Ross Mikkelsen: so Thomas, tell us tell us where you are.
Thomas: not really sure. I think I'm in Langley. I'm pretty sure I'm in Langley. were in EC Manning, provincial park last night, way up as far as you could go up the mountain at a little camp called Lightning Lake. And it was stunning, Zero signal. So, you know, we were reading books, which is great.
Ross Mikkelsen: Great. is this whole van life, is this new to you?
Thomas: We had a little van before, a little Dodge 19 foot van that we wanted to try and see if we liked it. And so we used it for, I know, we used it probably for three years and kept bumping my head on the ceiling. But still we really, really liked it. So I put it on Facebook marketplace for exactly what we paid for it. and it sold in 20 minutes. So we bought this
Ross Mikkelsen: Great.
Thomas: thing, which was substantially more than the little 20 foot, 20 year old van. But this one, mean, you know, it's a, it's a Pleasureway and it's 22 feet and pretty swanky. It's more, it's fancier than I deserve probably. So anyway.
Paul Boucher: Yeah. And I did see you hoisting a glass there. I think it maybe it's time for you've helped yourself
Thomas: I am... I... Yeah, I'm...
Paul Boucher: already.
Ross Mikkelsen: You got ahead of us. Okay, atta boy. Atta boy.
Thomas: I... Well...
Paul Boucher: Yeah,
Thomas: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: yeah. There we go. And Ross is the he he'll be our vintner today. He can explain
Thomas: Okay.
Paul Boucher: everything about the wine.
Ross Mikkelsen: so the protagonist in you in your new book is in Macon and he drinks some similar wines to this. So this is how we picked the Joseph Drouin Macon Village 2023
Thomas: I love this. the last time I was in the car, think I, I don't know. I brought a couple bottles of something in this vein home with me. I threw them in my bag and brought them home with me. yeah, it is a favorite. And the one in the book, I I probably looked up some wines and found something that was not too obscenely expensive, hopefully, and had them drink it. But yeah. or I mean, for
Ross Mikkelsen: Well cheers.
Thomas: all I know, could have, yeah, cheers. I could have looked up, hmm.
Paul Boucher: Cheers.
Thomas: I probably looked up the menu for the cafe. And that's where I found that wine. Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: right. di have you spent some time in MacCall? Is that why you started the book there?
Thomas: Yeah, I mean it's one of the places that I've written about that I've actually been, which is new for me. Because I I wrote Waiting for Columbus and I've never been to Spain, and it said in Spain, and I wrote The Elephant On Karlův Bridge and I have yet to be in Prague. So that's just extensive research on my part to pump up those ones.
Ross Mikkelsen: This wine is very tasty. I I I'm I'm a red guy, so if there if I've if I've got a choice I always pick a red. But any time I drink white, I think that's a great drink. Why don't I drink more white wine every time?
Thomas: Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Thomas, speaking of booze, we spoke on Friday to your old friend Brian Wood, the poet. We we did a podcast session with him. So
Thomas: Lovely. Love, Brian.
Ross Mikkelsen: he s he said the same thing about you. He said you're a lovely person and to say hello. So he's he says hello. Yep.
Thomas: Yeah. that's so nice. I'm looking for has that one been released yet? I'm looking for I would love to. OK. OK. Yeah. Wow.
Ross Mikkelsen: No. Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Boucher: No, and with him we had our affinity for whiskey was sated, but as Ross has pointed out, you covered a lot of ground with various liquor in this novel.
Thomas: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I was just really happy that you didn't pick death in the afternoon, because
Paul Boucher: Right.
Thomas: I've had those and they're they're nasty. They're they're. Yeah. yeah. Yeah, I mean.
Ross Mikkelsen: Hmm. It did cross my mind that champagne and absinthe, right?
Thomas: yeah, they're really good. But I mean, one. And then after one, you well, after one, I couldn't feel my nose literally. I mean, I know it's a joke, but I was like, holy crap.
Ross Mikkelsen: so in the book book from a from a booze standpoint, you've got bars, lounges, mini bars, trains, hotels, hotel rooms, and then
Thomas: Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: on the on the booze list you've got we talked about champagne, wine, absinthe, I I you've got a morrow, and then you even mentioned shaft, which is sort of a Western Canadian coffee drink that's being really popular these days. So did did you Which I just loved, I thought that was great. Did you did you put your character, your protagonist, in the line of fire on booze intentionally? Like did you start that was intentional.
Thomas: Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's a good question. I I mean, for sure. I wanted to put him through the ringer and he was going through it was putting himself through the ringer. So it was pretty much drug. don't want to give away too much, but it was a drug adult kind of alcohol adult labyrinth that he was stumbling through. So, yeah, most
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm-hmm.
Thomas: of the booze was on purpose. Some of it I just liked, you know, a character drinks and, you know, they drink. So But yeah, I really want, I certainly wanted to put him through the ringer. Yeah, in that way, yeah.
Paul Boucher: And it's interesting because you know, through the
Thomas: fun.
Paul Boucher: book, it did it didn't seem to me that it was impacting him too heavily unless you specifically mentioned like a day after regret.
Thomas: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: so it didn't seem addled in any way until quite a bit further in the book. But I I I wanted to bring up something you threw up in the afterword, which or the acknowledgement at the end of the book, which was the quote that it seemed like you might have jumped off from, a Richard Wagamese quote, you know, all that we are is story From the moment we are born to the time we continue on our spirit journey, we're involved in the creation of the story of our time here. So how did that play into the premise of the story and the visual nature of the story?
Thomas: Yeah, I love that quote. And I believe that quote. And so when I started creating this character that had this fear of death, that quote was top of mind. And so was story. And then, of course, I ran into that Levi, can't remember Levi, his full name, but the quote from Tristan Shanty. where he talks about hiding from death and inside a complicated story, a complex story. And so those two quotes sort of nailed it together and formed the heart of the book. that's the journey that, that's the journey that Bruce goes on is one of stories within stories within stories. Yeah, a hundred percent. But I mean, that quote was definitely one of the sparks.
Ross Mikkelsen: And what were s what were some of the other sparks? Like what what at what point did you say, Okay, I okay, we've got a we've got a book here, I just need to write it. What what else was in that mix?
Thomas: Well, yeah, I mean, I had a couple nights myself where, I mean, I certainly don't have a fear of death like Bruce does. But I had a couple nights where I woke up at three in the morning and I could hear death out there kind of drumming her fingers on the wall. And I couldn't get back to sleep. And so that was part of it. And then I started to research fear of death. uh thanatophobia and how it affects us and how human beings in general deal with the fear of death, is denial until it's too late and we can't deny it anymore. I I'm still in denial, I think. I hope you guys are. I don't I mean I'm jumping the gun here, but I man I read I reading a I Got I used to I used to do book reviews for the journal and I would go in and see Mark Horton That's all far back and he had books piled everywhere and he would go just take just pick what you want and then review like review the book like review the ones that interest you or that work for you and so I I got this uncorrected proof of the Kurt Vonnegut book and it actually has mistakes in it which is really cool. But he talks about death and in that book and I wish that I had had it top of mind and not kind of buried on my bookshelf somewhere when I was writing this book because that was a great quote, can't remember it right now, of course. But yeah, so I mean, it was just me. It was basically my little fear of death. And then of course, those two quotes that that really pops.
Paul Boucher: Right.
Thomas: And then I just started writing. Yeah.
Paul Boucher: you did come up with an interesting way of articulating it though, which is through the title, right? It's a beautiful Portuguese word. I had to look up how to pronounce it correctly, and I still got two. Saudad. There you go.
Ross Mikkelsen: You've got merch. Is this merch or is this a coincidence?
Thomas: Okay. Yes. No, no, was just, found it online, but, it was like, you know, it was a really one of the great definitions, but I mean, I found,
Ross Mikkelsen: Great.
Thomas: my God, I found probably a dozen definitions of Saudade online or, wherever, wherever. And
Paul Boucher: You did,
Thomas: yeah, I mean, I think, you know, they, they intersect, but none of them are the same, I love words like this. mean, Cindy Lynn and I go walking all the time in our neighborhood up in Edmonton and it's, we see it, we see a path, we're on a path and we see a path that someone, people have made through the woods because it's more convenient or it's more beautiful or they want to go there. And there's a German, there's no word in English for that, but there's a German word for it and it's Trampelpfad And so I love words like Saudade and Trampelpfad and just words that don't translate to English. Man, that can spark a book too, you know?
Ross Mikkelsen: So so the you've got this character that's afraid of death that you've you've hooked the story around, which I think is super clever. and you say you don't have a fear of death, the death is a character in the story, as as it's kind of a person slash not person. How did
Thomas: Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: you decide as a writer where to where to end that character, like how how tightly defined did you want Death to be? To walk and talk and and have conversations with people versus sort of being in the corner sitting in a chair as a menacing figure? Like how how alive did you want that character to be and how did you decide how to kind of box her in?
Thomas: Yeah, mean, death certainly didn't start as fully flushed out as she finished. Yeah, I mean, it was kind of a murky, okay, let's play with a psychologist that role plays death with my main character and let's have tangible, know, touchable, almost smellable. audible hints that death is in the hallway at a hotel in Lake Louise or and so I didn't really decide I just kind of started writing in it and and it Death decided basically told me how involved she wanted to be in the book, which I mean, I mean which happens to a lot of characters I know it sounds psychotic and you guys have talked to a lot of authors, but at some point if you create a really good character They're gonna start telling you what they want to do and i'm gonna i might want this character to do something and they will say no not doing that and it's because it's not in their character it's not the right thing for them to do and i know that sounds like i'm like crazy but i've heard the
Ross Mikkelsen: Yep.
Thomas: same story from a lot from a lot of authors but it just it just becomes a they're they become they get out of your hands and death got it was definitely out of my hands. She decided how involved she wanted to get. 100%. Yep. Anyway.
Paul Boucher: Yeah, 'cause when you first mentioned death, I remember thinking, you know, Grim Reaper thing, you know, and then all of a sudden it's like she and then it was kinda like she's tapping her fingers, so obviously it can be seen. yeah, no, it made her very, very creepy 'cause it was almost like the glimpse of.
Thomas: Yeah, I mean, I think my favorite scene is the one where she's playing the piano in Deer Lodge up at Lake Louise, which is what used to be one of my favorite hotels. The staff have been living there since the staff quarters at Lake Louise burned down, but hopefully it'll come back and won't be overpriced and I'll be able to go back one more time. But yeah, I love that hotel. Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: It's a great hotel.
Paul Boucher: Well, and the locations including Lake Louise, really were pitch perfect for each segment of the story that they kind of appeared in. You had Palm Springs and Macon, of course. So other than Macon, which it sounds like you kind of started with, how did you decide
Thomas: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: on the locations that were gonna be there?
Thomas: Yeah, just yeah. So just before COVID, I got an offer to go down a buddy was golfing with some friends in Palm Springs and he had a house with six bedrooms and he said, come down, just fly down and and stay. And so my wife and daughter and I did we went down and we stayed and they went out and golfed and we had the pool to ourselves all day. And that pool, by the way, is almost identical to the one in the book. And one of the guys there brought a humidor full of cigars. And there's a whole bunch of comparisons. The names are changed. But yeah, some of the characters in that dinner scene around that pool are pretty close. And of course, we didn't really have a party where there was naked people jumping in the pool. I wish we had, but my daughter was there.
