Nurturing Your Story: Insights on Writing and Editing with Jennifer Silva Redmond

Do editors need editors?

Short answer: Yes.

In this episode, we're talking with Jennifer Silva Redmond - an accomplished editor, a resilient writer, and a true raconteur. From her early days as an aspiring Broadway actress, to life on a sailboat, to launching her own editing business, Jennifer has a treasure trove of experience to share.

As we delve further into the world of writing and editing, you'll learn:

• How to critically review your work
• How to give and receive constructive criticism
• The different types of editing and Jennifer's role as a content editor
• Why editors still need editors

Jennifer Silva Redmond is a writer and editor whose memoir Honeymoon at Sea was just released by Re: Books of Toronto. She is on the staff of the Southern California Writers Conference and San Diego Writers, Ink. Jennifer lives with her husband Russel, an artist and teacher, aboard their sailboat on the West Coast of North America.

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Jennifer Silva Redmond
Website: www.jennyredbug.com
Book: Honeymoon at Sea
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jsilvaredmond

The Author Wheel:
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Greta Boris:
Website: www.GretaBoris.com
Facebook: @GretaBorisAuthor
Instagram: @GretaBoris

Megan Haskell:
Website: www.MeganHaskell.com
Facebook & Instagram: @MeganHaskellAuthor
TikTok: @AuthorMeganHaskell

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

Hi everyone and welcome to the Author Wheel podcast. I'm Greta Boris, USA Today Bestselling Mystery Thriller. Author.

Speaker 2: 0:45

And I'm Megan Haskell, award winning fantasy adventure author, and together we are the Author Wheel. So today we are excited to have a dear friend and one of our favorite editors in the line of fire, jennifer Silva Redmond, on the show. We actually originally met Jennifer at the Southern California Writers Conference, which is also where Greta and I met. So it's very nostalgic, but we've long admired her editing work. She's just really good at what she does and she co-leads a fantastic course at that conference that I always try to catch if I can, which is called Pitch Witches, which helps writers figure out how to quickly and concisely hook a potential reader with their book tagline. So if you've taken our seven days to clarity course, that's kind of sort of a little bit where we got that idea.

Speaker 1: 1:37

Yeah, yeah, she's amazing. She's also a very generous and gracious person. She years ago offered to read To Die For for me back when I was trying to decide where and how to publish it, and she gave me some great tips and also her opinion on agents that she thought might be interested in and a few that I was thinking of pitching that she knew wouldn't because she knew what they were working on. So it was really helpful, and this conversation is just we really get down in the craft trenches.

Speaker 1: 2:11

So if you want to hear some really fabulous tips about structuring your work and things to look out for and all of that. It's just really a fun conversation. But before we get into that, what is going on with you, megan?

Speaker 2: 2:30

So my big news is that Aether Cross launches this week, on Tuesday, november 7. It's available on all the ebook platforms. So if you enjoy fantasy, go grab a copy. Other than that, I am just keeping on, keeping on.

Speaker 1: 2:47

OK, doke, well, as you're listening to this, if you're listening on the day of the release, we are in Vegas.

Speaker 2: 2:54

Yes.

Speaker 1: 2:54

So yeah, so my only news is kind of a little experiment. I thought this was interesting. Amazon actually emailed me and asked if they could put one of the Mortician series which is to die for, into a special daily deal. So it's going to. They're reducing the price one day only, they're putting it and I'm not exactly sure how they promote this is going to just be an interesting thing, but it's going to be in the US and in Canada, but they're dropping the price and promoting it for one day only, and that day is tomorrow, november 7. So I say, go get Megan's Aethercross and go to Amazon and get to die for if you want to catch some deals from us, if you want to read what we've been up to. But that's all we got to say. So let's get on with the interview.

Speaker 1: 3:47

Today we have Jennifer Silver-Redmond. She is a writer and editor whose memoir Honeymoon at Sea was just released by Rebooks of Toronto. She is on the staff of the Southern California Writers Conference and San Diego Writers Inc. Jennifer lives with her husband Russell, an artist and a teacher, aboard their sailboat on the west coast of North America. Welcome, jennifer.

Speaker 3: 4:16

Good to be here. Thank you, guys, so much.

Speaker 2: 4:18

Well, thank you so much for joining us. I'm going to give a little bit more backstory here, because so, as mentioned in the bio, jennifer is on the staff of the Southern California Writers Conference, which is where Greta and I met.

Speaker 1: 4:32

Yeah, it's so sentimental.

Speaker 2: 4:35

Yeah, we have known Jennifer since then and I distinctly remember taking your Pitch Witches class back in the day and having to pitch Last Descendant, which was terrifying and I was terrible at it, but we figured it out at least a little bit, and that, honestly, has inspired, at least in part, some of our author strategy work, because one of the things that we are working on is helping authors build taglines for their career and not just their book, but book as well but making it pithy and fun and unique. So we're thrilled to have you on the show and we're thrilled that you're with us and thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 5:20

And I'm going to share a Jennifer story too, before we get into asking you questions. But I went to one of your workshops and I honestly don't remember what it was called, but I do remember I had this like aha moment about how, if you have your character talking and then the character says I thought or I had a memory of, or something like that, that you're actually pulling the reader out of the character's head, and it was like brilliant, and I just helped a new writer with that exact thing. But I didn't give you credit, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3: 5:55

You know, chuck Polaniak was the one for me. I'm probably saying his name wrong, but, chuck, he's Fight Club. Yeah right, fight Club, ok. And he wrote a thing called about thought verbs. And he opens it by saying in 60 seconds you're going to hate me, but in six months you're going to be a better writer. And he just goes on to say that whole thing about. I thought, I remembered, I mused, I recalled or even I realized. People think that's active, but it's like I was joking class and I'm like so what am I doing now? Was I realizing? Was I remembering? In other words, it's a nothing thing that happens, so it's not visual, it's not interesting, you know, but I still find myself doing it. I was writing something today and so like, really I remembered, come on.

Speaker 1: 6:52

Everyone said a while you have to use those words, but mostly you're right. I mean, I just try to knock them out as much as possible. But before we get into all this amazing craft stuff that everybody is going to want to, hear about let's dive in. Why don't you give our listeners a little bit more background? Tell us how you got to be the Jennifer Silver Redmond of fame and fortune that you are today.

