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Dear Writer, giving and receiving feedback can be hard. Haven't you ever wished you could watch someone else's writing group to see how they do it?
This podcast is focused on just such a writing group. Join authors JC Bybee, Grey Alder, and Tyler Hess as they razz and encourage each other, talk about every writing topic under the sun, and exemplify the subtle art of helping other writers write better.
00;00;14;09 - 00;01;04;09
Unknown
I.
00;01;04;12 - 00;01;30;28
Unknown
All right. Welcome, guys. Hello. Welcome to the third person POV, a writers group podcast. This is the podcast where we are suffering for you or recording as we take all of our lumps and slings and arrows that we divvy out to each other, submitting our pieces and hopefully just just praying and crying out that that Jesse and Tyler and myself will not hit each other, too hard as we give our feedback.
00;01;31;00 - 00;01;55;07
Unknown
So all of it is here. It is taped for your consideration so that you can witness our suffering and hopefully learn something along the way. These are our writers. We have Jesse. Jesse Bybee, who is actually a published author. He's on the indie route, and he has a number of titles out, including maybe ten, not quite, not quite those.
00;01;55;09 - 00;02;27;16
Unknown
Yeah. So he's got a superhero procedural series, as I've dubbed it. The Collins files. Collinsworth. Collinsworth case files I keep when I say Mr. Collins. Like, oh, he's got a fantasy series as well. Yep. He's. If you name it, he's done it. Yeah. Massage therapist. Yes, I was that. Yes. We also have on the pod Tyler has who in addition to being an emerging author at this point, is also an editor.
00;02;27;18 - 00;02;45;10
Unknown
Who would love to work with you on whatever project it is that you were looking to tackle at the moment. Just a fount of wisdom. And then do you have, is it still just a working title for what you're doing right now, Tyler? For? Oh, yeah. The hands of Brecken Islands. I'm kind of set on that title for right now.
00;02;45;12 - 00;03;08;00
Unknown
Nice. That is so edgelord. I love that. The hands of the Baskervilles. But cooler. Yeah. Well, Tyler, But Tyler is working through the, getting feedback right now, working with beta readers. So he's a little bit further ahead in his publishing journey than I am. And my name, by the way, is great older, or at least that's my pretentious pen name.
00;03;08;02 - 00;03;27;08
Unknown
At this point, I'm just looking to, get my start here. So, got a couple of shorts that you can check out online, and other than that, just working on the the draft alongside these guys for my first novel. All of it or just all of us are giving it our best here. And with that, we have a big announcement.
00;03;27;15 - 00;03;56;26
Unknown
We may have alluded to it in the past, but let's go ahead and plug it again here. To tell us more about that is our very own Jesse, if you wouldn't mind. So in the Boise area, they have Gem State Comic-Con. And that is May 15th, 16th and 17th. This year. And they have, what do they call community panels, where they get creators and, sort of nerd culture space to talk about their area of expertise.
00;03;56;28 - 00;04;25;07
Unknown
And we have been given the opportunity to have that panel at Gem State. We will be there. I want to make double sure. I keep making a keeps hiccuping on the exact day. I believe it's time. I believe it is the 15th. It was a Friday, I remember. Yes. Friday. There. So, yes. May 15th at 4 p.m. is what our panel is.
00;04;25;09 - 00;04;46;11
Unknown
The gates, the doors open for Gem State on the at 3:00 on Friday is the first year they've done Friday. Usually it's been Saturday and Sunday this year. I mean, they were so big last year that, they were able to expand it out. So we will be there on Friday, May 15th, giving our panel at 4 p.m. in the central building.
00;04;46;13 - 00;05;15;05
Unknown
It's not called the, Community Panel Zone. So you can come will be doing a quick critique of unique pieces and answering questions kind of showing giving a real live demonstration of what we do here on the podcast. We will be able to field questions live. Tickets are on sale right now for the event. There's a lot of cool stuff just beyond just us being there, you know?
00;05;15;05 - 00;05;42;09
Unknown
I mean, that's the major draw, but they also they also have, Alan Tudyk is going to be there from, Firefly. Also, pretty much every movie that Disney made. Yes, he's he's been in everything. There are, the host of other actors and voice actors that are going to be there. Lots of amazing talent, lots of artists, lots of vendors.
00;05;42;12 - 00;06;06;26
Unknown
It's a huge event for the Boise area. So I encourage you all to, buy tickets, come see us. Come buy some awesome nerd paraphernalia, and, have a great time. We may even have our own merch by then. Yes. So much merch. So much merch. Yeah, the whole bag of nerd t shirts. Are we going to like.
00;06;06;28 - 00;06;29;28
Unknown
Well. So I think we should have our own t shirts, but I think, yeah, Tyler and I were talking about, talking about it and, so there is a way that we can get hats and t shirts with our logo on it. Not too expensive, depending on how many we order. So, something to consider ordering 2000 at this point.
00;06;29;28 - 00;06;55;10
Unknown
Just doing off, probably. Yeah. Okay. Oh, well. Seems too modest. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we should order 5 or 6. All right, well, that is, we all get a chance to show off these awesome dead boards, so I'm sure everybody looks for sure. These hips don't lie. Yeah. All right.
00;06;55;13 - 00;07;23;22
Unknown
So, so so remember May 15th, 16th and 17th. Yeah. And main thing is May 15th. Yeah. The big thing for us is May 15th at 4 p.m. is when our panel will be. Awesome. All right. Shall we get to the the meet. What everyone came here to hear, which is the, as you might say, we're done with that.
00;07;23;25 - 00;07;48;03
Unknown
We're not doing that bit. But there was that. But again, those of you who watched our last episode, we had a recurring bit from from, one of Gray's little, Freudian slips. That was not what it. It was only a couple days ago for us. Yeah. It's very it's still very fresh in my mind. I'm so glad my camera quality is so low that you can't tell.
00;07;48;03 - 00;07;54;00
Unknown
I'm like, what? All right.
00;07;54;02 - 00;08;18;04
Unknown
All right, Jesse, put us out of our misery. Please. So I get to go first this week, so we're going to say cue future me. Hi, everyone. This is future Jesse here. This week's, critique. Is was actually an interesting scene to write. It is a, fight scene between Jessica and another for Joe's class.
00;08;18;04 - 00;08;39;29
Unknown
I wanted to illustrate, you know, the dangers of one of her powers. You've heard us mention. It's called rage. It's sort of like the Incredible Hulk. Just. Just not quite. Not along the same lines. And again, the guys dance around a little bit of a spoiler for the for the big plot reveal that happens in this section.
00;08;40;01 - 00;09;03;17
Unknown
So we don't talk about that. But otherwise, I hope they don't tear me apart too much and go into the critiques. Who's going to start us off, Tyler or Adam? They're great. Tyler, this one. All right, Tyler, let me have it. All right. So, reader, beware, there is an event in this, section that we are not going to discuss.
00;09;03;23 - 00;09;30;19
Unknown
We're going to do is such a major thing that blew my freaking mind. So, be aware that we're talking around something very often as we're as we were discussing Jacob, it was awesome. Which kind of leaves us this pretty sweet fantasy to talk about, I think. I mean, that's not the only thing to talk about, but that's where that's where my mind is going right now.
00;09;30;21 - 00;09;49;29
Unknown
Jesse, I don't even know how you to handle this, context. Like you're going to have to, Yeah. Okay. It's going to be I going to focus on the fight. Something like I said. Yeah, yeah. So we've got, senior for this, who? My first of all, Jesse. Very, very exciting. Lots, lots of things happening.
00;09;49;29 - 00;10;09;18
Unknown
We've talked about how there's a little bit of a danger with having lots of things happening. There's still a bit of a pacing issue which comes from this being part of your 26,000 caffeine fueled writing spree. So it's completely understandable. It's just something you're going to have to fix and fix and post, you know, go back and revise and and a little bit of a tangent.
00;10;09;21 - 00;10;30;12
Unknown
Jesse, you've talked a lot before how you're a discovery writer. And my philosophy with that was that if you're a discovery writer, you're going to have to put, oh, sorry, I mean, my camera. I tap my desk too hard. If you're a discovery writer, you're going to have to do a lot of revisions. If you are an outline you're going to have, you're not going to have to do as many revisions if you put a lot of effort into the outline.
00;10;30;17 - 00;10;51;01
Unknown
So I just I hope you're aware of this. I'm sure you are, JK, that you're going to have to put a lot more into this. The bones are there, though, and they're they're freaking awesome and I love it. My major critique with this fight scene with Senor Solis is that it really felt like you came out of nowhere, and I had no idea that she was capable of something like this.
00;10;51;01 - 00;11;19;27
Unknown
Like she comes in really strong, shooting six, six shots through the door. And it's very violent. And obviously we know that she's abusive. There's a big difference between being abusive for, your child or for someone for a minor and going after someone as powerful and, with this big personality as Jessica, as. So that felt like a really big leap.
00;11;19;27 - 00;11;39;02
Unknown
You need it definitely in your visions. We need some more foreshadowing with that. This random, exceptional. That's with her. Probably some more foreshadowing there. And even, like, some information in the fallout. Like, we don't I don't think we even learned his name. Yeah. After the fight scene. I know who he is, if that help, but I forgot.
00;11;39;04 - 00;12;02;09
Unknown
But yeah, for sure. Especially when we're talking about him being a jet. Like, who the heck was that? His? It's Carmen fricking Carmen. We know, and we don't really need to know much more than that after. And, as long as we have a reason why, Solis had access to him and was able to convince him to come in and be her ineffectual, strong man.
00;12;02;12 - 00;12;25;04
Unknown
Feisty. Very fun. Awesome to see Jessica really kind of go all out and go into the rage into her rage mode. The end of that where she just kind of, like, turns off was really unsatisfying to me. It could have. I wanted a little bit more of the lead up to some of that guys, because we learned that later on that it was ace who suppressed her, which I have questions about.
00;12;25;04 - 00;12;53;06
Unknown
I don't I don't really know how that works, that it was something that is capable of. I feel like Eve should have tried to get in her way, probably ineffectually. Maybe you've got hurt, you know that. That would make it even more, emotionally traumatic. Definitely raise the stakes. Definitely raises the stakes. And then when finally she is surprised, that would make you feel almost like a, a cathartic little comedown.
00;12;53;09 - 00;13;13;15
Unknown
Whereas right now it just feels like you cut off the fight and it's the it didn't really work for me. So that's my emotional reaction to that. Later on in the hospital, there's some things that really make sense to me. They don't allow her to have her device, but then they take off her suppressor cuffs. I don't know why that would be a thing.
00;13;13;17 - 00;13;33;28
Unknown
That's something maybe other I get. I get why you would want to do it, but I don't think it really makes sense. She's not really in custody because she's not really in custody. They take off the things that are. And also, I feel like when you're hulking out, when you're raging like she does, you're not going to get on your device and go troll people online like, I don't I don't really know what they're scared of.
00;13;34;03 - 00;13;55;24
Unknown
Stop her. Right. Some of these savages, they can mean tweets. Comments? Yeah, I guess so. It didn't really make sense. Like why why they wouldn't allow her to have a device. Yeah. So you may need to figure out the reason for that or cut that or something. I don't know. Yeah, I have, I have an explanation I need to add.
