April 14, 2024 • 27 mins
Audrey Lee started writing fiction at the young age of eleven, when she and her best friend co-authored a masterpiece about gallivanting around London with the members of Depeche Mode, Wham!, and Duran Duran. Unfortunately, these spiral notebooks have yet to find a publisher evolved enough to understand the genius buried within.As a result, The Mechanics of Memory is her first work of published fiction.Audrey lives in the San Francisco Bay Area
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(00:03):
Okay, you guys, I amback again at four o'clock. I don't
even know why I'm saying this,because I should be like I should be
like, you know what, I'mgood because this should be up here a
whole nother week. You don't needto know on back again at four o'clock
because you didn't see the three o'clockand the four o'clock back to back like
I'm doing. Ah, this isweek two, and I'm just as energetic
(00:27):
as week one one. There wego anyway, Yes, and I just
want you guys to know when Isay welcome this time, I actually know
which podcast I'm not literally mentally runningthrough and then rambling as I figure out
which one we're doing. We aredoing the Writer's Lass, and I'm proud
of me for knowing that. Becausewe have four of these bad boys,
it's hard to keep track of whichone I'm doing. But I love being
(00:51):
cute on all four. Anyway,I think that's enough about me because I'm
a little tired today, so I'mgonna not even wait for me to do
this whole little cutes you march intothe next sege segment. Nope, I'm
just going straight in. I wrotebooks. Yup, there you go,
no segue needed. And I thoughtThe Wars was bad, and I thought
being grinn up was easy if onlyI were me a memoir and verse forign
(01:15):
Coffee, Widdle's Web and Widdle's Debt. And if you're counting, y'all,
and now, I mean, ifyou're counting the fingertips because they are pale
white and I haven't done them yet, you're counting. That's six whole books.
So you can get those books whereveraudiobooks are sold. And before I
go into the whole thing about likethe other eighteen, yup, that's about
right. Then I'm gonna go aheadand tell you that these are lifestyle and
(01:45):
yeah, I'm keeping that literary lifeguides with pop poetry. And those six
books are your audiobooks, so youcan get those audiobooks wherever audiobooks are sold.
Ha ha, got it together,head on straight, good toku.
Wow, you can broub out therest of the eighteen polks at www dot.
And I thought ladies don't come andwhy you Oh no, I was
(02:07):
about to put the ending at thebeginning. No no, no, no,
no, no no no. Thisis what happens in the four o'clock
hour. You gotta always catch mein three dawn. I am done that
the whole beginning and before I messup anything else. You're not here to
hear about me. You're here tohear about our wonderful guests. Wonderful guests.
Would you like to introduce yourself?See, couldn't mess that up?
(02:29):
Just hand it it off. Youdid great? I love it. Hi
everyone, Thank you for watching.Hi audience. My name is Audrey Lee.
I am the author of a debutnovel coming out in August called The
Mechanics of Memory. If you can'tsee it here, you can see it
behind me, and behind me,It's everywhere behind me. I am.
(02:54):
This is my first novel. I'mso excited. I'm a newbie. I'm
learning a lot yea. Three thingsabout me I am. When I'm not
writing fiction, I'm an educational consultant. I am the mom to an eighteen
year old who is off to collegesoon and is a competitive hip hop dancer.
(03:16):
And so what I love doing iswatching him. And my favorite thing
to do is root for the GoldenState Warriors while I'm drinking a dirty martini.
That is three things about me.Waka jin say that again. How
do you like your martini? Ilike him dirty, so I like them
(03:38):
with the olive in it. Oh, vodka, gin, he said,
vodka. Okay, I just Iwanted to make sure I had him right,
because I was like, okay,Martini's and I'm like, for me,
it's always vodka because I can't standthe taste of gin. I assume
gin is wormwood. I like gin, but I tried a martini with gin
(03:59):
in it and it was all wrong. Sorry, I got a little too
excited. I'm not an alcoholic.I'm a writer. Okay, okay,
now, okay, now that I'mback and I'm backed up from Actually,
(04:19):
I gotta tell you one of myfavorite drinks in the whole world is a
Scotchka. It's just scotch and vodka, shaking, shaking in ice and then
you just pop it on out thereand voila and one o'clock here for me,
Well, I get to that fouro'clock hour, I will check that
(04:40):
out. Yeah, it's it's it'sonly good cold and you have to have
a okay scotch. Don't get agood scotch because because then you're just ruining.
Okay, all right, we're notgoing to talk about drink and you
see this face like, yeah,we're going to talk about the mechanic the
memory. So well, your firstbook, you chose hard some day I
(05:06):
did. It's it's got kind ofa funny story about it. So it's
I mean first to kind of tellyou a little about the book. It's
a psychological thriller. It's full oftwists and turns. It's about a woman
named Hope Nakano who's institutionalized at aluxury detox treatment center, but she can't
(05:30):
remember anything about her last year.And while she's in VR therapy there at
Wilder, she gets a coded messageabout her past and then starts to unravel
all the little parts of her life. And as she does that, then
she starts to question everything she thoughtshe knew. It's been compared to Black
(05:54):
Mirror, Inception, Memento, Severance, and but my friend came up with
my favorite description. I'm gonna readit because I always get it around crazy
semi rich Asian. Gone girl interruptedis what she Okay, Yeah, almost
(06:15):
should be the name, but itwould take way too so it's the cry
Girl. Yeah. Yeah. Themovie is called Kirki Okay, the way
you got everything that you needed?A right me to theaters near you?
