Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode. at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see as a guest.

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Mindy: We're here with Lorie Langdon, who is the author of The Happily Never After Disney Villains series. I've known you for a long time. You're a fellow Ohio author. We've been hitting the same locations and the same audience and the same festivals since 2013. You were just saying right before we started recording that you actually have not had a US release since 2018, even though you have been working back to back to back to back. So, why don't you explain that statement.

Lorie: It's actually an interesting story, I think, for writers out there who may be going through a lull in their career because that's exactly what happened to me. 2018, Olivia Twist came out to all this fanfare. It was in Target stores in the US. I got a film production deal, and then it just didn't sell. It didn't sell the way that my publisher had anticipated that it would or hoped that it would. So they said, 'Okay, we can't publish any more books with you. Sorry." So then I kind of took a break. Reassessed. You know, what do I wanna do? During that time, I taught writing workshops in Ireland and China, and did a lot of soul searching. Came back from China and decided I needed to write fantasy. I need to step into the genre that I actually love to read. I finished a book called The Princess Trials, which is kind of a romantic fantasy young adult. I was really proud of it. Went out on sub and got rejection after rejection after rejection. Part of it, I think, was the timing. Romantic fantasy wasn't as big as it is now, and also I think because my sales from my previous book were killing me. This is something that a lot of people outside of the industry don't realize. That if you have a previous book that doesn't sell, that it can actually tank your career. So probably about a year and a half I was just kind of spinning my wheels. Out of the blue, my agent emails me and she was like, "Hey, would you be interested in writing a Disney villain series?" I about screamed when I saw it, and I said, "Yes, I would." Come to find out they had been searching for an author to write this Disney villain origin love story series. It's about the younger version of the Disney villains. The editor at Disney Publishing Worldwide read Olivia Twist and thought I would be perfect for it. So we talked and they offered me the series within a week. It was a super fast turnaround, under the caveat that these books are to release internationally. They'll be releasing in countries all over the world, but not in the US. And that is because there are two other Disney villain series that are being released on a regular schedule in the US, and they didn't wanna compete with those other series.

Mindy: Different threads in my life have coalesced lately. And you're talking about Olivia Twist, and I remember when Olivia Twist came out. It was a big deal, and there was this huge canvas across the Internet. Everywhere I went, I saw it, and it was everywhere. And your name was everywhere, and you had gotten a film deal. And it was just like, "Oh my god, Lorie hit it. Like Lorie's doing great." And then it's like, "No, actually, that was almost the end of me." Things can look amazing and just simply not be the case. I was actually having a conversation with Beth Revis, I hope she doesn't mind me name-dropping her, but Beth Revis wrote Across the Universe, which came out, I think in 2012. Huge deal, right? She writes for Star Wars now. She has a Star Wars book. I was having a conversation with Beth just about different things in the publishing industry, and we were talking about non-traditional ways to go out and make money. Anything that you can in order to keep some money coming in. Like you were saying, you went overseas and taught. Beth and I were talking about these things and she was like, she said, "you know, I hope you don't mind me asking," but she's like, "You know, you're talking about how you are always trying to quilt pieces together in order to make something happen, and I'm not naïve. I know the industry, but looking online, I would imagine that you're fucking killing it." And I'm like, "No."

Lorie: Yeah. Not at all.

Mindy: I am not killing it. So if you could talk a little bit about how there is a little bit of an Instagram filter on that.

Lorie: Yeah, I think it is the perception, and we have been taught to make sure that the perception is that our books are doing well in order to make readers want to jump on board. I don't think I've ever seen an author come out on social media and say, "Guys, my books just aren't selling. You know, they're tanking. You probably don't wanna read them." I think that we just really try everything we can, and we do love our own books, right? So it's genuine. The passion comes from our hearts. It's not that we're being fake. We do want everyone to read our stories, so we put that out there and we hope that it comes back to us. But something else I forgot, talking about non-traditional routes. In between when I finished The Princess Trials and I got the Disney contract, I took a write-for-hire job. And it was a woman who had a story that she had told her children all the years they were growing up, and she wanted to turn it into a young adult book. And so we worked together and created a plot, and I wrote that book. They paid me to write it, of course. It hasn't been published as of yet, but that kind of also opened the door to Disney because when they found out that I had already worked with someone in a write-for-hire scenario, they were 100 percent on board. I do encourage people to look for those non-traditional paths, and a lot of times they can end up taking us exactly where we wanna go.

