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Mystery & Suspense with Connie Berry · WriterCon

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This week on the writer Con podcast. Don't be eager to push your work
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out there too soon. Welcome to writer KHN, a gathering place for writers
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to share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Your hosts are William
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Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of The Red Sneaker books on writing,
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and Laura Bernhardt, award winning author the Wantln Files book series. Thank you,
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Jesse Ulrich, and Hey they're writers. Thanks for joining us. As
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this episode is released. It is arguably the most important day of the year,
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Father's Day. Maybe I'm prejudiced because or maybe it should tie with Mother's
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Day. Oh that's so yesterday, But since I am a daddy to several,
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I think it's the best day. And I just have to point out
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if that weren't enough for you, this is also the day that Tony Awards
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are going to air, so be sure in support Live Theater everyone. Laura,
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I assume you've picked all your major predictions. And Jesse, as if
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this weren't enough, today is also I looked this up, Piccard Day.
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It's Pecard Day. How will you be celebrating Picard Day this year? I
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feel like how I always do, which is I make a very large sign
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for Picard Day and then uh, I take a picture of it, I
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put it on Twitter and I tag Patrick Stewart and then I don't get a
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response. So you know what would be even better? Yeah, you should
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shave your head tribute to Captain because I should. I mean, it's not
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that bad. You get used to it after a while. And here's the
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thing, I get his attention. That's true, I do. My head
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is not perfectly round, so I'd be very curious to Yeah, like,
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this feels like there's a bump here. I guess everyone't have this bump.
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But anyway, yeah, you know what, like maybe one day I'll just
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be like, you know what, I'm tired of this, taking care of
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this, go for it. Well yeah, actually staying bald is a out
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as much trouble, but yeah, it's a thought. I mean, you
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got to do something to really grab Patrick Stewart's I would do it. So,
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Laura, as I said before, who are you rooting for for the
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Tonys, Well, the one that I care about most is Gittinberg because we've
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seen it and it's up for an award, and I still have my little
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satan that you got for me. When we were there. I love Satan
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my sweet look, do you remember? Yes, that was so sweet?
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If you know, you know, I think I would like to see that.
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I mean, I don't know which you've now seen with two casts?
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Yes, Oh my gosh, well I really really liked my blanking. Oh
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my gosh, no the other one. No, not that one. Apparently
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I'm banking. I keep just saying it. No, Oh my gosh,
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You're gonna have to cut this so much. Why can I think of her?
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Soton Foster? I thought Sutton Foster did the best Missus Lovetts that I've
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ever seen. I thought she was amazing, and I love Sutton Foster,
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so I really liked her. I thought it was more nuanced and I saw
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more motivation behind it, and it was a good performance. I really enjoyed
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her. Cool. All right, everyone, Our interview today is with Connie
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Berry, author of a new novel called a Collection of Lies, which is
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her fifth Kate Hamilton Mysteries, and we're going to talk to her about this
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book and the series and so much more. But first the news. I
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think I joked on the last podcast about how AI and Amazon kept coming up
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in our news stories, and sure, enough last week we had one of
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each. Well, this time we have one that combines both, because it's
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basically about Amazon's apparently very successful AI audio book program. We reported at the
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time as about a year ago, that Amazon announced that they were inviting self
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published authors who were putting their books making them available in the Kindle Store to
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beta test a new tool, which turned out to be using artificial intelligence generated
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what they called a virtual voice read audio books. Well, since that tool
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was launched a few months ago, people have really embraced it. There are
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over forty thousand books on audible now marked is having been created with AI with
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this virtual voice program, and nobody appears to be shaming them all that much.
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The books are selling, There are posts online saying they're good. There
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are authors who are very glad that they saved hundreds or thousands of dollars on
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you having to pay for narration. On the other hand, there are people
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who say, well, this is going to make it pretty tough for actual
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human narrators who might lose work. Right, Jesse, I may have asked
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you this before because we've talked about AI and audiobooks before, and I think
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you listened to audiobooks would you listen to an AI narrated audiobook? The thing,
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I don't want to judge something before I've actually listened to one, so
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I don't want to say no, I'll never listen to an AI generated audiobook.
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I'm just saying as an audiobook editor, I don't see how these are
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good. I just I don't see where AI is not good at, like
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reading emotion, at dramatic pauses, at names of places that aren't in America.
