell us how much you don't love the show.
2:56
Tech Guy: Actually, just don't worry about that.
2:58
Tech Guy: Um and uh hey, maybe you'll hear it on the air.
3:03
Tech Guy: Uh, there's even an option to leave us a voicemail if you would like to do so.
3:07
Ellie Alexander: So we're going back to 1980.
3:10
Ellie Alexander: I was just thinking about this the other night.
3:12
Ellie Alexander: It's so funny because um I can remember my childhood phone number.
3:17
Ellie Alexander: I can remember my childhood best friend's phone number, like anything from the 80s.
3:21
Ellie Alexander: It is solid up in my brain.
3:23
Ellie Alexander: I don't know Sky Guy, our child who's 22.
3:27
Ellie Alexander: I don't have his number memorized.
3:29
Ellie Alexander: Like I have no one memorized post iPhone whatsoever.
3:33
Ellie Alexander: But yeah.
3:34
Ellie Alexander: Okay, so you can leave us a voice mail and you don't even have to pull out an old phone book to do it.
3:41
Ellie Alexander: This is great.
3:42
Tech Guy: Yeah, yeah.
3:43
Tech Guy: It's uh it's a new new service we're using for the podcast.
3:46
Tech Guy: I'm super excited.
3:47
Tech Guy: I'm gonna be rolling out a bunch of really cool changes for reality rights, uh changes but improvements.
3:54
Tech Guy: So um, and this is the start of it.
3:57
Tech Guy: Um, I'm I'm really excited and can't wait to see what this does in terms of engagement.
4:03
Tech Guy: Um, you know, I'd love to hear from the uh the uh darlings out there, and so there you go.
4:10
Tech Guy: Send us a message.
4:11
Ellie Alexander: Send us a voicemail.
4:14
Tech Guy: Right.
4:15
Ellie Alexander: The question is can we crank call back?
4:19
Tech Guy: Uh no.
4:19
Tech Guy: Unfortunately, um the messaging system, we are we're able to reply to the um you know, once to the written messages, but uh I don't believe we can reply to the voice messages.
4:33
Tech Guy: I don't know though.
4:34
Tech Guy: I'll look into it.
4:35
Tech Guy: But if you leave us a voice message, you might hear your voice on a future episode of Reality Rights.
4:41
Tech Guy: So be kind.
4:45
Ellie Alexander: I mean, we do talk about murder, so if you've got a great murder idea, bring it on.
4:50
Ellie Alexander: Okay, well, that's a good segue to today because we're gonna talk about a new book.
4:56
Tech Guy: A new book, another new book.
4:59
Tech Guy: Yeah.
5:00
Tech Guy: Wow.
5:01
Tech Guy: I mean, it's just well, I I wasn't ready for it, but here we go.
5:06
Tech Guy: Let's get let's have some applause for the new wait, wait.
5:09
Tech Guy: What which what's the title?
5:11
Ellie Alexander: Oh, right.
5:11
Ellie Alexander: The title is a death in the dark.
5:16
Tech Guy: All right.
5:17
Ellie Alexander: I thought it was gonna be dumb dum dun, so I was much more animated about my title, but okay.
5:22
Ellie Alexander: I can do it.
5:23
Tech Guy: Okay, well, do it again.
5:24
Tech Guy: Do the title again.
5:25
Ellie Alexander: Okay, great.
5:26
Ellie Alexander: Ready?
5:27
Ellie Alexander: A death in the dark.
5:33
Tech Guy: Yeah.
5:34
Tech Guy: There you go.
5:36
Ellie Alexander: That's more like it.
5:37
Ellie Alexander: That's more like it.
5:38
Tech Guy: All right, and this is a new book in the novel detective series.
5:43
Ellie Alexander: This is the second book in the novel detective series, but the novel detective series technically is a spin-off of the secret bookcase series.
5:51
Ellie Alexander: So all of the same characters have continued on through the novel detectives.
5:55
Ellie Alexander: So while it's book two, it's also sort of technically a book.
6:01
Ellie Alexander: What is that then?
6:03
Ellie Alexander: Eight, I guess.
6:04
Tech Guy: Book eight, yeah.
6:05
Tech Guy: Yeah.
