[SPEAKER_00]: and welcome to our show.
[SPEAKER_00]: The shit no one tells you about writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm best selling author Bianca Marie, and I'm joined by CC Lira of Wendy Sherman Associates and Carly Waters of PS Literary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi everyone, today's guest is the author of more than 60 novels, including those in a number one, New York Times in US today, bestselling series, The Black Dead Girl Brotherhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are more than 30 million copies of her novels in print world wide, and they have been published in 25 different countries around the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is my pleasure to welcome J.R. Ward.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, thank you very kindly, thanks for having me.
[SPEAKER_00]: For those of you who are not watching on YouTube, you must go and have a look at YouTube.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am holding up the stunning cover of the book we're discussing today, crown of war and shadow.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is absolutely beautiful, not just the front of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the sprayed pages are absolutely stunning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that you're gonna have a whole series of this in which the sprayed pages are gonna make up an image.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that correct?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and I think it's one of the brilliant packaging ideas.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bramble is like so good in the romantasy space.
[SPEAKER_01]: With these, I feel like this book is a work of art.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the fact that there is a collectible for sort of four element picture that everything's gonna for at the end was great.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we were doing the casings for all of this, and she was like, all right, so the next three books, what are the, you know, what are the people of all I was like, oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we had to like space it all out, it was great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, and also for the people who love maps.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm holding it up here so you can see the stunning maps inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you take off the flat cover, you can see how beautiful the hard copy itself is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I find quite interesting,
[SPEAKER_00]: is that we've recently had a deep diving, which we had a lot of agents and editors from across the world who weighed in on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the theories was, is that young people today are not spending their money on six drugs and rock and roll, which is what my generation did.
[SPEAKER_00]: They aren't interested in all of that, and they are more interested in spending money in collectibles, and books have become some of those collectibles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jay, I would you think about that?
[SPEAKER_01]: I totally, well, I can't comment about the younger generation and what their predilections are, but I can say that what I loved was going to a polycon last year and seeing all these incredible authors and whether they were self-published or indie-polished or trad-published and they had each one of their books is becoming like a world that creates not just a relationship with the reader,
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's the merchandise and it's these covers and it's the it's the series and I think it's just a whole another level to reading which everyone said was going to go away when ebooks came out.
[SPEAKER_01]: When ebooks came out, you know, it goes back to Ghostbusters where it's like print is dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's not dead and I love that the average generation is teaching us that there's a whole new evolution to reading now and I just love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to agree with you there and what I also love is how they will buy the same copy of the book that they love, but with three different comments, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are actually a couple of different versions of this book that are already coming out.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to be coming out soon.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think there's also like a market on Etsy where there are some people who will design special covers for books, whether it's with leather bound, etc.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that people can customize covers for the books that they love.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I've always said that for me reading and collecting books are too completely different hobbies, and I think the younger generation are really, they're really proving that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so let's dive into the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is your first romantic scene.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I would like us to break down kind of for our listeners, the difference between paranormal romance and romanticy in terms of tropes in terms of the genre in terms of how you approach it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, after having been in the paranormal space for 20 years, the Black Decker Brotherhood is grounded in this world, this common world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So whether it's flashbacks back hundreds of years ago or whether it's now and call well or whether it's 33 years from now, in call well in New York, the commonly accepted version of reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, there are myths and there's spirituality and there's a whole new tradition and they have been going parent-alell to humans, but there is a common vocabulary as to what the quote unquote real world is with fantasy.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a totally different world that exists nowhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no earth, there's no what this is a totally different realm with different rules and different magic and creatures that don't exist on earth and
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think what's interesting about it is, is in both cases, you're dealing with the human condition in extraordinary circumstances.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I've heard about people say about the vampires is that all of the emotions are human emotions, that when they're reading they feel on behalf of the characters whether they're suffering or they're they have joy or whether they're scared or whether they're fighting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are all the common human emotions and the same is true for
[SPEAKER_01]: to have the reader enter into a space where they feel things.
[SPEAKER_01]: They feel things and they experience things from the comfort of their own homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, and romantasy is just exploded now and it's become so popular.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I know that you said in another interview that you actually had the idea for this book like 20 years ago and then when your publisher or your editor asked you, you know, would you consider writing romantasy?
[SPEAKER_00]: You were like, well, I have this idea from ages and ages ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's exactly well.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing was, is that I was fired after my first four books and the publisher was right to do it because they were critically well acclaimed and very well received, but they didn't develop an audience.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the Black Tiger Brotherhood was like my hail Mary to just try not be a lawyer for the rest of my life and the agreement I had with the pictures in my head.
