July 3, 2025 • 38 mins
Note: This episode was delayed for technical reasons, so some may be confused by the opening when William teases his latest book sale. If you follow him on social media, you've already seen The Big Reveal. And if not—check out the next episode. Also, that is indeed William and Lara's dog, Baxter, expressing his enthusiasm for the new Amazon Kindle policy. We could've removed it—but why?
Bestselling authors William and Lara Bernhardt discuss the latest news from the book world, offer writing tips, and interview Lauren Smith, the USA Today-bestselling author of many bestselling romance novels, including The Care and Feeding of Rogues—which involves not only romance, but Sherlock Holmes.
00:00 Opening Thoughts
All the latest news from Bill, Lara, and Jesse
04:53 News
1) Kindle Readers Can Now Purchase Books Within the App
2) New Book Says "Bibliotherapy" Can Improve Your Health
14:18 Craft Corner
Jon Meyers of Write Better Together discusses the importance of choosing setting deliberately.
20:23 Interview with Lauren Smith
Lauren Smith has won multiple awards in several romance subgenres and was a 2018 RITA Finalist in the Romance Writers of America Contest. She was also a 2024 OK Book Awards nominee for The Care and Feeding of Rogues and she will be joining us at the WriterCon Retreat on July 16-20.
36:44 Parting Words
Don't forget about the WriterCon Retreat at Canebrake Resort on July 16-20. It's a five-day, small-group writing retreat at the 300-acre resort on Ft. Gibson Lake. Our retreat group will have the resort to ourselves with paths to hike, a pool to enjoy, bikes to ride and much more! Classes every day, small-group work, guest lectures, plus plenty of time to get some writing done in a gorgeous environment. This retreat will leave you inspired to move forward in your writing journey! www.writercon.com/retreat/
Until next time, keep writing, and remember: You cannot fail, if you refuse to quit.
William Bernhardt
www.williambernhardt.com
www.writercon.com
Bestselling authors William and Lara Bernhardt discuss the latest news from the book world, offer writing tips, and interview Lauren Smith, the USA Today-bestselling author of many bestselling romance novels, including The Care and Feeding of Rogues—which involves not only romance, but Sherlock Holmes.
00:00 Opening Thoughts
All the latest news from Bill, Lara, and Jesse
04:53 News
1) Kindle Readers Can Now Purchase Books Within the App
2) New Book Says "Bibliotherapy" Can Improve Your Health
14:18 Craft Corner
Jon Meyers of Write Better Together discusses the importance of choosing setting deliberately.
20:23 Interview with Lauren Smith
Lauren Smith has won multiple awards in several romance subgenres and was a 2018 RITA Finalist in the Romance Writers of America Contest. She was also a 2024 OK Book Awards nominee for The Care and Feeding of Rogues and she will be joining us at the WriterCon Retreat on July 16-20.
36:44 Parting Words
Don't forget about the WriterCon Retreat at Canebrake Resort on July 16-20. It's a five-day, small-group writing retreat at the 300-acre resort on Ft. Gibson Lake. Our retreat group will have the resort to ourselves with paths to hike, a pool to enjoy, bikes to ride and much more! Classes every day, small-group work, guest lectures, plus plenty of time to get some writing done in a gorgeous environment. This retreat will leave you inspired to move forward in your writing journey! www.writercon.com/retreat/
Until next time, keep writing, and remember: You cannot fail, if you refuse to quit.
William Bernhardt
www.williambernhardt.com
www.writercon.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week on the writer Con podcast, I.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Would caution you to say, don't limit yourself to just
viewing yourself as an author, and rather, I would say
open yourself up to the mindset that you are a
CEO of your business and it should not be scary.
It should be exciting that you have the control and
you have the ability to enact your own vision in
your future. And just be excited about that CEO position
you have.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Welcome to writer Con, a gathering place for writers to
share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Your
hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of
the Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, an
author the want Len Files book series.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Thank you, Jesse Ulrich, Hey, they're writers. Thanks for joining us.
So all is well in the writer con world. I
can't resist teasing that I just sold a new book
to what I think is the perfect publisher, but I'm
not supposed to actually talk about it until the pub
lunch announcement appears in publishers' marketplace. So I'm just being
(01:00):
a gigantic tease here, but I promise more bragging later.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Lara, it was a.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Super yeah, oh okay, no comment, Lara. More explanation later, Lara,
You're just coming off a big editing project.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
How did that go?
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Yes, this is a big one. So actually I have
I'm wrapping up a number of them. I've got one
coming to publication. I had a published book from last
year that was a finalist at the Oklahoma Book Awards,
and now I am about to bring out two more books. Actually,
but yes, this big one. It feels really good. Great
(01:43):
author to work with. This is someone who is eager
for advice and critique and help and guidance. And what
a dream to work with. Somebody who is not only
not resistant, but very open to brainstorming and discussing things.
This is somebody who came to us through some of
(02:07):
our retreats. Actually and speaking up retreat and.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Speaking of yeah, got one coming up?
Speaker 6 (02:14):
We do.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
We have the Cane Break Retreat coming up, which is
a great opportunity for anyone, whether you are at that
point where you're looking for someone to help you.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Edit your.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
Manuscript, or whether you've got your first draft and you're
just kind of staring at it. When I finished my
first draft, I went back and looked at it and thought, well,
this is terrible and didn't know what to do, so
I had to go and get help. Or maybe you're
just starting out. You've got the ideas and you don't
even know where to start. We can help everybody at
any place in their writing journey, Jesse.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Big news in your world, big news in my world.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Well, by the time this comes out, I will have
done my little Tolkien present.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Oh that is so cool. Talk about that.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yes, I'll talk about something that's going to happen in
the future.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
In the past, I did Great Red.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, this book related. Yes, I'm talking about one of
my favorite stories of all time, the Hobbit, the world
Tolkien created, and the closest I will get to talking
about writing is talking about how Tolien wrote So how again,
how he turned a children's story into one of the
most well formed, world built fantasy world building projects that
(03:31):
anyone's ever ever pulled off. Sort of launched fantasy as
a genre and sort of modern fantasy, I guess. And
so for people in Tulsa, you'll be seeing me post
about it on Facebook a lot. So, so it's gonna
go great.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I'm very excited about fantastic. Okay, our interview today is
with friend of the podcast Lauren Smith. She's the USA
Today best seller and award winning author of many, many
best selling romance novels in more romantic subgenres than I
knew existed. She has won multiple awards, and several of those.
(04:13):
She was a twenty eighteen read a finalist at the
Romance Writers of America contest, and if you're not include
into that world, I'll just.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Tell you that was a big deal.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
She had another wonderful novel that was a finalist in
the Oklahoma Book Awards this year, the Karen Feeding of Rogues,
a book that involves not only romance but Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
How cool is that?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (04:37):
How would you not love that book?
Speaker 4 (04:40):
So, and she's going to speak.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
You're going to be there for part of the retreat,
and she'll be at the writer con conferences fall too.
All right, looking forward to talking to Lauren. But first,
the news news story number one. This may be a
(05:11):
little bit hard to explain to people who don't read ebooks,
but those of you who do, and particularly those who
get their ebooks from Amazon, I think you'll understand why
this is big news because you can now purchase books
within the app, like within Kindle Like you're reading a
(05:31):
book and like it, and you want to buy the
next one in the series. This has happened to me
more than once. And you can find the book page
on your iPad or whatever, but you can't buy the
book there. You've got to go get into your computer
and go. You used to have to go someplace else
to buy the book. And the reason for that turns
(05:53):
out to be because they were trying to avoid Apple
seur charges. But now that's no longer an issue you
following a ruling in the case of Epic Games versus Apple,
where a Judge Rogers ruled that Apple can no longer
collect that commission on purchases or restrict how developers can
(06:14):
direct users to alternate payment options, like other than paying
through Apple. That's of course on appeal, but for now,
you can buy books on the book page within your
Kindle device or Kindle app on some other device. And
in fact, Jesse's got a graphic. You can now see
(06:35):
here's a Stephen King page. But now at the bottom
there's a big orange box that says get book, which
certainly makes life easier. Well, that's a result of this
legal action. Now, Laura, you read on your iPad virtually.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Every night, every day, not virtually every single day.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Okay, is this good news?
