[SPEAKER_00]: Drinking with others may contain adult content.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listener discretion is advised.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's from drinking with authors.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm your host, Erica Lance.
[SPEAKER_03]: Today I have a double feature and just feel this glamour.
[SPEAKER_03]: We tried to do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: We went in my internet and my computer took a crap.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's why my video and audio might not be fantastic right now because it's still going to replace it in my mind.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,
[SPEAKER_03]: I have the last of my wicked grow limited release blueberry hard ciders.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm very excited about these.
[SPEAKER_03]: These were great.
[SPEAKER_03]: I should have bought more.
[SPEAKER_03]: That sounds delicious.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's go bring them back.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll see.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a blue.
[SPEAKER_03]: What are you drinking?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because it looks pink and tropical.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was drinking raspberry lemonade, but for the sake of the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: All of my classware is in storage right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had the bottle of port and it's gonna be a fun night.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is Sandman port.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that so much.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay Brian who seems to be adjusting his lighting.
[SPEAKER_01]: There we go.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am the most boring one of all three of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am drinking
[SPEAKER_01]: Coffee.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am addicted to coffee.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is my drug of choice and my love language.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do love me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Look flavor coffee.
[SPEAKER_03]: What are you drinking?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is my favorite brand.
[SPEAKER_01]: Beans are out of Phoenix.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is one called Colt Coffee, but I don't have any of that because they don't sell it online.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my substitute is an brand you can get online called community and they are close second to Colt.
[SPEAKER_03]: Very close.
[SPEAKER_03]: coffee of choices from a place I found in Tallahassee about what he got.
[SPEAKER_03]: Very good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a Hawaiian coffee place next near by here that called Badass.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's their little name is Badass on the door on their product.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's wonderful.
[SPEAKER_03]: That sounds amazing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: So for anybody who's viewing and listening to this, first of all, it was pretty recorded.
[SPEAKER_03]: We didn't go live.
[SPEAKER_03]: but they're amazing, so we will post this of course.
[SPEAKER_03]: But what are you, what are you both right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So CD, let's start with you and do a little show off if you're able.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, I did pack my, my paraphernalia here, make sure that was with me throughout the room.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I am CD Corgan, I write science fiction and fantasy, mostly fantasy so far, although they're all subsided by projects and the works.
[SPEAKER_02]: Today, the thing that got me in the show was we're talking about the memory thief.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's my camera.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything's in the wrong spot because I just move the memory theme.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a sci-fi road punk and sci-fi as a fantasy road punk story through the act of life.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk more about that whole setting later.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then my first novel was called Tattered Ponds.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a new cover over here.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's been out for a couple years now.
[SPEAKER_02]: It dozens of rave reviews.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am also a game designer and a professional artist and I run home song games and
[SPEAKER_02]: created the relic RPG tabletop gaming system in which you can play as all of these characters and any others you can come up with.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that was the entire show.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I'm just kidding.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see next week.
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you write?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I am Brian Fitzpatrick, I am a science fiction and horror and now fantasy, author and screenwriter.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I kind of walk in both worlds as best I can.
[SPEAKER_01]: My science fiction novel trilogy called Metcraft, it's MECHCRAFT.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm apologize not having any copies handy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is available everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's gone best several a few times.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks to my publishers, marketing campaigns.
[SPEAKER_01]: My horror scripts have been circulating around Hollywood.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do have a science fiction film that got made and is in post production.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I hopefully comes out this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the current book, the reason we're here today is I wrote to Slayer God, part of the same collection that CDs book is in.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to get into all that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my current work in progress is a horror comedy screenplay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, okay, prolific, both of you guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we are here because you both wrote into a world called the Sunless Crossing, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: CD, I think last time we tried to do this, and failed miserably, you volunteered as tribute to explain what that is.
[SPEAKER_02]: in the alternate timeline the world that ever was.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the sunless crossing is sort of the example I give people is like the Marvel Cinematic Universe or if you hate yourself that you see extending universe.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a shared gaming slash storytelling world that a bunch of different contributors and projects have kind of built on top of now, including us.
[SPEAKER_02]: that was created by Storyteller's Forge, which is another indie gaming studio.
[SPEAKER_02]: They came out with a campaign called The Black Ballad for the game system of your choice.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they started reaching out to guys like Brian and myself and said, hey, we really want to expand this with some novelizations and get different perspectives and different ideas and genres and everything kind of working within this same soup.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we all got together and made a soup.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had quite a lot of creative leeway in terms of just like they sort of just handed us the toy box and said go.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we all kind of came up with stories that fit within it and sort of extended and built out this world together.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then each of these books stands alone and will hopefully probably launch independent series within that same setting.
