Where I Left Off

Calm Before the Score with Author Kort Combe

• Kristen Bahls • Season 2 • Episode 33

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Thanks to young adult author Kort Combe for joining me to talk about Calm Before the Score. We cover all things Ryan and Violet, her plans for the series as a whole, what she's reading, and more!

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A special thanks to our sponsor, Aliah Wright, the author of Now You Owe Me.


For links to the books discussed in this episode, click the link here to take you to the Google Doc to view the list.

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Speaker 1:

Today's episode of when I Left Off is brought to you by the new novel Now you Owe Me, Written by debut author Aaliyah Wright. Now you Owe Me is the tale of twin serial killers, Ben and Carinthia, who spend years abducting college co-eds. Racked with guilt, they vow to take their last victim till one night they snatch the wrong one. Read why Library Journal recommends this riveting debut for fans of Tana French, Gillian Flynn and Karen Slaughter. Pick up your copy wherever books are sold and, if you love it, I Left Off a bookish podcast, and today I'm joined by young adult author of Calm Before the Score, Court Combe. Thank you so much for joining me today, Court.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here with you.

Speaker 1:

Me too. So the first thing that I always ask everyone that comes on is what are you currently reading right now? If you're reading because you're not writing, I'm always reading, I'm always reading.

Speaker 2:

I'm a really fast reader and I like to like power through stories. So I just finished the Seattle Scorpion series by Ruth Stilling. I'm absolutely obsessed. Anything sports romance I usually love. I haven't heard of it. What sport is it? Oh my gosh, it's amazing. I like it because the main characters are in their like mid to late thirties, so it's a little different. So it's a professional hockey book series and her writing is really good. I love Insta love and about all of her male main characters are like boy obsessed Insta love. So I'm just eating it up and she has a new book coming out soon, so I'm really excited about that too oh, I'm adding that to my tbr.

Speaker 1:

That sounds really good. I like older main characters.

Speaker 2:

That's really nice me too because I don't see a lot of books that have that true. So that's why I was really excited when I saw it, and I like that. They always. They're always telling each other you're so immature, and blah, blah, blah. I love it. I think her writing is really good too Nice.

Speaker 1:

I was going to say, yeah, especially in sports romance, you really see a lot of younger trends over older for sure. But yay, that's cool, I'll definitely add those to my TBR. Have you always been a reader or did you come on to it later in life?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I've always been a reader. I started when I was really young, but my most like prolific memory is Twilight, yep, and like fantasy was where I lived. The dystopian books, hunger Games, divergent I love those and me and my mom would like read them together and we'd go to the midnight releases of the movies. But then when I got to college I kind of stopped. And then when I graduated from college and I spent of stopped, and then when I graduated from college and I spent some years, you know, in my career, I was like I really want to get back into reading. It was relaxing to me, and so that's when I started reading sports romances. And the book that really got me back into reading was the deal by Elle Kennedy, obsessed with her, obsessed with that series, and when I read it I'm like, oh my gosh, I need more, more, more. So that kind of started my obsession with romance nice.

Speaker 1:

The maze runner is also a really good dystopian series. If you haven't read those, oh my gosh those were so fun.

Speaker 2:

I have not. I've seen the movie, I believe, but I have not. But I kind of shifted, shifted from fantasy, fantasy and now I'm kind of in just romance contemporary romance, and I was going to say with sports romance.

Speaker 1:

It still has kind of some of the action that fantasy has, but it has romance, of course, at its center, which is kind of a nice like marriage of the two. Yes, absolutely. So what can you tell us about your current work in progress? And if we read the first book then we may be familiar with these characters?

Speaker 2:

Right. Okay, I'm so excited about my work in progress. This story, if you read Calm Before the Score, the second book follows Hartley and Liza and Hartley's dynamic is kind of interesting with Violet from book one. I mean I did that on purpose, but I'm really excited to dive into their story with readers. I'm in the editing phase right now but their story is completely different than what I ever imagined, like I had this idea for them, but it's okay.

Speaker 2:

I've seen like Jessa Hastings talk about this and like all kinds of other authors, but I didn't really know what they meant until I started writing. But when you get on that Google docs, it's like your characters just take over and they make it what they want it to be, which is insane, because I had this idea for them and I wanted their story to be super chaotic, maybe a little toxic back and forth, and that's really not what it is at all, but it's perfectly them. So I'm really excited about their story. I think that it's a little different than Calm Before the Score. It's a little lighter. There's not as much heavy topics discussed, but it's a lighter read and I think it's it's a little fun. So I think the readers will like it. I hope yay.

