Plotting With Fate

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Shit No One Tells You About Writing – "Plotting With Fate"

Episode Date: December 4, 2025
Hosts: Bianca Marais, Carly Watters, CeCe Lyra
Guests: Tracy Dawson Meyer & Wendy Katzman
Main Theme: An insider’s look at co-writing, plotting, superstition, and navigating the writing career as a team—through the lens of Tracy Dawson Meyer and Wendy Katzman’s sophomore novel, 10,000 Light Years From Okay.

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Episode Overview

This episode brings together hosts Bianca Marais and Carly Watters with writing duo Tracy Dawson Meyer and Wendy Katzman, delving into their new novel 10,000 Light Years From Okay. Listeners get an engaging behind-the-scenes of the writing process, the challenges of collaboration, integrating superstition and fate into fiction, and pushing forward in publishing after setbacks. The conversation is candid, warm, and laced with humor—a perfect toolkit for aspiring writers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introducing the Novel & Its Themes

[02:56] Tracy Dawson Meyer explains the premise:

• The protagonist is a young writer whose husband’s sudden death eerily mirrors a plot from her debut novel.
• She’s “very superstitious” and struggles with hope, only to be inspired by her daughter to write a romance—and fate takes over when a man like her fictional love interest appears.
• Central themes: connection, coincidence, resilience, and finding one’s way during overwhelming times.

"It really dives into questions of connection, coincidence, resilience, and like, what it means to find your way in the world when it feels overwhelming."
—Wendy Katzman [03:30]

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Writing Relationships, In-Laws, and Literary Agents

• The book explores the protagonist Thea’s complex relationship with her in-laws, highlighted by cohabiting after her husband’s death [04:56].
• There’s an insider nod: a literary agent character inspired by Carly’s support and partnership.

"You guys are the seers of contemporary fiction."
—Carly Watters, relaying her encouragement to Tracy & Wendy [07:03]

• The agent in the book is a career partner, echoing real-life experiences with Carly, who’s stuck by the duo “through flops and successes” [08:30].

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On Writing Depth and Avoiding Caricatures

• Carly commends Tracy & Wendy for infusing “depth and heart” into the in-law and agent characters, explaining that fiction requires authors to push relationships to the limit for plot—rather than just mirroring reality [09:33].

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The Role of Superstition and Fate

Personal Superstitions & Lucky Charms

• Tracy and Wendy are “very superstitious writers.” They always keep lucky dice at their writing desk—each touching one before sending a manuscript [10:44].
• Tracy shares that during cancer treatment (while querying Carly), Wendy gave her a bag of 15 lucky charms, each with significance, to boost hope and resilience [11:16].

"Every time we send a big, like a manuscript off to you, we each touch one of the lucky dice and then we push send."
—Tracy Dawson Meyer [12:16]

• The duo embrace superstitions “just in case” as a way to hedge their bets [12:31].

Manifesting, Coincidences, and Belief

• Tracy offers a personal story of bringing an old Dodgers World Series t-shirt to a crucial game, leading to a walk-off home run reminiscent of the past—a moment of serendipity and wonder [13:43].

"There were so many layers of things that had to happen and coincidences and it was so like, it kind of blew my mind, honestly."
—Tracy Dawson Meyer [15:46]

• Reflection: These moments keep hope alive and connect different eras and experiences, echoing the book’s core of magical coincidences [16:20].

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Plot, Coincidence, and Grief

• The novel’s central “coincidence” is that Thea writes a romance to process her grief, and her fictional love interest seems to materialize in real life [16:51–18:48].
• The writing navigates what happens when hope, grief, and fate intersect—especially through the lens of being a parent and creative.

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Dogs, Loss, and Emotional Anchors

On the Dog Named Sam

• Both writers are dog lovers; their own dogs provided emotional support during tough periods [22:49].
• In the novel, Thea’s daughter names their new dog “Sam” after her deceased father, blending joy, remembrance, and the messiness of grief [23:15].

"It feels almost disrespectful to name her dog after her late husband. But at the same time, it keeps the memories right there in front of them and keeps that connection going."
—Tracy Dawson Meyer [24:00]

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The Co-Writing Process: Logistics & Emotional Management

• Brainstorming and plotting are collaborative and intensive; first drafts are divided by chapters (rather than character, since this novel is single-POV) [26:01].
• Editing is the most time-consuming stage, with both writers smoothing out the voice and structure together [27:23].
• Emotional intelligence and vulnerability are essential:
  • “No always wins”—if one partner is uncomfortable with an idea, it gets reworked until both are wholeheartedly on board [28:33].
  • Even the tiniest choices (a single word like “phantom”) warrant joint deliberation—with fate sometimes playing a role (the word “phantom” popping up as a spelling bee pangram the next day!) [29:19–30:05].

