Interview with the amazing author Anne Marie Pace – Bonus Podcast Episode
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Hey! Welcome to a bonus interview episode of Dogs are Smarter Than People, the usually quirky podcast that gives writing tips and life tips. I’m Carrie Jones and with me today is Anne Marie Pace
Anne Marie Pace!
Anne Marie is an authenticity rock star. She’s the author of Vamperina Ballerina, Pigloo, Sonny’s Tow-truck, human-parent to animals and humans. She likes to read, cook, do some fine choral singing and be an all-around great friend. Anne Marie, it is so great for you to be here.
We talk about the inspiration for Vampirina Ballerina, a vampire who wants to take ballet lessons, cats who throw up and dogs who eat it, openness and mental health and being authentic even on social media.
I hope you’ll give it a listen and support one of the coolest writers around.
Broken Brains and Where Shouldn’t You Start Your Story
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A lot of writing coaches talk about story structure and plots and inciting incidents, which is all well and good but Carrie is burnt-out this week.
Carrie: I have worked too hard and my brain is broken.
So, instead we are going to tell you what NOT to do. We are going to be the story police and harsh out the rules.
Carrie: I don’t like rules or broken brains, but let’s do this.
What Not To Do According To Conventional Wisdom Right Now
Do not start with dialogue.
This used to be super popular, but MySpace also used to be super popular. Things go out of style and it is not super popular anymore.
Here’s an example:
“I like elephants.”
“Awesome. Me too.”
“No way?”
“Actually, I am lying.”
EXAMPLE OF AWESOME
You’ve no clue who is talking, where they are or why they do or don’t like elephants and you probably don’t care. We want readers to care from the very beginning of the story.
An alarm clock buzzing.
Who even has an alarm clock anymore, actually? But no alarm clocks or cell phone alarms or whatever. Waking up is dull.
My alarm buzzed and I groaned.
“Another day, another dollar,” I said to my cat, Muffin.
Muffin hit me in the nose with her paw. She’s tired of my clichés.
Another Example of Awesome
The whole IT WAS ALL A DREAM start.
Unless this is a paranormal or fantasy where the dream is a key part of the power or the threat? Then it’s okay even if people say ‘never ever.’
Cough. You don’t want to be super invested in a story and then find out that it was all crap and not real even to the character.
Amazing thing happens. More amazing things happen. More amazing things happen for five pages. Oops. It’s all a dream.
Example of dreamy
Being dorky without meaning to.
This is when you accidentally make a super silly mistake or state something obvious in the very beginning of your story. Gasp! I know! You would never do that, right?
Spoiler alert: We all do this.
She knew she had to wear a mask in a pubic place.
Try to avoid the typos.
“I love to love you,” I think to myself.
This is an example. We all think to ourselves. Cut the ‘to myself.’
All narrative all the time.
There is no dialogue anywhere in the first ten pages of this story and instead everything is just a solid block of text in which I, the author, tells you exciting things – well at least they are exciting to me – about the story, but honestly it’s just a lot of navel gazing. Did you know that people get lint in their navels? Did you know that a lot of that lint is actually random fibers from your clothes, if you wear clothes, and dead skin, and then it gets stuck there and mixes all up together. I wonder if you care. I wonder if you care that I care. And so on.
Agh. Did you even read this example? It ruined our SEO readability score.
Writing Tip of the Pod
Don’t start off on the wrong writer foot.
Dog Tip for Life
It’s okay to start over.
SHOUT OUT
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE.
I’ve been working super hard creating things and helping other people create things and I’ve been ridiculously stressed worrying about people’s health and systemic inequalities in our health care system and even about my income because of Covid-19 and I don’t have it in me for a serious blog post today. I hope that’s cool with everyone. Instead, I’m going to give you random tidbits about me.
2. That makes me lose my chill, but in a chill-inspiring way my ex-boyfriend from high school has a really lovely, very religious, very Catholic mom who BOUGHT IT. Yes, her son is gay. She proudly showed the book off to all her friends and that? Well, that made my heart sing. I’m so glad he has her for a mom.
3. I used to be the youngest female city councilor ever elected in my city and I never EVER dated any other city councilors, or politicians although ex presidential candidate Gary Hart once winked at me and I’ve been hugged by Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown and George W. Bush and Mike Michaud and Paul Lepage and Susan Collins and John Glenn and too many NYC mayors to list. Politicians apparently hug across parties. Also, I’ve been hugged by a lot more male politicians than women. This does not seem fair.
4. I have one ex-boyfriend who is now a writer. He published before he was 30 and wrote for the NYT and Village Voice. I try not to hate him. Just kidding! I don’t try. No! No! I don’t actually hate him at all. I’m super happy for him actually.
