October 24, 2024 • 37 mins
In this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, Rico Figliolini sits down with debut author Jill Tew to discuss her gripping sci-fi novel The Dividing Sky. Jill shares her fascinating journey from a corporate career to becoming a published author, revealing how her love for science fiction and storytelling shaped her path. Dive into the themes of worldbuilding, dystopian futures, and emotional experiences that form the core of her book. Jill also opens up about the evolving publishing landscape, offering insight into how authors today must stay agile and seize new opportunities. Plus, hear Jill’s thoughts on balancing writing with parenting and her excitement for her upcoming middle-grade novel with Disney. This episode is perfect for fans of sci-fi, aspiring writers, and anyone curious about the creative process behind a debut novel. Tune in to discover more about The Dividing Sky and Jill Tew’s captivating writing journey!
Resources: The Dividing Sky on Penguin Random House: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/736783/the-dividing-sky-by-jill-tew/
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/764010/freedom-fire-kaya-morgans-crowning-achievement-by-jill-tew/
Jill Tew’s Website: https://www.jilltew.com/books
Timestamp:
00:00:00 - From Corporate to Creative and Spreadsheets to Sci-Fi
00:08:12 - Exploring the Dividing Sky, A Dystopian Tale
00:13:17 - Worldbuilding Responsibility for Sci-Fi Authors
00:17:49 - Exploring Mixed Media Formats for Storytelling
00:20:43 - The Evolving Publishing Landscape
00:26:22 - Balancing Writing and Parenting
00:28:00 - Writing Tricks and Techniques
00:30:02 - A Young Black Girl's Renaissance Faire Journey
00:32:11 - Writing for Young Readers
00:33:06 - Capturing Friendship, Uncertainty, and the Power of Perspective
00:35:40 - Closing Thoughts
Resources: The Dividing Sky on Penguin Random House: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/736783/the-dividing-sky-by-jill-tew/
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/764010/freedom-fire-kaya-morgans-crowning-achievement-by-jill-tew/
Jill Tew’s Website: https://www.jilltew.com/books
Timestamp:
00:00:00 - From Corporate to Creative and Spreadsheets to Sci-Fi
00:08:12 - Exploring the Dividing Sky, A Dystopian Tale
00:13:17 - Worldbuilding Responsibility for Sci-Fi Authors
00:17:49 - Exploring Mixed Media Formats for Storytelling
00:20:43 - The Evolving Publishing Landscape
00:26:22 - Balancing Writing and Parenting
00:28:00 - Writing Tricks and Techniques
00:30:02 - A Young Black Girl's Renaissance Faire Journey
00:32:11 - Writing for Young Readers
00:33:06 - Capturing Friendship, Uncertainty, and the Power of Perspective
00:35:40 - Closing Thoughts
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Urban ebb is a gateway to the heart of our
local small cities. Urban ebb covers urban life and planning, culture,
innovative city initiatives, programs, development and politics.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Here people talk about.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Their passions and interests and share their opinions and stories.
It's a conversation we can all learn from.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hi. Everyone, this is Greco Figliolini, host of Peatree Corners
Life podcasts here in the city of Peatree Corners in
the County Quinette, just north of Atlanta. So I want
to welcome you all for visiting with us today. And
we have a first time author, Jill two who's visiting
with us, who lives here in Patrick Corners actually as well. HL.
(00:46):
Thanks jaming me. This is great. I mean, I just
I love the idea of being an author myself, and
I'm sure I have the book in me somewhere, but
it's just I can appreciate the end efforts of first
time writer and the author doing this. Yeah, yours is
(01:07):
on is actually called The Dividing Sky and is available
on Penguin Publishing, their website and anywhere else that you
can find a book.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Anywhere books are sold.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Yeah, Amazon, Barnes, and Noble I'll always shout out a
local indie bookstores. If it's not on the shelf, you
can always make your request excellent.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
So you were you were born in Georgia, went away
from college, you ended up in then for for a
few years, and then you came back to Georgia. Tell
us a little bit about yourself, what what you know,
who you are, and where you've been in life.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Absolutely, So I grew up not far from here, in
like the Dunwoody Sandy Springs area. When I was growing up,
that was Zumwitty and then they incorporated and so that changed.
And yeah, I grew up. I always loved writing and
storytelling and went away for college to do something more practical.
I thought that was kind of what I was supposed
to do. So I went away to school in Philadelphia
(02:02):
and an undergraduate business degree. And I did that and
was convinced that that was what I was going to do.
I was going to go be an international businesswoman. And
I was on the right track.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
You know.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
I graduated, I did pretty well in school. I got
a very sort of like prestigious corporate job out of school.
I was a management consultant, so I was working in
New York advising major corporations. And yeah, after that, you know,
I decided that I and maybe the corporate environment wasn't
quite for me. But I still loved business and I
loved solving problems that way, and so I ended up
(02:33):
moving out to Denver and worked at a startup for
another couple of years.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
That startup ended up getting.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Acquired by Comcast, and it was kind of a really
cool process to be a part of, from start to finish.
And that was on the time that I realized that
I still had this like creative bug in me from
when I was younger, and I began to pursue writing
as a hobby. And then a few years later, as
things kind of shifted and pandemic happened and I was
growing in my craft, it shifted from being you know,
(03:01):
less of a hobby to more of, you know, a
full kind of wholehearted pursuit and now it's a career.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Cool. What did when you were younger, Let's say, I
don't grow it up being a tween, and sof what
was your did you have any did you see yourself
being creative at that point? But what trends probably even
at that age because usually it seems to start.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yah, yeah, totally. So it's funny.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
You know, I never had any like visual art ability,
so I never thought of myself as like a creative
person because I was like, oh, I can't paint or
draw or beans. But I loved wordplay, and so I
loved like making things rhyme and making up funny like
poems and like.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Parodies of songs.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
The favorite book when I was growing up was actually
my Rhyming Dictionary, because I would use it to just
like make up funny.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Stories and poems and stuff.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
I love books, you know, I loved, I think, storytelling
in all of its forms. So my favorite at that
point ended up being musicals. So I again kind of
love musicals for the storytelling. And I would find myself,
you know, watching you know, science fiction movies or book
or shows, excuse me. Or when I was a little
bit older, the Lord of the Rings trilogy came out,
(04:12):
and I would just like think about these worlds and
thinking about these adventures and you know, kind of come
up with some of my own I never wrote any
fan fiction, but I read it heavily and I just loved,
you know, kind of imagining the different places that these
stories could take me and looking back now at all
kind of clicks and I see, you know where that
spark kind of started. I you know, I loved writing
(04:32):
stories and creative writing in school. But you know when
I pivoted to that point of more pragmatic and practical approach,
I should have known it. Eventually I was going to
end up circling back.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
So would science fiction fancy? Where is that area mainly
your in trust?
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Yeah? Mainly I grew up you know, reading animorphs, So
that was pull of my first like science fiction love.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
As a kid, I.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Watched this show that not everyone remembers, but if you know,
you know, there was a show that ran like the
late nineties early two thousands called far Escape. It was
like yeah, like yeah, so it's like Jim Henson Studios,
like Muppets in Space, but for like adults, like you know,
just like my like the best like found Family space
(05:17):
opera of these like kookie alien characters coming together. I
imprinted really hard on that show actually, and I feel
like that was kind of where I got the bug.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Okay, cool, I've really listened people get it from different places,
and yeah, depending in your age, it's just you know,
I mean it goes. I mean my kids are voracious
readers and they're into fancy sci fi as well. What
Are the Rings was like a you know, you know,
thirteen year old kid reading it. Yeah, it's a dense
piece of work. Also, Yeah, absolutely I could see that.
(05:50):
So with you know, with the work you've done, you know,
getting into it as a hobby. How did you get
into it as a hoppy what were you doing as
far as writing profiles? Story is trying to pull together
a novel idea that thing work.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, it's really funny.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
I I have some friends who kind of started writing
with short stories. I have a lot of friends actually
that feel like they're either good at short stories or novels,
and like very few can really do both because they're
very different kind of media, like very different formats. So
for me, you know, when I thought about a story,
when my first story came to me, it really was
this kind of bigger story that needed kind of a.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Full a full length novel.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
I was at the startup job on the verge of burnout,
and some coworkers thought that we should go see a
movie after work, and so we went to the theater
and it was Divergent. It was that, you know, that
movie became probably a decade ago, and walking home from
the theater, I remember like that spark like reigniting in
me and me saying like, oh my gosh, like I've
(06:48):
been missing this, Like this is what I want to do.
I don't want to make spreadsheets for the rest of
my life.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Who wanted to story?
