DL White [00:00:03]:

I was just this morning thinking about how I used to record this podcast on Friday afternoons after I had sort of shut down for the day. Fridays at the Beverage Giant are very quiet. Typically after about noon, there's not a whole lot going on. So I could like so of disappear or go gray as we say, a little time theft, if you will. But now I can't imagine it because I do some about an hour ish of prep, maybe an hour of prep for each episode. And I need my Friday nights now to gather my links and figure out what books I read. And Friday is my prep day. Now at night that I have to get up Saturday, make coffee, sit at this desk, wake up, make sure I have a voice.

DL White [00:00:58]:

And I don't sound like my voice is a gravel pit because it is early in the morning. But I like just like getting up and getting it done so that it's up and out in the world. My opening rambles. Good morning. Welcome back to The Bookcast, my platform for sharing short fiction and updates on what I'm reading and writing. This is episode 49. We're almost at 50 episodes, which is awesome. I feel accomplished.

DL White [00:01:34]:

I am DL. White. I am the author of 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, then we'll talk about writing. I will soon no longer be writing Elysium, a Black Diamond vacation romance. 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 am so happy to have your ears for this time and I'm excited to share my love of reading and writing books with you. You can show your support for this podcast or for me as an author by dropping by my support site.

DL White [00:02:17]:

It's buymeaccoffee.com booksbydlwhite. There you can offer a one time or recurring monthly gift and I am already most grateful for your support. The other way you can support is to buy my books. Today's the last day, technically the last day, but you have to schedule it out and so I'm never sure if it ends at midnight or is it like when does it end? So it's going to run a little bit over. But technically today is the last day of my sale on Leslie's Curl and Die. I put that on sale to be part of the Kobo 4 July Weekend sale. It was supposed to run through the 8th. I don't know if I made any sales at Kobo.

DL White [00:03:00]:

That community, the people that read on Kobo don't particularly like my books. I think a great many of them are in Canada and I think they just don't care. So I don't know if I actually made any sales at Kobo. According to Scribe Count, which is the software that I use to track my book sales. I didn't, but something could roll in, you never know. Anyway, you can grab it for ninety nine cents through today, possibly tomorrow. Wherever you pick up your ebooks. It's on sale at Amazon Barzanobal, Apple Books, Google Play, Kobo Books.

DL White [00:03:38]:

It is actually available in Kobo Plus. So if you subscribe to that program which is like Canola unlimited but it's not, it's Kobo. You can snatch it up there in ebook or audio. Speaking of audio, several of my audiobooks are on sale for 399 at select retailoutlets. Visit Booksbydlwhite.com audio sale to grab links for Barnes and Noble. Chirp, Google Play, Spotify and Apple books These books are not reduced at my website store or on Amazon. This is a great deal on audiobooks, but you do have to search in specific places to get them. Booksbydlwhite.com has all of the good stuff, including A Thin Line.

DL White [00:04:23]:

This is the second edition of this novel. This is one of the fanfiction stories that I wrote and decided to turn into a retail story. It is an enemies to lovers, a true enemies to lovers. Like they do not like each other one bit. A little bit of rivals to lover lovers as well because they are both attorneys and they go head to head for cases, but they are like relationship wise enemies. This is also a second chance romance. Angie and Preston dated in high school, broke up for a very dumb, petty reason, and then we're never really able to escape each other and sort of heal and grow and ridiculousness ensues until their friends decide that they are just tired of these two dancing around each other. Let me tell you about this book.

DL White [00:05:14]:

Angie Blake and Preston Reed are oil and water, fire and ice. Whether it's in the courtroom, whether always in opposition or in their personal lives, they don't mix. Nearly two decades have passed since they were high school sweethearts and split in an emotional firestorm. But their best friends are dating and now engaged, so they haven't had a moment's piece from each other and they won't get one. Since the soon to be newlyweds have roped Angie and Preston into planning their destination wedding, they've been tasked with organizing the most romantic, memorable event of their lives without tearing apart the lifelong. For some, Angie and Preston are wise to this game. This clever ploy to push them back together in the hopes that their long dead romance will rekindle couldn't possibly work, could it? There's a thin line between love and hate. This title is available in ebook and print at my website store booksbydlwhite.com, Books or payhip.com Booksbydlwhite.

