In this episode—the first in our interview series—Gina talks with author Rhett DeVane about the inspiration for her books, writing in multiple genres, and what her writing process is like. We explore the theme of intragenerational relationships and how it shows up in her upcoming novel Ditch Weed, as well as other books she’s written. Rhett also shares the meaning behind the book’s title. You don’t want to miss it!

Watch for the upcoming release of Ditch Weed in June 2024, as well as publication of Rhett’s middle-grade fantasy The Dragon Box this fall!

Rhett DeVane

Rhett DeVane is the author of seven published mainstream fiction novels, two coauthored novels, short stories, flash fiction, middle grade chapter books, and poetry. Her short fiction pieces have appeared in five anthologies. She has won numerous awards for her fiction from the Tallahassee Writers Association, Florida Authors and Publishers Association, and the Florida Writers Association. For the past forty-plus years, Rhett has made her home in Tallahassee, located in Florida’s Big Bend area, where she splits her time between writing and thinking about writing. She is currently working on the next novel in line, as well as a series of middle grade and young adult fiction, because her muses refuse to contain her in a single box.

Connect with Rhett through her website or on Facebook.

Ep. 41: Interview with Rhett DeVane

Dave Hogan, Gina’s Pop
0:02
Welcome to Around the Writer’s Table, a podcast focusing on the crossroads of creativity, craft, and conscious living for writers of all ages and backgrounds. Your hosts are Gina, Melody, and KimBoo, three close friends and women of a certain age, who bring to the table their eclectic backgrounds and unique perspectives on the trials, tribulations, and the joys of writing. So pull up a chair and get comfortable here around the writer’s table.

Gina Hogan Edwards
0:43
Hi, everybody, welcome around the writer’s table. I’m Gina Hogan Edwards, glad to be here with you today. Thank you for taking the time to listen in. We are going to start something new today. In the past, these podcasts have been hosted by myself and my two co-hosts, KimBoo York and Melody, A Scout, and we’ve been talking about, in the past Melody’s book Soul of the Seasons, which is about the seasons of our lives and how we deal with our emotions. It is not specifically a writing book, but we talked about it in terms of how it affects our writing process. Then we went into a series called The Creativity Quest, which is about the ten stages of our creative process and also intertwined that with Melody’s knowledge about the emotions and the writing process in terms of the seasons of the writing.

Beginning with this summer, and with this episode, we’re going to be alternating conversations, again with the three of us, but also having guest writers on the podcast with us. And so I’m very pleased that one of my favorite people on Earth, Rhett DeVane, is joining us today. I have known Rhett for I don’t know how many years now. Maybe a decade or so, maybe more than that. And Rhett is one of those people that—I was just telling another writer this morning, as a matter of fact— I have so much respect for the way that Rhett approaches the writing process and the devotion that she has to her process. And we’re going to talk a little bit about that today. 

But first, let me give you the official introduction to her. Rhett DeVane is the author of seven published mainstream fiction novels. She has co-authored two books. She has written short stories, flash fiction. She’s written middle-grade chapter books and poetry. Her short fiction has appeared in five different anthologies. She’s won numerous awards: Tallahassee Writers Association, the Florida Authors and Publishers Association, as well as the Florida Writers Association. For the past 40-plus years, Rhett has made her home in Tallahassee, near where I live as well, which is in the Big Bend of Florida. She splits her time between writing and thinking about writing, and I will add talking about writing because we do a lot of that. Don’t we, Rhett?

Rhett DeVane
3:21
We absolutely do.

Gina
3:25
So, Rhett always seems to have something in progress. She’s working on another novel at this time, but she’s got several things that are coming out in the very near future, which we’re going to talk about today. She has a middle-grade series, young adult fiction, and her muses refuse to contain her in a single box, so she writes lots of different things. Welcome, Rhett. Truly glad to have you on the podcast today.

Rhett
3:52
Thank you, Gina. I’m excited to be here, always with you.

Gina
3:57
We’re going to talk about the work that you have upcoming. But I’d like to ask you a question that I know that writers are always really curious about. This episode, too, is going to launch us into—the things that we’ve talked about in the past had been very writer-oriented, but now we’re talking to writers as well as readers. And this is something that writers and readers both are always curious about. How did you get started in writing? What was your inspiration and what really got you into the writing game, so to speak?

