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book writing is a marathon, not a sprint - feat. melissa whitney

• Sydney Applegate • Season 2 • Episode 4

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0:00 | 17:35

Hey everyone! Welcome back to Talk Wordy! Today's episode features the incredible Melissa Whitney as she gives us a little insight into her writing journey as a blind woman and how she crafts stories to spotlight disabled joy. She was so lovely to speak to, and her new release, THE RECOVERY RUN, is absolutely adorable. Go check her out, and thanks for tuning in!


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SPEAKER_01

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Talk Worty, my hub for all of the words that I read, write, or otherwise want to yap about. Today I have a very, very special author guest on the pod. She's the author of several rom-coms as well as her new romanticy, Something Wicked, and is a co-host for the Happy to Meet Cute podcast. Her next book, Toe to Toe, comes out March 10th. Or if you're listening to this the day the episode airs today, please welcome Fallon Ballard. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so giddy. I was literally just telling you, I was like, I cannot express my excitement enough for the fact that there's gonna be another dance-adjacent book out in the world for me to consume.

SPEAKER_00

I am so excited for this book to come out. Um, I am obsessed with it, and it it excites me to hear your excitement, and it also is terrifying because then I'm like, oh God, what if everybody hates it?

SPEAKER_01

Never, not possible whatsoever. Before we get into more about that book as well as some of your other books, uh what I like to do normally with all of my guests is talk about what we're reading, watching, and listening to. But since we're in a time crunch and I am quite a fan, so I have many questions to ask, I want to narrow it down to what has been your latest hyperfixation? What has been on the brain for Fallon Ballard?

SPEAKER_00

I mean, truly like the rest of the planet, I am solely invested in heated rivalry.

SPEAKER_01

I was just about to say this could go one or two ways. I was like, it's either the traders or it's heated rivalry. It's both. Incredible choices.

SPEAKER_00

It's both. But I, yeah, I um I didn't know that my life was going to be changed. And I will never be the same again.

SPEAKER_01

I'm convinced that like books that are adapted into media by Canadian companies have something else in them that is just perfect. It is beyond anything else. I had no expectations going into Hugh Rivalry at all. I'm not super big on like hockey storylines only because I know nothing about hockey.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I was like, you know what? Everybody's talking about it. I've seen one Thirst Edit. And I was like, I gotta see what, I gotta see what this is all about. Yeah, that's all it takes. What is it? Six or seven episodes later, lives changed. Lives have been changed. I've recommended it to all of my friends. Even my friend, my most cynical friends are like, this changed me on a molecular level.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, it's like truly brought the world together, unlike anything I have seen in a very long time. I was at like a Christmas holiday party, and I'm like just talking to this random straight guy that I don't know, I've never met him before, and he was like, Oh, you write romance. So are you watching heated rivalry? I'm like, Yeah, obviously. Of course I am, yeah. Sat there and we had like a full conversation about it. I was like, this is doing things that we never could have imagined, and it's it's amazing. I love it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I feel like heated rivalry is not only just hitting its target audience, it's broadening it to the people you would absolutely least expect to be watching heated rivalry. And it's everything to me. True. It's amazing. That's perfect. Um, okay, so first I want to talk about something wicked. Yeah, um, it was your romantic debut. What made you want to switch genres? And what about writing romantic was different this time around than starting a rom-com manuscript?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, I have always wanted to write a fantasy. Um, I actually wrote the very first version of Something Wicked right after I wrote my first draft of Lease on Love. So way back in 2020. Um, I just am always been a huge reader of fantasy, and so I knew that it was something that I wanted to do. It was just sort of like figuring out the timing. Um and it's so different because it's so much harder. Yeah. Oh my gosh. If you've ever heard me talk about like my writing process at all, I hate plotting. Like I am a pantser hardcore. Like I sit down at my computer with basically like no information in my head other than like who the characters are. And then I really just figure out the story like as I go. Um, and you I tried to do that with romantic, and I was like, oh, this does not work. Um, so I had to like really address my writing process. I the world building was like the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Um, every edit letter I got back from my editor was like, more, more, more details, more details. And I was like, oh my god, I don't ever want to hear the term world building ever again for the rest of my life. Um, so yeah, it was tough, it was tough, but it was so fun to do something different and challenge myself and get to play in a world where, like, you know, you can stab people and have magic. And I'm like, this is awesome, actually. So that part was really fun.

