Tavi Taylor Black On Fame Culture & Writing At Any Age

February 7, 2022 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.

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Mindy: We're here with Tavi Black, author of Where Are We Tomorrow, which is a novel about four women working backstage on a rock tour, each of them coming to terms with what it means to be a woman in a male dominated industry It was nominated for the Next generation Indie Awards and the American Fiction Awards. So that is super exciting. And when you reached out to me about being on the podcast, I was immediately interested. So why don't we just start with you telling us a little bit about yourself and your background and how you came to write Where Are We Tomorrow?

Tavi: I kind of think of myself more as an artist than a writer because I've done all kinds of different arts, but I came to write this particular book because my career has been in event production and I did tour with bands for many years. But my artist's life was always a little bit separate from that. This was a project that I was able to bring both my artist's life and my career into one project. I worked on this particular book for 12 years before I got a publishing contract. I got the idea for this book while I was on tour with four women and that's pretty unusual. It was on the Norah Jones Tour in 2003, I think. So, I was working with all of these women on tour.

And I started out in the lighting crew on the Phish tour back in, I think ‘95. I was the only woman. For many tours I went on other than caterers. I would often walk into a venue in the morning and the stagehands that were there - almost always all men - would point to the kitchen and say “kitchen’s over there.”

Mindy: So obviously you had the background to bring to writing a novel and you also had the experiences of someone who is kind of operating on the fringe as a woman, if you're the only woman for a long time backstage like that. I have no concept of what that is like. I know what it's like in a green room, you know, I’ve been in spaces with pretty famous people, but it's always been in a fairly diverse background, skin color, culture, but also gender. Can you talk a little bit about how that feels? Not necessarily externally, but internally, what was it like for you to be like, okay, I gotta walk in there and establish that I'm even allowed to do that?

Tavi: I like that you asked that externally versus internally because externally, of course I had to just be there, show up, do the job, do a good job, prove myself just like everybody else did. But internally I definitely felt so nervous. And my husband often asked me why did you do that? Why did you feel like you needed to be in that, really in some ways toxic environment, a place where men definitely let me know that they didn't necessarily want me there? Some did, obviously, the man who hired me wanted me there. He said, I think it's more civilized when there's a woman around. But internally there was something that I felt like I had to prove.

But the interesting thing about it for women, is that they were kind of two ways to go in this business and I'm not always proud of the way that I went. But there was the sort of go along with the jokes and laugh and everybody kind of gets along with you, which is sort of the way I went. I was like, I want to do well here, I want to have friends here. I'm going to just ignore their misogynistic rude comments. And then there's the other way you could go where you could call them out and say that's not acceptable. And those women were always known as the bitches. In some ways, I think, well why wasn't I a bitch? I should have been. But I didn't. That was the choice that I made.

And so in some ways this book is an exploration of the different ways to be female inside of that world. I think that the thing that makes this book different from other novels and memoirs about backstage is that you just don't hear about the lives of the people that are making the show happen, versus the people that are on stage very often.

Mindy: Yes, absolutely. My cousin is married to a cameraman and he is actually, in the world of cameramen, rather famous because he's very very good at what he does. Directors request him and asked for him to be there and have him on their films. But you know, if I said his name, like it doesn't matter, no one would know. And my nephew is in high school and he always knew that his cousin was a cameraman but it never really mattered. He ended up looking at his Instagram for some reason, there's all these pictures of him hanging out with Nicholas Cage and stuff like that and he was just like, oh my God, AuntMindy did you know? And I'm like yeah, I did. These people are - they're moving and they're making these things happen and they're there, you just don't know about them, you don't hear about them.

Tavi: One of the themes of the book is this idea of our addiction to fame. I was a painter for many years, sometimes I still paint, I feel like people would not be that interested in that. But the minute I said, oh I work for this famous person - that's so interesting, I'm like what about my art? What about the thing I'm doing? The writing I'm doing? Why isn't that interesting? It's only that I know this famous person 0 who is just a person by the way.

Mindy: Yeah, I have a friend that lives in Hawaii and she housesits for… I mean I won't say their names but extremely famous people. She's like, that's what people want to talk to me about. I have a whole life, I have all these things that I do. I just, this is like babysitting and that's what people want to talk to me about.

Tavi: These brushes with fame, we have a real addiction to it. There's this great book that I really love called Fame Junkies. It's written by Jake Halpern who actually does a podcast as well. It's one of my favorite books just talking about how addicted to fame we are and what we'll do to be around it. And as an artist, like I've always pursued an art, I was in a band when I was younger and it's a funny thing to have this feeling about fame, to actually now have to promote myself as a writer and like, what am I looking for - fame? Well, I want people to read my book. I want to talk about the book, but do I want to be famous? No, it looks awful.

Mindy: It is difficult. I agree. So the nice thing about being a writer is that being famous as a writer usually means you can still walk down the street and no one knows what you actually look like.

Tavi: I mean you have how many books out there? And I bet People don't know you when you are in public.

Mindy: I have like 12, 13 books out there and no, most of the time I can walk around completely anonymous and it doesn't matter. I have been recognized on the street. I mean it is cool and I actually like it. But generally people that are readers, I think that fan base is a little less toxic and a little more empathetic and understanding than like movie or music fans. I could be giving readers more credit than they deserve.

Tavi: But I think that it's true that often you don't know what an author looks like, anyway.

Mindy: You know, that's a really good point. And I personally I go back and forth because it's like I am very open and I talk about my life and I talk about all different kinds of elements of my life. I talk about mental health very openly because I write for teenagers and I think it's important for me to talk about these things. But there are things about my life that are really, really basic information that no one has. I don't talk about those things. There was an event where they were looking for information from every author and they just kind of had a grid where they were just filling in information about everyone. They were like, where are you from? And I'm like I'm from Ohio. And they're like, where in Ohio? And I'm like, it doesn't matter. Because if I say the name of the tiny tiny town where I'm from, you've got me within like a five mile radius.

My instagram is not me. It's books, it's cats, it's my dogs. It's not me. It's not my face. I don't put myself in front of the camera that often. It's not that I'm uncomfortable with it. I'm not comfortable selling my face.

Tavi: Yes, That's how I feel. My God, I'm just like, you don't want to look at me. That's not what this is about. I'll sell you my books and I'll talk to you about my books all day, but you're not buying me, so I struggle with that as well. And that's not the culture that we have right now. I have a young daughter and I don't let her on social media. She's 11. I've never put her face anywhere, but other people have. So how do I protect her from this? I'm not sure

Mindy: People are scary. That's how I feel about that.

