Kobo ReWriting Life - #43 - Creating a Sustainable Writing Career with Patricia McLinn

0:05Hey writers, you're listening to the Kobo Rewriting Life podcast, where we highlight an episode from our backlist that will bring you insights and inspiration for growing your self-publishing business. I'm your host, Tara Kremen, director of Kobo Writing Life. We are firmly in back-to-school season and I hope you're using it as an excuse like me to buy some new stationery. Any reason for some new pens, right? So this week I'm highlighting a conversation from 2021 with the delightful Patricia McLean. She spoke about her career in indie publishing and sustaining a long-lasting writing career. It was a great chat and I hope you enjoy.

0:47So we are here today with best-selling author Patricia McLean. Thank you so much for joining us.

0:52Patricia McLinn: I'm delighted to be here. Thank you so much. You are also a host of your own podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about that? It's called Authors Love Readers. And what it stemmed from was a conversation with a reader at an event. So obviously, this was a couple years ago. We're still able to have events. Who said she just enjoyed so much meeting an author in person and being able to ask her questions. And she wished she could meet more authors. and I thought, I know lots of authors and I love asking questions. So I feel like I'm the conduit for the readers. I am the asker of questions on behalf of readers.

1:33Patricia McLinn: And the idea is to let the readers, the listeners get to know the authors as people. So we do fun things, different kinds of questions. And then we also talk about the writing and how that happens. And again, questions that came from readers. So it's a lot of fun. It's almost like letting the reader eavesdrop on a couple authors at the bar at a conference. Not that we spend all our time at bars, of course. That's so much fun, though. That's awesome. Because a lot of times, like, readers will hear like the same answers over and over. So if you can get like, more into the down and into more interesting stuff that's always cool yes and as much as I've focused it for readers it fascinates me how much there is in that in the interviews and in the podcast for aspiring writers because the reader the writers are talking about how they got started and and how they continue and how they hone their craft and hone not just you know the the craft is putting the the words on the screen and dealing with those, but also honing their careers.

2:46Patricia McLinn: And so I think it's got a lot for aspiring writers. Very cool. So you have many different series in different genres. And can you, well, first of all, how many do you have? And how many, and which genres do you write? Shana, are you hinting that focus might be an issue for me? No, I'm impressed that there's a lot. There's a lot going on. I have six series in romance and three in mystery. I refer to one of them as a trilogy to be because it's still it's got two books. No, third one is coming. It's coming. But it is a trilogy to be. So and then I have some nonfiction and I have some historical fiction and then I have some women's fiction.

3:36Yeah.

3:37Patricia McLinn: Focus is an issue for me. Let's just face it. Did you ever consider, because some authors use pen names for different genres, because I'm guessing there is a theory that readers will get confused if they see suddenly an author's name that they know as a romance author, and then they suddenly see them as writing a mystery. Did you ever consider that yourself? I actually tried. The first two mystery books that I wrote were traditionally published, and they were under P.A. MacLennan. And under the theory that more men might buy it that way. Didn't work. They didn't. And I was getting comments from some readers going, somebody's using your name.

4:20Patricia McLinn: So, well, it's me, but thank you so much for being concerned about it. And I bought back those books from the traditional publisher to bring them up myself because at that point I'd started on the indie journey and knew that I could do well with them. I didn't know quite how well, but it's been a pleasant surprise. And I decided to go with Patricia because the PA was kind of a pain, you know, having two names. And I did not have two websites, but trying to do it within, you know, separate it in the website. And I thought, I just don't need this in my life. So I did it as Patricia. And the great thing is a lot of guys have found the books and really enjoy them.

5:06Patricia McLinn: that's a Caught Dead in Wyoming series. So I know a lot of people say you have to have the different names, and I have not found that. I might have benefited from coming from romance to mystery because the romance readers, by and large, tend to be more eclectic. They will read in other genres. Mystery readers tend to be more strictly mystery. and there are of course romance readers who are very um specific in their their sub-genre even of what they will read and what they won't but overall I think they um they venture and they and they love to read and they go out and read lots of things so that's been great.