Mindy: Absolutely. They can bolster some skills that you never expected to need, and then you have them, and it is another tool in your work belt. So I write underneath a pen name... enjoy doing it, but it is a grind. You and I were talking earlier before we started recording about the grind which I definitely wanna come back to. But I write underneath a pen name. I do have an editorial service that I run underneath my own name. But I also hire out underneath a different name where I work as a freelancer for an agency. I also do collaborative writing through them as well. I also work extensively in writing non-fiction book proposals. It is something that I found completely boring and had no skills for and was just like this is a part of publishing that I do not care about. And this agency head-hunted me, and they contacted me, they were like, "Hey, we think that you would be good at this, and we'll teach you how. You get the clients, and the money gets split." And I was like, "sure, I'll give it a try." And I like it. Once I've got a template - it's like I understand how a non-fiction book proposal works now. I can put one together with someone else's material fairly easily, and it's just really kind of cool to have this...

Lorie: Yeah. That's an amazing skill to have.

Mindy: Yeah. I can't advertise it because I do it underneath a different name. If you aren't NYT and you aren't actually killing it, and even if you are NYT, I know plenty of people that are NYT that also have day jobs. So there is no one indicator for, yes, this person is doing just fine.

Lorie: That is so true.

Mindy: You were talking about that constant drive. The mix of loving what you're doing and loving the work. Like you were saying, you loved your princess book that you wrote that ultimately didn't land anywhere. You end up with these books that you love that, quite frankly, no one else does. So I have a book that I wrote, I mean, shoot, I probably wrote this book in 2005, and I am getting ready to publish it underneath my pen name. I wanna publish it. I care. Nobody else cares, and that's a hard place to be creatively when you have something that you love, and literally no one else does.

Lorie: Yeah, and I'm still hoping that The Princess Trials finds a home now that Disney is becoming more of my brand. And you can tell by the title that even though this is a fantasy, The Princess Trials also... is kind of fairy tale. I think I could fit in with the Disney brand that I'm building. I'm still hoping, and I hope that - you should self-publish that book because it's something that I've thought about many times.

Mindy: Yeah. I am, and that's what I do underneath my pen name. It's all self-pubbed, and that particular racket is its own monster. Everything is different. Nothing that you learn from trad-pub, as far as marketing and finding your audience carries over, and it's always changing. It's so dynamic, and you gotta pay to play. I know people don't wanna hear that, but you got to spend money to make money. You gotta market. You have to pay for ads. Everything's out of your pocket, and it's painful. And there's no guarantees, but that's true of everything. You were talking about the trad world and Olivia Twist getting so much attention and then just not actually performing. I've had that happen too. Not to the extent as far as coverage and marketing. But I tell a lot of people, fellow writers, when we talk, my publisher does a great job of making it seem like I do really well and everyone loves me. Because I always tell fellow writers, if I showed you my royalty statements, you would fall over dead. I don't sell that well.

Lorie: Yeah. That's interesting. It does seem like you're doing amazing, Mindy.

Mindy: I just keep writing.

Lorie: Sometimes it's timing. Like Olivia Twist. If it had released right around the time of Bridgerton, I believe it would have been a huge hit because it is a romantic historical retelling. It's very difficult to compete when... especially when it's not a new release, it's not in bookstores anymore. It's hard to bring it back out of the dark.

Mindy: So hard. I do sell pretty consistently and well within the library and educational markets. General reading public, honestly, I don't think really is very aware of me. Within education and library, I do well. I've been around long enough that I am also just so thankful that I get to do this for a living. I'm continuously grateful for everything that my publisher does for me and that they quite honestly keep me around. But I think that's where the perception of success comes in my world is simply because I produce consistently. It may not ever break out. I've never had a movie deal. I've never had a TV show. I've had rights sold. But as you know, that doesn't really count. But I can write consistently. And I sell pretty consistently.

Lorie: It's the author career. Typically, I know a lot of people who published a book or maybe two, and then they're out. But then if you want to make this your life-long career, I do believe it's consistency, and very few of us have that breakout moment. It's what we all hope for.

Mindy: Yes, it is. It's the pie in the sky.

Lorie: And everyone is like, "Hey, Lorie, you've made it. You're writing for Disney." It is amazing because I've always been a Disney girl. I used to sit in my bedroom and, I'm outing my age right now, but I would listen to those records that you have the book with and dream up additional stories for these characters. That's come full circle for me, and I have been given tremendous creative freedom at Disney. They've said, "Okay, we wanna write a first love story for these villains when they're young." Then they just said, "Go." And so I was able to do that for all of these books, and then they do have to go through levels of approval. So my editor and then Disney Animation Studios, as well as Live Action Studios on some of them, have had to give input. But typically it's very small changes that they ask me to make. There is an exception. So I just finished writing Captain Hook's story. When I submitted that outline Live Action Studios came back and said, "Why isn't Peter Pan in this book?" And, "We wanna see James Hook's first meeting with Peter Pan, and we wanna know why they don't like each other so much." And I about fell over. I'm like, "What? You want me to write this?"

