← Living The Next Chapter: Candid Conversations with Authors and Writers for Readers Searching for a New Read
Living The Next Chapter: Candid Conversations with Authors and Writers for Readers Searching for a New Read
E142 - Laura Cayouette - Actor, Writer, Producer, Blogger - Character Development and Author Tools
01:03:03
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- [00:00]
A
Hi, I'm Laura Caillouette. You probably best know me as Leonardo DiCaprio's sister, Laura Lee, Candy Fitzwillie in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. And I'm here today on Living the Next Chapter podcast. So it's the creating characters course. And I figured that, you know, when you're looking at what it is you have that you can contribute to the universe, like, what is it that I know that other people haven't figured out yet and all that. So writing Unblocked came from, you know, I went from writing one book in 20 years to five books in four years. And I wanted to explain to people how I had done that and how this repeatable process, that you could do this too well, creating characters, that's even more in my wheelhouse. Do you have any idea how many characters I have had to create in order to do over 60 commercials, over 60 movies and TVs? TV shows? That means I have auditioned for thousands, Thousands. So I have literally created thousands and thousands of flesh and blood characters that were put on tape, that were judged and evaluated. So I'm used to that kind of pressure to come up with, you know, to invent people and have them in a situation and have them feel feelings and be specific and, you know, go through motivation, et cetera. So not only do I have this experience as somebody who has studied writing and was on that path and has written eight books, but I also have this thing of that for a living, I invent people. And I understand because of the producing and the writing and all and the directing, that the characters are not just for the act to fill in. They're not just, you know, oh, let me figure out what hair color they have. It's to move story forward. So when you're developing your characters, you want to develop characters that move the story forward. And I thought, well, I know how to do that. I know how to serve your story with details and, you know, just things that feel organic and true and that differentiate your voices of your different characters. And I know which backstory to bother to focus on and which backstory to just, you know, you never need to know that, you know. So all these things that I know, I know how to wardrobe up a character. I know how, you know, I'm. I'm a head to toe actor. And that made me a head to toe author of characters.
- [02:52]
B
Wow. Welcome, Laura. This is so amazing to have you here. You are joining me, I think you said, from beautiful New Orleans. Is that true?
- [03:02]
A
I am. I'm in New Orleans at carnival time.
- [03:05]
B
Oh, goodness. Welcome to the podcast. It is a thrill to have you on. Before we hit record, I was just mentioning that I had my little fanboy moment. I'm okay now. Okay. I'm okay. But when I saw the. The message come through that I could have you on the podcast, I was thrilled. I've been following along for many, many months. Let's say not say years. Many months, because, you know, it's okay to say years.
- [03:32]
A
I've been.
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B
Okay, okay.
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A
30 years.
- [03:35]
B
30 years. Okay. I wasn't gonna say the number, but okay. It's so great to see you and to have you on my screen talking to me. I'm usually watching you talk to other people on the screen, so.
- [03:47]
A
Well, me too.
- [03:49]
B
So there's that. So welcome to Canada. I'm so happy to have you here in Canada with me on screen. Okay, can we just talk a little bit about your acting background? Because, you know. Yeah, I'm. I remember watching your clip on. On Friends, and I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, just, you know, I was. Ben Stiller, I think, was in that scene, Right?
- [04:13]
A
Yeah. It was an amazing episode because it was in their third season, which was the, you know, where Ross and Rachel had the breakup. And so I'm Ross's first date post breakup, and Ben Stiller is Jennifer Aniston's Rachel's first date post breakup. So, yeah, it was a very big episode. It was watched, I believe, by 32 or 3 million people when it first aired. So I don't even have. I mean, that was 25 years ago. So I have no idea how many millions and millions and millions of people have seen that episode.
- [04:47]
B
That was a turning point in the show. And. Yeah. And there you are, like, at the moment. Can you take us back there for a second? At the moment, did you understand how big the show was or would be or anything?
- [04:59]
A
Here's the thing. At the moment, we couldn't foresee a world that had streaming and all that, so I. We couldn't have understood that those days of getting 32 million, 33 million, that that would end up later in life becoming only Super Bowls do that. You know, it's very hard to collect 30 million people on screen for anything, even in an awards show or, you know, it's. It's hard. So I couldn't have foreseen that we would have so little competition in the future for those kinds of numbers. The other thing that I don't. I think we all knew that Friends was a Very special show. It was a huge hit. But I really don't think we understood that it would be like the Lucy of that time, that the show we were doing would be 30 years later, not just still being available to watch, but that it would be still a hit. And that. I mean, I walk into. I walked into H and M and they're selling brand new clothing in H and M with friends stuff on it. I'm thinking, wow, this really is, you know, like the I Love Lucy of, of this, that time of the 90s is, is that show is just not going to die.
- [06:19]
B
So from the small screen to the big screen, though, too, like, you've had the chance to work with some pretty amazing people. The one thing that I have, a lot of authors that come on this podcast, they talk about this imposter syndrome that they face when they're putting themselves out there in the world. They're, who am I to write this book? Who am I to share my message? How will it be received? I have to imagine that through your course and through your book and helping people in the acting world, that the imposter syndrome thing is very real. How about for yourself? Have you had moments where you're like, I can't believe I'm. I'm here right now.
