Author Sandra Manigault is in THE HAVEN!

AUTHOR SANDRA MANIGAULT is back in THE HAVEN to discuss her recently released novel, VANESSA--THE NEXT CHAPTER.

Episode Transcript

(00:54):
Hello, jam Catchers, and welcometo another exciting day in the writers Heaven.
I am your hope be Helena,and today in studio with me is
author Sandra Manigal. She's back inthe Haven to discuss her recently released novel
Vanessa the next chapter. Sandra wasa season one guest on the show back

(01:15):
in twenty seventeen when she was afirst time novelist, and since then she's
gotten many accolades and has experienced greatsuccess with her novel Vanessa. We want
to hear all about that and moreabout her new projects. So put your
hands together for author Sandra Manigals.Helen. Sandra, welcome back to the

(01:38):
Hate to be back, so Irite to keep her my third guest back
in twenty seventeen. And oh mygosh, like I was telling you earlier
when we were in the green room, I shudder when I look at those
shows. Why well, because Imean I was still you know, learning

(01:59):
get my show off the ground andmaking mistakes behind the scenes. I hope
our audience didn't catch a lot ofthat stuff. But we are new and
improved in season five. But youknow, being one of the first guests
that we had, I hope itwas a good experience. It was great.
You were great in season one.Well, I appreciate that thing,

(02:23):
true. But I'm glad that you'reback, and I'm glad that we're here
to talk about your new book,Vanessa. The next chapter. Now,
let's talk about the first book,which, okay, Vanessa, a love
story, what you came in totalk to us about in twenty seventeen.
Talk to us about some of howreceptive the audience has been, the readers

(02:45):
have been that book, and someof the things that you've been doing since
then. Okay, the readers lovedit. Of course, the women loved
it. And it took me awhile to figure out what was resonating with
them about that book. And Ididn't know what it was first, except
finally it occurred to me it hadas much to do with the man in
her life at that time as itdid with Vanessa herself. And then it

(03:07):
occurred to me, oh, mygoodness, he's like an archetype. Every
woman meets that man. The questionis how does the affect your life?
And I was hearing from women ofall ages and even very young women,
women who are just in college.They were saying, oh, my goodness,
I met him already, and I'mthinking, already, that's probably not

(03:30):
yeah, yeah, well maybe itdepends, depends. But and then the
next thing I found out people weresaying I couldn't put it down. I
couldn't put it down. And Iheard that so much. I thought to
myself, what's wrong with these women? And so I'd be journaling in the
morning, which is something I dida lot. I do that from time

(03:52):
to time, and I'd stop journalingand I'd pick up the book and I
would just open arbitrarily and start reading. Minutes later, I'd be saying,
Sandra, what are you doing?You just read, you know, so
many pages. You're supposed to bejournaling, not reading your own book.
And so I think there was somethingabout the style of the flow of the

(04:14):
story that got their attention. Andthen the story is about staying up till
three in the morning to finish thebook, this kind of thing. So
I guess one could say I likepeople getting late because they, yeah,
crazy stuff, crazy stuff. Iheard some of that you did, yeah,
oh wow wow. The other thingis people were saying, well,

(04:36):
you've got to do a sequel,And I thought they were crazy because I
had no intentions of writing a sequel, and they said, well, we
want to know what happens next.And so I did the sequel. And
I started the sequel in a verystrange way. On an airplane flying from
Washington to Los Angeles. I gottired of not knowing all the countries in

(05:01):
the map of Africa, and I, after, you know, going through
the the series about three times,I said, okay, let me just
start writing this book. And Istarted writing it and it came together pretty
quickly, a different kind of process. Okay, So in writing your second
novel, and I know you saidearlier that you know this was kind of

(05:24):
like a one time thing. Whatdo you mean in terms of a series
or in terms of writing in general, not not writing in general. You
just mean you didn't know there wasgonna be a second book, a sequel.
I didn't. I didn't know therewas gonna be a second book.
But it came together easily, mI would say. And I loved writing
it, and I fell in lovewith the new man that shows up in