Tavi: You know, with being scared, I just sometimes feel like maybe that's why I had to do this work that was so tough and I'm such a sensitive artistic soul. I think I needed to do some work that would really toughen me up, You wouldn't even get a nap on tour. You would get done at two am loading out, take a shower in the locker room, get on the bus, get up and load in at eight a.m.

Mindy: That's a crazy lifestyle even and I assume very little privacy.

Tavi: None. To roll out of a bunk and have, honestly, some guys that you just wouldn't ever want to see you in your pajamas like right there in your face in the hallway of the bus. It was not easy.

Mindy: No, I can't even imagine I need my privacy and I need my alone time. I imagine you do too.

Tavi: Yeah, I like it. Don't get it much though!

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Mindy: You said before that you had toyed with and developed your craft in different areas of art, you were painting and you were also in a band yourself. So you took this route of being a roadie in doing this work. What made you say, I think I want to try writing?

Tavi: Well I always secretly wanted to be a writer. When I was probably in high school or even at seven, I was writing stories but I got discouraged really young by a couple of people. One was a friend who just said, oh you better stick to painting after I had written my first play. And and then another was a tutor in high school who just was like, you're awful, basically, you shouldn't even bother. I feel like, wow, if I could ever go back, I would just talk to myself and say, don't listen to those people, they're just haters.

So I secretly wrote. I wrote in journals. I wrote songs. Finally the other art forms just weren't very portable for touring. I was pretty old when I decided - I'm going to actually write. I must have been about 35. I got a cabin in the Keys by myself and I said, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna sit in there for five days and if I don't come out with 50 pages, I'm not a writer. So I went and I did that and I wrote the 1st 50 pages of a novel of course that I never finished. It got me started. And so I just started writing, I'm like, I'm going to write a novel. And then of course, I realized quickly that I didn't really know what I was doing. And so I took a class at the U. Dub here in Washington and then I decided, oh, I need to go back to school because I've always loved school.

And so I went back and got my M. F. A. I I felt like, oh my gosh, I'm going to be the oldest person. When I stepped onto the campus, one of the people in the registrar's office was somebody who had just gotten out of undergrad. And she looked at me, and she was going in the program, she said, are you one of the professors? But you can write at any age doesn't matter.

Mindy: Of course you can. I think it's interesting that you had those experiences of negativity early on. I mean, I can tell you, I finished my first novel when I was in college, so I was like 19 years old and it was really, really bad and I’ve talked about this before. It's not false modesty, it's not - no, tell me it was beautiful, you know. It was really bad and that's okay. No one is an amazing writer when they are 15, 16, 17 years old. You have to give yourself that grace and that space to grow and improve. And I think way too often there are those people in young writers' lives, whoever they are, and even if they think that they're positively motivated by saying - don't waste your time. You don't know what you could be discouraging there. Everyone has to have that space to bloom and grow.

Tavi: That's okay, I'm here and everything teaches us something. Obstacles are good. It really just shows that I did actually want to be a writer if I kept going after all that and finally did it. And of course as soon as I got into grad school, it was the first place in my life, honestly that I ever felt like, oh, I belong here. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. Just took a long time to sort that out. Some of us are late bloomers and I've come to terms with that.

Mindy: Obstacles are good. I like that statement and I think that that probably can be applied pretty easily to the publishing industry. So let's talk about how you moved from writing to that process of becoming published. What was your course? You had an MFA, you wrote your book? What was that path?

Tavi: It is so long and winding, like so many writers. And as I was coming along, I loved to hear these stories because like I said, I worked on that one novel for 12 years. But of course, there are other novels. The first story I got accepted into - a literary magazine - I was so excited about. I was just out of school, I got a call on my birthday that said, actually, we're not going to publish it. I was like, you're kidding. Like, the first one I got accepted and the woman was like, you know, the editor just cut yours and I'm so mad about it and I'm sorry. And so there's that.

And then, I got second place in a contest, I got the check and the check bounced. I was like, oh my God. So this is sort of the way that it's gone. And I've tried over the years to get agents and I've had a lot of agents interested who all at the last minute said, actually - I think maybe not. Okay, what's next? And sort of strategize and after chasing agents for a long time, I finally just said I'm going to go straight to a small press and see. I was fortunate that Touch Point Press has been really supportive of this book and they accepted it.

They wanted to see some changes. As a writer, you have to be willing to hear this isn't good enough yet. You have to be willing to dig in, tear it apart again. This book has gone from first person to third person. It was past tense, then present tense and past tense again. Now, Touch Point is going to publish my second book as well, which was actually what I started working on in my MFA program.

Mindy: That's wonderful. So, tell us a little bit about that second book.

Tavi: The second book is completely different. It's a historical novel that is set on the coast of Maine in 1913, with a woman who has a maid on the estate. She's 17 and the estate owners and the servants' lives get entangled and there's a jewel heist. This one's more plot driven. It's kind of fun.

Mindy: Going the route of having an independent publisher gives you that freedom. I mean, I'm lucky I get to hop around. I write across various genres. I don't know why my publisher allows me to do this but I think it might partially be because I've never really hit really big with any one genre, so they're never pigeon holing me, quite. But I love that you are just writing so widely and so diversely.

Tavi: I'm just interested in a lot of things and now I'm working on middle grade. My daughter and I started working on it when the pandemic hit, just as a school project sort of like let's do some writing! And we've just had so much fun and now we're writing a series.

Mindy: I love that, I think that that is beautiful. Middle grade is not something I would ever be able to write and I just say that as far as my voice. My voice is pretty, it's dark, my interests are pretty rough and - not that middle grade doesn't pack a punch. It certainly does. I don't have the wide eyed wonder, I'm more acerbic.

Tavi: Yeah, I don't think I would have done it without my daughter. But she is just so full of ideas, she's just an idea gal, and she just throws them at me and we work it out and it’s been fun in that way. I don't know that I would have done it by myself, but now that I'm into this world, I'm really into this world, so that's really cool.

Mindy: I like that a lot, I think too, speaking of going directly to the publisher, I'm a proponent of agents. Like I'll just say that up front, but I know a lot of authors, because I have one foot in both worlds, I self published under a pen name and I also write trad. My publisher in the trad Pub world is HarperCollins, I do both and I love both. Like, there are pros and cons to both and straddling them has been super fun and I really enjoy it. After having the experiences that I've had in the indie world, I’ve really come to understand the attraction of absolutely and totally being your own person, like all the time. Which my agent doesn't like, tell me what to write or anything like that. There are pros and cons to absolutely and completely being your own person and handling everything yourself - but you are literally doing everything yourself.

