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Craft Chat Chronicles
Craft Chat Chronicles
Episode 9: Turning Rejections into Bestsellers with Author Kimberly Latrice Jones
Ever wondered how a former clown from Ringling Brothers transitions to writing a Joker graphic novel for DC Comics? Join us on this episode of Craft Chat Chronicles as we sit down with Kimberly Latrice Jones, a New York Times bestselling author and NAACP Image Award nominee. From her early ambitions of becoming a picture book author to co-writing a novel inspired by the civil unrest following Freddie Gray's death, Kimberly’s journey is both unique and inspiring. She shares intimate details about facing numerous rejections, the exhaustive revisions she endured, and the relentless promotion efforts that turned around the initial disappointing sales of her co-authored book.
Kimberly opens up about her unconventional career path, including stints as a professional boxer and production secretary for Tyler Perry, offering a fascinating perspective on creative perseverance. We discuss the art of storytelling, focusing on crafting suspense, the importance of pacing, and how to handle rejection constructively. Kimberly also breaks down her strategies for effective writing, emphasizing hard work over innate talent and sharing her go-to resources for aspiring screenwriters. From navigating complex entertainment contracts to the intricate process of turning a novel into a television series, there's a wealth of knowledge here for anyone looking to break into the creative industry.
Listen as Kimberly provides practical tips on writing with a partner, the benefits of using specific screenwriting software, and how to humanize narratives on racial injustice. She also discusses exciting upcoming projects, including a Joker graphic novel and the Aster Project, which honors victims of police violence through various art forms. Don't miss this episode packed with career insights, valuable resources, and inspirational stories that promise to fuel your creative ambitions. Tune in for an enlightening conversation with one of the most dynamic voices in literature and film today.
Keywords: Kimberly Latrice Jones, Craft Chat Chronicles, Joker graphic novel, DC Comics, New York Times bestselling author, NAACP Image Award nominee, Freddie Gray, civil unrest, rejections, revisions, promotion efforts, professional boxer, production secretary, Tyler Perry, storytelling, suspense, pacing, rejection, effective writing, aspiring screenwriters, entertainment contracts, novel to television series, writing partner, screenwriting software, humanizing narratives, racial injustice, upcoming projects, Aster Project, police violence, career insights, valuable resources, inspirational stories, creative industry, literature, film, screenwriting, screen, writing, diy mfa, mfa,drexel,drexel university, creative writing
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Welcome to Craft Chat Chronicles, the go-to podcast for tips on crafting best-selling fiction. Here at Craft Chat Chronicles, we bring you expert interviews, insights and tips on writing, publishing and marketing. Join the conversation and embark on a new chapter in your writing journey. For workshops, show notes and more information, visit jdmayalcom. That's jdmayalcom.
J.D. Myall:On season one, episode nine of Craft Chat Chronicles, we talk with New York Times best selling author, kimberly Latrice Jones. Join me and the Drexel University Alumni Association for this wonderful chat. Hello everyone, today we have a special craft chat with my dear friend, kimberly Jones. Kimberly is an incredibly talented writer. She's written a New York Times bestselling novel. She's been NAACP Image Award nominated. She's a fabulous filmmaker. She's incredibly brilliant, one of the smartest people I've ever met, incredibly humble and down to earth, and she's just a very sweet person all around, good to know and good to learn from, because she is just a genius, a master at craft. Welcome, kimmy. Let's start with your literary journey. Can you tell them the story behind the story?
Author Kimberly Jones:How did your current novel come to be my current one, or the beginning, beginning, beginning.
J.D. Myall:You know what Do? Both Go to the beginning, beginning and then work your way up to the current.
Author Kimberly Jones:So the beginning. Beginning was I initially thought that what I wanted to be was a picture book author. That was my dream. I did not realize that writing picture books is the hardest thing on the face of the planet, like people think, because it's just like a few words, that it's easy. But writing picture books is, like, really hard and it's a special skill. So I've been querying a bunch of um picture books for a while.
Author Kimberly Jones:I wasn't in the agency, and so then my dear friend gilly siegel, in around 2015, there was an incident after the death of freddie. Around the death of death of Freddie Gray, there was an article, a newspaper article, about a group of kids who got trapped behind a police barricade during the civil unrest. And so look, here's this story that, as a mom, really moved me but you know, as a middle age white woman, I don't think it's my story to tell. You know, would you be willing to write this story with me about a group of kids getting trapped in the middle of civil unrest? And I was like, of course.
Author Kimberly Jones:And so she and I started banging out this book that at the time we were calling the Neighborhood that was the original title for it and we started working on this book and what we would do at first it was we always knew we wanted it to be a dual narrative where she would write this white character and I would write a black character in the same moment, at the same time, so you can see how differently they saw the night. And what we did originally was like I would write a chapter and then she would write the exact same chapter from her character's perspective. And we gave it to a bunch of our friends and they were basically like this is trash. Nobody's going to want to read this like this.
Author Kimberly Jones:And were like all right back to the jarboard so we went back and we realized that it was like the best way to do it because people didn't want to read the same thing two chapters in a row, because it kind of takes them out of the story um is that we would leapfrog it, so like I would tell a chapter from lena's perspective and then campbell's chapter that would come next would pick up in the night of the story where where l story left off, and so by the time we got our first draft together, we were no longer calling it Neighborhood, we were calling it Mass Disturbance, because we learned that that's what civil unrest is called is a mass disturbance. And so we shopped it around. We were able to get an agent. We started writing this in 2015. We didn't get an agent until 2017. We got an agent in 2017.
Author Kimberly Jones:It took her like a year to sell it. Matter of fact, it was the end of 2018, it was like december of 2018. Um, after 15 rejection letters from publishers and editors, finally, sourcebooks was like all right, I take your little trashy books and fix it. So, uh, it was. It was trash at that stage. It had 23 more drafts after what you know what I mean.
