Roxanne Patruznick: Welcome to Travel Create Repeat, where we talk with fellow artists, writers, and performers about travel and creativity. I'm Roxanne, and I'm an artist nomad who's been traveling full-time since 2017. Today's podcast guests are Alexandra Sokolov and Craig Robertson. Alexandra Sokolov is a native Californian who sold original scripts. And wrote novel adaptations for major Hollywood studios before becoming the award-winning author of 14 thrillers. She also teaches her writing workshop, screenwriting tricks for authors. Craig Robertson spent 20 years as a journalist, covering some of the biggest stories across the globe. His 11 crime novels, mostly set in his native Scotland, have been shortlisted for all of the UK's major awards. He is also on the board of the crime convention Bloody Scotland and organises Butte Noir. They met in the US, now live in Scotland, and despite writing two books together, they are still married.
Craig Robertson: Mm-hmm.
Alex: As of this recording. ⁓
Roxanne Patruznick: Ha ha ha.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, as goes again in an hour.
Roxanne Patruznick: So today we're gonna be talking about travel and writing and collaboration and whatever else. And so hello, both you.
Alex: So good to see you again. When was the last time it was on Butte in Scotland? Is that the last time I saw you?
Craig Robertson: Hello.
Roxanne Patruznick: I think that's the last time we saw each other, but because of like social media, it feels like we're I'm s I'm always seeing your stuff. Yeah.
Alex: I know, all the time.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, have I seen you since in Albania? Was Tirana before or after? I can't remember.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah, in Albania for for Derby Days and we might we might talk about that a little more.
Alex: What? No, I knew about it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the nomad life, right? You run into each other somewhere and it's hard to remember sometimes where.
Craig Robertson: Thank
Roxanne Patruznick: Ha ha ha. It's so good. So where are you guys from originally?
Alex: Well, you know, I'm a home girl. I'm from LA originally and grew up partly in Berkeley. ⁓ So all California until, yeah, for a really, really long time it was all California. And I've also lived in the South and now I have permanent leave to remain in Scotland, thank God. So I'm really happy about that, yeah.
Craig Robertson: And I'm from Stirling, right in the heart of Scotland. And I've kind of been based here most of the time with just little stays elsewhere, but it's a great place to travel from, which I love to do a lot of. We both love to travel and we met, I guess, when we were both on the roads. So that was a good thing.
Roxanne Patruznick: That's awesome. Me and ⁓ my husband Johnny, we both really love Scotland. and I'm an LA girl, so I totally, yeah, I love LA. okay, so yeah, lots, lots to talk about here. So you both ⁓ so I'm gonna ask an art question and one that I'm kind of curious about. You you both transitioned from writing one kind of writing to another, and I'd love to hear about.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: how you transitioned from that. Like Craig, you were a journalist and then you you found your way to writing novels. And Alex, you were a screenwriter and you found your way also to writing novels. And yeah, if you'd like to just talk a little bit about that.
Alex: You want to go first?
Craig Robertson: I nodded sort of really subtly at you to go first, but you didn't catch it. So I don't...
Alex: ⁓ I see, I see, missing that cue. We've only been married ⁓ some years. Well, I actually transitioned ⁓ another time too, because I was a theater kid. ⁓ I grew up doing musical theater from...
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah. Yeah.
Alex: really early age we put on plays in my best friend's garage and charged people to see this madness. then I did theater in high school, I did community theater. I went to Berkeley and was a theater major there and we had a ⁓ theater collective during and after our years at Berkeley. So I was really, really, really into that. But then... what are you gonna do with political theater in Berkeley for a living? So ⁓ I vaguely knew about the film industry, knew nobody down there, but decided that that was the best way to make a living at the writing that I was doing. So I moved down to LA and you know how it is, everyone's in the business. So ⁓ I got a job as a reader. Wrote a screenplay, I had written so many plays before that it was not much of a transition really. I knew how to do it. Just needed to learn a different form. And I loved film ⁓ and sold my first screenplay really quickly and then was a screenwriter for about 15 years before I snapped. And that was a creative decision. I ⁓ needed to be able to write women that I wanted to write, which was not. really very easy in Hollywood at the time. So it was kind of a, ⁓ I was rage writing at night while I was working for a big ⁓ producer, director who is known for blowing a lot of things up. And that's how I wrote my first novel. And that, when that sold, it made me understand I could make a living. being much more in charge of my own creativity and the product that I wanted to be making. So that worked out really well for me. And that's how we did it. One transition after another, they all built on top of each other and ⁓ haven't really ever had a real job.
Roxanne Patruznick: That's awesome.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, I had a real job. Journalism felt like a real job. I was, 21 years I did, I was a journalist. But I was planning my escape quite a bit before the end. I I loved it. And there's lots of parts of it would have done for nothing. It was just exciting and so interesting. But both those things kind of waned a bit as time went on.
Alex: ⁓ yeah.
Craig Robertson: And also journalism was changing and it was quite obvious that it was changing and that I knew that if I didn't get out, then I'd be kicked out at some point because they were just reducing the number of journalists and reducing anyone who was ⁓ getting rid of anyone who was earning a decent wage. So that writing was on the wall. I wanted to get ahead of that. I wanted to leave on my terms rather than theirs. ⁓ And writing... and novel seemed like the most likely way to do that because it was an extension of what I'd been doing every day for so long. And although it's ⁓ it's actually a much more different process than I really thought it might be. ⁓ Writing was probably my strength as a journalist, but then to take that into a completely different arena, it was tricky. And that's why it took me five years to finish my first book. A, because I didn't have a deadline and. function without a deadline. And B, I just had no idea what I was doing. So it took a while and I gave up on it a few times. Thankfully, I eventually knocked it down and got it finished. my first book was published in April 2010 and I left journalism in October 2010, which was a bit of a leap, but it felt like if I didn't take that chance, I would regret it. and I haven't regretted it, so it's worked out.
Roxanne Patruznick: Wow. That sounds fantastic. interesting how like one of the things that you said, Alex, about like all these different transitions that you went through before you finally ⁓ found the novels is like each thing that that we do, each time we like go to school for something or we have a certain job and then we have another job that's different, and then finally we're doing what we're doing in the present, all those other jobs actually gave us something that helped. Like gave us skills that we thought, ⁓ how is this ever gonna, you know, help me? But then it actually ends up helping what we're doing in the present. So I just thought
Alex: ⁓ yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: I think that's so true of writers that everything you do, the things that work and the things that don't work, maybe sometimes the tough stuff more than anything, are all useful and we store it all away. I frequently say that we're thieves. We just steal everything and hide it away until we need it. Magpies. ⁓ Yeah, everything's useful and you never know when you're going to need it.
Alex: Yeah. Hehe.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah.
Alex: Yeah, and the worst jobs can make the best books too. it just, and hobbies too, just like the things that you do for pleasure end up maybe being a really important part of your books. So it's all useful, it's all relevant. It's not taking you too long to get where you're going because it's all part of learning how to do it.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, I frequently think that I wish I'd written my first book 10, 20 years earlier than I did, but I'm not sure I'd have been able to do it. think you need, for me, everyone's different, but ⁓ for me, I think I needed some of that learning curve before I was able to do it. I don't think I'd have written anything particularly good if I'd written it much earlier.
Roxanne Patruznick: And the research aspect too. I just that also just occurred to me is like every the a lot of authors, they're researching the subject that they're writing about if they haven't already had a background in it. And it's like it's an opportunity to really learn a ton of stuff. You know, like your brain is full of all this stuff that you've researched and gathered that other people that work a different kind of job, they don't have that opportunity really.
Alex: No, and you can decide, you can make your characters any profession that you've always wanted to have for yourself and kind of do it. I love that aspect about writing, that you can be whoever and learn so much about that thing. ⁓ It's like being able to live hundreds of lives, really. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, I sort of accidentally wrote four books in a row about subjects I knew absolutely nothing about and had to learn from scratch. ⁓ And I love doing it because the research is great. You've got to be careful that you can get back out of those rabbit holes at some point to actually do some writing. You've got to be careful you don't just bore people with all the stuff you've just learned, because although you're so excited about it, not everyone is. And learning those new things
Alex: ⁓ Yeah. you
Craig Robertson: You pair them with the things that you do know, ⁓ like things and things that you care about, and you hang those on the new subject. And ⁓ it keeps it fresh, I guess.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah. And also along the lines of of working, making work, is there a particular way that you both like to work, like a pantser versus plotter or have environments that you like to work in? Because sometimes people really need like an office outside of the home. Some people love to work in home, some people go to cafes. How how does it work for you? Like when you're making stuff?
Alex: Okay. Well, we have opposite processes for sure, but I'm an early morning writer. I have had to have an office before as a screenwriter. Sometimes they wanted to be on top of you, so you would have an office at the studio that you were in. I hated that. I really hated having to get up and get dressed and go to an office. Here... I can work in bed if I want to, I can have the cats with me if I want to, I can move around to different rooms of the house because I feel like I fill up a room really quickly with my energy and I have to move on to another one. And I also can change clothes if I feel like it. If I feel like I've worn that outfit enough, then I'll change clothes to something else and keep going on with my day. It keeps me amused and entertained that way. And in terms of panting versus plotting, as a screenwriter, you literally have to tell the executives and the producer and the actor and the director and everybody involved in it to get the job. You have to tell them the entire story, every beat of the story. So I got really good at plotting like the night before I had to go in for a pitch meeting. ⁓ There's no way to not be a plotter in Hollywood. You wouldn't get jobs. So I am the ultimate plotter. I teach plotting. I taught it in film school. I teach it online. Now I have a sub stack that's all about story structure and I love it. I love breaking movies down for structure. I love taking movies and showing authors how to structure their own novels better. by looking at their favorite movies. So yeah, there's no question plotting.
Craig Robertson: ⁓ I'm different on most of that. I'm definitely not a morning person, very much a nighthawk. I'm trying to rein that in a bit because it's just not really good for me anymore. But I'll happily write till two o'clock or three o'clock in the morning and then go again whenever energy picks up again the next day. And that kind of works for me. ⁓ I can write anywhere. ⁓ Being a journalist meant you didn't have a choice. You would just have to write whatever.
Alex: Thank
Craig Robertson: you were and I've written and dictated stories while driving to the next stop on whatever the story is. With someone else driving I should hasten to tell that. But just, well, you know, sometimes needs must. ⁓ So I can write in planes and trains and buses and wherever it needs to be done. I don't really mind that. Trains are good. Trains are good.
Roxanne Patruznick: Ha ha ha.
Alex: I don't know if I believe that. ⁓
Roxanne Patruznick: Ha ha ha.
Alex: I love riding on trains too. Trains are good. We take trains a lot.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, are really useful for that kind of thing. In terms of plotting, I used to be more of a pantser, ⁓ but Alex kind of knocked that out of me and sort of made me plot more, which I don't mind like this. Alex is probably 100 % plotter, somewhere between 85 and 90 % now, I'm gonna say. There's always, you know, needs to be room for some kind of rogue action and changing your mind. ⁓
Alex: Hahaha
Craig Robertson: But I'd like to know what I'm writing and I'd to know why I'm writing it before I get going. People who, and I know very good writers and very good friends who say they just start with the first paragraph and have no idea what's gonna come after that. ⁓ Yeah, there's a special place in hell for people like that who can do it and pull it off. And everybody's got to do their own thing.
