Revision Is Where The Magic Happens 📝 Janette Rallison (and C. J. Hill) on Writing Across Genres

“And remember that revisions is where the magic happens. That’s where you’re taking that … piece of coal and turning it into a diamond.” -Janette Rallison

In this thoughtful and funny episode of A LITERAL JOURNEY, I sit down with author Janette Rallison (also known as C. J. Hill). Janette explains how her daughter's experience in school was one of her primary motivations to write books for teens.

During the interview, Janette talks about writer's block, getting published, facing rejection, and what success (really) looks like. We also dive into what Janette has learned from traditional and independent publishing, and why she believes revision "is where the magic happens."

Whether you’re a reader, writer, parent, teacher, or someone who just loves a good story, I hope this episode encourages you to open a book (or pick up a pen) and embark on your *own* literal journey.

About JANETTE RALLISON:

Janette lives in Arizona with her husband and divides her time between her children, grandchildren, writing, and wandering around the house looking for items she has misplaced. (This is how she gets most of her exercise.) She has two dogs and enough cats to classify her as “an eccentric cat lady.” She did not do this on purpose. Every single one of the felines showed up on its own and refuses to leave.

Since Janette has five children and deadlines to write books, she doesn’t have much time left over for hobbies. But since this is the internet and you can’t actually check to see if anything on this site is true, let’s just say she enjoys dancing, scuba diving, horseback riding, and long talks with Chris Hemsworth. (Well, I never said he answers back.)

💻 VISIT Janette Rallison's official website: https://janetterallison.com/

📖 READ My Fair Godmother (Janette Rallison): https://amzn.to/4sIWnPr

📖 READ The Slayers Series (C. J. Hill): https://amzn.to/41Gt0SJ

📚 CHECK OUT Janette Rallison's other books: https://amzn.to/4tmJhIO

🎧 LISTEN to more episodes of A LITERAL JOURNEY: https://aliteraljourney.buzzsprout.com/

🎥 WATCH more episodes of A LITERAL JOURNEY: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRTQ34vyf-9NkrTcSH0KEwXPOhdVqZRVZ

Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe to A LITERAL JOURNEY for more exclusive author interviews, book recommendations, and thoughtful conversations about the stories that shape us. 📖✨

#JanetteRallison #CJHill #ALiteralJourney #AuthorInterview #yaromance #fantasy #romcom

My name is Seth Adam Smith. I’m a husband, father, and author who believes in the power of stories to inspire people forward.

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Thank you for watching—and for being part of this journey!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

When did you start to see and experience success from publishing? When when were when did you mark success? You were like, whoa, this is things are really actually taking off for me.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

I I feel like maybe the first time, and I'm not even sure which book it was, um, that I had to like actually pay taxes. I was like, oh, you were like, you know, they don't you don't get paid that much, and then you have all these expenses and stuff. And then well, I guess I should say the first time I had to pay taxes, and it was like it was, I remember it was$8,000. And I was like, what we have to pay$8,000 because we did not budget for that. I guess this is like a real job.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

That is funny. I've never heard an author mark their success as well. I had to pay taxes on my success. That's when I knew I was successful. That was a great response. And today's author is Jeanette Rallison. Jeanette is the author of All's Fair in Love, War, and High School, My Fairy Godmother or Fair Godmother trilogy, and the upcoming We Are Never Getting Together from Shadow Mountain, as well as many, many other books. She lives in Arizona with her husband and divides her time between her children, grandchildren, writing and wandering around the house looking for items she has misplaced. This is how she gets most of her exercise. That's what she says. She has two dogs and enough cats to classify her as an eccentric cat lady. She did not do this on purpose. Every single one of these felines showed up on its own and refuses to leave. That does sound like something a cat would do. Since Jeanette has five children and deadlines to write books, she doesn't have much time left over for hobbies. But since this is the internet and you can't really check to see if anything on her bio is true, let's just say she enjoys dancing, scuba diving, horseback riding, and long talks with Chris Hemsworth. But there's an important caveat to that last point. She never said he answers back. Jeanette, I love your bio. Your bio is great. I was laughing when I was reading it on your website. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview. It's an honor.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Oh, sure. Thanks. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

