Fiction That Empowers Women

Speaker 1: [Music] hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the she builted experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in award-winning author Monica mcer likes nothing better than weaving complex multi-layered stories that bring contemporary issues and strong female characters to life through different genres of popular fiction in her recent book The Agency she weaves The Familiar worlds of Mary Poppins and James Bond to create an unexpected and delightful tale of Adventure and Espionage thank you so much for joining us to day Monica in your books you weave complex multi-layered stories to life with strong female characters share with us what you like the most about being an author and why you're so passionate about bringing strong female characters to life one of the things that I love the most about being an author it's like a puzzle I'm a Problem Solver by Nature I'm very research driven I'm very analytic and I I like to untangle complex Lex issues being able to tell a story requires you to be really expert even if it's temporarily becoming an expert in something a location a problem the mindset of a character and know where you want the story to land sometimes over multiple books because I tend to write in series and then figure out how to put the puzzle pieces together to tell that story in a way that resonates with readers and when it is multi-layered it can get complex and so the art of it is how you tell the story in a simple way make it so that like in the case of the agency people could read it at one level as just a a thriller a mystery with a really great group of characters in the young adult genre or they can unpack it and think more about underlying themes of identity and loss or the current events that are portrayed there like human trafficking and some International conflicts that provide the backdrop for some of the drama so that's my favorite part about it and the fact that it gives me an excuse to go out and meet people who are expert in these different things and travel to learn about the locations I set the books in is just a bonus for me to your other question about why presenting strong female characters continues to motivate me I started my career it was sometimes was lonely to be often the only woman in the room one of my clients um because I was a consultant at the beginning of my career one of my clients told me after we had worked together for over a year that the first time I showed up for a meeting they all thought I was the assistant to the partner because they never met a female consultant from The Firm that I worked with even though they had worked with the firm for quite some time so it's always been in the atmos sphere of my professional career and as an Avid Reader and someone who read a lot with my children including my daughter I was often frustrated by books that portrayed women in stereotypical ways or portrayed young women particularly in the ya genre as needing rescuing not being their own agent being buffeted by what was happening to them and you could get caught up in the story because oh it's romantic it's this it's that but then you would step away from it and you're more higher level cognition with you be like ah it's actually not a great depiction and so when I set out to write I wanted to write books that would be inspiring and empowering to my daughter who was at the time 13ish or something she's still an Avid Reader but I always write with that in mind and representing the diversity and richness of the world around us I love that and now more than ever coming out of covid with the women that have stepped back from the workforce I think that is needed now more than ever I agree with you yeah and my previous career was working in sports I worked for Major League Baseball for the Los Angeles Dodgers and it was very male so you know imagine yes yes so you're in a boardroom of 25 people and there's two maybe three women in the room so definitely understand that and love your passion behind building up those strong female characters it's so great your most recent book The Agency how did you come up with the idea tell us about it and how did it come to life the idea for the agency actually is a a funny one I had finished the last Trilogy I wrote and was in the car with my children for an extend period of time and we were brainstorming it for me writing is a little bit of a family Fair my my kids and my husband read my books in early draft form they engage give me lots of feedback on it so I was in the mood and in the mode of generating ideas for my next book and I always keep a list of ideas when something kind of Pops in my head I keep it down I have a little tracker for it but I wasn't feeling that into some of the ideas that I had on my list so we were just brainstorming on this drive and I I think it was my daughter at the time she was kind of into the whole royal family thing and she jokingly said Hey what if that Nanny school that provides the nannies to the royal families was a cover for aspiring and everybody laughed and I said oh that's a great idea and then they they all the kids all backpedal like no no no that's not a good idea you shouldn't write that I was like no no no this is the idea this is it um and it was funny why they thought it wasn't a good idea for a book because they thought it would be a better movie I was like can always made into one yeah it's okay we'll we'll sell the rice down the road so it really gripped my imagination one because it was such a fun idea and I was really looking for something a little bit lighter because the the previous books had a little bit of heaviness to them so I wanted something that I thought I could have more fun with on the one hand the other side of it getting back to your question about women was gosh here's a stereotypical female profession where sometimes these women are taken advantage of they're maybe underappreciated they have this role in the backround but when you bring a nanny into your home you're creating in some sense vulnerability right you're opening yourself up to the risk and so the idea that you can be subverting a gender stereotype and using it to wield power and influence International Affairs was really captivating to me um so I thought I could work a lot with it in in a way that was consistent with some of the things that are important to me as a writer and I see how you could develop these rich characters from that idea and I love how you bring your family into the process I would think writing sometimes might be a little bit lonely because it's you and the computer and you and your thoughts and ideas but I love how you bring your family into it they sometimes might get a little annoyed with me to be quite honest I'll harass like did you read it probably fun for you yeah it's great and everybody has their own strength that they bring to it it makes it a bit more of a group activity less isolating