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Balancing Strengths: Dialogue vs. Exposition

• Tracy tends to overwrite (a lawyer’s habit), while Wendy is concise. Tracy focuses on emotional exposition; Wendy prefers dialogue [31:45–32:24].
• The partnership is likened to both an editing and writing team, where “selling” the use of an adverb becomes a running joke [32:45–33:07].

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Embracing Writing as a Second (or Third) Act

• Tracy & Wendy started novel writing in their late 40s, entering the craft during life’s second or third act, after other successful careers [34:06].
• They modeled a “growth mindset” (inspired by Carol Dweck’s Mindset)—encouraging themselves to take risks and learn, which boosted their resilience through publishing setbacks [36:34].

"We never had another conversation about, should we try this? Could we do this? We just decided we were going to just do our best, which is what we were asking from our kids."
—Wendy Katzman [37:02]

• The book that got them their agent was never published. Instead of quitting, they took feedback, studied craft, and wrote again—resulting in their successful debut and now a sophomore novel [37:42].

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Partnership:
  "You've always said to us from day one...you're in it for our career. And you've proven that, like, time and again, because, you know, we've had some flops and we've had some successes, and you've always been there saying, you know, I believe in you. Keep going. And that is so meaningful."
  —Tracy Dawson Meyer [08:30]

• On Superstition:
  "I think part of it is just. It's like just in case."
  —Wendy Katzman [12:31]

• On Creative Process:
  "Compromise gets you mediocrity. And so what we do is you got to keep working on it until we both get to not just yes, but like, yes with an exclamation point."
  —Wendy Katzman [28:33]

• On Growth Mindset:
  "Once we did that, we never had another conversation about, should we try this? Could we do this? We just decided we were going to just do our best."
  —Wendy Katzman [37:02]

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Timestamps of Notable Segments

• [02:56] – Novel premise and introduction
• [04:56] – In-law dynamics in fiction
• [07:03] – Literary agents in life and fiction
• [10:44] – Superstitions and lucky dice ritual
• [13:43] – Coincidence baseball story: fate vs. logic
• [16:51] – Plot-or-life coincidence in the book
• [23:15] – The dog “Sam” and integrating pets into healing
• [26:01] – Co-writing logistics and editing together
• [28:33] – Partnership rules: “No always wins”
• [34:06] – Embracing writing as a new act in life
• [36:34] – The importance of a growth mindset and handling setbacks

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Conclusion

This episode is a must-listen for writers and readers alike—especially anyone interested in collaborative creative processes, the power of superstition in productivity and storytelling, and the realities of building a writing career after other life chapters. Tracy Dawson Meyer and Wendy Katzman’s partnership shines a light on the value of friendship, vulnerability, and trusting in both each other—and fate.

Buy 10,000 Light Years From Okay wherever books and audiobooks are sold. Connect with Tracy and Wendy online, and remember: embrace the "yes with an exclamation point" in your own creative journey.

Transcript

[Host 1]

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[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

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[Host 3 (Bianca Murray)]

Hi there and welcome to our show the shit no one tells you about writing. I'm best selling author Bianca Murray and I'm joined by Cece Lehrer of Wendy Sherman Associates and Carly Waters of P.S. literary.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Hi everybody. We have clients with me today. I love it when I get to have my clients on the show. I know Bianca carries such a heavy load of doing all of the author interviews and I get to pepper in the schedule with my clients which is great. So I have two clients. As you will notice if you are watching us on YouTube, I have two clients because they co write together. My lovely clients, Tracy Dawson Meyer, Wendy Katzman, authors of 10,000 Light Years From. Okay, and again, if you're on YouTube, you can see it over their shoulder there in between. So we're going to talk about their sophomore novel. I guess we can call it Sophomore because it is the sophomore published novel. And as you guys know, on this show, we'd love to talk about the publishing experience. So we'll get into everything that these guys have worked on, everything going on with this book, and I'm going to throw it to these two to introduce the novel. So, Wendy and Tracy, what is your new novel about?

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Great. Hi, I'm Tracy. And so yes, our novel is about a young writer. So several years after her husband's shocking death mirrored a plot line in her debut novel. She's very superstitious and she's on the verge of squandering her entire career when a bedtime tale that she spins for her young daughter convinces her to write a hopeful romance. So unfortunately, when a man bearing an uncanny resemblance to the novel's love interest suddenly walks into her life, she has to learn the difference between imagining happiness and fighting for it before it costs her everything.

[Wendy Katzman]

So I'm Wendy, and I'm very excited to be here with you, Carly. And so this novel, it really dives into questions of connection, coincidence, resilience, and like, what it means to find your way in the world when it feels overwhelming.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

I love it. And obviously I love this book. I love all my clients books. So, you know, I'm. I'm a broken record when my clients come on. So I'm like, let's talk about all things I love about this book. But as you guys can see, it has a writerly hook to it which keeps it very on theme with our show. The shit no one tells you about writing because we have a novelist author as a character, which is so fun. There's lots of things I want to get into. Obviously, some of the themes that Wendy just brought up are all on point.