[SPEAKER_02]: So get in now.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's lots more to come.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love the way you said that because I was talking to Rick who is the owner of Storyteller's Forge and I was telling him how the book spellfire is actually what got me into Dungeons and Dragons because I found that in a bookstore and I didn't know what the hell it was and then I found out there was a whole game around it and then I was hooked, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think that it's so neat when you're able to
[SPEAKER_03]: You could just read the books if you want to.
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't have to play the game or know the game in order to read the books.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or you can dive in, get addicted and play the game.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that whole game centers are on what happens when your character dies, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Basically, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Basically, I have this the whole party dies and it is the afterlife that we're all involved in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the picture of a campaign.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm unlike a one second delay here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I apologize if I sound insane to the listeners.
[SPEAKER_02]: The pitch of the campaign for the Black Ballet from what I understand was just like the story that happens after the party dies.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just it's the T.P.K.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now what?
[SPEAKER_02]: Which I just think is delightful.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is so wonderful.
[SPEAKER_02]: I tell people that they love it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's brilliant because we've all had characters if we played role-playing games.
[SPEAKER_03]: that we loved that if you had a correct DM probably died at some point like it happens or got retired.
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's do this for a moment though and go back in time to what got you both started in writing being an author.
[SPEAKER_03]: Brian, where did you begin this tale of coffee and debauchery?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh man, so my author origin story begins at seven years old.
[SPEAKER_01]: I accidentally stayed up and watched the horror classic Night of the Living Dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mom and Fauna sleep and was not there to parent me to not let me watch that show and I'm gonna be and I watched it and I couldn't look away but I was completely terrified but I had to know how these people were gonna survive or if they would survive and
[SPEAKER_01]: I gave me about a week's worth of nightmares.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my mom, I think, in desperation finally just said, well, why are you trying writing your own horror story?
[SPEAKER_01]: And see what happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe to help me get over it all, I guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I took her up on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said to try it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have literally been writing stories of science fiction and horror ever since.
[SPEAKER_03]: So are you going to tell me soon that original story will be released as an epic anthology?
[SPEAKER_01]: How awesome would that be, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think any of my early writing should be released.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know my kids will do that if they find it after I die, but I think just got to write into the will never release any of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a lot to read on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think mine have dissolved into paper dust.
[SPEAKER_03]: I actually found a disk the other day like a actual disk.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it said stories, and I was like, I don't want to know what's on there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't, it's terrifying to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: But CD, what about you, what your origin story?
[SPEAKER_02]: Not the same but different.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know exactly what the impetus was.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do remember, I was, I think, twelve or thirteen.
[SPEAKER_02]: I woke up on like spring break or something like that was just like I'm obviously going to write a book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just started doing it and it was very bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I did that a couple more times throughout my teenage years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Until I got into college and then I wrote the first five or ten chapters of what became Tattered Ponds.
[SPEAKER_02]: It forgot about him for like a decade.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I serve a back to it when I was cleaning out an old hard drive and disks and whatnot.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, oh, these should be all burned with fire and purged from the universe.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're terrible.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I got to this draft.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, all right, when I was all right, many, many revisions later wound up writing a book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I guess I'm an author.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, but I mean, yeah, there's no licensing requirements.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just have to write a thing and then you don't even have to finish it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just tell me, I said, let anybody do it.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I mean, I think that's that is really brilliant.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it also talks about, you know, how long it can take.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I think people have this unreal expectation that they'll sit in front of a keyboard and just like, I've created a book and I'm like,
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, uh, using AI.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's not quite how that works.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's one of those very deceptive, um, not intuitive things that humans do, uh, because it's, because I get it because I've been that guy, uh, and then you try and do the thing and it doesn't work that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, but there's this tendency, I think, to be like, well, the actual time that I am pushing keys on the keyboard.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you add it all up,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not that crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's only, you know, a couple hundred hours maybe.
[SPEAKER_02]: What you're not calculating is all of the agony between each keystroke.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the days of like I have a great idea real shame if I wrote it down and spoiled it So you don't do it and then you know then it's the next day and that keeps happening for five or ten years and then you get something together But then at some point you meet Erica and she's like hey, where the fuck are my spraps man?
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to come in like iron fisted
[SPEAKER_03]: Somebody's got to have the sledgehammer, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it doesn't think that's the biggest thing that I encounter with writers is, hi, I actually need you to write.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you can do everything else, but write, but writing is what's needed.
[SPEAKER_03]: back to work.
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's talk a little bit about like, um, do you guys, you know, Brian, you talked about watching Night Living Dead, which by the way, I had to explain to one of my children, literally with a medical book, why zombies were not a possibility because he saw walking dead and then was like, oh my god, and I'm like,
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me explain to you seven-year-old person why this is not a possibility.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do like science and logic.
