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 a a guest.
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Mindy: We're here with Mary McCoy, author of Dead to Me, Camp So and So and also I, Claudia. Her forthcoming book, Indestructible Object, is about a Memphis girl who starts an investigative podcast to figure out whether love exists after her personal life goes up in flames. So with that backlist and with this upcoming book, it's pretty clear that you do a lot of genre hopping, which is something that I do as well. So I would love to talk about that. First of all, maybe your thoughts on why you are a genre hopping writer and then the thoughts on whether publishing is kind to that or not.
Mary: It's funny, I was thinking about that before we started talking and I'm like, why do I do that? Because the first answer that came to my head was - I'm trying to entertain myself when I write. I think it's more than that. I think it also speaks to the kind of reader that I've always been. Like I've never been a reader who just reads one kind of thing. I've always read across genres, non-fiction, fiction, even as an adult. I read books for children, books for young adults. I read a lot of adult fiction, too. So I think it makes sense that you write the kind of books that you want to read. Why do you do it?
Mindy: It's a great question and my response has been that I write widely because I read widely. So all of my inspiration, any ideas that I have or stories they can come from anywhere, focus on anything. So it's something that I just believe has always been part of my wide curiosity as well. I'm just like you. I read everything. I read nonfiction. I read fiction. I read Y.A. I read for adults. I don't read romance. That's just not my thing. But I will read anything as far as genre goes. I don't mean to be particular, but I don't understand just reading in one genre. I know people that do. I don't think I could ever have that kind of diet in my reading. So I read widely. And I think that that means that any of my ideas and any of my inspiration also happens across a wide spectrum.
Mary: Something my agent actually pointed this out to me, that this is something I do. She said, It seems like when you start a project, you have also set yourself some kind of little challenge. I think that's true. I think whenever I'm working on a project, I want to tell a story. But I also have set some sort of... like I think that this might be just outside my abilities. And I want to see if I can grab it. So I don't know, maybe that's why I do it as well. Like, I'm trying to grow as a writer.
Mindy: Well, I think that's a really good point. I know with my book A Madness So Discreet, that one is historical. And when I wrote it while I was getting ready to write it, I was really excited about it. And I was doing all this research and looking at everything that I had going on and really just like, yeah, this is going to be great. And then when it came time to write it, I kept putting it off. I researched for 18 months before I even started writing it. And a lot of the reason why is because I was afraid that I would not be able to pull this off because it's historical and it's a mystery. And my main character is a selective mute. So there wasn't a lot of chance to be working with dialogue.
So, I mean, it was a huge challenge. My book that came out in 2020 is called Be Not Far From Me, it's about a girl that is lost in the woods. It's a survival book. It's basically like Hatchet but with a girl. She is alone in the woods, Ninety eight percent of that book.
Mary: How do you do that? That’s got to be damn hard to write.
Mindy: When I started writing it and I was just like, I would come and I would sit down in front of my laptop and I'll be like, OK, so what's going on now? Oh, yeah, she's in the woods. There's no one to talk to.
Mary: Just her own terrible, terrible thoughts.
Mindy: Many of my friends that are writers have sent me messages or emailed me because they actually saw that challenge. I'll get emails from readers. They're going, gosh, I love this book, thank you. But I get an email from a writer and they're like, how the hell did you do that? And I like those challenges, changing things up. I think you're right. I think that's a really good point. Switching things around to challenge yourself
Mary: Like in Indestructible Object a lot of that story is told in podcast transcripts. And like that was something that I wanted to play around with. But part of the story is the main character is running around trying to get her parents to tell her the story that they do not really want to tell her, over the course of the book, trying to draw that story out from them and then working that into the narrative as well. Because - and this is something my editor pointed out to me - when you're writing a young adult contemporary novel, the point of the book can't be getting to the bottom of her parent's mystery. You have to keep the story focused on her and her life and what she's going through. And that has to be the center of the story. That was an interesting challenge as well. You know, I love a book where someone digs up family secrets.
