00:04:38.300it's I love it so much I read it months and months ago and I just pre-ordered it for about
00:04:44.680five friends who were asking me for great summer reads or who are going on a vacation I was like
00:04:49.980here that's what I like to do that's my love language is buying books for people I loved it
00:04:54.660yeah I love this um and so tell everyone a little bit about your book and then I'm gonna
00:05:00.120just bug you a little bit more about how to finish my book and make it better yes I love
00:05:06.240talking about all of these things. So my book is called The Last Ferry Out. It is sort of a puzzle
00:05:11.920box mystery about this woman who travels to the remote sort of eerie tropical island where a few
00:05:18.800months prior her fiance died in an accident. And she goes there seeking closure. She wants to sort
00:05:25.200of understand her partner's final days. And she meets this sort of alluring group of expats that
00:05:30.860her fiance had befriended and at first she's really into them too and feels like she's really
00:05:37.260getting an understanding of like oh at least my partner you know went out on this in this beautiful
00:05:41.580place with these wonderful people but the more she gets to know them the more she begins to suspect
00:05:46.340that there's something they're not telling her and maybe this death wasn't actually the tragic
00:05:51.640accident that she has always believed and worse that there might be a thrill not a thriller there
00:05:58.580might be a killer on the island that she is you know trapped there with so it's got you know
00:06:05.120creepy ruins of an old hotel and it's got mountains and cliffs and tight-lipped locals and this really
00:06:13.120interesting little motley crew of characters it was so fun to read it was so very andy bart's it
00:06:19.320had so many elements that i love writing and i love putting it together so i hope it's half as
00:06:23.920fun to read as it was to write. Yeah, no, it was. It was so much fun. I love a piece that's of a
00:06:30.580place, okay? Like, I mean, we know. I love a destination. I do. Definitely, yes. And so it
00:06:38.000really, it whisked you away to this weird island. Yeah. I was going to say, I think Sicilian
00:06:43.900inheritance, they are different, but I think they have a lot in common. Like, people might,
00:06:48.660people who love the Sicilian inheritance. People who love Sicilian will be very into this. That is
00:06:52.940true yeah that is true so let's just let's talk with a little bit of craft talk because i actually
00:06:59.240don't do a whole lot of writing content on this podcast but i know that we have a lot of listeners
00:07:05.300who want to be writers and maybe not not authors novelists but they want to start writing poetry
00:07:12.260or they want to start writing their own sub stacks or they just want to write something
00:07:16.780for themselves and their families what is your best advice for anyone that wants to get started
00:07:21.920writing anything? I think storytelling has these sort of commonalities across different media,
00:07:29.500right? So, you know, the nuts and bolts of what you should be doing if you're wanting to write
00:07:34.720a novel are going to be different from if you want to write a screenplay, from if you want to write
00:07:38.120sort of a memoir for your family or other things. But I think in all of these different forms of
00:07:46.160writing, you learn by example. And I think the best way to understand how to tell an effective
00:07:50.920of story with that medium is to study those who've done it before you. So, you know, people tell me
00:07:57.840they want to write a memoir and I'm like, oh, well, which ones do you like? And they sort of
00:08:02.080give me a blank face back. Like, if you want to be writing memoirs, go ahead and read them. If
00:08:05.920you're interested in essays, pick up a book of essays, like go to the, you know, essays tab of
00:08:11.780some magazines that run them and read them and just look at them from the creator's eye of,
00:08:19.520okay what what is making this work like are we starting with an interesting anecdote how is the
00:08:24.220story moving forward like when are we going back and forth between exposition versus being in the
00:08:30.180scene and I think just trying to look at everything sort of mechanically and like checking under the
00:08:35.420hood like a mechanic would um is a step that leaps and bounds help me figure out how to put together
00:08:42.640a novel and now more recently I've been working on screenplays and in a similar way I have been
00:08:46.960studying them like an engineer would and trying to understand what works. I think I would start
00:08:53.760there. Yeah. No, I, I too have dabbled in screenplays and I just, I probably read about
00:09:00.500a hundred, a hundred screenplays. Yes. The way I learned, you know, it's funny. I was at a book
00:09:05.800club last night and one of the questions that I was asked was, do you, do you read? And I was like,
00:09:12.400Yeah, I like then they were kind of surprised, like, really for fun? And I'm like, it's kind of for fun. But like, I don't think you can be a writer without just being a voracious reader of all different genres. I just I think that that is what that is the thing, in my opinion, that makes you a better writer.
