September 4, 2025 • 50 mins
Has her google history landed her on a government watchlist? Edgar-nominated author Ashley Weaver ponders the occupational hazards of being an author as she joins host, Nicole Swisher, this week as they discuss:
- The inspiration behind Ashley's Electra McDonnell book series.
- Unconventional female characters.
- The extensive career opportunities in the criminal underworld.
- Unique stories from World War II.
- Writing advice for aspiring authors and finding an agent.
- The art of creativity and the difficult task of starting.
- Cozy mystery novels.
- The Backstreet Boys and first concerts.
Whether you're an aspiring writer seeking practical advice, a mystery lover hunting for your next great read, or simply curious about how to orchestrate the next great heist, this conversation offers something to steal away with.
Subscribe now and join this exploration of what it means to live a happy life in an increasingly complicated world.
Host: Nicole Swisher
Guest: Ashley Weaver - ashleyweaver.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, Ashley, thanks for joining me.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, so what's somethingcrunchy or zen that you've done
lately?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I would have to say I really enjoy doing a nice
relaxing bubble bath.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Oh, that sounds great .
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, I find it kind of zen to do like Epsom salts.
Or sometimes somebody gave me areally nice um like bath soap,
I'd like a bath tea, and so Ilike to just like take a nice
relaxing bath when I'm when I'mstressed, or sometimes just for
fun yeah, are you?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
do you read or like listen to anything?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
yeah, I usually.
I usually read.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Well, welcome to my Crunchy Zen Era.
This is a podcast about with alittle bit of fun, a little
humor and a whole lot ofcuriosity.
I'm your host, nicoleisher, andthis week my guest is Ashley
Weaver.
Hi Ashley, hi Ashley.
So Ashley is a librarian and anauthor of two book series, the
(01:13):
Amory Ames series and ElectraMcDonald, and her first novel in
the Amory Ames series, murderat Brightwell, was nominated for
an Edgar Award for first or forbest first novel, and then her
most recent book, one Final Turn, is the final book in the
Electro McDonald series, which Ilove and which is why I reached
(01:36):
out to have her on the podcast.
So what is sorry?
What did you say?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
yes, I was so excited to hear from you.
Thank you for inviting me.
I think this may be my firstpodcast.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Oh, really Okay.
Well this is great.
It's my first remote podcast,so that's great.
What is one memory that youwish you could relive, and why?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
This is a good question.
I have a lot of really greatmemories.
I think one that was reallyspecial to me was growing up, I
always wanted to travel a lotand one of my like most you know
desired destinations was Paris,and so the first time I went to
Paris was really a great memory, and I remember actually had a
(02:25):
friend whose husband wasstationed in the military and so
she was living in Germany atthe time and she drove to
Belgium to pick me and two otherfriends up at the airport and
then we drove into Paris, and soI remember driving in at night
and getting the first view ofthe Eiffel Tower when it was
glittering, and I remember Iscreamed, and so that was just
like a really fun.
That's always a memory thatsticks out.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
To me is that first glimpse of Paris and my first
chance to travel internationally.
I bet that coming in driving isjust a different experience
than yes, it was totallydifferent.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, it was really exciting because we got to spend
a couple days in Belgium andthen you know she could drive us
around the city and stuff, sowe got to see quite a bit that's
amazing.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
I feel like we should introduce your dogs.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I know they're being so bad.
I'm so sorry.
They get really upset when Ilock them out.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
I mean, they can join us.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I have two dogs and she's being a little bit naughty
in there, but that's Daisy.
She can hear me that there'sfun and excitement going on, but
if I let them out they'll beall over the place.
So they're, they're, locked up,but not but not completely
absent yeah what kind of dogsare they they're uh, they're
both mixed breeds, they're bothrescues, so um.
(03:38):
Those are the best kind um yeah, she's a good dog, but she's
kind of jealous of my timethat's understandable.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
You're her person, so I have a little grab bag um
questions, which are randomquestions I put together a long
time ago so I don't evenremember what they are.
Okay awesome.
That keeps it really excitingit does.
What is your favorite kind ofcheese?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
My favorite kind of cheese.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I'm a pretty basic cheese girl.
I like a good cheddar.
Oh, that sounds good.
It's not too exciting and I'mfrom Wisconsin originally, so
you'd think I would have like awide variety of cheeses.
That I do like a lot of cheeses, but like cheddar is my go to
variety of cheeses that I dolike a lot of cheeses, but like
cheddars might go too, okay.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
So did you always know that you wanted to be an
author or did you have likeother ideas as a child?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I had.
I think I went through a lot ofphases.
I think I feel like everymillennial girl wanted to be a
marine biologist, or at leastlike a lot of us.
So that was one of the things Iwanted to be when I wanted to
grow up.
I wanted to be a librarian fora while, which I actually became
, and so there was a fewdifferent things.
But I remember writing my veryfirst story, and I probably was
(04:55):
I don't know maybe six or sevenyears old, and I remember
writing this story down on someof my dad's computer printer
paper, and I remember that beinglike my first realization that
I could take a story from my ownhead and make it into a book,
and so from that moment on, Ithink I always wanted to be a
writer, so it started very early, for sure.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Would you say that was your first unpublished book,
or did you have like anotherbigger one that you worked?
Speaker 2 (05:23):
on I did well.
My first full-length novel Iwrote my freshman year of high
school and I grew up watching alot of old movies and I liked
the old gangster movies a lotand so I wrote sort of it was a
gangster mystery romance set inprohibition era, chicago, and I
would type a few pages everynight on my little computer and
print out.
(05:43):
Print them out and bring themto school and my friends would
sit around the lunch table andread them and give me feedback.
So that was kind of my firsttaste of writing for readers.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah, were they like harsh critics, or were they
generally just like cheerleaders?
Speaker 2 (05:55):
They were generally pretty.
Yeah, they were generallypretty.
You know I'm trying to think.
If there was anyone who waslike giving me, they were they
in general they really liked it.
I didn't have too much, youknow, harsh feedback at that
point.
They were more friends who youknow enjoyed reading and would
would just want me to get morepages out yeah, those are the
(06:20):
great friends to have in highschool, I think yes, for sure
yeah, so you have, like I saidat the beginning, you've got two
series, both mysteries.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I've read the Electra McDonald ones.
I'm saving, saving the otherones for a long flight that's
coming up oh awesome yeah, sohow would you describe, like the
book genre that you write?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
uh, it kind of falls, I would say, sort of into the
cozy mystery genre.
My first series is set in 1930sEngland and it's a husband and
wife solving mysteries in kindof an upper class setting.
That was sort of my sort ofinspired by Agatha Christie and
the golden age of mystery.
I've always loved her books andsort of that general time
(07:05):
period, as I mentioned, growingup loving old movies, and so I
found a lot of inspiration fromthat time period and so they
fall sort of into the cozymysteries.
And then my Electra McDonaldseries takes place in World War
II and is a safe cracker who isworking for the British
government to help, you know, dospy work and that sort of thing
(07:25):
.
So that's a little bit moresomeone I think one reader
described them more as as sortof cozy thrillers because
there's sort of a generalmystery but it's, you know, it's
more of like a caper in eachbook as opposed to a sort of
limited set of suspects and, andyou know, searching down the
clues and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
So yeah, I really.
I really liked Electra becauseI like the anti-hero and she's a
thief and then starts workingfor the government, but she to
me she never fully gave up thatother side of her and I like
that.
Thank you yeah she's.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
She's always got a little bit of her uh her
criminal streak running throughher.
I think it'll probably alwaysbe there for her, but she's
learned kind of how to, how tomake it work to her advantage
yeah, and so this is a weirdcomment, but my mom's side of my
family, their last name is Ames.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Oh so I'm like I'm excited, I'm like yeah that's
great, it's perfect.
Yeah, we had um the.
In Minneapolis there was thislegendary like corrupt mayor
named Doc Ames oh, it's likethis family lore.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Doc Ames is such a great nametoo.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
That sounds like it really is a book character yeah,
yeah, you can keep that in mindfor the future yeah, maybe
he'll be a relation yes, mygrandma would love that.
Um so how did you come up withthe idea for the electro
mcdonald series?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I actually read a book called agent zigzag by ben
mcintyre.
I've been reading a lot ofworld war ii non-fiction, just
kind of as a been reading a lotof World War II nonfiction, just
kind of as a general interest.
A lot of times as a reader I'lljust get into phases and read a
lot of different things.
And this book was about asmall-time criminal, kind of a
petty crook, and I think he waseven involved maybe in a few
(09:18):
safe cracking operations.
I don't think he was a safecracker himself, but he was
caught by the police andimprisoned on the Channel
Islands in England, which wasthe only part of the UK that was
occupied by the Germans.
So when the Germans went to theChannel Islands they found him
in prison and they said we'lllet you out of prison if you'll
be a spy for us.
So he agreed, they took himback to Germany, taught him to
(09:41):
be a spy and then parachuted himback into England and he
immediately went to theauthorities and said Germany
thinks I'm spying for them Doyou want me to spy for you?
And became a double agent.
And so the book is amazing.
It just reads, you know, notfor nonfiction, it reads just
like a thriller novel.
But I love the idea of someonewho had all these sort of
illicit skills that put him onthe wrong side of the law and of
(10:04):
society before the war and thatwas what exactly made him
perfect for this job during thewar.
And so it kind of sparked anidea and I thought, well, what
if, you know, I had sort of likea family of criminals and, you
know, focused on a female maincharacter who was part of this
and how she kind of found outwho she wanted to be and through
the war and how she could usethose skills for the war effort.
(10:26):
So that's where the idea wasborn.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, I feel like I learned a lot about World War II
Just in London.
I didn't know that much.
How much time did you end upspending researching?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I did quite a bit of research.
I don't always do all myresearch prior to the novel, so
a lot of times when I'm writing,if I know that I'm going to
need to insert something, I'lluse brackets so I can put, you
know, like brackets, researchhere.
And then, when I'm in the sortof research phase, I'll go back
and search the document forbrackets and then I can go back
(11:01):
and find everything that needsto be filled in.
Sometimes it'll be somethingsimple like a street name that
I'll have to spell out, orsometimes during the writing
process, you know, I won't befeeling particularly creative
one day and I'll think, okay,well, instead of writing today,
I'll go and do fill out a coupleareas of research and that sort
of thing.
Yeah, and I just, and I did alot of, as I said, world War II
(11:21):
reading before just for fun, andso that sort of was a good bit
of base knowledge too, but Ilearned a lot of a lot of really
interesting things, as I yeahas well yeah, I wonder.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I mean that makes sense that you had read more
ahead of time, because I waslike that could have taken a lot
of time.
Yeah, how do you researchsomething like how do you crack
a safe and get away with stuffas a thief?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
well, actually I found a I want to say it was
some sort of manual for alocksmith and so I found some
good information there in an oldlocksmithing manual, but also
there were there's severalyoutube videos on how to crack
safes, and I think there's a lotof locksmiths now will like
(12:06):
people will buy safes atauctions and stuff that are with
with the keys lost or whatever,or combinations lost, and they
won't know how to get into them,and so locksmiths, will you
know, have a have a job openingthose sometimes, and so there'll
be some YouTube videos show youhow to get into old safes if
you, if you've come across oneor if you've purchased one.
