85: We're BACK!

Welcome to episode 85 of the Bookcast, my platform for sharing short fiction and updates on what I'm reading and writing. I'm DL White, author of contemporary  romantic fiction novels that center Black love and relationships. I'm also a big fan of books, so we usually begin with the book report, then we talk about writing and topics of the day. 

I’m currently editing The Pearl, a Black Diamond romance.

CHAPTERS:
0:28 Introduction and Welcome Back

5:46 The Book Report: Reading Challenge Update

7:30 Recent Reads: Reviews and Recommendations

17:53 Editing Update: First Pass Pages

18:03  Conclusion and Call to Action

The Bookcast is a production of Books by DL White, written, edited, produced and supported by ME. If you'd love to back me up, I'd be most grateful. The best way to do that is to TALK about the books, but also BUY THE BOOKS! You can always drop a coin in the hat at bookcast.buzzsprout.com.   Booksbydlwhite.com/books has all of the good stuff in eBook or audio.

The only title I have on sale right now is Beach Thing. It’s $2.99 at select outlets like Chirp so if you don’t own it and you didn’t get it at the library and haven’t used your free hours on Spotify Premium…. snatch it up at chirp.  

Pick up full show notes for today's episode -including my updates on the 2024 Goodreads challenge and the writing/editing update at Booksbydlwhite.com/bookcast/85. 

Transcript

[0:00] Music.

[0:14] And we're back after a month off the mic, which I did not miss, honestly, promise. We're here. Welcome back to the book cast. This is my platform for sharing short fiction and updates on what I'm reading and writing. This is episode 85. I'm Dale White, author of contemporary Southern and romantic fiction novels that center black love and relationships. I'm also a big fan of books. So we usually begin with the book report, and then we talk about writing and topics of the day. I am currently editing The Pearl, a Black Diamond Romance. That's right. It's done. It's done. The Bookast is a production of books by D.L. White, written, edited, produced, and supported by me. If you'd love to back me up, I'd be most grateful. The best way to do that is to talk about the books, but also buy the books.

[1:06] Booksbydlwhite.com slash books has all of the good stuff in ebook or audio. I should also remind you that you can drop some coins in the hat at bookcast.buzzsprout.com. Thank you so much to my constant and fervent supporters. I currently have two. I love them dearly. So Indie April is over. April was a good month, but it went hella fast. Like honestly, like by April 1, I was already looking at the end of April because I know I had to finish the book in April. It went real fast and May is getting out of here real fast too. The only title I have on sale right now is Beach Thing. It is book one in the Black Diamond series. And I'm trying to get Beach Thing and Elysium up there because really in order to enjoy the pearl, you need to have read Beach Thing and Elysium. I just feel like your reading experience will be much more enhanced if you have the backstory of the other couples in this book. It's Beach Thing is $2.99 at select outlets like Chirp. So if you don't own it and you didn't get it at the library and you haven't used your free hours on Spotify Premium, snatch it up at Chirp. You can also grab my books at my store. Visit payhip.com slash books by D.L. White. Tap audiobooks or ebooks and shop to your heart's content.

[2:21] If you're a member at Kobo Plus, you can grab all my ebooks and audiobooks as part of your subscription. And another reminder that if you're a premium subscriber at Spotify, you get 15 free hours there. So snatch up my audiobooks. I still get paid for them. Lastly, I'm available at your local library. So if none of those options apply to you, hit up Libby or Hoopla. I do believe all of my audiobooks are now available on Hoopla. Go borrow them. I get paid for them. Do you have a topic you would like me to cover on the book cast, shout me out a haul, or I'm always on Instagram or Twitter at author underscore DL White, or you can visit the show notes of this here episode at booksbydlwhite.com slash book cast. This episode will be slash 85. I welcome your feedback. And speaking of feedback, I put out a call for any questions or comments since I've been off the mic for a minute. As usual, y'all don't be paying attention to me. Y'all got nothing to say until I don't want to hear it. You know what I'm saying? I did get one question in in my IG question box, my editor asked when I was going to have Lance Bass on the show and ha ha, mother effing ha.

