Plot twists. Pen Power. Black Girl Brillance.

I’ve got a fire episode dropping on What’s Next? With The Chief Librarian featuring author Necole Ryse ✍🏾

We’re talking all things writing, resilience, and building a brand that slays from the page to the people! You’ll laugh, you’ll nod, you might even grab your pen again.

Writers + dreamers = this one’s for YOU.
Catch the convo when it drops! Meet us at the mic 🎙🏾

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Welcome to What's Next, the podcast, where we explore life's pivotal moments and the decisions that shape our next chapter. I'm your host, the Chief Librarian, and each week I sit down with inspiring individuals who dare to shift it, whether it's in their careers, relationships, or personal growth. Together, we'll uncover their stories, challenges, and lessons to inspire your own journey. So are you ready to find out what's next? Come on now, let's go dive in. When the mic turns on, purpose meets power. Welcome back to What's Next with the Chief Librarian, where we don't just talk about change, we live it. I'm your host, Tiffany, the Chief Librarian. And today we're talking plot twist, purpose, and pen power with the brilliant Nicole Rice. Hi, Nicole. How are you? You made me sound so great. You are.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Hi, hi. I'm so happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

I'm glad to have you. Thank you for joining us to talk about, you know, your writing journey and you know, just give us some tips. I'm not going to say what we're going to talk about, but we're going to start with your writing journey. But first, I want to know what's a book that changed your life, but not for the reason people might expect.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Oh man. That's crazy. A book that has changed my life. I have a few. A book that changed my life. I would say, oh man, this is so tough. This is so tough. I would definitely say Harriet the Spy was one of my favorite, favorite books growing up. I just loved how nosy she was. I loved that she kept like the list of like everyone she wanted to like take out that I could, as the Scorpio moon in me, could understand that. Oh man, changed my life. I would say you by Caroline, I can't think of her name. Caroline Kepness, I think. She is the you know, the show You on Netflix. That's actually a book. And that was the first time I'd ever seen anyone write in second person the entire time. So the main character was you. So it was like you, da da da da, like you were Joe Goberg. And that blew my mind. That was crazy to me. And man, a more modern one, I would say, is Razor Blade Tears by S.A. Cosby. That's uh like a mystery revenge novel. And I just, you know, the friendship between two opposite men and you know, just the development of the characters, I would think, really changed the way I looked at like thrillers or things like that. I would say that changed my life too. That's the probably the only book other than like Harry Potter, where I like cried real, real tears at the end. But yeah, I would say those three. Man, that's a tough question.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

I'm sorry about that. Listen, I thought it would be okay. Well, it's never meant to be tough, but you got through it and you named three books that changed your life. And I love the fact that you go back to your childhood talking about Harriet the Spy and the details of the book. I don't know if you reread it when you got older if you just remember that from when you were younger, but that is amazing, an amazing memory. If you've read it.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Harriet the Spy. Oh, and that just made me think about the diary of Latoya Hunter. It's just a young black girl who has like diary entries about her first year in high school, I think, or middle school, I can't remember. And my language arts teacher gave it to us in seventh grade. And I think that changed my life too, because it was a young black girl on the front. And I hadn't seen that since like, you know, you get a sign like Roll of Thunder, here my you know, you get a sign with the same. Like, I don't know. She just had the same sort of anxieties and fears I had. I like I re-homed that book from the library, it's in my bookcase right now.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Oh, yes, I like I like you write that. Rehome. It's on your bookcase. That's it. It's on your book. Okay, but yes, I love that. But you know, the thing that is most outstanding to me is that you started your writing journey early from the age of four.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Very, very early. The quickest I could get something in my hand to write with, I was writing, I think. I was just so proud of myself of writing, you know, my ABCs on my granny's car. I wanted everybody to come look. I was so excited, and that's right.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah, because timeship was important, and you know, you did the thing, it was absolutely exciting.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

I was so proud of myself, and it did not occur to me that I mean you were you were young and therefore it was still a lot, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:35

It's you still it was not well thought out, we can say, however, it was clearly understood because we sit before you today talking about your series and all the things that you're doing. So I think it was you know it's a part of your journey. It's just your story. But do you want to talk a little bit more about you, the young Nicole Rice, and what writing means to you, and maybe give some tips to young people who might be listening today?

