Making It Up with Arvind Ethan David, author of The Great Game

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Friends, writers, hello.
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This is Carter and welcome to this episode of Making It Up.
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How are you?
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How are things?
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This was my first recording back after taking a month off.
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Um, Jess and I went to uh we road tripped to to New England for a month um with two dogs, uh, because her son is starting school at the University of Maine.
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So we drove from Colorado to um Upper Maine, upper coastal Maine, um, and then just spent about a month staying in Airbnb's around New England and just working from there.
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And it was it was awesome.
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And I didn't do any podcasts while I was there, so it kind of gave us a chance to catch up on the podcast work that the podcast I had already recorded.
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So we were getting a little bit backlogged.
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Um, what it didn't help with was my backlog of um my schedule, my my my making it up schedule because I I'm booking about eight months now in the future, and it's hard because I mean, not a bad problem to have.
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Um, but I only record once a week.
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Um, and that's very intentional when I first started doing this.
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I think I was doing twice a week, and it's just it's too much.
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It's too much, man.
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I've got a lot of stuff going on, um, and it makes it very difficult.
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So I only record once a week.
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And so, you know, between the people that I invite onto the show, between the people that are pitched to me and the people who pitch themselves, um, you know, I have to be very discerning about who I bring on the show.
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And there's a lot of really talented people I have to say no to, um, unfortunately.
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Um, but I strive to bring you the best voices and honestly, the people that I'm like, this person sounds interesting.
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I want to talk to this person.
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Um, so that leads us to today's guest.
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So today I talked to um Arvind Ethan David.
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So Arvin is an Olivier-nominated playwright, author, and television writer-producer.
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And he just released his debut novel, which is called The Great Game.
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We talked a lot about its cover, it's got a great cover.
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Um, and it's Thomas and Mercer published, and it's a mystery thriller set in the London of the aging Sherlock Holmes and the young Winston Churchill.
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Um, and and so, you know, Arvin was pitched to me by his PR team, who I know well, and they have great clients.
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Um, and um shout out to Megan Beattie um and her team there.
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Um, but he was pitched to me, and I started to read his bio, like, yeah, this guy sounds really interesting because he's got a lot going on.
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Um, and novel writing is just kind of the newest thing that he's doing.
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Um, and one of the things that also fascinated um uh me about him was his early on obsession with Douglas Adams, who wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and all the subsequent novels.
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And he actually Arvin got to know Douglas Adams at Douglas Adams passed away at the age of 49, um, because Arvin, as like a 20-year-old, was looking to um create adaptations for the stage of Hitchhikers and uh Dirk, Dirk Gentley's holistic detective agency.
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Um, so we spent a lot of time talking about Douglas Adams and about you know my early uh obsession with not only Douglas Adams, but Monty Python.
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And that was that was what I was reading as a 15, 16-year-old.
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Um, I was eschewing or at least not enjoying, you know, the school-assigned novels that everyone has to read at that age, maybe with the exception of The Princess Bride.
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But man, when I started reading Douglas Adams, I'm like, this is this is a story, this is a book.
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Um, so that's kind of where my my my my early influences come from.
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And I think I've cited Douglas Adams as a as a as somewhat of an influence, at least, you know, if if not directly in my writing, at least in some of my thinking over the years.
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Um, but it was fascinating to talk to Arvin because he's done all these different things and he's he's he's had to look at things through through all these different lenses.
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And, you know, and and he also went to law school just to extend his student visa in the UK.
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So he has that background as well.
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So there was a there was a lot of material uh to ask him on.
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In fact, I think we started to go a little bit long with the conversation, but I'm like, I could I could talk to this guy a lot longer because I have a lot of questions for him.
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So he's a fascinating person.
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I think you're gonna love this one.
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This is my conversation with Arvind, Ethan, David.
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I forget again why you came out to Boulder, why you spent a couple months here.
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Uh, I know you have a lot of friends, but was that kind of mostly it?
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No, it was actually for health reasons.
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I also had a rare neurological condition and uh has has, I should say.
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It doesn't really go away, but she's much better.
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And Boulder is one of the centers of excellence in treating this.
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So we came out for her.
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Excellent.
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And she got a lot of great therapy and she got better.
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And you and you love Boulder enough that you're gonna make the journey annually if you can, it sounds like that that's the plan.
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Well, we got a new dog.
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Well, we went Boulder's one of the most dog-friendly.
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It very much is in the world, I think.
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And we did not have a dog while we were there, but every day Odetta and I would go walking in the park and she would befriend about 30 dogs.
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Yeah.
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And and we got home, and she was like, So I need a dog.
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And so we now have a giant, uh, a lusky, uh, uh, a husky malamute.
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Yeah.
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I I think it's the law on Boulder that you have to have a dog in a bike, like otherwise they don't accept you, and preferably a Subaru.
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The bike, um, but the bikes were good with, but now we have a dog.
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So now she's going, we have to bring Storm, our dog.
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She's like, we have to bring Storm to Boulder in the winter because he's a winter dog and he has to be tied to a sled and he has to pull the sled.
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So we have no choice.
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We are coming back in the winter.
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You have to come back.
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I'll say, Arvin, when um I was kind of researching you when you were pitched as a guest.
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You know, obviously I I I talk to writers and you know, novelists primarily here, and also primarily in the mystery thriller uh space.
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And I poke around at their websites, this and that, and usually there's a list of books.
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You go to yours, you've got books, theater, film, TV, audio media.
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I'm like, this guy's this guy's doing a lot.
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And then and then what really intrigued me uh was the Douglas Adams connection, because I'm such a or I guess that maybe I was to the extent that you know, when I was 15, I was knee-deep in hitchhikers.
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Um, I just thought, I mean, I would even say I was not much of a reader as a teen at all.
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But between anything in physical print that Monty Python put out and then any Douglas Adams book, that was where I was at.
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And I got obsessed with Douglas Adams.
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I mean, you are an anomaly in two ways there.
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First, like an author who was not a reader, not a reader at all.
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Is a is a specific.
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But then as a as an American whose one poison of choice was Python and Adams, you were in a very specific fellowship.
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You know, I had this friend group, kind of the nerdy guys, and and it exists to this day.
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Anything that was just out there, and especially especially with British humor that doesn't resonate with American audience in particular, is fascinating to me because all I want to do is try to get deconstruct what they're talking about.
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Um, and then it was out there even for a UK audience.
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Um, but then I remember reading my friend gave me hitchhikers, and I read it.
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I'm like, this is I didn't know books could be fun.
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You know, because here we are in in middle school reading stuff that maybe isn't so much fun.
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No, that's that's what that was Douglas's great gift to the world, and to 15-year-olds specifically, I think.
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I think to teenagers, sort of pre-adolescent and adolescents, is the perfect time to meet Douglas Adams.
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Yeah, everyone I know, and I know because of the amount of work I'm done in Douglas's universe, I know a lot of hardcore Adams fans.
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Yeah, and they all say that was the moment.
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Like 75, 80% of them say they found him in early, early adolescence, and that he did something to all of us, he sort of reset our brains and set us on a particular path.
