Indie Author Len Joy On Publishing Later In Life

January 12, 2021 Mindy McGinnis

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.

Mindy: We're here with Len Joy, author of Everybody Dies Famous. Len came to ,if not writing, definitely publishing in his sixties and I have had quite a few guests who entered into this journey later on in life and they always seem to get a really good response. I think that aspiring writers like to hear that you don't have to have made it before you're Thirty. I personally wasn't published till I was in my mid-30s so I feel that pressure often, in my twenties, of you know maybe not having accomplished things or hit any Pinnacle that I was aiming for yet. When you're in your twenties it feels like you need to be doing something now. So I’d really just like to talk about making that choice and making that move towards publishing later in life but first let's talk about writing. Have you always been a writer or did you come to the actual Act of writing later as well?

Len: I think when I was really young it’s hard to remember sometimes that far back. I did have these aspirations. I liked the idea of being a writer when I went off to college in the 60s and became an English major, that was a path, I thought, to world fame as a writer. And I went to the University of Rochester and during the first year actually I took this course on English literature, and the Professor shredded my paper. I was only 18, not a lot of confidence. And he sort of totally destroyed it at that point. Switched to economics and then went into business, and I still had that notion, I was just convinced I didn't have the talent to be a writer. You do a lot of writing in business, but it’s always... I had a small business, manufacturing company. I was always writing to the banks asking for money describing business and stuff but once I started having children and liked to write about the kids and sort of poke fun at them and my wife and myself. And I got a lot of great feedback on my holiday letter, which was easy when the kids were young and couldn't read it and I continued that tradition and realized that was something I really enjoyed doing.

I still continued in my business for 20 years and around 2003 when I got a mail flyer from the University of Chicago Graham School offering creative writing course, and do I want to take that? I was winding down the business. I had businesses in Phoenix and I’m located in Chicago and I did it with my brother in law. I would commute back and forth for basically every 10 days I go to Phoenix and then come back and so I did a lot of reading and sort of writing during those long flights. But it always gives us an excuse when I couldn't take any other courses because my schedule is so irregular but once that stopped basically on a whim I decided I would try this course and I really enjoyed it and I got good feedback. It was just the basics of writing you know, write 300 words of fiction. The instructor was encouraging but not, “don’t quite your day job” kind of encouraging.

I enjoyed writing. I liked telling stories. I moved on and took like a whole sequence of courses from the University and then I also, each year I would go to the Iowa Writers Festival which is a great program. They give you so many different opportunities. It’s like summer camp for adults. you get a week away from everything else and just sort of immersed in whatever course you're taking it and going to book readings and stuff like.

So that was probably in my 50s. And I didn’t consider myself a novelist. Some people I think have a novel that they want to write and I didn't have that. I had, I have stories and experience running a Manufacturing Company a small engine remanufacturing business with 300 employees. Just a lot of material for writing. It wasn’t a great business but it was a great experience. I think that’s one of the disadvantages of writing when you’re older, is you have less time to make your mark but one of the advantages is in addition to having more financial stability is you have all this experience.

Mindy: And it’s that experience that is interesting and I want to come back to that because you mentioned having a professor, a teacher, Mentor, kind of really dissuade you from something that you were interested in and turned you away from something that you wanted. You said that you felt as if you're being told you didn't have the talent to write. I think it's very interesting to take that statement and set it beside what you just said about having experience. Because personally and my viewpoint on this has changed - I used to really Bank on that word talent and believe that it was a latent thing that we were given at Birth or not. As I have become older and looked at some of the writing I produced in my twenties, I can definitively tell you that is not true.

I thought I was really good and I'm not saying that you weren't at 18, I'm simply saying that I know the writing that I was producing in my Twenties that was being rejected again and again and again - as I have told my listeners before I was querying for 10 years I was rejected for 10 years and I earned all of those rejections because my writing was not ready yet. As a 42 year old I can look back at that and identify a seed, be it creativity or whatever you want to call it. I'm not going to call it Talent. That wasn't there yet. I learned from my criticism. It sounds like you had a rough brush. I never had anyone tell me - you're not going to make it cuz you don't have what it takes. I had people say - you need to work if you want this. Which is a true statement and a helpful statement. Simply saying you don't have it - is not helpful.

With this in mind I want you to think about - because I know I have many Educators too, out there that listen to my podcast. Putting those two statements beside each other - what do you find to be like the takeaway there - talent versus work and travail?

Len: I have this sort of dual-career of writing and and competing in triathlons, both of which I went into in my 50s. My position, my feeling is that most people have a decent amount of talent if you want to call it that. Or ability, let’s say ability to say, write, or compete athletically. And then there’s a few, the rare exception in writing, where the person doesn't need any training at all, they’re just naturally brilliant. But that's such a small percentage, I don’t think it even applies.

Even with your ability you need to work at it, whether it’s a sport or writing. You need training. I personally know I benefited from great instructors who opened my eyes to how much there is involved in the profession of writing. It's not just sitting down and writing words. A lot of things storytelling, formation of the stories, and just mundane things like dialogue, punctuation. There’s a lot to learn and I found that you have to put in the time. There’s no shortcut to that.

I tell that story more as a cautionary tale, for me like when people are in workshops to remember that when you know, like a lot of the workshops now you get - 18 year olds, and 20 year olds and 40 and and 50 and 60 year olds. As we get older sometimes you get out in the real world and you get rejected in a lot of ways. Customers, stuff like that. And it can maybe coursen you or harden you a little but, I always remember that that 18 year old boy was so sensitive. It wasn’t that the professor was - it was the same experience you probably had. The paper wasn’t very good. I wasn’t used to writing papers. I just took it to heart. I made a good choice at that time to go into business, which I also enjoyed. He didn’t extinguish the flame. I postponed that adventure.

