Editing, and Horticulture, with Aime Sund.

A complete transcript of this episode can be found at the end of these few links.

Aime Sund, Editor, Red Leaf Word Services

www.redleafwords.com www.instagram.com/redleafwordserv

“The Sun, a Book, and a Dog” blog

https://sunbook.home.blog 

Today Aime spoke about her love for A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness. Follow this affiliate link to discover the book:

https://amzn.to/3xgxoXy 

Be sure to become a patron at www.patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse 

Instagram: @authordevindavis

We’ll see you next week!

Devin Davis: [00:00:00] Knowing that something is going to be challenging and dangerous is the very definition of courage. It is also the definition of stupidity. And this is why life is hard, today on Writing in the Tiny House 

Hello? Hello. Hello, and welcome back to the podcast or Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis. And I am the guy who does the show once a month. I'm sorry, once a week. Can you believe that it is already the end of June, my friends? So I am the guy living in a tiny house in Northern Utah, who is here to show you that writing a novel is entirely possible.

And on today's episode, I have a treat for you. We have, we actually have a guest and she is a person who has gone from one extreme—As far as this world goes—to the other extreme into editing. You will totally understand what I mean. When we get into the interview, it's probably going to be a short interview, but it's going to be a good one, I promise. But first let's take care of some housekeeping. I announced an episode or two ago that if you wish to support me in this thing, in this podcast, I, right now I am doing all of the things on my own. I am paying for some overhead things that come up that I am gladly footing the bill for, but if you wish to get involved in the way of donating some money, I do have a Patreon account that I have not bothered to explain in very much detail in previous episodes. So right now the Patreon is set up kind of like any other Patreon account, if that is something that you've heard of before. So this means that if you wish to  donate to the podcast every month, you can pledge $5. You can pledge $10 or you can pledge $20 and those things get you additional perks the more that you give. 

So at the lowest tier, which is the $5 tier that gives you early access to all of the episodes that I'm going to be doing for the rest of time, that gives you  access to the episodes on Friday. No, excuse me. On Saturday. One of those days. And then I will post that episode later to the public, the following Wednesday.

And so you will get episodes about five days in advance. If you choose to do the $10 tier, that will get you an additional episode every month, likely put on by me. And it'll be a lot of fun and it will be for you. It'll be for the patrons. It won't be for anybody else. It's not something that I'm going to put these on this channel for everybody else to see. And then the $20 tier, which is really where it's at folks, with the $20 tier, you get exclusive rights to private chat rooms with myself. And once a month, I will get online with the people who are in my $20 tier with my Super VIP Patrons. And we get to talk about you about your writing, about your projects or about me, or about the show.

 You get to be intimately involved with how the show is going and with what you want to get out of the show. It is my super VIP patrons that I'm going to be paying the closest attention to when it comes to content. And when it comes to what all of these things need to be along the way.

So. Go to Patreon.com/Writing in the Tiny House if you wish to give. And I am delighted to receive if that is how you choose to support this. And if you find value in this podcast, there gets to be a way for you to give. So again, Patreon.com/Writing in the Tiny House. I will have links to that in the show notes of this episode.

 So not a very big deal for announcements today.

So without further ado let's go ahead and meet our guest. 

Aime Sund: [00:05:04] Hi, I'm Amy Sund and I am the editor behind Redleaf word services. 

Devin Davis: [00:05:11] Amy is an editor living in Massachusetts.  And when she first got started she wasn't doing anything that had to do with editing she was actually actively involved in Horticulture

 Aime Sund: [00:05:28] I began as a horticulturist, so I still need my plants around me all the time. I was a horticulturist for over 20 years. And it's still, it's still my first love plants are still what I gravitate towards As much as I love the plants. It's, it's a different ball game when you're doing it for other people too.

 Devin Davis: [00:05:46] While Amy loved the horticulture aspect. She found that it was challenging to do much with it in her state of Massachusetts, because the thing isn't regulated there, the practice doesn't require licensing and it doesn't require education. And so it was hard to get ahead.  

