Bookcast Episode 135: You Betta (Pre)Work

In this episode, I share a reading update, a quick TV check-in, and an overview of the first project I’m pre-working for 2026.

Book Report
I’m currently 7 books into my 150-book reading goal for the year. Most of my reading this week was in audio.

Books discussed:

• Champagne Taste on a Bad Boy Budget by Zuri Day
• Behind These Four Walls by Yasmin Angoe
• The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust by Diana B. Henriques
• The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy
• Groove by Bernice McFadden (writing as Geneva Holliday)
• Kin by Tayari Jones

I also mention the upcoming literary event featuring Tayari Jones in conversation with Pearl Cleage.

TV Watchlist

• The Pitt (Season 2)
• Will Trent
• Currently stacking episodes of Elsbeth, Matlock, Reasonable Doubt, and Landman

Writing Update
I begin pre-work on my next novel, a medical romance centered on the consequences of a critical operating room incident and how systems, responsibility, and personal relationships collide.

Find the full transcript, extended show notes, and links at
 booksbydlwhite.com/bookcast135

Transcript

DL White [00:00:00]:
Foreign. Welcome back to the podcast. This is episode 135 of the Bookcast, my platform for sharing short fiction and updates on life as a self published author of black fiction. You can find out more about me at booksbydlwhite.com . please go to my links page booksbydlwhite.com/ linkinbio that will give you all of the important links to anything you might need to know about my books, where you can buy them, an ebook, print audio, any other things I might have going on I try to put on that page. So bookmark it, check it often, link in, bio is the place to be. Anyhow, welcome back to the podcast. Today is what I hope will be a quick and dirty show. I say this every week and every week I ramble for 37 minutes.

DL White [00:01:08]:
So let's see how we do today. I don't have a long list of things to talk about, but this morning I was trying to talk myself out of doing a podcast and then I told myself, no, you need to locate your recording studio AKA the closet and get in there and update the people on what's going on. And I say that because I do this mainly to keep myself on track. Like all the things I say I'm going to do, I have to now do them because I said I was going to do them. So this is honestly how I bully myself into getting stuff done. So today let's talk about books, of course, because I'm going to do anything. I'm going to read a book. I have one show I'm going to talk about.

DL White [00:01:57]:
You already know which one it is. And then we'll talk about the first project that I am doing in 2026. So let's head on over to Goodreads and take a peek at where we are looking for the week. I am at 7 of 150. My goal is to read on 150 books in 2026. That's of course my initial goal. Last year I think I got like 176. So it's a good goal.

DL White [00:02:28]:
Three books ahead currently. This week I actually added. I think I added like four or five books to my list. My Internet is moving a little slow, so this week I read Champagne Taste on a Bad Boy Budget by Zuri Day. I think I might have already read that one last week, but anyway it's on my list. Behind these Four Walls by Yasmin Ang. This was pretty good. A little rambly.

DL White [00:03:03]:
A little, A little rambly. But wanting to know what happened to the character that disappeared in this book, kept me going. And also I listened to it in audio, and audio saves a lot of books for me because I don't have attention span to pay attention to a book that's moving a little too slowly for me. But audio helps because I can be distracted by other things while I'm listening. So I listened to this one while I was doing stuff like around the house and at work. It kind of kept me company as opposed to, like, having to, like, really focus on it. And then I listened to wizard of Lies, Bernie Madoff, and the Death of Trust. This is book number one in the 12 lives challenge that Dr.

DL White [00:03:56]:
Raymond is doing. And a lot of us just jump onto whatever he's doing because none of us have an original thought anyway. He proposes a challenge to himself every year, and every year people decide whether or not they are going to join him on the challenge. Years ago, he did the Zora Challenge, where he read all of Zora's works and a bunch of works about Zora Neale Hurston. I think last year he did James Baldwin. I was gonna try, but I struggle. I struggle with Baldwin. So I think I read, like, one Baldwin book, and then I forgot.

DL White [00:04:38]:
This year he's doing the 12 lives challenge, which is a challenge to read 12 biographies. Not autobiographies, not memoirs, biographies, books about people written by other people. So I picked out 12 books that I think are going to be good for me. And I learned when I was doing nonfiction November, that there's a. There's a certain flavor of nonfiction or biography that is going to work for me. It needs to be about scandal. It needs to be about mess. It needs to be about murder.

DL White [00:05:13]:
So I'm not going to read, like, 12 biographies of serial killers, although that would keep my attention. But I really am all about, like, you know, mess, scandal, wrongdoing. So I. You know, I picked 12 books that I would be interested in reading. I am not reading about, like, the eighth president of the United States. I am not reading a biography about any historical figure. I'm not even reading a biography about Barack Obama. Surprisingly, I'm not.

