SPEAKER_00 0:00

So I spent three years querying agents. And my manuscript, A Murder Most Fowl, still the same title back then as it is now, had 197 rejections before my literary agent, Lindsay Guzzardo, signed me. And it released on September 9th from Crooked Land Books.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Welcome to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser, a formerly repressed creative soul, turned fiction writer, story editor, and author accelerator certified fiction book coach. At Write It Scared, we tell the truth about why writing a novel is so hard by acknowledging that most writers grapple with two stories. The one they want to put on the page to the best of their ability, and the often subconscious internal story that prevents them from doing it. This show is designed to help you identify and rewrite the internal narrative holding you back while you discover and write the story you want to tell and learn all the tools to help you do that successfully. Join me each week for a new episode where we'll talk about writing to deepen our understanding of the craft and of ourselves as writers. Writing a novel is an inside job that we do not do alone. Welcome to Red It's Geared. I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hey writer, welcome back to the Red It Scared Podcast. I'm your host, Stacy, and today is a guest episode. If you're a writer who intends to enter the quarry waters or is already in them, this episode is going to help arm you with the mindset and resilience that you need to keep going despite rejection, because unfortunately, it's likely going to happen. Today I'm talking with cozy mystery author Carmela Dutra, whose debut novel, A Murder Most Fowl, which is a hilarious chicken-themed hoodunit set in the San Francisco Bay Area, came to life after nearly 200 rejections. She also went through multiple major revisions, and it all took a whole lot of elbow grease. And now, book two in the series, which is titled Hot Wings and Homicide, is slotted for publication later in 2026. Carmela shares some of the query mistakes that she made and how she handled brutal agent feedback, as well as how she set boundaries to protect her mindset while she was submitting and what it took to finally find the right agent. Carmela shares her query tips on her Substack, and I will make sure to include a link to that resource in the show notes. So if you are in the middle of querying and you're staring at a bunch of rejections, or you're in the middle of revision and you are doubting yourself, this conversation is going to remind you that although it's not glamorous, resilience with a sprinkle of humor is the way to get where you want to go. Let me give you Carmela's bio and then we'll jump into the interview. Carmella Dutra is a writer from the Bay Area who loves food trucks, family, and cozy mysteries. Her debut novel, A Murder Most Foul, has been praised by the Kirkist Review for its serious set of crimes, leavened by plenty of amusing moments, and described as the perfect escapist read, brimming with banter and an extra helping of fun by New York Times bestselling author Ellery Adams. Carmella has also been featured in Crime Reads magazine. She is a lover of humor, quirky characters, and all things geeky. She lives with her husband and two dinosaur-obsessed sons, drawing inspiration from rainy afternoons, bustling farmers' markets, and the unexpected moments that make life memorable. Hey Carmella, thank you so much for coming onto the Ride It Scared podcast. I'm so excited to have you here and talk about your debut cozy mystery novel, A Murder Most Foul, which sounds just fun and delicious. And if anybody would have been around about 10 minutes ago, Carmella surprised me by showing up on the video with this amazing like chicken costume that we laughed about for a really like long time. Was hilarious. Hilarious. So thank you again for coming on the podcast. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Thank you so much, Stacey, for having me. I'm really excited. I think that chicken head probably tells you all you need to know about me. I don't take myself too seriously. I have fun as I go about it. You are not the first podcast host to have me on a show where I've dressed up as a chicken once, but I stayed in chicken costume the entire time, just not that particular head with bookish flights. That was also a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

So are you telling me you shorted me?

