July 30, 2025 • 47 mins
This week, we attend a virtual "lunch and learn" hosted by the Women’s National Book Association and featuring legendary San Francisco literary agent Andy Ross—and yes, we actually lunched. While the rest of the Zoom played it cool, we munched focaccia and dished about querying, rejection, and whether you can ever send your manuscript to another agent at the same agency (spoiler: the answer was… confusing).
We share the best and weirdest advice from the talk (a query letter in Q&A format?!), plus our own rollercoaster querying journeys, writing struggles, and revelations about the mysterious link between ovulation and sex scenes. Also: Rachel’s murder mystery needs envelope edits, Kayla’s muse is on a juice cleanse, and we’re officially accepting listener submissions for our upcoming Story Time episodes! (2,000 words max, spice welcome but no human centipede horror, please and thank you.)
Books mentioned:
- Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder
- Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway
- A Court of Thorns and Roses (yes, again)
We’re swirling our sediment, managing expectations, and figuring it all out as we go. Join us!
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New episodes every Wednesday.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Write your heart out.
Hi, I'm Kayla Ogden.
And I'm Rachel Cyr.
And this is Write Your HeartOut.
Woohoo! Here we are.
Here we are.
This is episode eight, right?
It is.
It's wild.
That is...
Oh, I don't know.
It's so wild.
(00:21):
Time has gone by so fast.
So today I came over to Rachel'shouse because we signed up for a
free virtual event.
It was a luncheon.
A luncheon.
And Rachel was like, I'm goingto make you lunch.
So we did that.
We set up the computer on herbeautiful dining room table.
And we had this huge wooden bowlfull of Caesar salad and
(00:45):
homemade focaccia bread andreally juicy ripe cherries.
And we were literally having aluncheon, you know, none of the
other people on the zoom wereeating and we were just like,
Oh, lunch around lunch to lunch.
Yeah, they even commented on it.
And they were like, it looksgood.
It's good.
Don't call it a luncheon ifyou're not going to be luncheon.
(01:07):
Well, I agree.
Right.
So this was a luncheon that washappening in the middle of the
day at 12.
And it was via zoom put on bythe Women's National Book
Association, the San Franciscochapter their tagline is women
in the world of words and it wasestablished in 1967 go ladies
(01:29):
and what they were doing isthey're doing a lunch and learn
with a literary agent and theliterary agent is Andy Ross who
he is from San Francisco hereand he has his own agency so he
was just he wasn't reallytalking too much it was more of
like a Q&A situation it feltlike right yeah Yeah.
(01:49):
I mean, he gave a few, he gave abunch of really great trips, but
they were all in response to aquestion, I think.
Yeah.
So we were on there and we werejust munching away.
You could see us in our littlecorner.
And we were listening and ourmics were muted.
And I don't know, I've neverdone a Zoom call this way where
(02:13):
I was sitting right beside myfriend eating and like gossiping
to them.
It was fun.
Yeah, it was super fun.
It was like he would saysomething and then we would like
look at each other and like givea little quip.
Yeah.
So hopefully that wasn't toodistracting for him.
But do you think he even noticedus there?
No.
I mean, other people noticed us,but I don't.
I mean, he didn't.
(02:33):
I don't think he was evenlooking at anyone but himself.
Probably not.
I wouldn't.
Yeah, probably not.
What did you think about theluncheon?
I thought it was great.
I thought that was informative.
I haven't actually delved at allinto the world.
Yeah.
(02:57):
Right?
Submissible?
Submittable.
Not submissible.
That doesn't make sense.
Submittable.
But I haven't even consideredsubmitting something via agent
or editor or anything.
Not even close.
So this was definitely new forme.
So I found it very informative.
You were nodding your head likeyou understood what they were
(03:18):
talking about.
And I was like, oh, okay.
Oh, yeah.
Andy gave a good kind of outlineof what a query letter should
look like.
And I thought that was reallyimportant and good information
for me.
And then just do's and don'tswhen you're looking for
somebody.
Be confident in your work.
(03:38):
He talked a lot about managingexpectations.
Yes, a lot.
Which I feel like agents do talkabout a lot is that they'll get
query letters from peoplesaying...
They're trying to catch theattention of the agents.
So they'll say, get ready toread the next number one New
York Times bestseller.
Or I just know Reese is going topick this for her book club.
(04:00):
Let's work on it together.
Let's get there together.
Apparently, for a lot of agents,that's a big turnoff because
they don't want to disappointyou.
And they kind of know what thelandscape is like.
Yeah.
So they're going to try to getyou a book deal.
They may not be able to.
And if they're if it's it's agood book and they're not able
(04:20):
to, it's probably due to somemarketing reason on the
publisher's behalf.
Like maybe, oh, we published abook like this Yeah, I like that
they said that.
I felt like that was aconfidence booster, you know,
like, okay, well, he said at onepoint, if an agent picks up your
(04:42):
book, you have something worthpicking up.
And so really, I thought thatthat was a nice thing to hear.
Yes, he threw out some numbers.
He said he's had clients whereit wasn't a good fit for any of
the big publishers or imprints,but a smaller press was in.
interested in it.
And he comes back to the clientand he says, you know, they'll
give you a three thousand dollaradvance.
(05:04):
And then the author is offended.
Right.
(05:37):
Well, I just don't think thatit's a very smart financial life
move.
Absolutely.
If you don't have any thoughtsof how to support yourself
outside of this novel, if thatyou think is your golden ticket,
I just think that's not the waythat it works.
It works.
Totally.
I get that.
I mean, if a small publishercame to me and offered me a
(06:00):
three thousand dollar advance atthat point, it wouldn't be so
much about the money.
It would be like, oh, somebodybelieves in my work and there's
going to be other people whoread it and it's going to be
printed and I'm going to be ableto physically hold it and give
it to people.
And it can be my ticket intoother spaces.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He he said definitely managingyour expectations is a big
(06:24):
thing.
One thing that kind ofencouraged me.
So this guy, Andy Ross, he doesnot.
I don't know.
He's not like a very kind.
Sure.
He seems like he doesn't messaround.
He doesn't.
Yeah.
He doesn't really have time.
He seems like he doesn't reallyhave time to baby you or take
care of your feelings at all.
(06:45):
No, and he knows what he likes.
That's clear.
Yes, but he can't define what helikes.
He says it's ineffable.
It's like falling in love withsomeone.
Can you really explain why orhow?
That's how he feels about theworks that he falls in love
with.
Well, good for him.
Yeah.
You know, he invited us toProvence.
(07:06):
He did invite us to Provence.
To go on his weekend of retreat.
And it sounds lovely.
I'm going to take a pass.
Yeah, I'm going to sit this oneout.
Sorry, Andy.
Sorry, Andy.
It's crazy.
It is crazy that we were talkinglike this about him because like
the literary world is so small.
(07:28):
And like when you get into, youknow, the literary world of the
Bay Area or whatever, it's evensmaller.
But I just kind of feel like hecan take it, you know.
Sure.
I mean, I when we were sittingthere, you know, listening to
him talk, I was like, I thinkhe'd be fun to get a drink with.
You know, like I kind of likehis sass.
He's sassy.
I kind of.
relate to the sass you are sassyI know oh sassy sassy's in crime
(07:55):
I know maybe maybe him and I cansass it up one day when he's my
Agent.
Oh, my God.
Would you want him as an agent?
I don't know.
I'd be so scared.
I'd be so scared.
I would shit my pants.
Yeah.
So Andy Ross is on Readsy, whichwe've also talked shit about on
this podcast.
I know.
But come on.
(08:16):
Come on.
Anyways, he's on Readsy.
I did say that Readsy has a lotof great resources.
Andy Ross probably being amongthem.
Yes.
He's on there.
So you can hire him to edit yourbook.
He says a lot of people reachout to him for editing.
And what they want is for him togo through the story and to
comment on the story, like theoverarching plot and the way
(08:37):
things go.
But he says that most of thetime it doesn't even get there
to where he can comment on thestory because he starts reading
from page one and the personjust they can't write dialogue.
They have clunky sentences.
They introduce too manycharacters right away and he
can't understand even what'sgoing on.
(08:58):
And that may me feel betterbecause I'm something that I
feel about my work is it mightnot be for everyone and my book
might not be the best book inthe world like it might not sit
up there with you know the DonnaTartt's of the world but I do
feel like after all the practicethat I've had and the studying
(09:21):
and the learning like I do feellike I've got the this stuff
down I had an editor talk to mebefore and she said this was
about a story that I wrotebefore like a novel I was
working on before that I onlyhad 30,000 words done I showed
it to her and she said I don'tthink you're there yet and she
said that the yoga scenes that Iwrote were really like slowing
(09:43):
down the plot oh interesting soin that book the yoga instructor
and this girl who is Was itDeeb?
Was Deeb the instructor?
No, not Deeb, but okay, okay.
It was one of the instructorsfrom Nandi that inspired this
thing.
Okay.
Well, you know, inspirationstrikes when it strikes.
(10:04):
Even in Downward Dog.
Even in Downward Dog.
So the protagonist is in theseyoga classes and there's this
sexual tension between her andher yoga instructor.
And also the yoga instructor,the way that he touches her and
talks to her after and thesethings are kind of important for
(10:27):
the plot.
Yeah.
Then he ends up coming over toher house and they have all
these connections and differentthings.
But when the editor read it, shewas like, I love yoga.
Yeah.
And I totally get it.
But I think anytime you're goingto do something in the yoga
studio, you are slowing downyour plot.
Wow.
And she's like, so I just reallythink you need to consider that.