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And I think that's true.
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And I think that was his unique gift.
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His unique gift was to talk directly into the brain of a particular type.
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Right.
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Right.
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And and between him and Python, I think, I think the the commonality that they had is they were not complicated in terms of how they spoke to their audience, but there was a a profound intersection of uh silly and clever.
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Um and and left one of those things without the other has so much less impact.
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And you know, you think about American slapstick, and it's it's tends to be silly without being clever.
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Um, and sometimes too much clever is is watering it down.
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And both those were just in your face, and and but you could step back and respect like the ingenuity behind it all.
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That's what I love.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Well, he worshipped Python.
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Python, about a job.
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Older than him.
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And he, you know, that's what he wanted to be.
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He wanted to be a member of Monty Python, and he almost was his first job.
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This is how we all wish our writing career started.
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Uh well, that leads to a story, but his first job was coming out of Cambridge, and he was Graeme Chapman's writing assistant.
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Oh, I did not know that.
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That's amazing.
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And because Chapman was sadly in a in his final descent into alcoholism and death, he was writing less and less.
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And so Douglas went from assistant to drinking partner to co-writer.
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So Douglas is the only person other than the core, uh, the core five, who is credited both as a writer and a performer on a season of Multi Python.
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That's amazing.
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He was actually briefly a Python.
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I didn't, and he and and uh similarly, but not the same way, he died very young, right?
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He was like 40 something.
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I think.
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He was 49, in fact.
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So he so I knew him.
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Sorry, spoiler, I suppose, for people who are coming into this conversation of no context into my life, but our connection was I worshiped him the way he worshipped Python.
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And coming out of university, I went and worked for him.
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He I had adapted gently as a student play.
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He had come to see it, we had become friendly, and so I interned at his production company and got to know him and all his friends and partners.
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And in the last sort of half decade of his life, so I guess we met when he was 42, I want to say.
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I think that's actually true.
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And I would have been it's a funny coincidence for people who know the reference.
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Um, and I would have been 20, and then he died when he was 49.
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And so we knew each other that last those last few years, and he's a you know, he was a huge influence on me and a huge help to my career, just by sort of casually introducing me to people, but also by uh giving me an example of what it was to be a working writer.
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Yeah.
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Because I didn't have anyone else in my life.
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I didn't I knew lots of readers, but I didn't know any professional writers, certainly not not novelists, and I come from a very sort of serious academic professional family where work is serious.
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Right.
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And should and and should be you should make a lot of money, you shouldn't be in the arts struggling.
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Oh well, well, of course, Douglas was a wonderful example of how to not be serious and also make a lot of money.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Because he was a giant success very early and had all the toys.
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Douglas loved toys.
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He drove a Porsche, and a part he had houses in multiple cities, he he ate well, he drank well.
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And so I was like, my God, and he's doing all this by hanging out with his friends and making shit up.
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This seems like a good way to live one's life, right?
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So I've I have tried ever since.
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I haven't quite achieved all he achieved, but in the attitude towards serious can be silly and fun can be profound and renumerated.
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Yeah, exactly.
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So you it's interesting because you're saying when you're 20, you're already putting on a production of Dirk Gentley.
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You were you went into school with the mindset of I'm going to do something in the arts, but I'm going to be a writer.
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That's what it sounds like.
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And that's usually a profoundly serious mistake.
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Um, as you know, we know, we know for all the Douglas Adams out there, there are a billion more people whose name you would never know because nothing ever happened to them.
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Um, and you probably had you were probably well aware of that.
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But what was driving you to like this is this is gonna be my life, come hell or high water?
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I think I couldn't really well, it's two things actually.
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So I I mean, much as I would like to accept the narrative that I was this driven, clear-eyed teenager, and it's half true.
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I definitely went, I went to Oxford, I went to Oxford purely with the intention of putting on plays and comedy and doing that.
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My heroes were as well as Douglas, were like Stephen Fry and Hugh Larry and Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thomson and the people who had done this before.
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And I was like, that's what I want to do.
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And I sort of said, How do you do that?
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And they all seemed to go to either Oxford or Cambridge and either do the footlights or the Oxford Review and do plays.
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So I was like, okay, I'll do that.
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To me, it was as simple as they did it, they seemed like normal people, and so I'll do it.
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Right.
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It's like going to Harvard to be a member of the Lampoon.
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It's like that was my only ambition.
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And then everything else was secondary.
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What should I what should I study?
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All of that didn't matter because I didn't go to a lecture in three years at university.
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I did I didn't go to one lecture.
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I, you know, I did my work, I did the reading and I wrote the essays, but I had no time to go to lectures.
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I was in theaters, you know, I put on a play every semester.
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I either I wrote, directed, and or starred in a play every semester for three years.
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There wasn't time to do anything else.
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And so that was the yeah, that was, I guess, the clarity of the information.
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Where it got more complicated, because real life is almost more complicated than the overnight success stories that people like to hear, is I didn't have a visa.
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I didn't have an immigration status.
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I was uh I was born in Malaysia and I did not have a British passport.
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And so when I finished university, so you were like on a student visa.
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I was on a student visa, yes.
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I was on a student visa, which expired.
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So I think I had nine months after graduating to kind of figure out what the hell I was gonna do and find someone to sponsor my visa.
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And the thing they don't tell you when you're busy putting on plays is that regional theaters don't sponsor passport applications.
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Right.
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They're probably scraping by their.
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I mean, it's expensive to it's expensive and it's it's it's complicated.
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And by the way, there's no shortage of people who want those jobs, right?
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And so why should they?
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And so I got to this very bizarre moment where I had got an agent uh out of college, and a lot of people were telling me I was talented and that I should, you know, be the next hot thing, young thing to come out.
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But I had no right to remain, I was gonna be deported, and so I went to law school.
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That was my ridiculous hack.
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I was like, okay.
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Extend the student visa.
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Well, extend the student visa, but also you know who is good at making visa applications?
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Law firms.
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Law firms know how to do that.
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So I got a law firm to sponsor me and pay for law school, and then I had to go work for them.
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So my backup was not a backup, it was a necessary step to just staying in the country.
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But was there any interest in law?
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I mean, I come from a family of lawyers, you know, and but I also I had grown up reading great legal, you know, fiction, like obviously Grisham, but also uh in the English tradition, John Mortimer and the Rumpel books.
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And so I had a sort of vision that law could be this noble profession of standing up for the little guy and against the faceless corporation.
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Of course, I end up working for one of these big city law firms and quickly realized that no, I'm the bad guy.
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I'm the lawyer acting for the faceless corporation, trying to crush the crush, crush the little guy.
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So I had to get out of there as quickly as possible.
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It's funny because so my daughter um produces these podcasts.
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She helps edit them and she posts them and stuff like that.
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And she's second-year law here in the States.
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And she keeps remarking, she's like, I can't believe how many of your guests are recovering lawyers.
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Like, really, there's there's some kind of through line between the legal profession and writing.
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And I don't know what it is, but almost every story is just that.
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It's like, well, you know, I tried it and I hated it.
