Episode 75: Phoebe Fox, author of The Way We Weren’t, a starred Booklist pick.
Phoebe Fox, the author of six novels, joins to talk about her latest release The Way We Weren’t, which received a starred review on Booklist.
The inspiration behind a novel that Booklist called “a study in contrasts: tragic yet heart-warming, suspenseful yet comforting.”
Plus, why she decided to come clean on her alter-ego as Tiffany Yates Martin, one of the publishing industry’s most successful developmental editors.
Books Mentioned:
The Way We Weren’t by Phoebe Fox
Intuitive Editing by Tiffany Yates Martin
If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland
Connect with the author:
Website:
Instagram:
Transcript:
** Transcript created using AI (so please forgive the typos!) **
Lainey 0:00
Hi, this is Lainey Cameron and I couldn't be more excited. Honestly, I wanted to talk about your newest novel The Way We Weren't which I had a chance to read an advance copy. It's beautiful. It's touching, congratulations.
Phoebe Fox 0:11
Oh, thank you. It's always so weird to be the one, you know I'm so used to working with authors, it's always so weird to be the one whose book is being read. So that's nice to hear. Thanks.
Lainey 0:19
So you talked about working with authors. And I can see it on this corner of the screen, so people are going to see it. So you are both Phoebe Fox - I mean the corner of zoom. here. You are both Phoebe Fox and you're also Tiffany Yates Martin. And we have actually worked together because you're a developmental editor who helped me with my book
Phoebe Fox 0:38
The brilliant Exit Strategy.
Lainey 0:41
Thank you. But you're also a writer who writes beautiful, touching women's fiction. I have so many questions for you like, like you and I are friends, but I have so many questions for you about how you manage both of those things. And how do you write great books, but also like switch off your editor brain which we all struggle with. So this is going to be such a fun discussion. But let's start with your book. So, The Way We Weren't, it's got a beautiful turtle on the front, which is very relevant to the book. Tell us about the book. Tell us a little bit. It's just coming out this this week.
Phoebe Fox 1:10
That's right. It's called The Way We Weren't, as you said, it's about a woman who experiences a crisis in what has been a very happy long term marriage, and just kind of has a bit of an a, I guess a panic attack and freaks out leaves, everything winds up passed out on the beach. And she's discovered by a sort of very angry misanthropic older man. And reluctantly, he allows her to stay there to recover. And they form this very unlikely friendship in which both of them have to kind of examine some of the women's fiction. So the secrets of their past. And unresolved betrayals, I guess, and pains that they have not faced and find a way to help each other do that. I loved writing it, actually. And I love that cover. So thank you, I think this is my favorite cover I've ever had.
Lainey 1:57
It's beautiful. I love it. And you know, there were two moments in this book that were super memorable for me and one you just touched on, she finds herself like driving to the beach. And next thing you know, she's on the beach the next day. And like, I just related to that idea that your life seems absolutely fine until the moment it suddenly isn't ,like until just that one second time where you're like, I thought I was doing okay. And then you realize you weren't you were just stuffing it all down and not dealing with it.
Phoebe Fox 2:20
Yeah, and you don't think like, I think in that moment, you don't really think about this is insane what I'm doing, you just kind of go, oh, it's turn here or not turn here or whatever. And suddenly, you've made a choice, and you didn't really set out to make it it just all like you said, I think that's a good way of thinking of it, it all just bubbles up. And that's how you deal you run me anyway.
Lainey 2:40
And then I love the two characters that the old man who's kind of like an ordinary old man character, and the main character and how she kind of they both push each other out of their comfort zones. And they're both kind of stifling things they haven't dealt with, in their own ways, very different things. And so I love this dynamic between them, where there's some wonderful dialogue, and they're really pushing each other as they go and kind of like, you know, almost like poking at each other forcing each other to grow.
Phoebe Fox 3:06
Thanks, they were fun to write. You know, as an editor, I'm constantly talking to authors about building tension on the page, especially like micro tension. And that's pretty much the whole crux of their relationship for a long time is there constant tension with each other. And it was really fun to write that. Also, he's so not like me in any way that that was fun to write to kind of a character who's just so angry at the world and has shut himself off from it completely.
Lainey 3:31
I pulled one review, I love to pull a quick review to share here as a way for folks to get a sense of the book if they haven't read it yet. And this was a review from Leila Meacham, who you were just sharing with me just passed away, which is so sad. I read your newsletter about her and it was it was touching and beautiful,
Phoebe Fox 3:45
thanks.
