Spirit Speakeasy

Writing Murder Mysteries as a Psychic Medium: Carolyn Marie Wilkins Returns!

• Joy Giovanni • Episode 194

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Your next murder-mystery obsession…Gifted psychic medium, acclaimed jazz musician, and author of the new murder mystery Let the Murderer Say Amen- Carolyn Marie Wilkins is back!

This time, she's pulling back the curtain on her entire process: how the story came together, what it really takes to get published, and how her gifts as a medium show up on the page.

In this episode you'll learn about:

-The real cult that inspired her fictional "fake bishop"

-Why writing a first draft feels like channeling spirit

-The truth about rejection, editors, and endless rewrites

-Her advice for knowing if you're truly meant to write

If you love a good book, or you've ever thought about writing one yourself, this is the insider's tour you don't want to miss.

Let the Murderer Say Amen releases July 28th — pre-order link below.

Show Notes:

Let the Murderer Say Amen (A Psychics and Soul Food Mystery) https://a.co/d/0euGD1yY

Website: https://www.CarolynWilkins.com 

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/carolyn.wilkins.3114/

Instagram:  @Jemaya7

Get Carolyn’s first episode on Spirit Speakeasy: 

Mediumship Meets Jazz with Carolyn Wilkins' Akashic Trance Piano Healing

Listen now: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2084888/episodes/11835507

Watch the video: https://www.joyfulmedium.com/blog/mediumship-meets-jazz

Link to Carolyn's second Spirit Speakeasy episode: "Mediumship, Mystery & Murder" (Wham Bam Club)

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2084888/episodes/17699515 

Carolyn Marie Wilkins is the author of Let the Murderer Say Amen - the second in the Psychics and Soul Food Mystery Series. Her other books include Murder At The Wham Bam Club, Death at a Séance, Melody for Murder and Mojo for Murder. 

Carolyn’s stories have appeared in Festive Mayhem and Wolfsbane: Best New England Short Stories of 2023.

She is a Professor at Berklee College of Music and has represented her country as a Jazz Ambassador for the U.S. State Department. 

An initiated priestess of Jemaya, the African goddess of motherhood, Carolyn is also a psychic medium and Reiki Master. 

For more about Carolyn, visit her web page: https://www.CarolynWilkins.com

Get Joy's Free "Sign Magnet" 3 Day Mini Course HERE https://www.joyfulmedium.com/sign-magnet
Joy's Website: www.joyfulmedium.com
Instagram: @JoyfulMedium
TikTok: @JoyfulMedium
Facebook: @JoyfulMedium
Facebook Group: Joy's Soul Spa
YouTube: Psychic Medium Joy Giovanni 

SPEAKER_01

I do believe if you're a creative in whatever field, you have to respect your work. You have to respect your muse, you know. If you, as mediums, we have to respect the spirit. Spirit has given us a gift. They put this on our heart to say it or to write it or to paint it or to sing it or whatever it is. We have to honor that.

SPEAKER_02

Hey, beautiful soul. Welcome to Spirit Speakeasy. I'm Joy Giovanni, Joyful Medium. I'm a working psychic medium, energy healer, and spiritual gifts mentor. This podcast is like a seat at the table in a secret club, but with mediums, mystics, and the spiritual luminaries of our time. So come behind the velvet ropes with me and see inside my world as I chat insider style with profoundly gifted souls. We go deep, share juicy stories, laugh a lot. And it wouldn't be a speakeasy without great insider secrets and tips. You might even learn you have some spiritual gifts of your own. So step inside, Spirit Speakeasy. Hey, beautiful soul. Welcome in for another episode of Spirit Speakeasy. I'm so excited. We have a very special friend of mine and special friend of the podcast with us today. I'm just gonna dive into her introduction. And for many of you, she will need no introduction. We are so lucky to have her. Help me welcome back Carolyn Marie Wilkins, who is the author of a very exciting new book that we're gonna talk about today, Let the Murderer Say Amen. It is the second in the psychic and soul food mystery series. Her other books include Murder at the Wham Bam Club, Death of a Seance, Melody for Murder, and Mojo for Murder. And Carolyn's stories have been acclaimed and have appeared in Festive Mayhem in Wolfsbane, which is New England best short story in 2023, among other accolades and recognitions. And if that wasn't enough, she is also a professor at Berkeley College of Music in Boston and has represented her country as a jazz ambassador for the U.S. State Department. She is an initiate and priestess of Yamaya, who is African goddess of motherhood. And Carolyn is also a psychic medium and a Reiki master, which is how I know her. And for more information, of course, you can go to CarolynWilkins.com and we will tell you all the other places. But welcome in, Carolyn Wilkins.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my joy, thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to be here. Um, I'm just thrilled to see you. I feel the same.

SPEAKER_02

You are easily one of the most incredible people I know. And I was so excited a couple months back when you reached out and said, like, I have a new book that's coming. How exciting!