Tavi: It's true. I mean if I'm being honest, I would love to have an agent. I really could use a partner navigating all of this because. All day long now what I do is send out queries, try to do marketing, to have somebody to sort of grow with would be really excellent. I haven't given up on that idea, I have to move on. I have to be able to somehow publish my books. Touch Point has been amazing in that I can reach out to them and I can talk to them. That's a real advantage of working with them to sort of strategize and figure out the next steps in getting the book out there. It's a big wide world of publishing. I mean, I really feel like I've taken a crash course in the last couple of years or maybe the last 10 years. How does publishing work?

Mindy: Or does publishing work? Sometimes it feels like. So when I first started trying to get into the publishing world back in like 2005, self publishing was like a dirty word. It really was only for people that couldn't make it for the most part. Production was sloppy. There just simply weren't the resources there that there are now and now, like I said, I participate in it, I self publish under a pen name and I am proud of what I produce under that name. It's not my brand, like it goes against my brand as Mindy McGinnis, but it's stories that I have in me, it's fun, it's loopy, it's silly. It's stuff that I can get out and still be producing rather than just writing one book a year.

Tavi: Well, but the thing is you have the advantage of knowing what you know now, like, I think with self publishing, the danger is that you're going to put out something that's not ready. The good thing is that there are gatekeepers that I'm so glad I didn't publish the draft of the book that I had six years ago, it's a much better book now. And I think that if you're a first time author, maybe it's not a good idea to self publish, because you need those gatekeepers. It's better to keep going and get the book that you want and it should be out there. But you've got the advantage of like, you know, what's a good book at this point? You've done this, you've got a lot of books out there. You can self publish because you're not going to put out something that's not up to your quality, right?

Mindy: And that is a really, really good point. And I have thought about that myself many, many times because I was trying for 10 years to get an agent. It took me 10 years and five novels and I wanted to quit so many times and I wanted to self publish. And I am so glad I didn't because then there would be very, very subpar books out there with my name on them.

Tavi: Exactly. And you can't take them back now.

Mindy: No. Now there are people out there with them on their Kindles and I would be so embarrassed. I would be so embarrassed if that was the case because what I was producing early on, I wasn't doing a good job. You said earlier, you've got to be able to process the feedback and the criticism and improve and I wasn't doing that. Very much in the early stages, I was like, no, I'm a genius and you will respect my work. I was 19. Last thing, let listeners know where they can find you online and where they can find your book, Where Are We Tomorrow?

Tavi: So I have a website, it's just to TaviBlack.com or TaviTaylorBlack.com. My book is published under Tavi Taylor Black. And I also have a podcast myself. It's called The Personal Element that I co host with another writer. We take personal essays that we really like and we have the author read them and then we talk about what we like about the essay.

Mindy: That is super cool because essays are an art form that are underappreciated.

Tavi: They are and I honestly was not somebody who I've written some, but I've never published personal essays, mostly just short stories and things like that. But my friend Christine Young, who's a writer, does personal essays. We have seven episodes out there, but it turns out that I love it and I guess you know, you've been doing it for a long time, it's actually quite fun to do a podcast.

Mindy: I love doing it, I love meeting people and talking to them and like after my conversations, I'm always energized and interested in something new and like you never know what's going to open up for you.

Tavi: And so you can find that podcast, The Personal Element anywhere that you get your podcasts or Personal Element Podcast.com or there's a link from my website as well. And my book’s on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

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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.

Literary Agent Lucinda Halpern On Common Query Mistakes

December 27, 2021 Mindy McGinnis

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Mindy: We're here with Lucinda Halpern of Lucinda Literary and she is one of our agent guests that is here to talk a little bit about her own agency and then of course some tips and tricks for all the authors that are out there in the query trenches. And also we're going to have a conversation about why you need an agent in the first place. That's a question that keeps coming up for me whenever I do any type of interview. So let's just start Lucinda with you, telling us a little bit about yourself, what you represent, your agency. And one of the things that we talked about earlier, I know you're excited to share some of the workshops and events that you do for aspiring writers that helps kind of separate Lucinda Literary from the pack.

Lucinda: Thank you so much Mindy. I'm so happy to be here today. I'm happy to tell you a little bit about my background which is an unconventional path to literary agenting.I started in the publicity department of HarperCollins. I moved on into an online marketing role at Scholastic that was pretty separate from the book division but did inspire a love for all things online marketing for authors. Later on I moved to a boutique literary agency. I had a wonderful mentor there and got to work with Gretchen Rubin on The Happiness Project, which was really a highlight of my career.

But I always was an entrepreneur who wanted to start my own business and everyone who knew me knew that. So I started Lucinda Literary which is now 11 years strong. We’re based in Manhattan. We represent elevated self help. So books by PhD’s, usually science or research backed or you know a TED speaker or an expert online in some way. Health, lifestyle books, memoir. We have a new agent doing narrative nonfiction which is fantastic and more literary fiction. So we do a bit of fiction now. Some Children's books. Business books are really what we're known for. So it's a varied list which was important to me. The mission of my agency was really books that change the way we work, think and live and the belief that every good idea and every writer's voice needs to be heard. So that's all worked out superbly well. And I'm so grateful.

The new innovation that we're most excited about at Lucinda Literary is our signature courses called Get Signed. We also have these live events and workshops with a ton of experts that I'm connected to. Or I give guidance on writing a book proposal or guidance on building your platform, all of the things that are critical in today's ever more prohibitive market, and they're made for writers entering the publishing process. So it doesn't take an advanced degree in publishing. I get to meet all kinds of writers that way. It’s a supportive community where they get to help each other out. I get to workshop your material, it's really everything I love about being in this business and it's sort of unique that a literary agent who's actively selling and talking to publishers every day in New York is also making this a priority. So we're really proud of it.

Mindy: It is important to talk about those different approaches and like your own journey being a little bit different, especially starting in publicity. I think that's a really interesting starting point to have your feet in. I would imagine that's highly significant for you and your life as an agent and the skills that you acquired.

Lucinda: Yes. So you get really used to rejection and you have to fight passionately for your authors. It's all about blanket pitching, also developing contacts and personal relationships, but really fundamentally about advocacy and tenacity and follow up and selling all of which becomes really important when you grow to become a literary agent. Of course, I had to learn all of the negotiations for specific book rights contracts. But I found that that early background in simply doing outreach for authors and learning that landscape was particularly important. And now with marketing being the order of the day for any author, fiction or nonfiction, having a deep understanding of the media landscape in the online marketing world is just critical, I think.