SPEAKER_00 4:30

No, you got the real deal because you got the full head. She just got a onesie. So yes. So that was a chicken onesie. This you got the real McCoy of me wearing a big old latex rooster head that is really suffocating and I can't breathe. But it was definitely worth it to see your reaction.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

I love it. I love it. We're definitely gonna have to share that. I'm gonna go back through and I'm gonna screenshot that. Okay, we're gonna talk about your daily novel. But before we do that, just would love for you to share with our listeners what drew you to writing fiction, just a bit about your writer's journey.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

So I first started off with children's literature. That was in 2011 when my first picture book came out, The Adventures of Lorenzo the Bear. Just because I was a lazy ant. My nephew wanted pictures to color. He wanted me to draw some pictures for him. And my niece wanted me to write a story for her. And I didn't want to do the work twice, so I just threw it all together. So that opened up the way for me to start exploring the world of children's literature. And I went on to write five stories there. Three in the Adventures of Lorenzo the Bear series, two exploring the world of STEM education for girls with my little Katie series. And that was fantastic. That was so much fun because with my little Katie books, I was working exclusively with school districts in my area. So I would go in for author visits, talk with kids about girls and STEM, encourage them. We'd use that book and it aligned with the Common Core standards in this area. So it was great. I always knew that I wanted to write something more, do something bigger, but I always held myself back. Oh, it was overwhelming because I'm used to a thousand words, roughly, a thousand fifteen hundred. So the thought of writing something that was 80,000 words just it scared me. It really did. And I had imposter syndrome, you couldn't do it, stick with what you know. Then pandemic happened. And just like everybody in the world, we had all this free time on our hands. So I decided to use that time to write a novel. And I chose to write a sci-fi, and it was horrible. I don't know why I did it. But I queried that sci-fi novel, and God it was so awful. I still can't believe agents requested it. Uh, but I did. I had several agents request it, and out of those agents, they all came back saying very similar things to me that there was too much comedy, that there was already some mystery that was laying in the groundwork with what I had written. So several had suggested I tried my hand at a rom-com because my voice lended itself to that. And then I remember one agent had said, Why don't you try cozy mystery? I think you would do really well in that market. And it was like a light bulb moment. Why I hadn't tried cozy mystery. That's over 80% of my bookshelf is the mystery genre. So I did it. I buckled down, I wrote a cozy mystery, and I got it as best as I could do it. And then I queried literary agents. So I spent three years querying agents. And my manuscript, A Murder Most Foul, still the same title back then as it is now, had 197 rejections before my literary agent, Lindsay Guzzardo, signed me. And here it is today. It released on September 9th from Crooked Land Books.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Wow, congratulations. That's I want to dig into all of that and dig into how you felt during the time between querying a sci-fi and then querying the cozy mystery and experiencing those rejections. And that's a lot of feedback from agents I've queried and I have only heard crickets. So to get feedback, that's unusual. What do you attribute to that?

SPEAKER_00 8:12

I was really fortunate to receive feedback throughout the process, both with my sci-fi novel and with my cozy mystery. I do realize from connecting with other authors who are querying that is not the norm to get as detailed feedback as I did. And I'm so grateful to those agents who did take the time to give me their thoughts, their opinions. I was really careful to make sure that, if at all possible, I tailored each query letter to the agent. I did my research. So I would use that in my query letter, which I do think helped with some of the feedback that I had received.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Doesn't it make you feel a bit like a stockist?

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Yeah, I did. I totally did. It did me too.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Me too. I'm like, oh my gosh. But I get where you're coming from. And were these cold queries or live pitches for the most part?

SPEAKER_00 9:14

All cold queries. I never did a live pitch. I never quite figured out how to do that. I know that there were conferences that you could join, but I also had two small kids at that time when I was querying, and I couldn't figure out like how am I going to be able to juggle doing a live pitch on Zoom with a toddler. And I think my oldest was like four or something at the time. I'm like, I'm not going to be able to do that. So I just did five queries.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Excuse me. Excuse me for this Zoom bomb who is my six-year-old. I know. Yeah, totally. I totally get that. Okay, let's talk about the book, A Murder Most Foul. So what's it about and who will it appeal to?