6:06
Tech Guy: You know me, I I love a good spin-off.
6:08
Tech Guy: So I'm like, I think I I watch every version of NCIS.
6:16
Tech Guy: So and then some.
6:17
Tech Guy: And then some.
6:18
Tech Guy: There you go.
6:19
Tech Guy: Uh no, but this is that's that's that's totally cool.
6:23
Tech Guy: So what do we what are we what are we learning?
6:27
Tech Guy: And again, we'll just say up front, this is gonna be spoiler free, as always, uh when we promote the new books, spoiler free.
6:33
Tech Guy: So don't don't worry about yeah, don't worry about having to uh turn the podcast off.
6:40
Ellie Alexander: Well, I think there are a couple things to touch on.
6:42
Ellie Alexander: One, I want to talk a lot about uh the process of writing this one because it was a little different, and I had a writing partner for this uh particular book, too.
6:50
Ellie Alexander: But before we dive into that, there's a little bit of a change in the pub schedule for this one.
6:57
Ellie Alexander: So the ebook will be out on April 21st, followed by the paperback the next week on April 28th, because the publishing house for this one Storm is in the UK and they've done a big print run and partnered with the US printer, but because of the state of the world and um delays and shipments and all those good things, the paperback will be out a week later.
7:22
Ellie Alexander: So do not panic, darlings.
7:24
Ellie Alexander: If you're like, ooh, there's a new book out in the novel detectives, I'm gonna go find it.
7:28
Ellie Alexander: Like the the paperback is coming.
7:30
Ellie Alexander: The ebook is just coming first.
7:32
Ellie Alexander: So I guess it's a bonus if you're an e-book reader, you get it a week early.
7:36
Ellie Alexander: Right.
7:37
Ellie Alexander: That's not by design.
7:38
Ellie Alexander: That doesn't usually happen.
7:40
Tech Guy: No, no.
7:41
Tech Guy: The uh definitely the plan is to have them both released at the same time.
7:45
Tech Guy: But um, obviously, you know, things happen in the physical world, and sometimes it's just easier to get the e versions out sooner.
7:55
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
7:55
Ellie Alexander: I'm so excited that it's doing a big print run here in the US because that means you can go to your local bookstore, your local library, you can request it at your local library, your local bookstore can get it easily.
8:07
Ellie Alexander: So I'm super um thrilled to have it out in both.
8:10
Ellie Alexander: So don't panic.
8:12
Ellie Alexander: It's coming.
8:13
Ellie Alexander: That's just my talking point.
8:14
Ellie Alexander: I promise it's coming.
8:15
Ellie Alexander: Because I've already gotten a few emails from readers being like, wait, where's the paper map?
8:21
Tech Guy: Oh yeah.
8:22
Tech Guy: Always happens.
8:23
Ellie Alexander: It's okay.
8:24
Ellie Alexander: Uh, this book, though, I a little over a year ago did a road trip with Sky Guy, our son, because he was putting on an event at a Comic-Con and uh he needed somebody to help him schlep all of his equipment back and forth and set up his booth, which was super fun.
8:44
Ellie Alexander: And of course, I'm always up for a road trip.
8:46
Ellie Alexander: So we did a six-hour drive.
8:49
Ellie Alexander: And on the drive, we brainstormed this entire book together, which was great because he ran cross-country all through middle school, high school, and even his first year of college.
9:01
Ellie Alexander: And so obviously, he knows a lot about the running world.
9:03
Ellie Alexander: And the way that a book will start is I will just have one little glimmer of an idea.
9:10
Ellie Alexander: So, my idea for this one was that someone is going to stumble into Annie and Fletcher's office at the novel detectives, and they're covered in blood, and they have no memory of what happened the night before.
9:23
Ellie Alexander: That's all I had.
9:24
Ellie Alexander: That was like my little glimmer of an idea.
9:26
Ellie Alexander: But I didn't have anything else.
9:29
Tech Guy: Okay.
9:30
Tech Guy: So, Wait, you you started out the road trip, you had this idea already, and you voiced this idea to him.
9:37
Ellie Alexander: Yes.
9:38
Tech Guy: And then what happened?
9:39
Tech Guy: Did he take it from there?