00;13;55;25 - 00;14;30;27
Unknown
Okay. Yeah. Good. We get, this really random Mrs. Wolf is suddenly Darren's, and which I'm sure you have reasons for. It felt really random. I don't I don't know why it was included here. Again. You sometimes you'll have events, and I know that I trust you, that you have a reason for them, but they're not immediately and not not, not that they're not being immediately clear is a bad thing, but there's not even, like a clue.
00;14;30;28 - 00;14;50;15
Unknown
Like there's I don't have any idea why this is going to be irrelevant, and it might not be the right place for it. Again, there's so many things happening. There is just a lot of things happening. So it might be might be better to move that forward, move that back, whatever, whatever needs to happen. And again, I'm sure you have a plan for it.
00;14;50;19 - 00;14;54;08
Unknown
But
00;14;54;10 - 00;15;18;24
Unknown
And what's the other big thing that I want to talk about? We get another POV scene from the bad guys, which I always love. I like seeing what they're up to. Oh, I can't talk about that. Sorry. That's not that's that's not always. We're not talking about. Shoot. I was the other guy said, you're fine. No, you're going to say, okay, guys, shoot.
00;15;18;26 - 00;15;49;26
Unknown
Oh you're good, I think I think I would have to add myself there because I don't get too close to talking about sensitive that sensitive. But but spoiler things. But massive kudos. Really exciting section. Just again pacing issue right. Questions about different things going on but really really good. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Yes. I will have to restrain myself from immediately jumping to the fight scene, which is what I want to talk about.
00;15;49;26 - 00;16;27;18
Unknown
And really sort of thing. So before we get there, there is this one little scene, Jesse, where Eve is, sitting and talking with her, her adoptive mom and her adoptive mom hand. Sir, that, case file, which sort of parallels, it has a similarities to the case involving Darren. And you have the section where where Eve reads the report and she's sitting there eating dinner, and then she, like, moves over the couch and then she, like, I'm exaggerating here, but then she goes to the living room, and then she goes to the bathroom like she's she's reading the report for an extended period of time.
00;16;27;21 - 00;16;49;06
Unknown
And I got that, you know, it's a long report and that's that's realistic. That's what this would actually taken. But for the sake of, drama, it felt a little bit drawn out for me. What? Immediately, jumped into my head as I was reading this section was, I think what perhaps what you're trying to get at or something that might be an opportunity here to really inject some drama.
00;16;49;09 - 00;17;18;20
Unknown
Jesse, do you remember that scene in the dark night where Alfred, And and Bruce Wayne have come to the realization that the Joker is actually dangerous, that he's not just some low level nutjob. And Alfred proceeds to give Bruce Wayne this backstory about his time in Burma, I believe, when he and his company discovered a criminal who was, attacking caravans and and throwing out diamonds, you know, like, like they were nothing.
00;17;18;20 - 00;17;39;04
Unknown
Do you remember that? And, of course, the big money line at the end of that monologue is some men just want to watch the world burn. Love that. I felt like that was compelling. Obviously it's a great actor, and or Michael Kane is a great actor, and it was extremely well-written, but it was, compelling because it felt so personal.
00;17;39;06 - 00;17;56;06
Unknown
Because this is something that's core almost to Alfred and who he is. Like, he couldn't understand this, this deranged animal. And in this section, it almost feels like we have an opportunity here, with the case that that closely parallels Darren's, like I mentioned. And yet it is. It's just sort of like, well, how is this resolved?
00;17;56;09 - 00;18;19;06
Unknown
Easily. Like, oh, okay. Like, and there were similarities, but, I wanted it to, to feel, personal. I wanted not just a sanitized report that we kind of gloss over. So I don't know if that would be perhaps just a suggestion, maybe better delivered, through the perspective of her mom or a back and forth asking questions.
00;18;19;06 - 00;18;39;13
Unknown
Or maybe this was a case that was somehow formative for her. And therefore there would be some of emotional attachment and emotional appeal. Anyway, just something I kind of glommed on to and probably made an outside issue of, but, another opportunity here. All right. And then jumping ahead to what I really want to talk about, which is the fight scene.
00;18;39;13 - 00;19;07;26
Unknown
Okay, so, yeah, skipping that whole section. No mention shall be made of it. Other than that, I liked it, and I was trying to imagine the voice of that one character, and I was like, oh, what if it sounds like this? Oh, that's kind of cool. Anyway, shall remain nameless. Stop as I move on. Great voices is your ally.
00;19;07;29 - 00;19;30;15
Unknown
So? So the fight scene, they say, hey, we've been giving you crud for, you know, for weeks now about not having enough action sequences and your superhero book, and it happens and it happens rather suddenly. It was like no country for old men, like, boom, somebody is firing through a door. And yes, it did feel sudden. I'm questioning whether or not it felt too sudden.
00;19;30;15 - 00;19;44;26
Unknown
I think it was it was okay for me. I liked that, how jarring it was, because we were expecting this case of a weak case of the weak kind of character and in the form of Senora Solis. And when she shows up, you're like, oh, well, this character again, I thought that was all wrapped up with the bow.
00;19;45;03 - 00;20;06;26
Unknown
And when she's really angry and, you know, shouting like, oh, okay, well, this is going to escalate and then boom, it escalates. I, I actually think that I enjoyed that. I made a little note, when Jessica goes flying through the back wall of her office and tumbling toward the ground, my note said, fine, okay. And then about like 57.5 exclamation marks.
00;20;06;26 - 00;20;35;17
Unknown
So please. I'm interested in the back half of an explanation. You just don't include the little period Mark got to match it. So, that fight scene felt so visceral. I think this this kind of interaction maybe needs to happen earlier, because I got such a better sense for how the mechanics of these super powers and healing factor and everything works just with the sheer scope of the injuries that these two characters, these two combatants are sustaining in the fight.
00;20;35;19 - 00;20;59;07
Unknown
You know, just like shattered shoulders and broken ribs and all of this stuff. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is I could picture the sound effects and the crunching and everything was everything was so superb. It was like almost Mortal Kombat. I mean, not to that gratuitous to green, but you know, well, I mean, I may, I may or may not have played a few of those games.
00;20;59;10 - 00;21;22;02
Unknown
And all that was great. But I'm like, oh my gosh, like, this section now makes some of the other parts of the book feel dry by comparison. I don't know how you remedy that. Exactly. Or it makes me feel like, wow, I finally understand a little bit more about how the fortress class power set works, and how rage works, and I don't know if it's coming too late in the book at this point.
00;21;22;02 - 00;21;51;20
Unknown
I obviously enjoyed it, so I don't know what you do about that. Yeah. So just overall, I really and thoroughly enjoyed that. As to the, recovery scene in the hospital, yeah, the phone thing is, is a little bit weird. I didn't really think about that too much until Tyler brought it up. I would say the the greater issue here is the this sort of strange revelation on the part of Miss Wolf.
00;21;51;22 - 00;22;14;24
Unknown
I always thought she had this sort of presence in the background being Darren's right hand woman, his secretary and kind of the Pepper Potts of his whole operation. It does feel strange that she's like, hey, I'm your art. And he's like, no way. And everybody's just okay with it. I don't know if that could be an opportunity for more conflicts, you know, to add a little bit of seasoning.
00;22;14;27 - 00;22;34;23
Unknown
Maybe Darren could be taken aback a little bit more, and there could be just a slight feeling of a breach of trust. Or maybe. Maybe you suspected something, but he trusted her enough to not push her on it. I don't know, I was a little confused with that. And so was I when it happened. So that's it?
00;22;34;26 - 00;22;53;09
Unknown
Yeah. That's it. That's what happens. As a discovery writer. You discover things as you're writing. That's why it's called discovery writing. Yeah. And Tyler's point about maybe going back and foreshadowing that that could that could solve that. Yeah. And make that just such a poignant moment. So you don't necessarily need to take that out or anything. Just those are my initial thoughts.
00;22;53;09 - 00;23;12;06
Unknown
Having read through this draft of it. I feel the same way about stuff. I hate when I get an idea later on and I'm like, this is going to feel super lopsided. I wish I had built this up earlier. Oh well, yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah, I have a I had a professor in college. And his saying was the first draft always sucks.
00;23;12;06 - 00;23;37;21
Unknown
And I want to get that printed and framed and put above my, my computer in my office to help me. But yeah, your first draft doesn't suck anyway. Well, sections may be sucky, or there's when you write awesome sections, but by comparison, yeah. Yeah. So I think that's kind of my overall take here. Did you have any questions for us, Jesse?
00;23;37;23 - 00;24;08;24
Unknown
So something I've, I've dealt with in my main series, and I'm curious. It was I don't want to say it was formulaic, but there were certain patterns that I followed with, here are unit. And I was looking at, technomancer and then looking back to the first book in the series, runaway. There are two fairly big fights in runaway, one sort of midway and then one at the end.
00;24;08;26 - 00;24;35;12
Unknown
The, the what it feel just knowing that, you know, there's two to pretty violent fights in the first one. Would it feel like I'm just trying to copy a pattern if I threw in another one? Because there's a place I could put in more of an action beat, earlier on that kind of give you an idea of what the of what other fight between two fortress class looks like.
00;24;35;14 - 00;25;02;23
Unknown
And I am putting in a training scene with Eve and Jessica. So try to give you an idea of, of that, but if I throw in another confrontation, maybe not necessarily to the level of the one that you guys just read. I'm just, you know, the hardest part is you guys haven't had a chance to read runaway.
00;25;02;26 - 00;25;22;01
Unknown
Well, I don't know if another fight scene is super necessary. I think you have, like, if you're putting in a training scene, you also already have the scene where Jessica is laying into a stick and that sort of thing. And you could go a little bit deeper into that, maybe to kind of show off, especially Jessica's power, obviously.
00;25;22;03 - 00;25;45;11
Unknown
Yeah. And that might feel a little bit different than this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Because that's, that's one of the things I think part of the reason why the this has got a little bit slower pacing to it, especially the first half, is because of how I wrote runaway, and I was trying not to just make it feel like a copy of my first book with, you know, a different skin.
00;25;45;14 - 00;26;12;00
Unknown
So we call it the superhero the. But really it is that, that procedural that the, detective mystery kind of. Yeah. Which has less room for stuff like that. Yeah. In the genre, but not that that you can't have more. But yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, that's always been the the toss up for me is, when I'm writing this one, when I'm writing here, I in it.
00;26;12;00 - 00;26;37;00
Unknown
It's is it interesting? Even if they didn't have superpowers? Kind of make it interesting. If Jessica is just a normal pie and she's not, you know, sort of Superman. And that's something I've struggled with a little bit. I think it's still interesting because she's a pie navigating this world, even if she's not directly dealing with fisticuffs all the time.
00;26;37;02 - 00;26;56;12
Unknown
I the question I would ask is what your readership expects or what they've voiced in, you know, feedback, what they're looking forward to in a new JK by novel, you know, a new Hero Unit book specifically, even if a spinoff. Are they, are they here for the violence or are they, you know like what. Yeah. That's or.