Speaker 5 (07:00):
I don't even know if you remember this, but do
you not remember when I came to you? It was like,
what am I? What am I doing wrong? It won't
let me. We'll let me get the book here, won't
let me. I was sure that it was some fault
of mine, that I was doing something wrong, because it
just seemed inceivable to me that it would let me
see those books. And I kept getting the message you
(07:20):
can't buy it this way, and I thought it was bizarre.
So I kept trying to fix it and you. I
went to you, and you said, no, that's just the
way that it is. You'll have to keep getting them
run your account on your computer for now. So I do.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
I think it's easy.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
There have been a number of times when it's you know,
the very next book is right there, and I want
to go on and get it. I kind of got
around that because I could download the sample. I download
the sample and start reading it. But now I can
just get the book.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Much better now, Jesse, you're also a big ebook reader, right,
So is this the start of our revolution or bringing
down big Apple.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I mean this, I mean this lawsuit. But by the way,
thank you Fortnite. Like this lawsuit exists because of Fortnite. Yeah, yeah,
Apple charging this huge fee for nothing, Like Apple doesn't
do anything here, right, and what they did, and the
reason why this particular judgment happened was because Apple technically
(08:23):
let people buy things off the app store, but put
all these horrific messages up about how it wasn't secure
and blah blah blah, making terrifying people that they're going
to get their credit destroy. Yeah, and yeah, it's ridiculous
that Apple was charging this much for a service that
you're asking for from another party. As an as an
(08:43):
Amazon Kindle user, this wasn't a huge problem for me.
But but if I was like looking, if I was
in the Amazon app on my Android phone, I still
also couldn't buy the book, So like Android also has
this problem. Now that this is good news, This is
good news.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
For everybody, great, great, all right.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
News Story number two has to deal with an emerging
form of therapy called bibliotherapy, which says that basically reading
can improve your health. Is this really news to you?
Reading as a hobby? Is I think inherently a moment
(09:26):
of self care. Every time you start to read, your relax.
That's why when you try and do it at bedtime
you fall asleep. After about a page and a half,
you slow down and relax into a story. But according
to bibliotherapy, the practice of using literature to heal, this
(09:46):
can also be beneficial to your mental health. And there's
a new book out by a clinical social worker named
Emily Rumble and practitioner of bibliotherapy. She's a psychotherapist and
professor at Queen's College in New York, and she says
she first encountered this idea when she was in London
(10:07):
and went to a place called Poetry Pharmacy, which sold
books chosen to address your mood or emotional ailment. Well,
now that's what she's basically practicing. And she's written a
book called Bibliotherapy in the Bronx that's out from Simon
and Schuster. And you know, maybe it sounds like a
(10:29):
kind of buzzy wellness trend or something people would talk
about in TikTok, but she argues that this just makes
total sense because after all, we have always, since the
dawn of recorded time, we've been using storytelling to make
sense of the world right to figure out who we
(10:49):
are and where we've been and where we might go
in the future. That's why books that have characters we
can relate to usually, you know, do seem like better books, Right, Lara,
do you practice bibliotherapy?
Speaker 5 (11:05):
I have never called it that. I have absolutely since childhood,
and I can tell you that I recognized this at
a very young age. I witnessed something very horrific once
and was literally shaking and went back to my room
and didn't know how to cope with it. So I
(11:26):
sat down and read a book. I was very young,
and I can remember it was a Clifford the Big
Red Dog book. That's how young I was. And yet
when it was over, I could breathe easy. It had
calmed me down. It didn't change that this horrible thing
had happened, but I felt better about it, and I
(11:46):
remembered that, and I used it growing up when I
was coping with you, trying to deal with something that
maybe I couldn't cope with yet, or just needed something
that helped my mental health health for thirty minutes an hour.
I do always read before I fall asleep, and I
make it farther than a page it's just again, I've
(12:10):
been doing that since I was a child as well
that I've absolutely sought solace in the pages of books
for about as long as I can remember.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Come on, how many times does that iPad hit you
in the nose waking you up?
Speaker 5 (12:25):
Usually myself that does happen.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Time.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
That's happened a time or two, for sure, But usually
I feel myself starting to not off and I give
it up. But that's fifteen twenty thirty minutes after I've
been reading.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Yeah, that's nice, Jesse.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
You know everybody you talk to, here's the thing. Everybody
says they'd like to read more. But the trick, of
course is finding time when you can integrate that into
your busy life. Do you have any suggestions.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Take really long flights.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
I read.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
I thought it was going to be soaking a hot tub,
but to.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Listen, get a waterproof you reader, buy a hot tub
and just get in there and read. There's nothing more
enjoyable to me on past writer con cruises than taking
my kindle out to the hot tub.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
It's great.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
I mean, you have to make it part of your routine.
Like the people who read before bed. It becomes part
of the thing. You do to calm down if you're
reading things that are relaxing and not stressful to you.
So you know, there's a downside to that. When you're
reading like an epic long fantasy, say Brandon Samson type book,
and you get to the denument at one o'clock in
the morning and then you stay up till three to
(13:36):
finish it, that's not great, but you do feel better
once you've done reading. You don't feel great the next day.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
So fally, people keep all kinds of apps on their phones. Now,
you know, people keep like meditation apps or you know,
call me down apps or shopping apps. You can have
the Kindle app or whatever you like to read on
your phone. It can be right there on you at
all times, waiting in a waiting for an appointment, or
(14:03):
really anywhere true lunch break, whatever. You just pop on
there and read a little bit.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
All right.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
This time in Craft Corner we have the second actually
in a series from our friend John Myers on fiction writing.
Today it's topic today's topic is about choosing setting deliberately,
not just because that's where you live or the first
thing that popped into your head, but strategically and deliberately
(14:33):
take it away.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
John Craft Corner.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
Hey everybody, welcome to writer CON's Craft Corner. I'm John
Myers from Write Better Together. You may notice that my
business partner, Emily Brooks, she's not here. She's not on vacation.
Emily and her husband are preparing to have a baby,
so she couldn't be here today. But speaking of vacation,
have you ever noticed how you act differently on vacation
(15:00):
they need to do at home. In fact, we all
act differently in different settings. You will act differently in church,
or in a taxi cab, or in a writer's conference
than you do in your own kitchen. Well, your characters
should do the same thing. They will act differently depending
on the setting that they're in. And today I want
to talk about settings of specific scenes and films because
(15:23):
I'm a screenwriter, or passages and books because I'm also
a novelist, and not the overall arching location or setting.
Not you know how Nashville is a character in the
movie Nashville, or the Mores of Wuthering Heights, But actually
the choices that you make to set a specific scene
(15:44):
in a specific place. First, let me tell you how
I wound up coming up with this topic. Right now,
I am adapting a sitcom script into a novel and
it'll be finished by the time we get to a
writer con in September. And when you write a script,
you have constraints of budget, right, so you try to
limit locations. Well, in a novel, I don't have a budget,
(16:07):
so I don't have to limit the number of locations.
