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Join Hayden, Mitch, and Tom with upcoming movie, tv show, and game news. Listen to reviews and off the wall facts, while providing a comedic spin with our opinions on the matter. Join us for amazing behind the scene interviews. The one true original "Entertain This" podcast.
Entertain This!
Leslie Anne Lee: Writing is All Fun and Games Until Someone Kills a Character!
Engaging in thoughtful conversations, Leslie Ann Lee shares her journey from historical fiction to the enchanting world of fantasy through her "Legends of the Veil" series. She reflects on her writing journey, creative processes, and the intricate themes explored in her storytelling.
• Discussing early inspirations and writing competitions
• Transition from historical to fantasy fiction
• Delving into the complexity of vampires and elves
• Exploring themes of identity and societal labels
• Leslie's writing process and challenges faced
• The balance of ghostwriting and personal authorship
• Audience engagement strategies for writers
• Anticipating future projects and audiobooks waiting in the wings
Hey, welcome to Entertain this. A podcast about movies, tv shows and video games and books, books. A special today with a special guest, leslie Ann Lee. Miss Lee, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm good thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us. So, reading through your bio, you said you've been writing since you could walk.
Speaker 2:Pretty much. Alright and uh, you have what six books published uh six published, and then we're currently working on uh the seventh okay, uh, that's the veil series, is that correct?
Speaker 1:yes okay yes, the legends of the veil, yep and, uh, you know, I have lots of questions about what your I guess shtick would be the better term to how you got to I guess more, uh, fantasy fiction and when you seem to have started out in, um, I guess, historical fiction, is that what you would call it? Yeah, okay, yeah yeah but before we get into all the the good stuff, I kind of want to know your journey as to how you got to where you're at. So so you started writing when you were young.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you win contests and stuff like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so reading and writing has been a part of my life for forever. First memories I have are of my mom reading to me Charlotte's Web and the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, to be specific. And then from there I wanted to create my own stories, do my own thing, and so it was. I was in the second grade and, uh, our school had a writing competition and I took home second place, which was, uh, the fuel for me to go back and do it again in third grade. And uh, cause I wanted first and I still got second, I got second two years in a row and uh, so from then on it was almost kind of like a competition with myself. I never got that stupid first place ribbon and it made me mad, and so I've just been kind of writing ever since, always trying to better myself and top myself. Never won first place for my creative writing, but I did take home a couple of first places for my poetry, so I guess in the end I did kind of like come out on top.
Speaker 3:Who was that first? Place guy, yeah, I was about to ask Was it the same person both times?
Speaker 2:No, it was a different person every single time. Oh, I was about to ask was it the same person both times? I know it's a different person every single time. They probably gave the school more money or something.
Speaker 1:They're teachers on the board.
Speaker 3:Suddenly there's a library named after his dad. It's like what Yep? I never entered any writing competition.
Speaker 1:You did a little bit. I guess you would call that short work as a kid kind of learning how to.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, very short.
Speaker 1:And poetry I mean, and you said, you did pretty well with poetry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, apparently.
Speaker 1:I dabble in writing, but poetry Poetry made me want to rip my hair out. You have to follow an iambic pentameter. Do you have a specific style of poetry that you, you kind of cater to? Do you actually make your words rhyme?
Speaker 2:you know, in the beginning, when I was, I think, I got into poetry because in high school, um and we're talking like freshman, sophomore year I would be sitting in biology class. I hate, I hate science. Nothing against it, I think it's fantastic, I just don't like learning it. And so I would have my, my five-star notebook and I would never take biology notes. I barely graduated this is a true story because I didn't pay attention in science, but I would be. I wanted to write, and so you only had like 45 minutes to come up with something you know. And so I would do poetry because it was much easier than doing, like you know, a full on novel or something. And so in the in the beginning it was you know, four lines in a stanza and the first and third line, you know lines would rhyme. Lines in a stanza and the first and third line, you know, lines would rhyme. And it was all because I was an emotional teenager. It was all like tragic love and ridiculous stupid staff, Like you know.
Speaker 2:And then, as I grew older and I got into college, again the same thing. I never wanted to pay attention, unless it was my literature English class. I was writing the poetry and I started to do a lot more free verse. Okay, and just kind of like messing around with things. I don't like rules, I'm really stubborn, and so to like be told that like this line had to rhyme with this line. You know it made me mad, yeah, so you know. I, just so I yeah.
Speaker 1:To be fair, all poets are pretty free spirited to begin with. So, establishing rules seems kind of contradictory.
Speaker 3:It's kind of like dead poet society.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So who's your favorite poet?
Speaker 2:Exactly, yes, my favorite poet, oh geez, I like, like the, a lot of the. I guess the old school in the sense of like Yates or Woodsworth, I think Coolridge, is absolutely fascinating, just the tangents and the stories that he would create. He always seemed to almost be like on a trip, which was amazing, because then you have to go back and interpret things. But I do love, like Maya Angelou, I love a lot of her stuff and Langston Hughes. So it's just, it's kind of like the wide gambit, because I think all poets have so much to offer. They have, they have something that they bring to the table to offer. They have, they have something that they bring to the table. Um, and so you kind of just have to learn to appreciate everything and then kind of come up with your own interpretation.
Speaker 1:Do you feel that poets um some of the best poets, are also some of the best prose writers, and vice versa, or do you feel like that? Like Dickinson, I don't think she ever wrote um any any?