Paul Boucher: No.
Thomas: I don't, I don't.
Ross Mikkelsen: Next time.
Thomas: So I am actually grateful to to him for the hospitality and Wes, I think the character in the book is Wes, I there was a guy there that was an amazing cook, like amazing cook. so, yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Well, I wanted to specifically ask you about this because I I think for non literary non literary scenes, that was my favorite scene in the book because of that menu. Like, I I was so hungry reading that. So you start
Thomas: I know.
Ross Mikkelsen: with you know, the cocktail we talked about and then the Aaron Ceney and the slow roasted bison and then that Armaro finisher. And I thought like, did did you actually eat this meal and and
Thomas: yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Don't please don't tell me you did. You actually had this meal?
Thomas: I did.
Paul Boucher: He did.
Ross Mikkelsen: god damn it.
Thomas: was brilliant. It was just brilliant. yeah. I mean, it wasn't a chef from New York, but it was pretty good. Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Well 'cause when I read it I thought this is so detailed, this is so specific, that either he has been dreaming about this his entire life or he actually ate this meal. And God I hope it's the first
Thomas: Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Well, good for you. Sounds magnificent.
Thomas: Cheers. Yeah.
Paul Boucher: It does sound magnificent, yes, and I'm going to top up actually on
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: that note.
Thomas: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: Got I think my my wife's ninety year old Catholic aunt had these lovely wine glasses with these big stems. Don't haul them out very often, but this was good.
Thomas: Beautiful. I am sadly, I'm sadly drinking out of a plastic glass. Just because glass in the cupboards in this van is just not a good idea. anyway, I do have a glass.
Ross Mikkelsen: Smart.
Paul Boucher: No. You're on a you're on a cooler adventure.
Thomas: Yeah, I do have a glass, scotch glass, but that was my one luxury.
Paul Boucher: to go back to the theme or to land on that theme of alcohol again and some of the different things that you started to do without spoilers, it felt like you wanted to help us a bit by leaving a few broader hints or some breadcrumbs
Thomas: Mm-hmm.
Paul Boucher: as to where the story and our protagonist were headed. Now, was that a conscious thing that you did deliberately? Because did you feel it had become too opaque? Or did that happen organically just as you wrote it?
Thomas: That was one of my biggest worries was that I was being too vague and too opaque and that they that I wouldn't drag you along. And so at one point I decided I'm OK if you figure it out. I said I literally sat down and went, you know what, I'm OK with this. If you figure it out, I think you're probably still going to reach to the end to figure out what happened, for sure what happened. And so, yeah, I put in some I wouldn't say they're obvious. But I mean, they were to me, but I mean, I wouldn't say they were obvious to readers, but they were, yeah, they were, they were pretty wide hints. 100%. Yep. Yep. Good question. Great question. Yep. I mean, I just want to circle back to drinks that, that bar in, in Palm Springs, the cigar wine bar, cigar wine bar. mean, come on. It exists. And I
Ross Mikkelsen: Ha ha.
Thomas: sat there for a couple of mornings and yeah. At 11, she poured my first drink and brought me a cigar. It was brilliant. Yeah. Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Awesome.
Paul Boucher: And I love the f the the you had a couple of really intriguing female characters that he met. And I think you avoided what might have been an easy an easy trap, which was maybe to have him have a thing with each of them or any of them,
Thomas: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: but instead they wind up being like I I guess hinge points in the story, each one of them for different reasons. That deliberate as well? You avoided him getting entangled so that his loyalty was
Thomas: Yeah, 100%. 100%. Yeah, I wanted him to adhere to the fact that he's I wanted him to be true to the fact that he's married And so and I did want to I didn't want to flip it. I really did want to flip it around so that it was female characters with potentially saving him or potentially sending him on the right path as opposed to the other way around, which is some of the traditional stories and fairy tales that we grew up with, where it's Prince Charming who comes along and saves the day, right? Or it's the prince who comes and saves the princess. I really consciously wanted to flip that. And so with almost every female character, I did flip that. And he was true to his... his vows or his marriage. Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Boucher: Mm-hmm.
Thomas: Wanted to struggle. mean the struggle was interesting to me. So yeah for sure we we want that I mean so San Remo you're talking about places. I've been in places. I haven't been Palm Springs definitely spent time there Lake Louise a lot of time Seattle little but San Remo nothing. So again research and I mean part of my research process is of course Walk into little yellow Google man up and down the street for sure But they also reach out to people who live there and through whatever method I can find and I like to look for artists in in cities, so San Remo and previous books Prague and and Madrid I look for artists and I and I I asked them I say I'm learning a book I'd like to ask you some questions and so then I asked them the really weird questions like What does it smell like at at dawn by the river or? What is the
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah.
Thomas: night sky? feel like Just before bed or I mean I asked them, and I get what I get back from them is more than I could possibly use in one book. And so I've been really lucky that way. Yeah. I I had
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah.
Thomas: a professor, I know we're talking about Saudade but I had a professor from U of A reach out to me on the elephant book. And he is a historian specializing in the Habsburgs He said, I have some books and some information about Prague and an elephant in Prague that you might be interested in. And so we met for beers at the faculty club, you know, and he handed over a couple of books and, you know, the books are already published. So it's, you know, too little too late. But he was shocked when he found out that I'd never been to Prague. I mean, that was the first thing I confessed. I've never been to Prague. And he was like, he was stunned. So I did a good job on that one. I don't know how
Paul Boucher: Right.
Thomas: good a job I did on San Remo. haven't. I haven't talked to anybody about that yet, but anyway.
Ross Mikkelsen: And how do you find these artists to connect with?
Thomas: so I'll, I'll, I'll do a Google, I'll do a search for, blatantly, literally artists in Prague or artists in San Remo. And what will pop up is a bunch of visual artists, potters, and, and usually with ways to contact them. So it's, it's that easy, but it's like framing the questions. That's the hard part, I guess. mean, trying to get, trying to ask. not the normal questions, right? So yeah, anyway, it seems to work. Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: That's that's genius. Genius.
Paul Boucher: Well d yeah it is. But so a as an author, is it easier to do research now than it was when you started even? 'Cause you're this is your sixth novel, right?
Thomas: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. It is. It is. Yeah. And so, yeah, the first one came out in the route 2000. Yeah, so for sure. Yeah, it's much easier now to do research. And it's easy. It's also easier now to over research. So when I was writing the elephant book, for example, I had probably a dozen guidebooks for Prague. two maps and so was getting at one point I got into so much detail about moving an elephant across the river into the city of Prague that I was looking up scientific journals on the depth of the river and would it support an elephant and I was like I mean it got to the point and then I woke up one morning then I got to the point where I was paralyzed I couldn't write anymore and then I woke up one morning and I went for fuck It's fiction. It's fiction. Make it. You're making make it up like and so I and that that released me I just went okay. I put a graveyard where there isn't one I had the I was I mean I was doing velocity Calculations on how fast an elephant moves to get him to where I needed to get him by six in
Ross Mikkelsen: Ha ha ha.
Thomas: the morning I mean it was ridiculous. So yeah, I needed that reminder I needed a sticky note on my above my desk that said you're you're writing fiction Relax.
Paul Boucher: Interesting.
Ross Mikkelsen: as I you mentioned fiction, as I was reading this book, I thought is this magic realism or is this Adderall slash Ardbeg realism? Like is it how fantastical in your mind is this book versus you know, addled
Thomas: Yeah, I mean, for sure addled But I love I love that some websites have classified this book as magic realism. And I think I think it qualifies 100 percent. And so that so that made me really happy when I saw that. And often I rely on reviewers. and other or websites that are selling my book to help me define what the book is. I mean, I would I would never if you asked me what I wrote, I would never say, I write literary fiction, not in a million fucking years. I would always say I would probably say I write complicated story puzzles. That's what I write. If you think it's literary fiction, I'm I'm happy to go with that. That's great. But so I was thrilled. that it was defined as naturalism because I think it does qualify 100%. Yeah. Thank you for asking that. That's yeah.
Paul Boucher: Well, now you s y it's funny because there are some interesting examples of magic realism that kinda some people would know, but a lot of people wouldn't. Like I think of a hundred years of solitude and things like that. But if you had to define magic realism to somebody who's new to the category, how would you define it? What ingredients does it have to have to be magic realism?
Thomas: Yeah, I mean, it has to have realism. It has to be real, first of all. It has to be nitty gritty real. And then it has to have, that sort of, it has to have death playing the piano at the end of the hall. And you can hear it clearly. That's how
Paul Boucher: Okay.
Thomas: I would define it. Yeah. And so that occurs to this entire book. In that, even in the fact that his wife tells him a very, very detailed story. and hints of that story show up all through this novel. Sometimes they don't, sometimes they do, sometimes it's a red herring, and sometimes it's not. But the times that they do show up, I would qualify that as hinting at magic realism, for sure. I mean, we could look up, I I don't have, I used to, I mean, I thought I should know, I should have a clear definition of magic realism, but I don't have it in front of me, and I'm not gonna look it up.
Paul Boucher: is there anything in this book that you had I imagine that starting to write and being immersed in a story must be the most wonderful feeling, almost like slipping into a favorite like sweater, whatever, but there must be something new in each one for you. And was there something that was distinctly different about this story for you that you'd never done before?
Thomas: Yeah, I think it was the travel, just the globetrotting kind of across the planet and the journey and the I mean, I really did feel like a labyrinth to me. I wasn't quite sure where it was going to wind up. I'm glad I wind up at Columbia Icefields. I love that, that campground. But I had no idea. I no idea. And I think Bruce is still if he doesn't stand still, he's still on this journey. I mean, I'm not sure he's I'm not completely convinced that he's gonna stand still yet. yeah, I mean. Process wise, I mean, it was about the same process wise. I write 1500 words a day, every day for about three or four months. And they don't take a day off. I just get the words out that way. I get the story out that way. And then at the end of three or four months, somewhere in the middle there, I start to weave the pieces together and kind of make the story better. And so, I mean, I guess the different thing for this book is that I woke up every morning or every time I sat down to write, I have a writing playlist. That's Saudade Da Gaia that song on the playlist was the first thing I listened to every time I sat down because it set the tone in my mind.
Ross Mikkelsen: Thomas, what's the song? What's the what's the trek?
Thomas: It's Saudade Da Gaia It's in the back of the book. I think
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm, okay. Okay. I
Thomas: it's the first song listed. And so that piece of music set the tone for my writing for that day, 100%. But it was the same song every day. Anyway, it went on to different songs, course, but I started with that one. It really messed up my Spotify year-end playlist, for sure.
Ross Mikkelsen: I I like Portuguese fado music and I and I thought this has gotta
Thomas: Yes.
Ross Mikkelsen: be this has gotta be a title of every fado song ever. And it and it wasn't, but there are a lot of songs out there with the title Saudade Some good, some bad, S so you say you write fifteen hundred words a day. do you write and this is sort of the construction logistics part of the show, like do you are you you sit in at a computer, keyboard, do you do it with a pen and paper? Do you are you at your house? Are you at a Starbucks? Are you in the park? are you in your van? What
Thomas: I'm usually in front of my computer and I'll write those 1500 words and then print them. And I might take
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay.