Rhett
4:27
I really honestly think that I was born a writer. I know that sounds kind of hinky But Mother always said I had a vivid imagination, and from the moment that I had words I started to tell stories about things. Then when I learned how to hold one of those big fat red pencils, if you remember them, and had actual letters, I started to write the stories down. 

But I really credit the inspiration, the person who built the fire beneath me, to my high school creative writing teacher, Sharon Lasseter. I remember her saying to me as I graduated, “If you don’t do something with your writing, I’m going to be sorely disappointed.” And she has remained to this day a very good friend. Matter of fact, I just had lunch with her a few days ago. That’s where I started, but I’ve been encouraged by wonderful, talented people, and editors, and friends all along. And my parents. I can’t say that there was one person in my life that didn’t encourage me.

Gina
5:35
How wonderful to have that sort of support system, because not every writer has that. And I’ve been fortunate enough to hear some of your stories about your mama and how she has inspired you, both in your writing and your humor. And so it’s just great that you’ve had that kind of support system around you.

Rhett
5:52
Yeah, yeah. Because there are times in every writer’s life and any creative, actually, where you just feel like giving up and my muses wouldn’t let me. They’d say, “Yeah, shut up. Sit down. We’ve got another story to tell you.” But also, my good friends were very instrumental in kind of helping me not to… to get past the low points, because you’re going to have them. That’s just a given.

Gina
Part of the game. 

Rhett
It is, it absolutely is. Yep.

Gina
6:21
So like I mentioned, you’ve got a killer sense of humor. I know that you always inject humor into your writing. Your website describes your writing as “Heartfelt Fiction With a Southern Twist,” and I know that you’d like to include a range of emotions in your writing. You’ve written across several genres. So I would love for you to tell us a little bit about that, and then to give us a brief description of the upcoming books that you’ve got going on.

Rhett
6:54
Certainly, I’d be glad to. First of all, I don’t like being contained in a box. I think it’s very limiting that writers are expected to write one genre, I believe that leads to horrendous burnout. And I’ve seen that in writers that I’ve enjoyed over the years, and all of a sudden, they start to sound like they’re just not loving it anymore. So to avoid that, when I feel myself kind of reaching that point with something, I switch to something else. So I have written across every genre, but I tend to keep circling back around to Southern contemporary fiction, and also to fantasy. Dragons, especially. I love dragons; they fascinate me. 

So the two books that I have in the works this year: adult contemporary fiction entitled Ditch Weed is slated for release in mid June from Twisted Road Publications. And then switching gears in the fall, probably around the first part of November, I will have the first in a series of dragon fantasies, middle-grade fantasies, released: The Dragon Box, and it’s coming out from . . .  it goes away whenever I try to think of it.

Gina
8:14
Turtle Cove Press. 

Rhett
8:18
Yeah. Thank you. It’s good to have people like you that keep me on track. I have good notes, but obviously I’m not looking at them.

Gina
8:25
So is Ditch Weed part of a series?

Rhett
8:31
Yes and no. I have a series of seven Southern fiction novels that are set in my hometown of Chattahoochee, Florida, a small town in the Panhandle of Florida. But it is a standalone. Readers of the previous books will get to know some of the characters that they’ve known in previous books. However, it is a standalone. You can read it by itself and be totally caught up. And then you may want to go back and pick up some of the earlier novels so you get to know some of those characters that are touched upon briefly, get to know them a little bit better. So that’s kind of a yes and no answer. Yeah.

Gina
9:08
Yeah. I love the kinds of books that you meet some characters and they may not be the main character of a particular book, but then you pick up another book by the same author, and that minor character in the previous book is the main character of this book. I love that kind of world-building, if you will. Science fiction writers are known for their world-building, but I think those of us who write realistic fiction in places that are plausible and real—in the case of Chattahoochee—to have characters that appear across different books in series that are not technically series, I love that. I love that.

Rhett
9:52
And I continue that also with the dragon fantasy series because The Dragon Box is going to be the first in three middle-grades that then will continue on into young adult. And I’ve actually written a couple of adult fantasy novels with the dragons in the same world. So I tend to like to settle into a world and get to know a set of characters, and I really miss them once I leave them. So I think that’s why I keep writing series, I guess. That’s about the only way I can explain it. Because I feel like they’re still muddling around in my head. 