I don't have to limit where those locations are, and
so it became super freeing to me, and it also
made me focus more on where each scene happened. There
needs to be an important conversation, so for some reason,
new writers put them in a coffee shop, or they
put them in a restaurant or a diner. You can
put it anywhere, so why not put it in a
(16:28):
specific setting where the setting imbues the scene or the
passage with even more meaning. Toy Stray three comes to
mind when the toys wind up in the dump and
these discarded toys are now in the garbage. They could
have been just put away in a drawer somewhere, but
it wouldn't be the same. Or on a bigger picture,
when the dogs in a Wes Anderson's Olive Dogs get
(16:50):
cast off into junk island. They literally land and are
dumped in amongst the junk. I'll give you one more
in love. Actually, the scene that we all know controversial,
some say now these days, but the scene that we
all know with the Q cards that are held up
in the doorway. Doorways are liminal spaces. They're not outside,
they're not inside. The fact that it's in an the
(17:11):
liminal space of a doorway, a space that is neither
here nor there, betwixt inside and outside. Speaking of neutral spaces,
a little bit different than liminal spaces, I'll give you
an example from The Great Gatsby, the confrontation in the
hotel room between Tom and Gatsby. There's a reason why
that's set in a hotel room. It's neutral ground in
(17:33):
New York City, so away from West Egg where Gatsby
is supposedly the master of his own domain. It kind
of contrasts the difference between the old money of Tom
and the new money of Gatsby. But I want to
specifically focus in on the hotel room. What does a
hotel room represent? It represents transience. There's an inherent temporariness
(17:56):
and permanence to hotel rooms. You don't live there. Next
of all, it's a confined space of truth. Hotel rooms
in literature are faces of truth where you say things
in a hotel room, where your characters say things in
a hotel room that you would never say at a
big party at one of Gatsabe's big party because of
the social decorum, where you certainly wouldn't say in a
(18:19):
public space. Truths come out in hotel rooms. So that
part of the book couldn't have happened anywhere else and
still been as effective. I want to end this by
contrasting that what I just said about public spaces. So
think of the end of Sophia Coppola's Lost in Translation,
after Bill Murray gets out of the taxicab and he's
(18:40):
walking through the streets of Tokyo because he sees Scarjo.
He sees Scarlet Johansson off in the distance, and then
when he reaches her, it's the hustle and bustle of Tokyo,
but it's one of the most memorable intimate scenes ever
when they kiss and he whispers something in her ear.
Now that could have happened in the taxiicab could have
(19:00):
happened in a hotel room. So contrasts that to the
Tom and Gat speak confrontation in a hotel room. We
have this intimate moment and it's in a public space
where people are zooming in and out in the commotion
of Tokyo, and that contrast is what makes that scene
so memorable. Now, tell us in the comments below about
(19:21):
a scene or a passage that you wrote in a
setting that you are particularly proud of, And if you
can't think of one right away, take something from your
work in progress, change the setting in it, and then
tell us why you think the new setting that you
chose works better for that passage.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Thanks everybody, Thank you so much, John Myers.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Now let's talk to Laurence Smith. Laurence Smith, welcome back
to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I'm glad to be back, all right.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
I think you know.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
That we have a traditional first question, and you've probably
already answered it a couple of times, but I'll do
it again since you're back with us again today. If
you could offer writers one piece of advice, what would
it be?
Speaker 2 (20:14):
I think as we move into these really changing times
with AI coming on the scene and different author tools
just being available, and the ability for authors to take
ownership of not just their books but their careers. I
would caution you to say, don't limit yourself to just
viewing yourself as an author, and rather, I would say
open yourself up to the mindset that you are a
(20:36):
CEO of your business, and it should not be scary.
It should be exciting that you have the control and
you have the ability to enact your own vision in
your future. And just be excited about that CEO position
you have.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
That's great advice. I love that, all right.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
And this is coming, ladies and gentlemen from someone who's
written what nineties something? How many books have you got
in prints?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Ninety?
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Exactly?
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I should be on one of those carnival guessing games.
Exactly ninety fantastic. But I also know you have a
legal background and went to like me too, and you
practiced law for several years. How'd you end up writing books?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I have always wanted to write since the third grade,
but I was raised by a banker and a lawyer,
and they both said, well, you need to have a
day job before you can do this other thing. So
you need to basically, in other words, work really hard.
Because they never wanted me to think that writing was
just staying at home and kind of living off of
them or you know the proverbial live in your you know,
mom's basement. They were like, you need to go out,
(21:38):
you need to earn your way. But at the same
time they were very supportive and they said, you know,
once this gained traction and if you're able to financially
support yourself, then we back whatever decision you can do.
So I always had the support that I needed, but
they instilled that sense of responsibility to take care of
myself first and have you know, the day job to
get me through until I could pursue it. But that
(21:59):
does mean a lot of hard work, you know, so
you have to It's a lot of late nights burning
the candle at both ends. But you know, if you
really love writing, it speaks to you and you'll do
that extra work.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Yeah, but since you have that legal background, you could
be writing legal thrillers, although you shouldn't because it's a
really crowded field and we don't need any more competition.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
But I want. I find legal thrillers super intimidating. I
just would be so worried that I wouldn't get it right,
and all the lawyers I know would read it and
be like, well, you know, the do process situation here
or the way that the court I want to be like,
oh no, oh, no.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Oh, trust me, you get that anyway.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
You know, is there some guy in New York saying
that's not the way the law works in Oklahoma?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
I'm like, go away, as if you know. But you've
chosen the field of romance. How did that come about?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Well, it was sort of a twofold thing. I was
actually in firmly believing I was going to write high fantasy,
you know, Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time, that kind
of thing, and a wonderful writing partner who was just
a very smart woman who just had a bigger sense
of the world than I was. Young at this point,
I was in my early twenties, and she was reading
one of my manuscripts for a critique group that we
(23:09):
were going to and she said, honey, you know you
write romance, right, And I looked at her as if
she had slapped me, because I thought, I've never read romance.
I don't want to write romance. It was this foreign
world to me. I had no exposure to it. I
had just sort of that preconceived notion of how silly
it was. It was just, you know, not real fiction,
not real books. And so she just handed me a
Nora Roberts and she said, read this and get back
(23:31):
to me. And I read the book and I went, oh,
my gosh, romance is just real stories and happens to
have sex in it, which is very much like real life,
and it's fun. And I went, why have I been
misjudging this genre the whole time? So as I started
doing research, I then learned to my joy that romance reading,
you know, those are the most voracious readers. They read
three to five to sometimes eight books a week. I mean,
(23:52):
they are hungry for words. So if you're looking for
a way to make a career, develop a diehard fanship,
you know, romance is where it's at. And of course
they outsell everything else there. You know. I think they're
easily probably a four point billion dollar industry now. Several
years ago they were two point eight, so I'm assuming
in the last decade it's it's even grown, you know.
So I just thought, well, this is this is a
(24:14):
win win here because I like this and I like
to write it now and I like to read it,
so it sells. I'm like, that's the perfect solution, right.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
Right, right, fantastic.
Speaker 5 (24:24):
All right, tell us about the Rogue series.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
So I have the Lega Rogues, which is my series
that is now nineteen books and it is my best
selling series. So if you're coming to writer Con, be
sure to come to that because I'm going to do
a workshop on writing an addictive series, and I will
talk about the mechanics of you know, why authors should
consider series when possible, how do you you know, how
do you structure that, how do you plan for Even
(24:49):
if you're not a planner and you're you know, pants
are like me, who I write by the seat of
my pants, there's still a way you can approach crafting
a series, crafting your characters, your world, and then that
can really really make sales for you and build that
die hard readership. So it definitely come to my talk
at writer Con in August. I'll be discussing that.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
It means you have to be at writer Con. I'll
just point out when.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
You come to writer Con. But you know, I think
that's the thing about series is that the League of
Rose is just really really it's a tightly woven world
of characters and that they're on the page a lot.
You know, you don't have to say goodbye. The readers
know that these characters will keep coming back even though
they've been the stars of previous books. And I think
that just makes it really, really fun. And I've even
(25:31):
expanded this sort of concept now to writing other series
in the same way. And so I started, you know,
actually what I did was on accident. Essentially, My League
of Rose was an accidental thing that became the super
successful situation. And now I go forward and my writer
planning by planning series with that mindset now, and I
(25:52):
just have to.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Jump in and point out one of those Rogues books
was just nominated for the Oklahoma Book Award, right, Yes, yes,
the Karen Feeding Feeding of Rogues, And am I right?
And that when you blend the romance not plot with
Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yes, it's a really and it just goes to show
you how sometimes being a pantster can be absolutely magical.
Because I had this, you know, scientist heroine who was
living on Baker Street and she just happens to be
the neighbor of Sherlock Holmes and he challenges her to
you know, study men and get into a wager, and
(26:31):
it became this fun thing that then leads to this
mystery and suspense element. So it's just it's just a
fun story.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
That sounds very fun. Do you have real life inspiration
for some of your characters.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
That you, as a lawyer, are willing to admit here
on on a life program?