[SPEAKER_03]: But besides that, is that why you completely went the horror side by route and have you thought about jumping genres into something like, I don't know, contemporary romance?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think so because for me, with my skillset, that would be the horsh.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would beat five to attempted romance.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would not go.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I tried to write a love scene, it would be laughable and best.
[SPEAKER_01]: Although I have tried in other areas of said, you know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Other authors can do it, let me see.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it never made the cut because it was just
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just sad.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was like, I get it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I, as a horror writer myself, what happens if happening most of the time with stories is I end up going really dark and I'm like, wait a minute.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe I shouldn't be killing people in this very happy, sweet home town.
[SPEAKER_03]: What about you, CB?
[SPEAKER_03]: Have you ever attempted or wanted to jump genres?
[SPEAKER_03]: But when, yeah, this is terrible playing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, no, I'm very, um, my brand of neurospicy is very much like if it's not something I enjoy reading.
[SPEAKER_02]: I struggle to try and write anything and I read two genres.
[SPEAKER_02]: I read science fiction and fantasy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am that guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, that's just what gets the dopamine going.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, not that I haven't branched out at times because something particular interested me, but like if I'm going to the bookstore, that's the section I'm walking to.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it's just I don't really percolate on ideas for a lot of other stuff for good end ill.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if it's a focus thing or if it's just a lack of interest or what, but no, I'm pretty laser focused on like science fiction fantasy and all derivatives there of just go deep that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so do you remember what the first science fiction or fantasy book you picked up, but couldn't put down was?
[SPEAKER_02]: So amusingly, I have an answer to that question, but I have a better answer that's a call back to something you said earlier.
[SPEAKER_02]: You mentioned getting into games from picking up a book at once upon a time.
[SPEAKER_02]: For me, I know exactly what book it was.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was at the books a million at Williamsburg, Virginia, and it was R.A.
[SPEAKER_02]: Salvatore, the Spine of the World, which is a Dungeons & Dragons forgotten realms book, the Legend of Dritz and all that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's about Wolfgarh.
[SPEAKER_02]: I picked that up because the cover was interesting and I read through it in like a weekend and I had this moment of like, what has forgotten Rome?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is all connected and now here we are.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was the one that sticks out to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think a little bit earlier than that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was reading like Star Wars, EU stuff, you know, airs of the forest or young Jedi or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the the the the the legend of drifts is the one that like locks in that core memory for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: What about you, Brian?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to really age myself right now because what got me going when I was ten years old, there's this thing that started circulating around my school called Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, which was basically rule week one.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the first edition and this is late seventies and I was like, what is this?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when we explained it, it was a game of imagination.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as soon as I did it as a player once, I was completely hooked.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I played as a player maybe two or three times before it became a DM because I wanted to tell the stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to write and tell the stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was a DM up until like age thirty or thirty two.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was what got me into the fantasy as far as playing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ironically, outside of Dungeons & Dragons adventure campaigns, I never wrote fantasy fiction ever until this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but I felt I had the background to do it since I played D&D for so many like twenty some years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but yeah, the when the drizzles books came out when the very first one, the crystal shard came out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was early twenties and I was blown away.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's only D&D books I've ever read and the only fantasy books I've actually really truly enjoyed start to finish.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I just had a thug and flew out of my head like a bird.
[SPEAKER_03]: I watched that.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was actually.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm using a painful.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was relevant.
[SPEAKER_02]: Litty and just we should assume not.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're just that help.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Here I support them.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what I'm trying for.
[SPEAKER_03]: Here I'll support.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: So.
[SPEAKER_03]: How much do you feel like?
[SPEAKER_03]: being a writer and a published writer now, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Has it been going through the editing process and doing, you know what I mean, going through the the treasury of writing?
[SPEAKER_03]: How much do you think that's changed?
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you view books when you read them?
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm, that's a good question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, go ahead to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: As a host, I have those every now and then.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh no, this is this is a moment of like how honest do I want to be for the internet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I'm more critical than I used to be and that's probably not great.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not a great thing about me.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think
[SPEAKER_02]: There's so much good stuff coming out across the board right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think as a reader, never having put anything out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've now gone like self-published and working with for horsemen.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I kind of dipped into both sides and like experienced it from the indie side.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the semi-traditional kind of traditional better traditional, I don't know, but working with a publisher side of things.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what we classify ourselves as now, but, you know, working with people side, there's so much good stuff out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: As a reader, before all of that, it's kind of like this magical box where you walk into the bookstore and it's like a book has appeared on the shelf, but when you're with joy, it wonders it holds.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, having kind of seen now the sausage is made.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, I'm more likely to do enough something now when I like pick up a book and I start flipping through it and I'm like, this is, why did you mess this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's coming from a place of like, there's so much talent out there now that I just, I don't like spending time on stuff where someone seems to have phoned it in to get across a deadline.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I might have been more frequently about that when it was just like a pass of hobby for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I get that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am a firm believer in not continuing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know so many people are like, I have to finish the book and I'm like,
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I know if it's if it's not doing it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I also have gotten Uber over critical, especially when you go, hi, do you actually have an editor?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because, you know, they're writing mistakes and then there are editing mistakes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Very much like when you do screen plays, you can tell whether it's the writing
[SPEAKER_03]: the director for the actors.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, you can use when you get behind the glass, you can go, wow, this is terrible directing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I will say, I am.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe this is just be trying to cover myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am more forgiving of typos now, because I've seen one of my drafts go through seven revisions, and it gets to print and they're still fucking common in the middle of the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, how did that happen?