Speaker 1:

I'm excited for it and especially kind of going more on what the characters are taking you on that journey. I think it makes it just more representative of them. So that'll be really awesome to hear their story. I like how it's a little bit different. So that way, if you liked Calm Before the Score, you know that you're not going to get the same thing, but you'll get something else, and then maybe some people will even like Liza and Hartley's book better. I don't know. I really liked Liza and Hartley and the first one, so I think that I'm very interested in their story and I think that it may end up being my new favorite.

Speaker 2:

I'm obsessed with them and when I I didn't even, honestly, I went into calm before the score with zero plan, zero expectation. Like I just started writing it. I don't draw. Like I don't put out, I don't even know what it's called. Like planning, I don't do any, I just get on my computer and start writing. It's so chaotic, I don't plan it out, I just let it be what it is.

Speaker 2:

But I became really obsessed with them while writing the first book and I felt like their characters really came to life on their own. So I'm excited about how their story's turning out and they're. They're both a little different than what you would think from the outside. So I'm excited about them and I can't wait for you to read it and everyone else to read. Do you have a pub date set? I do not. I do not. I get very overeager and overexcited and a lot of my author friends who beta, read for me and critique for me, they know this is like my toxic trait. I get super excited and overeager and I just want to go, go, go, put it out, let me put it out, and I have to be reined in a little bit. So I don't have a date yet, but I'm hoping to have one out soon.

Speaker 1:

Okay, awesome, and I'm sure with editing it's hard, because it's like if you get into it and you realize you want to rework things, obviously some things could take more time than others, so it seems like it'd just be impossible. I don't know how authors set like pub days so far in advance, just because I feel like anything just happens when you least expect it.

Speaker 2:

It's really hard to do that, and then you also have to account for like art, greeds and putting your graphics out there, which that's one of my favorite parts of it is like creating content for my book and picking out the quotes that I think readers would like. I think the hardest part about this book that I didn't have the struggle with in the first book was weaving the timelines together, because my work in progress flame after the fumble. It starts before Violet and Ryan story. Oh, wow, okay, yeah, it does, but there's, there's might. There may or may not be a time hop. I'm working through that, but it's hard for me to weave their stories in and make sure it makes sense and does justice to call before the score but also not just retelling their story. You do get snippets of them before and you get snippets of them during, from different perspectives, and then after. So I think that was the that has been the most difficult part is like making it make sense but also giving them their story from a different perspective.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can see that being really difficult to try to weave both of those and remember I mean you can reread, but still trying to like right from that point of this is exactly where they were in this point, and then trying to time hop it and now make it completely different where they're grown to a totally different spot.

Speaker 2:

And at one point I had both of my documents up and I'm like, okay, this is where Liza and Hartley are at this time, this is where Ryan and Violet are at this time. Let's make it make sense. But I think it's going to be really fun to see it and to see more of Ryan's kind of grumpiness come out before he meets Violet with Hartley and his playfulness. So that's been kind of fun to writing him before all of it happens.

Speaker 1:

And in the like, once they switch to more like after the time hop into the current timeline, do we still get a lot of Ryan and Violet because they're so close with Liza and Hartley?

Speaker 2:

yeah, okay yeah, yeah, you do. And um, there's gonna be. There's two more characters. Mason was introduced in book one quarterback, but he has a bigger role in this book, and then we have another female character introduced, emberly, so that the friend group is built a little bit more in book. Two is what I'm hoping, and then I'm kind of setting up book three, hopefully, yay.

Speaker 1:

Do you know how many books you want to be in the series? I want it to be three. Nice, a perfect trilogy.