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So I just I worry about as an audiobook editor, this doesn't affect
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me that much. Someone still has to edit it, so I would still
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get paid theorectly that's how it is now. But surely eventually the tech would
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get good enough that it really could stimulate a human. Yeah it's a human
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like Zora on Star Trek Discovery. Come on, yeah, that's true,
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that's a person. Yeah, but that's like that's like that's like eleven years
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from now. Uh, you know, I would I would say, like,
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I'm not against this, Like it sucks, it sucks, you know,
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people being out of work, but audiobook generation is truly expensive, and
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if this, if this helps authors make more money off audiobooks, I'm not
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against it, I just without having to listen to one. I just don't
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feel we're ready for this yet, for like a three hundred page AI narrated
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book. I just feel like there's gonna be lots of places where they're going
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to have to fix or tweak. And also like whose whose voices are these?
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Like I know they're saying they're generated, but those voices are usually still
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someone's actual voice that they've used, And so is that person getting paid probably
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already has been yeah, it would be my guess, yeah, or how
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do you feel about it? Would you be willing to do this? I'm
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going to come in behind that. We just this past week had Scarlett Johanson
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angry because her voice, or a very close fecsimile of was being used in
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a project that she did not approve of. She didn't want her voice being
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used. So kind of what Jesse was saying, whose voices are these?
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There's probably been some kind of scraping to create them, which we don't necessarily
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love. And I'm going to agree with Jesse that I haven't listened to one
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yet, and so it's difficult to judge completely what I would or wouldn't do
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without actually listening but I will say that I was tentatively looking into this as
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a possibility for something. I haven't done it yet, but I did look
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at it. I mean, it's catching my attention as far as putting someone
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out of work. Here's the thing. I think the people who are using
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this you mentioned this, You alluded to this, that they were sending invites
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to people who put their book out there but did not create an audiobook of
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it. There's a reason for that. Ye, so those people, I
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mean, we didn't lose anything. Of course, if things continue on and
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the tide completely turns, I understand that, and I would never want to
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put my delightful audiobook narrator out of work. I'll continue to go to her
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as often as I can, but on those projects that she says, I
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don't think I'm the right voice for this. I either have to go develop
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another relationship with someone that I trust and like, or I could maybe start
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looking into these and for smaller projects, like we've talked about. The money
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maybe just isn't there to support going another route. And in that case,
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I'm not taking work away from someone else. I wasn't going to go hire
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another narrator to begin with. When somebody. When somebody records their own is
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someone saying you're taking work away from another narrator? What about who has narrated
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some of his own audio books. I got literally hate bomb when I started
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it by people who said exactly that you're taking work away from narrators. And
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I said, well, one, some people like to hear the author read
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their own work, even if they aren't the best, most professional narrator out
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there. And two, it is my book, your choice, right,
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Well, same thing. Okay, I've never heard someone argue let's say someone
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makes their own cover, which I would never do nor recommend. But let's
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say someone did it, does someone clap at them saying, well, you've
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taken work away from an actual graphic artist. I just think we have to.
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I don't know AI right now is a hot topic, and I get
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it, but I think that this has a lot of aspects to it.
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But oh my gosh, people can get very worked up on this over this,
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very very quickly. Yes, we had a very passionate I've read through
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a very passionate and inflamed discussion on a Facebook post that was intended to offer
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knowledge and new information to people so that they knew that this was there and
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happening, and it was completely I think, first of all, taken in
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the wrong way. Putting something out there and saying, let's look at this,
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let's talk about it, is not the same as saying I'm supporting this
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and suggesting everyone do it, and then to have someone come back and just
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be repeatedly argumentative and negative, almost to the point of hostility, calling someone
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out and over and over it. It was too much. But that's social
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media. I mean, that's social media for you. Okay, let's move
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to something that is much more in my wheel have which of course would be
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murder, but a literary murderer, of course, stemming from the three body
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problem of books and television series. So I'm calling this one the dead body
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problem. Nice. Thanks. This is a real life mystery that comes from
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the three body problem. But it was happening long before production even got way
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on the show that some of you may have seen on Netflix. For that
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matter, some of you, like Jesse, read all three books in the
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trilogy, which kind of has four books. But anyway, I'm only halfway
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there or two thirds of the way, depending upon whether you count the fourth
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book. But more importantly, the murder story. So on March twenty second,
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the day after this adaptation premiered Zoo Yao. And let me just say
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in advance, I apologize if I do, and I probably will miss pronounce
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the Asian names. But anyway, he's a lawyer and former gaming company executive
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was sentenced to death in China for the murder of his thirty nine year old
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boss who's named Lynn Ki, who is a billionaire, like I said,
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one of the richest guys in China, and he was poisoned. How did
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this happen? Well, the billionaire's company had started buying up all the rights
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to these books. We just mentioned what's called the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy,
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which starts with the three Bodied problem. This guy spent we've estimated,
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they've estimated about one hundred and fifty million dollars trying to secure every possible copyright
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and license so that he could anything related to the books, so that he
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could squarely have the rights and tried to sell them. And he died a
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month later from the poisoning. Shanghai police received a call from the hospital at
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five pm on December seventeen, twenty twenty, reporting that he'd been poisoned,
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probably through the tea It's called pooh Air tea he was known to drink.