(06:41):
Okay, actually it should be streamingservices right now, right, because I
mean, who goes this theater?Yeah? I don't think they make many
movies anymore for the theaters. It'sso upsetting. They only make temples.
Which is funny because I can do. You're West Coast, so I can
just discuss that with you, right, be so bright writer West Coast movies?
Right? Anyway, So how didyou? Boy? I really want
(07:06):
to ask a different question. Iwant to be deep, but I really
don't care about that deep question.So okay, that's one that I want
to about. All right, Whythe psychological thriller? Because this is what
you like to read? Or didit just kind of come to you you're
like, oh my goodness, thisis it. I do like to read
psychological thrillers. But before I startedthis book, I was more of like
(07:26):
a sci fi fantasy reader. Andthe original, like very first draft of
this book was a little more fantasy, like it kind of had a little
magic in it, or you weren'tquite sure what was going on. But
then you know, years later,all the iterations it turned into straight So
it's not fantasy at all. Butsince I started writing this book, I
(07:50):
have read so many psychological every singleone, and I can. I look
at the covers on Barnes and Noble. I'm like thriller, thriller, thriller,
thriller, thriller. I really doenjoy them now even more than I
did. But I like twists andturns. I like to be surprised.
(08:11):
I like when I don't see somethingcoming. So like, I know,
like because I loved thrillers and suspense, but mine was like geopolitical, so
I was a huge clancy fan.When I'll give them giant books and I'm
like, done it two days.But so I just wanted to know for
you, how did it work outwhen it was your turn to write the
(08:37):
terms? So that it's really hardbecause what I found to be the hardest
part is that you have you haveto leave clues along the way so that
so that when the different reveals comeup you the your reader is surprised.
(09:01):
I mean they're surprised, but theythought it kind of sat coming, and
so it's a really delus balance.Oh sorry, are you there? Well,
Nana has froze on me. Yeah, I'm here, Okay, your
(09:28):
face is frozen on my screen,so maybe it's me. All right,
I just completely stopped. Yeah,I think it was me. It just
froze like for no good reason.And apparently my camera is off now it
tells me here now my internet connectionis unstable. I'm unstable. What ads?
(09:54):
Oh your internet connection as a metaphorfor your Oh, let's not even
get into that right now. Youjust said that to a narcissist. I
could take all day on that backto you. Okay, I was We're
going back to the original question.Because you're reading turns and twists and psychologue
(10:16):
and thrillers is one thing, buta whole other, whole another thing,
because it's there's a balance between youdon't want to give too much away so
that the reader sees it coming beforethe end. You want to give just
enough away so that when they reachthe end they're satisfied. But they're like,
oh, yeah, I should haveseen that coming. And that's really
(10:39):
complicated because when you're writing and youknow what the end is, and you
know what I'll you know what,you're trying to keep people from, you
know, realizing or remembering completely untilthey get to the end. It's hard
to know because I know what theending is, but it's hard to know.
Did I say too much? Andnow that's too obvious? And when
(11:01):
they get to the end, theywon't you know, it'll ruin it.
So that's kind of the hardest partabout writing these kinds of books. As
I discovered, thank you, canyou see and hear me? I can
hear you? Can't see me?Again? There we go? All right,
so what the heck? Of coursetoday I chose live right, so
(11:26):
well I had to be that way. Yeah, normally I'm like pre record
only. Okay, so my biggestthing, Okay, how excited were you
when you were writing and you knewthe end? But you were like at
that point where you're like, oh, this is gonna be a good one,
(11:46):
Like do you write faster or slower? For that? I wrote this
one kind of all out of order, so I wrote, and I'm like
a very orderly person, so it'sweird that I did that. But I
knew I kind of I need thebeginning, I need some parts in the
end, and so I wrote thebeginning and then I wrote the end,
(12:07):
and then I filled it all inin the middle, and so I didn't
quite get that thing because I waslike, oh, yeah, this is
the end. But I did,I did kind of go many different directions.
I didn't know who the villain wasfor a while, you know,
so there were a lot of thingsthat were kind of evolved in the you
(12:28):
know, five thousand iterations of thiseventually ended up in a real book.
Okay, okay, I'm still here. I just want to see my face
because apparently my camera was like noface today. This has never happened.
(12:54):
But anyway, we're going to moveon with this. I have the very
simple question answer or plow. Ohit's not that simple. I am.