Mindy: I write small town stuff, so, yeah, family secrets are always big,
Mary: You and I have a weird amount in common in addition to our alliterative names, like we both grew up because I grew up in western Pennsylvania in a small town. Used to be teen librarians.
Mindy: Oh, yes, absolutely. Yeah. And I think that probably also contributed to my reading and writing widely because I was always reading things that normally I wouldn't, so that I would be able to do good at my job and be able to, you know, give the books to kids that needed those books. So, yeah, I think that that definitely contributed to me reading widely and writing widely as well.
Mary: Yeah. And it's funny, I'm not a young adult librarian anymore. I'm now an art librarian and I feel like I'm not nearly as well versed in what's going on in young adult literature as I was when I worked with it with teens. And I miss it a little bit. There are times I'm like, oh, what's on trend right now? What is everyone reading? I have no idea, unless I go on Twitter, but it's a terrible place to be.
Mindy: Well, I don't go on Twitter unless I have to. Weirdly, a lot of people that I know had this problem - COVID hit and it should have been like our time for readers. We should be like the happiest people on Earth. And I had a hard time reading over COVID for whatever reason, nothing was speaking to me. I've been really struggling with reading lately, but part of it is because I'm writing so much, I get no breaks from words. It's all I do is words, words, words. So when it's time to relax, sometimes I'm like, no, no more words.
Mary: I had this a similar problem the first few months of the pandemic and actually the book that was kind of my drought breaker was Felix Everafter by Kacen Callendar. I read that book and it was just like a beam of sunshine. And I don't know, it opened a floodgate and I was able to read after that. I was also like all during 2020, pretty much from March 2020 through December 2020, I was on deadline. I was doing all of it, doing my revisions on Indestructible Object. And I discovered that being on deadline during a pandemic works pretty well. Being Focused on something that is the very immediate future, trying to be a creative person, writing first drafts during a pandemic is proving to be slightly more difficult. I’m just having a really hard time getting into that headspace right now, which… it's never really happened. I've never experienced it. I wouldn't call it writer's block because I know what I want to write. My body's just like, no, no.
Mindy: I understand I'm in a similar position and I don't want to write. It's when I sit down in front of my laptop... I mean, it's always work, but it feels kind of like drudgery. And yeah, I don't know why. It's partially because I'm an outdoor person and I don't like the way my publishing schedule is currently set up where I'm drafting in the summer. It makes me sad. I want to be outside and I want to be working. And it's like, you know, my flower beds don't look good. My garden is a mess. I haven't even been out there. And that tends to drag me down a little bit. So that's part of it for me. If my drafting was in the winter months, I would be probably much happier. Speaking of that genre jumping, when you talk about the different types of books that you read, but then also what you write, do you think that publishing or maybe your sales numbers would be kinder to you if you just picked a thing and stuck with it?
Mary: I don't know the answer to that. I feel like I will keep doing this as long as I can get away with it. And I feel like maybe at some point I'll be told no and I'll listen to that. But I don't know. I also wonder if at some point I won't just return and go full circle in a way. Like the book that I would like to try to write next is a mystery. My first book was a historical mystery. I feel like along the way through my four books I have, I don't know, that there's definitely a through line, but there's a trajectory.
I heard from a young reader who has read all four of my books, and she said, I liked this one the best. I feel like you just keep getting better. Which was really nice to hear from someone. I was just talking to a friend the other night who said the same thing. And that's good to hear.
And I think about my first book, Dead to Me, which is like this Hard-Boiled detective novel, and I remember having conversations with my editor while I was working on that book. And the whole time she was like, could you give her some feelings, too? She's a real cool customer. And I was like, no, she can't have feelings. That's too hard. And then Indestructible Object is nothing but feelings and characters who talk about their feelings all day long and are either really in touch with their feelings or trying to be. That's a nice journey to see, because I think that in some way reflects something of a personal journey, not just a creative one.
