Making It Up with Andromeda Romano-Lax, author of What Boys Learn

"Anyone who's ever taught writing has said it wasn't the young 'genius' in the room who ended up making it as a writer... It's about stamina. It's about becoming really good at learning—an autodidact who's like, 'I'm just going to keep learning. I'm going to figure out how to do this." — Andromeda Romano-Lax 

Andromeda Romano-Lax worked as a freelance journalist and travel writer before turning to fiction. Her first novel, The Spanish Bow, was chosen as a New York Times Editors’ Choice, BookSense pick, and one of Library Journal’s Best Books of the Year. Her novels have been an Amazon Book of the Month, a winner of the Sunburst Award, and a Booklist Top 10 Historical Fiction Book of the Year. ​Starting with The Deepest Lake (a Barnes & Noble Monthly Pick and Amazon Book of the Month) and continuing with her next novel, What Boys Learn, Andromeda has swerved into the world of suspense fiction. 

Among other things, Andromeda and Carter discuss how Andromeda got varying academic degrees to have a broad knowledge base, how thinking of the audience can hinder your writing, and to what extent authors should experiment with different genres. At the end of their conversation, they make up a twisted story using a line from Stephen King’s Just After Sunset. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Writers, hello. This is Carger, and welcome to this episode of Making It Up, the conversation series where I just sit down with another writer and we talk about whatever comes to our minds. Um, we rarely talk about somebody's particular book, we usually talk about the author's journey, uh, the highs and lows. I love talking about the lows. I don't know why. That's just so interesting to me. Um and you know, so I think if you're listening to this, if you're uh an aspiring author um or even a published author, there's usually a lot of good kind of tidbits to hear about other writers' journeys uh that you can kind of hopefully relate to. Uh before I get to today's guests, um, I'm going to plug a couple things for me. First of all, when they find me, which is my 11th book, comes out in November of 2026. Um, if you're into my thrillers, please pre-order it. Um, I would love for you to do that. Pre-orders are crazy important to a writer. Um, and you can pre-order at carterwilson.com. You can read about the book there, see if it's something that you might be interested in, and lots of different places that you can pre-order from. Um, please, please, and thank you. And also, I just wanted to kind of plug my newsletter. If you're not uh reading my newsletter, uh now's the time to go and join uh thousands of others who are receiving my monthly newsletter. Um, again, just once a month. Uh, I try to make it as entertaining as possible. I try to make it as um the least amount of salesy that I can make it. Um, I usually have very personal essays in there, things, updates from my kids, from my pets. And of course, there's always an opportunity to win a signed copy of a book for me that I don't offer to anyone else. Um, so make sure you check that out. You can sign up for my newsletter at carterwilson.com. All right, today on the show I had Adrameda Romano Locke. So Adrameda is fascinating. Um, I I I loved speaking with her. I I hadn't met her before. Um, but she lives um on a little island uh near Vancouver, Canada, which made me highly jealous. Um, and she's been writing for a long time. You're gonna love hearing about her journey. But her first novel, The Spanish Bow, was translated into 11 languages and was chosen as the New York Times editor's choice book. Um, which uh so we were talking about a lot about, you know, in her case, you know, big success with the first book. And then, you know, there's a lot of pressure for your sophomore novel. Um, and we spent a lot of time talking about the freedom that she has, both from her agent but mostly from her editor, to kind of write whatever she wants to write. Whether, you know, you would definitely describe, I think, the Spanish bow as literary fiction. Um, and her current release. Um, sorry, let me just bring it up here, which is What Boys Learn, which just came out. Her current release is suspense. Um, and she's had suspense novels that were Barnes Noble, our monthly picks. Um, so she's written and she's talking about a horror novel that will be eventually coming out. Um, so she kind of writes in various different spaces, and we we spent a long time talking about the good and bad of uh of that ability to have. Um so it was pretty fascinating. And just hearing her whole her whole journey journey and all of her her various education, which all kind of funneled into writing um a lot of nonfiction early on, then branching out to going into novels um and hearing kind of that decision-making process was pretty fascinating. And then we made up um a pretty horrifying little story based on a sentence from a Stephen King short story. So this is this is a good one, folks. You're going to enjoy it. Uh, this is my conversation with Andromeda Romano Locks. So you're obviously um at home. You are where is home? Where do you live?

SPEAKER_01 4:20

I live on a small island off of Vancouver Island. And so in Canada, north of Seattle, in Canada, two hours west of the city of Vancouver, on a very small island of llama farms and regular farms, and yeah, very rural.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Sounds very serial killery.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

I do lock my door in a good way. It's the opposite of serial killery, but I do lock my door.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

That sounds very idyllic. Like that's that was this. Are you are you're Canadian? Did you grow up in Canada?

SPEAKER_01 4:57

No, no, I grew up uh north of Chicago.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

I went to graduate school my first time in Nova Scotia. So that was my first experience in Atlanta, Canada. Then lived in Alaska 20 years.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

And then Taiwan, Mexico, traveling the whole country looking for where to live. And then we finally settled on Vancouver Island. So my husband and kids are dual citizen.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Okay, so that's how well good for you. Like everyone's for trying to find ways to escape, and you got it nailed down. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

I'm very happy where I live. And I know you live in Colorado. I do. You were talking about being in a more rural area as well.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah, I think also the desire to be in an even more rural area. So actually, we're my partner and I are taking a road trip to New England this summer because her son is going to go to University of Maine. And we're just going to spend a month in New England just staying in kind of rural Airbnbs to get a flavor of like, is this where, you know, could this be our next chapter? I don't know. I I feel like, you know, and I feel like you've already beaten this, but like, you know, as I get older, just the desire to be around fewer people intensifies. Um, and not, and not that I want to, you know, I love people, I love being around people, but it's it's like a driving thing. If I drive somewhere, I want to be on a on an unpaved road, going to a coffee shop, and I want to be on an island.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

I love coffee shops, I love restaurants. Um, but yes, I'm always looking to escape the ski city and come back to where I live. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Yeah, yeah. I can I can imagine right, because there's travel and you can always come back. Um so were you uh so growing up in in north of Chicago, were you a were you a creative kid? Did you have writing in your blood?