[Host 1]

The first thing I want to get.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

To, because cece had one of her clients on, on the last author interview, and Dr. Tracy Daglish is an expert on in laws and she had an in law book. So I want to start off by linking the last author interview to this author interview, because there's a very interesting in law connection between our main character Thea and her in law. So I want to talk about in laws. You know, we obviously don't have to spill. Spill any, like family secrets. About your in law situation. I won't put you on the spot about your in law situation. I love my in laws and they're lovely. So, yeah, I think they're really interesting relationships. So could you walk us through what is our writer characters, what is her living situation and tell. Tell us about her in laws.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

So, I mean, first of all, I will say that both of us absolutely adore our mothers in law. So it did. There's nothing autobiographical in the characters or what happens in the story, but it's an interesting. We needed a foil and we needed someone to kind of be reflecting back onto Thea, kind of where she was in her life journey and in her grief journey. And so we actually have, like, it's actually quite a close relationship in a lot of ways because Thea, when she starts out, so she's very young, she gets married young. She has this debut novel. Her husband is like a. An up and coming tennis player on the pro tour, and then he suddenly dies. And when he dies, they had been living in the guest house of his parents. And so it's a very close family relationship. And she continues living there because she's about to have a baby. And then so there's a lot of, like, really lovely kind of family connections that happen in the beginning. And then things kind of start to, you know, take some interesting turns as we go through.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Absolutely. And we can't, you know, we can't spoil this novel on this show. That was one thing Tracey, Wendy and I were kind of emailing about. We're like, how much of the story can we tell, obviously, why did we read it? And there's lots of juicy stuff to happen. So we won't say why the in laws are the foil. We will just say the in laws are the foil. And you'll have to read the book to find out. But yes, I think that's lovely because.

[Host 1]

The grandparents have such a nice relationship.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

With their granddaughter, which is really sweet. But then it gets that point of, you know, when do you have to spread your wings, right. And kind of. And move out after that big loss? So I just love how kind of.

[Host 1]

Really complex that was.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

There is also a literary agent character in your book. And, and so, you know, I just, again, people read these books and they think, okay, wedding Tracy, have an agent. There's an agent in this, you know, in this story.

[Host 1]

What are some.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

The connection? So let's talk about how this literary agent is maybe similar and, or dissimilar to me. And obviously we can talk about our, our working Relationship as well.

[Wendy Katzman]

Well, first, we have been so blessed to have you as our agent and our partner. I mean, I think when you're going through this process, you so badly want an agent, but it is so important that the agent that you end up with is a partner who believes in you. And the number of times where you have told us you believe in us because this is a hard journey and things have not always gone our way, so we are eternally grateful to this relationship. There's a line in the book from you that kind of inspired some of this, where the agent tells Thea that she is the seer of contemporary fiction. And you had said that to us at one point after we were in the process of writing our debut novel, Girls with Bright Futures, that was based on a college admissions scandal. And we were almost done writing it when the Operation Varsity Blues college admissions scandal happened. And then we had another book idea that was kind of based on youth sports and a character had a health issue. And then something like that happened in the real world. And so that's when you said to us, you guys are the seers of contemporary fiction. And that kind of helped spur on this idea of, like, a writer being afraid that what she writes will come true, because we were already superstitious people. And that really played into it.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Right? And I'll also add, though, that, like, so you've always said to us from day one, and that was one of the things we've loved about you from the beginning, was that you're in it for our career. And you've proven that, like, time and again, because, you know, we've had some flops and we've had some successes, and you've always been there saying, you know, I believe in you. Keep going. And that is so meaningful. And in Thea's case, she's really pushing that to the limit because she's gotten so in her head that she's about to really throw away her entire career. And so it actually is, like, it's not. We weren't necessarily thinking about what would happen if that happened to us, and would Carly stick with us? But I think the fact that you have stuck with us through so much makes us feel like it was just an interesting thing to contemplate. Is there a point where, you know, the agent is like, okay, you know, if you're not going to write at all, you know, and you're. And you're basically completely at a dead standstill, then what are we actually doing here? So it was just kind of an interesting concept in the kind of publishing journey to think about.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Oh, I love that.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

There's like, there's so many things that I want to touch on. One of the things is that what I think this book does so well, like the example of the in laws and the example of the literary agent character, is a lot of writers would just write their version of what they think. Oh, you know, this caricature of an in law is. Or this caricature of an agent. And you guys always come with such depth and heart, and you're like, okay, but also, how am I going to take this to the limit?

[Host 1]

Because this is fiction.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

So it's not my job to create this necessarily exact reality. The job of the author and of the writer is obviously to contextualize it within the plot and kind of make.

