Episode 0 - Get to Know Us
[Leona] Welcome, everybody, to Writing with Witches. My name is Leona Urbansky. This is our first episode of Writing with Witches, and my co-host is…
[Nicole] I am Nicole Autumn, and here we are.
[Leona] Here we are indeed. So, a little bit about the podcast, just so you know what you're diving into, the two main things that we're going to be going over, that are very clearly delineated within the title, are writing and witchcraft. This episode is more about an introductory, get to know us. What we've written, what we do, why we're doing this podcast, and what you can expect with what we're doing with this podcast. All of that fun back jacket cover kind of stuff, so that you're not diving in headfirst without going, 'Who are these people, and why are they on this podcast exactly?' Just real quick before we get into the bios, because I know you're getting ready to do that, there are a couple of things that we're always going to cover in the podcast. Again, like I said, it's in the title. We're obviously going to cover writing, and that covers the whole range of writing. Not just writing itself, but we're going to be going into revisions. We're going into publishing. We're going into book cover design. We're going into different kinds of publishing. All that fun stuff, and the other thing is, we're also always going to have at least a small section, it will probably diverge into larger, because we tend to talk about it a lot, which is witchcraft. So there's always going to be some kind of witchcraft or witchy tip within each podcast, and that is enough of me blabbering. So we are going to introduce ourselves, and I made Nicole go first.
[Nicole] Okay, so I am Nicole Autumn. I live outside of Washington, DC with my husband and three kids. I typically write in the fantasy romance genre, I guess you can say. I have been reading mainly since middle school. That is when I first started finding that love of reading. I've tried writing before in the past, but I’ve never been successful, and kind of stalled out. Then I really got serious about writing back in 2022, which is when I met Leona. We swapped books and gave each other critiques, and we've kind of just had a friendship since then. And we’ve just constantly given work back and forth to each other and bounced ideas off of each other. So, yeah, that's me in a nutshell.
[Leona] In a nutshell, noted.
[Nicole] Yep.
[Leona] Okay, I am Leona Urbansky. I have been reading and writing as long as I can remember, and I live in the middle of the country, like literally the middle of the country.
[Nicole] Smack dab in the middle.
[Leona] Yes, the heart of the US. It's not actually geographically the heart of the US, just so people know, but anyway, I've been writing as long as I can remember. That said, I really only finished my first book a few years ago, and I decided I needed some critique that wasn't just from my family. So, I joined a writing server and that's where I met Nicole, and like she said, we've been kind of trading manuscripts back and forth for, oh lord, 2022? So for at least two years now. And then once we found out that we were also both witches, it just kind of snowballed from there.
[Nicole] Yep.
[Leona] So she can't get rid of me now.
[Nicole] I'm stuck with you, and that's okay. I’m all right with that.
[Leona] I’m glad. It’s your lot in life to deal with me. It's okay, I say it to my family too.
[Nicole] Oh, same with my husband. I'm like, you're stuck with me forever now, bud, like that's the way it's going to be.
[Leona] You said, yes, man, you're stuck.
[Nicole] Yep, I trapped you, and his response is always "Oh no, I'm trapped." [faked concern]
[Leona] That's a tragedy.
[Nicole] Yeah.
[Leona] So, the next thing we wanted to talk about was what we have written, and as the published author again, I'm making Nicole go first.
[Nicole] So, I have published two books. Well, technically, there are three books in a series. This is my Secret Society Series [holds up book]. The first book is the Order Unbound, and it is about a 30-year-old librarian named Amy, who finds a mysterious book in the archive area of her library, which new books don't come in and out of there. So, when she finds it and notices it’s written in a language she has never heard of, she turns to her best friend Charles and asks him for help. From there, it kind of snowballs into her finding out a lot about herself, her family, and her best friend. It is a dark fantasy romance because it tackles a lot of darker topics. There is a hefty trigger warning list. It touches on darker themes, but it is also a romance, and I wouldn't call it a dark romance because the love interests aren't particularly toxic. At least I don't think so; I mean, they definitely have their moments where you kind of want to smash them in the face with your fist, but overall, that's every relationship, though.
Buy The Order: Unbound: https://a.co/d/6XzNIzn
Buy The Order: Unleashed: https://a.co/d/7fY90Xc
Buy The Order: A Christmas Novella: https://a.co/d/6MRT54K
Trigger Warning list for all of Nicole Autumn’s Books: Publications | Nicole Autumn
[Leona] Yes, 100%
[Nicole] Then the second book, The Order: Unleashed, is where she finds out that she is going to another world with a demon prince, and has to learn how to navigate her relationship, the new things she has found out about herself, and deal with this demon prince. I don't want to say too much because it gets spoilery. Then the third one that’s published is just a small, almost a slice-of-life novella, and it’s Christmas time, and Santa makes a fun appearance. So, I do like that part.
[Leona] That was definitely fun. Also, a side note: anyone who loves the 90s will enjoy The Mummy, starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. Amy is a sexy librarian, so just think about that if you're hesitant about reading about a sexy librarian.
[Nicole] A plus-size sexy librarian.
[Leona] Absolutely. We love it.
[Nicole] We love inclusiveness.
[Leona] Absolutely. So, any hesitation you may have should now be gone about potentially reading these books, because they are amazing.
[Nicole] Oh, thank you.
[Leona] And I have a signed copy, and I'm very happy about that.
[Nicole] Have I sent you the novella yet?
[Leona] Not in print form, no.
[Nicole] Okay, I will have to get you that then.
[Leona] Oh yes, if I knew it was in print form, I'd already ordered it.
[Nicole] Well, no, because I want to have it signed for you.
[Leona] Okay, I will accept that.
