Bookcast 104: Writing Through the Gray

Welcome back to my new and seasoned Book friends!

I'm back(ish) with Episode 104 of the BookCast. Despite the weather, the podcast mic AND the coffee are HOT and ready or not, I'm here to share what's been happening in my reading and writing world.

Book REPORT:  I'm at 190 books out of my 200-book reading challenge for 2024! This week, I dove into some quick reads including:
The House on the Water by Margot Hunt
The Next Grave by Kendra Elliot
Technically Speaking by Michael Elliot
Stranded by Chris Bruno

On the writing front, I've been incredibly productive! Festival at Evergreen Falls will be out before the holidays, and I've just finished a newsletter exclusive called Olympias on King Street.  It's about a plus-size lingerie boutique owner and her landlord, with a twist I think you're going to love!

I'm particularly excited about my progress on Missing Persons, a project that's been brewing since I wrote Dinner at Sam's. It follows Yvette Young, the investigator who helped Gibson track down Vanessa's husband.

I recently had a wonderful time at the Tinsel and Tales event at the Bookworm Bookstore in Powder Springs, where I got to hug and catch up with fellow authors like Sharon C. Cooper and Dr. Vanessa Riley. 

I'm feeling optimistic about 2025 – it's looking like it'll be my most prolific year since 2020. It's nice to be back in the lab.

Until next week, I'll be here drinking my coffee, enjoying my cream of wheat (I'm in my winter hot breakfast era!), and working on new stories for you.

What are you reading this week? Drop me a comment at books by dlwhite.com/bookcast/104! or pick up this episode on my substack. 

Transcript

DL White [00:00:15]:
Welcome back to the BookCast, my platform for sharing short fiction and updates on life as a self published author of romantic fiction that centers black love. I am DL White, Atlanta based author of I have lost count of how many novels and numerous short stories and fan fiction works. We'll get into that later because I have been in a flurry of writing and getting stuff together for 2025, and I I need to count y'all. But I'm a reader first. So we usually begin with the book report, then we talk about writing and topics of the day. This is episode 104, by the way, and I'm back ish. I'm trying to be back. I've been really sporadic since early November, and believe you me, I'm making an effort to get back to where I wanna be, mostly where I need to be to get through this next season of life.

DL White [00:01:04]:
Try not to let situations and, I don't know, legislations and governments steal my joy and my zest for life. At the same time, I'm just shaking my head, drinking my coffee, doing my job, yo. I'm I'm just I'm just here so I don't get fined. Let me not get started because I could go on and on, and we're not doing that. We're we're having a podcast today, though. Today is Sunday, December 15, 2024. It is a cold and gloomy day in the ATL. I am here, though.

DL White [00:01:39]:
I have a mic, though, and I'm ready to dig in. But first, won't you join me for some coffee? Alright. Okay. We are back. Hope you had a great break. I have made a great cup of coffee, and I bought some cream of wheat. So, am I'm in my winter hot breakfast era. Hot cereal breakfast.

DL White [00:02:27]:
I've been really getting into oatmeal and cream of wheat again lately. Reminds me of my childhood. Let's begin with the book report as always because I am a book head. I have read 190 books toward my challenge to read 200 books in 2024. I've been struggling the latest bit because a girl has been busy and the tiniest bit depressed. But I'm about to be on the most luscious vacation in about 3 days, and I can't wait to get up in some books. Here's what I got read this week. I read The House on the Water by Margo Hunt.

DL White [00:02:57]:
This was really good, and it's only, like, 2 hours 47 minutes on audio. A neat little mystery. I really enjoyed this a lot. The Next Grave by Kendra Elliott. You guys know over this summer, I really got into my Kendra Elliott, Melinda Lee bag and basically listened to everything either of them have available while I was on my travels and spending lots of time doing busy work. They were all up in my ears. The Next Grave is the next Kendra Elliott book, and, it's pretty good. It was it was pretty good.

