Lisa Scottoline's gateway pet

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Adam Sockel:

You are listening to Passions & Prologues, a literary podcast. For each week, I interview an author about a thing they love and how it inspires their work.

I'm your host Adam Sockel, and today's episode is with Lisa Scottoline, New York Times bestselling author of 35 novels with her newest book that hit the New York Times Bestsellers list, instantly being Loyalty. It's a incredible book that we dive into a little bit later on in the episode.

Before that, we talk about something that we both truly adore, which is animals, specifically our respective senior dogs. Hers was sitting on her lap. Mine was sitting behind me the whole time. And I know this is not a video podcast, but just know that our dogs were integral to this conversation.

One little quick note about the conversation. We were both enjoying ourselves so much that there's a little talking over each other that occurs. I just want to make you aware of that. As a podcast host, I try my best never to talk over a guest, but we were just both so giddy that it happened a few times. So, I just want to let you know.

Lisa and I had a fantastic conversation, really bonded over again, our mutual love of animals. So, I think you're really going to enjoy this, whether you have read every single thing Lisa has ever written, or you are just hearing about one of her books, maybe for the first time, maybe it's a genre you don't normally dive into, this conversation is going to just build a place in your heart for Lisa and her stories. I think you're truly going to adore it.

Before we get to the conversation, I want to offer a quick book recommendation. This one is an oldie but a goodie. I want to recommend Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance by Ruth Emmie Lang. It is the story of Weylyn Grey, who was orphaned and raised by wolves, and he is the proud owner of a horned pig named Merlin.

He single-handedly stopped a tornado on a stormy Christmas day in Oklahoma, and he started to realize that there might be something just a little bit different about him. That tornado was actually the first of many strange things that follows Weylyn from town to town.

He doesn't really like to take credit for these things, but he just seems to have these amazing powers and things tend to manifest themselves at inopportune times and places. So, it's a story of Weylyn trying to come to terms with these unique abilities and how they can either be good or bad depending on the moment in his life that they come up.

It tells the story of Weylyn Grey from the perspective of people who knew him and loved him. So, kind of almost like a … I was thinking of it as like a Daisy Jones type of situation where there's a lot of different perspectives about Weylyn's story. Really, really great. I think you're really, really going to love it. That's Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance by Ruth Emmie Lang.

And as always, if you'd like any other recommendations from me, you can always email me at [email protected]. There you can send me any passions that you have. I love hearing those, and I give a random bookshop.org gift card to one person every single month who does that.

Also, if you want to leave me a rating or review wherever you listen to your podcast, that does help other bookish people find me just a little bit more easily.

Alright. That is enough of the housekeeping. I'm not going to keep you here any longer. I am so excited to say I hope you enjoy this episode of Passions & Prologues with Lisa Scottoline, author of Loyalty.

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Okay, I am super excited to ask this question. Lisa, what is something that you are passionate about that we're going to be talking about today?

Lisa Scottoline:

You know what I'm really, really passionate about? Animals.

Adam Sockel:

Yep. Love it.

Lisa Scottoline:

I know it sounds crazy and I have lots of thoughts. I hope they're interesting to you, but I think about it a lot because I live alone with animals. And so, I'm not really alone.

And that's, I guess what I'm keying off of that for me, I have been divorced twice and I am a single mom. My daughter grew up and became a novelist herself.

But not everybody is lucky enough to have a partner or a husband or a wife. There are people who divorced. There are people who are widowed. And I find myself in that position twice divorced and sort of going, I love my life. I'm very grateful for life and books for a million reasons. But I do think a little of your job in the planet besides doing good, is to make yourself happy.

I've always had animals, but these animals that I have, I have three dogs. I have a cat who's 16. I just got a pony. I have chickens. I moved to a farm to be around animals, and I actually have a complete life in animals now.

And I couldn't be happier. I wake up every day, I can't believe I live here. I'm so lucky. I feel that I'm very lucky in my job too. But the animals feel so much for me, and I said this to myself, I wrote it and this sounds so stupid, but I will say it to you because the revelation I had was that part of the grasping that we do in the world and the wishing and all the fiction and the movies is always about trying to get love.

And what I realized a little bit is that your heart feels full of love whether you are getting it or you're giving it. And so, I just realized that was happening in my life, that I was giving it not just to my daughter who grew up and moved to New York, but to these animals.