00;26;56;15 - 00;27;42;12
Unknown
Yeah I think you know I don't have a lot of reviews to go off of yet and feedback. Most of it, it's just fairly straightforward praise. I really like main character, really like the story. And it's like, okay, well, that's good. I guess I'm on the right. Okay. So with the with with, Diane Wolfe being Darren's aunt, part of that, I think, stems from, some of the questions you guys asked at the beginning sections about her and her, reaction to the idea of Jessica and Darren dating.
00;27;42;14 - 00;28;20;19
Unknown
I think that's probably where that idea stemmed from, is that she was related to him somehow and had that sort of familial, bond in a way. So if I foreshadowed that somehow a little bit better, I think it would come as less of, I a little out of left field revelation. Hopefully. I mean, you do have you do mention, I think, especially in the flashback sequence, how protective Darren's parents are of him.
00;28;20;22 - 00;28;40;28
Unknown
I don't know if Wolfe was on the scene at that point. If you could just have were there straightening his tie or something. Almost overtly. Okay, yet not, I don't know. Okay. Yeah. That might. Yeah that might. And then not to put, you know, story ideas into your mind or or influence you JC although I do kind of want to influence you a little bit.
00;28;41;00 - 00;29;03;16
Unknown
I, I would like this scene a little bit better if it was later on, because presumably we know something big is coming. We're not going to talk about it. But people are going to get hurt. I wouldn't be surprised if Darren gets hurt. And then there's the one in the hospital and maybe Miss Wolfe, put herself in the line of fire for him.
00;29;03;18 - 00;29;25;18
Unknown
And then I can't remember. Her powers are. She was more of a mental, mental class. Mental class or class? Okay. We'll probably. We'll talk. Yeah. Really serious going through my head, but she maybe she puts herself in the line of fire, goes above and beyond, you know, just being an employee. And then Jessica in the hospital was there with Darren, like.
00;29;25;18 - 00;29;42;15
Unknown
And, you know, because Jessica's in the bed, they're in hospital for her. Maybe they're in the hospital for Darren. And then Jessica know this is it. And then that kind of comes out and then they're like, sorry, we can't let you see him. Only next of kin. And she's like, well, I actually am family in anyway. Yeah, yeah maybe.
00;29;42;17 - 00;30;03;16
Unknown
But but but something like that where there's been, even more clues about how, how protective she is been of what kind of relationship she has. Because, you know, up to this point, her being, you know, interested in his love life and being the protective of them, that could just be, you know, motherly instincts from an older, older lady who's who cares about him, doesn't have to be a relative.
00;30;03;16 - 00;30;26;22
Unknown
That can still be a relationship. But later on. But if you do do my idea. Yeah, I would that would be there would be even more, hints that about how much you cares about him and the way that she cares about him, she can donate blood and then. And they have to. Yes. This I can see it all.
00;30;26;24 - 00;30;51;25
Unknown
Yeah. She got to. Yeah, yeah. A funny thing isn't I think there's there's not much left after this. Yeah. It feels like we're coming close to the. Yeah. The climactic editing. Yeah. Yeah yeah. So. All right, I do want to add one more thing before, because I, I did breeze over that first scene because everything else pushed it out of my mind.
00;30;51;28 - 00;31;21;17
Unknown
I like how Eve is really concerned about breaking the law, about not doing things the right way. That feels very natural for her. If that feels very like relating to kind of her eyes side. And I want more of that sprinkled throughout the book. Okay. Yeah. Because it feels very nice. It feels like it should be a part of the character, and I don't think it has been really touched on until kind of like this last section and then this section that we're talking about.
00;31;21;20 - 00;31;26;11
Unknown
Yeah.
00;31;26;14 - 00;31;44;26
Unknown
Yeah. I'm glad you even mentioned the first scene, Greg, because I completely like, didn't wasn't thinking about it at all because everything else was like, not that it wasn't the parts either was that was that's what's cool. It's like we had like a fan reaction, like a reader. Yeah. And like, this is the thing with me, right? You know?
00;31;44;28 - 00;32;15;19
Unknown
Awesome. I think that. Yeah, that covers everything on my part. Thanks. Appreciate it guys. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you, future gray. Hey. Crafty cucumbers. It's gray elder with some context for my chapter this week. So the hunt for the missing chaplain Gill continues. And our protagonist continues to be trapped within this sort of holy barrier, which Gill had previously erected to safeguard their campsite for the night.
00;32;15;21 - 00;32;38;20
Unknown
Alongside Dan is the merchant as well as the irritable tribesman at heart. Nin takes the lead on escaping the barrier, looking for clues amongst Gill's belongings, as well as probing the barrier itself. When he finally does escape spoilers, then is able to catch up to Gill and finds himself smack dab in the middle of yet another brawl, this time between Gill and some mysterious assailants.
00;32;38;22 - 00;32;58;18
Unknown
And oh yeah, we find out what happened to that other guy, the boar. Are you bored yet? Did I miss my calling as a dad? Telling awesome dad jokes? Find out as the guys critique my submission for this week. Please be gentle. What's up guys? Here's a bit of context about my book for this week's going to be super awesome.
00;32;58;20 - 00;33;21;00
Unknown
Okay, I don't know if you listen to the episode where you did that. But it was really funny. I think it's really well, Oh boy. Maybe if you just repeat that exact same bit every single week, it will get funnier. I'm sure it was my fault. Okay. All right. This is your, You want to. Yeah.
00;33;21;01 - 00;33;54;16
Unknown
I'll start us off. So overall, you're always overall impressions is great. Seeing everything goes along really well. Nothing really jumped out as mechanically wrong with it. I like the, so the, the dumping out of the backpack scene. I liked how it was a logical move, but a great opportunity for story and character building all wrapped up into one neat little paragraph.
00;33;54;18 - 00;34;24;17
Unknown
You know, it gave us back story. And the girl I gave a story about that information about the world and it proved it. It served a purpose of trying to figure things out. So it wasn't like an info dump. It was it was just really well put together. The tossing around between then and stills is, to me, it's really interesting and I'm very curious to see where it's going to go because it's like, oh, hey, your turn.
00;34;24;18 - 00;34;52;13
Unknown
Oh hey. Your turn. Oh, hey, your turn. And it's it's like it's almost like somebody flipping between one side of their brain and the other, like the old right brain, left brain theories of creativity and logic, but a lot more literal because it's literally two different personalities with two different skill, almost with two different skill sets. Like they have some crossover, but, you know, as, as stills calls in, he's the schoolboy, he's the brain.
00;34;52;16 - 00;35;28;05
Unknown
And it's, it's, he's they've got their brains and brawn in two different, two different parties. Let's see here one little note with the, I hope this, you know, talking about this isn't spoilers, but the talk about the largest diamond that stills had ever seen. How big a golf ball? That's a good point. Basketball, basketball, softball.
00;35;28;06 - 00;35;54;21
Unknown
Okay, that's a big. So we don't have that reference. That's the one thing like thank you. Like you say, it's the biggest diamond he'd ever seen that has a wide range of what that could be because I've I've seen diamonds up to two carats and that's pretty big for me. But you know, somebody who works in the diamond industry, that's a different level.
00;35;54;21 - 00;36;22;06
Unknown
So you you give us that quick reference, whatever size ball it is that he references, whatever size of a coconut, size of a something that that makes sense to him and gives us, gives us a frame of reference for it. Now, a diamond is still pretty impressive regardless, but that way we can say, okay, now it makes sense why the merchant is that desperate for it.
00;36;22;09 - 00;36;42;05
Unknown
I will say it like for for some reason, I imagine the softball sized diamond like I think for me at least something about maybe it was, you know, it's wrapped in a shirt. So, stills is able to manipulate it with his feet. With his boots. So that told me that some subconscious like that wasn't even really think about it, that it wasn't something super small.
00;36;42;05 - 00;36;58;08
Unknown
It was something more. So yeah. I think you have a bit, but I think Jesse, I think a little bit more just to make it is super, super clear. But I think it does does come across a little bit. Yeah. Like it's, it's obviously big enough that they can see it when it falls out of the he can feel it when it's in the shirt.
00;36;58;08 - 00;37;21;02
Unknown
It falls out. And it's visible like it's not like he can conceal it. Yeah. And so just giving that one extra step gives it a concrete presence in the world, because at first I was thinking, oh, it's a rock in the shirt. So it's probably about this big. But then for some reason, my mind's made it smaller as the scene progressed.
00;37;21;05 - 00;37;55;19
Unknown
And I don't know why, but you give us that concrete moment and it becomes a fixed detail. Makes it that much easier. To see here. The again, I made it a little note. I'm really interested to see how the stills neon dynamic develops as the story goes forward, because at first it was very clear that stills was can completely contemptuous of them, like he didn't care for the neon personality at all.
00;37;55;21 - 00;38;24;18
Unknown
And now it's it's like they're, they're they're coming to this agreement, this acceptance. And it's developing in it's building. I it it will be very interesting to me to see how that progresses. I like the concern that neon shows for Gil not being around. You can tell that he has developed this this, know. What's the right word?
00;38;24;20 - 00;38;43;00
Unknown
Connection to him of, like, a bond, a friendship that, stills doesn't necessarily have. But neon does. The one thing.
00;38;43;02 - 00;39;19;17
Unknown
I liked the fact that intent mattered with the barrier. Like, what was your intent to the people on the other side of this barrier? And the fact that the creature was inside the barrier. You didn't make that clear before, which is fine, you know? And then that helps. This seems like. Oh, that's that's interesting, because that thing was inside this barrier that neon is relying on to protect them from it, especially after the visceral response he had to it in the previous section.
00;39;19;19 - 00;39;36;16
Unknown
You have a couple of POV shifts to first person that I, I think I caught all of them. Yeah, I think I caught all of them. I might have missed some. Like, sorry. They're only they were only a couple. Yeah. There was it was not it's not like it was a my instead of a, his.
00;39;36;22 - 00;40;02;14
Unknown
That must be so jarring to read though. Like, still shook my head. It is. Yes, it is, it is. I want to make sure you catch them all, but, Let's see here. The one thing I will say. Where the heck is it? I know what maybe I did. There it is. Nope, that's not it. What the heck?
00;40;02;17 - 00;40;45;25
Unknown
Maybe I forgot to make that comment. Anyway, the one question I have is a thought. He. Oh, there it is. There it is. His motivations are not yet clear to us. He's the he he comes across as this. He seems sophisticated, yet he follows tribal logic. He talks about the Master Gardener, but he still follows tribal practices. A lot of times he he's very a concrete character with very vague motivations that we know almost nothing about.
00;40;45;27 - 00;41;17;10
Unknown
And I at this point, it's fine. You're we're going to want to get his motivation soon because and there's one contradiction in here, potentially a thought says, you know, lead the way falls Chaplin and then then goes looking for Gil. And a tort doesn't follow. So. That was that was one of those things that I was like, wait a minute.
00;41;17;13 - 00;41;44;18
Unknown
And was that intentional or does he just not notice? So something that seemed out of place to me. And then the fight with Gil was great. It gave us that, that idea of, oh, he's capable of holding off seven people on his own. That's a that's impressive. It really is. That's a heck of a feat. So.