- [07:00]
A
Oh, well, now that is a little different than the imposter. The imposter syndrome. I can tell you. I have friends who are, you know, just starting out, who deal with that. And I have friends who, like, I have a friend who just won a Golden Globe last week who I know privately faces imposter syndrome a lot. And that person has been in this industry for decades, and they just won one of many awards they've collected over the years, and they still are not entirely sure they're good. So, you know, it affects all of us differently. But I, I think for me, that's different than, than having that moment when you're on the set and you go, I can't believe I am making this movie. Because the first movie, the first job had that was a TV or film role other than commercials or whatever was. I was in the sequel to Terms of Endearment. My co stars Jack Nicholson, and I didn't have any scenes together, but my co stars for my scenes were Juliet Lewis, who had just been nominated for Cape Fear. Mary Gross was from Saturday Night Live. John Perry is Matt Perry from Friends. Dad, and he was the original Marlboro man and all that. Then, Oh, Miranda Richardson, who was nominated against herself for the Academy Award that year. And then Shirley McLean. And if I could cuss, I would
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B
just say, sure, yeah, McLean, yeah.
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A
Who is the mack daddy of all living actors? It's her and Maggie Smith. I mean, that's it. So, you know, like, she is a national treasure. And so that was my first acting gig. But I'll tell you what helped me was that I. I had gotten some mentorship for that from Richard Dreyfus, and he had said, make it so they can't sleep at night. Make it so they can't sleep at night. Wanting to find somewhere to put you in that movie. And so when I did my audition, I did that. I tried to keep that in mind, and I didn't get the part. And then about a month later, they called from Texas and said, we're filming this movie and the director can't sleep at night. And so he wrote a part for you. So I didn't arrive as somebody who's like, oh, please, may I have a partner? I arrived on the set to work with Shirley and Juliet and all that as somebody who had been written into the movie because the director couldn't sleep at night. That was my first part. So I could have felt like the imposter syndrome, but instead I felt like I was being. I felt like Charlie at the Chocolate factory. I felt like I had the golden ticket. I felt like I was being given an opportunity to enter this totally lunatic, upside down world where you can eat wallpaper and just, you know, observe and soak it in. And I, I try to remember at all times that even Shirley MacLaine is a fan of somebody.
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B
Okay, I love this. Can we just talk a little bit about Richard Dreyfus because. Yeah, yeah, because, like, Richard Dreyfus again, for me, everything he does and he's done in the past. He wrote the forward to your book, is that correct?
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A
He did, he did. And I've also directed him in a short film that I wrote and directed. And he helped me with my Katrina relief project when I was working with. Trying to help people in. Yeah, he and I have partnered together many times. I think we've done four movies together. I mean, we've done a lot of stuff together. This is.
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B
We're.
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A
We're 30 something years into a friendship, so.
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B
Nice. Yeah, but that's nice that he would go in and write that for you as well. So, okay, so the acting career, like, again, there's lots of names we can say and. Oh, yeah, I would love to go through the list, but that's a completely. Another podcast, which I know, and it Takes longer.
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A
It takes so long to go through because I have been so privileged. Even the TV shows I've done, the guest stars. My guest stars on that episode of Friends were Stiller, Jon Favreau, you know, I mean, it was, like, insane. I very much have lucked out over and over and over that I end up toe to toe with the very finest of our generation.
- [11:53]
B
So, okay, so when we talk imposter syndrome, is there an upside to an imposter syndrome? Is it, like, a way to keep us in check? Is it a way to keep our ego from becoming inflated? Is that. Do you see any advantage at all to some form of that?
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A
I don't know if I thought about it, because I don't. I didn't really want to empower the downside of it. You know what I mean? Like, the downside of it, in my mind, you should just check in with it. You know what I mean? Like, when you're feeling that feeling of, like, oh, geez, how did I get to. Like, when I'm sitting at the dining room table in Django Unchained, and I am literally at a table entirely surrounded by Academy Award winners, BAFTA winners, Golden Globe winners, and little old me, I just check in with that and go, oh, this is exciting. Or, oh, this is scary. Or, you know, I acknowledge that it's happening because I couldn't pretend it's not happening. You know, you might even be having physiological reactions like sweating or shaking or what. You know, you might have a reaction, but I. So I don't pretend it's not happening, but I. But I kind of just check in with it. I think a lot of actors and writers are afraid to get too excited about positive, because then that means you have to invest also equally into the negative. And so I. I try and not get too deep into either one. Being powerful over me.
- [13:27]
B
I love that you say check in with yourself, though. Like, acknowledge what's happening right now. And, you know, and I. I can get the sense you're feeling the same way being on my podcast. You're just so excited.
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A
Well, there is a part of. No, but there is a part of any time that you're doing something that you're revved up for that you're excited for. There's a part of your body that is going into that hyperdrive mode, which, if you're afraid of that, it can be, like, nervousness and behaviors and whatever. And if you're excited, it can be like, oh, yay, you know, and. And both are the same energy. They're both that frenetic kind of panic attack feeling of having too much adrenaline at one time. And so I. You know, actors, we spend a lot of time figuring out how the body works and how the brain works and how motivation works and how. How to control all that and falsify it. You know, like, you have to backward engineer crying to figure out how crying works. You have to. You know what I mean? Like, so. So nervousness and excitement are the same. They're two sides of the same coin.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And. And so I try. I mean, I'm a human, but I try to remember that I'm also excited.
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B
Yeah. And fully there. That's the one thing I like, is somebody said, wherever you are, be all there. And I'm getting that from what you're saying, is whether you're approaching your book and you're going to write a book or you're doing a scene, you're going to be completely there and in the moment, and again, check in with yourself and. And then go through. Right. I love that.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Beautiful. So let's build a bridge between acting, your acting career, and your writing career. Because I'm curious about this, because looking through your website, which I have up on the screen while we're chatting, I can see you have great resources for authors. You're here to help people to get their message into the world. Let's build that bridge. Where, for you, was that point we talked about before? You're like, your acting career really took off. But tell me a little bit about how this connection has happened for you between being an actor and now an author.