Mindy: I was reluctantly dragged kicking and screaming to TikTok. I'm 42. And so I'm just like, I don't want to do this. I don't dance like that's never going to happen. Featuring just books and you know, other people's books and my books. But you know, you mentioned marketing being so much a part of an author's life now. We are not just writers and a lot of people hate that, but it's simply the truth. So do you have any advice about how to jump those initial barriers of Oh, I'm not a salesman?

Lucinda: Many writers we work with from novelists to PhD’s are marketing phobic as they begin. I try to encourage people to do what's right for them, what's authentic to them. That's what I've seen our successful authors doing they find the audience, they message to them constantly, but not in an annoying way, like in an actually helpful way where they're lending valuable content or if you're a novelist, you're lending a unique voice, unique spin. We really try to guide authors on the right path to what's authentic to them.

I would say that of course it differs for fiction and nonfiction in the spaces where we represent. Editors are looking for a large social media following or online platform, but it doesn't need to be millions of instagram followers. Right? That's a myth. What it needs to be is a very engaged audience. And I often tell people that an email list is more important than your social media following. And it's all about the way you present this to an editor or an agent. So that's one type of author that requires that online platform. Another type of author could be a psychologist or, you know, I keep going back to professors and PhD’s or a financial professional. No one's expecting you to have a large public presence, what you need to have is a network. You know, you need to have a speaking schedule or organizations that you're affiliated with that will sell your book as a novelist or memoirist. The best thing you can do is get your story out there even in small slices, right? Like with notable publications online, just sort of prove those writing credentials because otherwise you don't want to be invisible on Google. The last thing you want is for an agent or an editor to Google you and find nothing. What that says to the recipient is that you have no audience around you.

Mindy: Writers that are new to the concept of a writer also being a marketer and promoter. It's something you just have to swallow. That's where we are. The industry is very much changed from what it was 20 years ago and you just have to move with that flow.

Lucinda: Yes, that's it. But this will touch on one of the other points that I know is of interest to your listeners, which is that with the pandemic, it's actually a great time to get online right? Like we're spending more time at home. We're spending more time online. So yeah, it's crowded out there. But there are so many ways you can virtually connect with an audience, whether it's on Instagram or whether you're a novelist offering book club appearances. In ways you don't need to work, travel and speak as hard because it's a more informal, intimate way to meet with a large swath of readers. So I think there are more tools available to those authors who are loath to market as well as those who are really excited to market.

Mindy: I agree with that and I know that there's always a little bit of reluctance to put yourself out there, especially like I was saying like, I don't want to learn a new platform. I do well on Twitter and I do well on Facebook and it's like, why do I want to put myself on TikTok? But it's like you can find ways to use these platforms that fit you. And of course, like you said, if you hate something, if you try it and it's not for you, then don't do it. I tried to crack Tumblr so many times and I was like, okay, this just isn't working for me. Like I'm out.

A lot of aspiring writers, I think, view agents almost as an US versus them, they're gatekeepers. The first roadblock that you have to overcome. All of the verbiage that I hear specific to agents, when we're talking about people that have been rejected over and over and over, they build up this negative thought cloud around them when really, once you get an agent, what you want to be thinking about instead is - who is this person that I am going to be working with closely about something that I am emotional about, someone is going to be a business partner, someone that is going to be helping me? Instead of I have to overcome this person, I have to force this person to like me, notice me. It really is a partnership.

And I hear so many people talking about agents and the hunt itself in a negative way, which I totally understand. To be upfront. I was querying for 10 years. I understand the frustration and the hurt of rejection. I know it so well, but I also know that yes, you do need an agent, because I hear a lot of people saying, you know, I'm just going to do this on my own. I was in a chat the other day where someone asked me - why do you have an agent? Like at this point you could probably sell books on your own. And I was like, well, I mean, I guess I could but I don't like getting screwed. That's where I am, right. So, if you could talk a little bit just about having an agent and why it's important.

Lucinda: Absolutely. It's so funny that I've found myself more recently, especially with the pandemic, of being in the chair of convincing certain authors that they shouldn't self publish and they should go the traditional route for reasons X, Y and Z, which we can certainly talk about. But as you know, Mindy, you know, an agent is the first step to getting a major or even an independent publishing deal, because we are the trusted gatekeepers and that's really about our relationships and our taste. Editors will know of a certain agency or certain agent and they either leap to their submissions or they don't. So much like the publicity business, it's a relationships business and you don't want to go cold at approaching your dream publisher, you probably won't break in that way.

So yes, you need an advocate for your rights to protect your interest to draft the contracts and all of that. As you touched on, it's really about having a lifetime partner, like we call ourselves doulas, at least in the literature, you’re birthing your baby into the world. One of our authors said, I wouldn't just trust you with our books. I trust you with my life because it really is that right? The book sort of permeates every part of your emotional life and your career. And so, it is super important to trust your agent. Super important to share an editorial vision and to know that that person is a strong business advocate for you.

I do understand what you're talking about with the query process. I know how disheartening it is. It's even harder now, in our email only world. We used to send printed manuscripts to the desk of an agent and, you know, in the mail and someone would be reading those manuscripts. Now, It's like what if you don't get through with your subject line? Or what if you get caught in someone's spam filters? If you're doing this cold, it can just be very, very disheartening. Of course there are tips that we have for breaking through the slush pile.

Coming back to your original point that you hear from others. It surprises me. I think we need to segregate the disheartening process of querying from the actual later relationship you form with an agent because in our experience, we're the champions for your book. We don't succeed unless you succeed. Our livelihood is based on your livelihood. So that makes for something mutually beneficial. Whereas the querying process where agents get a bad rap is no one gets back to me. How do they not see it? Here's something that's interesting because the purpose of a query letter is to hook someone into a conversation. It's a critical data point. If your query letter is not getting requests, there's a problem with your letter. If your letter is getting requests, but no one's biting on your material, it's a problem with your material. So it's not like every agent out there is just ignoring me and I don't get in. If I don't have a personal connection, there is probably an issue with how you're presenting your material.

Mindy: People resent hearing that. I mean basically the answer is like - it's not me. It's you. Yeah, it is hard. It's difficult. But the query writing processes its own skill. It's its own piece of marketing itself. So moving on from that, why don't you share some of the common query mistakes that you see.

