Militant Outlines and Author Vulnerability with Trisha Tobias - Honeysuckle and Bone

Marissa chats with Trisha Tobias about her debut gothic YA, HONEYSUCKLE AND BONE. Also discussed: creating author signatures, writing fanfiction across fandoms, writing from a place of grief and vulnerability and using writing to help process, researching a far-off setting through family and the internet, flawed and unreliable characters, militant outlining, fearing the blank page, how becoming a published author can make for a more empathetic editor, and so much more!

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Transcript

Marissa: Hello and welcome to the Happy Writer. This is a podcast that aims to bring readers more books to enjoy and to help authors find more joy in their writing. I am your host, Marissa Meyer. Thank you so much for joining me. What is making me happy this week? Hamilton is coming to Seattle and I am so excited. I have seen Hamilton. I was very, very lucky to see it in New York when I was visiting years ago, but now I get to take my kids to see it and it's the most perfect timing because in our homeschool year we are just about to the American Revolutionary War in our history books. And so I have applied plan I we are going to read up to this chap these chapters in history and then we're gonna go see Hamilton when it comes through Seattle. And then just a couple of weeks after that, we are heading to the east coast for a two week road trip. We're gonna see a bunch of historical sites, the Boston Tea Party Museum and the Liberty Bell and you know, all of these things that you hear about and that you watched Nicolas Cage learn things about in that treasure hunting movie. And I'm so excited. It's going to be a really fun trip and it honestly like planning it out has me totally re energized for the rest of the girls 4th grade year. But let's be honest, I'm really just excited to go see Hamilton again and to take the kids to see it because I know that they are going to be in aw when they see it. I am also so happy to be talking to today's guest. She is a Fordham University graduate and an editor at Dovetail Fiction, as well as a recipient of the 2018 Walter Dean Myers Grant and a Highlights foundation diversity fellow. Her debut novel, Honeysuckle and Bone hits shelves tomorrow January 14th. Please welcome Tricia Tobias.

Trisha: Thank you so much for having me.

Marissa: Thank you so much for joining me and big congratulations on your debut novel coming out tomorrow.

Trisha: Thank you.

Marissa: Oh, how are you feeling? Are you scared? Are you excited? Like, can you just like not wait for it to be over? Like, where are you at right now?

Trisha: I, I feel the nerves and it's a little hard to tell if it's excitement or, or anxiety. It's probably both at this point because it still feels like this snuck up on me.

Marissa: When did it sell? Like, how long has the publication process been?

Trisha: I'm trying to think. I believe we sold this in 2022. November 2022.

Marissa: That was a long time ago. Yeah.

Trisha: Why has it taken so long?

Marissa: That's an even Longer publication schedule than.

Trisha: Usual, I think, because we went out on submission. I'm like trying to go over the timeline in my head. We went out on submission around Halloween 2022. We had two offers within a month of that, which I did not expect because I was thinking we're getting into the holidays and everyone's going to be walking away from their desk and probably no one's really in the mood to read this sort of spooky ghost story book. As we're getting closer to Thanksgiving and Christmas. And then there were two offers. I'm like, oh, well, that's exciting and unexpected. And so some of us are always.

Marissa: In the mood for creepy ghost stories.

Trisha: That's what I am learning. What do I know? So we decided, because we were going into the holidays and we were going to go to auction, we decided to wait until January when everyone was back at their desk and that would give people more time to read and jump in if they wanted, which did work. We went to auction. It ended up being a five house auction.

Marissa: Wow.

Trisha: And so that was super exciting.

Marissa: So exciting.

Trisha: And then it just took a long time, I think, to get the contracts together. I. Publishing, right?

Marissa: Yeah, No, I hear you. I hear you. Now that so, so really like two years, I guess, from the time that it sold. Okay.

Trisha: I know it was, it was going into Christmas 2022. I knew we were selling this book. I just did not know who we were selling it to.

