Writing a book out of spite: New York Times bestselling author Beth Revis

If you love books set in space, with magic, or with kissing, Beth Revis's books are for you. She's written more than 20 books for adults and young adults alike, including the Star Wars novel The Princess and the Scoundrel. What's it like to write for so many different age groups, or in so many different contexts? Find out in this podcast conversation with Beth! 

Buy Beth's books! 

Star Wars: Someone Who Loves You

Night of the Witch with Sara Raasch

The Fate of Magic with Sara Raasch

Full Speed to a Crash Landing

How to Steal a Galaxy 

Preorder Last Chance to Save the World

Support Hurricane Helene relief: BeLoved Asheville

Learn from Beth in her writing workshops at Wordsmith Workshops 

Transcript

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because I wrote that out of spite, so much so that the book is dedicated to spite. if you look on the dedication page, it is dedicated to spite. But that one individual was just a terrible jerk and basically implied like, oh, you can't really write something outside of Star Wars that would be really entertaining and you couldn't write something. Like, he was just listing all the stuff I couldn't write while I'm sitting at a table with like a dozen of my books. I'm like, and like, of course I'm an invited guest at the con, so I can't. leap over the table and punch him in the throat, but I wanted to. And so I took all that rage and went immediately back to my hotel room and had the first half of the book done before I left the convention. Well, hi, hi, welcome. I am so glad that despite technical difficulties, there's always seems to be a weird technical difficulty that happens every week that's different every time. there are people here. Yay, thank you for making it. Sorry about all the technical difficulties. Anyway, I'm just gonna introduce myself real quick and then I'm gonna have Beth introduce herself. I am Stacy Whitman and I am the owner of the Curious Cat Bookshop. I'm also the former and founder and former publisher is what I'm trying to say, not former founder of Tu Books, which is an imprint of Lee and Low. I'm now an editor at large and in person. The Curious Cat Bookshop is at 386 Main Street in Winstead, Connecticut. So if you're local, we'd love to see you. And if you are local, well, even if you're not, we do have obviously these kinds of live stream events. So keep an eye on our our website at curious cat bookshop dot com slash events. That's where we post all of our events, including in person and online. But just to give you a quick rundown of the things that we do in the store, we've got story time every Friday morning at 11. Tomorrow night, we've got a writing group that is going to meet for the first time in the store. We record as many of our in-person author events as well. So feel free to go back into our YouTube channel and see if there's anything that might be of interest to you from previous. I'm in the middle of posting some other events that happened in the store in the fall. so for example, go look for the conversation between Tracey Baptiste and David Anthony Durham. because I just posted that a couple of weeks ago and it's a really great conversation between two really great authors. A really cool thing that we do is a little thing called Kitty Storytime. And that is the local rescue, Sophia L'Orange brings in kittens that are adoptable. And we have a couple of picture book readings about, know, usually on the topic of kitties and some sort. And we get to learn about fostering and adoption. So if you're local, come to Kitty Storytime. The next one is 11 a.m. on February 15th and we also host book clubs. We are actually going to have Megan Collins come to our book club to talk about her newest book that came out today in March. So that's March 5th. I accidentally posted the wrong date on social media earlier today, but it's March 5th that she's going to be here. We also do a silent book club, etc. etc. So look at our events. for more. And of course, the thing that I'm asking of you that if you love this conversation, even if you aren't local, you can buy the books through us. So let's look at the books I've got. Let me get on the right window here so I can. So I've got your full speed to a crash landing is the first one, right? I accidentally started them out of order. So I keep getting confused and how to steal a galaxy. And I'm having such fun with this one. I'm in the middle of this one right now. So these are adult. We're to talk about this because romantasy is a thing there now, but is there a term for this? Let's, I'm, that is a question that I have for you later. And then the next. series that is ongoing at the moment. is what is the name of the the witch and hunter witch and hunter series so knight of the witch and the fate of magic and he does want to get them from stacy because they're running out of the sprayed edges yeah so we don't get it from amazon they don't have that stacy has it amazon does not and you have a book to show us that i don't have on hand right now It's the Star Wars someone, let me find the camera. Star Wars someone who loves you. It's my first picture book and it's not gonna get in, there it goes. And it's illustrated by Sophie Lee and it's about Han and Leia's wedding through the point of view of the Ewoks. I love it. It's really cute. It's basically a teddy bear wedding. It is. And the page is gonna get a bunch of signed book plates. yeah. Yes. So yeah, if you want to order a copy of any of her books, we will be able to send a signed book plate with it. It'll take, you know, maybe a week or so to get those book plates to us and then we'll be able to fill those orders. Okay, so let's get into our conversation. this is Tabitha. You'll see her a lot. She likes to perch right here. I've got a foster kitten who likes to walk over the keyboard. So if we suddenly get disconnected, you'll know why and I'll be right back on. It'll be worth it. So also I like to think that I had a tiny, tiny bit of a part in your journey along the way to being published because back in way back when I was laid off and I was freelance editing, I critiqued your first three chapters, which went on to become your very first book across the universe. And so I, like to take a tiny bit of credit for your