5:51So you mentioned you started in traditional publishing and then you moved to hybrid and I believe now you are 100 % indie. Is that right?

5:59Patricia McLinn: Yes, I am 100 % now. Can you tell us a little bit about what drew you to the indie world? Oh, do it my own self. I'm told by family members that was my first phrase as a kid. Yeah, having that control, you know, it's the great thing about indie. It's also the toughest thing. You do it all, you know, but you also get to oversee it all and make those decisions. And It takes away a whole layer of frustration of, you know, being in a much larger entity as in traditional publishing, where your work is one of many. And they have to look at the overall process and the overall production. And I look at mine.

6:51Patricia McLinn: So, you know, it's the number one import. So I really, I like that. I like the control. I like the more direct relationship with the readers. And I'm beginning to sell books on my website for also a more direct relationship. I find that the vendors in indie are much more transparent between the author and the reader, where in traditional publishing, the author has to fit into what the traditional publisher is doing. And you guys and the other vendors offer a platform for the author and the reader to find each other when maybe they don't fit perfectly into a traditional publishing view. So I really like that.

7:49I'm just thinking of another interview that we did recently where we were talking about finding your readers and finding like almost figuring out where they fit and where to find them do you feel like your readers maybe don't always fit into one place that you you mentioned having different genres and maybe

8:05Patricia McLinn: crossover between them absolutely I don't think they fit into one place and I like this caught dead in Wyoming series I just got an email from a reader who said how much she liked it and that it was not really cozy. And it's not. It's cozy-ish. I actually think of it as more of a traditional mystery of what the original people who were described as cozies might have done. Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers and some of those folks. But that's not a segment that's offered, either in advertising or on the vendors. So you kind of mesh and find your way. And I think the readers are the same way, that they, you know, they aren't all looking for a series set in a bakery.

9:04Patricia McLinn: They're looking for a variety of things. It fascinates me. I just did a survey with my readers and asked who their favorite authors are. Wow, what a breadth of reading. We tend to think that the readers are monolithic, and if a romance reader is a romance reader, and they will read romance, well, it's not true. The readers are wildly and wonderfully individual, and I just love that. Makes it harder to market, but I love it. Because my books, I think, tend to be the same way too. I have some questions as an author. So I'm an author as well. So coming at it from that point of view. So since you have written so many books, and I always wonder this, do you ever find yourself wondering, have I used this piece of dialogue before?

9:57Have I used this metaphor before? Am I ever using my own stuff?

10:02Patricia McLinn: And I'll tell you, I make it even harder on myself, Shana, because I tend to write long and then cut. And so I'm, did I use it? And did it make the book? Yeah. Did I use it and cut it? And so it's okay to use it now. Yes. Yeah. So I actually, I tend to keep files of those and search through them. Oh, that's smart. Except the tough thing is then you have the phrase in your head. And if you did it a little differently, if you twisted it and you, and it did get in the book, that's a problem but yes I search for those and I also always tell my my editors my copy editor and proofreader if this sounds too familiar let me know so yeah exactly and do you remember the plots of all of like your early books and like I don't know that I mean I mean I wouldn't think you would forget the whole plot but that's a good question many I mean I'm not as prolific as you so I remember the people I remember the characters and I can remember and I remember segments of their story and I I don't necessarily remember all of the all of the details but that one of the things with being indie too is you go back and you refresh the series you know and if I have a big promotion coming up we try my my main assistant and I try to go back through and go through the book descriptions and back matter and all that and make sure it's up to date and working so that helps refresh and it's like oh yeah I hey wonder what you're doing now and I'm thinking about the characters and I have to be careful because then I'll end up with another story idea.

11:53So I can wonder, I can't write about them.

11:58Patricia McLinn: They got, you know, they got to stand on their own now. Absolutely. Shana, I will tell you one thing I found. It's called Seek Fast. Well, I know, I know like if you use Scrivener, you can search on all of the files. Oh yeah, you can definitely search. Yeah. I don't use Scrivener. Back, I'm use Word. I've tried Scrivener. And so this seek file has been fabulous because I like with the caught dead mystery series, I put all 10 manuscripts in there and then I can search through all 10 at once. Wow, that's good. Yeah, I love that. And you really can find out if you use this name before really fast.