SPEAKER_01

I am really stoked. I I'm gonna actually show everybody um the book is, as you say, it's called Let the Murderer Say Amen. And it is the second book in my psychics and soul food series, and it features the adventures of an African-American girl who's a psychic, uh, she lives in um the Midwest on the Mississippi River, way down at the southern tip of Illinois, and um the year is 1925, and she is um, if if you read my last book, you met her. This was the last book, it was called Murder at the Wambam Club. Um, and she lives with her aunt Sarah, who's like a master um conjure woman and hoodoo practitioner. Um my girl, her name is Nola, she is sort of what I would describe as a psychic in training. Like we're all in training. She gets bursts of intuition, she can see colors and auras around people, but she doesn't always get it right. Yeah, and particularly when it comes to her own love life, she tends to be a little bit off. And she has several adventures during the course of the book, um, where she's trying to find out about the man in her life and some other things. And so yeah, it's um it's a fun story. There's a series of uh, I will say, mysteries. It involves a uh sort of corrupt cult uh run by uh a quote bishop. He's not a real bishop, he's a fake bishop, and he is an extremely charismatic psychic healer um who has uh a lot of people under his thumb. Uh, and there's a whole mystery surrounding that, and Nola ends up having to investigate around his situation. Um and yeah, adventure unfolds. I just want to everyone to be able to enjoy it.

SPEAKER_02

So I'm gonna be careful about not giving any spoilers. But exactly. I want to talk more about the book. I want to talk a little bit about your creative process, and then a little bit later, we're gonna get to some guidance for anyone that wants to step into a creative undertaking. For me, that's whether it's like recreating your favorite recipe or publishing a book or any any other creative endeavor, because I think there's a lot of through threads. You, especially as I mean, not only are you a medium and a psychic and a profound jazz musician and artist of several kinds, but now you're channeling it this direction, which like this is an amazing way that you're leading the way. You just told me before we started recording that I'm one of the first to get the advanced coffee to read it. And I was so excited because going into the book, we just exchanged like a couple quick emails, and I didn't know anything about you know what your intention with the series was. And you know, some series follow a place or a person or a totally different, you know, maybe it's just a totally different pivot. And I was so excited to get to be with Nola again in this book. What I do want to say, I'm so glad you brought up the uh murder at the Wam Bam Club, the first in this series, because while I also really loved that book, one thing I love that you did is as a reader, you could step right into this book and not feel like, oh, I'm missing information or I don't know. Yeah, you'd have a little bit more of her background and the flavor of her and understanding of her world, but we get more of that in this book too. And so if you read the first book, it kind of enriches what you know about the character and and her growth throughout these two books already. Um, but if you didn't get an introduction to this character already and you just picked up this book, you really can naturally just step right in and just in her dialogue, understand a lot about her.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. That was my intention. I did not want people to feel that they had to read a whole other book in order to get caught up on her story. Um, so you can jump right in with Nola and hopefully you will get a feel for her right away from the very first page.

SPEAKER_02

Well, the great thing is for me, like I fell in love with her in the first book. But if you're just coming to Carolyn's work in this way with this story, there's another book. So you could also like you might not have read it yet, but it's like, oh, I want to get that one too, because um, it's just, I don't know. I love the story, I love the time period. You do such a beautiful way, which is why I think last time um you guys can find that uh episode about murder at the Wham Bam Club, but Carolyn also has shared her gifts with us in other ways on the pod. So I'll link all those below. But last time, in the way that we were looking at it, it's so similar, and I probably said this to you. You really, in some ways, to me, it feels like you're channeling elements of this time period, what was going on in the world, politically, culturally, all of the undertones, because it it does set the stage in such a different, profound way. And you really like it's just so historically accurate and culturally accurate, and even the part about the um prophet that shows up in the story. Um, you know, a lot of us have a lot of experience with different spiritual groups and things, so it's it just rings so true on all the levels, particularly the uh her psychic gifts and the way she uses them with auras and things, because just you know, personal pet peeve is that a lot of a lot of media maybe doesn't portray no that is.

SPEAKER_01

They do not, and a lot of so-called uh psychic uh people in mysteries, they do stuff, and I'm like, really? I mean, eh, it doesn't feel and I didn't want to make it totally completely realistic, like as you know, in mediumship, for example, when we're trying to identify a spirit and we're at a thing, it might take us a few minutes to go back and forth, back and forth. And for the purposes of fiction, sometimes you just need for her to get the spirit right away and go. But at the same time, I didn't want to make it so unrealistic that it didn't, I wanted it to be based in my own experiences, um, both as a musician, as a psychic. Um, I did a lot of research on the 1920s and particularly um the small towns there along the river uh at that time what was going on. And even my um character, who is the charismatic um sort of uh Svengali behind this cult, um there were uh two or three very well-known and hugely popular cults of this nature at that time. There was a man named Daddy Grace, had a huge following and considered himself to be the reincarnation of Moses, and people would give him money and they bought him a Cadillac and like all the things, right? And um, yeah, there were two or three different people like that. Father Divine was another one who actually had an interracial group at a time when that was very, very rare in the in the 1920s. So I tried to base the things that are in my story in at least some level of reality before I then take them off into uh the land of fiction.