Speaker 3: 7:20

Well, it all began actually on a little boat. There's my new book on a little boat. My husband and I got married in 1989. And six months later we took off on his sailboat to Mexico for what we thought would be a three month honeymoon. I was at the time living in New York City and pursuing an acting career, meaning I was waiting tables, and so I thought this will be fun. I mean, this is a break. It would be cold and snowy and depressing in New York and I can go somewhere. It's sunny and warm not terribly warm in November and Baja, but better than New York.

Speaker 3: 8:02

And we loved it so much that we just kept going OK, can we eat more rice and beans? Can we just not do anything? That costs money? And we just kept stretching it out and Russell was becoming I mean, he was already an artist, but he was getting into doing paintings much more. So he was painting and I started writing, because one I was 3,000 miles away from the Great Broadway, which didn't want me anyway. But I mean I had a dream and I started writing, of course every night in my ship's log, my journal, and then over the months I would go back and say, well, that was an interesting day, that was an interesting experience. I should turn that into an essay or a short story or an article. And so that just kept happening more and more.

Speaker 3: 8:50

And in the book I discussed that it was really the. I had always loved reading and writing. I mean, I grew up in libraries because I was a poor kid, so we didn't buy books, we borrowed them and you know. But that showed me a whole world, as it does every kid in the library. And here I was living this really amazing life on a small boat with the love of my life and trying to figure out you know, what am I going to do when I grow up? I was only 28, so give me a break. What will I do when I grow up, if that ever happens? So I just kept doing more and more writing.

Speaker 3: 9:28

And by the end of that trip the book goes to the Panama Canal, where we're at the end of our first year or a little more, and you know heading for still, we thought New York, but it turned out not. We came back to San Diego and we went back to Baja and lots of other things happened. But along the way it just kept writing and people would say to me oh, I had an incredible experience. You should take my story and fix it for me. Really, how did I get this job? So, you know, I did that a little bit. My dad's an editor in, my mom's a poet and a writer, and so I kind of feel like it was in my blood and somehow I was able to help people a little bit, you know, with their stories, and that was something I just kept doing more and more so that's great.

Speaker 2: 10:17

So you're. You are a developmental editor. Yes, I am. So why don't we kind of go into this a little bit with in some of the other episodes? But can you just break down the kinds of editing you do and what that means as a developmental editor, Because there are so many different kinds of editing or book coaching or helping that that's out there. I think it helps to kind of clarify for those things Totally.

Speaker 3: 10:44

And right after I said yes, I was saying to myself not exactly because I think what a lot of people say, a developmental editing, what they what they think it means and it can, which is why it's so confusing is I have this idea, I've got maybe some notes and I need somebody to tell me what kind of book it's going to be and help me figure it out and help me fit it into a genre or fit it into a saleable package, and that is not what I do. So what I do, I call it content or structural editing, and once again, these phrases are so interchangeable because I only work with complete manuscripts, so somebody doesn't have to have draft 25, but they need to have a rough draft that goes from beginning to end. Because, as I always say, if I'm looking for something, having, you know, read the first 10 chapters, I can say, oh, I need something. This 10 chapters needs something for this arc or for this story, but I don't know if it's in chapter 25 until I've read it, you know. So I can't know people like, can you just edit the first 50 pages? I can edit for grammar, I can edit for style, but I can't help with the manuscript until I've read it all. So I read the manuscript and then I give it back with notes and many times I mark up the manuscript and say like you can lose all of this and or you can move this earlier or you know very much at the time.

Speaker 3: 12:17

As you two probably know, it's this first three chapters is great that you know this, but you're boring us to tears and, in the words of MSG or Michael Stephen Gregory, you started the book before you started the story so that there's so much information that we're getting and it needs to go much later in the book or go away and just be in your brain as backstory. So that's a lot of what I do big structural. So think of it as the big, the meta story, the arc of the whole book, not just each character's arc, but you know plot and what's it, what's it all there for? Why are there three best friends when there can be one best friend and things like that?

Speaker 1: 13:01

Yeah, that starting the book before you start the story thing, that really is. That was another big aha moment for me and you know, I've noted that even now, like when I'm writing, sometimes my characters have to have a cup of coffee and look out the window before the chapter starts because I don't know what's going to happen, and you know.

Speaker 1: 13:23

But then I but I know this in my mind I'm just gonna cut that out you know, it'll be fine, but I think that is a good lesson for newer writers don't keep rewriting the first few chapters over and over and over before you finish the book.

Speaker 3: 13:38

Yeah, keep going, because how it's, I always say writing and sailing are the same. How can you possibly know which way to point the boat to sail, what way this tack, this route is going to be, if you don't know where you're going? You know you could just go in circles and people do rewrite beginnings over and over and, and I don't remember who it was that said, but they, I want to say was Annie Dillard said you have to get to the last page before you can go back and look at page one, because then you know how much you need to share. And I always say that people turn pages because of what we don't know. We don't turn pages because of what we do know. So you give us all that.

Speaker 3: 14:22

And you know Laurie walked down the street remembering that only six months before she'd moved from Oklahoma City to Detroit and you know it was so wonderful to be working in the copy department of a big magazine. I mean, it's just oh, please. I know you're excited about your person and I know you're excited about her backstory, but we don't need to know it right yet, you know and it's that.

Speaker 3: 14:45

It's that front loading with the info dump and all those great cliches that we've all heard, but still so hard not to do it. You know, I mean even we all do it, you know, sometimes, like you say, just write it for yourself and keep, and then go on to the rest of the book and then come back and go like, oh yeah, those first three chapters have awful a lot of expository, you know, yeah, how can, how can I find other ways?

Speaker 2: 15:12

yeah, and it's such a hard thing that even experienced authors I mean, as we mentioned, right, you still, I still do it, grad is still does it. We all, we all do it to some extent. But what is tricky and you get better at, I think, more than anything else is being able to make those cuts and not feel the pain quite as much.