(10:48):
And I was like, oh, darn.
I have all these beautifuldescriptions of yoga in this
book, like the studio, how theceilings are so high and the
fans slowly rolling amid therafters and the blue light and
all this stuff.
And then, you know, like reallypoetic, almost like purple prose
about the way Oh, yeah.
(11:28):
I felt really good about that.
So when Andy says that like nineout of the 10 writers who, you
know, they know they needediting.
Of course.
But they've written a book andthey want him to edit it like he
can't even really like get inthere.
Right.
Like it's too convoluted.
Yeah.
That makes me feel like I'm likeat least I'm like not.
(11:48):
there.
I hope.
I mean, I think based on, youknow, feedback that I've gotten.
Yeah.
So he had a book that herecommended.
It was called Writing Fiction byJanet Urway, I think.
So that could be cool.
He doesn't like...
I'm going to check that out.
You are?
Yeah.
Should I too?
Well, yeah, let's do it.
(12:09):
Let's look at it together.
That one.
And then you, they also weretalking about a book called
Saves the Cat, which is, theyrefer to it kind of as a cliff
notes of a cliff notes how towriting and I never heard of it
this one I think is reallyreally important especially for
you Rachel because you want toget into screenwriting yeah so
(12:31):
what I heard when I was giventhis book was that every
screenwriter in Hollywood usesthis system okay if you go on
the save the cat website it'sreally really good they have all
these free tools on there thatI've used.
So they have things called likebeat sheets yeah they go through
(12:53):
all of these really famousmovies and they show you where
the saves the cats beatshappened basically like every
everything how cool i think thatwe should definitely get into
this is a whole episode okayokay i'm gonna buy it and then
we'll talk about it anotheranother time absolutely and i
want to learn to doscreenwriting too but basically
(13:16):
andy didn't like it a lot ofpeople oh look at this a court
of thorns and Roses, the novelanalysis beat sheet.
Wow.
So this is going to show whereall the beats happen.
All right.
Yeah.
And the reason why it was namedSave the Cat was because of one
of the tips in the book where itsays if you have a antagonist,
(13:42):
basically like an unlikablenarrator or protagonist in your
book, you have to endear thereader to that protagonist.
And how you do that is you makethem save a cat, like at the
beginning of the book.
Okay.
Have we talked about thisbefore?
I've talked about this at ourbook club.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
I was like, I feel like I'veheard this before.
Yes.
And it's so crazy because afteryou read this, you do see people
(14:07):
be saving the cats.
Like Kristen...
You'd be saving that cat.
Characters be saving the cats.
Who was that chick?
She has the short blonde hair.
She's married to Dax Shepard.
Oh, yeah.
Kristen Bell.
Kristen Bell.
So in that show about theJewish, the hot Jewish rabbi.
(14:28):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
What was that show?
It's called, like, No One Asksfor This?
Nobody Wants This.
Nobody Wants This on Netflix.
Great show.
There's an episode where KristenBell's character, she's just
very unlikable.
unlikable in that episode andyou'll see towards the end of
the episode she just saves adog.
Right.
And the whole episode is hertrying to figure out if she's a
(14:50):
good person or not.
Right.
And she saves this dog andeverybody realizes she's a great
person.
Yeah.
So that was very Saves the Catbut Saves the Cat is these
beats.
We'll talk about it on theepisode that we do but it's like
oh the protagonist states theproblem does this does this
there's one of the beats is badguys close in one of the beats
(15:10):
is dark night of the So you'llyou can watch movies and you can
literally see these beatshappening.
Right.
But a lot of people likeartistic people, whatever.
Andy Ross, this agent and editorfrom San Francisco and a lot of
the ladies, it seemed like onthe call from the Women's
National Book Association don'tlike this saves the cat thing
(15:34):
because they seem to not likeit.
No, because it's a formula andit's just aren't we sick of all
these this formulaic content.
It's like ChatGPT could write aSaves the Cat movie in one
second.
Because there's so many.
But once you know the rules,then you can kind of break them.
(16:00):
So if you're looking to write arom-com, for example, and you
learn all of these steps or youat least have them in your mind,
you...
yes there's that basketball onewith yeah hater yeah whoever
that judd apatow all of juddapatow's movies are save the cat
(16:20):
oh well absolutely you can seethose how all of those how all
of them work you know it's likeall of a sudden amy schumer is
like having a dark night of thesoul she's eating her her ice
cream and smoking weed andrethinking everything then
there's this aha moment and youknow whatever same with a
knocked up Yeah.
Also Judd Apatow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It works.
(16:41):
Yeah.
Right.
Okay.
So I just ordered it right nowwhile you were talking.
Saves the cat, right?
Yes.
And I'm going to definitely readthat.
And then we're both going toread writing fiction.
I found it for a new copy.
It's like 50 bucks.
So I found a used copy.
So I ordered that too.
Okay.
(17:01):
I think we should maybe do savesthe cat first.
Sure.
UNKNOWN (17:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (17:05):
I mean, that sounds fun and upbeat.
Yeah.
And it looks like writingfiction is a little long.
A little dry.
Okay, so one of the things thatwe learned during this was, so
as we talked about, it wasquestions and answers.
And so I wrote down questions asthey were being asked.
(17:28):
And one of the things that wasasked was, what was the ideal
word count for a book for adebut for like fiction or
memoir?
And I remember you had told meyour story about what somebody
had told you about it.
And so in a second, say that hehad said, Yeah.
And I remember that book beingreally short, but I hadn't even
(18:02):
realized it was that short.
I mean, that's very short.
Anyway, and then 100,000 wordsmax.
And I thought that was reallyinteresting.
I had heard your story beforeabout it, but talk about
formulaic.
People are only going to trustyou with a certain amount of
words.
Yeah, as a debut author.
Right.
(18:22):
It looks like...
Like literary fiction, 70 to100,000 words.
Commercial fiction.
Most of them are between 70 and100,000 words.
It looks like thrillers are abit shorter.
Yeah.
Mystery crime.
While we were listening to thetalk while we were in our
luncheon, I was looking up howlong the average Colleen Hoover
(18:43):
book is.
And she's kind of pumping themout.
And they're all between 80 and90,000 words.
Wow.
That surprises me because theyseem so short.
They do seem really short.
I was surprised.
And like big writing and stuff.
Yeah.
YA novels tend to be about10,000 words less.
Middle grade are really short,25 to 50,000.
What is middle grade?
What does middle grade mean?
(19:04):
Middle school.
Oh, okay.
So that makes sense.
Yeah.
So not quite young adult.
Yeah, exactly.
And then nonfiction andhistorical fiction can go up to
about 120,000 words.
Sure.
My novel was 114,000 words.
And the first agent that wasinterested in my work told me
that Yeah.
(19:25):
Okay.
Okay.
(19:52):
I sent her the full in mid-Marchand I haven't heard back.
I have notes on my spreadsheet,my queering spreadsheet, and I
say like how long on there ittakes people to they say it's
going to take them to reply andI don't have a note for her on
on that like when I shouldexpect a response from her but a
lot of them are really long fourto six weeks six to eight weeks
(20:16):
12 weeks eight to 12 weeks andall of them almost all of them
say if you don't hear from me bythis amount of weeks like 12
weeks it just means no oh geezbut then when Andy was talking
on this podcast he was sayingthat he'll get back to everybody
it sounded like he'll get backto everybody within a few days.
It did sound like that.
And to me, it feels like whenpeople are actually interested
(20:39):
in my work, they get back prettyquickly.
Right.
Like that woman that I wasrejected by, essentially, she
had like a really long one.
Like it was saying like, oh,wait, four months or something
like that.
But then I got an email from herafter she read my pages like a
few days later.
Wow.
So I feel like they do gothrough.
(21:01):
their stuff this is my sensethey read a few sentences of
each queer letter if somethingcatches their eye they read the
pages and then they get back toyou right I don't feel I don't
know I could be wrong I'm sureeverybody works differently yeah
but now I've got this guy that Iwant him to be my agent and I
(21:22):
sent him the full on last monthon the 21st they're going Canada
still hasn't gotten back to meyeah yeah but he didn't but he
had so See, he had said it wouldtake him six months to reply.
Dang.
I sent it to him April 21st, soit took him a month to reply.
I don't know, man.
I don't know.
I read something online sayingthat you should follow up with
(21:45):
people.
Yes, I was just about to askthat.
Because in my head, I'mchanneling my mom.
Did you send a thank you note?
Yeah.
I feel like a follow-up isprobably legit.
He never said when he would...
I'm just dying.
I'm dying.
Thanks for reading my stuff.
I can't wait to hear back.
(22:06):
I hope you've been enjoying it.
Really?
Yeah.
Rachel.
I mean, okay.
So when you sent out a resume,right?
I mean, I haven't actually triedto get a job legitimately 15
years.
So please keep that in mind.
But in the past, when I had sentout a resume, I gave it to them.
And then like three days later,I would literally like show up
(22:29):
with cupcakes and be like,
SPEAKER_00 (22:30):
hi.
Okay.
Remember me?
SPEAKER_01 (22:34):
Well, let me know when you decide who you're
hiring.
And I feel like people, whetheror not it's annoying, people,
that's what sticks.
People like it.
They like it, but do they, Ijust don't want to, I just don't
want to hear, I just don't wantthem to say no.
Yeah, but is it like better toget a no?
(22:54):
Or is it, you know, the Andyslide across the table?
No.
Or is it better to be like inthe dust, just like waiting,
waiting, waiting.
That kind of means no anyway.
I don't know.
