Episode 95: [Lindsay Rice] Writing a Braided Narrative from Idea to Publication

Stephanie Oswald chats with author, Lindsay Rice, about her book Birdenwheel:

"BIRDENWHEEL features an ensemble cast of Deadheads in the 1990s who follow the iconic rock band, The Grateful Dead on their summer tour."
You can find the full book description on Lindsay Rice's website here. 

It was such a fun conversation. 

Stephanie first met Lindsay at her book release party in Salida, CO because the Grateful Dead cover band, Roundhouse Assembly, was playing and since following the Grateful Dead is the foundation of the book it had piqued Stephanie’s curiosity. 

Lindsay describes her novel as a braided narrative that weaves together the lives of her characters as they follow the Grateful Dead. 

You’ll have to listen to discover a unique poetry technique Lindsay used to creatively weave the music of the Grateful Dead into her novel. 

There’s a lot packed into this episode from what inspired her characters to how she decided to self-publish. 

At the end of the conversation, Lindsay offers great advice for new writers with the encouragement to keep writing:

" Keep writing, keep writing, keep writing, keep writing. I think writing is a practice and however it works for you, whether it is isolating yourself or it's doing it every single day in a journal, just develop your own practice of writing and be in a community too. I've also had a lot of writing dates with people. I had writing partners over the years where we would just meet and we would either write for 10, 15 minutes and then check in and then we do it again."

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Transcript

Stephanie Oswald: 1:15

Hello, listener and welcome back to another episode of The Inspired Writer Collective. I'm so glad you're here with us today. This is Stephanie, and I'm here with our guest, Lindsay Rice, who is the author of Burden Wheel, and I am going to let Lindsay tell us a little bit about her book and what brought the inspiration.

Lindsey Rice: 1:40

Hi Stephanie. Thanks for having me on your show. I appreciate it. My book, burden Wheel, here's a cover with all my tabs in it. It is a braided narrative. It's a novel, um, and it's a braided narrative, and some of the setting is in the Grateful Dead scene of the 1990s. I was a deadhead. I went on tour and some of the settings are there and also. Kind of in, um, rural New Mexico and California and Kansas City. And it's, um, just like these several characters that I created who have been with me for a very long time. And it's their stories and how they kind of overcome, uh, grief from different things that have happened in their lives. Um, but yeah, it's, this is kind of my life's work so far, so I'm really happy to, to be here and, and talk about it.

Stephanie Oswald: 2:30

So what gave you, what was the first spark for you that inspired you to want to write this story?

Lindsey Rice: 2:40

Well, I've always been interested in creative writing. I did creative writing, you know, from high school, edited the literary magazine in my high school, and then, um. Always was interested in poetry. I went to the University of Iowa and studied creative writing there. So writing has been kind of a big thing for me for a long time. And I was at a, a Jerry Garcia band show in, um, Reno, Nevada. And I remember, like, I saw Jerry as like this. White buffalo. And I had this kind of epiphany driving back up. I was living in Lake Tahoe and driving back up the mountain. I'm like, I'm gonna write a book. I'm gonna write a book about this. And that was kind of the first spark. But, you know, my characters kind of developed later. but yeah, I never knew I was gonna be writing a novel. I always thought I was gonna be kind of a magazine writer and poetry. Um, but this kind of happened, so it's.

Stephanie Oswald: 3:40

So when you had that idea, did you immediately start writing things down, or did it, or did it just kind of ruminate and.

Lindsey Rice: 3:50

I think it ruminated for a very long time. I mean, you know, this was some of the inspiration was when I was in my early twenties, so I'm now 50 and it took me a long time to these characters and to, to work on the plot and, um. Just putting it together. So I spent many years writing and going to workshops and developing the, um, the storyline and, um, it, you know, it changed a lot.

Stephanie Oswald: 4:24

Yeah.

Lindsey Rice: 4:25

kind of, was kind of interesting to

Stephanie Oswald: 4:26

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Rice: 4:27

It was a completely different novel at different points in time. and so it wasn't until I kind of workshop this at the University of Iowa to get it into its current form.

Stephanie Oswald: 4:39

Yeah, I can definitely relate to, you know, pieces of writing being at very different stages or completely scrapping a piece. Um, and how, how did your characters come to be? Were they inspiration? Did they kind of find you or. Did you develop them to fit your narrative?

