44. Memoir Writing and Backpack Adventures with Author Candace MacPhie

In this episode, Suzy chats with Memoirist Candace MacPhie about her journey (both literal and metaphorical) writing her "Back in a Year" memoir series.  They talk about setting boundaries when writing a memoir, how to 'kill your darlings,' and the importance of working with a book coach or editor who understands your vision for your story. 

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I am thrilled to have writer Candace Macthe on the podcast today as she prepares to launch book three in her independently published back in a year memoir series. The this book three is entitled, hello, I Am Here. I met Candace early on in her memoir writing journey when she'd written a draft that read more like an itinerary of the epic trip she took around the world in the nineties. It's been my absolute pleasure to coach Candace through her writing journey as she transformed these books into the sometimes spicy and always messy backpacking trip that readers get to take alongside her where we wanna laugh and cry, and sometimes strangle Candace, she makes some questionable choices along the way. And as you'll hear her say in this interview, Hey, if I did it, I put it in the book even if I was a bit of an idiot. But Candace McFee is far from an idiot. She spent years backpacking and working around the world. She holds a Bachelor of commerce degree and MBA and worked for 20 years on four different continents in corporate before finally tackling this series and unpacking everything that happened. When she's not at her computer, yelling just a few more pages and then I'll make dinner. She loves hiking in the Rocky Mountains, swimming, reading, romance novels, and making up new cake recipes. She especially likes to laugh and spend time with her husband, the self-proclaimed grumpy mother ever, and her three awesome kids. It has been my honor to support Candace as she shepherded these books into the world, and I value both our professional relationship, friendship that's grown from this journey. Welcome, Candace to the Show. Don't Tell podcast. This is long overdue. Woo-hoo. So glad to be here. So glad because you've got book three in the back of the year series coming out this month. I do. I do. Finally finished. So excited. So tell us a little bit about the series. Okay, so the series is a. It's a it's a travel journey, but it's not a travel journey. It's a whole experience. It happens in the nineties and it's around when you're just trying to figure out who you are, what you are, and just get into it and travel around the world. I love that you're talking about this, like it's fiction, it's your story, right? Yes, I know. But Susie, it's been so much easier to write if I kind of pretend it's a fictional character because there's so many times where I didn't like what I did and I just thought I was complete idiot. So it was much easier to kind of distance myself from it and to be able to not apply this brain to. The brain that I had then. So tactically, a memoir, but one of the things that I love, love, love about this series is that when you don't shy away from telling us those things that you did that maybe weren't, you're not trying to rose color it or make yourself look like you made the best decisions during that time. So it's awesome. No, no, it was. It was very cringey, especially in the first book. There's a lot of cringey in the first book, and I sat at my computer and stared at the cursor. Blink, blink, blink, blink, and I just thought, you know what? It happened. I'm just gonna write it. And I. Wrote it and then read it and then was a little harder and a little softer and kind of went through until it, it made sense. Yeah. Awesome. And how did this project start? Because you had some journals from your actual trip. So this is based on a trip that you took that was how long? A trip that I took when I said, which is why it's called back in a year, I told my family, oh, I'll see you in a year. And we all kind of decide on each other, and everyone knew it was gonna be longer than that, but I had no agenda and I just said, okay I'm leaving. I need to go. And I. I need, I've always wanted to do this. I've always wanted to travel. I ditched my job, ditched my car, ditched my furniture, and just left with the bag. And how old were you? I was old. Or traveling old. I know. I was relative 26. And at the time that was old, there was a lot of hostiles that I rolled into where there was like 18-year-old giggling and I was a little long in the tooth to be a traveler at that point, but. I still and that I think was part of the charm to me because I thought that this opportunity to travel had passed me by, but it didn't. So I just stuck in there and did it. Yeah. So it ended up, it's going to be a five book series, right? So how did it. How did it start out again? You had some journals? Yes, so I had some journals and from the trip that I had the journals and then I transposed the journals and thought, wow, those are pretty awesome. And then I had a friend of mine read it and I, you know what? I called her and I texted her and I asked, I was. DMing, I was doing all this stuff to get some feedback on it and she didn't call me back and I thought, wow, we both love books what's going on? And finally we talked in my for coffee and she said, okay, I don't know how to tell you this, but it was like reading an itinerary. And I started, I just went, ah. Thank you. Like that is the best feedback