[Nicole] Now we get to talk about yours, which you hope to publish sometime this year.
[Leona] Yes. That is the plan, as we all know, the best played plans. So, I finished the first book in what I am calling my Death Gate Trilogy back in probably 2022. We hit the servers at about the same time.
[Nicole] Yeah.
[Leona] I was attempting to do a traditional publishing route at the time. It did not work, obviously, or I would be talking about my book already being published. I have come to the conclusion, due to other various life circumstances, that I will be doing an indie publishing route. Thank you, Nicole, for that inspiration.
[Nicole] You're welcome. I will take the credit for that.
[Leona] Yes, absolutely all yours, but yes, I am aiming to publish this in October, that is the goal. I may be doing a crowdfunding campaign on that. I will keep the podcast listeners updated on when that is occurring, as well as when I finally settle on a release date. Just in case you wanted to know what the book is actually about, and now that you've said this, Fire Magic follows Brenna, a 250-year-old elemental mage.
[Nicole] There you go. Yeah, that is a key fact.
[Leona] Yeah, Brenna comes home to find her daughter has been kidnapped, and she has to go find her. Side note, this does take place in a completely different world that has never heard of Earth, so this is not a portal fantasy. This is purely what I term high fantasy. My best summary for people who don't want the whole back jacket cover is to think of “Taken” taking place in “Lord of the Rings” with Brenna, this elemental mage, taking the place of Liam Neeson and kicking way more ass.
[Nicole] She is a bad ass.
[Leona] Yeah, for the last hundred years, including coming across an old lover. Dealing with old faces and new faces that she never thought she'd have to deal with again, for reasons.
[Nicole] Reasons.
[Leona] Reasons.
[Nicole] Spoilers.
[Leona] That is Fire Magic, book one of the Death Gate Trilogy. The second book is written, so I promise you they will both be published. Then, I do tend to think in trilogies, so I don't see this going past book three. Although I will probably be writing more in this world since I basically already have the prequel trilogy written. Thanks to He Who Should Not Be Named.
[Nicole] He should not be named.
[Leona] I’m not going to give him away.
[Nicole] Oh, of course not. I completely get that. I think that since you compared Amy to Katherine Weisz's character, or wait, it's Catherine Weisz, right? What's her...
[Leona] Rachel, you’re thinking Catherine Zeta Jones. You’re mixing up the two.
[Nicole] Brenna is very much Moiraine from Wheel of Time. I’m not entirely sure in book form, because I still have to read it. That's what I'm reading next after the series I'm reading currently, but based on the show, she is a lot like her. They are very guarded; they keep a lot of information to themselves, but they are also very willing to do whatever needs to be done to save the people that they love, for sure.
[Leona] I will accept that because if I wrote this book from any other perspective, but Brenna, the only thing you would know about her is that she was a closed-mouth, hair-trigger person who would fight to the death for the people that she loved. You just wouldn't know she loved them till they told you later.
[Nicole] Yeah, exactly.
[Leona] She isn't going to say it.
[Nicole] She's not saying anything. It's like you will know when you need to know, and that may not always come from her.
[Leona] Which does come back to bite her in the ass more than once.
[Nicole] But we love that.
[Leona] For a 250-year-old elemental mage, she is… I did my best to make her very human.
[Nicole] That's good, though. We like relatable characters.
[Leona] So those are the books.
[Nicole] The next part is either the witchy tip or why we're doing the podcast.
[Leona] I say we do the witchy tip just to throw them for a loop.
[Nicole] Through the loop. So the witchy tip, I believe, was candles.
[Leona] Yes. I remember as a baby witch… Also, I feel like we should give them a little more background on why we feel qualified to give witchy tips. I have been practicing for four to five years now. I guess I'm not what I consider a baby witch anymore, but I'm a practicing witch. I'm also, well, I am not initiated, a practicing druid. I will also say, here's your segue, that Nicole was kind of my mentor for a lot when I first started practicing.
[Nicole] Nice.
[Leona] Right.
[Nicole] I have been practicing on and off for ten years—mainly solitary, I kind of work by myself. I haven't found anyone where I've lived to work with. So, it's just been me. I'm a little bit of a lazy witch, as in, I don't use a lot of the extra tools, do the big rituals, and all the aesthetic things that you see online or you read about. So, it's very much the intention is there; light a couple of candles, as we're going to talk about. And tarot has been my big thing that I use consistently in my craft.
[Leona] Incidentally, why I got her to agree to a podcast.
[Nicole] Literally divine intervention. They told me, "An opportunity is coming. Just wait, a friend's coming with an opportunity." I was like, "What opportunity is this? What are these cards talking about?" I was starting to go nuts because it was coming up in every reading. I’m like "Oh my god. I'm losing it." And then even a freaking Tik Tok video came up of some random person with no hashtags on their videos talking about "Oh there's an opportunity." I'm like, "What opportunity?" And then you write me out of nowhere. “Hey, do you want to do a podcast?” and I was like, “This is it! This is the opportunity!”
[Leona] Side note, I've actually been thinking about this for like two months.
[Nicole] Oh my gosh. So a while.
[Leona] Yeah, and it took me that long to muster up the courage, because I'm the person who hates to inconvenience people. I wasn't sure if I asked someone to do it, they would say yes, just to be nice, a kind of attitude. That's me.
[Nicole] And they've been telling me about an opportunity coming for probably just as long. I'm like, “What opportunity? What am I not seeing?” Apparently, they're like, “Just wait. We're waiting for her to pull the trigger, here. Come on. We're waiting.”
[Leona] Kind of adding on to this, I do oracle decks versus tarot, and I have actually had, I use a special, specific druid deck.
[Nicole] Nice.
[Leona] I had the reverse fire dragon show up twice.