Speaker 2:Yeah, emily, oh, she's so good. Yeah, no, I think I think it just is kind of what what you want to do. I definitely think that for myself, writing prose has helped write the poetry, especially when it comes to just word knowledge and, um, you know, like the dictionary that I carry around in my brain, um, and so that, like that, that's been helpful in writing poetry because you have a smaller amount of space to create a kind of like a bigger image for the reader and um, but, but then I mean there's, there's, there are people that have never written a story in their life and they're fantastic poets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:So it just depends on the artist, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Dickinson's definitely one of those examples Also, you know, I actually went to her house one time and was peeking through the floorboards to see if she stuffed any of those little notes and stuff. She would write poetry just to burn it, kind of stuff. It's just weird people obviously doing it for themselves, not for an audience Exactly, and I, I guess. I get.
Speaker 1:I get, why that works Um yeah for sure, but uh so, uh like, for instance uh, tom, here's a big aficionado for Tolkien, who also is, is a huge you, I guess you could say poet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think he's just kind of one of those outlier people where it's there was so much stuff that he could do so well, yeah, that is just like. What category do you put him in? It's like he's, he just has his own little thing. It's like and that's why the he was like oh, it's Tolkien esque.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Linguistic stuff. Have you ever tried to develop your own language and stuff for any?
Speaker 2:stories. No, I cheat. So there's a lot of in the fantasy stuff that I've done. There's a lot of old language like Gaelic or old Germanic words that I've just done research on. I could not. I true, true story I failed linguistics three times. I couldn't. I couldn't wrap my. I had to take it for my degree, yeah, so I had to pass, but I could not because it's the scientific approach to language which we all know. I don't like science, so it just it killed me, um, and I just never was able to kind of like understand it and so, yeah, so when I come up with words, they're just, they're usually already in existence.
Speaker 1:That's fair, yeah I would be definitely too lazy to try and figure something like that out too. So right, okay. So so you're in college, you're you, you're succeeding at the literary craft, but struggling through some of the more core classes and stuff that they make you take, yeah, I can definitely relate to. I appreciate that when you finally were getting through what was the moment, you felt like you could sit down and write a novel.
Speaker 2:I think. Well, I mean, like I did. I wrote my first book in my senior year of high school. Oh wow, and it didn't. It didn't, it doesn't exist anymore. It was through a publishing company that like went like belly up and then my stuff just disappeared. But I mean my first official book, which a lot of people that have kind of known me since high school days, um, that's their favorite, which I find really weird because it was. I wrote it when I was like 17, 18 years old and so like I've just I've grown so much more as a writer since then. But, um, a lot of people say it's their favorite, so whatever. Um then, but um, a lot of people say it's their favorite, so whatever.
Speaker 2:Um, I think when I finally started kind of realizing that I had the time and this was my moment and this is what I wanted to do, um was towards the end of college. I had planned on being a teacher, an English teacher. That was kind of just like like what am I going to do with with like this ability? Like there's nothing else to do. You know, I might as well just go and teach English. Loved my English teacher in high school, wanted to be just like him when I grew up and so.
Speaker 2:But then I, the closer I got to graduation, the more I was like, okay, I love kids, but teaching, teaching just didn't sound fun to me. It didn't sound like you knew that. I mean, you went through the whole high school, college experience. You know you're going to get yelled at, you know you're going to have to grade horrible papers, and I kind of started to feel like I was going to end up hating the thing that I love if I went into that profession. So I asked my then boyfriend at the time um, we were planning on getting married and so it was kind of like I need to like you know, like ask him if this is cool. Like, are you okay with me just being a writer by profession? What, whatever that means, with me just being a writer by profession, whatever that means, I'm not going to make as much and I'm probably going to be at home a lot more, but this is what I want to do, are you okay with it? And the smart man said, yeah, that's fine. So, yeah, cool.
Speaker 2:We can stay together After he got up and wiped the blood from his head, right, exactly, seriously, I remember being so nervous, asking, because I was like, okay, I don't know what's going to happen if he says no, like go to school and be a teacher. So, yeah, I just I've done a lot of kind of like part-time work in order to keep myself going. I don't like to be idle, I like to stay busy, even if I'm not writing, and so that I kind of just do that. But the luxury with that is that I can then always be writing, um, whether it's, you know, uh, for other people or whether it's for myself.
Speaker 1:So, but all your published work is essentially for yourself, correct?
Speaker 2:This is true. Yes, all my published work is for myself. I've done a lot of um, like currently I'm working for uh, um, I don't even know what to call them. They do like video shorts, um, like theory, like serial, serialized stories, um, in video form, but then they take, take. They take those stories and they want to convert them into novel form okay, and so I'm working for them doing that. I take, like, the screenplay and I convert it into a novel, okay, um, and that pays like really well, which is really nice, because then I can take that money and put it towards the stuff that I want to put out there that has my name on it. Yeah, they essentially do that. That work put out there that has my name on it. They essentially do that work as a ghostwriter. Nobody knows it's me writing it.
Speaker 1:What can you tell us?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can tell you.
Speaker 1:Anything good, anything we know.
Speaker 2:I mean it's very well, it depends on what you like. This is all in the romance fantasy. Well, it depends on what you like. This is all in the romance fantasy. Werewolf falls in love with a vampire genre. Okay so if you like that kind of thing, then yeah, it's totally for you.
Speaker 1:Mitch is definitely more in that category, right up there.
Speaker 4:I don't read so much the romance part, but I love vampire and werewolf kind of stories and stuff like that he's read all the Anne Rice and stuff.