SPEAKER_02

It definitely feels that way. And I will say, just to go back to your the way you described it about her gifts and how places you had to get to the point, knowing you as an artist and as a musician as well, a little bit, I could feel how some of it probably came out in the editing. And some of it was probably that creative restraint of like, what do what do I need to give them? So it's enough, but doesn't deter us from what's actually happening as it relates to the overall story, because that's the track we're on. So I felt like that was an amazing balance, or that you found kind of that sweet spot of like, okay, it's enough, especially for you don't get too in the weeds of like, oh, you'd have to really understand how these gifts work to even understand this book. It's not that at all. Um, it is a fun, almost like secondary character or element of the of the of the main character. But uh I think you do a really good job with how much you give and how much you just leave out.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you. And I will say uh going a little bit to what you're gonna talk about, the creative process, uh, when we get into that, I do want to talk more about editing because editing is a huge part of writing, and people don't always realize that. I think they have this vision of, oh, I have a story, I know what my story is gonna be. I sit down at my computer, I reel off a brilliant string of words, and that's it. I'm done. It's a book. And in fact, it's hours and hours of going back and pruning, cutting, adding, reading it, rereading it, rewriting it. It's a whole process, and part of what you're looking for is just what you said. Is this realistic? Is this believable? Um, without weighing my reader down with 10 trillion details that maybe are interesting to me, but not so much advancing the story. I want to keep always the book to be entertaining and move the story forward. That's the main thing.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, but you also, to me, it just feels like a symphony in its own way because you're also balancing that with wanting to honor, you know, the people that lived in that time period and what it would have been like for them. And even as you're saying that, I'm thinking about um, like, how do I say this without saying anything? Uh, when the murder happens in this story, just like in any murder mystery, it's who are we looking at and why are we looking at them and who's giving that information and why are they pointing that way? And there's all these undercurrents and layers of like what's going on in the time period and the culture, and and that these are black characters, and all of it is this wonderful symphony within the the realistic perspective of these gifts, plus the religious aspect, and um that truly they're I think this is comes out in the the other book, but it's like they're in these situations, just like in most stories, in a precarious way, because they're there to do a totally different job catering, and they have a different business, and then these shenanigans and mishaps and gifts are all just a part of it.

SPEAKER_01

So I I just really I loved it in case you can't tell about it. Thank you so much. I love talking to you about it because I truly feel like, oh, she got it. Oh good. You have no idea as an author uh how rewarding it is when you feel that someone has read your book and truly gets it. Um it really is the reward and the payoff for all the hours of work that go into uh the creative process. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

Well, let's talk more about all those hours of work that goes into the creative process because I just, first of all, you know me, my mind's always running rampant. So I was like, oh, I could see a potential for her to one day, you know, move this into a mini-series or like a limited series, how we keep seeing now, or a movie or something else, if you chose, or even on like a stage performance, I could easily see Nola as like a stage character. Aww, that's awesome. Do you start with? I keep relating it to like when I was doing acting. And some characters, even if you're just reading a segment of the script, in order to really step into their energy, you might have to create a backstory for them or some different elements of them. Do you start with the characters and kind of their friends of yours inside? Or do you start with knowing, oh, I want to do this as a murder mystery, or maybe a little bit of both?

SPEAKER_01

That's a great question. Um, I had in my mind, and particularly because this is the sequel to another one, a lot of that work had already been done because I have to use the same characters, it has to be a murder mystery because the first one was a murder mystery. That's what people are expecting. But once I had the main characters in place, then you're thinking about what story do I want to tell? Yeah. And what kind of characters would show up uh to interact with the people that I already have in place, you know, this little town, what would it be like for them? Who would they be likely to meet? What could happen? And then uh things just, and I think this is a little bit like channeling. Um, things just pop into your mind, you get ideas, you get characters. As I said, I've done a lot of reading in this time period and everything, so things just popped up. Well, what if uh a character like uh Daddy Grace or a Father Divine or whatever? What if that kind of character were to show up, but they were to be like uh evil? What would that be like? You know, how would people interact and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So I'm sure that's just like one of many ideas that popped in. What's your process for kind of flushing out those ideas? Is it like you just then dive into more of a research, or is it that you kind of flush out some of the story of where it might go and test it? How do you go about it?

