[SPEAKER_01]: and welcome to our show.
[SPEAKER_01]: The shit no one tells you about writing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm best selling author Bianca Marie, and I'm joined by CC Lira of Wendy Sherman Associates and Carly Waters of PS Literary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is one of your author interviews with Carly today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Griffin Bianca some time off and I have so many wonderful authors to have on the show lately because there's so many authors with books coming out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And today I have my client Laura Stokes on the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have so much to talk about.
[SPEAKER_00]: everything from the story of how we started working together, to how many projects we've worked on together, to her new novel, mid-summer nights.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to tell you a little bit about Laura and then I will let her tell you about the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Laura Stoke studied theater in creative writing at York University where she was the recipient of the BP Nickel Award and the Judith Eve Gerwitz Award.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her work is appeared in the day and fourth review and the Ottawa Arts Review among others, born and raised in Northern Ontario.
[SPEAKER_00]: She now lives in Quorthy Lakes, Ontario.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can check her out online at LaraStokesReader.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lara, welcome to the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: A big fan, so I'm very excited to be talking to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's so good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, we've been waiting for this moment to have you on the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have so much to talk about.
[SPEAKER_00]: We worked together for a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: But today we were talking about this book.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you guys are watching on YouTube and holding it up mid summer nights.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is your debut novel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why don't you tell everybody what it's about?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, mid summer nights is a very loose spin on and it's summer night stream.
[SPEAKER_02]: It follows a actress named Miranda who has sort of bombed out her whole life or career
[SPEAKER_02]: relationship and the only opportunity that really exists for her is a production of a mid-seminate stream in her hometown directed by her parents and starring her ex-boyfriend.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it sort of follows her journey through failure and falling back in love with her her craft as an actor, her hometown, her family, and a few scoundrels and love interests along the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And curses and all the things that are wrong so that everything can go right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, meddling fairies, it's lots of fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, oh, the vast, I'm so excited.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this one comes out at the end of the month, June 30th, we're so excited for everybody to read it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, so let's get into the interview portion of the conversations.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we started working together a number of years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this project was not the book that we started working together on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to run everybody through the beginnings of your writing career and how we came to be working together?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I studied creative writing at York University in Toronto, and I also was a full-time teacher for many years, and I sort of was always juggling the teaching and the writing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And around 2019, 2020, I was working on a memoir.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a hip replacement at 32 and
[SPEAKER_02]: memoir about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I pitched Carly and one other agent at a conference.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now this was summer 2020, a highlight for all of us.
[SPEAKER_02]: The peak, peak COVID.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know if you know this, but I tried to cancel or meeting.
[SPEAKER_02]: The book wasn't done.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, what am I doing?
[SPEAKER_02]: I was so
[SPEAKER_02]: totally petrified just to query.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, what's the most intense extreme version of this?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to pitch in person, even though it was not really in person, it was online because COVID.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I just need to get over the sphere.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm gonna do this as an exercise.
[SPEAKER_02]: I tried to cancel, they were like, please don't do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, just administratively, please don't do that to us.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I actually tried to bail and I met with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: You were wonderful.
[SPEAKER_02]: You liked the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: The other agent was wonderful.
[SPEAKER_02]: She liked the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: You both asked for pages.
[SPEAKER_02]: You asked for part.
[SPEAKER_02]: The other agent asked for full when it was done.
[SPEAKER_02]: done long story short.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, you and I kind of started the process.
[SPEAKER_02]: By the time I had a full draft, you had already offered and I was unable to send it to the other agent, which is good because she had joined her agency and you'd started a damn podcast together.
[SPEAKER_02]: because it's interesting and so yeah so high CCL of you and we were home to be together in some capacity here so yes so that's how we started working together and then we were pitching a sad medical memoir about isolation and mental health during COVID and that didn't sell oddly enough at that time but it was an experiment for me and do I have a book in me and can I get an agent
[SPEAKER_02]: I did and I did and then I worked on a novel because I was like okay I have a book of me but do I have a novel in me and I wrote a novel and we worked on that for a while and it got pretty close pretty darn close.
[SPEAKER_00]: The heart breaking close you're all thinking
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a rewrite and a drawer, the proverbial drawer of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that I was really
[SPEAKER_02]: pissed off and feeling like a failure.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was when I decided I should put my full-time job with benefits and attention while I was on submission for a book that was not selling.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't try this at home, kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I found myself without a job.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was trying to get it work as a substitute teacher and I just couldn't like get on any of these supply lists.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I found myself
[SPEAKER_02]: Anything suddenly and I said okay every day that I don't have work.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to get up and I'm going to write and have already started this book that I was really just writing for fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was really writing just I needed to do something to use myself something that was light something that was.
[SPEAKER_02]: little less intense and I just I wrote every day and I kind of banged out this this fun theater book and you know low and behold there she is low and behold the thing I wrote when I was relaxed and just in a free creative state is the thing that that's all and here we are
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the saga.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that's the wonderful story and yes, how full circle that you're on the show to talk about Fitting both me and CZ so that's a whole lot of things we can dive into about all the same so glad that you are on my list And as you guys who are listening can very clearly see that Lara is very funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: So with this medical memoir that clearly was very dark It was so full of voice and I just knew whatever you wrote
[SPEAKER_00]: was going to be great because you just have this voice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like this is the thing that we can't teach.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the thing where, you know, we can talk about structure all day long, we can work on pace, but you have the voice and I always knew you had the thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was never given up on you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things I think you had to balance, as you were kind of coming to terms with the type of book you wanted to write and the type of author you wanted to be was this idea of like the author, you know, the author, the like, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: how serious do I want to be?