Mindy: Postponement is a good word to use here. It's a long journey no matter how you use your mile markers in publishing and writing - the line always extends further into the distance. There's always something else you're going to want, I'll put it that way. I remember in my - let's call it naivete - in my twenties thinking, “you know if I could just get a book published then I'll be happy.” I think I have 12 books published now.

Len: Then you’re really happy.

Mindy: I’m not, though. You want something else. You always want something more. Now I’m like, I’ve done well, I’ve made a living as a writer. I’m not a New York Times bestselling author though. If I could just get that... right? I mean, the rung is always moving higher and that is a good thing because it pushes us to continue to improve.

Let's talk about your book and moving forward through these years of writing, knowing that you wanted to write, having that creative flame still burning inside - walk us through that process and how you arrived where you are now with a small press title.

Len: Going back to when I was taking those courses, I started taking novel writing courses and they had a sequence at the University of Chicago. And I didn’t realize when I signed that most people who were taking that course already had written what they think of as their novel and they were just trying to figure out how to make it better. I had no novel. I had just been taking short stories and writing really, flash fiction and things. When I took that course we were going to critique a chapter each week. It was a great incentive to apply myself. I took a short story I had about a guy who had pitched… he’s driving down the road and heading towards a wedding. I evolved at - I would write a chapter each week. Ultimately four or 5 years later it became my novel American Pastime.

It took a long time to get it published because I was trying, in the original format it had grown to like a fifty year saga, from the fifties up to the early 2000s. I got some feedback as I was trying to get it published that as a debut author, it’s too long, too involved, you need to cut it back. You know those are tough things to hear. But I was able to, and I’m flexible enough, I cut the novel in half, cut out many of my beloved characters and ended it right after the Vietnam War.

It’s a family Saga about the Stonemason family, with Dancer Stonemason who pitched a perfect game in minor leagues and then his life unravels. He doesn't make it to the majors and it's sort of America growing up in the 50s and 60s through the war. So I ended it there and managed to get a small publisher and then I got great reviews and some sales success. It's really hard to sell from those independent platforms. And I wrote another novel. It’s different from that, Better Days, but I came back to - I had all this material that I used. I decided I would continue the story.

Even though it's a stand-alone novel, I wrote Everybody Dies Famous using the same characters that survived, like 30 years later. The whole novel takes place in a single day. In some ways it’s a lot easier in some ways more challenging. But, all the activity is focused and it gives you a good framework to write the story.

Mindy: You made that jump to becoming a published author. You're with a small press. You mentioned earlier, you know, this is an experience you had before - it is difficult to move quantities when you're with a small press simply because there's so much noise out there in the world. Making yourself visible is difficult. I’m published with one of the Big Five and I can tell you it's still difficult to get attention and get eyes on your book and put yourself in front of people simply because there's just so much noise. So much noise all the time, everyone saying - I wrote a book! it's very hard to make yourself stand out. What is your experience been then with the Indy press world and are you looking to replicate that? Are you going to stay in the Indy world, or are you looking to… what's in your future?

Len: I was fortunate I was published by a group called Hark! New Era publishing. A husband and wife team. I was their first book published, and then I was their last book published. They had children and careers and were trying to make this work and couldn't keep it going but they were really good editors. Then, the next book I moved on to another small press, and I wasn't satisfied really, with the marketing attention and the arrangements. So I actually bought the book back from them and went through Kindle Direct publishing for that experience and… Which was good. I’m glad I did that because It gave me a chance to experiment with trying to do social media ads. It’s just something I’m not good at and would like help with.

I'm 69 years old. I can’t wait years for the agents to see the Wonder of my Work. I just finished my fourth novel. I would like to move up the food chain to a big press, and you need an agent to do that. But I can feel for agents because they get what sounds like hundreds of submissions a week. They just have to go through quickly and I always want to take my shot at it.

But, for Everyone Dies Famous was published by BQB Publishing which is a hybrid publisher. I’m just very grateful for that. When I started writing I don't think that was even an option. BQB does a quality job. They publish good books. They provide a partnership. They’re doing what you’d have to do as a self-publisher, but for most of us they are doing a much better job at that. And they share the royalties. I’d love to make a living at it, but I’ve made a living and what I'd Really like to get is readers.

Mindy: You bring up an interesting point and you're not the first person I’ve heard say this. I've had multiple authors who are older say you know, my remaining window is only so big.

Len: We plan to live forever but we may not.

Mindy: We might not. I mean it's a pretty good bet. So it is something to be considered. It may not be the most happy thought. But it is in fact, reality. And also, you were saying that you took the step of buying your rights back and self publishing through Kindle Direct. Trying to figure out the confusing algorithm maze that is Kindle, Amazon advertising, Facebook advertising, any of it. It is not easy. I have friends in the Indie publishing industry that's 50% of their job, is just figuring out how to crack those algorithms, how to put together an ad that works and all of those things. And of course it’s all very tech-heavy which, I imagine - making a generalization - I imagine may also be more intimidating, for someone that hasn’t grown up and been around computers and really digging into them their entire lives.

Len: Right.

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Mindy: I am very interested to talk to you about another aspect of your life - that being athleticism. I am also an athlete, was an athlete in High School, lost that in my twenties and in the beginning of my 30s because I was too busy. Returned to it then end of 30s and now into my forties. And you are a competitive triathlete.