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Ideally, it'll appeal to fans who love Joanne Flauke, Lucy Burdette. There's also a lot of comedy in the book. So if you like the Finley Donovan series by El Cosanino, that's right up your alley, too. The Stephanie Plum series by Jenny Ivanovich. So it's about a set of fraternal twins who run a chicken-themed food truck called Clucking Good. They inherited it from their late aunt Dolly, who passed away, and they enter a food truck challenge. So if you've ever think of whatever your favorite cooking show is, for me, I comp it as the Great Food Truck Race meets only murders in the building. So it's a favorite food. You're that's really that's the best way. If you're familiar with those two, then you get the full sense of this book. There's so much comedy, there's so much antics. My main character, Beth, has no reason, like most luths, to be trying to solve the murder, but she is a true crime buff and is convinced something is going on. And she's gonna solve the case no matter how she has to do it. She's actually, she's the older twin by two minutes, but she was born on leap day and her parents never changed it. So she's legally seven years younger than her brother, which I thought was great at the time, but now I'm like, oh my god, I have to do so much math. Like he's blocked in me. And I'm like, I hate this. I'm like, why did I do that to myself? But it does work. Thankfully, my husband does all the math for me to make sure and keep on track.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Okay, so there's these two sisters, they inherit a food truck, and there is a there's a competition and a murder.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Yeah, it's uh paternal brother and sister. So it's Beth and Seth. Beth Beth and Seth and Beth's best friend Riley, and she's the one who wears the the chicken suit. This the chicken suit. And so she's actually modeled after my best friend, who I do make wear chicken suit at my book sightings, and I have video proof of it. So anybody can go onto my socials, watch those videos as she's walking around the store in a giant inflatable chicken suit.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

I am giving your best friend a gold star right now.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

That is what she secretly loves it. She secretly loves it.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

I don't know if you and I should get in the same room together.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Except worried about the out. Are you second-guessing us meeting up in the middle because we didn't found out that we live only a few hours away from each other? We're like, oh, this could be so much fun. This could be pretty epic. I see shenanigans.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Okay. So tell me about the seeds of inspiration for this particular project. It sounds like you you definitely got some go-aheads here to consider writing in the cozy mystery space. And then your bookshelf is apparently filled with mystery. So, where did the kernels come from for this particular story idea?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

So the twins, Beth and Seth, are loosely modeled after my grandmother and her identical twin sister. And growing up, they always dressed alike, you couldn't tell them apart, everything about them was identical. But they were constantly arguing about the most ridiculous things. So this particular story came about because I remember one night I was out on a date with my husband, and my grandma called me to complain about something. I don't even remember what it was. But by the end of our conversation, she felt better and I was laughing hysterically. So I told my husband, and he's like, You should write a book about them. And I'm like, but if I did, they would kill each other. And then I was like, Oh, wait a minute. What if I do this? But what if they solved the murder? So then we're sitting in the restaurant, and I'm like, okay, talk about this with me. What's gonna happen? And excuse me, he's like, Your family is obsessed with fried chicken. He's like, You should have something chicken related with it. And we were in a chicken restaurant called Plucked. So that's where the chicken idea came from, the twin element. And I knew I wanted it to be in the Bay Area because that's where I'm from. I'm a native. I wanted to take my favorite parts of the Bay Area and create this fictional town where my twins live. I'm like, how could I do it? What could I do that would be unique, that would be catchy, that is also fresh. Because while I love bookshop, cozy mystery, coffee shop, librarians, there is an oversaturation of them sometimes. So there happened to be a food truck driving by. My husband said, What about a food truck? It could be mobile, you could go throughout the whole Bay Area, and there could you the possibilities are endless. So that's how it all came about. And then the cooking competition parts came because we were watching Chomped. And then it was where, like, oh, what if that turned deadly? And the name chomped, and yeah. So that's how it all meshed together.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

That is the most fun origin story. And I also want to give your husband a gold star. Awesome. What a great guy to roll this around with you. That is the super supportive. That's so fun. That is so fun.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

He's super supportive. Sometimes he he questions what did he get himself into because I make him put pretend to be the victim while I have to test stuff out. So sometimes he does draw the line when I need to like I'm I was trying to figure out which way a guy would fall if he gets need, and he's I'm not doing that. And I'm like, so so he does have his boundaries.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

So what did you find challenging about writing in this genre? Because this was your first time writing mystery. Did you have any challenges? Was there anything in particular that made you pull your hair out?