9:40
Ellie Alexander: Or was it uh yeah, he was driving.
9:43
Ellie Alexander: And so I had my notebook.
9:45
Ellie Alexander: And you know this because over the years we have plotted, I can't even tell you how many books on road trips.
9:50
Ellie Alexander: It's kind of one of my favorite ways.
9:52
Ellie Alexander: I would never be able to physically write a book, but like sketching out ideas on a notebook and like pulling together a plot and there's something about the moving car and the scenery, and you're also trapped, right?
10:04
Ellie Alexander: You don't have really anything else to do.
10:05
Ellie Alexander: So it's I can't be distracted doing anything else.
10:08
Ellie Alexander: Um yeah, so I gave him that pitch and I was like, I kind of feel like, and maybe it's just because I'm with you, but I'm like, what if the guy who stumbles into their office is the high school track coach?
10:20
Ellie Alexander: And then, you know, from there, it just really spiraled um with ideas about like, okay, who's gonna be on the track team?
10:28
Ellie Alexander: Who are the people, like, who are the players?
10:30
Ellie Alexander: What drama can we pull up from your past?
10:33
Ellie Alexander: Like, yeah.
10:35
Tech Guy: I love it.
10:35
Tech Guy: So keeping the uh the content uh um very relevant to his life experience.
10:42
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, exactly.
10:42
Ellie Alexander: Which you have to do.
10:43
Ellie Alexander: You pull from your own life experience, right?
10:46
Tech Guy: Yeah.
10:46
Tech Guy: Yeah, that's awesome.
10:48
Ellie Alexander: He did not ever have a track coach that stumbled, you know, into the local police station or the at least that we know of, maybe he did.
10:57
Tech Guy: Thankfully, we we did not have that happen.
11:00
Tech Guy: Yeah.
11:00
Tech Guy: That would that would have been that would have been a little uh nerve-wracking for sure.
11:04
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
11:05
Ellie Alexander: But one of the main things that I I do myself when I'm in that initial stage of putting together a plot.
11:14
Ellie Alexander: And this is something that I often encourage new writers to do too, is just ask a lot of what if questions or like why questions, how questions.
11:24
Ellie Alexander: I'll just kind of riff on questions.
11:27
Ellie Alexander: Okay, so if it is the track coach, why is he there?
11:30
Ellie Alexander: Like when I when I started, and you know, again, no spoilers, because we don't know.
11:35
Ellie Alexander: Like, is the track coach, like, is he the killer?
11:39
Ellie Alexander: Like, are Annie and Fletcher gonna have a client who could be a killer?
11:44
Ellie Alexander: Are is he gonna be innocent?
11:46
Ellie Alexander: Is he somehow involved?
11:48
Ellie Alexander: You know, like all of those questions start to flow.
11:51
Ellie Alexander: And I think it's really important when you're first plotting a novel to just let yourself explore all of them.
11:59
Tech Guy: That's interesting.
12:00
Tech Guy: Yeah.
12:01
Tech Guy: Um, yeah, of course he could could be the killer.
12:04
Tech Guy: Came in covered in blood.
12:05
Tech Guy: Wasn't his blood.
12:07
Tech Guy: So wasn't his blood.
12:09
Tech Guy: Looking guilty already.
12:13
Ellie Alexander: Looking real guilty already.
12:14
Ellie Alexander: And then how intriguing for a private detective.
12:17
Ellie Alexander: How do you not want to take that case, even if you are suspicious right off the bat about whether your client is telling you the truth or not?
12:24
Ellie Alexander: Which of course Annie and Fletcher are because they're sharp and savvy and trained professional detectives.
12:31
Ellie Alexander: So yeah.
12:32
Tech Guy: Yeah.
12:33
Tech Guy: So was that the entirety of the conversation from the time you left Sunnyvale to the time you got up to the Ashland Medford area?
12:44
Ellie Alexander: That was pretty much, I mean, we spent a good solid six hours.
12:48
Ellie Alexander: I have my notebook here.
12:50
Ellie Alexander: If you want some like ASMR, just like shh going through suspects, talking.
12:57
Ellie Alexander: I asked him a lot about like practices and things that like this book is not necessarily running heavy.