Lucinda: Well, so many, I could talk about this for a long time. I do have some funny reels on Instagram about it and we certainly talk about it in our workshops. The most common is that I leave reading a letter and I don't know what the book actually is, in two sentences - an elevator pitch. I don't know what it is and I don't know why you are in the best position to write it. So using the example of a memoir, your life story could be incredibly important and so many people want to share their life story with the world, especially if there's trauma, if there's, you know, tragedy involved, they want to touch other readers with that story. I admire that so much. But if you have built no audience around that particular story beyond your immediate network of family and friends and you're not a trained technical writer. So, Tara Westover, Educated, being such a popular example of a memoir that really it was so successful because the writing was gorgeous, but also the plot was otherworldly and and relatable at the same time. So it took us on this journey that most people don't experience, but they could relate to the family dynamics and that to me. Makes for a really compelling query letter. We called the query letter of your movie trailer, you're giving us a taste of the drama and the action and it has to feel that action packed in your letter and you're also talking about why you're the person to write it. Those two aspects need to be there.

Other top query mistakes. It's not a personal approach, it's a slush approach. So the number of times I get a letter where it's someone who writes genre fiction, we don't represent genre fiction. Why am I receiving this? It feels like something that is total slush. I'm not going to pick it up. There's got to be, you know, some sort of personal intro, there's got to be a closing that elicits interest. It can't be so passive. We see a lot of passivity in these letters. Please let me know if you'd like to see the material. Is that how an agent would advocate for your book? You need to find some leverage, you need to find some urgency. Maybe it's the timeliness of your book. Maybe it's riding the coattails of a book like it that's been really successful. Book publishing, like film, it's a lookalike business. If it looks like something that was super successful, we'll take a look at it. Those are some top points you need to hit in your letter.

Mindy: Something that I talk to people about a lot, because I offer editorial services and I do query reviews for people. This is something that I tell people and I could be wrong, but my reaction when I open a query letter when they open with - Hello, my name is Blah Blah Blah and I am writing to you seeking representation. My first reaction is - no shit right?

Lucinda: Yes, I know, right?

Mindy: They might follow up with the title of their book. My book is a 85,000 word historical fantasy. And I always tell people - listen, every single person writing to an agent is number one, seeking representation. Number two has a title, word count and a genre. Put that at the bottom, put your hook at the top. Grab the agent and then if they're interested they can get down to the bottom. My other thing is - because I see a lot of especially new writers that are overwriting. For example fantasy and sci fi, they tend to get a larger word count because of world building. They also are cooler markets right now. So I always tell people if you open with - my 120,000 word fantasy, the agent might be out just because of that word count. You have an absolutely bang on like, oh my gosh, that is an amazing concept. If they get to the concept and then they get to the bottom they see the word count. But like yeah, maybe I'll look at your 1st 10 anyway just to see. But in my opinion, they're going to close as soon as they see a word count, that is just not something they want to take a shot at.

Lucinda: I couldn't agree more. I mean the other analogy we use is the Amazon description, like if you think about the fact that your query letter is your pitch and what this might look like to any cold reader on Amazon, you hook them in right away. You have to and then it's about who wrote this and what's their credential for doing so. I think there's so many poor titles out there to your point, to lead with the title, especially if it's not a strong one, can be an automatic turn off. So I would much prefer leading with the elevator pitch. That's 1-2 sentences which we all need to sell books, keeping things succinct. It's just the best elements of your story, fiction or nonfiction.

Mindy: Absolutely,I agree. And I'm glad to hear that backed up by an agent since that's the advice I’ve been giving people for 10 years. We touched on it a little bit. You were talking about self publishing and the indie world versus the trad world and how you occasionally have authors that you are almost pushing towards - Yes, you need to try trad even though it can feel like there are so many barriers in the way. Obviously Indie Pub and Self pub has come a long way from where it used to be. I write underneath a pen name and I do that in the indie pub world and it has its benefits, it has its drawbacks and the same is true under my real name, which I write in the trad pub world. So if you could talk a little bit about how a person can evaluate their own strengths and weaknesses and make that decision.

Lucinda: First of all, I love that you've taken a hybrid approach yourself. I mean, what a fantastic experiment that gives you insights to guide other writers.

Mindy: Experiment is the right word, definitely. I’m still trying to work things out.

Lucinda: So if I were trying to assess this myself as a writer, I would really begin with my existing built in audience. If it's very small. Again, if it's something your mother would love but no one else will know you, I might think that it's better for self publishing just very honestly. And by the way, with self publishing successfully, if you want to have a long publishing career and you maybe want to go the traditional route later on, you need that self published book to sell. So be prepared to run it like a small business and assemble, assemble the team and give it your best shot. Because otherwise, when you approach agents and publishers later on, those sales numbers are poor. It's not working to your advantage.

The second is if the topic is very niche, what's the best way to figure that out? Go to comparative titles. If you go to comparative titles and you know, again, in my world, it's a business book. So I'll get queries that are - I'm writing a book for law professionals, that are middle managers. It's starting to feel really niche. To me, if there's no individual application, we want books that touch the corporate executive as much as they touch the stay at home mom, because we want to think in terms of beliefs and practices, not in terms of small, granular vocational specific things you can do. So if the topic is niche, you're going to find that out by searching for comparative titles on the topic and seeing that hey, they're largely self published or they're published by a press I've never heard of. Probably this fits in that wheelhouse rather than approaching HarperCollins for it.

As a novelist, it's obviously a bit tougher to gauge, right? Because if you think the writing is gorgeous and you've been told that, I always advocate for a professional view like yours Mindy, you know, someone who's an experienced author or editor or professor who's reading this and you trust for their brutal honesty and this person or people in your writing group say to you, this is unbelievable and you've got to try the traditional path. Then it's not about what your existing audience, it's about the writing itself. And then for me personally, which can be tougher to assess without a conversation, without an agent, it's about the idea, you know? Is the idea so novel, so different, so counterintuitive or something that, again, using the lookalike term looks like something that we've seen, but has this other breakthrough element? The big idea, fiction and nonfiction alike, is just so compelling to publishers. So the best thing I can advise aspiring writers to do is go through that painful query process if they think there is a seed of potential on the basis of their writing their platform or their big idea and see if you can find an agent that way and do whatever you can to be in conversation with the publishing insider. They will give you the market expertise.

Mindy: I know that a lot of people that want to go the self publishing route, I hear them saying that they want to do this because they want to avoid the pain of rejection. They want to avoid and they're not understanding that rejection will find you no matter where you go, rejection sees you every morning when you check your sales. Rejection, when you're applying for promotions through different platforms. Rejection when you are soliciting reviews from review sites. Rejection is part of the game, no matter where you are going. And so if you want to go the self pub or the Indie route, simply because you're trying to avoid having your feelings hurt, you need to get a new set of feelings.

