DL White [00:00:00]:

Does anybody know what it means when you have a dream that you have a sink full of dishes and you got, like, your hot soapy water?

DL White [00:00:09]:

My mom puts a little bleach in.

DL White [00:00:11]:

Her dishwater, so got like a little scent of bleach wafting up from the bubbles and you're just washing dishes and washing dishes and washing dishes, and you never see the bottom of the sink. And then you make yourself wake up because then it's kind of like a nightmare of never ending dishes. Does that mean something? My dreams always mean something. My dreams are always my subconscious talking to me.

DL White [00:00:34]:

And so what does that mean?

DL White [00:00:40]:

My sink, my real life sink is empty.

DL White [00:00:42]:

It's currently empty.

DL White [00:00:44]:

And yesterday I did laundry and actually folded the clothes and put them away. Maybe the dream is about my writing.

DL White [00:00:52]:

I don't know.

DL White [00:00:54]:

Welcome. Sometimes it's like, yeah, I don't know. I feel like I'm being more and more myself on this podcast, and it's dangerous because I'm a very unserious person.

DL White [00:01:16]:

Very.

DL White [00:01:18]:

Welcome back to the bookcast. This is my platform for sharing short fiction and updates on what I'm reading and writing. This is episode 44. I am DL. White, Atlanta based author of Eleven, working on number twelve, but eleven contemporary, southern, and romantic fiction novels featuring black men and women. I am also a big fan of books, so we usually begin with the book report and then we talk about writing. I'm currently working on a Black Diamond novella, and we'll get into that in a few minutes. If you're new here or a seasoned listener, a bibliophile, or just looking for a good read, I hope you'll enjoy today's show. I'm so happy to have your ears for this time, and I am excited to share my love of reading and writing books with you. Writing. Yes, we are writing.

DL White [00:02:10]:

Writing.

DL White [00:02:12]:

If you want to show your support for this podcast or for me as an author, you're most welcome to do so. Thank you so much. To my first monthly supporter, Karen the Reader.

DL White [00:02:20]:

Hey, girl. Hey.

DL White [00:02:21]:

Thank you. I have one monthly tier at the moment. It's all I can handle. It's all I can handle. It's a $5 show of support. It does not currently have any rewards attached to it, but I'm thinking ahead on how I want to build a benefit into that level of support. Like a bonus, a supporters only episode, maybe a monthly chat, early access to upcoming work, et cetera. If you would like to show support, please visit my support side@buymeaccoffee.com. Booksbydlwhite. You can offer a one time or recurring gift and you can cancel at any time. The other way you can show support is to buy the books. That makes so much sense. Buy the books. Booksbydlwhite.com books has all of the good stuff. My titles are available in ebook wherever they're sold. Amazon, Barnes and Noble. Nook Apple Books, kobo Books or direct from me. I distribute through Bookfunnel, which is a super handy app. You can go to payhip.com Booksbydlwhite to put your eyes on all the goods. They're also available on subscription sites like scribbed and Kobo Plus. Let me tell you, I dug into Kobo Plus this weekend and it is indeed going to be a game changer. I added some books that I didn't have access to on script and aren't at my library, so yahoo. So they're available also to request at your local library. And please do let me know if you request them at your library and you're notified that they are added to circulation. I love seeing that libraries buy books, so request my books at your local library. I keep them pretty cheap, so select titles are also available in print and audio directly from Me@payhip.com booksbydlwhite. I should also add that they are available in ebook and audio at Kobo Books. If you subscribe to Kobo Plus, you get pretty much unlimited ebooks and audio, so you should definitely look into that. If you order a print title, I will throw in a little bit of free swag, whatever I have stashed away.

DL White [00:04:27]:

From my good friends of the book today.

DL White [00:04:30]:

We will start with the book report. As always. Then I want to talk about progress on Elysium, my black diamond. Black diamond?

DL White [00:04:37]:

Novella.

DL White [00:04:39]:

I am on vacation, so I'm chilling. So no rants this week. Keep that blood pressure down, man. Keep that blood pressure down. Today is Saturday, May 27. It is 08:41 a.m.

DL White [00:04:50]:

I'm early this week.

DL White [00:04:51]:

It is a sunny day in the.

DL White [00:04:53]:

A. I have a microphone and I.

DL White [00:04:57]:

Am ready to dig in. But first, coffee. Okay, that is really good stuff. It is nice and hot and sweet and creamy. I need to finish so that it will still be hot when I am.

DL White [00:05:23]:

Ready to drink it.

DL White [00:05:25]:

So we begin, as always, with the Book report.

DL White [00:05:27]:

Because I am a book head, I.

DL White [00:05:29]:

Have read 71 books of my challenge. To read 100 books this year, it's pretty on par for me. I usually hit 100 around September ish maybe late September, mid to late September, and then I like to see how far above 100 I can get. One year I hit. I think last year I tried to do 150 and I was just dragging myself to that finish line. I don't want to work that hard.

