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Explore your curiosity - Interesting people with fascinating stories.
Life consists of three things:
-The stories we tell others
-The stories others tell us
-The stories we tell ourselves.
Aspry, welcome aboard to the shows. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Hi. So here's my first question.
Speaker 2:Hey.
Speaker 1:You have a long and incredible career across media, And we're we're we're gonna talk about that. But my real question is what got you on to fantasy? What was your either first fantasy book or what's the most memorable book? Who's your kind of role model for fantasy writing?
Speaker 2:Well, I've been doing the whole fantasy thing in one way or another since I was about 14, 15 years old, but I was a comic book geek at the time. Was huge in comic books. And by the time my collection ended up being sold for a heck of a lot less money than it was worth, I I was about I was about 8,000 strong.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yes. And, yeah, you know, I I was hugely into superheroes. I was hugely into movies. I was I was really big into wrestling, actually.
Speaker 2:The whole good versus evil thing
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just just totally resonated with me from day one. And I can't say that I was fantasy fantasy unless it was in the movies. Yeah. But around the time I heard you know, I was into Willow and, you you know, the Hulk the Player and all those, you know, all those visual mediums. But by the time Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring hit theaters or was supposed to be hitting theaters, I wanted to jump on that bandwagon.
Speaker 2:And I started reading all three books at that point on. All four, actually, with The Hobbit included. And I was just hooked from that point on. And I was I but I I'd done a lot of writing on my own from doing my own comic books and illustrating my own comic books too to working at
Speaker 1:end the on you? Can you, like, show us something, hands reach? Because that's that's pretty hardcore.
Speaker 2:No. Oh, man. Sorry.
Speaker 1:I So, was so you know, I I I was in some some meeting or another, and I'm like, just follow the bird. Forget the bird, follow the river. So I quoted Willow and, one person one person picked up the reference and I'm like, you're my new friend.
Speaker 2:That happens to me quite a bit too. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's such a delight. I mean, so for me, it was I don't know if you if you if you know this one, but Dragonlance, so Tracy Hickman, Margaret Weiss, the Dragonlance Chronicles, I felt like I fell in love with fantasy through that series.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So it was it was such a game changer. And then, of course, you know, everybody's into Lord of the Rings and everything because they became super famous with the movies and all. But I find that the old classics like Willow, it it just they had a magic to them that I feel like the new superheroes movies maybe don't capture. I don't know. What are you what what are you feeling about all the new superhero releases?
Speaker 2:Dream come true.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You like you love them? I I I feel like there have been some disappointments as well.
Speaker 2:Well, that happens. You're not gonna hit a you're not gonna hit a a home run every single time. But they were hitting home runs every single time in the beginning. Even the the ones that weren't all that great, like the first Thor movie, it it you know, it was still landmark entertainment. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Again, I had been waiting for that my entire life. You know, I've been waiting for these movies, these comic books to come to life since I was a little kid. And, you know, they tried to do it. They tried to do it in the eighties. Superman was successful in the seventies.
Speaker 2:Batman, Tim Burton's Batman was was was but then you had Howling the Duck. You know? I mean, you had a lot of failures in that in that group and, you know, I don't wanna talk bad about anybody, but I, you know, I I I kinda gave up on the whole thing for a while. But then when the MCU came out with their new movies, boy, was I jazzed about it and they knocked it out of the park. The casting was perfect every single time.
Speaker 2:So yeah, this is a dream come true to me because my comic books have finally come to life.
Speaker 1:When you how about the last the Marvels where what's her name? The actress starts singing in the middle. They put kind of a musical part in that. Did you see that one?
Speaker 2:You know, okay. I'm gonna be honest with you. After Thanos bit the dust or became dust, see what it did? I I lost the deal for it. Because just like the point that you just made, it kind of went a little bit downhill.
Speaker 2:And, you know, as geeky as I am in comic books, or at least I used to be, you know, I kind of lost the deal for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We've had a few bad ones. Feel like my friend looked at me. We're at the cinema. We actually went to the cinema to watch this.
Speaker 1:My friend looks at me and he's like, Harry, what the fuck am I watching?
Speaker 2:I was
Speaker 1:like, no. This is pretty good. I'm enjoying it. I'm like, Harry, what is wrong with you? I was like, he still gives me shit about enjoying that one, the Marvels.
Speaker 1:I thought
Speaker 2:it was cool. But I didn't know we could say fucking shit. That's awesome. Okay. Great.
Speaker 2:Let's No rage on this part. No.
Speaker 1:No. We we have no notes. So okay. So so you have this this pretty amazing career doing you know, you were at CNN, you were at Fox, you were at ABC, you were doing everything from, you know, engineering type roles to whatever was needed, videotaping, all the things.