DL White [00:05:52]:
I just. I picked out stuff that I knew I would want to read. So we'll. We'll talk about the other books that are on that list. But book number one is my number one obsession, Bernie Madoff. And do I know the story? Yes. Did I listen to this book with rapt attention through all of it? And, like, I just wanted to get to the part when he went down when he realized, like, I can't do this anymore. And I know I'm going to go to jail, but yeah, jail is better than whatever this is.

DL White [00:06:24]:
So I thought it was good. I heard that the guy, his name totally escapes me, but the, the guy that I think worked for the SEC that kept trying to get them to investigate Madoff, he also wrote a book, but I heard that it was like kind of angry and petty and really like pointed and one sided. And this book was more balanced and told the whole story both from the Madoff side and the side of the investigators. So enjoyed it. And then I listened to the Wilderness by Angela Flournoy. I really, really, really, really, really enjoyed the Turner house. And I have been waiting for a new book from Angela for quite some time. So I grabbed the Wilderness.

DL White [00:07:17]:
I had it in audio and I just. Other books just kept popping up and I said, you know what, you got to read this book. And so I started it yesterday. I actually listened to it in like almost one sitting. I stopped it to like go to the dentist. It's very well written. It just is. Like I don't feel like these women were ever happy.

DL White [00:07:43]:
It's kind of sad. Like it's emotional and it's gripping, it's riveting, but it's, it's sad. And I saw it like in the reviews after I finished it. Somebody called it like sad girl fiction, which makes sense. Like the women in this book, it's about, you know, five women and their friendship over time, I think over the course of about 20 years. And it begins with one of the women accompanying her grandfather to Switzerland because he's going to do the death with dignity thing. But something ends up happening and that sort of kind of sets the tone for the book. And I think like, the only thing about this book is like I am not emotionally invested in the friendship between the women really because we don't see their, the beginning of the friendship.

DL White [00:08:40]:
I don't know why they are friends, only two of them know each other. But like, as we go through the events in these women's lives, I'm just thinking, are they ever happy? Do they ever find joy? Do they ever find happiness? And like, maybe that's just like a romance thing, but. And it wasn't necessarily like a thing that would make me stop reading. I finished the book. It was very well, well written poet. In some ways I believe I gave it four stars. Love me some Angela Flournoy down. I just felt like there was no happiness in the book.

DL White [00:09:20]:
There was nothing. I don't know, do I Read too much romance. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, then I moved on to groove by Bernice McFadden, which was originally released under her pseudonym, Geneva Holliday. This was a triple. This was very quite obviously like an early 90s novel because there's flip phones and payphones and all kinds of like, you know, old black lit norms. Like none come to mind. But like this book is very early 90s.

DL White [00:09:56]:
It's very Eric Drum Dicky. It's very Terry McMillan. It's very Bernicell McFadden. It was fun. It was a trip, just an absolute trip. Like just when you think a thing is wrapped up, it is not. And I just, I love a character that's a mess and there's a character that is a. There's a couple characters in here that are a mess.

DL White [00:10:21]:
A really fun book. This is book number one in a two book series, like a duology. And the next is Fever and I have that coming up this week as well. So that's what I got read this week. I thoroughly enjoyed my reading week. All of them were in audio. I'm reading a whole lot more audio lately. Oh, I did read Ken, which I think I told y' all about last week.

DL White [00:10:44]:
Maybe, I don't know. Yes, I think I talked about it last week. Loved it. Give me 14 of them. I'm waiting for the audio because I want to listen to it in audio before I do my review. But simply fantastic. I love me some Tayari Jones. And Also on the 13th, tickets go on sale to listen to Tayari Jones and Pearl Kleeg in conversation.

DL White [00:11:08]:
I'm going to be in the room. I'm going to be in the room. I'm so excited that's going to be happening I think February 22nd. So totally excited about, about that. So TV wise, the only thing I am really talking about right now is the Pit. It is finally back. If you have not watched it, this is a show that is very much like 24 where every, every, every season is one hour of the same day. So it's like 7 o', clock, 8 o', clock, 9 o', clock, 10 o'.

DL White [00:11:45]:
Clock. And so we have started season two, which is 4th of July at this ER trauma center. And it's just fantastic. I forgot about the cliffhangers. I forgot every episode ends in a cliffy. So excited about that. The Pit is just simply good tv. It's on HBO Max.

DL White [00:12:10]:
And so there's that. And I, I gotta catch up on all my other shows that have restarted since the Holiday break. So I've been watching. Growth potential high potential something. Potential high potential, brilliant minds. Watson. Will Trent also. I watched Will Trent this week.