12:39Patricia McLinn: Well, and I also keep a spreadsheet of names because I've used Henry for walk-on parts so many times. I really have to watch that yes and I have even with the spreadsheet I've used names so I have Claire on one series and Claire on another series oops sorry guys I can say another one here about coming from like an author's point of view so I was listening to your recent interview on Joanna Penn's podcast and you were talking about being a discovery writer and specifically you were talking about how when you're starting a book you sort of hear the characters talking in your head right and that's then that's where you start so can you explain a little bit more about this writing process like if you're starting with voices like do the pieces of dialogue that you write down initially actually end up in the book like how does it go from just you know dialogue to you know entire book plot tell me everything with a lot of work oh that was a really interesting question shana about whether the original dialogue makes the book because i have i have said in the past that i feel like i get to a point in the book that when i'm writing i'm just writing words in order to have something to cut later um but those words almost always make it in it there is because there's something about it's that feel of the characters and that initial dialogue is usually some sort of conflict and so it it's got a core of conflict so yes those words usually do make it in and in the shape that they are at the beginning does not make it in because it's usually he and she or just she and she or you know yeah the baker and the candlestick maker?

14:36Patricia McLinn: Or, you know, is it some, I don't know their names. I don't know who they are. I don't know anything. I've likened it to eavesdropping at a restaurant and picking up the sense of the tension between people. You don't know why. You can guess. You can start to imagine how they got there and where they're going to go from there. But it's this one snapshot, this moment in time time and that from that moment in time is usually then then it is speculating it's what if and it's what I find is I will try to try to write something else you know I have this this initial scene and I'll start to try to write something else about those people and pretty soon they're talking again so I just let them talk and as much as they want to talk I will I will listen um and those early bursts of dialogue are usually very central very core to the book and then I have to do all the other stuff that's really interesting though that's um because I don't write that way at all like starting from dialogue it's very interesting I like that but like so you also say you also said in that same interview um these are my follow-up questions that you write out of um you write out of sequence, but that you don't plot ahead of time.

16:04So if you're writing a sequence, you're writing a scene later in the book, but you haven't plotted it. So then how do you know, like, you know, how they're relating to each other this late in the book, if you're not, you know what I mean? How are you doing that? That seems like,

16:20Patricia McLinn: I don't know how I do it. You know, I guess I have a kind of a feel for the book, but that feel can be really dangerous too shana because i keep thinking i had one of the books again in the content in wyoming book where i thought not only was i perking along and knew what was going on i was ahead of schedule i am never ever ahead of schedule but i was ahead of schedule and i'm writing away and the guy i thought was a murderer ends up dead in a scene you just accidentally killed him i know it was a goner and you know non-writing friends say well just make him not dead we yeah and shana's shaking her head you can't do that there you know that happened they're dead you know that's like a murderer people used to ask jk rowling why he had to kill off serious black she was crying i think it was her husband she was crying because she killed us this character and her husband why did you have to kill him and she's just like look you know you cannot it's just it's there yeah and you can't get around it yeah so how do i know i i think it's i some of it i i tend to think i've internalized a lot of story you know partly from writing for a long time mostly from reading forever you know from little little tiny bitty kid and all that absorption of story.

17:53Patricia McLinn: And you just have a sense of it. But then you're also surprised. And if I'm not surprised, I'm bored. So I have to be surprised. And that's why I don't plot. If I have tried plotting, my brain says, we've done this, let's go play with something else and I'm lost. So. Gotcha. You know, I feel like I'm the person sitting in a bar listening to writers talk about their craft. I'm curious. Push your margarita, Joan. I know. So you have a couple of nonfiction books and one of them is The Survival Kit for Writers Who Don't Write Right. And is that kind of based on this process of writing that maybe isn't, that doesn't follow the rules of how to write a book, but you find your own way?