Speaker 4 (06:55):
And I went home and instead of like working on
work that night, I started like plot out this novel
that I had in my head is idea for like
a parallel universes like sci fi story. And seven years
later that story got me my agent and then we
went on submission and which means like you take the
story to publishers and see if they want it. That
book did not sell, but while it was out to editors,
(07:15):
I ended up writing the book that became my debut,
The Dividing Sky.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
So so yeah, that was.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Kind of the beginning of the journey, was seeing Divergent
and remembering that like part of who I was.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yeah, Divergent, that was a ya novel. That was That
movie was based on the trilogy. I thank you for
thinking on with some most stories. Yeah, yeah, I love
the I love the process. Of writing and the whole
idea of doing it. You write enough and listen to
a podcast about writing the craft, like you said, because
it is a craft, right, Yeah, it's been an auto
(07:49):
subcraft almost in some ways. But putting things together usually
most authors that I've heard about or read about say
that first book, as you usually that exercise brought. Yeah,
but it's not the book that ever gets published. It's
always the second or third book that might get you there.
So is this book a duology, a trilogy, or is
(08:12):
it a one off book?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Right now, it's a standalone I think so. Actually I
should say that next fall. Actually I'm publishing The Penguin
Random House again, a book that you could think of
as like a companion novel. So it's another kind of
dystopian romance. It's about one hundred years before the events
of this book, so it kind of sets up how
we get here. But you can read them in either order. Honestly,
(08:34):
I have some readers have been clamoring for a sequel
already for The Dividing Sky, and so I am putting
some thoughts together that what I want to pitch to
my editors. It definitely has It's not a cliffhanger, but
it leaves some questions open ended at the end. There's
room for more, and so I've been thinking about where
else the story might go.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, no, I could tell. I haven't have a chance
to read it yet. It's just the synopsis. What the
story is about. Takes place in twenty three sixty four.
It's an eighteen year old lived Newman. Interesting storyline about
what she does. Yeah, and that the Rookie Force Police
Force person I guess Adrian Brow that follows her and
(09:16):
finds her and she's lost all her memory even though
members were part of her job. So, I mean, it's
just I think it's such a great premise too, and
I can see how it can go further. You've done
a lot of good reviews. It seems. Kirkus Reviews willed
your debut at Gutsy in novel. We've had other reviews
(09:37):
in their new comparisons, even to Octavia Butler's Terrible of
the Sour Yes, right, What does it feel to be
talked about like that? You know this reviews?
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
I mean, I you know, when I finished it and
we were kind of wrapping up the editing process, I
knew it was something special, but you never know, you know,
I think, you know, a lot of the power of
those reviews comes in like who they assigned to read it.
And all you can do as a reader, as an
author honestly, is like hope your book finds its people,
like at every level, even you know, bookstores. And so
(10:09):
when I when I saw those starter deviews, my first
thought was like, oh my gosh, like this book might
have a shot at like finding its people. And you know,
I mean, like any author I think would would like
dream of being compared to Octavia Butler.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I feel like I don't.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
I don't want the book to be like overhyped, but
you know it's funny, Like I mean, I love Parable
of the Sower. I love that book, and Octavia about
their her writing was brilliant. I think when I when
I re read Octavia about the Parable of the Sower
in this past year, I was reminded of how much
of that story kind of seeped into my like authorial dna.
You know, in that book, the main character has this
(10:43):
sort of like you could call it a gift or
a curse or just ability to feel like the physical
things that others feel, you know, like if somebody gets
punched in the face, like she feels that pain.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
And this idea of of.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Like a character like having empathy for like extreme like
speculative like couldn't possibly be real like empathy for others.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
In that way, I sticked.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Into my DNA for sure. I think, you know, live
in the dividing sky. She is what we call an
emo proxy, meaning that her job is actually to read books,
watch movies, look at blades of grass blowing in the
wind or sunsets, and have emotional experiences about those things,
and then sell those emotional experiences, those emotional memories to
wealthy clients who are too busy working to live life
(11:27):
for themselves. And so this idea of like transferring emotions
of like channeling and emotion so that someone else can
experience it, I feel like is tangential to that ability
and parable of the sewer in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
I love I love that act. Yeah, I mean the
fact that we look at bovid, we look at the
sense of loss of personal connections with people, eluntually losing,
you know, I should see that sad world almost a
dystopian world where you literally have to work with through
other people's emotions, which which is really what do with
(12:00):
social media? Right when we scroll through TikTok for about
thirty minutes, we're living throughout the people's lives. Yeah, it's
not that much different. So is there And as you know,
every book always says none of this is based on
real events or real characters or people. But you know,
an author rights from what they know of that. Right,
(12:20):
is there a particular part that was difficult to write
or a particular part that you felt more deeply about
in this book?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, that's a really good question.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
So I think there's the world of the book starts
off in It is called the Metro and it's sort
of this like hyper capitalist world where everything is hinged
around productivity and so you're only valuable in so far
as you can earn money for this mega corporation that
we call life Corp in the book. And that's why
everyone is so you know, focused on working, is because
like that's how you get not only money, but you know,
(12:51):
your productivity score dictates you know where you can live,
what you can do kind of just like the confines
of your life, and so like of course you're going
to outsource reading books or childcare or you know, repair
work or like dates with your wife to like proxies
who will go and handle that for you. Now live
and Adrian end up discovering this other community outside of
(13:12):
the borders of the Metro called the outer lands, and
there are people out there who have been kind of vilified.
But the closer they get to this community, the more
they realize that they have a very different way of
living that feels more connected and feels more like in
harmony and is slower paced, and you know, appreciates the
value of human life not for being productive, but just
(13:32):
for being intrinsically valuable.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
And that was hard. I mean I did some thinking.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
About what I wanted that world to look like, because
you know, I think, as an author, like you're going
to be depicting a society that is like, you know,
in some ways kind of what you're saying what we
should like swing closer towards or.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Keep in mind. I think this was to show, you.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Know, what could be possible, and you have to like
make that responsibility really seriously. So I thought a lot
about the elements I wanted to highlight and you know
what I wanted to kind of telegraph as Yeah, like
a way of life that is, you know, maybe more imbalance.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean you're not too far off with
with the with what you were saying before about how
work or credits may affect your life, because I mean
China does that.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Right, So yeah, yeah, credits exactly right.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
And we're not that far from that. I mean, I
mean we're stepping towards it a little bit because even
credit ratings, it used to be that apartment rent wasn't
counted in that. Now it is abilities and the use
of utilities is being counted in that it wasn't before.
So I don't think we're too far from that social.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Credit, I agree.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
So, and you do take responsibility as an author to
be able to I mean as a reader, I take
responsibility of what I want, what I like. So it's
it's it's a two way thing, two way street, right
to a degree like that, But I like where to
go with that. World building is very difficult thing.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
It's hard.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
It's hard. Yeah, when you do it well, I think
people realize that without even you know, without even putting
too much thought into it, they all of a sudden
realized they're in it and they like it. Yeah, been
like blade Runner.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah exactly. I mean I think you know all of
those stories.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
I think it's funny as sci fi author and like
the soopian author especially, like you just realize you've been
like swimming in this like ether and like all these ideas,
and you know, there's like androids in my book. You know,
like all these things have just kind of like seeped
into like your the compost pile that you're using to
you know, to grow perspard.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
So yeah, definitely for sure. So where do you find
so did you mentioned like the movies A couple of
movies and stuff and obviously some books. There are other
books of sci fi or movies of shows we saw
It's for Escape and some of the ones you've mentioned
already that you taken for inspiration from.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, definitely those, you know.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
I mean, I I haven't really I haven't sold a
book in space get but like I love Battlestar Galactica.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
That's kind of like a classic space, you know space.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
I was like gonna say, oh, I was just talking
to somebody in an interview the other day about when
I was younger, there were these two movies that came
out back to back that were both about like.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Like androids that like, you know, kind of bordered on
being human.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
So one was like Ai the Hailey Joel Osmond movie,
but he was like a little boy, almost like a
Pinocchio metaphor. And then the other one was nice entennial
man with Robin Williams, where he like lives over like
two hundred years.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
And I think those books, I mean, the movies.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Came out like back to back, and I just feel
like there was a moment there where everyone was kind
of thinking about like technology and humanity and like where
do you draw the line? And I think, like I
always wrestle with those ideas the android character and dividing
sky nas.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Is Adrian's like like partner on the Force.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
They're like they're like buddied up, and he like he's
like he's got a heart of gold, right, heart of
like chrome and gold, I guess, but he, you know,
for being you know, a robot essentially, like he cares
a lot about his partner. And I wanted to kind
of subvert the idea of of an android being clinical
and like hard and cold and have one who's like
prime directive really was like the care of his of
(17:14):
his partner.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah, and then There's a book that is a little
bit more recent.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
It's another like ya sci fi book, a trilogy actually
called The Illumina Files. So if anyone's listening and like
has a young reader in your life that likes science fiction,
this book is fantastic. It's it's like a mixed media format,
so instead of just like pros on the page, it's
told through like chat transcripts and like security camera footage
and like all these really cool like artifacts. It's a
(17:41):
really fun read and also great on audiobooks. So I
would highly recommend that one.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Okay, I haven't heard about that one yet. Yeah, but
so I guess funding today. I mean you see, I
mean my kids are into Yian novels too, or at
least they were Mayan novels. They're into young adult novels maybe, yeah, right,
And so this trend's out there, right, different ways of writing, yeah,
(18:05):
like you said, I mean, it could be multimedia, it
could be transcripts, could be just different ways of doing it.