[Nicole] Oh, wow.
[Leona] Which was weird. I've had dragons continue to show up, and in this deck, dragons tend to represent big life changes; there are only four of them in the deck.
[Nicole] Oh, wow, and you pulled them twice.
[Leona] I pulled the fire dragon two readings in a row. Both times reversed.
[Nicole] Oh, jeez.
[Leona] It was crazy. I didn't pull them in my last reading, but in my last reading, I had actually said something to you about that. So, they were pushing me, too, but just in their own way.
[Nicole] They're like, "Okay, let's go. Let's get this going.”
[Leona] “Jump on the road, lady."
[Nicole] Yeah.
[Leona] Anyway, so witchy tip of candles.
[Nicole] Yes.
[Leona] I put this in here because I remember before I accumulated a small library of spiritual books, I would frantically search Google for what color candles I should use for what for what occasion, worried to death, and finally seeing a tip that's like "It's okay just use a white candle."
[Nicole] That is true. White candles can be substituted for really any purpose. It's just the intention behind it, but I think black; I know some people may disagree. I also think a black candle could be substituted, especially if you are doing more protective work. I think black candles are it. So I feel like it could go either way with those ones.
[Leona] One of the things that I've read is that black candles, one of the intentions you put with them, is to absorb the negative energy. I would definitely. Yeah, for protection.
[Nicole] Yeah, and I feel like most…
[Leona] I agree, it could still be used.
[Nicole] With any work, you should be protecting yourself. That's where that black candle comes in, because anytime you mess with any type of energies, pushing anything out, protection, protection, protection, and you could always instill that with that black candle.
[Leona] She mentions that in her book, too.
[Nicole] I do. Don't conjure anything you can't get rid of. Okay, facts.
[Leona] What I do to make myself feel better is that I am a seamstress. I have a superfluous amount of ribbon. I will go and tie the color of ribbon I want, just to kind of give myself that little, “Okay, I've done a little bit more to make sure that this is my intention."
[Nicole] Yeah. That makes sense because even having that color as a reminder while you're putting your intention there reaffirms what you're putting into it.
[Leona] Especially if you're using candles and working with more than one presence. I work with four distinct, I say presences in my life. So, being able to use the ribbon helps me remember that I specifically set that candle for that one, and that candle for that one. Then I'm not confusing myself. I know they don't give a shit, but…
[Nicole] They're like "We’re here. We're not confused." You're like "But for me."
[Leona] Exactly.
[Nicole] Yeah.
[Leona] So, yeah, that was our witchy tip candles because you know you're in a witch's house when there's candles everywhere.
[Nicole] Yes. What is holding those books up? Two candles. I have a candle by my front door. I have a candle in my kitchen. I got them everywhere. If the lights go out at my house…
[Leona] You're set.
[Nicole] Candles. We're set. We're good.
[Leona] For sure.
[Nicole] Next up would be why we're doing this podcast. I think for us it’s probably just a way to talk about what our processes of going through books, reading, writing, and sometimes it's not fun to just talk in your own, what's that word? You've used it before, where it feels like an echo chamber. And opening that up to other people and hearing different opinions, or you know, just getting out there a little bit more.
[Leona] Also, you know, for those people who may not have a family that's supportive of their writing. You know, we can be one more voice for you to listen to instead of just having to listen to negativity all the time.
[Nicole] Yes.
[Leona] I’m not saying we're the only ones, by any means.
[Nicole] No.
[Leona] But we're adding to the crowd.
[Nicole] Yes, a very supportive space. It's funny because my family has been supportive of my writing; they're like, "Oh, yay, that's great." And I'm like, "Don't read it. Don't read it." And they're like, "Why not? I want to read it." I'm like, "You will learn things about me you don't want to know."
[Leona] It's that quote, "You got to be real chill, about a lot of things, real fast.”
[Nicole] A lot of weird things, really fast.
[Leona] Yes, was the person who handed my mother my smutty fanfiction and said, "What do you think?"
[Nicole] Oh my gosh, you have bigger balls than I do because I could never. My dad keeps asking to read my book, and I'm like, "Don't. Please don't read it. Please don't read it."
[Leona] Give him the special edition with the particular pages cut out or blocked off, just hand him the redacted version.
[Nicole] It's just going to be a lot. There's gonna be a lot of chunks missing. That book's going to go from like 300 pages to like 200, or 175, and he's going to be like, "There seems like there's stuff missing." There is.
[Leona] There should be a scene in here. All I'm getting is some weird dialogue that's occasionally thrown in the middle of all these black pages.
[Nicole] It's like I don't know what happened there. Printing press problem, I guess.
[Leona] Who knew?
[Nicole] Oh my gosh.
[Leona] That's totally fair. I think another reason I wanted to do this, specifically the 'Writing with Witches' podcast, is that I feel like in today's literary world, you still see many very stereotypical witches, and I'm not saying the stereotypes are entirely wrong. There are reasons behind what we do, but they have been so taken and subverted into a lot of the books that are popular. I wanted to show people that there are actual witches writing books with accurate depictions of witchcraft. I mean, obviously, the Secret Society in The Order takes place on Earth in our world.
[Nicole] So, mine would be considered like low fantasy.
[Leona] Low elements of fantasy, yeah. While Brenna is not a witch per se, she is an elementalist. The four elements are my primary thing in my craft and are centered around those. That's really expressed in the books, and I think we both, when we were writing, took a view that we are going to represent us. I’m not going to say accurate because you can't say anything is accurate with witchcraft because everyone has their own way, in a fair way with the good and the bad.