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And three days later they detain Zu Yao in accordance with law and so forth.
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How did they come to be connected? Lynn, the billionaire had hired
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zu who was a lawyer, to help out with this three body problem universe.
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And although we still don't have as many details as we'd like, there
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was a lot. Even though there was a lot of media attention. I
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mean, this was one of the nation's richest guies being murdered, but a
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magazine called Caxin reported that Zoo was upset after being demoted. And get this,
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because he was a huge fan of the American television show Breaking Bad.
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He built an entire lab to test various poisons that he purchased on the dark
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web, and he eventually used one to take out his boss, Jesse.
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This is one of our weirder stories. I'm glad that at least this time
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it's not the author being the weirdest. I was gonna say, like,
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is he writing a book about how to kill your boss? Well, as
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I mentioned, you've read the books, so did you foresee this development coming
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along? No, this story isn't This story is insane, Like the amount
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of work this guy put into poisoning somebody, Like, well, what okay,
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separate from the death part, appreciate the dedication to a craft, all
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right, like right, right? Aside from that, like what like the
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who poisoned somebody today? Right, That's what I feel. I feel poisoning
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is very like old school of breaking bad apparently, is there? Yeah,
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I mean I guess yeah, I mean yeah, like the show too.
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But I never thought about building my own lab. Yeah yeah, there's a
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lot of it, a poison lab. Yeah. Yeah, how do you
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how do you report that on your on your taxes? Right? Writing a
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book? Yeah? Right, yeah, researching poisons for a book? You
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know this this story? Like Michelle told me about the story, and I
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was and she was, as she would give me all the details. I
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was like, what why, I'm confused, Like it's just it's just like
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someone who's just clearly unstable, but like unstable enough that they could dedicate an
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immense amount of brain power to figuring out the right way to poison somebody.
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Right, it's well of those those types of crazy. Yeah, it's the
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story is crazy. It's it's it's it's crazy. It's weird that's attached to
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a book that isn't about murder. Well, I guess not about not in
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the main not in the main. Yeah, characters aren't murdering other characters in
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this the story. There are civilizations murdering other civilizations. But yeah, it's
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just like I don't It's one of those things you're like, I don't understand
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why how some people's brains work. Yeah, now, Laura, you drink
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tea regularly every day? Oh oh well, should I be concerned? Now?
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Let me just go ahead and get out. There a poison lab in
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our home. But I am not a billionaire, so I don't really gets
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very cluttered. But anyway, go ahead. I'm not a billionaire. I
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don't I don't think that there's any real rationale for poisoning me. I guess
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maybe this was more of a revenge plot than anything. Hopefully I haven't infuriated
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anyone to that point. Has Bill taken out like a million dollar life insurance
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pency for you recently or anything? Well? Bill, have you? Yeah,
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that's a question. Then you're saying, now that you know, I'm
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just kidding. All right, enough of this nonsense. Jesse, cue up
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some music. Let's talk to Connie Berry. Hannie Berry, thank you so
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much for being on the podcast. Well, thank you, Bill and Lara,
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it's delightful to be here. Well, we have a traditional first question
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on this podcast, so here it is if you could offer writers one piece
18:21
of advice, what would it be. That is an easy question because I
18:26
actually have offered this advice on more than one occasion, and it is take
18:33
the time to learn your craft. I have seen I do a lot of
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reading of published HANDI scripts, and I do things like Fantasy Agent Project.
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And what I see a lot for new writers is so many mistakes that are
18:52
so easily fixed, and the reason they make them is they don't know that
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their mistakes. And so I would just say, don't be eager to push
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your work out there too soon. Take the time to take classes. There
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are many wonderful books. How to Murder your Manuscript is one of my favorites.
