Ep. 255: Lisa Scottoline on How To Demystify Writing

Lisa Scottoline is the #1 bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author of thirty-three novels. She has over thirty million copies of her books in print in the United States and has been published in thirty-five countries. Scottoline also writes a weekly column with her daughter, Francesca Serritella, for the Philadelphia Inquirer, which has been adapted into a series of memoirs. She has served as President of the Mystery Writers of America and has taught a course she developed, “Justice in Fiction,” at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, her alma mater. She lives in the Philadelphia area. Eternal is her most recent novel. Set in Rome, it asserts that what war destroys, only love can heal.

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 #255 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. So thrilled that you are here with me today, I really, really am. I always am, but especially today, because I am talking to Lisa Scottoline. And let me tell you, I worship this woman, I did before we spoke. And then it was really hard to get our schedules to align, when her publicist reached out to me and, but I was determined. So I turned into that annoying pest, who was like, can we try again? Can we try again? It took months to get this interview and it has been months since I recorded it, since we’ve been moving and everything. But I am as excited about it as the day we spoke, she has, it’s such a dynamism and such an incredible way of looking at writing and how to satisfy the market that you create for your writing. And she kind of demystifies some aspects of writing, and I literally could have talked to her all day. So you are going to love that. 

[00:01:21] What’s been going on around here? Still in New Zealand, still in the same house, outside the town of Russell, kind of in the middle of nowhere. Like I said last week, we are on this little inlet in the bay of islands. There are four houses on the inlet and only one of them has a person living in it. Luckily, he’s next door and he also has a puppy. So we get to see a puppy sometimes. We get to play with a puppy and the puppy is darling. It’s a little border Collie-Springer-Spaniel mix named Fur. But otherwise, there’s no one around, we don’t really talk to Fur’s owner either, we just kind of wave at him. The only really object we’ve been talking to that is not each other is Fur. I have found, in captivity, that I really, really love long walks. And this is something I knew about myself, but where we lived in Oakland before for 15 years, there was no place to walk. I could walk, I could go down this one street and then up another street, and then I could kind of walk in circles around these blocks, but there were just a lot of places in my neighborhood that were not at all conducive to safe walking and I couldn’t. And I just can’t stand the idea of driving somewhere to go walk. And right now, legally in New Zealand, you can’t drive somewhere to go walk.  But here, I can just leave the house. We have this bush walk, if you’re looking at the YouTube video, there’s these stairs, you can see behind me. It goes straight up through the bush, just as big hill that we’re on the other side of, up to the main road. And then I just walk out on the main road. Most days that I walk, I don’t even see another car, let alone a person. I did see a person once and they had a dog named Marshmallow. Again, I don’t know the person’s name, don’t care, but the dog’s name was Marshmallow and she was adorable. And I’ve been taking these long walks in the middle of my workday. 

[00:03:14] I think I mentioned last week that I have this new improved schedule that allows me to take this long walk and a long lunch and 30 minutes to read in the middle of the day. And it’s just been feeling pretty wonderful, which is good because Auckland and North of Auckland, which is where we are, we’re in the Northland, has been put on, has, is going to remain on level four lockdown, the highest lockdown there is for at least the next two weeks. South of Auckland, they’re hoping to go to level three, which is the point at which restaurants can open and you can get takeout. So I’m very happy for the rest of New Zealand starting on Tuesday, that there’ll be able to get takeout again. That’s probably the thing I missed the most on lockdown. I can’t remember if I mentioned this last week, but it’s really interesting. We’re not spending any money except on rent and groceries, on our Airbnb rent and groceries. We cannot order anything online because we don’t have an address here. This house doesn’t have an address. We cannot go to restaurants, they’re all closed. We have no other bills, which is an amazing feeling. We have our cell phone bill and that is it. We paid cash for the car. We were paying rent to the Airbnb and we have our cell phone bill. And that’s pretty, it was really low because it’s cheap here and that’s it. That’s all we’re paying for. 

[00:04:36] So that’s been kind of nice and, and yeah, and we’re stuck legally. We cannot leave this house for at least another couple of weeks. And I have to say, that while my heart is broken, that New Zealand is struggling with this, and it is very expensive of the country. I read somewhere that it costs like a billion dollars a day to shut down, I can’t quite believe that. And I did see it on Twitter and it was not from, it was just from a person saying that to me, I have not researched that number, but it does cost New Zealand so much money to shut down like this, to lockdown like this at such a severe level. But that is how they got rid of COVID the first time they had it, and that’s why we’re doing it now. And the cool thing about it is that when they got rid of COVID the first time, and then had a more than a year of not having COVID, their economy rebounded completely to the place it was before. They didn’t have any kind of recession. They didn’t have any job loss over the long-term. It all came back. So, that’s hopefully what this nation is doing right now. And I’m really proud of it and I’m happy to be part of it. And there’s a tiny part of me that says, Oh, my gosh, Rachael, you’re so, no, there’s a huge part of me that says, oh my gosh, Rachael, you’re so lucky. And there’s a tiny part of me that says, should you be feeling this much joy and being able to walk by the ocean every day for weeks? And that tiny voice I would like to say, yes, it is okay that I feel joy about that. That is marvelous. How lucky are we to be in this position, in this amazing place? So, just feeling a lot of gratitude as usual. 

