Ep. 248: Patti Callahan on How to Know What Your Characters Want

Patti Callahan is a New York Times bestselling author and is the recipient of the Harper Lee Award for Distinguished Writer of the Year. She is a frequent speaker at luncheons, book clubs, and women’s groups. Surviving Savannah is her most recent novel. 

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Transcript:

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

[00:00:15] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #248 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. Today, I am talking to Patti Callahan. I know you’re going to enjoy the interview. We were talking about how to know what your characters want. And for me, this is always one of the bigger challenges about writing my books. It takes me a while to really, really know what my characters want. I can come up with a great idea, but as I write, things always change. And I always, I always forget that my characters have wants that are different than, you know, Rachael Herron’s on a general day. So, that is something I would have to work on in revising a lot. So it was fun to talk to her about this. I know you’re going to enjoy that. 

[00:00:59] What is going on around here? Well, I am, if you are watching on the YouTube, I’m in a new spot, I’m in a coworking spot in Idaho. We’re here for one week, seeing my wife’s family. And it has been awesome and challenging. A lot of family in the house. I think we have eight people in the house now, six of us sharing one bathroom. But it is a house full of love and it is really wonderful. Yesterday, Lala and I, there were only three of us who wanted to raft down the Boise River and what that means is actually, just kind of like tubing down the river. It’s a very slow, very cold, very shallow river at this point, I kept swearing myself in the river. But I would whack my knees on the rocks at the boulders at the bottom of the river, because it was so shallow, but I really wanted to cool off. And it was just me and Lala and our 12-year-old nephew who ended up wanting to go and it was so fun. It was a moment of remembering that, when I want to, I get to let go of control. And I am kind of a control freak, you all know that, in so many ways. And so of course, I started out the day. 

[00:02:20] We want to be in the ideal position in the river. We want to be ahead of those people behind those people. I don’t want to hear them talk. I don’t want to have to have conversation with these strangers on the river. So let’s, you know, fight our way there. And eventually I ended up giving my paddle to the 12-year-old nephew and he became the best river guide. And it didn’t matter when we crashed into trees and the banks of the river, it didn’t matter.  It was just fun. I just got to hang out in the middle of the boat in the 96-degree weather, repeatedly throwing myself into the snow water and then climbing back up onto the boat. There was this one brilliant moment that I will share with you. Every once in a while, the river would speed up. And we would have like these tiny little rapids, which were very fun to scream as we went over. And you know, the eddies would swirl and the water would get a little rougher. And I had put myself in the water and I was, you know, the boat was towing me because it was a little bit deeper there and a little bit faster and it was exciting. And then I realized it was getting shallower, but really, really choppy. And I was getting banged around on the rocks, you know. If I had stood up, it could not have been higher than my thigh, really. But, kind of freaked me out and I wanted in the boat. I couldn’t get in the boat, because now the boat is going really fast and I’m having a very hard time hanging on to it. Everybody in the boat, Lala and Isaac are, they’re busy. They’re busy doing other things, but I needed somebody to help me up and I was really terrified in this delicious adrenaline. This is life or death, must get back on the boat, screaming. Lala was trying to haul me up my knee. My nephew hits me in the head with the paddle which was hilarious. And I managed to get on board gasping and I’m lying in the bottom of the boat, gasping and howling with laughter because the adrenaline pumping my system said that, yeah, you almost just died and, reality said that, had I let go of the boat and stood up and walked to shore, it would have been just fine and they would have pulled the boat over and I would have either walked down over to them or swam if I could, but it was not deep enough really to swim. So it was just this really delicious moment of fear that was laced with a hundred percent knowledge that I was completely fine. And it was just so great.

