9: Writing with Heart: How Douglas Weissman Crafts Stories That Stick
I'm really excited to take you on a journey into the world of storytelling with someone who understands that great writing isn't just about plot, it's about connection. Meet Douglas Weissman, a travel writer and novelist who's turning personal experiences into compelling stories.
But his story? It's not just about writing books. It’s about crafting experiences that stay with readers long after they’ve turned the last page.
From Ordinary Moments to Narrative Gold
What if our most powerful stories are hiding in the moments we overlook? Douglas believes your life is a treasure trove of storytelling potential. From a random conversation with a stranger to a missed train, every moment has the potential to inspire extraordinary stories.
Actionable Tip: Start a story collection journal. For the next week, write down one unexpected moment each day. What made it unique? What emotions did it stir?
Bonus: Choose one of these moments and write a 500-word scene exploring its emotional core. Don't worry about perfection. Just dive in and see what emerges.
Breaking Free from Creative Paralysis
Most writers get stuck because they're chasing some mythical "perfect story." Instead of waiting for the right moment, Doug embraces the messy, real, and raw. Your first draft doesn't need to be a masterpiece. It needs to be honest.
Actionable Tip: Set a timer for 20 minutes. Write without stopping, without editing. Let your story spill out onto the page in its most raw form.
Bonus: Read your unedited writing out loud. What surprises you? What feels most authentic?
Navigating the Small Press Landscape
The publishing world isn't just about big publishers. Douglas has carved a path through small presses that celebrate unique voices. These publishers aren't looking for cookie-cutter books—they're looking for stories with heart.
Actionable Tip: Research three small presses in your genre. What makes them different? How do they support emerging writers?
Bonus: Reach out to one small press. Ask a genuine question about their publishing approach. Build a relationship, not just a submission strategy.
Writing in the Age of AI: Staying Human
AI can generate text, but it can't generate soul. Douglas sees AI as a tool, not a replacement. Your lived experiences and unique perspective are what make stories shine.
Actionable Tip: Use AI for brainstorming, but write your actual story in your voice. Compare the AI-generated ideas with your authentic story.
Bonus: Write a scene both with AI and on your own. Which feels more alive?
The Vulnerability Advantage
Don't be afraid to share your most vulnerable moments. They're the ones that connect most deeply with readers and make the best stories.
Actionable Tip: Write about a moment you've been hesitant to explore. What makes it uncomfortable? What does it reveal?
Bonus: Share this writing with a trusted friend and ask for input. Sometimes an outside perspective helps us see our story's true power.
Marketing Your Work Without Selling Your Soul
Douglas believes in building genuine connections to sell his books. Your marketing should feel like an invitation to connect, not a sales pitch.
Actionable Tip: Instead of just sharing links to your book on your newsletter, share your writing journey. What's happening behind the scenes?
Bonus: Host a small online writing workshop or class. Give value before asking for anything in return.
Key Takeaways:
- Your life experiences are your greatest storytelling resource
- Embrace imperfection in your writing process
- Small presses can be powerful platforms for unique voices
- AI is a tool, not a storytelling replacement
- Vulnerability creates the deepest connections
Your Story Deserves to Be Told
If you've been holding back in your writing, now's the time to take action. The world needs more stories with heart. Yours could be one of them.
Ready to Level Up Your Creative Career?
Visit TheStandoutCreatives.com to book your free strategy session.
📌 Note: I keep these sessions limited so I can give each person my full attention—so don't wait too long!
Recommended Books:
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and On Writing by Stephen King
Transcript
Creativity is a muscle.
Speaker A:We have to flex it, we have to stretch it, we have to exercise it.
Speaker A:And we find different ways to do it.
Speaker A:But we have to.
Speaker A:Coming back to that idea of showing up to do it, like if I'm not at my table or my desk writing, it's not going to get written.
Speaker A:Sometimes there is a block.
Speaker A:Not terms of writer block specifically, whether you believe in it or not, but a block just in terms of I don't know where to go right now.
Speaker A:So I do need that creative flow.
Speaker A:How do I get it?
Speaker A:I go on a walk.
Speaker A:That's fine.
Speaker A:It opens things up.
Speaker A:I go into nature.
Speaker A:I listen to a fountain I have in my backyard.
Speaker A:Whatever it is, something is going to at least I'm not going to sit here and bang my head against my keyboard until something opens up.
Speaker A:Because that never works.
Speaker A:Then I just feel stressed out.
Speaker A:But I understand my process.
Speaker A:These are things I know work for me.
Speaker B:Welcome to the Standout Creatives, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs who want to grow their business without losing their passion.
Speaker B:I'm Kevin Chung, your guide to building a standout business.
Speaker B:Each episode I'll share practical strategies, real world examples, and inspiring stories to help you balance the business side with your creative pursuits.
Speaker B:If you're ready to turn your creative passion into standout business, let's get started.
Speaker B:Ever wondered why some stories stick with you long after you've turned the last page?
Speaker B:Douglas Weissman doesn't just write.
Speaker B:He crafts experiences that pull you into worlds both familiar and and extraordinary.
Speaker B:Doug is a travel writer and novelist who collects moments like precious gems, spinning them into books championed by small presses.
Speaker B:His stories are love letters to human connection, friendship, vulnerability, and the quiet magic hidden in everyday moments.
Speaker B:But how does he stay passionate about storytelling in an era of AI and constant disruption?
Speaker B:In this conversation, we dive into Doug's writing process, his publishing journey, and the power of stories that refuse to let you go.
Speaker B:Whether you're a writer, a reader, or just someone who believes in the magic of a great story, this episode is for you.
Speaker B:Get comfy and let's dive in.
Speaker C:Welcome to another episode of the Standout Creatives.
Speaker C:Today I have on Douglas Weissman.
Speaker C:Doug is a full time travel writer and the author of two self published novels, Life Between Seconds and Girl in the Ashes.
Speaker C:His short stories have also been featured in multiple publications.
Speaker C:He loves writing about the magic in the mundane, finding beauty in the grotesque, and the deep bonds of friendship that shape our lives.
Speaker C:Douglas, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you got into the Work you're doing?
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:I'd love to.
Speaker A:Thanks for having me.
Speaker A:I fear that I might have misled you if I, if I let you believe that my novels were self published.
Speaker A:They were additionally published but with really small presses.
Speaker A:So similar, similar grinds in terms of having to market on the back end and push, push, push hard.
Speaker A:But I was able to get some people to overlook them and to give me advice on them as opposed to having to hire people and the self publishing machine that's there.
Speaker A:So it's both are active and exciting and difficult for different reasons.
Speaker A:But it was a different.
Speaker A:But I had a little more help.
Speaker A:I would say.
Speaker C:Okay, gotcha.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:But with how I got started with it and creativity in general.
Speaker A:I always listened to my family stories growing up and I was just enthralled by them.
Speaker A:My, my grandfather telling stories about when he was back in Brooklyn growing up, his time in the Pacific theater in World War II, engaging with the community.
Speaker A:I'm was a big member, active member growing up in the Jewish community and just hearing these sometimes compelling and sometimes adventurous stories about being in the Holocaust.
Speaker A:Sometimes most of the time really harrowing stories about survival.
Speaker A:But I was just captivated by them.
Speaker A:And I always wanted to try and find an outlet for my own creative expression, whether it was for emotional reasons or adventurous reasons.
Speaker A:In second grade, I'll always remember having written the Unhappily Ever after of Cinderella.
Speaker A:And me and a friend wrote the story, which was.
Speaker A:We were in second grade, so there were like maybe two sentences on each page written in crayon.
Speaker A:I remember specifically black crayon.
Speaker A:For whatever reason, we thought it was daring and we drew the pictures and my teacher loved it.
Speaker A:She had us read it to the class and present it to the class.
Speaker A:And I think from that moment it was just this understanding that people like stories and I like stories, so how can I continue doing that?
Speaker A:And I found different outlets for it throughout my time, whether in high school or in college.
Speaker A:And I was a creative writing minor in college because I thought I can't make it a career because you always hear, right, creatives, the poor creative, right, the struggling artist.
Speaker A:So I don't want to do that.
Speaker A:Who wants to struggle, right?
Speaker A:It's not really a badge of honor when you're sitting there eating a cold can of beans for dinner because you can't afford anything else, in my opinion.
Speaker A:But it.
Speaker A:So I didn't want that.
Speaker A:I wanted to find something that would pay me.
Speaker A:But then I just fell into writing anyway by happenstance and was Able to make it a viable career option, whether ironically, travel writing, which I think everybody would assume that it's impossible to get paid to travel and write.
Speaker A:But I was able to make that work and then I was able to make novels work and I've just kept going with it.
Speaker A:And so any way I can tell a story, I'm going to find the way to tell the story.
Speaker C:What's your favorite story from your family growing up?
Speaker A:Oh, man.
Speaker A:Okay, so there.
Speaker A:My.
Speaker A:I always love this story and I don't know why I found it so impactful.
Speaker A:And I think it's because it's about the like unique, random connection that people have.
Speaker A:My grandfather, I grew up somewhat close to like a 24 hour bagel stop in the San Fernando Valley.
Speaker A:And my dad would, every time we'd go there for a breakfast, you know, it was like one Sunday a month or something, he would tell me the story over again how when he was growing up, his dad, my grandfather, would take him to that same bagel place.
Speaker A:And one day, all of a sudden they're in line and somebody behind them in line says something like, really negative.
Speaker A:Like basically they.
Speaker A:They called my grandpa a really dirty word for jewelry.
Speaker A:And my grandpa turned around ready to hit this guy in the face and then screams in joy.
Speaker A:And it turns out these guys were friends from the old neighborhood back in Brooklyn and hadn't seen each other in like 40 years.
Speaker A:And not since they had this big fight on the beach.
Speaker A:Not with them.
Speaker A:They were fighting other kids.
Speaker A:Like essentially, you know, a neighborhood gang war in Brooklyn.
Speaker A:They were fighting.
Speaker A:These other kids hadn't seen each other since that moment because they both got drafted right after that, went into World War II in different spots.
Speaker A:And now we're running into each other in the San Fernando Valley, in Los Angeles at a bagel joint.
Speaker A:And like a bagel joint, it's just, it still gives me chills.
Speaker A:And I think it's because of that, that desire for connection and that idea that friendship can span decades and even can span missed time.
Speaker C:Yeah, one interesting thing about that too is like they had to both be there and at the exact same time in order to have that particular connection.
Speaker C:One time I went to Amsterdam and there I found one of the bartenders from the city I came from in Orlando.
Speaker C:Like, that is the most random thing.
Speaker C:I had no idea this guy was going to be here.
Speaker C:And it just happened to happen.
Speaker C:It's like, it feels like such a big world, but sometimes it can also feel like the smallest of worlds, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:I think that's what got me so interested in travel.
Speaker A:Just those random niche experiences that someone can have that makes it completely personal, even when it's not that epic.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So, of course, skydiving in Switzerland is going to be an epic experience, but it's an epic experience that so many people have that everybody who skydives in Switzerland has.
Speaker A:But the story you told about, you know, the random bartender in Amsterdam that you see from your hometown, Vers, or.
Speaker A:I was in a small town in South Island, New Zealand, and I ran into a guy who was, like, really close friends with a friend of mine and went to the same high school.
Speaker A:And so it was like just these little things that all of a sudden bring connection.
Speaker A:And that's why I always bring that into my creative endeavors.
Speaker A:Those connections, I feel, are paramount to making a connection with the audience.
Speaker A:And it's in those weird but understandable ways.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I think it's oftentimes that those are the moments that you can easily bring into a story.
