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#108 - Mary Adkins
427 Plays2 years ago
Dramatic fiction author, writing coach and recovered lawyer Mary Adkins is on the show this week talking about her writing journey, working with other authors and bringing her old lawyering skills into her stories.
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Transcript
Introduction and Patreon Launch
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, Jamie here.
00:00:01
Speaker
If you've been enjoying the podcast and want to show your support, I have a brand new Patreon page, and signing up will grant you access to the Right and Wrong Discord server, where you can interact directly with many of the authors, agents, and editors who have been guests on the show.
00:00:14
Speaker
You can also interact with me and see what guests are coming up, so you could maybe suggest questions that I could ask them.
00:00:20
Speaker
Thanks again for listening, and I really do appreciate any and all support that you guys give me for the podcast.
00:00:25
Speaker
Let's get back to it.
00:00:26
Speaker
So our podcast is called Right and Wrong.
00:00:27
Speaker
Are these your notes?
00:00:29
Speaker
These are your notes about what we're going to say.
00:00:32
Speaker
Anything.
00:00:32
Speaker
It's a short answer.
00:00:34
Speaker
So how many novels did you not finish?
00:00:36
Speaker
Oh my God, so many.
00:00:38
Speaker
It was perfect.
00:00:40
Speaker
What are you talking about?
00:00:41
Speaker
This is not a difference.
00:00:43
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question.
00:00:45
Speaker
I love it.
00:00:46
Speaker
This is it, guys.
00:00:47
Speaker
The big secret to getting published is you have to write a good book.
00:00:52
Speaker
You had it here first.
Meet Mary Adkins: Novelist and Writing Coach
00:00:55
Speaker
Hello, and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast.
00:00:58
Speaker
Today, I'm joined from all the way across the pond by novelist and writing coach, Mary Adkins.
00:01:05
Speaker
Hi, Mary.
00:01:06
Speaker
Welcome to the show.
00:01:06
Speaker
Hi, glad to be here.
00:01:08
Speaker
Thanks so much for coming.
00:01:10
Speaker
Let's start with, there's lots of things I want to talk about, but let's start with the novels.
00:01:13
Speaker
You've got, is it three books published?
00:01:17
Speaker
Yes, three novels, all published with HarperCollins.
00:01:21
Speaker
And actually two of them were published with Hotter in the UK, the first two.
00:01:26
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:01:27
Speaker
So the most recent one is Palm Beach, came out last year.
00:01:32
Speaker
And then you had Privilege the year before that and your debut when you read this came out in 2020.
00:01:41
Speaker
And that one was 2019.
00:01:43
Speaker
So yeah, it was 2019, 2020, and 2021.
00:01:45
Speaker
And sometimes when people hear that, they think that I wrote them all that quickly and I did not.
00:01:50
Speaker
Okay.
The Journey of Mary's Novels
00:01:51
Speaker
Okay.
00:01:51
Speaker
Was that, were they all written sort of in advance of that then?
00:01:55
Speaker
Um, all the first two, yes.
00:01:58
Speaker
And, um, and in fact, I, um,
00:02:01
Speaker
in a couple of countries sold the first, my agent sold the first two together as a bundle.
00:02:07
Speaker
So they had, the first one was written, the second one was drafted.
00:02:12
Speaker
And then, but my third novel, Palm Beach, I did write over the last few years.
00:02:16
Speaker
So my first novel took me about six years to write.
00:02:22
Speaker
So I had actually, I'd been working on that for quite a while before it came out.
00:02:25
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:02:27
Speaker
And so you'd worked on that one for six years and presumably got your assigned your agent with that novel.
00:02:34
Speaker
Did you then during the process of that sort of going out on submission and stuff, write the second one?
00:02:41
Speaker
I wrote the second one before we went out on submission.
00:02:43
Speaker
So
00:02:44
Speaker
My agent and I, you know, it's interesting because I, now that I'm working with, with writers, I see all different kinds of arrangements that they end up having with their agents and different kinds of relationships.
00:02:56
Speaker
So I'm really seeing like what the spectrum is.
00:02:58
Speaker
In my case, my agent and I worked on my book like a lot before we went out on submission.
00:03:04
Speaker
I mean, for, for about a year.
00:03:07
Speaker
So I, cause she had lots of notes and she wanted to see some revisions.
00:03:11
Speaker
So I would,
00:03:12
Speaker
I would revise, I would send her a draft, and then she would take some time to get back to me, like sometimes even a couple of months.
00:03:19
Speaker
And during that time, I wouldn't know what to do.
00:03:22
Speaker
So I started the next novel.
00:03:25
Speaker
So that's why, that's how I ended up with a draft of that novel before we even went out on submission with the first one, was just essentially kind of juggling projects like that.
00:03:38
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:03:39
Speaker
But it was only to some of the foreign publishers, the international publishers, that you actually went with two books to say, oh, look, do you want to print both?
00:03:49
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:03:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:49
Speaker
That's interesting.