Speaker 4 (26:55):
You know?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I get asked that a lot, and I would say
that most of my carecharacters are really inspired and come
from different facets of my own personality. It's more I
look and think, how would I react in this situation
under these different conditions, with this background, So I really
do insert myself into sort of like pretending to be
(27:17):
this other character. And even with my male heroes, in
some ways, my male heroes are almost more me than
my heroines because I really really work on the male
character side of things. But I did write one book
that did have real world based characters in it, and
that was The Wartime Matchmakers that came out in twenty
twenty two, which is a World War II romance, and
I fictionalized the names and changed some life details, but
(27:39):
it's about the two women who started London's first dating agency,
and their business was called the Marriage Bureau, and they
sort they pioneered this entire matchmaking concept. Which before had
not been done by anybody, but sort of like jokingly
the matronly ants who would sort of couple people together.
So they made an actual science out of it. And
I read their biographies, read their story of how they
(27:59):
got their business started, and then you know, took what
I really loved about the truth of that story and
then just added in some extra fun stuff. So those
are probably the only two characters I were really based
on real people.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
That's cool, though, I should have said a second ago
when we were talking about writer Con, meaning the conference
that's Labor Day weekend every year. But you're also going
to come for part of the retreat, the Cane Break
Retreat in July, right, because you did last year and
you're coming back this year. This isn't the first time
I've mentioned this, right, We've talked about this. You're coming out,
(28:31):
you're on the website.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
I know so, and you.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Probably haven't even given any thought to what you're going
to say, but ten like you have and any reflection
on what you're going to do at Came and Break.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Well, I think since cam Break is such a nice
sort of intimate atmosphere where I can really sort of
have an ability to speak to people on kind of
a more close relationship basis. I've decided I'm going to
sort of, for the first time I ever really talked
about my publishing journey, because I think, you know, it's
important not to compare your journey against other peoples. But
(29:04):
I am very good about talking about what worked, what didn't,
why I chose to do what I did, and what
I've learned from it. And I think it's important to
sort of just know that there's a million different paths
to your dream, and there's a million different ways and
tools and situations, and you know that even if you
fall flat on your face, as long as you fall forward,
you're headed in the right direction. And I've really taken
(29:25):
that to heart with my own career, and I don't
mind sharing the highs and the lows, and I think
it's good to sort of keep that in perspective that way,
when you know, writing a book is hard, publishing a
book is terrifying, and it's you know, how do you
get over those hurdles that that fear can create. And
I sort of just want to break down the process
and tell people that it's it's not as scary even
when you think you're failing, so there's always success just
(29:47):
there right there. You just got to reach for.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
It sounds like the perfect compliment all the workshopping and
small group work and so forth.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
I love it.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
I love it because it's it's so easy to get
into our own heads around social media and all anybody
ever does there is post look at this, I won
this award, I won this, I won that. Everything's great,
and it's I think it's important to hear that there's
typically something else going on too. It's not all sunshine
and roses.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Yeah, I think it's. I mean when I do workshops
every year and you hear from the six figure, seven
figure authors and they're saying, I woke out of bed
one morning and I wrote this series and then it
magically in three months, became a bestseller, and I paid
off my mortgage in two months. And you're thinking that
doesn't happen to most of us. You know, most of
us don't have that luck. My entire career has not
(30:39):
been luck, and instead it has just been showing up
for the work every day. And I think that people
who are like that, and there's a lot of us
out there, just the daily show up types. We need
to know that what we're doing is good and that
we just need to hang in there and that that
hard work does pay off great.
Speaker 5 (30:57):
So how do you approach a new project? You mentioned
already that you are a pantser, not a planner, so
we know there's no outline for you.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Do you make notes? Like how do you get started?
Speaker 5 (31:10):
You just open the laptop, open a word document and
go or something else.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
It's actually even more interesting in some ways than that.
If you can see behind me right here, those are
all blank notebooks, and I actually handwrite all of my
rough drafts, and then I use education software too to
record everything. So there is this element of magic to handwriting,
and it takes away for me. The blinking cursor can
be intimidating. When I see a blinking cursor, I think
(31:38):
of research papers. I think of college and law school,
which is I had no problem jumping in on those
assignments and my left side of my brain which just
turn right on and they've done. You know, tons of
studies about you know, typing is a left brain activity.
Handwriting that the way the hand moves when you write
is a right brain activity. So I just feel more
comfortable sort of doing it. The super old school way,
(32:00):
don't feel the pressure. It lets me pause, It lets
my sentences breathe while I sit, and I will usually,
you know, I will know where I'm going to start
the story. I know, usually almost to the last line,
how I'm going to end it, and I know just
kind of some events along the way, and as things
kind of pop up, I'll make little notes in the
margins above the chapters that I'm writing.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
I do that too. I do that.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
That's where you're like, this line needs to happen, and
then you know, if it doesn't happened for like seven chapters,
you keep writing it in the next chapter. You start
to just keep the momentum of like I need to
remember to include this line. But it really is sort
of just this. It's weird. I almost call it like
a religious experience where you're just papping into this greater
sense of something when you're in that mindset and you
(32:42):
can just really let yourself be in that story and
it just flows. And I know I'm very, very lucky
and how that works. But I think also it's a
part of practice. I read a really good book by
cal Newport called Deep Work, and he discussed how to
you know, quiet your universe, quiet your mind, give yourself
an ability to sit in a place and create that
(33:05):
deeper work, which is what writing really is, is that
deeper work.
Speaker 5 (33:10):
And you talk about showing up and just keep coming
back and being consistent. Will you share with us what
a typical writing day looks like for you?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (33:21):
So?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I typically, you know, the brain is like a muscle.
You want to exercise it every day, and that writing
is really a part of that. So I try to
make sure at least five days a week that I'm
writing anywhere from five hundred to twenty five hundred words
a day to just be consistent. So even if I'm
like today is not a really strong writing day, I
know my peak mental hours, where I feel the most alert,
(33:43):
where I feel the most ready, is between ten and
two pm. So I try to make sure that by
ten am or ten thirty I am at a Starbucks
or a coffee place. Because I found that I like
the energy around me. I just put my headphones on
so noises don't distract me. I have my playlist, but
I like seeing people being active around me. But these
are people who don't need me. They're not children, they're
not dogs. They're not neighbors, are not laundry calling my name.
(34:05):
You know, there's not you know, something going on. So
it's important to like have the energy, but not energy
that's going to require something of you. So I tend
to like to write out in public spaces, and I'll
work for a couple of hours, and then when I've
sort of tapped out that creative energy, then I can
transition into admin works. I'll usually come home and you know,
get on you know, my computer again after I've had
(34:26):
some time where I've run around, done laundry, walked my dog,
done some exercises, you know, just kind of been mobile
after you know, sitting for a couple hours, and then
I focus on the admin work. So that's you know,
updating book covers, changing prices, speaking with vendors, planning marketing,
watching workshops because I'm even though I teach workshops, I'm
always watching workshops. I'm constantly watching things, reading things. There's
(34:51):
so much out there now that wasn't available when I
was first getting started, and I've just always been a voracious,
hungry learner, so you just never stop learning. So there's
always that learning element too as part of the admin
work and then I try to calm down in the
evening and do something not writing related, like watch some
TV shows, finish some more laundry folding, and just spend
time with my family. Nice.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
You've shared some really great advice. Are there Is there
something else you've learned on your your writing journey? I mean,
my gosh, ninety books.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
It feels to me like we've just barely.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
Begun to plumb the depths of your knowledge. But is
you know we are limited on time here? Is there
something else that you might share it to say that just.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Be prepared for the journey to have peaks and valleys.
It is not a consistent graph chart where you see
the line just go straight up into the corner. Nothing
in the world is like that, and people, for some
reason assume book careers should be exactly like that. You know,
so I would just say that, you know, if you
love this and if you deeply care about this as
a career, you know, don't give up even when things
(35:58):
are tough. Just hang in there. That's just the most
important thing that I can say.