DL White [00:06:12]:

You can buy my titles in ebook, select titles in print, select titles in audio directly from me@payhip.com. Booksbydlwhite. That puts the monies directly into my pocket with virtually no middleman taking 30% to 70% of the retail price. If you prefer to buy them retail. All my titles are available in ebook wherever they're sold. Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Nook.

DL White [00:06:36]:

Apple book. Kobo books. Google Play. They're also available via subscription sites like Script and Kobo Plus, and they are available to request at your local library and in print at Resist Booksellers. Grab a signed copy while they last. I did sign all of my stock at Resist while I was there for the grand opening, so snatch up a copy while you can. Today we will start with the book report, as always. Then I get to talk about progress on Elysium.

DL White [00:07:06]:

The end is near. Today is Saturday, July 8. The time is 08:19. A.m. It's a sunny day in Atlanta, or it will be a sunny day. The sun's not quite all the way up yet, but it appears that it's going to be a sunny day in Atlanta. I have a mic and I am ready to dig in. But first, please join me for coffee.

DL White [00:07:44]:

Hot, hot, hot, hot. We got a new, what you call it? The electric kettle that you plug in and you warm up the hot water. Our old one was like years and years old, but Rumi's cousin actually set it on the stove element, so it melted, so it wasn't working anymore. So my roommate got a new one, and this new one makes the water hot. It's very hot today. It hit my stomach like scalding. The coffee is hot today. We begin, as always, with the book report.

DL White [00:08:22]:

Because I am a bookhead. I have read 94 books of my challenge to read 150 books this year, I am 17 books ahead on my goodreads challenge. Can't stop, won't stop. Although this week was very lax with reading, it was a very full week with some days off. A lot of reading, a lot of editing. And then I jumped back into work on Wednesday, and it was a pretty full three days because we had those two days off. Well, I took Friday and Monday off. We had Tuesday off as a company, so the email stacks up.

DL White [00:09:03]:

I tried quite a few books that just didn't work for me. I did want to see what the whole Kendra Elliot Melinda Lee business was about, downloaded a book. I just could not get into it. So it was through kindle unlimited. So I just went ahead and returned it. I don't think I even marked it. Reading these days, I download a book and I start reading, but I don't add it to my profile until I know it's going to actually happen. And then I market currently reading because I am getting to so many books that just don't work for me.

DL White [00:09:37]:

Like, I just read the first chapter and it's a no. It doesn't grab me. It doesn't pull me in. I'm not enticed. I'm not interested. My attention span is zero. So at this moment, I'm kind of being very careful with my reading and what I take in and I don't want to waste my time. I'm well ahead of a goodreads challenge.

DL White [00:10:01]:

I don't have to read books, I read them because I enjoy them. So just being very choosy right now. That said, I only got in one book this week. I went back to an old fave because I need some comforts. I'm tired, I'm tired. I'm a bit burnt from being like heads down in this book for the past couple of months and I'm just kind of burnt. I need some distance from the book so that I can finish it. So I went back to an old fave snowflake by NIA Forrester.

DL White [00:10:38]:

It was excellent. I listened to it in audio. I feel like I heard the audio book before but I genuinely do not remember. I know I have read it at least twice, but still when I hear it in audio, I hear things that my eyes did not see when I read it. And to me that's the whole benefit of reading or listening to books in audio is because my hands are busy and my brain is busy listening, it doesn't have the opportunity to drift away. When I'm reading, my eyes bounce all over the page and I tend to skim more and I miss a lot and so audio really works so much better for me and I like it a little bit sped up and I know people like to pick on me about how fast I listen to audio. It's not like I'm listening at three X or anything unless the narrator is unbelievably slow in one X then I speed it up but I need it conversationally fast and I need my brain to be occupied by listening to this book, otherwise it will drift and I won't hear anything. Sometimes I'll be listening to podcasts and realize like 20 minutes have gone by and I wasn't listening at all because I was listening at one X and this is too slow for me.

