How a #1 NYT Bestseller does it all...
Lauren Blakely is a #1 bestselling, writing and publishing machine. We are five months into 2017, and she's already published three novels, with four more slated for release! We spent a few minutes chatting about writing from the male point of view, how she manages to stay so productive, and what is involved in her writing process. Listen in on our conversation here >>
Follow Lauren on Facebook, then read JOY RIDE, Lauren's latest release, here!
Note: If you are struggling with writing your first novel, or haven't begun yet, please check out my online course, How to Write Your First Book!
Full Transcript:
Alessandra: I'm here today with Lauren Blakely. She's a multiple New York Times Bestseller along with every other bestseller that exists. And I'm so excited to have her here. Lauren write contemporary romance, and can you just tell us a little bit how many books you have, when you started writing?
Lauren: So I have, I think about 35 books now. I self-published my first romance novel in January of 2013 called Caught Up In Us. And I would say probably 90% of mine are indie published. I've done a few books with Boutique Publishers and Tangled. I have a couple of books with Montlake and I have a title next year with St Martin. But the vast majority of what I do are indie books in contemporary romance. I've done some that are erotic and lately I have been doing much more of like sexy romantic comedy.
Alessandra: One of your strengths that readers just love is your dirty talking alpha male. And you write them for the male point of view. It's just so unique. I remember reading an article a year ago; it's like, Oh, readers don't like to read from male point of view, and then you came and just totally blew that out of the water and prove everybody wrong. Do you have any tips for an aspiring author on how to capture the male voice in an authentic and an appealing way?
Lauren: It can be a challenge. I love this question because it can definitely be a challenge. And I think what I sometimes see when writers attempt to capture the male voice is like a two male voice. Almost like I'm a dude, like saying repeatedly, like, because I'm a dude, this is how I think, but that's not what a man is going to say. Like, he's not really going to say that. So one thing I would advise writers who are thinking of writing in the male voice is don't overemphasize. Like we know, we know by the first line, we know by the blurb or, you know, just by the first chapter that you're writing in the male point of view, so don't go too hard to remind us that he's the guy. I think that one of the things that... there are two things that I've tried to do when I'm writing in the guy's point of view; one is I try to look at it almost like as a mirror. I try to think, first of all, when it comes to like the sexual aspects, like, what is it as women that we want the men to be thinking about that? Because, you know, our readership is women. I mean, that's who I'm writing for. I'm writing for women. So what I tried to do is think like, what is it that we want the men to be thinking about us? How is it that we want them to be looking at us and viewing us as women? Yes, of course we want, you know, sort of the physical admiration, there's going to be a lot of that. That's really important in these books, but we want them to also see the other aspects. So that's what... so I try to, you know, have kind of like my idea of the mirror going all along, like, what is it that we want and then reflect it in his voice. And then the other thing that I do is, I kind of call it Lauren unleashed. Like when I'm writing in the guy's point of view, like, it's my voice as a writer, but it's a little bit for your... a little bit more unleashed, a little bit looser, and that's how I do it.
Alessandra: I love that. If you were totally unfiltered what you would say and think, is that sort of thing?
Lauren: Yeah, it is. It's a little bit, yeah, it's a little bit of the unfiltered. And then, you know, for me, I love puns and I love jokes. So, you know, I'm always trying to dial those up, especially in the books that I've been writing lately. So, that's the other thing that I'm always trying to do. And maybe even a little bit more in the guy's points of view.
Alessandra: You said in an interview before that you don't believe in writer's block. And I definitely believe that when I look at your published rate, it's so impressive. How do you stay motivated? Are there days or times when you just don't feel like writing?
Lauren: Sure. I mean, I have moments every day where I don't feel like writing. I don't feel like doing anything but lying on the couch with my dogs and just taking a nap or whatever. There is some time every single day when I feel that way, but, you know, I get over it. I make myself a pot of green tea and, you know, just remind myself like this is my job, this is what I do and I love it. Maybe I'll just move around for a few minutes beforehand to sort of get that out of my system, you know, go to Facebook or whatever it is and then it's just time to work. But I've always written, I mean, I've made, even before I was writing romance, I made a living as a writer. I was a freelance journalist for most of my career. I was a freelance journalist with regular daily assignments and daily deadlines, so it just became a habit. Working as a journalist was probably the best training that I could ever have just for doing it. You know, just every single day you do it. You do it quickly. You've got to done. It has to be neat. It has to be polished. It has to be turned in and it has to be due at a certain time periods. I think that mentality has helped me and it just kind of carried over. And I do set my own deadlines and that's something that has been helpful to me. I sort of take that deadline philosophy and I apply it to my publishing schedule. Like, I set deadlines for myself. I'm like, this is due at this time. And then I will set up my deadline schedule with... I would set up my editorial schedule with everyone on the editorial team, so that way I'm just always working towards specific dates rather than loose whenever I feel like it type of days.
Alessandra: Now, and talking about other members of your team, I've read the critique partners and I'm not familiar with that term. I don't know if that's like an advance beta reader. Can you explain what that is, at what stage do you use them and how that helps your writing?