Lindsey Rice: 5:05

I'd say both. A lot of them have been pieced together from different people that I know and different relationships that I have. And a, I'd say that all of them are part of me too. I have part of myself, I can see in each one of these characters. Um, some of'em are a little bit more autobiographical than others, um, but. They, you know, one, the main, one of the main characters, Devin, he's like a 50-year-old man who rides a motorcycle and he was. Piece together from my late stepbrother, mostly who rode motorcycles and was kind of rough and tumble like that, but with a heart of gold. And then Cass, the younger character, of follows my story a little bit, but very different. Like her, her family history is different. Um, and then Hedy. Sometimes I think she comes from my great great grandmother who I only knew in a picture. But when I think about her, I think about this. This picture of my great grandmother. Um, so, you know, it's, it's funny how they come together and how everybody keeps asking me, well, is this you? Is this somebody else that you knew? And I'm like, well, maybe a little bit kind of, but then I. other piece from a different person that I know. And so it's kind of formed from different people I know, different characteristics, different hobbies, different predilections that I just pick and choose, which I think is the most exciting thing about creating a character is that you're, you can do that, you know?

Stephanie Oswald: 6:38

Yeah. No, it is, it is fun. And did you, and did you find when you were sitting down to write that. It was almost like they were whispering over your shoulder, or did you feel like you already had a really set plan when you sat down to write their story?

Lindsey Rice: 6:53

I, you know, I started writing them and everything is each, uh, character has their own voice. So, the chapters are separated by each character, and I wrote in that character's voice. And it was, think it took a little bit of time to develop their voices. And I did some work on the side, like I wrote character sketches for each. And more information about them than I used in my novel. But it, it had, introduced me to them I learned how they would react, how they would react to different situations and what kinds of things, were in their life that would maybe. Cause them to, to speak a certain way or to think a certain way. Um, I think the backstory is really, really important. And when I wrote these characters, I, you know, I picked from different things in their past then would make them act a certain way in the, in the present when I was writing them, them.

Stephanie Oswald: 7:57

did you keep notebooks for each character? Like, did you keep, you know, Google Doc, like what was your medium for keeping track of all of the information about them?

Lindsey Rice: 8:07

Yeah, that's a, it's a lot. Um, I did several different things I think. You know, and I think back, like the, uh, the character sketches were like, I had a file for each one, and I would write to them, I would do that as a writing practice. Okay. Today I'm gonna write debon and just everything I can think of about him and what he, you know, loves what he, he likes, dislikes, what he, his clothes are what he looks like, all the things. And I, so keeping it in a file, on, on my computer. And then when I was piecing the, the book together, I used, Scrivener. They have a nice board that you can have these tiles, and so I gave them different colors for each character. So that helped me see, okay, there's, you know, this many chapters of Devin, this many chapters of Rowan, this many chapters of cast, this many chapters of Hedy and this many chapters of Percy. Those are my main characters. But it wasn't, it wasn't even, you know, I didn't say because I, some of'em, the story was more told through their perspective than others.

Stephanie Oswald: 9:12

Yeah, Scrivener is a great program. I, I really like that for myself as well because I like to be able to see everything organized and not have to scroll through a lengthy document and have everything very accessible. So I definitely agree with you that it's a great way to help organize your thinking and. Especially seeing where your characters are and where maybe you need to fill in spaces.

Lindsey Rice: 9:39

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, you know, it's tough. It's not like writing from one character's perspective. Um, and, and I don't know why. As my first novel, I chose to. Do something as complicated as this, but you know, it just, that's how it happened. And I, as I got to know these characters, I just, you know, I started to love them and feel for them, feel for them, and, want to tell their stories. So, um, did different things like in my novel, I, at the beginning I had chapters and I had like a title for the chapter, and I noticed that I ended up having some that had the titles and some that didn't. And I, I decided just to have the chapter number and their name. So I think that makes it a little bit clearer for the reader. However, I, um, I decided to do these. The person who helped me with publishing, she calls them Easter eggs. So within this, there are a few chapters that have, like a little line up here. And this is my poetic self creating that mimics a lyric. So

Stephanie Oswald: 10:51

Wonderful.