I'm like a hardwired plotter for everypart of my life. I'm all about
like order and labeling and color coding. But for this one, it was
(13:16):
like a like wild pantsing situation.It just I would it was just all
crazy. I started with this ideaof this woman in this institution with no
memory, and like it just wentcrazy from there and I wrote myself into
a ton of holes because I waspantsy. And then so I just finished
(13:43):
the first draft of the sequel tothis book that I'm still kind of polishing
up getting ready to send off tomy agent. And that was like a
lot more plotted. But the thedrawback of that was it was a little
less fun to write because it wasso plotted. Like I do, I
do think some of my creativity goesout the window when I'm too orderly.
(14:11):
I completely agree. I remember somost books I finished within I start within
a week and I finished them intwo weeks. Like that's it the first
draft and then I can start,you know, doing the editing and stuff.
But I did this one book whereI plotted it the entire thing from
beginning to end, and then Iwas like, Okay, I have room
(14:35):
to go. Never wrote the book. Yeah, I was. It is
a little something, and I thinkand I kind of got tired of this
just this whole world in book two, and you know, there's it's just
been a long time with these folksin this world. And so I think
(14:58):
for my next projects, I willprobably take a break from the mechanics the
memory world and write something totally different. I definitely got like the creativity back.
I definitely understand. Yeah, there'ssomething like someone asked me recently,
can you are you gonna write asequel to your romance book? And my
(15:20):
romance book is this bick and yeah, and it's it's supposed to be a
three part series, and they're allthis supposed to be that thing. And
I looked at that and I waslike, who wants to go back and
do that work? Why am Igoing back? I know I didn't finish
it, but still I know Ihave no desire. I'm tired of seeing
(15:43):
you people. You're uninvited from theparty. Yeah, I agree, I
think your little personalities are becoming tiring. I became an author so I can
uninvite the characters. Yeah, exactlyin real life. Exactly. Well,
okay, so I have to askthe thing that everyone wants to know is
(16:06):
how did you get your literary agent? Okay, that is a funny story.
So I finished the book. Thiswas like just before COVID Shelter in
Place. I finished the book andI was like, okay, what am
I supposed to do now? Andso I'm googling what do I do now
(16:27):
that I have a book, AndI realized I needed to find an agent.
So and so then I had tolearn how to write a query letter
and a synopsis. And you know, I had written a at the time,
it was like over one hundred Itwas nearly one hundred and thirty thousand
words my first draft, and Ihad written it, and it was so
(16:51):
difficult to write the synopsis. Icouldn't write the synopsis. I could write
one hundred and thirty thousand word book, and I couldn't write a two page
of that book. So so Iended up going to a writing conference in
San Francisco and they had this horrible, soul crushing healthscape called speed dating.
(17:14):
So San Francisco Writer's Conference, Yeah, why did you like it? Well?
I loved it. I've only beenthere once, but that it was
the last. When I went,was like a month before the world shut
down. That was kind of thelast like social thing I did was San
Francisco Writer's Conference. So I didthe speed dating. I signed up for
(17:38):
the speed dating I and it's basically, for those of you who don't know,
it's terrible. You're in a roomwith all of these agents and you
only have like two three minutes,and you sit down at a table and
you're like, hi, my bookis about this, and they either say
they either tell you to send themyour manuscript or they like politely and some
(18:02):
not so politely, shoe you away. So it's just terriful and I didn't
want to go. And I haveto say this because my best friend Sam
went with me and I was aboutto not go, and she was just
like, you know, put onyour big girl panties and go in there
and doing. And I was like, okay, so I went. It
(18:23):
was nerve wracking. I'm like shaking, you know, I can't even get
my pitch out. And then I'mabout to leave and there's a woman sitting
at a table. Her name's DorianMaffey and I sit down with her and
I'm like, here's my bitch,and I tell her and she holds up
her hand and she goes, Ihave goosebumps. And then she says,
(18:48):
send it to me. So Isend it to her and she read it,
or the fifty pages or what,I don't remember. She asked for
the whole thing and she mailed meback and she said, you know,
it's not for me, but Ithink my boss would really like it.
And so she sent it to herboss, who is Kimberly Cameron, who
(19:11):
I didn't query because I was abrand new author. I had found the
Kimberly Cameron Agency and I liked thatthey were all women. I liked that
they were in the Bay Area,which is unusual for an agency, and
I had like her on my spreadsheet. But I was like, when you're
a new author, you don't querythe lady whose name is on the letterhead.
(19:36):
And so I don't know. Ididn't think that I should do that.
But she sent it to Kimberly.Kimberly read it. She Kimberly contacted
me. She said, it's notquite ready, but I love your writing.
Fix this, this and this,and if you do fix those things,
i'll read it again. And ifyou've done it, I'll represent you.