Lucinda: You need a thick skin. Reviews will absolutely break you. So if you're not prepared for the rejection from agents and by the way, our agency, the agency, I know they're pretty kind with their rejections. It's pretty much a template - lead with the positive elements then go into the critiques and maybe it's just as simple as, it's not the right fit for their list at that time. Maybe they have a competitive title. Maybe the market isn't doing X right now or their relationships aren't looking for it. You can't take it so personally, there are a lot of haters out there as reviewers on amazon, right? Like every hater wants to be vocal these days. You've got to have thick skin. It's so important in this career. And fundamentally you have to have the burning belief that writing is not a choice. It's something you need to do. You've got to wake up and do it every day and you've got to see it through, no matter who finds it.

Mindy: That's very true. I mean, in the end, you have to be doing this because you believe in your work, not because you're looking to become rich or famous.

Lucinda: We all suffer from rejection and the need for validation. You'll find that you'll find your reader, it's a long road, as I always say.

Mindy: Last thing, why don't you share with my listeners where they can find you and where they can find Lucinda Literary online and what your submission requirements are?

Lucinda: Thank you for asking that. It's funny, like many of you writers listening, we are also making this concerted effort to market ourselves on social media and through an email list. And I've had plenty of ambivalence about that process. But I thought it was so important because here we are telling authors to do it, if we're not doing it ourselves and we don't really understand the challenges and the insights like, how can we be guiding others? So we're doing that. So you can find us basically on all social media at LucindaLiterary. On Twitter. I think we're at @LucindaLitNYC I myself am @LucindaBlue. Elsewhere across its @LucindaLiterary and then of course our website is helpfully Lucinda Literary. There you will find all of our services. Our live events our courses are free, resources for master classes. I mean there's just a ton and I really recommend subscribing to the email list, which you can do through the website because we send out every Thursday, either an expert interview or tips and strategies for querying. And I just have so much fun what feels like an intimate correspondence with the writers who are on our list. So those are all the ways you can find us. And in terms of querying, we have a portal, it gives you a few steps to go through to make sure that, you know, you want to do the work to actually get to the right agent and pitch the right thing. You can just find that through the submissions tab on our website.

Kathleen Basi On Writing Music, Fiction &The Personal Sting of Rejection

June 21, 2021 Mindy McGinnis

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Mindy: We're here with Kathleen Basi, author of A Song For the Road. Kathleen was previously a guest on the blog and we talked a little bit about her publication journey and I'm really glad that you contacted me and asked if I had a spot open on the podcast because I started this podcast hoping to reach aspiring authors and to make sure that I'm always talking to every guest about how they got started and about their query journey and their agent hunt. But then as the podcast has gotten bigger and bigger and I've gotten authors who are further along in their career and more established, they've been writing for 20 or 30 years. So their journey would be completely unhelpful to modern writers who have email and social media and all of those things. So I'm really glad to kind of go back to my roots and talk to you about your publication journey because I know that you were querying for awhile, correct?

Kathleen: I think I started querying probably 10, 12 years agol I mean it's a long time. It's long enough that I've birthed several Children and I have a child old enough to drive now.

Mindy: Did you start in the world of self addressed stamped envelopes?

Kathleen: I did not. It was always done on Query Tracker and email and things like that. So I'm not quite that old.

Mindy: I’m just edged ahead of you, then. I started with the SASE’s and getting little cards back in the mail that just had check marks where there was a yes box and a no box. It was like dating in fourth grade. It was terrible.

Kathleen: You know, I've been publishing music longer than I've been working with fiction and I did have to do some self addressed stamped envelopes for a while. There was one particular music publisher who really held out for a long time before going electronic and I was like AHHH! Stamps! But you know I actually have some sympathy with them for holding out that long because it's a real commitment to print the thing out, to make the envelope, to go find how much postage it's going to take, to put on the envelope and all that. I mean you have to really be committed to the process. It's a heck of a lot easier to just click attach and send an email.

Mindy: Absolutely, I'm sure it weeded out some people who are not serious. It's a really good point because, Similar with where I began in trying to get published around 2001, If you got a request for a partial, you had to print out those papers like you're saying with music. You had to print out the 1st 30 pages, you had to put that in an envelope. You had to take that envelope to the post office and ask the postmaster to weigh it and put return postage on it. And then you had to put that envelope inside of another envelope, seal that, and ask them to run it again, and then you mail that. And I live in the middle of nowhere. They would basically be like, what are you doing? What is this? And then I end up having a conversation about being a unpublished, failed writer while I'm standing in the post office holding up the line.

Kathleen: I got to the point actually where the music publishers would say if you want your manuscript returned to you then you must blah blah blah. And I would always end up putting in the cover letter - There's no need to return the manuscript to me. Just recycle it. That at least cut out some of that having to take it in away. Then I could just give them the envelope, Just a standard business envelope to send their rejection back and cut me in the heart.

Mindy: That was my favorite. I try to explain that to people in the new world of digital. Getting a rejection letter addressed to you in your own handwriting and how it has its own special blade.

Kathleen: Right?

Mindy: You said you've been writing music for a long time, which is wonderful. And I'd love to talk to you about that as well. But what made you take that turn into fiction? Just kind of walk us along that process of deciding to become a writer and then deciding to try to get published. Because those are two different things.

Kathleen: I have written fiction since I was in the first grade. So it wasn't particularly new. My degrees are in music. I have a masters in flute performance, super useful degree. Let me tell you.

Mindy: I have a degree in philosophy of religion, so I understand.

Kathleen: But you know those degrees form who we are. I feel like I interact with the world in a very different way than I would have if I'd studied something else. And when I was doing my master's degree, I was five hours from home, I did not have a car, I really had nothing and during that time I was practicing my flute four hours a day in a little tiny room by myself. And my relaxation time was to go to the computer lab, because I didn't have a computer either, pull out the disk that had - I mean we're talking old school here - and pull out the disk that had my novel on it. And that was what I did for relaxation was to write books or write stories.

I don't think I realized that I was actually writing novels until probably very shortly before I got married, which was right after my Master's degree. And at some point I intersected with how long a novel is? I wonder how long these stories that I've been writing my whole life are? And I went and looked and I went, oh, I'm writing novels! I didn't even know it, that's how completely clueless I was. And so at that point then I decided that it was time to get serious and then start figuring out how to do this for real.

And of course at the moment when I started trying to do it for real, it suddenly was much harder because you had to stay in one point of view and there were all these rules that I didn't know and I spent a long time having to learn those rules. But I love the writing community because there's so much available online now. I've never been to in person writing conferences very much. I've never taken in person classes, but I've learned it all because it's all there, it's all available to people.

Mindy: It is. And that's one of the things that is really beautiful about the digital age. Because once again, I remember going to Borders Books, rest in peace, and buying the writer's market guide to literary agents for that year, going through it. Ear marking things.

Kathleen: Do they even publish those anymore?