And so, they fill my heart with love, even though I don't have a date. Like that sounds crazy, but that's really true. And when you start thinking that way about animals, and I won't preach, it changes everything about your life. Everything.

Adam Sockel:

I love this so much. First off, this is an audio podcast, so no one will see this, but right before we started recording, Lisa grabbed one of her senior dogs. And in the background of my room is my senior dog, Holden, who I've talked a lot about. So cute.

I feel this so much. It is actually something I haven't talked about on the podcast before, but I don't mind talking about it. I'm going through a divorce and this little guy, my 13-year-old Weimaraner, he was the first dog I ever got, had him for all the 13 years. And you're so right. There's such a unique, once in a lifetime relationship that you get to have with every single animal that you have.

But this pup has been with me since he was eight weeks old. And especially the last year or so, it's just this relationship of like, you will never be able to explain it to someone else. They'll never fully understand.

Lisa Scottoline:

Right.

Adam Sockel:

But he has seen me at my best of times. He has seen me at my worst of times. And he has loved me in his own grumpy old man way unconditionally.

Lisa Scottoline:

Right. That's so right.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah.

Lisa Scottoline:

That's so right. And there's a part of your life … like she's my oldest and I have her two sons, and she knows a certain part of my life. And like you say, you have ups and downs, they give you a structure, no matter what you get, because I watch out for mental illness, all that stuff.

You have to be careful, especially during COVID, especially when you're a writer, you're so insular. There's never, you're going to stay in bed. I have to feed a horse. I have to feed these little guys who will come and lick my face and I sleep with them.

And it's the best. They give so much. And I think I love that the world is more open to it than it used to be. In my lifetime I remember like people you'd cry over a dog and, “It's just a dog.” No one says that anymore, but I'm not sure that everyone's as crazy as I am. But I feel like a little from you, Adam. And I love that about you son.

Adam Sockel:

I feel like we're kindred spirits. Okay. So, let me ask when-

Lisa Scottoline:

It's so important. It's really important. It's not just nothing. It's the key to my life. Yeah.

Adam Sockel:

So, when did you-

Lisa Scottoline:

I’ve never said it out loud.

Adam Sockel:

I love this. Have you had animals all your life or I guess, when did you first discover this? Because like I said, Holden, my pup over here, I've had him since he was eight months old, or eight weeks old rather. But he was my first dog. So, I'm 37, he's 13. So, I had him in my mid-twenties.

But before that, we had a cat growing up who was great, but it was like just family cat and nothing against her. I loved her. But it wasn't like my choice. So, do you remember when you first were like, oh, I need to surround myself with animals to feel this love?

Lisa Scottoline:

I think we always had them, but I remember in college that I got a dog from a rescue. And I went to the place in Philly. I'd never forget this was Morris Animal Refuge and beautiful little puppies in there. I couldn't decide. They were all so cute. And I said, “I'll come back after lunch.” I was with my roommates, and they said, “If you come back from after lunch, they will be gone.”

And I was like, “Okay.” Then boom, I got Bear. And then, so having a college dog was a thing. And that was so great for me because it got me through the graduate and trying to find a job and all that stuff. And I'll never forget that dog. I'll never forget any of them.

And you know what? The next stage, then you get a chicken, and your mind gets blown because then you start to realize that the chicken knows you.

But I'll tell you what's really key about this. The key thing is that animals are individuals. So, you can tell people who have more than one cat, or people who have more than one dog. They get that, oh yeah, this one's shy, this one's not.

The real mind-blowing thing is to understand that the animals you think of as cows are each one different. Horses, each one is different. Chickens, each one different. They have personalities. Now when you start to think that you can never eat them, you just can’t, you stop instantly.

I don't miss meat at all. I think it's horrifying. But that changed … and I said it was a life lesson for me. Because I also said, Lisa, the healthiest thing you can do in your life, in your life is to live in a way that's consonant with what you believe.

In other words, if you love animals, you're not going to cause them to live in horror and misery and then kill them and ingest them. It's so disgusting. You don't even miss it.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah.

Lisa Scottoline:

But it wasn't until the chickens that I realized, you think dogs are different from chickens in that individuation way, they're not. I have shy chickens; I have outward chickens. I have chickens that want to cuddle. They know their names. It's crazy. And then you're like, “Oh, my God.”