Lindsey Rice: 10:52

Dead Music and the scene are prominent in my novel. However, when I was in workshops, said, don't put lyrics in your writing. A, a publisher or an editor will not allow that. It's too expensive. So I'm like, okay, how am I gonna do this? How am I going to capture the essence of a song that reminded me of the scene? Or was something have to having to do with the character? How am I going to get that in? To my novel without having to pay for it or use somebody else's lyrics. I, I made, um, poetry. So one of them is the circle is always, the circle is moving and it's coming back around. It's hard to know the when, but the why is always found and that I don't know if Grateful Dead fans can, can read that and think, okay, is this a particular song? And yes, it's the wheel,

Stephanie Oswald: 11:47

Yeah, that's what, that's what I was gonna, that was gonna be my guess. I mean, I'm not an expert, but Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsey Rice: 11:54

good. That's what I wanted is for you to be like, oh, that sounds a little bit like, and um, I spent a long time on these and I would take the lyrics and I would, um, count out the syllables so that I could get the rhythm, but not use the same words and do something similar. So a little

Stephanie Oswald: 12:12

Oh, I love that. I love that. I think that that would, I think that that would be such a cool, like writing exercise for like taking any lyrics that you love and trying to, you know, mimic, like you said, the, the syllables and get, and using different words. I think that that's, I think that that's really creative. I love that for, for how you chose to integrate that.

Lindsey Rice: 12:37

Thank you. Thank you. I mean, I, I would've done more, but you know, it gets to the point where I'm like, okay, this has to go out in the world. And I could spend many more years working just on that aspect. But I really, I'm really pleased with that part of it. And, um, I think it, it creates a little bit of a nod to the, you know, to Robert Hunter and the

Stephanie Oswald: 12:58

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Rice: 12:58

the. who I love without having to use their words, um, and plagiarize or have to pay for them.

Stephanie Oswald: 13:06

Yeah.

Lindsey Rice: 13:06

one lyric that is in my dedication and, um, that is if I knew the way I would take you home. that's from Ripple. And

Stephanie Oswald: 13:16

Yeah.

Lindsey Rice: 13:17

wrote Robert Hunter's name next to it and it's dedicated to him. The book is dedicated to Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter, Phil Lush, the great ones that we lost. Um.

Stephanie Oswald: 13:28

Oh, that's, that's wonderful. Yeah. Rip. Ripple is my favorite song. So I definitely appreciate that. And like you said, I love the way you wove poetry into it and into the stories. And so, I mean, with the timeframe that it took you to write the book, how many. How many drafts did you go through? Uh, because, well,'cause we've been talking a lot about drafts and stuff ourselves and how many different rounds we've come back and reworked a piece of writing.

Lindsey Rice: 14:03

I mean, first off I wanna say like boxes. Boxes of writing and, you know, because I used to print them out and then look at them. And the story changed so much for different reasons. Like it, it wasn't my. Uh, it wasn't appropriate for me to have certain things in, so I had to change it. So many drafts, and, you know, this was, as I said, it was in my twenties, so it took me forever to write this, but it was more like I was writing different parts of it and I was doing different things with it. So at one point at the University of Iowa, I did an honors thesis and I flash fiction some of my writing so that I could learn how to get to the, um, to the action quicker because I have a, a tendency to write very long-winded. It's, it's a literary novel.

Stephanie Oswald: 14:57

Yeah.

Lindsey Rice: 14:58

I like to sit with my characters. I like to muse with them, and that doesn't necessarily bake for a good. Action filled book. Um, I think there is some something to that, to the literary, you know, tradition and I,

Stephanie Oswald: 15:10

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Rice: 15:11

Where I was writing, but I needed to get to the action quicker. So I, um, and I say flash because I was really interested in flash fiction and writing short pieces, like a thousand words. And so I created a smaller version of this and it's called, um, in the shadow of the Raven Star. And

Stephanie Oswald: 15:30

Mm.

Lindsey Rice: 15:31

Buying this as part of my honors thesis. Um, so, you know, working on different parts of it at different times I think was really helpful because it. It made me realize, okay, you have this writing, you have this, like you have a character sketch, but that doesn't go in the novel, you know? And you might, I always tell students,'cause I'm a tutor too, that you might write 12 pages and you might use nine of them, which is, I think,

Stephanie Oswald: 16:01

Yeah.

