November 8, 2025 • 40 mins
Mark Leslie (Lefebvre) is an author, professional speaker and bookseller with more than thirty years of experience in writing, publishing, and bookselling. He has published more than twenty-five books under the name Mark Leslie that include thrillers and fiction (Evasion, A Canadian Werewolf in New York, One Hand Screaming), paranormal non-fiction (Haunted Hospitals, Spooky Sudbury, Tomes of Terror) and anthologies (Campus Chills, Tesseracts Sixteen, Obsessions). Under his full name he writes books to help authors navigate publishing. And they include The 7 P’s of Publishing Success and An Author’s Guide to Working with Libraries and Bookstores. His industry experience includes President of the Canadian Booksellers Association, Board Member of BookNet Canada, Director of Author Relations and Self-Publishing for Rakuten Kobo, Director of Business Development for Draft2Digital and Professional Advisor for Sheridan College’s Creative Writing and Publishing Honours Program.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the writers class.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yeah, yeah, listen to this. I said, welcome to the
writer's class. I didn't go welcome to the ladies to
op the anda oop the yeah, I said the writer's class.
I actually knew what podcast I was doing. Well, that's
because I have someone that actually tends to know what
podcasts they're doing in a semi profess and I shouldn't
say semi.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
They're very professional, like they actually even talk about like
a business in stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I met them at like the ala, So when they
were across from me, I was acting. I was dressed
kind of professional if you can imagine me in costume
the entire time and don't for you guys out there
and I think I'm cute, don't do that.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I was not in that kind of cost too, thank you.
It's respect to Paul. I will knowna Oh my god,
I remember to introduce myself. High five to me. Oh
and just right there, right there, that was.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
The end of the professionalism. Dag nab that I almost pack. Anyway, y'all,
I do do a profession. I write books, and those
books are and I thought divorce was bad, and I
thought being grown up was easy. If only I were
a mem memoir on verse fourign Coffee, Widows Web and
Widdows Debt. And you can find those six books wherever
audiobooks are sold. Can you tell that? I say that
a few times a week? Yup by doil and you
(01:19):
know how what the time is. This is the time
where I add a little sign language. We have six books,
and then we add eleven books and we get a
total all together now of seventeen books. You can find
out the rest about those books at www dot n
I thought ladies dot com. Everyone goes, why don't you
sign out the anti thought ladies dot com? Because I
(01:39):
was like, no, that's called finger spelling, and that's way
too many letters.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
No one's doing that. You've learned enough sign you learn
the number six, eleven, and seventeen.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I mean, I feel like Sesame Street right now. This
was brought to you by the nd I AITL. Those
are the letters that was brought to you by. But
you're not here to hear about me or my AITL
or of my seventeen books, which is such a shame
because I could do a.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Whole show on just talking about me.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
But you know this, you're here to hear about our
wonderful guests. Wonderful guest, would you like to introduce yourself?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Thanks for My name is Mark Leslie lafav. I usually
just call me Mark because nobody ever wants to spell
or pronounce la fave. Anyways, I have worked in the
book industry since nineteen ninety two. That's one thing about me.
Second thing about me is my very first published short
story came out in nineteen ninety two. Most of them
(02:31):
are under the name Mark Leslie instead of Mark le
Fave because nobody can ever spell or pronounce that name.
And the third thing about me, I thought to make
this one a little bit more interesting, is a lot
of the stuff that I write tends to be horror, macabre, dark, disturbing.
And I may look like a bit of a badass
if people are looking at the video, but I'm actually
(02:52):
a nice guy, a meek, mild pushover of a happy,
apologizing Canadian. And so when people have read some of
the horror stories I've written, they're like, well, wow, where
does that darkness come from? And I like to say, well,
I put it in the stories, or else it comes
out some otherwhere.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Oh my god, Oh no, about how people say that well,
they meet us and we go be like hey, and
then they read our books and they go, oh god,
that's all sad, and I'm like, sad has to come
out somewhere.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
It does, Yeah, yeah it has.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I'm trying.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
I want to make a joke, but they are like
two things that I think I'm going to get wrong.
So the audience in you can tell me if I'm
dead wrong, and I'm still probably not going to edit
it out.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Okay, so you said nice polite Canadian.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I was currently listening to something about Canadians and then
I heard about World War Two and I was like,
nice can I polite Canadian?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
And that really bumped head.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
So I think that there's every time I meet when
I'm like, there's gotta be a darker side, because now
I know I know in history that y'all had on
darker side.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
So thank you for writing it.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
What about World War two? Are you talking about going
in and defending our our friends?
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yes, yes, you.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Push our friends. We're gonna we're gonna. What I say
is you poke the you poke the moose, you get
the goose, because.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yes, he's never stopped attacking.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
You.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Okay, y'all am a Nord offers plit.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Second, y'all know how many how many planes a year
the geese take out.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
It's in the single single digit percentage. But you would
not think that a geese could take down a plane.
Geese take down planes on the dime. Icious.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
We call them cobra chickens here in Canada. Like they
are just nasty, Like when you're walking down a trail,
especially in the springtime when they have the little goslings
or whatever the little baby baby geese are, they're very protective,
so if you get too close, they'll come at you
and they're fishes. I don't know if you've seen, there's
(05:14):
lots of videos, especially in the town where I live
of sometimes geese will just take up residence in front
of your house and there are people who can't even
get to their car because the minute they come out,
the geese just come after them and it looks like
a Hitchcock movie. It's terrifying.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
That's probably where he got the idea from. He was like,
imagine if all birds.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Were like Keith, Yeah, yeah, we should do a movie
on that, because that's freaking scared.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, I think the geese would be would be a
dramatic horror movie. Probably a bit of a comedy too,
because it's kind of funny watching a goose chase some.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
So, now you have a new idea for your horror
story if you ever decide.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I always do.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, yeah, I should get to like the serious bit
of life.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
All right, you've been around since I love the faith.
Thank you. I'm never that serious. You look like yes' already?
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Are sure?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
I should have hit this.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Poker face poker face.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, you've been around since nineteen ninety two, And I'm
just going to start off with.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
A broad question.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, what should we know about publishing between ninety two
and now?
Speaker 1 (06:20):
That is super helpful, like three things?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, so a great question. When I started in the
book industry, there were twelve, the twelve, the Big twelve publishers.
There used to be a lot more choice when it
came to traditional publishing, and now there's the Big Five.
But we also have the Big five with the Big
six retailers that you can publish direct to or use
a distributor. And so the slash pile, in so many ways,
(06:46):
has moved from the back room of a publisher's warehouse
like Penguin ran of house HarperCollins whatever, it's moved to
an online catalog near you. And so while the opportunity
to not have to go through gatekeepers in New York
and London and Germany whatever, in Toronto the gatekeepers, we
have digital ways of getting around the gatekeepers. But now
(07:09):
the challenge for writers is still getting that discovered, just
like it used to be. The only way was, oh,
you got to get an agent to discover you or
an editor. And so I like to say that it's
never been a better time to be a writer. It's
also never been a harder time to be a writer
because you have more power and more ability and more
(07:29):
control of your IP as an author in choice. Am
I going to go with a big publisher a small publisher.
Am I going to go with an agent and just
direct to a publisher whatever? Or am I going to
diy my book? Am I going to work with a
small press publisher? Am I going to work with a
hybrid publisher that takes money? You know what I mean?
How am I going to get my book out there?
And I think one of the things that makes it
(07:51):
harder is analysis paralysis, Like you have so much choice,
you don't know what to do and a lot of
what I like to do helping other authors is just
walking through. Okay, you don't have to do it all. Now,
you can choose to just try this first, right, It
doesn't all. You try to simplify it as much as
(08:12):
you can. And I think I think it's important to learn.
It's an important to understand your choices and options, but
then to make choices and say, Okay, I can do
all these things, but I only have the headspace to
do this one thing. And it's okay, don't beat yourself up.
You can always do the other thing the next time.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
What should we start with?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Because like you, as you said, you're like, no you
start Maybe you want to start here and then keep going.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Depends on just jumping in.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
It depends on what you're it depends on what you want.
So a lot of times, when authors are really scared
about self publishing a full length novel, I was like, okay,
all right, great, So you have a book, your baby,
You've put so much effort into it, and you want
to diy. You want to learn how to publish, you know,
on Amazon, and learn how to publish on Cobo, and
learn how to distrip. Get that book distributed. All right,
(09:04):
take a short story. Try that, you know, right, Like,
you don't start playing at radio City Music Hall as
a musician. You start in a local pub. Maybe maybe
you just pull out the guitar when there's a bunch
of friends sitting around, and you play, and then and
you get better and then and then you try something bigger,
and then you're playing in a band on a Friday
(09:25):
night in a local bar, you know what I mean.
