A dive into suburban thrillers with author Liz Alterman

📹 Watch the interview on YouTube.

Ever wondered how to seamlessly blend humor into a dark, suspense-filled narrative? Liz Alterman, the author of the riveting suburban thriller, The Perfect Neighborhood, joins us to shed light on this unique storytelling approach.

We unravel the layers of her book, delving into her choice of an affluent suburban setting and the inspiration behind her novel's complex characters.

Navigating the saturated book market can be daunting, but Liz Alterman has some insights to share. She delves into the process of selling a novel, handling reader feedback, and the thrill of having her book featured in a local book club.

Whether you're an established author or an aspiring one, Liz's journey of securing a publishing deal without an agent and exploring self-publishing is both inspiring and enlightening.

To cap it off, Liz opens her writer's toolbox for us, revealing her writing routine and the delicate balance she maintains between marketing her work and creating new stories. We discuss practical writing tips, from finding time for personal projects to overcoming creative roadblocks, and delve into the importance of devoting time to marketing.

Tune in to this fascinating episode to get a peek into the world of Liz Alterman and her intriguing suburban thriller.

You can get Liz Alterman's novel here. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Whenever I'll hit a roadblock in a manuscript, I'll think, well, I should be marketing the other books. Do you know what I mean? So then I will flick away and I'll see about. I'll contact a local bookstore or I'll reach out to a podcast host, or, and then I kind of tell myself, okay, you're not working on that manuscript, but you're doing marketing for the other works, and that's just as important.

Speaker 2: 0:34

Hi friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha podcast. My name is Natasha Tynes and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel I talk about the writing life, review books and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journey. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. So today we have with us Liz Alterman, who's the author of the book the Perfect Neighborhood. All right, so Liz has the funniest bio of Everett. So listen to this. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and three sons. She spends most days repeatedly microwaving the same cup of coffee and looking up cinnamon. So this is just hilarious and funny. That brings me to the first question, which is about humor. But before I start asking you about humor, liz, welcome to the show and thank you. Thank you for joining me.

Speaker 1: 1:33

Oh, thank you for having me, natasha.

Speaker 2: 1:35

I'm thrilled to join you, so obviously you're funny. It's from your bio and I read a few articles about remote learning and Lama Lama. My Chrome is dead, so which cracked me up, so yeah, so your book sometimes.

Speaker 1: 1:56

I was just going to say I try to work out some of my personal frustrations through humor and I think remote learning was really kind of reaching, pushing me over the edge at the point where I wrote that yeah, this is.

Speaker 2: 2:07

I mean, I also try to incorporate humor in anything I write. Doesn't always work, but I try. But your book deals with with with a bit of a dark topic, and so I'm going to let you tell us a bit about this book and if you manage to somehow include humor in, you know, while you're writing about a dark topic.

Speaker 1: 2:34

Oh, thanks for asking. So the perfect neighborhood is set in an affluent suburb and I've lived in New Jersey most of my life and so while it's a fictional town in the novel, it is sort of based on different communities where I've lived in New Jersey. I think there's always a lot of room for humor within sort of the parenting community that you know gossip, the kind of who's keeping the secrets about when registration is for the good soccer teams or the basketball teams or who's the best math tutor. But they may not want to share that information in case you bump their child out of the way. So the book centers on this.

Speaker 1: 3:15

I guess this neighborhood, oak Hill, where initially all the gossip focuses on a model and an actress, alison Langley, who leaves her husband, who's a former rock star and sort of they seem like this golden couple in the neighborhood, but when she leaves him in the middle of the night, everyone's gossiping. Is she coming back? What went wrong in their marriage? If they can't make it work, how can we make it work? And then fast forward two months and a little boy, billy Barnes, goes missing on his walk home from kindergarten and suddenly all of these people think you know, we were focused on the wrong thing. We were looking at the Langley's and their marriage and we should have been worrying about possibly a predator in our midst. And you know they were so comfortable in this nice area that they thought really nothing could touch them.

Speaker 1: 4:04

And so, even though it is kind of a dark, I would say suspense, hopefully a suspenseful novel. I did try to bring in humor in just those characters of the kind of women and parents that you meet in a community like this. And then we do learn where Alison has gone and the woman that she's living with, her old friend. I tried to bring in humor through that woman's voice because that friend they've been out of touch but they've reconnected. So Viv doesn't necessarily know everything that's gone on in Alison's past. So she brings a bit of comic relief, I think, to the novel because she's this like single gal in Manhattan, just you know, trying to have a good time, and she wants Alison to join her in kind of her hijinks. And Alison is kind of trying to reconcile what happened to her when, what led her to leave Oak Hill.