SPEAKER_01 6:45

I love to read and I did enjoy writing, but I didn't think about it as a career at all. And even in college, I didn't study writing. In fact, I avoided it. I took one summer journalism course. But um, at that point I loved nonfiction. And I thought if I'm first of all, I thought everybody wrote. So I didn't think it was something special. It was so much, I just I just thought everyone did it in some way. But then when I started becoming more interested in nonfiction, I thought the best thing to do is not to study writing, it's to study everything else. So you have something to write about. So I got a uh degree in public policy, a lot of government stuff, economics, almost a double major in biology. My first graduate degree was in something called marine management, which is about fisheries.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Sounds like you didn't know what you wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

I no, I wanted to actually have a broad knowledge base. Um, so that and then I became a freelance journalist. I was actually a magazine writer from the age of 17.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Oh, wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

So, and my first sales were to 17 magazine. So even before I was old enough to get a regular job, I was actually sending queries through the snail mail and I was doing freelance journalism writing. And and so I knew if I just kept sort of broadening what I knew about the world, then I could, you know, write more magazine articles. And then my dream was to be, and then I moved to Alaska, where I was a journalist and a travel writer for many years. So I wrote about a dozen small nonfiction books, guidebooks to parks, natural history, science writing. I was able to use my degrees as a credential for you know, writing about an oil spill or writing about cruise ships, or anyway, none of that has to do with fiction. So I had no desire or intention to move toward fiction until it hit me suddenly.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

But you what I find interesting is that the the underbelly of all of those studies was I just want something to write about. So the writing was always going to be the solution uh ultimately. It's just what form that it would take. And yeah, and that's fascinating, especially going into that realm of. I mean, with those with those degrees you have, what you wrote sounds those field guides and everything sounds like perfect. You could have started uh marine management weekly, could be you could have had your own uh magazine on marine management.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Uh I wrote for Pacific Fishing. I mean, I but I like the variety of it. I like to have any idea. I love the pitching of the, you know, this is back in the old days of magazine, pitching, having stuff in the mail all the time. I was also writing creative nonfiction essays, much more creative on the side. Um, I wrote an early book about the Sea of Cortez, Mexico, um, where my family and I traveled in the footsteps of John Steinbeck, who did a famous 1940 trip to Sea of Cortez. So we followed in his footsteps by sailboat and sea kayak, trying to give an idea of the ecology of the region and how it had changed since 1940. So I was doing all kinds of writing. I think the thing that came first was just wanting to know about the world and to see as much of it as possible.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Right. And then obviously some kind of desire to make sure other people learned about the world through your writing, right? That's what nonfiction is. And it's also interesting that you had a love for the thing that most writers hate, which is the pitching, the putting things in the mail, the just the the rejection slips. I've I'm sure I loved it. Are you a glutton for punishment?

SPEAKER_01 10:21

I think I'm competitive mostly with myself.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

And so I actually like to rely on, you know, being like living right at that edge of waiting for the first royalty check from my very first guidebook to see kayaking, which was different from the book I'm telling you about Steinbeck, but my kayaking guidebook to Mexico sold well. And so waiting for that check to come in to cover the rent. I love that. I absolutely love it. I I mean, my mom at the time would say, Oh, I wish we had more money so we could help you out. And my answer was, I don't want help because I love the earning of the money and the pay in the bills and the the struggle. I loved all of it.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Yeah, well, that's good because I think, you know, I talk about this quite a bit on this show, but just about the struggle um that a lot of aspiring authors go through, and of which, you know, I have certainly tasted that a lot in my life. Um, and that's what kills off a lot of them. And and very few, in fact, you might be the first where it was actually fuel rather than like because you're you're viewing it, or maybe you still view it, it's it's a game, you know. Um, how do I and and I always find that that's a very healthy attitude to have about almost anything in life, especially like a corporate job or something. It's like it's just a game. So you've you you you can detach the ego from it uh in a way that makes it, if not fun, at least um intellectually challenging. How do I, how do I win this game? How do I advance one step? Um, and without like, you know, this is my blood, sweat, and tears that I spent a year on and nobody wants it. That's where most people go to, but that doesn't seem to be the case for you.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

I do think that most people um have a hard time at that. They don't realize how much mindset matters. Mindset, you know, certainly, and anyone who's ever taught, I've taught in two MFA programs as well. Anyone who's ever taught writing has said it wasn't the young, you know, genius, quote unquote genius in the room who ended up making it as a writer. In fact, often it's the person who came in who seemed to have the most ability in the beginning, who often then disappears. You know, as you know, it's about stamina, it's about becoming really good at learning and autodidact who's like, I'm just gonna keep learning, I'm gonna figure out how to do this. And especially if that can apply to not only the writing part and the research part, but also the, you know, the marketing part, which you also talk about in the show, you know, saying, okay, I'm gonna learn how to use social media, I'm gonna learn how to work better with my publishing team. And I'm even gonna learn because it wasn't always easy. I definitely had long down spells, but I'm gonna learn how to figure out how to make this more sustainable, even emotionally, psychologically sustainable. You know, so how can I get more pleasure from the parts I can control so that I'm not suffering as much through the many, many parts that I cannot control? You know, and I think I think just as we continue to age, what becomes less fun is poverty. Because I've had a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