Speaker 3: 15:33

Yeah, that's the, that's the trick of it, killing your darlings right absolutely and I think too that you know the thing of, but they need to know that they need to know this information, because I always to and I'm sure I've probably told you guys this at some point but I have people go over the first 10 pages or maybe chapter how, or you know however many first pages are problematic with a highlighter and say like what's an actual fact that someone needs to know to be this book? And then look at the pages, like if 90% of the pages yellow, it's just too much people, it's cramming five pounds of manure in a two-pound sack. You know, it just begins to feel and oddly, people will say I was bored or it was too slow and they're not reacting the way we think. They react like oh, I got too much information. They just feel like it was slow and I wasn't hooked, I wasn't interested because it's all this intellectual information and and their mind wanders and that's why it's like, yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:38

So it was interesting because I was talking to somebody else who does developmental editing the other day and he said that he's not doing that anymore. He's still book coaching but he wants to be more on the publishing side, because he said it just drove him bonkers. He would sit with somebody and say to them this list of facts that you just it's going to bore people to tears, I would just cut it, you don't need it. And they would argue with him no, it has to be in the book, it's relevant, it's important. He's like and he said this one particular woman he was coaching, she, she did it the way she wanted to do it because she was publishing it herself and left in the list of facts.

Speaker 1: 17:18

And and she learned when she was doing a book signing event at a bookstore that people kept asking her questions that were in her list of facts, which proved that they never read them. They all went lie, you know, and it's here they are asking her the questions. So you know, sometimes we do know. So one of the questions we ask everybody is what is the greatest roadblock you've had to overcome to get where you are and how did you overcome it?

Speaker 3: 17:53

you know there's there are so many different kinds of roadblocks. Um, I can go all the way back to being a kid you know in and, um, feeling like other kids in school had more you know, books and things that they that they could use to get ahead. Um, so I think that was kind of something that stuck with me, like being like this scrappy fighter, like I'm not going to go down without a fight, kind of thing. Um, I never actually um, I went to college but I never graduated from college, so I haven't had the fallback position that a lot of people have of well, I'll teach, because funny thing about you know teaching is they kind of want you to have a college degree of some kind. Um, and though, obviously, people you know teach with all kinds of different. So I think it was one of those things that I I felt like I have to make a go of writing in some way, because I felt like I'd already in this voice talking about earlier that I had been an actor and then I became a writer. So I was like I can't change twice, I can't. No, this will make me seem like a flaky person. So I have to make a go of it as a writer and I knew that was really difficult, um, but when I started working with um, my husband and I did a uh, I really am going to answer the question.

Speaker 3: 19:25

We did a collection of writing when we were down in in Mexico on the boat and people came to me and I helped them edit it and people kept saying, oh, you made it so much better. And I thought, okay, I know how to do this, I can do this. So when we started working with Sunbelt in a publisher in San Diego and I was working with them in marketing because I was marketing our publication that they were carrying and then I was doing more and I thought, oh, I know marketing, I can do marketing. But then I thought I really want to be working with writers to help them make their writing better, because I could see how, when I was rewriting things, I could make them better and I could see how, when I worked with people on these short pieces in the collection, I could help them make it better.

Speaker 3: 20:11

So I think the roadblock was my own lack of belief that I could, without a college degree, call myself an editor, which is crazy when you think about it, because there is no degree. There is no editing degree. I mean, you can get an English degree, but an English degree is great for a copy editor, but what we've just been talking about is the difference between copy editing and what so many people need from an editor, which is okay. You've got 120,000 words. Where in there is that book? Where in there is the actual book that people want to read, and maybe it's 70,000 words or maybe it's 80,000 words, and being able to see that is a skill, a gift about a technique who knows? But it isn't something that I think you can teach people. So that is a long seed as an editor. I can do it on paper, but apparently I can't do it when I'm talking.

Speaker 2: 21:17

No, but I think that's interesting because it applies in so many other scenarios as well, where we all have, to some degree or another, a bit of imposter syndrome. We all question, especially in this career. Like I used to work corporate America and I think I've said this before, but the thing is is when you're working in a corporate job, you have a very clear progression.

Speaker 2: 21:42

You have a very clear career path. You know, yes, you have to go to college or probably, and then you get a job as an entry-level person and then you do two years of service and you earn these things and you meet these metrics and you get promoted to your second level, and so on and so forth all the way up the track. And so it's very, it's all laid out for you. It's easy. I mean it's not easy, but it's easy. You know what you have to do. It's clear, it's clear.

Speaker 1: 22:09

Not easy.

Speaker 2: 22:10

Yeah, exactly. Whereas with the creative fields, when you're trying to do this on your own, when you're trying to be an entrepreneur and be an artist of whatever form right Like, there's no clear path on how to do this. You have to just go for it, and so that roadblock of questioning whether or not you actually have the skill to do it makes so much sense because there's no one to tell you one way or another, there's no clear path to say I've achieved this.

Speaker 3: 22:46

Right. And then in my circumstance much like you, I mean I went into corporate publishing. So even though I worked for a small publisher, I was a cog in the wheel and that was great and I learned a lot. But what I also learned after 10 years of doing it is I was spending of my eight hours a day, like seven hours were being spent on P&L statements and grants and budgets and meetings and preparing for meetings, recapping meetings and resending things and having more meetings, and I thought this isn't what I signed up for, as much as I loved it and I still love it.

Speaker 3: 23:26

I still worked with Sundell. I called myself. They've given me the title of editor at large, so I occasionally still find people even found one this week that I hope will be a good fit for them, and so that's wonderful to do. But I had to go out as a freelancer and that was completely petrified because I thought who am I to say that I can do this, even though I've been doing it for 10 years? Who am I to have a business card and say I do this Right, pay me to edit your book? So I don't even want to tell you what I was charging at first, because it was like I don't know 50 bucks. What do you think? I mean, I just was so afraid people would say no.

Speaker 1: 24:05

Why didn't I know that you were only charging 50 bucks?

Speaker 3: 24:10

I don't think I was really charging 50 bucks. I think I was charging like a dollar a page to start out with, because I just thought, well, that sounds like something everybody could do. I mean, most books are only maybe 400, 500 pages long. Everybody can afford that. And I knew that I could read fast and that I had great retention and things like that, and of course I'd been doing it. I mean, I'd been the editor of a publishing company but we also had copy editors and other people. So it was very much take a deep breath and jump off this cliff. And there were a couple of years that was very scary. But now I'm booked until April, right now. So yeah, I mean I'm busy, busy.

