Full Transcript for Substack and Autopsies with JT Ellison

00:01:41,460 It was so quick, they came in, they did not come in 44 00:01:41,760 --> 00:01:44,240 and say, "You sure are a dumb fuck. 45 00:01:44,500 --> 00:01:45,620 "Why'd you do it this way?" 46 00:01:45,640 --> 00:01:47,380 They just came in, told me how to fix it. 47 00:01:47,500 --> 00:01:49,840 And I don't even remember, it was just, it was crazy. 48 00:01:50,180 --> 00:01:51,960 - It's classy of them to keep that chatter 49 00:01:52,160 --> 00:01:52,860 amongst themselves. 50 00:01:53,400 --> 00:01:54,760 Right, so that's the thing. 51 00:01:57,720 --> 00:02:01,720 I'm sure they're like, "You won't believe what this idiot tried to do." 52 00:02:01,800 --> 00:02:03,400 It's Doug again. 53 00:02:05,440 --> 00:02:08,200 They're like, "He's got his own line straight here. 54 00:02:08,420 --> 00:02:09,880 Why does he keep calling me?" 55 00:02:09,960 --> 00:02:11,660 You want to stress test yourself, man? 56 00:02:12,240 --> 00:02:13,480 Let Doug and Nick try it. 57 00:02:13,540 --> 00:02:14,420 Let me try it out. 58 00:02:14,460 --> 00:02:15,320 That for sure will do it. 59 00:02:15,500 --> 00:02:18,600 So, also, big thank you to all of our Patreon supporters. 60 00:02:19,160 --> 00:02:22,760 If you guys feel you are getting any value from the show, you enjoy listening to us. 61 00:02:23,360 --> 00:02:33,920 Yammer on you can support us over at patreon.com/thetooauthorspodcast and just like $3 a month you get to keep us fed and watered and 62 00:02:34,620 --> 00:02:41,900 Full of just energy and vitamins. It's all the good stuff that couple podcasters need so I feel like we're a couple of couple of the poor 63 00:02:42,740 --> 00:02:45,940 folks that are at the intersection of the roads with their tin 64 00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:54,540 couple of dollars sponsor us on Patreon, please. 65 00:02:54,820 --> 00:02:59,580 We need we need somebody to do a little background song like that sad song that Pita does for 66 00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:05,100 that has Sarah McLaughlin sings behind and you go, oh, those poor animals and this is 67 00:03:05,140 --> 00:03:06,300 just me and you. And that's it. 68 00:03:06,660 --> 00:03:08,840 Oh, we need to get the right. 69 00:03:09,860 --> 00:03:09,960 Right. 70 00:03:11,420 --> 00:03:11,820 Right. 71 00:03:11,920 --> 00:03:12,020 Right. 72 00:03:12,040 --> 00:03:16,300 That song and everybody just turned off this podcast. That was the quickest point. 73 00:03:16,400 --> 00:03:19,700 That was the fastest anybody's ever went. Not the you again. 74 00:03:21,739 --> 00:03:23,140 No, they're gonna sing. 75 00:03:23,680 --> 00:03:24,160 Stop them. 76 00:03:24,460 --> 00:03:27,860 All right, let's move back on track because we have a really great grass today. 77 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:30,820 We have a New York Times best-selling author JT Allison. 78 00:03:31,240 --> 00:03:31,620 Woo! 79 00:03:32,200 --> 00:03:34,180 Yes, it's gonna be a fun talk. 80 00:03:34,320 --> 00:03:39,080 She's a local Tennessean, so she's not gonna chat about local stuff while you're over 81 00:03:39,160 --> 00:03:39,560 there in the... 82 00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:40,860 You're summer storms and heat. 83 00:03:40,980 --> 00:03:43,960 You're summer storms and you watch yourself in the humidity. 84 00:03:44,520 --> 00:03:45,280 Pretty much. 85 00:03:45,460 --> 00:03:46,780 Yeah, that's what we talk about. 86 00:03:47,120 --> 00:03:48,380 That's all we talk about around here. 87 00:03:48,800 --> 00:03:52,280 But before we get to talk to her, we have a listener guest from our recent guest. 88 00:03:52,540 --> 00:03:54,640 That'll be a listener question from our recent guest. 89 00:03:54,840 --> 00:03:56,780 A listener question from our recent guest. 90 00:03:57,080 --> 00:04:01,720 Yes, see, I mean, thankfully you're here to like pull me back out. 91 00:04:02,140 --> 00:04:04,900 We have a listener question from our recent guest, Tess Garrison. 92 00:04:06,480 --> 00:04:08,140 Tess Garrison, thank you so much. 93 00:04:08,300 --> 00:04:08,820 You're a glutton. 94 00:04:08,900 --> 00:04:13,680 You're sticking around for it to ask us a question which we're nervous and excited about. 95 00:04:14,160 --> 00:04:14,760 What have you got? 96 00:04:15,320 --> 00:04:20,400 I'm always curious about how writers handle writer's block and what is it? 97 00:04:20,600 --> 00:04:22,540 So you guys tell me what to do. 98 00:04:22,880 --> 00:04:29,560 I've never had writer's block where I just cannot think of a plot or can't think of 99 00:04:29,560 --> 00:04:30,060 a concept. 100 00:04:30,380 --> 00:04:35,880 I've had block in terms of if I've written myself into a corner or I'm not sure quite 101 00:04:36,020 --> 00:04:42,919 how to get from A to B and my best solution is always to exercise in some way, shape or 102 00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:45,720 go for a walk, get on a treadmill, do the elliptical. 103 00:04:46,100 --> 00:04:48,460 Normally I'll run off to the gym and get on the elliptical. 104 00:04:48,580 --> 00:04:51,280 And nine times out of 10, something about it 105 00:04:51,820 --> 00:04:54,040 is like a pallet cleanser, and I'm able to come away 106 00:04:54,080 --> 00:04:55,100 with it with an idea. 107 00:04:55,580 --> 00:04:56,240 That works for me. 108 00:04:56,320 --> 00:04:56,880 What about you, Doug? 109 00:04:57,100 --> 00:04:58,420 - Well, I'd say it's kind of something, 110 00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:00,520 I don't really have a lot of writer's block. 111 00:05:00,620 --> 00:05:02,440 A lot of what I consider writer's block 112 00:05:02,560 --> 00:05:03,560 is procrastination. 113 00:05:04,380 --> 00:05:04,700 (laughing) 114 00:05:05,900 --> 00:05:09,400 I mean, I am an Olympic level procrastinator. 115 00:05:10,020 --> 00:05:10,100 (laughing) 116 00:05:10,520 --> 00:05:11,920 I think that that's part, 117 00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:17,280 I do sometimes get the same problem where I'm like trying to work out a storyline and I'm trying to figure and so I do have a 118 00:05:17,410 --> 00:05:19,340

How do I get how I get my character out of this? 119 00:05:19,650 --> 00:05:22,480 You know I got put him in this situation should I thought about it before I did that? 120 00:05:22,590 --> 00:05:27,460 You know and so I'll often go for a drive or I have a lot of grass so we 121 00:05:27,880 --> 00:05:30,740 Will the tractor and track, you know, he smokes a lot of grass 122 00:05:34,919 --> 00:05:41,239 But when it gets like really they just I'm stuck and I'm like I need I don't feel like writing or I'm feeling 123 00:05:41,240 --> 00:05:44,520 procrastination, sometimes I just have to force myself to write the next word, even 124 00:05:44,540 --> 00:05:47,760 if it's a shitty word, you know, just try to write, oh, just write the next word. 125 00:05:47,980 --> 00:05:52,140 As long as you write one, one more word, even if it's really terrible, you know, I'm 126 00:05:52,140 --> 00:05:54,780 going to come back and I'm going to edit it out later on, but at least maybe I get 127 00:05:54,820 --> 00:05:59,320 my brain and my gears working, you know, and get myself out of that. 128 00:05:59,400 --> 00:06:01,360 Because I do like it, even though I procrastinate. 129 00:06:01,480 --> 00:06:01,880 It's just weird. 130 00:06:02,300 --> 00:06:03,440 Procrastinate things we love doing. 131 00:06:03,580 --> 00:06:04,340 I love writing. 132 00:06:04,900 --> 00:06:07,320 Sometimes I'm like, yeah, but it takes a little effort. 133 00:06:07,500 --> 00:06:09,400 I'm tired afterwards or something like that. 134 00:06:09,880 --> 00:06:10,840 What about you, Tess? 135 00:06:11,380 --> 00:06:14,000 Well, I get it with every book because I don't outline. 136 00:06:14,400 --> 00:06:16,760 And so I'm always just plunging in and seeing what happens. 137 00:06:16,850 --> 00:06:21,280 And the problem I have is like with Nick, because I write myself in a corner, I don't 138 00:06:21,280 --> 00:06:21,840 know how to get out. 139 00:06:21,840 --> 00:06:23,080 Oh, I don't know who the killer is. 140 00:06:23,180 --> 00:06:24,260 That's often what happens. 141 00:06:24,390 --> 00:06:24,520 Yeah. 142 00:06:25,099 --> 00:06:25,460 Yeah. 143 00:06:25,460 --> 00:06:27,960 It's like, okay, well, I have all these characters, which one did it? 144 00:06:28,080 --> 00:06:28,880 I don't know why. 145 00:06:29,490 --> 00:06:32,200 But yeah, I do the same thing that actually, I drive. 146 00:06:32,860 --> 00:06:36,840 I think that a long, boring drive is really good for writer's block. 147 00:06:37,240 --> 00:06:42,200 drive that you know very well or that just doesn't require your full attention because 148 00:06:42,340 --> 00:06:45,720 there's something about it that shifts your, you know, your mental energy. 149 00:06:46,200 --> 00:06:50,300 You're physically you're doing something, but you're relaxed and that's when your brain 150 00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:51,900 goes to work on creative things. 151 00:06:52,480 --> 00:06:55,340 And then nobody in the car with me or nobody talking. 152 00:06:55,620 --> 00:06:56,320 Nobody talking. 153 00:06:56,520 --> 00:06:57,140 Radio off. 154 00:06:57,400 --> 00:06:58,080 Radio off. 155 00:06:58,100 --> 00:06:58,180 Right. 156 00:06:58,180 --> 00:06:58,280 Radio off. 157 00:06:58,380 --> 00:07:00,300 I can get radio a little bit, no talking. 158 00:07:00,420 --> 00:07:02,060 Don't have a conversation when you're on a mom out of it. 159 00:07:02,160 --> 00:07:03,560 I need to be in my own zone. 160 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:08,160 your relative open the door and go, "Hey, Tess, ride his block again." 161 00:07:12,180 --> 00:07:13,740 But you know that "aha" moment? 162 00:07:14,100 --> 00:07:16,360 You maybe you feel it when you finally get past that. 163 00:07:16,720 --> 00:07:17,300 It's wonderful. 164 00:07:17,540 --> 00:07:19,100 It's like, "Oh, that's what happened. 165 00:07:19,220 --> 00:07:20,240 That's how I did it." 166 00:07:20,240 --> 00:07:20,460 That's a great feeling. 167 00:07:20,460 --> 00:07:21,380 That's when I did it, yeah. 168 00:07:21,660 --> 00:07:23,160 Then you wish you took your laptop with you. 169 00:07:23,220 --> 00:07:25,760 It's like an hour and a half from home now and you've got to drive all the way back. 170 00:07:25,940 --> 00:07:26,140 All right. 171 00:07:26,680 --> 00:07:27,320 Brilliant question. 172 00:07:27,460 --> 00:07:30,080 Thank you so much and thanks for sticking around for the extras. 173 00:07:30,440 --> 00:07:30,900 Thank you. 174 00:07:30,920 --> 00:07:32,380 (upbeat music) 175 00:07:36,280 --> 00:07:37,720 - Welcome to the show, JT Ellis, 176 00:07:37,760 --> 00:07:39,420 and it's so great to have you here today. 177 00:07:40,080 --> 00:07:41,080 - Thank you for having me. 178 00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:42,120 It's nice to be here. 179 00:07:42,580 --> 00:07:44,240 - Yeah, it's nice to have another Tennessee in here 180 00:07:44,300 --> 00:07:45,020 in the house for me. 181 00:07:45,060 --> 00:07:45,440 - Absolutely. 182 00:07:46,200 --> 00:07:46,740 - Go Vols. 183 00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:47,780 - Yeah, absolutely. 184 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:50,020 Listen to Nick talk about how he's in paradise. 185 00:07:50,860 --> 00:07:50,960 (laughing) 186 00:07:51,040 --> 00:07:51,380 - Whatever. 187 00:07:52,080 --> 00:07:53,360 - He's not in Tennessee, so. 188 00:07:53,480 --> 00:07:55,140 - Yeah, I'm not in the cool kids club. 189 00:07:55,320 --> 00:07:57,980 - No, you don't have an SEC team down there to root for. 190 00:07:58,360 --> 00:07:59,280 - No, he doesn't. 191 00:07:59,560 --> 00:08:00,400 - Go, Caimans! 192 00:08:01,560 --> 00:08:01,920 (laughing) 193 00:08:03,240 --> 00:08:05,640 - Hey, we have a really mediocre football team. 194 00:08:05,780 --> 00:08:06,120 - All right. 195 00:08:06,400 --> 00:08:08,080 - Yeah, but you got a great view to go with it, 196 00:08:08,240 --> 00:08:10,160 so you're like, "Oh, yeah, that's really terrible." 197 00:08:10,260 --> 00:08:11,660 Well, JT, let's just kind of get started, 198 00:08:11,960 --> 00:08:14,200