[00:06:17] Also, I’ve been getting my work done, people. I’m 18,000 words into the 90 Days to Done book. And it’s so fun to write, sometimes nonfiction, especially writing about craft, writing about writing. It doesn’t feel like writing to me. It just feels like play. Fiction is often hard for me. Memoir is often hard for me. Writing is just hard, period. It’s hard work. But writing about craft? So it’s just so yummy. I’m loving that. Really quickly, quick thanks to new patrons, Louisa Brooke Holland. I have Hollins and my family and my New Zealand family actually. So thank you, Louisa and Nene Cohen. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining over at Patreon and becoming a supporter of me and of the show. It means I get to write those essays about, right now, I’m writing about moving to New Zealand and there’s a new essay going to come out probably within a week or so on entering New Zealand for a week and then exiting New Zealand into the lockdown because it really does feel like we’re staying at a beach house in Mendocino. We are not interacting with new Zealanders except once a week, when one of us goes to get groceries at the grocery store. Otherwise, we could be anywhere. So did we move? I saw California coil on my walk the other day. That was like, did we move? Did we actually do it? Yes, we did. We also, I’ve seen so many birds, the Eastern Rosella, it looks like this little tiny parrot wearing a leopard print cape. Even if you’re not into birds, look up the Eastern Rosella, R-O-S-E-L-L-A, because it is the cutest thing!

[00:08:05] Okay, I’m not going to burn out on you. We’re going to talk about writing and we’re going to talk about it with Lisa Scottoline, and you are going to love her as much as I do. Please enjoy this interview and may it inspire perhaps a 15-minute or so burst of writing on your part. If you’re getting none done, if you’re getting a little done an extra 15 minutes, an extra 30 minutes, those little minutes, add up. I’m 18,000 words in. I started this book a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve just been doing three or four, 25-minute Pomodoros a day, less than two hours of writing. That’s what can happen when we reliably sit down and do our work. So, it’s not good work. It’s not great work. It’s actually bad work. It’s going to require lot of revision, but it’s words on a page and that’s our only goal. So let’s listen to Lisa talk about that and happy writing, my friends. 

[00:08:58] 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!

[00:09:57] Rachael Herron: Well, I could not be more thrilled to welcome to the show today, Lisa Scottoline. Hi, Lisa!

[00:10:02] Lisa Scottoline: Hello, thank you for having me. I’m so thrilled. 

[00:10:05] Rachael Herron: I have been looking forward to this for literally months. 

[00:10:09] Lisa Scottoline: Well, I’m a fan of yours as I just told you. So this is just super and I’d love to, I really want to encourage people to write. So this is great to be talking in this way and hopefully we’ll be encouraging some people and get some new voices out there!

[00:10:21] Rachael Herron: Absolutely! Oh, you’re exactly the perfect person to be on the show.

[00:10:25] Lisa Scottoline: I am the perfect person! I keep telling everybody that. 

[00:10:30] Rachael Herron: Let me give an introduction for this perfect person because she is.

[00:10:33] Lisa Scottoline: Go ahead.

[00:10:34] Rachael Herron: Lisa Scottoline is the #1 bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author of thirty-three novels. She has over thirty million copies of her books in print in the United States and has been published in thirty-five countries. Scottoline also writes a weekly column with her daughter, Francesca Serritella, for the Philadelphia Inquirer, which has been adapted into a series of memoirs. She has served as President of the Mystery Writers of America and has taught a course she developed, “Justice in Fiction,” at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, her alma mater. And she lives in the Philadelphia area. Eternal is her most recent novel. Set in Rome, it asserts that what war destroys, only love can heal. And I have got to say, so. I have a few things to say. And then I’m just going to ask you so many questions.

[00:11:19] Lisa Scottoline: Go right ahead. Ask me anything. Poke away.

 [00:11:22] Rachael Herron: Number one. Again, thank you for that blurb that you gave for Hush Little Baby. It-

[00:11:28] Lisa Scottoline: It’s terrific book and you deserve it. 