13:03
Ellie Alexander: It's still a fun mystery, you know.
13:05
Ellie Alexander: There is this touch and this element to um track and cross-country that that plays a tiny little role.
13:12
Ellie Alexander: A lot of that never makes it onto the page, which is fine.
13:15
Ellie Alexander: But um, we did map out every single suspect, and each of them, of course, had a motive.
13:22
Ellie Alexander: And then working back to not only the victim, but also the track coach's connection to each of them because that was a little different.
13:31
Ellie Alexander: I have a I have a lot of fun with this series because I get to really play up this investigation piece in a way that doesn't always make sense with, let's say, like the bake shop mysteries, because Jules is ultimately a pastry chef who stumbles upon murder every now and then.
13:48
Ellie Alexander: Annie is actively seeking client work like this.
13:52
Ellie Alexander: And so for me, it's tapping into a little bit of my favorite uh back in the day, like Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone alphabet murders, or like Veronica Marr's, like kind of weaving a touch of that inspiration into this series.
14:08
Ellie Alexander: So for these, which is slightly different than the way that I plot my other mysteries, I'm really thinking about the case itself and then how everything's gonna wrap around the case potentially.
14:20
Tech Guy: Yeah, interesting.
14:21
Tech Guy: I, you know, it's funny that you say that not everything makes it onto the page.
14:25
Tech Guy: That's that's actually probably a good lesson for writers out there that, you know, a lot of your research, you learn a lot more about subjects than you can actually even use, but fit into any given book.
14:39
Tech Guy: But I imagine all of that knowledge helps, especially when it comes to making situations and scenes and and setting and everything more realistic for the reader, right?
14:53
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
14:54
Ellie Alexander: And you want your characters to you want to be as comfortable as your characters to be able to speak about something, right?
15:00
Ellie Alexander: Um, so even for Annie, when it comes to things like running the bookstore, I have spent, we collectively have spent a lot of time and money in bookstores because that's kind of our jam.
15:12
Ellie Alexander: That's our favorite place to be.
15:14
Ellie Alexander: So over the years, I've made a lot of friendships, I've talked to so many independent booksellers.
15:19
Ellie Alexander: So I want to weave in all of the real life details of bookselling, where, you know, it's not always the fantasy that we think about where, oh, you own a bookstore, so you're sitting behind the desk, like reading books all day while you sip your tea, and then there's a little cat on the counter, and then you know, you're making a million dollars every year.
15:40
Ellie Alexander: Like, no, you're shelving books constantly, reshelving.
15:43
Ellie Alexander: And they, you know, so making sure that uh those little nuggets of truth are also woven.
15:48
Ellie Alexander: And so the same would be true for the track details.
15:51
Ellie Alexander: I don't want to say like we went for a I don't know, like 200-foot run versus like a 5k or you know, like for the terminology, you want to get that right.
16:03
Tech Guy: Any readers out there who are runners would be like, wait, what?
16:06
Ellie Alexander: What?
16:07
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
16:08
Tech Guy: What did they do?
16:08
Tech Guy: Yeah, exactly.
16:10
Tech Guy: Yeah.
16:10
Tech Guy: Oh no, it's interesting you say that about Annie.
16:12
Tech Guy: I I I thought of Annie, the character, the other day.
16:16
Tech Guy: I saw a reel of uh just some random reel came across my my feed on Instagram, and it was a young woman who runs, she owns a bookshop, a small independent bookshop.
16:29
Tech Guy: And she her whole reel was like, Come along with me, like a day in the life of a bookshop owner.
16:37
Tech Guy: And it was it looked amazing.
16:40
Tech Guy: Um, she was very relaxed and she had a nice soundtrack going and everything, but it also was a lot of work, right?
16:46
Tech Guy: It was everything you just described.
16:47
Tech Guy: It was like she was constantly putting books on the shelf, she was opening boxes of books, she was doing, you know, she was changing like the because it also was kind of a coffee shop.
16:56
Tech Guy: She was changing the menu and everything, and she was not sitting still.
17:01
Tech Guy: Uh, there was no reading involved when I saw.
17:04
Tech Guy: So yeah.
17:06
Tech Guy: Yeah.