DL White [00:12:04]:

So I speed it up a little bit and rewind go back. So I got one book in this week. I am currently reading Black Lace by Miss Beverly Jenkins. That is my next read in my Bev Jenkins personal reread challenge. I am also reading Queen of Exiles by Dr. Vanessa Riley. That book comes out July 11. I am not going to finish it before it comes out, but I am going to finish and get it reviewed and I am also like 20 ish percent into My Darkest Prayer by SA Cosby.

DL White [00:12:42]:

I just really enjoy his work, his prose, just the way he puts his stories together. It's hard for me to read a thriller when I am writing love stuff, so I've been piecemealing it, but I think I'm going to try to finish that one this week and I actually haven't started Black Lace yet. I need to start it because I would like to get that one complete this week as well. While I'm taking a smidge of a break away from my work in progress. Speaking of the writing update the end is near. The end is so near. I am at 58,915 of 65,000 words I have figuring what I have left to write. I'll probably come in between 65 and 70K.

DL White [00:13:32]:

But I do want to do some serious editing and paring down. So I hope to actually lose word count. I would always rather cut than have to add. So I write it full, I put in everything I want to put it in, and then I sort of like pare it down. Make the pros pretty shorten. The sentences go for good readability. I love to send it through Pro writing aid so it can tell me how I am an untalented hack. It's not really that bad, but it does tell me where all my passive sentences are when I start too many sentences with the same word.

DL White [00:14:09]:

When my sentences are too long and the wording is convoluted. But some of that is my voice. Some of it is just the way I tell stories. And so I'm just trying not to edit out my voice and edit out the fun of it. I also sometimes feel like I write raw the way I would love to publish it. And then I go back to edit and I'm like, I don't like how that came out. And so I edit it back to something that feels safe and then that's when I land in cute and sweet territory. And as I have said before, I'm trying to stay out of that.

DL White [00:14:49]:

But I don't want to build the expectation that this book is nasty, because it's not. But Vance and Athena's relationship began as a physical ish relationship. Like, they met online. And so a lot of it is description and talk and you do this and do this for me, and let me see you do that for me. So that was where their relationship, kind of sexual relationship began there. Like they were friends and moved into something more. But they haven't met before. I put them on the island in person and so everything that they did was online.

DL White [00:15:35]:

And so I have to set that foundation. Like that's where they live and that's the foundation that they build off of. So it is very most certainly for grown folks. But I don't want anyone to think that the book is like nasty or pornographic. It's not erotica, but it will be erotic, if that makes any sense. So, as I said, I'm hoping to lose some word count, but I don't want to lose my voice and I don't want to lose how forward I wanted to be in this novel. As a side note, I remember when I really started writing romance and incorporating love stories, and I first started writing them, there were certain words I could not type. I wrote around certain words, certain body parts, certain functions.

DL White [00:16:29]:

And it kind of became a game. Like how long I could get into a scene or a story without typing, like, certain words. And one of my readers, one of my friends, I call her Vera, her name is Eva she used to pick on me about it, and she would just send me emails with just one word. It would just be the D word. You all know what that is. And I think it was to maybe desensitize me to it and make me a little less embarrassed to type that. Now it doesn't even matter. I really had to get used to it to become comfortable with the verbiage and how people say things when they are in the throes of passion.