Then you're playing a place where people actually pay to
go in, and then you're bigger and bigger. So you
can do the same sort of thing. You don't have
to start with the big project. You can kind of
work your way up to it and you get practice, right.
I used to do a lot of theater. You don't
just perform the play in front of a live audience
on day one. You do the read through, then you
(09:46):
do the blocking, then you do the you know, the
rehearsal after rehearsal, and the dress rehearsal and the tech
rehearsal and ba bah bah bam, and then it's ready.
It's the same sort of thing. So you can't expect
to go from zero to sixty like that. There are
small steps, you can stay, you can take.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Okay, So I was gonna build some more on that,
but then my brain jumps. So we're all jumping.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Okay, you and me both Mexican jumping beans in here.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Trying to sell them down for a novel is so hard,
like stop it. Yeah, I'm doing something right now.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
So I jumped into I heard theater, So what on?
Is your dialogue easier because you were in theater.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
You know what, I've done a lot of stuff with
Jeff the dialogue doctor. He's got a podcast and he
helps folks out with that. And actually remembering one thing
I remember from theater is motivation from characters. Every scene,
a character has motivation, and I remember director telling me that,
(10:49):
what's your motivation in this scene? What does this person want?
Speaker 4 (10:52):
With?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Everyone's got something? And that helps me not only with
characterization when I write, but it also reminds me of
the dialogue. So not every everyone sounds like a middle age,
middle class, white cisgendered bald guy from Canada. That they
all have different personalities and different ways of speaking or
different ways of saying the same thing. Right, So I
(11:13):
think a good exercise that writers can do is all right,
here's what the here's what somebody wants to say. Here's
this character, this is where they're from, this is their background.
How would they say it versus how the person across
from them, who has a different background and where a
different part of the world, potentially wherever they're from, how
would they say the same thing. And that's a great
way for you to understand not everyone speaks the same y'all.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I'm gonna say I did a good job. I did
not throw me in there for a good minute right there.
But now the narcissi pop back up because I want
to talk about how I do this.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Yes, I want to hear it. I want to hear it.
This will be fun.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
So literally, when it's time for me to start writing,
it's funny because my brain completely switches.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I start listening to books and I'm like, oh, vocabulary,
and I just start writing down.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
I keep a thing to write down different words that
I never thought of, the ways, like the three words.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
That they were used around. But I also do the
same thing with my friends.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So if I know that someone is a bit more
like this person in my book, then I go have
lunch with them.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
About two or three times in that month, and then
I write down a sentence.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Each time a couple of sentence, it's like, oh my
god da, that's exactly how they would This is.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
So smarting them. It kind of like it rolls off.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
You remember the conversation, you remember how you see it,
you remember how they see it, You expand the point
of view, and then that character is and it's natural
because it came from a natural conversation.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I love that. It's almost like what you do when
like sometimes with a character, I always pick or cut
something out of a magazine to say, well, this is
what this character looks like, and sometimes have it stuck
there so when I go to describe them, they're there,
I can see them right. Or you pick, you know,
an actor, Okay, they look something like this, and that
that's a great shortcut that you can use.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
That is amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
I am absolutely loving that idea because they used to
all live in here, and now I'm getting older, so
I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
What they wore and how they move. Oh yeah, a
little harder.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Nowadays because like my mainstay book has thirteen main characters.
Oh yeah, they all move and do certain things in
certain part of the cities and act certain ways and
have different culture.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
And I used to just keep it all in here.
Nowadays I'm like, wait what now?
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Yeah, you can't do that ninety more. I think Plotter
has a tool to help you with that, where you
can feed your book into it and it spits out
character descriptions and stuff like that and identifies what they've done,
which is like, oh, that would be great for creating
like a series bible, so you can refer back to it,
or your editor can refer to it and go, who's
(13:48):
this guy? Wait? You got their eye color raw and
they have green eyes, you know, or whatever.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
When I was younger, I wrote fifty some novels with
these people, and I never had to write a thing
down because it was all here, like I had every
book line.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
That boggles my mind how you could do that.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Nowadays I'm like, wait, what happened? Yeah, write that down,
that's important.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
I can't. I'm in a hotel room, I can't remember
where the door is.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Half the time, you're like, whoa, it's getting a little rough.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
But then again, I recognize back then, that's all I wrote.
I wrote them.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
That was it. Now I write a lot more than
just with them. That's probably the problem.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
See, okay, we're done talking about me. We're back to
the far faith.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
The faith you just ignore all the consonants and just
kind of go your own way with it.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
So be French about it, okay a little bit.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I was trying to remember my French and it's just
was like, nah, what about Spanish?
Speaker 1 (14:53):
What about Italian? You up for Italian?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Today?
Speaker 1 (14:55):
My brain is not doing fri in a while.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Since I've been in Italy and heard it spoken a lot.
That you usually have to be immersed in a place
to hear it a lot, and then it comes back exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Okay, y'all.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
So my battery is designed it wants to die, so
I might pop off for a moment. Oh no, so
I'm gonna ask him a question. Hopefully he's long winded,
so to give me another one percent. So you get
to I consider you to be one of the cool
writer people because you are everywhere doing everything, and when
(15:28):
I look up a podcast, well darn it if you
haven't been on it, like a like a real one,
like it's like the real no BS guy to write.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
There you are, Maddie Dalwrymple. There you are the dialogue act.
There you are you look us up.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
It's like, Hi, I was in a fashion newspaper yesterday.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Like what are they doing there?
Speaker 5 (15:52):
But you are talking about writing and have a career
helping other writers, for people who out there who want
to become a not just a writer, but an influencer
to help other writers.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Where do we start? And I'm asking this because I
want to know.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Yeah, I'm going to go back to theater for the
answer to this one, and I'm going to go back
to improv theater. And I think one of the key
things is yes, And so there are I've been very
lucky to have been given opportunities, and sometimes the opportunity is, hey,
can I talk to you about this? And that's an
opening even if can I talk to you about this
(16:29):
is not for a podcast or an article or anything,
it's just somebody who wants to benefit from something that
you can share in the knowledge. And so sometimes just
saying yes and having that conversation can then lead to
another thing, to lead to another thing. I'm not a
spring chicken. I've been around, Like, I've been writing for
forty years, right, My very first rejection was in like
(16:51):
nineteen eighty five, So I've been at this for a
long time. For me, it's not about an easy button
and click it and it happens. This is about longevity
and so being accessible, being available, you never know what
long term thing's going to come out of it. I mean,
I think about weird things like I published my first
(17:13):
book of horror stories in two thousand and four, and
one of the story most of them were previously published,
but one of the stories was never published anywhere else
but in this book. And I'd only sold like two
or three hundred copies, so it was just not very
many copies in the world. And then lo and behold,
it was like two thousand.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
And fifteen, I think I got a letter from McGraw
Hail Ryerson, a textbook publisher in Canada, and it was
a photocopy of this story that had only ever appeared
in this one book that I published.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
I don't know who got a hold of it or
how they got a hold of it, and they said, oh,
we really like the story. Can you take out the
adult language and there's sort of a sexy sort of
thing that happens, and you take out that adult content
in the adult language, which was a quick tweak. We'd
love to use it in a high school example of
suspense writing because it's really short. It was like a
thousand word story. And again, I look at this thing.
(18:09):
This is like a story that I just put in there.
Nobody had seen it, like very very limited. Someone somewhere
found it, and then it led to somebody saying, oh,
we could include this here. And the same thing happens
as you you know, you spend some time and you
talk to someone or help them out, or you give.
It's about give, give, give. Somewhere in that someone's going
(18:31):
to remember, oh, it was that guy I was talking to,
or oh I know someone I just he helped me
out with this thing, and then that can lead to
it whatever. And honestly, I've been very lucky. I've been
very fortunate my entire life. But I've also whenever I can,
if somebody asks me, can you do this, I usually
will say unless I've had a really bad experience with
that person before and it was like a complete like
(18:54):
it was not good for anyone. I don't want to
repeat that. You know, you know, once bitten twice shy,
But for the most part, I'm pretty open and I'm
pretty willing to spend the time to do the things,
and I think part of that has meant has led
me to all of the different connections I've had. And
then people said, well, he wasn't a complete jerk, so yeah,
(19:14):
we enjoyed the conversation and we'll have him back, or
well if somebody recommends me. You know, I was just
talking to someone this morning that a fellow author who
I haven't really talked to in a while. The last
time I hung out with her was probably twenty sixteen,
twenty seventeen, last time, I think a surer in person,
and then she was talking to someone else was like, oh,
you got to talk to Mark and was like this,
(19:35):
oh cool, do you want to do you want to
lead this workshop? Yeah? Cool, that'd be great. Thanks who
recommended me? Oh yeah? So and so he's like, oh
my god, I haven't seen her in years, how's she doing.