Len: You know, I was a jock growing up. I went to college thinking I could play football. I love sports. After college there’s no way to have competition. I started hearing about these triathlons, and thought about it for like ten years. I’m average at running, biking and swimming. Not elite by any stretch. But put them all together and maybe I can compete. You know, write a page a day and I'll have a novel in a year.

But it got me, you know, I took a couple of YMCA classes and then I found a trainer and you discover A Whole New World. It’s a lot. I thought I could swim. This morning my training was ahead an hour and a half bike ride on the trainer in the basement now that we're all sequestered. And I went to the Y for a swim lesson. It’s like, it's great. I’m continuing to learn stuff. I’m not elite, really, but because of my age group, I’m able to compete on Team USA because there's just fewer and fewer of us still competing.

Mindy: And you completed an IronMan, correct?

Len: That was a great experience. I don't think I’ll repeat it because it just takes so much time and training to do it. I did an IronMan in Idaho, Coeur d'Alene with a group that I still train with and some people I know have gone on to complete ten or eleven IronMans. I just don’t. I just don’t have the time. A bike training ride is like six hours.

Mindy: I'm support staff for an IronMan here locally. I run around, stabbing trash and picking it up and grabbing people’s water bottles and taking their empty bottles, and sometimes they're taking their full piss bottles. I don’t compete because I would drown. I would be dead. So that's not in the cards for me and never will be, but I do support because it’s amazing. It’s a stunning amount of athleticism and determination and just mind over matter involved in that and I love that you as an individual are participating in both exercising the mind and the body. Constantly moving forward and learning. That’s what I Aspire to. In 20 years I want to be able to say the same thing

Len: I always find like those activities are really complementary in the sense that, I ran the Boston Marathon. I got the chance to do that. When you run a marathon, you don’t run 26 miles at once. It’s a step at a time.you train for it. Just like a novel. Just do a little bit each day. Training on the days you don’t want to train. Same with writing. You’ve got to sit down and do something everyday. They support each other. It’d be easy, especially now, with the world the way it is, not to get out of bed in the morning.

Mindy: Oh yeah. If you don’t give me a reason to get out of bed, I'll stay there. Last thing, if you could let people know where they can find you online, that would be great.

Len: My website, www.lenjoybooks.com. Facebook, search for Len Joy. The same with Twitter. I have a newsletter and I would welcome more subscribers.

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.

Robert McCaw Shares the Importance of Good Editing When Self-Publishing

December 30, 2020 Mindy McGinnis

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Mindy: We’re here with Robert McCaw, author of The Koa Kane series and Robert started his publishing journey in self publishing and then moved on to traditional publishing. So why don't you tell us a little bit about that before we get into talking about the Koa Kane series, talk to Me about First of all, your decision to self publish. Was that always the goal Or did you attempt to find an agent first and then choose to go the self publishing route?

Robert: Well, let me back up just a little bit and tell you a little bit about the journey. It's hard to answer that question without putting the book in context. The first book, I went to Hawaii and fell in love with the Place. I began to do a lot of research - reading books, traveling around the islands, talking to people. There was something magical about the islands, and I decided that I needed to share my passion with readers. I've always been interested in mysteries. I've always been interested in puzzles. My legal career, which was very active at the time, was on the litigation and investigation side. I decided that the way I was gonna tell the Hawaii story was through a detective, and I invented this, Uh, this character called Kane chief detective of the Hilo, Hawaii, police.

The first book was very deep into Hawaiian history, Hawaiian archaeology, the ancient Hawaiian people. I worked on this book for 20 years. I literally would do a chapter, or sometimes a half a chapter, or sometimes just a page, and then I go back to work. It took me until after I ultimately retired to finish the book, and at that point I took and I went to a whole bunch of agents. I tried to get a publisher for the book. I wasn't successful. I found the whole process to be very disheartening, these letters to agents. Or you submit the manuscript you never hear back. If you're lucky, you get a rejection.

Here, I had this wonderful book. I couldn't get it published. And so I said, I'm going to do this myself and I made a very important decision at that point, which was that I was going to self publish it as professionally as possible, and I used one of the high end services. That's, in my view, one of the major factors that ultimately led me to be able to get a publisher. The first book was really professionally done. It was properly proofread. It was properly formatted. It was well edited. All things that I ultimately paid for as part of the publishing package of the book. It certainly was not at that point a financial success, but it was really, really well done, and it got good reviews.

I wound up in a social situation with an agent. I got to talking about the book, he said he wanted to read it. I sent it to him, and at that point I was working on a second book. I asked him if he wanted to read the second book, and he did, and he became my agent. His name is Mel Parker. He's an absolutely fabulous agent. He got me hooked up for the second book with Ocean View Publishing. But that transition would not have happened had not The first book was a good story, but secondly, it was really, really professionally done. I think that's why Mel picked it up. That's why Mel saw the potential in it.

The second book is called Off the Grid. First One is Death of a Messenger, Ocean View, published Off the Grid. Then they published Fire and Vengeance, which just came out this past July. They've agreed to publish the fourth book in the series, which will come out in January 2022 in the midst of all of this, they agreed to republish Death of a Messenger, and it will come out with some revisions just next month.