00;41;44;20 - 00;42;02;23
Unknown
Yeah, that was about it. That's all. I that really stood out to me. I like again, it's a good scene and progresses things forward. It gives us more of the story, gives us more of what we want. A few hiccups here and there. But again, it's a first draft. I'm not going to I'm not going to fault you for a few hiccups here and there.
00;42;02;23 - 00;42;29;08
Unknown
So good on you. Good job. Sweet. Thank you. Ma'am. Tyler. So yeah, just like this is super exciting. Lots of things happening. Lots of things are not. Not the same way I said it to the DC. I don't think I see of his involvement. Yeah. Is, I may my major problem with it, I think, is that I feel like I.
00;42;29;08 - 00;42;47;22
Unknown
You're leaving your reader still too much in the dark of a lot of things. Like, for instance, we, you know, we see the boar, we find Gil fighting. And it took me a minute to be able to, like, come up with the theory about why things are happening the way they are. But still, in the end, I feel like should be talking about it more internally.
00;42;47;24 - 00;43;12;09
Unknown
Sharing theories with each other because then I'll then the reader will have at least an idea, even if it's a false idea. They'll have an idea of what's going on, why the boar had the locket, why Gil is now fighting these these random dudes. I want the more of that. I was confused by the barrier, because once they figured out it was about intent, I didn't.
00;43;12;09 - 00;43;35;09
Unknown
I maybe maybe I'm just sleep deprived and not understanding, but I didn't understand why they're able to get through it then and not before. Because I don't. Is is that evil? Intent towards kill especially is an evil intent just in general? I don't know what. What do you want to explain that a little bit, just so it's clear in my head and.
00;43;35;11 - 00;43;56;04
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. So evil intent in general would prevent you from crossing from one side to the other, like evil intent towards like a person, let's say, to think about that. I mean, in the midst of their fight scene, obviously there are a lot of places in which, you know, blows are being, like, deflected or stopped by the barrier.
00;43;56;06 - 00;44;19;26
Unknown
That happened earlier in kind of a more viscous, different form. But, something for me to think about. Here are the exact mechanics of where his mind's at when he's able to get through versus not earlier, when he's, like, testing it and like probing it. You know, it has to be like something that clicked in his brain to, to allow this thing to, like, configure in such a way that he can get through it.
00;44;19;26 - 00;44;36;16
Unknown
Like he almost has to know what the secret is mentally and on some sense, a moral level, because it's based it's it's based in chapel in magic. Right. So there's a moral component to him for him to be able to get through right? Yeah. And that was interesting because I don't know. I mean, still in the end, they're not necessarily the best of people.
00;44;36;17 - 00;44;59;00
Unknown
I feel like they would always have at least a little bit of evil intent. So that's why I assumed it was toward like a specific person, you know. But then so, so, so yeah, I think definitely thinking about that, Jesse mentioned the Angela being able to come in and not having that also made him the made the creature less scary to me.
00;44;59;03 - 00;45;19;02
Unknown
I don't know if that's your intent, but that was a byproduct of, oh, if it doesn't have, you know, evil intensity came in here. Definitely had the opportunity to attack or do whatever to suck their souls out or steal all their happy memories, whatever. Whatever does, the fact that it didn't do that was obviously able to get past the barrier.
00;45;19;02 - 00;45;35;27
Unknown
It made it less scary to me. Was that your intent or is that just so? I think I can't help myself with continuing to pose. I'm like one of the writers of lost, like, you know, like asking all these questions, you know, you've got answers. Yeah. I think it might benefit to show the Angela, like, ripping people's heads off.
00;45;35;27 - 00;45;54;09
Unknown
And so my intent with the previous chapter is show this thing here, show that it's a potential threat. And it is ugly. Ugly. You ain't got no alibi. Scary. And then in this chapter give you that hints that, oh, wait, maybe it's not a threat. And then like almost immediately after in the next chapter or two, like, oh wait, maybe it is a threat and I don't know.
00;45;54;09 - 00;46;31;05
Unknown
I love that teeter totter dynamic when I'm when I'm okay. But there's there's a balance to it, I guess. Pun intended. Yeah. I, I would agree with Tyler that it does soften it, but if you are going to follow it fairly soon with a scene of oh, this is what it does to people, then it's like, okay, this thing was this close to us and either didn't view us as a threat and is therefore a supreme power and we're beneath it, or we just got lucky and or we just don't know its motivations what it.
00;46;31;08 - 00;46;55;12
Unknown
And it could be that his motivations are just that murky to the point that it can trick the barrier. What if, okay, just posed this hypothetical to you guys, in this chapter, as the fight scene resolves, which obviously it hasn't, it ends up on a cliffhanger. What if this thing shows up again, hypothetically, and just takes out one of the other combatants, just in a very gruesome way?
00;46;55;12 - 00;47;20;02
Unknown
Would that up the factor back up again, or what would that do to you that almost feel like a little bit of this ex machina for this fight to continue? I would I would end it maybe too soon after. Yeah. You kind of brought us to the side. And if this is what you're trying to do, if you're trying to have us on the territory, like are they scary or they're not scary, are they evil in the whatever, whatever, spectrum you want us to be sliding them on?
00;47;20;04 - 00;47;41;16
Unknown
I would wait a little bit. I would also make sure that this teeter totter making it seem less scary, is a little bit more clear. Maybe again, maybe the end and still talk about it with each other. Because if they're in each other's heads, the they're very bad. But I do feel like they should be talking more, sharing ideas and getting on the same page with, with certain things.
00;47;41;18 - 00;48;03;15
Unknown
And then when it does come time to make it scary again, have it kill somebody, have it kill somebody who is at least marginally on their side. Honestly, it would have been. It would have been a good opportunity to have it like finish off the board. Which goes against what I just said about not having it happen soon, but yeah, I have I got kind of emotional.
00;48;03;15 - 00;48;36;12
Unknown
It can be backed with circumvent that being too soon. I don't think it would be too soon in that case. But yeah, I think it definitely if you really want it to slide back into the creepy dangerous, it needs to be somebody either, completely innocent. Not necessarily a kid or you're wrong. They're somebody that is, that is obviously without ill intent, somebody that's just a bystander almost, or somebody that, like Tyler said, is connected in some way to the group.
00;48;36;14 - 00;48;58;26
Unknown
To show that it its intentions aren't benevolent and in a way, maybe the merchant. I don't know if you punched the merchant. You kind of acted like an idiot in this, in this case where he tries to take the the diamond straight out of those skills bag while still slicing and is wearing it, which did seem a little bit out of character for him.
00;48;58;29 - 00;49;26;10
Unknown
So I don't know if I'm with him, but he could be another lamb for the altar. Yeah, you know, they're expendable until, Yeah. Scary. But I've seen they kind of kicked me out. I mean, Neil especially seemed really concerned about Gil and, the language you use, like, saying he was, like, desperate. For.
00;49;26;13 - 00;49;48;00
Unknown
I can't remember exactly what I said, but use the word desperate somewhere. Being really, really concerned about Gil fell out of character. I didn't feel like their relationship had progressed to this point. You know, up to now, you know, he's not sure if he's supposed to kill Gil or if he's supposed to protect him. And there's been several times where it feels like he's really leaning towards killing him.
00;49;48;03 - 00;50;13;19
Unknown
They've had some minor bonding moments, mostly as a group, like around the campfire with, with, with these, these randoms that they met on the on the trail. But I feel like you need something else to happen before he's in this concert. So maybe tone down your language here or give him something else to bond over so that and is actually like it feels natural for him, for him to be this concerned about about.
00;50;13;19 - 00;50;37;23
Unknown
That's the question I was going to ask. Yeah. It's yeah it's kind of a struggle to build up a relationship chronologically in such a short amount of time. But there's, you know, so way around that. So that could be and again it's your book just throwing to suggest I'm all ears. Give them another day. Give them another day of travel.
00;50;37;25 - 00;51;14;19
Unknown
Either just Gil and then to develop that relationship, to develop that bond. Gil acting. You say you want him to kind of be the mentor figure, right? That he's sort of filling that OB1 capacity. So give him a give him a day of that. Maybe nen has to sit and listen to him talking about the, doctrine of the gardener, you know, getting helping him because he says he's he's going to go apply to be a chaplain, right.
00;51;14;21 - 00;51;46;28
Unknown
That's sort of the story he gets to. Yeah, that's his cover story. So what if Gil says, okay, well, you need to do this in order to be accepted? You don't seem ready. I can help you. You give him that day of Gil genuinely showing interest in me. And is one of the ways you build, even with somebody who is inherently as suspicious as need and still is one of the ways you build, a bond is genuine interest in the other person.
00;51;47;00 - 00;52;16;06
Unknown
So Gil shows genuine interest and in everybody, like he seems to be just a guy who cares about other people. So if it's with the group, it's not going to create the bond as fast as if it's just me and and Gil working together for a, a period of time where Naeun realizes that atriums orders is or not, Gil is a person that he can rely on.
00;52;16;08 - 00;52;38;26
Unknown
So that's my thought. I'm going to I'm going to disagree a little bit, I think with somebody else that might have worked, but because Naeun isn't actually going to, or at least he's not currently planning on applying to each other. Maybe that is your career eventual fine. Okay, but because he would be laying his butt off throughout all of those conversations, I think that he wouldn't develop that bond with Gil.
00;52;38;29 - 00;53;03;09
Unknown
I think the easiest way to to have something to have this relationship progressed would be to, for Gil to save Leon's life in a way that is detrimental to get, like maybe I don't know what kind of creatures besides the Angela, but maybe creature attacks. Gil steps in the way it gets bit. Whatever proves that he is willing to put his blood on the line for neon.
00;53;03;12 - 00;53;21;25
Unknown
And that that could kind of shock me and into into something else. Yeah, that is so funny that you mentioned that I had a scene that I took out of the previous draft, in which he saves them from a mountain lion. Yeah. Did that for just for you guys? Yep. Yeah. You did. I was I was just about to shoot for this expression.
00;53;21;28 - 00;53;47;03
Unknown
The good things. It's not as bad as some I've seen. Trust me. That's a caution. Oh, yeah. Hey, maybe he's back. Oh, I'm still here, but, Yeah, that's. And that's me. And that's one of those things, like the Arias Forest provides you with that kind of that exact kind of opportunity that I was talking about, of this is a dangerous place, and Gil knows it.
00;53;47;03 - 00;54;12;24
Unknown
And Gil sees X creature, mountain lion, whatever, and steps in and genuinely puts his life at risk to save me and for no other reason, then that's the kind of person that Gil is. Okay, cool. That's helpful. Yeah, that's super helpful. I, I'm paranoid about slowing down the pace too much. Or at least I have been. Which is why I've excised some of these things.
00;54;12;26 - 00;54;35;18
Unknown
I actually contemplated just another opportunity to show how good of a guy Gil is by like, having him literally, like, save a cat from a tree or, like, give candy to children, you know, like something. Yeah, yeah. But I'm trying to balance out with the tone of, like, this is a dangerous place. I don't know. Right. But at the same time, one of the things that you can use and we've Tyler and I have both whenever he comes back.
00;54;35;20 - 00;54;50;22
Unknown
Reference to the Dresden Files. The Dresden Files, is it. It's. They can get pretty dark, pretty brutal, pretty harsh. But there are always moments of levity.
