Making it Up with Tracy Clark, author of the Detective Harriet Foster series

"Tenacity is essential. Bullheadedness is essential. You have to be really, really stubborn about it... You have to stick in there until your shot comes up. That's all it is." — Tracy Clark

Tracy Clark is the author of the award-winning Cass Raines Chicago Mystery series and the Detective Harriet Foster series, featuring Harriet Foster. A multi-nominated Anthony, Lefty, Macavity, Edgar and Shamus Award finalist, Tracy is also the 2020 and 2022 winner of the G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award, as well as the 2022 Sara Paretsky Award, and is a proud member of Crime Writers of Color, Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and currently serves on the Bouchercon national board and the board of the Midwest Mystery Conference.

Among other things, Tracy and Carter discuss learning that writing is a business, killing off characters in a timely manner, and managing rejection. At the end of their conversation, they make up a suspenseful story using a line from Carlene O’Connor’s You Have Gone Too Far. 

Transcript

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Friends, hello, this is Carter, and welcome to this episode of Making It Up, my podcast where I invite other writers to come on for a lengthy conversation about whatever occurs to us. Um oh, and my dog just jumped onto the chair. So if you're watching this instead of listening to it, you get to see that adorable little face. And you probably can't hear it, but my fucking cat is screaming at me from the other side of the door. So so yeah, another day, another day in this house. Um, before I get to today's episode, uh just a quick note. I think by now, by the time this releases, we have full information, hopefully, on our Unbound Writer retreat in Paris next year, um, in the spring of 2027. So if you're interested in a few days hanging out and um learning from best-selling thriller and mystery authors, myself included, and Alex Finlay and Clemence Michelin and hopefully some special guest stars. Um check out how you can register and attend all at unboundwriter.com. And if you're interested in kind of coaching, I do one-on-one coaching with writers. Um, I have a pretty full schedule, but I I'm always happy to um take on a couple more. You can go to Unbound Rider and read about the services that I offer. Uh, and you can schedule a complimentary phone call where we can just chat and see what issues you need help with and if we might be a good fit. So, again, all of that at unboundwriter.com. All right, so today, as you've seen in the episode description, I talked to my friend Tracy Clark. So Tracy was on the show a couple of years ago. Um, we had a fantastic conversation. I was thrilled to be able to have her back on. Um, if you're not familiar with Tracy, she is at the top of her game in terms of um series kind of PI writer um and police procedural writer. She's got four books in the Cast Reigns Chicago mystery series and four books in the Detective Harriet Foster series. Uh her most recent book just came out at the end of last year, and it's called Edge. And that is, I think, book four of the Harriet Foster series. Um, but what I found out in our conversation is that she just has written her first standalone book. Um, we spent a lot of time talking about that, and you know, I don't know the title. She called it The Devil's Baby, um, because I think she has mixed feelings. Uh, I think based on her experience of writing the book, um, including losing 20,000 words, uh, which is just a knife to the chest. Um but we spent a lot of time talking about writing series versus standalones. Of course, I only write standalones. Um uh so it was fascinating, but it didn't, it didn't seem like it was the most pleasant experience for her. Uh, but I'm sure it is going to be a fantastic novel. And I can't wait to see it when it comes out early in 2027. Um, anyway, great conversation. She's fantastic to listen to, and especially when we talk about her experience going 20 years before she kind of landed the agent and got her first book deal and dealing with rejection and all that fun stuff that we all have to deal with at some point in our writing careers. Um, so she's she's a great person to hear uh top shelf advice from if you are an aspiring writer. So I really enjoyed my conversation. This is my chat with Tracy Clark. Welcome back. You know how this goes. I do. Thanks for having me back. Yeah, of course. How's life going? It's been two years since we you were on. Really? Has it been that long? Yeah, it's been that long. It's been going okay. I mean, you know, one page at a time, you know how it is. Well, you keep producing, you know, you keep uh keep immersed in the roles of your the characters you love. Yeah, I kind of I kind of I'm keeping up my part of it, you know. You know, it's funny. I was looking back a little bit about what we talked about before and kind of figuring out what maybe we, you know, of course I never prepare anything for this show because I just like to talk and see where we go, but I I haven't had a ton of people on a second time. Um, and sometimes when I do, we talk about their book, but honestly, like talking about specific books is never super interesting to me because usually I haven't read them, um, unfortunately, just because I don't have time. But I but um but I was thinking about you, and I was kind of looking at your body of work and and just the the sackful awards that you've won, um, which has been you know either a one or nominated. You strike me as somebody who's just highly, highly critically acclaimed. And I'm kind of wondering, I was thinking about it like, and you you obviously get enmeshed into series. Do you uh I guess is there this pressure of like I gotta keep I gotta keep it up with this character, I gotta like, you know, the the people love this, critics love this. You know, what if I want to do something different, or do you want to do something different? Well, I actually did something different. Um, the the book that I've got coming out uh in January is my first standalone novel. Um, so it's not January 2027. Yeah, so it's not a it's not a Harriet, it's not a cast, it's it's a whole uh