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A
You know, it's all storytelling. Whether I'm directing, writing, producing, acting. They're all different ways of telling stories. And I trained originally to be a author. That was my. All my eggs were in that basket. I wanted to be an author. I wanted to be a professor and write on hiatus. And that was what I pictured for myself. And then when acting came along, I realized, oh, there. There's more than one way to tell a story. And acting is a completely different way of approaching storytelling. And then, because I moved from New York to LA and the filmmaking community, and I'm surrounded by people who storytell that way. I learned about directing, producing, and screenwriting. And before you know it, I'm producing a movie with Quentin. I took three years of training at writers boot camp, which is all for screenwriters, you know. So I took on that mindset. And I think one of the things that's been so miraculous is taking everything I learned from getting A master's in creative writing and learning about how to write a sentence, how to write beautifully, how to, you know, describe something or be somewhere or what? You know, literarily. Literarily, yeah, that one almost till it broke. But in addition to that, I. I have. Because of my acting and filmmaking career, I have learned so much about how to. How to be productive when you're not inspired. Yeah. Because I think my. My writing book is called Writing Unblocked. And I think one big thing that messes people up, what blocks people, first of all, they don't know if they know how to write, and so they're afraid to try. Then they don't know how to write a book because I have a master's degree in creative writing and nobody taught me how to write a book. So there's just. That's just not a thing people teach. How do you write a book? And, and then that amount of unknown, all that daunting unknownness feels overwhelming. And you haven't even written one word yet. And, or maybe you wrote 10 pages, but then you don't know what to do from there. Or so there's this whole thing of getting lost and scared and, and, and so when you don't feel that motivation to tell the story anymore, when you don't feel that pressing thing that, like, made you start in the first place, you just stop. You just quit. You just say, I don't, I don't know how to write that, or I don't want to write that, or I'm not on that topic anymore, or I don't really care about that anymore. Instead of having the tools to be a functional writer whether or not you're in the mood, and be a functional writer working forward on your project, whether or not you're actually writing that day. I mean, I have many days where I am accomplishing a ton on my writing projects without writing.
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B
Okay, so for the person listening to us today, and they are locked, how is your book going to help them?
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A
Well, my book is Writing Unblocked is. Is a lot about organizing your thoughts. It's kind of like figuring out what you already know about your story and then creating a version of that that you can use. I, I call it the enough draft. So it's. I would. It's like a rough draft, only it's not written. Like, you don't my enough draft. You don't have to write one word to construct your entire project. Now you have to make notes. It's not invisible ink. Here we're talking. You have to have some record of your thoughts. But you don't have to sit at a computer and write your story or your instruction manual or whatever it is you're working on, Biography or whatever, until you're ready. Because the. Enough draft just is a thing that. It's this thing that captures all your thoughts and all your ideas and helps you to organize them all. So if you're not writing, you could be brainstorming, you could be organizing, you could be reordering. You could be looking at structure problems. You could be, you know, like, there. I have so many things. Because, like, when we do filmmaking, we might have a rain day when we're supposed to be shooting out outside.
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B
Right.
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A
So then we have a list of other things we can do that day.
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B
Right.
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A
And still be productive and still stay on schedule. Smart thinking like that. I started thinking, well, how does that apply to writing? And how does that. So I just basically took everything I learned from writer's Bootcamp, which tells you how to turn one sentence idea into a completed script in six weeks, I think, and everything I learned from, you know, working as an actor and a filmmaker, where we have to work no matter what. I mean, I think some people have heard that Leonardo DiCaprio, he smashed his hand on a glass and kneaded. I think it was 16 stitches, 12 stitches, something like that. And kept working.
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B
Kept working.
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A
Yeah, yeah. And we're used to that. We're used to. Actors are used to that. And we don't think of it as. As, like, we don't. We never sit around going, well, you know, I'd like to act today, but I just. The music did not visit.
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B
It's not feeling it.
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A
Yeah, I'm blocked.
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B
I'm blocked. I can't. I can't. Yeah, yeah.
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A
And the director can't do that. The producer can't do that. The set designers can't do that. The wardrobe people can't do that. The makeup people. Nobody is allowed to say, you know what, today I'm just not up for it.
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B
Exactly. Yes.
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A
How do I apply that to writing?
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B
Okay, so not only do you have the book, which I'm excited to. To talk to everybody about, but there's also the chance to. To go through a course with you. I'm. Can you kind of unpack this a little bit? Because I. There's going to be people who are naturally curious about what this course is all about. Can you give us an. Like, an overview of kind of how this works?