Mindy: I'm looking right now at Death of a Messenger on Amazon on one of the things of course, that stands out right away. And you said yourself, you made sure that you were doing things the right way, more or less, and it's obvious right away. As soon as I look at it, the cover is fantastic. The artists, whatever feedback you had in the process, does a great job of fitting into your genre. Everything about that cover is very well done. And as we know, obviously what's inside is ultimately the most important, and you put money into that as well, I'm sure with editing and copy editing, as you said. But that cover is how you get someone to pick it up to look at what's on the inside. So I love what you're saying about making that initial investment. You have the opportunity to do this the right way, as you said, and to put some money into it. And it's obvious that you did just by looking at it. This is a higher end product. A lot of people, I think, make the mistake of thinking that they're going to publish something, self publish something and make money right away and that that simply isn't true. If you want to do it right, as you're saying, there is an upfront investment. So can you talk a little bit about the choices that you made to do it the right way and the upfront investment?

Robert: You know, when I started to look at the question of self publishing, there were lots of options. Basically, you could do this almost for free. If you wanna do it as an e book on Amazon. Basically, all you have to do is to get it properly formatted and do some kind of cover and get it to Amazon. But if you do that, then you're going to have to assume the whole burden of proofreading it, of formatting it, of editing it. And I wanna, at some point in this conversation, would love to come back to editing a little bit because I'm a phenomenal believer in the importance of editing.

You have to do all those things yourself. You have to do your cover design, copyright, all of those things. Most new authors don't really have the experience to do all of those things, and do them all really professionally. I certainly wasn't in a position where I thought I could do all of those things. I started looking around. I found Mill City out of Minneapolis, which provides, at least at that time did provide. I haven't used them in a number of years now, but at that time they provided a whole suite of services, everything from setting up your website to editing your book, uh, to publishing it.

And I wanted, among other things, at that point, a print version. So instead of just an e-book version, I ultimately chose them. They did a really, really fine job. They assigned an editor to the book I thought was extremely helpful. We made lots and lots of changes, and then they did a just a superb job proofreading it. All of this was designed to satisfy my goal of doing it as professionally as I possibly could. And I know there are other services that do that sort of thing. I haven't obviously tested them all. Those are the kinds of things that you wanna look for. If you wanna try to follow the same path that I took.

Mindy: You mentioned editing and the power of editing, the process of editing. You are absolutely correct on that count. I do offer editorial services so other writers will hire me to read through their books, usually just the 1st 10 pages. I get a lot of work put in front of me that it's very clear that they did not even do a spell check before submitting it to me to do an editorial pass on. That, obviously, is something that you could do on your own. And there are many, many steps in the editing process that you can save yourself with just by using some really free resources to know how to use punctuation and grammar properly. And then, of course, there's the next level of hiring someone else to take a look at your work. Tell me about that editorial process for you, and I know you have a career both in the military and in law, where details matter so much. I'd love for you to talk about those areas, editing details dotting your I's crossing your t’s and maybe how your personal background ties into that for you.

Robert: Okay, I'd be happy To tackle that. Let me start by saying, I practiced law for a long time at a high level and had lots of important clients and was involved in a lot of front page stories over the years. I never gave a draft brief or a draft motion to another colleague to read without expecting them to improve it. That's the only purpose in giving it to them to read. And when they gave me something to read, I knew that their expectation was that I was going to try to make it better. I'm fond of saying that one of the most beautiful gifts that anyone can give another person is to give them a new perspective, a different perspective, because we're all in our little boxes and we all look at the world through the exit to that box. There's a lot we don't see and there's a lot that we put down on paper that we don't particularly see all of the various ways in which it could be interpreted, all the ways in which it could be offensive to some people.

Getting that second look is just enormously valuable in improving my writing, at least I certainly think that's the case for most people. I once went to a program where one of my Panelists, took the position that he wrote stuff, wrote it for the first time. He never edited it, and he wouldn't let his publisher change anything. I thought to myself, I'm not sure I want to read those books because I really, really believe in editing. And I've got friends who will read things and give me their thoughts. Most important of all, my wife is quite a terrific editor, she reads. She marks it up, tells me where I'm wrong or where I have created a misimpression or where I've done something that someone may regard is offensive, and I might not change it. But I've become aware of the fact that the language has a certain meaning or it has a certain form and content to it. I find that enormously valuable.

That's what I put into the category of substantive editing. You're changing the scene. You're changing the dialogue, shaping the characters. That's all, in my view, substantive editing. You were mentioning something else, which is what I call technical editing, which is spell checking and grammar checking and proofreading. One of the things that I've done is I've discovered some tools. They're really useful on the technical side. Word will pick up the spellings for you. At least some of them don't count on it for doing everything, because it will make lots of mistakes. There's a program out there called Grammarly, very effective in improving your writing. One of the things it does, for example, is pick up every single instance of passive voice. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to change it every time. But you are at least aware that that's what you're doing. They’re suggestions that bring something to your attention so that you can change it or not change it.

Another thing I have found is a wonderful proofreading tool. If you use Word, use the readback function where it reads back your work aloud. It's rather time consuming, but it picks up all kinds of word mistakes. The article is misplaced, or there's an article where there shouldn't be, catch very awkward phrases or other things that are clearly wrong. And if you're willing to sit there and listen to it and watch the script as it goes by It's a very effective proofreading tool.

It reminds me of my old days in the law firm where when we would finish a brief, we would have it proofread. Two assistants would sit down across the table from each other and one would read and the other would check, and then they would reverse roles. The second one would read in The first one would check. It's very much like that, it was a very professional way of proofreading.

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Mindy: You were speaking about being on a panel with someone who definitely seemed to feel as if they were able to produce something from the beginning that was spotless. That doesn't work that way. I've had the opportunity To be on many, many panels and speak with many writers, both published and aspiring over a long period of time here, and I have not yet run into someone that took that position so strongly.