I mean, it's all about community. At the end of
the day, I think was that long winded enough.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
I was just gonna say, first of all, thank you.
Was long winded enough. I got two percent more I'm
thinking about. I'm plugging so we can get back.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
To worrk Oh my god, I'm plugging.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yeah, yeah, I'll have to get another long win it answer.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Oh, don't worry, I got lots of them.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
First of all, I love the fact that we have
to be involved in the community and that it does
take time, and I think that's really important.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Again, I'm going to insert myself here.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
I feel like I've done enough time because I got
published when I was ten, So i'll time's up, y'all,
please include me.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
No, I'm joking.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Wait, wait, you're like your early twenties, right, yeah, something
like that.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Let's go.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Oh and then I also want to point out just
this one thing right here. Uh, you're on our podcast,
and we were across the hall. We were across the
little holeway from you. Yeah, and all that had to
be a bad experience. We had people like almost up
to your table because we were talking and we'd just
taken up.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
The entire eye.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
We're tracking a crowd and showing people how it was done.
Was what you were doing. I learned a lot by
watching you guys in action.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Oh okay, because I was like, I don't know how
he came here because it was a bad experience.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Forever No, I thought it was a great experience. You
guys were dynamic and fun and energetic and excited to
talk about your books and to talk about the authors.
You were there and you were very geniusly creative, which
I thought was amazing. So no, I love being across
from people I can learn from and people who are
(21:22):
dynamic like that. So never, please don't apologize for being awesome.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Thank you. I was trying to make a joke on
our self deprecating joke.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Yeah, I know you're trying to be self deprecating, but
it was impressive. It was really impressive. So I'm not
going to let you.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Oh, thank you for that one too, because you know,
writers and poets, especially poets, are supposed to be self deprecating. Yes, yeah,
it's a humor humility. My other question was going to
be again jumping.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
You write horror. Now, horror is like mystery on steroids,
but scarier, and the people like, how do you explain
the John I'm like, horror is like mystery on steroids,
just scarier. Okay, yeah, don't read it in the dark,
you're going to be looking. Yeah. How do you maintain
the scare factor throughout an entire novel?
Speaker 3 (22:12):
I think I have to either be scared of the
thing I'm writing about, or at least understand how people
can be scared of it. It's easier when I'm scared
of it, because it's natural. Sometimes I have to put
myself in the shoes of someone who's terrified of something
that I don't find terrifying. That's actually a great creative exercise.
But yeah, and fortunately, I'm very lucky that I'm one
(22:37):
of the biggest chickens you will ever meet. I am
afraid of the monster under my bed and the ghosts
of my closet and all of the scariness. Like I'm
afraid of the dark. I really am. And that's been
a really interesting thing for me because I will channel
that fear into stories. I will ask the what if
(22:58):
is an important question for me, Well, what if this?
Oh that's scary, let's write about it. Maybe it's therapy.
I've also written. I've got a half dozen true ghost
story books out as well. Those are with a traditional publisher,
and I love researching haunted locations. I'm working on a
book of the ghosts of the Great Lakes right now
for another publisher that's coming out next year. And I
(23:20):
know that in the writing sometimes I can't even use
some of the research I do for those nonfiction books,
but they get squirrelled away as oh, there's another idea,
and so that's been a great thing. The other thing
I'll say about writing horror, which I think is important,
is we can't control the world. The world can be
very divisive and scary and cause a lot of anxiety,
(23:43):
especially when people are at each other's throats, you know,
over differences and stuff like that. It's terrifying. We don't
know what we're going to wake up to every day.
The wonderful thing about writing in general, but even writing horror,
is I can control the monsters in the darkness. Good
guys can win in my books, or at the very
least the reader can go close it and put it away,
(24:08):
And so that gives us power over the darkness by
putting it onto the page.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I love that point. It gives us power because there's
so much darkness out there now.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yeah, I feel like every day you fight for hope
and then hold on to the hope, and you've got
to fight to hold on to it.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
It's just it's so much fighting.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
And yet what we do with writers and publishers and
the people who put those books out in the world.
One of the things we do that we fundamentally improve
the world by just by writing and publishing our books
is we connect people because we know readers reading, especially
fiction even nonfiction, creates more empathy in people. And so
the very fact that you're writing not only gives people
(24:50):
an escape potentially from the reality, but also because when
you read about another character, you're putting their shoes, and
therefore you can see the world or feel what it's
like to be in their shoes. I think about Quantum Leap.
Do you remember, you know, the old TV show Quantum Leap,
right where where Scott Backela's character was constantly in someone
else's shoes. What a great metaphor for what books can
(25:13):
do for people. They can really open up your eyes
and go, I've never been, you know, a pregnant woman
living in the Great Depression who just lost the baby.
But reading the Grapes of Wrath, I can understand how
she can turn that tragedy into kindness for a stranger
who is starving, you know, and I could never understand.
I was what a nineteen year old boy when I
(25:35):
read the novel? How could I understand that? You know,
the closest thing was to hunger. Was I was a student,
so you know, sometimes the food wasn't coming as fast
as it was, but at least I had shelter and
all that stuff. But you know what I mean, So suddenly,
but I could understand this thing that I wasn't ready
to understand yet because I was I was quite young.
But the book helped me understand this character in the
(25:55):
beautiful moment that that was in the Grapes of Wrath
of you know, to speak, a classic literary novel. But
I mean that's the beauty of what we do as writers, right,
is that connectivity and allow people to experience things beyond
their limited scope. And I grew up a very limited
scope the view in the town where I grew up in.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
I just want to say, you've done something I never
thought I was going to be able to do, and
that is make me like Grapes of Wrath.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Oh yeah, I actually I actually was forced to read
it in first year university and I actually enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
I have I have an English degree and I was
huge on English when I was in high school. Please
understand that I have done everything in my power to
avoid that bulb, and it's finally caught up with me
near the like the last bit my last class for
my English degree. They were like, no, I want something
like this, and I was like, well.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Dang it. If it didn't get me in the end,
I had to read it. But now you've made me
like it, sir.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
That's amazing. At the end of this conversation, I'm going
to make you like the Canadian rock band Rush too.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I know challenge.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Yeah, making a womanlike Rush is really difficult.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
And I've actually heard some of their songs.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
So yeah, anykay, moving on. Thank you for that lovely joke.
And it wasn't from me, so I didn't know what
to do with it.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
I know, my goodness, they're my favorite rock band in
the world. So there you go. That's self deprecating.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
WHOA Okay, moving on, because there is a question I
did want to ask, and then I am almost done, y'all.
I promised him three to seven and I have definitely
gone over the seven. Oh well, so lastly I wanted
to ask for three pieces. No, no, I lie back
it up.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
There's a question. I want to know more. Oh. I
love with the hands up, dude, he's so much to
cock it up. Yeah, I have to come back.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
You've both been self published and traditional probably pros and
cons like, I don't care how many you give us
that go for it.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah. So the pro with self publishing is I'm in
control of everything right. I can control the cover and
when it's released, and the editing and higher they find
the right all that stuff. The con is, I'm in
charge of everything. I have to do everything right. The
pro with self publishing is seventy percent on the ebook
(28:38):
as opposed to eight to ten percent on trad publishing
with withholding. The pro from traditional publishing is, yeah, the
publisher assigns the editor and all that, all those people
who work on it's that's a huge pro. The other
the bigger pro for me is traditional publishers have access
(28:58):
to traditional distribute into bookstores, and that's a huge win. Now,
I ironically call that vanity publishing. And I'll break it
down because I you know, I walked into places like
Barnes and Noble and cities all across the US, and
I can walk in and find my book Haunted hospitals,
for example, on the shelves, a copy or two in
(29:21):
the paranormal section, And oh my god, does that ever
feel good to see your book on a shelf and
a bookstore. That's a really proud moment. It's really it
never gets old, right. But if that book sells, it's
co authored book, I'll make a dollar a year later
with thirty percent withholding, so seventy cents. Every time a
copy sells a year later, I'll get that. That's what
(29:45):
I call it vanity publishing because it feels good, but
I don't make much money on it. In the meantime.