Mindy: I've had similar feedback over the course of writing, for as long as I've been writing and having my critique partners be like, how does she feel right now? And I would have so many comment bubbles on the sides where it was like - and she feels how? And people really pushing me to dig into those feelings and that internal monologue that is definitely part of the craft that you get better at. You don't necessarily see it at first. When you are a newer writer or an early writer, you are just thinking plot most of the time. All the time. But you want to get everything down on the page so that you don't lose it. And that is a progression of events. I know that I have gotten better as I get older and I'm writing more. I don't have to go back in and layer in feelings as much as I used to.
Mary: Something that I feel like I've gotten better at over four books is making that translation between what's in your head and what actually shows up on the page, because I would miss that early on. I would know what the character looked like and I would know what they were feeling, but I hadn't actually written it. And it would take feedback from critique partners to realize that like, oh, I never actually put that on the page.
Mindy: I depended too heavily on inferences. So like. but like in this dialogue right here, you can see that that's how she feels and it varies. But you're right, you're the author, so you already know how they feel or what they look like or what they're wearing. And so you don't necessarily put it on the page, but you feel like you see it that way because that's what it looks like. And you didn't necessarily do a good job of actually putting it on the page. That is something that you learn as you go.
I think, too when it comes to the genre hopping. I think I have 12 books out, maybe 11, and I've got two more coming. I have kind of begun to settle because I've written everything from historical, mystery, fantasy, post apocalyptic. I've written a little bit of everything, contemporary thrillers, and I have started to find a little bit of a groove, like you were saying before, about a through line. All of my books, like you read any of my books from the fantasy to the contemporary thriller The Voice is there. The grittiness and the feeling is, is there, that this is a Mindy McGinnis book. But it may not have the same genre or the same style because my style can vary pretty widely.
And some of my books, like A Madness So Discreet and then my fantasy books are written a little more with a literary bent. Whereas my first two books, the post apocalyptic books, they're very sparse just to reflect the landscape and reflect what's going on in the world. But when I have a book that has a little more of a rich setting, the language changes. So I am a little bit all over the place and I do think it has probably hurt me in terms of finding core readers, in terms of my publisher knowing how to market me. I do think that that probably has not done me a lot of favors just in terms of straight up book sales.
Mary: Yeah, and I don't know for me, I don't know how much of a commercial writer I am, so I don't feel like it impacts me quite as much. I'm a mid-lister, I guess I feel like over four books there are readers who have come with me because they like the style, they like the voice. You're saying, like you can tell when you're reading a Mindy McGinnis novel. I think something like that develops when you're writing. Do you ever feel like like you're just trying to see what you can get away with?
Mindy: All the time. I'll write something and I'll be like, oh, that's not going to make it, you know, but we'll see what happens.
Mary: I mean, I remember when The Female of the Species came out and just everyone was like, I can't believe she got away with that. Like, she just... she got to do that? And that was what made me realize - and this is probably why I'm still writing Y.A. - because I feel like you can really be experimental in Y.A. You can do things in a way that they would never let you do in the adult market. And I think it's a very exciting place to be for that reason.
Mindy: Yeah, I do. I think so, too. I think that you can have some fun and play with young adult, because I think the younger readers are going to be more receptive. My most recent book has, it's written in three POV’s and one of them is a panther. And most of my readers have been like, oh, that's really cool. But then it's like I've had adults that are like, what the hell are you doing? I'm having fun.
Mary: Exactly.
Mindy: The Female of the Species is a good example. So I think that was my fourth book and I was not, and I still am not like a very well-known writer. I have a group of people that really love me and will buy every book that I write, but that's like maybe five hundred people. I don't have a huge audience. I definitely think that there is a perception that I sell more than I actually do. If I'm being totally honest, I'm probably actually, as far as numbers go a mi-lister. I just get away with a lot. And I think honestly, that's part of the reason why I get away with it.
I mean, The Female of the Species should be banned. Like there's no reason why that book should not be banned, other than it isn't read as widely as some other books that get banned. This Darkness Mine, when I wrote that, I was like, oh, this is getting banned. No, not not a peep. And I think it's just because they aren't read enough and that's fine. It's like - I'm ready to be banned. I think it'll be great. Every time I write something. I think, well, this one's not going to make it and I keep getting away with it.
