Interview with Rachel Spangler, author of PLAIN ENGLISH and THRUST

 

I am exhilirated today!!! Beyond excited! I was able to interview Rachel Spangler (they/them), an author I might just be mildly obsessed with, and I now get to present this interview to everyone! I have read several of their books and loved them so very, very much and I think I squealed a bit when they confirmed that they were willing to be interviewed by me.

In this interview we talked about how long they've been writing, what their writing process is like, and how they figure out when a book is part of a connected series. They also were kind enough to provide a blurb of their upcoming book!! Make sure to check it all out and let me know your thoughts. As always links to follow Rachel Spangler as well as purchase their books will be at the bottom of the interview.      

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How long have you been writing? Personally and professionally.

I think I wrote my first book as a small child. I have little, stapled-together pieces of paper from very early in my school years, books about my brother, our cat, little stories with hand drawn covers, I think that urge to tell my stories was always strong. I come from a big storytelling family. There are a lot of us, we are loud, we talk over each other, people who tell good stories get the attention of the collective, and I do so love holding people's attention. I am the rare extroverted writer. Most of my colleagues are introverts, but I think I learned early on that writing was just telling stories in ways that get more people to hear them. I never really thought of it as a career until I'd published a few books and found the professional community of writers I now call home. I was very late to ideas of writing craft. I never even took a creative writing class in school, which meant I did a lot of learning on the job. I've been blessed to have great editors and publishers who believed in my stories enough to work on them with me, and I am still trying to learn and grow professionally with each and every thing I write because I'm still very much that kid who wants as many people as possible to hear the tales I'm trying to tell.

That honestly sounds like a very amazing experience thatyou had growing up! I'm glad that you found it as a career and that you had people willing to work with you and help you grow. Also until you mentioned it I didn't realize how many authors appear to be introverts.

Are there any books that you’ve finished writing but decided against publishing?

No, nothing that I've finished, but several that I've written way too much on to have abandoned. I've got two manuscripts at about 30-35 thousand words that I set aside. I tend to hate everything I've ever written in the middle third of the book, so I often struggle to get through that without crashing out in a fit of frustration. After 23 books I've learned that's part of the process for me, and I've developed skills for pushing through, but early on I didn't have that perspective. One of the unfinished manuscripts is recent enough that I plan to pick it back up any time now. The other might be gone for good. I've grown too much as a writer to make much use of it, but you never know, maybe I'll pick up the idea and start again from scratch.

Fair enough! Honestly makes more sense to have ones that you've never finished rather than ones you've not sent in (I have no idea how that makes more sense, my brain just says it does.). I'm really glad that you can acknowledge that the other manuscript doesn't have a use for you now but that the idea might.

What is your favorite part of being a writer? Are there any rough parts?

There are tons of rough parts. The pay isn't great, there's no security or insurance, and it can be very lonely to work on something by yourself for months only to have people devour it in a few hours and move on. It's also increasingly hard to stay relevant between releases. I spend more time than ever managing social media, trying to drum up reviews and keep my name out there. That's all time I really would rather be writing. Sometimes I think about just getting a retail job that won't break my heart nearly as often, but then inspiration strikes and the characters unfold in front of me, and I get to immerse myself in their world. Then, even better, I hear from a reader or see a review or get tagged in some social media post where someone else talks about that world I wrote into existence and they love it, and they love the people I created with the same voracity I do. It's really amazing when you think about it, and when I do, I remember I have the best job in the whole world.

With the way self-promotion seems to be going authors are going to have to start hiring people to manage their social media accounts if they want to be able to still find time to write. I can definitely see how being an author could be a hard job, but I love to hear that readers and reviews can help remind you of that.

What does your writing process look like?

I am a very linear writer, but I do not plot out much in advance. When beginning a book I take some time to sit with my characters for a bit. I never begin actual writing until I hear their voices very clearly in my mind, usually in conversation with each other. Then I go ahead and write that bit down so I have it nice and clear. From there I may go back and fill in an opening scene around them. After that I just keep putting one foot in front of the other so to speak, as each scene, each bit of dialogue, each action and reaction follows from the one before it. Along the way I may make notes for myself in the document like, "Make sure you come back to this detail later" or "Have them see each other at the gym later," just little ideas for things later in the book, but most people would not consider it plotting or outlining. I will say that I do up my word count as I progress. In the beginning 500 words might be a great day, whereas by the end I'm usually trying for 2,000 a day.unless it's sex scene day. Then all bets are off. I also have a playlist for each of my books, songs to put me in the right mood, things to give me a cue that we are writing this book right now, not playing on facebook, not working on the grocery list. When this song starts to play, we were fully with these characters.

