First Cup of Coffee with Jeffe Kennedy
First Cup of Coffee with Jeffe Kennedy
First Cup of Coffee - June 30, 2020
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I'm welcoming guest Erin McLellan today for a Pride Month spotlight! Erin writes queer, quirky and erotic contemporary romance. We talk about self-publishing, living in Alaska, and being a pantser.
You can find out more about Erin at these places:
Facebook Group: https://smarturl.it/ErinMcLellansFBGroup
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erinmclellanwrites/
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Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/erin-mclellan
Website: https://smarturl.it/erinmclellan
First Cup of Coffee is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at Frolic.media/podcasts!
Good morning, everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy, and I'm here with my first cup of coffee. Today is Tuesday, June 30th, last day of June already. And we have a special guest today, uh, Erin McClellan. Good morning, Erin.
SPEAKER_00Hi, good morning.
SPEAKER_02How are you today?
SPEAKER_00I'm really good.
SPEAKER_02Good. And so it's an important question on this podcast is what kind of beverage are you enjoying?
SPEAKER_00Um, I am drinking a tea. It's called Samovar tea. Um like a local tea shop here in Alaska called the Kobuk. It's kind of a spice tea. It has like cinnamon and orange peel, and it kind of tastes Christmassy, but it's good in the mornings because it wakes me up.
SPEAKER_02And so you're a tea drinker and not a coffee drinker.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I like, I'm not a coffee drinker at home. I like my coffee to be like dessert, you know, like Frappuccinos or like iced lattes. Before the pandemic, I would um write at a coffee shop, and I almost always got iced vanilla lattes at the coffee shop, but I never make them at home.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, fair enough. Uh and so where in Alaska are you?
SPEAKER_00Um, I live in Anchorage.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yep, the big city.
SPEAKER_02That as if it's not very exciting.
SPEAKER_00Oh no, I love it. I love Alaska. Um, and I love Anchorage. It's really fun to live here. I think most people in Alaska, like uh Anchorage is the biggest, the most populated city.
SPEAKER_02So I see. So it's sort of the default answer.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Though probably people in other parts of Alaska won't like that answer.
SPEAKER_02No, but it's like the the maybe it's the statistically most likely answer.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_02And so how did you end up in Anchorage?
SPEAKER_00Um, my husband's work.
SPEAKER_02Uh?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So we we originally lived, well, originally, not originally. Um, we were living in Houston, Texas, and then moved up here um to Alaska in 2016.
SPEAKER_02Ah, so is he an oil guy?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he works in safety.
SPEAKER_02Ah, okay. And what about you? Are you a full-time writer?
SPEAKER_00Um, I am, um, which I'm very lucky, and that's definitely a privilege um because, you know, of my husband, basically. Um, when we lived in Houston, though, I was a public librarian.
SPEAKER_02Oh. And then when you moved, you decided just to devote yourself to writing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that was kind of the the deal.
SPEAKER_02Was I move you out to the Alaskan frontier and I get a chance to like make a go at it.
SPEAKER_00And it's been, you know, pretty successful so far. I'm happy.
SPEAKER_02So did you just start writing when you moved?
SPEAKER_00Um, I had written my first book and was trying to get um a contract with it. And kind of our deal was, you know, if I can get a contract within like the first six months to a year, um, and then we would go from there. And I I did, I think I got I ended up getting a contract within just a couple months. But I the book was already written when we moved.
SPEAKER_02Ah, so part of your deal on you not finding a day job was right away, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yep, that's definitely a privilege. I was pretty lucky there.
SPEAKER_02I see. So why did so you had already written your book while you're living in Houston, sort of in your spare time?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, in the evenings. And I had a really long commute, which is very common if you live in Houston. Yes. I had a lot of time to really think about it, and so I would kind of be thinking and plotting and um, you know, writing in my head on my commutes, and then I would get home and I would write everything down that I'd thought of. Um, but I feel like I wrote that book on my commute just in my head.
SPEAKER_02I I totally know what you mean. I I used to live in Wyoming and we had long drives, and I wrote all sorts of stuff in my head on those drives.
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So so that was the was that the first book that you had published?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, that book's called Controlled Burn. Um, but yeah, that was my first book.