18:39Patricia McLinn: It is, it is, but it's not really, I'm not telling anybody else in the whole world to write the way I do. What I, you know, I refer to, it's part revival meeting and part tips, because the first thing I want the book to tell people is the way you write is the way you write, and how, if it's producing words and it's getting the stories from inside your head onto the screen and into paper or ebooks where other people can enjoy it, that is a great process. And there's a lot of pressure, well-intended, entirely well-intended for people to plot and to follow this method or that method. And it's usually because it's worked for the person who's extolling it, but it can derail people.

19:30Patricia McLinn: So I want people who have a less standard way of writing to have that support and the recognition that they can have a career. They can write books and have a career doing it the way that they do it, that you want to keep honing your process and you want to be open to improving it, but you also want to protect it. So that is what survival kit is about. And then there are tips of things that have worked specifically for me. Will it work for other people? Don't know. But, you know, I put them out there and this is how I do it. And if you can, you can take a piece here and there. And all writing advice is a buffet.

20:14Patricia McLinn: It is not a fixed menu. You can pick and choose. You can try what you want. You can go back for more later. You can skip it. You can fill your whole plate up with pickled beets. You can do whatever you want. It's all a buffet with the craft and with the business and marketing. You don't have to do everything that people say. I feel strongly about that. Can you tell? I think also, if I would guess, it's because if you're writing bromance, there definitely is a bit of a, you know, a formula that some people have followed and that readers are used to, you know, there's, you know, a conflict here and they get together here and that kind of thing.

21:01And some authors are good at, they just do that automatically because they understand that that's how stories work and they do it without having to plot it out. If you've already internalized it, or if you're just really good. And then others who have, you know, have no experience with this at all can, you know, cause, cause books that are not plotted ahead of time can often have a lot of problems in that they seem really long and dragging. And why is that? Well, it's because maybe you didn't put any conflict in kind of anywhere, you know, but if you've already internalized all that, you know, it's obvious to you because often sometimes when I'm reading books about writing, I'll be like, oh, well, I'm already doing this and this and this.

21:41So that's good. I'm just going to skip this test. because sometimes it just comes, you know, some things come natural and are just obvious to someone who, you know, who's interested in, you know, writing, but yeah.

21:53Patricia McLinn: And I think that's really interesting, Shana, because I think a lot of times those of us who have taught writing or speak about writing, that we are not always the best at explaining what we do the best because it comes naturally. So I don't think I'm particularly good at telling people how to write dialogue. I can tell them why it's important. I can tell them, you know, go out and spend 15 years as a journalist taking notes for quotes from people and you get a feel of the rhythm and how different people speak and all that. That's, you know, not particularly practical. And I think that I'm probably better at what I've had a great deal of or had a great deal of difficulty with was coming up with a plot structure that worked for me and you do have to have structure you know that's yeah that's the bad news but you can come to it second you don't have to start from structure and write into the characters you can start with that with those voices but as you write out from the voices you are absolutely right you need structure or it's gonna be a mess you have to do it at some point yeah for sure I definitely understand like not being able to explain like sometimes I do beta reads for people and sometimes with dialogue it's just like this is can you just do this better this part this sounds like I don't know this is robots I don't know what's happening like you're just and you can't say exactly why but it just doesn't sound right yeah I think a lot of good writing is intangible like some people are just phenomenal writers and you can't really say why exactly it's so good it just works so well yeah it's just what makes it difficult to teach I guess I'm curious as someone that's been writing for a long time and presumably has a pretty established process and you're when you do this podcast and you talk to other authors and you're or I assume you're also hearing from other authors that have read your books do you find do you ever take tips from other people and apply them is there anything that you've heard that's changed your process at all I'll tell you a mechanical thing a specific thing was from my friend Dale Mayer who told me that on Word you can create headings which I have a tendency to start using something and not bother to read the instructions or learn any other stuff I just dive in and see if I can figure it out myself.