(05:47):
the second book. And I wasn'tplanning to make him every woman's ideal,
you know, where he would checkoff all the boxes, but he was
checking off all the boxes and nWhen that book was published, it was
interesting because people were telling me thingsabout his character that I wasn't even aware

(06:08):
of. And he didn't have adark side, but he had flaws at
least one mm that was brought tomy attention, and I thought to myself,
Oh my goodness, I wasn't evenaware of it. You know,
the character came through the way itcame through. But it was just interesting
to hear hear people talk about UTin terms of your process. It sounds

(06:30):
like the the character development kind ofhappens organically while you're writing, or are
you planning out the characters and andyou know the nuances of each character before
you actually start writing. The mintoyou. I don't do that. Yeah,
I don't do that. It's it'svery strange. I remember when I

(06:51):
took my very first creativity course sometime ago, and I was reading Julia
Cameron's Artist White. One of thethings she said is that writing should be
as much listening as it is tryingto think up something, So it should
rather than thinking up something to say, you should almost be taking dictation,

(07:13):
so it's coming through you, butyou're not making it up yourself. And
so that kind of stuck with me, and I find that's how I write
a lot of my books. It'sa very strange process. And in developing
character, a lot of the characterdevelopment comes through in terms of the conversations
between the characters. I don't knowwhat they're going to say. I just

(07:35):
write it down as it comes through, right, So you're more of ascribed
listening like a fly on the wall, listening to these conversations I am writing,
I am, And I wouldn't saythat that's weird or strange. I
mean, I think we all haveour unique way of jumping into our creativity,
no matter what our art of choices. And so with writing, it's

(07:58):
whatever works best for you. There'sno real cookie cutter way of advancing.
That's true. Yeah. So nowbetween the two books, well, first
of all, I want to goback to what inspired the writing. You're
on a plane and you're thinking aboutthe names of the contest in Africa,
and then you say, oh,well let me go ahead and start and

(08:20):
start the book. Start book too. And then and from what I understand,
you just kind of went in gangbus I did, and so so
the so the inspiration kind of indirectlycame from that thought of the inspiration came
from the fact that everybody wanted asequel. Okay, Okay, that's so
that's why I got got the processstarted. Okay, it's the blind man,

(08:41):
I guess. So you heard thecall and then and you wanted to
go ahead and make that happen.And a lot of the reviews, I
mean, I've heard people say,like as I said earlier, that at
your book signing, people were they'retalking about they couldn't wait to get their
hands on the sequel. And inother reviews that I've read about the book,

(09:01):
there were a lot of people thatwere very complimentary about your writing and
for it to be your first novel, that's absolutely impressive. So, and
I'm sure I asked you this inseason one, so I'm going to ask
it again because I'm curious to seewhat your response is going to be now
that you've completed the process a secondtime and you're actually working on a third

(09:26):
book, which we're going to talkabout. When you were writing the first
novel, the inspiration, the storyand the characters and all of that came
from it started in a creative writingclass, right and as a climon.

(09:46):
Yes. In the class, wehad to write a sin in which sex
was or was not the inevitable outcome. That was one option out of I'm
going to say six or seven thatthe instructor gave us. So I chose
the one where it was going tobe the inevitable outcome. And for some

(10:09):
reason, I placed the story inthe Southwest at an event at a university,
and Vanessa was at this event andthat's where she met Miguel. Okay,
and so it was an exercise.But even then you had to kind

(10:31):
of conjure up my character. Idid a storyline. None of that was
given to you. No, Yeah, why do you think that you pulled
oh those characters? Yeah, I'mnot sure where Vanessa came from. I'm
not sure where her name came from. As far as Miguel is concerned.