Roxanne Patruznick: Especially if they're really good.
Alex: Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, that's not for me. I need to record them.
Alex: I don't even really believe it though because when you meet those people, if they're professionals, they actually have a system where at a certain point they're going back and plotting once they get to a certain point. you know, someone like Lee Child has been TV producer and directed for forever. He's got the structure in his head. Nobody can tell me that he doesn't.
Craig Robertson: No, I don't believe that. Yeah, I want to know not just what the story is going to be and is it, I think you also have to know whether it's got the legs to be a novel and you don't, you can't know that until you really plot it out. I also need to know why I'm writing, what's the point of it? It's not just the actions in the story. I need to be talking about something. So I'd like to figure that out too.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah, that's solid. so I probably I wasn't sure where to ask this question, but this is a very important question. Where did you guys meet or how did you meet? Yeah.
Alex: We met on the road. We met in Colorado Springs ⁓ at Left Coast Crime, which is a really great little festival, medium-sized festival, crime festival. ⁓ And we were both on the program and ⁓ we met because he came into one of my ⁓ workshops there.
Craig Robertson: Well. I came in and I don't normally go to workshops but I was jet-lagged and so was up far earlier than I would normally be. So I was kind of kicking around. I saw there was a workshop and I thought I would go in. was writing my fifth book at that point and I didn't go in with the expectation to particularly learn but you know every day is a school day. But by the time Alex had finished I'd made five material changes to the book. So I went up at the end and said, myself and said, I've made five changes to my book. I owe you a drink. And kind of that was that really.
Alex: Yeah, and then some people, we became kind of the scandal of the festival in the bar. Some people knew, some people didn't. There were other things, there were fights going on. It was an interesting late night scene at Left Coast Crime that year. But yeah, you can talk to a few people who were there and they...
Craig Robertson: Yeah, it's the other way around.
Roxanne Patruznick: What?
Alex: They said, yeah, we saw this coming, us getting together. yeah, ⁓ that's how we did it. ⁓ But we went home to our separate countries. I went back to LA and he went back to Scotland. And so we were writing to each other ⁓ and pretty soon realized that. We couldn't just write to each other because we would make up this grand love affair in our heads that really had no basis in reality. We could certainly write a good one, but was the real stuff actually there? So he came over, no, I went over first, right? So yeah, which that was a trip because I met, the first night he took me to dinner at Sterling Castle at this major.
Craig Robertson: We came over first.
Alex: the like formal event with the seven servants coming to your table and doing the seven courses, laying them down all at the same time in the castle. yeah, I mean, you know.
Craig Robertson: It took me so much organizing to lay that out and I really did.
Alex: He flashed out. Yeah. Yeah. And then the next night it was his brother's birthday and I met the entire family at once. ⁓ And then the next night we went out with all of his friends on this pub crawl where the women and the men separated into separate pubs.
Roxanne Patruznick: That's like the fantastic like date. Like, come on. Wow.
Alex: So I was alone with all of these Scots people that I couldn't understand at all because you've been here. You know that accent. Yeah, so it was trial by fire. And then the second part of it was you came over to Napa for we decided we would go to Napa and take an Airbnb for a month. ⁓
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah, the Glaswegian for sure.
Alex: so he could see some of California. And so it's been traveling from the beginning.
Roxanne Patruznick: So that's so funny, Alex. You just went right into my next question. Like you kind of rolled right into it. Cause I'm, yeah, I'm I am curious about your dynamic. You guys are from two different cultures on, you know, that are far apart on the on the map. And like just how that works. And it because yeah, you I guess you started out like visiting each other and then it just kind of grew, I'm imagining. But the cultural differences and stuff like that, like
Alex: Yeah
Craig Robertson: Well, they're still there. The culture of differences ⁓ but heads on a daily basis because we're so used to doing things differently. And this is a broad generalization, but with a lot of solid truth in it that Californians and people from central and West Scotland are not the same. Everything is different. And it starts from the weather ⁓ because it just...
Roxanne Patruznick: has that been?
Alex: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Craig Robertson: grows from there because the way your lifestyles are different. ⁓ But one is a little bit more reserved ⁓ than the other one's a little more positive than the other. There's a balance there.
Alex: Just a little bit. That's the hardest part for me, like the unrelenting no of it all. And that's not really what Scottish people are like, but the default is no, you know. And you understand about the history that they've been at war in this country with... the damn English for just forever and invaded and all of it. So of course you have a defense mechanism and the weather contributes to it, I'm sure. And the drugs we had in California obviously contribute to the positivity of it all, the sunshine. And I grew up like I'm sure you did in... outside and in pools and all of that. So it's just much more laid back lifestyle. But coming from California, Scotland is the most beautiful country with the most varied geography. And so many things are so much like California, different parts of California, the beaches and that, you know, the beaches are different, that there are.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, the colder.
Alex: it's a beach, you know, it's an island and the mountains and the lakes and the green and the gorgeousness of it all makes me feel really at home here. So the nature makes up for cultural differences. It's the language that I struggle with still. It's they say, you know, ⁓ I'm not so sure.
Roxanne Patruznick: And it's English. It's English still. ⁓
Craig Robertson: Well, yeah, mean, we, not we, but our next door neighbors invented it. So, you know, we have a handle on it. But the biggest problem is if we're out with friends, if we're partying, then they clearly become more difficult to understand in every sense.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: ⁓ yeah. If you add like alcohol, I'm sure all of a sudden I'm like, What a ⁓ yeah, like that's that's gotta be hard.
Craig Robertson: Yes.
Alex: and a music soundtrack and all of that. And yeah, there's a point at which I cannot understand a word that's being said. So yeah, that's, know, but there are so many benefits, especially politically, that I would never give it up. ⁓ But I do have to work every day a little bit harder than you would someplace else.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah. And one thing I do notice about ⁓ Scottish people that I've that I've talked to is it always seems like they have s are so funny. Like every Scottish person that I have met has been really, really funny. And maybe it's partially a defense mechanism, like you mentioned, Craig, but it's I mean, genuinely just hilarious. Like I and I I love that. I love the the humor, you know, and maybe it comes out of some kind of challenge ⁓ or past
Alex: ⁓ yeah. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Well, the idea is there is a competitive element to it. If it was an Olympic sport, we'd do much better than we do in some of the actual sports. Yeah, you're encouraged. ⁓ It's a shield in some ways, and it's always used that way because ⁓ other people are funny. And if you're not able to go back with the same thing, you're going to get cut to ribbons. So you learn pretty quickly. ⁓ And it's usually pretty dry.
Alex: Hahaha
Craig Robertson: sense of humour ⁓ and it's different. It probably takes a bit getting used to and it's never quite as aggressive as it sounds. It's not quite.
Roxanne Patruznick: Ha ha ha.
Alex: Sometimes I think it is. But you're right, there is a competitive edge to the humor about it. I didn't grow up with, I played Tribule Pursuit once in a while, but I didn't grow up with a pub quiz. We were...
Craig Robertson: It can't be, yeah, okay, maybe a little. and
Alex: like smoking out by the pool. So that is not part of my experience. And here, pub quiz is so important to everyone. ⁓ And so I think that competitiveness and the emphasis on sports, ⁓ it contributes to maybe too much competitiveness in just ordinary conversation that I'm not used to. That's difficult.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, conversations can be a fight to the death, basically.
Roxanne Patruznick: Interesting. Yeah, and and so so like I'll transition into collaboration. So we're talking about about conversation, competition. So so you both you both work separately, like you have your series and the novels that you write separately, but you also ⁓ worked together on the grapefrine, ⁓ your recent book.
Alex: You heard it here.
Craig Robertson: Thank
Alex: That's it. That's it. Yeah, about that. ⁓ Mm-hmm.
Roxanne Patruznick: and I'm just wondering how is it different working separately versus working together? And how does that work? Like as far as like when you are collaborating on a story, does one person write the write the outline or the first draft and the other person revises, or do you go chapter chapter? Like how does, yeah, how does your collaboration work?
Craig Robertson: Well, for a long time, didn't work. I think that's not unfair to say, because we had to learn how to do it. So I tend to say, I've said this a few times, but we both knew how to write novels. We did not know how to write together. We knew how to live together. We didn't know how to write together. And it wasn't even just that our different processes were clashing. Everything was clashing to begin with. We agreed on the...
Alex: You
Craig Robertson: the premise for the book, we agreed on lots of the plot, but when it came in practice to put it together, everything was banging off each other. So we had to find a way to do that. And we finished book two and book two, we're both very happy and relieved to say it was much easier experience than book one. So we learned from that, like everything else, you've got to learn going forward. So we... Yeah, we find a way to do it. ⁓ Brainstorming the book was the real strength of the book and the easily the most enjoyable bit of it. And that really wasn't a problem. ⁓ That produced so much good stuff, I would think.
Alex: And we do that periodically too, to check in with it. But it wasn't until, I mean, it's sound, it's, it would be really easy. It seems like it would be easy to say, well, you just, you don't work. One person writes a chapter and another person writes another chapter and then you switch and then you edit each other's chapters until they are the same book. the same character voice, the same narrative voice. But it took us a long time to get to be able to do that. And once we did, we don't fight over at all who does what chapter. That breaks up, I don't think we've ever thought about that. That it just breaks up very naturally who does it. But I don't know, I don't honestly know why it was so hard. to just come to that pretty simple conclusion of like, no, we'll write separate chapters and we'll switch, end of story. ⁓ But we know, I think what we know now is what not to do with each other. Like not go down that road if we can help it or, know. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, we need to stay on the same road for as long as possible rather than diverging. But you know, and I'm saying some of this for the hindsight is that in that we, it's been a little bit now since we were right in that heat of it. So maybe I'm talking through some, ⁓ most tinted spectacles at the moment, but I think some of the, the class use were inevitable because
Alex: You
Craig Robertson: creativity is a volatile thing. You know, it's not, if it was just something straight and bland, then it wouldn't be any good. So we've both got strong opinions on most things. And so inevitably they weren't always going to be aligned. And we both fiercely believed in whatever direction that particular thing was and weren't afraid to say so. So that was going to lead to some kind of conflict. think In terms of creativity, good things comes out of conflict. I'm not encouraging us to do more conflict, but some of it was probably inevitable.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah.
Alex: No, no, no, can't take more conflicts.
Roxanne Patruznick: Ha ha ha. I'm I'm also kind of curious because I mean Johnny both write and I've I've like mentioned, he says no, right? He's like, I'm a terrible person to to collaborate with, but he he's my developmental editor. Like he goes over my writing and ⁓ it's it's actually like sometimes I don't agree with what he his suggestion, but I most of the time I do actually. Like he's got a lot. He
Alex: Don't, don't do it, don't, just don't. ⁓ You Well, that's great, yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: He's a pro. Like he really yeah. Yeah, yeah, he really does. ⁓ but yeah, like he he's a very strong opinion and so it's yeah, so I was just curious how that worked with both of you. And there's a joke about like you're still married.