00:09:30.100I agree. And it's also what allows you to do something different in sort of an ironic way.
00:09:35.200Like if you are reading all these different genres and kind of reflecting on what they mean to you and what resonates with you and what doesn't and what you would do differently.
00:09:45.380That's what gives you all of the sort of gristle, all the raw material for you to write something totally new and totally uniquely you.
00:09:54.420totally totally i'm going to attempt my first short story uh i'm going to try to write it
00:10:01.740while i'm in croatia this week uh and so i'm studying a lot of short stories i bought a lot
00:10:08.100of short story books uh i'm reading a lot of you know new yorker short stories just to try to i
00:10:14.040mean i think that's the best master class right yeah let's just study the ones that are successful
00:10:19.180and even the ones that don't that you don't love there's still something for you to learn from it
00:10:23.220Like what why is it successful in other people's eyes or what would you do?
00:10:43.500OK, I don't have enough time to finish a book if I'm not enjoying it.
00:10:47.280I just started one by a really famous author.
00:10:50.720and I you know got halfway through and I'm like not for me not into this I don't have the time
00:10:56.380for it but I think it's an interesting exercise as a writer to be like what didn't I like yeah
00:11:01.860yeah why was I not gripped and what would I do differently if I were writing it which often
00:11:07.620really interesting ideas come from that too of like how would I if I don't feel like they stuck
00:11:11.480the landing how would I have stuck the landing because that maybe is going to apply to something
00:11:16.460I'm writing later I do that a lot with movies like I'll finish a horror movie and I'll be like
00:11:20.640oh, I like 80% of it. And then it fell apart at the end. Okay. Well, how would I have done it
00:11:25.060differently? And can I steal that for myself, from my own brain? It's just not the deal.
00:11:30.060Totally. Totally. Well, this is actually the reason that reading is no longer relaxing for me.
00:11:37.120It sucks. It sucks so much because I used to be a before bed reader, but because reading is now
00:11:43.240so much work, I pinpointed that that is why I have trouble sleeping.
00:11:46.880wow wow so what do you do right now oh my gosh so now I got I I got this sleep mask that has
00:11:55.520headphones embedded in it that I'm obsessed with so Nick Astor can't hear what's happening
00:11:59.960and I listen to really esoteric uh history podcasts by British people that sounds very
00:12:07.460soothing it's so soothing and I just I'm usually asleep within 10 minutes and I don't wake up
00:12:13.360because it's not again it's like not work but for reading even if it's a great book that i'm like so
00:12:20.000in love with i'm i'm thinking about craft all the time right right there's like this meta level
00:12:26.540running in the background the software that continues running of like why is this working
00:12:31.180why is this so addictive like how did she do this how did how did she do this how would i do this
00:12:36.780differently yeah exactly exactly and i you know it took me a while to come to terms with that and
00:12:41.580now i have to find more space for reading during the day yeah which can also be hard because we
00:12:47.620also have these mental blocks of that like oh i'm during the day i should be like doing computery0.75
00:12:53.960things it's such a it's it's such a mind fuck okay no it really is it really is and like i mean0.72
00:13:00.320especially you're home with three kids i don't have three kids but i i like you and you know0.96
00:13:04.240have my finger in a lot of different pies and it feels like you're being lazy if you're sitting
00:13:08.660down and reading. Or even sometimes I sometimes think that watching a really great TV show or
00:13:13.120movie that is in some way relevant to what I'm doing or documentary or whatever is also work.
