Notes from the Shelf

Today’s Featured Author: Lacie M Lou

I met Lacie at the Kenosha Book-a-ween event last October, and we finally were able to connect for an interview over Zoom! I loved chatting with her and getting to see her cat, Esme. Enjoy the interview!

Meet Lacie

Lacie M. Lou is an epic fantasy author from Madison, WI. She made her author debut with The Aurorian Trilogy. Lacie is a cat mom to a chonky cat named Esme. In her free time, Lacie enjoys hiking, dancing, playing board games with friends, and video games with her husband. On a typical evening you can find her and Esme curled up on “their spot” on the couch writing, eating popcorn, and drinking caffeine past a “reasonable hour.”

Q&A

What inspired you to start writing in general?

I have always really loved telling stories. As a kid, I really liked making up stories to go along with playing with my Barbies. Also, I used to play with dinosaurs and come up with these elaborate world systems and send them on crazy adventures and wars with neighboring kingdom. You know, classic girl stuff.

In high school, I wrote a lot of poetry for myself, just because I enjoyed expressing myself that way.

It was after I graduated college, my first roommate after graduation participated in national novel writing month in November (NaNoWriMo), and she said I should do it with her. That was my first foray into writing in a more formal sense. That was in 2018, and that just kind of started me off with building the world that my trilogy takes place. 

Sara: So, the NaNoWriMo was the setting, but not necessarily the story of your trilogy? 

Yeah, NaNoWriMo was the world itself. I came up with a concept for a world that was a planet, but also at one time was a goddess. 

The story originally was a portal fantasy that brought a girl from Earth into this fantasy setting, and it turns out she’s actually the long-lost heir. That was the original concept, and I’ve just built upon that ever since. Also, it’s no longer a portal fantasy, just fantasy. 

What inspires you to continue writing?

I just really enjoy it. I like being able to express myself through storytelling, and it’s something I’ve always done since I was a kid. Getting to be able to continue doing that and connecting with readers and hearing how my stories connect with them and resonate with them really means a lot. I can be a bit introverted and am not always good at expressing my emotions directly, so being able to pour out those things and share a piece of myself through writing is an exciting outlet to explore. 

When did you know you wanted to publish a book?

Definitely not in 2018. I wrote the first book in the world in 2018 and edited it. I wrote the second and third books in 2019 and part of 2020. 

I definitely didn’t think at that point that any of those would get published. I was just really enjoying writing this story and having a lot of fun with it.

I took a bit of a break during the pandemic, which is kind of the opposite of what a lot of people did, where they ramped up writing during the pandemic. I actually stopped. 

When I came back to that story in 2023, I came back with the intention of publishing, but I read it and didn’t like it anymore, so I scratched it and restarted the whole story, which became the published trilogy today.

How did you first get published?

I’m self-published. Initially with the first manuscript, while I was still putting the final polish on it, I shopped it around to a few publishing houses. 

I never heard back from a single one, which in hindsight was more of like a blessing. I did self-fund my trilogy, and now I am just grinding at events to sell my book and connect with readers. 

However, self-publishing has been the freest way of doing it, and I mean free in the sense that I have total control, not free in the monetary sense. Publishing is expensive, but I was really lucky to connect with other people who have done it and learn from them on the right tools and how to price and market my book. It doesn’t get done without a community.

You can write in a bubble, but you can’t necessarily publish in a bubble. You can do all the writing, and maybe a few editing passes, but then you need to have other people read it and truly be honest when editing it.

Then you send it to arc readers, which is where I’ve gotten a lot of my community from, because if they got the book in advance, then I was able to engage with them a lot. I definitely didn’t publish it alone. There were a lot of people along the way who took a chance on my writing and helped me carry it to the finish line.

Sara: That’s fair. It really does take a village to do anything.

It does. Everything worth doing is so much better when you’re doing it with somebody else. It’s so lonely, otherwise; it’s easy to be lonely as a writer. 

What is your writing routine?

Right now, it’s a little bit more chaotic and sporadic, but when I was writing the trilogy, I was working on it every night in the evening for at least an hour. On the weekends I worked on it like a full-time job, about 8 hours a day, which I’m not sure I would recommend because it can be really exhausting and can burn you out. It did enable me to finish the trilogy faster, but it was really tiring.