Do you find are there any any is there anything
out there that's trend in that you think would work
for you?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Even what to do?
Speaker 4 (18:20):
I like, it's my dream to someday do like a
full mixed media like mixed format book like that alesome.
There are a few of those, and I say, we
have some like police reports. There's some doodles in there
that are really cute. We have like a scientific study
abstract and a job description actually opens up the book.
So there's like some fun little things we did in
there from a design perspective to kind of make the
(18:41):
world feel more fleshed out.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
But I would love to be able.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
To play around with different mix mixed media formats because
it's almost like a puzzle coming together, even more than
like a novel already is. It's like thinking about what
elements you pull from like the real world that you've
created to give a full picture of the story.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
So I think that's really cool.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Curious. Your book is probably available as an audible.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Yeah, oh, the audiobook is fantastic. So we have two
amazing voices because the story is dual POV so it
lives perspective and Adrian's perspective, and so we have two narrators,
which is great. So Kaya Frates does lives the voice
and she is like a like well known like anime
voice actress. She has a bunch of audiobooks she just
(19:26):
did the voice of Violet from Fourth Wing on the
like full cast edition of the audiobook, so she's amazing.
And then Junior and Jongo did Adrian's voice, and he's
a fantastic actor in his own right. He's done a
few audio books as well, I think some things for
the stage. He's also Lapita and Youngo's little brother, which
is really cute, cool too, So they both did a
(19:47):
fantastic job. I'm like, so I have I'm a big
like audiobook. I have like a high standard for audiobooks,
and so I was like, okay, get just anybody, but
I'm so pleased with how it turned out.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Yeah, no, I can appreciate that. When I got my
two three mile walks out aways, listened to a novel
or something, and if I hear a really good performance voice, sorry,
I always looked for what other stories they've read. Yeah,
just because right, because I mean, it's just you can
have a really bad reader or performer'sten a great book.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
That's happened to me. Unfortunately a few times when I listened.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Its like, ugh, yeah, I'm same on that, but it
does that my sometimes. So you you've you've gone through
the process of writing your book publishing it. I'm sure
it took a little time to like you said it
took seven years to get an agent or you wrote
the book for seven years. But in your first book, yeah,
and you got an agent. Were you surprised about the
(20:40):
process of actually behind the scenes process of what its
to get the book published.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Yeah, so the process of submit going on submission, I
think I was more straightforward. It's it's basically like getting
an agent, but like all over again.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So you know, you send the manuscript out to editors.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
You know, your agent ideally has relationships with different editors
and publishing how is and you know, in science fiction
and speculative work especially, it just takes a long time
because editors are also editing books they've already acquired, so
they're editing those things. They're reading a bunch of submissions
every day every week. So the time it took like that,
that was kind of expected for me. The Dividing Sky
(21:19):
actually sold in like five or six weeks, which was
pretty fast, and that was that was amazing. But yeah,
so after that, I think, you know, I knew that
it would take about eighteen months to two years for
like the whole like for the book to come out
after that, which is about right. So we sold it
in October twenty twenty two. It just came out, so
that's that's about right. And over that time period, yeah,
(21:39):
you're editing, you know, more at the kind of high
level story structure level, and then you go into line
edits so that's like at the pros level, and then
you get to copy edits, which is like typos. So
all of that takes you know, months and months and months,
you know. I think what might have been surprising to
me is that, you know, a year before the book
even comes out, that's when like marketing and sales and
(22:02):
like cover conversations really kick off. And so you know,
you might be working with your editor for a year
before that, but it's like that one year timeline like
starts like now all of a sudden it's a real
thing for like everybody else of the publishers. So that
part's always really exciting. So now we've got going through
that process now for my next ya book. So that's
really coo.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
And publishing has changed, right, So I mean you have
Amazon selling books, you have Audible selling books on credit,
so authors aren't making the millions that they used to
make before Let's and it was definitely an exclusive club
to some degree, right, where you can make at least
the full time living, you know, between a book and
(22:45):
then talking tours and stuff like that. Yeah, did you
find anything about that that was surprising?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (22:53):
You know, I don't have much to compare to because
I'm an author now, but you know, from what I
from what I gather, you know, I think the biggest
thing that's changed is that pople's attention is just split
in so many different ways, and that has upstream effects.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Right, So if people.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Don't read the way that they used to, you know,
we have so many different things buying for our attention
between you know, all the different streaming services and social
media and you know, all the other forms of media
out there, video games, right, And so I think authors
are not you know, one of only a handful of
different forms of entertainment anymore. There's so much more out there,
and so yeah, I think I think it's harder. You know,
(23:26):
I think publishing houses definitely feel this, you know, both
because you know, the big five publishing houses that they
have their own traditional way of doing things that now
may not be as effective, and because new players are
entering the fray. Like TikTok has their own publishing house
now called Bindery, and Bindery partners with local like TikTok
influencers to like become editors and like kind of curate
(23:48):
their own stable of authors and then promote them through
you know, going viral on TikTok, right, And so you
know there's all and it's working really well. I mean,
I have good friends that have Bindary deals and they're
being treated very well, and I think for authors it's
a totally viable path. So yeah, it's just fascinating to see.
And then also even downstream you have like book boxes,
(24:10):
So they're these companies that will create these beautiful, like
exclusive editions of books and kind of spray the edges
and maybe redo the cover and put the illustrations in side.
And now they have their own publishing houses as well,
So they spent years getting to know what readers want
really really well, and now they're like, great, like we
can just go buy that. We don't have to pay
the publisher to acquire the licenses for these books. We'll
(24:31):
we'll just edit and like have our own authors. And
so I think from all these different angles publishers are
feeling this push of like, okay, how do we get
closer to readers but also score all these new channels
of marketing. Right, I think it's it's kind of a
free for all right now, And I think authors can
just stay agile and nimble and kind of react to
what the market's doing and just try to see this
(24:54):
opportunity where it comes, honestly.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
And hopefully that you know, maybe one of these becomes
a netflixit read or a movie or something. Right. Yes,
with all the streaming services for content and stuff, it's
just unbelievable. And and with chat ChiPT I've had a
few friends that think they're authors now because they can
just chat piece for them. It's amazing. Yeah, it's not
(25:22):
that anasy, No, it's not.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
And you if you don't, if you don't enjoy the
like puzzle and like mental exercise.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
That is writing, like maybe being an author is not for.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
You, Like you should enjoy it's hard, but you should
enjoy the process.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Yes, that's for sure. It is hard, and it's if
you're not wanting to spend weeks, months and several views
on it, then just drop it. Yeah, you're a parent
of two kids, two young kids. They're currently I think
one of them is starting school. Maybe sure, any balance,
you know, writing is different than an job, and he's
(25:56):
even different than some of these remote Hybridge jobs. Yeah,
because you can write it all. Some one kid said, well,
you can write almost any time. Although you know you're creative.
That might be good at six to seven in the
morning maybe, but well maybe at night after yeah, it's sleep. Yeah,
so how do you balance that? How does that work
for you creatively?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Absolutely so. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
So when I when before I got an agent, when
I was like and they were when they were very young,
I would write mostly at night. Now I write in
the morning. So you know, you can write anywhere. But
for me, like once my kids are awake, like a
good half of my brain is just like tuned in
to wherever they are, like whatever they might need, even
if like I'm in the basement on my office and
they're upstairs, like I hear the pitter pattern of little feet,
(26:39):
and I'm like, oh, like there goes like.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
A chunk of my focus.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Right, So I need to write when they're when they're asleep.