[00:04:39] So we’re having adventures like that. And the reason I’m telling you about that is that, I was writing this morning and I was beating myself up for not doing more writing while we’re here, while the house is full of eight people. And I can only use this coworking space for a little bit of time at a time because it’s expensive. And I was trying, for the last few days, I’ve been trying to get work done in the house. And I am interrupted all the time by people who love me, who want to talk about things. And I just had the major revelation, of course, the realization, that I should have had a few days ago, which is it is okay. I am not going to be the most productive writer for the next nine days. We’re in this country for nine more days. We are going on a big tour of after we leave Idaho going around California, seeing people and saying goodbye to them.

[00:05:31] I’m not going to get that much work done on my current projects. I have a couple that are really, really invested in working on, and I’m letting that go. I’m going to call this maybe like a little vacation. And for this workaholic, that is hard to do. There are some things, there, I’m just going to ask myself to keep on top of a few things. My email, which is hard for me to do, but I put on the vacation responder that says, I’m moving to a different country, responses will be delayed, and that helps me feel better. And I’m going to keep on top of the two classes that I’m teaching because that’s easy and fun and I love doing that. And I’m going to try to keep on top of my slack messages and everything else, I’m going to let go. I, yeah. I just thought I probably will not be able to do a podcast next week. I might do a mini podcast, Q&A, because I’ve got a cup full of questions from darling Maggie, which is a song. And I might do that and put that out next week, but I might also miss a week in here in the next few weeks and that’s okay. We have to adjust with life. And I personally, I like to talk to you all a lot, but right now I’m talking to myself. I have to take a moment and chill out and enjoy this exciting moment in our lives. There’s enjoy embarking upon this adventure, which we are already in the middle of. 

[00:06:55] So that’s what I’m doing. I’m giving myself that permission. What kind of permission do you want to give yourself or do you need to give yourself? Do you need to give yourself the permission to push yourself to write a little bit more than you are doing? Or do you need to give yourself permission to read a little bit less than you are trying to make yourself do? Where are you in your life and in your capacity to get your work done? There are times in our lives where it is easier to get more work done and when it is harder. If you are spending all your time watching Netflix and TikTok, that’s a different conversation.

That is time you could be spending writing. However, if you’re just busy living, moving, grieving, whatever it is, be kind to yourself. You have to be kind to yourself as a writer in order to do this really difficult work. I think that if I have one rallying cry, one mantra, when I am talking to writers, it is that to be kind to yourself and be honest. With my students, I always talk about how I am always two things. I’m always kind, and I’m almost always honest. Those two things go together perfectly, beautifully. We can be kind to others and we can be honest to others. And we really importantly, have to be those things with ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I’m very good at lying to myself. And I lie about all sorts of things to myself. You know, I’m going to get more work done tomorrow, or it’s really important that I get this done today. And those are sometimes just big lies that I get to uncover and say, no, it’s really okay if I take a day off or conversely, no, you’re really slacking Rachael. That is actually slacking that you’re doing. That’s not resting. That’s slacking. So why don’t you do one Pomodoro, get that done. And then of course that usually leads to more, but I’m letting myself off the hook. I’m not doing Pomodoros for at least the next nine days or until tomorrow morning when I panic and forget this resolution and hopefully remember it. 

[00:09:05] Besides, tomorrow morning, I’m going for a swim at the Y with my father-in-law, then I’m going to go get a pedicure with four of my family members. And then, we’re going to go down the river again because the family saw the little TikTok video that I made of my nephew boating us down the river while singing a song. He was making up at the time in his beautiful voice. We had this little gondolier, who learned while we were out there, how to steer a boat. You could see his body shifting and assimilating and understanding what happens when you put the ore that way, what happens when you put it that way? And by the end, he was doing all of it and Lala and I were just relaxing, staring up at the blue sky. So, ask yourself, where in the river you are, what kind of paddling you should be doing. And I hope that, at some point you come back and find me, tell me about it. 

