Making It Up with Amy Meyerson, author of The Water Lies

“What I’ve always been really focused on is trying to figure out what is it in any book—and it's different in different genres—that makes you keep turning the page. That's always been my goal: to get people to keep turning.” — Amy Meyerson 

Amy Meyerson is the acclaimed author of the internationally bestselling books The Bookshop of Yesterdays, The Imperfects, and The Love Scribe. Her books are frequently chosen for best-of lists, including lists from Good Morning America, People Magazine, Publishers Weekly, among others. Meyerson completed her graduate work in creative writing at the University of Southern California, where she now teaches in the writing department. Her new novel The Water Lies--her first work of psychological suspense--was released in January.

Among other things, Amy and Carter discuss listening to audiobooks to improve your writing, using profanity selectively, and Amy’s shift to writing thrillers/psychological suspense novels. At the end of their conversation, they make up a fascinating story using a line from Stephen Graham Jones’s Mongrels. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:05

Friends, hello, this is Carter, and welcome to this episode of Making It Up, the conversation series where two writers sit down and have exactly that a conversation between two writers. We'll talk about craft, we'll talk about the creative journey, we'll talk about the highs and lows of publishing. Um, wherever the conversation takes us, I usually don't write any questions down ahead of time. So it's just who knows where it's going to go. But usually it's a pretty damn good conversation. And that was certainly the case with today. Um, before I get to today's guests, just a note if you're looking for any help with your writing, um, through my company Unbound Rider, I do coaching, one-on-one coaching and mentoring uh with writers. We also offer self-guided online courses and writing retreats and workshops. So if you're interested in any of that stuff, you can check me out at unboundrider.com. And if you're interested specifically in coaching, uh, you have the ability on the website to book a free call with me where we can just talk face to face and just see what you are looking to achieve and seeing if we might be a good fit for each other. All right, so today on the show, I had Amy Meyerson. So Amy is the acclaimed author of the international best-selling The Bookshop of Yesterday's, The Imperfects, and The Love of Scribe. Um, and her books have been translated into over 11 languages and has been featured in a lot of different um news sites and periodicals. And she has just written her first work of psychological suspense called The Water Lies, which was published um just this past January 1st from Thomas and Mercer. Um, so Amy and I were talking, and she's, you know, you could tell from the beginning, from her first words, she's been writing on wanting to be a writer since she was a kid, uh, self-proclaimed writing, really before she was even doing much reading. And, you know, that that translated into her um not only writing multiple novels, but also teaching writing um in various forms at the University of Southern California, um, where she worked in obviously in the writing department. And it was we so because she's got such a great perspective on writing, we're able to talk not only about her own journey and the way that she views fiction and kind of the leap from writing, you know, what she describes as maybe women's fiction to psychological suspense. But we also got the perspective of teaching writing and obviously the low-hanging fruit conversation topic of talking about you know the influence of AI. And she had a couple of interesting things to say about that, um, and how that even influences kind of how she perceives writing in general. Um, so it was a great conversation. I I feel like I learned a lot from it. Um, she had a lot of good um tips on how she approaches craft, um, the importance of workshopping your manuscripts, the importance of learning who to listen to if you do that kind of a thing. So if you're an aspiring writer, um, you know, this is a conversation not only with somebody who's written several novels, but teaches it as well. So there's a lot of good nuggets to mind in this conversation. This is my fantastic discussion with Amy Meyerson. So I'm I'm assuming from your bio that you live, unless you teach remotely, that you live in Southern California. I do. Where whereabouts? Are you in LA?

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Um right now, as I'm saying before, I'm like in my very spare office at USC that I don't use. Well, some sisters I use it, but I don't generally use it that much. Um, but we live in Pasadena.

SPEAKER_06 3:58

Okay. Yeah. I grew up in uh your dog is so cute. Yes, she'll hopefully she'll be there the whole time and be nice and quiet. Um yeah, I grew up in LA or Southern California, um Westlake Village area, Thousand Oaks. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah, that's my brother lives um in Valley Village, which might not have been its own destination when you grew up.

SPEAKER_06 4:19

But yeah, I re I remember the name, but I don't think that was a big deal.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 4:23

I mean this is going way back to the 80s.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

So yeah. Well, now there's so many mini neighborhoods for like real estate purposes.

SPEAKER_06 4:30

It's it's a hard place, man. Like I I feel like like I loved growing up there, went away for college and just never came back. Um, and you know, my friends there and I go there from time to time. And it's it's just it just uh now that I'm in Colorado and I'm feeling Colorado's getting crowded, like LA is overwhelming to me.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Yeah. Well, we love we moved to Pasadena in 2021. And we love it because it feels I'm from the East, both my husband and America from the East Coast, and it has an East Coast feel too. It has a neighborhood feel. Like, you know, our our kids ride their bikes on the street with all of our neighbors' kids. Like it, it's it has all of the culture of LA, but it has that kind of neighborhoody feel and sort of it feels it feels removed from LA in a really nice way. Um so we we actually we really love it. We love Colorado too. We spend our summers there. Oh, whereabouts? Um, my parents have a little condo in snowmass.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

So they're very kind and let us occupy it for like about five weeks every every summer. We love it.

SPEAKER_06 5:34

Where in Colorado are you? Yeah, uh uh Boulder County, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_06 5:38

And we like going up to the mountains more in the summer. Um it's just getaway. And where in the East Coast did you grow up?

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Um, I grew up in the Philadelphia area.

SPEAKER_06 5:48

Okay. All right. Yeah, my my brother-in-law is a big Eagles fan. So like to the point that's uncomfortable to be around kind of yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Philly uh sports teams can break your heart for sure.

