Dear Google, I Promise I'm Fine: An Interview with Olivia Danson

Two ramblers enter a podcast recording and NO ONE CAN STOP THEM. This week, Jess and special guest Olivia Danson talk about THE DARKEST GLASS, gothic horror, young adult literature conventions, why it's all Florida's fault, and more. 

We even had questions from the members of The Pillow Fort (our free-to-join Discord server). 

*Special note from Jess: FROM is on MGM+

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Booked All Night is produced by Rob Cook.

Edited by Jessica Mary and Rob Cook.

Hosted by Jessica Mary, K. Leigh, Julia Johnston, and Magdalyn Ann

Transcript

Booked All Night 0:02

Welcome to Booked All Night, the podcast where hot takes meet craft notes and no one gets enough sleep. I'm Jess. I'm Katie. I'm Julia. I'm Maggie. Get ready for unhinged hot takes. A whole lot of books, midnight giggles, and zero shame. Grab your blankets, booklets. It's time to get booked all night. I'm Jessica Mary, and today I'm joined by Olivia Danson, author of The Darkest Glass. So welcome to the pot. I'm so glad you're here.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

Thanks so much for having me.

Booked All Night 0:29

Your book looks so dark and spooky. And I'm like, I'm like, who is this lady on the cover?

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Right. I get that a lot. Um, a lot of readers will tell me, like, oh my god, who is she?

Booked All Night 0:44

Yeah. Who is that? She's gonna wreck me. I just know it.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

She is one of the troublesome characters, so you did get that. You did get that right.

Booked All Night 0:54

They all seem troublesome. I was like going through the the blurb. I'm like, everybody is broken and the story hasn't started.

SPEAKER_03 1:01

Everyone is just not minding their business, honestly. That's fair. They're just not.

Booked All Night 1:06

Every last one is super nosy. And before we find out just how nosy, we're gonna start off with a little game of superlatives, very much like the end-of-the-year book sort of thing. So most likely to, least likely to kind of thing. So who is most likely to doom everyone by making a single bad decision?

SPEAKER_03 1:25

That would be Julia. Julia. Who is on the cover.

Booked All Night 1:28

Who is on the cover?

SPEAKER_03 1:30

Who is on the cover?

Booked All Night 1:31

Nailed it. I knew it. She was gonna break me. She was gonna break my heart. Least likely to ask for help even when they need it.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

That is Sybil, the uh the academic burnout of the group.

Booked All Night 1:47

Oh, it's me. Okay, yeah. Woo! Most likely to uncover a secret when they never meant to find it.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

That would be Tobias, who actually does that very thing. Oops. Oops.

Booked All Night 2:09

Uh, who is most likely to survive the longest in the collapsing kingdom?

SPEAKER_03 2:14

Oh, that is going to be Nathaniel, uh, the very posh vampire. He cannot be bothered with death. Thank you very much.

Booked All Night 2:23

That just seems like a lot of effort. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

He can't be bothered with that. That's just not his thing. I don't know. No, thank you.

Booked All Night 2:31

I mean fair, like and finally, who is least likely to walk away from the power once they have tasted it?

SPEAKER_03 2:40

Uh that is that's a good question. I think that is going that is going to be civil. The academic burnout. She she goes on a very interesting journey. And um she she likes she likes the power. I mean affair.

Booked All Night 3:03

Like you don't get to be an academic burnout because you like went light on things, you know.

SPEAKER_03 3:10

She's very much a perfectionist. She likes delving into all the books and things, and you know, when she kind of discovers more than she should, she's like, maybe this isn't such a bad thing after all. I I can control this, she says, hopefully.

Booked All Night 3:28

To be fair, I'd probably be the exact same way. I'd be like, you know, I've done enough research. I have this super long bibliography. I know exactly what I'm taught. I've never touched a single piece of this, but I know in theory, I could totally do it. Oh, yes. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 3:44

She's like, I'm a teenager. I can do all the things, actually.

Booked All Night 3:47

All the things all the time.

SPEAKER_03 3:49

Yes, I can do it.

Booked All Night 3:51

What I would give for the audacity I had as a teenager.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

Oh my gosh, yes, same. I'm like, where did I have that confidence from? Like, now I'm in my old, old age of like 33.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

And I'm like, where did I come off? Like, really.

Booked All Night 4:12

I look back at stuff. Like uh producer Rob, who's not here with us today, you know, there's a lot of comments we make where I'm like, God, when I was in high school, and you could just watch him shake his head because he and I went to high school together, and he's like, oh, we don't we don't talk about high school Jessica. Jessica, like, it's not great.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Let's not let's not we won't, we won't.

Booked All Night 4:32

So questions about the darkest glass. We'll just jump right in here. We have, as I said, it's got such a rich, dark, gothic like premise to it. And I was like, oh, hello. Like, so what was the first spark of this story? Was it character, the prophecy, the world itself?