Author Kimberly Jones:and so, um, yeah, so we, we sold it to source books. It came out um, you know, that's a. You know, when you're publishing traditionally it's a long process. We had to go developmental edits and line edits and copy edits and and acquisitions department had to figure out who was going to sell, and then marketing and all this stuff, and so when it finally came out in the world it came out in 2019 and it did okay, it didn't do great. We took a very small advance, so it earned out fairly quickly, but it definitely wasn't doing. We were so humiliated.
Author Kimberly Jones:One night we were at a party with our publisher, with the head of the publishing company, and she says something to the effect at a dinner table, and we were there with other authors from source books who were all like we were there with, like you know, like Vita Lush, who has sold a million copies of his book and stuff like that, and there she basically said in so many words that, like, our book was a little bit disappointing in terms of sales and we wanted to be like that Homer Simpson meme where we like backed into the bush, and so it's just like what are we going to do to make this work. So Gili and I got on the road like we were the next hot rap group and we would take anything that anybody would book us for. We wouldn't turn down anything If they were like we want you guys to come sign in my backyard for my child's bar mitzvah. We were like and we will be there, you know. And so we toured for six months relentlessly. We went to every library conference, we went to teachers' conferences, we went to social justice conferences, we went anywhere anybody would take us. And then, of course, as you know, in 2020, I post this video during the George Floyd protest that goes crazy viral posted by Madonna, lebron James, oprah, ava DuVernay all these people.
Author Kimberly Jones:And then people started digging around to see who I was and discovered I had a book, and this little book that had been out for a year that the publisher was a little bit disappointed in, hit the New York Times bestseller list, yeah, yeah. So so you know, we, and from there we continued to write. We wrote another, a second book, while we fly. That did really well. We wrote a short story, um, in a, in uh, an anthology called game on. And then, um, I got a new publisher and they were like we really love what you said in your speech is that way you can take the snapshot of what you were talking about and blow it out. You know, and I was like, yeah, I could do that. And so I wrote a book uh, how we can win this one? Um, how we can win race history and changing the money game that's rigged. That took the snapshot of that six minute video and blew it all the way out. I call it my reparations manifesto.
J.D. Myall:Yeah, that's it, very cool, very cool. Reflecting on all of your success, what do you think was one of the things that you did right to help you get to where you are now?
Author Kimberly Jones:I failed a lot, like I think a lot of people are afraid to fail. You know I got, I am, I am. You know I'm a neurodivergent kid. You know what I mean. I have I have ADHD. So I've, you know, focused, you know ability to process, needing dopamine to do things. You know it affects the way you navigate life. I keep saying I want to write a middle grade novel about a kid with ADHD. I'm going to call it Busy Body.
Author Kimberly Jones:But you know so I would try things and if it didn't give me the proper amount of dopamine after a while I would be like all right, that failed and I would move on and I don't feel any way about it. And so I've tried a lot of things in life and I've been successful at some things and I've failed at other things. But you know there's a, there's a blessing in every lesson and every fail is really a lesson. And so I've learned so much and I've taken so much away from each moment, from each failure, and I've lived. You know things that I'm not proud of, but one of the things I can proudly say that I'm proud of is that, like I've lived fearlessly in the sense that, like I try things that most people don't think about.
Author Kimberly Jones:You know, when people find out that I was, you know, a clown in Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, they're like how did you do that? I'm like I flunked out of college and my parents said you had to go to school. So I went to clown college and then I toured with a ringling for him. I met a boy who I thought was cute and I wanted to get in better shape and I started going to the boxing gym with him because he was a retired boxer. And after being at the boxing gym with him for months working out, his friend said that girl's really strong. I think she could take a fight. And I became a professional boxer. I won the California Golden Gloves.
Author Kimberly Jones:So like I just, I just do. I don't recommend this to children, but I just have like lived by the seat of my pants and like floated around and did whatever and it's landed me in some amazing places. I've got to work with some awesome people. I mean, I got to work for Tyler Perry just because I was unemployed and called a friend and was like, can I get a job wherever you are? And she was an older white woman and this is pre people really knowing Tyler in the way that they do now? He had just come off of the plays and was just starting movies and she was like yeah, I'm working for this amazing young black man. She's like you should come over to the office tomorrow and fill out your start paperwork. And then I pulled up and it was Tyler Perry Studios and I became his production secretary. So I just have like had no plan. To be honest, I just like failed up.
J.D. Myall:You speak multiple languages and everything you do all kind of like really fabulous things.
Author Kimberly Jones:Korean and Bulgarian.
J.D. Myall:Yep yeah, fabulous thing. Korean and bulgarian yep yeah um focusing on craft.
Author Kimberly Jones:Can you tell us a little bit about your writing process? Yeah, I go in knowing that. I go in um telling myself that I'm a shitty writer. And I do that by design, because I'm just like. If I tell myself that I'm a shitty writer, I have zero expectation. I have no desire to be a shitty writer. I have zero expectation. I have no desire to be a great writer, only to be a great editor. You can't edit a blank page, so I put shit on the page and let it go, that's it, that's my whole plan.
Speaker 4:And I am a plotter.
Author Kimberly Jones:I cannot paint. I've lived my life by the seat of my pains, but I can't write that way. So I write extremely detailed outlines. I start writing. I really and I have had outlines that were 20 pages long. Yeah, every chapter has like 40 bullets. We write out all the beats like a screenwriter.
J.D. Myall:That's cool how do you strike a balance between character?
Speaker 4:oh go ahead.
J.D. Myall:I'm sorry I can't hear you. Sweetie, you're broken up. Your hair looks. Oh, thank you, darling, can you hear me now? I can hear you now, thank you, thank you. How do you strike a balance between loss and likability?