5. I have one ex-boyfriend who was in TIGER BEAT MAGAZINE because he was on a Nickelodean TV show before college. And I find this hysterical.
6. I have one ex boyfriend from fifth grade whose name was Bertram, but he wanted to change it to Steve. He was so sad about his name. He also wanted to be a knight. I hope he at least got to change his name.
7. I have one ex boyfriend who chewed tobacco and spit it into a Pepsi can and thought nobody knew. EVERYBODY knew.
8. I just realized I will never have another new ex-boyfriend, which is weird, just weird…And I also realized that because of Covid-19 politicians won’t be hugging people as much this year, which has a lot of weird ramifications, too.
How about you? Do you have random facts that you never share? It feels weirdly good to remember and share them.
Super Noses, Stuffed Teddies, and Being Awesome, an Interview with YA Author, Ronni Davis
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Hey! Welcome to a bonus interview episode of Dogs are Smarter Than People, the usually quirky podcast that gives writing tips and life tips.
With me (Carrie) today is Ronni Davis for our special bonus interview edition.
Ronni is one of the best humans around. She graduated Ohio State with a degree in psychology. And she has an amazing debut novel WHEN THE STARS LEAD TO YOU, which you can buy here at IndieBound.
Ronni’s website states she’s a writer, dreamer, wanderer. Have you met any authors who weren’t who are just buttheads?
We talk about that, fitting in, and super noses. We also talk about how it’s cool to sleep with the teddy bears you had as a child. And do not fight us on this.
“When the Stars Lead to You is a powerful debut about reaching for the stars and how to put yourself back together after falling apart. Deftly blending the complications of first love with an exploration of mental illness, Ronni Davis is a bright new voice in YA that readers of today and the future are lucky to have.
Debut author Davis provides a new take on the archetypal first love novel by tackling the impact of mental health, race, and class wars. A moving love story, timely given the pervasiveness of mental health crises.”
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE.
Link to Caitlyn’s bonus episode. Books, Law School during Covid-19 and just being Kick Butt – Using Law to Create Lasting Change – Interview with Caitlyn Vanover
We dogs smell poop the way sommeliers smell wine. It’s about nuance.
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RANDOM THINGS YOU LEARN ABOUT EACH OTHER DURING LOCKDOWN
So, in this house we’ve learned a few random things that we didn’t know before we had to isolate ourselves because of the Covid-19 pandemic and these things include some things that were mentioned on Buzzfeed and some that weren’t including:
Treasure Hunting For Gray Hair In Other People’s Hair Is Fun.
People Hook Up on the Scrabble app and Words With Friends.
Sometimes Your Relatives Don’t Close Cabinets.
How Much Noise Your Fellow Family Members Including Dogs Make.
Your Husband Is More Southern Than You Thought.
So, while we were checking that out we also saw that Buzzfeed had this other article called, “17 Delicious Cookout Recipes That Will Impress Your Southern Friends” and the first thing we thought was, “Do I have southern friends?” And then we remembered we have an entire Southern family and then we were ashamed.
But the article was not all that Southern and it confused us.
Did the writer think Northern people don’t have BBQ pulled pork, buttermilk fried chicken, BBQ baby back ribs, corn on the cob, fried fish, burgers, baked mac and cheese normally? And why would Southern people be more impressed by that than Northerners?
Like where did this regionally specific food divide even come from? The only southern thing that was on there that Carrie (from the North) didn’t grow up with were collard greens. She even had peach ice tea. Albeit, it was the Snapple kind.
They had baked beans on there. Dudes, they are called Boston Baked Beans for a reason. They had potato salad on there! It made no sense!
And someone in the comments actually wrote: “This post should probably be changed to the perfect SOUTHERN cookout. Most of these things aren’t gonna fly at a cookout in Maine!”
And Carrie lost her chill.
All you all, don’t talk about Maine if you’ve never been here. Similarly, give shout-outs to the origins and history of the foods that you’re blogging about because erasure isn’t a cool thing and that goes for socio-economic erasure and ethnic erasure. The foods of different cultures sustain us, build us, bind us, and also reflect our histories–the good and horrible parts.
What does this have to do with writing?
When you write about regions, think about it from more than your perspective. When you want to add some authenticity into your stories, think about the strange things you learn about your own house and family during lockdowns. Those details and nuance? That’s what makes a story authentic, not a bullshit blog post about how to impress your Southern friends at a cookout or a food post about Kimchi that never mentions it’s a Korean food.