(10:54):
Like I said, we've all methim somewhere, and so the energy that
define Miguel that was asy to conjureup that that was not difficult. You
know, he was just who hewas, and she just fell for it.
Yeah. Yeah, And I askedbecause I mean, not only is

(11:16):
it beautifully written, which is atestament to your storytelling, imparities, but
also just in the way that youdeveloped the characters and how you birthed them,
and kind of juxtaposing that with whatyou were saying about, you know,
basically being a scribe and hearing thecharacters, and because you birthed them,
you uniquely have a relationship with them, so you know what they would

(11:39):
say, you know how they wouldsay it, you know the situations they
would find themselves in. And soI just think that that is a testament
to again your storytelling abilities and yourcreativity in general. So between book one
and book two, what were someof the challenges that you faced in book

(12:00):
that may have continued on as achallenge in book two, or maybe you've
learned some lessons and how to dealwith certain challenges. What what are some
of the things that you learned fromyour experience with book one that kind of
carried over into book two in writingthat. That's a good question. I'm
not even sure how to answer that. Try up. Book two was written

(12:24):
differently, and I'm hoping I'm gonnaanswer a question by describing how it came
about. My daughter insisted I getan iPad, So I got an iPad,
which I only used for writing essentiallybook two, and I found the
book the iPad on my lap.No matter where I was, it was
always with me, no matter whatI was doing, and a paragraph here,

(12:48):
a page or two there, andso it just kind of spilled out.
I realized I wanted a couple ofthings to happen in book two.
I wanted her to be happy,I wanted her to grow, But I
also wanted some closure. As faras some of the other characters who we

(13:11):
met in book one, I didn'twant to just leave them hanging there.
And as one friend told me,why do you bring all these men back?
And I thought, because I wantedto. But I think the closure,
I'm hoping the closure occurred in booktwo as far as what happened to
this person, what happened to thatperson? But there were so many new

(13:31):
characters introduced in book two, SoI think the one thing I learned that
carried over is that conversation was easyfor me to write. And I don't
know quite how that came about,except I remember being in another class with
a different teacher and she kept talkingabout the difference between show and tell,

(13:56):
and I know what the telling is, but the showing comes through when you
can see what they're doing and hearwhat they're saying, that's the show.
So the show is easy for me. So with the publishing of book one,
in Book two, you're saying thatyou were prompted to self publish because

(14:16):
of the experience that you were havingpublishers. Did you think about maybe getting
an agent or looking for an agentto shop it around for you. Nope,
yeah, because, as you know, a lot of publishers. Yeah.
And the strange thing with the bookfor Math Empowerment, I published that
in ninety seven. That book isstill on Amazon, you know, twenty

(14:37):
two years later, which is amazingto me. And it's literally gone worldwide.
I wish I could say I madea ton of money. I did
not, But the book got outthere, and the message behind the book
got out there, and I'm gladabout that. Okay, So, speaking
of messages, what would you sayin well, let's take a book by

(14:58):
book Okay, So, Vanessa thelove story, What was the main message
that you wanted to put out there. We'll first tell me the target audience
and then what message if there wasone that you wanted. Yeah, no
particular message target audience women, becausethere's a lot of messaging in your book.

(15:20):
Yeah, I've heard, I've heard. I wasn't intending for men to
gravitate to it, but some have. And I remember at the book signing
we did for book two, oneof the husbands asked, how did you
determine how a man thinks? Becausethat's what he could see reading Vanessa Love

(15:41):
Story that was on his wife's nighttable. And I thought to myself,
well, a little bit from myhusband. You know, you asked a
question or two and get an answeryou're not expecting. I remember asking my
husband been at one point the question. I said, I don't understand how

(16:03):
a man can say I had sexwith this woman but it didn't mean anything.
I don't get that, and Idon't think women intrinsically get that.
And so Donna looked at me andhe said to me, you got to
eat, don't you, And mymouth dropped open. And I used that
in a scene in Venessrae Love Storywhere a group of people are out together

(16:26):
for dinner, a group of academicswho are at a conference. They're out
together, having a good time overa dinner at a famous restaurant, and
no, I think it's after thatthey're they're together, but they're still having
a conversation, and they're still inthe context of this conference, and they're
discussing the way men think versus theway women think. And that particular topic

(16:55):
comes up, and one of themen, which is the topic of of
how men can have sex and notwith no emotions, with no emotional attachment
to the women they just had itwith and and one of the young men
says, sex is like food tous. We've got to have it nothing
personal. And the women, youknow, crack up and give each other