Lainey 3:47
But I thought she captured it so well. She said a story of the reassessment of the lives of two unlikely strangers who meet an old man and a young woman who together discover that that the place in life they've chosen for themselves does not bring the fulfillment they had worked to have insightful and compelling read about the courage to change horses in midstream to reach the shore of new beginnings.
Phoebe Fox 4:10
Nobody writes like Leila.
Lainey 4:13
So I got to ask, always ask questions about it like to edit this book and three of what this book went through, but my goodness, you're a developmental editor, I would say the absolute best out there. My question for you is very different. How the heck do you switch off your editor brain when you're intuitively this amazing editor.
Phoebe Fox 4:31
Thank you. And actually, that's sort of my primary identity. You know, I think of myself first and foremost as an editor and I analyze everything. So that has always been the hardest part about writing for me is just getting out of my own way. But that's been really helpful too because I think it helps me help authors with that. I know how often we're sitting there I know firsthand how often we're sitting there at the keyboard with that mean critique editor or person imagined over our shoulder with everything we write judging it right and then There's no way you can create in that atmosphere. You have to, I always say, I stole this from Brenda Euland and vomited up on the page, she has a great book called If You Want to Write, and it's about tapping into that kind of hell, it's almost, it's almost also intuitive, right? Like, you have to tap into this world. And these people who are starting to live in your head and just let it come out, knowing that later, you can make it better. But I think that's the hard part. Because a lot of us, especially me, as an editor and a perfectionist, we want it to come out on the page the way it is in our heads, and it doesn't at first, right, your your viewers know this, hopefully, if y'all are authors, you know, this, if you're not, it never comes out the way you're reading it. But it comes out kind of it's garbage writing for the most part, but you have to do that. So then you have something that you can fix and make better and deepen and develop. That's hard. So every so I have a mantra, every time I sit down to write anything, whether it's fiction, or you know, I'm working on a follow up to intuitive editing. Now, I, I start my writing session with literally the words out loud, permission to suck. So that lets me take away the expectation that it's going to be publishable or even readable when I finished drafting. And I can just vomit it up.
Lainey 6:19
I love that. And actually, I was telling someone about your book, and she would have editing it, folks can see it on the shelf back there. It's a beautiful bright colored cover. Just yesterday, and I was saying what I love about that book is it's like a pep talk in a book. Like it's got great ideas on how to edit and how to approach it and how to layer your editing, which I'm following for my second book. But it's also about empathy with yourself, right and compassion for yourself. And so what you were saying, right, that first Yeah, is not gonna be good. Nobody's is.
Phoebe Fox 6:48
And if you're judging it, you're shutting down the very part of you that can create it. Nobody I love.
Lainey 6:52
I love that you have a mantra. That's beautiful. I've several. Tell us the ball. What are the other ones?
Phoebe Fox 6:58
So this this one lives on my computer? I don't know if you can see it. It's from Michael Pollan. I read an interview with Michael J. Fox, and Michael Pollan, the food writer is his brother in law. Michael J. Fox was writing another book, I think, a memoir. And Michael Pollan said to him, you have to keep in mind two things, velocity and the truth. And I love that because velocity divorces you from that part of you that wants to step back and turn the perfect phrase and tell the perfect story. And the truth puts you in touch with that. That pure impulse of creativity that made you want to write this story in the first place, you can fix everything in post. That's what we said, when I was an actor, fix it in post.
Lainey 7:40
I love that. Yes, I'm learning that myself. My first book was so different to my second book, the process of how I'm going through it and giving myself permission to suck much more in the early phrases. Last time, I spent so much time researching and fixing things that never mattered at the end. And it's chapter two for moving forward.
Phoebe Fox 7:57
Right? So are you finding this process to be easier this time? Or more straightforward, I guess? Yeah, no, 100% like, nobody ever has to see it till you're ready. That's the other thing. I tell people, until you want to show it to someone, this is your dirty little secret.
Lainey 8:12
I want to talk to us a little bit more about the way we weren't, like, tell me a little bit more about the inspiration. But I started
Phoebe Fox 8:18
writing this thing, probably Gosh, more than a decade ago. And it was so different. When I started, I always had the idea of this woman who fled everything in her life, always had the idea that she'd wind up passed out on a beach and this angry old man would pick her up. And that was about all I knew. And pretty much everything else in the book has changed since I started it. But I was just saying in an interview the other day that I think I had to live inside of some experiences before I could find a way to Well, first of all, figure out what would make somebody do that for both of them. What would make you shut like in Flint's case, the man what would make you shut off from everything and everyone in your life and live basically contained in your house angry at the world. And for Marcy, what would make you run away from everything, including the man you have been with since you were 17 years old, and happy with for most of that time. So I think I kind of had to live life a little bit before I could write that. And then when my husband and I met, we were older. I was 39. And he was 45. And we had it was my first marriage. And we had to immediately decide if we're going to have children. And that was a hard decision because I never knew for sure if I wanted them. I was I could go either way. But when I met the person I wanted to have them with I was like, Oh yeah, I kind of would like to have them with you. But I had never been married. I'd never even lived with anybody. And I wanted to have a couple hood. And he was 45 and he had thoughts about his age and I thought, wow, this is an issue that could tear two people apart. Because it's it's not a do over situation. You make your choice and you live with your choice. And so I just kind of flew with it from there like what? What if that's the question we always ask right? What What if that became a make or break deal for a couple
Lainey 10:08
and I love the way that you portrayed that, like it's been simmering under the surface of their marriage for the longest time, right? And it's like, this is the way to me we live our lives, right? We just kind of stuck with it. Keep going.
