Today is part two of two where we are talking to WL Brooks about her novels. After today you will have heard about telling stories as a kid, writing your novels in a few short weeks, having your novel torn apart by your editor, getting published with a small press, learning how to market your book, making sure you only keep around the scenes that tell about the story or the characters, and her advice to just write!

Get Crossing a Fine Line

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W.L. Brooks was born with an active imagination. When characters come into her mind, she has to give them life- a chance to tell their stories. With a coffee cup in her hand and a cat by her side, she spends her days letting the ideas flow onto paper. A voracious reader, she draws her inspiration from mystery, romance, suspense, and a dash of the paranormal.

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Welcome to Freya's.

Fairy tales.

We believe fairy tales are both stories we enjoyed as children and something that we can achieve ourselves.

Each week, we will talk to authors about their favorite fairy tales when they were kids and their adventure to holding their very own fairy tale in their hands.

At the end of each episode, we will finish off with a fairy tale or short story read as close to the original author's version as possible.

I am your host.

Freya victoria I'm an audiobook narrator that loves reading fairy tales, novels and bringing stories to life through narration.

I'm also fascinated by talking to authors and learning about their why and how for creating their stories.

We have included all of the links for today's author and our show in the show notes.

Be sure to check out our website.

And sign up for our newsletter for the latest on the podcast.

Today is part two of two where we are talking to W.

L.

Brooks about her novels.

After today, you will have heard about.

Telling stories as a kid, writing your novels in a few short weeks, having your novel torn apart by your editor, getting published with the small press, learning how to market your book.

Making sure you only keep around the scenes that tell about the story or the characters.

And her advice to just write crossing a fine line.

The McKay series.

Book five.

Fletcher J.

McKay has been shot, driven insane and tortured by a madman.

So what's one more psycho coming after her?

But this foe's disturbing attempts to extinguish Fletcher's light leave her shaken.

Running out of options, she must consort with the enemy.

Fletcher is undoubtedly Sheriff Noah Reed's.

Nemesis.

Their discord began with an irrevocable outcome of an unforeseeable trauma.

But duty demands he keeps her safe.

The closer he gets, the more his loathing turns to lust.

Devastated by loss, Fletcher agrees to go into Noah's protective custody.

Passion takes them across the boundaries of their animosity.

But is their tentative bond enough?

Or is the line between love and hate as with life and death fixed?

So you said you had to do your own promotion to get the book out there.

When was the first book published?

In December 2016, which a December, not.

A release time from what I've heard.

I'm like, well, maybe now if it's in.

Ku is very different from the readership, is huge.

I didn't know what to do.

TikTok wasn't even around Facebook.

It was Facebook and Instagram.

I didn't even know about Instagram until one of my friends from high school messaged me and she's like, hey, you should really be on Instagram.

They have this.

And I was like, okay.

And then I tried to look at what the publishers recommend and stuff and do that, but yeah, I had no idea what I was doing.

And I have social anxiety disorder.

Yeah, I'm not very good at marketing.

Yeah, I mean, I had to learn how to make graphics and all of that stuff.

Of course, then nowadays there's a lot.

Of different things to help you with that.

In 2016 yeah.

It wasn't there.

Really?

No.

How did you do it?

A lot of it was having to go to somebody to buy them, to buy some graphics, to have graphics made because I didn't know what program.

And then Pick Monkey came out and book brush and basically anything.

Like I told you, I live in my own little if somebody doesn't tell me, I have no idea.

So they would mention stuff and I'd be like, okay.

And I would try it.

Try Amazon ads.

Try Facebook ads.

Do all that, boost your posts and do all these things.

And it's just like I'm really bad at marketing.

I mean, TikTok makes it easier because I don't have to see people.

And you can do skits.

And I love a skit.

Like, I love a skit.

I can do a skit all day, so that makes it fun.

And it's definitely I mean, I didn't even know social media scares me.

And I was very like, oh, my gosh.