Lindsey Rice: 16:02

that comes through the drafts and

Stephanie Oswald: 16:04

Yeah. No, I. No, I, no, I definitely, I, I definitely wish that in, you know, the schooling years that it was normalized, that you go through, you know, multiple iterations of a piece of writing, that it's normal to start one place and then you end up scrapping, uh, you know, I think in our age of so much information, there's this thought that, oh, it just happened so fast and it, it doesn't happen fast. With, you know, with the writing process. And so you, you mentioned at the beginning that it's a braided narrative, and I'm interested in just hearing a little bit more about how you came to decide on that particular approach.

Lindsey Rice: 16:51

I think I started out writing from like the one character's perspective, Cass, and she, it was mainly her story to begin with, but some point it didn't feel like it encompassed the whole, you know, picture and the whole scene that I wanted, to relay. And then, you know, through various workshops it was like, which character changes the most? Which is the character that goes through the biggest change and that, um, it emerged that Devon was the one who goes through the biggest change. So this is historical fiction, but it's also magical realism. So one of my characters, uh, transforms to a raven, and has, you know, that interest to, um. Believe his body and become something else, you know, whatever that a metaphor for.

Stephanie Oswald: 17:47

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Rice: 17:48

And so his transformation was greater than Cass, who just, you know, was a high school student and came into the dead scene. And so his, he became more of the main character. However, when some people, like my writing teachers have read this book, they're like, oh, Cass is the main character, you know, they, it doesn't. It depends on your, your preference or who you look at or who you connect with. Another friend of mine, Candace, who read this, um, she really connected with Hetty because of something that happened to Hetty in the story and she could relate to something that happened in her life too. And I think that's the beauty of having multiple characters is that different people can relate to them. I remember reading, um, Georgia motto, uh, he's a American, uh, magic. He writes magical realism and some of his characters were like in the army and the others were like mermaids or, you know, connected with deities. And I was like, I like those characters. So anytime I read those chapters I was like, this is my jam.

Stephanie Oswald: 18:55

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Rice: 18:56

then I went through the other ones just to get through it and I knew that other people would connect with those other characters. So, um, sorry I lost your question.

Stephanie Oswald: 19:05

No, I was just asking about the braided narrative, about how you came to decide. I just think that that's a, it's, it's just an interesting way to have, you know, brought the people together. But then I think too, what it makes me think about, especially with respect to the Grateful Dead, is the way their music. Brings so many different types of people together across all, you know, ages back, you know, and just, and there is a certain element of the magical realism in some of their, the way they present things, and especially more currently with their shows, with all the graphics. There's all kinds of

Lindsey Rice: 19:46

Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Oswald: 19:47

different ideas. So I think that that's. That's kind of cool too. That's how, I mean, that's how I'm connecting a little bit of your process.

Lindsey Rice: 19:55

Yeah. Yeah. In the songs, I mean, to me, Terrapin Station might be my greatest love song, but someone else might be like, ah, I hate that song. Or someone might be really into drums in space and I'm like, I'm going to the bathroom during the show. You know? So it really depends on each person. I was thinking about that today. I was like, I was listening to Bear's Choice. It's uh, an old album, the History of the Grateful Dead, and. I was thinking about how I love the studio albums because they're succinct, they're easy to understand, they're bites of information, and I'm not really into the whole space. off on tangents. The songs will, could sometimes be 15 minutes,

Stephanie Oswald: 20:36

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Rice: 20:37

Think if I were a guitar player. would probably love that.'cause I would be like, oh, I bet they're doing this, I'm doing that, but that's not my jam. So yeah, like, like not being able to decide on, on each character or who was taking the wheel, but um, to have them all be part of it. Like a Grateful Dead scene was an amalgamation of all these people from all over and the songs. Um, are loved by different people. So yeah, I mean there's, it's the same thing with, I don't know if you know, you know, if you were in the dead scene and went to shows, but some people love to be on Jerry's side. Some people wanted to be way up in the Phil zone because they love Phil Lesch. So it was the same thing, you know, whatever you like. And, um, but wanting to, you know, that's where the circle kind of comes from, is that wanting to realize that we're all making this together. Um, and. It's each part, so each one of my characters makes the story go around.

