Ep. 266: Sara Shepard on What Your Characters Might Say at a Cocktail Party

Sara Shepard is the author of over thirty novels, including the New York Times bestselling series Pretty Little Liars and the Lying Game, both of which were adapted for television on Freeform. Her latest novel is called Safe in My Arms. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA.

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Rachael Herron: 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.

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #266 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. So glad that you’re with me today as I talked to the awesome Sarah Shepard, and we talked about what might your characters say at a cocktail party and how can you use that information to help you write deeper, better, stronger characters. So stick around for that, I know you will enjoy listening to her talk about her writing.

[00:00:44] What’s going on around here? This is, again, going to be another short update. We are still in our last Wellington Airbnb and in four days, not eight, like I’m showing on camera, four days we move into our house, which is going to be great because then I’m going to have my own office. You won’t be able to hear my wife putting away the dishes as you can probably hear right now. And I just can’t wait. I can’t wait to be home. It has been five and a half months since we moved out of our house. And that is, that’s as long as I can make it, that’s it. We both have, my wife and I both have short timer’s syndrome now, and we are just ready to put something in a drawer and leave it there. On, this is a Thursday as I record. On Saturday, we go over and do the inspection with the landlord, and the people who live there now are going to show us how to work the funny stove and you know, how to run the dryer, those kinds of things. And then on Monday morning, we move in and, I would encourage you, if you don’t follow me on Instagram or, God forbid, Facebook, I do post pictures to Facebook from Instagram, but, I don’t like being there, but Instagram is a place I do like being, even though Facebook owns it, I will be putting pictures up there of what it looks like and what the harbor looks like from the dining room, and from the bedroom, from the yard. I know that you all know how excited I am.

[00:02:11] What’s been going on around here? Work-wise, I have been kicking ass at cleaning up those three books that I needed to clean up in order to republish and have all five in this series self-published. I was racing to meet that BookBub deadline and I am making it. I’m finishing the very last of the edits in the next couple of hours and sending them to my amazing assistant, Ed, who will then put everything up and have it ready to go. And that is such a weight off my shoulders. And I think I said this last week, but that means that instead of spending three months doing this, like I could easily have done, I spent two weeks. It was two intense weeks, I will give you that I have done nothing but edit, when I’m not teaching, but then it’s off my plate and I can move on to the next thing. Instead of having this republication of this series weighing on me, it just got done because it had to get done. And that is the way I honestly prefer to live my life. 

[00:03:12] So that is fantastic. I think that’s really all that I have to update you on and it’s really echoe-y in here anyway. So let’s jump into the interview where it, hopefully will sound a little bit better. I can’t remember where I was when I recorded this with Sarah, but please enjoy the interview and next week when we catch up, I will tell you how it is to be living in a house that we don’t have to move out of in a week or two. So, that’s going to be great. Wherever you are, I hope that you were getting your writing done and we’ll talk soon, my friends.

[00:03:47] 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!

[00:04:46] Rachael Herron: Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to this so. Shit. I’m going to start all over again. Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show, Sara Shepard. Hello, Sara!

[00:04:57] Sara Shepard: Hello! How are you?

[00:04:59] Rachael Herron: So nice to see you, I’m fantastic. I’ve already told you, but I’ll tell everybody else. I’m in the bathroom. I’m in the bathroom recording studio of the hotel in Auckland, New Zealand. But I’m so thrilled to talk to you. Listeners have perhaps heard you before, because I did play on the podcast, our interview, that you chat, for when Hush Little Baby came out. So let me give you a bio, cause you are on the hot seat today. Sara Shepard is the author of over thirty novels, including the New York Times bestselling series Pretty Little Liars and the Lying Game, both of which were adapted for television on Freeform. Her latest novel is called Safe in My Arms. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA, and I got an early copy of Safe in My Arms and it was so fun and it kicks off of my boxes of, I just have such a soft spot for that particular kind of book and those particular kinds of women. So thank you for writing.

[00:05:55] Sara Shepard: Oh, I’m glad you liked it. 

[00:05:57] Rachael Herron: My pleasure. It was awesome. So talk to us about. Let’s just start with your like, prolificness. You write a hell of a lot.

[00:06:07] Sara Shepard: Yeah. 