[00:09:59] I am getting ready to send out a Patreon message pretty soon here. So, if you’re not on my Patreon, you can always check into that. I’ll do a little mid-point read of that in a second. But I would like to thank new patrons, Jenny Grant. Thank you, thank you so much. Appreciate it, Jenny Momsen, that’s a Jenny Day. Thank you. Thank you. Miley, editing her pledge up. Thank you. Thank you, Miley. Irene Scoonwinkle. Hello, Irene, wonderful to have you and Diana Ben Aaron. Same. Wonderful to have you. Claire Lydon edited her pledge up. Thank you. Boy, I love it when you guys do that because not just for the money, the money is fantastic. Thank you. It supports me in doing this work for you. However, when you edit a pledge up, it just is like this added load of confidence that you’ve been around for a while and you’re doing that. So, I don’t know, it just warms my heart. And thank you, Tyler. This, that you’re pledge just came in. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you to everyone at every single level in Patreon. It means the world to me. All right, I’m going to finish up doing some work around here. And then I’m going to take tomorrow off and the next day and the next day. And, I hope you were very kind and very honest with yourself, wherever you are when you are listening to this. All right. Happy writing my friends.

[00:11:20] Do you wonder why you’re not getting your creative work done? Do you make a plan to write and then fail to follow through again? Well, my sweet friend, maybe you’d get a lot out of my Patreon. Each month, I write an essay on living your creative life as a creative person, which is way different than living as a person who binges Netflix 20 hours a week and I have lived both of those ways, so I know. You can get each essay and access to the whole back catalog of them for just a dollar a month, which is an amount that really truly helps support me at this here, writing desk. If you pledge at the $3 level, you’ll get motivating texts from me that you can respond to, and if you pledge at the $5 a month level, you get to ask me questions about your creative life that I’ll answer in the mini episodes. So basically, I’m your mini coach. Go to patreon.com/Rachael R-A-C-H-A-E-L, to get these perks and more. And thank you so much!

Rachael Herron: [00:12:19] Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show today, Patti Callahan. Hello, Patti.

Patti Callahan: [00:12:23] Hi! I’m so happy to be here. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:25] Well, we were just talking, before we got started on era about how our paths had missed crossed and I got sick and you were double booked and it was, so this is perfect timing today.

Patti Callahan: [00:12:35] I believe in the right timing and this is it.

Rachael Herron: [00:12:38] We do. Let me give you a little bit of an introduction here. Patti Callahan is a New York Times bestselling author and is the recipient of the Harper Lee Award for Distinguished Writer of the Year. She is a frequent speaker at luncheons, book clubs, and women’s groups. Surviving Savannah is her most recent novel, which just came out. And she’s got another one coming out called Once Upon a Wardrobe, which comes out in a few months after this, and we’re recording this in April of 2021. So, no matter where you are in time, Patti has a book that has just come out around when you’re listening. So, Patti, obviously, you are prolific, you get your work done. But I can’t wait to talk to you about Surviving Savannah too, because it’s got some really heavy research involved in it too. Before we go into the research world, how and when do you get your writing done? 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:31] I think we broke up just for a little in bit. Okay.

Patti Callahan: [00:13:33] I write in the morning.

Rachael Herron: [00:13:35] Okay, so, you’re a morning writer. 

Patti Callahan: [00:13:38] I’m a morning writer. So, when I first started writing, I, my kids were five, three and one. And so, the only time I could write was the morning, right. Or the middle of the night, and I’m not a middle of the night person. So, I would rise it on. I would write from before dawn, I would write from 4:30-6:30 in the morning. I don’t do that anymore. I think that’s crazy. But it was what I had, and so it began this morning routine, that, that is now what I do. So, I try to keep my mornings blocked off for the writing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:13] What is your morning routine look like nowadays? What is included in it? 

Patti Callahan: [00:14:18] Well, my kids are grown. They don’t live at home. Well, they did during the pandemic. That was actually kind of fun. I have one, one married with a baby and then two, one in graduate school and one in college. So, they were home. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:31] Oh, how fun.

