Hi, everyone. We're glad you're here. This is the Three Lesbians and a Pen podcast. Get ready to have your world rocked. As we dive into the wild and sometimes wacky world of self-publishing. We are three fabulous bestselling authors. I'm your host, Kimberly Todd with my best friends.

K. C. Luck

and Jamey Moody. 

Join us as we discuss the joys of writing, challenges of self-publishing, and anything else that tickles our fancy. 

Hey there. Welcome to episode 24 of the Three Lesbians and a Pen Podcast. I'm Kimberly Todd. I'm here with my fabulous friends, KC Luck and Jamey Moody. Today, we're talking about plotting the beginning, middle, and end.

But before we start, how is everyone's week, KC?

I'm sad.

Oh,

My Valentine is out of the country visiting her daughter for the month of February. So, I know. So we of course...

Oh, it's the whole 

month? 

And the whole month. I know.

I know. Yeah, and of course Valentine's Day was the anniversary of our first kiss. So, you know, so it's been a year and so that's been kind of a bummer but I'm really looking forward to coming back.

She comes back on the 26th. So not too much longer and then you know, this long month will be over and we can celebrate together. But other than that, on the writing side, I have been very prolific. I know. Shocker. I look on your faces. You're like, what? 

The crowd goes wild. 

Exactly? I actually wrote another 12, 000 words on my current work in progress, which I already have a title for because it was based on that episodic version I was going to write that I wrote just a little bit about. And plotted out.

I do have a plot out for it, so that's what we're talking about here. I'm the plotter of the group. But it's called Fixing Hearts. So I'm keeping the title. I kind of like the title. It's between a mechanic and a research assistant. So it's like, you know. Opposite of track sort of scenario. So anyway, I'm heavily into that.

About a third of the way through. For those who don't know, you know, word counts as far as what they mean in a book. I know readers don't always know. And I actually am getting ready to write the first sex scene. So, that's always fun. Yeah, exactly. Yes.

So do you find that you've had more time to write since your love is out of the country.

Yeah, I think that's definitely has been part of it. I've been able to dedicate a couple hours every day to it and I know that's been part of it. So I'm going to have to work on that when she gets back. But the good news is that as you know, I am retiring and I'm going to be a full time author.

So I'm retiring from the day job in 45 days. So I'll be able to dedicate more time cause I won't be working during the day and that won't be a big deal.

Well, that's good. I'm currently between books, so do you feel like, well, you weren't writing because you were busy. Sometimes for me, when I'm in between books like this, I'm kind of like, I've gotta get that next book started, you know, and I get a little anxiety about it, but, I'm not sure I have it this time.

I don't know if I'm just resting or. If, it’s like, are you done? But I've got a, I've got a book I have to write cause it's the third in the

series. So. No, I know I'm not done, but I'm just kind of surprised cause I probably haven't written in over a week, but I've been so busy with this, release and doing corrections from the ARC team and things like that. It kind of gets 

yeah, 

give yourself a break during that.

Yeah, and I used to not give myself a break much at all because I would usually have a book going. I think I just hit the sweet spot where I sent a book to my editor and I'm working on the release so I don't really have time to start the next book. And now I'm like, maybe I better though.

You know, so I just wondered if that happens to y'all when you get in between books. you start the

next. 

I get a little anxious when the book comes out, so I find it hard to write like the week after the book comes out. I don't know about you, but I can't start right back into it because I'm just like so, tense about what's going to happen with the book and what's the first review going to be like and everything.

So yeah, I don't write for a couple weeks there either.

You're too busy hitting refresh.

Yeah, I refresh on the dashboard. Yeah, exactly...

Man, Do I sales? Do I have sales? See, I wanna be in that next book because I wanna put that out of 

my mind for a little bit. So I won't be getting refresh all the time.

No way. I look at it. I got it set up on my phone. I can look at it anytime I want. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, today though, that's what I'm planning to do when we get through recording this. I'm planning to start the next book or at least get my notes together to start the next book. So I just wondered if that happened to y'all. So my week, I had a really fun Saturday because we had a pickleball tournament.

And I think some of y'all know that I play pickleball. And it is a way to get out the competitiveness in myself. That's why I play twice a week. But my best friend came in to play with me because she plays too. 