Speaker 2:

But who knows, like my characters may tell me there's another story and I will write it if it is.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. I can't wait to see it when it's all out. But obviously take your time. I know that editing and all that stuff is really difficult and writing it is just like the first little piece of the puzzle, for sure.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1:

I'm having fun. Yay, a little bit more about Calm Before the Score. So what inspired the overall storyline and did you always kind of see it as being a series, or did that evolve as you started writing the first book?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I just had this idea for Calm Before the Score. I always love, love to write, write down, journaling and just throughout high school and as I became an adult, got into journaling and I always just wanted to create a story and I've had different kind of stories come to me over the years that this one seemed very powerful and impactful with the themes that I kind of imagined it to be in my head and I just decided one day, you know, I'm going to do it, I'm not going to let fear stop me, because it's scary putting your work out into the world and opening up to judgment and opinions and you know everyone has their own opinion but it is scary putting your, like your baby, out into the world. But it came to me and I just I wrote it down and it has been a self taught process For me. I've had a lot of help from author friends that I've met along the way. They have been so amazing to me and so helpful and like I found friends for life through them.

Speaker 2:

But just self-taught and with the help of a lot of really good friends, I did it and the idea, just it honestly just came to me. Violet has a lot of me in her Ryan. I just really wanted to create this broken character that had this redemption story. So that's where the idea came from him and I, I love him. Like I, I love him. He is the best.

Speaker 1:

Well, he's the worst sometimes, but he's the best to say he figures it out over the course of the story eventually, right.

Speaker 2:

Right, and he and I wanted to make sure that I stayed true to the ages of the characters, so getting in the mindset of like an 18 or 19, even 20, 21 year old and the decisions that they make, not me as a 28 year old, but bringing myself back years prior, to how I was thinking in college or how I was thinking when I was a young adult, and making those rash decisions. Sometimes that could cost you. So that's how I. I wanted Ryan to be more so as like impulsive, or just making decisions that weren't the best, but he could redeem himself.

Speaker 1:

It just looked a little bit different when he had to learn what the consequences of his actions were.

Speaker 2:

not to spoil anything Well, yeah, and that's the biggest thing that my readers have told me is that they spoiler alert. I'm not going to give the ending, but they said that they liked that he had to face the consequences. Um, it seemed more realistic to them and I did want to be um, open and honest with that, like making him have to face consequences. It seemed more realistic to them and I did want to be open and honest with that, like making him have to face consequences. I wanted it to be very realistic for the reader and not just this world where he didn't have any consequences for his actions.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, cause I didn't even think. I guess, technically, you know, something could have happened where I don't know. They said you're fine, don't worry about it, and definitely did. Did not happen.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, and that was a big thing for me, like I really wanted to follow through with. This was your decision, this is what you're going to, and I wanted him to kind of have to dig himself out of that and figure out what am I going to do with my life now? How am I going to put everything back together? And that's actually one of my favorite parts of the book.

Speaker 1:

And of course he has his friend group and Violet to kind of help him pick up the pieces. So did the main characters, did Ryan or Violet, surprise you as you were writing, and did they take the story in any unexpected directions?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think I had just this loose idea for what I wanted them to be and I wasn't really. The only thing I was really set in stone with Violet on was I wanted her to have some mental health representation, because that's really important to me and I knew I wanted Ryan to be this broken character with a redemption story. But as far as them taking me in different directions, I don't think I had really a set direction for them, besides knowing that he had to face his consequences. So I kind of just let the story go as it pleased. And of course, the first draft is nothing like the draft that's out now. It's completely different, but it did pleasantly surprise me where they brought me.

Speaker 2:

Um, how many drafts did the book go through? Yeah, so I wrote the first draft and then me not really knowing anything about anything at this point, a lot of my author friends read it for me, beta read it. I had to have a lot of changes on plot holes and things that I had to go back and redo chapters upon chapters that didn't make sense or there wasn't enough feeling and emotion. So I had quite a few beta readers read the story before I sent it off to editing. Just after a beta reads it, I kind of reevaluate and go back from the top and make sure, then send it off to the next one and everyone has a really good perspective, like I. Like getting author perspectives, reader perspectives, people that don't read the genre, people that do, just to see where it takes the editing, and that's what I'm looking to improve on on this book. I'm looking to get more, more eyes on it beforehand and more different perspectives, and it's been really good so far.

Speaker 1:

Nice, I was going to say, yeah, I'm sure that it really helps to have that feedback and, of course, everything is harder than you think it is Like as a reader, you're like oh. I'll just read the story and I can pick things that I don't like, but then when you're actually writing it, it's like oh, that's not as easy as you would think it is.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and some. I guess my biggest weakness too, I find, is that I think I'm writing something that's in my head and then when I, when a friend reads it, or when a beta reader reads it, they're like I don't know what you're trying to say. I said oh well, it was in my head, I just didn't put it down on the paper. So sometimes we think we're typing it out exactly how it appears in our head, and that's just not the case. So having another set of eyes and many sets of eyes definitely helps me go back and edit, or how did you find some of your beta readers?