[00:11:30] Rachael Herron: Thank you. Thank you. I’ll just say that. Thank you. Number two, Eternal. Holy cow! So Rome is one of my favorite cities in the world. Venice is my favourite city, but Rome, 

[00:11:41] Lisa Scottoline: Venice is super cool. Agree, agree.

[00:11:43] Rachael Herron: You just can’t, you just can’t not love.

[00:11:44] Lisa Scottoline: I know, I know, but kind of Leon has Venice, so I gotta get. 

[00:11:47] Rachael Herron: She sure does love Venice. But, Rome is one of those places that my mother actually taught me to fall in love with. I, we were there and I always kind of thought of Rome as a little bit dirty, a little rough around the edges. And we saw it that way, but in the most incredible way that on every level of every surface in Rome, there is history built in and you captured that so incredibly well.

[00:12:12] Lisa Scottoline: Thank you, thank you. Well, I really wanted to, and Rome is dirty on every surface. I love it! You got to love the grit, man. You can’t walk there in sandals because like you’re wearing Roman sandals and then you filth all over your toes, but I kinda love it. It’s, everything about it is so real deal. And I really wanted to capture that as a backdrop in Eternal, as you know, it’s a love story against the Italian fascism. So, but that’s about the book, but yes. 

[00:12:38] Rachael Herron: So how did you get to know Rome so well? Is it a place that you’ve lived for a long time and go back and forth through? Or did you?

[00:12:45] Lisa Scottoline: It was more than I knew about. I love it. I’m Italian-American. I’ve been there a couple of times. And when I found that about the sort of true life event that I felt really, 

[00:12:53] Rachael Herron: I don’t know anything about 

[00:12:55] Lisa Scottoline: I didn’t know anything about it either! And when I learned that I was like, this is like a story that needs to be told. And then I, for 30 years, it was eating me up. And, the Italian Holocaust I learned about in college. And then I said, I gotta write about this someday. So it was really more that the story needed to be told and that occurred in Rome which, you know, besides being the seed of Roman Catholicism is also home to the oldest, continuously existing Jewish community in Western civilization. I was like, okay, girl, you’re going to try to write historical fiction now. Go!

[00:13:28] Rachael Herron: How do you get that done? How are you so prolific and where and when and how, and why are you driven by the muse? Are you driven by, you know, put your blood in the chair?

[00:13:38] Lisa Scottoline: No, I love your podcast. I mean, I think, and I love that you’re dealing with these nitty gritty. Like I looked at some of the titles, you know, this kind of, are you writing a chapter that you know you’ll take out? Yes, I’ve done. I think it’s really good. It’s so important to me that we demystify writing, because if you just love books and you’re just a normal person and you see them on the shelf and you devour them and you’re like, how do you get to write one of these? What is publishing? And I had such a struggle early on, I’m into so much rejection. And I do think there’s a bit of snob isn’t that people sort of put the drawbridge up and I frigging hate that. So I love that you are breaking it down to the nitty gritty and really, like granular as everyone is saying now. But the truth is, and I think you do point this out in your podcast, it’s very individual. Everybody does it a different way and every way is right. So I forget your question, but I think it was kind of like, how do you write?

[00:14:33] Rachael Herron: How do you write?

[00:14:34] Lisa Scottoline: You just go, you being, look, I’m very insecure. So I’ve written like 35 novels and like nine memoirs. And the answer is, be not afraid. I just say to myself, be not afraid. And I have a lot of dumb sayings, like you would think I was like on Friday night lights, a little coach of myself. 

[00:14:54] Rachael Herron: I love that!

[00:14:55] Lisa Scottoline: I love Kyle Chandler. 

[00:14:57] Rachael Herron: He’s the perfect man. 

[00:14:58] Lisa Scottoline: He’s so hunky. So, I’m like, okay, get it down, then get it good. I have sayings. I read all of Anne Lamott. I love Stephen King’s book on writing. I returned to those and particularly as a writer, you’re trying to try something new. So whether you’re starting out with maybe people listening to this are, or you’re like me, you have a 30-year career going, I really want to write historical fiction and this might be either career suicide or super cool or kind of both. But then it turns out that it worked out and the book’s doing great and the reviews are great. So, but I tried, I just was a newbie, and I am a newbie, and we all are. We all sit and, right? We all, look at your face, just cute, I want people to see this face. Right? We all sit in front of that blank page and go, I’m a huge, you know, Stephen Sondheim fan, you know, we made a hat! Like, okay. Wow! Who knew? And you just start, I’m very behavioral about that. We can talk about that and you just ask away or I’ll just give nonstop lecture and people will go, oh my God, I’m glad she’s not my mother. 