Speaker 2: 5:00

Okay, so it is set in suburbia and does the name of the neighborhood is Oak Hill, right? Does it exist in real life or did you no?

Speaker 1: 5:14

it's sort of a composite of all different areas and it's funny, where I live now people will say, oh, you based this on this town, and then the town where I grew up, people will think it's based on that town, and another town where I work people will think I would be based on that. But really they're so similar. It's sort of a positive everything.

Speaker 2: 5:36

Okay, so why suburbia? I mean like. Suburbia usually gets a bad rep in general, like you have desperate, desperate, whatever house wise, and you know this is always like these bad things happen. Suburbia like, think of DateLine when, like in this quiet suburban town where nothing happens so and like, is that a new trend? Now that everyone is picking on suburbia? And you know it's like. You know I live in suburbia too. I can see why it inspires you. But why suburbia? Why did you pick suburbia? Why not like a thriving city like New York or so?

Speaker 1: 6:23

That's a good question. I think I was kind of going off of the right what you know, and so I think for me, over the years I've been in my home almost 23 years and so I guess I had thought about different, like characters that I've known or situations that seem almost ripe for writing about, and how everyone sort of knows a little bit of a piece of information about someone else or about the town and I wanted to kind of play with that and just and explore it a little further. But I do, I love novel set in cities as well. So I think for me I was just trying to go with what felt close to me or what felt appealing as a setting.

Speaker 2: 7:10

Okay, and so you have three boys, right? Three boys, I do, yes, okay, and so you're pretty busy, right? I'm curious about your writing style. So this is your first novel, correct?

Speaker 1: 7:27

Well, I actually wrote a young adult thriller that came out in April of 2021. And then I've also written a memoir that came out, I guess, in November of 2021, and it's available through Audible on audio. It's called Satsacked, but it'll be out in print next June. Ah, nice.

Speaker 2: 7:46

Okay, that's exciting. What's the memoir?

Speaker 1: 7:49

about. The memoir is about a period when my husband and I lost our jobs within six weeks of each other. Okay, so he had been in his job for about 18 years and he knew there were some layoffs coming. But so far he had avoided them until one November day when he, I guess, was let go in about a group of 50 employees and initially he was super excited because he got a nice severance package and he had kind of been not so happy there. But he had this almost sense of security.

Speaker 1: 8:23

There were good benefits, it was a role that you know, he knew how to do the job, it was fine and he was kind of complacent. So he was looking at this layoff initially as almost the kick in the pants that he needed to get out there and find something new. And for me I had only been in my role maybe about two years when I was let go. The company was kind of just laying off people by the hundreds and they were getting ready to be taken over by another company. But so I guess I was initially panicked because I had seen my colleagues being laid off and not being able to find new positions. So the whole book sort of focuses on how my husband and I, you know, were home together, which I joke, people say for better or worse, but not for lunch.

Speaker 2: 9:10

You know, suddenly we're looking at each other all the time.

Speaker 1: 9:14

And we've got these three kids who are kind of. It was funny, my middle son, ben. He just couldn't seem to process that his dad had lost a job because my husband would come down and he would be like wait, dad, you still don't have a job, you're still here. What do you do? Wait, why is dad here?

Speaker 1: 9:32

And we'd have to be like dad doesn't have it, Like it just seemed like he you know kids, they're in their own world and doing their own thing and it would be like wait, dad still doesn't have a job.

Speaker 1: 9:41

So it was kind of how we had different approaches and I just wanted to get right back to work and we live in an older home and so I was kind of hoping if we could get back to work, we could use that severance package to like repair the poor plumbing and our deck that was falling off the house and make those home improvements. And my husband was more like I'm joining a gym and I'm getting fit and I'm going to take time for that personal stuff I missed when I was riding the train at 5.30 in the morning. So it's kind of all about our different approaches and how that impacts our marriage and our family and just the job market in general. It had changed so much. We would find these applications that would say tell us your personal theme song or give us an elevator pitch about our company, and 140 characters or less, and we were just kind of like what is?

Speaker 2: 10:33

going on Crazy, so I hope you guys are okay now. In terms of the job scene, which the question is now is are you riding full time or are you employed?