Thomas: them to a cafe with a pencil or a pen and do a few scribbles, but I don't do a lot of edits early on. So, except for the front or what I think is gonna be the front. So, what I think is going to be the beginning of the novel, I will work I will probably work a couple weeks on and make sure that it's a really good beginning and that it sets the tone and it answers answers some or poses some questions to to readers and it's really tight. But that's the only severe like serious editing I will do in the process. And I only do that because there's going to be days when I write my fifteen hundred words and I get to the end of the fifteen hundred words and I look at it and I go holy man, this is all shit. And then I will go back to the beginning and I will read that beginning section and I'll go, okay, I know what I need to do next. And I'll wake up to the next day and it'll be better. that's my process and I've said this a million times, but there's no one process. I I got the number 1500 from Stephen King, right? And so Stephen King said, all right, 1500 words a day. I thought that's a good,
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm-hmm. He
Thomas: that's a great metric. Why don't I do that? And it worked for me. He's
Ross Mikkelsen: He's done okay.
Paul Boucher: Yeah, he's done Well and Stephen Pressfield
Thomas: done great.
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: talks about that idea of sitting down and just getting it done every day, in the war of art, right? Yeah, and so
Thomas: Yes, your job. Yep, yep, it's your job.
Paul Boucher: he he writes three thousand and the way he sums it up is is it any good? I don't care. He said, Is it done? I don't care. it's you know, it basically talks about getting out of your own way, which as a writer I can imagine. I don't know if as a writer you're like a lot of creative people where it's kind of like squirrel. you know, where you're you're you're easily distracted and taken off of that mission of writing those 1500 words. So what do you do to stay on track?
Thomas: Yeah, well, I'm,
Paul Boucher: Is it that are you that disciplined about it?
Thomas: I am, I am actually, yeah. I am pretty disciplined. So if I'm gonna write 1500 words and, you know, I get to a thousand and I'm stuck, I'll move on to the next scene. I'll go, okay, this scene's in the book. I'm gonna write this now. I mean, I teach at a summer camp called Youth Ray down there, out by Bragg Creek. And I always talk to my kids about, If you come up to a, you want to write a scene and you come up and you can't write it. Accept it, breathe it in, say, okay, I'm gonna write something else today. If you come back to that same scene and you can't write it, move on, write something else, write the next scene, write three chapters down. If you come, and this is just me, if you come to that scene three times and you can't write it, that is for me the muse telling me that I don't need to write it. I
Ross Mikkelsen: Hmm.
Thomas: can either write the reaction to that scene or not write it at all. I shouldn't write it. And I just move on. And invariably, it's bang on. That instinct is bang on.
Paul Boucher: that's some valuable writing advice. I think you know, I mean I you'd have a lot of young writers who probably wouldn't think that they even have permission to write nonlinearly. and you must run into that as as somebody who's who
Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: you know who's mentoring these writers, right?
Thomas: 100%, yep, yep. I mean.
Ross Mikkelsen: So you said you you shoot for fifteen hundred words a day when you're writing a novel. if you are not writing a novel, are you still sitting down on a daily and and banging out some words or no?
Thomas: Yeah, and that's always in my journal. 100%. That's
Ross Mikkelsen: okay. Okay.
Thomas: not on my computer. So I'm a journaler big time. And it's usually story ideas. It's not me trying to sort out my life or my marriage or anything like that.
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm.
Thomas: It's, I just saw a squirrel trying to drag something out of a log and I find that interesting or whatever I find interesting. Yeah, 100%. So that's in my journal. so I do a thing called Sorbets. I send out a piece of writing. It's either like a micro fiction. It could be a poem. It's a piece of fiction. Very short. I started it probably 25, my god, 25 years ago. I just sent this little piece to friends and family, a list of 12 people maybe, and I thought this will help my, this will be part of my discipline. Once a week, I am forced to walk through the world with poet's eyes or writer's eyes and be super aware and notice things that maybe other people wouldn't notice and write something about it, write a piece about it. Well, there's about 6,000 people on that list right now, and I don't know any of them. I mean, I know a few of them, but I think Brian's on the list. I'm pretty sure. Yes, yes.
Paul Boucher: But tha that's a great accountability piece though. It's like you building a cage around yourself to make it work.
Thomas: I'm not, of course, I'm not sending them out once a week anymore. It's more like, I don't know, a couple of times a month whenever I get the urge, but it's still there. actually, there's a collection of Sorbets. Coming up from U of A prep or U of C press Soon I haven't got a pub date yet, but yeah, we've done the final edits and yeah, I Think it's just gonna be called sorbet or sorbets. So I've got Saudade sorbets. I think the next book should be an S an s-book as well and and one one
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah.
Thomas: word Yeah, yeah Yes,
Paul Boucher: Yeah. Then you can put out a trilogy of S books when you repackage them later.
Ross Mikkelsen: Huh?
Paul Boucher: you mentioned so these are like historical pieces. I want to go back to one of your earlier books, only because it's interesting that Waiting for Columbus was optioned for a movie. And
Thomas: Mm-hmm.
Paul Boucher: for you as an author, you've written these, you know, these six children of yours, these six stories, and you've let them out into the world, but one of them gets picked. Partly because I think it was the one that was published the most internationally, if I'm not mistaken.
Thomas: Yep, it was,
Paul Boucher: so s so I I have I guess this is a bit of a two-parter. What do you think it was about that particular book that made it good to be optioned as a movie? And then from your perspective, what happens to you as the creator of the story? Are you involved in the movie or in that process?
Thomas: Okay, so, wow. What was it about Columbus? I don't know. mean, for me, yeah, it was a whimsical story about a guy waking up on a beach in Spain and who believes he's Christopher Columbus. But it was also, at the same time, probably the most personal book I've ever written about the fear that all fathers have about their kids and about their safety. so Yeah, I mean, I think it was because it was that sort of whimsical adventure of a mystery of what what why does this guy believe he's Christopher Columbus? What the hell happened to him? and that personal connection like just like here. yeah, I mean, that book was immensely successful. And they offered me a lot of money to option the book and they keep they're still paying me. and yeah, I worry about losing control and so we wrote into the contract that I Would have some input Maybe not final but some input into into the screenplay and in fact I did get sent a copy of the screenplay that there were a draft and I rewrote the end for
Paul Boucher: Mm-hmm.
Thomas: and Sent it to the writer and
Paul Boucher: Okay.
Thomas: he said yeah, that's much better. Thank you. Yeah, but I mean I am not obviously I'm not holding my breath waiting for this movie to get made. It's been, God, it's been a lot of years. It's almost 10 years now. But it's aimed at every year. yeah, yeah, And of course, Thor.
Paul Boucher: Y yeah, but there are books whose options have been held for Yeah, there are books whose options have been held for a lot longer than ten years, partly because I think they switch creators on the visual end.
Thomas: Yes, yeah, yeah. mean, when that book first came out, and it was, I can't remember the name of it. I got offers from Canada, got an unqualified, I can't remember the name of it. There was a term for it, where they offer you an obscene amount of money, and you're not to look at any other offers for 24 hours. And so I got an offer from a Canadian publisher for quite a bit. an obscene amount of money and they wanted world rights and After a painful I don't think I slept and I talked to my wife and I talked to my agent and I said no Well saw you Canadian rights. So the price came down quite a bit and we sent it to the States and I got an offer the same offer for 200,000 American at the time and and And and and then it sold in in a dozen countries across the planet after that and so that was the right decision Anyway, I yeah, I I I was happy with the screenplay, but not the ending that's what I was gonna I was coming back to you so But I don't know what's gonna happen. I have no idea. I'm not holding my breath obviously Yeah
Paul Boucher: All right.
Thomas: At one point I actually started writing a screenplay for that novel. I I think if I look back apart from, well, even the first book, I write pictures. I don't know if you guys noticed it, but the books are kind of cinematic. They set up and you can
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm-hmm.
Thomas: visualize the picture of what's going on. And so I think that's probably why that offer came to that book and the other things that I mentioned. Yeah.
Paul Boucher: Well hey, an elephant on a bridge is fairly visual and you know
Thomas: God, yes. I know what I was
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm-hmm.
Thomas: going to tell you. when Columbus came out, so when we got the American offer, we also got a production company in, out of Los Angeles, picked up the book and they offered it to, they kept phoning, they kept phoning my agent, my agent kept phoning me and saying, Brad Pitt read your book. Johnny Depp read your book. Penelope Cruz. Her people read your book and she's reading your book and they all said no. Finally, mean, it just kept going on and on and on. Eventually I just said, Hillary, just call me if they say yes. I don't want to know about the no's.
Ross Mikkelsen: Right.
Thomas: Anyway, it was 2009 or 2008, just after, it was 2009 after the downturn and things were tightening up. again, With Columbus, Columbus has kind of fallen from favor as a historical figure. He's seen more as a architect of genocide in those islands off the coast of America. More so, I mean, in my book, yeah, he's definitely a flawed character and we definitely look at how he caused that, but that's not what the book's about. I mean, you know, it's more about the romance of discovery and the guts it took to, you know, even though at that time no one, no one who actually knew anything believed that the earth was flat, they really did not know what was out there. And so it took guts to sail out there for sure. Yeah.
Paul Boucher: a hundred percent. What does that do to an author? if you're a first time author and this happens to you, are you spoiled from then forward? Like do you think, well this will happen with every one of them? or do you kind of take it in stride?
Thomas: I hope that. I hope that, yeah, there's gonna be a brouhaha about everything I write. And that wasn't the case, 100 % that was not the case. And so it caused a profound shift in me in that I looked for the win. So what is the win as a writer? And for me, the shift, I mean, the movie option, the hundreds of thousands of dollars in book sale or in advances for sure. That's nice. I looked at all of that and then went for a long walk in the woods and came back and realized that the win was none of those. The win was right in the book. Like sitting down and writing the 1500 words a day and crafting something that I love and that I want to share with people. I love enough to share with people. That's the win. And so whether it's $200,000 American or whether it's $1,500 from a Canadian publisher, those are all bonuses. The win has already happened for me.
Ross Mikkelsen: w once that win happens and you've got that book finished, published, printed, you've got your you got your hard copy, you can wrap your hands around it, how how does that feel? Do you do do your shoulders sort of sag and you think, I can take some time off? Is that or are you just like ready to jump into it again? You think to yourself, I'm never gonna do that again? Where where's your head at when you kind of Finish one.
Thomas: Well, yeah, I mean, I kind of walk around the press for a while because I really grow, I grow to love my characters. Like I love Bruce and I love Wes and I love the characters in this book. And I even love death. Death is cool, man. She's, she's, she's pretty hip. And so yeah, I walk around and I miss them for a few months. And then my usual routine is that I read. for, I read for a few months. I'm in a reading phase right now. I mean, I have a couple of projects I'd like to work on. have a science fiction book, which I've never written. Science fiction, only if you think that Kurt Vonnegut is science fiction, that kind of science fiction. So that's what I'm working on right now, but it's kind of on the back burner. I'm kind of reading right now. Yep, yep. And I know you guys are gonna ask me what I'm reading. And I have them lined up right here.
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah, maybe
Paul Boucher: yeah. Let's go to the Ulysses questions. Go Ross.