SPEAKER_00 6:06

I started writing because I really just didn't want nobody else to hear what I had to say. I just wasn't a talker. I would keep to myself a lot in like middle school. Like I really wasn't a I was a social butterfly in elementary school, but I think everything changed when I got to like middle school and stuff. And I just wanted to keep all my thoughts to myself. So I started keeping a diary, and I've kept a diary or journal probably every year of my life since I was in like fourth or fifth grade. And it's it's just me and my thoughts, and I can really see the emotional growth of who I was, you know what I'm saying? So it's nice to keep them, but when I look back, I'm like, oh my god, girl, you are so dramatic. But that's how I like started writing, I would say. It started from just like writing in my diary, writing in my journal, and then I just started sort of making stories up, and I would sort of just make stories, write them down in this journal. And I remember in middle school, one of my friends, I let her read one of the stories, and I wasn't finished with it. It was like, I don't know, the first couple of chapters, if I could call that chapters back then. And she literally read it and was like, You have to keep writing, like you need to keep writing this. So I would keep writing and then give it to her to read. They would pass it around for other people to read, and then everybody would be like, What where's the rest? Like, continue writing. So I would just make up stories for people to read. So yeah, I would say that's how I started. Advice, I would say to read one. I think in order to be a writer, I wouldn't say in order, because a lot of people write because they have something to say. But I think to be a stronger writer, you really do need to read other writers and not just books that interest you, but books outside of your genre, like science fiction or romance, you know, things that you don't know. Because I started writing, I wouldn't even, it was like drama stories, you know, like little teen drama stories. And so I just started reading my mama's books, you know what I mean? The Eric Jerome Dickies and stuff like that. I had no reason, no business to be reading. But yeah, I would just start reading other stories and seeing how other people wrote. I was like, Oh, that's kind of cool. Like that sentence is cool. I like how he said that, or you know, it just you start to develop your own voice. So my advice would for people to be to read if you want to write.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Yeah, that's amazing advice, especially because, and I'm taking that advice from you who had a team from middle school. You it's because I heard you had editors, you had publishers, you had teams from middle school. So I'm gonna take your advice.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Yeah, my friends were not playing, they were like, What are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Where's but that that should tell you about you and how amazing you were even at that young age? Because for you to have a couple of chapters and they're like, Okay, what's next? Like you were the original what's next. You better go call your team real quick.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

What's next? Shout out to middle school.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Listen, if you didn't, if it wasn't for middle school, would we be where we are? What was the inspiration behind your debut novel, The Legacy and the creation of the birthright trilogy?

SPEAKER_00 9:44

The first thing that popped in my mind is I was broke. Honestly, I I had nothing but time. I was what was the legacy like 2012 or yeah, about 2012, 2013. I had just moved home from being in Baltimore after I graduated college, middle of the recession. I had no money, no job. So I literally had nothing but time. I was living back in my mama's basement, you know, and I had nothing but time to figure out what I wanted to do. And this is so crazy. I heard a Trey Songs interview, and I used to be a huge Trey Songs fan in college, not so much now, but I used to be a huge Trey Songs fan. And he has said that he took a year to make his album. And if he said he didn't make it at the end of that year, then he was gonna quit music. And so I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna do the same thing, I'm gonna give myself a year to write this book, write this series, and if I don't quote unquote make it at the end of this, then you know I'm not gonna do it anymore. And I definitely, I wouldn't say at the end of the year, but after I put it out, I definitely got a this was so long ago, but I got a contract from a publisher at the time who did want to publish the legacy. So I put it out self-published, and then I got an email to have it republished by another publisher under their label. And at the time it was really exciting because self-publishing wasn't a huge thing, like people weren't just publishing books. This was like 2014. So the Amazon publishing was called like Create Space. Like, this is a long time ago, and so it was exciting to me that I got a publisher to redo this for me. And anyway, turned out that the publisher wasn't right for me, but I rebranded the books and put them out again myself, and yeah, the rest, the rest is history, you know.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

So you talk about the journey of self-publishing, having someone reach out, publishing, figuring that that relationship isn't gonna work, and then rebranding and doing it yourself. How did that help your journey and your confidence or just your process to strengthen?

SPEAKER_00 12:19

I had to have a lot of gall, you know, you just had to have a lot of just blind faith that it's just going to work. I really did a lot of research because there wasn't a lot of information about how to put out your own book. This was still back when blogs were a thing. So I'm on blogs trying to figure out how to take something from a Word document to make it an actual book, you know? And so I'm, you know, it's a process of research, of finding editors, of finding other people to read your work. That's not like your homegirl, you know, or somebody you know that works at a print shop. It's like finding an editor, finding all these people. So it took a lot of just blind faith. When I think about who I was at the time, I just was really determined to make it work. And I don't think I thought about what if it doesn't. I mean, I'm sure I thought about it. I'm sure I thought about what if it doesn't. But I just I was going ball to the wall, you know, it was this or nothing.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

I know that's right.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

So, what advice do you have for creatives afraid to take that leap?