Marissa: Sure. Okay. Well, it's so exciting. Are you, are you going on tour? Do you have a big launch party planned? What are you doing to celebrate?

Trisha: So I do have a few events happening in New York City that I can't speak about yet, but I can speak about. I do have a launch party on 15 January at Books of Wonder and I'm so excited. I need to work on my author signature. I don't have one.

Marissa: That's a really important thing. I realized.

Trisha: I'm like, what am I going to do with. You know, there's like a probably going to be a little book signing moment. And I'm not sure how to make sure nobody steals my identity. So we gotta work on that.

Marissa: I am not gonna lie. So when I first sold my first book, my husband, one of the very first things he said to me was, you need a new signature because yours is terrible. So I did go, like, create a brand new signature for it.

Trisha: Oh, goodness. I, I will say I still have the same signature I've had since I learned cursive in school. So I could probably Use a little update, probably.

Marissa: Okay, well, you've got a few days.

Trisha: I have a couple of days to think about it.

Marissa: Yeah, you might want to put that on your list.

Trisha: Truly, it's on there, I promise you.

Marissa: I know. Not like there's like not anything else going on this week, right?

Trisha: Not at all. Not at all.

Marissa: Okay. So, Trisha, the first thing that I want to hear from all of my guests, I would like to hear your origin story. I love hearing that you are working in publishing as an editor because I also come from an editorial background, but just kind of take me through the steps. When did you know you wanted to be a writer and how did you make this happen?

Trisha: Oh, that's a fantastic question. Okay. I'm not sure exactly when something shifted in my brain and I knew that writing was something I really wanted to do. But I remember somewhere around middle school or junior high getting you. We'd get these English class assignments where you, you know, have a list of vocabulary words and you need to use them in a sentence. But instead of me just doing that, I would use them and make a whole short story. And so I, I remember I had one that was specifically like me on the Titanic the night that it sang dramatic. And I really. That was like a 10 page comic sans short story. And I turned that in for an assignment. I got an A, just to be clear, technically not what I was supposed to do. And I think it was somewhere around there where I realized one, words are fun and two, that they're really powerful. When you find just like the perfect word to go in the perfect sentence in the right order, they can make people feel things, they can make people see all kinds of things. My dad at the time, he used to read that Titanic story all the time. I had to give him like a separate printout of it because he just loved to see the words that I chose. And they asked me about why did I pick this word and what does this word mean? Was really sweet. And I guess that was around the same time my teachers probably picked up on the fact that, you know, Trisha doesn't talk very much in her classes, but she's really good on the page, or at least she seems like she's having fun. So somewhere around there was also when I discovered fanfiction. And I. I love this answer.

Marissa: Okay.

Trisha: Of course, the fanfiction answer, so popular. But it's true. I think getting to play around in someone else's world with their characters and putting them in different scenarios or you know, something about that was also super magical. And sharing those stories and getting reviews from people who are like, oh my gosh, I love this. It was so cute. I'm like, I think it's cute too, because that's why I wrote it. I'm glad we agree.

Marissa: Are you comfortable sharing what you wrote fanfic for?

Trisha: Yes. So I started out, well, if I go way back. I started out writing fan fiction for like this Nickelodeon show called as Told by Ginger. That's a throwback. And then after that, we don't know this show. There was also a Jimmy Neutron fanfic for a little bit. I was very popular with that one. Then Kingdom Hearts was really my big thing. The video game series Kingdom Hearts, Rent the Musical, Rent was a big one. And Glee, I think I hit all the big ones. Yeah, I'm such a big Britanna Shipper, Brittany and Santana for life.

Marissa: So you really bounced around a lot. You were very far reaching in your fandom.

Trisha: Oh, yes, I traveled. I. That's why I'm like, I'm so glad that being into fandom is maybe more acceptable today. Because back then it definitely was not. It was seen, I think, a little bit. Like it was kind of nerdy. And I'm like, it is, but it's super fun. I had so much fun.