It's like hope.
It's like Schrodinger's cat.
Schrodinger's no.
Well, it's really nice to be a.
(23:16):
Well, it's really nice to beable to walk around right now
and say that I have two agentswho requested my full manuscript
and they're reading it andthey're going to get back to me.
Of course.
Oh, my God.
It's like Lynn Novak has had itsince March.
And I saw her all up on Blue Skyrequesting materials.
SPEAKER_02 (23:33):
Oh,
SPEAKER_01 (23:33):
she's like saying that her she's open to queries.
And I'm like, but she's like, Ihave so much free time right
now.
Yeah, it's like, but so youdidn't read it.
Or you aren't reading it.
Or I don't know.
I don't get it.
So show up on her door and bringher cupcakes, Kayla.
I'll bake them for you.
I'll box them up.
You take them over.
Just show up on her doorstep.
Oh, Lord in heaven.
(23:53):
But it's like that makes it evenworse when they reject you and
your gift.
This is tough.
Is my challenge to, since it'sbeen a month, do you think I
need to follow up?
I think you should follow up.
I'm having a puke on my shoes.
I think you should.
Okay, this is one thing that wasweird about with Andy.
Ross was I asked a question inthe chat.
(24:15):
I said, if an agent at aparticular agency passes on your
work, can you then send it to adifferent agent at that agency?
And he was like, he's like, no.
I was so surprised by thatbecause everything else I've
been hearing was that youtotally can.
And then this other lady who shehas two agents who want to
(24:37):
represent her right now.
She also paid$8,000 to havesomebody edit her book.
And she said that both agentswant her to redo like half of
the middle of it.
Yeah.
So even after paying$9,000.
Can you imagine?
You still have to rewrite it.
And then imagine you get offereda$3,000.
(25:00):
Well, hold on.
She did not get offered the$3,000 situation.
That was a, that was a figure,not figurative.
That was just an example that hehad given.
Yes.
But she did say that there wasone agent who wanted her to make
it more like her book, morepunchy and Reese's book club and
upmarket.
And she said, Right.
(25:21):
Right.
not to yuck yuck her yum yums oranything like that.
I think she was great and shewas so open with us.
She was.
She really, yeah, that wasreally, really nice.
And I'm proud of her for doingeverything that she needs to do
(25:44):
to get her work out there andfor getting that recognition.
Yeah, she was very confident inher talent and her work.
She was.
You could tell she was justglowing and sharing her success
with, I think the other womenthere probably knew her But what
I wanted to say about that was,oh, so she said, no, you don't
(26:04):
want to send it to other peopleat the same agency because
everybody at that agency can seewhat projects the other agents
have passed on.
Right.
Which I've never heard thatbefore.
And I'm like, how can that betrue?
If these agents are getting...
around 100 queries a week, howare they then looking at all of
(26:26):
each other's things that theydidn't go for along with all the
emails that they're getting?
Well, they must have aspreadsheet, like a Google Doc
amongst all of them and theyhave an assistant or whatever
who's just, where they enter itas soon as it's being read and
then they put like a red checknext to it if it's a no.
So that they can easily just doa search of the name.
(26:47):
Has it been seen before?
Yes or no?
This is a really bummer news forme because there's some agency.
So this is really important thenbecause there's some agencies.
There's one called PS LiteraryAgent that I sent a query to.
And I chose somebody that Ithought would like my work.
(27:08):
She hasn't gotten back to me.
I have a note here that saysmid-June means no.
So this is probably.
Oh, it's not mid-June yet, guys.
Yeah, no, it's beginning ofJune.
Maybe I should poke her.
Yeah, poke her.
Oh, my God.
So I got to poke two people.
Okay, wait.
All of these people, do theyhave offices in San Francisco?
Where are these people?
No.
Okay.
You want a Canadian.
Both of these are Canadian.
(27:29):
Okay.
I would definitely work withsomebody in the States, but this
was like my first round.
Right.
I emailed 10 people, and a lotof them were Canadian.
But anyway, so this MariaVincent at PS Literary, it's
like there's a lot of otheragents there that I would want
to work with.
Sure.
But now I'm not allowed.
(27:49):
No, hold on.
They didn't say you weren'tallowed.
No one said you weren't allowed.
You can do it.
I mean, his reaction wasdefinitely off-putting.
He was like, no.
But the woman that we were justtalking about, at first she
said, yes, you can do it.
And then his reaction, she wentback and was like, oh, well,
(28:12):
they do all see.
SPEAKER_00 (28:12):
You
SPEAKER_01 (28:13):
know, all of the agents can see.
So...
It sounds like it's not a badthing to do.
It's just, you know, like,depends.
I think it's very dependent onthe agency.
It was my vibe.
Yes.
And also, I queried somebody atCAA, which this would be a great
(28:36):
place to be represented by.
And look how many agents thereare.
Wow, that's a lot.
So it's like just because oneit's like I shot my shot with
one of these people and itwasn't for her.
And now I now all of theseamazing agents are off the
table.
Well, hold on.
So I got from from this talk, Igot that you could send out 30
(28:58):
query letters in a batch.
Yes.
And then what what?
Would stop you from sending oneto, we're looking at a page
right now, to Amelia and Tinaand Christine and Adriana.
If they were all looking forsomething similar enough and you
sent it out in a batch, is thata problem?
Because that doesn't seem like abad thing.
(29:22):
So a lot of the agency pageswill say to only submit to one
agent.
Okay.
At a time.
Okay.
Because they don't want three oftheir agents to be emailing you.
Sure, sure, sure, sure.
That makes sense.
But if somebody's like, usuallyit says like at a time.
So I think I'm going to go withthe websites themselves rather
(29:43):
than Andy Ross.
Yes.
Andy had that weird.
But Andy Ross's literary agencyliterally just has him and one
other person.
Right.
Maybe he doesn't really know.
Sure.
Everything.
Well, we know he doesn't knoweverything.
Sorry, Andy.
But.
But.
The, I think that it's, well,what the fuck do I know?
I don't know anything.
(30:04):
I think you should go for it.
Yeah.
Rachel's really good at justgoing for it.
I just go for it.
Yeah, I am.
You are.
It's one of my strengths.
Yes.
You know, me and Nike, we justgo for it.
Just do it.
You and Nike, baby.
Just do it.
Okay, so I'm excited to readSaves the Cat and then review
(30:25):
it.
Do you want to talk aboutanything that's been going on in
your writing life this week?
Oh, yeah.
What?
My muse has been snoozing.
My muse hit snooze.
Same.
Yeah, really?
I had the past couple of days.
I mean, mind you, I have beenworking on our website.
(30:45):
Very exciting, everybody.
By the time you hear this, ourwebsite will have already been
up and you probably have alreadybeen to it.
However, I have been buildingour website.
So that was like the past atleast day and a half.
And then my brain space wasthere.
But then the day before that, Ijust didn't write.
I just didn't write, which isthe first day I just didn't
(31:08):
write in over a week.
Whoa.
Yeah.
And I was like, huh, I'm just.
And then today, before you cameover, I was looking at it and I
was like, hmm, everything needsto change.
So I decided to give myself onemore day.
I'm inviting the muse back in.
I'm going to.
(31:29):
I don't know.
What do you think needs tochange?
I don't know.
Was it what I said about toomany characters?
No.
No.
Okay.
So I've realized that the waythat some of the things have to
go down with the murder mysterypart don't quite add up.
(31:52):
with the fact that she hadalready set the table with
everyone's game cards on it.
So now I have to rework all thedifferent parts where I
mentioned these game cards sothat it can be reorg'd.
So now some of the ways that Iword...
I use a lot of ands.
And then this.
And then that.
(32:12):
And that really annoyed me thismorning.
So...
I have to go back for that.
Yeah.
Some people will just powerthrough the first draft and not
go back at all.
Other people go back a lot.
I guess it just depends.
But it's a different part of Ifeel like it's a different part
of your brain.
reorganizing reorganizing thingsto work like in a murder mystery
(32:38):
yes game and making all thepieces sort of like fit right
and editing is sort of adifferent part of your brain yes
um and all of these thoughtsthat you're having about what's
not working don't help with themoving forward it doesn't that's
very true so i think that ifyou're working on what you're
(32:58):
saying that you Like it'sbothering you, right?
So you want to go back and do itnow.
So this morning I went and fixedthe envelope note card situation
for the most part.
And now I feel like I have to goback and read it from the
beginning to see if I can likere-percolate my muse.
Like I have to like get backinto the right headspace.
(33:22):
I feel like I let too much timego by and now the– You're not
excited about it anymore?
No, no, I'm still excited aboutit.
Definitely still excited aboutit.
It's just like, you know, whenyou have the sediment has
started to settle at the bottom.
It's still a good glass of wine,but I need it to be swirled back
(33:42):
up.
Yes.
Yes.
Good.
Well, I think that's basicallywhat you were doing is writing.
It's not that you haven'twritten.
Yeah.
Or I mean, you've been workingon your book.
Oh, yes.
Well, I've been thinking aboutit all the time.
Yeah.
So that's true.
Which we learned.
What did we learn that from?
Brandon Sanderson said, use yourtime when you're doing other
(34:05):
things that your brain isn'treally working on things.
You're folding laundry.
You're driving to think aboutyour book.
Right.
Yeah.
It sounds like you've beenthinking about it a lot.
I have definitely been thinkingabout a lot.
Yeah.
What about you?
What's your status on your...
(34:30):
But I got into this like ADHDsort of spiral where I was doing
way too many things.
I'm like, oh, I've got to submitthis to a contest.