DL White [00:12:37]:
That was the premiere. Fantastic episode. Also a cliffhanger. Will Trent is one of the best shows on tv. So it is modeled after the Will Trent series by Karyn Slaughter. And I believe that she's in the writer's room. Whoever is writing that show is supremely funny. Absolutely hysterical.

DL White [00:12:59]:
Okay, not hysterical, but pretty funny. Very good show. Very excited to watch Will Trent every week now. Cause it came back, it was Will Trent. And then what are my Thursday shows? Elsbeth and Matlock. And I'm way behind on Matlock. I haven't watched any Matlock, honestly hardly at all since like October. I just kind of like to pile them up.

DL White [00:13:23]:
And I haven't, I have not watched Reasonable Doubt since like episode two. I don't know why I just can't start watching it. So I do love the show. I think sometimes, like I hype myself up too much and I have to like calm, calm down and then I just know I, I will be in, in a mood to watch it. And Landman, also a show. I was very excited about coming back and I just haven't, I just haven't started watching them. Maybe I'm just like letting it pile up so I can binge the whole season. I, I don't know.

DL White [00:13:57]:
But like, when shows fail, I am the reason why I will watch two episodes and then never watch it again. But these are shows that I love, so I will eventually watch them. But like, I don't like being held hostages by the tv. I'll watch it. I'll watch it when I feel like it. So that's kind of what's going on. TV wise. I will dedicate some time.

DL White [00:14:15]:
My TV watching night used to be Friday, so I would just pile up all my shows and then watch them back to back to back to back. So I gotta, I gotta catch up and get on the ball because we are not, we are not doom scrolling. We are, we are once again, we are not doom scrolling. We are not getting our heads stuck in, in cable news land. I remain as informed as I can manage to. And you know, you got to take care of yourself. And that is 100% how I take care of myself. So one of the things that I noticed this week is that I have scheduled myself in my handy dandy planner to start pre work for my next project.

DL White [00:15:08]:
And I'm debating whether or not to really talk about it here on the podcast. But like, the podcast is where I talk about things. So it's going to be called Standard of Care. Mm. I'm very proud of this title. Cause it does a lot of work both between my characters and basically the theme and the subject of the story. It's gonna be a medical romance. I did really dive head in, like, headfirst into medical romance last year.

DL White [00:15:50]:
I read the Love and Scrubs series, which I thoroughly enjoyed. And I said, man, I could do with some more medical Roman. And somebody, I want to say, it's Lily Flowers, maybe said, hey, you could write it. And I was like, but I just wanted to read it, but it planted itself in my head. And then of course, when that happens, I have to write it. So I've been rolling this around in my mind and pre work is going to begin this week on that so that I can join the 20k in five days challenge, which I think is coming up at the end of January. And so for me, I have to. I need to start early.

DL White [00:16:31]:
So I have. I have a running start because I. First of all, I want this to be a full length novel, like, you know, 65, 70, 75,000 words at the most. And I'm not going to have a lot of time to like think and ruminate and, you know, toss ideas back and forth because I need to get this to my editor by the end of March. I think I still never looked to see when we agreed that I would be sending her a draft. But I need to know where I'm going when I sit down to write, which means I need to be pre planning and do a lot of pre work and know my characters front and back, up and down when I start writing. So quick framework of the book just to share. This is a very spoiler safe high level.

DL White [00:17:24]:
Here's basically what we're talking about. And I'll be working through the details as I write it and sharing those details with you week to week on the podcast as we do. We haven't written a book together in a while, so I'm not getting too heavy into plot because I will absolutely say too much if I do. But I want to talk about the book at a high level and introduce the characters mostly to like get my brain working on it. So this is a medical romance. It is not gonna be. It's not gonna be like a cute little novella. I wanted it to be real and grounded.

DL White [00:18:11]:
Perhaps this is why I like watching the Pit and Brilliant Minds. But anyway, so it is about what happens when responsibility systems and real people Real humans collide. I'm really interested in what we expect from people who work in medicine. What they are left holding when things don't go the way they're supposed to. So in this book there is an incident in the operating room and something happens that shouldn't have happened. And because of that, it's a domino effect that rolls through the lives of my hero and my heroine as they try to right this ship, figure out what is happening, what's real, what's not, who's on whose side, et cetera. So right now I'm thinking about my pre work. Who are my characters? My usual questions.

DL White [00:19:13]:
Who are these people? Who are these people to the people in their lives? Why does that matter? What do they want? Why can't they have it? Those are the questions that I usually try to work through and those are questions that get answered as I write the story. So reading, researching, trying to understand how hospitals function so I don't write something that feels fake. My characters are. My female lead is Harper. She works in medicine, but she is not a doctor. She's on the administrative and care side. She works closely with the patients. She cares deeply about the outcomes and she is very close to the decisions without always being the one that has the final say.