kind of tell us a little bit how you started 199 00:08:14,400 --> 00:08:15,340 into writing and publishing. 200 00:08:15,540 --> 00:08:18,220 What was this, a dream you always had, 201 00:08:18,320 --> 00:08:21,020 or is it something you just fell into later on in life? 202 00:08:21,720 --> 00:08:22,560 - A little bit of both. 203 00:08:23,040 --> 00:08:24,840 I always wrote when I was a kid. 204 00:08:24,980 --> 00:08:26,460 I wrote really bad poetry. 205 00:08:26,640 --> 00:08:28,120 I'm actually looking on my wall. 206 00:08:28,320 --> 00:08:32,780 I've got a poem that I wrote that won a contest when I was in third grade, you know, that 207 00:08:33,020 --> 00:08:38,479 kind of childish kind of aspirational short stories and poems and stuff. 208 00:08:38,979 --> 00:08:45,280 But I did go to school and I got a degree in political management and a degree in creative 209 00:08:45,400 --> 00:08:45,620 writing. 210 00:08:45,940 --> 00:08:50,280 And my creative writing thesis advisor said I wasn't good enough to get published and 211 00:08:50,340 --> 00:08:54,700 would not give me a referral for an MFA program that I wanted to go to. 212 00:08:55,200 --> 00:08:55,860 So I quit. 213 00:08:56,120 --> 00:08:57,440 And I went the other direction. 214 00:08:57,440 --> 00:08:59,200 I did the politics route and everything. 215 00:08:59,500 --> 00:09:04,660 So I met my husband first night of graduate school and he was from Nashville and to Nashville 216 00:09:04,820 --> 00:09:05,860 he wanted to return. 217 00:09:05,920 --> 00:09:10,860 So after we got married, he had a job with Gannett and moved back here to work for the 218 00:09:10,900 --> 00:09:14,680 Tennessean and I turned into a bad country music song. 219 00:09:14,960 --> 00:09:20,860 Our cat died right after we moved here three weeks and my 19 year old, Siamese, died. 220 00:09:21,200 --> 00:09:22,120 I kept getting lost. 221 00:09:23,240 --> 00:09:27,300 There's a road called Old Degree that's on all four sides of Nashville. 222 00:09:28,720 --> 00:09:30,960 And it's not the same road either. 223 00:09:31,520 --> 00:09:32,560 It's not the same road. 224 00:09:32,560 --> 00:09:33,460 Yes, you got to turn. 225 00:09:33,460 --> 00:09:34,140 They don't connect. 226 00:09:34,660 --> 00:09:35,680 It's really confusing. 227 00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:37,880 And I couldn't get a job. 228 00:09:37,920 --> 00:09:38,920 I didn't have any friends. 229 00:09:39,760 --> 00:09:41,780 And so I finally went to work for a vet. 230 00:09:42,100 --> 00:09:43,500 We adopted a new cat. 231 00:09:43,580 --> 00:09:44,320 The cat was sick. 232 00:09:44,380 --> 00:09:47,420 The vet healed her and he was looking for somebody and I thought, "All right. 233 00:09:47,820 --> 00:09:50,080 I've gotten a master's degree in political management. 234 00:09:50,280 --> 00:09:52,240 I should go mop floors at the vet." 235 00:09:52,240 --> 00:09:53,080 - I could be a vet assistant. 236 00:09:53,380 --> 00:09:54,700 - I could be a vet tech.

237 00:09:54,900 --> 00:09:55,660 This'll be great. 238 00:09:56,160 --> 00:10:00,100 And the first day I was like, yeah, no, this is not my path. 239 00:10:00,220 --> 00:10:01,560 And so I was gonna give him a whole week 240 00:10:01,720 --> 00:10:03,700 'cause that was only fair, but when the Wednesday, 241 00:10:04,300 --> 00:10:05,360 started on Monday on Wednesday, 242 00:10:05,420 --> 00:10:08,580 I picked up a golden retriever and herniated a disc in my back 243 00:10:09,260 --> 00:10:10,560 and had to have surgery. 244 00:10:11,020 --> 00:10:11,700 - You were on a roll. 245 00:10:12,120 --> 00:10:12,900 - I really was. 246 00:10:13,180 --> 00:10:14,720 I'd say a Bad Country Music song. 247 00:10:14,960 --> 00:10:18,820 And then I, during recovery, went to the library 248 00:10:19,180 --> 00:10:22,220 and they gave me a John Sanford book 249 00:10:22,220 --> 00:10:28,260 like crime fiction. I read the first three books in the praise series and went, "Oh my god, I really 250 00:10:28,360 --> 00:10:32,640 want to do this again. This is what I want to do." And I told my husband I'm going to write a book 251 00:10:32,640 --> 00:10:40,580 and he was like, "My god, do anything. I don't care. Whatever. Anything." You are so bored. Just 252 00:10:40,980 --> 00:10:48,139 sure have at it. And I wrote that first paragraph of that first book and I burst into tears because 253 00:10:48,140 --> 00:10:55,300 I was home. I was home. And that was in 2003. I wrote a book that I thought was a book. It 254 00:10:55,320 --> 00:10:59,840 was really a novella. And I mailed it all over New York to every editor. And I got a 255 00:11:00,280 --> 00:11:04,980 stack of rejections because I had no idea how the industry worked at all. I was such 256 00:11:05,140 --> 00:11:09,780 a noob. And then I fell in. I went to a book signing. John Connolly came to Nashville 257 00:11:10,020 --> 00:11:14,980 and I went and saw him. He was a huge fan. It was my first author I ever met. And there 258 00:11:14,980 --> 00:11:18,240 There was a woman there who had a critique group and she said, "Why aren't you ancestors 259 00:11:18,360 --> 00:11:18,880 in crime?" 260 00:11:18,880 --> 00:11:19,780 I'm like, "What is that?" 261 00:11:19,780 --> 00:11:22,040 And so it just started to build from there. 262 00:11:22,400 --> 00:11:27,600 By 2005, I had rewritten the novella into an actual novel and got an agent. 263 00:11:28,500 --> 00:11:32,800 And he took the book out and it got rejected by every house. 264 00:11:33,560 --> 00:11:34,820 And I got that voice, right? 265 00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:38,860 That voice from my thesis advisor, "You're not good enough to go out there." 266 00:11:39,580 --> 00:11:42,900 But my agent said, "No, write me another book." 267 00:11:42,900 --> 00:11:45,640 They all had the same complaint about the book, which was really interesting. 268 00:11:45,710 --> 00:11:46,760 He said, "Write me another book. 269 00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:48,700 Don't kill the main character at the end." 270 00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:51,140 Which is your franchise character. 271 00:11:51,600 --> 00:11:52,580 And so I did. 272 00:11:52,670 --> 00:11:55,200 I wrote, which is now called All the Pretty Girls. 273 00:11:55,780 --> 00:12:01,540 And it came out in 2007 and actually just re-released again last month, which is kind 274 00:12:01,540 --> 00:12:01,820 of fun. 275 00:12:02,360 --> 00:12:03,000 20 years. 276 00:12:03,320 --> 00:12:04,060 20 years in a month. 277 00:12:04,060 --> 00:12:04,580 20 years, wow. 278 00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:07,340 So, with it being re-released, I mean, is there some... 279 00:12:07,370 --> 00:12:08,620 Now, that's a huge deal. 280 00:12:08,820 --> 00:12:12,620 Like, is there some lessons that you look back on on that first one that you're now saying, 281 00:12:12,820 --> 00:12:15,700 Okay, I wish I'd done this differently then versus now. 282 00:12:15,780 --> 00:12:16,940 Or did you, or did you used to go, 283 00:12:17,060 --> 00:12:18,420 I'm not reading that book ever again? 284 00:12:18,640 --> 00:12:19,280 Cause that would be me. 285 00:12:19,720 --> 00:12:21,440 You like, do I have to read my own book again? 286 00:12:23,040 --> 00:12:26,060 - So I did, I did some edits on a couple of them 287 00:12:26,100 --> 00:12:30,040 because back in the day when we had women writing 288 00:12:30,280 --> 00:12:34,100 crime fiction, it was very divergir to use the F word 289 00:12:34,340 --> 00:12:37,400 like every other word because, you know, 290 00:12:37,520 --> 00:12:42,300 the wire was really big and it made us sound more masculine. 291 00:12:42,580 --> 00:12:49,360 into the editors. I literally, the second book 14, I took 14 or more f-bombs out when 292 00:12:49,420 --> 00:12:52,160 I did the edit on it because it just didn't need it, right? 293 00:12:52,220 --> 00:12:52,860 Yeah, right. Yeah. 294 00:12:52,880 --> 00:12:59,620 That was, so that was really the big change. But I got the rights back, which is really 295 00:12:59,700 --> 00:13:04,840 hard to do, but I've been carving the rights back to that series. And so I sold it again 296 00:13:05,060 --> 00:13:09,060 to my new publisher. And they're the ones that are bringing this all out and it's got 297 00:13:09,060 --> 00:13:15,400 new covers and it's just really fun getting a book that is 20 years old into the hands 298 00:13:15,500 --> 00:13:19,480 of new readers because all things old or new again right now. 299 00:13:19,620 --> 00:13:19,940 That's true. 300 00:13:20,200 --> 00:13:22,560 Serial killers are getting popular in fiction. 301 00:13:22,760 --> 00:13:24,020 Everything is so cyclical. 302 00:13:24,280 --> 00:13:27,780 It is really neat to see them getting new readers and having new life. 303 00:13:28,240 --> 00:13:28,540 Yeah. 304 00:13:28,740 --> 00:13:29,580 And it's interesting. 305 00:13:29,760 --> 00:13:31,560 Like you said, everything does kind of turn. 306 00:13:31,780 --> 00:13:35,120 So people who have these long careers are