00;54;50;24 - 00;55;15;16
Unknown
Like he did an entire group of short stories where, he's tricked Harry is trying to get ready for a date, and, just a bunch of comical mishaps happen, and he is in. He's not ready. He's. I think he might even be naked when his date shows up to his house. That's really at the end of the story.
00;55;15;18 - 00;55;39;26
Unknown
And so it was just comedic throughout. And knowing that events like that happen to him helps. It helps it to be easier to accept some of the the level of stress that he gets put through through the rest of the book. So you give this moment of, you know, harsh reality of the areas force. Gil gets attacked.
00;55;39;26 - 00;56;04;02
Unknown
Gil steps in to save Negan from X creature. Later on, they get a crack, a joke about something completely inane, you know, just to just to break up that that tension. It gives people that moment. It gives the reader, especially that moment, to breathe and say, okay, it's not brutally terrible all the time. It's you. It. Yeah, yeah.
00;56;04;04 - 00;56;31;21
Unknown
Hopping back into the middle of the conversation, sorry for chopping off there. I think you thanks. I think you do have a little bit of an uphill climb getting them to connect really well, because to a certain level, mean instills aren't real people in that they don't have a history, at least not a long history. So, you know, like, you know, we all connected because we have, you know, certain things in history, certain things that are interests that are similar.
00;56;31;24 - 00;56;55;03
Unknown
Nina still aren't really going to have that with Gil. So it's going to be it's going to be events. It's going to be a shared experience, a current shared experience. Yes. With with Gil. Yeah. Yeah, I assume that JK you said a lot of very smart things while I was gonna say so much wisdom, he actually brought up, The Dresden Files, Jim Butcher.
00;56;55;03 - 00;57;14;29
Unknown
Right? Yes, I'm actually reading, I think. I don't know if it was a Tyler or you recommendation. JK the Codex Elora. Series of Killed Aaron. Yeah, yeah, reading that right now, a lot of example of examples of really good character pairings sometimes between people who really don't like each other but who were forced to work together.
00;57;15;01 - 00;57;26;04
Unknown
And gosh, they are so good and sometimes brutal. But yes, some good inspiration for sure. Yeah.
00;57;26;06 - 00;57;47;02
Unknown
Sorry. I feel like this whole thing was a, Is it rabbit trail or rabbit hole? What's the correct rabbit trail? I think we decided the rabbit trail last time. Yeah. Okay. This is all rabbit trail from, something Tyler was saying. Yeah. Did you have any? No, I was.
00;57;47;04 - 00;58;11;05
Unknown
Did you have any other questions for us? Okay. Yeah. Oh, is that what we're doing? Okay, Q&A time. Let's. I think I go to the end of what I was trying to say about. Sorry for these. I really appreciate this feedback. These are things that I've been wondering about. I, I kind of wish you guys would point out the issue and then also rewrite these chapters for me.
00;58;11;07 - 00;58;35;11
Unknown
So having a ghostwriter on that, on that, I've got a an idea I've wanted to throw out to you guys for a little now, not writing a chapter of one of our books, but writing a side story set in the world of our books. You know, we each write, you know, I write one in, Hounds of Brecken and in the areas for us.
00;58;35;11 - 00;58;55;06
Unknown
And you guys, you know, the same you read one of the world if you write unit doesn't even have to be with like, the main characters, they could make a cameo. Just something that we feel fits that world based off of our perception of what we've read. I think would be an interesting exercise at some point. Yeah, I think we have talked about that before.
00;58;55;06 - 00;59;26;00
Unknown
Maybe when it was when when gray ravished your your manuscript, you wrote all flesh. That's not the right verb. You probably did the rest, but imply that I like the manuscript or had. Liked it a little bit too much. I think. Yeah. But I think that's a really cool idea. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, I have a question for having you at some point.
00;59;26;01 - 00;59;57;10
Unknown
Yes. With other people working in the office. That'd be awesome. That would be cool. Super fun. Okay, so, question that I had actually. So I believe it was in this chapter that we have, the first instance of, the sequence of firing a shot with, one of these, one of these particular types of guns. So I was going to ask you if that didn't happen or occur too late and if that was well received, if it seemed natural, or if it just seems like I was kind of jumping in here.
00;59;57;12 - 01;00;22;17
Unknown
By the way, this is how you reload this. I honestly didn't it didn't really stick out to me that much, I don't think. Yeah, I didn't kick me out at all. Yeah, to me it was it was. Yeah. Just part of the part of the flow of the story. Cool. I think that's a good thing. And then another question I had.
01;00;22;17 - 01;00;55;09
Unknown
So you both kind of mentioned this moment when, when yarn is going through Gil's bag, of course, he comes across the largest diamond he had ever seen. That diamond. I try to introduce it very specifically with the word stone again in italics as a, as a try to call back, that exact way to describe it from the first couple of chapters when, when the chaplains and, atrium are arguing over a particular MacGuffin, a stone of some importance, that connection.
01;00;55;11 - 01;01;26;27
Unknown
Okay, okay. So so in our defense, that was how many weeks ago? That was several years ago. Okay. So on the on on that front, I think. If you want to drop a few more hands in, you have the liminal space where atrium brings it up again, you have that. You have that opportunity because he makes that slip of the tongue.
01;01;26;29 - 01;02;01;24
Unknown
You can tell he's not 100% focused. If you think the fragment knows, then you have a chance to drop another hint. And that way, when, they find it in Gil's bag, you say stone, and then people are starting going to start making the connection. Personally. So yeah, I think there's there's a lot of different ways you could you can make it a little bit feel that we're connected to that because I mean, obviously for us, I think that was our very first episode.
01;02;01;27 - 01;02;24;10
Unknown
Yeah. Might have been so, you know, so 78 weeks ago, a couple months ago, ages ago. And obviously you will have people who are reading it straight through and may make the connection because it's more recent but likely is not. You'll still want to do a little bit of something, something is, is still going to be communicating with them outside of the, the the mental space.
01;02;24;13 - 01;02;47;21
Unknown
Yes. They kind of work together in that ridiculous strategy to just stay awake because they the theory is mental exhaustion kind of keeps him at bay. They have the theory hasn't actually been tested yet, because they haven't had time outside of this crisis that they're going through. Yeah. I, I would wonder if like he doesn't have to say anything but maybe they like get a vibe for them.
01;02;47;21 - 01;03;08;04
Unknown
Like I don't know if he's a little bit scared if he's like satisfied that they found out. I don't think you get they could get like oh yeah. Oh emotion when he sees the stone like like the moon he sees this. Yeah the atrium. It's. May they'll have to go back and read that. Read that section. Yeah. Now I'm interested.
01;03;08;07 - 01;03;27;00
Unknown
All right. Cool. Yeah. Well we'll see what ends up happening with all that and how much money I have to shell out for JC as a ghostwriter. But I. Like that there is going to have so much work, no work going to be cut out for him. That's what they get. The that's a that's what Tyler gets paid for.
01;03;27;02 - 01;03;51;18
Unknown
Yeah, that's what I get paid the big bucks. Sorry. I turned off my camera for a second there. I was getting a massive Charley horse in my leg, and I didn't like. I didn't see me in there. Yeah, I just assumed that you were mining. Yeah, but, yeah, I'm very slowly, slowly going down, and they just ultimately,
01;03;51;20 - 01;04;12;08
Unknown
That's painful. Yeah. Have you ever gotten one of those, like, this just wakes you up out of a dead sleep? Yes. That's the worst. Stay hydrated guys. Yeah I sweated too much today. I guess I didn't drink the right things I was gonna say sponsored sponsored by doctor Pepper.
01;04;12;10 - 01;04;36;07
Unknown
Unofficially I it's not a, not a sponsor but I could definitely recommend element. Oh yeah I oh now it's coming into focus. Yeah. You can get those at Walmart. Great for when plants wave electrolytes. Yeah. That's reference. You. It's reference to a thing that is highly inappropriate. But that's what we do on this podcast. You talk about sausages and other inappropriate things.
01;04;36;14 - 01;05;07;23
Unknown
Welcome to Costco I love you. Have you ever said, on accident? You. Oh, that would be was up next here. I is. Moving on. All right. Here, future Tyler. Hey. Hello, future Tyler here with the goats. Context for this week starts off right after last week with the little confrontation between Warren and Stones and Dan and Isaac.
01;05;07;25 - 01;05;27;15
Unknown
Starts pretty much right after Warren leaves. Go into Stan's point of view. They're talking about Warren a little bit when you come around to their point of view or not, and then they move on to more important matters. Stan's has a book, as was foreshadowed in the last section, with Kate's POV, where she was at the library.
01;05;27;15 - 01;05;55;18
Unknown
She found out starting to check out two very important books, several years ago, and had kept the hold of them. The book in particular that Stan's has is spellbook. It has lizard skin, leather of some kind, very fantastical. And it is bad news. Think about a little bit of Frodo in the ring vibes, my precious sort of deal to corrupting influence.
01;05;55;18 - 01;06;21;27
Unknown
It's kind of got a little bit of a hold on Stan's, you know, he's he's definitely got kind of a hold of himself. A little bit. Anyway, he's cajoling Dan into keeping the book at the shop so that Bradley won't get Ahold of it because it probably gets all of it. He would have basically everything, everything he needs to open up the gate to say, which would that be a good thing?
01;06;22;00 - 01;06;45;06
Unknown
After that, Stan's gets in his car, Kate calls him, and she's looking for the other book that Stan's is checked out, and they figure that out. It's an interesting kind of character moment where, Stan's knew, Kate when she was a lot younger. And now she's the woman with the kid, and it's. They're kind of exploring their new dynamic, transition to the next scene next morning.
01;06;45;08 - 01;07;11;26
Unknown
Lila's perspective. She wakes up from this dream. She kind of will supersoft back into the dream where she sees the rider and the hounds take down a moose that has been infected, taken over by the purple thorny flowers that Warren has encountered in the past. And you encountered a deer with the same issue. And it seems like the rider is hunting down creatures like that.
01;07;11;28 - 01;07;36;09
Unknown
After the dream, she is confused because it's very real. Which it is real. She's actually seeing in the past, which we won't find out until really the next chapter when Warren, goes and finds out, but she talks to Warren. He says he's going to go check it out, and they they just kind of banter and and a little bit of a relationship furthering moment, with my half hearted romance that I have between these two.
01;07;36;12 - 01;08;07;29
Unknown
Yeah. Hope you guys enjoy the podcast this week I will show you my guts. There's a good farewell. All right. I feel like I should be up first. Yes, sir. This critique here. All right. It's been like three hours since I read this, but once again, it feels like ages. Okay, so, I like that this chapter, Tyler is, picking up pretty much right where the last one, last chapter left us.
01;08;07;29 - 01;08;31;28
Unknown
But changing POVs. So Warren has just left, for all intents and purposes, the Council of Elrond here. And we have these other old fuddy duddy. I get to talking about Warren's reaction in the aftermath. And they're not necessarily presenting a united front here because they're not in front of Warren. We get to see sort of their inner dynamic when they're not being observed.