17:07
Ellie Alexander: I know, yeah.
17:08
Ellie Alexander: And I I that's like always the running joke whenever I am chatting with any of my friends who are booksellers where they're like, Yeah, what did you do?
17:15
Ellie Alexander: I just I don't know.
17:17
Ellie Alexander: I just sat at my desk and read all day.
17:19
Ellie Alexander: It was amazing.
17:20
Ellie Alexander: Same as true and publishing, even too.
17:22
Ellie Alexander: Like, yeah, those myths are um they're kind of pervasive.
17:26
Tech Guy: Yeah, yeah.
17:27
Tech Guy: I mean, I that that goes, yeah, that goes for for writing uh too.
17:32
Tech Guy: You know, you're just sitting around, you know, just doing research and everything.
17:36
Tech Guy: I I gotta say though, I I was jealous uh when you told me that you and Sky Guy had brainstormed this book on the on the drive because that that's kind of my that's my thing.
17:45
Tech Guy: I know that's my job.
17:47
Ellie Alexander: I know, sorry.
17:49
Tech Guy: I'm getting replaced.
17:50
Ellie Alexander: Like what but you know, it's in his genes.
17:52
Ellie Alexander: We trained him well for murder, which I don't know what that means.
17:56
Ellie Alexander: Like he was great.
17:57
Ellie Alexander: He was like, Oh yeah, okay.
18:00
Tech Guy: Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah.
18:01
Tech Guy: That's oh yeah, that's uh that we I might have to strike from the transcript.
18:09
Ellie Alexander: I know.
18:10
Ellie Alexander: No, there was literally this point where I was like, dude, you're really good at this.
18:13
Ellie Alexander: And he's like, Yeah, well, you know, I grew up.
18:16
Ellie Alexander: I'm like, oh yeah, right, you did.
18:18
Ellie Alexander: Okay, thanks for that.
18:20
Tech Guy: Mom, if you really want to get away with it, this is what you need to do.
18:23
Ellie Alexander: I know, right?
18:24
Ellie Alexander: What's my legacy?
18:26
Ellie Alexander: I have left him a treasure trove of murder knowledge that will live in his brain, rent-free.
18:32
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, no.
18:34
Tech Guy: Oh my goodness.
18:35
Ellie Alexander: And then uh the drive home, uh, we did a lot more work on it.
18:39
Ellie Alexander: So at that point, he had done the Comic-Con event and I went and like, you know, did some Ashland stuff and some mystery festive.
18:48
Ellie Alexander: But I also then started like really fleshing it out and sketching firmer ideas because in that initial stage, it is like, oh, okay, yeah, that that's that's an interesting motive.
18:59
Ellie Alexander: I'm gonna write it down.
18:59
Ellie Alexander: But then as I start to like really get to know the suspects more and more than anything, the victim, because that's where everything comes back to.
19:08
Ellie Alexander: Then it's like, oh, wait, maybe this path is better.
19:10
Ellie Alexander: So the drive home was also like refinement, I would say.
19:14
Ellie Alexander: But that was a nice chunk of like 12 hours to by the time I was home, I was ready to like start the first draft, no problem.
19:23
Tech Guy: Yeah.
19:23
Tech Guy: And and I guess that that is a a great um illustration for prospective writers out there about like this is this is the work that it takes to, you know, put put together an idea for a book.
19:36
Tech Guy: That's 12 hours of conversation with somebody else about like essentially you're doing research and then bouncing ideas back and forth off of each other.
19:46
Tech Guy: And and then I like that.
19:47
Tech Guy: The the the the drive up was kind of ideation and the drive back was refinement.
19:52
Tech Guy: Um I like that.
19:55
Tech Guy: It's very cool.
19:57
Ellie Alexander: It's the way it works.
19:59
Ellie Alexander: And um I think there's really something to be said for having a sounding board, a brainstorming partner.
20:08
Ellie Alexander: I mean, there have been plenty of books that I have brainstormed solo in the beginning, but it's always much more enlightening to have somebody else, whether that is your husband, your son, your best friend.
20:22
Ellie Alexander: Like if you have an opportunity to have a little brainstorming sesh, uh, do it because just having other ideas in the room helps you refine, I think, what you want even more or takes you down a path that I wasn't expecting.