[00:16:01] Rachael Herron: Gosh, I wish you were my mother. So you talked, you talked briefly about experiencing a lot of rejection, which when people look at a very prolific, successful, excellent writer, we don’t see, we don’t see rejection. We see like, she’s the queen. She has it all. It’s always been easy. We all know it isn’t easy, but, how did that rejection shape the kind of writer that you are now today?

[00:16:28] Lisa Scottoline: Well, first of all, I’m a count your blessings person. So, and I was very broke and a single mom. A broke single mom, which is kind of redundant, so a little bit. I don’t have, I come by gratitude very honestly, I feel it. So it’s not like I have to remind myself and I do think it is humbling to sit down in front of the computer. That’s why I love that people who just starting out, I want them to know that I feel the same pain they do, we all. And you can look at any novel. I mean, I read all the time and there’s plenty of times I read books and go, okay, you’ll never write a sentence that good. Like you could have 85 drafts and you’ll never write a sentence that good, but at the same time, let’s be real. I’m from Philly, we keep it real. There’s plenty of times I read books and go, dude, you need to work a little harder. This is not, it’s not good enough. Or why does everybody like this? Why do I, why? You know, so the point is this. We all just sit down and try our best. And I think that the key thing that people have to understand, because it applies, you can write it large, like, wow, you look successful so you have everything together, which we all know is not true, but it’s also that you look at a final copy, but you don’t see a draft. 

[00:17:36] Rachael Herron: You don’t see the shitty first draft that was the worst writing ever. 

[00:17:40] Lisa Scottoline: You do not see the damn amount time. You’re not giving- Jesus, give yourself permission to write the shitty first draft. And I always go back to Hemingway in this, where he goes: Write drunk, Edit sober. It’s the only quote with approval by Hemingway. But that I, enough already. We get it. You shoot things. You’re cool. I like that you have to encourage yourself to get out of your own way and let yourself get the story out because I don’t write with an outline, you know. People say, do you know how it ends? I don’t even know how it middles. Like, are you impressed yet? It’s just horrifying. And it’s scary and it’s nerve-wracking. I mean, do you write with an outline? 

[00:18:14] Rachael Herron: I write knowing, usually the inciting incident and the midpoint and that’s about it. I would love to write with an outline, but I just, I’m bad at it. I just, it always takes off on me and I can’t control it.

[00:18:25] Lisa Scottoline: I get, totally get that. And I also think I would not love to, cause I think it would be kind of boring. Like it would be like Madlibs, like, oh, this is the part where I fill in this part. And you’re like, what? I don’t want to do that. 

[00:18:37] Rachael Herron: I love it when my writing leaves my jaw on the floor, just because I’d never saw that turn coming. Like, are you, they’re brothers? I didn’t know that!

[00:18:47] Lisa Scottoline: That’s so funny. I know this will sound you get disco, but you know that it’s not because I am. So, Eternal is out now, and it’s an audio book, which I love audio books. And so I got it. And it’s interesting cause I’ve never really, even in part, listen to my own audio.

[00:19:00] Rachael Herron: I’ve never. I don’t think I could read.

[00:19:01] Lisa Scottoline: Yeah. I never. Thirty some novels, never happen. But I’m still in love with this book. And I was like born to write this book. So I listened to it. I want to be in this world still. And you realize that it’s a performance that has nothing to do with your book. Like I can say this is a great audiobook because it’s their performance. In any event when I’m listening to it again, having written this book one at this point, like a year and a half ago or two years ago, ago. Oh, that worked! Oh, that worked! Completely surprised. Like, and I think writers do that a little bit. Like you, I mean, I find that maybe just I’m divorced twice like I have huge powers of denial. Like people, your husband’s no good. I’m like really? I think it’s kinda nice. So what I’m trying to say is I can like read a book, like I haven’t written it so I can go back to your draft and go, what is she doing? This sucks, like make this better. And it’s really just the coolest job in the planet and I really want people to go for it if they want too. But no pressure.

[00:19:56] Rachael Herron: No pressure, no pressure. 

[00:19:57] Lisa Scottoline: No presh, no presh.

[00:19:58] Rachael Herron: What’s the hardest part of writing for you?

[00:20:00] Lisa Scottoline: The hardest part is every day, because you go, well, if you don’t have an outline, how do you construct a book? So the hardest part is what would happen next, which is what you, the characters do next and that ends up being the plot. And that ends up being a characterization and it ends up being a voice, all three, all at once. And you know, like I always thought writers, like you sit and fuss over the verb and all that. And I think people make that mistake. But when I do my first draft, it’s not a mistake later. It’s, but it’s a mistake and get it done, get it down. You have to get it down. So you cannot polish your little precious verb child, you need to just figure out what the hell happened. And that is very, very hard. I have a hard time with that. I, here’s my tricks to answer it though, if you want to know. 