24:26Patricia McLinn: And so I didn't know a lot of these tips and tricks. And that has been fabulous for moving pieces around. Because when you don't write in sequence, you have things in the wrong place. And sometimes I usually keep them in a separate file and try to keep one file of the manuscript with the core of where I think the timeline is. But pieces fall in there. and I'll be writing one scene and another scene pops up. So I just start writing it. I'm not letting go of any of those pop-up moments. And then I can create a heading. And then by using the heading, you can click and drag the heading and it takes the whole section wherever you're going in the manuscript.

25:11Patricia McLinn: I love that. Thank you, Dale. Yes, yes. I don't think anyone fully understands Word. It's often when you're trying to create an EPUB or something, suddenly it's like if you've set up word this way I'm like I don't even know you I don't know I will tell you Shane I decided that they didn't need to know a lot of things about me so at one point I told them that my native language was Portuguese and you get some really interesting warnings and stuff and you're going yeah this looks really scary except I can't read it in Portuguese. And it's still working, you know, what the heck. So switching gears a little bit from craft into career, I guess, something that's coming up a lot, I think we're seeing in the indie community more and more is it's still a fairly new business, like the people that have been in since the beginning, it was what, maybe 2012.

26:10So it's still relatively young. And I feel like a lot of the authors that were really successful during that gold rush period are starting to think more long-term, like they're starting to burn out. You can't release a book every eight weeks for that long. I know this is something that you're quite vocal about. Do you have any tips for authors on making a sustainable, long-lasting career work?

26:31Patricia McLinn: Being stubborn never hurts, truly. And you said 2012, and I actually put my first book up with vendors in 2010. And I tried a website before that direct to readers. I still have that URL because if you vendor guys go berserk, I have this backup. So yeah, I think one of the things to recognize, I think people get myopia and they're just, they're looking at, oh my God, I have to do 12 books a year. I have to do a big release. I have to have a release plan. I have to have a huge marketing plan. Each book is the most important. And when you get more books and you have a new book come out, you know, it's one 60th of my body of work.

27:19It's important because I love the books, but it is not the end all and be all.

27:26Patricia McLinn: So my major tip would be where you set your horizon. And I think people set their horizon too close. So I think you have to stop and think about, do you want to be writing in 30 years? Do you want to be writing in 40 years? Do you want to have a career? And those can be two different things. You can be writing for yourself and for fun and doing it now and then, and that is perfectly legitimate. And I think a lot of people who would be happy doing that, some people who would be happy doing that are dragooned into having, you know, I got to have a career. I got to do it this way. I got to have this ranking in this place.

28:10Patricia McLinn: And so the first thing is keep that horizon long, but also be really honest with yourself. Try to recognize what you want and what is success to you. And for me, the success is being able to continue to write and support myself. I'm not looking for the big, you know, mega bestsellers. I always think the mega bestsellers are harmful to a career in ways because it limits you on what you can do next. And there's so many examples of authors who have been so paralyzed by their own success that they can't, they have trouble writing the second one. Yes, Shana, absolutely. I have not had that worry. So I'm grateful.

28:56Patricia McLinn: Thank you. So you can keep going. I think that people, and I absolutely was guilty of this, especially early on in the traditional world where you had much less possibility of affecting the outcome, of getting tense, of getting all scrunched up about I got to do this, I got to do that. And if this doesn't happen, you know, oh, no, oh, no. And if you can relax and look at it in the bigger view and the bigger context, you know, it's one book. And if you're going to write 100 in your career, it's one release in 60. It's one year of down sales in 40. And you can take a lot of that pressure off yourself.

29:45Patricia McLinn: And the pressure is not particularly productive from what I can tell. Deadline pressure, yes. But there's this other, got to do this, got to do that. I don't think is. So we said the word earlier about sustainability. You know, if you can't sustain what you're doing, you need to change things. Because the idea, at least to me, is to have a career. and that involves time. So you've got to be able to keep doing it over time. What year was it that you stopped? I mean, I'm sure at some point you had a full-time job that wasn't writing. What year did you go full-time writing? Well, I had a transition.

