← The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
Nuggets of Wisdom from Carley Fortune and Sue Hincenbergs
00:55:41
Author Interviews: Carley Fortune and Sue Hincenbergs
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- [00:01]
Cece Leera
Hi everyone, it's Cece here. If you're a fan of the podcast, then you know that one of my most common notes on the Books with Hooks segment is about writing emotion. And that's because the best stories are the ones that make readers feel. But as a storyteller, you know that pulling that off is hard work. It involves not only the obvious skill of writing emotion really well, but also mastering writing relationships effectively. Since those emotional beats involve the protagonist's relational connections. The best stories are also relationship driven. That's why I'm so excited to announce that I'm teaching a four day class called Writing Emotion and Relationships starting on June 18th. Over the course of four days, we'll cover over 10 hours of content, including active versus passive emotions, how to leverage emotions and relationships into tension, showing versus telling, how to create chemistry between characters, emotional calibration and roles for various characters, from love interest to antagonist, and so much more. And my favorite thing, this course will feature an interactive component. Everyone who signs up will have the option of submitting a scene from their work for a chance to have it critiqued during the course. We did this in my Starting It Right class in March and if you were there, you know it was a smashing success. If you'd like to know more, check out the link in my bio on Instagram. I hope to see you there. Come prepared to take lots of notes.
- [01:45]
Bianca Marais
Hi there and welcome to our show, the shit no one tells you about writing. I'm Bianca Marais and I'm joined by Carly Waters and Cece Leera from PS Literary Agency. Hi everyone. We're really excited to have a return guest today. She probably needs no introduction, but we're going to give her one anyway. So she is the number one New York Times best selling author of Every Summer Meet Me at the Lake and this summer will be different. She's also an award winning Canadian journalist who has worked as an editor for Refinery29, the Globe and Mail, Chatelaine and Toronto Life. She lives in Toronto with her husband and two sons. It's my pleasure to welcome Carly Fortune. Carly, welcome back to the show.
- [02:32]
Carly Fortune
It's so good to be here.
- [02:34]
Bianca Marais
It is amazing to have you back and to just see your star keep rising and to cheer on a Canadian writer this way has just been incredible. So for our listeners, I'm holding up the book that we're discussing today, One Golden Summer. It is the most beautiful, beautiful cover. Carly, can you just quickly tell us who designed it and how much of a say you had in it?
- [02:56]
Carly Fortune
Yeah, so the COVID painting is an original painting by Elizabeth Lenny, who is a Toronto painter. And I have had the good fortune of having her do all of my covers. And we do with every book, meet my editor and I, my agent, and just talk about the kind of, like, visual mood we want to see for the COVID and color palettes. Any, like, particular poses. And we gather up a whole bunch of inspiration and kind of hand that over to the fabulous art department.
- [03:30]
Bianca Marais
And.
- [03:30]
Sue Hensonbergs
Yeah.
- [03:31]
Carly Fortune
And then they take it from there with Elizabeth. And I'm just. I'm very blessed.
- [03:36]
Bianca Marais
Yeah. Because there needs to be continuity there as well, because with somebody like you, with that kind of success, they're going to do, you know, a box set of all your books. And so you want them to kind of look the same, etc. And you want people to be able to go into a bookstore, see the book, and be like, that's a Carly Fortune book.
- [03:53]
Carly Fortune
Yeah. I think that, you know, books are such a beautiful. They can be beautiful objects and objects that we want to look at in our homes. And it's really fun to see readers collecting them. They, like, appreciate that they're all in paperback, so they're all the same size. And we were talking about with One Golden Summer, whether whether it should be in hardcover. And I was like, this is not. That is so unkind. Every summer after. Readers who want it to match their. Every summer after. Because. Yeah. I mean, I also read on my phone, but I do love the physical object of a book.
- [04:29]
Bianca Marais
Yeah. I just want to say that collecting books and reading books are two entirely different hobbies.
- [04:34]
Carly Fortune
Oh, yeah.
- [04:36]
Bianca Marais
And I'm sure that when they bring them all out again in hardcover with a special collector's edition, then those readers will happily get all the hardcover ones. So for our listeners, I'm just reading the flat copy, so you know what we're talking about.
- [04:48]
Sue Hensonbergs
So.
- [04:49]
Bianca Marais
So good things happen at the lake. That's what Alice's grandmother says. And it's true. Alice spent just one summer there at a cottage with Nan when she was 17. It's where she took that photo, the one of three grinning teenagers in the yellow speedboats, that image that changed her life. Now Alice lives behind a lens as a photographer. She's most comfortable on the sidelines, letting other people shine. Lately, though, she's been itching for something more. And when Nan falls and breaks her hip, Alice comes up with a plan for them both. Another summer in that magical place, Barry's Bay. But as soon as they settle in, their peace is disrupted by the roar of A familiar yellow boat and the man driving it, Charlie Florek, was 19 when Alice took his photo from afar. Now he's all grown up. A shameless float who manages to make Nan laugh. And Alice longed to be 17 again when life was simpler, when taking pictures was just for fun. Sun slanted days and warm nights out on the lake with Charlie are a balm for Alice's soul. But when she looks up and sees his piercing green gaze directly on her, she begins to worry for her heart. Because Alice sees people. That's why she is so good at what she does. But she's never met someone who looks and sees her right back. So incredible flat copy there. Okay, so we're going to dive straight in, Carly. So we're back to Barry's Bay. We are, and I hear a whole bunch of our listeners in the background roaring and cheering. And at the back of the book, there's a note where you said you didn't want to write sequel to Every Summer after, but you had so many fans asking for a sequel, asking to be taken back there specifically. They wanted you to give Charlie a happy ending. And you were kind of considering that even before the book came out. So can you take us through that process?
- [06:33]
Carly Fortune
Yeah. So when I finished writing Every Summer after, which was my. My debut novel, even before I had an agent, before I talked to editors, I had started playing with a story from Charlie's point of view. He was my favorite character to write in that book, and it remains my favorite character to write. I have a lot of fun with him. And when I met with my editor for the first time, on our first conversation, she had asked about a second book idea, if I had any other ideas. And I had mentioned Charlie, but I really didn't have a story. I just had him as a character and somebody I wanted to explore more. And then I put that aside and Every Summer after came out and became, you know, a pretty big hit in a way that I did not anticipate at all. And for that summer and even in the years following, people will talk to me at events, they will DM me and they will ask for a sequel. I have been approached pretty, like, passionately by somebody who demanded justice for Charlie. They wanted him to have a love story. I've been pitched ideas on who his romantic partner should be, the characters from Every Summer after, characters from my other books. And when I wrapped my third novel, this Summer Will be different. Writing that book, I felt much more confident as a writer than I had with my second book. And I Felt like it was a good time to go back to him. And I didn't. I didn't want to write a sequel in that I felt like I left the main characters of every summer after where I wanted to leave them. But I did think about Charlie a lot and felt like I was at a place where I could kind of put the pressure that I had felt before to, like, go back to that world to satisfy fans. I could kind of set that aside and just write a book that. That I wanted to write.