Speaker 1:haven't you.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, I have read those.
Speaker 2:So good. Anne Rice is amazing. I got to see her house. I've never seen Dickinson, but I did get to see Anne Rice's and that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Cool. Was this before or after she died?
Speaker 2:Cool. Was this before or after she died she was already dead, which made it kind of sad.
Speaker 1:But I was like I had to pay, you know, honor to her Pay respects.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get that.
Speaker 1:Yep, okay. So actually, while we're talking about you kind of ghostwriting, you know I have done some research and I have talked to some friends who are also, you know, writing and whatnot, and then the cutoff is just like you don't make any money or you make a ton of money and um, you know, so people who are trying to find that middle ground, like you are how do you market yourself to do ghostwriting, to, uh, you know, do any form of writing, uh, like narrative or prose or whatever that that can kind?
Speaker 1:of get you out there.
Speaker 2:Um it's, it's really hard.
Speaker 4:Um.
Speaker 2:I've. I've kind of have found, like my jobs, my niche, whatever, through just networking, through, um, knowing, knowing people who know, somebody who has something that's available. Like this all came about because I'm part of a local filmmaker group Okay, and one of the producers slash directors is also part of the group Ironically comes from where I'm'm from, which is in the middle of California, like we're not a big city or anything, but because we were part of the same group and he saw that I was working on a project and he was like, okay, cool, you're a writer, guess what we need? Writers? Yeah, so he like he connected me with the right people and I ended up with this job, which is just amazing.
Speaker 2:I had a job for years probably eight, eight to ten where I was working with students with learning disabilities at the local college, with disabilities, learning disabilities at the local college, and I would help them write their essays because they just they had a lot of like processing, you know, disabilities, that kind of thing, and so we would, we would work together and you know how do you form a paragraph, how do you write the sentence, because you want it to be their work, but you also want it, you want them to learn and grow as much as any other collegiate. So and that came about literally because they put an ad on Craigslist.
Speaker 1:Did you find yourself, as a teacher, doing that, essentially as a teacher? Like you said, you were afraid you were going to hate the work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it yeah, and I think this worked for me because, like, I wasn't necessarily teaching, in a sense I was showing Okay, and it was very one-on-one Okay and it was situations where, you know, the students or, in some situations, the parents. I had a lot of freshman parents come to me and like find me, and you know we would be connected and it would be something that, like they wanted, like if they didn't have my help, they wouldn't be writing an essay, yeah, so it was a very kind of like one-on-one partnership, which was a lot better than being in front of a lot of kids, like trying to teach them Shakespeare and them not getting it.
Speaker 1:Right, I can see the pros and cons for both. I mean it'd be tough to you know, especially if somebody on your level try. And you know brass tacks, bare bones. Teach just basic. You know narrative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and. I think I mean for me, I, I feel, I feel like kind of like the written word is is in many ways a dying art, Like it's, it's um my kids. I've really struggled with my children to, like you know, give them an appreciation for, like the classics, um, reading is so important. Well, no, mom, we can just watch the movie. Well, no, you can't like cause the movie sucks yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, I mean, like you know it's, it's yeah, and so it's it's you. I want to give them that like that appreciation for like the work that these authors have put in and the ability to use your imagination. When you open a book and you just see words on a page, imagination and, um, my, my, my daughter I struggle more with she's, she's very kind of like black and white and factual, and this is just the way life is that is my daughter 100.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah and it's so, it so it kills me because I'm like read this book, it's so good and she's just like this is dumb well um I who is sorry, I think we got a little bit of a lag.
Speaker 1:Uh, I've learned with my daughter. I've learned with my she's like we pushed Harry Potter. We pushed it probably too hard and now she hates Harry Potter. She doesn't want anything to do with it. Right, my son, we just let him watch the first movie. He's 8. My daughter's 16.
Speaker 1:My son's like that was a great movie, I want to see the next one. I was like, well, you got to read the books first. We got them that way Because my daughter I can't get her to read Lord of the Rings, I can't get her to watch the movies Because I pushed it too hard. And I've learned she's another free spirit person. She reads like all the. She reads a lot of what I'm thinking is kind of more in keeping with your genre the fantasy kind of YA books and stuff. She's read Shadow and.
Speaker 1:Bone and stuff like that. So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:And one thing I've noticed a lot is like yeah, it just depends going back with, like the, the ann rice stuff is like. A lot of times you can read a book and then you can watch the movie and the movies. I like the movie and I like the book, but the book just has a lot more in it than what you can experience in a two-hour movie. So it just it gives you a lot more into the characters and the story and everything.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean, I mean, like I mean to your point with with Anne Rice, and so I I read interview with the vampire years ago like the club, the classic, the classic one. And then I was kind of raised, I, my parents would never have let me watch the Brad Pitt version of it ever.
Speaker 2:But I was just like right, exactly Like I think I I don't, I, yeah, no way. Um, I'm a pastor's kid, so vampires are satanic and evil and so, yeah, it was the whole thing. Um, and so, you know, that was what I was raised with and that was kind of like, even though it wasn't necessarily in keeping up with the book. That was the visual that I had. And then watching the series that you know, there's like two seasons or whatever of it, it's, it's, it's the same, but it's so different.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It's. It's a perfect example of how you take something from a book and there can be completely different interpretations of it you know, and and approaches to it. So yeah, I find that fascinating.