Aime Sund: [00:06:05] Here where I am in Massachusetts is also not a regulated industry, so anybody can jump in and do it. And that really waters. The playing field down. And I did go to school for horticulture, which was really, really cool.

And I loved it. So it was time for a change  and editing, was it because I love to read. And that was what I really got excited about when I thought about what I wanted to do next was to do something with words. I think of editing as an Al chemical process. there's ingredients that need to be put in, and I put some ingredients in and you as the author put ingredients in, and then what comes out is a manuscript that's at a better state than it was.  It's a partnership process. You have to have all the ingredients for it to work. Right. And that was certainly true with alchemy. 

Devin Davis: [00:07:00] So she started her own freelance editing firm called red leaf word  services, which specializes in historical fiction fantasy. And of course horticulture because awesome. I absolutely love that. I think that is so fun. While Amy and I were discussing all of the details about her business, she introduced me to a new sub genre that I never thought was a sub genre before. She talked about garden fiction. And I loved everything about that.

Aime Sund: [00:07:41] I'm not really sure whether it is a sub genre, but I did do a search on good reads. And I came up with a bunch of books and of course I put them right on my TBR, which is a mile long. But there's always things that are happening in the garden. And poisonous plants are always something that comes up especially in historical fiction.

You find them a lot in historical fiction and historical mysteries. So it was just another avenue of that, which  I just enjoy everything about that genre. The historical fiction that is, and gardens and they figure in a lot of them, and it's just a place that people at all times have gravitated towards.

And, just the knowledge that you need to have to write it. It can be daunting to do all that research for all these different plants that can do different things and that meant different things to different people at different times  within history. That's, that's a lot of research. But coming from that background, I just really comfortable with it. So that's, it's kind of a niche, I think.

 Devin Davis: [00:08:49] Now I am not a horticulturist by any means, but I do have a bit of a background when it comes to some plant related stuff. And I mean way background things. My dad actually has a degree in botany and he definitely has quite the green thumb. We had a greenhouse growing up and we had all these plants and we had all of the different things and finding an appreciation for horticulture was definitely a part of my upbringing.

However, as an adult, I have more than a passing interest in herbal medicine. And so I definitely share a bit of an appreciation that Amy would certainly share when it comes to stumbling upon a piece of fiction, especially a fantasy fiction or historical fiction where the medicine or the herbal preparations resemble something that is real or the herbs that they use resemble an herb in real life that would function in a similar way to what they need now, instead of just a completely made up plant that is there to fill the spot of this magical herb that they need now in their story. And so it was just this fun and unexpected common ground that I had with Amy with, with this interview, that was just a delight to talk about.

And she agreed that some of these things are so fun to stumble on and to bring out the history of all of that is so rich and brings out such a wonderful flavor to the writing itself.

Aime Sund: [00:10:36] And there's so much to draw on through that too. Plants have a, they go so far back into history and, and their uses. And I mean, talking about Lotus seeds that can last for hundreds of years and still germinate when they're found in, in Egyptian tombs and things. I mean, that's amazing. That's amazing.

Devin Davis: [00:10:57] And as we continued speaking, I was not aware of this, but Amy Sund is working on her own piece of fiction. She is working on her own bit of fantasy writing, and I was completely unprepared for that going into this interview.

Aime Sund: [00:11:19] Okay, well I think it would be described as portal fantasy because it does take place mostly on an alternate world, but it is an alternate world that has connections here to earth at different places on the earth. So it takes advantage of some of the science behind lay lines, if you're familiar at all with those.  I have a numerology and astrology element that works in there and it is also heavily plant-based as well. And I'm, I'm doing the old adage write what you know. I suppose you could say so. Yeah, but it is definitely in progress. I'm working out a lot of the backstory and just trying to get that out there by some short stories and a blog series that's set in the world.