So there's some goodinformation available on YouTube
as well.
All, right.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I mean, are you a researcher at heart?
Like, does this just make youso excited to do that?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
yes, I think it goes hand in hand with being a
librarian.
I love research, I love um, andI'm just the sort of person I
mean I'll be watching a movieand then you know it's a classic
, like where's this actor from,I'll have to look up every movie
they've been in.
But also, just you know it's aclassic, like where's this actor
from, I'll have to look upevery movie they've been in.
But also, just you know, ifthere's like one little line of
the plot that I want to knowmore about, I'll end up on, you
know, wikipedia or something,just reading a bunch of
information on how that elementof the plot came together.
(12:54):
So I just enjoy research forthe sake of research.
So that works out well withwriting.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Do you sometimes get really sidetracked when you're
like I should be writing?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
definitely.
Yeah, sometimes you know andespecially that you know
Wikipedia rabbit holes, thosecan lead you down a lot of uh
you know, just click one otherthing and pretty soon it's two
o'clock in the morning and youfind yourself reading something
totally different than what youneed to be reading.
But what?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
what would you say is like the weirdest rabbit hole
you went down during this bookoh I, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
That's a good question.
I can't think of one off thetop of my head.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
What about the weirdest question you've been
asked to research as a librarian?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I worked as a reference librarian for a while
at the reference desk of apublic library and I had someone
call in one day and ask howthey could donate a body to
science.
That was something you know.
I was like I'm going to have todo a little bit of research on
that and call you back.
But you know there areapparently a lot of institutions
and you know medical facilitiesand things that you can donate
(13:54):
your body to.
So I learned something new thatday too.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I did not.
I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
That was interesting being a reference librarian,
because people would call in andyou'd never know when you
picked up the phone what theywere going to ask for.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Yeah, that could give you a lot of ideas.
Maybe so, when you sat down towrite the first book, did you
have an idea of how the wholeseries would end, or is that
something that kind of came toyou as you wrote?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
I did not have an idea.
They say writers fall intoeither plotters who plot
everything out, or pantsers whowrite by the seat of their pants
.
And I'm very much a pantser.
I don't even know how the bookswill end when I start writing
them, so in the individual books.
So I just kind of I writeactually sort of write my books
out of order.
I'll write chunks of differentscenes, of things that I know I
(14:44):
want to happen, and then I kindof piece them together and fill
it in between.
So I didn't have a far reachingplan of where I wanted
everything to go.
I just sort of put in theelements that I knew I thought
would be interesting to pursuethroughout the series and went
from there.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
That's so interesting because I've always thought
people just have outlinesfigured out and they know
exactly what's going to happenhere and here and here, and I
yeah, I've never been able toget very far in writing and I
think I get stuck in the plotyeah, there may be that may be.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
It's probably an easier way to do it.
My brain I tried before towrite an outline ahead of time
and my brain just doesn't wantto work that way, so I just roll
with it, but are you a plannerin your everyday life or is that
similar?
I'm a little bit more.
I'm a little bit more of aplanner in my everyday life.
I do like to know, kind of youknow, what's going to happen and
(15:36):
what the steps are that I needto get done.
But there's a little bit ofpanting in there and in everyday
life as well, but I'm probablymore of a planner in everyday
life.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I'm starting to come up with a theory, because you're
the second person, secondauthor, who has said that
they're um a pantser but aplanner everyday life.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
So oh yeah, maybe it's sort of uh, you know,
looking for that little sense ofadventure, yeah, and a less uh,
you know, there's lessconsequences maybe when you're
writing a book than in real life.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, we'll have to take a poll, figure it out.
Yeah, that's a good one.
So I found one thing I reallyenjoyed about your books was
just that I didn't know what wasgoing to happen.
I mean, I knew the.
I figured out the romance part,which is fine because they
ended up we'll just say sheended up with who I was hoping
she would.
But the plot was very unique andsurprising to me and I was just
(16:29):
curious how do you even come upwith that and are like no one's
going to figure this out or noone's done this before?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I think that's sort of an element of that's part of
my panting is that knowing thatsometimes I feel like if I don't
know who the culprit is, maybewho the villain is going to be
or or exactly how it's going towork out as I'm writing, it
maybe lends a little bit of thatuncertainty to certain parts of
the novel.
Or the characters don't know atthat moment how things are
going to work out.
Because I don't know how thingsare going to work out.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
So I think maybe that could contribute to that a
little bit interesting how muchediting do you end up doing
before you send it to yourpublisher?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Because I am a panther and a procrastinator.
It's usually they get, they get.
There's been a couple times Ifinished writing my draft, you
know, at at 3am the day it's dueand send it off so that draft
draft, but like finish wrappingup.
You know at at 3am the day it'sdue and send it off so that
draft draft, but like finishwrapping up.
You know it's not like veryfirst draft but um, as you know,
(17:32):
in perfect, perfectcircumstances I'll have finished
the whole book and then I'llhave time to read over it a
couple more times and make surethat, like I said, all my little
clues are lining up and there'snot a lot of loose ends and
things that I never addressed orthat kind of thing.
So, but once you know there'sseveral, once it goes to my
editor she sends back notes onit, then I do another revision
(17:56):
and then it goes back and goesto the copy editor and then it
goes to the proofreader and sothere's a lot of steps in the
process to make sure that thingsline up well before it's
published.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Yeah, and so for your first series, how much did you
have written by the time youwent and got an agent and got
into like the very traditionalpublishing route?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
For my first series I had the book finished.
Actually, I had a friend whowas my writing buddy and we
would write in the evenings oron weekends and cheer each other
on and send each other chaptersback and forth to critique, and
so we had finished our booksand she had said that I mean, I
kind of thought that we were,you know, yay, we finished our
books and that was fun.
And she said no, now we'regoing to try to get agents.
(18:42):
And so then we had to go aboutresearch, uh, researching that
project process and see whatneeded to be done, you know,
writing a query letter andresearching the agents you're
sending it to and all that kindof thing.
So I had the first book written,uh, when I sent it off to an
agent but with the idea that itwould be a series in mind, and
actually the first book I hadleft with a cliffhanger a little
(19:04):
bit.
Um, when you read the book, thevery last scene was not part of
the book but my uh lady who didbecome my agent, said readers
like closure, so you can leave alittle bit of uncertainty as to
where you want to go in theseries, but you don't want to
leave too much left hanging, andso then I ended up writing that
last scene and she was rightand it worked out perfectly.
(19:24):
So I started with that one, andthen, I believe, they offered
me a two book deal, and thenthey came back a little bit
later and said they would taketwo more books, and then I ended
up doing three more after that.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
That's cool.
Was hooked, I think.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I think that, uh, the my agent was the was the third
agent I sent it to.
I think I sent it.
Uh, I sent it to one who saidit wasn't right for their
editorial con contacts and thenI didn't hear back from one, and
(19:59):
I think she was the third one Isent it to.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
And I found yeah, it was fun, I found her by.
There was a series that Ireally enjoyed.
That was a mystery series thatI felt had a similar vibe I
think it was set in VictorianEngland but it was a strong
female protagonist and sort ofan undertone of romance and
she's solving mysteries and sortof an unconventional character
and so I looked up who the agentfor that series was and and
(20:25):
that's who I ended up signingwith.
So that's something I alwaystell authors is look for a
series that you feel like issimilar to yours, or a series
that you really enjoy, and seewho represents that, Because
that's a good way to find anagent who may be interested in
what you're writing.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, that's really good advice.
I like the unconventionalfemale characters.
I haven't heard it like that.
Um, do you, when you createyour characters, um do you
create them like at all, basedon people you know, or how do
you come up with their character?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
I don't, um, I don't usually base them on people.
Uh, for one thing, I said youknow, people have asked me this
before and I say well, inwriting mysteries it's kind of
dangerous because either youknow they could end up being the
victim or or the murderer,especially the way I write, not
knowing till the end who's gonnafit the bill.
To be the culprit.
But my cousin, actually mycousin's husband.
(21:20):
I was just visiting my cousinand he said he wanted me to
write a villain in one of mystories with his name.
But I won't say, in case I everdo.
And then he said but I want atthe end the detective can catch
him.
But I want the detective to sayhow clever his plot was, so
that he almost got away with itso maybe one day.
Maybe one day I will have acharacter based on what I know,
(21:42):
but mostly I just sort of justsort of let them develop on
their own as I'm writing thescenes and see kind of how their
little personalities come out.
And I've heard I always heardauthors say things about like
characters doing things on theirown and I was like, well, that
seems kind of strange becauseyou're the one writing it.
But there really are thingsthat have happened that I was
(22:02):
not even planning to to put downon, you know, to type out, and
they just all of a sudden, youknow, kind of happened in my
mind, I guess, as I was writing.
But it's kind of fun to seewhat ends up unfolding,
especially when I'm not writingfrom an outline.
It can always be a surprise.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Do you find that like the more you write those
characters, the more it's justkind of like, it's just
naturally you think like themwhen you're writing them, or do
you have to definitely.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
um, like I mentioned, uh, amory Ames, the first, the
heroine in my first series, is asociety woman and she's kind of
elegant and likes fancy clothesand but she's, you know, smart
and sophisticated.
And so when I switched to EllieElectra McDonald, who's the
(22:46):
heroine of the second series,she's a little bit more, uh,
rough and tumble, I guess, likeshe's grown up sort of probably
lower middle class and and she's, she doesn't really care about
clothes and she's, you know,ready for an adventure.
And she grew up with her olderboy cousins, kind of like
brothers, and so she's, you know, used to sort of being with the
(23:07):
being one of the boys.
And so when I first switchedover to writing from one series
to the next, occasionally Iwould catch myself writing
something and I would say thatsounds like something Amory
would say, not something Elliewould say, and so I'd have to
rewrite it.
But the further I got into theseries series, the more I felt
like I was kind of just writingfrom her perspective, and so the
shift became easier then do youhave to keep track of, I guess,
(23:30):
the consistency in the books,um, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I think of like the show bible for a show running,
but like, if you've been writingsomething for so long, do you
ever have to go back and be like, oh, was this like Electra or
was this Amory?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
yes, definitely.
Well, I don't know so muchbetween the two of them, but
within the, within the series,sometimes, especially things
like eye color, or I'll have togo back and you know, double
check and make sure that I'm notswitching somebody.
And then finally, like the lastcouple books, I finally made
just one document of all thenames of all the characters
throughout my two series,because sometimes I'll be like I
(24:08):
can't remember if I've everused the name Mary before or
something you know to where Idon't want to just keep
recycling the same name.
So I finally made that documentso I can search names to make
sure I'm not repeating them.
But I definitely I probablycould benefit from having
something like that with alittle bit of you know,
information about each characterand what they look like and
everything, but I'm not alwaysorganized enough for that yeah,
(24:29):
people are gonna be like what'sup with Mary?
Speaker 1 (24:32):
yeah, she really likes people named Mary do you
have a favorite character thatyou've written?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
that's a good question.
I really I feel a little bitlike that's like having to pick
your favorite child, so I don't.
I like Amory and Electra indifferent ways.