[Nicole] I would agree with that. I know for at least me, I wanted to incorporate things that you would use. Even though this is like a fantasy book, there are still elements that Amy comes into contact with and things that she has to learn that you would use if you were doing witchcraft in everyday life, like using herbs, or chants, or the intention. It's taking that element and just kind of pushing it a little further, to a little more accurate to what we would use. Not everything is like I'm throwing a fireball at you. Because in real life, that doesn't happen. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm guilty of it too, and for the fun of it, but there are more realistic aspects that I did want to include. I think you did the same.
[Leona] Well, I love one instance, and I want to say it was in Unleashed, where you really brought modern witchcraft because the witch literally whipped up the spirit cleansing potion, threw it in a spray bottle, and said, "Here you go."
[Nicole] Yeah, she literally mixed it up in a freaking Solo cup.
[Leona] Yeah, exactly.
[Nicole] She was like, "I got this special blend, girl. Just let me sit here and just mix this up real quick,” Like legit, that's sometimes what you got to do, you know, and little things like that where you just kind of throw stuff in that’s fun.
[Leona] I recently did a spell jar, and it was for the equinox I think. I totally spaced that we were sitting around a fire pit, and totally spaced on bringing actual candle holders. My friend had bought the little taper candles, right. I was just like "What the hell?" So, I had a bottle of spell jars with foam inserts to keep them safe. I took one of those inserts, grabbed my knife, and scraped out some holes in the foam. Then, I shoved the candles in, and I had a candle holder.
[Nicole] Sometimes, witchcraft is the most DIY thing I have ever seen.
[Leona] Witchcraft is the original DIY.
[Nicole] Yeah, it's not perfect, but, hey, it'll work in a pinch, it's going to work.
[Leona] Well, it's what you said earlier, it's about the intention. It's not about the flare, it’s not about the fancy, sculptured candles. My spell jar was literally, I had some little Pusheen witch spell jars, and I used it because it's adorable.
[Nicole] I love that.
[Leona] But it's still a spell jar. I'll show it to you.
[Nicole] Oh, yeah.
[Leona] Like my friend who's also a witch, who was practicing the spell jar with me that night, she's like, "Oh my god, that's adorable.”
[Nicole] That is the cutest thing I've ever seen.
[Leona] I have one more.
[Nicole] Well, that kind of led us into why we write and how we integrate our craft into our books. So I know for me, I've already said, I like taking some of the more realistic things that I would do, or witches in general, would do, and putting that into my books like mixing up something in a solo cup, and getting it done. That's really what I like doing, along with the more fun fantasy elements of doing things we can't necessarily do, even though I wish we could, that'd be pretty sick.
[Leona] Which is exactly what the newest portal fantasy I'm writing is about, but anyway. I mean, I kind of did that, too. You can definitely see the elements of witchcraft in Brenna's elemental magic. Side note: I didn't really touch on it strongly, but it's mentioned a couple of times. Brenna is what I call in that world, a mageborn, which means she was born with soul magic, and there is a whole other line of magic in that world that is called witchcraft. Which is actually based on our witchcraft that we do here, but they're able to access that magic in that world a little bit more. I remember in one, it's a little bit of a spoiler alert, mages are definitely a minority, discriminated-against group in this high fantasy world, and witchcraft was often used to suppress the fact that someone's a mageborn in that world.
[Nicole] Gotcha.
[Leona] I don't mention it a lot because we're in the world of the mages, you know. We're reading from that world, and I tend to write about minority groups. I’m realizing lately it's like I've experienced it or something. I don't know.
[Nicole] It's like I've experienced this before.
[Leona] Right. So I meant to have that be a bigger piece of the pie in Death Gate, and it's this whole other line of magic that I have a lot written about in my notes.
[Nicole] Yeah
[Leona] But it's not in the book.
[Nicole] You're like "Maybe."
[Leona] Well, to be fair, Brenda doesn't really know about it. I mean, she's seen the consequences of it, but as a mage born, why would she have ever needed to practice what she would call witchcraft?
[Nicole] Yeah, well, you did say your other books are taking place in the same world, because then you know that could be a potential.
[Leona] So the trilogy time-wise, that's going to be coming after this one, you're going to be seeing a lot more. It's still being written from the point of view of a mage, cough Keene cough. You will love him. He is the sweetest, dumbass, smart, man ever. Anyway.
[Nicole] We love him.
[Leona] You definitely see a lot more witchcraft because the discrimination has just gotten worse after what happens, ultimately with the deathgate, and you're going to get that even from the end of the first book. What's going to happen is already bad.
[Nicole] Yeah, it's bad.
[Leona] It’s already bad. It's no surprise, I promise, once you read the book.
[Nicole] Yeah.
[Leona] I mean that will definitely come into the trilogy to that world more, that said, the next trilogy being written in that world is actually the prequel to the Death Gate.
[Nicole] Okay.
[Leona] But we'll get there. I told you, I tend to think in trilogies. That doesn't mean we don't always keep coming back to the same world.
[Nicole] Well, I know like for mine, I know a lot of the books that I am writing, I do want it to take place in that same world that I've built. Essentially, the multiverse. I guess you could say.
[Leona] It's your multiverse
[Nicole] It's my multiverse, but that's kind of the ultimate plan is to kind of have everything all in one world. So, what happens in one series will still make sense if you've read it or pick it up from somewhere else. Which I say series, but really, it is kind of a trilogy too, but because of the novella, I'm like it’s technically four, it's a series.
[Leona] It's three and a half.
[Nicole] Three and a half, yep.
[Leona] That's how they assign it on Goodreads, right? It's like .5, .3.
[Nicole] Yep, the third one is technically 2.5. So there we go.
[Leona] But it's definitely, I wouldn't call it one of the throwaway novellas.
[Nicole] No, there is definitely substance to it.