Because I have so much in my head that there's no way it would make it into a book. I'm just trying to introduce the world slowly. And maybe then by the time the book's out, there'll be people who want to read it.

Devin Davis: [00:12:25] The blog that Amy talks about is called the sun a book and a dog. And of course I will include links to that in the show notes of this episode. And then to wrap up the interview, she described to me her most influential and favorite work of fiction.

Aime Sund: [00:12:47] . I would have to say the biggest influence for me for a work of fiction would have to have been a discovery of witches by Deborah Harkness. I can honestly say this is the first book that gave me a book hangover, even though I only read it about three years ago. So. I got to the end and I didn't want it to end.

And I had a hard time closing the cover and I was just in a funk for the rest of the day. I, I loved it so much and I went as soon as the library opened Monday morning, I went and got the next one. It was, yeah, it was a wonderful, wonderful book. And it really put me into historical fiction as well, because there is a lot of history  in her books. And the time periods that I'm really familiar with and that I love, which is Europe in the 15, 16 hundreds, mostly. So that was right up my alley and I didn't want it to end and I just kept going. I whipped through the next two books. and that's what made me want to write. If I could give somebody else that feeling someday, maybe then I've done my job. That's how I approach it. That's how I would really like, to be remembered, I suppose. I think if you had asked me for a non-fiction book, I don't think I could have given you one, I automatically would have gone to fiction just for that reason. Just because. It draws so much out and it, it lets the imagination play and , it certainly gives me a place to escape to and a place to run into.  Having something that I can go to immediately set some time aside to, I know I'm going to read now, that's what I look for. 

Devin Davis: [00:14:30] A big, thank you to Amy Sund at red leaf word services for being on the show today, it was such a delightful time to speak with her and to see what is going on in her life and to get to know her better. I met her kind of as an aside in some of my Instagram endeavors, and it's been so fun to build relationships like this.

So be sure to check out her website and her blog for her work in progress for her fiction. All of those links are in the show notes. And remember too, Check out the Patreon page, go to Patreon.com/Writing in the Tiny House. If you wish to donate and support financially this podcast. Again, I am Devin Davis.

Thank you so much for joining this show and we will see you next time. Have a good time writing guys. We will see you later. Bye.

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Getting Started

Welcome to this week's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. A complete transcript of this episode will be provided after these few links.

Becomes a patron today!

www.patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Check out the podcast The Writer's Way, hosted by Laurie Wright.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-writers-way-how-to-market-your-childrens-book/id1438673311

Here is the affiliate link to today's book review of The Ivies, by Alexa Donne.

https://amzn.to/2SQE7bO

And here it complete transcript of this episode.

S1E18 Getting Started

[00:00:00] Devin Davis: And for the next few minutes, we're going to go way back before any of this was text, before any of it was paper. Before any of it was a book. And all of it was simply an idea baby. Today on Writing in the Tiny House. 

 Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am a single father of boys living in a tiny house in Northern Utah. And I am here to talk about your idea for writing a book. [00:01:00] And I am here to show you that it is completely possible. In this episode we are going to go over the process of simply developing the idea before we even need to worry about getting into a normal writing schedule or before we know anything about writing structure or any of that, today on Writing in the Tiny House.

But first, let me tell you about a podcast I recently discovered. I discovered The Writer's Way, which was hosted by a woman named Laurie Wright. She is a best-selling author, and this entire podcast is dedicated around children's lit. So if you want to write a children's book this would be a very good resource for you. Be sure to pop over to the Writer's Way. I will have a link to that in the description of the show notes. [00:02:00] And i'm sure that will be an additional resource that all of us would enjoy.

So I want you to take just a minute and think about all of the different book ideas that you have likely had throughout your adult life, or maybe even earlier than that. Perhaps you had ideas for stories or for instruction projects or something in high school or junior high, or even earlier. I don't know, but I am sure that almost all of us has had the idea for a book at some point in time, whether it is fiction or whether it is non-fiction, whether it is a children's story, whether it is an adult story, whether it is kind of a certain activity for dummies. Who knows, but think back to that special idea that you had once upon a time. And we are going to talk about that.