[Host 1]

It interesting as possible for the reader.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

So you guys did a fantastic, fantastic job on that. Okay, I want to switch over to the superstitions, because you kind of just. You touched on that a little bit. And that's such a obviously huge part of this book, this idea of, like, what can we manifest into reality? Is that even possible to manifest things in reality? And is that just, like, longing and hope enough sometimes to get us through when times are tough? So there's a number of things that, again, we're chatting about offline. And do you guys have your own superstitions, like your writerly superstitions or life superstitions? How do you feel about the super superstitions in your life?

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Hang on, we're gonna show you one.

Here are lucky dice. We take these with us everywhere. We always.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

They go on the writing desk.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

They do, yeah.

[Wendy Katzman]

Hanging.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

They're in the office on the shelf right above our. Our desks.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

So those of you that aren't watching on YouTube, they're like dice that would go over your mirror. Yeah. Oh, I love that.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

And that's only the tip of the iceberg for us.

[Wendy Katzman]

We're.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

We're quite superstitious. I mean, one example would be.

So, you know, obviously Carly, you know, the rest of the world probably doesn't, but I had breast cancer. When we were querying you, we actually queried you from my chemo suite. So during that time, Wendy was like, my rock. And the way that we kind of got through this time and kept our hope and everything was. Wendy gave me this present, and it was just. It was like, I think there were 15 different Lucky Charms from all over the world. And it was just, you know, some little plastic figurines in the rabbit's Foot and like, you name it, and with a description of why each thing was lucky. And I, that I held that dear and it got me through a very tough time and it got us through a lot of, you know, challenges. And we have continued like all those lucky charms are still in our office and we kind of cling to that. So we are superstitious, I would say, in a very real way. And every time we send a big, like a manuscript off to you, we each touch one of the lucky dice and then we push send.

[Wendy Katzman]

That was a big reveal.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Very superstitious. And so I guess, like my, like, you know, gentle push to you is what happens if, like, how do you know? I guess the charms always work. How do you know?

[Wendy Katzman]

You don't. But I think part of it is just. It's like just in case.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

We're big on hedging our bets. Yeah.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Oh, I love that so much.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

And so let's just stick with our superstition theme for a little bit because it's also one of those things where it is a bit, let's call it like more of a woo woo science or however you want to describe it. Do you feel like you want it to be grounded in science or do you like that it's more of like a what if thing?

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

I think it depends. I think I'm a very analytical person and I think I do want things to be grand. I want to understand the way the world works. But I also find it kind of just delightful and I don't know, it feels very, like, exciting when something really crazy happens and you think, well, what if there's something else? There's some invisible hand that's kind of, you know, controlling this. So, I mean, I can give one crazy story just as an example for how. I don't know how to think about it, but I love the story. So I'm from LA originally. We live in Seattle. Dodgers made us to the World Series last year. They're also in it, I think, against probably your team, Toronto right now.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

When this comes out, when this comes out, you guys will know the outcome. Right now we do not know the outcome.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

We do not know the outcome. Yes, the series is tied, 1:1. But last year they played the Dodgers, got into the World Series against the Yankees. And it was a really big moment for someone who had grown up a Dodgers man. So I decided to head down to LA and see a game. I picked game one and I went with some family, including my son. And I had grown up kind of going to baseball games. With my dad, it was very special, like, special relationship. So I'm in Seattle, I just remembered I had this like box of memorabilia and I start digging through it and I find a World Series T shirt from the 1986 World Series, which for those who don't follow baseball. So game one, the Dodgers ended up winning the whole series, but game one ended with just an absolutely iconic walk off home run by someone named Kirk Gibson. And so Kirk Gibson's face is featured on this T shirt that's ancient. I bring it with me to la and my son looks at it and is like, tell me, what is this? You know, why is this special? And I was like, well, I thought maybe it would bring us good luck because the Dodgers won that World Series and I just had it. And so my dad, who was too infirm to go to the game, but we were visiting with him just before, and my dad tells my son the whole story about the Kirk Gibson home run and how it set the stage for the Dodgers to win that series. And my son said, that's really cool. Can I wear the shirt? And I said, sure. Maybe that'll bring us good luck too. So we went to the game and sure enough, at the bottom of the ninth inning, Dodger Freddie Freeman hits a walk off grand slam home run. That was just so epic. And it kind of mirrored the 1986 World Series. My son's wearing this T shirt and we just like, there were so many layers of things that had to happen and coincidences and it was so like, it kind of blew my mind, honestly.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

I know. And like, I, I love that.

[Host 1]

I love.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Okay, speaking of World Series T shirts, we're going very deep into baseball lore right now, but when the Blue Jays won the World Series, they did Back to back 92, 93 baseball wins. My dad went to one of the 93 games. I don't know which game it was, but anyway, he brought me back as a child, brought me back a T shirt and it was like bright blue. And then I wore it. You know, it went through the wash, obviously, but like, till you don't like.