Speaker 3:That was stuff that drove me insane in high school. I hated every English class I was in and it would be like, oh, read this and it's like what do you think the author is trying to convey? That the curtains are blue and like all this crap about the room they're in. I'm like he's a horrible interior decorator. What do you want me to tell you? Like I don't know what you want. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Well, movies can be like that too.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's true, it's true.
Speaker 1:So have you written script work before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so before, yeah, I, so yes, so that's that's the short answer. Um, the short answer is yes, um. The long answer is when I was, when I was doing kind of press tours wasn't a press tour? I was on a I was on a zoom call with somebody in um in, uh, atlanta, um, and I this this person had seen some of my stuff and was like hey, do you want to like chat about your work? And I was like absolutely, and we ended up not even really talking about writing. We ended up he's a. This guy is like very into like um, he's in the film world, but then he's also into like health and fitness, um, so we talked about really almost everything about my writing, which was fine. But towards the end of this hour long conversation, the writing came up and he made the comment that the Veil books would make really good movies and.
Speaker 2:I was like I never really thought about that. I've always been focused on just making a novel. He's like, no, no, you should totally try it and make a screenplay and and put it out there and, okay, fine, challenge accepted. If you know me, you know that anytime somebody like says, do this or try it, I'm gonna do it right. And so, um, I wrote a screenplay for the first book in the series.
Speaker 2:It was like writing a foreign language, it's it's so different from you know, in a novel you just expand and expand and expand and you're using all these words and these visuals and with the screenplay you just cut it dry. And you know, because you, you want to leave things open for interpretation, for you know, the director and the cinematographer and whatnot, and so I, I actually had to hire an editor who was fabulous, he was out of Germany, of all places, and he would just cut, like, my first draft was like 220 pages, which is a little. I mean that was just crap. The screenplay was way too much, and now it's now as it stands, it's 141.
Speaker 2:And so which is still for some people too long.
Speaker 1:For a first movie. I could see that yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, like it's just like I don't know what else to cut, like we had all these conversations about like you have to remove these characters. I'm like no, but they're mine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's where you see characters get combined and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, like how combined and stuff like that. Exactly yeah, that's why I couldn't do it. No, it was, it was awful it was, but but it had happened. And so now, on top of like writing novels, I'm writing screenplays and that's kind of like a parallel road that I'm taking with not only promoting the novels and getting the word out about the novels, but then also like kind of like wandering through the world of filmmaking and film festivals and film competitions to see if, if and when there's a possibility of you know, getting options plus something writing.
Speaker 1:writing in present tense sucks. I hate it so much, it's so tough to do, it's awful.
Speaker 2:Well, and with the, with the, the ghost writing, I have to write in first person, which I can't, I cannot. I hate it so much because I want to be omnipresent. I want to like just see everything and like give my own own interpretation, but all the writing for this company is first person. So, yeah, it kills me.
Speaker 1:Sorry about that, but hey, at least you're making money.
Speaker 2:I know I can't complain because I'm making money.
Speaker 1:So the scripts that you have written for your books? Have you sold the film rights to them?
Speaker 2:I have, I wish okay um, it's, we're currently like, we're currently in. That was, that was the other thing too. Okay, so I have the script. So, like now, what do I do? Like, uh, like, I have a ton of friends who are in the industry but they're all like, um, they're, they're videographers and location scouts and makeup artists, like I don't know any, like people with the money, you know, and so I was kind of floundering for a while and then I ended up, um, talking to somebody who's actually in like the festival industry and the competition, like they've done the competition thing and they kind of knew more as to, like, what I needed to do and what I should do. And so now we're kind of at the stage where I'm I'm entering competitions, I'm entering festivals, I'm trying to network with people, you know, shamelessly throwing my script at them and saying, hey, just take a look, like you'll love it. Here's my card. So yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean it's garnered some interest with like festivals but like no money yet, yeah, it's a very pushy industry.
Speaker 1:You've got to just go out there and have such confidence the whole time. Yeah, you know, yes, especially coming from a person, it's hard for, like a creative, creative because you exactly, yeah, you try to.
Speaker 2:You tend to hide behind your computer. You know, you're not, you know, and then you're like here, take, take my word, but don't talk to me. So, yeah, I and I'm, I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to advocating. So it's, it's so hard yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:That's the dichotomy between, like you know, narrative, traditional uh novel writers and film writers. They're two completely different people. We'll drive our little Buick LeSabres and barely make it to some place with their picnic basket and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They'll be in their Camaros screaming loud, talking on two cell phones.
Speaker 3:I'm important.
Speaker 2:I have all the mocha lattes. Yeah, no, it's totally true.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, it's impressive that you're willing to step outside your comfort zone and pursue all avenues of the creative field. There's a lot of people that are just pleasant to settle. And anything to get your stories heard and seen. It's worth the risk and I'm glad to see people like you doing that. So let's talk about your first published work that people can read today. Yeah, okay, go ahead, take it away.
Speaker 3:What is it?
Speaker 2:I'm going. Okay. So we, you want me to talk, so we I first person. I've written a series called Legends of the Veil. It's going to be a four-part series. We have the first two books out already.
Speaker 2:The first book is called Child of Dawn and it's kind of like my testament and my love message to creatives like Tolkien and CS Lewis. And it's set in this world that's kind of parallel to ours, it coexists with ours and you can kind of cross back and forth between the human world and the veil. And in this fictional world it's ruled in part by vampires and in part by elves who have been warring with each other for a millennium. No one knows how the war started. Everybody just knows that they're supposed to hate the other creature that is coexisting with them. And the first book kind of sets up like the salvation of the veil. They're on the precipice of total destruction, like the war is just killing their world. And then there's a prophecy that if the prophecy is fulfilled, you know, the veil will be saved. If the prophecy is not, then they will just cease to exist. Spoiler alert the veil is saved.