Gina
10:27
Seeing what you’ve done with your fiction, now that I’m thinking about some of the things that I’m working on, I think, in sort of a subconscious way, you’ve influenced me, because I’ve got this novel that I’m working on, but in thinking about the characters and who some of the minor characters are, wanting to take those and I’ve started several short stories that are set in the same town with some of those minor characters. And so, similar to what you’re doing with the Chattahoochee characters.

Rhett
11:03
Yes. I think it’s important that you do a deep dive on your characters, and maybe that’s why become so involved with them to the point where they feel like they’re real.

Gina
11:12
You create a relationship with them.

Rhett
11:16
Absolutely. I think they created a relationship with me. I think it’s actually the other way around.

Gina
11:21
Yeah, I know what you mean. I know what you mean. So the one that’s coming out in July, the adult novel, Ditch Weed, tell us about that title. I’m curious about that. 

Rhett
11:33
The title actually stems from how the main, one of the main characters, Danae Gray. She’s an 18-year-old. Her mother used to call her a ditch weed and said that that wasn’t a put-down. It was a compliment. It was attributed to her stubborn nature because no matter what happens to a weed that grows in the ditch—they can be mowed over, they can not have water, they can be basically down to dust—and given just a little bit of something, they can come back. And so Ditch Weed was the title that was presented to me by the muses, whoever. And that’s where I went with it. That’s the reason behind it. Because Danae is the ditch weed.

Gina
12:17
Tell our listeners a little bit about the storyline and the themes. I know that intragenerational relationships is definitely something that comes into play with Danae, the 18-year-old character that you mentioned, and then the older character, Mevlyn. I’m about halfway through the novel right now. But I’m curious about why that theme is important to you and what really inspired you to write this story.

Rhett
12:44
The actual story sprang from a short story that I wrote a number of years back, and the short story always niggled in the back of my mind. And I actually included that short story as this very pivotal scene later in the novel. You haven’t gotten there yet. But I always wanted to know what happened to those two young children, because right after this particular scene, one of them mysteriously disappears and the younger one is always left to wonder what happened to her sister. That’s Danae Gray. And it is really about, the series is about the relationship between Danae Gray, who’s 18 and Mevlyn Jenson, who is in her 80s. And they’re very different. They couldn’t be any more different than if they tried. And it’s about the friendship and the additional, the heart family they formed over a period of time, during this time, the span of this novel. 

I think that it’s important to have friendships, intragenerational friendships, because we all tend to get locked into people that are very close to our own ages. And I think we really miss out. It is particularly important. It’s important as a human, but it’s particularly important for a writer, because you really need to understand every age of character so that you can effectively write them, because they’re going to speak differently. They’re going to act differently, and unless you’re interacting and watching and listening to people of different ages, you’re really missing out. 

Plus the fact that I really got a good dose of it when my mother was in assisted living near me for the latter part of her life, and I was hanging out with people who were 20, sometimes 30 years my senior and absolutely enjoyed it. That really kind of [was] me tipping my toe into being with different-age people. And I think people of different race, different belief systems. It’s very important not to just shut yourself off in one little box. 

Gina
14:49
I think we think about intragenerational relationships just from the standpoint of our everyday lives, but in terms of being a writer, and like you said, exposing ourselves to not only people with different belief systems, but different ages and different backgrounds, that informs our writing process.

Rhett
15:10
Right. I’ve learned some of the most wonderful wisdom from people who were of advanced age, and also at the other end of the spectrum, some of the children in the family. Out of the mouth of babes—it’s not a cliche for nothing. Because sometimes they can come up with things that are such simple ways of thinking that we tend to gloss over as we get into adulthood. So I just think it’s very important, and that’s why I like to explore this. I didn’t realize it was a theme in just about every book I’ve ever written, until I started looking at it after writing Ditch Weed. It’s like it dawned on me. Duh.

Gina
15:49
That’s something that I’ve talked with writers over and over, over time. Really paying attention, when you do this sort of backward look at what you’ve paid attention to in your writing, and starting to notice the things that come up repetitively, and the themes that are in the writing that you don’t consciously recognize as you’re putting them down on the page.