SPEAKER_06 6:01

Now, did you grow up a creative kid?

SPEAKER_01 6:05

I think so. Yeah. I mean, I've always I uh I've always wanted to be a writer and I've always also been really like into crafts and things with my like working art with my hands. Um so yeah, I you know, some of my earliest memories are like sitting on my parents' typewriter and writing little stories. Um I think I even liked writing before I liked reading, uh, which is probably not the way it's supposed to be.

SPEAKER_06 6:27

But yeah, it's it's funny, like you know, the second part of what you said about your crafts and just the idea. And I find this in myself a little bit. I like to just create, like, yeah, whether it's a house project or whether it's writing a novel or whatever it is, like just and it is there's something also tactile about some of the other, like working with your hands. And I consider writing to be that. But it's funny for you that it so heavily went towards writing. Where do you think that, like, especially even before reading? Because normally I talk to people like, oh, I was a bookworm and this and that. Was it the feeling of the typewriter? Was it the creative bursts?

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Yeah, I think I just I mean, I always like to admit that because um I was a little slower to love reading. And and I think maybe hopefully that like is comforting to people who um, you know, initially reading didn't always come easy to. Uh, but yeah, I it I think I've always just loved making up stories, and it's it's been something that I've wanted to do for so long that I don't even know where it came from. Yeah. Um, it just uh I've just I just have always loved sort of being inventive and coming up with stories.

SPEAKER_06 7:44

And yeah, and that's interesting about being slower to read. But you know, reading uh, you know, is my not so secret kind of shame in terms of conversations with an author because you know, I read whatever I had to read at school. College was basically a business degree, zero, zero uh uh uh works of fiction assigned to me in any class. Got into reading in my 20s. But you know, you talk to other writers, they're like, oh, I was influenced by X, Y, and Z. And it just that makes me feel or I'm you know, obviously the people who are English majors or lit majors. Um, and I always feel like I didn't do this right. And then you start to realize over time, it's like, well, I just like stories, whether I'm consuming them through books or through shows or through movies or through a friend telling the story. That challenge of figuring the story out, I think, is more important than the fact that you're exceptionally well read from a young age. I don't know. And you teach creative rights. I'm curious to hear your take on that.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Yeah, I think, and I teach a variety of writing classes. I also teach some um like mandatory writing classes that are more personal essay. Um so there's always that struggle of buy-in sometimes with with uh with general education classes. Um, so I talked to my students a lot about finding things that you're interested in. And I I think that because I remember like I really started like to liking to read in high school uh when I read like Kurt Vonnegut and like uh Stephen Cow Girls Get the Blues, um, Tom Robbins, like that kind of stuff, because it was the first time I was like, oh, I didn't realize stories could books could be this, you know. Um and I read I read some before that, but that was when I really got passionate about it. And I really just think it's about finding it's that time in your life where you find a book that you really connect with.

SPEAKER_04 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Um and also, you know, what I tell my students a lot is it's not just, I mean, reading a lot is great, but it's also being like an active reader. So we talk a lot about reading like a writer, um, and sort of the the two hats you have to wear if you're uh not only doing it for pleasure, but trying to learn from it.

SPEAKER_06 9:54

Yeah. But don't you think do you I I find myself gravitating almost exclusively to nonfiction in my in my personal pleasure reading. I think because of the whole reading like a writer, it becomes not that I not that it's easier to criticize, not that it's easier to be jealous or whatever it is. I think it's easier to just be pulled out of it because you're looking at the technique of it, and all of a sudden you're not as attached to the story, or maybe that's a reflection of the writing itself. I don't know. But do you do you have a sense of that now as an author and as a reader? Like, can you just immerse yourself in something similar to what you like as a thriller, like you just put out?

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Yeah. Um, I mean, I think it's nice because like what I teach and read for school is really different than what I read for pleasure. So I get more of that literary, like writing forward. And it's mostly nonfiction for school. We read a lot of like um best American essays and stuff like that, or we read short stories, which I don't read a lot in my free time anymore. Um, but uh yeah, I try to pay attention to um how when I get sucked into a book, right? Because like, and then it's like I pull back and I'm like, what is it about this that did that? I now um I would say the majority of what I listen to books more than I read them at this point in my life. Um I have two little kids and it'll take me a month to read a physical book, but I can listen to like three in a week. Um and I also that reading like a writer thing, I find audiobooks really helpful for that. Sort of hearing them, they help me a lot with figuring out like what's essential to a story and what's not and and flow and things like that. So I I think actually listening to audiobooks is like really transformed my uh my writing in a good way. Um, but yeah, I I tell I I listen it, I mean I'm new to the like the thriller genre. So and I only really started uh listening and reading to thrillers during the pandemic. Um, so I'm sort of playing catch up and uh it's a lot of what I think, yeah, it's a lot of my reading these days.

SPEAKER_06 12:07

I I that's fascinating. And your your comments on audiobooks are interesting as well, because I think when you talk about thrillers, my biggest issue that I see with thrillers, especially if I'm working with a student, you know, so people maybe who haven't been published yet, is just an excess of words. I mean, to put it as as reductive as I can, uh, whether those are the you know adverb dialogue tags or whether it's too much description. And I think when you're listening to an audiobook, that stuff really pops because it just is it's take, you know, when we think about like watching a show, it's such a cheat code because a camera capture can give us so many words, replace so many words on the written page, right? Just one pen of a camera. And but I think there's a lesson to be learned about that, particularly with thrillers, if you know, to learn how to be you know pithy in your writing, because that's how I think people are consuming things, either on audio or they just want things, thrillers that are propulsive and it's so easy to just put in too much exposition or whatever. And I'm talking an extra paragraph. It doesn't take much to pull you out. So when you're yeah, I when you're when you're sitting down to write your own thrillers, going back from having not written that before, did that help? Like, were you thinking about how it would be listened to, or is it a different it's a different audience that might appreciate maybe more propulsion than kind of sitting with a description longer?