Speaker C:And it feels real because it was real.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:You brought your own experiences, and that makes everything.
Speaker C:It gives you one more connection with your readers and audience.
Speaker C:And two, it's like, wow, this.
Speaker C:This is something unexpected, but, you know, it's believable.
Speaker C:And it's believable because it did happen.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker A:I was an old instructor of mine once told me, he said, you can use coincidence to get a character into trouble, but not out of trouble.
Speaker A:So whenever I'm using a story like that, it's like, all right, now what trouble is this going to get them into?
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker C:It's like, what is the term when you just pull a solution out of thin air and it doesn't seem believable?
Speaker A:You know, what is it?
Speaker A:It's like the hand of God, but it has a Latin or Greek term or something to it.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like, the gods come down and fix everything.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:This.
Speaker C:It's like, okay.
Speaker C:I waited for a real solution to this thing, and it's like, oh, okay.
Speaker C:Something miraculous just happened.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:Really?
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's the same annoyance I get when a character wakes up and it was all a dream.
Speaker C:Yeah, that happens.
Speaker C:That's so funny, because that's like, one of the things when I was writing as a kid, just a short story, and obviously that's the ending, because you see that everywhere.
Speaker A:Shows.
Speaker C:You're watching movies, you're watching books you might be reading.
Speaker C:It's like, okay.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:No, it really is.
Speaker A:I once, I was once did a man.
Speaker A:Why can't I think of the word?
Speaker A:I was contracted to write a book series and it was a YA book series.
Speaker A:And when, when you're contracted to do that, it usually means that the publisher has an idea for the series and they just need a writer to kind of flesh out each individual book.
Speaker A:But in line with the overall arc of their.
Speaker C:It's kind of like spec writing for a TV show or something.
Speaker A:Yeah, very much like that.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I went in and I had to create a template, basically a kind of an agenda, an outline for each of the six books.
Speaker A:But their ending was.
Speaker A:It was all a dream.
Speaker C:Why did I read all of these books?
Speaker A:Right, exactly.
Speaker A:After six books, you really want to do this right now?
Speaker A:And that was the biggest comment was I was like, look, I'm doing this because you asked for it, but I don't agree with it.
Speaker A:And I just want it to be, you know, in the record that I don't agree with it.
Speaker A:And then it brought up a conversation with the rest of the team on their end because I was an independent contractor.
Speaker A:So I wasn't part of that meeting.
Speaker A:But apparently everybody else after the consensus agreed, like, oh yeah, six books.
Speaker A:We don't want to find out it's a dream.
Speaker A:Like we want it to be real and that it changed.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We don't, you know, all of a sudden he wakes up on the couch, nothing actually happened, and he realizes he's not going to go to that competition and blah, blah.
Speaker A:I don't know, I've just made that up.
Speaker A:But that's the same idea.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker C:I mean, I guess there are ways to make it work.
Speaker C:Like wizard of Oz obviously is an example of it, but it's also relating and anal analogies from the fictional world to, you know, the world that she wakes back up in.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker A:And so that's the idea is what it happens in that way we have to still feel like the protagonists still went through those things and still learned from the experience that they had, even though it was a dream.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But there was.
Speaker A:I don't know if you ever saw the movie the Big Sick.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker C:I don't think so.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:So great movie for anybody listening, watching.
Speaker A:But one of the things that I remember hearing an interview with the.
Speaker A:Both the main characters in the movie were also the writers and they're married couple, but they realized that him as a main character.
Speaker A:So the, the girl protagonist, she gets really sick and goes into a coma.
Speaker A:And it's really after they've only dated for a little bit.
Speaker A:And he kind of has this, like, do I stay with her when I kind of barely know her?
Speaker A:But at the same time wanted to develop something richer with her.
Speaker A:And then he ends up meeting her family and develops this.
Speaker A:So he goes through this incredible journey through the time that she's in a coma.
Speaker A:She doesn't go through anything, and they don't go through anything together.
Speaker A:So she wakes up and he's had this emotional epiphany and wants to kind of go towards her and hug her and share in that experience.
Speaker A:And she's like, no, no, hold on.
Speaker A:You went through something.
Speaker A:Like, you went through this emotional thing.
Speaker A:I've been asleep for, you know, three months, or whatever the timeline was.
Speaker A:And so it's.
Speaker A:How do we.
Speaker A:We have to demonstrate that everybody goes on different journeys, and what journeys do they go on and how do they change along that way?
Speaker A:Because if he hugged her and they had this emotional moment in the audience's mind, it would be like, but what hap.
Speaker A:What did she go through?
Speaker A:I mean, obviously she went through a coma.
Speaker A:That's not what I mean.
Speaker A:But, like, what emotional journey did we see her go on?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:How did she come to this epiphany where we clearly understand how he came to that moment?
Speaker C:Yeah, so it's, like, about telling the whole story and perspectives of the story in order to get an overall picture.
Speaker C:Because everyone's experience.
Speaker C:If you were to take any story and just shift the perspective to a character on the side, your whole story is completely different.
Speaker C:Right, right.
Speaker A:We see that with Wicked right now.
Speaker A:I mean, it's blowing up.
Speaker A:It's really exciting.
Speaker A:But mentioning wizard of Oz before, but then you shift the camera lens to the Wicked Witch and what's her side of the story?
Speaker C:Yeah, and also Maleficent is the same idea.
Speaker C:You just.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C:Taking different perspectives on the story.
Speaker C:And sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad.
Speaker C:Sometimes you can overplay something.
Speaker C:But I guess in this particular instance, it was like a so much of a different take that it, you know, makes it interesting again.
Speaker A:No, absolutely.
Speaker A:There was a book that came out a few years ago, and I read it when it came out, but I don't.
Speaker A:I wish I remembered more of it because it was really fun and interesting.
Speaker A:But that idea of the new take or shifting to somebody different, and it's basically a book about.
Speaker A:You have, like, the superhero high school kids, but it's about all the kids who are just trying to get through high school.
Speaker A:Like, it's about the normies in high school that just want to graduate and get on with their lives, right?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:There was a TV show similar.
Speaker C:It's like the cleanup crew of superheroes and like just the people who have to take care of all the stuff.
Speaker C:As a comedy, I forget what it was called as well.
Speaker A:Great idea.
Speaker C:But it was pretty good show.
Speaker C:Alan Tudyk was in it, I think.
Speaker A:Oh well, anything with him I'm automatically.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker C:Can you tell us a little bit about how you got into writing your, your first piece of fiction?
Speaker C:Because you have a full time job as a travel writer.
Speaker C:But where did this spark to do fiction come from?
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean I wanted to do fiction before I wanted to do travel writing or before I knew I could do travel writing.
Speaker A:And again, this comes back to the idea of just kind of writing, not feeling writing was a viable career path.
Speaker A:And I had done writing as a minor, so I'd done short stories in college.
Speaker A:But there was this endless desire to tell more to make it longer.
Speaker A:I mean, in case you haven't realized already, I'm very verbose.
Speaker A:Like I will, I will just keep talking and talking and talking if, if I have the space for it until I get tired of my own voice.
Speaker A:And it's usually about two hours in.
Speaker A:So luckily like we're at the hour and a half mark maybe, so there's still time for me to get tired of my own voice.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But when I applied to grad school, so I take a step back a bit.
Speaker A:I had lived in Florence, Italy for a year in college, I took a year abroad, I traveled, I explored, I also did schoolwork, I worked.
Speaker A:Like I had a really beautiful, great long experience there.
Speaker A:But it also gave me this desire to just do more of that.
Speaker A:And when I graduated college, it was in the middle of the Great Recession, so I had no job prospects.
Speaker A:You know, no one's making any money.
Speaker A:Luckily I had a desire and an understanding that I wanted to travel a little bit after college.
Speaker A:But I wasn't really sure how long I would go.
Speaker A:Well, now I'm like, all right, let's just go for a year.
Speaker A:So I was able to satisfy a bit that travel bug by just traveling.
Speaker A:And I kept, I kept blogs at the time and it wasn't like they were public just in terms of anybody could stumble upon them.
Speaker A:But they weren't for the public.
Speaker A:They were really more as a travel diary to keep my family abreast of what was going on when I was traveling, what experience I was having, where I was, etcetera because at the time, it was a hell of a lot harder to reach out to people, you know, Still, I could Skype, but not everybody had Skype.
Speaker A:You know, very few people.
Speaker A:I definitely didn't have a smartphone.
Speaker A:Very few people had smartphones.
Speaker A:I could send emails, but it wasn't as accessible and easy as it is now.
Speaker A:And then I had, like, calling cards.
Speaker A:Pretty much anybody used a calling guard.
Speaker A:Such a pain in the ass.
Speaker A:But I mean, it got you there eventually after, like, trying four times and dialing a hundred different numbers to make sure that you got in touch with somebody.
Speaker A:But so it was.
Speaker A:It was like, this is an easy way blog it.
Speaker A:Everybody could read it.
Speaker A:And then I don't have to try to figure out how to contact 15 different people to tell them that I'm alive.
Speaker A:But it also got me more in tune with my writing self, my writing voice, and understanding what I find interesting and.
Speaker A:And how I want to write, how I want my voice to be.
Speaker A:So I applied to grad school.
Speaker A:When I got back, I didn't get in, so I decided to travel more and I went to South America.
Speaker A:And then when I was in South America, I got accepted to grad school.
Speaker A:Then I was in grad school specifically for fiction.
Speaker A:And I was writing a story which became Life Between Seconds, which was my first published adult novel.
Speaker A:And I found that story when I was in South America because it kind of.
Speaker A:There were a lot of these ideas roaming around my head, but the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo really spoke to me in a way that I understood because of the similarities between what they were experiencing.
Speaker A:The Mothers of the Disappeared from the Dirty war in the 70s and 80s in Argentina versus kind of the stories I was told and understood when I was growing up with the Jewish community and those who survived the Holocaust.
Speaker A:And so it resonated, and I spun out from there with this one particular person, Sophia.
Speaker A:And then there was the character Peter, who I wanted to be able to explore as the lens, kind of.
Speaker A:I used him as like a Trojan horse, where this is somebody many people can understand and relate to.
Speaker A:So now we're going to use him to go to Sophia's story, and then we're going to see how their relationship unfolds and why the relationship is so important.
Speaker A:And so the spark of the novel came from my travels, but the desire to write a novel had been there for so long, I just didn't know where the story was.
Speaker A:That was a really long answer to get there.
Speaker A:I'm sorry.
Speaker C:Oh, no, no.
Speaker C:It's beautiful because that's all of that led to the moment.
Speaker C:It's not like all of a sudden you decided this is a desire that you had and you just made it happen.
Speaker C:Because this is.
Speaker C:This was the spark that said, I need to do this right.
Speaker C:You're waiting for this thing to come and tell your story.
Speaker C:It's an interesting thing.
Speaker C:I just listened.
Speaker C:I'm listening to Stephen King's on writing right now, and he described in it how people come up with stories.
Speaker C:And he's like, oh, yeah, it just comes to you out of thin air.
Speaker C:It comes to you in a moment of, like, revelation.
Speaker C:It's not like something that is something that you produce usually.
Speaker C:It's just an idea that comes, at least for him.
Speaker C:You know, I don't know if it's.
Speaker A:The same for you that suck.
Speaker A:That, like, Stephen King, who is so prolific, so many stories, what is he publish, like four novels a year or something?
Speaker A:And he's like, oh, they just come out of thin air.
Speaker A:I don't know where they come.
Speaker C:You're like, oh, I'm sure the more that you experience in the world, the more likely you are to have an idea for that.