you could have given me.'cause I didn't realize what I didn't know. I'd worked in the corporate world before. I was excellent at whipping together a PowerPoint, but I thought I knew how to tell a story and I didn't. And that was a wonderful, like eyeopening experience for me because then I thought, oh, okay. I. I know how to do this, but I don't know how to turn these nuggets of funny things and crazy stuff that happened into a story and that's when I needed different help and that's when I found Susie Dory. Yeah, it's actually, we've been working together for a lot of years on this project and it was a lot of fun because that first draft, and I don't know, you probably. Worked on it between, I did, it wasn't itinerary, it was, it had moved on from the itinerary, but it was still very rough. But there, there were things that were itinerary like, and that's, that's the same thing that I found when I was coming from corporate and wanting to write a novel. I thought, because my spelling and grabber was awesome and the things, but it's like those unwritten rules that I've had to hack through and figure out that, that were really fun with you because mm-hmm. Candace is the most amazing writer because you can give her feedback and she says, thank you. That's not common. Candace. So that's No people is a freaking gift. People should just be happy. I have always loved like constructive feedback that someone gives you, and if it hurts, then you know it's good one. It's. Something that you need to go and even if you have to rock in a corner for a while and go, okay, now I'm ready to face this feedback, and dig into the feedback, and apply the feedback and the process that went from transcribing from journals into actually telling a story was so much than I ever anticipated because it wasn't just about like the stories from the journals, what. Working with someone like Susie or working with you, particularly for me, was this growth of, I had them all laid out, so I had them like I knew what I wanted from a sense of a structure, and I knew what I wanted and sense of the experience I wanted the reader to have. So that I was very clear on. And then once I interviewed a bunch of folks and everyone said, oh, that's great, but let's try this. And Susie was the one person who said to me, okay. I. Let's do it and just, but then she worked within the parameters of my goals to be able to develop me as a writer, to be able to take those individual stories and be able to make it into one cohesive book that has a. A beginning, a lovely middle and an end, and the drama and everything else. And that's what I had to learn. And that took me years, like I'm not, it was like a university course on the jaw with just the feedback that I had. And it probably took three goes before I got feedback on the story. It was con like the first. Three bit. First three passes I have with Susie was always feedback on writing and how I can improve as a writer. And then I would take all that feedback, reapply it to the book, go in again, dig in again, go through the whole thing again. And then I. Say, okay, what about this version? And then I would still get feedback on, okay certain nuances of how to be a writer. And then finally, on the third go, I got feedback on the story and I was like, okay. That to me was such, such a milestone personally, in terms of, okay, I still have a long way to go to be able to. Present this in a way I wanted to, I wanted, my goal was for, I knew it was going to be five, and it's like, oh my God, that's so many words. But when we talk about show, don't tell, and I was telling for the first. First version and telling is not always bad. There's places to tell, but you need to at some point immerse us in that story. And that's a particular technique that Yes. Makes a huge difference to your reader's experience. It does, but it change like it's more work, right? So it is more work and it's more words. So then what happened was. Once I understood about the arc of the book and what I was really wanting to tell, one of the most impactful things that you have said to me ever. I promise you listeners that I'm not paying for this. I dunno what she's gonna say. No, no, no, no. Is once you understand your story arc, you will be able to get rid of scenes that don't. That aren't as impactful and you will know which scenes you need to really beef out and go through and really show. Yeah, I think that's one of the things that I remember about that time. And when was that? In 2020 that we started working together, I think, or 2021 maybe? Yes, it's been a while. And so what I remember about that time was that CICE came to me with this manuscript. And you'd, like you said, you'd interviewed some other people before and they all had ideas on how to change it or how to add to it and make it their own. And that's not my style. Like you, you said it really eloquently, but I really just care about what the writer's goals are and then helping you get the skills to beat that. Yeah. But what I did say to you was. Don't worry, we're gonna find the room for all these things because there's stuff that doesn't belong here. And I could feel Candace get her back up a little bit. Yes. I was uncomfortable with that and I said, don't worry, I promise we're not gonna take out anything important. And you're gonna see that. And there's a lot of things that you can take out that aren't gonna change your story and there's ways to do it. And that was attractive to you? Yes. Because there's