SPEAKER_00 13:44

The time is gonna pass anyway, if you don't. I mean, I tell myself this too. Like, even if you don't put out the thing, you're still gonna want to put out the thing. There's still gonna be a part of you that's like, damn, I should have I should have put out that thing. It's gonna be two years from now, one year from now. It's gonna annoy you. It's gonna be in the back of your mind. You're gonna be shaking ass in a club one day, and you're gonna be like, Man, I should have put out that thing. You know what I mean? And the time is gonna pass anyway. It's going to pass you by anyway. So you might as well do it. At least get it over with. You can tell yourself, like, oh, this didn't work. But if it does work, then your life can change. You know what I mean? And it's sort of like you do you want it to annoy you for the rest of your life? I don't want to be an old lady, like, damn, I should have done that thing when you know. I don't want to have those regrets. So do the thing. Do the thing, or else it'll just annoy you for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Great advice. What's been your boldest pivot moment today?

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Quitting my job, honestly, and writing, giving myself that year to write. Because I have like a little when I moved home, I had this little healthcare job. Well, it was um like a reimbursement specialist or whatever. And so I wasn't making a lot of money, but it was a job at the time. And when I don't know, I heard that interview, I was like, I'm just gonna do what I want to do because it was it sucked. I had a two-hour commute, I hated the job, it wasn't fun, it wasn't anything I really wanted to do. I was just doing it so I could have money, which we're American, so you know that's capitalism. But I think quitting my job was the boldest thing I've ever done, and just being like, okay, well, we don't have anything else. This is our plan from here on out. I would say that definitely that.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Yeah, no, believing in yourself, like you said, you touched on it earlier, but the faith of a mustard seed, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Yeah, mustard seed, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

I mean, for real, okay half of a mustard seed, like that's all you need, and that's all we've learned, right? Like if you have the faith of a mustard seed, and for those of you who don't know what a mustard seed, just ask a baby to look for the tiniest thing on the floor to break that is the size of a mustard seed. Yeah, and to have that faith is a lot of what women and people of color, that's how we lived our lives for years, for centuries. And so to hear you say that, that just resonates so much. And to see where you are today, so it works, right? Yeah, so and I love the advice that you gave about thinking about years from now, or maybe being older or a senior and saying, Why didn't I do that thing?

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Yeah, and it's like I don't want to be afraid to do the thing, you know, and this is our only chance at life. And if you fail, okay, like so what, you know, plenty of people fail, plenty every day. You'll just be adding to the number, you're fine, you know. And like maybe this is this failure leads to something else, you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Absolutely, because failure does lead to success. I could tell you, if I didn't fail, I don't know how successful I would be, right? Because what do you have to match it up against? So I love that. So you have some upcoming projects, including your work under the pseudonym RL Kilmore. Yes. Do you want to talk a little bit about some of that work that's coming on?

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Sure. It's called A Cinnamon Falls Mystery. The first book is called A Cinnamon Falls Mystery. It's going to be a three-book crime series that takes place in a fictional town in Georgia called Cinnamon Falls. So the first one will be out in the UK as an ebook this August. And then it's coming back to the US in January. So I'm really excited about it. In 2022, I decided I was done writing. I hadn't written anything since then. So like December 2022, I was like, yeah, I'm done with this. I'll find something else to do, you know, something else to get out my creativity. And I got an email from Simon and Schuster in 2024, late 2024, that asked me, you know, if I wanted to write this series. And it wasn't like I had recent books, you know, the books that I did have were years and years old. But yeah, I just got this random email through my website and I thought it was spam for forever, you know, and I wasn't gonna answer it, but you know, you do your Googles, and I sat up straight in bed, like, is this for real?

unknown 18:53

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 18:54

And you know, and ever since then, we had Zoom meetings, we talked about it, you know, we signed contracts, and I'm just I'm really, really excited for this second chance at something that I thought I was done with.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Oh, I'm excited for you, especially to hear a big name like Simon and Schuster in publishers reached out to you, right? Like this wasn't you out there saying, you know, let me get some a hit on they came and they sought you. So we going back to that mustard seed. Yeah, you planted that mustard seed, yeah. Back in middle school. Well, we're gonna go back to four before we're gonna go back to middle school.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Not four.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

We gotta go back to the beginning. Well, you planted that mustard seed, you survived that, and then you thrived. And you're in the place now where people are now seeking you out. And I mean one the wonderful place to be. Okay, so we're gonna take that moment to celebrate you. Okay, it's amazing. Hallelujah. Um, and I look forward in a trilogy. So this wasn't one book, I heard trilogy.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