Probably by the time I walked into the store, saw
the book and then walked out, my self published titles
of automatically, you know, passive income have already earned me
way more money in that time period of that sale happening.
And so I jokingly call it that. And I don't
(30:06):
mean that to disparage publishers, because I know they put
a lot of effort and work into it. But I
will still work with publishers because one of the reasons
I signed with the publisher that is publishing my book
goes to the Great Leaks is Wollsack. Can Win is
a prestigious Hamilton small publisher basically one woman operation who
(30:27):
hires editors and stuff like that and contractors to put
her books together. She's very passionate about the books she publishes,
and I've just been looking forward to working with a
cool person like Noel. And that's like two of the reasons, Like, yeah,
she has traditional distribution, but she's also a publisher and
a person I respect, and so I will still sign
(30:47):
deals with different publishers because of the value of the
relationship or whatever it is. And so pros and cons, yeah,
I think those are some of the high level pros
and cons. Lots of little ones along the way, but
at the end of the day, those are the big ones.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
I'm sorry I did lie to you. I have promised
you was next to the last question, that's okay, how
did you end up working with so many publishers, because
everyone's going to want to know because they are at.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
The same reason. Part I'm getting one's the same reason
saying yes, I mean with this. This one came up
when when Noel wanted to talk about the possibility and
I thought she wanted to talk to me as as
somebody who's worked in the book industry for a long
time and is the real market for this book, because
she knew I was familiar with that market. I had
(31:35):
no idea she wanted me to write the book. I
thought she I was just there to help out a
publisher and a friend. And then the other one like
I with Dundern, the larger publisher that I did six
books with. I was at an industry event and I
overheard the vice president of the company say, we have
(31:56):
always wanted to publish a book of ghost stories about Hamilton, Ontario.
And so I had gone on a ghost walk in Hamilton, Ontario.
I just moved to the city, not that you know,
a year or so earlier, and I wanted to learn
about the city. And I always going ghostwalks because you
learn history and ghosts. It's fun. And so I was like, oh,
the ghostwalks are cool. And I looked at the market
(32:17):
and said, there's no book. There's no ghost story books
about Hamilton. But there's a functioning I've been going for
ten years a ghost walk group. There's probably a market
for it. And so I pitched a book of ghost
stories about Hamilton to the publisher and they of course
went yes. So it's again, like I said, it's the
(32:37):
same answer to the other questions. It's about community and
it's about connections and you never know what connection is
going to lead to it. Several of the books I wrote.
I was interviewed by a journalist from a newspaper who said, hey,
have you ever thought about writing a book about this?
And I was like, no, I hadn't. That's a good idea.
It was like, we want to do it together. Yeah,
let's do it. You know, like so saying yes and
being open I was the reason Haunted hospitals came out.
(32:59):
Is I was at a writer's for instance. We were
sitting around drinking and somebody whispered over leaned over to
me and whispered. Ronda, my co author, said I live
near a haunted hospital and I went really, and she
goes yeah, And then we started talking. And then the
next thing I knew, we were chatting, chatting, chatting, and
act I said, listen, Okay, we're drinking right now. Why
(33:19):
don't we in the morning, I'll meet you at the restaurant.
We'll have some breakfast. We'll talk about this with a
clear head, see if the ideas are still good. We
sat down, we talked about it, and like, you know,
I'm going to pitch this to Dunder and I think
they would like this book. Because we've got enough stories
here that we can share. And again, being open to conversations,
being opening to listening to people, and being open to connecting.
(33:42):
That's kind of how it happened. I know it's there's
no easy button, there's no magic there, but just being open,
I think, is one way. Is one way of that,
and a lot of it's about community and connections.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
That in and of itself is magic.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Like it is.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
It's amazing how you run into somebody and it feels
like it was just the ripe person at the right
time and it was just so perfect for this, and
that the magic of writing, and then it opens your
eyes to a whole other way of telling a story,
even if it's with someone hearing another point of view.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
And don't forget to write down the phrases that are
specific to them because you might need them for another book.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
I love that. I love that. Yeah, that is such
a great tip. But even like being at Ala, connecting
with you right like, there was value in connecting, not
just because I got to learn watching you in action,
but I got to learn I got to meet my
neighbors and learn a little bit about what they were doing.
And you never know it's like, there's so there's so much,
so many great things that we can experience just by
(34:39):
just by looking around us.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
And that I think, like, uh, I do not remember
who said it. I used to, but I'm old now,
but they were saying that for us, poets are like
the conscience of society. And you can't be a conscience
of society, cannot have a pulse of society, You cannot
speak about society unless you're out there learning from other people,
take saying yes, the opportunities that come your way. You
(35:05):
just you're not going to enjoy creating if you're not
taking in life experience.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Oh for sure. I mean that's where that's the substance,
the substance that that we that we pushed back out
into the world has to come from somewhere.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Exactly. I do want to mention that you did just
give me a book idea.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
So I might be writing good awesome, made me quicker
and easier to finishing this novel and working on I'm
like forty pages from done, which at this point when
you're a novelist, that's complete and please practically I started
it last Monday.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Oh all right, so you're writing it really slowly, is
what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah, taking.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Chop chop lady.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
No, No, I don't feel like I'm taking my time.
This is this is coming up when.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
It'll be two weeks tomorrow, all right? Oh, not two weeks.
It'll be two weeks since I started pre writing tomorrow.
So it does feel like I'm taking.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
A long time. Yeah, but that's all right.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
So my last question is where can we find out
more information about Nope? My last question is what three
tips do you have to give new writers coming into
that they absolutely cannot live without knowing?
Speaker 3 (36:17):
The first most important thing is if you want to write.
There's a quote from Hugh Prather that says, if the
desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then
the desire is not to write. So if you really
want to be a writer, if you really want to
do the thing, don't give up no matter what obstacles
(36:38):
hit your way. Because there's If there's a passion that
burns within you, I think it's really important for you
to share that passion with the world. You and your
stories matter, even if nobody else can see it. Yet,
if you have that burning passion within you, do not
give up on it. So do not give up on yourself.
Persistence is the key, very important for you to know that.
(36:59):
The second thing is that not everyone is going to
appreciate the kind of things that you write. My mom
did not ever like anything I wrote. She loved me,
she supported me, she would do whatever, but she loved
reading Harlequin romance novels. And that's not the kind of
books that I wrote. So my biggest fan, my mom
(37:20):
was not a fan at all of my writing. And
that's okay. Other people are, you know. So again, sometimes
the wrong reader can turn you off and say, well,
I'm horrible because my mom never liked my stories. Well, now,
my mom wouldn't like any of the stories I write.
That's okay. It's not that they're bad. They're bad for her,
they're good for someone else. And then the third thing
(37:43):
is patience, is I think is so so so important.
We live in a society, a digital society of instant gratification,
and dopamine rush is just by you know, that slot
machine in her hands, that's Facebook or Instagram or TikTok
or whatever, we can get the next big dopamine rush.
And we've forgotten how to just appreciate the world around
(38:05):
us as well as appreciate ourselves within that world and
be patient in terms of it can take a long time.
I've got my first rejection at the age of fifteen
and eighty five. My very first story wasn't published till
ninety two. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of rejections.
Had I given up, none of these things would be published.
(38:28):
I've got over thirty five books out now. Had I
given up on those things, that would never have happened.
So being patient, so patients, practice and persistence are three
of the keys that I say writers need to hang
on to.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Thank you so much for that. I love that.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
I feel like it's an essay somewhere. You had a
transcript on here and be like new essay.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
There you go. Well, I do have a book called
The Seven Piece of Publishing Success, so I have talked
about it a little.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
You can tell where can we find out more information
about you? Listen to your podcast, read your latest books
that you want us to read.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
You can hide some of the.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yeah, you can go to mark Leslie dot Ca or
just look for Mark Leslie or Mark Leslie Lefay. If
you dare try and break your fingers trying to type
that last name out on any of the major retailers.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
All right, so thank you so much for being here,
and I'm gonna go ahead and finish it up for
me and y'all. If you're wondering why the view changes
because I went down to two percent, I tried.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
I tried just go away and just let it run out.
But I'm going to wrap it up for us over here.
I'm will Nona. I'm one of the ni I Thought Ladies.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
You can find out everything your ladies are doing at
www dot n I Thought ladies dot com. When you
go to the page, go down to the bottom of
the page and you can see the charities that we
proudly support. But yes that hopefully you want to support
them as well. Does not mean you have to give money.
You can all get your hands dirty. But actually going
over to Ethopia and building an orphanage if you want
to try that one, or you could actually you know,
some people have advice, Like one person one time they
(39:57):
were looking for a grant writer and someone was around
and they were like, hey, I know the ladies and
they know grants and BOI la, Now that worked out.