 [00:06:08] Rachael Herron: When and where and how do you get it all done? Because, I mean, what year did your first book come out?

[00:06:15] Sara Shepard: The first one came out, I mean technically, I was a ghost writer of other people’s books before I was a writer with my own books so, but the first book that was under my name came out in 2006. 

[00:06:31] Rachael Herron: Since then, have you also been done ghost writing and your own name or did you just go right to your name? 

[00:06:36] Sara Shepard: I’ve done a little bit. I’ve done it from time to time. Sometimes, if it’s like an interesting project or sometimes it is a, if I get a strange request from like, you know, years ago, I got a, and I probably, I don’t know if I should like talk about who it was, but I got this very strange request, like, and they’re chewing on a wig. This is the wig that I do for, like cameos. That’s like a creepy, and my dogs are in-

[00:07:10] Rachael Herron: If you can hear something in the background in

[00:07:14] Sara Shepard: they’re dogs, they’re big and they have decided to come bother me. But yeah, I have done a little bit of ghost writing, but mostly it has been my own stuff since then. But how do I get it all done? Oh my gosh. 

[00:07:33] Rachael Herron: What is your process? What is on a day on a, this is it’s a writing day. What do you do on a writing day?

[00:07:38] Sara Shepard: Yeah. You know, it definitely depends. I am one of those people and it started with me writing Pretty Little Liars and having to write those. So like, you know, I was on like a six month schedule writing those. 

[00:07:52] Rachael Herron: To write that. 

[00:07:53] Sara Shepard: Even before that, I, you know, I was used to doing like a lot of different things at once. I was working at a job. I was going to grad school. I was ghost writing novels. Like, I was always kind of used to doing a lot of things. So I am usually doing more than one thing. I sometimes look at authors who are only doing one project. Oh my gosh, these dogs.

[00:08:16] Rachael Herron: They’re fine. They’re a 100% fine.

[00:08:19] Sara Shepard: I sometimes look at others doing just one project. And I’m like, what does that feel like to devote all of your time to just one thing. So like, for example, today, I have a book that I, I’m about to give to my editor. It’s a first draft. It’s almost done. I have to do a little bit of the end, but I have decided to read through the whole thing to see what the appropriate endings should be. Cause I, that often sometimes happens where, and also, I mean, your listeners won’t see, but I like, print it out and then I have to edit myself on the page, which is completely different than just reading it on your screen and you’d get so much more out of it. So I did. And it’s like, it’s in some ways, my favourite part of the process and in some ways, so boring, because then you have to input all those edits and you’re just like, ugh, and it somehow takes forever. And it just, so that was like a good chunk of my day to day. But then I was also like, I’m kind of working on a ghost writing thing, for this podcast that is being developed into a novel. So some of that, so it was sort of outlining too. So, you know, my days are either working on a draft, working on an outline, or somewhere in between. I should probably spend more time promoting and doing social media and all that stuff, but that’s like my weak, my weakest link, probably. 

[00:09:56] Rachael Herron: What is your favorite place to market or promote? Because I think it’s all, I mean, it’s most of our weakest links, honestly.

[00:10:02] Sara Shepard: Yeah, probably Instagram, I guess. I really like Instagram stories. 

[00:10:08] Rachael Herron: I do too. 

[00:10:09] Sara Shepard: Just cause it’s, you can repost people’s thing. It’s just like fast. I don’t know that’s my favorite. But like, you know, now I’m seeing a lot of authors that have moved into Tiktok and Instagram reels and I’m like, oh my God, it’s just not, I love doing this sort of thing. I love doing interviews. I love talking to fans and like DMS and whatever, but like the promotions, I just don’t.

[00:10:43] Rachael Herron: It’s a double-edged sword that we all have to do it, but we all feel like we’re bad at it because it’s practically, no one knows how to do it well. If someone knew how to do it well, we’d all be doing it well. And we’d all,

[00:10:53] Sara Shepard: Have a lot of other jobs, maybe. We’d be in PR or like we, I don’t know. Or maybe not. It’s just so funny when I started out and maybe this is for you too, but like, I didn’t sign up for this part. I signed up for like the writing books part, I didn’t sign up for like, Tiktok-ing. 