Speaker 1: 10:46

now I'm trying to write another novel, but I'm also taking on freelance projects as they come in and trying. But I feel like at the time when I wrote the memoir, being unemployed, people would say people didn't really want to hear about it. I had an agent, she sent it out and people would say nobody wants to talk about unemployment. This was maybe in 2018. So I feel like once the pandemic hit and we saw such widespread layoffs, I feel like it's taken a bit of the stigma away from unemployment. So, and I feel like so many people have had to weather that storm that I hope the story resonates with more people and as people find it.

Speaker 2: 11:30

Okay. So for me it's also like a matter of mindset. Like you know, you're a published author. You're working on a second, now you're doing freelance. What would you call yourself an employee, do you know? Like? Because the whole like idea of employment changed. You know. So, as a full time writer, you still want to be in the rat race of the nine to five and is writing full time not enough other financially, or it is also for for yourself, esteem as well.

Speaker 1: 12:04

That's a great question. Well, I did have a nine to five, or I guess I would call it eight to six, or maybe round the clock.

Speaker 1: 12:12

I had taken a job with a fintech company as a communications manager. I guess right, maybe, let's say April of 2021. And then, unfortunately, the role shifted about six months in and I found myself just going to these four hour meetings where people were just they would, let's say, post a slide show or a PowerPoint presentation and we would spend 30 minutes debating the background color Do we like teal, do we like purple? And I was just kind of am I on a hidden camera show? I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 1: 12:48

And so that was really kind of a wake up call for me that I think I'm done in terms of the corporate side of things, because when you're freelance, you have that hustle. You take a project, you do your best, you turn it around, you wait for edits, you invoice and you're done, and then you take your next project so that you can keep your paycheck coming in. And for these things, I guess, with the way at least corporate America was going at that time, I just I couldn't understand having 20 people in a four hour meeting and at the end really have not accomplished anything and say, okay, we're going to meet back next day and we'll keep hashing this out, and I just thought this is not how I am used to doing business.

Speaker 2: 13:33

Okay, so are you satisfied now with being a full time writer? Is that enough?

Speaker 1: 13:42

That's a good question, I think I think personally, like in terms of fulfillment, I enjoy that I try to take on some side projects, maybe writing an essay or a humor piece as the idea comes to me. Would I say financially that it's enough? No, I don't think so. So I definitely think my second child will head to college in the fall and I keep joking. Either either I have to sell a novel or I have to really sell a child.

Speaker 2: 14:13

Sell a novel, sell an organ I don't know something, something has to go.

Speaker 2: 14:18

Well, I mean it is. You know you can do it Honestly. You can live off your writing and there are ways around that. We can chat about it later on. But if money was not the issue, you would do this full time, right, I would, I would. So it's, it's doable. Just let me tell you that. So okay, so how, like how was the book doing? I remember I was at Barzan Nobel a few months ago and I saw your book there. I got so excited. I was like, wow, I'm interviewing a celebrity, thank you. So if you can tell me a bit about you know the feedback that you got, if you know anything about how people received it, how are you marketing? Is it you or your? Did you hire PR companies, your publishers? Let's just talk about how the book is doing.

Speaker 1: 15:15

Sure, thanks, I guess I would say I've been really gratified to see that readers have enjoyed it at least, or if they're not enjoying it, at least they've had the courtesy to not tag me and let me know. So I appreciate that. I think people have said you know I read it quickly. It was a fast read, which that's what another friend of mine and I she's a writer as well and we were talking about how, you know, some books are like life changing. But we were saying we're really what we set out to do with our books, which fall more in the psychological suspense category. We're just looking to entertain readers you know to have. Maybe you have a book on your nightstand and you look forward to getting back to it that night. Like that was kind of my goal. I wanted to provide entertainment for readers and I hope that I've done that. And recently I was very fortunate that some neighbors which they were kind of joking because they were saying we're waiting to see ourselves in this book as characters because of course they've lived in this town with me for two decades, but they read the book for their book club and they invited me to join them. So that was a real treat to get to talk to readers and and kind of for people who aren't writers. I think they don't know everything that goes into the process of maybe getting an agent and hoping to sell a novel and to get different paths to publishing. So that was neat to talk about.

Speaker 1: 16:38

But in terms of marketing, crooked Lane put out the book in the US and Legend put it out in the UK and so both of them were really helpful in terms of securing blog tours, getting advanced reader copies out and you know and I love the book Stagrammers who have taken such creative photos. You know I love seeing the book. I saw someone take it to Hawaii on vacation. I thought you know it's been out in the Midwest, it's out in the UK, I think. I can't remember if someone took it to Spain, but I got to see. I said I wish I could travel alongside this novel and hit all of these fun destinations, but that's been really great.