journey. You've obviously done a lot more of it than I have. No, I still remember that. I felt like amazed that I got your critique on it. I still cherish that. So you've written, we were just talking about, we were just showing off your books, so your first, So, and we'll get back to also there, I have a question about this later, but. So right after Across the Universe came out, you did a panel at Books of Wonder in New York. And I don't remember who else was on the panel, but the moderator asked the panel, hey, can you describe your book in six words or less? And this is an important thing for writers to know how to describe their book as an elevator pitch. And, and you're like, I can do it in four. And I'm sure that you'd remember those words. do. Murder in space. It was a fun selling point. It's a, so, okay. So this is my first question for you. Did you have that just like, has it something been something that you had been thinking of for a while as the, like your elevator pitch or did you come up with that on the spot? thinking of it for a while, but not in the terms of like an elevator pitch. It's because I'm so bad at describing things that it's a murder mystery in space. That's all it is. people would like ask for details. like, people die in space. it. I love that. The short was easier. So let's talk about all of these things that you've been writing. I mean, they're kind of all within SFF. But you have been writing for adults. Now you've written for little kids, though I'm sure that there are going to be a whole lot of parents who are just as interested in that picture book. You've been writing for YA for a long time. So I'd love to hear from you. What do you love about writing for these different age groups? What do you love most about each of them? And what meshes best with your storytelling and voice in all of these different places that you've written? I'm going to immediately steal an answer from Alan Gratz. He used to describe the different genres of books. Like middle grade is about finding your place within your home unit, your school unit, your little circle. And YA is about finding your place in the world. I'm sorry, what? Have you written middle grade yet? I mean, I have, but it hasn't sold. okay. Keep going. Yeah. So YA is about finding your place in the world, like who you want to be as a person. And then adult is about redefining who you are after you have been somebody for a while. And so that's how I have approached all my stories in that way. And for Full Speech or Crash Landing, which was my first real adult that came out, it was more about like, who is she? also like, how is she fitting in this world and redefining herself through these things? And that just came naturally to it. Also, that was the book that had a lot of cussing. So I was like, well. That was going to be a goal. Well, I love that idea, though, because every single age group that you just described describes a character journey. Oh, yeah. It describes growth. That's awesome. And full credit to Alan Gratz, because I stole that from him like a decade ago and I use it all the time. It's wonderful. I'm going to I'm going to steal it, too. Because he's constantly asking me the difference between middle grade and YA. And even just the other day, a writer asked me, so what's the difference between young YA and older YA? And I like to consider, I really consider myself a young YA editor because that's our sweet spot as a publisher. And there's a lot going on between 12 and 18. There's so different. So yeah, I think that's a really great way of thinking about it. So tell us about your writing journey. I'd love to hear. Because the moment at which I critiqued you was pretty far down the path for you as a writer What came before that and let it how did you become a writer? What I mean most people are telling me well I started at the age of five, but like what did that look like for you? I was one of those people who was always writing like I have a story with that I used to have a very very long bus ride I live in very rural Appalachian, North Carolina, so I my bus ride was like two hours long And I was the last stop. Oh, was long. That was the last stop. We had to be on the bus at 630 in the morning. I didn't get home till five, but the person who was the second to last stop, we were really good friends and I would write stories and we would read them on the bus together. So I still cherish that. I saw her recently and we reminisced about all the unicorn stories that I wrote. I was definitely writing, but I didn't think I could make a career of it for a very, very long time. Everybody told me that. That's not where you're going to make money. That's not a real job. You can't really do it. My mama still doesn't think this is a real job. Oh, I know. I grew up on a farm. I was told to become an ag econ major or a veterinarian. was at I was animal science pre vet my college my first year of college. Yeah. No, my friends were all about what we were. We were a plant farm. So it was all like, Forestry, plants, agriculture, none of them. You're going to save the family farm. You're going to go on to do something within that wheelhouse because it's what your family knows, that kind of thing. At least something in the sciences. That's where the money is. Go and be a big city researcher or something. And I was actually a sophomore in college when I wrote my first novel. And it was entirely because I was trying to write a short story and it just kept going. And the reason why I was trying to write a short story is because I was so poor. I couldn't afford television. Because back then you had to pay for cable and I could not afford cable. I couldn't even afford a television set. Were you filming at home and you didn't have antenna? Oh, at home it was all the antenna. We got three channels and one of them was PBS. We had four. Well, we had eight actually because we were halfway between two different stations. centers. So both of them are bad. But so you just kept going between eight and 25, eight and 25. Yeah, was glad we got channel 46. We only got that when there was a storm coming. When you write your first novel, it I wouldn't have even like at that age thought it was possible. It took me until I was like six or seven years into college to even know that editing was a job. Like that is something that