[00:11:12] Rachael Herron: I wish that I could have signed up for the part that is writing one book at a time and not doing marketing like that would just be brilliant, but I just can’t. I just counted the other day my projects that I’m actively working on. 16 books, are on my right now working on and it’s, so I’ve narrowed it down to three, but I can’t even imagine I would love, love, love to have one. 

[00:11:35] Sara Shepard: I, think I’ve overextended myself right now because there are projects that I have that are like in contract for that I completely forget about. And then they popped back up and I’m like, oh no, like, what am I going to do that? I mean, I’ll fit it all in cause like, I always managed to, but like, it is funny. 

[00:11:55] Rachael Herron: That is the thing is we can ask ourselves, do we always manage to hit the deadline? Yes. So it’ll happen again.

[00:11:59] Sara Shepard: Yeah. I usually do, and I usually don’t leave it to like the last minute. I’m pretty good. Do you? Like, do you have like chapters and chapters to write before the book is due? Really? 

[00:12:16] Rachael Herron: And there’s this weird clock in my brain that goes, it’s like I procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate, and then the clock goes ping. You must now work 12 hours a day until deadline. 

[00:12:27] Sara Shepard: You get it done?

[00:12:28] Rachael Herron: Always, always, but it’s awful. I’m not, I’m not saying it’s a good idea. 

[00:12:34] Sara Shepard: Yeah, that’s interesting. Okay. I know a lot of people do that. I guess it works for them. Yeah. 

[00:12:39] Rachael Herron: And it’s just so stressful though. And you know, the people you live with don’t like it either because you turn into a beast. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing?

[00:12:52] Sara Shepard: Hmm. At this point, I mean, I’m sure I have lots of big challenges, but at this point, I have written so many books that I am always afraid that I’m repeating myself. Like, oh, I already did that. That was already a plot of like, one of my other things. You know, so, or I, and this is like, I didn’t rewrite for a long time because I was too afraid that I was going to like steal somebody else, like not knowingly. That I was going to steal somebody’s, you know, idea, or just sort of borrowing from my, like, I always worry about that a little bit, or like just, yeah, just sort of copying stuff I’ve already done, originality. 

[00:13:43] Rachael Herron: I’ve plotted out a series the other day that was about a small hotel in a small town. And then I realized I have written it. It’s three books. How could I have forgotten that I did that? It’s embarrassing. And I think it breaks.

[00:13:56] Sara Shepard: I mean that sounds really cute though.

[00:13:57] Rachael Herron: It is cute. It is adorable.

[00:13:58] Sara Shepard: I love that. 

[00:13:59] Rachael Herron: But our brains go in grooves, right. And so like what lights me up once it’s gonna light me up again. How do you fight against that?

[00:14:09] Sara Shepard: Mostly just to remind myself, you already did that, so you have to do something else. And I don’t know. I think it’s like, I consume a lot of, you know, I’m reading usually a bunch of books at once and listening to a bunch of podcasts at once. Like I’m trying to read as much as like, or like, you know, just get information. So I just try to turn somewhere else. Okay. What else are you in or what else, what other detail can you use or what other, who else can this person be? Like instead of a person that you’ve written like six other times, it was like, okay, step back from that character and like try somebody else. I find, I get a lot of like interesting inspiration through Reddit, like subreddits. There just are people write in about really interesting things. I feel like, especially on boards, where there are a lot of hypochondriacs out there. And for some reason, I find that really interesting and they’re always like 18 years old and they all think they’re going to die. And I’m like, oh my gosh, that was me.

[00:15:08] Rachael Herron: Have you written a book about a hypochondriac? 

[00:15:10] Sara Shepard: No, but I feel like I should. 

[00:15:12] Rachael Herron: I think you should.

[00:15:13] Sara Shepard: Yeah. Like a hypochondria is really, and we all feel like hypochondriac, right, like these days actually feel like, you know, I mean, Yeah. So, and I just, there were other weird sub-reddits that I read and it’s like, you just very interesting people are on there. I don’t read, I don’t look at Facebook so much anymore. People just get too angry. Reddit’s kind of amusing, forgetting or just going off the deep end of, you can find anything. 