Speaker 5 (36:02):
No, I love your realistic approach. It's wonderful. I also
get annoyed by those Yeah, it just launched into a
million dollars overnight, and.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
That's time to hear that great advice of the population
that has that in the writing world.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
Yeah, that much.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
That was terrific advice. Thank you, Lauren, and they look
forward to seeing you at the writer Con Retreat which
is mid July July sixteen through twentieth. That's not that
along away anyway, don't you know.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
I got that.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Go to the writer Con website. Lauren, thanks so much
for being on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
You're welco appreciate it all right, see you soon.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Bye.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Just a few parting words Laura mentioned earlier in the
podcast the writer Con Retreat, which is in July sixteen
through twenty Cane Break is a beautiful resort that I
think is just the best place in the world for
having these small group retreats. You know, when you're not
in some kind of class, you can go walk in
(37:14):
the forest or whatever you like to do. You've got
a beautiful cabin where you can write and during those
five days we can cover a lot of territory nowhere.
No matter where you are now, you'll be further along
after this five day retreat.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
Last year, I saw bunnies, deer, I'd get up in
the mornings and go for a morning walks, bunnies, deer.
There were chickens running all around. I had to get
up and walk because they kept feeding us so well,
and I had to make sure.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
That I was working. The food is terrific.
Speaker 5 (37:48):
The food is so good, and it's there. We all
eat together, and there's a pool. There's a pool. We
should get into the pool this year. And pickleball courts.
Speaker 6 (37:57):
There's so much.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
It's so fun.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
I think I forgot to say this before. But in
case you're wondering where Cane Break is, that's in Wagner, Oklahoma.
It's like not even an hour from Tulsa, so you'd
fly in to Tulsa and go from there. It's on
a beautiful lake, Fort Gibson, and just a gorgeous inspirational
place to move forward in your writing journey. Okay, until
(38:22):
next time, keep writing and remember you cannot fail.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
If you refuse to quit. See you next time.
This week on the writer Con podcast, I.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Would caution you to say, don't limit yourself to just
viewing yourself as an author, and rather, I would say
open yourself up to the mindset that you are a
CEO of your business and it should not be scary.
It should be exciting that you have the control and
you have the ability to enact your own vision in
your future. And just be excited about that CEO position
you have.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Welcome to writer Con, a gathering place for writers to
share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Your
hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of
the Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, an
author the want Len Files book series.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Thank you, Jesse Ulrich, Hey, they're writers. Thanks for joining us.
So all is well in the writer con world. I
can't resist teasing that I just sold a new book
to what I think is the perfect publisher, but I'm
not supposed to actually talk about it until the pub
lunch announcement appears in publishers' marketplace. So I'm just being
(01:00):
a gigantic tease here, but I promise more bragging later.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Lara, it was a.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Super yeah, oh okay, no comment, Lara. More explanation later, Lara,
You're just coming off a big editing project.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
How did that go?
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Yes, this is a big one. So actually I have
I'm wrapping up a number of them. I've got one
coming to publication. I had a published book from last
year that was a finalist at the Oklahoma Book Awards,
and now I am about to bring out two more books. Actually,
but yes, this big one. It feels really good. Great
(01:43):
author to work with. This is someone who is eager
for advice and critique and help and guidance. And what
a dream to work with. Somebody who is not only
not resistant, but very open to brainstorming and discussing things.
This is somebody who came to us through some of
(02:07):
our retreats. Actually and speaking up retreat and.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Speaking of yeah, got one coming up?
Speaker 6 (02:14):
We do.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
We have the Cane Break Retreat coming up, which is
a great opportunity for anyone, whether you are at that
point where you're looking for someone to help you.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Edit your.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
Manuscript, or whether you've got your first draft and you're
just kind of staring at it. When I finished my
first draft, I went back and looked at it and thought, well,
this is terrible and didn't know what to do, so
I had to go and get help. Or maybe you're
just starting out. You've got the ideas and you don't
even know where to start. We can help everybody at
any place in their writing journey, Jesse.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Big news in your world, big news in my world.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Well, by the time this comes out, I will have
done my little Tolkien present.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Oh that is so cool. Talk about that.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yes, I'll talk about something that's going to happen in
the future.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
In the past, I did Great Red.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, this book related. Yes, I'm talking about one of
my favorite stories of all time, the Hobbit, the world
Tolkien created, and the closest I will get to talking
about writing is talking about how Tolien wrote So how again,
how he turned a children's story into one of the
most well formed, world built fantasy world building projects that
(03:31):
anyone's ever ever pulled off. Sort of launched fantasy as
a genre and sort of modern fantasy, I guess. And
so for people in Tulsa, you'll be seeing me post
about it on Facebook a lot. So, so it's gonna
go great.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I'm very excited about fantastic. Okay, our interview today is
with friend of the podcast Lauren Smith. She's the USA
Today best seller and award winning author of many, many
best selling romance novels in more romantic subgenres than I
knew existed. She has won multiple awards, and several of those.
(04:13):
She was a twenty eighteen read a finalist at the
Romance Writers of America contest, and if you're not include
into that world, I'll just.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Tell you that was a big deal.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
She had another wonderful novel that was a finalist in
the Oklahoma Book Awards this year, the Karen Feeding of Rogues,
a book that involves not only romance but Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
How cool is that?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (04:37):
How would you not love that book?
Speaker 4 (04:40):
So, and she's going to speak.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
You're going to be there for part of the retreat,
and she'll be at the writer con conferences fall too.
All right, looking forward to talking to Lauren. But first,
the news news story number one. This may be a
(05:11):
little bit hard to explain to people who don't read ebooks,
but those of you who do, and particularly those who
get their ebooks from Amazon, I think you'll understand why
this is big news because you can now purchase books
within the app, like within Kindle Like you're reading a
(05:31):
book and like it, and you want to buy the
next one in the series. This has happened to me
more than once. And you can find the book page
on your iPad or whatever, but you can't buy the
book there. You've got to go get into your computer
and go. You used to have to go someplace else
to buy the book. And the reason for that turns
(05:53):
out to be because they were trying to avoid Apple
seur charges. But now that's no longer an issue you
following a ruling in the case of Epic Games versus Apple,
where a Judge Rogers ruled that Apple can no longer
collect that commission on purchases or restrict how developers can
(06:14):
direct users to alternate payment options, like other than paying
through Apple. That's of course on appeal, but for now,
you can buy books on the book page within your
Kindle device or Kindle app on some other device. And
in fact, Jesse's got a graphic. You can now see
(06:35):
here's a Stephen King page. But now at the bottom
there's a big orange box that says get book, which
certainly makes life easier. Well, that's a result of this
legal action. Now, Laura, you read on your iPad virtually.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Every night, every day, not virtually every single day.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Okay, is this good news?
Speaker 5 (07:00):
I don't even know if you remember this, but do
you not remember when I came to you? It was like,
what am I? What am I doing wrong? It won't
let me. We'll let me get the book here, won't
let me. I was sure that it was some fault
of mine, that I was doing something wrong, because it
just seemed inceivable to me that it would let me
see those books. And I kept getting the message you
(07:20):
can't buy it this way, and I thought it was bizarre.
So I kept trying to fix it and you. I
went to you, and you said, no, that's just the
way that it is. You'll have to keep getting them
run your account on your computer for now. So I do.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
I think it's easy.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
There have been a number of times when it's you know,
the very next book is right there, and I want
to go on and get it. I kind of got
around that because I could download the sample. I download
the sample and start reading it. But now I can
just get the book.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Much better now, Jesse, you're also a big ebook reader, right,
So is this the start of our revolution or bringing
down big Apple.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I mean this, I mean this lawsuit. But by the way,
thank you Fortnite. Like this lawsuit exists because of Fortnite. Yeah, yeah,
Apple charging this huge fee for nothing, Like Apple doesn't
do anything here, right, and what they did, and the
reason why this particular judgment happened was because Apple technically
(08:23):
let people buy things off the app store, but put
all these horrific messages up about how it wasn't secure
and blah blah blah, making terrifying people that they're going
to get their credit destroy. Yeah, and yeah, it's ridiculous
that Apple was charging this much for a service that
you're asking for from another party. As an as an
(08:43):
Amazon Kindle user, this wasn't a huge problem for me.