01;08;32;04 - 01;09;13;24
Unknown
So we have, Nan and Isaac and Star and Seer, although, you know, they're not addressed. And isn't Nan in this chapter? She's, Gosh, what's eating in here? Eat a fetus? Yes. Okay. Which again, I always find interesting. Different POVs, different names, different ways of referring to other characters. Let's see, I did I know that we've talked about this, I won't belabor this point too much here, but the use of said and whether or not it's an invisible word or not, so regardless of where you fall on that particular debate, which is apparently very heated on this podcast, you do use that word quite a bit.
01;09;13;26 - 01;09;34;17
Unknown
I could not help myself from like underlying every instance of it in the first couple of paragraphs. And there were quite a few. Yeah, I did kind of, go to the trouble of coming up with a way for you to maybe erase a few of those just by, you can rearrange a few of those paragraphs so that the dialog tag is just unnecessary.
01;09;34;17 - 01;10;01;03
Unknown
And obviously this is a draft that you're just sprinting through. But, if you look at that third, paragraph, he stubborn either said, but he has a good heart. He'll come around. She pressed her hands into the table as if she were grounding herself against the wood, which I love that visual. I feel like you can actually just rearrange that sense that the visual comes first and then the dialog, so that we already know that it's Edith, talking because of the action that she just provided in reaction to another character.
01;10;01;03 - 01;10;27;09
Unknown
And yeah, so just a suggestion, another little kind of cheat way to get rid of a few dialog tags. Cool, cool. I enjoyed this chapter overall here. There's a lot of just little comments from like, noice, like, see, when they're discussing, this, this ancient tome from Faerie that's so interesting just how you described it.
01;10;27;15 - 01;10;44;15
Unknown
Bound in some sort of, exotic reptile skin and how apparently indestructible it is. The characters are discussing how to get rid of it, how to hide it, how to stash it, how to burn it. And one of them's like, I tried to lock it in the church. But it's such a public place. Like, that's not going to be feasible.
01;10;44;21 - 01;11;02;22
Unknown
And that kind of gets my mind racing. I like how you don't spell that out explicitly. Like, how does this magic system work? Is it because it's like sacred ground or something like that? How does Faerie combine with like, the religious rules of this world? I kind of like that. You just left that a question. I don't know if that meant was meant to be a question, but it was in my mind.
01;11;02;24 - 01;11;29;18
Unknown
Let's see. And then funny, I was talking about, this sort of sort of Frodo or Bilbo dynamic with the ring and how, Stan's holding the book. Just can't kind of help himself from almost opening the pages, and he has to will himself to stop. Carefully willed them to stop describing his fingers. I love I had to I love that had to highlight that you have a lot of good instances of little details like that.
01;11;29;21 - 01;11;57;16
Unknown
A lot of exposition in this chapter that's wrapped up either in dialog or in internal logic. That felt very natural here and did not feel like Lord dumping, which I appreciated. And then, I will praise you and ding you concurrently, for the use of the secret door and the secret staircase in Nan's house. I love secret doors and secret passages, and especially secret stairs leading to secret basements.
01;11;57;18 - 01;12;17;24
Unknown
I had to ding you, though, because now I realize this whole novel should have been about secret passages. And so you really lost an opportunity. There just to make this, like Coraline and it's other Rose. Oh my gosh. Anyway, so I got super excited. I definitely got a dopamine hit when they started going down into that in the passage there.
01;12;17;27 - 01;12;37;15
Unknown
I was a little bit disappointed by what I found as a reader down in that passage. Yes. But you make a point. It's almost humorous that you're supposed to be disappointed. Like, Stan's is kind of disappointed. It's like I expected this whole secret library set up and, you know, and that's that's the trope, right? And I like that you kind of just make fun of that trope.
01;12;37;18 - 01;12;58;07
Unknown
So yeah, hats off. No, though really appreciate them. I was having trouble picturing you describe an elongated safe, I don't know if that was just me, running through this sentence, but there might be something to pay attention to just how you describe it. I like that Isaac is like Batman. He just kind of disappears.
01;12;58;07 - 01;13;21;18
Unknown
And apparently that's a common thing with him. Is. Reminds me of a friend that I've had before. Let's see. Yeah, I feel like I've. I know even some of these characters, like Nan and Stan's well enough now to where there are instances I can point out and say, that's such a Stan's line, like, when, when Stan's is asked a question and he responds with, because it is.
01;13;21;26 - 01;13;50;04
Unknown
And then he just leaves like, that's such a Stan's line. I appreciate that. So that speaks volumes to I think I point this out with Warren just how well acquainted I feel with your characters at this point. And then moving on to the next chapter, I like, we get another Lila POV that feels necessary. Lila feels like a vulnerable character because of her lack of abilities and potential, lack of knowledge about the town and even her, potential willingness to confront the mysteries of the town.
01;13;50;06 - 01;14;13;00
Unknown
To the extent that Warren feels is necessary or that Nan already has, it's kind of working knowledge. So because she feels so vulnerable, I like that you use this almost horror movie trope where she wakes up from a nightmare. You describe her the walls as looking ghostly in the moonlight, and she looks at the alarm clock and it's 3 a.m. and I'm like, oh, that is, so perfect and just gives me goosebumps.
01;14;13;00 - 01;14;32;18
Unknown
I appreciate that. The hour of the Wolf. Yes. Or the witching hour, or the hour that I wake up for work every single morning. It's unfortunate, especially when you're with us. So I in the past, like, I'd say, when I have to wake up at three m after recording a podcast session, that is just. It destroys me.
01;14;32;18 - 01;14;55;01
Unknown
I'm such a grumpy person at work. I bet you guys are responsible. You just use it as advertising. You want to know why I'm upset here? Go to this. Let me that great idea. I'm going to have to start doing that. As to the specific contents of Layla's dream, I. I won't give away everything that's happening there.
01;14;55;04 - 01;15;17;25
Unknown
I do really like all that. And I like the fact that there are kind of callbacks, like the reader knows more than Layla does at this point about her dream, which I like, and the potential danger that that implies. I did feel that. So you have like 3 or 4, just huge chunky paragraph blocks describing, because it's not it's not broken up by dialog and nor is it supposed to.
01;15;17;27 - 01;15;44;01
Unknown
I feel like it might benefit from just breaking up, even if kind of artificially into smaller chunks. Just for the the flow of the reader as they're skipping their way through that. Yeah. And of course, I like the core of the resolution. Layla, kind of without realizing, happens to call, Warren just kind of instinctively looking for comfort after she wakes up from this nightmare.
01;15;44;03 - 01;16;04;06
Unknown
And I like all their interactions here. I also had another realization as I do my fan casting for your book. Warren's voice is it's I even looked at the voice actor and I posted a hyperlink to this document. Like, you need to hear this voice and see if it's Warren's voice in your head. Tyler, who is this?
01;16;04;09 - 01;16;26;12
Unknown
The guy that does the voice. The voice for, Cloud Strife and the Final Fantasy seven remake? It's very terse, very matter of fact. Yeah, I know who. So I hope that those decisions, I hope that you appreciate those decisions when you are producing this. The adaptation, of course, is. Of course. Yeah. All right. Overall, just very good.
01;16;26;12 - 01;16;53;13
Unknown
I wish that I had more constructive feedback beyond some of the, nitty gritty of the paragraph structure, but that's what I got for you. Yeah. Appreciate it. Thanks, man. Yes, sir. What about you, Mr. Jesse? So overall, like I said, with, great great job continues, the story continues to flow like you said. Like gray said, it continues right from where we left off, flipping POVs to the Council of Elrond.
01;16;53;13 - 01;17;10;11
Unknown
Like we've said, the Lord of the rings reference with your your books a lot. Yeah. I think anybody who reads this book will be able to tell that I'm a big love of the rings fans. Yeah. They, you give us subtle confirmations, a lot of things as we go through things that that you've referenced and hinted at and not really confirmed.
01;17;10;11 - 01;17;37;00
Unknown
We get some confirmations. I like the the compulsion with the, lifting up of the book. I think you could make it hit a little bit harder if we get another secondary reaction from Nan or Edith to what Stan's is doing with the book, that maybe she glares at him, noticing that, you know, you know, this is exactly what I'm talking about, you idiot.
01;17;37;00 - 01;18;01;00
Unknown
We can't have this thing out and about. That did it. A lot of so early tonight. Jesse usually only gets up at nine. I have to I have an 830 and a nine. 830 is usually a little quieter. So one of my questions is, and this is but not necessarily something that you have to mention in the book, it would be funny if you did.
01;18;01;03 - 01;18;23;08
Unknown
Do they have a like genealogy genealogical tree of this family has fey blood, this family has fake blood, this family has fey blood. Because to me it seems like they should like they should have that in a record somewhere. They definitely don't. And there's a lot of reasons for that. And then. Okay, I'm happy to go into them.
01;18;23;08 - 01;18;45;23
Unknown
Jesse. It's not really a spoiler. So but there's, there's a reason why they don't do it for that reason or not. Not really. Okay. But but when you think about it, when you think about like the mythology, like a lot of times there'd be a changeling and then they will even though it was a changeling or, you know, you could even go to like, Greek mythology.
01;18;45;23 - 01;19;07;07
Unknown
A lot of times Zeus would turn into the husband, right? And pretend he was her. So you wouldn't always know. I did have in a previous draft, Bradley was really going to be pushing stars to do a blood drive. So that he could test the blood of all of the kids to see. Who are they? Blood testing.
01;19;07;10 - 01;19;11;06
Unknown
Yeah, that. Yeah, that.
01;19;11;09 - 01;19;23;25
Unknown
I don't think there's room for it in this one, but that would be interesting. I did have to I did I did have to I did end up going in a different direction, but that's how you would be able to tell who has Abel. And maybe in the next book, maybe there will be a reason for for it to happen.
01;19;23;25 - 01;20;13;09
Unknown
But yeah, that would be interesting. I did it did, don't have anything there. I like that there's the stance understands that there's fairy magic, but he also understands that man's magic is not necessarily fairy magic. And he doesn't completely understand everything that she does. And so that though there's you have multiple mythologies kind of combining in one area, you know, it's it's interesting to me, if you haven't read it, the, Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs is urban fantasy with fairy magic and Native American magic.
01;20;13;09 - 01;20;37;26
Unknown
And, it's it's a little more romance than it is than other books I would recommend, but it I like it. It's a good series. I think I read as well in very short stories and in, in one of the anthologies that I really like. And, and she's got to series in that world, one of them and I'm not as big a fan of, but the Mercy Thompson series is my favorite.
01;20;37;29 - 01;21;14;13
Unknown
And from her, let's see here. I like how Stan's isn't afraid of silence. Like you just lets the silence roll in the conversation. That's that's, one of those things that not all writers allow their characters to do. They're not always comfortable with silence. I see here, so I like the reference that, he. So I've been on the side of the conversation where Stan's is like, what happened to Lori's kid sister?
01;21;14;15 - 01;21;35;00
Unknown
Where I've had people that haven't seen me for ten, 20 years and they're like, well, I remember this, this gawky, skinny, nerdy kid, who the heck are you? I they just they just don't know, like, they don't know how to handle me as a, as a 40 year old, basically. So that that seemed real to me. It was a good detail.