actually technical ways to just take out words. Yes. That I think I used those. Yeah. It wasn't just that. It wasn't just that, but then we went further. But there were ways, at a minimum we're like, okay, this person, at a minimum, I can help her get this word count under control and make some space for some of these things that are gonna make her writing really exciting. And that was the thing that was frustrating in the beginning because as I got the feedback on how to move the story along and make the story more compelling, it just took more words. And I would watch the bottom corner and the words would go up and up. I'm like, oh my God, what's happening right now? And then, but. It was easier once I was able to go through and really understand the competencies of a writer and say, okay, what does this scene do? Does it further, you have all these, we'll call like it happened, but that doesn't mean that you need to tell us every single thing and every coffee that you bought and every time you woke up and every time you fall asleep. Exactly. And I had. All these tangles of what I call them threads of, I don't know why other people call them. I call them threads. Yeah, you call them for sure. Call thread like the threads of the story. And I'm like, okay, does this move thread one to seven? Okay, which thread does it move along and is it, does it deserve to be there? And then I would make sure that. Each scene added to one of the threads or was a precursor to something else that happened after. So it, it needed to be there because it, it was this, it was the first step in the next two. Two, yeah. Two steps. And if it doesn't need to be there, I took it out. And, you know why? I think the jarring thing for me was, as I. I would delete it, but I would always save a version. I'm like, okay, I've just saved the version. I do the same thing. So I have about 120 versions and I'm like, I'll just save that version'cause I don't wanna lose those words'cause they were such lovely words. But once I deleted that section and then looked at it and went, okay, it's great. Better now. And it was this. I felt powerful, the words felt powerful. I was able to go in and the story was much more compelling as as the reader was able to go into it. One of the other things that I learned on this journey was dump me in. Right? And I. Always thought, sorry. Dump you in. Dump you in. Yeah. Okay. You said that to me one time and it was always, I always thought you needed like a slow roll, like you were just starting the car and driving slow out of your driveway, but it was more like slam on the gas, dump me into a scene, so I got. Because this book moves so much and you go from one place to another place. I really wanted the reader to experience what it was like in that time period, what it was like to be hot and sweaty, what it was like to be frustrated, what it was like to see all these things for the first time. Because back then. The only references we had was like National Geographic and like the encyclopedia and Indiana for Yeah, for traveling in the nineties. And we used to carry around like travel guides. Travel guides, yeah. Which didn't have pictures. And you wouldn't know what anything looked like until you got there. So everything was like this. Big surprise. So what I wanted was the reader to be dumped this. You said, dump me in. I'm okay with being dumped in. I'm like, okay, here we go. Because you have so many things, if you're gonna do the slow roll for every single scene, like it's gonna take you forever. I don't have that many. Yeah. But, so I've got very good, I felt at, saying, okay, how much do information do you need? Because. Like in, if you're reading a book and they describe the house and then, then the rest of the book takes place in that house. They don't sit in the dining room or whatever, but you don't need to redescribe something. Maybe just like the feel of the chair or something, but I. This was everything was completely every scene, you're in a new space. Yeah. So I have to be economical with my words in terms of descriptions. I'm different. I don't wanna tell you the same thing each time. Yeah, and we had that same issue. Candace's project was interesting because, in a memoir, we're dealing with real live events, and if it were a novel, I might change it. But you can't.'cause you can't change it. This is what happened. And one of the things that happened in Candace's books is what I like to call character soup. Because, in a novel, we can control how many people we have to meet. Yeah. And Candace was saying about the setting, but the same thing happened with the people because it's very transient when you're traveling. And that was part of what you wanted to show was, oh my goodness, a, a. A friend in every port, right? Like we're literally going from place to place and meeting all these people and how do we make that cohesive? And we had a lot of discussions about that. And you came, we came up with some really cool ways to make it feel like it was almost like. We treated all of those randos that you met along the way as one character arc, right? Yes. And so what was important was how you were reacting Yes. To meeting new people and to make it feel cohesive. Yes. And you also did something really cool, which is very Candice, which is made nicknames Yes. For each person to make them more memorable so that if they pop up, because it was like. Because she'd done it from her journals. She originally had all their names and their first name, and their last name, and how tall they were. I think I remember saying, stop telling me how I love being tall. I love knowing about how tall people are, but yeah, su you told me. No. You could do it sometimes, but he was around six foot one with brown hair and we just needed to mix it up. We had Too many characters, too many introductions. Yeah. So I made them all like red shirts from Star Trek because I thought, well. You know, do you know Star Trek? Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, of course. Because when they, because when the red shirts go down for a go down to the surface, they're disposable, right? Yes. They're disposable. And it sounds awful, but I think for me, if someone gets a name, you know that they're in it for longer than a page or two. Yeah. Like if someone is referred to, and I just would constantly say, okay, what were they like? Were they, did they have big ears or did they have I don't know. Big forehead or someone had groovy glasses or whatever, and I would just nickname them and just call them groovy glasses. I just found it was easier to keep track of people if I, it was so fun. It made it such an easy read. And for those of you looking for memoir read, these books are hilarious. They have, she doesn't hold back on her interesting decision in the nineties, right? There is lots of intimate moments. There are funny moments. There are all the things that you would expect in a travel book when somebody has said bye-bye to real life for a little while. And yes, there's also. The travel piece of it, but that isn't what it's about. It's not about, and I remember you saying that really early on. It's really about the growth and learning and the things that happened along the way. It's not, if you wanna guide on what the pyramids look like, it's probably not your book, right? No. It's not a travel guide. And it's easy to dip into that. And that was my. That was always the challenge for me. I said, I need to tell you enough information so you know where you are, but this is not a travel guide. So that was where I tried to be very economical with the things I would describe or where we would go. And a lot of it was around, so for example, in book three we go visit the dome of the rock. That's in Jerusalem, and you have to go in and you get you get checked by Israeli soldiers, and then you go in and you get checked by the Muslim soldiers. And then if you're not dressed conservatively enough, then you have to. Choose from the bin and put on these which I think was an issue for the Candace that went on this trip, right? Yeah. I so had my long pants and t-shirt and, but still it was always, and then you'd have to get searched, so actually walking around the inside of the job of the rock is half a page. But it, there's a lot of interactions and there's some lady who had diplomatic immunity, honest to God, she had a South African accident was. Like lethal weapon. She's diplomatic community. You can't search my bag. And then it was a big thing. We were all waiting for a diplomatic community lady to have her moment. And so there was just, it's just funny stuff like that and weird interactions and constantly just. Just trying to deal with the challenges of being on the road and enjoying yourself at the same time, but all these external factors. So trying to balance all of that with and tell the story as you go through. Yeah. Yeah so let's talk, it's come up a couple of times already in this interview, but let's talk about word count for a second. Yeah. Because your first drafts were really long and that was part of our first discussion was Yeah. Hey I'm sure that we're gonna find places to cut and now some of the book three is actually pretty lengthy again. Is the shortest one, is it the shortest one? Sorry. Isn't the sure one 5,000 words, but, oh, yeah. But let's talk about that and what did you end up deciding because you were, hard bent against cutting word count? That would be very uncomfortable. I was very open to learning how to be a better writer, but the word count and cutting the story was very difficult. And that's why I went back to the one thing that you said to me, like I said, was really, once you understand. The story you're trying to tell, it will be clearer. What's important to keep and what's important not to keep. And I also had to get over my own personal hurdle of, I want this to be a record of my travel. And I said, you know what, Candace, your journals are a record of your travel. This is an entertaining story of a time period of someone going through something. My mom had died. I was trying to deal with that. I had. All of this sort of, just general sort of anxiety and sadness inside me. And I was trying to dig through that and along with all the interactions and all the people along the way, and that was more important. And to be able to share that clearly planned funnily, so it's not like a super, oh. Boring. Not a downer for sure. Not a downer. Fun beach treat. It's not a downer. It's a fun one. Yeah. And what I tried to do was constantly keep in the funny interactions and the weird things to happen, the weird people we met the crazy situations. And I still am amazed when I look back and go, holy banana. Like I don't know if all that would happen now. I think because people are so much more organized about their trips and organized about where you go, this was just such a different experience. Yeah. It was just a roll with it and just the the crazy things along the