- [08:33]
Bianca Marais
I have a whole bunch of questions following that, but something you've just said is something that I would like to pursue right now, is that you said after writing the third book, you felt like a much better writer, a much stronger writer. Like, how does that evolution come? Is it from all the success and people saying amazing things and that reinforces it, or does that just give you more imposter syndrome? Because for every person who's going to love it, there's going to be people who are like, oh, my God, this does not live up to the hype. This is crazy crap. And who want to tear you down. So I guess if you're looking for external validation, you're going to get external criticism as well. So for you, how did you get to the point where you felt within yourself that you were a better and a stronger writer?
- [09:16]
Carly Fortune
I think because my second book was so difficult to write, and having gone through that process and at the end, coming out with a book that I was so proud of, and then I dove into my third book, and that was a very challenging writing situation in my personal life. It was very difficult to get that book done. But I. And I had a lot of rewrites to do, but it felt like there was less imposter syndrome. I did the hard book. I did not nail it on the first draft like I would have liked to have, and I still got it done. And so with my third book, I felt like, I'll get it done. I'm going to not put so much pressure on myself for it to be perfect out of the gate. I'll get it there. And it was just a more joyful experience writing the book and felt like I could go into one golden summer with more confidence in my ability to write. Just write a book. But, yeah, it really doesn't have anything to do with the external at all. Because just like you said, if you want evidence that you're great, you can find it. If you want evidence that you're unoriginal and people hate you, you can Find that too.
- [10:27]
Bianca Marais
Yeah. It's insane how brutal people can actually be. And I think that's something that nobody really proposes pairs writers for. Because, you know, I say to my husband, he works in banking, I was like, imagine every one of your Excel spreadsheets goes out into the world for everybody to have an opinion about it. And some people's opinions are really mean. And it seems to be very popular on Goodreads. Like, the more mean you are, the more likes you get. So it kind of encourages that kind of behavior. So for writers, you know, you have to. We are sensitive people. This is why we write. And yet we have to build up, like a really thick skin against that.
- [11:01]
Carly Fortune
Yeah, I don't know if I will ever be able to fully build up a thick skin, to be quite honest. We're humans and we hurt. And I don't think I'll ever not feel nervous about a book coming out or I think that's just part of doing this work is there are times when you feel vulnerable. Or maybe this is just for me, like how I just have kind of accepted that sometimes things are scary, sometimes things hurt, and a lot of time they're wonderful. But, yeah, I think I was better with the lead up to One Golden Summer than ever before. Like, I. I have in the past gone onto Goodreads and just like, looked for bad reviews. You know, I just want to. It's like pressing a bruise. Like, let me just feel bad. And I did not do that with One Golden Summer. But I do, you know, I do wish that that site was designed to create more healthy opinions rather than rewarding bullying and some pretty frankly disgusting commentary.
- [12:01]
Bianca Marais
Yeah, absolutely. I think this is why I want to give a shout out to storygraph, which I think is doing a much better job there. But again, any platform and people will people, man. And some people will people hard in bad ways. All right, so coming back now to the book and what you said as well is a big thing. I think perhaps struggling with a sophomore novel is something that's going to happen after you've had huge success with the first book. I don't know how soon you started it. Was it before you even knew how successful the book was going to be?
- [12:34]
Carly Fortune
Yes. I started my sophomore novel before every summer after it was published. So there was no, you know, reader feedback. I didn't know what would happen with that book. But I now had a publishing team who I felt very obligated to. I had a deadline and I was also postpartum. I was pregnant when I wrote Every summer after. And then I did the copy edits for that book in two weeks just before I gave birth, had a baby, and a couple months later started writing my second book on a book a year schedule. And I suffered from postpartum anxiety with both of my births. And that's not. It's not a great headspace to be in writing your sophomore novel either. And I, and I do realize now, with more distance, how just that just compounded all the self doubt that I was experiencing. And also, we made a, like, we made a lot of life changes before every summer after came out just because of the pandemic. So all of these things were changing in my life at that time.
- [13:34]
Bianca Marais
And.
- [13:35]
Carly Fortune
Yeah, so Meet Me at the Lake was particularly fraught, which is why I think I'm so proud of it. You know, we can do the hard things and, and keep going.
- [13:44]
Bianca Marais
Yeah, we definitely can. And I just, I want to say that I think as writers, this is something we need to talk about more because we focus so much on Bum in Chair. And I'm, I'm guilty of this. Earlier in the podcast, I was just like, bum in Chair. It's the only way the book's gonna get written. But whether it's postpartum anxiety or whether, for me, something I've been struggling with terribly the last two years has been menopausal anxiety and brain fog, and of course, the world is a bit of a dumpster fire right now. And for people who are sensitive and anxious, that is difficult. It is a difficult space in which to create, and sometimes it just isn't possible. Sometimes you really need to just cut yourself some slack. Were you ever able to do that, Carly? Or was it a case of, oh, my God, I have this deadline and so there is no cutting myself slack?
- [14:32]
Carly Fortune
I was not able to cut myself slack. I wouldn't have been able to see that I needed to cut myself slack. I had a deadline. I'm very deadline driven. But that was the biggest challenge with my second book, is getting that first draft done. And I didn't know if I could do it a second time. Like, I wrote one book. I didn't know if I was able to write a second book in that headspace. And so after that, after I finished my first draft and I got my edits back and had to rewrite a huge, huge chunk of the book in a short period of time, it was much easier for me. I was like, okay, I did, did that. It didn't work out perfectly. I will just. I am very ass in Chair. Like, I'll just keep working on it. When you're on this, like, schedule, it is ass in chair. But, yeah, so I was not able to do that. And I'm. But now I am trying to figure out how to give myself more space while still writing on a pretty. It's a pretty grueling schedule, actually.
- [15:32]
Bianca Marais
It's crazy. If I just. I mean, it's a book a year that is, you know, and these are not fluffy books. I just want our listeners to know. I get so annoyed when I hear people talk about summer reads and beach reads like they, you know, completely fluffy. I mean, we've got a grandmother who's facing down her mortality in this book who is depressed, who is having to give up so much of her independence. You know, we are dealing with big themes here. There's other things, too. I don't want to give things away, just the things early out the gate. And so, you know, this is not easy to write because you are having to dig deep within your own emotional sort of. Well, to pull up all these feelings, to write these things authentically and to do so, like, to push them out one after the other. It's tough. And if you consider babies and everything else. Kali, I don't know how the hell you did it.