DL White [00:17:18]:

But I'm just remembering back to when I could not write an intimate scene. And now I write it and I send it off to a narrator and be like, okay, now when you're in this scene, just make sure that when he groans, it's more of like a guttural, like a deep sound. I just want to make sure the groans are good. And then in this scene right here, you can be super technical with it and very forward and direct, which is funny to me, thinking about where I used to be. I should tell Eva I was thinking about her. I'm going to reach out to her today. I see her on Twitter, but we haven't really talked in a long time. Anyhow.

DL White [00:18:05]:

I wrote a lot during the long weekend, and I got some good words in. I'm actually almost done. I think when we last spoke, I was trying to get my couple off of the island and they are now sufficiently and successfully off of the island. I'm really pleased with how this is coming together, even if I am simultaneously nervous about how it's going to go down. So my couple have had their blissful romantic vacation and both have made big decisions in their lives about what they're doing next and what they're doing as a couple. I'm excited for them. Like, they're real people. And I just have been thinking, like the last few books I've written have been about people who are at a point in their lives where things need to change.

DL White [00:19:00]:

I need to make a change. I need to grow, I need to pivot. I need to do something else. What am I going to do? How am I going to do it? How can I be successful at this? I don't want to write the same book over and over, but it seems like a really prevalent theme that I'm really enjoying, and maybe it's kind of prescient in my own life. I don't have any desire to change the kind of work that I do. I love the job. I love the company I work for. I have been on the team that I am on for almost three years.

DL White [00:19:38]:

And at the Beverage Giant, they do like you to move around. And so we just sort of went through a big reorg and I was safe. And the things that I'm doing in the now are things that are needed. I feel needed, I feel wanted, but I also feel a desire to kind of move on and step up. I had the opportunity to take that and decided, no, I'm going to wait and be strategic about it. And I feel like that's coming out a lot in my writing. But also when you're writing characters who aren't young, who aren't making big adult changes in their life, there's a difference between coming of age and hitting that middle age area of life and deciding like, okay, my youth is gone and I am established and maybe I have given of myself to a career and family and children and community and whatnot? And now it's time to do something for me. It is time to step into an arena where I can be a little bit selfish and I can be a little bit self centered and have concern for me, about me.

DL White [00:20:57]:

I just feel like that's where I am in my life and it's coming out a lot in my characters, in the stories that I want to tell. And I'm actually really enjoying it. I like writing people who aren't deep in the midst of struggle. They're just regular people living regular lives that have an extraordinary opportunity to make a big change and to be happy. So that's where I'm at with Vance and Athena. And like I said, I'm excited for them. Like, they are real people. I think I've mentioned before that this is book two in the Black Diamond series.

DL White [00:21:34]:

Book one is Beach Thing. Of course, this book is meant to be a bridge between Beach Thing and The Pearl, which is book three, which was meant to be book two. But the leap was so huge between Beach Thing and The Pearl that I couldn't make it happen. So in book two, Elysium, we meet the hero of book three, but we won't meet his heroine, his love interest, until his book, which is book three. But the need for her to be in his life is established in book two. I am not a series writer. I feel the need to say, we're doing this in real time. People I have been watching Back On, Christina C.

DL White [00:22:17]:

Jones has a series, I think it was not last year for sure, but maybe the year before, where she was writing, I believe, her last Connecticut King series book, where she was kind of like, let's write a book every day. This is the process and this is what we're going through. And I've been watching back on that series and trying to find other authors that are literally writing a book in real time. Is this how it goes? Is this what we're doing? Am I doing this right? Does this suck? Is this stupid? So writing a book. We're writing a book in real time, people. So I have one chapter and probably a very sappy epilogue coming up. I kind of know what I want to happen in this last chapter, but I kind of don't. And like I said in my reading update, I need some distance, and I want a good round of editing and reading through it.

DL White [00:23:15]:

And I need to relax. I just need to relax and let it flow. Trust me, nobody wants this book to be done more than I do. And I had a good conversation with my beta this week, and she's like, don't rush it. Do not rush it. And she knows me too well because I just get tired. Like, you can tell when an author just got tired and they just slapped an end on it. And I have story fatigue.