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Yeah, I mean, I've always because I would say my like three books before this one were more kind of women's fiction, commercial fiction, but I was always like focused on um, and I think teaching and telling my students to pay attention to audience has really, really helped me think about the reader um and the reader's expectations. So I've always sort of been really focused on that and like trying to figure out like what is it in any book and it's different in different genres, but that like makes you keep turning the page. Like that's what I've that's always been my goal in a book is to get people to keep turning, even when it's not like the thriller um propulsiveness. But I think I think when I like I guess two things, like one thing that really helped me, I am a long writer, like my the book I'm working on now. It's I I've gotten it down to like 94,000 words, but at one point it was like 120,000 words, which I absolutely knew was too long. But it's nice that like thrillers are usually, I think I will always be on the upper end of this, but like 85 to 95,000 words. So I just kind of like it's like you know you have to get it down because uh readers don't want to so like I think the actual having like goals of word count cuts is really helpful. Um, but when I'm stuck, I've my goal, but I've never had enough time to do this, is to read like read and record my entire book and then listen back to it while editing, but I've just never had time. But I will do that if I know a chapter is causing me trouble or like I know it's too slow, I'll just like I'll read it into my phone. Um, and often I don't even need to listen back to it because just in reading it aloud, I realize like, oh, I didn't need this part at all. Totally. So I do find that kind of a thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 15:24

It's it's and I same thing. I I I always say I'm gonna read this out loud, and I just never do because it's really, you know, a massive time commitment. And and then you're stopping to make a change. And but even if I'm asked to do a reading, and I just go and I start looking for a passage and I start kind of editing it down for time. I start with, why didn't I just write it like this? This is so much better because there is a rhythm and a cadence, you know. And sometimes when you're writing a really tense scene, you can hear that metronome increase and BPM. And you're like, Yes, this is the these staccato bursts. This is how it should, and then it kind of slows down a little bit. And and I mean, for me, that took hundreds of thousands of words to kind of hear that rhythm in a way that I could trust after a while. Um, I just think it shows how you change as a writer with just building the muscle.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Yeah, and it is a muscle, right?

SPEAKER_06 16:20

It is. Yeah. Do your do your students appreciate that? That you know, very few people just write the very first thing as a wonderful g work of genius, as opposed to, yeah, a lot of it is just training.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Yeah, I think I think if they buy it, they do. Um, it's amazing how many, particularly in like more um general education classes. Like there's just people who come in and are like, I'm not a good writer, I don't like writing.

SPEAKER_04 16:48

Right. I have to take this class.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

I can disabuse a lot of them to a certain extent, but I think it's hard to fully convince them that uh like that nobody some people have more talent than others naturally, but that nobody is like the finished product from the start. Um, but I I do tend to tell them uh trying to remember who said it, but like a mark of a writer is somebody who doesn't think that they're a good writer. Um I think that's self-doubt, right, is part of it. Um thing that I think also really helps is is workshopping. Um, because like outside of workshops, students never see each other's writing. So all they see is published work and they don't realize like where their peers are, and they also don't read the first draft of something that's published. So they have it's a it's understandable that they have these unrealistic expectations of like how good writers are.

SPEAKER_06 17:42

Right. Yeah. I mean, workshopping for I so for me, I was in a critique group for like 20 years and it's brutal and it's so important. And I think what's and then I think once you're in that workshop, whatever form that that takes, whether it's a coach, a mentor, an actual critique group, then you have to learn the skill of figuring out who to actually listen to. Because not everyone gives good feedback. In fact, I would posit less than 25% give feedback that's really effective for what you are specifically writing. Right. And you just have to feel it's it's just a feeling over time. Somebody says something, you're like, yeah, that resonates with me. I had, and that's like, for example, my relationship with my editor, you know, she I know when I finish a book, it's not done. It's the best I could do. And I know she is going to see stuff that I couldn't see for myself. And I trust her. And so I agree with 95% of what she says. But but when you're just in a critique group, and if you make all the changes everybody says, you're gonna have a worse book for it.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Yeah. Well, I always tell them that a lot of times people give advice for like the version of your story or the version of your essay that they would write. And so it might be really good advice, but it's not the right advice for you. So um, I even like I'm like even so we I talk to them a lot about um, which I learned from my screenwriting friends, this idea of like the note behind the note, yeah. Which screenwriters talk about a lot, which is like this idea that you know, maybe you don't agree with the feedback that you're getting, but trying to understand where it's coming from and like what it's because like what it's responding to might be right, even if the the like diagnosis isn't right.

SPEAKER_06 19:21

Um I think that also goes to this the skill of being a good critiquer. Like, like, and I think very and that's something you learn over time too, because I think the tendency is what I see a lot of is somebody say, This is how you should do it, as opposed to this is how I received it. And you figure out if that's meaningful to you and then what to do with it. But to your point, someone's like someone immediately reasons, like, oh, this is what I would have done with that. And that doesn't make it better, and it certainly doesn't make it the original vision. But if they can say this just felt a little disappointing that this relationship didn't seem to go very far, that's great feedback because then it lets you take control of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

There's uh this book Blue Angel, which I guess is a little old by now by Francine Prose, which is about a workshop and um an affair between like a student and a professor. And it starts in the workshop and the like one of the students' story that they're workshopping has bCality in it. And so the all the other students are giving this one student advice about how to make like fucking the chicken more realistic. And then the um and the professor's like in his head the whole time, he's like, just don't fuck the chicken, just don't fuck the chicken. So I tell like a more like sanitized version of that story to my students a lot as sort of a shorthand for sometimes even when everybody thinks the same thing, it's like just don't fuck the chicken, right?