But but if I was like looking, if I was
in the Amazon app on my Android phone, I still
also couldn't buy the book, So like Android also has
this problem. Now that this is good news, This is
good news.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
For everybody, great, great, all right.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
News Story number two has to deal with an emerging
form of therapy called bibliotherapy, which says that basically reading
can improve your health. Is this really news to you?
Reading as a hobby? Is I think inherently a moment
(09:26):
of self care. Every time you start to read, your relax.
That's why when you try and do it at bedtime
you fall asleep. After about a page and a half,
you slow down and relax into a story. But according
to bibliotherapy, the practice of using literature to heal, this
(09:46):
can also be beneficial to your mental health. And there's
a new book out by a clinical social worker named
Emily Rumble and practitioner of bibliotherapy. She's a psychotherapist and
professor at Queen's College in New York, and she says
she first encountered this idea when she was in London
(10:07):
and went to a place called Poetry Pharmacy, which sold
books chosen to address your mood or emotional ailment. Well,
now that's what she's basically practicing. And she's written a
book called Bibliotherapy in the Bronx that's out from Simon
and Schuster. And you know, maybe it sounds like a
(10:29):
kind of buzzy wellness trend or something people would talk
about in TikTok, but she argues that this just makes
total sense because after all, we have always, since the
dawn of recorded time, we've been using storytelling to make
sense of the world right to figure out who we
(10:49):
are and where we've been and where we might go
in the future. That's why books that have characters we
can relate to usually, you know, do seem like better books, Right, Lara,
do you practice bibliotherapy?
Speaker 5 (11:05):
I have never called it that. I have absolutely since childhood,
and I can tell you that I recognized this at
a very young age. I witnessed something very horrific once
and was literally shaking and went back to my room
and didn't know how to cope with it. So I
(11:26):
sat down and read a book. I was very young,
and I can remember it was a Clifford the Big
Red Dog book. That's how young I was. And yet
when it was over, I could breathe easy. It had
calmed me down. It didn't change that this horrible thing
had happened, but I felt better about it, and I
(11:46):
remembered that, and I used it growing up when I
was coping with you, trying to deal with something that
maybe I couldn't cope with yet, or just needed something
that helped my mental health health for thirty minutes an hour.
I do always read before I fall asleep, and I
make it farther than a page it's just again, I've
(12:10):
been doing that since I was a child as well
that I've absolutely sought solace in the pages of books
for about as long as I can remember.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Come on, how many times does that iPad hit you
in the nose waking you up?
Speaker 5 (12:25):
Usually myself that does happen.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Time.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
That's happened a time or two, for sure, But usually
I feel myself starting to not off and I give
it up. But that's fifteen twenty thirty minutes after I've
been reading.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Yeah, that's nice, Jesse.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
You know everybody you talk to, here's the thing. Everybody
says they'd like to read more. But the trick, of
course is finding time when you can integrate that into
your busy life. Do you have any suggestions.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Take really long flights.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
I read.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
I thought it was going to be soaking a hot tub,
but to.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Listen, get a waterproof you reader, buy a hot tub
and just get in there and read. There's nothing more
enjoyable to me on past writer con cruises than taking
my kindle out to the hot tub.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
It's great.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
I mean, you have to make it part of your routine.
Like the people who read before bed. It becomes part
of the thing. You do to calm down if you're
reading things that are relaxing and not stressful to you.
So you know, there's a downside to that. When you're
reading like an epic long fantasy, say Brandon Samson type book,
and you get to the denument at one o'clock in
the morning and then you stay up till three to
(13:36):
finish it, that's not great, but you do feel better
once you've done reading. You don't feel great the next day.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
So fally, people keep all kinds of apps on their phones. Now,
you know, people keep like meditation apps or you know,
call me down apps or shopping apps. You can have
the Kindle app or whatever you like to read on
your phone. It can be right there on you at
all times, waiting in a waiting for an appointment, or
(14:03):
really anywhere true lunch break, whatever. You just pop on
there and read a little bit.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
All right.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
This time in Craft Corner we have the second actually
in a series from our friend John Myers on fiction writing.
Today it's topic today's topic is about choosing setting deliberately,
not just because that's where you live or the first
thing that popped into your head, but strategically and deliberately
(14:33):
take it away.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
John Craft Corner.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
Hey everybody, welcome to writer CON's Craft Corner. I'm John
Myers from Write Better Together. You may notice that my
business partner, Emily Brooks, she's not here. She's not on vacation.
Emily and her husband are preparing to have a baby,
so she couldn't be here today. But speaking of vacation,
have you ever noticed how you act differently on vacation
(15:00):
they need to do at home. In fact, we all
act differently in different settings. You will act differently in church,
or in a taxi cab, or in a writer's conference
than you do in your own kitchen. Well, your characters
should do the same thing. They will act differently depending
on the setting that they're in. And today I want
to talk about settings of specific scenes and films because
(15:23):
I'm a screenwriter, or passages and books because I'm also
a novelist, and not the overall arching location or setting.
Not you know how Nashville is a character in the
movie Nashville, or the Mores of Wuthering Heights, But actually
the choices that you make to set a specific scene
(15:44):
in a specific place. First, let me tell you how
I wound up coming up with this topic. Right now,
I am adapting a sitcom script into a novel and
it'll be finished by the time we get to a
writer con in September. And when you write a script,
you have constraints of budget, right, so you try to
limit locations. Well, in a novel, I don't have a budget,
(16:07):
so I don't have to limit the number of locations.
I don't have to limit where those locations are, and
so it became super freeing to me, and it also
made me focus more on where each scene happened. There
needs to be an important conversation, so for some reason,
new writers put them in a coffee shop, or they
put them in a restaurant or a diner. You can
put it anywhere, so why not put it in a
(16:28):
specific setting where the setting imbues the scene or the
passage with even more meaning. Toy Stray three comes to
mind when the toys wind up in the dump and
these discarded toys are now in the garbage. They could
have been just put away in a drawer somewhere, but
it wouldn't be the same. Or on a bigger picture,
when the dogs in a Wes Anderson's Olive Dogs get
(16:50):
cast off into junk island. They literally land and are
dumped in amongst the junk. I'll give you one more
in love. Actually, the scene that we all know controversial,
some say now these days, but the scene that we
all know with the Q cards that are held up
in the doorway. Doorways are liminal spaces. They're not outside,
they're not inside. The fact that it's in an the
(17:11):
liminal space of a doorway, a space that is neither
here nor there, betwixt inside and outside. Speaking of neutral spaces,
a little bit different than liminal spaces, I'll give you
an example from The Great Gatsby, the confrontation in the
hotel room between Tom and Gatsby. There's a reason why
that's set in a hotel room. It's neutral ground in
(17:33):
New York City, so away from West Egg where Gatsby
is supposedly the master of his own domain. It kind
of contrasts the difference between the old money of Tom
and the new money of Gatsby. But I want to
specifically focus in on the hotel room. What does a
hotel room represent? It represents transience. There's an inherent temporariness
(17:56):
and permanence to hotel rooms. You don't live there. Next
of all, it's a confined space of truth. Hotel rooms
in literature are faces of truth where you say things
in a hotel room, where your characters say things in
a hotel room that you would never say at a
big party at one of Gatsabe's big party because of
the social decorum, where you certainly wouldn't say in a
(18:19):
public space. Truths come out in hotel rooms. So that
part of the book couldn't have happened anywhere else and
still been as effective. I want to end this by
contrasting that what I just said about public spaces. So
think of the end of Sophia Coppola's Lost in Translation,
after Bill Murray gets out of the taxicab and he's
(18:40):
walking through the streets of Tokyo because he sees Scarjo.
He sees Scarlet Johansson off in the distance, and then
when he reaches her, it's the hustle and bustle of Tokyo,
but it's one of the most memorable intimate scenes ever
when they kiss and he whispers something in her ear.