Mindy: That becomes cannon now, correct?

Lorie: I believe so. Now, these books are not releasing in the US. I do have hopes that they will come here some day, but they are releasing all over the place. I just got word yesterday that Vanessa, which is Ursula/Vanessa, the first book in the series, is releasing in India, which that hadn't previously been part of the plan. They're coming out in Japan, in Australia, in New Zealand, France, the UK, Turkey. My US readers are like, "Why?" They're crying. They're like, "Why can't I get these?"

Mindy: Is there a way for them to get them?

Lorie: They can order Vanessa from Book Depository. The English version is on there, and it's around $23, but that includes the shipping from Australia.

Mindy: We were talking before we started recording about the grind, and about how you can hit a point where you are just working. The magic is a little bit gone. There may not be love in your heart. Very few of us are running towards our laptops first thing in the morning - bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and like I am gonna write today. There have been times when I felt like that, but it is rare. Especially lately. You and I are both talking about how we supplement our traditional income through different routes - teaching and non-traditional publishing routes. You hit a point where it is just a grind, and it is emotionally and mentally exhausting.

Lorie: I wrote four books for Disney back to back. I had six months to write each book. They're fantasy. They're not just little romance books. They all have fantasy magic. Huge plots. And especially with Captain Hook, he was one of my dream characters to write. And I wrote an origin story about him and Peter Pan, as I talked about, but it's mainly about him. And I feel like I poured everything into that book, my whole heart and soul into that book, and then I didn't even take a day off before I started the next one - which is the evil queen. I don't feel as connected. And I wanna feel connected. I wanna feel excited because this is a privilege to be able to do this, and I really am excited to be able to do it. But at the same time, I can't fight that burnout. I'm gonna get 600 words down. I'm gonna get 800 words down, or I'm gonna get a 1,000. If I get a 1,000, that's a good day. It's just not flowing out of me because I've kind of hit that creative wall. When you're on back-to-back deadlines, you just don't have that luxury. It's like, I feel as if, as a creative person, I really would prefer to have time to step back between each book to fill that creative well with nature and great movies and family and friends and experiences. And then when you come back at it, you come back at that next book, you're fresh. This is what I do, but I haven't really had that. And at the same time, when I think, "Do I want that?" Because I went through that long stretch of time where I did not have a book contract. And it was scary and upsetting, and I questioned whether or not I was going to continue in my author career. So having this contract is security. So you kinda have to balance those two things.

Mindy: Emotionally, it is a hell of a weight. I feel the same way. I grew up on a farm. I grew up bailing hay and getting stepped on by animals - throwing manure around. So the fact that I get to write books for a living is ridiculous, right? The fact that I sit down in front of a laptop and move my fingers and I get paid for that is just stupid to me. Sometimes if my publisher sends me on tour, they're like, "We've got you here, here, here and here. You've got two events on this day. Don't have a break in between. You don't have a day off. Is that okay?" And I'm always like, "Yes." You're asking me to put myself in front of people and talk about myself, or my book. This is not hard. Yes, I can do this, guys. And people are always like, “Man, you're such a workhorse.” I am, but I too have hit a point where it's like, man... why aren't words coming? It's not writer's block. I know what needs to happen next. It's not that I don't know what happens next. It's that I literally don't wanna sit down and work because it's hard. I'm tired. I don't have that love anymore. Different projects hit different points emotionally. Right now, I'm on a super tight deadline and it is my own fault. I have to, I absolutely must write today, and I have to write probably 3,000 words every day for the next four weeks, if I am gonna hit this deadline. There aren't options. There isn't... "Oh, you deserve a break. Go get ice cream." No. You're writing. Shut up, right? I did it to myself so this is not poor me. You just get so worn out and you feel it emotionally, mentally, and physically.

Lorie: And I think though, if you want to be an author, you have to put on your big girl panties and you have to do it. And it's like... I think so many people that I've known over the years are just maybe not able to.

Mindy: Yeah.

Lorie: For whatever reason. Whether it's outside influences, their life is too stressful, or they have another job or whatever it may be, internally, they're just not driven. But if you want to be an author that's published consistently, you have to be able to sit down and write. You have to put your butt in the chair and you have to do it, and it's like... sometimes you don't feel it. Sometimes it's not fun. But that's okay. This is what we do.