Author Kimberly Jones:In characters or in my life.
J.D. Myall:In characters. You're so silly In characters.
Author Kimberly Jones:Yeah, like, because I have a theory that your character doesn't have to have likable qualities, a theory that your character doesn't have to have, uh, likable qualities. Like, actually the characters are more interesting if they don't have likable qualities. You just have to put them in situations where people want to see them win, right. So it's like you can be a completely flawed character. But if you're in a scenario that we've all been in and we're like, no, I don't care, you know, short of being a mass murderer or whatever, it's like I don't care about the fact that you're, you know, insecure or that you had a mean girl moment, or that maybe you said some inappropriate things.
Author Kimberly Jones:No-transcript on the face of the planet. But who do we all have beef with in life? Politicians. So because he was juxtaposed and the enemy of the politician, we put him in a situation where we're like, yes, I know he's a murderer, yes, he's having a bad day, like he's having a bad day, he is the worst person ever. But you're like I don't want to see these slimy politicians in this movie, when I'd rather see this shady, murderous, infidel win than see these creepy politicians win.
J.D. Myall:And it didn't hurt that he was eye candy too. That made it easy to root for him, not right? What do you think makes a compelling villain?
Author Kimberly Jones:You know what I'm writing right now? Do you know what I'm writing right now? None of you on this none of the 19 of you can tell anybody about this project because it hasn't been announced yet. I'm writing the Joker right now for dc, right? Oh, so I'm when are?
Speaker 4:you gonna announce because yeah.
Author Kimberly Jones:So I think they're gonna announce in like two months but I'm writing, writing his origin story for dc comics. I'm writing him when he was 15, right? So first of all, let's talk about the fact that villains always have the best outfits. Batman is running around in underpants. The penguin is in a full tuxedo. Usually one villain doesn't have extremely impeccable fashion sense. I can't name one. They're always dressed to the nines. I think the other thing that makes a villain compelling is giving them a why. Why are they like this? Because the thing is, even though you're rooting for your hero and even though you don't want them to win, the only difference between a villain and a hero is that they usually both have really traumatic things that launch them into their story, but one chose to avenge themselves and the other one chose to avenge for others.
Author Kimberly Jones:So your hero is like I want to do what's right so that this, what happened to me, never happens to anybody else. And your villain is like I'm going to make everybody who either was involved or reminds me of the people who were involved pay.
Speaker 4:Love that, love that, love that.
J.D. Myall:Suspense is often key in storytelling. How do you weave suspense into your work?
Author Kimberly Jones:the best way to read suspense into your work is to tell the audience what's happening, but don't tell your characters.
Author Kimberly Jones:So if I tell the audience that the killer is under the bed but I write the character to not know that the character is under the bed, that builds the suspense.
Author Kimberly Jones:Because when that character walks into the room and I'll take this, I'm a filmmaker as well, so this is like a more visual point but if I have that character walk in the room and you, the audience has seen Jason under the bed and the shot that I give you is Jason under the bed with the knife, and now I see the free, bare ankle of the person walking into the room oh, my God, the suspense with the knife. And now I see the free, bare ankle of the person walking into the room. Oh, my God, the suspense is killing you because you're like are they going to realize he's under the bed? Is he going to slice their ankles and they're going to have to fight for their life? Is he not under the bed anymore? Like, has he moved now? And when they look up under the bed, he's gone and now he's behind them. To me that's the best tool to build suspense is to tell your audience everything, but to tell your character nothing.
J.D. Myall:I love that. That was good. How do you ensure tension in the story? What are your tactics for keeping tension in your narrative?
Author Kimberly Jones:The best way to keep really good tension in your narrative is pacing. This is where you can't like be so in love with your baby, with your story, that you're not willing to gut it, because a lot of times what is causing you to lose the tension in the story is like too much language in between the inciting incidents, um, and not like the big inciting incident of the story, but the inciting incidents in a chapter, you know what I mean. Between that and then how they, how they get over it and what their end result looks like. So like I have a technique, gilly, and I have a technique that what we do is when we finish a book, we'll give it to our friends who are not in the publishing world, who are not, you know, fellow writers, English professors, anything like that, but people who we know are hardcore readers, who read this type of stuff all the time. And we use what we call the CBD method and we tell them we'll print them a hard copy and we'll say anytime you're confused, write a C in the margin. Anytime you're bored, write a B in the margin, and anytime you just don't care, write a D in the margin. And so we use that to know that.
Author Kimberly Jones:If they are, if they are confused, then that means that we need to clean up the language, aren't? If they are confused, then that means that we need to clean up the language. If they're bored, then we have to ask ourselves if this section even makes sense. Is it pushing the narrative forward or do we just need to gut it? And if they just don't care, that means whatever we're trying to tell we're not telling it correctly. And we find that if we gut it by the CBD method, especially when we get that back from like four or five people, I mean we don't do it for everything that people say. You know we take what we want and leave what we don't want. But if we're seeing a C almost consistently in the same places from people and the B and the D like that, then we know that we are not properly building the tension. Because you know, tension causes investment and if people are bored or don't care, then somewhere in there we're losing their investment and the tension is incorrect.
Speaker 4:Love that, love that, love that.
J.D. Myall:The journey of becoming a writer often involves a lot of rejection. You talked about getting rejected by publishers at first, before your book sold. How did you deal with rejection from querying to rejection on submission?
Author Kimberly Jones:I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to admit that like I'm kind of like a little bit super spoiled trying to get some more light over here um.