Exploring Mary's Writing Style and Influences
00:03:51
Speaker
So all of your books are, would you say sort of thought-provoking dramas?
00:03:57
Speaker
Is that an apt description?
00:03:59
Speaker
Yeah, I like that.
00:04:02
Speaker
I would say that.
00:04:02
Speaker
And then the first one I would say also has a lot of humor.
00:04:07
Speaker
Like that's the only, that's the only novel of my three where people tell me that they laugh out loud a lot.
00:04:12
Speaker
And that was intentional.
00:04:13
Speaker
I tried to make it.
00:04:14
Speaker
That's good.
00:04:16
Speaker
It's not like what?
00:04:21
Speaker
And the other two, I would not say are laugh out loud.
00:04:23
Speaker
I think you, you described that perfectly.
00:04:25
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:27
Speaker
And is this very much the style that you've always wanted to do and that you will probably continue to do?
00:04:35
Speaker
You know, it's funny.
00:04:36
Speaker
I think I really – the style I always wanted to do was I wanted to be George Saunders.
00:04:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:41
Speaker
So I think I wanted to write like a lot quirkier.
00:04:47
Speaker
I wanted to write George stories.
00:04:50
Speaker
I wanted them to be weird.
00:04:52
Speaker
And that's just not what came out.
00:04:55
Speaker
So I mean, I think I've kind of become a – and I'm still not –
00:05:00
Speaker
I haven't written off that possibility.
00:05:02
Speaker
Maybe one day I will write in that style.
00:05:03
Speaker
But I think, I don't know, if my experience is, I know all writers have different approaches, but in my experience, I think I have found success in really leaning into what comes to me more naturally than trying to write in a certain stylized way that's not as natural to me.
00:05:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:23
Speaker
And that's really how I've landed here.
00:05:25
Speaker
So I sort of
00:05:27
Speaker
like all three of my novels were stories that just, you know, kind of came to me and I just wrote down what I was seeing in my brain.
00:05:35
Speaker
And that, which I know is like how most fiction writing, how most fiction writers would describe fiction writing, but like, that's how they came out.
00:05:45
Speaker
I wouldn't say that it was like, I decided that this is the kind of book I want to write.
00:05:49
Speaker
This just seemed like to be the kind of book that came to me and that I was capable of writing.
00:05:53
Speaker
So that's what I did.
00:05:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:54
Speaker
Yes.
00:05:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:55
Speaker
I see what you're saying.
00:05:56
Speaker
And I do know that sort of once you have signed a book deal that you kind of, as an author sort of do get a brand and there's a lot of authors that do cross genres and age groups, it is often pushed that you will continue to do the thing that you do.
00:06:16
Speaker
Do you feel like that's part of it or do you feel like this is, these are just always the stories that come to you and they are
00:06:21
Speaker
kind of, they do kind of follow the similar kind of trend?
Mary's Shift to Memoir Writing
00:06:25
Speaker
Well, interestingly, I do, I do feel like these are the stories that have come to me and they followed this trend in fiction, but, um, I'm actually working on a memoir right now.
00:06:33
Speaker
So it's a really, um, it's a turn for me and it's because I tried to essentially fictionalize what I wanted to write about, which was a fertility struggle that I've had.
00:06:44
Speaker
And I, as I was putting together a fiction, um, a fictional book,
00:06:51
Speaker
outline, um, basically to, to kind of pitch the novel version of this, it could, I, I, it was like, no, I can't, I don't actually want to write this as fiction.
00:07:00
Speaker
Like it just felt like hauling a big suitcase uphill.
00:07:04
Speaker
So I decided to just completely set that aside and turn to nonfiction.
00:07:10
Speaker
So now I'm working on a memoir and, and when I go back to fiction, yeah, I don't know, like, it'll be interesting.
00:07:17
Speaker
I mean, um, I, I,
00:07:20
Speaker
I haven't written books that I think are in a similar vein at all because of pressure from my editor.
00:07:26
Speaker
These are just the ones that came to me.
00:07:28
Speaker
And so I don't know how open future editors would be to like,
00:07:36
Speaker
pivot, but I'm guessing pretty open because I'm not, you know, my book, my book hasn't sold like Stephen King or anything.
00:07:43
Speaker
So they're probably pretty open to a pivot.
00:07:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:48
Speaker
That's really interesting.
00:07:48
Speaker
Cause I, well, I was going to ask, are you, do you have any interest in, in exploring different genres or age groups, but obviously now you're, you're doing memoir.
00:07:59
Speaker
So is that, is that, does it feel very different?
00:08:02
Speaker
Is it a sort of a learning curve writing in that way versus the fiction?
00:08:06
Speaker
Yes, it really is.
00:08:08
Speaker
It's so different and harder in a lot of ways for me because I'm not quite used to being quite so vulnerable in my writing for others to read.
00:08:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:25
Speaker
And also, it was interesting.
00:08:27
Speaker
I was talking with a writer about this the other day.
00:08:30
Speaker
With my novels, I've always been really open to feedback.