Rhett
16:19
I really think that it takes years of writing before you start to understand the meaning behind what you’re writing. When you start out, you’re just writing a story. But after a while, you realize that you’re writing your story through someone else’s eyes. Because to read my books is to know me.

Gina
16:42
I love that because I hear writers sometimes say, “Oh, that’s purely from my imagination,” especially when it’s things like fantasy or science fiction. We tend to think of those things as completely made up. But I think that every writer, no matter what genre they’re writing in, that they’re putting some of themselves into the writing. So I always have to kind of question when somebody says, “Oh, you know, there’s nothing of me in there.” I don’t think that that’s possible. 

Rhett
17:15
Oh, there’s everything of me in there. 

Gina
Yes. 

Rhett
I could never write very heavy-duty literary fiction, even though I have literary elements within my writing, I’ve been told. Because that’s not the way I think. I tend to think like the average person, I guess that’s how I would say it. And everything I’ve learned about writing has been by trial and error. And a lot of error. It’s not like I went and got an education in writing. I learned it by writing. A lot.

Gina
And by living.

Rhett
And by living and eavesdropping and watching. Yeah, yeah.

Gina
17:56
Yeah, some of the stories that you’ve told me, especially like you said, visiting your mom in the assisted living some, of the stories that have come out of that . . . great, great experience.

Rhett
18:04
She was a very humorous person, and I’m really glad—and she was an educator too—so I grew up with some very, very good influences from both my parents and from my family. I really can’t complain.

Gina
18:22
So do you have a passage from Ditch Weed that you might want to share with us?

Rhett
18:27
I have a couple of short passages actually, because the book is written—and I have the advanced reader copy here—the book is written from the viewpoint of both of the main characters, in both Danae’s voice and in Mevlyn’s voice. So it will bounce back and forth to tell the story. So I’d like to read a short piece. Mevlyn, of course, owns the Wash-Away Laundromat in Chattahoochee, and this is one little short piece in Mevlyn’s words. 

One sure fact about the business of keeping clean: people’s soiled laundry reveals epistles about their lives. The preacher of one Baptist church has a passion for dark chocolate, from the looks of the smudged icing stains on his Sunday dress shirts. He drinks red wine, not the watered down grape juice used for communion. And across the years, Mevlyn has seen enough lipstick-tattooed collars from supposed happily married men to start a gossip column for the Twin City News. Lord knows, she doesn’t like to think about what dapples the sheets.

Intimate apparel provides the most intriguing and revealing tidbits. Mevlyn makes her way across the room, chuckling in spite of the pain in her left hip. She drags a damp comforter from the maws of the triple-loader, heavy-duty, upright washer. Amazing, how many men don’t wear briefs at all! When the fact crosses her mind, she can barely contain a smile thinking about some of Chattahoochee’s most upright and uptight citizens flying commando.

You get a lot of laundromat wisdom in this. 

Gina
I love Mevlyn.

Rhett
Mevlyn is one of my favorite characters of all times. And then, of course, this is from Danae’s point of view. She goes into the Wash-Away. That’s where she and Mevlyn first meet and become friends and then more. So she goes in to do her laundry there. So this is also set inside the laundromat. 

The Wash-Away rings hollow without the chatter of people. If she had anywhere to be, she’d leave her stuff in the dryer. Maybe hop the Yamaha and ride up toward Lake Seminole. Pretty up there. Nothing but a couple of tennis courts, a few picnic shelters, and a wide view of the lake. The place does creep her out a bit, given its history. Mr. Hal relayed the story of how one of the locals, a gay florist, had been nearly beaten to death not far from the main lake landing, a few years back. Put the town on the map for something besides having a state mental institution on the main drag. Bad things could happen in the woods, and those things had nothing to do with wild animals. Not like she needs to go home and clean some house or apartment. Home for now is a barren and borrowed room barely large enough for a cot, with one cracked and fogged window, and a corner sink and toilet. A prison cell might be more appealing. But hey, at least she’s inside out of the elements and it’s free, thanks to the generosity of her employer.