Speaker 2: 24:53

Yeah, and it's very easy to undervalue yourself to start, but hopefully eventually you get to the point where it's like, yeah, now you've proven it out, you've got a book of business, you're booked out forever in a day and you don't have to worry about it anymore. So people are going to pay you.

Speaker 3: 25:12

Well, luckily, authors talk to other authors and of course, when I'm teaching at the conference, that helps. They go. Like she sounds, like she knows what she's talking about, Because you do, you do, you do.

Speaker 1: 25:23

Whether you do or not, we don't know, oh no, I told you. I was going to ask you a question. I wonder how you're acting background because that was my first career choice too, and that was my first major was drama in college. How you're acting background has impacted your ability to get story, because that's really what it is is your understanding story, story structure and the way that stories should flow, because to me there's a big difference between English you know copywriting and just making sure the grammar is correct and storytelling.

Speaker 1: 26:08

It's a huge divide and so I was just wondering how you felt that. Do you feel that your acting background impacted your ability to do the storytelling part?

Speaker 3: 26:19

I think it impacted my entire life so much and we talk about this all the time because we met during a play. I mean, we both grew up in theater. So three things, three things I want to say about that. One is rejection. I mean, it taught me to handle rejection in a way that nothing else in the world will prepare you for, because there is nothing like walking in the door and having somebody go no, Not interested, go away. You're not what I pictured. You're not. You can't do this, you cannot be the person I'm expecting. You know, I mean you're just like what. I didn't say anything. I mean just wrong, you're wrong, go, go away. I'm trying to forget your name. Don't even say it. You know it's. It's literally rejecting you. You don't even have that since.

Speaker 3: 27:14

Well, it's not a story that they like or a genre that they like. No, it's like you go away. And so you be prepared, you for everything else in life. It'll be to you, to in a way that nothing else can and, as you say, it teaches you a great deal of empathy, because you are literally inhabiting a character. So when you are reading somebody's story, I totally am the person. I'm the hero, winner, the hero or whoever, and I don't definitely notice when things don't make sense.

Speaker 3: 27:44

You know just like I would, reading a screenplay or a play, like, no, she would never do that, she would never do that. Oh, now we usually in a screenplay or play you can't go like, hi, I'm gonna fix your plan for you before you cast me in it. But in a book you got to say no, she would never do that or he would never do that, because you've already given us these other seven chapters Introducing us to this character and now they're doing something that makes no sense, or it makes no sense just in terms of story arc and all those you know great Templates that we follow to some extent in every kind of storytelling, and I think that was really it's hugely important and I think too, acting just kind of teaches you about psychology, people's psychology, so it's easier to deal with. You know where Actors and writers are kind of wonderfully nutty. You know they're very, they're very creative, very imaginative and sometimes very kooky, and so dealing with writers is a lot like dealing with actors.

Speaker 3: 28:50

You know you have to be able to say, okay, this is really good, this part is really good, and be able to reassure them that you get the story or that you get what's working. You can't just say that's wrong. You know it's. You know what I mean. So I think in a lot of ways, and it made a big impact on my life- yeah, I.

Speaker 2: 29:12

Think that's it's really interesting. I've never thought about that before. You know how acting would influence writing. I mean that's kind of a novel concept. But one thing I do love about that is the inhabiting of the character. That's actually for me, that's how I, how I approach story, that's how I write and that's why my books are generally in, you know, first person or not first person, but single point of view, and Because I inhabit the character. That's how I avoid head hopping, that's how I avoid all these other you know, pitfalls of of writing. But I think that is so important to actually Actually Really just get inside that character. So as an actor like that, that's very, that's that's I don't know. I think that's cool.

Speaker 1: 29:54

That's what I do too, and I thought everybody did.

Speaker 2: 29:58

But they don't.

Speaker 1: 29:58

They don't know, and I I'm in a critique group with some really amazing Writers, really really good writers, and there's one in particular in he struggles so much with head hopping and I'm like I don't understand how you can struggle with this. Like, if you're just moving through the story through the point of view of XYZ character, how can you all of a sudden just hop into the head of LMNO character?

Speaker 3: 30:26

you know, even in a third-person omniscient, you've still got to care the most about someone. Yeah, even if not through the entire book, at least in certain sections, so that I agree with you. It's like it always strikes me as like okay, but you started the chapter with him. He got in the car, he drove to the meeting, he pulled out the gun you know he's the guy he's driving the story and then all of a sudden you're in the other guy's head. Why do you pull out a gun? What? Why, huh? How can you not see that?

Speaker 1: 30:57

So yeah, but it's funny because when I did tell, when I said it the way that I said it to you guys, he goes wait, you're, you're in your character's head and I'm like, well, yes, and he's like, oh, it's like he, it changed, it changed things for him. He never looked at it that way that I should be in this character's mind. He was looking at it like he was outside looking at a movie. Oh, wow, and that's why he could head hop, because you know, in a movie, in a TV See, in a scene in a movie, you know you have one actor is doing something and then the camera shifts and another actor you know and and so. But I was like, oh, and, but anyway, I always credited. Once I learned that not everybody looked at it like me. I credited my drama background with that, because even though there are many characters on stage, I was only one of them, so I don't know, it's a great story.

Speaker 3: 31:57

Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine that. You're absolutely right. Shocking to you to hear him say that and hot, shocking to him to hear you say that. You just, I mean, of course You're in this person's head and interesting, you, you made a great leap. There is watching movies and television. Every time they go to a close-up it's because in the filmmaker language, where we're looking at somebody, thinking right, so kind of each time you go to a close-up you're kind of head-hopping in a sense, I mean externally. Yeah, so for people growing up watching movies and TV, they might just naturally jump To and from, and of course, some writers can do it brilliantly in a way with a, you know, with a cool Transition that makes it feel very natural. But yeah, that's oh, I never would have thought of that. Yeah, it was.

Speaker 1: 32:47

It was just interesting, just because he's a really, really great writer. So it's just interesting to see how different writers approach things and like we all assume that everybody does it the way we do.

Speaker 2: 32:59

Yeah, yeah, well, and that's that's the thing too. I think it's also a difference between people who heavily outline and plot their stories first, versus people who approach it from inside the character, like there's a top-down or there's an inside-out. There's all sorts of different ways to approach a story. Look at the story structure and fill in the fill in the pieces of your Beat, story beats that you need to fill in, and all of those things. But that's what's so great about writing is that there are so many different ways to approach it. You just have to be where the pitfalls of the way you do it right.