DL White [00:20:04]:
She's very competent, of course, as an administrator. She's very good at what she does and people trust her. And that's going to come into question during the book. Harper is used to carrying responsibility and being careful, but still having to live with the consequences that don't fully belong to her. And by that I mean like sometimes the decisions that she makes aren't. They aren't due to her actions. I'll say that the thing with Harper is she has a responsibility without authority and she is expected to carry the weight of the decisions that she makes and the authority to make them. Well, the responsibility to make them.

DL White [00:21:00]:
She's black, mid-30s. She has a very, I want to say she has a poker face, like a calm demeanor. I feel like people in medicine have to be like, they do show some emotion, but they also have to be very stoic, very straight faced, very straightforward. They have to pull the emotion out of a lot of situations and just state the facts because particularly when you're in administration, you're not in a position to admit wrongdoing, otherwise you can get sued. And so that's sort of where Harper finds herself. Even when she's under pressure, she has to remain calm. She dresses for long days, professional, but comfortable, practical, pulled together, nothing flashy. But also she looks well put together.

DL White [00:21:51]:
Hair is usually pulled back or controlled because her job is not going to allow for, you know, big wild hair or a lot, you know, a lot going on. She maintains a rather subdued appearance at work, but not plain, not mousy, more elegant. She carries herself like someone who is used to being needed. And she is always ready. Phone on her hip, you know, contacts at the ready, that type of thing. She is a resource that people in her personal and professional life absolutely take advantage of. My male lead. His name is Cole.

DL White [00:22:38]:
He is a surgeon, a very talented surgeon, and like a lot of very talented surgeons, a little bit full of himself. He doesn't have a God complex, but he's very confident in himself and his abilities, what he can and can't do, even if it's a risk. He is very respected, he is decisive. He's comfortable inside the hierarchy of the hospital, but that doesn't mean the hierarchy is comfortable with him, if you catch my drift. Cole understands systems very well. He knows how decisions get justified and how people protect themselves within those systems. Are you catching. Are you catching my drift? Cole's wound is emotional distance.

DL White [00:23:31]:
He has learned how to compartmentalize, analyze in order to do his job. He doesn't do things out of emotion. He does things out of skill and know how. He has to know to the bone that he can do this job, otherwise he is worthless in that or so being close to my heroine, Harper, puts a lot of pressure on that. It really. It brings him out of his just the facts, ma' am kind of attitude and puts him. He's got a feel a little bit and so that he can't stay detached forever. Cole is, of course, he's a black man, early to mid-40s.

DL White [00:24:21]:
He is tall, but not super tall, like 6, 6 2, not 6 4, not 6, 7. I know we like our giants, but he's just going to be, you know, average tall man, solid build. He knows where the gym is. He, of course, he looks like a surgeon, but not in a TV way. Everything about him is contained. He's a very deliberate, specific person. Broad shoulders, very steady on his feet, doesn't waist movement. Everything is.

DL White [00:25:00]:
Everything is within hands reach for him. I don't know how that matters, but just in my mind, that's what he is. He doesn't smile easily, but when he does, it means something. I don't mean to model him at all after Peter Benton, but now Peter Benton is who comes to mind. So when you put Harper and Cole in the same room, you can see the difference in how they carry the weight of their roles in this system. They are two black professional employees in a system that may not reflect that demographic. So that's really all I want to say about standard of care right now. I want readers to meet this story, let it unfold on the page, meet these people when they open this book.

DL White [00:25:54]:
But I'm, I, I'm very excited to jump into it and this will be like my first full length project since missing persons. And I'm excited, I'm excited about that. So that's kind of where, that's where I'm at for this week. I'm at 26 minutes. So I am not able to keep a podcast episode under 20 minutes. And that's fine. That's fine. I like to talk.

DL White [00:26:29]:
So I am gonna cut it off there because I have books I want to get into and I've got stuff I need to do to get ready for tomorrow. My garbage is already out praise. So I don't have to go outside again today. But I'm just gonna enjoy my my Sunday evening, get this episode edited and up for you all. Of course it will be up Sunday evening on my sub stack and Monday morning and your favorite podcast app. Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. I do so enjoy bringing you these details and these episodes and sort of spilling a little bit on, you know, inside what it's like to like plan these books and bring them to fruition. If you have any questions, you can always drop a comment anywhere that allows a comment.

DL White [00:27:21]:
I will see it. Or you can send me an email. It's authordlbooksbydlwhite.com thank you so much for joining me for this episode. Once again you can tap into booksbydlwhite.com link in bio. You'll find links to my substack and my website booksbydlwhite.com bookcast 135 is where you will find a full transcript and show notes and any useful links for today's episode. That'll do it for me. You guys have a wonderful, superlative week and we will talk talk again soon. Bye bye.

DL White [00:28:29]:
But.