people could go and make money at. To be fair, it was about that long for me to realize that editing was something that needed to happen. my first books, were, they were bad. didn't know they were bad, but like I wrote them. were novel length. I remember printing them. And then my editing was taking a red pen and like fixing the commas and maybe once in a while, like adding a new word. was like, okay, it's edited time to go to agents. And they were, it was rejected. It was terrible. was truly, it was very obviously Chronicles of Narnia fanfic, but I thought I was clever enough that no one would notice that I replaced the line with a unicorn. really into the unicorn zone. Most writers start really is some sort of, if it's not outright fanfic, my little cousin in the, when he was in high school, he was sending me Stephen King fanfic. He wouldn't necessarily call it fanfic, but that you could see who his influences were because he hadn't found his voice yet. yeah. And I mean, I didn't know what a story structure was. I was copying a story structure that already existed and plot beats. without realizing it really, but. So I wrote the first one when I was a sophomore in college, sent it out to like 100 agents. They all rejected it. And at this point, because I am who I am, I was like, oh, well then I'll just make the next one better. So I wrote another novel and sent it out to 100 agents and they were all like, nope, this one's even worse. And so was like, well, oh, they haven't seen, the third time's a charm. Anyway, I kept doing this novel year for 10 years. I a decade. of rejection. That is persistence, though. I mean, that's one way to describe it. What what brought you from everybody saying this is just terrible to coming to a point of feeling like not only inner confidence, but actually being good enough. Does that I don't I don't mean to discount that it was we all have our juvenile. But what brought you on that journey? I don't think I got confident in my writing until maybe two years ago. And even then, I'm still like, I don't know if it's good or not. Like having a decade of rejection and I queried each one about 100 times. That's about a thousand rejections. That really beat me down. And actually, because you reminded me of that, one reason why I got the critique from you is because I had hired somebody else to do a critique. Across the universe was like my Hail Mary. It was the 11th book I'd written. It had been a decade. I had gone all the way through college graduate school and had been working for a long time as a teacher. I was like, there's no reason for me to keep spending all my time and all my money on this. And I had gotten a critique from somebody who hated the entire thing and really tore me down and was like, no, this isn't it either. You should just give up. And you were one of the critiques after I had like tweaked it some more. And I was like, well, let me try one more time. And you were really a confidence booster and very encouraging. Thank you. I'm still bitter about that other person. So yeah, that was the one I was fully prepared to give up. And my husband always jokes about it. Like he was like, you would come back to it. You would have had another idea. And I honestly don't know if across the universe hadn't changed my life. That might've been the point where I was going to decide to change my own life and just quit because that's, that's a long time. That's longer than my child's been alive. It's a long time appearing now. Yeah, absolutely. So you you get across the universe published and you've now got what? 15 books or something like that published now. It's a lot. So you're just feeling comfortable with yourself as a writer in the last couple of years. I love I kind of love that because what that means is that even once you're published, You need to keep growing. yeah. Oh, absolutely. And part of the comfort I have in my own career is the knowledge that I know how to keep learning. I don't necessarily know what I'm learning, but I know how to keep learning. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you've got the you know where to find the resources to do that. So I always love to talk with authors about their writing process because I was just talking with an editor friend of mine last week about this because I once went to a writing retreat with Laurie Halse Anderson and Linda Sue Park. wow. You know, as you know, both giants of our industry. Laurie started by saying, this is how I write, always just write all the way through. Don't stop. Just write the first draft and then you can fix stuff later. And Linda Sue Park gets up the next day and says, with all due respect, that's not how it works for me. And her process was completely opposite. And so I love talking with writers about one, how you found your process, how you figured out what works for you and does it work every time? No, not at all. I was already giggling in my head because I was like, I sometimes do it that way and sometimes do it the other way. It entirely depends on the project. I did not write an outline until I wrote my first book for Star Wars. because it was contingent upon, I had to submit an outline to them. So when they were like, oh, well, of course you're going to submit an outline. I was like, of course I am. And first I have to learn how to do that. That's how this can work. That was a total fake of confidence. I was just like, oh, of course, I'll get that to you right away. And then I'm like, oh, God, what do do? But yeah, so I started writing an outline in Star Wars. And then I realized I could write a lot. faster with that. so then I started doing that. And then eventually I got to the point where I was like, I think I can write more than one book a year if I have some sort of structure for at least some of them. So some of my books are very highly detailed, outlined chapter by chapter. Some of them are just not like a full-street tour crash landing was just total chaos book from the start. I didn't know where I was going with it. I just had fun on the ride. But at the same time, I was working on Night of the Witch, which was chapter by chapter outline, very detailed. And at the same time, I was working on a proposal that had a synopsis and then a more broad outline. So proposal for this or a proposal for something else entirely? Proposal for something