[Leona] Shit goes down.
[Nicole] Shit goes down, that was touched in book one and book two, that I really didn't have anywhere else to wrap it up in. I was like, well, I don't want to leave loose ends. So, although it doesn't affect the overall storyline like the main plot, it definitely affects everyone there.
[Leona] Yeah. Even once book three is out, you still need like, I get reading book 2.5 right now, just to you know, fill the need, literally. Even once book three comes out, you need to read the novella because otherwise you're gonna like have an idea of what happened, but you miss a lot.
[Nicole] Yeah, it's touched on in like the first chapter of book three. I kind of just essentially, it's what happened last episode situation, like the first chapter is like, this is what happened, this is how we're dealing with it. So, if you decide not to read it, you still kind of know what's going on; you just don't have all the details.
[Leona] But Secret Santa.
[Nicole] Oh my god, I love that Santa.
[Leona] that pun just came into my head like 30 seconds ago.
[Nicole] I don't know where it came from when I wrote that, but I was just like, Santa knows some shit. He knows stuff.
[Leona] It's Santa.
[Nicole] Yeah. I mean, if magic is real, why wouldn't Santa be real? I'm just saying.
[Leona] l I will always think of that Santa though closer to the… Oh lordy. Is it just the Guardians?
[Nicole] Oh, are you talking about Rise of the Guardians?
[Leona] Jack Frost. Yes, thank you. Yeah, with Jack Frost, that's the Santa I see.
[Nicole] Yep, 100%. That's kind of the vibes I was getting. He's just like I know what's going on. So, the next thing would be, what inspires us?
[Leona] Well, obviously, escapist fantasies for me because I can't seem to write a book based on this world, but I'm going to let you talk more about yours first.
[Nicole] For me, a lot of my inspiration comes from music, and I can thank my husband a lot for that, because he is the music guy. He's constantly trying to find new songs, new artists, and stuff like that. Anytime he gets one he thinks I'll like, he's sending it to me. So I'm always constantly getting flooded with new music on a weekly basis. So I always have something new that kind of gets my imagination going, just listening to lyrics. It’s mainly when I'm driving, or you know, just kind of zoning out, cleaning, and listening to music. That has been my big inspiration. So, I kind of just go off from there.
[Leona] She also gives you her playlist.
[Nicole] I do. I haven't had one, surprisingly, for this book, which is probably why it's going so slow. I have not made a playlist for this book. Normally, I have a playlist made.
[Leona] Get on your husband about that. Where's the music?
[Nicole] I know. Well, that's the thing is: he sends it to me, but then I'm like, well, this one's kind of not really the vibes for what I'm working on. There are definitely ones that he sent me, and I'm like, "Oh, this will work for this one that I'm going to work on after this, or this one and this one."
[Leona] Tell him he needs to go back, reread the book, so he's getting the correct vibes.
[Nicole] He's never read them. I keep telling him to.
[Leona] Well, then he needs to read them, period.
[Nicole] I know, and I'm like, "You need to read them." And he's like, "I don't really read." I'm like, "Fine, then let me just go do an audiobook for you real quick. You could just listen to me blab on a daily basis. So, let me just record myself reading it to you.”
[Leona] Oh, that actually reminds me, I am still going forward, I'm looping back just a little bit. For my release, I am planning on releasing an audiobook with the print and ebook, just so people know. That is one reason it is waiting until October, because me and a friend, that I've somehow bribed, I don't know how. It was kind of like me asking you, “Do you want to do a podcast?” When I brought up like doing an audiobook, she's like, “I'll help.” I'm like, “What?”
[Nicole] Oh.
[Leona] Yeah, exactly. We have been trading audiobook tips back and forth like how we're going to construct our little sound studios, and what equipment we need to buy. Anyway, I will be releasing an audiobook version of Fire Magic because it kind of hits close to home for me, honestly. My husband hasn't read anything I've written because he has a reading disability.
[Nicole] Okay.
[Leona] Both of my children are special needs, and find it difficult to read, and I also just know a lot of people out there, I mean like you, you listen to audiobooks on a regular. I don't, but that's just me. I prefer the print. I have nothing against audiobooks, I like that tactile. I don't even like ebooks though, so.
[Nicole] I won't lie, I was like that for the longest time. I was like, I will only read paperbacks, in my hand books. I want the book, and then my husband got me a Kindle and Kindle Unlimited. Next thing you know, I'm sitting here just blowing through books like I was reading them so quick. Then, eventually, I got like an Audible subscription. Then I'm like, well, I can do this, and I can clean. This is giving me the ability to zone out while I clean, and I'm not focusing on it. So, anytime I'm doing like busy work around the house, cleaning, cooking, or whatever. That's normally when I'm listening to the audiobook. It literally takes me like, well, the books I'm listening to now are like 26-27 hours. They're crazy long, so normally, it takes me like a month to get through one audiobook, but I need to start reading some of my TBR because I do have some physical copies that I need to get through.
[Leona] Yeah, and I mean I literally have a Barnes & Noble nook that sits on my dresser, when I need to read something that I can't get in print, like Nicole is not the only author that I beta read for.
[Nicole] Mhm.
[Leona] I will either read it on my desktop or my Nook. I find it hard to read on my phone. I did that just recently, the other day, for reasons. I just don't, I can do it. I just don't like it, and as I said, no shade to the people who like audiobooks; if that's your thing, I have no issue with you. That is purely a personal preference, and it's also kind of fun to mess with the librarians at my local library because I get so many interlibrary loans, and they're like, "Leona, just go on Hoopla." I'm like, "But I want to hold it.”
[Nicole] I want to be able to smell the pages.
[Leona] Yes, the dead wood.