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A
So it's the creating characters course, and I figured that you know, when you're looking at what it is you have that you can contribute to the universe, like, what is it that I know that other people haven't figured out yet? And all that. So writing Unblocked came from, you know, I went from writing one book in 20 years to five books in four years. And I wanted to explain to people how I had done that and how this repeatable process, that you could do this too. Well, creating characters, that's even more in my wheelhouse. Do you have any idea how many characters I have had to create in order to do over 60 commercials, over 60 movies and TV shows? That means I have auditioned for thousands. Thousands. So I have literally created thousands and thousands of flesh and blood characters that were put on tape that were judged and evaluated. So I'm used to that kind of pressure to come up with in, you know, to invent people and. And have them in a situation and have them feel feelings and be specific and, you know, go through motivation, etc. So I thought, well, I'm pretty qualified to do that. Plus my books. I am. I am not. I'm a glutton for punishment. My first novel, lemonade farm, had 10 main characters. I mean, it has one, you know, narrator type character, but the. There is, you know, so there's one POV, but there are 10 main characters because she's in a commune. So. Yeah. Then I wrote the. My mystery series, the Charlotte Reed mysteries, and that's set in New Orleans. And I would say that at least a third of the characters are real people. My neighbors and cultural. Yeah. Culture bearers here in our area and all that. And then a third are, you know, somebody based on somebody I know or something, you know, where I'm fictionalizing. And then a third are just manufactured out of my brain. And those casts are huge. The cast for those. Those mysteries are huge. And because she's a very involved person, Charlotte reads. So plus she's always investigating her family history, and that has all these names all the way back into the 1700 or 1800. What? 1700s, I think. Anyway, bottom line is I. I am used to creating characters. And I thought, well, then let me take everything that I know because my perspective is unique because not in, you know, just like with the writing. Not only do I have this experience as somebody who has studied writing and was on that path and has written eight books, but I also have this thing of that for a living, I invent people. And I understand because of the producing and the writing and all and the directing that the Characters are not just for the actors to fill in. They're not just, you know, oh, let me figure out what hair color they have. It's to move story forward. So when you're developing your characters, you want to develop characters that move the story forward. And I thought, well, I know how to do that. I know how to serve your story with details and, you know, just things that feel organic and true and that differentiate your voices of your different characters. And I know which backstory to bother to focus on and which backstory to just, you know, you're not gonna need to know that.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know, so all these things that I know, I know how to wardrobe up a character. I know how to, you know, I'm. I'm a head to toe actor, and that made me a head to toe author of characters.
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B
Again, we talk about the bridge between the two, and it can, I can sense it right there.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Like, I'm just. I remember watching you on one scene, I think it was with maybe Woody Harrelson. I think it was. And you were like, that would be
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A
one of two things because we've worked together twice.
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B
Yeah, I think. And you were like. Was it like crawfish or something?
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A
Oh, that's true. Detective. Yeah.
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B
Detective, yeah. So in there, you're like a totally different character than you are in Django. Like, it's just completely amazing just, just to be the, the variety and the depth and where you can go with your character. So bringing that into the literary word and writing in that format. Yeah, that's, that's interesting that you can leverage that and then teach people how to do that.
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A
Well, that's the exciting part is being able to tell other people how I do it because, you know, writing is kind of like driving a clutch. It's harder to describe than you would think, you know, and, and so, yeah, I'm most pleased that I figured out how to share it with others and tell other people. These are some tricks I know from acting that will help you as a writer. These are some tricks I know from writing that will help you as a writer. These are things that I know about how to develop three dimensional, unique characters, unique from each other so that you can create a universe of people and, and have them ready for you when you need them. You know, like, not be in the middle of. Of. I mean, that's something. Because I believe in preparation and organization and all that. I, I start creating characters as soon as I'm creating story, you know, they start being birthed simultaneously, but not just the main Characters I ask myself questions of like, well, how's the main character gonna get that accomplished? Who they're gonna need to meet along the way? Who will their mentor be? Who will their guide be? Who will their, you know, who's going to get in the way? What's going to. Well, what is their story? You know, like, all that stuff.
- [28:29]
B
The whole world building side of it. And. Yeah, and I love how you talked about what's. What's relevant to the story and what can be thrown away or not through this story.
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A
The biggest thing I find is when I went online to look at what it. What are other people putting out there? Because of course, before I bothered writing the book or, you know, I thought, well, let me see what other people are out there teaching. And, you know, the thing about the character building that I found most consistent. I talk about it in my video on the, on the page for creating characters is they. They have these, like, questionnaires that you fill out. And, And I do that too. I say, here's a questionnaire you can fill out. But they. They want to know things like, what is your character's favorite color? Now, here's the thing. If your character. If you're writing a book called John and His Favorite Color, then you need to know John's favorite color.
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B
Okay.
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A
Even if you're writing a book called John and the Red Balloon, you might need to know whether John responds well to red or whether he hates red. But other than it being a direct plot line, who cares what color John likes? How does that help me tell the story? How does it help the reader picture my character? And I think one great thing about having gone back and forth fluidly through film and television and writing is that I think all authors to some degree, picture their books playing out or picture their writing playing out in their head in some level. Okay.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And I do that like a movie, and then I just write down what I'm watching.
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B
Yeah. So you're almost a spectator while you're writing.
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A
I mean, there are parts of it. Writing is a lot of different phases. There's. There's a lot to writing. And that's one reason that the book is not one page long, you know, and. And creating characters is six videos. Because it takes a while to figure out how to do this well. I mean, but, you know, if you just want to do it at all, if you just want to get it all down. I even applaud that. I don't think everybody has to write well in order to write valuable information.
- [30:48]
B
Yes. Okay. So we'll circle back to the course. I'm just on your website again while we're chatting. All the books are listed here from your. Your catalog, what you've written, even. Like, I like. I like. No small part like a. I like the name of that book, by the way, but just, I love all the stuff that's here. Can you just kind of walk us through your library of books that you've written? Because I would love people to know about these as well.