Mindy: I doubt it. I mean it would be pointless.

Kathleen: There was at some point when one of my writing partners actually gave me one of those and at that time even, I thought it was slightly odd because I thought - isn't all this online? But I used it for a few years for short stories.

Mindy: It's an age that has passed and in some ways, thank God. But it's interesting, like you said, having to make that effort, it really did weed out people that weren't serious about querying agents. Because you had to go, you had to buy the book, you had to keep track of everything, You had to mail everything yourself, you had to put postage, paper, ink, all of that into it. Yeah, it was frustrating and it was really bogged down and it was obviously an archaic system, but it did separate the wheat from the chaff right from the start.

Kathleen: I actually feel kind of bad for literary agents now because it's so easy. Even those who have like a submission form and everything. I mean, they must just get completely inundated. It's hardly a surprise that it's a long response time for most of us and no response equals no, or no response means I haven't gotten to it yet. And just - this is a crazy making business.

Mindy: It is, it really is. What made you decide - Yeah, I have a novel and I want to try to not only just be a writer, but to be a published author? What made you do that and what were the steps that you took?

Kathleen: I think that I set out to do it because as a musician and writing music, it's not just given to me for my own enjoyment, particularly with music. It's lovely to do something for yourself. But where it really becomes meaningful is when you start to interact with an audience and that public performance where you start to get feedback is what makes it all really, really meaningful to me. You don't have that with fiction in quite the same way, like once in a while you get to read to your audience, but it's not like performing music.

But even so, there's that sense that it was not given to me, to be written for me to hoard and hide my head under the blanket and read for my own use. It was given to me to go out and do something in the world and to touch people and to interact with people. To me, it wasn't even a question of, oh, do I want to get published or not? Of course I did. Absolutely, I did.

And I knew also that I did not want to self publish as I started to learn because I knew that I would suck at self publishing. I mean, that's just not, it is not my charisma. I knew that some venue of traditional was what I wanted to do. And so I never gave up on the literary agents and in the blog post that I wrote for you, I talked about how, you know, the first one had these problems, and so I'm like, all right, I'm going to fix that for the next time. But then there's another problem with the second one, and there's like a plateau and a climb and a plateau and a climb.

With music, there are times when everything seems really easy in playing, and you're on a plateau. You've reached a new level and you're able to sit and enjoy it for a minute, but then you see something else up there that you want to reach for, and so you start climbing again and it's hard again. And that's how I felt and still feel about writing, is that it's a constant pursuit of greater excellence, greater attention to detail and all of those things enhance the ability to connect with readers in the long run.

Mindy: I love the analogy. I also played piano for about 10 years when I was younger and I think it was some of the most character building moments and experiences of my life. I've tried to explain to people for example, I have a book coming out with James Patterson in November. We co authored a book together. He would call me, we would have phone conversations about the project. People would be like, do you get nervous when James Patterson calls you? And I would say no because I did Guild in piano, right?

And it's like if you aren't in music you don't understand. But it's like you, I always did the max for my age level, I did 10 pieces. And so it was like you had to memorize 10 pieces and you walked into a room and it's just you, the piano and three judges. You sit down and you play 10 songs from memory. They ask you to play certain scales or whatever and you don't know what they're going to ask. And you got to be ready from ages seven to like 18, I played piano, and so as a child to walk into that, it just prepared me for so much in life in so many ways. You know, it prepared me to be in the spotlight. It prepared me to have everything riding on you. It prepared me for challenges. It prepared me for critique.

Kathleen: You have to have the sheer dedication. Are you a natural memorizer or was that a struggle for you?

Mindy: I assume it's muscle memory.

Kathleen: Yeah. So you're a natural memorizer and that helps, but Simply the process of having to prepare all of that music. I mean you can't do that in 10 days.

Mindy: No.

Kathleen: I mean it's a long process. 10 pieces. That's a lot of music.

Mindy: Yeah,it is. And people don't usually use the word like steeliness or grit with musicians, but you're gonna have some balls to go do that.

Kathleen: You do. It's actually a lot like being a writer, there's a sheer ego involved in the idea that something inside of me is inherently worthy to be heard by other people or to be read by other people. There's like there's an ego involved in that. But we also have to be humble. I think it's weird because we hate ourselves and we hate our writing and we get all dramatic about it a lot of times. So there's like this constant push and pull between the ego and the self loathing.

Mindy: The ego and the id. It's true. Self loathing is absolutely right. People ask me all the time if I read my own books and the answer is no, because it's published now. It's out there, it's a solid thing. And if I were to read it… when I do readings in public, I tell them if they have a copy of the book to follow along because I'm going to change it. I'm editing it as I read and I'm changing things on the fly because I would do things differently now.

Kathleen: Reading them out loud doesn't work the way that it does when you're reading it.

Mindy: I offer editing services and I tell people that sometimes I'll highlight a sentence and I'll be like, this is a good sentence and you've done a good job here, but I want you to read it out loud. I'm making this up - but if it would be like the howling ouroboros, you know, it's just you know, you don't want anyone trying to read that. Think of the audio book, man!

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Mindy: So once you went out on your query journey with your fiction, you had been through this process of rejection before in the music industry. So you were prepared in a lot of ways. But was there a different feeling? Was there a different flavor to having your music rejected and to having your writing rejected?

Kathleen: I write two different kinds of music and one of them is just sort of instrumental incidental music kind of thing. The rest of the music that I write is for use in Christian worship. It's a very specific thing. So when I would get a rejection most of the time, I was not surprised because I could see like I was really immersed in the stuff and I could see why, like how, how crowded it was. There's only so many things that a congregation can learn to sing. So they are very cautious about publishing more. I guess what I'm trying to say is there's like a one step of remove there and with the fiction, it went straight to the heart of who I am and the message that I want and the legacy that I want to leave in the world.

It's odd for me to say that now, because my music is intensely, intensely personal and I spend much more time crafting texts now than I ever did when I got my first publications in the musical world. Even so, there's something about the fiction that I guess I would have to say it's probably because there are conventions and they're like, when you're working within a very slim niche like that, the texts have to fit within certain parameters. And so there's a Stravinsky quote that I always say - the greater the limitation, the greater the art.

And so that's how I look at music. And then fiction frees me. In fiction, I got to say everything that there wasn't room to say. Certain words just can't be sung. Well, they just don't interact well with written notes on a page. And all of those words, all of those topics, when you're writing for worship, you have to sort of code things if you want to talk about, they're going to feel a little too specific and not universal enough. And all of those were available in fiction, in a sense.