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So now I needed to go figure out what else I was going to do with my life.
00:18:12.319 --> 00:18:16.400
And this creative side of me kept trying to burst through my skin.
00:18:16.799 --> 00:18:20.400
Yeah, I think it's a common story because look, this some of the skills are similar, right?
00:18:20.480 --> 00:18:27.200
You read a lot, you synthesize the information, you write it in a coherent way, you get up and tell a story convincingly.
00:18:27.279 --> 00:18:46.160
Like the best lawyers, the ones who win trials, are the ones who can tell a jury a good story, and then the ones who can who can empathize deeply with strange people from all walks of life, whether that's a corporate CEO or a criminal who's been caught, you know, um, or someone just caught up in the system in a in a bad way.
00:18:46.319 --> 00:18:50.960
If you're to be a good lawyer is to listen and then tell that story convincingly, right?
00:18:51.039 --> 00:18:53.920
What is a novel if not presenting a case?
00:18:54.240 --> 00:18:57.759
Yes, you know, especially, especially a thriller or a mystery novel.
00:18:57.839 --> 00:19:02.640
You're like, here are the facts, and I'm gonna lead you to a conclusion.
00:19:02.880 --> 00:19:13.440
Um but it sounds like so you got out of that, and uh on on the theater side of things, it wasn't it doesn't sound like your dream was to be a playwright.
00:19:13.599 --> 00:19:22.240
Your dream, it sounds like, was to produce, to do, you know, to have a little bit of to be a part of everything, a grander perhaps vision.
00:19:22.559 --> 00:19:24.160
Was that what you were aiming to do?
00:19:24.640 --> 00:19:26.640
It it happened by accretion.
00:19:26.799 --> 00:19:37.279
So what happened was, whilst I was a lawyer, we kept a theater company going, me and a few friends from school, and we would put on a show every summer, and I would take a leave of absence from the firm.
00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:40.160
And then it was very much writing and directing.
00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:42.960
That was absolutely what I wanted to do.
00:19:43.279 --> 00:19:49.519
But then, because I had done the law thing, I knew people with money.
00:19:49.759 --> 00:19:53.119
And you know, clients.
00:19:53.359 --> 00:19:56.960
And as I left the law, clients became investors.
00:19:57.519 --> 00:20:00.960
People who I had been a decent lawyer to said, What are you doing next?
00:20:01.279 --> 00:20:07.599
And I said, Well, I'm gonna go make theater, and they said, Oh, well, we'll we'll invest in you because you've been a good lawyer to us.
00:20:07.759 --> 00:20:14.240
And the second you take money from someone to put on a show, you become a producer, right?
00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:16.240
It doesn't matter what other jobs you do.
00:20:16.559 --> 00:20:17.440
That's the role, yeah.
00:20:17.759 --> 00:20:22.720
That that's the role, and so I I was a very accidental producer.
00:20:23.039 --> 00:20:26.799
I what I wanted to do in my twenties was to write and direct.
00:20:27.119 --> 00:20:30.640
And but when someone hands you a check, you become responsible for it.
00:20:30.960 --> 00:20:39.119
And gradually I found myself producing much more because it's what people were giving me money to do.
00:20:39.359 --> 00:20:47.119
And when people give you millions of dollars to put on things, you have to go to the fanciest writers and directors.
00:20:47.200 --> 00:20:51.039
You can't say, Oh, yes, I'll spend this money on myself because my vision is incredible.
00:20:51.200 --> 00:20:51.279
Right.
00:20:51.759 --> 00:21:06.960
So, you know, I was starting out, but because of the legal stuff, I was trusted with money, and you know, rightly or wrongly, and by the way, in my in my early 20s, wrongly, because I lost a lot of it, but gradually I got better at producing.
00:21:07.279 --> 00:21:10.720
But isn't that the nature of theater in general?
00:21:11.359 --> 00:21:13.920
I think it's the nature of all entrepreneurship, right?
00:21:14.079 --> 00:21:22.079
I think most entrepreneurs fail, and even successful entrepreneurs have probably failed as often or more often than they've been successful.
00:21:22.559 --> 00:21:23.759
And because it's hard.
00:21:23.920 --> 00:21:25.279
You're making something out of nothing.
00:21:25.359 --> 00:21:27.519
I mean, it's an insane thing we do.
00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:33.519
Making a book is hard enough, but a book ultimately is just paper and pixels.
00:21:33.839 --> 00:21:39.599
Uh to make a play or TV show is hundreds of people working for years.
00:21:39.920 --> 00:21:40.240
Right.
00:21:40.400 --> 00:21:43.680
And how do we convince people that they should see it?
00:21:44.160 --> 00:21:46.799
How should we convince people they should well never mind see it?
00:21:46.880 --> 00:21:51.440
How should we convince people that this is a reasonable use of millions of dollars in years of their lives?
00:21:51.759 --> 00:21:54.799
Because that's what I've had to do over and over again.
00:21:54.880 --> 00:21:59.359
I've had to go, hey, I kind of think jagged little pill.
00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:03.440
The Alanis Morissette album wants to be a Broadway musical.
00:22:03.759 --> 00:22:06.480
And which people go, does it?
00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:07.519
Who, who?
00:22:07.839 --> 00:22:08.559
Who are you?
00:22:08.720 --> 00:22:09.039
Why?
00:22:09.200 --> 00:22:10.160
What will it be?
00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:13.680
And you spend eight years convincing people one at a time.
00:22:13.839 --> 00:22:16.000
And then suddenly you have a show on Broadway.
00:22:16.079 --> 00:22:18.400
But it's not suddenly, it's eight years later.
00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:22.079
And a lot of my life has been having those ideas.
00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:25.279
I think Dirt Gently should be a television series.
00:22:25.440 --> 00:22:25.839
Does it?
00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:28.079
The books make the books don't have plots.
00:22:28.799 --> 00:22:30.400
How do you make a television series?
00:22:30.960 --> 00:22:34.799
And you know, 20 years later, we had a television series.
00:22:35.119 --> 00:22:51.920
And and then I'm pitching myself standing in the middle of this warehouse surrounded by 300 people building elaborate sets of ghost rhinoceroses and underground mazes, uh underground death mazes, and going, Oh, is this because I had an idea?
00:22:52.319 --> 00:22:53.200
This is insane.
00:22:53.359 --> 00:22:54.240
This is crazy.
00:22:54.480 --> 00:22:56.559
It but it that's also very fulfilling.
00:22:56.640 --> 00:22:58.480
And I mean, it's surreal, I'm sure.
00:22:58.559 --> 00:23:24.000
I mean, I you know, the author equivalent of that I have this conversation before is like just being in a meeting with your publisher, and they're talking to each other about your book, and you kind of just attach like these people are having this conversation about something I just made the fuck up like two years ago, and they're having this very serious, intense conversation about the best way to get it to the world.
00:23:24.240 --> 00:23:34.400
And and you really at that moment stop taking yourself very seriously because there's like this is insanity, you know, that I just like made this up and now these people, it's affecting people.