SPEAKER_01

It's very cathartic, but I will say there's so many things that you have to keep track of when you write a romantic. It's a lot. Oh my gosh. Especially like if you're I mean, luckily, when I wrote my romanticies, I was really deep in the genre. So I was like, okay, here's kind of what it takes. Here are the you know, the big players, yada yada yada, versus like I can't even imagine somebody coming in from just like the contemporary romance scene and going, okay, I'm facing a Goliath trying to put this to paper.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think if you haven't extensively read fantasy, I don't I never could have actually made that happen. So I think it was it was good for me that I have been reading the genre for so long because that really helped me be able to kind of like wrap my head around it. For sure.

SPEAKER_01

Um, personally, I am a sucker for great comps. And with both something wicked and toe-to-toe, um, you knocked it out of the park with those comps. Mulan Rouge meets Shakespeare. Oh my gosh. Yeah, um, also, and Dirty Dancing meets Magic Mike. When I saw the Dirty Dancing Comp, I literally like fell to my knees. I was like, Are you kidding me? That's like one of my all-time favorite pieces of media. It's the best. How did you end up landing on these comp combinations? And what about each of those stories resonated with you?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, with something wicked, I when I pitched the series to my publisher, and when I was writing the first draft of it, I knew the Shakespeare part of it from the beginning. Like when I wrote that first draft way back in 2020, that was really the heart of the story, was the Macbeth part of it. Um, I am like a huge Shakespeare nerd. I have a background in theater, so that has just always been really important to me. And I knew that I wanted to tie in like multiple Shakespeare plays into one series and kind of tie them all together. Um, but that first draft was set in like a very different world, and it wasn't until the Moulin Rouge aspect of it came into it that I was like, oh, this is what makes it work. Um, and I just I'm obsessed with the I'm an elder millennial theater child, so Moulin Rouge, the movie, was pivotal to my life. Um, and then in 2019, I saw Moulin Rouge on Broadway for the first time. And I have since seen it more times than I will admit to because you know what?

SPEAKER_01

That's a flex though.

SPEAKER_00

That is that is not a bad thing at all. At least lately, I'm like, it's a business expense. It's a write-off, it's for research. We're writing that off, it's all good. Um, but I just the world of Moulin Rouge is like so lush. Yes, that it it really made everything kind of come together for me in that one. Um and then with Toe to Toe, I I fully got the idea for Toe-to-Toe when I saw Magic Mike 3 in the theaters, and that last scene when he's like doing that dance in the rain with the ballerina, and I was like, okay, this is a thing that needs to happen. And again, as an elder millennial, I mean, yes, dirty dancing is like very pivotal, but like center stage for me was everything. So it was like kind of like the all three of those things coming together for me really solidified it all. And I just love like I love other pieces of art, like that's what really inspires me. Like most of my books come from some sort of inspiration from something outside in the pop culture world, um, you know, movies and theater and all of that. So uh I love it when it just like all kind of like clicks in my brain, and I'm like, okay, yeah, here we go. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_01

Especially like as an author that's pursuing traditional publishing, a lot of times when you're trying to set up like what your comps are for your books, they so badly want you to like reference books within the last five years. And I'm just like, what is wrong with comping a TV show or a movie? I know that as a consumer, like if you comp musical theater for your instance, it's like, oh my gosh, the book, I'm probably not even reading the back cover copy before it's in my car, in my seat, in my house, on my bookshelf. 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um, and obviously I'm not the one responsible for most of my marketing, but like I can't even tell you how many times I have said over the past year, oh, it's Macbeth meets Moulin Rouge, and somebody's like, Oh, you don't need to say anything else. Done, sold. And I'm like, yes, love that for me.