Marissa: They say nerdy like it's a bad thing.

Trisha: Exactly. It's not. It's not. We're having a fantastic time in Nerdland.

Marissa: Okay, so you discovered fanfiction. Then what happened?

Trisha: I realized that writing was something that was really important to me. I just couldn't figure out exactly how that would fit into my life. I was really focused on my academics and I wanted to make sure that I was going to go to school and get a respectable degree and get a well paying job and do all of that writing and being an author. Those were things that I wanted to accomplish, but I was trying to be really realistic. So when I went to college, I decided to get a creative writing minor instead of going someplace else where they had creative writing as a major. And I'm like, I'll get my communications major degree and that will be me being responsible. I'll figure out something to do with it. So. But it was always in the back of my head and it was just a matter of like, well, when can I fit this in and what story is going to be the one and what does that look like? When I graduated from university, I did not have a job lined up. I had been interning somewhere and they did not keep me after. And I felt Devastated, but. Cause I really felt like the only way I was going to be able to work in publishing. And I was feeling a little uncertain about whether I could also be an author on the other side. So all of my publishing dreams kind of felt like they were going up in smoke at the time. And then I read Tiny Pretty things. This is so random, but that book came out around the same time that I was graduating from college. And there was something so compelling about that book that it was. It reminded me I want to be involved in creating books. Whether I'm editing them or writing them. I want to make fun, engaging, compelling stuff one way or another. I just really dug my heels in. It just reminded me of everything I loved about YA fiction. And so I ended up. I lived in New York. I was raised in New York, but I moved out of New York after that. And I just was trying to figure out my path forward. And it took several years and a lot of false starts, but eventually I did one, get my publishing job that I wanted remotely, which was the dream. And the. I was still working on the writing side of things, but that was a lot harder somehow. But getting into publishing as, you know, an editorial, that was hard, but the writing side felt harder because I had a lot of my emotions tied up in it. I'm a perfectionist, and I always have been. And being a perfectionist in a creative field, I wouldn't recommend it if you can avoid it. So it was. I'd be working on something that I thought was really technically good, but I. I knew it was missing something and it was missing soul. Right? It was missing that spark. And I was editing it within an inch of its life. But that wasn't going to fix the. The most kind of the biggest problem. So it took a while for me to find a story that I could write in that unique way that I write and infuse it, like, have the bravery to infuse it with, like, the heart that it needed to actually, like, pop off and go somewhere. And I think, I hope that honeysuckle and Bone is that book. It took me a while to get there, but success, I hope.

Marissa: How many books or manuscripts did you attempt and. Or finish before you got to Honeysuckle and Bone?

Trisha: Seriously? I would say two. I had one that I wrote and edited, and that particular project helped me. It was, you know, what helped me get the Walter Dean Myers Grant back in 2018 and helped me get my fellowship position at Highlights, which was such a wonderful door opener for me at the time. And so that Particular manuscript did a lot of great things for me, but it was definitely missing that spark. I edited it. It was probably very technically sound, but it just wasn't that. It didn't have that thing. And then I wrote a second manuscript after that, just the first draft of something. And it's something I will come back to. It hasn't been seen by anyone, but I just sort of. Honestly, I just sort of was trying to get back into writing. This was maybe a year after my dad passed away. So I was trying to get back into writing with something that was actually interesting to me. And I had one draft in me, and then I needed to put it down. But I was just really excited to know I wasn't broken and I could still write and I still enjoyed it.

Marissa: Yeah.

Trisha: So those are the two, like, serious. Like, I started it and I finished it. Manuscripts that I had before Honeysuckle and Bone.

Marissa: Okay, I'm curious. Cause you talked about how with Honeysuckle and Bone, like, you. You felt like, this one has my soul in it. I'm putting my heart in this one. At what point in the writing process did you sense that there was something different about this one?