going to be like, "Well, I'm going to be back 307 00:13:35,240 --> 00:13:36,640 into serial killers again." 308 00:13:36,880 --> 00:13:37,060 Right. 309 00:13:37,620 --> 00:13:40,160 more long we'll be writing vampires again. So that'll be the whole. 310 00:13:40,200 --> 00:13:42,940 Oh, vampires are like an every five to seven year thing. 311 00:13:43,620 --> 00:13:44,640 Oh yeah. That's a cycle. 312 00:13:45,230 --> 00:13:48,660 Right? Serial killers, everything cycles in and out. So, you know, if you're in this 313 00:13:48,740 --> 00:13:52,560 long enough, you're right. You're gonna revisit your earlier work. 314 00:13:52,740 --> 00:13:57,180 That's right. So one of the things we really want to talk to you about is that you seem 315 00:13:57,340 --> 00:14:02,620 to like research a lot. Like from what we're reading, you've studied forensics, you've 316 00:14:02,620 --> 00:14:08,900 worked with the national PD. Somewhere you said you did some autopsies, which Nick said 317 00:14:08,940 --> 00:14:10,900 he didn't want any part of, but... 318 00:14:10,900 --> 00:14:13,140 I'd be like... 319 00:14:14,560 --> 00:14:14,960 Done. 320 00:14:15,500 --> 00:14:16,260 I'd be laying on the floor. 321 00:14:16,260 --> 00:14:19,960 I thought so too. I thought so too. That was the most wild experience. It was the most 322 00:14:20,180 --> 00:14:24,480 spiritual experience in my life, which you wouldn't think, you know, seeing people cut 323 00:14:24,560 --> 00:14:29,160 open would be spiritual, but it is. Once you realize that we are all the exact same inside, 324 00:14:30,020 --> 00:14:32,100 There is something that makes us who we are. 325 00:14:32,320 --> 00:14:35,040 There is a spirit, there is a soul, there is something. 326 00:14:35,839 --> 00:14:39,940 And that I discovered that day really was fascinating. 327 00:14:40,160 --> 00:14:43,760 But I too, I was like, I'm going to pass out or throw up or both. 328 00:14:44,120 --> 00:14:44,980 And they said, no, you're not. 329 00:14:45,480 --> 00:14:46,180 You're going to be fine. 330 00:14:46,420 --> 00:14:47,480 And I'm like, no, I'm not kidding. 331 00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:52,480 They're like, well, if you feel faint or, you know, step away, just step back. 332 00:14:52,920 --> 00:14:55,660 And I started, you know, I started the day about 15 feet away. 333 00:14:56,200 --> 00:14:56,280 Yeah. 334 00:14:56,460 --> 00:14:59,740 And by the end, I literally was had my head in a head. 335 00:14:59,900 --> 00:15:06,440 in a chest cavity. So it is fascinating. And I was pre-med for a while until I found out about 336 00:15:06,460 --> 00:15:10,680 the whole cadaver thing. And I was like, yeah, no, I'm not doing that. So I resisted. I resisted 337 00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:15,360 doing the the autopsies for a very long time, but I was writing a medical examiner. And I was 338 00:15:15,480 --> 00:15:21,340 getting things wrong, because I hadn't been there. And it changed everything. I mean, the research, 339 00:15:22,020 --> 00:15:26,360 all the research I've done has changed the course of the books in an effortable way. 340 00:15:26,620 --> 00:15:31,560 when I first started, the sum total I knew about being a cop is what I'd seen on law and order. 341 00:15:32,200 --> 00:15:38,080 Yeah. Right? So I call my local homicide office and I said, "Hey, has Nashville ever had a serial 342 00:15:38,220 --> 00:15:41,560 killer?" And they're like, "Why don't you come do a ride along?" Because I think they wanted to make 343 00:15:41,700 --> 00:15:47,320 sure I wasn't like really auditioning for the job. Are you a serial killer? 344 00:15:50,460 --> 00:15:55,100 You're a little too enthusiastic about this. We'll tell you about it, but first we just 345 00:15:55,320 --> 00:15:57,820 - Of course. - Have you ever killed anybody? 346 00:15:57,820 --> 00:16:01,200 - Can you finger print it and get your DNA on file? 347 00:16:01,400 --> 00:16:01,520 Yeah. 348 00:16:02,140 --> 00:16:03,420 - Just in case, yeah. 349 00:16:03,600 --> 00:16:04,220 - Just in case. 350 00:16:04,400 --> 00:16:06,340 They ended up, the homicide detective 351 00:16:06,400 --> 00:16:08,200 who answered the phone is a writer. 352 00:16:08,740 --> 00:16:12,020 And so he was actually very interested in my process 353 00:16:12,060 --> 00:16:12,860 and what I was doing. 354 00:16:13,300 --> 00:16:15,240 So we kind of traded trade secrets. 355 00:16:15,560 --> 00:16:18,540 And I ended up doing eight ride-alongs with homicide. 356 00:16:18,680 --> 00:16:19,640 I did overnight patrol. 357 00:16:20,640 --> 00:16:23,780 My first overnight patrol, we got called out to a stabbing. 358 00:16:23,840 --> 00:16:26,080 we were still getting our evening briefing 359 00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:28,560 and we got called to a stabbing and I'm like, 360 00:16:28,640 --> 00:16:29,280 "What do I do?" 361 00:16:29,280 --> 00:16:31,200 And he was like, "Just stay on my six." 362 00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:33,940 And he got out of the car and I ran out of the car behind him 363 00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:35,860 and there's this guy there and he is dying. 364 00:16:36,180 --> 00:16:38,720 And it was, we caught the guy who did it. 365 00:16:38,820 --> 00:16:40,900 We got the knife, we did the chain of custody, 366 00:16:41,280 --> 00:16:41,780 all this. 367 00:16:42,340 --> 00:16:45,120 And then we went for hot chicken at three in the morning. 368 00:16:45,720 --> 00:16:46,040 (laughing) 369 00:16:46,520 --> 00:16:47,320 As you apparently do. 370 00:16:47,320 --> 00:16:47,940 - But you can move. 371 00:16:48,360 --> 00:16:49,680 And natural, yeah, that's what we got. 372 00:16:49,760 --> 00:16:49,860 - As you do. 373 00:16:50,100 --> 00:16:52,600 And you know, I'm looking down at my cowboy boots 374 00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:55,040 and I've got this guy's blood on my shoes. 375 00:16:55,600 --> 00:16:55,940 - Nice. 376 00:16:56,360 --> 00:16:58,820 - And it got really real after that. 377 00:16:59,120 --> 00:17:00,980 I changed the tenor