Alex: ⁓ yeah. He knows the thing or two. Yeah. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: I think you've got to have... Well, yeah, it came close a couple of times. But I think if you're writing, you know this. You've got to be passionate about what you're writing about. And passion brings strong emotions and strong opinions. And yeah, you've just got to find a way of channeling them so that they don't come down in somebody else's head.
Alex: Yeah. Well, there are also, we are both thriller writers, you know, or he would say crime, he is a crime writer. There's different, even there's the cultural difference again. In the US, it's mystery and thriller and suspense. In the UK, it's crime novels, but I write crime too. So it's all of those things. And our collaboration, The Grapevine, The Lost Highway series, is all four of those things. I think it's a thriller paste, but it also has a mystery and it has psychological suspense. It's a crime, definitely crime. ⁓ So all of those things are very high adrenaline, high intensity ⁓ sub genres. And so it does bring up strong feelings. does. And some of it's triggering too, you know, because we write my first series, the Hunter series is very, very feminist. ⁓ The Lost Highway series is feminist in a different way with a really strong female protagonist. So some of the crimes that they're confronting are very ⁓ visceral to me. And you have to go to very dark places in terms of what would happen if your daughter disappeared. What would you go through? You have to channel those emotions and it's not always easy to express why a scene doesn't feel right because it's not acknowledging that kind of pain. ⁓ And we both go back and forth between those things because as a writer,
Craig Robertson: Well, I don't normally find myself quoting Tammy Winnett, but Tammy Winnett said, you've got to level soul to do it good. And it's the same with the boot. You've got to invest in fuel and yeah.
Alex: That's right. Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: I mean, okay, so so ⁓ so there's two things I thought of. ⁓ One ⁓ is like what just Craig, I've s I've read books by people ⁓ in the UK that were they were set in LA. ⁓ And I I could have sworn, no, this person's from LA. Like they know LA, like it's so weird, but not. I think as a writer, you're tapping into this empathy. And then the research that you do, you can really convince people that you're from that place. And if you're a man writing a woman, I've read stuff where I'm like, I can't believe that this was written by a man, it feels like a woman, She's real, you know, Johnny's done that. He he's he's really good at that. ⁓ so my c question ⁓ is like is set in ⁓ in ⁓ West Coast and it's so far away from Scotland and it's a woman main character. And how did you get into that?
Alex: Mm-hmm.
Craig Robertson: Geography was much more difficult than the character, think, because my last three books had all had central characters were women. yeah, you are pulling up a bit of a trick, but it's people. I think if you're sensible and sensitive, then that's not a problem. The geography was probably, well, I don't know. The geography was probably 60 % of the reason that I thought I should get involved in the project. and the character of the other four. I think it's slightly that kind of balance. ⁓
Alex: It was Craig's idea to begin with. He's the one who came up with it and pitched it to me. It was Craig's idea to begin with. He's the one who came up with it and pitched it to me.
Roxanne Patruznick: Okay. Okay.
Craig Robertson: We should probably at this point say that it was literally in our wedding vows that we would never write together. You both said... We should probably at this point say that it was literally in our wedding vows that we would never write together. You both said...
Alex: Yeah, it was literally, it was, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we knew, we did know. So in front of God and everyone, we swore. Yeah, it was literally, it was, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we knew, we did know. So in front of God and everyone, we swore.
Craig Robertson: If that ain't unison, we'd never do it. If that ain't unison, we'd never do it. So while I could have written a kind of superficial book set in California, it would probably be mostly places that everybody outside the US would know, where we want you to get off the beaten track and really understand it.
Alex: Well first tell the pitch, tell everybody what you told me that made me get on board.
Craig Robertson: ⁓ you put me on the spot now. Okay, so best as I can remember, you can correct me at any point. The idea was that the protagonist is a 50 something mother whose 19 year old daughter has gone missing and been missing now for almost a year. The police have effectively given up looking for her. So Lou Gommersol gets in the family RV and goes touring.
Alex: You
Craig Robertson: the highways and the back roads of California in search of her or to find the man that took her. Soon she's going to stop at nothing to get her daughter back. Is that close enough?
Alex: Yeah, yeah, yes, if people understood through the accent. Yes, that's exactly, that's, he really didn't say anything more than this. Sorry, I couldn't help it.
Roxanne Patruznick: That's a that's a great pitch.
Craig Robertson: Aha, okay. But also what I did say was, I'm going to suggest something. I don't want you to respond at all. Say nothing, but think about it and then come to me. See.
Alex: Yeah, yeah. And but that's all he really had to say, because I knew what that story was. And it's so electrifying to me because it is the archetype of Demeter who loses her her daughter Persephone is abducted by Hades into the underworld and she goes to the ends of the earth looking and leaving scorched earth in her wake. And I love my other series as a road trip series. The road is such a ⁓ mystical location to me. And it was just everything that I love in a thriller right there. ⁓ And so there was no way not to do it. But the location thing about it, I had to be more expansive. I don't think that a UK person really can understand the way that we do as Californians in our bones, how big the state is and how much of it we've seen, that we just feel that largeness of it. But we had been to a lot of the places together.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Mm-hmm.
Alex: that we write about in the book. ⁓ And that really helped that we'd already done that research just in our travels around the
Craig Robertson: Yeah, I know California well enough that I could have written a book set there, but it wouldn't have been as good. And similarly with regards to Lou, I could have written it, but it's better for us both having done so. I've no doubt about that. Even though at times during the process, I kind of thought otherwise, I have no doubt now that we're done, that it's better for it being two of us.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: There's something kind of interesting both about writing about a place that you're not originally from. I said a short story in Croatia, for example. I haven't published it yet, but I said it there. And Johnny, he's written two things that are set ⁓ in Europe. And it's just really interesting when you're not from that place, you know. And then also another another observation is when you work together as a collaboration with someone. You create something that you couldn't have created just by yourself. And so I yeah, just
Alex: Yeah, ⁓ yeah.
Craig Robertson: Well, first of all, the position of outsider is always a great thing to write from. It brings a different perspective. I wrote a book in St. and the Fair Islands and I decided to have a Scott being there. Because it gave that sense of outsider looking in. And also if I got something wrong, it's because he was an outsider. It was going to give me a bit of an out as well on the research run. ⁓ But undoubtedly it's...
Alex: Yeah. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: there are things that would not be nip either, but I've written it. ⁓ Two heads, ⁓ even though they clashed at times, two heads were definitely better than one.
Roxanne Patruznick: So I I wanted to like along the s same line of talking about the book. you guys both recently went to ⁓ well not ⁓ when did you go to the retreat in New Zealand? That was like two years? Four years. Okay, so that wasn't super recent. And I I think I remember Alex, you were telling me that that's where you brainstormed the this ⁓ book or this the series. Am I right about that?
Craig Robertson: 12, four years ago now.
Alex: ⁓ wow, four years ago. Yeah. We talked about it. ⁓ We were both working on other things.
Craig Robertson: It was more that it gave us the confidence that we could do it without killing each other, other than we got closer enough from what we expected. Because it was just the two of us in two rooms for four, two months. And it was just, it was fabulous. And that gave us confidence to go and work together, I think.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. think in lockdown. Lockdown, we, we, a lot of couples just divorced after lockdown, but we really enjoyed it. It really wasn't a problem. ⁓
Craig Robertson: Yeah. think we're not allowed to see that we enjoyed it because it was, you know, it was a terrible, terrible thing. Okay. All right.
Alex: Well, lockdown, not the pandemic. No, no, of course. was horrifying. And the thing about New Zealand too is that we had both lost a parent just before we went. So there was a lot of ⁓ rawness about that and we were still okay. ⁓ We really... it was all good even through that kind of grief. So those were things that made us think that we could do it. And the truth is we could do it. We have done it. We've done it. So we just maybe didn't account for some of the things that would happen along the way, which you can't.
Craig Robertson: It's a real privilege to be able to do it. Like you guys, we can just put it in a suitcase and take everything with us. We can write from anywhere. ⁓ So the fellowship came about thanks to ⁓ another author, ⁓ Liam McElvaney, who's professor of Scottish studies at the University of Dunedin. And he offered as a fellowship there.
Alex: Yeah.
Craig Robertson: And I don't know, we had to think about it for at least 20 seconds, I think. And it was such an opportunity and they gave us a cottage ⁓ overlooking the peninsula and it was just idyllic. ⁓ So both were given the opportunity to do a lot of work, but also to see New Zealand and the surroundings. And yeah, it was a wonderful couple of months.
Alex: Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: Ha ha ha.
Alex: Yeah, it's such a mythic place.
Roxanne Patruznick: So tell me, ⁓
Alex: you go. really ⁓ is. But of New Zealand is like being ⁓ in the trilogy. ⁓ That's the of ⁓ stunningness that is wherever you go. ⁓ Iceland is like that too, that you really, ⁓ it's breathtaking. consciousness ⁓ shattering how... strange and powerful the geography.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, the topography is incredibly primeval and stunningly beautiful. And I see that coming from Scotland, which is not too bad in those stakes as well, but also just the wildlife. So the nearest pub was what, a mile, a mile and a half away. So we'd walk there. And as we walk, we'd pass sea lions would come up to the shore.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. would walk right along the bay to the pub, ⁓ was on the bay.
Craig Robertson: The albatross colony was another maybe couple of miles, we went out there twice. These are just incredible creatures that we were within 10 feet of. We'd go to the beach and there'd be what, 20 sea lions, enormous things. You would just walk past them and it's all, and penguins walking out the ocean.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Incredible, yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: Wow. Yeah, I remember seeing
Craig Robertson: But for me, think it was the nearest thing to a true life work balance was that couple of months. was perfect.
Alex: Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah, I remember all the photos. you guys travel quite a bit, I'm wondering how it is going back and forth all the conventions, especially just over the Atlantic. Like, you know, you got conventions in the UK and you're you have the schedule and then you go to ⁓ the US and you maybe do left coast and voucher con and Speaking of ⁓ work life balance, how how has that been traveling like that?
Alex: Well, we haven't done as much conventioning in the US since the election, obviously. ⁓ And also the pandemic made it different. We do all the UK conventions. We travel a lot in Europe because we have different travel groups of friends. ⁓ But ⁓ it's like there's some places we don't want to support in the US anymore with money. So that's a factor. And we're just going to have to see. We're going over to the US for a little over a week for the book launch of the grapevine.
Craig Robertson: That's why you're going. I'm going for the World Cup, but we can do the book while we're there.
Alex: Well, yeah. Yeah, he's going over first to do all of that, whatever. But then we're going to, because our character takes an RV and drives around California, that's how we're going to do our book tour. ⁓ We'll get an RV and we'll go to the locations of the book. We'll do the book signings along the way. ⁓ And that's the first time We were going to be over there since the election, but it is just California and Chicago, so that's okay. And we'll be blogging about it on my sub stack. We're setting up ⁓ a grapevine page that will be posting all of the stuff from our tour there. So we can leave those kinds of links in your.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, I was calculating the other day that as a schedule stands, I'm going to be traveling to 13 countries this year, with possibility of adding one more and some of them at least twice. So it's a lot. It's a lot of travel. I've already been in nine countries and it's only me. And it's amazing travel. It can be at the same time so tiring. and yet energising. it's, I think it leaves your body a bit confused, but we both love to travel. And yeah, this year's going to be a lot. And when the new book out, that's part of that. But no, I've never seen no to going anywhere.