It's mildly inconvenient enough.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

No, I didn't mind, and now I have much more expensive habits. So if before it was okay to make pasta sauce out of one little can of tomato paste, right, now I I want it to be better, and now I want some really fine wine with it, and I want to, you know, travel comfortably. I mean, my early travels, even with my children, you know, it's like, oh, we're waiting for a flight. Okay, we'll all sleep on the air, you know, the airport floor. And now it's like I can't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Anyway, so the mind game. So I I really work at continuing to find new ways to feel like I can handle the stress.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

Yeah, totally. And you know, I think you nailed it when you said, you know, focusing on the things you can control and adding to that just defining what it is you can because I don't think a lot of writers think about that. Um, and and in fact, I just did a video about this, how I think there's there's this disconnect because a writer will spend an a year, multiple years on a novel, and it's we all it it gets easier, but it doesn't get that much, it's hard work no matter how you do it. And so there's almost a sense of like the world owes them because they put so much effort into it. And what they're not looking at is, and the analogy I use is like a professional tennis player that spends 90% of their time practicing and hitting balls when nobody is like watching them, and and we only see them on the court excelling, and we think, oh god, they're just naturally gifted. And it's like writers have to write, spend those years and be willing to say it's a game. This part of the game was me learning, and now I'm gonna go write the next thing, and I'm gonna go write the next thing. And it nothing very rarely does it come fast. And the people that I who I've seen, this is a total broad generalization, um, that had massive success with the very first thing that they touched, that never seems to be sustainable. Um, that's fluky, and they still have a lot to learn. They wrote a great book, but that doesn't mean they're capable of doing that in perpetuity.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

I think that's the hardest. And we can come back to that, but I don't want to forget to say that I remember reading Stephen King in on his book on writing.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

That book comes up all the time on the show. It's such a great book.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

But he said something like, maybe I'm remembering it the way I want to remember it, but don't even worry till you've written a million words. And so I do the math in my head. I'd be like, okay, those articles, those essays, that first book. Okay, and maybe now I'm at 500,000 words, you know, like just you you have to keep going. So you were your example of what happens when you do have a big success. That is actually where my career was the most stressful. So I switched from nonfiction um right after 9-11. So this is now a long time ago. Uh, I was gonna write a nonfiction book about a famous cellist named Pablo Casals. Um, and the reason was just because I absolutely love the cello. I wanted to write something beautiful. I had been writing about climate change at a time before people understood they nobody wanted to read about climate change.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

And I was specifically trying to write about ocean, marine climate change, even more esoteric. And I didn't know how to make it compelling. And I knew, you know, so as a writer, I was like, no, this isn't good enough. 9-11 happened, you know, and there's that feeling of if the world was gonna end tomorrow, what would I want to do? And I was like, I don't want to write about climate change right now. I want to write about classical music, I want to write about something beautiful. So I start following the story. As it turns out, Pablo Casals, he used his music to stand up against fascism in Spain. So he actually refused to play his cello at a certain point as a way to be against fascism. I was drawn into that story. I started doing research. I went to Puerto Rico to the archives because he lived in Spain and then later Puerto Rico. Anyway, long research process. And I wasn't even a big fiction reader. And I realized, you know what, this would be better as a novel. That's that's the form that would serve this book. And so then I decided, well, I'm gonna try to write it as a novel. And I had no idea how to write. I never, you know, I hadn't published any short stories, I hadn't written previous manuscripts. Again, doing this all on a shoestring budget. Went to Spain, went to France, did all the research over two years. That was the book, first book I sold. So that was the first novel I wrote. It was not that hard to write. It I got an agent right away. It sold at auction, it was published in 11 languages.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

I was able to buy a house, and my husband didn't have to work full-time for four years.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

So I had yeah, and now you know what comes next. And I knew what came next because I loved reading about publishing. So it was this huge life-changing event. And then now what comes next is a sophomore novel. So I knew, I mean, I went on book tours, it did, it did well enough, and now now I understand enough about publishing to know the numbers. It did well enough, but when you get a really big advance, it's supposed to be, you know, everyone's supposed to know your book, you know. So it didn't matter that I was going on multiple book tours and it was selling all right. Anyway, sophomore novel, that's when the struggle came.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

So number one, I finally had money, so then I kept feeling like, how do where do I invest this? How do I manage it? It's never gonna come again. Right. Um, how do I write the next book? All these problems with the next book. So another five years. So so my lowest point was right after that ostensible overnight success. And that's when I went way down.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

How did your writing change from your debut to your sophomore book?