Ross Mikkelsen: let's get into it. Let's have it, Thomas. s so, yeah, well you said you you know what what books you're currently reading. You've got a list there. Let's have it. What are you reading?
Thomas: I I'm reading I just finished actually I just finished Ben Lerner's transcription and I'm I'm kind of on the fence about whether it worked for me or not But I do I do have the impulse to go back and I want to read it again right now and so Ben Lerner,
Ross Mikkelsen: B I don't know this book. Ben Ben
Paul Boucher: I don't know this book either. Ben Lerner's Transcription?
Thomas: It's about My god, it's about
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay.
Thomas: It is literally about transcription. I mean, it's about fathers and sons and mentors. it's yeah, it was I mean, it was an amazing read in three, three pieces, three parts. And it was short. was all of 100. I would say it's more novella. So it was 130 pages. So it's a quick read. But yeah. And it's about what I found fascinating is is how it asks really, really hard questions about how we use our phones and how addicted we are to our phones. And it was like, my God, that's me. Like it was, it was, and so yeah, no, I loved it. And so I'm reading, I'm also reading, well, I'm rereading right now Kurt Vonnegut's, Man Without a Country.
Paul Boucher: that's one of his I have not read.
Thomas: it's so good. I'm halfway
Paul Boucher: Huh.
Thomas: through. Halfway through. love it. I'm rereading.
Paul Boucher: Okay.
Thomas: I'm rereading right now for I think probably a third time in my life and it still works. If on a winter's night a traveler, it's Ayo Calvino. Love it. It's mentioned, I think, in Saudade And
Paul Boucher: It is. It is.
Thomas: I'm also reading something more current. I'm reading Theo of Golden. I don't know if you guys have read that or not. by Alan Levi, first novel.
Paul Boucher: No.
Thomas: Guy shows up in a town called Golden and finds a cafe that has portraits, dozens upon dozens of portraits of citizens of the town up on the walls of this cafe. And the guy comes in and he starts buying them. the portraits and finding the people and giving them to them. It's amazing. It's an amazing book. I'm about
Paul Boucher: Wow. Okay.
Thomas: halfway through right now. So really enjoying that.
Paul Boucher: but see now we have to ask you two more of these questions our Ulysses questions, right? I these are gr I I love that Ross came up with these, your top three all time books.
Thomas: So I.
Paul Boucher: Which I imagine would change from year to year. Right?
Thomas: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. I would say right now, I'm gonna cheat. I'm gonna cheat and give you my top nine, but I am gonna give you my top three. Okay, so let's go quickly.
Ross Mikkelsen: Let's hear it. Okay.
Thomas: So these are my top nine right now.
Paul Boucher: Okay. Okay.
Thomas: Setting Free the Bears, John Irving. Cat's Cradle by
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay.
Thomas: Kurt Vonnegut. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. Of course, If on a winter's night a traveler by a tall you'll Calvino Huck Finn Mark Twain this little book called Shibumi by an author named Trevanian Unless Carol Shields the shipping news Annie Proulx and this odd little book that I absolutely fell in love with by Alessandro Barrico named called. Mr. Gwyn blew my mind So those are my top
Paul Boucher: Wow, okay.
Thomas: nine right now. If I had to pick three, I would for sure set do Setting Free the Bears, which just captured me and just carried me and blew my mind when they killed one of the main characters halfway through the book. And it was beautiful. I would say Cat's Cradle is number two. And I would go to Mr. Gwynn, Alessandro Barico.
Paul Boucher: Okay.
Thomas: For number three.
Paul Boucher: Just because just because push came to shove today.
Thomas: Yes, ask me tomorrow. It'll be a different list.
Paul Boucher: Ha ha ha.
Ross Mikkelsen: And and what
Paul Boucher: All right.
Ross Mikkelsen: about our Ulysses question, what what do you think is overrated?
Thomas: yeah, I thought about this long and hard. I'm going to just pour a little more wine because we're almost at the end, aren't we? Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah, are we gonna do the same? Yeah, we're on. Yeah.
Thomas: I think there's better picks than this, but for me this is personal. So I think that my most overrated book would be Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. Which
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay.
Thomas: won the Booker Prize, it won the Governor General's Award and the Golden Man Booker Award
Ross Mikkelsen: there are people lined up against you on this one.
Thomas: no, don't don't get me wrong. I'm not done yet. I'm not done yet. So
Ross Mikkelsen: Ha ha ha ha ha.
Thomas: I I love the English patient. I love it. But I think the skin of the lion is a better book. And that's why I'm English patient is overrated. I think the skin is
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay. I like that. Good answer.
Thomas: I think the skin of the lion should have won all that stuff. The English patient one. I know that. Yeah, I mean, feel free to just
Paul Boucher: Now, does that amount to author notoriety, you think, by that point? Cause Skin of the Lion came first, did it not? Yeah.
Thomas: I think it did. It did. It was nominated for a GG and it didn't win. I think that, I mean, sometimes juries play catch up, right?
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm-hmm.
Thomas: I think he won all that stuff for the English patient because of the skin of the lion. But that's just me.
Ross Mikkelsen: Right, right. So, Thomas, you're
Thomas: Okay.
Ross Mikkelsen: a you're you're a published novelist, you're you've got six novels on your belt. if and this must happen to you, if a if a young Canadian novelist comes up to you and asks you for advice, what what do you tell him?
Thomas: depends what they ask. I'm mentoring three, I'm mentoring three people right now, who have book projects in mind. I mean, if I have time and I'm not writing, I'm not in the process of writing, I will a hundred percent, help in any way I can. Yeah. I mean, apart from reading, I mean, yeah, no, I've actually read the whole book. no, I will, I, I think you have to give back. I I've been really lucky. I published six books. Yeah, I'm going to give back. If you are earnest and you got questions or you've got a project that you want me to look at, 100%, I'm in.
Paul Boucher: Here, let me let me sharpen that question from Ross just a bit, only because we we both like Ross and I both have existences outside of this fabulous little forum, but one of mine is as a voice actor, and so I have aspiring voice actors who come up to me all the time with questions. So I'm going to actually refine that question and ask and ask you almost a Ulysses version of the question, which is what would you say are your Well, most asked perhaps, but also most interesting for you to answer when you get some from authors, like a aspiring authors. Like something that you would say, no, no, this is great, but go here or something that's no, you're on the right track, go this way.
Thomas: Wow, good question. I mean, I guess, and we talked a little bit about this already, I would say it's about process. There's for sure no one way to write a novel. I mean, what works for me is not gonna work for you. I I am fly by the seat of the pants writer. And so I will sit down and if I know what's gonna happen, I'm not interested. I need to not know. And so that's how I write. And so I discover what I'm about to write by writing it. That is not work for everyone. I know tons of really successful novelists that sit down and chart out each chapter and the whole book and they know exactly what's gonna go on. what they create is actually pretty good. And so I guess I would say, I would remind them that there's no one process, there's no one way to do this. 100%. That would be my first piece of advice. And then... I think I would say, write for one person. Don't write, just write for one person. And really, honestly, there's a guy I'm reading right now and I can't remember his name, but, he talks about audience. Audience is last. Seriously, you consider the audience, they're the last people that you think of. What you should be thinking of is creating the best book, the best piece of writing or story that you can possibly tell and do it to the best that you can and get it to the point where you want to share it. And if you get it there, it's going to be good. Don't worry about audience. mean, you're your you as the writer are your first audience, right? So. If you're not moved, I read my books, I read 40 pages of Saudade last night, sitting up in the van and wherever the hell we were in the woods. It was very dark, freaky and quiet.
Paul Boucher: Yeah, death death in the dark is not necessarily your best option there, I'm thinking.
Ross Mikkelsen: Ha ha ha.
Thomas: I don't know, I got to about page 32 and I went, my god. I laughed, I laughed out loud because I forgot that I put this bit in the book. And if you can do that to yourself, then you got something that's you know, it's worth hanging on to. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Fantastic. s so so Thomas, what's next for you? You've got this book, it's newly released, you've had a book launch without death handing out business cards. And how how what's next steps for you on the on the journey with this book and how will you how will you measure success with with this?
Thomas: I feel really good about it. My publisher is taking it to Frankfurt and probably
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay.
Thomas: London Book Fair. And we'll see about foreign sales and then we'll move on. Eventually I'll stop reading all these things and we'll move on to the next book. it could be the science fiction one. I'm not really sure. Yeah. Yeah, we just keep going. I mean, I think I have some final edits to do on the sorbets. And so I'm really, really pumped about that coming out. That's, I mean, you think about the number of sorbets that I've written over 25 years or more. And this is just that I tried to pick the ones that I thought were the best. And so yeah, I'm excited about that one.
Ross Mikkelsen: Great concept. I haven't checked, is this is this novel available a as an audio book?
Thomas: Not yet. Not yet. But I gotta tell you a little story. I don't know if we have time. You can cut it if not. But I mean, I'm gonna tell you a story about the elephant
Ross Mikkelsen: No? Prayer too.
Thomas: book. For the first time, I got to pick the voice. They sent me three voices. And I
Paul Boucher: Awesome.
Thomas: thought for sure that the voice of the bridge in this book, which starts the book, was male. I listened to the male voice and they went that's pretty good and then I listened to one of the female voices and I went whoa That that that's starting to shift me and then I listened to a third voice and they went my god This is the voice and I Damn, I don't have a I don't have a copy of it here with me I wish I could give her a plug right now. she was amazing out of Thistledown in Saskatoon. she's done
Paul Boucher: Okay.
Thomas: Joanne Burke,
Ross Mikkelsen: yeah, yeah.
Thomas: my god, she was, her voice, my god, it just blew my mind. And I mean, also blew my mind that I could do that wrong about, you know, about the
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm-hmm.
Thomas: voice of the bridge. It was, it was perfect. Anyway.
Paul Boucher: let's let's quickly go through the name of your book and where people can get it, and everywhere people can get your book if you've got it.
Thomas: Okay, you can get it from me. I have a box full. I have a box sitting
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay.
Paul Boucher: Excellent. On your website.
Thomas: on itself. It's at most independent bookstores. It's for sure at Chapters Indigo. I I love Chapters. It's on Amazon. But, you know, support independent bookstores, for sure. Love independent bookstores. Or libraries. Authors get paid when you take a book out from the library. That's brilliant too. Yeah. Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Well said.
Thomas: it's called Saudade or if you're Portuguese, Saudade-jeh With it with a "juh" at the end.
Paul Boucher: right.
Ross Mikkelsen: and is there somewhere where people should follow you? Like on social media or something like that? Or or maybe
Thomas: Well
Ross Mikkelsen: ca where can they sign up for the Sorbets
Thomas: on my website, which is just my name.com, thomastrofimuk.com
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay.
Thomas: And there's a little Sorbet page
Ross Mikkelsen: Awesome. Excellent.
Paul Boucher: Perfect.
Thomas: there that you can sign up in and you'll get a little piece of fiction or a little thing from me once, twice a month, twice a month. Yep.
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay. Okay.
Paul Boucher: Well, Thomas, and we thank Cindy Lou for giving you up for this hour and change, and thank you for making the time to find a place where you had connectivity to be able to join us from the van.
Thomas: Thank you very much. Ross Paul literally drinking. my God, this was so much fun.