[SPEAKER_02]: How many people saw that?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm more like, yeah, it's cool, man.
[SPEAKER_02]: You miss Bella Ward.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just when it's like structural stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you not listen to your editor?
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you not have one?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, it's too full.
[SPEAKER_01]: I share your view where I'm more critical.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the curtain has been pulled back and I'm in that realm.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, OK, why did you make this choice?
[SPEAKER_01]: OK, I wish you hadn't done that and that kind of has a butt.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I find myself more appreciative of the effort, even on both of their finalists.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, well done.
[SPEAKER_01]: I still I know the effort that the author put into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And but but like you, Erica, I used to be able to I used to be one of these.
[SPEAKER_01]: I must finish.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to see what happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now I'm if it's not hitting me, I will give it three or four chapters on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will say one thing that I think is my therapist with more approval is there's a degree to which I am now more aware of just like oh something may just not be for me and that's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it's crazy to think that every single book and every single or whatever piece of media is going to just suit your tastes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's a difference between just isn't for me versus these are bad choices.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like it's bad craft.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think more aware of that than I was before, where I would just not like something and not really be able to articulate why.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now it's just kind of like, oh, this is fine for somebody else.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just not catching my interest.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think I had that year before.
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_03]: I agree with you.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think, you know, I, I tell authors this all the time.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're never going to please everybody with your work.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, there's no such thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just the right steps.
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you do the right thing?
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the truth is you will never find every typo in a book.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, when you write it, it doesn't matter how many times you read the damn thing and, you know, people tell me, oh, I changed fonts and I printed out and I'm like,
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you're still not going to find this one.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, I'm not going to tell, I don't even know if I'll tell Erica.
[SPEAKER_02]: Chat, there's a typo on memory thief in a very conspicuous place and nobody caught it until my mother got her copy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had no one else has mentioned it yet.
[SPEAKER_03]: Mom's.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he's not at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: She literally, the message Shane went from a package just arrived.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's a typo.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for the.
[SPEAKER_02]: But no one else has spotted it yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know if that means we need to correct it or not.
[SPEAKER_03]: The cool thing is it can be easily correct.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but you know, with your non-traditional traditional publisher.
[SPEAKER_03]: Question, do you guys like what is your writing jam?
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you listen to music?
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have to have certain snacks?
[SPEAKER_03]: Does it have to be certain time of day?
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have to, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: have be wearing comfy pants like Brian, Brian, what's your jam?
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you do this other than needing coffee, obviously?
[SPEAKER_01]: The coffee is the coffee must flow in an IV unit, and I'm good to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I do listen to music, depending on what I'm writing.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I'm doing some heart pounding sci-fi action, it's going to be, you know, nine inch nails in industrial music all day.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I'm writing something sort of epic with a fantasy when I was writing to say, God, I had on film soundtracks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a gladiator and you know, other things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and I'm doing horror.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll either do no music for horror or I'll put on like a John Carpenter compilation.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I with horror is hard to find like a soundtrack for horror that isn't too obnoxious in my ears.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, you're a cryotain burn.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dig in.
[SPEAKER_03]: Cryotain burn on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, cryotain burn.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, check it out.
[SPEAKER_03]: As a poorer author, it is so perfect.
[SPEAKER_03]: The different things they have.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Creepy AF.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: What about UCB?
[SPEAKER_03]: What's your, um, your, you're, you're going to stay quiet.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it is good ritual.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the ritual, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, so for me, music is very, um,
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm hitting miss with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So either, for me, it's about breaking, um, getting stuck in a rut.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if I'm listening to music and I'm like stalling out and not getting words on the page, I'll stop versus if I've been writing in quiet or silence or background noise or white noise or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I get stuck.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll turn on some music.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got to play list.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll go to or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I just need that break to like break through.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: My rule is just anytime there's no, like if there's forward progress happening, right keep doing what I'm doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I stop, I've got to change something.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whether that's music, whether that's going to the coffee shop or getting my iPad and typing on the couch instead of sitting at my computer or whatever, it's just when I catch myself hitting a wall, something must change.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_02]: I start switching variables until I'm writing again.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's kind of just been the thing that works for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the other thing, you know, talk about the transition from like aspiring writer to like published author is sort of overcoming that like Ellen that inspired that's it doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to it's a job you have to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: As long as there is time permitting, you must be you must be moving forward.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now does that mean that I'm not dividing my attention between five different
[SPEAKER_02]: under so they're given time.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm still bad at that part.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, but that's the other like major ritual thing is like, I don't, I tell myself, like, I don't care, words on paper, like, oh, that's the thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I have to confirm that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I have to agree with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, with some time starting getting screenwriting work, uh, those deadlines are can be brutal.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you, there's not a day where I'm like, Oh, yeah, I just don't feel it to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you got to fucking push the room.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, and I think that's one of the biggest things is like, I'm not inspired or ampwriters block.