Phoebe Fox 10:21
Until crisis forces us to deal with it.
Lainey 10:25
Exactly. And you portrayed that so well, so thanks. So okay, million dollar question I promised to ask Phoebe Fox wrote this book, Tiffany Yates, Martin is the best developmental edits are in the world with awesome books. How did these two people finally get to become one because this is pretty recent that you've actually admitted or come out publicly that that you're the same person?
Phoebe Fox 10:49
Yeah, less than a year, I've kept it separate for this is my sixth novel. So I've kept it sort of on the download for a long time. And my original reason, which is also true, is that I do identify primarily as an editor, and it is my heart work, right? It's my passion. And so when I work with authors, I never wanted them to feel that they came second to my own writing. But then I started to kind of question my motives a little more deeply. And I realized that it was also that I do identify really strongly as an editor, and I was afraid, I was afraid, full stop that if authors that I work with read my work, they might think, Oh, she's not so good. Why? Why does she think she can edit me? Or honestly, or that, like, I work with a variety of genres? So I thought, well, what if they see that I write mostly women's fiction, and they think, Oh, she can't work with me on my historical or my mystery, or all the other genres that I work in. So once I realized it was fear based, I try really hard not to live my life in fear. And I Oh, my God for like a week I was calling friends going, do you think I should do this? I'm kind of scared. What will people think? And I kind of realized that Oscar Wilde quote is true that you wouldn't worry so much about what other people think about you, if you worried if you realized how little they do. And I thought, this probably affects nobody but me. And it hasn't, in fact, like, if anything, I've gotten good reaction from authors, because I'm a little bit more in the trenches with them. And being honest about that. And I have had first hand experience of like, we were talking about getting out of that editors way when you're writing, it was funny what a big deal I turned it into,
Lainey 12:23
I would definitely say like you and I worked together and the empathy you have for the writing experience, like writers are petrified of selling, sending their work to an editor and having the editor you know, basically hate doing
Phoebe Fox 12:35
that, I totally get that.
Lainey 12:37
And then we're like getting that, like, we don't know how to explain or that there's so many things, there's so much fear involved in that process, right? This will rewrite your work. And it won't be your vision of what you wanted to write. I hear that a lot from writers who are afraid that their editor at the publishing house is going to like, take their baby and turn it into something else entirely. Right. And so I think that really helps knowing that you're a writer and that empathy for the process and fear involved in all of this.
Phoebe Fox 13:04
Well, go figure. I wish I had known that sooner, that would have been nice. But it happened when it was meant like I had to live in that too. You know what I mean? I had to get there when I was ready to get there.
Lainey 13:13
So what about writing advice? I always ask people on the show on the podcast, what their writing advices. And, gosh, you know, you could just say go read my book or my next book. But like,
Phoebe Fox 13:23
if you had anyone say that?
Lainey 13:26
Well, not most people don't have writing books, they have novels. But a couple of pieces of advice. Oh my gosh, most frequently are most like to give to writers. Let's start there. Like what would you say you're so wise, like?
Phoebe Fox 13:40
Well, thank you, I have so many like actual craft ones. And then I also have the, the career one where I always say persistence, which all are very valid. And I'm happy to share some craft ones that I love the most. But the one lately that really has been prime in my head is about writers taking ownership of their own careers. I think this is a career. Honestly, this is a business where the person who often has the least amount of control over it is the artist, and yet you are the commodity. And it feels like we're always sort of, I don't want to say beggars at the table. But we're always waiting to be anointed. And that puts us in a weird position with this thing that we are responsible for creating in the world that becomes this commodified thing that all these other people may or may not say is good enough. And so we define ourselves by that externally. So lately I've been talking about just define the reason that you do this, know what that is, know what's important to you about it. If it's if you don't feel like your writing is worthwhile until somebody says they're going to publish you. You may never be happy, right? You may never feel good about what you do. So find a way this is the most democratized time in publishing I've ever seen in 30 years working in this industry. Find a way to make your career yours and define what your parameters are. Once I did that, it's so freeing Not just as a human being but for your writing, then you you don't worry, like, is everybody gonna like this? Will the somebody buy it is this marketable, you write what you want to write, and then you find what you what you want to do with that, and what success looks like for you. And if you can do that, you'll be happy as a writer forever. And if you don't, you'll be the one who sits at the typewriter and opens a vein.