[SPEAKER_00]: When you had this very funny voice, but I know that you wanted to be in some ways and not to say, you know, or diminish any type of genre, but I think you have this idea of yourself maybe as like a capital L literary writer or aspirations of the seriousness that you wanted to write with, but having this funny voice and, you know, you do balance.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a theme with a lot of my clients' books, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But like balancing tough things and hard things with heart and humor, and you ended up selling the book that was the most commercial book I believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I would argue that you have written, and you talked about it a bit more fun and relaxed.
[SPEAKER_00]: You talk about how you kind of came to terms with like the type of author that you wanted to be and how that kind of settled in you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, my dad is poet.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a really, really brilliant poet, Dennis Stokes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he was my writer's craft teacher in high school.
[SPEAKER_02]: white.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I grew up with this incredible literary writer and I've been immersed and exposed to that world, my whole life.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm in a family of readers and like we approach it for each other for sport.
[SPEAKER_02]: Commercial fiction was not something that was the ground.
[SPEAKER_02]: my home much.
[SPEAKER_02]: I worked in a library in the university and even before that, I kind of live in a very small town the library was tiny so I kind of read everything so I would read all the literary stuff but I was also reading like sweet poly hi and you know the babysitter's club and anything and I was reading it over and over and over again so I was always reading in a lot of different genres.
[SPEAKER_02]: I studied creative writing at university and that's a very literary world.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's kind of all that anyone's doing and it's sort of all that's respected.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I was also studying playwriting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a double major and so in the playwriting space is where I was really developing my voice and where the humor and there was just like a lot more energy and so I was and I've kind of always been really grounded
[SPEAKER_02]: training sounds like such a perfect tentious word, but that's how I was learning, but then applying it into this very voicy, very loose, very free other medium of theater.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's like where they've merged, where like my seams and my dialogue have a very different tone or different energy to, you know, more narrative prose because that's been another totally separate medium I've been working in.
[SPEAKER_02]: and that taught me a lot about voice because in theater, it's only the voice, it's only the dialogue, even the stage directions are up to, you know, interpretations.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've got pretty good at letting the words my character say be all.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, and you and I have had a lot of conversation about literary versus at market versus commercial.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, I kind of, this is,
[SPEAKER_02]: And since something that's like, I'm not ashamed of, but it feels tricky to say, which is that I kind of consciously was like, I kept hearing, we don't know what laying you're in.
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't know if this is literary, if this is commercial.
[SPEAKER_02]: My first novel really does ride the line.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, I just want to write something that's, I want to try writing something that's going to sell.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's going to be my version of a commercial book.
[SPEAKER_02]: My version of a romantic comedy, I've learned in the process that I'm not like a capital R romance author, writing sex scenes is like a gift, like I bow to people who can do that, or again,
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how I edit them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, where is the right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is the two right hands?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yeah, yeah, it's not, it's not where I try it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I mean learning learning how to kind of ride those lines and find my own flow in it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, but I didn't write this thinking about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just kind of was like, use that as a starting off point.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, okay, I'm going to, what is my version of a romantic comedy?
[SPEAKER_02]: And it wasn't even Shakespeare initially.
[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't, it wasn't specifically like I'm going to write a Shakespeare book, but it kind of just turned into that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I kind of had the further and I got, the more I was like, once I had landed on a mid-seminate stream, it was like all these tropes, all these facets of our contemporary romantic comedy are all like they're all
[SPEAKER_02]: They're all here, they're all, I don't want to say Shakespeare invented the rom-com because we all know it was nor affront, but like it gave me so much, so much to work with, which was really fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, there's a few things I wanted to put on there.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of them about not knowing where your lane is, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of writers here that there's like, you don't know how to put you and nobody wants me put in a box, but, you know, I think specifically with you figuring out how much of a book has to be romance in order for it to be a rom-com, or, you know, if there's not enough romance, like, where does it lie, or does commercial fiction need a rom?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, all of these things kind of came into play as you figured out.
[SPEAKER_00]: the balance of, yeah, just like how much family drama versus, you know, how much of a love story and for every book, there's going to be different balance right there's a magic number or percentage of this part of the book has to do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that's what you were kind of working out through the book that died on side, which we still loved dearly, and we hope it finds another home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this book, right, where I think you really, you know, through the medium of Shakespeare, was able to kind of figure it exactly with that balance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so, can we talk a bit about why we think Shakespeare is still so relevant?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, obviously you touched on it as structure and all of these sorts of things, but I'm still always amazed by it, and we're always falling for these adaptations.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, she's the man, was just like an iconic movie of my youth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So why do you think Shakespeare is still so relevant?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the classic writers kind of nailed down every nuance of humanity, hundreds of years ago, and we're just riffing off of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think humans, you know, now we have.
[SPEAKER_02]: phone and social media, but there's always, there's always new iterations of it, but there's always been the same core things.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think Shakespeare thought about this a lot, and I was writing the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: Shakespeare plays had to be, they needed to be like literary and high
[SPEAKER_02]: for the queen to comment and dain to watch it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It had to be entertaining and nuanced enough to be appealing to the nobility.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it also had to have like,
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, some dirty jokes and and some like accessibility.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for the for the the peasants who were, you know, standing like right up against the stage.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it had to sort of speak to everybody and that really something I thought about a lot and it's something in mid summers.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's that there's those that hire a key within the theater within the structure of a play, but I was also like this is sort of fun because I am making something that is hopefully appealing to a lot of people that is really satisfying to lovers of contemporary romance, but that is also going to make
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, my literary father who is also a professor of creative writing is gonna make him laugh what you did.