 So, we'd always wanted to partner up as a team because we're both very competitive and we thought we would probably kick ass, you know, there are some, teams that I knew would be much better than us, but some that weren't as good as us, I really thought we would end up somewhere in the middle. And, there were times when we were having so much fun that I looked next to me and I told her, I said, man, this is the best, isn't it? Cause we were winning at that time. Yeah. We're having so much fun. Then we got up against another team, which we should have kicked their ass easily. And they were killing us. They're a squirrely team, so you never know where the ball's gonna go, so squirrely teams are kind of hard to play against. 

So that part wasn't fun, but it ended up, we did not do near as well as we wanted to.

Oh, That's not the ending I thought you were going to say. I thought you were going to say, We got the trophy! Dun da da! 

Oh no, there were a couple of games where it was fun, but there were others where it wasn't,

ha 

ha 

But in the end we had a great day and afterwards another friend came in with her and played with my sister.

So afterwards we, went out to dinner and that part was fun, but man, it was just such a slap in the face... Sometimes you have to just say, man, I did not play well. And I'm not as good.

Did you hurt the next day from so many games? No.

That kind of surprised me. I was really tired, that night. And the next morning I was like, man, I'm not getting up and doing anything. It was Sunday. So I didn't have to, I usually go to church, but I was like, I'm not going to church today. And, so I kinda, was lazy yesterday, but then I got my second wind and it came back to me.

But anyway, I was, sad that I'm not near as good as I think I am. And you have to face that realization sometimes.

You have to have a goal so you can always aspire.

Next year's tournament. You're gonna be

great. 

Anyway, we'll find out what happens today. I'm playing this evening with some of the people that were on those teams. I think I might like the recreation stuff better because when you get, beat down in a recreation game, then you just change partners and you play somebody else and then you forget about it.

That's what I noticed. I was like, what the hell is wrong with you Jamey So there you have it. But it was fun.

It sounds fun.

It is fun. You should try pickle ball.

We had Valentine's Day, which was nice. We went out to dinner and had some romance. Yeah. So that was a good time. But here in New Jersey, for all Saturday and all Sunday, it just, monsooned, sleeted, snowed all day long, like with howling wind, so we hunkered down.

But I've been working on editing my current book and writing the blurb from hell for my next book. I want that to be finished before I start.

Blurb from hell?

Yeah, this one is usually they flow right away and I will not start writing my book until I have the blurb and this one is like a puzzle for some reason. It's not just coming the way it usually does. So that's annoying, but hopefully it'll be done soon. 

Okay. So do we have any texts this week?

 We did have a couple texts. Cheryl, texted us from, Memphis. And she says she likes random plots that keep her guessing. So that's kind of her thing. And then we had one from CeeJay who says, she doesn't plot, but she's a major multitasker. So her brain seems to always know where things are going to go.

So that was interesting. And she loves it when there's good twists and she likes it because she can usually figure it out. I know that's a long text, but it was a long text.

It's good though. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. 

they both emailed us too and said kind of the same thing. Cheryl said she hates it when she can't guess where the plot's going.

And you know, sometimes that's the point.

Yeah.

Or putting a little twist in there at the end. But, yeah. And CeeJay made a point though. She said she doesn't like the muddy plot.

She likes the twists that are great if they're, you know, clean. The ones where you say should have known, but you don't want it to be so out there that, 

 it doesn't make sense. I'll

put it that way. Yeah. Like, where'd you come up with that? So, 

 Jules, emailed too, and loved how we get our ideas and everything.

So what about, Insta?

I guess she put the same thing. 

One of her comments was that she might start listening more in restaurants to get ideas and things like that. Cause we had talked about that like eavesdropping last week and I went to get my hair highlighted this week and I was sitting there and the owner of the salon came in and everyone was like cooing and so excited because, he started dating his boyfriend, six years ago.

And when they first started dating, his boyfriend was like, Oh, I really want to go to Paris sometime. So he thought for Christmas, he would get them tickets to Paris. So he gave him the tickets. So the guy knew that they were going or whatever, but then the secret was he hired a photographer in Paris who found the perfect location where if the photographer took a picture of the two of them, the Eiffel Tower would be in the back and he flew him there and proposed.

Oh, that's so awesome.

He had the perfect photographs and all the Instagram everything for social media and so it was so cute. So there's a story that you could make into a book. 

That's kind of a, that sounds very gay guy-ish, you know? Putting all those details together. Us, you know, us lesbians sometimes, it's not quite so detailed. 