00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:39.839
And I, you know, tenfold time when you're talking about you know, productions and sets and things like that.
00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:43.119
But that's also scarier because you're like, what if it fails?
00:23:43.359 --> 00:23:44.160
What if it fails?
00:23:44.319 --> 00:23:53.759
I mean, it's all I mean, but then you come to the difference in my head between being a when I'm a producer, which is less and less common these days because my life has really been taken over by the writing.
00:23:54.000 --> 00:24:01.519
And when you're the writer, whether it's a TV show or a play or a book, it's it's personal, it's even more personal.
00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:02.319
Sure.
00:24:03.119 --> 00:24:10.160
Generally, when a review is written, they are not saying, oh, the producer of this really messed up the script.
00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:10.799
Right.
00:24:11.039 --> 00:24:20.799
But it might be, by the way, it might often be the producer sticking the or in messing up the script or making it better if they're an additive useful editorial voice.
00:24:21.119 --> 00:24:23.759
But as a producer, you don't get singled out.
00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:26.880
The writer, the director, and the stars get singled out.
00:24:27.039 --> 00:24:29.519
And as a writer, so it always feels more personal.
00:24:30.480 --> 00:24:32.319
And even and again, even weirder.
00:24:32.400 --> 00:24:39.759
Like I wrote a play, I wrote two plays last year, and one of them they were both set in space.
00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:43.359
Uh, one was a kid's musical.
00:24:43.599 --> 00:25:04.079
I got asked to adapt to the series of books called The Boy with Wings by Lenny Henry, which is a sort of superhero children's um adventure story about a boy who discovers his father is an alien uh warmonger, and he's gonna grow up to be a great uh warrior and his father's intergalactic war.
00:25:04.559 --> 00:25:08.000
And for some insane reason, I decided to make it a rap musical.
00:25:08.559 --> 00:25:20.799
And so I'm sitting in the theater with you know these actors with giant eight-foot wings coming off them doing rap an iambic pentameter verse.
00:25:20.960 --> 00:25:26.240
And I'm thinking, yeah, this is silly, but also cool, also very nice.
00:25:26.400 --> 00:25:27.039
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:27.599 --> 00:25:30.799
And it ends up, you know, getting nominated for an Olivier and doing well.
00:25:30.880 --> 00:25:40.640
And I'm like, uh I should have more stupid ideas because the stupid ideas tend to be the ones that people respond to, and the sensible ideas tend to be slightly also rational.
00:25:40.960 --> 00:25:45.359
Well, I think sensible usually is then directed towards common, right?
00:25:45.839 --> 00:25:49.119
And the stupid idea is at least unique.
00:25:50.240 --> 00:25:55.039
More often than not, and that's that's what I'm finding a lot in the mystery thriller suspense space.
00:25:55.200 --> 00:25:57.920
And you talked, you know, talking to my editor and things like that.
00:25:58.079 --> 00:26:00.319
Do you have an idea what's different?
00:26:00.480 --> 00:26:11.200
Um, you know, because people who do consume these, a lot of them consume at a huge volume, and they can identify, yep, this is the same old plot.
00:26:11.359 --> 00:26:17.440
Um, but the the downside of that is if you get two out there, you've really narrowed your audience.
00:26:17.519 --> 00:26:19.519
Um, and I see that with a lot of writers too.
00:26:19.599 --> 00:26:29.519
They've got a great idea, but I'm like, this is this is going to be a hard the people who are gonna read this are gonna love it, but I don't know how many people are gonna read it.
00:26:29.599 --> 00:26:38.640
Um and it's hard to balance the feet to even know to have that self-awareness to like, you know, this is a highly pitchable idea, but it's also not common.
00:26:38.880 --> 00:26:39.680
You're so right.
00:26:39.759 --> 00:26:44.079
I so I just read two books at the same time.
00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:47.680
I just I I was just I was on this one of the luxuries of a vacation.
00:26:47.839 --> 00:26:48.319
You can read.
00:26:48.640 --> 00:26:52.000
So I was just I I had a week in Mexico and I had two books.
00:26:52.160 --> 00:26:55.119
I was listening, and they were both fantasy books.
00:26:55.680 --> 00:27:03.279
And I was the book I read the hard copy of is a wonderful Irish book called Sister Wake by my friend Dave Rodden.
00:27:03.440 --> 00:27:19.359
And it's the first in the trilogy, and it was a Sunday Times bestseller, and it's one, but it is 400 pages that takes Irish, British imperial history and recasts it through the lens of Irish mythology.
00:27:20.160 --> 00:27:22.480
And it's brilliant, but it's a lift, right?
00:27:22.559 --> 00:27:27.920
There's a lot of Irish words in it, there's a lot of complex mythology and complex history, and you have to really pay attention.
00:27:28.079 --> 00:27:30.400
And I couldn't have loved it more.
00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:36.799
At the same time, I'm listening to the first Carl the Dungeon Crawler.
00:27:38.559 --> 00:27:41.279
And I've never read any of those, but they're everywhere.
00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:42.079
They're everywhere.
00:27:42.160 --> 00:27:51.839
Well, I deny them, but then I realized that eight of them are in the, I think they are at the eight, and all eight are ginormous bestsellers to this day.
00:27:51.920 --> 00:27:57.920
Like you go to the Amazon charts to this day, and in the top 30 books are all eight Dungeon Crawler books.
00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:08.640
So I was like, I have to read this, I have to see, you know, and so I mentioned if I'm reading these two fantasy, they're both fantasy books, they're both series, they're both pitched in about the same, you know, demographic audience.
00:28:08.960 --> 00:28:14.240
And in and they're both done well, but in very different ways and at different scales.
00:28:14.400 --> 00:28:16.079
And I'm thinking, look, they're both good.
00:28:16.160 --> 00:28:26.319
But one is like Karl is a very straightforward, propulsive narrative with very little subtext, very little complexity of idea.
00:28:26.480 --> 00:28:36.880
Um, and it just sort of charges forward and it's you know, you are it is a page turner, and you think, yes, I understand why a gazillion people have read this and why it's going to be a giant TV series.
00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:44.400
And then I read this other book, and I think this is a brilliant book, and it's with every award, and and and it's not like people are reading it, but not at the same scale.
00:28:45.599 --> 00:28:57.440
It's exactly your point about, and you know, I have to say, so my my first novel, my entry into this world, out of my history as a uh playwright and screenwriter.
00:28:57.599 --> 00:29:00.880
Um I there was this very interesting debate.
00:29:01.039 --> 00:29:05.680
So it's called The Great Game, it's a historical thriller set in London of 1905.
00:29:06.400 --> 00:29:19.440
And throughout its writing, there was this great debate going on, as you say, the sort of out-of-body experience with the publishers and the marketing team as to how commercial it was.
00:29:19.680 --> 00:29:28.400
And I was just sort of listening to this debate go forth back and forth in emails and meetings, because I'm just look, I'm writing the book I'm writing, you know, you guys do what you want with it.
00:29:28.720 --> 00:29:38.400
But like they kept, I think, convincing themselves, and so far so good, but they went like this this is very broad appeal.