[SPEAKER_02]: He read it in front of me, just sitting there in front of him?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, most of it, he read it very fast, and that was, that I don't, that's a nice thing to do to your loved ones.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't make them watch you either book, but I think I think Shakespeare appeals because it's
[SPEAKER_02]: still stories of love and fear and loss and grief and confusion are so relevant.
[SPEAKER_02]: But his plays are deliberately structured to appeal to the masses.
[SPEAKER_02]: The, um, you said she's the man, but my touchstone was, um, I don't know if you ever saw this one, it was called get over it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was, I was going to reference a different one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't, okay, I'm excited about you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I forgot to mention, I'm excited about you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, which is like a conics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: I get over it is like a like a 2000 to romcom about a school play of mid-Summer's.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Kirsten Dunn's please Helena, who is
[SPEAKER_02]: character, my main character plays, and I also played in a production of Mid-Summer and any stream, and it was just, you know, it was just like the coolest thing, and then, so yeah, maybe I've just ripped off, get over it, which I do with pride, but yeah, and still, I mean,
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it was incredible.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was gorgeous.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so relevant.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just these people, these humans on a journey.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we have Van Julia playing on on Broadway.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm still trying to and even Taylor Swift is playing Ophelia.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean,
[SPEAKER_02]: Shakespeare is still everywhere, or hooked.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know I couldn't have said it better myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Going back to tenings, I didn't know you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I was in Seattle at Jean, Pacific Northwest Raiders Conference, I actually went a couple days early so that I could drive around to all of the different sets that are for places that the movie was filmed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I went to the high school, anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I went to the house where the girls live at their dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: And anyway, so I was like a real real tenings
[SPEAKER_02]: I've never loved you more than hearing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Was it like something you researched or is that a veil?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that like a tour people can do?
[SPEAKER_02]: Or is that just you being a little bit apologizing?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I literally have to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I literally have to have a rental car and a map.
[SPEAKER_00]: My gosh, you're my favorite.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I drove all over.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure there are like TikToks about this now, but this probably would have been 10 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe more than 10 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's 10 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, yes, I did do everywhere that they filmed that movie and it is still the best and Julia Styles adapted one of my clients books and I Carly knows yeah so I've met Julia Styles and anyway she's the best we could if we could gush we could gush about it forever and she wants to do another
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm available.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another adaptation.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not going to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what is your favorite scene in the book?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we've kind of been talking about Shakespeare at large and you're reading it in the mirror at large.
[SPEAKER_00]: But let's talk about this book.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's so funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so good.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's like, I mean, it's kind of a love triangle, but also kind of like a love quiet, quadrangle line.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, pitched it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's fairies.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's all this family drama.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's also so just like community small towns, centric, and this like super Gilmore girls.
[SPEAKER_00]: Way, I don't know, like what's your favorite part?
[SPEAKER_02]: Without giving spoilers, my favorite part is the party scene at the cottage, okay?
[SPEAKER_02]: which is me really leaning heavily into the like fairy magic idea from its overnight stream.
[SPEAKER_02]: In the play, there's all these themes of mistaken identity and the fairies are putting drops from the flower that confuses you and makes you fall in love with others and then I kind of did my contemporary spin on that and that scene was really, really fun to write and really hard to write because I had to totally alter the
[SPEAKER_02]: perspective of my narrator.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's not quite herself in that moment, so that was, it was very fun, but technically really tricky to end of that and try to make it feel really loose and organic.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know, pulling a lot of puppet strings.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I love that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the canoeing scene, there is a scene where, and it's not a funny scene, but it's a really grounding scene for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's like quite a touchstone.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I love when Miranda and her, her high school love are in flashback, and they are, and they're like, teenage bloom attenders,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's torment and you know, it was fun to go back and play with that stuff I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was I was in a school play with my then high school boyfriend and we had to kiss on stage I'm like kissing in front of people when you kiss off stage is very hard to do having somebody direct you is very strange.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah Yeah, yes Yeah, my favorite I think my favorite scene is
[SPEAKER_00]: when the curse be falls the production.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the like teamwork that has to come together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's so many, there's so many wonderful moments in the play.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's so good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're so excited for our future to read it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so a couple more things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a note of my, I want to my questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: How's your poet dad read the book?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the answer is yes, your lovely dad is read the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: He has, and he's, he's
[SPEAKER_02]: these not my target audience by a mile and it makes me happy to know that it's still in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, even if you're not across the 70 year old poet, oh, I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what is some advice you have for writer.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you've written a memoir.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've written your current drawer novel.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've written this incredible book.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's summer nights.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you've kind of you tried your hand at some things with what kind of advice you have for our listeners who are most of them are aspiring others.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, advice is it's all been said.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was thinking you might ask me this and I was like, what can I say that's new?
[SPEAKER_02]: Anything you can do to regulate your nervous system?
[SPEAKER_02]: I know that sounds like a joke, but for real, the anxiety is mighty, the waiting, like waiting in between submissions.