Speaker 2:And then we continue on to the second book, which kind of deals with the situation. What do you do when you've been at war with someone for your entire life, your entire existence and now you are at peace? How do you function in that kind of existence and the problems that sometimes that brings up?
Speaker 1:Okay, Okay, so, uh, how long have you been kind of like uh fermenting this idea for this fantasy story?
Speaker 2:So it started with, uh, like in COVID, towards the end of COVID, um, I was home with my two kids. We were all really bored. We had had it with the homeschooling and the not going anywhere, and I was reading them a really beautiful version of Beauty and the Beast illustrated, and when I was done they went off and did their own thing. I don't think it impacted them the way it did me, but they don't like to read. But I kind of was struck with the idea what if beauty still loved the beast and he hadn't changed like? What if he didn't become like the hot prince or whatever? Um, and so, from, from and from that I didn't even really think about it as far as like creating a story from it. Um, but then from that I was like, all right, well, if I were to do something with this, I hadn't, I hadn't written in a couple of years, and, and so I was like, if I do something with this, okay, what does that look like?
Speaker 2:Um, I can't use the beast because Disney would probably come after me for copyright infringement and you know, even though they didn't come up with the original idea, but they still would try to like sue me, um, you know and in black suits and Mickey Mouse ears would show up.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I'm like I don't have the money to fight disney, so let me come up with. Let me come up with like another creature, um, and I've, I've, I've always loved vampire lore, not just dracula, but like even the stories that you know, stoker read to come up with the idea for Dracula, okay. And so I was like, okay, well, it's going to have to be a vampire, right, but I didn't want to have a vampire, that was just. I didn't want like the Edward Cullen version, right, and I didn't want like this total like evil being. You know, there's kind of like two ends of the vampire spectrum and I didn't want like this total like evil being. Um, you know, there's kind of like a like two ends of the vampire spectrum and I didn't like either one of them. And so I kind of created this character.
Speaker 2:Who he? Yes, he's a monster, but he's a monster because that's what his label is, okay, um, he's, he's. He's come from an existence where, um, he's watched the people he loved suffer just simply because they loved one another. He's been raised to have a chip on his shoulder again because that's his existence. That's all he's really known. But really, he has a soul and he has a heart. He just needs somebody to kind of bring it out of him.
Speaker 2:And so that became Daggrun, who's my main character. And then from there it was just like, okay, so he needs to have kind of like a counterpart. Who's his counterpart going to be? And so I created this elf human who has kind of like the same kind of chip on her shoulder because she's grown up in the real world, the human world, okay, but she has magical abilities people consider a witch simply because they don't understand her. Right, a witch, um, simply because they don't understand her Um. And that's kind of a message that I continue to work with throughout the whole series is, just because somebody gives you a label doesn't mean you have to live up to it. You know, kind of, find your own identity and your own place in the world, um, and what you can bring to to the world and the existence you have, um, by just you being yourself and not being what somebody has said you should be Um. And so, yeah, it's just been like this evolutionary process of like whatever.
Speaker 1:Let me ask the important questions Do your vampires die in direct sunlight?
Speaker 2:No, they do not they don't so that's where they don't, and they don't now. They don't glow, okay. They're not sparkly, okay, good, they need blood in order to function, but they're not necessarily like lurking in alleyways, okay.
Speaker 4:Living in caves. I tried In caves, no caves, tried in caves.
Speaker 2:No, caves, they live. They live in, like they live in darker places, you know, like gloomy but not um, yeah, and I the the thing that I really liked doing in the first book their, their nemesis, this is are um, elves, okay, and elves are, you know, I mean you look at like perfect example is lord of the rings, where you, or at least in the movies, where you know they're all perfect skin, long, flowing hair, perfect clothes, pompous, refined, sophisticated, um, generally come off as the good guys, like if you kind of watch the movies at surface level, but then you, you know that like, like they they had, like if you read the books, like there's a lot of struggle, that eternal struggle that goes along in questioning and you know how Elrond fears for Arwen's life and you know, like all the things.
Speaker 2:And so, um, with the elves, you know, they they kind of tend to be like the light character, the good guys, whatever, and in in the veil, um, they're very morally gray, okay, um, even though their clothes are light and airy and they live in a place where there's more sunlight and things are green and, um, their kingdom is on the water. Um, they kind of tend to be the villain more often than the vampires do, which was intentional because I kind of wanted to talk, you know, like you can look at somebody or something and think that it's evil or wrong, but that's based on what you've been told and you know. Then you have, like, the hero or the good guy. But why is that person the hero or the good guy? But why is? Why is that person the hero or the good guy, is it, you know?
Speaker 2:and so, um, yeah, there's a lot of commentary yeah I'm not, I don't try to be political and I don't try to have like like well, you base off of what you know, kind of thing exactly, and the and the whole thing started, you know, again at the end end of COVID we were tail end of, like Black Lives Matter and the hashtag Me Too and all the things, and I had watched a lot of that through the eyes of my children who didn't understand, except for the fact that there was just violence all around them.
Speaker 2:The target that we go to got vandalized, and I had to explain that to my kids. You know why can't we go to got vandalized, um, and I had to explain that to my kids. You know why can't we go to school? You know all these things, and so you know it's kind of yes, it's a fantasy and none of it's real, um, but there's a lot of realness in the story yeah, I think that's where most fictional stories come from, anyway.