Speaker C:Because you obviously, if you hadn't gone to Argentina, that parallel, you know, idea from growing up and being there would not have come to you and that first novel would be something else.
Speaker A:No, I mean, you're definitely right.
Speaker A:I am a huge believer that, like, if you show up, the idea will show up, right?
Speaker A:So if I show up on my computer for 10 minutes, the idea is going to show up.
Speaker A:And whether I'm there for 10 minutes or an hour, as long as I give myself the 10 minutes, I'll be able to get something down and it'll work in some way at some point in time for something, even if it's not what I wanted it at that exact time.
Speaker A:And so, I mean, to your point, like, that idea of, yeah, Argentina, it sparked it, and it was just trying to figure out how to tell that story, the best way to tell that story.
Speaker A:And even Stephen King with On Writing, which is a great book, and I think it's one of the best books about figuring out how to write.
Speaker A:But he also has a great retrospective on his own career as a writer.
Speaker A:When somebody, I think it was on LinkedIn or Twitter or something, was like, how does Stephen King write books?
Speaker A:And he was like, he shows up for this amount of time, he basically used On Writing.
Speaker A:The person used On Writing is like the structure through which Stephen King used to write all his books.
Speaker A:And then Stephen King responded.
Speaker A:He's like, there's a whole entire book I wrote that I don't even remember writing because he was, like, so coked up and drugged out that.
Speaker A:But it's just this hilarious retrospective, that idea of, like, if you put in the processes, the idea will come eventually.
Speaker A:But then you have somebody who's so prolific who's basically, yeah, I'm telling you about the process, but process be damned.
Speaker A:Like, I don't even.
Speaker A:I don't even know how I wrote Cujo, but here we are.
Speaker A:So it's.
Speaker A:It, I think, when it comes down to, essentially, is like, what.
Speaker A:What passions do you have?
Speaker A:What are the things?
Speaker A:Or.
Speaker A:One of my instructors actually called it obsessions.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like, every writer has their obsession, and they are at their best when they are writing towards that obsession, even.
Speaker A:But it doesn't mean the book's always the same for me, I'm obsessed with intergenerational trauma and.
Speaker A:And friend dynamics.
Speaker A:And so you can see that in all of the books, nine books published, but two for adults.
Speaker A:Life Between Seconds, where it's Sophia and her disappeared child, then trying to create a friendship with Peter, who.
Speaker A:Whose mom committed suicide and he basically grew up, you know, kind of on his own to his own devices and.
Speaker A:And the.
Speaker A:Really.
Speaker A:In the kind of mother dynamic that they create of mother son dynamic they have.
Speaker A:But this is the relationship they're trying to build based upon their past traumas.
Speaker A:Then with Girl in the Ashes, it's a World War II novel.
Speaker A:It's based in Paris.
Speaker A:It's a serial killer novel, but everybody is still coming to the scene with their own traumas and trying to figure out how to deal with that while killing people or finding the serial killer or dealing with Nazis.
Speaker A:And so it's.
Speaker A:It's like, these are the themes I'm constantly dealing with.
Speaker A:These are the things that I'm constantly obsessed with in my writing and trying to explore.
Speaker A:Even though they come out in different.
Speaker C:Ways, I think I do a lot of improv, and one of the basic tenets of improv is like, yeah, it can be funny, but the basic idea is that you have a strong connection between you and your partners, but also between the characters.
Speaker C:If you don't have that connection, people aren't going to care.
Speaker C:Even if.
Speaker C:Though it oftentimes is funny, but the.
Speaker C:The way that it works is like, it's only funny because there's, like, an idea of truth in there.
Speaker A:Mm.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I always joke that, you know, when somebody says something and I'm like, oh, yeah, it's only funny because it's true.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:For the most part.
Speaker C:Otherwise, it's like there's no truth into the idea.
Speaker C:It just becomes absurd, I think.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Which is helpful in a completely different way on a completely different day, but probably not when you're doing improv.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Can you talk about the process of writing your very first book?
Speaker C:You had published some short stories, but was there.
Speaker C:Did you work with any people to get it published, to get your ideas out there?
Speaker C:Editors was like the start to finish kind of process.
Speaker A:So the first.
Speaker A:So Life Between Seconds was my first adult novel.
Speaker A:And again, I say.
Speaker A:I differentiate that between.
Speaker A:From the.
Speaker A:The YA series that I wrote that was published, because again, that was contracted.
Speaker A:And so I was working with other people's ideas, but with.
Speaker A:With life Between Seconds.
Speaker A:That was my thesis for my master's program, my MFA program.
Speaker A:And they always.
Speaker A:Well, I learned afterwards that people will always tell you, your first book is not your first published book, and what you write as your thesis will not be your first will not necessarily be published.
Speaker A:And I was like, well, that idea be damned.
Speaker A:But I always have to preface this as well, where it's like grad school.
Speaker A:I appreciated it.
Speaker A:I enjoyed my time.
Speaker A:I learned a lot.
Speaker A:Would I have gotten to the same place without it?
Speaker A:I believe I would have because I'm tenacious enough to do that.
Speaker A:But it would have taken me a hell of a lot longer to get there.
Speaker A:And so anybody who's considering grad school who wants an MFA for whatever reason, I feel like if you put in the work and put in the time, you're going to get there eventually anyway.
Speaker A:The thing that I got, I felt was most helpful for my program was really the workshop experience.
Speaker A:And that's where I did have eyes on it, because I had eyes from other learning writers and eyes from professional published writers.
Speaker A:And it gave me really great concepts and ideas to work with, even in little ways that I think are often overlooked.
Speaker A:Like, little comments stuck with me about my writing.
Speaker A:For example, this is something that seems so innocuous, but it stuck with me.
Speaker A:Why are you saying the grass is green?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That comment.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And I realized it's.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:We expect if we say the grass, people immediately anticipate the grass is going to be green.
Speaker A:So we don't have to waste space or time or mental capacity saying the grass is green.
Speaker A:However, if we say the grass is brown and dry now, it's sparking something in the reader that is going to be like, oh, why or they're going to start building that picture better because it, it kind of upends their expectation.
Speaker A:So little things like that, I think are things that I would not have really heard otherwise or gained otherwise or noticed otherwise.
Speaker A:That really affected how I implement the sensory details or implement the surroundings that then create more care, kind of real character and real world settings.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:But the way that I worked in that environment, so it's.
Speaker A:The program was two and a half years I came out of it, I started querying and it was all rejections.
Speaker A:So I worked on it for another.
Speaker A:It took me 11 years from the first scene I ever wrote for that book until it came out.
Speaker A:And I would be able to do, you know, at the time, being young ish and being able to kind of focus so much on that book, I could do like two hour revisions.
Speaker A:I could do a four hour writing day.
Speaker A:I could sit in a cafe all day and just frantically drink caffeine, eat sugar and write.
Speaker A:But then as I got older and as I got more pulled apart in different ways for different responsibilities and whatnot, I had to change the way I wrote.
Speaker A:And so the way I wrote my first book, which was essentially I wrote it, I got a lot of feedback on it.
Speaker A:I queried once I got, I finished grad school, I got rejections.
Speaker A:I revised based upon the rejections and the noise I was hearing.
Speaker A:I had one professional editor look at it.
Speaker A:I paid them myself and I got really great feedback from that experience and I was able to strengthen, strengthen certain things.
Speaker A:I also spoke with an agent who said they really loved it, but they didn't like a certain aspect of it.
Speaker A:There's a big magical realism influence that kind of threads throughout.
Speaker A:And they were like, oh, well, I love it.
Speaker A:Don't get that part.
Speaker A:Take it out and we can work together.
Speaker A:And I said, I'm not ready to take that out.
Speaker A:So it was a cordial, a cordial rejection because I wanted it very deeply.
Speaker A:They didn't like it, so it was fine.
Speaker A:But I also then eventually, after eight and a half years, eight and a half years or nine years after the whole process, after the rejection, after fixing it again, decided, well, I don't want to go to agents anymore if I keep getting rejection from agents.
Speaker A:And I queried over like 170 agents over that period of time.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So anybody out there, if you've been like rejected by 10, forget about it.
Speaker A:Keep going, you're fine.
Speaker A:I just went directly to small publishing houses and because I also knew, you know, what was my expectation of this book, it's a quiet book.
Speaker A:It's magical realism, it's relationship, it's literary.
Speaker A:So it's not something that I expected to fly off the shelves with 500,000 volumes a year.
Speaker A:I knew it was going to be a small sell, so I just went directly to a small publisher and I queried three publishers.
Speaker A:One accepted rather quickly.
Speaker A:I was grateful for it, eager to do it.
Speaker A:And then through that, we went through two rounds of edits with them.
Speaker A:We went through one round of COVID suggestions.
Speaker A:So I got.
Speaker A:I was able to give input, but the ultimate decision was theirs.
Speaker A:And then it was published.
Speaker A:And very exciting, I mean, hugely exciting to see that.
Speaker A:But again, how I wrote that, how I approached that was different than Girl in the Ashes.
Speaker A:Girl in the Ashes was mainly written during COVID and I had no mental capacity.
Speaker A:I'm piecemealing together six writing jobs a day.
Speaker A:I had a toddler, you know, everything shut down.
Speaker A:Like the end of the day, my brain is just melting through my ears.
Speaker A:But I needed to write, I needed some creative output.
Speaker A:So that's when I started my 10 minute sprints, where six days a week I would sit at my computer at the end of the day for 10 minutes.
Speaker A:My daughter would be in bed, my wife would kind of be queuing up the TV for us to just veg out and melt for the remainder of the day.
Speaker A:And I would just take 10 minutes with a prompt, write as much as I could, and it became a game.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:How much could I write?
Speaker A:Can I write 500 words?
Speaker A:Can I write a thousand words?
Speaker A:Can I finish this whole entire scene?
Speaker A:Can I do a scene just in dialogue or whatever it is?
Speaker A:But I was able to get all that done and put enough of it together where I actually had an entire novel that I could then revise and build out and make better.
Speaker A:And so now I kind of have stuck to those 10 minute sprints so far.
Speaker A:Writing another book.
Speaker A:And it's working.
Speaker A:I think it's not as.
Speaker A:It's not as aggressive as I was during COVID because I think I just had to get some stuff out.
Speaker A:But the 10 minute sprints still work for me.
Speaker C:Yeah, I think it's all about not being completely set on a specific way to do things because life obviously can throw a giant wrench at you and the whole world, you know, simultaneously.
Speaker C:So it's like, how do you adapt and make it fit into your world if you want that thing to come out and be like a thing that people can also consume themselves?
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:When you said life can throw a wrench at you.
Speaker A:It just made me think of dodgeball, like just throwing wrench people.
Speaker A:If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.
Speaker C:Or you can write a novel, right?
Speaker A:Or you can write a novel.
Speaker A:If you can dodge a wrench, you can write a novel.
Speaker A:Actually, it's a really good, really good metaphor.
Speaker A:Writing a novel is just being, is like being constantly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:All the time.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Since you were, were you a full time travel writer during COVID and you took a pause during that time or what did you, how did you work that through?
Speaker C:I know you said you took a bunch of little things, right?
Speaker A:Taking a pause would be a nice way of putting it.
Speaker A:I mean, I was fired because no one was traveling.
Speaker A:So there was no way to be a travel writer at that time.
Speaker A:But it was, I mean, it was difficult, luckily, because of my writing background.
Speaker A:And this is when I say, like writers, if you're a good writer, even in the age of AI, or especially in the age of AI, if you're a good writer, you have a job anywhere.