DL White [00:03:30]:
I'm finding when I'm listening to, like, mysteries and thrillers that they really drag a story out, and I'm like, man, get to the point already. Just, like, 8 hours later, what is happening? Why solve this already. What's going on? So, yeah. And then I listened to Technically Speaking by Michael Elliott, and I'll be honest, I did not enjoy this. I did not really enjoy this at all. The one part I enjoyed was that Queen Latifah, Dana Owens had a speaking part in it, but it's one of those, Atmos Dolby live action, audio projects where it's not necessarily an audio book. It sounds more like listening to a movie. I don't consider these audio books, and I hate when audio Audible does this.

DL White [00:04:20]:
But I was 3 books behind on my challenge, and I was like, let me just catch up super quick and grab some short stuff from Audible and have, you know, an afternoon of listening, just so I can, like, catch up a little bit and not be stressed out about it. So I listened to it because Queen Latifah was on it, but this story is basically a story about a woman that got away with identity theft, and, I don't even care if that's a spoiler. It this was like it was like an hour and something. Didn't enjoy it. I also listened to Stranded by Chris Bruno, which was the same type of story to live action. It's like acted out. It's like literally, it's like listening to a movie or listening to a TV show, but this one had Tracy Ellis Ross and Taraji p Henson, and it was entirely more enjoyable than technically speaking. I I still would have rather read a book or listened to a book.

DL White [00:05:20]:
Why cannot these actors, like, voice the book instead of, like, acting it out? It's like, you know, it's like old time radio, which I just don't like it. I don't like it. That is what pretty much what I got read this week. I didn't really get a whole lot read, during the week. I mostly listened to those over the last few days, but, you know, that's that's how it goes. I've got a bunch of stuff in the KUQ to read that I really I need to do a a Bridgette Bianca style read or release. And I wanna get into some holiday novellas, but I also wanna be in the mood for them. And a lot of them are kind of DOA for me.

DL White [00:06:06]:
I can tell by the first chapter, sometimes the first page, if something's gonna work for me. And a lot of times, they just aren't, you know, which is fair. You know, my books don't work for everyone. So it stands to reason that as a mood reader, some books are just not gonna work for me. I'm not gonna feel like powering through them, so fair. Coming up on the list, I've got human resources, a happy holiday short, and then my friend Sharon c Cooper, has her next, book in the Atlanta's Atlanta's finest series. I have both of those on my reading list. I haven't started reading them, but we're gonna get around to it.

DL White [00:06:48]:
Okay? And then I have had a couple of live events lately. 1 I skipped out on the Snellville book festival just came too quickly after the election, and I said, nope. I'm not. I cannot. I cannot. But I did get out of the house for the tinsel and tales event at the Bookworm Bookstore in Powder Springs last weekend. It's a cute little metro Georgia town, super cute shop, super friendly shop owner. I'm really excited to do more with a local book store, especially if that book store carries my books.

DL White [00:07:21]:
So that event was really fun. I sold a few books. I've met some authors and saw some old friends in person. I hadn't seen, speaking of my friend, Sharon, I hadn't seen Sharon c Cooper in person in years. We have a quarterly, writers group where we meet, you know, on Zoom, like, every 3 months, but, I hadn't seen her in person in a long time. So it was really nice to, get to hug her and, see her face. And I just I happened to see her at this event. I saw doctor Vanessa Riley, who's kind of like a regular around book events.

DL White [00:07:55]:
If there's a local book event, you can bet your butt doctor Vanessa Riley is there. I met Sharon Blunt, Valerie Wesley were all there. Sally Kirkpatrick, who I've seen multiple times, she actually bought a copy of Home for the Holidays, read it, and reviewed it, and it was hilarious because she went to write her review for it and an ad for her book popped up, which is really, really funny. So so that was a really good time. I wanted to see Piper Hughley, but she had some car trouble and wasn't able to make it, so sad face. Another event without seeing Piper. I was supposed to see her I don't know if it was last year or the year before, but her sister Heather had just passed away, and so she didn't make it to that event either. So, but, she did sell out of all of her books.