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A
So. Lemonade Farm is my first novel. That's the one that took 20 years to write. I myself lived in a commune, a collective commune is actually where you put all your money together in a collective. You keep your money separate. So technically it was a collective, but people don't know what that means, so I say commune.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But, yes, I personally lived in a commune when I was a child. And so I wrote Lemonade Farm based on some of those experiences of a young girl coming of age in 1976, when America was also coming of age with its bicentennial, one minute after the Vietnam War had ended and we had just lost a president to scandal, and we were, you know, coming of age as a country, in a way, and the American family was evolving and more importantly, devolving. It was the American family. The nuclear family was blowing up. And so that commune was the result of all the bits and pieces of a bunch of families in the suburbs moved into a farmhouse in the country together so that they could provide childcare for each other. So not nearly as tawdry as I'm sure people hoped when they heard the word commune. But, yeah, so that story, it was so important to me to get it right that that is why I got my master's in creative writing, is I wanted to be worthy of telling that story. Yeah, I love that story. Then no Small Parts. K N O W. No Small Parts. An Actor's Guide to Turning Minutes into Moments and Moments Into a Career. With Forward by Richard Dreyfuss and endorsements from Kevin Costner, Lou Diamond Phillips, Reginald Hudlin. It Cast of Thousands. So that book was. Because I was working on Django, and I had a lot of the same downtime as the people playing the house slaves. And I could hear them, you know, we're all sitting around shooting the whatever, and I could. They would often be talking amongst themselves about figuring things out about being an actor, you know, figuring out when to get an agent, when to join the union. You know, all these things that were like 20 years ago, stuff for me and so whenever I would hear something that would be just that easy for me to answer, I would pipe up and say, you know, you just do this or you just do that or whatever. Well, after five months of sitting around with that, I thought I should write all this down and give it to people that they could just have this information. And I remembered that when I was starting out, I read book after book after book and there was a book I was always looking for that I never found. So that was the book I wrote. I wrote the book that tells you how to be an actor in real life. Yeah. From the day you decide, like, hey, I think maybe I could be an actor to how do you get a free dress for the red carpet? So, you know, it's everything from the, you know, when do I move to L. A stuff to how do you talk to a celebrity? You know, it's lifestyle stuff, not like, how do you deal with money. You know, it's everything. But it's especially front loaded to help you to figure out how to do well in an audition, what to do when you first walk onto a set, you know, those kinds of things. But it's mostly front loaded to help you be a great actor.
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B
Beautiful.
- [34:55]
A
Because that's the key. The key. Sorry. The big secret is be a great actor.
- [35:01]
B
That's amazing. Yeah.
- [35:03]
A
Well, and then I wrote my mystery series and the Charlotte Reed mystery series. That's actually Quentin Tarantino's fault. Many things in my life are, are due to his inspiration and he suggested that I write a series of detective novels. And I didn't come up with that, but I did come up with this, you know, amateur sleuth story. Charlotte Reed is a actor from la, but she, her heritage is in New Orleans and she is called home for a family funeral and gets pulled into two different mysteries. One is something that's happening that's coming off of the funeral, and then the other is a family mystery that takes all five books to solve. So each book has its own mystery. No murders, just mysteries. And. And then the entire five book arc has a family secret that it is unraveling.
- [36:01]
B
Did you know the five book arc at the beginning or did it kind of unfold?
- [36:05]
A
I did. I used my method and perfected my method during the five book series and I am now applying that to my two book series which I'm currently working on called the Source. So I, if I had not written my eighth book, which is writing Unblocked, how I went from writing one book in 20 years to five books in four years. I don't know if I could do what I'm doing now because the book I'm writing now, which is a two book series, but I'm calling it the book that was a screenplay that I wrote in 2005. I was at Reading for Lemonade Farm and a teenager in the crowd said, well, what do you have next? And I thought, I just spent 20 years writing this book and you want to know what's next. But of course, that's a great question, one that as an actor I had answered a million times and didn't know why I didn't already have a planned answer for that. So I spit out this. Oh, I'm going to write the Source. And I said that I'm going to write this book based on a screenplay that I had written in 2005. Well, when I got home I was like, I'm not writing that book yet. I'm not ready for that. And so I dug out all my notes and ended up writing the book series that Quentin had suggested. But then after I finished that, I thought, well, I think I really do need to write the Source. That everybody, when I pitched it that day was like, oh, I want to read that, I want to read that. And I thought, I think I'm now ready to finally figure out how to take this huge project that has terrified me for years, that I've been wanting to do for years, and take this screenplay that I wrote in 2005, all the things I've wanted to do with the story since 2005, and sit down and turn that into a two book series that is so huge and unwieldy. It starts in like 7000 BC and hops all over the planet, all over time. All. There's no way I could do this project if I hadn't figured out my writing unblocked method, which I called the three step prep. But yeah, if I had not figured out the three step prep and perfected it during the Charlotte Reed mystery series, I don't know what I'd be doing.
- [38:29]
B
So the writing series that you're offering to authors is proven? Yeah, it's proven. It's. Yeah.
- [38:39]
A
Well, it's especially helpful for series because one reason that I had trouble coming out of my master's program, one reason I had trouble writing a book is because in a master's program you write short stories. And so like I said, I was great at writing a sentence, great at writing a paragraph, great at writing a few pages, but I didn't have any tools for how to, how does that become a book? How does that become a book? It's not like you could take two of those, rub them together, and they have a baby book, you know, like, you have to figure it out. And so I. That thing of figuring out how to write a big old book, after all, I knew how to write with short stories was the first hurdle. But once I figured out how to write a book, then, yeah, the next hurdle was then how do I turn that into how do I write a series? You know, how can I. If I can do it once, then it can be repeatable. And I figured out that you asked earlier, did I know the whole arc? Yeah, I knew everything that was going to happen in a macro sense. Sure. I didn't know, like, there when I started the first book. People think I had, like, all the cards for. If you look in the book, you'll see there's pictures. I think book five, I think I had, like, six cards. Yeah, I have, like, anything yet. I just had some general ideas of, like, well, this is what it's going to be. And book five is twice as long as book one. So I had lots of ideas by then. So you can trust the process as well of that, you know, when you're doing a series. Like right now I have. I have both books and I'm working on both books at once. And then at some point, and I'm actually almost at that point now, which I'm excited for, at some point, I divorced the two books.