(19:56):
So that was another like several monthsof fixing it. It was,
you know, more time, I'mback and forth Kimberly. Meanwhile, you
know, COVID happened. And butthen Kimberly called me and said, like
(20:17):
I wasn't I'm not taking new clients, but you know, I'll read it
and I thank you for your patienceand da da da. And then she
called me after she read it andshe said, Okay, I'm going to
take one more client. That isamazing. Okay, first of all,
that's I feel like it's a Cinderellastory. It feels like it because it's
it's so much about like luck youyou know, I happened to be at
(20:40):
the conference, I happened to talkto Dorian. Dorian happened to pass it
to her boss. That's it's alot of that. So my next question
for you is, if you canhear me still, I can tell you
what three pieces of advice would yougive to any debut author that you're like,
I wish I go home. Soa day you author who is like
(21:02):
in my position, they're already they'regetting ready for their book to come out,
or the debut author who's trying tolike break into the business. A
debut author who's getting ready to sitdown and write a psychological thriller. What
three pieces of advice would you givethem getting to end? They just need
to know something. Well, Sowhen I would say Neil Gaiman did has
(21:26):
this great list of writing tips.It's like eight of his writing tips.
The first one is right, AndI mean, that's the thing. It's
so easy to get into your ownway and not actually write. If you
want to be a writer, yougot to write. You got to make
time to write. You have towrite every day, and you have to
(21:48):
read there's you know, I learnedso much about the craft of writing from
reading other psychological thrillers and understand endinghow they were set up. And reading
as a writer is very different thanreading as a reader, and I kind
of lost a little of my readingin your reader part because now I can
(22:14):
see almost all of the twists comingbecause I know the tricks, and so
I'm like, no fun in amovie and I'm no fun, you know.
As I'm reading, I'm like,ah, it's nice, you know.
And then I would also say,like, imposter syndrome is real.
You can do it, but youhave to believe you can do it.
(22:36):
And that is super easy for meto say and not follow because like I
was in a different interview, awritten interview, and they ask like,
when did you know you were awriter? And I was like, I
still have days where I'm like,Emma, oh, kindness, that's amazing.
(22:59):
Of course you're a writer. Iknow. I'm like, I'm self
published, and I'd be like,I'm a writer. But I got published
at ten, so I guess I'mokay with that. That's always been my
identity. Yeah, not early.Yeah, I wanted to be a writer
when I was seven years old.So I love that. Make sure I
(23:23):
got that done. Yeah at ten, I was like, check, but
yeah, it's only a poem,so I mean, I don't even know
what that really counts in poem publishis published, But anyway, thank you
(23:45):
for sharing that those bits of advice, especially like the imposture syndrome, although
I I think I've only had itonce in my life. It was that
college professor and I was like,oh, I'm not a good writer.
Oh my god. He could havesaid I want to write. I'm like,
I'll forget you. Yeah, soI wanted to ask where we can
(24:11):
find out more information about you,how we can follow your career, and
where can we buy this book?Okay, so all kinds of ways.
I have a website it's www dotAudrey leauthor dot com and that has everything
and then all my links, mynieceletter, all of that. I'm on
(24:32):
social media pretty much everywhere as Audreyleauthor dot com, so that's the same
sorry at Audrey Lee Author is allof my handles. I'm on Instagram,
Facebook. I don't know why I'mon TikTok, but I am. I
don't even know what goes on onTikTok. But I'm there on TikTok.
(24:53):
Now say that again. We'll beon TikTok with this interview. I know.
I just oh my gosh, Iwent on there and I told my
knees, like, what is happeningon TikTok? I don't like can no
idea, But something that's super coolis in March, I think starting on
(25:18):
the fourteenth, my publisher is doinga giveaway on Goodreads of five copies of
the arc. This is the arcthe advanced reader copies. It still has
a few typos in it, butif anyone's interested in reading it early,
you can go on to Goodreads andsign up for a giveaway and hopefully win
(25:38):
one. But right now it's available, you can purchase it on pre order
it on Amazon and wherever books aresold. Thank you so much. I'm
looking forward to lugging. I'm signingup for the arc. I want to
read it. I love psychological thrillers. I read them slowly though, that's
(25:59):
fine. Down as you are.You gotta read a little romance in between,
be like, calm the heart downromance. It out come on back,
And I don't even like like likeread writing romance. Or really reading
it so well, I will tellyou to you there's a love story in
this like to me, it's alove story, but it's also got a
(26:22):
lot of thrillery stuff and so mightbe right up your alley. Oh so
I'm gonna give me another fifteen seconds, but and hope that my camera comes
back on, because that's before Iattempt to wrap this up. Nope,
(26:44):
it's not going to come back on, so I'm wrapping it up anyway.
You can find out everything that yourladies are up to at www. Dot
and I thought ladies dot com.Go down to the middle of the page,
not the bottom, but the middleof the page, and you can
see the charities that we probably support. We asked that you support them too.
Know that monetary donations isn't the onlyway to give to a charity.
(27:07):
You can give your time or hey, you can even give your resources.
In the head out one day wewere talking to the people and they're like,
we really needed that information. Iwas like, what knowledge? And
that's free. We thank you inadvance for that, and we asked remember
that wisdom is all around you ifyou're open to finding it and accepting it.