[Host 1]

The plastic that crinkles off of the light.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Yes, the imprint. Anyway, so I also have like a.

[Host 1]

Very old World Series original T shirt.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

That is long gone, but yeah, no, I love that. I think there's, there is like you said, just so much hope and there is so much connection between all these events in our life and we never really know, you know, obviously where this is all going to stem from and where it's going to pin From. But it's such a beautiful thing to think, you know, if this had happened or if I hadn't parked in this parking spot, we wouldn't have gotten to this time.

[Host 1]

And then.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Anyway, and so there's so many coincidences that happen in your book. Do you want to talk a little bit about the coincidence where Thea decides what her book is gonna be about, and then she meets the person that is connected to the book?

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

You wanna take that one?

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Is that gonna give it away?

[Host 3 (Bianca Murray)]

Yeah.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

We're looking at each other.

[Wendy Katzman]

We have to think, how are we gonna say this without giving it away? Well, so she. She decides to write the role.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Everybody's gonna read the book anyway, so we can tell. We can give them a little bit.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Wendy Katzman]

Okay. So Thea has a young daughter, Lucy, who is obsessed with. With princesses. So anyone with a little girl maybe has been through this, and it had never occurred to her to write something hopeful. And she just cannot bear to tell another princess story. So she ends up. Like, she makes up a story for her daughter one night, and it inspires her. What if I made up my own hopeful romance, imagining my husband returning to me and. Because, like, what's the worst that could happen? Like, maybe she can bring him back. So she does that. But her. Why?

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

She knows. In her logical mind, she knows she's not crazy. She's just. Yeah, right.

[Wendy Katzman]

She's hopeful. But she's hopeful, right? Because, again, what's the worst thing that could happen? And it's a way to get her writing again and a way for her to spend time in that space with Sam, her husband, thinking about him, where she sometimes doesn't feel like she has permission in the rest of her life, because it's been several years. And I think sometimes people expect that you move on, even though that isn't really how grief works. And so it's giving herself permission to live in this world with him. So she writes this very hopeful romance about. Or she. She pitches this idea of a hopeful romance about a professional tennis player. And her wise agent says, too autobiographical. You got to come up with something else.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

You need something larger than life.

[Wendy Katzman]

So she. She has just gotten her daughter a dog. And the dog. I can say this part, right? Is this okay? I don't know.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Tracy's, like, smiling, but she's like, please stop.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Don't say it. I don't think so. I think we should let the rest.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Be, because there's some really fun.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

There's a fun coincidence that happened.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

There's many, many coincidences. Such as the character, anyway. Yeah.

No, no, I don't, I don't.

[Host 1]

I don't want to spoil it.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

I think the book is so charming and everybody's gonna love all the, all.

[Host 1]

Of the different twists and where it ends up.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Okay, let's go back to the dog, though. So I want to talk about the dog. So there's this, you know, saying that goes around essentially that, you know, certain things in your life isn't going to fix something.

[Wendy Katzman]

Right.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

It's like, you know, a child isn't going to fix a marriage or a dog isn't going to fix a grief. Right. But let's talk a little bit about your dog character, Sam, and explain to us how Sam gets Sam's name. And let's talk about, about, you know, the pet inspiration is there. Like, you know, because it was there a pet in your life that's very close to you and that got you through a tough time or, you know, how do you think about pets in your life?

[Host 1]

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[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

I was thinking of you guys listening to me talk about getting ready for.

[Host 1]

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[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

I was a bit nervous, but when we were in the countryside and I could take my time thinking about what.

[Host 1]

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[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

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[Host 1]

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[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

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[Host 1]

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[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

I'm a last minute gift giver.

[Host 1]

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[Wendy Katzman]

Well, we each have a dog. Yep, this is really my first dog. Tracy's Tracy's been a dog person for a long time and I mean we happen to think there's like nothing better than dogs to get you through pretty much anything. Yeah, ours came to us during the pandemic and was a really important addition that helped bring a lot of joy to our family. So do you want to talk about how.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Yeah.

[Wendy Katzman]

How the dog came to be? Yeah.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Yeah. So the dog we. So basically Thea. So Thea has a best friend, Franny, who we love. Franny's great, and Franny's no nonsense. She's always kind of there, like, supporting Thea, but kind of pushing her to kind of be real, grounded in the real world. And so Thea is reluctant to date again. It's been several years since her husband died, but she's still really stuck in her grief process. And Franny is encouraging her to, you know, to date. And as a way of kind of putting. She's like, you know, you're not moving forward with your life. You need to move forward. And as a way of kind of satisfying Franny, one day, Thea just blurts out, but I am moving forward. I'm getting a dog. And she had. She has no idea what to do with a dog. So she ends up getting this dog just because she can't, like, disappoint Franny because Franny will hold her to it and does. And. But then they bring the dog home and. And. And Thea's daughter Lucy, is three at the time, and she's. She's heard all these stories about her dad, who's no longer with them, and his name is Sam. And the minute the dog walks in the door, Lucy starts jumping up and down and saying, it's Sam the dog. That's his name. It's Sam the dog. And they try everything to talk her out of it, but she's just absolutely determined, as many three year olds are. And so Thea has to kind of deal with this name that's a little bit. You know, in some ways, it feels almost disrespectful to name her dog after her late husband. But at the same time, it's keeps. It keeps the memories right there in front of them and keeps. And kind of keeps that connection going.