Speaker A:Because the difference between a good writer and AI, and I'm not knocking AI 100%, but it has its uses as a tool, but too many people rely on it as the thing as a replacement.
Speaker A:And it doesn't work.
Speaker A:And the reason why it doesn't work is it has no sentence variation, it has a cold, calculated voice, it doesn't have specificity.
Speaker A:And that's the biggest thing.
Speaker A:So if you can, if you can kind of create that ecosystem of a good voice and make sure that things are specific enough within your writing that it shows personality and experience, then you'll be able to still get your foot in the door.
Speaker A:So I was doing, I was like freelancing for startup companies.
Speaker A:I was doing copywriting, I was doing, I was still doing some travel work on the website and the startup that I was working for originally because they had kind of minimal capacity and a need for specific type of content.
Speaker A:So I was able to like, all right, so I still have this little bit.
Speaker A:And now I'm pulling this in and now I'm doing pitch decks for startup funding.
Speaker A:And it was all these variations and just a whirlwind of I think I was doing, I was also doing SEO for law for law firms.
Speaker A:So it's just all these like, so random, but they fit within an understanding that I had.
Speaker A:So I made it work.
Speaker A:It's just that it wasn't able to focus on one thing or the things that I wanted to or the things that I felt more most passionate about.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So I think the.
Speaker C:The biggest thing is like the idea that one, it needs to be something from your life because AI is just going to write whatever.
Speaker C:It doesn't know anything about you or certain life experiences that, like we were saying earlier, that make it feel real.
Speaker C:You know, it's about the real feeling because you can kind of tell, especially if you're having it try to tell a story.
Speaker C:It just feels like, you know, it just spits out words in a specific order, which is what it's trained to do right now.
Speaker C:I mean, that doesn't mean it can't get better.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Who knows 10 years from now whether.
Speaker A:It'S a hope or not?
Speaker A:Like, I guess it's the expectation.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That it will ten years from now be better.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:They're starting to already make it think about what it's already given you and whether or not they should continue to go down that path.
Speaker C:So it's both scary, but interesting because if you can leverage it in a way that's not completely taking over, it's really the way that you're using the tool in order to.
Speaker C:To make your work better.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker A:A tool is a tool.
Speaker A:A chainsaw is great for cutting tree limbs, but if you use it to cut an arm off, then, you know, like, obviously not what the tool was invented to do.
Speaker A:And it's about how the person is using the tool and taking advantage of the tool.
Speaker A:So it could be for good or for evil.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:How do you.
Speaker C:Do you use AI currently?
Speaker C:Or are you completely against it based on the fact that it can, you know, kind of use people's ideas and stuff?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, I hope nobody adds me or hates me for it, but I use it.
Speaker A:I use it as a tool.
Speaker A:I use it as a way to structure.
Speaker A:I use it as a way to organize.
Speaker A:I use it as a helpful way to analyze things.
Speaker A:Or even as a kind of a correspondent where if I need a different opinion or a better analysis of something and I'm kind of too close to it, which is really something that happens so much as a writer and as a.
Speaker A:Especially as a novelist, to be like, oh, you know, what am I missing?
Speaker A:What am I not piecing together?
Speaker A:Or am I kind of tooting my own horn too much here?
Speaker A:Which of course most writers do as well.
Speaker A:You know, they'll get into a space where they think that they're being so smart.
Speaker A:And it's not about the writer being smart, it's about the story.
Speaker A:And so if I'm concentrating too much on how funny I think the word play is, as opposed to is that wordplay actually helping the story progress?
Speaker A:I might not catch it.
Speaker A:But if I have a tool there that helps me.
Speaker A:So it kind of, in a way, is replacing the workshop experience or the workshop necessity.
Speaker A:For me, where I still want the workshop, I still prefer to have people sitting there reading my stuff.
Speaker A:But in absence of that, here's something that can assist me in that space.
Speaker A:I mean, granted, when it comes to the idea of AI stealing ideas, yeah, that's awful, and I hate that.
Speaker A:And I disagree with it 100%.
Speaker A:When it comes to the idea of AI scrubbing copywritten things that we're not given permission to AI to learn from, I don't like that either.
Speaker A:So in the use case that I look at, it's really about how am I using the tool in order to better my writing and to make it as best as it can be each time.
Speaker A:I'm not using it to replace my writing.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I mean, if you look at anything, I guess you can find the fault in anything, right?
Speaker C:Like, obviously, if you use Facebook or Instagram or anything, really, you can see the faults in the thing that you're using.
Speaker C:So it's all about what are you willing to compromise with, what are you wanting to use it for?
Speaker C:Is it, you know, ethical to use it in that way?
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:I mean, this is also how I look at it.
Speaker A:Exactly how you're saying is also, like, if AI went away tomorrow, is it going to drastically affect the way that I work?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:I'll have another tool.
Speaker A:I'll have another way to move forward.
Speaker A:I'll have another group that I can meet with that workshops things.
Speaker A:I'm not going to be losing, like, my entire income because I can't spit out a hundred articles in a day that all basically have the same words just mixed up in different order.
Speaker A:And so it's.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so I.
Speaker A:I kind of.
Speaker A:I don't know if I make myself feel better by that or if I'm just naive.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:But that's at least how I look at it.
Speaker C:I think it's just really a great way to streamline things and think through ideas.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker C:If you wanted to make something fictional and interesting and real, not so good.
Speaker C:If you want it to help you organize your structure, tell you where things don't make that much sense, and how you can kind of adjust things to sound better, then it's a great way to use It.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:Let me tell you, I love using it for, like, an essay or an article to be like, all right, what's.
Speaker A:What does the flow look like?
Speaker A:Does this make sense?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Or how can this flow better and help me piece this together better?
Speaker A:But I would never use it to structure a novel.
Speaker A:And it's not anything against AI per se.
Speaker A:It's just.
Speaker A:I love, like, one of my great joys is to write down every chapter on a color index card.
Speaker A:And I take, like, okay, who's the character?
Speaker A:Who's the main character in this chapter?
Speaker A:All right, so that's one color.
Speaker A:And then what's happening in this chapter?
Speaker A:And I'll write that down, and they'll do that for every chapter of the book, and I'll lay it out on my floor, and then I'll just start moving it around.
Speaker A:Because I don't write linearly.
Speaker A:I write modularly.
Speaker C:So interesting.
Speaker A:What I write today could be the ending, where what I write tomorrow could be chapter two.
Speaker A:But I don't know.
Speaker A:I'm just writing events that happen and the sequence isn't really there until I feel like, all right, I feel like I have enough momentum that I have a beginning and an end and there's somewhat of a middle.
Speaker A:So now let's see what I'm missing.
Speaker A:And I'll go through and I'll do this process, and then I'll start moving things around and be like, okay, I know I'm missing the connections between these pieces and these pieces, and.
Speaker A:But the thread is here through this, so I have to make sure I have that.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:I nerd out over that so much.
Speaker A:It's silly, but that's the only reason I would never use AI to do that.
Speaker A:Where I know programs, is it composedly?
Speaker A:Maybe it's not composedly.
Speaker A:I forget which program it is, but.
Speaker A:But I know there's programs, and I know also final draft does it.
Speaker A:Where it'll.
Speaker A:It'll kind of map out your plot progression in a sidebar as you're working to help you move through things.
Speaker A:I would hate that.
Speaker A:I would never want that because I love to do it myself, and it helps open things up for me.
Speaker A:But that comes back to the idea of process.
Speaker A:Everybody has their own process where I also don't outline unless I'm required to.
Speaker A:I'm not going to give somebody an outline unless they make me, because I don't do that.
Speaker A:I write and discover as I write.
Speaker A:I'm a pantser, and I know it.
Speaker A:And that's part of How I discover so much of what happens, I just kind of write through it.
Speaker A:But that's me knowing myself.
Speaker A:And so as we write or create, I feel like we have to understand ourselves and not rely on the bullshit we tell ourselves.
Speaker A:Sorry, Am I allowed to say that?
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Should have asked first.
Speaker A:Well, because for instance, for a long time I would say like, oh, I can only write at night, right?
Speaker A:I can only write when it's dark out and everybody's asleep and it's 2am and I'm drunk and it's the only time I'm going to write when.
Speaker A:No, that was just something I told my.
Speaker A:It was a procrastination technique so I didn't have to get myself to sit down and write during the day.
Speaker A:And then if I fell asleep by 2am well, so be it.
Speaker A:No, writing is a muscle.
Speaker A:Creativity is a muscle.
Speaker A:We have to flex it, we have to stretch it, we have to exercise it.
Speaker A:And we find different ways to do it, but we have to.
Speaker A:Coming back to that idea of showing up to do it, like, if I'm not at my table or my desk writing, it's not going to get written.
Speaker A:Sometimes there is a block.
Speaker A:Not terms of writer block specifically, whether you believe in it or not, but a block just in terms of I don't know where to go right now.
Speaker A:So I do need that creative flow.
Speaker A:How do I get it?
Speaker A:I go on a walk.
Speaker A:That's fine.
Speaker A:It opens things up.
Speaker A:I go into nature.
Speaker A:I listen to a fountain I have in my backyard.
Speaker A:Whatever it is, something is going to.
Speaker A:At least I'm not going to sit here and bang my head against my keyboard until something opens up.
Speaker A:Because that never works, then I just feel stressed out.
Speaker A:But I understand my process.
Speaker A:These are things I know work for me.
Speaker A:So as long as we come back to that idea of what works for you, what do you.
Speaker A:Other than like, you know, drinking an entire bottle of Jack and thinking that you're Hemingway, which, by the way, Heming never wrote.
Speaker A:Hemingway never wrote drunk.
Speaker A:So you're not Hemingway if you're riding with a bottle of Jack in your system.
Speaker A:But just that idea is like, what are you telling yourself?
Speaker A:And what is the lie you believe just to make it easier not to write versus what are you actually doing to help you write?
Speaker C:There's so many interesting things that you said in there.
Speaker C:But I think one of the focuses of that thing is the creative process and how do we do it?
Speaker C:Because that's one thing that is baffling to people who don't consider Themselves creative.
Speaker C:But I think anyone can be creative.
Speaker C:That's one of my main things, that anyone has the capacity to be creative.
Speaker C:So what is, I guess, your creative process as far as coming up with ideas?
Speaker C:Does it like sometimes it's thin air sometimes.
Speaker C:Do you force yourself, like in that 10 minute span that you're writing every day?
Speaker C:Does it vary?
Speaker A:Yeah, it definitely varies.
Speaker A:I mean, there are times when I'm walking, but it varies in terms of I never know when a great idea is going to come to me.
Speaker A:But I do know that ideas will come to me.
Speaker A:It's just a matter of, I think Andrew Bird, who I love as a artist, he's a singer, professional whistler, also amazing whistler.
Speaker A:But he once said, this is maybe 20 years ago or something, he said, I have like a hundred songs come to me before breakfast.
Speaker A:But I, you know, the only ones I write are the ones that I remember.
Speaker A:So like, that's kind of how I feel where I have so many ideas flowing through me at any time, but the ones that matter are the ones that I remember to write down.
Speaker A:And otherwise, if it's that good of an idea, I feel like it'll just come back to me eventually or I won't lose it at all and I'll just be like obsessing over it.
Speaker A:I gotta write, I gotta focus on this.
Speaker A:I gotta do this one.
Speaker A:And it also helps where if I am feeling blocked, I do go on a walk.
Speaker A:And a lot of ideas come when I'm walking and I just open myself up or, or I listen to a lot of podcasts and something will click in a podcast that was so unrelated to anything.