[SPEAKER_01]: Was that I would write whatever I'm shown.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think of these books.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't I don't have any influence over the people in them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't develop storylines.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no Pinterest boards.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no inspiration.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have movies that play in my head and my job is to transcribe them such that when the reader reads the words, they can approximate what's in my head.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I, the Black Tiger Brotherhood was so out there for for what was happening 20 years ago that I was like, this is never going to be bought and even if some publisher is dumb enough to try and publish it, it's never going to find an audience and so I was like, well, let me go and see about some other things that I have in my head.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had this vision of four people sitting around in this round circular turret in a castle and a medieval light castle around a golden compass that was flaring light into the undersides of their faces and I was like, oh, well, I got to find out about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just kind of followed that and saw where it went and I made this outline but then the black dagger brotherhood But took off which I'm very grateful for and then yeah, so two years ago my agent came to me and was like you don't happen to have any I don't know
[SPEAKER_01]: Romanticy stuff hanging around and I was like, as a matter of fact, I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I were fine, everything and like, got it so that it was ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I've been really lucky and I really love writing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love writing Romanticy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's really super fun and horrible at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and coming back to what you said about starting with that image, I think you said as well about crown of war and shadow is that you started with an image in your head, I think of Serrell with the cloak over head, the pox cloak and you kind of had that image and again it was like, okay, who is she, how am I going to follow her into the story?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think that that, so entering, like what I find is that the pictures, the get more pictures, the get more pictures.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I start with one of the ones that I'm shown, and then I can just kind of watch her move and where she's going, who she interacts with, and the story kind of breathes on its own.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the story is in charge of where we go, not me.
[SPEAKER_01]: My only thing that I do is I kind of put the scenes that I'm shown because they often they come out of order.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's to put them in a good chronological order, and then, in the case of the Black Decker, Brotherhood, I also have to do a set like, who's the best point of view for this particular scene?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because this is first person, Crown of Orange Shadow, I didn't have to do that, but it was also interesting because as first person, the reader can only be shown or no or extrapolate, that
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was both good and bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: It worked well for the purposes of some of the big highlights of this plot, but it also is a challenge because you've got to give this rich sense of the word, but you've only got that one point of view.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the thing with the first person point of view when it comes to world building is that the challenge there is, is that we are meeting them at some point in their life.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have lived in this world, they whole life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they aren't going to point out everything to the reader and explain it to them because it's backdrop to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when you leave your house today, you aren't going to be like, well, this is what my front door looked like and this is what my street looked like because it's all, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's faded into the background for you and yet you have to do world-building for the reader and create enough of a visual so that what you have going through your head is something that they can envision as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So can you speak a bit about the challenges of that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, I think that I think that's I don't want to say this in a wrong that that was not a problem for me because I can see the world out of cereals eyes, okay, but then I can also take myself out and I can watch her and so if I'm standing outside of her and I'm looking at her and she's in the lake of law souls and there are these big boulders around her and then the giant black bird of prey comes after her.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can watch it like a movie or I can be in her eyes on the horse and feel the wind and feel the horse charging and hear the thundering hooves and see the dust kicking up and feel the great backdrop of this giant wings over her.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's figuring out because I often feel like only the first reader because it's all revealed to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I kind of have to figure out like what is captivating to me even if Surrell is not captivated by it as I watch her as I experience it even though it's her and her world I'm still seeing it for the first time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I kind of judge on that like what catches my eyes as I as we go through these things if that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, totally.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm someone who also, I am a complete pencil.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never plot anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: My loss because I closed the murder mystery.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was interesting to pencil that for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was actually going to be a question I was going to ask you is are you viewing her from the outside or are you inside of her?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because for me,
[SPEAKER_00]: I am inside the character and I've used the world from inside them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to me, it's so fascinating that you're able to dip in and out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does that help you J.R. in terms of interiority?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because with this kind of book, especially with the slow burn kind of book, we need to know what she's thinking.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to know her feelings.
[SPEAKER_00]: What her theories are about what's happening, et cetera, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is so much easier when you climb into the character.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when there's action scenes and things are happening to her, perhaps then it's easier to climb out and watch it from the outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is that not necessarily how it works?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think your right, I think the reader has to know what they're thinking.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also think if a character is on the page,
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like the reader gets to know them as a friend, and in the way a friend can describe to you something that happened to them, you kind of know their orientation, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You're right though, I do agree with what you're saying, that the interiority, I think is the word you used, is important
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also think it's important that however the character is portrayed, that the reader begins to extrapolate and predict the way they're going to act because that gives credibility to that moment in the book when.