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Oh, totally. Like most authors, I had a saggy middle and I didn't know how to fix it. I also did not plot this book when I wrote it the first the any of the times really when I went through it. As I was writing it in my mind, I'm like, anybody could be the killer. I'll figure it out when the reader figures it out. So I'm just gonna pant my way through it. And why I did that, I don't know, because I always did plot my picture books and I always knew how things were gonna go from start to finish. When I look back, I had such a loose vision of how it was gonna go, so that there was the very thin plot there. So my biggest thing there was trying to how am I gonna make it better? Because I'm getting all these rejections. Each time I'm getting them, I was learning which were your form rejections, which ones were the genuine feedback, filtering that. I started getting some of the same feedback. Okay, I need to tighten this. Oh, and I also slipped between tenses so much, I didn't even realize I was doing that. That was a really big thing that a lot of agents pointed out to me is even within the same sentence, I was slipping between my tenses. So I needed to go back and really flag and catch all of that to make sure that I was which way I was gonna go. Am I gonna do past or present? So I ended up settling with a present tense, which caused a lot of work to go back and edit all that to make sure that okay, it's all reading the way it needs to be.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Sure. So if I remember correctly, you said that you queried this over three years of three-year period of time. And there was like 197 rejections for this particular story. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Yeah, this particular story was 197. Overall, counting my sci-fi when I started that until my agent signed me was three years. So this particular manuscript was probably what two years of query.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Okay. It sounds, and maybe I'm wrong, and tell me if I am, but it sounds like you queried and then you made adjustment to the manuscript and then you continued. So walk us through the process of revising this book based on feedback that you were getting.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

I did revise as I went along. I couldn't leave it alone. And I was at the point of I need to just leave it alone because I'm constantly making changes to it, but I couldn't leave it alone. So I noticed that there was the same consistent feedback. Then that was telling me something that in the saggy middle was a big feedback, that it lost momentum, that I needed to do something there. I needed to tighten it. Thankfully, and again, this is where I realized it's not the norm, but I did have some agents even edit my manuscript to a certain up to a certain point. There was one agent who edited the first two chapters to show me where where it needed to be worked because I was struggling with my tenses, I was struggling with a few scene developments. So she wanted me to understand her feedback because she gave me an R. And then I had a few other agents do that as well. And they gave me RRs. They would give me like a chapter or 10 pages worth of edits so I could see what they were trying to explain to me. And then I would go through, I would work on that, I would send it back. And most of them always, yeah, most of them always came back. They all came back as rejections, even with those RRs and those pull requests.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Yeah, that's tough. And I think it's amazing that you were able to get the level of feedback and how granular that it actually was to approach an RR. I think a lot of us we get ours and there's some wistful direction. And then we have to make a very hard decision as to are we going to spend the time to rework and revamp this whole thing? And it would be very helpful if we could see more clearly what isn't working. And it's so subjective, really is how it is.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

And I hate to say that because it is it's such an awful thing to say, but it's true. Because you'll get one agent tear it apart of how horrible it was. And then five minutes later, I get another agent. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited for this. Please send me the full manuscript. And just filtering all of that out, and it can get really overwhelming and it can take a mental toll on you.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Yeah. So tell us about that mental toll about receiving all these rejections. And I can't imagine like the resiliency and how much you had to dig in and how to keep believing in the project to continue to query it. So what was it like? And how did you where'd you find your bootstraps? And can I get a pair?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