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Um, yes. So it was actually when I way back long ago, um, when I was 15. Way back a while ago, um, I was reading um, I don't know if you've heard of it, uh, Lippa Bray's The Great and Terrible Beauty. And I that was my first introduction to any kind of young adult story with gothic elements. Um, because I'm notoriously a scaredy cat, and um I very much love the idea of horror and like watching horror movies for me. I have to psych myself up and I have my pillows, and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do this because it seems so interesting and so fascinating as a medium, but I am the scardiest of scaredy cats. So so when I was reading it, I just devoured that entire series, and it was a gothic romance. So my little 15-year-old brain was like, Well, what happens in like the spookier parts? Like, what is going on with some of the like, you know, like in this castle and you know, in this other world that they get transported to, and so I just started writing my own story, and um I previous prior to that I was very much in the fanfic community, so I was right. I feel like we've all just dabbled. We've all started there, exactly, and um I love I love my fanfic community, but I'd never written anything that was longer than a short story of just my own like original characters, so this was all new for me, so I was just having fun, just writing a story, and then I went on to high school and I started writing a little bit more, and then I went to college, started writing a little bit more on it, but I was never like truly serious until I was I want to say in my early 20s. Um I got my first apartment. I was like, oh my god, I'm an adult now. And me and my roommates, I'm like, oh, we're all adults now, and we were just basically kids. And I was like, I think I'm gonna do this seriously. I because I was in college for broadcast journalism, and I really wanted to go in a creative writing direction. So I was like, you know what? I'm gonna sit down, I'm gonna overhaul this manuscript because it is a hot mess, because I started when I was 15. And it was no one seeing that first script in the light of day.

Booked All Night 7:21

We don't talk about her.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

Like, she was she was a product of her time. We'll say that. And uh very, very like twilight goated, if you will. And I just overhauled it and I really delved into the gothic horror elements because I was finally coming into that. Um, I had read Frankenstein and I dabbled with a little bit of Poe, and I was like, wow, this is fascinating. So it went from being a gothic romance when I first started it to then morphing into a gothic horror fantasy.

Booked All Night 7:59

So yeah, it's that's Yeah, but it sounds like such a fun journey. Like people I I have quite a few friends. One of them here on the podcast uh doesn't do horror, and that's that's Maggie. Maggie is notoriously a giant baby as it comes to anything spooky. And I'm like, you want to interview the the spooky the spooky writers with me? They're like, no, no, I do not. Um I one of the other authors that we've interviewed uh does like queer horror. We've had a few queer horror come on. Um Maggie. Maggie, for longtime listeners, uh everybody knows Maggie is super gay. Yes. And I was like, there's queers in it. Oh yes. Come come get your horror.

SPEAKER_03 8:43

There are, there are queers in it, please. And it just gets more queer as it goes, but it also kind of gets spookier as it goes. So sorry.

Booked All Night 8:52

Let's see what happens to them. You'll never find out, I won't tell you. Yes. It's terrible. It's absolutely terrible the way that I bait them so much all the time.

SPEAKER_03 9:01

Oh, but they I'm sure they secretly love it.

Booked All Night 9:03

Just they must just lower it. They must, because they they put up with me continuously, so they must. Yes, exactly. Uh so magic uh being outlawed is quickly becoming like a pretty popular trope in fantasy. So what makes your take on that idea feel different?

SPEAKER_03 9:18

Yes, so in my world, um, so for the first book, this was going to be part of a series, and focusing on the initial kingdom that we're in in book one, um, Halcyon, um, magic is outlawed. People know of it, but there is a lot of propaganda built into magic being framed as almost a shortcut, if you will. So their principal religion uh espouses that you work for and earn what you have. So they frame magic as being this kind of lazy shortcut that um you're making essentially a deal with the devil and you're not helping those behind you, you're not contributing to society, you're not earning what you uh have done, you know, and so they're framing it as, you know, you're not helping your neighbors, you're actually pulling the ladder behind you. So those practicing magic are considered like the blights of society. So not so much dangerous, but just you're not benefiting us, you're not pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and helping us.

Booked All Night 10:33

I hate that phrase.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

Yeah, and that's why like I got the things that I disliked the most. I'm like, yes, let's put them in here, and then I'm going to write around them and show that that is not true at all, that there's actually this much bigger conspiracy happening, and something that the monarchy and the aristocracy is trying to hide and keep locked away. And if magic was rampant, it would awaken it. So this is all propaganda. This is all lies.

Booked All Night 11:10

Isn't it always all propags all lies? As I keep saying in every interview, we're reading the Hunger Games this season. And uh our it like officially starts at the end of this month, which is very cool.

unknown 11:20

Love that.

SPEAKER_03 11:21

Uh, such a great series. Uh Devoured it.

Booked All Night 11:24

Yeah, the entire time. We're just like, oh, so close to home. Oh, so yeah, so close to home right now.

SPEAKER_03 11:28

Why I'm in this photo and I don't like it.

Booked All Night 11:30

Yeah, gotta take it down. Don't like it. Don't like it.

SPEAKER_03 11:34

Why am I here? And we all thought like, oh, this is just fantasy. This is never gonna happen.

Booked All Night 11:39

Yeah, and then our government was like, oh look, a guidebook.

SPEAKER_03 11:41

Yeah, hold my beer.

Booked All Night 11:43

Yeah. I just, oh my god. Seriously, the the entire time we're just like, I don't like it. I don't like it anymore. Yeah, I don't know. Like Yeah. I'm like, I get when it was written and we were like, we had like light elements of that. It's all about this warning and things. So now I I lean dystopian in my my favor of books and horror and especially like anything with a gothic vibe. Oh, sign me up. I just love it.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

I'm actually in the middle of Inamarata right now, and I'm just I'm live laugh loving my way through that book. So good.

Booked All Night 12:22

And I just sit there and I'm like, oh, that's a little close to home. We're gonna ignore that though, because my sanity depends upon it.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

Um for sure. Yeah, Dysopian. I I did I I do enjoy the genre, but like right now it's it's a little hard for me because I'm just like, oh, it's so close. It's so close to home.

Booked All Night 12:44

It's like it's not even like just a little on the nose.

SPEAKER_03 12:47

It's like a punch in my face every time I read anything, and I'm like, uh just like, oh no, like why is how did we get here?