Speaker 1: 17:22

But I think you know so many books come out every single day that it is. It's such a saturated market and you sometimes feel as if you're, you know, either too self promotional or you're shouting into a void. So I think it's it's very hard to strike that balance between thinking, oh my gosh, people are so sick of hearing about this book, or am I coming in to the process to self promoting? But then at the same time, you think, if I want this book to find readers, I have to keep putting myself out there. And I've been very fortunate. Local bookstores have been very supportive and having me, you know, come for a few hours and either do a reading or just sit and sign books. I really appreciate all of that support too.

Speaker 2: 18:09

Nice. So did you get any negative feedback? You know it's kind of part of the gig, right, we all get negative feedback, but I hope you didn't. But if you did, how did you deal with it?

Speaker 1: 18:22

You know, I think it's par for the course. I think you'll find people who will say I guessed every twist. I knew from a third of the way through, I knew who the villain was and I knew I saw this coming, and then I just kind of take it in stride. I feel like not every book is meant for every reader. I know I recently I won't say which title, but I just got an audio book from the library and I made it eight hours into the book and I just thought you know what? I'm not loving this and this is a book that's like a huge bestseller. And I just thought you know what? Somebody else is waiting for this book.

Speaker 1: 18:55

I'm just going to hit return and I'm going to move on to the next one and I think that's. You know, we're fortunate that there we have so many different genres to choose from that. I can't. I can't realistically expect that this book is going to hit with everyone. And just yesterday I was talking to someone about a book that I loved in 2022. And she said yeah, I know everybody loved that, but I just thought it was, and so that's. You know, that's the game. I guess not everything is going to be a five star read for every reader.

Speaker 2: 19:24

What was a feedback that gutted you the most? That, like you know, really went.

Speaker 1: 19:29

Yeah, I was like one reader say oh, I found so many plot holes and I was like oh, I found so many plot holes.

Speaker 1: 19:36

And I just wanted to say, or okay, could you like, would you like to outline those? But there was something else that made me think that she put in. Maybe she had the wrong character name or there was something right that you know what. Maybe she didn't necessarily take the time, so I can't, I can't say for sure, but I wanted to write back and say, okay, could you list those? Because I'd love, you know, just to either have the opportunity to explain maybe something or to think about it going forward. What you know, what didn't necessarily work for her. But, like I said, I think there was a bit of something in there that was like a clue that maybe she, maybe there was some skimming involved or maybe I don't know.

Speaker 2: 20:15

It's hard to hard to say so how did you find your agent and how was the process? And you know, just want to know about the publishing journey.

Speaker 1: 20:26

Well, I would say for this book, I sold it on my own to Crooked Lane.

Speaker 1: 20:31

I didn't have an agent wet by the time I started querying this, so I sent it to Crooked Lane into a bunch of publishers that didn't require agents and I ended up with five offers which was it was a shock because after I had had I had had a few agents before this and with my memoir and with my young adult thriller and you, I would get some lovely rejections like, oh, I really love the plot. But then you get those conflicting ones that'll say some people will say I love the voice and then, but you know, the pacing didn't work for me. And then you get the next one that'll say I loved the pacing but I just didn't connect to the voice.

Speaker 1: 21:16

Where people would say I love this. I don't know how to break it out. So I felt like, after all of those rejections, to get multiple offers on this book was just a delightful surprise for me. So that was. It was a shock, but it was exciting. But I do. I will say, as I've been working on other books, I do have an agent now and I found her just through querying a different, a new work, and so that that's been exciting to have somebody kind of in my corner as a kind of protecting me and as a cheerleader and kind of opening up the field to other publishers as well.

Speaker 2: 21:56

So the reason that you went without an agent is because you just did not want to wait to find an agent and or what like. What was your thought process?

Speaker 1: 22:06

You know, I guess I, if I could be honest, I would say that I I had spoken to different people during the process of this and I had had an offer from one agent and I think I thought she was lovely and great.

Speaker 1: 22:22

And then, as we got a little deeper into it, she wanted to change, make a lot of changes to the story and I sort of came away thinking that maybe I would be ghostwriting her book.