No, I've got to submit this toan agent.
Oh, I've got to check this emailto see if anybody got back to
me.
And what does that mean?
And no, but I need to take outall these chapters.
But now I need to.
And I just kept flitting fromthing to thing to thing for like
(34:51):
literally like three hours.
And it was so uncomfortable.
Yeah.
And also like I was.
Trying to say, I've been tryingto say, okay, what I really
wanted to work on and could havereally focused on and poured my
energy into was the podcast.
Yeah.
(35:11):
Like, we're going to launchsoon.
And I mean, when you'relistening to this, we'll have
already launched because...
they're eight episodes in maybeyeah we're eight episodes in and
we still haven't launchedbecause we're being very like
we're preparing everything sothat we don't ever let you down
so that we really can put out anepisode every week and so that
(35:32):
we're very sure but I'm like ohthere's a lot of little things
to do there's you know we want Iwant to edit all of these and I
could literally have sat thereall day and done this but what I
was telling myself about thatwas that that was resistance oh
that if I for Yeah, because I'mlike, oh, I can edit those like
(35:54):
at night, you know, with a glassof wine or whatever when my kids
are in bed.
But right now is the time towrite.
Right.
Bad spiral and it was verydepressing.
Oh no.
(36:14):
Yeah, I was really depressedyesterday.
Oh no.
Things have been weird.
Hmm.
But they'll get better.
It's wild.
Am I just like getting myperiod?
Oh, maybe.
I mean, that changes everything.
Yeah.
Fucking periods, man.
Yeah.
And I'll never know when it'scoming.
I refuse to know.
Do you think that it's easier towrite sex scenes when you're
(36:38):
ovulating?
Like, you're more like mentallycapable of getting crazy in your
head, you know?
Like, I feel like we shouldstudy that.
Yes, we should study that.
When do you get your period?
I will have to look at my app tobe sure.
But I'm pretty...
(36:59):
Positive that when I wasdefinitely letting those sexy
juices flow, I was ovulating.
This is all just coming to meright now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Can I tell you something else?
Another note for your story?
Sure.
And this is maybe something thatother writers might want to
think about or whatever.
I don't know.
But basically...
(37:20):
Rachel has this moment whereshe's or no, sorry, not Rachel.
Samantha.
Samantha has this moment whereshe sees her ex and all of a
sudden you're getting herthoughts and feelings about sex.
Yeah, right.
Right.
Like there's like a couple ofparagraphs where there's just
like all of a sudden she's justflooded with these thoughts and
(37:42):
emotions about sex with thisguy.
And it's very hot.
Oh, good.
And it really makes you like itmade me like fall out of my
chair pretty much.
I was like, holy shit.
Like it was like a very likeexplosive moment.
OK, good, good.
But.
I'm wondering if there's thisthing called leaking tension.
(38:02):
Yeah.
So after you show that she hasall these sexy memories, then
you can't deal those outanymore.
Right.
Do you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_02 (38:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (38:17):
So it's almost like you're trading this thing where
it's like you want the reader tobe like, Oh, she thinks he's
attractive and she remembershim.
Well, have they ever doneanything?
Oh, they kissed one time.
Or did he just try to kiss?
Oh my God.
They've had, that's, you know,like that kind of thing.
That's fun.
(38:38):
Right.
Let it trickle down.
Yeah.
So it's like you're, by sayingall that right away, you're
giving people a really explosivereaction.
Right.
But by doling it out moreslowly, you're keeping the pages
turning because people havethese questions.
Okay.
I'm not sure which one isbetter, but it's great the way
it is.
Just something to think about.
Yeah, yeah.
(38:59):
Which scene are you talkingabout?
I think it's when he comes inthe door and she just has this
big sexual feeling about him,right?
I don't think so.
No?
I don't know.
I'll have to go back and look.
I don't think she does it first.
Maybe she does.
Yeah, I definitely don't want togive you more things to think
that you have to...
(39:20):
like change right now or eventhink about right now or
anything that would slow yourrole totally because there's
gonna be a lot of time forediting right yeah and something
like that doesn't like somethinglike that doesn't need to be
fixed like at all for everythingto roll for right just
flashbacks and context it isokay okay keep going i mean yes
(39:44):
we will i will i Go back andlook because I'm so curious.
What I was talking about?
Yeah.
I'll make a note.
I can make a note of it.
Yeah, make a note.
Make a note.
Yeah.
Anyways.
Okay.
Do we have anything else to talkabout as far as the...
The luncheon.
No, I think.
Do we want to share the pointsthat he said that should go into
a query letter?
Sure, you can do that.
(40:06):
I didn't make a note of those.
So just a few things that hesuggested should be in a query
letter.
He says keep it transparent.
Keep it realistic.
Like Kayla said, you know, noneof that.
You know, this is the nextbestseller on the New York Times
list.
You know, stay realistic.
(40:28):
The agents want to see a realperson, someone they can relate
to.
It should be no more than just afew pages long.
Let it sound businesslike.
Not, you know, not just likefloaty.
Colloquial.
Right.
Casual.
Right.
Because you are trying to createa business deal.
Right.
But also inspire emotion andlike show that your heart's in
(40:51):
it and that this is your pieceof work.
And then the one thing that hesaid that I thought was
interesting was that he likes aQ&A format.
Like where you ask– like youmake up your own questions like
almost like a fact for yourself.
That was the weirdest thing I'veever heard.
Yeah.
But I kind of liked that.
I thought it was kind of fun.
(41:11):
Like– Just a page of likequestion and answers about your
story.
Like maybe that that soundsunique.
It does sound, you know, maybethat would be a great way to
grab attention from an agent.
You know what I thought might becool is to read.
So you usually send like yourfirst, I don't know.
it's always different, but like,you know, you usually send your
(41:33):
first five pages with your queryletter.
I always thought it would becool to like record myself
reading it like an audio bookfor the person.
Sure.
And be like, yo, if you want tojust listen to this in your car,
you can.
That's a fun idea.
But there's this other thingwhere they say don't do any
attachments or else it'll end upin our.
Oh, sure.
I've seen that for quite a fewof the short story things.
(41:56):
They say no attachments.
Yeah.
I guess you could say, hey, ifyou want, I have a little audio
snippet of this.
You could.
You could.
OK.
So then the other tip that Ifeel like is worth sharing is
that they said to go to querytracker.
And Publishers Marketplace.
And those are really greatplaces to find agents that are
(42:16):
actively looking for clients.
And I don't know if you havementioned those before when you
were talking about it.
You might have.
But I figured it's worthmentioning.
Yes, for sure.
And then I think that'severything that I felt like was
really worth sharing.
Okay.
Well, I think next time we'll doa story.
(42:37):
Next recording, we'll do a storytime
SPEAKER_00 (42:38):
one.
Oh, yeah.
We owe a story time.
Yeah, we owe a
SPEAKER_01 (42:41):
story time.
And then I feel like we shouldjust plug it now because we're
eight episodes in at this point.
We will want your stories forstory time.
And on our website, there'sgoing to be a contact us page or
not going to be.
There is a contact us page andyou can send in a story that And
(43:02):
we will consider reading it forthe story time episodes.
Yeah.
So you know the compliment,Rachel?
How many words or pages wasthat?
Because that's kind of a goodlength, right?
Yeah.
You want to tell people not todo it too long.
Sure.
Yeah.
I think we should have a 3,000word max.
Okay.
The compliment was 2,100.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not the one that I read.
(43:23):
Not the one that I read outloud, though.
Is that the one?
The five minute one that I readout loud for school?
Yeah.
Okay.
want to say was like 1100 words.
It was like cut in half.
Oh.
So the full one that I hadoriginally sent to you.
Yeah.
A ridge.
That one was like 21 or 2500.
I could look.
So a 3000 word one would takelike 10 minutes ish.
(43:47):
Yeah.
15 minutes.
Who a 15 minute story.
So definitely 3000 or less.
OK.
Well we can say less.
We can say less.
Should we say 2000 or less.
Yeah.
Okay, 2,000 or less.
I have trouble with thispersonally because my shit gets
so long.
So, like, I've literally notsubmitted things to journals and
(44:09):
stuff because I'm like, I'm notcutting my shit down for you.
Yeah.
So, I understand if that soundssad to a listener out there who
is like me.
Yeah.
And you know what?
We're here for you.
If you have an extra...
If you want to tack on an extra300 words, go for it, baby.
Yeah.
We'll see...
We'll see.
This might change.
But for now, under 2,000 words.
(44:30):
And what about poetry?
So I feel good about poetry.
I mean, I'm interested.
Poetry is not my fave.
I'm just being transparent.
But some of it is reallyincredible.
I'm down.
I love poetry.
Right.
So poetry and short stories.
Yes.
And then do we want to give agenre specific or should we just
(44:51):
say send your shit in and thenwe'll get more genre specific
down the road?
Yeah, I think I don't want toreally read straight up erotica.
Oh, well, I was about to justlike give a little.
Well, no, no, I don't want toread that.
It's OK.
Like, it's OK.
Spice is OK, I think.
And I think swear words arefine.
(45:13):
Yeah.
And creepy stuff is fine.
Maybe stuff is fine, but whatabout like complete body horror
gore?
Like human centipede shit?
Yeah.
I don't know.
I'm scared.
Please give us trigger warnings.
Yeah.
Okay?
That's all we ask.
Yeah.
Because if it says at the toplike...
We're going to sew your mouth toyour asshole.
(45:34):
Yeah, if it says that at thetop, then I would like to know
that before I actually readthat.