- [16:24]
Carly Fortune
I really appreciate you saying that, truly, because I've been waking up very early lately so I can get a draft finished of my next book on schedule. And I woke up one day this week and I was like, I need to rip apart the first eight chapters of this book. Like, I ha. Like, I. I know exactly what's wrong, and I need to do that. And I was like, I was so proud of myself like this. I like, I put so much into the books. And, you know, I mostly, like, I can let certain comments pass me by, but sometimes, like, you'll see, you know, somebody once saw a video of, like, a bookseller who I really, really admired talking about the books, books that had come in that week. And, you know, they were talking about certain novels and then held out mine and it was like another summer read and threw it. I was like, oh, my heart, that hurts. That hurts so much. And I love a summer read, and I love a beach read, but they. It is a tremendous amount of work that many of us who are writing a book a year are doing within that year.
- [17:31]
Bianca Marais
Really, a bookseller should know better. Firstly, that bugs me for that reason. But secondly, I think this is why I have loved your success so much. Because, you know, CanLit is. It can be really Snobbish. It's like, well, if it's not literary, it's not worth anything. It's not very good. And certainly if it's based in Canada, in, you know, someone like Barry's Bayard, it can't be very good. And yet we have seen your success across the world, and we've seen your fans growing, and it just makes me be like, ha, take that. You know, look at Carly going out there and doing it. Okay, so coming back to readers expectations, you said in the. In an author's Notes as well that once a book comes out into the world, it's no longer yours. It becomes the fan's book. And they will have strong opinions. But then that can put huge pressure on you as well, because you're wanting to give them the same experience that they first enjoyed. But you want to create something that's your own. And it's great that people come up and are like, I know who the character should be that he falls in love with, but this is your work. So speak a bit about tuning out expectations from publishers, from your readers, to really just sit down, staring down the blank page and come up with something that you want to do.
- [18:46]
Carly Fortune
Yeah, I'm really lucky to have a very, very supportive publishing team and supportive editors. So I, you know, don't feel that kind of pressure there. There is certainly my own pressure to get it right for readers who feel so passionately about every summer after this book. It's a book that I realize is like a gateway book for a lot of readers. It's a book that has got them into reading or back to reading. And, you know, I like, I've been to Brazil, and people are obsessed with every summer after in Brazil. Like, it's really, really traveled. And I think for me, it was about out. I knew it was different from my other books because they all start with setting. For me, like, as an idea, it starts with setting, and then it starts with the protagonist and who she is. And then what does she need? What does she need in a partner? What are her life circumstances? What are the other journeys she's going on? And with this book, I had the setting and I had him and Charlie. I, like, I really know who he is. And it was difficult to figure out who I wanted to write about for this book because I did not want to pander to fans. I did not want to just say, okay, here is more Barry's Bay. Here's more Percy than Sam. Here's another love story. In this setting. I really wanted to find A character who was compelling for a book in its own right. You can read this book if you haven't read every summer after. And I auditioned more than a dozen characters to find Alice because I was trying to figure out who Charlie's match was, but then who she was. And how did that kind of make sense in the setting? How did it make sense with him? And I wrote 11,000 words of a different character that I put in the trash until I found Alice. And that was. Once I had her, I was really able to kind of tune the rest of it out because it was really about. It was about Alice's journey. And what does that look like? And I also. I did want it to be a very delightful book. So, like, how can I make this as delightful as possible while also tackling some. Some tough stuff? And I really just gave myself permission to put the readers out of my head.
- [21:02]
Bianca Marais
Yeah. And I think that's important to do that because otherwise the head becomes a crowded space, and that makes it impossible to write. And for our listeners, a lot of what Colleen I've been talking about comes down to what I keep saying on the podcast, which is circling the building of your work to find your way in to the right building so that you can live there, as opposed to getting to the point where you've got to trash however many chapters and start again because you had the wrong protagonist or you started at the wrong place. So don't forget my course that's coming out on the 13th of May for that. Something I want to read here, because I'm going to discuss shortly how you auditioned your characters. But here there's something that you wrote, and I underlined it, and I was like, oh, my God, this is so me. I was like, I am Alice. So it says a thing about me. I once broke my wrist in 9th grade gym class and spent 24 hours gritting my teeth against the pain until I finally told my mom I might need to see a doctor. I don't like asking for help or being an inconvenience or wasting anyone's time. And then she says, this phone call incorporates all three. Charlie is clearly in the middle of something. And I read that, and it resonated with me so much because I was like, oh, my God, that is just. Just so me. Is that a bit like you as well, Carly? Or is it you that you had to make up this character completely?
- [22:25]
Carly Fortune
No, I really. I really relate to that. I did once break my wrist and waited all day until the night when I was like, I think this is not good. And I don't like inconveniencing people. I'm really bad at asking for help. I'm getting better. I'm 41 now, so I've learned. I know myself better. But I think a lot of people will relate to that.
- [22:50]
Bianca Marais
Yeah, yeah. And there was a meme that I saw once that said, tell me you're bad at asking for help without telling me that. And it showed a woman, I think she was in New York carrying a washing machine by herself up the stairs out of the subway system. And people were like, I mean, she was dropping it. She was falling down the stairs. And people like, can we help? And she was like, no, I can do this. I can do this. And this is so much of Alice. And I was reading and I was like, oh my God, this is so much of me. So I really needed to see her character arc. I was like, I'm taking notes in terms of accepting help. Something else that you did incredibly well. And I. I know we're running out of time, and I'm mindful of that. I just want to read this particular section for our listeners because remember, we keep talking about planting curiosity seeds and watering them. And it doesn't matter what genre you're writing in. It really doesn't. Whether you're writing romance, whether you're writing thriller, literary fiction, even quieter novels, you need to keep readers engaged and turning pages. And this is the perfect example of that. So it goes. In my final year of university, a group of students organized an exhibition for our work in an empty storefront in the West End. We thought we had talent, knew it, really. My best friend Oz swiped our profs under overstuffed roller deck, an antiquated object even then, its position on his desk, an obvious brag, and sent an email to every gallerist, buyer, collector and journalist in the thing. I sold my first piece, a print of One Golden Summer, to an art buyer for one of the big banks whose CEO came from generations of cottages. I spent the hundred dollars on a vintage Pentax after Oz talked the seller down by 25 bucks. Now the image hangs somewhere in an office tower downtown, and Oz and I don't speak, but I still have the camera, and it's just a throwaway line. I still have the camera. Oz and I don't speak. And boom, I'm like, oh my God, what happened with Oz? And I'm starting to come up with theories. And that's when you've got the reader hooked. So speak a bit about that throughout in terms of calibration for tension.