But my publisher did a class on TikTok and the benefits.

And so I took the class and at the end of the class, we all went on and made accounts and stuff and tried out.

That's kind of what I did.

I can definitely see the difference in sales and stuff like that.

My books are also, like, on Hoopla, too.

My ebooks, which is Hoopla, is the library app in the States.

You get it and then it hooks up with your local library.

And there's all kinds of ebooks.

Some have movies and music and that kind of stuff.

We've talked about two.

How many books do you have out now?

Five.

And then Fletcher Story comes out next week, so that'll be six.

Okay.

I don't put out a book every month.

I'm not that person.

I'll be lucky if I get a book a year between narrating full time and working full time.

I'm like real time expectations real low.

Maybe if I make them shorter, but I don't know.

I spent the last year between just editing, editing, like editing for others and all these things.

I really didn't put myself first last year.

And that's something I'm working on, is trying to put me and my stuff first.

Same.

I spent six months not working on my book because I was focused on other people's audiobooks and getting as many audiobooks done as possible.

So Stormy has yelled at me, other authors have yelled at me to slow down.

They're like, you don't have to get it done so quickly.

You could slow down.

So I had a book drop out in the last two weeks.

It needed some developmental editing that I was like, I don't know what's happening in the book to be able to narrate it.

So that one dropped out and I'm like, rather than sliding everything up the schedule, we're going to give ourselves two extra days on every single audiobook we have on our calendars.

There you go.

So I'm like, instead of recording an hour and a half a day, I only have to record an hour a day.

And then I can work on my own stuff or actually edit the audio during the week, ideally, and then work on my own book on the weekend or whatever.

Yeah, it's hard and just doing that, but you have to, otherwise I in a ten of ADHD.

So I'm very like I get in my own head and I'll stay there for, like, two.

I'm pretty slighty.

So you discovered TikTok, you started doing I don't know that I've ever seen.

A TikTok video of yours.

You probably have.

You just don't know.

I have.

Marge, have you ever seen March book reviews?

March, maybe.

Marge.

Marvel's.

Monday, march.

No, I have not.

Yeah, that's me.

I have a whole character.

I feel like the algorithm is not kind sometimes.

I know you would.

I mean, I've seen you, of course, but yeah, it's all out there.

I've been on for, like, two years.

I don't have a huge platform or anything.

I'm just kind of I'm slightly terrified.

It seems like all the ones that end up with huge platforms are the ones that end up getting banned because people mass report them.

My little group of.

I don't want to be famous.

I don't want an entourage.

I just want to be able to make a living and have maybe a cult following.

I don't care about fame.

I don't care about fame at all.

You just want to be famous in the cult.

Because I would be like I wouldn't want anybody to think that.

I think I wouldn't want anybody to think I'm better than them in any way and put me on a pedestal.

I'd be like, do not do that.

I am a must.

Do not want to be don't because I don't want to vary.

But just like not even for me, like a cult following, but for my characters.

Not so much me as the book.

People love Rocky Horror Picture Show, not the writer of Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Yeah, so I'm cool with that.

I liked writing because 20 years ago, there was anonymity and you didn't see writers everywhere.

And there was no such thing as Facebook or TikTok or MySpace or any of that crap.

Well, 2005 would have been, like, the beginning because I want to say I had a MySpace around there sometime.

Yeah, I had a MySpace.

I got MySpace, I think, 2000, late 2006 or 2007.

I mean, phones didn't even have cameras, dude.

Seriously.

The razor hadn't even come out yet.

When I finished writing these, I remember.

Wanting that phone so bad.

I got it at the end, and I was like and everybody's already moved on.

And now I'm like, I would never texted.

It wasn't a texting situation.

Yeah, I remember my dad got one and then we had like the I don't remember what it was called, but it was a normal phone.

But then if you flipped it open, it had like a keyboard on the inside.

And so me and my mom both had those ones.

And then I switched to one that was like a sliding one.