SPEAKER_06 20:53

What I love is when when we post these episodes, we have a poll quote that we use on social media to draw people in. And you know, how can I not use that?

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Yeah, which is funny because at this point in my life I don't curse very much. Um, when I had kids, I tried to like rein in the cursing.

SPEAKER_06 21:12

And also, I think I started cursing more when I had kids.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Well, I think my first book, which was kind of a cozy, it wasn't really a mystery, but like a cozy novel. I use I used the F word a lot in it. And I got a ton of emails from readers kind of being like, shame on you for for cursing in your in your book. Um and it just made me very conscious of when I curse and when it's necessary and when it's not.

SPEAKER_06 21:37

It I actually have charted in an Excel spreadsheet my use of profanity over the course of 11 books. Just for my own grown or well, it it it yeah, it crept up, crept up, crept up, and then it went down and then it went way up. And I think it's it is you have to be true to your character, right? So in my case, I'm writing almost always first person, present tense, the preponderance of the time, a female point of view, a single point of view. Um, and and if I just picture this person and I'm like, this is just she's angry. I don't know why she's angry, but she's angry. Let's explore. There's going to be profanity. And my mom would always say, she's like, I just don't think women curse that much. And I'm like, my life is surrounded by women, and I can I can just abuse her of that notion very quickly as much as she wants to cling to it as a baby boomer. Um but other books like, you know, I had a 21-year-old female savant in 1987, and I'm like, she doesn't, she there's just kind of emotionless. So Kirstine doesn't do any good to her. Um so that book had very very few instances of profanity. Um, but yeah, you'll always you'll always annoy somebody. Cozy, somebody, you know, that's uh slightly older, you know, heavily female, and they're probably not gonna want that as much, but it you just get sense for it, I think, over time.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Yeah, and you get thicker. I mean, I didn't I haven't like stopped. I mean, I think actually in my second book after that, I was like, I'm gonna curse in this book because I was like, I was like, there's nothing, but yeah, it has to be true to the character. Um, and it has to feel authentic, um, and be there for a reason, like any other word on the page.

SPEAKER_06 23:28

Yeah, well, for sure. And and speaking of that, I'm curious from your and I want to go through your writing history in just a minute, but I'm also very fascinated by the fact that you teach. Um, and you also teach classes that are required classes to your point. I don't want to be here, I don't know how to write, I'm not good at this. And now you're challenged with AI, obviously. That's got to be a huge thing for you, I'm assuming. Um, are you how do you sniff that out?

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yeah, so it's, you know, I mean, not not only that, but um a lot of universities, USC included, have uh made an agreement with Chat GPT. So there's actually an academic version of it that the students all get a free and and faculty get a free account too. And I think it's you know, it's more reality. Yeah, and it just it depends on the field. Like I and I I think the biggest thing is like we, I mean, my students honestly are so sick of talking about AI.

SPEAKER_04 24:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Um, because they're doing it in all their classes. But the problem is if it's if it's sanctioned by the school, right, you have to have really clear limitations of of how you can use it. Um, I have found like so I teach some classes on publishing, um, sometimes I teach creative writing, um, and I teach also uh some general education classes. So my classes that are for students that want to be writers, we um don't really talk about it that much because they all want they they want to foster their own voices. Um we, you know, I show them there's this thing that came out maybe two years ago in the New York Times where Curtis Sittenfeld wrote a story. Like she was given a prompt by her editor, and AI was given a prompt by her editor, and they both wrote a story like in the style of Thousand Word Story in the style of Curtis Sittenfeld. Um, and it's just it's it's so obvious which one is better.

SPEAKER_04 25:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Um, so I give that to them and we talk about it and like talk about what AI can do and what it can't do. Um, but where it comes up more is sort of in those mandatory classes. And it and it really just depends on the students. But what I found is since they're all workshopping each other's work, um, I have them set the AI policy. So we talk about it first, and then they get to decide. You know, we do an exercise where I have them edit their own work and then I have AI edit their own work. And I'm like, is it is it useful? And I'm like, not only is it useful in making your writing sound better, but is it useful in teaching you something to make yourself a better writer? Right, right. Um and they usually say like 80% no, that it's that it's it like sounds better, but it takes strips from meaning, or like it's it's helpful for a sentence, but not for a paragraph, that kind of thing. Totally. Um so I let them kind of arrive there on their own. And then at the end of the day, it's you know, I I think for a while I was like optimistic that the shame of having, you know, your peers read your work if it's AI created would be enough to get people not to do it. And I'm not sure that's true. Um, but at the end of the day, like it's it's an honor system. Um and I know some of my colleagues think they're really good at spotting AI. I don't necessarily think I am.

SPEAKER_06 26:33

Um But you get in what you you get out what you put in in terms of whether you're gonna use it or not.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Yeah, and we try to talk about too, like what is the point of a general education program? Um, and what is the point of a class like this? And like, you know, I I you know, by it's like if you're not here to learn, then then what are you doing? Well what's the point? Yeah. Um, and I get it, there's lots of reasons they have to be there. But yeah, I just try my best to like have them buy into it. And I I also we do all um like personal narratives. So I guess some people would, but I'm like, do you really want AI to write your story, like your story of your own life? That feels right. I don't know, I can't wrap my head around that.