I might have cackled a bit when you said that all bets are off for sex scenes. I...fair! Why limit yourself (or push yourself) at that point? Sounds like you've got a really solid system of writing nailed down! I'm also very impressed that you can write the books you do without really plotting beforehand! Also, I am extremely interested in the playlists for your books now!

You've written books that feature characters time traveling, playing curling, being royals, and being fencers just to name a few. How do you come up with your ideas?

I almost always come up with characters first. They're fully drawn people with lives and quirks and personalities, who happen to have jobs and adventures that I get to have fun playing with. I did get the idea for the curling book while I was curling, but I had been curling hundreds of times before. The same with the time travel book: I got the idea while back at my old high school, but I'd been there plenty of times. I have hundreds of ideas for stories over the course of the week, and they can come from anywhere. I watch everything, I listen to TED talks, I eavesdrop on people in restaurants. The world is full of great adventures, but the ones that get put into full-fledged books are the ones where characters spoke to me for long enough for me to start writing it down.

It sounds like the characters come first and then you kind of stumble headfirst into an idea that fits them then. I like that! I like the idea that these characters are real and that they speak to you!

Some of your books are part of connected series and others are just standalone novels. When do you know that a book will have a spinoff/related novel?

I wish I could say there's a master plan, but so far there hasn't been. All of my connected books were first written as stand-alone romances, and each time I finished one, I felt as though the journey was complete. With the Darlington books something kept calling me back, usually when I would visit my hometown. There was likely something unresolved in me that led to the need for more stories. At that point in my life I hadn't yet found therapy, and I think those books very much reflect my attempts to make sense of the world I grew up in and the person I have become. With the England books, the impetus was much more fun. After writing Plain English while living on the Northumbrian coast, I got the most wonderful feedback from readers. That book just tugged at something in folks, and many of them wanted to learn more about Lady Victoria, who was a side character in Brogan and Emma's romance. I told people that if more than half the reviews mentioned her, I would try to write her story. In the end about 90% of the reviews said they'd like for her to have her own book. It was such a pure joy to dive back into that setting where I'd spent the happiest year of my life. Then when Pip started speaking to me, I jumped at the chance to write a third book set in the same world. So, while I never set out to write connected worlds, I am very much open to doing so, and readers actually have some ability to influence that process. Never underestimate the power of a well-publicized review campaign!

Ooh that is amazing! I'm now going to start mentioning every side character I loved and want a book about just to see whether or not an author thinks they're worth writing about! I do remember feeling similarly about Lady Victoria, that I wanted to know more about her and I was so excited when the next book was focused on her!!

How much research do you typically need to write one of your books?

That depends greatly on the book. I don't think of myself as writing books that need tons of research, but I will say my sports romances take the most. I usually do primary research by contacting professional athletes or journalists in the field I'm writing about. With Edge of Glory, Thrust, and Fire and Ice I actually got to talk to actual Olympians quite a bit, not just about the ins and outs of their sports, but about their training, diet, and relationships with coaches, too. One of the best compliments I've received recently was from another professional snowboarder who said she'd put off reading Edge of Glory for years because she worried she wouldn't find it believable, but she just broke down and read it. She was so excited to report I got everything right. I was even more excited to hear that. I think we're all a little overwhelmed by the idea of reaching out to people who are at the top of their field, but honestly I've never had to ask more than three or four people before I find someone willing to talk to me. I think it's a fundamental truth that folks appreciate being appreciated, and everyone likes to talk about the things they are passionate about.

I thought that it might. The sports books always seemed in-depth and right to me, but I also know nothing about sports so I couldn't really tell! It is so awesome that you were able to talk to actual Olympians about this!! That is so amazing! I'm glad that you were able to find these people for the research and thats it was well-received. But I totally get being afraid to contact people at the top of their field, it's intimidating!

One of my favorite books of yours is Plain English because I absolutely love Pip as a character. If you're comfortable sharing, where did the idea for a character like Pip come from?

Pip is one of those fantastic characters that sprang fully formed from my brain and then just got more dynamic from there. The person you see on page one just jumped right out at me, fully developed a few years ago while making Thanksgiving dinner. I was up to my elbows in flour when I heard the first conversation Pip has with Claire as clear as day. I opened my phone and did speech-to-text into a message to my friend and colleague Anna Burke. After about two minutes she texted back, "Why aren't you writing this book RIGHT NOW?" I responded, "I am. I am writing it to you so I don't forget any of this." Within a few days I had the concept and then the opening scenes. From there I felt like every time Pip spoke to Claire, some new revelation came tumbling out. Claire was so fundamentally good, she created such glorious space for Pip I almost became addicted to listening to them talk, and at that point it really did feel more like eavesdropping than writing. The work for me came in the form of filling in the world around them, but the conversations became so much of a lifeline for me. It was only after finishing the book and rereading it and then taking it to my therapist and saying "What did I do?" that I came to realize that in a lot of ways I had given Pip the space and the freedom and the affirmation that I craved deeply for myself. Plain English is not the best-selling book in that connected world, but it is by far the one I get the most heartfelt and effusive praise for. People who give Pip and Claire a chance tend to fall deeply in love with them, and I suspect it's because they're filling a need for a lot of people in our community right now. Their conversations are the conversations so many of us are either having or long to have. I feel incredibly honored that I got to help facilitate or model that with these characters I love so much.