- [24:56]
Carly Fortune
Yeah, I think that's right. It is a curiosity seed, and it's something that I'm always refining, especially in my first draft. You know, I've revised my first draft a number of times before I submit it. And a lot of it, I'm realizing, is I will automatically front load backstory, and it's too much. We don't need to know all of these things. And I'm not a plotter, so I'm just kind of automatically dumping backstory because I'm trying to understand the character and what motivates them. And then I was, as I'm reading, it's like, okay, I can take most of this and sprinkle it throughout the book and just hint at point some something that would be interesting to learn about this character later on, like, what happened with Oz? And I find, like, if I read unpublished manuscripts from a newer writer, that's often the advice that I'm giving. It's like, wow, you're telling me everything about this character, and we don't need to know most of this until later. And so you can just kind of take a little piece of that backstory and kind of hint at what it means.
- [26:04]
Bianca Marais
Yeah. I would challenge our listeners to look at your first 30 pages, look at backstory, you've given us exposition, the way you've explained who so and so is and how they met them. Highlight that stuff and see if you can't pull it out. Pepper it throughout and use it as curiosity seeds instead of exposition or backstory. Carly, thank you so much for your time. For those of you watching on our YouTube channel, I'm holding up one golden summer. It is an absolute beauty of a book, the one you're going to want to have facing out on your bookshelves. We're linking to it on our bookshop. Org affiliate page. If you get it there, you support an independent bookstore and the podcast at the same time. Carly, we wish you much success with this book and can't wait to see what you come up with next.
- [26:44]
Carly Fortune
Thank you so much.
- [26:46]
Unknown
As usual, let's dive right into planning my vacation and summer wardrobe. This time of year, we get out the summer clothes and they feel a little bit tired. As you guys know, I travel for conferences and events so I can meet and greet with you all. And I'm off to the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books in late May to see my client teared away it and gearing up for France as soon as the kids are out of school. I'm preparing by upgrading my daily wardrobe with quints like lightweight European linen styles from $30, washable silk tops and comfy lounge sets. The best part? All quince Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, quince gives you luxury without the markup. And quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. I love that I got the Mongolian Cashmere tea in heather gray. It is so soft and so chic. The quality and price blew me away. I don't know why I would pay mall prices when I have quints. I've literally worn it every day since it arrived. No joke. And I should probably wash it soon, but I don't want to be away from it. I dress it up for work with tailored black pants and dress it down with jeans and layers of necklaces. I also grabbed a pair of blue kids swim trunks with sharks on them. Super cute for my son so he's ready to swim when we get to the south of France. Treat your closet to a little summer glow up with quince. Go to quince.com T S N O T Y a w for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N C E.com T S N O-T Y A W to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com T S N O T Y A W this spring watching everything outside bloom. I'm also watching my kids blossom in their French Immersion program at school. It's amazing but also a big motivator for me, especially because we are headed to France next month. I want to be able to join in more you know Paris. If you want to connect more with your kids language journey or maybe prep for your own adventure this season. Rosetta Stone helps build those skills Rosetta Stone is the trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years, offering an immersive and effective approach that help absorb and retain new language naturally on desktop and mobile wherever and whenever it fits your lifestyle. It is a trusted expert for 30 years with millions of users in 25 languages offered. Spanish, French, Italian, German, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Arabic, Polish and so many more. There's fast language acquisition you can immerse in so many ways. No English translations. It's an intuitive process. And don't forget the speech recognition True Accent feature. It gives you feedback on your pronunciation. It's very convenient. Flexible learning anytime, anywhere on the go with the mobile app or on your desktop at your schedule. And there's amazing value Lifetime membership for all 25 languages for any and all trips and language needs in your life. Lifetime access so don't wait. Unlock your language learning potential. Now the shit about writing Listeners can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off. That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life. Visit RosettaStone.com today to get started and claim your 50% off today.
- [30:00]
Bianca Marais
Don't miss out.
- [30:01]
Unknown
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- [30:07]
Bianca Marais
Have you been back and forth with your work in progress, wistfully trying to recapture those early feelings of passion? Has there been lots of yelling and going to bed? Angry floods of tears as you shovel ice cream into your mouth, trying to figure out why you just can't make it work? It's not you, it's me. You might have whispered I just can't give you what you need. And maybe it is time to break up. But isn't it worth one last shot to try and figure things out? Couples counseling for you and your manuscript. Let's do it. Sign up for the Circling the building of your work webinar and be prepared to either rekindle that flame or walk away for good knowing you did everything you could to save it. The webinar is happening on the 13th of May from 7 to 10pm Eastern Time. It will be recorded for all the delegates and the recording and the resources will be sent out the next day. To sign up, go to my website biancamarae.com and go to the courses tab. Hope to see you there. Hi everyone. Today's guest is a TV producer who left the daunting hours of morning television for music specials. She lives in Toronto with her husband and her middle aged, scruffy rescue dog, Kramer, and hopes one of her three sons will drop by for a visit. The retirement plan is her first novel it's my pleasure to welcome Sue Hensonbergs. Sue, welcome to the show.
- [31:30]
Sue Hensonbergs
Thank you Bianca. It's so nice to be here. It's a real full circle moment for me.
- [31:35]
Bianca Marais
I know, and it's especially wonderful to have you here because of your story, which we will get to now. So for our listeners, sue has been a long time listener of the podcast, probably one of our earliest listeners, and she very kindly told me all the ways in which the podcast benefited her and she has had the most incredible journey to publication, which we will get to shortly. In the meantime, for those of you watching on the YouTube channel, I'm holding up the book the Retirement Plan. Awesome attention grabbing cover and I'm just going to read the flat copy to you for some context. After 30 years of friendship, Pam dreams of a perfect retirement with Nancy, Shalisa, Marlene and their husbands. Until their husbands pull their funds for an investment that goes terribly wrong and their dreams of beachfront condos and a sunny, carefree retirement vanish. The golden years are looking as dreary as their marriages. But when one husband dies in a freak accident, the other three women are shocked to see his widow rebound with a huge life insurance payout and a new life in Florida. In the aftermath, the women discover that their husbands have identical seven figure life insurance policies. Ding ding ding. A new dream forms and this time it involves a hitman. Meanwhile, their husbands have a secret retirement plan of their own. So when things begin to go awry, they fear their own scheme may have backfired with deadly consequences. The husbands scramble to stay alive, but they may not be fast enough to outmaneuver their wives. What follows is a high stakes tale of cat and mouse. Both laugh out loud, funny and unbearably tense, while ultimately a big hearted look at marriage, friendship and middle age. So, so much to love there. Before we're going to dive into the book itself and everything that you learned from the podcast, sue, please take us through your magical journey to publication. Because I know it's the kind that our listeners dream of and there are always so many awful, dreary, slogging stories and then we hear your story and it just makes my heart sing. So please take us through that.