20:36
Ellie Alexander: Like, oh, SkyGun has murder.
20:39
Ellie Alexander: Okay.
20:40
Tech Guy: Yeah.
20:40
Tech Guy: No, I'm excited because we have a road trip coming up here in a couple weeks.
20:44
Tech Guy: And and I'm looking forward to maybe brainstorming a new series.
20:49
Tech Guy: Um we will be.
20:50
Tech Guy: Although you you already have uh I it's gotta be over half a dozen like series uh ideas sketched out based on past road trips that we've done together that you just have not had the time to write yet.
21:04
Tech Guy: So I know there is that.
21:05
Tech Guy: Um so we're just gonna be adding to that pile.
21:08
Tech Guy: No, it's the other one.
21:09
Tech Guy: It's like what is there a pile like for for readers for the the darlings out there who are readers, it's the TBR, right?
21:16
Tech Guy: The the to be read uh pile.
21:18
Tech Guy: But for writers, what is it?
21:20
Tech Guy: To be the TBW to be written?
21:24
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, we need to start that.
21:25
Ellie Alexander: I have so many things in my TBW, it's not even funny.
21:30
Tech Guy: Yeah, you do.
21:31
Tech Guy: I know, and there's some good ones in there too.
21:33
Tech Guy: Um there's some really good ones in there.
21:36
Tech Guy: I I I mean, uh I'm kind of biased, obviously, but I think so.
21:41
Ellie Alexander: No, and we've brainstormed, like you said, we've brainstormed multiple new series and ideas that are just sitting in notebooks because I haven't had time.
21:49
Ellie Alexander: So I should almost implement some kind of travel ban.
21:53
Ellie Alexander: I can't travel and plot anything new until I get some of these written.
22:00
Tech Guy: No, no, we can't.
22:01
Tech Guy: We we just maybe we'll just have to we'll have to talk about something else.
22:06
Tech Guy: I don't know.
22:06
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
22:07
Ellie Alexander: Boring.
22:09
Tech Guy: No, it's it's funny though, but you say that, but you know, early on in your writing career, we we drove everywhere.
22:17
Tech Guy: Like we four for book promotions for your book talks, for everything.
22:21
Tech Guy: We drove everywhere.
22:23
Tech Guy: And then when we moved to Ashland, which is in southern Oregon, uh, for those darlings out there who don't know, and our son was running cross-country and track, it took like nine hours to get to the next school to, you know, to watch a 15-minute race.
22:39
Tech Guy: So we had a lot of time to talk.
22:41
Tech Guy: And it's um it it it has just it's kind of become like, you know, that that I get excited every time when I know a road trip's coming up because that is like, I'm like, okay, I gotta bring my A game.
22:54
Tech Guy: I got some good ideas.
22:56
Tech Guy: I got some ideas that maybe might not be that good, but we'll we're gonna talk about them anyway.
23:01
Ellie Alexander: So um I got some people who've really pissed me off that are about to meet.
23:06
Ellie Alexander: Totally.
23:06
Tech Guy: No, my list of my list of victims is so long.
23:11
Tech Guy: Yeah.
23:12
Tech Guy: Yeah.
23:14
Ellie Alexander: A lot of material right now.
23:15
Ellie Alexander: A lot of material.
23:17
Tech Guy: Definitely, definitely.
23:19
Tech Guy: Um, okay, so book two in the novel detectives, to technically book eight of the the secret bookcase mysteries, just you know, but um, but with the spin-off.
23:30
Tech Guy: Um how many, but but you're are how far along are you in the novel?
23:36
Tech Guy: Are you uh yeah, in the novel detectives?
23:39
Ellie Alexander: I'm um I'm a little bit farther than that, let's just say.
23:43
Tech Guy: I know the answer, but I'm just trying to like you know build the suspense for the listeners.
23:50
Ellie Alexander: I just delivered book six of the novel detectives, and I can tell you there will be more after that.
23:57
Tech Guy: So Oh my goodness.
23:59
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
23:59
Tech Guy: Oh, book six.
24:01
Ellie Alexander: Book six.
24:02
Ellie Alexander: And it's again going back to Annie and Fletcher being private eyes, uh, there's each one has such a different case, too.