DL White [00:08:50]:
All of her books sold out, so that's fun. Anyway, on to the writing and publishing update. I've been writing. I've been writing a lot. It's it's basically, I've been working out all of my frustrations and my woes on my keyboard, my poor keyboard and the pen. Just kinda, like, digging out old stuff and just seeing what I can do with it. It's not perfect. All of it needs editing.

DL White [00:09:17]:
All of it needs needs needs editing. But I, you know, was like, let's just see what we can do. Just throw some words on the page and see if you can finish it. So I told you guys, I think, last week about the festival at Evergreen Falls. I should have edits back at some point today or tomorrow so I can prep that for sale. That should be out before the holidays. I'm very excited for you to meet, Tandy and Kwame. And then I wrote a little newsletter magnet, which I always wanted to write and never had time or an idea.

DL White [00:09:53]:
So I just was like swimming around the Internet for, story prompts and I came upon one that I thought, you know, hey, let me just do like a one chapter quick shot story on this. So I wrote Olympias on King Street, which is about a plus size, lingerie shop, a lingerie boutique owner who happens to catch her landlord out in the rain, and she invites him into her shop. And, the afternoon heats up, and there's a neat little twist in this story that I really enjoy. So if you sign up for my newsletter, it's books by dlwhite.com/newsletter. You'll get a copy of said story. And, it's pretty neat. I think I'm also gonna throw it up on my short fiction substack. So if you are a paid subscriber to the substack, you will also be able to read that story.

DL White [00:10:48]:
So, yeah, there's some fun there. Also have been working on a couple of, story starts just poking around. I've told you guys a long time ago about a sister's trilogy that I wanted to write, then I discovered that I'd kinda needed to write a a prequel. So I am working on the prequel, and then I'll start on the 3 book series. And I think that's gonna take me through 2025 just so I have some new people to write, new stories to write. And then I am working on the next potter lake novel. It's called still I rise. It's about Helen and Orlando's daughter who she's a runaway bride and ran away from Potter Lake when she was very young, like 19, and hasn't been back home since.

DL White [00:11:49]:
And she ends up back in Powder Lake, and Helen gets her a job at this bakery that's actually competing with Helen's kitchen, but Helen doesn't mind as long as the owner of the bakery Kingston can, keep Helen's daughter out of her hair. So, I started on that. You know, I my normal mode is I write about 8 chapters, and then I hit a wall, and then I have to put it down and think about it, and figure out where I'm going, and then kinda back up and then plan to the end. Otherwise, it will just sit in my drafts for years, sort of like missing persons, which is a story I started after I finished at dinner at Sam's. And I think I I think I released dinner at Sam's in 2018, 2017, 2018. So that's how long that story's been hanging around. If you read dinner at Sam's, Gibson, who is the hero in that story, is an attorney, and he hires an investigator to follow Vanessa's husband. That investigator is Yvette Young with Young Investigations, and Yvette, like, really spoke to me.

DL White [00:13:05]:
She just she had a story, and so I've been kinda toying with Yvette's story through the years. I, like, open it up and add a chapter and then get stuck and shut it down. Well, I pulled it out a few weeks ago, and I was like, okay. Yeah. I know. I think I know how I think I know how this has to go. And I I think that I got stuck in trying to write a thriller, and I don't have thriller chops yet. But I could write a little bit of a mystery, a romantic mystery because it's hard for me to write a book and it not turn into a romance, but I can add, like, a little subgenre in there.

DL White [00:13:47]:
So, I actually got through the end that it does need editing. It needs, you know, some shoring up. I know I have a lot of repetition in there because I was really just trying to get the story out and tell myself the story. So I understand the story, but, I did get through it, and I'm just gonna let it sit for a minute. Let it marinate, percolate, whatever. Read a whole lot of mysteries. Whole lot of mysteries and thrillers. Just get it in my head.

DL White [00:14:16]:
Here's how our mystery goes. Here's how I might need to draw this out. Here's what I might need to, you know, punch up a little bit. This is part isn't quite believable. You just made that up, didn't you? Yes. I did. I made up most of it. I did try to do some research.