Booked All Night 12:57

How did we get we have so much literature detailing how not to get here and we got here anyway?

SPEAKER_03 13:02

The cyclicalness of it, it's just and that's that's funny enough, that's another thing I touch upon in the book. There's a very cyclical nature to everything. And be just because I've seen it now in my in my wisened old age, I've seen certain things repeat. Um, and as I'm sure my fellow millennials will understand, we're we're very tired. Yes, we've we've been through so much. And there is a very cyclical nature to all, especially what's happening now, and it it is frustrating because it's like, again, how did we get here? But then when you look back, you're like, oh, I see how we got here.

Booked All Night 13:41

Yeah, yeah, I see. Yeah, it's largely Florida's fault.

SPEAKER_03 13:46

Yes, and as someone who lived for a very long time in Florida, I'm now in Texas, but as someone who lived a very long time in Florida, I do side-eye it quite a bit. I'm like, we could have done better. We could have done better.

Booked All Night 14:00

All your fault.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

All your fault. Gosh, Florida.

Booked All Night 14:04

Florida. Oh, and title of the episode. God damn it, Florida.

SPEAKER_03 14:08

Like always out of the they're never beating those allegations.

Booked All Night 14:12

No. Never. I will never forgive them. Just I oh, oh, oh. Okay, back to the interview. I have the whole thing with questions. We're gonna go on so many tangents. It's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

I I told you, I'm so sorry. I'm a ramble.

Booked All Night 14:26

So am I. It's great. It's perfect. And producer Rob's not here, so he can't tell me to get back on track. It's perfect, it's lovely. This is what happens when he doesn't show up.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

You're like, I get to do what I want.

Booked All Night 14:38

Yeah, we we did that last night's recording. It was like two and a half hours. I'm like, but Rob edits those, so ha ha.

SPEAKER_03 14:43

Yeah, it's fine.

Booked All Night 14:45

It's fine. So your characters we started have like they're all pre-broken prior to the story. Yeah. So uh like how will these pre-damaged characters draw readers in?

SPEAKER_03 14:55

Yes, so I wanted to make them relatable to a certain degree and to have readers be able to find within themselves parts of these, um, what they represent. So they are all teens, but they do um have various aspects of their brokenness. So, for example, Julia, she is trying to find her herself and her identity, and she when she starts in, she's basically becomes whoever the situation needs her to be, whoever uh she's with, who what she and she morphs herself around other people and in turn has lost uh who she actually is, what she wants. And um Tobias is very much in a situation where he is raising his younger sister and their parents are no longer in the picture because of course also YA. So, you know, they're dead, everybody's dead, everybody's dead, and so I wanted to have that aspect because I growing up I had quite a few friends in middle school and high school that they had to step in to raise their younger siblings or look after them. Um, and then with Nathaniel, he just has mommy issues. He's just mommy issues. Um and with Sybil, as I said before, she's academic burnout, so very much top of her class, um, burning the midnight oil, trying to be the best she can be, and then sh something happens with her coven that she gets blamed for, and now it's trying to salvage her reputation and going to school and experience bullying because of that. Um so because I'm writing for a teen audience, but understanding that those that are maybe in their 20s, 30s may have aspects that of their inner children that they that they have not healed, I wanted to show what I felt were common issues in teenhood that aren't often talked about, but still experienced. So I'm hoping that relatability will help drawn readers to the uh very real realities that uh sometimes we face in teenhood, but that aren't always seen outside of like contemporary YA.

Booked All Night 17:08

Yeah, I also feel like I was a teen in the early 2000s, just just after the Earth's crust cooled, and um I I had quite a few friends that you know had to step in or like you know, they they went over to a friend's house because their parents were like, you can't be trusted, and it's like but but I can.

SPEAKER_03 17:30

But I can't be.

Booked All Night 17:31

Yeah. And I feel like it's it's a lot worse now. Like when I when I was a teen, I think grandparents were around a lot more. I know that my grandparents were available for me. Yeah. And I feel like now grandparents are working longer, and so they become part of that like reason that you need to step up because they can't be there to take care of you after school. They have their own jobs to maintain. Uh they uh parents, both parents have to work in the house at this point, and like even if your your parental group is like a polycule, they all need jobs because the market is expensive and grocery stores. I yeah. Gas alone, right?

SPEAKER_03 18:13

Like I just I just refilled today, so I feel I feel that. I feel that.

Booked All Night 18:20

Uh I I feel like the generation beneath me, the generations plural beneath me, have it harder on that social front than I did. Like I was very lucky to have my grandparents. I was very lucky that I had friends with parents who got home before they got home from school, and so I had a place to go and be taken care of and like watched and cared for when I was young, whereas it's today where they're like, you know what, the key is under the mat.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Right.

Booked All Night 18:49

And um Right.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

And there's, you know, some Kraft Megan cheese bowls that you can just heat up, you know, don't turn on the stove. And it's yeah, and I feel like, like you said, it's gotten even more of a I would almost like a lonely generation. And the fact that they don't have their parents around as much. They do have to watch her younger siblings and in some cases even help raise them as like a secondary parental figure. Um, you know, maybe there's been divorce or you know, just single parents and it's hard. And grandparents, like you said, they're working now. I mean, I know my grandmother, um, she was working up until like almost her eighties. And it's it's so unfortunate, and I don't see it getting any better. Like at least right now, hopefully it does, but that puts a strain on kids. And as now as an adult going back and doing the revisions for Tobias specifically, I wanted to kind of emphasize that he understands the sacrifice that he's making, but it's so that his younger sister can have that childhood, and that childhood is something that is both precious and not a privilege. You would it should be and you would think so. But it is something that is very much a luxury, especially in this society, and they don't even some the some of the characters you'll see, like Julia, that takes it for granted. She has her family there, she has you know extended family, and she doesn't even think about it. Um she cuts class, skips school, whatever, versus with Tobias's sister, he's just you know, working two jobs. He's trying to teach her, you know, arithmetic at night, and you know, he doesn't take it for granted, but he wants her to be able to have a childhood that's boring, you know, and say, Yeah, if I can't have it, I at least want you to have it, and I will work my butt off to ensure that to his detriment. But it's just you do what you can, and he's also maybe not making the best decisions, and we as the readers can see that, but he's also you know, a 16-year-old boy doing his best. So there's that aspect too.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:05

So it's rough out there, it's rough out there.

