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Overview

Annabelle is a 10 year old girl that lives in London. She goes to school and enjoys the same games and movies and other activities that her friends do.

Annabelle is different in one very important way. She is a published author.

I didn’t get the chance to talk with Annabelle directly, but I spoke with her mother and learned about Annabelle’s process and what she did to get the book written and published.

Book

Website

http://www.annabellejohnligali.com/

Favorites

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm_RsLdTbUUFwCZvkfXSK0Q

YouTube

Transcript

dw 44 annabelle

[00:00:00] Annabelle: Are you looking for new books to read? Do you like finding a new special author? Are you tired of the same old books from the same old authors? Welcome. Welcome to Discovered Wordsmiths, a podcast where you can hear from fantastic new authors. Join Steven Schneider as he. Minds and talks to authors you may not know, but authors that have worked hard to write great new books, hear about their book and why you should check it out.

[00:00:32] So sit back and listen to today’s discovered wordsmith.

[00:00:48] Stephen: Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Discovered Wordsmiths. I have a really special episode today because the author I am talking to is actually the mother of the author. [00:01:00] The author is 10 years old and she was in school when we talked about the book. She wrote her first book when she was nine, and she has plans for more.

[00:01:09] Uh, she sounds like a great kid. It’s exciting to see. Young people getting into things like writing, uh, or other entrepreneurial pursuits. So check this out. Hear a little bit about what her mother says about Annabelle and her writing and her story. Well,

[00:01:26] Annabelle: yeah. My name is anal and, um, I, I am here today to talk about my daughter’s first book.

[00:01:35] Her name is Annabelle John, and it’s set around Christmas time and it’s really pretty and it’s really cute.

[00:01:42] Stephen: Okay. Yes. And, and this is a little different. Um, this is the fir not it’s the first kid author. I’ve had this young, uh, I did have, uh, my son on here and he wrote a book at 16. So, uh, there were several things I was intrigued [00:02:00] by.

[00:02:00] First of all, uh, tell us a little bit about your daughter and. Why she wanted to write a book.

[00:02:07] Annabelle: Okay. Well Annabel, she is apart from being very adorable. She’s, she’s very creative. She’s always like done things and you know, like most kids. But I think she watches me a lot, you know, because I write as well.

[00:02:22] And you know, she’s been just telling stories from as young as five. Um, and they’ll be very short. You know, her, her books will end right chapter three, sometimes in chapter five, you know, very quick. Um, but yeah, she’s, um, she, she’s very active in the arts as well. She loves attending drama school. Um, oh, nice.

[00:02:47] Yeah, she, she likes to draw and she’s, she’s a bit of a, you know, she likes to have her hands in a few things. You know, um, musically, um, [00:03:00] poetry and, you know, she’s just very happy and you know, she’s got her brother Andre, who’s eight and you know,

[00:03:06] Stephen: they go, you like names that start with a,

[00:03:10] Annabelle: you notice Yeah.

[00:03:13] Like they call us aaa. Yeah. But she’s nice, very, very happy girl and she loves to learn and. You know, because she loves to learn. I tried to make everything fun like a game, which is why I think she got round to writing this book, which she wanted to anyway. But anyway, yeah. So.

[00:03:34] Stephen: Right. And, and, uh, before we go too far, much further, uh, where are you located?

[00:03:39] Where? In London? In London. Okay. I, I thought there was somewhere across the sea. Yeah. Um, uh, your daughter wrote this book. Tell us, uh, what the book is about a little bit. What, what she wrote about.

[00:03:52] Annabelle: Well, the book was inspired by a trip, um, um, in November, 2019. Uh, here in London. We’ve [00:04:00] got this park called Hyde Park and.

[00:04:02] And apart from having fun, we came across this house, which was an upside down house, which like a fun house. And when you walk in, everything is upside down. And I was the one who noticed it and I said to her, Abel, look at that house. It’s upside down. So we went in and we actually, we filmed, we filmed it and it became a log on her Annabelle Presents platform on YouTube.