00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:43.279
And I'm like, well, I'm writing a kind of critique of colonialism and empire.
00:29:43.599 --> 00:29:56.160
So and yes, Sherlock Holmes is in it, and yes, Winston Churchill is in it, and it has some grotesque murders, and I think it's twisting and thrilly, but it is also a critique of empire and imperialism and race.
00:29:56.480 --> 00:29:59.440
But you know they're not going to pitch it that way on the back cover copy.
00:29:59.839 --> 00:30:19.920
No, I mean, to the insane extent that when we started getting reviews and blurbs, so um uh Jeff Dahler gave us a wonderful uh quote early on, and obviously he's a big name creator of the tracker and bone collector and all of this.
00:30:20.160 --> 00:30:27.519
So he gave us this great quote, and the the quote was something like transcendent, a unique literary voice.
00:30:27.680 --> 00:30:38.000
And then later on in it, he said something like, you know, a page thriller a page turner and a and and the publishers were like, let's put a page turner and a great thriller.
00:30:38.240 --> 00:30:41.359
I'm like, what about transcendent and a unique literary voice?
00:30:42.799 --> 00:30:59.279
That doesn't sound like I mean boy, if that doesn't encapsulate the existential, not battle, but um, you know, delineation between the author and everybody charged with marketing the book and selling the book, which totally I get like that.
00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:06.000
But and it's the same thing with awards, like you know, we all want to win awards, we all want to have starred reviews.
00:31:06.240 --> 00:31:10.640
And then at the end of the day, you're like, boy, but I would love to sell more books.
00:31:10.960 --> 00:31:18.480
You know, if I had to like choose one or the other, you know, and I've had both, you know, books that didn't sell well, that got awarded, whatever.
00:31:18.640 --> 00:31:25.039
And I'm like, yeah, but it's nice to, yeah, and they know what sells books, you know, and that goes to the cover art.
00:31:25.119 --> 00:31:27.279
And by the way, your cover is it's gorgeous.
00:31:27.440 --> 00:31:34.480
Like, I I saw that cover, and then what I like about your, first of all, what I love about the cover is it's not you because you're Thomas and Mercer, right?
00:31:34.799 --> 00:31:39.839
Um, it is not, it doesn't come off to me as a Thomas and Mercer thriller cover at all.
00:31:39.920 --> 00:31:44.559
And that's not a slam against them, but those are there's a formula to those.
00:31:44.799 --> 00:31:48.319
Um and and I don't know, it grabbed me right away.
00:31:48.559 --> 00:31:49.200
No, I love it.
00:31:49.279 --> 00:31:49.599
I love it.
00:31:49.680 --> 00:31:51.279
And they I think they did a really good job.
00:31:51.440 --> 00:31:53.920
And it was really this was a great part of the process, actually.
00:31:54.079 --> 00:31:58.880
And you know, I know a lot of your listeners watched, you know, the sort of inside baseball stuff is interesting.
00:31:59.039 --> 00:32:06.960
So the inside baseball here was they were very welcoming of my input early, not late.
00:32:07.119 --> 00:32:13.359
So I think it became quite clear to me that I would have very limited time to correct anything I didn't like.
00:32:13.519 --> 00:32:13.680
Right.
00:32:18.799 --> 00:32:25.039
And so I said, so when what what what my editor created though in marketing them allowed me space early to do the brief.
00:32:25.119 --> 00:32:34.720
And I think maybe because of my history as a producer, I have a lot of experience briefing creative directors and marketing teams and people who make posters and so on.
00:32:35.119 --> 00:32:41.279
And so I did a sort of seven, eight-page visual brief when I was like, here are the references.
00:32:41.759 --> 00:32:42.400
That's great.
00:32:42.640 --> 00:32:46.079
Here are the here are the visual styles, you know.
00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:52.079
And so, for example, I was like, I was like, do not, we're not going with a photograph, we're not going with anything literal.
00:32:52.319 --> 00:32:55.119
We have to capture the iconography of what the book is doing.
00:32:55.200 --> 00:33:03.440
And so, you know, obviously the crown symbolizes empire, the globe is also a skull, so it's deaf.
00:33:03.759 --> 00:33:13.839
Um, the this little man, so one of the debates we had, so the little running man in the center of the crown, one of the debates we had was how big his turban should be.
00:33:14.079 --> 00:33:22.240
Because to me, it was important that we give the little nod that the lead character is an Indian, is a Sikh, and that's unusual in this type of book.
00:33:22.400 --> 00:33:30.160
But then at the same time, if it's too obvious that it's an Indian, if it's a if it's then are we gonna turn off white readers who don't, you know.
00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:32.960
So we had this like really interesting debate.
00:33:33.039 --> 00:33:36.640
I I'm very proud of it as a as a proud of the book, but I'm I'm proud of the cover.
00:33:36.799 --> 00:33:38.000
I think they did an amazing job.
00:33:38.160 --> 00:33:42.880
But yeah, there was this sort of conceptual brief that I did, and then I didn't have to say anything.
00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:47.440
Then this turned up, and I was like, I think I had two, I think I think we put in the Union Jack.
00:33:47.519 --> 00:33:48.799
That was one of the only notes I had.
00:33:48.880 --> 00:33:49.039
Yeah.
00:33:49.759 --> 00:33:50.559
No, it's great.
00:33:50.799 --> 00:34:05.759
And and I think, you know, my the the ignorant part of me would say, you know, somebody who has spent all these years writing, you know, for stage and screen would easily transition to novel writing.
00:34:06.079 --> 00:34:12.400
But the author side of me knows that that's not true necessarily, that it's it is truly a different beast.
00:34:12.639 --> 00:34:16.960
What was that process like and why why now?
00:34:17.039 --> 00:34:20.400
Like why did you why was this the time to write the book?
00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:26.400
I'll do the why now first because it's a boring, simple answer, is that I got asked.
00:34:26.639 --> 00:34:26.880
Yeah.
00:34:27.039 --> 00:34:27.440
Oh, okay.
00:34:27.679 --> 00:34:28.320
You know, interesting.
00:34:28.719 --> 00:34:37.199
I listen, listen, I wrote my first novel, my first unpublished stuck in a drawer novel when I was 25 or 26, like everybody writes.
00:34:37.599 --> 00:34:39.760
And which is important to do, by the way.
00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:41.039
Which is important to do.
00:34:41.199 --> 00:34:43.760
Because what happened was I got, you know, it got me an agent.
00:34:43.920 --> 00:34:45.440
And that's great.
00:34:45.679 --> 00:34:54.880
And and then it got me 12 very nice rejection letters that said that said, you know, this young man can write, would love to read his next one.
00:34:55.199 --> 00:34:57.840
And 20, 20 years later, they get to.
00:34:58.480 --> 00:34:58.639
Right.
00:34:59.039 --> 00:35:01.599
Because my my career went in another direction.
00:35:01.840 --> 00:35:14.480
But it was so I, you know, I came up obviously as a re well, not obviously, but unlike you, I was in the sort of, you know, I suspect you've just got more girls that were better at sport than I was.