Mindy: If 43-year-old Mindy was talking to 33-year-old Mindy, and was like, "Hey, guess what. You write for a living now, and you're able to do this consistently. And you've got contracts coming, and you're self-publishing. And you've got these great little side gigs, and everything is going really well. But you're tired." I would be like, "Who fucking cares?"

Lorie: Yeah, right.

Mindy: Oh, poor you. Poor 43-year-old Mindy. Shut up, right?

Lorie: Get it together. Yeah, I mean, writing for Disney, it's like, if I could tell my younger self that I was going to do that, it would have changed my whole perspective on myself and my future. I wish we could go back and whisper that. It would take away so many insecurities and the fact that I grew up thinking I was not good at anything. When you get in a place, you don't wanna ever take it for granted, but I think it's hard not to sometimes. Sometimes when we're in one of these slumps, it's like, the work really is not good. But recently I sent the book I'm writing, The Evil Queen, to some friends and I was like, "Okay, what is wrong with this book? You guys have to help me." And they're like, "It's great. It's wonderful. It's you." You're just... It's me mentally, just not connecting with it, even though the words are coming out and flowing. Emotionally, creatively, I'm just not feeling it.

Mindy: I feel that way with pretty much every book I write. While I'm writing it, I am convinced it is shit. I remember writing The Female of the Species and being like, "This one's getting phoned in. You're not doing it. This is not working. This one's dead in the water. You flubbed it. You're just gonna have to get this one out and then move on to the next thing." And it's my best-selling book. The Female of the Species  is the book that people know me for. So yeah, you don't know it. When you're in it, you have no clue if what you're doing is good or not, and generally, I just think it's terrible.

Lorie: When I was writing Hook, I was so like in it, and I knew it was good. And that feeling is a high. Those books and characters that flow out of us and that we connect to... It's such a rarity these days. That then I go on to something else and I'm like, "Okay, I'm not connecting. This sucks." But it's not the case.

Mindy: Well, and the disparity between how you feel about it at the time, or while you're writing it, and how it performs can be a little bit of a gut punch. When I was writing my fantasy series, Given to the Sea and Given to the Earth, I was like, "Oh dude, you're killing it. These are good. You're a fantasy writer, right?" Literally, no one has read those books - like my mom and my editor and my mom didn't even really like them that much.

Lorie: That's how I feel about Gilt Hollow, which is a murder mystery that I wrote. A young adult suspenseful kind of romantic mystery that everyone in my family and friends, who have read all of my books except for the Disney books, they're like, "This is your best book. This book is amazing. I love this book." And no one read it. No one read it. Didn't go.

Mindy: It isn't a reflection of the quality of the books. You were talking earlier, it's just timing. And I am not a fantasy author, I just happened to have two fantasies in me. So I wrote them and the fantasy market was like, "Who are you?" And my readership was like, "What is this?"

Lorie: Yeah, that's true. It's like me with the contemporary mystery. They're like, "What is this?" Because I just had this mystery in me, and I'm really a fantasy writer.

Mindy: So we were talking about just writing in general, and that burnout feeling. And how sometimes we do feel super connected to something that we're writing, and sometimes we're just not. Sometimes we are just plugging and we are writing words and we are not feeling it. When it comes to what I always call the shiny new idea - the bright, shiny, new idea - those always feel so good when they come, and you're like, "Yes, this is magic." Though once you start trying to write it and you touch it, it does get tarnished a little bit because it's never going to be what you have in your head. You're just getting as close as you can with your words. Can you talk a little bit about where you get your ideas from? 'Cause that's such a common question.

Lorie: That is the most common thing that people ask me who are not authors, obviously, and it's very difficult to answer because inspiration comes from everywhere. For example, I was originally signed to write three books for the Villain series, which was Vanessa, Gaston, and Yzma from Emperor's New Grove, which was hilarious, by the way. It was so fun to write. And as I was finishing up Yzma, I was watching a baking show, and this woman made a cake that was a pirate scavenger hunt cake. There was a little like icing ball that you drop into a tunnel and it opens up a cave that opens up into a waterfall and then the treasure comes out. And for whatever reason, I saw that and I was like, "I'm gonna write Captain Hook's story." I called my editor. I said, "Hey, I know our contract is ending, but I have this amazing idea." And she's like, "Yep, you're gonna do that." And it was like cake. It can be anything. I think when we get that inspiration though, it's so exciting. And it's not, for me these days, not super common. How about you?