Speaker 1:

Was it kind of all through Instagram?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, most of it's through Instagram. I do have one author friend that I met her through reading her books and we just became friends and you know we text every day and she was the main person that was really helping me through this process and my main beta reader. And then I kind of met some readers through her and through Instagram. But I have really loved this community, this bookstagram community, like everyone has just been so helpful and so loving and welcoming and I just feel like it's a great community to be a part of. Every but honestly, everybody I've met on this community has just been really really helpful and sweet. So that's good.

Speaker 1:

I agree it's nice that you can find kind of a common thread, like books, to connect people that you probably never would have met everyone any other way and now you just get your people.

Speaker 2:

Right, and we don't live anywhere near each other. We meet people from around the world, around the country, so it's been really fun.

Speaker 1:

So with Violet and Ryan, how did the characters college lives kind of shape their challenges and their journey throughout the story?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I wrote Violet, primarily coming in and really needing the support of Hartley, her best friend, and I wanted her to be kind of unsure, not really having a certain direction, but just wicked smart, has so much ability but doesn't really see it in herself. So I wanted that to be kind of her story like finding herself and having this person that's there to protect her and show her, because she doesn't really have many role models in her life from where she has come from. So I kind of wanted that to be her journey like more self-discovery of who she is and what she wants out of life. And then Ryan coming in with all these responsibilities. He has the weight of the world on his shoulders but not really trusting or wanting to put his life in other people's hands. So kind of the polar opposite, like Violet really needing a lot of support, ryan needing support but not seeking out help or support from others, and I do know which.

Speaker 2:

I didn't plan that this was. This is kind of an insta love story. I didn't plan it that way but I felt that with them they needed an insta-love because they needed to grow their relationship and then it has to just tumble down seismically and I needed time for that. So that's why they kind of fall into each other immediately.

Speaker 1:

That makes sense, and I think it also was kind of indicative of their ages, because Violet's a little bit younger and she's just getting into college, versus Ryan's been here a second and he kind of has his responsibilities and his structure kind of laid out a little bit better.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and I wanted to stay true to their ages, like I said, and that's kind of a hard mindset to get into because, you know, late twenties is what I'm right now and going back to like what, what would an 18 year old do, what would a 19 year old do? And that was a little tricky, but hopefully I did them justice with their age. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I think you did. What is your favorite moment between Violet and Ryan in the book?

Speaker 2:

Oh my goodness, there's so many, but I think my favorite is their first kiss at the party. My favorite is their first kiss at the party. The party scene is so college, so chaotic, so ridiculous, that I love it so much. Like, I love the angst from across the room, like is he looking at me? What you know? I like that whole dynamic, um, and then layers right Like Hartley's there and he's not wanting her to be with Ryan, and just the whole truth or dare thing. I love like I ate it up as I was writing it. That was like my favorite part to write and just so not Ryan's character, so I wanted him to jump out of his comfort zone in the moment and then kind of go back and say like who was I?

Speaker 2:

And like what made me do that. So I think that was my favorite part because he did something he wasn't accustomed to, Like he doesn't put himself out there. And then Violet's kind of like I'm not used to being the center of attention, what is happening. So I really liked that part. But I also like Christmas when they went back home and we meet Ryan's mom, who is just the best. I love her, Just kind of gives both of them some comfort and I think she's kind of an integral part in the story in a small way, but she's very powerful.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, especially for Violet, who needs a little bit of that too, not just Ryan.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I wanted Ryan's mom to be more pushing him to be his own person, like don't worry about me, don't? And that's hard for a child to not want to worry about their parent. But I wanted her to to really not be dependent on him, to really want to push him to have his own life, and Violet was this perfect opportunity for him to do just that.