Speaker 1: 22:31

The idea that she was going to it was definitely a larger rewrite and then I had had someone else who was working with me and then she just sort of ghosted me and I later, when I said, like this isn't working for me, I'm going to go my own way, she came back with a lot of excuses about why she had disappeared like that. But I I felt like I had, I had reached out enough times that she could have at any point let me know. I have this situation going on and I'm sorry I'll be in touch down the line and so I just decided I wanted to move forward on my own Because I think, like you say, that waiting, I think, can really kind of impact your, I guess, enthusiasm for your next project, and I think there's so much self doubt in writing and so much isolation that you sort of feel like if somebody is not with you it's maybe better to go it alone, and that was kind of my thinking.

Speaker 2: 23:32

Would you?

Speaker 1: 23:32

consider self publishing. You know, I think I would especially I know it can be. I think you're doing so much marketing now on your own as an author, I think, a publisher, they only they have limited resources, limited staff and and as I was saying, I think, they're putting out new books constantly. So those authors you know, as your book is in the preorder phase and then the launch phase, those authors take up so much of their time and attention and that's just natural and how it is. So I think you end up doing so much marketing on your own. And to your question earlier I didn't hire a publicist, I think, because I had been. I have my background is kind of in journalism and in pitching ideas. So I thought, you know what, let me just try this myself and see how that goes. And so I think if I hadn't had that background I might have hired somebody. But I figured, let me just give this ago, write the pitch letters and see what I can do on my own.

Speaker 1: 24:32

But I think self publishing if you're doing a lot of the work anyway, I think it gives you a lot of control if you want to keep your title, if you want to design your own cover, if you know that you're going to have to put in so much time into marketing and blog tours and outreach. So I can definitely see where people would want to turn to that and I think it's it's something that I would be open to definitely.

Speaker 2: 24:59

So what's your next book about?

Speaker 1: 25:02

Oh, thanks for asking.

Speaker 1: 25:03

I'm working on one right now that follows two families. The moms are very good friends and their sons, who are in their 20s, are very good friends as well, and these two boys are young men. They live at a ski resort right now and one afternoon they go skiing together and only one of them returns. And so it's kind of about how, where is that missing son and how the families go about. You know, can that friendship stay intact If you know what? I guess the one, the son who comes home, his actions make them a little bit suspicious, like did he do everything right to try to find the missing friend? So it sort of explores a lot of different points of view that the two moms, what's going on with the guy who is who does return home, and then their siblings and how you know what's going to happen within within those families, the drama that surrounds trying to maintain a friendship under extreme, you know, scary circumstances.

Speaker 2: 26:17

Hmm, where did you get this idea from?

Speaker 1: 26:21

That's a good question, you know. I think I had seen a news article that was almost like the catalyst for that.

Speaker 2: 26:28

Okay, so what is what is your writing routine? Or do you have a routine? Or do you like wait for inspiration, like, what is your day like in terms of writing?

Speaker 1: 26:38

Oh well, I try to after I make that coffee and then microwave it 16 times. I usually do.

Speaker 1: 26:45

I like to do it on you? Yeah, exactly, I sit down at my laptop and I try to. I like the idea of trying to write chronologically, like starting. So in this book that I'm working on now, we start off on a Saturday and we're moving forward as this guy is missing and we're trying to find him. But sometimes I don't have the ideas for what to do in the next chapter.

Speaker 1: 27:12

But if I know that a scene is coming up ahead that I'm excited to write, I try to at least do something so that my day isn't me just kind of staring into space or scrolling through social media as I wait for inspiration. So I'll try to write ahead if I have an idea or outline something that I know is going to come later. But it is hard, I definitely. I wish I were one of those people who could plot out everything and have a neat outline to go back and fill in. But I think, unfortunately, I seem to get the ideas during the writing process Like I have to kind of be in it to figure it out, and that's kind of how it goes, which can be frustrating, especially if I write something and then realize, okay, I have to scrap it. That's not going to work, do you?

Speaker 2: 28:00

write every day.

Speaker 1: 28:06

I try to write while my kids are out of the house, usually from about nine to three, and then I do take a long.

Speaker 2: 28:15

That's a long writing time.

Speaker 1: 28:17

No, definitely not nonstop, Because I freelance on the side. I'm kind of responding to emails or working on side projects or maybe I'll have an idea for an essay or a humor piece.

Speaker 1: 28:33

So I'll kind of take time out to work on something there, but I try. And then of course I'll have other commitments during the week, but I try to. If I can save that space for writing I try to take. When I get frustrated, I try to go out for a walk and clear my head, or I listen to a lot of podcasts about writing as I'm either making lunch or doing different chores around the house to try to. You know just, I think it's so heartening to hear what other writers are doing and what works for them, and also to hear that you know we're not in this alone. Everybody comes to that blank page with a bit of fear and trepidation.