Booked All Night 21:08

It is, it's rough everywhere. It's I I will say early on in your answer, you had mentioned like it's YA, so I just like the parents are dead. That's the easiest way to get rid of them. That's the easiest way. My my favorite okay, so one of my favorite podcasts is called Goosebuds, and it's like three adult men, and they're rereading through all of the goosebuds uh wow. Uh what is it? Goosebumps.

SPEAKER_03 21:37

Oh the goosebumps, yeah. That's a that's a big discography, like and it's huge, and it's still ongoing.

Booked All Night 21:43

Like they'll never catch up.

SPEAKER_03 21:44

Oh yeah, no.

unknown 21:46

It's huge.

Booked All Night 21:47

So one of the times they were talking about it, because obviously the parent it's kidlit, so all the parents are constantly either like negligent, they're they're working, they're never home, or they're just dead. That's the three three ways to have parents. In children's literature. And one of the ones where there's like it's a monster in the basement, and the kid comes up and he's like, Mom, there's like a weird monster in the basement. He ate a guy, and she's basically just like, Yeah, shut up, Andrew. I'm doing the dishes.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

And it's just like, you're like, ma'am, please, please, please help you like listen to your son.

Booked All Night 22:22

But at the same time, I know that if I ever came upstairs and my mother was like doing afterwork chores, and I was like, Mom, there's a dead guy in the basement. She'd be like, okay, Jessica.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

But yeah, like, okay. Anyway, like, have you done your homework? Yeah.

Booked All Night 22:36

Yeah. Is your homework done, Jessica? No. Sit down at the table. I'm like, but there's a dead man. No, there's not. Shut up.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

No, shut up. You don't you don't want to know what you're saying.

Booked All Night 22:44

Yeah. But that's to date one of my favorite, like, parental out of the way.

SPEAKER_03 22:49

That is fantastic. And honestly, I can see my own mom doing that too. Like, let me uh no, there's not. Anyway, you need to go full laundry. Like, you haven't done your digital, like, yeah.

Booked All Night 23:00

Go clean your room, whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Not be bothered with the dead guy in the basement. Just no. That's not on the agenda for tonight. There's no time for him.

Booked All Night 23:11

Yeah. True fact. My mother would be like, okay. Okay. Anyway. He's dead.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

He's not going anywhere.

Booked All Night 23:18

Yeah. She would too. She'd be like, well, whatever. Just sit down at the table, Jessica. It's time for dinner. Like I can see her exhausted face as her hair turns gray again. Like, it's it, yeah. It's too bad. So this next question actually comes from a member of our Discord community.

SPEAKER_05 23:40

Wonderful.

Booked All Night 23:42

We call it the Pillow Fort, and it is free to join everybody at home. And you can ask any author guests a question. We offer that for every interview that comes through. Uh so this is from Ryuzaki. And Ryuzaki asks, What were some influences that you had for writing the darkest class?

SPEAKER_03 23:57

Ooh, influences. Uh yes. So I love playing video games. Um, when I'm not writing, and one of them is uh Bloodborne was a very big inspiration for the environment and for the storytelling. I played it, I fell in love with Yarnum, and I'm like, yes, this is this is a vibe. This is what I'm going for. The hunter's room, yes, all of it. And so that was a very big inspiration for the environment and for the world building um to have that level of storytelling, not just coming through the characters, but coming through the s the environment. I'd never really experienced that before, and it just rewired my brain chemistry. Um another one would probably be uh Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. Um I saw that in high school and was like, what is this? And um that was actually the first uh del Toro film I ever saw, and it became a very big inspiration um for the because there is also a hidden world um beneath this existing one, and that was a big inspiration for it um to have that like darker sense of magic and foreboding forest forestry. Um and I tried and I love the idea of intertwining nature with um technology. So while Halcyon is very progressive technological, um almost kind of going through their own industrial age, if you will, um, nature is just overlapped and mirroring it in every way and kind of growing out of it and to reclaim it because everything returns to nature eventually. Um yes, and but just make it spooky. And um I would probably say uh another one is um Penny Dreadful. Um, that's so good. I love Penny Dreadful. I love Penny Dreadful, the gothic atmosphere is captured perfectly, and I loved seeing all the different kinds of like monsters and baddies in there, and the storytelling was just chef's kiss and just the imagery alone, and that's what really prompted me to you know make this such a visual book and to try to, even though it's YA, captured that both fantasy and magic and that gothic horror that makes you like not necessarily feel scared but feel dread. Yeah, and that something is coming, something is lurking, something is watching you, and if you look too long, it's going to stare back and take something. So yeah, this is uh I wanted to bring that to YA.

Booked All Night 26:49

On the note, uh, because a new season just started, have you watched From on Apple TV?

SPEAKER_03 26:55

I have not. But I I will be. I will be now.