So yeah, I get up early, I write my my
like dedicated writing time is usually in the morning from
like six thirty to eight or so. And now because
my oldest is in like full time school now and
my youngest is in a half day preschool program, I
(27:03):
have more of the time in the like during like
waking hours to write. But you know, I'm still you know,
full time mom. So my you know, I'm doing grocery shopping,
I'm doing laundry like those like that time gets filled
with other things too. So really protect that six six
thirty to eight time, and I can get a lot
done in that time. Right If I If I'm like
plotting out my story and I know the next scene is,
and I know you know what I need to happen
(27:25):
and what conversations need to happen in that in that
part of the book, I can. I can bang it out,
you know, as long as I'm just like keeping that
time and like holding it sacred and getting up every
morning to do it a little bit at a time.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
I can chip away.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Did you set up an outline? Did you song with
an outline?
Speaker 4 (27:41):
I do?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Some authors can be more kind of like flexible and
kind of discover, you know, where their story takes them.
I I always outline. I'm a plotter, as they say,
so I plot out my story.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I Yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Made suchets for a living, you know, before I was
an author. Now I make them for my like outlines
and my revisions. Love a good spreadsheet still, and yeah,
I need that.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Do you do you create profiles for some of the
your characters that you let them tell you where they
go as you're writing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Some authors do that and have like a big like
story bible. I'm not.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
I don't do that, only because I know that it
will make me procrastinate. Like I could spend forever building
that out and then never actually get to the story.
So I kind of let I have like a few
character details that I use in service of like figuring
out how the plot works, and then the rest of
it I kind of build in over the course of
revisions as things kind of flesh themselves out.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Yeah. Are you a bit of a procrastinator?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I'm not.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
But I can get in my head about like a
story not being good enough to get started, and I
think that's the biggest thing when you're writing, even you know,
for an established author, writing the next thing, and like
that blank page is always scary.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
So I don't just like start.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Then like I can get in my head and say like,
oh this wait, you know a few more days, like
just note, just got to do it. You cannot revise
what doesn't exist, so you have to write first.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
That's good. I love that. Do you to set goals
for yourself like word counts or time or anything like that?
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
I try.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
You know, I'm generous with myself because I know that
I if I'm not careful, I'll burn out and then
like that goal won't be hit anyway. Right, So, especially
when I'm on my own deadlines and not my editor's deadlines,
I try to take it easy.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
You know, I can do a.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
Thousand words a day pretty pretty reliably, and so you
know that get like three months later, that's a full book.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Right. So that's kind of usually my pace.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
And I do like to kind of backwards plan and
think about, Okay, by the end of the week, I
want to be at this chapter, by the end of
the month, I want to be here. That way, I
just know that I'm on track, right, or that I
need to adjust my plan if I'm falling behind, or
you know, sometimes as you're writing, you're list oh, like
that scene actually belongs somewhere else, or I can like
accomplish that in a paragraph instead. So you're always revising,
(29:48):
like you're not holding it too tightly. But I like
a good plan. It just helps me know where I'm going.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I know the kids are kind of young, but the
oldest what does she feel about mom being a writer
and an author? Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
So the moment they began to kind of finally get
it actually.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Was last February.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
I sold my my middle grade book, which is like
a like nine to twelve year old reader, kind of
like that's like like younger than young adult, right. I
sold two books to Disney, so my first one my
first Disney books coming out in April.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
But I told them that it was with Disney. They
were like, oh Disney, like we get it. That was amazing.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
And then actually, like three days ago, I was going
to we were picking up Melo Mushroom for dinner, and
we went to John's Creek Books and Gifts, which is
like down the street, and my book is there, and
so I was like, oh, pizza's not ready yet, let's
go in this bookstore. So my oldest was with me,
and I was like, hey, do you see anything that
looks familiar and like her eyes chopped out of her head.
(30:46):
I think for her she was like, oh, like mommy
writes real books and they're like the doors and that
was I think she was like proud, but like also
just like over like it was very cute.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
But yeah, she she couldn't believe that that was really cood.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Yeah that must been. Yeah, that must be a great.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah, I mean she you know, like the whole House.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
My husband's been amazing about this too, just like the
Whole House has been like mommy's books coming out, so
we have like just keep track of like whose birthdays
come and like the calendar year and so it's like, oh,
like daddy's birthday and always birthday, you know, my youngest,
my oldest whatever, and they slotted my book's birthday in there,
so they're like always books birthday and then yeah, Christmas.
So yeah, so it's been like a big thing we've
(31:24):
been building up to you.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
So yeah, that's fine. You did you did mention. I
have a middle grade book, you know, so tell us
if you know, tell us.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
About that, so that that's coming out April first. Oh,
I have that. I'll show you the cover because it's
very cute. So that book is it's.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Called Kayam Morgan's Crowning Achievement and it's about a let's
see what the camera a black girl growing up in
a suburban Atlanta who is competing to be crowned the
first black queen of her local Renaissance festival summer Camp.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
And it's really good.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
It's like, I love the Renaissance Festival growing up. It
was a big part of my like my nerd awakening probably,
And there's just so much in here about like this
girl kind of discovering, you know, where she belongs and
what she's interested in, even as society tells her that
like maybe those things don't make sense for.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
For who she is. And also a bunch of Renaissance
Fair puns in here.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
So that's great, And that's a great festival. Anyone that
lives in Atlanta's.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
It's amazing. Yeah, I go every year. So so yeah,
that's coming out in April. And Disney has been great
to work with too. It's kind of fun to think
about younger kids and readers that are maybe like still
looking for like don't know that they're readers yet, they're
looking for the right book to hook them and so
I think a lot about you know, the reader looking
at this on the shelf and saying, okay, like maybe
I can get into books.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Right, So that's a lot different to write. And why
a novel? Yeah, yeah, I mean did that did the
process take longer? Did the that work? Is it the
same agent or you had to find a.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Different Yeah, same agent, yeah, same agent, different publisher obviously,
but yeah, so yeah for this one.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
You know, it's interesting. You know, I love a good
love story.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
There's no romance in the middle grade, right, so, but
where's my romance arc? But that's okay, there's a friendship
arc which is really good. And yeah, the voice is different,
you know, I think younger kids they I think even
for a young adult like in Ya, you know, everything
is so immediate and urgent, but for middle grade to
even or so right, so, like your best friend doesn't
my to the birthday party, like your world is crashing,
(33:26):
like it's crumbling down, right, And so it was fun
to kind of get back into my like twelve year
old headspace, remember what it was like like not knowing
who I was going to be, like who I was
going to end up becoming.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Right, there's a lot of that uncertainty and like who
am I? Where do I fit in?
Speaker 4 (33:42):
It was fun to revisit that and kind of provide,
you know, one perspective.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
That'll be interesting because I've picked that up as they
get older.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yetiquing mom on I don't know about this, mom.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Yeah, my list is still loves her like dog Man
and Captain Underpants right now. But I think if she
gets older, she's like she's close to she's close to getting.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Ready for this.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Yeh, everyone but Captain kids bought those two. Yeah, I
mean actually because of the school book fair as right
as Colass exactly who I mean, what you know? How
far out do you think do you? I know you
work in on this on the other book, Yeah, so
(34:30):
how far out do you plan? I mean? Or you
take them as you got?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah? I think I take it as I go.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
I mean, I have a few books book ideas in me,
so right now I'm actually I need to start drafting.
My second Disney book comes out April twenty twenty six,
so I need to start drafting that.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I have the outline ready to go.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
But that's kind of where I'm at in terms of
my like workload after that I have no other contracted
books yet. We're on submission with an adult space opera,
which I'm holding my thing across my fingers for. But
I'm excited to have some time in the early part
of next year for a book that like is not
under contract, like nobody else knows about. Like, I just
want to like play around again because I think, like,
(35:08):
you know, it's amazing to have book deals, but you know,
there's you know, plus and minuses to everything, and I
missed that feeling of like this is just for me.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
So I'm excited to get back into that.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
That's cool. So have we missed anything that you'd like
to cover? That's maybe that I didn't get to.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I don't think so. I think that's that's me.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Do you want to show us to cover if your
new book? Do you have that? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I do. Let's see. This is The Dividing Scand which
this cover is absolutely gorgeous.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Excellent.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
It gives me like all of the like science fiction
romance vibes.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Yeah they do, so, yeah, excellent. Well, we've been speaking
to Jill Too, author, first time author, lots of books
out at this point with Disney, and this first novel
appre shred. You're spending time with us and it's great
to see you know, Peatreet Corners has a lot going
on and it's good to see again. I'd love the
(36:03):
opportunity to talk to different people from different areas, of
different professions, different skill sets. So this was great. Love
love talking about the talking shop to some degree, although
although I don't do writing and published magazines, but that's.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
It's all connected. Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
Thank you so much for this and for having the spotlight.