SPEAKER_02Wow. So tell us about that book.
SPEAKER_00Um, it is a male-male, new adult romance. Um, it is very angsty. Um it's probably my angstiest book. Um, it's about two college students. Uh, the main character Joel uh kind of has this horrible thing that has happened to him in his life. His boyfriend in high school um died in a car crash. And then he's now in college and kind of still dealing with the emotions of that. And um, you know, the emotions of basically falling and being in a relationship for the first time since that happened. So it's very kind of emotional and um very focused on the emotions of those characters. Um but yeah, and it's set in western Oklahoma. So I'm from Oklahoma, so most of my books are set there so far.
SPEAKER_02That's where you're from originally?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. Where in Oklahoma?
SPEAKER_00Um, kind of the Oklahoma City area, just a small town close to there.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. I see. So what drew you for your first book to write about uh male-male romance?
SPEAKER_00You know, I don't it was just kind of a I don't want to say a coincidence, but I don't know. I mean, it was just like the story that I kind of had in my head. Um it's important to me to write queer romance, um, especially queer romance that's set in um kind of areas of the country that you don't see it set in very often, because you know, lots of people that are LGBTQIA live in flyover states, they live in red states, they live in um the country.
SPEAKER_02Right, even though Oklahoma's not exactly the poster child for uh open acceptance, people still live there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And you know, they find their own communities, they find their own, you know, found families and and support systems. And so um it's kind of important to me in in terms of what I write to to showcase that. But for that first book, it really kind of was just that was the story that I had in my head, and and I kind of fell into it.
SPEAKER_02And did you uh have to do a lot of research to discover more about those communities or people who are living that lifestyle? Or were you already familiar?
SPEAKER_00Um I mean, I have a lot of friends who are gay, but uh who are gay men, I guess. Um but I had read a lot, like I I read a lot of male-male romance and and other kinds of romance too, but that was definitely kind of in my reading rotation. So I I kind of knew what was popular in the genre. Um, and then I had I had some readers that basically kind of read and checked my work that uh like I I at the time I didn't call them sensitivity readers, but that's what they are.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's that's a that's a fairly new title in the industry.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02But not a new practice, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02And so what drew you to romance in particular?
SPEAKER_00Um I I was I'm a big romance reader. Um and whenever I was writing that book, um I had had a lot of changes in my life. I had just gotten married and I had to move to Houston, which I didn't really like living in Houston. It's a huge city.
SPEAKER_02Um it's a huge city and it has crap weather.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it has the worst weather. I love the most about living in Alaska, is the weather is so fun. But living in I never want to live anywhere that's as hot as Houston again. Um, or humid. But um, and I, you know, I had just got gotten out of grad school. And so it was kind of like, you know, I had my first full-time job, um, all these changes, and I kind of missed having a creative outlet, at least in when I was in college and in grad school, I had, you know, I was writing research papers, I was, you know, I had an outlet like that to use creatively, and I just didn't really have one in my job as a librarian. And so I finally decided I was like, I need something that I can kind of focus my creative energy on. Um and I wanted it to be something that was fun and happy for me to write in. Even though that book is very angsty, it was still fun to write.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I I love romance. I I started really reading romance when I was in um like I I think I started reading it whenever I was uh the summer before my senior year of college of undergrad.
SPEAKER_02Oh, so you came a little late.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I didn't really grow up reading it. Um, but that summer my um my parents' house was hit by a tornado, which is, you know, like quite common in Oklahoma.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00Um, and then my my grandmother died a like a month later. And so it was just it was a bad summer, and I really needed to focus on something that was happy and and kind of you know, I think one of the things I really like about reading romance is that you know it's gonna have a happy ending, right? That's in the contract.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and and there's a an inherent joyfulness to it.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And so I I really needed that. And so I started, my sister gave me a Suzanne Brockman book um from her troubleshooter series, which is kind of the one she's uh probably most known for. Um, and I think I read that entire series, and then I was like, well, I'm done with romance, I guess. Like I didn't go searching for other books, which is really funny.
SPEAKER_02And that is funny.
