Bookcast Episode 111: Doing The Least

Welcome to Episode 111 of The Bookcast. This is a space where I talk about the books I’m reading and writing plus what I’m watching to keep me from scrolling the entire internet. 

Today I'm talking about the importance of doing the least - taking time to rest and recharge. After three intense days at the office this week, I'm embracing some downtime to catch up on reading, writing, and just being still and I hope you are too. Take a listen to the first few minutes of today’s show for some encouragement to be still. 

Find full show notes for this episode at my website- booksbydlwhite.com/bookcast/111. 

Transcript

DL White [00:00:14]:
Welcome to episode one eleven of the book cast, a space where I share short fiction, writing updates, and life as a self published author of romantic fiction that centers black love. I'm your host, DL White, an Atlanta based author of novels, short stories, and fan fiction. But first, I'm a reader. That's why we always start with the book report before diving into writing, publishing, and topics of the day. Today's topic is doing the least. I am doing the absolute least because I can. I spent three long days in the office this week. My meeting was spectacular.

DL White [00:00:52]:
I am a gift to beverage giant, and they couldn't do it without me. I mean, they could, but it would be a mess. But, being a superhero at work cuts into the things I like to do when I'm not working. So I'm spending time catching up on blogs, newsletters, reading books, writing books and I hope you also have plans to do the least to refill your well. Remember that rest isn't a reward for productivity. It's the foundation that makes everything else possible. If you haven't rested, you cannot triumph. Whether it's curling up with a book, taking an extra long shower, I mean, hot, like lava hot shower, or sitting in peace and quiet, give yourself permission to take a step back.

DL White [00:01:35]:
Our culture glorifies constant motion, but there's wisdom in knowing when to be still, when to pour back into yourself. My worth isn't measured by my output, and there are times when the most productive thing I can do is absolutely nothing at all. It really does help me to think and ideate when I find a way to be still. And that's been hard because since, you know, the pandemic and the shutdown, I find it really hard to sit still. And I'm a lazy person, so, you know, I like to do nothing. It's doing nothing and not guilting myself about doing nothing. That's my struggle. This weekend though I'm making space for doing nothing and I hope you are as well.

DL White [00:02:17]:
That said, I have books to write and get out the door, so let's get going. In housekeeping this week, you can show your support for this podcast If you love it with a follow, you can join the newsletter. You can throw some folding into the offering plate, or you can wear the merch. Head to booksbydlwhite.com/shop to grab books from my website store or my newly relaunched merch site. Find all the links you'll ever need to show your support of me or the podcast at booksbydlwhite.com/linkin bio. It's a sports day in The US, and I am not so much a sports person. I don't even know what teams are playing. I only know there are two black quarterbacks, and a rapper is doing a halftime show.

DL White [00:03:01]:
I like to use days like these as an opportunity to unplug and either read or write. I know I'm not gonna miss anything because everybody's watching something I would never be watching anyway. Today, I am writing, and I'll tell you more about that in the writing update. Today is Sunday, 02/09/2025. Join me for a short beverage break, and then we will get this podcast on the road. Alright. We are back. I hope you enjoyed that break.

DL White [00:03:47]:
Let's begin as always with the book report. I am at thirty one of 100 books to read in 2025. I'm 21 books ahead of my Goodreads challenge. Still not worry about it. I'm starting to slow down a bit because it's getting a a tad busy at work, and that's why I get I get so far ahead because I read while I can, and then I sort of catch up when I can't. This week, I got in two books. We are the Brennans by Tracy Lang. I said last week I was gonna read the next, book by Tracy, but I wanted to read we are the Brennans first.

DL White [00:04:27]:
After reading we are the Brennans, I think I'm just gonna go ahead and skip anything else by this author. The book was fine. It just was like I knew what was gonna happen. It was kinda predictable, but, like, what book isn't? It's very literary fiction. It was just it was it was okay. And I should have just gone ahead and read the book I wanted to read instead of making myself read this one, and now I'm not in the mood. I don't know. I might pick up another Tracy Lang book.