SPEAKER_06 27:14

Yeah, and I think, but you know, to be fair, there are there is a learning potential with it. So for example, when I get my copy edits back from a human, I learn because I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Because I'm not sitting here writing and looking at Chicago Manual style, right? Um, so when they change things, I'm like, that's a learning possibility for me. So now I know whatever. If you have AI edit something, and I'm not talking about necessarily flow, I'm talking about actual almost kind of copy editing, looking for I you can learn, and that's that's a great opportunity. But you also have to have a foundation of confidence as a writer to know you know if it is looking at things stylistically, whether it resonates. It's not necessarily right. It, you know, does it resonate with you? And you have to have years of experience in order to make that determination. If you're just starting out and you're having AI give you feedback on your plot, I think that's very dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Yeah, and it's it's interesting because if you read something in my experience that AI is written, like it sounds good at first, and you're like, oh, this is kind of scary, how good it is. But like the more you read, you realize it doesn't actually a lot of empty calories. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:29

Yeah. Like a lot of genre speak. I've seen it where, like, yeah, you there'll be a sentence that's like, oh, you know, he walked into the house and it was dark, too dark. And I'm like, okay, what does too dark even mean? Like, you know, there's a lot of genre stuff like that that sounds like it should be in a thriller, but it just it doesn't, or doesn't scrap at it. Yeah, yeah. It's just like, okay, this, you know, that's somebody showed me an example the other day, and I'm trying to remember what it was. But something about like, oh, the way he said this landed really hard. And I'm like, who writes landed hard? Like, what does that actually mean when you like it it's not very plain spoken? And I think people appreciate just like what's you know, direct and to the point or heavy use of similes that just don't really it sounds okay and you read again, like, wait, what does that mean? And the second something is distracting when you stop as a reader to say, what does that mean, especially with a thriller, you're pulled out. You're pulled out. Yeah. And like a three-second being pulled out of something, it's actually a lot of time, especially if it's happening once per page or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Yeah. So and yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:49

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

And I will say, like with that, I mean, having learned a little bit more about it, like the more I've read, it's like the people who really the people who understand AI the most are the least afraid of it. And I always try to sort of remember that. Like, I don't I don't think it's gonna, I mean, it it's it it is obviously a problem at replacing a lot of entry-level jobs in certain fields. Um but I don't I I don't worry about it in a you know, there's there's other bigger threats to to read it, like people reading books than AI to me, which is, you know, so I I don't worry about it in like a grand way, but with students, you know, it's hard. And what I've what I really found is that like even the most conscientious of students, they use it for things that they're not invested in. And so you just have to make them invested and want to do it themselves.

SPEAKER_06 30:38

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

It might be easier said than done.

SPEAKER_06 30:41

Right. And I think that all kind of uh distills down to the essence of why are you writing to begin with? If you're writing because you're in a general education class and you have to, that's one thing. If you want to be a writer, you there has to be a passion, there has to be a joy, there has to be some kind of unquenchable, unquenchable thirst in there that takes you through all how hard it is all the time to write, because it never gets that much easier. It's always for me, it's always really hard. It's always this mountain. Every novel is a mountain. Um but if not for that joy of discovery of that, oh my God, what if this happens? That came out of just all those words sitting in your subconsciousness, finally kind of bubbling to the surface, then I wouldn't do it at all. So yeah, and I think that joy weeds out a lot of people because they realize, like, you know what, if I'm being honest, I don't really like this all that much. I like the idea of it and I like the challenge of it, but the day-to-day slug of it, if if there's not some kind of joy there, then it's like exercise. You'll you'll eventually give up. Yeah, I think. But now, so for you, you know, before you wrote your first uh psychological suspense novel, which just came out, you had three other books, very well received. Um, you know, you're on a path to be the writer that you wanted to be before you were even reading that much as a little kid. Did you ever waver from that path? Did you that's what you studied in school? That's you you didn't have any kind of common sense to like get a real job or anything.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Um I mean, teaching's my real job. I always had it. I mean, it was always I always knew I was gonna have a day job, and I'm glad that I do.

SPEAKER_06 32:29

Um, that's a huge awareness to have, by the way, because a lot of people don't realize like it's tough to be a writer. You better have other plans.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Well, I think which is and I which is why I try to tell my students, like I try to be as transparent with my students as possible about the life of being a writer and the process and stuff. Because I've until I published my first book, like even in grad school, I don't really think I knew what it was to be a writer. So it never occurred to me, like the goal was always to try to publish a book, but like after that, I didn't know what being a professional writer looked like. And and I don't think I ever thought that it was something I would make a living off of, um, which maybe helped. Um, but yeah, I mean, when I've I always sort of studied, like when I was in college, I was an English major. I was also an anthropology major because I was like, I don't think I thought that would ever lead to a job, but I was interested in it. And my parents always, um which I realize is a lot of privilege, they always just encouraged me to follow my interests. Um, so they didn't I mean, I realized at some point that I wasn't as like practical about some things as I should be, but like they're like, you know, you like to write, et cetera, for uh follow that passion. Um, I mean, for a little while I got very, which was part of my new book, um, after college as a hobby, I a very extensive hobby. I did a lot of jewelry making. Um and for a little while I was trying to figure out if I could like do that as a job, but that's even less practical than being a writer.