But I think that's partially because I do have a reputation that I write the way that I do. And the people that like it already know it. And that's who's going to pick up my books. It's people that already know who I am.
Mary: I think we've both been called gritty. My first couple of books got called Gritty. My second book definitely got called Weird. The word that keeps coming up with Indestructible Object, every review that I have seen of it, the word Messy seems to be the word. I've decided, I don't know, I don't think everyone means that as a compliment. But I've decided to wear it as a point of pride because it's a book about human relationships and human emotions and those are rarely tidy. Or if they are tidy, they're not interesting.
Mindy: No, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I get a lot of Bleak and I'm always like - Is that good or is that like… Well, I mean, it was supposed to be. So I guess I did it right.
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Mindy: Talking about Indestructible Object, the book that I'm drafting right now deals with a girl, a young girl who is creating a podcast. So I think that's really interesting that you're doing the same thing, because I am also toying with writing out the podcast, like the transcript as a chapter.
Mary: Was Courtney Summers the first one to do it with Sadie?
Mindy: Yeah.
Mary: My book is very different from Sadie because there are no villains and no one dies. And the podcasts are about art and love instead of murder. But it's a very satisfying format to write. In my third book, I, Claudia the last section of that book is written entirely in court transcripts. So there was something similar stylistically and I don't know, I hadn't listened to a lot of podcasts prior to writing this book and I do now. It was easy to kind of fall into the rhythms of it.
And there are actually two different podcasts in the book. There's the one that she produces with her boyfriend. It's called Artists in Love, and every week they tell a different artist's love story. Then they break up and he's gone and she's kind of in a tailspin. And she ends up starting her own podcast to sort of investigate the mystery of why her parents, who are in the middle of getting divorced, got together in the first place because they just seem like such a doomed couple. So the podcast kind of ends up being about this mystery and about trying to figure out whether love exists, whether love is ever worth all the goddamn trouble of it.
Mindy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. I think that's wonderful. I love the experimental structure as well. I'm playing with it too. In mine. It's like you're saying- it's a team, it's two girls. It's an unlikely duo that ends up having to do a podcast together because they don't have enough history credits to graduate because they had a guidance counselor that just did not do his job. One of them is like the valedictorian and the other one is barely going to graduate. And so they have two very, very different voices. And they end up getting involved in a mystery that nobody even knew existed, a disappearance, someone that disappeared 40 years ago. Nobody even knew she was gone.
Both of them with their different approaches where the valedictorian is just kind of like, oh, my gosh, it's so horrible. And I can't get my mind around the darkness of the situation and where the other girl is like, I am so not surprised. Yeah. A teenage girl disappears. Oh, yeah. That that's never happened before. And just having these really, really very divergent voices. And they each hosted a different episode. So I haven't written one of the episodes by the rougher girl yet, but I wrote the one that's by the valedictorian.
And so it was kind of fun to play with because I was writing it. How would she do this? Like, what is her voice going to be like on her podcast? It’s going to be very serious. But I was like, we're going to really heavy hand this, like it's going to be a little too much and she's going to take herself very seriously. It was a really good way to investigate that character.
Mary: That sounds fantastic. Does it have a title?
Mindy: Right now it's a working title and I hope it does stick most of the time it does. What they're supposed to be doing is just doing a historical podcast about their small town. There was a week in and this is actually true -this happened in my small town. Forty years earlier, there was a tornado that wiped out the town, a flash flood that came in right after that. And then the only murder that has ever occurred in the town happened in that same week. Everybody from the town calls it the long stretch of bad days. So that's the name of the book.
Mary: Oh, wow. I love that.
Mindy: Thanks. And it's not all my hometown, the tornado is my hometown. The flash flood is like the next town over and the murders are completely made up because nobody dies where I live. But, yeah, I'm excited about it. And I'm playing with that format, like you said, that podcast format. So it's fun. I mean, I really enjoy it.