[Wendy Katzman]

It's also like, Lucy's so perceptive because part of the reason she chooses the name is she thinks it'll make her mother happy because she knows how sad her mother is, and maybe this is a way of making her happy.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Yeah, it's the word Sam connotates that sadness.

[Host 1]

Right.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

And it's like, can we make the name Sam give us happy feelings? So.

I love our dog character. And I was thinking. I was making notes before the call because I have two Dogs in the house today because I have my in law. Speaking of in laws, I have in law's dog at the house and I have my dog. So yeah, we, we love pets on this show and they're such a. Such a great pet character in this one that, you know, again, won't spoil it, but, but helps bring some of the storyline together. So because this is a writing show, I want to talk about the writing process as well.

[Host 1]

Right.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

So there are two of you writing one book. Do you want to walk our listeners through that process for you guys, how it works, maybe from conception to the logistics?

[Wendy Katzman]

Sure. Okay, go ahead.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Okay.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Yeah, I'll jump.

[Wendy Katzman]

Okay. So this, this book is a little bit different than our first book, Girls with Bright Futures, which had three points of view. And we'll talk about our process, but by having three characters, it was easier to divide up the writing. So the way this. So our new book, 10,000 Light Years from okay has one point of view. So many things are still the same. Like, we brainstorm everything and we plot everything. That's probably where we spend the most time in our writing process. And then once we're ready to go, we divide up the actual writing. And because this was one point of view, we couldn't say, okay, you write this character and you write this character. We just divided it up based on the character chapter. And because we each kind of like to write, we have different strengths and like to write different types of things. And then as you finish a chapter and we always stay really close together, you put it into the master. And then we. And then we spend a ton of time editing and finding that voice, smoothing everything out. That's probably the second largest part of our time. The actual writing of bringing that first draft is definitely the fastest part of what we do.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Yeah, I love that. Yeah. And then I would say just kind of more on like a meta level in terms for the co writing process. It's, you know, we've been friends for 25 years, 25 plus years, I think, and we've always been really close. But I think that a writing partnership is. It's different on many levels. Like, you really have to make yourself so vulnerable to the other because you are, you know, you know, there when you're editing, for example, there are just things that have to go or, you know, and maybe it's your stuff and maybe it's your partner's stuff and you. And we just have to decide from the beginning that we're going to check our egos at the door and we're going to be honest and we're going to be loving and supportive, and it's just. It's really worked for us. But it's not to say that it's always easy. I mean, there are definitely moments where we have. I won't say fights at all. Like, never a fight, but we. You know, there are moments like when you get. Might get a little testy, when you're deep into a revision and. And you just kind of want to be woke up on the wrong side of the bed or like, in my case, just didn't sleep at all or so, you know, there are. Sometimes there are points where you just put a pin in it and you come back the next day.

[Wendy Katzman]

But I think part of that. So there was. There's another writing duo, Ali Frank and Asha Yeomans. And they had a great rule that they imparted to us, and their rule was no always wins. So if there is anything, it could be a word, it could be a plot twist, it could be a name. Whatever it is, if one of us is not comfortable, you speak up. And we never compromise. So this is our new part that we added to this rule because compromise gets you mediocrity. And so what we do is you got to keep working on it until we both get to not just yes, but like, yes with an exclamation point. And that could. I mean, we might look up a word. This is.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Okay.

[Wendy Katzman]

This is a funny coincidence, actually, in the writing process. So we were having a conversation. We spent a lot of times, I'm sure a lot of writers do this, just looking up words. You're trying to find that perfect word. And there is the word phantom. Word is phantom. And was that the right word? And we must have gone 10 minutes looking up words, having a conversation. No, that's not the right word. That's not the right word. So every day we both do the New York Times spelling bee, and the next day after this, like, 10 minute conversation trying to find the right word. The pangram, where it uses all the letters. The very next day was fantastic.

So that was a sign, right? How can you say that's not a sign?

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Right. That we picked up?