Thomas: not really sure. I think I'm in Langley. I'm pretty sure I'm in Langley. were in EC Manning, provincial park last night, way up as far as you could go up the mountain at a little camp called Lightning Lake. And it was stunning, Zero signal. So, you know, we were reading books, which is great.
Ross Mikkelsen: Great. is this whole van life, is this new to you?
Thomas: We had a little van before, a little Dodge 19 foot van that we wanted to try and see if we liked it. And so we used it for, I know, we used it probably for three years and kept bumping my head on the ceiling. But still we really, really liked it. So I put it on Facebook marketplace for exactly what we paid for it. and it sold in 20 minutes. So we bought this
Ross Mikkelsen: Great.
Thomas: thing, which was substantially more than the little 20 foot, 20 year old van. But this one, mean, you know, it's a, it's a Pleasureway and it's 22 feet and pretty swanky. It's more, it's fancier than I deserve probably. So anyway.
Paul Boucher: Yeah. And I did see you hoisting a glass there. I think it maybe it's time for you've helped yourself
Thomas: I am... I... Yeah, I'm...
Paul Boucher: already.
Ross Mikkelsen: You got ahead of us. Okay, atta boy. Atta boy.
Thomas: I... Well...
Paul Boucher: Yeah,
Thomas: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: yeah. There we go. And Ross is the he he'll be our vintner today. He can explain
Thomas: Okay.
Paul Boucher: everything about the wine.
Ross Mikkelsen: so the protagonist in you in your new book is in Macon and he drinks some similar wines to this. So this is how we picked the Joseph Drouin Macon Village 2023
Thomas: I love this. the last time I was in the car, think I, I don't know. I brought a couple bottles of something in this vein home with me. I threw them in my bag and brought them home with me. yeah, it is a favorite. And the one in the book, I I probably looked up some wines and found something that was not too obscenely expensive, hopefully, and had them drink it. But yeah. or I mean, for
Ross Mikkelsen: Well cheers.
Thomas: all I know, could have, yeah, cheers. I could have looked up, hmm.
Paul Boucher: Cheers.
Thomas: I probably looked up the menu for the cafe. And that's where I found that wine. Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: right. di have you spent some time in MacCall? Is that why you started the book there?
Thomas: Yeah, I mean it's one of the places that I've written about that I've actually been, which is new for me. Because I I wrote Waiting for Columbus and I've never been to Spain, and it said in Spain, and I wrote The Elephant On Karlův Bridge and I have yet to be in Prague. So that's just extensive research on my part to pump up those ones.
Ross Mikkelsen: This wine is very tasty. I I I'm I'm a red guy, so if there if I've if I've got a choice I always pick a red. But any time I drink white, I think that's a great drink. Why don't I drink more white wine every time?
Thomas: Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Thomas, speaking of booze, we spoke on Friday to your old friend Brian Wood, the poet. We we did a podcast session with him. So
Thomas: Lovely. Love, Brian.
Ross Mikkelsen: he s he said the same thing about you. He said you're a lovely person and to say hello. So he's he says hello. Yep.
Thomas: Yeah. that's so nice. I'm looking for has that one been released yet? I'm looking for I would love to. OK. OK. Yeah. Wow.
Ross Mikkelsen: No. Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Boucher: No, and with him we had our affinity for whiskey was sated, but as Ross has pointed out, you covered a lot of ground with various liquor in this novel.
Thomas: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I was just really happy that you didn't pick death in the afternoon, because
Paul Boucher: Right.
Thomas: I've had those and they're they're nasty. They're they're. Yeah. yeah. Yeah, I mean.
Ross Mikkelsen: Hmm. It did cross my mind that champagne and absinthe, right?
Thomas: yeah, they're really good. But I mean, one. And then after one, you well, after one, I couldn't feel my nose literally. I mean, I know it's a joke, but I was like, holy crap.
Ross Mikkelsen: so in the book book from a from a booze standpoint, you've got bars, lounges, mini bars, trains, hotels, hotel rooms, and then
Thomas: Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: on the on the booze list you've got we talked about champagne, wine, absinthe, I I you've got a morrow, and then you even mentioned shaft, which is sort of a Western Canadian coffee drink that's being really popular these days. So did did you Which I just loved, I thought that was great. Did you did you put your character, your protagonist, in the line of fire on booze intentionally? Like did you start that was intentional.
Thomas: Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's a good question. I I mean, for sure. I wanted to put him through the ringer and he was going through it was putting himself through the ringer. So it was pretty much drug. don't want to give away too much, but it was a drug adult kind of alcohol adult labyrinth that he was stumbling through. So, yeah, most
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm-hmm.
Thomas: of the booze was on purpose. Some of it I just liked, you know, a character drinks and, you know, they drink. So But yeah, I really want, I certainly wanted to put him through the ringer. Yeah, in that way, yeah.
Paul Boucher: And it's interesting because you know, through the
Thomas: fun.
Paul Boucher: book, it did it didn't seem to me that it was impacting him too heavily unless you specifically mentioned like a day after regret.
Thomas: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: so it didn't seem addled in any way until quite a bit further in the book. But I I I wanted to bring up something you threw up in the afterword, which or the acknowledgement at the end of the book, which was the quote that it seemed like you might have jumped off from, a Richard Wagamese quote, you know, all that we are is story From the moment we are born to the time we continue on our spirit journey, we're involved in the creation of the story of our time here. So how did that play into the premise of the story and the visual nature of the story?
Thomas: Yeah, I love that quote. And I believe that quote. And so when I started creating this character that had this fear of death, that quote was top of mind. And so was story. And then, of course, I ran into that Levi, can't remember Levi, his full name, but the quote from Tristan Shanty. where he talks about hiding from death and inside a complicated story, a complex story. And so those two quotes sort of nailed it together and formed the heart of the book. that's the journey that, that's the journey that Bruce goes on is one of stories within stories within stories. Yeah, a hundred percent. But I mean, that quote was definitely one of the sparks.
Ross Mikkelsen: And what were s what were some of the other sparks? Like what what at what point did you say, Okay, I okay, we've got a we've got a book here, I just need to write it. What what else was in that mix?
Thomas: Well, yeah, I mean, I had a couple nights myself where, I mean, I certainly don't have a fear of death like Bruce does. But I had a couple nights where I woke up at three in the morning and I could hear death out there kind of drumming her fingers on the wall. And I couldn't get back to sleep. And so that was part of it. And then I started to research fear of death. uh thanatophobia and how it affects us and how human beings in general deal with the fear of death, is denial until it's too late and we can't deny it anymore. I I'm still in denial, I think. I hope you guys are. I don't I mean I'm jumping the gun here, but I man I read I reading a I Got I used to I used to do book reviews for the journal and I would go in and see Mark Horton That's all far back and he had books piled everywhere and he would go just take just pick what you want and then review like review the book like review the ones that interest you or that work for you and so I I got this uncorrected proof of the Kurt Vonnegut book and it actually has mistakes in it which is really cool. But he talks about death and in that book and I wish that I had had it top of mind and not kind of buried on my bookshelf somewhere when I was writing this book because that was a great quote, can't remember it right now, of course. But yeah, so I mean, it was just me. It was basically my little fear of death. And then of course, those two quotes that that really pops.
Paul Boucher: Right.
Thomas: And then I just started writing. Yeah.
Paul Boucher: you did come up with an interesting way of articulating it though, which is through the title, right? It's a beautiful Portuguese word. I had to look up how to pronounce it correctly, and I still got two. Saudad. There you go.
Ross Mikkelsen: You've got merch. Is this merch or is this a coincidence?
Thomas: Okay. Yes. No, no, was just, found it online, but, it was like, you know, it was a really one of the great definitions, but I mean, I found,
Ross Mikkelsen: Great.
Thomas: my God, I found probably a dozen definitions of Saudade online or, wherever, wherever. And
Paul Boucher: You did,
Thomas: yeah, I mean, I think, you know, they, they intersect, but none of them are the same, I love words like this. mean, Cindy Lynn and I go walking all the time in our neighborhood up in Edmonton and it's, we see it, we see a path, we're on a path and we see a path that someone, people have made through the woods because it's more convenient or it's more beautiful or they want to go there. And there's a German, there's no word in English for that, but there's a German word for it and it's Trampelpfad And so I love words like Saudade and Trampelpfad and just words that don't translate to English. Man, that can spark a book too, you know?
Ross Mikkelsen: So so the you've got this character that's afraid of death that you've you've hooked the story around, which I think is super clever. and you say you don't have a fear of death, the death is a character in the story, as as it's kind of a person slash not person. How did
Thomas: Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: you decide as a writer where to where to end that character, like how how tightly defined did you want Death to be? To walk and talk and and have conversations with people versus sort of being in the corner sitting in a chair as a menacing figure? Like how how alive did you want that character to be and how did you decide how to kind of box her in?
Thomas: Yeah, mean, death certainly didn't start as fully flushed out as she finished. Yeah, I mean, it was kind of a murky, okay, let's play with a psychologist that role plays death with my main character and let's have tangible, know, touchable, almost smellable. audible hints that death is in the hallway at a hotel in Lake Louise or and so I didn't really decide I just kind of started writing in it and and it Death decided basically told me how involved she wanted to be in the book, which I mean, I mean which happens to a lot of characters I know it sounds psychotic and you guys have talked to a lot of authors, but at some point if you create a really good character They're gonna start telling you what they want to do and i'm gonna i might want this character to do something and they will say no not doing that and it's because it's not in their character it's not the right thing for them to do and i know that sounds like i'm like crazy but i've heard the
Ross Mikkelsen: Yep.
Thomas: same story from a lot from a lot of authors but it just it just becomes a they're they become they get out of your hands and death got it was definitely out of my hands. She decided how involved she wanted to get. 100%. Yep. Anyway.
Paul Boucher: Yeah, 'cause when you first mentioned death, I remember thinking, you know, Grim Reaper thing, you know, and then all of a sudden it's like she and then it was kinda like she's tapping her fingers, so obviously it can be seen. yeah, no, it made her very, very creepy 'cause it was almost like the glimpse of.
Thomas: Yeah, I mean, I think my favorite scene is the one where she's playing the piano in Deer Lodge up at Lake Louise, which is what used to be one of my favorite hotels. The staff have been living there since the staff quarters at Lake Louise burned down, but hopefully it'll come back and won't be overpriced and I'll be able to go back one more time. But yeah, I love that hotel. Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: It's a great hotel.
Paul Boucher: Well, and the locations including Lake Louise, really were pitch perfect for each segment of the story that they kind of appeared in. You had Palm Springs and Macon, of course. So other than Macon, which it sounds like you kind of started with, how did you decide
Thomas: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: on the locations that were gonna be there?
Thomas: Yeah, just yeah. So just before COVID, I got an offer to go down a buddy was golfing with some friends in Palm Springs and he had a house with six bedrooms and he said, come down, just fly down and and stay. And so my wife and daughter and I did we went down and we stayed and they went out and golfed and we had the pool to ourselves all day. And that pool, by the way, is almost identical to the one in the book. And one of the guys there brought a humidor full of cigars. And there's a whole bunch of comparisons. The names are changed. But yeah, some of the characters in that dinner scene around that pool are pretty close. And of course, we didn't really have a party where there was naked people jumping in the pool. I wish we had, but my daughter was there.