[3:25] Not only do I not know how to add a person to this podcast, which is why I don't have guests. I mean, this is bare bones is very, very simple. Plug it in, push a button, go. The chances I could ever have him on the show are fewer than zero, like not a chance. NSYNC is still pretty popular. Lance is a very busy man. He did write a book though. I ordered a signed copy of his children's book with the Halloween theme. I don't know what the title is. I can't remember it, but I did order a signed copy. So when it comes out, I will have a copy of that. I'm going to put it right next to my Sulwe by Lupita Nyong'o. And I also have a copy of the Born on the Water. I also have a copy of Born on the Water. So I'm going to set it next to Sulwe and Born on the Water. It'll be fun, like a little theme.

[4:12] Anyway, onward. Today's going to be a short-ish show. I mostly just wanted to get back in the saddle, but I literally have zero things to talk about except the books I have read and the book I just wrote. So I'm just going to catch up a little bit. It's just going to be a little inside baseball for today. I'll give you a smidge update on where we are with The Pearl. I'll also update on my reading challenge stats because I have most definitely been reading. And then I'm going to open the first past pages I got from editor and get into editing this book today. There's a chance I could have this book early for sale on my site only before it hits retail and that's really exciting to me because I would like to get like a really good first push privately and then set up a pre-order on retail for it to hit right before the 4th of July holiday. Today is Saturday, May 18th. It is 9 41 a.m. It is a gray day in Atlanta. I have a mic and after a month away, I am ready to dig in. But first, join me.

[5:17] Music.

[5:33] We begin, as always, with the book report. Because I am a book head, I have read 74 books of my challenge to read 150 books this year. I'm 18 books ahead on my Goodreads challenge. I want to start by catching up on April. So I read 16 books in April. Most of them were romance, but as soon as I finished The Pearl, I dove right into my mysteries and thrillers because I try not to read them when I'm writing steamy, dramatic, happy, hopeful romance. So far, I have read 12 books in May, and I realized that I overextended myself on NetGalley. I do this often because I don't pay attention to what I already have out. I don't pay attention to when books are coming out, when I might have to have them read. like every week I update my planner and every week I'm like, I have a lot of books I need to read. And yet I still request books no matter when they're going to come out. So I had about six books I needed to read and review by their May 21st pub day.

[6:32] It's a very yikes situation over here. And I already hear Dr. Raymond, stop letting NetGalley bother you. Don't worry about them NetGalley people. And I promise you if I could stop worrying about it, I would. But it's who I am as a person. I actually like NetGalley and I want to keep getting advanced copies. So I have to play the game. You know what I'm saying? I have to play the game. So I've got a heap of books I need to get read. Some I might wait for audio, but a few are romances, which I blow through very easily. And like at least one of them, I had an ebook and an audio arc. So that cuts out two of them. That said, I'm not worried. I do want to talk

[7:13] about what I read this week because I had a banner reading week. This week I read, actually last night, I read A Little Bit of Love and About Last Night, which is like a two book. About Last Night was like a little short at the end of A Little Bit of Love and enjoyed them both. Not my favorites. They were both by Sinithia Williams.

[7:34] Not my favorites, but I like her work. So I got through both of those. I also read Wanderlust, an Umber Bluffs story by Taye Russ. She hasn't released a book in a while, so it was good to see Taye back in action. I read or listened to Long Time Gone by Charlie Donnelly. And he, let me tell you, he's one of my favorite new authors. I've read everything he's written. I think he only had like five books out. So I mean, come on, but I have read every book he He has written Long Time Gone, is really, really good. Fans of genealogy will really enjoy this one. If you're a genealogy nut, you'll want to grab this one. It's about a woman who knows that she is adopted.