Writing Tip of the Pod
Be smart. Be detailed. Be full of empathy, but don’t be so full of yourself that you forget the backs and lives and hearts of the people who came before you. That goes not just for writers, but for regular humans, too.
Dog Tip for Life
Dogs are all about origins and details. According to Sparrty, our dog, “We dogs smell poop the way sommeliers smell wine.”
It’s all about the nuance. Be about the nuance not the generalization. That’s true about writing and thinking. Smell the bouquet, appreciate the differences.
SHOUT OUT
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
Link to Caitlyn’s bonus episode. Books, Law School during Covid-19 and just being Kick Butt – Using Law to Create Lasting Change – Interview with Caitlyn Vanover
I have a new book out!!!!!! It’s an adult mystery set in the town where we live, which is Bar Harbor, Maine. You can order it here. And you totally should.
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
Books, Law School during Covid-19 and just being Kick Butt – Using Law to Create Lasting Change – Interview with Caitlyn Vanover
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Hey! Welcome to a bonus interview episode of Dogs are Smarter Than People, the usually quirky podcast that gives writing tips and life tips.
I’m Carrie Jones and with me today is Caitlyn Vanover. Caitlyn is an awesome human out there making a difference in the world, She is in law school in Illinois, class of 2022, and she has an Instagram devoted to books, which is a straight shot to this writer’s heart.
She’s not just a book lover. She’s a first-generation law student.
It was through The WILLOW Project that I knew I was going to: help those who couldn’t help themselves; be a voice for the voiceless; and “help those that have fallen through societies cracks.”
Caitlyn
Want to be inspired for good and to do good? Plus, listen to someone cool? Download the episode or just listen and give Caitlyn and The Willow Project some love.
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
RECENT EPISODES OF OUR PODCAST OF AWESOME AND BONUS INTERVIEWS FROM DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE
Join the 220,000 downloads with your own! Like and subscribe and be weird with us everywhere you find podcasts.
Link to Caitlyn‘s interview if you can’t see it above.
A bonus interview with Jose De La Roca, podcaster, writer, comedian, actor, dad. Link to Jose’s interview.
CARRIE’S NEW BOOK OF AWESOME
I have a new book out!!!!!! It’s an adult mystery set in the town where we live, which is Bar Harbor, Maine. You can order it here. And you totally should.
I have a new book out!!!!!! It’s an adult mystery set in the town where we live, which is Bar Harbor, Maine. You can order it here. And you totally should.
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
Jokes, Stuffies, And Using Your Weirdness for Good, An Interview with Jose De La Roca
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Hey! Welcome to a bonus interview episode of Dogs are Smarter Than People, the usually quirky podcast that gives writing tips and life tips. I’m Carrie Jones and with me today is podcaster, actor and definitely a writer, the amazing Jose De La Roca.
Jose has more than 17 years of radio broadcasting experience and now he shares with you all the secrets he knows about podcasting.
Jose say he is a dad first, talking monkey second, and a writer. He wrote a great book called How to be a Dad without a Dadand he’s worked for radio stations and streaming apps and I’m a little intimidated.
HisYouTube Channel has a lot of stuffies and he’s in charge of Dad without a Dad Productions. He’s super cool, super smart, and super fun.
Jose of awesome!
Why are teddy bears never hungry? Because they are always stuffed.
Jose
We talk about imposter syndrome, being a doer, the state of the radio industry and using humor as a coping mechanism.
According to the IRS, I’m an actor, voice-over actor, sound engineer and a writer, but all I want to do is provide a better future for my son.
Jose
You should definitely check out the interview and Jose’s links.
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
I have a new book out!!!!!! It’s an adult mystery set in the town where we live, which is Bar Harbor, Maine. You can order it here. And you totally should.
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
So, a lot of times writers have vision boards for their stories. We fill these with images that represent the theme or the thought or the character. I do this a lot by painting, but sometimes I make real boards somewhere (like Pinterest) too.
This works really well for the image system of your story and image systems are super cool. Let me know if you want me to blog about them.
And this is the one for one of the stories I’m working on right now. It’s basically a campground for the undead and other strange creatures. The working title is brilliantly called, CREEPY CAMPGROUND STORY. Yes! Yes! I know! Genius title.
And this one would be for the YA story I’m revising, which is a bit of a time travel story, but still awesome and not confusing.
And this one would be for IN THE WOODS, which I cowrote with Steve Wedel and came out this summer.
So, yeah. That’s a peek into the weird image part of my story writing process.
For more about a couple of the stories, check out behind the jump.