I don't know. I disagree. I do too.. Yeah Okay. 

Some lesbians. KC Luck Not all.

Hey now!

Fair enough.

There's a mix of us on this podcast, people. 

That's There's, that's true. That's right. Are you trying to say some of us are gay guys?

No, no, no, no. I just was saying I would never, think to do that. I might do it if I thought of it. I'm not saying I'm not romantic. It's just, I don't think I would have thought to go quite to that level of, you know.

If your friend gave you an idea to do it, you might consider it, is what you're

saying. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, so today we're talking about plotting beginning, middle, and end. And KC, you're going to start us off?

Yeah, so I use a variety of plotting methods, actually. I am a plotter, so I know there's not, I think I'm the lone plotter on the podcast today. But, the plot method I use depends kind of on the story I'm going to write, and how much of it's already taken shape in my mind. So, if I think, oh, I know a good ending for a book, and this is how it would work if I had to get there, then I just kind of go with, the hero's journey style, which I can talk about more if you're curious about it.

But, it gets me from the beginning, middle, end. But if I have no idea, I use what's more like a, snowflake or snowballing method where you just write down the main idea in the middle of the page. I don't know if you've ever done this, circle it and then start making offshoots from it. Where I'm like, oh, this could happen and this could happen and this could happen.

 So I use different methods depending on what I'm going to try to do.

 hmm.

As a pantser.. Hmm. Mm

KC may have to talk mostly in this. But let me tell you, as a pantser, and on what you just said, I may not write all that down on a spreadsheet like you do, but it's up here in this head of mine. So maybe plotter than I think, because when I start the book I'll obviously know the beginning and I don't always know when I'm going to get to the middle and I don't always know the end, but I know where I'm going to get them to.

I kind of have a general idea of the end. Sometimes when I'm writing a book, the end might change is what I'm saying,

but I always have ideas of kind of maybe like your snowflake thing.

yeah.

I can't start my book until I write the blurb and by doing that I kind of know where the characters are at the beginning because they're in the real world and then there's an inciting incident that happens which launches the story and then I have the character arc and their stakes and how they'll grow. I know exactly what the ending is and the thing that changes for me is the epilogue because I like to make it extra happily ever after or something that people really want to know a little extra tidbit. Sometimes I'll make that the bonus chapter or whatever, it just depends.

How long are your blurbs? Cause that's a lot to put in a blurb.

 About 250 words. 

Oh wow. So you are outlining. You're just not putting 

it in a spreadsheet. 

Yeah. 

Yeah 

 It's 

only 

one 

page. 

yeah, 

It's the actual blurb of the book. It's the back cover of the book.

Yeah, that's awesome. That is very detailed and definitely means you have a lot of forethought in it. So, and you're also a post it noter. I'm pretty sure you have post its, because I've seen you do post its for the podcast, so I can only Oh, 

she turns 

the show Oh, she turns the camera to show us her post its, and it's covering a whiteboard.

It's like

I moved it 

fast 'cause I don't 

man, that's 

what a cuckoo clock I am. 

Ha Ha Ha Ha ha ha That's hilarious. 

Ha 

things.

You

not, You 

are not 

near 

as pansy as 

you think.

god. Do you have 

Do you have 

different color Yeah. Yeah. 

books and stuff

Those, uh, do you have different colors based on what kind of scene it is?

No. God

no, 

I was going to say, 

Oh, the pink ones are hot scenes and the yellow ones are blah, blah, blah.

Well, I will say that, I always try to come up with a opening line that will be a little bit catchy. 

And I do think through the beginning, to set everything up. Sometimes that's hard to get going, but. You've got to set everything up in that first chapter to get the reader interested, so they'll keep

going. So you got to have some kind of punch, in that first,

That first sentence.

Yeah, first sentence, first chapter, that first sentence, for sure, you've got to make them want to find out what's going to happen next and keep going and keep going.

Most of the time, some kind of cliffhanger ish ending on each chapter to make them want to go on to the next chapter.

I mean, not big cliffhanger or anything like that, but

Yeah, I do that. I do that too. Actually with the, The little ending sentence. I try to always make it so they want to go to the next chapter. I've had some readers actually say, with the Darkness books especially, that they really like the way I end my chapters, so they have to read the next one and read it all night.