SPEAKER_01

Also, as someone that is very vocal about theater, I'm dying to know what are some of your favorite like musicals or theater productions.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I mean, I have 80 million. Um, it's my life. Um, like sort of my pivotal ones, um, a chorus line was one of the first that I like really got into as a kid, and so inappropriate. I was like, I don't know if we can say bedwards on this podcast. Go ahead, girl. I was like, as like a 10 and 11-year-old child walking around singing the song about tits and ass. And I was like, why was my mother letting me do that? But okay, here we go. Um, Phantom of the Opera is the first like professional production I saw. I was six. I was too young to be seeing Phantom of the Opera again. There's a theme. Um rent was my life in high school again, as the elder millennial that I am. Um, I think recently, obviously Moulin Rouge, that's like a no-brainer. That's evergreen, it's so good. Yeah, but like uh maybe Happy Ending is so incredible and like so brilliant and so creative. Um, on my most recent trip, I saw Ragtime.

SPEAKER_01

I've been hearing so many good things about ragtime.

SPEAKER_00

Like, fully, I actually had never listened to it, I'd never seen anything about it before. And I like went into the show, and I am not joking at intermission. I had to fix my makeup because I had like tear tracks like in my foundation, and I was like, oh my god, this is like not a great look. But like the show is phenomenal. Uh, if you're on theater talk at all, you have heard Joshua Henry with his like little clip that's going around that is viral, that is just like ugh, I feel like I'm on the surface of theater talk, but I'm like not deep in there.

SPEAKER_01

I'm at the level of like when you say Moon Lawn Rouge, I think about Aaron To Bet and his um Roxanne and Tango. Oh my god. Um, oh my gosh. The greatest thing I've ever heard in my life. It crushes my soul that like the version where he opts up isn't in the cast recording, so I just have to pretend that he's letting it rip.

SPEAKER_00

Thank God for those people who broke the rules and recorded for us. I mean, don't do that, but like also thank you.

SPEAKER_01

I feel like something that also goes with like the theater kid experience is like being a Disney nerd or a Disney adult. And I have it on Code Authority that you absolutely love Disneyland. I do. Um, what are your like go-to stops when you go to Disneyland? Rides, food, all the good stuff.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so I am pretty basic because I don't really do rides. Um, to be totally honest, my typical Disneyland day, I do this about once a week. I drop my kid off at school. I that's the best part. That's the key right there. You're out of here. Um I leave my house around eight o'clock in the morning. I live 10 minutes away from the park.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh, the jealousy is so real right now.

SPEAKER_00

I am in by 8:30. I get breakfast, I take my laptop to Galaxy's Edge, and I write in Galaxy's Edge, like at least once a week. And it is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.

SPEAKER_01

I hear that and I'm like, Lord, I've seen what you do for others.

SPEAKER_00

When is it my turn? And then so I will like sit there, I'll usually write for like an hour and a half. Uh, my husband is in the Disneyland band. Um I go and I like watch him perform, do his little sets. I will like sometimes have lunch, usually grab like something sweet on my way out, and then I'm like home by two o'clock. It's like the best day ever.

SPEAKER_01

I cannot get over how absolutely envious I am of you. That sounds like the perfect day. I like to ask my authors sometimes, like, oh, like if you could build the perfect day, where would you go? And they they talk about all the different things and places they could go in the world, and then I'm I'm hearing this and I'm like, mind you, I've never been to Disneyland. I I've only ever been to Disney World. Also, I have to know, as a big Disneyland girl, what is the difference for you between land and world?

SPEAKER_00

I mean, okay, so I have only been to Disney World once and I was like a kid, so I don't remember it super well. But for me, I think what I also especially hear from other people that do both parks is that the best thing about Disneyland and California Adventure is you can, it's like they're 10 yards away from each other. So I walk out the gate of Disneyland, I take two minutes, get to the gate at California Adventure. California Adventure has alcohol, you can get your beer, you can take your drinks in line with you, which I don't think you're allowed to do at Disney World. I feel like Disney World's super stingy and strict. You just like like if I'm gonna be there with my kid and he's like, you know, I want to go on web slingers, and the line is like 45 minutes. I'm like, great, I will get a beer, I will drink my beer in line, we'll go on our little Spider-Man ride. I mean, Avengers Campus, it's pretty good, not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_01

So I've never been, and I'm just like, okay, adding another trip to my bucket list. Hardly ever rains at our parks. So that's true. I feel like when you go to World, you better have like your clear poncho in your back pocket, ready to go. I don't even own a poncho, so I will say though, there is rain in the California forecast. I know it's supposed to rain on Monday.