standalone thing, a whole cast of characters that I am not familiar with. And it took me a while to sort of get interested in them. I'm not sure how other writers do it, but I think series write writers are born, not made. And we sort of stick with our cast of characters and we're familiar with them. We like them, we like the world that we've created, and that's kind of where I sit. Yeah. But you know, uh trying to keep it, you know, dodgy. I mean you want to do different things at different times and sort of test yourself too. So the next thing was supposed to be my standalone. So I've written this standalone. Um, it's there. I'm revising it now. Uh, I like it better today than I did on day one or day 361. Uh, you know, but it's the process. Yeah. Um, I think I did okay with it, but you know, you know, you never know until readers don't like it or like it. Um I like it okay. It's a sign. It's okay. It'll be great. I mean, well, you you know, as somebody who has only written standalones, yeah, um, we have, you know, I guess differing but also the viewpoints, but it all goes back to the same sense of, I think, deeply rooted writer insecurity, which is totally what you just said. Like every time I do a book, I'm like, I have no idea. I've lost all perspective of this book. And my book coming out actually in November is now starting to get their first reviews on like Goodreads, which fortunately have been great. But you know, like that's the only time I look at that stuff because I'm like, I have no idea. I know my editor published it, I know my aging and her feedback, so it's not terrible, you know, it got sold, but yeah, I have no idea. And it's it's scary, but it's also part of the process. And you won't know until somebody tells you. I say, Oh, this is the greatest book that I've ever written. Or, you know, it's not probably not gonna be that great. No, none of us get that, you know. But if they're okay with readers, it's okay with you. Uh, and if it sort of feels okay as you're writing it, and you can sort of see where you sort of pulled all the things together. I mean, it has to be okay with us too. I mean, it's not gonna be great, it's not gonna be a masterpiece. I know that going in, I'm not humming way. I mean, none of us are right. Uh it's it's just the story that we are there to tell at that moment. Uh, we've done the best we can with it, and we just have to put it out in the world and hope it does okay, and then we move on to the next thing. So yeah, and you that's totally right. It's the this is the best we could do with it at this stage in whatever journey that we're on. Right, exactly. And hopefully this stage is better than it was five years ago. But I don't know, you know, maybe maybe I've already written the best thing I've ever written. I don't even know what that is. I don't think I don't think we've ever gonna write the best thing that we write. I mean, it's just gonna be that process. And we always think that the book that we write or have in our head is gonna be the book that comes out on our laptop, and that's never gonna be the case. It's never totally and that that that's what I love about it too. Well, yeah, but you still kind of want that thing, you want that perfect thing, and it's never gonna be that. So I said that's that's one of the main frustrations I think for writers. We we imagine this wonderful thing, and by the time it gets to the page, it's maybe half wonderful, and we just have to be satisfied with the half wonderful. So yeah, and it's funny because it's not even like because that almost makes it sound like we know what wonderful looks like and we're not capable of getting there, you know. Because a lot of times when I think about something being like wonderful, to me, it's usually maybe more emotional, maybe more personal, maybe it's really got, you know, just the this thick broodingness within the pages. Yeah. And then when I see like when I write something like that and I see reception, people tend to receive better of my like in your face, no no no apologies kind of writing rather than an introspective piece. Um, so but I don't know. Absolutely. And that's what's scary is when you don't feel confident in you being a judge of what what's good. Especially when you we're also readers, so especially when you read something. I have read sort of I've read what reading a book and I read it and say, damn it, I'm never gonna write anything as good as that. And you know it in your heart, you know it in your head, you know, but that doesn't stop you. I mean, you're a writer, that's what you do. You try to always sort of find that perfect thing. You're never gonna get it, but you want to make it as good as you can make it as the time that you're there. So this book um is there, uh, it's in revision. I've I've got it down there on paper. Uh it's coming out in January. I think it's okay. Uh, readers will tell me if it isn't. And uh meaning. The title should be I think it's okay. I think it's okay. You let me know. I mean so where I'm curious now. So, how many books do you have in all the series that you've written? Let's see. There's four in the first, uh, four in the second, uh, the standalone is number nine, and then I have contracted for two more. So one of those two could be another Harriet. Uh, they could be two standalone. Could be to be named. To be determined, yes. I know. And you've been with Thomas and Mercer the whole time. No, for the second series, Thomas and Mercer, uh, for the first season, uh series uh Kensington. So four and four, and then whatever this turns out to be, we'll see. So coming from a space of two four book series that you know, heavily investigative series, uh wouldn't was the pivot to uh was the pivot to at least one standalone kind of you're doing? Was it suggested? Like readers want to see something different. How much of that was market influence? Well, it was uh publisher influence. So apparently there's an algorithm out there, okay, all you all you writers, um, that sort of says that interest in a series sort of wanes after three books. Um, and then they want to sort of pivot to something else to see, you know, sort of clear the palette. And then if they come back to the series, you know, they'll do that or whatever, we'll do