DL White [00:05:58]:

To hit a goal, so 100 is.

DL White [00:06:02]:

A good number for me, and then I just like to see how far above 100 I can get. Like 130 is probably a really good goal for me this year, so we'll see if I can hit it. But I'm just going to leave it at 100 until it's quite obvious that I'm going to read way more than that. I'm 31 books ahead on my goodreads challenge. Yes, 31 books ahead.

DL White [00:06:23]:

Can't stop, won't stop. I just be reading.

DL White [00:06:26]:

I know a lot of people ask like, how do you do that? How do you do that? I don't have a life. How many times I have to tell you all? It's just me and these instinct bobbleheads in this room.

DL White [00:06:37]:

I just be reading.

DL White [00:06:38]:

I read all the time. I get up and I turn on a podcast or a book, and I listen to a book or a podcast in the morning. And even if I'm reading a Kindle book, I ask Siri or I ask my Kindle app thing to read it aloud to me. I might read along. I might just be listening. It's just me in this room doing typey typey things. My hands have to be busy and I love to have something to listen to while I work. So that's how I'd be doing that. This week I finished the remnants of Love Left Behind, a Ganton Hills romance standalone by Aubrey Pin. I also finished before the dawn by Beverly Jenkins. I'm still in my Beverly Jenkins reread era. And then I decided that I needed some inspiration because, as you all know, I have been digging deep into Robert Dugoni, and I have read nine crime fiction novels in a row. And I said, you know what, SIS? You probably need to get into some romance if you're reading a romance, because it's real hard to be thinking about lovey gooey, gushy stuff when you're wondering what happened to the murdered girl from that last book that you read. So get into some romance, right? So I asked for recommendations on Twitter for black romances. Blackity, black you. So black books where the couple meets online. They have a long distance relationship. That's the mood that I want to get into. I got a lot of great wrecks, and I will link to them in the show notes. It's a Twitter thread. So I got a lot of great wrecks. I have a lot of books to dig through. I'm looking for inspiration. I'm looking for books to give me ideas. I am not looking to copy anybody's work. I am looking for books that are like, okay, they talked about that while they were chatting online, or this is how it was when they first met. How can I create that kind of emotion? How can I set this kind of mood? How can I bring my characters to a similar brink?

DL White [00:08:46]:

That's where I'm going.

DL White [00:08:47]:

So I got a lot of wrecks. And I started with anonymous acts by Christina C. Jones. Features a couple that met online in.

DL White [00:08:55]:

A chat room and then a book.

DL White [00:08:58]:

Called Fucking Fall in Love. Friends and Lovers Number One by Nicole Falls. They met when the heroine was out of town, and they end up having a long distance relationship. Both were good reads, so I was very happy with that. So there was four books that I read this week. This week I am reading A Chance at Love by Beverly Jenkins. I am already loving it. Loving it. And then I'm going to read The Neighbor Favor, which is a book by Christina Forrest, which also was recommended to me in my rec thread about couples who have a long distance relationship or meet online. I'm very excited about that. Both of those. I'm going to do audio.

DL White [00:09:43]:

So the writing update is that I'm writing.

DL White [00:09:49]:

Yeah. So that's it. Thanks for joining me for this week of the book cast. I'm kidding, I'm writing. I am making progress. My brain is braining. The characters are talking. They're in my mind, they're talking. They're revealing traits and details. The more that I go over and over the chapters, I do not know how many words I wrote this week. I don't count words. I count chapters. I do count words. Like at the end of each session, I'll usually be like, hey, I wrote 1300 words, I wrote 1100 words. But I don't count them up, like for the week. So I don't know how many words I wrote this week because I will write 1100 and then delete 9000. So I don't know. I count chapters and I have made it to chapter four. My process is a lot of one step up and two steps back, which probably annoys a lot of writers. But it is my process. It is how I work. There is a big rule that you're not supposed to edit as you go. You just type, type, keep going forward, keep moving, keep going, nothing to see here. That's not how I work. Because for me, having to go back and fix something in chapter one, like, well, after I have hit, like, chapter 26 sounds like torture to me. I would rather fix it while I'm thinking about it. Like everything from chapter one through chapter four needs to be set because that's what's going to feed chapter 5678. Everything builds on each other for me. So everything has to flow. So I will typically, when I open up my document, go back to the last chapter that I wrote because the last chapter is always going to be like something I just tossed up there like words on page. They don't even make sense. Just words. It's just like a skeleton of a chapter. Then I need to think about it. How do I want to enhance it? What am I trying to say? What is important in the scene? What's the goal of the scene? What are the emotions I'm trying to bring out? How do I bring all of the senses, the feelings, the emotions into this chapter?

DL White [00:11:45]:

And that's when the creative things start happening.