- [33:44]
Sue Hensonbergs
Well, sure. Well, I knew what to dream for because I'd listened to your podcast so I kind of knew what, what was possible. And I loved, I loved hearing those stories of how you got an agent and that. I googled every author I saw that had a debut novel coming out. I would debut how they got an agent and so I'll say the retirement plan is kind of my Cinderella story. But it came on the heels of two ugly stepsisters that I started writing in the winter of 20 or the summer of 2020 and I wrote a novel, queried it 198 times. I couldn't quite make myself do 100 query letters, so I stopped at 98. I took a hint. There was no interest. I think in the 98 I had two requests for full manuscripts and then that came rejections. Then I wrote a second book and I stopped at 50 queries for that one. I took that hit and then I thought I wasn't going to Give up. But I didn't want to keep writing the same thing. So I just thought, I'm going to try again. And I started writing the retirement Plan, January of 2023. I finished it that summer. And by the time I queried, I queried, keeping in mind, 150 times by then. So I knew what agents I wanted to go to. I knew how to structure a query letter. I'd done all that. I did the letter. I sent it out on a Saturday afternoon in July, and I sent out four queries. I had two requests for the full manuscript in that day. Like, one came 20 minutes after I sent it out. I couldn't believe it. I thought, okay, well, this guy just has nothing to do, you know? So anyway, so I had two. And by Monday, I had four requests for the full. But I also knew not to just rest on that, that it's a numbers game. And so I kept what I called aggressive of querying for all of July, the rest of July, August into September. And then it came September. I finally had a request for the call. And I remember that moment, I was sitting in this chair and, oh, my God, like, and, okay, that time I'd queried 197 times by the time the call came. And I remember, I. My head went back, I looked at the ceiling and I thought, am I going to cry? Like, finally, finally, somebody likes my book, you know, like, they've read it, they like it. And then within, like, a couple weeks, I'd signed with an agent. Because then I also knew from listening to the podcast and having done research that once you get the request for a call, then you've got to nudge everybody else that hasn't rejected you. So those emails went out. And then I had a few offers of representation. I signed with an agent, and then I went with a UK agent. And she timed it. It was just right around the Frankfurt Book Fair, which is a huge event. And she said, we don't want to do anything before then. We want to wait, give everybody a week to come back from the book fair and relax. So it went out on submission in early November, I think, like November 7th. It went out on a Monday. And that same day, she started to get answers back that we knew there'd be offers coming. So there wasn't even. Like, I didn't. I never had the worry would die on submission, like, right away, she knew. And then by the end of that week, we had deals settled. We sold it in the. And then Canada, the United States. It's being published in The UK by Little Brown. And Canada, The United states joined together. HarperCollins, William Morrow in the United States, and HarperCollins Canada in Canada. And we sold the movie rights within a couple weeks. And then foreign publishers. We've sold it to 20 other countries so far. So it was absolutely like a dream come true that I couldn't have even dared hope for, except I'd read it. It happens sometimes.
- [37:13]
Bianca Marais
So, yeah, it's that Cinderella story of writing, which we love to hear, because what debut author doesn't want this kind of debut? And, you know, what I love is that it came at the back of so much work. Like, you said, it was the Two Ugly Sisters beforehand. Because, you know, it's so easy to look at this huge success and go, oh, my God, it happened so fast. She sent it out, she got the agents. They were all interested. Then they sent it out, and all the publishers were interested, and it just happened. Boom, boom, boom. But what we forget is all the time that was spent before figuring out your craft, figuring out your voice, figuring out, you know, what you wanted to write. And I know when you and I first spoke, you spoke about having a kind of Bridget Jones quality to an earlier work that you wanted to do and how the voice evolved from that. Can you speak a bit about that?
- [38:05]
Sue Hensonbergs
Sure. Because when I first started, I had the dream to write a novel, but I didn't really know how to or if I could. But I loved Bridget Jones, and I love that Helen Fielding structured it like a diary entry through, if you remember. And it had humor. And I always felt that I had to bring humor. I just. I'm not a literary writer. I'm a. I have. There's a lot of humor in. In it. I enjoy that the most. So with the structures that Helen Fielding used, I researched. Like, how did Helen Fielding write her book? And she had started with articles. She had newspaper articles about being a single woman. And then somebody gave her the idea of writing a writing, making that into a novel. And so then she knew she had to structure it such, you know, as. As a novel. So then she found out that Pride and Prej was a good example. So Bridget Jones's diary is just exactly the replica, even down to Mark Darcy. Right. The name of Pride and Prejudice. So then I looked around for anything that I could structure. I didn't find anything. That's probably why that book didn't work, because I just was doing it so much on the fly. But. Well, she had done anecdotes about single life. You know, I had three Little boys that are grown men now. But there's a lot of parent anecdotes. And so it was kind of like a mum book about parenting. And it had the heart and humor of parenthood and I likened it. My comps were like yoga, Pant Nation and oh, gosh, there's a book, why Mummy Drinks. It's a big book in the uk. I don't know if it really did much over in North America, but those were the kind of comps. And so I wrote that book. 98 rejections. So obviously it didn't resonate with anybody. And then the next book, I tried to do it more in a normal structure, like first, first person. And that book again, 50 rejections. And then the third book, the retirement plan, I just thought, like, dive in and why not? And I went to multiple pov. I even had to Google when to write in multiple pov. I just wasn't sure. I feel like I should do it, but I didn't know if I should, but I decided just, like, try it. And then I just thought, write what I want to read. And I like those kind of books. So I just started and it went. It flew along.
- [40:07]
Bianca Marais
Yeah, I love all of that. And I love that just diving in and trying it, because you don't know if something's going to work until you've tried it it. And, you know, when I talk about circling the building of your entry, that includes trying out past tense, present tense, single pov, multi pov. Is it first person, Is it third person? Is it second person? Like, what works best? And sometimes we tend to overthink it in the early phases. I know at the moment something I've been working on, I've completely overthought it. But it's lovely when you can just figure it out and you dive in and it does work. And this book is so funny. You know, there's just so much to love here. It's such a romp, madcap, kind of escapist romp. It's a genre blend, which I loved. Can you tell us, when you queried it, what were your comps for this novel?