I love the question in Indestructible Object. What is love? I've been divorced twice. I think that's a wonderful topic for a teenager to be interested in. It might help them discover some things earlier rather than later.
Mary: That was something I was really trying to do in the book. I feel like people get a lot of bad information about love and relationships and what constitutes a healthy or a successful relationship. Like often what constitutes success is it lasts until you die. Nobody cheats and nobody fights. And there's so much variation in between. And I think that a relationship can end and can still be a success, you have other options with people then, like we can't be together anymore, therefore you suck. And I have to just sort of burn down all the memories.
There are no villains in Indestructible Object, which is funny because my first three books all have these villains who are so bad like they’re badness is visible from space. And to have in this book be something that's a lot more nuanced that you don't need to have someone who is the bad guy necessarily, because just the way that people bounce off each other, the way that they communicate or fail to communicate, that can create all the conflict and tension and the things that can blow up a relationship.
Although I will say this like the main character, she's an imperfect character. You find out as you go further in, like at the beginning, she's really idealized to this relationship with her boyfriend that's just ended. But the more you learn about their relationship, the more you begin to see that it was not perfect at all, like it never was, that they sort of enjoyed telling each other sort of the story of themselves. They looked really good on paper.
Mindy: I really resent the TV shows and the movies and the books that I read that cast love in a certain light where you were always happy and nothing ever went wrong and he loved you so much. I get very frustrated with the way - it is changing, but I was a librarian for 14 years and I would get so irritated when the main character's love interest, the male was so just genuinely perfect. And he takes care of his little brothers and sisters and he volunteers at the Humane Society and he plays guitar and he cooks dinner for his family and he never even looks at other girls. You are the only girl that exists. And I'm like, bullshit. Yes, he does. He looks at other girls because he's a boy.
It would frustrate me because I would read when I was younger, too. It's like I would read these books about idealized love, where it’s like you are the only one for me and I have found you and we will be together forever. Then dating someone and being like. So you really seem to look at Kathy a lot. And I'm thinking, oh my God, this relationship is never going to work. He is attracted to someone else. And it's like, well, that's just biology.
Mary: I don't know. I feel like some of those grand romantic gestures can often be, They're not always weaponized, but when they are deployed upon you, they're very difficult to resist because you're being fed, like there's a moment where in Indestructible Object, where the main character and her boyfriend, they've broken up and he shows up at her house, like in this grand, like I want you back kind of gesture. She knows even then she should say no to it, but it's just too alluring. And she's getting the thing that she wanted like the thing that fills in that particular narrative, she should say no to it and she can't.
Mindy: That's something I've always felt about public proposals and someone is proposed to in public and people are like, oh, my God, it's so sweet! And I’m like NO! Because she can't say no now.
Mary: But when they do say no, it's so rich.
Mindy: I know there was a Tumblr for a while. I don't know if it's still out there. And it was all like public proposals gone wrong. I love that because it was like, this is reality. We don't always get what we want. And it’s guys, it's girls, it's both. And it's like people really putting themselves out on the line and being told no, being rejected. And it's heartbreaking to watch, but it's also real. That's reality. I would never say I grew up reading romance, but there was definitely like a summer where I think I was probably fifteen or sixteen. And I read a lot of Jude Deveraux and Kathleen Woodiwiss, so I read a lot of romance. And it was all very much like that, swoony, our eyes met and our fates were sealed. And that is just not how it works. And even the best possible relationship in the world, if you're not fighting, something's actually wrong because somebody isn't saying something.
Mary: What I was reading when I was in high school, I never went through a romance reading phase, but I was reading like. Pete Hamill and John Irving and John Cheever and all the Johns - mid century American masculinity romance novels. And that narrative is like, oh, I'm middle aged and emotionally battered and this person is going to save me. It’s just as much a fantasy.