I love the city. You know when you're moving back,
you know. It was a coup of our lists, so
we're so happy to be here.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Great to help you holding them with me for a minute.
I just want to sign off a little bit, but
I also want to tell everyone. Ev Remodeling Inc. Is
our sponsor for these podcasts and for our publications, so
check them out. Eli lives here on Patrick Corners with
his family. They do great work from starting to finish,
so no matter what you're doing, whether it's one room
or all the rooms in your houses in your house,
(36:51):
you should visit them. So ev Remodelinginc. Dot com Is
where you can get that info and if you're listening
to this, to our website or wherever you're listening, I'll
have links in the show notes, so that's way you
can find more about Jill's books and about the Disney
book as well. We'll have that link as well. So
(37:12):
thank you all for being with us.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
For sure, thank you for joining us on another episode
of Urban Ebb. If you enjoined today's conversation and want
to stay connected with the heartbeat of our local cities,
be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform.
If you have a story to share and know someone
who does, we'd love to hear from you. The pulse
of Peachtree Corners, Norcross, Berkeley Lake, and Muluth beats through
(37:37):
the dreams, actions and stories of some great individuals we
feature until next time. This was urban Ebb, your gateway
to the heart of urban living.
Urban ebb is a gateway to the heart of our
local small cities. Urban ebb covers urban life and planning, culture,
innovative city initiatives, programs, development and politics.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Here people talk about.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Their passions and interests and share their opinions and stories.
It's a conversation we can all learn from.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hi. Everyone, this is Greco Figliolini, host of Peatree Corners
Life podcasts here in the city of Peatree Corners in
the County Quinette, just north of Atlanta. So I want
to welcome you all for visiting with us today. And
we have a first time author, Jill two who's visiting
with us, who lives here in Patrick Corners actually as well. HL.
(00:46):
Thanks jaming me. This is great. I mean, I just
I love the idea of being an author myself, and
I'm sure I have the book in me somewhere, but
it's just I can appreciate the end efforts of first
time writer and the author doing this. Yeah, yours is
(01:07):
on is actually called The Dividing Sky and is available
on Penguin Publishing, their website and anywhere else that you
can find a book.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Anywhere books are sold.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Yeah, Amazon, Barnes, and Noble I'll always shout out a
local indie bookstores. If it's not on the shelf, you
can always make your request excellent.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
So you were you were born in Georgia, went away
from college, you ended up in then for for a
few years, and then you came back to Georgia. Tell
us a little bit about yourself, what what you know,
who you are, and where you've been in life.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Absolutely, So I grew up not far from here, in
like the Dunwoody Sandy Springs area. When I was growing up,
that was Zumwitty and then they incorporated and so that changed.
And yeah, I grew up. I always loved writing and
storytelling and went away for college to do something more practical.
I thought that was kind of what I was supposed
to do. So I went away to school in Philadelphia
(02:02):
and an undergraduate business degree. And I did that and
was convinced that that was what I was going to do.
I was going to go be an international businesswoman. And
I was on the right track.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
You know.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
I graduated, I did pretty well in school. I got
a very sort of like prestigious corporate job out of school.
I was a management consultant, so I was working in
New York advising major corporations. And yeah, after that, you know,
I decided that I and maybe the corporate environment wasn't
quite for me. But I still loved business and I
loved solving problems that way, and so I ended up
(02:33):
moving out to Denver and worked at a startup for
another couple of years.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
That startup ended up getting.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Acquired by Comcast, and it was kind of a really
cool process to be a part of, from start to finish.
And that was on the time that I realized that
I still had this like creative bug in me from
when I was younger, and I began to pursue writing
as a hobby. And then a few years later, as
things kind of shifted and pandemic happened and I was
growing in my craft, it shifted from being you know,
(03:01):
less of a hobby to more of, you know, a
full kind of wholehearted pursuit and now it's a career.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Cool. What did when you were younger, Let's say, I
don't grow it up being a tween, and sof what
was your did you have any did you see yourself
being creative at that point? But what trends probably even
at that age because usually it seems to start.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yah, yeah, totally. So it's funny.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
You know, I never had any like visual art ability,
so I never thought of myself as like a creative
person because I was like, oh, I can't paint or
draw or beans. But I loved wordplay, and so I
loved like making things rhyme and making up funny like
poems and like.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Parodies of songs.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
The favorite book when I was growing up was actually
my Rhyming Dictionary, because I would use it to just
like make up funny.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Stories and poems and stuff.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
I love books, you know, I loved, I think, storytelling
in all of its forms. So my favorite at that
point ended up being musicals. So I again kind of
love musicals for the storytelling. And I would find myself,
you know, watching you know, science fiction movies or book
or shows, excuse me. Or when I was a little
bit older, the Lord of the Rings trilogy came out,
(04:12):
and I would just like think about these worlds and
thinking about these adventures and you know, kind of come
up with some of my own I never wrote any
fan fiction, but I read it heavily and I just loved,
you know, kind of imagining the different places that these
stories could take me and looking back now at all
kind of clicks and I see, you know where that
spark kind of started. I you know, I loved writing
(04:32):
stories and creative writing in school. But you know when
I pivoted to that point of more pragmatic and practical approach,
I should have known it. Eventually I was going to
end up circling back.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
So would science fiction fancy? Where is that area mainly
your in trust?
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Yeah? Mainly I grew up you know, reading animorphs, So
that was pull of my first like science fiction love.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
As a kid, I.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Watched this show that not everyone remembers, but if you know,
you know, there was a show that ran like the
late nineties early two thousands called far Escape. It was
like yeah, like yeah, so it's like Jim Henson Studios,
like Muppets in Space, but for like adults, like you know,
just like my like the best like found Family space
(05:17):
opera of these like kookie alien characters coming together. I
imprinted really hard on that show actually, and I feel
like that was kind of where I got the bug.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Okay, cool, I've really listened people get it from different places,
and yeah, depending in your age, it's just you know,
I mean it goes. I mean my kids are voracious
readers and they're into fancy sci fi as well. What
Are the Rings was like a you know, you know,
thirteen year old kid reading it. Yeah, it's a dense
piece of work. Also, Yeah, absolutely I could see that.
(05:50):
So with you know, with the work you've done, you know,
getting into it as a hobby. How did you get
into it as a hoppy what were you doing as
far as writing profiles? Story is trying to pull together
a novel idea that thing work.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, it's really funny.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
I I have some friends who kind of started writing
with short stories. I have a lot of friends actually
that feel like they're either good at short stories or novels,
and like very few can really do both because they're
very different kind of media, like very different formats. So
for me, you know, when I thought about a story,
when my first story came to me, it really was
this kind of bigger story that needed kind of a.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Full a full length novel.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
I was at the startup job on the verge of burnout,
and some coworkers thought that we should go see a
movie after work, and so we went to the theater
and it was Divergent. It was that, you know, that
movie became probably a decade ago, and walking home from
the theater, I remember like that spark like reigniting in
me and me saying like, oh my gosh, like I've
(06:48):
been missing this, Like this is what I want to do.
I don't want to make spreadsheets for the rest of
my life.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Who wanted to story?
Speaker 4 (06:55):
And I went home and instead of like working on
work that night, I started like plot out this novel
that I had in my head is idea for like
a parallel universes like sci fi story. And seven years
later that story got me my agent and then we
went on submission and which means like you take the
story to publishers and see if they want it. That
book did not sell, but while it was out to editors,
(07:15):
I ended up writing the book that became my debut,
The Dividing Sky.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
So so yeah, that was.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Kind of the beginning of the journey, was seeing Divergent
and remembering that like part of who I was.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yeah, Divergent, that was a ya novel. That was That
movie was based on the trilogy. I thank you for
thinking on with some most stories. Yeah, yeah, I love
the I love the process. Of writing and the whole
idea of doing it. You write enough and listen to
a podcast about writing the craft, like you said, because
it is a craft, right, Yeah, it's been an auto
(07:49):
subcraft almost in some ways. But putting things together usually
most authors that I've heard about or read about say
that first book, as you usually that exercise brought. Yeah,
but it's not the book that ever gets published. It's
always the second or third book that might get you there.