[00:04:28] Um, so there’s nice, there’s us just having fun and you know, we spent about a good four hours there that day we did ice skating as well. And it wasn’t until after about a couple of weeks after she said, you know what, mom, I, I’d probably like to write a story about a girl who goes to a theme park and has fun and probably gets lost and it’s an adventure and I can make it larger than life.

[00:04:54] And that’s where it started from. And it really is. A larger than life theme park. You know, there’s [00:05:00] things in it that you probably wouldn’t normally find. And she said to me, you know, it could probably be a cross between Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland, that kind of woo theme, kind of, you know, feel

[00:05:13] Stephen: Right, right, right.

[00:05:15] So, um, very imaginative,

[00:05:17] Annabelle: very, very imaginative. And so in this theme park, apart from the obvious rides, you’ve got like the Santa Parade, which. Um, okay. You could probably see in real life, but I’ve never seen it in a theme park. You’ve got a glass palace, you’ve got this roundabout made out of sweetss.

[00:05:36] You’ve got, um, you know, just a bobble garden, like shiny ball balls, but it’s a garden full of bubble balls. There’s a Christmas tree, forest, there’s a puzzle, a puzzle room, which is attached to the upside down house. You know, it just kind of populated it with. With things that she would like to see. It’s from her point of view.

[00:05:58] And we, and honestly we [00:06:00] had so much fun, like just talking about it and, you know, um, just trying to imagine ourselves in there. Um, but generally the, the, the story is about giving. Family. Like what family meet? ’cause there’s a, there’s a scene where something really bad happens and it kind of brings it back to Bella that, you know, family’s everything and she meets kind people and not so kind people along the way.

[00:06:30] And, you know, there’s lessons to be learned there and it’s really heartwarming. And there’s, there’s one character which is very special called Granny Silta, who is based on my mom. Which is Annabelle’s Granny, and she passed away last year. And, you know, we kind of, um, brought in things from what my mom loved in real life.

[00:06:53] She loved Burgundy, she loved to knit, she loved to make coconut dumplings. There’s even a [00:07:00] recipe at the end bit, the spoiler. Um,

[00:07:03] Stephen: oh, that’s, that’s a great idea.

[00:07:05] Annabelle: Yeah. So, you know, the Granny Sil character, and that is my mom’s name. She’s in the story and she de and Annabel Annabelle dedicates it to her granny.

[00:07:17] So it’s, um, yeah, it’s, it’s a very special project and her first book and yeah, she, she had so much fun writing it. Nice. I,

[00:07:28] I

[00:07:28] Stephen: loved that. And you said she’s written other stories, uh, but this is the first actual book. About how long is it?

[00:07:37] Annabelle: Um, it’s 25,000 words. But from November, 2019, she had been working on, on and off.

[00:07:47] But if you can imagine like we had the lockdown in March, I would imagine, I think the same for you in March. So apart from, apart from the homeschooling, she worked on that [00:08:00] book as well. So it was something that she got on.

[00:08:03] Stephen: Well, that’s perfect.

[00:08:05] Annabelle: Yeah. Yeah. So we put it out

[00:08:08] Stephen: in November. And what’s the title

[00:08:09] Annabelle: of the book?

[00:08:10] It’s called Lost in Christmas Wonderland.

[00:08:13] Stephen: Oh, nice. And you, and you said you put it out in November, right? In time for Christmas.

[00:08:17] Annabelle: Sorry, we put it out in December.

[00:08:20] Stephen: December. Same, same time, right. Time for Christmas.

[00:08:24] Annabelle: Yeah. Just nice, um, nice timing for Christmas.

[00:08:28] Stephen: When she got done writing this book, what, what’d she say?