And also, no guarantees thatwe're going to read it out loud,
because if I can't get throughit without laughing...
It's just not going to go in theair.
Yeah.
For now, let's say that we'll atleast email everybody back.
Oh, yeah.
Of course.
We won't be one of those peoplewho don't email back.
(45:55):
Of course, we're going to emailyou back and appreciate anybody
who wants to send something in.
So thank you so much.
Yeah.
Thank you.
All right.
We'll talk to you next time.
UNKNOWN (46:05):
Bye.
Bye.
Write your heart out.
Hi, I'm Kayla Ogden.
And I'm Rachel Cyr.
And this is Write Your HeartOut.
Woohoo! Here we are.
Here we are.
This is episode eight, right?
It is.
It's wild.
That is...
Oh, I don't know.
It's so wild.
(00:21):
Time has gone by so fast.
So today I came over to Rachel'shouse because we signed up for a
free virtual event.
It was a luncheon.
A luncheon.
And Rachel was like, I'm goingto make you lunch.
So we did that.
We set up the computer on herbeautiful dining room table.
And we had this huge wooden bowlfull of Caesar salad and
(00:45):
homemade focaccia bread andreally juicy ripe cherries.
And we were literally having aluncheon, you know, none of the
other people on the zoom wereeating and we were just like,
Oh, lunch around lunch to lunch.
Yeah, they even commented on it.
And they were like, it looksgood.
It's good.
Don't call it a luncheon ifyou're not going to be luncheon.
(01:07):
Well, I agree.
Right.
So this was a luncheon that washappening in the middle of the
day at 12.
And it was via zoom put on bythe Women's National Book
Association, the San Franciscochapter their tagline is women
in the world of words and it wasestablished in 1967 go ladies
(01:29):
and what they were doing isthey're doing a lunch and learn
with a literary agent and theliterary agent is Andy Ross who
he is from San Francisco hereand he has his own agency so he
was just he wasn't reallytalking too much it was more of
like a Q&A situation it feltlike right yeah Yeah.
(01:49):
I mean, he gave a few, he gave abunch of really great trips, but
they were all in response to aquestion, I think.
Yeah.
So we were on there and we werejust munching away.
You could see us in our littlecorner.
And we were listening and ourmics were muted.
And I don't know, I've neverdone a Zoom call this way where
(02:13):
I was sitting right beside myfriend eating and like gossiping
to them.
It was fun.
Yeah, it was super fun.
It was like he would saysomething and then we would like
look at each other and like givea little quip.
Yeah.
So hopefully that wasn't toodistracting for him.
But do you think he even noticedus there?
No.
I mean, other people noticed us,but I don't.
I mean, he didn't.
(02:33):
I don't think he was evenlooking at anyone but himself.
Probably not.
I wouldn't.
Yeah, probably not.
What did you think about theluncheon?
I thought it was great.
I thought that was informative.
I haven't actually delved at allinto the world.
Yeah.
(02:57):
Right?
Submissible?
Submittable.
Not submissible.
That doesn't make sense.
Submittable.
But I haven't even consideredsubmitting something via agent
or editor or anything.
Not even close.
So this was definitely new forme.
So I found it very informative.
You were nodding your head likeyou understood what they were
(03:18):
talking about.
And I was like, oh, okay.
Oh, yeah.
Andy gave a good kind of outlineof what a query letter should
look like.
And I thought that was reallyimportant and good information
for me.
And then just do's and don'tswhen you're looking for
somebody.
Be confident in your work.
(03:38):
He talked a lot about managingexpectations.
Yes, a lot.
Which I feel like agents do talkabout a lot is that they'll get
query letters from peoplesaying...
They're trying to catch theattention of the agents.
So they'll say, get ready toread the next number one New
York Times bestseller.
Or I just know Reese is going topick this for her book club.
(04:00):
Let's work on it together.
Let's get there together.
Apparently, for a lot of agents,that's a big turnoff because
they don't want to disappointyou.
And they kind of know what thelandscape is like.
Yeah.
So they're going to try to getyou a book deal.
They may not be able to.
And if they're if it's it's agood book and they're not able
(04:20):
to, it's probably due to somemarketing reason on the
publisher's behalf.
Like maybe, oh, we published abook like this Yeah, I like that
they said that.
I felt like that was aconfidence booster, you know,
like, okay, well, he said at onepoint, if an agent picks up your
(04:42):
book, you have something worthpicking up.
And so really, I thought thatthat was a nice thing to hear.
Yes, he threw out some numbers.
He said he's had clients whereit wasn't a good fit for any of
the big publishers or imprints,but a smaller press was in.
interested in it.
And he comes back to the clientand he says, you know, they'll
give you a three thousand dollaradvance.
(05:04):
And then the author is offended.
Right.
(05:37):
Well, I just don't think thatit's a very smart financial life
move.
Absolutely.
If you don't have any thoughtsof how to support yourself
outside of this novel, if thatyou think is your golden ticket,
I just think that's not the waythat it works.
It works.
Totally.
I get that.
I mean, if a small publishercame to me and offered me a
(06:00):
three thousand dollar advance atthat point, it wouldn't be so
much about the money.
It would be like, oh, somebodybelieves in my work and there's
going to be other people whoread it and it's going to be
printed and I'm going to be ableto physically hold it and give
it to people.
And it can be my ticket intoother spaces.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He he said definitely managingyour expectations is a big
(06:24):
thing.
One thing that kind ofencouraged me.
So this guy, Andy Ross, he doesnot.
I don't know.
He's not like a very kind.
Sure.
He seems like he doesn't messaround.
He doesn't.
Yeah.
He doesn't really have time.
He seems like he doesn't reallyhave time to baby you or take
care of your feelings at all.
(06:45):
No, and he knows what he likes.
That's clear.
Yes, but he can't define what helikes.
He says it's ineffable.
It's like falling in love withsomeone.
Can you really explain why orhow?
That's how he feels about theworks that he falls in love
with.
Well, good for him.
Yeah.
You know, he invited us toProvence.
(07:06):
He did invite us to Provence.
To go on his weekend of retreat.
And it sounds lovely.
I'm going to take a pass.
Yeah, I'm going to sit this oneout.
Sorry, Andy.
Sorry, Andy.
It's crazy.
It is crazy that we were talkinglike this about him because like
the literary world is so small.
(07:28):
And like when you get into, youknow, the literary world of the
Bay Area or whatever, it's evensmaller.
But I just kind of feel like hecan take it, you know.
Sure.
I mean, I when we were sittingthere, you know, listening to
him talk, I was like, I thinkhe'd be fun to get a drink with.
You know, like I kind of likehis sass.
He's sassy.
I kind of.
relate to the sass you are sassyI know oh sassy sassy's in crime
(07:55):
I know maybe maybe him and I cansass it up one day when he's my
Agent.
Oh, my God.
Would you want him as an agent?
I don't know.
I'd be so scared.
I'd be so scared.
I would shit my pants.
Yeah.
So Andy Ross is on Readsy, whichwe've also talked shit about on
this podcast.
I know.
But come on.
(08:16):
Come on.
Anyways, he's on Readsy.
I did say that Readsy has a lotof great resources.
Andy Ross probably being amongthem.
Yes.
He's on there.
So you can hire him to edit yourbook.
He says a lot of people reachout to him for editing.
And what they want is for him togo through the story and to
comment on the story, like theoverarching plot and the way
(08:37):
things go.
But he says that most of thetime it doesn't even get there
to where he can comment on thestory because he starts reading
from page one and the personjust they can't write dialogue.
They have clunky sentences.
They introduce too manycharacters right away and he
can't understand even what'sgoing on.
(08:58):
And that may me feel betterbecause I'm something that I
feel about my work is it mightnot be for everyone and my book
might not be the best book inthe world like it might not sit
up there with you know the DonnaTartt's of the world but I do
feel like after all the practicethat I've had and the studying
(09:21):
and the learning like I do feellike I've got the this stuff
down I had an editor talk to mebefore and she said this was
about a story that I wrotebefore like a novel I was
working on before that I onlyhad 30,000 words done I showed
it to her and she said I don'tthink you're there yet and she
said that the yoga scenes that Iwrote were really like slowing
(09:43):
down the plot oh interesting soin that book the yoga instructor
and this girl who is Was itDeeb?
Was Deeb the instructor?
No, not Deeb, but okay, okay.
It was one of the instructorsfrom Nandi that inspired this
thing.
Okay.
Well, you know, inspirationstrikes when it strikes.
(10:04):
Even in Downward Dog.
Even in Downward Dog.
So the protagonist is in theseyoga classes and there's this
sexual tension between her andher yoga instructor.
And also the yoga instructor,the way that he touches her and
talks to her after and thesethings are kind of important for
(10:27):
the plot.
Yeah.
Then he ends up coming over toher house and they have all
these connections and differentthings.
But when the editor read it, shewas like, I love yoga.
Yeah.
And I totally get it.
But I think anytime you're goingto do something in the yoga
studio, you are slowing downyour plot.
Wow.
And she's like, so I just reallythink you need to consider that.
(10:48):
And I was like, oh, darn.
I have all these beautifuldescriptions of yoga in this
book, like the studio, how theceilings are so high and the
fans slowly rolling amid therafters and the blue light and
all this stuff.
And then, you know, like reallypoetic, almost like purple prose
about the way Oh, yeah.
(11:28):
I felt really good about that.
So when Andy says that like nineout of the 10 writers who, you
know, they know they needediting.
Of course.
But they've written a book andthey want him to edit it like he
can't even really like get inthere.