[Wendy Katzman]

Yeah, I love that.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

I feel like everybody needs to go, like, buy a lottery ticket today when they're listening to this episode. It's like, this is the lucky episode. Superstition.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Trust your guts.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

All the things. I love that. Oh, I love that. Like, totally. What you said is like, we can't compromise. Right? Because then that's like, neither is it's not that neither's winning, but more so that, like, the common goal isn't being achieved, which is having the best possible writing. Okay, I want to go back to one thing you said, which is each of you have different strengths, which is so interesting in the sense that, you know, maybe it's dialogue or this or that. Do you want to talk a little bit about which Each of your. Come back to our baseball metaphor.

[Host 1]

Right.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

It's like, you know, on the team, you know, what strengths does everybody. Offense? Is it defense? What are your strengths? And how have you decided that they're your strengths?

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

You know, that's interesting, actually. And I think our strengths have kind of evolved over time. But I think. I mean, I'll go first. I think that I have. Well, let's see. I guess I'm going to start by saying my weakness is, is that I tend to overwrite. So, like, I'm the person who. The first draft. I mean, I. So I have. I'm a lawyer by training. I can write. I could write like the equivalent of three paragraphs. That's one sentence. You know, that's just kind of how my mind thinks. And so I've had to really work at editing myself and trying to, you know, so I. And trying to write shorter sentences and trying to only put the information in that we actually need. And so that's something that. And I've kind of learned from Wendy. Wendy's got a really, like. She's just got a really kind of succinct way of expressing ideas. And so over time, I think we've kind of like, I've gotten a little.

[Wendy Katzman]

Less verbose and maybe I think I've gotten more. Because my problem is sometimes I assume facts are already in evidence. I was not a lawyer, but.

Maybe that's why. So there's two. Sometimes I leave too much in my head and just assume that too many. The reader knows too many details. So I think we balance each other out in that way. So, like, like, I love to write dialogue that's like. Yeah. And your exposition is amazing.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Yeah, I think that's probably, I guess, like, emotion.

[Wendy Katzman]

Yes. She's amazing.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Very emotionally attuned.

[Wendy Katzman]

Yeah. And to be able to write about them. Yeah. But it just, it. It all comes together.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I was just gonna say it's also. Not only do you kind of have a writing partner, you also have an editing partner. Right. Because you get to, like. That's a built in, fully formed system. You know, you're the Otani of Of writing.

[Host 1]

Right?

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Like, exactly.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

You can hit and pitch.

[Wendy Katzman]

Exactly. Oh, my gosh.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Wendy Katzman]

I mean, we have this joke, like, if she wants to use an advert, I have to sell her the advert. Like she has to convince me. Yes.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

I have to convince her.

[Wendy Katzman]

It's worth it. I'm very stingy.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

So stingy.

[Wendy Katzman]

The advert.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Give it to me. Just this time.

[Wendy Katzman]

Gotta work for it.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Put a quarter in the jar. You only get so much.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Yep. Right? Yes, you do.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

I love that.

[Wendy Katzman]

Yes.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

You guys are so delightful. So let's talk about also just like the writing history. Like, obviously we've talked about, you know, you've published one book before, you've been friends for 25 plus years, and obviously this is your second novel. So obviously I am not going to ask you guys, your age, but this is not your, you know, the first wave of your career. You have done other things, as you guys spoke to and alluded to with your careers in law and in marketing. So let's talk about, you know, how you got to. This is in terms of the second act or third act or however you want to look at it with all of your life experience. Because I love when authors come with so much life experience. So it's when somebody queries me when they're like 20, I'm like, what kind of life have you lived? I mean, you could be a savant author, which is great, but, you know, there's life to be lived, to kind of again, have that experience and that emotionality to write, you know, fiction in a big way. Do you guys want to speak about how you kind of like brought that energy into your career?

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Sure, definitely. So when we first decided to try to write a novel, it actually came later. We were about late 40s at the time. We're kind of mid, mid to late 50s now. We've been at this for a bit, but we, we had both kind of been coming off of dealing with sort of a grief situations in our families. We both had husbands at the time who had gone through major health crises. And while we were raising our kids.

[Wendy Katzman]

We still have those husbands. We still do. Yes. Sorry. Yes.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

That did not come out right.

[Wendy Katzman]

They did great.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Yes, yes, they both, they both made it through, but it was definitely, it was a journey and we had kind of as good friends at that time, had done a lot of talking about what, you know, the meaning of life and how do we, how do we handle raising kids and friendship, the impact.

[Wendy Katzman]

On your friendships when you're dealing with these issues. And our kids were the older kids were getting ready to apply to college.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Right.