DL White [00:23:41]:

Like a mug, like a motherflower. I got story fatigue. So I'm just kind of taking a break and just letting the story speak to me. And the need to finish it will come back to me. The end will slap me in the face. It's done when it's done. So I'm mostly thinking about anything that I might have missed. Gaping holes in the storyline that I didn't touch, things that I didn't really talk about.

DL White [00:24:08]:

Does the story make sense? The ending will be extremely happy. But is it realistic? Is the progression of the relationship between Vance and Athena natural? Does it feel forced? Does it happen too fast? Did I just slap an end on it? Did I skip over important relationship milestones with words that should really be on the page? Because we get a little lazy and we have story fatigue and we'd be like and then they had a great conversation about the divorce. What? No, wait, no, that should be on the page. We need to see that. We need to see that play out. These are things I stress about when I am almost done with a book and I'm looking back to see what I need to smooth over. I want to take my time, then dip back in and finish it and then do a honking edit and rewrite. And I actually love the editing and rewriting part.

DL White [00:25:07]:

I just stress a lot about stripping out my voice and about what makes the story intriguing and something people would want to read, I feel like. And then I need to get it to my beta because she is waiting. She texted me earlier this week, like, am I beta reading this? Because I need to know. And I'm like, SIS. Hell, yeah. So she's waiting. So that's the writing update. Cross your fingers, keep me in your thoughts, prayers, burn a candle, whatever you do, good thoughts, et cetera.

DL White [00:25:41]:

I need them. And I appreciate all of the good words. And just put this in your line of sight. I hope to be announcing a release date soonish. I do not have one in mind, but probably sometime in August, maybe early September. I do have to engage a proofreader so it will depend on availability and how quickly I can turn around, edits, et cetera. But first I have to finish it. So fun stuff.

DL White [00:26:13]:

I was a guest on an NSYNC podcast we recorded yesterday and it will be out hopefully sometime early August. It was so fun. I got to talk about speaking of fan fiction, I got to talk about my NSYNC origin story and why I started writing fanfiction operating the NSYNC Fanfiction Archive, which I own and operate. I have owned it since 2018. So if you are an NSYNC fan fiction writer and you have stories and you need to store them somewhere or you want to post them up for people to read and give feedback, hit Nsyncfiction comarchive. If you have any issues or questions, hit me up on the social media websites. I am happy to always talk about my guys. I'm sitting here, like looking at my bobbleheads and my funkos right now.

DL White [00:27:15]:

So we're hoping to kick things up this summer with a little challenge. We used to always do challenges that were surrounding their birthdays or like milestones in the NSYNC fandom, like the anniversary of their sophomore album, no Strings Attached. We do. Like it's going to be May Day stories celebrating no strings attached. And Lance's birthday. And then we would do awesome August for JC's birthday, Poptober for Chris's birthday, and then we would do like Secret Santa to sell like winter holiday season and then Justin and Joey's birthdays. So jumping back in to awesome. August I used to always be the challenge master over at Insane Fiction.

DL White [00:28:06]:

So we're going to try to bring awesome August back. It is stories that are focused or they are JC centered stories to celebrate his birthday. So posting begins August 8 and runs through the 31st. The stories must feature a member of NSYNC. Crossovers are welcome. There are no minimums or maximums, but the story must be complete by the end of the challenge, which again is August 31. So if you're listening and you want to dip back into NSYNC fiction, fan fiction writing to celebrate our faves, you are most welcome. I'm actually working on creating a patreon and a discord, which will be a paid community for people to sort of gather together to writers to sort of convene chat about their stories, get some help, get some feedback, readers to gather together, talk about the guys.

DL White [00:29:05]:

Joey got a new tatoo. Chris is doing a new show, justin's on tour. JC left the house. Lance has started like his 9th podcast kind of stuff. We used to do all of that fanning out type of stuff at a website called the JJB, which used to be called the Justin Board, which really expanded into all of NSYNC. We talked our fan fiction, we talked our fan stuff, and there are a lot of fan groups would gather there. And I do believe that website is now defunct, but I miss the community. I just sort of miss it.