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It just is very basic. But take that time because it's going to
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pay off. I had. I have a master's degree in English. I've
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studied the English not too I've read, Yeah, I've I've read tons of
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books, and I thought Okay, I can do this. I know how
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to do this. I didn't. I didn't know how to do it.
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I didn't know what I didn't know, and it my path to publication was
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longer than it needed to be because I knew enough to know that it wasn't
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ready. I just didn't know why. I still well, I you know,
19:55
people kept saying, just just put it out there, just queery,
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and I kept saying, no, no, it's not ready. So I
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just said, just just tell me what I'm doing wrong and I'll change it.
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And then I realized it wasn't anyone else's responsibility to tell me what was
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wrong. I had to do my due diligence and learn, and once I
20:15
did, then then I was able to see it. So I that would
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be my number one top piece of advice for new writers. Well that's a
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good one. That's of course piece of advice. And I'll say we have
20:29
this in common. When I finished my first manuscript, I had the exact
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same reaction. It isn't right, it isn't ready. Something's not something isn't
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right yet, and I didn't know what to do. So, like you,
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I had to go out and learn the craft. Oh interesting, yeah.
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Well, of course that's why we host writer Con, and it's related
20:48
to programs and the retreat. Yeah, purpose of getting not just information about
20:52
craft, although I think that is most important, but also publishing and marketing
20:57
and all the things you need to have a grip on in today's constantly changing
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publishing world. Right. Oh, there's so much to know, there's so
21:06
much to learn, and the learning curve is very steep, and I'm actually
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surprised that that many, so many manuscripts are out there because there's so many
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writers who get discouraged and don't follow through because they're not willing to persevere,
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right right, Well, that is the most important thing, isn't it.
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Perseverance. Talent and good to have, not that uncommon, but perseverance that
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is uncommon. And I'm with you. I think it's the main thing.
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And you clearly have mastered all of this. So tell us about your new
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book, A Collection of Lies. A Collection of Lies is the fifth book
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in the Kate Hamilton mystery series, and my protagonist is an American antiques stealer,
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not unlike the life that I grew up in, and she is a
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middle mid forties widow. She but she's in the UK now, so I
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wanted the whole series to be in the UK. But I have my American
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protagonist who is slowly learning the ways of the UK and she is beginning to
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change her language. But she works with very interesting man called Ivor Tweety and
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his antiquities business called the Cabinet of Curiosities, and that gets her into all
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kinds of issues with crimes. The police often now use her as an expert
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because of her expertise in antiques, antiquities and appraisals. And she is now
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in this book this is I guess this is a spoiler because it's coming out
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very soon. But she is now married to her detective inspector husband, who
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is now Detective Chief Inspector Tom Mallory, and he probably shared with her a
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little more than he should, so we'll see if that gets them into trouble.
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Yeah. Just to make it clear for listeners who may be listening to
23:07
this the second it's released on June sixteenth, your book comes on in two
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days, So if you're listening to this on June eighteenth or available or later,
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it's out now, right. Yeah, Well, actually it comes out
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on the eighteenth of June yep, exactly. Yes, I was intrigued to
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see that your main character, Kate is an antiques dealer. You were talking
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about that. What prompted you what you just said? It was kind of
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based on your own history. Can you talk to that a little bit more?
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And there? Yeah, and how you so you're pulling from real life
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experiences to yes, I actor, I am. And you know, they
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tell people write what you know. I don't really agree with that always.
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Obviously, crime writers don't have to be criminals. You know, a lot
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of times we'd write about things that just fascinate us. So I don't think
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you have to write what you know. But in my case, I actually
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do know the antiques trade because that's how I grew up. My parents were
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well, my dad was an engineer, but he also was an antique stealer,
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and they had a shop, and I worked in the shop, and
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I went to the auctions, and I you know, every vacation we ever
24:26
took was a thinly disguised buying trip. So we spent a little time in
24:30
antique shops. And so that's the world that I grew up in. And
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I heard a lot of stories about interesting things because the antiques dealer group is
24:41
a very gossipy group, and there's always a lot of tittle tattle going on
24:45
behind the scenes. But really deeper than that, I am really interested in
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history and the past and the effect the impact of the past upon the present,
25:00
and so I think that the antiques trade is a really good way to
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be used almost as a metaphor, because antiques are a little bit like time
25:11
travelers. You know, they are objects of the past that have survived into
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the present, and they all have a story. My mom was wonderful at
25:22
finding out all kinds of information about objects, and she would say, for
25:26
example, well, you know, I can tell my customers what this object
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is, who owned it, why they owned it, when they got it,
25:36
when they sold it, because then they're not just buying an object,
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they're buying a piece of history. And so it's really the historical angle that
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fascinates me. Looking back into the past and finding out what why people do
25:52
what they do today based on what happened in their life and in the lives
25:55
of their family members in the past. That is fascinating. And you mentioned
26:00
that she's now married to the detective inspector. Is that is that something you
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did for the purpose of the plot. Is there more tooth than that?