[Wendy Katzman]

That was also impacting friendships. Yeah.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

So when we decided to actually try and write a novel, it was something that neither of us had ever done. We had no expectation in our lives that this was something we were going to do. It was kind of a second or third act, as you say. And we were thrilled with the idea initially and just kind of dove right in, trying to teach ourselves how to write a novel. We googled how do you write a novel? We didn't have any of the technical experience. We didn't have an MFA we felt like nervous about because of our age. We didn't feel like we had time to go back and get an MFA at this stage or we'd be like wasting, you know, valuable years when we could be trying to actually write. So we just sort of dove in. But we had a lot of self doubt in those early months, probably the whole first year, I would say. And one thing that really affected us and kind of changed the way we were thinking was that we had each kind of independently as parents. Read this book called Mindset by Carol Dweck. And she said, we did that whole video on it. But it was really, it's truly was one of the most impactful books that we'd ever read. Because as parents, what we realized was that we've been telling our kids how to kind of take chances and live in this growth mindset. But for us, we were kind of practicing, we were modeling the fixed mindset in that moment by doubting ourselves and feeling like maybe we can't do this.

[Wendy Katzman]

And should we do this? What if we fail? What if we're terrible?

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Right.

[Wendy Katzman]

And so that was a huge wake up call when we realized, like, we weren't being the types of parents that we wanted to be. So we really had to reassess our situation and figure out how do we apply the growth mindset to our writing. And once we did that, we never had another conversation about, should we try this? Could we do this? We just decided we were going to just do our best, which is what we were asking from our kids. Just do your best, put in your best effort and control the things you can control. So whether it was reading craft books or getting your butt in your chair or becoming part of the community or reading, hitting your word count, like those are the things we could control, not what other people thought. I mean, you can never control what other people think. They're always bringing other baggage, their own perspectives, the business, whatever, to the table. And that changed Everything for us.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

And that's gotten us through a lot of difficult times in the publishing journey, because I think we can share that the book that gained us your representation never actually got picked up by a publisher. And it was devastating at first because we thought we kind of had it made, and then we didn't. And you said, go write another book. And we said, oh, really? For a minute. But then we remembered this growth mindset, and we saw it as an opportunity. And we literally, like, we hit the books, Carly, right after you told us that, we kind of licked our wounds for a few minutes, and then we read more craft books books, and we read more, like, fiction in our genres, and we just worked really, really hard. And we always looked at it as something that we could grow and that. That we weren't just like, you know, kind of. We didn't just have a set amount of talent. We could. We could. We could improve. And then that led to Girls with Bright Futures. And then it all happened again. I mean, remember our sports book? You know, we wrote this sports book that we loved, and.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

But it.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

It just wasn't.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

We will just say the timing isn't right. I, you know, I tell this on the show all the time. I'm like, books, there's. You never know when a book is going to come back around. I. Again, I think you guys were ahead of your time with the sports book. So. Any editors listening that you know how to find me? We got a great Women in Sports manuscript. And again, these ladies were ahead of their time. So, yeah, no, I. I totally love that. I love what you're saying about, like, the parenting element of it.

[Host 1]

Right?

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Because it's like you want to demonstrate, you know, the type of, like, bravery that you hope that will inspire them. But then as adults in midlife, you're like, well, I'm. I have a fixed mindset in a certain way because we're just living our lives, raising our kids.

[Host 1]

Right.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

But there's just. So there are opportunities to have growth mindset. And obviously, writing and starting a new career is. Is such a special one. And now I'm going to use that every time when clients. And I send clients edits. I'm like, you know, I'm not, like, critiquing you. I am trying to improve your growth mindset, obviously.

[Wendy Katzman]

Obviously. I mean, it's kind of like, it's funny when you're writing and I don't. We don't know what it's like for solo writers because we have each other and we're editing and we live in this little world, and then when we share it with you and we do get your feedback, I mean, first of all, it's always insightful. It always makes us better. But it is a gift, right, to have other people read your work and really give you information. It's. I mean, it is kind of like being in school and having that chance to learn and improve. So we are all about that mindset for everything. Always trying to improve.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Yeah.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Well, I love that. Well, I'm so excited about this book, guys. So at the time that everybody is listening, you can buy it. The book is out this week. It just came out. So everybody can go grab it. It is available. It is incredible. It's got, you know, it's got a huge heart. It's got love. It's got family, parenting, friendship, all the different things. And a huge superstition plot, as you guys heard, which, you know, I heard Wendy knock on wood at one point in this invitation. I have to knock on wood.

[Wendy Katzman]

I did.

[Host 2 (Carly Waters)]

Yeah. So it. It has it all, guys. So I really, really hope all of you guys go pick it up and engage with these guys on socials. Enjoy the book. The audiobook is great. Not only have I read this book multiple times as the agent, I just started listening to the audiobook because the. They sent me the link this weekend, and it's so good. So whatever format, audio, print, ebook, please grab it. You know, Wendy and Tracy, you did such a good job.

[Host 1]

Congratulations on 10,000 light years from.

[Wendy Katzman]

Okay, thank you, Carly.

[Tracy Dawson Meyer]

Thanks for all your support as always.

[Wendy Katzman]

Thank you.

[Host 3 (Bianca Murray)]

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.