[Nicole] Yes
[Leona] Dead trees and ink. My vibe.
[Nicole] So, what process do we use when we write? I am a pantser. I don't plan anything—totally a pantser 100%. I don't know what is going to happen. You can ask me, “Hey, what's happening in two chapters from now?” I couldn't tell you. I don't know if there's going to be new characters. I don't know if someone's dying. I don't know anything. It is just tippy tippy tap until it just comes out.
[Leona] See, but here's the thing I love about your books. I know this about your writing, but I've never seen your characters make a choice that wasn't in keeping with their character.
[Nicole] Oh, well, thank you. I try to keep it so that when it comes to my characters, I make them as fully fleshed out as I can, right? They have fears, they have passions, they have hobbies. There are things that they like and things that they don't like. So, I try to make them almost as real in my mind as possible, so that when I am writing, their voice sticks out. It's not blending together. That’s the hard part of being the pantser, trying to keep that consistent voice per character, which, of course, in my first one, there are four main characters that we go between. Amy, being the main one, but you know all three guys get their to speak their peace, occasionally.
[Leona] So that's a question, though. What comes to you first, the story plot or the characters?
[Nicole] The characters, 100%. It's the characters, first. It's typically something that will inspire a scene in my head, and I'm like, "Okay, well, who are they?" And from that point, I use the Sims to make them. So, I can see them first because it's kind of like a dream, you know, where you can kind of see that there are people there, but there are no real features. That's where I'm like okay, well, what do they look like? That's when I get into character creation mode, and that is what fuels the storyline, which is who they are as people and how they would react to certain situations that may arise, and stuff like that. So, characters are first and foremost.
[Leona] I would have never guessed that because your stories are really plot-driven.
[Nicole] They are. Yeah, but mostly, I feel like if you don't have good characters, it doesn't matter how good the plot is. If you don't like them.. You know, you gotta like the characters if you don't like them…
[Leona] Or you have to hate them enough to keep reading.
[Nicole] Yeah, or you just don’t want to keep reading. I don’t like the main character. I don’t like the love interest, you know, or the villain. Sometimes, even if you really don’t like that guy, you just don’t want to read it at all. Or her, or whoever.
[Leona] And now I must know, what happens to them.
[Nicole] To who?
[Leona] Whoever.
[Nicole] Oh, I don’t know.
[Leona] Good guy. Bad guy. Exactly, you've got to be able to get the reader to be like, "Okay, I really don't like this person, but something about them has my attention."
[Nicole] Yeah, and I need to find out what happens.
[Nicole] Then you run into the issue that I've seen a lot of people come up with is, oh, well, the character is just annoying. That is something that I've noticed with the books that I have read for the first three books in the series; they took one main flaw, and that was their entire personality. Oh, she's clumsy. So she's clumsy for three books, and I'm like, "Can we do something different, please. I’m sick of this shit." So that's where I feel like making a fully fledged character first, kind of helps everything move along a lot easier.
[Leona] Yeah, I guess mine is this, I think the characters do come first for me as well, but like you said, they're telling the story as they come. I can't speak for Fire Magic because, to be fair, this story's been percolating in my head since 2003.
[Nicole] Yeah, so you've had a lot of time to plan it in your head.
[Leona] But Silver Eyes, one of my other projects, Skitter, the protagonist in that book, no, it wasn't Skitter that came to me first. It was Argyros because I found the black tiger. I remember showing you that picture. I was like, "Isn't that cool? Now I want to make a weretiger."
[Nicole] Yep, I do remember that.
[Leona] Spoiler alert: Argyros is a weretiger in Silver Eyes. Eventually, that'll come out.
[Nicole] I'm looking forward to that.
[Leona] I'm looking forward to writing the second book, but I need to finish Death Gate. I need to focus.
[Nicole] We’ve got to minimize the working projects.
[Leona] Too late. Oops.
[Nicole] Oopsy.
[Leona] Yeah, they come to me, but I don't really get to know them until they start telling me their story.
[Nicole] That's fair. I would say the same. Amy, for example, I kind of had a vibe for who she was, but I didn't know specifics. I know what she looks like. I know she likes to read; she's a librarian, like the basic character profile stuff. Then there's the fears that come in, and you don't learn those things until way later. So even with her, you know, she doesn't have a traumatic backstory. She had a fairly good life growing up. She came from a good home, loving parents, you know, and I didn't know that until like halfway through the book. I'm like, "Oh, okay. So, no tragic backstory, like this is so well adjusted.” She lived a normal, everyday life. Okay, cool. Then you know we have our other characters that are like, “I am sorry you went through that. That's rough.”
[Leona] Someone should have called somebody about that.
[Nicole] Someone should have called Child Protective Services on your parents, like ASAP, like 100%. The process is very much in the characters, but they tell me the rest.
[Leona] While Fire Magic may have been sitting in my head since 2003, I didn't actually start writing it till like 2021, and I found out things about the characters as I wrote that I didn't know. That particular character was supposed to just be a friend.
[Nicole] Yep.
[Leona] He showed up and Brenna's like, "That's more than a friend you know." And I'm like what?
[Nicole] “That's my man right there."
[Leona] Yes that's basically what's happened. That changed a whole lot of stuff and then that particular man, can't stay mad for his life at this woman, and it's very frustrating because I had that planned.
[Nicole] You were like, "God, damn it. They changed everything."
[Leona] I had a whole little epilogue scene written already, and yeah, that's no longer applicable.
[Nicole] You're like, "Well scratch that."
[Leona] Because, unfortunately, he is a well adjusted person, who is not emotionally constipated like Brenna, that actually talks.
[Nicole] Yeah
[Leona] About his feelings.