So just give our listeners a bit of background on yourself. What is your story and what got you into storytelling?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Well, I've always liked writing. Um so I I mean, I kind of always wanted to do it. Uh, I started writing young adults. Well, my I had a my oldest daughter loved to read. Like from the time she was probably in sixth grade, she was out reading me. And um, when she got to seventh grade, she had a literature class. And I thought, oh, she's really gonna love this because she loves reading. But the teacher was having them read all of these depressing books, like Anne Frank's Diary and the Grapes of Wrath and Scarlet Letter, and and all of these, you know, less than light books, let's say. And um, one day she came home and she had just been assigned Frankenstein, and she said, Does somebody die in this? And I was like, Yeah, lots of people died. And she just slammed it shut and said, if I didn't already love reading, my teacher would make me hate it. And right then I was like, Oh, you know, um, I wonder how many kids in that class didn't love reading. And you know, how many of the kids are after high school are because I knew it wasn't gonna really change as far as the books English teachers chose. So I thought, how many kids are just gonna graduate and never pick up another book? So I was like, you know what, I want to write books for her, and um so yeah, I started writing uh young adults, uh teen rom-coms and fantasies and um got sci-fi in there. Um and yeah, I and then I have you know a 14-year spread between my oldest daughter and my youngest daughter, so kind of stayed in the young adult space for a long time. Then um I started writing adult rom coms. Um, and then Shadow asked Shadow Mountain asked me to write another YA um rom com. And then Harper is re-releasing three of my books in November, and so I'm like, wait, I'm suddenly I'm back writing um teen books again. And now I don't have a teenager in my house, so I'm gonna have to go stalk some teenagers to see what they're doing now. I don't know, they're all on their phones now. I don't know how they interact at all, but yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Romance, romance doesn't quite happen these days like it used to back uh 10, 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Yeah, yeah, you gotta throw in text messages and stuff like that now.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

So I know that's and that's and it's just emojis. How do you write emojis all the time?

SPEAKER_00 5:18

You just you know, I that's what I should have in my book, like just every sentence, a bunch of emojis.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Just a bunch of, yeah, and try to translate those. That's I guess that's easier to translate into different languages. So then um talk about your your path to to publishing. I mean, you so your daughter came home and and you you started writing, and how did you go from here's an idea and then here's a manuscript, and where am I gonna take this to publish?

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Well, I um I always written before, and I it was just you know kind of a hobby, and I wanted to be a published writer someday, but I don't know what I thought was gonna happen. Like, you know, an editor was gonna show up on my door and go, Hey, I hear you're a writer. What can I look at your stuff or something? So I um I joined a writer's group, um, American Night Writers Association. It's um for LDS writers. And um I my first meeting, I went and they were all talking about who they were submitting to, and I was like, What? That's a thing. So it really made me um take myself more seriously and go, like, oh, I have to finish an entire novel and then send it in. So I sent it in to um, it was an LDS novel. Um, and I sent it into um Covenant and to Deseret Book at the time. And Deseret Book picked it up. Emily Watts was my uh editor. She was so awesome. I don't know if she's still at the company or not, but she was funny. It's it's great when you have an editor who gets your sense of humor. Um so yeah, and that's that's how that went. And for most authors, now I realize like that was not a usual journey journey that you send it in to two unsolicited and one of them picks it up. It's usually this kind of marathon of um, you know, going to agents and being like being rejected by 10 agents until you find one. And then, you know, a lot of times the author's first book doesn't get published. And I will say, when I got the rights back to that and I decided to put it out for the national market, so now it's out in the world as uh Deep Blue Eyes and Other Teenage Hazards. Like I was reading it, and yeah, I you know, maybe maybe authors should never read their old books because it was like I have to change so many things about this, you know. You but yeah, you uh hopefully, I guess that yeah, hopefully in uh in all professions you get better at it as you put in more years and more practice. But um yeah, my my agent has told me I'm not allowed to reread any of my old books. Yeah, I want to change everything in printed books, like okay, I need to go track down 400,000 copies of this book and scratch out a few sentences.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