Booked All Night 26:59

Yeah, it's it's called From, and it's very much something is watching, and people will like they keep finding themselves in this like dilapidated town, and then at night all these monsters come out. Yes. And it's like it's so spooky and it's very atmospheric, and like, yeah, it I I love it so much.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

Oh, I will be watching that. This I will be what's day? I will be watching that tonight.

Booked All Night 27:23

Yeah, you have a few seasons to catch up on, so it's like you can just binge it over the weekend.

SPEAKER_03 27:27

It's kind of a good binge.

unknown 27:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 27:29

Love a good binge. I'm doing that right now with apothecary diaries. So I'm almost done.

Booked All Night 27:36

And then we will be watching from my my friends keep down, they're like, Jessica, you haven't watched any anime since like college. It's time to start again.

SPEAKER_03 27:46

I'm like, I'm like, but is it? It's time. I'll let me gently bully you. It is time. It is time for sure. For sure. There's so many great series out right now. You have a a buffet. A buffet to choose from.

Booked All Night 28:02

I'm like, so t so one that I always recommend, and that we'll move on right after this next recommendation. But uh, for everyone who is currently into anime, an oldie butie is called Ghost Stories, and the Japanese script was so boring that when it came to America, they were like, you know what?

SPEAKER_03 28:21

Let's have fun with it.

Booked All Night 28:22

Y'all can just do whatever the hell you want with it. And so it's just a bunch of voice actors doing whatever the hell they want with it.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

It's such a gem.

Booked All Night 28:32

It is it is a gem. It is a special place in my heart. Like, I got my illustration class hung up on it. Oh, I love that. We would have um studio classes, and the studio classes were like six hours long, and so we're just in the lab doing illustrations and stuff. And I was like, hey, you know what we're gonna put up on the on the screen? We're gonna watch ghost stories because I'm like 15 years older than the rest of you, and I get to make that decision. So here we go. And and it is my favorite character in it is the the little brother who never speaks in like actual words.

SPEAKER_03 29:09

He's always like that. It's fantastic, and I haven't seen it in years, but just that just brings me back because when I my friend showed it to me and said nothing, was no context, like, oh, we're just gonna watch it. I was like, okay. And I was taking it seriously, and then I was like, wait, yeah, wait, hold on. And it's it is such a gem. If you have not seen it, please fix that.

Booked All Night 29:47

Absolutely, yeah. Please fix that. It is it's oh it's a rite of passage, and it really is, it really is.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

Like it's just I'm still to this day gobsmacked that got away with it.

Booked All Night 30:04

Like that it exists at all, that it got made. There's so much in there that I'm like, they said that.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

Thank you for that. They said that. Yeah, I'm like, oh, this is this is a this product of time.

Booked All Night 30:17

Like, yes, yeah. I should preface it with that. It is a product of like the mid-aughts and the different it was a different time, but it was wild.

SPEAKER_03 30:27

It was great.

Booked All Night 30:29

The like heavily influenced by like blazing saddles sort of offensive humor.

SPEAKER_03 30:35

You know what? That is that is perfect, actually. That captures it perfect. Yes, blazing saddles level of shenanigans, if you will. We're like, yeah, we're saying some accordingly.

Booked All Night 30:46

We're we're definitely saying some incredibly offensive shit, but we uh we we know our intentions with the offensive shit. Yes. Uh, and it is making fun of said offensive shit. Um, but it is still some offensive shit. But it like definitely everyone should watch it. Even if you're not into anime, you should sit down and watch it. It's just I love it. With those recommendations on file, that brings us to the very first game.

SPEAKER_03 31:16

I love that it's part of it.

Booked All Night 31:18

Yeah. Every interview now. What anime do you watch? Oh, you mean you don't? Okay, well, I have 15 that you need to. Here we go.

SPEAKER_03 31:25

One of them is ghost stories.

Booked All Night 31:26

One of them is ghost stories. That's where you're starting.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

That's where you're starting. I can only go up from there.

Booked All Night 31:33

And then they just slowly shift from like ghost stories to like modical magic.

SPEAKER_03 31:38

Yeah, no, it's um it's a show about magical girls.

Booked All Night 31:41

It's fine.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

Just wait till she becomes a magical girl. Traz. Traz. Yeah. All happy. How happy should we have? We love QA.

Booked All Night 31:49

Yeah. It's fine. Anywho, our very first game of the podcast is Never Have I Ever Spoiled My Own Book. So if you've ever played Never Have I Ever, it's very standard rules. I have such statements that are very commonly readerly, writerly things to do. If you've done one of them, you know, we keep a track. If you've done more than five, which is half of them, I only have ten options here, uh, you have to spoil something from beyond what you consider act one.

SPEAKER_03 32:20

Okay. Got it.

Booked All Night 32:22

Um. I am, however, incredibly petty when I put these together, and I'm not above doing things like never have I ever been named Olivia Danson, or never have I ever written a book called The Darkest Glass. Um Yeah, I'm This is the pettiest one. This is what I have the most Yeah. That's that's the only warning I have for you.

SPEAKER_03 32:44

Fair enough. Fair enough.

unknown 32:46

Okay.

Booked All Night 32:47

Never have I ever written a scene I knew I'd have to cut later, but couldn't step writing. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 32:57

One yes, I have I have done that, and I it is a scene for Nathaniel. And I cut it because he no longer has a conversation with that person. That person was cut entirely, but that conversation still lives rent-free in my head because it's it's um it's a little more on the graphic side, and that was also a reason why I thought it might be better as like bonus content, but it will resurface, most likely. It'll come back, it'll come back just because I was like, ooh, I feel like I really cooked with that one. So it does exist, it will come back.