[00:08:33] What’d she feel like, what was her reaction like? Did I mean, for me, uh, anybody that would write a 25,000 word book, that’s pretty good deal. I mean, it takes some time, but, you know, a 10 year old or nine at the time, what was she like? Okay, I’m done. And or was she like, oh my gosh, I did this, you know, showing every, what was her reaction like?

[00:08:53] I would say

[00:08:54] Annabelle: it’s cross between the. And I, and I think it’s because she has written before, but nothing of that [00:09:00] length. But she was happy because it was the first thing she had written where it was structured properly. Before that it was pantsing. She’s done a lot of pantsing and I let her pants because I thought, you know what, that’s what she’s supposed to do.

[00:09:17] That’s what I did when I started ’cause it’s having fun. And I didn’t wanna try and, you know, make her feel like you’ve gotta do this, this, this. So then, um, yeah, she was happy that she actually had a story that had a beginning, middle, and end hit all the beats and it meant something to her. So, yeah, she was really happy.

[00:09:39] She told her friends at school. She, we made some paperbacks. They’re not on Amazon though, but we actually made some, here’s one here. And we did, um, we did quite a few of those. Um, a children’s book club requested some copies, which was nice, and I made some flyers for her to hand out to school. [00:10:00] Oh, that’s great.

[00:10:01] You know, to say, buy the book. Buy the book. Um, so yeah, it was, it was right. Kind of a mixed, mixed emotions. Um, you know, really happy at school, really happy at home, telling all the. On Pub day, I set up like, um, a group on WhatsApp and I invited many family members and friends and I kindly asked them, could you put this out on Pub Day for her?

[00:10:27] And they did. And it was insane. Nice. It was beautifully insane. It went like nuts. Good. You know, so it was so much fun. And we did bookmarks as well, and book club questions and all that. I did the whole lot.

[00:10:43] Stephen: Right. Well, I’ll, I’ll say right now for everybody listening, uh, you had better go. I’ll put a link in the show notes you had better just go buy this book because one of the best things we could ever do is encouraging and supporting kids and, you know, if a [00:11:00] 10 year old.

[00:11:00] Sells a couple books. It’s not about the money she makes, it’s about the, the joy and the pride. And then you can’t ever stop her when she gets older. She’ll always be able to have the confidence to go write a book or to be in a band or, um, play music. Just do anything, you know? Yeah. So I’m, I’m telling everybody listening to this, you better go by the book.

[00:11:22] Thank, thank

[00:11:23] Annabelle: you. Thank you, Steven.

[00:11:26] Stephen: So I got several questions after what you just said. Um, let, let me back up with, uh, several of them. So you said she’s pantsed, which is typical. That sounds like what kids do. Oh, I have a great story. Yeah. The dog ran over to the well, you know, and Okay. That’s great story.

[00:11:43] Yeah. But we know as an adult that’s not the type of story people wanna buy and read. So you said this time. She plotted it out and hit the right beat. So it sounds like you’ve got some writing experience in your background.

[00:11:55] Annabelle: Yes. Um, I write women’s fiction, um, [00:12:00] contemporary romance. I have, um, dabbled in a bit of children’s, but I haven’t finished anything yet.

[00:12:06] Um, but yeah, I’ve, I’ve written like a three part series and it’s nice. Okay. Yeah, it’s, it’s, um, it’s a romcom in terms of structuring and plotting. I have, I’ve been someone that’s, I have a very strong interest in story structure and plotting. And I remember when I first started writing for fun, it was all about plot, plot, plot.

[00:12:30] And then years down the line I realized, well, no, it’s about character, character, character. And the plot comes from the character. Um,

[00:12:40] Stephen: yes, uh, I

[00:12:40] Annabelle: agree. Yeah. And so then, you know, on this plotting journey of mine, I remember the first. The first full length book I ever wrote, not published. That was in 2009. It took me three years.