else entirely. gotcha. Yeah, which which will come out later this year, but hasn't been announced yet. Awesome. So That's amazing. And that actually leads right into my question for you because well, that was actually one of my questions was, were you working on all these things at once? Because you've had five books come out in what, two years? I had five books come out last year. Oh, yeah. These are 24. I keep thinking it's still the same year as last year. Yeah, it was was a lot part of it was. timing because I had already been working on Night of the Witch for a while, but we sold it on a proposal. So we only had like the first five or six chapters written and then we had to write the rest of them. And then in a month's that I got the idea for Full Speed to a Crash Landing and wrote the first one. And I wasn't sure if it should be one big book with three parts or three little books. And so I fully outlined those as well. And then the Star Wars picture book had I actually was done for a whole year before that before I came out because the art process takes so long. Yeah, they just take so long. at least you weren't like trying to juggle so much of the writing process at once because once it's in art, there is some tweaking still but not not the words really. Yeah. And then I also self publish at least a book a year through Patreon where I write one chapter a week with my Patreon members. yeah. Yeah. I don't recommend it. It's born of sheer desperation because I had a very dry spell right at the heart of the pandemic, right when my husband had some serious health issues. I'm going to say you had a dry spell at the same time as your husband. Yes, I was in the hospital room when I got the rejection for the book that was an option with my publisher, which was, you know, just great. Wonderful day. Yeah, but I mean, hustle. hustle leads to success, right? You know how he got started? He self published something like 16 books. And he was going from school to school doing all these, like, literally just, like slam poetry at correctional schools and stuff like that. And just his first book that gets traditionally published, suddenly he wins the Newbery, like, yeah. 10 years to an overnight success kind of story, you know? I felt like I had my overnight success after 10 years with the crossing universe and I didn't know I was going to have to keep doing that over and over again. And yeah, how do you while you're doing all that, how do you take care of yourself to like help yourself not burn out? Not well. It last year was really, really rough between all the different books. And then I have six books now contracted for the next few years, which was great, but it was also working on all the books coming out while working on proposals and outlines for other books to continue that track going. It was really bad. Last quarter was very, very, very rough. And so this year, part of my goal is to slow down a little bit and give myself a little bit of Yeah, I have been dealing with a bit of burnout myself and It's hard. It's hard. Like I have been on a part now that I'm editor at large. I've been on a part time schedule at my full time job because now it's just a part time job and you know starting this bookstore and It's been three months and I'm just starting to come out of it going, I think I can be creative again. Yeah. I think, I think I'm ready to like take on starting a podcast or whatever. so every single one of these books that just came out, well, not every single one, but like two of them are a certain kind. Two of them are another kind. You're working with a writing partner. you're working within a shared world. And I think you know, I used to work with shared world books at Wizards of the Coast. used to edit the Dragonlance, the New Adventures and the Dragon Codex books. So I know the strictures that are on your writing when you're working in a world where there's a series Bible and you have to be, you can make little things up along the way. Like you've done, you've done, this isn't your first Star Wars thing, right? You've done other Star Wars novels, right? So we'll get to that. you've got what's you've got your part right? And you've got I'm like, what am I forgetting your own stuff, your own stuff, yourself. That's the other part that I was trying to list. So with every book, how How does it, how did those process work for you to work with a partner versus working with a property versus doing your own stuff? There's a lot of compartmentalization that goes on in my life. So like for my self published book, I pretty much always work on it on Sunday. Like that's the day that I work on that book. I read chapter in that day and publish it. And that's one thing. And then depending on the deadlines, it'll be like when I'm working with Sarah for the witch and hunter books. I'll write a chapter and then she reads my chapter, edits it and writes her chapter. So it's almost like a day on day off kind of thing. And then we're, very well accustomed to like the edits and it's pretty much by the time we finished, have an edited manuscript. So that works out well. is one of you writing, the girl and one is writing the boy. Yeah, I Gano and she wrote Fritzy. Okay. Hang on. This is Juju. Her full name is Princess R Jumond. Um, she is named after the cat from to say nothing of the dog by Connie Willis and she likes to get up on the desk. I also adore Connie Willis. Doomsday book was one of my favorite books. Okay. Side note that trilogy or maybe it's a whole series of even more. I'm not sure, but it is fascinating to me how one is a comedy. It's a complete farce. One is a tragedy. in the Middle Ages. another is World War II, like war stories, basically. Her mind is moving. Yeah. I'm in awe of everything that she does. Doomsday Book is my favorite one, even though it's the saddest one. But I think that's one reason why I'm really into history. one reason why I wrote Night of the Witch was because I fell in love with medieval history because I read Doomsday Book when I was a kid. That is fascinating because I was going to I was going to ask you about that. You've talked a lot on threads or blue sky or somewhere that I've seen you on social media because we're on everything together about the amount of research that you guys did into this is 14th, 15th. It is almost the 17th. It's like 