[8:14] And she submits her DNA for this project. She's running and finds out that her birth family have been mired in some kind of drama. And she is actually a baby that disappeared so many years ago. And so the book is super good. You should snatch that up. It's Long Time Gone by Charlie Donnelly. And it's out May 21st in ebook print and audio. I also caught up on my Melinda Lee obsession on her watch about female Sheriff Brie Taggart.

[8:51] It's book number eight in the Sheriff Brie Taggart series. Very good. Very, very good. I really like Melinda Lee. Kendra Elliott, not so much. She's like a kind of a, I'm bored. Let's see what's up with this series. But I'm very slowly catching up on all of the Melinda Lee releases out there. I listened to Sisters with a Side of Greens by Michelle Stimson. This was very good. I actually called my mom and told her she needed to read it. I think she would really enjoy it. This was a women's fiction novel, and the characters are seasoned. I really enjoyed the older point of view in that novel. Quite good. Really enjoyed it. I also read Long After We Are Gone by Tara Sarah Shelton Harris. This was fabulous.

[9:38] Fabulous. I did not read One Summer in Savannah. I do have it on my to read list. I don't know if I want to read it because I looked at the blurb and it looks really heavy, but I enjoyed Long After We're Gone so much that I might go back and read it. This was a tough, tough read. Lots of triggers. Read some reviews, read the blurb, read some articles on this book. I really enjoyed it. I don't shy away from a tough read at all. I like mess and drama, and there is some mess and some drama in this book. Goodness. Very well done. And then I read Waiting for Friday Night, which is Peachtree Cove book number two by Synithia Williams. So very happy Synithia Williams week. I really blew through the books. This was probably more than a week's worth of books, but that's pretty much what I got done in the last a little bit.

[10:30] Have really enjoyed my time away from the keyboard, as you can tell. Waiting for Friday Night was pretty good. I think I gave it three stars. Again, not my favorite. The heroine in this book seemed written really young for an education professional.

[10:51] And then the twist in the story, the breadcrumb came really, really soon. I just immediately know how it was going to end, which made it not as fun really to read. And then, you know, the hero was okay. I just didn't, I didn't like how he showed up in the book. Like his character was fine, but how he was involved in the story, I just, I just had some issues with, you know, I always have a knit here and there. And then just the love story just seemed very rushed, too deep, too soon, too much. I just didn't feel the natural progression toward a romantic relationship with those characters. So unfortunately, Waiting for Friday Night was not a dud, but I just didn't enjoy it really. So up on the list, I have A Gamble at Sunset by Dr. Vanessa Riley. I got this one. She actually sent this one to me in NetGalley. So I've got it on my list. The Medicine Woman of Galveston by Amanda Skinendor. I believe this is a historical, so I'm kind of looking forward to it. Might wait to see if it comes out in audio. I don't know. The 710 Split by Carmen Lee is a women loving women sapphic romance. Very much looking forward to this one. It looks fun. And A Little Kissing Between Friends by Chancia C. Higgins. That one doesn't come out until the 28th, but I'm gonna be real. I might bump it up to the top of the list because I love me some from Chantia Higgins.

[12:20] Her writing, I'm always in her inbox when she writes. Her and Danielle Allen, I'd be like, y'all have your inboxes open because you know how I am when I read your books. Chantia, just between laughing and crying, she's always got me. She's always got me. So I'm sure I put down plenty of books because I was very picky during my writing break. I wasn't reading anything. thing. I did not feel like reading, but honestly, when I decide I'm not going to read it, I just delete it from my shelf. It doesn't exist. It never happened. I don't know. I did not have any... I had time. I did not take time to pull out any recommended listening or any recommended reading this week, but I will be back next week and hopefully we will be fully back in action. So... Get ready. Moving on to the writing update or more to the point, the editing update.

[13:11] So my book ended up at just over 76,000 words. The goal was 70,000, no more than 75. And if I ended up at 80,000 words, I was going to delete chapters because I was not having it.