Alex: No, I really wouldn't either. That's, you know, that's and I think a lot more artists and authors, certainly people I know, maybe I'm just more aware of it now, but are making that choice, are really rearranging their lives to make that choice. ⁓ And I recommend it. It's the best, you know.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah. Yeah, I I feel different as a person, ⁓ having lived as a nomad and having experienced all these different countries and cultures and languages. We're in Georgia right now, ⁓ in Tbilisi and like also the opportunity of looking back ⁓ at my home country, the US, from a different place, ⁓ surrounded being surrounded by people that speak many different languages and their take on the US and and the world in general, it's like I've just it's such an education. I feel like any artist, whatever you you do, ⁓ should have an opportunity to travel at least a little bit if they can.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, I mean, we talked earlier about an outsider's view of a country, but I think there's also a strong argument for to see your own country properly, you have to stand outside it and stand next to other people and hear their views on it. It's so easy internally, depending on your own bubble, to have a view that's not as broad as it might be. yeah, getting out, I mean, can you imagine living in one place, any one place without? traveling it would be soul-destroying.
Alex: Yeah, I can't see it. Obviously it's a privilege to be able to travel, but I know that you don't have to do it on a grand scale either to really see places. My dad was, well, he lived in four different countries before he was 15. At that time it was in that it was an immigration story. ⁓ But when he did get to the US, he rode the rails. He literally did that because he wanted to see it. So it's not like it's this, there are buses, there are ways to experience it.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Not only do you not have to do it on a grand scale, I don't think you see a country if you do it on a grand scale. When the Victorians did the grand tour, they would have went to places that the general populace never would. So you're not seeing the real place. You've got to get down and dirty.
Alex: That's right. Well, you and Johnny are doing it the best way. You stay long enough to really actually experience things and have people, you become part of the neighborhood and you can go back to that neighborhood and experience it as yours. ⁓ So the kind of European traveling we're doing is not that time intensive, but
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah.
Alex: it's still great and it still gives you an idea how these countries fit together in a union and in their history. It does make you a different person. It's expansive.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah. Yeah, I really love it. I mean it's it's got its challenges, like tr living as nomads for sure. But I feel like I'm I'm so grateful to and I'm gonna probably just savor this for as long as we can because things change, you know, future, who knows? Who knows?
Alex: Yeah, of course.
Roxanne Patruznick: so so we kind of transitioned into tr talking about traveling for for pleasure. Like I know that you guys do a lot of conventions there's you know, business related stuff, retreats and stuff like that, taking them, teaching them, whatever. but traveling for pleasure. Like ⁓ you, you know, we ran into you, ⁓ Craig in Albania, you mentioned earlier, ⁓ for Derby days, ⁓ you and your your guy friends. And I'm wondering, do you do that like every year? Or it sounds like you also like to travel. You're gonna go during one of the conventions in the US, you're
Alex: Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: You going for another sporting event? ⁓ how's that?
Craig Robertson: Yeah, I think it's probably, I'm not sure where the balance lies in which I'm doing moral, but yeah, the Albania trip, the same group of us as either four or five ago, we were in Gdansk in Poland just a couple of weeks ago. We were in Bologna last year. Yeah, it's become an annual thing. I'm not sure how, I think we sneaked it past. our respective partners that it's become an annual thing.
Alex: ⁓ yeah, it was framed as somebody's 50th birthday at one point. So it's like, well, all right, go ahead. But now we're wise. So we are organizing counter trips of the women.
Roxanne Patruznick: ⁓
Craig Robertson: Yeah. But we're also, we go away once a year with a group of 10 of us. And again, this sort of came about by accident. ⁓ We go away ⁓ and at the end of the trip, usually the night before we leave or at the airport on the way back, ⁓ we all write the name of city on a slip of paper. It goes into a hat. We have a literal hat and whatever comes out, that's the place we go the next year. ⁓ So there's a randomness to it, which...
Alex: Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Well, kind of like. ⁓ So that's been going on for six or seven years now.
Alex: Yeah, we call it the holiday hats. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: ⁓ that's fun. That is fun. I love that. So you you both recently went to the Baltics. Tell me about your I mean, just recently. You you went to Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania and and maybe some other places, Finland. Okay.
Alex: Yeah. Finland and Norway. Yeah. Well, that was that came about so as we have the holiday hat, we have our girls trips and boys trips. We also have two friends from that I went to school with at Berkeley. I've known them since I was 17 who Our friend Nina is a production designer and so she has a very, very limited time to travel, to go on vacation because most of the year she's just locked into production. they want to do lots of different countries in a very, very short period of time. So the first one we went to last year was
Craig Robertson: The first one we did went to France, ⁓ to Rance in France. We moved from there to Luxembourg, from Luxembourg to Aachen in Germany, quick stop in Cologne, and then on to Amsterdam for a couple of nights. But very whirlwind.
Alex: Round to the front. Hahaha Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, incredibly whirlwind. It was such a great time, though. We could never have done it without Craig organizing the train aspect of it. just would never have
Craig Robertson: They didn't give me a lot of warning. was like, OK, today we'd quite like to go here. And so I'll try and find us a train and then I'll try and find us a hotel.
Alex: Yeah. ⁓ they're a nightmare. Yeah. Absolute nightmare. What?
Roxanne Patruznick: The European trains? The European trains?
Craig Robertson: Yeah. ⁓ no, the train, no, couple would go, our friends are not here. The trains were much better than our friends.
Alex: No, no, our friends are a nightmare. The trains are great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so it was the same deal. And when we were when we were on that trip, when we had the longest train journey, ⁓ they were saying that they wanted to like we had talked about doing the Baltics, I think because you guys had done the Baltics.
Roxanne Patruznick: ⁓ hi friends.
Alex: you know, you and Johnny. And so we were talking about you. And then Nina was saying how she'd always wanted to go to the Baltics. And then it was just like, okay, we'll do the Baltics next. But only about, it wasn't even two months later and then they just show up the next day. All right, we're gonna do our Baltic trip now. So we, it is, they are a nightmare. But it turned into another.
Craig Robertson: But think it was on the Tuesday, they said, okay, can you go on Thursday? We were like, okay, go where? So we booked a flight to Finland, to Helsinki, spend a night in Helsinki, got a ferry to Tallinn in Estonia, spent a couple of nights there, took a six hour train journey to Riga, spent a night there, flew to Oslo, took a train to the Flom railway,
Alex: Right. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: We took, sailed a ferry from Flom to Bergen on the other side of Norway and then flew home again.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: Whoa, that is so different than how me and Johnny travel. That's like, whoa. ⁓ my gosh.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, a little different. It is a little different. I was like, can at least once can we go to bed in the same bed that we woke up in? No, let's do that.
Alex: ⁓ no! ⁓ I know, it just doesn't even seem possible when you say it. And there were parts of it that they almost didn't get to the train station in time for part of it. So anyway, so yeah. But they're incredible trips, you know? And maybe it's easier when you don't do that much planning and you can just...
Craig Robertson: But it's traveled by Instagram. You get there enough to take a photograph of somewhere and really don't learn a whole lot. But because we're in a place for a short time, then we're at it all day. Can we stop for lunch, please? Can we at least stop for lunch? Yeah, yeah. How do I?
Alex: Youth. Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: It's like a job. It becomes your job. And and honestly, like even though it's it's really great to be in one place for three months, like that's kind of our role. How we roll is we just we plant in a place and we live there. A lot of people, like I realize, like a lot of people, they get two weeks, you know, they get two weeks off. And maybe it's a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe. So it's like, of course, if that was me, I'd be trying to pack in as many places that I've
Alex: Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: dreamed of going. It's like the dream trip, you know, and and so I it's like I I totally understand that. And and I encourage people, if that's all you can do, you do that, you know, because it it is going to be something that changes your life in some way. Even if it's just two weeks and you're bouncing around. It's like, yeah, I would not say no to that.
Alex: Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Roxanne Patruznick: so is there anything that you would like to ⁓ talk about creatively going on? a little more about your book at this time? anything that you wanna say more about it? ⁓ or if there's ⁓ yeah.
Alex: Well, there's a lot of giveaways going on right now. Again, we'll give you the links to post ⁓ wherever your podcast is. So there's a Goodreads giveaway. ⁓ We're doing things like this, or Missing Girls, that you can go to that page and find clues to win books and audio books and prizes. ⁓ So that'll be up. ⁓ Yeah, the other book that I'm working on right now is the seventh in my Huntress Moon series. So that is about a woman who has killed a whole lot of men across the US ⁓ for a long time. an ⁓ exceptional FBI team gets on her trail, but becomes very ambivalent about catching her. once they realize who she's killing. And it's time to kill a lot more people, in my opinion. So that book ⁓ is the next one I'm finishing. We're just finishing book two of The Lost Highway, the Great Bind series. And ⁓ Craig is also writing how many books now?
Craig Robertson: I don't know, but about two months ago, I was working on various stages of four different books ⁓ ⁓ it was too much. ⁓ So ⁓ narrowed that down to one that I can ⁓ going with. ⁓ excited about it. We've written two books together. I also wrote another book that I not like to talk about and didn't particularly enjoy very much. So I'm really looking forward to just getting free on something that's yet to happen.
Alex: Yeah.
Craig Robertson: And it's at a stage where, as you all appreciate, that it's perfect because I haven't written a word and ruined it yet. So it's still in that perfect stage.
Alex: Hahaha
Roxanne Patruznick: is there anything else that you guys would like to talk about that that I didn't ask you before we ⁓ we go?
Alex: I ⁓ hope your audience gets inspired to, as say, travel, create, repeat. That is a beautiful to live and you don't have to go far to really have a different perspective on things, I think. ⁓
Roxanne Patruznick: One one thing I would mention about that exact ⁓ topic is if you live in a city like LA, you could just go to another part of LA that's completely different from where you live and you're it's like you're in an another country. So you don't have to go that far. Yeah.
Alex: That is so absolutely true. Yeah, yeah, it really is. Well, there's a lot that we could talk about, but we don't want to ramble on.
Roxanne Patruznick: And we'll maybe maybe we'll we'll we'll have another podcast in the future. I would actually really love that if you if you would like that.
Alex: Okay, great, great.
Roxanne Patruznick: So thanks again for for joining me, Alex and Craig. And where can people find your work?
Alex: ⁓ well, ⁓ I hate to say it, but Amazon is the first place to look. I have a website, alexandrasokaloff.com that has links to all the other books, book venues that you can ⁓ choose, bookshop.org if you do only Indies, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, all the places that you would think my website is probably the best aggregate of all of. the places you can get all of my books. So thanks.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, similarly Amazon and almost all good bookshops. If they don't knock on their door and demand demand to see one.
Alex: Yeah, and obviously support your local libraries. The Libby app is great. And when you check out a book from a library, the library gets money, in the UK the author gets money, and our libraries stay open, which is so important right now. So I really encourage, even if you buy books, also check out library books.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah, that's great. Thanks for mentioning that. so if you enjoyed this podcast and you would like to hear others, please head over to my website, travelcreaterepeat.com, and subscribe to my newsletter. There you can also read my travel blog as well as see my art shop. And please subscribe and support me on Patreon at patreon.com forward slash travel create repeat. Until next time, happy creativity and travels.