30:31Patricia McLinn: When I first published traditionally, I was working full-time as an editor at the Washington Post. And for several years, I was basically writing full-time and working at the Post full-time. I got really, really tired. I kept calling coworkers by character names and different character names. It wasn't consistent. So eventually I went part-time at the post. And I honestly can't tell you when that was anymore. I would have to look it up. But I worked part-time at the post. And the wonderful thing about that being a part-time job was I had benefits. The not so wonderful thing was when news happened, my part-time job became, you know, 13 days in a row after 9-11.

31:19Patricia McLinn: You know, that was just the way it was. Eventually, I sold my house kind of accidentally. That's a long story. And saw that I could use that to support me if I moved someplace less expensive to live. So I did that. And that was in 2007. And I wasn't sure I was going to publish anymore because I had done well enough and traditional that they didn't cut me, which they did to a lot of writers, including some who are now fabulously successful, which just feels wonderful. But I never did well enough that they left me alone. So it was a constant friction. And I thought, okay, I'm just going to write for myself.

32:08Patricia McLinn: I'm going to write whatever I want. And a couple things happened. One specific thing happened was we had Chris Anderson come to the Novelist Inc. conference. And Chris was then the editor of Wired Magazine. He now runs TED Talks. And he had written the book Longtail. And he stood in front of this room of all traditionally published authors and said, publishing as you know it is dead. Yeah, there was a huge gasp sucking in a bear. And I said, well, what's going to replace it? He said, we don't know. So he did not give any of us answers. But what he did was make all of us alert to pay attention and to watch what was coming.

33:01Patricia McLinn: And I know that several of the people in the room that day, including me, were very early into the indie books. And it's because of that talk. And that's why I'm so vehement. And you mentioned being on Joanna's, on the Creative Pen podcast. And I didn't have a chance to say it on that podcast. We should be on our knees, thankful to her for what she's doing and looking at the futurist information. She is gathering it for us. She is our signpost out there telling us what to pay attention to, putting it in our heads so that it triggers as these things come closer and we're prepared for it. It is a tremendous service.

33:48Patricia McLinn: And I know some folks say, oh, you know, I'm not that interested and I don't want things to change. Well, tough. You know, it's going to change. It doesn't matter. You know, not liking it, closing your eyes to it isn't going to stop it. The only thing that you can do is pay some attention. And you don't have to be out there doing AI experiments right now. Just listen and pay attention. And that will help prepare you for when it becomes viable and necessary in the business. And I think this goes back to what you asked before, Joni. This is part of having a long-term career too, watching what's ahead and being open to it as it comes.

34:37Patricia McLinn: Where's my soapbox? I need to get off the soapbox. No, but I think it's really important. And I think you've, you're an example of somebody that has adapted to a changing landscape. Do you have any idea what the changes coming are? Like, what are your predictions for the next 10 years? Oh, boy. No pressure. No pressure. You know, the one prediction, I don't have really specific hardcore predictions, but I think that whatever does happen will offer more ways to have an author career. The change from traditional to indie has been phenomenal, and I don't see that changing. I think there are going to be ways, you know, maybe more direct selling, maybe multimedia.

35:34Patricia McLinn: I just think, you know, it's, I don't know. I don't know. But I do feel very strongly that it's going to be a pain. You know, it's going to be a learning curve. It's always a learning curve. But, you know, the thing is that keeps all of us from being stagnant. So it's kind of built in cognitive pushing. So all of us have that. But I think it's going to be, I think it's going to broaden the possibilities, not narrow them. And that is the best news. So do you have any upcoming releases that you would like to plug? Because now's the time. Well, I will have, this is kind of in reverse chronological order.

36:23Patricia McLinn: I will have book 11 in Caught Dead Wyoming series. And there will be at least 12 books in that series. I don't know beyond that. And a new release in the Secret Sleuth series, which is a woman who is trying to learn to write which has actually been a lot of fun her great aunt is a an established writer so the two voices are kind of both me one's the old curmudgeon and one is the the one trying to to start out and then that the third book in that trilogy that I mentioned the trilogy to be will actually be a trilogy and that's premise of innocence is book three. It's proof of innocence, price of innocence, and premise of innocence.