Paul Boucher: No.
Thomas: I don't, I don't.
Ross Mikkelsen: Next time.
Thomas: So I am actually grateful to to him for the hospitality and Wes, I think the character in the book is Wes, I there was a guy there that was an amazing cook, like amazing cook. so, yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Well, I wanted to specifically ask you about this because I I think for non literary non literary scenes, that was my favorite scene in the book because of that menu. Like, I I was so hungry reading that. So you start
Thomas: I know.
Ross Mikkelsen: with you know, the cocktail we talked about and then the Aaron Ceney and the slow roasted bison and then that Armaro finisher. And I thought like, did did you actually eat this meal and and
Thomas: yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Don't please don't tell me you did. You actually had this meal?
Thomas: I did.
Paul Boucher: He did.
Ross Mikkelsen: god damn it.
Thomas: was brilliant. It was just brilliant. yeah. I mean, it wasn't a chef from New York, but it was pretty good. Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Well 'cause when I read it I thought this is so detailed, this is so specific, that either he has been dreaming about this his entire life or he actually ate this meal. And God I hope it's the first
Thomas: Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Well, good for you. Sounds magnificent.
Thomas: Cheers. Yeah.
Paul Boucher: It does sound magnificent, yes, and I'm going to top up actually on
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: that note.
Thomas: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: Got I think my my wife's ninety year old Catholic aunt had these lovely wine glasses with these big stems. Don't haul them out very often, but this was good.
Thomas: Beautiful. I am sadly, I'm sadly drinking out of a plastic glass. Just because glass in the cupboards in this van is just not a good idea. anyway, I do have a glass.
Ross Mikkelsen: Smart.
Paul Boucher: No. You're on a you're on a cooler adventure.
Thomas: Yeah, I do have a glass, scotch glass, but that was my one luxury.
Paul Boucher: to go back to the theme or to land on that theme of alcohol again and some of the different things that you started to do without spoilers, it felt like you wanted to help us a bit by leaving a few broader hints or some breadcrumbs
Thomas: Mm-hmm.
Paul Boucher: as to where the story and our protagonist were headed. Now, was that a conscious thing that you did deliberately? Because did you feel it had become too opaque? Or did that happen organically just as you wrote it?
Thomas: That was one of my biggest worries was that I was being too vague and too opaque and that they that I wouldn't drag you along. And so at one point I decided I'm OK if you figure it out. I said I literally sat down and went, you know what, I'm OK with this. If you figure it out, I think you're probably still going to reach to the end to figure out what happened, for sure what happened. And so, yeah, I put in some I wouldn't say they're obvious. But I mean, they were to me, but I mean, I wouldn't say they were obvious to readers, but they were, yeah, they were, they were pretty wide hints. 100%. Yep. Yep. Good question. Great question. Yep. I mean, I just want to circle back to drinks that, that bar in, in Palm Springs, the cigar wine bar, cigar wine bar. mean, come on. It exists. And I
Ross Mikkelsen: Ha ha.
Thomas: sat there for a couple of mornings and yeah. At 11, she poured my first drink and brought me a cigar. It was brilliant. Yeah. Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Awesome.
Paul Boucher: And I love the f the the you had a couple of really intriguing female characters that he met. And I think you avoided what might have been an easy an easy trap, which was maybe to have him have a thing with each of them or any of them,
Thomas: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: but instead they wind up being like I I guess hinge points in the story, each one of them for different reasons. That deliberate as well? You avoided him getting entangled so that his loyalty was
Thomas: Yeah, 100%. 100%. Yeah, I wanted him to adhere to the fact that he's I wanted him to be true to the fact that he's married And so and I did want to I didn't want to flip it. I really did want to flip it around so that it was female characters with potentially saving him or potentially sending him on the right path as opposed to the other way around, which is some of the traditional stories and fairy tales that we grew up with, where it's Prince Charming who comes along and saves the day, right? Or it's the prince who comes and saves the princess. I really consciously wanted to flip that. And so with almost every female character, I did flip that. And he was true to his... his vows or his marriage. Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Boucher: Mm-hmm.
Thomas: Wanted to struggle. mean the struggle was interesting to me. So yeah for sure we we want that I mean so San Remo you're talking about places. I've been in places. I haven't been Palm Springs definitely spent time there Lake Louise a lot of time Seattle little but San Remo nothing. So again research and I mean part of my research process is of course Walk into little yellow Google man up and down the street for sure But they also reach out to people who live there and through whatever method I can find and I like to look for artists in in cities, so San Remo and previous books Prague and and Madrid I look for artists and I and I I asked them I say I'm learning a book I'd like to ask you some questions and so then I asked them the really weird questions like What does it smell like at at dawn by the river or? What is the
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah.
Thomas: night sky? feel like Just before bed or I mean I asked them, and I get what I get back from them is more than I could possibly use in one book. And so I've been really lucky that way. Yeah. I I had
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah.
Thomas: a professor, I know we're talking about Saudade but I had a professor from U of A reach out to me on the elephant book. And he is a historian specializing in the Habsburgs He said, I have some books and some information about Prague and an elephant in Prague that you might be interested in. And so we met for beers at the faculty club, you know, and he handed over a couple of books and, you know, the books are already published. So it's, you know, too little too late. But he was shocked when he found out that I'd never been to Prague. I mean, that was the first thing I confessed. I've never been to Prague. And he was like, he was stunned. So I did a good job on that one. I don't know how
Paul Boucher: Right.
Thomas: good a job I did on San Remo. haven't. I haven't talked to anybody about that yet, but anyway.
Ross Mikkelsen: And how do you find these artists to connect with?
Thomas: so I'll, I'll, I'll do a Google, I'll do a search for, blatantly, literally artists in Prague or artists in San Remo. And what will pop up is a bunch of visual artists, potters, and, and usually with ways to contact them. So it's, it's that easy, but it's like framing the questions. That's the hard part, I guess. mean, trying to get, trying to ask. not the normal questions, right? So yeah, anyway, it seems to work. Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: That's that's genius. Genius.
Paul Boucher: Well d yeah it is. But so a as an author, is it easier to do research now than it was when you started even? 'Cause you're this is your sixth novel, right?
Thomas: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. It is. It is. Yeah. And so, yeah, the first one came out in the route 2000. Yeah, so for sure. Yeah, it's much easier now to do research. And it's easy. It's also easier now to over research. So when I was writing the elephant book, for example, I had probably a dozen guidebooks for Prague. two maps and so was getting at one point I got into so much detail about moving an elephant across the river into the city of Prague that I was looking up scientific journals on the depth of the river and would it support an elephant and I was like I mean it got to the point and then I woke up one morning then I got to the point where I was paralyzed I couldn't write anymore and then I woke up one morning and I went for fuck It's fiction. It's fiction. Make it. You're making make it up like and so I and that that released me I just went okay. I put a graveyard where there isn't one I had the I was I mean I was doing velocity Calculations on how fast an elephant moves to get him to where I needed to get him by six in
Ross Mikkelsen: Ha ha ha.
Thomas: the morning I mean it was ridiculous. So yeah, I needed that reminder I needed a sticky note on my above my desk that said you're you're writing fiction Relax.
Paul Boucher: Interesting.
Ross Mikkelsen: as I you mentioned fiction, as I was reading this book, I thought is this magic realism or is this Adderall slash Ardbeg realism? Like is it how fantastical in your mind is this book versus you know, addled
Thomas: Yeah, I mean, for sure addled But I love I love that some websites have classified this book as magic realism. And I think I think it qualifies 100 percent. And so that so that made me really happy when I saw that. And often I rely on reviewers. and other or websites that are selling my book to help me define what the book is. I mean, I would I would never if you asked me what I wrote, I would never say, I write literary fiction, not in a million fucking years. I would always say I would probably say I write complicated story puzzles. That's what I write. If you think it's literary fiction, I'm I'm happy to go with that. That's great. But so I was thrilled. that it was defined as naturalism because I think it does qualify 100%. Yeah. Thank you for asking that. That's yeah.
Paul Boucher: Well, now you s y it's funny because there are some interesting examples of magic realism that kinda some people would know, but a lot of people wouldn't. Like I think of a hundred years of solitude and things like that. But if you had to define magic realism to somebody who's new to the category, how would you define it? What ingredients does it have to have to be magic realism?
Thomas: Yeah, I mean, it has to have realism. It has to be real, first of all. It has to be nitty gritty real. And then it has to have, that sort of, it has to have death playing the piano at the end of the hall. And you can hear it clearly. That's how
Paul Boucher: Okay.
Thomas: I would define it. Yeah. And so that occurs to this entire book. In that, even in the fact that his wife tells him a very, very detailed story. and hints of that story show up all through this novel. Sometimes they don't, sometimes they do, sometimes it's a red herring, and sometimes it's not. But the times that they do show up, I would qualify that as hinting at magic realism, for sure. I mean, we could look up, I I don't have, I used to, I mean, I thought I should know, I should have a clear definition of magic realism, but I don't have it in front of me, and I'm not gonna look it up.
Paul Boucher: is there anything in this book that you had I imagine that starting to write and being immersed in a story must be the most wonderful feeling, almost like slipping into a favorite like sweater, whatever, but there must be something new in each one for you. And was there something that was distinctly different about this story for you that you'd never done before?
Thomas: Yeah, I think it was the travel, just the globetrotting kind of across the planet and the journey and the I mean, I really did feel like a labyrinth to me. I wasn't quite sure where it was going to wind up. I'm glad I wind up at Columbia Icefields. I love that, that campground. But I had no idea. I no idea. And I think Bruce is still if he doesn't stand still, he's still on this journey. I mean, I'm not sure he's I'm not completely convinced that he's gonna stand still yet. yeah, I mean. Process wise, I mean, it was about the same process wise. I write 1500 words a day, every day for about three or four months. And they don't take a day off. I just get the words out that way. I get the story out that way. And then at the end of three or four months, somewhere in the middle there, I start to weave the pieces together and kind of make the story better. And so, I mean, I guess the different thing for this book is that I woke up every morning or every time I sat down to write, I have a writing playlist. That's Saudade Da Gaia that song on the playlist was the first thing I listened to every time I sat down because it set the tone in my mind.
Ross Mikkelsen: Thomas, what's the song? What's the what's the trek?
Thomas: It's Saudade Da Gaia It's in the back of the book. I think
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm, okay. Okay. I
Thomas: it's the first song listed. And so that piece of music set the tone for my writing for that day, 100%. But it was the same song every day. Anyway, it went on to different songs, course, but I started with that one. It really messed up my Spotify year-end playlist, for sure.
Ross Mikkelsen: I I like Portuguese fado music and I and I thought this has gotta
Thomas: Yes.
Ross Mikkelsen: be this has gotta be a title of every fado song ever. And it and it wasn't, but there are a lot of songs out there with the title Saudade Some good, some bad, S so you say you write fifteen hundred words a day. do you write and this is sort of the construction logistics part of the show, like do you are you you sit in at a computer, keyboard, do you do it with a pen and paper? Do you are you at your house? Are you at a Starbucks? Are you in the park? are you in your van? What
Thomas: I'm usually in front of my computer and I'll write those 1500 words and then print them. And I might take
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay.