- [40:24]
B
Okay.
- [40:24]
A
And I set book two aside and I work only on book one because I now have my logic. But you have to get your logic if you're going to write a series. You have to know what you're revealing when.
- [40:36]
B
Yeah, exactly. That totally makes sense because, yeah, you want to be halfway through or near the end of book one, and you're like, oh, this is not going to develop well. So I like, I love your approach. So, okay, let's jump back to the course before we end off. You've been so kind with your time. Tell somebody who's interested in writing how this course is going to benefit them. Let's talk to them directly and let's. Let's hear the pitch. Let's hear it, because I'm excited to share this because I think I've had authors come on and the things you're talking about is exactly what they're looking for. So.
- [41:14]
A
Wow. Well, that's great to know. Well, it was what I was looking for. Again, I keep writing the books I'm looking for when I wrote Charlotte Read. I was looking for mysteries that didn't have murders. I was like, where are the adult Nancy Drew books? You know? So since I couldn't find any, I wrote some.
- [41:28]
B
Good.
- [41:29]
A
But yeah, the pitch for creating characters is that. Creating characters helps to develop three dimensional, totally individualized characters that move your story forward. And it does that in a way that is fun and works with any sort of learning or productivity personality. So, yes. So I. Writing unblocked and creating characters, I try to make sure are useful to people of a wide spectrum of learning capabilities and preferences and a wide spectrum of production capabilities and preferences because we all do things differently in the creative world. And so I wanted to make sure that I provided. There are so many tools that there is. There's very little chance you will use all of them. Some of them will be like, eh, that's not for me. But I urge you to try every one of them because all of them are ones that work for me. And many of them are ones that I was like, eh, that's not gonna work for you. And my true confession is, yeah, I did. So. So yeah, I, I have tried to put something for everyone and I urge everybody to try at least once each of the tools, because it's an entire kit of tools of how to. There's so many ways to come at a person. And, and, and I say person. It could be a hippo, it could be, you know, a talking flower. It doesn't matter. Your characters have to have building blocks that are the same whether they're a talking flower or a hippo or, you know, John Doe. You're still going to need those tools to figure out how do they, how are your characters different? What is, you know, what is their purpose in your story? What, what is it? What is, what are they carrying for you? What are they making happen for you and how to best accomplish that.
- [43:45]
B
The tools are here to unblock and get yourself out there, build your characters again. It is so awesome to have time with you quickly.
- [43:57]
A
I wanted to say, though, that works as well with. But with. Because I play people who are based on real people sometimes. So it works as well with historical characters and biographies and things where it's not, you know, things that are, I guess, what we would consider drier content. It works just as well to develop those characters, if not more important to develop those characters. We don't, you know, the world doesn't need another Abraham Lincoln book unless you have something new to say. Yeah, yeah. And so how you say it can be the something New, you have to say, you could focus in on a different character and come at it that way, or you could look at a different aspect of him. And so character development can be personalized and. And it can be part of the storytelling. Even if the story you're telling is somebody else's dry history story.
- [44:53]
B
Exactly.
- [44:54]
A
Yeah. And even if you're doing an instruction booklet, there are ways to insert your own personality into an instruction booklet that make it so that people feel that they are getting your best advice instead of being lectured at.
- [45:10]
B
And there's a connection then, between the reader and the author.
- [45:14]
A
Yeah.
- [45:14]
B
Yeah. Beautiful. Okay. So, Laura, how do we. How do we find this series? Where do we go? Give us all the details because I'm. I'm sure there's going to spark some curiosity and interest. What do we do? Where do we go?
- [45:30]
A
Well, the best place to find all things Laura Caillouette is laurakayuette.com. okay. Yeah, that has links to my. Well, first of all, you can explore my acting career there. If you're curious about that. There's an entire page of just all of my books that. That you can click links to all of the books. Some of them have videos that show you what they're about. Some of them have reviews. Some of the, you know, so there's all sorts of information about those. And then there's also links to my blog. I blog about New Orleans and. And to my. I. I coach. So there's links to contact me for coaching. And I do coach writers. And I have, you know, what, a Pinterest page, a YouTube page, all kinds of things. Well, one reason is. And this I never get to talk about, but when I write, because I'm a multimedia artist, I. Or multimedia storyteller, I like to use everything that's out there. So almost every one of my books has its own Pinterest page and its own YouTube soundtrack. So, for example, if you're reading the Charlotte Read series, each book has its own YouTube page that has playlist, that has all the songs that are mentioned in the book.
- [46:52]
B
Smart.
- [46:53]
A
The parades that are mentioned, the, you know, like festivals, events, anything like that. Some of the personalities and what. They're all in the YouTube playlist for that book. And then the Pinterest page will have visuals that stimulated me or, or, you know, places, people, whatever that I referred to that are real life. All of them are collected up in each Pinterest page. So I like to have it be a multimedia experience available to the reader if that's something that they're interested in because I know a lot of people are very visual and. And some people are very auditory and prefer to have a, you know, a full experience where the book. They can see it and hear it as well.