00:08:35
Speaker
In fact, I love feedback.
00:08:36
Speaker
I love getting notes from my agent and editor because in my view, it's just making the book better.
00:08:40
Speaker
So when they have ideas, it's like, great.
00:08:44
Speaker
And they've both said, like, wow, you're very open to our ideas.
00:08:48
Speaker
At one point, my agent said, I think you're a little bit too open to my ideas.
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:54
Speaker
But I always loved feedback for fiction.
00:08:59
Speaker
And for memoir, it's proving to be more complicated because I think – and part of that is just the sheer fact that
00:09:09
Speaker
like I can't invent things.
00:09:11
Speaker
So, you know, in fiction, I can be like, well, we don't really know much.
00:09:15
Speaker
It's hard to relate to this character in this moment.
00:09:19
Speaker
Can you let us inside her head more?
00:09:20
Speaker
What was she thinking?
00:09:21
Speaker
And I can just invent what she was thinking, right?
00:09:23
Speaker
Like you just make it up.
00:09:25
Speaker
But if it's like, I'm having trouble relating to you in this moment and this thing that happened in your life, what were you thinking?
00:09:32
Speaker
I can't make that up because it's nonfiction.
00:09:36
Speaker
And so it's like, well,
00:09:38
Speaker
Well, if I don't – but what if I wasn't thinking anything?
00:09:41
Speaker
I don't remember.
00:09:41
Speaker
And so if you – like, I'm just like coming up against the constraints of memory and probably also like my own level of comfort with what I'm willing to share and –
00:09:56
Speaker
So it feels, it's almost like I have less raw material to work with because the sky's not the limit anymore.
00:10:02
Speaker
Like I can't just come up with completely fictional things.
00:10:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:06
Speaker
That makes sense.
00:10:08
Speaker
And that's kind of challenging.
00:10:10
Speaker
Yeah, because I mean, writing is always, no matter what you're writing, I think it's always a very personal thing because it's all your words.
00:10:19
Speaker
I've had lots of agents come on and sort of talk about how precious it is that they get submitted these very raw kind of versions of stories and books, manuscripts, and that it is a very vulnerable thing.
00:10:34
Speaker
So, you know, kudos to anyone for writing something and then sending it out to the world.
00:10:39
Speaker
But I guess-
00:10:40
Speaker
Writing a memoir about yourself is, yeah, it's, I guess also if someone's sort of critiquing it in a weird way, they're kind of like critiquing your life and like you very personally.
00:10:54
Speaker
Right.
00:10:56
Speaker
Right.
00:10:57
Speaker
It's funny because at one point I, I submitted some pages of my, my memoir to my writing group.
00:11:05
Speaker
And again, I'm used to writing fiction.
00:11:08
Speaker
And so they know me as very receptive to feedback and they've known me for a long time.
00:11:15
Speaker
So I think they were just taking the same approach with memoir of like just be very blunt with Mary.
00:11:20
Speaker
And someone said something like –
00:11:23
Speaker
oh, you might want to leave out this part because it's not very flattering to you.
00:11:29
Speaker
You may get some criticism.
00:11:32
Speaker
And I was thinking, wait, this feels like a criticism of
00:11:36
Speaker
my life, like my decisions, not my writing.
00:11:42
Speaker
And it was just such a weird experience.
00:11:45
Speaker
I think that was a good wake-up call for me in terms of just kind of knowing or expecting a difference in how I process feedback when it's not fiction and being prepared for that or just realizing like maybe it's too early and I want to wait and be more selective about what I share.
00:12:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:07
Speaker
You could be really brave and send it to some people and not tell them it's memoir, say it's fiction.
00:12:14
Speaker
See what they say.
00:12:16
Speaker
So brave.
00:12:17
Speaker
I'm not that brave.
Launching an Online Novel Writing Course
00:12:19
Speaker
Let's talk about your work outside of your own writing, because you are also a writing coach.
00:12:27
Speaker
How long have you been doing that?
00:12:30
Speaker
So I started teaching online novel writing in the spring of 2019, shortly after my first novel came out.
00:12:39
Speaker
And it's because it was interesting because I did a book tour for my novel, When You Read This Coming Out.
00:12:45
Speaker
And a lot of the questions on book tour would be from writers and just questions like, how long did it take you?
00:12:51
Speaker
Did you outline?
00:12:52
Speaker
How did you get an agent?
00:12:53
Speaker
How do you get published?
00:12:55
Speaker
And I realized that I had actually acquired a lot of information that could be helpful to people over the six years that I had been working on the book and querying agents unsuccessfully for a really long time.
00:13:10
Speaker
And just like learning through hobbling together a bunch of writing classes, like what to do, what not to do.
00:13:16
Speaker
And some of those writing classes had been really terrible.
00:13:18
Speaker
And so I think I had also like learned what to steer clear of, at least for myself.
00:13:24
Speaker
So it was after that book tour that I thought, I think I actually have some stuff to teach that could be helpful to people.