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Well, I ended up publishing a second book that is still my most my, you know, one of my least sold books. Um, I think the main problem was I was working with an agent. She really only wanted another blockbuster. And so she was saying no to lots of ideas. I had all kinds of problems with that. Then she actually kind of disappeared for a little while. So I I was I was getting the message from the outside world, this next book has to be really built big. You have to save your career, you know. And it just made me not able to do what I was doing before. The reason the first novel was so easy to write was because I wasn't even thinking about an audience. I I couldn't really picture it being published. I was just telling the story in a very natural way.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Which I think is beautiful though. I think I think thinking about the audience becomes problematic, you know, no matter how far into your career you are, because then you tend to then start dismissing the instincts that got you there in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Um and I think I wrote I wrote another book that maybe was fine, but my agent didn't like it for reasons that had I know that I know what craft problems it had, but it was a question of subject. Oh, people aren't gonna like a book about this type of person. I I don't want to go into the politics of that. But anyway, so it took me a long time to claw my way out of that. I ended up switching to a switching agents. Um I ended up going to a medium-sized publisher. This before was a large publisher, uh medium-sized publisher, and that's where I am still today with Soho Press.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Yeah, yeah. Well, obviously a very reputable press.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Um And they have a very different attitude. The attitude is not we expect every book to be a blockbuster. And and they have a rare attitude, which I worry is not prevalent in much of the publishing world of, oh, we're looking at your whole career, you know, you're allowed to experiment, you're allowed to change between subgenres. Um, and every book's gonna be different. And so then finally getting back into that place of learning and enjoying. And then I wrote several historical fiction novels, and then more recently now I've now I've written two suspense novels to cut the story short.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah, and that's a great point because I think there is a perception, which is I think largely accurate about you know, you're not gonna be a mid-list writer with us forever. Um, we're you we're not going to invest into your career. And that's, I don't know. Like I'm with Poison Pen Press, who absolutely is just like, we're in it for the long haul. And, you know, I was several books in with them before I had one kind of breakout. And I and in fact, it is funny, even going to like things like Thriller Fest and Voucher Con. Like the only panels that I'll go to that I'm not on, which sounds really egotistical, but it's true, are the business panels. Because I'm curious. I'm I'm I have a business mind, and you know, craft panels are fine, but I have my way of doing things. And I was on a business panel and they were the publishing panel, and somebody made the remark that you know you absolutely don't have to earn out your advance to be profitable for us. Like you, you know, mid-list is well, publishers survive. They don't exactly survive off of the 1%. They they have names off of the 1%, and then 1% definitely help, but it's all driven by the middle class.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Yes, yeah, yeah. And and most writers don't even know what are realistic numbers. You know, I struggled with that for a long time early on, thinking you had to have these gigantic numbers, but I do think publishers have different attitudes, and I do I do think it's unfortunate that more are not re just realistic about that they can have a stable of mid-list authors and that that can work. And then I would also say, um, and I don't know your experience, but every book has had its own trajectory, right? And you can't even see the real trajectory only in terms of sales. So, like I had a my third novel was a historical novel. It happened to do great in ebook. And also I got speaking fees because it happened to involve some real-world 1920s psychology figures. So I was getting some some speaking fees.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

I have another book that's actually speculative fiction, takes place in 2029 Japan, and there's a robot in it, but I wrote it back, published it back in 2018. Low sales, great reader reviews. I still get emails, and it's full it was optioned twice. And I know you're very realistic about optioning. You know, so you can have something that even has modest, say hardcover sales, but either does create an ebook is option, you get some money that way. Like every single book has been different. And so my first novel called The Deepest Lake, um, set in Legatitlan, Guatemala, mother-daughter story about a mother looking for her missing daughter. Um, it was chosen as a Barnes and Noble our monthly pick.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

And so it's my best paperback sales of my whole career.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Well, of course. I had the same thing, and on you're on every table, you have your own table in every store in the country for a month.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

It's isn't it wonderful? Right. Right. And so that's the discoverability, visibility. And doesn't mean I'm gonna get that one thing again, but now I do believe there's second chances, then third chances, then fourth chances. You know, if you can just keep writing what you really want to write and work with a good team, each book might have something different. Something might be made into a movie, something might be a uh book of the month club pick of some type.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Right, right. Yeah, and also just kind of not thinking so much about it, like because you don't those these are all the uncontrollables that we were talking about. Um, and you know, and also listening to advice. Like I think it's great. I I'm a big believer in writing for yourself, but I also know that when I'm done, it represents my best work for me at this point in time in my life. And now it goes to my agent, now it goes to my editor, and I know that they're gonna have things to say um that will help me make the book better. Um, and the people who I think eschew that advice are shooting themselves in the foot because you it's you were perpetually learning, and and things are changing in the market all the time. And so my editor might come in and my editor, like for my book coming out in November, the first draft of it was very different. And she had this comment, she's like, I really like this. She's like, I'm struggling, and I'm she and it was really a weird conversation because she called me and we were having a Zoom call about it, and she's like, I can't quite put my finger on it. And then she finally says, like, it feels a little bit masculine. Um, and I'm like, that's a fascinating comment, especially because the protagonist was female. Um, but I totally got where she was going with it, and I absolutely changed three-fourths of the characters in the book. I mean, it's a small cast to begin with. That's a way better book now. But I couldn't see that for myself. I needed somebody who's smarter than me with their with their finger on the pulse of the market to identify, you know, where it might be lacking. And so if we're not learning, we're just we're dying.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

I think that's a really great, great way to look at feedback. Um, because my experience is at agents, especially, but agents and editors, they're really good at putting their finger on a problem, saying something is wrong here, but not necessarily how to fix it.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

And even if they think they know how to fix it, I'm sorry, but often the way that they're going to prescribe to fix it is wrong, or your writing group.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

And so I think separating out those two things, saying, you know, one or one really smart reader, several readers have said something is wrong here. Absolutely pay attention. Stop. You know, if anything, I've learned to stop sooner. Like don't just keep, you know, powering forward, like stop and look at it. But the solution has to come from the writer.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Right. Well, and that's part of the game. That's part of the fun, too, right? It's figuring that out. I don't know how I'm gonna figure this out, but I know I will.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

And maybe the self-efficacy of I know I can, you know, not oh no, I just wanted somebody to love my book. I mean, we all I would we first get the email, you want somebody to say this is perfect, it's gonna sell great.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Don't change anything.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

But that doesn't, it never happens. I mean, I still cringe when I see that first, you know, those notes you get back from editors so much. And the difference is that before when I used to feel knocked down, I could feel knocked down for six months, you know, then it was one month, then it was one week, and now sometimes it's only a couple hours.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