Speaker 1:

And why did you decide that Ryan would be a football player instead of a different sport? What kind of drew you to football?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so my favorite type of romance to read is hockey, and I literally know nothing about hockey like not a thing. I'm from Louisiana. My husband actually brought me to my first hockey game this past year because, you know, I was reading all these hockey books and it was just fun. But I know a lot about football. Um, it's something that my dad and I watched my whole life. I love national football league, like college football, so it's something that I had a lot of experience with and ideas to you know, really know about the game and to write some of those play parts, and I didn't want to come across as she doesn't know what she's talking about. So I thought football would be perfect because I know a lot about football.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thank you for putting some football in the sports romance, cause you know we've all read those that, like they, they might be holding a basketball on the cover but they're never actually playing basketball and it's, yeah, like I'm'm a basketball player. But there was no basketball. There was one I was just reading, where he was like I just came back from practice and the whole thing like to place in a library. I love it. I love it. He's always just coming back from practice. He never. We never get to see it, it's just we go love it.

Speaker 2:

And the thing about me, too, is like I am so easy to please when I read a book, like I'm a chronic five-star reader. I, I love it, like I literally love everything I read, and I think it's because I read for just relaxation and enjoyment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so any book I read, I'm like it's the best book ever so my friends are kind of like Courtney, is it really the best book ever, or do you just like reading? But yeah, so I'm a chronic five-star girl because I just love reading and anything and I know how much work goes into it. Yeah, you know what, girl, I'm giving you five stars because I know how hard this was.

Speaker 1:

I know. If you could make me enjoy the book throughout, then why am I finding reasons to not give you? Exactly, that's me, that's how I am. So who is your favorite secondary character in the book? It's probably impossible to pick one.

Speaker 2:

Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2:

Um, I think I have to say Hartley, because he is so protective over Violet and I know some people really like that and some people don't.

Speaker 2:

Um, it's a preference, but I wanted to make it super clear that he wasn't the love interest that Violet and him had, just a platonic relationship. I wanted him to be more like a father figure or like an older brother type character and I really love his character in the book because, as you'll see in book two he's battling some things behind the scenes but he still shows up for her and he knows exactly what she needs. And I kind of like the gradual release of like Ryan's got this, like I don't have to be so over the top with her, like I don't have to worry. And I feel like in book two I showed that a little bit more with so far I showed a little bit more with um, hartley's internal thoughts about how he starts to see that Ryan's got it. You know he sees how Ryan responds to certain situations with Violet and I I like his character being so rough around the edges but just tender-hearted inside. So I think he's probably my favorite.

Speaker 1:

But again, so hard, yeah, and I mean I'm sure we all wish that we could have a friend like Hartley that cares so much I mean, ultimately he's so overprotective because he just really cares for Violet and they've been through a lot and to have someone that you know is always going to look out for you and have your back is just, I think, a really nice, really nice quality to having a friend, even if sometimes they're a little bit too overprotective.

Speaker 2:

Oh, he's over, he is so over the top. So yeah, and at some points I'm like, okay, he is so and and he is he's a lot. And he looked to he even says like I'm a lot, I'm a lot for people, and he is he's over the top, he's crazy. But I think his intentions are really good and really pure and that's why I really I like him as a character.

Speaker 1:

Me too. What was your approach to kind of developing a story that really resonates with both the young adult readers and fans of romance? Because I feel like that would almost be more difficult to write a young adult romance versus contemporary adult, where you can just anything kind of goes. It seems like Right yeah it was difficult.

Speaker 2:

I knew in the beginning I wanted to have a clean book with no cursing, no spice.

Speaker 2:

Just to stay true to myself, I read spicy books all the time, but as a writer I just wanted it to be my thing clean, no spice, just a wholesome story. But then it is difficult when you have these themes of mental health, representation, underage drinking, parent with illness. So there are these really dark at times and hard topics to address, but I still feel are important for all age levels. It's young adult, but I would say, like high school age could read this book and I always just refer my readers to check the trigger warnings and make sure that it's something that they would really be open to reading, because it's not a bubble gum story. It's not, you know, happy rainbows and butterflies. It. There's a lot of dark themes and there's a lot of things that are addressed that could be hard for some people to read and I totally understand that. Um, but I wanted to stay true to what I was really passionate about and still keep it wholesome and keep the integrity of who I am as a person and a writer.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I will say that.

Speaker 1:

Um, so I do both open and closed door romance recommendations and a lot of the readers that read specifically closed door are younger and they tell me, you know, I'm just not super comfortable with reading spice, and so then they have a lot of problems trying to find something where the characters are older and it's kind of more of a like young adult slash, new adult situation, but then it's not like super spicy, because they just want to read all the good books too, but they sometimes just don't want all of that spice, especially at their age.