SPEAKER_00Until I was in graduate school, and then I was um in a class that was about readers' advisory. And um one of the things that they had us do in that class was read books from the, it was like, you know, the publisher's weekly best books of the year or the Kirkus Best Books of the Year. We were supposed to choose books um that were like genre, so either, you know, mystery, sci-fi fantasy, romance, whatever, um, off of those lists. And I I picked one up and it was called um Brothers of the Wild North Sea by Harper Fox, and it is a male-male romance, which I didn't really realize when I bought it. I just knew it was a romance. Um, and then I that's kind of from there, that's when I started reading romance kind of widely.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And did you go to graduate school for library science?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. So you've always been pretty book and literature focused.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my my undergraduate degree is in creative writing, and then my grad degree is in library and information studies.
SPEAKER_02So so were you one who thought that you were going to like write literary fiction, like the great American novel sort of thing?
SPEAKER_00Well, it's kind of funny because I mean, of course, right? But yeah, right, right.
SPEAKER_02I know that was a that was a gimme question.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no. Um, it's funny because in, you know, I think this is probably something that a lot of people that go through creative writing programs, um, either master programs or undergrad programs, that they hear a lot that they don't want you to be writing genre fiction and classes. They want you to be writing literary fiction.
SPEAKER_02And um so and that pressure can be um understated or sometimes it can be rather vicious.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And I I would say, you know, I had um probably both types of teachers, teachers that were very adamant and kind of ugly about it. And so, you know, I was just kind of writing what I was being told to write um at the time, but I I uh I knew that I'm too pragmatic, I think, to like um, I knew I wanted a graduate degree that was a little bit more practical than getting like a an MFA in writing. Um, and I'm really glad that I did that because I'm not sure that I would have eventually written romance if I had stuck with the the writing rather than going into library. But whenever you work in a library, you realize very quickly what types of book people books people like to read. And that's genre fiction.
SPEAKER_02And what types are those?
SPEAKER_00It's genre fiction, it's it's romance, it's mystery, it's thrillers. Um people don't come in asking for the latest literary fiction novel, not unless it's like, you know, on Oprah's book list, you know, unless it's like the the big one of the year. Um so yeah, in terms of like what people are buying or what people are checking out at the library, like I wanted to write that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So in college you were writing literary fiction type things, right? Um, short stories and essays.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah, yeah, short stories, and then it's a um that's still an English degree, so I did take a lot of literature classes and stuff, which I really liked.
SPEAKER_02Right. But then you went to grad school for library science, and and then only later did you start once you had your job, you started writing and you wrote romance. Did you did you have a lag time in there where you weren't writing at all?
SPEAKER_00Um, maybe just a couple months. Um, okay. Yeah, I think I was I I mean I was 24, I guess, whenever I started writing that first book. And so um it would have only been maybe six months.
SPEAKER_02So even when you were working on your grad degree, you were writing fiction?
SPEAKER_00Oh no. Um I guess sorry, I misunderstood. There, I guess there was a lag. I wasn't writing fiction whenever I was working on.
SPEAKER_02I guess I didn't specify. For me, when I say writing with like a capital W, I guess I mean fiction. And that's not fair. But I started out in nonfiction too, so I should know better.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I I love writing uh like re I, you know, you have to write a lot of research papers and stuff, and and I really enjoyed that aspect um of my grad program. Um and so I was always writing stuff like that, but it was for class, you know, it wasn't like in my spare time.
SPEAKER_02So then when you went to sell your first book, uh, how'd you go about it? You were querying?
SPEAKER_00Um well it I don't think I probably did it the, you know, hindsight is 2020. If I if I could go back and do it differently, I would. Um I basically wrote a book and then decided that I was going to start sending it to the publishers that would take unagented submissions. Um I think if I could go back and do it differently, I would try to get an agent instead. Um Why is that? Um just because I think I don't necessarily think that it would have gone differently than it did. I think that book might have ended up in the same place. But um, it would be nice to have an agent. I would have an agent now. Um even though all my books now are self-published, even the ones that I originally placed with publishers, I've gotten my rights back to. Oh, okay. But it would be nice to have an agent to um, you know, help me place translations or audio or um, you know, kind of move forward. But I'm very happy self-publishing. I'm kind of a control freak, so I like that aspect of it. Um, but that book, Controlled Burn, I sent it to Riptide Publishing.
SPEAKER_02Oh.