You starting through, you're like, oh, and then a couple hours later you go, okay, I got it. I'm gonna make some notes to myself about ideas for how I'm gonna. And so again, for writers, if they're stuck in that place of this is so hard, it's like, well, why don't you say instead, okay, let myself feel the feelings, but can I shorten that period of suffering? Yeah, can I go from I feel like crap for a year to okay, I I'm gonna feel like crap for a week.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Right. That's and and the and and adopt the the flip side of that attitude, which is that excitement over knowing that the book's gonna be better. Um, you know, it's going to be work, it's gonna be hard to get there. I budget, I mentally budget one to three months of the time I know post in, you know, my agent is an editorial agent. So I make comments, I make changes from her, but just my editor alone. I'm like, this could be one to three months of work after every draft I give her, uh, every book that I give her the first draft of to get that, you know. Like, can I have a new subplot? I don't know what it is, but I feel like we need a subplot.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

I'm like, oh and I still feel frustrated that I can't go faster. I think if I would change something in myself now, I want to be more productive because I have no end of ideas. So I'm still like, oh, I wish I could get this done faster.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Yeah. But I think I think it's frustrating, but I do think depending on who you are, because I'm the same way. I'm not a fast writer and I don't write a lot every day, but I also know that that's my system and I'm preserving, I think, at least this is an excuse like giving myself, I'm preserving my voice. I because I can can't can you not feel that moment in writing? And for me, it's it's post one hour of attentive writing where I feel the diminishing returns. I can sense them. I'm like, I feel like I'm getting lazy, I feel like I'm getting frustrated or impatient. And if but if I can write within only just an hour, I I can hold that level of attention and excitement for my story. And I think that shows. So, you know, if I can write a book a year, I'm happy.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Oh, that's great. Consistency, I'm sure you'd agree, is more important than whether you whether you write every day or how much time is just whatever you find works for you. Can you be consistent about it? I should be. But so I'm so curious, Carter. You said that you figured out you were told that the book was too masculine. Can you give us an example of something you were able to change to make it less masculine?

SPEAKER_00 30:19

I I yeah, I'll I'll I'll spill the whole story, not the whole story, but kind of it's this is a home invasion gone wrong. And and the protagonist is the owner of the home, uh, female, a remote mountain home, um, population 300 in this town, and two days before Christmas. And how and so it's really just her and these three home invaders for the entirety of this book because they're all blocked in with a snowstorm. And the home invaders were three men who were mob connected in Philly, and they were looking for somebody who um was under witness protection. And they thought this was the guy's house. Um, and so they just simply have the wrong house. Um and so that, and so one and one of the points of view was from one of the guys because it was going to be his first kill. Um, so it was her voice and his voice. And I think the fact that there was this mob atmosphere made it more, you know, this is a book. I'm totally generalizing. This is a book maybe that would be more attractive to men because it's kind of got that language and stuff. And I'm talking to my editor on this call, and she's like, I just, you know, had those comments. And then I just it just in my head, I'm like, what if it was a cult? What if it was like a father and two adult kids? And she's like, I like that. I'm like, and I have my I have no ideas beyond that. That just popped into my head. Um, but then I was able to have the the adult daughter of this freakish guy, this cult guy, be the other voice. And so then it really it but what was amazing about it is I remember when I set out to write it, and I don't, I'm not big into messaging in my books, but if there's a message, it's usually in my head. Um, and this was uh kind of a rage against the patriarchy kind of a book. So this these men invaded this woman's house, and she just wants to be left the fuck alone. Um, but all of a sudden it became interesting because you had this daughter now instead of these three men, but there was a whole different level of patriarchy because her father was very controlling and kind of and I'm like, this just makes so much more sense. There's so much more duality between my protagonist and this and this woman, of this other woman, that it it just it just it was meant to be. And but I never would have gone that direction had my editor not had those instincts, even though she didn't tell me how to solve it, she knew how to react when I had a so I I I to me that whole brainstorming is one of the best parts of writing, even if it's collective brainstorming.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

I often wish I actually got more feedback and direction, even than I do. And I I have friends who are often with large publishers, they get pushed too much the other way. You know, they'll hand in an outline or something and they'll get no after no after no, because the publisher really has a firm idea of we want this last book to be followed by this next book. And and I have an agent and an editor who don't do that, but I would actually like even more of that. Um, I don't want to be told exactly what to write, but I often have multiple attractive ideas, right? You know, so I wouldn't mind if somebody said, well, between those two or three, here's the one I think we should.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

So do you not go to your editor? So and that this brings me to what I wanted to ask you about. You you've had this varied um experience and and and resume of different types of um output, right? I've just really across the board, which is and having that creative freedom freedom is amazing, but it's also difficult because how do we know what a dramata writes? Um, because she's doing different things. Now, last two books you said, suspense. When you you have all these ideas, are you pitching to your agent like to your point there? Like, I do have these three ideas. One of them suspense. What do you think? Should I go in this direction?

SPEAKER_01 34:22

A little bit, yes, with the agent, also with the editor, where I'll be saying, like, I already know my next one. I have, I won't talk about the next book. I'll talk about the next next book is horror, because for the first time I was writing a story that started out with psychological suspense, but it had a lot of supernatural in it. And we all know horror is big right now. My publisher has a horror imprint. I started reading more horror and I realized I want to have fun, I want to make this more horror. And this is the book that I'm catching up right now in a very messy, messy revision right now. Um, but then there's the one after that. So I started saying, okay, I don't want to keep if people think of me as now writing this more domestic kind of suspense novel, I want to give people one of those as well. You know, wait, should it come after the horror? But I also have this other idea that has some historical fiction elements in it. Should that one come after? So anyway, I don't get a clear answer. If anything, I I pinned down my edit last time. I saw a lunch in New York and I said, Okay, I have this and this and this. And here when I talk to book clubs, they seem excited about this, you know. And no, they they will not push me hard to just one thing. And so I have a different type of editor than a lot of people have.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