of my work. 378 00:17:00,980 --> 00:17:04,199 I wanted to be sure that I was honoring the spirit 379 00:17:04,209 --> 00:17:05,300 of what the police were doing 380 00:17:05,660 --> 00:17:08,140 and the horrors that they were dealing with 381 00:17:08,240 --> 00:17:09,120 on a daily basis. 382 00:17:09,260 --> 00:17:12,600 I mean, our police forces have their problems, 383 00:17:12,939 --> 00:17:16,339 but what they do and how they do it 384 00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:19,160 is for the most part remarkable. 385 00:17:19,839 --> 00:17:21,300 And I wanted to honor that 386 00:17:21,300 --> 00:17:26,020 And there's nothing better than when I get somebody who is an expert in any of the books 387 00:17:26,160 --> 00:17:28,940 of something that I've written, writing me and saying, "You nailed it." 388 00:17:29,160 --> 00:17:30,340 That makes my day. 389 00:17:30,440 --> 00:17:31,280 That's why I do it. 390 00:17:31,600 --> 00:17:32,460 There's quick questions. 391 00:17:32,580 --> 00:17:37,840 I found this in one of my books, "Police Procedural," and I've kind of taken what is a small town 392 00:17:37,920 --> 00:17:38,460 police department. 393 00:17:38,660 --> 00:17:41,220 I had to shrink it down a little bit just for character size. 394 00:17:41,500 --> 00:17:42,940 I mean, do you find the same instance? 395 00:17:43,040 --> 00:17:47,740 Like, you know, anytime you watch any TV show like Law and Order, Castle, whatever, their 396 00:17:47,740 --> 00:17:50,600 little police units are very small and that's not really the way it is. 397 00:17:50,780 --> 00:17:54,720 So, I mean, if you find that you're doing the same thing, you're like, "Oh, okay. 398 00:17:54,960 --> 00:18:00,600 This is a much bigger thing than I can actually portray on page, so I've got to find a way 399 00:18:00,680 --> 00:18:02,160 to funnel it into the page." 400 00:18:02,260 --> 00:18:02,700 Absolutely. 401 00:18:03,040 --> 00:18:05,080 And the way I did it actually was modeling. 402 00:18:05,560 --> 00:18:10,580 We had a cold case unit and it was a small group of a few detectives. 403 00:18:11,120 --> 00:18:13,780 And so I modeled my group on them. 404 00:18:14,540 --> 00:18:20,180 And that helps the interpersonal relationships, but there's also so much that goes on just 405 00:18:20,360 --> 00:18:22,880 with bosses and the regulations. 406 00:18:23,440 --> 00:18:26,920 And you have to be in uniform this weekend and be downtown. 407 00:18:27,820 --> 00:18:30,900 Just all the little peccadillas that go along with being a cop. 408 00:18:31,300 --> 00:18:31,700 But you do. 409 00:18:31,760 --> 00:18:33,260 You have to shrink it down. 410 00:18:33,300 --> 00:18:34,980 You have to make it into bite-size greetings. 411 00:18:35,580 --> 00:18:40,920 - Make it, keep it interesting, because the bureaucracy would bore most of the people. 412 00:18:41,480 --> 00:18:44,000 - We wouldn't, yeah, we would never be able to get away with it, right? 413 00:18:44,340 --> 00:18:47,380 You know, they saw how much paperwork is involved. 414 00:18:47,660 --> 00:18:50,820 I mean, we have all these great car chases and foot chases 415 00:18:50,880 --> 00:18:53,420 and they're out detecting, no, 99% of the time 416 00:18:53,420 --> 00:18:55,740 they're sitting at their desk typing up a form. 417 00:18:55,900 --> 00:18:58,280 - Yeah, and the DNA can come back in like 24 hours 418 00:18:58,460 --> 00:18:59,500 whereas normally it's, you know, 419 00:18:59,580 --> 00:19:01,780 it's really gonna be like nowadays, yeah. 420 00:19:02,040 --> 00:19:02,880 - Now it can. 421 00:19:03,280 --> 00:19:05,240 That's the big problem now for me 422 00:19:05,340 --> 00:19:07,040 with the police procedural. 423 00:19:07,120 --> 00:19:09,820 So I basically have to go and relearn everything 424 00:19:09,940 --> 00:19:11,640 because it's changed so dramatically. 425 00:19:12,280 --> 00:19:14,320 - But so much of the, that's the one thing 426 00:19:14,320 --> 00:19:18,160 with TV and books, you can't do the time, 427 00:19:18,360 --> 00:19:19,980 the realistic time frames on some of it. 428 00:19:20,020 --> 00:19:21,240 I mean, DNA is back quicker now, 429 00:19:21,300 --> 00:19:23,460 but most of the forensic evidence that gets studied, 430 00:19:23,880 --> 00:19:26,260 it's back listed, it's months, and you can't, 431 00:19:26,900 --> 00:19:29,240 the book doesn't work on a timeline like that, right? 432 00:19:29,360 --> 00:19:30,760 You can't just have these long pauses 433 00:19:30,830 --> 00:19:31,660 where they go back to it. 434 00:19:32,060 --> 00:19:35,040 You know, they typically solve cases very quickly, 435 00:19:35,560 --> 00:19:38,300 meaning the guys like the one you ride along. 436 00:19:38,570 --> 00:19:38,680 - Please hold there. 437 00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:40,040 - The guy holding the knife. 438 00:19:40,220 --> 00:19:43,840 - The guy's literally there, or it's gonna be months. 439 00:19:44,200 --> 00:19:50,480 Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's a slog and there's no yeah, there's no good accurate representation of what it really is 440 00:19:51,320 --> 00:19:53,780 My big problem. I will confess this to you 441 00:19:54,100 --> 00:19:59,100 I got so used to being able to compress the time frame for the thrillers that now that I'm writing standalone 442 00:19:59,320 --> 00:20:02,740 I can't move the story past a few days or a week 443 00:20:03,540 --> 00:20:10,100 Everything does happen so fast and in a standalone. It's a completely different pace, right? That's my biggest challenge 444 00:20:10,800 --> 00:20:12,440 Good problem to have I guess 445 00:20:12,640 --> 00:20:16,980 I cannot make time pass. It is so hard to make time pass. 446 00:20:17,620 --> 00:20:19,640 That's what people say when they read my books. They're like, "Oh." 447 00:20:22,880 --> 00:20:24,600 A quick word from this episode's sponsor. 448 00:20:25,180 --> 00:20:30,540 Elizabeth Hunter, 11-time USA Today bestseller, 50-plus books, 3 million sold, 449 00:20:31,120 --> 00:20:33,360

brings a hands-on craft class to authentication. 450 00:20:33,960 --> 00:20:37,460 How the power is your character's wheel reveal who they really are. 451 00:20:37,860 --> 00:20:40,800 Character, world, and magic that lie to no one. 452 00:20:40,800 --> 00:20:44,460 Get your ticket at author nation dot live now back to the show 453 00:20:45,420 --> 00:20:51,940 Let's talk about your sub stack. So you have the creative edge and you've got a bunch of resources in there for writers 454 00:20:52,080 --> 00:20:54,940 We'll put a link in the in the show notes so people can find it over there 455 00:20:55,280 --> 00:20:56,720 So tell us a little bit about it 456 00:20:56,780 --> 00:21:04,380 Why you chose sub stack as the as the place to house this and what people butting right writers can expect to find there and 457 00:21:05,300 --> 00:21:07,700 I got to know about this brave venture you had of 458 00:21:08,460 --> 00:21:13,660 writing a live novel, you wrote it live on your sub-stack, you're crazy. Tell us about it. 459 00:21:13,940 --> 00:21:19,340 I am. I am crazy. So that's why I ended up at sub-stack because I like it when things are 460 00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:24,200 pretty. I've known how to code for a long time, so I've always built my own websites and had a 461 00:21:24,220 --> 00:21:29,160 blog and all of that. I used to be the Friday blogger in a group blog called Murderati many, 462 00:21:29,180 --> 00:21:35,740 many years ago. And I got in that habit of writing a Friday blog. I find that writing about writing 463 00:21:35,740 --> 00:21:41,340 helps me write. It's just part of my process. If I can kind of deconstruct what I'm doing 464 00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:47,320 whilst doing it, it helps a lot. So I decided, you know, if I'm going to do Substack, it's 465 00:21:47,340 --> 00:21:51,280 got to be value added, right? I certainly wasn't planning to charge for it. But then 466 00:21:51,340 --> 00:21:56,180 I decided, well, heck, you know, I might as well write a writing book and people can, 467 00:21:56,480 --> 00:22:01,900 you know, that can be my subscription. And so I live wrote the process of writing my 468 00:22:01,900 --> 00:22:08,140 book last seen, which was last year's novel, it took almost 18 months of going through. 469 00:22:08,280 --> 00:22:13,320 I realized as I was just kind of setting it up, there were 22 steps in the process of 470 00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:14,060 writing a book. 471 00:22:14,660 --> 00:22:18,280 And so I kind of laid those out and here's what I'm going to cover and I did. 472 00:22:18,410 --> 00:22:23,740 And I went through the 22 steps of writing a book and the seven sub steps and this thing 473 00:22:23,820 --> 00:22:24,740 over here and that thing over there. 474 00:22:25,140 --> 00:22:28,720 But I had to learn how to outline and to write about outlining. 475 00:22:28,860 --> 00:22:35,260 I had to learn how to explain my process and my thinking process, which I'm an organic 476 00:22:35,560 --> 00:22:36,900

gardener of a writer. 477 00:22:37,660 --> 00:22:38,940 There's got gardeners and architects. 478 00:22:39,660 --> 00:22:40,460 I am a gardener. 479 00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:46,480 I till my soil and I put my seeds down and I fertilize in water and we see what happens, 480 00:22:46,740 --> 00:22:47,980 what comes up and what doesn't. 481 00:22:47,980 --> 00:22:52,660 And that's what I work with versus an architect who is going to build that blueprint before 482 00:22:52,780 --> 00:22:55,300 you even, you can't build a house without the blueprint. 483 00:22:55,780 --> 00:22:57,060 I'm currently writing a book. 484 00:22:57,940 --> 00:23:03,520 My analogy of the book I am currently writing is I am flying the plane as I am still building 485 00:23:03,570 --> 00:23:04,580 the air lawns. 486 00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:06,320 There you go. 487 00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:10,480 Yeah, it's, you know, in danger of crashing and burning every second. 488 00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:13,200 We've all been there at some point, I'm sure. 489 00:23:13,290 --> 00:23:14,660 Yeah, so, well. 490 00:23:14,660 --> 00:23:22,620 The last scene was, it was very fun to just really bring people into the thought process, 491 00:23:22,950 --> 00:23:24,560 the actual thought process. 492 00:23:24,780 --> 00:23:27,020 This is how I came up with this idea. 493 00:23:27,500 --> 00:23:29,460 This is why I made the choice that I made. 494 00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:31,700 This is the problem that I'm having. 495 00:23:31,940 --> 00:23:34,100 I have to change the character's names. 496 00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:35,960 I have to change the character's age. 497 00:23:36,030 --> 00:23:40,340 I got to age them up 10 years because a 24-year-old is a boring character. 498 00:23:40,830 --> 00:23:44,840 A 34-year-old has had some life experience and is going to be more fun. 499 00:23:45,190 --> 00:23:50,380 And I've literally detailed every step of that for 18 months. 500 00:23:51,130 --> 00:23:52,480 It is a complete series. 501 00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:55,960 I'm putting it together as a book and I will put it up eventually. 502 00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:57,180 - Sure, that's brilliant, yeah. 503 00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:01,200 - Yeah, it was really, really a great experience. 504 00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:05,840 And I miss actually not having those touchstones of, 505 00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:07,940 "Okay, here's the step that I'm at," 506 00:24:08,020 --> 00:24:10,000 and being able to explain it to myself 507 00:24:10,420 --> 00:24:11,720 as much as to somebody else. 508 00:24:12,060 --> 00:24:12,460 - Right, right. 509 00:24:12,460 --> 00:24:15,660 - And I also have my monthly newsletter there on Substack, 510 00:24:15,780 --> 00:24:17,440 and I've had that newsletter for 20 years. 511 00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:19,040 - It's interesting what you say about, 512 00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:21,100 'cause teaching, I've done some teaching 513 00:24:21,220 --> 00:24:22,680 of something completely different in the past, 514 00:24:22,780 --> 00:24:24,280 and when you're teaching, 515 00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:29,420 You have to think through that process and you think how you have to communicate it to somebody else and get that point across 516 00:24:29,900 --> 00:24:34,800 It really does affect the way you do that the same thing yourself. It's a great learning process, right? 517 00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:40,620 Yes, because I'm not a teacher. I was like nothing like learning that you've been doing something wrong even though it's working 518 00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:44,680 Like there's like well, we all do things that are not the correct way of doing it 519 00:24:44,740 --> 00:24:50,679 But it works so when you teach it you got to learn how to do the proper way of doing it and then you start if you're smart 520 00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:54,920 I'm not always smart, but if you're smart you might pick up on what you're teaching and actually do it 521 00:24:55,940 --> 00:25:00,160 I've gone back and reminded myself, you know, hey, you're at this step 522 00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:04,060 What do I normally do at this step and I'm able now I've got a record of it 523 00:25:04,100 --> 00:25:08,240 I can go back and say oh, hey, why don't you try this you can take your own class 524 00:25:12,360 --> 00:25:19,120 It's gonna be called many ways up the mountain because I think that was the theme of the whole thing is there is no right way to do this 525 00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:24,180 There's only what works for you and gets you to the finish line. Yeah, we're big about the whole your mileage may vary 526 00:25:24,610 --> 00:25:30,000 Idea like it could vary every advice got a different way to go as long as you're going I guess that's about it 527 00:25:30,140 --> 00:25:33,980 So yeah, I think if somebody is telling you you have to do it like this run 528 00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:41,540 Big figure at flag every time if they're like this is this is how you must make you always tell me that and I knew I should have run 529 00:25:41,820 --> 00:25:45,800 No, it's not you must do it this way. You must not do it that way 530 00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:49,460 You and my wife 531 00:25:55,460 --> 00:25:59,100 The book that Doug and I are gonna write don't do these things don't do 532 00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,660 Want to know what to do go see someone like JT Allison 533 00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:14,220 So let's talk about you have so a very bad thing and you know why you both are polished with those with Thomas and Mercer, correct 534 00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:16,600 Mm-hmm and lessen. Yep. Oh, okay 535 00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:22,620 Yeah. So you've launched a very bad thing, launched in 2024. Tell us about the business 536 00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:26,660 decision because that's kind of an important thing for writers to remember this as a business. 537 00:26:27,190 --> 00:26:32,360 What the business decision of going with an Amazon-owned Thomas and Mercer and how that 538 00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:35,320 experience