00:35:16.159 --> 00:35:19.039
I just I wasn't interested in what was being given to me.
00:35:20.960 --> 00:35:25.440
But I was a very bookish uh teenager, and I I grew up loving books.
00:35:25.599 --> 00:35:36.000
And so I always thought along the way, you know, I would write a book one day, and I said I tried at 25 and got this agonizing rubber clerk about failed with heartbreak.
00:35:36.400 --> 00:35:41.760
And uh and you know, thankfully it will forever remain in the drawer.
00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:47.280
And then my career happened, and I made home TV and uh theater.
00:35:47.679 --> 00:36:02.719
But what happened here was during the pandemic because everything shut down and I was like everybody sad and lonely, I needed to figure out something to do, and it wasn't that I I didn't have a book idea.
00:36:02.880 --> 00:36:10.880
What I did was I did a bunch of audio originals, I did a bunch of you know what we would use to call radio dramas, but I did them for Audible.
00:36:11.039 --> 00:36:21.760
So I did like a half dozen sort of hour-long full cast murder, mystery, science fiction, genre pieces for Audible.
00:36:22.639 --> 00:36:30.639
And and they did pretty well, and so I think because of that, you know, I had racked up, you know, tens of thousands of reviews on Audible.
00:36:31.199 --> 00:36:41.119
Then the Amazon publishing algorithm kicked in somewhere, and we got a phone call saying, you know, is he interested in writing a book since he can write the other thing?
00:36:41.280 --> 00:36:44.719
So I was like, Yes, the answer to that is yes.
00:36:44.800 --> 00:36:48.159
And then the question became okay, what book, which book, who book?
00:36:48.400 --> 00:36:49.760
And how do I do it?
00:36:50.079 --> 00:36:51.760
And how do I do it?
00:36:52.480 --> 00:37:05.840
I mean, that's you know, tell you know, my listeners are mostly writers and a lot of aspiring authors, and you know, you might be the first person out of 250 some episodes who said, Oh, I got asked to write a book.
00:37:06.639 --> 00:37:09.199
Everyone's spending years getting rejected.
00:37:09.280 --> 00:37:11.519
And I mean, what you did too, obviously, with your first one.
00:37:11.599 --> 00:37:12.880
I did two with my first three.
00:37:13.039 --> 00:37:15.840
My first three were agented, but never went anywhere.
00:37:16.079 --> 00:37:30.159
Um, but that's but that's also scary because now you're like to your point, figure out the book, figure out how to write it, and then start to, you know, the the difference between writing a play and writing a novel.
00:37:30.320 --> 00:37:33.280
There's a there's a lot of words to fill in.
00:37:33.440 --> 00:37:35.119
Um, and how do I do that?
00:37:35.280 --> 00:37:44.880
What you know, because I think the natural tendency, and I hear this from journalists too, journalists by training, is that the more you write, the more you think this is unnecessary stuff.
00:37:44.960 --> 00:37:47.440
I'm boring the reader, I'm just putting in words.
00:37:47.599 --> 00:37:58.159
And that's a hard habit to break when you're used to being very precise with an economy of words to get the point across, or just working in dialogue.
00:37:58.400 --> 00:38:00.320
It's hard to strike that balance.
00:38:00.480 --> 00:38:03.119
How much description, how much internal monologue?
00:38:03.360 --> 00:38:08.639
You know, it's for me that's taken 12 books to, and I'm still wrapping my head around it.
00:38:09.039 --> 00:38:09.440
100%.
00:38:09.840 --> 00:38:20.480
Well, first to say to the listeners who think I had that easy, I mean, I did in this particular case, but I got low, my my rejection powers are from all the plays that never got put on.
00:38:20.639 --> 00:38:20.880
Sure.
00:38:21.039 --> 00:38:27.039
And all the TV episodes that never, all the TV pilots that never aired, all the movies that never got made.
00:38:27.360 --> 00:38:31.039
I have, you know, I have those drawers too, I have those comments too.
00:38:31.199 --> 00:38:34.960
So yes, it was a nice change to get the phone call and to be asked.
00:38:35.119 --> 00:38:39.039
But then, yes, then came the business of how, and it's exactly as you say.
00:38:39.519 --> 00:38:48.400
For example, I delivered a chapter one time to my editor, and and it's a big, it's the center of the book.
00:38:48.480 --> 00:38:53.840
It's the sort of the famous Marshall McLuhan rule that page 69 is where everything happens.
00:38:53.920 --> 00:38:56.800
It's it's the chapter that page 69 is around.
00:38:57.199 --> 00:39:06.639
And it's when Sherlock Holmes turns up and Watson is there, and our heroes but Bell and Raffles is the big you know, big confrontation scene.
00:39:07.039 --> 00:39:11.280
And I delivered it entirely in dialogue.
00:39:11.920 --> 00:39:15.280
And it didn't even occur to me that you couldn't do this, right?
00:39:15.440 --> 00:39:19.280
Uh not even attributions, like it's just strict quotes.
00:39:19.599 --> 00:39:20.719
Oh no, I had, yeah, no.
00:39:20.880 --> 00:39:22.239
You had he said, she said, whatever.
00:39:22.480 --> 00:39:23.760
And he said, she said, pretty much.
00:39:24.159 --> 00:39:25.039
But that was it, yeah.
00:39:25.280 --> 00:39:30.480
And then my editor said, like, look, this is a great scene, but what are they doing?
00:39:30.719 --> 00:39:31.760
And I go, What do you mean?
00:39:31.840 --> 00:39:32.239
What are they doing?
00:39:32.400 --> 00:39:35.360
They're talking, they're talking, they're having this conversation.
00:39:35.599 --> 00:39:38.559
It's just like, yeah, but like, you know, are they sitting?
00:39:38.719 --> 00:39:39.440
Are they standing?
00:39:39.679 --> 00:39:41.280
Are they what's the issue?
00:39:41.360 --> 00:39:42.320
This is a political.
00:39:42.559 --> 00:39:45.360
And I went, who got I was literally went like, who cares?
00:39:45.599 --> 00:39:49.760
I was like, the director, the actors will and I went, Oh, I see your point.
00:39:50.159 --> 00:40:04.880
Yeah, and it's but that's that's fascinating to me because I think that's something a lot of people struggle with in general, because I I think the the the knee-jerk reaction uh uh for a lot of writers is to give us way too much setting in the scene of dialogue.
00:40:05.119 --> 00:40:12.400
Um and it's usually okay, I think, to have just a lot of rapid fire back and forth, you know, as long as you ground it.
00:40:12.480 --> 00:40:24.159
But what I've noticed over time is a small movement, it's it's less about setting the scene, and it can be character revealing, but it's more about it's a rhythm.
00:40:24.320 --> 00:40:25.599
You hear it in your head, right?
00:40:25.760 --> 00:40:30.800
I need I'm taking a breath here by saying he picked a thread off of his jeans.
00:40:31.039 --> 00:40:36.639
Um that just gives us a second to breathe before going back into it.
00:40:36.800 --> 00:40:41.039
And that just takes years and an ear to get there, I think.