But if you can't do that you know money always
helps to thank you in advance for that. Remember that
wisdom is always a Windism is a.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Ab blah blah. Remember wisdom is always around if you're
open to finding it and accepting it. So peace in
love you.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Guys from Wilnona and Jade, and by the way, that's
staying in with the a blah blah as well.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Oh yeah, thanks for listening.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the writers class.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yeah, yeah, listen to this. I said, welcome to the
writer's class. I didn't go welcome to the ladies to
op the anda oop the yeah, I said the writer's class.
I actually knew what podcast I was doing. Well, that's
because I have someone that actually tends to know what
podcasts they're doing in a semi profess and I shouldn't
say semi.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
They're very professional, like they actually even talk about like
a business in stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I met them at like the ala, So when they
were across from me, I was acting. I was dressed
kind of professional if you can imagine me in costume
the entire time and don't for you guys out there
and I think I'm cute, don't do that.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I was not in that kind of cost too, thank you.
It's respect to Paul. I will knowna Oh my god,
I remember to introduce myself. High five to me. Oh
and just right there, right there, that was.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
The end of the professionalism. Dag nab that I almost pack. Anyway, y'all,
I do do a profession. I write books, and those
books are and I thought divorce was bad, and I
thought being grown up was easy. If only I were
a mem memoir on verse fourign Coffee, Widows Web and
Widdows Debt. And you can find those six books wherever
audiobooks are sold. Can you tell that? I say that
a few times a week? Yup by doil and you
(01:19):
know how what the time is. This is the time
where I add a little sign language. We have six books,
and then we add eleven books and we get a
total all together now of seventeen books. You can find
out the rest about those books at www dot n
I thought ladies dot com. Everyone goes, why don't you
sign out the anti thought ladies dot com? Because I
(01:39):
was like, no, that's called finger spelling, and that's way
too many letters.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
No one's doing that. You've learned enough sign you learn
the number six, eleven, and seventeen.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I mean, I feel like Sesame Street right now. This
was brought to you by the nd I AITL. Those
are the letters that was brought to you by. But
you're not here to hear about me or my AITL
or of my seventeen books, which is such a shame
because I could do a.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Whole show on just talking about me.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
But you know this, you're here to hear about our
wonderful guests. Wonderful guest, would you like to introduce yourself?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Thanks for My name is Mark Leslie lafav. I usually
just call me Mark because nobody ever wants to spell
or pronounce la fave. Anyways, I have worked in the
book industry since nineteen ninety two. That's one thing about me.
Second thing about me is my very first published short
story came out in nineteen ninety two. Most of them
(02:31):
are under the name Mark Leslie instead of Mark le
Fave because nobody can ever spell or pronounce that name.
And the third thing about me, I thought to make
this one a little bit more interesting, is a lot
of the stuff that I write tends to be horror, macabre, dark, disturbing.
And I may look like a bit of a badass
if people are looking at the video, but I'm actually
(02:52):
a nice guy, a meek, mild pushover of a happy,
apologizing Canadian. And so when people have read some of
the horror stories I've written, they're like, well, wow, where
does that darkness come from? And I like to say, well,
I put it in the stories, or else it comes
out some otherwhere.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Oh my god, Oh no, about how people say that well,
they meet us and we go be like hey, and
then they read our books and they go, oh god,
that's all sad, and I'm like, sad has to come
out somewhere.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
It does, Yeah, yeah it has.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I'm trying.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
I want to make a joke, but they are like
two things that I think I'm going to get wrong.
So the audience in you can tell me if I'm
dead wrong, and I'm still probably not going to edit
it out.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Okay, so you said nice polite Canadian.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I was currently listening to something about Canadians and then
I heard about World War Two and I was like,
nice can I polite Canadian?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
And that really bumped head.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
So I think that there's every time I meet when
I'm like, there's gotta be a darker side, because now
I know I know in history that y'all had on
darker side.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
So thank you for writing it.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
What about World War two? Are you talking about going
in and defending our our friends?
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yes, yes, you.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Push our friends. We're gonna we're gonna. What I say
is you poke the you poke the moose, you get
the goose, because.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yes, he's never stopped attacking.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
You.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Okay, y'all am a Nord offers plit.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Second, y'all know how many how many planes a year
the geese take out.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
It's in the single single digit percentage. But you would
not think that a geese could take down a plane.
Geese take down planes on the dime. Icious.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
We call them cobra chickens here in Canada. Like they
are just nasty, Like when you're walking down a trail,
especially in the springtime when they have the little goslings
or whatever the little baby baby geese are, they're very protective,
so if you get too close, they'll come at you
and they're fishes. I don't know if you've seen, there's
(05:14):
lots of videos, especially in the town where I live
of sometimes geese will just take up residence in front
of your house and there are people who can't even
get to their car because the minute they come out,
the geese just come after them and it looks like
a Hitchcock movie. It's terrifying.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
That's probably where he got the idea from. He was like,
imagine if all birds.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Were like Keith, Yeah, yeah, we should do a movie
on that, because that's freaking scared.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, I think the geese would be would be a
dramatic horror movie. Probably a bit of a comedy too,
because it's kind of funny watching a goose chase some.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
So, now you have a new idea for your horror
story if you ever decide.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I always do.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, yeah, I should get to like the serious bit
of life.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
All right, you've been around since I love the faith.
Thank you. I'm never that serious. You look like yes' already?
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Are sure?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
I should have hit this.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Poker face poker face.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, you've been around since nineteen ninety two, And I'm
just going to start off with.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
A broad question.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, what should we know about publishing between ninety two
and now?
Speaker 1 (06:20):
That is super helpful, like three things?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, so a great question. When I started in the
book industry, there were twelve, the twelve, the Big twelve publishers.
There used to be a lot more choice when it
came to traditional publishing, and now there's the Big Five.
But we also have the Big five with the Big
six retailers that you can publish direct to or use
a distributor. And so the slash pile, in so many ways,
(06:46):
has moved from the back room of a publisher's warehouse
like Penguin ran of house HarperCollins whatever, it's moved to
an online catalog near you. And so while the opportunity
to not have to go through gatekeepers in New York
and London and Germany whatever, in Toronto the gatekeepers, we
have digital ways of getting around the gatekeepers. But now
(07:09):
the challenge for writers is still getting that discovered, just
like it used to be. The only way was, oh,
you got to get an agent to discover you or
an editor. And so I like to say that it's
never been a better time to be a writer. It's
also never been a harder time to be a writer
because you have more power and more ability and more
(07:29):
control of your IP as an author in choice. Am
I going to go with a big publisher a small publisher.
Am I going to go with an agent and just
direct to a publisher whatever? Or am I going to
diy my book? Am I going to work with a
small press publisher? Am I going to work with a
hybrid publisher that takes money? You know what I mean?
How am I going to get my book out there?
And I think one of the things that makes it
(07:51):
harder is analysis paralysis, Like you have so much choice,
you don't know what to do and a lot of
what I like to do helping other authors is just
walking through. Okay, you don't have to do it all. Now,
you can choose to just try this first, right, It
doesn't all. You try to simplify it as much as
(08:12):
you can. And I think I think it's important to learn.
It's an important to understand your choices and options, but
then to make choices and say, Okay, I can do
all these things, but I only have the headspace to
do this one thing. And it's okay, don't beat yourself up.
You can always do the other thing the next time.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
What should we start with?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Because like you, as you said, you're like, no you
start Maybe you want to start here and then keep going.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Depends on just jumping in.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
It depends on what you're it depends on what you want.
So a lot of times, when authors are really scared
about self publishing a full length novel, I was like, okay,
all right, great, So you have a book, your baby,
You've put so much effort into it, and you want
to diy. You want to learn how to publish, you know,
on Amazon, and learn how to publish on Cobo, and
learn how to distrip. Get that book distributed. All right,
(09:04):
take a short story. Try that, you know, right, Like,
you don't start playing at radio City Music Hall as
a musician. You start in a local pub. Maybe maybe
you just pull out the guitar when there's a bunch
of friends sitting around, and you play, and then and
you get better and then and then you try something bigger,
and then you're playing in a band on a Friday
(09:25):
night in a local bar, you know what I mean.
Then you're playing a place where people actually pay to
go in, and then you're bigger and bigger. So you
can do the same sort of thing. You don't have
to start with the big project. You can kind of
work your way up to it and you get practice, right.