Speaker 2: 29:14

What kind of podcasts Can you name a few.

Speaker 1: 29:17

Oh sure you know who I love, camille Pagan. She is an author of a number of bestselling books and she's also a book coach now and hers is called you Should Write a Book, and what she does is what I like is it's they're kind of maybe like 20 to 30 minute segments where she will speak with an author, okay, and kind of coach them through an issue that they're having, and she's very honest, but she's also very encouraging. So I appreciate that. I also love a bookish home which is hosted by a librarian named Laura and she interviews a lot of authors and they'll talk about sort of their journey or different aspects of whatever novel or book they've had recently come out. So that's always interesting to hear.

Speaker 1: 30:04

I listened to one that really made me feel better about an author who she loved a book. She had a book that was that did great. It was the bestseller. She wrote another one and her publisher said I'm sorry, that's really that's not for us.

Speaker 1: 30:17

So I guess you tend to think that when someone has achieved something, that the path is going to be straightforward. You know like they won't have those setbacks anymore. But that's not necessarily true. So I think it's important to keep in mind that you know that it the path does kind of vary. You're going to have ups and downs, it's not just a straight trajectory, and that I think it's also a good reminder to celebrate every win, every small win, because this is such a hard endeavor as you, as you, well know. So yeah, so I was going to say, if I could just give another one. Another one I love is a writer, a writerly lifestyle by David Gwynne. He interviews kind of everybody that might be helpful to an author. Let's say, he'll bring on an agent, he'll bring on maybe a publicist, he'll bring on author, so, and he's a writer himself and he was querying his first novel and then he got an agent. So I love, I love hearing about that.

Speaker 2: 31:12

I mean, I could go on.

Speaker 1: 31:13

I think I wrote a newsletter about the podcast that I love like listing on.

Speaker 2: 31:17

Ah nice, Okay, I should. I should subscribe to the newsletter. Yeah, I'll send it to you. Yes, yeah, I love those letters.

Speaker 1: 31:24

Yeah, I'm always going back and adding and of course I'm sure you'll listen to the shit no one tells you about writing. That's a great one, where two agents critique a query letter and then usually, for the second half hour they will. They'll interview an author who shares their journey. And so I. Anytime I'm, you know, out for a walk or or cooking dinner, I usually have a podcast keeping me company.

Speaker 2: 31:50

I listen to audiobooks a lot.

Speaker 1: 31:53

I love that.

Speaker 2: 31:54

Yeah, because especially when I walk the dog that's like the best time and so okay, that'd be a thing. So you are during the day, which is like I'm in a very similar situation and maybe you can help me out, maybe you can code me, I'll try. So I spent. You know I write fiction and nonfiction and I ghost, right. You know I have lots of clients and when it comes to my own work I sort of like keep, you know, postponing it because I have to. You know I have paying clients, right, and then by the end of the day you're either exhausted or you're just you can look at the computer anymore, especially if you do writing for a living. So how do you manage between like writing fiction or like and writing for clients? Or you know paying the bills through your writing, and then you have your creative endeavors.

Speaker 1: 32:51

Right, I think that that's a great question. I tried to schedule time. I used to be better about this, but I would try to get up early and that's the time I would devote to my own projects, because then I thought it's kind of uninterrupted time no one's awake yet I'm not getting many emails. So I guess I would try between like six and seven in the morning to devote a solid hour. Because I don't know about you, but I also feel that guilt of like neglecting my own projects you know it like weighs on you and then also, I think the longer you're apart from it, when you go back to it you almost have to reread to get in that headspace and connect with those characters, voices again.

Speaker 2: 33:31

So I try not to watch. Sometimes I forget the characters name, Like who was this again? What?

Speaker 1: 33:38

are you doing? I'll leave myself notes, and this just happened to me yesterday. I had been working on another part of this book and then when I read the note I left myself for later in the manuscript, I thought what did I mean by that? What was I telling myself to do here? So I have to get better about my personal notes.

Speaker 1: 33:58

But I think maybe just even if I set, even if I take a break, like, let's say, if I'm working on projects for clients, when I'm going to eat lunch, I'll say, okay, I'm going to eat, but I'm going to keep my manuscript open, and even if I just do a little bit of the editing, sometimes that can spark an idea of like, okay, you made a note of this here. Like, make make sure you refer to this again later in the novel, and then I'll jot notes. And so, even though it might not be a big chunk of time, I feel like at least I'm kind of touching the project or I'm still connecting with it. Okay, but I also will try on weekends to devote that time to my writing, my personal stuff.