Speaker 1:So exactly, um, yeah okay, another important question does your vampire protagonist, does he? Is he like a thousand years old and date a 16 year old girl?
Speaker 2:he's not a thousand okay he's only 984 and yeah, he's 984. No, he's, he. He's a younger vampire. He's like in his like three, four hundred. Okay, he does have a great grandfather that plays a pivotal role throughout the novels. He actually raised him and he's much older. Okay, but he also does not date a 16 year old.
Speaker 1:Well, that's good, that's good. I think that was the part of twilight that bothered me the most.
Speaker 2:It's like wait how old are these two right, and then he's like, you know I sparkle.
Speaker 3:This is the skin of a killer.
Speaker 2:It's like what I know right, oh, so bad, so bad awful.
Speaker 1:so, uh, before kovid, when you were coming up with the ideas for this and you had written other books that were predominantly historical fiction, I guess you could say yeah. Did you see yourself only writing that, or were you always open to the idea for fantasy?
Speaker 2:So, like I mentioned before, if you challenge me to do it, I probably will. Okay, that is how these books came about. I was very much historical fiction. I don't know. I think the decision to write historical fiction came from the fact that when I started really writing full-length novels, that's what I was reading. Right, I was reading the historical fiction. Usually it was set like in the 1800s, somewhere, um, whatever, and so, logically, I should just write my own.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Um, and then I have. I have a really good friend who, um, never thought he'd ever be mentioned, ever in any sort of interview whatsoever, and now he's like the subject of like every interview. He comes up, because he came to me one day and he's like, he's like Leslie, you've got to write this thing off, like have you ever thought of writing science fiction or fantasy, like you should just try it.
Speaker 2:And I was like, all right, bring it on, let's see what I can do. Yeah, and I was like, all right, bring it on, let's see what I can do. Yeah, um, and I, and I couldn't sci-fi. For me again it's science and uh, no, that's no, it's more like I don't think I could do like the technical aspect, right of um, you know the, the jargon, and I, I don't even really understand the concept of light speed because it's like completely beyond me. So it, it was kind of like I can't do sci-fi but I could totally do fantasy. Um, and so, like little did he know that there'd be not one, not two, but four books at least? That, you know, were based on his random comment. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:You should give him a cut of the pie, so to speak.
Speaker 2:I know, I know.
Speaker 1:Uh, what is your writing? What is your writing process? Like you're actively working on the next book, right? Yeah, yeah so every day kind of thing.
Speaker 2:I try.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I really try Again. I'm the mom of a 13 and 10-year-old, and the older they get, the more all-consuming they get. I mean, you know, 13 and 10 year olds, and the older they get, the more all consuming they get. I mean, you know, um, and so, like this, last weekend my daughter had a cheer competition in LA and so I was, I tried, like I tried as much as I could. I think I got like, over the course of three days, I wrote like half a chapter, cause it's just, you know, you can't, you first and um tried to write, you know, in the gymnasium where this competition was, in this uncomfortable seat, and I was there for like eight hours and I got like two paragraphs.
Speaker 2:You know, it's just that, that's, that's just life, um, but on a good day, on a good day, I could get through a chapter, maybe. Um, my goal I used, I used to be really hard on myself if I didn't achieve like a chapter a day. I was getting it done. Now it's a chapter a week, okay, and you know, and if I get more done, that's fantastic. But I just I have to be easy on myself, because I realized that life isn't what it was when you know I was, yeah, my kids were like toddlers and you could put them in front of and also tv, or give them a you don't want to.
Speaker 1:You know, overdo your creative process and wins of one of yourself exactly yes, it's wild that you can write a chapter and a half
Speaker 2:no, and and it's true, because pasting is huge, because I know there's a lot of crap that I've written, um, that's not published, uh, that you know, it was just like I was trying to like I I trying to like vomit words on, you know, on the paper, because I just felt like I had to, like, I was obligated to, and that's, that's not a reality. I mean, I guess, if you're a news reporter and you have a deadline, you know you need, you know, but even then you want to put out your best stuff, right, because it's your calling card. You know, but even then you want to put out your best stuff, right, um, cause it's your calling card.
Speaker 2:You know it's how people identify you and so if you're putting out crap, then you know he's going to want to read it so um, yeah, and so like, as far as, like I don't know, like the process of writing a book, I start with an idea, um, I used to outline and I don't anymore. I have a point a and a point B, um, the beginning and the end, and I know what I want to have happen. Um, but, like, even right now I'm writing. So I'm writing the third book right now and this, there's a battle that takes place and originally the battle was only going to be like one chapter, but it just kind of keeps expanding, you know, and like I can't, like I'm like, oh, this happens, this should happen, oh, this needs to happen, and this needs to, this needs to happen with this person.
Speaker 3:And so now we're at like four chapters, exactly Like it's just like.
Speaker 2:I mean like this even this morning I was, I was thinking that it was going to kind of come to an end and then I'm like, well, no, this person needs to do that to this person and that's going to be like a whole nother chapter. So you know, and so you just have to have the patience.
Speaker 1:Well, that leads me to my next question, because you know, building a giant story, hundreds of pages.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, especially when you kind of just like let the creative gods guide you to wherever you're going At of, just like, let the creative gods guide you to wherever you're going at some point, yeah, you're going to contradict a previous part of the book that you've written. You know how, yeah, how difficult is that. Uh, you know to violate your own rules and then remake the rules and so on and so forth, like especially now that you have multiple books. Have you ever found yourself in a hole with the second book or the third book that you're writing? Right now that you've, you can't go back and unpublish the first book.