01;21;35;03 - 01;22;05;29
Unknown
How did they, how did they handle you at 50 and 60? JK I'm not that old. Thank you very much. It's. Come on, man. I was hoping to keep the mystery buried. There's a couple of spots where you just. There was some rough spots that when I read them, I was like that. That it just didn't flow as well, so it stood out.
01;22;06;01 - 01;22;25;29
Unknown
Did it? My question is, is where does Layla get her power of dream walking? Does that get answered? Do you know, like, do you know I have. No. You don't know. Yeah. Okay. All right. That's fine. I think it's fine to ask that question. I was like, oh, I'm entertained by this. I don't have to think about the way, and that's the thing.
01;22;25;29 - 01;22;48;26
Unknown
Like, you get it, you get away with it because magic is just a thing and we don't have as much from Layla in this book. So not answering it is fine. That's. I mean, for all we know, she's got Native American ancestry, and dream walking was a big thing for them. So this is this is one of the questions I was going to ask you.
01;22;48;26 - 01;22;55;05
Unknown
Does it feel like it kind of comes out of left field?
01;22;55;07 - 01;23;07;21
Unknown
No, because here we are. Here we are. Chapter 2023. It's probably actually going to be chapter 24 because I've added, I'm going to be adding a few things and suddenly we find out that she's been having these dreams.
01;23;07;23 - 01;23;31;13
Unknown
I mean, she hasn't been she could discuss it like that first chapter that you have with AJ and Luke and her sitting around making bracelets. There can be a casual mention like, oh, you had another nightmare. You want to talk about it? No. And like only and perhaps we're only hearing about it now because she's just now getting to the point of comfortability with Warren, where she feel confident enough to reach out to him and finally talk about this to somebody.
01;23;31;15 - 01;24;00;18
Unknown
And so you can get the sense that it's been a wounds and, you know, an emotional wounds in the background this whole time. I kind of like that. Yeah. It's an interesting idea. Yeah, I think that I think that would be the easiest way to to give that subtle foreshadowing that I suck at. So. I will say that the page with three just big blocks of pair of of text, that threw me.
01;24;00;18 - 01;24;21;23
Unknown
I was like that. That's a lot. And it's all information. It's all stuff we need. We need to see this in my mind. Like, this is I'm not saying cut this. This is important. I think you need to break it up. You know, somehow, because that I know people that will gloss that page completely. They won't read it.
01;24;21;26 - 01;24;46;24
Unknown
They'll go to. Who are those? Yeah. People are dumb. Yeah. They they just. Well, because they don't like things. Yeah. Those big blocks of, texts like that are hard for people to, to get through sometimes. You could break it up with little mini paragraphs if, like, after a bunch of description, just Layla stirred in her sleep or, you know, like we already know that she's by the end of it, you clue us into the fact that she's, like, sitting up, right?
01;24;46;27 - 01;25;10;22
Unknown
I don't know, like, maybe she. Yeah. Or you could just break it up. You could just make them smaller chunks. I don't know if I use this, I just think I need to break them up. I'm looking at it. Yeah. Natural. Like in the natural parts, but I'll find one. Yeah. Yeah. Like to me it's it's maybe she has to pause, to breathe, to refocus, to recenter herself, to stay in the dream and not fall asleep and go into actual dreamland.
01;25;10;24 - 01;25;31;29
Unknown
You know, she takes a pause and resets. Because this is a disturbing scene. Layla we have she's and this people again, there's going to be people that hear this and get mad. I mean, she's a soft character. Like she's tough, she's strong, but she's a soft character. And this, like some people cannot handle this kind of violence. Is that because she's a girl?
01;25;31;29 - 01;25;59;24
Unknown
Jake? Absolutely. 100%. I say as my wife has a better shot. I got the rifle. No. Died in her sleep. Yeah. I mean, that's not saying too much. Yeah. No. And too. But. Yeah. And it's it's. So when we get to those violent scenes, it gives you a chance for her to have to stop for a second and refocus, because she's clearly got some level of control.
01;25;59;26 - 01;26;18;25
Unknown
You make that clear at the end when she's sitting up in bed, she's a she's dreaming but not asleep. I like that line. It gives you an idea of what's going on. So if she has to pause and reset, pause and refocus, pause and recenter. That's all magic talk. That's all magic speak. That's all realistic things that could happen.
01;26;18;27 - 01;26;50;02
Unknown
And it gives you easy breaks in the the flow of information. And I didn't have that idea until now. So my comment in the is less helpful in the, in the, in the, in the piece. So otherwise great work, great job. I like I like your book. If you don't start querying soon, I'm going to start strong arming the indigo in the eyes.
01;26;50;04 - 01;27;13;09
Unknown
I feel like that's a it's fit though for indie. Like he's got his act together. He knows how to administrate. I feel like you could run a business. Yes. Join the dark side. I mean, no way. You're way better. I wish I had had you guys 15 years ago before I published a hero unit. Well, 15 years ago, back when you were 48.
01;27;13;11 - 01;27;35;28
Unknown
And I was the I was, I was, yeah, 13. JK was late 30s. You were really 13 then. Oh my gosh, 15 years ago. Yeah. 15 years ago. Yeah. 28. You're when you talk to me, I get down and you're like, oh man, I hate Britney Spears. The music's terrible. And they're like, Who's Britney Spears? And like,
01;27;36;00 - 01;27;53;19
Unknown
I am born in the 80s, raised in the 90s. I'm a 90s kids. You grew up with a lot of great entertainment properties, though. You were blessed. I did, I did I was very lucky, even in my tiny, remote, small town.
01;27;53;21 - 01;28;19;08
Unknown
Yeah. All right. Any questions for Tyler? Yeah. So I ask someone about Layla. The book again. These were. These were both really late additions. My idea of the story. Does a book come out of left field? Does it feel like it? Okay, you get away with it because of the library chapter? Yeah. I assumed this was going to be the book that, students had checked out that was missing.
01;28;19;10 - 01;28;39;24
Unknown
I'm trying to remember if you've made any other references to it earlier on. I like what it does for the first time. Okay. I don't know about that. I like what it does here for the cluing. It's in on how the magic system works or reminding us rather the fact that there are spells inside that can't be activated without having the portal open like it's still dangerous, clearly.
01;28;39;24 - 01;29;01;20
Unknown
And there's there's forbidden knowledge inside, but that the danger can escalate like it, then that in tandem, the danger of the gate opening also escalates. So I feel like it's necessary to have this as to whether or not you can clue us in, have some breadcrumb breadcrumbs a little bit earlier might be necessary or at least helpful. Yeah.
01;29;01;23 - 01;29;34;19
Unknown
I don't know, there's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot. After this point I need to do better with the book. Lots of things happen with this book. Let's you get the magic kind of figure. Yeah, I was I was concerned that it just. And again, chapter 23, whether it's going to be right. Maybe too late to introduce it, but now I like I said, I think I think you give us one more library scene where we get a little bit more of a, of a feel that there's there's weird books in this library.
01;29;34;19 - 01;30;06;22
Unknown
No, you're not allowed to go in that section because you're not allowed to go in that section. And then you get the library scene, okay. And then you get this scene. And I think, I think you get away with the book. Personally, I'm trying to think if you can monopolize existing real estate that you already have written to introduce the book, or at least hint at it, probably be too much in that initial scene where Stan's is grilling Warren a little bit in the principal's office to have Warren like glance at, like, a bull's under a jacket or something, or like, I don't know, that might not be a bad idea, though.
01;30;06;25 - 01;30;33;11
Unknown
That is, if I would be bringing it with him because he doesn't want to. It's not safe enough to leave it at his house if it's always on his person or close. I don't know if it would be at the school at some point, but I think that might be interesting. The fact that, and I think is and then it would fit well, I mean, I don't know how much you want to feed into the Gollum esque nature, the one ring nature of the book and how it might be affecting him.
01;30;33;13 - 01;30;56;07
Unknown
But if if he's to have it on him. Yeah, if he and he justifies it by saying I can't leave it at my house is too dangerous to leave it at my house. Oh, subtext, because he clearly says it's not going to give your kid cancer. It's not going to affect your your grandson. You know, and clearly Nan doesn't 100% agree with that, but she does agree with it in part.
01;30;56;09 - 01;31;00;18
Unknown
So because she takes it,
01;31;00;21 - 01;31;06;26
Unknown
I think hinting at it then I think that's a really good idea actually.
01;31;06;28 - 01;31;33;29
Unknown
Yeah. That's interesting. Did you catch my slightly dirty joke. Yeah, yeah, I was going to leave. I was going to leave, but I'm just like, I gotta pull. No, but no. Wait, I see is what? No. The would, was. Oh, I was talking about, yeah. I did something similar in the very first fight club scene.
01;31;33;29 - 01;31;58;20
Unknown
I don't think either of you noticed it. So I wanted to see if, you know, there's the one, Yeah, I picked up on that one. Yes. I was surprised that you. But I'm not, so. No, no. Are you surprised? I keep my books very clean, but I will. It's like. It's like with all the Disney movies, how they kind of slip in things for the adults to enjoy.
01;31;58;22 - 01;32;28;18
Unknown
Yes. Kind of do something similar with some of the some of my writing. I feel like your your teenage audience will catch some of that. Just. Yes, probably. Anyway. All right. You want to ask us? Yeah. Yeah, I think I think those are the main questions I had. I again, lots of late editions. I had plans for another character to have Layla's.
01;32;28;21 - 01;32;47;15
Unknown
Layla's dream dream acting abilities. But it just felt like she needed a little bit. Something more in this book. So. Yeah. So I might be of an ice that I ability. I forget if it's a Gwen that's able to walk through the dreams at one point and encounters Rand, which is one of my favorite scenes where he's like, going insane.
01;32;47;21 - 01;33;03;16
Unknown
But we get none of that character development except for. Whoa, he might be insane. Let's go to a different scene anyway. Yeah, yeah, neither here nor. Yeah, but it's mostly, mostly paired with the the dream walking abilities. But yeah. Gwen, I think it's a Gwen that does. Gwen. Yeah, I think it's like book three or something or. Yeah.
01;33;03;16 - 01;33;34;22
Unknown
Well, she's she starts it in three, goes more and actually goes and gets training in four and five and then. Oh, right. Right. I just reread them. So yeah, it's fresher, a little bit fresher in my mind. Just to say that I just reread them, I just read this 5 Million Words series. That's that's a list. Yeah, that's I it was it's one of my, foundation.
01;33;34;22 - 01;33;58;13
Unknown
Like my, my fantasy foundations is really hard because I started it a lot younger than most people. I read the eye of the World and The Great Hunt in fifth grade. Oh, wow. Yeah. So I got into it really early. Like, I remember when all of the books except for the first four came out, so. And then memory lane.
01;33;58;15 - 01;34;23;16
Unknown
Yeah, it's, So. Yeah. So I read it. I probably reread it again. Just a it has so much that as writers, we can learn from good and bad, like, it has its flaws. I'm not one of those, those absolutes that the Wheel of Time is is is the best series ever written. It's not for. It's not.
01;34;23;16 - 01;34;47;17
Unknown
Yeah, it's not for everybody. And a lot of people aren't going to like it. It's not something that, that, anybody can just sit down and read. But if you want to learn a lot about writing, sit down and read it. At least book one. A book one's got so much in it. You know, it's like it's you're a big Lord of the rings fan.