Patti Callahan: [00:14:32] I know, but it, my routine looks like, I rise, I stumble to the coffee pot, I sit down and I immediately start. Sometimes on my better days, I do my morning pages, which is from the artist’s way. I’m a big believer in morning pages. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:48] I still do those every day, every day that I can. Yeah. 

Patti Callahan: [00:14:51] Yeah. I mean, and I can tell, can’t you tell when you’ve gone too long without doing them? 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:56] Absolutely.

Patti Callahan: [00:14:57] I can tell. I get a little ungrounded, I rush into my work and make mistakes. So, I try to take a little bit of time, even if it’s like not the full three pages, but half a page or, and then I try to dive into my work. I try to ignore the ding of the email and the, you know, the text messages and the to dos. And yet at the same time, the earlier I get up, the better I can do that. And then I look up, and the day is, the rest of the world is going. So, I try my best to do it that way. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:32] I love that. That is also my perfect way to do it. Although, sometimes it gets, 

Patti Callahan: [00:15:37] Harder and harder

Rachael Herron: [00:15:38] You know, if you glance at an email once, you’re, especially around release, when you’re doing all the things, I’ve got a release in two weeks as we speak.

Patti Callahan: [00:15:47] Which one comes out in two weeks? Hush Little Baby?

Rachael Herron: [00:15:49] Hush Little Baby. Yeah. I just got the poster in the mail today, actually. So,

Patti Callahan: [00:15:53] It looks fantastic. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:54] Thank you. 

Patti Callahan: [00:15:55] Yes. And during release, I didn’t even try and write. I mean, I’m gentle with myself. If the two weeks before the week during, you know, if I can get to it for a couple minutes and just touch base with it and say, hello, honey. I’m here. I’m not leaving you. Right?

Rachael Herron: [00:16:11] I’ll be back. 

Patti Callahan: [00:16:12] I’ll be back. I promise. Just like I tell my family, but yes, in a non-release world, that is my, the way I like to get it done. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:24] I really like those words that you just said too. I’m gentle with myself. How did you, I feel like that’s one of the late things we learn as writers. At least for myself. I can say that I’d beat myself up for so long. And, 15 years into the game, I’m only learning how to be gentle with myself as a writer. How did you learn that? Or are you learning that? 

Patti Callahan: [00:16:44] I’m learning it all the time. I think you know that it’s a bit in the artist’s way for sure. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:48] Yeah, that’s true. 

Patti Callahan: [00:16:50] It is. It’s a bit about remembering that it’s play. It’s our inner child. She says who’s doing the writing? We use our mental faculties in our craft, you know, to hone it. But if we’re whipping ourselves, like get to work, get to work, you haven’t done enough. And self-fragilation and trying to, you know, you don’t get to go out tonight, you know, like we’re the parent. I don’t think that that makes, and it’s not that I don’t do it because I do, but I think it doesn’t make for whimsical, creative, deep dive writing, and that’s the kind I want to do. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:32] That’s really, really beautiful. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing?

Patti Callahan: [00:17:39] Time. Honestly. Even with the pandemic, I think. I love writing. I love it. So, I want to do it. Now, I get frustrated and I think I don’t know where this story’s going and I, you know, want to pull my hair out and give up and start a different story, but I always want to start something like, I want to work on something. I love writing. And so, the blessing of having books in the world, as you know, is that you have to spend time on them. You don’t throw them into the world and then walk away from them. So, it’s just like everybody thought you sent your kids off to college and that meant empty nest and all was well. Are you kidding me? 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:25] It never ends.

Patti Callahan: [00:18:29] But it never works, it’s fiction. So, we have a weekly show and we have a podcast. And so, you have to find, you have to be deliberate. I know you do too or you wouldn’t have a book out in two weeks. You have to be deliberate about the time. And I honestly, that’s my biggest challenge is honoring the time for that and not checking that first email and then it’s over for the morning. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:56] Yeah. Checking that first dang email. So, I love, I love hearing how much you love writing. What is your biggest joy when it comes to writing? 