So anyway, you get the idea. I'm completely crazy now.

Adam Sockel:

No, no. I'll say a few things.

Lisa Scottoline:

It’s true.

Adam Sockel:

I'm also not a meat eater. So, right there with you. Totally get it. I don't have chickens, but I want to ask. So, I adore my dog. I'll always have dogs.

Lisa Scottoline:

Yes.

Adam Sockel:

Is chickens the gateway animal for you? Because then you said horses. Do you think that was the one where you're like, “Oh, if I can get chickens, now I can get a horse.” Do you think that was the one?

Because it's like — the example I will use, again, people can't see me, but if they've seen photos of me, they know I have a lot of tattoos. And I'd be like, “Tattoos are a gateway thing.” You get one, you’re going to get two, you’re going to get three.

Lisa Scottoline:

Alright.

Adam Sockel:

Is chickens the gateway animal to get other animals.

Lisa Scottoline:

That's such a good question. You're so brilliant. I do think it's probably a little addictive because I think what happens is when you get one dog, you realize that if you have to get up and feed one and walk one and do all the stuff you do, you might as well get two.

And that's what happens. I always thought of it as the Polly Pocket syndrome. And I don't know why that is, but I remember when I was raising my daughter and it would say on the side, collect them all. And then she and I would joke that we wanted to collect them all.

And so, then basically you're Noah, you've got like 500 animals all two by two, no one's around to stop me. I remember distinctly one night I was married to my second husband who I call thing two, when I’m being nice. And I remember lying beside him and going, “I could replace him and get a Corgi. I would be happier.” And then I did.

It was great. A Corgi will fill up your life better than so many people. And then I was like, “Damn, this is excellent.”

And so, I don't know which is the gateway, but I think one dog will do it for you. And cats are also great. I love my cat. My cat is less — the cat's 16 and still looks at me every day like she's never seen me before. I'm like, “Could you just throw me a little bit of love?” But she doesn't. But I love her. And that's my theory. I love her. I love her.

Adam Sockel:

I love it. So, I know what you mean. So, Holden loves in his own way. Like he has to be in the same room as me. But if I were to go over … again, no one else other than Lisa can see this. If I were to go over and like, sit with him on the couch he's on right now, he would look at me, stand up and go move away.

Because he loves on his own terms. And it's one of those things where I know exactly what you mean. Where he is like, “Listen, I need to see you. I need to be present or you're present. I will follow you around all day. Do not cuddle with me. I am not a cuddly dog. It's simply not going to happen.”

Lisa Scottoline:

See, isn’t that so great. That's such a lesson though. You accept him for who he is. He has boundaries. You're not taking it personally. That's what I mean.

Adam Sockel:

There are some days that I want to take it personally and I'm like, “Come on man, let me lay on you.” And he is like, “I’m not going to do that? No.”

Lisa Scottoline:

Well, my Corgi would growl if she didn't want to be bothered. And my daughter will always say, “Corgis need their nappies. She just didn't want to be bothered while she was sleeping.”

I'm like that when I read. I don't want to be bothered when I'm reading. Just wait. Go away.

Adam Sockel:

So, let me ask a very important question. How do you go about naming your animals? Because I mentioned his name a couple times. Just Holden, everyone assumes because I'm in the literary world, that it's Holden Caulfield, which I-

Lisa Scottoline:

Was going to say, yeah.

Adam Sockel:

I actually hate Catcher in the Rye. He is named after a Kevin's Smith movie-

Lisa Scottoline:

Catcher in the Rye.

Adam Sockel:

I just never liked it. But he's named after a movie by Kevin Smith called Chasing Amy that I've loved since I was in high school. So, I didn’t-

Lisa Scottoline:

I remember Chasing Amy.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah.

Lisa Scottoline:

They used the C word in Chasing Amy.

Adam Sockel:

A whole bunch. They use it a whole bunch.

Lisa Scottoline:

I was like, “Oh-oh, we're breaking some barriers here.” I remember.

Adam Sockel:

So, when it comes to naming your animals, how does that process work for you? What do you think through. Yeah, well how do you go about that process?