You do, you absolutely do, because and then there's also editors who will say, I love the fact that you're going to do horror. I'm not a horror editor, so you're gonna have to pitch that to somebody else. Um, you know, a lot of editors are very, very focused um in in in a genre, and so they might not um, you know, certainly, certainly if you're going YA or romance or something that's outside of the realm completely of crime fiction or suspense, but even horror, a lot of times, you know, adult fiction editors will be like, Yeah, that's we have people who do horror, but that's not what I do. Um, and that becomes a very hard decision, too. Um, but yeah, you're you're set up in a place that I mean it's great, but it's also a lot for you to kind of self-figure out.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

You mean too much freedom? They say that too much freedom is actually a problem with creativity. We often think it's the other. So I think I could use maybe a little less freedom. But I but I have to say, when I've been looking at this marketing piece, because we I even in your other podcasts, this multi-lane author question comes up a lot because the conventional wisdom is you can't sell as many books if people don't know exactly what you're giving them.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Um and you don't kind of repeat it. But I I have I I have a lot of problems with that. Um, I mean, just let me just take an example. Almakatsu was on your show, yeah, and I've just started reading her in the last year. Love her work.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

Yeah, she's great.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

And I think at one point on the podcast, she said, Hey everyone, don't listen to me, don't do what I did, because she jumped genres from spy fiction to horror. And she said, Never do this. She was saying that, but if she had not made that jump to horror, it worked for her, I would have never discovered her. I didn't even know she did anything other than horror. I was looking for horror and her name was coming up everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 37:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

And now I've just gone after listening to your podcast. I just went and bought her her spy book.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Yeah. Her spy book. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Because I actually do want to read. I'm like, oh, I already see her style. Now I'm curious. I don't usually read spy novels. I've never read a spy novel by a woman author. I've read John Le Carey, you know, but I want to read Almakatsu's spy novel. Yeah. So so there's all these flaws with that thinking. One of the flaws is, well, what if you don't switch enough times to find out the thing that you're really going to get compensated well for? You know, because you're like, no, no, I have to stay in my narrow lane. And then the other thing, um, Taylor Jenkins Reed is another example of that. And I haven't read her work, but she wrote different books before she wrote her breakout books that she's really well known for now. So if you don't make some of the jumps, you know, if I hadn't jumped to suspense, I wouldn't have had Barnes and Noble Bar a monthly pick for Deepest Lake.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Right. Well, totally. And right. And and even if you're within kind of a broader lane, you change your voice changes over time. I mean, I clearly see it in my own books. Like it's funny when someone's like, oh, you know, I want to buy one of your books. Which one do you recommend? I almost never identify, in fact, I can say I clearly never identify my first four books. Um, and I'm proud of them and I love them, but I'm like, I feel like that wasn't who I am now. Um, and so you do change, and people might like your last book, but might hate your first one because your voice is totally different. Um, but we're, you know, if if nothing else, we're constantly evolving, or hopefully we are.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

So so here here here's this new idea. I want to throw it out to you because maybe it'll say, no, that doesn't make any sense to me about this multi-lane author conundrum. I've been thinking a lot about actors, about actors whom we love and why we love them. When it comes to an actor, I think we're most impressed when we suddenly see an actor we love and they do something different. So, you know, you see an Adam Sandler and he's been in all these slapstick movies, and then he does, you know, an Oscar-worthy, dark, serious role. Um, he's done a couple of those. That's when people pay attention. Or I I mean, Meryl Streep. I mean, maybe that's an unfair one to even choose. She's so famous, you know. What if Meryl Streep was stuck in her career and she said, Well, I kind of want to do a fun movie where I get to sing or play guitar, and people said, You can't do that.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

You're gonna you're gonna alienate, you're gonna strange all the people who love Silkwood and out of Africa and whatever. And then so she didn't do the one that's uh Mamma Mia, or she didn't do the one where she's the rock star. So I think when it comes to actors, we identify them and we think, well, I I do sometimes want them to keep coming back to this genre I love, but I also want to see them in really different roles because that's when I'm really impressed. Don't you think we could at some point feel this way about authors and maybe things are changing as people are kind of connecting more to the author, that parasocial relationship, like, oh, I still want this author to come back and do my favorite things, but I kind of want to see them experiment as well and surprise me.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

Yeah, I don't think I I I I think it's an apt analogy. I think I think where the issues stem from is one the name of the author is the name, right? That's the whole book is that author, as opposed to a movie, you know, you might just be one bit player in it. I think the bigger issue is if I'm it's the time investment by the audience. I'm investing two hours, and this actor's trying to do something different, and maybe it worked, maybe it didn't. But if it doesn't, I didn't spend a month reading this book and then be like, this isn't for me. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's tough because if you do that too early as an author, I and I think you're probably an exception to this, but I think if you spread your wings too much as an author early on, you're never nobody can ever define you, which is kind of good. I get that, but it's also like you want people to associate your name with I see their, I know what who they are. Um, and if you're all over the place, no one can really nail you down. And I think that does become hard for the publisher, then to how do we how do we market this person? Marketing a book that's that's a multiple genre book is hard enough. Mul marketing an author who's really going from genre to genre, I think is even harder. Um, because they're trying to because that's why we see so many people change their names when they start writing in another genre, because they're afraid that, like, well, they're you're only known for and and that's usually more a bigger jump, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:10