Now that could have happened in the taxiicab could have
(19:00):
happened in a hotel room. So contrasts that to the
Tom and Gat speak confrontation in a hotel room. We
have this intimate moment and it's in a public space
where people are zooming in and out in the commotion
of Tokyo, and that contrast is what makes that scene
so memorable. Now, tell us in the comments below about
(19:21):
a scene or a passage that you wrote in a
setting that you are particularly proud of, And if you
can't think of one right away, take something from your
work in progress, change the setting in it, and then
tell us why you think the new setting that you
chose works better for that passage.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Thanks everybody, Thank you so much, John Myers.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Now let's talk to Laurence Smith. Laurence Smith, welcome back
to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I'm glad to be back, all right.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
I think you know.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
That we have a traditional first question, and you've probably
already answered it a couple of times, but I'll do
it again since you're back with us again today. If
you could offer writers one piece of advice, what would
it be?
Speaker 2 (20:14):
I think as we move into these really changing times
with AI coming on the scene and different author tools
just being available, and the ability for authors to take
ownership of not just their books but their careers. I
would caution you to say, don't limit yourself to just
viewing yourself as an author, and rather, I would say
open yourself up to the mindset that you are a
(20:36):
CEO of your business, and it should not be scary.
It should be exciting that you have the control and
you have the ability to enact your own vision in
your future. And just be excited about that CEO position
you have.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
That's great advice. I love that, all right.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
And this is coming, ladies and gentlemen from someone who's
written what nineties something? How many books have you got
in prints?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Ninety?
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Exactly?
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I should be on one of those carnival guessing games.
Exactly ninety fantastic. But I also know you have a
legal background and went to like me too, and you
practiced law for several years. How'd you end up writing books?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I have always wanted to write since the third grade,
but I was raised by a banker and a lawyer,
and they both said, well, you need to have a
day job before you can do this other thing. So
you need to basically, in other words, work really hard.
Because they never wanted me to think that writing was
just staying at home and kind of living off of
them or you know the proverbial live in your you know,
mom's basement. They were like, you need to go out,
(21:38):
you need to earn your way. But at the same
time they were very supportive and they said, you know,
once this gained traction and if you're able to financially
support yourself, then we back whatever decision you can do.
So I always had the support that I needed, but
they instilled that sense of responsibility to take care of
myself first and have you know, the day job to
get me through until I could pursue it. But that
(21:59):
does mean a lot of hard work, you know, so
you have to It's a lot of late nights burning
the candle at both ends. But you know, if you
really love writing, it speaks to you and you'll do
that extra work.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Yeah, but since you have that legal background, you could
be writing legal thrillers, although you shouldn't because it's a
really crowded field and we don't need any more competition.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
But I want. I find legal thrillers super intimidating. I
just would be so worried that I wouldn't get it right,
and all the lawyers I know would read it and
be like, well, you know, the do process situation here
or the way that the court I want to be like,
oh no, oh, no.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Oh, trust me, you get that anyway.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
You know, is there some guy in New York saying
that's not the way the law works in Oklahoma?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
I'm like, go away, as if you know. But you've
chosen the field of romance. How did that come about?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Well, it was sort of a twofold thing. I was
actually in firmly believing I was going to write high fantasy,
you know, Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time, that kind
of thing, and a wonderful writing partner who was just
a very smart woman who just had a bigger sense
of the world than I was. Young at this point,
I was in my early twenties, and she was reading
one of my manuscripts for a critique group that we
(23:09):
were going to and she said, honey, you know you
write romance, right, And I looked at her as if
she had slapped me, because I thought, I've never read romance.
I don't want to write romance. It was this foreign
world to me. I had no exposure to it. I
had just sort of that preconceived notion of how silly
it was. It was just, you know, not real fiction,
not real books. And so she just handed me a
Nora Roberts and she said, read this and get back
(23:31):
to me. And I read the book and I went, oh,
my gosh, romance is just real stories and happens to
have sex in it, which is very much like real life,
and it's fun. And I went, why have I been
misjudging this genre the whole time? So as I started
doing research, I then learned to my joy that romance reading,
you know, those are the most voracious readers. They read
three to five to sometimes eight books a week. I mean,
(23:52):
they are hungry for words. So if you're looking for
a way to make a career, develop a diehard fanship,
you know, romance is where it's at. And of course
they outsell everything else there. You know. I think they're
easily probably a four point billion dollar industry now. Several
years ago they were two point eight, so I'm assuming
in the last decade it's it's even grown, you know.
So I just thought, well, this is this is a
(24:14):
win win here because I like this and I like
to write it now and I like to read it,
so it sells. I'm like, that's the perfect solution, right.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
Right, right, fantastic.
Speaker 5 (24:24):
All right, tell us about the Rogue series.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
So I have the Lega Rogues, which is my series
that is now nineteen books and it is my best
selling series. So if you're coming to writer Con, be
sure to come to that because I'm going to do
a workshop on writing an addictive series, and I will
talk about the mechanics of you know, why authors should
consider series when possible, how do you you know, how
do you structure that, how do you plan for Even
(24:49):
if you're not a planner and you're you know, pants
are like me, who I write by the seat of
my pants, there's still a way you can approach crafting
a series, crafting your characters, your world, and then that
can really really make sales for you and build that
die hard readership. So it definitely come to my talk
at writer Con in August. I'll be discussing that.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
It means you have to be at writer Con. I'll
just point out when.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
You come to writer Con. But you know, I think
that's the thing about series is that the League of
Rose is just really really it's a tightly woven world
of characters and that they're on the page a lot.
You know, you don't have to say goodbye. The readers
know that these characters will keep coming back even though
they've been the stars of previous books. And I think
that just makes it really, really fun. And I've even
(25:31):
expanded this sort of concept now to writing other series
in the same way. And so I started, you know,
actually what I did was on accident. Essentially, My League
of Rose was an accidental thing that became the super
successful situation. And now I go forward and my writer
planning by planning series with that mindset now, and I
(25:52):
just have to.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Jump in and point out one of those Rogues books
was just nominated for the Oklahoma Book Award, right, Yes, yes,
the Karen Feeding Feeding of Rogues, And am I right?
And that when you blend the romance not plot with
Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yes, it's a really and it just goes to show
you how sometimes being a pantster can be absolutely magical.
Because I had this, you know, scientist heroine who was
living on Baker Street and she just happens to be
the neighbor of Sherlock Holmes and he challenges her to
you know, study men and get into a wager, and
(26:31):
it became this fun thing that then leads to this
mystery and suspense element. So it's just it's just a
fun story.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
That sounds very fun. Do you have real life inspiration
for some of your characters.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
That you, as a lawyer, are willing to admit here
on on a life program?
Speaker 4 (26:55):
You know?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I get asked that a lot, and I would say
that most of my carecharacters are really inspired and come
from different facets of my own personality. It's more I
look and think, how would I react in this situation
under these different conditions, with this background, So I really
do insert myself into sort of like pretending to be
(27:17):
this other character. And even with my male heroes, in
some ways, my male heroes are almost more me than
my heroines because I really really work on the male
character side of things. But I did write one book
that did have real world based characters in it, and
that was The Wartime Matchmakers that came out in twenty
twenty two, which is a World War II romance, and
I fictionalized the names and changed some life details, but
(27:39):
it's about the two women who started London's first dating agency,
and their business was called the Marriage Bureau, and they
sort they pioneered this entire matchmaking concept. Which before had
not been done by anybody, but sort of like jokingly
the matronly ants who would sort of couple people together.