Speaker 2:Somebody's got one my computer pulled up.
Speaker 1:What what is your, like, what's your it can be a high pressure environment, right, at times.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:What's your shit show nightmare story? What was the worst moment you've had throughout your media career?
Speaker 2:I was there at CNN for nineeleven. That nightmarish was day of work. And it turned into about twelve days straight of nightmares and constant round the clock coverage, bomb scares, the city shutting down here and there. Lots of people lots of people afraid for their lives. It was a tough time.
Speaker 1:There's nobody who cannot say the exact moment described it at elaborate detail the second they heard about 09:11, including myself. What was yours? What was the exact moment? What were you doing?
Speaker 2:I was on break. I came in, very early in the morning, and I had an 08:00, lunch break. So I was in the break room hanging out, and my manager, Johnny, just starts you in order to get to the Larry King studio, you had to run through the break room from master control. So we were in the middle. So my my manager Johnny goes running through the break room at top speed.
Speaker 2:And he was an excitable guy. So I remember saying to myself, I'm like, wow. You know, Johnny really should fill out every now and again, man. This guy needs he needs to get mellow. I didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 2:So he called me off my break, and he said, Spry, I need you to get down here. Spry is my nickname. I need you to get down into the Larry King studio and point a camera out the window, shoot it downtown at the at the buildings that are burning. Was like, What's what's happening? So I go down there.
Speaker 2:I I I point the camera out the window and I flick it into robotic camera because that's that's you know, there was a thing around that time, robotic cameras taking a lot of jobs away from people. And, you know, from that point on, that particular shot was was managed by robotic cameras shooting downtown. And that that's that famous shot. Everybody sees it. It's all over the Internet.
Speaker 2:You know, if you pull up 09:11, you know, that's the shot. And, you know, coming from CNN, so that was us. And after that, needless to say, that was the end of my lunch break, and I went right back to work.
Speaker 1:Oh shit. Alright. What's your most salient memory from those difficult seven days and I would say months after?
Speaker 2:It was a you know what? It was a weird time for New York in general.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I you know, I'm not a proponent of hate by any means. In fact, I'm quite the opposite. But I noticed that the animosity that New York had toward the terrorists kind of came together in a sort of unity that was actually kind of beautiful. And a lot of people were getting along in New York. You know, lot of people were looking out for each other.
Speaker 2:And, you know, I didn't of course, it didn't last long. But, know, it was a I remember it very fondly. And a lot of us at work, you know, we were kind of a close knit family at work. It wasn't a normal job. You know?
Speaker 2:Like, everybody knew each other and liked each other. And, you know, I think I think as a as a group, we we we grew a lot closer after nineeleven. And sadly enough, we were forced into a divorce later on when CNN had these massive layoffs and the jobs that we loved so much, it it was over. So that was the thing too. CNN, man, it hit some ups and downs.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Nine eleven didn't help. Nine eleven didn't help. Media has been hugely affected by the Internet and and everything that's happened. It's been quite a quite a roller coaster.
Speaker 1:When you when you think about your media career, we talked about the kind of worst moment. What was your best moment?
Speaker 2:Oh, wow. That's a great question. My best moment was probably when I was promoted to supervisor. CNN was the type of place where nobody left. You you you had to put for somebody you had to the only way you could get promoted if if somebody quit or died.
Speaker 2:And, you know, god forbid anybody died, but a lot of people did end up quitting. And slowly, I got I I rose through the ranks, and I was I was in a I was in a great spot. I was supervisor of the shift, but I wasn't the manager. You know? I love that.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm gonna use the Star Trek analogy here. I love the idea of being commander Riker, but I would hate to be captain Picard. You know what I mean? You get the elevation, but you don't have to talk to
Speaker 1:Not the responsibility.
Speaker 2:You don't have to talk to the higher ups. You know, there's certain responsibilities you can shirk. You know, it was a perfect shift for me.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. So after this, would you call it an exciting career? You decided to start writing? I've been So writing my whole keep me honest here. When was that moment that you decided you were gonna publish your first book?
Speaker 2:When I was about 16.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm 50 And, my very first time being published professionally was, my English teacher, the honors English teacher in Asbury Park High School in Jersey, Donna Mitchell. She, she she was, doing a special project for us kids in the in the class, and there was a, she wanted me to write an article about it, and she would get it into the community newspaper. And I don't know what kind of pull she had, but, you know, she thought I was a she put my essays and so forth. She must have thought I was a good writer.
Speaker 1:So
Speaker 2:I wrote the article, and I was published professionally, and I still have that laminated. I I have a I have a picture of it. I've been keeping close to me all these years. And right then and there, I said, this is my thing. I like this.