SPEAKER_06 33:56

Um having your own Etsy store. I don't know. You could probably do pretty well.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

It's it's a lot of I was doing everything by hand and it's um it's a lot of hours. Um, but yeah, I mean I sort of I guess it's kind of a boring story, but like, yeah, I always was sort of very focused after college. Um well, I I had an internship of lawyer agency and then I took off for two years. I I taught snowboarding in Colorado um for two seasons, and I lived in Mexico for a little while and was studying with a silversmith. So like I very much I think my dad um You're a renaissance woman. Sure. But my dad is a lawyer, and I think when and he weren't, you know, granted it was the 70s, but uh late 60s, 70s, he went straight from college to law school. And he I think he always regretted not taking a little time off before just like becoming a professional. So he was always very encouraging of me, like in my 20s. You know, I I worked a lot of waiting tables jobs. Um like have have fun where you can. Like you'll never regret this time when you're older. Um, and I really didn't. I mean, I I said, you know, I was in Colorado and then I was in Mexico, and then I went back to New York and was like, okay, if I want to be a writer, I need to understand the business. So I worked at a literary agency for about two years before grad school. And that was really, really helpful.

SPEAKER_06 35:18

Yeah, it's a good thing. I would think. Because you're going through slush piles, you're probably seeing like the odds of even getting an agent, much less selling a book.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Yeah, I didn't find it disheartening though, strangely. Um I I found it very stressful.

SPEAKER_04 35:37

Yeah. Um I believe that too.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

Yeah, it was also the era where like you still sent everything by messenger. And so I was just like constantly worried about like at first I didn't understand that because the databases we used weren't totally current. So like I would send something to an editor, they're old in prints. Um, and so I was just like so afraid of it felt a little like Devil Wars probably. I was so afraid of making a mistake. Um, but you know, it's funny though, because then like I went to grad school and then I graduated and wrote my first book and was ready to find an agent. I felt like I forgot everything that I learned from that experience. Um was sort of starting over from scratch. But I think the big thing it's taught me is like this, because you know, I think in in college a lot you want to be like a literary writer, right? And like that's the only thing that's like you know, esteemed or whatever. Um, but I think what working in publishing really taught me is that it's a business. And like if you're gonna, if someone's gonna publish your book, it has to be something that somebody else wants to read. And so that was sort of the start of really focusing on this idea of reader expectations.

SPEAKER_06 36:44

Right. And which are constantly in flux. Um and was that was that idea of analyzing reader expectations at all linked to your decision to write psychological suspense?

SPEAKER_00 37:02

Um probably.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

I'm trying to think of a good answer for that.

SPEAKER_06 37:09

Um what was the impetus? Like what what went off in your brain? Or was it just a story I want to tell?

SPEAKER_01 37:16

No, I mean, with every with every book, I like to create a different challenge for myself. Sure. Sometimes it's obvious to the reader and sometimes isn't. And I think I found myself, like I say, my first book, um, it was like a literary scavenger hunt set in a bookstore. Uh, and it was, I didn't realize I was wrote writing a cozy book. And at least in my experience in publishing, once you have something that like does well, they want you to stay in your lane. Um, and I wasn't very and it wasn't the lane I wanted to be in.

SPEAKER_04 37:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

And then I think I wasn't like sure what lane I wanted to be in, but like every book after that had sort of a mysterious element. Um, and then during the pandemic, I started listening to a lot of thrillers and was just really struck by when a story surprised me. Um pretty good at guessing things, and it would always like it would always really impress me. So it's like, I want to try that. And then and also all of my books had, I think, death in them before this one. So it's maybe I was like, I just feel like I was like subconsciously always writing toward um psychological suspense. And uh I I really like plot, I've realized as a writer. So it kind of just sort of uh organically moved that way. Um, and I, you know, I'm I'm finishing up my second one and my second psychological suspense. This one's more thriller, I think. Um I just really like it. I like the challenges of it. It's I think it's way harder than readers would realize to write a book that surprises people, that keeps them reading, that has twists and turns.

SPEAKER_06 38:49

Yeah, totally. And and for me, it's very important that I don't, because I don't outline, I don't go into the book with an expectation of this is all that's going to happen. And so a lot of times I'm thinking, like, maybe there's no twist. I have no idea. It's just this is what happens.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Do you know the ends? No, I don't know anything. I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 39:06

Oh, wow. I can barely see past the headlights. And you know, all I you get a sense over time of like something needs to happen, or there needs to be more physical movement, they need to go somewhere, or whatever it is, if it's starting to feel a little bit too insulated. Um but I'm never sitting there thinking, like, all right, I'm 63% in. This is where the twist should be. But inevitably that happens. Inevitably, I'll be right. And all of a sudden, this out of my brain is just like, well, what if this person just opened this door and then there was this? I'm like, holy shit, what would that mean? And then and that doesn't mean it's the right answer, but those things start it gets you moving. Yeah, they start popping up around the 60% mark, I'd say, maybe, maybe around 50, 50, 60,000 words. And it's funny, I was talking with my agent about my book coming out in November, and she said there's there's a major twist in it. And she's like, and I kind of said, like, yeah, I I thought of that around 50,000 words. She's like, You didn't know that the whole time. I'm like, no, I just thought the book was kind of feeling boring. And then it just this what if occurred to me. And that's just the value of your subconscious, just like I think for us panthers, for you know, it's it's just trust that it's there and don't try to force it because I I don't know if you outline, but I can't, my brain just doesn't work. I'm so impressed with people who can just see the whole structure.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Yeah, I know I have I have a couple of thriller friends who really plot out everything. I'm sort of somewhere in between. I think when I moved to LA, I think like every writer is like, oh, maybe I'll do some screenwriting. Um, and I quickly realized for many reasons, but one reason that I didn't really like it is that you have to outline everything so extensively that I felt like when I would start to write, I was bored, like it was stale already. So I have I have realized like my first book, I often think of it as like my first and second, because a lot of people I know wrote two books in the time that I wrote that book. It's just because I constantly was rewriting it. And and I think I managed to write like a whole draft with nothing happening, like because I didn't know there was like a secret at the core of it, and I didn't know what the secret was. So I found for me I always need to know like I need to know where it starts and I need to more or less know where it ends, and then I kind of get there along the way.