Mindy: I have a lot of thoughts about the way relationships are portrayed and when you see a messy one, I really enjoy that. I know Friends is coming back and the kids are watching Friends. But I watched it through high school and then in college and then I stopped watching it after college. But I remember when Ross and Rachel broke up like my entire dorm was watching it. It was one of the best fight scenes that I've ever seen. It was very realistic, like they were yelling and then they were crying and then they were sorry. And then they were like, we really love each other, but this just isn't working and we don't know why. And they're both sad. It was just like a real relationship.
Mary: Well, I did not expect Ross and Rachel's relationship to show up in this conversation.
Mindy: I don't know. I've been because the friends, everybody's watching Friends again and people are wearing t-shirts and everything. I was really invested in it as a teenager. As an adult, If it's on, I'll watch it and it just doesn't do anything for me. But I remember being probably 18 or 19 when that episode aired and being like, oh, yeah, this is actually realistic. This is nice.
Mary: And, you know, there are people who were never quite into Ross and Rachel again. Once they broke up the first time and then got together, it was kind of like, well, they're not perfect anymore. So I'm done.
Mindy: Which is just not real at all.
Mary: Well, I mean, happy endings are all about where you stop telling the story. The first time that I ever thought, that I ever really saw that, it hit home for me was when I saw the movie The Graduate. And the movie ends with the big romantic gesture. He actually pulls it off. It goes well. And then the scene of them just driving away on the bus with these horrible expressions on their faces of like, oh, - we done fucked up and now we have to live with the consequences of our own actions.
And I remember really resisting that at first, the movie ending. And I was mad like that was my initial response of like, no, you can't you can't do that. That's not right. That's not how you tell a story. And then I realized, wait, no, that is exactly how you tell a story.
Mindy: I read very recently. I actually read The Hunchback of Notre Dame because I've never read it before.
Mary: I haven't read that.
Mindy: Oh, God. OK, so I talked about it on the podcast before. I don't know who at Disney read that and was like, this is a children's movie. Oh my God. The priest like flat out attempts to rape Esmeralda. Esmeralda is 14 and her knight in shining armor, whose name I forget. He literally can't even pronounce her name like she decides she loves him because she likes his military helmet, literally.
Mary: Oh, no.
Mindy: Oh, yes. She likes the way he looks. And then she's like, I love you. Let's get married. And then she even drops it where she's like, You don't even have to marry me. I will just be your mistress. That's fine. Let's make this happen. And he's like, You're so cute. My little pet, he’s patting her head and he won't, he can't even pronounce her name. And everyone ends up dying. Literally, the entire cast dies except for her lover, whose name I can't remember. But the very last line of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, it made me so happy because it said, as I forget his name, we'll just say it's Greg. It says, As for Greg, he suffered the worst fate of all. He was married,
Mary: I guess, at Disney. They were like, well, if we got away with The Little Mermaid and making that palatable to an audience of children, surely we are invincible now. We can adapt this.
Mindy: It was really good. I enjoyed the book. It was fun to read. It was very well written. Everyone dies, Esmeralda is hanged. Quasimodo crawls into her grave and just chooses to lay there until he dies. And as for him, he was married and it was the worst fate of all. The worst of all. Thanks for that happily ever after.
Last thing, why don't you let readers know, first of all, when the release date is for Indestructible Object, where readers can find the book and where they can find you online.
Mary: It came out June 15th. It is available anywhere books are sold. And my website is Mary-McCoy.com. I just got two pieces of good news yesterday. I found out, first of all, that Indestructible Object, there's going to be a paperback edition. And I also found out that it was nominated for YALSA’s Best Books for Young Adults list they produce every year. And it's funny, that just felt like such an achievement unlocked. Like four books, and I've never gotten that honor before. It felt really special.
Mindy: Absolutely. And I don't think that people realize you don't automatically get a paperback. You have to sell well enough in hardcover in order to get a paperback release.
Mary: Yeah, this is the first time that's happened. I did just find out also my second book, Camp So and So, which this is wild - that book came out in 2017 and it's paperback edition is coming out next May. That's nice to know that you've written something that's kind of had that much of a long tail on it.
Mindy: Any positive things, no matter when they come in this industry you embrace.
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