[SPEAKER_02]: I found for us, like me asking you not to.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of your rejections, and then I kind of will come to you for them when I'm have braised myself Because you know, depending on the the wrong day of rejection or a bad review can just derail the writing and then it's you know time wasted I'm finding that now because I'm starting to access, you know, neck alley reviews and good reviews and
[SPEAKER_02]: everyone says don't read them and they're right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I am a, I call myself a freelance teacher now.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm a substitute teacher.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to contract right now, but then I can, you know, generally kind of control how much freedom I have and how much time I have.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I did write two
[SPEAKER_02]: largely just because I was ruthless with the time I would would create for myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would, I mean, I tend to like go off into the woods through a few days and binge right as Cheryl Street calls it, but I also, you know, would run out on my lunch break and run right, you know, a couple pages out of Starbucks or write something on the subway or just whenever you can, I dictate in my card.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I'll just stay as I'll just start saying my book I allowed and I had to really fast way for me to get content and it's a hot mess, but you know, so it takes a lot of editing, but it's a good way to when you just don't have time.
[SPEAKER_02]: just being really creative with finding ways to generate whatever you're working on because there's not usually time and space and energy you just kind of have to be committed to it and then I find the more distance like it's like a relationship you need to stay in touch with your book I can't get too far away right now I'm working on something new I'm really excited about it
[SPEAKER_02]: removed from it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm out of touch with it a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really hard to get back in.
[SPEAKER_02]: So staying in the flow, staying in touch with your in touch with your book.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like any muscle, I mean, any anything that you want to have continued access to, I find I need to stay in the zone, even in these tiny little micro ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, get comfortable with uncertainty.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm someone who's like a door.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like to strong arm the universe and make things happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have, you have you, the writer, you don't get to choose who signs you always.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't get to choose when that happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't get to choose like what editor says yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not that you have no agency and you have no say, but a lot of these things are up to fate up to chance and that is not my default settings or entering to the universe, though you just have to like that's that's something I'm still learning and just being able to kind of go with the flow and trust the timing and all that all that healthy stuff that writers and artists don't always default to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, those are incredible lessons and I'm sure everybody really appreciates all of your thoughts and I'm so excited for me to read the book So yes, your chance to preorder it mid summer nights at the end of June.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make sure you preorder your copy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will be available in print and audio book and ebook.
[SPEAKER_00]: So whatever format you choose.
[SPEAKER_00]: We love it so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're looking on YouTube, you can see a holding at the cover and has all these little fairies on it and
[SPEAKER_00]: all of this kind of beautiful details, and I'm just so excited for everybody to read it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a special and very charming, very good, like summer, beach read, but club read, all of the reads, and we hope everybody enjoys!
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for coming on the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Carly!
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi everyone, today's guest is the author of the Assistance and when Katie met Cassidy.
[SPEAKER_01]: She has worked as a books editor for Cosmopolitan and Esquire.
[SPEAKER_01]: She has also been a ghost writer of Young Adult novels and a reference librarian.
[SPEAKER_01]: She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from New York University,
[SPEAKER_01]: which he majored in English and gender and sexuality studies and the masters of library science degree from Queen's College.
[SPEAKER_01]: She splits her time between New York City and the Hudson Valley with her wife and their Brussels girlfriend named Pepp.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's my pleasure to welcome Camille Perry.
[SPEAKER_01]: Camille, welcome to the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for having me and let it be here.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's wonderful to have you so Camille and I shared a publisher and a publicist when our debuts were coming out and that always feels like a really special connection, but besides that, Camille, your Brussels Griffin was the first one that I ever saw.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember you posting it to social media and I was like, what the hell is this?
[SPEAKER_03]: I totally understand that response because the first time I saw Brussels Griffin, I had the exact same response.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'm delighted that I was the one to introduce you to the breed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well yeah and then afterwards I forgot the name and I kept telling my friends you must see this Higgs boson, which isn't it?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think different thing, close enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're getting more into Runtana because Toronto is more of a like a French bulldog sort of city.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's either golden retrievers of French bulldogs but I've seen more and more of them here, which which has been so cute because it just looks so perpetually grumpy and
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Perfect dog for a grump like me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, they're more popular in cities because they're tiny, they're tiny dog.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, I think in cosmopolitan places, they're a little bit more popular.
[SPEAKER_03]: then.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think I was going to ever get one because I'm a chronic people pleaser and to have a dog look at me and it looks so perpetually dissatisfied.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now we've adopted the world's grumpyest cat and he also just sits in stays at me like I'm doing everything wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's actually been good for my for my personal journey and self development.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there you go.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure I'm sure that's true.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let's dive into the box.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for everybody who is not watching on YouTube, I'm holding up the cover.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is so cute.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we've got that grumpy face on there called social animals and that's the book we're discussing today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to read you the log line and then the flat copy and then we're going to dive in.
[SPEAKER_01]: So log line.
[SPEAKER_01]: part of the dog park in effluent suburban Maryland.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vel Caruso, Alex Reed, and June Kenneson come from completely different worlds.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vel is a tough talking private investigator.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alex is reticent, nervous, and on the run from her past.
[SPEAKER_01]: and Juni's an athlete to turn to her wife, whose true love is her pup.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Val is hired by Juni's husband to find out his Juni's cheating on him, it sets these three women on a collision course, amid a colorful cast of characters who spend time at the shabby, but beloved Hamilton dog park, they find they have more in common than they thought.