whatever. So it sort of depends on that. So it's like a a wave that takes it over. So interesting. Isn't it? You sort of you sort of go with the wave, they say, Well, you know, maybe we could do something different this time, and then come back to that. But that's fine. You know, I have my laptop, I go wherever they tell me to go, I write whatever they tell me to write. Right. Well, and I love and I love that attitude because you know, I I think so much of the the perception, not only of the reading public, but of aspiring writers is that follow your muse. And I know sometimes I kind of talk about that as well, but you're talking about from the reality of like, this is my job. Well, yeah, you know, this is what pays my mortgage. And like, you know, yes, I want to write what I want to write, but I also have to listen to what people want because you know, I I eke because of this job. I think that's the the first lesson we learn as writers, and you can you can tell me if that's true, that it's a business. Uh, we're thinking at it as art and craft and our baby, and this is our wonderful thing. But once you sort of get into this pipeline, it's a business. And your book, your creative uh endeavor is sort of just the widget that they use to sort of put on that conveyor belt, and then out the whole process goes. So I think that was the the hardest lesson I had to learn when I first started out with book one that you know, art is great, it's wonderful, uh, craft elements wonderful. Uh, but it's just a thing. It's a donut that goes on the little spindle, and the donut goes this way and that way, and then marketing and publicity and all the production people take it, and it's a product. So you have to learn that uh early on, and you have to sort of get with the get with the rhythm and the vibe and and shove it through the chute and let it go. And not only is that right, but I think what allows most of us to not see it that way for a long time is that it doesn't pay enough for most of us for a while at least to to treat it as a job. So you still kind of can be a little precious about it. But you know, a few years ago, I I burned the boats, man. I'm like, this has to pay, or I'm screwed. And and you start to like really look at it as like, okay, and and that's not to mean you heavily pivot or sell out or be, you know, start writing under a different name if your formula is kind of working, but you have to be really mindful about feedback that you get from your editor and cover art and all that stuff. Yeah, but it doesn't mean you approach the work differently, right? I mean it's it's still your story. So once you sit down at your your writing desk, it's that stuff goes away. And it's just you and the character and the story and the plot. And then what happens after that um happens after that, but you're still in it um to sort of get that down right. Yeah, so you you you sit down to approach. So, for example, if I were to say, if somebody said to me you should write a series next, I mean, I think I could do it, but I would really be scared because I'd be like, I my biggest thing is like, do I have a character that's interesting enough and has is in a position where all these things keep happening to them? Um, with a standalone, you have that freedom. So when you but when you sat down and write standalone, you're kind of naked, right? You're like, I don't know these people, I don't know who they are or what their motivations are, or if I even like them. Uh did you have an idea in mind, or you just kind of let it flow? If I had been a smart writer and were an outliner, and we we discussed this before, uh-huh. I am a hard and fast pantzer, so I have absolutely zippity-doo-dah. When I sit down at this blank thing, I've got nothing. Uh maybe an idea for a character, or maybe an idea of where I want a story to go, but that's about it. And I don't know anything until I start writing. So that's that's frightening part of it. And I'm it's not frightening for me to write a series because I know those people. Okay. Uh I'm nosy and I want to figure out how my characters sort of go on with their life. So that's easy for me. I love series. I'm a series reader, I like writing them. Okay, standalone scare the heck out of me. And so when I was faced with this prospect of writing my first standalone and needing it to be okay and great, not writing just for myself, because back in the old days, I was just writing whatever I felt like writing. Nobody cared, nobody wanted anything. I was just writing to sort of teach myself how to do it. Now it's a business, as I said. So now they're looking for this standalone and they're expecting it to be something. They're expecting it to look like a regular book, you know, they're expecting it to make sense. God forbid we write a regular book. They're making it, they're expecting it to make sense, they're expecting it to be halfway good. And so now I have to sort of teach myself how to get out of that rhythm of series and sort of following my characters in their personal lives and sort of getting them to the next step to put this whole new cast of characters, these whole new people who I have to sort of now learn and then let go. Okay, I can't follow them anymore because it's not a series. And so this is one my one shot to sort of find out who they are, uh, put who they are down on paper and then let them go. The letting go is the I think the important part. Yeah, the most difficult part. Right. And every thing right so I could write another book about these characters now because I know them now, but unfortunately, it's one shot and out. And that's what I don't like about standalones. I mean, I can read them, I like other people's standalone. I don't like writing standalones because now I have to leave these people that I now know right there. Because the end's right there. And I've got to walk away, take my little laptop, and then find somebody else to write about. And see, that's exactly what I love. It's like I can't wait to find new people, new places, things that I just don't. I hate that. So, so when you're at a cocktail party, do you like approaching other people who you don't know and talking to them? Or are you just like, no, I want to be in my little group? Oh yeah, my