So peace in love, you guysfrom from the Wissing Ah, from
(27:27):
the Missing Jade, and for mewell known. Oh yeah, thanks for
listening. I'm now frozen and tryingto stop. This is fun. I'm frozen.
Okay, you guys, I amback again at four o'clock. I don't
even know why I'm saying this,because I should be like I should be
like, you know what, I'mgood because this should be up here a
whole nother week. You don't needto know on back again at four o'clock
because you didn't see the three o'clockand the four o'clock back to back like
I'm doing. Ah, this isweek two, and I'm just as energetic
(00:27):
as week one one. There wego anyway, Yes, and I just
want you guys to know when Isay welcome this time, I actually know
which podcast I'm not literally mentally runningthrough and then rambling as I figure out
which one we're doing. We aredoing the Writer's Lass, and I'm proud
of me for knowing that. Becausewe have four of these bad boys,
it's hard to keep track of whichone I'm doing. But I love being
(00:51):
cute on all four. Anyway,I think that's enough about me because I'm
a little tired today, so I'mgonna not even wait for me to do
this whole little cutes you march intothe next sege segment. Nope, I'm
just going straight in. I wrotebooks. Yup, there you go,
no segue needed. And I thoughtThe Wars was bad, and I thought
being grinn up was easy if onlyI were me a memoir and verse forign
(01:15):
Coffee, Widdle's Web and Widdle's Debt. And if you're counting, y'all,
and now, I mean, ifyou're counting the fingertips because they are pale
white and I haven't done them yet, you're counting. That's six whole books.
So you can get those books whereveraudiobooks are sold. And before I
go into the whole thing about likethe other eighteen, yup, that's about
right. Then I'm gonna go aheadand tell you that these are lifestyle and
(01:45):
yeah, I'm keeping that literary lifeguides with pop poetry. And those six
books are your audiobooks, so youcan get those audiobooks wherever audiobooks are sold.
Ha ha, got it together,head on straight, good toku.
Wow, you can broub out therest of the eighteen polks at www dot.
And I thought ladies don't come andwhy you Oh no, I was
(02:07):
about to put the ending at thebeginning. No no, no, no,
no, no no no. Thisis what happens in the four o'clock
hour. You gotta always catch mein three dawn. I am done that
the whole beginning and before I messup anything else. You're not here to
hear about me. You're here tohear about our wonderful guests. Wonderful guests.
Would you like to introduce yourself?See, couldn't mess that up?
(02:29):
Just hand it it off. Youdid great? I love it. Hi
everyone, Thank you for watching.Hi audience. My name is Audrey Lee.
I am the author of a debutnovel coming out in August called The
Mechanics of Memory. If you can'tsee it here, you can see it
behind me, and behind me,It's everywhere behind me. I am.
(02:54):
This is my first novel. I'mso excited. I'm a newbie. I'm
learning a lot yea. Three thingsabout me I am. When I'm not
writing fiction, I'm an educational consultant. I am the mom to an eighteen
year old who is off to collegesoon and is a competitive hip hop dancer.
(03:16):
And so what I love doing iswatching him. And my favorite thing
to do is root for the GoldenState Warriors while I'm drinking a dirty martini.
That is three things about me.Waka jin say that again. How
do you like your martini? Ilike him dirty, so I like them
(03:38):
with the olive in it. Oh, vodka, gin, he said,
vodka. Okay, I just Iwanted to make sure I had him right,
because I was like, okay,Martini's and I'm like, for me,
it's always vodka because I can't standthe taste of gin. I assume
gin is wormwood. I like gin, but I tried a martini with gin
(03:59):
in it and it was all wrong. Sorry, I got a little too
excited. I'm not an alcoholic.I'm a writer. Okay, okay,
now, okay, now that I'mback and I'm backed up from Actually,
(04:19):
I gotta tell you one of myfavorite drinks in the whole world is a
Scotchka. It's just scotch and vodka, shaking, shaking in ice and then
you just pop it on out thereand voila and one o'clock here for me,
Well, I get to that fouro'clock hour, I will check that
(04:40):
out. Yeah, it's it's it'sonly good cold and you have to have
a okay scotch. Don't get agood scotch because because then you're just ruining.
Okay, all right, we're notgoing to talk about drink and you
see this face like, yeah,we're going to talk about the mechanic the
memory. So well, your firstbook, you chose hard some day I
(05:06):
did. It's it's got kind ofa funny story about it. So it's
I mean first to kind of tellyou a little about the book. It's
a psychological thriller. It's full oftwists and turns. It's about a woman
named Hope Nakano who's institutionalized at aluxury detox treatment center, but she can't
(05:30):
remember anything about her last year.And while she's in VR therapy there at
Wilder, she gets a coded messageabout her past and then starts to unravel
all the little parts of her life. And as she does that, then
she starts to question everything she thoughtshe knew. It's been compared to Black
(05:54):
Mirror, Inception, Memento, Severance, and but my friend came up with
my favorite description. I'm gonna readit because I always get it around crazy
semi rich Asian. Gone girl interruptedis what she Okay, Yeah, almost
(06:15):
should be the name, but itwould take way too so it's the cry
Girl. Yeah. Yeah. Themovie is called Kirki Okay, the way
you got everything that you needed?A right me to theaters near you?