Patti Callahan: [00:19:06] Oh, gosh, it’s when it works. I think it’s, it’s like a drug, right?

Rachael Herron: [00:19:10] Yes, it is!

Patti Callahan: [00:19:11] It’s what we come back for. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:13] Right. 

Patti Callahan: [00:19:14] And it doesn’t work all the time, but once in a while it hits and you see a connection or you find the right word or you boom! That theme of the novel, like explodes and you’re like, that’s what this is all about. And those are the moments, once they happen to you, that you come back for and it might take another year until you have another one of those moments, but they happen or you’re just driving along and you see the connection that was there all along that you didn’t, that you already wrote into the novel, but you didn’t see it yet.

Rachael Herron: [00:19:50] I love that. I wish we could go find that. And I was just struck, you know, cause I’ve had dogs for many years and you know how they teach us about intermittent reward with dogs. You don’t want to treat them every time they do something right and I think our books do that too. And that’s what keeps us coming back. Sometimes, 

Patti Callahan: [00:20:06] Oh that’s so funny

Rachael Herron: [00:20:08] Sometimes we get the dopamine hit and then most of the time we don’t, but every once in a while, we get that big blast.

Patti Callahan: [00:20:11] Oh, I love that! Exactly. You’re exactly right.

Rachael Herron: [00:20:16] Oh, great. Can you share a craft tip of any sort with us? 

Patti Callahan: [00:20:21] Sure. When I get stuck, when I’m frustrated, when I don’t know where I’m going, aside from technical plot issues, like, should I make it, you know, alternating timelines? Or should I go chronological? That’s not what I’m talking about. But, when the story is sledging for me, like we’re in the, you know how it is, you get to the middle, you’ve left the shoreline, you can’t see the other shoreline, you’re in the middle of the storm is coming. Ship metaphors never get old, right? It’s never. 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:55] It’s true. 

Patti Callahan: [00:20:56] And, you know, my book is about a shipwreck. But it is, what does your character want? So elementally, that you can see it for them. I don’t want to know what your character wants vaguely. I don’t want to know that they want a love or that they want. I want to know that they find an example. They imagine themselves standing there while their father brags about them. Right? That’s a lot different than they want respect. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:28] Right.

Patti Callahan: [00:21:29] So, the more specific you can get with what your character wants, and it can be as simple as in my book, Surviving Savannah, they want to survive the shipwreck, right? That’s what the book is about in the historical parts. Then of course, their wants grow, you know, after survival. But, if you know what they want, then you can, or you’re getting a sludgy middle, if you can touch point back to their deepest desires, I think that that’s my biggest piece of advice.

Rachael Herron: [00:22:12] It’s brilliant. And on a technical level, how do you keep track of what they want? For me, it’s one of those things that I’m always in that middle, where I could have even written the whole book, since I write such terrible first drafts, that I realized I forgot what they wanted. What do they want? Do you keep track of it somewhere? Do you look at it from time to time?

Patti Callahan: [00:22:20] I do. I didn’t use to, but as, that’s why I’m such an evangelist for this writing tip is because it has changed the way I write. So, I do, and I spend a lot of time on it. I write what they want. I write why they want it. And I’m not big on character sketches, like, oh, she has blonde hair and blue eyes and her mom was mean, and that they grew up on 507 Merwin road, like I don’t do that. But I do spend a lot of time on what does she want? Why does she want it? Why can’t she get it? What are the things she believes about herself that are keeping her from getting it? I do. I write those down and then, I sometimes, not all the time, give them a personality profile from either that ENFP or enneagram.

Rachael Herron: [00:23:13] I love using the enneagram. I don’t understand it at all. I’ve never really studied it, but I’ve just recently got into looking at all of the things and assigning characters to them. Oh, it’s so fun.

Patti Callahan: [00:23:36] It’s so fun.

Rachael Herron: [00:23:33] Oh, we’re a little bit frozen here. 