[00:15:47] Rachael Herron: I think if you, and when you take the plunge into Tiktok, you might really find that often

[00:15:50] Sara Shepard: Yeah. I mean, I look at Tiktok. I do. I just don’t create Tiktok content. Yeah. I mean, maybe I will, I don’t know. I just am like, oh my gosh, that’s just one other thing. 

[00:16:09] Rachael Herron: What is your biggest joy when it comes to writing?

[00:16:14] Sara Shepard: Kind of having like a breakthrough clearly. I mean, you know, when you’re in that sort of. When you have, either you, when you have an idea and you’re like, oh, I really want to like travel with this or with this novel that I’m giving to my editor shortly. I, and I don’t remember what stage, we probably weren’t talking about my writing as much as we were talking about yours the last time we talked. But I had proposed this idea to my editor with a very different outline, than it kind of turned out to be, and, you know, as I was writing it, I was like, I don’t like those outlines. It’s like dumb. And I’m like, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And I’m just like still writing these characters, like following their stories. Cause there’s a little backstory that I had to do and I’m like, I’ll get to it. You know this, who the bad guy is basically. And then it, and then as I was writing their backstories, I was like, oh my God, of course. And then like this other thing came to me and it was kind of like, that does not happen to me. 

[00:17:17] Rachael Herron: Oh, that’s awesome.

[00:17:20] Sara Shepard: So that was kind of cool that it was like, oh, well, yeah. Where it just felt like a natural thing. And it was that thing people talk about where it’s like, oh, the book has its own. These people are doing their own things. And you’re just like, they’re speaking for you. And like, whatever, but which I was never sure of. But yeah, I mean, it does happen sometimes. And it’s really fun when you figure out those, especially as a thriller writer, you know, it’s like you figure out those twists that, I mean, especially in your last, in Hush Little Baby, like the sort of big twists that, you know, the person that is after her basically is kind of like, oh, well of course. Yeah. But like you don’t see it coming and that must’ve been a fun. 

[00:18:11] Rachael Herron: You know, what’s funny is that the exact same thing happened with that book though, that I wrote a stupid outline that was approved and purchased.

[00:18:18] Sara Shepard: Yeah, approved!

[00:18:20] Rachael Herron: And I’m writing it and I’m like, how could I possibly have convinced anybody I could write this book? And I didn’t, I hadn’t read the whole thing. So that’s so funny. 

[00:18:29] Sara Shepard: That was Hush Little Baby though, was that?

[00:18:30] Rachael Herron: Yes, it was Hush Little Baby.

[00:18:31] Sara Shepard: Okay, well it turned out like really intriguing and exciting. 

[00:18:36] Rachael Herron: I don’t know how you do it though. Like, it’s something like I’ve done that twice for two thrillers and it has exhausted me. And you have, because like you just said a second ago, they’re kind of off the cuff. You said that doesn’t, that kind of like revelation doesn’t happen that often to you. I feel like it never happens to me. That’s one thing that really makes me nervous about writing thrillers is you do need those moments and you can’t just like sit down and say, okay, I’m going to manufacture one right now because it doesn’t work that way.

[00:19:00] Sara Shepard: Right, right. You just need. Yeah. And I only had one other time with one other thriller I was writing. And again, it came to me definitely halfway through the book when I was like struggling with it and not knowing like, what am I, where am I going? And then it suddenly like occurred and it’s hard. Yeah. I mean it’s, I have written a few books that are more straightforward and just stories and like, why don’t I do this? Like, this is so lovely. You know, you don’t have to like do all these tricks and these unreliable narrators. I mean, it’s fun. It’s a lot of fun. It’s fun to put the puzzle pieces together and, but it is definitely when you are stuck, it is really like, I spent a good deal of the spring and coming into the summer just being like, I don’t know what I’m doing. 

[00:20:00] Rachael Herron: I hate that feeling. 

[00:20:02] Sara Shepard: Yeah. So when you come out the other side, it’s a nice feeling. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

[00:20:11] Rachael Herron: No, you go ahead first. 

[00:20:12] Sara Shepard: Oh, no, I was just going to say the other sort of joyful thing obviously is when you hear from a reader and the reader’s like Sara, you know, got something from whatever you’ve written. That is my fun. That is my lovely part of social media is, is that connection because I didn’t have that growing up as a reader, and even now, reaching out to authors whose books I’ve loved, like it’s so much fun to talk to them directly and, you know, and I’m sure it makes them happy too to hear from them.