SPEAKER_00And um after uh a few revision rewrites, they finally picked it up. But I have, and at the time whenever I got my rights back, I had four contracts with them. I had two books that were out and two books that were on the way. Um, and then if you're not familiar, uh Riptide a couple years ago now, um, they lost a lot of their authors because there was a sexual harassment situation.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna I was going to say imploded rather spectacularly, but that's another answer.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's probably more more uh like accurate. Um sexual harassment and and then also systemic racism. And I wasn't particularly happy there at the time, anyways. Um, and so it you know, I I left not only because I thought it was the right thing to do, but it was also I felt like the right thing to do for my career.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And so then after they uh shut down, they gave you your rights back.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, they didn't actually shut down. I think they're still going, um, though I don't know how much they're producing anymore.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I wasn't, I was thinking that I wasn't clear on exactly they're they're keeping a low profile.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, but yeah, I got I got rights back to all four of my books. So I kind of went from having two books out and two on the way to having nothing out, which was a little bit of a shock. And at that time, I I think you know, I don't think my debut had even been out a year.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So it was kind of a very shocking thing to happen.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's it's a story that happens to many writers because we really build up to that first sale and and saying, oh, well, now my I've sold my first book and now everything is going to be Sunshine and Roses.
SPEAKER_00Right. And especially, you know, I mean, there's issues I think sometimes at small presses. Um, you know, not all of them, but there's been a lot recently, I feel like, that have really screwed up. So it's like I think that is something that a lot of uh authors experience, a publisher that really screws up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately. So yeah. So so then here you are at sort of this nay deer when you thought you were going to be flying high. And so what did you do?
SPEAKER_00Um, well, I started self-publishing, basically.
SPEAKER_02And how did you figure it out?
SPEAKER_00Well, I I asked uh I asked a lot of questions to people that were doing it, which um was kind of scary because it's like like almost like cold calling people that I don't know very well, but through email.
SPEAKER_02That's why I'm I'm bugging you for details on this, because that's one of the things I get asked all the time is how do you find this information out?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I mean, in a way, because the Riptide thing was so public and was kind of you know so awful, there were a lot of authors that were kind of publicly offering help um with people that were wanting to self-publish. And so I just kind of like wrote down authors that I recognized that were uh offering that kind of help and then made a list of questions and I just emailed them and said, Hey, I saw that you offered to answer questions about self-publishing. Um, the I've never done it before, these are my questions. Um, and everybody was really nice and gave me lots of information. Um and then, you know, and I'm I'm kind of I wouldn't say I'm techie, but I'm I'm not bad at stuff like that. So it wasn't horribly difficult for me to figure out once I got going.
SPEAKER_02And what would you say is one of the most important things you've learned about self-publishing?
SPEAKER_00Well, um, I think the most important thing, I don't know. Um I think uh this is important probably not just for self-publishers, but to try to figure out marketing and stuff. You're gonna be doing um a lot more so much is on you, right, as a self-proviser. Um, the marketing is on you, the upfront costs are on you, you have to be kind of regimented and and keep track of schedules and and that stuff that I really like. Um, but if it's not something that you enjoy, then might be difficult. Um, but I like having kind of control of that. I like being able to see whether or not a promotion that I run actually has a return on investment, which is difficult if you're with a publisher because you can't see sales in real time.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Um and so yeah, I I think that that I don't know if that's the the most important thing that I've learned, but um, I think being kind of organized like that is really helpful.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So you were your first self self published books your Riptide backlist?
SPEAKER_00Yes. So I actually when I pulled my books from Riptide, I had a book that was set to come out like the next month. And um so the first thing that I did, and that was book two in a series. And so I I self-published book one so that it would be out, and then um pushed back book two only by like two weeks. So I was able to get it out pretty close.
SPEAKER_02That's that's great, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_00And then I self-published um the the series that would have been my first book, Controlled Burn. Um yeah, and then from there, yeah, just self-publishing, I guess, from from there.
SPEAKER_02So then you've started a new series, right? That you have a new book out this week?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Well, it was actually out on the the 15th. So it's been out now.
SPEAKER_02Oh, on the 15th, sorry.