So it's a three-book series. This one, a Cinnamon Falls Mystery, is the first one. And so it's about a girl named Nia who goes through this like devastating breakup with her boyfriend, and so she moves back home to Cinnamon Falls, and she finds herself sort of in a mystery, embroiled in like a murder investigation. So it's just a lot of my favorite things. So I love small town mysteries. I am a huge, huge fan of like anything small town. Like, you know, I watch hometown all the time. When I know it's like a dateline, when it's a small hometown with secrets, I'm in there. Like, that's my thing. So when they asked me to write this cozy mystery, I was like, absolutely, absolutely. This is like one of my favorite things to write. So, yeah. So, yeah, the character Nia comes home, she gets involved in this murder investigation. Her ex-boyfriend is now a detective in the town, and so it's a friends to lover story, it's also a second chance romance, it's also a murder mystery, and it's like a lot of humor, a lot of fun, a lot of fall vibes, but also a core mystery, you know, at its core, which I enjoy. So I'm really excited for it. This is my first traditional, traditional publishing contract. So I'm really, really excited for it.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Yeah. And I'm excited for you. I love to hear it. I cannot wait to read it. I mean, I I'm hoping that audiobooks will be on, you know, we're gonna speak it. Yes, audio as well, yeah. So I look so forward to this. I mean, just as because we're speaking about that, any aspirations for future collaborations and genres that you wish to explore? So I know you talk about what you like and what you love and how you get started, but are there aspirations for other collaborations or expansion of writing?

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Absolutely. At my core, I love mysteries. So I think any book that I put out, other than the contemporary I did, but any book that I put out, I think from here on out, will probably be at its core a crime novel of some sort. But crime also has its side genres, right? So I have an idea for paranormal, you know, detective story and a police procedural. Like I have a lot of, you know, ideas turning an assassin. So I just have a lot of like, you know, things that I want to do and want to put out. But right now, this three-book series is my priority. But after that, I'm really excited to delve into the manuscripts I sort of put down for years and go back to them and you know, reread them and make them better for the writer that I am now.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Listen, you heard it here first. You heard it here first. That's all I'm gonna say.

unknown 23:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Um, if you could speak directly to a black woman who's stuck or doubting herself, what would you say to her?

SPEAKER_00 23:39

I would say that all things work together. A lot of times, I personally can feel like things are done to me that I don't deserve. But you can get stuck in that place of feeling like, oh my god, the world sucks, everybody hates me, this is a terrible, you know. And I personally get stuck in that cycle of you know, being down on myself, feeling like this isn't working, you know, but pushing past that and realizing that a lot of the things that you think are working against you, if you give it time, you'll see that it's actually working for you. So a lot of the things that you've walked away from or that have hurt you, this time is giving you the time for the future you so you can look back and be like, damn, I really need to go through that because if I didn't, I wouldn't be where I am today. You know, and I think if somebody who's stuck right now, I would tell them to remember that all things work together for the good. I don't think we've been put on this place to have a bad life. I really don't. I think that we have the opportunity to make something more, to create something more from what we've been given. So, yeah, that's what I would say.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

That's a whole sermon. I love that y'all be coming on here and understanding the assignment. I'm sitting here taking my own notes, like I'm serious, like okay. So what's next for Nicole Rice?

SPEAKER_00 25:33

You know what's next is I hope more. I hope more novels come out. I hope that I get a chance to really show prove to myself that this little thing that I started when I was a kid, you know, that the girl from 2013, you know, that she made it work for, the girl that quit her job and was like, we're giving each other a year, we did it, you know. Look at us now. That's what's next for Nicole, is proving to that girl that we can do it. Definitely more novels, definitely just walking in my purpose for sure. That's what's next. More.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Ah, thank you so much for being on the show and sharing a piece of yourself with us.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Girl, making me emotional in here.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Listen, we sometimes, you know, that happens. It's coming up, but talk to the listeners and let them know where to find you.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

I am at Nicole Rice on everything in E C O L E R Y S E on everything. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. That's where I am. My website, NicoleRice.com, my newsletter. I'm probably be writing one in the coming months just about the new book and everything that's happening. So I plan to be way more active on social media. I just made a little TikTok page, girl. So we go see how that goes too.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

No, I love it. I love it. And the purpose of this is also, you know, just to share, not only share your journey and to talk about what's next and give people, you know, a tidbit or advice, but to make connections for those who are listening to know where to find you. And so I love that, you know, you shared your handles, and I'm going to repeat them for those who missed it so that you write it down. I mean, you can rewind back. I'm from the time of rewind. Rewind back. Back to Nicole Rice.com. N-E-C O-L-E-R-Y-S-E.com is the website, and and Nicole Rice on all social media platforms. You just heard TikTok. So I want to see Nicole out there doing TikToks on the little trunk. No, okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

No.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

So I want to encourage everyone to share this episode and subscribe to the podcast and tag both Nicole and the show on social media when you're talking about it. You've been listening to What's Next with the Chief Librarian. Until next time, stay ready so you don't have to get ready. Challenge accepted. Bye y'all.

unknown 28:28

Bye.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Thanks for tuning in to What's Next with the Chief Librarian. I hope today's conversation sparked new ideas and gave you a fresh perspective on life's transitions. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone who might need a little inspiration. For more stories and updates, follow me on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn at The Chief Librarian. And until next time, keep exploring what's next for you. Bye.