Right.
Like it's too convoluted.
Yeah.
That makes me feel like I'm likeat least I'm like not.
(11:48):
there.
I hope.
I mean, I think based on, youknow, feedback that I've gotten.
Yeah.
So he had a book that herecommended.
It was called Writing Fiction byJanet Urway, I think.
So that could be cool.
He doesn't like...
I'm going to check that out.
You are?
Yeah.
Should I too?
Well, yeah, let's do it.
(12:09):
Let's look at it together.
That one.
And then you, they also weretalking about a book called
Saves the Cat, which is, theyrefer to it kind of as a cliff
notes of a cliff notes how towriting and I never heard of it
this one I think is reallyreally important especially for
you Rachel because you want toget into screenwriting yeah so
(12:31):
what I heard when I was giventhis book was that every
screenwriter in Hollywood usesthis system okay if you go on
the save the cat website it'sreally really good they have all
these free tools on there thatI've used.
So they have things called likebeat sheets yeah they go through
(12:53):
all of these really famousmovies and they show you where
the saves the cats beatshappened basically like every
everything how cool i think thatwe should definitely get into
this is a whole episode okayokay i'm gonna buy it and then
we'll talk about it anotheranother time absolutely and i
want to learn to doscreenwriting too but basically
(13:16):
andy didn't like it a lot ofpeople oh look at this a court
of thorns and Roses, the novelanalysis beat sheet.
Wow.
So this is going to show whereall the beats happen.
All right.
Yeah.
And the reason why it was namedSave the Cat was because of one
of the tips in the book where itsays if you have a antagonist,
(13:42):
basically like an unlikablenarrator or protagonist in your
book, you have to endear thereader to that protagonist.
And how you do that is you makethem save a cat, like at the
beginning of the book.
Okay.
Have we talked about thisbefore?
I've talked about this at ourbook club.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
I was like, I feel like I'veheard this before.
Yes.
And it's so crazy because afteryou read this, you do see people
(14:07):
be saving the cats.
Like Kristen...
You'd be saving that cat.
Characters be saving the cats.
Who was that chick?
She has the short blonde hair.
She's married to Dax Shepard.
Oh, yeah.
Kristen Bell.
Kristen Bell.
So in that show about theJewish, the hot Jewish rabbi.
(14:28):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
What was that show?
It's called, like, No One Asksfor This?
Nobody Wants This.
Nobody Wants This on Netflix.
Great show.
There's an episode where KristenBell's character, she's just
very unlikable.
unlikable in that episode andyou'll see towards the end of
the episode she just saves adog.
Right.
And the whole episode is hertrying to figure out if she's a
(14:50):
good person or not.
Right.
And she saves this dog andeverybody realizes she's a great
person.
Yeah.
So that was very Saves the Catbut Saves the Cat is these
beats.
We'll talk about it on theepisode that we do but it's like
oh the protagonist states theproblem does this does this
there's one of the beats is badguys close in one of the beats
(15:10):
is dark night of the So you'llyou can watch movies and you can
literally see these beatshappening.
Right.
But a lot of people likeartistic people, whatever.
Andy Ross, this agent and editorfrom San Francisco and a lot of
the ladies, it seemed like onthe call from the Women's
National Book Association don'tlike this saves the cat thing
(15:34):
because they seem to not likeit.
No, because it's a formula andit's just aren't we sick of all
these this formulaic content.
It's like ChatGPT could write aSaves the Cat movie in one
second.
Because there's so many.
But once you know the rules,then you can kind of break them.
(16:00):
So if you're looking to write arom-com, for example, and you
learn all of these steps or youat least have them in your mind,
you...
yes there's that basketball onewith yeah hater yeah whoever
that judd apatow all of juddapatow's movies are save the cat
(16:20):
oh well absolutely you can seethose how all of those how all
of them work you know it's likeall of a sudden amy schumer is
like having a dark night of thesoul she's eating her her ice
cream and smoking weed andrethinking everything then
there's this aha moment and youknow whatever same with a
knocked up Yeah.
Also Judd Apatow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It works.
(16:41):
Yeah.
Right.
Okay.
So I just ordered it right nowwhile you were talking.
Saves the cat, right?
Yes.
And I'm going to definitely readthat.
And then we're both going toread writing fiction.
I found it for a new copy.
It's like 50 bucks.
So I found a used copy.
So I ordered that too.
Okay.
(17:01):
I think we should maybe do savesthe cat first.
Sure.
UNKNOWN (17:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (17:05):
I mean, that sounds fun and upbeat.
Yeah.
And it looks like writingfiction is a little long.
A little dry.
Okay, so one of the things thatwe learned during this was, so
as we talked about, it wasquestions and answers.
And so I wrote down questions asthey were being asked.
(17:28):
And one of the things that wasasked was, what was the ideal
word count for a book for adebut for like fiction or
memoir?
And I remember you had told meyour story about what somebody
had told you about it.
And so in a second, say that hehad said, Yeah.
And I remember that book beingreally short, but I hadn't even
(18:02):
realized it was that short.
I mean, that's very short.
Anyway, and then 100,000 wordsmax.
And I thought that was reallyinteresting.
I had heard your story beforeabout it, but talk about
formulaic.
People are only going to trustyou with a certain amount of
words.
Yeah, as a debut author.
Right.
(18:22):
It looks like...
Like literary fiction, 70 to100,000 words.
Commercial fiction.
Most of them are between 70 and100,000 words.
It looks like thrillers are abit shorter.
Yeah.
Mystery crime.
While we were listening to thetalk while we were in our
luncheon, I was looking up howlong the average Colleen Hoover
(18:43):
book is.
And she's kind of pumping themout.
And they're all between 80 and90,000 words.
Wow.
That surprises me because theyseem so short.
They do seem really short.
I was surprised.
And like big writing and stuff.
Yeah.
YA novels tend to be about10,000 words less.
Middle grade are really short,25 to 50,000.
What is middle grade?
What does middle grade mean?
(19:04):
Middle school.
Oh, okay.
So that makes sense.
Yeah.
So not quite young adult.
Yeah, exactly.
And then nonfiction andhistorical fiction can go up to
about 120,000 words.
Sure.
My novel was 114,000 words.
And the first agent that wasinterested in my work told me
that Yeah.
(19:25):
Okay.
Okay.
(19:52):
I sent her the full in mid-Marchand I haven't heard back.
I have notes on my spreadsheet,my queering spreadsheet, and I
say like how long on there ittakes people to they say it's
going to take them to reply andI don't have a note for her on
on that like when I shouldexpect a response from her but a
lot of them are really long fourto six weeks six to eight weeks
(20:16):
12 weeks eight to 12 weeks andall of them almost all of them
say if you don't hear from me bythis amount of weeks like 12
weeks it just means no oh geezbut then when Andy was talking
on this podcast he was sayingthat he'll get back to everybody
it sounded like he'll get backto everybody within a few days.
It did sound like that.
And to me, it feels like whenpeople are actually interested
(20:39):
in my work, they get back prettyquickly.
Right.
Like that woman that I wasrejected by, essentially, she
had like a really long one.
Like it was saying like, oh,wait, four months or something
like that.
But then I got an email from herafter she read my pages like a
few days later.
Wow.
So I feel like they do gothrough.
(21:01):
their stuff this is my sensethey read a few sentences of
each queer letter if somethingcatches their eye they read the
pages and then they get back toyou right I don't feel I don't
know I could be wrong I'm sureeverybody works differently yeah
but now I've got this guy that Iwant him to be my agent and I
(21:22):
sent him the full on last monthon the 21st they're going Canada
still hasn't gotten back to meyeah yeah but he didn't but he
had so See, he had said it wouldtake him six months to reply.
Dang.
I sent it to him April 21st, soit took him a month to reply.
I don't know, man.
I don't know.
I read something online sayingthat you should follow up with
(21:45):
people.
Yes, I was just about to askthat.
Because in my head, I'mchanneling my mom.
Did you send a thank you note?
Yeah.
I feel like a follow-up isprobably legit.
He never said when he would...
I'm just dying.
I'm dying.
Thanks for reading my stuff.
I can't wait to hear back.
(22:06):
I hope you've been enjoying it.
Really?
Yeah.
Rachel.
I mean, okay.
So when you sent out a resume,right?
I mean, I haven't actually triedto get a job legitimately 15
years.
So please keep that in mind.
But in the past, when I had sentout a resume, I gave it to them.
And then like three days later,I would literally like show up
(22:29):
with cupcakes and be like,
SPEAKER_00 (22:30):
hi.
Okay.
Remember me?
SPEAKER_01 (22:34):
Well, let me know when you decide who you're
hiring.
And I feel like people, whetheror not it's annoying, people,
that's what sticks.
People like it.
They like it, but do they, Ijust don't want to, I just don't
want to hear, I just don't wantthem to say no.
Yeah, but is it like better toget a no?
(22:54):
Or is it, you know, the Andyslide across the table?
No.
Or is it better to be like inthe dust, just like waiting,
waiting, waiting.
That kind of means no anyway.
I don't know.
It's like hope.
It's like Schrodinger's cat.
Schrodinger's no.
Well, it's really nice to be a.
(23:16):
Well, it's really nice to beable to walk around right now
and say that I have two agentswho requested my full manuscript
and they're reading it andthey're going to get back to me.
Of course.
Oh, my God.
It's like Lynn Novak has had itsince March.
And I saw her all up on Blue Skyrequesting materials.
SPEAKER_02 (23:33):
Oh,
SPEAKER_01 (23:33):
she's like saying that her she's open to queries.