Mindy: I understand what you're saying because I'm a Lutheran. So, when we're looking at music and I as a writer, I'll be looking at, especially the more modern music when we use that, the word choice and how things are being used just because I'm a writer. So I understand what you're saying, where you have to consider so many elements with the music, and also the limitations, of course, of the musical prowess of the congregation.

Kathleen: Right?

Mindy: Yeah, I mean, that all makes a lot of sense. And you are, in some ways, have a limited vocabulary when you're especially writing for a Christian audience.

Kathleen: And I think that's appropriate because you're trying to build a bridge. My character in A Song For the Road is a Catholic music director. And that was a very difficult line to walk, because I didn't want to write Christian fiction. You can go too far in certain directions and you end up writing something other than what you intended to write. I wanted it to be secular fiction that happened to have a character who had this background and was struggling with the loss of her family and all of those things kind of work together. But I didn't want to be aiming at that niche audience. I wanted to reach the larger audience. So there were limits to the things that could be said in this book as well. Even at that, writing fiction feels much freer, almost a blank canvas. And I truly can take this anywhere that I feel called to do so. And that is terrifying and beautiful. It is a privilege. It's a responsibility. And when somebody rejects that, then it's different, you know, and you just have no idea when those emails, when they're going to come in.

Mindy: Talking about that blank canvas, people ask me, when you do interviews, do panels or blog, or podcast, people will ask - what are you afraid of? That's a question that comes up often like an icebreaker question. And my answer is File > New Document.

Kathleen: Yes!

Mindy: That is what I am afraid of.

Kathleen: Oh my gosh, I hate the drafting process. I have so many people who are like - outlining! Oh, no! I’m a panster! and I'm like, if I pants, I will hit a brick wall and I will have absolutely no idea where I'm going, I have to outline it and I'm gonna hit a brick wall anyway and I'm going to have to stop and go wait a minute - this is not working. Let's redo the outline. But I've got to know where I'm going.

Mindy: I have a general idea of where I'm going most of the time, but I tend to let things be a little bit more organic. My process scares like a lot of my friends that are also writers. when I talk about my process, they get like, hives. And they always say, how can you do that? And how does that even work? And I'm like, I don't know, but I don't look at it too hard because it does work and I don't want to break it.

Kathleen: And I think that's important. We have to recognize that everybody's process is different. We're all wired differently. I have a child who has down syndrome and so in the world of disability there's a lot of overlap. I've spent a lot of time interacting with people in the autism community. And there's that discussion of just, we're wired differently and I've realized that it's not just about disability versus typically neurotypical people. Neurotypical people are all wired differently, too. like truly neurodiversity is a wondrous thing.

Mindy: One of the things that I tell people, especially as a writing coach, everyone is the way they are for a reason, right? And it's true. I hold to that. If you're going to accept that this is true for you and this is true for your sister and your brother and your mom and your dad, you have to accept that this is also true for like, a serial killer. It's going to make you uncomfortable, but you have to think about that. And when I'm doing writing coaching and we're talking about villains or unlikable characters or characters a little little more difficult to crack and too much. Everyone is the way they are for a reason. Figure out what that reason is. Why is this person this way? And it's a really good tool to help you understand your characters when you're writing fiction.

Kathleen: I've used a lot of Lisa Kron's work in the last few years with that question of why is the character this way? is one that is foremost in my mind all the time. Now, I'm actually in the process of trying to brainstorm a major revision of a book that didn't really get its fair shake at querying, because A Song For the Road came up, and it was clear to me that that one was closer to ready. It had everything that was necessary. It had the plot hook and the emotional hook. So, the book before that, I kind of set aside and really focused my efforts on getting this one published. And now I'm going back to that other novel and Looking at it with more objective eyes, because it's now been like, six years.

Mindy: That really helps

Kathleen: And having had my agents look at it and they gave me like a paragraph - here's what I see in this. And I'm like, oh, okay, so I reread it and I'm like, oh yeah, I see that too. Okay, now, how do I fix it? And it's a big rewrite. That question of why people are the way they are is the journey I'm just embarking upon again.

Mindy: It’s a crowbar that you can just wedge in to figure someone out, I think. Only apply this in fiction. If you do it in real life, uh - don’t put crowbars in people's brains. Nobody likes that.

Kathleen: But it does help to think of people. I mean -

Mindy: It's an empathy builder.

Kathleen: Yes. Yes, that's exactly where I was going. I feel like fiction is an empathy builder. Writing fiction and reading fiction, we can get inside people's heads and understand them in a way that we are unable to make ourselves that vulnerable in real life. Sometimes I am really struggling with the questions of why are people the way they are and how are they? I think fiction has a great deal to offer us in this time, in this place in history.

Mindy: Absolutely. And when you practice this as a writer, you do practice it in real life as well. I'm by no means like some type of yogi but After having been writing full time for 10 years, my patience and my empathy and my understanding has just grown by leaps and bounds. I don't think I was ever like a very truly judgmental person. I mean maybe when I was a teenager because I was a teenager, but I tend to be kind of brusque. I can be like I have things to do, I need to get them done. The way that I describe myself is that I tell people I'm not nice, I'm kind. There's a difference, being kind goes deeper. Being nice is superficial and I don't have time for that. I don't have time to pretend like I like you.

When it comes to practicing that empathy… being a writer and asking myself the hard questions about the characters that I'm writing, because I don't always write likeable characters has definitely helped me to kind of move and function in the world a little more smoothly with a little less irritation and anger because I can just be like, okay, I mean they believe this or they think this or they did this why? And can I find common ground somewhere? But I can at least understand the thought process that got you here. I don't like where you are, but if I can figure out how you got there somewhere along the way there’s a step, then I can look at and say let's turn this right here a little differently.

Kathleen: And see I'm trying to reach that point. I do tend to be a little more judgey, I have to admit.

Mindy: Well, like I said, I'm no Yogi. I just yesterday got out of the car, I hit my head on the car getting out of the car and it made me really angry. So I turned around and I punched the car. So I make myself sound really zen. But the truth is that I hit a Ford Flex yesterday and it hurt my hand and that was stupid.

Last thing, why don't you let people know where they can find you online and then also where they can find your book A Song For the Road.

Kathleen: A Song For the Road is available at all your online retailers. I know that it's on the shelves in Barnes and Noble and I know that it's on the shelves at quite a few indie bookstores and of course all of the other places that you would expect. You can find me at my website Kathleen Basi dot com. That's spelled K A T H L E E N B A S I So Kathleen basi dot com. And that has links to my music too. If you're interested in that, I'm on Facebook under Kathleen M. Basi, and I'm on Instagram and I don't spend much time on Twitter. I'm a Twitter failure, I will say.

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