24:10
Ellie Alexander: So I've been super excited.
24:12
Ellie Alexander: And part of my tbw is um future cases because there are so many cool, interesting cases, you know, like missing persons.
24:21
Ellie Alexander: Well, I won't go into too many details because you'll know soon enough, darlings.
24:26
Ellie Alexander: But yeah, there's a lot more to come for the novel detec detectives.
24:29
Tech Guy: No, but you could uh you could you could talk about that a little bit in turn just in terms of like the typical cozy mystery is like almost, I mean, I know there is are subgenres within the cozy mystery genre, but typically there's a murder.
24:43
Ellie Alexander: Right.
24:43
Tech Guy: Sometimes more than one.
24:45
Tech Guy: But for the for the novel detectives, that doesn't necessarily have to be the case because of the nature of them actually being private investigators now and not just the casual sleuth like the amateur sleuth, right?
24:59
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
25:00
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
25:00
Ellie Alexander: And I mean, I had a lot of conversations with my editor about this because there is something to be said for, and darlings, I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
25:09
Ellie Alexander: That idea that if if you are a mystery lover, you might feel a little cheated if there's not a body, but the bodies have all been slightly different so far.
25:19
Ellie Alexander: And there have been some that, you know, maybe it's more like a cold case.
25:22
Ellie Alexander: So it's not like happening right in this moment where Annie's stumbling on the potty, but she's trying to piece together a murder that's a little cold.
25:32
Ellie Alexander: Uh it's been chilled for a while, that kind of stuff.
25:34
Ellie Alexander: So yeah.
25:35
Tech Guy: That's awesome.
25:36
Tech Guy: So you're saying that if Annie and Fletcher were trying to find like a lost prize dog, that there may be a murder involved, even though the the initial investigation is just about a dog.
25:48
Ellie Alexander: That's right.
25:49
Ellie Alexander: Although, you know, um, as an aside, I always talk about that they are doing that kind of work too, but we don't do a deep dive in it.
25:55
Ellie Alexander: That's just sort of in the peripheral.
25:57
Ellie Alexander: We know that they're also, you know, finding lost cats around Redwood Grove or whatever else it is.
26:02
Tech Guy: Gotta pay the bills, gotta pay the bills.
26:08
Ellie Alexander: We need to know.
26:08
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
26:10
Tech Guy: Oh, that's great.
26:11
Ellie Alexander: Um this one has a body.
26:14
Tech Guy: Okay.
26:14
Tech Guy: This one has a body.
26:15
Tech Guy: So darlings know this one, this one definitely has a body.
26:19
Tech Guy: All right.
26:19
Tech Guy: So when is it coming out again?
26:22
Ellie Alexander: The ebook is out April 21st, and it's coming out in paperback at your local bookstore on April 28th.
26:30
Tech Guy: All right.
26:31
Tech Guy: And your local library.
26:33
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, exactly.
26:35
Tech Guy: Although it might not be in the library exactly on April 28th, but it will be available after this, soon after that.
26:41
Tech Guy: Um awesome.
26:42
Tech Guy: Uh any last words about A Death in the Dark.
26:47
Ellie Alexander: Ooh, uh no, I'm excited.
26:50
Ellie Alexander: Uh, I'll be curious for you, darlings, to tell me after you've read it why you think I titled it a death in the dark.
27:00
Tech Guy: Oh, yeah.
27:00
Tech Guy: We didn't get into that.
27:02
Tech Guy: I purposely didn't ask that question because this is no spoiler episode again.
27:06
Tech Guy: So maybe if maybe after it's been out a few weeks, we can have a review of where we're at in the novel detectives.
27:12
Tech Guy: But for now, this is all you're getting.
27:15
Ellie Alexander: It's all you get.
27:16
Tech Guy: April 21st for ebook, April 28th for paperback.
27:22
Ellie Alexander: That's right.
27:23
Tech Guy: A Death in the Dark Novel Detectives book two.
27:26
Tech Guy: Awesome.
27:27
Tech Guy: Can't wait to read it.
27:29
Tech Guy: So without further ado, until next time.
27:34
Ellie Alexander: Until next time.