So it gives you a little bit of a tiny bit of insight into the two characters. I can say that I didn’t want to give too much away because a lot of things happen, good and bad. Because every life is full, every year is full, of almost an equal amount of good and bad things. So therefore, you’re going to have a lot of sadness in this book. You’re going to have some grief. You’re also going to have some humor because I wrote it and, you know, there we go. But it’s because life is a blend for the most part of both humor and pathos. And you’ve got to have both of those to tell a good story, I believe.

Gina
22:21
Yeah, I was gonna also ask you to tell us a little bit about your setting, which in that passage from Danae, you told us a little bit about Chattahoochee. But I know that you’ve used that, as we talked about earlier, as your setting for a lot of your novels. So tell us a little bit about your town.

Rhett
22:41
It was a great place to grow up. It was literally one of those towns where everybody knew everybody. You couldn’t get away with much because there were eyes watching, which was a good thing really, looking back on it. It has still, to this day, two stop lights, and a caution light. It has never grown past that point. It is right there on the banks of the river and not too far from I think only about maybe two and a half miles from the Georgia line. Very pretty rolling hills. Beautiful. It’s not flat like a lot of Florida. It actually is the foothills of the Appalachian Mountain chain, believe it or not. And it’s a beautiful little town. It’s a tiny town. 

There is one huge hill called Thrill Hill that now has a three-way stop at the top. But when I was growing up, it didn’t. So you could accelerate and get all four wheels of your mama’s car off the ground and then land on the way down, even though I never did that. Promise. 

Gina
Can we believe that?

Rhett
No, no, no. You could bottom out the shocks. Not that I ever did that. But anyway, it’s a real beautiful small town. Like I said, there was a state mental institution on the main drag, which of course was what it was locally infamous for. And we grew up with some of the patients that had privileges that would come out during the day and wander the town and my dad actually had one that helped him in his shop uptown for a while. So it was a very diverse, interesting place to grow up. It really was.

Gina
24:33
I have, again, taken inspiration from you in using your hometown in the novel that I’m working on. I don’t name the town that appears in my novel as Asheville, North Carolina, but of course, it’s the inspiration for Kent Creek. So I love the hometown Southern stories, which is one reason why I wanted us to have this chat today, because it’s one of my favorite genres, is reading Southern fiction. 

I want to ask you a question that I think both writers and readers are always very curious about this, from authors. It always comes up whenever I’m in a group of authors and that is about your writing process. I have watched you be so committed, and I’d just like for you to share with our listeners about what your writing process looks like, what your typical writing day or your writing week looks like.

Rhett
25:38
Now that I’m retired, I have more freedom, obviously, to write when I want to, so I write, usually, first thing in the morning. That’s when I’m freshest. After I’ve caffeinated, of course.

Gina
Of course!

Rhett
And usually after I’ve gone for a walk, because as I’m walking, I’m working through the scene in my mind, and then get back and put it down. I don’t like the idea that people try, or some people try to say, you have to write so much a day. you have to write, you have to be so regimented. That’s never works for me. I write when I feel like writing, and if I don’t feel like writing, whatever comes out is not going to be that good. So if I’m not feeling it, and I’m tired, whatever, whatever, I will do something different. Maybe I’ll edit that day, or I’ll go back and I’ll reread something that I need to revise, or whatever. But I don’t try to write anything new when I’m not feeling it. 

I try to write only a couple hours at a time because I think it’s too easy to just sit at a computer and just not have a life outside of that. 

Gina
Yeah. 

Rhett
So I have learned that I have to do a couple hours and get up and go do something else. I think you have to get to a point where life is a little bit more about balance or otherwise, you look around one day and everybody’s gone. I don’t think that’s a good thing. 

Gina
Good point. 

Rhett
I think the one thing that has helped me, I know the one thing that’s helped me the most, has been the the read-back facet of Microsoft Word because now the—and I’m not that in favor of AI in some respects; I don’t want it creating my work for me, or I don’t want it creating artwork for me—but I think that the reading now, because of AI, has gotten so good that this feature really helps me to hear what I put down instead of just reading it, because I will read past errors. I will read past the word that’s incorrect, but when I hear it, I know that’s wrong. And I can stop and I’m catching a lot more errors. So that’s been extremely helpful.