I handle criticism really well. So that is a strength for me. Sometimes it could also be a negative thing as well. And I know I'm not everyone's. I'm not gonna be everyone's cup of coffee, cup of tea, take near lead me. That's just how my personality is. So for me, I knew it wasn't personal, and I made sure to always tell myself, this is not personal. This is it's business, it's work. And if they don't fall in love with it, they're not gonna be able to sell it. I have to have somebody who's going to be able to truly believe in it, to champion me. And if they don't have those feelings, I don't want to work with them. So I just kept reminding myself, it's business just like everything else. It's not personal against you. And then I also set boundaries for myself. I made sure that I only checked my email between certain periods of time during the week, and I turned off all notifications. So nothing would pop up, there'd be no sounds, there'd be nothing to distract me. And then those set times, I would go and I would look, I would deal with what I needed to deal with, and then I would just keep focusing on other projects, other writing, my life, what have you.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

I love that. Boundaries are very difficult to set, especially with ourselves. I think they're the hardest to set when it comes to ourselves. Yeah. So was there ever a particular time when you felt like giving up?

SPEAKER_00 20:57

It was right toward the end, right before my agent offered me representation. By that point, I already had two other agents who had expressed interest. One did offer me representation and they ended up ghosting me. Found out later that agent left the business. And there were so many red flags with both of those, two of these other agents. But that one in particular had admitted on our Zoom call they never finished reading my manuscript. But they were offering me representation. I'm like, how can you offer me representation if you haven't finished my manuscript? And when I asked for feedback, okay, what needs to be what needs to be fixed? Because I knew there was a lot of work that needed to be done. And oh no, there's not that much. Just just go through and give me some more quirk. That's all it needs. And then I end up getting ghosted. And then there was another agent who was a R, left it open ended. And I thought about it for a long time. Okay, let me reach back out. Because not everything of the feedback resonated with me, but some of it did. And I Expressed that in the email that these are the points that I changed, these are the points that I'm keeping that I'm not gonna budge on. Would you be open to looking at it again? So we had great email conversations back and forth. And I've been very transparent about my journey from the beginning, what feedback looks like, what criticism I've been getting. I had an agent tell me to stop pursuing this. I've shared all of that. So I had shared how it can be really difficult when you have one agent tell you why XYZ things don't work and they don't like it. And then you had another agent within five minutes tell you, I love it because of ABC things. And the agent didn't like that I shared that. And sent me an email about eight hours later, pulled everything, never wanted to talk with me again, were pulling themselves from all future work that I would ever write because they didn't believe in sharing transparency and in opening up that door to the world of sharing to help other authors. So at that point, I was really starting to think in it like I'm really exhausting my options. I don't know if there's gonna be anything that's gonna work with this book. This might be, I just have to shelve it and come back to it at another time. That might be a project that never goes anywhere. And then it was a week later that my agent offered me representation.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

I'm so happy for you.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Thanks. She is amazing. My agent, Lindsay Guzzardo. For me, my dream agent has always been somebody who would believe in my manuscript, even with all the flaws, and help me to get it to where it needs to be and be that champion. And that was Lindsay. And she was very honest with me. She had told me that it was gonna need a lot of work. And we talked about it, and she was ready to do the hard work with me. So after we signed, we spent nine and months completely restructuring my manuscript from start to finish. And the final product is night and day from what she read and saw that glimmer of something in a horrible lump of coal and helped me to turn it into what it is today.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Wow. So given all that you've gone through with this particular book, and you started out with not plotting it, and I know now because I dug around that you've got another book coming out. It's slotted for next spring? Is it next spring?

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Yeah. Yeah, it's coming out in May of 26, May 12th. It's Hot Wings and Homicide. And my agent picks that title. So I absolutely love it. And it's following, it follows up after book one. So each one can be read as a standalone, but there'll be stuff that ties it together. And that is where my twins go to a food festival in the Bay Area. I don't know. Are you familiar with Foodie Land? Do they have I think they have that where it travels up to Sacramento in that area? I don't know. Um okay, so Foodie Land is a real festival that comes to Bay Area every summer. And there's every type of food vendor you can think of is there. They have live entertainment, they have game sections, they have craft booths. And so I based book two off of that festival. And so in my book, it's called The Flavors of the Bay Festival.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Nice. So my question is, has anything changed about your writing process since you've since all the things that you've gone through?