However, it's very common to run into the perception that when you have an editor, when you enter into the traditional publishing process that your editor tells you what to do or that your editor changes things without your consent or that you have lost control of your manuscript once you enter into a traditional publishing relationship. And my experience has been completely the opposite of that. My editors. I've had three or four different editors in the traditional publishing world in the Big Five publishers, and every one of them, without exception, has said in the end, this is your story. It has your name on it. You are the final word, and you will decide what is printed. However, I'm a professional, this is what I do for a living, and this is my opinion about this particular paragraph story, whatever.

I see a lot of people entering into the world of publishing with a prejudice against editors in the traditional setting, and I see a lot of people choosing to just jump into self publishing from the beginning because they have a misconception about the traditional publishing relationship. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, as someone that has both published with full control of their own manuscript and then someone that has worked with an editor and esteems the editing process.

Robert: I think everything that you've just said is right. But I also think there is another reason why people shy away from editors. When you write something, it's typically very personal. You've put a lot of yourself into it and then you give it to someone else. And if there are any good as an editor, they're not gonna like everything that you did and they're going to come back at you. There is something a little bit intimidating about the process. There's a little something that maybe a little bit demeaning about the process because you're putting yourself out there, you're exposing yourself and your subject to criticism is really what you're doing. I think one of the things that you really have to do is do you have to get into a mindset that says I want you to criticize it. That's the Only way that it gets better.

And I agree with you. I have never had an editor who said, You have to do this in terms of the substantive side of editing, my experience has been, sometimes it's painful when somebody says this part of the story just really doesn't make sense. Chapter six contradicts Chapter one. Those are painful discussions. On the other hand, that's what makes it better. You don't want to publish Chapter six if it contradicts Chapter one, unless you've thought about it and there's a reason for it. You wanna be aware that that's what you've done. And I think it's a rare author who is aware of all of the meanings of every paragraph in a long book. Every author is helped by at least having somebody point out a character Isn't consistent or the character, doesn't really work or a scene has flaws in it. Quite frankly, that's one of the things my wife does really, really well, she says. Wait a minute, this doesn't sound right. This isn't the way people talk. This isn't the way people act, and that's valuable. That's extraordinarily valuable. But it hurts a little bit.

Mindy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You are absolutely right. about it hurting a little bit. I've been on both sides of the desk there. I work editorially with writers, but I also of course, am a writer and make a living that way. So I always tell my clients when I'm sending them feedback that the typical reaction when you receive an edit letter is that first you get angry. Edit letters can be fairly long - possibly as long as 10 to 15 pages - of things that are wrong with your work and things that need to be fixed. It is painful number one, but it also makes you feel like this effort, this grand effort you have put into writing a novel that took you however many months or years has been wasted, and you just... it gets like, right under your skin.

That's in my experience. Your first reaction is that you get your back up. You don't understand me. You don't understand what I'm trying to do. You just have a reaction. That is a very typical reaction to criticism, and that is a very common initial reaction, especially if you haven't been receiving criticism much as a writer. Once you get in the game and have been in the game for a while. You grow a thicker skin, you become better at receiving criticism, and you have that flare, always when you first read the edit letter of a little bit of anger and resentment, and then you're sad for a few days and you may drink a little bit. Or I have a friend - I tell this story often - I have a friend that goes out and buys a small sheet cake. As soon as she gets her edit letter, she doesn't read it. She goes out and she buys a cake. And then she tells herself she gets to eat the whole cake while she reads the edit letter so that it's just like here's a reward to balance the pain of your edit letter, I think that you're absolutely right and that it is hard to receive criticism. Criticism is the only thing that will make your work better.

Robert: That's absolutely right, and I had the advantage of coming from a law practice situation that thick skin developed very quickly. Your colleagues, who were very smart and very talented, came back at you and said there's a better way to do this many, many times they were absolutely right. There was a better way to do it. The same thing is true about almost anything that you, anything that you write is all about a mindset. I think of getting to the point where it's never fun to Take the criticism, but you have to welcome it.

Mindy: Your experience in the military, too. You have to have a thick skin to be in the military. I was a military wife for 10 or so years, so I'm, you know, familiar with the setting. And if you can't accept criticism in the military, you're not in the military.

Robert: True, it's actually interesting. I, uh, in all of the books, all four of them, one of the other things I really believe is that I think you have to own your material. That's something very important to understand from the outset. It shapes what you choose to write, and I could write about orthopedic surgery, about which I know nothing. I would spend weeks researching it. I still wouldn't get it right. I might get the basic principles right. What my law partners used to call the music of the situation. There's no way that you can really grab the music of a situation unless you've spent a lot of time either in that situation or really, really digging in in terms of research.

When I'm writing about Hawaii, I'm writing about experiences that I've had, places that I have been. I go and I sometimes take cell phone photographs of the scene that I think I'm going to use in the book so that I can come back and I can pick out tiny little details that give it authenticity. I have used my legal experience in the books. I've used my military experience in the books. Other experiences that I've had in life meet people and they become characters in my books because then I know them. I know what they look like. I know how they talk. I know Ah, a little bit about their perspective on life. And those are the kinds of things that I think make stories interesting that draw readers in.