SPEAKER_01

That's a good question. Yeah. Interestingly, for me, um I sit down and I kind of come up with the overview of the whole story all in one. It's almost like if you're a medium, it's almost like you're a clair cognizance. You're it it it just kind of comes in the whole story. I sort of knew what I wanted to do in the story, what was going to happen, sort of the major points. And then after it's kind of come through like that, then I go back to a line because it's a mystery. Um, we have to have certain characters have to uh have things happen. Someone needs to be murdered, a couple of people need to be murdered, we need to have the murderer who's gonna do it. How am I going to sort of cloak that um so that the person who's reading it doesn't guess right away on page two? I know it's this guy. The how do we keep the suspense building? How do we do so? The overarching concept comes in very quickly, and then there's detailed planning and an outline to sort of come with how is it going to unfold in such a way that the reader can really feel a mystery uh uh unfolding as it goes. Um, that takes uh work. And and then actually writing it is another whole level because the prose needs to be clear, it needs to be good, it needs to capture the reader, no extra words, no extra information, bogging it down, yeah, like Goldilocks, not too much, not too little, yes, just right. So there's a lot involved in it, and it comes in stages. But the first stage of having the vision, I want to write a book about a cult in southern Illinois in 1922, and I want my psychic to be involved with trying to solve a murder, that comes right away. I have so many follow-up questions.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. First, if someone is thinking, oh, I thought about writing a book, maybe I could write a book. You said that you've read so much, and I know just because I know a bit about your family history, some of the most amazing folks that have ever walked the earth, as you know, but you have a connection to most of the elements in this story, I would say, and all of them on some degree. So you would would you encourage people go with a fun idea that you have or lean into what you know, or maybe find a way to make that fun idea. Fit into the scheme of what you know? What's your guidance there for people that don't have it fleshed out?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that is a great question. I always recommend uh because I will say first, writing a book is really hard work. Okay. It is hard. We're gonna keep drilling into that because it is hard work. So it needs to be the point is you need to be really excited about wanting to do it. You need to be like waking up every day going, oh, I can't wait to go down and work on my story. I'm really excited. So often when you're writing a story, it is extremely helpful if you can be writing from something that comes from your own experience or your own deep research. And it definitely should come from your own passion. Because if you don't have that, it's gonna be very hard to stick with it. And you're gonna get like 50 pages in and go, oh, this just is feels like I'm like in high school doing a term paper or something. Okay, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Are there any like introspective things someone can look at like right now, someone that's thinking about it at the beginning of like, I don't know. For me, sometimes the way I think about it is like, do I actually want to follow this idea through? I last week I almost ordered a sewing machine. Okay. I'm just like, I love projects in all directions. But realistically, I have to check in with myself of like, do I want to commit to learning this skill? Do I want to write this book and bring these characters to like do life? Do I just like the idea of this? Are there some like test questions before they get 500 pages in and decide, like, I feel like I'm in school and I hate this?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you know that's a great question. I would say, first of all, you want to ask yourself how compelled you are. Like, if you wake up one morning and you have the idea, I have the idea of a story boy, wouldn't it be fun to write a book? Uh sort of write down maybe your idea about the book and then see if the following day you still have the same passion. Just imagine that if you are writing a book, first of all, you don't want to think about, oh, maybe I could get paid to do this. I've had people say to me, Oh, I'm retired, I'm looking for a second income, or you know, I'd like to supplement my income, or I hate my job, I want to quit my job and have a new job. Yeah. And and I think I'll write, that I would definitely not pursue as a way because writing is, I mean, yes, Stephen King and those famous writers who write and have huge bestsellers, yes, you can make a lot of money, and maybe if your book gets option for a movie or something like that, it could be a lot of money. But most people and even people who are have published books but are not, you know, best-selling writers, you are not going to make a lot of money, it's not gonna replace your day job, and it also takes an enormous amount of time and commitment. It just does. Even if you love writing and you write really fast, my previous point that I made a while ago, even after you've written it, I think this um led the murderer. Uh I would guess that there were probably 10 drafts, complete drafts done all the way through of the book, from soup to nuts, 300 pages, over and over and over again. And then I sent it to my editor, who then proceeded to point out like a gajillion things he wanted me to improve, all of which, you know, he had a point, but it meant going back and writing it all the way over again. Yeah. And uh so you have to really be committed. And so it might be a fun idea to start it, but make sure if you're writing a book, you're in it for the long haul, and it and plan that it's going to take, you know, at the minimum, you know, six, eight, nine months, maybe a year. Um, and of course, great writers sometimes they take like five years to write a book. You, you know, so it's not a light undertaking. One suggestion I have for people who like to write um and who may be feeling a bit daunted by everything that I just said, you might want to start by writing a shorter project and see if you enjoy that. For example, um, writing a short story or having a blog where you're, you know, every week maybe you write something. Now, I see people on Substack now. They they have like every week they write a new story and they share it with people. And that, first of all, gets you into the flow and feeling of writing, um, but it's a little bit less of a long-term commitment. You know, you could say, all right, I'm gonna write a story, I'm gonna spend the next three weeks working on my story, I'm gonna polish it, and then I'm gonna share it somewhere, or I'm gonna submit it to um an anthology. There are a lot of different anthologies where you can submit your story, um, and just kind of try it out because the process, I think I it it it is it can come as a shock, the rigor of the process if you're not prepared for it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about the actual process of writing the initial draft, the timeline between that draft and the other draft. Really quick before I forget though, as we're talking about this, for me, what I feel like is a big part of it that often people don't realize with any creative project is there's a vulnerability in sharing that draft, particularly when there's someone with a giant red pen who's gonna then give feedback that to me has always felt kind of devastating and a whole process for me to go through of like, don't be offended, you're asking for this is the deal. This is the so I I would I would love for you to also address that kind of personal development aspect because I think it's really puts us through the ringer on the emotional side as like another hidden aspect.

SPEAKER_01

That's a great question, Joy. And yes, for those of you listening out there who are uh in any creative endeavor, not just writing, but I will speak to writing because that's what we're about now. Um, so the writing the first draft of Let the Murderer Say Amen, um, there used to be, I think it got discontinued, but there used to be something called National Writing Month or something, and it was in November. Um, and you would get on this website and there would be thousands of people from all over the world writing, and you would commit to writing 50,000 words, which is a lot of words. It's not a full book, but it's certainly like three-quarters of a book. Um, and you would commit to doing that in the month of November, and you would just give yourself it's about 1600 words a day, which is more or less, let me see, I think a thousand words. Well, there are 250 words to a page, so you can figure it out. I I'm really bad at math, but it's maybe it's 10 pages. I'm so bad at fast mouth, too. But but the point is, yeah, you sit down every day and you commit to that, like you chain yourself to your computer and you just churn out words. And the secret of the first draft, in my opinion, and there are a lot of famous writing teachers that have written on this, you don't worry about the quality, you just write junk, you just write whatever. It's just uh spewing out onto the page, and you just keep going, you don't look back, you don't fix, you don't fix the grammar, you don't fix the spelling, you don't, you just keep moving forward until you've churned out the whole story and brought it up from your subconscious onto the page in a very rough fashion. And that uh that rough draft that probably took me about two months.

SPEAKER_02

Uh and then just quickly, how many hours a day-ish would you say you're committing in that time period?