Thomas: them to a cafe with a pencil or a pen and do a few scribbles, but I don't do a lot of edits early on. So, except for the front or what I think is gonna be the front. So, what I think is going to be the beginning of the novel, I will work I will probably work a couple weeks on and make sure that it's a really good beginning and that it sets the tone and it answers answers some or poses some questions to to readers and it's really tight. But that's the only severe like serious editing I will do in the process. And I only do that because there's going to be days when I write my fifteen hundred words and I get to the end of the fifteen hundred words and I look at it and I go holy man, this is all shit. And then I will go back to the beginning and I will read that beginning section and I'll go, okay, I know what I need to do next. And I'll wake up to the next day and it'll be better. that's my process and I've said this a million times, but there's no one process. I I got the number 1500 from Stephen King, right? And so Stephen King said, all right, 1500 words a day. I thought that's a good,
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm-hmm. He
Thomas: that's a great metric. Why don't I do that? And it worked for me. He's
Ross Mikkelsen: He's done okay.
Paul Boucher: Yeah, he's done Well and Stephen Pressfield
Thomas: done great.
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: talks about that idea of sitting down and just getting it done every day, in the war of art, right? Yeah, and so
Thomas: Yes, your job. Yep, yep, it's your job.
Paul Boucher: he he writes three thousand and the way he sums it up is is it any good? I don't care. He said, Is it done? I don't care. it's you know, it basically talks about getting out of your own way, which as a writer I can imagine. I don't know if as a writer you're like a lot of creative people where it's kind of like squirrel. you know, where you're you're you're easily distracted and taken off of that mission of writing those 1500 words. So what do you do to stay on track?
Thomas: Yeah, well, I'm,
Paul Boucher: Is it that are you that disciplined about it?
Thomas: I am, I am actually, yeah. I am pretty disciplined. So if I'm gonna write 1500 words and, you know, I get to a thousand and I'm stuck, I'll move on to the next scene. I'll go, okay, this scene's in the book. I'm gonna write this now. I mean, I teach at a summer camp called Youth Ray down there, out by Bragg Creek. And I always talk to my kids about, If you come up to a, you want to write a scene and you come up and you can't write it. Accept it, breathe it in, say, okay, I'm gonna write something else today. If you come back to that same scene and you can't write it, move on, write something else, write the next scene, write three chapters down. If you come, and this is just me, if you come to that scene three times and you can't write it, that is for me the muse telling me that I don't need to write it. I
Ross Mikkelsen: Hmm.
Thomas: can either write the reaction to that scene or not write it at all. I shouldn't write it. And I just move on. And invariably, it's bang on. That instinct is bang on.
Paul Boucher: that's some valuable writing advice. I think you know, I mean I you'd have a lot of young writers who probably wouldn't think that they even have permission to write nonlinearly. and you must run into that as as somebody who's who
Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah.
Paul Boucher: you know who's mentoring these writers, right?
Thomas: 100%, yep, yep. I mean.
Ross Mikkelsen: So you said you you shoot for fifteen hundred words a day when you're writing a novel. if you are not writing a novel, are you still sitting down on a daily and and banging out some words or no?
Thomas: Yeah, and that's always in my journal. 100%. That's
Ross Mikkelsen: okay. Okay.
Thomas: not on my computer. So I'm a journaler big time. And it's usually story ideas. It's not me trying to sort out my life or my marriage or anything like that.
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm.
Thomas: It's, I just saw a squirrel trying to drag something out of a log and I find that interesting or whatever I find interesting. Yeah, 100%. So that's in my journal. so I do a thing called Sorbets. I send out a piece of writing. It's either like a micro fiction. It could be a poem. It's a piece of fiction. Very short. I started it probably 25, my god, 25 years ago. I just sent this little piece to friends and family, a list of 12 people maybe, and I thought this will help my, this will be part of my discipline. Once a week, I am forced to walk through the world with poet's eyes or writer's eyes and be super aware and notice things that maybe other people wouldn't notice and write something about it, write a piece about it. Well, there's about 6,000 people on that list right now, and I don't know any of them. I mean, I know a few of them, but I think Brian's on the list. I'm pretty sure. Yes, yes.
Paul Boucher: But tha that's a great accountability piece though. It's like you building a cage around yourself to make it work.
Thomas: I'm not, of course, I'm not sending them out once a week anymore. It's more like, I don't know, a couple of times a month whenever I get the urge, but it's still there. actually, there's a collection of Sorbets. Coming up from U of A prep or U of C press Soon I haven't got a pub date yet, but yeah, we've done the final edits and yeah, I Think it's just gonna be called sorbet or sorbets. So I've got Saudade sorbets. I think the next book should be an S an s-book as well and and one one
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah.
Thomas: word Yeah, yeah Yes,
Paul Boucher: Yeah. Then you can put out a trilogy of S books when you repackage them later.
Ross Mikkelsen: Huh?
Paul Boucher: you mentioned so these are like historical pieces. I want to go back to one of your earlier books, only because it's interesting that Waiting for Columbus was optioned for a movie. And
Thomas: Mm-hmm.
Paul Boucher: for you as an author, you've written these, you know, these six children of yours, these six stories, and you've let them out into the world, but one of them gets picked. Partly because I think it was the one that was published the most internationally, if I'm not mistaken.
Thomas: Yep, it was,
Paul Boucher: so s so I I have I guess this is a bit of a two-parter. What do you think it was about that particular book that made it good to be optioned as a movie? And then from your perspective, what happens to you as the creator of the story? Are you involved in the movie or in that process?
Thomas: Okay, so, wow. What was it about Columbus? I don't know. mean, for me, yeah, it was a whimsical story about a guy waking up on a beach in Spain and who believes he's Christopher Columbus. But it was also, at the same time, probably the most personal book I've ever written about the fear that all fathers have about their kids and about their safety. so Yeah, I mean, I think it was because it was that sort of whimsical adventure of a mystery of what what why does this guy believe he's Christopher Columbus? What the hell happened to him? and that personal connection like just like here. yeah, I mean, that book was immensely successful. And they offered me a lot of money to option the book and they keep they're still paying me. and yeah, I worry about losing control and so we wrote into the contract that I Would have some input Maybe not final but some input into into the screenplay and in fact I did get sent a copy of the screenplay that there were a draft and I rewrote the end for
Paul Boucher: Mm-hmm.
Thomas: and Sent it to the writer and
Paul Boucher: Okay.
Thomas: he said yeah, that's much better. Thank you. Yeah, but I mean I am not obviously I'm not holding my breath waiting for this movie to get made. It's been, God, it's been a lot of years. It's almost 10 years now. But it's aimed at every year. yeah, yeah, And of course, Thor.
Paul Boucher: Y yeah, but there are books whose options have been held for Yeah, there are books whose options have been held for a lot longer than ten years, partly because I think they switch creators on the visual end.
Thomas: Yes, yeah, yeah. mean, when that book first came out, and it was, I can't remember the name of it. I got offers from Canada, got an unqualified, I can't remember the name of it. There was a term for it, where they offer you an obscene amount of money, and you're not to look at any other offers for 24 hours. And so I got an offer from a Canadian publisher for quite a bit. an obscene amount of money and they wanted world rights and After a painful I don't think I slept and I talked to my wife and I talked to my agent and I said no Well saw you Canadian rights. So the price came down quite a bit and we sent it to the States and I got an offer the same offer for 200,000 American at the time and and And and and then it sold in in a dozen countries across the planet after that and so that was the right decision Anyway, I yeah, I I I was happy with the screenplay, but not the ending that's what I was gonna I was coming back to you so But I don't know what's gonna happen. I have no idea. I'm not holding my breath obviously Yeah
Paul Boucher: All right.
Thomas: At one point I actually started writing a screenplay for that novel. I I think if I look back apart from, well, even the first book, I write pictures. I don't know if you guys noticed it, but the books are kind of cinematic. They set up and you can
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm-hmm.
Thomas: visualize the picture of what's going on. And so I think that's probably why that offer came to that book and the other things that I mentioned. Yeah.
Paul Boucher: Well hey, an elephant on a bridge is fairly visual and you know
Thomas: God, yes. I know what I was
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm-hmm.
Thomas: going to tell you. when Columbus came out, so when we got the American offer, we also got a production company in, out of Los Angeles, picked up the book and they offered it to, they kept phoning, they kept phoning my agent, my agent kept phoning me and saying, Brad Pitt read your book. Johnny Depp read your book. Penelope Cruz. Her people read your book and she's reading your book and they all said no. Finally, mean, it just kept going on and on and on. Eventually I just said, Hillary, just call me if they say yes. I don't want to know about the no's.
Ross Mikkelsen: Right.
Thomas: Anyway, it was 2009 or 2008, just after, it was 2009 after the downturn and things were tightening up. again, With Columbus, Columbus has kind of fallen from favor as a historical figure. He's seen more as a architect of genocide in those islands off the coast of America. More so, I mean, in my book, yeah, he's definitely a flawed character and we definitely look at how he caused that, but that's not what the book's about. I mean, you know, it's more about the romance of discovery and the guts it took to, you know, even though at that time no one, no one who actually knew anything believed that the earth was flat, they really did not know what was out there. And so it took guts to sail out there for sure. Yeah.
Paul Boucher: a hundred percent. What does that do to an author? if you're a first time author and this happens to you, are you spoiled from then forward? Like do you think, well this will happen with every one of them? or do you kind of take it in stride?
Thomas: I hope that. I hope that, yeah, there's gonna be a brouhaha about everything I write. And that wasn't the case, 100 % that was not the case. And so it caused a profound shift in me in that I looked for the win. So what is the win as a writer? And for me, the shift, I mean, the movie option, the hundreds of thousands of dollars in book sale or in advances for sure. That's nice. I looked at all of that and then went for a long walk in the woods and came back and realized that the win was none of those. The win was right in the book. Like sitting down and writing the 1500 words a day and crafting something that I love and that I want to share with people. I love enough to share with people. That's the win. And so whether it's $200,000 American or whether it's $1,500 from a Canadian publisher, those are all bonuses. The win has already happened for me.
Ross Mikkelsen: w once that win happens and you've got that book finished, published, printed, you've got your you got your hard copy, you can wrap your hands around it, how how does that feel? Do you do do your shoulders sort of sag and you think, I can take some time off? Is that or are you just like ready to jump into it again? You think to yourself, I'm never gonna do that again? Where where's your head at when you kind of Finish one.
Thomas: Well, yeah, I mean, I kind of walk around the press for a while because I really grow, I grow to love my characters. Like I love Bruce and I love Wes and I love the characters in this book. And I even love death. Death is cool, man. She's, she's, she's pretty hip. And so yeah, I walk around and I miss them for a few months. And then my usual routine is that I read. for, I read for a few months. I'm in a reading phase right now. I mean, I have a couple of projects I'd like to work on. have a science fiction book, which I've never written. Science fiction, only if you think that Kurt Vonnegut is science fiction, that kind of science fiction. So that's what I'm working on right now, but it's kind of on the back burner. I'm kind of reading right now. Yep, yep. And I know you guys are gonna ask me what I'm reading. And I have them lined up right here.
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah, maybe
Paul Boucher: yeah. Let's go to the Ulysses questions. Go Ross.
Ross Mikkelsen: let's get into it. Let's have it, Thomas. s so, yeah, well you said you you know what what books you're currently reading. You've got a list there. Let's have it. What are you reading?