Trisha: I have to say, and probably just from its inception. Because that story, the seeds of it, the early seeds of that story, came from the aftermath of me processing my grief. So, like, the idea of Honeysuckle and Bone came, like, about a year after my dad passed away. And I had done a lot of reflecting on, you know, the different ways that my mom and I were grieving him. And. And my mother is Jamaican. She was born and raised in Jamaica. And so I had grown up hearing her stories about the ghosts, which they call duppies. I had been raised on those stories, and I thought they. I used to think as a kid they were really funny or they were really scary. But I didn't take them super seriously until my dad passed. And I noticed my mom was still talking to dad as if he was present, as if he were a spirit that was still in the home. You know, slamming doors that were, you know, moving things around. And that whole experience, along with just how, you know, destabilizing, losing a parent can be, made me want to really ground myself more. And I was doing that by, you know, I wanted to talk to my mom more about, like, what was life like for you in Jamaica? How were you raised? And also, can you tell me those duppy stories again? And so we've been connecting, and I've been learning so much and hearing these stories as an adult. Is just. It was just so interesting. I had different perspective now that I had gone through the experience of losing someone close to me. And all of that helped me form these, like, early ideas of like a ghost story set in Jamaica and one where a story where I could channel some of the feelings I was having about, you know, like regrets and the past things that were coming up really naturally from what was going on in my life. That was something I had really hesitated to do in previous projects that I had written because it just felt a little too personal or too close. And I wanted things to sound great and look great. And I wasn't concerned so much with how they would feel for someone to read and if they would feel anything at all. And so I. That's where I think Honeysuckle and Bone is a little different in that it does feel like it has a little bit of my. My heart in it just from the start.

Marissa: Yeah. Sounds like there's a lot more vulnerability with this one too.

Trisha: Absolutely.

Marissa: Yeah.

Trisha: I don't think, I mean, for me, I don't think I personally could write a ghost story without that vulnerability. Right. Because like, they're scary and that's super fun, but also, you know, they can represent a lot of things. And if that was an opportunity for me to explore some of what I was feeling and process it and it's been really worthwhile.

Marissa: All right, that seems like an excellent point to pause and tell listeners a little bit more about this book. What is Honeysuckle and Bone about?

Trisha: So Honeysuckle and Bone follows the story of 18 year old Jamaican American Karina Marshall, who has something in her past that has gone so, so wrong that she can't fix it. Her only way of moving forward is to run away from it. And she decides to escape to Jamaica where she has managed to nab a fantastic job as the nanny of a wealthy political family. And she'll be living and working on their gorgeous estate. She thinks she's made it to paradise and that's where she can start over. And what she quickly learns is that even paradise can be haunted.

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Trisha: It's been a minute since I've been. I think I must have been maybe 10 or 11 years old when I was last there. And I know I probably did not appreciate that trip as much as I would now because I was 10 or 11. So it's been a while. I'd love to go now, and I'd love to go with my mom. And I know there are all kinds of things she'd like to show me, places she would like to go visit and tell me, you know, show me the places she's told me about. So that would be wonderful.

Marissa: Yeah.

Trisha: No, it's been a while.

Marissa: Well, and the reason I ask is. Cause I love the atmosphere in this book, and I love that you kind of have two settings within one. Like, on one hand, we have the island of Jamaica and mango trees and, you know, tropical humidity and life and songs and brilliance and dancing. And then in the center of that, we have this mansion of this. This wealthy political family that feels cold and almost like, dead in some ways. And I thought that was such a cool contrast. And so I was just wondering, like, was that being pulled from real life experiences or what did you do to research and to bring the setting to life?

Trisha: Definitely a combination of my own memory from going there. I've been a couple of times in my childhood. So pulling from that, I spent hours and hours and hours on the phone with my mother, kind of mining her brain for her memories and her experiences back in Jamaica when she was growing up. Keeping in mind that that was a while ago, so I'm going to have to do other research.