00:13:31
Speaker
And so I put together my first course called the 12-week book draft.
00:13:38
Speaker
And it was just walking through
00:13:40
Speaker
walking people through writing a first draft in 12 weeks.
00:13:43
Speaker
And it was so much fun and I loved it.
00:13:45
Speaker
It was all online.
00:13:47
Speaker
And so then I just kind of got addicted to it.
00:13:52
Speaker
So I just kept expanding and essentially turned it into, well, not, okay, I'm gonna teach you to write your book.
00:13:59
Speaker
And then I'm gonna, cause I had some students, some early students.
00:14:02
Speaker
I honestly don't even remember how people found me, how I got them, but I did.
00:14:07
Speaker
And then when they finished the, you know, it was exciting cause it worked.
00:14:12
Speaker
It like,
00:14:12
Speaker
They wrote their drafts and I was excited and they were excited.
00:14:16
Speaker
And then it was like, okay, they were like, okay, what now?
00:14:18
Speaker
And then it was like, okay, I guess I need to teach you how to revise it.
00:14:22
Speaker
So then I had a revision course and then they revised it.
00:14:27
Speaker
And then they were like, what now?
00:14:28
Speaker
And I was like, I guess I need to teach you how to get an agent.
00:14:30
Speaker
So eventually it evolved into like a comprehensive program.
00:14:36
Speaker
So there's writing and then there's revising and then there's pitching.
00:14:38
Speaker
And that's what I do now is the whole thing.
00:14:41
Speaker
So you, uh, you said originally it was a 12 week sort of outlining thing is, is that not really, you don't really use that anymore.
00:14:49
Speaker
It's so you've sort of amalgamated it all into.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's included now, but it's part of a bigger comprehensive program.
00:14:56
Speaker
So they'll, they'll write their draft in 12 weeks and then revise it.
00:15:00
Speaker
And then, uh, I help them put together their query package and help them query.
00:15:04
Speaker
So it's, it's actually a year long now.
00:15:07
Speaker
Um, they, they signed up for 12 months to work with me.
00:15:10
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:11
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:11
Speaker
How many, I mean, that seems like a lot of work.
00:15:13
Speaker
How many, uh, students or clients do you have on the go at sort of per year?
00:15:19
Speaker
Um, so I have worked, let's see, how many graduates do we have?
00:15:23
Speaker
I think I've, I've had 50 as in five, zero people go through the full program at this point.
00:15:30
Speaker
Um, cause we are what, oh my gosh, that was 2019.
00:15:32
Speaker
So I'm like four years in.
00:15:36
Speaker
We're only just in 2023.
00:15:38
Speaker
It's not that bad.
00:15:39
Speaker
It's just crazy though.
00:15:42
Speaker
I feel like this just happened yesterday.
00:15:43
Speaker
The pandemic really threw off my sense of time.
00:15:46
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:15:46
Speaker
So just deleted two years.
00:15:48
Speaker
I feel like.
00:15:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:49
Speaker
It's like, they didn't even happen, but I was doing this the whole time.
00:15:53
Speaker
It was just online.
00:15:53
Speaker
So, um, and that actually, I think the pandemic, um, it, it was the timing worked out, I think really well for me starting this, this program, because there, there seemed to be a lot of people who, you know, like we were all at home looking for things to do.
00:16:11
Speaker
And so I think that that also helps me connect with writers who are like, I mean, now's as good time as ever to write a novel.
00:16:18
Speaker
So here, let's go.
00:16:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:21
Speaker
So the main program, that's the incubator.
00:16:25
Speaker
That's what you call it, right?
00:16:25
Speaker
The book incubator.
00:16:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's called the book incubator.
00:16:28
Speaker
And it's really people working on novels or memoirs who I help.
00:16:32
Speaker
Mostly they're novelists, but we do have a few people writing memoir as well.
00:16:36
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:16:37
Speaker
So 12 weeks of getting book up to scratch.
00:16:43
Speaker
I assume it's much more ad hoc.
00:16:46
Speaker
It's much more down to each person and what stays the right.
00:16:49
Speaker
Exactly.
00:16:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:51
Speaker
You'll get the book up to scratch.
00:16:53
Speaker
We'll do some edits, teach them sort of how to edit and then go into submissions and things like that.
00:17:00
Speaker
Exactly.
00:17:01
Speaker
And we actually have...
00:17:04
Speaker
I have two editors in the program who, who will edit the, we call it a pitch readiness read.
00:17:10
Speaker
They read your manuscript and give you edits that they think are important before you start querying agents, or if you want to self publish, you know, before you, before you go out and, and take the,
00:17:21
Speaker
dive into the publishing phase.
00:17:25
Speaker
And so it's kind of meant to be... What I wanted to do was to assemble all of the things that I had just sort of
00:17:34
Speaker
stumbled on for myself when I was going through the process.
00:17:38
Speaker
Like I did hire a developmental editor for my first book, but I didn't even know what a developmental editor was until I was about five years into writing it.