Author Kimberly Jones:I'm a little bit super spoiled in that by me going out as an author and I can talk about rejection. That was very different as a filmmaker, but as an author I was a little bit spoiled in that I was on this mission with Gili, so I had a partner. So on the days when I was down and feeling beat up, she might be up and she might have to be like come on, little Ting Ting, come over to my house, let me get you some tea, because you know, you know this about us, jd, she cooks for me to motivate. She'll come over to my house and I'm going to make you one of your favorite dishes, and Aguili is Jewish and I love her matzah soup. So she might make me some matzah or whatever and pick me up. But then there were days where she was down, where I had to give her a speech and be like listen, you know, we only need one, this wasn't our, we only need one. Yes, this wasn't our one. Yes, but we're fine, we'll be okay, you know. So we were spoiled in that sense that we had each other to lean on through that process and it usually, consistently, was like that If one of us was feeling down. The other one was like no, no, no, they were the cheerleader, like we got this. We just gotta stay the course. We just gotta call the agent and think of some other people editors we know that can be sent to, and you know that kind of thing.
Author Kimberly Jones:As a filmmaker, you never take the journey of the product on your own because it's such a collaborative. You know art. But as a screenwriter, when you're trying to get to the point where you can get the money to hire the crew, to bring on the collaborators, that part is pretty lonely and there's a lot of rejection. I'll tell you about rejection. It took me 20 years to get an agent as a screenwriter 20 years.
Author Kimberly Jones:And so, yeah, talk about rejection. I was like shit, do I even? Am I a suck at this? Should I stop? And what has helped me along the way was just creating right, like making man. I got some films that are so embarrassingly bad, you know. But it's like just making crappy stuff with my friends and seeing where we did it wrong and making it better the next time and better the next time, and better the next time. And in that act of doing um, you get moments of victory because you know me and my friends. You know it took me 20 years to get an agent, but there were times that our little projects made it into a film festival so we got that moment of encouragement.
Author Kimberly Jones:You know we we made a short film that caused the CDC to make us want to make a documentary for them about HIV awareness, and so we got that victory. So the victories are in the doing so. Part of how you deal with rejection is literally just to keep going. I could tell you about almost 30 years in entertainment and you know I've worked in everything from music and film and all that stuff I have watched over the past 30 years. I have watched hard work beat talent every single day. Every single day, I watch hard work beat talent. You could be the most talented person in the world If you don't have the work ethic, if you don't love it, if you don't breathe it, if that's not what you would do, even if nobody was paying you man, a kid with a work ethic will be the kid that's wildly talented every time. Because, guess what? The work ethic will grow your talent, but talent can't grow work ethic talent, but talent can't grow.
J.D. Myall:During the time when you were starting out in writing or screenwriting, were there any tools or websites or resources or festivals or anything that you found that were really helpful that you'd recommend to people starting off?
Author Kimberly Jones:Yeah, I definitely. I definitely use a lot of anything Sid filled for screenwriting like all of his books, his workshops, his classes. Like Sid filled was my go to guy in terms of screenwriting. I still take screenwriting classes right now, even though I've had overall TV deal with Warner Brothers and had shows on Bravo and Tubi and Peacock and all these places, I still take. I still take my teacher, derry Titan.
Author Kimberly Jones:You guys can look him up. They call him the film mechanic because he became very well known in LA for being a script doctor, for taking bad scripts in Hollywood and fixing them or whatever. He does online classes. But here in Atlanta every quarter quarter he does a free writing class at the library and it's like all these people who are like writing their first screenplay, who have never written a screenplay ever again in their life and then in me and they're like. They're like she's like got boards and all this stuff. Why is she in this class? And and I'm just like iron sharpens iron Every time I take that class I learn something new, not just from the instructor but from the conversations of the other students and also because young people listen. I'm an old people but like I love to be around young people because they teach me new modalities and new systems and new ways to do things and like how stuff really works now and what they want in the market and what they don't want to hear anymore, what they don't want to see anymore or, if they do want to see it, how they want to see it, and so I love being in those classes and listening to like all the fresh talent. So people are ever in Atlanta. They should take the free and it's free. He does it through the library so that it's a free offering like a four week course, and every time he offers it if I'm available to take it, I take it. But he also has a book called the Film Mechanic which is like a very simple 101 book that I use Now.
Author Kimberly Jones:In terms of books, I still write with all of my craft books. Gili and I never start writing without breaking out our craft books. I still use on the filmmaking side. I still use my Sid Field books. I, gili and I never start writing without breaking out our craft books. I still use on the filmmaking side. I still use my Sid Field books. I use Save the Cat On the book side. I use Save the Cat Writes a Novel. If I'm writing romance, I write. I use Romance in the Beat. Gili and I are writing some movies right now for Hallmark. We found this like how to Write a Hallmark Christmas Movie book on Amazon. We've been using that so I still use all of my craft books when I work. It just helps me to structure everything love that um, what library does that class at?
J.D. Myall:if you know I'm gonna drag my daughter.
Author Kimberly Jones:He teaches them at different ones, so, like he's done it at the library, at the one in mcdonough, so he tries to do it where it's like the alpharetta people can go this time, or the city, but I'll send you his information so you can. Um, yeah, so you can uh, follow his web, his get his newsletter and stuff, but he's doing an online class right now that you know people could take from anywhere. Okay, awesome.
J.D. Myall:I could probably take the class myself too. Um, what were some of the biggest and lessons and surprises you encountered in your publishing journey and in your filmmaking journey?
Author Kimberly Jones:some of the biggest lessons I encountered lessons or surprisesons or surprises.