We are going to talk about what it takes to develop an idea [00:03:00] and everything that you should at least have started. Before you sit down and put pen to paper or start drafting something in  your word processing document. So let's first talk about nonfiction. What likely happened was you thought to yourself, I really wish that there was a book on this subject. And you looked around for it and that book didn't seem to exist. And if it did exist, perhaps it approached the problem in a way that you didn't like very much, or in a way that didn't work well for you, or it was an approach that was kind of off base.

And was just different. And you thought to yourself, you know, I bet that I could do a better job with this book, and then you thought about it and then you didn't do anything more about it with writing nonfiction. It's fine if it starts out [00:04:00] this way, in fact, with fiction, it starts out in a similar way.

If it is fiction, you likely saw a book missing. At least this is how it was for me. There wasn't a book that I wanted to read.  And so I decided, or at least I read a meme online on Facebook somewhere that said, write what you want to read.

And so for me, I sat there and I thought this through and I was like, what do I want to read? I was sick of adventure novels. It seems at the time, it, especially in fantasy, there are a million adventure novels, and I wasn't interested in reading another one. I also didn't want to do first person point of view. I didn't want to read another first person point of view story. And I wanted something with a more [00:05:00] complex storyline with heroes that mattered and with bad guys that were relatable. All of these different things. I wanted that. And so this is what got me started with writing the book that I started back in December.

I just wanted that book to be available. I wanted that book to be on the shelves. I wanted to read that book. And so I decided to write that book. So once you have your idea, there are a million different ways to develop that idea. And for me, it involves talking to others. For other people, sometimes it involves research and for me, it also involves research.

So there are a lot of different parts. It can be research, it can be talking it out. It can be outlining, it can be journaling. It can be doing a [00:06:00] blog or a poll on Facebook or on your social media or whatever it is. Now that that seed is in your brain, it's time to flesh it out and see if it is worth pursuing or to see if you know how to pursue it.

So with nonfiction, It can be talking to your friends and family, talking to your mom. Most importantly, though, talking to somebody who needs it. So if you are a person writing something on baby care or on raising small children, it would be valuable to speak to mothers who need that type of information or to newlywed couples or to divorced moms or divorced dads or whatever. It wouldn't seem to be the very best to speak to grandmas or people who are no [00:07:00] longer raising children. Or teenagers. Hopefully they're not raising children either. So it's important to find at least a selection of people who would be in your target audience.

Or at least your target customer for that book. And to see if this would be something valuable and discuss it with them. There are reservations about sharing ideas with other people. Like what if somebody rips me off or if somebody tries to steal my idea? Here is the reality of that, friends. When it comes to the premise of a book. Now with the instructional books, it's different, especially since we live in a world that is constantly growing and changing and people need to have specific instruction for some of these new things. But when it comes to other genres like self-help, or just fiction in general, there are.

A million different [00:08:00] formats. There are a million different themes and all of them have been written before. You can find a million different books that have a love triangle. You can find a million different books that are adventure novels. You can find a million books of enemies to lovers or whatever.

These different themes in literature, we call them tropes.  You won't be able to find one that has not been done before. And so even if you are talking about your idea in a very high concept way, odds are, you're not saying anything original quite yet. And even if you get down into the nitty gritty of what the plot would actually be.

See originality comes in the execution of that idea.   The originality comes when you write it and you yourself tell the story or explain the thought or develop the [00:09:00] concept.  

It is not very probable that somebody is going to steal your ideas just because writing is such a hard job to do. It's such a big deal that I personally wouldn't worry about somebody stealing my ideas, just because then they would have to draft your book and then they would have to edit your book and then they would have to do the beta readers for your book.