37:11Patricia McLinn: Fantastic. But I would also like to say about Survival Kit for Writers Who Don't Write Right. It is out on all the vendors as an ebook. And close your ears, you guys, but say this to the people out there. It's also on my website for 99 cents, because I wanted it to be available to anybody who needed to hear those words and to have the support to write the way they write. That's great. Just want to share your wisdom. We're behind that. And something else I feel strongly about in folks starting out is to watch their money. Don't go in debt. Keep cushions. And that's not just starting out. Keep cushions all the way along because as things change, you're going to need those cushions.

38:03Patricia McLinn: And they will give you the cushion, the monetary cushion will give you the power to take advantage of changes. At the same time, you don't need a real elaborate business structure. You just, you know, keep track of taxes, be good with the governments, keep your cushions. And that's really all you need until things get more complex. But again, the writing will push the business. And I see some folks getting very wound up about, you know, oh, I haven't written my first book, but I need an LLC. No, you don't. And or whatever the comparable business structure is in their country. you can you can write write first write often and see where that carries you and then and then have that build the business that's great advice too we like to finish off hearing about your favorite books we have a couple of rapid fire book questions for you if that's okay okay okay so my first question is your favorite book of all time oh oh it's hard we have only one my favorite book of all time I think you know one that I think oh how can I how can I not do that one but I will say for the mood I'm in today it would be the talisman ring by Georgette do you say higher or hair that's like a year but i'm not sure okay h-e-y-e-r um i love the humor in it it's got kind of two romances but that the older couple in it the the humor is very dry i love that but tomorrow it's going to be a different book Joanie, I'm not reading it to the same book, Sequential Days.

40:08What is the most recent book you read?

40:12Patricia McLinn: I am actually, actually, it's another Georgette Hayer book, but it's one of her mysteries. And I tend to re, re, re, re, re, re them because they are books that I read before I was a writer. And I can reconnect to them as a reader. they're very much comfort reads and that voice of fiction and story without me analyzing it so I love those and so the one I am reading right now is called Detection Unlimited not the best title but yeah all right and our final question is there one author or one book that's inspired you to become a better writer you can just stick with the same author and just a three-peat um i will say gosh there's so many i i want to i want to say dickens i want to say um henry fielding if you ever read tom jones i've loved that book and now i'm going blank and the and there's a nonfiction writer who writes about geology and he he's written a book um levels of the game just oh gosh what is his name and it's a it's a nonfiction book and it starts with the first point in a tennis match and it ends with the last point and in between he talks about society basically and changes and it's arthur ash playing and it's kind of the the shift in tennis.

41:49Patricia McLinn: And he is a writer who can interest me. And I love tennis. So that was how I first got involved reading him. But subsequent books, like he wrote a whole book on orange growing. I am not particularly fascinated by orange growing. But I will read his books and he can draw you in and be interested in what you're not interested in. Is it John McPhee? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. thank you oh yes um yes and i think that is to have the ability you know there's one thing to write stories that interest people who are interested in those kind of stories who love those kind of stories but it's a whole nother level to take a topic that the reader is not interested in and still grab them that's fantastic have you read john mcphee shana no i just googled him on our website while we're talking.

42:49Patricia McLinn: I recommend levels of the game. I think it's fascinating. And it has some relevance now too, because you had this Arthur Ashe, a black tennis player who grew up on public courts, and his opponent had come up through the country club system, which was prevalent at that time. And it's just, it's not one guy's a good guy and one guy's a bad guy. It's just the differences and all shown through a tennis match. I just think it's amazing. But there are a lot of other books too. You mean people who would only let me have one. I know we could be here all day. No, that's great. We will link to those for anyone that's interested in reading them.

43:35Thank you so much. This has been really, really interesting. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Kobo Rewriting Life podcast. If you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to rate, review and subscribe. And follow us on socials. We are at Kobo Writing Life on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky and TikTok. This episode was hosted by Joni DiPlacido and Shaina Krishnasamy with production by Terrence Abrahams. Editing is provided by Kelly Robotham and our theme music is composed by Tearjerker. If you're ready to start your publishing journey, sign up today at kobo.com slash writinglife.

44:14Until next time, happy writing!