that is so fun and I'm a mom of twins my twins are eight now but when they were born I started watching crime shows and I had never been into the crime Mysteries before and I I learned that I think it was because in 45 minutes at least something in my life was solved for the day and it didn't compel me to want to watch another one because they solved the crime and I could go to sleep it's interesting when you think about looking at complex problems and Mysteries and you can get so involved in the characters and the stories and it has to be from your point of view to write from both angles so it has to be so interesting to look at both sides of that scenario did you always know that you wanted to be a writer I was always a big reader when my my parents had me they were among the first in their friend set to have kids and I would take along with them and we would go to somebody's house they didn't have kids they didn't have kids books around and I would just like read whatever was available I just kind of absorb things like a sponge maybe that put the idea in my head I dabbled with it at different points in my life but I didn't really get serious about trying until a little over a decade go what do you like the most about the writing and Publishing process the creativity of coming up with the ideas and then mapping them out and all of the research and stuff I I really do enjoy that process I'm the kind of person who thrives on feedback I do in my full-time job and this is the same for me so when I was writing fanfiction for example I would just go crazy in a positive way every time I got a review that's one of the things I loved about the fanfiction.net platform you would post a chapter or a snippet and then you would see all this live feedback and it was really valuable and it helped me get better as a writer and so I love the process of getting feedback and whether it's informal with my family with I I call them my Beta readers they're as a small group of women primarily who provide me a little bit more formal feedback in the process when I think it's close to being publication ready and again they have different roles like one is my go-to reader for medical stuff she'll read the whole thing but she's a physician and a lot of my books have a lot of action adventure in them and so they're injuries and she checks all of that stuff for me and then when I get to the process of working with an editor it's actually wonderful I was really worried about it initially like how I would feel giving my baby to someone and then you know having to rework things but every single time it's made the work better and I've been really lucky to work with editors who get as vested in the characters as me so they know what matters to me and how I depict them they are super collaborative and so it's just a a really fun process the other part once it's ready to go to publication that I love is being consulted on the design of the cover and again I'm lucky um I know some writers don't get a lot of say in that but my publisher was very consultative on it and so I've been really pleased with the designs that have graced each of my books so far did you know that you would go into fiction writing and not necessarily non-fiction when I was a consultant and a partner at McKenzie I wrote a fair amount of business literature for like the McKenzie quarterly that was when I really started realizing oh I like this process and I would listen to colleagues complain about it so hard for me I hate it I hate I'm like oh I love this and I would sometimes take a long time to get my thoughts in order and the writing of the books is the same way but once I had the idea figured out it was pretty easy I'm a fast writer and I do pretty good first drafts and so I could crank something out relatively quickly compared to a lot of people who would more likely dread it I actually enjoyed it so no I didn't know it but I knew I liked the process of it and even like when I was a kid in school writing a paper didn't face me I loved writing my senior thesis in college I thought it was fun the story is inspiring because she built it mission is to empower you to experience the life and business that you crave and we all crave something different we have to understand that pivots are okay we might be in a role that we're good at but then we might be craving to do something different so it's so great that you followed your passion into writing yes and you can think about it like a portfolio your job might scratch 80% of your itch but you still have a 20% and you can pick up something on the site it could be a project it doesn't have to be a full side hustle like everybody talks about these days you can find ways to get what you're missing so when I did start writing fiction and part of it was the job that I had didn't give me a lot of outlet for creativity it was very analytically rigorous and fun and creative but I wasn't working on branding campaigns and things like that and I just needed an outlet for that creative impulse and so I was lucky that I realized it and I was lucky at the time that I realized it online platforms were becoming a available so it was a little bit easier for me to get going through the fanfiction venue but yeah you're going to shift over the course of your life and hopefully you're learning and getting exposed to new things and you'll change your mind about what is satisfying to you and and that's a good thing and it's so great you had the confidence to go towards your creative side I kind of figured there was no downside I mean the the worst thing that would happen is everybody hated it and at least I had the experience of trying you know right so right so true on your website you say I cannot turn away you give a portion of all of your books to end human trafficking recently I was with my daughter in an airport and she looked at a sign and said mom why is there a sign for traffic in the airport and she's 8 years old and I just had this aha moment of standing there going first of all how do I explain this to her second of all it's terrifying to think of this for any human being and something happen happening to her or any of her friends one day and I just had this moment and I started thinking about how can I give back to this topic and then I was introduced to you and as I was reading about you I learned that you give a portion Back To Human Trafficking it's just these things happen sometimes I think for a reason where Universe the world nudges you in certain directions but I thought I feel really strongly about this and it hadn't really come up before but I remember standing in the airport having this moment so share with us how you give back to human trafficking how the topic resonates with you and first started sure thank you for sharing your story and it makes me really happy because 10 years ago that kind of signage that kind of awareness building that it just wasn't happening my story of how it got