And the list goes on and on. So we don't really worry too much about people stealing our ideas, especially when it is such a new idea. So you make sure that the ideas appear to be thought out enough for you to get started. It is absolutely. Okay. . If the concept of approaching your book gives you hives that having the entire book planned out is not a good idea.

That is how I am with my books. I don't plan out everything. I simply know where I need to get in each section of my book. I do not plan out the dialogue. I [00:10:00] don't plan out the other things. This is some people call it "pantsing." Flying by the seat of your pants when it comes to writing. Other people call it discovery writing.

And I actually prefer that term, though I think that both terms are kind of dumb, but this is when you simply know where you need to go. And so you sit down and let that organically happen. You let that spill out of your brain onto your word processor. And you get there, you know the bare minimum of where your story is headed and you discover everything along the way.

You don't need to have the entire novel mapped out from start to finish. And I would imagine for most big projects you don't have to, that is why it's possible to revise stuff. I would imagine that even with non-fiction work, if you sit down and start, it is possible that other things will come up; additional research or another point of view or another application to whatever you are trying to do. [00:11:00] Different things will come up and you'll want to include that in your manuscript.

And that would require you to go back and add it in. And so revision is an integral part of every big project like this. So it's okay to just kind of get started. It's okay to be at a place where you think that you have enough pieces to put together those first few pages. And I'm not going to go over the actual writing in this episode, but I will say the first few pages of your manuscript are going to be the ones that you revise the very most, and they are the ones that you will want to revise once you  are started. Once you don't have any more than six pages written, you're going to want to go back and revise and revise and revise until those six pages are perfect.

I'm going to tell you that it is not time for that. [00:12:00] Let the future you worry about revising that first chapter or that prologue or whatever you're doing for your book, just because the future you, after you have finished this first draft, knows your story better or knows the content of your non-fiction book better than you do now.

And they will be in a better way to write that really important introductory first chapter or prologue or whatever it is for you. So it's kind of a shorter episode today, but this is what I did for my book.  I shared with you guys last week, that for the book I'm currently writing, I wrote the prologue probably two or three years ago.

I had the idea bubbling around in my brain. I alluded to the fact that I wanted this type of a book to be on the bookshelves and I couldn't see where that book was yet. So it was up to me to [00:13:00] write it. But I had these six pages written. I had the premise kind of figured out, how the narrator fit into the story.

It was structured differently and it was fun and it was entertaining. And the people that I brought in and read that first prologue to really liked what I had written. And they really liked the premise of my ideas, how it was all starting and where it was all going. It seemed to be a promising thing.

But it wasn't until last December that I finally decided to tackle it. And the way that I did it, the way that I chose to develop my storyline enough so that I could get started with writing, I went over to my friend's house. And. I brought over scraps of paper and we wrote down names and we wrote down events and we just started to piece together the way that this complicated timeline would work out.

And then other nights I [00:14:00] came over and I brought over my watercolor set and my friend went on Pinterest and started a Pinterest board so that we could get the visuals of what things looked like of what the colors were like, of what the textures were like. And so she was putting together a Pinterest board while I was watercoloring what a green house would look like and what this woman wearing a gray dress could look like and whatever else.

And I had those things, I've kept those things. And then I felt that I had prepared enough to get started. Like I said, I am not the person who will sit down and plan out every little bit of my book from beginning to end and then start drafting. I am the person who will prepare just enough so that I have something to write right now.

And there is a certain [00:15:00] amount of joy and excitement that comes with discovering the book along the way. So that is how I have approached my first drafts. That is how I have approached my story ideas. And that is how I would do it if I were writing a non-fiction book. So let me know what your ideas are.

Be sure to message me. You can direct message me on Instagram. My handle is @authordevindavis. 

And very quickly just to wrap things up, I do want to do a very short book review. The book that I want to mention on today's episode is The Ivies, by Alexa Donne. This book is a young adult boarding school thriller of people trying to get into college into the Ivy league colleges. And it is fun. It is a wild [00:16:00] ride. It has wonderful memorable characters. Everything in it was completely believable. It had a nice, fast pace. And for a YA boarding school thriller I definitely give it four out of five stars. Go ahead and check it out, guys. Thank you for tuning in to this episode. 