Speaker 3: 33:31

There are pitfalls on all of them another great MSG quote there's no right way to do it, just an infinite number of wrong ways. Yeah, but but interesting that you should say that, because the plotters and panthers thing is one where I mean it's worse than Religion or politics. It's like plotters will be like, how can you do that? And panzers are like, oh, can you possibly? You know it's like it is. They just literally can't understand the other point of view at all. It's like you're you're, you're from that other sect. You know that must be kicked out of the village. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:15

I even read something that a Stephen King putting down Dean Coons, because Dean Coons used to be a platter.

Speaker 3: 34:23

Well, he's no longer a platter.

Speaker 1: 34:25

And he's got much more wordy. I'm gonna tell you.

Speaker 3: 34:29

You know part of that. This is the thing that is so hard and I'm sure you both have been Encountered. This is that I'll have an author that I love and I read two or three books and I just so excited to get the fourth book and I'm like, yeah, by the fifth book it's like, because they're a cash cow, people are afraid to edit them.

Speaker 3: 34:51

So, pretty soon everything they write is the gods. You know words from on high and People stop editing them. And pretty soon you know they can just go on and on and on for a hundred pages and be like, really, this is totally unnecessary, but people will still buy the books. Exactly what I know. But it's really depressing to me. I mean, the person still has really good chops, I mean they're good at what they do and all they need is for somebody to say, okay, that's enough, right there, let's cut out all this extraneous fat.

Speaker 2: 35:28

Yeah, no, I hear you. I mean talking about the head hopping, one of my favorite, favorite, favorite authors, and I'm not going to name who this author is, but traditionally published. She has like 30 books in the series that I read, plus like two other series, three other series, and she head hops all the time and I always notice it and I still read the books. So there you go, right.

Speaker 1: 35:50

Right, right. I think when a legacy writer has their editor that's been with them forever, then their books will stay tight. Like I met Anne Hillerman Tony Hillerman's daughter at a conference, we I'm a.

Speaker 1: 36:08

I read all of Tony Hillerman's books when I was in high school and I just love those books and Anne has taken over her dad's series, pulled one of his characters and made that character that the protagonist in and she said it was fabulous because she got to work with her father's editor and so it was really. You know, she was nervous as all get out, as you can imagine, taking over a series like that but getting to work with his editor. That editor had worked in that world with those characters for so many years. He knew what the readers expected, he knew what the readers wanted and her books there's barely a blip. I mean, it's definitely a different voice and a different point of view.

Speaker 1: 36:58

But it's the world. It's alive, it's the great stories.

Speaker 3: 37:04

I'm so excited you told me that or told us that because I loved Tony Hillerman's books and I read them all. So now I'm excited about reading hers. So that's very cool. I mean. What a gift to his fans, and now I can't wait.

Speaker 3: 37:18

Yes, something I wanted to jump back to is when we were talking about acting and I bet you do this, greta, but you probably do too, megan, because you're probably, I'm probably not the first person to tell you that you're such a performer, and I know that from when you're doing your classes is that I can't believe people don't read their dialogue out loud. Yeah, I'm like how could you not? How do you know if people would talk like that if you don't say it out loud? I mean, or reading the whole book. Yes, steinbeck read every word he ever wrote. He said he always read everything out loud and it shows but I mean especially dialogue people will be, they're writing beautifully and then all of a sudden, oh honey, remember when we lived upstairs at that office where, above the office, where, when you were in your third year of graduate school and I was really I mean, we don't talk to each other like that, it's just we talk in shorthand and code, and Partial sentences and fragments, and yes, that's how dialogue works.

Speaker 2: 38:24

Yeah, no, I agree with you. I've never had anyone call me a performer, though, so I'm very excited. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3: 38:32

Thank you, I thought I would have been one of many you know but you're one of those people that a casting director would go. Oh, she's so lively, you know, and so sparkly and everything.

Speaker 2: 38:42

Well, thank you, I'm all flustered now. I'm all cool yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:47

Barkley, we got to get sequins for our outfits.

Speaker 2: 38:50

Next, time we talk, there we go yeah.

Speaker 3: 38:52

Yeah, barkley. Well, you guys are both sparkly, but Greta, I knew was coming from that performing background.

Speaker 1: 38:58

Yeah, Ah, I can't help myself. I know it's a funny thing, but with the reading out loud thing too, it's like I read to my dog a lot because it feels funny to just talk to myself, but now she's so old all she does is snore. I think I'm like, okay, so is it really boring dialogue or is this just? You know, the dog is just not interested. I'm learning to deal with the rejection that you brought up before you know.

Speaker 3: 39:29

For Russell had to listen to this manuscript like three times and I read it out loud to him. I read it out loud to myself, but then I read it out loud to him and then I had to read it out loud again. And then I did the audiobook and I still found errors. When I was literally recording the audiobook, I found two errors Like how could that be possible?

Speaker 2: 39:48

Tell us a little bit more now about your memoir and you know I mean I know it's about your honeymoon at sea and then extended sailing trips. That is your life quite honestly, but tell us a little bit more about how that came to be and you know where it's going and what you've got happening with that.

Speaker 3: 40:09

Well, I had been writing it, you know, almost since, almost since that year, and I mean I had, as I said, it had taken little ideas and fleshed them out into stories and I'd written, I'd gotten a few things published on cruising world and sail. I even sold a story about our dog that we got, which is in this book. The beginning of our family was our first dog that we got down in Mexico, and I sold that story to Dog Fancy magazine, which was like so exciting to me at the time because I'm totally a dog person, and so I kept you know that, you kept going. And then when Ruslan did Sea of Cortez Review, which was a collection, a yearly collection, of writing about Baja, and so I was editing it and writing it and doing all of that, and so I started thinking, yeah, this can work. You know, this is, the people are interested.

Speaker 3: 41:01

So the years went by, I was spent 10 years at Sunbelt, then I spent 10 years getting my freelance and career working.

Speaker 3: 41:07

So 20 years goes by in a flash, as we know, and so about five years ago I said I've got to get back to that, to that memoir.