[SPEAKER_01]: Soon, June is nearly brave enough to aim for what she wants, Alex finds excitement, she never expected, and Val is reluctantly opening her heart to the most high maintenance dog she's ever met.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when their secrets catch up with them, will their newfound friendships be able to withstand the pressure, or will they find themselves in the doghouse?
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't, don't, don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so I really love a good genre blend, Camille, and I find that all of your books have sort of straddled genres.
[SPEAKER_01]: I read all of them and I could be interesting to hear you classify each of them in terms of genre.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's an interesting observation.
[SPEAKER_03]: Of course, another writer would notice something like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, my first book was, it could be considered a heist.
[SPEAKER_03]: The assistants could be sort of a heist novel, that a group of assistants who used their billionaire bosses expense account to pay off their student loan debt.
[SPEAKER_03]: My second novel was one Katie McCassity, which is a queer rom-com, it sits pretty clearly in that genre.
[SPEAKER_03]: And and this one is a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's got a little bit suspense aspect.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wouldn't like call it a thriller or a suspense novel hardcore, but it definitely does bump up against that genre for sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, I've never planned on having each book sort of fit into a different genre and I don't think.
[SPEAKER_03]: marketing and publicity loves that because what they love is for their authors to be easily categorized, easily labeled, and I think I sort of defy that a little bit, but yeah, it's kept me on my toes as a writer to do kind of things a little bit differently each time.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's kept it new and exciting for me every time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's true, which you say, publishes, do preferred to be able to say, you're a historical fiction author, and this is where you set on the shelves.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it does make it a little bit harder to market, but for someone like me, when I see a Camille Perry book come out, I'm like interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't wait to see what she's done here, because I know it's not going to be formulaic, it's not going to be the same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're seeing a lot more genre blends.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's thanks to authors like you who've been doing that, that makes it easier for authors to do it going forward.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, thank you for saying that.
[SPEAKER_03]: That means that means more to me than anything you can know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like that's just music to my ears.
[SPEAKER_01]: Does your agent freak out every time you like, I have this idea and it's very different.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is your agent like, okay, God, here we go.
[SPEAKER_03]: My agent is very open to anything.
[SPEAKER_03]: She's easy, easy, easy.
[SPEAKER_03]: She's super supportive.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that it's more the publishing house people who are, the ones who the money is at stake.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think they worry more because everybody likes it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everybody likes the same but different.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're like a reliable thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think that's where it gets a little more tricky.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I found interesting is that we chat quite regularly with Emily Summer, who's a book buyer at East City, and she was saying that when it comes to these kinds of genres, you know, because it's always like, where on the bookshelf is this book going to go?
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was saying that they will change it up according to their own clientele because they know what their clientele specifically
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, mystery shelves, but they would put it somewhere else specifically.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's also so important is for the booksellers to know how to position it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And once they figure that out, I think the race is easy because then they pretty much hand selling it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that really speaks to the wonder of independent bookstores, too, because they're the ones who really know their clientele, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like a huge big box store isn't going to cater to their readers in such a specific way, so really a shout out to the Indies that they do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, amazing shout out to Indies.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, what I'd love to know, Camille, is for you to please read us your prologue.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would love to.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a lonely life being a stray.
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you know feeling lonely activates the same part of the brain that processes physical pain?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's why rejection hurts as bad as it does, because the need for connection and belonging is evolutionary.
[SPEAKER_03]: Stemming from a past where isolation meant increased vulnerability to danger.
[SPEAKER_03]: Today, isolation is differently dangerous, but no less so.
[SPEAKER_03]: For a dog or the enough time spent alone, without anyone to trust, starting for kindness,
[SPEAKER_03]: and that aloneness becomes a personality.
[SPEAKER_03]: You see this clearly at the park, the extraverts running around, kicking dust into the eyes of the introverted loners looking on from afar.
[SPEAKER_03]: Of course, not all who are solitary are unhappy, but the fact is once an animal's been socialized, it's tough to change it, whether they're happy that way or not.
[SPEAKER_03]: People are no different.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's my opinion anyway.
[SPEAKER_03]: Bringing a stranger into a group,
[SPEAKER_03]: when you doesn't play well with others, and the dynamic shifts, new packs form, sometimes a fight breaks out, sometimes someone gets hurt.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, what happened at Hamilton Dog Park came as no surprise to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was there, I saw it all, and for months, I'd been telling anyone who would listen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Someone here is going to end up dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, we always talking about intentionality on the podcast and I love to see how a work evolves.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, was this prologue always there?
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it something you started with?
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it something you came to later?
[SPEAKER_01]: How did that get in there?
[SPEAKER_03]: I always had a prologue.
[SPEAKER_03]: I really like framing devices.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm a big fan of them in general.
[SPEAKER_03]: I like reading them and I like writing them.
[SPEAKER_03]: The prologue did change over time.
[SPEAKER_03]: There had been a different prologue, which was similar, but I hadn't yet landed the voice.
[SPEAKER_03]: The voice was a little bit different.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wasn't yet totally clear.
[SPEAKER_03]: on whose voice I wanted the prologue in.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's a little bit part of the mystery is you don't know whose voice the prologue is into the very end.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it did change over time.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to say too much because I don't want any spoilers.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, the prologue was always there, but I continuously updated it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I did know like what I wanted the prologue to accomplish.
[SPEAKER_03]: I knew that I wanted it to set a certain tone of the novel.