(17:17):
high fives because I'm was kind ofparaphrasing what Donald said, but through the
words of the character freddie So.But as far as a message, yes,
I guess there were a lot ofmessages, but they were not intentional.
They just kind of fell into place. They were fun to write.
Again, the showing m m mm rather than the telling, right,

(17:37):
because I with the people that Italked to about your book, and just
a lot of them felt that therewas a lot of of a woman being
empowered and that in a relationship,and that was what resonated with them.
That's what they connected with and readingit. And then of course it's kind

(18:02):
of salacious to some degree. Soso there's that factor that, if nothing
else, that will keep you focusedon reading it and getting to the end.
You know, you you had,you had an affair situation in there,
you you had an artist, andyou know, that whole dynamic of

(18:26):
you know, the stereotypical but Ithink sometimes very true about artists, I'll
say generally speaking in terms of howthey approach their art and and what their
art means, and the freedom ofthe art and how that how that transfers
into other areas of their life.And then you know there's the wife that

(18:47):
kind of sort of maybe knows something'sgoing on, and you know just how
that person deals with it, soand so, and then then the you
know, there's the woman who didn'teven know she was having an affair with
a man because it wasn't revealed.So I mean, you have all of
these different dynamics, and at theend, how where people fall or fell

(19:12):
where they fell after the smoke clearedwhere they were. And then you know,
in book two, as you said, just kind of tying up those
loose ends, because yeah, sowhat happened with Miguel, you know,
did he ever leave? Was Ididn't get the impression he ever left his
wife. Did he leave his wife? I'm not even sure of myself.
They didn't lived together the right right, not live together, that much I

(19:34):
knew. And of course she showedus up at a very inopportune time for
Vanessa. Maybe Vanessa is where she'snot supposed to be when she finds out
that the wife is still around.But then there's also that message of kind
of some would say she fell toofast, you know, she was overtaken.

(19:56):
Oh yeah, the charm of thisman. And again, you know
that's something that women just in general, it can have discussions about relationships either
have found themselves in at least oncein their life. Going back to the
point that you made at the topof our yeah, yeah, they what
happens is another story. But toyeah, when you see the personality,

(20:19):
it's it's a parent ge. I'vemet this character somewhere before, and I
think I think women do what Ithink also is interesting. Originally I wanted
them to get together, and andI discussed that dilemma with Donald, my

(20:41):
husband, and he said something interesting. He said, but don't you let
him break up? And I thought, oh, so then it was a
matter of how and then creating thewhole scenario where the breakup would be dramatic.
Yeah, and life shattering and allthe rest of it. So,
Santa, let's talk a little bitabout the marketing for book one and for

(21:06):
book two before we go into talkingabout your newest project, which I can't
wait to hear more about. Sowhen you were here in season one,
the book was finished and you werejust starting on the marketing journey, to
talk a little bit about what thatexperience has been. Oh, it's been

(21:26):
frustrating. Okay, that's honest.No, and that's great. That's great
to hear. I mean it's notgreat. That was frustrating, but it's
good you're gonna talk about that.I probably reached out to everybody I knew,
and many of them bought the book. And I found that I'd beat
places and start talking about the book. I was a little bed and breakfast
in California talking about the book,and a couple of ladies bought the book

(21:48):
on the airplane. You know thatsort of thing I've done. I did
some book signings, did some bookparties, you could call it with booklobs.
Yeah, yeah, that worked.I found distributorship was not an easy
thing to get so I basically sellbooks through my website and through the events

(22:14):
I was having. I find themarketing to be the most challenging of the
whole book producing process. It's easy. It's far easier to write it.
It is somewhat less easy to publishit. It is most difficult to get
it marketed properly. And I'm I'mstill struggling with that and I'm still working

(22:36):
on that. And people say,oh, you should do an audiobook.
Well, that would be great,but then there'll be the same issue with
selling the audiobook as selling the paperbackbook. So it's just a matter of
trying new things and just getting morepeople to help you do what you have
to do. Social media have beena part of your marketing. Some I
find that that doesn't really do iteither. It's like there is no for