Author Kimberly Jones:I'll tell you what I'll talk about, something that is, I know that is in this world considered gauche, but I realize now that it was considered gauche for the benefit of capitalism and the wealthy and the one percenters. I got the benefit of OG writers showing me their contracts and showing me how much money they made. I love that and let me see it before I sign my first deal. A bunch of ogs, they there's a group of them. I can't tell their like secret identity name, but they have a group of them. It's like a thing that they do when they're like come on little tink, tink and they will send you like a zip file with all of their contracts and so you can see all the deal points that they have and how much money they make and all of that kind of stuff. And that was a game changer because I realized it wasn't that they were offering me bad money, but they were offering me bad deal points. And what I've learned over my years, on both the film and the music side and the book side, is that when lose or draw, you get what you ask for, that every contract is negotiable. That you know when you hear these stories of people being like they gave me a really bad contract and they ripped me off, like they gave me a really bad contract and they ripped me off. Well, the truth of the business which I don't think is a good model, I think it's a shitty capitalistic model but the truth of what it is is when someone slides a contract across the table for you, they're going to slide it across the table to you with almost all of the benefit being to them. It's up to you, your lawyer and your team to negotiate that and push back and go OK, you have these hundred things 40 of them I don't like, so I want to eliminate the 40 I don't like. And there's 10 things in here I want that are not in here, and so I want to add that and you push that back across the table, and then they will push back and you will push back and you'll do that little dance with each other, we'll salsa with each other until you get down to something that everybody can be satisfied with.
Author Kimberly Jones:And I think a lot of artists when they come in the business I've seen it in music, I've seen it in film, I've seen it in books A lot of artists when they come in the business. One they're so enthusiastic and so excited and so happy to be getting anything that they just want to sign right away. Two you're talking about tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars for a lot of time, people who not even necessarily have been impoverished, but maybe have lived a middle-class life, and this is more money than they're ever going to see in one chunk of their life, and they're excited about it. And so the other thing is they're afraid request anything but that the deal is going to go away, because they don't understand that the art of negotiation is an expectation. They expect you to negotiate, which is why they send it a hundred percent in their favor, so that they can start high, so that as you guys negotiate down, negotiate down, negotiate down, you'll find yourselves the both of you in the middle. We're not.
Author Kimberly Jones:If I, if I, if I write a contract and I give you everything that I think you want and I still start negotiating with you in the end like I'm gonna be lopsided, you know what I mean. So it's like you know they start high and it's up to you to negotiate. And if there's anything I could tell young artists I don't even remember what the fucking question was now. But if there's anything that I could tell young artists, it would just be the deal is not going to lift off the table because you ask for something. The deal is not going to lift off the table because you insert your attorney or your agent or your manager.
Author Kimberly Jones:That is the nature of the business. They expect that. It is not insult to the network studio or publishing house. It is not insult to the record company. They don't think that you are being and here's the key you better stay the pretty little princess doll that they just want to see, create and make art.
Author Kimberly Jones:And you let your people have the hard conversations. When I'm on the phone with a publisher or network, all I'm talking about is what I want to create. I'm letting them see my public personality. I'm selling myself. I'm talking about all the ideas. I'm saying to them hey, we're going to make so much money together, but when it comes down to the brass tacks and it's time to start talking about the business and what needs to get done, there is not one network studio or publisher that has ever had that conversation with me. They have had those conversations with my management team, my agents or my attorney. Y'all go over there and fight the good fight and figure out what I need, and then, when it's all said and done, you can still look at me and still be in love.
J.D. Myall:Love that you mentioned earlier, your deal with Warner Brothers. How did that come to be?
Author Kimberly Jones:So, after it's crazy, that video going viral changed a lot of things in my life. So after I went viral, you know people were trying to figure out who is this girl. Who's this girl with this crazy like sister soldier ponytail on the side of her head? Shout out to my pandemic here. I was a mess. But, um, you know people started researching me to figure out who I were, who I was.
Author Kimberly Jones:And you know Oprah had this like town hall at the time and she played my video and Ava DuVernay is talking about how she sent the video to Oprah and all these people and they have like a whole thing about it. And so when people started to research me, so you know Ava's over at Warner Brothers, so people are listening to her consistently post and talk about this girl. And Warner Brothers looks me up and they're like shit, she's a filmmaker like. She has won these film festivals. She worked for Tyler Perry, she developed being Bobby Brown for Bravo. She did these things. And they were just like, uh, do you want to come over here and create stuff? And I was like, sure, give me a boat ton of money. And they were like fine.
J.D. Myall:I was like, deal, love it um can you tell us a little bit about the process of getting a movie on Tubi?
Author Kimberly Jones:I know you did a lesson on that the other day or not too long ago, on getting a movie on Tubi, yeah. So there are lots of well one, you can go Tubi Direct. There are ways that you can just send it over to Tubi Directly and get it up there. But then there are aggregators. There are companies like CNS Distribution, glass Slipper Pictures, maverick I am missing one, I'm missing a few, but you have aggregators like that who have a more connected relationship with Tubi, where they have the kind of deal where they are uploading things constantly. So Tubi is putting their content kind of in the front of the line constantly. So Tubi is putting their kind of in the front of the line. It's like if you just go through Tubi's like direct portal, you know it'll get uploaded at some point, whenever, however, whoever knows, but it will get uploaded. But if you go through one of the uh, the aggregators, like CNS distribution, glass Slipper, maverick um, the uh, the ones like the ones like that, they kind of have like a front of the line situation where it's like anything that they're uploading, you know is when they upload it it's going to be live within a week or two, and so you know they're a middleman. So you got to do a split with them as well, but for a lot of people it's worth it to not be clueless as to when your project is going to come out. To do that. The other thing that I was telling people is like there are certain positions when you're making an independent film. And let me tell you something I know people talk really bad about Tubi, but I love Tubi and here's why I love Tubi.