Booked All Night 33:49

I've definitely had scenes like that, and then like editors or like my professors, because I did uh my degrees in writing, and they were like, What purpose does this scene serve? I'm like, it wish fulfillment. Yeah, wish fulfillment. Like it's very cathartic. It's incredibly cathartic for me to watch this dude die, and they're like, come on, but god damn it.

SPEAKER_02 34:09

Just need it in there. Just leave it, just leave it. Just leave it. Let me be. Let me live.

Booked All Night 34:16

Never have I ever stayed up all night reading just one more chapter.

SPEAKER_03 34:21

I have done that too.

Booked All Night 34:23

Haven't we?

SPEAKER_03 34:25

I have done that too. Um which book was it? Uh, I think it was when I was reading the fifth season. I was just enamor- I was like, I this is art. I was like, what is happening? I must know. Um, I've done that with the fifth season, and I also did that with Gideon the Knife. Those are the two most recent that I'm like, I must know.

Booked All Night 34:56

I have definitely had those. I haven't had like a lot of them since my younger days, because I'm like in my late 30s at this point. Fair enough. And staying up all night. Yeah. Staying up all night is not um humanly possible past like 35, apparently.

SPEAKER_03 35:12

Yeah, I um it's a struggle. Like, I must have my Red Bull with me. Yeah. If we're gonna do that.

Booked All Night 35:19

But there were so many books in high school and early college that I was like, no, I have to finish it now because in the light of day I have responsibilities, so that is true.

SPEAKER_03 35:31

It's true. I I for sure um felt that way when I was reading initially The Hunger Games because it's just it's so bingeable. Like Suzanne Collins was just in her bag with that one and it's oh you just want to speed read through the whole series, and it hurts every time. Every time. So good.

Booked All Night 35:54

It's so it's so good and so terrible. And my two of my co-hosts have not read Ballad or Sunrise on the Reaping, so I'm getting to like see their first glance at these two things. I hated Ballad of Sunbirds and Snakes. I was like, uh It wasn't for me.

SPEAKER_02 36:11

It wasn't for me.

Booked All Night 36:12

Um but one of my hosts is like really loving it, and I'm like, cool, I want to see what you think of that after session two.

SPEAKER_02 36:19

Let me know.

Booked All Night 36:21

Let me know. And then like rereading the series with all the knowledge from Sunrise, I was like, this hurts even more. Even more. And um, I can't wait to watch Katie and Julia get traumatized by Sunrise on the Recon.

SPEAKER_03 36:39

Oh, yes, and then it's like, oh, and then we'll have movie time. Yeah. On top of that.

Booked All Night 36:44

Exactly. We are. We're doing all the movies too. So then you guys get to come with me to the movie theater where we can all watch it happen in crystal clear HD. Oh my god. Yeah. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 36:54

No harm to be done.

Booked All Night 36:57

Therapists are gonna make a lot of money in November.

SPEAKER_03 37:00

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Oh, but it's gonna be so much fun. It'll be worth it. It'll be worth it.

Booked All Night 37:07

So never have I ever changed a major plot point halfway through drafting.

SPEAKER_03 37:14

I'm trying to think. Actually, no, I I did do that. I'm trying to think, did I do that? No, I did do that. Um, I did do that for um Sybil, actually. Um in the first half, she was um so I have four POVs. Um, and they all are separate as far as distance-wise. So one is in the country, one is in the s two are in the city, and one is way out yonder in the mountains. And initially, all four of them were supposed to or I'm sorry, all three of them were supposed to come together. Um, and Sybil was the odd girl out. She was supposed to come in in book two and then meet all four of them. But then I did change a part of her plot. So now she is in the city with them at the end, and they all four will be together uh at the very beginning of book two, and she has a role that conflicts now with the rest of them. So at odds now with them instead of oh, we're just gonna casually meet, and and no no no no now. She's like, I'm starting out as the enemy.

Booked All Night 38:43

I love that though. I love when like the narrative is it's like kind of spiral and circular and like they it all eventually comes into like this cluster fuck in the middle, and then you gotta like wait for book two. I don't love the I don't love the wait for book two, but I love that it's like, oh, that's so good.

SPEAKER_03 39:01

Yeah, and you're like, oh, they're finally gonna meet because I know one of my um I forced my husband to read it. And he he was very nice about it. Um, but he was like, oh wait, so when are they gonna meet each other? I was like, shh, don't worry. Shh shh shh sh it'll it'll it'll happen when it happens. Just he was like, but I need it now. And I'm like, great, you wanna go walk the dogs for me while I finish myself?

Booked All Night 39:32

You're like, wait like the rest of the world. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 39:35

Yes. I'm I'm on a very limited time schedule writing while I'm at the grocery store.

Booked All Night 39:44

Never have I ever googled something deeply concerning for research. Yeah, I'll just put the finger up for that. Yeah, there we go.

SPEAKER_03 39:54

I actually got blocked by Google when Google said halt. Um when I so it was strictly I have a lot of tabs that I've saved for bookmarks that are medical related. Um that um because one of the um so there is a uh a drug in in the story that um behaves very much like um like opium, if you will. Um, but it has other like bad kind of body horror side effects. And so I was like, well, I want to kind of see like how this would interact with um with the oh so for my vampires, um they're all so all the monsters are reimagined. So you have your classics, you have your vampire, your your werewolf, your witch. They're all reimagined, and their powers behave almost like diseases. So um with the vampires, they're called Duskborne, um, their blood uh eats oxygen-rich regular human blood. So eventually it eats them from the inside out unless they continue to keep feeding. So when I had a scene where they had this particular drug that was introduced, and I wanted to see like, okay, what would that effect look like on like a chemistry level with something like a dusk-borne blood? And um, when I went to go search, uh Google said, um, okay, well, here's the help hotline for addiction. And um, because I had put in about like needles and like blood work, like what what is the like after effects of that? And um, yeah, Google said no.