little group, my little group. Um, I don't know. Once I sort of know you and I like you, I want to find I'm interested in you now. I want to find out I want to find out what happens next. And now I don't know. I don't know. I left them in a spot uh and that's where I have to leave them, and I don't like it. But it did it give you any kind of opportunity to because we're always thinking about ideas, right? We're always thinking about things and how people might react to things and situations. And I can picture somebody writing a series saying, uh, this is a great idea, but it just doesn't make sense with this character or in this book. Did you have was there any sense of freedom? Like now I can have a person behave like this, which my characters could never do, but now I can do it because I I I'm not tied to these people. Um, no, I didn't think about that. I'm just thinking about who they are. Yeah, I sort of listen to the voice, uh, and I sort of look at the story in relation to them and to see what kind of journey they have to go on. And so I'm sort of I'm sort of following people. I'm following people all the time. It's not like I'm sort of making major decisions until I have to make major decisions. I'm sort of writing until something makes sense, until characters sort of reveal themselves to me, and then I can know where I can go. So these characters that I've written about now in this standalone, um, you know, they're okay. They're up, they're fine. You know, I wouldn't I wouldn't toss them out uh on in the storm in the middle of, you know, they can stay at my house if there's a storm outside. Okay, I wouldn't throw them out in the street. Right. But you know, we have some, we can still have some further along to go before, you know, we're sympathetical. Well, I I think one of the things that's really difficult for for Panthers for for both of us, and also one of the most beautiful things, I think, is figuring out what the ending is. So I don't I never know the ending. I rarely I have an idea what isn't going to happen. Um, but I never know what is going to happen. And I figured there's going to be some kind of resolution. It might be a little open-ended, but when it comes to me, it's usually about 80% in or so. I would, I'm just speculating that coming from a series writer with the series, you're like, Yeah, you want to have things tied up, but you know you can leave some things open because there's probably going to be another book involved. And with the standalone, was that a little bit more like how the fuck am I going to end this? Like and close close this loop in a way that I'm saying goodbye. You know, usually as a series, uh, I usually kill somebody off. Um, but I couldn't do that. This as a matter of fact, you know, I was standing kill everybody. Uh yeah, like you do Hamlet. I mean, but I sort of got until like one third of the way through, and I'm looking back at it and said, nobody's died yet. I mean, what the hell is going on? I'm not used to Who am I anymore? What am I doing? Because PI novels and police procedurals have a sort of rhythm, don't they? I mean, it's not a good thing. So it was certainly an expectation of rhythm. Absolutely. So this is a different kind of a feel. It's sort of cloppity this way and cloppity that way. And I just sort of had to feel my way around. But uh the weird thing about this one was that I sort of knew where it ended when I started. I kind of had that sort of as a vision. So thank God that was so or also I don't know where I was. So you had a North Star to write towards I knew where I needed to go, and I was just at the beginning, so I sort of had a path to go. So I knew I had to get here, I just had to figure out how to get there. Um, so it was difficult. It took me maybe two or three months before I could even wrote anything because I didn't hear the voices. I mean, this was just a nightmare. I'm just gonna say it. Okay, and then halfway through just tell us how you feel through the right, halfway through, and then I I lose 20,000 words. Okay, so I save my document, my whatever, I do whatever I do, came back the next day, minus 20,000. Like the most recent 20,000. Yeah. So now so that's right. Okay, nobody in my family has that reaction because they don't, oh, can't you just oh no, I back up to eight different places because that I'm so scared of that. I still I backed up to two different places. Apparently, two is not enough, so now I do four. So And for listener listeners who don't know the context, 20,000 words is easily a quarter of the entire novel. Tell me about it. You just lost. And all you can do is hope that you write them better the second time because there's no nothing else you can do to console yourself. That's what I hoped. And uh I don't know if I did it. Um but anyway. So I So you have no idea what happened. It's just absolutely none. I mean, absolutely none. It was there one day, gone the next, couldn't find it anywhere. I did all the recovery things you're supposed to do, gone. So now I have to start at page one, sentence one, and go all the way back through and sort of. So not only do I not want to write this standalone, not only do these characters not speak to me and I have to sort of find their voice midway through or whatever. Now I got to start all over again because I lost 20,000 brilliant words we try to convince ourselves at this point that I cannot possibly replicate. So right. The universe is pointing you towards a different direction, maybe. Absolutely. The universe is telling me, what the hell are you doing? Right. Writing a standalone when you should be writing your series. But anyway, I go where the laptop tells me to go. Well, I mean, and that's part of you know, the overall kind of aftertaste of writing a book is when things like that happen, it it clouds a little bit of your experience of that whole. Like I even like that book, but a lot of it is like, you know, I mean, because I I had a book where I my my editor wasn't crazy about it, and I because I hadn't trusted myself with the voice, so I switched it from third person past to first person present, which is what I'm stronger at. And that took me months and months and months and months to do that. Um, and it was a terrible experience, and that's