Patti Callahan: [00:23:36] I think we’re unfrozen. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:37] Okay, good.

Patti Callahan: [00:23:38] Okay. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:40] Something you said there, super rich and deep. What does the character believe about themselves that is keeping them from getting that goal? That’s really rich and juicy.

Patti Callahan: [00:23:53] Yeah. Like, you know, if their mother told them they were unlovable. They are, deep down, going to believe that even though the one thing they’re wanting is for this one person to love them, right? I mean, that’s a very general statement, but yes.

Rachael Herron: [00:24:08] I love stories about mothers and daughters so much. I’ll just read any story about mother and daughter about any kind of love at all. That’s a fantastic

Patti Callahan: [00:24:15] Maybe all stories are about mothers and daughters. 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:17] I have a theory that they are. I try to write books that aren’t about that and they all come back and,

Patti Callahan: [00:24:21] And they always end up the same thing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:23] Exactly, exactly. So, what thing in your life affect your writing in a surprising way? 

Patti Callahan: [00:24:31] I don’t know if surprising but sleep. If I don’t, if I have a terrible night’s sleep, my brain is sludge and that’s really hard for me. And the whole day I’m thinking I’m going to get a really good night’s sleep so I can write tomorrow, you know? So, when you first said that, that’s just like, but bing!

Rachael Herron: [00:24:53] I love that.

Patti Callahan: [00:24:54] In my head, yeah.

Rachael Herron: [00:24:56] Are you normally a good sleeper or is it something you struggle with? 

Patti Callahan: [00:24:58] No, I’m normally a good sleeper, although I need a lot of it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:03] And that there’s nothing, there’s nothing to be ashamed of in that. I find I am smartest after nine hours of sleep, but I’m a bad sleeper. So, to get that is really, really hard. 

Patti Callahan: [00:25:11] Yeah. Well, when I have a lot of my mind, just like any normal person. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:16] Yeah, yeah. Oh, that’s awesome. Okay. So what is the best book you have read recently? And why did you love it?

Patti Callahan: [00:25:22] Oh, wow. So many. I love so many, I don’t even know which one to say. Can I pick up a few?

Rachael Herron: [00:25:28] Yes.

Patti Callahan: [00:25:30] Okay. So, I’m madly love Paula Mclean’s new one, which is called When the Stars Go Dark. Paula is the one who wrote the Paris Wipe and she changed genres and this is a thriller. She’s a really dear friend of mine and it was a brave thing to do and it hit the list this week and it’s really, really good. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:47] Oh, I can’t wait. 

Patti Callahan: [00:25:49] And, I got to read an advanced copy of Chris Bajalian’s new one, comes out in six days. It’s called Hour of The Witch, set in Massachusetts in the 1600s. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:03] I am signing myself right up for that one. I’ll read anything by him.

Patti Callahan: [00:26:07] So good. And, I also just finished on audio of The Midnight Library.

Rachael Herron: [00:26:13] I loved that.

Patti Callahan: [00:26:14] Obsessed. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:15] Yeah.

Patti Callahan: [00:26:16] I was like, what’s she going to do? What’s she going to do? What’s she going to do?

Rachael Herron: [00:26:19] He was on the podcast a while back and I was just like, yeah. He’s so interesting, he’s so kind and friendly, and I just, I’m still obsessed with that book. I can still feel myself kind of living inside the library. 

Patti Callahan: [00:26:34] Ah, so great. And I can tell, and maybe I shouldn’t do this, Rachael, but I could tell from that book that he was a soulful kind person. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:45] Yes. Yes. Yes.

Patti Callahan: [00:26:47] Because you can’t write with that kind of depth.

Rachael Herron: [00:26:51] Yeah.

Patti Callahan: [00:26:52] Unless you had been through some things and knew, I don’t want to give anything away but, yeah.

Rachael Herron: [00:26:58] Oh, what a wonderful way to put that. I think that’s really true. 