I feel like they sort of havesimilar, even though they're
very, very different women.
They have similar qualitiesthat I just sort of admire.
(25:02):
In general, they're, you know,smart and capable and clever and
they want, you know, eventhough Anne-Marie is looking for
criminals and Elektra is acriminal, they both sort of have
this innate sense of right andwrong and just justice and
injustice, and so they want tosee that, you know, the good
people succeed and the badpeople don't, and so I feel like
(25:25):
those are kind of similarqualities in both of them that I
admire and I like how they sortof show themselves in different
ways and the two very differentwomen.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I like that, yeah, any strong female characters I'm
like I need more.
So you said earlier that, likefor your first book, you kind of
had a writing buddy, writingpartner.
Um, do you still do that, or isit very much like a alone
process now?
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I do add that same writing buddy.
She still reads all my books.
Uh, sometimes it's her, justher and my sister, usually the
ones who ended up end up readingbefore I.
You know my roughest of roughdrafts, and so, um, yep, she's
still one of the people that Iread with.
I have a couple friends who orwho read my books, but I have a
couple friends who like to writeas well, and so sometimes we'll
(26:17):
do, uh, you know, we'll say I'mgonna write now for an hour,
let's see how many words we getdone, or that kind of thing.
So we kind of keep each otheron task and, yeah, not such a
lonely process then.
But I do do a lot of writingvery late at night, and so then
I just sort of get in my zoneand you know, I usually put on a
background, a background tvshow of some sort to watch or to
(26:40):
listen to a little bit, youknow, in the background as I'm
writing.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
So Do you have a go-to TV show?
Speaker 2 (26:47):
For a while I was really, especially during one
book.
I watched like several seasonsof Project Runway so I was
really excited to see it's justcome back because I had watched.
It was a good show for writingbecause you don't have to pay a
whole lot of attentionthroughout the.
You know, it's kind of a thingyou can kind of look up and down
(27:07):
at and then at the end you havethe little reward of getting to
watch the runway show wherethey show off all the clothes
they made, and so that was sortof like you know, now now pay
attention and write during thisother episode and then you can
stop and focus on the runwayshow when it gets to it.
So that saw me through one bookat least nice.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, I feel like everybody has kind of those
background shows of like justlike having it on um.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
I like Gilmore Girls, just like oh yeah, my sister's
a big Gilmore Girls fan too.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
I've seen so many times that I'm like I can tune
it out and tune back in and Ihaven't, I haven't missed
anything yeah, you know exactlywhat's what's happening.
So how do you like create aspace where you're creative?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I feel like, well, to a certain extent, I know that I
have to be creative, and soit's sort of like one of those
things where you know, okay,well, I just have to sit down
and do this, and so it's not.
I found, especially as the morebooks you write, the less it oh
, I feel so inspired to sit downand write.
You know 2000 words today, andit's more like, okay, I have to
(28:11):
sit down and write 2000 wordstoday, and so I just try to.
You know, caffeine is one of mygo-tos.
That's something that helps alot.
I'll just sit and I'm actually Ido a lot of writing in my bed
(28:31):
and I'll just bring my laptop inthere and sometimes like a cup
of coffee or tea, and I'll putmy fun little background shows
on and just get to work.
So I do find that creativityUsually.
Sometimes it's a matter of notbeing inspired to start, but
being inspired once you startbeing inspired once you start,
and so you know, I may not feellike sitting down to write at
this moment, but once I sit downand start getting the words on
the page, then I find myselfgetting excited about what I'm
writing and looking forward to,you know, fleshing out the scene
(28:53):
and and figuring out what'sgonna happen.
So I find that that sort ofit's a matter of, you know,
getting myself over that hump of, of that initial motivation,
and then I can really start tofeel creative.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
I feel like starting is just like it's like a wall
sometimes yes, it's the truth.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Of so many things, just getting started is the
hardest part yeah, it doesn'tmatter.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
It doesn't matter what um and so like.
Have you ever run into writer'sblock when you're like, oh my
gosh, I cannot have writer'sblock?
When you're like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I cannot have writer's block.
Right now I don't have too muchproblem with writer's block, I
would say, and I think one ofthe reasons maybe is because I
write out of order.
So if I'm finding that I'mstuck on a scene or, you know,
nothing's happening, this isn'tworking out, you know the way I
want it to, or I can't seem tofit the clues in here, then I'll
skip to another part of thebook and work on that, and so
(29:44):
sometimes it may be as simple aswell.
You know, this is going torequire research in this part,
and I need, you know, to look uphow to blow open a safe with
nitroglycerin, and I don't knowhow to do that, and you know
this kind of stuff.
And so then I'll say, well, letme skip to a romance scene or
something that's easy to writeand is sometimes, you know, a
little more fluffy and fun, andso then I'll work on a different
(30:05):
part of the book instead.
So that's usually how Iovercome if.
If I'm feeling blocked in acertain area, I'll just kind of
skip to a different place.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
I'm feeling like your google history could be
concerning to like thegovernment.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Oh, yes, definitely, I've thought about that before.
I said I'm probably on somesort of watch list after this
series.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
What would you say is like your favorite part of the
writing and publishing process,if it's after too?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
I feel like as a librarian it's just always comes
down to seeing the book on theshelf After you know, when it's
published especially my firstbook, you know to see it on the
library shelf next to all thesepeople whose books I'd put away
for years, and it was justreally rewarding.
So I always say it kind of isamazing how it's, how it's
(30:54):
almost like magic, how you takea doc, they take a document on
your computer and then turn itinto like a beautiful book with
a pretty cover and you know, andit all comes together to create
this sort of it's all in myhead but then it comes together
to create this outside thingthat that can be in other
people's heads.
So I think that's pretty coolthat's I.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Honestly, it's kind of funny because I found your
book, because I was justwandering around my library
looking for a mystery book and Ithink it was like sitting out
and I thought the cover lookedit was so beautiful and like so
different that I was like oh,I'm just gonna check this out.
And then I was like oh, thatdoesn't usually happen yeah, oh
(31:32):
amazing, I love that yeah, howdid?
Were you part of designing thecover, or was that something
someone else did?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
that's something they .
They have some uh cover artiststhrough the publisher and
they've always done an amazingjob.
Every time I get one of thebooks I'm more excited than the
last, so there's been severaltimes when they've sent me the
email.
You know, here's the proof ofyour cover and I'll just gasp
because they're so pretty andperfect, so I've really been
fortunate with my coverdesigners.
They've done an awesome job.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yeah, no, they're really, really.
I mean, they caught my eye, so,um.
So with your first series you'dwritten the first book and so
you were looking for the agent,got the publisher, but with the
second series you're.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
You actually already had a publisher and they wanted
more right yes, they said theywere interested in seeing what
if I was interested in startinga second series.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
And so when they approached you about that.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Had you already read the Agent Zigzag book or were
you like I have to come up witha new idea?
I think I had actually alreadyread the Agent Zigzag book
because I remember when theyasked me I kind of had this idea
floating around in my head alittle bit already.
I was like, oh, that was anidea that I was interested in
exploring and I thought that itwould make a fun series because
of you know all the differentshe gets a little.
There's a little bit ofcriminals from different walks
of life that they know andthey're they're different
(32:55):
criminal contacts that they pullin to do different aspects of
the job, and so I thought thatwould be a fun sort of world to
explore.
So that was it was.
It was high on my list.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Nice, I actually.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I think you should like bring back your gangster
idea to do something, because Ilove gangster stories the tail
(33:32):
end of prohibition, um, becauseit's the early 30s but they're,
they sort of get involved with awith an underworld character,
and so that was sort of myhomage to those early days of my
, uh, of my gangster series,because I do sort of have a soft
spot for those 1920s, 1920s,you know, bootleggers and things
.
I always thought that was suchan interesting time in american
history for sure I yeah, I thinkthat I think it's.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I've always been fascinated by like the mob and
any like criminal.
I feel like if I wasn't so likeparanoid about getting caught,
I'd I'd be a criminal.
It'd be fun.
Instead, I became a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Oh well, it's adjacent, you know, to crime.
The world of crime, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
The courtrooms at least.
Yeah, I'm not even that kind oflawyer.
Oh well, still the law.
I sit at a computer.
Yeah is.
My grandparents lived on theMississippi River and their
house looked like right out atthe river and across from them
(34:39):
was a tunnel that the gangsters,the mob, built, and they would
smuggle stuff there, and so theFBI would come and sit in their
living room and watch themonsters oh, that's amazing.
Yeah.
So I'm like I feel like I hadthat like story and I'm just
like it's so fascinating.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Yeah, that would make a good story too.
And then you know, have the FBIsitting in your living room and
watching out.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Well, feel free to use that.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
You've got some good fodder for stories in your
family history for sure yeah,yeah, I do actually.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Wow, I never really thought about that, but I don't
know.
My grandma has written a bunchof books, so she's, she's
definitely, oh, awesome yeahyeah, um.
So do you have a new project inprocess?
Speaker 2 (35:30):
I don't.
At the moment.
I don't't have anythingdefinite.
There's a few ideas I'm sort ofswirling around.
I recently last year switched.
I worked in public librariesfor 19 years and I took a job as
an elementary and middle schoollibrarian at a school, so I've
kind of made a day job switchand so I'm sort of this will be
(35:50):
my second year.
We actually go back to meetingsand stuff tomorrow.
Today's my last day of summervacation, which was awesome.
I hadn't had summer vacationsince I was a kid probably.
So it's pretty nice having thesummer off.
But now that I'm kind ofsettling into this, I feel like
it's going to leave me a littlemore brain space for turning out
something new.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
How is that different than working in a public
library, like what would you sayis like the biggest difference
other than the kids, I suppose?
Speaker 2 (36:19):
I think one of the biggest differences for me on
the day-to-day basis was in myprevious job.
I worked kind of behind thescenes.
I had an office in the backwhere I would catalog books and
do the kind of behind the scenesthings.
And here I'm, people facing allday and I wasn't sure how I
felt about if I was going to bedrained by that.
But actually I've really Ireally enjoyed it last year and
the kids are a lot of fun andkind of makes the day go by
(36:42):
really fast.
So I I've, I've been happy withthe, with the switch.
I miss, I love my old job andall the people I worked with,
but I I just this opportunitycame up and I was like, well,
maybe it's time for me to spreadmy wings and try something new.
So I took a risk and so farit's been good.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Is there anything that you find surprising about
being a librarian?
Because, I mean, you've been alibrarian for quite a while, so
is it?
Is it?
I feel like people seelibrarians a lot, but I'm like
what do they actually do?
This made me my question.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, there's a lot of different and I've actually
done a lot of different jobswithin the library.
I started working at a libraryafter school when I was 14.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
So it's actually the same year that my freshman year
of high school when I wrote myfirst book.
So my writing career and mylibrarian career have always
sort of gone hand in hand.
I say but so I did the sort ofcirculation stuff where you're
working the front desk andchecking out books and checking
in books and that kind of thing.
And then I did more of thetechnical services with my
previous job, where that wasbehind the scenes, where I was,
(37:44):
you know, processing books.
I'd order books, catalog them,put all the labels on and that
kind of stuff and get them readyto put out, or I, you know,
repair damaged books, that kindof stuff and get them ready to
put out, or I, you know, repairdamaged books, that kind of
thing.