00:17:46
Speaker
Um, and I, at first I hired one who didn't work out very well for me.
00:17:51
Speaker
Like we didn't have the same vision.
00:17:52
Speaker
And then I found a one who did.
00:17:54
Speaker
And so it was, it was all that trial and error that, um,
00:17:59
Speaker
that really contributed to me figuring out what I wanted to include in this program.
00:18:03
Speaker
And I really also wanted it to be, by the time I was, I had the writing, revising and querying aspects in it.
00:18:10
Speaker
I decided I wanted it to be like the last, like the last writing program anyone would need.
00:18:17
Speaker
So like, you don't have, like you get everything.
00:18:19
Speaker
You don't have, it's not like, Oh, you do this and then you need to go out and find something else.
00:18:24
Speaker
It's like, let's just, I'm going to show you how to do all of it.
00:18:27
Speaker
is it the goal is sort of like you've once you once you're they've sort of they're submitting to agents or they sign with an agent the agent is then you know the role of the agent is very much to sort of take them on from that point and deal with the next steps of everything exactly yeah exactly and then the only thing that has kind of been missing just because i don't have history in this is self-publishing um and so i have been working on trying to figure out how to
00:18:53
Speaker
bring that in because there are so many people now who want to independently publish and it's such a valid route.
00:18:59
Speaker
And, um, I think an increasingly like appealing route, like I, you know, it's like, there's a lot of reasons why you might want to go, go that direction.
00:19:10
Speaker
So, um, but I'm that, you know, that's an area that I'm, uh, I have not had personal experience in that yet.
00:19:17
Speaker
So I'm having to educate myself
00:19:19
Speaker
Yes.
00:19:20
Speaker
I think it's a bit of a Wild West as well at the moment, self-publishing, where there's sort of so many people are having success, but they've come at it in so many different ways, like so many different directions.
00:19:29
Speaker
And there's so much, like, I feel like there's so much speculations of people trying to figure out what the formula is, you know, they're like, it's TikTok.
00:19:36
Speaker
And you're like, well, you can't just, TikTok's not going to work for everyone.
00:19:40
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:19:41
Speaker
I think it's, it's almost the same as like social media and it's like, okay, how do we make a viral thing?
00:19:46
Speaker
And I'm like, well, one does not simply just make a viral thing.
00:19:50
Speaker
You know, that's not how it works.
00:19:51
Speaker
You've got all these brands who are like, oh, let's just make a viral post for it.
00:19:54
Speaker
I'm like, that's really not how the internet works.
00:19:57
Speaker
Right, right.
00:19:58
Speaker
Like, just do it.
00:20:00
Speaker
Just do it.
00:20:00
Speaker
Just make it viral.
00:20:02
Speaker
Or as if you could do that by algorithm, you know.
00:20:05
Speaker
Well, yes.
00:20:06
Speaker
Eventually it'll be algorithm, right?
00:20:08
Speaker
So we won't have to do anything.
00:20:12
Speaker
Let's get back to stuff that you do know, you do experience.
00:20:17
Speaker
We were talking about how the program sort of teaches the things that you learned when you were first getting signed and getting your book published.
Overcoming Rejection and Finding an Agent
00:20:27
Speaker
How did you find your agent?
00:20:31
Speaker
Oh, man, through a lot of rejection.
00:20:37
Speaker
I had over 70 rejections.
00:20:39
Speaker
I kept track of the agents I was querying in a spreadsheet, of course.
00:20:44
Speaker
That's very sensible.
00:20:44
Speaker
But that's what I did.
00:20:46
Speaker
And yeah, and that's how I know that it was over 70.
00:20:51
Speaker
You know, and it's funny because sometimes I share that.
00:20:53
Speaker
And even when I'm saying it, I'm like, why did I keep going?
00:20:57
Speaker
But I think that I had just enough positive feedback to keep me going.
00:21:03
Speaker
So yes, they were rejections, but enough of them were affirmative rejections that I kept going.
00:21:13
Speaker
So if someone's wondering what a good rejection from an agent would look like, it would be something like, hey, this doesn't quite work for me, but I'm confident that you will find an agent for it.
00:21:25
Speaker
So it's basically someone being like,
00:21:27
Speaker
hey, I'm not the person, but I feel like you will find a person.
00:21:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:32
Speaker
Or someone saying, hey, this isn't the right thing for me, but I really like your writing.
00:21:36
Speaker
So if you have anything else in the future, feel free to send it.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yes.
00:21:40
Speaker
Like that kind of thing is very – it made me think like, okay, so this person thinks I can write and that feels good.
00:21:48
Speaker
Like that feels good enough that I'm going to keep trying with this book.
00:21:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:53
Speaker
And so, yeah, it took me 70 rejections and that was over about three years.
00:21:59
Speaker
So I was querying for a few years and it was this kind of iterative process where I would get some rejections and then sometimes they would say things like, this doesn't, I didn't really relate to this one character.