Patti Callahan: [00:27:00] I’m so glad that he, that you say he was like that I’m dying to talk to him. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:05] He lived up to the hype, lived up to the hype. But, like you are proving, whenever I love a book, I have always had authors live up to their books. I’ve never had, they’ve got, I mean, I’ve been doing this for four or five years now and I’ve never had one person who I hang up and go, oh my God, that was horrible. You know, I’m so disappointed in her and her book now. It’s never happened. So, let’s talk about your wonderful book, Surviving Savannah, and I would love it if you would tell us, tell the audience, because I already know it, but tell the audience a little bit about where you got the idea for this book and what this book is about. Let’s just lay it, lay it on us. 

Patti Callahan: [00:27:37] Okay. So, what this book is about, plot-wise, is the explosion of the steamship Pulaski on June 14th, 1838.

Rachael Herron: [00:27:48] Which I had never heard of.

Patti Callahan: [00:27:50] Crazy and, and listen. Untold story, lost a time story, that is like catnip to an historical fiction writer. It rings every bell, ding, ding, ding, ding, you know. So, when I discovered how untold it was, as they called it the Titanic of the south. And when I discovered that in this area I love so much and where I am, which is in, near Savannah, Georgia, and Bluffton, South Carolina, that, that it had been lost to time. I would write about it. The way I found out about is that a local mariner friend of mine told me about it, but he told me about it three times before I finally decided to look into it, and that’s because I kept saying the world’s stupidest thing. I kept saying, I don’t write about shipwrecks. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:46] Oh my goodness.

Patti Callahan: [00:27:47] Like I had this preconceived idea. You had to be like Nathaniel Philbrick to write about shipwrecks, right? And so, then I started looking into the families and I was like, well, that’s what I write about. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:00] Yeah.

Patti Callahan: [00:29:01] And I found this fascinating family, but I was three weeks into writing it, and not even writing it, just researching it. Is this something I want to do? Are there some characters I want to follow? There are 200 passengers, which are the two passengers worth following? When I stumbled on a headline that a shipwreck hunting crew had found the ship. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:22] Just, just coincidentally, right then at that time.

Patti Callahan: [00:29:26] Three weeks into research. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:27] Fantastic.

Patti Callahan: [00:29:28] Boom!

Rachael Herron: [00:29:29] Your, I mean, how did that feel?

Patti Callahan: [00:29:32] Chill bumps head, starting in your scalp, down your neck, you know. So, I just dove in deep. It wasn’t very research intensive. It was years. But it is a dual timeline where we follow a modern-day woman who is curating an exhibit for the things they’re finding at the bottom of the ocean. And then we followed two historical characters who are related and they’re related to the family that we follow. And the reason I chose them is because, number one, the main character is based on a very real person and a very real family. And the family was intimately connected to the ship. Her brother was the owner, stockholder and financier for the ship. And he had taken his wife, his six children, his niece and his sister on this journey. So, we follow his sister in the historical part of the story. 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:31] Let’s just point out too, that by choosing them, the stakes, the stakes go up. 

Patti Callahan: [00:30:37] Yes. 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:38] So high because of who they are. They’re not just. 

Patti Callahan: [00:30:41] Right. 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:42] They’re not unrelated to this boat.

Patti Callahan: [00:30:43] They’re tied, they’re intimately tied to the boat and they are intimately tied to the history of Savannah as a city.

Rachael Herron: [00:30:50] Yeah. Yeah, which is so deep and rich to your heart too and it shows, and it shows in the writing. 

Patti Callahan: [00:30:57] Thank you. Thank you.

Rachael Herron: [00:30:58] Yeah. So I would encourage anybody to go out and grab that right now. And can you tell us just like a one line or two about Once Upon a Wardrobe, coming out in October?

Patti Callahan: [00:31:05] I would love to. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:06] You probably haven’t talked about this one too much recently.

Patti Callahan: [00:31:07] I know. Can you see me looking up into the right? 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:10] What’s that book about again? 