And then I mentioned working atthe reference desk.
I did that for a while so thatwas, you know, answering
people's questions and helpingthem with their research and
that kind of thing.
Yeah, so there's been a lot ofdifferent.
(38:04):
There's a lot of actually kindof different avenues of
librarianship you can pursue.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
I like the damaged books thing.
I I once tried to return a bookthat our puppy had just ripped
apart I was like maybe theywon't notice, they definitely
did it happened for sure yeah, Ithink one time they somebody
returned a book to me that theirthat their child had had chewed
on.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
So that was something new.
But babies will do that, yeahbabies and puppies yeah, yeah,
you'd be surprised.
You see, I think one of the oneof the going back to your
question the things mostsurprising about librarianship
is the library's hardly everquiet.
You know, a lot of people think, and a lot of people think that
librarians get to sit and readall day, which, you know, I wish
(38:49):
, I wish, I wish I could sit andread all day.
But, um yeah, libraries arehardly ever a quiet place.
There's always something goingon and some kind of ruckus
happening.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah, so, um, I'm not sure if you have any free time,
but if you do, how do you spendit?
Speaker 2 (39:08):
well, unsurprisingly, I do a lot of reading, that's,
you know, my probably myfavorite pastime and I I do a
lot of reading.
That's, you know, my probably myfavorite pastime and I like to
travel a lot.
I mentioned my, my trip toParis, so that was a great
memory.
But I tried, and you know, fitin trips whenever I can.
I'm excited now because duringthe summers will provide me some
more opportunity to be off andtravel.
(39:28):
Actually, my cousin, our friend, and I just went, just got back
.
Last week we went to Las Vegasto see the Backstreet Boys in
the Sphere.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Oh, no, are you serious?
Speaker 2 (39:37):
It was so amazing.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
My sister's going to be so jealous.
She and her friends still go.
Millennium was my first concert.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Oh wow, amazing.
Yeah it was, it was really fun.
It was really like a special,you know nostalgic moment.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yeah, are they all there still?
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yep, they're all there.
Yeah, they did, I think, like asix week residency at the
Sphere doing shows Friday,saturdays and Sundays, and then
I think they added a week.
So that's amazing and they were, you know, selling out.
So hopefully I'm like,hopefully they'll come back
again, you know, in a year ortwo, and maybe I'll get to go
again.
It was really fun.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
I feel like the songs that you grew up with, like I
think we're probably about thesame age.
I'm like a 90s kid and I'lljust be doing something random,
like I was journaling the otherday and I just had this song pop
in my head and it was like theBritney Spears song, like Dear
Diary which is like, yeah, and Iknew all the lyrics and I was
(40:34):
like this is a problem yeah,yeah, that's yeah.
And they and I mean they sangall like all the old favorite
songs, so of course everyone'slike screaming the lyrics and
dancing around together and itwas really fun you figured a lot
of things, but you never forgetthose lyrics, yeah for sure, so
do you have a recommendation onlike a cozy mystery or thriller
(40:58):
series?
I do.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
I have a lot of favorites.
I always enjoy Deanna Rayburn'sbook.
She has a couple of series thatare really good, and I belong
to a group called Sleuths inTime authors and we're all
mystery writers who write indifferent eras of history, and
so the other writers in thatgroup.
They're different.
(41:22):
Some of them are set in England, some are set in America and
they're throughout differentperiods of history.
But I always recommend theirbooks to anyone who's looking
for kind of the similar cozyvibe and usually with a female
protagonist who's smart andsavvy and good at solving
mysteries.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
So that's Alyssa Maxwell, Nancy Harriman Colleen,
Cambridge.
Oh, I hope I'm going to be ableto remember everybody now that
I'm on the spot.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
You can always email it to me.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Jessica Ellicott.
Okay, and the other one isClara McKenna.
Cool, I got them all right.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Lots of recommendations.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
I like that yes, so that's several, if people are
interested in reading, you know,historical female-led series
like that okay.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
And then do you have any advice for a young woman who
is aspiring to be an author?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I always find that the best writing advice that
I've seen is is from StephenKing, and he said if you want to
be a writer, you have to do twothings you have to read a lot
and you have to write a lot.
Yeah, because writing, readingyou learn the kinds of things
you are interested in in writingand the things you're
interested in, the sort of styleyou're interested in.
(42:42):
You learn through reading whatyou would love to write.
And then, as for writing a lot,I always I think a lot of
people get the idea that theyhave to sit down and create this
amazing novel, you know, assoon as they sit down at the
computer, and I've written somany things.
Sometimes I write things justfor fun.
I have no intention ofpublishing them, but if I get an
idea of just a fun scene Imight like to write, or an idea
(43:07):
for just a little snippet of astory.
I have a document that I justopened up on my computer, just
called ideas on original.
But I just opened my ideasdocument and write it down just
because it's good to work onyour.
You know the craft of writing,even if it's not something that
you think that is going to be,you know, the next great
American novel.
Sometimes you just write forwriting sake and and practice as
(43:28):
much as you can.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah, I mean I don't don't.
I mean maybe someday I wouldwrite a book, I don't know, but
I do that a lot.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
I have a lot of just unfinished things on my computer
that I'm like I'm okay if it'sonly ever me, um because I know
it and I had an idea and it'sthere well, now you've got you
know, you've got that wholeprohibition era thing going on
you could have the FBI agent andmaybe, like there's a young
woman in the family who falls inlove, or maybe.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
I never say never.
So what are you obsessing overlately?
Speaker 2 (44:10):
I.
The most recent thing I wasobsessing over was I was
watching because of BackstreetBoys mainly.
Um, I was watching.
It's on Netflix.
It's a show called Building theBand.
Okay, and it's hosted by AJMcClain.
He's my favorite.
He's your favorite too, oh, mygosh.
Okay, aj, we're definitely thesame age, yeah so, um, it's,
(44:33):
it's kind of you one of thosereality shows where they have to
.
They're like all in like littlecubes and listening to each
other sing, and then they haveto decide if they want them in
their band and then they have tomake connections and build a
band together.
And then I haven't finished theseries yet.
I have like three episodes left, but I've really been enjoying
that I'm definitely going towatch that.
(44:56):
Yeah, it's really fun.
I mean it's, you know, kind ofsilly, cheesy, reality show type
stuff.
But I always enjoy a singingcompetition show and it's kind
of fun to see.
You know, when you have a groupthere's also like the singing
and there's also all kinds ofinterpersonal conflict, which is
always makes for good.
You know, reality TV, great TV,yeah yeah, I've been obsessing
over.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
I waited a long time and then I finally ordered
unbound merino.
It's like travel clothes.
I'm wearing the um, oh, uh-huhand I kept hearing about it on
one of my favorite podcasts andI'm going to Scotland, and so I
was like I obviously need travelclothing so I finally ordered
it and I've been wearing it likefor a week straight and it's so
(45:33):
comfortable and I'm like oh,perfect yeah so highly recommend
.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Love it um that's awesome and I know I'm hoping to
get to Scotland next yearthat's on my yeah a couple
friends and I, like we were acouple years ago.
We were like, okay, we're gonnashoot for 2026, so hopefully,
fingers crossed okay well, okay,so I'm not gonna get this right
.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
I'll send it to you after, if you want it.
Um oh, yeah there's thisphotographer in Scotland, I
think, based in Edinburgh.
I found her on Instagram andshe does main character photo
shoots for women.
I think maybe you've seen thatit looks so cool it's kind of
like like outlander type yeah,yes, and I I submitted, but I
(46:15):
didn't get it because there waslike a wait list but maybe you
could submit.
Early enough because I phoned itout too late but I was like I
really want to dress up in agown with a sword and go to a
castle.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Oh, that's amazing.
Yeah, definitely send it to me.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I was so disappointed .
I was like my mom and I aregoing, so I was like wouldn't it
be amazing if the two of us hadswords and gowns and we're
gallivanting around edinburgh?
Speaker 2 (46:42):
that'd be so cool, yeah, well, maybe next time next
time.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
I'm gonna recommend today a youtube channel called
nourish move, love and she's outof Minnesota and, um, I've been
doing she's like aweightlifting like beginner.
I think she's more thanbeginner but I'm a beginner.
So, yeah, I really like her andshe does like 10 minutes.
(47:05):
She's always like 10 minutes isbetter than no minutes, so I
feel very motivated by 10minutes.
Yeah, that's really encouraging, because sometimes I look at
stuff I'm like, oh, I have tolike build up.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
So far to do that.
But to say, yes, no minutes.
So I feel very motivated by 10minutes.
Yeah, that's really encouraging, because sometimes I look at
stuff I'm like, oh, I have tolike build up so far to do that,
but to say, yes, you know, just, you have to start somewhere.
Like we said, starting is thehardest part.
It is yeah, so I'm like 10minutes.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yeah, I can do that.
Some are five.
I even do five.
That's awesome, yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
I don't know if I have any recommendations off the
top of my head and and I'llprobably think of 25 once I.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
You brought some great book recommendations,
which I always need, so we willshare those for sure.
I'll link to them.
What are you looking forward tothis week?
Speaker 2 (47:45):
I'm looking forward.
I'm actually looking forward tostarting back to school.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
tomorrow.
It's just meetings this week,but it is tomorrow.
Yes, we're starting back justsort of, you know,
administrative stuff and kind ofgetting back into the swing of
things.
But I'm looking forward.
I'm looking forward to the newyear and getting to see.
I was kind of surprised.
I was like, oh, I really miss alot of the kids and I ran into
a couple of them around townover the summer and it was fun
to see them and they wereexcited to see me, which was so
(48:08):
cute and so, um's some sweeper.
You know they were.
I was at a restaurant with Iwas actually with my book club
and they ran up a couple of themran up to the table.
So I'm looking forward to kindof getting back into the swing
of things and getting the schoolyear going.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I feel like that elementary age is just like they
still.
They get excited to see liketeachers and staff outside of
school.
They're like, oh my gosh,you're awesome yeah, and then a
little.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
I probably you know.
Once you hit high school, Iimagine, yeah, they grow out of
it.
Avoid you in the store if theysee you.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Yeah well, this week I'm really excited because I'm
finally getting my haircut.
I've rescheduled it like two orthree times so feels good to
get it checked off the listright yeah, so, ashley, where
can people find you and findyour book specifically?
Speaker 2 (48:58):
um, you can find me on.
I'm on facebook and instagram,I'm on x, but I'm not.
I'm not always.
It's kind of like I check intox once in a while, but, um, I
I'm trying to remember.
I think I'm at Ashley Weaver.
Author.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
I'll link to you.
Don't worry, I got it okay.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
Yeah, so that's where you can find me and you find my
books um wherever books aresold, as they say.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Yeah and everyone should definitely follow Ashley.
Read her books.
I'm I'm a fan.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
Thank you so much I'm telling everyone about this.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
I'm like I started the podcast just to meet people
I want to meet.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
Oh, yeah, that's a really fun idea though.
I bet you know if you get tomeet a lot of interesting people
if you're doing a podcast, funuh well, thanks for being here
and everyone.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Thank you for listening.