part of my my my my trauma. My PTSD of that book was like, Oh, remember when you did that? I mean, it was ultimately was a great experience because it I learned from it, but yeah, it it does cloud you a lot. Yeah, it's all good. I uh the book's got a title. I I just call it, you know, Devil Baby. And so we just did it. The stepchild. Yeah. So it it'll be great. It'll be good. I'll do the the regular stuff I do with the with stuff that I write, and hopefully readers will like it. But um how was it received by your editor? Were they like well that's the thing? And I I'm thinking I'm handing in um the worst thing that I have possibly written. I I can't imagine me reading writing anything worse than this. And I get my revision letter back, and it's oh, this is great. And then oh only a few minor things. And I think it's all wonderful work, wonderful. Uh-uh. You know, either I'm nuts or somebody over there is nuts. I mean, because I don't think we're in the same page here. Um well, my understanding with Thomas and Mercer and with with the other Amazon imprints is that you will go through two different editorial letters with two different editors. Um, so if they're both saying the same thing, I gotta believe I don't trust it. I don't trust it. I don't trust it. There, you are a writer, Tracy. Oh no, you just can't let that self-doubt go. Yep, uh-uh, can't do it. Oh my well, but it's out of your system now. Whatever happens, happens. It's there, whatever happens with it, happens with it, and I will try to make it up with the next one. Yeah, so did you have to because being panthers? And one thing that I'm learning is, or one thing that's maybe being insisted a little bit more of me is you know what traditionally in the past, I just go off on my own, write a book, and I don't tell anybody what I'm working on, and then I just give it to my agent. I'm like, this is what I wrote, and she's got to deal with it. Um, now it's like we kind of want to know a little bit. So, for example, the one that's coming out next year, I'm like, here's four paragraphs on where this could possibly go and what it's about. And you know, as I'm writing, I'm like after paragraph one, I'm already deviating wildly. And and I'll give them my like first hundred pages just so it, but it's they still have no idea. Like, hey, remember how I said there was going to be this journalist whose part there's there's no journalist in this story. Oh my gosh. Did you have to give Thomas and Mercer somewhat of an idea about this standalone before you wrote it? Well, they asked me what you what do you think you want to write about next as I'm writing the thing that I was writing? And while I'm writing, I don't know about you, I sort of get tunnel vision. And so the book that I'm writing is the only thing that I can think about. So I'm I'm in this, and they're asking for what's going to happen next, and I have absolutely no idea. So I think I jotted down maybe two or three sentences. Oh, I think it's about uh this and this, uh blah blah blah blah blah. And I sent it on. Okay. Apparently they were satisfied with that. And so now when I get done with the thing that I'm focused on, um, I have this two or three sentences of what the book, the next book is about that I'm kind of stuck with. Right. And so now I said, Oh crap. Right. Now you gotta figure it out. It's only it's only two or three sentences. It's not like I've got an uh an evolved outline set up there or direction for me to go. It's just uh uh you know PowerPoint sort of thing, blah, blah, blah. And so now I have to sit down with my pants or self and try to figure out what kind of book comes out of two or three sentences that I sort of committed to while I wasn't really ready to commit to something. And so now there it is. So that's devil baby. That's so they don't see anything after those two or three sentences until they get the manuscript. No, they don't see anything until I hand the sucker in. Uh and so yeah. And so now I'm stuck with the two or three sentences. I've got to build a story and characters around that. I've managed to do it, uh, minus the 20,000 words, cut fiasco, then I have to go back and start again. And so now it's there, they have it. It's kind of okay. I think it's okay. It'll be okay, it'll be great. And so I love when you say it'll be okay. It's like just you're trying to convince yourself. I think I am, I am. So I've just gone through the first round of revision. I have a couple of more to go. So there's a possibility that I can sort of, you know, fix this thing. And so it'll come out that readers will kind of hope like it. Uh, I hope I like it better than I do. Uh, and we'll see. I mean, it's all isn't that funny about the whole idea of like, you know, do you have ideas for like what's next? And I think there's some writers, and maybe you're one of them, I am not, where they just have thousands of ideas that they've written down. I never have an idea. And again, as I'm uh like you, I'm kind of tunnel vision-ish. So even having to stop what I'm writing now to go back and do editorial letter revisions is totally disorienting like every time. And while I'm doing that, I can't go back to what I'm working on now. I can't do two at the same time. So the idea that I just have like ideas that are just floating in my head, and I'll just like read a news article, and once in a while it'll just hit me. I'm like, well, that's really creepy. Like, what if? And then I kind of tuck that away. Maybe that's an idea, but I don't have this repository of fleshed out ideas that I can just choose from. I just have to hope something comes to me. Well, I'm lucky in that I live in Chicago, and so um, when I'm sort of stuck for ideas, I just open the newspaper or listen to the news and there's a body found floating in the river, or you know, somebody, some gang has done something, which is kind of how Echo sort of came to be. I mean, Edge came to be. I mean, they were talking about gangs and drugs and the proliferation of drugs in the neighborhoods, and I said, that's interesting. And as you said, you file it away until you're ready for it, and so you sort of ruminated on it a bit and sort of build it out in your head and sort of figure out where you might be able to go and what you