And I'm like, but she's like, Ihave so much free time right
now.
Yeah, it's like, but so youdidn't read it.
Or you aren't reading it.
Or I don't know.
I don't get it.
So show up on her door and bringher cupcakes, Kayla.
I'll bake them for you.
I'll box them up.
You take them over.
Just show up on her doorstep.
Oh, Lord in heaven.
(23:53):
But it's like that makes it evenworse when they reject you and
your gift.
This is tough.
Is my challenge to, since it'sbeen a month, do you think I
need to follow up?
I think you should follow up.
I'm having a puke on my shoes.
I think you should.
Okay, this is one thing that wasweird about with Andy.
Ross was I asked a question inthe chat.
(24:15):
I said, if an agent at aparticular agency passes on your
work, can you then send it to adifferent agent at that agency?
And he was like, he's like, no.
I was so surprised by thatbecause everything else I've
been hearing was that youtotally can.
And then this other lady who shehas two agents who want to
(24:37):
represent her right now.
She also paid$8,000 to havesomebody edit her book.
And she said that both agentswant her to redo like half of
the middle of it.
Yeah.
So even after paying$9,000.
Can you imagine?
You still have to rewrite it.
And then imagine you get offereda$3,000.
(25:00):
Well, hold on.
She did not get offered the$3,000 situation.
That was a, that was a figure,not figurative.
That was just an example that hehad given.
Yes.
But she did say that there wasone agent who wanted her to make
it more like her book, morepunchy and Reese's book club and
upmarket.
And she said, Right.
(25:21):
Right.
not to yuck yuck her yum yums oranything like that.
I think she was great and shewas so open with us.
She was.
She really, yeah, that wasreally, really nice.
And I'm proud of her for doingeverything that she needs to do
(25:44):
to get her work out there andfor getting that recognition.
Yeah, she was very confident inher talent and her work.
She was.
You could tell she was justglowing and sharing her success
with, I think the other womenthere probably knew her But what
I wanted to say about that was,oh, so she said, no, you don't
(26:04):
want to send it to other peopleat the same agency because
everybody at that agency can seewhat projects the other agents
have passed on.
Right.
Which I've never heard thatbefore.
And I'm like, how can that betrue?
If these agents are getting...
around 100 queries a week, howare they then looking at all of
(26:26):
each other's things that theydidn't go for along with all the
emails that they're getting?
Well, they must have aspreadsheet, like a Google Doc
amongst all of them and theyhave an assistant or whatever
who's just, where they enter itas soon as it's being read and
then they put like a red checknext to it if it's a no.
So that they can easily just doa search of the name.
(26:47):
Has it been seen before?
Yes or no?
This is a really bummer news forme because there's some agency.
So this is really important thenbecause there's some agencies.
There's one called PS LiteraryAgent that I sent a query to.
And I chose somebody that Ithought would like my work.
(27:08):
She hasn't gotten back to me.
I have a note here that saysmid-June means no.
So this is probably.
Oh, it's not mid-June yet, guys.
Yeah, no, it's beginning ofJune.
Maybe I should poke her.
Yeah, poke her.
Oh, my God.
So I got to poke two people.
Okay, wait.
All of these people, do theyhave offices in San Francisco?
Where are these people?
No.
Okay.
You want a Canadian.
Both of these are Canadian.
(27:29):
Okay.
I would definitely work withsomebody in the States, but this
was like my first round.
Right.
I emailed 10 people, and a lotof them were Canadian.
But anyway, so this MariaVincent at PS Literary, it's
like there's a lot of otheragents there that I would want
to work with.
Sure.
But now I'm not allowed.
(27:49):
No, hold on.
They didn't say you weren'tallowed.
No one said you weren't allowed.
You can do it.
I mean, his reaction wasdefinitely off-putting.
He was like, no.
But the woman that we were justtalking about, at first she
said, yes, you can do it.
And then his reaction, she wentback and was like, oh, well,
(28:12):
they do all see.
SPEAKER_00 (28:12):
You
SPEAKER_01 (28:13):
know, all of the agents can see.
So...
It sounds like it's not a badthing to do.
It's just, you know, like,depends.
I think it's very dependent onthe agency.
It was my vibe.
Yes.
And also, I queried somebody atCAA, which this would be a great
(28:36):
place to be represented by.
And look how many agents thereare.
Wow, that's a lot.
So it's like just because oneit's like I shot my shot with
one of these people and itwasn't for her.
And now I now all of theseamazing agents are off the
table.
Well, hold on.
So I got from from this talk, Igot that you could send out 30
(28:58):
query letters in a batch.
Yes.
And then what what?
Would stop you from sending oneto, we're looking at a page
right now, to Amelia and Tinaand Christine and Adriana.
If they were all looking forsomething similar enough and you
sent it out in a batch, is thata problem?
Because that doesn't seem like abad thing.
(29:22):
So a lot of the agency pageswill say to only submit to one
agent.
Okay.
At a time.
Okay.
Because they don't want three oftheir agents to be emailing you.
Sure, sure, sure, sure.
That makes sense.
But if somebody's like, usuallyit says like at a time.
So I think I'm going to go withthe websites themselves rather
(29:43):
than Andy Ross.
Yes.
Andy had that weird.
But Andy Ross's literary agencyliterally just has him and one
other person.
Right.
Maybe he doesn't really know.
Sure.
Everything.
Well, we know he doesn't knoweverything.
Sorry, Andy.
But.
But.
The, I think that it's, well,what the fuck do I know?
I don't know anything.
(30:04):
I think you should go for it.
Yeah.
Rachel's really good at justgoing for it.
I just go for it.
Yeah, I am.
You are.
It's one of my strengths.
Yes.
You know, me and Nike, we justgo for it.
Just do it.
You and Nike, baby.
Just do it.
Okay, so I'm excited to readSaves the Cat and then review
(30:25):
it.
Do you want to talk aboutanything that's been going on in
your writing life this week?
Oh, yeah.
What?
My muse has been snoozing.
My muse hit snooze.
Same.
Yeah, really?
I had the past couple of days.
I mean, mind you, I have beenworking on our website.
(30:45):
Very exciting, everybody.
By the time you hear this, ourwebsite will have already been
up and you probably have alreadybeen to it.
However, I have been buildingour website.
So that was like the past atleast day and a half.
And then my brain space wasthere.
But then the day before that, Ijust didn't write.
I just didn't write, which isthe first day I just didn't
(31:08):
write in over a week.
Whoa.
Yeah.
And I was like, huh, I'm just.
And then today, before you cameover, I was looking at it and I
was like, hmm, everything needsto change.
So I decided to give myself onemore day.
I'm inviting the muse back in.
I'm going to.
(31:29):
I don't know.
What do you think needs tochange?
I don't know.
Was it what I said about toomany characters?
No.
No.
Okay.
So I've realized that the waythat some of the things have to
go down with the murder mysterypart don't quite add up.
(31:52):
with the fact that she hadalready set the table with
everyone's game cards on it.
So now I have to rework all thedifferent parts where I
mentioned these game cards sothat it can be reorg'd.
So now some of the ways that Iword...
I use a lot of ands.
And then this.
And then that.
(32:12):
And that really annoyed me thismorning.
So...
I have to go back for that.
Yeah.
Some people will just powerthrough the first draft and not
go back at all.
Other people go back a lot.
I guess it just depends.
But it's a different part of Ifeel like it's a different part
of your brain.
reorganizing reorganizing thingsto work like in a murder mystery
(32:38):
yes game and making all thepieces sort of like fit right
and editing is sort of adifferent part of your brain yes
um and all of these thoughtsthat you're having about what's
not working don't help with themoving forward it doesn't that's
very true so i think that ifyou're working on what you're
(32:58):
saying that you Like it'sbothering you, right?
So you want to go back and do itnow.
So this morning I went and fixedthe envelope note card situation
for the most part.
And now I feel like I have to goback and read it from the
beginning to see if I can likere-percolate my muse.
Like I have to like get backinto the right headspace.
(33:22):
I feel like I let too much timego by and now the– You're not
excited about it anymore?
No, no, I'm still excited aboutit.
Definitely still excited aboutit.
It's just like, you know, whenyou have the sediment has
started to settle at the bottom.
It's still a good glass of wine,but I need it to be swirled back
(33:42):
up.
Yes.
Yes.
Good.
Well, I think that's basicallywhat you were doing is writing.
It's not that you haven'twritten.
Yeah.
Or I mean, you've been workingon your book.
Oh, yes.
Well, I've been thinking aboutit all the time.
Yeah.
So that's true.
Which we learned.
What did we learn that from?
Brandon Sanderson said, use yourtime when you're doing other
(34:05):
things that your brain isn'treally working on things.
You're folding laundry.
You're driving to think aboutyour book.
Right.
Yeah.
It sounds like you've beenthinking about it a lot.
I have definitely been thinkingabout a lot.
Yeah.
What about you?
What's your status on your...
(34:30):
But I got into this like ADHDsort of spiral where I was doing
way too many things.
I'm like, oh, I've got to submitthis to a contest.
No, I've got to submit this toan agent.
Oh, I've got to check this emailto see if anybody got back to
me.
And what does that mean?
And no, but I need to take outall these chapters.
But now I need to.
And I just kept flitting fromthing to thing to thing for like
(34:51):
literally like three hours.
And it was so uncomfortable.
Yeah.
And also like I was.
Trying to say, I've been tryingto say, okay, what I really
wanted to work on and could havereally focused on and poured my
energy into was the podcast.
Yeah.