Please subscribe to my youtubechannel and follow the show
wherever you listen to podcasts.
I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to mycrunchy zen era.
Please subscribe and leave areview wherever you listen to
your podcasts.
This podcast is produced by me,nicole swisher and my good
friends summer hardcup and lizcolder.
(50:09):
Editing is by drew harrisonMedia and recording is done by
Lagos Creative in Nashville,tennessee.
Thanks for hanging out.
We'll be back next week.
Well, Ashley, thanks for joining me.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, so what's somethingcrunchy or zen that you've done
lately?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I would have to say I really enjoy doing a nice
relaxing bubble bath.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Oh, that sounds great .
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, I find it kind of zen to do like Epsom salts.
Or sometimes somebody gave me areally nice um like bath soap,
I'd like a bath tea, and so Ilike to just like take a nice
relaxing bath when I'm when I'mstressed, or sometimes just for
fun yeah, are you?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
do you read or like listen to anything?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
yeah, I usually.
I usually read.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Well, welcome to my Crunchy Zen Era.
This is a podcast about with alittle bit of fun, a little
humor and a whole lot ofcuriosity.
I'm your host, nicoleisher, andthis week my guest is Ashley
Weaver.
Hi Ashley, hi Ashley.
So Ashley is a librarian and anauthor of two book series, the
(01:13):
Amory Ames series and ElectraMcDonald, and her first novel in
the Amory Ames series, murderat Brightwell, was nominated for
an Edgar Award for first or forbest first novel, and then her
most recent book, one Final Turn, is the final book in the
Electro McDonald series, which Ilove and which is why I reached
(01:36):
out to have her on the podcast.
So what is sorry?
What did you say?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
yes, I was so excited to hear from you.
Thank you for inviting me.
I think this may be my firstpodcast.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Oh, really Okay.
Well this is great.
It's my first remote podcast,so that's great.
What is one memory that youwish you could relive, and why?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
This is a good question.
I have a lot of really greatmemories.
I think one that was reallyspecial to me was growing up, I
always wanted to travel a lotand one of my like most you know
desired destinations was Paris,and so the first time I went to
Paris was really a great memory, and I remember actually had a
(02:25):
friend whose husband wasstationed in the military and so
she was living in Germany atthe time and she drove to
Belgium to pick me and two otherfriends up at the airport and
then we drove into Paris, and soI remember driving in at night
and getting the first view ofthe Eiffel Tower when it was
glittering, and I remember Iscreamed, and so that was just
like a really fun.
That's always a memory thatsticks out.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
To me is that first glimpse of Paris and my first
chance to travel internationally.
I bet that coming in driving isjust a different experience
than yes, it was totallydifferent.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, it was really exciting because we got to spend
a couple days in Belgium andthen you know she could drive us
around the city and stuff, sowe got to see quite a bit that's
amazing.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
I feel like we should introduce your dogs.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I know they're being so bad.
I'm so sorry.
They get really upset when Ilock them out.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
I mean, they can join us.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I have two dogs and she's being a little bit naughty
in there, but that's Daisy.
She can hear me that there'sfun and excitement going on, but
if I let them out they'll beall over the place.
So they're, they're, locked up,but not but not completely
absent yeah what kind of dogsare they they're uh, they're
both mixed breeds, they're bothrescues, so um.
(03:38):
Those are the best kind um yeah, she's a good dog, but she's
kind of jealous of my timethat's understandable.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
You're her person, so I have a little grab bag um
questions, which are randomquestions I put together a long
time ago so I don't evenremember what they are.
Okay awesome.
That keeps it really excitingit does.
What is your favorite kind ofcheese?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
My favorite kind of cheese.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I'm a pretty basic cheese girl.
I like a good cheddar.
Oh, that sounds good.
It's not too exciting and I'mfrom Wisconsin originally, so
you'd think I would have like awide variety of cheeses.
That I do like a lot of cheeses, but like cheddar is my go to
variety of cheeses that I dolike a lot of cheeses, but like
cheddars might go too, okay.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
So did you always know that you wanted to be an
author or did you have likeother ideas as a child?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I had.
I think I went through a lot ofphases.
I think I feel like everymillennial girl wanted to be a
marine biologist, or at leastlike a lot of us.
So that was one of the things Iwanted to be when I wanted to
grow up.
I wanted to be a librarian fora while, which I actually became
, and so there was a fewdifferent things.
But I remember writing my veryfirst story, and I probably was
(04:55):
I don't know maybe six or sevenyears old, and I remember
writing this story down on someof my dad's computer printer
paper, and I remember that beinglike my first realization that
I could take a story from my ownhead and make it into a book,
and so from that moment on, Ithink I always wanted to be a
writer, so it started very early, for sure.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Would you say that was your first unpublished book,
or did you have like anotherbigger one that you worked?
Speaker 2 (05:23):
on I did well.
My first full-length novel Iwrote my freshman year of high
school and I grew up watching alot of old movies and I liked
the old gangster movies a lotand so I wrote sort of it was a
gangster mystery romance set inprohibition era, chicago, and I
would type a few pages everynight on my little computer and
print out.
(05:43):
Print them out and bring themto school and my friends would
sit around the lunch table andread them and give me feedback.
So that was kind of my firsttaste of writing for readers.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah, were they like harsh critics, or were they
generally just like cheerleaders?
Speaker 2 (05:55):
They were generally pretty.
Yeah, they were generallypretty.
You know I'm trying to think.
If there was anyone who waslike giving me, they were they
in general they really liked it.
I didn't have too much, youknow, harsh feedback at that
point.
They were more friends who youknow enjoyed reading and would
would just want me to get morepages out yeah, those are the
(06:20):
great friends to have in highschool, I think yes, for sure
yeah, so you have, like I saidat the beginning, you've got two
series, both mysteries.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I've read the Electra McDonald ones.
I'm saving, saving the otherones for a long flight that's
coming up oh awesome yeah, sohow would you describe, like the
book genre that you write?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
uh, it kind of falls, I would say, sort of into the
cozy mystery genre.
My first series is set in 1930sEngland and it's a husband and
wife solving mysteries in kindof an upper class setting.
That was sort of my sort ofinspired by Agatha Christie and
the golden age of mystery.
I've always loved her books andsort of that general time
(07:05):
period, as I mentioned, growingup loving old movies, and so I
found a lot of inspiration fromthat time period and so they
fall sort of into the cozymysteries.
And then my Electra McDonaldseries takes place in World War
II and is a safe cracker who isworking for the British
government to help, you know, dospy work and that sort of thing
(07:25):
.
So that's a little bit moresomeone I think one reader
described them more as as sortof cozy thrillers because
there's sort of a generalmystery but it's, you know, it's
more of like a caper in eachbook as opposed to a sort of
limited set of suspects and, andyou know, searching down the
clues and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
So yeah, I really.
I really liked Electra becauseI like the anti-hero and she's a
thief and then starts workingfor the government, but she to
me she never fully gave up thatother side of her and I like
that.
Thank you yeah she's.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
She's always got a little bit of her uh her
criminal streak running throughher.
I think it'll probably alwaysbe there for her, but she's
learned kind of how to, how tomake it work to her advantage
yeah, and so this is a weirdcomment, but my mom's side of my
family, their last name is Ames.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Oh so I'm like I'm excited, I'm like yeah that's
great, it's perfect.
Yeah, we had um the.
In Minneapolis there was thislegendary like corrupt mayor
named Doc Ames oh, it's likethis family lore.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Doc Ames is such a great nametoo.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
That sounds like it really is a book character yeah,
yeah, you can keep that in mindfor the future yeah, maybe
he'll be a relation yes, mygrandma would love that.
Um so how did you come up withthe idea for the electro
mcdonald series?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I actually read a book called agent zigzag by ben
mcintyre.
I've been reading a lot ofworld war ii non-fiction, just
kind of as a been reading a lotof World War II nonfiction, just
kind of as a general interest.
A lot of times as a reader I'lljust get into phases and read a
lot of different things.
And this book was about asmall-time criminal, kind of a
petty crook, and I think he waseven involved maybe in a few
(09:18):
safe cracking operations.
I don't think he was a safecracker himself, but he was
caught by the police andimprisoned on the Channel
Islands in England, which wasthe only part of the UK that was
occupied by the Germans.
So when the Germans went to theChannel Islands they found him
in prison and they said we'lllet you out of prison if you'll
be a spy for us.
So he agreed, they took himback to Germany, taught him to
(09:41):
be a spy and then parachuted himback into England and he
immediately went to theauthorities and said Germany
thinks I'm spying for them Doyou want me to spy for you?
And became a double agent.
And so the book is amazing.
It just reads, you know, notfor nonfiction, it reads just
like a thriller novel.
But I love the idea of someonewho had all these sort of
illicit skills that put him onthe wrong side of the law and of
(10:04):
society before the war and thatwas what exactly made him
perfect for this job during thewar.
And so it kind of sparked anidea and I thought, well, what
if, you know, I had sort of likea family of criminals and, you
know, focused on a female maincharacter who was part of this
and how she kind of found outwho she wanted to be and through
the war and how she could usethose skills for the war effort.
(10:26):
So that's where the idea wasborn.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, I feel like I learned a lot about World War II
Just in London.
I didn't know that much.
How much time did you end upspending researching?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I did quite a bit of research.
I don't always do all myresearch prior to the novel, so
a lot of times when I'm writing,if I know that I'm going to
need to insert something, I'lluse brackets so I can put, you
know, like brackets, researchhere.
And then, when I'm in the sortof research phase, I'll go back
and search the document forbrackets and then I can go back
(11:01):
and find everything that needsto be filled in.
Sometimes it'll be somethingsimple like a street name that
I'll have to spell out, orsometimes during the writing
process, you know, I won't befeeling particularly creative
one day and I'll think, okay,well, instead of writing today,
I'll go and do fill out a coupleareas of research and that sort
of thing.
Yeah, and I just, and I did alot of, as I said, world War II
(11:21):
reading before just for fun, andso that sort of was a good bit
of base knowledge too, but Ilearned a lot of a lot of really
interesting things, as I yeahas well yeah, I wonder.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I mean that makes sense that you had read more
ahead of time, because I waslike that could have taken a lot
of time.
Yeah, how do you researchsomething like how do you crack
a safe and get away with stuffas a thief?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
well, actually I found a I want to say it was
some sort of manual for alocksmith and so I found some
good information there in an oldlocksmithing manual, but also
there were there's severalyoutube videos on how to crack
safes, and I think there's a lotof locksmiths now will like
(12:06):
people will buy safes atauctions and stuff that are with
with the keys lost or whatever,or combinations lost, and they
won't know how to get into them,and so locksmiths, will you
know, have a have a job openingthose sometimes, and so there'll
be some YouTube videos show youhow to get into old safes if
you, if you've come across oneor if you've purchased one.
So there's some goodinformation available on YouTube
as well.
All, right.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I mean, are you a researcher at heart?
Like, does this just make youso excited to do that?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
yes, I think it goes hand in hand with being a
librarian.
I love research, I love um, andI'm just the sort of person I
mean I'll be watching a movieand then you know it's a classic
, like where's this actor from,I'll have to look up every movie
they've been in.