DL White [00:29:42]:

And so now is a great time to go ahead and bring that back. So I will add a link in the show notes when that episode is live for those who care. And if you are interested in joining in all of the fanfiction sparkly goodness, you can follow the NSYNC Fiction Archive. I believe it is NSYNC fiction on Twitter. It is NF underscore fiction on Instagram okay. I was trying to be sync today, but I can ramble for a half hour for sure. I was going to talk a little bit about social media, like the battle for your love and affection on all of the social media sites, but I'm just overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed.

DL White [00:30:28]:

I'm on Twitter for the duration. I will be there until the wheels fall off. I have some backup spots. Well, a backup spot. I am on blue sky. If you're on Blue Sky, find me. It's author DL. White.

DL White [00:30:44]:

If I get some more invites, I will certainly pass them around. It is the most Twitter like, but not hateful. But there's just not a lot of mutuals there, so I hope that it grows. I am also on Spill, which I'm going to be honest is very silly. I don't really understand it. I can't take it seriously. But I am on there. So it's nice to be on a black owned app.

DL White [00:31:09]:

We'll see what that's? It's just like if Black Twitter had its own app. It's not really a serious networking spot for me, but I'm there. I'm not joining threads. I'm not doing Mastodon, I'm not doing Spoutable. I was on Hive, but it got real weird real fast and I hopped right off of that. So the issue with trying to replace Twitter is like, there's not another place that could be like a town square type space. And I mean, it wasn't awesome before new Dude took over, and it's even more not awesome now. It's definitely going down.

DL White [00:31:52]:

I don't know how soon it goes down, but if they don't turn certain things around quickly, I don't know that it will be around for a while, but as long as it's around, you can find me on Twitter. It's author underscore Dlwhite. I am also on Instagram at Author dlwhite. I am on TikTok, but I do not post there anymore. If you find me there, don't request friendship. I will delete it. Find me on Instagram. I don't post on TikTok anymore, but I will be there looking at videos of cats and people rearranging their refrigerators.

DL White [00:32:29]:

I also do try to follow book people, authors and book bloggers, bookstores, et cetera, but I just don't post on TikTok. I can't spread myself that thin. I'm also on Pinterest, which I don't use for much except for storyboards for each of my books. I kind. Of try to map out my characters. Here's what they look like, here's their favorite scent, here's what they drive, here's where they live. I don't think I've quite built out enough for Elysium. It hasn't really been a focus, but I think I'm going to spend some spare time this week while I'm trying to step away from my document to build up that Pinterest site.

DL White [00:33:12]:

I also see people do, like, playlists for their books and I'm just not a music head. Songs don't come to mind for me. I haven't really listened to music since the 99 and the 2000, so I feel like it would just be the same songs on every playlist. I did try to do playlists for a few books, but I don't be listening to music and songs don't come to mind usually when I'm writing. But hey, if songs come to your mind while you're reading, let me know. I'll build a little like, inspirational, inspired by playlist. Let us just know. Anyhow, Pinterest is where I'm keeping all that book mood boards and storyboards inspirational stuff.

DL White [00:34:03]:

If you want to know how I picture my characters and all that good stuff, that's over on my Pinterest, I am author DL. White there. So there's all the places you can find me. You can also always find me on my website. It's booksbydlwhite.com. I will always be there. That's where I keep all my stuff. I really needed the time and space today to just talk, just chat it up, get things out.

DL White [00:34:32]:

I need to talk things out, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I'm sure you do. That brings us to the end of today's episode. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of the book cast. I will be back next week with a reading update and I hope a writing update. Cross your fingers, pray for the end. Please enjoy your weekend, have a superlative week and we will chat again next weekend. Bye bye.