[SPEAKER_03]: I always say backfuck up to it was going better and turn right instead of left or turn left instead of right move on because you can get stuck staring at a screen or coming up with a million chores to do instead of writing.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is so easy to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, my house gets so clean when I'm stuck.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's crazy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, my husband literally, if I if I'm like, okay, yeah, you know, this time I said aside for writing, if I get up and walk out to get a snack, he's like, what are you doing?
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I totally, I totally needed cheese plate and he's like,
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I can I can share this one.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a Maddie my my wonderful supportive wife came up with a a prize chart where if I hit my weekly word count we roll a dice and whatever number it is like if it's ice cream or it's you know, whatever like that's the prize pizza night or something like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like that became the thing that was getting me going for like the full first half of a year.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she's away at running for a new job right now, and it's not working anymore, and I'm stuck.
[SPEAKER_02]: But she'll be back soon.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that worked great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Try that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, what are you guys' works in progress right now?
[SPEAKER_03]: CD, what are you working on?
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so great.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the things that I should tell Erica are the secret of the memory thief and the sequel to Tethered Ponds are both kind of like a third of the way through, and then I've been plugging away at that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe a little bit less on the memory thief one, I'm getting there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe a quarter.
[SPEAKER_02]: The real answer is I have for some reason become infatuated with the idea that this year I'm gonna do a bunch of like audio short stories on our YouTube channel So I've been writing scripts for those Which has been both very freeing because it's like what I'm stuck on the big project I can just be like I'm gonna write five thousand words about mecha fighting each other I don't care and like just hammer that out in a day and that's been like really creatively exciting
[SPEAKER_02]: But also a big problem because it means that I can write five thousand words that don't go towards my manuscript right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, it's good and bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Words on the page.
[SPEAKER_02]: Words on the page.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which one did not specify?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got a few things going.
[SPEAKER_01]: One is the one I'm most pumped about is my horror comedy screenplay that my
[SPEAKER_01]: writing manager is, uh, pounding before.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a set in late eighties.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is vampires invading a Bible camp.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is a lot of comedy and a lot of horror.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's called everyday is Halloween based on the song.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my other works I have, um, I'm making notes now for the sequel to to Slayer God.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm coming up with ideas and it's very early stages.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm also working on the Metcraft tabletop role playing game based on my science fiction novel series.
[SPEAKER_01]: That one I'm super pumped about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you Rick.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am very excited to get that going.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yay.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm excited.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was exciting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Very, very cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: You have to go faster both of you on the sequels because the books are amazing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And your readers consume them already in a day.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's already done.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, we already have the proverbial fat lady having sung on that so you must go faster.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dolly noted, we understand the assignment.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we'll rest faster if they leave more reviews.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can't I look at it?
[SPEAKER_01]: That would be much faster.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm working on pushing people.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, you know what's interesting is I think as writer, you know, you talk about a hundred hours.
[SPEAKER_03]: You talk about all this time.
[SPEAKER_03]: We take to write a book, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And then readers take
[SPEAKER_03]: a couple of days and then they're done and then they're like, Coca, Coca, Coca, Coca, so let's next.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, what else you got?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they're like, that was a great snack.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am hungry and you're like, they're actually have discovered like a three year old.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a three year old granddaughter and it's very much like that where her attention span is like, I want to do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then wait, can we go play bubbles?
[SPEAKER_03]: Wait, can we go play chalk?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like,
[SPEAKER_03]: This is like every reader in the entire world after they've finished your book.
[SPEAKER_01]: So true.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you guys talked about reviews, do you read your reviews?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, hell yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Officially now that's an unhealthy thing and reviews are for the readers not for the right of course I read my fucking reviews.
[SPEAKER_02]: I read every see their world.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is a level of self-control.
[SPEAKER_02]: I aspire to them will never achieve.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, plenty.
[SPEAKER_02]: The minority, I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, judging by the average, yes, do I remember them verbatim versus all of the positive ones of fucking course I do?
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I will thank you to preview then, CD.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, his name was Dave.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't kidding.