Marissa: Research, research, research.

Trisha: So much research. And so, you know, lots of blog posts, lots of listening to music and making playlists. You know, YouTube. I. I found so much value in finding, like, vlogs from people who are living in Jamaica who are talking about their experiences and showing me their world and showing Holmes. Right. That was invaluable information. As someone, when I, as someone who could not be on the ground there myself, I just. I thank goodness I live in a time with Internet access because, oh, my.

Marissa: Gosh, how did anyone research anything before the Internet?

Trisha: The library might not have helped me in this one instance. Only this one.

Marissa: All right, let's talk about our protagonist, Karina. Do you consider her a reliable or an unreliable pro, just like your personal opinion? Because I. I kind can see it going either way.

Trisha: Oh, that's such a fun question. I feel like I have to say she's an unreliable narrator. She certainly thinks she is reporting on her experiences accurately. So she would probably be upset with what I'm saying, and that's fine. She's entitled to.

Marissa: But, you know, you're the writer, so.

Trisha: She'S entitled to her feelings. I. But I would say, you know, just because someone believes that something is true does not make it true. And so. And I think that's a big thing for Karina. She definitely feels like there are many things that are true about herself or about the world that she's inhabiting or about her past. And those feelings are valid and those feelings are very real. But her interpretation of what happened or what's going on in any moment or what someone's feeling or thinking, not necessarily accurate. So, yeah, unreliable. I appreciate her, though.

Marissa: Yeah, no, for sure. And I mean, I love a character that is flawed and I love how you, like, slowly reveal just how flawed this character is. And yet at the same time, even as we are learning about her history and her mistakes and the things she's running from, we're also, like, loving and appreciating her more and more and rooting for her more and more, which is kind of like an interesting separation that is kind of.

Trisha: I've not heard something. I've not heard it said like that, so that's really cool to hear. I think one of my big fears while writing is, you know, knowing that as we're sort of breadcrumbing her past and what she's hiding and what she's ashamed of, that I was worried I was going to lose readers, you know, because she's challenging. Yeah. To put it very politely, she's a challenging one. And as time sort of passes and you're reading more, it's like, I hope this all works out for you. But also, what is going on, girl?

Marissa: So I feel like we need to have a heart to heart.

Trisha: And yes, we need to have a little chat. Okay. And we'll find someone for you to talk to because that's important. And this is all. Okay. Like, that's very much the energy. And so I was worried that, you know, as we learn more about her, we would also lose some empathy for her. But I also hope that it's really clear just how guilty she really is and how much shame she has and how much she is, in her imperfect way, trying to remove herself from the person that she used to be and the things that she used to do. Definitely not going about this in the the right way. Or the healthy way or even. I mean, I definitely wouldn't. I wouldn't recommend anything she's doing, but I think it's a testament to how much this is weighing on her and how much it has affected her and how much she wants to separate herself from the person that she was and the actions that she took. So much she almost can't look at it.

Marissa: Yeah. No. And I think that's part of the reason that her story arc works so well, is because while we are, it is a, you know, a narrative in which we're very much in her head. You also have surrounded her with so many great characters, and they almost become, like, little reflections of her, you know, and, like, seeing how the other characters, the children, the family, the other servants, how they respond to her as they're getting to know her better, I think almost, like, guides the reader in some ways to be like, how should I be feeling about this? How are they feeling about this?

Trisha: Yeah, that's true. Like, how Karina feels about everyone is just one side of this exchange. Right. Like you said, everyone else is sort of evaluating her too. You know, it was. I love the young birds as her. Her. Her friend group because there's, like, all of her connections with those different friends. Completely different. You know, she's like, on bestie status with one, and she's feeling some romantic feelings for another, and she has sort of more of like a jokey, almost brotherly relationship with the other one. And then there's one who, like, straight up, just does not like her.

Marissa: Yeah.