So is this book a duology, a trilogy, or is
(08:12):
it a one off book?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Right now, it's a standalone I think so. Actually I
should say that next fall. Actually I'm publishing The Penguin
Random House again, a book that you could think of
as like a companion novel. So it's another kind of
dystopian romance. It's about one hundred years before the events
of this book, so it kind of sets up how
we get here. But you can read them in either order. Honestly,
(08:34):
I have some readers have been clamoring for a sequel
already for The Dividing Sky, and so I am putting
some thoughts together that what I want to pitch to
my editors. It definitely has It's not a cliffhanger, but
it leaves some questions open ended at the end. There's
room for more, and so I've been thinking about where
else the story might go.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, no, I could tell. I haven't have a chance
to read it yet. It's just the synopsis. What the
story is about. Takes place in twenty three sixty four.
It's an eighteen year old lived Newman. Interesting storyline about
what she does. Yeah, and that the Rookie Force Police
Force person I guess Adrian Brow that follows her and
(09:16):
finds her and she's lost all her memory even though
members were part of her job. So, I mean, it's
just I think it's such a great premise too, and
I can see how it can go further. You've done
a lot of good reviews. It seems. Kirkus Reviews willed
your debut at Gutsy in novel. We've had other reviews
(09:37):
in their new comparisons, even to Octavia Butler's Terrible of
the Sour Yes, right, What does it feel to be
talked about like that? You know this reviews?
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
I mean, I you know, when I finished it and
we were kind of wrapping up the editing process, I
knew it was something special, but you never know, you know,
I think, you know, a lot of the power of
those reviews comes in like who they assigned to read it.
And all you can do as a reader, as an
author honestly, is like hope your book finds its people,
like at every level, even you know, bookstores. And so
(10:09):
when I when I saw those starter deviews, my first
thought was like, oh my gosh, like this book might
have a shot at like finding its people. And you know,
I mean, like any author I think would would like
dream of being compared to Octavia Butler.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I feel like I don't.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
I don't want the book to be like overhyped, but
you know it's funny, Like I mean, I love Parable
of the Sower. I love that book, and Octavia about
their her writing was brilliant. I think when I when
I re read Octavia about the Parable of the Sower
in this past year, I was reminded of how much
of that story kind of seeped into my like authorial dna.
You know, in that book, the main character has this
(10:43):
sort of like you could call it a gift or
a curse or just ability to feel like the physical
things that others feel, you know, like if somebody gets
punched in the face, like she feels that pain.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
And this idea of of.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Like a character like having empathy for like extreme like
speculative like couldn't possibly be real like empathy for others.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
In that way, I sticked.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Into my DNA for sure. I think, you know, live
in the dividing sky. She is what we call an
emo proxy, meaning that her job is actually to read books,
watch movies, look at blades of grass blowing in the
wind or sunsets, and have emotional experiences about those things,
and then sell those emotional experiences, those emotional memories to
wealthy clients who are too busy working to live life
(11:27):
for themselves. And so this idea of like transferring emotions
of like channeling and emotion so that someone else can
experience it, I feel like is tangential to that ability
and parable of the sewer in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
I love I love that act. Yeah, I mean the
fact that we look at bovid, we look at the
sense of loss of personal connections with people, eluntually losing,
you know, I should see that sad world almost a
dystopian world where you literally have to work with through
other people's emotions, which which is really what do with
(12:00):
social media? Right when we scroll through TikTok for about
thirty minutes, we're living throughout the people's lives. Yeah, it's
not that much different. So is there And as you know,
every book always says none of this is based on
real events or real characters or people. But you know,
an author rights from what they know of that. Right,
(12:20):
is there a particular part that was difficult to write
or a particular part that you felt more deeply about
in this book?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, that's a really good question.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
So I think there's the world of the book starts
off in It is called the Metro and it's sort
of this like hyper capitalist world where everything is hinged
around productivity and so you're only valuable in so far
as you can earn money for this mega corporation that
we call life Corp in the book. And that's why
everyone is so you know, focused on working, is because
like that's how you get not only money, but you know,
(12:51):
your productivity score dictates you know where you can live,
what you can do kind of just like the confines
of your life, and so like of course you're going
to outsource reading books or childcare or you know, repair
work or like dates with your wife to like proxies
who will go and handle that for you. Now live
and Adrian end up discovering this other community outside of
(13:12):
the borders of the Metro called the outer lands, and
there are people out there who have been kind of vilified.
But the closer they get to this community, the more
they realize that they have a very different way of
living that feels more connected and feels more like in
harmony and is slower paced, and you know, appreciates the
value of human life not for being productive, but just
(13:32):
for being intrinsically valuable.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
And that was hard. I mean I did some thinking.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
About what I wanted that world to look like, because
you know, I think, as an author, like you're going
to be depicting a society that is like, you know,
in some ways kind of what you're saying what we
should like swing closer towards or.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Keep in mind. I think this was to show, you.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Know, what could be possible, and you have to like
make that responsibility really seriously. So I thought a lot
about the elements I wanted to highlight and you know
what I wanted to kind of telegraph as Yeah, like
a way of life that is, you know, maybe more imbalance.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean you're not too far off with
with the with what you were saying before about how
work or credits may affect your life, because I mean
China does that.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Right, So yeah, yeah, credits exactly right.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
And we're not that far from that. I mean, I
mean we're stepping towards it a little bit because even
credit ratings, it used to be that apartment rent wasn't
counted in that. Now it is abilities and the use
of utilities is being counted in that it wasn't before.
So I don't think we're too far from that social.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Credit, I agree.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
So, and you do take responsibility as an author to
be able to I mean as a reader, I take
responsibility of what I want, what I like. So it's
it's it's a two way thing, two way street, right
to a degree like that, But I like where to
go with that. World building is very difficult thing.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
It's hard.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
It's hard. Yeah, when you do it well, I think
people realize that without even you know, without even putting
too much thought into it, they all of a sudden
realized they're in it and they like it. Yeah, been
like blade Runner.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah exactly. I mean I think you know all of
those stories.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
I think it's funny as sci fi author and like
the soopian author especially, like you just realize you've been
like swimming in this like ether and like all these ideas,
and you know, there's like androids in my book. You know,
like all these things have just kind of like seeped
into like your the compost pile that you're using to
you know, to grow perspard.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
So yeah, definitely for sure. So where do you find
so did you mentioned like the movies A couple of
movies and stuff and obviously some books. There are other
books of sci fi or movies of shows we saw
It's for Escape and some of the ones you've mentioned
already that you taken for inspiration from.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, definitely those, you know.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
I mean, I I haven't really I haven't sold a
book in space get but like I love Battlestar Galactica.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
That's kind of like a classic space, you know space.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
I was like gonna say, oh, I was just talking
to somebody in an interview the other day about when
I was younger, there were these two movies that came
out back to back that were both about like.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Like androids that like, you know, kind of bordered on
being human.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
So one was like Ai the Hailey Joel Osmond movie,
but he was like a little boy, almost like a
Pinocchio metaphor. And then the other one was nice entennial
man with Robin Williams, where he like lives over like
two hundred years.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
And I think those books, I mean, the movies.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Came out like back to back, and I just feel
like there was a moment there where everyone was kind
of thinking about like technology and humanity and like where
do you draw the line? And I think, like I
always wrestle with those ideas the android character and dividing
sky nas.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Is Adrian's like like partner on the Force.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
They're like they're like buddied up, and he like he's
like he's got a heart of gold, right, heart of
like chrome and gold, I guess, but he, you know,
for being you know, a robot essentially, like he cares
a lot about his partner. And I wanted to kind
of subvert the idea of of an android being clinical
and like hard and cold and have one who's like
prime directive really was like the care of his of
(17:14):
his partner.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah, and then There's a book that is a little
bit more recent.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
It's another like ya sci fi book, a trilogy actually
called The Illumina Files. So if anyone's listening and like
has a young reader in your life that likes science fiction,
this book is fantastic. It's it's like a mixed media format,
so instead of just like pros on the page, it's
told through like chat transcripts and like security camera footage
and like all these really cool like artifacts. It's a
(17:41):
really fun read and also great on audiobooks. So I
would highly recommend that one.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Okay, I haven't heard about that one yet. Yeah, but
so I guess funding today. I mean you see, I
mean my kids are into Yian novels too, or at
least they were Mayan novels. They're into young adult novels maybe, yeah, right,
And so this trend's out there, right, different ways of writing, yeah,
(18:05):
like you said, I mean, it could be multimedia, it
could be transcripts, could be just different ways of doing it.
Do you find are there any any is there anything
out there that's trend in that you think would work
for you?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Even what to do?
Speaker 4 (18:20):
I like, it's my dream to someday do like a
full mixed media like mixed format book like that alesome.
There are a few of those, and I say, we
have some like police reports. There's some doodles in there
that are really cute. We have like a scientific study
abstract and a job description actually opens up the book.