[13:25] She's a big, fine woman. This book is not as long as I used to write though. Some of my earlier works are over 100,000 words. So I've learned to be a smidge more succinct and stop myself from writing a 90 to 1,000, 100,000 word tome. Some of that is because I now pay for editing. And the more you write, the more it costs to edit. I do have first pass pages back from my editor. She whipped right through this. I'm very, I'm pleased and I'm very surprised because it would normally take her like four weeks to get through a book. So I'm very happy to already have the first pass pages back. We have a process where she'll do an initial pass and like look at anything like glaring and standing out like wrong words. I do things where I echo where I use the same word twice in the same paragraph because I don't pay attention to what I'm writing. It's like stream of consciousness. And no matter how many times I go back and edit, I will skip. My eyes will skip over that every time I drop words a lot. Sometimes when I'm editing, I might delete something I didn't mean to delete. And so I have like a partial sentence, like I started a sentence and then I went to lunch and then I came back and like forgot to finish the sentence. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of that going on. So it's always great to have a good, a second pair of eyes on the work. She'll highlight anything that is something I probably don't want to say. I get a lot of flags for ableist language.

[14:49] If I say something is crazy, if I say something is, I can't think of another word, but I've become more conscious of not using words that are harmful or that may trigger people. People so she'll flag a lot of those kinds of things out for me she also will note things that just don't make sense plots holes I started and didn't close up we have been talking over Twitter in the messages like hey make sure you call out this point because it's not clear that the whole resort sees this scene you need to you know you need to make it clear that this happened and I.

[15:30] Also have a point where there's a guest that shows up and I don't make it clear that they left and when they most certainly did. And so that's.

[15:39] I just need to do a little bit of refinement on this pass and then correct all of my errors. And then I send it back to her and she does a second more exacting pass. And this is the pass where we get it perfect. So it'll probably take another two to three weeks once I send it back to her. So the sooner I send it back, the sooner she sends back the final edit. And then she'll be ready for her close up, her blurb, her front matter, her back matter. All the good stuff that goes into publishing a book. I've also been editing the cover for this book. I had a cover that I really liked, but after finishing the book, I realized there's an element that needs to be called out on the cover. I also need it to look a little more like a romance novel.

[16:29] I still want it to match Beach Thing and Elysium, so I think eventually all of my covers will be a little more indicative of the theme of the books. But for now, the font and the style of the books match. And so I'm relatively happy. So today, I'm going to finish this podcast, edit it, get it up, and then the laptop and I are going to be hard at work editing this novel. I actually have not opened the document. I've only opened it enough to see how many words I actually wrote and turned into her. And so...

[17:13] I'm always a little bit nervous when I get the first edit back because I feel like your editor doesn't have to love the work, but also this editor is deep into romance novels. And so, of course, I want her to like it. If I get a document back and they're like, you know, it's okay. I'm like, what? What's wrong with it? What? What's wrong?

[17:35] So she did tell me that she had to make herself stop reading at one point. I'm like, I hope that means because it's good.

[17:44] Yeah. So that said, I've got to get to work. So that brings us to the end of today's chat. Thank you so much for joining me. I truly, truly enjoy having you here. And I welcome any comments or feedbacks you have at booksbydlwhite.com slash bookcast. Please share the podcast if you enjoyed this episode. And if you listen on Apple, I cannot speak. I need more coffee. Please share the podcast if you enjoyed this episode. And if you listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, give a girl a rating. I'd really, really appreciate it. Do not forget that you can support this podcast with your book purchases by spreading the good word or by throwing some coins in the hat at bookcast.buzzsprout.com. Every little bit helps. We will be back, fully back on Saturday, May 25th. And I'm going to just put this out there. I'm going to have a short piece of fiction to share with you. I'm hoping, hoping to have a short piece of fiction to share with you. We will see how that goes. Until then, please enjoy your weekend. Have a superlative week and we'll chat again soon. Bye.

[18:51] Music.