Lisa Scottoline:

Adam, this is so great because this is all my daughter and I talk about, all we talk about is what the dog is doing at any given moment. And she's your age. And she has a dog that is her first dog too. And she's coping with him getting older.

But she's queen of names. I am very dopey and a little blunt objecty. So, I'm a little like Peach got her name because I thought she's such a peach. And so, her name is actually, she's a peach, which is such a stupid name.

When she had the puppies, my daughter said, “Why don't we just think about a theme?” And I'm like, “I can never think big like that. I'm always like, I like it. Give it to me.” She said, “Well, let's name them all after American heroes.”

So, we have one named Boone after Daniel Boone and one named Kit Carson. And then one named Calamity Jane. But then the sad thing is you start reading more and you realize like these weren't really — like they didn't do great things as heroes. And so, you are less enlightened about your theme names.

But we talk about names all the time. We name animals we don't have yet because we want to get an animal. But then what happens when you get the animal, the animal gives you the name. Like, she gave me peach. She's a total peach. And she'll sit on my lap all day long. But neither her sons will.

Adam Sockel:

I also love the idea of Lisa Scottoline, New York Times bestselling author, not thinking about big picture things. That's very funny to me. I just like that concept.

Lisa Scottoline:

You know it's true. It’s, what's your emotional reaction? Because they're all about emotion and love.

Adam Sockel:

So, how did the horse come about? How did the horse come along?

Lisa Scottoline:

That was also through my daughter Francesca. When we were growing up, I took her to a summer camp that was a morning camp. Because I didn't want … I would watch her go around in the circle and she gets that little young girl horse thing. And then she never loses it.

And we love animals so much. And then I was like, why am I living in the suburbs when I could live anywhere? And it's also cheaper. So, I moved to this big ass farm and then we're like, “Well, you could have a horse in your backyard.” And happily, we did, she and I would clean the barn and it was a whole thing that we did for years and years. It was so fun.

But then she grew up and she moved away and then mommy needed a pony. Because I was like, “What girl doesn't want a pony?” Okay, you're in your 60s. But God … I almost cursed. But I want a pony. And so, I got a pony last year.

And now that the weather's good and I got them during the winter, unfortunately. I'm a terrible horseback rider, but I just get on the back, and I ride around with my girlfriends and all we do is bitch, we call ourselves like hags on nags. We just talk about our lives. Just my circle of friends.

Adam Sockel:

I'm obsessed with-

Lisa Scottoline:

You’re getting all the info, man. I've never told anybody this. People are going to — oh, my God.

Adam Sockel:

I'm obsessed. I love this so much. So, let me-

Lisa Scottoline:

Hags on nags, fights again. Hags on nags, lives to ride again. It's so funny.

Adam Sockel:

So funny.

Lisa Scottoline:

You don't even go fast. You barely trot.

Adam Sockel:

So, how would you say all of these pets that you have, all these animals that you've kind of connected with over your lifetime, how would you say they affect your writing process? Do you think they influence what you want to write about? Or maybe how you would phrase things, how would you say there's … is there a connection between the two?

Lisa Scottoline:

There totally is because first off, they make me happier. So, that's all there is to it. And I'm a total homebody, so I love it.

The other thing that they do, and I've noticed it more and more as I've changed my consciousness about them. For example, Eternal was my first book of historical fiction. And there's a cat in that. And I sort of did what is the cat thinking? Because isn't that what you're thinking?

That's what my daughter and I, we know what are they thinking all the time? We talk about what they're thinking. We read their expressions. And I found myself doing that. And I was like, “Lisa, go with it.”

There's a great author, Italian Elsa Morante, who is seminal Italian author who wrote Woman of Rome. She had a cat. I was like, “Are you ripping off Morante?” But really, I said, “No. She was just ahead of her time. I'm finally catching up to Morante.”

And so, weirdly in Loyalty, which is the new book, and believe me, you don't have to talk about it, but I was like, man, there's a character in there who lives alone in a cave. And he believes he is the last Jew in Sicily. He might be because Jews have been driven from the island.

And he has three goats that he thinks of as his children. And I swear to God, I didn't intend it. I never know what I'm going to write. I never have a plan. I never have an outline.

Believe me, Adam, if you're divorced twice, you were not working on a plan. Your plan might actually suck. You don't have one and you suck at making plans.