SPEAKER_00So it's been out like two weeks now. It's called the Sew Over the Holidays series. Um, and they're all novellas. So far, there's three books. The first one is called Stocking Stuffers, and it's a Christmas book. Um, the second book is called Candy Hearts, and it's a Valentine's Day book. And then the book that just came out is called Bottle Rocket, and it's like an Independence Day um book, though that one I it's more summary. Independence day is kind of a weird holiday to write about because lots of like traditions or or things. Um, so I I would describe it more as just like a summer novella.
SPEAKER_02And so this series is totally you conceived it and self-published it from the beginning.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I did try initially when I wrote Stocking Stuffers, I did try to get an agent with it, um, but it was too short. I kept getting uh I kept getting responses that um, you know, it was too much.
SPEAKER_02They don't like novellas, yes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, which makes sense. Um, you know, it made sense to me. But then I decided, well, I'm tired of waiting. That's kind of my problem. And that's one of the reasons why I like self-publishing too, is that I can do everything in my own timeline. I don't have to wait, you know, years to to put a book out. Um and so I eventually decided to self-publish those. And they're very, they're very sexy. They're I would call them erotic romance.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. And and I noticed that they're described you describe them as like queer and kinky, but not necessarily male-male anymore, right?
SPEAKER_00Right. So stocking stuffers is male-female, the the heroine is bisexual, um, and then candy hearts is male-male. I I might have said that wrong. Did I say stocking stuffers was male-female with the heroine bisexual? Sorry. And then um Candy Hearts is male-male, and one of the heroes is gay, and then one is pansexual, and then um Bottle Rocket, which is my new release, um, is male-female, and the hero is bisexual.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. Yeah, and so is this something that you feel like will always be part of your books that you're always going to do, some kind of um, you know, like queer and kinky?
SPEAKER_00Um, not necessarily kinky. I have some books that are there's still, I think all of my books are fairly high heat, um, but not necessarily. Some of them are still pretty vanilla, I guess. Um but yeah, I think uh at least right now, I I think probably most of the books that I write will have queer characters. Um a point eventually where I might not have a queer main character. Um but I can't really imagine having a book that doesn't at least have queer secondary characters.
SPEAKER_02Just because that's sort of part of part of your world.
SPEAKER_00Right, right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And are these books, do they take place in Oklahoma also?
SPEAKER_00Um, no. Well, I haven't specified. They're kind of in a fictional like nowhere land. You know, I have said um, I've kind of imagined them while writing them. I've imagined them kind of in the more northern Midwest. So I think like, you know, Kansas City, St. Louis type of area.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00And are they all in the same fictional town? Yes. Yeah. Um and the reason why I kind of think of them placed up there is because in the first book, the characters get snowed in, um, which would be kind of unusual in Oklahoma. We get snow in Oklahoma, especially western Oklahoma, they get ice storms and stuff, but um it would be kind of unusual to be snowed in for multiple days in Oklahoma.
SPEAKER_02Right.
unknownYeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But they do, they all kind of take place in the the same um the same area that and each book so far has had a sibling. So there's the holiday siblings. Um and each book has been one of their books. But now I'm out of siblings. So um, if I continue the book, it will be kind of secondary friends. Or if I continue the series.
SPEAKER_02Right. And so what are you what are you planning to do next?
SPEAKER_00Well, I would like to. I'm not a very I'm not a super planner. I I'm it's funny because I said earlier that I'm organized, but I'm I'm definitely a a pantser in terms of plotter or pantzer. Right. And since I'm self-publishing, I do kind of just write what I feel like writing. And so I I don't necessarily plan out my release schedule um super far in advance, but what I would like to eventually the other holidays that I would at least eventually like to hit would be St. Patrick's Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and New Year's Eve. Um, and so I'm hoping in next year to maybe hit one of those that's at the end of the year. So either Halloween, Thanksgiving, or New Year's Eve.
SPEAKER_02Fun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so you're just focusing on this particular series for the time being.