But also, just you know it's aclassic, like where's this actor
from, I'll have to look upevery movie they've been in.
But also, just you know, ifthere's like one little line of
the plot that I want to knowmore about, I'll end up on, you
know, wikipedia or something,just reading a bunch of
information on how that elementof the plot came together.
(12:54):
So I just enjoy research forthe sake of research.
So that works out well withwriting.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Do you sometimes get really sidetracked when you're
like I should be writing?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
definitely.
Yeah, sometimes you know andespecially that you know
Wikipedia rabbit holes, thosecan lead you down a lot of uh
you know, just click one otherthing and pretty soon it's two
o'clock in the morning and youfind yourself reading something
totally different than what youneed to be reading.
But what?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
what would you say is like the weirdest rabbit hole
you went down during this bookoh I, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
That's a good question.
I can't think of one off thetop of my head.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
What about the weirdest question you've been
asked to research as a librarian?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I worked as a reference librarian for a while
at the reference desk of apublic library and I had someone
call in one day and ask howthey could donate a body to
science.
That was something you know.
I was like I'm going to have todo a little bit of research on
that and call you back.
But you know there areapparently a lot of institutions
and you know medical facilitiesand things that you can donate
(13:54):
your body to.
So I learned something new thatday too.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I did not.
I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
That was interesting being a reference librarian,
because people would call in andyou'd never know when you
picked up the phone what theywere going to ask for.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Yeah, that could give you a lot of ideas.
Maybe so, when you sat down towrite the first book, did you
have an idea of how the wholeseries would end, or is that
something that kind of came toyou as you wrote?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
I did not have an idea.
They say writers fall intoeither plotters who plot
everything out, or pantsers whowrite by the seat of their pants
.
And I'm very much a pantser.
I don't even know how the bookswill end when I start writing
them, so in the individual books.
So I just kind of I writeactually sort of write my books
out of order.
I'll write chunks of differentscenes, of things that I know I
(14:44):
want to happen, and then I kindof piece them together and fill
it in between.
So I didn't have a far reachingplan of where I wanted
everything to go.
I just sort of put in theelements that I knew I thought
would be interesting to pursuethroughout the series and went
from there.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
That's so interesting because I've always thought
people just have outlinesfigured out and they know
exactly what's going to happenhere and here and here, and I
yeah, I've never been able toget very far in writing and I
think I get stuck in the plotyeah, there may be that may be.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
It's probably an easier way to do it.
My brain I tried before towrite an outline ahead of time
and my brain just doesn't wantto work that way, so I just roll
with it, but are you a plannerin your everyday life or is that
similar?
I'm a little bit more.
I'm a little bit more of aplanner in my everyday life.
I do like to know, kind of youknow, what's going to happen and
(15:36):
what the steps are that I needto get done.
But there's a little bit ofpanting in there and in everyday
life as well, but I'm probablymore of a planner in everyday
life.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I'm starting to come up with a theory, because you're
the second person, secondauthor, who has said that
they're um a pantser but aplanner everyday life.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
So oh yeah, maybe it's sort of uh, you know,
looking for that little sense ofadventure, yeah, and a less uh,
you know, there's lessconsequences maybe when you're
writing a book than in real life.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, we'll have to take a poll, figure it out.
Yeah, that's a good one.
So I found one thing I reallyenjoyed about your books was
just that I didn't know what wasgoing to happen.
I mean, I knew the.
I figured out the romance part,which is fine because they
ended up we'll just say sheended up with who I was hoping
she would.
But the plot was very unique andsurprising to me and I was just
(16:29):
curious how do you even come upwith that and are like no one's
going to figure this out or noone's done this before?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I think that's sort of an element of that's part of
my panting is that knowing thatsometimes I feel like if I don't
know who the culprit is, maybewho the villain is going to be
or or exactly how it's going towork out as I'm writing, it
maybe lends a little bit of thatuncertainty to certain parts of
the novel.
Or the characters don't know atthat moment how things are
going to work out.
Because I don't know how thingsare going to work out.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
So I think maybe that could contribute to that a
little bit interesting how muchediting do you end up doing
before you send it to yourpublisher?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Because I am a panther and a procrastinator.
It's usually they get, they get.
There's been a couple times Ifinished writing my draft, you
know, at at 3am the day it's dueand send it off so that draft
draft, but like finish wrappingup.
You know at at 3am the day it'sdue and send it off so that
draft draft, but like finishwrapping up.
You know it's not like veryfirst draft but um, as you know,
(17:32):
in perfect, perfectcircumstances I'll have finished
the whole book and then I'llhave time to read over it a
couple more times and make surethat, like I said, all my little
clues are lining up and there'snot a lot of loose ends and
things that I never addressed orthat kind of thing.
So, but once you know there'sseveral, once it goes to my
editor she sends back notes onit, then I do another revision
(17:56):
and then it goes back and goesto the copy editor and then it
goes to the proofreader and sothere's a lot of steps in the
process to make sure that thingsline up well before it's
published.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Yeah, and so for your first series, how much did you
have written by the time youwent and got an agent and got
into like the very traditionalpublishing route?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
For my first series I had the book finished.
Actually, I had a friend whowas my writing buddy and we
would write in the evenings oron weekends and cheer each other
on and send each other chaptersback and forth to critique, and
so we had finished our booksand she had said that I mean, I
kind of thought that we were,you know, yay, we finished our
books and that was fun.
And she said no, now we'regoing to try to get agents.
(18:42):
And so then we had to go aboutresearch, uh, researching that
project process and see whatneeded to be done, you know,
writing a query letter andresearching the agents you're
sending it to and all that kindof thing.
So I had the first book written,uh, when I sent it off to an
agent but with the idea that itwould be a series in mind, and
actually the first book I hadleft with a cliffhanger a little
(19:04):
bit.
Um, when you read the book, thevery last scene was not part of
the book but my uh lady who didbecome my agent, said readers
like closure, so you can leave alittle bit of uncertainty as to
where you want to go in theseries, but you don't want to
leave too much left hanging, andso then I ended up writing that
last scene and she was rightand it worked out perfectly.
(19:24):
So I started with that one, andthen, I believe, they offered
me a two book deal, and thenthey came back a little bit
later and said they would taketwo more books, and then I ended
up doing three more after that.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
That's cool.
Was hooked, I think.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I think that, uh, the my agent was the was the third
agent I sent it to.
I think I sent it.
Uh, I sent it to one who saidit wasn't right for their
editorial con contacts and thenI didn't hear back from one, and
(19:59):
I think she was the third one Isent it to.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
And I found yeah, it was fun, I found her by.
There was a series that Ireally enjoyed.
That was a mystery series thatI felt had a similar vibe I
think it was set in VictorianEngland but it was a strong
female protagonist and sort ofan undertone of romance and
she's solving mysteries and sortof an unconventional character
and so I looked up who the agentfor that series was and and
(20:25):
that's who I ended up signingwith.
So that's something I alwaystell authors is look for a
series that you feel like issimilar to yours, or a series
that you really enjoy, and seewho represents that, Because
that's a good way to find anagent who may be interested in
what you're writing.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, that's really good advice.
I like the unconventionalfemale characters.
I haven't heard it like that.
Um, do you, when you createyour characters, um do you
create them like at all, basedon people you know, or how do
you come up with their character?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
I don't, um, I don't usually base them on people.
Uh, for one thing, I said youknow, people have asked me this
before and I say well, inwriting mysteries it's kind of
dangerous because either youknow they could end up being the
victim or or the murderer,especially the way I write, not
knowing till the end who's gonnafit the bill.
To be the culprit.
But my cousin, actually mycousin's husband.
(21:20):
I was just visiting my cousinand he said he wanted me to
write a villain in one of mystories with his name.
But I won't say, in case I everdo.
And then he said but I want atthe end the detective can catch
him.
But I want the detective to sayhow clever his plot was, so
that he almost got away with itso maybe one day.
Maybe one day I will have acharacter based on what I know,
(21:42):
but mostly I just sort of justsort of let them develop on
their own as I'm writing thescenes and see kind of how their
little personalities come out.
And I've heard I always heardauthors say things about like
characters doing things on theirown and I was like, well, that
seems kind of strange becauseyou're the one writing it.
But there really are thingsthat have happened that I was
(22:02):
not even planning to to put downon, you know, to type out, and
they just all of a sudden, youknow, kind of happened in my
mind, I guess, as I was writing.
But it's kind of fun to seewhat ends up unfolding,
especially when I'm not writingfrom an outline.
It can always be a surprise.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Do you find that like the more you write those
characters, the more it's justkind of like, it's just
naturally you think like themwhen you're writing them, or do
you have to definitely.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
um, like I mentioned, uh, amory Ames, the first, the
heroine in my first series, is asociety woman and she's kind of
elegant and likes fancy clothesand but she's, you know, smart
and sophisticated.
And so when I switched to EllieElectra McDonald, who's the
(22:46):
heroine of the second series,she's a little bit more, uh,
rough and tumble, I guess, likeshe's grown up sort of probably
lower middle class and and she's, she doesn't really care about
clothes and she's, you know,ready for an adventure.
And she grew up with her olderboy cousins, kind of like
brothers, and so she's, you know, used to sort of being with the
(23:07):
being one of the boys.
And so when I first switchedover to writing from one series
to the next, occasionally Iwould catch myself writing
something and I would say thatsounds like something Amory
would say, not something Elliewould say, and so I'd have to
rewrite it.
But the further I got into theseries series, the more I felt
like I was kind of just writingfrom her perspective, and so the
shift became easier then do youhave to keep track of, I guess,
(23:30):
the consistency in the books,um, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I think of like the show bible for a show running,
but like, if you've been writingsomething for so long, do you
ever have to go back and be like, oh, was this like Electra or
was this Amory?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
yes, definitely.
Well, I don't know so muchbetween the two of them, but
within the, within the series,sometimes, especially things
like eye color, or I'll have togo back and you know, double
check and make sure that I'm notswitching somebody.
And then finally, like the lastcouple books, I finally made
just one document of all thenames of all the characters
throughout my two series,because sometimes I'll be like I
(24:08):
can't remember if I've everused the name Mary before or
something you know to where Idon't want to just keep
recycling the same name.
So I finally made that documentso I can search names to make
sure I'm not repeating them.
But I definitely I probablycould benefit from having
something like that with alittle bit of you know,
information about each characterand what they look like and
everything, but I'm not alwaysorganized enough for that yeah,
(24:29):
people are gonna be like what'sup with Mary?
Speaker 1 (24:32):
yeah, she really likes people named Mary do you
have a favorite character thatyou've written?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
that's a good question.
I really I feel a little bitlike that's like having to pick
your favorite child, so I don't.
I like Amory and Electra indifferent ways.
I feel like they sort of havesimilar, even though they're
very, very different women.
They have similar qualitiesthat I just sort of admire.
(25:02):
In general, they're, you know,smart and capable and clever and
they want, you know, eventhough Anne-Marie is looking for
criminals and Elektra is acriminal, they both sort of have
this innate sense of right andwrong and just justice and
injustice, and so they want tosee that, you know, the good
people succeed and the badpeople don't, and so I feel like
(25:25):
those are kind of similarqualities in both of them that I
admire and I like how they sortof show themselves in different
ways and the two very differentwomen.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I like that, yeah, any strong female characters I'm
like I need more.