- [40:54]
Sue Hensonbergs
Yeah, the first I had a tagline. Even though I know there's advice not to have a tagline. I did have one and it was when Ocean's Eleven meets Bad Sisters. And then I had another tagline. It said, some retirement plans you don't discuss with your accountant. And I just thought, like, why not? You know, I've queried so many and some didn't work. I might as well, try this and then the actual comps. I have to think about that. I might even have to look it up because I changed so much. Isn't that crazy?
- [41:22]
Bianca Marais
In terms of the things that you learned from the podcast, I'd love for us to go through that and then I can specifically focus on those things in your book. So I know that you said there were various aspects that you learned in terms of craft. Craft, the business side of writing and community. So can we begin with the craft side of things? Sure.
- [41:41]
Sue Hensonbergs
I would listen to your podcast as I walked my dog at night. I think it was just looking for insights because there I was and this was early on. I was like, I think an early listener. And this is probably when I was working on the first book. And it was just little things like that are so obvious to everybody listening. You're gonna laugh. But it was like, show, don't tell. I didn't even know about that concept. I was like, oh, yeah, like, he's not tall wall. His head brushed the top of the door frame. I thought, oh, I like that. You know, that was one. And then this is a really little pet peeve I think you have that you'd mentioned about how you don't wave your hand, you don't shrug your shoulders. What else are you going to. Wait. What else are you going to shrug? That one's always stuck in my mind, and I've cleaned that up out of several manuscripts. Now you have a pet peeve that you write about that I kind of ignore because I don't have much more in imagination, which is eyes. I have very active eyes in my writing. Eyes draw, drop, they snap, they scrape over. They do everything. And I know it should be the gaze, you know, his gaze shifted. But I just. I can only write gaze so many times, probably so. So I do keep snapping eyes and dropping eyes.
- [42:44]
Bianca Marais
I like all of that. I don't have a problem with that. I know that there was one author. I don't want to misquote him. I think it was Dean Koontz who said that, you know, his eyes followed her across the room. He was like, that's completely wrong. His eyes cannot jump out of his head head and follow her across the room. It's like his gaze tracked her across the room. But yeah, you know, it's up to each writer to decide how they going to do that. And like you said, there's only so many times you can say gaze, and that kind of thing doesn't bug me at all. But in terms of show, don't tell. You know, I really think you mastered that along the way because you've got these incredible scenes and you've got a big cast of characters for a debut. There are a lot of characters. Characters. I know there are. How many POV characters are they?
- [43:28]
Sue Hensonbergs
4. The wife, her husband, her husband's boss, and their hitman.
- [43:34]
Bianca Marais
And the hitman. Right. So we've got four POVs that are in the third person, all great, but in each of their POVs, they've got a group of friends who you've got to get to know. Especially with women who are all the same age who are, you know, very good friends, but there isn't much to distinguish them in terms of age etc. So you've got to work so much harder as the author so that it's a scene when all of these women are sitting together. When somebody says something, you're like, oh, that's so Pam. It's so typical of Pam. Of course she'd say that, or of course Marlene would say that, etc. So, you know, these scenes came alive in a way that we had multiple people interjecting, speaking, this one getting annoyed with that one. Like, what is your advice to readers who have big ensemble costs? How to differentiate characters, how to make each one stand out while also maintaining that POV character so that the secondary characters don't take over.
- [44:29]
Sue Hensonbergs
I don't know if I have really good advice on that just because I think they're probably still pretty superficial.
- [44:34]
Bianca Marais
In.
- [44:35]
Sue Hensonbergs
In each of the characters, I did have the two teams of people. There were the wives and the husbands. And in my mind, I knew people would have problems kind of keeping four wives straight and four husbands straight. It ended in three because one dies. But still, I thought as long as they know they're the husbands and the wives and then they can kind of enjoy the nuances about the characters in that. But mainly as long they just had to hang on that it's the husbands and the wives and know that and go along for the ride. And then I did try and have some kind of quirk, like one of them is particularly money conscious. And then the husband's. One of them's always snacking. And again, see, that's pretty superficial, right? Like, you're not going to win a Giller Prize on having a character whose main trait is that he always has a granola bar in his pocket. But. But it was fun for me that. That they had these little jibes at each other, that they knew each other so well, that that was the kind of thing that they would, you know, kid each other about and just jest about.
- [45:31]
Bianca Marais
Yeah, but those kinds of habits are so important in this kind of thing because I think too many authors just rely solely on how a character looks. It's like, oh, she's the red head. Oh, she's the one with the short hair. Oh, she's the one with the gray hair. But there's only so many times in the scene mean that you can refer to physical traits without it getting really annoying or boring. But having one character every time they get together, be like, you owe me this much money and we need to split the bill perfectly, etc. Then you're like, oh, that's so her. Right. And that would speak to bigger character character traits as well. And the same as the guy who's constantly snacking. It could be nervous eating it gives him something to hat in his pocket, which differentiates him from other people. He may be an emotional eater, it may be that he's got a high metabolism, etc. So for our listeners, you know, sue saying, oh, this is not going to win you the gilla. Listen, this book is not supposed to be a Giller book. And this is what we've said. There's so much sort of snobbery in Canadian literature. What has value, what is literary as opposed to what is Helliver? Entertaining, hugely page turning and still incredibly, incredibly well written without being super obscure. So I think what you did was, was excellent. Okay, let's move on to the business side of, you know, what you learned on the podcast, how if you want to be published, querying is as important as writing. And we all know that the writing is the fun part, that's the magical part, that's the part that we have control over. But as soon as you start querying, you know it's completely out of your hands. Do you feel like you became more strategic from each book from book one to book two to book three? I know you said it was a hundred queries, then fifty queries, then fewer queries. How did, how did that evolve in terms of your strategy?
- [47:22]
Sue Hensonbergs
I did become more strategic. I remember thinking again, most of my great thoughts came while I was walking the dog. And I can still remember on my walk exactly what tree I was looking at while he was sniffing and thinking, if somebody died in this picture book, I bet you I could sell it. And because again, I thought the second book, particularly the first book, when I look back at it, it's Creative 101. Like that, that's another craft thing I learned don't start a book at waking up. You know, mom waking up in the chaos. Book number one starts with the mom waking up. So by the time I got to the third book, and I thought the second book was as good as some that were on the shelves, I'm pretty sure of that. But still, I couldn't crack into anything. And the third book. Book, I just thought I read a lot, so what do I like to read? Because I'm. I'm the typical consumer. So if I would buy a book I want to read, then write one I want to read, and. And that's how I approached the third book.
- [48:15]
Bianca Marais
Yeah. Were you seeing a space in the market in terms of. With older female protagonists, and you were like, okay, there is a space in the market. Or was it just a case of this is what I want to read, so this is what I'm going to write?