Speaker 2:I said, you know what? Would ultimately, I I want to write a book. And it took decades. I finally got to it. But, you know, better late than never, I guess.
Speaker 2:But, yeah. Yeah. I've been wanting to write this book since I was 16.
Speaker 1:What was the feeling to to see your your article in the newspaper and kind of pick that newspaper up and, like, that's mine?
Speaker 2:Elation. Elation. Like, found my calling. I I I felt as if, you know, this is what I was put here to do. And sadly, I didn't go into a career doing that.
Speaker 2:I worked at the Aspry Park Press for a while, and I wrote two articles for them when I was 18 before I went to school. And I didn't I I I found out way early that I didn't wanna write for anybody. I didn't like it. I don't wanna write for as a job. I wanna write for me.
Speaker 2:I wanna write the things that I wanna write about. And I said to myself, I was like, maybe this isn't for me. Then when I went to college, I ended up going into TV. TV threw money at me and blah blah blah, all this stuff. And I was in TV for twenty five years.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, if I could go back in time and tell young me to not go into TV, to stick with writing and write those books, I would do that. I would do it.
Speaker 1:So now you're publishing or published another book. Tell us about it. Why fantasy? Tell us about the book. How did you come to the idea?
Speaker 1:What's the process look like?
Speaker 2:Well, Protectors of the Brown, my debut novel. It's book one in a trilogy. And I have every book written in my head already. I just don't have it on paper yet. And, you you know, Protectors of the Light, Brown, it's a story about good and evil, of course.
Speaker 2:They're all about that. It's a story about, some unlikely heroes who get together to try to stop the devil. And they're all they're all about that too. And but, you know, the the the twist to my story is that it's got a multiversal theme. We're jumping through the multiversal lot.
Speaker 2:One of my the main one of my main characters in the book is named Dexter. And when he goes to sleep, he ends up in another reality. And he ends up bringing someone from one of those realities back into his. And what and and it it start it's it's a whirlwind of crazy after that. I literally threw the kitchen sink at this thing, and I it was just so much fun.
Speaker 2:I said, okay. Here's the main challenge to do is make it as crazy as I possibly can, but still make it make sense. Make sure that when the reader is reading it, that the changes aren't jarring. You know, we're jumping realities here. And I'm also jumping through time.
Speaker 2:I'm doing the whole thing here, man. And it was so much fun to write. I just said, you know what, there's decades of this I've been keeping bottled up. I'm gonna let it all out right here on these pages. And I love what happened.
Speaker 2:I love the results. I still read my own book after 30,000 times of reading during the editing process and all that. And everybody who's come across it, nobody has given me honest reviews saying they've hated it. They've given me the honest reviews saying that they really like it.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. What was the hard parts in writing a book? When we see on TV writer's block and all that, did you go through that process? What did it feel like for you?
Speaker 2:Absolutely not. I didn't go through any writer's block. I didn't struggle. It just flowed. It just fell out of my brain.
Speaker 2:I think it goes a long way. Not that I'm teaching a class on this or anything, but I think it goes a long way to when you're writing your beginning, you have to know your ending. If you And if you know your ending, then you know what's What you're powering toward in order to get your story across. At least that is the way I see it. Now, not, you know, speaking from my point of view and not able to ever speak from the point of view of another person, I don't know what it's like to have a writer's block because I knew what these people were going to do.
Speaker 2:I knew what what they were like. I knew what they wouldn't do because of their personalities. And it was just about me getting it down on paper. Now Did you of course, because I had so much going on, there was the the the the only trouble I I had was juggling it and making it to make and making sure it made sense.
Speaker 1:Got it. The did you start off before starting writing by having kind of the narrative, what's the beginning, the middle, and the end, and also clearly defining all the characters, who they were, what their persona was, or did it kind of evolve inside of the writing?
Speaker 2:No. I started out my writing process as far as, you know, a lot a lot of people have said that they love the characters the most, you know, as far as the book goes, you know, that the story is the story. But they said they love the characters and that there's a lot of depth to the characters, and there's reason for I go back in I go back in time to their grandparents, and I get note cards out. And I very, very generically write down what their grandparents were into and what they did. Now and I asked myself, what kind of people would grow up being raised by these folks that I ended up I I did I did on the on the generic sent in the generic sense.
Speaker 2:The kids that they have will be very organic because we are we go through life products of everything that we say, think, and do. And our belief system is based on our experiences. So what I did what I did was I gave these people experiences. And by the time I got to their parents, I said, alright. Now my main character is raised by these people.