[SPEAKER_01]: things are a surprise.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that's great about life, I think, and also horrible about it is, is we have these briefcase of assumptions that we take with us wherever we go, and the assumptions are both like our privilege, or our upbringing, or who the people around us are, or orientation towards all kinds of things are character.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then everyone's in a while life is
[SPEAKER_01]: And what we're going to do in that moment or after that moment is resolved we're going to look back on everything that happened and be like there were the bench posts that I missed or I misinterpreted or I took for granted x but why was really what was meant and I feel like.
[SPEAKER_01]: that's the books that I respond to, not that I read much anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the books that have moved me are the ones that have revealed something about me as like that I'm not even aware I'm bringing to the pages I read because you're like oh wait yeah life really is like that or oh gosh you know I didn't see that coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that yeah that's an interesting it is an interesting balance.
[SPEAKER_01]: How much do you show versus how much do you let the reader extrapolate?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and just based on what you've just said, I mean, true character is revealed in moments of adversity.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can tell ourselves that we are good people, that we would respond in a certain way, but when all hall breaks loose, that's when true character is revealed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I love about how we and Paxorale is that even though it's a slow burn, is that everything about the way she reacts to what's happening
[SPEAKER_00]: to her tells us something about her.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when she interacts with milk and he's like, you must do this and she's like, that hell, I'm going to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to go check on my friend because my friend is my priority.
[SPEAKER_00]: So everything in in the book, not just what she says and feels, but what she does is constantly revealing character.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree and I think that like and that's maybe that's I can't really cop to having any any smarts in this because again, I'm just a secretary, I just I just watch these movies, but I do feel like It's sort of like the way I watched people in my own life like not not like in some like creepy warrior system since the word, but I find people fascinating.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like to hear my friends talk about their lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like to listen and hear their perspectives, because I just think people are interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wonder if that isn't like a writer thing, like me, part of the reason why we write is because, you know, it's not just the pretty pictures, and it's not just the challenge of it, and it isn't not, it's not just what our brains do, but I think it's just really another extension to finding humans fascinating in good ways and bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think if you don't something they in terms of writers because I think I can remember the very exact moment when I realized that other people don't think the way I think there was a moment where there was some argument when I was ten years old no younger probably eight and and I was like so obviously this is the right thing and somebody who had the exact opposite view and I remember my mind being blown.
[SPEAKER_00]: and being like, oh my god, there are people who walk through this world and they thought so I'm not the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, no, I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the things that bring us together and tear us apart, too, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do think that, yeah, I mean, I think with this book, I don't like to use the word journey because I feel like it's kind of an, it's been worn out, but watching surreal change over the course of the book,
[SPEAKER_01]: and how she starts, she describes herself as a mouse among rats at the beginning.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then where she is in the final scene, I feel like it is just this big yawning vista of just someone who's coming out of their shell and discovering things about themselves and things that they couldn't have possibly extrapolated.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's kind of like what I like, I like about life in general is how are you growing?
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you challenging yourself?
[SPEAKER_01]: As you said, like character is revealed in moments of tension and moments of conflict.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, I mean, I think good books are about conflict.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not just two people not getting along.
[SPEAKER_01]: As you said, it's also external forces.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how do we respond to adversity or challenges or fear?
[SPEAKER_01]: And where are we brave when we don't think we can be?
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what I love about Romanticity.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and also about the paranormal urban fantasy, is I think that you can construct situations or have them revealed in my case, in these worlds that can be so much more vivid and high stakes than they are in like the real world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because like, you know, have you a flat tire?
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a big problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how you handle your flat tire, can reveal your character, but it's a hell of a lot different than you when you're fighting a dragon, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: when your dragon gets a flat tire, that's much more interesting in terms of character arc.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was again so important.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we say that you want to go on a journey with the character and who the character is at the end of the book needs to be so different to who they are at the beginning of the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: And certainly there have been incredible books where the character stays exactly the same throughout, but they change everybody else around them,
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what makes you feel like you know her.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it makes you protective of her.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Seral has the secrets that I kept from her and she believes something about her past.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want to give anything away there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, what I love about that is the surprises that come.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, on the podcast, we talk about planting curiosity seeds.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you need to plan to see that the reader goes, ooh, that's interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna keep reading for the payoff of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you do that so well with her character that we keep going, ooh, you've got my curiosity peaked when are we gonna find out more about that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that leads to a whole page turning story as well as the character arc.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, again, I can't really cop to thinking any of this up, so I don't really, you know, it's not anything that I did constructively, it's not any forethought or anything, but I do think a movie is good if you give a crap.