(06:41):
Okay, actually it should be streamingservices right now, right, because I
mean, who goes this theater?Yeah? I don't think they make many
movies anymore for the theaters. It'sso upsetting. They only make temples.
Which is funny because I can do. You're West Coast, so I can
just discuss that with you, right, be so bright writer West Coast movies?
Right? Anyway, So how didyou? Boy? I really want
(07:06):
to ask a different question. Iwant to be deep, but I really
don't care about that deep question.So okay, that's one that I want
to about. All right, Whythe psychological thriller? Because this is what
you like to read? Or didit just kind of come to you you're
like, oh my goodness, thisis it. I do like to read
psychological thrillers. But before I startedthis book, I was more of like
(07:26):
a sci fi fantasy reader. Andthe original, like very first draft of
this book was a little more fantasy, like it kind of had a little
magic in it, or you weren'tquite sure what was going on. But
then you know, years later,all the iterations it turned into straight So
it's not fantasy at all. Butsince I started writing this book, I
(07:50):
have read so many psychological every singleone, and I can. I look
at the covers on Barnes and Noble. I'm like thriller, thriller, thriller,
thriller, thriller. I really doenjoy them now even more than I
did. But I like twists andturns. I like to be surprised.
(08:11):
I like when I don't see somethingcoming. So like, I know,
like because I loved thrillers and suspense, but mine was like geopolitical, so
I was a huge clancy fan.When I'll give them giant books and I'm
like, done it two days.But so I just wanted to know for
you, how did it work outwhen it was your turn to write the
(08:37):
terms? So that it's really hardbecause what I found to be the hardest
part is that you have you haveto leave clues along the way so that
so that when the different reveals comeup you the your reader is surprised.
(09:01):
I mean they're surprised, but theythought it kind of sat coming, and
so it's a really delus balance.Oh sorry, are you there? Well,
Nana has froze on me. Yeah, I'm here, Okay, your
(09:28):
face is frozen on my screen,so maybe it's me. All right,
I just completely stopped. Yeah,I think it was me. It just
froze like for no good reason.And apparently my camera is off now it
tells me here now my internet connectionis unstable. I'm unstable. What ads?
(09:54):
Oh your internet connection as a metaphorfor your Oh, let's not even
get into that right now. Youjust said that to a narcissist. I
could take all day on that backto you. Okay, I was We're
going back to the original question.Because you're reading turns and twists and psychologue
(10:16):
and thrillers is one thing, buta whole other, whole another thing,
because it's there's a balance between youdon't want to give too much away so
that the reader sees it coming beforethe end. You want to give just
enough away so that when they reachthe end they're satisfied. But they're like,
oh, yeah, I should haveseen that coming. And that's really
(10:39):
complicated because when you're writing and youknow what the end is, and you
know what I'll you know what,you're trying to keep people from, you
know, realizing or remembering completely untilthey get to the end. It's hard
to know because I know what theending is, but it's hard to know.
Did I say too much? Andnow that's too obvious? And when
(11:01):
they get to the end, theywon't you know, it'll ruin it.
So that's kind of the hardest partabout writing these kinds of books. As
I discovered, thank you, canyou see and hear me? I can
hear you? Can't see me?Again? There we go? All right,
so what the heck? Of coursetoday I chose live right, so
(11:26):
well I had to be that way. Yeah, normally I'm like pre record
only. Okay, so my biggestthing, Okay, how excited were you
when you were writing and you knewthe end? But you were like at
that point where you're like, oh, this is gonna be a good one,
(11:46):
Like do you write faster or slower? For that? I wrote this
one kind of all out of order, so I wrote, and I'm like
a very orderly person, so it'sweird that I did that. But I
knew I kind of I need thebeginning, I need some parts in the
end, and so I wrote thebeginning and then I wrote the end,
(12:07):
and then I filled it all inin the middle, and so I didn't
quite get that thing because I waslike, oh, yeah, this is
the end. But I did,I did kind of go many different directions.
I didn't know who the villain wasfor a while, you know,
so there were a lot of thingsthat were kind of evolved in the you
(12:28):
know, five thousand iterations of thiseventually ended up in a real book.
Okay, okay, I'm still here. I just want to see my face
because apparently my camera was like noface today. This has never happened.
(12:54):
But anyway, we're going to moveon with this. I have the very
simple question answer or plow. Ohit's not that simple. I am.