So you slid it up one way and it was the little number pad and you slid it the other way and it was the keyboard.

And then I evolved into like touch screens and then iPhones came out and all that.

Yeah, I don't have the razor anymore, but I still have the one that opens it's like a touch screen and then I'm a clutter bug.

I am not so much a hoarder as I have still getting rid of things.

Not everything.

Not everything.

Eventually my husband is like, hey, so the recent thing, I started narrating in September of 2021, right?

This closet that I'm in currently was our junk closet, so I had to relocate.

A lot of it was my husband's stuff that is now living in the garage.

I'm like, this has to move because I am hyper fixated on this Narrating thing right now.

And we are going to get the whole booth set up and do all the things.

This had to get cleaned out.

Then my office more recently, I got new bookshelves and I had to rearrange the shelves that were currently there, had to get relocated.

And it's kind of a, oh, I want a new whatever.

Now.

I have to clear the space for that.

Yeah, I'm like, I can make space.

I can reorganize something to make it so that I get the space.

I'm horrible, let me tell you.

I can get a lot of things in a bin.

Now.

I do keep boxes of everything that I own.

I have the box for it still because I'm like right now the logic is that we plan to move to a bigger house at some point.

And so I'm like things like my microphone and stuff like that.

I don't want them to get damaged in transit.

So I have the box so I can put it into its box when we move.

That's good.

Other things, like do I need my iPhone box from six years ago?

Not really, no.

But I still have it.

I still have my iPad two air box.

I mean, I still use it, but I still have the box.

Like the electronic stuff I keep the box for.

But yeah, I totally get that.

So what is the upcoming plans for books?

Do you have the book releasing next week or in two weeks?

Yeah, the book releases next week and then I don't know.

I have a few things in the works.

I do a sloppy bun Sunday on Sundays on TikTok and it's mainly s's.

So I'm thinking about putting something together for that.

There's definitely things on the horizon to do.

So what is the best piece of writing advice you've ever gotten and the worst piece of writing advice you've ever gotten?

Oh, goodness.

Best piece of writing advice?

I've gotten a lot because I f*** up all the time.

I'm always like, I know a lot because I f***** up a lot and I had to learn.

That is usually the way that it.

Sticks in your like, how to do it right.

Sticks in my head.

The best, though, is if I mess it up so bad that I'm like.

Yeah, exactly.

I tell people, I'm like, I only know this because I did it wrong the first time.

Right?

I guess it's just you have to learn to let go of things in your books.

You have to be able to cut stuff, and it's hard, and it takes a long time to get there, and it has a lot of cutting.

But yeah, just you have to learn to let go of things and realize what you're putting in for you and what you got to keep it moving.

Every scene has to tell you something.

Every single scene you do has to tell you something, either about the story or the character.

If it doesn't, if it's just kind of there, you don't need it.

Sometimes we write scenes for an emotional outlet that is cathartic for us, but not necessarily something that needs to be in the book because it slows the pace or the ending would be great here instead of having this extra.

So, yeah, you have to learn to let go.

And that it's.

Okay.

It's hard to learn it, but you have to.

And then the worst piece of advice you've gotten.

Fudge.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I'm just, like, staring.

I'm like, trying to think.

I'm like as far as writing.

You'Re around in the days of Facebook, so I imagine you were in Facebook writer groups where everybody has an opinion about everything.

Did you hear the part where I have social anxiety disorder?

You don't have to talk in them to read the crazy that they say.

I hardly did the chat at my publishers because I was afraid to.

Like, I mean, they can't even see me.

And you just typed, but I was, like, freaking out about it.

Yeah, that's me.

I'm very much like, thank you, and I'm honored that you showed your face to me today.

It's all good.

It's very like I'm just, like.

I feel like that's a little bit different.

For anything I can do live and stuff.

Because you don't like, on TikTok?

Because I don't really see anybody, though.

I haven't done one by myself, really.