01;34;47;23 - 01;35;04;06
Unknown
You can't really write and talk in style because it's not really going to fly these days. So you're not you're not talking. First of all, the Wheel of Time is kind of like a midpoint between that, that style of writing that, not just the genre, of course, but but but that. Yeah, really that style of writing. Yeah.
01;35;04;07 - 01;35;40;17
Unknown
And we'll fly more to modern audience. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Agreed. Well, speaking of, of reminiscing about some of our favorite reads in the past, should we should we open up or a question for this week? Sure. Do we remember what the question was? I do have a phrase that I had to think of it, but I do, now with with us being in the critique group and us having written what is one piece of advice that if you could go back and tell your younger creative self, what would it be?
01;35;40;19 - 01;35;58;09
Unknown
You should go first. Jesse, I get to go first. Okay. Well, so I and this is going to sound weird. I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was about in fourth grade. I had written several small stories for school, like you do. And I knew, like, in fourth grade, I made the decision.
01;35;58;09 - 01;36;24;21
Unknown
I wanted to be a writer. And so my dad actually gave me a piece of advice that I didn't take seriously. And I wish I would have, to submit short stories, write and submit short stories, too, because back then, in the 90s, print media was still a thing, and there were a lot of, fantasy and science fiction magazines out there that would take short story submissions.
01;36;24;24 - 01;36;50;25
Unknown
And if I could go back now and say, you know, not only am I an indie author, but I've had several short stories published in various magazines and various anthologies or something like that that I had built up a career and a reputation through my short work. Then when I publish, Go Indie and publish my my full stories, people that I have a fan base, I have a reader base potentially already there and waiting and ready.
01;36;50;28 - 01;37;11;13
Unknown
So that's me. That's great advice, actually. I would say for me, gosh, this is going to be kind of a hot take. This is going to be kind of controversial here. So just hold on to your pants. The advice I would give my past self happens a little bit later in life and, fourth grade.
01;37;11;13 - 01;37;37;11
Unknown
But I would tell myself not to go to college. So a little bit of background for me. I went into college, kind of having a shaky idea of what I wanted to do. I've always been interested in writing, so I ended up, drifting towards, a screenwriting degree, which I was in Southern California. So, like, okay, I didn't realize that our program was pretty small, so we didn't have all these relationships established to get internships.
01;37;37;13 - 01;38;00;21
Unknown
And I loved the act of writing. And, it's funny because now after the fact, I've kind of transition back towards writing novels. And as far as what I want to do, I just, I like that form of writing better. It's obviously way easier to break into than trying to write a spec script and just hope and pray that you can submit to look at some of these other places and get it and, you know, get accepted.
01;38;00;24 - 01;38;21;29
Unknown
But even just beyond all that, I've learned so much more outside of getting a degree than I learned inside in an institution. And you know that you can argue that speaks to my specific, you know, curriculum that I learned and, under. But, I mean, I'm able to, read books on craft at my own tempo.
01;38;21;29 - 01;38;43;09
Unknown
I'm able to pick exactly. I'm able to tackle, you know, Sanderson and Robert Jordan and Tolkien, all these greats. And I'm able to do that on my own time when I want to. I'm able to do activities like this. Right. And I'm not plopping my life savings into a degree that I'm not necessarily going to use. So even if you know this, even if nothing were to materialize it, materialize from it.
01;38;43;09 - 01;38;59;20
Unknown
Even if I were to never make a profit from doing this, you know, this is still what I love doing. And it's yes, it is costing me some to get a website set up, an email distribution and all that stuff kind of just comes along with the territory. But it's nothing compared to just the investment of a college education.
01;38;59;22 - 01;39;12;01
Unknown
That's essentially like gambling. You're rolling the dice to see if anything is going to come from it. I mean, you could go get a creative writing degree, but I would tell my younger self not to.
01;39;12;03 - 01;39;38;26
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For a lot of people these days, I think that's very good advice. There's very few things you actually need to go to college for it. Yeah I agree, come on. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. For me, looking at my stack of notebooks of unfinished half finished stories, I think I would smack my younger self upside the head and be like, finish something.
01;39;38;29 - 01;40;05;25
Unknown
I think I told you guys for this is actually the first novel I've actually finished. Obviously very short stories and stuff before, but the first novel that I've actually finished and I wish I had done it sooner. I think a lot of, you know, I've, I've had, you know, I've had my journey through, different careers and different things that I've been doing, and I've always wanted to be a writer.
01;40;05;25 - 01;40;29;24
Unknown
I wanted to be a full time writer. I wanted to make a living writer, but I wasn't confident enough that I'd be able to. But I wonder, hypothetically, talking to my past self, if we had finished something in high school, if we had finished a couple things in college, if I would be at the spot right now where I could be supporting my family with my writing, you know, that would be really freaking cool.
01;40;29;26 - 01;40;49;14
Unknown
I'm enjoying what I'm doing right now. You know, I'm editing books and I'm helping other writers succeed. And I, I love it, but I would love even more if all I had to do every day was to sit my butt in front of the computer and write my stories. Now.
01;40;49;17 - 01;41;09;11
Unknown
Yeah. Oh, man. It's it's kind of a soul searching saying you're more than. Yeah, maybe we need to. Yeah. This is a this is a good question. Yeah. Full disclosure, dear listener, we do not have a question coming into this podcast today. So we asked GPT and the first two weren't any good. But then the third one was this one.
01;41;09;13 - 01;41;35;22
Unknown
And this honestly was a very good question. So, Thank you. You have a question for us? Yes, please. I'll mans put them of a comment on YouTube or the podcast or somewhere. Probably, probably YouTube would be the best place. But, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that wraps things up and see. Yeah. We should do our regular plugs or.
01;41;35;22 - 01;42;00;23
Unknown
Yes. Yeah, let's do our regular plugs. We've already plugged the, the, Gem State con, but I got my website has Tyler Blogger.com, also has my information for my editing services, but also has some, some short stuff that I've written and, more nonfiction writers. What's the word I'm looking for? Guys, writers, education. There you go.
01;42;00;26 - 01;42;24;07
Unknown
Writing that articles. Appreciate it. Go check that out. Yeah. And as always you can go to JC baby.com to find all my books that are available. I'm working on getting links for Barnes Noble. I haven't got that set up yet. And sadly we get you guys can make fun of me for this. We talked about in the last episode, the just aired about me getting my YouTube channel set up.
01;42;24;07 - 01;42;50;27
Unknown
It hasn't happened yet. But I was wondering about that as I was posting. Yeah. It's like has. Yeah. But hopefully soon I will be getting it. And actually I have a small publishing LLC that doesn't do anything yet, but that's what I'll be using for my, RPG system, and I'll be doing some videos for that as well on a separate little channel, you know, is looking forward to that.
01;42;50;29 - 01;43;12;03
Unknown
Cool. For me, you can visit my website, Gray Elder books.com, and from there you can find, all the other pies that I have my hands in. Click the magic button there to receive a free shiny short stories that you will hopefully love and not despise. You can unsubscribe at any time and leave your hateful comments.
01;43;12;05 - 01;43;36;06
Unknown
Just don't do it on the third person POV. YouTube. Yeah, great. What kind of pies do you have your fingers in? Oh my gosh, this is a trap. It's just like I don't say anything. I did not realize this is a dirty reference. Okay? It's not. I'm just. I'm just dis I'm just curious. He's waiting for the wedding question.
01;43;36;06 - 01;44;02;03
Unknown
Okay. Yeah. So I've got a Substack that's got, a decent amount of requested. You can obviously there's there's a link. Gosh. Is there there's going to be a link to this podcast on the website. You can sign up for my email newsletter, which will have clips from the pod, as well as a link to that short story and just news and updates with what's going on with me.
01;44;02;05 - 01;44;13;02
Unknown
Yeah. I'm so tempted to tell you to visit me at my day job, but I'm not going to tell you where I work, so do not come to Taco Bell. Do not say hi to.
01;44;13;04 - 01;44;32;23
Unknown
He's actually an investment baker on Wall Street. Yes. Yep. I do not work at a combination KFC slash Taco Bell at a gas station. I'm sorry. If you work at a place like that. That's just. That's what pops in my head is like a place I'd really not want to work at. But I'm sure it's lovely. Yeah, I don't like.
01;44;32;26 - 01;44;54;14
Unknown
All right, guys, to work in something like that. The dream is that we're all going to be doing writing full time before too long. So some of us are already living that dream. Yeah. Freaking JK. Screw you. That's going to be one of our first pieces of, merch of the t shirt. Screw you.
01;44;54;17 - 01;45;24;25
Unknown
Yeah. To help us realize our dreams of being full time writers, please make this podcast blow up. Shared. Yes. Subscribe. Like comment. What else do they need to do? Yeah. Thumbs down, thumbs up. Yeah. Any kind of engagement, right? Yeah. Engagement is engage repost repost repost. Yeah. There it is. Yep. And, send us money and join our Patreon, which we might even have a sign this is.
01;45;24;27 - 01;45;47;25
Unknown
And yes, should say this money. Jake has already been caught out by stating he'll have something. But yeah, actually, it was me that said you would have, the YouTube channel. Well, the funny thing is, is at the time I was, I was getting ready to work on it, and then I realized I had to get two presentations ready for my last writers conference, and everything went out the window.
01;45;47;25 - 01;46;10;28
Unknown
But that so which you should have filmed Jake, and put on your YouTube channel. I absolutely show them. What totally spaced out. Oh man, we asked you such great questions last time you did a presentation at the conference, we were at. Yeah. I'm, I'm going to see if trust is okay with it for, October. Which has gotten bigger.
01;46;11;01 - 01;46;43;20
Unknown
She talked to the Oregon Trail Center, where we have the conference. It is a nonprofit museum out in, lake area in Montpelier. They have found space for a fourth classroom. So we get to add where in? Yeah. Apparently there's a quilting room that the the the quilting group always has, like, ones on display. And so the, the Oregon Trail Center asked them, you know, for this week, for this day, can you not have a quilt there so they can, and they got approval, they're going to do it.
01;46;43;20 - 01;47;17;11
Unknown
So we have I mean, for more classes. She's so. Yeah. And it's it's yeah. My friend Andrea Pierson's going to be doing at least one. She is the one. She is the person that got me into indie publishing. She does a, clean wire romance. She's got, like, 40 books or something like that written. And then,
01;47;17;13 - 01;47;44;14
Unknown
Shoot. I think she's getting Dave wrote back to do one. Who else? Tons of people. It's it's, Yeah, it's going to be a big a good conference, especially for a tiny town in the middle or in the far reaches of Idaho. And just, speaking of pestering Jake to record live sessions, we're going to try to record the session that we do at Comic-Con.
01;47;44;16 - 01;48;05;13
Unknown
May 15th at 4 p.m. in Boise, Garden City, technically. So we'll try to have that up for you guys. That should be fun at the very least. Yeah, there'll be a bonus episode or something. Yeah, that'll be really cool. Yeah, well, at this point, we'll probably have gone live a couple point. A couple times, hopefully.
01;48;05;15 - 01;48;18;18
Unknown
By the like, I to announce that. But it's probably too late for this episode. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. All right, guys, seriously, we love you for showing up.