I'm like a hardwired plotter for everypart of my life. I'm all about
like order and labeling and color coding. But for this one, it was
(13:16):
like a like wild pantsing situation.It just I would it was just all
crazy. I started with this ideaof this woman in this institution with no
memory, and like it just wentcrazy from there and I wrote myself into
a ton of holes because I waspantsy. And then so I just finished
(13:43):
the first draft of the sequel tothis book that I'm still kind of polishing
up getting ready to send off tomy agent. And that was like a
lot more plotted. But the thedrawback of that was it was a little
less fun to write because it wasso plotted. Like I do, I
do think some of my creativity goesout the window when I'm too orderly.
(14:11):
I completely agree. I remember somost books I finished within I start within
a week and I finished them intwo weeks. Like that's it the first
draft and then I can start,you know, doing the editing and stuff.
But I did this one book whereI plotted it the entire thing from
beginning to end, and then Iwas like, Okay, I have room
(14:35):
to go. Never wrote the book. Yeah, I was. It is
a little something, and I thinkand I kind of got tired of this
just this whole world in book two, and you know, there's it's just
been a long time with these folksin this world. And so I think
(14:58):
for my next projects, I willprobably take a break from the mechanics the
memory world and write something totally different. I definitely got like the creativity back.
I definitely understand. Yeah, there'ssomething like someone asked me recently,
can you are you gonna write asequel to your romance book? And my
(15:20):
romance book is this bick and yeah, and it's it's supposed to be a
three part series, and they're allthis supposed to be that thing. And
I looked at that and I waslike, who wants to go back and
do that work? Why am Igoing back? I know I didn't finish
it, but still I know Ihave no desire. I'm tired of seeing
(15:43):
you people. You're uninvited from theparty. Yeah, I agree, I
think your little personalities are becoming tiring. I became an author so I can
uninvite the characters. Yeah, exactlyin real life. Exactly. Well,
okay, so I have to askthe thing that everyone wants to know is
(16:06):
how did you get your literary agent? Okay, that is a funny story.
So I finished the book. Thiswas like just before COVID Shelter in
Place. I finished the book andI was like, okay, what am
I supposed to do now? Andso I'm googling what do I do now
(16:27):
that I have a book, AndI realized I needed to find an agent.
So and so then I had tolearn how to write a query letter
and a synopsis. And you know, I had written a at the time,
it was like over one hundred Itwas nearly one hundred and thirty thousand
words my first draft, and Ihad written it, and it was so
(16:51):
difficult to write the synopsis. Icouldn't write the synopsis. I could write
one hundred and thirty thousand word book, and I couldn't write a two page
of that book. So so Iended up going to a writing conference in
San Francisco and they had this horrible, soul crushing healthscape called speed dating.
(17:14):
So San Francisco Writer's Conference, Yeah, why did you like it? Well?
I loved it. I've only beenthere once, but that it was
the last. When I went,was like a month before the world shut
down. That was kind of thelast like social thing I did was San
Francisco Writer's Conference. So I didthe speed dating. I signed up for
(17:38):
the speed dating I and it's basically, for those of you who don't know,
it's terrible. You're in a roomwith all of these agents and you
only have like two three minutes,and you sit down at a table and
you're like, hi, my bookis about this, and they either say
they either tell you to send themyour manuscript or they like politely and some
(18:02):
not so politely, shoe you away. So it's just terriful and I didn't
want to go. And I haveto say this because my best friend Sam
went with me and I was aboutto not go, and she was just
like, you know, put onyour big girl panties and go in there
and doing. And I was like, okay, so I went. It
(18:23):
was nerve wracking. I'm like shaking, you know, I can't even get
my pitch out. And then I'mabout to leave and there's a woman sitting
at a table. Her name's DorianMaffey and I sit down with her and
I'm like, here's my bitch,and I tell her and she holds up
her hand and she goes, Ihave goosebumps. And then she says,
(18:48):
send it to me. So Isend it to her and she read it,
or the fifty pages or what,I don't remember. She asked for
the whole thing and she mailed meback and she said, you know,
it's not for me, but Ithink my boss would really like it.
And so she sent it to herboss, who is Kimberly Cameron, who
(19:11):
I didn't query because I was abrand new author. I had found the
Kimberly Cameron Agency and I liked thatthey were all women. I liked that
they were in the Bay Area,which is unusual for an agency, and
I had like her on my spreadsheet. But I was like, when you're
a new author, you don't querythe lady whose name is on the letterhead.
(19:36):
And so I don't know. Ididn't think that I should do that.
But she sent it to Kimberly.Kimberly read it. She Kimberly contacted
me. She said, it's notquite ready, but I love your writing.
Fix this, this and this,and if you do fix those things,
i'll read it again. And ifyou've done it, I'll represent you.