So there's like some fun little things we did in
there from a design perspective to kind of make the
(18:41):
world feel more fleshed out.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
But I would love to be able.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
To play around with different mix mixed media formats because
it's almost like a puzzle coming together, even more than
like a novel already is. It's like thinking about what
elements you pull from like the real world that you've
created to give a full picture of the story.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
So I think that's really cool.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Curious. Your book is probably available as an audible.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Yeah, oh, the audiobook is fantastic. So we have two
amazing voices because the story is dual POV so it
lives perspective and Adrian's perspective, and so we have two narrators,
which is great. So Kaya Frates does lives the voice
and she is like a like well known like anime
voice actress. She has a bunch of audiobooks she just
(19:26):
did the voice of Violet from Fourth Wing on the
like full cast edition of the audiobook, so she's amazing.
And then Junior and Jongo did Adrian's voice, and he's
a fantastic actor in his own right. He's done a
few audio books as well, I think some things for
the stage. He's also Lapita and Youngo's little brother, which
is really cute, cool too, So they both did a
(19:47):
fantastic job. I'm like, so I have I'm a big
like audiobook. I have like a high standard for audiobooks,
and so I was like, okay, get just anybody, but
I'm so pleased with how it turned out.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Yeah, no, I can appreciate that. When I got my
two three mile walks out aways, listened to a novel
or something, and if I hear a really good performance voice, sorry,
I always looked for what other stories they've read. Yeah,
just because right, because I mean, it's just you can
have a really bad reader or performer'sten a great book.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
That's happened to me. Unfortunately a few times when I listened.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Its like, ugh, yeah, I'm same on that, but it
does that my sometimes. So you you've you've gone through
the process of writing your book publishing it. I'm sure
it took a little time to like you said it
took seven years to get an agent or you wrote
the book for seven years. But in your first book, yeah,
and you got an agent. Were you surprised about the
(20:40):
process of actually behind the scenes process of what its
to get the book published.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Yeah, so the process of submit going on submission, I
think I was more straightforward. It's it's basically like getting
an agent, but like all over again.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So you know, you send the manuscript out to editors.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
You know, your agent ideally has relationships with different editors
and publishing how is and you know, in science fiction
and speculative work especially, it just takes a long time
because editors are also editing books they've already acquired, so
they're editing those things. They're reading a bunch of submissions
every day every week. So the time it took like that,
that was kind of expected for me. The Dividing Sky
(21:19):
actually sold in like five or six weeks, which was
pretty fast, and that was that was amazing. But yeah,
so after that, I think, you know, I knew that
it would take about eighteen months to two years for
like the whole like for the book to come out
after that, which is about right. So we sold it
in October twenty twenty two. It just came out, so
that's that's about right. And over that time period, yeah,
(21:39):
you're editing, you know, more at the kind of high
level story structure level, and then you go into line
edits so that's like at the pros level, and then
you get to copy edits, which is like typos. So
all of that takes you know, months and months and months,
you know. I think what might have been surprising to
me is that, you know, a year before the book
even comes out, that's when like marketing and sales and
(22:02):
like cover conversations really kick off. And so you know,
you might be working with your editor for a year
before that, but it's like that one year timeline like
starts like now all of a sudden it's a real
thing for like everybody else of the publishers. So that
part's always really exciting. So now we've got going through
that process now for my next ya book. So that's
really coo.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
And publishing has changed, right, So I mean you have
Amazon selling books, you have Audible selling books on credit,
so authors aren't making the millions that they used to
make before Let's and it was definitely an exclusive club
to some degree, right, where you can make at least
the full time living, you know, between a book and
(22:45):
then talking tours and stuff like that. Yeah, did you
find anything about that that was surprising?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (22:53):
You know, I don't have much to compare to because
I'm an author now, but you know, from what I
from what I gather, you know, I think the biggest
thing that's changed is that pople's attention is just split
in so many different ways, and that has upstream effects.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Right, So if people.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Don't read the way that they used to, you know,
we have so many different things buying for our attention
between you know, all the different streaming services and social
media and you know, all the other forms of media
out there, video games, right, And so I think authors
are not you know, one of only a handful of
different forms of entertainment anymore. There's so much more out there,
and so yeah, I think I think it's harder. You know,
(23:26):
I think publishing houses definitely feel this, you know, both
because you know, the big five publishing houses that they
have their own traditional way of doing things that now
may not be as effective, and because new players are
entering the fray. Like TikTok has their own publishing house
now called Bindery, and Bindery partners with local like TikTok
influencers to like become editors and like kind of curate
(23:48):
their own stable of authors and then promote them through
you know, going viral on TikTok, right, And so you
know there's all and it's working really well. I mean,
I have good friends that have Bindary deals and they're
being treated very well, and I think for authors it's
a totally viable path. So yeah, it's just fascinating to see.
And then also even downstream you have like book boxes,
(24:10):
So they're these companies that will create these beautiful, like
exclusive editions of books and kind of spray the edges
and maybe redo the cover and put the illustrations in side.
And now they have their own publishing houses as well,
So they spent years getting to know what readers want
really really well, and now they're like, great, like we
can just go buy that. We don't have to pay
the publisher to acquire the licenses for these books. We'll
(24:31):
we'll just edit and like have our own authors. And
so I think from all these different angles publishers are
feeling this push of like, okay, how do we get
closer to readers but also score all these new channels
of marketing. Right, I think it's it's kind of a
free for all right now, And I think authors can
just stay agile and nimble and kind of react to
what the market's doing and just try to see this
(24:54):
opportunity where it comes, honestly.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
And hopefully that you know, maybe one of these becomes
a netflixit read or a movie or something. Right. Yes,
with all the streaming services for content and stuff, it's
just unbelievable. And and with chat ChiPT I've had a
few friends that think they're authors now because they can
just chat piece for them. It's amazing. Yeah, it's not
(25:22):
that anasy, No, it's not.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
And you if you don't, if you don't enjoy the
like puzzle and like mental exercise.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
That is writing, like maybe being an author is not for.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
You, Like you should enjoy it's hard, but you should
enjoy the process.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Yes, that's for sure. It is hard, and it's if
you're not wanting to spend weeks, months and several views
on it, then just drop it. Yeah, you're a parent
of two kids, two young kids. They're currently I think
one of them is starting school. Maybe sure, any balance,
you know, writing is different than an job, and he's
(25:56):
even different than some of these remote Hybridge jobs. Yeah,
because you can write it all. Some one kid said, well,
you can write almost any time. Although you know you're creative.
That might be good at six to seven in the
morning maybe, but well maybe at night after yeah, it's sleep. Yeah,
so how do you balance that? How does that work
for you creatively?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Absolutely so. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
So when I when before I got an agent, when
I was like and they were when they were very young,
I would write mostly at night. Now I write in
the morning. So you know, you can write anywhere. But
for me, like once my kids are awake, like a
good half of my brain is just like tuned in
to wherever they are, like whatever they might need, even
if like I'm in the basement on my office and
they're upstairs, like I hear the pitter pattern of little feet,
(26:39):
and I'm like, oh, like there goes like.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
A chunk of my focus.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Right, So I need to write when they're when they're asleep.
So yeah, I get up early, I write my my
like dedicated writing time is usually in the morning from
like six thirty to eight or so. And now because
my oldest is in like full time school now and
my youngest is in a half day preschool program, I
(27:03):
have more of the time in the like during like
waking hours to write. But you know, I'm still you know,
full time mom. So my you know, I'm doing grocery shopping,
I'm doing laundry like those like that time gets filled
with other things too. So really protect that six six
thirty to eight time, and I can get a lot
done in that time. Right If I If I'm like
plotting out my story and I know the next scene is,
and I know you know what I need to happen
(27:25):
and what conversations need to happen in that in that
part of the book, I can. I can bang it out,
you know, as long as I'm just like keeping that
time and like holding it sacred and getting up every
morning to do it a little bit at a time.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
I can chip away.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Did you set up an outline? Did you song with
an outline?
Speaker 4 (27:41):
I do?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Some authors can be more kind of like flexible and
kind of discover, you know, where their story takes them.
I I always outline. I'm a plotter, as they say,
so I plot out my story.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I Yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Made suchets for a living, you know, before I was
an author. Now I make them for my like outlines
and my revisions. Love a good spreadsheet still, and yeah,
I need that.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Do you do you create profiles for some of the
your characters that you let them tell you where they
go as you're writing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Some authors do that and have like a big like
story bible. I'm not.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
I don't do that, only because I know that it
will make me procrastinate. Like I could spend forever building
that out and then never actually get to the story.