(35:11):
Like, we're going to launchsoon.
And I mean, when you'relistening to this, we'll have
already launched because...
they're eight episodes in maybeyeah we're eight episodes in and
we still haven't launchedbecause we're being very like
we're preparing everything sothat we don't ever let you down
so that we really can put out anepisode every week and so that
(35:32):
we're very sure but I'm like ohthere's a lot of little things
to do there's you know we want Iwant to edit all of these and I
could literally have sat thereall day and done this but what I
was telling myself about thatwas that that was resistance oh
that if I for Yeah, because I'mlike, oh, I can edit those like
(35:54):
at night, you know, with a glassof wine or whatever when my kids
are in bed.
But right now is the time towrite.
Right.
Bad spiral and it was verydepressing.
Oh no.
(36:14):
Yeah, I was really depressedyesterday.
Oh no.
Things have been weird.
Hmm.
But they'll get better.
It's wild.
Am I just like getting myperiod?
Oh, maybe.
I mean, that changes everything.
Yeah.
Fucking periods, man.
Yeah.
And I'll never know when it'scoming.
I refuse to know.
Do you think that it's easier towrite sex scenes when you're
(36:38):
ovulating?
Like, you're more like mentallycapable of getting crazy in your
head, you know?
Like, I feel like we shouldstudy that.
Yes, we should study that.
When do you get your period?
I will have to look at my app tobe sure.
But I'm pretty...
(36:59):
Positive that when I wasdefinitely letting those sexy
juices flow, I was ovulating.
This is all just coming to meright now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Can I tell you something else?
Another note for your story?
Sure.
And this is maybe something thatother writers might want to
think about or whatever.
I don't know.
But basically...
(37:20):
Rachel has this moment whereshe's or no, sorry, not Rachel.
Samantha.
Samantha has this moment whereshe sees her ex and all of a
sudden you're getting herthoughts and feelings about sex.
Yeah, right.
Right.
Like there's like a couple ofparagraphs where there's just
like all of a sudden she's justflooded with these thoughts and
(37:42):
emotions about sex with thisguy.
And it's very hot.
Oh, good.
And it really makes you like itmade me like fall out of my
chair pretty much.
I was like, holy shit.
Like it was like a very likeexplosive moment.
OK, good, good.
But.
I'm wondering if there's thisthing called leaking tension.
(38:02):
Yeah.
So after you show that she hasall these sexy memories, then
you can't deal those outanymore.
Right.
Do you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_02 (38:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (38:17):
So it's almost like you're trading this thing where
it's like you want the reader tobe like, Oh, she thinks he's
attractive and she remembershim.
Well, have they ever doneanything?
Oh, they kissed one time.
Or did he just try to kiss?
Oh my God.
They've had, that's, you know,like that kind of thing.
That's fun.
(38:38):
Right.
Let it trickle down.
Yeah.
So it's like you're, by sayingall that right away, you're
giving people a really explosivereaction.
Right.
But by doling it out moreslowly, you're keeping the pages
turning because people havethese questions.
Okay.
I'm not sure which one isbetter, but it's great the way
it is.
Just something to think about.
Yeah, yeah.
(38:59):
Which scene are you talkingabout?
I think it's when he comes inthe door and she just has this
big sexual feeling about him,right?
I don't think so.
No?
I don't know.
I'll have to go back and look.
I don't think she does it first.
Maybe she does.
Yeah, I definitely don't want togive you more things to think
that you have to...
(39:20):
like change right now or eventhink about right now or
anything that would slow yourrole totally because there's
gonna be a lot of time forediting right yeah and something
like that doesn't like somethinglike that doesn't need to be
fixed like at all for everythingto roll for right just
flashbacks and context it isokay okay keep going i mean yes
(39:44):
we will i will i Go back andlook because I'm so curious.
What I was talking about?
Yeah.
I'll make a note.
I can make a note of it.
Yeah, make a note.
Make a note.
Yeah.
Anyways.
Okay.
Do we have anything else to talkabout as far as the...
The luncheon.
No, I think.
Do we want to share the pointsthat he said that should go into
a query letter?
Sure, you can do that.
(40:06):
I didn't make a note of those.
So just a few things that hesuggested should be in a query
letter.
He says keep it transparent.
Keep it realistic.
Like Kayla said, you know, noneof that.
You know, this is the nextbestseller on the New York Times
list.
You know, stay realistic.
(40:28):
The agents want to see a realperson, someone they can relate
to.
It should be no more than just afew pages long.
Let it sound businesslike.
Not, you know, not just likefloaty.
Colloquial.
Right.
Casual.
Right.
Because you are trying to createa business deal.
Right.
But also inspire emotion andlike show that your heart's in
(40:51):
it and that this is your pieceof work.
And then the one thing that hesaid that I thought was
interesting was that he likes aQ&A format.
Like where you ask– like youmake up your own questions like
almost like a fact for yourself.
That was the weirdest thing I'veever heard.
Yeah.
But I kind of liked that.
I thought it was kind of fun.
(41:11):
Like– Just a page of likequestion and answers about your
story.
Like maybe that that soundsunique.
It does sound, you know, maybethat would be a great way to
grab attention from an agent.
You know what I thought might becool is to read.
So you usually send like yourfirst, I don't know.
it's always different, but like,you know, you usually send your
(41:33):
first five pages with your queryletter.
I always thought it would becool to like record myself
reading it like an audio bookfor the person.
Sure.
And be like, yo, if you want tojust listen to this in your car,
you can.
That's a fun idea.
But there's this other thingwhere they say don't do any
attachments or else it'll end upin our.
Oh, sure.
I've seen that for quite a fewof the short story things.
(41:56):
They say no attachments.
Yeah.
I guess you could say, hey, ifyou want, I have a little audio
snippet of this.
You could.
You could.
OK.
So then the other tip that Ifeel like is worth sharing is
that they said to go to querytracker.
And Publishers Marketplace.
And those are really greatplaces to find agents that are
(42:16):
actively looking for clients.
And I don't know if you havementioned those before when you
were talking about it.
You might have.
But I figured it's worthmentioning.
Yes, for sure.
And then I think that'severything that I felt like was
really worth sharing.
Okay.
Well, I think next time we'll doa story.
(42:37):
Next recording, we'll do a storytime
SPEAKER_00 (42:38):
one.
Oh, yeah.
We owe a story time.
Yeah, we owe a
SPEAKER_01 (42:41):
story time.
And then I feel like we shouldjust plug it now because we're
eight episodes in at this point.
We will want your stories forstory time.
And on our website, there'sgoing to be a contact us page or
not going to be.
There is a contact us page andyou can send in a story that And
(43:02):
we will consider reading it forthe story time episodes.
Yeah.
So you know the compliment,Rachel?
How many words or pages wasthat?
Because that's kind of a goodlength, right?
Yeah.
You want to tell people not todo it too long.
Sure.
Yeah.
I think we should have a 3,000word max.
Okay.
The compliment was 2,100.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not the one that I read.
(43:23):
Not the one that I read outloud, though.
Is that the one?
The five minute one that I readout loud for school?
Yeah.
Okay.
want to say was like 1100 words.
It was like cut in half.
Oh.
So the full one that I hadoriginally sent to you.
Yeah.
A ridge.
That one was like 21 or 2500.
I could look.
So a 3000 word one would takelike 10 minutes ish.
(43:47):
Yeah.
15 minutes.
Who a 15 minute story.
So definitely 3000 or less.
OK.
Well we can say less.
We can say less.
Should we say 2000 or less.
Yeah.
Okay, 2,000 or less.
I have trouble with thispersonally because my shit gets
so long.
So, like, I've literally notsubmitted things to journals and
(44:09):
stuff because I'm like, I'm notcutting my shit down for you.
Yeah.
So, I understand if that soundssad to a listener out there who
is like me.
Yeah.
And you know what?
We're here for you.
If you have an extra...
If you want to tack on an extra300 words, go for it, baby.
Yeah.
We'll see...
We'll see.
This might change.
But for now, under 2,000 words.
(44:30):
And what about poetry?
So I feel good about poetry.
I mean, I'm interested.
Poetry is not my fave.
I'm just being transparent.
But some of it is reallyincredible.
I'm down.
I love poetry.
Right.
So poetry and short stories.
Yes.
And then do we want to give agenre specific or should we just
(44:51):
say send your shit in and thenwe'll get more genre specific
down the road?
Yeah, I think I don't want toreally read straight up erotica.
Oh, well, I was about to justlike give a little.
Well, no, no, I don't want toread that.
It's OK.
Like, it's OK.
Spice is OK, I think.
And I think swear words arefine.
(45:13):
Yeah.
And creepy stuff is fine.
Maybe stuff is fine, but whatabout like complete body horror
gore?
Like human centipede shit?
Yeah.
I don't know.
I'm scared.
Please give us trigger warnings.
Yeah.
Okay?
That's all we ask.
Yeah.
Because if it says at the toplike...
We're going to sew your mouth toyour asshole.
(45:34):
Yeah, if it says that at thetop, then I would like to know
that before I actually readthat.
And also, no guarantees thatwe're going to read it out loud,
because if I can't get throughit without laughing...
It's just not going to go in theair.
Yeah.
For now, let's say that we'll atleast email everybody back.
Oh, yeah.
Of course.
We won't be one of those peoplewho don't email back.
(45:55):
Of course, we're going to emailyou back and appreciate anybody
who wants to send something in.
So thank you so much.
Yeah.
Thank you.
All right.
We'll talk to you next time.
UNKNOWN (46:05):
Bye.
Bye.
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