I've got one character who's one of my favorite characters. He's a 7 ft tall Hawaiian. He's a fishermen and an auctioneer and I met him one morning in Hilo, where he was conducting an auction. And I found the whole process just absolutely fascinating. The language, the buyers, the fish, the way the whole thing was orchestrated. It was like a big dance, and I studied it. I went back several times. I watched him on a number of occasions. I took some pictures. He becomes a really interesting, really fulsome character in the story, but that's because I got to know him. I owned my material. And the same thing is, I think, true for most writing. You really have to dig in and know your material that contributes to what you choose to write about.

Mindy: They say, Write what you know. I think that that is great advice to begin. But I always think as human beings, My goal is to always be learning.

Robert: I agree with that as well.

Mindy: Yeah, I don't want to only Ever write what I know and end up recycling things. My knowledge is not vast. It's more specific. So I'm always attempting to learn something new, like you're saying everything for you, with this particular series kicks off by going to Hawaii and having these experiences and as you're saying, before meeting this person or having that experience, I doubt you would have a written a character that was a fisherman auctioneer. And now you get to do that because you opened yourself up to new experiences and new people.

Robert: Absolutely. I warned my friends. Part of you might wind up as a character. The other thing that is particularly interesting I think, about the Series is that what I've tried to do in the Series is to make Hawaii itself into a character. In the book, there's a point at which you move as an author from a setting to a place where the setting becomes a part of a character. It kind of interacts with the human characters it takes on a life of its own. There authors, many authors who have done that. I guess maybe the most well known is probably James Michener. That's one of the things that I've tried to do in these books, and that requires you to really dig in to meet some of the locals, to talk to some of the cops, to study the background, the geology, the geography until it sort of just oozes out of the pores of the book.

Mindy: When you're talking about literature of place like that. Yeah, Michener is the crowning example, I think he’s just amazing. And he does such an excellent job of showing how the setting and the place is, in fact, a character of the book. But it is the Touchstone for everyone and everything in the novel, and you can do that in so many ways. Most of my books are set in the Midwest. Most of them are set in Ohio. But I'm always writing about small towns, usually socio economically challenged areas, because that's where I'm from. And that's where I grew up, and that's where I live. I'm always writing from the perspective of everyone knows everyone. Nobody has any secrets. You probably had a graduating class of about 70 people.

That will always greatly inform everything that I write because it's my own background. But also I don't see it represented enough or represented correctly very often. Most of the time, when I see the Midwest or Appalachia represented it's really stereotypical. So I am, I'm always really, really representing literature of place, but as an understatement. As a vein through all of my work, but subtle. You know, Michener sometimes literally opens the book with explaining the geology of the place and how it came to be formed in terms of, like, the beginning of time. And it's all fascinating and wonderful in a lovely way to really ground the reader that is literature of place in the most absolutely literal sense.

Robert: A lot of Hawaii is defined by its geology, especially the Big Island, which is still undergoing geologic change. Even in the last two years. The ancients didn't understand geology as we understand it, they created legends. Most famous of the Hawaii Legends is probably Pele, who is the goddess of fire and vengeance. And she plays a great role in the books because people talk about her and because she is literally the ancient explanation for the geological events. And there are these wonderful stories about how she extracts her vengeance on people who cross her. If you go to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, which features in several of the Koa Kane books, you'll find that people go to the edge of the crater and they leave gifts for Pele. The ancients delivered tea leaves. More modern people have left bottles of gin for her.

Mindy: I think it's a lovely way, especially in writing a series as you are. I think it is a lovely way To tie everything together, not only with setting but also, as you were saying, recurring characters. And you establish that cast and your readers will return for more.

Robert: That's the goal is to make those characters interesting and also to make them alive in the sense that they develop from book to book. And they developed within the books. You want your reader at the end of the book To be sad that the book is over and that the character is no longer part of their lives. Or at least there's no continuing part of their life for that character until they pick up the next book. That really ought to be your goal with respect to the development of your characters. And the same thing is true, if place is a character, then that place gets developed as it should.

Mindy: Last thing, why don't you let listeners know where they can find you online and where they can buy your books?

Robert: They’re on all of the e book Internet sites. You can get them all on Amazon. With respect to me, it's pretty easy. It's www Robert McCaw.com That's MCCAW. That's my website. There's lots of material on there. Dozens and dozens of reviews. You could buy the books there as well.

Jeff Lindsay on the Dexter Finale & Return, Plus New Riley Wolfe Series

December 28, 2020 Mindy McGinnis

Mindy: 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.

Mindy: We're here with Jeff Lindsay, the author of The Dexter series, which is very well known. We're here to talk about a new series that began in 2019 with the character of Riley Wolfe that is a master thief who targets the wealthiest point 1%. Kind of like a Robin Hood type of character. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your new character? Riley.

Jeff: I'd have to say Robin Hood with an attitude. He's been so successful as a thief that money really isn't the thing with him. It's the challenge, and he loves taking on something that everyone says is impossible, proving that they're wrong. It's not impossible for him, and it makes it just a little sweeter if he could take it from that 0.1% over privileged born into money jerks that he has had a lifelong grudge against, I think mostly because of his background.

The thing that fascinates me the most in writing is the characters. I've always taken pride in, you know, even the minor characters are not just cardboard cutouts. And with Riley and Dexter both, I worked with psychologists and tried out different scenarios until I found something that fit. So Riley's backstory, which has been explored somewhat, by the way, in the first Riley Wolf book, Just Watch Me. That's out in paperback now, too, By the way, since I'm trying to learn how to plug subtly, I hope that was it. No one caught on that I was plugging, right?

Mindy: No one knew.