DL White [00:14:32]:
I'm like, is this does this make sense? Is is this plausible? No? Okay. Well well, we're gonna have to rewrite that. And a lot of it is a little bit fantastical because, come on, I'm not a mystery writer. I'm a romance writer. So there's a couple of books that I wanna, I wanna read. There's a series by Christina c Jones called, if you can. My my missing persons is nothing like if you can, but the idea of the continuing, thread throughout the throughout this series, that, like, there's a there's a level of professionalism that I wanna put forth in this series that I am reminded of the if you can series that I just I wanna get that in my brain. I wanna get that in my mind.

DL White [00:15:23]:
Like, this is the level that we are striving for. If you look at look at look at that. Now look at this. Now look at that. Now look at this. And are you there? Yes? No? But it's on paper, which is my favorite part of a novel. It's it words on page, because I do love to edit and revise. And so I just the the biggest struggle right now is just leaving it alone so it can marinate, and I'll pick it back up in the new year.

DL White [00:15:53]:
I do not know when it will be out, but I do have draft 0 done. It I'm at 25 chapters. I don't think I'm adding any chapters. Like, I don't I don't see a need to add chapters, but the chapters I have are so sure I could add scenes. So I'm at, like, 48,000 words, so I could add you know, I could fluff up 20,000 more words and have a good robust, 70,000 word novel, which would make me really happy. I'm happy with it, actually, how it turned out. I think it turned out great. Yvette is, is it retired or separated? I don't know.

DL White [00:16:36]:
Her she's separated from the army. She was engaged to a man named Jason, and she lost him when he went to Afghanistan. Jason was not supposed to see combat. He was a mechanic, and, ended up, sadly passing away over there. And, we meet Yvette when she is sort of in the throes of her grief and trying to put her life back together. Jason and Yvette had a friend in the, JAG corps named Wesley. He was a JAG attorney, and he separated from the army. And now he is a public sector attorney, and, Wesley has been in love with Yvette for a long time.

DL White [00:17:31]:
And Yvette has known this, but she has always had her relationship with Jason to guard her against anything going on with Wesley. But Jason has been gone for 3 years, and Wesley has been very, very patiently waiting and being a good friend. And she has done investigations for Courtney and Payne, which is his law firm. And he's been lately, he's been pushing, and Yvette is just not comfortable with that. And so so much of this book is Yvette and Wesley kind of dancing around each other because she doesn't wanna admit to herself her feelings, and she doesn't wanna let go of Jason. And, you know, her career needs, you know, a little kick in the pants. And then, you know, there's just Wesley just kinda being Wesley, being beefy and, attorney like. So, it's been fun to write.

DL White [00:18:36]:
It's been good to get my head in some books, in some fiction. It's actually been very healing to read and to write. This is how I emote, and I just realized I was not going to feel better unless I put some words on a page. And so I finally did that. I am not done doing that. I feel like 2025 is gonna be a very prolific year, which is great because it's been a few years of burnout and drought. I used to be a 3 and 4 year book writing person, and I haven't been for some time. You know, who knew all it took was a devastating election to for me to just put my head down and start working.

DL White [00:19:24]:
Except, like, 2020 was a rough 2020 was a rough year. And I I had I did a lot of reading. I did a lot of writing that year. I wrote, I wrote Never List. That year, I wrote most of the Never List. That year, I released, The Guy Next Door's audio. That year, I edited and released a thin line again, regularly used a thin line that year. So I feel like I haven't been this productive since 2020.

DL White [00:19:55]:
So it's good to be back. Sad what it took to put me back in the chair, but, you know, forward. We're looking forward. So that's the writing publishing update. I still didn't count. So calculated risk is complete. That will be out in 2025. That was book 15.

DL White [00:20:19]:
Festival at Evergreen Falls will be out before the holidays. That is 16. And then, Olympias at Kingstree is a short. I don't know if we're calling that it's not published, but it's complete. So 17. And then, missing persons is complete, needs to be edited, not published, but it's complete, so 18. So next year, if I if I play my cards right I mean, next year, I will have books I don't know. Next year, I'll be at least at 18 books published by the end of the year.