00:40:41.599 --> 00:40:42.400
I think that's right.
00:40:42.559 --> 00:40:52.800
I think it's for me what the way my my hack into it was then going, okay, I'm gonna have to direct the scene, I'm gonna have to cast the scene.
00:40:53.039 --> 00:40:53.840
Oh, that makes sense.
00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:58.320
I'm gonna have to production design the scene and costume design the scene.
00:40:58.559 --> 00:41:07.679
And when I realized I had to do all that and make it work for the plot, it's not just describing, you know, someone's frock coat for the sake of describing the frock coat.
00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:13.199
Like, so here's an example there was a different scene, which is a big debate between the villain and the hero.
00:41:13.280 --> 00:41:21.840
It's it's it's sort of hopefully a clever and unexpected version of the s of the villain gives their big master plan speech scene, right?
00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:28.559
Yeah, and and my hero is tied to a chair and the villain is giving his big master plan speech.
00:41:29.679 --> 00:41:44.719
Except in in my version, they actually get into a legit debate about the best way to overthrow an empire, and it sort of captures a lot of thinking about colonialism and it's and it's an exciting, hopefully, debate.
00:41:44.880 --> 00:41:48.159
But again, my editor was like, This is great, but what are they doing?
00:41:48.480 --> 00:41:51.360
I was like, Oh, they're having a debate about the future of empire.
00:41:51.679 --> 00:41:52.800
What do you want them to do?
00:41:52.960 --> 00:41:56.159
And she's like, Well, I'd like them to do something, and then I was like, Oh, okay.
00:41:56.320 --> 00:42:04.800
And so then I was like, Okay, if I was the director, if I had delivered this scene to a director, my director would say to me, I need the actors to do something, I need some actors.
00:42:05.360 --> 00:42:08.880
Or even how their standing is so important, you know.
00:42:09.440 --> 00:42:10.559
Are they confrontational?
00:42:10.639 --> 00:42:12.320
What's their body language like?
00:42:12.800 --> 00:42:24.000
So I put in a whole thing about okay, he's trying to escape from his ropes, and he's using a pen to unpick his ropes, and eventually he gets one hand free.
00:42:24.079 --> 00:42:32.559
And just coming back to that three or four times in the scene of okay, his you know, his right fingers are free, he's you know, created a sort of ticking clock tension.
00:42:32.800 --> 00:42:33.119
Right.
00:42:33.599 --> 00:42:36.480
In uh then he gets his hand free.
00:42:36.559 --> 00:42:39.119
And it made the scene you know immeasurably better.
00:42:39.199 --> 00:42:43.440
And I'm grateful to my editor for just asking the basic question, what are they doing?
00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:45.679
Um so that was one thing.
00:42:45.840 --> 00:42:55.840
Then the second thing was the freedom that you don't have as a playwright or screenwriter of or you rarely have, of regular direct address.
00:42:55.920 --> 00:43:10.079
And so that the novel is a first person and is told from a very specific point of view, allowed me then the space for the narrator just to address the audience and go, here's some stuff I'm thinking about, here's some stuff in my backstory.
00:43:10.239 --> 00:43:23.760
And again, I have never had that blunt tree because it's not one permitted to you other than in sort of more experimental film or uh right, which is also a thing that's hard to figure out because how much should I reveal?
00:43:23.920 --> 00:43:26.960
How much if I spend too much time in his head?
00:43:27.039 --> 00:43:33.119
How how much does that slow the story down versus giving us the important information we need?
00:43:33.280 --> 00:43:37.360
Can that information be conveyed through movement or through dialogue?
00:43:37.760 --> 00:43:40.320
And it's it's it's such a trick.
00:43:40.559 --> 00:43:49.760
And you know, at the end of the day, I feel like I just rely on, you know, my agent, my editors, like I've done the best I could do with this.
00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:56.400
Tell me what you think, and then tell me the things that I can't see for myself because and there are always a lot of them.
00:43:56.559 --> 00:43:59.760
And then they tell you those things, and you're like, ah, that makes perfect sense.
00:44:00.400 --> 00:44:05.360
Um, but it's never like I write something and they're like, yep, this is great, we'll just leave it as is.
00:44:05.920 --> 00:44:11.360
I'm always worried on the on the rare occasions that it does happen, I kind of go, You have to be wrong.
00:44:11.519 --> 00:44:12.960
Yeah, you have to be wrong.
00:44:13.119 --> 00:44:18.559
Not because I think I'm terrible, but because as you say, you always miss something.
00:44:19.119 --> 00:44:37.599
I mean, in the in in the case of this one, after it was finished and the arcs were being sent out, uh an author friend of mine called me and he went, I'm 60 pages in, I'm loving it, but you've just given away a massive plot twist by accident in this in this chapter.
00:44:38.559 --> 00:44:40.079
Wow, and nobody else had seen that.
00:44:40.320 --> 00:44:41.119
Nobody else had seen that.
00:44:41.280 --> 00:44:42.639
It was literally one word.
00:44:42.960 --> 00:44:47.760
There was one word, there was a character's name that shouldn't have been named.
00:44:48.079 --> 00:44:52.000
And oh, and that that was just a mistake on your part.
00:44:52.320 --> 00:45:01.039
It well, it was, I think it was from an earlier draft where I could make it a I could make it a reveal, but I could make it a twist, right?
00:45:01.519 --> 00:45:05.679
And so I made it a twist, but this one artifact was still there.
00:45:05.920 --> 00:45:16.480
And I mean, thank God that Amazon and Thomas and Massar and Amazon imprint, thank God they understand digital because at once that right, they they they can figure all that out.
00:45:16.800 --> 00:45:23.039
Yeah, it all it all got fixed, but anybody else listening wants to spot and have a first edition.
00:45:23.199 --> 00:45:24.719
That error is still there.
00:45:25.199 --> 00:45:27.199
That the rare first edition.
00:45:27.360 --> 00:45:29.360
Um, well, Arvin, it's been great speaking to you.
00:45:29.440 --> 00:45:32.079
Before we wrap up, we're gonna do a quick storytelling of our own.
00:45:32.239 --> 00:45:36.559
Um, I could talk to you for a lot longer, by the way, but but we need to get to this.
00:45:36.800 --> 00:45:39.599
Um, this is the making up portion of the show.
00:45:39.760 --> 00:45:42.159
I've got three books that I've chosen, mostly at random.
00:45:42.239 --> 00:45:45.199
These were all, I think, mailed to me in the last like three weeks.
00:45:45.360 --> 00:45:48.800
So I've I think these are all either out now or they're coming out.
00:45:49.039 --> 00:45:50.719
Um, you're gonna choose one of the books.
00:45:50.800 --> 00:45:53.039
We're going to choose a random sentence from a random page.
00:45:53.199 --> 00:45:58.400
I'm gonna read that one sentence, and then that'll be the first sentence and maybe a two-minute long short story.
00:45:58.480 --> 00:45:59.679
So I'll read that sentence.
00:45:59.840 --> 00:46:05.440
You give me the next whatever that happens, I'll go, and then it'll go off the rails, and then I'll call it.