might be able to say. Um, so that sort of gives you a foundation, I think, a little bit. And then you sort of not totally blind. I mean, you sort of kind of know what you want to say, what you want to sort of ping on, and then you sort of build your characters around that and your plot around that and raise the stakes when you need to and and do the best you can. Yeah, that's all we can ask. That's all we can do. I mean, come on. And I I like the uh or I should say I'm kind of intrigued by the idea of the algorithm saying series tend to lose a little steam after book three, you know, because then you you know, obviously you have outliers like CG Bucks, who just came up 25th in the series, um, and more popular than ever, I would argue. Um, do you do you ever look at your like you knowing that you've got these other two books that you're contracted for, that you can sound like you have a little freedom to do whatever you want with them. Do you ever have a sense of like what you know, may what would be a new series where I could just really grow this character for 20 years if I wanted to? Or is it like I just want to go back to the series I'm writing? I feel like there's a would be some anxiety around like I wouldn't know what to do next. Um, I don't know. I sort of have to wait sort of for voices to speak to me. Um Cass did, um Harriet did, and I don't think I'm finished with Harriet because I've gotten her at the end of book four in this series, where she's sort of at the point where she's got to make a move. Um, she's stuffed down so much emotional stuff, she's got no more room for it to go. So I can write, I think, maybe two or three more books about what happens after that point. Yeah, where she like breaks. Uh-huh. Exactly. And the breaking is good. That's oh, 100%. It's cathartic and it's makes her great writing. Just brings joy to my heart because that's wonderful character meet. Okay. So yes. Um, but the standalone, if they pushed it, I could probably make a series out of that. I don't wanna, because Devil Baby has now is dead to me. Okay, it's dead to me. I it's that really should be the title, by the way. I should. It shouldn't it? It should be Devil Baby. You know, but I probably did uh it just depends. You know, I'm just contracts. Uh they've got me for three books. I will do whatever they ask me to do within reason. What if that what if this one just blows up completely? Oh god. And like, oh my god, have you read the new Trans-Clark? Wouldn't that just be the point? I mean, just that would just be hilarious. Um but yeah, um, you know, so uh I don't have any like set rules about it. I mean, I can write another series if I if they want that. Uh if something speaks to me in the meantime and I want to react about that, I think they would sort of uh go along with that too. Um, but you know, you have to sort of go where your where your interest is and go where the focus is and go where the energy is. And so, you know, I have no set thing about it. Um, I can write anything. I hope and and the and these are great problems. Yes, they are. After 20 years of querying and not having the idea that you can write two or three sentences and then it's like, yeah, we'll we'll totally buy and publish that book. And meanwhile, people are like, Oh, like you said, I've been doing this for 20 years and querying, and I can't even get people to reply to me. Yeah, uh, it's really it's so wild how fickle this industry is and how inundated all these people are. That once you're in and you like you said, you're a team player, you're talented, but you are also playing by the rules and you're listening, um, and you're not being a jerk, you can you can build something. Um, but the getting in is really hard to do. Yeah, and I think it's harder now than it used to be back in the day. Why do you think that is? It was difficult because I think I think the market is so uh slim and so thin um that they sort of have to make every purchase count. Yeah, and so that sort of leaves a lot of people, a lot of talented writers out in the cold. I mean, there are wonderful writers out there who are writing wonderful things and they can't get anywhere. And it's not because they're not talented, it's just because this business is so compact and so concentrated on how many units they sell and where they place them and who's gonna buy them and who's what brand it is, what trend it is, it sort of hits on. It's just a a weird, fast, um uh insulated sort of a thing. And it's kind of hard to sort of burst that bubble for new people for the newbies. You know, but uh yeah, totally. And the gatekeepers, meaning the agents, are more inundated. Yeah, because they can't take as many and they can't what they take too many, where can they place them? So they gotta keep it really small. The publishing houses have to keep it really small, and so you know that leaves a lot of people um sort of out there, sort of frustrated and querying and not getting anywhere and taking years to get published if they ever do. I mean, there are talented writers out there who might never be published, and it's not because they don't have the talent or they're not saying anything in their books, it's just that this thing is moving fast and you know, it's like a like a merry-go-round. It just sort of flips a flip, and you've got to sort of find your find your slot to get in. And if you can't, you get thrown off again. It's just a weird Yeah. And I think, you know, for genre fiction, more so than ever, I think this is just total speculation on my part. But I think agents and and editors aren't looking for the next great book, they're looking for somebody who can have a career. Um, you know, you can write a great, you could spend five years writing a great book, but if that's all you got, you're you know, if they don't see a destination for you, it's hard. Um and I feel like my publishers have really like developed me. Like they've been willing to have books that have done, you know, okay, but not great. And just knowing like we're just gonna keep you know investing in them, we're gonna keep flowing with the market until something hits. And I don't, it's I feel very lucky. I don't I don't know if people have that kind of patience these days. With I don't think