Thomas: I I'm reading I just finished actually I just finished Ben Lerner's transcription and I'm I'm kind of on the fence about whether it worked for me or not But I do I do have the impulse to go back and I want to read it again right now and so Ben Lerner,
Ross Mikkelsen: B I don't know this book. Ben Ben
Paul Boucher: I don't know this book either. Ben Lerner's Transcription?
Thomas: It's about My god, it's about
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay.
Thomas: It is literally about transcription. I mean, it's about fathers and sons and mentors. it's yeah, it was I mean, it was an amazing read in three, three pieces, three parts. And it was short. was all of 100. I would say it's more novella. So it was 130 pages. So it's a quick read. But yeah. And it's about what I found fascinating is is how it asks really, really hard questions about how we use our phones and how addicted we are to our phones. And it was like, my God, that's me. Like it was, it was, and so yeah, no, I loved it. And so I'm reading, I'm also reading, well, I'm rereading right now Kurt Vonnegut's, Man Without a Country.
Paul Boucher: that's one of his I have not read.
Thomas: it's so good. I'm halfway
Paul Boucher: Huh.
Thomas: through. Halfway through. love it. I'm rereading.
Paul Boucher: Okay.
Thomas: I'm rereading right now for I think probably a third time in my life and it still works. If on a winter's night a traveler, it's Ayo Calvino. Love it. It's mentioned, I think, in Saudade And
Paul Boucher: It is. It is.
Thomas: I'm also reading something more current. I'm reading Theo of Golden. I don't know if you guys have read that or not. by Alan Levi, first novel.
Paul Boucher: No.
Thomas: Guy shows up in a town called Golden and finds a cafe that has portraits, dozens upon dozens of portraits of citizens of the town up on the walls of this cafe. And the guy comes in and he starts buying them. the portraits and finding the people and giving them to them. It's amazing. It's an amazing book. I'm about
Paul Boucher: Wow. Okay.
Thomas: halfway through right now. So really enjoying that.
Paul Boucher: but see now we have to ask you two more of these questions our Ulysses questions, right? I these are gr I I love that Ross came up with these, your top three all time books.
Thomas: So I.
Paul Boucher: Which I imagine would change from year to year. Right?
Thomas: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. I would say right now, I'm gonna cheat. I'm gonna cheat and give you my top nine, but I am gonna give you my top three. Okay, so let's go quickly.
Ross Mikkelsen: Let's hear it. Okay.
Thomas: So these are my top nine right now.
Paul Boucher: Okay. Okay.
Thomas: Setting Free the Bears, John Irving. Cat's Cradle by
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay.
Thomas: Kurt Vonnegut. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. Of course, If on a winter's night a traveler by a tall you'll Calvino Huck Finn Mark Twain this little book called Shibumi by an author named Trevanian Unless Carol Shields the shipping news Annie Proulx and this odd little book that I absolutely fell in love with by Alessandro Barrico named called. Mr. Gwyn blew my mind So those are my top
Paul Boucher: Wow, okay.
Thomas: nine right now. If I had to pick three, I would for sure set do Setting Free the Bears, which just captured me and just carried me and blew my mind when they killed one of the main characters halfway through the book. And it was beautiful. I would say Cat's Cradle is number two. And I would go to Mr. Gwynn, Alessandro Barico.
Paul Boucher: Okay.
Thomas: For number three.
Paul Boucher: Just because just because push came to shove today.
Thomas: Yes, ask me tomorrow. It'll be a different list.
Paul Boucher: Ha ha ha.
Ross Mikkelsen: And and what
Paul Boucher: All right.
Ross Mikkelsen: about our Ulysses question, what what do you think is overrated?
Thomas: yeah, I thought about this long and hard. I'm going to just pour a little more wine because we're almost at the end, aren't we? Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Yeah, are we gonna do the same? Yeah, we're on. Yeah.
Thomas: I think there's better picks than this, but for me this is personal. So I think that my most overrated book would be Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. Which
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay.
Thomas: won the Booker Prize, it won the Governor General's Award and the Golden Man Booker Award
Ross Mikkelsen: there are people lined up against you on this one.
Thomas: no, don't don't get me wrong. I'm not done yet. I'm not done yet. So
Ross Mikkelsen: Ha ha ha ha ha.
Thomas: I I love the English patient. I love it. But I think the skin of the lion is a better book. And that's why I'm English patient is overrated. I think the skin is
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay. I like that. Good answer.
Thomas: I think the skin of the lion should have won all that stuff. The English patient one. I know that. Yeah, I mean, feel free to just
Paul Boucher: Now, does that amount to author notoriety, you think, by that point? Cause Skin of the Lion came first, did it not? Yeah.
Thomas: I think it did. It did. It was nominated for a GG and it didn't win. I think that, I mean, sometimes juries play catch up, right?
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm-hmm.
Thomas: I think he won all that stuff for the English patient because of the skin of the lion. But that's just me.
Ross Mikkelsen: Right, right. So, Thomas, you're
Thomas: Okay.
Ross Mikkelsen: a you're you're a published novelist, you're you've got six novels on your belt. if and this must happen to you, if a if a young Canadian novelist comes up to you and asks you for advice, what what do you tell him?
Thomas: depends what they ask. I'm mentoring three, I'm mentoring three people right now, who have book projects in mind. I mean, if I have time and I'm not writing, I'm not in the process of writing, I will a hundred percent, help in any way I can. Yeah. I mean, apart from reading, I mean, yeah, no, I've actually read the whole book. no, I will, I, I think you have to give back. I I've been really lucky. I published six books. Yeah, I'm going to give back. If you are earnest and you got questions or you've got a project that you want me to look at, 100%, I'm in.
Paul Boucher: Here, let me let me sharpen that question from Ross just a bit, only because we we both like Ross and I both have existences outside of this fabulous little forum, but one of mine is as a voice actor, and so I have aspiring voice actors who come up to me all the time with questions. So I'm going to actually refine that question and ask and ask you almost a Ulysses version of the question, which is what would you say are your Well, most asked perhaps, but also most interesting for you to answer when you get some from authors, like a aspiring authors. Like something that you would say, no, no, this is great, but go here or something that's no, you're on the right track, go this way.
Thomas: Wow, good question. I mean, I guess, and we talked a little bit about this already, I would say it's about process. There's for sure no one way to write a novel. I mean, what works for me is not gonna work for you. I I am fly by the seat of the pants writer. And so I will sit down and if I know what's gonna happen, I'm not interested. I need to not know. And so that's how I write. And so I discover what I'm about to write by writing it. That is not work for everyone. I know tons of really successful novelists that sit down and chart out each chapter and the whole book and they know exactly what's gonna go on. what they create is actually pretty good. And so I guess I would say, I would remind them that there's no one process, there's no one way to do this. 100%. That would be my first piece of advice. And then... I think I would say, write for one person. Don't write, just write for one person. And really, honestly, there's a guy I'm reading right now and I can't remember his name, but, he talks about audience. Audience is last. Seriously, you consider the audience, they're the last people that you think of. What you should be thinking of is creating the best book, the best piece of writing or story that you can possibly tell and do it to the best that you can and get it to the point where you want to share it. And if you get it there, it's going to be good. Don't worry about audience. mean, you're your you as the writer are your first audience, right? So. If you're not moved, I read my books, I read 40 pages of Saudade last night, sitting up in the van and wherever the hell we were in the woods. It was very dark, freaky and quiet.
Paul Boucher: Yeah, death death in the dark is not necessarily your best option there, I'm thinking.
Ross Mikkelsen: Ha ha ha.
Thomas: I don't know, I got to about page 32 and I went, my god. I laughed, I laughed out loud because I forgot that I put this bit in the book. And if you can do that to yourself, then you got something that's you know, it's worth hanging on to. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Fantastic. s so so Thomas, what's next for you? You've got this book, it's newly released, you've had a book launch without death handing out business cards. And how how what's next steps for you on the on the journey with this book and how will you how will you measure success with with this?
Thomas: I feel really good about it. My publisher is taking it to Frankfurt and probably
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay.
Thomas: London Book Fair. And we'll see about foreign sales and then we'll move on. Eventually I'll stop reading all these things and we'll move on to the next book. it could be the science fiction one. I'm not really sure. Yeah. Yeah, we just keep going. I mean, I think I have some final edits to do on the sorbets. And so I'm really, really pumped about that coming out. That's, I mean, you think about the number of sorbets that I've written over 25 years or more. And this is just that I tried to pick the ones that I thought were the best. And so yeah, I'm excited about that one.
Ross Mikkelsen: Great concept. I haven't checked, is this is this novel available a as an audio book?
Thomas: Not yet. Not yet. But I gotta tell you a little story. I don't know if we have time. You can cut it if not. But I mean, I'm gonna tell you a story about the elephant
Ross Mikkelsen: No? Prayer too.
Thomas: book. For the first time, I got to pick the voice. They sent me three voices. And I
Paul Boucher: Awesome.
Thomas: thought for sure that the voice of the bridge in this book, which starts the book, was male. I listened to the male voice and they went that's pretty good and then I listened to one of the female voices and I went whoa That that that's starting to shift me and then I listened to a third voice and they went my god This is the voice and I Damn, I don't have a I don't have a copy of it here with me I wish I could give her a plug right now. she was amazing out of Thistledown in Saskatoon. she's done
Paul Boucher: Okay.
Thomas: Joanne Burke,
Ross Mikkelsen: yeah, yeah.
Thomas: my god, she was, her voice, my god, it just blew my mind. And I mean, also blew my mind that I could do that wrong about, you know, about the
Ross Mikkelsen: Mm-hmm.
Thomas: voice of the bridge. It was, it was perfect. Anyway.
Paul Boucher: let's let's quickly go through the name of your book and where people can get it, and everywhere people can get your book if you've got it.
Thomas: Okay, you can get it from me. I have a box full. I have a box sitting
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay.
Paul Boucher: Excellent. On your website.
Thomas: on itself. It's at most independent bookstores. It's for sure at Chapters Indigo. I I love Chapters. It's on Amazon. But, you know, support independent bookstores, for sure. Love independent bookstores. Or libraries. Authors get paid when you take a book out from the library. That's brilliant too. Yeah. Yeah.
Ross Mikkelsen: Well said.
Thomas: it's called Saudade or if you're Portuguese, Saudade-jeh With it with a "juh" at the end.
Paul Boucher: right.
Ross Mikkelsen: and is there somewhere where people should follow you? Like on social media or something like that? Or or maybe
Thomas: Well
Ross Mikkelsen: ca where can they sign up for the Sorbets
Thomas: on my website, which is just my name.com, thomastrofimuk.com
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay.
Thomas: And there's a little Sorbet page
Ross Mikkelsen: Awesome. Excellent.
Paul Boucher: Perfect.
Thomas: there that you can sign up in and you'll get a little piece of fiction or a little thing from me once, twice a month, twice a month. Yep.
Ross Mikkelsen: Okay. Okay.
Paul Boucher: Well, Thomas, and we thank Cindy Lou for giving you up for this hour and change, and thank you for making the time to find a place where you had connectivity to be able to join us from the van.
Thomas: Thank you very much. Ross Paul literally drinking. my God, this was so much fun.