SPEAKER_00

I'm supposed to go to Disneyland on Monday, and I'm like, I will be canceling that reservation if it's gonna rain.

SPEAKER_01

I was like, we I come from Texas, and so we just got out of the ice storm, and I'm like, haha, California has to get some rain.

SPEAKER_00

I know. We're very spoiled though. I mean, it's literally been like 80 degrees the whole year. So gorgeous. We can't get it.

SPEAKER_01

I know, and yet the one time I show up, it's like 60-something degrees and the pool is cold, and I'm like, oh yeah, you can't do that.

SPEAKER_00

I didn't even bring my bathing suit because I was like, Oh, it was too cold for me. I didn't either. Not doing that.

SPEAKER_01

I thought about it. I gotta go stock the hotel and see if there's a hot tub somewhere, but there's an adults-only pool.

SPEAKER_00

So dangerous. That's probably where it goes.

SPEAKER_01

If they heat that pool, it's over. Yeah, it's over because they can't wear you co-host a podcast since you're on a podcast right now. It's like I love when authors also dabble in the podcasting universe. Um, you have one called um Happy to Meet Cute. Happy to meet cute, um, which I just think is so cool. What are some of your favorite meet meat cubes in uh books, TV, or movies?

SPEAKER_00

Oh gosh. Um, okay, that's the kind of question that you asked me, and I'm like, have I ever seen a meet cute ever? Yeah. I mean, the one that like first came into my head when you said that is um and how to lose a guy in 10 days when they're just hanging out at the and they make their little bet. But I will say, okay, here's a good one too. I am obsessed with the people we meet on vacation movie.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh, such a beautiful adaptation.

SPEAKER_00

That's so good. Um, and I I love Poppy, like she is one of my favorites, and I feel like their first meeting at the car is just like so so Poppy.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And you really from that very first moment get a really true sense of like who both of those characters are, and I think that that's really important.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. And then on your podcast, you get to meet some really cool people in the literary universe. You've interviewed Nisha J. Tooley, Sarah Adams, Joseph Gura. I love Joseph Gura. So um, who would you say are some of the authors that like you still like am dying are dying to like have a meet cue with?

SPEAKER_00

Oh my gosh. Well, okay, so the person that we've had on the podcast that like took me out fully uh was Danielle Jensen. Yes, um, The Bridge Kingdom was like the first like adult romantic series that I like really, really got into, and I fully was just like um and then I did a panel with her at Comic-Con last summer, and I was just like, hi, I'm sure you don't remember me, and that's totally fine, but like, hi, I'm Fell and she was like so lovely and so kind. She's Canadian, so yeah, of course. Um, and I feel like I mean, honestly, like my dream guest at this point is probably Emily Henry, and yeah, we'll never get her.

SPEAKER_01

Hey, don't say that. Put it out into the universe. Good things can come your way. I mean, especially because she has like what five more adaptations loading.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You've got some time to work through that.

SPEAKER_00

We gotta get in there.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so because at the time that we're recording, we're at Love LitCon right now. Um, but some people will likely be watching this um in the future when we are not at Love Lit Con, which already breaks my heart. But say la vie. Um, tell our listeners, both live and future, where can you be found here at the convention? Where's your table if you're doing any panels? And then for future listeners, where can they find you online?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I am doing a panel on Saturday at 10:30 that is all about pop culture. So literally like my favorite thing to talk about ever. Um, so that one is gonna be super fun. And then I'm at table, I think I'm at 95. I'm very close to like the ocean window. If you haven't been in there yet, it is stunning. Um, and so I will just be staring out at the view all day long. Um, if you are not at LovelitCon, I'm very easy to find on the internet because I am the only Fallon Ballard, and that is my username on everything. So you can just search for Fallon Ballard. One L in Fallon, but you'll find me either way.

SPEAKER_01

Love it. Well, there you have it. Thank you for tuning in to Talk Wordy, and my thanks again to Fallon Ballard for coming on the show. Absolutely geeked. I still cannot believe that I just had a full on conversation with you. I'm over the moon about it. Um, don't forget to follow the podcast on Instagram at TalkWordypod, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye, you guys.