Gina
27:44
That’s a good tip. I know several authors who are doing that now. I’ve just started doing that recently, and it is amazing because we know what’s supposed to be on the page. So when we read it back to ourselves, we often just fill in the blanks. We miss the mistake sometimes, but hearing it in another voice helps a lot.

Rhett
28:05
And it was, whenever this first started, it was such a stilted voice that it was … oof. And still, every now and then, especially with some of my Southernisms, it mispronounces. It has a hard time with sug. That one really trips it up every time. But I think for the most part that it really sounds very believable, and it really helps me to catch repetitive things. That I tend to tell you something and then I tell you again, just in case you didn’t get it the first time, the second time and then I’ll tell you again. So it helps you to pick that up and weed that out. 

The book I’m working back, just finished now, that’s in first draft—which I usually let sit for about four weeks before I go back and start revisions—it came in at 102,000 words. I didn’t really think, when I first started writing this, that it would really make it past about 90, and it just went crazy. So I’ve got about 3,000 I have to cut. So I’m busy slicing and dicing right now, and that’s helped quite a bit. 

But I think everybody, each writer, has to find his or her own version of what works for them. I know people who love to outline and I do not. I’ve tried to outline before and the characters go, “Yeah, this didn’t work,” and then they take off in their own direction anyway, so I just decided to heck with that. I’m definitely not a . . . 

Gina
Let ’em fly.

Rhett
Let her fly. I have some idea where we’re heading. Last couple of novels, I’ve actually had the first scene and the last scene first, written, and then I’ve just filled in between.

Gina
Do you write everyday?

Rhett
I don’t write every day but I think about it every day. Yeah. If I’m busy drafting a novel, generally I am pretty much in there every morning doing something. I’ll get a scene first thing in the morning as I’m laying in bed about half awake. Then I’ll come in and put the scene down. And that’s usually a chapter or at least a pretty good section of the chapter. I can generally get a book into first draft in about probably four months max, and then let it sit for a while and go back. And then, of course, the revisions and the rewrites. So that’s what takes so much time.

Gina
30:20
Usually, are you working on more than one writing project at a time? Or do you just focus on one and get that finished and then move on to another one?

Rhett
30:29
I generally focus on one at a time. However, having said that, this past year, I’ve been going between working on Ditch Weed and working on The Dragon Box because I’ve been working with two different publishers, two different editors, and fine tuning. So that has been a real challenge. I’ve had to stop and think okay, now I’m in middle grade, and I’m writing this way or ooh, now I’m here, and I’m writing this way. So that’s been a real challenge. 

Gina
30:59
I know writers that can work on two, three, sometimes four projects at a time. And I’ve challenged myself recently to work on some short stories while I’m also working on my novel, but I think that’s very different than working on two novels at a time. And I can see, I think I would have a real problem doing what you’ve managed to do this year. 

Rhett
31:32
I have no idea what’s going on. Don’t commend me yet. Commend Turtle Cove Press and Twisted Road Publications, because they’re the ones that are really helping keep me focused. But I really was saddened by COVID, which as we all were, just the loss and a lot of the things that went on. But it really helped me to sit down and write. I think I wrote four books during the pandemic and many short stories. But I really miss being around people, and I miss speaking in front of people. I really enjoy that. I didn’t think I would, but I love that.

Gina
32:07
I think that being around others, at least for me, that stimulates my creativity in a way that when I’m solitary, just doesn’t happen.

Rhett
32:19
No, no. You have to get out into the world and have experiences to be able to write anything. You can’t just hold off. And that’s one of the reasons like I said, a couple hours a day writing and then getting out and having a little bit of a balance, and being out and about. You’ve got to be able to watch people. You’ve got to be able to listen to the way they speak. That’s one of the things that with newer writers, when I read their writing and they ask me to give them feedback, I often say listen to people talk. We don’t talk in complete sentences. We talk in bits and pieces and snippets, and everybody’s not gonna sound the same. So they really have to train themselves to get out and start being the biggest eavesdroppers ever on the planet, and watching people—hopefully without somebody noticing and calling the law. 