Alex: Thank you. Bye.
Roxanne Patruznick: Bye.
Craig Robertson: Mm-hmm.
Alex: As of this recording. ⁓
Roxanne Patruznick: Ha ha ha.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, as goes again in an hour.
Roxanne Patruznick: So today we're gonna be talking about travel and writing and collaboration and whatever else. And so hello, both you.
Alex: So good to see you again. When was the last time it was on Butte in Scotland? Is that the last time I saw you?
Craig Robertson: Hello.
Roxanne Patruznick: I think that's the last time we saw each other, but because of like social media, it feels like we're I'm s I'm always seeing your stuff. Yeah.
Alex: I know, all the time.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, have I seen you since in Albania? Was Tirana before or after? I can't remember.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah, in Albania for for Derby Days and we might we might talk about that a little more.
Alex: What? No, I knew about it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the nomad life, right? You run into each other somewhere and it's hard to remember sometimes where.
Craig Robertson: Thank
Roxanne Patruznick: Ha ha ha. It's so good. So where are you guys from originally?
Alex: Well, you know, I'm a home girl. I'm from LA originally and grew up partly in Berkeley. ⁓ So all California until, yeah, for a really, really long time it was all California. And I've also lived in the South and now I have permanent leave to remain in Scotland, thank God. So I'm really happy about that, yeah.
Craig Robertson: And I'm from Stirling, right in the heart of Scotland. And I've kind of been based here most of the time with just little stays elsewhere, but it's a great place to travel from, which I love to do a lot of. We both love to travel and we met, I guess, when we were both on the roads. So that was a good thing.
Roxanne Patruznick: That's awesome. Me and ⁓ my husband Johnny, we both really love Scotland. and I'm an LA girl, so I totally, yeah, I love LA. okay, so yeah, lots, lots to talk about here. So you both ⁓ so I'm gonna ask an art question and one that I'm kind of curious about. You you both transitioned from writing one kind of writing to another, and I'd love to hear about.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: how you transitioned from that. Like Craig, you were a journalist and then you you found your way to writing novels. And Alex, you were a screenwriter and you found your way also to writing novels. And yeah, if you'd like to just talk a little bit about that.
Alex: You want to go first?
Craig Robertson: I nodded sort of really subtly at you to go first, but you didn't catch it. So I don't...
Alex: ⁓ I see, I see, missing that cue. We've only been married ⁓ some years. Well, I actually transitioned ⁓ another time too, because I was a theater kid. ⁓ I grew up doing musical theater from...
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah. Yeah.
Alex: really early age we put on plays in my best friend's garage and charged people to see this madness. then I did theater in high school, I did community theater. I went to Berkeley and was a theater major there and we had a ⁓ theater collective during and after our years at Berkeley. So I was really, really, really into that. But then... what are you gonna do with political theater in Berkeley for a living? So ⁓ I vaguely knew about the film industry, knew nobody down there, but decided that that was the best way to make a living at the writing that I was doing. So I moved down to LA and you know how it is, everyone's in the business. So ⁓ I got a job as a reader. Wrote a screenplay, I had written so many plays before that it was not much of a transition really. I knew how to do it. Just needed to learn a different form. And I loved film ⁓ and sold my first screenplay really quickly and then was a screenwriter for about 15 years before I snapped. And that was a creative decision. I ⁓ needed to be able to write women that I wanted to write, which was not. really very easy in Hollywood at the time. So it was kind of a, ⁓ I was rage writing at night while I was working for a big ⁓ producer, director who is known for blowing a lot of things up. And that's how I wrote my first novel. And that, when that sold, it made me understand I could make a living. being much more in charge of my own creativity and the product that I wanted to be making. So that worked out really well for me. And that's how we did it. One transition after another, they all built on top of each other and ⁓ haven't really ever had a real job.
Roxanne Patruznick: That's awesome.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, I had a real job. Journalism felt like a real job. I was, 21 years I did, I was a journalist. But I was planning my escape quite a bit before the end. I I loved it. And there's lots of parts of it would have done for nothing. It was just exciting and so interesting. But both those things kind of waned a bit as time went on.
Alex: ⁓ yeah.
Craig Robertson: And also journalism was changing and it was quite obvious that it was changing and that I knew that if I didn't get out, then I'd be kicked out at some point because they were just reducing the number of journalists and reducing anyone who was ⁓ getting rid of anyone who was earning a decent wage. So that writing was on the wall. I wanted to get ahead of that. I wanted to leave on my terms rather than theirs. ⁓ And writing... and novel seemed like the most likely way to do that because it was an extension of what I'd been doing every day for so long. And although it's ⁓ it's actually a much more different process than I really thought it might be. ⁓ Writing was probably my strength as a journalist, but then to take that into a completely different arena, it was tricky. And that's why it took me five years to finish my first book. A, because I didn't have a deadline and. function without a deadline. And B, I just had no idea what I was doing. So it took a while and I gave up on it a few times. Thankfully, I eventually knocked it down and got it finished. my first book was published in April 2010 and I left journalism in October 2010, which was a bit of a leap, but it felt like if I didn't take that chance, I would regret it. and I haven't regretted it, so it's worked out.
Roxanne Patruznick: Wow. That sounds fantastic. interesting how like one of the things that you said, Alex, about like all these different transitions that you went through before you finally ⁓ found the novels is like each thing that that we do, each time we like go to school for something or we have a certain job and then we have another job that's different, and then finally we're doing what we're doing in the present, all those other jobs actually gave us something that helped. Like gave us skills that we thought, ⁓ how is this ever gonna, you know, help me? But then it actually ends up helping what we're doing in the present. So I just thought
Alex: ⁓ yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: I think that's so true of writers that everything you do, the things that work and the things that don't work, maybe sometimes the tough stuff more than anything, are all useful and we store it all away. I frequently say that we're thieves. We just steal everything and hide it away until we need it. Magpies. ⁓ Yeah, everything's useful and you never know when you're going to need it.
Alex: Yeah. Hehe.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah.
Alex: Yeah, and the worst jobs can make the best books too. it just, and hobbies too, just like the things that you do for pleasure end up maybe being a really important part of your books. So it's all useful, it's all relevant. It's not taking you too long to get where you're going because it's all part of learning how to do it.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, I frequently think that I wish I'd written my first book 10, 20 years earlier than I did, but I'm not sure I'd have been able to do it. think you need, for me, everyone's different, but ⁓ for me, I think I needed some of that learning curve before I was able to do it. I don't think I'd have written anything particularly good if I'd written it much earlier.
Roxanne Patruznick: And the research aspect too. I just that also just occurred to me is like every the a lot of authors, they're researching the subject that they're writing about if they haven't already had a background in it. And it's like it's an opportunity to really learn a ton of stuff. You know, like your brain is full of all this stuff that you've researched and gathered that other people that work a different kind of job, they don't have that opportunity really.
Alex: No, and you can decide, you can make your characters any profession that you've always wanted to have for yourself and kind of do it. I love that aspect about writing, that you can be whoever and learn so much about that thing. ⁓ It's like being able to live hundreds of lives, really. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, I sort of accidentally wrote four books in a row about subjects I knew absolutely nothing about and had to learn from scratch. ⁓ And I love doing it because the research is great. You've got to be careful that you can get back out of those rabbit holes at some point to actually do some writing. You've got to be careful you don't just bore people with all the stuff you've just learned, because although you're so excited about it, not everyone is. And learning those new things
Alex: ⁓ Yeah. you
Craig Robertson: You pair them with the things that you do know, ⁓ like things and things that you care about, and you hang those on the new subject. And ⁓ it keeps it fresh, I guess.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah. And also along the lines of of working, making work, is there a particular way that you both like to work, like a pantser versus plotter or have environments that you like to work in? Because sometimes people really need like an office outside of the home. Some people love to work in home, some people go to cafes. How how does it work for you? Like when you're making stuff?
Alex: Okay. Well, we have opposite processes for sure, but I'm an early morning writer. I have had to have an office before as a screenwriter. Sometimes they wanted to be on top of you, so you would have an office at the studio that you were in. I hated that. I really hated having to get up and get dressed and go to an office. Here... I can work in bed if I want to, I can have the cats with me if I want to, I can move around to different rooms of the house because I feel like I fill up a room really quickly with my energy and I have to move on to another one. And I also can change clothes if I feel like it. If I feel like I've worn that outfit enough, then I'll change clothes to something else and keep going on with my day. It keeps me amused and entertained that way. And in terms of panting versus plotting, as a screenwriter, you literally have to tell the executives and the producer and the actor and the director and everybody involved in it to get the job. You have to tell them the entire story, every beat of the story. So I got really good at plotting like the night before I had to go in for a pitch meeting. ⁓ There's no way to not be a plotter in Hollywood. You wouldn't get jobs. So I am the ultimate plotter. I teach plotting. I taught it in film school. I teach it online. Now I have a sub stack that's all about story structure and I love it. I love breaking movies down for structure. I love taking movies and showing authors how to structure their own novels better. by looking at their favorite movies. So yeah, there's no question plotting.
Craig Robertson: ⁓ I'm different on most of that. I'm definitely not a morning person, very much a nighthawk. I'm trying to rein that in a bit because it's just not really good for me anymore. But I'll happily write till two o'clock or three o'clock in the morning and then go again whenever energy picks up again the next day. And that kind of works for me. ⁓ I can write anywhere. ⁓ Being a journalist meant you didn't have a choice. You would just have to write whatever.
Alex: Thank
Craig Robertson: you were and I've written and dictated stories while driving to the next stop on whatever the story is. With someone else driving I should hasten to tell that. But just, well, you know, sometimes needs must. ⁓ So I can write in planes and trains and buses and wherever it needs to be done. I don't really mind that. Trains are good. Trains are good.
Roxanne Patruznick: Ha ha ha.
Alex: I don't know if I believe that. ⁓
Roxanne Patruznick: Ha ha ha.
Alex: I love riding on trains too. Trains are good. We take trains a lot.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, are really useful for that kind of thing. In terms of plotting, I used to be more of a pantser, ⁓ but Alex kind of knocked that out of me and sort of made me plot more, which I don't mind like this. Alex is probably 100 % plotter, somewhere between 85 and 90 % now, I'm gonna say. There's always, you know, needs to be room for some kind of rogue action and changing your mind. ⁓
Alex: Hahaha
Craig Robertson: But I'd like to know what I'm writing and I'd to know why I'm writing it before I get going. People who, and I know very good writers and very good friends who say they just start with the first paragraph and have no idea what's gonna come after that. ⁓ Yeah, there's a special place in hell for people like that who can do it and pull it off. And everybody's got to do their own thing.
Roxanne Patruznick: Especially if they're really good.
Alex: Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, that's not for me. I need to record them.
Alex: I don't even really believe it though because when you meet those people, if they're professionals, they actually have a system where at a certain point they're going back and plotting once they get to a certain point. you know, someone like Lee Child has been TV producer and directed for forever. He's got the structure in his head. Nobody can tell me that he doesn't.