Now I spend a few hours for three to four nights a week, but it’s not always necessarily writing. A lot of time is for marketing right now. I’m also preparing to do my first Kickstarter campaign for special editions of the trilogy.

So, my schedule is a little bit different than normal since the books already exist, and most of my time now is just going back and doing extra art and stuff with them. 

Have you dealt with writer’s block and how do you handle it?

I’ve had writer’s block so many times, like multiple times with each book.

Usually, if I get writer’s block, I try to do something else. I’ll go for a walk a lot of times. I also use my husband as a sounding board when I have things that I need to think through, or I’ll run ideas with him when I’m blocked on things. If I’m not running them by him, I’m probably running them by a friend.

So yeah, dealing with writer’s block is usually I stop writing, go exercise for a little bit to try to like clear my thoughts and get my body moving, and then talk it over with somebody.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

I’ve been very inspired by people who I’ve connected with, who have been writers for a long time before me. I think just from seeing their careers, even as indie authors who have self-published, the biggest thing is just to keep going. Don’t stop at your first book or your first manuscript. 

Don’t even stop at your fifth. I have friends who have written 15 books. You can see how much they’ve grown from the first book to the most recent because they just keep practicing.

I think what helped me the best was rather than take my original concept that I started with in 2018, I rewrote it.

It was the practice of writing from scratch and writing concepts that led me to finding my voice. It’s practicing that skill set, and that is something I learned from other authors. 

I think that would be my best advice: to not be afraid to try again and keep practicing and keep going. Don’t stop.

Which books or authors have most influenced your writing?

Initially, it was The Remnant Chronicles by Mary E Pearson. It’s one of my favorite trilogies. I really loved the way she wrote the characters and the politics in the world. I felt so inspired by that, and there’s definitely influence from that in a lot of my trilogy.

I also love Avatar the Last Air Bender and She-Ra the Princesses of Power. I like their themes of found family and the different magical elements and how they’re presented. It’s so creative.

I was also a big Goosebumps kid. I know my love for Goosebumps shows up in the darker emotional storytelling.

What books are you currently reading?

I’m actually about to start Foul Lady Fortune by Chloe Gong, she’s one of my auto-buy authors. I literally have only read two of her books, and I loved them so much that I have bought every other book that she’s written since, even though I haven’t read any of them yet. 

This is the continuation of her first duology, which is based on Romeo and Juliet, but it’s set in an alternate 1930s gangster Shanghai. It follows Juliet’s cousin as she becomes a spy. 

I’m very excited to start digging into it. 

What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?

I believe that I am introverted at heart, and I think that would probably surprise people, because I’m very good at turning on the extrovert battery pack when I need to.

If you’ve met me in person, you might not realize that. The smiley, happy bubbly person that’s standing across from you behind her books is fighting for her life against anxiety and imposter syndrome and just wants to be at home.

What are you currently writing? Anything coming out soon?

I’m working on an interconnected prequel to the trilogy right now that follows two of the characters that readers meet in the first book of the trilogy. It follows them when they meet at warrior school and fall in love. It’ll be an interconnected standalone, so you could read it on its own or read it as a prequel to the trilogy.

This is my first foray into writing something that is romance-centric. My trilogy has romance as a secondary plot in books 2 and 3, but it’s not the focus of the story.

It’s been really cool to challenge myself with my writing in this one as well and also to write something that is sapphic. It’s been really interesting getting to explore writing romance and queer romance, especially, as a queer woman myself.

December 2026 is the earliest it’ll be released. I’m about to send it over to developmental readers, so we’ll have to see how that process goes. That’ll determine the release timeline.

Connect with Lacie

You can keep up with Lacie’s writing journey on her website laciemloubooks.com or on Instagram. Be sure to follow along on her writing journey to bring the prequel Fire in Our Veins to life! Also, keep an eye out for her Kickstarter campaign for the special editions of her trilogy.

Wrapping Up

A big thanks to Lacie for taking the time to interview with me. I loved it when she said you can write in a bubble, but you can’t get it published without a community, even when self-publishing. I loved her emphasis on building a community who loves your writing and wants to see you succeed.

You can find Lacie M. Lou’s books through Bookshop.org. Every purchase supports independent bookstores and helps sustain Notes from the Shelf. (Affiliate link; I may earn a small commission.)

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