[SPEAKER_02]: He wrote, so first book pawns hooked up with a really great narrator to do the audio book.
[SPEAKER_02]: very, very pleased with how like in that went.
[SPEAKER_02]: The audiobook is fantastic.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love Nick's performance on everything, Nick Mercer.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, he and I both read the reviews, of course.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's all these positive reviews, especially for like Nick's performance.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like that's that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then one guy named Dave was just like, I don't care for this at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: And both me and Nick became like an NGO.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were like, what the fuck is wrong with Dave?
[SPEAKER_02]: What did I do to him?
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's become my joke now, whatever I'm talking about reviews just Dave.
[SPEAKER_02]: But he will hold a special place in my heart forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't remember verbatim, but I got one one star review on my third Metcraft book, the final one.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was because a word was very wrong that I haven't corrected.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a military-based word, and I didn't catch it.
[SPEAKER_01]: My editor didn't catch it, and my publisher didn't catch it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this person gave it one star and said, this word is actually this word, and because of that, I'm throwing your book away.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and I can read, and then I subsequently correctly corrected the word, no time and nobody is none the wiser.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is, so very funny.
[SPEAKER_03]: We constructed negative reviews.
[SPEAKER_03]: My response to that always is, thank you for buying my book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because we still have money.
[SPEAKER_03]: They gave us money.
[SPEAKER_03]: They could say whatever they want to.
[SPEAKER_03]: We already have the money for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So absolutely fair.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for producing my book.
[SPEAKER_03]: It had some sort of visceral reactant, whether you liked it or not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, a hundred percent.
[SPEAKER_02]: The joking aside, you know, it's the mental like.
[SPEAKER_02]: Self-care side of things, just like, okay, I'm allowed to read the reviews.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not allowed to like, take them to, you know, like some people get really wrapped around the actual, like, oh, they didn't like it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The book is a piece of myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, no, I see previous statement.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes the book's not for everybody, and that's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're allowed to see it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like it's not that big a deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: It didn't kill anyone.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Except for Dave, he will hunt me for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, revenge on Dave.
[SPEAKER_01]: I shall avenge you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, so let's talk about meeting people in person if you guys gotten to go to conventions or something and met any of the readers of your wonderful works.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was saying, sorry, I did, and here in Southern California, we have the sister event to come extend Eagles Comic Con up in Anaheim where I live, called WonderCon.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's huge, but I mean, not sending you Comic Con huge, but I was there unfortunately, because they had not come out, I was like three weeks before to say God was gonna come out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I could not sell that, but I had black ballad copies, and I had my other copies, and it is
[SPEAKER_01]: It's I've been doing in person events for years and it's always the best.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's wonderful meeting new readers and a people who have read your stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just it's fantastic and it's because you can talk about other sci-fi things, you know, fandom.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love talking to chatting with people about favorite shows or other movies and things like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So what about you CD and then I have a follow up question.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we started doing conventions for Hounsong in general last year, or before.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was kind of like our first intended as just patrons before, but that was like the first time I'd had a booth and everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's been going really great.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've done three or four now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got two more coming up this August.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then next year we're trying to hit as Betty is like seven or eight.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it's been going quite good so far.
[SPEAKER_02]: Been selling tattered ponds and our gaming stuff at the booth and, you know, chat with people about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been fantastic to meet all sorts of people.
[SPEAKER_02]: That worked with some really interesting folks, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the other thing that conventions is like, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially if it's not strictly like one thing, although that is also good.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have met people who are like, what do you do?
[SPEAKER_02]: I make this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have this show.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do that thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just kind of artist or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, so that's always really exciting, especially when you like start sharing like we swap works sometimes like that's always super cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and I was surprised and delighted with how well novels do at like mixed conventions where it's like Comic Con or Wondercon or something like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I was really worried like I brought like five copies the first time was like, oh, those sold immediately.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, great.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got to just do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and it's been really good.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, you never have to go.
[SPEAKER_03]: The whole question is this, what has somebody come up and told you from your books that you were like, yeah, no, that's, yeah, yeah, and had no F and I deal with what they were talking about.
[SPEAKER_03]: because that happens to all of us where people get really excited about some little plot point that we just used to catalyst the story and they're like Bob the barista's the best thing in the world and we're like oh but you can't say that because you gotta be just as equally excited but then go Google search your own document
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I don't necessarily have a plot twist that comes immediately tonight.
[SPEAKER_02]: And first of all, haven't done the in person stuff with memory.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you had August is going to be the first time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we'll see, there's some weird stuff in there that I'm really curious to hear people's feedback on.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I will say the one that I wasn't expecting for most unexpected things, Hans has a dog in it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The dog, let me be very clear, has plot armor.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have received more threats of eternal damnation and personal maimings over the fate of this dog.