Speaker 3: 41:16

People kept saying when are you going to write that memoir, you know we've been telling you for years and I thought, well, you know, I know some agents now I know people in publishing and I thought I should really get this into a stage that I could query it. So I went back and started, you know, trying to flesh it out, trying to, you know, expand it and trying to put all the little pieces it's like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle without any picture on the box. So I was like I could start in the present, go back to the then I go here, then I go there, and I had written a memoir of my year, my first year in New York City, which had happened way before, back in the early 80s, and basically my friends that read it said, yeah, it's okay, but what's it about? I mean, what's the point of it? So I basically said, yeah, you're right, and I took everything that happened in that book and condensed it down to like a chapter in this book or two.

Speaker 2: 42:13

And talk about killing your darlings on that one.

Speaker 3: 42:16

Oh my God, you know there's so many things that I still wish could live from that book, but there was a good point to what they said, and so I basically found all of the things that I want that I had written about my childhood and about my early life as an actor and about taking off on the boat and about Russell and I and our on again, off again relationship and all the things that had happened to us, and so I had trained figure out how does this all fit together in some mosaic that will make a wonderful image, and so I did that. In when the pandemic happened, we were traveling, so there was, we had a little bit more time, even though we both still work from the boat, so I just kept going back to it. And Jamie Attenberg do you guys know Jamie Attenberg Kraft Talk? She does a thing called 1,000 Words of Summer, every summer, and it's basically she's now got a book coming out this fall called 1,000 Words, which I've already read and loved and reviewed. It's on my site, which is basically about aiming for that 1,000 Words a day and she does it with a group of people that are all over the world. There's like 50,000 people now that do it every summer and it's kind of like a nano-rymo, in that you come together and support each other and you get on to go, got my 1,000 Words, or I almost did, but you know, and you support each other and it's just a wonderful community. And I did that two different summers and worked on this book and another book.

Speaker 3: 43:43

And so then out of the blue, I saw this thing that a publisher was looking for women's stories and it was a new publisher in Toronto and one of my grandparents is from Mexico and one of my grandparents is from Canada and I thought wouldn't this be funny to have this story about Mexico and my family be published in Canada? And I sent her the first 50 pages that she asked for the full. And so then after that, you know, I contacted her because I hadn't heard anything and she said no, I want to publish it and it should come out in August. And I went what?

Speaker 3: 44:18

So it came out September 19th, which was amazing because you know this happened in January. So it was, but I had done so much work on it. And then that was what she said. You know, it feels like it's so clean, like it could be just copy edited, and I went oh no, but luckily she put me together with a wonderful content editor and we had a great time and she, you know, would tell me things like you know you should show, don't tell.

Speaker 1: 44:46

And you're like I tell people that all the time.

Speaker 3: 44:49

Isn't it astounding, though, just like you were saying, megan, we know these things and yet you can still. We had an argument, really, about what, what, how did it feel? Where were you, what did you do, what did it look like? And so there were, there were quite a few of those, and she I know you know this, Jennifer, but she was wonderful. That was a great experience to work from the be on the other side.

Speaker 2: 45:14

Yeah, well, and it's so funny Cause we just, we do, we always need that extra pair of eyes, or the book coach, the somebody, somebody who can point out the things that we're just not seeing, because there are things that you just won't see.

Speaker 1: 45:28

Absolutely. There are times too it's just laziness, Like you're writing along and retired and you're just well. I can explain what happened in a paragraph of exposition, or I can turn this into a whole chapter with dialogue and emotions, subscriptions and people moving and doing things, and I'll go for the paragraph.

Speaker 3: 45:54

And sometimes I mean there are times when, as an editor, I will say this is a wonderful scene and I love that you made this come to life so much, but it really just should be a transitional paragraph and they're like what? I worked my ass off for that and it's like you know. But when you look at a big picture, sometimes there are times when you just say we've already had too much of that, or you're showing us and telling us things we already know and so it really should be. And I there was a place like that in the book where I had like three chapters and it ended up being about three paragraphs, because it was like the rest of the summer was composed of doing this, this, this and this. Because she said you've been to all those places already, you've shown those things already and you've told us that and you don't want it to feel repetitive. And I was like that sounds like something I would say yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 46:46

But that is like what Megan said about having that extra set of eyes, and especially educated eyes, like people who know what they're doing. Because sometimes you know, when you're a newer writer and you don't have those other authors or editors or people in your community and you just give your book to a friend or somebody who enjoys reading, you get the funniest feedback Right Like what my first book, which was terrible and never got published. I made the mistake of letting my cousin read it and she said she goes well, couldn't you make it more like born identity? Now, what do you do with that as a writer? Wow, well, it's domestic suspense and born identity as a thriller.

Speaker 2: 47:35

So no International thriller, international spy thriller, right, but I think other than that they're very similar.

Speaker 1: 47:43

Yes, I think her point was it was boring, but at the time I wasn't developed enough as a writer to understand and she didn't have the words Right. You know what I mean? I mean she was down on her. She was just picking something she liked and going. Could you make it more like that?

Speaker 3: 48:01

Yeah, I remember an author I was working with once and I read the book. I really liked it and I said but I don't get this next door neighbor. I don't understand why the character even exists because you already have a best friend and the best friend can do everything we need the neighbor to do. And the neighbor does like two things. They could easily be given to Andy or whatever the name of the best friend was. The person was just horrified and they said to me everyone loves the neighbor, Everyone. And I was just like, oh really, Because I'm everyone too, I'm part of everyone.

Speaker 3: 48:39

And they were interesting and whimsical, but they have nothing to do with the rest of the book. So, in other words, they had heard oh, the neighbor is so interesting because you kept making him more eccentric or whatever it was, I can't even remember now. But so you have this eccentric character, but it doesn't have anything to do with the book. So, unfortunately, talk about Kill your Darling. He had to literally kill an entire character. But of course it made the Andy or whatever the name of the best friend was more interesting because she was able to give some of that to the person who actually had a reason to be in the book. They were there for a real reason.

Speaker 1: 49:16

Yeah, and it is different, but it is difficult when you're that you need that extra eyes or even just distance. If you put your book down and you don't read it for a while and you go back, sometimes then you can even see it in your own work. But it is definitely harder to see it in your own work. But that is so exciting that your book is and is doing well, right it's doing very well.