So well, you you mentioned you mentioned um Nathaniel Hawthorne, uh Scarlet Letter. Um I I love the Scarlet Letter, not everybody does. Yeah, that's one of the rare classics that I enjoy. But he he had written a book before that. I forget the name of it. So the Seven Gables. No, no, it was, but he had written a book before, it was like his first book, and he was so embarrassed by that book that he went around wherever it was published, bought all the copies, and destroyed them. He was that embarrassed, and now, and but he didn't get all of them, and so like those copies of those books are like they're worth so much money, yeah. I mean him totally understand that it's not yeah, even him, he's like, What is this garbage? And now it's like worth so much money, it's amazing. Um did you start to see and experience success from publishing? When when were when did you mark success? You were like, Whoa, this is things are really actually taking off for me.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yeah, you know what? That I mean, that's a good question because and part of the problem with being an author, and sometimes I tell people like, oh, being an author is a job you can have if you have too much self-esteem, you know, like you need, you know, bad reviews, people not to come to your book signings, like you know, like then then writing is a good job for you. But um, so yeah, it's it's hard to say when you you feel successful because there's always that next milestone, like, oh, but you know, now I made the USA Today list, but I'm not on the New Yorks, and you know, you know, like there's always something else that's um, you know, and no matter where you go, you know, like people are not going to recognize your name, which is kind of a good thing, you know. But um, but yeah, I I feel like maybe the first time, and I'm not even sure which book it was, um, that I had to like actually pay taxes. I was like, oh, you were like you, you know, they don't you don't get paid that much, and then you have all these expenses and stuff. And then well, I guess I should say the first time I had to pay taxes, and it was like it was, I remember it was$8,000. And I was like, What we have to pay$8,000 because we did not budget for that. I guess this is like a real job, you know, and uh, and thankfully my husband is good at um at keeping track of those things because I otherwise would probably be in jail for forgetting to pay them or whatever, you know. When you're self-employed, then they start wanting them like not even you know, at the end of the year, but like you have to pay multiple times during the year, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

So that that is funny. I've never heard an author mark their success as well. I had to pay taxes on my success. That's when I knew I was successful. That's a great response. That is great. Um in in the writing world, we kind of we kind of talk about writers uh on the on a spectrum of of two categories. There you're either a a plotter, like you plot out your story and you write out kind of a very detailed outline of where you want things to go, or a pantser, but like you're you're going by the seat of your pants, you don't know where this story is gonna go, you kind of have a general idea, and then you just launch out and see where it goes by the seat of your pants. Where would you say you fall on that spectrum? How do you write your books?

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Um, uh well, I have done both, and I will tell you that the ones that I outlined more are better and were faster written. And um, and so yeah, now I always well, and the thing about it is is that I mean, I don't have detail, I know there's some people that have very like they had they have every scene, you know, listed and what's gonna happen. And um I would probably you know, I don't do that because I would end up changing it, you know, but I always have the um the main character's problem, their goal to overcome the problem, some obstacles, and if there's an antagonist, you know, who that is, and um the consequences of failure if they don't reach the goal. Because if, you know, I'm trying to think of a oh, okay, um, for example, I have two of my YA books where the goal is to win the school election. And the problem with that is, and the problem with a lot of young adult rom coms is it's hard to make it feel like, oh, that goal is really important, because you know, if the character doesn't win the election, then life goes on, right? Uh, we've all not been president of our high school and still had happy, fulfilling lives, right? So it's hard to make that feel important. So you have to make it there be another reason for the character why this is so important and why this matters to them. It's much easier if you write, like I have some dragon books where it's um, I guess I guess I should say, I also have written a CJ Hill, and so I have a series slayers. Now it was easy because it's like, oh, you're gonna get eaten by a dragon if you don't achieve your goal, or you know, so life or death is just a much easier consequence to get people to be worried about um than losing the high school election.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

What would you say has been the hardest part of writing for you? And then I'll do a follow-up about the most joyful part of writing.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Okay. Hardest part, and probably most authors are going to tell you this, is marketing because even when you're with a traditional publisher, it's it, you know, like they have a whole catalog of books that they're promoting, and you're, you know, you get a sales rep who shows a bookstore your book for 30 seconds that tells you what it is, and that might be the only marketing you get for that book. So you have to try and do a lot, but you know what? I took a lot of English classes in college. I didn't take any marketing ones, and even if I had, it would all be out of date because you know, back when I was in the early computers where you had floppy disks that you had to like you know, insert. So um, yeah, marketing completely different now. But yeah, that's that is the hardest part is is discoverability, trying to get people to know that you had this book because there are literally four million other books out on Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

And then what's been the most joyful part of writing?