SPEAKER_01

You know what? Because you're not editing it and you're not oh, and the other thing is you don't read it again either. Okay, you don't it's like you just go, yeah, and you don't because if you go back and read it, you're gonna go, This is a piece of junk. I'm not, I'm gonna go back to the beginning and fix it with that, and then you'll never finish. So it's like you just have to blurt it out. Yeah, you know that feeling in mediumship when you just feel spirit coming and you just have to say what you see, even if the person is going, no, that's not it, but you have to just say it. This is that same impulse. You just spit it out. And then once you have it all there on the page, your whole story, and you've typed the end, you know, buy yourself a box of chocolate or something, celebrate. And a cookie. Yeah, I mean, how many days of cookies are we talking about here? We're gonna there are gonna be a lot of cookies before this is over, and then give it maybe a couple of weeks, take a break from it, and then you go back, and now the real work begins. Yeah, you go back to the beginning, you read it, you see, oh my gosh, the grammar here is terrible, or this isn't what I meant, or gosh, I don't understand even what I why on earth did I write this, and now you go back in and polish. And that uh takes uh much more time because you're moving much more slowly and you're being more discerning. But at the same time, you have maybe at some point, possibly uh in your first draft, you've created this rough outline of the story so you do know what's what's gonna happen. Who's the most of the characters and who's yeah, who's gonna be the victim, who's gonna be the murderer, the outcome, the gist of the you need for a murder mystery. Now, maybe if you're writing a different kind of story, you can just allow spirit to guide you and and see where you end up. But I have found for me as a murder mystery, I like to have the clues, I like to know where, and that all takes like strategy to plan that out. So, anyway, um, in conjunction with your outline and your first draft, now you begin to go back and revise, and this is what takes the time. So, this book, um, because I had already published Murder at the Wham Bam Club, I was under a contract to produce the next book in the series uh by the end of the following year. So basically they gave me a year to write it. I mean, stressful but exciting. It was it was really exciting because instead of previously I'd just been writing and going, I hope someone reads this. Now, at the very minimum, I know that someone is gonna read it, someone is gonna weigh in and comment on it because they also, Bay being my publisher, now has an investment in it turning out well. So the guy's gonna read it and rip it apart and so forth, um, which can be both painful but um necessary. Yeah. Um, so anyway, it was a year from let the murderer say a men was a year from getting the idea, uh, the first draft and the outline until producing uh the final product and sending it to uh sending it in. You're a busy person.

SPEAKER_02

Are we talking about like 20 hours a week average for this year? Or you know, that's two hours a question.

SPEAKER_01

I'm sure it fluctuates, but I think so. And I think different people are different. Of course, yeah. Um, and you also have to factor in how long can you concentrate on something. Yeah. Because sometimes I don't know if you've ever had that experience, but you're sitting at your computer and you like working, but your mind has wandered off, or you can't think straight, you're so tired and you're not, then it's not productive. So I would say rather than the hours, what I try to, although I will say this also set yourself, and this is my advice to to people set yourself a window. Like I'm giving myself two hours this morning. I like first thing in the morning because my mind is after I meditate and I have my breakfast, and I sit down and I focus because I find my mind is more clear.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But I have also found that sometimes once the story sort of takes a hold of you, and once you begin polishing the writing and you can begin feeling it birthing almost, yeah, um, there's uh it can kind of like grab a hold of you, and then you want to just sit at your computer and work at it till it's done.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, I would love to hash this out a little bit because for me, I've I haven't really talked about this much with anybody besides myself, but I used to be a studio artist and I painted and did mixed media and kind of large pieces and with kids in life and things, uh, it got put aside and it has been calling back to me for several years, and I've been diving back in and creating time. One of the interesting pieces about the way I work is it doesn't really work for me to sit down and stare at a blank canvas, which I know is sometimes part of writing, so it's a little bit of a different thing, but I very well know that feeling of when you're in the flow and and it's kind of moving through you. And it's why I had to put it to the side when my son was born, because I would get consumed and be three days straight because I just know what it is right now and I can see it, and it's birthing, like you said. That's a great way to say it, and I can't leave this right now. That's not practical in a real world setting for me. So, how do you kind of reconcile the discipline with like the artistic process that seems natural to a lot of us?

SPEAKER_01

That is a really good point. I first of all, I will say I'm blessed now to be retired and I do not have I'm busy, but I don't have those same kind of commitments, nor do I have young children, because I do think that's a different kind of thing. But that said, I know many writers that just if you have young children, you get up early before they're up, or you stay up late after you put them to bed, and and you carve out, I would say this is the key thing about the artistic process in general. One must carve out for oneself time where people know they cannot bother you, that you, you know, my spouse knows if he sees me and I'm tooling away on the computer, I'll be like, nope, not now. Whatever it is, talk to me about it later. You you have or maybe you have a room or a study or a studio where you go and you close the door and you carve out time. And then this is the other part of the artistic process discipline. You, you know, you say, All right, this is it. This afternoon, between three and five, I'm gonna go to my room, I'm gonna close the door, and I'm gonna sit and work on my story. And even if I'm in there and I can't think of a thing to write, I'm gonna sit and write, you know, I can't think of a thing to write. I'm just so frustrated. This so sucks. I hate this. I don't know why. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then before you know it, you will start getting, you it's like you prime the pump and eventually it will come out. And then at the end of your two hours, you can say, okay, well, I I put in my, I paid my dues today, I put in my time doing what's important to me. Because I do believe if you're a creative in whatever field, you have to respect your work. You have to respect your muse, you know, or if you, as mediums, we have to respect the spirit. Spirit has given us a gift, they've put this on our heart to say it or to write it or to paint it or to sing it or whatever it is. We have to honor that. And um, that means I'm gonna put in two hours a day and sit down and do it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and I I love the way that you explain that because the truth is, I think all of us wish that we would miraculously come into some sum of money through no harm to anyone and have all the time and space to create the thing, but that isn't how life works for most of us. And particularly if someone's on their very first project and has, you know, no track record, then almost always it's not, you're not getting discovered like Harry Potter. So it's having that discipline and it's kind of back to what you said initially when we were talking about how does someone know if they even want to write a book, it's that kind of calling on your heart. I think about even when I was in my mediumship development, it was really tough, busy years of my life when kids were still in school and things. And but the way I always explain it to people when they ask me, like, how did I know if it was for me? The best words I have is like it's that thing that I just couldn't put down and just wanted to keep coming back to and picking up, even if I didn't have time, or even if it didn't make sense at the point, you know. So that's kind of that niggling, nudging, except there.