00:13:18.280But like, oh, my God, sitting in front of the television during the day, during the day.
00:13:22.760Oh, my God. Like, who are you? I think that's this is what I think. This is my fucked up brain.
00:13:28.500OK, we got it. Yeah, we got to give ourselves some grace. And we have to give ourselves some1.00
00:13:34.080Yeah, at night you end up like, well, I really want to watch whatever show, but I should watch a documentary because I know it's going to be relevant in some way.
00:13:43.040And it's like, no, we need to give our break.
00:15:52.040So I guess part of it is that I have learned to sort of laugh at it when it rears its ugly
00:15:57.620little head because, you know, I know it's not meaningful anymore.
00:16:01.860I think the first few books I was like, oh, I need to listen to this voice.
00:16:05.280This voice knows something I don't like. This book really is bad. And now that I've done this
00:16:11.040so many times and realized there's not really a direct relationship between me feeling like the
00:16:16.400writing is going really well and then actually loving it in the end, like those two things are
00:16:20.740not related. And now that I know that I can sort of, you know, keep them separate and like, oh,
00:16:25.700here you are again, my like imposter syndrome self-doubt. You're, you know, you were expected.
00:16:31.020This is not a surprise. Here you are. I think that's a big piece. And then I think,
00:16:35.800you know, like anything else, when you're trying to gain confidence, one of the steps you can take
00:16:41.680is bringing to mind examples from your own past of times that you have succeeded, sort of talking
00:16:50.020back to the voice, right? So you know that, you know, the Sicilian inheritance, which sounds like
00:16:56.620sort of a comparable story in a lot of ways, was incredible and got amazing reviews and people
00:17:03.340loved it. And I am willing to guess there was probably a point somewhere in the writing or
00:17:09.360revising process where you were like, oh, this is a steaming pile of shit. This is not good.0.99
00:17:13.360This is not good. Totally. Totally. Yeah. Many times. I mean, the exact text that I sent Casey
00:17:19.240today was a very similar text. Casey, my best girlfriend of the Catskills, that I had sent to
00:17:25.860her about Sicilian three years ago, where I was like, this sucks balls. Just got a lot of ball0.98
00:17:32.740sucking going on over here. Yeah. And look where that ended up. So of course you have this feeling
00:17:40.220it's 100% a normal part of the process. I definitely had that experience. Really with
00:17:45.840The Last Fairy Out, I hated it through most of the writing process. I just didn't think it was
00:17:50.820good. It felt hard every single day. And that was sort of new for me where I was like, oh, maybe this
00:17:55.780for the first time really does mean it's bad because there's just no days of flow state.
00:18:00.420There's no days of like, this is coming together and this is fun and I'm enjoying it. And
00:18:04.780how on earth is a reader ever going to enjoy it if I'm not enjoying it?
00:18:08.840But then it just, it happened later. The thing happened where it snapped into place
00:18:13.780and the pieces kind of clicked together and it became fun to work on and really fun to revise.
00:18:19.800Like I said, this is sort of a puzzle box mystery. So I was moving the pieces around
00:18:23.580with the narrators and the timeline. And I mean, in the end, I feel like it's the best book I've
00:18:29.200written, like bar none, no question. And that to me makes sense. I hope that I keep getting better
00:18:35.080as I, you know, keep writing and keep learning things and could not have written this book if
00:18:40.280I hadn't done the ones before. And so even though you feel, even though the feeling feels very true
00:18:46.480about this book being, you know, sucking a lot of walls. Sucking all the balls. Yeah. Which by the1.00
00:18:52.620like that is the grossest thing i can possibly think about like that's the grossest image that0.98
00:18:56.960i can conjure in my head i mean yeah i threw out steaming pile of shit and you were like you know1.00
00:19:03.620what's even worse sucking balls sucking balls just yep a lot of all gross just gross yeah0.99
00:19:10.060um i do think that last fairy out is the best book you've read i've read all of them from the0.98
00:19:16.060very beginning i knew you right before you published the first book before i you yeah we
00:19:21.600that when i was signing with an agent for the very first time so that was nearly a decade ago
00:19:27.360nearly a decade ago for the entire journey from the start and the whole journey and you've slept
00:19:31.800at my and you've slept at my house when i wasn't even here i have i slept in your bed so we have
00:19:35.700that forever bond it really is it is um and one day i'll take you up on your offer to to sleep in
00:19:43.100your bed at the at the catskills house to come check out a new a new area of the catskills um
00:19:48.760Yeah, no, I definitely think it's your best book. And I have to say, I really enjoyed the characters in this book. You know, there was just there was such I had such a sense of this expat community because we've all we've all encountered communities like this and that seem at once welcoming and fun loving.