Speaker 2: 34:38

Yeah, yeah. Do you use any like specific tools to outline or to write your novel, or just the word doc?

Speaker 1: 34:46

I'm just doing word docs, which is it's very messy. I will always say I, with everything I write I say to myself you have to get a better process. But I know I've heard people talk about Scrivner Do you like it. I always hear mixed things, that it's like a steep learning curve, but then other people say it's not. And then people say I just went back to word, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 35:11

For me, scrivner, especially the first draft, like I for this, my second novel that I'm working on, which is I've been putting it off for years. We're not excuse, but the first draft for me was because you divide the chapters right, so if you get an idea, you know exactly where to plug it in.

Speaker 2: 35:37

And then you can name the chapter so you can have like num chapter, like when the main character has a fight with her husband or whatever right, that's like the chapter. And then you, you know, like when you walk, and then you's like, ah, maybe she's gonna throw that glass of wine. We know like, and you remember, okay, I have to add this. So you immediately go to the chapter and you plug it in. It makes it much easier for me because you visually see it, and also for me is the character how I? So I find images of of characters like online, like celebrities, and then I plug them in and every time like, how does this character look like again? And so I go back and this inspires me to add more description. Like you know, she played with her long black hair or he smiled and the dimples show the whatever right, that's true. Yeah, try that, it helped.

Speaker 2: 36:33

You know I'm all talk, though. I can go back to it. You'll get back to it, yeah, but that's I would highly recommend, at least for the first draft, and it sort of kind of takes the fear out of the first draft If you have it subdivided into small tasks or like small chapters. So you just like start with naming the chapters and start plugging in and moving things around. It becomes like a puzzle, and it's so. It makes it more of a game, and so you kind of trick your mind into to having fun with it, then dreading it. So that's great.

Speaker 1: 37:19

Yes, because right now I have about 37 word documents open and it's a mess it's a mess.

Speaker 2: 37:25

That's scary. I mean, that is for me. That is scary, Like that would make me procrastinate. And then, like you know the reason we procrastinate because we're dreading the task. And if you make it fun, your mind will realize okay, I'm not going to procrastinate, I'm looking forward to this, so exactly.

Speaker 1: 37:42

That's great. And then to see your characters. That must be like, like your visible plans.

Speaker 2: 37:47

Yeah, yeah, because, because I forget, you know, and I'm working on different projects and nonfiction and short stories and like, who is this guy? Yeah, but it's fun. Every time I talk with someone on the podcast I get really fired up and it's fine, like I go back to my novel and then, just you know, I didn't get back to my other paying clients.

Speaker 1: 38:16

It's very hard to divide.

Speaker 1: 38:18

And I think too, when I mentioned Camille, I was very fortunate she had me on as a guest and one thing that I struggled with and maybe you have some advice for me but that whenever I'll hit a roadblock in a manuscript, I'll think I should be marketing the other books. Do you know what I mean? So then I will flick away and I'll see about, I'll contact a local bookstore or I'll reach out to a podcast host or, and then I kind of tell myself, okay, you're not working on that manuscript, but you're doing marketing for the other works and that's just as important, but I have to. So her advice was kind of just block off chunks of time and tell yourself it's the time when I write, this is the time when I market. And so I think that because you feel very divided, like I want to work on this but at the same time I want to keep this thing going, so you have to wear a lot of hats.

Speaker 2: 39:13

I know, and with three kids, I know I want to work for me.

Speaker 1: 39:19

I see other writers where they've got like their kids on almost an assembly line where they're helping pack and send out. But my boys are kind of like you're on your own.

Speaker 2: 39:30

I have two boys and a girl, so it depends on the mood.

Speaker 1: 39:34

They make fun of me most of the time, but I don't know about your kids, but I will try to say I don't know if you've seen certain authors like big name authors will. For charity they'll raffle off a name, you know. Do you want to name a character in my book, or would you like me to use your name as a character in my book? For dinner I'll say to my kids here's your opportunity. You can name a character and nobody wants to play along.

Speaker 2: 40:02

That's a good idea. It's probably my five year old would like it. The others too busy with their video games to care. That's fun. I'm actually taking them to. We go there every year. It's a book festival here in Maryland called the Gatorsburg Book Festival. Oh, it's fun because they have like a huge children's section and they love meeting the authors and they have all these books where the authors sign. So it's you know, I try to make them realize that reading and writing is very important. So I started grooming them early.