Trisha: Tolerating her presence. And I thought that. Which honestly, was so fun to write.

Marissa: Oh, she's one of my favorites.

Trisha: He's so fun.

Marissa: I'm like, little quips and the text messages. So good.

Trisha: So fine. Oh, my gosh. So even just, like, within that friend group, it was so fun to be both in Karina's shoes and seeing how she's interacting with these different people and the things that that's bringing up in her, given her past and her situation. But also just what do these people see when they look at her? You know, most of them, pretty nice. Not all of them. It was just. It was. That was super fun. I think sometimes we can get really stuck in to the one character's head that we forget that people are also experiencing them. And so that was just one really fun opportunity. Then never mind the family that she's working for. And they all have very, you know, their own reasons of kind of looking at her a little. Like they don't know what to do with her sometimes.

Marissa: Yeah.

Trisha: So it, it was super fun though.

Marissa: So you kind of mentioned, I don't remember exactly how you worded it, but that in a book like this we have to like lay down seeds almost, or sprinkle seeds I think is how you said for, for giving the hints, the clues of the mystery. And there are a couple different mysteries actually that we're trying to uncover and figure out as the story goes. Was that. Did you plot this out? Do you have an Excel file with like clues and red herrings? Did you do write the book and then go back and do lots of revisions to work in these things? Like what was your process for that?

Trisha: Okay, so I am definitely a plotter, probably almost militantly so. So I like a nice long outline which I had like a many page long outline, scene by scene kind of breakdown, which I then would break down further. I'd take a scene and then try to block it out. Almost like this was a stage show, you know, like really trying to see it in my head and writing out bullet by bullet what I think is going to happen, who says what, who moves where, what's going on. And that was really helpful because then I would take my bulleted list of things which included, you know, what clues I need to put here, or I need to make sure to mention this thing because it's important later. You know, I would do all of that work at like a bullet point stage. Then each of those bullets I would use is almost like a writing prompt, right? So when I would sit down to actually do the drafting part, I don't have to wonder at all about what I'm going to write, what needs to be in the scene. I already thought about all of that. And I don't have to fear the blank page, which I fear a lot because I can just take one bullet point and throw it in my word processor and just write that out, just expand on that. Maybe that's a paragraph, maybe that's a page, whatever it ends up being. And then take the next bullet point and stick it in there and start typing away. So that's how I do it. Before I even get into my document, I need to know generally where I think everything is going to go. Of course, in revision, things change. You realize in actual execution, having this clue here doesn't quite work, or withholding this piece of information this long is not quite landing the way you thought. That part is unavoidable. But I don't write anything before I have a really solid plan that I think will Work and it probably works at least 40%. So that's pretty good.

Marissa: That's. That's not bad. I am also a, a intense, intense plotter, intense outliner. So I love hearing about another Militant Planner.

Trisha: Yes, I feel understood.

Marissa: Yes. I also, I, I do like a scene by scene outline and then I will do a really similar point by point for each scene, but I don't do the entire book that way. I'll do like maybe four or five chapters ahead and then write those and then kind of bullet point out the next ones.

Trisha: Yeah, I would do them like the night before I was going to write a scene or a couple of scenes is when I would try and break them down just so I'm not getting too far ahead of myself.

Marissa: So, yeah, we sound like total kindreds. We're on the same wavelength.

Trisha: Like, I understand you, I feel heard.

Marissa: So I know a lot of people who are not outliners which, like any way a book gets written, you do you. But I know a lot of people who don't like to outline or feel like they would not enjoy outline outlining is because they worry that they'll get stuck. You know, it's like I've written this outline, now I have to follow it. Whereas in my experience the outline is like a gentle guide. But at any point I know I can scrap it and go in a different direction. How closely do you find yourself sticking to that outline once you've created it.