- [47:38]
B
That's brilliant. Like, what an immersive way to get into a story, to have the music in the background as you read. As you read about the parade going through New Orleans. And you're like, I can hear the music while I read the words.
- [47:52]
A
Yes.
- [47:52]
B
And see the building that you talked about.
- [47:54]
A
That's great, because a picture can be worth a thousand words. You know, I'm getting ready to dance in the parades, and I dance in a group called the Pussyfooters. And when I say that, everybody laughs. And I have no idea what picture all of you have in your head, but I'm guessing that you have a thousand different pictures, none of which are the Pussyfooters. And. And if I say that in New Orleans, people go, oh, yeah, of course. And they all know exactly what I'm talking about. And they picture a pink corset and white combat boots. So, yeah, because that's our uniform. We all wear pink corsets and white combat boots. So people here know what that is. And one word is worth a picture of a thousand pictures. But for you, yeah, it's easier if I show you a thousand, you know, one picture that fills in those thousand words and tells you, oh, we're a nonprofit. We're women over 30. There's over a hundred of us. You know, like, all these things that locals know. One picture would show you. Oh, it's a huge group. Oh, they all wear this. Oh, they are all older. Oh, they. You know that you would get that from a photo.
- [48:55]
B
So, Laura, when you're talking, one thing that came to my mind, and I will close off with this, but I remember somebody saying they had an empty jar, they had some stones, and they put them in the jar, and they said, is this jar full? And everyone's like, yeah, it's right to the top. But then they took a bag of sand, and then they poured that in, and it filled up the jar. Right. So what you're doing is you filled up a jar with your book, and then you offer the sand, which also goes into the jar with really complete. It fills in all the cracks.
- [49:25]
A
I like to think I've used glitter.
- [49:26]
B
Okay, let's go to glitter. But it's beautiful, right? It fills in all those gaps and adds to the story and fills it out. So you can jump into the story and be A part of it, I
- [49:38]
A
think, partly because I'm a story lover. I think we're all, you know, on some level, we're all making the movie we wanted to watch or writing the book we wanted to read or, you know, I just take it very literally, you know, that I am very much producing exactly what I wanted to find when I was an actor starting out. I'm producing exactly what I wanted to find when I was trying to figure out how to write Lemonade Farm. I'm pretty. You know, I am trying to serve the person I was yesterday. And. And partly because I know the person that I was yesterday is the same person a lot of people are today. You know, I'm only a day ahead. So, you know that there are as many people today who want to know how to get into acting or writing or any kind of storytelling as there were yesterday. It's just that I'm a day older and wiser than I was yesterday. So I. I'm just new. I'm telling the new people what somebody a day forward has figured out. But it is all just what I needed. It's what I needed to help me get where I am going and where I have been. And. And I'm just blessed that a lot of people envy where I am going and where I've been.
- [50:54]
B
I love it. Laura, it is so kind of you to take time today to be on my podcast again. A little bit of fanboy at the beginning there, and I. I haven't been able to shut it off the whole time you're talking, I'm just like, wow, this is so surreal. And I'm so happy to have you with me again. We'll send everybody to the website. We'll send everybody to check out the course. I think you mentioned that there's potential for a discount for our listeners as well, which is so kind of you. And we'll have all that information as well. Yeah. Any last thoughts, Laura, before I let you go? Because again, this has been so wonderful for you. I would love your. To direct your attention to the audience and to new authors out there that are just starting their journey. What would you like to say to them as a put pen to paper?
- [51:44]
A
Well, I have. I have a slogan that I live by as an actor that I am always telling people when I'm coaching, which is dare to fail. You have to dare to fail. Nothing. Nothing that's ever been of unique value to me was inside my comfort zone. And I. Everything that I've. Everything that has created that my life gets to be fancier and funner than the person next to me is is because I dared to fail. And those who are afraid to fail and allow that to paralyze them, they already know what they're going to get because they already have it. They'll just get more of that. The only way to, you know, really create change in your life is to dare to fail. And I think it's terrifying, the idea of writing and putting your soul down on paper and then letting other people judge it. And they. I don't have children, and my books feel so vulnerable to me when I put them out into the universe. Like, oh, please be gentle with my babies. But I don't know another way to do it. How else would I. I can't. I. Writing and acting and all the. All of the arts are a relationship with an audience. And having a relationship with an audience means that you're going to fail. There are going to be people. There are people who hate Quentin Tarantino's movies. Okay. I have no argument for that. Go ahead. More seats for me in the theater, which doesn't amount to much because it's already going to be sold out. So, you know, so it's okay to not have everybody get you. It's okay to not have everybody love your work. As long as. As you dare to fail, then you're in that position that I started my acting career in where maybe it wasn't the right thing, maybe it didn't. But it gets in your head and it makes it so you can't sleep at night thinking of ways to look me into yourself.
- [54:01]
B
I love how you brought that back again. I love it. Yeah. Make it so they can't ignore you. Yeah.
- [54:10]
A
Yeah. I would rather fail gloriously and. And have tried. I would rather fall forward. How about that? I'd rather fail forward, fail attempting, than to fail on my tush and. And just be sitting on the ground going, what happened? Yeah, I. I thought. I just. I don't know. Failure is something. We have a very weird relationship with failure in this country because it's an absolutely integral part of everything. Growth, success. Like, anybody who's telling you to avoid failure either has never succeeded or is lying to you so that you won't. It's the deal. It's like saying, learn how to swim, don't get wet.