DL White [00:04:55]:
I might not. The writing was fine. The book was fine. I think I gave it, like, three stars, but, like, I'm over it. And then I read A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall. I had an advanced listener copy of this title. It was less okay than the Brennan's. Quite actually, I did not enjoy this at all.

DL White [00:05:19]:
It was super predictable. It didn't really have teeth the, like, the teeth I like for a thriller. When I was looking up this author to figure out what else she writes, it looks like she also writes, You and middle grade, and I could tell. I I could I could tell. It just seemed like the like, you know, it it wasn't really suspenseful. It was just a reveal after reveal after reveal, and they all just kinda pile up to stress you out instead of it being a situation where you don't know what's going to happen. I need just I need the timeline to snap, like, go go go go go. There should be there should be, a a sense of fear.

DL White [00:06:05]:
There should be, like, a rush, a little bit of anxiety. At least that's what I feel like a thriller should be. And so for me, calling calling things that have an element of danger in them, calling all of those a thriller, like, doesn't really fit the genre to me. It was, okay. She has fans. My my little, you know, review isn't gonna hurt her at all. You know, God bless. My windows are open, so we're getting neighborhood noise, and I'm not going to rerecord because, you know, this is just a little one person podcast.

DL White [00:06:44]:
I'm just talking about books and writing, man. Talking about books and writing. On my reading list, I have knocked my list down to about five books. There are some I just went ahead and took off the list because I was a different person when I added them to my reading list. Some of these are still, arcs that I have to get through. Not our daughter, I need to get through today or tomorrow. It publishes on Tuesday. It's okay.

DL White [00:07:12]:
It's pretty suspenseful. It is about, a couple who have possession of a child that isn't theirs that they got through nefarious reasons, and now they're running from the FBI. It's, it's pretty suspenseful. I just I have not I just haven't had time to get to it. Savings and trust, I still have on my list, A Quiet Wife by Diane Saxon. You could do damage by Casey Mills. Those are both, advanced copies. And then Kill Her, the Lacey James series book five by Chris Paschel.

DL White [00:07:43]:
This is just like a recent release, and I have read all the books in the series. And so I wanna get this down. I think I started it, but I got distracted by something and, I haven't finished it yet. So five, it looks like two, four, five on the list, this week plus whatever else happens to jump up. I am reading, an advanced reader copy of a title by Lula White, and I am, I'm like I've just started it again. I don't I don't have this on the list because it's not on Goodreads. So, I've gotta get that. That's called who's loving you.

DL White [00:08:15]:
I think it's gonna be good. I just I need to dedicate the time to really get into it. So depending how my writing goes today, I may dedicate tomorrow to just trying to make a really good headway in that book so I can get it read and reviewed. Moving on to, TV and movies, what I'm watching with my eyes. The Coroner, done. I actually didn't finish the series, but I already know how the series is gonna end. Went ahead and called that done. I am gonna try to read the books in the series because the books are different just like the book series for you by Caroline Kepnes.

DL White [00:08:57]:
I almost didn't remember her name. The book series is much different than the TV series, and I I got tired of the TV series relatively quickly. Quite honestly, I'm tired of the book series as well, but the next You book is the last in the series. Praise the Lord. I don't know if I'm reading it or not. But, anyway, I'm gonna read the books in the corner series, at least the first book in the corner series or maybe the last book in the corner series. The author is at, like, book seven by now. So we will I'm I'm I'm just gonna read one, see how it goes.

DL White [00:09:31]:
Like, I watched, what is that series? Rizzoli and Isles. Tried to read the books that that show is based off of, didn't really hit for me. Tried to read the books that the bones series is based off of, didn't really hit for me. So it's not it's not looking good, but I'm gonna give it a try. Papa's House, The Irrational, Will Trent, Elsbeth, Matlock, The Pit, all are my shows. They all had new episodes this week. I'm caught up on everything except Papa's House. I'm letting that stack up because it goes it's a half hour comedy.