I used to do a lot of theater. You don't
just perform the play in front of a live audience
on day one. You do the read through, then you
(09:46):
do the blocking, then you do the you know, the
rehearsal after rehearsal, and the dress rehearsal and the tech
rehearsal and ba bah bah bam, and then it's ready.
It's the same sort of thing. So you can't expect
to go from zero to sixty like that. There are
small steps, you can stay, you can take.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Okay, So I was gonna build some more on that,
but then my brain jumps. So we're all jumping.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Okay, you and me both Mexican jumping beans in here.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Trying to sell them down for a novel is so hard,
like stop it. Yeah, I'm doing something right now.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
So I jumped into I heard theater, So what on?
Is your dialogue easier because you were in theater.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
You know what, I've done a lot of stuff with
Jeff the dialogue doctor. He's got a podcast and he
helps folks out with that. And actually remembering one thing
I remember from theater is motivation from characters. Every scene,
a character has motivation, and I remember director telling me that,
(10:49):
what's your motivation in this scene? What does this person want?
Speaker 4 (10:52):
With?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Everyone's got something? And that helps me not only with
characterization when I write, but it also reminds me of
the dialogue. So not every everyone sounds like a middle age,
middle class, white cisgendered bald guy from Canada. That they
all have different personalities and different ways of speaking or
different ways of saying the same thing. Right, So I
(11:13):
think a good exercise that writers can do is all right,
here's what the here's what somebody wants to say. Here's
this character, this is where they're from, this is their background.
How would they say it versus how the person across
from them, who has a different background and where a
different part of the world, potentially wherever they're from, how
would they say the same thing. And that's a great
way for you to understand not everyone speaks the same y'all.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I'm gonna say I did a good job. I did
not throw me in there for a good minute right there.
But now the narcissi pop back up because I want
to talk about how I do this.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Yes, I want to hear it. I want to hear it.
This will be fun.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
So literally, when it's time for me to start writing,
it's funny because my brain completely switches.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I start listening to books and I'm like, oh, vocabulary,
and I just start writing down.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
I keep a thing to write down different words that
I never thought of, the ways, like the three words.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
That they were used around. But I also do the
same thing with my friends.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So if I know that someone is a bit more
like this person in my book, then I go have
lunch with them.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
About two or three times in that month, and then
I write down a sentence.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Each time a couple of sentence, it's like, oh my
god da, that's exactly how they would This is.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
So smarting them. It kind of like it rolls off.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
You remember the conversation, you remember how you see it,
you remember how they see it, You expand the point
of view, and then that character is and it's natural
because it came from a natural conversation.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I love that. It's almost like what you do when
like sometimes with a character, I always pick or cut
something out of a magazine to say, well, this is
what this character looks like, and sometimes have it stuck
there so when I go to describe them, they're there,
I can see them right. Or you pick, you know,
an actor, Okay, they look something like this, and that
that's a great shortcut that you can use.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
That is amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
I am absolutely loving that idea because they used to
all live in here, and now I'm getting older, so
I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
What they wore and how they move. Oh yeah, a
little harder.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Nowadays because like my mainstay book has thirteen main characters.
Oh yeah, they all move and do certain things in
certain part of the cities and act certain ways and
have different culture.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
And I used to just keep it all in here.
Nowadays I'm like, wait what now?
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Yeah, you can't do that ninety more. I think Plotter
has a tool to help you with that, where you
can feed your book into it and it spits out
character descriptions and stuff like that and identifies what they've done,
which is like, oh, that would be great for creating
like a series bible, so you can refer back to it,
or your editor can refer to it and go, who's
(13:48):
this guy? Wait? You got their eye color raw and
they have green eyes, you know, or whatever.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
When I was younger, I wrote fifty some novels with
these people, and I never had to write a thing
down because it was all here, like I had every
book line.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
That boggles my mind how you could do that.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Nowadays I'm like, wait, what happened? Yeah, write that down,
that's important.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
I can't. I'm in a hotel room, I can't remember
where the door is.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Half the time, you're like, whoa, it's getting a little rough.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
But then again, I recognize back then, that's all I wrote.
I wrote them.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
That was it. Now I write a lot more than
just with them. That's probably the problem.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
See, okay, we're done talking about me. We're back to
the far faith.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
The faith you just ignore all the consonants and just
kind of go your own way with it.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
So be French about it, okay a little bit.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I was trying to remember my French and it's just
was like, nah, what about Spanish?
Speaker 1 (14:53):
What about Italian? You up for Italian?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Today?
Speaker 1 (14:55):
My brain is not doing fri in a while.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Since I've been in Italy and heard it spoken a lot.
That you usually have to be immersed in a place
to hear it a lot, and then it comes back exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Okay, y'all.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
So my battery is designed it wants to die, so
I might pop off for a moment. Oh no, so
I'm gonna ask him a question. Hopefully he's long winded,
so to give me another one percent. So you get
to I consider you to be one of the cool
writer people because you are everywhere doing everything, and when
(15:28):
I look up a podcast, well darn it if you
haven't been on it, like a like a real one,
like it's like the real no BS guy to write.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
There you are, Maddie Dalwrymple. There you are the dialogue act.
There you are you look us up.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
It's like, Hi, I was in a fashion newspaper yesterday.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Like what are they doing there?
Speaker 5 (15:52):
But you are talking about writing and have a career
helping other writers, for people who out there who want
to become a not just a writer, but an influencer
to help other writers.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Where do we start? And I'm asking this because I
want to know.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Yeah, I'm going to go back to theater for the
answer to this one, and I'm going to go back
to improv theater. And I think one of the key
things is yes, And so there are I've been very
lucky to have been given opportunities, and sometimes the opportunity is, hey,
can I talk to you about this? And that's an
opening even if can I talk to you about this
(16:29):
is not for a podcast or an article or anything,
it's just somebody who wants to benefit from something that
you can share in the knowledge. And so sometimes just
saying yes and having that conversation can then lead to
another thing, to lead to another thing. I'm not a
spring chicken. I've been around, Like, I've been writing for
forty years, right, My very first rejection was in like
(16:51):
nineteen eighty five, So I've been at this for a
long time. For me, it's not about an easy button
and click it and it happens. This is about longevity
and so being accessible, being available, you never know what
long term thing's going to come out of it. I mean,
I think about weird things like I published my first
(17:13):
book of horror stories in two thousand and four, and
one of the story most of them were previously published,
but one of the stories was never published anywhere else
but in this book. And I'd only sold like two
or three hundred copies, so it was just not very
many copies in the world. And then lo and behold,
it was like two thousand.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
And fifteen, I think I got a letter from McGraw
Hail Ryerson, a textbook publisher in Canada, and it was
a photocopy of this story that had only ever appeared
in this one book that I published.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
I don't know who got a hold of it or
how they got a hold of it, and they said, oh,
we really like the story. Can you take out the
adult language and there's sort of a sexy sort of
thing that happens, and you take out that adult content
in the adult language, which was a quick tweak. We'd
love to use it in a high school example of
suspense writing because it's really short. It was like a
thousand word story. And again, I look at this thing.
(18:09):
This is like a story that I just put in there.
Nobody had seen it, like very very limited. Someone somewhere
found it, and then it led to somebody saying, oh,
we could include this here. And the same thing happens
as you you know, you spend some time and you
talk to someone or help them out, or you give.
It's about give, give, give. Somewhere in that someone's going
(18:31):
to remember, oh, it was that guy I was talking to,
or oh I know someone I just he helped me
out with this thing, and then that can lead to
it whatever. And honestly, I've been very lucky. I've been
very fortunate my entire life. But I've also whenever I can,
if somebody asks me, can you do this, I usually
will say unless I've had a really bad experience with
that person before and it was like a complete like
(18:54):
it was not good for anyone. I don't want to
repeat that. You know, you know, once bitten twice shy,
But for the most part, I'm pretty open and I'm
pretty willing to spend the time to do the things,
and I think part of that has meant has led
me to all of the different connections I've had. And
then people said, well, he wasn't a complete jerk, so yeah,
(19:14):
we enjoyed the conversation and we'll have him back, or
well if somebody recommends me. You know, I was just
talking to someone this morning that a fellow author who
I haven't really talked to in a while. The last
time I hung out with her was probably twenty sixteen,
twenty seventeen, last time, I think a surer in person,
and then she was talking to someone else was like, oh,
you got to talk to Mark and was like this,
(19:35):
oh cool, do you want to do you want to
lead this workshop? Yeah? Cool, that'd be great. Thanks who
recommended me? Oh yeah? So and so he's like, oh
my god, I haven't seen her in years, how's she doing.