- [55:02]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [55:05]
A
You have to fail. And so for me, it's not about being comfortable. It's not about feeling 100% positive that I am where I'm supposed to be. You know, like, with the Imposter syndrome, all that. It's not about all the comfort stuff. Shirley MacLaine said go out on a limb. It's where all the fruit is. So, you know, that is the bottom line. You have to dare to fail. And I think without that, you really aren't, you're not taking full advantage of your time here either. You know, something that actors know a lot about is the drive home from an audition. Because the drive now, right now we're self taping. But back in the day when we would drive home from auditions, we would spend the whole time in the car thinking about the audition. And you either replay it and go, or you drive home going, I should have. Oh, why didn't I? Oh, you know what I could have done the whole way home, you gotta leave it on the floor. You gotta just dare to fail. You know, it might be that they will go, yeah, no, it's not you. We're not going with you. We don't like what you did. But at least be unforgettable. At least be something they, they have to reckon with. A story they remember.
- [56:27]
B
Wise words. Wise words.
- [56:30]
A
So, yes. So when I'm writing a thing, a story, when I'm writing a two book series, which is not even a thing, so I'm writing a two book series that starts in the 7,000 BC era and jumps around time and space and yada, yada, yada, I really can't let myself worry about whether or not it's a failure. I have so much work to do. So I get it that it's scary. I'm scared all the time. I just don't, you know, I'm also tall all the time. I don't pay attention to it. There are times where being tall is part of my life where I have to like pay attention to it because I'm gonna hit my head or because the person next to me at the Walmart needs help grabbing something from a tall shelf or whatever. So there are times that being tall is a big part of my day, but most of the time it's just a state of being. And so if I'm constantly trying new stuff and daring to fail, then so what? I failed again.
- [57:37]
B
I love it. I don't want this interview to end. I don't want this episode to stop. I'm just having so much fun having you on. This is great. I bet you have things to do. You have a parade to prepare for, you've got boots to put on. You got stuff going on, right? So thank you so much for Making time for me on my podcast. I am thrilled. We will send people your way and I know they're in good hands because you've, you've built that bridge between acting and writing and you have a heart to help people. So I know people are going to love and enjoy your series and your books as readers as well. So we'll send everyone to the website. Again, thank you for being so generous with your time.
- [58:19]
A
Well, and to your audience, you know, just write. Just write. Yeah, I think the, the biggest thing that people say to me about writing is that they don't know how to get started or they don't know how to keep going, or they don't, you know, there's some lack of information about the how of it. And so, you know, I've tried to help with that with the book, but then there's also this thing of that people don't know that you're supposed to tell your stories. Like, that's kind of the whole kit and caboodle. That's why the pyramids are here. You know, like, that's that we're all trying to tell a story. And, and if you don't tell yours, then. And it does. You know, I've said in my book, and I will, and I have said before, but I, I think it's important to remember you don't have to write well for what you write to be important or good. There's a book called Modoc that's this greatest elephant story ever told. And it is one of the best stories I've ever read in my entire life. And it is a terribly poorly written book. It's just, it's written by an elephant trainer. He, you know, probably has an eighth grade education. And so the writing is, eh. But the story is amazing. Amazing. And think if he had let himself be bogged down by, oh, but I didn't write it well enough. Okay, yeah, so. So you didn't write it well enough. And it's existing now. And, and it's. I, I have two personal different friends who have tried to get it made as a movie. So there's money in that man's pocket a couple of times from my friends alone. So, you know, and hopefully one day Modoc will get made. But the point of that is that I do believe we all have a story and I do believe that we should tell our own stories. So even a lot of people come to me and want to. They say, oh, you know, you should write about this. And I'm like, I'm gonna figure out what I write about. And then the other thing that they'll say is, oh, I have this amazing story that you could write. And I'm like, that is an amazing story. You should write that. They're like, yeah, but I don't know how to write. Then you need to write it down and hand it to somebody who will fix it for you. But you have to write down your stories. So it's sort of all back in the dare to fail thing. But that is my battle cry. That is my. That's my whole thing. That. And right on. But right on. You have to see it with the
- [61:01]
B
word right W, R, I, T, e. Yes.
- [61:05]
A
Yeah.
- [61:06]
B
It's very, very funny.
- [61:08]
A
I love it.
- [61:09]
B
Laura, thank you so much for being part of the podcast. Really good to have you here. Love your work. I'm gonna go watch, binge watch a whole bunch of movies from the past again and go, I got to meet Laura and be like, this is so cool. And my wife and I are gonna have, like, some extended video watching to do. So thank you so much for. For all that you put out into the world through your acting career, through your writing, your coaching. Thank you for being so giving and sharing you with us. I really appreciate that.
- [61:41]
A
Thank you.
- [61:50]
B
Okay, well, thank you for being here on Living the Next Chapter. I hope you enjoyed this episode. We enjoyed having you here on the podcast. Our authors are amazing. I hope you appreciate your time, their effort to make this possible. If you know an author, if you want to recommend an author, that's a good idea. Hey, if there's an author that you really would love to hear about or hear from, if you tell me, if you send me a message, you speak pipe on our website, Living the Next Chapter dot com. Send me an email. Go over to livingthenextchapter dot com, send us a message. We will forward your message to that author and say, listen, you are being requested to be on Living the Next Chapter. Our audience can. Can't wait to hear from you. You can help shape the show. Yeah, you could do that right now, actually. You got a minute, right? Okay. How about you do that? Livingthenextchapter. Com. I'll see you over there. Recommend an author. Yeah. See you. Thanks.