DL White [00:10:04]:
It goes really quickly, and it just it goes too fast. And then I have to wait forever for a new episode, and so I'm just gonna let it build up a few episodes and and then watch it and then binge it and then let it build up and then binge it. So that's stacking up. I'm happy with that. I finished American Manhunt, OJ Simpson. Oh my lord. Have you guys watched this? Somebody email me. There's a part at the end.

DL White [00:10:30]:
Did I talk about this last week? I know I talked about watching it. I don't think I finished it last week. There is a part at the end. I had to text my friend that told me to watch this. I was like, girl. She's like, right girl. Right? Oh my goodness. There's a lot of new stuff in this documentary that I had never seen before.

DL White [00:10:53]:
And, yeah, we can talk about it offline, but I also finished an update on our family, on Max. That's an interesting story. That's a really interesting story. And let me just say that people on the Internet have a lot of nerve. Like, y'all be calling the police on people that you watch on the Internet, and that's weird. I watched Goodrich on Max. If there is a Michael Keaton movie, I'm gonna watch it. It was pretty good.

DL White [00:11:24]:
It's, you know, it's I don't wanna say it's a movie about nothing, but it's a very, like, family relationship type movie. Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix. I finished this. I just binged it all in one, like, all I just swallowed it whole all in one sitting. It is pretty good. It's about this woman in Australia that faked having brain cancer, and she's, like, raising this money and promising people money and, like, bilking people out of funds. It's a good watch. I I enjoyed it.

DL White [00:11:58]:
And then last night, I watched the nineties boy band Boom. This aired on the CW. It's a pretty good documentary about the nineties kind of boy band phenomenon. Lots of coverage of my favorites, NSYNC, but they also had some boy bands I have never heard of. Like, I don't I don't think they're American or they might be American, but some I have never heard of. Some brothers, but there's, like, there's BB Mac, there's O Town, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Ninety Eight Degrees. I learned new stuff about Ninety Eight Degrees, like, thirty years after they hit. It was a really good watch.

DL White [00:12:35]:
It was nice to see some familiar faces like William Isham, who did, like, really amazing videos for ninety eight Degrees, NSYNC, lot of rock bands, Dave Holmes from MTV. I'm very surprised they didn't have Carson Daly in there, but I think Carson is really trying to separate himself from his days at MTV, but, it was really good. It was so nostalgic. I watched that, you know, watch party with my writers in the discord from the NSYNC fan fiction archive. We still have our little discord, and, we still talk daily. We still write together on occasion. And, there's this app called Kast, k a s s t. It's a free app, and you can set up a little watch party.

DL White [00:13:20]:
It was super neat, so we all got together. I pulled it up on my laptop. We watched it together, and we could chat while we were watching it. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. So I wanted to shout that out in case anybody wanted to do, like, a watch party. I need to go through my list and start ticking things off because I have pages and pages of things I wanted to watch and just so I can get them off the list and I've been just finding new things to watch, which is fine because the whole my whole goal for this year is just be, like, minding my own business. Heads down.

DL White [00:13:50]:
Read, write, watch. That's it. That's what I'm doing. But I did find a new app called JustWatch app. You can go to justwatch.com or you can download the app. I don't know if it's available on Android, but it is available on iOS. I just found this to track all the shows that I want to keep up on. So I've gone through, like, all the shows that I'm I'm tracking, that I'm watching week to week.

DL White [00:14:14]:
I added those to my watch list, and I've got, like, reminders on it. So it should pop up and tell me when a new episode is coming of something because I find I'm having to, Google when the next episode is coming up. And so I'm hoping it's gonna remind me that a show is coming up, especially like The Equalizer. I need to know, like, February 25, I think, is the next new episode of The Equalizer, and I cannot miss my queen. And so I need I need to be rewinded. On the writing and publishing update, we'll talk about February sales at the end of the month. I don't wanna do a week to week report on February sales, but I'm doing okay for February 9. This week, I moved 75 units, 35% Amazon, sixty four % wide or, yeah, wide.