Speaker 2:Exactly, um, not, not that. I know of. But yeah, like not. I mean nobody's come to me and been like there's an error in continuity, right, exactly, um, which I'm I'm very grateful for.
Speaker 2:I do keep a copy of like both books next to me when I'm writing, like they go everywhere with me. Because then I'm like, okay, I don't remember, like, talking about the Vampire's Age, I couldn't remember there's a part in the second book where, like, his exact age is mentioned and I couldn't remember what I had put, but I knew that I had put it. So I was like, okay, I've got to find this because I have to make sure that it's cohesive with, um, the rest of like the series and in this book, the third one, um, we do a time jump, uh, and so it it. The first two are very linear, like one happens after the other, and then this one, we jump 18 years, oh, okay, and so it's like I have to now not only be consistent with, like what's happened, but then also make sure that there's no plot holes that could have you know, something that happened like within that 18 years that I or like even you know. Like I mean, yes, they're vampires and elves, but yes, they do age.
Speaker 1:So like staying, you know, consistent and like making sure that, like I don't screw something up because I just, you know, flash forward, you know, two decades have you found yourself having to kill your darlings a little bit with, like, oh, this is a really cool thing I want to do, but I've made it already up to this point where it's just not possible and you know, so you just have to scrap it.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's got to suck, yep yep, yeah, no, it does and also like the fact, like I, I mean, this is a reality. It's reality in the sense that they live in a violent environment. People are going to have to die and I don't like killing my characters because it just wrecks me, because they're my babies, but you have to do it for realism and so there's actually I'm going to have to. This chapter that I'm working on is such a chapter where a major character is going to die and it sucks, but I know it has to happen.
Speaker 1:Put on a walk to remember and play some Inyo in the background. Exactly Drink some red wine Get the bunny slippers.
Speaker 2:Yep, make myself, yep. I gotta get in the mindset of just total misery and depression.
Speaker 3:Instead of like George RR Martin. It's like and done. Yep, he's like, who am I killing now? And he throws like a dart at a board. It's like Jon Snow, Exactly Again. Yeah, why not? We'll bring him back next chapter.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly, chapter Right. Well, uh, last question I have, and I'll I'll surrender the floor to my co-hosts here. Um, so, what would you say your target audience is for your, your series now? Um, you know, age group and everything.
Speaker 2:Age group? Okay, so this is a very tricky question because I try to write across the board. I try to not gear specifically toward youth or like older people. I have teenagers that have read my stuff and I have, like, senior citizens that have read my stuff. So, um, my, my target audience, when somebody actually like, did the statistics or whatever, for me, um, is, uh, 18 to 34. That's like a parent, the apparent sweet spot, um, but again it's I. I write with the mindset that if my 13-year-old daughter picked up my book and read it, she would be fine.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But then if my slightly more into romance friend, who's in her late 50s, picked it up, she would also be entertained. Okay so if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I was reading empire the vampire, for instance, and uh yeah. I, uh, I was thinking about recommending it to my daughter and then it got to. Like some of the, you know the- smut the sweaty scenes. I guess you could say and I was like, nah, it'd be weird for me to do this.
Speaker 3:So, hey, you should read this.
Speaker 2:It's like okay, exactly so right. Like what's wrong with you? Yeah, I mean, there's, there's romance, there's romance in these books, but it's it's like something that you would see, like in a pg-13 movie, like if you went, you know, like there's no, exactly. Like I'm just, you know, and I, I sometimes I want to go farther, like I'm like the scene should go farther, but I'm just like no, I can't do that because my, the audience that I have, that I've grown, isn't that that they would? They would burn the book, you know and so I want to.
Speaker 2:I want to, you know, I want to respect my audience. You know which is why I have this ghostwriting job?
Speaker 1:because yeah, yeah, then you can release the X rated versions, exactly, okay, well, uh, do you guys have any questions for her?
Speaker 4:The one question I was kind of wondering is, with your veil series, if you were going to make it into like an onscreen kind of thing, would you prefer to do more of a TV show, to flesh it out more, or would you prefer movies to kind of focus on the main story?
Speaker 2:whoever has more money question yes, yes, but also yes, um. So I I actually recently got asked this question, um by somebody and I was like, oh, um, my, I have a vision of what I would want to see on the screen, of course, because I'm the writer. So if, if, like, netflix came to me and said you know, we want to, we want to do it, this is what our, our, our, you know, our thought is for it and I liked it, then Netflix would be fine. If a production company, you know, whoever you know line cinemas or whatever, came to me and said the same thing and I thought they could do it better than you know, I would say sure, right. My whole thing with, especially like, the fantasy genre is I've seen a lot of really good fantasy and I've seen a lot of really bad fantasy, right, yep.
Speaker 2:Netflix buys it all Right, exactly, and I'm just like hi, it's like you could do so much better Buy my book, but we're not going to.
Speaker 2:I know, I know and it's horrible and so like I don't want, I don't want like the cheese ball kind of like every you can tell everything is green screen and you filmed it all in a studio and it's all. I mean, it's all CGI and crap Like um, I can't stand that. I know it has a place and I appreciate it and I respect it, but if that's what you're going to go with, then I'd rather just never sell my script because you know, like I, just you know I have like I, I, I know that I can't have total creative control, but I want to have a little bit because I don't. It's my baby, you know, and you don't want to like insult your own work by giving it to somebody who's not going to create the vision.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you have a quality in mind for your stuff that you want to keep, so that's understandable.
