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