1599. Like right in the 1500s. So because OK, so there's this book called Wicca. What is it? Wicca Witch Mother Goose or something like that, that I read about this time period in European history where the actual burnings happened. Because until I read that book, I didn't realize that the burnings in Europe and the hangings in the US, well, not the US, but in the Americas were influenced by the same thing, but they weren't the same thing. You know, like the methods were different. They were all They had the same playbook, but like, so tell us about your research process and did you go to Germany? I did go to Germany. It was so much fun. very ironically did not go to Germany until after the first book was already written. Just because it was, we were writing it during COVID. So there was no travel at all. Germany was my next trip. was, I was supposed to go summer of 2020 because I finally found where my great, great grandfather was from. Okay. Cause Sarah and I have for years. It took me 30 years to find because he changed his name. I finally found their marriage certificate in Chicago. You will laugh because her name is Berta Halbruder and his name is Henry Witten Whitman, he was Gottlieb Wittmann. So I finally found his. So there to not, let me shorten it. There's a lot of, he was a draft Dodger. is the story. And so the family refused to talk about it because he came in the 1870s time when all of the German consolidation was happening and he didn't want to. So the family story goes, we think, I think according to the Gottlieb Wittmann and Bertha Halbroder, arriving on a ship, I think he's from Stetten, which is over by it's now in Poland. huh. the Eastern. Anyway, my whole point is that I want to see where my ancestors come from. And in 2020, that was my goal and never got there. Yeah. So tell me about your, cause you found ancestors too. Like was that part of the, inspiration for digging into German history too? Or no, no, no, no, we, did it separately. So we were during COVID I formed a Slack group of overworked moms because as writers who stay at home, we became the default parent to school our children. And it didn't matter that we also had deadlines and jobs. We now had to be the teachers and do all that as well. So I started a Slack group where we could all just complain about our own offspring. It was a great, it was great like stress relief, chatting. And we came across a Buzzfeed article, I don't remember who posted it, but it was about the Trier witch trials. And Sarah and I both were like, we didn't know they started in Germany. And we didn't like. We had both gone through the American. So this is the source. This is the place that it started. It started in. Well, I mean, there were little ones, but like an organized whole diocese happening started in Germany. And when we read about that, we were shocked. It's the greatest loss of life outside of war and disease in Europe. And that was like, how did we never hear about this? It was bigger than Salem. It was more influential than Salem. And that started like the fascination with it. Cause I love the history side of it. And I loved learning about that side. And Sarah really got into the connections between why it happened. And we started like pairing notes. Our group got very annoyed with us. So we ended up leaving the group and like chatting on our own, like going back and forth. Like, did you find out about this? And like, there was of course lots of misogyny under it. Like all the signs we associate with witches were signs that were associated with women who are making money. and women who didn't need a man. Exactly. And the whole reason why it started, and I think this is very significant, the reason why it started in a Catholic diocese is because women were making money by brewing beer and the monks started making money by brewing beer. And so they had to run the women out of business. Yeah. like- And in other places, it was the spinsters. The reason why women were called spinsters was because they spun- And they didn't need a man. they need money. spinning. And so that's why we care about women being spinsters nowadays. Well, all of the symbols of a there's a stigma. Exactly. And all the symbols of a witch were were linked to that as well. Like the pointy hat was a woman who was wearing a Henin hat, which was out of style, but made her stand out in the marketplace. And she's selling. if you had extra beer in your house, know, your shingle. Yeah, it was exactly like that. And if you were doing it from your house, you put your broomstick outside the door to indicate that you had beer at home to sell. If you're making beer, you have rye and barley, and that means you have rats, you get a cat. You make the beer in a cauldron. All of these symbols of witchcraft were directly linked to women making money. And it all spun out from there. And then I got fascinated with how it traveled. So Trier was where it really started. And then it moved up to Denmark, which is just a hop, skip, and jump away. And that was when King James, the first and sixth of Scotland went to Denmark to pick up a wife that he didn't need because he was gay, but he picked up his wife there. And their wedding entertainment was a witch trial. I remember there was an episode of Doctor Who. Yes. And then they crossed the North Sea to learned about a character from Doctor Who. mean, Doctor Who, I mean, he was there. But so they crossed the North Sea to go home and there's a storm because, you know, it's the North Sea and James blamed witches and started the witch trials in Scotland, which was also the inspiration for Macbeth's witches, because this is the Scottish play with the witches. And then once he becomes King of England, he goes south to London and it goes to Canterbury and then West and the pilgrims go and then eventually it crosses the ocean. But it was all like a little chart through history and time of men hating women and killing them for it. Well, and so the first book is in Trier. I just finished the first book, so I'm not asking for spoilers or anything. Is this going on to a new place then? It does. So in Trier, that's where I found a relative by complete chance. I was looking at maps and my mom walked over and she was like, we have a relative that was right there from Burncastle. And so that's why Otto and his sister are from