[00:12:56] Three years of trying to figure out, and I wrote that book on instinct. [00:13:00] So it was like, okay, when I get to this part, this should happen and that should happen in this and that and this and that were the beats, which I had no idea about. So fast forward years later, it was just natural. It was just natural for you.

[00:13:13] So all the mo, like midpoint was there, all his loss was there, but I didn’t know what they were called. And like couple of years later, I found. That thing that helped me. And I knew I was missing something, which is why I continued, because very often I would see authors, like their author interviews and they’ll say, oh, I’ve just finished my book.

[00:13:34] It took me six months. And I’ll be like, how could they finish that in six months that would take me? So I said to myself, well, they know something I don’t, and I’m gonna find out. And that was what I said to myself and I, and you know what? I came across Save the cup. Beat sheet, just like. Probably two years ago, and that has been my friend, and now it’s Annabel’s friend, and I decided to [00:14:00] teach Annabel the Beats and to say, you don’t, it’s not something you have to stick to, but at least it’s a guide and it’s better than what you do before cancer.

[00:14:10] So now it took her. About a couple of months or three to learn the beats. She, she knows the beats. We would put on maybe a Netflix movie. She loves dog movies, anything with dogs in it, she loves. And she would call out the milestones and I would say to her, okay, what’s that? And she’ll say, I think that’s all is lost.

[00:14:30] And I think that’s such, and so that’s how we, that’s how I got her to learn. And that’s how I taught myself as well, because I didn’t know either, you

[00:14:37] Stephen: know? And that’s a, a good. Good, quick, easy way. Uh, you know, yeah. With movies, TV shows, uh, you can do the same in books. It’s just a slower process.

[00:14:47] Annabelle: It’s slower process.

[00:14:48] And we did do books, but books that we know between us, but obviously it’s quicker, like Right. Movies. So that’s how we worked through this book. That’s how we, we had the, [00:15:00] the beat sheet in front of us and it’s on my wall right there. And I think it’s just a good reminder to keep yourself on track. Like, okay, Annabel, I think that’s a bit too soon because remember we’ve got the midpoint coming up, so, so having that year to work on the book from November, 2019 and then that little bit of school and then the lockdown up until when it was released is what is, it did wonders for her finishing the book.

[00:15:30] Stephen: I, I, again, this is fascinating because of her age. You know, this is the things we tell adults. Uh, you know, this is what you gotta do. You can’t write a story without a plot of some sort. It has to be a story, not just an idea. And so she has learned this at a really early age. And, you know, and I said earlier, you know, encourage kids, uh, because it helps them later in life.

[00:15:56] So she’s got it down. I mean, if she practices [00:16:00] for the next 10 years writing when she’s out of school, yeah, she’ll be, she’ll be able to write novels that probably take off like nothing. Does she even realize that what she’s learning now is way beyond what a lot of kids learn at that age?

[00:16:15] Annabelle: Um, I think she’s got an inkling because, um, you know, she does, like I said, well she, she does the drama thing and they talk about plot, but not at this level.

[00:16:28] But she’s able to relate and yeah, so she knows that, okay, we probably don’t cover this in school, but we cover other things that are just as important. But this is totally different. This is like, if you want, wanna write a book. Not just write, but publish. It’s good to know that the story falls into these nice little sections of beats.

[00:16:52] And she also knows that you don’t have to start at chapter one like she used to. She’s sometimes she thinks about the final [00:17:00] image. She thinks about the all is lost. She thinks about the main Oh, that’s interesting. Like posts milestone, you know.

[00:17:08] Stephen: Uh, I was gonna ask, so when you pointed out to her, uh, you know, the different beats and you, you even said, um, the midpoints coming.

[00:17:15] Did she take a section and move it, but keep it, or did she just get rid of it, rewrite it? How did she handle that?

[00:17:22] Annabelle: Um, yes. She, she did, she did. I would say a few things. Uh, we had a discussion. Because it’s not like she goes off and does it on her own. There’s, I’m always like supervising or overseeing, I should say, overseeing.