differs from working with one of the more traditional publishers? 539 00:26:36,020 --> 00:26:46,580 It's really funny. So my old publicist at Harper Collins got promoted this morning. I 540 00:26:46,580 --> 00:26:49,160 related them and he was like, "I hope they're treating you well." 541 00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:54,700 And like, "Yeah, this is a whole different world over here on the Amazon side of the 542 00:26:55,420 --> 00:26:55,860 fence." 543 00:26:55,860 --> 00:26:59,240 And then when I wrote back, I'm like, "It is so different, but it is the same. 544 00:26:59,660 --> 00:27:00,660 It's publishing, right? 545 00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:01,660 Publishing is publishing. 546 00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:06,940 You're trying to get your story into the hands of readers and the publisher is the mechanism 547 00:27:07,260 --> 00:27:11,740 for which that happens, whether you're doing it yourself or doing it through Amazon or 548 00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:12,740 if you're at a big five. 549 00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:15,040 I've written for everybody but has shut. 550 00:27:15,700 --> 00:27:18,200 It's the only house that I haven't been published by at this point. 551 00:27:18,500 --> 00:27:20,040 Well, they need to get their gear in order. 552 00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:20,660 Yeah, right. 553 00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:21,280 Come on. 554 00:27:21,580 --> 00:27:22,160 Come on. 555 00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:24,220 Shake it loose. 556 00:27:25,260 --> 00:27:26,240 Shake a leg here. 557 00:27:27,919 --> 00:27:29,500 And all of them are different. 558 00:27:30,340 --> 00:27:36,740 It's a grasses greener kind of scenario, but the problem is the grass tastes the same, 559 00:27:37,500 --> 00:27:37,640 right? 560 00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:41,580 The grass is greener wherever you aren't, and it tastes exactly the same. 561 00:27:41,860 --> 00:27:47,800 So all you can do as an author is write the best damn book you possibly can, write the 562 00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:51,460 book they can't ignore, and then you'll get the readers. 563 00:27:51,570 --> 00:27:53,100 And it doesn't matter what the publisher is. 564 00:27:53,580 --> 00:27:57,400 Moving from Harper to Amazon, it was a big decision. 565 00:27:57,550 --> 00:27:59,140 I mean, it was a really, really big decision. 566 00:27:59,420 --> 00:28:02,740 And not one that I took lightly, and it was one that we had discussed for years. 567 00:28:03,380 --> 00:28:11,160 Amazon does an incredible job of pulling the levers with a whole new audience of readers 568 00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:17,180 who are rabid and they can read a book a day and they want a book a day and they just, 569 00:28:17,590 --> 00:28:19,220 they will do anything for it, right? 570 00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:26,000 And to have the kind of hybrid that I have my relationship coming from being a big five 571 00:28:26,140 --> 00:28:30,940 author, being in the stores, being in Barnes, being in the Indies, you know, getting all 572 00:28:30,980 --> 00:28:38,020 the usual stuff, merging with this digital first, I'm still coming out in hardcover and 573 00:28:38,020 --> 00:28:39,380 I'm still selling a lot of hard covers. 574 00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:45,560 So I'm kind of hybrid in that scenario where other authors might not be because I was so 575 00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:47,240 established before I moved over. 576 00:28:47,590 --> 00:28:49,740 But they're incredibly professional. 577 00:28:50,500 --> 00:28:56,680 The schedules are absolutely sacrosanct, which for somebody like me who is performance 578 00:28:56,840 --> 00:28:59,700 driven and likes deadlines is wonderful, right? 579 00:29:00,100 --> 00:29:01,860 There's a little more structure to it. 580 00:29:01,990 --> 00:29:04,180 And I'm a structural kind of writer. 581 00:29:04,270 --> 00:29:05,640 I like those kinds of things. 582 00:29:05,850 --> 00:29:07,020 And they do beautiful work. 583 00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:10,300 I mean, I know the readers can't see it. 584 00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:11,360 Oh, no, yeah. 585 00:29:11,700 --> 00:29:15,240 You know, here's the spectacular book. 586 00:29:15,740 --> 00:29:16,120 Oh, yeah. 587 00:29:16,300 --> 00:29:20,460 You know, the case art and just all of this stuff, they just do really nice work. 588 00:29:20,860 --> 00:29:21,580 And I love my editor. 589 00:29:21,980 --> 00:29:22,960 She's super smart. 590 00:29:23,180 --> 00:29:24,200 She makes my books better. 591 00:29:24,580 --> 00:29:27,500 And that to me is 90% of it, you know? 592 00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:31,920 And then I just want to get the book into the reader's hands, a price that they're comfortable 593 00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:33,880 paying and sell a lot of them. 594 00:29:33,980 --> 00:29:34,180 Yeah. 595 00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:37,660 a challenge sometimes right now getting the price that people want to pay. 596 00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:43,920 Well, you know, pricing is interesting, but it's also just this, this, the abundance and 597 00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:49,240 the paradox of choice. These poor readers are being inundated, right left and center 598 00:29:49,340 --> 00:29:55,260 with thousands and thousands and thousands of choices. So being, you know, being their 599 00:29:55,300 --> 00:30:01,960 favorite author, that is a responsibility I take very seriously. And I try very hard 600 00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:05,740 to give them the best possible book and experience that I can't. 601 00:30:05,770 --> 00:30:08,560 And, you know, that's, you know, so far so good. 602 00:30:08,940 --> 00:30:10,520 And those are the ones that are going to buy your book today. 603 00:30:10,550 --> 00:30:14,040 It comes out and make you, they always email me. 604 00:30:14,060 --> 00:30:14,700 Yeah, love them. 605 00:30:14,860 --> 00:30:15,660 Yes, love them. 606 00:30:16,180 --> 00:30:17,620 They're keeping the cat in treats. 607 00:30:18,100 --> 00:30:18,680 So that's why. 608 00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:21,280 That's cool. 609 00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:26,060 So you know why it comes out as we

talked about on August the 25th? 610 00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:30,660 So which is today as we're talking to, if you're listening to the day that the show 611 00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:30,920 dropped. 612 00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:36,500 on the release of your new book because we can talk in the future. So without giving too much away, 613 00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:38,560 tell the listeners a little bit about it. What's the story? 614 00:30:39,060 --> 00:30:43,560 So this is a two prong story. It is about a woman named Brooklyn Locke whose husband 615 00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:49,240 surprises her with a trip to Italy and disappears from their connecting flight. 616 00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:56,160 And the other side of the story is a woman who sees her sister's murderer from 10 years earlier 617 00:30:56,160 --> 00:31:04,360 on a flight and then he disappears. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Okay. So we have to figure out who this guy is 618 00:31:04,540 --> 00:31:11,540 and why he has disappeared and the two women work together to figure this out in some ways. And in 619 00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:16,800 some ways, they have all kinds of problems. As you would imagine. I can imagine. Great premise. 620 00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:21,460 That's a really good premise. Yeah, that's, that's brilliant. So yeah. So I mean, what, so what was 621 00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:25,520 like one of the, as you're writing this, did you have any of those moments like, and I always love 622 00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:28,620 hearing what authors say when they come across that moment in their book they're like, "Ooh, 623 00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:34,160 I've got it." And especially as a organic gardening writer, you're writing along trying 624 00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:38,520 to figure it out. It's kind of like, we both are kind of like in that same realm, but you write 625 00:31:38,580 --> 00:31:42,860 along and something like, "Oh, this is brilliant. Did you have one of those like really just rewarding 626 00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:47,440 moments as you're writing, you know why?" Yes. And that was figuring out why you left. 627 00:31:49,700 --> 00:31:55,500 I didn't know. I just knew the premise, right? I just knew the premise. I had seen a couple 628 00:31:55,500 --> 00:31:59,080 fight on a plane having a fight and I was really upset with them because they're 629 00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:03,480 his gorgeous beautiful couple and they're two kids and they're just sniping 630 00:32:03,580 --> 00:32:06,820 they were coming home from the islands actually and they're sniping at each 631 00:32:06,860 --> 00:32:10,500 other and I'm like come on you know you got this great life you just left a 632 00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:13,120 ruga your tan why are you bitching each other? 633 00:32:14,260 --> 00:32:20,180 Yeah quit complaining and then I have always had this idea in my mind watching 634 00:32:20,340 --> 00:32:23,940 people in the airport you know the guy that says hey I'm gonna go get a water 635 00:32:23,940 --> 00:32:29,480 and then never comes back. It's just into marrying those two stories. And so I pitched 636 00:32:29,610 --> 00:32:33,800 it to my editor and she was like, "That, write that next. That's, yes, and that's as far 637 00:32:33,860 --> 00:32:39,020 as we got." I had to figure out why he would leave. Why would he leave those kids? Why would 638 00:32:39,140 --> 00:32:44,400 he walk away from this family? Why would he surprise them with this trip to Italy and 639 00:32:44,500 --> 00:32:45,720 suddenly disappear? 640 00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:46,540 It's disappear, yeah. 641 00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:53,920 You know, what would make you as a father walk away from your family? It had to be something 642 00:32:53,920 --> 00:33:01,220 pretty bad, right? And it took me forever to figure out what it was and why he did it. 643 00:33:01,580 --> 00:33:04,560 But when I did, then everything came together, right? 644 00:33:04,900 --> 00:33:06,720 Right. And it was a cat, right? It was a cat? 645 00:33:07,020 --> 00:33:12,440 It was a cat. He saw a cat and he followed her out of the airport and he adopted her 646 00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:16,720 and brought her home and happily ever after, everybody's back. 647 00:33:16,940 --> 00:33:22,060 That's exactly how I lose my wife is assuming a random dog comes by, she's going to walk 648 00:33:22,060 --> 00:33:28,260 often follow it. I want to look around and where'd she go. I can't do not. We're in England. 649 00:33:28,390 --> 00:33:32,780 We just got back from England and we were in Canterbury. I come by with this big beautiful 650 00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:35,080 German shepherd and actually turned around and started following the dog. I was like, 651 00:33:35,180 --> 00:33:35,740 "Where are you going?" 652 00:33:35,740 --> 00:33:42,660 There she goes. That's me with the cats. Cats find me on trips and stuff. I'm like, "Oh, 653 00:33:43,060 --> 00:33:47,000 you go to Greece and all of them look. It's a cat." No, you're supposed to be looking at 654 00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:47,920 the Parthenon. Come on. 655 00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:52,100 Also, I do love that like you're on the airplane and you're thinking, "Huh, like these people 656 00:33:52,110 --> 00:33:52,540 are arguing. 657 00:33:52,740 --> 00:33:54,140 They could kill each other." 658 00:33:55,700 --> 00:33:58,860 That's the way we thrill our writers who are always like, "Hmm, I don't know how we 659 00:33:58,860 --> 00:33:59,840 can make this work." 660 00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:00,400 Oh, it's an argument. 661 00:34:00,740 --> 00:34:01,420 What could be worse? 662 00:34:02,420 --> 00:34:03,740 Why are you fighting? 663 00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:05,300 Why are you've got everything? 664 00:34:05,740 --> 00:34:06,500 Why are you fighting? 665 00:34:06,580 --> 00:34:11,440 I mean, that's what we as crime fiction writers and suspense and all of that, that's what 666 00:34:11,500 --> 00:34:12,040 we're doing, right? 667 00:34:12,260 --> 00:34:14,679 We're looking behind somebody's