[00:20:47] Rachael Herron: That is such a good point though. Besides the letters, we just didn’t have that. I wrote a letter to Madeline L’Engle once and she wrote me back.

[00:20:54] Sara Shepard: And she wrote you back?

[00:20:55] Rachael Herron: It was a form letter, but at the top, she scribbled something and I wish I’d kept it. And I don’t know where it went, but it was something like, keep on writing Rachael. And I was like, you know, ten. So, that’s was all we had.

[00:21:04] Sara Shepard: Yeah. That’s so inspiring. I wish I would have had that. Yeah. I would have written to Judy Bloom, probably. 

[00:21:13] Rachael Herron: Oh, I loved her. I loved her. Speaking of craft and how we do this, can you share a craft tip of any type with our audience?

[00:21:24] Sara Shepard: Something that I always think about is, did I say this the last time we were talking? And if I did, we can cut it out. 

[00:21:30] Rachael Herron: I have a terrible memory. So I probably won’t. 

[00:21:33] Sara Shepard: Okay. I just don’t want your listeners to be like, you already said that.

[00:21:37] Rachael Herron: We’ll get something new from it. Don’t worry. 

[00:21:38] Sara Shepard: Yeah. So I, you know, character development is always like, it’s not a hard thing for me. I love doing it. But sometimes when I’m working on pages of a book, I almost want the character to like, get all of their stuff out immediately and like, you know, everything. But when I was in grad school getting an MFA, which I don’t think you need, but that’s a whole other, but I loved my MFA experience and the person who was running the program, we had this like masterclass with him. And he was like, think of your characters as like people that you talk to at a cocktail party. And they’re like, just talking to you about their lives. Like they wouldn’t tell you, you know, these intimate details right away. So why, if they’re your voice, like, you know, you’re not going to really hear it. It’s going to take a good 25 pages, why 25 pages have stuck in my head. He’s like, it’s going to take a while to really open up. That is really, that is very interesting to like, think of these people as people you’re just sort of chatting with right away and yeah, they, you’re not going to find out everything, you know, it is this kind of journey that you have to go on with these people, a long conversation.

[00:22:54] Rachael Herron: I’m almost positive that you did not bring that up last time. Cause that’s kind of, 

[00:22:58] Sara Shepard: No? Okay. 

[00:23:00] Rachael Herron: And the thing about the cocktail party, I really like thinking about that because you’re going to meet the person that you want to be friends with at the cocktail party. And she’s going to take a hundred pages to start talking to you, and then you’re going to beat the person who you may or may not want to be friends with but she’s going to tell you about her hysterectomy that she had last week. She’s going to tell you everything and that’s a really good way to look at character personalities too. And who does is your main character then gravitate toward at this, this metaphorical cocktail party?

[00:23:27] Sara Shepard: Right, right. And what does it say? Cause I actually that’s funny, cause I have a character in this same book that I’m, that has not come out yet, but who like, meets one of the main characters and like tells her, her whole life story like immediately. And she was kind of like, what the hell was that? You know, cause it is weird. It’s weird. It’s like, it’s kind of off-putting, like, you’re like, okay, you know. All right. Yeah. 

[00:23:56] Rachael Herron: I love that. 

[00:23:57] Sara Shepard: It is fun to think about it. As a cocktail party, like, you know, what would this person, what would they share if I was meeting them for real, like what would they give away? What kind of person are they? Yeah, it’s fun.

[00:24:11] Rachael Herron: I can feel that, I can feel the listeners loving this. I am loving this. 

[00:24:14] Sara Shepard: Oh, good. 

[00:24:15] Rachael Herron: What thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way? 

[00:24:22] Sara Shepard: I know, I read this question and I thought about it. You know, I don’t really know. I mean, this year, my writing has been affected simply just by schedule and by, you know, COVID and, cause I can kind of write anywhere. I can write in chunks. I can write, you know, somewhat, what I realized is that I cannot write interrupted. Like, I cannot write, COVID, my children were home from school and like. 

[00:25:04] Rachael Herron: How old are they?