[00:20:48] Rachael Herron: Yes. Please.

[00:20:49] Lisa Scottoline: I want to tell all my trade secrets.

[00:20:50] Rachael Herron: Yes, please.

[00:20:51] Lisa Scottoline: Okay. First off: a. train your brain. Try to read a lot, read a lot and try to put your phone away when you’re writing. You cannot be distracted. You can’t get that little hit of dopamine. Look, I’m a Twitter freak. I love it. But you got to stay off it. So then you, that will get you through the part where you’re going to be frustrated and you can’t look away. You look away, then you’re off the hook. You need to persevere. And so sometimes I will, one thing I do every morning is I lie in bed, I live alone. I sleep with four dogs. Now you know way too much about me. But they’re very used to this. So I just lie there and I think what just happened in my book, cause I find that I’m fresher in the morning. It won’t come at night sometimes. It’s kind of diminishing returns. And I work with the word count, which we can talk about. But I say to myself, okay, now be in this moment, think about these characters. What would they do? And I talked to myself or I write it down and I get up and write it into notes. And then I had, then all of a sudden, I’ll wake up or I take a shower. I don’t shower much, but I shower when I need to know what would happen next.

[00:22:00] Rachael Herron: Cause we’re writers, we don’t shower. 

[00:22:03] Lisa Scottoline: Yeah, we don’t shower. I’m not wearing a bra for you. I really like you when I’m not wearing a bra for you. 

[00:22:07] Rachael Herron: Well, I’m only wearing a bra because I’m in the co-working space because my house is torn up. But that’s the only reason. That’s why

[00:22:12] Lisa Scottoline: Oh, I thought this was your house! This looks nice.

[00:22:14] Rachael Herron: No, this is no, the house is an absolute chaos. So I have so many questions for you. Okay. So what kind of, when you’re writing a first draft, what kind of word count do you like to push? I know this is unique for everybody, but what kind of word count do you like to push for daily?

[00:22:27] Lisa Scottoline: Well, I’m lucky enough for this is my full-time job. Although even if it’s your full-time job, because I had this job when I was working part-time three days a week, and I will tell you that I finish a book in the same amount of time. So I can’t explain that. But, so don’t think it’s all Nirvana, but you know, when in any event, my word count is 2000 words a day in first draft. I have to do it no matter what. I start at nine, I, you know, fought around my house and then I usually will, it’s about 11 pages, it’s something happening. 

[00:22:58] Rachael Herron: Something happening.

[00:22:59] Lisa Scottoline: The thing that happens. There’s one thing and it happens and it’s about a chapter.

[00:23:04] Rachael Herron: So good!

[00:23:05] Lisa Scottoline: Right? And I’m not allowed, I saw one of the previous podcasts on, you know, are you a slave to word count? Yes, I am a slave to word count! I am, because I think if I gave my, I’m very lazy and I don’t have good self-control. So I know if I let myself off the hook, I would be off the hook. And also, I pay my bills. I’ve always supported myself on my living on this living and my daughter, I mean, until she grew up in is now a novelist herself. So, what I’m trying to say is 2000 words or bust. Sometimes you finish at seven o’clock. Sometimes you finish it two in the morning. Here’s the other good part: These words can suck. They probably will. It’s just what happened next. And E. L Doctorow has a great quote. My daughter taught it for me and I’ll butcher it now, but the idea is something like, you may not know like your route across the country, but you can get there on your headlights. And that is a really good image because you can’t go far, but you don’t need to go far. You only need to go 2000 words. And for me, it can be 500 words. It can be a hundred words. For people who are still working and not just only writing, do 50! Because I honestly, honestly think that when you start your brain on this track, your brain. Girl, your brain comes through for you. It works on it when you’re not thinking about it. It works on when you’re walking the dog, right? You’re nodding. 

[00:24:32] Rachael Herron: But only when you’re consistently touching it. If you put it away for a couple of minutes,

[00:24:34] Lisa Scottoline: Exactly!

[00:24:35] Rachael Herron: It’s not working anymore. It’s, the brain is also lazy.

[00:24:38] Lisa Scottoline: And also the other thing happens, which is emotional, but for me, fear builds up. 

[00:24:41] Rachael Herron: Yeah.

[00:24:43] Lisa Scottoline: I’m like, you didn’t know what you’re doing. You can’t write historical fiction or you can’t, who are you kidding? Look at these big thick books, these ladies, right? You can’t be one of them, you know. Can I be one of them? I don’t know if I can. And I thought this was bigger in scope for Eternal. There’s like three families instead of just one. And it takes place over 20 years and I’ve never done that. I’m very bad also moving time in novels. I never can do that. I’m always like, my books take place in three days. So anyway, there was a lot of challenges, but we all feel the challenges every time we sit down and I really want people to hear me say that because it’s really, really true. 