[SPEAKER_03]: And
[SPEAKER_03]: make it intriguing enough that people would then want to go on to chapter one.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was always the intention with the prologue.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we have the epilogue, which I also don't want to give too much away.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was so fascinating to begin with that, like you say, a framing device.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we talk about intentionality, when it comes to point of view, you could have had like there's the omniscient narrator, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like as you begin the story, you can decide that
[SPEAKER_01]: This dog is the omniscient narrator of the entire story.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could say that it's, we begin with this narrator who's not omniscient, and then we have three, third person, close kind of peer v's.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you set down what was your intention in terms of how they would all play out?
[SPEAKER_03]: I knew that I wanted each of the three main characters to have their own peer v. I knew that I wanted it alternating third person close.
[SPEAKER_03]: because that was most useful to me because there's a lot of secrets and lies in this book.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I needed all three of their points of view with this book would not have worked if I get a first person point of view from a single character.
[SPEAKER_03]: because they're just wouldn't have been, you wouldn't have had all the mystery and intrigue.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the reader wouldn't know certain things that the characters didn't yet know and all that fun stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I'm always very intentional about point of view.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's one of the first things I try to figure out when I sit down to write a book.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think you have to.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I know some writers try it in different ways and then see what works best.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I sort of have an instinct for it.
[SPEAKER_03]: and just knew sitting down that this was going to be a three-person point of view from each.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I knew that one of the three had to sort of be an anchor.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like even if you have, you know, the group, you really do want, and I believe it should be the person that you start with.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the first voice that people hear is the one that they sort of automatically, it's like a first-born kid, I guess, it's like the first one they bond with.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I knew that Val was going to be a little bit of lead, a little bit of the anchor character.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it is so difficult because when people do bond with the first voice,
[SPEAKER_01]: faster, which means you've got to work that much harder on each of the other POV voices.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as well, if you consider that the standard novel is 80,000 words, if you have a single POV character to develop them in 80,000 words, you've got room to play around us.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you have three POV characters that greatly reduces the amount of time that the read is spent with them, and so you as the writer have got to work that much harder to get
[SPEAKER_01]: I hate using unlikable narrators, especially when it comes to women.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like a complex person who you have to work a little bit harder to get on board with, but it makes it them a thought of for you as the writer.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, that's absolutely true.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think one nice work around with that is with three different POVs, you do get everybody's observation of everybody else.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you get to see them from the inside as well as the outside and it's nice if those things
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a little friction there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like if they rub up against each other a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, it's nice to be able to see someone from exterior and interior.
[SPEAKER_03]: My first book I wrote in first person, and at the time I always thought every book I was gonna write was gonna be a first person.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was just what came really natural to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I thought with my second book that I needed two points of view, so I really pushed myself to be able to write in third person.
[SPEAKER_03]: And now I can imagine going back.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's really interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and again, intentionality, you could have had one character here, be a first person kind of POV and others, you know, third person close, etc.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're always saying to our listeners, just be really intentional with what you choose.
[SPEAKER_01]: If characters have got secrets, be aware that if you put them in first person, we have closer interiority to those secrets where a third person, you can remove it a bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, that's always circling the building.
[SPEAKER_01]: I call it circling the building at the beginning to figure out my best, interpoint and voice is so important there as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, voice, I think novels live and die by voice.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's my theory.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's so many things that you can take a worth, but voice is really going to make a break your novel.
[SPEAKER_03]: And when you have different points of view,
[SPEAKER_03]: you do need the voices to be distinguished from one another.
[SPEAKER_03]: It has to be unified enough as a whole.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's sort of like if you're a musician writing an album, you know, each song sounds like it's own song, but all of them still sound like the artist.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's the secret sauce of the voice when you're doing different points of view, but yeah, you don't want your characters to sound too much alike.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that analogy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, if you're writing a multi-pv novel with a man who's in his 80s and a woman who's 20, whatever, again, it makes it easier to differentiate the characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you've got three women here, all her dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they're very different women, but still, again, on the page, you've got to hit the ground running in terms of
[SPEAKER_01]: differentiating them so that the read is not like, okay, which one's valid, which one's June?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that something that comes to you while you're writing a meal?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what's your process?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you a plotter, a pencil?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you figure it all out before you begin?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or are you feeling your way in the dark as you go along?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm very much a plotter.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do plot.
[SPEAKER_03]: I like to plan everything sort of out before I sit down to write.
[SPEAKER_03]: However, once I do sit down to write, dialogue always comes to me first.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just the thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I hear the voices of the characters before anything else.
[SPEAKER_03]: So a lot of times my first draft of a first chapter will be very dialogue heavy.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm sort of, I've got the, the back and forth between the characters, but a lot of what I don't have is, is exposition.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't necessarily have a lot of setting a description of the setting.
[SPEAKER_03]: all those things come out later and then sometimes I even write a little note to myself as I'm writing where I write emotion TK meeting this is a place where I need to slow down and really get into what's going on beneath the exterior scene but I'm not going to do that on this pass I'm going to get to that later you know I'll do that in like a second or third pass because dial obviously comes when it's when it's coming you don't want to you want to get it down because it's like magic when you can really when the characters are kind of talking to you
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that layered approach to writing because I tend to have a layered approach to editing, but I'm the same as you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dialogue comes to me first and you write.