So I kind of let I have like a few
character details that I use in service of like figuring
out how the plot works, and then the rest of
it I kind of build in over the course of
revisions as things kind of flesh themselves out.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Yeah. Are you a bit of a procrastinator?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I'm not.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
But I can get in my head about like a
story not being good enough to get started, and I
think that's the biggest thing when you're writing, even you know,
for an established author, writing the next thing, and like
that blank page is always scary.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
So I don't just like start.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Then like I can get in my head and say like,
oh this wait, you know a few more days, like
just note, just got to do it. You cannot revise
what doesn't exist, so you have to write first.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
That's good. I love that. Do you to set goals
for yourself like word counts or time or anything like that?
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
I try.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
You know, I'm generous with myself because I know that
I if I'm not careful, I'll burn out and then
like that goal won't be hit anyway. Right, So, especially
when I'm on my own deadlines and not my editor's deadlines,
I try to take it easy.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
You know, I can do a.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
Thousand words a day pretty pretty reliably, and so you
know that get like three months later, that's a full book.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Right. So that's kind of usually my pace.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
And I do like to kind of backwards plan and
think about, Okay, by the end of the week, I
want to be at this chapter, by the end of
the month, I want to be here. That way, I
just know that I'm on track, right, or that I
need to adjust my plan if I'm falling behind, or
you know, sometimes as you're writing, you're list oh, like
that scene actually belongs somewhere else, or I can like
accomplish that in a paragraph instead. So you're always revising,
(29:48):
like you're not holding it too tightly. But I like
a good plan. It just helps me know where I'm going.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I know the kids are kind of young, but the
oldest what does she feel about mom being a writer
and an author? Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
So the moment they began to kind of finally get
it actually.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Was last February.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
I sold my my middle grade book, which is like
a like nine to twelve year old reader, kind of
like that's like like younger than young adult, right. I
sold two books to Disney, so my first one my
first Disney books coming out in April.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
But I told them that it was with Disney. They
were like, oh Disney, like we get it. That was amazing.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
And then actually, like three days ago, I was going
to we were picking up Melo Mushroom for dinner, and
we went to John's Creek Books and Gifts, which is
like down the street, and my book is there, and
so I was like, oh, pizza's not ready yet, let's
go in this bookstore. So my oldest was with me,
and I was like, hey, do you see anything that
looks familiar and like her eyes chopped out of her head.
(30:46):
I think for her she was like, oh, like mommy
writes real books and they're like the doors and that
was I think she was like proud, but like also
just like over like it was very cute.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
But yeah, she she couldn't believe that that was really cood.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Yeah that must been. Yeah, that must be a great.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah, I mean she you know, like the whole House.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
My husband's been amazing about this too, just like the
Whole House has been like mommy's books coming out, so
we have like just keep track of like whose birthdays
come and like the calendar year and so it's like, oh,
like daddy's birthday and always birthday, you know, my youngest,
my oldest whatever, and they slotted my book's birthday in there,
so they're like always books birthday and then yeah, Christmas.
So yeah, so it's been like a big thing we've
(31:24):
been building up to you.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
So yeah, that's fine. You did you did mention. I
have a middle grade book, you know, so tell us
if you know, tell us.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
About that, so that that's coming out April first. Oh,
I have that. I'll show you the cover because it's
very cute. So that book is it's.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Called Kayam Morgan's Crowning Achievement and it's about a let's
see what the camera a black girl growing up in
a suburban Atlanta who is competing to be crowned the
first black queen of her local Renaissance festival summer Camp.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
And it's really good.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
It's like, I love the Renaissance Festival growing up. It
was a big part of my like my nerd awakening probably,
And there's just so much in here about like this
girl kind of discovering, you know, where she belongs and
what she's interested in, even as society tells her that
like maybe those things don't make sense for.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
For who she is. And also a bunch of Renaissance
Fair puns in here.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
So that's great, And that's a great festival. Anyone that
lives in Atlanta's.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
It's amazing. Yeah, I go every year. So so yeah,
that's coming out in April. And Disney has been great
to work with too. It's kind of fun to think
about younger kids and readers that are maybe like still
looking for like don't know that they're readers yet, they're
looking for the right book to hook them and so
I think a lot about you know, the reader looking
at this on the shelf and saying, okay, like maybe
I can get into books.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Right, So that's a lot different to write. And why
a novel? Yeah, yeah, I mean did that did the
process take longer? Did the that work? Is it the
same agent or you had to find a.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Different Yeah, same agent, yeah, same agent, different publisher obviously,
but yeah, so yeah for this one.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
You know, it's interesting. You know, I love a good
love story.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
There's no romance in the middle grade, right, so, but
where's my romance arc? But that's okay, there's a friendship
arc which is really good. And yeah, the voice is different,
you know, I think younger kids they I think even
for a young adult like in Ya, you know, everything
is so immediate and urgent, but for middle grade to
even or so right, so, like your best friend doesn't
my to the birthday party, like your world is crashing,
(33:26):
like it's crumbling down, right, And so it was fun
to kind of get back into my like twelve year
old headspace, remember what it was like like not knowing
who I was going to be, like who I was
going to end up becoming.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Right, there's a lot of that uncertainty and like who
am I? Where do I fit in?
Speaker 4 (33:42):
It was fun to revisit that and kind of provide,
you know, one perspective.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
That'll be interesting because I've picked that up as they
get older.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yetiquing mom on I don't know about this, mom.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Yeah, my list is still loves her like dog Man
and Captain Underpants right now. But I think if she
gets older, she's like she's close to she's close to getting.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Ready for this.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Yeh, everyone but Captain kids bought those two. Yeah, I
mean actually because of the school book fair as right
as Colass exactly who I mean, what you know? How
far out do you think do you? I know you
work in on this on the other book, Yeah, so
(34:30):
how far out do you plan? I mean? Or you
take them as you got?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah? I think I take it as I go.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
I mean, I have a few books book ideas in me,
so right now I'm actually I need to start drafting.
My second Disney book comes out April twenty twenty six,
so I need to start drafting that.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I have the outline ready to go.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
But that's kind of where I'm at in terms of
my like workload after that I have no other contracted
books yet. We're on submission with an adult space opera,
which I'm holding my thing across my fingers for. But
I'm excited to have some time in the early part
of next year for a book that like is not
under contract, like nobody else knows about. Like, I just
want to like play around again because I think, like,
(35:08):
you know, it's amazing to have book deals, but you know,
there's you know, plus and minuses to everything, and I
missed that feeling of like this is just for me.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
So I'm excited to get back into that.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
That's cool. So have we missed anything that you'd like
to cover? That's maybe that I didn't get to.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I don't think so. I think that's that's me.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Do you want to show us to cover if your
new book? Do you have that? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I do. Let's see. This is The Dividing Scand which
this cover is absolutely gorgeous.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Excellent.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
It gives me like all of the like science fiction
romance vibes.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Yeah they do, so, yeah, excellent. Well, we've been speaking
to Jill Too, author, first time author, lots of books
out at this point with Disney, and this first novel
appre shred. You're spending time with us and it's great
to see you know, Peatreet Corners has a lot going
on and it's good to see again. I'd love the
(36:03):
opportunity to talk to different people from different areas, of
different professions, different skill sets. So this was great. Love
love talking about the talking shop to some degree, although
although I don't do writing and published magazines, but that's.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
It's all connected. Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
Thank you so much for this and for having the spotlight.
I love the city. You know when you're moving back,
you know. It was a coup of our lists, so
we're so happy to be here.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Great to help you holding them with me for a minute.
I just want to sign off a little bit, but
I also want to tell everyone. Ev Remodeling Inc. Is
our sponsor for these podcasts and for our publications, so
check them out. Eli lives here on Patrick Corners with
his family. They do great work from starting to finish,
so no matter what you're doing, whether it's one room
or all the rooms in your houses in your house,
(36:51):
you should visit them. So ev Remodelinginc. Dot com Is
where you can get that info and if you're listening
to this, to our website or wherever you're listening, I'll
have links in the show notes, so that's way you
can find more about Jill's books and about the Disney
book as well. We'll have that link as well. So
(37:12):
thank you all for being with us.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
For sure, thank you for joining us on another episode
of Urban Ebb. If you enjoined today's conversation and want
to stay connected with the heartbeat of our local cities,
be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform.
If you have a story to share and know someone
who does, we'd love to hear from you. The pulse
of Peachtree Corners, Norcross, Berkeley Lake, and Muluth beats through
(37:37):
the dreams, actions and stories of some great individuals we
feature until next time. This was urban Ebb, your gateway
to the heart of urban living.
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