00:20:09.980but like there's an edge to it there's an edge and you can't figure out exactly what's going on
00:20:13.900in this group dynamic so yeah so i think that that people are just really gonna love that about this
00:20:18.920book really hope so yeah thank you that was a lot of the inspiration was i i was traveling solo right
00:20:25.440before the pandemic actually for about a month february 2020 um in mexico and i met a bunch of
00:20:30.640you know expat communities and let's it's exactly what you said they're friendly and they're really
00:20:35.460welcoming but then you're also an outsider like they are on the inside and you are on the outs
00:20:39.660and there's something sort of withholding about them.
00:20:42.780There's stuff they're not talking about.
00:21:33.880You up the stakes or at least some kind of danger in the beginning.
00:21:37.360Dead body, it's pretty hard to go back. Once you go dead body, it is hard to go back. That is so
00:21:42.560true. I'm going to put that on a post-it on my wall. I want that framed. Yeah. That's just my
00:21:48.760life motto now. Well, do you outline your books? No, I'm a chaotic pantser, which I often do.
00:21:55.280I'm a chaotic pantser too. Like a real chaotic pantser. Yeah. And I think for what we do,
00:22:01.940so a lot of people, you get this all the time too, I'm sure. People are like, oh my God,
00:22:05.800how could you write a thriller or a mystery without being people freak out i mean well
00:22:10.060because when yeah and when i write books with christine she's an intense outliner to such a
00:22:14.900degree uh that i've actually kind of adapted to outlining with her uh but and for the last book
00:22:23.320it was the hardest for me it really was because i'm like i just cannot get into a flow state with
00:22:27.620an outline right i need to be in it to figure out what's happening same same same yeah totally
00:22:34.300There's actually a lot of thriller writers I have found in our boat. And we all kind of say the same thing, which is like we get to, in a sense, experience it like a reader because the twists and turns are sort of coming up, like bubbling up to the surface as we're writing. And that makes it really exciting. Versus I can't imagine having that big gasp moment while I'm like sitting and working on an outline in Google Docs.
00:22:58.980No, no. Oh, I couldn't do it. I mean, I really I have to put the puzzle pieces together as I'm writing. It is the only way to do it. I mean, I only just figured out the ending of Lost Masterpiece. And I still I've got I have an epilogue to finish. I have the last page of the main book, the epilogue, and then one more past chapter to finish. But the truth is, it does come to you in the moments when you don't expect it to come to you.