Mindy: It is random. I think part of it is just the jaded end of being in the business for so long. I'll have an idea - "cool idea. I like that." But it's not in your market. It's not what you write. The audience is different. Dead on arrival. You don't write that. I had an idea for a middle grade. It would have been in verse and it would have been highly cloaked so that only the person that needed this book would understand. I had an idea about writing a book about a girl that was being abused by her older brother, because it happens, and people don't wanna talk about it. And I had it. I spent like three days walking around cleaning the house, and I'd be like, "Here's a phrase. Here's a phrase. Here's an idea." And I was just living in this little girl's head so completely, and I never wrote a damn word down. I never did anything with it because I've never written anything in verse. There's been chapters in some of my books that are in verse, but I've never written in verse. And my editor has said to me before, "I'm not sure that I would even know how to edit something in verse." Number two, I don't write for middle grade. That would be a big leap. Number three, content. And especially where we are at right now with the general public and schools and the education market, which, as I said before, which is where I sell well, like school and libraries, being heavily watched. And all these eyes on it and watch dogs, and it's like, "Yeah, sure, you're gonna write a book about a fifth grader being sexually assaulted. That's gonna get published." So it was like there were three things. There was market. There was a format, and there was public perception at the time. And I was like, "This is what I wanna write. I am on fire. This is in my head, and it won't get out and I wanna write this." And I never even bothered to write a single thing down because...

Lorie: That's so hard.

Mindy: I know. I knew it was pointless. I knew it was a waste of my time.

Lorie: It does feel like though something like that could come back and the timing could be right, even though middle grades, something that your readership would latch on to.

Mindy: I agree, and I had all of these thoughts. And it was like I had this thing that I was just kind of living for three or four days, and it really had a hold of me, you know how that goes.

Lorie: And it could be important. It could be a really important story to tell.

Mindy: But at the same time, it's like I have actual deadlines. I've got things I'm writing under this pen name. I got online classes that I wanna put together. I've got editorial work waiting on me. You can make money on this, this, and this. But right now, your time is better spent doing the things that you know can work.

Lorie: A similar thing is when there's something that you did pour your heart and soul into. It was a great idea. You wrote it, and then something similar is out in the market, like the same time. That actually is happening with Hook because there is a book that just came out with Disney, and it's part of the Villain series where the movie is told from the villain's perspective in a book. I knew that Hook had a version of that coming out this year. I have not read it, but the blurb says that it is James Hook's origin story, which is completely out of format for that series. And it's exactly what I wrote and exactly what I was told to write. So I wonder, what is the future of this? And it was a little heartbreaking. You know, those things are like our babies, right? The books are really part of me, I feel like.

Mindy: There are only so many ideas. There are only so many ideas, and there are only so many plot lines. Publishers Marketplace will be like so and so sold this, and it's a gender flipped Count of Monte Cristo. And you're just like, "Well, okay. I guess I'm not writing that."

Lorie: Yeah. Well, I have kind of a similar situation with Doon, which is my first series that I co-write with Carey Corp. And it's a re-imagining of Brigadoon, and it's set in Scotland. Fantasy. It's not time travel, but the girls do travel to a mystical land. The portal only opens once every hundred years. But right when those books were coming out, Outlander started releasing their television series. Well, I had read Outlander back in the early 90s, and it was an inspiration for me. But it was so old, like nobody cared about Outlander anymore. I named my prince Jamie, as an homage to Jamie Fraser, because he's one of my favorite characters of all time. But my character was worlds different than Jamie Fraser. But I still to this day get people saying, "This is just a knock-off of Outlander." And if the TV series hadn't come out, this never would have been an issue. And it's so dissimilar, but that's kind of what happens.

Mindy: I know. When The Female of the Species came out, you know how many people were like, "Oh my God, have you seen Hard Candy?" No, I haven't seen Hard Candy, and they're like, "Well, because that's what your book is." I'll never watch it because I'm tired of hearing about it. So last thing, why don't you let listeners know where they can find you online and where they can get some of your books. I know that your recent releases aren't necessarily available in the US, but you definitely have other things available.

Lorie: Yeah, you can find me on Amazon, and all of my books, that are not the Disney Series, are available on Amazon still. And actually there's a promotion right now that the first book in the Doon series is free. So the e-book is free right now. Our publisher decided to bring it back out because it's something we feel is a classic. So that is a free option for you to read one of my books. And then Vanessa, as I said, can be found on Book Depository and probably Gaston soon as well. You can find on Instagram at Lori Langdon underscore author, and that's basically where I hang out.

Mindy:     Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.