Stephanie Oswald: 21:40

Yeah. No, it's, it's wonderful. So how did you, how did you come to decide about publishing and how, what was that process like for you?

Lindsey Rice: 21:52

I could have spent another 20 years working on this book. know, like I said, um, I could have just focused on those, those little lyric bits and poetry bits and just doing it forever. But I. I got to the point where I'm like, you know, I need to get this off my plate. I need to do other things. And I, my life is, I live in Colorado as you do, and um, I'm very and active with Colorado things and I, you know, I've, I'm. A hunter and a fisherman, and I have a garden and I have chickens. And all of that has taken over my life to the point where like, oh, I can't get enough time into my writing. And I was thinking about this earlier too, that the way that I've done my writing process has been, um. Like sometimes I went to the University of Iowa. I worked on it there, and I've created different circumstances in my life where I focused just on this writing. So, um, I lived in Northern New Mexico in a cabin in the winter by myself for, you know, s. Four to six months. I would go into Santa Fe and work for like a 10 days or something, and then I'd go tuck away and I

Stephanie Oswald: 23:10

Yeah.

Lindsey Rice: 23:11

there. So the isolation that was required for me to write this book, um, was not totally practical in the rest of my life. So, I'm not, I know some people like can have a bunch of kids and they write from like four to four 30 in the morning in their closet. not me.

Stephanie Oswald: 23:31

Yeah.

Lindsey Rice: 23:32

I'm kind of like a dog who has to go around in a circle many times until they sit down.

Stephanie Oswald: 23:37

Yes.

Lindsey Rice: 23:38

having the isolation was really important to me to get this out. Um, but yeah, there's too many other things I wanna do and there's other riding that I feel like I can do too. Um. In other work. So was just time to get it off my plate in that regard. and I sent out, I think about 60 query letters to agents to try to get an agent and to try to do it that way. And I was really stuck on, no, I want to traditionally publish this. I want this really to get out in the world. I was really stuck on that. Um. And I finally, I shared this with a woman who's a publisher here in town, and she was like, you know, you just need to self-publish this. That's what you need to do. Because that's where publishing is kind of going, unless you are really lucky and you get something and you have it. So I, um. I did a lot of workshops, um, and I, there was a couple of them where I got to meet an agent in person and like over the computer screen for 10

Stephanie Oswald: 24:45

Yeah.

Lindsey Rice: 24:46

like a pitch.

Stephanie Oswald: 24:47

Yeah.

Lindsey Rice: 24:48

I had two that were interested, but they were like, uh, if you're gonna do this, it needs to be 90,000 words and you have to cut out all the magical realism, you know, and then a different one would be like, oh, I like this, and you'll have to do that. And I was like, you know, that's not really, that's not what I want. That's not

Stephanie Oswald: 25:06

Yeah.

Lindsey Rice: 25:06

I want for this book. So I finally was like, okay, I'm just gonna do this and I'm just gonna publish it and I'm gonna get it off my plate, and then I'm gonna get it out into the world, and then we'll let it have a life, you know? So that's why I decided to, to do that. And I, I think the way that I did it, I, I'm pretty of it. Um, I did get some help with formatting everything. Um, so that was really helpful. I edited the entire novel, like I got it into print. So, I worked with a woman, Jane Friedman, I don't know if you know her,

Stephanie Oswald: 25:42

Yes, I'm familiar with her work. Yeah.

Lindsey Rice: 25:43

Yeah, she's fantastic. And

Stephanie Oswald: 25:45

Yeah.

Lindsey Rice: 25:45

Me with my query letter and with my synopsis. So I had that really well done. Um, and she was like, well go to Snowfall Press. I think that's the name of it. And you can get it printed without publishing it. So I just needed to get it into this form so that I could then, start working on it. I mean, Scrivener was great, but that's all on my computer and

Stephanie Oswald: 26:09

Yes.

Lindsey Rice: 26:09

Of drafts were hard to keep track of. So I finally was like, okay. put it into print without publishing it and did that first. And I edited it that way. I shared it with my mom, you know, and a few other people. And got some feedback and then I took that feedback and I integrated it. Um, I had one who was like, ah, there's a lot of characters. I can't keep track of them. So I added this graphic in here of all the characters so people could keep track of them. That was

Stephanie Oswald: 26:41

Oh, wonderful.