00:22:13
Speaker
And so I would think, okay, well, maybe I should do some more revising.
00:22:16
Speaker
So then I would often revise based on the feedback I was getting from these agents who were rejecting me and then
00:22:23
Speaker
submit another round.
00:22:24
Speaker
So that's the reason for it actually occurring over years is that it wasn't just sending out the query letters and just sitting on the same manuscript.
00:22:35
Speaker
I was doing a lot of revising in the meantime.
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah, I do think that's actually not so irregular.
00:22:43
Speaker
I think there's lots of very famous successful authors have talked about how many rejections they had.
00:22:51
Speaker
And I think between 50 and 100 is a lot of the time very par for the course.
00:22:57
Speaker
Oh, good.
00:22:57
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:58
Speaker
I was wondering because the other day I thought that, but then the other day, you know, I read a lot of blogs and newsletters and articles on writing.
00:23:07
Speaker
And I
00:23:09
Speaker
I don't remember who it was, but an author who is also a writing coach wrote an article on querying.
00:23:15
Speaker
And she said, if you have more than 20 rejections, like,
00:23:21
Speaker
it means that your book is not working.
00:23:23
Speaker
And I thought, oh, I had a lot more than that.
00:23:28
Speaker
I think the caveat there would be if you have 20 rejections and you're not tweaking it or sort of, if you've had 20 sort of like blank rejection, like ghost rejections where you just get this sort of automated response of like, I'm sorry, this isn't right for us at this time.
00:23:46
Speaker
then, and you're not changing it and you're not, I think it depends on the rejections, you know, and I think it also depends on if you're still working on it.
00:23:55
Speaker
Right.
00:23:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:56
Speaker
That, that makes total sense.
00:23:57
Speaker
Like you don't want to just be getting dozens of rejections and not, and not doing something different.
00:24:04
Speaker
Right.
00:24:04
Speaker
Cause like you want to be learning from what you're hearing back from people.
00:24:08
Speaker
Especially if you're getting feedback.
00:24:10
Speaker
I hear a lot of people tell me that this, you know, you're onto something when you're getting feedback because so many rejections will just be like, thanks, but no thanks.
00:24:20
Speaker
Yes.
00:24:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:21
Speaker
Like if they're actually taking the time to tell you what they like or don't like, or I mean, and sometimes I'll tell writers because, you know, rejection is so hard, even when it's nice rejection, but
00:24:35
Speaker
Like I'm working with a couple of people on my program who are querying and they're both getting that kind of rejection letter that says, this book is not for me, but feel free to send me something in the future.
00:24:46
Speaker
And I try to tell them like, that is so good.
00:24:49
Speaker
That is like the most, that is the top best rejection you can get because they're basically saying, I am a hot lead for you now.
00:24:59
Speaker
Like I am really interested in your writing.
00:25:02
Speaker
It's just this particular thing you wrote isn't for me.
00:25:05
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's a good one.
00:25:06
Speaker
And whenever people tell me they get a query back where there's like a specific, like you mentioned, oh, this character, I didn't really connect with them.
00:25:15
Speaker
That tells you that the agent has not only read it, but they've read it with a sort of intent and focus to look through it and identify specific things to tell you.
00:25:25
Speaker
That's a really good sign.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's such a good point.
00:25:30
Speaker
Because realistically, we have to, as much as agents work very hard, they get so many submissions.
00:25:35
Speaker
A lot of the time, if they know that it's not going to work for them, they might stop reading it after page one because they just know already.
00:25:42
Speaker
So you have to be realistic about these things.
00:25:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:45
Speaker
And why wouldn't they?
00:25:46
Speaker
They're on such a time crunch.
00:25:48
Speaker
I remember my agent telling me at one point that she gets hundreds and hundreds of queries a week.
00:25:54
Speaker
And of course, like when you're getting that many, you're going to, you're going to be really quick to stop reading.
00:26:02
Speaker
Cause what, like, how else are you even going to get through all of, all of it?
00:26:05
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:26:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:07
Speaker
There's lots of agents over here in the UK that will, they'll close their submissions for months just because they're so, not because they're like list is full and they don't want to take any more authors, but because they're
00:26:21
Speaker
the pile of submissions that they have is so big that they have to stop taking a nuance, otherwise they'll never get through all of them.
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah, they have to catch up.
00:26:29
Speaker
Exactly, yeah.
00:26:30
Speaker
Because the promise is that they will read every submission, at least have a look at every submission.
00:26:36
Speaker
Right, wow.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yes, it's difficult being an agent.
00:26:39
Speaker
I don't know if I would be brave enough for that kind of role.
00:26:42
Speaker
I don't think I would.
00:26:44
Speaker
I don't think I
Legal Training's Influence on Writing
00:26:45
Speaker
would.
00:26:45
Speaker
So something that I didn't mention in the introduction about you is that you used to be a lawyer and as you put it on your website, a recovered lawyer.
00:26:59
Speaker
Were you always writing even whilst you were doing your law degree and like practicing?