But before you go, let me explain. When I write my stories, I hear them inside my head first and then I see the images. Not all writers are like this. When I try to get to the heart and soul of my story and its characters, it is the images that pull me there. Not the words. So in my first draft, I hear the story, but when I revise, I feel the images.
Why are we talking about fart jokes? Well, because right now there’s a pandemic and people are dying and economies are crashing and there’s a lot of pain out there. Throughout history, people have been in pain, lived and died, faced wars, pandemics, economic uncertainty, loss of freedom, a lack of human rights.
And throughout history there have been fart jokes. As writers and humans, it’s good to think about that.
The oldest joke in recorded history? It was a fart joke. Flatulence is almost always funny unless it is a joke told by Ancient Sumerians, maybe?
Here’s the joke:
“Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.”
I am going to be honest here. I don’t get it.
The oldest British Joke is this one from 10th Century—“What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before? Answer: A key.”
Those naughty Anglo-Saxons, you can tell Shaun’s related to them. Notice their joke is not about farts, but a twist on something anatomical, a set-up and a reversing of expectation.
Jokes are often about rebellion and not caring about cultural taboos, right?
According to the author of the article in the Conversion there are certain theories about what makes these sort of jokes funny:
The superiority theory says that we laugh when we feel “sudden glory,” as Thomas Hobbes put it – a sudden sense of superiority over a person, especially someone to whom we ordinarily feel inferior. Cases of slapstick humor, such as the pie-in-the-face or someone slipping on a banana peel, fall into this category.
Kant and Schopenhauer argued on behalf of the incongruity theory, which says we laugh at the juxtaposition of things that don’t ordinarily go together, such as a talking dog or a bearded woman.
And relief theorists like Spencer and Freud maintain that laughter is how we relieve nervous tension regarding subjects or situations that are socially taboo or inappropriate. This explains the popular appeal of jokes based on sex, ethnicity and religion.
“Your screen freezes. There’s a weird echo. A dozen heads stare at you. There are the work huddles, the one-on-one meetings and then, once you’re done for the day, the hangouts with friends and family.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic hit, we’re on video calls more than ever before – and many are finding it exhausting.”
Jiang talked to experts and learned that video chats are hard and tiring because our brains have to go into overtime to understand non verbal cues, the pitch of a voice, and so on. The silence that happens is not natural. It makes us anxious. A 1.2 second delay in response makes people think that you are a jerk.
And most of us are not reality tv stars and we see our face and we feel watched. It is like we are on stage.
And the calls remind us of how weird these circumstances are. We do not get to hang out with our friends or our coworkers and these video calls remind us of that and not only that the bubbles of our lives (work, family, friends, school) are suddenly all in the same physical space. That can weird us out.
So tell fart jokes if it is appropriate. Turn off the video if they let you. Put your screen to the side instead of the front of you. Build space around the meetings if you can. And breathe.
Try to remember the value that happens in humor and connections and fart jokes.
Writing Tip of the Pod
Fart jokes last longer than most other things, just like farts.
Dog Tip For Life
Right now, we need more fart jokes and less Zoom meetings. We need to engage with the people we’re isolated with and notice the nuance, the pauses, the gaps.
SHOUT OUT
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
I have a new book out!!!!!! It’s an adult mystery set in the town where we live, which is Bar Harbor, Maine. You can order it here. And you totally should.
THIS IS WHAT IT’S ABOUT
Rosie Jones, small town reporter and single mom, is looking forward to her first quiet Maine winter with her young daughter, Lily. After a disastrous first marriage, she’s made a whole new life and new identities for her and her little girl. Rosie is more than ready for a winter of cookies, sledding, stories about planning board meetings, and trying not to fall in like with the local police sergeant, Seamus Kelley.
But after her car is tampered with and crashes into Sgt. Kelley’s cruiser during a blizzard, her quiet new world spirals out of control and back into the danger she thought she’d left behind. One of her new friends is murdered. She herself has been poisoned and she finds a list of anagrams on her dead friend’s floor.
As the killer strikes again, it’s obvious that the women of Bar Harbor aren’t safe. Despite the blizzard and her struggle to keep her new identity a secret, Rosie sets out to make sure no more women die. With the help of the handsome but injured Sgt. Kelley and the town’s firefighters, it’s up to Rosie to stop the murderer before he strikes again.
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
Order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
I’m still revising ANOTHER NOW, which is a big time travel story. It is killing me.
AND FINALLY, MY NEW PATREON STORY
And over on Patreon, I’m starting a new story this week! It’s a chapter a month if you want to check it out. It basically costs $1 a month to listen to my story and $3 a month to read it. There’s a new chapter every week. It’s super fun; I promise. Here’s an excerpt.