SPEAKER_01

You are compelled. Yeah. And if, especially for a book, if you do not feel compelled, don't do it. Yeah. Because it's enormously time consuming. Harry Potter, by the way, J.K. Rowling, I don't know if you know this, but she was rejected. I don't know, it's a famous story. I want to say she was rejected maybe 40 or 50 times by different publishers before she finally and she kept. This is maybe if it's one thing, it's this sort of pig headed, dogged perseverance that, you know, I just am gonna keep doing it, yeah, no matter what. Um, even in the face of criticism, rejection, etc.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and that's I think to your previous point where it's so important to hold that truth of like, oh, I'm not doing this for the money. Like, If money comes of it, then that would be ideal. But I'm not that's not my intention with this pursuit because if it is, it becomes very hard to keep beating that drum when you're tired and when it's you know, you maybe you have lost a little faith or whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. And the money that you make as a writer, unless you really hit the big time, yeah, the top levels. Yeah, it's it's not, you know, I mean, it is some money, I'm certainly grateful, but it's not going to be like I'm paying off my house, or you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02

It's that's a good that's a good realistic look, though. So after you you write the first draft that you just get out, you go back through, you kind of hone that first draft yourself. What's the next step in that process? I guess would be giving it to other people for their potentially painful feedback.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, there you go. I usually maybe I do two or three drafts polishing the writing, making sure that it makes sense, and then I show it to my husband. Um, and he often has very um detailed, shall we say, criticism, which uh you know, about it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And then after all that, then I have maybe three or four trusted friends, uh, some of whom are writers and some of whom are readers, and I will ask them, you know, and then, you know, would you please read it? And usually I try to give them maybe some guidelines as to what to look for to make critique. Like, does the story make sense? Do you like the characters? Um, what's one thing that you just found really annoying about this book that you'd like me to fix? Were you surprised at the end by who did it and da-da-da.

SPEAKER_02

Like those questions, yeah. Yeah, you guidelines.

SPEAKER_01

Specific questions because otherwise people might just say, Oh, it's great. And then Yeah, I liked it, I didn't like it, whatever. That's not helpful. No, it's just like with mediumship, you need someone who can not only say, Well, you missed that, or why didn't you see the brother-in-law uh there standing behind, but also a good teacher will then say maybe why you didn't catch the brother-in-law, or what you could do to improve it for the next level. So after I get the feedback from those people and I incorporate it, um then I will send it uh since this book was already under contract and I had gotten all that, then I sent it to my editor uh at the publishing house. And then he read it and made uh a whole slew of more comments, which I then fixed, and then uh he then sends it on to someone who does what's known as copy edit, which is the detailed, itchy, picky, you need a comic you need, and not only that, but what she does, I you have to really. Did I mention you need to really want to do this project? She will go through, and if you said the tornado that came through town in 1925, she will check and see, did a tornado come through? Oh, the tornado was actually in 1924. You need to fix that, or you misspelled the name of this. It's like a very detailed fact check if you have facts. I mean, yes, I'm writing fiction, but if I refer to real people, is it accurate? Is the date and then plus the grammar and all? It's a very picky picky. And then when all of that is done, then uh they will lay it out. Now it's getting close, um, and they will go ahead and lay it out in the format so that it looks the way it's gonna look as a book with the right the typeface and the chapter headings and those kind of things, and then they will send it to me again for me to read to make sure that there are no mistakes, like, you know, does everything look right? And then you read it through one last time, and then God willing, that's it. It goes off and they publish it. Then they send um sort of a proof copy that is like a book, but it's in paperback, and that's the one they will send to reviewers and people that they're hoping are gonna write wonderful things about the book. Critics and things. Yes, that's how you well, you didn't get a paperback copy, but that's what they send out, and then from there, they will then eventually publish the actual book that people buy.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. It it reminds me of when I was in the acting world, and one of the things that was so surprising to me, kind of as like an outsider working my way into work, and as I kind of climbed a couple rungs on the lower part of that ladder, the team that is required that from the outside you would never know that there's this team of people and the importance of like publicist and what they do for you and actually what their piece of that pie is, kind of how you were saying the very the copy editor, right? Who are the people? I mean, because this is you've written several books, but this is you've gotten picked up now, you have this contract. Who are the players for you at this level on your team?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, and that is so important, and I will give a big shout out to my team at Kensington Publishing, uh, because they have really been great. I had a smaller publisher for my first three books. Um and then and I I have also had a university press that that was what I did for my um the two memoirs that I wrote. Um and the smaller publishers, they do not have the resources to really give you a team. They mean well, um, but it's mostly on you, and they will read it, and they do they did have uh a group of people, for example, to design the cover, uh, to design the way the book, to lay it out, to edit it, that they did. Um, but then once the book was actually out in the world, oh, and then also what they did was make sure that it was available on in all the places, the online places. Okay. But because they were a small press, the book was not gonna show up at Barnes and Noble or in some of these other brick and mortar places because they did not have the resources to get it distributed that so my um big step up was to go with Kensington, which is the largest independent publisher. It's right below the Simon and Schusters and the those people. It's it's a a rung below, but they're still pretty big. And now I have a team, and that means obviously I have an editor who reads and comments on it, and he has uh the copy editor that assists him, but they also have a publicity department. So, to your point, because this is very important, as you can imagine, uh there are a zillion books out there. Yeah how are people gonna even know about your book and and want to spend twenty dollars on a book? Why, but you know, what is gonna motivate them to do that? So they have a team of people who, and that publicity department then has sub-departments who do stuff like put things on the internet, right, on the website and whatever. And they have been great in getting me opportunities to speak about my book in different places, um, to do book launch events and so forth. And of course, this is very competitive too, because everyone's trying to do it, and so uh they've gotten me a few things. Um, and then I also uh have gone out and tried to get my own opportunities, like you, for example, graciously agreeing to interview me and um, you know, stuff like that. But it takes a village, that's the truth. Yeah, there are people who make the cover, there are people who design the typeface and all that, there are people who distribute the book, there are people whose job is to reach out to bookstores and see if the bookstore is interested in all. I mean, it's an undertaking, you know.