Lainey 15:24
And I love that because it's, it's based on a couple of premise, you know, first is educate yourself and know the different paths, right? We're not like constrained to one path, and we're not constrained to one path forever is the really cool thing, like you start and no one
Phoebe Fox 15:37
is worthy or inherently, you know, like, I think there is this bias about, oh, I don't want to go small press or I don't want I started small press. And then I went to traditional publishing, and I've also done indie publishing, you do the thing that gets your work out there? Isn't that what it's for?
Lainey 15:53
I love that. And the second is that you don't need to let someone else make the decisions for you. Right. I think there's this this weird power dynamic when people are querying agents, which I just think is like, as a business person, I think it's so bizarre that you would start a relationship, which is harder ship, but if sending someone an email, and if they don't like you, they'll never respond. Like that is not how we started business partnerships in general. Yeah. Right. And so it's just it's a weird, unbalanced, you know, please pay attention to me power dynamic that's supposed to transition into a partnership. Right. And so yeah, I think people get stuck in this loop of feeling like they need someone to give them a yes. Someone's give them a green light to tell to make them feel good. They just stick in their chair and wait.
Phoebe Fox 16:34
Yeah. So we're always waiting for someone to tell us that we're good enough. What if we tell ourselves that like, think of that freedom of that, you know, I do this how writers revise feature on my blog, where I get to talk to writers about their journey, and I specifically asked about setbacks, and challenges. And a lot of them talk about how when they have lost publishing contracts or agents, they, they have never felt freer in their writing. They said they weren't writing to a contract, they weren't worried what anyone would think. And they were reconnected with why they started doing this in the first place, the sheer love of creation,
Lainey 17:03
isn't that the truth, I'm in the opposite scenario where I don't have an agent, and I'm not on contract. And I'm working on my second book. And I'm happy because I don't have an agent, and I'm not on track.
Phoebe Fox 17:13
Well, when all of us started, that's where we were. And presumably, we were happy because we were doing this thing we love to do, and we didn't have an agent, we didn't have a publisher. And then it just changes and we get into this mindset of defining our, our worth as an artist externally, I don't think we have to do that. Whether you ever get published or an agent or not it it has nothing to do with your worth and your enjoyment of what you do brilliant advice.
Lainey 17:35
So I always like to wrap up by asking people if there's anything I haven't asked you that you wanted to be sure to talk about today.
Phoebe Fox 17:45
I can't think of anything you really in a short period of time, you've covered a great deal of ground,
Lainey 17:50
I would encourage people that definitely you want to read Tiffany's editing books, in addition to reading her fiction, and they are both going to bring something to you. If you want to follow Phoebe Fox as an author, it's going to be @Phoebe Foxauthor on Instagram, www.PhoebeFoxauthor.com. And Tiffany on her website- www.foxprinteditorial.com . That's weird. I'm talking about you like two different people. has amazing resources. Her newsletter for authors is so great. We were just talking a little bit some of the things you featured. And then I love like you have guides on how to pick an editor and how to know whether your work ix ready and that kind of thing. I find those so useful. And I am constantly referring authors to your guide. Oh, thank you. We're kept whether you're ready. And also you've got another book coming.
Phoebe Fox 18:34
I'm working on one right now Intuitive Character Building.
Lainey 18:38
Whoo, love it.
Phoebe Fox 18:40
Yeah, that's my favorite topic. I'm a character editor.
Lainey 18:42
And I want to say thank you for the speech that you gave the keynote that you gave at the Alburquerque conference. To give people a sneak peek. You talked about the whole concept of dealing with self doubt and dealing with those little devils in our head. And so many people have told me they were inspired by that top. Oh, thanks.
Phoebe Fox 18:58
That's nice to hear. That came from the heart. Trust me. I got a lot of those demons. Well, thanks
Lainey 19:04
Thanks so much for joining me today. This has been a fun chat.
Phoebe Fox 19:07
I loved chatting with you and I loved meeting you in person and I'm so excited. I get to work on your next book with you. I can't wait to read it.
Lainey 19:15
I can't wait for it to be ready for that.