Romance to horror would be like yes, or you might upset somebody because they don't know what this book is, they open it up and they're like, I didn't want this, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Well, yeah, and I just I just had this conversation with somebody who she's I mean, she's got like 45 books, and she's known primarily for cozy, right? And then she went dark, you know, went straight thriller, you know, language, violence, the whole nine yards, and it turned off a lot of people who are her readers, but and also all of a sudden people are discovering her. Uh, and they probably won't go back and read her cozy because that's a different audience, but it also stems from I mean, I think that kind of the basis of all of this is like, what do you want to do? Like, what you don't want to be an author who's just like, I'm tired of writing the same thing, like I need some creative freedom, I need to stretch my my legs a little bit. Um, I always think that one of the best examples I always think of is like John Grisham, because I I used to read him early on, and I just you know, good legal thrillers. I was always fascinated. And he comes out with a painted house, which is a period piece, has nothing to do with the law, and it was literary fiction, and it was beautiful, and it sold probably great because he was John Grisham. Um, and I'm like, for me, it was like the first time like this, you know, I always thought he was like maybe not the greatest writer, but great stories. And I'm like, this dude can write really well. Um, I think with the actor thing analogy, sometimes it's using your Adam Sandler example, and I know it's worked out for him because he can be a very compelling dramatic actor. I think the cynical audience will say he's just trying to get some kind of critical recognition that he feels he's lacking with his post.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

But then you go look up the Rotten Tomatoes numbers and he gets both critical and audience super high numbers for those series ones. And then he gets really low numbers for the slapstick ones. Right. Even though that's his ones where he's making all the money. And that's where he's making the money. And people still watch them and then they say, ah, I didn't like it for this reason. But they're still, you know, it's so, but I think you said the part that you said that did not occur to me was about the amount of time you're spending with it because I love looking at art forms and how they're different. You look at a painting, you might look at it for one minute. You listen to a song, three minutes, uh, movie two hours, used to be an hour and a half. I wish it still were. Um, movies are getting longer. Uh, and then books, you know, eight to twelve hours, maybe. Right. And so you're absolutely right that there's a different level of connection based on the time. But I still, the authors that made the biggest impressions on me early in my career were Ian McEwen, Margaret Atwood, Kazu Ishuro. And these are all people who have written literary, historical, speculative, mysterious, surreal. They there are some of the most literary authors out there, and they have just the thing is when they do it so well, they're not labeled with all those subgenre names. They're just called literary, you know, literary, and yes, you can use speculative elements in there, or she can.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

And so, and then you get to, well, I can't stop myself when I have a new idea and I'm excited about it. So I actually maybe, you know, I was saying, Oh, I wish my editor would say, do this one, do this one. But the moment I get infected with a new idea that I'm excited about, I just can't even stop myself. That's what I want to write, and that's what I write.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

And I think that's healthy. I think uh from a career perspective, you also have to be aware of the consequences of that. Um, because I've done the same thing and I talk about it all the time. My COVID book. Everyone had their COVID book when their brain was in a very different place, and a lot of people, myself included, were yearning for what we thought were better times. And so I wrote a kind of a coming of age thriller based in 1987, and you know, it was a struggle. I loved it. I it's one of my favorite things I've ever written, but it was it was received critically fine, but it didn't sell. It was probably one of my least selling books. Um, you know, my my publisher, you know, embraced it, but not enthusiastically. Um, and I totally understood, but it's you know, so but I'm like, I want to do this. This is important to me, and this feels good, and they were great about it. Um, but I see the evidence.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

You don't have you don't have regrets, do you? I mean, you said you loved it, it even got good critical reception. Would you say you have a regret?

SPEAKER_00 46:38

I do I don't have regrets, I will tell you, and maybe this is like speaking too much. I will tell you. So the following book was Tell Me What You Did, which was my breakout. And my agent said, Well, I can tell you now, but I was worried you weren't going to come back from the last book. Meaning, like maybe the publisher was going to drop me. Maybe I can, you know, if I can't write something that sells more copies. Um, but every everything everything's a risk.

SPEAKER_01 47:09

So I mean that's this is this is my my first agent, one of the books that she panned after I'd written a quarter of it. She said, This book will be the end of your career. This is so many books about that's a great word for the front cover. On the back, but it was only because the main character was a writer, and the thinking back then was that you cannot write a book with a main character who is a writer. Well, now we've had so many. I mean, we already had at the time. I used to be a little bit more than a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 47:38

I mean, Stephen King's written a ton of them.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

There's so many, and there's been so many, even lately, so many thrillers that are about publishing authors over and over again. So I still think that was ridiculous advice. I think she was completely wrong. So, yes, we should listen, but they don't know. I mean, if if publishing people knew what sold books, then we wouldn't have, you know, only five percent of the books making a lot of money, right? I mean, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

And that's also kind of not only is that frustrating, it's also a little beautiful. I love that that it's so unscientific. There's something profound about it, meaning like there's magic that's just in the ether somewhere. And once in a while you might dip a toe into it, and you nobody knows when that might happen. And the best is always can always be yet to come with the publishing industry. You don't ever peek, you know. I just I that's one of the things that I think is so magical about this business, and and makes up for all the uncertainty and all the frustrations.

SPEAKER_01 48:38

Um, as long as you stay in the game, and again, I think it's important because you can be you can get very fearful and feel like, okay, but I can't lose my age and I can't lose my publishing house. But you can. I mean, I know so many writers.

SPEAKER_00 48:49

And you will like change, that's the nature of the business.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

And they'll have one self-published book, and then they'll have a big publisher, they'll have a smaller publisher. And so that's the next thing is starting to think about as a career, not getting so panicky about each book. I feel like I've been both underrewarded and frankly overrewarded. I feel like I've gotten sometimes paid more than they should have paid me, honestly. Yeah, and then I've even gotten better reviews than I should have gotten, and the other way. And so I feel like there's this sort of karmic evenness if you just see it as a really big picture.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

I agree. Well, Andromeda, we're gonna wrap up, but now is is the time that you've been waiting for, which is the storytelling part of the book.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

Yeah, you're thinking, why is she talking so much?