DL White [00:11:51]:

So then I might sit back. So since I just started chapter four, it's really like just piecemeal action. I'm just trying to move the story forward. But I'm going to go back to chapter three and kind of shore up some things that I've been thinking about. Add words, delete words, and then I'm ready to move on to chapter four. Smooth it out, add more detail, add more scenes, really get that to a point where I have accomplished the goal of that chapter, and I am ready to bridge to the chapter after that. And then I'm just going to throw some words on the page, get me a skeleton of chapter five, just kind.

DL White [00:12:32]:

Of bridge the gap there, really think.

DL White [00:12:34]:

About what I've got. And then the next time I open my dock, I might go back to chapter three, fix a couple of things, really dig into chapter four, make sure it's what I want, and then slide into chapter five and get it working. That process probably drives a lot of writers crazy. And let me just tell you something. I don't care.

DL White [00:13:00]:

I don't care.

DL White [00:13:01]:

That's how I work. That's how it has to work for me. That is how I've written every book. I've written eleven books now. I think it kind of works for me. So that's where we're going. So I'm almost to the point where Vance and Athena are ready to meet in person. That's really what I'm focusing on right now. And I have this kind of moment in Hay Lover that really had me at a standstill for weeks, where two people that had split some time ago, they meet up again years later, and like, what is that moment.

DL White [00:13:35]:

When you.

DL White [00:13:35]:

See a person that you haven't seen in a long time? And there's obviously residual care, there's residual feelings, there might be hurt, there might be anger, but there's also curiosity about that person. Who are they now? Where have they been for the last however many X years? What's that moment when they first see each other? What is that moment going to be like? Bance and Athena met online. They have not yet met. And so that moment when they meet each other, like, it has to be right. And I know I'm not going to hit it. I'm not going to hit those notes the first time I write that chapter. But I want to give it, like, a sense. I need something to build on. And so that's what I'm working on. That moment that they meet, how do I involve all of the senses, bring all the feelings to the forefront, put them into words and convey that on the page? Writing is hard. Writing is hard. So that's where I am. That's what I'm working on. So I noted earlier I'm on vacation, so I've been trying to spend a lot of time reading for inspiration, trying to relax, like, put my brain into relax mode and not work like a dog mode. I'm hoping to get Vance and Athena, at least to the island before I hit the writing challenge so that I can put all those words during the word makers challenge, I can put all those words towards writing a romantic three day vacation for my couple. So I'm kind of excited about that. But I did roll into chat GPT and ask it to plan me a.

DL White [00:15:28]:

Romantic beachfront, four day, three night itinerary.

DL White [00:15:37]:

For a vacation, so I have lots of ideas to jump off of to bring into my document. So we'll see where I end up. But that's the plan. Cross your fingers, wish me good luck. Good writing vibes and lots of skittles. I'm kind of excited to get to what I call the point of no return, which is where I know I'm deep in the book and I can't stop and I see the light at the end of the tunnel and I know the book is going to happen because that's when I can start sharing, like, visuals and sample Sundays. And maybe if I get some more people who want to be a part of the supporters group, maybe I will start sharing some exclusive snips in there before anybody else gets them. So kind of excited about that.

DL White [00:16:33]:

I guess.

DL White [00:16:33]:

There's another nudge to go to. Buymeaccoffee.com and show me some love. Give us a love offering. Show some support. I only have one tier. It's a $5 tier.

DL White [00:16:49]:

Moving on.

DL White [00:16:50]:

In person appearances almost never happens unless it's local.

DL White [00:16:55]:

I don't really do book sales.

DL White [00:17:00]:

What do they call them? Book appearances. I don't really do them unless they are local because they can't afford to fly me and my books anywhere to lose money. Unfortunately, that's a decision that I had to make for myself some time ago. So unless they are like in driving distance, I'm not going. I am making an exception for the Resist Booksellers grant opening on June 17. It's in Petersburg, Virginia, which is a suburb of Richmond. If you are in the area on June 17, which is June 10 weekend, please come on out to the grand opening. It's going to be a really great time. I am looking forward to meeting some authors that I absolutely stand in person. Black fantasy author C. M. Lockhart will be there. Romance author Danielle Allen will be there. My favorite podcaster, Audrey Russell with between the Reads and Staying on Code will be there. I know there are some people that are coming to peruse the store to proverbially break the champagne bottle over the bow of that ship. I don't know where that visual came from, but it's a good luck thing. So I'm excited. It's going to be like a little reunion. I haven't seen Demetrius who owns Resist Booksellers since year before last. I spent my birthday up in the DC area. We had a really great lunch and such a great talk. So hoping to see a lot of good people. It's going to be a great time. I am really looking forward to being in the building. So if you are in the area or can get to the area, I implore you to please come out. I will be slanging books, so come on out. You can buy some books and I will sign them really super looking forward to that. Well, it's a short one today. Look at me in, like, under 30 minutes. That brings us to the end of today's episode. Thank you for joining me for another episode of the book cast. I'll be back next week with a reading update and a writing update because I am on vacation, and, yes, I am writing. Right week. Please enjoy this weekend, have a superlative week, and we'll chat again next weekend. Bye bye.