[00:25:06] Sara Shepard: They’re seven and ten. We had gotten a new puppy, which now she’s sleeping on the floor. And so I had to do, I had to kind of sit downstairs, not in my office and like try to get some stuff done amid all this chaos. And there was not, the chaos of the puppy was fine, but it was the chaos of like talking and stuff that I thought I could deal with because I’m like, I work at coffee shops. I will work on a train. I will work wherever, but like I found I kind of could not do that anymore. And I could not write anymore. So, 

[00:25:45] Rachael Herron: So, as a mom, I’m sure that all of those interruptions are actually, they’re not just noise around you. They’re, they’re,

[00:25:50] Sara Shepard: They’re not. I mean, you have to be kind of present. Yeah. You have to be kind of present. I mean, nothing, yeah. It used to be sort of nothing in my life would affect my writing. I was just, I love it so much. You know what? I would just do it. And it would be, it didn’t matter. Like I have written through getting divorced, I’ve written through like issues with family. I’ve written through, you know, illness. Like it doesn’t, that kind of stuff didn’t shut me down, but it was sort of. Okay. I can’t write an under this like extreme amount of noise. I also have used to be able to write after either having a few drinks or waking up the next morning. After having a few drinks, I cannot do that. Like I, if it is a work day for me, like I cannot drink alcohol at all. So that’s an interesting thing that has changed in my life as I got older. I just don’t, my brain doesn’t work anymore. So, I mean, those are probably the two latest life things that have sort of surprised me. 

[00:27:06] Rachael Herron: Those are big ones, 

[00:27:09] Sara Shepard: Honestly. Yeah. And I’m probably being healthier by not drinking and then trying to write. I remember being in grad school though, and going out to like a bar with probably my friends at grad school then coming home, like, cause I probably had a short story due and like writing one and like it wasn’t half bad, like I can’t, I mean, it was no sense. It would make no sense now. So I, yeah. I’m a different person now. 

[00:27:37] Rachael Herron: I love that. What is the best book you’ve read recently and why did you love it? 

[00:27:42] Sara Shepard: Well, I loved your book. 

[00:27:44] Rachael Herron: Thank you. That’s really sweet.

 [00:27:46] Sara Shepard: I read a book and it is by Kimberly Bell, but I think it’s an arc. It should be coming out in, I think like December. So it will probably be closer to the time. It was called My Darling Husband. And I read a lot of thrillers, and you know, it was just, I just liked the way it was paced. It was just, it was fun. It was a fun world. It was kind of a, it was in the way that your book, I don’t want to give too much away, but like there was a whole and the part where she was sort of captured, and she sort of held, you know, this book also has that sort of the mechanics of that and like, how am I going to get out of this? And like, you don’t get that a lot of thriller. And I thought it was really, it was really fun. It was very tense and, you know, in the same way and then completely different. I read a book called, or I’m in the middle of it, called Early Morning Riser by Katherine Hi- I think her name Haney or Heinie, H E I N Y. And it is so cute and sweet. And it’s just like about this. It’s just the story. It’s very lighthearted. It’s about the small town. 

[00:29:00] Rachael Herron: Ooh, that sounds lovely.

[00:29:01] Sara Shepard: It is so, it’s funny. It’s like, it’s you really like if you just need something

[00:29:08] Rachael Herron: I need that. 

[00:29:09] Sara Shepard: Or scary or really like, it’s just like such a delight. I’m sort of like, I’m sort of sad. I’m only halfway through it, but I’m so sad because I’m like this book’s going to be over at some point. So that is, that’s a really, it’s a really nice, yeah. 

[00:29:26] Rachael Herron: Speaking of awesome books that we get lost in, like your latest one, Safe in My Arms, can you tell us a little bit about it and? 

[00:29:35] Sara Shepard: Yeah sure, yeah. It is a book about, it takes place in Southern California, in a town I completely made up, but you know, it’s one of the things,

[00:29:47] Rachael Herron: That is, I wanted to ask you, have you spent a lot of time in Southern California? cause it worked. 

[00:29:51] Sara Shepard: Yeah.

[00:29:54] Rachael Herron: It read as so real.