[Nicole] Nice
[Leona] Lucky for him, not for me, less drama.
[Nicole] Right, it's like we need the drama. We can't if it's just two well adjusted people. Then this is going to be boring to read. We need the drama, the tea.
[Nicole] So next up would be book reviews.
[Leona] Book reviews. Yay.
[Nicole] Which I'm going to let you start with that because I feel like your book reviews are going to be far more in depth, and critically thought out. Mine are going to be like I was there for the vibes. It was good times.
[Leona] Okay. All right so the book I finished most recently was book 14 or 15 of Disney Twisted Tales. If you've never heard of the Disney Twisted Tales, if you're a Disney fan at all, you probably have. They are not a one continuous series, it is literally what it says they took one of their movies, usually animated, changed one thing in it, and let the story roll from there.
[Nicole] Okay.
[Leona] If you're a Disney fan, they are a lot of fun to read. There are definitely some that are better than others, but all of the authors, there were multiple authors, who work on the series. Elizabeth Brasswell, Liz Brasswell, Elizabeth Lim, Jen Calonita, Farah Racchon, Mari Mancusi, oh, and I think there's a fifth one that just started. She's writing the Lilo and Stitch one and the Moana one. I can't think of her name, I will I'll put it down here later. [Keala Kendall]. So the one that I just finished was Sally's Lament, and if you know Disney movies at all, I'm sure you can guess where this one is going.
[Nicole] Oh, yeah.
[Leona] I am not a huge Nightmare Before Christmas fan. I have nothing against it, it's just not one of my favorite movies, which is odd, I know, for this community.
[Nicole] I do love that movie.
[Leona] It's not a bad movie, it's just not ever going to rank up with some of my other Disney movies that I enjoy.
[Nicole] That's fair.
[Leona] The twist in this one is… Since I'm not going to spoil anything because this movie's been out for I don't know how long.
[Nicole] Since the 90s.
[Leona] There you go. In the scene where Jack is doing his lament, and he's walking through the graveyard after he summons Zero to his side. Sally is leaning against one of the gravestones, listening to him.
[Nicole] Yeah.
[Leona] What happens instead of her just listening and continuing his lament? She leans against the gravestone a little too hard, and it just crumbles, and he sees her there. They start to talk, and sorry, Mary Manusi writes Sally's Lament. This is one of her first books that was actually released of the Disney Twisted Tales. Anyway, in the US, her other books, oddly, were mostly released in Australia and the UK. I now have an Amazon UK account and an Amazon Australia account in order to get all of the Disney twisted tales. I am a completionist. So, I've read her other books before, so I knew going into this that this was going to be a good one. So, the relationship between Sally and Dr Finkelstein…
[Nicole] Yeah, I think so.
[Leona] is portrayed very differently in the book than in the movie that I remember. As much as I remember of the movie, I also think it's a kids' movie; it's much more light-hearted for all of the themes that it touches on. With Halloween Town, it's definitely more adult, abusive relationship. Just in an isolationist, you have to take care of me kind of way, not at all in a sexually abusive, or physically abusive way, but you can definitely see, kind of where she's pulling that from the movie, from what I remember. I need to rewatch that now.
[Nicole] Yeah, I can see that it's more like the mental aspect of it.
[Leona] Exactly. So this gravestone crumbles, Jack sees her, and they end up talking on Spiral Hill. He's like, “This was a good talk, thank you for listening, Sally. This is just what I needed. He goes home, and Sally's like, “You know, I really should take advantage of my freedom for the night,” because as we know, she ran away from Dr Finkelstein at the beginning of the movie, in order to be part of Halloween night. So, she's like I'm going to keep my freedom for a little bit, and she ends up taking Jack's place in that she follows Zero into this clearing with all of the holiday trees, and finds Christmas Town.
Sally’s Lament by Mari Mancusi: https://a.co/d/9y2VoWd
[Nicole] Okay.
[Leona] So, she is the one that follows. I don't remember if Zero went to Christmas Town in the movie or not.
[Nicole] No, he didn't.
[Leona] Okay, well, he does in this one.
[Nicole] Okay.
[Leona] She ends up following Zero to Christmas Town because she opened the door a little bit, and she's like, "No, no, I shouldn't." And she started to close the door, it didn't quite latch, and Zero stuck his little red nose in. She had to go get him because it's a dog. So, it's her discovering Christmas Town, and I think Mancusi does a really good job of moving the whole plot point from Jack fuddling things up in Christmas Town to Christmas Town was messed up already.
[Nicole] Was it?
[Leona] It didn't need Jack to fuddle with it in this book. I really, really enjoyed it even though I'm not a huge fan of the movie. This was really a good twist on it. I don't want to give too much more away than this because I don't want to spoil the rest of the book, but Sally's exploration of her freedom, and spoiler alert a little bit, her eventual liberation coming about of her own will, and not solely focusing on her romance with Jack. There is the romance, and it's very well done. I love Mancusi for this. She also wrote the Robin Hood one.
[Nicole] Okay.
[Leona] That one is an excellent one, too. Anyway, she does romance really, really well without it being, well…
[Nicole] Smutty?
[Leona] What you write? Nothing against you, right, but it's Disney.
[Nicole] It's very PG.
[Leona] Yes, there we go, that's what I was going for. So, yeah, I really enjoyed it. The ending followed through on everything that you wanted and hoped for, with the character growth for both Sally and Jack. The characters you meet in Christmas Town, and I feel like Santa was a much more reasonable person in this book than he was in the movie. Granted, I know in the movie, all you saw about him was when he was kidnapped.
[Nicole] Pretty much, yeah.
[Leona] Oh, also, I just thought about this, you don't see Oogie Boogie at all, like he is a non-player in this in the book.