Lauren: I think it's probably more of sort of an advanced beta reader. Before I was writing romance, I was writing young adult novels and that was more sort of a critique partner field where like you would send somebody the first 10 chapters and you would get sort of detailed notes, you know, maybe it was about the world building or the character development. I don't think we really do that so much in romance. And I don't think we really do that so much when, frankly, when we get to a certain point in our careers, you know, I mean, I would hope at 30 books, 15 books, whatever it is that, God that I'm, you know, not knocking it up so badly that someone's going to say, wow, there's no story here. Although if I am, I trust that they will tell me. But I have somebody who I have worked with since my Seductive Night series. And she's basically my first reader, and she reads essentially as I write it.
It differs a little bit depending on what the book is and what the needs are. Sometimes, you know, she'll read, you know depending on how quickly I'm writing and what her schedule is, you know, like if it's in development, she might read it in three chunks. But generally speaking, I would say for my novels, like she will probably get, you know, 10,000 words chunks. She'll usually read the first three chapters to make sure it sounds good. It's the right approach, the right voice that she's like digging, you know, the characters and the connection. And then you know, just depending on schedules, usually I'll send her something, like I said, probably every 10,000 words she'll get something. So she's reading as I go along and she's giving me feedback to say, are the scenes coming together, is anything boring, is anything slow. Is she not believing the motivation, those sorts of things. So we're touching a lot of that as we're going along. And some stories, you know, kicks better than others.
I mean, probably the one we did the most work on with Sinful Love. I mean, that was the last book of my Seductive Nights series. I remember when I was working on that with her, I mean, we really kind of had to rip apart like the first 30,000 words. It was just off. I mean, there were just things like she read it, and it's just not. Like this is to... it's too light, too flirty. And it's interesting because I had started that book after I wrote Big Rock and it's a very different type of book. It was, you know, romantic suspense and, you know, a murder mystery. And she caught on what I was doing, but it was like too light because of what I had just written. So, I was able to go back and kind of redo it. It's different for every book, but she definitely helps as I go along. And then I have somebody else who doesn't necessarily give as detailed feedback, but will sort of read as I go as well, just to make sure like, yep, this is good, and just tell me what's boring. That's the great thing. She's like, “I lost interest at this part.” Thank you, that's exactly what I want to know. And she always feels terrible, I'm like no, this is exactly what I need you to tell me. Never stop telling me when you're bored. That way I can caught it so that the readers won't be bored.
Alessandra: Now we're going to do the winding round. It's just a series of quick questions of what is your biggest weakness as a writer?
Lauren: I am sloppy when I do my first draft. They're very like when I will sit down to do a first scene, they can be very messy and my hand can be very tired. Sometimes have to go back over a scene like three or four times and it still has an astonishing number of like typos and just sloppy, right, send it to somebody, and I don't really know how to fix it. Like sometimes when I get in the zone and I'm just like, it's like slop writing. That's what I'm doing. Like, I wish the word came out of my brain in a more precise fashion so that I don't have to comb over it so many times, but it sometimes comes out as slop, (laughing) but I have to deal with it.
Alessandra: That's so great for especially new writers to hear because it's your first draft seems a crap, don't worry.
Lauren: There'll be times where I do a scene the night before. And I'm just like, I know this is terrible. I know this is, you know, this is terrible. Sometimes it word vomit, but you know, the next day you go clean it up, right.
Alessandra: What is your biggest strength?
Lauren: I think it's probably that I'm fast. I mean, because that's a strength that I can leverage across, whether, you know, even if it comes out sloppy, I can go back and fix it. And I think quickly, I form ideas quickly, I can conceive a stories quickly; I can solve problems quickly. If I'm stuck in a section and I don't really know what to do; I'll step away, you know, take a shower, walk the dog, bend over on the yoga ball. I mean, like that's how I solve it. Boom. It really only takes 15 minutes to solve most problems I find. I'm like, "I don't know what to do. I know how to fix this. Okay, and then you keep going." So I think it's just a general, like my brain just worked quickly, so it helps me to publish quickly, write quickly and solve problems in manuscripts quickly.
Alessandra: Are you a pantser or an outliner?
Lauren: I'm am outlining pantser. I do not do detailed outlines. I wish I did. I have incredible MD of Christie Bromberg and her beautiful outlines, I think are amazing. I'm trying to learn from her because I want to be more precise and detailed. And she actually helped me with my St Martins book, Satisfaction Guarantee that is coming out next year. But she helped me kind of come up with an idea for how to outline it because it takes place at a family reunion and it's over five days. So it's like, I need to get some priority. She kind of gave me like a general skeleton structure, like tackle it this way. "Okay, thank you." So it was really helpful because I knew that's what I needed to do. There was no way I was going to be able to address everything I needed to address without an outline, but my brain doesn't really... I don't naturally write in outline form but I knew where the course of the story. So I know the course of story, I know the arc, I know where it needs to go; I just don't usually have detailed scenes in mind. But I am trying to do more of that and to take what I have up in my head because it falls out of my brain so quickly and I forget, but it's like I know what I want to do, so I'm trying to become a better outliner basically.
Alessandra: How many days a week do you write and how many words per day on average?
Lauren: I find that I write every day when I'm writing a book. Sometimes I'll take like a week off in between books basically. But when I'm in the middle of writing, I would say generally write about two or 3000 words a day on average, Monday through Friday. And I will usually wind up writing probably about a thousand on Saturday and a thousand on Sunday, but not always, but that's generally what I shoot for.
Alessandra: Thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it.