00:23:25.480Right. It's like your subconscious has actually laid all this groundwork and like handed you all
00:23:29.700everything you need to put it together. And so then your consciousness just needs to like
00:23:33.720catch up. Exactly. Exactly. And I think that that's why I love what you just said about the
00:23:38.480subconscious, because I think that's why I can't do the reading before bed, because then my
00:23:42.060subconscious is working. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do. One of my one of my go to tips when people are
00:23:48.500like, how do you overcome writer's block? Which, you know, writer, I don't we don't have the luxury
00:23:54.040of having writer's block because I don't have it I don't I don't have no there's no there's I cannot
00:23:58.440have it I don't when you're when you're a writer where writing pays the bills I don't think we
00:24:03.640have that luxury right right does a surgeon just wake up and say I don't feel like I have surgeon
00:24:07.880block but yeah I have surgeon block however I think what people are often really asking is like
00:24:12.780what do I do when I don't know what happens next or I'm stuck on like kind of a plot problem and
00:24:18.480one of my answers to that and this is relevant I swear is that I say you know bring a notebook
00:24:23.640into bed and right before you go to sleep, write down the question that's really nagging you that
00:24:28.560you can't seem to solve. And then go to sleep. And then the next morning, pick up that same pen
00:24:33.740and notepad and start kind of free writing. And what's incredible is that your subconscious does
00:24:38.780so much work while you're asleep, especially while you're dreaming. 99 times out of 100,
00:24:44.320if you haven't solved it, you'll have gotten a lot closer and have some new insights from just
00:24:49.760letting your brain work on it. So that's sort of a way to harness it. But I can very much see how
00:24:54.400if you want to just be getting sleep and not working literally while you are
00:24:59.220unconscious to the world, then yeah, maybe maybe the podcasts about history with British accents
00:25:06.260are the way to go. I mean, they're just they're so delightful. I learned so much about Peter the
00:25:11.520Great. And then I just went off for a snooze. OK, like this has been life changing for me.
00:25:16.260So glad you found that. That's great. You're going to need to link the podcast that you're
00:25:19.620that you're uh it's well it's the rest is history podcast but although because i'm constantly working0.85
00:25:24.840and hustling the other day i woke up at three in the morning as most perimenopausal women are want
00:25:30.240to do and i woke up nick because you know i always wake him up if i have something to say in the
00:25:34.800moment and i'm like oh my gosh we should have tom and dominic from the rest is history podcast do a
00:25:39.760whole episode on joe van gogh when the last masterpiece comes out oh totally totally to which
00:25:46.380he's like, I'm sure you can figure out how to make that happen. Go to sleep. And I'm like,
00:25:51.120okay, I'm just really glad I got that off my chest. So yeah. So I mean, the subconscious works in
00:25:55.600all of the ways all the time, but I will try that. I will try that next week when I'm,
00:26:00.140cause I'm, I'll be in Croatia. I'm treating, I'm teaching a writing retreat next week,
00:26:03.360which is fun. I know with no kids and I like, you know, the sleep matters a lot less when I
00:26:11.920don't have to wake up at seven in the morning and usher people out the door and be on a schedule so
00:26:17.060i will try that next week i'm very excited that is a really great tip uh report back i want to
00:26:21.400hear if it helps you i will i will um well i hope that this has been helpful for some people that
00:26:27.060want to kick off kick off some writing you know of any sort or kick off a big creative project
00:26:32.320of any sort i mean they all they all kind of relate to each other and yes if you were looking
00:26:37.100for a great summer read i mean it's summer now we're just we're doing summer reads right now
00:26:41.560right like officially now is the time it's warm it's warm oh my god you know what season it is
00:26:46.780that i hate what it's shirtless man running on the sidewalk season
00:26:52.120our climbing gym our climbing gym has begun to fill up with shirtless men and like some of them
00:26:59.600you're like you should be you should be wearing a shirt i would say 80 of them should be wearing
00:27:04.700a shirt yeah yeah no one needs to there are some men that i'm like okay cool that's nice to look
00:27:10.480but but the vast majority know they should be wearing a shirt and shirtless men running on
00:27:17.180the sidewalk are always the most aggressive sidewalk runners too oh yeah uh so yeah it's
00:27:21.480just it's a season i don't celebrate do not celebrate this i'd like to make a hallmark card
00:27:26.100for it yeah yeah they take up the most space on the sidewalk and they're the ones you least want
00:27:31.740to bump into in any way because they are shirtless and sweaty they're and they act aggrieved when
00:27:36.820you're in their way too like they do like the little like jump out of the way it's like as if
00:27:40.100They're so, they're shocked that you and your children appeared on the sidewalk.