Booked All Night 41:54

You know what's well You know what's hilarious? So one, I write, I write for like middle grade largely. Um and I do young adult as well. And of course, every every young adult writer, you know, starts off like I'm gonna write something really graphic. I have a I have a folder full of dead bodies and blah blah blah. Google never once gave me a warning where I was like, How does a body decay?

unknown 42:19

Right.

Booked All Night 42:20

Like Google was like, Oh, this is how it is.

SPEAKER_03 42:22

This is how it is, yeah. They yeah, normally, because I've looked up some like, yeah, body decomposition and like versus like being in the water, being in like a forest where you have interactions with like insects and with animals and you know what that would look like. So to look up for I guess drugs and like insertion and like how does that affect with like the tampering of blood and how would that look, and how does like an injection site look? And he just said, No.

Booked All Night 42:54

Yeah, Google was like, no, no, friend.

SPEAKER_03 42:56

Like, no, no, friend, not here. You shall not pass. And I was like, well, um, okay, but that was the only time of anything I ever looked up for all the random shenanigans I've looked up for this series over my like ten or so years of writing it. I have only been stopped once.

Booked All Night 43:19

I I think my favorite, I gotta get back to this game, but my favorite uh answer to the like what is the weirdest thing you've researched question. Uh actually came from uh oh, what is her last name? It's gonna it's gonna haunt me. I'll put it out in the show notes because I'll remember it later. But she had written a Oh, Kim Laguette. Kim Leggett. Here we go. She'd written a horror set in the Satanic Panic. And the weirdest thing that she looked up was cow insemination. And then for months afterwards, because like her character was on a farm, it was part of like what you would know. Yeah. So for months after that. She kept getting ads in her algorithm about cow insemination. I was like, I would just burn my computer.

SPEAKER_03 44:08

And like Yeah, we're clearing everything. Just we're starting new. You know what? I'm getting a new computer. Exactly. I'm not. I can't deal with that.

Booked All Night 44:18

New login, new name. I'm gonna move to a new country. Like everything. Everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:24

Everything. Wow. Yeah, that is that is awful.

Booked All Night 44:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:29

Oh no.

Booked All Night 44:30

I was like, okay. Again, though, uh, that is another example that Google was not like, hey, why are you looking up cow insemination?

SPEAKER_03 44:38

Right. Yes. And just like, oh, this is I didn't even know this was an option. Where Google just be like, no, here's just to get help. Here to call. Call this number. Like, Google, I promise.

SPEAKER_02 44:52

I'm fine. I'm fine. Like, it's just for research. I promise. Oh my gosh.

Booked All Night 45:00

Fine, I'll call the number, but I'm asking them the same question. Yeah, it'd be funny as hell.

SPEAKER_03 45:05

Exactly. I'm like, I just like to be detailed. Just I like to know. It probably won't ever make it in.

Booked All Night 45:11

But I just Realism is important. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 45:14

Exactly. Gosh, Google.

Booked All Night 45:16

Because I can't tell you how many times on this podcast alone, like, not even my personal reading habits, but on this podcast alone, we've been like, that's not how that works.

SPEAKER_05 45:26

Exactly.

Booked All Night 45:28

We were reading a fantasy book, and there was like a bus showed up, and it like didn't fit with the rest of the aesthetics. And we were like, well, how does public transportation work in this fantasy world? And it will just derail you. So if you were like, here's the injection site, and somebody was like, that's not how that works, they would immediately just come out and be like, well, how should it work?

SPEAKER_03 45:50

Exactly.

Booked All Night 45:53

The suspension of disbelief is like a Jenga tower made of very fine China.

SPEAKER_03 46:00

Like, I mean, I'm no chemist, I'm no doctor. I I hold no such degrees, but I at least like to have some sense of like, well, if you don't squint too hard, it could kind of make sense.

SPEAKER_02 46:15

You know, like squint and turn your head to the left. It'll be fine.

SPEAKER_03 46:19

It can be kind of be fine, but when it's something like you said, something egregious of like, you know, and you're in the middle of like a quest and all of a sudden a bus just shows up. You're like, wait.

Booked All Night 46:31

Hold up.

SPEAKER_03 46:32

Hold up. Where did this come from? Like, why is everyone else on a horse and all of a sudden now we have a bus?

Booked All Night 46:38

Yeah. Pretty much what happened. You're like, well, wait a minute, there's public transportation.

SPEAKER_03 46:43

Really? Can I get a bus card? Like, why am I on this horse?

Booked All Night 46:47

It was it was pretty, like, it was rough. And then Rob came in. He's like, you guys have been talking about public transportation for 40 minutes. Can you get it back to the book? We were like, yeah, five.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

Five. I'd be guilty. I'd be on the bus. I'd be on the bus.

Booked All Night 47:03

Right. Killjoy. Anywho, the rest of the game. Never have I ever gotten emotionally attached to a side character.

SPEAKER_03 47:12

Ooh.

unknown 47:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 47:15

Yeah. Yes.

Booked All Night 47:16

I you have done five.

SPEAKER_03 47:18

I have done five. I feel like I've been guilty of all of these.