closed door. 668 00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:19,399 curious and we're trying to open the door to their house and find out what is really 669 00:34:19,500 --> 00:34:20,020 going on. 670 00:34:20,419 --> 00:34:23,600 And that's, you know, that drives all of my books, being a nosy neighbor. 671 00:34:27,139 --> 00:34:29,100 And now we're here from this episode's sponsor. 672 00:34:29,460 --> 00:34:33,560 Hey, it's Jamie Davis, show manager for the Author Nation conference that's coming up 673 00:34:33,639 --> 00:34:34,820 here before we know it. 674 00:34:35,139 --> 00:34:37,360 I know we're going to get to see each other there. 675 00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:42,020 Definitely come up and say hello to get your daily dad joke when you're in Vegas. 676 00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:46,480 And with that in mind, what happens when you give a book a camera? 677 00:34:47,020 --> 00:34:49,379 Well it'll definitely take a shelfie. 678 00:34:49,659 --> 00:34:50,520 And back to the show. 679 00:34:51,379 --> 00:34:53,500 People are always asking, "Where do you get your stories from? 680 00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:54,820 Where do you get your ideas from?" 681 00:34:54,919 --> 00:34:56,179 Every day, all day long. 682 00:34:56,440 --> 00:35:01,240 I mean, it's just a comment here, a movement there, an action there. 683 00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:03,680 Someone reacts to something in a certain way. 684 00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:05,360 You just register that, right? 685 00:35:05,420 --> 00:35:05,980 You carry it. 686 00:35:06,180 --> 00:35:06,660 Absolutely. 687 00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:08,900 Yeah, there's no turning it off. 688 00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:10,300 There's no turning it off. 689 00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:11,980 As soon as you see it, you're like, "Oh, that's f-" 690 00:35:12,180 --> 00:35:14,060 We were just talking about it with Lisa Gardner when we said, like, 691 00:35:14,260 --> 00:35:17,140 "Yeah, I sometimes I'll be watching it and it's like somebody does some crime." 692 00:35:17,140 --> 00:35:19,460 And I'm like, "Oh, that's horrible, but how did he get away with it?" 693 00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:20,320 You know? Or, you know? 694 00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:20,860 Yeah. 695 00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:25,020 Or, "Oh, I hope they don't catch him yet, because then it's more interesting. 696 00:35:25,110 --> 00:35:28,200 I don't want anybody to die, but at the same time, my story-driven part of me is like, 697 00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:29,820 "Ooh, what's gonna happen now?" 698 00:35:29,820 --> 00:35:32,160 So, when you were talking about doing the ride along with the police, 699 00:35:32,300 --> 00:35:34,920 I was thinking at the time, I was like, "The question you want to ask is, 700 00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:36,300 now how did they get away with that?" 701 00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:37,260 And the question came back. 702 00:35:37,580 --> 00:35:40,420 I'm from a 703 00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:45,440 Right. Like, oh, I know like 90 different ways to murder and dispose of my husband. 704 00:35:45,860 --> 00:35:49,480 And you know, my husband always says, if I go missing, you know. 705 00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:52,020 You're gonna be in the first place. 706 00:35:52,580 --> 00:35:54,860 Everybody's gonna walk in and slap the cuffs on you. 707 00:35:54,940 --> 00:35:56,300 That's right away. 708 00:35:56,580 --> 00:35:59,660 Clearly, it's always the spouse, especially if the spouse is a mystery writer. 709 00:36:00,220 --> 00:36:01,280 Oh, for sure. Yeah. So. 710 00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:04,860 So also, we're going to talk a little bit because we're, of course, interested in 711 00:36:04,940 --> 00:36:09,760 interviewing people. So you have this great show, Word on Words, which I was 712 00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:14,060 I was actually going to say you were our first Emmy winner, but I don't, you guys won a regional 713 00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:15,060 Emmy and we had another. 714 00:36:15,060 --> 00:36:15,580 Regional Emmy, yeah. 715 00:36:15,820 --> 00:36:16,580 That's pretty awesome. 716 00:36:16,790 --> 00:36:17,980 So we love interviewing authors. 717 00:36:18,260 --> 00:36:19,800 It's been one of our favorite things that we do. 718 00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:24,140 So what's one of the most surprising things you've learned from interviewing other authors? 719 00:36:24,550 --> 00:36:28,060 You know, something that might have changed how you did your own work or how you approached 720 00:36:28,240 --> 00:36:28,600 something. 721 00:36:29,679 --> 00:36:31,820 Just that I can do it, right? 722 00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:35,840 I mean, when they asked me to do it, I said, "No." 723 00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:42,520 times because the whole idea of me being on camera asking, "Now we're 12 seasons in and 724 00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:47,040 it's no big deal." But everybody has their own way up the mountain. Everybody does it 725 00:36:47,100 --> 00:36:52,520 different. And you can do something I call chasing OPP, chasing other people's process. 726 00:36:53,240 --> 00:36:57,460 And it's really easy to do because it does sound great and it does work for them. 727 00:36:57,900 --> 00:37:00,440 And it works for them. So why was it a little work for me? 728 00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:05,700 I'm interviewing giants in the field, intellectual giants. 729 00:37:06,020 --> 00:37:09,120 I, you know, Margaret Atwood, I went to jail with Margaret Atwood. 730 00:37:09,130 --> 00:37:09,780 It was kind of fun. 731 00:37:09,900 --> 00:37:11,260 Um, you know, and asking. 732 00:37:11,690 --> 00:37:14,140 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. 733 00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:16,060 Come back. 734 00:37:16,720 --> 00:37:17,140 You said. 735 00:37:18,599 --> 00:37:23,560 Her book, it was for her book, "The Heart Goes Last" and the, we used to shoot, 736 00:37:23,720 --> 00:37:27,460 we now shoot back in the studio, but we used to shoot on site thematically linked 737 00:37:27,580 --> 00:37:28,060 to the books. 738 00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:30,980 So, Debra Harkness came, we went to

a winery. 739 00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:38,340 Margaret Atwood came we took her to jail and we taped the show in a jail cell yes you can look it up on a word on words dot org 740 00:37:38,580 --> 00:37:44,340 Just look for Margaret Atwood and you will see me looking like a deer in the headlights with Margaret Atwood in a jail cell 741 00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:46,820 I had to take an out of van before that one because i'm like 742 00:37:47,319 --> 00:37:49,160 terrified of being incarcerated 743 00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:52,800 For something i didn't do it's like a personal scare thing 744 00:37:53,180 --> 00:37:57,200 So yeah, I went to jail with Margaret Atwood and you know talking to her talking to John Grisham 745 00:37:57,360 --> 00:38:02,400 Grisham's been one of my favorite authors for a really long time and being able to sit down with him 746 00:38:02,740 --> 00:38:08,100 and ask him, you know, point blank, he doesn't need the money. And I said to him, I'm like, 747 00:38:08,260 --> 00:38:13,520 why do you do this? You don't need the money. You don't need to come back out on tour after 20 748 00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:19,160 years away. Why are you doing this? And he looked at me and he says, you know why. And I said, I do 749 00:38:19,240 --> 00:38:24,960 know why you love it. And he said, I love it. And that is the thing I think throughout every 750 00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:31,360 interview what has come away with is we love what we do. We love writing books, 751 00:38:31,720 --> 00:38:34,980 whether they're nonfiction or fiction. We love writing them. We love getting them 752 00:38:35,060 --> 00:38:39,260 into readers' hands. We love connecting with people. And this is how introverts 753 00:38:39,420 --> 00:38:43,560 connect, right? We write books. I mean, that's the way we are. We're 754 00:38:43,660 --> 00:38:46,780 about and we tend to connect like that. And it's like suddenly we're like this 755 00:38:46,860 --> 00:38:50,760 community that builds together. One of the things we love about doing this is 756 00:38:50,760 --> 00:38:52,600 is the fact that it is a community. 757 00:38:52,670 --> 00:38:54,480 And we've met, you know, now we've met you. 758 00:38:54,580 --> 00:38:56,740 We meet all these wonderful people and we've met some, 759 00:38:57,080 --> 00:38:58,900 like you said, you sit with some people who are just huge. 760 00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,060 Like I can't even imagine sitting with Margaret Atwood. 761 00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:03,200 You'd be like, "Oh, I've met John Grish before." 762 00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:04,920 And he's such a delightful individual. 763 00:39:05,290 --> 00:39:06,100 So I can imagine. 764 00:39:06,220 --> 00:39:10,500 But everybody that we've ever talked to on here 765 00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:13,180 has always been, it doesn't matter how big they are, 766 00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:16,460 whatever, it's such a great community that authors have. 767 00:39:16,620 --> 00:39:17,800 And it's kind of neat that we kind of 768 00:39:18,200 --> 00:39:19,320 blend it all together like that. 769 00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:22,920 - Yeah, no, I agree 100%. 770 00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:25,420 It is the coolest thing ever is this community. 771 00:39:26,020 --> 00:39:27,800 - So you had to tell, was it any of John Gray's, 772 00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:29,660 or anybody really big that you were like, 773 00:39:29,720 --> 00:39:31,420 "Oh, I can't believe I get to meet them 774 00:39:31,490 --> 00:39:32,580 "and interview them." 775 00:39:32,780 --> 00:39:32,940 So. 776 00:39:33,460 --> 00:39:35,300 - I mean, those two were biggie's. 777 00:39:35,300 --> 00:39:35,980 - That's pretty big. 778 00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:36,820 - Yeah, yeah. 779 00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:38,480 - One, oh, somebody like, you know. 780 00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:41,620 - Yeah, they were, you know, but every season 781 00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:44,180 I'm meeting new people and, you know, 782 00:39:44,340 --> 00:39:45,940 I get a lot of debut authors. 783 00:39:46,540 --> 00:39:48,160 - He's wanting you to say Douglas Pratt is here. 784 00:39:48,180 --> 00:39:48,720 - I was fiction. 785 00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:49,640 Yeah, you were the guy. 786 00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:50,400 You're his bathroom wife. 787 00:39:50,540 --> 00:39:52,380 I even picked up on the hint there. 788 00:39:52,580 --> 00:39:53,060 So it's like. 789 00:39:53,620 --> 00:39:54,020 (laughing) 790 00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:56,840 The one we're really hoping to get. 791 00:39:57,340 --> 00:39:58,340 It's a guy from Memphis. 792 00:39:58,840 --> 00:39:59,780 A guy from Memphis. 793 00:39:59,940 --> 00:40:00,920 A asshole from Memphis. 794 00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:02,320 That's probably Mark Groeney, not me. 795 00:40:03,180 --> 00:40:04,540 Oh, Groeney's a good guy. 796 00:40:04,700 --> 00:40:05,120 I like him. 797 00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:05,760 Groeney's a great guy. 798 00:40:06,180 --> 00:40:08,560 Groeney just had, what was I watching? 799 00:40:08,940 --> 00:40:11,200 Oh man, I was just watching something 800 00:40:11,380 --> 00:40:13,780 and on the bookshelf carefully placed right there 801 00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:14,580 was a Mark Groeney. 802 00:40:14,620 --> 00:40:15,500 Widow's Bay. 803 00:40:15,900 --> 00:40:16,380 Widow's Bay. 804 00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:17,000 Widow's Bay. 805 00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:17,700 Widow's Bay. 806 00:40:18,540 --> 00:40:25,720 Yeah, sitting in the bookshop van or something and there's a Mark Green he's sat right there really really nice nod. 807 00:40:26,240 --> 00:40:31,060 Yes really cool. He is just one of the nicest guys in the industry to you really is. 808 00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:38,500 Yeah he's really nice guy. He's super nice. Yeah, we've got a cross path with Gary now and again here in Memphis but that's been about it. 809 00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:42,840 It's great and national's got a great you got a great author scene up there. 810 00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:50,120 We have a huge community. We have a huge community. I