So you said earlier that, likefor your first book, you kind of
had a writing buddy, writingpartner.
Um, do you still do that, or isit very much like a alone
process now?
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I do add that same writing buddy.
She still reads all my books.
Uh, sometimes it's her, justher and my sister, usually the
ones who ended up end up readingbefore I.
You know my roughest of roughdrafts, and so, um, yep, she's
still one of the people that Iread with.
I have a couple friends who orwho read my books, but I have a
couple friends who like to writeas well, and so sometimes we'll
(26:17):
do, uh, you know, we'll say I'mgonna write now for an hour,
let's see how many words we getdone, or that kind of thing.
So we kind of keep each otheron task and, yeah, not such a
lonely process then.
But I do do a lot of writingvery late at night, and so then
I just sort of get in my zoneand you know, I usually put on a
background, a background tvshow of some sort to watch or to
(26:40):
listen to a little bit, youknow, in the background as I'm
writing.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
So Do you have a go-to TV show?
Speaker 2 (26:47):
For a while I was really, especially during one
book.
I watched like several seasonsof Project Runway so I was
really excited to see it's justcome back because I had watched.
It was a good show for writingbecause you don't have to pay a
whole lot of attentionthroughout the.
You know, it's kind of a thingyou can kind of look up and down
(27:07):
at and then at the end you havethe little reward of getting to
watch the runway show wherethey show off all the clothes
they made, and so that was sortof like you know, now now pay
attention and write during thisother episode and then you can
stop and focus on the runwayshow when it gets to it.
So that saw me through one bookat least nice.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, I feel like everybody has kind of those
background shows of like justlike having it on um.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
I like Gilmore Girls, just like oh yeah, my sister's
a big Gilmore Girls fan too.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
I've seen so many times that I'm like I can tune
it out and tune back in and Ihaven't, I haven't missed
anything yeah, you know exactlywhat's what's happening.
So how do you like create aspace where you're creative?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I feel like, well, to a certain extent, I know that I
have to be creative, and soit's sort of like one of those
things where you know, okay,well, I just have to sit down
and do this, and so it's not.
I found, especially as the morebooks you write, the less it oh
, I feel so inspired to sit downand write.
You know 2000 words today, andit's more like, okay, I have to
(28:11):
sit down and write 2000 wordstoday, and so I just try to.
You know, caffeine is one of mygo-tos.
That's something that helps alot.
I'll just sit and I'm actually Ido a lot of writing in my bed
(28:31):
and I'll just bring my laptop inthere and sometimes like a cup
of coffee or tea, and I'll putmy fun little background shows
on and just get to work.
So I do find that creativityUsually.
Sometimes it's a matter of notbeing inspired to start, but
being inspired once you startbeing inspired once you start,
and so you know, I may not feellike sitting down to write at
this moment, but once I sit downand start getting the words on
the page, then I find myselfgetting excited about what I'm
writing and looking forward to,you know, fleshing out the scene
(28:53):
and and figuring out what'sgonna happen.
So I find that that sort ofit's a matter of, you know,
getting myself over that hump of, of that initial motivation,
and then I can really start tofeel creative.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
I feel like starting is just like it's like a wall
sometimes yes, it's the truth.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Of so many things, just getting started is the
hardest part yeah, it doesn'tmatter.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
It doesn't matter what um and so like.
Have you ever run into writer'sblock when you're like, oh my
gosh, I cannot have writer'sblock?
When you're like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I cannot have writer's block.
Right now I don't have too muchproblem with writer's block, I
would say, and I think one ofthe reasons maybe is because I
write out of order.
So if I'm finding that I'mstuck on a scene or, you know,
nothing's happening, this isn'tworking out, you know the way I
want it to, or I can't seem tofit the clues in here, then I'll
skip to another part of thebook and work on that, and so
(29:44):
sometimes it may be as simple aswell.
You know, this is going torequire research in this part,
and I need, you know, to look uphow to blow open a safe with
nitroglycerin, and I don't knowhow to do that, and you know
this kind of stuff.
And so then I'll say, well, letme skip to a romance scene or
something that's easy to writeand is sometimes, you know, a
little more fluffy and fun, andso then I'll work on a different
(30:05):
part of the book instead.
So that's usually how Iovercome if.
If I'm feeling blocked in acertain area, I'll just kind of
skip to a different place.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
I'm feeling like your google history could be
concerning to like thegovernment.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Oh, yes, definitely, I've thought about that before.
I said I'm probably on somesort of watch list after this
series.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
What would you say is like your favorite part of the
writing and publishing process,if it's after too?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
I feel like as a librarian it's just always comes
down to seeing the book on theshelf After you know, when it's
published especially my firstbook, you know to see it on the
library shelf next to all thesepeople whose books I'd put away
for years, and it was justreally rewarding.
So I always say it kind of isamazing how it's, how it's
(30:54):
almost like magic, how you takea doc, they take a document on
your computer and then turn itinto like a beautiful book with
a pretty cover and you know, andit all comes together to create
this sort of it's all in myhead but then it comes together
to create this outside thingthat that can be in other
people's heads.
So I think that's pretty coolthat's I.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Honestly, it's kind of funny because I found your
book, because I was justwandering around my library
looking for a mystery book and Ithink it was like sitting out
and I thought the cover lookedit was so beautiful and like so
different that I was like oh,I'm just gonna check this out.
And then I was like oh, thatdoesn't usually happen yeah, oh
(31:32):
amazing, I love that yeah, howdid?
Were you part of designing thecover, or was that something
someone else did?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
that's something they .
They have some uh cover artiststhrough the publisher and
they've always done an amazingjob.
Every time I get one of thebooks I'm more excited than the
last, so there's been severaltimes when they've sent me the
email.
You know, here's the proof ofyour cover and I'll just gasp
because they're so pretty andperfect, so I've really been
fortunate with my coverdesigners.
They've done an awesome job.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yeah, no, they're really, really.
I mean, they caught my eye, so,um.
So with your first series you'dwritten the first book and so
you were looking for the agent,got the publisher, but with the
second series you're.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
You actually already had a publisher and they wanted
more right yes, they said theywere interested in seeing what
if I was interested in startinga second series.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
And so when they approached you about that.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Had you already read the Agent Zigzag book or were
you like I have to come up witha new idea?
I think I had actually alreadyread the Agent Zigzag book
because I remember when theyasked me I kind of had this idea
floating around in my head alittle bit already.
I was like, oh, that was anidea that I was interested in
exploring and I thought that itwould make a fun series because
of you know all the differentshe gets a little.
There's a little bit ofcriminals from different walks
of life that they know andthey're they're different
(32:55):
criminal contacts that they pullin to do different aspects of
the job, and so I thought thatwould be a fun sort of world to
explore.
So that was it was.
It was high on my list.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Nice, I actually.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I think you should like bring back your gangster
idea to do something, because Ilove gangster stories the tail
(33:32):
end of prohibition, um, becauseit's the early 30s but they're,
they sort of get involved with awith an underworld character,
and so that was sort of myhomage to those early days of my
, uh, of my gangster series,because I do sort of have a soft
spot for those 1920s, 1920s,you know, bootleggers and things
.
I always thought that was suchan interesting time in american
history for sure I yeah, I thinkthat I think it's.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I've always been fascinated by like the mob and
any like criminal.
I feel like if I wasn't so likeparanoid about getting caught,
I'd I'd be a criminal.
It'd be fun.
Instead, I became a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Oh well, it's adjacent, you know, to crime.
The world of crime, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
The courtrooms at least.
Yeah, I'm not even that kind oflawyer.
Oh well, still the law.
I sit at a computer.
Yeah is.
My grandparents lived on theMississippi River and their
house looked like right out atthe river and across from them
(34:39):
was a tunnel that the gangsters,the mob, built, and they would
smuggle stuff there, and so theFBI would come and sit in their
living room and watch themonsters oh, that's amazing.
Yeah.
So I'm like I feel like I hadthat like story and I'm just
like it's so fascinating.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Yeah, that would make a good story too.
And then you know, have the FBIsitting in your living room and
watching out.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Well, feel free to use that.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
You've got some good fodder for stories in your
family history for sure yeah,yeah, I do actually.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Wow, I never really thought about that, but I don't
know.
My grandma has written a bunchof books, so she's, she's
definitely, oh, awesome yeahyeah, um.
So do you have a new project inprocess?
Speaker 2 (35:30):
I don't.
At the moment.
I don't't have anythingdefinite.
There's a few ideas I'm sort ofswirling around.
I recently last year switched.
I worked in public librariesfor 19 years and I took a job as
an elementary and middle schoollibrarian at a school, so I've
kind of made a day job switchand so I'm sort of this will be
(35:50):
my second year.
We actually go back to meetingsand stuff tomorrow.
Today's my last day of summervacation, which was awesome.
I hadn't had summer vacationsince I was a kid probably.
So it's pretty nice having thesummer off.
But now that I'm kind ofsettling into this, I feel like
it's going to leave me a littlemore brain space for turning out
something new.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
How is that different than working in a public
library, like what would you sayis like the biggest difference
other than the kids, I suppose?
Speaker 2 (36:19):
I think one of the biggest differences for me on
the day-to-day basis was in myprevious job.
I worked kind of behind thescenes.
I had an office in the backwhere I would catalog books and
do the kind of behind the scenesthings.
And here I'm, people facing allday and I wasn't sure how I
felt about if I was going to bedrained by that.
But actually I've really Ireally enjoyed it last year and
the kids are a lot of fun andkind of makes the day go by
(36:42):
really fast.
So I I've, I've been happy withthe, with the switch.
I miss, I love my old job andall the people I worked with,
but I I just this opportunitycame up and I was like, well,
maybe it's time for me to spreadmy wings and try something new.
So I took a risk and so farit's been good.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Is there anything that you find surprising about
being a librarian?
Because, I mean, you've been alibrarian for quite a while, so
is it?
Is it?
I feel like people seelibrarians a lot, but I'm like
what do they actually do?
This made me my question.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, there's a lot of different and I've actually
done a lot of different jobswithin the library.
I started working at a libraryafter school when I was 14.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
So it's actually the same year that my freshman year
of high school when I wrote myfirst book.
So my writing career and mylibrarian career have always
sort of gone hand in hand.
I say but so I did the sort ofcirculation stuff where you're
working the front desk andchecking out books and checking
in books and that kind of thing.
And then I did more of thetechnical services with my
previous job, where that wasbehind the scenes, where I was,
(37:44):
you know, processing books.
I'd order books, catalog them,put all the labels on and that
kind of stuff and get them readyto put out, or I, you know,
repair damaged books, that kindof stuff and get them ready to
put out, or I, you know, repairdamaged books, that kind of
thing.
And then I mentioned working atthe reference desk.
I did that for a while so thatwas, you know, answering
people's questions and helpingthem with their research and
that kind of thing.
Yeah, so there's been a lot ofdifferent.
(38:04):
There's a lot of actually kindof different avenues of
librarianship you can pursue.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
I like the damaged books thing.