Author Kimberly Jones:I've been making films for 30 years and I know how hard it is and I come from the era where we used to have to like use actual film and take a razor blade and splice and tape the film and turn it into all of that to see where we are in the digital age. And I you know, I worked in the music business for years. I was Dallas Austin's assistant, so I was around during the TLC heyday. I was a roadie for the White Stripes and so I'm watching now. In the last 10 years, the film industry looked like how the music industry looked in the 90s when everything went digital, and this is when your billionaires in music got made. This is when you get your TIs, your Jay-Zs, your Akons, all of these people is when the industry went digital and people were able to not have to go through the gatekeepers of the record company and it wasn't real-to-reel anymore and you could afford. If you had a laptop and some decent equipment, you could make a record and you could get the same sound that you did when you had reel-to-reel. And now we're in that same place digitally with filmmaking. So I love that.
Author Kimberly Jones:You have all of these filmmakers, especially all these little hood kids grabbing their phones and their cameras and they're getting their friends and guess what? These kids are out here in the streets making these little hood movies on their own and getting them up on Tubi. And guess what they're not doing? They're not bopping you in your fucking head, which is what they probably would be doing, because the one thing we don't want to face in this nation is that poverty and crime are bedfellows. A starving person will commit a crime. A well-paid person has no desire to, and so you have this whole generation of kids that are finding a new set of income through them for themselves, through to be. Are their movies bad? Is the sound bad? Is the acting bad? Is the script bad? Yes, but who gives a shit about it? From an ethereal point of you have all these little kids that are finding their way.
Author Kimberly Jones:It's so beautiful to watch and I love it and I know how hard it is to just get something done and in the can and they're doing it and so, yeah, I tell them all the time, like if there's anything I teach them beyond, like how to physically get it on there, I tell them that your movie is made in three ways really.
Author Kimberly Jones:One you have to have a solid script, so I don't care if you got the worst actors in the world. If the script is beautifully written, if the script is solid, if you've done the work to get a solid script, that will show up, and then that the movie is made in lights and sound. Don't worry about going to get the next hottest rapper to be in your film. Stack your money up instead of giving them to that. Get all the kids in the neighborhood and go get you a real sound man and a real gaffer like that. Because I'm telling you it also affects how it moves in the algorithm of the streaming apps of Tubi, of Peacock, of, you know, amazon, of even YouTube. The quality pushes it up and that quality is not in I got a little dirt in it. That quality is that it's lit well and the sound is clean.
J.D. Myall:Love that you do screenwriting too, On the first page of a novel or the first page of a script. What are the things that you think are essential to getting the audience's attention?
Author Kimberly Jones:I think you start everything with a bang. It either needs to be a bang in the language or it needs to be a bang in action. So if you're writing a very deep introspective story about a woman finding her way and you can't bang it out with the explosion, then you better bang it out with that language. Um, and me and gilly's book while we fly. We toiled over that first line for months and then what we decided how we decided to open that book was I will fly again. And that again means you want to know why she sang again. What happened? Fly again, why again? Why did she stop flying? You see what I'm saying. You want people to ask questions on that first page, because if you get them to ask questions, they can't stop until they get an answer. It's human nature. That's why I think all film schools should teach four years of psychology.
Speaker 4:Love that.
J.D. Myall:What do you think is the best writing advice you've heard?
Author Kimberly Jones:The best writing advice that I've heard. I said it already. Toni Morrison said you can't edit a blank page. Love that.
J.D. Myall:You said you had some other projects coming out. What do you have on the horizon?
Author Kimberly Jones:So much exciting stuff. I have a new podcast coming out called Country Rap Tunes. It's me and Corey Moe and we are very disappointed as Southerners in the way in which the South was left out of the 50th anniversary of hip hop. So we're creating a whole podcast called Country Rap Tunes where we are going to go through the history of Southern rap, of the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. So we're creating a whole podcast called Country Rap Tunes where we are going to go through the history of Southern rap. I'm so excited.
Author Kimberly Jones:Corey Moe is an iconic, legendary producer. He was the exclusive producer for UGK. He was best friends with Pimp C when he walked into his studio you actually see Pimp C's organ is in the front of his studio and Corey has produced for all the OG Southern legends, everybody from 8-Ball MJG to Young Dolph to UGK. He actually is nominated for a Grammy this year because he did a lot of the production on the new Killer Mike album. He's the one who did that production on the what's her name? From Memphis K Michelle, when she redid the Can you Stand the Rain, that was a Corey Moe production. And so, yeah, so me and C Moe are doing this podcast, country Rapatune. So I'm super duper, duper excited about that and I have a few other things that I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about yet, but I'm excited about that.
Author Kimberly Jones:I'm excited about the Joker graphic novel and I really love you know. Uh, first of all, I'm a former clown and I love villains. So when I had my meeting with dc, they were basically just like we wanted kim jones graphic novel. We don't care what you want to write, you tell us what you want to write. And they were. I was like I want to write the joker. And they're like kim, you have the run of the entire dc catalog. You want to write the Joker. And I was like, yeah, why are y'all saying that? Like, that's not like the best thing in the world to write thank you very much my guest will take some questions from you guys.
J.D. Myall:Anybody have any questions for Kim?
Speaker 4:I can answer my question now. I don't want to bust in front of anybody. Um hi, Kim, my name is Dionne and I have a question about, like I know your first book had to do with, like, Freddie Gray and stuff like that and racial injustice and a thesis project I did from Drexel's MFA. It had to do with George Floyd and I like what I've done. But I do worry, like is it going to be hard to sell that? You know, having to do with protests and racial injustice? I mean, these are stories that need to be told, but I do worry, like you know, are people going to want to read these stories? You know?