Speaker 2:This person has this idiosyncrasy. This per this person has this quirk. They have these they have these values, and that they're trying to imprint them on these on these on these main characters in this book. Who do I have here? And what I ended up finding out, which is amazing this was a a eureka moment.
Speaker 2:What I ended up finding out was the story I had planted I had planned out, these characters that I ended up developing wouldn't make these decisions. They wouldn't do the stuff I had And them I had to change my story because the characters weren't characters anymore. They were people. That was a fascinating discovery. And I said, I still have the note cards.
Speaker 2:They're like it's like their entire lifetime before they got to my book, they told they tell me what I'm dealing with, who these people are, and subsequently where this book is going.
Speaker 1:I feel like if I had to put in one thing that makes movies, books, writing really good or really bad, it's exactly this point around the depth of the characters. Sure, the story and the narrative is important, right? You've got the archetypes of stories and you've got stories that just don't make it and you see that sometimes in movies, but I feel like great characters with depth that you can fall in love with can almost overcome a bad storyline because you just fall in love with the characters and and it kinda makes up for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. There's actually a few really good movies like that where the story is kind of shit. You're like, what the hell? But you just fall in love with the characters and it's like, this is delightful. I want to get to know this this person.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you've ever seen Amelie. It's a French movie,
Speaker 2:but it's kind
Speaker 1:of like that. The narrative of the story is kind of crazy. It's like she's looking for for this person that she met once and it's like, I can't even tell you what the movie's about. But the characters in the movie, oh my god. There's this guy who who basically he can't like do anything because he has this like bone sickness.
Speaker 1:If he does anything, he breaks his bones. And then she's such a quirky character. You just immediately fall in love with her. Yeah. It's it's such an amazing movie.
Speaker 1:Okay. So you've put out the book Mhmm. To the world. What do you do next?
Speaker 2:I work on book two. Oh, well, actually, no. No. I don't. I well, the promotion this has been a whirlwind of of of an experience because promoting the book I'm doing all kinds of stuff that I've never thought I would do.
Speaker 2:Right. I I'm doing things that I never thought I had to do. This is my fourth podcast interview, and I'm still not used to it. I don't think you get used to You know, I hired publicists, and, you know, they're taking me through these these motions about press releases and promoting on on on Goodreads and social media stuff and the things that I've never done and didn't think I was gonna do. And so it's really it's really wild.
Speaker 2:So I'm doing all that stuff now. I'm presently with company a called Winning Proof, they're knocking it out of the park. They're killing it. And it's a lot of fun. I didn't think it was going to be this much fun.
Speaker 2:I thought it was just gonna be a lot of tedium, a lot of work that I didn't wanna do. Did you Your
Speaker 1:your expectation was that, oh, you know, somebody else would market the book. You didn't think it will be you center in front, did you?
Speaker 2:It still isn't me. It
Speaker 1:still isn't you. Okay.
Speaker 2:People to do this.
Speaker 1:I I I get this I get this a lot from authors. They did not know what they were gonna get into in regards to the size of the responsibility that they had to to basically market and sell their own book. Yeah. Whether you're paying somebody else or you're doing a lot of it yourself, it's quite the surprise.
Speaker 2:Well, you know what? I said to myself, I said, look. I this it took a lot of work to write this book. I did that work. You know?
Speaker 2:I'm not this isn't my bailiwick. Somebody who is a professional, somebody who's supposed to know what they're doing, they're gonna have to take those reins for me. And I've messed that up. The first group I hired really, really botched it. And my present publicist is actually cleaning up a lot of their messes.
Speaker 2:So, but, you know, I I the way I see it, I I feel as if, you know, there's no such thing as a free lunch. So I did the way I talked myself into believing it, said, well, I had to put up with that in order to find her. You know what I mean? In order to find winning proof. So, you know, the way I see it, I went through this travel fire.
Speaker 1:So we have believe it or not, we're out of time. This has been so much fun. We have one question, which is the only scripted question on the show.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:It's a it's a difficult one because it gets personal. If you had to get back to 20 year old Aspry, what would you advise him?
Speaker 2:I would advise him to never ever, as long as he lives, touch a drop of alcohol. And he would promptly let it go through one ear and out the other. Forget everything I said, and he would do it anyway.
Speaker 1:This is the problem. You know, you're not the first guest to say that, that, you know, I'm gonna say what I'm gonna say, but I would not have listened. But you know what? Maybe just maybe somebody young in our audience in their twenties is listening. And, you know, I every single one of our guests has given their, you know, advice from the heart.
Speaker 1:So maybe we can make a small difference. Aspry, thank you so much for joining the show today. Deeply appreciate It
Speaker 2:was my pleasure.