Craig Robertson: No, I don't believe that. Yeah, I want to know not just what the story is going to be and is it, I think you also have to know whether it's got the legs to be a novel and you don't, you can't know that until you really plot it out. I also need to know why I'm writing, what's the point of it? It's not just the actions in the story. I need to be talking about something. So I'd like to figure that out too.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah, that's solid. so I probably I wasn't sure where to ask this question, but this is a very important question. Where did you guys meet or how did you meet? Yeah.
Alex: We met on the road. We met in Colorado Springs ⁓ at Left Coast Crime, which is a really great little festival, medium-sized festival, crime festival. ⁓ And we were both on the program and ⁓ we met because he came into one of my ⁓ workshops there.
Craig Robertson: Well. I came in and I don't normally go to workshops but I was jet-lagged and so was up far earlier than I would normally be. So I was kind of kicking around. I saw there was a workshop and I thought I would go in. was writing my fifth book at that point and I didn't go in with the expectation to particularly learn but you know every day is a school day. But by the time Alex had finished I'd made five material changes to the book. So I went up at the end and said, myself and said, I've made five changes to my book. I owe you a drink. And kind of that was that really.
Alex: Yeah, and then some people, we became kind of the scandal of the festival in the bar. Some people knew, some people didn't. There were other things, there were fights going on. It was an interesting late night scene at Left Coast Crime that year. But yeah, you can talk to a few people who were there and they...
Craig Robertson: Yeah, it's the other way around.
Roxanne Patruznick: What?
Alex: They said, yeah, we saw this coming, us getting together. yeah, ⁓ that's how we did it. ⁓ But we went home to our separate countries. I went back to LA and he went back to Scotland. And so we were writing to each other ⁓ and pretty soon realized that. We couldn't just write to each other because we would make up this grand love affair in our heads that really had no basis in reality. We could certainly write a good one, but was the real stuff actually there? So he came over, no, I went over first, right? So yeah, which that was a trip because I met, the first night he took me to dinner at Sterling Castle at this major.
Craig Robertson: We came over first.
Alex: the like formal event with the seven servants coming to your table and doing the seven courses, laying them down all at the same time in the castle. yeah, I mean, you know.
Craig Robertson: It took me so much organizing to lay that out and I really did.
Alex: He flashed out. Yeah. Yeah. And then the next night it was his brother's birthday and I met the entire family at once. ⁓ And then the next night we went out with all of his friends on this pub crawl where the women and the men separated into separate pubs.
Roxanne Patruznick: That's like the fantastic like date. Like, come on. Wow.
Alex: So I was alone with all of these Scots people that I couldn't understand at all because you've been here. You know that accent. Yeah, so it was trial by fire. And then the second part of it was you came over to Napa for we decided we would go to Napa and take an Airbnb for a month. ⁓
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah, the Glaswegian for sure.
Alex: so he could see some of California. And so it's been traveling from the beginning.
Roxanne Patruznick: So that's so funny, Alex. You just went right into my next question. Like you kind of rolled right into it. Cause I'm, yeah, I'm I am curious about your dynamic. You guys are from two different cultures on, you know, that are far apart on the on the map. And like just how that works. And it because yeah, you I guess you started out like visiting each other and then it just kind of grew, I'm imagining. But the cultural differences and stuff like that, like
Alex: Yeah
Craig Robertson: Well, they're still there. The culture of differences ⁓ but heads on a daily basis because we're so used to doing things differently. And this is a broad generalization, but with a lot of solid truth in it that Californians and people from central and West Scotland are not the same. Everything is different. And it starts from the weather ⁓ because it just...
Roxanne Patruznick: has that been?
Alex: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Craig Robertson: grows from there because the way your lifestyles are different. ⁓ But one is a little bit more reserved ⁓ than the other one's a little more positive than the other. There's a balance there.
Alex: Just a little bit. That's the hardest part for me, like the unrelenting no of it all. And that's not really what Scottish people are like, but the default is no, you know. And you understand about the history that they've been at war in this country with... the damn English for just forever and invaded and all of it. So of course you have a defense mechanism and the weather contributes to it, I'm sure. And the drugs we had in California obviously contribute to the positivity of it all, the sunshine. And I grew up like I'm sure you did in... outside and in pools and all of that. So it's just much more laid back lifestyle. But coming from California, Scotland is the most beautiful country with the most varied geography. And so many things are so much like California, different parts of California, the beaches and that, you know, the beaches are different, that there are.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, the colder.
Alex: it's a beach, you know, it's an island and the mountains and the lakes and the green and the gorgeousness of it all makes me feel really at home here. So the nature makes up for cultural differences. It's the language that I struggle with still. It's they say, you know, ⁓ I'm not so sure.
Roxanne Patruznick: And it's English. It's English still. ⁓
Craig Robertson: Well, yeah, mean, we, not we, but our next door neighbors invented it. So, you know, we have a handle on it. But the biggest problem is if we're out with friends, if we're partying, then they clearly become more difficult to understand in every sense.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: ⁓ yeah. If you add like alcohol, I'm sure all of a sudden I'm like, What a ⁓ yeah, like that's that's gotta be hard.
Craig Robertson: Yes.
Alex: and a music soundtrack and all of that. And yeah, there's a point at which I cannot understand a word that's being said. So yeah, that's, know, but there are so many benefits, especially politically, that I would never give it up. ⁓ But I do have to work every day a little bit harder than you would someplace else.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah. And one thing I do notice about ⁓ Scottish people that I've that I've talked to is it always seems like they have s are so funny. Like every Scottish person that I have met has been really, really funny. And maybe it's partially a defense mechanism, like you mentioned, Craig, but it's I mean, genuinely just hilarious. Like I and I I love that. I love the the humor, you know, and maybe it comes out of some kind of challenge ⁓ or past
Alex: ⁓ yeah. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Well, the idea is there is a competitive element to it. If it was an Olympic sport, we'd do much better than we do in some of the actual sports. Yeah, you're encouraged. ⁓ It's a shield in some ways, and it's always used that way because ⁓ other people are funny. And if you're not able to go back with the same thing, you're going to get cut to ribbons. So you learn pretty quickly. ⁓ And it's usually pretty dry.
Alex: Hahaha
Craig Robertson: sense of humour ⁓ and it's different. It probably takes a bit getting used to and it's never quite as aggressive as it sounds. It's not quite.
Roxanne Patruznick: Ha ha ha.
Alex: Sometimes I think it is. But you're right, there is a competitive edge to the humor about it. I didn't grow up with, I played Tribule Pursuit once in a while, but I didn't grow up with a pub quiz. We were...
Craig Robertson: It can't be, yeah, okay, maybe a little. and
Alex: like smoking out by the pool. So that is not part of my experience. And here, pub quiz is so important to everyone. ⁓ And so I think that competitiveness and the emphasis on sports, ⁓ it contributes to maybe too much competitiveness in just ordinary conversation that I'm not used to. That's difficult.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, conversations can be a fight to the death, basically.
Roxanne Patruznick: Interesting. Yeah, and and so so like I'll transition into collaboration. So we're talking about about conversation, competition. So so you both you both work separately, like you have your series and the novels that you write separately, but you also ⁓ worked together on the grapefrine, ⁓ your recent book.
Alex: You heard it here.
Craig Robertson: Thank
Alex: That's it. That's it. Yeah, about that. ⁓ Mm-hmm.
Roxanne Patruznick: and I'm just wondering how is it different working separately versus working together? And how does that work? Like as far as like when you are collaborating on a story, does one person write the write the outline or the first draft and the other person revises, or do you go chapter chapter? Like how does, yeah, how does your collaboration work?
Craig Robertson: Well, for a long time, didn't work. I think that's not unfair to say, because we had to learn how to do it. So I tend to say, I've said this a few times, but we both knew how to write novels. We did not know how to write together. We knew how to live together. We didn't know how to write together. And it wasn't even just that our different processes were clashing. Everything was clashing to begin with. We agreed on the...
Alex: You
Craig Robertson: the premise for the book, we agreed on lots of the plot, but when it came in practice to put it together, everything was banging off each other. So we had to find a way to do that. And we finished book two and book two, we're both very happy and relieved to say it was much easier experience than book one. So we learned from that, like everything else, you've got to learn going forward. So we... Yeah, we find a way to do it. ⁓ Brainstorming the book was the real strength of the book and the easily the most enjoyable bit of it. And that really wasn't a problem. ⁓ That produced so much good stuff, I would think.
Alex: And we do that periodically too, to check in with it. But it wasn't until, I mean, it's sound, it's, it would be really easy. It seems like it would be easy to say, well, you just, you don't work. One person writes a chapter and another person writes another chapter and then you switch and then you edit each other's chapters until they are the same book. the same character voice, the same narrative voice. But it took us a long time to get to be able to do that. And once we did, we don't fight over at all who does what chapter. That breaks up, I don't think we've ever thought about that. That it just breaks up very naturally who does it. But I don't know, I don't honestly know why it was so hard. to just come to that pretty simple conclusion of like, no, we'll write separate chapters and we'll switch, end of story. ⁓ But we know, I think what we know now is what not to do with each other. Like not go down that road if we can help it or, know. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, we need to stay on the same road for as long as possible rather than diverging. But you know, and I'm saying some of this for the hindsight is that in that we, it's been a little bit now since we were right in that heat of it. So maybe I'm talking through some, ⁓ most tinted spectacles at the moment, but I think some of the, the class use were inevitable because
Alex: You
Craig Robertson: creativity is a volatile thing. You know, it's not, if it was just something straight and bland, then it wouldn't be any good. So we've both got strong opinions on most things. And so inevitably they weren't always going to be aligned. And we both fiercely believed in whatever direction that particular thing was and weren't afraid to say so. So that was going to lead to some kind of conflict. think In terms of creativity, good things comes out of conflict. I'm not encouraging us to do more conflict, but some of it was probably inevitable.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah.
Alex: No, no, no, can't take more conflicts.
Roxanne Patruznick: Ha ha ha. I'm I'm also kind of curious because I mean Johnny both write and I've I've like mentioned, he says no, right? He's like, I'm a terrible person to to collaborate with, but he he's my developmental editor. Like he goes over my writing and ⁓ it's it's actually like sometimes I don't agree with what he his suggestion, but I most of the time I do actually. Like he's got a lot. He
Alex: Don't, don't do it, don't, just don't. ⁓ You Well, that's great, yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: He's a pro. Like he really yeah. Yeah, yeah, he really does. ⁓ but yeah, like he he's a very strong opinion and so it's yeah, so I was just curious how that worked with both of you. And there's a joke about like you're still married.
Alex: ⁓ yeah. He knows the thing or two. Yeah. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: I think you've got to have... Well, yeah, it came close a couple of times. But I think if you're writing, you know this. You've got to be passionate about what you're writing about. And passion brings strong emotions and strong opinions. And yeah, you've just got to find a way of channeling them so that they don't come down in somebody else's head.