on my radar screen I was working on my first book and I had decided that the open prologue or first chapter with Center start with a child abduction and there was a reason why that had come to mind that I won't get into but like I mentioned I'm very fact-based so I was curious how frequently does this happen is this a big deal so I went to Dr Google and started my searching and I was just blown away because outright abductions did not come up but all of this information about child traffic trafficking in the United States did and I had no idea I had no idea it was happening in the community in which I lived and the reality is in the United States it happens in any major Metro where you've got a Confluence of Transportation whether it's air rail bus interstate highways but I was shocked and my daughter was probably a little bit older than years is now and I just was horrified it's like how can I not know this and how can this not be a topic of not just discussion but aggressive advocacy so I decided Yep this is I'm going to work this into the books and as I did research I connected with a couple of nonprofits working in the space and there there's just a ton of groups working especially now after that time has passed the groups that I ended up connecting with were not working on rescuing people in that situation or rehabilitating them you providing them Services after they're thankfully removed from it which is very important work the two groups that I work with street street Grace and EET USA we're working on systemic solutions to help stop the problem and working on both the demand and the supply side right so tackling issues like the awareness of people in Airlines Trucking Industries Hotel Industries where it could be happening in front of them and they don't recognize it so that they can intervene or driving for stricter sentencing guidelines for perpetrators and making sure people who are put in that situation as victims are not criminalized when they're in that situation I just found that that more perhaps long-term but holistic approach the problem was going to be really valuable and it it appealed to my sense of systems thinking I got very involved with one of them Street Grace I went through their training program I became a public speaker for them because I was working through the books I focus most of my public speaking with youth groups you know like a Girl Scout Troop the role I see for my writing is to use pop culture to present this in a non salacious factual but accessible way to help people or Educators be able to have the conversation at the right time with the right age of kids who are targeted for this if any of that made even in the slightest Dent or attracted one person to want to get involved then for me it's mission accomplished right and that's so great because I stood in the airport I usually don't have to think twice about having conversation with her or how do I explain this to her it usually is just intuitive and I just know but I stood there for a minute and thought how do I start to explain this topic to her so what you are doing with your book it's so great that you are bringing light to this topic and shedding awareness it's definitely a movement and C to your daughter for being like that attentive to notice that and all the hubub of an airport or or what have you um but yeah it's it's really gratifying to see just how much the public awareness has changed in the decade that I've been involved and hopefully we can see continued progress on this issue and nice to know that the Airlines and the airports are making awareness of it too eat has been really leading the charge on that again countless groups but eat has really focused on the Travel industry and um they've just done fantastic work they're partnering with those those companies I asked this question at the end of every episode because I believe bringing joy into our daily life is so important magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one tip you can leave with us today about how you find and live your joy I would say just being present and experiencing gratitude I think especially in the last two years during covid that has really been driven home for me and having the appreciation that hey we might all be trapped at home but we're having dinner together as a family and we're not on the Run just slowing down to savor those moments um I think can be really powerful and it's in sometimes The Quiet Moments that you can really find that Joy so yesterday I mentioned to you I was in DC I was with a family member and we took a detour down a residential street to look at the cherry blossoms and it just made my heart happy to see something so beautiful this five minute detour and it made all the difference in the day so true it's that nature and it really is those small moments my husband never cooked before Co and now he cooks and I'm not complaining but he enjoys it it's a you know stress relief from his day and you know you're so right it's sometimes something like that has to remind us that those small moments are so important yeah you have built an incredible career and thank you for sharing and shedding light to the topic of human trafficking and for sharing the story of your books and how you became an author and how you bring your passions to light can you please share with our listeners how and where they can find you absolutely and it's been such a pleasure to speak with you Melanie go to my website which is monik mgk.com and all of the links to my other social platforms are there there are links to buy any books that might interest interest you if you want to bypass all of that most of the books are available on all of your normal online platforms like amazon.com Burns & noble.com and the like if you do check out the website you can also access more information about human trafficking um because I do have a little bit of information on there for people who want to get involved people who want to take advantage of some of the resources with those nonprofits and some educ ators we did classroom guides for example for how to teach the first Trilogy um which is called the Archangel prophecies and there will be more information as the next books in the Norwood Nanny Chronicles come out as well following the agency this year if you are new to Sheil it we'd love for you to join us we offer Community memberships masterminds Innovative virtual events and meaningful connections to entrepreneurs and corporate leaders please also check out our she built it shop curated products from women-owned businesses who put their heart and soul into their beautiful and Innovative products we offer Sheil tip business Consulting and the Sheil tip blog thank you to everyone around the world who joined today thank you to my editor Rich stalino please download And subscribe wherever you get your podcast and until next time together let's let nothing stop us from experiencing the life that We crave