I mean, it's all about community. At the end of
the day, I think was that long winded enough.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
I was just gonna say, first of all, thank you.
Was long winded enough. I got two percent more I'm
thinking about. I'm plugging so we can get back.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
To worrk Oh my god, I'm plugging.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yeah, yeah, I'll have to get another long win it answer.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Oh, don't worry, I got lots of them.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
First of all, I love the fact that we have
to be involved in the community and that it does
take time, and I think that's really important.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Again, I'm going to insert myself here.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
I feel like I've done enough time because I got
published when I was ten, So i'll time's up, y'all,
please include me.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
No, I'm joking.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Wait, wait, you're like your early twenties, right, yeah, something
like that.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Let's go.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Oh and then I also want to point out just
this one thing right here. Uh, you're on our podcast,
and we were across the hall. We were across the
little holeway from you. Yeah, and all that had to
be a bad experience. We had people like almost up
to your table because we were talking and we'd just
taken up.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
The entire eye.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
We're tracking a crowd and showing people how it was done.
Was what you were doing. I learned a lot by
watching you guys in action.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Oh okay, because I was like, I don't know how
he came here because it was a bad experience.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Forever No, I thought it was a great experience. You
guys were dynamic and fun and energetic and excited to
talk about your books and to talk about the authors.
You were there and you were very geniusly creative, which
I thought was amazing. So no, I love being across
from people I can learn from and people who are
(21:22):
dynamic like that. So never, please don't apologize for being awesome.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Thank you. I was trying to make a joke on
our self deprecating joke.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Yeah, I know you're trying to be self deprecating, but
it was impressive. It was really impressive. So I'm not
going to let you.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Oh, thank you for that one too, because you know,
writers and poets, especially poets, are supposed to be self deprecating. Yes, yeah,
it's a humor humility. My other question was going to
be again jumping.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
You write horror. Now, horror is like mystery on steroids,
but scarier, and the people like, how do you explain
the John I'm like, horror is like mystery on steroids,
just scarier. Okay, yeah, don't read it in the dark,
you're going to be looking. Yeah. How do you maintain
the scare factor throughout an entire novel?
Speaker 3 (22:12):
I think I have to either be scared of the
thing I'm writing about, or at least understand how people
can be scared of it. It's easier when I'm scared
of it, because it's natural. Sometimes I have to put
myself in the shoes of someone who's terrified of something
that I don't find terrifying. That's actually a great creative exercise.
But yeah, and fortunately, I'm very lucky that I'm one
(22:37):
of the biggest chickens you will ever meet. I am
afraid of the monster under my bed and the ghosts
of my closet and all of the scariness. Like I'm
afraid of the dark. I really am. And that's been
a really interesting thing for me because I will channel
that fear into stories. I will ask the what if
(22:58):
is an important question for me, Well, what if this?
Oh that's scary, let's write about it. Maybe it's therapy.
I've also written. I've got a half dozen true ghost
story books out as well. Those are with a traditional publisher,
and I love researching haunted locations. I'm working on a
book of the ghosts of the Great Lakes right now
for another publisher that's coming out next year. And I
(23:20):
know that in the writing sometimes I can't even use
some of the research I do for those nonfiction books,
but they get squirrelled away as oh, there's another idea,
and so that's been a great thing. The other thing
I'll say about writing horror, which I think is important,
is we can't control the world. The world can be
very divisive and scary and cause a lot of anxiety,
(23:43):
especially when people are at each other's throats, you know,
over differences and stuff like that. It's terrifying. We don't
know what we're going to wake up to every day.
The wonderful thing about writing in general, but even writing horror,
is I can control the monsters in the darkness. Good
guys can win in my books, or at the very
least the reader can go close it and put it away,
(24:08):
And so that gives us power over the darkness by
putting it onto the page.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I love that point. It gives us power because there's
so much darkness out there now.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yeah, I feel like every day you fight for hope
and then hold on to the hope, and you've got
to fight to hold on to it.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
It's just it's so much fighting.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
And yet what we do with writers and publishers and
the people who put those books out in the world.
One of the things we do that we fundamentally improve
the world by just by writing and publishing our books
is we connect people because we know readers reading, especially
fiction even nonfiction, creates more empathy in people. And so
the very fact that you're writing not only gives people
(24:50):
an escape potentially from the reality, but also because when
you read about another character, you're putting their shoes, and
therefore you can see the world or feel what it's
like to be in their shoes. I think about Quantum Leap.
Do you remember, you know, the old TV show Quantum Leap,
right where where Scott Backela's character was constantly in someone
else's shoes. What a great metaphor for what books can
(25:13):
do for people. They can really open up your eyes
and go, I've never been, you know, a pregnant woman
living in the Great Depression who just lost the baby.
But reading the Grapes of Wrath, I can understand how
she can turn that tragedy into kindness for a stranger
who is starving, you know, and I could never understand.
I was what a nineteen year old boy when I
(25:35):
read the novel? How could I understand that? You know,
the closest thing was to hunger. Was I was a student,
so you know, sometimes the food wasn't coming as fast
as it was, but at least I had shelter and
all that stuff. But you know what I mean, So suddenly,
but I could understand this thing that I wasn't ready
to understand yet because I was I was quite young.
But the book helped me understand this character in the
(25:55):
beautiful moment that that was in the Grapes of Wrath
of you know, to speak, a classic literary novel. But
I mean that's the beauty of what we do as writers, right,
is that connectivity and allow people to experience things beyond
their limited scope. And I grew up a very limited
scope the view in the town where I grew up in.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
I just want to say, you've done something I never
thought I was going to be able to do, and
that is make me like Grapes of Wrath.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Oh yeah, I actually I actually was forced to read
it in first year university and I actually enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
I have I have an English degree and I was
huge on English when I was in high school. Please
understand that I have done everything in my power to
avoid that bulb, and it's finally caught up with me
near the like the last bit my last class for
my English degree. They were like, no, I want something
like this, and I was like, well.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Dang it. If it didn't get me in the end,
I had to read it. But now you've made me
like it, sir.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
That's amazing. At the end of this conversation, I'm going
to make you like the Canadian rock band Rush too.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I know challenge.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Yeah, making a womanlike Rush is really difficult.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
And I've actually heard some of their songs.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
So yeah, anykay, moving on. Thank you for that lovely joke.
And it wasn't from me, so I didn't know what
to do with it.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
I know, my goodness, they're my favorite rock band in
the world. So there you go. That's self deprecating.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
WHOA Okay, moving on, because there is a question I
did want to ask, and then I am almost done, y'all.
I promised him three to seven and I have definitely
gone over the seven. Oh well, so lastly I wanted
to ask for three pieces. No, no, I lie back
it up.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
There's a question. I want to know more. Oh. I
love with the hands up, dude, he's so much to
cock it up. Yeah, I have to come back.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
You've both been self published and traditional probably pros and
cons like, I don't care how many you give us
that go for it.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah. So the pro with self publishing is I'm in
control of everything right. I can control the cover and
when it's released, and the editing and higher they find
the right all that stuff. The con is, I'm in
charge of everything. I have to do everything right. The
pro with self publishing is seventy percent on the ebook
(28:38):
as opposed to eight to ten percent on trad publishing
with withholding. The pro from traditional publishing is, yeah, the
publisher assigns the editor and all that, all those people
who work on it's that's a huge pro. The other
the bigger pro for me is traditional publishers have access
(28:58):
to traditional distribute into bookstores, and that's a huge win. Now,
I ironically call that vanity publishing. And I'll break it
down because I you know, I walked into places like
Barnes and Noble and cities all across the US, and
I can walk in and find my book Haunted hospitals,
for example, on the shelves, a copy or two in
(29:21):
the paranormal section, And oh my god, does that ever
feel good to see your book on a shelf and
a bookstore. That's a really proud moment. It's really it
never gets old, right. But if that book sells, it's
co authored book, I'll make a dollar a year later
with thirty percent withholding, so seventy cents. Every time a
copy sells a year later, I'll get that. That's what
(29:45):
I call it vanity publishing because it feels good, but
I don't make much money on it. In the meantime.
Probably by the time I walked into the store, saw
the book and then walked out, my self published titles
of automatically, you know, passive income have already earned me
way more money in that time period of that sale happening.