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Learned to plot. My agent is a huge plotter. And so she she gave me psi seals for screenwriting. And it's in there's a whole section there about plotting and how the elements for writing a screenplay is the same for writing a novel. So she gave me that as homework to read it, to make notes, to go through it and familiarize myself and to learn how to plot. And then I had to prove that I did the work and I had to provide her with a plot outline for this manuscript. And all of that was before she offered me representation. Um so she edited my first 50 pages of my book before she offered representation because she wanted to make sure that we aligned together, that her vision would work for me. And I knew then I'm like, oh, she was my agent. I've even told, you can adopt me. I'm like, I don't care. I'm like, I'll put in the paperwork. I don't care that I'm way past the age. I'm like, just keep me. We work really well together. And I think she even believes more strongly in this series than I do, which is what I needed. That's what all authors need is that champion who truly believes in their writing. So I'm really fortunate to have found her.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

I love that. I love that. I'm so happy for you. That's amazing. And your books just sound no pun intended, but deliciously witty. And I just feel like a lightness and an effervescence about them. So I'm excited for them to be out in the world. So when you look back on your writing life, and you mentioned this a little bit about imposter syndrome and trying to wrap your head around writing something that's 80,000 words versus writing something that's 1500 to 2000. When you look back, what did self-doubt look like for you early in the novel writing? And what does it look like now that you've come forward and conquered some of the milestones that that many of us are facing?

SPEAKER_00 27:11

It's still very similar. When I was first querying, especially with all the rejections, it was this is crap. Nobody's gonna like this. No, no agent's gonna want this. You literally just wrote a steaming pile of crap and let it go. That was especially in the beginning when I knew that I queried too soon. That was a big hurdle that I had to overcome. Is I'd shot myself in the foot in the beginning because I really struggled with that fear of missing the open window to query agents. And I remember thinking, I was like, okay, a lot of agents take a while to get back to you. So if I just query now, right before they close, I'll have plenty of time to work on my manuscript, get it finished, get it where it needs to be, and then on the off-channel, if they're interested, I'll be ready to go. Don't do that. Take a lesson from me. Don't do that. I had an agent within 24 hours request the full manuscript. And she had just closed. Literally, I had just got it in right as she was closy. And I can it. And the first thing I did was I Googled, how long do I have before I have to reply and send her the full manuscript? So it the general consensus was two days. So I had a babysitter. Why did I use that time to go to the movie? I yeah, that's what I I went to the movies and then I came home, and then I just like dove into it for a day and a half, like around the flock, doing what I could to try to bring it up to snuff. It wasn't ready. So that was also where a lot of imposter syndrome came in because that was where I had agents tell me I don't think this was ready to query yet. But it closed the door because they weren't interested in seeing anything further. And so it was like, you sh you went too fast, you made a mistake, you should just stop. That was a lot in the beginning of what my imposter syndrome looked like then. And so now it's I still have those moments where it's nobody's gonna like this. Readers are gonna think it's crap, nobody's gonna be interested in it. There's too much humor, no one's gonna like it. So my friend named my imposter syndrome Peggy. So when I tell her that I don't know why she picked that name. No, no offense to anybody listening if your name is Peggy, but that was just a random name she pulled one day. And she's tell Peggy to shut up and tell Peggy to go away. So she'll randomly send me those messages when I'm having problems. And she's like, Tell Peggy to shut up and leave you alone.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