So that you will understand how people talk and somebody from like, for example, in the book that I’m working on now, one of the characters is from up in the northern states, and of course, the ones from down here. So I actually was in contact with somebody from that part of the world, from up in the Vermont area. And asked him I said I need some, some ways that you might put things, some little colloquialisms that you might use that we don’t use in the South. So I was able to get a little list of things that I can kind of incorporate in. Even though I had visited up there, I had not really listened to the speech that much to pick up enough. 

So you can’t write everybody like they’re from here. You can’t write everybody like they’re from your hometown or what you’re generally used to hearing. You have to do a little research. I know, especially, you’re writing historical fiction, that’s a lot of research. I don’t know that I would have gotten me to do that. But even with contemporary, you have to do your research. 

Gina
34:09
Well, that was one of the things that I noticed when you were doing your reading, and as I’ve been reading Ditch Weed is the difference between Mevlyn’s voice and Danae’s voice. And for me as a writer, I love the research for the historical fiction, but one of my favorite things is eavesdropping. My husband’s constantly, when we used to go to restaurants–we don’t go so much anymore—but always in restaurants, he would notice that I was quiet, and then he would be like, “Are you listening to those people over there?” I love to eavesdrop, listen in other people’s conversations.

One year doing the writing retreats that I host, one of the exercises that we did was, we have a day where everybody gets to go out into the local fishing village nearby, and I tasked them with eavesdropping, listening in on conversations in the public places that they were in. If they went into the bookstore, or they went into one of the local oyster bars, or wherever, was to listen to snippets of conversation, and then come back and write a scene using that dialogue. So that was a lot of fun. But I love the eavesdropping aspect that being a writer gives us permission to do that.

Rhett
35:36
Yeah, even in the grocery store this past week, I caught myself because there was a woman clearly talking on the phone to somebody. I was kind of taking my time going through the produce section so I could listen to what she was saying, because it was fascinating. I thought, gosh, she’s gonna turn around and wonder why I’m following her. So you have to be kind of careful about that. But I really think you pick up a lot whenever you just open your ears and your eyes and try to kind of soak in the world. 

The other thing that mother taught me is the importance of looking down because, in another writing exercise, we were told to look up. We tend to look only in one direction where we’re heading. And you look up, you see the sky, you need to describe, or you can look down and you see the small flowers growing in between the grass. Because Mother was a little bit bent over, she was looking down. But you have to look all around you, down, up, everywhere, to be able to put little bits and pieces of that into your writing.

Gina
36:36
Yeah, notice the details, right? 

Rhett
36:40
Yep, the small details. You don’t need to put all of them in there, but if you scatter them here and there, it does help make it a lot richer.

Gina
36:45
Definitely. Well, Rhett. This has just been a delightful conversation. As always with you, my dear.

Rhett
36:54
And I totally enjoyed it. I appreciate you having me. I really do.

Gina
36:57
So tell our listeners how they can contact you. I know you’ve got your website, but are there other places where they can reach out to you if they want to find out about you and your books?

Rhett
37:08
Well, you can just do a search and it’s all over the place. But my website does have a contact page on it where they can contact me and it sends the message to me directly. Then that way I can contact them with information, phone number, or anything like that, because I don’t like to put things out like that.

Gina
37:28
What is the URL for your website.

Rhett
37:32
It’s RhettDeVane.com.

Gina
37:34
And that’s D-E-V-A-N-E. and we’ll put your social handles and so forth, web address down in our show notes. So again, thank you for being here. Very much appreciated. Listeners, thank you for being here. Thank you for listening in to Around the Writer’s Table. 

Our next episode, we will be back with KimBoo and Melody. And stay tuned for future writers in our series that we’re going to be putting out through the summer. Every other episode is going to be a guest interview. If you have a particular author that you would like to hear from, a book that you’ve read that you want to hear more about, then please visit AroundTheWritersTable.com. Be sure and listen on any of the podcast platforms. Give us a like and a thumbs up, and we will see you next time on Around the Writer’s Table. Bye.

Dave
38:28
Thanks for joining us around the writer’s table. Please feel free to suggest a topic or a guest by emailing info@aroundthewriterstable.com. Music provided with gracious permission by Langtry. A link to their music is on our homepage at AroundTheWritersTable.com. Everyone here around the writer’s table wishes you joy in your writing and everyday grace in your living. Take care, until next time.

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