And so I jokingly call it that. And I don't
(30:06):
mean that to disparage publishers, because I know they put
a lot of effort and work into it. But I
will still work with publishers because one of the reasons
I signed with the publisher that is publishing my book
goes to the Great Leaks is Wollsack. Can Win is
a prestigious Hamilton small publisher basically one woman operation who
(30:27):
hires editors and stuff like that and contractors to put
her books together. She's very passionate about the books she publishes,
and I've just been looking forward to working with a
cool person like Noel. And that's like two of the reasons, Like, yeah,
she has traditional distribution, but she's also a publisher and
a person I respect, and so I will still sign
(30:47):
deals with different publishers because of the value of the
relationship or whatever it is. And so pros and cons, yeah,
I think those are some of the high level pros
and cons. Lots of little ones along the way, but
at the end of the day, those are the big ones.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
I'm sorry I did lie to you. I have promised
you was next to the last question, that's okay, how
did you end up working with so many publishers, because
everyone's going to want to know because they are at.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
The same reason. Part I'm getting one's the same reason
saying yes, I mean with this. This one came up
when when Noel wanted to talk about the possibility and
I thought she wanted to talk to me as as
somebody who's worked in the book industry for a long
time and is the real market for this book, because
she knew I was familiar with that market. I had
(31:35):
no idea she wanted me to write the book. I
thought she I was just there to help out a
publisher and a friend. And then the other one like
I with Dundern, the larger publisher that I did six
books with. I was at an industry event and I
overheard the vice president of the company say, we have
(31:56):
always wanted to publish a book of ghost stories about Hamilton, Ontario.
And so I had gone on a ghost walk in Hamilton, Ontario.
I just moved to the city, not that you know,
a year or so earlier, and I wanted to learn
about the city. And I always going ghostwalks because you
learn history and ghosts. It's fun. And so I was like, oh,
the ghostwalks are cool. And I looked at the market
(32:17):
and said, there's no book. There's no ghost story books
about Hamilton. But there's a functioning I've been going for
ten years a ghost walk group. There's probably a market
for it. And so I pitched a book of ghost
stories about Hamilton to the publisher and they of course
went yes. So it's again, like I said, it's the
(32:37):
same answer to the other questions. It's about community and
it's about connections and you never know what connection is
going to lead to it. Several of the books I wrote.
I was interviewed by a journalist from a newspaper who said, hey,
have you ever thought about writing a book about this?
And I was like, no, I hadn't. That's a good idea.
It was like, we want to do it together. Yeah,
let's do it. You know, like so saying yes and
being open I was the reason Haunted hospitals came out.
(32:59):
Is I was at a writer's for instance. We were
sitting around drinking and somebody whispered over leaned over to
me and whispered. Ronda, my co author, said I live
near a haunted hospital and I went really, and she
goes yeah, And then we started talking. And then the
next thing I knew, we were chatting, chatting, chatting, and
act I said, listen, Okay, we're drinking right now. Why
(33:19):
don't we in the morning, I'll meet you at the restaurant.
We'll have some breakfast. We'll talk about this with a
clear head, see if the ideas are still good. We
sat down, we talked about it, and like, you know,
I'm going to pitch this to Dunder and I think
they would like this book. Because we've got enough stories
here that we can share. And again, being open to conversations,
being opening to listening to people, and being open to connecting.
(33:42):
That's kind of how it happened. I know it's there's
no easy button, there's no magic there, but just being open,
I think, is one way. Is one way of that,
and a lot of it's about community and connections.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
That in and of itself is magic.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Like it is.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
It's amazing how you run into somebody and it feels
like it was just the ripe person at the right
time and it was just so perfect for this, and
that the magic of writing, and then it opens your
eyes to a whole other way of telling a story,
even if it's with someone hearing another point of view.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
And don't forget to write down the phrases that are
specific to them because you might need them for another book.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
I love that. I love that. Yeah, that is such
a great tip. But even like being at Ala, connecting
with you right like, there was value in connecting, not
just because I got to learn watching you in action,
but I got to learn I got to meet my
neighbors and learn a little bit about what they were doing.
And you never know it's like, there's so there's so much,
so many great things that we can experience just by
(34:39):
just by looking around us.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
And that I think, like, uh, I do not remember
who said it. I used to, but I'm old now,
but they were saying that for us, poets are like
the conscience of society. And you can't be a conscience
of society, cannot have a pulse of society, You cannot
speak about society unless you're out there learning from other people,
take saying yes, the opportunities that come your way. You
(35:05):
just you're not going to enjoy creating if you're not
taking in life experience.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Oh for sure. I mean that's where that's the substance,
the substance that that we that we pushed back out
into the world has to come from somewhere.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Exactly. I do want to mention that you did just
give me a book idea.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
So I might be writing good awesome, made me quicker
and easier to finishing this novel and working on I'm
like forty pages from done, which at this point when
you're a novelist, that's complete and please practically I started
it last Monday.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Oh all right, so you're writing it really slowly, is
what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah, taking.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Chop chop lady.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
No, No, I don't feel like I'm taking my time.
This is this is coming up when.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
It'll be two weeks tomorrow, all right? Oh, not two weeks.
It'll be two weeks since I started pre writing tomorrow.
So it does feel like I'm taking.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
A long time. Yeah, but that's all right.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
So my last question is where can we find out
more information about Nope? My last question is what three
tips do you have to give new writers coming into
that they absolutely cannot live without knowing?
Speaker 3 (36:17):
The first most important thing is if you want to write.
There's a quote from Hugh Prather that says, if the
desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then
the desire is not to write. So if you really
want to be a writer, if you really want to
do the thing, don't give up no matter what obstacles
(36:38):
hit your way. Because there's If there's a passion that
burns within you, I think it's really important for you
to share that passion with the world. You and your
stories matter, even if nobody else can see it. Yet,
if you have that burning passion within you, do not
give up on it. So do not give up on yourself.
Persistence is the key, very important for you to know that.
(36:59):
The second thing is that not everyone is going to
appreciate the kind of things that you write. My mom
did not ever like anything I wrote. She loved me,
she supported me, she would do whatever, but she loved
reading Harlequin romance novels. And that's not the kind of
books that I wrote. So my biggest fan, my mom
(37:20):
was not a fan at all of my writing. And
that's okay. Other people are, you know. So again, sometimes
the wrong reader can turn you off and say, well,
I'm horrible because my mom never liked my stories. Well, now,
my mom wouldn't like any of the stories I write.
That's okay. It's not that they're bad. They're bad for her,
they're good for someone else. And then the third thing
(37:43):
is patience, is I think is so so so important.
We live in a society, a digital society of instant gratification,
and dopamine rush is just by you know, that slot
machine in her hands, that's Facebook or Instagram or TikTok
or whatever, we can get the next big dopamine rush.
And we've forgotten how to just appreciate the world around
(38:05):
us as well as appreciate ourselves within that world and
be patient in terms of it can take a long time.
I've got my first rejection at the age of fifteen
and eighty five. My very first story wasn't published till
ninety two. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of rejections.
Had I given up, none of these things would be published.
(38:28):
I've got over thirty five books out now. Had I
given up on those things, that would never have happened.
So being patient, so patients, practice and persistence are three
of the keys that I say writers need to hang
on to.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Thank you so much for that. I love that.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
I feel like it's an essay somewhere. You had a
transcript on here and be like new essay.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
There you go. Well, I do have a book called
The Seven Piece of Publishing Success, so I have talked
about it a little.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
You can tell where can we find out more information
about you? Listen to your podcast, read your latest books
that you want us to read.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
You can hide some of the.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yeah, you can go to mark Leslie dot Ca or
just look for Mark Leslie or Mark Leslie Lefay. If
you dare try and break your fingers trying to type
that last name out on any of the major retailers.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
All right, so thank you so much for being here,
and I'm gonna go ahead and finish it up for
me and y'all. If you're wondering why the view changes
because I went down to two percent, I tried.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
I tried just go away and just let it run out.
But I'm going to wrap it up for us over here.
I'm will Nona. I'm one of the ni I Thought Ladies.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
You can find out everything your ladies are doing at
www dot n I Thought ladies dot com. When you
go to the page, go down to the bottom of
the page and you can see the charities that we
proudly support. But yes that hopefully you want to support
them as well. Does not mean you have to give money.
You can all get your hands dirty. But actually going
over to Ethopia and building an orphanage if you want
to try that one, or you could actually you know,
some people have advice, Like one person one time they
(39:57):
were looking for a grant writer and someone was around
and they were like, hey, I know the ladies and
they know grants and BOI la, Now that worked out.
But if you can't do that you know money always
helps to thank you in advance for that. Remember that
wisdom is always a Windism is a.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Ab blah blah. Remember wisdom is always around if you're
open to finding it and accepting it. So peace in
love you.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Guys from Wilnona and Jade, and by the way, that's
staying in with the a blah blah as well.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Oh yeah, thanks for listening.
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