Lindsey Rice: 26:41

helpful piece, um, before I published it. then I went on, I did it through Ingram Spark. So in, I don't know if you're familiar with in who used

Stephanie Oswald: 26:52

I am, I am familiar with, I haven't used them myself, but I, I know several writers who have used them and have been very pleased with their experience.

Lindsey Rice: 27:01

yeah. So I started with that in that way. Um. I can send it now to bookstores, and

Stephanie Oswald: 27:07

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Rice: 27:08

Can order it directly from Ingram. I did that first and it auto-populated to Amazon, which is really nice. And then I did the ebook on Amazon because

Stephanie Oswald: 27:19

Okay. Yeah.

Lindsey Rice: 27:20

you don't really wanna do it the other way around, as I was Um, because then it's just stuck in Amazon and you can't do

Stephanie Oswald: 27:31

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Rice: 27:32

So going through Ingram I think was really valuable. And I feel like I can do things with it now. The thing about myself is that I don't have a big publishing house to back me and to support me. Um, I'm doing everything pretty much myself. But you know, even if I did go through a publishing house, they would say, okay, what's your marketing plan? What are you doing? And maybe we'll support you with that. But, um, we're also gonna take a big cut of it.

Stephanie Oswald: 28:03

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Rice: 28:04

that doesn't sound really good. I'm, I, I, I know how to market myself to some degree. I've had businesses

Stephanie Oswald: 28:10

Yeah.

Lindsey Rice: 28:11

So I've done all of it myself. I have a website, you know, I have my, I I was really into the Good Reads page that I think is a really important tool for publishing, um, because anybody can, can a review. You don't have to buy it through Amazon to write a review on Amazon. I mean, sorry, to write a review on Good. You can write it on Amazon if you buy it from Amazon, but Goodreads, you can have bought the book anywhere,

Stephanie Oswald: 28:40

You've given so many great insights into the process and I wasn't familiar. I mean, I'm familiar with Goodreads, but I wasn't familiar with how, you know, instrumental it can be, especially as a self-published author, to get the reviews and, and get people aware of the book. So now, once you had the, the book in hand, what was your first step in marketing or how did you come up with your strategy for, you know, getting the book into hands of your readers?

Lindsey Rice: 29:13

Well, once I had, I mean, I tried to give some of the old versions to a couple people to get the word out

Stephanie Oswald: 29:20

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Rice: 29:20

this kind of a particular thing because, of the Grateful Dead and how popular they are and how many people love them. And I mean, I don't feel like it's even scratched the surface yet, Um, but how did I, what did I start with? Um. I, I had a party, had a book launch party. I had a Fanta, I mean, you were

Stephanie Oswald: 29:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was fantastic. Yeah, it was a great way.

Lindsey Rice: 29:45

Yeah. So I mean, that was, uh, I worked as hard as I could to have this party. I have a friend who has a club here and she was like, okay, yeah, we can do that. And that sounds good. And then I got a local Grateful Dead cover band to be part of

Stephanie Oswald: 29:59

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Rice: 30:00

They played. Um, I, I got a videographer and a photographer that was like one of the things that I paid for. I'm still paying for it, but he was fantastic and he got a lot of coverage and he got a lot of videos and that's stuff that I can use now. I've used some of it in my marketing, but I have a lot more that I can still use. Um, so creating the book I did bookmarks. So that I could put my QR code to my website and to my Good Reads page to try to get more people to review it. Uh, I sent out press releases to the local newspaper and to the local radio stations. I went in there and I said, I'm having a party. You know, please come and please tell everybody. And people were fantastic in this small mountain town and said, yeah, hey, come on the radio. So I got two radio interviews. I got an article in the newspaper. I had my website up, um, and I had this party and we had grilled cheese sandwiches. We had Grateful Dead Music. I had two artists come and set up their, their, um, their art so they could sell there. But yeah, I had a party. Like a book launch party. And I had six friends from high school come into town to, to enjoy the time with me. So that was really special. And I had them all do interviews. They read the book and, yeah, that was kind of my big thing. I, I'd love to do more of that, but, um, was in May, you know, I published on May 5th, 2025.'cause I thought 5, 5 25 is cool. Um, and then. then I learned, and believe it or not, I learned this after that. That was the date 60 years ago when the Grateful Dead had their first show at Magoos Pizza Parlor in Menlow Park, California.