[00:29:57] Sara Shepard: Yeah, yeah. And at first it was in LA, but I changed that because I wanted it more to be this sort of like bedroom community where it was a little bit more judgmental and closed. There’s an exclusive preschool and it’s very much sought after. It’s the beginning of the year. And it sort of follows these three mothers who are sort of new to the community and kind of outsiders as they are entering this school and getting their children acclimated and they begin to feel that they’re not welcome for different reasons. And they kind of band together because of this and then this sort of scandal happens and they find themselves in the middle of this and they’re sort of accused and it’s kind of digging their way out of that. And there’s a lot of secrets, they’re keeping a lot of secrets. The school is keeping secrets. People in their lives are keeping secrets. So it’s just, it was just really fun. It was just about friendship and, and motherhood and sort of keeping up with other parents. Yeah. And just, you know, just, and then just kind of like different issues that I wanted to explore. Like, one of them is like a sex worker. Like she, you know, she, but doesn’t, it’s trying not to feel ashamed for it, but also is kind of not sure her community will accept her. One of the characters is transgender, which, you know, I thought would be a really interesting thing to explore of like parenthood and again, acceptance. And then another has postpartum issues, but they’re not, it’s like almost like people don’t really believe her. She’s just sort of a hysterical woman and that’s what she’s categorized as, and she’s being, her husband is, you know, treating her with kid gloves, but she’s trying to figure out what’s real and not, what’s not real in her mind. And so it just, yeah, it’s just like a lot of stuff that I wanted to explore, but I wanted also to make them really good friends and really come together in a, in a meaningful way. And, and yeah, so that’s. 

[00:32:15] Rachael Herron: Your voice really shines through it too. Cause there was this funny moment. I was because I’ve read so many books in the last few weeks as we travel and you know, sometimes things get muddled in my head, but I remember I was reading it on the plane and I was getting sleepy and I’m like, this book really reminds me of somebody. Who is it? Isn’t like Liane, Moriarty’s voice, who, you know, who am I being reminded of here? And I’m like, oh, it’s Sara Shepard, because it’s Shepard’s book. I have forgotten it was your book I was reading.

[00:32:42] Sara Shepard: Oh, that’s funny.

[00:32:43] Rachael Herron: So, but I can still hear your voice in your tone.

[00:32:45] Sara Shepard: Oh, wow. Which other one? Like, Reputation or something? 

[00:32:50] Rachael Herron: Reputation.

[00:32:51] Sara Shepard: Yeah, I feel,

[00:32:53] Rachael Herron: Absolutely, but there was no overlap. There’s no overlap of plot or anything like that. 

[00:32:57] Sara Shepard: No, no, but the vibe.

[00:32:59] Rachael Herron: The vibe.

[00:33:00] Sara Shepard: Yeah.

[00:33:01] Rachael Herron: Exactly. I love that. It was a really funny moment and I’m glad that. 

[00:33:05] Sara Shepard: I always worry about voice. Voice, I always, you know, you always want to hope that you have a voice. But, yeah, it’s automatic. We can’t help it.

[00:33:16] Rachael Herron: We can’t help it with voice. That’s what I always say.

[00:33:18] Sara Shepard: Yeah. And sometimes, when I’m reading somebody else’s book, I like their voice. So then I just kind of write in their voice when they go, like, you know. 

[00:33:26] Rachael Herron: Well, I’ll say it here for listeners too something I was thinking about is that we just get sick of our voice because we live in it. I hear this voice 24/7. I can’t not hear it. So being in somebody else’s is so refreshing. Mine is still appropriate for my writing and yours is so gorgeous for your writing. So where can find you out on the internet?

[00:33:44] Sara Shepard: You can find me at @sarabooks on Twitter, and saracshepard on Instagram. And I believe on Facebook, it’s SaraShepardAuthor 

[00:33:53] Rachael Herron: Who cares about Facebook? 

[00:33:57] Sara Shepard: I don’t have a Tiktok yet. Maybe I’ll have one by the time. But you know, I am pretty, pretty active on Instagram and I will answer everybody’s DMs. I checked them a lot. I’ll repost you if you have read the book or if you post a picture, I love reposting, there’s my dogs. Yeah. Yeah, so that’s right. 

[00:34:25] Rachael Herron: It has been a delight to talk to you. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for writing such a good book and for being on the show and I’ll talk to you soon. Happy writing. Okay, bye.

[00:34:38] Rachael Herron: 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.