Speaker 1:You're a better person than me. I would sell out in a heartbeat.
Speaker 3:Hey, we're still us out in a heartbeat you want to buy a podcast, by the way, so and there's like there's good examples of writers who wrote something and got to be in the movie, yeah, and got mad, but then they were like, no, this actually worked out better than what I wrote.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, so exactly I listened to a really interesting question that a prolific author was asked and he was older in his age and the person said do you think authors lose their focus the older they get? And his answer was really smart. He's like no, I think they just get clouded with money, you know, and I think that that's a good point, Like the person who writes the cutting edge novel that you know know goes against the grain of society and really catches people's attention and stuff like that. Then all of a sudden, you know they want a sequel.
Speaker 3:They're flooded with money and it's like the next one resurrect the characters and all this other stuff.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I would be that author though as long as you're honest, that's all that matters money well, I love comics and stuff, but no character ever stays dead in the comics. No, it's true, it's true. Come back somehow.
Speaker 3:I want to go back a little bit to, I guess, writing in high school and all that. I was like all these English teachers you've had. You said one of them. You were a huge fan of what was like the one paper you wrote that they just tore apart and you were like am I going to be a writer?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, so yeah, and what was their name?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we can find them and beat them up.
Speaker 2:Okay, I mean, I can, honestly, I can totally. His name was Greg Stobie. We're still friends. Google him. Greg Stobie was, was my English teacher and my drama teacher and he, um, he knew that I loved, I loved writing, and so, and, and I loved the classics and everything, and so, uh, I, I turned in a paper once on, uh, great expectations, which which, ironically, I did my thesis on dickens. So, um, yeah, so I, when I turned in this crap paper because I had procrastinated and hadn't done it until the night before, um, he, he knew that he had the right to shred me, um, because I was subpar in what he had come to expect of me. Okay, and we had that relationship where it was, you know, like you want me to read because I would bring him anything I wrote, right, and he would, like he would go through it with me and you know you need to do this or you should do this or whatever. But, yeah, great expectations. I will never forget. Forget that, uh.
Speaker 2:I still have the paper somewhere. Um, I kept it as kind of like a reminder that you know you don't, you don't change yourself, or yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:So it was a productive kick in the butt.
Speaker 2:It was no, it was productive and he and he knew he had like he, he knew he had the right to do it and I mean like, and I respected him for that and to this day we're still friends and he's I mean I, literally I, I owe him my life because I, I would not have continued to do anything, probably if I hadn't had him as kind of like a mentor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, show him some of your paychecks and be like what do you think about me now?
Speaker 3:I wonder how many almost writers there have been, because of English teachers, because of English teachers. Like this sucks. You suck Because, like every paper I wrote, it would be like a, B. It might be the best I ever did.
Speaker 1:Hell. She could have been an astronaut if she had a good science teacher.
Speaker 2:I know, I know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, talking to you from the International Space Station. The best paper though I ever wrote and I didn't even write it, I dictated it In college, my freshman year they're like all right, you can team up and write a paper, it has to be like 15 pages, whatever the hell you want. And me and my roommate you know we're sitting there like smoke, a cigarette, have a beer and we're like 18. And I was like, all right, I got it. I was like start typing and the entire paper was about giving the business. Okay, it was the history of giving the business to somebody, all because of something that happened on Monday Night, 80s, and we got a 95 and she's like this is the best paper I've gotten in three years.
Speaker 1:A 95.
Speaker 2:Which just boggles my mind. Sometimes you can write about the most random thing and be an award winning somebody, and then you spend countless hours and years slaving over your masterpiece and nobody cares.
Speaker 3:Next paper went down like an asteroid crashing into the moon.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, it was really great talking to you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:I would like to keep in touch. I'm going to recommend your books to my daughter, absolutely. If she grabs onto them, I'll even give them a read. I too struggle with the forced you know methods of making me do things like reading. Do you have audio books?
Speaker 2:Is that a thing? So I think I don't think this is like secret, okay, but we're actually yeah, whoever. The audio books are actually a work in process as of this week for the first two books.
Speaker 1:That's awesome yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's exciting and that actually like came about.
Speaker 2:So my Toby, my English teacher he is now he's blind okay um now, and so he's he can't read my stuff and so and he was when I had you know um, when I had found that out, I was like, well, I need to like come up with a way for you to be able to like read my things and like audiobook. We got to do it like now it's just a sign I need to make it possible. So, yeah, so, the audio book, um, I talked to the people this last week and it's going to be like a month long process and then we should have something like within the next month or so.
Speaker 1:Honestly, that went. That would go by a lot faster than I thought, it would you know Right?
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah. I was like really Okay, of course they might've just been pulling my leg and it's going to take months, so who knows? Yeah.
Speaker 3:We're going to get right on it, wink.
Speaker 1:Exactly, I will give it a listen and I'll count it as reading and uh, but my, my daughter will do it. The? Uh actually read the books.
Speaker 2:Good for her.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for dealing with us and our ramblings.
Speaker 2:Oh no, it's a privilege.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to see you and when you get famous and get your Netflix deals and stuff like that, please don't forget about us.
Speaker 2:Absolutely not Okay. You'll have to be at the premiere.
Speaker 1:You got it All right.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:Nice talking to you no-transcript.