I love that. It's actually that the naming and the putting in the corner technique is something that I do not always successfully, but also something I tell my clients about. Yeah, just I I go with Brenda. It's always Brenda for me. I again no offense. This is a bad thing. No offense any Brendas out there. But I have too many friends that named Karen that I love. So I can't use Karen. It's an overused one. Come on, we gotta go with something fresh now, right? We're creative people, we can come up with something better. Peggy, Brenda, whatever. Yeah. Thank you for your honesty and your vulnerability about the process and what it felt like to go through that. And I can't imagine like having someone tell you to stop, like that this is not the right lane for you.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Oh, that was funny. Oh, that's really actually funny. So this particular agent requested my manuscript within 24 hours. And so I sent it. And within 24 hours, I got three words, not for me. That was my rejection. All right. A week later, I got another reply from the same agent, three paragraphs long, explaining why not only he didn't like it, but why his assistant didn't like it. And just tore it apart horribly. And at the very end, the last things were said, stop pursuing this. And I just I remember Lat scene, and my husband said, What are you laughing about? So I read it to him. He's like, Wow, he seriously got something up him. And I'm like, you know what? He's still thinking about me a week later. I was living rent-free for a whole week in his head. I'm totally okay with that. And then, of course, my husband being so supportive, he's like, Can you dedicate book two to him? And I didn't, but yeah, and I like also think too, like, if a different author who is because writing anything creative is so personal, you're sharing a part of yourself, you're putting it out in the world and you're hoping that people are going to like it. And it can be very vulnerable. Oftentimes anybody in the creative industry is sensitive, and there's nothing wrong with that. If someone who is on the more sensitive side received feedback like that, it could have been crushing to the point that they fully give up all together. I would like to hope that particular agent that's not their norm, and that I'm the only one who got feedback like that. I don't know. And if I am, I'm happy that it was me because I can handle feedback like that because that's that was their personal opinions. And like I tell my friends, opinions are like armpits. Everyone has them and most of them stink. So you have to filter through what sits well with you and what doesn't fair.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Any advice for writers who are querying for their first time? Any tips? I know you said number one, don't query too soon.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

That's my biggest tip. Don't query too soon. That's my biggest one. And the reason why is because oftentimes once you do query and you get that rejection, you don't get a second chance with that manuscript unless they give you that opportunity or their directions on their website explain if you've done such a major overhaul, then you can resubmit it to them. So take your time. Agents are always going to be opening and closing. You're not going to miss your opportunity. You're going to have chances to query them later. Had I waited, I would have had a chance nine months later to query that agent who rejected me, the very first one. And if you can try not to get in your head about it, try not to get in your head about it, that's easier said than done. And having a writing community can just that is so helpful. Being able to, in a safe place, talk with other authors, especially if they're going through the same process as you. You can vent, you can share your struggles, you can do so in a safe space. And also to share your highs too, because when you get that first rejection, celebrate it. It's a rejection, it's your first rejection. You should celebrate it. That somebody took the time to read your query. They took the time to read your manuscript, your sample pages, celebrate it. Your first partial request, your first full, celebrate it. Your first personalized rejection. Celebrate it. Celebrate what you can, and it'll help make those other parts easier and more enjoyable.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

I love that. We're just about to wrap up. I just have a few more quick questions to close. I know you said that you were writing uh this particular manuscript. You had littles at home. You still have littles at home. So, how do you find the time to write? How do you make it happen?

SPEAKER_00 34:02

I do my best. It doesn't always look the same at first egg. I was even talking with my therapist about that the other day and what my ideal time would look like. But the ideal time just never works. That's just another way for me to procrastinate. I take what I can. I write in chunks when I have them. Thankfully, my kids are older now. They're nine and six, so they have a better understanding of when the door is shut. Close door. Yeah, unless something is broken or bleeding, do not come in here. I set timers for them too. Do not come to me until this timer ends. And my husband is so supportive. He truly has believed in my writing since day one. So when he comes home from work, again, I'm fortunate that he has a very flexible schedule and he's in construction. So he gets home early. And so when he comes home, I immediately just haul up in my windowless dungeon where I'm writing with the door shut. And then I'll come out and we'll eat dinner as a family. And that's the end of my day. So if I can get a couple hours in each day, I'm happy with it. If I can't, I'm not necessarily happy with it, but I accept it.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Yeah. And shoot for the next day.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Excellent. Do you have any particular writing advice or creative advice that you've held on to that has functioned like a North Star for you?