Burncastle. But Sarah found out that she had relatives from the Black Forest region. And so in the second book, the characters go on basically a medieval road trip into the Black Forest. Oh, cool. Cool. And then I just realized how late it's getting. So let me make sure that I'm not missing any big questions. I'm incredibly nerdy and can talk about history forever. But I also want to share with everyone these books are like romantic. No, they're not history books, I promise. Okay, so that actually let's go to my next question because what is the term for romantic science fiction? Is there one? I was really hard to make space man a thing, but it hasn't caught yet. It's my fetch. I'm like, I'm going to make it happen. I don't know that it's yeah, it's not it doesn't roll off the tongue the way that romantic does. But then again, romantic is just romantic fantasy rebranded. Like it's always been around. So anyway, but so is there anybody else writing this or are you kind of like blazing new trails by? Oh yeah, there's there is definitely other romantic science fiction out there for sure. There's several ones and every single title has just immediately fled my brain. Of course, course. They have it all the time. If you think of it later, let us know because I'm sure that if people love this, they'll want to like find more. I've completely gone off script and now I don't remember where I... I did do a whole tirade about history. Getting back to the murder mystery in space because a lot of writers find the part of summarizing their book agonizing. Do you? Maybe it's because I had so many like I wrote a lot of queries over my time. It got I got into the habit of it and I want to a query for every book, even though I already have an agent. I've been with the same agent the whole time. I still for myself write a query. And when I contact her, I'm like, here's the book. Here's the pitch. So I will then she probably sends it right to your editor and the editor is like, that sounds great. I'll tweak it a bit. And that's the cover copy. Here's I mean, there have been cases where I have basically like that kind of tracked all the way through. Not always. I always when I first acquire a book, that pitch goes into our system and it iterates itself throughout wherever the book lives, at whatever stage it's at. And eventually I use it at least as inspiration for catalog copy, because you know your book better than anybody. You know what the most important parts are. But a lot of writers do find that to be a challenge. So that answers that. was going to ask you, like, how do you figure it out? do you like it? A lot of practice, but then also, because I've run Wordsmith workshops, which is a, co-run that with Kristin Terrell and we do workshops in person and online and lots of critiques and coaching. So I have probably critiqued. And there's a link below. Yay. Thank you. I've probably critiqued hundreds of queries by this point at minimum. So. There is a pattern to it and it's just a lot of practice and critiquing other people actually makes me a far better writer. it's so your advice to writers who are trying to figure out how do I pitch? Yeah, practice practice, practice, practice and get critiques and give critiques. People forget that part because they're like, I got to get a critique and make mine perfect. And here's the list of everything I need to do. But if you give the critique, you actually learn it in a much better way. And then you get better at writing them. So is both do both of those things. That's really great. You're also from North Carolina, right? Am I getting this? I was always bad at remembering which clip Carolina you live not in but very close to one of the hardest hit areas, right? Yes. Yeah, it was really bad. Not to take away from what's happening in California right now because that's bad too. you guys are not over yet when it comes to that, right? what do you want to share with people about what's going on and what they can do? There are several book donation places. this for British people, like definitely this is the thing that can be very helpful because people lost like whole libraries are gone. Whole bookstores are gone. So just any type of book donation and every single county that was hit could use book donations because the flooding was such a surprise. Nobody expected the flooding because there was multiple catastrophic, there was a dam failure, there was a house that blocked the river and then the house exploded. Like there were so many multiple avenues of water that came in that nobody expected the flooding. And plus it's mountains, like there's only one panel for most of the water to go. period, right? Exactly. And there were so many, like in my county, we had the dam that failed for a lake. So all the lakefront properties, they're just gone. And a major bridge as well. But in the Asheville area, there's a river. And so the river obviously flooded. But book donations are really, important. There's a lot of cash donations in places like that. I think we have a link to one of the book donations. you gave me two different links. good. So whatever the links that and I don't remember what they are, because I did it like a month ago, but whatever the gave me are there in the description below. And if they're not, I will be editing it later because of all our technical difficulties, there was, I'm pretty sure the same description is in our current. But they'll be there if they're not at the moment. We actually have One question from bookishraider asking, I wonder what's Beth's favorite project is that she's published? Right now, I was asking you to choose a child. It like a mercenary. I'm like, I'll choose one. It changes frequently. I really, really love the book that I'm working on now that hasn't been announced yet that I can't really talk about, in part because of how it was born of. one of those books that was rejected while I was in the hospital, that trickled down over many years and changes to become the thing that's going to come out next. So I'm very excited about that one. But currently my favorite one is Full Speed to a Crash Landing because I wrote that out of spite, so much so that the book is dedicated to spite. Like if you look on the dedication page, it is dedicated to spite. was so. Why don't read dedications? I don't know why. They should have