[00:17:38] Um, so yeah, she rewrote, she, I think she brought in a new character and she opted the ante as we say it. It was kind of a bit not, not having as much impact. So she kind of, Rose the stakes just a little bit. So she made it more [00:18:00] interesting leading up to the midpoint instead of just getting there. So it helped her to rethink about the scene, who was in the scene, the characters, parts of the location.

[00:18:13] And even I think she brought up a sensory detail, which I thought was good. I think it was smell. Nice pine, pine trees. So it’s, it’s such a good exercise and it, it helps me ’cause I think fine, I’ve self-published three times, but I’m still learning. I am so at the beginning of my journey and it’s great that I’ve got this, you know, my daughter who’s like my little growth buddy.

[00:18:40] You know, who’s, who wants to do the same thing? You know, she’s only 10, like you said, it might change. She might wanna be a pop star next year. You know what kids are

[00:18:49] Stephen: like. Exactly. But that’s, but that’s important because she got the, uh, many things she learned from that, even if she doesn’t write anymore or [00:19:00] later in life.

[00:19:00] Right. She learned about doing it, uh, you know, I guess you could say, quote unquote, properly, so that it’s a fool story. She about the work that goes involved. It’s not just something you throw out, it’s, it’s a little bit of work. Uh, and then if she did wanna move on to being a pop star, the same thing applies to writing, music or performing.

[00:19:21] You’ve gotta get your skills down, you gotta practice. So you know that. And that’s, This is the time in her life for her to experiment. You know, when you’re 45 and you have kids and a family and a job and a car and a dog and a house and everything else, that’s not the time to say, I think I’m gonna change careers, you know?

[00:19:40] Oh, no, no.

[00:19:41] Annabelle: Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. Um, um, and I guess just learning about, you know, all of this. I could see it just transitioning into other things. It’s like a foundation for the things that are coming up that would be coming up in her life. Like you [00:20:00] said, you know, there’s always a thought process.

[00:20:02] There’s always a method. There’s always, there’s milestones in everything isn’t there? Even in cooking. Right. You know? Right. So I guess she can apply this to life as well.

[00:20:14] Stephen: Yeah. Agreed. I love this. So what’s the reaction been, uh, from others now, obviously, I’m sure her family said, Hey, this is great. Love it.

[00:20:24] Uh, have there been other people who maybe weren’t family friends that gave her some feedback that, uh, was particularly useful or really good?

[00:20:33] Annabelle: Um, I would say most of the feedback that she’s received, um, we’ve had some, we’ve had a few reviews, there’s more to go on. Um, we’ve had bloggers involved, um, some of my friends, and it is great.

[00:20:48] I mean, they’ve been given her five stars. Um, they said, and this is, you know, um, honestly, it’s, I went, I went to the theme park. I felt Christmas and [00:21:00] everything. Um, but I do have like, um, some bloggers that I know of, some tours that I’ve done with my books and yeah, they, they loved it. They really, really loved it.

[00:21:12] Stephen: And, uh, you said, um, you printed some out. Where can people get this? Is it available to order or buy from somewhere?

[00:21:22] Annabelle: Yeah, it’s on Amazon. Um, all platforms on Amazon, so us, UK, worldwide. Okay. Um, the paperback. The paperback should have been out. Um, but it’s, let’s just say publishing an ebook is easy peasy.

[00:21:39] But when it comes to covers and dimensions, it’s not the same. So I’m, I’m working on it. I’m working on it, but if anybody wanted a, a paper copy like this, if you are UK based, it’s easier. I’ll be happy to post abroad if they really wanted a copy until it’s available. On all [00:22:00] platforms, so it won’t just be on Amazon.

[00:22:02] Once it’s in paperback, I’ll try and get it on Barns and Nobles and everywhere, but at the moment I’m still trying to sort the cover out.