SPEAKER_06 41:29

Oh, that's so interesting.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

So it's not a destination.

SPEAKER_06 41:32

The only thing I'll know about the destination is what can't happen. Like what would feel cheap or what would feel unearned. Um, and that's all just kind of a gut instinct that you get over time. But in terms of what actually happens, I never know. And then you and even it's funny, like you mentioned the word count earlier. I'm always like my first draft is almost always at around 85,000 words. And and I'm not planning that. It just happens. And when you're writing the ending, I don't know what the ending is, and but particularly like um the epilogue or the last chapter after, you know, the kind of the critical, you know, end. It's if you feel I you feel kind of emotional writing it, and then it just like, oh, so this must be the ending because I I feel it viscerally somehow. Even though maybe it's not a lot happening on the page, it just feels like I'm I'm breathing for the first time. And I'm like, okay, so this is the end, I guess. Um and I, you know, that's all I have to go on is that instinct. And it's it's hard to develop that. It takes a lot of time and you know, confidence, which is very hard to come by. Um, it took me years and years and years to even call myself a writer, much less trust my own writing. Do you feel like you're in a place now where you're just, you know, you're working on book two? Uh, and I assume this is also your Thomas Immercer, right? Is that correct? Yeah. So book two, and I've heard great things about Thomas and Mercer, by the way. Um Yeah, I've been so happy there. I was just talking to Simon Gervaise, who's been with him for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Um, yeah, I think he has the same editor as I do. Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_06 43:16

Yeah, he's a friend of mine. Um, we've just we see each other at Thriller Fest, and he's just a good guy. But um do you feel that okay, book two? You know, again, it's just your second book of psychological suspense, but you've written a lot. Uh I know what I'm doing. It feels good. Not that you're flawless, uh, you know, we never are, but are you at a place of confidence where you're like, yeah, I think this is my voice, this is who I am.

SPEAKER_01 43:47

Um, you know, as much as writing is like exercise, I think it's also like having children. Uh you don't forget you have to forget everything. Yeah, I mean, that's not really true because I have learned, I think what I've learned is like to make the Decisions quicker. And once I make a decision, I don't know if it's the same as instinct, but to just like go with it, right? If it doesn't work, wait till later. Um, but just just go with it. Don't second guess your decisions because that's how you end up like in the mud. Um you know, I don't I I think I think it's like every time I sit down to start a new book, I'm just like, how and that's not true. Like the the water lies came to me pretty quickly. I'd been thinking for about it for a few years before I started writing, so I think that helped.

SPEAKER_03 44:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

Um, and some books are just like that. Like my second book was like that too. Like some of them just like come to you, they're sort of fully formed. The one I'm working on right now, because it's like five points of view.

SPEAKER_04 44:43

That's challenging.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

Yeah, it's been it's been really it's so challenging that I never got into like the flow of it. So I was like, this is either great or terrible. And I cannot tell. Um and I was like, I think there's you know, you have to trust yourself. I was like, I think there's something here. Um, but no, I think I think also it's like once you have books out there, you and if you I sort of stopped there, I like for the first like a hundred reviews or so, will like read them on good reads and then I stop. Right. Um, readers, yeah. And it's hard because I think with the genre fiction, it's like you have to pay attention to what readers want because it's all so then you start getting them in your head. So I um I I think I had like confidence that I could create turns that were surprising. Um, although, you know, you always get some people who are like, I saw this from page one. Uh but um, but no, it really felt it. I every book has different challenges in it. And like it's it's but I do think it's like everyone, even though I'm like, how am I gonna do this? I'm like, but I've done this like X number of times before. I can do it. And that's sort of the confidence that gets you through it. Um, but yeah, this this new one was, but I wanted to make it. I was like, okay, I figured out how to write a pretty like straightforward suspense book. I want to write something more complicated now. And then halfway through, it's like, why didn't I make this complex right?

SPEAKER_06 46:12

I don't know how this all resolves. How this this is gonna be like the lost series finale at the end wherever it's gonna be like, yeah, whatever. I know it's very easy to make it too complicated. And but that's also the puzzle solving, the internal puzzle solving is part of the thrill of like, oh my God, I've written myself into a corner.

SPEAKER_03 46:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 46:36

Knowing that you're willing to just gut a lot of it and not trying to force keep everything that you've already written, but knowing that's also a possibility, the idea of how does this all tie, how does this all satisfy, it's it's exciting to me. Like, yeah, because it is a big puzzle, and that's what's the I think is the most interesting part.

SPEAKER_01 46:57

Yeah. And I don't outline, but I'm a really big fan of what I call a reverse outline. So once I have a draft, then I'll like outline from the draft to see like what's there, what needs to go, I'll make an arc, like I'll do it after I have a draft already to figure out what's in the wrong place and like what doesn't need to be there. And like also by bullet points, really see like, is each chapter progressing what's happening? Uh right.

SPEAKER_06 47:24

Because I think if you do that, that's I think that's great advice. Because if you do for me, if I try to think about all that stuff as I'm writing the draft, I get stopped. You know, if you're starting to think about a hero's journey or, you know, a a three-act book or a proper arc, if you just trust yourself to just let it just come and it's going to be a mess. And also make sure that you're willing to just really do a lot of hard work in the editing. Then if you see it kind of as a whole and can be objective about it, then you can make those tough decisions later. But there's so much goodness that came out of that instinct that you didn't try to force into some kind of, you know, agreed upon structure that I think that's what makes it organically much more of an interesting book and probably a better voice.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:14

So, well, we are going to wrap up. Before we do, we're going to do our own little storytelling. So I have this is this is my sign book edition version of making it up. I've got three books. Um you're going to choose one of them. We're going to choose a random sentence from a random page. I'm going to read that sentence, and that'll be the first sentence in a very, very short, short story.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

We'll just alternate sentences and no, I've never done I've listened to yours, but I've never done anything like this.