read that. But yeah, I was at a signing at a Comic Con and somebody came up to me and was, it was not the Comic Con's fault. the organization was great, but that one individual was just a terrible jerk and basically implied like, you can't really write something outside of Star Wars that would be really entertaining. And you couldn't write something like he was just listening all the stuff I couldn't write while I'm sitting at a table with like a dozen of my books. I'm like, too specifically to my face, to my face. And like, of course, I'm an invited guest at the con, so I can't leap over the table and punch him in the throat. But I wanted to. And so I took all that rage and went immediately back to my hotel room and had the first half of the book done before I left the convention. So that one is my little spiteful, rageful book. I can feel that because like this is a much different voice than your YA projects. It's way more playful. It's way more non-serious. in its voice, not in its content matter. But like, she's a rogue. Yeah. she's all the inside thoughts out loud. Because at the moment, I couldn't do that. I'm a lady at the conference. And so she gets to say all the stuff I really wanted to say. love that. And I'm not saying that, you know, your your YA are like, not playful, but they're different. That's a different it's a much more the world is at stake kind of feeling as opposed to I'm a rogue and I'm going to do what I want kind of. Yeah. mean, she might take the world, but only if there's some profit in it. Exactly. you did tell us a little bit about Star Wars, but I don't know that. Did we talk about how Star Wars came to be? How like, because there was a spate there about seven or eight years ago where all the YA authors I knew were starting to write Star Wars and somebody's like, give me a Star War. I want to do a Star War. How did it happen? Well, I wish I knew entirely what stars aligned for that to happen. But I still remember very distinctly, I had just kind of had a shower when my agent called me. And whenever my agent called me, who I adore, I love her so much, but it always feels like I'm being called to the principal's office. So was like, no, what did I do wrong? And so I remember her being like, you like Star Wars, right? And that was the point where everybody was doing it. was like, yes. And she was like, would you ever write for them? I was like, yes, I'll do it for free. And she was like, don't tell them that. But when I got the pitch for it, all I knew was it was going to be one of, they were calling them the anthology projects at the time. And all I knew was it was going to be the anthology story that starred Felicity Jones. And that was it. Like, that's all I knew. This was before Jen Erso's name. was known. We just know who the actress was. We didn't know what the story was. We knew it wasn't a Skywalker. And that was it. And they were like, Can you be on a plane and come to San Francisco in a few weeks? And I was like, Yes, I can. I immediately jumped on a plane and went to San Francisco. And they told us like there were several authors there for it was a number of Yeah, there. Yeah, there was like half a dozen or so. But some some people were working on the comic books. There was a junior novelization, things like that. And they put us in this little tiny room without windows in the middle of the office and said, here's the script, read it. You can't share it with anyone, but read it. And they don't know this. I probably should never say this out loud, but I know shorthand. And so I was like quoting it in shorthand in my notebook and like recording as much of it as I could. was like reading it voraciously. And I did not even know what story I was writing at that point. I just knew I got to read the script to Rogue One early. And I was like, this is amazing. But then. They were like, we want a YA version and it's gonna be, it's gonna take place outside of the script. was like, well, I really know the script well now. But it was fantastic. It was one of the best experiences of my life. And I couldn't say a word about it for more than a year. it was hard to hold that secret. Yeah, working in D &D related novels never, I mean, it never had that level of secrecy and we were certainly not. like Star Wars money flying people out to like, it's the same process though, where you like, you have to write an outline, you have to get it approved. And that I was the person on the other end of that doing all the, well, one of my first projects in Dragalance, the new adventures was I had, I inherited three writers working on the same trilogy and one killed the dog because she thought the dog was so annoying in book one. no. And in book two, he resurrected the dog, not on purpose, but because nobody told him the dog died. So like on the other end of that is the person trying to like keep all the moving pieces so that the reader feels like they're having a cohesive experience and not like that person died. That person has green hair here and blue skin there or, know, that kind of thing. there were so many of those. The second one I wrote was Princess and the Scoundrel, which is Han and Leia's wedding and honeymoon. And it takes place on the Halcyon, the galactic star cruiser. And I had to write the book before the actual hotel opened. And so people were going to be there and see it, but I had to write the book before it existed. And so there were so many details that I was putting in. was like, Han's boots echoed on the metal floor. And then like 15 comments from all the various fact checkers were like, the floor is not metal. This doesn't work. And I was like, I didn't know. haven't been there. Yeah. And even if they give you a Bible, they cannot give you every single detail and you have to make those things up. I had like the blueprint, but that's not the same as being physically in the right. Exactly. And then there were some things that got added later that I had to like rush to put in the book because some person on Twitter took a picture of something. I was like, that wasn't in the blueprint. I've got to it. I'd love to know. You've been a writer for so long, but what that often comes with is just being a deep reader. What is a book that has shaped your life? I went hunting through my shelves to pull out my battered copy of Madeline Langle's A Wrinkle