DL White [00:21:05]:
It'll be more than that probably. I don't know if I am going to release the trilogy, if I'm gonna write the trilogy all at once or if I'm gonna read some book by book. I'm more inclined to write it all at once and then release them 1 at a time so I have a little bit of a backlog. Well, it will see. I'm a very impatient person. Like, I already have to wait until spring for a calculated risk to come out, and I don't like it at all. I wanted it I wanted it out right away. I already had to wait until December to turn it in and for it to be out in the winter, and now it's pushed back until the spring because it is part of a group project.

DL White [00:21:45]:
I am anxious for it to be out. So, you know, we'll we will we'll see how things go if I am patient enough to hold a 4 book project. I might release the pre prequel and then write the 3 books and just let the prequel kinda sell the series. I don't know. I'm just talking. I've I have I have no clue. I'm just honestly, I'm so excited to have books in the hopper and to have ideas and be writing stuff that, you know, hey, man. You're you're gonna get what you get because, you know, I I'm just excited to have books coming.

DL White [00:22:28]:
So I am really excited to have Olympias at King Street out. You can get that free if you sign up for my newsletter. Newsletter is books by dlwhite.com/newsletter. And if you're already on my newsletter, I'm gonna be writing a newsletter here in a few days, and I will include a link to that to the people who are already on my newsletter. Never fear. I will get a copy of, I'll get it linked to that too in the next newsletter. I will have some announcements coming up pretty soon. So you guys will have that and then festival Evergreen Falls, which will be out before the end of the year.

DL White [00:23:08]:
Very excited about those. Very excited about 2025. I hope, I just keep coming up with some good ideas, new people, new situations, new settings, new modes of writing. So that is pretty much the update. That's what I've got going on. I am about to drink some coffee and, grab my water and strike up a book to listen to, and enjoy my Sunday. It's very gray. It is very, very gray today and cold.

DL White [00:23:52]:
And, I just do not plan to leave the house until Tuesday. Maybe not even Tuesday because I have literally Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And I have the easiest 3 days on the planet coming up. It's just like Zoom not Zoom meetings. We do Teams, but it's just meetings and, like, closing down the year. Expense reports, crossing my fingers. People need to not give me any work to do this week because I'm done. I'm just I'm done.

DL White [00:24:29]:
So and I know my boss is out Thursday Friday. So honestly, after Wednesday afternoon, I'm turning my brain my work brain off, turning vacation brain on. It's just gonna be all books, all Christmas movies, all reading all the time. I know you're very jealous, and you have every right to be. So that brings us to the end of today's show. I bid you adieu, but not before thanking you so much for joining me for today's chat. I really enjoy having you here. I welcome any comments or feedback you might have at books by dlwhite.com/bookcast/104.

DL White [00:25:12]:
You'll also find show notes, links to all the things I talked about if they're relevant, and a transcript for today's show at that link. And you'll also find all of that good stuff on my Substack. Please share this podcast if you enjoy this episode. If you if you listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Substack, please give a girl a rating. I'd really appreciate it. Do not forget that you can support this podcast with your book purchases at payhip.com/booksbydlwhite by spreading the good word to your favorite people by joining the newsletter or the Substack. Links are on my website atbooksbydlwhite.com/linkinbio, or you can throw some coins in the hat at bookcast.busroute dotcom. Thank you so much to my monthly supporters.

DL White [00:26:00]:
Your gift currently covers my Buzzsprouts tubs Buzzsprout subscription, and I do really appreciate your support. Every little bit really does help. The book cast is written, produced, and edited by me, DL White. Theme music and any sound effects are provided by Pixabay. I will be back next week is what I'm saying today. But if I'm not, I will see you when I see you. I do plan to be back next week because hopefully, festival at Evergreen Falls will be out, and I will be able to gush about that, and it'll be very exciting. Until then, please enjoy your weekend.

DL White [00:26:36]:
Have a superlative week, and we'll chat again soon. Bye bye.