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Probably the letters, the emails that you get from people that say, like, oh, I didn't like reading until I read your books, or you know, or they you know tell you how much they meant, or like this if you helped me through a hard time, I knew I could always turn to your books and they would make me smile and laugh. And and yeah, yeah, it's like sharing you know something awesome with people that maybe even means more to them than it meant to you.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

So how do you deal with um like creative writing blocks or like they call they call it the the writer's block, yeah. Writer's block itself. How do you deal with with that?

SPEAKER_00 15:35

I didn't used to think that that was a real thing. Like I was just like, but you you just sit down and you do it, you know. Or if you're having writer's block, it's probably a plot problem, which a lot of times it is. So you need to just go back and look at your plot and go, okay, why isn't there tension and conflict here? And usually, because a lot of times it's you have low conflict, so it just nothing is coming to you. But during the Slayer series, and I think the reason why is um McMillan did the first two books, and then they didn't want the I had only planned it to be three books, it ended up being five, but um, they didn't want that third book, and I just thought, okay, well, I can't just leave it hanging, like ah, there's dragons on the world. You know, sorry, the all you readers who bought the first two books, you're gonna never know what happens. So I was like, okay, this I you know, I'd done indie books before because um like I had a publisher where that were one publisher, ate Bloomsbury, took over Walker and let go all of the editing staff. I had a manuscript that was with an editor at the time, and so I just put that up online. So I I I knew I could do it, knew how to do it, didn't think it would be that big of a deal. But when I went to go write that book, I you know, I think because the publisher didn't pick it up, I had horrible writer's block. And then it when I got over 400 pages, I realized like I need to break this up. So then I told everybody, hey, it's gonna be two books, put out that next book, and then the same thing happened with the next one. But I had writer's block every day that I wrote those last three books, um, except for like two days. I mean, that's how bad it was. And it, yeah, I had to like make myself sit there and write them. And I would go like write other books. I did that in there too, and be like, oh hey, I can still write when I'm writing a romance. But when I went back to that, it was it was um hard. But at the same time, I knew I I just had to power through it. And the weird thing about it was that when I got started writing, it was fine. And at the end of the day, I liked what I had written. I knew where the story was going, you know, but and I'd always think like, okay, so that wasn't, you know, that ended up not being bad. Maybe tomorrow it'll be better. I'll just want to sit down and and note the next day to be like, what needs to be cleaned? You know, what you know, when you're like looking for other projects to do, like, I think I need to paint this room, you know. It's my husband would come up and still having writer's block. I see you painted a room, you know. Um, but yeah, I it ended up it ended up being fine and being a you know good series, but I now I have a lot more um empathy for writers who who say they have writer's block. But yeah, there's and now I also have have taught a class on on right on overcoming writer's block in um um in in some conferences because there it you have to figure out why you have the writer's block and then address that.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

So this is fantastic. So while you were talking, I pulled it up. I had no idea that you're also CJ Hill. Yeah, I didn't know that. I I so I'm pulling this up. Uh you're the author as well of I mean you're the author of CJ Hill, technically, and you're the author of this Slayers series, the five book series right here. That's fantastic, and the the covers are incredible. Um very and the reviews are extremely high. This is great. Um so so tell me a little bit about this series. What's what's sort of the synopsis of this series, and then how was it published?