I used to do it with a group of people, but that changed.

So now it's just WA and I don't know.

I have to come up with a new thing.

But yeah, it's easier to do.

I'm always narrating.

So all of my lives are always by myself because I can't have another person talking on it.

Yes, I've seen your lives.

I've given some likes to them.

But you're busy.

You're busy doing your thing.

I'm trying to get better about asking, how is your day?

I've had one person that's been in like I've been narrating live almost every day for the last, like, three weeks.

And the same person has been in for every single one of my lives.

And so, like, yesterday, finally, I'm like, how are you doing?

We don't usually talk because I'm like doing my job.

The whole point of doing the lives is to be personable and bring attention to the book.

I cannot do Stormy's books on TikTok, though, because those are way too violent.

Yeah.

And I have, like, the work I have very hard for me to talk about myself same and talk about myself in my books.

I can talk about somebody else's books and stuff all day.

Like my Marge, she reviews other people's books and that's fun.

But it's very hard for me to talk about my own books.

I don't like the attention and I don't like talking about myself.

And anything that feels like braggy or bragging or something, I get.

Really mine are more like, here's what I'm doing.

Not like I mean, I put up, like, the videos where it's like the five minute sample or whatever.

And so, you'll see, I've gotten fancier with my stuff in recent months.

But it'll just be like me talking.

The actual audiobook snippets I'll put up there.

But I don't say anything about it.

I just post the five minute.

I know.

Now with cap cut.

I'm like, I can do this.

I'm like, Speak for me, a picture is worth 1000 words.

Let me just do this right here.

I need to get that.

I haven't got cap cut yet.

I need to I keep seeing all these really good videos and I'm like, Man, I have, like, canva.

But so many people use cap cut.

I'm like, that must be easier to use than canva because it's just like, down.

Well, they have a lot of templates and you just put your pictures in.

I'm like, that's easy for me.

I mean, I'm like I'm 42.

Seriously.

We did the Oregon Trail when the computer screens the only color that was green.

Okay, I remember that game.

The Internet was just coming out.

I mean, people didn't even know how to use it as a resource or how to write it down as a resource because it was so new.

Right?

Yeah.

You can't use random websites as resources because people lie.

Yeah, exactly.

The Internet is not the truth.

It has to be this and this.

But I'm like, oh, Lordy.

I don't know.

We went to the library and Dewey Decimal with my friend.

I mean, we seriously, that's it until you got but the public libraries had the computer, but it was all like the green and it wasn't it was.

A big box, the big square.

Yes.

And you have like people are waiting and you have like only there's only a few podiums, and you're like, trying writing down stuff to go search.

I may be ten years younger than you, but I still went through all those same things.

I'm like, I'm not tech savvy.

I am always kind of weird savvy.

I'm very good at fixing the problem on the computer and learning new softwares and stuff like that.

But the design capabilities that are necessary for the promoting the audiobooks and the books and all that, that is not in my wheelhouse.

So I have to force myself.

So for my podcasts, obviously, I have these podcasts and these videos.

So most of the videos that go on TikTok for the podcast, there's a website called Headliner that you pay for or I pay for.

You can have it free.

But one of my podcasts is a daily and I need way too many videos to be on the free plan.

But you put in you sync it.

To your podcast feed, you tell it.

How you want the design to be, and there's templates you can use.

And then it pops out a video for you when your episode airs.

It's like, I don't have to think about it.

It picks the section, it does all the things for me.

I just have to download it and then upload it to social media.

That's nice.

A lot of things I do in Canva I sit and I tweak and I look through their templates that they have.

And then I'm like, okay, I like how this one looks, but it's in the wrong colors.

So I just change the colors to my podcast colors, call it a day, or like, I'll tweak it.

One of my podcasts is a daily fiction podcast.

So I did, like, for Halloween, I did Frankenstein.

And so I took one of their templates and added like, spiders and bats and things to it to make it Halloween.