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Kind of what was the angle there? I like I like the idea that
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she well, she she's an amateur. She doesn't have she she can't she
26:27
can't question people, she can't arrest people or charge people, or she has
26:33
no authority, and yet she oftentimes when crimes are in evolved, there's policing
26:40
going on in the background. So this gives her a little in there to
26:45
find out kind of more than the ordinary person would find out about what's going
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on. Nice and this is your fifth Kate Hamilton mystery, right, yes,
26:56
which is a pretty good run. How much longer do you think this
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peekstealer can go on as solving murder mysteries? What are you talking about?
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As far as I'm concerned, she can go on for a long time,
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as far as I'm concerned, because she is now she in the current book,
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she and her she would love for her husband to actually retire from policing
27:21
because of the danger. And he has an opportunity to go with a private
27:26
investigations firm based in Toronto, and so on their honeymoon, she talks him
27:30
into taking a little commission just to see how it is and their Honeymoony and
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Devon, and they are asked to authenticate a Victorian dress supposedly owned by a
27:44
lace maker that is totally covered in blood. The lace maker was suspected of
27:51
having committed a murder, been involved in some kind of a crime, but
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she would never speak of it. She never did till the day she died,
27:57
and nobody was ever found, either human or animals. So they had
28:02
to drop the case. But this dress is going to be the centerpiece of
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a new exhibit called Famous Crimes in Devon's History. So as they get into
28:11
the authentication of this dress together, some other things happen. Well, isn't
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that always the way? I mean, it is never, never easy,
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Otherwise there would be no book, there's no story. Ther materials call you
28:30
a dedicated Anglophile, which I'm going to guess is why this series is said
28:33
in England. I am, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I
28:41
had Scottish grandparents, so I also grew up who emigrated as adults, and
28:48
they really brought Scotland with them. They really never left, they just relocated,
28:55
but they brought the country with them, and so I got a chance
29:00
to kind of experience what it would be like to live in Scotland. And
29:03
for them, everything British was good, Everything Scottish was best. And so
29:10
I had that as a background. But then during college I went to school
29:14
at Saint Clair's College, Oxford for a while, and that's where I really
29:18
fell in love with the British Isles. And we travel there a lot.
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So we are headed there in October. Again. I'm very excited about that,
29:27
but I just you know, and then I majored in English literature and
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loved English history, and yeah, that's just what I love. So if
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you're going to write a book, you're going to spend a long time in
29:42
that setting with those people. And I got really good advice when I did
29:48
my master's thesis. My advisor said, She's something that you really love because
29:52
of that, because you're going to spend a lot of time there, and
29:55
so writing a book series, I thought, that's where I want to spend
29:59
time. Virtually in my mind, I totally get that. I did a
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summer at Queen's College at Oxford. Oh did you many years ago? Yeah,
30:10
many years ago exactly experience. Yeah. I also read that your original
30:15
plan was to become an archaeologist. True, yes, yes, archaeologist right,
30:19
yes, Well, I did my fifth grade career project on being an
30:26
archaeologist. And my dad, who the antiques dealer, he was fascinated with
30:32
Egyptology, you know, is coming out of the discovery of you know,
30:37
Tuton Common's tomb. And then we went to see the exhibit when it was
30:42
in New York City and he always wanted to do that and told me the
30:47
story, and he was a wonderful storyteller. And when he told me the
30:52
story of Howard Carter looking in and Lord Carnarvin says, what can you see?
31:00
And he says, wonderful things? And my father was fascinated with it,
31:04
and it just lit a fire within me, and I thought, how
31:08
wonderful it would be to do that. But then I realized that most of
31:12
the work is happens in hot climates and you're digging through and sifting through sand
31:21
and dirt, and I thought it's not all glamor, so I switched,
31:26
Yeah, very cool. Well, we've seen a lot of those antiquities.