SPEAKER_02

What's fascinated me too is even there's even more layers in like the people that do the cover. There is science and data and surveys behind. Do they want, do people prefer a person on the cover this year? Do they prefer bold type, small type? You know what I mean? Like the colors, the there's science, and it's not no one's guessing at any part in this process. But how did you just quickly? This is amazing that you're in such a place right now, and I'm so excited for you. The first book that you wrote, you didn't really have the team, right? You didn't really have the introduction yet. What's the process of you getting kind of your foot in a door or getting recognized? How did that ball start rolling? Because it I think it's always interesting in the process. We as outsiders sometimes think like, even I mean, my only references are like the acting world, like, oh, this person like rose to success when it's like, oh yeah, you didn't see these like 17 years of independent films. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

So how will you talk more about that part of it? Sure. Um, the very first book I wrote was a textbook, actually, because I was teaching at Berkeley, and Berkeley had its own independent press, and they wanted um textbooks that they could then, of course, sell to the students. And me as a faculty member, they asked me to write one. So that was my first book. And then after that, when I realized that I could write a book and how fun that was, I thought that I would like to write a memoir about my family. And this is when I wrote two books about my family. And that first book that I wrote about my family, which is called Damn Near White, an African-American Family's Journey from Slavery to Bittersweet Success, uh, was about my grandfather. And that book, um, I was just a rookie out there. I didn't have an agent, I didn't have anyone. Um and what I decided to do was the book was there there used to be, I think there still is, a book called Publishers Marketplace, which is a whole huge, thick at that time, an actual physical book that talked about um the available markets and places where one could market a book, and particularly where if you didn't have an agent, you could uh place your book. And what I realized was that because my grandfather had grown up in Missouri, and the University of Missouri had its own press, and they had a whole special category of books about Missouri and particularly African American history in Missouri. So they took that book, and the thing that worked there was because I knew what they were looking for, and I had the kind of book they were looking for. And I will say, for those of you who may have a book that you want to market, you want to be don't just randomly send it to every available publisher. Find the publishers that specialize in the kind of book. If you have a cookbook, be sure you send it. Or maybe it's an Asian cookbook. Who knows? Maybe there's a company that specializes in Asian cookbooks. Try to find a local angle. Try to find, you know what I'm saying? You're looking for and connective threads. Yes, you are. And so my fiction book, my first fiction book then, um was Melody for Murder. Now this is a murder mystery, and I'm trying to figure out how to get it published. And that one I did send to a whole bunch of places. A lot of places would not even look at the book because I didn't have an agent, and that's one sort of gateway that they use to keep out the many hordes of people who are hoping to publish a book. They arbitrarily say, Oh, you don't have an agent? Yeah. So I was lucky to find this one small publisher, and I did send to like a gazillion places. And eventually a small publisher was a husband and wife couple, uh, and he read the book and he really liked it. And he said, Well, we'd like to take this on. And so I did three books with them. And then I decided that I was wanting something a little bit larger because of what I was speaking about, the team, all everything that we've been talking about. Um, it really makes a huge difference. Uh, and it's so I was lucky to, maybe partly based on the strength of having already now written um the textbook, yeah, two memoirs and three murder mysteries, that's six, uh I think that's six, whatever.

SPEAKER_02

Um I was able to then get an agent to represent me, and she sold my book to um Kensington, where I plus you'd had some like recognitions in those times, and you'd been getting the book places, and you'd been still sharing about it, I'm sure. And so I love the way you're explaining it because it really is this like churning of story that's very similar to like acting. It's very hard to get in the door if you don't have an agent. There's a lot of places that won't even see you, just like you said. So that's it is that tenacity, and the word when I was a kid was stick toitiveness.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, my mother used to say that and Boston word, maybe I don't know. I don't know. But it's fun, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

It's like you need that ingredient for this long haul for sure.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, you do, yes, you do, and to be dogged with it and to know that this is something Spirit gave to me to use somehow, and it's my job to try to do my part. I can't control whether you know this happens or that happens, but I can control getting up every morning and saying, okay, I'm gonna sit down and write this story. I'm gonna make it as good as I can. Okay, I'm gonna send one more query letter. Okay, you know, like that.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I have been repeatedly grateful for the ways that you have shared all the gifts that Spirit has bestowed upon you that you've also worked really in a dedicated way for. I only have a couple more questions, and you don't have to answer them completely. But as this profound writer and creative that you are, do you within yourself know where Nola's going next?