they do. I think they give you maybe one or two shots at it, and if it doesn't look like it's gonna go, then they sort of you know go on to the next thing and and see if they have a better shot there. Um, they they don't do a lot of career building, uh, I don't think it's that's that's not the feeling that I get. I mean, they expect you to do it. If you hit it, great. If you don't, um they might give you one or two more tries and then they you know you're you go on to the next thing, and because that's the way the business goes. So yeah, you got to slug it out in the trenches for a long time. Yeah, and and sometimes that means you're not published for a while, or that means you're going back and maybe you're changing your name or you're doing something else. But and if you don't have that, this is what I think stops people, is like when they because there's so much frustration and rejection in this industry that if you don't really have that underlying just tenacity and passion, which you know, which we soon find out whether we have that or not, and we think we do until the shit really hits the fan. Right. If you don't have that, man, you're gone, and you just don't have it in you to to continue on. And I see it time and time again, yeah, and it's it's scary, but you got to be the person who's like, I'm gonna write this and we'll see what happens, you know. But I want to see what happens myself. I I want to I want to know the story, and if that doesn't sell, I'll just go to the next one. Right. I mean, the tenacity is the essential. Um, uh 20 years is a long time to wait for to get published. Um, and I quit at one point. Is that what it was for you from when you started writing to when you first started? Oh, more than 20 years when I first started and sort of got that first offer for an agent and everything, 20 some years. Yeah, and it takes a lot to sort of keep yourself um pumped up and motivated over that long time. And so tenacity is is essential, uh, bullheadedness is essential. You have to be really, really stubborn about it. And I was because I refuse to let these people tell me that I didn't have it. And I might not have had it maybe in year four, right? Uh, but by the time I got to year 21, um, I think I kind of had it. So you have to stick in there until your shot comes up. That's all it is. But I think, and I think that's the important distinction is that the bull-headedness doesn't mean you're you're closed-minded. It means that you're hopefully that you're listening to the rejection, even if it's just a form rejection of like, okay, but because I look at my three books that never sold as like that was my college, that was my MFA that I never to had. That was like, I'm learning how to write, and even books one through five, I'm still learning how to write. Book five, I find my voice. Okay, now how do I improve upon that? You're always learning, and I think the people who don't who just think this is how I write, and then they're too precious about it, and they keep getting negative feedback. That's that's just a killer because you're not allowing yourself to listen to what people who do this for a living, the meaning publishing books are telling you. You're absolutely right. I mean, that those years aren't wasted years because all the time you're doing it, you're you're refining and you're teaching yourself how to write, like you said, and you're getting better at it. It's like priming a pump. The more you do it, the more water comes out. Uh, but you have to be there, you have to be there to sort of get that thing going. Um, and if you're not, uh and you're not learning, you're not building, and you're not sort of taking that advice, and that criticism, the criticism is key. Um, it might seem harsh to begin with, but those people are helping you. Um, take whatever bit of advice you think is worthy. Um, get yourselves into writers' communities and groups. Um, put your work out there, get it critiqued, get it read. Um, take that thing, join a book group or whatever, writing group. Do whatever you need to do to get yourself to the next level. And you have to get to the next level to be there when that one shot comes in. So it's all you. If you get the one shot, right. Yeah, nobody's gonna do that for you. You have to do it for yourself. And I think one of the hardest parts of all of that is because I was in a critique group for a couple decades, and is figuring out who to listen to. Yeah, because that's totally subjective. You clearly, if everyone is telling you the same thing and they all read the kind of stuff that you're writing, that's obviously great data to have. But you you find those one or two people when they give you feedback and it just resonates in a different way, almost like, oh, I should have thought of that. It's so right, I should have thought of that. That when I remember when I would listen to those people, I'm like, these are the people who I'm who I want to read myself because I but that's just instinct over time. Because if you listen to everybody, yeah, it's gonna be a disaster. You're right. You'll learn who those people are, and you'll sort of go, you know, we all we're not we're not idiots. I mean, we sort of know when when the good stuff is there and when it's not, and so you listen to the good stuff, right? Right. And do you just going back to your comments at the beginning of our conversation about you know being a reader? I I struggle to for for fun to read thrillers. Um, and I don't know why. I don't know if it's because of that you mentioned I can never write like this. Um, certainly I have those moments where it's just you know, admiration and jealousy mixed together. Um, or it's like, you know, this is stupid. Like, why did this get published? Or whatever it is, my own clouded judgment. I tend to read outside of of the genre unless you know I'm blurbing or or or something like that. Do you struggle? Like, do you read right in that that wheelhouse of what you're writing? Yeah, I I read what I like to write and what I like to read. I mean, yeah. So I read thrillers and mysteries and I even read cozies and suspense. I I love it all. I mean, I like Dead Bodies on the Page, I like uh bad guys, I like serial killers. I mean, I like that milieu. Uh, I