Patti Callahan: [00:31:14] It comes out October 19th and it is set in the year 1950 in Oxford, England, and Worcester England. And it is November, 1950, which is the year that the book, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, came out. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:30] One of my favorites. 

Patti Callahan: [00:31:31] Yes. And so, a little boy named George, is very ill and his sister, Meg, is a student at Oxford University. And George is obsessed with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, as most of us are. And none of the other books are out yet. So, there’s not a whole Narnia world. And he asks his sister to find C.S. Lewis because he teaches at her college and ask him where did Narnia come from. And she doesn’t want to, because she’s a math major and a physics major and a genius. She’s a prodigy in mathematics and physics. But she does. She tracks down Lewis and says, where did Narnia come from? My brother needs to know. 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:17] Patti. I am, it’s a good thing I know you’re a publicist because I’m going to start knocking on her door for an arc so that I can review.

Patti Callahan: [00:32:26] I can get you one, don’t you worry about that.

Rachael Herron: [00:32:28] I’m also obsessed with CS Lewis. I had a strange thing about him when I was a kid that even though I was, you know, 10 years old, I was reading mere Christianity because I just loved his language and wanted to be with him. So like all of my spidey senses are tingling. Now I just got to read that next.

Patti Callahan: [00:32:42] Well, you know, I wrote a novel called Becoming Mrs. Lewis. 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:47] No, I don’t know this.

Patti Callahan: [00:32:49] There. 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:50] Oh, I see it. Gorgeous. 

Patti Callahan: [00:32:51] It is, It’s about his wife, it’s about his wife, Joy Davidman. 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:54] So, you are also obsessed. How did this, how did that obsession come to you? Is it from Narnia?

Patti Callahan: [00:32:59] So, I was just laughing because when I give my speech, you know, Joy, the story about his wife, Joy Davidman came out two and a half years ago, came out in 2018.

Rachael Herron: [00:33:09] Grabbing that as soon as we hang up.

Patti Callahan: [00:33:10] And whenever I’m on tour, about her speaking about her, which I do a lot, cause she’s incredibly fascinating. She was an American poet novelist. Is that I was 12 years old when I picked up the Screwtape letters and I don’t recommend that anybody read the Screwtape letters when they’re 12 years old.

Rachael Herron: [00:33:35] I read them all. I’d read it.

Patti Callahan: [00:33:37] I grew up, I’m a preacher’s kid. Yep. Yep. Yeah. So our house was covered in those books. Yeah. You can see them all behind me right there. 

Rachael Herron: [00:33:46] So you just got that voice inside your head early and it, and it stopped.

Patti Callahan: [00:33:50] Yeah. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:33:51] Oh, that is so exciting. Okay. Patti, I know what I’m doing after we hang up is that one clicking. So, thank you so, so, so, so much for being here, tell us where we can find you on the internet.

Patti Callahan: [00:34:02] Oh, everywhere. Put in my name and you will find me. I have a website, PattiCallahan  P-A-T-T-I Callahan, C-A-L-L-A-H-A-N, and my website has loads of things on it. It has book club kits and photos. And for the ship for Surviving Savannah, I have pictures of the dive and the artifacts, and I have a book club kit that has the timeline of the night and all kinds of interesting things. 

Rachael Herron: [00:34:28] Very cool. 

Patti Callahan: [00:34:29] I’m pretty active on Instagram and Facebook. Not very active on Twitter. I’m not good at the Twitter.

Rachael Herron: [00:34:35] You don’t need to be, it’s a garbage campfire.

Patti Callahan: [00:34:38] I just can’t. I get lost in it. And I don’t know how to say anything in 40 or I don’t know. So, I’m out there. I’m easy to find. 

Rachael Herron: [00:34:48] Patti, thank you so much for such a delightful conversation and for your writing.

Patti Callahan: [00:34:53] You, too. 

Rachael Herron: [00:34:54] It was wonderful talking to you and I wish you happy writing.

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.