00:27:06
Speaker
I was.
00:27:07
Speaker
Well, I was trying to.
00:27:08
Speaker
Not while I was getting my law degree, really, very much.
00:27:14
Speaker
Mostly I was, during that time, just enjoying school.
00:27:18
Speaker
I always loved school, so that was fun for me.
00:27:21
Speaker
But that's also why I thought I would like being a lawyer, and then I didn't.
00:27:25
Speaker
So on my first day of being a lawyer, I
00:27:28
Speaker
I knew I had made a huge mistake.
00:27:30
Speaker
Oh, dear.
00:27:31
Speaker
It was literally my first day.
00:27:33
Speaker
I thought, oh, boy.
00:27:34
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:27:35
Speaker
I've made a terrible mistake.
00:27:36
Speaker
I had taken a wrong turn.
00:27:40
Speaker
And I started looking for a new job immediately.
00:27:43
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:27:43
Speaker
My first day.
00:27:44
Speaker
So I lasted.
00:27:45
Speaker
I was only a lawyer for like a practicing lawyer.
00:27:48
Speaker
I was only...
00:27:49
Speaker
only one for seven months.
00:27:50
Speaker
Didn't even make it a year.
00:27:54
Speaker
And I wasn't, and one reason it was so hard is because I did not have time to, I mean, I was, I was an associate at a big corporate law firm and that, and in New York city, and those are notorious for
00:28:09
Speaker
really kind of working their lawyers to death, which was definitely the case.
00:28:12
Speaker
I mean, I had a BlackBerry.
00:28:14
Speaker
Are BlackBerrys still around?
00:28:15
Speaker
I don't know.
00:28:16
Speaker
I don't think so.
00:28:18
Speaker
I don't think so either.
00:28:19
Speaker
But at the time they were, we were given a BlackBerry and you were essentially, you were on call 24-7.
00:28:25
Speaker
So it was just like understood that you would
00:28:28
Speaker
Just have your phone on and you can be called at any time to do something.
00:28:32
Speaker
I remember getting assignments at like 11 p.m.
00:28:36
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:28:36
Speaker
And so I didn't have time to write and that was killing me because even in law school, I found time to write little things, you know, like a little –
00:28:49
Speaker
a short story here or there, like a little play.
00:28:53
Speaker
It was always my creative outlet and kind of how I stayed sane.
00:28:59
Speaker
So I think that was part of it too.
00:29:00
Speaker
The reason being a lawyer felt like such an ill fit was it was the scheduling as well.
00:29:07
Speaker
I just...
00:29:08
Speaker
It was all consuming and, um, which of course is not healthy for anyone as a lifestyle, but, um, in my case, it was just really difficult not to have that creative outlet.
00:29:18
Speaker
So, um, yeah, so I, I lasted seven months.
00:29:23
Speaker
Well, during that seven months and then obviously the time you were, you were doing the degree and, um, did you, do you use any of that kind of legal knowledge, that legal know-how?
00:29:34
Speaker
Do you bring it into your novels, into your writing?
00:29:37
Speaker
Oh, yes, for sure.
00:29:38
Speaker
I mean, especially my second novel privilege is about a sexual assault on a college campus and then the ensuing judicial procedure that happens on campus around it.
00:29:49
Speaker
And so that was really like a legal drama.
00:29:51
Speaker
I mean, that's what I was writing.
00:29:52
Speaker
And at one point in one of the drafts that I had sent to my editor, it had like a case file in the middle.
00:29:58
Speaker
And I think the case file was like 80 pages long because it was modeled on a real case file.
00:30:03
Speaker
And I included all of the legal terminology and everything.
00:30:06
Speaker
And there is a case file in the published version of that book, but it is about four times shorter.
00:30:13
Speaker
It's because my editor said like, Mary, this is not – no one who is not a lawyer wants to read any of this and also probably lawyers don't want to read it.
00:30:21
Speaker
They have to read it.
00:30:22
Speaker
This is too tedious.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:26
Speaker
And so I thought, oh, okay.
00:30:27
Speaker
Because that, I mean, that's still really, that stuff is still really interesting to me.
00:30:31
Speaker
And so, yeah, I do think it came in.
00:30:34
Speaker
And then also, you know, it's funny because I've thought a fair amount about this, like how being a lawyer helped me be a writer.
00:30:42
Speaker
And I think there's something about having to sift through a lot
00:30:50
Speaker
of information and make sense of it, that can actually be really helpful.
00:30:55
Speaker
So I remember when I was working as a lawyer for only seven months, I would be given these assignments that felt completely overwhelming.
00:31:06
Speaker
Like, hey, read these nine cases that are each 160 pages each and write up a memo summarizing them
00:31:18
Speaker
three days from now.
00:31:20
Speaker
And it's like, okay, I cannot read 4,000 pages and actually understand it and summarize it in 72 hours.
00:31:29
Speaker
I literally can't do that.
00:31:31
Speaker
So, which is also like, why was a human being asked to do stuff like that?