Speaker A: he dictator in Romania in the: Speaker A:I don't know, but it's like something just randomly, randomly things connect.
Speaker A:For whatever reason, I just have to make myself open to it.
Speaker A:And when I'm sitting here forcing myself at the computer, I'm not open to the idea.
Speaker A:I'm forcing myself to get something done.
Speaker A:Which is why I give myself the 10 minutes.
Speaker A:Because in 10 minutes I don't have enough time to question myself.
Speaker A:I don't have enough time to edit myself.
Speaker A:I don't have enough time to procrastinate by saying, like, I'm going to clean my desk first.
Speaker A:No, I got 10 minutes.
Speaker A:And if I give myself the prompt, which is something simple, or I have a friend who is great at writing prompts where she'll basically be like pick an A B and a C and just have a list of things in each column.
Speaker A:It's like one is a person, one is a mood, and what is an activity or something like that.
Speaker A:And you just put it all together.
Speaker A:All right, well, this is what I'm working with, and I just make sure that it's within context of whatever novel I'm writing, and then I can move forward.
Speaker A:And honestly, I will say that 90% of what I write goes in somewhere within the novels that I write.
Speaker A:So even if it's absurd, I find a way to finesse it, that it fits somewhere.
Speaker C:That's an interesting idea because it's.
Speaker C:It's way.
Speaker C:A way to do things where you're not wasting your time.
Speaker C:First of all, it's a way that you're going to be able to use it.
Speaker C:And when you do that, since you're writing out of order, you have to figure out why that happens.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Which is very like a puzzle.
Speaker C:It's essentially like a puzzle.
Speaker C:You're trying to figure out how to fit this in in a way that makes sense within the flow of your.
Speaker C:Your story.
Speaker A:Oh, man, you just.
Speaker A:You nailed it as a puzzle.
Speaker A:Are you.
Speaker A:Do you like murder mysteries?
Speaker C:Yes, and I like escape rooms and I like jigsaw puzzles.
Speaker A:So I love all those things.
Speaker A:But I am terrible at guessing who the murderer is before the end.
Speaker A:But it also.
Speaker A:But I also don't care generally, because it's not that I don't care who the murderer is.
Speaker A:I just don't care about guessing because I am invested in the story, in the character development of them finding out more about themselves than just.
Speaker A:What about just who killed who and why.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's about, like, oh, I'm finding out about this person and what their motivation might have been.
Speaker A:But their motivation is really based on so much more about who they are.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:As opposed to just giving them a motive.
Speaker A:And I always love that.
Speaker A:So that idea of, like, the puzzle.
Speaker A:Oh, I love it being a puzzle.
Speaker A:It really is a puzzle to me.
Speaker A:But I have to remind myself that it's a puzzle because I feel like I suck so much and like these other types of puzzles that I'm like, no, no, I'm actually really good.
Speaker A:I just.
Speaker A:What do I care about more?
Speaker A:That's what I'm focusing on.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:What do you care about more?
Speaker C:And it's not necessarily getting it right.
Speaker C:It's about creatively finding a solution because you can have an infinite number of ways to fit that idea into your story as a puzzle.
Speaker C:Piece.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, man.
Speaker A:Nailed that.
Speaker A:I got the.
Speaker A:Christie used to say that she didn't know who the murderer was until she got to the end of the book, like writing the book, because she didn't want anybody to know.
Speaker A:So she basically would give everybody enough motive and everybody enough so anybody could be the murderer.
Speaker A:And she wanted it that way.
Speaker A:And she would basically figure it out at the very end because she didn't want anybody to anticipate who the murderer was before they got there.
Speaker C:And so books are so interesting.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Because.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:The possibility is open to anybody.
Speaker C:And therefore all your ideas make sense.
Speaker C:But only one person had the.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:What is it?
Speaker C:The.
Speaker C:The motive, the opportunity and the.
Speaker C:The will.
Speaker C:How or whatever to do it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like, the will, I think, is the.
Speaker A:Like the only piece that's missing from all the other people.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Where it's like everybody else had all the other things, but this is the one person who just took advantage.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Which makes them all very good murder mysteries.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:I guess that was how she figured out to get people like it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Which, again, I couldn't do that.
Speaker A:I mean, I guess maybe I could just in terms of, again, coming back to that investment in the people.
Speaker A:But I fear that I am coming to the realization that I'm not like a plot heavy novelist.
Speaker A:Like, my book has a plot, but I'm very character driven.
Speaker A:Where even my book, Girl in the Ashes, it's about a serial killer, you are following the serial killer throughout the book.
Speaker A:But that's more of.
Speaker A:I feel the hook is that idea that I'm more interested in what the serial killer is doing and her motivations and her ideas.
Speaker A:And while in occupied Paris in World War II, like, that fascinates me.
Speaker A:I am less interested in serial killer book In Occupied Paris in which we're following a detective who's trying to figure out who the serial killer is.
Speaker A:Because I'm like, there's so much going on at that time.
Speaker A:I don't really think anybody cares about a serial killer.
Speaker C:I don't know where it cut off, but it started lagging.
Speaker A:Oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker A:Probably on my end.
Speaker A:Because there's probably like four TVs going on downstairs.
Speaker C:You were just in the middle of saying that you are following the serial killer instead of the plot.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So in my book, Girl in the Ashes, we follow the serial killer as the main point of contact, as the main character.
Speaker A:And just what she's doing, her motivations, going about her day in occupied Paris during World War II.
Speaker A:And I find that More fascinating than if we were following a detective trying to find a serial killer in occupied Paris during World War II.
Speaker A:Because there's so much going on already that I don't think a serial killer would really be that interesting.
Speaker A:I don't think a detective trying to find a serial killer in that time would really be that interesting.
Speaker A:But as I learned from, like Dexter, they show Dexter.
Speaker A:Serial killers can be interesting if you approach it right.
Speaker A:And following the serial killer is something you just don't see that often, because we anticipate being a serial killer.
Speaker A:You have to be a sociopath.
Speaker A:Sociopaths are completely disconnected from society.
Speaker A:Therefore, how do you connect with somebody in that way when you need to, as an audience member in order to want to follow them?
Speaker A:And that's why I feel like Dexter was so exciting and enticing, because he's clearly a sociopath.
Speaker A:He doesn't have the same feeling capacity as, like, the average person, but he demonstrates humanity in different ways by only going after murderers, by demonstrating a conviction to a particular code, by showing he has some sort of affection for children, which feels the antithesis of what you'd expect from a serial killer.
Speaker A:And so it's.
Speaker A:These ideas are same in Girl in the Ashes, where it's like, I find her so compelling, my main character, Odette, because she has a vengeance agenda.
Speaker A:And what is that vengeance agenda?
Speaker A:We learn.
Speaker A:Just like in all these murder mysteries, we learn what the motivations of all these characters are and the deeper meanings and the deeper backstories as we move along.
Speaker A:So it's not really about the murder, but the murder is kind of sexy Candy that people will be enticed by.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:It's the backdrop of being able to tell a character story, as opposed to this is the story about the serial killer.
Speaker C:It's more of a deep introspection of what does it mean to be this type of person in this situation.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:If I had the ability to make things so beautifully concise like you've done, we would have.
Speaker A:This conversation would have been like, 10 minutes.
Speaker A:It would have been great.
Speaker A:But you do such a good job of being able to just make the things I say so concise and interesting and straightforward.
Speaker A:And I'm like, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble.
Speaker A:That's why I.
Speaker C:The only way to do that is to get all the context within what you're saying.
Speaker C:So it's like, the only way I can help you do that or myself do that is by listening, absorbing, and seeing contextually how.
Speaker C:How to essentially digest the Information, you.
Speaker A:Know, you're really good at it.
Speaker C:Thanks.
Speaker C:What was the, the, you know, the float in the sky idea for.
Speaker C:For the serial killer book?
Speaker A:Yeah, I wish it was this really cool, earth shattering moment, but it was actually just my wife loves Dexter the show, and I had never seen it, and she was like, we got to watch it together.
Speaker A:I'm like, okay.
Speaker A:So we're watching it together, we're going through the series, and then at some point in time within us watching it together, we go up to central California, to my cousin's wedding, and beautiful area.
Speaker A:Kind of looks like, you know, parts of Italy or parts of the wine regions of France.
Speaker A:And my wife just kind of leans over to me and says, what if?
Speaker A:There was a Dexter character in occupied Paris, but it was a woman.
Speaker A:I was like, what if?
Speaker A:What if?
Speaker A:And then my mind just started spinning out and I.
Speaker A:So we.
Speaker A:We got home on like that Sunday or Monday.
Speaker A:It was a holiday weekend, so it might have been that Monday.
Speaker A:And I immediately just sat down on my computer and wrote the opening pages.
Speaker A:So what you see as the first chapter has changed very little from the original pages that I wrote intended to be the first chapter, because I was just.
Speaker A:Sometimes that happens.
Speaker A:Sometimes you.
Speaker A:You get these moments that are so inspired that you capture it.
Speaker A:I mean, for me, it's rare, but I would say that there's about three scenes in every book that I write that change very little, and the rest of it changes tremendously.
Speaker A:But that's one of those scenes that just fit easily and was able to set the tone for the whole entire novel.
Speaker C:So this one in particular is definitely dedicated to your wife.
Speaker A:When you're writing 100%, it's basically like, thank you for the inspiration, thank you for the support, thank you for the guidance.
Speaker A:Thank you for not murdering me in my sleep.
Speaker C:How do you market your.
Speaker C:Your novels?
Speaker C:I guess.
Speaker C:Did you have help from the publisher or what?
Speaker C:What did you do to go about getting your book to people?
Speaker A:Oh, man.
Speaker A:Marketing.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:So I'm a travel writer by day, but I'm in a marketing department, and I learned marketing specifically in that area.
Speaker A:And it's still really difficult to market my books even knowing conceptually elements of things to do.
Speaker A:So anybody who's had trouble with this, I just.
Speaker A:I feel for you and I get it, and I'm right there with you.
Speaker A:But I also had two very different books and two very different publishers.
Speaker A:They were both small presses, but one's like a small press and one's like a micro press.
Speaker A:So even the amount of money that they have towards marketing are very different.
Speaker A:And then I was a intern at a publishing house for a little bit when I was in grad school, so I was able to learn a lot about the marketing efforts and what it really meant.
Speaker A:And one of the things I learned was that unless a marketing or unless a publishing house believes that your book is going to be a bestseller, they're not going to invest marketing dollars in it, or they're going to invest very minimal marketing dollars in it.
Speaker A:So even if you have a tremendous book and you know it's great, and you're publishing with one of the top five publishers in America, they're still not going to put money behind it if they have, like a Stephen King coming out.
Speaker A:And they're going to market the crap out of Stephen King's book because they know they're going to sell millions of copies of Stephen King's book.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But I was going with a small publishing house for the first one, and it was a quiet book and it was a November release.
Speaker A:So there are a lot of things working against my sales, knowing that directly because of my experience, and then because it's a small publishing house, they have even fewer dollars to put towards marketing.
Speaker A:So I.
Speaker A:I publicized the crap out of my own book.
Speaker A:I went on a whole bunch of podcasts, I went on vlogs, I went.
Speaker A:I just, I reached out to everybody.
Speaker A:I was doing guest blogs on all these book posting places or.
Speaker A:Or book review sites, and I really put myself out there, and it did a really good job of getting me out there.
Speaker A:And then it made inroads and connecting me with other people.
Speaker A:And that was wonderful.
Speaker A:Did it?
Speaker A:I see it's trying to reconnect, so I don't want to keep going.