[00:25:18] Rachael Herron: You ever had one of those gift books that came easy? 

[00:25:22] Lisa Scottoline: No. Oh no, no, no.

[00:25:26] Rachael Herron: They’re all, they’re all hard. They’re all hard in their own way. 

[00:25:30] Lisa Scottoline: I’ll tell you the good thing though. When I, when it gets happy and easy is when I’ve done the first draft. Isn’t that great? 

[00:25:38] Rachael Herron: I’m the same way. I love revision. I want to revise. I would pay, 

[00:25:40] Lisa Scottoline: Me too.

[00:25:41] Rachael Herron: I’m not kidding. I would not actually do this because I think I could probably hire somebody to do it, but I sometimes wish I could hire somebody just to write the shitty first draft.

[00:25:50] Lisa Scottoline: I know! I know. No, I feel the same way. And I’m in a bad mood in first draft and I live alone, that’s probably why. But I’m anxious because I don’t know what’s going to happen and it’s my job and I have to come through and all they’re not even (inaudible) you know, that stuff. And, when I have a good story, then I’m like, girl, smoke a cigarette. I don’t even smoke. I want to start smoking just to write, just to edit and smoke. I feel so proud of myself and happy. And then I just go, oh, well, what I really do is I say justify yourself. And this book was hard because there were, I handed in a thousand-page manuscript, which isn’t total insane.

[00:26:28] Rachael Herron: Oh, my god.

[00:26:29] Lisa Scottoline: I know, I know, I know. And my editor was really,

[00:26:32] Rachael Herron: Who is your editor?

[00:26:33] Lisa Scottoline: He’s Mark Devani at Putnam, and he’s wonderful and I’m new to him and he’s new to me. And I’m like, you’re going to get fired Lisa, this is it. Ba-bye! But he called me, I love the book, says a lot. And I think the book needs to begin on page 300. And as soon as he said, I said, oh, damn he’s right. And then that very night, I just tore the whole thing up. I’m in my office now, put it all over the floor. I don’t have a lot of room in the floor and I just did what I did to a second draft, any re-draft, which I said justify yourself to every sentence and every chapter and every everything. 

[00:27:09] Rachael Herron: I’m writing down, justify yourself.

[00:27:14] Lisa Scottoline: You know, like I saw one of the podcast titles was about your inner critic. I think of it secretly as inner bitch. Like it’s the person who undermines you only it’s you. Great. I’ve had 10 years of therapy, can you tell? And I know I was like, don’t silence that person, that’s when you need that person. You need that person to go, you said that already. You don’t need to say it twice. You know, all this stuff that, or that verb could be a little more active or, 

[00:27:40] Rachael Herron: It’s that first, we’re trying to shut up in the first draft. It has to come back.

[00:27:44] Lisa Scottoline: Exactly. You have to invite her in. You have to say, she’s going to be your friend, the second draft. The first draft, she’s a bitch. And you do not need her around.

[00:27:52] Rachael Herron: She needs to be out with your cellphone in another room.

[00:27:55] Lisa Scottoline: Exactly! You need the person that goes, Lisa, you’re so good. You can do anything. That’s my mother’s voice. My mother’s voice was the, oh my God, you can do anything. But I was a, it’s not good enough. 

[00:28:07] Rachael Herron: Are you that kind of mother to your daughter? 

[00:28:09] Lisa Scottoline: I am, you can do anything. I’m crazy about her and she’s great. 

[00:28:14] Rachael Herron: I haven’t read any of your mother daughter stuff and I, that’s my next, 

[00:28:17] Lisa Scottoline: Well, I’ll send you her novel. Her novel’s called Ghost of Harvard and it’s wonderful and just was nominated for best, first novel by Internationals Thriller Writers.

[00:28:24] Rachael Herron: Don’t send it to me. I will buy it. I will buy it with my dollar. Oh, that’s so exciting. 

[00:28:29] Lisa Scottoline: But it’s really cool.

[00:28:31] Rachael Herron: Let me ask you, what thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way?

[00:28:34] Lisa Scottoline: Every single thing affects it in a surprising way. I’ve had so many downturns. I’ve had a lot of, you know, agita as everybody does, you know, everybody gets it. I think it surprises me that I can wall that out. This pandemic has been really difficult and that was a real test for me because I know people were ill and I just felt like for the whole world, I do think that when you write enough and you read enough, when you read enough, it does make you more empathic. And I’m kind of a mush ball to start with. And this was hard to screen out. So I was more distracted. I just am writing a thriller now and I was more distracted than I’ve ever been. It was hard. It was hard. But now I finally got my groove back, but look, we’re people! But you still have a deadline to make and luckily, I make my deadlines.