- [48:27]
Sue Hensonbergs
Yeah. I wasn't that strategic in looking at the market. The one thing I did do which I think was really smart was early on, I got a subscription to Publishers Marketplace. So I would watch the deals every day. I would read them. It would land in my mailbox, and I. I'd go through them all, and often, like, there I was writing my book, which I thought, and this is like, even book one and book two, which I thought was good. But I'd read these other. These blurbs of the deals that were being made, and I think, I want to read that book. It's like, I want to become an agent and rep that book. Why can't I write a book like that? And it's just that it was just like the. The two lines, you know, sentences that summarize the plot made me want to read that book. And I thought, I don't know if I'd want to read that book I'm writing now. But it kind of made it aspirational for me that I wanted to write something that would, in two lines, could grab me enough that. That I'd be dying for that book. And actually, there are some of those books that I kept track of that as they've come to publication. Now I've read and really enjoyed.
- [49:23]
Bianca Marais
I love that despite listening to the podcast and hearing our advice and saying, do this, don't do that, you still went with that tagline because, what, there are some retirement plans you don't tell your accountant? I mean, that is pure literary gold. And it's probably something, you know, Carly on the podcast would be, oh, don't begin with that. But sometimes there are exceptions or saying this meets that. That's really going to grab people's attention. So I think you had a great hook, you had a great premise and beginning with that would certainly grab my attention. So again, for our listeners, you know, we will give so many rules and we'll be like, do this, do that. But every now and again you're going to come across someone who had brilliant success by ignoring all of that and going with their gut. Right, Sue?
- [50:01]
Sue Hensonbergs
Yeah, exactly. And I think again, because I would read other people's other successful authors query letters to see what got an agent. If I was looking for an agent and I was planning to query them, I'd see who they had on their list and then I would just Google to see if that author had published their query letter and went from that I can't remember. I might misspeak. It might have been been Bonnie Garmis, but somebody very successful had a tagline. And I think it might even be in the Curtis Brown School in the UK that they had a course for how to write a query letter. And I think they might have suggested a tagline too. So that was just thought and it was like you said, I just went with my gut. I thought I had a good line. I thought if I didn't have a good line, I wouldn't have forced it. But I thought I had a good one and I had a pretty good, you know, X meets Y. Ocean's Eleven was old, but still it was iconic and Bad Sisters was new the thing. Bad Sisters, though it probably didn't have as much traction. It had a lot of traction in the UK and I think it's a brilliant show, but I don't know if it's that well received in the, in North America. But still, I just, I took a chance.
- [51:04]
Bianca Marais
Yeah, I also, also love that show. Excellent storytelling. Okay, so now coming to Community because, you know, I say all the time that writing community is so important. That's why I do the beta reader matchups. I used to in the beginning be like, and I think you will remember this, Sue, Way back I did writing group matchups and soon after that I realized that writing groups require chemistry. What I can do with the beta reader matchup is I can guarantee you will be matched up with people in your genre more or less the same time zone as you, and you can read 3,000 words of each other's work, but I can't guarantee that you guys are going to get along and that you're going to want to stay together long term. So I changed it from A writing group to beta reader matchups. But I think you were one of the people who actually signed up early on for one of the writing group matchups, weren't you?
- [51:55]
Sue Hensonbergs
I did. And that was the, the biggest thing I think I got from the podcast was the sense of community. Because first of all, I realized I wasn't the only one who was like, you know, thought I could write a novel and was trying to get it published. So it was really great to hear that other people were in that same boat and were having the same roadblocks I was. And then, then I think from the podcast I learned how important it was to get other people's eyes on your work. I had, at that point, I was trying to get everybody I knew who I knew was a reader who would read. I remember the first book I made little packages, gift packages. I went and got, I don't know, probably 10 copies printed off at Staples. I gave them markers and post it notes and candy and everything and dropped the packages off at. People I knew knew I didn't want to be like two great friends, but I wanted to be people that I knew who read. And I got some feedback. A couple people I never heard from at all. Like, not that I read it, that I didn't read it, like, nothing. They just completely ghosted me.
- [52:54]
Bianca Marais
Oh my God. And then you're like, was it that bad or were you busy or whatever? This is the worst thing you can do to write it. Do not ghost a writer. Rather say my life got hectic or you know, even be like, I read it. It really wasn't for me. So I decided I wasn't the right person to critique your work. Right?
- [53:10]
Sue Hensonbergs
Yeah, yeah, it was kind of embarrassing that way. Fortunately, I haven't seen them since and I didn't give them books, two or three. But then in my family, like my sister was a good reader, but she just breezed through it. She told me it was wonderful, but she passed it to teachers she knew who then read it. And I got some, some specific feedback, like I used ellipsis too much and, and I had my EM dashes wrong and, and things like that. They'd taken some creative writing courses and so they gave me that input, which was probably the most like nuts and bolts that I'd had. And then my sister in law is an avid moviegoer. Artsy movies. Her son's in film school at nyu. So big on plot. Her copy came back with probably 100 post it notes. So that was really constructive, but that's really all I had. Aside from, oh, yeah, it's really good. Good luck. So I needed more objective eyes. So I joined up. I was so happy. I was looking on Facebook, Facebook for groups and that. And then you had your. Your matchup. So I joined that group in October 2021. And we still meet once a month. That group, there's, you know, a veterinarian, a journalist and a TV producer and me. The four of us are together up still. I joined three other groups. Two of them kind of fell away, and then another one I joined two years ago and. And we still meet as well. And that first group from October 2021, they were the first, like, totally objective eyes on anything I'd written. And. And that was book two, which didn't sell. But they thought they appreciated the humor. Like, I wasn't sure if the humor was hitting. But we'd share a document in the Google Doc and we'd each make a copy and we'd put our own comments through the doc. And I would look down and they'd have like, LOL or like, happy face emojis. I think, okay, that one works. Or there'd be the same case. I don't, you know, I'm not getting this joke. You're confusing me here, you know, Then they'd point out the inconsistencies. And the big thing, aside from, like, line level, was plausibility. We spent a lot of time discussing in all our writing the plausibility of a character. Would a character really do that? And that type of thing? And that just. It was the most constructive, you know, voices that I had. And we just. For me personally, I was looking forward to that monthly meeting every time just to get more. More feedback.
- [55:21]
Bianca Marais
Yeah, you know what, honestly, writing groups, I firmly believe you get out of them what you put into them. Some people are not going to be the right fit. You'll just meet somebody and just be like, I don't like you. I don't want to hear your feedback. It's not going to work. But when you do meet the right writing group and you put in the work, because I don't know about you, sue, but my first writing groups, the things that I learned the most was while I was critiquing other people's work, never mind them critiquing my work, because when you critique someone else's work, work, you forced to say, this isn't working for me for the following reasons, as opposed to just, I'm not enjoying this. And so you have to learn how to articulate things much Better and so you able to pull things apart. Was that at least. Was that helpful to you as well, at the same time as getting feedback about your own work?