Speaker C:We got another hiccup here.
Speaker A:Saw that, Saw that.
Speaker A:So where.
Speaker A:Where did it stop?
Speaker C:It was just.
Speaker C:You were going everywhere to get your.
Speaker C:Your book published.
Speaker A:So it gave me a lot of inroads and I was able to connect with people who then connected me with other people, which was really nice.
Speaker A:But I am not able to say if any of that did anything to actually sell my books.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And then come Girl in the Ashes, which I feel is a far more marketable book, far more commercial book, but I'm burnt out as hell.
Speaker A:Like, I did all that legwork for the other book.
Speaker A:It's a year later, I spent that year marketing the other book comes out, and now I have to do it all over again for a completely different book.
Speaker A:So I did not put in as much Effort and legwork with that same emphasis.
Speaker A:However, this publishing house, even though it's smaller, did a lot more effort and marketing on the book's behalf.
Speaker A:So that's where you get kind of the flip side, where the company or the publishing house for Girl in the Ashes, smaller, but they put out fewer books, which means they have more dollars to support the books they do put out.
Speaker A:The other one was a small publishing house, but still put out a decent number of books a year.
Speaker A:But it also meant that, like a traditional publishing house or bigger publishing house, they had to decide where those marketing dollars were going to go.
Speaker A:So it's.
Speaker A:I think personally, in today's day and age, the best places to put your efforts in marketing are not on like, you know, the, the book banners or Amazon.
Speaker A:Amazon ads.
Speaker A:I think it's doing blogs reaching out to book reviewers specifically who have a large enough following that are going to give honest and trustworthy, Are going to demonstrate honest and trustworthy reviews so that their viewers believe them and will then follow their advice.
Speaker A:And I also think that there are some platforms that are gaining a bit of prominence where if publishers invest in advertising in these platforms with a variety of their books, as opposed to a single author without many books to their name, I think it'll pay off in dividends for kind of everybody in that whole ecosystem.
Speaker A:But it's a kind of pray and spray method where you kind of got to be all over the place.
Speaker A:You can't just be in one specific place unless you already have a huge following in that area.
Speaker C:So I think there's that.
Speaker C:But there's also, if you concentrate heavily in a specific area, master it.
Speaker C:That's also a method, so.
Speaker A:Oh, absolutely, right.
Speaker A:That's why, like, ending with that, if you have a.
Speaker A:Like, if you have 50,000 follower.
Speaker A:50,000 followers on Instagram and you come out with a book and boom, look, you have 50,000 followers right there that you can just market to over and over again.
Speaker A:Amazing.
Speaker A:Or if you have a podcast with 25,000 or even, you know, 5,000.
Speaker A:Market, market, market, market, market.
Speaker A:You have that space.
Speaker A:If you don't have anywhere to be, like, you don't have a website, you don't have a newsletter, you don't have a podcast, you don't have a LinkedIn account with over 500 people, then, yeah, you got to put yourself everywhere because it's about reach.
Speaker A:There are.
Speaker A:It's a stupid number.
Speaker A:It's like there are like 100,000 books published a day.
Speaker A:It's something like that, right?
Speaker A:So it's people.
Speaker A:It's not that people don't want to find your book.
Speaker A:It's that people can't find your book unless you're like, pointing it in their face because it's just so much noise out there and they want to find your book, you know, and that's why if, if you have a horror, you go on like one of those dark.
Speaker A:There's these great dark story podcasts or, or the horror newsletters, like all these things exist that you just do your research a bit.
Speaker A:It's just a matter of what's the return.
Speaker A:Are you willing to put it out there?
Speaker A:Are you.
Speaker A:Is your desire to make money or is your desire to get noticed?
Speaker A:And I don't mean noticed in a bad way.
Speaker A:I mean like kind of author notoriety, right?
Speaker A:Because if you want author notoriety and you don't really care about selling your books as much because you have a lot of books or you have.
Speaker A:Or like you're kind of gaining.
Speaker A:You want to gain awareness because your next book's going to come out, then there's plenty of areas that you can pursue as opposed to like, oh, I just want to.
Speaker A:I'll just do a, A book ad on meta and it'll go to Instagram and it'll go to Facebook and that's fine too.
Speaker A:So it's just trying to get.
Speaker A:Figure out what works best for you, what your purpose and goal is getting out there.
Speaker A:Are you marketing yourself?
Speaker A:Are you marketing your book?
Speaker A:Are you marketing both and then figuring out what the best places are for you to do that.
Speaker A:I missed, I think I missed an opportunity at the time with not doing more meta ads because the way that it would have been able to niche down would have been very effective for Girl in the Ashes.
Speaker A:And I can always go there next.
Speaker A:But I realized just it could have been a.
Speaker A:It had to be an investment.
Speaker A:But I think it would have worked out better than just the podcast route for me.
Speaker C:Yeah, well, I think a lot of it is just being willing to experiment.
Speaker C:But not only that, just also, you can't just experiment.
Speaker C:You have to see what the results of your experiment are, because otherwise it could have been anything.
Speaker C:And you're.
Speaker C:The next time you do it, you don't know what it was.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So it has to be one, you have to be willing to put yourself in all the places that you feel comfortable being, and then the other is just to, you know, track.
Speaker C:Be able to track how that effort that you made made a difference.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's exactly it.
Speaker A:I mean, as a marketer as someone in the marketing department, like we have to be able to read the effects of things.
Speaker A:How many people are clicking, how many people are coming in.
Speaker A:And that's one of the difficulties of when you're putting yourself on podcasts or you're putting yourself in particular spaces where you don't have, you don't have that readability in how much traffic it's driving towards purchasing or engagement or notoriety.
Speaker A:But it's definitely, it's definitely necessary and worthy.
Speaker A:I remember one author I talked to, she sold her books at farmers markets.
Speaker A:She would just have a little table and you could, I mean, she had direct access.
Speaker A:She knew she brought 10 books, she sold three.
Speaker A:You know, so it's or seven or all of them or whatever it is.
Speaker A:But along that idea, if you publish a book, whether it's traditionally published or self published, depending on the content type, you know, if it's not too risque or if it's not too controversial, if you go to your local bookstores, you know, if you local Barnes and Noble, they'll generally be very excited to have you do a hand sell.
Speaker A:So not so much one of those things.
Speaker A:And I've done this in a few different places in Los Angeles and they've been great about it.
Speaker A:So the hand sell is difficult for a lot of writers because it means that you have to stand there with a stack of your books talking to strangers and trying to sell yourself and sell your book.
Speaker A:So it's difficult, but you do get that instant gratification of knowing someone's buying your book, of actually autographing your book for them, of.
Speaker A:Of these kind of interactions that you don't get otherwise, which can be a lot of fun and really rewarding.
Speaker A:But it's also mentally exhausting, especially for writers who tend to be introverts.
Speaker A:I am not necessarily an introvert, but it's still exhausting for me when I'm up there for three hours just talking to strangers, trying to hock a book here or there.
Speaker A:But they are really receptive even if your book is self published.
Speaker A:So it's an avenue that I think is underutilized.
Speaker C:Yeah, I think we oftentimes just think about all the stuff you can do online.
Speaker C:It's like an infinite world.
Speaker C:But there's also such a bigger impact I think you can make in person when you're talking to people, because it's not only the story that you're selling, it's kind of yourself and what this story means to you and how that could possibly relate to the person that you're talking to.
Speaker A:Oh, man.
Speaker A:100%.
Speaker A:You nailed it.
Speaker A:And it's, it's.
Speaker A:We forget.
Speaker A:Because online feels so easy or at least accessible, we forget that the biggest sales point is word of mouth, right?
Speaker A:I'm going to trust my dad to tell me about a book.
Speaker A:Like, I'm going to trust the book he's talking about more than I'm going to trust an ad that I get from Instagram about a book.
Speaker A:So if I get that word of mouth and more people are going to get that word of mouth, if you're like sitting there handing them the book, like, oh, I talked to this author and their book's pretty great.
Speaker A:You should read it.
Speaker A:Oh, what is it about?
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:Read the book.
Speaker C:What was it like to receive the verse piece of feedback that wasn't from somebody that you knew or approached about your book?
Speaker A:Oh, man.
Speaker A:Oh, it was harrowing.
Speaker A:Like, I was like, so, so Kirkus reviews.
Speaker A:I don't know if you know it, but it like a really prominent review site.
Speaker A:And they were always like, they're one of those reviewers that you'll see on the back of like a Stephen King, right?
Speaker A:Because they're just super high end.
Speaker A:If you get a review from them that, well, if you get a positive review from them, it could be a killer moment for you.
Speaker A:And so they have kind of two tiers though, because they have the regular tier of, you know, we choose and you don't know if you're going to make it in or they have like, you could pay for a review, but when you pay for a review, you, you still don't know if it's going to be good or bad.
Speaker A:You're just paying for it.
Speaker A:So I did it because I wanted the review and I thought it would kind of be something that could elevate my book and notoriety and all those things.
Speaker A:Luckily, I had the funds to do it and so I did it and I was, I got the email and I was like, I got the email and I was really worried about what it was going to be, but it was like a great review.
Speaker A:This is my daughter.
Speaker A:She is five.
Speaker A:You want to say hello?
Speaker A:Hi.
Speaker C:Hi.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:Welcome back from school.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker A:She's eating a ring pop.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, it felt the way when I got that email and I was scared to open it up, I felt as nervous as about when my daughter just walked in right now without any provocation, knowing the door was closed and she wasn't supposed to be interrupting.
Speaker A:But you know, you Just life.
Speaker A:You just roll with it, right?
Speaker A:Yeah, but it was.
Speaker A:But then the review turned out to be really good and I was like dancing around and felt like I was going to have a heart attack from excitement as opposed to fear.
Speaker C:Nice.
Speaker C:Is that something that you like you framed up on your wall or you have it saved somewhere or something?
Speaker A:Oh, I definitely have it saved.
Speaker A:I have it bookmarked and I also have it.
Speaker A:So I have it bookmark on my favorites, but I also have it up in the favorite bar.
Speaker A:So every once in a while I accidentally, accidentally just click it.
Speaker C:Sometimes you need a reminder how you made somebody feel.
Speaker C:Especially those days that are hard.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:I mean, I don't.
Speaker A:I make it a point not to read reviews, but every once in a while I think every creative just wants a.
Speaker A:Just like craves good or bad to read them.
Speaker A:Usually it's not good to read them, but every once in a while, like there are a couple reviews that just really sing and really remind me why I love storytelling and why I love my voice in storytelling and why how I came to that voice in storytelling.
Speaker A:And like there's one, there's one one star review that I really love.
Speaker A:Actually it's a three star review that I really love.
Speaker A:And it just says needs better edited.
Speaker A:Which I think is hilarious, of course.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I love that one because it's a dig at me that then digs back at them and I just can't ever get over that joy.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But there's another one that I love that was five stars on Amazon.
Speaker A:That was just.
Speaker A:It said something along the lines, I mean, it was a very long, robust review.
Speaker A:But one of the things that stuck out to me was it said this is not an, this is a novel I could not read quickly.
Speaker A:But then they go on to explain why and how that they loved that feeling.
Speaker A:And I was like, well, this is really beautiful.
Speaker A:And you're right, it's not a novel that you can read quickly.
Speaker A:I mean, it deals with a lot of hard subjects and death.
Speaker A:And I believe it was about Girl in the Ashes, but it might have been about life between seconds.
Speaker A:But both of them are about death and both of them have harrowing details and both of them have those kind of similarities that I discussed earlier.
Speaker A:But they also lean on kind of long sentences.