31:33
We went a year and a half ago, and yeah, we were there
31:38
a while back. Amazing, amazing that they yeah, that those things have
31:47
survived, and again that just that's what fires my imagination, things that survive
31:53
from a lost era, and and you can almost you can touch that era
32:01
a little bit through those objects. I actually teared up when we were walking
32:07
into what was it Ramsey's Too. It's just incredible to me. You get
32:13
past a certain point and it's the original paint. I mean, it's the
32:19
way they left it all those thousands of years ago. I was just awestruck.
32:22
I teared up. It was just just amazing. Oh, I get
32:27
that. You kind of mentioned you talked about your past of publication a little
32:32
bit, said it was longer than it needed to be because you took your
32:37
time. What happened, Brice, You had that manuscript prepared and ready to
32:42
go, so you went back, you learned the craft, you rewrote it.
32:45
What happened, Well, it was twenty sixteen. I retired from teaching,
32:52
and I decided now or ever, so I thought I would go full
32:55
time on this. And I had been learning things, and I had also
32:59
been given some advice by published authors that were friends of mine and that I
33:04
respected. But I was very reluctant to change my manuscript. But I decided
33:08
okay, I'm going to and I changed that thing in every way you could
33:15
possibly imagine. I went from multiple points of view to single point of view
33:20
narrator. I took out characters, I had to add some in. I
33:24
took out whole storylines added I mean, I just thought, I'm going to
33:30
start and I will see where it goes. And the minute that I went
33:35
to the first person narrator, one of the things people had said to me
33:38
was we can't really hear Kate's voice, and I was trying to think,
33:44
well, how do I do that? I mean, it is her voice,
33:45
I've got her dialogue there. But as soon as I went to the
33:49
first person, she actually came alive for me. Nice and so I did
33:54
this massive revision. I finished around Christmas time in two thousand. I may
34:01
be getting my time mixed up. But around twenty eighteen, possibly in February
34:07
of that next year, I went to a conference in Florida called Sleuthfest,
34:12
and I had a chance to pitch to one of the editors at Crooked Lane
34:20
Books that was kind of on my radar, and we had a chance to
34:25
meet, and she said, because I had actually given her the first chapter
34:30
of my second books, i'd started into the second book, and she said,
34:37
oh, I love this. She said, I love your character,
34:40
I love the setting. And I honestly I think I was speechless. I
34:45
think my mouth dropped open. I just like, am I dreaming? Is
34:51
it? You know? And she says, feeling? But this isn't the
34:54
first book, right, And I said no. She said, well,
34:58
you didn't self publish the first one, did you? And I said now,
35:01
She said you didn't publish with someone else, did you? I said
35:05
no. She said, okay, send me the whole first book. And
35:08
I went right up to my hotel room and send it to her. And
35:10
then I'm thinking, well, you know, she's going to come back and
35:15
say, well, thank you so much. This is lovely, but it's
35:17
really not quite for us. But she didn't. She didn't. She just
35:22
said, but you know, we love it. My whole team loves it,
35:24
and we'd like to offer you a two book contract. And I was
35:29
in shock, complete shock. But that's and so so they both came out.
35:35
Actually, books one and two both came out in twenty nineteen, which
35:37
I wouldn't recommend how to work no, because I wish I had lobbied for
35:47
twenty nineteen in twenty twenty, I didn't have a book come out in twenty
35:52
twenty, so a debut novel always gets more attention. So I think my
36:00
second book got overshadowed. And then when you're up for awards and so forth,
36:05
which I was up for an award with my first book, a couple
36:07
of them, I was competing against myself. So I just thought, you
36:13
know, if I could go back, I would do it differently. But
36:15
actually, I'm just delighted that both books are out. Yeah. Well,
36:22
and now your fifth book is about to release as well, so that's fantastic.
36:27
Here you are five books in to rip. Yeah yeah. What does
36:30
your typical writing day look like for you? Can you talk about your process
36:34
for us a little bit? Yeah? Well, I could lie and tell
36:37
you I was really disciplined and then I get up every day and have breakfast
36:42
and write until one o'clock, but that would not be true. I am
36:46
very undisciplined, and I write when I feel like it, and oftentimes when
36:54
I do write, I write for longer periods of time. Someday I would
37:02
love to be really disciplined, and maybe I will get there. I don't
37:06
know, but I do better under pressure. When I have a deadline,
37:12
when I have a lot going on, I get more done than when I
37:15
don't. So I'm not a role model. Well except for the fact that
37:22
you published five books. Yes, and honestly, I appreciate I appreciate your
37:27
honesty because every person is different, and I think that it's important that our
37:31
listeners here that there is more than one way. I've had people approach me
37:37
who think there's only one way and say, well, I can't be a
37:39
writer because I don't want to get up at five am, I won't work.