mean so many professionals and so many indies 811 00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:54,580 And we all kind of commingle and it's just so much. Yeah, I keep trying 812 00:40:54,700 --> 00:40:57,000 I'm just like I'd like to go to like I like Memphis 813 00:40:57,370 --> 00:41:02,060 But I'd like to go to national and do all my writing stuff because it's a more creative come for a southern 814 00:41:02,699 --> 00:41:08,480 Festival come up for something festival. I didn't either I am I might be up there for a killer national in a couple of weeks 815 00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:11,340 So I've not done that one before, which is like right here. 816 00:41:11,540 --> 00:41:12,220 So it's always come. 817 00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:13,760 You will love it. 818 00:41:13,900 --> 00:41:14,840 It's really fun. 819 00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:19,620 Because of book launch and everything, the timing is great and awful. 820 00:41:20,240 --> 00:41:22,580 And we've got some family stuff going on. 821 00:41:22,780 --> 00:41:26,520 So I haven't been able to books a lot of stuff because things keep having to be canceled. 822 00:41:26,700 --> 00:41:29,160 And I didn't want to have to pull out at the last minute. 823 00:41:29,210 --> 00:41:30,840 Like I had to do all year long. 824 00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:32,320 Well, it happens that way sometimes. 825 00:41:33,060 --> 00:41:34,020 Yeah, sometimes it does. 826 00:41:34,540 --> 00:41:36,900 So let's kind of talk a little bit more about like thrillers and stuff. 827 00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:38,460 Like one of the things that we've talked a lot about, 828 00:41:38,980 --> 00:41:40,840 we're all, we all write thrillers and stuff. 829 00:41:40,940 --> 00:41:43,020 And thrillers have kind of gotten shelved next to each other 830 00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:46,380 for years, but the kind of the range of what thrillers are 831 00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:48,480 has spread out a little bit. 832 00:41:48,740 --> 00:41:51,480 So I guess where do you feel at most at home in that spectrum? 833 00:41:51,620 --> 00:41:53,640 Cause you write a little bit of the domestic 834 00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:56,220 and you got some other stuff that gets a little darker. 835 00:41:56,440 --> 00:42:00,300 So what do you feel is your sweet spot on that spectrum of? 836 00:42:01,380 --> 00:42:02,340 Your subgenre, yeah. 837 00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:03,940 - My sub-sub-subgenre? 838 00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:05,700 - Yes, sub-sub-subgenre. 839 00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:07,760 I always dig a Gothic, right? 840 00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:09,940 With a big set piece, that's really fun. 841 00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:14,760 And I like these stand-alones where I like 842 00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:16,360 to have multiple points of view. 843 00:42:16,780 --> 00:42:19,100 Mysteries are incredibly hard for me. 844 00:42:19,860 --> 00:42:21,080 Incredibly hard for me. 845 00:42:21,260 --> 00:42:23,960 I don't like being stuck in one person's head. 846 00:42:24,420 --> 00:42:26,520 Last scene is a mystery and I struggled with it. 847 00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:29,220 And I mean, blatantly, openly online, 848 00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:32,000 struggled with telling that story because it was a mystery. 849 00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:33,820 I'm using my hands, I'm Italian. 850 00:42:34,260 --> 00:42:34,560 - Oh, okay. 851 00:42:35,160 --> 00:42:37,820 Yeah, that should explain it to anybody who's listening. 852 00:42:38,020 --> 00:42:38,680 I am the call. 853 00:42:38,790 --> 00:42:40,620 My hands are all over the place right now. 854 00:42:41,620 --> 00:42:47,720 jazz hands, the whole idea of being able to manipulate the characters, very bad thing, 855 00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:52,380 Columbia Jones, dead author at the beginning of the book, she dies in the beginning of 856 00:42:52,380 --> 00:42:54,080 the book, it's not a spoiler. 857 00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:59,980 She is the spoke of the center of a wheel and all the characters are spokes on a wheel, 858 00:43:00,460 --> 00:43:00,540 right? 859 00:43:00,990 --> 00:43:02,000 All of my books have a shape. 860 00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:04,060 And so that one was the wheel. 861 00:43:04,780 --> 00:43:09,100 And it worked really, really well because I had eight points of view and every single 862 00:43:09,180 --> 00:43:13,840 one of them was how they reacted and interacted with this person who was already dead. 863 00:43:14,180 --> 00:43:15,500 Those are the most fun for me. 864 00:43:15,740 --> 00:43:20,480 When I can hop around and tell bigger stories, it becomes a bigger story even though it's 865 00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:21,040 suspense. 866 00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:22,880 I like the thriller. 867 00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:26,200 We're trying to stop something bad from happening. 868 00:43:26,620 --> 00:43:31,600 The books I did with Catherine Coulter, those were big time, big set piece international 869 00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:36,420 thrillers where we're trying to stop the world from ending. But once you save the world, 870 00:43:36,620 --> 00:43:40,600 where do you go from there? Then the series is over. You've saved the world. 871 00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:41,980 Yeah, somebody else is going to come along. 872 00:43:41,980 --> 00:43:42,420 You've got to be careful. 873 00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:47,860 As James Bond has taught us, they've got more people coming to destroy the world. 874 00:43:48,100 --> 00:43:49,140 You've got to wait for the next villain. 875 00:43:49,900 --> 00:43:57,040 So those are really fun. I mean, I like that I have been afforded the honor of having a 876 00:43:57,040 --> 00:44:02,280 career for this long that I can experiment and I can try different genres and I can hop 877 00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:02,640 around. 878 00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:07,720 Usually I'll do a smaller, more insular book and then I'll do a bigger and then a smaller 879 00:44:07,980 --> 00:44:11,960 and then a bigger just to keep me excited about what I'm doing. 880 00:44:12,340 --> 00:44:13,240 This has been fantastic. 881 00:44:13,840 -->