Speaker A:And I love like one of my favorite things is a run on sentence and I will use it too much.
Speaker A:And that's one of the reasons why an editor is a really important thing.
Speaker A:But I do do it on purpose.
Speaker A:But it's Just.
Speaker A:It definitely slows down the reading process.
Speaker A:Like when you are sitting there reading, you know, four run on sentences in one page or one page that is one long sentence, it's going to take you a lot longer to read than a normally constructed page.
Speaker A:And I do it on purpose, generally to try and imitate whatever emotional construct I'm going for at the time.
Speaker A:And I'm aware of it.
Speaker A:Do I overuse it?
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:But the fact that this person was getting the effect I had intended from it and acknowledged it in a way that they appreciated it was, you know, I was over the moon.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Sometimes those are the things that are the smallest things.
Speaker C:Like that.
Speaker C:Just that person noticing your intentions and the reason why you did things.
Speaker C:It makes it feel like your.
Speaker C:Your work matters.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:It matters more than working for yourself because obviously we're as creative people, we're all just doing it mostly for ourselves, but also to have a connection with people.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I think it's that.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's the connection.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's like, yes, if I was doing it for myself, I wouldn't try to get it published.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I do the initial draft for myself because I feel like the story needs to be out there.
Speaker A:But then I do want to make that connection.
Speaker A:I want other people to make the connection with that, work with these characters, with the thing that I've invented that then became its own monster.
Speaker A:And you.
Speaker A:You put it beautifully, because we are making it for ourselves, but we crave.
Speaker A:We crave the audience, not for ourselves, but because we feel like if they appreciate it, it is now a connection we've made through this thing that we've created.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:It's beautiful when you can get people to think deeply about stuff, because we're all just going through life with so many distractions, especially if you can drown yourself in something like Netflix or TikTok or whatever it is.
Speaker C:And if you can make even that small connection to one person, you're like, oh, this might have been worth all the struggle.
Speaker C:Because obviously when you're an artist, it's.
Speaker C:It can be a struggle.
Speaker C:It doesn't mean it needs to be, but it can be.
Speaker A:Yeah, I love it.
Speaker A:It doesn't mean that it needs to be, but it can be.
Speaker C:I think every.
Speaker C:Well, every artist goes through it at some point.
Speaker C:It doesn't mean they're always going through it, but it's something that everyone encounters at a point in their artistic journey.
Speaker C:Unless, you know, through some crazy luck, you know, they're just naturally 100% talented at something.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I think there's also.
Speaker A:There's also this idea.
Speaker A:At least I went through it, and I feel like others have gone through it, but it could just be me trying to make myself feel better.
Speaker A:This idea that you kind of have to go through the dark tunnel in order to realize that you don't need the dark tunnel to be creative.
Speaker A:Like, there's like.
Speaker A:I have struggled with depression since I was 13, and there was a time where I thought that if I didn't struggle, then I wouldn't be creative.
Speaker A:So I felt that my creativity was immediately tied to that struggle.
Speaker A:And it was.
Speaker A:I had to really work to untangle those things.
Speaker A:Because, yes, I can struggle, and I have struggled, but it doesn't mean that I am any less creative if I'm not struggling.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So we can turn the struggle into, you know, it's like turning your obstacle into your.
Speaker C:The way forward, essentially.
Speaker C:So you can use the struggles to propel you forward.
Speaker C:Because if we're not failing and struggling, sometimes we don't learn the lessons that we need to learn in order to continue to create.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, it's also that idea of, like, there was a time when I legitimately felt like I might have been sabotaging myself so I could struggle so I could be creative.
Speaker C:I think that's a common artistic struggle.
Speaker A:Right, Right.
Speaker A:Where it's like, oh, when I realized I don't have to sabotage myself and I can be happy or energetic or excited or have a good day and still.
Speaker A:Still move forward creatively.
Speaker A:Oh, well, now I don't have to trip myself when I'm running and scrape my face just so I have something to write about later.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:It's about taking any emotion, really, and working with it in a way that, you know, propels your.
Speaker C:Your work in a more meaningful way because you can take anything and turn it into something creative.
Speaker C:You can take a struggle, you can take a joy, you can take curiosity, you can take whatever emotion.
Speaker C:It's just like how you use the things that come at you is the way that you succeed.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, I love that.
Speaker C:Awesome.
Speaker C:So what is your.
Speaker C:What is the idea germinating and for the book you're working on now?
Speaker A:Oh, man, so many ideas.
Speaker A:But how to hone them all in.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:So the actual idea.
Speaker A:I have a very, very dirty draft currently, which just means there are still plot holes, there are still disconnections.
Speaker A:There are still a lot of threads that have not met the other side yet.
Speaker A:But the overall idea is a.
Speaker A:It's a YA fantasy novel.
Speaker A:But it is about a girl's journey to understanding the world around her that she's been disconnected from for 16 years.
Speaker A:And so the idea is that she starts in the this drought ridden city that has been disconnected from any other civilization for hundreds of years and then when she finds herself ousted from that community, how can she survive?
Speaker A:And then learns that there's entire worlds outside of the space that she thought was the kind of the only remaining civilization in existence.
Speaker C:Where did this idea come from?
Speaker A:Honestly, it really.
Speaker A:So now that you've met my daughter and her ring pop.
Speaker A:It came from her about a year and a half ago.
Speaker A:We were just playing as we do and she.
Speaker A:I don't remember what we were playing exactly.
Speaker A:I think we were playing cafe or something like that.
Speaker A:And she told me, she's like, stop, I have to farm these rainbows.
Speaker A:And I was like, oh, that's interesting, a rainbow farmer.
Speaker A:And I thought, okay, well now I have.
Speaker A:And that started there.
Speaker A:And I was like, well what if it was the last rainbow farmer?
Speaker A:And then what did a rainbow farmer do?
Speaker A:And what was the community they were involved.
Speaker A:And so it started from there and now the rainbow farmer is no longer the goal of.
Speaker A:It used to be the original concept was oh, this girl going out.
Speaker A:The rainbows were this thing and she had to find the rainbow farmer.
Speaker A:There's only one left.
Speaker A:And that they have to help heal the world or whatever it was.
Speaker A:It so it, the idea sprang from that and it's changed drastically.
Speaker A:But that was the impetus and I'm never gonna, never gonna forget it.
Speaker A:Can't forget it.
Speaker C:That's beautiful.
Speaker A:It's always good to have a five year old.
Speaker A:Well, at the fourth time she was like three and a half.
Speaker A:So it's always good to have a toddler around to give you new ideas.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:New ideas can come from anywhere.
Speaker C:And obviously as you've demonstrated, you don't need to look.
Speaker C:You have to be able to see the opportunities that come your way.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:You know what, I think you nailed it.
Speaker A:Like circling back to the beginning of the conversation, right.
Speaker A:Where it's do they just come out of thin air?
Speaker A:It's, oh, maybe it's just that we're, we have to make ourselves more receptive to the ideas wherever they are, wherever they're coming from.
Speaker A:So they're not necessarily just falling from thin air.
Speaker A:We're just now recognizing its presence.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:I think as creative people we all just need to be able to, to know when the idea is something to pursue.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think we've all done that.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We travel far down a road only to realize, oh, this isn't.
Speaker A:This isn't where we should be.
Speaker A:This isn't working.
Speaker A:I shouldn't have gone down this road with this project.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:But there's only one way to know is if you.
Speaker C:You attempt to go down it.
Speaker C:Right, right.
Speaker A:Oh, that's true.
Speaker A:I have a project that I've been working on for a long time, but it's one of those ones where, like, I was working on and then I lost interest and put it away.
Speaker A:And I feel like it's probably going to be the one I go back to after, after I finish this current piece because it's just.
Speaker A:It's too fun.
Speaker A:But I lost the fun of it.
Speaker A:And now when I'm looking at it again, I'm like, oh, this would be fun.
Speaker A:I should.
Speaker A:I should do it again.
Speaker A:And I don't mind sharing.
Speaker A:Like, that one is, is if you take the.
Speaker A:The Great British Bake off and mix it with, like, a Jewish summer camp, that's the story.
Speaker C:That.
Speaker C:That does sound like a fun, fun little tale to tell.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Awesome.
Speaker C:Well, I got a few more questions left, so let's go through these.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, as my dad would say, we have time for another question, but do we have time for another answer?
Speaker C:Do you know anyone else who also runs a standout creative business and what do they do to stand out?
Speaker A:Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker A:I would say that I do know.
Speaker A:You know, I know plenty of writers.
Speaker A:I know plenty of artists, photographers and things, but they've all kind of gone into corporate life in a way to, like, feed their creative.
Speaker A:Well, feed themselves, and then then also still create on the side to feed their creative life and soul.
Speaker A:But, you know, I have one friend specifically, who.
Speaker A:I mean, she is great in her writing, and she's able to concentrate on her writing.
Speaker A:And she has rewritten her first novel.
Speaker A:Like, I mean, rewritten, not just, like, drafted.
Speaker A:She rewritten the thing like, five times.
Speaker A:And in the same time, she wrote an entirely different novel disconnected from it.
Speaker A:That's going to be a trilogy that is on that.
Speaker A:They're shopping around, her and her agent are shopping around right now.
Speaker A:And it's like she's just a machine.
Speaker A:She is, like, in this place where her.
Speaker A:She's still able to do this with two kids, with her husband, with a life up in the Washington, Seattle area with Lyme disease.
Speaker A:And she's just like.
Speaker A:She just finds the power and inspiration from little things.
Speaker A:She tells me, like, enjoying a cup of Coffee in the morning, kind of her private, cozy space that gives her this little joy and energy.
Speaker A:And it's walking with her son, only because her daughter's in school, so her son's still of an age where he's not in school yet.
Speaker A:So walking with her son in the morning, walking with her daughter and son in the afternoon when they get home.
Speaker A:When she gets home from school.
Speaker A:So it's like these little things she tells me, are.
Speaker A:It's not about, like, the giant great gains.
Speaker A:It's about these little things in her life that gives her energy to pursue the creative things that she finds interesting and the things that she's passionate about and the things that also she finds compassion in, because that's a big.
Speaker A:It's like anger and compassion tend to, I've noticed, feed her writing, or she at least puts the messages into her writing.
Speaker A:So it's really a cool balance as well.
Speaker A:Kind of fire and ice, in a way.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:However you can make it through your creative journey, especially if you have appreciation for it.
Speaker C:I think that's really the best way to.
Speaker C:To continue to be able to go on.
Speaker C:Because it's.
Speaker C:It's hard, right?
Speaker A:It's hard.
Speaker A:That soggy middle.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That middle where everybody's ready to just be like, oh, I'm.
Speaker A:I think I'll give up here when this is the hard part.
Speaker A:I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker A:I'm interested in this shiny object over here now.
Speaker A:But that's.
Speaker A:That's when we have to push the hardest.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:That's what often separates the people who make it versus those who don't.
Speaker C:The.
Speaker C:The bullyness.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Oh, man.
Speaker A:I gotta tell you, I freely admit that I was not and still am not the most, like, the best writer, the most creative writer, the best storyteller, especially from my class, like my.
Speaker A:My MFA class.
Speaker A:But I was.
Speaker A:I was like, one of the few who just kept going where everybody else dropped off at some point for some reason or another.
Speaker A:And whether it's stubbornness or whether it's just a desire to get published or whatever it was, I just kept going.
Speaker A:And eventually it led to the desired outcome of being published.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, that is what separates those who do and those who don't is just.
Speaker A:I didn't stop.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Some people think they can't do it, and then there's those who do do it.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, man.