way. Yeah. But the word count though like I said, it was scary for me because I didn't, I. Until I got into really understanding the story I was trying to say. It was very uncomfortable to cut anything. And once I understood that even now, I'll go through, once I've written something, I'll say, okay. Even at the beginning and the end of a scene, can I try to cut off a paragraph, maybe beginning or the end, because I look at I don't know, once point in time I heard like a that's what they do with newspapers. Like they can just, you can just end it, like you can just cut. Cut some of the end. Yeah, just squish it. And that's where I'm doing. The other thing I take solace is I do the David Bowie, I dunno if you've heard of this. Okay. So David Bowie now this is secondhand, so my husband told me this, Anna, where I heard it from, but. So maybe don't say yeah. This is apparently what David Bow used to do. He'd write lyrics for a song and then he'd cut them up and then he'd just rearrange them. So what I found was if I'm trying to write something, I'm trying to make it shorter. If it's not working, then I'm like, I take a step back and say, okay, is it an, does it. Does a paragraph need to come before the other one or does Do I need to, I love that. The David Bow. I'm gonna use that. David, you have to look. I'm gonna have to look it up and see if it's real before we Yeah, I do. David bow it because I think maybe sometimes the scene, like a paragraph should happen a couple things early. When I enjoy, and I know this is an a Susie promotion thing, but what I've enjoyed in terms of what I've learned from you is Susie will say. What happened, like you might have a prompt, and what I think is from that prompt is I might have that information three paragraphs later, but what I've learned is that you need that information sooner. So then I, oh, readers need that information. Readers and I and the first couple times count as I just really think you're impatient. But the thing is, for a visual reader, sometimes we need things in a different order. Yes. And if you're asking a question and your reader. Is, and it's answered on the next page. They're gonna skim to find that and they're gonna miss all that good stuff in between. So you might as well put it upfront And I think that was where the feedback for me was very valuable.'cause I thought, okay, I'll, it's no skin off my back to move it up like I just. Cut it from there, move it up, and then just maybe change a few words around or something. But it, through the process of doing that, I would constantly ask myself the question, did I need the is there more? Is there information missing? And I would usually have it further down, but it was the order of things. Yeah, just making sure that it's presented. One of the other things that I think with the discussions that we've had was just. The longer I can keep the reader engrossed in the words, then the better. If you're not I think of it like if you're swimming and then you pop up for something that's what it's what happens with the book. If the word is wrong or I spend so much time if you get pulled out because something doesn't up right. Yeah. Like it doesn't, like the word is not quite right. Or this one sentence, which is just. Jaggy, you know? Yeah. Everything's flow, flow, flow, flow, flow. And then you have this one sentence that's just a bit, I could have spent another couple minutes off topic. Just or, it's just not, it's just not formulated as the others. And it really stalls the reader experience. So spend a lot of time listening to the book. Yeah. A lot of time listening to book. It's something that we work on a lot and I write it and then I listen to it and then I write it and I listen to it and I find I can get, this sounds really bad, but I almost can get a little lazy when I just. Don't listen to it because I think, oh, that's a good enough sentence. And then when I listen to it, but you could hear it. You hear it? Yeah. Well, it's just how I work. Some folks might be like on paper, like right into the, it's hard though on paper. Your brain actually fills it in and rounds it out for you. It, you say they, those jaggy sentences, you can hear them. And so actually we'll drop in the show notes. I've got some instructions if listeners haven't used a listening pass before. Because you can do it even on your rough word documents. You can have your phone or your computer read it to you. And it's a hugely useful exercise. And it also gets you up from your desk. Do it on your phone. Go for a walk. Yeah. Do something else. I use the read aloud function on Word. Yeah. And you just, you can just, you do it at your desk, right in the search line. Read aloud. I'm not as I don't know. I find I need to be right there.'cause I'll be like, oh my God, I have to change that word right now. Yeah. But I pace, like I'll pace while I. I listen to it. Otherwise, I watch the sort of the bouncing ball go by on the words and it does help from a grammatical perspective, but it's easier if I'm pacing or just not focused on the document and just really spend the time listening. Okay. So switching gears for a second, I mean, you've alluded to this already, but. Taking that first draft from documenting the facts or documenting your journey. Itinerary. Yeah. Your itinerary into creating a book that is, engrossing and engaging and entertaining, and all the things that you really hoped for when people go on this journey. Yeah. How did. You really had to dig into why you were