Booked All Night 47:22

Probably. Let's see. The rest are uh scrapped a draft and started over from scratch.

SPEAKER_03 47:28

Yes, I did. Well, I did have to start over from scratch at some at one point early on in the drafts, just because I had written this again when I was like 15, so it was hot garbage. I saw the vision, but I was like, ooh, yeah. No. Um, but for the character, funny enough, because I feel like sometimes just in my Capricorn nature, I have to do the most. Um so there was a side character that becomes bigger in book two, but because I loved her story so much, I am writing a series of novellas for her specifically. Um that is told um via diary entries to get her perspective of how she got there and what her lead up was because there I was like, there's no way I'm doing a fifth POV. That just does I have to stop myself. I need to step in and stop myself. Yeah, that's hard.

Booked All Night 48:33

That's hard to keep track of as a reader and also as a writer. Because like people are like, oh, just do multiple POVs as if they don't all have to sound different.

SPEAKER_03 48:40

Yeah, sound different still makes sense, and it was one of the things that I had to go through with my editor to make sure that they had cohesion and that they each had their own arc, and that those arcs overall joined together and made an overarching plot that made sense, and that was our biggest. There's there was a tapestry involved in that. Um, so this is your first book, and I was like, Yes, and she's like, Wow, this was um ambitious, and I was like, Well, I understand now why people say, you know, don't do multi-POV, don't do like a series. When you're first starting out, I of course am like bah humbug, do what you want. Um, but just make sure going in that you understand the intricacies of what that entails, it is not, it is not easy. I I will say I don't I like to think that I did it a well o okay, if you will. Um, but it was it did take a lot of work. And so when I had her story, um I was like, well, let me just do this like little side project that you know, if those that feel so compelled enough um to see how she got where she did, because she's one of the big antagonists of book two, there's extra literature to go through. So yeah, that was me like, okay, you could do the pet project, but it has to be on the side. It has to. It has to be on the side.

Booked All Night 50:24

So you've done more than half of these, so you have to spoil something from beyond what you consider act one.

SPEAKER_03 50:30

Ooh, I have to spoil something beyond act one. Um let me see. What would that be? Um, okay, so um there uh so the antagonist, the white raven, the big bad of the of the series, um does gain a physical form, and Julia um and them do have an interaction, and they um uh Julia realizes oh, we are now intrinsically and physically linked.

SPEAKER_05 51:17

Ooh no!

SPEAKER_03 51:19

So now it is um if I die, you die, and also now your power is seeping into me. So because Julia is the only human of the group, um, it was kind of understood like, oh well what what is she going to do, you know, compared to the you know, the werewolf, the vampire, the legend. It's like, oh well, she becomes cursed and now um intrinsically linked with an eldred god. Whoops, whoops whoops So yeah, so now she she learns the White Raven's true identity and not necessarily their goals, but their true identity, and also realizes oh, I'm keeping you alive, and you're keeping me alive. And now we are one. So yeah, there that's that's that's the spoiler. That's the spoiler that Julia and the White Raven um are now uh sharing, sharing more than just uh sharing more than they probably should. Yes, so and uh the white raven's power is to absorb souls, so now Julia is haunted as well.

Booked All Night 52:40

Uh but does this book come out again?

SPEAKER_03 52:44

So the the Darkest Glass is out. Um the sequel I'm working on. I just got uh cover art. I'm in the process of getting in, and I'm like, oh I'm so excited. Um, but that one I'm hoping to have out next year. So exciting.

Booked All Night 53:02

Yes, exciting because I have so many books on my T VR, so by the time I get to it, your book second book will be out. Second book should be out.

SPEAKER_03 53:09

And so now you can be like, I don't have to wait. I can just go straight into it because I have heard from a few people, they're like, Why did you ended that there? That's mean. That's mean. Why would you do that? Why would you do that? And I'm like, Well, second book is coming, don't worry. Don't worry, it's coming next year, but it's coming. It's fine. We've got plenty of books to read in between, don't worry about it. It's beautiful.

Booked All Night 53:34

Yeah. We do so many interviews here at the podcast. I assure you, there are plenty of books for you to read between now and next year.

SPEAKER_03 53:41

Yes.

Booked All Night 53:42

So so many. So many.

SPEAKER_03 53:43

So many. Oh, especially after Indie Bookstore Day. I'm like, I'm I'm I have books on my floor. Like, it's a mess.

Booked All Night 53:50

I'm such an enabler. I went with my uh technically producer I why I don't know why I said technically, but I went with producer Rob's wife. Uh we've been friends since high school, and we went to Indie Bookstore Day, and a lot of the books that are in the indie bookstores are from authors that we've had here at the pod or that we've reviewed here, or that like I've gotten advanced copies of, and I was like, you would like this. And so she's walking out of each of these indie bookstores carrying like a hundred plus dollars of books, and I'm like, I'm like, don't tell your husband I did this. Here you go. It's fine. Here you go. It's fine, here you go. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Meanwhile, I went and got stickers, so my Kindle can be further covered, but it's fine. It's fine, it's fine.

SPEAKER_03 54:29

We we love a good sticker. Yes. I'm I'm actually cycling through some on my laptop now because I'm like, oh, it's I got new ones, so I'm like, I must.

Booked All Night 54:38

I must thanks for staying up with us. Follow us on Instagram and threads at Pookellnight Pod. Drop a comment to let us know what you thought of today's show, and join our Discord server for giveaways, excerpts, and more. It's still in the works, but we're aiming for a hundred members.co. And if you're loving the chaos, don't forget to rate us live far. Until next time, Pokemon, and remember to stay Pokevall Knight.