So that's always a win when you hear that kind of feedback. But definitely, if it's an action adventure especially, you need to 

keep them booking through that.

And sometimes I'll get, emails from readers that'll say I was up way too late last night because of the next chapter or the book or whatever. And that always makes you feel good.

Mm hmm. 

You know, that they had to keep going, because they wanted to find out what happens. 

What about the middle, KC? Something specific for the middle? 

The

middle 

specifically, I hate it.

the 

saggy middle. 

middle, oh my gosh, 

no, 

For me, the middle, this is what I have on my little thing, the middle either has sex, death or kidnapping.

Dang! 

That's so I don't get bored to that saggy middle. Cause I had one where I got to the middle and I was like, I don't even want to finish this book. So I said, now, every time I write the blurb, the middle thing is going to be in my head.

Wow, that is major right there. Okay, so for the middle for me, when are we supposed to have the first kiss?

Mm.

In the formula for writing and stuff like that. I know one of my books, these were friends, you know, till it was a friends to lovers. And, I got to where I was like, man, they haven't even kissed yet. 

hmm. 

75 percent through with this book. Yeah. It was something like that. I, it worked out, but, I'm going to say in the middle, for sure, they have had their first kiss.

And I don't always know, when the middle is going to be, because I don't have it plotted out, but the conflict for sure has been identified and we know what they're wrestling with.

 So yeah.

it's gonna depend. If it's an Enemies to Lovers, you're probably not gonna have the first kiss until maybe, like you said, 75, 000 words.

Well, yeah, I might add in the book that I'm about to release, Saturday is the release date. Two 22. Yeah. It starts out with one night. So you'll love that first

chapter folks, if you like the 

there you go. 

sexy, spicy scenes.

And there are some people, I think they call them sloth burns.

Oh, yeah,

Slothburn?

You know.

I can't hardly, I

can't hardly do those. How about y'all? 

You know, that's where they either have like one sex scene towards the end or they kiss 75 percent like you were saying, but there are people that like that,

Yeah. Oh yeah. 

I'm 

love those long, 

be very hard for me to write that.

Not for me.

Long angsty books. I don't think I could do that. Yeah, I like to have I mean, I've written a couple that have gone quite a ways until they've actually, kissed and stuff. Like my road trip one, you know, where love leads. They go quite a ways until they kiss. There's a lot of, you know, sexual tension and everything, of course.

But the actual kissing doesn't happen for a while in that one. So, yeah, I guess I pulled that off. But I usually like to have it a little earlier in the book.

Like 25% 

That's, 

Yeah.

Around there,

yeah. 

I mean the middle, you've got to have, I don't do kidnappings, but, or deaths, but you have to have something interesting going on. Of course they've kissed by then, let's say, and you've got to have something, they're growing together maybe, or, the conflict has to be identified. I think that's maybe where the conflict gets going.

Yeah, conflict is definitely in the second act. If you're into those one, two, three, act one, 

Yeah.

uh Sort of set-ups., 

You just don't want it to get boring and saggy so that they won't keep reading.

Or you won't keep writing. Oh,

that's what I was going to say. I figure if I'm bored, the people that are going to read 

it 

well, 

yeah. 

are going to be bored, so 

Well, there's that. 

you've 

got to fix that. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. 

been reading your book? 

Oh god.

You know, before you send it to your editor, let's say, and you're, and you get there and you're like, God, this is boring. Has that ever happened to y'all?

Yeah, because you've read it five times.

Well, no, 

many 

I've just. That's happened to me, and I'm like, oh, hell, what am I gonna do. 

Yeah, yeah, you better love the book that you're writing because you're going to read that sucker a bunch of times. So,

by the end of it, I do.

One thing that's been fun in this, since my ARC is out right now, is, I shared this with Kimberly, and I guess I'll share this with all of you. When I was reading the book for the last time before I sent it to the art team, there were two places in it that made me cry. And sometimes my books make me cry and sometimes they don't. But, and I'm sure a lot of it is because what goes into the scene that I am familiar with that maybe the reader isn't, that might bring those tears. But, several of my ARC readers have cried in this book too. So it's very touching and it's kind of interesting, you know, where they did and where I did.

And so do y'all ever make yourselves cry?