37:44
Well, then I can't. And so when someone has told them that's
37:49
the only way to do it, You've got to get up at five am,
37:51
You've got to spend six hours writing, you have to visit, you
37:53
have to that. I think it's very important for people to hear that the
37:59
best way is the way that works for you, and you've found the way
38:01
that works for you, and I think that's fantastic. Yeah, well I
38:07
agree with that. Hey, one last question, Connie, if I may,
38:12
what's going to happen next? What are you working on? I am
38:15
working on another K book, so we'll see how that goes. And I
38:21
am also working on a historical and to finish two books this year. I
38:31
probably won't achieve that, but that's my goal, but at least you set
38:37
the goal, right. Yeah, it's something outside of the series. This
38:42
would be totally outside of the series and not a mystery or yes, mystery,
38:46
it is a mystery. I don't want to say too much about it,
38:51
but when I get to a certain point, my agent will start to
38:54
pitch it. Well, maybe we can have you back exit. Yeah,
38:59
Connie, thanks for being on the podcast. Thank you so much. It's
39:01
been fun. Just a few parting words. We are just a few weeks
39:21
away as we record an issue. This from the writer Con retreat. Last
39:30
year, we did this retreat at Branson. That was fun, Laura,
39:34
remember that retreat absolutely. Now we're getting way more upscale at the luxurious Cane
39:42
Break resort. But what were your favorite parts last year? Do you have
39:45
any you know, favorite stories or from Branson? Well? I did really
39:53
like that ice cream place that we went that had chocolate rocks for me to
39:58
put on it. But you probably mean the You probably mean the retreat.
40:01
I had a great group. I had a great group at the retreat last
40:06
year. So when we broke into our small groups. We had a very
40:09
supportive group, really really excited to work on those novels. I can think
40:17
of two who've gone on to see their work published since then someone else who
40:29
won an award with what she was working on at the retreat, and then
40:32
someone else just announced that she has signed a publishing contract. So that is
40:38
not bad. At least half of my group right there. So one one
40:44
retreat with us and look at them go. So that's I think pretty telling
40:50
about what you can expect here. That one on one attention to your manuscript,
40:55
feedback from all the people in your small group, daily instruction, the
41:01
chance to talk to people who've probably been through whatever you're dealing with, and
41:07
can answer, probably between the two of us, just about any question that
41:12
you might have. This is a really intensive, but wonderful experience, and
41:21
I'm very excited. As much as I enjoyed that ice cream and Branson and
41:24
all the stuff there was to do, I'm really excited that we're going someplace
41:29
this year where I feel like we won't have as many distractions. You may
41:34
have to come drag me out of the spa a time or two. I'm
41:37
hoping that there's gonna be daily massage, but there's spas for relaxing. Hey,
41:43
I've had ideas for my novels in the middle of spas in massages before,
41:49
because you just get so relaxed in your mind and kind of let go
41:52
of things. Absolutely. I've seen pictures. There's a pool, there's hiking.
41:57
I hope there's a hot tub. We haven't been there yet, but
42:00
I'm hoping that there's going to be a hot tub. I'm really looking forward
42:04
to just taking a deep breath and the writing stuff. Yeah, yeah,
42:10
of course. I'm excited to see who I get to work with this year,
42:14
and it'll be interesting to see who might get the next publishing deal after
42:17
a retreat. So if you'd like more information about that, please go visit
42:22
the writer Con website writer con dot com and then click on the tab that
42:27
says retreat. Let me also remind you that my new novel can now be
42:32
ordered. It's the eighth in the Daniel Pike series, called Justice for All.
42:37
This is the cage match between Daniel and the lead series character from my
42:43
splits Field books. So they've got this courtroom cage match as part of the
42:49
Bernhardt Shared Universe. We're all the fun mingle all that's super fun. You
42:53
won't You will not see the twist coming at you. It's a lot of
42:58
fun. Thanks, honey, You see why we get along so well.
43:01
All right, until next time, keep writing and remember you cannot fail if
43:08
you refuse to quit. See you next time.