SPEAKER_00Well, I have other other stuff that's going on. Um, right now I'm trying to write book three in the Farm College series, which that's the series that Controlled Burn, which was my first book, is in. And I also have a storm chasers series that's set in Oklahoma. Um the first book is called Natural Disaster. And um, it's about two, it's a male male, and it's about two storm chasers that work for a news station. And then if you're if you're from somewhere that has a lot of tornadoes, um, you can kind of picture how when there's tornadoes on the ground, they have storm chasers out there that are like live broadcasting, you know, like Twister.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Um and um, so that's natural disaster. And I'm trying I'm hoping to write book two in that series um and release it in 2021. So I do, I'm kind of juggling a lot of different series at the moment.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sounds like it. So so how do you divide that out and juggling projects? Do you work on multiple things in one day?
SPEAKER_00Um I wish. I wish I could I don't. I'm not very good at that. Um, I I definitely am like a one book type of focus. Uh I wish I I I've read about how people do multiple, well, where they'll split it. Like, you know, their morning, they'll work on one book and then in the afternoon they'll do another. And I just have trouble kind of switching my mindset like that. Maybe eventually I'll figure out the trick, but I haven't yet.
SPEAKER_02A lot of people can't. Some people can. I can't.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so you you just focus on one book at a time.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yeah. I always think it might it would be fun to to do that, to switch to something else in the afternoons, but yeah, for me it's one at a time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm just I'm not yeah, I I don't know if it's I I have trouble switching voices, I think, is kind of my Well, and I suspect some of it is being a panther, because I'm absolutely a pantser, and and it just requires that same thing like you've talked about, where you think about the book and stew on it a lot.
SPEAKER_02And I I I need that. I need to just sort of be living in that book and write it all.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because I can imagine if you're a plotter and you kind of know where the book is going, it'd be much easier to switch. But yeah, I have no idea. So um I had not ever thought that that is probably why I can't switch between books, but I bet it is.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it could be. And I think uh, you know, I always say the most important thing is to own your process.
SPEAKER_00Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, so how much do you work every day? How did what tell me about your writing day?
SPEAKER_00Um when I'm really in a groove, I normally write probably around six hours a day. Um but and that's with probably not solid, right? That's just the the amount of time that I'm really working. Um, but some of that might be, you know, looking at Twitter or uh doing like trying to do marketing or or admin type stuff.
SPEAKER_02Um do you like write for for an hour and take a break, or do you just sort of as you feel it?
SPEAKER_00Um well I I try to do kind of sprints where I might do like 45 minutes at once and then um you know I might take like a few minutes as a break. Um but if I'm really in a group, I'll just keep going. Um but I'm I'm not uh yeah, I'm not super regimented about that, I guess.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And do you like try to write a certain number of words a day or do you uh try to like get through a chapter or anything like that?
SPEAKER_00I don't. Um I have that in the past where I really focus on um, you know, I want to write, you know, 2,000 words a day. And if I'm really like if I have a deadline, maybe I've scheduled an editor and I'm supposed to get the book to them, you know, at a certain date, um, you know, I'm I might do that um where I know, well, I have to write 2,000 words a day in order to get the book done. Um, but normally, yeah, I don't really. Um, I might have a vague idea of when I want to finish the book. But that is kind of one of the nice things about self-publishing is that you have, you know, there's not, you can really kind of go with your own process there. Though I do work a little better whenever I'm under a deadline. Um I I think I kind of need that fire under me to finish something.
SPEAKER_02Um so do you work mainly on the weekdays when your husband's at work?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Um, for for quite a while until pretty recently, he did shift work. So he was gone um for you know weeks at a time, and then he would be home for weeks at a time and not working. Um, and so I would get a lot of writing done when he was gone. Um, and then when he was home, you know, I wouldn't get as much done. We'd be off doing fun stuff. Um, but now he is not doing shift work, he's uh has enormous He's been home for months, right? And so that's been a really difficult transition for me, actually. I mean, he has been home for months, like literally.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. This is everybody I've been talking to is the everybody's been dealing with a shift in uh in their work and so forth, because even if they're stay-at-home writers and are usually home all the time anyway, now they have other people at home with them.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and that is, you know, has been quite weird. Um but yeah, whenever I try now, whenever he was working um shift work, I would I'm a night owl. I'm not very good. I don't write very much in the mornings. Um, and so a lot of times I would be writing in the evenings, you know, like late into the night. Um, but I've I've been kind of trying to transition a little bit since he's got more normal hours to try to match his hours a little bit better.