Pip and Claire are an amazing relationship and I remember loving every second as they grew together and figured their relationship, and themselves, out. I don't know what it's like to have a character speak to you, but I am thrilled that Pip and Claire spoke to you. It's amazing! Also, yeah totally get writing what we need to hear without realizing it.

Do you have a favorite scene (or scenes) from the books that you've written so far?

I think I have favorite scenes in so many books, probably every book. The meet cute scene in Modern English, the pronoun conversation in Plain English, the ice bath scene in Edge of Glory, there are several in Close to Home I'm very proud of, but can't talk about without giving away spoilers. I'm not sure I could publish a book if there wasn't stuff in there that I absolutely adored with almost a parental kind of pride. The work I do means too much to me not to love it.

Ooh I love those scenes in the English book!!! This is also how I realize that somehow I've not read Close to Home. New plan for this month. That makes sense though! That you have to adore parts of it to put it out into the world.

Are you currently working on any future book plans that you can share?

I've just sent a romance called Seeking Approval off to be printed. I hope that one will be available in July. I haven't really talked much about it publicly, but you've been a great supporter of my work, so how about I give you a bit of an exclusive and share the blurb here first? As of right now only my publisher, cover artist, and the folks over on my Patreon have seen it. You're my first public post.

Seeking Approval

When Emery Pembroke returns home after her father's untimely death, she's shocked to learn her mother has been named CEO of the family's green energy business instead of her. Faced with a directive from the board to prove her stability and community commitment, she sets out to bolster her credentials by finding a woman of the right social standing to woo and marry. Enter Arden Gilderson, the wealthy, socially anxious daughter of one of the area's most prominent families, who has admired Emery from afar for most of her life. Overwhelmed by the sudden attention, Arden vows to overcome her nerves long enough to enjoy herself for once in her life. Against all odds, the two women find they share not only an immediate sense of attraction and quirky sense of humor, but also the ability to offer one another balance and perspective. However, their unique and unexpected bond is tested as social and family pressure come crashing in from all sides.
Opposites might be enough to attract, but can Arden and Emery sustain each other as perceptions of who they’ve always been clash with who they must become?
Seeking Approval is a heartwarming sapphic romance about the complexities of love, acceptance, community, and stepping authentically into futures of our own choosing.

Well, that just made this one of my favorite interviews ever. It already was, but that's just the cherry on top of the cake! Ooh those book sounds absolutely amazing!! Also, I love the name Arden. I hope that the book has a great release! Good luck on it and anything else you might be working on!

When you're not writing, what do you like to do?

I'm a family boi. I love hanging out with my wife and our teenage son. We've got a low-key adventurous streak, and we're blessed to live in Western New York most of the time, which is a four-season paradise. We like to paddleboard on Lake Erie, go for hikes, downhill ski, and curl in our local recreation league. We're also into food, always trying new restaurants or figuring out how to make our favorites at home. We're big sports fans. My son plays tennis, so we watch a lot of that, and we're avid followers of the St. Louis Cardinals. We especially love to travel, anything from exploring new towns in the USA to taking bigger trips abroad. This year we've learned to scuba dive, and we're looking forward to seeing where that takes us. All in all, we think we're pretty fun people, or at least easily entertained.

That all sounds freaking amazing and like a lot of fun!! I'm glad you're able to do all of that! The skiing and watching sports and travelling! It's all amazing.

Thank you so much for joining me on this interview with Rachel Spangler!! I hope everyone else is as excited about their next book as I am! Also, I totally recommend reading their books if you haven't before. Plain English, Thrust, and Fire & Ice are a few of my favorites! Happy reading!

If you like what I do, consider giving me a follow on social media or donating to my Ko-fi. Thank you for reading!!

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You can find Rachel Spangler on their Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Mastodon. You can also support them on their Patreon.

You can buy Rachel Spangler's books from Bywater Books and Bold Strokes Books. You can also visit Amazon to purchase their books as well.

If you can't buy their books but you still want to read them, consider requesting them to your local library or suggesting them on Overdrive!