 [00:29:22] Rachael Herron: You say you write 2000 words every day. Is that five days a week or is it seven days a week?

[00:29:25] Lisa Scottoline: Seven days a week. 

[00:29:27] Rachael Herron: You do seven days a week!

[00:29:28] Lisa Scottoline: I have no life.

[00:29:32] Rachael Herron: You know what, I’ve tried doing seven days a week and my little inner rebel just kicks up a total fit and I have to take weekends off.

[00:29:38] Lisa Scottoline: Well, you’re young and you have a life. And the truth is, you know, I look at the, over the arc of my life, which is, as I say, I was a single mother. So it was all about her and she’s great. Now she’s growing up. She’s 35. And what I’m trying to say to you is that for most of my life, she always came first. So I picked her up and I wrote while she was at school and I picked her up and then I stopped. So, in a way, and I think most women, when you get to be my age which was just 65. Like you’ve given so much, honestly, and I’m fine with that. It was all my choices and I’m delighted. I have a wonderful daughter and we’re super tight. But now it’s my turn. That’s how I view it. So this is like, I get to write and I get to read and I enjoy having, I don’t enjoy writing, but I enjoy having written and I love editing. So, 

[00:30:25] Rachael Herron: Where do you fit in all of the authorial work like the emails and the writing podcasts and things like that. Where does that fit into your life?

[00:30:35] Lisa Scottoline: I do, I, first off, I’m a good delegator. I’m great at foisting off work on other people. 

[00:30:42] Rachael Herron: Teach me how to do that. 

[00:30:46] Lisa Scottoline: Well, I’m, I do, my publicist in-house is terrific. And I do have one and I’ve started to work with my best friend now, who was my original publicist. And when I could afford to, I hired her as well. 

[00:30:42] Rachael Herron: Your bestfriend is your publicist? I love that! 

[00:30:46] Lisa Scottoline: I know. She’s my, she works for me. So I have my in-house publicist and I have my best friend, Laura. And I also, well, like right now, we’re talking at the end of the day. My morning time is kind of inviolate because if I’m just a baby and I find if I get a late start, then I start finding excuses and I can’t do that. I just can’t do that. I think it’s really good for people to learn to say no, particularly women, because I say to them, do you want to hear my little thing that I say? 

[00:31:32] Rachael Herron: I want to hear everything you ever said.

[00:31:33] Lisa Scottoline: You can even shut me up. Like, you’ll be up, we have to go

[00:31:35] Rachael Herron: We’ve only got six more minutes, but I want to hear everything you’ve ever known. 

[00:31:39] Lisa Scottoline: This is everything that I say to myself every day. This is the most important one. You know how, if you envision like the movie, The Others with Nicole Kidman or any old Gothic movie where they’re running around some big drafting house in the dark and they have a candle and they have that’s lighting there, and they put their hand in front of the candle like this. And I always say to myself, you have to protect your candle. The candle is you. Your candle is what you want. It’s what you want! You want to be a writer, do it. You want to be a geographer, do it. You want to be an Erica Bach, do it. You want to write historical fiction, frigging do it. The world will not want you to. The world will go, but you need to get back to me. And I wrote you an email and you didn’t text me back. And by the way, you have to pay your mortgage. All of those things that grownups have to deal with that are not fair, you have to protect your candle. So 

[00:32:30] Rachael Herron: I think that’s the most beautiful phrase I’ve heard in forever.

[00:32:32] Lisa Scottoline: Thank you. I like it. I made it up myself because it’s hard to say no, it sounds so negative. Then I started to say to myself and I said it to my daughter. Every time you say no to someone else, you’re saying yes to you, but even that’s a little too ugly. But when I saw that movie, I was like, you’re protecting and it’s not the book, it’s you. 

[00:32:52] Rachael Herron: It’s you, and if it goes out, if you move too fast and go around a corner and you don’t protect it,

[00:32:57] Lisa Scottoline: Exactly. You need to protect it.

[00:32:59] Rachael Herron: Now you’re, now you’re doomed.

[00:33:00] Lisa Scottoline: That’s right. You go too fast. Go around the corner. You can. You’re allowed. 

[00:33:05] Rachael Herron: I have goosebumps.

[00:33:07] Lisa Scottoline: Oh, you’re so sweet. You’re lovely. I know we’re going to be like that. 

[00:33:10] Rachael Herron: I knew you were gonna be like this, too, seriously. I was bugging your publicist so much.

[00:33:14] Lisa Scottoline: Oh God, you should’ve just written to me directly. 

[00:33:16] Rachael Herron: Oh, no.