(22:57):
me, there is no magic books. You have to be able to do
a lot of things, and becausethere are other things going on in my
life, I don't always get toall the other things. Okay, okay,
So it's a process. It isa process, and you know,
the more that you write and themore that you put yourself as an author,

(23:18):
as a personality right out there.In speaking with other authors, they
have found that to also work forthem because the personality will transition to what
has she written, that's the kindof thing and picking it up, and
so that that's one avenue. Yeah. I find also that when I do
women's events, conferences or a bookclub event, I do a lot better

(23:45):
because it's a matter of giving somethingof value that they want. Because sometimes
people, yes, they want tomeet an author, but it's not always
about you, because other women wantto write too. So I like to
address that, and I like doingwriting workshops for women's organizations, and I
find that once I'm there and havea chance to talk with them and talk

(24:07):
about what I've gone through, butalso show them how they can make it
happen in their lives, then they'remuch more amenable to buying anything I've got
in terms of whether it's the memoir, whether it's the novel or the pair
of novels. And so I findthat for me, that's probably the best
way to market. Okay, it'sa matter of getting the events, okay,

(24:30):
Yeah, but the women you know, enjoy the events and hopefully they
have a big takeaway from the eventsand learn something about themselves and release that
inertia that keeps women from writing theirown stories or their own poetry or whatever
they want to do. Okay,let's talk about Flora. Oh, yes,
so Flora. We met Flora inbook one, Yes, and she

(24:52):
was with us in book two.Yes, she has her own book.
Yes she does. She does.And I remember telling one of my editors
that I wanted to name the thirdbook Flora Saga, and she says,
well, I don't know if i'dname it Flora Saga. And I thought
to myself, I want to nameit Flora's Saga, because that's exactly what

(25:14):
it is. Her story is complicated, and it starts off with a very
empowered Flora who is very very confidentand gorgeous and busy and everything until she
meets someone who sweeps her off herfaith. The problem was her person.

(25:37):
She sees this marriage material, andthat's a problem because when you know you
want to marry this person, you'reso concerned with dotting your eyes, crossing
your t's and doing everything perfectly.And that's how we get started with Flora
Saga. By the way, FloraSaga begins ends on the same day that

(26:03):
Book two ends. Oh, soit's the third book, and Valerie,
I had no idea I'd end upwith a trilogy. And I like to
think the trilogy the trilogy. Whatare we going to call it? The
Vanessa trilogy? So when as firedthat book, realizing Flora deserved her own
story, she really did pretty powerful. Yes, she was real and she

(26:25):
was yeah, yeah it makes sense. Yeah. So there's a whole new
cast of characters that comes through,and of course Vanessa is there, and
the man who becomes part of Vanessa'slife in book two is there, but
they're peripheral characters this time. Okay, and so and so we meet other
people, and when is that bookset to be released? I'm looking at

(26:48):
about Valentine's Day? Okay, yeah, I was going to try my best
to do it in twenty nineteen,but that wasn't going to happen. So
I think Valentine's Day is kind ofa good release, great left story.
Okay, well, I mean itsounds exciting. I'm very happy that you
have continued on this journey, eventhough you didn't see book two of book
three on the Horizon, that you'veallowed your creative juices to work in a

(27:14):
way that would bring further life toexisting characters, new life to new characters,
and bottom line, more reading enjoymentfor your loyal and die hard fans.
Myself included. I love your writing, love your writing, and we
have to get more exposure out therefor so thank you so much for being

(27:37):
in the Haven, thank you forhaving with us, and dreamcatchers, thanks
for tuning in and keep watching becausewe still have much to share on the
artistry of writing. If you've beentuning in, you know we have a
number of authors, songwriters, filmmakersand playwrights who will be joining us here
in the Haven. So check ourwebsite for more information about who's stopping by

(27:59):
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So that's all for now, anduntil next time, catch fire on

(28:22):
purpose. Hello, dreamy people,and welcome to another exciting season of The
Writers Haven Show. I'm v Helena, your host and executive producer. Since
twenty seventeen, we've invited you intothe Haven, where we showcased the passion

(28:44):
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(29:06):
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Show with vat Helena. I lookforward to seeing you in the haven,
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