Author Kimberly Jones:Yeah, people do want to read those stories. They just want to read them in a way that humanizes the story. They want it to be palatable, in a way not to water it down, because you know, I would never suggest you do that but in a way that you humanize the people in the stories. Oh, that's another project that I'm working on. I'm working on this project called the aster project. It's a creative project and one of the things that we're doing is we are taking people who have been slain by the police and we are humanizing them by creating art around them, and so we're doing murals to them, we're writing records about them and I'm over the anthology where we have all these New York Times bestselling authors that are taking one family, sitting with that family, learning about the person's life, everything about their life prior to being killed by the police, and they're writing that person's biography. And the reason why we're doing that and the reason why that work is so important and the work that you're doing is so important, is because the reason these situations happen is because the lack of people's ability to see the humanity of these people, and so when you have the opportunity to use your pen to write them. Do not write the story from the of a lesson of. I'm going to teach you what's right. Tell a human story, tell a story of a person's triumph, because the more specific you are, the more universal it will be, because everybody has felt hurt and pain. I'll tell you a fun thing my first book. I'm Not Dying With you Tonight.
Author Kimberly Jones:We gave this book to a little 15-year-old white girl and we have Campbell and Lena who are the leads Campbell's white, lena's black. They're both 17. But Lena has a best friend named LaShunda black girl. She's got her name LaShunda Black girl. That's in Lena's story, and we give this book to this 15-year-old white girl. She relates the most to Lashunda. You know why? Because in the beginning we tell the story of how Lashunda lives with her grandparents because her mother died of a opioid overdose. So this Black girl was living a totally different socioeconomic experience as her. Though being so specific about who LaShunda was and what her lived experience is, this girl felt she didn't feel connected to Campbell, the little white girl who, dad, has a boat. She felt connected to this Black kid who had walked the same walk that she walked, had lived a similar experience, and she felt like the hurt on the page was authentic to her own lived experience. So the more you just really think of it as writing a human experience, the more relatable it is to all people.
Speaker 4:Thank you, I really appreciate that. And if I could ask like that really touched me and that really gave me something to think about. And I have one really quick question with the screenwriting stuff, what software do you recommend?
Author Kimberly Jones:Final draft. Well, I recommend two. I recommend Celtics and I recommend Final Draft for different reasons. I recommend Celtics because we are in a rough economy right now and Celtics is free, so there is a paid version to it, but you can get a fully functioning version of it for free. Now, it's not going to be on your hard drive, it's in the cloud, you know that kind of thing, but it's free. But final draft is the industry standard. So when we send files, when I send files to the studios, when you're sending it to the head of departments on a budgeted set, they are going to be expecting a final draft to file.
Speaker 4:Okay, thank you so much. I appreciate you. Thank you Anytime.
J.D. Myall:I had a comment in the a question in the chat. He said how differently did you find the process of writing solo versus writing with a partner, and were there any particular challenges that you faced in either of those paths?
Author Kimberly Jones:I find it harder to write solo because of my ADHD, because it's hard for me to stay on track, and so one of the systems of ADHD is almost like that, I hate to say it that of a child is that I work better when I have a side by side working partner and so, having a co-author, I finished my books with Gili twice as fast as I do my solo books, just because I'm having that partner and having someone there to basically receive dopamine from, of excitement and let's do it, and the pressure of her seeing me not work and being with her. So you notice about us, jd. That's why she and I don't write like via Google or anything Like. We're not sending each other Google files. We, when we're writing together, we schedule out week after week when we're going to physically get together and we sit side by side and write yes.
Author Kimberly Jones:So I know, for most neurotypical people it would be the opposite, but for me it's like I am so much more productive when I'm writing with her.
J.D. Myall:Jeanette has a question.
Speaker 5:Yes, hi, kim, it's really great to listen to you. When your video went viral, I was working on an organization called Color of Change. It was a racial justice organization, yeah, and so, like you, were the talk of the summer, so it's been really great to listen to you speak as a screenwriter. My heart dropped when you said it took you 20 years to find an agent. I was wondering what do you think are some of the better ways to either get an agent or be seen, get your writing seen as a screenwriter, because I know like in the program I always talk about doing contests but I don't trust some of the writing contests, so I was wondering about people have different experiences, so what might be some other ways to do so um, I'll say I don't know about doing contests, but submitting screenplays to official festivals so like, yeah, submitting scripts to festivals so like looking at things like ABFF, tribeca, ones that you know, some of the bigger ones that have a screenwriting component that takes like a physical script instead of an actual project.
Author Kimberly Jones:Those are great ways because one, a lot of those usually come with you winning money, and then some of the other ones come with you getting some type of deal or some production out of it and, if nothing else, people who are industry professionals, producers, student executives, agents, managers, stuff like that that are curating the win for the festival are reading it. So, although you may not win, that still doesn't mean that they don't fall in love with your writing and think I don't care if this child wins or not. I'm going to communicate with this child on my own at some point because I really like what you saw on the page. So, not necessarily a contest, but definitely festivals are a great way to put out there and again, another great way to put it out there. We're in a digital age. Girl, you got a whole different life than I did when I started doing this back in 1993.
Author Kimberly Jones:Shoot some shit. Yeah, some stuff a shot. Put it on the screen, get it done. Get together with your friends all y'all. Put y'all eight dollars together. Y'all y'all serve some lunchables for craft services. You get a. You get a friend who does music. You put him on sound. Let him figure out how to do it. You got you got a homie. That's an electrician. Tell him he is now a gaffer. He's gonna like this thing for you. He need to watch a bunch of youtube videos.
Author Kimberly Jones:Get your script together, put it it together and utilize the TikTok series right. So TikTok has that new system called series that you can monetize and that they will do special promotion for it if you post the things to the series. Write your own five minute per episode TV series. Take a weekend, shoot five episodes, make yourself some promo videos, put it out there, put it on your TikTok series. You and your friends promote it. Y'all host a launch party at a bar with a bunch of friends and then y'all host a Zoom launch party or Facebook Live launch party with all your friends and family members and just start putting your work out. My friend Bobby Huntley, amazing filmmaker you know how he got his deal. He kept going viral with his five-minute short films on Instagram.