Stephanie Oswald: 31:47

Oh wow.

Lindsey Rice: 31:49

how did I get that right? So, and

Stephanie Oswald: 31:53

Wow.

Lindsey Rice: 31:53

on 20, you know, 2025. This is the 60 year anniversary of the Grateful Dead. And so somehow book had to wait for that.

Stephanie Oswald: 32:03

That's amazing. I love this. I love the synchronicity of that, you know, where you find things and don't really know that that's happening until it's happened, and then all those cool things. And like you said, like the book just. Had to wait for its time. And here, here is that time. And, and I agree with you. I think, you know, there's so much around, you know, Deadheads and those who follow the Grateful Dead, that you haven't quite scratched the surface yet of, you know, what's possible to, you know, bring your story to more people.

Lindsey Rice: 32:39

Mm-hmm. I mean, I'd love to get it into hand, into the hands of some of my heroes and some of the people who love the dead. I've given one to the new iteration of Jerry Garcia Band. The Keyboardist Melvin. Anyway, uh, yeah, so. I think that, my character, I kind of attribute this waiting for the right moment to my characters. And, um, what's really neat is I'm starting to see them. Like at the par launch party, I was like, oh. That guy looks like Percy. Oh, here's an example of, Devin's daughter. And it was just like so neat to me to experience my characters once they were out into the world and to see them reflecting in people. I went to Vail recently and saw Dark Star Orchestra, um, and when I was listening to the songs. Some of the songs stood out to me of like, oh, this is so and so song. This is the song that Rowan really loves and that he would really appreciate. So I started listening to the music through them, um, which makes me think, oh, I could have spent a lot more time on this novel, you know, and really develop them. But I'm like, no, no, I think I wanna write other things in my life. And, um, but this is, this is pretty much my baby. And. I'm happy that it's in the world. I'm happy that it's getting the good reception that it is. Um, and the whole idea, you know, sometimes writers think, ah, I am, I've gotta get this time. I've gotta, I've gotta do this within this time and this is the time for it. Um, and I was told by my publisher helper that a book is new to anybody who it's new to who hasn't read it. It's new to them. I was like, oh wow, you're right. I'm reading a book from 1940s, you know, right now, and it's new to me.

Stephanie Oswald: 34:39

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Rice: 34:40

so everything in it is still preserved. And I think that's the beauty of, uh, books and novels especially, is that they can live in different time periods. Um, and some of my characters, and a lot of them are, are, are in the 1990s. But one of my characters is from the 1880s, he kind of pops in and it's his story too, so yeah.

Stephanie Oswald: 35:08

Yeah. I love that. I love that idea about a book is new to whoever is picking it up for the first time, and that, that's a great way to think about it because I do think often there are some writers do feel that pressure, like, oh, the time is gonna pass, and the story I wanna tell and is not gonna be relevant when in fact it's always relevant if it's the story that you're meant to tell. Uh, and so I love that. So closing up here, if. One of the things we're doing this season is asking if there's one piece of advice you would give to a new emerging writer, what would you, what would you tell them? I.

Lindsey Rice: 35:47

Keep writing, keep writing, keep writing, keep writing. Um, edit yourself yet. Um, and yeah, I mean, I think writing is a practice. And however it works for you, whether it is isolating yourself or it's doing it, you know, every single day in a journal, just develop your own practice of writing and, um, be in a community too. I've also had a lot of writing dates with people. I had writing partners over the years where we would just meet and we would either write. for 10, 15 minutes and then check in and then we do it again. Um, and that can be done over text too. Whatever. Okay, you're ready? Let's go. sometimes when you create the container, it, it, um, allows you to get something written in. Yeah.

Stephanie Oswald: 36:41

love that. Well, this has been such a fun conversation, Lindsay. It's been so lovely to have you. Um, so yeah, so wishing you all the best as you continue with your writing, and thanks for being here.

Lindsey Rice: 36:56

Thank you so much, Stephanie. Bye-bye.