I I once tried to return a bookthat our puppy had just ripped
apart I was like maybe theywon't notice, they definitely
did it happened for sure yeah, Ithink one time they somebody
returned a book to me that theirthat their child had had chewed
on.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
So that was something new.
But babies will do that, yeahbabies and puppies yeah, yeah,
you'd be surprised.
You see, I think one of the oneof the going back to your
question the things mostsurprising about librarianship
is the library's hardly everquiet.
You know, a lot of people think, and a lot of people think that
librarians get to sit and readall day, which, you know, I wish
(38:49):
, I wish, I wish I could sit andread all day.
But, um yeah, libraries arehardly ever a quiet place.
There's always something goingon and some kind of ruckus
happening.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah, so, um, I'm not sure if you have any free time,
but if you do, how do you spendit?
Speaker 2 (39:08):
well, unsurprisingly, I do a lot of reading, that's,
you know, my probably myfavorite pastime and I I do a
lot of reading.
That's, you know, my probably myfavorite pastime and I like to
travel a lot.
I mentioned my, my trip toParis, so that was a great
memory.
But I tried, and you know, fitin trips whenever I can.
I'm excited now because duringthe summers will provide me some
more opportunity to be off andtravel.
(39:28):
Actually, my cousin, our friend, and I just went, just got back
.
Last week we went to Las Vegasto see the Backstreet Boys in
the Sphere.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Oh, no, are you serious?
Speaker 2 (39:37):
It was so amazing.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
My sister's going to be so jealous.
She and her friends still go.
Millennium was my first concert.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Oh wow, amazing.
Yeah it was, it was really fun.
It was really like a special,you know nostalgic moment.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yeah, are they all there still?
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yep, they're all there.
Yeah, they did, I think, like asix week residency at the
Sphere doing shows Friday,saturdays and Sundays, and then
I think they added a week.
So that's amazing and they were, you know, selling out.
So hopefully I'm like,hopefully they'll come back
again, you know, in a year ortwo, and maybe I'll get to go
again.
It was really fun.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
I feel like the songs that you grew up with, like I
think we're probably about thesame age.
I'm like a 90s kid and I'lljust be doing something random,
like I was journaling the otherday and I just had this song pop
in my head and it was like theBritney Spears song, like Dear
Diary which is like, yeah, and Iknew all the lyrics and I was
(40:34):
like this is a problem yeah,yeah, that's yeah.
And they and I mean they sangall like all the old favorite
songs, so of course everyone'slike screaming the lyrics and
dancing around together and itwas really fun you figured a lot
of things, but you never forgetthose lyrics, yeah for sure, so
do you have a recommendation onlike a cozy mystery or thriller
(40:58):
series?
I do.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
I have a lot of favorites.
I always enjoy Deanna Rayburn'sbook.
She has a couple of series thatare really good, and I belong
to a group called Sleuths inTime authors and we're all
mystery writers who write indifferent eras of history, and
so the other writers in thatgroup.
They're different.
(41:22):
Some of them are set in England, some are set in America and
they're throughout differentperiods of history.
But I always recommend theirbooks to anyone who's looking
for kind of the similar cozyvibe and usually with a female
protagonist who's smart andsavvy and good at solving
mysteries.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
So that's Alyssa Maxwell, Nancy Harriman Colleen,
Cambridge.
Oh, I hope I'm going to be ableto remember everybody now that
I'm on the spot.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
You can always email it to me.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Jessica Ellicott.
Okay, and the other one isClara McKenna.
Cool, I got them all right.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Lots of recommendations.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
I like that yes, so that's several, if people are
interested in reading, you know,historical female-led series
like that okay.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
And then do you have any advice for a young woman who
is aspiring to be an author?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I always find that the best writing advice that
I've seen is is from StephenKing, and he said if you want to
be a writer, you have to do twothings you have to read a lot
and you have to write a lot.
Yeah, because writing, readingyou learn the kinds of things
you are interested in in writingand the things you're
interested in, the sort of styleyou're interested in.
(42:42):
You learn through reading whatyou would love to write.
And then, as for writing a lot,I always I think a lot of
people get the idea that theyhave to sit down and create this
amazing novel, you know, assoon as they sit down at the
computer, and I've written somany things.
Sometimes I write things justfor fun.
I have no intention ofpublishing them, but if I get an
idea of just a fun scene Imight like to write, or an idea
(43:07):
for just a little snippet of astory.
I have a document that I justopened up on my computer, just
called ideas on original.
But I just opened my ideasdocument and write it down just
because it's good to work onyour.
You know the craft of writing,even if it's not something that
you think that is going to be,you know, the next great
American novel.
Sometimes you just write forwriting sake and and practice as
(43:28):
much as you can.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah, I mean I don't don't.
I mean maybe someday I wouldwrite a book, I don't know, but
I do that a lot.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
I have a lot of just unfinished things on my computer
that I'm like I'm okay if it'sonly ever me, um because I know
it and I had an idea and it'sthere well, now you've got you
know, you've got that wholeprohibition era thing going on
you could have the FBI agent andmaybe, like there's a young
woman in the family who falls inlove, or maybe.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
I never say never.
So what are you obsessing overlately?
Speaker 2 (44:10):
I.
The most recent thing I wasobsessing over was I was
watching because of BackstreetBoys mainly.
Um, I was watching.
It's on Netflix.
It's a show called Building theBand.
Okay, and it's hosted by AJMcClain.
He's my favorite.
He's your favorite too, oh, mygosh.
Okay, aj, we're definitely thesame age, yeah so, um, it's,
(44:33):
it's kind of you one of thosereality shows where they have to
.
They're like all in like littlecubes and listening to each
other sing, and then they haveto decide if they want them in
their band and then they have tomake connections and build a
band together.
And then I haven't finished theseries yet.
I have like three episodes left, but I've really been enjoying
that I'm definitely going towatch that.
(44:56):
Yeah, it's really fun.
I mean it's, you know, kind ofsilly, cheesy, reality show type
stuff.
But I always enjoy a singingcompetition show and it's kind
of fun to see.
You know, when you have a groupthere's also like the singing
and there's also all kinds ofinterpersonal conflict, which is
always makes for good.
You know, reality TV, great TV,yeah yeah, I've been obsessing
over.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
I waited a long time and then I finally ordered
unbound merino.
It's like travel clothes.
I'm wearing the um, oh, uh-huhand I kept hearing about it on
one of my favorite podcasts andI'm going to Scotland, and so I
was like I obviously need travelclothing so I finally ordered
it and I've been wearing it likefor a week straight and it's so
(45:33):
comfortable and I'm like oh,perfect yeah so highly recommend
.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Love it um that's awesome and I know I'm hoping to
get to Scotland next yearthat's on my yeah a couple
friends and I, like we were acouple years ago.
We were like, okay, we're gonnashoot for 2026, so hopefully,
fingers crossed okay well, okay,so I'm not gonna get this right
.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
I'll send it to you after, if you want it.
Um oh, yeah there's thisphotographer in Scotland, I
think, based in Edinburgh.
I found her on Instagram andshe does main character photo
shoots for women.
I think maybe you've seen thatit looks so cool it's kind of
like like outlander type yeah,yes, and I I submitted, but I
(46:15):
didn't get it because there waslike a wait list but maybe you
could submit.
Early enough because I phoned itout too late but I was like I
really want to dress up in agown with a sword and go to a
castle.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Oh, that's amazing.
Yeah, definitely send it to me.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I was so disappointed .
I was like my mom and I aregoing, so I was like wouldn't it
be amazing if the two of us hadswords and gowns and we're
gallivanting around edinburgh?
Speaker 2 (46:42):
that'd be so cool, yeah, well, maybe next time next
time.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
I'm gonna recommend today a youtube channel called
nourish move, love and she's outof Minnesota and, um, I've been
doing she's like aweightlifting like beginner.
I think she's more thanbeginner but I'm a beginner.
So, yeah, I really like her andshe does like 10 minutes.
(47:05):
She's always like 10 minutes isbetter than no minutes, so I
feel very motivated by 10minutes.
Yeah, that's really encouraging, because sometimes I look at
stuff I'm like, oh, I have tolike build up.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
So far to do that.
But to say, yes, no minutes.
So I feel very motivated by 10minutes.
Yeah, that's really encouraging, because sometimes I look at
stuff I'm like, oh, I have tolike build up so far to do that,
but to say, yes, you know, just, you have to start somewhere.
Like we said, starting is thehardest part.
It is yeah, so I'm like 10minutes.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yeah, I can do that.
Some are five.
I even do five.
That's awesome, yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
I don't know if I have any recommendations off the
top of my head and and I'llprobably think of 25 once I.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
You brought some great book recommendations,
which I always need, so we willshare those for sure.
I'll link to them.
What are you looking forward tothis week?
Speaker 2 (47:45):
I'm looking forward.
I'm actually looking forward tostarting back to school.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
tomorrow.
It's just meetings this week,but it is tomorrow.
Yes, we're starting back justsort of, you know,
administrative stuff and kind ofgetting back into the swing of
things.
But I'm looking forward.
I'm looking forward to the newyear and getting to see.
I was kind of surprised.
I was like, oh, I really miss alot of the kids and I ran into
a couple of them around townover the summer and it was fun
to see them and they wereexcited to see me, which was so
(48:08):
cute and so, um's some sweeper.
You know they were.
I was at a restaurant with Iwas actually with my book club
and they ran up a couple of themran up to the table.
So I'm looking forward to kindof getting back into the swing
of things and getting the schoolyear going.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I feel like that elementary age is just like they
still.
They get excited to see liketeachers and staff outside of
school.
They're like, oh my gosh,you're awesome yeah, and then a
little.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
I probably you know.
Once you hit high school, Iimagine, yeah, they grow out of
it.
Avoid you in the store if theysee you.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Yeah well, this week I'm really excited because I'm
finally getting my haircut.
I've rescheduled it like two orthree times so feels good to
get it checked off the listright yeah, so, ashley, where
can people find you and findyour book specifically?
Speaker 2 (48:58):
um, you can find me on.
I'm on facebook and instagram,I'm on x, but I'm not.
I'm not always.
It's kind of like I check intox once in a while, but, um, I
I'm trying to remember.
I think I'm at Ashley Weaver.
Author.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
I'll link to you.
Don't worry, I got it okay.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
Yeah, so that's where you can find me and you find my
books um wherever books aresold, as they say.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Yeah and everyone should definitely follow Ashley.
Read her books.
I'm I'm a fan.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
Thank you so much I'm telling everyone about this.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
I'm like I started the podcast just to meet people
I want to meet.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
Oh, yeah, that's a really fun idea though.
I bet you know if you get tomeet a lot of interesting people
if you're doing a podcast, funuh well, thanks for being here
and everyone.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Thank you for listening.
Please subscribe to my youtubechannel and follow the show
wherever you listen to podcasts.
I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to mycrunchy zen era.
Please subscribe and leave areview wherever you listen to
your podcasts.
This podcast is produced by me,nicole swisher and my good
friends summer hardcup and lizcolder.
(50:09):
Editing is by drew harrisonMedia and recording is done by
Lagos Creative in Nashville,tennessee.
Thanks for hanging out.
We'll be back next week.
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