don't know if it's uh the morality play sort of writ large or anything, but good guy, bad guy. I love that dynamic. So I like reading the kind of things. I read other things too. Uh they probably might bore me um because if nobody dies within the first five or two chapters. I mean, come on. Um, but you know, I read stuff and if it's good, you know, I sort of relish the goodness. Uh, I sort of look at the sentence if it's a good sentence. How did they sort of construct that sentence? Uh, what words did they use? What word choice, right? The rhythm of it, you know. So we're writers, but we're also readers, but we're writers first. And so we're looking at the craft of it, uh, and we want to sort of see, feel it, and feel the vibe of it. So I know what I'll do is I'll I'll do exactly that. I'll deconstruct a scene, which totally pulls me out of the story, but I'll be interested. I'm like, why does this sentence work so well or why is this dialogue so clunky or whatever it is? I like to analyze it. Oh, because they just are using dialogue tags that are distracting, or whatever it is. Yeah, then I'm like, wait, what was this about again? Uh-huh. So, and if it sort of elicits an emotion, you want to figure out how they did that. Right. How did how did they get you to that point where you feel an emotion? I mean, all of that's learning. Um, we learn while we write, we learn while we read, we learn while we walk out into the world because we're writers and we're observers. Yeah. And so we can sit in the we can sit in the Starbucks and sit at the table, and there's somebody, a couple sort of arguing in a table next to you. Oh, wait, we're not doing anything, but listening to your conversation. Right. Okay, now that might end up in a book. Uh how you speak to each other. Uh that call nosiness research. You can call it whatever you want to. Okay, we're listening to you have a fight with your boyfriend. And uh that's just the how the people that's just the kind of people we are. So that's what we do. So we're always learning, we're always looking, we're always looking for something interesting to say, something interesting to sort of highlight, some character to sort of build. Um, it's just how we're built. Yeah, all of it's out there just waiting to be observed. Yeah. Uh huh. It's like a candy store. Okay. Well, Tracy, we're going to wrap up. Before we do, we're going to do the same kind of storytelling that we did last time. Um, I've got three books picked at random. We're going to choose a random sentence from a random page. I'm going to read that sentence. That'll be the first sentence. In like a two-minute long short story where we alternate back and forth. I forget what we did before. Um, I forget if it was a shitshow or if it was great. It was probably somewhere somewhere in between. Probably in the middle. Um, I've got Donna Tart's The Little Friend. Um, Alan Eskins, The Life We Bury, and Carlene O'Connor's You Have Gone Too Far. So choose one of those. Let's uh do we've gone too far. Carline O'Connor. Uh give me a page between one and 350. 55. Okay. So I'm gonna quickly scan page 55. That's a really big font in this book. Oh, really? That's good. It's like, yeah, it's kind of a weird font, huh? That's I don't know. I got uh um I'm gonna I am going to read this, and you can do whatever you want with it. It's just a piece of dialogue. It's one simple sentence, and it is this we're so fucking stupid. Um I'm gonna tell you why. I didn't like how she turned it on to me. It's really a problem we both have now. I look down at the body that should still be breathing and know that we made a horrific mistake. The door opens. Um strangers stand in the g in the way. Come in. We finally found you. Just a second too late. The good news was he hadn't been shot, so there was no blood. The poison meant they didn't know he was dead. Maybe he was just sleeping. He was still in his bed after all. If we could just convince them there this wasn't a crime scene, maybe we could get away with this. The gun was a surprise. It was up and out before they even realized it. The first shot missed, the second didn't. Oh, I think we call it there. Come on, I can go all day. I know you can. Well, this is the person who within five pages, if there's not a body, then you gotta die. You gotta do somebody's gotta go. Somebody's gotta go. I I think the third time you're on the podcast, we're gonna dissect your need for death. We're gonna we're gonna really go into your childhood, Tracy. You're on I should say you are not you are not unique to this uh to to this profession in terms of desire. Crime writers are born, they're not made they are, they are. Am I going to see you uh in Thriller Fest in a couple weeks? Uh we'll be there, but I'll be at Bashicon. Are you going to Bashicon? I don't think so. That's close to when I have a book coming out, and just I don't kind of know my schedule then. But I'd like to go because it's it's Canada, and it seems like it's gonna be a really good time. So well, we'll we'll meet up somewhere. Well, good, good talking to you. I can't wait to see your standalone. I'm very excited for that. I I you know I'm probably more enthusiastic than you are about it, but uh probably I think it's gonna be a big hit. Thank you so much. Good chatting with you again. Always great. Thanks. Take care. Bye-bye. All right, that is it. That is my conversation with Tracy Clark. It was fantastic to be able to catch up with her once again. Um, and and hearing about her love of dead bodies, um, which, like I said, I think we need to explore the next time we talk. Um, and again, not unusual for a crime writer. Uh, you can find out all about her most recent book and all of her books at tracyclark's tracyclarkbooks.com. You can find out about my books, including my upcoming novel, When You Find Me, which is already getting great reviews on Goodreads, thank fucking God. Um, all of that at CarterWilson.com. That book will be out in November of this year. And again, if you're looking for uh one-on-one coaching or you might be interested in our Paris writing retreat next year, head on over to unboundrider.com. All right, that is it. Scully says bye. I say bye. Another episode out just next week. In the meantime, folks, take care.