[Nicole] That's crazy because he is such a big part of the movie.
[Leona] Tell me how I know Oogie Boogie was a big part in the movie, when I haven't seen it in forever.
[Nicole] Because it's everywhere, if there is anything Nightmare Before Christmas, there is a Jack, or a Sally, there is an Oogie Boogie too.
[Leona] No, actually, how I know this is because he has a whole song, and I have listened to Voice Play, the a cappella group, play it so many times and thoroughly enjoy it.
[Nicole] That's one way.
[Leona] So, if you like Disney, especially if you like the Night Before Christmas movie, if Oogie Boogie is your favorite character, you will be disappointed, but it's definitely worth reading in my opinion. Go in with light expectations of PG romance and a lot of character growth for Sally and Jack without messing up an entire holiday.
[Nicole] Well that's good because you know messing up Christmas kind of sucks.The book that I had just finished, literally, I think two or three days ago, was the Zodiac Academy by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti. I know this book series is very popular; a lot of people have read it. I am on book six, which is The Fated Thrones, and I'm not entirely sure how much to go into this because it is the sixth book. A lot of stuff happens. I am listening to it, and the narrators are Bridget and Jake Bordeaux, they're a married couple, and I just have to say, beautifully done. I feel like they are the gold standard of narrators. They are amazing. The amount of different voices they do, and the way they can capture emotion. I know we've all listened to those terrible audiobooks where the narrator is very hard to listen to.
[Leona] Well, cross my fingers that I don't end up in that bucket.
[Nicole] Oh my, no. I don't think you would. There are just some that I feel like it's more so the older books that you tend to find this in, like when I was listening to Dracula at one point. I think it was last October, and the narrator was there. There was nothing particularly wrong, but it was just hard to get through. It was very one-note the whole time.
[Leona] They were just reading the book.
[Nicole] Yeah, exactly. They fully act it out. They're amazing, but with this book, there is some character growth in there for both of the main female characters because they're a set of twins. Basically, they were fae, didn't know they were fae, lived in the mortal world, and has been taken to Solaria, which is the Fae world. It’s essentially like copy and paste of what we have here, but magic is there. Everything's names are just slightly different like a Ferrari is a Faerrari. I won't lie that seems a little corny in my book, but it's fine I can look past it.
Zodiac Academy Series: Zodiac Academy (12 book series) Kindle Edition
[Leona] I want to see…
[Nicole] But in this particular… Huh?
[Leona] I want to see a Faerrari show up in your book now.
[Nicole] Oh my god. No, thank you. Anyway, it's just interesting because at this point, if you've read the first book, it says right on the cover, it's a bully romance. Which there are a trigger warning list, I would assume, I don't know. I haven't read the physical copy, but there are a lot of trigger warnings based things that happen. It starts off with two girls that don't know where they're from, and come to a new world. The people that are supposed to rule this country are no longer supposed to rule it now, because they showed up. They're princesses and they bully the shit out of these girls. This point might be a little spoilery, they're all friends six books in. They kind of stick their necks out for each other, which is nice to see in the character growth in that. New romances blossoming between characters you never expected. The writing like I said I can't speak to so much, on the physical copy, from what I've heard the actual grammar and flow of writing in the actual books are not the best. I can't really speak to that because I've been listening to it, and like I said, the narrators are doing an amazing job. I like the books I’ve kept with it probably thanks to the narrators. There are definitely times where I'm just like, “Man, these characters can't catch a break. Nothing good is happening.” At that point, I'm like can we just get one good thing to happen, please. At the end there are some good things that happen, and I'm like thank God. I need something here, give me a nugget.
[Leona] That shit keeps piling on.
[Nicole] If it's not one thing it's another, and it just keeps piling on. I'm just like sweet Jesus these poor characters. They're going through it. So, that was the book that I had just finished, and I just started the seventh one, because I'm trying to get through this book series. I do want to listen to The Wheel of Time, or read it, whichever one I can get my hands on.
[Leona] We need to do a buddy read on that.
[Nicole] I'm just looking forward to it because like I said, I was watching the show. I'm the person that I will watch the show before I read it, because then I feel like the books will fill in the gaps on things that I may not have understood, things I've missed, or whatever. At that point, I don't know, understanding more of what the characters are thinking from the book, because you can't really hear their thoughts.
[Leona] Yeah, so much harder.
[Nicole] Yeah. You're filling in the gaps essentially, and now that the show has been cancelled, which really makes me upset. Now I have to know what the hell happens, because you can't leave me hanging like that. So, I have to read these, which I know it's like a 12 book series, and like the last three, Brandon Sanderson, I believe actually finished them.
[Leona] Yeah.
[Nicole] For him because he had passed away.
[Leona] My brother is a huge fan of the books, that's why I know that.
[Nicole] Oh, okay. Yeah so I'm really wanting to get to those, so, I'm like trying to listen to these ones as fast as I can.
[Leona] Well, let me know when you're finished with Zodiac Academy. I will pick up the first book for Wheel of Time, and we can read that together.
[Nicole] Yes.
[Leona] If you want.
[Nicole] Oh, I'm down for that okay. Next up is where we can be found since we're going to be wrapping up our first episode.
Email: writingwithwitches@gmail.com
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Leona Urbansky
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Nicole Autumn
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[Leona] Just a tiny little preview for the next episode, I know we kind of talked about a little bit, but we're starting what we're calling our book writing arc. The first subject we're going to be talking about is brainstorming. You're going to get to listen to us lay out how we brainstorm stuff.
[Nicole] Thank you for reading. Hopefully, you guys decide to stick around and come back for our next episode.
[Leona] Yep, so we'll see you next time.
[Nicole] Bye.