[SPEAKER_01]: When the dialogue's flowing, like there'll be some days where I just write the whole thing out in dialogue and then afterwards you've got to write the action beats and the gestures and the setting etc.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it makes sense because you've also done script writing, haven't you?
[SPEAKER_03]: I did.
[SPEAKER_03]: Both my first two novels were optioned and I was attached as screenwriter.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wrote what scripts for both of those.
[SPEAKER_03]: Neither of them got made.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's that, however, I did learn how to write a script in that process.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I enjoyed it a lot.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think if you are a writer who tends to enjoy dialogue, scriptwriting is sort of an actual jump for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I enjoyed scriptwriting a lot.
[SPEAKER_03]: funny enough, social animals started out as a script that I was an original feature script that I was trying to write.
[SPEAKER_03]: And because it was after I did my two adaptations and I thought, wow, 100 pages, you know, real fast.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why am I a novelist?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, why am I working years on all these pages?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, this is the best.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm gonna just be a script writer now.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I was trying to write the early version of what the story is.
[SPEAKER_03]: became social animals was a script.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was sort of, um, I had the characters of Alan Alex and it was sort of a female buddy comedy where they were trying to solve a crime together.
[SPEAKER_03]: Pretty quickly I figured out it wasn't going to work.
[SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't working and that I actually am a novelist.
[SPEAKER_03]: I got really attached to the characters and I thought, I'm going to write a novel for these characters.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I actually pulled them out, pulled them right out of that script, created a new plot and
[SPEAKER_03]: that was how I started writing the novel that would become social animals.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I love that evolution and the thing is your work is so cinematic.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's really cinematic, but the thing, the difference, obviously between a script and a novel, is that interiority and that emotionality is that we
[SPEAKER_01]: have access to that constantly, what the characters thinking, what they're feeling and if there's contradictions, etc.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think, yeah it's getting their balance, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's having the scene play out so that you can see it on the screen but also giving us that access constantly to their thoughts and feelings.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you want to reach out when they least, when a really least expects it and just grab hold of their heart, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like that's how I think of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you're writing a script, there's just not, there's not the opportunity for that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I sort of missed it.
[SPEAKER_03]: What I love about, and you're writing style is this way too.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think you're writing stuff, and the read is like, I'm having a good time, I'm having a good time.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then all of a sudden, oh, I'm feeling feelings, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I love that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you really can only get that in a novel, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: Or like a good TV show.
[SPEAKER_01]: writing human and balancing it with those like warm and fuzzies is also really difficult because you have such a rise in subhumour a lot of that comes through in the dial of this part where i'm laughing at loud and i think capturing a funny voice can be difficult because sometimes i can go too far it can become too campy or too over the top if that's not what you're intending obviously if that's what you're intending great so again what you're advised for writers who are trying to balance the
[SPEAKER_03]: I think my advice would be in your first draft, no holds barred.
[SPEAKER_03]: Go over the top.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you need to go over the top, you can always pull it back.
[SPEAKER_03]: My challenge is editing myself as I write, so I'm always trying to turn off the editor while I'm being the writer and creating.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's hard to do, but I encourage writers to do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then once you have a nice draft going or chapter,
[SPEAKER_03]: have your trusted readers have your people who have your best interest in mind and are honest with you but not not so critical that they break you down like a horse but your trusted readers who you trust their opinions and they're going to tell you the truth and have them give you a read and tell you right they'll do a line at it you know this is a little too much for me I think you went too far here here you could go a little far
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I think it's so important to have those other people, because that is very difficult to gauge for yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like to do that early in the process, like with my first however many chapters, you know, I want to know that I'm nailing the voice, I want to know that I'm nailing my entry into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: For you, is that something that comes after you've got the first drop down, or do you get that feedback as you're going along?
[SPEAKER_03]: I like to do I write in like batches like chapter batches so I sort of always either write like the first three to five chapters and then take a pause because I think those are the most difficult chapters to get right and they set the tone for the rest of the things so I'll spend a lot of time on those first five.
[SPEAKER_03]: But once I kind of get those first five into a place where I'm like, okay, this is rolling now, the rest kind of comes easier.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'll probably do my first five and then spend a long time on them alone without any feedback because too many cooks bowl the broth.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want too many opinions too early on.
[SPEAKER_03]: But once it's in a place where I'm almost like, I don't know where else to go with this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I almost, I don't know what else to do with it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know that I'm ready for another reader.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then what I like to do is do the next five.
[SPEAKER_03]: I always like to sort of do first 10.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the first 10 chapters.
[SPEAKER_03]: By then, even if you're going to submit a part, like if you're a writer and you could submit a partial, I don't recommend new writers, submit partials.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think they should complete manuscripts.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if they're even just trying to get an agent, I think, you know, an agent might take you on a partial, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think 10 chapters is like the best amount of chapters to do that with, because it saves you so much of having to write the whole model,
[SPEAKER_03]: your reader knows if they're going to finish this book or not.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you've got a lot you've got a lot going on by then.
[SPEAKER_01]: I even feel like my chapter three these days.
[SPEAKER_01]: People's attention spans, I just know what they used to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like you've got to grab them straight out the gate, but I agree, like my chapter 10, you're figuring things out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And with each decision you make in the story, you kind of closing off avenues for yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I call it like getting on the highway and in the beginning, there are so many on ramps and off ramps, but as you make each story or plot decision, it kind of closes off options for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you really need to know where you're going at that point.