DL White [00:15:04]:
So anything outside of Amazon, which makes me wildly happy. A lot of that is book funnel. I wanna say more than 50% of that wide number is book funnel. So, I really like that. Two book clubs are reading me this month. So well, reading me period. One is reading me this month. The spine collectors are reading brunch at rubies, and I'm super excited about it because you guys know that is my favorite.

DL White [00:15:27]:
Don't tell the others. It's my favorite. So that makes me really happy. I'm sure that's also contributed to sales. Both clubs generally like to ask their readers to order direct from me. The prices are better and the profit is better. So if you are in a book club and or you run a book club and you wanna read a book by me, please reach out. I can offer discount codes for your club for ebook and audiobook if you want to get them direct.

DL White [00:15:54]:
They are delivered by book funnel, but, of course, you can send ebooks to your Kindle to read them if you need to. Audiobooks you have to listen to in the app. And then I often have Spotify codes for audiobooks handy. I do not have any audible codes. I don't have any codes for Libro. I I do have some Spotify codes, so shout me out a holler. You know where I'd be at. As a reminder, Leslie's curl and die is free right now, and I have some books that are in book funnel events that are, like, free or on sale through the February.

DL White [00:16:27]:
I will link to them in the show notes. We have celebrating Black History Month, and then we have a Small Town Heart first in series Small Town Romance. And those are free books, series start Small Town Romance series starters. And there aren't a whole lot of black books in there, but there were a few that looked good, so I picked them up. I will link those in the show notes so you can snatch those up. They will be available through the February. Ruby's tenth anniversary is, it's on. I got the art back for the cover.

DL White [00:17:02]:
I'm pretty happy with it, and I'm mocking up the cover now. Editor Kai has the manuscript, and I should have round one of edits back at some point next week so we can get that going. The goal is to have it have both rounds of editing done by March 15 because I need to get the cover going, and I can't I don't know how big the cover has to be until the manuscript is complete. And I like, I think I can go for it now and, like, kind of mock it up. But, I mean, it's not like I'm gonna add or remove pages or whole chapters, so it really shouldn't affect the cover size. But I was thinking that I really needed to, oh, wait until I had the completed manuscript show so I would know how long it is so I can figure out how big the hardback is gonna be so I can figure how big the wrap has to be. But I'm I'm working on that. I'm pretty happy with the art.

DL White [00:18:03]:
It's, you know, it's not perfect, but I'm I've done the best with what I've got. It's better than what I was finding on the stock image site. So I'm actually pretty happy. I sent over some inspirations for the drawings, and the artist went to town. So I'm pretty I'm pretty happy. I'm pretty happy. Calculated risk. First round edits are done and sent back to editor Kai.

DL White [00:18:32]:
I should have the next round of those here in the next week or so. I have to turn that in again at the February, so they'll be done before then. I really need to be working on my front and back matter for that book. And then grumpy Valentine is coming along. It might not hit on Valentine's Day, but it should be available soon after I hit 21,000 words this morning because I simply cannot write short. This is just not a short it's not a short story. I am seven chapters in. I'm figuring I will have about 10 chapters with, a cute little epilogue, so we're going on that.

DL White [00:19:07]:
And then music of my heart is my fan fiction story that I'm working on. I updated that last week with a really good chapter. If you are not caught up with it, go catch up because I'm probably gonna take a bye week and let people just read and catch up. I've had no comments, no attention even from the reader that emails to ask for updates, so I think I can let her breathe for a minute. Fanfic is a thing that I do for fun and practice, so I don't wanna start stressing about it. I do know kinda where I'm going at least next chapter wise with that story, but I'm I'm more stressed about Grumpy Valentine. So I'm gonna try to get that one out the door and then go back to music of my heart while I wait for edits on Ruby's ten and calculated risk. So that's kind of where I'm at with writing and publishing.