Trisha: On a first draft? I stick exactly to that outline. And I try to also write very quickly just so I don't have a whole lot of time to overthink it. Inevitably as I'm fault, like I need to test the outline out. So I stick to it as closely as possible. And as I noticed that things aren't working, or I didn't explain this, or this is a little confusing. I keep notes for myself off to the side that I can use to fix things later. But usually I feel like my initial outlines are pretty solid and I won't have to do like super major changes, hopefully. So I stick to it, to test it and to see what I actually made, which you do not have to do. That is me. Yeah, I think the benefit of having the outline is just knowing that if you don't know where to go, you can follow it and it will lead you to your ending. It will take you where you want, where you want to go, probably. And if while you're writing you realize, actually, I think I need to make a right turn here. You could totally do That I personally just need to actually see. What did I make in this outline? What did I create? And did it work? And the answer is inevitably, not totally, but it is definitely a book. And I think that's the win.

Marissa: And it's something that you can work with now. And of course, we hear all the time, you can't edit a blank page. And I'm the same. Like, I also hate the blank page. I think it's terrifying to just like, open up a document and just start writing. The idea of that is, like, completely baffling to me. Um, so. So I. I also.

Trisha: I enjoyed as a teenager. As a teenager, I enjoyed that. It was exciting. And now I don't know, I've lost that wonder. And now it's just terror.

Marissa: Me too. Me too. I'm rather in awe of people, actually, who are like, total pantsers, who don't do any planning. They're just like, let's see where the story takes me today.

Trisha: I'm like, Like, I think that's fantastic. Like, the. The way they can push the human mind and their creativity. I love that for them. And I'm in awe. And I need an outline.

Marissa: Yeah, no, it really is. I mean, to each their own. We all. We all somehow get to the end.

Trisha: Exactly. And there's no wrong way to write a good book.

Marissa: The last thing I wanted to talk about before we move on to our bonus round. Your bio mentions that you work as a developmental editor. And I'm really curious how being on the editorial side of publishing, how has that now affected you as a writer or even affected the publishing process for you?

Trisha: Ooh. I really thought that having been on the publishing side, I would not be as affected by the ups and downs of the publishing process, because it's like, I've seen it. I understand why these things happen. I'm. I'm. That's. I guess that's what I thought. What I have learned is seeing these things happen actually does not prepare you at all for dealing with them when they are happening to you. It's just the. Being an author feels so markedly different from, like. And going through these things on my own, going through my. These things as an author. I don't know how other authors ever did this. Truly. I'm like, wow, we were. We were doing life like this. It's shocking. I thought I would be, like, very, you know, calculated and unemotional. I understand. Because I have my author hat on. And like, yes, that happened. But I had. I used to say, you know, if I have my Author hat on. I understand what's going on, and I'm okay with it. If I put my writer hat on, I'm very sad or very emotional or very confused. And so, you know, I just. I think I just started telling people that, like, I have my writer hat on right now, and this is where I'm at mentally and emotionally. Help me. So I thought I would be more prepared. I wasn't. It's just so unique and so special through the positives and the negatives. So I have even more empathy than I did before for any of the authors that I am lucky and privileged enough to work with, because. Ooh, we. We. Y'all are a very strong and powerful.

Marissa: Group, truly, but also weak and scared and.

Trisha: Oh, yes.

Marissa: And shy.

Trisha: We contain multitudes, and I love that.

Marissa: No, that's actually, that's. That's interesting that, you know, because I was, of course, thinking of the question in terms of how has being an editor affected you as an author? But it is actually really interesting to think, too. How has an author now affected your work as an editor? Do you feel like you look at books differently? Do you feel like you. You talk to your authors differently? Having experienced the other side, I definitely.

Trisha: Feel like I speak to my authors even more sweetly, just more.

Marissa: Even more gentle with us.