00:46:05.599 --> 00:46:08.079
Um it'll be a mess, I promise.
00:46:08.239 --> 00:46:15.599
I've got Liv Constantine's Promise Me Never, um, Jen Gavon's The Sleeping Sister, and talk about a great cover.
00:46:16.079 --> 00:46:17.199
I was gonna say that's a great cover.
00:46:17.679 --> 00:46:21.119
It's amazing, and Claire Macintosh's It's Not What You Think.
00:46:21.280 --> 00:46:23.840
I think on the basis of Calvas, we have to go for sleeping sisters.
00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:35.119
Yeah, she's she is a tremendous writer, probably not accessible by everybody, but um um I think this was the one that I I know, yeah.
00:46:35.199 --> 00:46:36.000
I blurbed this one.
00:46:36.079 --> 00:46:37.039
It's a beautiful book.
00:46:37.119 --> 00:46:40.480
Um, so give me a number between one and four hundred.
00:46:41.199 --> 00:46:43.039
Let's take the Marshall McNode rule.
00:46:43.119 --> 00:46:44.719
69, page 69.
00:46:45.760 --> 00:46:46.559
Perfect.
00:46:46.719 --> 00:46:49.440
Um, I'm gonna quickly scan the page.
00:46:49.679 --> 00:46:57.199
Um I'm gonna read this and you do whatever you want with it.
00:46:58.800 --> 00:47:02.880
What drew me to the window I couldn't say, an urge.
00:47:04.480 --> 00:47:10.880
But once there all was immediately revealed, and then immediately hidden.
00:47:13.440 --> 00:47:15.519
It was the neighbor boy again.
00:47:15.760 --> 00:47:23.679
The same boy I had spotted seven times on seven consecutive days at exactly seven in the morning, which it was which it was now.
00:47:25.360 --> 00:47:36.559
And always he appeared and then disappeared within a minute, and where he was scampered to I couldn't say, but this was the first time I realized he might not even exist.
00:47:39.679 --> 00:47:46.880
He was intent on something just outside my field of vision, and then I saw it a cat.
00:47:48.400 --> 00:47:56.159
Then the boy disappeared, and the cat turned and blinked at me with full meaning and recognition.
00:47:57.039 --> 00:48:15.840
The cat's mouth opened in a in a in a meow that I couldn't hear, but that didn't matter because what he did next was he jumped into the sewer and soon reappeared with something in his mouth.
00:48:17.519 --> 00:48:21.199
I appeared trying to discern what the cat was holding.
00:48:21.840 --> 00:48:28.960
But I found I didn't need to because the cat leapt up, climbed up my wall, and approached the window.
00:48:29.199 --> 00:48:37.360
And with a disconcertingly human expression, tapped the glass with its paw in its mouth was a key.
00:48:39.039 --> 00:48:40.880
Oh, I think we leave it there.
00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:44.079
There's a lot of ways this could go.
00:48:45.199 --> 00:48:53.599
And you were you were much you were much more gentle and interesting because I'm like, oh, clearly he has a human finger in his mouth.
00:48:54.159 --> 00:49:00.400
And I'm and I have no idea how that relates to the boy at all, but and I'm like, oh, a key, a key is good.
00:49:00.800 --> 00:49:03.760
And I and I picture like an old-fashioned skeleton key.
00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:05.360
An old-fashioned skeleton key.
00:49:05.440 --> 00:49:07.199
I think you know, it's a black cat.
00:49:07.440 --> 00:49:09.599
Uh, what is the book actually about?
00:49:10.079 --> 00:49:13.119
Uh um oh, it is very involved.
00:49:13.199 --> 00:49:18.000
I I'll just uh the just um I won't go into it, but it's called The Sleeping Sisters.
00:49:18.079 --> 00:49:19.760
I highly recommend you check it out.
00:49:19.840 --> 00:49:21.199
It's a beautiful story.
00:49:21.360 --> 00:49:30.719
Um, it's family, it's got some fantasy in it, it's dark, it's got a lot of um uh um Native American um folklore.
00:49:30.880 --> 00:49:34.559
Um, it's yeah, she's a she's a so it might have a talking cat.
00:49:34.639 --> 00:49:36.559
Maybe there's it might have a talking cat.
00:49:36.639 --> 00:49:37.679
We might have nailed it.
00:49:37.840 --> 00:49:41.199
She's she's sitting at home, like, oh, that's the story I should have written.
00:49:41.519 --> 00:49:43.039
Man, what a pleasure to meet you.
00:49:43.119 --> 00:49:46.000
And I hope you um hit me up when you're out in Boulder next year.
00:49:46.079 --> 00:49:48.000
It'd be great to um hang out with you.
00:49:48.320 --> 00:49:48.719
I will.
00:49:48.800 --> 00:49:49.840
It's great to meet you, Tom.
00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:50.880
Thanks for having me on.
00:49:51.119 --> 00:49:52.000
Take care.
00:49:52.800 --> 00:49:53.280
Bye.
00:49:55.679 --> 00:49:56.639
All right, that is it.
00:49:56.719 --> 00:49:58.880
That is my conversation with Arvin, Ethan, and David.
00:49:58.960 --> 00:50:00.079
And I think we did okay.
00:50:00.239 --> 00:50:03.760
I think we did just fine with that little storytelling at the end.
00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:09.119
Um, you know, I felt like he was going to come up with better ideas than me.
00:50:09.199 --> 00:50:10.239
Maybe that's why he stopped it.
00:50:10.400 --> 00:50:12.960
I'm like, man, you're gonna outshine me on this one.
00:50:13.039 --> 00:50:15.119
Um, but I think that story had potential.
00:50:15.280 --> 00:50:21.760
Um, as a reminder, Arvin's um brand new debut novel, The Great Game, is now out.
00:50:21.840 --> 00:50:29.039
And you can read about that book and anything you want to know about Arvind and all of the other things that he does at his website, which is Arvind Ethan David.co.
00:50:29.840 --> 00:50:31.519
Um, so check that out.
00:50:31.679 --> 00:50:32.559
Um, that's it.
00:50:32.719 --> 00:50:34.000
That's wrapping it up.
00:50:34.159 --> 00:50:41.199
Um, just a reminder, also, if you want to head on over to my website, CarterWilson.com, you can pre-order my new book when they find me right there.
00:50:41.280 --> 00:50:42.639
It's coming out on November 10th.
00:50:42.719 --> 00:50:43.920
It's perfect for the holidays.
00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:47.119
It'll hopefully make you feel very uneasy.
00:50:47.199 --> 00:50:50.320
Maybe it'll give you nightmares, but maybe it'll put you in the holiday mood as well.
00:50:50.480 --> 00:50:50.960
Who knows?
00:50:51.039 --> 00:50:52.480
Hopefully, all of those things.
00:50:52.639 --> 00:50:53.840
So check that out.
00:50:53.920 --> 00:50:57.280
Uh, and next episode will be out just next week, as always.
00:50:57.440 --> 00:50:58.880
Take care, friends.