SPEAKER_00 49:28

It's to avoid she's she's avoiding. I've got um three books here. Um, we're gonna pick one, we're gonna pick a random sentence from a random page, and okay, I'm gonna read that sentence as you know, and then we're just gonna go back and forth for a couple minutes. I'm trying to get my cat.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

My cat is like I did really badly in school. I was a terrible student. I think it's this is what this is gonna feel like.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

Oh, wow. This is like the SAT test. Um, I've got Stephen King's Just After Sunset, Book of Short Stories, uh uh A Canadian, Hannah Mary uh McKinnon's uh Never Coming Home. And Philip Roth's The Human Stain. So kind of a diverse group of books here.

SPEAKER_01 50:09

Okay, I can't do Philip Roth. That's that's uh but let's do Stephen King. Let's do Stephen King somewhere around page 70. Even though it's short stories, which may throw us off, but we're only gonna get a couple of things.

SPEAKER_00 50:22

We can do whatever we want with it. Um I'm just gonna read the first sentence on this page, and you can do whatever you want with it. He drew the knife away, and although her peripheral vision couldn't quite pick it up, she felt a tiny seed pearl of blood blooming there.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

Dad, do you understand who I am? I'm your daughter. Can you see me? I'm your daughter.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

She didn't hear him, or he didn't hear her, she knew. He was sleepwalking again, and there was nothing more horrifying than when his hulking frame would appear as a shadow in her bedroom door. But never before had he had a weapon, and never before had he said the words he told her.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

Gina, Gina, he said. That was not her name. It was not her mother's name, it was not her father's first wife's name, she had no idea where that name, Gina, came from. And yet he said it with such anguish in his voice that even though he was holding a knife to her neck, she felt great sympathy for him. Who was this Gina? What a stupid name. I don't know why I said that name.

SPEAKER_00 51:52

He repeated the name over and over again, and finally his free hand slid over her mouth, so she couldn't scream, she couldn't cry, she couldn't even try to reason with him. And he said into her ear, Gina, it's okay, I'm gonna get it out of you. Just let me get it out of you. We're going hurt.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

At that moment, she heard footsteps in the hallway. She almost wished that her mother had not heard what was happening because it was bad enough that one of them was going to be hurt. Now it was going to be two of them.

SPEAKER_00 52:38

Oh, I think we leave it there.

SPEAKER_01 52:40

Okay, I and I think she left it on your part, but anyway, that was fun.

SPEAKER_00 52:43

That was creepy. I there was I loved the last the weird thing that occurred to me. This is a weird off story. I when I was in my 30s, I decided I wanted to learn guitar for whatever reason. And so I had this guitar teacher that was very interesting, great guy. He and he eventually committed suicide. Oh. Um he was he he had mental issues for sure. And he had told me once how he was in the shower one day, and he just was consumed by the idea that there was something in him. And he he used a knife to try to get it out. And I mean, so creepy. And that's immediately what I started thinking is like, what if you have what if the dad is actually trying to save her, but his his mind is twisted.

SPEAKER_01 53:35

And that's and that's very Stephen King defined empathy for that person, you know, instead of just having a villain out there, it's somebody that you really, really care about.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

Right. The best thing about a villain is somebody who's convinced that they're doing the right thing.

SPEAKER_01 53:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 53:50

So yes, well, that was a pleasure to uh hang out with you and to talk to you and uh to hear about your beautiful little island uh life.

SPEAKER_01 53:59

Are you gonna be a voucher con in Calgary?

SPEAKER_00 54:02

You know, I'm not this year. I I my book is out just after that, and I'm just you know, it was more of a financial decision than anything. Although I've never been to Calgary and I would love to go. And I'm not, I think next year it's in DC, which is not super appealing to me, but like um, you know, so I I I always commit every year to Thriller Fest because I work with the the debut authors there, but voucher con's kind of like is my publisher going to be there? Do they want me to go? Kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_01 54:30

Um, but I I've never been to Thriller Fest. Yeah, I'd like to go to Thriller Fest once. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 54:35

Oh, it's great, it's great, it's not cheap. That's the I think that's the biggest struggle I think a lot of people have with it. You know, just by default, you know, you're when you're in New York City, it's it's going to add up. So, but hopefully we will get a meet in person.

SPEAKER_01 54:49

Yes, we will. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

All right. Happy writing. I'll talk to you later.

SPEAKER_01 54:54

Thank you. You too. Bye-bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 54:58

All right. That is it. That is my conversation with the dramata Romana Locks. Um, it was a good one. I told you her journey is fascinating to hear about. Um, highly prof prolific, has a million ideas in her head at once, um, and coming out with very different types of books, um, all at a very high level. So I I I love talking to her, and I hope I get a chance to meet her uh in person someday. You can read about her most recent book, What Boys Learn, at her website, which is romanox.com, R-O-M-A-N-O-L-A-X.com. And if you want to pre-order my book or sign up for my newsletter, you can head on over to my website, CarterWilson.com, to do that. And if you're interested in any of my writing coaching through Unbound Rider, or if you're interested in our Parisian suspense writing retreat with Alex Finlay, Clemence Machelon, and special guest Riley Sager, head on over to unboundrider.com. We are now open for registration uh for our retreat, which is will be in Paris, uh, Paris, France, not Paris, Texas, uh, May 3rd through 6th, 2027. So check that out. Um, all right, friends, that's it. That's it for this episode of Making It Up. Thank you so much for being a part of this. And we'll be dropping another episode just next week. Take care.