So they made an actual science out of it. And
I read their biographies, read their story of how they
(27:59):
got their business started, and then you know, took what
I really loved about the truth of that story and
then just added in some extra fun stuff. So those
are probably the only two characters I were really based
on real people.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
That's cool, though, I should have said a second ago
when we were talking about writer Con, meaning the conference
that's Labor Day weekend every year. But you're also going
to come for part of the retreat, the Cane Break
Retreat in July, right, because you did last year and
you're coming back this year. This isn't the first time
I've mentioned this, right, We've talked about this. You're coming out,
(28:31):
you're on the website.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
I know so, and you.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Probably haven't even given any thought to what you're going
to say, but ten like you have and any reflection
on what you're going to do at Came and Break.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Well, I think since cam Break is such a nice
sort of intimate atmosphere where I can really sort of
have an ability to speak to people on kind of
a more close relationship basis. I've decided I'm going to
sort of, for the first time I ever really talked
about my publishing journey, because I think, you know, it's
important not to compare your journey against other peoples. But
(29:04):
I am very good about talking about what worked, what didn't,
why I chose to do what I did, and what
I've learned from it. And I think it's important to
sort of just know that there's a million different paths
to your dream, and there's a million different ways and
tools and situations, and you know that even if you
fall flat on your face, as long as you fall forward,
you're headed in the right direction. And I've really taken
(29:25):
that to heart with my own career, and I don't
mind sharing the highs and the lows, and I think
it's good to sort of keep that in perspective that way,
when you know, writing a book is hard, publishing a
book is terrifying, and it's you know, how do you
get over those hurdles that that fear can create. And
I sort of just want to break down the process
and tell people that it's it's not as scary even
when you think you're failing, so there's always success just
(29:47):
there right there. You just got to reach for.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
It sounds like the perfect compliment all the workshopping and
small group work and so forth.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
I love it.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
I love it because it's it's so easy to get
into our own heads around social media and all anybody
ever does there is post look at this, I won
this award, I won this, I won that. Everything's great,
and it's I think it's important to hear that there's
typically something else going on too. It's not all sunshine
and roses.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Yeah, I think it's. I mean when I do workshops
every year and you hear from the six figure, seven
figure authors and they're saying, I woke out of bed
one morning and I wrote this series and then it
magically in three months, became a bestseller, and I paid
off my mortgage in two months. And you're thinking that
doesn't happen to most of us. You know, most of
us don't have that luck. My entire career has not
(30:39):
been luck, and instead it has just been showing up
for the work every day. And I think that people
who are like that, and there's a lot of us
out there, just the daily show up types. We need
to know that what we're doing is good and that
we just need to hang in there and that that
hard work does pay off great.
Speaker 5 (30:57):
So how do you approach a new project? You mentioned
already that you are a pantser, not a planner, so
we know there's no outline for you.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Do you make notes? Like how do you get started?
Speaker 5 (31:10):
You just open the laptop, open a word document and
go or something else.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
It's actually even more interesting in some ways than that.
If you can see behind me right here, those are
all blank notebooks, and I actually handwrite all of my
rough drafts, and then I use education software too to
record everything. So there is this element of magic to handwriting,
and it takes away for me. The blinking cursor can
be intimidating. When I see a blinking cursor, I think
(31:38):
of research papers. I think of college and law school,
which is I had no problem jumping in on those
assignments and my left side of my brain which just
turn right on and they've done. You know, tons of
studies about you know, typing is a left brain activity.
Handwriting that the way the hand moves when you write
is a right brain activity. So I just feel more
comfortable sort of doing it. The super old school way,
(32:00):
don't feel the pressure. It lets me pause, It lets
my sentences breathe while I sit, and I will usually,
you know, I will know where I'm going to start
the story. I know, usually almost to the last line,
how I'm going to end it, and I know just
kind of some events along the way, and as things
kind of pop up, I'll make little notes in the
margins above the chapters that I'm writing.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
I do that too. I do that.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
That's where you're like, this line needs to happen, and
then you know, if it doesn't happened for like seven chapters,
you keep writing it in the next chapter. You start
to just keep the momentum of like I need to
remember to include this line. But it really is sort
of just this. It's weird. I almost call it like
a religious experience where you're just papping into this greater
sense of something when you're in that mindset and you
(32:42):
can just really let yourself be in that story and
it just flows. And I know I'm very, very lucky
and how that works. But I think also it's a
part of practice. I read a really good book by
cal Newport called Deep Work, and he discussed how to
you know, quiet your universe, quiet your mind, give yourself
an ability to sit in a place and create that
(33:05):
deeper work, which is what writing really is, is that
deeper work.
Speaker 5 (33:10):
And you talk about showing up and just keep coming
back and being consistent. Will you share with us what
a typical writing day looks like for you?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (33:21):
So?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I typically, you know, the brain is like a muscle.
You want to exercise it every day, and that writing
is really a part of that. So I try to
make sure at least five days a week that I'm
writing anywhere from five hundred to twenty five hundred words
a day to just be consistent. So even if I'm
like today is not a really strong writing day, I
know my peak mental hours, where I feel the most alert,
(33:43):
where I feel the most ready, is between ten and
two pm. So I try to make sure that by
ten am or ten thirty I am at a Starbucks
or a coffee place. Because I found that I like
the energy around me. I just put my headphones on
so noises don't distract me. I have my playlist, but
I like seeing people being active around me. But these
are people who don't need me. They're not children, they're
not dogs. They're not neighbors, are not laundry calling my name.
(34:05):
You know, there's not you know, something going on. So
it's important to like have the energy, but not energy
that's going to require something of you. So I tend
to like to write out in public spaces, and I'll
work for a couple of hours, and then when I've
sort of tapped out that creative energy, then I can
transition into admin works. I'll usually come home and you know,
get on you know, my computer again after I've had
(34:26):
some time where I've run around, done laundry, walked my dog,
done some exercises, you know, just kind of been mobile
after you know, sitting for a couple hours, and then
I focus on the admin work. So that's you know,
updating book covers, changing prices, speaking with vendors, planning marketing,
watching workshops because I'm even though I teach workshops, I'm
always watching workshops. I'm constantly watching things, reading things. There's
(34:51):
so much out there now that wasn't available when I
was first getting started, and I've just always been a voracious,
hungry learner, so you just never stop learning. So there's
always that learning element too as part of the admin
work and then I try to calm down in the
evening and do something not writing related, like watch some
TV shows, finish some more laundry folding, and just spend
time with my family. Nice.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
You've shared some really great advice. Are there Is there
something else you've learned on your your writing journey? I mean,
my gosh, ninety books.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
It feels to me like we've just barely.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
Begun to plumb the depths of your knowledge. But is
you know we are limited on time here? Is there
something else that you might share it to say that just.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Be prepared for the journey to have peaks and valleys.
It is not a consistent graph chart where you see
the line just go straight up into the corner. Nothing
in the world is like that, and people, for some
reason assume book careers should be exactly like that. You know,
so I would just say that, you know, if you
love this and if you deeply care about this as
a career, you know, don't give up even when things
(35:58):
are tough. Just hang in there. That's just the most
important thing that I can say.
Speaker 5 (36:02):
No, I love your realistic approach. It's wonderful. I also
get annoyed by those Yeah, it just launched into a
million dollars overnight, and.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
That's time to hear that great advice of the population
that has that in the writing world.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
Yeah, that much.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
That was terrific advice. Thank you, Lauren, and they look
forward to seeing you at the writer Con Retreat which
is mid July July sixteen through twentieth. That's not that
along away anyway, don't you know.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
I got that.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Go to the writer Con website. Lauren, thanks so much
for being on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
You're welco appreciate it all right, see you soon.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Bye.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Just a few parting words Laura mentioned earlier in the
podcast the writer Con Retreat, which is in July sixteen
through twenty Cane Break is a beautiful resort that I
think is just the best place in the world for
having these small group retreats. You know, when you're not
in some kind of class, you can go walk in
(37:14):
the forest or whatever you like to do. You've got
a beautiful cabin where you can write and during those
five days we can cover a lot of territory nowhere.
No matter where you are now, you'll be further along
after this five day retreat.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
Last year, I saw bunnies, deer, I'd get up in
the mornings and go for a morning walks, bunnies, deer.
There were chickens running all around. I had to get
up and walk because they kept feeding us so well,
and I had to make sure.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
That I was working. The food is terrific.
Speaker 5 (37:48):
The food is so good, and it's there. We all
eat together, and there's a pool. There's a pool. We
should get into the pool this year. And pickleball courts.
Speaker 6 (37:57):
There's so much.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
It's so fun.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
I think I forgot to say this before. But in
case you're wondering where Cane Break is, that's in Wagner, Oklahoma.
It's like not even an hour from Tulsa, so you'd
fly in to Tulsa and go from there. It's on
a beautiful lake, Fort Gibson, and just a gorgeous inspirational
place to move forward in your writing journey. Okay, until
(38:22):
next time, keep writing and remember you cannot fail.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
If you refuse to quit. See you next time.
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