writing the book, and we had some discussions about that earlier, and you alluded to, you realized the book wasn't really about the journey, it was about you processing, losing your mom and all these things. Yeah. How has writing this series changed you? I think that was a fantastic question for me. I really thought I was completely healed and I thought, because I deal, I dig into grief and book two and just, it's all happens around all the, these sort of rapid pace adventures that we do. Being able to articulate it in a clear and concise way and to be able to have the ebbs and flows and ups and downs when things happen, or understanding triggers. For example, in book three I I don't know if your mom used to do this, but my mom used to make these sandwiches before we'd go on a road trip and then she'd put them back in a sandwich bag and close them up. We do, I do that. My mom didn't do it, but I do that. Yes. So anyways, at one point, someone I'm with does that and they like the bread bag you mean the bread bag? Yeah. Put it back bag, the loaf bag, the bread bag. So you have a long, like the long loaf and you can see the loaf, but then it's got all the sandwich stuff in it. So anyways, the person I was with did this and then they made all these sandwiches and put them back in the bread bag and. I thought I was feeling pretty good, but seeing that bread bag triggered all those emotions again, and I was right back to where I was, but I have to put that on the page and I have to share that with you in a way that the reader will go, oh yeah, I get you. Yeah. And to be able to do that it cha I feel. This is gonna sound really silly, but I feel stronger. Like I feel it's not silly at all. Stronger writing. Writing is always personal, and I feel that now that I've been able to share that, I hope someone reads it and goes, oh, I feel that way too. But then what did you do? I. So I almost have okay, what did I do after it? Like, how did I, how did you get through it? How did I push through? What did I do to good or bad? Right or wrong. Yeah. Right or wrong. And those feelings are there. And what I try to do is try to be as. And those are the hardest ones to write. I can go through and dump you in a scene and say, okay, here you're in Jerusalem, walking the streets of Jerusalem. But I being able to intertwine those very poignant personal moments that I. That's, and that's where, to me, that's where the meat of the story is. And that's where you feel that, okay, I'm on this last page journey, but then I'm also a person to experiencing this journey. For me, it, I feel a lot stronger, not just in my skill as a writer, and I feel I, and what I love about writing is a. So much. There's so much growth. It's such a challenge. Know that's why I ended up here too. Constant growth and this constant learning journey, and I love learning journeys, but for me actually reflecting and being thoughtful to the feelings has really helped me appreciate and go, okay, okay. So I feel stronger. Awesome. And you always knew that you would write this book. You, you took those journals with you on those trips Yeah. With the intent of writing this book. So why do you think it took you 30 years? But why didn't you write it before? It's a really a, I'm actually asking the question. We haven't, I don't know what your answers. It's not honey. Here we go. Okay. So the so I grew up. From 14 to 22, I looked after my mom. She was really sick and we all did. It was a family job. We looked after my mom, that was our job. She had cancer, a whole bunch of it, and lots of operations, and it was all hands on deck. So I felt that after growing up that way, I had these dreams and these thoughts, but. I think I just needed some stability. So what I did was I got a, like a real job. I'm doing air quotes here. Yeah. You can't see Candace's quotes, but quoting, I got a real job. I'm a real boy. Went to yeah. I'm a real boy. And went to work, came back and that's when it was uncomfortable and that's when I left and traveled. And I think for a lot of years I was, I maybe slipped back a little bit into that and thought, I tried to write it like a number of times, but I. I didn't have, I didn't have the skill or maybe the maturity or maybe the distance to be able to do the story justice and enough time had passed that I could. I could be true to the person I was, and I'm mature enough now to be able to say, okay, I was a total idiot, but I'm gonna put that down because that's the person I was. And you know what we're like, whether you admit it or not, we can all be an idiot. So I'm just gonna put this down and just be really real. And I wanted them, I wanted people to read the book like they were having just a conversation with me, and you could just. Relax and read it and go, oh my God, what is she gonna do now? And I felt, I tried to write it over and over, but I was caught up in what I thought should be, I thought I should work. I never thought writing was really something I could, I. I could really wrap my arms around in terms of a career, a job, and and it also needed the headspace to be able to learn how to do it, the headspace, to be able to do the story justice. So it just took some maturity. I think I just needed to really mature and to be able to tell this story in a way that I could not make excuses for myself. It's another thing Susie told me when this. Especially in Book one. I love it when you throw back quotes at me. I have no idea what I said to, so whatcha gonna say? Said, you