But I realized, Lisa, you are writing yourself. And I am, and I freaking love that character. And obviously it doesn't look like, but the soul of the way he relates to his animals. And it was very folkloric in a way. And it worked in the book because for historical fiction basically set in the 1800s, you can't write it in a modern voice. Can't have contractions and all the like yeah right, all the stuff we say. And I wanted that folkloric touch.

And I thought there's something so elemental about our relationship to animals. It was ever thus, it really was ever thus. Although I guess there were times when we regarded them more as chattel and were more inhumane to them. And those people, maybe they haven't changed their mind. They're still awful horrors that are perpetrated.

And I still can never relate when I see people go like my dog doesn't go on the couch. I'm like, “Are you kidding me?” My dog doesn't get off the couch, I'll sit on the floor.

But whatever. Everybody can do what they want. But it's really what's the word that's more than elemental? It's primal. So, fills some primal need. And when those needs get met, you're a happier person. That's what I think.

Adam Sockel:

I really love that because when you mentioned like you and Francesca are talking about what are they thinking right now? There's been so many times, I'm querying a novel right now and I'm working on a second one. And there's been so many times when I'll be writing, I'll like, look at Holden, “What do you think?” And he of course gives me that dog look like, man, I'm 13, leave me alone. What do you want?

But I know exactly what you mean. And so, it's not so different, the writing process, like you said, it's very isolating and it's very secluded. And then of course you go out and you do stuff like this where you talk to people all day long about random things which I'm making you do. But like-

Lisa Scottoline:

I love it.

Adam Sockel:

The process of writing is that very isolated situation. And so, when you look at an animal and you're left to wonder what are they thinking about? It's not so different when you're being like, “Okay, if I'm sitting here by myself trying to conjure something out of thin air, what are they thinking about?”

And it's like all of a sudden you can kind of craft a narrative and then you could write something. Yeah.

Lisa Scottoline:

Good. And I found myself in Loyalty when I'm writing about the goats, I don't have any goats, now I want a goat. But I was like, I felt myself drawn to that. Okay, I went with it first draft. Because first draft I let myself do anything.

Second draft, I had to take a lot of it out. I could write happily about animals all day long, what they're thinking, I'm wondering what she's thinking right now looking out the window. And it's just so funny and great and crazy and I love it. I love it.

Adam Sockel:

So, for Loyalty, like you mentioned, it's set in Sicily, there's all stuff with the mafia. There's I think you said, there's this goat herder, there's all these different things happening. But you also said you don't really plan out what you're writing when you're writing it.

Lisa Scottoline:

Right.

Adam Sockel:

So, with it being historical fiction and there being aspects of the book that are very much based on true things and true aspects of society. How does that work for you? Is it something where just because of all of the reading and life experience you've had, you have a lot of this in your brain already.

Or I guess, can you walk me through how you come up with a book this rich and with so many plot lines and so many things going on?

Lisa Scottoline:

Aw, thank you. I know I look at it now and I'm glad you asked that because I hope that people who are listening and want to write really take heart from this. Because what I love about always talking to you is I think you demystify this process and the people who are doing it and as it should be.

You're a writer. I'm a writer. I hope people out there write. I listened to the audio books the other day of Loyalty and I couldn't even believe how good it was. And I'm not taking credit because it was a complete performance.

And I remembered all this stuff and I just was like, how does that even happen? I don't even know. I really think I did the research and that I went there. All I knew was that I had a main character who might be the first mafiosi in the world.

And then I said, well, how did the mafia come up? And I just went around and took a lot of notes and videoed and it's all on my website. People can see it. I kind of forget the question because I think the process — the question is what's your process?

And my process is so like, I just took it all in. And then I came home on fire. And then I learned about … like, I had the mafia guy. Then I learned about a secret organization in Palermo that were aristocrats who fight crime. I'm like, “Well, that's a cool thing. You got to have him.”

I was going shopping at the food store, and you think you're going in for butter, and then you come out with like 300 things plus pita chips. You're like, what? So, that's what I was like.

Then I'm like, “Oh my God. I go to Sicily and then I'm in a fishing village.” I go, “Wait, you can't tell Sicily only about Palermo, then we got to have a single mother in a fishing village. You're a single mother. You should be able to write that.”