Like, yeah, see, I like that kind of thing.

I'm like, I could do that all day.

It's learning how I'm not really tech savvy.

I can learn stuff.

Like I told you, I'm in my head a lot and more of a.

Well, there's so many because you're talking about like it's hard to find, like, find the websites and the apps until someone tells you there's so many things.

I recently just put out a TikTok, like, how do you download your TikTok videos without the whatever it's called imprint thingy on watermark?

Yeah, the watermark.

I can't freaking get that thing.

They say like, snap, tick, but I can't get that thing to work for me.

I'm like, what am I doing wrong?

I got three app recommendations and I haven't tried a single one of them yet.

It's like, dude, but I downloaded them.

Right.

Hey, that's the first step.

You got the first step, and that's awesome.

All right, well, do you have any final parting words of advice for new authors or authors needing to revamp how they do things?

Just write.

Don't be afraid to write what you want, how you want.

Don't let anybody tell you what to write.

You don't have to fit a mold.

Make your own mold if you want to.

It's fine.

Just don't, you know, don't force it.

Just go with it.

Go with the flow.

What I do, you can clean it up later.

Yeah, everything the beauty happens in the editing.

Okay.

Editing stock, but some people love it.

I am not great at editing, but all the good things happen.

You can see something and be like, oh, if I add this and then you can go back and it's hindsight and you have that with editing and it's helpful.

Well, you have a good rest of your day and I will see you around.

TikTok.

Hopefully I'm going to have to make it.

Show me your videos now.

Bye bye.

W.

L.

Brooks liked Goldilocks and the Three Bears growing up goldilocks and the Three Bears is a 19th century English fairy tale of which three versions exist.

The original version of the tale tells of an obscene old woman who enters the forest home of three anthropomorphic bachelor bears.

While they're away, she eats some of their porridge, sits down on one of their chairs and breaks it and sleeps in one of their beds.

When the bears return and discover her, she wakes up, jumps out of the window, and is never seen again.

The second version replaces the old woman with a young girl named Goldilocks.

And the third, and by far best known version replaces the bachelor trio with a family of three.

What was originally a frightening oral tale became a cozy family story with only a hint of menace.

The story has elicited various interpretations and has been adapted to film, opera and other media.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears is one of the most popular fairy tales in the English language.

Today we'll be reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Don't forget we're reading Lemor de Arthur, the story of King Arthur and of his noble knights of the roundtable on our patreon.

You can find the link in the show notes.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears there was once a little girl whose hair was so bright and yellow that it glittered in the sun like spun gold.

For this reason she was called Goldilocks.

One day, Goldilocks went out into the meadows to gather flowers.

She wandered on and on, and after a while she came to a forest where she'd never been before.

She went on into the forest and it was very cool and shady.

Presently she came to a little house, standing all alone in the forest, and as she was tired and thirsty, she knocked at the door.

She hoped the good people inside would give her a drink and let her rest a little while.

Now, though Goldilocks did not know it, this house belonged to three bears.

There was a great big father bear and a middling sized mother bear and a dear little baby bear, no bigger than Goldilocks herself.

But the three bears had gone out to take a walk in the forest while their supper was cooling.

So when Goldilocks knocked at the door, no one answered her.

She waited a while, and then she knocked again.

And as still nobody answered her, she pushed the door open and stepped inside.

There, in a row, stood three chairs.

One was a great big chair and it belonged to the father bear.

And one was a middling sized chair, and it belonged to the mother bear, and one was a dear little chair, and it belonged to the baby bear.

And on the table stood three bowls of smoking hot porridge.

And so, thought Goldilocks, the people must be coming back soon to eat it.

She thought.

She would sit down and rest until they came.

So first she sat down in the great big chair.

But the cushion was too soft.

It seemed as though it would swallow her up.

Then she sat down in the middle sized chair, and the cushion was too hard and it was not comfortable.

Then she sat down in the dear little chair, and it was just right and fitted her as though it had been made for her.