Alex: Yeah. Well, there are also, we are both thriller writers, you know, or he would say crime, he is a crime writer. There's different, even there's the cultural difference again. In the US, it's mystery and thriller and suspense. In the UK, it's crime novels, but I write crime too. So it's all of those things. And our collaboration, The Grapevine, The Lost Highway series, is all four of those things. I think it's a thriller paste, but it also has a mystery and it has psychological suspense. It's a crime, definitely crime. ⁓ So all of those things are very high adrenaline, high intensity ⁓ sub genres. And so it does bring up strong feelings. does. And some of it's triggering too, you know, because we write my first series, the Hunter series is very, very feminist. ⁓ The Lost Highway series is feminist in a different way with a really strong female protagonist. So some of the crimes that they're confronting are very ⁓ visceral to me. And you have to go to very dark places in terms of what would happen if your daughter disappeared. What would you go through? You have to channel those emotions and it's not always easy to express why a scene doesn't feel right because it's not acknowledging that kind of pain. ⁓ And we both go back and forth between those things because as a writer,
Craig Robertson: Well, I don't normally find myself quoting Tammy Winnett, but Tammy Winnett said, you've got to level soul to do it good. And it's the same with the boot. You've got to invest in fuel and yeah.
Alex: That's right. Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: I mean, okay, so so ⁓ so there's two things I thought of. ⁓ One ⁓ is like what just Craig, I've s I've read books by people ⁓ in the UK that were they were set in LA. ⁓ And I I could have sworn, no, this person's from LA. Like they know LA, like it's so weird, but not. I think as a writer, you're tapping into this empathy. And then the research that you do, you can really convince people that you're from that place. And if you're a man writing a woman, I've read stuff where I'm like, I can't believe that this was written by a man, it feels like a woman, She's real, you know, Johnny's done that. He he's he's really good at that. ⁓ so my c question ⁓ is like is set in ⁓ in ⁓ West Coast and it's so far away from Scotland and it's a woman main character. And how did you get into that?
Alex: Mm-hmm.
Craig Robertson: Geography was much more difficult than the character, think, because my last three books had all had central characters were women. yeah, you are pulling up a bit of a trick, but it's people. I think if you're sensible and sensitive, then that's not a problem. The geography was probably, well, I don't know. The geography was probably 60 % of the reason that I thought I should get involved in the project. and the character of the other four. I think it's slightly that kind of balance. ⁓
Alex: It was Craig's idea to begin with. He's the one who came up with it and pitched it to me. It was Craig's idea to begin with. He's the one who came up with it and pitched it to me.
Roxanne Patruznick: Okay. Okay.
Craig Robertson: We should probably at this point say that it was literally in our wedding vows that we would never write together. You both said... We should probably at this point say that it was literally in our wedding vows that we would never write together. You both said...
Alex: Yeah, it was literally, it was, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we knew, we did know. So in front of God and everyone, we swore. Yeah, it was literally, it was, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we knew, we did know. So in front of God and everyone, we swore.
Craig Robertson: If that ain't unison, we'd never do it. If that ain't unison, we'd never do it. So while I could have written a kind of superficial book set in California, it would probably be mostly places that everybody outside the US would know, where we want you to get off the beaten track and really understand it.
Alex: Well first tell the pitch, tell everybody what you told me that made me get on board.
Craig Robertson: ⁓ you put me on the spot now. Okay, so best as I can remember, you can correct me at any point. The idea was that the protagonist is a 50 something mother whose 19 year old daughter has gone missing and been missing now for almost a year. The police have effectively given up looking for her. So Lou Gommersol gets in the family RV and goes touring.
Alex: You
Craig Robertson: the highways and the back roads of California in search of her or to find the man that took her. Soon she's going to stop at nothing to get her daughter back. Is that close enough?
Alex: Yeah, yeah, yes, if people understood through the accent. Yes, that's exactly, that's, he really didn't say anything more than this. Sorry, I couldn't help it.
Roxanne Patruznick: That's a that's a great pitch.
Craig Robertson: Aha, okay. But also what I did say was, I'm going to suggest something. I don't want you to respond at all. Say nothing, but think about it and then come to me. See.
Alex: Yeah, yeah. And but that's all he really had to say, because I knew what that story was. And it's so electrifying to me because it is the archetype of Demeter who loses her her daughter Persephone is abducted by Hades into the underworld and she goes to the ends of the earth looking and leaving scorched earth in her wake. And I love my other series as a road trip series. The road is such a ⁓ mystical location to me. And it was just everything that I love in a thriller right there. ⁓ And so there was no way not to do it. But the location thing about it, I had to be more expansive. I don't think that a UK person really can understand the way that we do as Californians in our bones, how big the state is and how much of it we've seen, that we just feel that largeness of it. But we had been to a lot of the places together.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Mm-hmm.
Alex: that we write about in the book. ⁓ And that really helped that we'd already done that research just in our travels around the
Craig Robertson: Yeah, I know California well enough that I could have written a book set there, but it wouldn't have been as good. And similarly with regards to Lou, I could have written it, but it's better for us both having done so. I've no doubt about that. Even though at times during the process, I kind of thought otherwise, I have no doubt now that we're done, that it's better for it being two of us.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: There's something kind of interesting both about writing about a place that you're not originally from. I said a short story in Croatia, for example. I haven't published it yet, but I said it there. And Johnny, he's written two things that are set ⁓ in Europe. And it's just really interesting when you're not from that place, you know. And then also another another observation is when you work together as a collaboration with someone. You create something that you couldn't have created just by yourself. And so I yeah, just
Alex: Yeah, ⁓ yeah.
Craig Robertson: Well, first of all, the position of outsider is always a great thing to write from. It brings a different perspective. I wrote a book in St. and the Fair Islands and I decided to have a Scott being there. Because it gave that sense of outsider looking in. And also if I got something wrong, it's because he was an outsider. It was going to give me a bit of an out as well on the research run. ⁓ But undoubtedly it's...
Alex: Yeah. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: there are things that would not be nip either, but I've written it. ⁓ Two heads, ⁓ even though they clashed at times, two heads were definitely better than one.
Roxanne Patruznick: So I I wanted to like along the s same line of talking about the book. you guys both recently went to ⁓ well not ⁓ when did you go to the retreat in New Zealand? That was like two years? Four years. Okay, so that wasn't super recent. And I I think I remember Alex, you were telling me that that's where you brainstormed the this ⁓ book or this the series. Am I right about that?
Craig Robertson: 12, four years ago now.
Alex: ⁓ wow, four years ago. Yeah. We talked about it. ⁓ We were both working on other things.
Craig Robertson: It was more that it gave us the confidence that we could do it without killing each other, other than we got closer enough from what we expected. Because it was just the two of us in two rooms for four, two months. And it was just, it was fabulous. And that gave us confidence to go and work together, I think.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. think in lockdown. Lockdown, we, we, a lot of couples just divorced after lockdown, but we really enjoyed it. It really wasn't a problem. ⁓
Craig Robertson: Yeah. think we're not allowed to see that we enjoyed it because it was, you know, it was a terrible, terrible thing. Okay. All right.
Alex: Well, lockdown, not the pandemic. No, no, of course. was horrifying. And the thing about New Zealand too is that we had both lost a parent just before we went. So there was a lot of ⁓ rawness about that and we were still okay. ⁓ We really... it was all good even through that kind of grief. So those were things that made us think that we could do it. And the truth is we could do it. We have done it. We've done it. So we just maybe didn't account for some of the things that would happen along the way, which you can't.
Craig Robertson: It's a real privilege to be able to do it. Like you guys, we can just put it in a suitcase and take everything with us. We can write from anywhere. ⁓ So the fellowship came about thanks to ⁓ another author, ⁓ Liam McElvaney, who's professor of Scottish studies at the University of Dunedin. And he offered as a fellowship there.
Alex: Yeah.
Craig Robertson: And I don't know, we had to think about it for at least 20 seconds, I think. And it was such an opportunity and they gave us a cottage ⁓ overlooking the peninsula and it was just idyllic. ⁓ So both were given the opportunity to do a lot of work, but also to see New Zealand and the surroundings. And yeah, it was a wonderful couple of months.
Alex: Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: Ha ha ha.
Alex: Yeah, it's such a mythic place.
Roxanne Patruznick: So tell me, ⁓
Alex: you go. really ⁓ is. But of New Zealand is like being ⁓ in the trilogy. ⁓ That's the of ⁓ stunningness that is wherever you go. ⁓ Iceland is like that too, that you really, ⁓ it's breathtaking. consciousness ⁓ shattering how... strange and powerful the geography.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, the topography is incredibly primeval and stunningly beautiful. And I see that coming from Scotland, which is not too bad in those stakes as well, but also just the wildlife. So the nearest pub was what, a mile, a mile and a half away. So we'd walk there. And as we walk, we'd pass sea lions would come up to the shore.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. would walk right along the bay to the pub, ⁓ was on the bay.
Craig Robertson: The albatross colony was another maybe couple of miles, we went out there twice. These are just incredible creatures that we were within 10 feet of. We'd go to the beach and there'd be what, 20 sea lions, enormous things. You would just walk past them and it's all, and penguins walking out the ocean.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Incredible, yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: Wow. Yeah, I remember seeing
Craig Robertson: But for me, think it was the nearest thing to a true life work balance was that couple of months. was perfect.
Alex: Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah, I remember all the photos. you guys travel quite a bit, I'm wondering how it is going back and forth all the conventions, especially just over the Atlantic. Like, you know, you got conventions in the UK and you're you have the schedule and then you go to ⁓ the US and you maybe do left coast and voucher con and Speaking of ⁓ work life balance, how how has that been traveling like that?
Alex: Well, we haven't done as much conventioning in the US since the election, obviously. ⁓ And also the pandemic made it different. We do all the UK conventions. We travel a lot in Europe because we have different travel groups of friends. ⁓ But ⁓ it's like there's some places we don't want to support in the US anymore with money. So that's a factor. And we're just going to have to see. We're going over to the US for a little over a week for the book launch of the grapevine.
Craig Robertson: That's why you're going. I'm going for the World Cup, but we can do the book while we're there.
Alex: Well, yeah. Yeah, he's going over first to do all of that, whatever. But then we're going to, because our character takes an RV and drives around California, that's how we're going to do our book tour. ⁓ We'll get an RV and we'll go to the locations of the book. We'll do the book signings along the way. ⁓ And that's the first time We were going to be over there since the election, but it is just California and Chicago, so that's okay. And we'll be blogging about it on my sub stack. We're setting up ⁓ a grapevine page that will be posting all of the stuff from our tour there. So we can leave those kinds of links in your.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, I was calculating the other day that as a schedule stands, I'm going to be traveling to 13 countries this year, with possibility of adding one more and some of them at least twice. So it's a lot. It's a lot of travel. I've already been in nine countries and it's only me. And it's amazing travel. It can be at the same time so tiring. and yet energising. it's, I think it leaves your body a bit confused, but we both love to travel. And yeah, this year's going to be a lot. And when the new book out, that's part of that. But no, I've never seen no to going anywhere.