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Okay, so it's um that dragons still exist. And the the weird thing is is that every culture on earth has a dragon dragon um mythology, which is kind of weird when you think about it. If you're like these are these never existed, and yet even Hawaii, which is an island, has you know a dragon mythology. So, you know, I thought, okay, well, what if they really did? And you know, and the and just the um knights killed them off, and now um, but some survived, and there were dragon lords that were protecting them, and now they're coming back because there's an evil dragon lord who wants to take over the country. So there's a certain group of kids who are the descendants of the knights from the Middle Ages who killed them off who have superpowers to fight them. So, yeah, it's it's modern teenagers fighting dragons who are not, you know, we still they don't want to be your friends, not the like we've with with all the other dragon books, it's like they're awesome and magical, and they really want to be your friends. And I keep looking at the pictures of dragons with their teeth, and I'm like, nothing with that many teeth wants to be our friends, they want to eat us. That's how so sadly, if if you're out there and you love a telepathic dragon who wants to, you know, these ones are not as nice, even to the dragon.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

It's a trick, it's a trick. Don't fall for it. Yeah, don't fall for it. So so then you published it, the first two through McMillan, and then uh how how were the other three published?

SPEAKER_00 21:00

I I just put them up on Amazon, so that's that's where they are.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Wonderful. I I think this is incredible. This is absolutely incredible. Um, well done. I I would have prepared a whole bunch of questions on this as well, but this is great. I mean, it's such a different, it's very it's it it it demonstrates your talent because you're writing these rom-com books with fairy tale elements, and then there's a completely different series, but I can I can understand why there's two different author names to appeal to two different genres.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yeah, the they wanted um the books to appeal to boys, so um, so they're they put like fire and blackness and weapons and stuff on the covers because apparently that's what boy and boy is like. And I did have a teenage son who because I would go to book conferences and you know, buy books for my kids, and he would tell me if there's not a weapon, if there's not like a sword on the cover, like don't buy it for me. Like, okay, all Right, that's that's how boys shops.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Right. You couldn't, yeah, you couldn't have the rom-com cover for a Dragon Slayer book. It just walked boys would be like, this is too pink for me. I can't, I'm not gonna read this. That's great. So then um what's one of the most difficult experiences you had while writing a book? And then how did you overcome it?

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Oh well, I you see, I would say hands down that writing slayers was the you know, because of all of the writer's block. And it, I mean, it was like three years or something of my life forcing myself to write that. Um, but I mean, I guess like people people ask, okay, you know, I want to be a writer. I have a my daughter wants to be a writer. Um, and my advice is always like, A, get a marketing degree, um, B, like marry a spouse with a stable job who can because you know, there's some years where I did great and you know, had to, as I said, like really had to be like making sure we didn't spend all of the money I made because I knew there would be a big tax bill coming. But um, and then there's other years where I'm like, well, I'm glad you're employed because otherwise I'd be on food stamps, you know. So um, yeah, it's it's and I know a lot of writers who make a whole lot of money, but they do it by um releasing 12 or more books a year. Yeah, that's just I can't do that. That's brutal. I'm uh and I'm too much of a perfectionist about my writing, where I'm like right now for a book that I'm working on, I'm going through and checking all of the repeated words because there's a program where you can do that. So you're like, okay, I used locker twice here, but there's not another word for locker. So that's staying. Oh, I use sure here twice. And like, should I change one of those? And that I mean, that alone can take a week to you know, change all of your instant where and and I'm you know, as I'm doing it, I'm like, readers probably are not noticing most of these repeated words, but it it will bother me once it's published to to see them.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

My follow-up question is related to that. If if that you know the difficulty in writing uh the Slayers series, you know, that was one of the more challenging experiences you've had. What's what's been one of the more rewarding experiences of writing and publishing a book or a series?

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Um I think maybe um all's fair, uh and may oh gosh, I maybe I because you know I am publishing with Shadow Mountain, which is Desert Book, but um I gave that to them. It was the sequel to um Blue Eyes and at the time it was called Blue Eyes and Other Lies because it rhymed. So they thought that sounded like a a good title, even though there kind of weren't really lies in the book, you know, but um which is why I changed the title when I got it back. But I so I wrote a sequel to it with another character in it who was a cheerleader, and I sent it to them. And my editor loved it, but they they have a very different approach than most um publishers, where they you they you it has to get by a board of like you know, people and the the people on the board didn't like it because she was a cheerleader, and yeah, like I didn't realize that people have this kind of knee-jerk reactions to cheerleaders. Like they're wearing signs that say I am a mean girl, and um, and so they didn't end up taking it. And so by that time I had started writing with a national publisher as well, so they took it and then like yeah, it's sold. I I I said last we checked it was 400,000, but it might be um and it was in it was in like the scholastic book fly flyers, and you know, like the next one. Oh so that was so cool seeing my kids come home with those scholastic book flyers and being like, and there's my book in there, you know. So that was that was a cool experience. Like every author for their rejected book should have that happen.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

What advice would you give to aspiring authors who struggle to finish or publish their book?