00:31:39
Speaker
Like, it doesn't make any sense.
00:31:41
Speaker
And yet this happens in law all the time.
00:31:43
Speaker
And so, it would be like, okay, what...
00:31:48
Speaker
how do I problem solve this situation?
00:31:50
Speaker
Like, how do I get my head around what is happening in this thing without actually reading all of it?
00:31:57
Speaker
And I think there is an application to writing something like a book because –
00:32:05
Speaker
When we're talking about a novel, for example, we're typically talking about, unless it's like for children or maybe young adults, although even that's going to probably be 70,000 words or more, it's a lot of words that you're trying to manage.
00:32:25
Speaker
trying to shape into a story.
00:32:27
Speaker
And sometimes drafts, you know, I think there are some writers who have drafts that are like hundreds of thousands of words long.
00:32:34
Speaker
And like, how, how do you make sense of all of that and try to organize it and structure it so that it reads well, like a story.
00:32:43
Speaker
And I, I think it's the kind of, it's a related skillset, like having to organize that much information.
00:32:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:51
Speaker
I don't know if that makes sense, but... No, totally.
00:32:54
Speaker
I completely understand what you're saying, yeah?
00:32:57
Speaker
You're actually the second... Well, you're an ex-lawyer.
00:33:01
Speaker
I had interviewed Leah Middleton a year or so ago, and she's a lawyer, and she wrote a book and said that hers is a sort of crime thriller.
00:33:11
Speaker
And she mentioned that, yeah, just knowing a lot of the sort of ins and outs of how cases work, which she finds very interesting, like really goes through into the book and everything.
00:33:21
Speaker
She tried to make sure everything was like correct and how like kind of the procedures would work.
00:33:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:28
Speaker
That part's really fun.
00:33:29
Speaker
And then you probably, you know, there are
00:33:32
Speaker
even though not many people would even notice or care about that.
00:33:34
Speaker
It's like, well, you just want to get it right because you have that background.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah, you'll know.
00:33:40
Speaker
Exactly.
00:33:41
Speaker
And then people that really love the book will also like probably look into it and be like, wow, that's so cool that that's exactly like what actually would happen and things like that.
00:33:48
Speaker
Yes.
00:33:49
Speaker
Yes, totally.
00:33:50
Speaker
Well, that brings us to the final question of the interview, which is, as always, Mary, if you were stranded on a desert island with a single book, which book would you take?
00:34:06
Speaker
I, as I said to you a little while ago, I've thought about this question for so long.
00:34:11
Speaker
It's funny too, because I felt this pressure to pick something really impressive, you know?
00:34:16
Speaker
Yeah, most people do.
00:34:17
Speaker
Like a classic.
00:34:19
Speaker
I'm like, what's wrong with me?
00:34:20
Speaker
I need to pick Shakespeare.
00:34:23
Speaker
But I did not pick Shakespeare.
00:34:25
Speaker
I picked...
00:34:27
Speaker
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss.
00:34:29
Speaker
Are you familiar with that one?
00:34:32
Speaker
I'm not, but it sounds nice.
00:34:33
Speaker
It sounds like a heartwarming story.
00:34:36
Speaker
It is.
00:34:37
Speaker
It is.
00:34:40
Speaker
It's about love, but across generations and unrequited love.
00:34:46
Speaker
And it's just beautiful and loss.
00:34:49
Speaker
Like it's just, it's a beautiful story.
00:34:52
Speaker
And I think it's still one of my favorite.
00:34:54
Speaker
It was published, I think in 2004.
00:34:57
Speaker
But it's been one of my favorite books ever since I read it.
00:35:02
Speaker
And I think it's just the kind of book that would bring me a lot of comfort on a desert island.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yes.
00:35:06
Speaker
It sounds like a nice book to have in isolation.
00:35:09
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:35:11
Speaker
And I recommend it if people have not read it.
00:35:13
Speaker
It's beautiful.
00:35:15
Speaker
Amazing.
00:35:16
Speaker
Well, sounds like a great choice.
00:35:18
Speaker
Thank you so much, Mary, for coming on the podcast and telling us all about your writing and your work as a writing coach and your memoir, which is very exciting.
00:35:27
Speaker
Sounds like a really cool new writing adventure for you.
00:35:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:32
Speaker
Well, thank you.
00:35:33
Speaker
This was really fun chatting.
00:35:34
Speaker
Thanks for having me.
00:35:35
Speaker
You're so welcome.
00:35:36
Speaker
And for anyone listening, if you want to keep up with what Mary is doing, you can follow her over on Instagram at Adkins Mary or head over to her website, maryadkinswriter.com.
00:35:49
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss an episode of this podcast, follow along on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.
00:35:54
Speaker
We also have a Patreon for insider access.
00:35:56
Speaker
And if you want more bookish discussion, check out my other podcasts, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes.
00:36:01
Speaker
Thanks again to Mary and thanks to everyone listening.
00:36:04
Speaker
We'll catch you in the next episode.