SPEAKER_01

I do. Okay. Because there is one more book in the series. I was gonna say, how many are in this series? Yes, so far there's one more, and that book has already been submitted to my editor and process already. It's in the hopper, okay, so to speak. So it's already been churning. Yes, this time next year do not um it will appear in the public. Exciting.

SPEAKER_02

Is there any potential that you might consider? I mean, I think there's a lot of things you could consider potentially, but almost like a white lotus style where maybe we meet another character and then not that Noel is completely left behind, but then we're also following the thread of like this other primary character. Yeah, kind of like a spin-off how they used to do, or like I keep thinking of like White Lotus, each of their each season we're following someone from the last season who then opens up into a whole new murder mystery of sorts.

SPEAKER_01

A lot of that depends because I'm now blessed to actually have a publishing house and an editor, a lot of it depends on what they are interested in. If Nola does really well and people like her and continue to want to engage in her, uh, then they will ask me to write another book. If Nola is not doing as well, yeah, then I might be able to propose to them another option, one of which definitely could be a spin-off of another character or whatever. And I would then have to write up uh just like in the film world, like a treatment and probably give it to my agent who would then look it over and see if it looks fevisable, and then she would try to convince them to do so. So far, we're not there yet. Uh, we'll just see how things how things go.

SPEAKER_02

I would love to get to continue to follow Nola, not just on her adventures, but like as she kind of develops more in her psychic gifts and all of that. And I'm sure you've got an endless amount of inspiration for like Nola on Tor and where she could possibly go in this world and why and with whom, I want to say, which is sort of the cliffhanger that we're left with. It seems like there's a button on some part of her relationship life, as you said. You know, that's a complicated secondary story for her. Absolutely. But it with Nola and the character that she is, she's such a thinker and such a feeler of challenging, like, well, why do I have to do this this way? Because women have to get married, or because you know, this or that, that I'm not entirely convinced as the reader that she's gonna continue exactly as it might um lead us to believe at the end of this one.

SPEAKER_01

Joy, that is great, and it's a great point. And once again, a little writing tip for anyone thinking about writing a series. Um your characters will need to grow and evolve because you know, no one stays the same, not in life, and not in stories, or at least not in stories that I want to read. I want to see evolution. Nola's relatively young, she's in her early twenties, she's still figuring out the whole relationship thing, and you know, so she's gonna involve evolve and things are gonna happen. Um, and that to me. Is part of what would keep someone interested in coming back to read more books about her.

SPEAKER_02

Well, that's certainly what it's done for me. And I know that it will also stir lots of potential ideas and inspirations in anyone else. As we're recording this, the book is still in pre-release, meaning you can pre-order the book and get like first in line, which I highly recommend. I know that there are going to be both digital and physical copies available on the release date, which is July 28th. That's right. Will you tell us all the places? Also, an audiobook. Oh, audiobook is coming. Are you doing the audiobook?

SPEAKER_01

I am not doing it. Thank goodness. They hired someone else is doing it. And my first book is also available as an audiobook.

SPEAKER_02

So for those murder at the Wam Bam Club?

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, I'm going to re-listen to them. Because I heard the most terrible computer reader, because that's how I listen is audiobook typically. So I'm so excited. I'm going to go listen to them again on audiobook when this new episode is a good idea.

SPEAKER_01

Audiobook. I am a huge fan of audiobooks. And I love walking. I get out and walk, and that's when I do a lot of my quote reading. I put an audiobook on and walk. So there is coming out the Murder at the Wham Bam Club, the first book, is available in paperback, in hardback, in audiobook. Oh, in large print. For those of us who are moving on and listen, we're all gonna need large print at some point. And in um as an ebook. Oh, yeah. So you can get that in all kinds of formats, and you can get that wherever books are sold.

SPEAKER_02

And we can find the audiobook on all the Spotify and Apple Pod and all the places where you'd get it. Oh, I'm so excited. And this new one, same same.

SPEAKER_01

This new one, let the murderer say amen. Right now, that is available in hardcover. It's available as an ebook, and it's also available in audiobook. And that'll all be released on July 28th. July 28th. And meanwhile, and since that's only, you know, like three weeks or whatever, um, pre-order your copy and then July 28th, they will mail it to you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Well, if you are someone who loves audiobooks, I bet you if you go in there and do the internet magic, it will alert you on the day so you don't have to even think about checking in about it.

SPEAKER_01

Oh god.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. Well, I am always inspired by you and grateful to know you. And this is no different. Thank you for putting this work out into the world. And I'm so excited for you in this new rung of your ladder. And thanks for sharing all the nitty-gritty tidbits with us.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh. Thank you so much, Joy. It is my great pleasure to be on your program. I think you're just the best and the best interview. You ask the most interesting questions, I will say.

SPEAKER_02

Well, thank you. And I will also put in the show notes Carolyn's other episodes so you can get all the dirty details about murder at the Wam Bam Club. Plus, she was one of our inaugural guests way at the beginning of the pod in 2022, if you could believe it. Oh my god. And we talked about trans uh mediumship and trans piano play. You did, you did a trans piano healing session, mini session for us in that reading, so or in that set um recording. So look in the show notes because I'll have all of those links as well. Oh my gosh, thank you so much for being here. I hope you will return for the next book, which I'm so excited about.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

I will see you next year for sure. Awesome. Thanks for sharing your gifts. And for those of you listening, you will see another episode. Uh Friday are the mining reading episodes, and Monday are the full episodes. Big hugs, lots of love. Bye for now. Bye.