[SPEAKER_02]: who is, can't stress this enough fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, people really responded to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've had a lot of people come up after getting to chapter four or wherever he appears and just be like, hey, I just want to let you know, I'm enjoying this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to keep reading it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if anything happens to gruff,
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna find you, and I'm like, okay, he's good.
[SPEAKER_02]: I get it though, I do.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's several of myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't hurt the dog.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, every other character I will kill ruthlessly, gruff is fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: I ran what about you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have not had a story such as that where they've come up with something outlandish, but I have had more than a few angry people at me killing off a certain character and
[SPEAKER_01]: that just that kind of like makes me smile on the inside.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, they are sad.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will drink their tears.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think it a lot of reaction to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of reaction to in my sci-fi series, the main villain, people love her.
[SPEAKER_01]: And more than I thought they would.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm like kind of leaning into that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I like playing that up.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, I had a
[SPEAKER_01]: a rock band from New Jersey reached out to me once the second book came out and asked the permission to write a song about the villain.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's like, all right, sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, how many authors get a song written on them?
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the song came out in, I think, twenty twenty two on their album.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a band called Chemical Street Jacket.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the song was called Tendril and Blade.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like a pretty cool song.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't like, you know, not radio friendly, but it was pretty cool industrial rock.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's very awesome.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is awesome because I think when we're sitting behind the scenes and we're writing, we want to have an impact, regardless of what the impact is.
[SPEAKER_03]: We want to have an impact on our readers and have it be something they take away.
[SPEAKER_03]: as a memory that's how I think about it because we've all read a ton of books that we if somebody said hey if you read this would be like maybe you know and we almost have to start reading it to go oh yeah I've read this before right but I like creating that effect and how that effect is created we think it'll go one way and it and it goes another way right like you're like oh
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'm going to tell that character in the next book.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm going to tell that character in the next book.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think that's interesting because I think that I'm saying I think a lot that readers don't understand how we think this is going to have the impact and nobody ever brings that thing up and you're like, son of a bitch.
[SPEAKER_03]: true and the thing you least expect they gravitate towards yes yeah the weird side character that you're like this is literally a plot point and they're like they're the best they need their own story and you're like there's a character in memory thief that I wrote as kind of like a fun sea plot like
[SPEAKER_02]: comic, not comic relief, but like tension-breaking side thing, who apparently became a thirst trap for some folks.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I wouldn't expect that or plan that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's been kind of in that vein of like, oh, you want me to do what?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, that's not what his vein is.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the bad fiction.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I'm really fascinating messages.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love this so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not the least of which with with a writer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you naughty boy?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: So second, the last final question from Moa, because time is running out, what surprised you the most when you became a published author?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, what one thing were you not expecting?
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: So finish the book?
[SPEAKER_01]: Does that count?
[SPEAKER_04]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the thing that surprised me the most is I thought I would be ready to stop and take a break after it was done and I accomplished it and I knew it was going to get published but I found myself even almost involuntarily plotting out the next books and working ahead much much more and much faster than I thought I would.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought I'd be like, okay, I'm just going to sort of rest a little bit and there was no rest.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's things we all learn about like the industry as we get into it, where it's just like I think the view of it again, aspiring versus published is very different.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's neither here nor there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that the thing that's been most surprising to me personally was the like, I thought after two books, I would be like, now I have my process downpads.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nope, nope.
[SPEAKER_02]: I keep coming up with better ways to do things and it just changes like chapter to chapter.
[SPEAKER_02]: It seems to be working and I think that means it's improving.
[SPEAKER_02]: But like I was like, oh yeah, I've written, you know, two whole manuscripts and a bunch of other side stuff at this point.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just feel like I should have this, you know, I'm kind of, it's no one knows what they're doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's always evolving.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no right way, not devolving, but you evolving.
[SPEAKER_01]: Indeed, mutating even to say.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that depends on the day in the moment.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: It depends on whether or not you're scrapping the ten thousand word you just wrote because you would know this is not going to go in the right direction next.
[SPEAKER_02]: The whole last third of memory thief was not well as in the outline.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just because I was literally stuck one day and I was like,
[SPEAKER_02]: I am no longer going to do the thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I told storytellers forge I was going to do and instead I'm going to just write the cooler ending to the story I just came up with.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that was.
[SPEAKER_02]: And no one called me on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So here we are.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: So final question for me and then we're going to do some shameless self promotion.
[SPEAKER_03]: What is the last great book that you read?
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the down side, the sad thing about being an author and that you're working on writing a lot is that you don't have time to read.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have not read a book for pleasure, for pleasure in probably five years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hate saying that because I used to love to read and I'm so busy writing on different things that I have not had to step to down and read.
[SPEAKER_01]: What did I read that was super powerful?