SPEAKER_00 35:16

I think one thing that my agent said to me is just if believe in yourself and it's if it feels right, then do it. So for me, I try one time I did try to tone back on the comedy in my manuscript and it didn't feel right. And so I just lean into that because that's who I am. And oftentimes, at least for myself, I'm writing from my own life. There's parts, even if I try to keep it separate, there's still parts that come in. My writing reflects my voice as a person. So I lean into that. If it feels right, do it. In the end, it's once once you're writing and your book comes to a certain point, it's for the reader. But it also has to be for you as the writer because you're the one who's creating and you have to enjoy the process with it.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

What would be your wish for your fellow writers out there working on their hopefully debut manuscript? What would you like to impart to them?

SPEAKER_00 36:07

I hope that they're happy with however things turn out, that they have peace. It's not a competition. There's enough readers in the world, and we need your books, we need the diversity in literature, we need to hear those stories. And don't let the negative criticism of somebody else hold you back from your true self. Share that. And I even if I don't know you and you're listening to this, I'm here. I'm champion. I'm excited for you. I want to celebrate with you. My DMs online are always open. So if you ever want to talk about query, you want to talk any of that, I want to support you and I want to share in your excitement and the community and to build each other up.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Absolutely. I love the rising tide with cell boats. So we're not alone out here. We might feel like it, but we're not. And thank you to writers like yourself who are willing to come on the podcast and share your experience and pay it forward. Pay it forward because I've been helped by so many people. And just hearing other people's stories, right? That is my definition of hope is hearing other people's experiences because I believe that gives us compassion and gives us empathy for others as well as ourselves. So I cannot thank you enough. And I've already spilled the beans a little bit, but do you want to talk about the next project that you have coming up? And then let readers know where they can find you and also find a murdermost foul, which came out September 9th. So it's been out for a couple of months, the time that we've recorded this.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

A Murder Most Foul is available anywhere books are sold in all formats: paper, hardback, ebook, audiobook. My narrator, Tina Wolstencroft, is amazing. Oh my gosh, she brought my characters to life in such a humorous way that I didn't even know was possible. So if you have Audible, if you have Kindle Unlimited, they give you one free audiobook a month. So you can listen to my book for free through Kindle Unlimited, through Audible, through Spotify. And Hot Wings and Homicide is book two that comes out May 12, 2026. So that's also set here in the Bay Area, still within the food truck realm. Oh, and you're also going to meet a real life chicken in the book. So in book one, there's the chicken costume, but in book two, Beth befriends a chicken who becomes her emotional support chicken. And her twin brother Seth is dressed up as a giant cow. So there's a lot of stuff that happens in that book to bring in the comedy. And then in book two, Beth's ex-boyfriend is a notorious food critic who drops dead at the festival. So suspicion lands not just on her, but on her brother Seth as well. So again, stakes are personal for them, just like it was in book one. And yep, so that's exciting. I do have another project that I'll be turning into my agent soon for a different series. So fingers crossed. We'll see how that one works out, too.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

All right. Where's the best place for listeners to find you?

SPEAKER_00 39:00

I'm very active on social media: Instagram, author Carmella, Facebook, Author Carmela Dutra, Threads, Author Carmella, Twitter. I'll always call it Twitter. I'm not as active on there, but I am on there, Author Carmela. All my handles are on my website. And on my website, for any authors listening to this, I have a whole series just for you, a blog series called An Author's Guide to Querying, where I share what I learned, what I experienced, the highs, the lows, the negatives. And then I go, that's a six-part series. I even share parts of my query letter in it. And I just started a new one for authors who have, yay, got their agent. But what does submission look like for you? So I'm going through that series to share my experience with going on submission to editors.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

That is amazing. And I will put all of those links in the show notes and direct links to the blog guide series, too. That's fantastic. Thank you so much for your time today. It was just wonderful to have you. Cannot wait to see more of your work out in the world. Thank you so much, Stacy. Thank you for listening to the Write It Scared podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please make sure to hit the follow button so you never miss an episode. And please leave a review. Reviews help other writers like you find the voices and messages they need to hear to continue to write their stories. Let's lift each other up. Remember, you can be scared and still be unstoppable. I'll see you next week.