in Time. I read it to death. Like, the spine no longer exists. It's just some scotch tape, and that's it. But I think it's at my mom's house. I couldn't find it anywhere. You would love this. Yes. Her granddaughter lives locally here. Her granddaughter who runs the social media account that we all love. Yes, that I follow constantly and all the Christmas cards she posts are like the highlight of the December. I have them in the bookstore. I have mugs. have have Tesseract mugs in the bookstore because she brought me some of those. So FYI, if you want one, if anybody in the comments wants one. once one, we can we can make arrangements. Yeah. Okay. So you and I fourth grade, probably. Yeah. My teacher, Mrs. Hawes handed me a copy of A Wrinkle in Time because I was so stinkin bored. I learned the word tangible from the first page of A Wrinkle in Time. I read Madeline Langle for like five years after that. I just kept rereading her. All of the many waters was like groundbreaking to me. was, loved it. It was a ring of endless light. Yeah. That's with the dolphins, right? That's the one with the dolphins. I loved that one so much. Have you read the ones that she wrote under a pen name, the adult books? No, I think, I think one of them is called the other side of the sun. And she wrote one about, wait, no, I'm thinking of Lois Lowry. She wrote one about when her sister died. No, I'm thinking of Lois Lowry. Yeah. I don't know that one. But the adult one that she wrote, I still distinctly remember specific scenes of it. I couldn't tell you the plot, but I can still remember where I was in my high school library reading this book that I had just discovered was actually her. And it was amazing. They're very, very good. She just had this ability. And I don't know if it's the same for kids now, if they were to pick up. I think that there was a very specific point in time from the 60s to maybe our generation where Meg and all of her ilk were just what we needed. yeah. And then the natural progression was Meg and then Ursula K. Le Guin and Earthsea. And that was just like a gateway drug to like science fiction stories that meant something and character focused that you could see the parallel with your world. yeah. I grew, I went to college with so many guys who are like, you haven't read this guy or you haven't read that guy, then you're not really a fan of science fiction and fantasy. And I'm like, but do you know Madeline Langle? Like I know Madeline Langle. So I'm no fake nerd girl. Thank you very much. So I do have in my notes to ask you what you're working on next, but at the moment you can't talk about it. Is there anything in the pipeline that you can talk about? I can say that Sarah and I are writing more books. it's going to be a long, I'm sorry. In the same series? So it's not going to be Fritzie and Otto. But if you like Outlander, Scottish things, Tudor era, Mary Queen of Scots, that kind of thing, I think you'd be happy. But I'm also part Scottish and have been to Scotland. So I'm going to have to read this next. I joke that it covers both my heritages because I am German and Scottish. I'm like, ahead. So we have that coming out. And then I have my first adult fantasy that will eventually be announced soon. That's amazing. someone in the comments has asked, What are some genres that you'd like to explore in the future within adult or YA? You mostly have written in SFF. So are you breaking out of that anytime soon? No. Or you just love it too much? If I write a book, there has to be a significant chance that something will explode. And I mean, it's probably going to explode on the page with me. yeah, science fiction and fantasy is kind of where I'm going to stay for a while. I would like to write a middle grade. I have a middle grade idea that I really love and I haven't quite shaped it to where it needs to be. I would love to work on graphic novels. I'm not as an artist. I'm not an artist, if there's, there are. Yeah. mean, most of the graphic novels that I've edited have been the way the picture books are. You pair a writer with a, an illustrator. It's possible. I wrote some comics. for Star Wars and I loved it and I loved the process of it and I would love to turn that into something else of my own. But speaking of what you were just talking about, like staying in the SFF space, I once heard Scott Westerfeld speak and somebody had asked him something like that as well. And he said, when I turn on the TV in a say I'm in a hotel somewhere and it's law and order or something like that, I am waiting for the alien to come out of the guy's chest and waiting for something to happen that is not realistic. most of us that are like really into science fiction and fantasy, that's kind of just where our brains always go. So I forgotten anything about? you wanted to you you'd already mentioned the writing. What is the critiquing that we talked about? Oh, wordsmith workshops. Yes. Tell people where they can find that and then where they can find you online. So wordsmith workshops, you can most easily find us at wordsmithworkshops.com. We have videos for very, very low cost instructional hands-on kind of things like that. We're going to start a new series on revision very, very soon. And we also do periodically throughout the year, three to four to five. workshops across the country. We're going to Mexico in February. And what we do with those, have like workshops during the day where Chris and I teach and then each of us critiques your work as well. So you get a one-on-one critique from both of us and workshops and like a cool vacation to have on the beach. So it's a really, really good time. That's a lot of fun. Yeah. And I'm at BethRevice.com. I just remembered I'm supposed to say that too. Excellent. And I just want to ask everybody who's here, if you liked this conversation, please do subscribe or hit the bell or whatever it is I'm supposed to ask people to do on YouTube. And the books are, I'm just going to remind you, Full Speed to a Crash Landing, How to Steal a Galaxy, Night of the Witch, The Fate of Magic, and I forgot the title already, Someone Who Loves You. So among many, many others. it's been so great talking to you, Beth. Thank you for having me. you so much. And everybody, curiouscatbookshop.com. Thank you so much. Grab the books there. We'll see y'all later. Bye. Bye.