Get ready to learn more about the book Eight Dates in this discussion with sapphic author Lori L. Lake.
Join us for an exclusive peek behind the scenes as we quiz Lori L. Lake about Eight Dates, writing, reading, and more.
This book is part of the Online Dating category in the 2024 IHS Reading Challenge.
Why did you write Eight Dates?
I wrote this book due to the disastrous online dating experiences I personally had a few years back. Two things I found out: Everyone uses their most flattering photo (usually 10-25 years old!), and most everyone “lies.” **Loves Hiking and Camping = When I was a teen, I went to camp and haven’t been back since. **Enjoy Romantic Evenings and Sunsets = We’ll watch a lot of TV and enjoy the HVAC system. **Feels things deeply = Need a lot of therapy. And on and on it went. So I wrote this book and imagined Skylar’s difficult breakup and how she would handle what happened when her buddy/business partner Mitchell created an online dating profile for her.
Who is your favorite character in the book?
I’m very fond of the 8-year-old neighbor kid, Maya, who furnishes quite a lot of humor. But overall, Skylar is my favorite character. Her experiences are different from the ones I had when I tried online dating, but her sense of the craziness of the world is definitely similar to mine.
What inspired the idea for Eight Dates?
My own personal experiences of online dating made me eager to write this book. It was one of the easier ones I’ve ever attempted, too, partly because it had a lighter touch but also because I was completely in Skylar’s head.
What was the biggest challenge writing this book?
EIGHT DATES is the first novel I’ve ever written in first-person. As it turns out, after all these years of publishing, I discovered I can have a comic first person voice, and I didn’t ever know that. I felt uncertain about how effective I could write in first person, but then I read the first chapters to Jessie Chandler, and she died laughing which let me know I was writing something different from other novels and stories I’d done.
What part of Eight Dates was the most fun to write?
The dates Skylar had were a lot of fun. She got herself into a lot of different situations that totally cracked me up!
How much research did you need to do for Eight Dates?
I didn’t have to do much research at all, which was nice. I have so many friends who’ve had both fantastic and bizarre experiences with online dating, so I had lots of material. And of course I’d had my own strange run of oddities occur so I actually had more than I could spotlight in the book.
What is your writing process like?
I’m a pantser — an organic type of writer. If I plotted out a book and did an outline, I’d know the ending and most of what happened, and I’d no longer be intrigued by the book. I like to write scenes and see where they take me so that the first draft is a voyage of discovery. I imagine characters and confront them with some issue or terrible trouble and see what happens. Sometimes I wish I could be a plotter/outliner, but as it turns out, my outline is the first draft of the book!
Where do you usually write, and what do you need in your writing space to help you stay focused?
I’ve never enjoyed laptops. The keyboards are too small, the screen is at an awkward angle for my neck, and I never feel comfortable. So I work in my office in an ergonomic chair using an ergonomic keyboard and viewing a giant screen so I can have 2 or 3 different documents or browsers open at once. My office is quiet when I want it to be and allows for TV and/or music whenever I want that.
If you could spend a day with another popular author, whom would you choose?
There are SO MANY fiction writers I’d love to spend time with, but if I got to choose someone who would inspire me, I would pick Anne Lamott who is known for her essays and writing advice. I reread her writing book BIRD BY BIRD every 3 to 5 years. She’s wise and witty and funny and profane and doesn’t put up with any crap. Her way of looking at creativity is amazing to me.
How do you celebrate when you finish your book?
I’m bad at celebrating the completion. I feel like my books are never fully completed, and that can be frustrating. Usually it’s taken me so long to get the whole thing done that I’m sick of it for a while and need a break. So I guess I celebrate by going off to do something completely NOT like writing.
What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing, and by whom?
Don’t talk a lot about your project because it tends to siphon off the energy and focus. And don’t show your early/early drafts around until you’ve had the chance to review and edit thoroughly and you feel you’re honestly ready for comments and critiques. I do know some writers who can dash off their novels scene by scene and share that around as they write, but I’m not one of them.
What has helped or hindered you most when writing a book?
Uncertainty and hesitation hinder me. Since I’m an organic flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants writer, I don’t have an outline to depend upon, and that produces a bit of stress. What helps me is journaling, thinking deeply, and listening to my dreams. I also have to trust that even if I’m taking the narrative in the wrong direction, I can backtrack and rewrite and get myself back into the story.
When you’re writing an emotional or difficult scene, how do you set the mood?
It depends. Often, I don’t know that I’m going to write such a scene. The events have crept up on me, and the scene just spills out of me. Other times I know it’ll be a hard scene to write, and often I play music that feels “right.” For instance, when I was writing SNOW MOON RISING, I had Philip Glass’s soundtrack to “The Hours” on repeat. The mournful, beautiful orchestrations suited my characters’ experiences perfectly. For EIGHT DATES, I remember listening to a lot of pop/happy music: P!nk, Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston.
If you could be mentored by a famous author (living or not), who would it be?
Anne Tyler. She’s one of my heroes. Her books THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST and SAVING MORGAN are ones I like to reread.
What author in your genre do you most admire, and why?
I very much admire Carin Werlinger for the beauty of her writing, her discipline, her willingness to try things “outside the box,” and for her kindness.
What type of books do you enjoy reading the most?
Until I was about 30, it was tough to find romance books. Marketing and distributing them was a real problem in a mainstream world where queer books were not at all supported. So when desktop publishing, fan fiction, and Amazon got rolling, it was a real boon. I remember in my 30s and 40s devouring romances as if I’d been stuck on a desert island for the first three decades of my life. I had read a lot of tame pop romance and Regency romances in my teens (where you have to change one of the duo from male to female which can be a real headache), but that was obviously unsatisfactory. Eventually, I read fewer romances and moved into other kinds of fiction as well. I’ve been reading crime fiction since I was in second grade, and I love mysteries, thrillers, suspense, true crime, etc. I like humorous novels, family dramas, post-apocalyptic/dystopian sagas, space opera, military sci-fi (usually with women as the major characters), and I’m always up for reading books on writing and editing.
What books did you grow up reading?
I grew up reading fairytales, comic books, Nancy Drew, Little Women, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and the dog stories of Alfred Payson Terhune. By the time I was 11, I had read every Perry Mason book the library carried. I liked good plotting and stories where good triumphed over evil. I still tend to like happy endings, but as I got older, I also understood that happily ever after in fiction wasn’t always realistic or appropriate for the narratives I read and wrote. Most books deal with some aspect of loss or grief, and it’s the process the character(s) go through to overcome those kind of obstacles that I’m still as interested in now as I was during my youth.
Describe your favorite reading spot.
I love to sit in my recliner with an icy drink by my side and a book or my e-reader on a pillow in my lap. I have at least one recliner in four different rooms in my house, and all of those spots make me happy!