said you, you can't you did it like you just have to suck it like it wasn't quite like that, but it was. That doesn't sound like. You can't make excuses for yourself. Yeah. I think I'd done something bad and then, oh like when you're writing about something that happened, it's and then you Justified it and you're like, no. If there's a pig, put the pig on the table. Yeah. Describe the pig, right? That's the, yeah. Walk away. And you can't there's no, this is not how this is done. So I. I needed to be able to have space do that. I wish had I had, I started earlier, they would be different. And I don't think they would be as true to, to what they're, because now, and also I'm gonna say this in the next possible way. I feel braver now, like I'm older. I actually don't care if you don't, if you think I'm an idiot I might have had more of a personal, ooh, you might have tried to hide some of your adventures. Yeah. And there are some spicy adventures in this song, lemme tell you. Yeah. So I'm like, Ooh, maybe I need to just back off or whatever. And I'm like, you know what? I don't care. Yeah. I'm just gonna put it in there and if you think I'm terrible, then fair. Okay. I hope you have fun when you read it. Okay. So I've got some quick fire answers for you here. Or some quick fire questions. Sorry. Hopefully your answers, whatever comes to mind. But speaking of being an idiot, yes. In these books, one thing that comes up over and over again in book one and book two is your relationship with the character Josh. And, like people just want to strangle poor Candace because she keeps going back to this guy. Yeah. During her journey. So here's the, here's my quick fire, is Josh in book three. Yes. Oh, Josh is in book three, right? I didn't know that, but I know that readers that have read book one in book two are gonna say, Candace, when are you gonna kick him to the curb? Do we kick him to the curb in book three? Maybe that's a spoiler. Yeah, it's a spoiler. Yeah, it's a spoiler. Okay, you'll have to read it to find out. Okay. So how long quickfire, how long did it take you to write that first book? The first, like between starting to write it and publishing it, how long? Six years. Six years. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty typical. And now, how long does it take you to write the next books in the series? Months. You're giving yourself a year, nine months. Nine months a year, nine months a year. I give myself a year, but it's just life gets in the way. But I would probably say I could knock out a decent book in six months. And then there's the editing interview process. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And what's your best advice for Memoirists that are just starting out? I think I took great guidance in my not including anybody else's secrets. I included conversations I had with people. Yeah. And the interactions and how it impacted me. But if someone shared something with me that was personal, that's not something they signed up to, and I left that out. It was my reaction to conversations, but that's where it ended. I love that. Setting boundaries, and that's something when I work with Memoirists that's something that we have a discussion about really early on. Is where are your boundaries? And you had those already when we met, so that was awesome. Yeah. Okay. What was your first big break where you were like, okay, this is really gonna happen, these books are happening? I don't, I think it was just. Were you always, or you just always knew that these books were happening? No I think it was after the third review with you, and that sounds really, it sounds really bad, but once you got, I got to a point where I got feedback on the book rather than the writing style. I knew I could do it. Yeah. When you were like, okay, the story is finally resonating, right? Yeah. And what you said to me, okay, I get what you're doing with this now and you didn't get it before, but once you got that, then I said, okay, I'm onto this. Like I can do that. That was that push through that very well. It changed a lot from when we first started talking. Until then, you had to make a lot of decisions in terms of what the book was. And so yeah, I could see where you wanted it to be, but it was a bit of a push and pull. Yeah. Maybe a little kicking and screaming. No, just kidding. No. Yeah. Maybe a little, dragging you through some things to get you there, and then you were like, oh, wait a minute. Now I see it. Yes. Yeah. I love that. Yes. It was a learning journey and I hadn't had a learning journey for a while, so I enjoyed it. Okay, so book three is called, hello. I am here. Hello. I am here. I love that and I know why it says that. I'll have to read the books, find out. Where can we find you, Candace? The book is up for pre-order and will be available in May 21st. May 21st. Yes. So by the time you're listening to this it may already be available. We're in 2025. So where can we find you? We can find you on my website candace mcfee.com, and then through Amazon as well and app. Okay. Yeah. And thank you so much for coming on the show today. Truly, if you were looking for an amazing beach, read this summer, pick up the three first three books in the series. You are gonna go on a wild ride and you might wanna strangle Candace after those first couple of books, but I promise it keeps going. It gets better. It gets better. Alright. Thank you so much for being on the show. We'll have you on again soon. Sounds good, thanks Suzy.