Again, don't forget to check out the podcast The Writer's Way, hosted by Lori Wright.  It is a podcast dedicated towards uh, children's authors so if you are hoping to write a children's book this should be a good resource for you. If you wish to support this podcast and help me out with producing it in that way, by offering money, go to. patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and become a patron.

Otherwise be sure to join the Facebook group [00:17:00] of Writing in the Tiny House . It's a pretty small group right now, but it will get bigger the more people join. So thanks again. Guys, and we will see you next week on Writing in the Tiny House.

 

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Kick It Up a Notch!

Welcome to the show notes of this episode of Writing in the Tiny House. In this episode Devin takes things a bit deeper with his relationship with creative writing. He shares the experience of his first story, the silly things he wrote in college, the awesomeness of releasing his second book just six weeks after getting married, then how creative writing has served him throughout the difficult time of his divorce.

If you find this podcast to be valuable, consider becoming a patron so it can keep growing.

www.patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

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Things I Do to Get Across the Finish Line

Here is an overview of today's episode.

00:00--Intro

00:18--It's Pride Month! This week's question is "What are your thoughts about writing diversity?"

05:42--How I get across the finish line.

06:32--We're having a special at the end of the month with my friend Whitney, and it's going to be about the benefit of Bookstagram in promoting books!

06:57--8 Practices. These are not recommendations, simply what I do.

08:01--Set goals and deadlines so progress can be measured.

09:05--Develop a routine and prioritize that routine.

09:51--Stretches, because keyboarding is hard on the body.

10:35--Progressively improve my word count. Before I was only capable of about 500 words; now I'm up to 2k and counting.

12:20--Eating healthy food made at home and getting enough sleep.

13:45--Read. A way to improve writing is to see how others are doing it.

14:37--Know when to throw your goals out the window, and create a bare minimum goal. For me, it's two shitty pages. That is achievable every day.

18:26--Try new ways to get things done, and let it be okay if those things don't work. This gives you more possible ways to accomplish your goals.

20:55--Book reviews. The first book is Beartown. Here is the link.

Amazon US

The second book is Us Against You. Both of these are by Fredrik Backman.

Amazon US

Be sure to leave a review, and follow me on Instagram @authordevindavis.

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Kill Your Darlings! And Other Unpleasantries.

Here is an overview of today's episode.

00:00--Intro

00:14--New logo! Please let me know if the old one is what you see so I may fix it.

01:12--Importance of self-care and seeing old friends, especially after this past year of isolation.

01:52--Last week's question was "How do you deal with an increased workload?" And these were the responses to that.

03:32--This week's Question of the Week is, "What are you doing today to measure your success?" Please send a response on today's Instagram post @authordevindavis.

04:44--Goals have changed because my entire book has changed.

05:34--Art is a pull to self-express. When pour so many hours of our lives into it, it can feel like this project is our baby. But when we hope to sell our art it becomes a juggling act of our self-expression mixed with what people actually want. "Kill Your Darlings" means being willing to change or abandon a project to meet market requirements.

11:17--Revision is another form of practice, and practice is how we get better at anything.

12:37--Tranditionally published author Alexa Donne showed that a break-out novel is usually 100,000 words. People write longer than this, but not with their breakout novel.

15:35--For a debut novel, publishers push for 100,000-word manuscripts because they are more affordable to print than longer books.

16:22--The realization that my book was far too long. But I'm willing to pivot and to be flexible.

18:00--Restructuring my novel so one of the subplots is now its own books. Scrivener made this restructuring easy.

19:40--New things to figure out. Pacing to fix. Ideas to further develop. And a new character that I'm not acquainted with yet.

23:08--Outro. Leave a review on your podcast app. And follow me on Instagram @authordevindavis

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