[00:33:17] Lisa Scottoline: That’s me delegating too much. 

[00:33:19] Rachael Herron: I actually, I have a beautiful, wonderful assistant and I love delegating to him and he’s a friend also.

[00:33:25] Lisa Scottoline: Yeah, that’s it. We’re very, very lucky in that because we can’t write and also work with administrators too much. 

[00:33:33] Rachael Herron: Yeah, I’m just, yeah. I’m thinking about all this stuff I have to do later. This is the best part of my day by far. Can you tell us about Eternal for the people who have not read it? 

[00:33:43] Lisa Scottoline: Oh, we don’t have to talk about that.

[00:33:45] Rachael Herron: Oh, yes, yes, please.

[00:33:46] Lisa Scottoline: No, it’s, I always try to say it short, it’s a love triangle set in fascist Italy. And it’s about these three friends who love each other. And I was like, how are they going to, how will this girl gets to choose between these two great fictional men? This was my fantasy for a year.

[00:34:03] Rachael Herron: That’s a really good one. 

[00:34:04] Lisa Scottoline: I thank you. I’m like, how would she choose? I don’t know. I’ll just fantasize about men for a year. But it really, you know, it really raises these issues of a family and law and justice and all that stuff. And I think that’s what made me comforted because I said, Lisa, you’ve written about families in domestic thrillers, and you’ve written about law and justice for a long time and you taught a freaking course in it. This is just the same thing, only a little bigger. So try it. And that’s what I got to try it. I’m very proud of it. But,

[00:34:34] Rachael Herron: Are you going to do it again? Do you want to do it again? 

[00:34:36] Lisa Scottoline: I absolutely am going to do it again. Cause now I’m on, cause now I’m in now, they encouraged me.

[00:34:42] Rachael Herron: Are you gonna stay in Italy or are you gonna move around?

[00:34:43] Lisa Scottoline: I think I want to stay in Italy and it’s kind of, it’s nice because when you are lucky enough and blessed enough to have cultivated a readership, because believe me, I look on those Goodreads review. I look on any online reviews. I have them memorized. You telling me one, I know which the rest you said. And luckily, they’re really great now, but I, you know, a few of them will say, I never, I don’t like historical fiction, but I read her and I didn’t want to give it a chance, but I did. And then I’m like, thank God, you know? Thank you. Thank you, God. 

[00:35:16] Rachael Herron: Because I’m following for you and your voice, which is the same voice in any book.

[00:35:19] Lisa Scottoline: Well, and what’s great about that for people who listen to your podcast, is that what it means is that you make a market for yourself. Well, isn’t that, that’s what I’ve learned.

[00:35:31] Rachael Herron: And you’re the only one who can satisfy that market. 

[00:35:32] Lisa Scottoline: You’re the only one who can satisfy it. And also that means you can’t do it wrong because it’s the you product. That’s what it is. And that’s why you don’t even need to be competitive because we all help each other. We all lift each other. That’s why I’ll always blurb someone out who’s up and coming that I think is terrific. And I sought a million blurbs from people who sell way better than I just wrote them letters. I’m like, dear, Chris Bajillion, I love your books. Will you read mine? You know, and they came through! And we authors can do that for each other, whether we are published or unpublished. So that’s what I love about your podcast! You’re doing something in reaching out to people who are not yet published because we will get them published if they just have faith in themselves and protect their candle.

[00:36:18] Rachael Herron: All right. Unfortunately, I think that you have to be on every podcast that I ever have again.

[00:36:21] Lisa Scottoline: I would love to!

[00:36:22] Rachael Herron: It’s now the Rachael and Lisa show. Also, after I get out of here, I’m in California, but I’m driving straight across the country using just my headlights to get to you,

[00:36:29] Lisa Scottoline: There you go.

[00:36:30] Rachael Herron: In your living room and then you can tell me all the other stuff. Lisa, you are a freaking delight. I knew you would be.

[00:36:35] Lisa Scottoline: Aw, you are too. I think you’re doing such a great thing for everyone and you’re so talented yourself. I hope they listen to every word you say. 

[00:36:43] Rachael Herron: Everyone go to Lisa Scottoline, what is your blog? What is your website? Lisascottine.com?

[00:36:47] Lisa Scottoline: Scottoline.com 

[00:36:48] Rachael Herron: Perfect. Yeah.

[00:36:48] Lisa Scottoline: You’ll find me. It’s all about Scottoline all over. It’s only me.

 [00:36:53] Rachael Herron: You’re the absolute best, and thank you. 

[00:36:54] Lisa Scottoline: Thank you, honey, best of luck with everything in your travels and your move!

[00:36:59] Rachael Herron: Thanks!  

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.