Speaker 3: 49:41

We just got the Kirkus review and, though it wasn't the rave I was hoping for, it was very, very good and they really liked it a lot, and I've gotten all five-star reviews so far. So pinch me, and so we will see. Right now, like I said, my publisher is in Frankfurt at the Book Fair and they're trying to sell rights, so that, of course, would be pretty exciting. She's really pushing for it. I was totally surprised, because when you write a memoir, the last thing you expect somebody to say is this should be a movie. But people keep saying that and I'm like how is a memoir going to be a movie? And they're like well, look at Made, look at this, look at the ones that are all on Netflix, and I'm oh right, gay pray love.

Speaker 2: 50:25

I mean, it's the story of her journey and this is the story of your journey, but you see how you can be blind to things when it's you.

Speaker 3: 50:33

I mean to me, it was just like I did this thing. It's just about me. People I know will like it. And I mean for me. The other day just, I was at the library here to do a talk and I said how do I go about getting the book onto the shelf? I said, oh, it's already in stock. And he looked at it oh, somebody already checked it out. I was like someone checked my book out from the library. I mean you know what I mean. So you never know the things that you're going to make an author just like Flabbergasted. But I was. Yeah, total strangers are reading my book.

Speaker 2: 51:06

It's great, it's great.

Speaker 1: 51:07

Which is exciting and terrifying at the same time, exciting and terrifying.

Speaker 3: 51:11

People keep saying I can't believe you're so vulnerable and all the thing. How brave you were to say all that. I'm like. Apparently I just talk about very scary stuff without even thinking about it, because I never even. It never even occurred to me.

Speaker 1: 51:26

That's just me. And then, the more they tell you you're vulnerable, you start to think should.

Speaker 3: 51:31

I have written that chapter.

Speaker 1: 51:33

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. That is really something, and it had to have been really an interesting to be on the other end of it. Like you said, instead of being the content editor, now you are working with the content editor.

Speaker 3: 51:51

And it was wonderful.

Speaker 1: 51:53

So do you think that has made you an even better content editor for other people?

Speaker 3: 51:58

I hope so, but I think that it really was funny that nine out of 10 things she would say. She would say I know, you know this. And I'd be like, yeah, I do, especially once you've said it's so obvious. But how many times have we all said this? You look at your own stuff and nine times out of 10, it's stuff that you can fill in the blanks.

Speaker 3: 52:22

Oh, I didn't say that we were in the little town of Loretto that only had 7,000 people and it was the site of the first cathedral in Baja California. But I know that Doesn't everyone. I mean, I'm just using an example of something that's not in the book, but I mean that could have been Like I knew it, so I don't bring it up, or something about voting. And she would say, like you're not explaining this at all, and I'm like wait, you don't know what a hellyard is. How does someone not know that? Well, maybe I didn't 35 years ago, but I've been sailing for 35 years now we're actually. We left on that first trip after six months after we got married, and we'll be married 35 years in May, so and we're still living on a boat. So the honeymoon continues, as the saying goes.

Speaker 2: 53:09

Did you ever come back to land to live? We did very briefly.

Speaker 3: 53:14

Yeah, we did very briefly. We came back on the little boat. So I consider being on land to be in a marina on the boat. But in terms of actually living in a house, we did that very briefly when my mom was going through dementia and I hope Greta, it had to listen to my, to my whoa. I seem to recall a few minutes.

Speaker 3: 53:37

You know that summer that you were coming out with your seven deadly sins, third book. Anyway, it doesn't matter, but at any rate and I was just saying, my God, how can I go on with life, it's just crazy too much to do and you know, having a full time job and being a caretaker is super hard. But so, yeah, so we were living in the house, which was the only way to do it, because she couldn't live on a boat, she could barely live in a house. So and then gradually, you know, that house became ours and all of us kids sold it and we were able to go back to our boat. So that worked out. But yeah, there have been some times in there that we've lived on land for six months here or there, but it's basically like 32 years out of 35 years spent on a boat. So it's crazy.

Speaker 2: 54:26

So cool they're like crazy. So it is Crazy, but cool and very different.

Speaker 1: 54:30

Well, and I think that's the hook for a movie, and maybe we will all get to go to the premiere together. That would be so exciting, but that would be the hook for a movie, because I think that is an unusual lifestyle and one that a lot of people like fantasize about. Like wouldn't it be cool?

Speaker 3: 54:50

But then they don't do it, you know for whatever reason so oddly enough, speaking of editors, years ago, maybe 10 years ago, I was at the conference and I was talking to Marla Miller, who you guys know, and I was talking to her, she had read some pieces of the memoir and like them, and she said, oh, you should enter this in this contest. That was for people of a certain age, you know, like they were looking for people over 55 or something you know to write. And so I wrote the opening, what is now the prologue of the book, for this thing. And she said, oh, this would be a great way to get them interested and then they'll see, they want to see the rest of the book if they're interested, which they weren't. And that was fine, it went on. But she later said you know, don't lose that, because when people that'll make it much more of a hook than if you start in 1989, you know, because then you'll have to tell so much backstory. And I was like, ok, and so of course I rewrote it and rewrote it, and rewrote it. And when Rebecca Eckler, who runs Rebooks, and her and Deanna McFadden are my editor, both of them I was like, do you think, you know, should we keep the prologue that starts in the present time they were like, oh, I wouldn't change that, no, absolutely we want that. And their big push as far as marketing is they still live on a boat, they still are together. So that I think we're.

Speaker 3: 56:21

One thing is that I think people are so tired of every. Good book has to be really depressing and angst filled and be full of dysfunction and horror and trauma, and I mean all those things are real and they're perfectly valid. And of course, I've read lots of great depressing books. But it's kind of nice to pick up a book and go, oh, they're still happy together. Now I wonder how it started. Oh good, she's going back in time now and that's just so. You know it's going to be OK, and I think that that's one of the things that I think people have responded to a lot. You know, like we maybe need a happy story about a happy marriage in some crazy people that went off to see the wizard.

Speaker 1: 57:05

I totally. I've gotten so that I just if a book starts to go down certain roads that depress me, I'm like, I can be beautifully written, I can be lauded, I can win awards.

Speaker 3: 57:17

And.

Speaker 1: 57:18

I don't care if this is entertainment. This doesn't entertain me, so am I there? Yeah, and in fact like the Glass Castle which is a memoir that I loved. The only reason I loved it was because it started when you knew she grew up and had a life, so I could get through her horrible childhood, because I knew it was going to end happily.