SPEAKER_02Um, he actually wants you to sleep when he's sleeping and go to bed with him and all that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and like, you know, we want to be able to like, you know, watch TV together at night and stuff. Um, but like whenever I'm kind of being rushed or whenever I'm on deadline, you know, that all goes out the window. But I am trying to be better about writing. I'm still not good in the mornings, writing in the mornings, but you know, in the late mornings and afternoon trying to write more. But I do feel like my most creative time is in the evenings.
SPEAKER_02Well, and I think that's what's important is figuring out when your most creative time is. And then I have one friend who's finally figured out that she writes best at night, and she just spends the days and evenings with her family, and once they all go to bed, then she writes until like three or four in the morning.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, and I I I definitely I did that a little bit with Bottle Rocket um because I was coming up on a deadline, and so I kind of figured, well, I I've got to buckle down and just do this the way that works the best. Um, and I I I can see myself really continuing to do it that way um as I get further into books. So I haven't figured it out yet what's gonna work best for me now that our schedule has changed a little bit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Well, so and tell us a little bit more about Bottle Rocket before we sign off. You said that it's a a summer romance.
SPEAKER_00Yes, so it's set in the summer, right? Close to 4th of July. Um, it is about Rosie Holliday, who is a kindergarten teacher, and she's um kind of recently single. She's just got a divorce. Um, and uh her the hero, his name is Leo, and he is an erotic artist. He writes or uh creates erotic art. And um he they were basically high school sweethearts. So they were together kind of the the end of their senior years in the summer before, you know, she goes off to college. Um, but they they basically broke up when they were young, when they were 18, because they had very different life plans. Um, there's not any like bad blood between them or anything. Um, they just, you know, like lots of 18-year-olds, you're not going in the same direction. So you break up. Um, but now they they're back, um, he's back in his hometown and she still lives there. And uh they kind of reconnect. Um, he's only going to be in town for about a week um for work. And so she's trying to her kind of whole thing over the summer is that she's trying to figure out who she is. You know, she's recently divorced, she um kind of realizes her life is kind of new and open. She has an opportunity to really figure out what she enjoys doing, new hobbies, kind of feeling out new friendships, things like that. Um, and he offers to help her, and that kind of quickly devolves into you know what she wants to get to accomplish and experience um in the bedroom, I guess, to put that um in a um and so he he's kind of helping her uh learn to be bossy in the bedroom and kind of dominant in the bedroom. Um, and it's a lot of fun. They uh they're they were a really fun couple to write, really funny. Um exciting and it is peaky. There's a little bit of them dom.
SPEAKER_02Um and you said this is the one where he's bisexual?
SPEAKER_00He's bisexual, yes.
SPEAKER_02And so how does his bisexuality figure into the story?
SPEAKER_00Does it or um well it does just because it informs his character? Um and they do there is um scenes where well I'm I'm trying to figure out how to put this without giving too much away, I guess. But there's there are there is an orgy scene. And um there he they are both kind of with people in that scene, you know, there's people of all different genders. Um and so you know, I think his bisexuality informs his character, it's who he is, um, it informs his art, which they talk a lot about. Um, and then you do see it in terms of you know who he is, who's friends with, what his life looks like. Um, and he also on page uh you know is with other people as is she, but they all together, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I I know that sometimes a criticism with like bisexual characters is that they're say they're bisexual, but then there's no evidence that they've actually had a homosexual relationship, you know, that it they're sort of basically had just saying they're by.
SPEAKER_00Right. But I think it's important to show um, you know, I think it's important to show characters who are bisexual or pansexual or or whatever, and the story not necessarily be about that. That's just who they are. Um, is very much like that. She's bisexual, um, and it informs who she is, and it's important. Um even though it's you know, there's she's with a man in the book. Um, I think it's important to show those relationships.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thank you for having me. It was really fun. Yeah, yeah, we enjoyed it. And um, I'll remind everyone out there that first cup of coffee is part of the Frolic Media Podcast Network, and you'll find other podcasts you love at frolic.media slash podcasts. And we've been talking with Erin McClellan with and her new release just in June was, or I guess we're still in June, right? A couple weeks ago was Bottle Rocket, and we will have links in the show notes. And thanks again so much for being here, Erin. Thank you. All right, everyone, take care, and bye bye.