[SPEAKER_01]: about the people are in it, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's interesting because morally gray heroes like Mark, he's morally gray.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you don't really get a sense that he's taking her through the badlands because he's a nice guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not the arrangement.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I say I think that we watch things because we either find something of ourselves in the character and outside or someone who is shy or someone who doesn't feel like they can be brave or we want to see what someone will do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh my god, you know, what is he or she going to do next or you want to be like, I
[SPEAKER_01]: is this guy gonna turn out to be a good guy after all or is he just a shit, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think you're right, I think, you know, we have to either find something that is that resonates within us for a good reason or a bad reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, I think in this in this book crown, I think there's a lot to find ourselves in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I certainly found that way while I was watching the movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, I love, I love that it's just watching the movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I know that you will always be surprised and I'm the same as this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like my read is going to be surprised if I'm surprised.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm totally read by the hand, the read is going to see where we're going.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where's if we end up there and I'm like, how the hell did we get you?
[SPEAKER_00]: And the read is like how the hell did we get you?
[SPEAKER_00]: So long as it's plausible, it's absolutely great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have there ever been instances where you have fought back?
[SPEAKER_00]: against those visions, all those characters and being like, you're wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is it that you trust them 100%.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, so I have a problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I...
[SPEAKER_01]: I learned with lover revealed, which was the fourth book in the Black Zagger Brotherhood series, that if I tried to get two fancy pants, tried to get smart with the pictures, they shut up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I got nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got no voices, I got no places, I got no, I don't have anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a blank slate because my publisher back then was worried that the books were getting a little too long.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were like, you know, just be aware that you're starting to like create problems for packing because you're not fitting into the cardboard boxes anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, all right, I got a great idea, it was like chapter four or five in that book and I was like, I'm going to consolidate some of these scenes so I'm going to like I know these scenes are going to be here, but I'm going to mash them all together and I'm going to tell the reader what happens and the pictures and voices shut up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the other time is there was something in Love Run Vowne, which was the fifth book that, you know, at the time needed to be kind of changed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I did have, I did go against the pictures at that point.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was the most miserable writing experience I've ever had.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like pulling teeth.
[SPEAKER_01]: That book was difficult.
[SPEAKER_01]: It held it right because it was not the book that I was shown.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the only time I get into trouble is if I don't do what I'm told.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm a very disciplined, structured, controlled kind of person.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the fact that I have to make peace with this, this, this ether, or I don't have a job is like a trick of faith that makes me laugh to this day.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is just so funny because that's not the way I kind of run my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that,
[SPEAKER_01]: The pictures don't care about my opinion about things.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't care about anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: They just are what they are.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the answer is no, I don't get writers' block.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't go, although that is an interesting question because what happens if something happened where like I'm like more or less or I couldn't do it, it hasn't happened yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope it doesn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, no, I guess they kind of are also happened with love around balance, so I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was saying 99.9% of the time, I do what I'm told, and everything works out.
[SPEAKER_00]: That makes me laugh so much because I'm an eight-type control-free Capricorn in every era of my life, except for writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I say that the universe gave that to me as my playground.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the one place where I don't need to control everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it sounds like the same for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's exactly the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly the same for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You said that writing the first draft of this book and I quote was an ifing nightmare.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you take this?
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't see that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so awful.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't even tell you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was miserable.
[SPEAKER_01]: It took me nine months to write this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a fast writer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I usually write about three books a year.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I, you know, that's just kind of the way it works.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I work seven days a week.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, you know, I don't take time off.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, because what am I going to do with myself?
[SPEAKER_01]: This was horrible.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was awful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Figuring out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'd written one other first person point of view book and one in a short story, but that's very different than doing a Romanticie whole world start off an entire series.
[SPEAKER_01]: First point of view, it's totally different ballgame.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then figuring out, since I knew the whole thing, not just about what was going to happen in this book, but where we were going in the other books and the world, how much do I have to show the reader so that the reader is going to have an
[SPEAKER_01]: that was the thing that I was worried about.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was getting that balanced, titated correctly, if I put too much in, you know, I don't want to tell everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like to show things.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm like, you know, how much getting that, that correct, that that done, and then there was problems also with pacing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the the first part of this book is a little bit slow for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Usually I am a bang, we're off to the races.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what I learned about this book is that I had so much to kind of like it was like getting a giant airplane off the tarmac, like you got to get this momentum going and then it takes off.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was like, well, you know, did I do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it was a nightmare.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then like all the words and the different like describing different creatures and oh my gosh, so it was a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's interesting that no matter how many books you've written,
[SPEAKER_01]: Agreed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally agree with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And different lessons every time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and some of it easier than others and some of you really have to wrestle with along the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jail, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's it for today's episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you'll join us for next week's show.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the meantime, keep at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, it just takes one