SPEAKER_06 48:41

So if you've heard of me, you know it goes off the rails very quickly. Um it takes it. There's that's what takes all the pressure off, is knowing that it's going to be it's going to be not great no matter what happens. Um, I've got Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones, uh, The Last Mrs. Parrish, uh Live Constantine, and uh Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. Um so choose one of those.

SPEAKER_01 49:06

I guess we should do the first one because I haven't read that one.

SPEAKER_06 49:08

So Mongrels. I've read the other two. Yeah, Mongrels is great. Um so give me a page between one and three hundred.

SPEAKER_01 49:17

Uh 137.

SPEAKER_06 49:19

Okay, I'm gonna quickly scan 137, mostly dialogue.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

Um we can start our story with dialogue.

SPEAKER_06 49:29

Yeah, totally. Yeah, we can, yeah. No, I I actually prefer it. Um you do whatever you want with this. Make believe is important, he said.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

Make believe is important, he said. Just go with uh to a classroom of eager students.

SPEAKER_06 50:06

Yeah, Jeremy thought sitting as far back in the classroom as he could. But I want to write about things that are real. I want to write about stuff everyone else would think was made up, but I know for a fact happened.

SPEAKER_02 50:26

I have the scars to show it.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

So I tuned out the professor as he continued to ramble about me clean and wrote down my dark path.

SPEAKER_06 50:50

I didn't care if he saw me writing. I'd already gotten into enough trouble that I don't think it e it even mattered anymore. I knew the first sentence had to be good. Had to be really good. And all I could think of was all the blood that I saw when I was thirteen.

SPEAKER_02 51:14

How would I put that into a sentence?

SPEAKER_00 51:25

It was so much blood. It was so much blood that I slipped in it.

SPEAKER_02 51:46

That's a great first line I decided writing it down.

SPEAKER_06 51:51

And then I went back and I closed my eyes and I really tried to think laying there in all that liquid of everything else that I felt in the moment. And the one thing that bubbled to the surface was how when that single drop of blood landed on my tongue, it reminded me how desperately hungry I was. Oh, I think we call it there. You we got a whole new character all of a sudden there. I love I want to read that story.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

Yes, although I don't think that's a good first line, like seep through your shirt.

SPEAKER_06 52:37

As soon as I settled, I was like, You are a true writer, you're immediately critiquing yourself. Well, Amy, what a pleasure talking with you. Are you getting any of the thriller suspends mystery conferences?

SPEAKER_01 52:51

I am gonna go to Thriller Fest for the first time this year. I'm very excited.

SPEAKER_06 52:55

Oh, right on. Are you so? I'm curious. Um, you're obviously uh obviously you're not a debut, but sometimes when you switch genres, I don't know if Thomas Mercer is treating you as a debut. I work with the debut authors at Thriller Fest.

SPEAKER_01 53:09

Um yeah, I just sort of signed up on my own. I feel like I don't know how I know some uh some publishers are really involved in Thriller Fest. I don't know, like I know I've heard Source Books has a great party.

SPEAKER_06 53:22

Um Thomas Mercer is a big name at at Thriller Fest for sure. So if you're interested in the debut thing, just because there's I read the like qualifications and I didn't think I I qualified.

SPEAKER_01 53:35

Yeah, I'm not sure based on I'm not sure how to do that. And it's weird because like I also didn't ask them, I don't think they submitted my book for because it came out January 1st.

SPEAKER_06 53:43

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 53:44

So it would be uh yeah, but um I've heard I'm really excited. I've heard it's oh very I will see.

SPEAKER_06 53:50

I'm there from like Tuesday through Sunday, so because I'm teaching.

SPEAKER_01 53:54

I think I guess it was I'm going to um the Tucson Book Festival, and this woman is arranging a like mystery and thriller writer dinner. And I was when I was emailing Paris, like, everyone I've met in this world is so nice. And she was like, Yeah, the saying is um it's the thriller writers are nice, it's the children's book authors you have to worry about. Oh, I always hear it's the romance authors. Maybe both, maybe just yeah, but yeah, everyone, it's you'd I my friends and I often laugh, but like it's not the people you think who no, right?

SPEAKER_06 54:23

The thriller writers are the most generous, selfless, loving people. Like I've made some so many friends, it's amazing. So well, I will see you uh in May, then that'll be awesome. Great, all right. Thanks, Amy. Take care. Bye. That is it. That is my conversation with Amy Meyerson, uh, ending on a story as they often are, coated in blood. Um, I don't know why. It always goes so dark. I am probably to blame for most of that. Um, I'd have to go back and watch the episodes to know. Um, am I the first one who just introduces something terrible happening? Um goddammit, I think I probably am. All right. Well, I guess that's telling enough. Um, Amy, uh, if you want to find out everything about her new book, The Water Lies, or about Amy in particular, go to her website, just amimyerson.com. Um, and pop on over to CarterWilson.com if you're interested in my books, my newsletter, other uh episodes of making it up, all that good stuff. Or if you're interested in any kind of writing coaching, head on over to my company, unboundrider.com. That's it. That's it for this episode of Making It Up. It was a good one. Another episode out just next week. Thank you as always for listening. In the meantime, take care of the