Speaker 1:

This is not really what they want to read. I mean, of course, it depends on the reader, but I think that that makes it perfect for a lot of readers, especially listeners that I have, that can come to this book and not have to worry about the spice but still get characters that are in college and you still get the parties that are going on and the football aspect of it and all of those other things. Yeah, it doesn't feel like it's a closed door book in any way. It just doesn't have the spice.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and I really appreciate that because that's really what I was going for A more adult romance that has these, have these themes that are, you know, difficult to approach but very important, but also keep the angst and the the back and forth and the things that I love about books like Magnolia Parks, my favorite book ever, favorite series ever um, boys of Tommen series I really like. So keeping things that I, but toning it down with spice was important to me and you know, magnolia Park's series is like my favorite series ever.

Speaker 2:

I literally have a tattoo on my back with the Magnolia, yeah so, and that that series is not spicy at all. But you feel the angst and the tension and the relationship. So I always like to tell my, my followers and my readers, like, just because a book doesn't have spice doesn't mean it. It doesn't have those, those moments that you really live for between the characters. And that's what I was hoping to get across with my characters.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and especially without spice. Like the relationship is the central focus. You can't, when you can't add any spice in, you have to really focus on the relationship. So I do like that. About closed door books as well, yes. So last question how do you balance creating a self-contained story in book one while kind of trying to set the stage for book two and three?

Speaker 2:

Like I said, I went to book one with zero idea of what I was doing, to be honest with you, and my biggest I guess my biggest point of, or like, really important to me in book one was the mental health representation and as a person myself with anxiety and OCD, I wanted to show this side of Violet where you didn't get just the typical anxious character, the typical OCD character. I wanted to show the layers of it could look different with different people. So that's what I really hope to show in Violet's character and I really focused on that, like OCD can look different in a lot of different people. It doesn't have to be this set thing that we think it is and, um, that's kind of how I molded Violet, but I knew I want, as soon as I had Hartley and Liza come onto the scene, I knew they had to be love interests because they were so similar but different, and so I tried.

Speaker 2:

I honestly didn't think too much about setting up their story. I just let them have their moment, um. But as I was writing and writing book two, I'm trying to be more intentional about setting up Mason story, which is going to be book three, and really building those little points where we can see the start of a relationship or like maybe there's a backstory there, but one I wasn't intentional at all with it. But book two, I'm trying to be more strategic and intentional. What I, yeah, what I'm doing to help make book three a little bit easier, um, building their story.

Speaker 1:

That makes sense because, yeah, whatever you put in book two about him, you're gonna have to feel in book right three. And yeah, I'm sure that's hard to try to complete them as character arcs, even the secondary characters, but then know that you're going to have to take them in the next book and make them the central focus.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because I had to go back in book one. I'm like, wait, what did I say about Liza and Hartley? Like how is the? How am I going to move that? Because they changed a lot from what I originally wrote and I'm giving myself grace to change them.

Speaker 2:

I'm like you know what I can change them. People change, characters can change. But I do want to go back to some things that I put in book one. So it does make sense to the readers who fell in love with them in book one or really enjoyed their personality, but it is very difficult to see. Okay, this happened in this moment. Now, how would she feel it's? It's a tricky puzzle to put together, but it's fun at the same time, trying to trying to put them where they need to be and where I want them to go. It's, it's a fun time.

Speaker 1:

I was going to say, especially with writing characters that are in college, I'm sure it's a little bit easier to have them change because of course you know who you are. Freshman year of college is not who you are senior year of college at all.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and this book expands such a big timeline and that's tricky too, but I want to show a lot of growth from where they started to where they're going to be at the end, because we know, as you said, 19 year old college student is different than a 21 year old. A lot of growth happens. So I'm hoping to represent that in their book and I'm I'm really, really excited for where it's going. He's definitely a boy obsessed. I love boy obsessed and there's some funny moments in there too where we shake our head at him because he is who, he is Right, and so I'm excited to see where the editing takes me and where the final product is, and hoping to do justice to them, to people that really love them in book one. Well, yay, I can't wait to read it.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, and that's it for today. Thanks for listening to where I left off a bookish podcast. You can sign it for today. Thanks for listening to when I Left Off a bookish podcast. You can sign up for Court's newsletter, purchase her novels through the links in the show notes and also they are always available on Kindle Unlimited.