[00:22:10] Stephen: Right. Okay. And that’s, that’s fair. Uh, that is the more difficult part. A lot of authors, it’s, I wanna write, I don’t wanna measure covers and, and all the things that go with it.

[00:22:24] Um, is she still writing? Does she have plans for a follow-up book? Maybe a sequel or a second book similar?

[00:22:31] Annabelle: Um, yeah, she has. Okay. Bella and Friends, um, they have this adventure in the Caribbean, so at the end of this book it says there’s a summer book coming and it’s called Bella’s Big Caribbean Adventure, and she was working on it up till last night.

[00:22:52] So she’s on a. She’s now on her fourth draft and it’s hilarious. It’s absolutely hilarious. [00:23:00]

[00:23:00] Stephen: So, okay, so that’s another thing. So she actually has written it out and then gone back and changed and edited. Um, and is she going back to hit all those beats and the points, is she correcting grammar? Uh, what is she focusing on when she does that?

[00:23:18] Annabelle: Um, what I, I’d say what she’s focusing on and how she wrote this book compared to the other one, I would say she kind of got this one down quite quickly. She focused on the main beats, and now what she’s doing is filling in the gaps. So she’s not looking at grammar or anything. It’s, it’s a, it’s partially draft, partially in prose, depending on how far she wants to race through the chapters.

[00:23:47] So she’s got all the main beats down, but she’s filling in, I think she’s like in fun and games right now, so she’s working her way up to midpoint, but she’s got the midpoint scene already. So that’s what she’s doing? Yeah.

[00:23:59] Stephen: Okay. [00:24:00] Nice. I, I like, I like that too. I mean, that’s there, there’s probably going to be some, uh, adult authors listening and going, man, that kid’s got it together.

[00:24:11] Uh, you know, as a, you know, good inspiration for the rest of us. Does she have any favorite, uh, books that she likes to read or favorite authors? Author,

[00:24:21] Annabelle: definitely. She loves David Williams. She loves, like most of his books, she’s gone through them all. David bde, um, Trish Cook, uh, who else? There’s so many. Um, she’s actually reading one at the moment.

[00:24:37] That is her classroom book. ’cause they’re actually going through the book. They’re studying the, the chapters. And she asked me if I could buy her a copy ’cause she’s not allowed to bring the book home. And it arrived yesterday from Amazon and it’s called the London Eye Mysteries. And when she told me the title, I was like, Ooh, that sounds so good.

[00:24:58] And we need to, I need to know what it’s [00:25:00] about. ’cause we’re not far really from the London night. It’s just a 15 minute drive from where we are. So I can’t remember who that’s from though. I can’t remember who wrote that. But yeah, she’s gone through a lot of books where either cats are involved and dogs, there’s so many.

[00:25:18] Yeah, there’s piles and piles. She loves Jacqueline Wilson. Um, and her latest one, the Runaway Girls I bought for her recently, the Hat Makers, can’t remember who wrote that. It was a new author. But yeah, her, her shelf or her, her, yeah. Her bookshelf has got so many books and she’s such a quick reader and she takes loads of books to school, playground time.

[00:25:42] She’s the kid that’s reading. It’s always been that way. So it doesn’t surprise me. I can really, I’m so glad. Yeah. ’cause I was a, I, I love books like most kids do, but you know, I was very happy that she kind of, You know, it went that way as well, [00:26:00]

[00:26:00] Stephen: so, yeah. That’s good. Um, okay, so tell us once again before we go, uh, what’s the name of the book, uh, and where we can find it at the moment.

[00:26:10] Annabelle: Okay. The book is lost in Christmas Wonderland. It’s available on Amazon International, and Annabel also has a website, annabel.com. She has a YouTube channel that she’s building and it’s Annabelle presents. ’cause I forgot to say she loves presenting too. Um, of, of login and yeah, you’ll find everything that you need right there on Instagram.