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Huh. Um, well, struggling to finish is a different idea, you know, and I do know people who who have that problem. And usually it's because they're trying to write it perfectly. And so they're they go back and they're like repolishing chapter one forever or whatever, and it just becomes too big of a task. So I always tell people, like, and and I have to remind myself this too, like the first draft is supposed to be bad. The first draft, you're not showing it to anybody. The first draft is just to get through it, um, to see if the plot works. Hopefully, you have some good dialogue in there. But if you're trying to write it perfectly, you're never going to be able to finish that book, or it will take you 10 years. And nobody wants that. So you just kind of have to let yourself write it badly, and then you're able to finish it. Um, as far as publishing, man, you have to have a thick skin because um, well, as I said before, a lot of times it's not an author's first book that gets published, it's their fourth book that gets published. And so you don't want to give up on, you know, book three, um, and just go like, well, this is never gonna happen for me. You also don't want to a lot of times, well, now people can put up that first book. And I, you know, like Nath Nathaniel Hawthorne, um, you know, a lot of times it's it's not your best book. And so by putting it up, um, then it doesn't do well, and maybe then people are not going to read your second and third or fourth book because they read your first one and they're they're just like, oh, this wasn't very good. They're not a very good writer. So um, like get feedback, get join a writer's group, read books on writing. It surprises me how many people will write a book, but they've never gone to a class, they've never gone to a conference, they've never read any books on writing, and there's so many, and they will save you so much time. Um, I like the resources we have now, even with the internet, like you can just go and, you know, if you're like, what's point of view, or what how what are the mistakes I might be making with point of view, you can just um you know find people talking about that on YouTube. So, you know, make sure that you know something about the craft also when you're writing. Um, like you wouldn't decide to write a musical composition without ever taking any piano lessons or guitar lessons or whatever. So, you know, learn the craft as as well, but also just don't give up. And remember that revisions is where the magic happens. That's where you're taking that uh that piece of coal and turning it into a diamond.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Yeah, and like you were saying, it was called the American Night Writers Association. Yeah. LDS, LDS authors. I mean, I've I think the most effective way to get published is just it's it's who you know, but in the best way, not in uh not in an inepo way or where you you have a connection and so you can publish. It's actually you just start networking with other good writers and they help your writing, but then agents and publishers will come and visit those communities, those groups, and you start to get to know them and you develop friendships. That's another night writers, the American Nightwriters Association. Where where is that?

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Um started in Arizona. It's I know they have chapters in other states too. I'm sure they have one in in Utah, but they also have online groups. But you know, again, like the you need critiquing. I would never, I've written 40 books uh and teach classes on writing. I would never like put out a book that I hadn't gotten feedback on because you just you can't see the forest for the trees. You you know, like there's things you overlook. Um, so yeah, you just need that feedback, but at the same time, it can be hard. So like authors have to go in into that with not with an attitude of this is perfect, and I just want people to tell me how great it is. But I'm going to accept feedback and go like, okay, I can make this even better.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

So well, on that note, have have any of your readers shared a message uh or story that that inspired you, like from reading your books?

SPEAKER_00 30:48

You know, just I I I think I so many, and and and probably because I've written young adults where I've had people say, like, oh, I didn't like reading until I read one of your books, and then I liked it, and then I read more, and now I want to be a writer. And um yeah, and I try not to crush their dreams at that point. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Yeah, maybe, maybe look into a math career.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Yeah, that's good. I've interested hard, hard science skills, hard skills, actual skills that translate into regular income.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Yeah, regular income is awesome. Um but yeah, I, you know, those those are my favorite. Um, and you know what, I once also um because you know, the the my oldest daughter that um that I kind of started writing those YA for, she told me once I had been gone out of town, and she said, I missed you, so I went and read one of your books so I could like hear your voice. I was like, oh, that's sweet. So it is nice to know that, like, okay, I have left something for my my family and my, you know, now I have a granddaughter who's reading them, which is awesome. But at the same time, I man, you want to feel like like okay, I have to, you know, I have to make sure everything is appropriate in there, is like when you know your granddaughter is reading your books.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