00:44:15,420 There's lots of things we didn't get to. 882 00:44:15,660 --> 00:44:17,320 So we'll do this again sometime. 883 00:44:17,860 --> 00:44:18,100 Awesome. 884 00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:18,780 I would love that. 885 00:44:18,820 --> 00:44:20,020 And have you back on. 886 00:44:20,020 --> 00:44:21,860 But we have a couple of questions to wrap up here. 887 00:44:22,060 --> 00:44:26,220 And the first one we ask everybody is, what do you think your author's superpower is? 888 00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:29,600 Description I think I can set a stage pretty well 889 00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:36,180 I've been called cinematic and that to me is a compliment because I feel like I do a lot of like 890 00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:42,800 Screenplay game in the book like this is the scene that I'm seeing. I'm very very visual and so I think that translates 891 00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:46,260 I like that. That's a it's a fundamental building block 892 00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:52,220 Yeah, setting is huge well setting is huge. It should be a character. It shouldn't just be a name 893 00:44:52,220 --> 00:44:57,220 Well, I think, yeah, we both kind of, he uses the Cayman Islands as a character because 894 00:44:57,320 --> 00:44:58,460 it's all flashy and sexy. 895 00:44:58,840 --> 00:44:59,420 So, I know. 896 00:44:59,420 --> 00:44:59,620 Yeah. 897 00:44:59,860 --> 00:45:01,920 I mean, it's important and you can... 898 00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:02,600 Important to... 899 00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:06,300 You know, what you're sharing with the reader is the experience that they could have if 900 00:45:06,300 --> 00:45:07,280 they were there, right? 901 00:45:07,500 --> 00:45:08,020 Right, absolutely. 902 00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:10,640 And if you're doing it right, then they are experiencing it. 903 00:45:10,740 --> 00:45:16,900 Well, and especially in series, which we both write in series, so it's key to have people 904 00:45:17,340 --> 00:45:21,060 feel like they're back home again when they open, when they start one of your books, they're 905 00:45:21,060 --> 00:45:23,120 coming back to a place that's now familiar to them. 906 00:45:23,430 --> 00:45:26,460 And nothing better than a reader who's like, oh, I've been to that spot. 907 00:45:26,490 --> 00:45:27,540 I know exactly what it is. 908 00:45:27,660 --> 00:45:30,220 And it makes them feel in his broad end. 909 00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:30,620 Grounded. 910 00:45:30,820 --> 00:45:32,220 It grounds them in the story. 911 00:45:32,580 --> 00:45:32,840 Yeah. 912 00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:33,320 Yeah. 913 00:45:33,460 --> 00:45:34,020 Very much so. 914 00:45:34,140 --> 00:45:34,340 Okay. 915 00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:37,900 We have another question for you, which is going to be random from our wheel of 916 00:45:38,020 --> 00:45:39,740 questions, wheel of questions that we have. 917 00:45:39,940 --> 00:45:40,700 Oh, I love it. 918 00:45:40,940 --> 00:45:42,240 No expense spared. 919 00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:45,580 Do you have this kind of, these kind of props on, on words, on words? 920 00:45:46,119 --> 00:45:51,040 No, but if, if I ever teach, I do have a frisbee that has the 921 00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:55,180 have an elemental plot and you get to spin the wheel of plot. So I feel very much at 922 00:45:55,220 --> 00:45:58,280 home. Oh, there we go. Ceci, we should definitely 923 00:45:58,390 --> 00:46:04,080 bring your wheel of plots on and our wheel of questions can go together. We should... 924 00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:10,600 All right. So what is one food that you hate that everyone else likes? 925 00:46:11,700 --> 00:46:16,160 Tomatoes. Oh, I find them disgusting. But I will eat anything made of tomatoes. 926 00:46:16,500 --> 00:46:19,040 Oh, I was going to ask you, do you eat ketchup on your fries? 927 00:46:19,720 --> 00:46:25,760 I like ketchup, I like sauce, I like salsa, but I cannot eat a raw tomato. 928 00:46:26,220 --> 00:46:26,900 I will vomit. 929 00:46:27,350 --> 00:46:28,820 Is it a texture thing? 930 00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:34,900 It's texture, it's taste, it is just there's something about them that is just... 931 00:46:35,140 --> 00:46:37,060 I always said they were onomatopoeic, really. 932 00:46:38,620 --> 00:46:40,600 Mine is mushrooms, but kind of for the same thing. 933 00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:45,800 Mine's a texture thing, like it could be eaten long and you could slide a mushroom in there 934 00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:50,200 and I don't know about it and I'll just bite into it and I'll be like, "Eeeh, oh." 935 00:46:50,530 --> 00:46:50,860 Yeah, no. 936 00:46:50,970 --> 00:46:53,320 I would like to like mushrooms, but no, I just can't. 937 00:46:53,610 --> 00:46:54,380 I don't mind the flavor. 938 00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:57,560 I'm the fussiest eater in the world and I like mushrooms. 939 00:46:58,060 --> 00:46:58,360 How's that? 940 00:46:58,820 --> 00:46:59,480 Isn't that weird? 941 00:46:59,720 --> 00:47:02,420 Because they are something that, you know, people... 942 00:47:02,420 --> 00:47:03,600 You either love them or hate them. 943 00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:04,580 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 944 00:47:04,690 --> 00:47:08,200 And I actually love mushrooms, but I'm super fussy. 945 00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:10,700 So I eat barely any vegetables. 946 00:47:10,910 --> 00:47:12,220 I think they're really bad for you. 947 00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:13,380 I think the science is wrong. 948 00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:14,880 It's just... 949 00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:16,140 Science is wrong. 950 00:47:17,020 --> 00:47:17,900 I'm gonna go with that. 951 00:47:18,100 --> 00:47:18,460 You're a carnivore. 952 00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:18,940 You're a carnivore. 953 00:47:18,940 --> 00:47:19,760 Oh my God, I'm trying to. 954 00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:20,760 No, he's British. 955 00:47:21,140 --> 00:47:23,020 They don't have any vegetables over there anyway. 956 00:47:23,580 --> 00:47:23,860 We do. 957 00:47:23,950 --> 00:47:24,460 We have potatoes. 958 00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:25,860 You have peas. 959

00:47:26,420 --> 00:47:27,440 We have peas and potatoes. 960 00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:28,040 We have mushroom peas. 961 00:47:28,040 --> 00:47:28,500 Mushroom peas? 962 00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:30,580 Yeah, well, that would put you on peas for life. 963 00:47:30,580 --> 00:47:32,020 Yeah, I think you put gravy on top of it. 964 00:47:32,240 --> 00:47:32,620 So, yeah. 965 00:47:33,819 --> 00:47:37,580 I'm the weirdest eater in the world, so if it's not my... 966 00:47:37,670 --> 00:47:40,900 If I could live on French fries and cheese, I would... 967 00:47:41,380 --> 00:47:42,200 I'd be happy. 968 00:47:42,500 --> 00:47:44,040 I mean, you can live on French fries. 969 00:47:44,080 --> 00:47:44,860 I used to work in restaurants. 970 00:47:45,140 --> 00:47:48,900 That's what was my entire meal was we had a big cheese thing 971 00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:50,460 where we put the cheese dip and we walk by 972 00:47:50,460 --> 00:47:51,920 and pick up a fry and dip it and walk. 973 00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:53,500 That was how you just ate all night long. 974 00:47:53,500 --> 00:47:53,800 - There you go. 975 00:47:54,519 --> 00:47:56,900 Lee Child only eats hamburgers and drink champagne. 976 00:47:57,040 --> 00:47:58,740 - Yeah, he smoked a lot of weed though too. 977 00:47:59,260 --> 00:47:59,620 (laughing) 978 00:48:01,020 --> 00:48:01,540 - That too. 979 00:48:02,370 --> 00:48:06,760 But yeah, he's pretty single tracked on his food. 980 00:48:07,370 --> 00:48:07,860 - Yeah, that's cool. 981 00:48:07,980 --> 00:48:08,500 That's good to know. 982 00:48:08,780 --> 00:48:09,880 All right, this has been the-- 983 00:48:09,900 --> 00:48:11,280 - That makes Nick feel better. 984 00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:14,060 He's like, "Oh, I'm not the only weird one." 985 00:48:14,060 --> 00:48:15,340 - Yeah, an exposing Lee Child, 986 00:48:15,500 --> 00:48:16,760 we should probably end on that note. 987 00:48:17,020 --> 00:48:17,460 (laughing) 988 00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:21,180 Hey, JT, thank you so much. 989 00:48:21,380 --> 00:48:23,900 And best of luck with the release of the new book. 990 00:48:23,980 --> 00:48:26,640 I'm sure it's gonna go ballistic like the last one did. 991 00:48:26,860 --> 00:48:28,120 And go out and read it. 992 00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:29,280 - Thank you, guys. 993 00:48:30,220 --> 00:48:31,020 (upbeat music) 994 00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:38,360 - Thank you, JT, that was awesome. 995 00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:41,140 I love a good talk like that, but man, that was great. 996 00:48:41,700 --> 00:48:44,040 - She's, you know, she's been in a jail cell 997 00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:45,980 happened. That's what she said. That's crazy. 998 00:48:48,019 --> 00:48:51,780 She was just skipping right past that, just like throwing it out there as I 999 00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:54,440 mentioned, I'm like, oh, reel that back in. 1000 00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:58,300 Stop that right there. Yeah, it's amazing. Like, it's, you know, we should do that. 1001 00:48:58,380 --> 00:49:02,380 We

should have a, you know, onsite in jail. It would be just us in jail, probably. 1002 00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:05,640 But, you know, I was going to say, we just got to call someone up. 1003 00:49:06,020 --> 00:49:10,320 Get arrested the next time and they can come and be outside and then we'll 1004 00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:15,600 recorded or I was hoping it was going to be some you know story of a drunken 1005 00:49:15,860 --> 00:49:19,480 night out in Nashville and they ended up in jail cell but still it was pretty 1006 00:49:19,540 --> 00:49:22,320 cool. Yeah well in Nashville does bring about some weird things so you never 1007 00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:26,040 know but you know what it's great you know yes out there looking for 1008 00:49:26,180 --> 00:49:31,100 information like her sub stack is full of some stuff I mean the first of all you 1009 00:49:31,100 --> 00:49:35,080 get to see a step-by-step process of how you write a novel. Is that crazy? Live 1010 00:49:35,220 --> 00:49:39,200 writing the whole novel through sub stack. Oh that's selling novel at that so 1011 00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:41,980 you might as well, if you're going to look for somebody to follow, you might as well 1012 00:49:42,020 --> 00:49:43,520 follow somebody who's doing a best selling model. 1013 00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:44,820 That's pretty freaking impressive. 1014 00:49:44,820 --> 00:49:48,760 But I also love the point that she made is like, "Here's how I'm doing it and here's 1015 00:49:48,860 --> 00:49:49,760 some different ways." 1016 00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:52,420 But I was thinking when she was saying that stuff, it's like a menu. 1017 00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:56,820 What you're doing is just accumulating information to fill out your menu. 1018 00:49:57,280 --> 00:50:00,520 Then you pick and choose from the menu what works for you, right? 1019 00:50:01,020 --> 00:50:05,460 So if you don't like mushrooms, Doug, then don't choose the mushrooms, right? 1020 00:50:05,620 --> 00:50:07,080 You've got something else to choose from. 1021 00:50:07,460 --> 00:50:11,300 Yeah, and if you don't like vegetables, you might want to go get some vitamins or something. 1022 00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:12,420 Skip straight to the zone. 1023 00:50:13,260 --> 00:50:14,360 Straight to the zone. 1024 00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:21,700 Also, don't forget, her book came out today if you're listening to this on the day of 1025 00:50:21,860 --> 00:50:22,840 launch, but it is out now. 1026 00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:23,580 You know why? 1027 00:50:24,090 --> 00:50:25,800 I do not know why, but she chose the day. 1028 00:50:26,120 --> 00:50:28,800 So, you know why it's available today. 1029 00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:32,780 So make sure you go get it on Amazon or at your bookstores or wherever. 1030 00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:34,080 So be awesome. 1031 00:50:34,700 --> 00:50:35,260 Very cool. 1032 00:50:35,260 --> 00:50:40,660 So support and thank you guys for supporting our show over on patreon and your kindness helps cover the cost 1033 00:50:40,920 --> 00:50:45,940 And if you want to thank you thank you join our club over there hit us up at patreon.com 1034 00:50:46,320 --> 00:50:49,700 Ford slash the two authors podcast. Oh, you got my kids 1035 00:50:50,240 --> 00:50:55,540 There's a little chat feature over there. You can chat with us and make comments on the show. So it's always worth doing 1036 00:50:56,060 --> 00:51:01,440 Yeah, those questions big thanks as always to our friends at vellum for their support. Thank you so much 1037 00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:06,660 Make sure you guys go check them out. Go to trivellum.com/twoauthors. 1038 00:51:06,980 --> 00:51:10,580 Trivellum.com/twoauthors to find out more about us. 1039 00:51:10,650 --> 00:51:13,960 And you'll find the notes as well as links for our guest information, 1040 00:51:14,140 --> 00:51:16,180 her sub-stack and her thing. 1041 00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:19,260 So we make sure you check all that out and we will be back next week with a new 1042 00:51:19,420 --> 00:51:20,860 episode of the Two Authors Podcast. 1043 00:51:21,460 --> 00:51:23,580 Until next time, be cool to each other. 1044 00:51:23,740 --> 00:51:25,400 Fair wins and following scenes. 1045 00:51:26,860 --> 00:51:30,880 You've been listening to the Two Authors podcast with Nicholas Harvey 1046 00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:32,060 and Douglas Pratt. 1047 00:51:32,660 --> 00:51:34,380 Subscribe on your favourite platform 1048 00:51:34,730 --> 00:51:36,860 for new shows coming every week. 1049 00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:38,660 (upbeat music)