Alex: No, I really wouldn't either. That's, you know, that's and I think a lot more artists and authors, certainly people I know, maybe I'm just more aware of it now, but are making that choice, are really rearranging their lives to make that choice. ⁓ And I recommend it. It's the best, you know.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah. Yeah, I I feel different as a person, ⁓ having lived as a nomad and having experienced all these different countries and cultures and languages. We're in Georgia right now, ⁓ in Tbilisi and like also the opportunity of looking back ⁓ at my home country, the US, from a different place, ⁓ surrounded being surrounded by people that speak many different languages and their take on the US and and the world in general, it's like I've just it's such an education. I feel like any artist, whatever you you do, ⁓ should have an opportunity to travel at least a little bit if they can.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, I mean, we talked earlier about an outsider's view of a country, but I think there's also a strong argument for to see your own country properly, you have to stand outside it and stand next to other people and hear their views on it. It's so easy internally, depending on your own bubble, to have a view that's not as broad as it might be. yeah, getting out, I mean, can you imagine living in one place, any one place without? traveling it would be soul-destroying.
Alex: Yeah, I can't see it. Obviously it's a privilege to be able to travel, but I know that you don't have to do it on a grand scale either to really see places. My dad was, well, he lived in four different countries before he was 15. At that time it was in that it was an immigration story. ⁓ But when he did get to the US, he rode the rails. He literally did that because he wanted to see it. So it's not like it's this, there are buses, there are ways to experience it.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Not only do you not have to do it on a grand scale, I don't think you see a country if you do it on a grand scale. When the Victorians did the grand tour, they would have went to places that the general populace never would. So you're not seeing the real place. You've got to get down and dirty.
Alex: That's right. Well, you and Johnny are doing it the best way. You stay long enough to really actually experience things and have people, you become part of the neighborhood and you can go back to that neighborhood and experience it as yours. ⁓ So the kind of European traveling we're doing is not that time intensive, but
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah.
Alex: it's still great and it still gives you an idea how these countries fit together in a union and in their history. It does make you a different person. It's expansive.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah. Yeah, I really love it. I mean it's it's got its challenges, like tr living as nomads for sure. But I feel like I'm I'm so grateful to and I'm gonna probably just savor this for as long as we can because things change, you know, future, who knows? Who knows?
Alex: Yeah, of course.
Roxanne Patruznick: so so we kind of transitioned into tr talking about traveling for for pleasure. Like I know that you guys do a lot of conventions there's you know, business related stuff, retreats and stuff like that, taking them, teaching them, whatever. but traveling for pleasure. Like ⁓ you, you know, we ran into you, ⁓ Craig in Albania, you mentioned earlier, ⁓ for Derby days, ⁓ you and your your guy friends. And I'm wondering, do you do that like every year? Or it sounds like you also like to travel. You're gonna go during one of the conventions in the US, you're
Alex: Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: You going for another sporting event? ⁓ how's that?
Craig Robertson: Yeah, I think it's probably, I'm not sure where the balance lies in which I'm doing moral, but yeah, the Albania trip, the same group of us as either four or five ago, we were in Gdansk in Poland just a couple of weeks ago. We were in Bologna last year. Yeah, it's become an annual thing. I'm not sure how, I think we sneaked it past. our respective partners that it's become an annual thing.
Alex: ⁓ yeah, it was framed as somebody's 50th birthday at one point. So it's like, well, all right, go ahead. But now we're wise. So we are organizing counter trips of the women.
Roxanne Patruznick: ⁓
Craig Robertson: Yeah. But we're also, we go away once a year with a group of 10 of us. And again, this sort of came about by accident. ⁓ We go away ⁓ and at the end of the trip, usually the night before we leave or at the airport on the way back, ⁓ we all write the name of city on a slip of paper. It goes into a hat. We have a literal hat and whatever comes out, that's the place we go the next year. ⁓ So there's a randomness to it, which...
Alex: Yeah.
Craig Robertson: Well, kind of like. ⁓ So that's been going on for six or seven years now.
Alex: Yeah, we call it the holiday hats. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: ⁓ that's fun. That is fun. I love that. So you you both recently went to the Baltics. Tell me about your I mean, just recently. You you went to Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania and and maybe some other places, Finland. Okay.
Alex: Yeah. Finland and Norway. Yeah. Well, that was that came about so as we have the holiday hat, we have our girls trips and boys trips. We also have two friends from that I went to school with at Berkeley. I've known them since I was 17 who Our friend Nina is a production designer and so she has a very, very limited time to travel, to go on vacation because most of the year she's just locked into production. they want to do lots of different countries in a very, very short period of time. So the first one we went to last year was
Craig Robertson: The first one we did went to France, ⁓ to Rance in France. We moved from there to Luxembourg, from Luxembourg to Aachen in Germany, quick stop in Cologne, and then on to Amsterdam for a couple of nights. But very whirlwind.
Alex: Round to the front. Hahaha Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, incredibly whirlwind. It was such a great time, though. We could never have done it without Craig organizing the train aspect of it. just would never have
Craig Robertson: They didn't give me a lot of warning. was like, OK, today we'd quite like to go here. And so I'll try and find us a train and then I'll try and find us a hotel.
Alex: Yeah. ⁓ they're a nightmare. Yeah. Absolute nightmare. What?
Roxanne Patruznick: The European trains? The European trains?
Craig Robertson: Yeah. ⁓ no, the train, no, couple would go, our friends are not here. The trains were much better than our friends.
Alex: No, no, our friends are a nightmare. The trains are great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so it was the same deal. And when we were when we were on that trip, when we had the longest train journey, ⁓ they were saying that they wanted to like we had talked about doing the Baltics, I think because you guys had done the Baltics.
Roxanne Patruznick: ⁓ hi friends.
Alex: you know, you and Johnny. And so we were talking about you. And then Nina was saying how she'd always wanted to go to the Baltics. And then it was just like, okay, we'll do the Baltics next. But only about, it wasn't even two months later and then they just show up the next day. All right, we're gonna do our Baltic trip now. So we, it is, they are a nightmare. But it turned into another.
Craig Robertson: But think it was on the Tuesday, they said, okay, can you go on Thursday? We were like, okay, go where? So we booked a flight to Finland, to Helsinki, spend a night in Helsinki, got a ferry to Tallinn in Estonia, spent a couple of nights there, took a six hour train journey to Riga, spent a night there, flew to Oslo, took a train to the Flom railway,
Alex: Right. Yeah.
Craig Robertson: We took, sailed a ferry from Flom to Bergen on the other side of Norway and then flew home again.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: Whoa, that is so different than how me and Johnny travel. That's like, whoa. ⁓ my gosh.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, a little different. It is a little different. I was like, can at least once can we go to bed in the same bed that we woke up in? No, let's do that.
Alex: ⁓ no! ⁓ I know, it just doesn't even seem possible when you say it. And there were parts of it that they almost didn't get to the train station in time for part of it. So anyway, so yeah. But they're incredible trips, you know? And maybe it's easier when you don't do that much planning and you can just...
Craig Robertson: But it's traveled by Instagram. You get there enough to take a photograph of somewhere and really don't learn a whole lot. But because we're in a place for a short time, then we're at it all day. Can we stop for lunch, please? Can we at least stop for lunch? Yeah, yeah. How do I?
Alex: Youth. Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: It's like a job. It becomes your job. And and honestly, like even though it's it's really great to be in one place for three months, like that's kind of our role. How we roll is we just we plant in a place and we live there. A lot of people, like I realize, like a lot of people, they get two weeks, you know, they get two weeks off. And maybe it's a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe. So it's like, of course, if that was me, I'd be trying to pack in as many places that I've
Alex: Yeah.
Roxanne Patruznick: dreamed of going. It's like the dream trip, you know, and and so I it's like I I totally understand that. And and I encourage people, if that's all you can do, you do that, you know, because it it is going to be something that changes your life in some way. Even if it's just two weeks and you're bouncing around. It's like, yeah, I would not say no to that.
Alex: Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Roxanne Patruznick: so is there anything that you would like to ⁓ talk about creatively going on? a little more about your book at this time? anything that you wanna say more about it? ⁓ or if there's ⁓ yeah.
Alex: Well, there's a lot of giveaways going on right now. Again, we'll give you the links to post ⁓ wherever your podcast is. So there's a Goodreads giveaway. ⁓ We're doing things like this, or Missing Girls, that you can go to that page and find clues to win books and audio books and prizes. ⁓ So that'll be up. ⁓ Yeah, the other book that I'm working on right now is the seventh in my Huntress Moon series. So that is about a woman who has killed a whole lot of men across the US ⁓ for a long time. an ⁓ exceptional FBI team gets on her trail, but becomes very ambivalent about catching her. once they realize who she's killing. And it's time to kill a lot more people, in my opinion. So that book ⁓ is the next one I'm finishing. We're just finishing book two of The Lost Highway, the Great Bind series. And ⁓ Craig is also writing how many books now?
Craig Robertson: I don't know, but about two months ago, I was working on various stages of four different books ⁓ ⁓ it was too much. ⁓ So ⁓ narrowed that down to one that I can ⁓ going with. ⁓ excited about it. We've written two books together. I also wrote another book that I not like to talk about and didn't particularly enjoy very much. So I'm really looking forward to just getting free on something that's yet to happen.
Alex: Yeah.
Craig Robertson: And it's at a stage where, as you all appreciate, that it's perfect because I haven't written a word and ruined it yet. So it's still in that perfect stage.
Alex: Hahaha
Roxanne Patruznick: is there anything else that you guys would like to talk about that that I didn't ask you before we ⁓ we go?
Alex: I ⁓ hope your audience gets inspired to, as say, travel, create, repeat. That is a beautiful to live and you don't have to go far to really have a different perspective on things, I think. ⁓
Roxanne Patruznick: One one thing I would mention about that exact ⁓ topic is if you live in a city like LA, you could just go to another part of LA that's completely different from where you live and you're it's like you're in an another country. So you don't have to go that far. Yeah.
Alex: That is so absolutely true. Yeah, yeah, it really is. Well, there's a lot that we could talk about, but we don't want to ramble on.
Roxanne Patruznick: And we'll maybe maybe we'll we'll we'll have another podcast in the future. I would actually really love that if you if you would like that.
Alex: Okay, great, great.
Roxanne Patruznick: So thanks again for for joining me, Alex and Craig. And where can people find your work?
Alex: ⁓ well, ⁓ I hate to say it, but Amazon is the first place to look. I have a website, alexandrasokaloff.com that has links to all the other books, book venues that you can ⁓ choose, bookshop.org if you do only Indies, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, all the places that you would think my website is probably the best aggregate of all of. the places you can get all of my books. So thanks.
Craig Robertson: Yeah, similarly Amazon and almost all good bookshops. If they don't knock on their door and demand demand to see one.
Alex: Yeah, and obviously support your local libraries. The Libby app is great. And when you check out a book from a library, the library gets money, in the UK the author gets money, and our libraries stay open, which is so important right now. So I really encourage, even if you buy books, also check out library books.
Roxanne Patruznick: Yeah, that's great. Thanks for mentioning that. so if you enjoyed this podcast and you would like to hear others, please head over to my website, travelcreaterepeat.com, and subscribe to my newsletter. There you can also read my travel blog as well as see my art shop. And please subscribe and support me on Patreon at patreon.com forward slash travel create repeat. Until next time, happy creativity and travels.
Alex: Thank you. Bye.
Roxanne Patruznick: Bye.