(19:56):
So that was another like several monthsof fixing it. It was,
you know, more time, I'mback and forth Kimberly. Meanwhile, you
know, COVID happened. And butthen Kimberly called me and said, like
(20:17):
I wasn't I'm not taking new clients, but you know, I'll read it
and I thank you for your patienceand da da da. And then she
called me after she read it andshe said, Okay, I'm going to
take one more client. That isamazing. Okay, first of all,
that's I feel like it's a Cinderellastory. It feels like it because it's
it's so much about like luck youyou know, I happened to be at
(20:40):
the conference, I happened to talkto Dorian. Dorian happened to pass it
to her boss. That's it's alot of that. So my next question
for you is, if you canhear me still, I can tell you
what three pieces of advice would yougive to any debut author that you're like,
I wish I go home. Soa day you author who is like
(21:02):
in my position, they're already they'regetting ready for their book to come out,
or the debut author who's trying tolike break into the business. A
debut author who's getting ready to sitdown and write a psychological thriller. What
three pieces of advice would you givethem getting to end? They just need
to know something. Well, Sowhen I would say Neil Gaiman did has
(21:26):
this great list of writing tips.It's like eight of his writing tips.
The first one is right, AndI mean, that's the thing. It's
so easy to get into your ownway and not actually write. If you
want to be a writer, yougot to write. You got to make
time to write. You have towrite every day, and you have to
(21:48):
read there's you know, I learnedso much about the craft of writing from
reading other psychological thrillers and understand endinghow they were set up. And reading
as a writer is very different thanreading as a reader, and I kind
of lost a little of my readingin your reader part because now I can
(22:14):
see almost all of the twists comingbecause I know the tricks, and so
I'm like, no fun in amovie and I'm no fun, you know.
As I'm reading, I'm like,ah, it's nice, you know.
And then I would also say,like, imposter syndrome is real.
You can do it, but youhave to believe you can do it.
(22:36):
And that is super easy for meto say and not follow because like I
was in a different interview, awritten interview, and they ask like,
when did you know you were awriter? And I was like, I
still have days where I'm like,Emma, oh, kindness, that's amazing.
(22:59):
Of course you're a writer. Iknow. I'm like, I'm self
published, and I'd be like,I'm a writer. But I got published
at ten, so I guess I'mokay with that. That's always been my
identity. Yeah, not early.Yeah, I wanted to be a writer
when I was seven years old.So I love that. Make sure I
(23:23):
got that done. Yeah at ten, I was like, check, but
yeah, it's only a poem,so I mean, I don't even know
what that really counts in poem publishis published, But anyway, thank you
(23:45):
for sharing that those bits of advice, especially like the imposture syndrome, although
I I think I've only had itonce in my life. It was that
college professor and I was like,oh, I'm not a good writer.
Oh my god. He could havesaid I want to write. I'm like,
I'll forget you. Yeah, soI wanted to ask where we can
(24:11):
find out more information about you,how we can follow your career, and
where can we buy this book?Okay, so all kinds of ways.
I have a website it's www dotAudrey leauthor dot com and that has everything
and then all my links, mynieceletter, all of that. I'm on
(24:32):
social media pretty much everywhere as Audreyleauthor dot com, so that's the same
sorry at Audrey Lee Author is allof my handles. I'm on Instagram,
Facebook. I don't know why I'mon TikTok, but I am. I
don't even know what goes on onTikTok. But I'm there on TikTok.
(24:53):
Now say that again. We'll beon TikTok with this interview. I know.
I just oh my gosh, Iwent on there and I told my
knees, like, what is happeningon TikTok? I don't like can no
idea, But something that's super coolis in March, I think starting on
(25:18):
the fourteenth, my publisher is doinga giveaway on Goodreads of five copies of
the arc. This is the arcthe advanced reader copies. It still has
a few typos in it, butif anyone's interested in reading it early,
you can go on to Goodreads andsign up for a giveaway and hopefully win
(25:38):
one. But right now it's available, you can purchase it on pre order
it on Amazon and wherever books aresold. Thank you so much. I'm
looking forward to lugging. I'm signingup for the arc. I want to
read it. I love psychological thrillers. I read them slowly though, that's
(25:59):
fine. Down as you are.You gotta read a little romance in between,
be like, calm the heart downromance. It out come on back,
And I don't even like like likeread writing romance. Or really reading
it so well, I will tellyou to you there's a love story in
this like to me, it's alove story, but it's also got a
(26:22):
lot of thrillery stuff and so mightbe right up your alley. Oh so
I'm gonna give me another fifteen seconds, but and hope that my camera comes
back on, because that's before Iattempt to wrap this up. Nope,
(26:44):
it's not going to come back on, so I'm wrapping it up anyway.
You can find out everything that yourladies are up to at www. Dot
and I thought ladies dot com.Go down to the middle of the page,
not the bottom, but the middleof the page, and you can
see the charities that we probably support. We asked that you support them too.
Know that monetary donations isn't the onlyway to give to a charity.
(27:07):
You can give your time or hey, you can even give your resources.
In the head out one day wewere talking to the people and they're like,
we really needed that information. Iwas like, what knowledge? And
that's free. We thank you inadvance for that, and we asked remember
that wisdom is all around you ifyou're open to finding it and accepting it.
So peace in love, you guysfrom from the Wissing Ah, from
(27:27):
the Missing Jade, and for mewell known. Oh yeah, thanks for
listening. I'm now frozen and tryingto stop. This is fun. I'm frozen.
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