So there she sat, and she rocked, and she rocked, and she sat and she sat, until with her rocking and her sitting, she sat the bottom right out of it.

And still nobody had come.

And there stood the bowls of porridge on the table.

They can't be very hungry people, thought Goldilocks to herself, or they would come home to eat their suppers.

And she went over to the table just to see whether the bowls were full.

The first bowl was a great big bowl with a great big wooden spoon in it.

And that was the father bear's bowl.

The second bowl was a middle sized bowl with a middle sized wooden spoon in it.

And that was the mother bear's bowl.

And the third bowl was a dear little bowl with a dear little silver spoon in it.

And that was the baby bear's bowl.

The porridge that was in the bowl smelled so very good that Goldilocks thought she would just taste it.

She took up the great big spoon and tasted the porridge in the great big bowl, but it was too hot.

Then she took up the middle sized spoon and tasted the porridge in the middle sized bowl, and it was too cold.

Then she took up the little silver spoon and tasted the porridge in the dear little bowl.

And it was just right, and it tasted so good that she tasted and tasted and tasted and tasted until she tasted it all up.

After that, she felt very sleepy, so she went upstairs and looked about her, and there were three beds all in a row.

The first bed was the great big bed that belonged to the father bear, and the second bed was a middling sized bed that belonged to the mother bear.

And the third bed was a dear little bed that belonged to the dear little baby bear.

Goldilocks laid down on the great big bed to try it, but the pillow was too high and she wasn't comfortable at all.

Then she lay down on the middle sized bed, and the pillow was too low, and that wasn't comfortable either.

Then she laid down on the little baby bear's bed, and it was exactly right and so very comfortable that she lay there and lay there until she went fast asleep.

Now, while Goldilocks was still asleep in the little bed, the three bears came home again.

And as soon as they stepped inside the door and looked about them, they knew that somebody had been there.

Somebody's been sitting in my chair.

Growled the father bear in his great big voice, and left the cushion crooked.

And somebody's been sitting in my chair, said the mother bear, and left it standing crooked.

And somebody's been sitting in my chair, squeaked the baby bear in his shrill little voice.

And they've sat and sat till they've sat the bottom out, and he felt very sad about it.

Then the three bears went over to the table to get their porridge.

What's this?

Growled the father bear in his great big voice.

Somebody's been tasting my porridge and left the spoon on the table.

And somebody's been taking my porridge, said the mother bear in her middle sized voice.

And they've splashed it over the side.

And somebody's been tasting my porridge.

Squealed the baby bear.

And they've tasted and tasted until they've tasted it all up.

And when he said so, the baby bear looked as if he were about to cry.

If somebody's been here, they must be here still, said the mother bear.

So the three bears went upstairs to look.

First, the father bear looked at his bed somebody's been lying on my bed.

And pulled the covers down, he growled in his great big voice.

Then the mother bear looked at her bed somebody's been lying on my bed.

And pulled the pillow off, said she in her middle sized voice.

Then the baby bear looked at his bed, and there lay little Goldilocks with her cheeks as pink as roses and her golden hair all spread over the pillow.

Somebody's been lying in my bed.

Squeaked the baby bear joyfully.

And here she is still.

Now, when Goldilocks in her dreams heard the great big father bear's voice, she dreamed it was the thunder rolling through the heavens.

And when she heard the mother bear's middle sized voice.

She dreamed it was the wind blowing through the trees.

But when she heard the baby bear's voice, it was so shrill and sharp that it woke her right up.

She sat up in bed, and there were the three bears standing around and looking at her.

Oh, my goodness me.

Cried Goldilocks.

She tumbled out of bed and ran to the window.

It was open, and out she jumped before the bears could stop her.

Then home she ran as fast as she could, and she never went near the forest again.

But the little baby bear cried and cried because he had wanted the pretty little girl to play with.

Thank you for joining Freya's fairy tales.