J.D. Myall:Love it. Anthony has a question.
Author Kimberly Jones:Thank you for speaking with me, what is the hardest lesson you had to learn as a writer? The hardest lesson I had to learn as a writer was to not be sensitive about my work Like I cannot be sensitive about it, like I have to be open to critique in a way, like I can't be so in love with my baby that I don't let my baby grow up and I don't let it grow. So that was like one of the. That was one of the hardest things that I that I learned. And one of the second hardest things that I learned was you know, like you know, comparison is the thief of joy. Like my journey is my journey and I have to walk it.
Author Kimberly Jones:So I had friends that were getting an agent before me. I had a friends that were making the. You know, I had friends that I debuted with. Usually, when your book comes out, you have a. You know there's usually a group that started with all the debut authors, because we see each other's announcement in Publisher Weekly and stuff like that, and there's usually a group chat that started with all the people who are debuting that year around the same time and it's like you see your friends who debuted with you get to make the list or get a starred review or something like that, and you're not getting it. And it's just knowing that your journey is your own. And again, I can't stress this enough that knowing that when you work it and you figure out your plan and you figure out what works for you and you find what your audience is, then you're going to be fine. But like, nobody's journey is yours but yours.
Speaker 5:Very true.
J.D. Myall:Thank you. Anybody else have any questions?
Speaker 6:yeah, I have a question. Uh, kimberly, nice to meet you, great to hear you it's nice to meet you, I'm jonathan mountain la and I, you know I'm old people too.
Speaker 6:I started in 92 out here screenwriting. Um took me like 14, you know, 10 to 12 years to get my first agent, which didn't really work out. But, um, I was curious because I'm ADD as well and I was diagnosed very late. I'm just curious with all the stuff that's out there, like you were speaking of it to me. It's overwhelming. A lot of times it just catches you and you, just your attention can get drawn to one thing or another and I was just wondering how you found ways to conquer that part of yourself and to stay focused on the task at hand with all that other noise as it gets. You know it's got noisier and noisier with TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and all the stuff you do to promote and what have you. How you find that that? Where do you? What techniques have you used to conquer that part of your personality? Use it to your advantage.
Author Kimberly Jones:Yes, there is an entire chapter in my book how we Can Win dedicated exactly to that and I call it the nine priorities for a balanced life. And those nine priorities are career, home, transportation, relationships, finances, health and beauty, hobby, education and community. And about twice a month I sit down and I write out those nine priorities and I write out everything I have going on in each one and I can see where I'm off balance. I can see where I'm top heavy in career and haven't done anything for my community, where it's like I've been overwhelmed by family responsibilities and I've dropped the ball on my work.
Author Kimberly Jones:Stuff I haven't done any of my so I just use that system to see where I'm top heavy, where I'm lost, where I need to fill in the gaps, and then I just keep notebooks everywhere where I am constantly reevaluating that list and realizing what it is that I'm doing. And I'm not doing because I need to physically do it for myself, because my brain won't do it for itself.
Speaker 6:Thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, it's a good, good technique for so.
J.D. Myall:Thank you, I appreciate that yeah, it's a good, good technique. Yeah, love that, love that. It has been a pleasure. Um again, kim, if you haven't read her books, please pick them up. How we can win, why we fly? Um, why did I blink on? I'm not dying with you tonight for a second, and I read that one before anybody. That's what I'm saying. But, um, she's immensely talented.
Author Kimberly Jones:JD was one of our beta readers for I'm not dying with you tonight so she was one of the people who gave us notes on how to fix it and it was brilliant.
J.D. Myall:Like I um, I've done some beta reading from Macmillan probably because of you, dear, because I worked on your project, but I've done some beta reading for them and I've done beta reading for friends and usually it feels like work and it feels like you're trying to help somebody, but that I stayed up reading that. I was up all night sending you Facebook. Yeah, she's a brilliant writer and a great person, incredibly humble, incredibly sweet, and you didn't tell about the Library of Congress while we were tooting your horn.
Author Kimberly Jones:No, yes, yeah. So I got to serve on the selection committee for the. National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, and I was on the committee that picked the first Asian ambassador in Jean Yang.
J.D. Myall:Awesome. So yeah, she's incredibly accomplished and just brilliant and wonderful and like I, said pick up her books, see her films and you know, hopefully you guys got a lot from tonight. Is there anything you wanted to say in closing, kim?
Author Kimberly Jones:Yeah, just like keep writing, like I don't believe in the term. I learned this from watching Shonda Rhimes' Masterclass and I was like I'm going to steal that and keep that for myself. She said that you don't aspire to write. Writers write Now. You can aspire to be published, you can aspire to get a deal, can aspire for those things, um, but writers write and so just keep writing. Just know that even the greatest writers in the world are not the greatest writers in the world, they're just the greatest editors in the world. Oh and fun. One last. Like um and this is not a secret, this has been announced um, the next film project that I have, the thing that I'm diligently working on right now, is we are turning we are working with warner brothers television turn I'm Not Dying With you Tonight into a series. So that'll be the next thing coming yeah, and you do have a lot.
J.D. Myall:I appreciate you. Um, thank you so much. I love you sharing your wisdom. Thank you to everybody who came and again, thank you, kim. Anybody else have any final questions before we close out?
Speaker 7:I can't see the hands because my screen that wraps up today's craft chat chronicles with jd mayor. Thanks for joining us. If you like the episode, please comment, subscribe and share. For show notes, writing workshops and tips, head to jdmayocom. That's jdmayocom. While you're there, join jd's mailing list for updates, giveaways and more. Thank you.