Speaker 1: 40:42

I know it's so important. I was such a huge reader but of course my husband and I will talk about growing up we only had like three television channels, you know what I mean. And then you would just kind of have three runs over and over again. So books were such a love of mine and such an escape. But today they have so many between what's on their phone and all million channels on TV and video games.

Speaker 2: 41:05

Yeah, yeah, and I'm proud of my son because he wants us to go on Memorial Day's week and we live in Maryland, so he wants to go to Baltimore to see Edgar Allan's Poe's house. Oh, it is cool, yeah. So he asked me to get him the collection of short stories.

Speaker 1: 41:21

but I get all that and he's reading it.

Speaker 2: 41:23

So we're all excited to go to his house.

Speaker 1: 41:26

Oh I love that yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:29

And the other two might complain, but I don't care, I'm dragging all of it.

Speaker 1: 41:37

Oh, that's wonderful.

Speaker 2: 41:38

Yeah, yeah, but okay. So I always, you know, like to conclude by asking the authors to give just tips and advice for anyone who's struggling, or anyone who wants to write a book but you know, just to over one like, or someone who is in the trenches and just want to give up. So what kind of advice would you give?

Speaker 1: 42:05

I would say and this is something that I always talk about is I, very early on, I joined a writing workshop and that really kept me going, because I think, like we were just talking about, you can make up so many excuses for yourself.

Speaker 1: 42:19

And they're all justifiable, especially if you're working. You only have so many hours in a day. So I signed up for a workshop before. I guess my memoir was the first full length work or project that I worked on. And I signed up for this workshop and so every week I had to show up with 10 pages.

Speaker 1: 42:40

And so that really kept me going. Almost like when people join a gym and you're like, well, I have to go because I paid. I felt like this, I couldn't show up empty handed. And then what I love is that you would read your work aloud, which is another tip I would give. I think reading aloud really allows you to hear if you're overusing the same word, if you've mixed up your tenses, if the dialogue doesn't ring true. I think that's great. So we'd read aloud and then people would give you feedback right then. And so sometimes it was hard to hear because you'd find out what wasn't working.

Speaker 1: 43:16

But when you could hear somebody laugh at a line that you intended to be funny, or somebody gasp at something that you were hoping to, get, a reaction that really was inspiring to me to go back and go home and improve that chapter and then keep going forward.

Speaker 1: 43:34

So that's something I think it's also great because you hear. It seems like, especially if you're on social media, you see people announcing I just got a deal or I got an agent, and it seems like everybody's getting ahead of you. And it's not that it's a competition, but it's easy to feel like, oh man, everybody else is achieving their goal or their dream, and I'm still plotting away on chapter two and so I think to be in that workshop and to hear other people who are kind of in the trenches with you of working through that draft was really inspiring to think like I'm not in this alone. So when I worked on the Perfect Neighborhood I was also in a workshop for that and unfortunately COVID hit. But we were able to go online and still meet virtually and that really kept me going and the workshop.

Speaker 2: 44:27

did you create the group or was it like an organized thing or how it's?

Speaker 1: 44:32

actually. So I'm in New Jersey and it was through the writer circle and they have, I guess they have in-person sessions and then they also have virtual and they meet in different places around New Jersey. So they have a few outposts, so it's easy for people, I guess, if you're in North or Central Jersey, to hopefully find a location that's not too far from you, and so that really helped. But, and they offer whether you're beginning your novel or revising your novel or you're working on nonfiction. They have a lot for children and young adults, so they offer a wide array, and so I felt really fortunate to have found them and that really kept me going. Okay, well, that's great.

Speaker 1: 45:16

And then I guess, from one of my early sessions, a couple of people I met now we'll still meet, we need for lunch, but we used to meet and talk about our writing. But now as life has gotten in the way, kind of we're all at different stages. One woman, she's still working on her memoir, and one of the other writers, he has a chat book coming out, so he's put his short stories together and found a publisher, and so we're kind of all at different places, but we've stayed friendly, which is wonderful. So it's great to have that you know kind of a friendship grow out of it that you didn't necessarily expect Great.

Speaker 2: 45:51

So this has been wonderful, liz, and any final thoughts.

Speaker 1: 45:56

No, I appreciate everything you do to bring readers and authors together, so thank you.

Speaker 2: 46:03

Hi, you're welcome. And for anyone who is reading, listening or watching, don't forget to check out Liz's book, the Perfect Neighborhood. So thank you everyone for spending this hour with us and until we meet again.