Speaker 3: 57:40

Otherwise I never would have read the book and I think even Eat Pray Love, because it starts at such a dark point. But having read the Dust Jacket, I know she goes to Italy and India, in Bali, so I'm like, ok, I'm in it for the cool places. Of course, it ended up being a great book beyond a travelogue, but it was one of the books that influenced me very much, along with Cheryl Straits Wild, you know, in terms of jumping back and forth in chronological time, and I had worked with Leslie Johansson-Nack for who Wrote 14, which was also a book about sailing but also has a lot of jumping back and forth in time, and I thought it made it so much more interesting book and so I wanted to do it. I just didn't know if I could do it well, but apparently, apparently it worked, apparently.

Speaker 2: 58:28

I'm excited to read the book. I'm not generally a memoir reader, but I find this and it does. It comes down largely to the lifestyle and the journey there, but I find it fascinating. I'm excited to read it.

Speaker 3: 58:45

So excited to have you read it too.

Speaker 1: 58:47

So, because we're moving toward the top of the hour, I don't want to stop without asking you this question. Actually, we probably passed the top of the hour because it's just so fun to talk to you. Can you just, as your little parting shot, give some of our listeners what would you say is your top three tips and advice? Whether they're writing a memoir or a novel, what would you really recommend that they do and don't overlook?

Speaker 3: 59:25

One of them we've already talked about, which is keep rewriting and make reading out loud a major artifact, because every time you read it out loud again, you will be more likely to hear those things that are clunky and that are obvious or that no human being ever spoke these words in this way, those things will really jump out at you when you're reading out loud. And Gail Carline, who's a wonderful, as you guys know, wonderful writer, she reads out loud, she records it and then she reads it, listens to it, with the printout, so that she can sit there and mark down the things that are clunky, which I think is a great process. Not, you know, I didn't do that. I mean, I made notes, but like on a piece of paper, as I read it out loud and, as I said, like did it four times or five times, twice with an audience, three times on my own, and then did the audiobook and still found things that I thought how did I miss that?

Speaker 3: 1:00:29

So, yeah, the other thing is find your people, find your tribe, whether it's at the Southern California Writers Conference, whether it's at the OC Writers or Southern California Writers Association, or you guys can probably list more than I know, but there are so many great groups Sandy, the Writers Inc. Where there are classes, there are meetings to get together and share the woes and the highs and the lows and to get that feedback from people who get it, who get what you're doing and can support you. And those people become your beta readers, those people that you end up hanging out with at the bar at two in the morning or in the morning before anybody else is up, drinking coffee before the big day of a conference or a group or a Writers group. If you can get your own Writers group together, I always say I was working in an office and I said, see, I want to be in a Writers group. And my friend I was at lunch with said so do I? And I went.

Speaker 3: 1:01:26

I don't even know you're a writer, and so we went back to the office and she pulled something out of her desk and I went oh my god, you are a writer. We just literally she invited her friend, I invited my mom, who's a wonderful writer, and she invited somebody. So we basically had the same six to seven to eight people for like 15 years now. So that's been a huge help. So, in other words, find your people who will support you, who will read your stuff, who will give you no BS feedback, because nobody needs to be told it's good, I liked it. That's not helpful to anybody, because what they're really saying is I love you and that's nice, but it's not helpful. You want to hear it Now. You want to give to somebody who's not going to just say that to you.

Speaker 3: 1:02:12

And the other thing is Go for your wildest dreams. Take whatever small step you can take today. Maybe it's listening to this podcast and saying, oh, I understand those things they were talking about. I can relate to that, or I get that. I get, I had an aha moment, or at least, yeah, I know what they're talking about. I really am a writer. And start calling yourself that and go for it because you can do it. I mean, we've done it and we've seen hundreds of people do it, and with those other tools in your in your tool belt, you can do it too. So take your first step. You know, take a class, listen to podcasts, ask questions, find your group, and, and and go for it, because you can do it. You got this.

Speaker 1: 1:03:06

It's like encouragement. I know I feel like going on writing.

Speaker 2: 1:03:11

Absolutely All right. Well, I do think we need to probably end it there. So one last thing, jennifer why don't you tell us where people can find out more about you, about your book, about your editing services and all the things online?

Speaker 3: 1:03:25

Sure, you can find me at wwwjennyredbugcom. Jenny, just J-E-N-N-Y redbug, r-e-d-b-u-s-e-n-n-y, r-e-u-g, and it there's years of blogging there, as well as how to get in touch with me, why I'm called Jenny Redbug, what I do, my email, how to get in touch with me. Like I said, I'm also blogging at Substack now. So Substack is a newsletter. So if you go to Substack, you can look for Honeymoon at sea or you can just Google Honeymoon at sea. It's luckily a very unusual if you, you know, if you just Google those three words, it pretty much will come up with my book or my Substack pretty quickly and the book is available everywhere you buy fine books. You can, of course, online or bookshoporg or you know who online, but please ask for it at your local bookstore or your favorite bookstore and that would be a great favor to me and my small publisher a woman-owned publisher who's a small business, so you can support her and her business and my book and also a small bookstore. So it's a trio of triumphs, good deal.

Speaker 2: 1:04:41

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, jennifer. We were thrilled to have you here today. It's always a great conversation and we'll look forward to seeing you, hopefully at the next conference or some other time soon, but absolutely you will.

Speaker 3: 1:04:54

I will be at the conference in February in San Diego.

Speaker 2: 1:04:56

Oh great. So I'm going to be one of the speakers.

Speaker 2: 1:04:59

Awesome, all right, awesome, awesome. Good For all our listeners out there. If you haven't already subscribed to the author wheel on your favorite podcast player, make sure you go and do that. We've been releasing Betweeny Soads, which apparently Joanna Penn coined that term, but little short tips and tricks for NaNoWriMo in the prep leading up to November the actual writing process, and then I think we're going to get into some editing tips down the road too. So make sure you subscribe so you don't miss anything. You can also drop by our brand new website at authorwheelcom same URL, just we changed platforms. And while you're there, you can sign up for our free email course Seven Days to Clarity, uncover your author purpose and, until next week, keep your stories rolling.