Speaker A:I used to.
Speaker A:Sometimes I still do.
Speaker A:So I can't say I used to, but I exercise at home.
Speaker A:But using, like, YouTube videos or things like that.
Speaker A:And there's one.
Speaker A:One particular feed where they say, it's like, those who think they can and those who think they can't are both right.
Speaker A:And it's like, such a cheesy thing, but it's so motivating and it's so true.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And I bring it back into my daily life where it's, you know, sometimes those cheesy things are so accurate and we kind of scoff at them, but they really fuel me in a way.
Speaker A:And I'm like, yep, if.
Speaker A:If I think I can't, I'll give up.
Speaker A:But if I think I can, I'll keep going.
Speaker A:So I'm just gonna.
Speaker A:I'm gonna power through this.
Speaker C:What is one extraordinary book, podcast, documentary, or tool that has had the biggest impact on your creative journey?
Speaker A:Oh, you know, I mean, on my creative journey.
Speaker A:So I didn't listen to podcasts until relatively recently.
Speaker A:So it's like, podcasts.
Speaker A:I love them, and I still feel like they inspire me.
Speaker A:Elizabeth Gilbert's Was It True?
Speaker A:True Magic Lessons in Magic or something, it's a podcast based on her book I thought was great.
Speaker A:It was only like, one season, eight episodes or something.
Speaker A:But it's just.
Speaker A:She would always talk to a famous person who succeeded in a way.
Speaker A:And it just gave me inspiration in a sense that, okay, here are other people who struggled and then found success.
Speaker A:So in those stories, it's not like I'm looking at a famous person who's just famous, and therefore I think I'll never be there.
Speaker A:It was, oh, I wasn't always famous.
Speaker A:This is my journey to get to where I succeeded in whatever big area I succeeded in.
Speaker A:So that was helpful in that regard.
Speaker A:But it came along so much later that I would say, like, on writing, of course, King, because it gave me the structure that I felt I needed to reach the next place, right?
Speaker A:Where now I have a foundation in my MFA program, here's a different foundation.
Speaker A:And now.
Speaker A:And then understanding what my creative output is.
Speaker A:So instead of, like, I'm Officer Skating and I'm really dodging the question because I feel like the biggest thing for me was music and finding out, like, what is my.
Speaker A:What is my preferred playlist when I'm listening to or when I'm trying to write, what am I listening to?
Speaker A:That will push me through a particular mood.
Speaker A:And usually I'll put on some random thing.
Speaker A:Like, it would be like, a Yan Tierson, who I love as a composer.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:I love his composing for movies, like film compositions, more than I love his.
Speaker A:His actual, like, band work, but that's personal.
Speaker A:But still, I would like, put that on.
Speaker A:I'd put on the.
Speaker A:The soundtrack to, like, Amelie, and I would just listen to that and write if I wanted something whimsy or I would put on.
Speaker A:On repeat.
Speaker A:There's a piano version of Where Is My Mind from the Pixies.
Speaker A:And I would just put that on.
Speaker A:It's like two and a half minutes.
Speaker A:And I would listen to it for like an hour and just pounded the keys because it would help me kind of get into that rhythm, get into that zone, block everything out, ignore the world.
Speaker A:And then it would eventually turn into white noise where all I have is me in the story.
Speaker A:So I guess in that sense, the tool, music as a tool was very helpful in helping me figure stuff out.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Whatever it is that makes you go forward is what you need to use to succeed.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:The accordion.
Speaker A:I would actually.
Speaker A:I would write on my.
Speaker C:What do you think makes a creative business stand out?
Speaker C:And what is one piece of advice you would give to someone based on your personal experience that will help them stand out?
Speaker A:I think a creative business stands out not because of its creativity, but because of its intention.
Speaker A:Where, like, a creative business can be to sell a product, it can be to sell a person, it can be to sell.
Speaker A:I mean, I'll.
Speaker A:I'm going to separate book or film from.
Speaker A:And music from product, but still the idea is similar.
Speaker A:However, in the creative space, you're not necessarily just saying, buy this thing you're.
Speaker A:You're looking at.
Speaker A:And I feel like so many companies are trying to answer this question nowadays, but it comes from creativity.
Speaker A:First, you're looking at the why.
Speaker A:You're looking at not your why, but you're looking at why are they going to care.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I know why I care about my book.
Speaker A:It came from my brain, it came from my heart, it came from my experience, it came from all of these places inside me.
Speaker A:So of course I'm connected to it.
Speaker A:Why are you going to care?
Speaker A:And then I have to understand, okay, I'm going to just twist this left to center.
Speaker A:So you will pay attention to why you're going to care about this, why you want to care about it, why you're going to make this emotional connection with this thing.
Speaker A:And I feel like creative pursuits and those selling creative products or those working in creative spaces understand that better.
Speaker A:Possibly because they're so afraid of selling themselves that they're so much better at selling their.
Speaker A:They're so much better at selling their Idea.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because I know, you know, I know plenty of others.
Speaker A:I know myself.
Speaker A:It's like if I stand in front of you and try to sell myself as an author, I'm going to get confused.
Speaker A:How do I market myself?
Speaker A:How do I sell myself?
Speaker A:How can I talk about myself without sounding like I'm gloating or without sounding like I'm tooting my own horn, without putting myself in a vulnerable position.
Speaker A:But I'll gladly tell you about all the books I've written and the things that you're going to be interested in in those books as a human being.
Speaker A:Making connections, building relationships, finding family.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:How do you.
Speaker A:How can you survive every day when people around you are dying?
Speaker A:How can you live with yourself not knowing what happened to your child, that she's, that she could be out there somewhere, hurt, in pain, and you are stuck doing nothing.
Speaker A:How can you decide to leave your child behind?
Speaker A:Like, these are questions that any normal person would struggle with on a daily basis.
Speaker A:And that's where the emotional connection comes from.
Speaker A:So it's like, I know.
Speaker A:I know how to do that.
Speaker A:I know where, how to make the emotional connection.
Speaker A:And I think that's the powerhouse of creatives and creative businesses is they're going to make that emotional connection because that's where, that's where their strong suit is.
Speaker A:Because it comes from there, emotions.
Speaker A:It's not just, I'm selling you a trampoline.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:It's really about, instead of looking at like you have to sell something, it's more like, how do I, as a creative person help you relate to what I've experienced and what I can provide for you as a way to look at the world?
Speaker A:Essentially, again, you just make it so concise and beautiful.
Speaker A:Like, here's a 20 minute long explanation and you're like, how do I help you connect with the world?
Speaker C:Can you give the listeners a challenge they can take action on right away to try to start standing out.
Speaker A:Oh, man.
Speaker A:To try you an action to start standing out.
Speaker A:Well, I mean, I think that the action they need to take is.
Speaker A:Or an action that I can give them to take is the action that they feel they need to take that they are, that they know they need to take, that they're not taking.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's like, what is the barrier that I put up for myself that I am not doing and for what reason?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because so much, especially in the creative field, we expect perfection and we will not do something until it is perfect.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And then we use that pursuit of perfection as procrastination So I think that the actionable step that your listeners need to take right now is find out what is, what is that expectation of perfection you are currently telling yourself that is keeping you from actually doing the thing.
Speaker A:And then do the thing that you're telling yourself you can't do yet.
Speaker C:We're our own worst enemies oftentimes.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:100%.
Speaker A:Now I'll put the caveat right.
Speaker A:Like I'm not.
Speaker A:If you're only on chapter one of your book, don't query the agent yet.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But if you've like rewritten your book four times and you're like, it's still not perfect and I don't want to query until it's perfect.
Speaker A:Query.
Speaker A:Put, query the agent.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:If you are.
Speaker A:You've taken a million photos but you don't want to post them on some site yet because you, you haven't felt connected to whatever.
Speaker A:It's like, no, that's you procrastinating.
Speaker A:Post them.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So it's.
Speaker A:Figure it out.
Speaker A:Figure out.
Speaker A:Really do the self analysis to understand what step are you not taking because you're telling yourself something and then take that step.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Like we were saying.
Speaker C:Just saying, it's like the people who figure out how to continue going are the ones that are going to succeed.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Because if you stop, you know, it's never going to happen.
Speaker C:Obviously.
Speaker C:Like.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, it's like what's, what's the.
Speaker A:You know, in fiction we always say the inciting incident.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:The inciting incident is the very thing that pushes the character into action or that pushes the plot forward.
Speaker A:It's, you know, it's got Gandalf finding the ring or noticing that it's the ring.
Speaker A:It's the cat scratch in Desperate Characters.
Speaker A:In politics.
Speaker A:Desperate Characters, it's like, it doesn't have to be this big epic thing.
Speaker A:It's a little thing, but that pushes the story forward.
Speaker A:And if you are not letting yourself move forward, you're never going to do it.
Speaker A:What will, what would that inciting incident finally be if you're not doing it yourself?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So this will be your inciting incident.
Speaker A:This is your call to take that step.
Speaker C:Awesome.
Speaker C:Well, Doug, it's been really cool talking to you.
Speaker C:You got a lot of great ideas on creativity.
Speaker C:I love your, your thought process and some of the stories that you're working with.
Speaker C:So let.
Speaker C:Where can people check out more of your work or find you online?
Speaker A:Yeah, you can find me online.
Speaker A:I'm really active on LinkedIn where I do actually give kind of actionable writing tips daily, pretty much, or at least five days a week.
Speaker A:You can find me at Douglas Weissman on LinkedIn.
Speaker A:You.
Speaker A:You can also message me directly there or on my website, douglaswiseman.com if you find a dentist website.
Speaker A:That's not me.
Speaker A:There's only one other guy named Douglas Weissman on the Internet and he's a dentist in New Jersey.
Speaker A:I'm not that guy.
Speaker A:I'm the other guy.
Speaker A:You can also find me on Instagram, again, Douglas Weissman, where I actually do I read a chapter or I read a page from my book most recently published every day until it's complete.
Speaker A:So I have all 361 pages of life Between Seconds up there.
Speaker A:And I'm currently working through Girl in the Ashes.
Speaker A:If you want to look at Girl in the Ashes or Life Between Seconds, you can find them on Amazon.
Speaker A:You could find them at Barnes and Noble.
Speaker A:You could find Girl.
Speaker A:Or you can find Life Between Seconds at Target.
Speaker A:That's exciting.
Speaker A:Or bookshops.org support your independent bookstore.
Speaker A:You can find them both there as well.
Speaker C:Awesome.
Speaker C:Well, yeah.
Speaker C:Thanks again for coming on, Doug.
Speaker C:It's been great talking.
Speaker A:Thanks for having me.
Speaker A:Thanks for letting me ramble.
Speaker C:Of course.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker C:Bye.
Speaker A:Bye.
Speaker B:That was an inspiring conversation with Douglas.
Speaker B:If there's one thing to take away, it's this.
Speaker B:Stories have the power to connect, transform, and stick with us long after the last page.
Speaker B:If today's episode lit a fire under you and you're ready to take your crew creative work to the next level, head over to thestandoutcreatives.com.
Speaker C:Whether you're a.
Speaker B:Writer trying to reach the right audience, a creative looking to share your work more effectively, or someone who just wants to build something meaningful, I'm here to help you make it happen.
Speaker B:I keep spots limited because this isn't about generic advice.
Speaker B:It's about crafting a strategy that fits you.
Speaker B:So if you're done waiting and ready to create a career you want, sign up today.
Speaker B:Let's make it real.
Speaker B:And if this episode spoke to you, share it.
Speaker B:Tag me.
Speaker B:And let's get more creative voices heard.
Speaker B:Until next time.