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: I agree with that wholeheartedly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you've written in your acknowledgements about working with your editor on how many drafts to really elevate the first draft.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you speak about that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the backwards and forwards?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because a lot of our listeners don't yet have editors and don't you know what that process looks like.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what was it like for you specifically?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I had worked on this number for a really long
[SPEAKER_03]: I sold it, it had been a number of years.
[SPEAKER_03]: There had been a number of different renditions of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had gone over it with my agent.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had, there was a lot.
[SPEAKER_03]: So by the time I sold it to Putnam, it was pretty clean.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I didn't, I didn't have like a hard core gutting of the novel, but it was sort of at the place where it was, it was just about there, but it just needed that last kind of,
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and Kate kind of came in and helped solidify a lot of things that were questionable.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, should I do this?
[SPEAKER_03]: Should I do that things that had changed?
[SPEAKER_03]: She kind of came in and gave her opinion on which direction she thought it should go.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, what I like about working with a professional editor is that
[SPEAKER_03]: They generally know what they're talking about, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And you can kind of trust them.
[SPEAKER_03]: But your vision needs to be aligned with theirs, but sometimes you're going to disagree with something that they say or you'll take a note and you'll realize, okay, I hear what they're saying and I see what the problem is, the thing that they suggested to correct it, maybe doesn't gel with you.
[SPEAKER_03]: You kind of take the note below the note or whatever they say it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You address the issue, but you address it in your own way to solve the problem,
[SPEAKER_03]: maybe you don't really want to do what they suggested you do.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think the best editors are totally cool with that and they're not going to be like, well, you didn't take this suggestion, you know, but I think most editor, I think that's how the process tends to work for everyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and you know, something that drives me bonkers is when I'm writing is you change something and it feels like it's something small, but as I can reveling a thread because if you don't follow their change through later on the character doesn't feel authentic because, you know, they're behaving in a way that
[SPEAKER_01]: There wouldn't have behaved in the earlier draft if you hadn't changed that so it's important to keep track of all those changes and that's why you need external readers because sometimes you forget that's something changed and they're like I'm confused yet and you go back and you're like yeah no shit because I forgot to change that.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's so true yeah you get so close to it right you get to the point where you're so close to what you can't even see it anymore.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's why in addition to other writers, I think it's really important to set something aside for a good few weeks to few months if you can and go back to it with fresh eyes because you need to forget some stuff and then there's just nothing like fresh eyes there's there's nothing like it and the only way you could get it is time.
[SPEAKER_03]: There goes, you know, yeah, it's, yeah, and that's funny to when you're getting feedback from people because especially nonwriters, if you get feedback from just readers, they love to just have ideas, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, they, they, well, what if you tried this or like read a second, what if this and you're like,
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't do that because that would be rewriting like the entire the entire thing, you know, but people mean well, it's just because they get excited and it but every now and again, there will be something that some
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so we talk about intentionality again with regards to sitting.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, you live in New York and you backwards and forwards between but you very particularly base this in Maryland for a very particular reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: So can we speak again about the intentionality with sitting that it's not just some backdrop in the background that sitting in form, story and character and plot development.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wanted to set it in an affluent suburb because I wanted the kinds of dog owners that were going to be a little bit ridiculous with their dogs.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wanted to poke a little bit of fun at that and that said I'm poking fun at myself because over the COVID pandemic my wife and I had moved to Maryland.
[SPEAKER_03]: We didn't live in Bethesda, we lived in Rockville, Maryland, but that was where we were when we got our dog and that was where I began going to the dog park and that was where I got
[SPEAKER_03]: So Maryland kind of came out of there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wanted it to be in an affluent suburb in Maryland also because I loved the idea.
[SPEAKER_03]: I learned this when I was living there.
[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of people who live in the suburbs around DC work in government or they work in the government, some of them might work.
[SPEAKER_03]: for the military, some of them might work for the FBI, some of them might work for the CIA, like you don't, people have very interesting jobs there, and they don't always talk about them forthright, and so when I was living there, I was always saying in my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you think that guy's a spy?
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, any one of these people could be a spy.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, this one works, it's very vague about what government work they do.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, what do you think they do?
[SPEAKER_03]: You think they're a CH and you, and so my life would laugh at me.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I thought, you know, in terms of having, I put that into Val's head a little bit because I thought it was super interesting just and setting specific.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like if you can have something in your book that's very unique to a certain place, I think that's so lucky and you have to capitalize on that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I knew I wanted to put that into the book because I thought it was just like super fun and interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mentioned all these spies at the dog park.
[SPEAKER_01]: It made me think of years ago at a Toronto dog park.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a woman who would walk around.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was always listening to podcasts.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I assumed those podcasts and she had a little black scotty.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if anyone attended me, what is her occupation?
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have gone kindergarten teacher.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You just look at people in your make assumptions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my goodness, and investigate to journalist and I was like, whoa, you must be so good at your job because no one's going to see you around and be like, okay, she's she's spying on me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that story writes itself, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that is just you can't, you can't make it up any better.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Camille, we've come to the end of our time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had so many more questions, but thank you so much for your incredible answers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm holding up social animals again.
[SPEAKER_01]: We linked it on our bookshop.org affiliate page.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you get the book there, you support an independent bookstore and a podcast at the same time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we know you're going to love this one.
[SPEAKER_01]: We hope to see you back to the next one, Camille.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'd love to thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's it for today's episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you'll join us for next week's show.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the meantime, keep at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, it just takes one yes.