[SPEAKER_01]: I would sadly, the last couple of books I've read have not really impacted me at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've a lot of, but I have been reading some indie authors and the secrets we keep by Megan Opava is stands out.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's an indie author, huge TikTok following.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were friends there first and she reviewed some of my books and I grabbed her book and it's very cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very cool post-apocalyptic cult.
[SPEAKER_01]: store, but a grounded apocalypse, not like zombies right now, that is more like, you know, beware of the other humans.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the main character is involved in a cult who didn't inches and see it right away.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very fascinating take on both an apocalypse in America, as well as religious fervor is very good.
[SPEAKER_03]: That sounds really good.
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually, easy for this one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Murderbot Diaries, I picked it up.
[SPEAKER_02]: month or two ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, I keep hearing about this.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're making a show about it with what's his name?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I killed the first book in the first anthology in a day.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I haven't talked about what you two and three on my nightstand right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they are my dopamine reward for finishing the backlog of work I have to do this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I've really been enjoying them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love any kind of like a reverent sci-fi in terms of like
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just some refreshing to see a lot of science fiction, particularly, you can get so bogged down in the like.
[SPEAKER_02]: Before I tell you what happens to the character in this next chapter, I've got to explain the entire backstory of the space empire and why the work drive works the way I think it does.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, it's very focused on like,
[SPEAKER_02]: what it's like to be the characters in this world and you learn about the world through that instead of before I tell you anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: First, you must know of the Star Lord and it's it's it's just so good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, you bring that up and it's actually something, you know, when we were talking earlier, believe it or not, my site or adult brain just thought of this.
[SPEAKER_03]: We were talking earlier about things that are different.
[SPEAKER_03]: for us as when we're authors versus before we're authors reading, that is a huge difference to me, is can you just tell the story without having to absolutely overdue all of the stuff in it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because writing screen plays for instance, which I've done too, there's no tell me the entire dissertation on moral peace and show me, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And so if you can tell the story with show me,
[SPEAKER_03]: and get rid of a lot of the, you know, backstory that you didn't manage to actually weave into the story to be told or have something happen that explains it.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're like, well, let me give you a dissertation on this castle and I'm like, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: The rule that I heard that really stuck with me, and I don't know if this is controversial or not, but I try and stick with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Somebody somewhere along one said, if you find yourself writing the phrase in dialogue, well, as you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: Stop.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that means you're about to do something bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you're the character is going to say something the character would never say out loud because no one says that.
[SPEAKER_01]: As you know, you are my brother and we did this to get know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: As well as you know, the rebels are fighting against the evil empire who have built a death star like you never never know.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't the character knows.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't need to say it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hilarious.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god, I love that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so shameless self promotion time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Where can people find you guys in your work?
[SPEAKER_03]: Brian?
[SPEAKER_03]: How do people find you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I am, I make a lot of videos on social media.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can find me on all of the big ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do writing tips because I like to pit forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do a lot of talk about writing tips and of course, working progress and some stories that are embarrassing about my past, you know, a lot of amusing things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can find me Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, all of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: and all my books are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and all those good places.
[SPEAKER_01]: I tend to be all over the place and I do close three or four videos a week.
[SPEAKER_03]: And your handle?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's right here on the thing, it's at author-bring.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what you're watching, but you know, some people could be listening to the podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: What are you doing in the screen?
[SPEAKER_01]: It is at author-bring for Spatric.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, and you only had coffee for the three of us.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I don't know what that says, Brian.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just got a lot of stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: CD, don't mess it up as bad as Brian did.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't know where it gets on the screen.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't feel like I need to say any more.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I am a act of cumbsong games, basically everywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: Occasionally, you have to put a underscore after song because someone stole what on Instagram.
[SPEAKER_02]: But everywhere else, town of song games.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that has both my gaming stuff for relic and the other projects that are working on and artwork and all that other kind of stuff and I post about the books because it's easier to just have one handle.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got a YouTube channel.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a show.
[SPEAKER_02]: We play relic.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's called the NYX archive.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a podcast that is in all of the podcasting places that's NYX archive.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then all of my books and what not because I write fantasy and science fiction and the game is fantasy and science fiction are linked on the website for the game, which is relictrpg.com.
[SPEAKER_02]: R-E-L-I-C-T-R-P-G-D-K.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I do that sign off a bunch.
[SPEAKER_03]: Very, very boldly somehow made it through the end of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm proud and happy it's over.
[SPEAKER_04]: With that said, are we that bad?
[SPEAKER_03]: Bride, you see, thank you so much for being on the podcast with me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_03]: People who are listening or viewing don't forget, like, subscribe.
[SPEAKER_03]: CD's information and Brian's information are also in the show notes because we do that sort of thing here.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we will, we will see you for more shenanigans
[SPEAKER_03]: Next time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for having us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to drinking with authors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Join us next time for another fun conversation with an author over drinks.