And then I learn about what happens to the Jews during the Inquisition, and I have a goat herd in a cave, and he's the last Jew in Sicily. And actually, might be, and then you go, “Well, he's got goats, you have dogs. That's kind of the same thing.”

And that really sounds all dopey. But what I really wanted to make it, the truth is that it's humble. And you go, “Oh, let's try and make a story and hope to God …

So, Loyalty is a story of four main characters, and then they're going to intertwine. You're going to hope to God they intertwine. I didn't know how they would, and it makes a epic kind of, I think adventure story about love and justice and family and all of these things. Who knew? Not me.

Adam Sockel:

There's two things there I want to comment on, that I love. I tend to think two things about writing. One, I feel like so much of writing a good story is being aware of your surroundings before you start writing.

Exactly what we said. I don't want to say anybody can come up with a great idea, but anyone can think of an action, something that happens, whether it's a car accident or someone falls in love or someone falls out of love, what do they say? There's like seven stories in the whole … whatever it is.

Lisa Scottoline:

Right, right.

Adam Sockel:

But the aspects that are in between that, the countryside, like hearing a conversation between two people when you're sitting at a cafe, things that you want to implement, how you describe a lemon grove, like these different things. That's one aspect that I think you're pointing out. Like when you go places, you're aware of your surroundings. And I think that awareness is so elemental.

And then, you mentioned, the demystifying of the writing process. Ironically, I think of, there's this quote from Seth Rogen of all people, the comedian. And he talks about how when he starts the writing process whenever he is writing a movie or whatever with someone, basically, they both sit down with a notepad and they say, write a hundred ideas out.

And he is basically like, “When you write a hundred ideas, 95 of them are probably going to be awful.” He's like, “But what you're doing is you're taking away the glamor.” And people think that when they're writing a novel, they need to be like Neil Gaiman holding a quill pen in his perfect library, like candlelight.

Lisa Scottoline:

Yeah.

Adam Sockel:

You don't need those things. You just need to start writing. And so, when you start writing, then you can keep writing. And I love that idea, so much.

Lisa Scottoline:

Right. And I believe that because I think it's really behavioral. And that's what it's good to say to people that especially even if you have a day job, if you write a hundred words a day, your brain's going to working in the meantime.

I look for inspiration everywhere. Seth Rogen, I believe that I watch the arts, I go to the shows and movies. And I recently read that Rick Rubin book called The Creative Way. It always comes down to, he sort of makes this point, and I really like it. I recommended it to my daughter, and she loved it too.

A little zen-like be here now. Which is kind of what you're saying. So, and I will tell you physically for people who are listening, want to write, I basically go, first chapter of Loyalty is a kid gets kidnapped from Palermo and he gets sent to a mad house, put in a mad house.

Now the next question is, what would happen next? That's what I ask myself every day in first draft, what happened next?

And then I try to think of what it's and I try to write it down even crappy as Anne Lamott says, “Let yourself write a shitty first draft.”

And then the next day is I try to do 2000 words a day, but you don't have to do that. Then you go, okay, now what would happen next? That's chapter three. And what would happen.

And then I said, “Alright, well now you're going to introduce character, what would happen to her?” And it's kind of amazing because you can make a whole book that way. It was my daughter who introduced me to that great E.L. Doctorow quote.

And he said something like, something about you can drive across the whole country. You don't have to know the trip just in the length of the headlights. That's really true. Having 35 novels in 35 years, and I've proved that to myself every time.

Doesn't mean you're not nervous, we're freaking out. You go, “Oh my God, I can't believe you don't have an outline. All the cool kids have an outline. You just suck.” But then you go, “Just keep on.” I always think of Churchill. I have a lot of dumb inspiration quotes.

Adam Sockel:

I love it.

Lisa Scottoline:

But I'll tell you them all, they're always when you're going through hell keep going. That's true. The only way out is through. Figure it out what they would do. Don't worry about what's going to come ahead. Don't worry about a damn thing about that.

And amazingly, you're in a kind of a little spell and your brain, I swear to God — I'm getting so excited now, he brings out in me. Your unconscious brain is going to work for you baby. It is going to work for you. It's going to start throwing you stuff.

Oh yeah. That's what they would do. Sometimes you walk the dog, right?