- [56:09]
Sue Hensonbergs
Oh, yeah. The one thing we always said every. Every meeting, we kind of reminded ourselves at one point is that we're the blind leading the blind. We don't really know because it is also subjective, but we all read, so we. We know what we like. And the thing I would often say too, if I had criticism, it's that I like books where things happen. So, look, you could be the next Ann Patchett, and I would not be the person who would recognize that. So if you think you're the next Ann Patchett or you want to be the next Ann Patchett, then listen to everything I say with that in your mind that I don't get you, you know, type thing. So that. I think that that helped. And just seeing the confusion, like, it's just sometimes people don't write clearly. There's a lot of nuance. I'm not a big fan of nuance. I kind of like to know what you're trying to tell me. I'm not very good at picking it out, but I could appreciate it. And if that's the way somebody writes, I just say, you know, this is too vague for me. Or if something was a big scene and you know what I really appreciated is if I came away confused and then the three other people in the group were also confused, used, then I would know it's not just a personal issue. Then it's like, okay, there needs some clarity. But it was like little things too, like, back to craft. Like the filter words. Like, if you're in first POV and you're saying, you know, he thought this, you don't have to say he thought. Right. You can just say, say the thought. And that's where I still do that. And we all point that out to each other. Just like now it's just a comment filter words. And. And we. We get it. It's like, yeah, you're right. You caught me. So. But yeah, that was just as constructive as reading. There's as they're meeting mine.
- [57:42]
Bianca Marais
Yeah. So we've only got a tiny bit of time left. But something that I'd love to get your advice on is the really witty repartee. You know, we've got lines that are backwards and forwards and laugh out loud funny. And is that the kind of thing where you just sit and you just write the dialogue and you don't worry about the he said and what the gestures are. You're just trying to capture the essence of the conversation, and then you come back and sharpen it. Like, how do you approach the layering of that? Kind of. Of. See.
- [58:10]
Sue Hensonbergs
Yeah, I've learned this. I used to go through and I used to write, like. And then he picked up the. He opened the fridge and pulled the milk out and he said that type of thing. But then as I edited it, then I'd be like, well, wait, where's the milk? Is it in the fridge? Is it on the counter? So then I decided to not put that in. I could kind of think about it in my mind, but to get the words down and then to take and frame it in a scene where the milk comes out, it goes down, they turn that type of thing. But that took a lot of backspace before I realized that was the most efficient way to do that. And that's my favorite thing to write, I think, is the. The dialogue and the repartee. I always had tags. And then I started to realize I don't really need all those tags. You know, that was like looking at, you know, reading those books and like, reading Elmer Leonard and that and seeing that if you know who's speaking, you don't necessarily need the tag. And again, like reading books, again, I think Stephen King don't use the ly words. You know, he said quick, you know, so. So write it. So it's rat a tat. Tat. And just trying to, you know, in a sense, too, I've been. It's like I'm a melting pot of all these books that I don't really understand the whole thing, but there's always something that I can pull out and. And apply. And that. That was one of the. One of the worst places I do. The most, I think, is in the dialogue.
- [59:23]
Bianca Marais
Yeah. And I love your openness to learn. Right. Because not everything's going to resonate, but it's clear you did so much home homework. You research different authors, methods, how they frame things, how they approach things. You've read all the books, you were like, okay, this works for me. This doesn't work for me. And I think that's true of any writer. You know, you're gonna find your way of doing things, but so long as you put in the time and you dedicate yourself to the craft, that's the most important thing, because three books later, here you are. This is a incredible, incredible debut story, which. Which I absolutely love and I hope our listeners will be hugely encouraged by it.
- [59:59]
Carly Fortune
It.
- [60:00]
Bianca Marais
So again, I'm showing up the COVID of the retirement plan. It'll be out. What's the date that it comes out again? Soon.
- [60:07]
Sue Hensonbergs
April 29 in Canada. May 6 in the U.S. okay.
- [60:11]
Bianca Marais
And then for those of you who are thinking of coming to the big podcast launch event for my launch of a most puzzling Murder, I'm going to have a whole bunch of VIP guests there. Agents, authors, people in the publishing industry. And sue is going to be one of my special, special author guests who will actually be signing copies of her book that night. So you will actually get to speak to her in person, which will be awesome. And I'm so looking forward to that, too.
- [60:37]
Sue Hensonbergs
I am, too. And let me say, too, I'm one of the lucky ones who's read Bianca's book. And it was great. I love the murder mysteries, the turn the page type book, and this was one, I think I. My quote for it was, this is not your grandmother's mystery. As I was reading it in the back, I was. Because I had to have pencil. While I was reading the book in the back, I was jotting down who I needed to buy this book for because it's a definite. It's a page turner, but it's. It's smarter than that.
- [61:02]
Bianca Marais
Thank you, Sue. I really appreciate it. And I absolutely loved that blurb. And again, guys, literary community writers supporting other writers. Literary citizenship is so incredibly important. We are now linking to the retirement plan on our bookshop.org affiliate page. If you get it there, you support an independent bookstore and the podcast and sue at the same time. We hope to have you back for the next book. And that's it for today's episode. I hope you'll join us for next week's show. In the meantime, keep at it. Remember, it just takes one. Yes.
- [61:39]
Cece Leera
Hi, everyone, it's Cece here. If you're a fan of the podcast, then you know that one of my most common notes on the Books with Hook segment is about writing emotion. And that's because the best stories are the ones that make readers feel. But as a storyteller, you know that pulling that off is hard work. It involves not only the obvious skill of writing emotion really well, but also mastering writing relationships effectively. Since those emotional beats involve the protagonist's relational connection, the best stories are also relationship driven. That's why I'm so excited to announce that I'm teaching a four day class called Writing Emotion and Relationships starting on June 18th. Over the course of four days, we'll cover over 10 hours of content, including active versus passive emotions, how to leverage emotions and relationships into tension, showing versus telling telling how to create chemistry between characters, emotional calibration and roles for various characters from love interest to antagonist, and so much more. And my favorite thing. This course will feature an interactive component. Everyone who signs up will have the option of submitting a scene from their work for a chance to have it critiqued during the course. We did this in my Starting It Right class in March and if you were there, you know it was a smashing success. If you'd like to know more, check out the link in my bio on Instagram. I hope to see you there. Come prepared to take lots of notes.