Trisha: I feel so soft and squishy now because I think of how I would want to be spoken to, and that's it. I'm like, I'm going to explain everything to you in excruciating detail as kindly as possible and make myself probably too available. And, I mean, I hope that that is helpful. So being an author has definitely affected who. How I behave as an editor made me even more conscious of, you know, like, it's so. It's hard. It's so hard to write a whole story and put it out there and get feedback and critiques, and every step of it, it's so hard that I think sometimes we forget what it must be like for the authors to go through all of this. But it's very fresh for me, and so I'm going to pay that forward.

Marissa: Yeah, yeah. No, and I think. Because when I first got published, I remember how strange it felt to feel like suddenly I was on the outside. And you would have months. There would be months that would go by where you would not hear a peep from your publisher. And you start to wonder, like, are they even still publishing my book? Does any. Have they changed their mind? Do people still like me? And I rem. Having come to it from publishing I was like, no, no, no, this is normal. I know how this works. I know that stuff is happening behind the scenes. But I remember really clearly thinking, like, if I didn't know that, I would be terrified right now. And just how scary that must be to an author who's like, no idea that this is normal.

Trisha: Oh, yes. It's just, it's so funny trying to, you know, manage your own mind. It's like, I know what's going on. I know why it's so quiet. I know why this is happening. And yet this is how I feel.

Marissa: And yet someone just say something to.

Trisha: Me, please remind me that you know I'm here. Please.

Marissa: Okay, Trish, are you ready for a bonus round?

Trisha: All right, let's do it.

Marissa: What book makes you happy?

Trisha: Okay. Can I cheat? I have two books.

Marissa: Yes, I suppose.

Trisha: Okay, thank you. Okay, well, okay, one book that makes me happy is the book I'm reading right now. I'm reading Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington. And this is so juicy. It's so fast paced. I'm having so much fun. Like, it's fantastic. The second book that makes me happy might be controversial. It is the Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. And let me explain. It's because when I read that book as a child, I read that book as, like, the love of the, like the selfless love of a parent to their child. I remember it used to make me cry every time I would pick it up. And I would think, you know, I'm so glad that I have parents who would do this for me and make sure I have everything that I need and take care of me and love me. It just made me so emotional and it made me so grateful for what I had. And that is how I read it. And I will continue to read it that way.

Marissa: That's right. It was definitely one of those books that I think if you experienced it as a child versus experienced it as an adult. Totally different book.

Trisha: Yes. I completely understand the takes now. I get it. You're valid. You're totally valid. But I'm gonna stick with my childhood thoughts. She was so sweet and she loved that book, so.

Marissa: And I love that. And this is what makes you happy. So that works.

Trisha: Yes.

Marissa: What are you working on next?

Trisha: Right now I am working on the second book in my contract. And I can't say too much, but I can say we have another story set in Jamaica. We have more mess, more secrets, more mess.

Marissa: Can it get messier?

Trisha: I, I, it will maybe be a challenge, but more mess, more secrets. More Jamaican folklore as a touch point. And if you are a fan of boarding schools, maybe there is something here for you.

Marissa: Lastly, where can people find you?

Trisha: Um, you can find me on Instagram @Miss Trishatobias. You can find me on Twitter because I won't call it X. trishtobias. And you can go to my website which is trishatobiasrights.com awesome Trisha.

Marissa: Thank you so much for joining me.

Trisha: Thank you for having me. This was so fun.

Marissa: Readers, I hope you will check out Honeysuckle and Bone which comes out tomorrow. Of course we encourage you to support your local indie bookstore if you can. If you don't have a local indie, you can also check out our affiliate store@bookshop.org shop marissamyer next week I will be doing my first ever in person interview for this podcast as I have the pleasure of talking with my good friend J. Ann Thomas about her new Gothic romance, the Spirit Collection of Thorn Hall. Please leave us a review and follow us on Instagram Happywriter Podcast and don't forget to check out our merchandise on Etsy. Until next time, stay inspired, keep writing and whatever life throws at you today. I hope that now you're feeling a little bit happier.