Yes, I made myself cry in one of my darkness books when there's a reunion between a mother and a daughter and the daughter's recently had a baby so it's a grandchild that the mother seen for the first time and actually my narrator also said she cried at that spot. So yeah,

And I had the same when, Katerina, thinks her mom died because when I was writing, I was thinking of my mom and I was like, Oh my God, I just started bawling. 

yeah, Well in this book 

there's kind of a grand gesture, which we'll talk about that here in a minute toward the end of the book. There's kind of a grand gesture in it, but I mean it is grand what happens and it's a big scene. And it made me tear up when I was reading it that last time. It was just so sweet.

Yeah, it's one of those, I could see the Hallmark moment.

I mean, 

you know, in the Hallmark movie. 

you go. 

it was kind of fun

I like that. I like when the book ends happy and there's like a wedding or something exciting at the end that people get to see, get more in depth and just instead of they walk down the aisle, I like adding 

the whole, 

hmm. 

A little be more juiciness to it for people to really feel like the characters got married.

Yeah.

Well, are we to the end? So isn't that where your grand gesture is? Do y'all do a grand gesture?

Sometimes. Sometimes I do.

Yeah, 

I'm a sometimes or two.

Yeah. That's usually the, switching point from middle to end. Act two to three. Usually have some sort of grand gesture. And then you wrap everything up in the end. So that's a neat little package. 

I always include an epilogue. I want the readers to know what's happening to the couple down the road, you know, and sometimes those are so fun. I 

mean.

Hmm.

Yeah. 

do y'all, do y'all always do an

epilogue? 

I do too. And I find like this last book, people have been writing me, they love the bonus scene. So, you know, it's not even in the book. They're like, this is amazing. You have to get the bonus scene. When you saw it, I was like, that made me happy that people really liked it.

Oh yeah. I think some readers, you know, expect it. 

I don't know that it's part of the romance formula necessarily, but I think some readers expect it or really enjoy it. Like you said.

Yeah, our niche definitely. The sapphic reader community really seems to like epilogues. You don't see them too many times outside of that. That's a good place for a wedding or sometimes,

you know, an epilogue can be 

a baby. A 

baby.

As far as epilogues go, how much time has passed? When you do an epilogue,

Totally depends. 

Mine are always just right after the book. I know a lot of people can do a six months later or something, but mine are usually just, a continuation, after the end of the book.

The longest one I did. And I asked a couple of author friends, this has been a while back, was 18 years later. But it was such a good scene because of course there was a child involved, but it was such a good scene that it worked well.

But I wrapped up my trilogy when the Darkness series was only going to be a trilogy 20 years later 

and people, but people were pissed because they're like, you did not finish this series. We want to know what happens in those 20 years. And I'm like shit I'm gonna be this series, 

Yeah. Yeah. 

for a while. Yeah That's good. They like it That's true. That's true.

Yeah but that, I think it was 18 years, 18 or 20 years. 

Yeah.

That's going to be your Grey's Anatomy, KC.

ha ha, ha, 

OK, I think that's it for this week. Next week we're going to be talking about writing the fucking book and getting it down on paper. 

Yeah, I like the title of that one. So the question is, when it comes to writing your fucking book, is, for you authors out there, what do you do to pump yourself up so you're ready to write that book? And for the readers, I'm really curious, do you have a ritual as well? I mean, do you have to have the certain blanket or drink a certain tea or the certain cat on your lap?

So I'd like to know, just out of curiosity. what's your ritual? As well?  

 That's it for this week. Thanks for listening.

Thank you, everybody. Have a great week. Oh wait a minute,

I don't think another podcast before my book comes 

out. You've got to let me plug it one more time, people. It is on pre order right now. Wish Upon a Rainbow Star. And it comes out Saturday, February the 22nd. The early reviews have been wonderful.

I'm happy to say, it'll be ready for you. So please give it a look. This is the first book in the Wishing Stars series and it's a lot of fun. There's a lot of romance because I mean, you're looking at the stars. It's an astronomer. Don't you think that would be romantic? Anyway, So yeah, it comes out Saturday, February 22nd.

Wish Upon a Rainbow Star. Thank you so much for listening. Bye. 

Thanks for listening. If you'd like to reach out to us, you can contact us by email at contact@threelesbiansandapen.com with the number three spelled out or on Instagram, Facebook and X at Three Lesbians and a Pen using the number three. And finally on our website, at threelesbiansandapen.com, we look forward to hearing from you, see you next week.