DL White [00:20:02]:
I think in q two, once I have these two things off my plate, these new new things off my plate, I can go back to either missing persons or I can go back to making more progress on the, the trilogy that I wanted to write. And then my fall book is still I rise, and I've started that, but it's, like, nowhere near complete. And I wanna take my time on it. I need to figure out when I need to, like, really dig into that, and I think I may not be able to dig into it until after edits on missing persons are out the door. Like like, finish it, get my edits in, get the story where I like it, and then send it off for first round of editing. That way I can't touch it while it's gone. And, and then I can either dig into Still I Rise or the trilogy. So I kind of wanna get all the new stuff I'm gonna write this year.

DL White [00:21:02]:
I wanna at least get it written, like, not edited, not, like, perfected, but on paper so I can at least edit it before I start on that trilogy because that's gonna take it's gonna take a while to write. Like, it's February, and I'm thinking about the year, and I already feel like I don't have enough time to write all the stuff I wanna write, like, to dig into all the stuff I wanna dig into. So we erred, but that is what I need. I need to be busy. I don't do a word of the year because I would set the year I would set the word and then forget the word and, like, never really think about it. So I don't think I'm I don't think I'm a word of the year type of person, but if I was, prolific would be my word. I just I wanna publish a lot. I wanna write shorts and just put them out and not stress about it.

DL White [00:21:53]:
I wanna write fun little things. I wanna write romantic little things. I wanna write, you know, long, really good things, and I can't I can't do that and pay attention to, like, everything else out there. And so I'm really leaning into, like like, just dropping a lot of stuff I normally watch, a lot of things I normally listen to. I've been going through my podcast list and just, like, dropping. I can't I love I love me some Stacey Abrams. I really do. I can't do her podcast.

DL White [00:22:26]:
I can't listen to her podcast right now. I love Brown Ambition. I'm kinda in and out. I do love hashtag sisters in law. I just I can't I I can't listen to that every week. It's, I can't do it. Like, three guys on is is towing the line. It's a lot of politics, and that's probably about all the politics I can really handle.

DL White [00:22:52]:
I just can't do it right now. It's it's not not especially as I'm taking on more, like, blogs and newsletters. Like, everybody is just focusing on the terrible things that are happening, and I can't sit in that. I just can't I can't I can't do it. I'm trying not to do it. I can do it actually. I can, but I shouldn't. So I'm trying not to.

DL White [00:23:17]:
Anyhow, I need to get off this microphone because I have things to write and things to edit. So that brings us to the end of today's show. I wanna thank you so much for spending time with me. If you have any questions, you wanna share your thoughts, you can visit booksbydlwhite.com/bookcast/1eleven. You will find show notes, relevant links, and a full transcript there. You can also pick up this podcast on Substack. It actually publishes on Sunday on Substack and Monday everywhere else. So if you wanna get it early, follow my Substack.

DL White [00:23:53]:
It's good stuff. It's the same show. It's you just get it early on Substack. If you enjoy the show, I would love for you to share it with everybody you know. Just kidding. Only the bookish people share it with the bookish people. Ratings on Apple Podcasts and Spotify mean a great deal in the podcast world, so please do go forth and offer them if you haven't. You can support the book cast by shopping for books at books by d l white dot com slash shop, by joining the newsletter or the Substack, or simply spreading the good word to fellow readers.

DL White [00:24:27]:
You can find all of the links to anything you ever need from me at booksbydlwhite.com/link in bio. You can also find me at buymeacoffee.com/booksbydlwhite or so if we can you can support the show directly at booksbookcast.buzzsprout.com. To my monthly supporters over there at bookcast.buzzsprout.com. You keep this show going. I'm really grateful for all of you. The Bookcast is written, produced, and edited by me, DL White, with music and sound effects from Pixabay. Join me next week for updates on reading, writing, and publishing, plus some fun alternatives to or companions for your social media scrolling. Until then, have a great day.

DL White [00:25:11]:
Have a superlative week, and we will talk again soon. Bye bye.