Jeff: Okay, he's not, he's not a cold killer. But if there's someone in the way of a job, he doesn't mind pulling the trigger or pushing them off a roof or out of a helicopter. Again, it's a lot sweeter if it's one of the 0.1%. But for Riley, the real thing is the thrill, getting something done that is just jaw dropping and impossible. There's an old cliche of, you know, be careful what you wish for, you might get it. This time around in Fool Me Twice, what he gets is really and truly impossible. Normally, when someone says that can't be done, he goes, Just watch me. Which, coincidentally, is the title of the first book now available in paperback. But this time he hears the job, and it's like, No, no, that that really is impossible. I mean, there's a limit. This cannot be done, Period. End of story. A small problem - If he doesn't do it, he's going to be killed by one of the most dangerous and ruthless people in the world. That's kind of where the book starts.

Mindy: Most people are familiar with Dexter, your first series, of course by no small means because of the Showtime show. I was familiar with it when, um it was, for lack of a better phrase, just a book and always really enjoyed it. I am also drawn to the bad characters. When I was young, for example, I was always more interested in, you know, the other team and seeing what they were doing and wanting more depth on them. Because a lot of the time, especially when I was growing up in the eighties, the bad guys were just cardboard cutouts, the bad girls, even worse. There was never any depth to them. It was Let's see how black we can paint them. So I really, really can sink my teeth into an anti hero and not necessarily a villain, but an anti hero. With your work, that is a huge theme. So can you talk a little bit about that attraction for you as a writer or even just as a consumer?

Jeff: Its’ a balancing act. I never really understood the attraction to bad people, even when I was dating and someone would say, Come on, she's bad. You could, you know, probably score. It was like, Yeah, but why would you? It really started as a writer, my wife, who's also a really good writer Hilary Hemingway, She had a saying that if you want a good hero, you need a good villain to oppose them. That makes so much sense, and I started working on that.

At a certain point, I became more interested in the villains And now, as I said, that's a balancing act. Nobody wants to watch a story about someone who is just horrible. There have to be redeeming also. You gotta balance the good with the bad. And like with Dexter, we know right away he would never harm Children. And he's funny. He's got this sort of Alex de Tocqueville thing of observing his culture from the outside. I try to make them interesting, and Dexter was kind of an experiment to see how far on with the dark side I could go. Would people go - God, this is horrible. I don't want to read about a serial killer. And that would be the end of it.

It didn't quite work out that way. The first meeting with the PR team for the very first Dexter book, crowd took me aside and said, I shouldn't say, but I have such a crush on Dexter. It seemed to be the reaction. So with Riley, I didn't want to make him a psychopath. He's more of a situational psychopath.

Mindy: I’m a situational monogamist. So I understand.

Jeff: We’re learning so much about your dating history, first with bad guys and now situational monogamy.

Mindy: I know. I try to get those little nuggets in there for the kids. Tell me about working with a Psychologist, You said earlier when you were writing Dexter, but then again with Riley, that you worked a lot with psychologists. And I really, really, really appreciate that, because as a reader and someone with a small amount of background in mental health, so often, I see words like psychopath or sociopath being thrown around because they're just part of the, you know, normal discourse. Now people use them without really knowing what they mean. Schizophrenia is a big one. Schizophrenia is usually not represented correctly so I really appreciate the deep dive. So why don’t you talk to us a little bit about that?

Jeff: It is interesting. Those two terms - sociopath and psychopath - we tend to use psychopath as someone who is a killer. And sociopath, as you know, someone who's just ruthless or something more. I dove into it. I wasn't sure what the difference was, and finally a psychologist I was talking with in Australia said, there is no difference. It's just a matter of, you know, usage.

With the first Dexter book, when I was writing it, I was lucky to have a couple of psychologists in the family. Hillary had some cousins who were both psychologists, and it's like Christmas morning. They had a winery in California, and we would go stay with them and tell them our troubles and they get us drunk and give us analysis. So it worked out well, and when I was developing the character, I called them up and say, How about this? '' Would this seem right? And they go, No. Think about taking it more in that direction. The more I read, the more I talked to them, it started to click, and at one point I had this idea and I called up. I said to the psychologist cousin, I had this idea about how this would work and it's this and she said, Yes, that's excellent. Where did you come up with that? And I said it just seemed right to me. There's a pause and she said, I need to talk to your wife for a minute.

So with Riley, I had again a basic idea of the character. I met a woman who's a psychology teacher, and she's uh, she was a fan, and I asked if she'd be willing to help me with developing this character and so I would have things like, You know, what about this dream sequence that does this to him? And she says, No, you know, dream sequences are sort of corny, Why don't you try going this way with it? And once again, it just I think it paid off. I think Riley is a very complicated, interesting and riel character. You know, I took the time to talk to the experts. More people need to do that, talk to experts and listen to them.

Mindy: Talk to me about writing Dexter versus writing Riley. You've been writing Dexter for really a long time. Was it kind of a relief to move on to something new?

Jeff: It really wasn't a relief. I always wanted to have a Series and just let it run. That's what I grew up reading. Nero Wolfe, Travis McGee. Those were my favorite characters, and those series just went on, I guess, until the writer died. I was kind of hoping for that because you click into a groove. But I think I mentioned that theatrical background. It's a little bit like if you have an acting part as the crazy neighbor on a long running sitcom and you come in every week you put on the costume, you become that crazy character, and then you take off the costume and go home and you're a normal person again.

And when you have a long running book, Series like that, It's kind of the same thing. You click into the head and you write it, and it's a lot easier. With Riley Wolf, it's harder, it's not that the character is harder to click into, but the plots are a lot more intricate. They're basically caper books. It has to be tight and perfect and a lot of unexpected turns. And so I'm not always in Riley's voice. I have to get five or six or 10 or 15 different voices going in each book. It's a lot harder.