[00:26:36] She’s done as Annabelle presents as well. Uh, she put up something the other day about the book she’s writing on now. Um, works in progress. So she just kind of put up a page. She works on Scrivener ’cause I do. And I said, look, this is really good software. ’cause you don’t have to scroll and scroll. It’s just click, click, click and you’re everywhere.

[00:26:57] So yeah, she put up a, a [00:27:00] screenshot of her title page. And she hid some of the chapters with lovely tropical emojis just to hide the story a bit. So,

[00:27:11] Stephen: so in Scrivener, does, does she break it out in, uh, chapters and then able to move them around and things like that?

[00:27:19] Annabelle: Um, no. She, well, eventually she does, but what she does is, or what I’ve kind of thought is like if you break it down, try and mirror what’s on the beat sheet.

[00:27:31] Right. Try not to think of them in chapters because the beats are more important. And then eventually, once you’ve got all your story together, then you can break ’em off into chapters and like leave, like focus on the ending. If you want this to end on a bit of a cliffhanger, then do it. So it’s like, yeah, so it’s broken down into the beats and then she’ll chapter them off, if you know what I mean.

[00:27:56] So that’s how, that’s how I work and that’s how she works and, okay. Yeah. You know, I’m, I’m just [00:28:00] trying to find ways for her to, you know, get through and, you know, try and do it as, as fun as possible. So that’s really it for me, but I’ve fun with it.

[00:28:10] Stephen: Right, right. I, I, I’m impressed she’s using Scrivener. Um, I mean, that seems, again, a little advanced for a nine, 10 year old.

[00:28:20] Uh, so that’s pretty cool, uh, using the tools right away.

[00:28:24] Annabelle: She doesn’t use a lot of them. I mean, Scrivener is a complex software, but I really use it in a basic way. It’s just for hanging up those beats, hanging up. We don’t really use anything else other than that. And then you compile the document into a word and then we upload it onto our WhatsApps, and then you can actually, you do, do you know that you can actually play.

[00:28:49] Your, your document on WhatsApp, like you can on the Kindle, the voice comes on and you can just play it. Really? Yes. Yes. So we do that sometimes [00:29:00] just to hear the chapter and it’s that thing where, oh yeah, that chapter sounds good. Okay. We’ll change that bit and change that part. Yeah.

[00:29:10] Stephen: Right. So, yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:11] And I think, uh, word, word now does that, and I think the new version of Scrivener actually will read the text to you. I’m

[00:29:19] Annabelle: so glad that it does. Um, I haven’t got that. I, I need to update, I need to, I really need to upgrade. But I was actually thinking one day, wouldn’t it be great if you can just press play and it can play there instead of putting it somewhere for it.

[00:29:35] Yeah. It saves so much time. Right.

[00:29:37] Stephen: Uh uh, do you use Mac or pc? I have a pc,

[00:29:41] Annabelle: but it’s, it’s 10 years old. Needs updating. Yeah.

[00:29:46] Stephen: Well, but the, the newest version of Scrivener, they finally released version three of Scrivener. It just came out and if you’ve got the older version, you can upgrade for like $25. It’s crazy.

[00:29:58] So, uh, [00:30:00] definitely, you know, maybe go check that out.

[00:30:02] Annabelle: Okay. I’ll have to, I will definitely do that. Thank you for that.

[00:30:06] Stephen: Yeah. Yeah, no problem. All right. Well, Anna, it’s been great talking to you. I wish you, uh, luck. I wish Annabel great luck. I’d love to find out, uh, follow up with her later, find out more if she gets more books out, uh, and, uh, see how that’s going with her.

[00:30:23] I. Yeah. Thank

[00:30:24] Annabelle: you. Thanks for having me and um, it’s been great talking to you, Steven. Thanks for inviting me on. Thank you for listening to Discovered Wordsmiths. Come back next week and listen to another author discuss the road they’ve traveled, and maybe sometime in the near future it might be you.