What did you put in the Slayers book? They went all out. That was pretty gory. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

I did have um a daughter get mad at me once for killing off somebody. I don't I don't usually, and not like not the main characters, but you know, she was sometimes the story calls for it. You can't sometimes you gotta kill people, like and other things that you say as well.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

That's an out-of-context quote that you know they just wouldn't people wouldn't get, you know.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Yes, um, we have many of those.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

At the end of uh Jonathan, he said this in an interview, it's public, but um, I was talking to him about uh Jonathan Stroud at the end of the fifth book. Since you haven't read it, oh be careful. There is a character death that he had written, and um he had sent it to a publisher, and that's how the book was going. And I believe, I believe they had sent out advanced reader copies at that point of that that scene taking place, and he said he felt sick. He's like, that's not how the story is supposed to go, and so at that point, and again, I think he had the advanced reader, I mean, they were gonna go to the press with this. That's close, yeah. And he said, nope, that character is not supposed to die. And so then he changed it all at the very end. I mean, so like the whole last three or four or five chapters completely changed, and he said, He said, Seth, I had stitched that whole thing together and I was holding it all up and sending it to the publisher just to make sure it made it. Because he said, he said the character couldn't die because it just tilted the story in the wrong direction. The story needed to be in this direction, and so he he made that change right before publication.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Yeah, yeah. Well, I will say with with slayers, and it is great now as an author to be able to get feedback because you know, they're you know, they're there's like 12 kids, which is way too many to have in a book to keep track of. I'm just putting that out there. They're not they don't, I don't, they are not all there in the first book, but by the end of the book, they are anyway, uh the series. But um, and I I one of the reasons why I wrote that many to begin with is because I had planned on a few of them dying along the way. But the readers were just like, no, no, you must not kill anyone, and especially don't kill best, and especially, you know, so I ended up like as I was writing it, unkilling people.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

Um unkilling people, which you can do, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

But but yeah, it was the same thing because I wanted the ending for them to all be like happy. And if any of them died, even if they well, we saved the nation, but my friends died, so then they wouldn't be happy. So and also the readers, I'm I mean, man, I got a lot. I asked them on Facebook, and I got so maybe the most uh replies of anything I've ever put on Facebook, and it was all people saying, do not kill off people. And the only people you should kill off people were my writer friends. And I was like, oh yeah, I'm I'm gonna write for the fans and not for my writer friends. So yeah, kind of aunt spoiler there, like nobody you like is gonna die in that book. There is one person who dies, but you don't like them.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

So in the end, it's for more than one people, yeah. You know, maybe maybe the the answer for most rewarding experience as an author is you know, playing God with people's lives, you know. This power, this this power over this world. Um what's what's one thing that that teachers or parents can do to help inspire a love of reading in young readers? I mean, there's just people, the kids, my kids, I've got really young kids, they are bombarded with all sorts of distractions. Um, what have you found to be most effective in inspiring reading for younger audiences?

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Well, in my own house, and there is a YouTube video about this for my son, who so which says it didn't always work perfectly, but I had um I our our rule at our house was if you wanted to be on the computer to play a game for you know half an hour, you had to read for half an hour before that.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Genius.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