Dexter, I felt like... I won't say it was easy, but it was a lot more comfortable and, you know, maybe that's a bad thing. Maybe we need to grow. Every writer you ever talk to says, Oh, I don't read my reviews. Well, I kind of do. One from U S A Today, it said “Jeff Lindsay keeps getting better.” That's my goal. I want to keep getting better and different and more interesting. I guess Riley has a pretty good tool for that because it's harder work right now than Dexter was.

Mindy: No, I understand. I think that getting comfortable, of course, has its benefits because you can sit down and rip something off, but at the same time, like you're saying you're not necessarily developing new skills or deepening some muscles that maybe could be strengthened. So, yeah, I think that's really interesting. I'm lucky that I jump genres a lot, my publishers are pretty awesome about allowing me freedom. And so I get to experiment in those ways, which I really appreciate.

Jeff: I do not get to jump in genres. I have, like, 3000 pages, which I think is the first two volumes of a fantasy Series. I have a lot of other things, you know, different science fiction and so on. And I've been told quite firmly, No, sir, no, that will not do. Typecasting, I guess.

Mindy: I think maybe that's some of the benefit to being a midlist author is that you can hop around now. I can't say that my readers necessarily follow me all the time. Interestingly enough, my fantasy Series, since you mentioned the genre, was the one that has done, I would say the least… Well, if not flat out poorly. Ironically, it took the most work, and I put the most effort into that particular genre.

Jeff: So I grew up with the mysteries and adventure stuff, but I also grew up reading fantasy and sci-fi. I've written a couple of five books or, you know, we had one early on with my wife. That's something I feel comfortable with, too. But I Guess that's off the table. The fantasy one was, it was more exciting to me than almost anything else I've done for a long time. It just took off and I say 3000 pages - and it was going at 150 pages a week. It was just flowing. It just doesn't happen like that for me, I guess.

Mindy: No, not generally. That's impressive. And, yes, I know the feeling. Sometimes when you tap into something and it's just going to run and you let it.

Jeff: Yeah, exactly.

Mindy: So talk to me about Showtime bringing back Dexter for a limited Series. Now Dexter ran for quite a few seasons, and I love the show. I was a big fan, never missed it. And, you know, a lot of people were really disappointed by the ending. I can't say that I was. I mean, personally, I thought it was actually extremely fitting. I also at the same time, understood the backlash. Obviously, that's not your baby. I’d like to Just get your perspective on the show, ending the way it did the reaction and the fact that it gets to come back.

Jeff: I'm really glad it's coming back. And I thought that probably was going to happen at some point. So why not now? As for the ending, I get hate mail about that. And everywhere I go, someone says, you idiot, Why did you end it that way? And you know, I didn't. I had nothing to do with it. I still put that out there because I don't want my house firebombed.

So I have nothing against it either. My wife calls it the Wolverine ending. You know, he just goes, I'm a lumberjack. Why not? Sure. Worked for Wolverine. We can always do it better. And I'm sure that the writers of that episode probably go, Yeah, we could have done it better, but you really have to understand the pressures of TV writing. It's like being on the moon without a spacesuit. It can grind you down.

I don't hold any grudges against any TV writer ever because I've seen it first hand. And although I've never had to write on a TV, Series like that, Early on I was a production assistant and I saw what they looked like at the end of the week after, you know, all the all-night rewrites and so on and so on and so on. Overall, the show was terrific. I don't think there's any argument that if people felt that the ending was a letdown, well, you know. A lot of the press has been saying - Here's a chance to make up for that.

Mindy: One of the things that I just fell in love with this show, as you say, and many people don't realize that once something has jumped mediums like that, the author doesn't have control anymore. But I do love - just to get your opinion. When I sat down to watch Dexter the opening title sequence, which never changed throughout the course of the show, I think, is a piece of magic. Everything about it is so perfect and tight and controlled, and it just shows violence in every day actions. And I absolutely love the opening title sequence. So do you have any thoughts about that?

Jeff: Yeah, I agree. I love the opening title sequence, and when I sit to watch the show, I hear the opening part of the music. I'm thinking, Here it comes - my favorite TV show! And then my name would pop up on the screen. I go, but what? Oh, right, yeah, I loved it. Just two things of interest to me.

First of all, the guy who composed it found there's the instrument that starts it out. I forget the Spanish name for it, but it's the one that goes (scratchy noises). Normally, it's made from two pieces of wood, one piece notched. He happened to find, I don't know how, two of these things made from human leg bones. That's what you're hearing when you hear the opening of the Dexter theme song. So that adds a little dimension.

The other thing and it used to drive me crazy because at a certain point I realized it's basically the theme from The Odd Couple, just changed around a little. You know, Dexter is like this (humming) and The Odd Couple is (humming) I always, you know, I go, Oh,Here it comes, my show. And then, wow, my name. And then uh huh Oh, The Odd Couple!

Mindy: I won't be able to un-hear that now. Last thing, Why don't you tell us where listeners can find you online, where they can find the second Riley Wolf book, which is called Fool Me Twice?

Jeff: Fool Me Twice could be found just about everywhere good books are sold and in a couple of places where they sell bad books to, online or at your local bookstore, which I'd like to encourage you to support. The first Riley Wolf book, Just Watch Me is just out in paperback as well. So it makes a great Christmas present to combine the two and give this little gift package to you know, everyone you know, and I hope you know, a lot of people.

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