Adam Sockel:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Lisa Scottoline:

I just saw you looking for … oh, yeah. Oh yeah. That's what they would do.

Adam Sockel:

And plus, and I'm stealing this from Harlan Coben told me this when he came to Cleveland once and we did like a event with him.

Lisa Scottoline:

He’s great.

Adam Sockel:

He’s great. He said the same thing. He's like, he doesn't plot out his books. And his reason being, he's like, “If I can keep myself interested in the next page and the next chapter, I know I can keep my readers.”

And he's like, “If I don't know what's going to happen next, there's no way they're going to know what's going to happen next.” And so he's like, “I like figuring it out as l go.” Which I love. There's-

Lisa Scottoline:

I believe that. Yeah.

Adam Sockel:

You can always have-

Lisa Scottoline:

Your anxiety.

Adam Sockel:

It's so great. Yeah, you can always-

Lisa Scottoline:

That nervousness.

Adam Sockel:

But sometimes you got to get there yourself first.

Lisa Scottoline:

You do. And also, this is going to sound real kind of BS-ey, but the truth is, characters that you make have urgency. So, you go, “Oh, that person,” that's when you start to have a narrative where I think this happened in Loyalty. I heard it on the audio … I said, let's lump in where somebody does something and it causes a reaction in other people.

There's a lot of action in loyalty. So, somebody sets a fire, well then, the people around, the people in the town go, “That's a bad thing. It's going to change something we do.” Now, I didn't see that. I didn't see that coming.

But after the fire, which was the natural thing this guy would do, then I go, “Wait a minute. They have a reaction to that.” And that gives you the next thing.

So, in a way, character and plot are really the same thing. I've proved this to myself over and over. They are what they do. And they start pinging off each other. And before you know it, you just have to kind of like ride them.

And it really is like that. Sometimes, I think especially with this book, I've never driven a carriage. There's a lot of horse people who ride carriages, just like in movies. It's a sport. And they have to hold four reins in their hands.

And I always think, I don't know if I could hold four reins in my hands, but this book, I have four main characters. I said, “You're just driving a carriage kid. Don't …

People do it. They're not that much smarter than you. This is the kind of stuff I have to say to myself. And honestly, I think that's okay.

Adam Sockel:

I love it.

Lisa Scottoline:

We're all insecure.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. Okay. I want to be respectful of time. I know you've been probably doing interviews all day, so I-

Lisa Scottoline:

No, this is so fun. This is great.

Adam Sockel:

Awesome. Well, I always end my conversations with one question, basically I want the author to give my listeners a recommendation. It can be a book, it does not have to be, but something you would recommend. I've had people recommend certain TV shows. I've had people recommend going for a walk. It can be-

Lisa Scottoline:

I would recommend … oh, going for a walk-

Adam Sockel:

I always say, it can be anything you want to recommend.

Lisa Scottoline:

I would recommend, I walk the dogs every day and I listen to an audiobook. I would recommend going for a walk and listening to an book. And if you really want the kind of thing we're talking about, I think that Rick Ruben is — I think it's called the Creative Way.

It's not just for people who want to write, it's actually sort of saying how to live your life as an artist. But when I think about it, I think that's a pretty good way to live your life. It's really living your life in a mindful, thoughtful way. A place that is respect for yourself and for other people. Like all this good stuff that is kind of great.

And honestly, I love Mary Bateman who wrote a book, Composing a Life. I love books like that. There's precious little about that in the world.

So, I think if you listen while you are — I don't care what you listen to, but my recommendation would be listening and walking is so great. It's so good for your soul. It really is.

Adam Sockel:

Hey, I think that is perfect. Lisa, Loyalty is so good. This was so much fun. I was-

Lisa Scottoline:

I love you, Adam.

Adam Sockel:

Thank you.

Lisa Scottoline:

You’re a joy. You're just a joy. You really are.

Adam Sockel:

Thank you for joining me today. This was perfect.

Lisa Scottoline:

Thank you.

[Music Playing]

Adam Sockel:

Passions & Prologues is proud to be an Evergreen Podcast and was created by Adam Sockel. It was produced by Adam Sockel and Sean Rule-Hoffman. And if you are interested in this podcast and any other Evergreen Podcast, you can go to evergreenpodcasts.com to discover all the different stories we have to tell.