My son was very good at reading for 15 minutes or half an hour, and I'd be like, okay, so you unlock the computer, and then I would just forget, you know, and I wouldn't check on him again for you know, then and two hours later he's still on the computer guy. I'm like, wait a minute. You only read for 15 minutes, like now you owe me a reading time. But so that you have to be um more on top of things than I was. But um also just like I'm always telling teachers, like let them let them read books that they are interested in, and let them read books where like don't they don't need to know about death with a taste of whatever blueberries, black. I shouldn't be, you know, I'm not saying there's not a place for sad books. There is. I feel like that's a good way for kids to be able to process those emotions in a safe space. Like I get that, but I think teachers are just give them way too many sad books and not enough, like let them read Captain Underpants or Diary of a Dork or you know, like let them read fun books. Teachers kind of seem to have this idea of, well, if it's not um, if it, you know, if it's not has multiple layers of symbolism and you know, all of these, you know, things that kid readers don't really care about, um, if it doesn't have these, then it's not valuable reading. And that is absolutely not true. Like kids are still getting vocabulary, they're still getting story structure, they're still getting, you know, all sorts of good things that make them smarter and um you know, with books that they actually want to read. Whereas if you do say, you know, um go read this scarlet letter, I can guarantee you that most of the kids in that class are going online, getting the, you know, just reading the plot and then going back and then reading those. So um, you know, that's that's the uh opposite of what we want to do for kids. So um, yeah, I would have teachers and parents really encourage them to, and you know, and also to remember, like Shakespeare to us, you know, you need a translator when you read that. That feels like the you know, the Mount Everest of literary whatever, right? Um, but he wrote for the common people. Like he he he didn't write for English professors, it's just that the language has changed so much that now that's what it's become. But you know, remember that Charles Dickens and Mark Twain and everything, they were the J.K. Rowlings of their day. So um, you know, let kids read the popular books of their days. They they do have worth and value, even if they're not a hundred years old and taught in college classes now.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

Yeah, I I I heard a story. I the person I heard it from, he knew this teacher personally. And he was saying, you know, she had won a few awards for being a recognized as a great teacher. And they asked, What was it that made her such a great teacher? And she just said, Honestly, I I just help the kids learn how to love learning. And if they learn to love learning, it it takes care of itself because then they'll just go to it. And so, like you're saying, if if you know, you could that all these sad books that I was assigned in school, there were quite a few. I'm like, well, why are they giving us this stuff? It wasn't until I discovered how fun you know some of these stories were or could be, or you know, finding the the genres that I really enjoyed that I I learned to love reading and I learned to love stories, and then it just took care of itself after that. So I agree with that. Um I named this podcast a literal journey because um life is a literal journey, and so many times so often, people become the story that they believe about themselves. Yes, it just happens, they'll act it out if they believe their life is a certain way, or it's supposed to go a certain way, that's the story that they will act out. And I do a lot of work in addiction recovery, and I've seen people who as soon as they believe a different story, I believe it they believe a different outcome, their entire life changes. But nothing else outside of them has changed, but they themselves have changed because they believe a different story. Um, and so I just think it's important to point out good authors of great stories, because if you share those stories with other people, then their lives can change. And so, with that context, um what is it that you hope readers come away with when they read your stories?

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Well, um, yeah, I I got asked a lot um in my early years when I was doing YA books. Like you it's so funny, you'd get these students who were doing a um like a book report, and they'd email me and be like, what's the theme of this book? They're asking you these questions about the characters. Um it's like I I don't think that's really how this is supposed to work as far as book reports go. But um, but yeah, I like I realized inadvertently that I like I have the theme of forgiveness that goes, you know, because when you have problems in you know, in high school, uh with your friends or whatever, that yeah, you do need a lot of forgiveness. Um, so yeah, like even though these are rom coms, um you know, like that seems to be a theme that just runs through a lot of my books. Um and and again, I think it is why, you know, it is so important for people to have um a love of reading and different stories, because one of the things about books, almost every single one of them, even um rom coms, is there's there's times where things look are looking really bad for the main characters. And yet in most books, I mean there are those those you know sad ones that everyone dies at the end, Hamlet, you know, Shakespeare. Um, but for most books, you know, there it's a journey about somebody overcoming like the problems and you know, and a lot of um yeah, a lot of dark moments. So I think that that is also a message that you know people get when they read and and when they have ideas about stories that you know it's never easy for the hero, the hero's journey. Like it's always hard and and you know, and there's pain and suffering along the way, but um, oh and there's some there's some meme out there that I'm going to mess up when I say this, but it's like you know, if you believe that there are happy endings and you're in a place in your life right now where you're not happy, it's because it's not the ending. Like there's it, there's hope to look forward to. There's, you know, that things are gonna get better. And yeah, I I absolutely believe that. I I I don't think I'm ever gonna write a Hamlet, you know, like this, and it's like sad and everyone's dying at the end. I you know said I'm the author that went through my series and then killed people. So